by Ben Galley
Mithrid felt an unexpected twitch of guilt. The fire of her dream haunted her still.
To the burble of pouring wine, Irien continued. ‘And, naturally, it introduces me to all manner of interesting people. A question of my own, now that you are all awake and partially rested. I wish to know more about you. Durnus has been rather quiet about the type of protectors he’s hired.’
The ruse amused Mithrid. It appeared to needle Farden, and yet he played his part.
‘As he should be,’ replied the mage gruffly. He reached for some wine of his own, forwent the goblet, and took a gulp. ‘There is nothing to tell. We are sellswords driven out of the Arka Empire by war. I was a mage once. This fiery-headed one has some skill with shadow magick. Durnus hired us all to protect his bony arse.’
Irien was listening in the way that Remina used to: as if she heard some mistake in Farden’s words that nobody else noticed. The fire crackled while she pondered.
‘It intrigues me why a hired knight should speak so openly. I have seen many a retinue, many a sellsword and mercenary from parts of the world the maps don’t have names for, and none of them have acted as you do in front of their masters. I wager you’ve told me lies.’
Before anyone could respond, Irien flashed her trademark smile as she rubbed some of the purple from her lips with her surviving hand. Mithrid had not noticed the tattoo on her knuckles before. The word, “Live” in Commontongue.
‘As I told you, I am the Lady of Whispers. Little happens in these lands without me knowing about it. My craft is to hunt out whispers, and many have reached me of a red-gold man, a minotaur, and a dragon no less, charging across the Rivenplains. It’s said they appeared as if from nowhere, heralded by smoke and strange sunsets in the west like an omen of the Dusk God. Said to have burned half of Lilerosk and slain the High Cathak’s son outside the Spoke. Oh yes, I’ve heard of you. Why you should be surprised is another question. You aren’t exactly conspicuous blazing a path right to Dathazh’s doorstep in fire and blood. I’m surprised the guards let you in at all. Lucky for you it’s Tourney week, and they were probably half-blind with exhaustion.’
Mithrid drank more of her wine so as to keep from saying something she might later regret. Farden was looking at her sidelong, waiting. She watched Aspala instead, who now had her eyes closed in drunken meditation. Even so, Mithrid saw her hand was now rested on her sword. Mithrid’s axe was elsewhere, but she longed for it all of a sudden.
‘You are of Emaneska, that much is true,’ said Irien. ‘Mages, a knight of Paraia, a minotaur, and a vampyre, yes. Yet I know enough of armour to see that is ancient Scalussen steel you wear, Farden. That is not the armour of a sellsword. Neither is that hammer in your hands, Warbringer. And you, Mithrid the shadow mage, though your armour isn’t as rich as Farden’s. I have only seen nobles wearing such metal. None of you are mercenaries, that much is plain, so I’ll ask again: who are you?’
Farden dribbled wine down his grizzled chin as he drank. ‘We’re fleeing the Arka Empire.’
‘I’m not surprised. Not least because of the cruelness you westerners enjoy, but I hear whispers the emperor has gone to war. Raised the greatest army Emaneska or Easterealm has ever seen and took it north against a warlord mage. A single warlord, of all people! Would you believe it?’ Irien laughed.
‘Might I ask what you were doing at Sigrimur’s statue?’ Farden asked, swiftly changing subjects. Mithrid knew he had no love for subterfuge and betrayal, not even the faintest chance of it. After Savask and Trenika’s lies, she felt the same. Farden had the sense to be calm about it. ‘Were you following us?
‘Come now, Farden,’ tutted Irien. ‘Fortunate happenstance is all. You interrupted my vigil at my ancestor’s grave. You piqued my interest the minute you clomped into Sigrimur’s Rest. Like I said, you’re quite the conspicuous bunch. I wanted to know who it was that’s been causing such ruckus. The fact you were seeking Sigrimur is what interested me. The last breath of Sigrimur is what you said at the Rest, wasn’t it, Mithrid?’
Mithrid watched guarded gazes turn to study her.
Irien tapped her pointed ears. ‘You needn’t fear my interest, my new friends. I would not be the Lady of Whispers if I did not know the need for discretion when I see it. That’s why I keep no allegiances, no political leanings. Your secrets are safe with me.’
