The Ember Blade

by Chris Wooding

  Khannaqut.

  They held him down as the skin-scribe came for him. Erase him! they said. Wipe the lies from his body! But the skin-scribe didn’t. He leaned over Grub, a tattooed skull-face in the torchlight, and dragged the heel of his hand across Grub’s eyes. Grub screamed as a pain like fire blazed in its wake. When it faded, an ugly black crescent remained, arcing from cheek to cheek. The mark of his shame; the sign of exile.

  Khannaqut.

  He fled the Shacklemarket with no direction in mind, his only desire to escape. He took turnings at random, his thoughts circling inwards, and only came to his senses when he reached a dead end. Before him was a low wall. He laid his hand on it and looked over. Some way below, cut into the slope of the hill, was the entrance to Patron’s Bridge, busy with traffic heading from the north shore of the river to Sovereign’s Isle.

  On a whim, he sat atop the wall with his feet dangling over the edge. It was a long way to the ground. Far enough to kill.

  A crow flapped down from the heights, alighting a little further along. It strutted back and forth, watching him with a beady eye. Grub watched it uneasily in return.

  Bone God’s watching, he thought. Bone God’s waiting.

  How long had he been exiled? He couldn’t even remember. A long time, anyway. A long time to be without friendship or a kind word. He’d shared rough camaraderie with the lowlifes of many Ossian ports over the years, but they didn’t really count as friends. They were alliances of the moment, made out of shared need for shelter, or to carry out a scam. A Skarl couldn’t ever really be friends with a foreigner. They were not Skarls. Their feelings were worth no more than a horse’s or a cat’s.

  But his own people had cast him out. There were only foreigners left to him now.

  He heard footsteps coming up the street behind him. It was Mudslug. The boy clambered up on the wall alongside, dangled his legs next to Grub’s and peered down at the crowd milling onto the bridge.

  ‘Who are you aiming for?’ Mudslug asked.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to jump, you have to land on someone. Might as well make it count. Me, I’d go for that soldier there. He’s got a look about him I don’t like. And he’s Krodan.’ He glanced over at Grub. ‘What about you?’

  Grub thought about that, and pointed. ‘Woman in red dress.’

  ‘The pregnant woman?’

  ‘Yes. Grub get two for the price of one.’ He grinned. ‘Might as well make it count.’

  Mudslug shook his head in amazed disgust, but Grub reckoned he was reluctantly amused all the same.

  ‘Remember the first time we met, in the camp?’ Mudslug asked.

  ‘Heh. Grub beat up Mudslug.’

  ‘You ever think we’d find ourselves here, sitting on a wall in Morgenholme, deciding who best to squash with our falling bodies?’

  Grub gave him a look. ‘Course not, stupid. If Grub could see future, he wouldn’t have been in camp in first place.’

  ‘How did you end up in there, anyway? You never told me.’

  ‘Got caught pickpocketing. When Grub explain to Krodans how mighty he is, how many foes he vanquish, they not hang him. Send him to mines instead.’

  ‘You got caught pickpocketing?’ Mudslug was thinking about the market.

  Grub produced an onyx figurine from his pouch, which he’d swiped from an inattentive vendor. ‘What did Mudslug say? History just a series of lessons we didn’t learn.’

  Aren gave a wry smile and brushed tangled brown curls back from his forehead. ‘You want to tell me what a skin-thief is?’ he asked.

  Grub sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve. Did he want to tell him? Funny way to say it, but then Ossians talked in a funny way, and he’d never really got his head round the language. He wouldn’t usually dream of sharing his shame, but Mudslug wasn’t the kind to use it against him, and he felt low and lonely enough that it didn’t really matter any more.

  So maybe he did want to tell Mudslug. It seemed the sort of thing that friends did.

  He put the figurine back in his pouch. ‘Mudslug heard of the Scattering?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it. Don’t know much about it, though.’

  ‘Skarl rite of passage. Firstborn of every family sent out into the world to do great deeds, bring back glory and riches. The rest stay at home, look after things. They say firstborns lucky ones! They get to be heroes. Ha!’

  He began rummaging through his pockets and produced a silver hip-flask with a delicate floral design, which he handed to Aren to hold. Then he dug out a tinderbox and two fine cheroots which he put between his lips.

