The Verda branch of the Delvers' Guild had been packed since morning.
A crowd stood in front of the board where jobs were posted. The counter that bought materials had a long line. From the big hall in back, which doubled as a tavern, laughter was already rolling out, early as it was.
Luca got in line for the front desk. When his turn came, the receptionist behind the counter, a woman with chestnut hair, looked up.
"What can I do for... oh, you're one of Grun's."
"I'm Luca, a scavenger. I'm trying to find the owner of something I picked up."
Nora, the receptionist, was that rare person who was friendly even to scavengers. When Luca held out the broken sword, she checked the mark on the grip and flipped through her ledger.
"The fourth floor, the eastern watering hole... That's the fang wolf business from the day before yesterday. In that case..."
Her finger stopped on one name.
"Theo Hagen. A Rank Nine swordsman. He's alive."
"Really?"
"Yes. But..."
Nora lowered her voice a little.
"His leg was badly hurt, and he's in the infirmary. He's filed notice that he's retiring as a delver."
"Retiring."
"According to the party that was with him, he charged ahead on his own and got surrounded by the pack."
Luca said nothing. What he'd seen in the recall was the exact opposite.
"The party that was with him. Was it the Golden Lions?"
"You're well informed. Yes. It was a mentoring run."
Nora looked puzzled, but she didn't ask anything more.
* * *
The infirmary stood behind the Guild.
It was one big white-walled room with beds lined up in long rows. When Luca gave the name, a nursing sister pointed him to the bed at the very back.
A boy was sitting up on the bed by the window. He looked two or three years older than Luca, with dull blond hair, and his left leg was strapped into a thick splint. He was staring out the window at nothing in particular.
"Are you Theo Hagen?"
"...Who are you?"
"I'm Luca, a scavenger. I found this on the fourth floor."
When Luca held out the broken sword, Theo's eyes went wide. He took hold of the grip with a shaking hand and ran his fingers over the leather again and again, as if making sure it was wrapped the way he'd left it.
"It was my dad's. It's all I had left of him."
"I didn't know."
"It broke, huh."
Theo tried to smile and didn't manage it.
"I can't pay you a reward, you know. I'm not a delver anymore."
"I don't need one."
Theo gave him a suspicious look.
"A scavenger bringing something back for free?"
"Somebody really took care of this sword. I thought it would want to go home to its owner."
Theo was quiet for a while. Then he laid the sword across his knees and spoke, almost to himself.
"They told you at the Guild that I charged ahead, didn't they?"
"Yes."
"...It's a lie."
Theo's fists were clenched so hard his knuckles had gone white.
"They left me behind and ran. And that's not all. They threw something. A pouch that smelled sweet. Then the fang wolves came at me like they'd gone mad, and—"
"I know."
"And here's the weird part. After the wolves were gone, they came back. Telling me 'You did great' and all that, and hauling me out on their shoulders."
"They came back?"
"Yeah. I saw it while they were carrying me. Bolz's pack was stuffed way fuller than when we went in. Gina's bag too. While I was the bait, they got their hands on something. I'm sure of it."
He swallowed.
"Nobody believed me. I even told the Deputy Branch Master. He laughed at me. Said the Golden Lions would never do a thing like that..."
Then Theo looked up, as if Luca's words had only just sunk in.
"...What did you just say?"
"I know. Because I saw it."
"Saw it? You weren't even there."
Luca hesitated. Grun had told him not to tell anyone. But it felt all right to tell this person. He was the sword's owner, after all.
"My Gift lets me see what lost things remember. I saw the last thing this sword saw."
"...Huh?"
"Right foot, half a step, deep. Drop the hips, drive off the heel. You have a really beautiful lunge, Theo."
Theo froze with his mouth hanging open. A stranger had just described his own sword habit exactly.
"You... you really..."
"The people in the golden cloaks ran off without looking back. You were shouting, 'Don't leave me here!'"
A tear spilled out of Theo's eye. He scrubbed at it with his sleeve, but more kept coming, and he turned his face away.
"...Damn it. I thought I was losing my mind. Nobody believed me, so I started wondering if my own memory was wrong."
"It isn't wrong."
"Yeah. ...Yeah."
After a while, Theo looked back at Luca, his eyes still red.
"Thanks, Luca."
"You're welcome."
"But be careful. Don't tell anyone else what you just told me. If those guys find out, there's no telling what they'll do."
It was the same thing Grun had said. When Luca nodded, Theo dropped his voice.
"It's not just me."
"What?"
"These last six months, a bunch of rookies who went on mentoring runs with the Golden Lions either retired or never came back out of the Labyrinth. One of them started out the same time I did. And every single one of them supposedly 'charged ahead on their own.'"
Outside the window, the noon bell rang.
Luca's stomach gave a small growl, as if answering it.
* * *
"I'm doing all of them."
The moment he got back to the shop, Luca planted himself in front of the leftovers shelf. Grun didn't even look up from his ledger.
"All of them?"
"All of them. From one end of the shelf to the other."
"Why?"
"Because I want to get stronger."
Grun finally looked up. Luca told him what he'd heard at the infirmary. About Theo. About all the rookies who had disappeared in just six months.
