by David Wragg
Chel heard the impact on the courtyard below, then nothing more. One hand clutched to his injured side, he made wobbly progress to the rampart’s edge and peered down. A dark shape lay sprawled below, unmoving, small yellow flames flickering at its edges. He shivered, and felt the pain, hot and fresh, as well as a sudden urge to both vomit and piss himself.
Three guardsmen ran into the courtyard, gave the sprawled and burning shape a cursory glance, then ran straight through the gate and out into the night.
He turned to find Mercunin, the cadaverous porter, looming over him, his grease-light back in his hand. The man’s hollow eyes were pools of shadow, even with the light so close.
‘Thank you,’ Chel said, trying to stop his teeth chattering. ‘I … You … Thank you.’
The twin voids gave nothing away. ‘We shall all of us burn,’ the man intoned in his earthen rumble, and Chel thought his rictus mouth twitched upward at the words. Then Mercunin was stalking over the deserted ramparts as the fire-pool guttered and died. He collected his crate and vanished down the steps, clinking. Plenty of oil jugs remained.
Chel risked another look at Heali’s broken form, shivered and winced, then stumbled to the wall. The line of torches was almost at the gate. He could see the glimmer of steel in their dancing light.
Armed men were about to storm the palace, the guards had fled, and still the gate stood open.
***
By the time he’d lurched his way down to the courtyard, he could hear the thud of marching feet on the dusty road outside. The guards and sentries were long gone, and Chel realized he had no idea what, if any, mechanism operated the gate. Throwing his shoulder against the gate’s heavy wood achieved little more than forcing more blood from his abdomen. He didn’t have time to figure it out; the men were moments from the palace. No palace bells rang, no guards had come running. He was on his own.
He risked a quick look through the archway. The armed column made its way up the incline, maybe two dozen figures. They sported pikes and torches, and Chel spotted axes and knives at their belts. Their clothing was dark but motley. His eyes darted to their heads.
Each man sported a shaven head, save for a tuft of hair at its crest. Chel’s eyes widened. The men were confessors.
They halted before the gate, then at a signal each raised something to his face and affixed it. Wooden masks. Chel jerked his head back, breathing hard. The masks were crude, rough-made things, nothing like the fine-wrought snarling mask the little Nort in the lowport had displayed. Confessors were disguising themselves as Norts? Nothing here added up. He had to raise the alarm.
Skirting Heali’s still-smouldering corpse, he drove his aching body toward the palace interior.
***
Chel burst through the open archway and stumbled into the western hall, which had been dressed for the festival. A few people drifted between its elegant columns as Chel looked around, wheezing, singed and bleeding. The smell of smoke carried into here as well: something was burning within the palace, but no one seemed to be doing anything about it.
The handful of nobles who had chosen – or been forced – to stay rather than flee after the Nort attack looked up in shock at Chel’s entrance, as did the skeleton crew of servants, minstrels and feast entertainers who surrounded them. Ignoring their ire, Chel made for the grand duke and the remainder of his family at the high table, where they were surrounded by half a dozen or so of his preening house guard.
‘We’re under attack,’ Chel croaked, his voice scratched and hoarse. ‘Take shelter!’
‘Who in five hells are you?’ boomed the duke. He had remained seated. Beside him sat his strutting son Count Esen, who was staring at Chel with the same expression as he might a coil of catshit, and beside him his hairy cousin, Morara.
Chel tried to bow, wincing at the pain in his side. ‘Vedren Chel of Barva, sworn to Prince Tarfel, your grace.’
All heads turned to the far end of the table, where Prince Tarfel, scrubbed pink and draped in lace, was seated, flinching at the sound of his name. He looked up at Chel, his expression shifting from surprised confusion to embarrassment.
‘Well, Merimonsun?’ bellowed the duke. ‘Is this one of yours?’
The little prince flushed from head to foot. ‘Well, as you say, your grace, in fact—’
‘Answer me, boy!’
