The Ember Blade

by Chris Wooding

  Klyssen peered down at him from beneath the dripping brim of his hat. ‘You own this farm?’

  Fluke glanced at the open door of the barn, then back at Klyssen. He had the sullen and defiant look of a Bitterbracker, but there was fear in his eyes all the same. ‘I do.’

  ‘Where did they go?’ Klyssen asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fluke.

  Klyssen gave Plague a tiny nod, a silent instruction. ‘Where do you think they’ve gone?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know …’ he said again, but this time he tailed off uncertainly as his attention was caught by something else. He raised a trembling hand in front of his face, stared at it in growing horror.

  ‘Guess,’ said Klyssen.

  Fluke pulled down the collar of his bedshirt and gazed uncomprehendingly at his chest with a low moan of fear. Lord Jadrell shifted uneasily, bewildered, but Klyssen merely waited and watched. He’d seen Plague at work many times. The disease and corruption spreading throughout Fluke’s body were entirely in his mind, invisible to the others, but it was no less effective a torture for that. Right now he was watching his skin flake, crack and blister at an impossible rate. Usually Klyssen preferred the elegant art of interrogation, but he didn’t have time to be subtle now.

  ‘Joha!’ Fluke cried out. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Joha’s not here,’ said Klyssen. ‘He’s a figment of your imagination, like all your barbarian gods. But I’m here, and I can make it stop. Just tell me where they went.’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Fluke said through gritted teeth. ‘I put them up in my barn because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t know they’d left. I only woke when I heard the animals.’

  ‘But you have an idea, don’t you?’ Harte snarled. ‘You Ossians stick together close as winter ravens. Tell us!’

  ‘Step back, Watchman!’ Klyssen told him sternly, incensed at the interruption.

  Harte ignored him. ‘Tell us, you damned oaf!’ he shouted, and struck the kneeling man on the top of his head with the pommel of his sword. Fluke tumbled face-down into the mud.

  ‘Harte!’ Klyssen shouted in outrage and disbelief.

  ‘He knows! You can see it!’ Harte insisted, pulling Fluke up by his hair. Blood and rainwater ran in rivulets down his face. ‘Where did they go? Where?’

  Fluke managed to shake his head mutely before Harte smashed the pommel of his sword down on the bridge of his nose, splintering it to mush. ‘Liar!’ he roared.

  ‘Don’t know don’t know don’t—’ Fluke mumbled, dazed with pain.

  ‘Liar!’ Harte hit him again. ‘Filthy subhuman Ossian liar!’

  Klyssen stared at Harte in shock. The situation was spiralling out of control. Harte had been recalcitrant before, but never outright disobedient. Now he was red-faced, grimacing, far past reason. Klyssen looked for support from Captain Dressle, but he was in one of the outbuildings. There was only Plague, and Klyssen wouldn’t ask for help from him.

  ‘Stop this now!’ he said, conscious of Lord Jadrell cringing behind him.

  His command fell on deaf ears. ‘Tell us!’ Harte screamed, pulling Fluke to his feet. ‘Tell us where they’ve gone!’

  But Fluke was beyond listening. Overwhelmed by horror, pain and the imaginary disease still eating at him, he staggered towards the farmhouse, gargling and pawing at his face.

  ‘Where are you going, bumpkin?’ Harte sneered. Then he grabbed Fluke’s hair again and ran him through with his sword.

  Fluke went stiff, his head tipped back in Harte’s grip. He coughed once, blood flooding over his lips, then slid from the blade and fell to the ground in a heap.

  Harte turned to Klyssen, panting, a savage, joyous challenge in his eyes. The same look he’d worn when he slew the prisoner back in Shoal Point. A look of triumph, as if to say: That’s how it’s done.

  Klyssen stepped forward, pulled off a glove and delivered a stinging slap across his face, hard enough to send his hat flying. Harte gaped at him, stunned.

  ‘You are no watchman but a common butcher!’ Klyssen barked. ‘An embarrassment to our uniform! We are the Emperor’s representatives in this land and if that man was a traitor, we would have shown it by procedure and due authority! Rest assured I will be reporting your many infractions in Morgenholme, and with the stain I will put on your record, you will be lucky if you ever make watchman first class, let alone overwatchman. Any further insubordination and I’ll ensure you spend the rest of your days rotting at a desk in the most remote backwater of Ozak I can find. Are we understood?’

