Strength of Swords (First Cohort Book 2)

by M. R. Anthony

  We located the Blacksmith’s Arms, though we didn’t enter by the front door. The tavern had a yard to the back, surrounded by a tall wooden fence. I glanced around furtively and then clambered over it, feeling it shake as it took my weight. Once over, I unbolted the gate from the other side and we entered the yard as if we owned the place.

  I knocked firmly on the back door and waited. There was no sound to indicate anyone had approached from the other side, but eventually a voice called out, laden with suspicion. “Who’s there?” the voice asked.

  “An old friend,” I said, hoping that my voice wouldn’t carry too far into the street outside the yard.

  There was an immediate rattling sound on the other side of the door and it was whipped open. We entered the room beyond without saying a further word to the man who had opened it for us. He closed the door quickly behind and then turned to face us.

  “Tyrus Charing!” said Tobe Jackdaw with delight. “I never thought to see you again! And who are these scruffy layabouts you’ve brought with you to my humble home?”

  Tobe was a man in his sixties, broad across the shoulders and as strong as an ox. He’d been a blacksmith once, before he’d smashed three of his fingers on his anvil. Although he’d run his tavern for more years than I could remember, he still looked as strong as I imagined he’d been in his youth. I walked up to him and shook his hand.

  “It’s been a long time, Tobe,” I said. “We’ve got business here in Blades. It shouldn’t keep us more than a few days. Do you have somewhere safe we can stay? Out of sight of your other guests?”

  “You never were one to mince your words, or to indulge in small talk, were you?” he asked. As the bar keep for his own tavern, Tobe had a liking of chit-chat, though I’d have trusted him with my life when it came to keeping secrets.

  “Small talk is for small men,” I said with a wink. “We of the First Cohort can’t be seen to waste our time on idle banter.” The men of my squad laughed at this and one at a time, they stepped forward to shake Tobe’s hand.

  “Still getting pissed on your own stock every night?” asked Chant.

  “Oh, I like a tipple,” came the reply. “A man needs to have confidence in the products he sells.”

  “And the more products he sells, the more pissed he can get,” said Waxer. The Blacksmith’s Arms was famed for the number of different ales it sold.

  “It’s one of the perks of the job,” said an unrepentant Tobe. “And my fingers still pain me so.” He flashed us a sight of his half-ruined hand. The last three fingers were twisted and bent, two of them nearly black.

  “They weren’t that bad last time I saw them,” I said.

  “They started going black in the last few months,” Tobe said. “They hurt like fuck as well. Almost as bad as when I hit them with my hammer.”

  In the dim candlelight of the room, I could see that the blackness of the fingers was spreading to the palm as well. Whatever infection was eating at them would likely see him lose more than the fingers in the near future.

  “We’ve got Maims with us. Want him to have a look at them?” I asked.

  “Nah, don’t worry about it,” he said, though I could see that it was for show. “He’ll just tell me they have to come off and likely the rest of the hand with it.”

  “That’s probably what he’ll say,” I said with a certain amount of sadness. “At least you’ll get a clean wound and clean stitching. He won’t charge you a week’s takings for the privilege either.”

  “We’ll see, Tyrus, we’ll see. Anyway, business isn’t good. I sell plenty of ale, but no one wants to rent a room these days. There’re not many visitors to Blades any more. Who’d want to chance it? So you’ll have the run of the upstairs. You know where the stairs are, so get up there and make yourself at home. I see a few soldiers through my doors and I know how rowdy you can be, so don’t cause any trouble. Unless you’re looking to destroy a poor man’s livelihood by wrecking his establishment, that is.”

  “You’ve never been a poor man as long as I’ve known you,” I chuckled. Tobe was good with money and I knew he had a large amount of it stashed away, not that he’d ever been in a great hurry to spend it.

