The Poisoned Quarrel: The Arbalester Trilogy 3 (Complete Edition)

by Duncan Lay

  “I will help you. By not helping you. Don’t do this,” the old wizard said. “Look at them.”

  Fallon glanced over to where the new men stood disconsolately. Even their spears seemed to be drooping. “Well, they aren’t going to get better by themselves. Do we just leave them be? Maybe pray to Aroaril for them to turn into soldiers by spring?”

  “Yelling at them is not going to make them happier,” Padraig warned.

  “I’m not here to make them happy. If they want extra food they have to earn it. We don’t have enough to waste on this bunch of boggers. Now, make me heard by all of them.”

  Padraig sighed and then nodded.

  Instantly Fallon turned to the disgruntled recruits.

  “Men of Berry! In a few short moons, a huge army will be landing on our shores. They want to enslave us, take us away from homes and families. We need you to stand with us against them. Your country, your city and your families are depending on you!”

  He let his voice ring out across the field and waited for the backs to straighten and for the faces to harden. But only a handful seemed to change. Most looked away or down at the ground. Some were even muttering to each other. He spotted the former Greeter for the Bankers Guild, Turlough, shaking his head sadly at him.

  That was the final straw. Fallon began to shout at them, letting out his frustration and anger in a stream of threats and curses. He didn’t even know what he was saying, just took his anger and threw it at them. Some wilted under his tongue-lashing, others shouted back, although their words had no hope of being heard against his magically-increased voice. A handful threw down their spears and walked away, his fury pursuing them back towards the city.

  He finally petered out, chest heaving, to see a mixture of fearful and sullen faces looking back at him.

  “Do what you can with them,” he told Bran and Casey in disgust.

  He stalked back towards the city, Padraig running to catch up with him.

  “Well, that went well. Are you feeling better now?” the old wizard asked.

  “Don’t you start with me as well,” Fallon growled.

  “I just did what you asked, did I not?” Padraig countered. “But look where it got you. To be sure, you have a pack of useless bog-shites out there but telling them that will do no good. They need to be told they are heroes and then they might behave like them. You used to be able to do that, you know.”

  “I used to be able to do a lot of things,” Fallon muttered. “How about you do something useful and find Munro for me?”

  “I have birds out looking and if they spot him I will know. But trying to find one man in a city? It’d be easier to find a needle in a haystack,” Padraig said. “Magic doesn’t just work like magic you know.”

  “Does anything?” Fallon sighed.

  CHAPTER 46

  “How did your Gaelish friends escape?” Feray asked.

  Ely gasped.

  “Listen to me, we don’t have time for denials and explanations. I don’t care what happened before, I only care that we get out of this trap those Gaelish have spun around the Emperor with Durzu’s help, curse him! Either we get out or we die, it is as simple as that. So just tell me how they did it.”

  Ely hesitated but Feray glared at her and the girl began babbling about plans to pull slave chains out of solid rock, then about dancing for guards who had been drugged with sleeping powders. Feray kept a tight hold on her frustration and just listened, finally holding up her hand when Ely said something useful.

  “So this Bridgit got out into the city twice to scout around. How?” she snapped.

  “We tied sheets together and had teams of children lower and raise her out of the window,” Ely explained.

  Feray clicked her fingers. “Then we need to do that as well. The guards think us helpless and they are right. But there is help for us, if we can but reach it. I need you to go out into the market and get more of these sleeping powders, then help me turn some of these sheets into a rope.”

  “But Highness, we don’t have enough of us to hold the rope, and what will we do once we are out?”

  Feray reached out to grasp Ely’s arm. “Help me and we shall free your family. You will no longer be slaves and you can either stay here, enjoying the favor of the Crown Prince and his family, or live in Gaelland, whatever you wish. Or we can stay here and wait for Durzu to sacrifice us to Zorva. It is your choice.”

  Ely looked her in the eye and she saw a flash of steel in the girl.