  ‘Not easy to be a hero. Not in Ossia.’

  He packed the tinderbox, struck sparks into it and lit the cheroots from the glowing wad. Then he handed one to Mudslug, who took it without much enthusiasm, eyeing the soggy end where it had been in Grub’s mouth.

  ‘Grub owes you some cheroots. From back in the camp.’

  ‘So you do,’ said Mudslug. ‘I’d forgotten.’ He took a drag and coughed hard.

  Grub cackled. ‘You get used to it,’ he said and clapped him on the back, almost pushing him off the wall to his death. ‘Have a drink, make things better!’

  Mudslug unscrewed the lid of the hip-flask, took a swig and began to cough harder. ‘What’s in that?’ he wheezed, handing it back.

  ‘Whatever was in it when Grub stole it.’

  Mudslug took a moment to regain control of his lungs. ‘So you left home and came to Ossia,’ he said. ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘Nobody trust Skarls here. Not much work. Grub look for ways to do great deeds, but soon he get hungry.’ He shrugged. ‘What did Grub do? He wander. Do this, do that. Meet people, leave people. Smoke a lot of clawfoot root. Steal, fight, keep food in belly and breath in body. But great deeds? No. Years pass, nothing. Nothing worth putting on skin.’

  He took a draw on his cheroot and swigged the liquor in the hip-flask. It was foul and herbal and tasted like the forest floor, but Grub wasn’t particular, so he drank some more of it.

  ‘Then one day, big change. Revolution in Durn. Priests and king and nobles all in trouble, pay plenty for mercenaries. Grub go. Maybe he do something great there. Maybe he die with a rusty sword in his arse.’

  He glanced over at the crow, further down the wall. He wished it would flap off. It was hard to tell the tale with the Bone God listening.

  ‘On way, Grub find site of recent battle. Two hundred dead, maybe more. Many crows; Bone God looking for stories among the bodies. We look, too, for coin and riches. Dead men don’t need fine things.’ He took another swig of liquor to keep him going, then handed it back. ‘Grub find body. Skarl man. Half his body all tattoos. Grub read them, become amazed. That man, he a hero!’ He sighed then, lowered his head, felt the shame seep through him on a wave of alcohol warmth. ‘Then Grub realise. That man’s name, nearly the same as Grub’s. Just have to add one character and it exactly the same. Feel like omen to Grub.’

  ‘What is your real name?’

  ‘Don’t have one. Name lost now. See?’ He pointed to the spot where his left cheek met his eye socket, now entirely black. ‘Here where Skarls have name, tribe, place of birth marked. Mine gone. Grub is Grub now, from nowhere.’

  ‘You’re always from somewhere. It doesn’t matter what’s written on your skin.’

  ‘Matters to Bone God. Memories die. Flesh rots. Only what’s written lives on.’ He waved it away. He didn’t want to talk about that. There was no greater hell than to be Unremembered.

  ‘But why, er, Grub?’

  ‘That what they call me when I was part of Nuk’s gang back in Karaqqa. Grub like the sound of it in Ossian. Sound very elegant.’

  Mudslug had a dubious look on his face, but he held his tongue. Grub could tell he had questions about Nuk and Karaqqa and all of that, but he found he wanted to finish his story now he’d started it.

  ‘Grub decide to take warrior’s story for his own. Everyone think he do those t
hings. Grub will be hero, feast in longhalls with other heroes, treated with respect till the end of his days. Grub can go home! So Grub take the story and he head for the coast.’

  ‘You copied it from his skin?’

  ‘Mudslug stupid. Only skin-scribe can copy skin-scribe tattoos.’

  ‘So you … carried him?’

  Grub snorted. ‘No. He already starting to stink. Skinned him, smoked it, left the rest for the crows.’

  Mudslug’s appalled stare was genuine this time. Grub didn’t care. Mudslug didn’t even know the worst of it yet. ‘Grub go to a Needler. Used to be skin-scribes, but they break laws, get exiled. They still know the secret arts, though. Best tattooists in the world, sell their skills for money, get rich. Grub not rich, but he beg, and this man help a fellow Skarl. All that warrior’s great deeds written on my skin. Then I go to Skarl sailor and say, “Take me home!” And he honoured to. Honoured.’