Farden leaned forwards, hands towards the fire. ‘All for a fee or a favour, I imagine. I may not have travelled far beyond Emaneska in my lifetime, but I know that such kindness isn’t free no matter how far you travel. There’s always a price.’
‘Perhaps there shall be,’ Irien sipped her wine coyly. ‘But sating my curiosity is enough of a payment for now. Particularly because I have never heard of Sigrimur’s last breath. Not as a Lady of Whispers nor as a collector, nor even as a descendant. I fear whatever edda or song you followed here has fed you nonsense.’
Durnus sucked at a fang. Irien looked the least perturbed by a vampyre in her house. Mithrid wondered if they were commonplace in these lands.
‘We are hoping that is not the case,’ Durnus said. ‘A question, my Lady: I am curious of your mention of a “grave”. Does that mean that Sigrimur is entombed beneath the statue?’
Once again, the Lady of Whispers grinned as if the answer to Durnus’ question was written on the walls. Somewhere between her ghastly mounted heads and paintings that looked as though the artist had vomited their paints upon their canvases, Mithrid snorted to herself. To her dismay, her goblet was already empty.
‘My dear Durnus! That is no statue, but Sigrimur himself, turned to stone!’ She took a moment to watch them while that sank in. ‘When he was killed by his own spear in the Noose God’s hands it turned him to stone. What you see in Sigrimur’s Rest is the very form of my ancestor, almost two thousand years later. Now headless, you see. Which poses a problem for you.’
‘How so?’ asked Farden.
‘Because, if I were seeking the last breath of Sigrimur, where more obvious a place to look for it than the Head of Sigrimur? Your problem is that my ancestor’s head is currently the prized trophy of the Scarlet Tourney, as it has been for the last four centuries.’
The silence was awkward. Mithrid felt the floor crumbling beneath her boots. She felt lost once more, as if she were still hunched in a limestone cave, staring out at an unholy forest. All purpose bled away.
Irien grinned. ‘If I were you, my new friends, I would be enormously glad our paths crossed!’
While the others quietly tried to decide if that was true, Irien found her flagon empty and clicked her wooden fingers with a sharp crack. Another child servant appeared, this one filthier than the one Mithrid had seen. Without an order, the little boy ran off into the dark with the empty bottle and returned in moments with a full one.
‘In my years, I’ve learned that the why of a matter is not important. Say a woman comes to me seeking proof of her husband’s supposed infidelity. She pays me to know which woman he’s tickling the insides, not why he’s gone astray. The why is between wife and husband. The Lady of Whispers deals in the who, the what, and the where. As such, my new friends, believe me when I say I do not care why you wish for the Head of Sigrimur. However, I can help you with where it is and how to get your hands on it.
‘The most obvious way is no secret at all: you win the Scarlet Tourney,’ Irien said, as if it was no matter at all. ‘It would be your trophy. It would be yours to do what you wish with it.’
Durnus looked uncomfortable. ‘It would be too great a risk. Even for our friend Warbringer here. Risky and needless.’
Warbringer rumbled as if disagreeing, but she made no further complaint.
Once again, Irien’s eyes found Farden and stuck there. ‘What of you, Farden? You look used to a sword.’
Farden shook his head. ‘Durnus is right. Too great a risk.’
Irien chuckled. ‘Then you are left with two simple choices. You either wait for this Tourney’s champion to emerge victorious
and bargain with them. Or, you steal the Head of Sigrimur before it can be won, straight from the vaults under the Queen of Golikar’s nose.’
Mithrid could think of other ways to describe their choices than simple. Their decision was between wasting time and spilling blood, she could see it plainly.
For a time, nobody spoke. Each mind chewed away on its own thoughts. Only Irien looked aloof and unbothered, still watching the mage.
‘Am I the only one,’ Mithrid spoke up, ‘that is wondering how a stone head can breathe?’
‘All things are possible through magick,’ Durnus said, attempting to be positive.
Irien flexed her wooden hand as if it ached. She smiled at Mithrid as she spoke. The girl found herself staring into those odd eyes, trying to figure the woman behind them.
