by J. P. Ashman
‘Just a bit for now, Master Sader. Just a bit.’
The taste was incredible. How he’d taken such a necessity as water for granted all these years. And real water too, not small-beer or watered wine. Clean, drinkable water like that found in the upper districts of Wesson. Tastes like home, Souch thought as it cooled his throat, despite failing to clear the mucus. Tastes like… Tyndurris.
‘Lush, eh? Lush water is that. Not tasted the likes for a long while.’ Legg grinned some more and moved the skin away, taking a swig for himself. Letting the skin drop to his side on its cord, Legg prodded the adlet beside him in the ribs. ‘Off we pop, dog. We’ve yer warlord to hear from.’
The ‘dog’ growled. Legg grinned. Souch grimaced and the adlet set off at speed to make up the ground it’d lost.
‘Won’t be long now and we’ll have ye across the River Minor and to me people,’ Legg said effortlessly, whilst running alongside. ‘Ye can answer for yer crime then.’
Gods above, Souch thought, moving his jaw around and listening to the crunching below his ears. He’s come all this way, risked everything, to take me back for more of the same. Souch didn’t respond, apart from the involuntary grunt and groan as the adlet jumped over another rock.
‘Nope,’ Legg said, from the side, ‘won’t be long now.’
Safely on the Altolnan side of the River Minor, Cheung knelt on the hard-packed earth the caravan circled. He closed his eyes, relying on his other senses. He took in the wood-smoke, earth, dung, blood, sweat and fear, as groans and shouts of men and women and animals in pain created a symphony of agony all about him. He blocked the sounds out as a voice he now knew well came from close by.
‘No sign of him,’ Jevratt said.
‘He’s a dead man,’ another said, before grunting.
‘Ye watch it or I’ll hit ye full on next time, eh?’
‘Sorry, Jevratt, but come on will ye. He ran off into adlets galore for a feckin’ murdering magic man, and for what?’
Another grunt and a curse.
‘He’s me cousin, I don’t care for what. But ye know, I’m for sure it were to save us, ye prick.’
A wailing of sobs and denial filled the camp.
‘There’s another fecker dead,’ Jevratt said. He was approaching Cheung now.
‘Priest,’ he said, reaching the assassin’s side. ‘Ye meditatin’ or what? We need ye for healing, not praying.’
Cheung rose in one fluid motion, hooded eyes opening before Jevratt. He bowed his head.
‘There’s people smashed and fucked all over the camp, I need ye to get on it. Can ye do that?’
‘Yes, of course.’ As Cheung turned to head towards the loudest groans, an eruption of anger drew his attention to a nearby vardo, its leather clad sides scarred and stuck with arrows.
‘Ye’re a feckin’ coward, not a knight!’
A dog barked, following the commotion. Several more dogs joined in across the camp.
Cheung watched the young girl stepping down from the vardo, linen sheet pulled about her.
‘If ye’re too beaten to fight the bitches killin’ me folk, ye’re too beaten fer a poke!’
Despite his spatial awareness, Cheung was nearly knocked aside as Jevratt stormed past, another bare-chested lad with muck and blood across half his body in tow.
‘What’s the craic?’ Jevratt said, voice loud enough to hear across half the camp. The dogs stopped barking and people raised heads from tending their wounded kin, their fires and their animals, and weren’t disappointed when the girl turned on Jevratt and flicked him two fingers.
‘Mind yer own,’ she said, before being dragged away from the vardo’s steps. She didn’t need asking again after the slap she received.
Glaring defiantly at Jevratt, the girl spat before answering. ‘Me husband to be couldn’t defend the caravan.’ She laughed. ‘Wouldn’t though, that’s the right of it. Soft twat wouldn’t! Not couldn’t. I know that now. He wouldn’t stick his iron length in a dog bastard, but he’ll try and stick his own prick in me.’ Her fists were bunched, one to hold her coverings, the other out in front of her. ‘I’m not marrying a little bitch like that, Jevratt. I’m not!’
Jevratt shoved her aside and hammered his blood-blackened fist on the side of the vardo. If Cheung didn’t know any better, he’d have said the vardo was made of paper the way it moved.
