There was a darkness in him. A hard thing, but yet a fragile thing. Something cold. And bitter, and full of hate. It almost felt dead, when the hands of his mind touched upon its surface in his times of reflection. He could swear sometimes that the damn thing almost seemed to grow as time went by, that it had aged with him. A thing all of anger it was. Cold, sick, twisted rage, like something lost and left to go rotten where no one could see it. Harlin swore he could even hear it, a voice that would call out now and then, the same word always, a bitter hiss.
Revenge.
He could feel it now as he lay on his bedroll, sliming a little black tentacle up into his mind and squeezing ever so gently and sickeningly, its body smouldering coldly somewhere in the pit of his being, somewhere intangible yet discernible.
They did this to you.
Harlin turned over, thought of Aedri and the sweetness of her body, hoping it would shrug off that sick, black limb. He would have to pay her a visit on the way back if he could. He would need something to take his mind off of things again. This year was the worst so far. Even Arnulf had noticed he had been preoccupied. The confrontation from the other night still made him seethe.
They took you all, and broke you.
Harlin shifted onto his back. He tried to ignore it. He thought more of Aedri, how she had looked stripped and bare, how she had moaned and writhed atop him eagerly and so skilfully. Hopefully when they reached Thegnmere there would be at least one brothel still standing, with a bit of luck a quality one, not some paupers’ fuckhouse filled with hags who had more teeth in their cunts than in their mouths. Though if he were truthful he would make do with whatever was there, and probably be grateful for it with how he felt now.
Remember the ships.
Remember the holds they threw you in.
Harlin tried to keep his eyes closed as its grip tightened, anger building in him. Anger he did not know where to direct. And fear, like the night terrors of some child. Fear that if he opened his eyes he would be back in that dank, unlit hold, amongst the stench of unwashed bodies, shit, piss, vomit, blood and death.
He trembled slightly. He still remembered the smell of those who died nearby and were left to rot till found and thrown overboard. He remembered hearing his sister Ite crying somewhere in the gloom and calling for their mother. Harlin had sat in silence, chained to people he could not see.
His mind had wandered willingly down darker paths even then, at eight years old. He had schemed of vengeance, wished for it, prayed for it, wept as he realised again and again he did not know who had done this to him and his family. And then he would pray, to all the gods his people worshipped, that one day he would learn who was behind this.
It had been a slave raid that day in Bráodhaír. He had heard Caermark had once been part something men called the Old Empire long ago, an immense kingdom built from the toil of slaves. Harlin didn’t know what had happened between then and now, but the keeping of slaves was punishable by death in Caermark.
The keeping of slaves.
There were places in the far corners of the world that still grew fat from trading flesh, even if Caermark no longer did. They paid good coin there. It was common practice amongst the lords of Caermark to have men employed in their service whose role was the capture and exporting of slaves to those places. Always the ships would return low in the water, bursting with coin and exotic goods.
It was from Luah Fáil that they took most of their captives.
And they would always bring their knights. Steel-clad warriors. The clansmen were great warriors, skilled at killing, lethal in individual combat, but they were no soldiers – they knew nothing of tactics, formations, movement. They were raiders by tradition, usually against one another, for land, cattle, clan blood-feud – whatever reason, it was their way of life. To Caermark’s armoured knights in the open field they were like a bared arse with a target painted on each cheek. Crushed, swept aside like dust.
Luah Fáil, he thought bitterly. He thought of its emerald hills and gentle slopes, its warm, pleasant summers. It was probably an empty shithole now. Its people rounded up and sold to eastern slave traders to build their palaces, work their brothels and fight in those pits they loved so much.
The pits. Why had he thought of them?
He tasted bile at the back of his throat, tried to stop the memories coming, but his mind ran heedless like a tumbling stone.
When they had all emerged from the ships they were half-starved, pale, ill-treated things. So much so they had to be washed and groomed before they were led through sandstone tunnels from the ports to the auction houses, dressed in nothing save loincloths. Better for buyers to examine them. Those too ill, or too weak for selling, they cut their throats before they even left the port.
Harlin had watched the people of his town sold off one by one to brown-skinned men in gaudy robes, who shouted and jeered in a language he had never heard before, wielding bags of coin that clinked threateningly. The place had been a brightly lit but unusual looking hall, made of pale stone worked into fabulous and alien arch ways in that distinct, unusual style eastern architects favoured. But whenever he thought of it, it seemed dark, full of hollering, whooping fat men yelling nonsense and leering, slavering over them all.
The prettiest girls fetched the highest prices. The younger the better. More years in them. More mileage. They could be taught how to please men more easily, sometimes more willingly, or were at least easier to threaten into compliance.
He had watched with silent tears and rage as his sisters, sobbing gently themselves, had been argued over by fat old men with strange, pointed beards and even stranger headgear. They were pretty, all three dark of hair and blue of eye, milky-skinned and sweet-faced. None had ever known a man, and that upped their price. Lechers were drooling over them openly. They had all been bought by different men in the end.