"That's no business of a scavenger's."
"I know. But it's too late. Now I know about it."
Grun let out a long sigh. Then he shut the ledger.
"Your food's coming out of your wages."
"Yes, Boss!"
* * *
From the next day on, Luca wrestled with the leftovers shelf in between jobs.
The first thing he took down that morning was a dented round shield. It was made of wood with an iron rim, and a big hollow had been pounded into its face. The mark of something heavy, caught over and over again.
◆ ◆ ◆
—A heavy blow is coming.
An orc's club. Take it head-on, and it'll take his arm along with it.
So don't take it head-on. Tilt the shield, just a little. Make a slope.
The club skids across the face of the shield and slides off to the side. The orc's huge body stumbles forward, carried by its own swing.
"Now! Get it!"
A friend's spear drives into the orc's flank.
Every blow he catches dents the shield a little more. That's fine. Behind this shield are his friends.
The last one falls. He stands there, heaving for breath.
"You saved our hides, Dag."
"Yeah. ...Though I'd say this shield's about done."
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Shield Block].
Luca looked down at his left arm, still gripping the shield. All on its own, the arm had set itself at a slight angle. Not square on. Slanted.
"Boss."
"Yeah."
Grun had already fetched an oak staff from out back. He planted his false leg firmly on the floor and rested the staff on his shoulder.
"Block this."
"Okay."
The first blow came straight down. Luca caught it on the slope of the shield. The staff slid off to the side, smooth as anything. His arm barely tingled.
"Huh."
The second blow, then the third. From the side, at a slant. Each time, the shield found the right angle by itself. Grun's blows should have been heavy, but they kept slipping away sideways, almost comically easily.
This is amazing. With this, I could—
Just as he turned aside the tenth blow, something went tok against his head.
"Ow!"
"That's what you get for staring at the shield."
Grun was prodding Luca's head with the end of the staff. For the eleventh blow, he'd faked a downswing and come up from below instead.
"You might have the skill now, but the head that uses it is still yours. That's one thing you can't pick up with a recall."
"...Yes, Boss."
Rubbing his head, Luca raised the shield again. He spent the whole afternoon taking blows from Grun's staff. By evening, he was only getting smacked on the head once in every ten.
* * *
On the second day, he picked up a throwing knife with a chipped blade. A thin leather cord was wound around its handle, probably so the thrower could hook a finger through it and spin it.
◆ ◆ ◆
—The cave ceiling rustles and stirs.
A swarm of bats. One of them bares its venomous fangs and dives at a friend's neck.
Don't swing the arm. Don't even use the forearm. Release with nothing but a snap of the wrist.
The air whistles. Ten paces away, the bat is pinned to the wall.
"...Whoa, that was close. Thanks."
"Forget it. Let's just get out of here."
A second knife. A third. Each time the wrist snaps, something drops out of the darkness.
The last one clips a rock and chips its blade. No time to go back for it. Keep running.
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Throw].
There was a stack of firewood in the yard behind the shop.
Luca paced off ten steps and turned to face the woodpile. He'd borrowed three rusty throwing knives from the leftovers shelf.
The first one, with nothing but a snap of the wrist. There was a dry thock, and the knife stood quivering in the middle of a log.
Second. Third. All three ended up lined in a row, no more than a finger's width apart.
"Whoa..."
He'd done it himself, and he still couldn't help saying it out loud.
"Luca, that was amazing!"
Toma, a kid from the neighborhood, was peeking over the hedge, eyes shining as he stared at the knives in the log.
"How'd you do that? Do it again!"
"Okay, but stand back. It's dangerous."
Just then, wings flapped by the shop's eaves. Luca looked up to see a crow taking off with a dried sausage in its beak, one that had been hanging under the eaves. It was the sausage Grun was saving to go with his evening drink.
"Hey!"
Luca picked up a pebble at his feet. A snap of the wrist, and he let it fly.
The pebble didn't hit the crow. It hit the sausage in the crow's beak. The startled bird opened its mouth, and the sausage dropped straight down. Luca caught it in one hand.
"..."
"..."
"Luca... what was that?"
"I was just protecting the Boss's drinking snack."
The crow let out a single bitter caw and flew away.
* * *
Night.
In the shop's kitchen, Luca was shoveling down an enormous dinner. Three Echoes in two days, and every single one had left him starving, so he was eating three times his usual amount.
"Heard you got the sausage back."
Across the table, Grun was chewing on the sausage in question.
"Toma's been telling the whole street. Says Luca the scavenger shot a crow out of the sky with a rock."
"I didn't shoot it down. I only hit the sausage."
"That's even fancier, you know."
Grun gave a short laugh.
"Shield work and throwing. Both of those are skills for staying alive in the Labyrinth. They'll come in handy whether you're a scavenger or a delver."
"Yes."
"So. What are you doing tomorrow?"
Luca looked up at the top of the leftovers shelf. A wand lay there, its tip scorched.
A mage's wand.
"...I want to try that one."
"Magic, huh."
"Yes. Maybe even I could—"
—use magic.
Just the thought of it was enough to set his heart pounding.