Bloody Rose

by Nicholas Eames

  The Clawmaster’s face was a ruin. Several of his front teeth were missing, and his nose was crushed to pulp. Both the wound in his shoulder and the tear in his side were bleeding freely. He would die before long, Tam guessed, if Brune didn’t kill him first.

  “End it,” he grated. “Take … my place.”

  “You think I want this?” Brune shook his head. “I don’t. I’m not like you. I know that now.”

  Shadrach sneered. He tried to speak, but his words dissolved into a fit of coughing. When it subsided, his features slackened. The black clouds in his eyes blew away like smoke, and one of his hands scrabbled weakly toward Brune’s bare foot. “Son,” he gurgled.

  “I’m not your son.” The shaman’s voice was cool, emotionless, but for the barest sliver of pride. He looked up at the bones of his mother, hanging in the dark like a distant constellation. “I’m hers.”

  They found a pool unsullied by dead badger or bloody skunk and rinsed themselves clean. Brune, who the surviving vargyr insisted on naming Clawmaster despite his protestations, ordered the bones decorating the Faingrove taken down and buried.

  Outside, they dressed unhurriedly, reclaiming their armour, their weapons, their musical instruments, and their poor frightened horse, who had shit a small mountain in their absence.

  Tam was considering Sorcha: the way she’d been cringing when they’d left her, and how the other vargyr—the ones who’d stood by while Shadrach and his lieutenants were slaughtered—had begun slinking down from the circling heights as the band filtered out of the cavern. What crimes, the bard wondered, had the white lynx perpetrated in the Clawmaster’s name? With her master dead, would she still have a place among her people?

  Tam’s answer came by way of a tormented yowl that cut off abruptly and was followed by the wet slop of tearing flesh.

  The band, Brune especially, was keen to put the village behind them, but since they were thoroughly exhausted and it was after dark, Rose deemed it best to spend the night. They each laid claim to the home of one of Shadrach’s minions, and though Tam hadn’t taken notice of what likeness was carved on the totem out front of hers, she knew as soon as she bedded down that it had belonged to the skunk. The place was warm, at least, so she did her best to ignore the smell and went to sleep.

  They set out the next morning, striking north and west by paths they’d have never found if not for Brune, who grew less and less sullen as the days passed. At night he would sham into a wolf and pad off into the forest alone. They heard him howl sometimes, though not at the moon.

  Come dawn there would always be something—a hare, a grouse, or a gasping trout—lying by the embers of the evening fire.

  “Careful,” Cura warned the shaman as they broke their fast on quail eggs over hot porridge one morning. “I may start to like you if this keeps up.”

  The next day they were roused by the summoner’s terrified scream as she awoke to the skewed jaw and glassy eyes of a deer’s head lying on the pallet next to her.

  “Better?” Brune asked, wearing his old smile again.

  “Fuck yourself,” said Cura, and thus was order restored.

  That afternoon, as they ascended the forested foothills that would soon give rise to the Rimeshield Mountains, Tam sidled up beside the shaman.

  “Brune?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Do you think …” She trailed off, tried again. “Would it be okay if I wrote a song about you? About what happened with your father?”

  Brune chewed it over a moment. “Of course,” he said eventually. “That’s what you’re here for, right?” And then, after a while, he asked, “What will you call it?”

  “I don’t know.” She hadn’t given it any thought as of yet. “The Howling of the Sky?”

  A wince. “Nope.”

  “Brune and the Big Red Bear?”

  “Ha. Terrible.”

  She deliberated a moment. “How about Shadow of the Wolf.”

  The shaman smiled. “That’ll do,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Hawkshaw

  Coltsbridge calling itself a city made as much sense as Tam branding herself a swordmaster, but it did so anyway.

  Nestled in the boreal bosom of the Silverwood’s westernmost reaches, the self-proclaimed metropolis was almost buried by snow. It was surrounded by a stone wall so shoddily put together that the local children climbed it for fun, using its uneven stones as dreadfully convenient handholds. Aside from the graveyard (which boasted a bigger wall than the city and was patrolled by guards charged with keeping the dead inside), the city’s most remarkable feature was the armoured war wagon parked in front of the inn.