  Klyssen was shaking by the time he finished. He couldn’t remember ever being so angry before. He wouldn’t have thought himself capable. But he saw now what Harte was: spy or no, he was a bully who enjoyed killing far too much.

  Klyssen hated bullies. He’d had enough of that in his youth. And he wouldn’t permit the reputation of the Iron Hand to be sullied by an overprivileged upstart who thought that pinning the double cross to his shoulder meant he could murder with impunity.

  Captain Dressle was hurrying over now, having become aware of their confrontation. Klyssen held Harte’s gaze long enough to see surprise turn to humiliation and outright loathing, then he turned to Dressle.

  ‘Anyone else?’ he asked, as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Only farmhands,’ said Dressle, eyeing the scene.

  ‘Might I suggest something?’ said Lord Jadrell meekly, raising a finger. He looked somewhat nauseous at the sight of Fluke. ‘His brother Keel … His cottage is not far from here. Along that track to the west. Perhaps that is where they went?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Klyssen. ‘Go back to the town with all haste and raise the garrison. The fugitives have no horses so they may try to escape by the docks. Harte, go with him. Dressle, gather the Iron Guard. We will head to the cottage.’

  ‘Yes, Overwatchman,’ said Dressle.

  Klyssen clapped his hands at Jadrell. ‘All haste, my lord. We are losing time.’

  Jadrell jumped and scampered off towards his horse. Dressle began calling for his troops to form up. Before he walked away, Klyssen reserved a final glare of scorn for Harte, whose blond hair was plastered flat, face set in an expression of pure hate.

  Back in your place, rat, Klyssen thought with righteous fury. And this time, you’ll stay there.

  61

  Keel’s eyes flew open at the sound of a fist pounding on the door of his cottage. He lurched out of bed, stumbled into his trousers while reaching for the sword propped up in the corner. Haste made him clumsy; his foot snagged, he hopped a step and then crashed to the floor.

  ‘Who’s there? Who’s knocking at this hour?’ Mariella was bolt upright in bed, her face a picture of fright as thunder tumbled overhead.

  It’s them, thought Keel. He’d been waiting for a knock at the door ever since he took up arms against the Krodans. Dying in combat had never scared him. What scared him was the quiet efficiency of men in dark coats, who turned up late at night and spirited their victims away to unguessable torments.

  ‘Keel? Who is it?’ Mariella cried again. He felt a flare of anger as he struggled to pull on the rest of his clothes. Stop bothering me with stupid questions. If he faced them, he’d face them dressed and armed and—

  ‘Keel?’

  ‘I’m going to see!’ he shouted, fear making him furious. She cringed against the headboard, shocked. Keel instantly regretted his tone, hated himself for scaring her. ‘I’m going, eh?’ he said, more gently, and left before she could marshal her own anger and shout back.

  He hurried past Tad’s door – it was mercifully quiet inside – and down the stairs into the kitchen. As he neared, he heard a voice he knew on the other side and the tension in his belly loosened a little.

  ‘Keel! Open up!’

  Not the Iron Hand, but Garric. Keel pulled the latch and opened the door, sword in hand. Garric was grim-faced beneath his soaking hood, the others gathered in the dark beyond, hunched and nervous.

&nbs
p; ‘They found us,’ Keel said flatly.

  ‘They found us,’ Garric agreed. ‘We have to go.’

  ‘I can’t.’ The words came without thought. He wasn’t ready. He was supposed to have one more night with his wife. He didn’t have to decide until tomorrow.

  Garric had no time to be gentle. ‘What do you think they’ll do if they catch you here? What’ll they do to Mariella and Tad to make you talk? Best thing you can do for them is leave. They can’t use them against you if they can’t find you.’

  Keel fought for an answer, unable to accept this moment had come. There had to be another way. He heard Mariella on the landing, drawn down the stairs by their voices, and felt trapped.

  A flicker of lightning lit the sodden yard and bracken-thick hill beyond. He saw the Skarl; tall Harod standing protectively by Orica; the two boys; Fen and Vika and Ruck, too. But not his brother.

  ‘Is Fluke with you?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s still at the farm,’ said Garric.

