“We don’t belong nowhere,” muttered Bones in a voice just below the crackling of the fire.
“I’m done with this,” said Longbeard, suddenly standing. He grabbed the handle of his axe. “Time has come, Spear.”
Before he could lift his blade, Night stepped into the light of the fire, his black cloak billowing as if a strong wind blew in the breezeless night. “I have brought her.”
Then the cloak opened and revealed a girl: the dark-haired pilgrim waif who had refused to cry, one of those they had robbed that morning.
She was alone now, no longer with her whimpering father or weeping mother.
She stood coated as if by mud, but then Spear saw that it was dried blood – and it painted her from the black-crusted gash at the line of her hair, down her face, and all the way to her bare feet. It was as if she had been dipped in blood.
Her left eye was swollen nearly shut. Her lip, streaked with purple, bulged. One hand held the shreds of her clothing together. The other was balled tightly into a fist held in front of her chest.
Beneath her eyes, streaks of long dried tears cut fingers through the mask of blood.
“I want their heads,” she said through trembling lips.
She opened her fist. In her blood-stained palm a small ruby sparkled with the reflected flames of the fire.
“I want their heads and I’ll pay you. A stone for each head.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE BLOOD-SOAKED girl – Valda was her name – had a story to tell.
“After you left, we tried to lift my father from the ground. He wasn’t right. His eyes were unfocused. He couldn’t stand, said the land tilted beneath his feet. Bjarni loaded him into the back of the cart while the rest of us picked up what you hadn’t taken or destroyed. Mother could not stop crying, nor the babe.
“I don’t know if it was the crying or our being abandoned on the road that drew them to us. When I first saw them, I thought you had returned. To finish what you started. I wanted to run but we had nowhere to go.”
Valda looked up from her bare feet, the flames of the fire reflecting in her eyes.
“They came at us on horses and for a moment I held out hope that they were clansmen. Five real clansmen. Five true men of the North. I prayed they would help us, bring us to the next settlement, protect us on our way to She Who Has Risen.
“They rode towards us on the road at an unhurried pace. But, as they approached, I realized my prayers were nothing more than wasted words. Yes, they kept their beards long and braided, and painted their faces blue. But they wore the armor of the conquerors, black leather, and bared swords of Dhurman steel.
“Maybe I still held out hope that they would see our suffering and offer help. Then he smiled, that cursed smile. The leader of the five. And I knew we were doomed.”
She paused to sip from a cup of water that Seana had brought her.
“We had no coin to offer them this time. You had taken the last of it. Not even sure they cared.”
Valda stared into the fire for a long time before speaking again.
“What can I tell you? I don’t remember all they did. Their fingers tearing at my cloth, on my bare skin. His fist thudding against my face. The burning between my legs. My brother screaming so loudly before the welcome black. I woke to rain. They were gone. Then I saw why my brother had screamed. So much blood. The rain could not wash it away. Monsters.”
“The babe?” asked Seana.
Valda shook her head.
“Any of them?”
Another grim-lipped turn of her head.
“Tell me about the gems,” said Spear.
Seana shot a sharp look at him.
“We were supposed to bring them to She Who Has Risen, an offering from our family. Gems pried free from a sword passed down through clan hands. A gift to win the freedom of the North again.” Her lips turned up. “But now I know the North can never be free until it is purged of sickness.”
She opened her fist and the stone burned in the light, bright as a drop of blood.
“Five gems, you say?” asked Spear.
“One for each of their heads.”
“You should give us the gems now.”
“They’re not here. You want the gems, bring me the five heads.”
CHAPTER NINE
“WE SHOULD JUST rip it out of her hands,” said Longbeard, palms open to the camp fire. “No five-head bargain.”
Spear stared past the fire to the lean-to where the girl, nursed with mead, had fallen into a deep sleep. The sky had cleared enough so only a thin veil contained the sparkling of the stars. Despite how hard they shined, they remained dim smudges of light.