  “I’ve got myself an assistant now, to help out in the bar. Debbie, she’s called. I reckon she’s got her hand in the till, but I’m in no hurry to catch her. She’s got the best tits I’ve ever seen and I’d hate to have to sack her. I’ll tell her to watch things out front, while I come up to talk to you. I bet there’re things you’d like to know.”

  I shook my head at Tobe’s lecherous nature. He’d always had an eye for the ladies, though they’d never had an eye for him. Even as a wealthy man in a city with so many more women than men, he didn’t appear to have had any luck with the opposite sex.

  We found the stairs, which were hidden from the view of the bar. We could hear the subdued chatter going on there, the low murmur of fearful men. The last time I’d visited this place, it had been full every night. I wondered if I’d find a similar lack of custom in every tavern across the city.

  Upstairs, there was a choice of rooms, but we would all stay in the same one – the largest room that Tobe had available. It could have slept ten and had rows of beds, which were clean and with proper mattresses on them. Chant dropped onto one of the beds and instantly screwed his face up.

  “Ah fuck, I don’t think I’m going to be able to get any sleep on here. It’s far too comfortable to be comfortable, if you know what I mean,” he said.

  “Do you do anything apart from moan?” asked Waxer, settling himself down with a happy sigh on another of the beds. It creaked under the combined weight of man and armour.

  “I’ve been known to stick my sword into the occasional gentleman,” said Chant, without rancour.

  As it happened, I knew what Chant was complaining about. We’d spent so long sleeping rough and in uncomfortable places, that it was hard to get settled anywhere else. We spent our fair share of time grumbling about the cold, hard ground, but you got used to it in a way.

  The door to our room was pushed open and Tobe entered. “Hope you don’t mind that I didn’t knock. I’ve got my hands full, see?” he said. Sure enough, he was carrying a cloth bag in one hand and had a small barrel tucked under his other arm.

  “Ale,” Tobe announced, as Weevil assisted by relieving him of the barrel.

  “That’s very kind of you,” said Beamer, walking over with interest. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Bread, cheese, a few bits of meat and some cups. I know you’re soldiers, but I couldn’t have you drinking straight from the spigot. Not in my tavern at least. We’ve got standards here.”

  “What about that rat stew you used to serve?” asked Ploster. “Didn’t you tell your customers it was beef?”

  “Ah, well that’s different. There were shortages back then. And no one complained, did they? They thought they were getting a cheap beef stew and if your eyes tell you that something’s beef, then your tongue believes you. The city lost a few rats and some people got fed cheaply.”

  “That’s a load of shit and you know it,” laughed Ploster. “Anyway, your bread and cheese are appreciated. Come and sit with us and tell us how things fare in Blades. It’s been a while since we were here.”

  Tobe was instantly serious and settled himself on the edge of a bed, while Chant investigated the contents of the cloth bag and distributed the contents amongst us.

  “It’s shit here and it’s not getting any better. I know us old-timers always hanker for days gone by, but Blades is fucked.”

  I had already gathered as much, but was interested in the details. “How so?” I asked.

  “Where to start?” Tobe asked. “Until the Duke banned people from leaving, we had hundreds of folk moving out every week. I have no idea where they hoped to go, but if you were a man or if you had children, you had to do something. Maybe head south to Ranks and then it’s not far to get into Baron Vaks’ lands. Or maybe over the border to Duchess Callia
n’s western towns. From what I hear, things are more settled there.”

  This news was a disappointment to hear. “Is there no talk of rebellion coming from these lands?” I asked. “I had hoped that Warmont wasn’t the only one of the Emperor’s nobles to face hardship.”

  Tobe looked uncertain. “I couldn’t tell you for definite,” he said. “All I know is that people were leaving Blades, looking for somewhere better for themselves and their families. When the Duke caught wind of it, he put paid to it. There were soldiers and justiciars on every road for a time.”

  “There was no sign of them when we arrived,” said Ploster. “We caught a spy, but we haven’t seen soldiers in any numbers.”

