Justice

by Ian Irvine

  Libbens slammed the steel gauntlet into the side of Rix’s head, breaking the skin in three places and leaving knuckle marks on his cheek.

  “You wore the cursed sword,” said Libbens. “You carried it to the edge of the Abysm, where you attempted to raise Grandys from the dead. You would have succeeded had your friends not stopped you.”

  “But you kept on,” said Krebb. “You worked a sorcerous painting of your master, Grandys, on the wall of your great-aunt’s observatory at Fortress Garramide. The place where the foul sword had lain hidden for nearly two thousand years.”

  “The very fortress Grandys built for his only child,” said Grasbee. “The daughter you’re directly descended from, you stinking Herovian bastard.”

  “Not Herovian,” Rix slurred. “Grandys—impotent. Daughter—adopted.”

  “Liar!” Grasbee struck him again, and again.

  “You swore to Grandys publicly,” said Libbens. “You served him and slaughtered our people for him.”

  Glynnie could not bear to witness any more. She pulled her head out, checked on the guards again and crept to the edge of the lighted area. There was still no sign of Holm or Jackery. What if he had decided it was too risky?

  She was afraid to leave the area in case they killed Rix. She scanned the darkness. The camp was silent save for the sounds of repeated blows and an occasional groan from Rix. No, she caught a movement in the dark, down to her left. She slipped across. It was Holm, carrying a canvas bag, and with half a dozen troops close by. Jackery was behind him with another four men.

  “Is that all?” Glynnie whispered.

  “It’s all we could get in haste.” Holm checked the layout of the guards. Jackery disappeared in the darkness to her left.

  “But Libbens, Grasbee and Krebb were all sacked,” said Glynnie. “Rix is the rightful commander and they’re rebelling on the battlefield. That’s about the worst crime there is. The whole army should be up in arms about it.”

  “Libbens has spread a cunning lie—that Rix gained command by sorcery and murder. So if his command is illegitimate, leadership automatically reverts to the former generals. They’ve also spread another lie that he’s still Grandys’ man—that Rix is planning on leading our army into Grandys’ trap so he can butcher every one of them.”

  Glynnie’s fury rose until it was choking her. “The stinking, lousy mongrels. But who would believe that?”

  “The men in the ranks have been fed a diet of propaganda for months, and they all know House Ricinus’s foul reputation. Why wouldn’t they tar Rix with the same brush? Enough talk.” Jackery returned. “Jackery, you know what to do?”

  “Burst in through the door and get Rix out,” said Jackery.

  “There’s eight armed men inside,” said Glynnie. “The moment you go through the entrance, they’ll kill Rix.”

  “I picked up some unused Cythonian weapons from the battlefield,” said Holm, hefting the bag.

  “But they’ll kill Rix—”

  “They’re not killing weapons; they just disable.” He pulled a small helm out of his bag. It was an arrangement of overlapping strips of metal, with small pink crystals embedded at the intersections. He put it on Glynnie’s head and buckled the chin strap. “This’ll protect you from the worst of the effects… I hope.”

  “All right,” she said as steadily as she could. “What’s the plan?”

  “First we have to take down the four outside guards, then I chuck these in—”

  “How do we take down the guards?” said Glynnie.

  “You and I have to kill the two sentries at the rear. The moment we do, we signal Jackery. He and his men will attack from the front, cut the guards down and storm the entrance. We’ll cut our way in from the back.”

  “We have to kill the sentries?”

  “Yes.”

  Glynnie studied her knife. “I can’t fight a guard who’s armed with a sword.”

  “We’re not fighting—just killing.”

  “Killing!” she squeaked.

  “Shh! The best way,” said Holm with a grimace, for she knew how he hated violence, “at least the quietest way is to cut their throats from behind. But you’re not tall enough to be sure of cutting a guard’s throat, so you’ll have to stab your man in the back.”

  Holm turned away and began whispering to Jackery, who gave his men quiet orders. They began taking small round objects out of the canvas bag.

  “Go!” Holm said, pushing Glynnie away.