“One puny gem ain’t worth as much as five,” said Bones. His words slurred, the effect of the mead lingering.
Longbeard cracked a stick and tossed both pieces into the flames. “That one gem would be enough for each of us to get a handful of coin, which is a lot more than we have now.”
“You think that girl going to give it up easy? Scratch your eyes right out.”
“Well, I wouldn’t just be sitting on my hands.”
“I want the five gems,” said Spear.
“I say we take that gem from her grubby little fist,” said Longbeard. “No need to go chasing after some hard men.”
“She’s a girl,” said Kiara. “You’d steal from a girl?”
Longbeard laughed. “We’re fucking bandits. That’s what we do. We already stole from her once. What difference does it make? Am I traveling with idiots?”
“And lose the chance for five gems?” asked Spear
“Who says she really has five gems? What if she’s lying? How do we know she’s telling the truth? Kiara, did you find any other gems?”
The red-haired woman shook her head. “She kept that fist clenched the whole time. Poor thing. What they did to her. How could a man do that?”
Little Boy snickered.
Kiara whipped her knuckles at his cheek. He recoiled from the blow. “She’s a child! They that did to a child!”
“Cruel world,” said Longbeard. “You search her thoroughly?”
Kiara sighed. “Bunch of fucking pigs!”
“She told us the other gems aren’t here,” said Spear.
“Because she doesn’t have any more,” answered Longbeard. “She’s lying! She’s trying to get us to kill those men! A wild goose chase and we’ll end up empty handed. Mark my words! She’s stringing us along!”
“She’s a child!” Kiara’s fists clenched.
“I wasn’t a good child,” replied Longbeard.
“Here’s the thing,” said Spear. “Maybe she’s lying. Maybe she’s looking to get us killed for what we did to her family. Maybe this whole thing is nothing more than a little kid getting revenge the only way she can. I’m willing to accept that risk, because in the end if she’s not lying, we could have five gems in our palms. And what do those five gems mean? A second chance. Horses, armor, swords! Other men by our side! Change the odds. A way out of this misery. If we steal that one gem, how many coins will we have left after women and drink and a shiny new sword? A month from now and we’ll all be back in this same place or, even worse, in a ditch along the road run down by a patrol from some warlord. We get these gems, we stick together, and we make something of ourselves. We can reclaim what we’ve lost. Once I get a foothold in, I can run it. I owned Cullantown. I was the lord of it. All I need is something to get us started. And those five gems… the beginning of our empire.”
“She’s lying.” Longbeard shook his head. His lips curled down in a frown. “You’re just going to get us all killed.”
“It’s worth the risk,” said Spear. “So who’s with me?”
CHAPTER TEN
THE FIRE HAD gone to embers; by their sullen red glow, Spear’s bandits settled in for the night. Bones clutched his cup, nursing every last drop of mead while he watched. Little Boy drag his bedroll close to Kiara’s. She answered his whispered pleadings with grunts an
d silence. And Biroc slipped each newly fletched arrows into his quiver, with a barely heard prayer. Then he too lay down and closed his eyes.
Spear cursed an unseen pebble beneath his bedroll. A familiar scent wafted over him: lilacs. A moment later, Seana knelt next to him.
“They killed the babe,” she whispered. In the failing light, tears hung at the corners of her eyes. “The one you saved. How could they do that?”
Spear shook his head. He craved her touch, her body pressed to his, comfort against the cold of night. Gently, he clasped her hand. She did not pull away. “We will hunt them down. Give the girl her heads and take our gems.”
“You could so something different.” Her skin shimmered pale in the dim light but her eyes were lost in shadow, unreadable.
“Will you lie next to me?” he asked.
“What if your sword spoke for something other than your own greed?”
“My own greed? Is that what it is? These men and women that follow me, they don’t need food? Look at their ragged armor. How many days have we lived in the forest like animals? Is this the dream you and I had? Is there where our children’s feet would pitter-patter?” He spit out laughter.