  “Aye, that’ll be right,” Tobe said. “I reckon that all the people left are either old folk or soldiers. Them that have children keep their heads down now, caught between a rock and a hard place. If they try and sneak out, they know what’ll happen, so they stay put and hope that no one comes knocking at their door. The Duke’s a crafty old fucker and he’s stopped harvesting so openly from Blades. It’s not good for a soldier’s morale if his children get taken from his house and vanish into the Duke’s keep. We still see the wagons though, coming in from farther afield. Warmont’s not stupid though – the men he’s recruited rarely go back to their home towns. They’re always sent to fight elsewhere. There’re rumours, of course, but never enough to cause a mutiny.”

  “That didn’t work for him in Gold,” I said. “He sent men there who’d lived in the town.”

  “I’m sure he’d have preferred not to. He’s not got unlimited men, though. Have you come from Gold, then? There’ve been a fuckload of men going up that way in the last few months. Far more than normal.”

  “Gold has fallen to the Saviour,” I said. “The town is mostly in ruins now, but she drove the Duke’s men out. They’ll probably start arriving here in the next week or ten days.”

  “This Saviour must be some general if he sent your lot packing, Tyrus.”

  “It’s a she, Tobe. The Saviour is a she. And the First Cohort no longer fights for the Duke,” I told him softly.

  He looked surprised, though he’d likely picked up the clues from our conversation up till that point. “I wondered what all this cloak and dagger shit was about,” he said. “To be honest about it, I’ve never known why you fought for the withered old bastard anyway. You always seemed far more…” he fought for the next word. “Noble,” he finally came out with. “Though I’m not sure that’s exactly the word I want.”

  “We weren’t always like this,” I told him. “We have done some terrible things and I dare say that many of us enjoyed those deeds. Not for a long time, though,” I finished. “We have come here because I know we can trust you.” I left the words hanging. There was no threat in them – if I thought that Tobe would betray us, I’d simply have him tied up and we’d leave for another place.

  “Nothing’s changed,” Tobe said firmly. “The funny thing is, that no one likes the Duke. I say that in all seriousness. I’m sure his justiciars are happy, but most of them are petrified about what might happen to them if the Duke was ever to die. But his soldiers? Fuck, no. I’ll bet they hate him to a man. Even the young and impressionable ones who’re still stupid enough to think they’re fighting on the right side must hate him once they hear the tales from the veterans.”

  “How did we come to this?” asked Ploster. “Hundreds of thousands of people in thrall to a murderous sorcerer to whom this is all a game of power.”

  “We’ve all heard about the Saviour,” said Tobe. “Except that here in the Duke’s capital, no one really puts much store in it. At least not the ones I talk to when I’m serving them their ale. And you can appreciate that I speak to more than my fair share. Maybe she’ll be the one to turn the tide and rid us of the man that no one wants. Rest assured, he’ll never give up willingly. He’ll hide behind his walls and kill as many as he can, long after the war is lost.”

  “I know,” I said. “He’s always been that kind of man. If he loses, he has no alternatives. He’ll get no fair trial and he can’t run back to the Emperor. Malleus wouldn’t greet him with open arms. In fact, the Emperor would hurt him far more than his subjects ever could. It would be no surprise if Warmont stuck it out to the bitter end.”

  Ploster laughed at that, though he wasn’t genuinely amused. “Here we are, talking as if the Duke’s hold on his lands is wavering. Would that it were so. His position is almost as strong as it has ever been. We defeated him in Gold, but at great cost to both sides. He’ll always win in a war of attrition.” Ploster gave no mention that the Saviour was dead and that our appearance in Blades was driven by desperation.

  For all of his appearance as a humble tavern owner, Tobe wasn’t stupid. “I wouldn’t lose hope, Jon,” he said. “Men always talk bravely and you can’t ever be sure if their words are nothing more than sounds in the air, but there’s a change in Blades. Mark my words that there’s a change. The people here might not believe in the Saviour, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t ready to believe, or that they aren’t looking for something to believe in. It may not happen soon and I’m certain that it will be dirty and bloody, but I can feel it in my bones that the Duke’s days are numbered.”