  “I shall go out now,” she promised.

  CHAPTER 47

  Fallon brooded as he rode down the streets of Berry. A small guard of men, led by one of his faithful Baltimoreans, Craddock, rode behind. His new army was making no progress and he feared they would never be good enough. He needed Kemal back in his power. He had sent town criers out in all directions, offering huge sums of money for word of Munro the dressmaker. In other towns he had even bigger rewards for news of Swane or Dina. If he could get one of them, then Kemal could not be far away.

  Hundreds of people had flooded in, so many that he could never have paid them all. But most, perhaps all, were only after the money and now everyone was being kept busy trying to make sense of all the whispers and rumors.

  Fallon had wanted to get Rosaleen and her priests to see if there was truth in what the more promising ones said but she had refused to tie the church to what she had called another witch hunt. So Bridgit and her faithful helpers, Glenda and Ann, were organizing all these random claims into something understandable, while Padraig and his wizards were trying to check through the other towns.

  The flood had turned to a trickle when no silver had been handed over but, even so, there were more claimed sightings than he had guards to investigate. This was the third one he had checked that day; the previous two had been empty houses, with no trace of anything useful. Only a few moons ago he would have had to push his way through a cheering crowd, hailing the hero who had saved them from the peril of the witches. Now people ignored him, or scuttled out of the way, which at least would stop word of their approach reaching Munro, Fallon reflected bleakly.

  “When are you going to give us the food you are hoarding?” someone shouted from an alleyway.

  He ignored that. He had bigger fish to fry and had heard that sort of thing all too often.

  “This wouldn’t be happening if Swane was still here!”

  Fallon’s head came up at that and he kicked his horse into a run, Craddock and the guards right behind. People scattered while a man sprinted down an alley. This was the first time Fallon had heard someone shout for Swane and there was no way he was letting the man get away with it. Not after what he had seen down in the dungeons.

  The alleyway got tighter and tighter, until Fallon felt as though his boots were brushing against the brickwork. His guards were falling behind now, having to sort themselves into single file to follow him. He just managed to get around a tight corner to find his prey had disappeared.

  Fallon slowed down, slapping his thigh in frustration as he snarled out a string of curses. He swore so loudly that he almost missed the scrape of leather on brick and looked up just in time to see a pair of men leaping down at him from a window above. Kicking his horse so it sprang forwards, the first man landed just behind him, rather than on top. Fallon ducked and a knife that was meant for his throat hit only thin air as the would-be assassin sprawled across the hindquarters of his horse. As Fallon clawed for a dagger, the second man nearly jumped into the saddle with him.

  The man drew back his arm for a thrust and Fallon abandoned his attempt to draw a blade and instead head-butted his attacker, breaking his nose and snapping his head back. He grabbed the man’s wrist and bent it back against the joint, so the stunned man dropped the weapon.

  Behind him he could sense the other man was ready to strike. With nowhere else to go, he flung himself across and away, using his arm against the nearby wall to stop from falling completely out of the saddle. A moment later, his wou
ld-be killer thrust his dagger forward. But Fallon was no longer there, so now his blade sunk into his friend’s chest. Fallon pushed himself off the wall, while making a second grab for his dagger. As the assassin tried to pull his knife from his gurgling accomplice, Fallon half-turned in the saddle, slashing out his dagger to rip into the man’s throat. The blade caught on gristle and cartilage and then tore through, pumping hot blood over his hand. He turned back to the other man but he had his friend’s knife buried in his heart and slid off the horse and to the cobbles below, thrashing weakly.

  “Fallon! Are you safe?” Craddock yelled as he caught up with him.

  “I’m fine. But that might change when Bridgit hears about this,” Fallon said, looking at his dead and dying attackers.

  *

  Bridgit tried to keep her voice light but it was hard to do. The way her husband was behaving, it was a bloody miracle he had stayed alive long enough to greet her on her return to Gaelland.

