Too Cold to Bleed

by D Murray

  Hal limped alongside her, wincing with each step. The coat he wore had the smear of blood down its front, the previous owner taking a wound across the face. There was clearly a follow-up strike, or indeed an initial strike, into the man’s guts. He too was enduring the pungent waft of shite, which perhaps explained their position to the rear of the group.

  Ruah looked around her as she walked. The last light of evening was bleeding out of the land around them, but still she could see the lichen, the small twisted life of dwarf trees, the sombre-coloured mosses. The fire-holes appeared to be sputtering to life as the sun slid away. Pulses of amber light undulated around the valley floor, casting an eerie light as they walked across the ground towards the great wall of the fortress. The smell of sulphur was growing stronger the farther they walked. Ruah tried breathing through her mouth, but it was no use. She did notice everyone else was suffering more from the smell than her, retching and choking on the stink. Guess caking shit for a living did something for me.

  “This gonna work?” Hal asked Broden. The big Free Provinces soldier turned around, his face obscured by the tight-cinched hood about his face.

  “Don’t know,” he replied, voice partly muffled by the hood drawn over his mouth. “Reckon there’s a lot of soldiers in there, and only a handful of us.”

  “It has to work,” Ruah said. The edge of anger entering her voice irritated her, and she huffed, snapping her mouth shut.

  “Just remember what we talked about,” Broden replied, his own voice taking on a more firm tone. “When we get in there, you two need to keep your heads.” He stopped a moment, Valus turning with him, and looked at Ruah and Hal. “Look, I know you two have it in your heads to get your people free, and that’s what we’ll do, but you need to remember that if that’s going to happen, if we’re going to get them and our own arses out of this night alive, we need to see that we finish our side of things first.” He rested his crossed hands over the pommel of his sword and his eyes flicked between the two of them. “Can I trust you to keep your heads?”

  “Aye,” Hal replied. “We’ll keep our heads. Right, Roo?”

  A sneer curled her mouth. Told my whole life where my fucking place is. In the stables, next to Mavis, back of the grub line. Keep my head. Never lost it before. Not gonna lose it now. “My head is where it always is. Where it always has been. On my shoulders. I’ll be fine.”

  Broden eyed her a moment; from the loosening of his eyes, she could tell he was smiling. He had a kind face, the big man, one that lightened her mood in the time she was around him, but he shouldn’t doubt her. I’ll see them free, and they’ll see me for what I am. They’ll see my worth.

  They walked on, closing the distance between them and the massive black, semi-circular wall that extended from the cliff face and swept around the fortress before re-joining the cliff. Ruah looked up, and was able to clearly see soldiers manning the battlements. From this distance, it was hard to tell if they were Solansian or Raven Men, but she supposed it made no difference. They came to the station together and tore her life, however bad it may have been, to shit. She looked across at Hal, seeing a grim fix to his profile, his eyes locked on the wall as he limped on. Best damn weeks of my life.

  A fire flared to her left, spewing a jet of yellow flame as tall as Ruah and lighting the sky about them. A creature flew above the light, broad-winged and fast. It was gone in an instant.

  “What was that?” Ruah asked.

  “What?” Broden asked.

  “What did you see?” Valus turned, a note of worry in her voice.

  “Roo?” Hal asked.

  “Out there, above the flare. I saw something fly over it. Something with long black wings.”

  Valus looked over her head and out to where the flare had escaped from the fire hole. “I can’t see anything,” Valus said.

  Another flare burst close to the first, and lit the ground around them.

  “Hal!” Roo shouted.

  Touched by the last of the flare’s light was a tall figure roughly the shape of a man, entirely bald, and covered in leathery skin. It opened its great wings and tried to sweep Hal into them but they passed right through as they closed around him. Valus closed the distance in a few steps and spat forth angry words in a language Ruah didn’t understand. Valus stretched her fist out and opened it, sending the spirit fleeing with a baneful cry.

  “What in the hells was that?” Murtagh asked from behind Broden.

  “Demon,” Jukster grumbled in a low, nervous voice.

  “A spirit,” Valus replied, touching Hal’s face. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Hal looked at her, face seeming to pale in the cold light of dusk. “Reckon so.” He looked at Ruah and offered a feeble smile. “Didn’t like the look of it much.”

  “It was insubstantial. Some of the spirits that haunt this land are unable to take physical form. I suspect they threaten and frighten, trying to betray their quarry to a mistake in this environment, leading to their death. It is in death that the spirit would seek to feed on a fleeing soul.”

  “Charming,” Broden said, eyes wide and shaking his head. “Think we’ll all be walking a little closer together now, don’t you?”

  Hal offered a half-hearted laugh and looked about the darkening night before stepping up to Ruah. His fingertips wound about hers and he gripped her hand tight. She looked at his frightened face, offered him a smile, and squeezed his hand.

  They walked on, and towards Hagra Iolach’s walls.