  Grub dragged bitterly on the last of his cheroot and flicked it into the air, where it tumbled down into the crowd. Mudslug ground his out on the wall with some relief.

  ‘Worst thing one Skarl can do to another is make him Un­remembered,’ said Grub. Hard even to say this, but he had to. ‘Law says, you find a dead Skarl, you bring them home so their deeds can be recorded. If you can’t, leave them for the crows. Crows peck out eyes, see what they saw; peck out tongues, learn what they spoke; read the writing on their skin. All this they take back to the Bone God, and he record it. Don’t bury, don’t burn. Leaves nothing for the crows to read.’ He let out a breath. ‘But when Grub was done with the skin, he burned it. Thought no one could prove what Grub did if they never found that skin. But they proved it anyway.’

  Mudslug looked at him like he understood, but he didn’t under­stand. Only a Skarl could. ‘How long before they caught you?’ he asked.

  ‘Few months. Life good. Women, feasting. Young men listen to my tales, buy me drinks. Then one day, old friend turn up. Old friend of his. They fight together on mainland. She track him down, and she know my face is wrong. Khannaqut, she call me. Then they take me to the Black Triad.’

  His voice faded. He didn’t really want to talk any more, but he had to say one last thing, if only to dull the barb a little. ‘They copied his story from me, before they sent me away. At least Grub did that. Stonesingers put it on wall of mausoleum somewhere. He not Unremembered in the end.’

  Mudslug contemplated the crowd for a time. ‘So you didn’t kill an ice bear?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or ambush a shipload of Boskan smugglers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or fight the urds in the Sixth Purge? Or slay ten elaru all on your own?’

  ‘Grub did none of those things.’

  ‘But you did escape the camp at Suller’s Bluff. We couldn’t have done that without you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you did save us at Skavengard. If you hadn’t found a way round that collapsed room, we’d all have been killed by the beast, instead of just …’ He saddened visibly at the memory of Moustache. ‘Well … you know.’

  ‘Grub did that. Still, it not enough.’

  ‘What will be enough?’

  Grub puffed out his cheeks. The crow had flown away at some point; he hadn’t noticed it leave. ‘Skarls have tale. Hero called Hagga. He slay his own brother, steal his skin. Caught and exiled. Rest of his life, he do things so heroic, such feats, it hard to believe. Return with treasure. Sombre Men listen to his tale, call it true. Say he repaid his debt to the Bone God. So skin-scribes take away the mark of khannaqut.’ He passed a hand across his eyes, as if he could wipe away the stain there. ‘Grub must do something so great Bone God will forgive him. No faking this time. Then maybe he go home.’

  There was silence between them for the span of a dozen heartbeats. Then Grub straightened and pointed. ‘Bitterbracker,’ he said.

  Mudslug followed his gaze. The Bitterbracker was just stepping onto the bridge below them, heading across the river to Sovereign’s Isle. He was easy to spot with his distinctive hair, grown long in a strip down the centre of his skull and shaved elsewhere. He moved in a furtive hurry, glancing over his shoulder.

  ‘Bitterbracker told us he staying inside today,’ Grub said. ‘Grub think he up to something.’

  Mudslug’s frown deepened. ‘So do I,’ he said, climbing down off the wall. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Grub better come. Remember last time Mudslug tried to follow Grub? Grub taken dumps that were subtler.’

  ‘Let’s go, then.’

  Mudslug headed off to find a path down to the bridge and Grub went after him. He felt better after their talk. Mudslug was good blood, as they said back in Karaqqa. A trustworthy sort. Someone you could rely on. Grub had even developed a sneaking fondness for him.

  Shame, then, what he planned to do once Garric had retrieved the Ember Blade. For if that sword was all they said it was, it was worth a king’s ransom to Ossians and Krodans alike. What would the Sombre Men say if he were to bring it home as a present for his tharl? Wouldn’t that be a deed out of legend?

  Grub would let Garric steal it, if he could. Then he’d steal it from Garric. He felt a little regretful about it, but not much.

  A Skarl could never really be friends with a foreigner, after all.

  69

  Aren and Grub had to run to have any chance of catching up with Keel, so run they did. Luck favoured them, and they came across a stone stairway in the next street that led sharply down to the level of the bridge. There they fought their way through the festive crowds heading for Sovereign’s Isle, searching for Keel as they went.