  She crept through the dark towards the corner of the tent where she had been before, shuddering. How could she do it?

  She had killed once before, several months ago. It had been in a desperate fight with Blathy, the terrible wife of the dead bandit Arkyz Leatherhead, during the mutiny at Garramide. But that had been self-defence. Blathy had been out to kill Glynnie and Rix, and she had partly caused her own death by running onto Rix’s sword when Glynnie thrust it out.

  Stabbing a man in the back was entirely different; it was a black act. No, it was murder, and a foul kind of murder at that. Could she do it? It was either the sentry’s life or Rix’s, and he was her man. He was also the only man with a hope of saving everyone from Axil Grandys.

  She located her target—the man she had to murder. He was pacing in the shadows a few yards from the back corner of the tent. She could not see Holm’s guard; he must be around the next corner.

  Glynnie held out the knife in front of her. She had sharpened it this morning and could have shaved the skin off a ripe tomato with it. But could she murder a man she had never met?

  In the long siege of Garramide she had tended dozens of injured and dying men and women. She knew how little effort it took to kill another human being, and precisely where to strike, but it wasn’t easy thinking about thrusting the point in through the guard’s back, between the ribs and into his heart. Killing was wrong, except in self-defence. And no matter how she tried to rationalise it, she could not convince herself that stabbing a man in the back to save Rix was self-defence.

  She looked across and Holm was waving urgently at her, gesturing downwards with his thumb. He must have killed his guard; now everything waited on her. Including Rix’s life.

  It had to be done. She kept her position until the guard turned, then slipped in behind him and came up close.

  Now, do it now!

  Glynnie hesitated, then imagined Rix’s bloody, battered face and the executioner waiting inside. She must not hesitate.

  She took a quick step forward, selected her target and thrust hard. The knife struck a rib, glancingly. The guard jerked; she put her weight behind the knife and it went in all the way.

  It must have gone straight through his heart because he made a small gurgling sound and toppled forward. The knife she was still holding slid out as he fell on his face.

  He was dead. How could taking a man’s life be that easy, that quick? That irreversible?

  That’s it, Glynnie thought. I’m a killer now.

  CHAPTER 21

  Glynnie did not see Holm signal to Jackery, nor Jackery wave back. She was standing as if paralysed, the bloody knife blade dripping on her boot, when there came a hollow thud from inside, followed by a hissing. The canvas walls bulged out like a blown-up balloon and she made out an angry cry, followed by Libbens’ voice.

  “Kill the bastard! Take his head clean from his shoulders!”

  “I’m not the same as you,” she said aloud. “I’m not!”

  Something else went off with a bang inside the tent and pain speared through her head. She lost sight for a few seconds, swayed and thought she was going to fall, but the sick dizziness passed. There was still no sign of Holm—he must be in there, waiting for her.

  Glynnie carved a curving slash down the wall of the tent and squeezed in. The air was full of a peculiar magenta fog, billowing from a stubby red canister on the floor—some kind of Cythonian grenado, she thought, though the fog was not dispersing. It hung in banners and tendrils that did not want to m
ix with the air.

  A second, round yellow grenado on a table was gushing thick white smoke that must have been heavier than air, for it grew ever thicker below hip level and obscured the floor completely. Two of the guards had fallen and were only outlines through the smoke. A third was slumped across a second table, twitching, and the white-eyed Krebb was on his knees. She could not see the fourth guard; the other end of the tent was too thick with red mist and white smoke.

  Rix was still bound to the tent pole, his face and chest covered in blood. He was slumped forward as if unconscious, his weight bowing the pole. The executioner was staggering towards him, or trying to, though he kept swinging around to the left as if that leg wasn’t working properly. His foot caught on something on the floor—the other guard, Glynnie hoped—and he crashed down and began coughing and choking.

  But Grasbee and Libbens were still on their feet. Libbens had tied a cloth around his nose and mouth and was making his way towards Rix from the left. Grasbee was lurching in from the right. They were planning to kill him now.

