Corbin

Corbin

Corbin grew up with the Cobblescrapers, a gang of kids who lived off begging and back alleys. He was the one who spotted the old inn where money changed hands every night. The theft went wrong. One of Babe's fighters gave him a beating and left him for dead on the cobbles. Three days later, he was caught again with his hand in another pocket, in the very same place. Babe kept him: ever since, Corbin has been the one who moves the money between the bettors. He is no longer hungry and wants for nothing, except freedom. Some nights, Babe lets him take the inn's leftovers, and the Cobblescrapers still eat because of him.

Describe him

A scrawny kid slips between the bettors with an ease that has no business being there: a single blow from those fists would kill him, and he nearly steps on their toes. He takes a purse here, hands back change there, never counting out loud and never getting it wrong. No one seems to notice him. That is exactly why he's trusted with the money.

Play him

Have him live by night and drift by day, always somewhere between two streets. He isn't afraid of adults, not their shouting, not their fists: he has already taken the worst, and he came back. He knows Valeford all the way to the walls, every passage, every yard, every shortcut. Make him smile, bite into life, and bite into an apple taken from a market stall: the merchant will give him a wink. And keep, underneath, that he belongs to Babe, and knows it better than anyone.

What he says (rarely)

"You're betting on the big one? Bad idea. Well, it's your money."
"The walls? I'll take you there. By ways you'd never go."
(biting into an apple, without slowing down) "Babe says I've got a hard head. He checked."