  Rose tried the Redoubt’s door and found it locked, so she rapped it with her gauntlet. When no answer came, she did so again, harder, and shouted, “Open up!”

  “Piss off!” came a familiar voice from inside. “I swear by the Frost Mother’s frozen tits, I’ve told every one of you fur-boot bumpkins a dozen times: The band ain’t here!”

  “Yes they are!” Rose yelled.

  “No they fuckin’ aren’t!”

  Cura shouldered past Tam and approached the argosy. “Rod, if you don’t open this door in the next ten seconds I’ll summon Kuragen and put a tentacle so far up your ass it’ll knock the teeth outta your mouth.” The Inkwitch waited, hands on hips, and actually counted under her breath. She was up to eight when the door banged open and Roderick, wearing nothing but his fox-tail hat and an improvised bedsheet skirt, came clomping down the steps.

  “Yer back!” The booker, obviously drunk, reeked like a rotter’s chamber pot. “Yer a day late,” he slurred. “The Widow’s warning … er, her Warden, that is. The windows Warden warned me—wait, gimme a sec.” The satyr rubbed a hand over his face, apparently trying to blink himself sober, and then tried again. “The Widow’s warblen—warblen? Gods, that’s not even a word …”

  “The Widow’s Warden?” Freecloud provided. “What about him?”

  Roderick fixed his bleary eyes on the druin. “He’s pissed as Glif, is what! He says time is of the effense.” He hiccupped. “Essence.”

  When Rose took a step toward the door, the booker threw an arm across her path. “One moment, please. I have guests. Ladies!” he hollered into the wagon’s dark interior. “My mom’s home! Party’s over! Collect your stuff and get the fuck out!”

  Before long, three scantily clad women came stumbling from inside. The last kissed Roderick on the mouth before scampering away. Rose started forward again, and again Rod raised a hand to forestall her. Two more women sauntered down the steps, then another, and then four more in various states of undress.

  “Is that everyone?” Rose asked.

  “Just about.” Roderick grinned sheepishly as another five girls trundled out, their clothes and hair in disarray.

  The booker snatched a cream-coloured smock from one of them. “That’s mine, dear.”

  “This is actually pretty impressive,” said Cura.

  Freecloud pinned his pipe between his teeth. “I’m not even mad.”

  At last the booker sketched an elaborate bow, gesturing expansively toward the stairs behind him. “Welcome home,” he said.

  The Widow’s Warden had taken a room at the local inn called Tiffany’s. The place was surprisingly busy, probably because it was the only spot around to enjoy food, drink, and song—although the song in question was being sung by a drunk who’d forgotten he was holding an instrument at all. He bellowed lyrics about unrequited love while big fat ogre tears streaked his rosy cheeks. Tam wondered if the woman who’d broken his heart was within earshot.

  For her sake, I sure as hell hope not.

  They found the Warden standing before a pingball table. The slab of slanted wood was topped by a small maze built around clusters of coloured glass jars, each one filled with varying amounts of water. The Warden’s hands—clothed in black leather gloves that left the tips of his fingers bare—operated two brass paddles he used to send a marble
pinging through the maze, eliciting a chorus of scintillating notes that were all but drowned out by the wailing bard.

  “Hold up,” Rod said to Rose. “He hates to be interrupted.”

  When the marble finally evaded his paddles and clattered into a locked slot by his waist, the Warden gazed sullenly at the table for a long time before Roderick mustered the nerve to speak up.

  “Excuse me, Warden? May I introduce Bloody Rose, Freecloud, Cura, and Brune—better known as Fable: the Greatest Band in Grandual. Fable, this is Hawkshaw, the Warden of Diremarch and Tiffany’s reigning pingball champion.”

  Hawkshaw turned without a word and moved to sit at a round table in the corner behind him.

  “Have fun,” said Roderick, as the band moved to claim seats at the table. “I’ll be at the bar.”

  The Warden wore a black leather snowmask, the kind worn by Kaskar huntsmen to protect their skin from the biting cold. It concealed most of his face, leaving only his left eye, his wide mouth, and the iron-shot whiskers on his chin visible. His head was covered in a rusted chain-link hood.

  “You’re late.” His voice was raspy, his tone more statement than accusation.

  “We had something that needed taken care of,” said Rose.