  ‘You left him there?’ Keel was aghast.

  ‘Should I have told him we were escaping? We’d be dead if Vika hadn’t warned us. For all I know, he was the one who sold us out.’

  ‘He’d never do that!’ cried Mariella as she reached the bottom of the stairs, hair in a tangle and her face screwed up in rage. ‘Now you’ve brought the Krodans down on our heads? Get out of our lives!’

  Garric gave her a look of disdain that made Keel angry on her behalf. They’d disliked each other from the start, which was why Keel endeavoured never to bring them together.

  ‘You’re only part of this if you make yourself part of it,’ Garric told her. ‘You don’t want that. We’ll lead them away. They likely won’t come here at all if they can chase us.’

  ‘We are part of this! He’s my husband, and he’s staying to look after our son!’

  ‘I’ll answer for myself, Mariella!’ Keel snapped, moved to sharpness by stung pride. He wouldn’t have the others think his decisions were made by his wife.

  ‘I wish you would!’ she snapped. ‘Stay or go! Too long you’ve had the best of both!’

  ‘We could find somewhere to hide,’ Keel told Garric. ‘My family and I. My uncle’s house is half a day from here; we can stay with him till the Iron Hand leave Wracken Bay.’

  ‘In this storm?’ Mariella said. ‘Tad can barely get out of bed! The journey would kill him!’

  Garric ignored her. ‘Everyone in Wracken Bay will know you’re a wanted man after tonight. Even if you lay low, you’ll be arrested the moment you emerge. What’s done is done, and I’m sorry for it, but you can’t stay here and you can’t come back to Wracken Bay. Ever.’

  Keel felt like the walls were closing in on him. Mariella was right: he’d procrastinated too long, unwilling to give up the freedom of the road but afraid to lose his family. Now the choice was out of his hands, and what he wanted didn’t matter any more.

  ‘This is my home …’ he said weakly.

  ‘Aye, but no longer,’ said Garric. ‘You don’t like that? Fight with us! The only way you’ll get it back is if the Krodans are driven from our land.’ Garric saw him waver and pressed his argument. ‘We need you, Keel! The boats are the only way out and none of us can steer a course through a storm such as this. None but you.’

  Keel looked over his shoulder at his wife, who was still poised at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘I meant what I said,’ she told him. ‘If you leave, you’re dead to us.’

  ‘Would you have me stay and die anyway?’ he asked. ‘Garric’s right: they’ll torture you just to punish me. They’ll take this place from us.’

  ‘You didn’t do anything!’ she argued. ‘They can’t do anything without proof.’

  Garric snorted. ‘They’ve never needed proof in the past—’

  ‘Get out of my house, you bastard!’ Mariella screamed. ‘I rue the day you ever came to this town! Would that you’d drunk yourself to death like you wanted, instead of taking my husband from me!’

  A rising wail sounded behind her, an insensible blare of distress coming from upstairs.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done!’ Mariella said, tears of frustration welling. ‘Keel! Shut the door. I don’t care if you’re on this side of it or that, but make up your mind.’

  Keel held her gaze, pleading, desperate. He couldn’t find the words, but his eyes said it for him. Her face fell. Even at the last, she hadn’t truly believed he’d leave. Now she knew better.

  ‘Farewell then, husband,’ she said, her voice cracking. Then she fled up the stairs.

  He was still staring after her when Vika pushed past Garric and thrust a flask into his hand. ‘A small amount of that in boiled water each day,’ she told him. ‘Have Tad breathe the vapours. Go and tell her.’

  ‘Leave it on the table!’ Garric snapped, a hand on his arm. ‘You need to come with us now.’

  His touch ignited something in Keel. A burning fury, lashing out in search of a target. It was Garric’s fault it had come to this, Garric who’d led him astray! He pulled away violently; he wouldn’t let it end like this. ‘Mariella!’ he cried and ran up the stairs, Garric shouting after him.

  He caught her at the top of the stairs, on the narrow landing, with her hand on the door to Tad’s room. Tad was screaming in there, upset by the raised voices. She turned to him with pathetic hope in her eyes.

  ‘You’ll stay?’ she breathed.

  The hope died as she saw the flask in his hand.