  “You can’t risk falling into their traps. They know what angers you now and they seek to use it against you,” she said calmly.

  “Am I supposed to just ignore people who say they want Swane back to sacrifice children to Zorva?” he growled, pacing around like a caged animal.

  “Yes! Because every time you react, they use it as a weapon against you! It is no longer a simple fight. Swane has lost all chance of seizing the throne back by force but he seeks to poison the people against you. It is his only hope. And, so far, he is doing well!”

  “What do you want of me then?”

  She sighed. She sympathized with him but there was no room for emotion if they were to steer Berry through this dark winter.

  “It is like hunting. You don’t ride into the forest, ripping up every bush in the hope of finding a deer. You wait, you watch and you lay a trap. That is what we have to do. We are finding there are patterns in the rumors, areas Munro seems to stay in.”

  “That’s if any of them are true. People are lying to us in the hope of getting money,” he grunted.

  “Look, you can’t act like a village sergeant or even a Duke’s captain. You have to be more than that. Riding through the streets is too risky. One crossbow and you are gone and where would Kerrin and I be then? And the baby? Let the others do some of the work.”

  “Like Devlin? Or Gallagher?” Fallon snorted. “Maybe we should walk away, sail off to Cavan’s island and let them all kill each other.”

  Bridgit bit back her angry words. “You know we cannot do that now. Would you want all those people’s deaths on your conscience?”

  “Well, you are the one with all the good ideas. Maybe you should be the one ruling the city.”

  “Maybe I should, if you are going to behave like some sort of spoiled child. Oh, the people don’t love me anymore, so I am going to sulk and refuse to think,” she snapped back, before she could stop herself.

  He stopped his pacing, shock written all over his face. “Do you think you should be doing this job?” he asked.

  Bridgit knew she could back down, apologize and soothe his anger but she’d had enough of pandering to his moods. Time and again she had tried to calm him and show him a better path and he just went ahead and did what he desired anyway.

  “I don’t know how to rule, but maybe that makes me better than those who think they do,” she retorted. “You can’t think with your heart. You have to use your head.”

  “Oh, and I don’t use my head? We cannot surrender the streets to Swane’s supporters. I fought and risked my life to save these people, the least they can do is show a little gratitude!”

  “You are not thinking like them,” she argued. “They cannot sit back and take a wider look at the problems facing Gaelland, because they don’t know about them, nor do they care. They don’t want to know about people starving in Lagway, or how the Kottermanis are planning to come back to demand the return of their Prince, who we have lost. They only care that their children are hungry and cold. We have to worry about for them. Once they are fed and warm, then they can think about other things but, until then, that is their whole world.”

  “And you know them all personally,” Fallon suggested sarcastically.

  “I don’t know their names but I know them,” she countered. “I was like them, only a few moons ago. So yes, I know them better than you do, because you were always the one worrying about tax quotas elsewhere in the Duchy and whether a bad harvest was going to send a wave of bandits and thieves across the country.”

  “So you do think you are better than me at ruling!”

  “At the moment, yes I am!” she fired back. “You need to stop being foolish and listen to me. Or, better yet, get our friends back together and put the Ruling Council to work again.”

  Fallon waved his hand dismissively. “They aren’t interested and they didn’t help much last time.”

  “Then we try again. And again! There is too much for just one person, or even two.”

  “Aidan did it.”

  “And look how that turned out. Put aside your vanity and wanting to be popular. It is like a parent with a spoiled child. You have to give the people rules and discipline. They will complain at first but they will come to love you for it, when they see you have their best interests at heart.”

  “You don’t understand,” he growled. “It wasn’t like that for Prince Cavan. The people loved him for who he was, not what he did!”

  “No, it is you who doesn’t understand! You are not a Prince! They might have loved Cavan because he was better than Aidan, but you are not a royal. They owe you nothing.”

  “They owe me their lives and the lives of their children!”