‘Indeed they are,’ Irien said softly. She arose. ‘And on that notion, I’ll bid you a fine evening. Enjoy the wine. I will have food brought for you. My children will see to your needs. And in the morning, you will see the Scarlet Tourney with your own eyes.’
Farden stopped her as she turned. ‘You still haven’t mentioned your price, Lady of Whispers.’
Irien laughed disarmingly. ‘Farden, Farden. Are you sure you were not a merchant back in Emaneska, instead of a mage? My price is simple. I wish to meet your dragon. Don’t look so surprised! I believe the whispers. I have seen plenty of this world and its beasts but never a true dragon of Emaneska. I wish to meet it.’
‘Is that all?’
Irien shrugged. ‘Not all worth is in gold and silver, is it now? Besides, I am not, shall we say… fond of Queen Peskora of Golikar. Whether you compete for the Head against her prize fighters or you steal it from her grasp, any embarrassment to her is a delicious bonus for me.’
The Lady of Whispers said nothing more. With her robes of silk dragging on the floor behind her, she left them to the crackle of the fireplace and the sweet wine.
‘I can fight. I can win,’ Warbringer said. Mithrid could hear her voice in the arm of the chair.
Farden grew comfortable in his chair, stretching out his feet. Yet there was still a tension to him. Mithrid saw the creasing of his face every time he moved.
‘I don’t doubt that, Warbringer, but I won’t risk you. It would be throwing you into a fight blind. We don’t know anything about this tourney. Even less than we do about the Head, which is close to nothing.’
‘You trust this pink-flesh now?’
Durnus hummed, quietly tapping the rim of his goblet against his fangs. ‘She seems trustworthy.’
‘Is that the wine talking, or you Durnus? Or the fact you’ve found somebody with as many stories as you?’ scoffed Farden.
‘What do you say then, old friend?’
Farden drank until his flagon was drained. He looked like he drank it as a medicine rather than a treat. ‘As lost and as clueless as we are about these lands, I’ll take what help we can get until we can walk the path to the spear ourselves.’
Mithrid found herself smirking. ‘And are you sure that’s not because of those green eyes of hers?’
Farden rolled his eyes. ‘You go easy on that wine, shadow-mage.’
Mithrid flexed her hand, accidentally imitating Farden earlier. It was more difficult with her head tingling from wine, but she coaxed the dark shadow from her. ‘I personally like the sound of that. Better than being called nevermar incarnate, at least.’
‘Do you trust her?’ Farden asked her.
As Mithrid considered the question, she swore she heard tiny feet padding through the gloom of the sitting room. ‘I like to think I can see the ugly in people, and I’m struggling to do so with her. She speaks plainly. I get the sense she looks out for herself and herself only. And if she’s powerful and rich, then she’s not desperate enough to cross us, surely.’
‘You sound like you admire her, Mithrid,’ Durnus whispered.
‘I just know we’ve got little choice in the matter. And I’m glad I can rest for a bit without you burning the place down, Farden.’
The mage snorted, but Mithrid caught the betraying smile. She knew she was right. It was good to forget where and who they were for a moment.
‘I’d ask Aspala but I think she’s asleep.’
The Paraian was far from it. ‘Simple. If she crosses us…’ Aspala’s voice trailed away, but they all heard was the tap of her coarse fingernails on her gold sword.
To the thump of hooves, Warbringer loomed from the shadows to stand over them. The firelight cast dark shadows across her stormy face.
‘Did I hear talk of food?’
CHAPTER 14
THE SCARLET TOURNEY
A hundred men made the journey,
a hundred men to fight the tourney.
When dust fell still, just two survived,
half-dead and breathless, defiant, alive.
Palms out for trophies, their hope was broken.
Instead, two knives and one single token.
FROM THE ‘TOURNAMENT TALES’
‘One hundred fighters from across the known world of Easterealm. Ninety-nine fights back to back over five days. Ninety-nine die. One emerges victorious. Simple.’ Irien beamed as she explained. Her arm moved across the span of the river from north to south.