‘Yes, yes, he’s my sworn man. First sworn. Only, really, I’ve not—’
Chel looked from one to the other, almost bursting with frustration. ‘Please, your grace! We don’t have much time – armed men are entering the palace as we speak.’
Some of the nobles started to rise, panic flushing their plump features.
The duke raised a thick eyebrow and tweaked his pointed beard. ‘Then where are the alarms, Chel of Barva? Where are the palace guard? Where is my commander to tell me of this emergency?’
Chel looked around. The commander of the palace guard was entirely absent. This did not reassure him.
Count Esen leaned forward, handsome features locked in a sneer. ‘Have this dog beaten, Father. He’s clearly drunk, and likely lost a wager to send him here. These provincial irregulars are notorious for it.’
Chel locked eyes with the young count. The noble’s eyes glittered with mocking challenge. Fuck you, Chel thought back. I’m trying to save your life, you abject halfwit.
He said nothing.
‘I can smell burning!’ a noble shouted. She looked young and earnest. ‘And there’s a bell! In the distance!’
Chel looked back to the duke, ignoring his son. ‘Please, your grace. I saw not a guard between here and the city gate – I’ve just run straight in here unchallenged. I can’t tell you where everybody is, only that soldiers are inside the palace right now. We must take refuge!’
The duke looked at him through narrowed eyes, then around the room, gauging the rising panic in the hall. Several of the nobles had begun to chatter among themselves, despite the duke calling for quiet, and members of one family, including the girl who had noticed the smell of smoke, were already making for one of the doors out of the hall.
‘Remain in your seats!’ the duke bellowed. They ignored him, and a moment later had disappeared down one of the narrow hallways that led toward the main wing of the palace. Others were rising, the servants already making for the kitchen exit, the minstrels in hot pursuit. The duke remained seated, glowering at Chel, and growled for his own men to stay put.
Chel looked to the prince, who was likewise unmoved. ‘Please, your highness, we need to—’
Screams silenced the hall. From the first passageway, a bloodied noble came stumbling back into the room, slick hands clutching at a savage rent in his midriff. ‘Norts!’ he shrieked, then collapsed. He did not move again.
At last the duke was on his feet. ‘Bar the doors! Bar every fucking door in this hall!’
***
The duke’s guards moved quickly, rushing to the doorways and slamming them shut, then dragging festival tables in front. Screams and hammering came from beyond more than one. Then they moved to the storm-shutters, hauling closed the wide windows that had offered such a charming view out over lower terraces and the western sea beyond. Few nobles remained in the hall, besides Chel and guards: the duke himself, his son Esen and nephew Morara, and Prince Tarfel. Wherever the others had fled to, Chel hoped they were safe. Somehow, he doubted it.
The duke was breathing hard, his face flushed and gleaming. ‘Norts in the palace. Shepherd’s eye, we’re doomed.’
‘Charge them, Father!’ Count Esen was at his father’s side. An ornate, slim-bladed dagger had appeared in his hand. ‘Drive these dogs back into the sea!’
The duke waved him away. ‘You, prince’s man. How many did you see?’
Chel swallowed. His side was beginning to throb. ‘At least twenty, your grace. But they weren’t coming from the sea, they came up the hill path from the city gates.’ He shot Count Esen a look of challenge. ‘And they’re not Norts at all. They’
re in disguise.’
The duke shook his head. ‘Norts, partisans, it’s piss in a gale. Assassins are in my palace, murdering my guests. We’ll either have to fight our way out, or dig in here until reinforcements arrive.’
The eyes of the hall fell on the wide archway beyond Chel. There was no door, only a long hallway to the eventual doorway between them and the water gardens.
Chel turned to the duke, one hand still clasped to his side. ‘Keep yourself, the prince and your family safe. I’ll do my best to hold them off or draw them away.’
The duke stared at him, thick brows lowered. ‘You’ll need luck indeed to see off a score, Chel of Barva.’ He turned to the prince, who was cowering behind the table. ‘Quite the sworn man you have here, Merimonsun.’
The prince whimpered something. Chel met his helpless gaze, nodded, and set off.