  Where were Jackery and his men? She heard fighting from outside the front of the tent. Libbens’ guards must be putting up unexpected resistance, and maybe some of the troops had come to their aid. Holm was supposed to cut his way into the tent from the far side but she couldn’t see him either. Had he been caught? Or killed as easily as she had killed her guard?

  Rix’s life depended on her now—her alone.

  A loop of the magenta fog, hanging in the middle air, drifted into her face and the insides of her nose and mouth began to sting, then burn. Her eyes flooded until she could barely see. She rubbed them but it only made the burning sensation worse, and now it was stinging its way down the back of her throat. She could feel her air passages swelling; each breath was harder to take than the previous one.

  She had to be quick. Glynnie wiped her eyes on her sleeve and this time it helped. She checked on Libbens and Grasbee. Libbens was the ringleader, the man she ought to bring down first, but he was a huge fellow and he wore a mailed vest with a high collar, so she could neither stab him in the back nor cut his throat. But she couldn’t take him on face to face when his sword was four times the length of her knife.

  Her foot came down on something that rolled beneath her, turning her ankle. She slipped to one knee and the object came into focus through the smoke—the standard pole Grasbee had thumped Rix with earlier. Libbens had gloated about mounting Rix’s head on it after the trial. She picked it up. It was heavy but unwieldy.

  Grasbee was closer to her now. Glynnie stumbled after him. She wasn’t game to throw the standard like a javelin. If she missed, it would be the end of Rix, and her as well. His broad knees made an inviting target, though. She speared the pointy end of the standard at the back of his right knee with all her strength. He screamed, his knee collapsed, he went down with a crash and she thumped him over the head.

  He stayed down.

  Libbens swung around, coughing, trying to see through the ever-thickening smoke. He tore off the sodden cloth that had been covering his nose and mouth and wiped his eyes with it. His meaty face was scarlet, tears were flooding from his eyes and both nostrils were running. Glynnie did not feel as bad as he looked—the helm Holm had given her must be doing some good.

  He turned towards Rix, swaying from side to side; his sword was dangling from his right hand as if he barely knew it was there, and his body had a peculiar, twitching shudder—whatever the magenta fog was, he was badly affected by it. He looked back, saw Glynnie and she could see the cogs struggling to turn in his brain. What should he do first? Kill Rix and erase the humiliation of his own sacking, or defend himself against her?

  He came at her, swinging the long blade with wobbly but deadly menace. Glynnie let out a squawk, thrust the standard at him and buried it an inch deep in his right thigh. He hacked at the shaft with his sword; Glynnie jerked the standard out and speared it at him again.

  He duelled with it a couple of times, easily turning it aside, then caught it with his free hand and wrenched it from her grasp. He was immensely strong; bull-like. He tossed it aside and lurched towards her. Blood was running down his thigh, though the wound did not hinder him appreciably.

  She could still hear fighting from outside, which meant that she could not rely on Jackery’s aid. “Holm!” she screamed.

  He did not answer.

  She backpedalled, trod on Grasbee’s face, overbalanced and crashed backwards into a long trestle table. Glynnie scuttled under it as Libbens swung the sword in a frenzy, left, right, left, his uncontrolled blows carving chunks out of the table top. She tried to shove the table at him but could not budge it.

  As she was coming out the other side, she ran head-first into Krebb, who was also on hands and knees, coughing as if to bring up his lungs. He looked up at her blindly, his face covered in tears and his nose and mouth with mucus. Glynnie supposed she must look much the same.

  He groped at her face; he couldn’t see well enough to recognise her. Libbens came around the other side, still swinging the sword. He raised it above his head and hacked down at her, a mighty blow. She scurried back under the table as Krebb lurched forward and the blade caught him in the back of the neck. He sighed and settled on the ground, his left foot kicking.

  Libbens stood looking down at the corpse of his friend, blinking and rubbing the flooding tears out of his eyes.

  “Krebb?” he said incredulously. “Krebb?”

