by Ben Galley
‘And the Revenge?’ she called to the nearby bookship. She was listing in the stern.
One of the surviving mates aboard Roiks ship was scarred by leviathan saliva. ‘Wheel and steering’s fucked! Dead in the water, Admiral! Officers are all dead,’ he yelled back, offering a vague sweep of his hand across the bloody deck as if Lerel hadn’t yet noticed the carnage.
‘What does that mean?’ Elessi called to her.
‘It means, General,’ Lerel said as she dragged the ship’s wheel around. ‘That we aren’t running any more. That we’re sitting seabirds now. It means we should start prayin’ that we find a safe harbour before that last leviathan decides to finish us off.’
Wind-mages sluggish and sails half-ruined, Lerel’s arms burned as she wrestled the ship’s nose back towards south. She ignored the blood dripping down her ribs and focused on the tremble of the wheel.
CHAPTER 17
VISCERA
They say that if you want to know the secrets you didn’t know you had, you go to see the Lady of Whispers.
OVERHEARD IN A DATHAZH TAVERN
The music of the Viscera was a simple tune.
Its melody was the grunting of exertion. The war-cries between blows. The hissing of blood as it sprayed the clay. The clang of blades and fists, steel against steel, gave the rhythm.
To Farden’s ears it was a song he had heard played a thousand times in various styles by various skalds. It was the sound of war. Of death.
The rabid roars and cheers for every drop of blood spilled was new.
Farden heard no disgust, no sorrow. Just cries of joy for the winners. And for the losers, jeers as the servants dragged the bodies away. Curses at losing bets. Even most of the patrons Farden watched were angrier over lost winnings than the death of their fighters.
Wherever coin was involved, death became cheap entertainment.
Nine bouts had come and gone that day. The weather above the forest canopy had turned. barely a raindrop made it to the clay of the Viscera, but pipes and gutters in the Vensk streets above were more than happy to oblige. Umbrellas of silk and leaves had blossomed around the Viscera. Those rich or lucky or connected enough to have balconies had woven roofs lowered. Anything to ensure the show was not halted. The clay had now become mud. The fights more desperate and unpredictable.
Farden had given up plugging his ears for the announcement. He swore he was going deaf from it all. As usual, two names were shouted to the hordes. One of which sounded like five names.
‘Presenting Gosh of the Destrix against Bastiat Jequel Ona Aqi Noroasen of the Island Kingdom of Ikani.’
Durnus was sat by the mage’s side. ‘Either there is a surplus of names on the island of Ikani, or they think far too much of themselves,’ he said.
Farden had barely responded to the vampyre’s comments – or any of the conversation, for that matter – all morning. He had been busy watching every move of the queen and her soldiers. Every cell and servant. That, and he didn’t want to give the vampyre any chance to talk about the previous evening. He still didn’t have the strength to face it.
‘I think the latter’s correct, Durnus,’ said Irien.
Irien was right: the feather-clad fool from Ikani danced his way from his cell bars, carpeting and cavorting in the most acrobatic of ways. Half the crowd seemed to appreciate the colourful chap, especially given the blur of his swords as he taught the air a ferocious lesson.
His opponent, Gosh, was a tall and lanky chap with a permanent hunch. A whip with a bladed end was coiled in one hand. In the other, what looked to be a half-eaten sausage. He quietly finished his snack while Bastiat danced ever closer to him. When he was finished, he calmly wiped a hand across his chest, unravelled his whip, and let it fly. The bladed whip moved as a blur. Bastiat stood stock still for once.
‘He’s missed him,’ Mithrid said, on her feet to get a better view.
Farden smirked. ‘No, he hasn’t.’
Bastiat’s swords fell to the mud. Shortly thereafter, blood began to seep from his neck, and his head toppled as his body dropped to its knees.
The crowd turned wild for the display.
Gosh retrieved the head, took a galloping lunge, and threw it into the crowds. Blood sprayed in arcs. Farden scowled at those that danced it beneath it like rain beneath a drought.
‘Charming,’ said Farden.
Irien patted him on the arm to reassure him. ‘That head will sell for a pretty coin tonight, no doubt. It could feed a family for a year.’