“Do you not see the song you are trapped in?”
“This is no song, girl! No foolish romance! This is life hard and cruel. And in this life, men smash the heads of babes for a few bits of silver. They rape women to fill their needs. They stab their brothers in the back if that is their only chance for survival.”
“But that’s not who you are, Spear.” Her hand circled to the top of his.
“I’ve sent dozens of corpses floating down the Black River, men never to return to their wives and children. I’ve cracked the skulls of merchants beneath my boot. I am Spear Spyrchylde! I’ve burned entire villages of Northerners who raised their blades against the Hounds! I’m no hero, girl, out to avenge every murder in the North. If I were, I’d need to slaughter all the clans, the whole blasted lot of them! I’m not what you want me to be. I am who I am: a cold-blooded, thieving murderer… and I like what I am!”
“You can lie to me but don’t lie to yourself! I’ve seen what you could be!”
“What, in moments of tenderness? Don’t be a fool! Even killers need to drive their blade into womanly flesh!”
She slid her hand away from his, so slowly that he could not feel her touch vanish. It lingered, a ghost on his skin.
She rose without another word, suddenly darker than the night sky, and drifted to the edge of the lean-to where the girl, Valda, slept.
Spear cursed beneath his breath. He could have lied to her. Told her he would save the girl and forgo the gems. Perhaps the cold ground was all he deserved.
Kiara was giggling beneath the lump of blanket under which she and Little Boy squirmed. Bones was just at the edge of the campfire pissing a long stream. Biroc sawed snores.
Then he heard a low voice sing out of the darkness, the voice of Night – a voice Spear had not heard raised in song for more than generation.
In the dark, we walk alone
End of time, nowhere to roam
Before we know, the end of days
Spring winds come, once a child
Summer sun, we were so wild
But before we know, the end of days
Autumn sky, the coming cold
Winter’s here dead and old
Before we know, the end of days
But before we know, the end of days
Spear stared through a gap in the pines. The clouds were thickening; the dim stars vanished. He wondered what it would be like to live above the clouds, so close to the stars, so fully exposed to the sun. And he wondered what it would be like to be someone other than the fiend he had become.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEXT MORNING as the bandits broke camp, the rains started again, cold, piercing drops that forced Spear and the others beneath their upraised shields.
Kiara and Little Boy hung back beneath one of the lean-tos, wrapped deep in their cloaks, scowls worn on their faces.
“Why should we travel in this piss?” asked Little Boy.
“We should wait for it to let up a little bit,” added Kiara. Even clear of the rain, her hair had become wet through the gaps in their shelter and lay matted against her skull and along her cheeks.
“The rain will wash away tracks from the attackers,” Spear replied. The drops cracked hard on the shield above.
“By the time we get there,” said Little Boy, his lips tinged blue, “they’re likely to be washed away anyway. Just a question of whether we arrived soaked like fish.”
“We go now!” barked Spear. “This is not up for debate. The more we argue, the harder our task will be later.”
The grumbling between the two beneath the shelter was barely contained. Yet, as bad as the discontent was, at least they still accepted him as a leader. No hands strayed to sword hilts to defend another opinion.
Spear did not wait for answer; instead, he nodded at the others standing beneath their shields and left the camp.
He hurried his band along the river, its surface ragged white from the impact of the heavy rain, and then up the slippery bank, the long handfuls of grass helping them as their feet slid out from beneath them; finally back into the forest where the rains churred through the branches overhead.
Spear kept to the edge of the forest, with the wide green valley and the pilgrim’s mud-cut road always in view just beyond the trees. It was better to not travel in the open. The men who had attacked the girl and her family could be close. Or a patrol might see them in the distances. To be hidden was to be safe.
The bandits and Valda clumped close behind Spear. Seana and Longbeard brought up the rear and this time whatever conversation they held between them was kept below the sound of the rain. Longbeard was close to her, at her elbow, chatty and smiling. Spear could not get a read on her expression. Was she bemused or annoyed? Either way, it did not matter. She chose to no longer walk beside Spear.