The trumpets blasted again. From Irien’s balcony, Mithrid scowled down at the nearest group of them, standing like baby birds in a nest of red and orange, their trumpet mouths faced to the sky. A nest like this sat upon every one of the bridge’s squat towers. One by one, the other groups of trumpets carried the fanfare across the bridge and into Vensk.
They had not stopped blaring since early that morning. Well, it had been an hour before midday, but after spending the evening drinking before a fire, it felt like dawn to Mithrid.
Farden and Durnus looked worse than she felt. Durnus was drawn and haggard once more, as if his mend had stalled. The mage had deep bags under his eyes. Back in most of his armour once more, the mage walked slowly and stiffly as if pained. Mithrid had found him asleep upright in an armchair, but Mithrid got the sense the mage was used to such a thing. In the sunlight, the silver threads in his black hair shone.
‘Have you anything like this in the west?’ asked Irien.
‘No. We settle things the old way,’ replied Farden.
‘With war.’
‘Sadly so.’
‘They say the south brews with war. But they are only whispers. The Viscera continues to bring us nothing but peace. There is a savage nature in all of us, they say, and why we crave war. The Tourney sates that desire for blood and battle, and it only costs ninety-nine lives a year.’
Farden was not convinced. ‘It’s the spectating. The cheering. The revelling in it that turns my stomach. There’s no entertainment in death.’
Irien flashed her smile. ‘If you can tell me with a straight face you’ve never taken pleasure in killing, or seeing a foe meet his comeuppance, mage, then I’ll believe you.’
‘He can’t,’ Mithrid piped up. Farden was too tired to give her the usual glare.
‘Hold onto your opinions until you see the Viscera for yourself. Shall we?’ Irien said.
Without waiting for a reply, the Lady of Whispers swept into the perpetual gloom of her sitting room. The others followed in silence.
Her children scattered around her, bringing pieces of jewellery to try. The woman was already festooned with it but apparently she needed more. She wore silver bracelets up to her elbows, gold earrings that hung against her chest, even pearl beads that ran through her stripe of hair.
Mithrid had found her armour polished and waiting for her. Her axe too. When and by whom, irked her, but she couldn’t deny it shone more than the day Akitha had first made it. Mithrid shone. When Irien noticed her staring at her jewels, she shooed her children towards Mithrid. They approached her with hands glittering.
‘It is a day to celebrate, Mithrid. How better to celebrate by wearing the finest? Please, help yourself. What’s mine is yours. Gentlem
en? Any finery for you?’ A clap of hands brought more children in bearing cloaks with Golikan pattens.
The sense of it was simple, and Mithrid felt rude to refuse at least trying. The finest jewellery she had ever seen in Hâlorn was polished seaglass. Her mother had a quartz ring that father had gifted her. It had been left on his smallest finger.
Mithrid took a silver tiara from a pouting child and slid it into her mess of hair. Irien showed her an ornate mirror that hung beside the fire.
‘You look like a lady of Vensk, my dear,’ Irien told her, hands clasping Mithrid’s shoulders. Mithrid surprised herself by not flinching away.
It was not the shine of the trinket. It was not even the fact it was silver in a cliff-brat’s hand. Wealth had never mattered to her. It was almost as if she put on a disguise. The reflection staring back at her had her wild scarlet hair, even her black armour, but it was not Mithrid Fenn. For a moment, she was another person, with none of her troubles or past. None of the blood in her hands and a strange power in her veins. A blank canvas. And a formidable one at that.
Mithrid matched Irien’s smile. ‘Thank you. I’ll look after it until—’
‘It is yours, Mithrid. It was a gift from a goblin of a man many years ago. It looks better on you.’
Aspala looked well-used to the weight of jewellery on her arms, as if it wasn’t an escape for her, but a reminder of a life long lost. She stuffed bracelet after bracelet onto her wrist until she smiled. Durnus took a cloak and a curious pair of spectacles that had black crystal lenses. Farden thanked the children but didn’t move a muscle. His armour hadn’t left his side. Even in its damaged state and lack of polish, he still somehow looked a king. At the very least, he smelled better.
‘Are you all right, mage?’ Mithrid asked him quietly.