‘Like I said yesterday, all show, no substance,’ Farden spoke. His throat was so dry from lack of use he barely pronounced his words. He reached for the wine that never left Irien’s side. Farden had wondered whether she shouldn’t be called the Lady of Wines instead.
The dead were cleared and the bloody Tourney wound on.
‘Presenting Rovisk Dal’Bvara against Hrishnash of the Huskar!’
Irien was their personal commentator. ‘This should be interesting. Rovisk’s first fight. He’ll draw it out, but Hrishnash is no easy prey.’
The queen had thrown a flower from her tower to denote favour for last year’s champion. Hrishnash sniffed it as if she were going to eat it.
‘Farden fought a Huskar chieftain’s son once,’ Durnus commented idly.
‘Correct,’ grunted the mage. That encounter had won him his Scalussen vambraces, his first pieces of his armour. Habit made him feel his wrists. He found only clammy skin instead.
‘They come to the Tourney every year to fight.’
Hrishnash of the Huskar was a formidable woman, short and wearing nothing but plates of krasilisk scales. She hadn’t cleaned even her scimitar since her last bout. Rovisk, the Tourney’s darling, meanwhile, showed off his mirror armour to every angle of the crowds. This was the champion’s first bout. The hordes of spectators lapped up every pose.
Hrishnash swiftly grew bored of the display. With a wild cry and her sword above her head, she charged Rovisk.
For a moment, Farden thought the champion was done for. At the last moment, Rovisk pivoted on his foot. The Huskar’s scimitar chopped down into the wet clay.
The sharp ring of their sword blades filled the Viscera. Fast and furious, with Hrishnash pushing Rovisk back step by step. Silence fell across the seats, from rich to poor and in the claws above. The crowd began to stand, one by one, as they fought to somehow see better.
The pace of the flurry of blows only increased. Side to side back and forth, their duel crossed the Viscera and back again. The swords clashed fast as racing heartbeats. Farden found himself standing to examine the swordsmanship.
Irien smirked at his crossed arms. ‘Jealous?’
‘Hardly,’ Farden snorted. ‘Besides, he’s tiring her out. Pulling his strikes. He could have finished this a dozen times already.’
‘Rovisk is a showman. He knows how to work the crowds.’
That was until the Huskar managed to land the blade on his neck, and drew the faintest line of blood. Rovisk bounded away, betraying his true speed. He came back at Hrishnash with savage abandon. He’d sliced his opponent in four places before he kicked her to the ground. Legs slashed, she wasn’t able to get up. She lay lamed and growling at the champion standing over her. Rovisk held his sword over her neck and looked to the crowd for their decision. He even had the cheek to crook a hand behind his ear as if their roar wasn’t thunderous enough. At last he looked to the queen above, who drew a line across her throat. The smile she wore as she did so was coldly broad.
‘Rumour has it Rovisk is the queen’s latest addition to her harem,’ Irien muttered close to Farden.
Hrishnash took her death without making a sound. Hardly even a gurgle as the sword withdrew.
Rovisk toured the bars to mad cheers and chants of his name. He pointed his bloody sword at Warbringer and beat his chest. Farden couldn’t hear what he bayed at her, but he bet whatever it was would earn him a gruesome death.
‘Any word from your children o
n who is behind Aspala and Warbringer’s capture?’
‘Not since you last asked me half an hour ago, mage,’ she smiled. ‘I regret to admit it.’
The announcer interrupted them. ‘Presenting Dooran of Dooran, son of Belerod of Haspia, against Aspala of Paraia!’
All of them now stood at the balcony’s edge, eyes wide, hands clenching the ornate railings.
Farden saw Mithrid pour herself a cup of wine and drink it down in one gulp. He raised an eyebrow, and saw her lips muttering a prayer to somebody or something.
Dooran of Dooran came stumbling from his cell. Mithrid vaguely recognised his shirt of mail. He raised his hands to drum up some applause and cheers. He dropped his sword instead. Laughter rippled through the crowds. Apparently Dooran did not take kindly to that, and while he was gesturing to the layers of the Viscera, looking redder faced by the moment, Aspala reached him.