  The last light of dusk had long since bled out of the sky. The chill air grew all the colder as they worked their way across the cliff face. Blood trickled from the stump of Kalfinar’s little finger and down the back of his numb hand. The wind whipped up the face of the wall, enveloping him and the climbing party. They pressed tight against the stone face, and held on. Kalfinar looked down into the fortress. He could clearly see bodies moving about in the lamplight below. He looked past the wall of the fortress and out into the valley. He screwed his eyes tight and opened them again, focusing on the movement outside the walls of Hagra Iolach. He could see Broden’s party as they approached the gates.

  “We need to hurry,” Kalfinar hissed to Harvind. “The others are nearing the gate.”

  Harvind nodded from below. He turned his face back in the direction of the climb and began to move.

  Kalfinar waited as the three other Maracost in front of him began to move before he started up again. He looked down at the cliff face and saw Harvind stop. Kalfinar scanned the grounds of the fortress, seeing no cause for alarm. No one was looking up, that he could tell. He brought his gaze around to the wall, and then down towards the keep, and he saw her. His throat thickened so much it felt as though he could not breathe. Evelyne. She sat hunched against the outer wall of a small, caged balcony, faint light spilling out of the thin hatch in the door and onto her face. Her name rose into his mouth, then died on his lips as her face slid out of the light, and she was gone again. A strength flooded his arms and legs. His fingertips felt life again, and a hunger raged inside. He had to get to her.

  “Move!” he hissed to the Maracost climber to his right. “What are you waiting for?”

  The nearest Maracost turned his head and looked at Kalfinar with his blazing eyes.

  “We can’t make it into the keep from here,” Harvind hissed.

  “What?” Kalfinar stared at the Maracost leader with incredulity, then looked at the front of the keep. He glanced back to Harvind, seeing him offer an apologetic hint of a smile. Kalfinar looked back at the space between the cliff face, and the front of the keep. There was an overhang. “Fuck's sake.” Kalfinar rested his forehead against a frozen patch of spongy moss on the rock. “How did we not see that?”

  “What’s wrong?” Ferdus asked from behind.

  “We need to climb down to ground level.”

  “What?” the Gerloup man asked.

  “There’s an overhang. We can’t get into the keep from here.”

&nb
sp; “There’s a what?” Bergnon’s voice hissed over Ferdus’ shoulders.

  “An overhang,” Ferdus supplied. “Have to go down to ground.”

  “An overhang?” Bergnon whispered to himself. “So we’ve just climbed down this cliff face for nothing.”

  Kalfinar turned and looked at his former friend. The flush of annoyance at their stupidity that burned hot in his gullet receded as the cough of laughter rushed to his mouth. “Reckon so.”

  Bergnon chuckled, followed by Ferdus.

  “What’s so funny?” Harvind asked.

  Kalfinar turned his head and saw the look of confusion etched across the man’s face. He laughed again as the Maracost shook his head.

  “You really are a strange people.”

  “May as well get to it, then,” Kalfinar said, casting another glance to the shadowed balcony where he had seen Evelyne’s face. I’m coming, love. Just hold on a while longer.

  “Quiet now,” Broden whispered as they made their way across the final stretch of ground to the gate of Hagra Iolach.

  Ruah could clearly see the faces of the guards standing by the lanterns, a mix of Raven Man and Solansian. Her stomach roiled as the nerves gripped her, and a strange tingling had developed in her leg. It played about the limb in the same way the pain would. It started beneath the knee, then seemed to swell in the joint and then circle it, before flaring up the limb and into the hip. The tingling then spread into her pelvis and lower back before climbing all the way up to her head, where it ended in a ticklish shiver that ran back down her body. It didn’t hurt, unlike the near constant agony before the Lady Valus did something to the nerve. Said I wouldn’t feel anything.

  “Scout party returning,” Broden growled to the guards standing above the gate. The wind whipped and the flames of the lanterns danced, spreading yellow light onto the face of a tall Solansian guardsman.

  “Fire of the North grant us power and glory,” the guard on top of the wall called out.

  “To tear down the prison of the Great Corrupter, and claim it all,” Broden responded with the counter-phrase.

  “Where’s the rest of your group?” the guard on the wall asked.

  “Bear attack,” Broden replied. “Came at us out of the storm late last night. Tore through us before we put it down.”

  “Fucking hells,” the guard grumbled. “In you come.” A small wicket gate opened, and amber light flooded out in a long rectangle before the group.

  The party moved ahead into the rectangle of light. One by one they dipped their heads, ensuring their faces were cast in the shadow of their hoods, and entered the fortress. Ruah’s hand rested ready next to the head of her hatchet. Inside the gate they were met by the tall Solansian guard descending the stairs from the battlements. He was easily the tallest man Ruah had ever seen, heavily muscled and with a bearded face full of scars. He looked at the party in silence for a moment as the guardsman to their rear closed the wicket gate. The big guard looked at the party. Let’s be going. Come on, fucker. Her hand itched for her weapon.

  “My men need some food and water,” Broden growled.

  The big Solansian guard pursed his lips and blew a sigh. “You’ve been through it,” he said, pointing a thick finger at the bloodstains on the bleached white hide coats they wore.