  Out on the bridge, the traffic cleared somewhat and they sprinted across. The River Cay sparkled beneath them, the painted sails of merchant ships moving in stately progress towards the sea. A pair of Krodan soldiers eyed them suspiciously as they raced past and Aren felt a sudden thrill of alarm.

  If we’re stopped …

  He halted at the end of the bridge. Grub lumbered up behind him, barely out of breath. He was slow, but apparently he could run for ever.

  ‘Mudslug tired?’ Grub grinned.

  Aren tried not to look at the guards, who were watching them. ‘We can’t draw too much attention,’ he panted. ‘We don’t have permits for Morgenholme. If they ask to see our papers, we’ll be arrested.’

  ‘Didn’t Mudslug think of that this morning?’

  He hadn’t. He hadn’t travelled much beyond Shoal Point. Excited by the prospect of exploring and eager to defy Garric’s command, he’d taken a foolish and reckless risk. With the wedding coming up, the guards would be on high alert. All it took was one check and this would all be over.

  ‘Didn’t you know we needed permits?’ Aren retorted, angry at himself for his idiocy.

  ‘Grub knew. He just didn’t care.’ He slapped Aren on the arm. ‘Come on, Mudslug. Walk. Try not to look like a criminal.’

  ‘Me?’

  They proceeded on to Sovereign’s Isle, and to Aren’s great relief, the guards lost interest in them. Thereafter they went at a quicker pace, but no faster than a hundred other shoppers and harried clerks. Aren scanned the grand square at the end of Patron’s Bridge as they crossed it, searching for Keel among the faces that surrounded him.

  ‘Bitterbracker could be anywhere,’ Grub said.

  He was right, and perhaps it was pointless trying to catch Keel, but something in the way he’d been walking troubled Aren. He was about some secret business. Aren would be eaten by suspicion until he knew what it was.

  An idea occurred to him. ‘There’s another bridge on the far side of Sovereign’s Isle. We crossed it when we came from the docks.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So that’s where we’re going,’ he said, setting off in that direction. ‘If his destination is on Sovereign’s Isle, we’ve lost him; but if he’s heading for the south bank we can catch him on the other bridge.’

  Aren’s instincts proved right. They arrived at the Promise Bridge j
ust in time to see Keel stepping off it.

  Grub cackled. ‘Mudslug make good spy yet. Now follow Grub. Don’t get too close.’

  Aren followed Grub’s lead as they trailed Keel off the bridge and down the hill towards the Canal District. The streets took on a seedy look as the alleyways narrowed and steepened, and there was a faint scent of rot in the air, rising from the lichen-slimed inlets further down the hill where the land met the water. Houses leaned out over the street and the people began to look crumpled and unhealthy.

  Grub kept a far greater distance from Keel than Aren would have done. Every time Keel turned a corner, Aren was anxious they’d lose him, but Grub had an instinct for where he was going next and found him again immediately. There was clearly a skill to it, but it was a mystery to Aren.

  Keel had stopped looking over his shoulder and was walking with purpose. Aren guessed he was nearing his destination. Grub closed in a little, perhaps fearing he’d disappear into some anonym­ous doorway. When Keel finally came to the end of his journey, they had him in sight, and Grub pulled Aren behind a corner to watch.

  The Burned Bear was a faintly unpleasant-looking inn that stood at the end of a terrace, with a dank thoroughfare running alongside it. Its timbers were painted with flaking pitch and latticed windows of cheap glass turned its patrons into smeared ghouls. The sign showed a bear with ugly red burn wounds, chained to a pole, fighting dogs. Presumably there was a story to that name, but Aren had another story to follow right now. They watched Keel go inside.

  ‘Perhaps he just wants to get drunk,’ Aren suggested, though he didn’t for a moment believe it. ‘After Skavengard—’

  ‘No need to sneak, then.’

  ‘He might be ashamed.’

  Grub shook his head. ‘Bitterbracker meeting somebody.’

  Aren hovered uncertainly, weighing his next move. He was sick of secrecy. Part of him wanted to storm in there, seize Keel and demand some straight answers. Even if it got him another beating, it would be worth it. But he’d learned the futility of asking for truth; it was not freely given. It had to be dug out bit by bit, like chips of elarite from mountain rock.