  Bridgit took a deep breath. They were getting into dangerous territory here. This was more of a serious fight than anything they had had before. Little had been at stake then, except their temporary happiness. Now everything was at stake.

  She forced a smile onto her face. Fallon was obsessed with finding Munro and hurt by people shouting at him. That sort of thing did not worry her as much. She wondered if that was because she had never sought people’s good opinion, while he had become accustomed to the respect and friendship of the village. Yet what had worked in Baltimore could not help them here. She had tried to be liked as a leader in Kotterman, and that had only led to people being killed. Now she was prepared to do whatever it took and let the results speak for themselves. But Fallon still had this idea of being the people’s hero. She could see why but, Aroaril, it was making things difficult!

  “What is the real problem?” she asked gently.

  He bristled for a moment, then threw himself into a chair. “I killed Cavan,” he said, his voice stricken. “If only he were alive, all would be different.”

  “You have to put that behind you,” she said.

  He looked at her sadly. “But I cannot. It hangs over me all the time. Sometimes I think only sacrificing myself can atone for what I did.”

  “That is nonsense!” she said but he only shrugged his shoulders. “Come, tell me how the training of our new army is going,” she invited, hoping to lighten his mood a little.

  But his face darkened instead. “Too slowly,” he grunted. “The cold saps everyone, they don’t have the enthusiasm of the original recruits and we don’t have enough trainers.”

  “Well, we still have time,” she soothed. “The Kottermanis will not dare to sail for at least another moon or two, for fear of running into storms that will destroy their fleet, and then it is another half-moon before they get here. And the storms might even do the job for us anyway.”

  He snorted. “We need Kemal,” he said. “To get him we need Swane, and to get him we need Munro. It’s time to start grabbing some of these people who yell at us. Munro has to be behind it. If we get them, we can use Rosaleen to see inside their heads and find the truth.”

  “She’s not going to want to risk that,” Bridgit warned. “You know she is terrified of destroying innocent minds.”

  But Fallon was already le
aving their room.

  Bridgit sighed and rubbed her eyes. When she had returned to Gaelland, she could not bear to be apart from him for a moment. Now they seemed to fight whenever they spoke. Yet she could not walk away from Berry, not after what had happened on the ship back from Kotterman. She had to find another way of getting through to him. But how?

  CHAPTER 48

  “We shall sail by the next new moon. Make everything ready,” the Emperor intoned.

  Dina watched impassively as the lords and nobles looked as though they wanted to protest bitterly but the habit of obedience was too well ingrained, and they merely bowed their heads.

  “We shall work day and night to be ready,” one promised.

  “Do so. Anyone who is not ready will pay for it with their life,” the Emperor said flatly. Dina looked on approvingly. Durzu had got them close enough to the Emperor for Finbar to touch him, and through the magic, use that to issue commands. Now the Emperor did whatever they told him. “We must have Gaelland in our hands as soon as possible. Once all is ready, you shall all accompany me on my flagship.”

  “A great honor, your majesty,” one older man said. “But will there be room for all on board?”

  “It shall be just you and your families. You will leave all your lieutenants and guards on your own ships. My own guards will take care of everyone else.”

  The powerful men around the table looked, if possible, even less happy at that, but again they merely bowed their heads.

  “I shall receive your reports tomorrow. Do not fail me,” the Emperor said and they hurriedly bowed and raced away to begin working.

  “Is this wise? All we know about the seas says the storms around Gaelland could destroy our fleet before it has a chance to land a single man,” Durzu said worriedly, leaning towards Dina.

  Swane pointed towards the Emperor, who sat like a statue at the head of the table, but Dina waved her hand.

  “He cannot hear us and, if he did, he could not understand it,” she said dismissively. “Of course we would not dare to sail during this time normally but we have the power of Zorva and of magic with us and we can use them both to protect your ships and men. After all, we sailed here, did we not?”