‘Ye get out here, Xand!’ Jevratt shouted. He held a finger up at his sister-in-law before she could add anything.
‘He’s a coward!’ the lad accompanying Jevratt said.
‘Shut it.’ Jevratt hammered again on the leather clad wooden cab.
The lad swallowed hard, but managed to puff his chest out behind Jevratt’s back.
A crowd was gathering now, chores forgotten. The smell of a fight will do that to people.
‘He’s hiding,’ a woman alongside Cheung said, to another. The assassin moved forward with the others now, unable to take himself away from what was to come.
‘If he were a real knight, he’d be back out and fightin’, wounds or no,’ Collett said.
Cheung smiled beneath his hood, unsurprised the Caravan Mistress had been drawn to the commotion. It surprised him less when she started taking bets on the fight to come.
‘I said come out!’ Jevratt hammered some more on the vardo and several men began dragging their feet in the customary circle, clearing folk out of the way as they did so.
Cheung noticed Altolnan men-at-arms wandering into the camp. The Caravaneers didn’t bat an eyelid as the men in the Marquess of Suttel’s colours rested on their polearms to watch the show. It wasn’t long until Collett was taking their bets too.
Heads turned and a cheer rose as the vardo door filled with the man in question. The following voices carried nought but anger at the maille and partial plate about his body, and the sword in his hand.
As well as Sir Xand’s armour, he wore a sneer on his face, directed at his wife-to-be, then at the man calling him out.
Cheung didn’t miss Jevratt’s smirk. Slapping his hands on his forearms, Jevratt rolled head and feet, loosening his joints.
‘No ring,’ he shouted, backing away from Xand, who jabbed his sword at the nearing girl he’d been set to wed. She dodged away as the crowd shouted, and parried his half-hearted stab with inventive insults.
Stretching his arms behind him, Jevratt turned his back on the knight approaching him and winked to the crowd; the cheers renewed, as did the bets.
Cheung noticed Xand’s eyes hover on the men-at-arms a while longer than anyone else.
He thinks he has a chance. He thinks, here, more than on the road, he can walk away should he win. Cheung shook his head a little. I think you’ve gravely mistaken your worth to these soldiers of Suttel, Sir Xand. They’re here to guard a border crossing, not an unknown knight.
With the lead caravan guard’s back to him, Sir Xand rushed forward.
Even if the rustling iron links weren’t blocked by the sounds of the crowd, Jevratt wouldn’t have needed to hear them to know of the man’s approach. The dozens of eyes looking his way told him all he needed to know.
Leaving it until Xand’s maille shushing and plate scraping was audible, Jevratt moved enough to the side to see the tip of the knight’s sword pass his midriff, dangerously close.
Cheung expected Jevratt to move away from the attack. A smile played across his lips when Jevratt did the opposite, taking hold of the blade as it came by, moving with Xand’s lunge and planting his opposite elbow into the face of the man behind it.
Cartilage crunched and Xand’s head rocked back. Before he could recover, Jevratt released the blade, turned and crunched bone-bare knuckles into the side of the knight’s head.
Sir Xand’s lifeless body fell to the ground, his maille tinkling for half a heartbeat, like the pouring of a banker’s coins.
The near silence lasted mere moments before men and women danced about, laughed and cheered. Men-at-arms stomped away poorer than when they’d
arrived and a pretty girl in nothing but a linen sheet crossed to, spat on, and then proceeded to strip all value from her previously promised husband.
As the crowd departed, back to the wounded, fires and animals that needed them, Cheung crossed to the half-naked corpse of Sir Xand. He crouched and took in the razor-cut below the man’s ear. Drawing a deep breath and releasing it slowly, Cheung spared a thought for the sorcerer left tethered at Grounding, for a crime he didn’t commit.
Three men came to knock Sir Xand’s white teeth out and Cheung watched on, unsurprised.
There will be a few that will need those teeth, after the running battle these people have been through, he thought, before turning away to the nearest moans and groans of the broken Caravaneers.