The same happened to Keva, his mother. She was young and pretty still herself. Her daughters had her looks, after all. She fetched less of a price, bidders were less keen. She was older. Less time in her. Set in her ways, defiant. Still, she was desirable enough to warrant a sizable bag of their coin.
Harlin never saw his father being sold. He was bought himself not long after his mother. Quite a few men had argued over him. He was young, strong, and as the auctioneer had laid hands on him to turn him round and show off his physique, he had bitten the brown man’s hand so hard he felt his teeth meet bone. He had spat the blood upon the man’s white robe as he recoiled screaming and clutching the wound. It had made the bidders go crazy over him, especially a certain few, despite his bruised face and cut lip from the beating he got for the bite.
The pit owners.
He tried not to think, tried to empty his mind. But it was stuck now, gathering speed, and no matter how much he tried it would not stop. The cold, dark thing he felt inside… was this its doing, or had it just given his own bitterness a nudge into self-inflicted torment?
There had been a journey sat bound on a cart with other youngsters like himself. They rattled their way through packed market streets, full of yammering, blabbering people in those unusual clothes. Stalls were selling strange objects, strange smells were coming from stranger foods and all were flanked by squat buildings made of white stone, while odd trees towered over them all with long slender leaves like fingers. The heat was unbearable, the sun scorched his fair skin wickedly, and by the time they reached their destination, he was pink and sore.
Two large men, in dirty blue robes and head wraps had forced him off the cart, brandishing whips. He had made it difficult for them, biting and head-butting them as they tried to grab him. They beat him again for that.
He had been forced down a flight of stone steps between two buildings that joined on to some large, round structure. The sounds of a crowd roaring came from somewhere. He remembered it set him to trembling, it sounded so bloodthirsty.
Somewhere underground they had shoved him into a cell with the other youngsters he had bee
n brought in with. They were all fed quite well straight after, some kind of oatmeal, sweet to taste, that seemed to fill him with new energy, and meat of questionable origin that he wolfed down gladly anyway. The ships had not been generous with food.
Harlin saw his father being led past by a score of men not long after. He was bloodied and bruised, and some of those shoving and kicking and shouting at him suffered bite and scratch marks and swollen faces. Harlin took a stiff slap through the bars for calling to him.
What had lain in store for them all was the fighting pit. They had dragged Harlin up and out of the cell a few days later, through dimly lit passageways, the sound of a roaring crowd growing louder with every step. He was shoved into some kind of waiting room made all of square, grim stone, filled with empty manacles and low-hanging chains. A foul room.
There were others there, too. Other children, some young men. He was made to sit with them, as they waited for their turn to be yanked up by the arm and shoved through an iron portcullis into sunlight, blinking. And he had watched as many were dragged back in to the waiting area, cut up and bloody, pierced and torn. Some returned alive, shaking and splattered with blood. Some wept uncontrollably.
Harlin’s turn had not been long in coming. An attendant had yanked him up by the arm, dragged him to the open portcullis, handed him a long knife and pointed outside, silhouetted against the sun’s glare.
The pit was a huge enclosure floored with sand, a rough oval or circle in shape. Atop the boundary walls rows of benches rose up, packed with brown-faced people shouting and jeering. Though he could not understand their words, it was clear enough they all wanted blood. There was plenty enough in the sand that filled the pit. It was everywhere.
He stood across from a boy a few years older than he. A strong-looking lad, a knife in hand like his own, both of them in simple loincloths, no more. Looking back at that day, Harlin thought the lad was probably of Caermark, being fair-skinned and mousey haired. He had looked at Harlin confused, as if expecting an older, bigger opponent. But then he had smiled and come for him, thinking this an easy task.
He had never been in a real fight before that day, but even the way his opponent had held his knife told Harlin he did not know what he was doing. No stance, no posture, no footwork. The boy had come across the sand, swinging and stabbing wildly, screaming at him with a desperate rage, missing with each stroke as Harlin darted back and forth and skipped in circles round him, avoiding the blade.
Even at eight years old Harlin had been taught well by his father. A side step and stab to the thigh dropped the boy when he had come at him with another mad swing. He fell screaming, clutching at his wound as blood spurted vigorously across the sand. Even wounded the boy had tried to stick him with his knife, flailing as Harlin circled slowly, shaking, unused to drawing blood. He had only ever sparred with blunted weapons before this.
The crowd had gone quiet with shock as Harlin had dropped his opponent, not expecting such skill from one so small, but now they cried out furiously, and despite their strange words he knew what they wanted.
Kill.
Kill.
The boy was trying to raise himself and stop the blood pissing from his wound when Harlin had leapt forward and to the side, grasped the boy’s dirty hair, and shoved the knife into his windpipe, ragging it back and forth until he fell. The boys knife flailed, catching Harlin on the arm and leaving a long cut before he was at last still. He still had the scar from that wound.
There had been roaring, cheering, whooping and hollering, coins thrown and curses shouted. Harlin had stood there blankly, terrified, excited, not knowing if it was how a man was supposed to feel after killing.
