Off the Street

The dog hit the drunk hard, jaws clamped around his forearm—body braced low, leash trailing on the cobbles. Lantern light slicked its wet coat to a shine.

“Get it off me!”

The drunk lifted his other fist and slammed it down into the dog’s head.

“Stop hitting it,” Rishi ordered.

The drunk struck again. The dog’s head snapped sideways. Its legs skidded on wet stone, but its jaws did not open.

“It bit me!” he slurred, glaring at the dog clamped to his arm, his face twisted more with outrage than pain.

Rishi moved before the third blow landed.

He caught the loose leash close to the collar, where the dog’s mouth could not turn back on him, and wrenched it hard upward before the dog could brace.

The drunk’s arm came with the dog. The bite broke.

The dog hit the cobbles yelping and backed away in a tight, shaken arc, hackles up, head low.

“You bastard,” the drunk spat, and swung at Rishi.

Rishi was already inside the swing.

He caught the man’s wrist, stepped through his balance, and drove a shoulder into his chest.

Breath blasted out of the drunk. His knees dipped.

Rishi backed the drunk into the street, away from the dog, away from the doorway, keeping the wounded arm high enough that the man could not turn it into another swing.

The drunk fought, but his feet slipped and tangled beneath him. Each time he tried to wrench free, pain in his bitten arm cut the motion short.

The tavernkeeper flashed at the edge of his vision, retreating into the tavern.

Rishi did not follow.

He kept the drunk moving. Kept space open. Kept the doorway from becoming a trap.

The tavernkeeper reappeared with a crossbow coming up, rain beading on the arms.

He hunted a shot until his aim settled.

A sharp screech sliced down from above.

Maeril’s familiar—the hawk—dropped out of the rain and drove straight into the crossbow, wings and talons flailing at the tavernkeeper’s face.

“Get off!”

The tavernkeeper flinched. His finger clenched, and the crossbow jerked sideways as the string snapped forward.

The bolt hissed past Rishi’s shoulder and slammed into a beam, hard enough to split the wet wood.

For a breath, the drunk went still.

Rishi took the opening. He pulled the man off balance and drove him to one knee on the cobbles.

“Stay down,” Rishi ordered. The drunk tried to rise anyway. Rishi struck him in the ribs.

The blow drove the air from the drunk’s lungs. He folded around the impact and collapsed onto the wet stone, gasping.

When the drunk stopped fighting, Rishi released him carefully.

Across the lane, the tavernkeeper raised the crossbow again, a fresh bolt seated, hands shaking with anger and fear.

Rishi did not move toward him. He opened his hands instead, palms bare in the rain.

“Stay back,” the tavernkeeper said. His voice cracked around the words. “He comes at my door again, I’ll put the next one through him.”

“He’s done,” Rishi said.

“He near killed my dog.”

“I know.”

The tavernkeeper’s mouth twisted with anger and disgust. The crossbow wavered between Rishi and the man on the stones.

Rishi kept his hands raised. “Please. Let me take this man off the street.”

Rain ticked on the crossbow. The tavernkeeper breathed hard through his nose. His eyes flicked to the drunk, to the dog, to the bolt buried in the beam.

“Take him, then,” he said. “And if he comes back—”

“He will not come back.”

The tavernkeeper lowered the crossbow slightly.

Rishi waited a moment, then moved to the drunk. He took him by the shoulder and belt, then pulled him upright just enough to walk.

The drunk sagged into him. His injured forearm hung at his side, the bite still raw. The sharp, metallic smell of blood hung in the air around them.

Each step drew an answer from the bruises beneath Rishi’s ribs and along his forearms. He kept his pace and chose streets he knew, straight lines where lanterns were already coming on and the docks’ smell began to rise.

Lantern Hall’s light showed ahead like relief and obligation wearing the same face. He felt it in his chest before he reached the threshold.

Inside, the common room held its usual warmth: worn wood, soot in the grain, low light that never fully chased the corners away. A few tables. A few chairs. The steady quiet of a place that kept taking in what the city threw out.

Elisa stood at the altar, motionless in prayer. Lantern Hall’s spiritual anchor. The one who mended what words could reach when wounds ran deeper than flesh. A small flame’s glow held to her face and left everything else in gentle shadow.

She lifted her gaze only enough to register Rishi and the unsteady man he was supporting. Her eyes rested on Rishi a moment longer than on the wounded man—long enough for him to know she had been listening for the door. Then something in her face softened, small and controlled, and the tension left her.

“Dog bite?” Elisa asked softly.

“Yes,” Rishi said.

Her eyes moved over him, quick and practiced. “You’re not bleeding.”

“No.”

He guided the drunk through as if he’d done it a hundred nights in a row. He checked the small room kept for the poor and wounded. Four bunks. All taken. Breath and sleep already rationed there, bodies wrapped in the Hall’s thin mercy.

He did not waste time wishing for more.

Rishi brought the drunk back out. He laid a bedroll on the common room floor, where the man could be seen and managed, then lowered him onto it. He arranged blankets to keep the drunk from rolling or trapping the injured arm beneath his bulk. The man muttered once, thick with drink, then sank into heavy breathing.

It would do for now.

Then he drew a lantern closer and gathered what he needed from the medical supplies. He knelt beside the drunk and inspected his arm.

The coat had blunted the worst of the dog’s bite, but the wound was still ugly: ragged edges, rain-filth, swelling gathering under skin.

Rishi cut the drunk’s sleeve and carefully flushed the bite clean. He worked slowly because haste was how wounds learned to rot.

When the water ran clear, he salved the torn skin, then secured the forearm snugly against the man’s chest with a bandage that would hold through drunken sleep.

The man twitched once, then settled. His breathing thickened into a dull rhythm.

The man was alive, contained. No longer one more body the street could steal.

Rishi stood, and the day finally reached him. Weight in the joints. Ache in the ribs. A faint tremor that wanted to start and didn’t—held back by habit.

He did the last small caretaker sweep—doors, corners, the common room’s quiet—then went to his small room as if it were another duty.

He lay on the plank bed, pulled the blanket up, and let his hands go still at his sides. For a moment he took one measured breath—in, out—and kept it plain.

Finally.

It’s been a long two days.

Tomorrow: cold plunge. Breathing. Stretching. Training.

I’ll be myself again.

He closed his eyes and let the Hall settle around him.