  Glynnie reached the other end of the table but did not stand up. The white smoke was much thicker at floor level but at least Libbens could not see her. She crawled to Rix, drew her knife and was about to cut his bonds when she saw the executioner, not two yards away. How had she forgotten him?

  He was bent over a canvas chair, hanging on to the frame with both hands while he threw up bloody, stringy mucus. He wiped his mouth, saw her, gave a wolfish grin and picked up his axe, which had a blade ten inches across. Heaving it up in one great knotted fist, he swung, not at her, but at Rix.

  There wasn’t time to think. She hurled her knife. He instinctively swayed backwards, losing hold of the axe, and her knife, which she had aimed at his chest, buried itself to the hilt in his left eye socket.

  Glynnie couldn’t bear to retrieve it, or to go near him. She grabbed the axe, ran around the tent pole and, carefully wielding the ten-inch blade, cut Rix’s leg bonds, then the ropes on his wrists. He fell on his face.

  She looked around, struggling to make anything out in the clouds of smoke. A bulky shadow moved a few yards away and she recognised Libbens by the curve of his mailed vest. He was leaning forward, propping himself up with the sword. His whole face was wet and every breath blew slimy bubbles out each nostril.

  Glynnie stood over Rix, raised the executioner’s axe and caught Libbens’ eye.

  “Try it,” she gasped, for the magenta fog was burning her lungs now, “and I’ll bury this axe in your head, all the way down to your kidneys.”

  Brave words—the axe was so heavy that it was taking all her remaining strength to hold it steady.

  “You’re just a maidservant,” he sneered.

  Her arms were aching. She could not hold it up much longer.

  “The same maidservant who knocked Axil Grandys down and broke his nose,” said Glynnie. “Come on—try me.”

  Libbens stared at her for a full minute, then evidently decided that it was too risky to take her on in his current state. He sheathed the sword, took the unconscious Grasbee under the arms and dragged him away. One step. Two steps and they disappeared in the fog.

  Glynnie could not see the entrance and didn’t know which way to go. She was trapped in a foggy circle only a few yards across, with no evidence that the world outside existed. But she had to keep going. She had to get Rix out—the downed soldiers could recover at any time.

  She took him under the arms and heaved. He hardly moved; he was twice her weight and it was like trying to drag a carcass of beef. She bent over him and wipe
d his swollen face.

  “Rix?”

  He was alive, but did not answer. She checked and saw no sign of life behind her, though she could only see a few yards. If she turned her back, Libbens or one of the guards could kill her as easily as she had killed the sentry.

  She slapped Rix’s face. “Wake up. I can’t get you out of here by myself.”

  He made a grunting sound. She rolled him onto his belly, then stood over him and heaved under his arms. “Crawl!”

  He pulled himself a few inches. She heaved again, until her backbone felt as though it was cracking.

  “Crawl!”

  He crawled a foot further. A fit of coughing doubled her over. She wiped her streaming eyes, checked behind her and heaved again. Suddenly the skin crawled on the back of her neck. Glynnie whirled, her heart pounding. Was that shadow in the smoke to her left a man? She couldn’t be sure. Libbens could be anywhere; he could be creeping up on her from any direction.

  One of the guards lay two yards away, twitching. She drew the sword from his sheath, held it out before her in both hands and checked again. Nothing. She spied another prone guard, took his weapon and shoved it out under the side of the tent. She went another yard.

  She turned around and could not see Rix. Glynnie ran three steps, stopped and felt along the floor. He was not there. She probed the choking fumes with her foot and kicked the executioner. Judging by the position of the body Rix should be a couple of yards further on. But he wasn’t, nor anywhere nearby. Could Libbens have found him so quickly?

  Her left foot came down on something hard—the mailed gauntlet Rix wore on his dead hand. She picked it up absently and turned around, wondering what to do. There was more shouting from outside the tent, then the sound of people running, and the tent slowly collapsed from the front. She panicked momentarily as it came down on her head—but after all, it was just one layer of cloth, and she still had the guard’s sword. She shoved the point through the canvas, fell forward and she was out in the open, gasping at the fresh, cold air.