They took him back down to the cells again, washed and fed him, the shallow cut on his arm tended to by squint-eyed healers. A fresh-smelling poultice of some herbs that hurt more than the wound did. He was given a small cup of some strong, bitter drink that burnt on its way down and he coughed half of it up in surprise at first, but soon after he felt at ease, tension, fear, his first taste of battle-thrill, all left him. He had fallen asleep to dreams of blood that night, and felt as though some knot in him had been loosened slightly.
You enjoyed it, the thing seemed to say as he lay in his tent, locked in reverie. Anger and frustration twisting him, memories burning to ash in his mind’s eye.
The victory, the thrill, the power. It felt good.
They had made him fight again the next day. A similar opponent, a young man bigger and older than he. He died just as easily.
A side step as he was charged, a pivot on the front foot, his opponent carried past by his own momentum, a stab to the side beneath the ribs, and the crowd called for more blood, more death. Blade met throat, and it was over again.
Not often did they see a child so skilled at killing.
Harlin clenched his teeth, tossing and turning beneath his blanket, begging the memories to leave him.
You entertained. You, with the pale skin and frowning face, drowning your rage and pain in the blood of children. Never had they seen the like.
Even though he was but a child back then, Harlin had fought like a man possessed. And perhaps he had been. He had been angry. Furious. Poisoned with cold hate, denied knowledge of who had done this to him, to his family, denied his right to vengeance, he fought, and fought, and fought. He was merciless, and his mind was cruel. Killing was a release. Killing focussed his mind. He could pretend those he killed where the ones to have caused all this, he could imagine their death was his vengeance come at last and in that moment, that brief, fleeting moment where life ebbs from the body, he would feel something loosen inside of him and he would be at peace for a time.
Remember the last time you saw your father.
Harlin had been brought to the holding chamber for his day’s fight. And Cunall, his father, had been there. Harlin had jumped in shock when he saw him, and then ran to him in panic, shaking him anxiously and weeping.
Cunall had looked grim. Slumped against the far wall, starved-looking, smaller than he had been, bones showing where once there had been thick muscle. He’d been covered in cuts, bruises, fresh scars. His hair was a dirty, wavy mess about his shoulders, his golden braid rings taken from him. It was a deep insult to take a man’s rings. A deathly one. They were what made you a man after all.
Most terrifying though had been the look writ on his face. Cunall had been a grave-featured man, prone to frowning, reluctant to smile. But now, he simply looked… empty. Blue eyes, once so alive, so intelligent and powerful, now stared out from a grey face, glazed over, vacant.
There is a special kind of horror in learning that your parents have limits, that they are not all-powerful, godly and immune. One that cuts deeper than any blade and leaves a wound more open and raw than anything of the flesh can achieve. Harlin had always thought his father was unbreakable. But now… defeat was written all over him. He’d have thought him dead had he not seen his chest rise and fall.
An attendant had thrown Harlin back, giving him a mouthful of garbled words and a hard kick in the ribs for his behaviour. But as they dragged Cunall to his feet, he had suddenly turned to Harlin, grasping him by the hand and pulling him back to his own. The attendant had ranted madly, struck Cunall with a small dog whip, and suffered a broken nose for it.
His father had pressed something into his hand, as the attendant shrieked and called for help. Harlin recalled vividly the fond way his father had touched his head, the sorrow that had been in his eyes as he had spoken that farewell: ‘Fight well, my son.’
Five men had taken Cunall then, whipping and kicking him outside into the pit.
They were silver braid rings, Harlin had seen, risking a quick look at what his hand contained. Silver rings etched with tiny wolves, their clan’s namesake.
Faolán.
Wolf.
Silver rings for a boy unblooded. His father’s own from his childhood. He could still remember how they felt as he clutched them tightly in his little h
and.
When he had heard the fighting begin, he had to be dragged back by the attendants who kicked him viciously. He had only caught a brief glimpse of his father stood in the pit, sword in hand, blood stained, encircled by four men with long spears and shields, another two bleeding in the sand.
An unfair fight. They wanted him to die. They intended for him to die.
Harlin had clamped his hands over his ears. He had prayed that the great cheer he could still hear was his father cutting another man down.
They came dragging his father’s body through the portcullis shortly after as the crowd still cheered. Pierced through, blood-drenched, open eyes wide and staring in death. Harlin remembered throwing himself on his father’s corpse, weeping and screaming. He remembered being prised from an attendant and his teeth tearing a chunk from the man’s neck and being thrown outside to fight unarmed. He remembered the screams and pleading for mercy as he disarmed a boy older than he and stabbed his face into red nothingness.
All he recalled after was being in his cell, feeling utterly alone, clutching that handful of silver rings, face wet with silent tears, and a cold, empty thing had seemed to fill him, weighing heavy in the seat of his being.
He had worn those rings with pride ever since then, though to this day he had no idea how his father had managed to keep hold of them all that time. More than one man had lost a hand trying to take them from him in that place.
Your father gave you the tools, and they sharpened them.
They had moved him not long after to some bunkhouse. A kind of prison. It was a forced training camp it turned out, for those who had shown promise. They would practice with sword and shield twice a day against each other. Fight bare handed, grapple in the sand in the training yard.
The Shadow of the High King Page 9