The woman was vicious. She kicked his knee sideways with a crack that they heard all the way in the balcony. That, for some reason, elicited a gasp from the crowds. He yelped as he fell in the dust. Aspala took his arm from his shoulder with a sweeping blur of her golden sword, shinier and sharper than ever.
Dooran of Dooran stared at his arm lying in the for a moment before he realised it was his. Aspala seemed content to walk back to her cell, but the boos of the crowd stopped her.
Irien explained. ‘While I appreciate your friend’s effort of mercy, the crowds do not.’
‘Finish him!’ cried Queen Peskora.
Aspala let her head hang. Shouldering her sword, she marched back to Dooran, who was busy scrabbling through the mud to get away. She gave him a warrior’s death, at least, with the tip of her blade to the back of his skull.
Stilted applause followed Aspala back to her cells.
‘Give them Hel!’ Mithrid yelled across the Viscera. Aspala caught sight of them, which in turn brought the eyes of the hawk-like queen. Farden avoided her gaze, but instead stepped beside Mithrid.
‘We don’t want to draw any more royal attention, Mithrid.’
‘Damn her. She had a chance to let them go and didn’t.’
‘And we don’t want to see what else she could do. Don’t get me wrong, I like wine as much as the next person, but there’s one thing you don’t want to be in a fight and that’s drunk. Take it from me.’
Mithrid grumbled, but she put down the flagon for now.
The announcer howled again. It was curious to hear his voice starting to deteriorate with every set of names.
‘Presenting Lord Okram Marko of Bolsh and the Broken Promise, Warbringer of Efjal!’
Farden shook his head at the attempt. ‘This should be interesting.’
The man with the spiked fists emerged from his cell and stood close to the wall. Warbringer strode from hers to a strange mix of cheers and boos from those complaining about odds. She made a beeline for Okram, who spent his last moments yelling up at the queen and clasping his hands as if pleading. When he realised he had no choice but to fight, he started backing around the wall of the Viscera, fists raised as the minotaur chased him. The closer she came, the more Okram panicked, finally freezing up just enough to scream as Voidaran pasted him across the wall. The hammer hung from the masonry, stuck deep in the stone.
‘I am Katiheridrade, the Broken Promise!’ her voice boomed. ‘The Warbringer! And I will send you all to the Bright Fields!’
‘Evernia’s balls. They’re not helping themselves, are they?’ Farden hissed.
Durnus’ pale hand alighted on Farden’s, and he couldn’t help shrug away. The mage would later regret the action after seeing the disappointment in the vampyre’s eyes, but the events of the previous night were still clear and uncomfortable memories Farden couldn’t yet forget.
‘Why do I feel I know that man?’ Durnus said quietly, pointing past Farden.
‘Presenting…!’
Farden didn’t listen to the names. His gaze toured the crowd in the direction of the vampyre’s sharp fingernail. The roiling masses of colours and limbs was an unrecognisable sea. Whomever the fighters were in this bout, they were obviously causing a stir. Only one group of people did not stare down into the Viscera’s pit. They stood halfway along the same tier as Irien’s balcony, wearing skull masks and vibrant blue and yellow furs, and they stared right back at Farden. There was a bald and beardless man in their midst, his face wide with a beaming grin.
‘Because you met his son outside the Spoke,’ Farden ground out his words. ‘It’s the High bloody Cathak himself.’
Durnus and Irien shared a glance. ‘They are a common sight in Dathazh and Vensk, Farden,’ she said.
Farden was already edging towards them. The pebbles were falling into place. ‘And are they rich enough to buy two places in the Tourney?’
Irien’s eyes were widening. ‘Without a doubt. You wouldn’t think it from their furs—’
‘It’s them.’
Mithrid pushed forwards after him. ‘What?’
‘I’ll bet my fucking armour the High Cathak is the one behind the kidnap. The one behind these bruises.’
As if High Cathak Tartavor could hear him, Farden watched the fiend briefly don a mask of dark green wood, trimmed in a black hood. His grin was even wider when he removed it.
‘Right you are,’ Mithrid growled.