Though the rains consumed distances and the cover of trees blocked any view of the keep in the cliffs, Spear felt the presence of it. It pulled at him. He imagined himself inside its walls, sheltered from the rain, a roaring fire warming a mead hall filled with men faithful to him. Was all that so far out of reach? Cruhund, with his rotten teeth, lorded over it now. The most undeserving got more than Spear did.
Spear held up a hand and stopped those behind him. They bunched at his heels. Their breathing was heavy with anticipation. Past the trunks of the trees, the wagon tilted on the mud road. Crows, black wings glistening, hopped and fluttered, a floating carpet.
“You want me in the trees?” asked Biroc as he strung his bow and plucked an arrow from his quiver.
Despite the rain, Spear could see the scene on the road clearly. One of the wheels of the wagon had been torn off. Bodies were strewn in the mud and grasses. Or what was left of them. It was more body parts than bodies.
A small wind pulsed beneath the rain and an unstoppable chill shivered up Spear’s spine.
This was not simple murder. It was depravity. The act of a mad man.
“Girl, best if you stay here,” Spear muttered. He choked back the rising saliva in his mouth.
“It’s not girl. It’s Val. And isn’t anything I haven’t seen before.” She laughed, her voice cracking. “I was here. I woke to it. I know what’s there. I need to make sure you see it. Make sure you know why I want those heads.”
“It’ll be worse, Val,” said Kiara. She squatted and took both of the girl’s hands in hers. “The carrion eaters have been there. You won’t be able to forget what you see.”
Valda tore her hands free. “I don’t want to forget what I’ve seen. Not until I have those heads, all five of them. Not until those monsters are dead and my family avenged. Five gems, five bloody heads.”
“Let’s do this then,” said Spear. “Biroc, eyes to the world. Anyone comes you fill them with arrows. Bones, skirt along the forest and see wha
t you can sniff out. A knife in the back if you find anyone. No warning. Don’t need to tell you that though, do I? The rest of us, let’s go down there and pick up the trail so we can move out.”
Spear nodded one last time to the others and left the cover of the trees. The ground was soaked soft with rains and his feet sunk, and each step threatened his balance. As he approached the bodies on the ground, he could see they were not whole and he felt a sudden tumble in his gut.
He came across the boy, Bjarni, first. He had no hands. He lay face up in the grasses, his pants around his ankles. His manhood was bloody pulp. One of the thick wooden spokes of the wagon wheel had been driven straight through his mouth and into the ground beneath.
“Why would anyone do that?” wailed Kiara.
Spear threw his hands at the crows and they hopped, strands of flesh and organs in their beaks. He yelled at them and this time they lifted, a dark cloud blackening the sky, before blanketing another of the corpses.
Little Boy was on his hands and knees throwing up the morning gruel. His bandits had killed, done what they needed to survive, but it was nothing they wallowed in. They were human enough that they had respect for the dead.
The father’s corpse was split in two from collar bone to pelvis. The ground around him was black with blood, unwashed by the rain. His head was a dozen steps away, upside down, the gash on his cheek ripped further open by the birds. Maggots writhed out of his nostrils.
Kiara stood bent over, hands on knees, her breath heaving as if unable to catch her breath. Longbeard simply cursed, an unending string.
The mother lay naked in the back of wagon, ankles and wrists tied to four corners. She had been split open, her entrails dragged out for a dozen yards.
Spear lost his footing and fell to one knee. The ground rippled beneath him, and started to spin.
He was a hard man, a killer, and had no problem cutting down a man before him. He had no uneasiness watching the light of a man’s life fade from his eyes. But he had never seen such cruelty in his life. This was not killing for purpose, but for pleasure or to feed some sort of sickness.
Five Bloody Heads (The Hounds of the North Book 3) Page 4