He hurried down the hallway, trying not to limp; already his side felt like it was seizing up. The garden doors were bigger and heavier than he’d realized. His breath coming in serrated gasps, his side burning, Chel drove the one door closed, then the other. From down the hallway came the crash of silverware and the groan of wood on stone as the duke’s guards upended tables to barricade the archway.
Chel slid his edgeless half-sword between the overlarge handles, then, when the sword wobbled and flapped in its setting, he braced his body against the doors and gripped the handles tight. A slim gap remained between the solid wooden panels, and he peered through it, anxious to catch a glimpse of the column’s progress. He had the most narrowly angled of views across the area beyond the doors, a vaguely circular courtyard ringed by colonnaded walkways. He could see the edges of the flickering light of their coming attackers, hear their clanking footsteps on the smooth stone beyond.
Someone screamed. He pressed his eye to the gap, but the doors’ thickness blocked his angle. He saw blurs of dark arrows flash through the sliver of night, before a swirl of what looked like orange briar shot past his narrow viewport. The torchlight jumped and swung, the shadows on the surrounding walls flailing in concert. Further shouts and cries followed, along with the clatter of metal and whump of fearsome impact.
Chel considered opening the doors a crack. He needed reinforcements.
The doors smashed inward, hurling him backward onto the flagstones, jarring his bones and knocking the back of his head against the stone. Reeling and cursing, Chel looked back at the doors. His edgeless sword lay bent on the dark stone. Over it, framed in the doorway by torchlight and the flames that licked from the opposite windows, stood a towering silhouette, its outline blurred as its loose robes swayed around it.
Chel squinted.
His eyes fell on the long staff in the figure’s hand. His eyes widened.
‘The pig-fucker!’
The man before him was tall and broad, his former hunched shuffle discarded. Grey, lank hair hung from his head, his features indistinct in the flickering torchlight. He swung the staff around his body, thumping it into a meaty palm.
‘Come again, little man?’ His voice was deep and clear, its accent mild but vaguely northern.
He scrabbled forward, snatching the half-sword from the floor. ‘You’re the pig-fucking beggar. You have caused me nothing but trouble since you tripped me.’
The beggar shook his head. ‘Get out of my way.’ He started to move forward.
Chel pushed himself to his feet. ‘No.’
The beggar paused. Chel stood half a head shorter than him, holding the bent, blunt blade before him like a religious artefact. ‘What?’
‘I won’t get out of your way.’
The beggar looked past him to the hallway’s end, where oil lamps glimmered behind upturned tables. Irritation darkened his shadowed features. Behind him, the noise was peaking, the sounds of metal on metal and metal on flesh reaching a crescendo. Flames licked higher from the palace buildings.
The long staff swung before Chel was ready, sweeping his legs out from under him. Again he thumped back against the stones, the staff’s other end bouncing savagely from his wounded abdomen. He hissed and spat, curled double on the cold stone floor.
Muttering, the beggar set off past his prone form, tapping the staff as he went.
Chel’s hand gripped the man’s ankle, and he stumbled. He whirled around, grimy robes sending up a cloud of ash, and kicked Chel’s hand away from his foot. Chel felt his fingers bend too much.
‘Just fuck off, will you, boy?’
The beggar made it almost to the barricade when Chel landed on his back, bloodied and screaming, flailing one-handed at the beggar’s head.
‘I won’t let you hurt the prince!’
The pair stumbled forward into the piled furniture, colliding with one end of a badly balanced long table and crashing in a tumble of blood, ash and wood-splinters.
In the shuttered darkness of the hall, Chel staggered to his feet, blood streaming from a new gash in his forehead. He gripped a broken chair leg, ignoring the splinters in his palm, and swung at the beggar’s head as he rose. He missed, thumping the wood against the man’s shoulder and earning an enraged bellow in return.
The beggar scrabbled for his staff but Chel was faster, even with blood in his eyes. He landed one foot on the long wooden pole before the beggar could lift it and took another swing at the man’s reaching form. The beggar swivelled, dodging the blow then driving a fist into Chel’s midriff. A second hit followed, connecting with his slackened jaw and sending him sideways.