Farden barely beat her to the edge of the exit.
‘Wait, Farden!’ Irien snapped.
Farden and Mithrid pushed their way through the crowds to the music of curses and angry shouts from those they barged aside. The High Cathak made no attempt to escape. He waited with his cronies with arms open and that infernal smile on his face. It was a mask in itself: no humour was in it but for the dark enjoyment of watching the mage suffering. Anger and pain glistened in his eyes.
‘A fine day for a Tourney, is it not, stranger?’ he crowed to them when they were close enough to hear above the roar. The staccato meeting of blades below mimicked Farden’s marching strides.
‘You!’ Farden yelled. ‘You’re the one behind this!’
‘I am almost disappointed it took you this long to realise that,’ the High Cathak responded. To the mage’s surprise, the man walked out to meet them. Still with his cronies at his back, but he showed no fear. ‘How intriguing to see you without your gold armour this time.’
Farden already had his knife in his hand, held low. He grabbed the Cathak by the collar of his furs. The other Cathak tried to seize him, but Tartavor held them back, much to Farden’s surprise.
‘I told you the Dusk God demanded a toll for your disrespect and trespass. And now you insult me further by taking my son from me. Payment is due, Farden of Emaneska. Yes, I know your name, and the names of your friends. You will watch them die one by one around you until you beg me for my forgiveness, and the mercy of the Dusk God.’
‘I’ll gut you right here and save myself the trouble,’ Farden spat. The knife crept from his side to the man’s chest, but it only reached halfway.
‘Farden,’ whispered Mithrid. The girl was close by, her armoured arm as solid as a wall behind him. Farden looked at her, realising he had drawn attention from the surrounding crowds. A number of the queen’s soldiers had seen the fight brewing and were muscling their way down steps towards them.
Tartavor laughed. ‘You cannot spill blood in the Viscera unless you are a fighter, Farden of Emaneska. You are no fighter. You are a coward and a cheat. A murderer.’
‘He’s right, Farden,’ hissed Irien, now caught up behind them. She was carefully watching the queen, who once again was peering at them from her tower. ‘This will not help the others.’
Farden hated every staring eye and muttering face. His knuckles had gone white with the restraint of keeping the knife out of Tartavor’s belly.
‘It would, however, entertain me greatly,’ Farden hissed, almost nose to nose with the High Cathak.
‘Break it up lest you want to lose a night in the gaols!’ the soldiers were shouting.
/> Tartavor folded back into his Cathak. ‘The Dusk God will be watching, Farden of Emaneska.’
Farden shrugged off Irien’s hand as he barged back through the crowds. ‘Foreigners,’ somebody tutted at him. They were incredibly lucky he did not have his magick. His restraint was more than questionable at the moment.
As was Mithrid’s, or so it seemed. Her face was as fiery as her hair, her axe has halfway from her belt. And yet, when they returned to Irien’s balcony, it was Farden she seemed to blame.
‘All of this because you had to kill his son,’ she muttered. ‘They’re in there because of us. Because of you.’
‘Aspala and Warbringer are in there because of him.’ Farden pointed back at Tartavor. ‘He chose to do this, because we trespassed in his woods and gave his son what was coming to him.’
Durnus held up a finger as he interjected. ‘And for the dead man landing in the middle of his camp.’
Farden tutted. ‘That was the dragon’s fault.’ He turned to Irien. She was already staring at him with her strange eyes.
‘The High Cathak is smart as well as persistent. He can taunt you all he pleases here because of the rules of the Tourney. They are as unflinching as Queen Peskora herself. The last fool to break them interrupted a final bout by running through the Viscera stark naked. When it was announced he had escaped, Peskora promised to pursue the man to the ends of the earth until he was caught. Three days later, he was, and hung from his balls, naked.’
The words Farden had been waiting to spit out faded. Forgotten. ‘What did you just say?’
‘From his balls—’
‘No the other part.’
‘That she would pursue him to the ends of the earth.’
The mage paced back and forth, as if mashing the grapes of his idea. ‘You said the Head of Sigrimur stays on that tower for the duration of the Tourney, Irien?’ he asked, clasping her hand.