  “In the face of gloom, it is good to hear an optimistic word,” I said. “The only trouble is, that we know what comes after the Duke topples.”

  We did all know and no one in the room gave voice to his name.

  7

  We left Tobe to return to his customers and got stuck into our business. We left the tavern by the same way we’d entered, sneaking out of the back yard like children escaping from their bedrooms at night. The street which the tavern backed onto wasn’t busy, but there was someone walking by as we exited. I had to remind myself that our behaviour only appeared suspicious to us, because we knew we were wanted men. To everyone else, we’d have looked like nothing more than a disreputable bunch of soldiers who didn’t want our faces to be seen. So while we didn’t exactly give the impression of being upstanding citizens, we weren’t exactly a cause to raise a hue and cry.

  We split into pairs, in order to cover more ground. I stuck with Ploster, since I was confident that he was going to be the man to locate where this new Saviour was hiding. It was late, but not so late that everyone was in bed. There was a little more menace to the streets now, since most of those abroad were now men, with many of them carrying weapons, poorly concealed beneath their clothing. A lot of them looked as though they’d happily start a fight, uncaring whether or not they’d get punished for it when they were caught the next morning.

  “Soldiers,” I said to Ploster. “It’s a wonder they’re allowed out so late.”

  “I imagine the economy of Blades is in freefall,” said Ploster, showing a side of his knowledge that I hadn’t encountered before. “And the best way to disguise the fact is by encouraging people with disposable income to spend their wages. If there’s a steady supply of money going through taverns and shop tills, people will feel that things are normal. It’s all an illusion though and when it crashes, it’ll be a hard landing for these people.”

  We kept our heads down as we walked. Not through cowardice, simply for the sake of practicality. We couldn’t complete our mission if we were being chased through the city by guardsmen. Luckily, no one threatened us. I always stood out in a crowd owing to my size and it was my observation that instead of dissuading other men from goading me, it had the opposite effect, as though starting a fight with a larger man was somehow a demonstration of prowess. I’d had to show many men the error of their ways and I was not gentle when confronted by such idiocy.

  There was no sign of any justiciars on the streets. They tended to be more active in their interfering, often stopping passers-by to ask about their business. Sometimes they stopped people for good reason, but mostly it was simply to cause trouble. I didn’t want to run into any tonight, since that would certainly result in bloodshed.


  “Any sign of her, Jon?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “This is not my strength,” he continued, “and it’s difficult for me to keep any sort of focus while we are walking and while I am watching my feet. Also, I can feel other sorcerers watching out for me. Weak men, but trained to search.”

  “Looking for you?” I asked in alarm. “Does that mean our presence is already known? Or that of the Saviour”

  “I chose my words badly,” said Ploster quickly. “The Duke has set these men to look, but I don’t believe they are searching with a specific goal. I can feel them close by and all around, but they do not know what they are looking for.”

  “The Duke is paranoid,” I said. “It may be that these sorcerers are another part of the web he weaves to keep himself on his throne.”

  Ploster didn’t seem overly concerned by this new development so I didn’t labour the point, nor continue to look for underlying causes and motives that would do us no good without proof. I liked to think I was a practical man.

  Even with its depleted population, Blades was a big place. Still, it was not so big that we couldn’t make good progress around the streets and cover a lot of ground. Our road eventually and inevitably led towards the main keep. There were no other buildings within a hundred yards of the outer walls, so we lurked in the shadows as close as we dared. There were torches on the walls, but their light wasn’t sufficient to illuminate us, even if we’d ventured closer. It was better to be safe than sorry, so we stayed put and we watched. The walls looked black in the night and they loomed high above us, with the keep itself reaching higher still, blotting out an irregular patch of the distant stars. The place felt threatening at night and I remembered that it felt no better in the bright light of the summer sun.