Chel pushed himself to his knees as the beggar snatched up his staff. ‘Stay down, boy,’ the man snarled.
Chel lunged forward, planting his shoulder into the man and driving him backward against the polished stone of the wall. The beggar’s surprise was short-lived. Thick arms wrapped around Chel’s neck and shoulders, and a moment later the beggar twisted and Chel found himself slammed into the stonework himself, his cheek grated like cheese. His right arm was jammed back against him, the joint screaming against its limits as he struggled.
‘Nine hells, boy, why won’t you lie down?’ The rough voice in his ear mixed rage with bafflement.
‘I won’t … let you … hurt the prince,’ he managed.
‘God’s dancing balls, boy!’ The arms that pinned him swung him from the wall, out to face the ruin of the feast. ‘I’m no danger to your fucking prince!’
He strained, gasping in the beggar’s relentless hold, before his eyes made sense of the scene before him. The men of the duke’s guard lay face-down at the foot of the steps to the high table, their throats cut, swords still in their scabbards. Grand Duke Reysel himself lay sprawled over the high table, his ample belly slashed and stabbed with dozens of gory wounds. Behind the table, blood-streaked knife in hand, stood Count Esen Basar. He was grinning. Around his neck hung a makeshift Nort mask.
‘We started without you, couldn’t risk …’ The count’s grin froze as he registered the beggar gripping Chel. ‘You’re not one of mine,’ he said, eyes widening. Something was rattling at one of the shutters. ‘Morara! Now! Do it now!’
‘The prince—’ Chel began, when an upturned table clattered sideways across the hall. The count’s hairy cousin Morara kicked another chair aside as he closed on a cringing royal shape in a darkened corner. Chel writhed in the beggar’s grip, struggling to free himself, before kicking at the man’s shin.
The beggar bellowed and snarled. ‘Fuck this!’ He wrenched Chel’s arm around, grinding the bone from its socket, then flung his stricken form against the wall. Chel’s battered forehead clunked against the stone and he slumped sideways, his vision blurring.
From his new vantage point on the hall floor, events took on a certain fuzzy, dreamlike quality. He saw the beggar move away from him with what seemed leisurely ease, although part of his brain was still registering the sickening damage to his shoulder and the latest blow to his head. He watched as the beggar slammed his staff against the closest storm shutter, sending it arcing open to the night beyond. Something flew in fro
m the wide window, a man-shaped darkness, and piled straight into Count Morara. The count went from standing to screaming in a heap of bloody pain as gleaming blades rose and fell in the dancing amber light.
Chel watched this as numbness flooded from his ruined shoulder across his body. He watched Count Esen back away from the beggar, then throw his knife at him. The beggar caught it and threw it back. The flying blade carved the handsome count’s cheek wide open, and screeching, he ran. He fled like a panicked doe, fast and fleet, around the room’s edge, over Chel’s slumped form and out through the collapsed barricade before anyone could grab him.
‘Now that’s a fucking shame,’ Chel tried to say, then the blackness overcame him.
PART II
SIX
Every part of Chel’s body hurt, from the scrapes to his face through to his burning side and battered middle, down to the sour and aching muscles of his legs. His right arm was strapped across his body, bound tight, and its shoulder throbbed with menace. Hot blood pounded against his temples like a three-day hangover. He was very thirsty.
He reeked of smoke, sweat and mule, and vague memories from the previous night floated through his wobbling mind. Flames, mostly, and blood. Firm hands, rough on his battered body, dragging him. Harsh voices and pain. The counts. The grand duke. The prince. Faces and shapes, unfamiliar, large and small. A mule. Bells.
He opened his eyes.
He was in a cramped store-room of sorts, piled with sacks and crates, with odd-pitching wooden walls. The only dim light came from a grille somewhere above, along with muted shouts and the occasional distant bell. The building around them seemed unsteady, as if it were shiftly slightly in a strong breeze. Someone beside him was snoring.