Chapter 12 – Impossible escapism
Darkness punctuated by camp fires gave way to darkness punctuated by braziers and torches. There was little in the way of total darkness in-between, but what little there was, Cheung found it. He was thankful for the cloud-filled sky and the black blades of his kamas, which he held lightly in his gloved hands. He longed to feel the bone against the skin of his palms, but couldn’t risk his pale skin being seen as he moved through a series of stretches and manoeuvres with the familiar weapons.
His hood remained up, hiding his face from eyes that may be looking, although he was quite sure the men-at-arms of Stonebridge were looking across the river, not to the camp of Caravaneers that regularly crossed borders throughout Brisance.
An owl made itself known, its call coming from somewhere on the edge of the camp to Cheung’s left. He wondered whether it was the large bird he’d seen at Grounding and he stopped moving, breath held.
If it is, he thought, can it pass on what it sees? He risked a glance left and cursed his stupidity. Why do I soften so, my awareness and my mind? Is it the travel, the company… both? Cheung dropped softly to his knees and slid forward onto his stomach, stretching out into a star. He pressed the side of his head to the ground and blocked out all sound of the camp and the keep, of the people and the dogs, the rushing water and the owl; listening to nothing but his breathing.
I have spent so long alone, as is my way. Is it my immersion in the day to day lives surrounding me that distracts and draws me from my… myself? Cheung was finding it harder to escape from the world, from thoughts. He used to sit for hours, staring at the unfurling of a flower or the shifting shadows cast by a horizon-approaching sun. He used to go days without talking to another soul. Even contact with his guild was rare, apart from the receipt of marks via his head. He didn’t even know how they did that, whether it was a constant connection or a temporary one. His breathing faltered. Can they hear me now, the masters? He swallowed and licked dry lips. I don’t even know how you do it, he thought, directing it towards the masters that could very well be listening. An ancient magic, I know that much, but nothing more. I don’t remember the connection’s first touch… I don’t remember my first mark; there’s been so many within Eatri. I think this is the first beyond our borders, but I’m no longer sure even of that. Cheung rolled onto his back and looked up into a sky that held nothing but the faintest reflection of the fires below.
He controlled his breathing once more and lifted his kamas over and across, then back again. He repeated the movement several times, focusing on the nothingness of his blades as they passed one another. My only thought other than the mission was my plants. Breathing gave way to a grunted laugh. I worried… No. I knew, that they would perish without me. That I would have to start afresh upon my return. Passing the kamas across once more, Cheung surrendered himself to the reality of what he had been tasked to do. I’m not going back. He brought his weapons down and rested them on his chest, close to his heart, which beat quicker than before. They don’t mean for me to come back, he thought, the unseen masters nothing but shadows in his memory.
Cheung never thought about much past his training and his surrounds. Nothing much past his masters and their will, whichever one contacted him on any given request. The marks had come and gone, his training too. His memories stretched back to nothingness. He had no recollection of childhood. Cheung had no recollection of anything beyond training and killing. His life had been for the moment, whether honing his skills, meditating, watching his plants grow or eliminating marks for his masters. And now… now for the Black Guild of Altoln?
He frowned and rolled onto his side, facing the camp. He raised his legs together, holding them there until they began to shake, his stomach pained, before lowering them to the ground again.
Is it that which has pulled at me, which has brought me from the present, to think more to the future? Or is it Jevratt and my other friends…?
Cheung rolled and sat up. He feared the word, the thought. He feared it when he lied about it, when he acted it, and he feared it all the more when he believed it, as he just had.
He shook his hooded head and let the light of the distant camp fires dance before his unblinking eyes.
‘They’re not my friends,’ he whispered, ‘and I’m not theirs. I act it. That is my part in this. To act it until I leave. To act it to avoid suspicion.’ I’m not even sure I know what it truly is.
An owl called again – a shriek of a noise.
Taking a deep breath, Cheung stood effortlessly and continued stretching. And there I go again, thinking, wondering. He moved quickly, cutting left, right, turning and slicing the air with blades as black as a dilated pupil, darker still.
The owl again, from above this time, leaving the camp and heading out over the grey stone of the fortified bridge.