  ‘A little in boiled water, once a day. He should breathe the steam,’ he said.

  ‘I told you, Keel,’ she said. ‘If you want him to take that quack medicine, stay here and deliver it yourself. Be a father.’

  He fought for the right words. ‘Don’t let me go like this, Mariella. I’ll be back. I’ll find the money for Tad, I swear. But I need … I need to know you …’

  ‘Love you?’ Her face had gone hard. He’d caused her too much pain, too many times. There was no more kindness in her. ‘No, Keel. You just want me to make you feel better about abandoning us. But I won’t. I hope it kills you every day.’

  Her cruelty shocked him, so much that he refused to believe she meant it. ‘Go and see old Ganny. Get him to write to me.’

  ‘I’m not going to see Gan—’

  ‘Write to me! Send it to the Burned Bear in Morgenholme. Let me know you and Tad are well, that Fluke is well.’

  Her face was immobile. Only the tears in her eyes showed her suffering. ‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘And I’ll burn any letter from you before anyone can read it to me.’

  That took his breath away, and he couldn’t look at her after that. He reached for the door instead, to go past her into Tad’s bedroom, desperate to hold him and stop the screaming if he could. She put her hand on his chest, without force, but stopping him as surely as any wall.

  ‘How will you help? Will you tell him you’re going away again?’ she asked. Her voice was iron-calm now. ‘You can’t make it better. Let him forget you. Let me.’

  She stepped inside the bedroom and shut the door behind her, leaving Keel on the landing alone, rejected, laid waste. He listened to Mariella soothing their son, and knew that he’d lost her at last, lost them both for ever. He was on one side of the door and his family were on the other, separated by a few inches of wood and an impassable gulf of hurt.

  He put the flask on the floor and walked away.

  62

  The rain splattered and swirled along the gutters of Wracken Bay, crawling down walls, racing between cobblestones. The town had taken shelter, retreating inside, and the narrow grey lanes were ghostly with shifting light and wet whispers. Silent as ghosts themselves, hidden by heavy cloaks, the fugitives went unseen.

  Aren checked over his shoulder for the dozenth time, afraid of what followed. Dreadknights, Vika said. He remembered how they’d killed four of Garric’s band the first time they met, the horrific efficiency of that slaughter, like a grinder chewing meat. They were no mere men, but
a force implacable as time. They could be delayed, but not stopped.

  Cade hustled along at his side. He caught a glimpse of his friend’s face, pallid with suppressed terror, and gave him a brave smile that convinced neither of them.

  In a few hours they’d have been on a ship to Morgenholme, safe from pursuit. Surely not even dreadknights would be able to find them in the mazy capital. But the enemy had caught up with them faster than they’d believed possible, and though nobody said so, they all knew why.

  If only they’d kept their heads down and stayed out of the fight at the Reavers’ Rest, they’d have passed unnoticed. But Aren had got them involved, and now they might all end up paying for it.

  Beyond the tall, tight-packed buildings of Wracken Bay was the harbour. Warehouses, jetties and a shipyard cluttered the shore. Boats at anchor rocked on the restless waves, protected from the worst of the storm by the breakwater. Further out, the Cut was churning, crashing up against the foot of the Ghoulfort.

  Garric found shelter at the corner of a shuttered bakery and looked out towards the docks. Aren took station across the street. At first he saw only curtains of rain and flapping tarpaulin stirring on empty boats. Then lightning blasted the scene, showing him Krodan soldiers moving along the waterfront.

  Garric swore. ‘The squareheads second-guessed us.’ He strained to see in the dark. ‘Docks are sewn up tight. We won’t get out that way.’

  Thunder boomed overhead, crackling away into the distance.

  ‘Head for the woods?’ Aren suggested.

  ‘Dreadknights don’t tire. Even with Vika’s aid, they’d run us down on foot.’ Then his face cleared, and a decision was made. ‘There’s another way,’ he said.

  A shout of alarm made them whirl: a Krodan soldier, emerging from a street to their left. Fen put an arrow in his chest before he could draw breath again, but it was too late; already his fellows were running up behind him. Garric’s sword sang free of its sheath and he sprang forward, Keel and Harod with him. They met the soldiers at the mouth of the street in a clatter of steel, water spraying from their blades as they darted and swung.