  “Bear got us good. Lost some friends out there. Now I want to see the rest fed and watered. Some of the men need the physician.”

  “Of course, of course,” the Solansian guard said, nodding his head.

  Ruah noticed the guard to the rear had been joined by another two spearmen. They were beginning to spread out. She looked up, noting there was no one on the battlements above or around them. Her heart raced against her chest, and her breath came in and out in short, tremulous gasps. She could feel it; things were turning bad.

  The rush came fast.

  The Maracost at the head of Ruah’s party had a knife drawn and punched up under the chin of the big Solansian in a heartbeat. Ruah turned and dodged the spear thrust of one of the guardsmen to the rear. By the time she’d grabbed her hatchet the two guardsmen were sliding down, backs against the gate and wall, throwing knives in their throats. Jukster was punching the third in the face, the man’s eyes rolling white in his head as the big man beat him unconscious. He held the slack guard, and quickly punched in a knife blade to finish him off.

  “Get the bodies, quick!” Broden hissed, grabbing the ankles of one of the guards.

  They gathered up the bodies and their weapons and dragged them to a heap of steaming stable waste. They shifted aside the spoiled hay and shit, then tossed the four bodies in before covering them up.

  “Let’s move,” Broden whispered. “Nice and steady.”

  They set off across the grounds of the fortress. Ruah looked about, seeing the two large long-houses standing out amongst the many dirty brown canvas tents. The buildings were made of stone, with blue slate roofs. Several small windows leached out a soft light. That’s where you are. She thought of the townsfolk of Overn Station, how they had treated her no better than a stray dog, and a surge of something hot and angry flared in her belly. I’ll show you all. She turned her eyes from the long-houses and up to the cliff face. It was bathed in darkness, so there was no sign of the climbing party. She looked back to the keep as they closed the distance to the single entranceway, but the draw of the long-houses was too strong in her. “Hal,” she whispered, “we need to go and get them.”

  He looked at her, brows knitting and a squirm moving across his face as he looked to the keep.

  “Hal!” she hissed under her breath. “These are our people.”

  He looked at the keep again, and then back to Ruah. He nodded.

  The hunger flared in her. I’ll show you all. She and Hal darted into the space between several dirty tents, and towards the long-houses holding the captured townsfolk of Overn Station.

  Fear gripped at Kalfinar’s throat as he rushed to get down to ground level. Broden’s party had entered through the gate and into the fortress, and were being slowly flanked by four guardsmen. The straight downward descent was more challenging than the progressive diagonal climb. The whip of the wind up the cliff face had reduced the lower they had gone. Kalfinar’s fingers and hands were cut and bleeding, though they were so cold he could barely feel any pain at all. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw a fight had broken out. He quickened his pace, rushing down the last stretch of wall. Harvind had already made it to ground level, alongside one of the Maracost. The side of Kalfinar’s foot slipped on some gravel on the fractured edge of a rock, and his leg kicked out. He gripped with his numb fingers and tried to right himself, but his arms were weak now, his fingers lacking in sense. His grip failed him, and he fell. The air rushed about him, and he hit the ground with a half-executed roll. The air whooshed out of his chest and he came to rest on his face.

  “All right?” Harvind hissed in the darkness by the foot of the wall.

  “Fine,” Kalfinar replied, creeping up against the wooden wall of the stables, dusting himself down. The shadow between the two long stables had rendered the darkness complete. Kalfinar peered towards the gate and saw that the fight had been quick. They had piled the bodies under the hay and spoil from the stables, and were now making a steady line for the entrance of the keep. Two of the group split away and ran towards the long-houses between clustered tents.

  “Where’re they going?” Harvind asked.

  Kalfinar cursed under his breath. “It’s Roo and Hal.”

  “They’re going to give us away!” Harvind whispered.

  “I’ll get them,” Bergnon replied quietly, creeping up beside Kalfinar. “I’ll keep them right.”

  “Keep your heads down,” Kalfinar said.

  “Kal,” Bergnon made to say something more.

  “Bergnon,” Kalfinar interrupted, “just see they don’t get us all killed. Show me you remember how to do the right thing.”

  There was a pause in the dark. “Aye,” Bergnon sai
d, and then he darted off into the darkness.

  “Let’s go.” Kalfinar slipped around the side of the stables. He ducked low and raced through the shadows along the front of the stables, before ducking into the joining between the stable and keep. Broden’s party had reached the carved steps and paused either side of the entrance.

  Kalfinar whistled to get Broden’s attention, and then started up again and made it along the distance of the keep wall and up the steps. He rushed into the shadow cast by the jutting keystone above the entrance and fell in beside Broden.

  “What in the frozen hells are you doing down here?” Broden asked, pointing up to the top of the keep. “Weren’t you meant to climb in and perform your daring rescue?”

  “We, ah, overlooked something.” He felt stupid saying it. “There was quite a big overhang.”

  “An overhang?” Broden looked up, eyes squinting in the dark. “Oh yeah.” He looked back down at Kalfinar and the rest of the climbing party, his brows raised and a broad smile on his face. “Bit of a cock-up there, eh?”