Perhaps these Caravaneers poison me through their food. He crouched, bringing the points of the kamas back past his legs, skimming the ground. Springing up, he tensed his abdominal muscles and curled, flipping back, feet sailing overhead before hitting the grass, knees bending to take him back to a crouch. Or is it them, their personalities? Their humour and their caring, despite their daily aggression and violence towards one another.
Cheung sighed. They’re more than that. They’re more than fighters and…
The owl flew back from Stonebridge, silent if not for its shrieking call.
A shout went up in camp. Cheung looked from the camp fires to the sky, where he heard the owl call again. His head rocked back, hood falling as he followed the growing light on the underbelly of the clouds. Turning to look at Stonebridge, he saw the source of the sky’s orange hue.
Stonebridge’s keep was alight, its wooden roof blazing as a ball of pitch streaked through the air from the far side of the River Minor to slam with a flash into a wooden structure below the burning keep.
Horses screamed.
Stables…
The sound was horrific, but no other sounds came from the keep and its outbuildings. No cries of alarm, no bells, no horns, no shouting men. When Cheung saw what was coming from those walls, he pulled his hood up, shoved his kamas into his satchel and ran for the rousing camp.
Hooves pounded the ground behind as he ran. Horns followed that sound, coming from the now bustling camp ahead.
‘Who’s that?’ a lad shouted from the wooden crenellations of the nearest vardo’s roof.
‘Priest!’ Cheung shouted back. ‘I’m the priest of tears.’
The hooves were closing.
‘Hurry!’ the lad shouted. ‘There’s a feckin’ golden horse behind ye!’
No shit, Cheung thought, surprising himself. He slid under the vardo as the rider reached it, and heard the man’s voice call out behind him.
‘To arms! To arms!’ the rider cried. ‘The adlets have infiltrated Stonebridge and opened its gates. They’re crossing the river!’
As Cheung looked back out from beneath the vardo, he saw the rider moving off on the rare palomino, calling the warning to all who’d listen. And before Cheung could react, he saw the truth of the man’s warning.
A line of torch carrying adlets crossed the dark expanse at speed, with a fast-moving man with an awkward gait ahead of t
hem. Cheung strained to see what the man was carrying, for there was a bundle of something heavy on his back.
Cursing, Cheung pulled himself from under the vardo and climbed to the top.
‘Jevratt!’ he shouted. ‘It’s Legg! They’re chasing Legg!’
Chapter 13 – Warning
Vardos were pulled into hasty circular forts, dotted across the chaotic Caravaneer’s camp outside the flame ridden keep and outbuildings of Stonebridge. Those who failed to circle their wheeled homes lay dead or dying on the ground, their belongings scattered about them as adlets scavenged.
The Caravaneers who defended their makeshift forts were tiring. They’d received no help from Stonebridge. It had been taken from within, so the palomino rider said, before taking refuge in the same vardo-fort as Cheung.
Legg laid Souch Sader down as the vehicles were maneuvered, the sorcerer’s legs a mess of swollen, lacerated flesh and dried blood.
Jevratt and Belcher appeared from the darkness, shoving Legg about with a mix of scorn for his stupidity and joy for his return. The lad seemed quite well, mere cuts and bruises, considering his dangerous rescue of the sorcerer. There was no time for explanations, with the adlets so close.
All three climbed atop an armoured vardo, after Jevratt ordered Cheung inside, ordering him to stay safe whilst attempting to revive the unconscious sorcerer.
‘Ye can’t do no good, me friend, not out here,’ Jevratt said to Cheung. ‘Try and rouse him, try and have him help us.’ The assassin’s chest tightened, hands itching to hold the bone handles of his kamas and stand alongside Jevratt and his kin. Rough hands shoved him in the end, into the vardo, but not before Cheung saw the palomino rider disappear into the darkness on his golden mount. There was something about him. Something… familiar? Cheung didn’t know. Had no time to ponder.
Howls, shouts, screams and the clash of metal went on for some time. Arrows thumped against the side of the thick-walled vardo and Cheung unwound the wire from Souch’s legs, whilst glancing at the door repeatedly.