  “And is it? Taken care of?”

  “Yes.”

  A nod. “We’ll leave tonight, then. My lady—”

  “Tomorrow,” Rose cut him short. “We’re hungry, and thirsty, and tired. It’s not as if the Dragoneater’s going anywhere, right? It’s been waiting a few thousand years for us to come and kill it,” she said wryly, “another night hardly matters. I assume the Widow hasn’t offered the contract to any other bands?”

  “Not since you accepted her invitation,” said Hawkshaw. “But there were others. Before. My lady’s first choice rejected her offer. Her second choice accepted.”

  Freecloud’s ears perked up. “Who accepted?”

  The Warden turned his head fractionally. “The Raincrows attempted to kill the Simurg last year.”

  “Attempted?” Brune sounded as shocked as Tam felt. “And what, they failed?”

  Hawkshaw’s silence was answer enough.

  Tam was grateful for the tavern’s gloom, since it helped to hide the pang of grief on her face. The Raincrows … dead. She’d met them on several occasions in the Cornerstone. Their axeman, Farager, used to spike drinks with a potion that could turn a mercenary’s gruff voice into a piercing mouse squeak and then pick a fight with them. He had an odd sense of humour, did Farager.

  The Raincrows were a great band, sure, but had they been skilled enough to take on the Simurg?

  You were fools, Tam cursed them. And so are we.

  “Who was her first choice?” Rose demanded. “Who refused her offer?”

  “Excuse me.” Freecloud flagged down a barmaid. “We’ll need a round here, please.”

  Hawkshaw’s half-gaze swallowed the lamplight like the depths of a well. “Your father,” he said.

  The druin stole a glance at Rose’s face and flinched at what he saw there. “Better make it two.”

  The Redoubt was too cumbersome to follow where Fable was headed, so everyone but Rose (whose mare had survived the Silverwood) and Roderick (who despised horses just a little less than they despised him) was furnished with a brand-new mount, courtesy of Hawkshaw’s generous purse.

  Brune chose a sturdy, barrel-bellied garron that seemed amenable to having a mountain-sized man straddle its back. Cura, unsurprisingly, chose a sleek black filly with a temperament to match the summoner’s own. Freecloud—who had a type, apparently—chose another pale grey.

  Tam had never been a strong rider, so she selected a docile brown gelding the trader tried to talk her out of.

  “This is a child’s horse!” he claimed, intent on selling her a larger, more expensive animal.

  “Perfect,” Tam said. “Sold.”

  “Don’t bother naming him,” said Cura as Tam climbed into the saddle. “You won’t know each other long enough to get attached.”

  Tam nodded, waited until the Inkwitch was out of earshot, then scratched the gelding behind one ear. “Don’t listen to her, Parsley. We’ll be friends forever.”

  Hawkshaw rode a roan stallion he called Bedlam, whose white coat was speckled red down its legs and across its muzzle, so it looked as if the beast had stomped through a bloodbath and stopped for a drink. The Warden wore a soiled straw cape over black leather armour strapped tight to his lean frame, and carried a scabbardless bone longsword on one hip. His snowmask seemed a permanent fixture, and Tam wondered if the man was hiding a disfigurement other than his missing eye. Considering the constant glower employed by the eye he did possess, she figured it was best not to ask.

  They started north at a trot, while Roderick, carrying his boots in the crook of one arm, clopped alongside them. The satyr claimed to have no trouble keeping up, but whenever Hawkshaw called a halt (which was rarely) he collapsed in a heap and gasped like a beached fish.

  “You could try not smoking while you run,” Tam suggested when they made camp that evening in the husk of a burnt-out farmstead.

  The booker, busy dislodging a stone from one of his hooves, didn’t bother looking up. “And you could try keeping your mouth shut unless you’ve got something useful to say.”

  The following day they turned east, skirting the forest’s edge and climbing the evergreen flanks of the Rimeshield Mountains. The land here was riddled with steep ravines and sheer bluffs. The trees were dark, dense, and tall. There were no birds that Tam could see, save the occasional crow.

  That night they stayed in the shell of an empty keep. Brune offered to go hunting, but Freecloud insisted he and Tam would do it, so the bard could practice with her bow.

  “Two for the pot,” she announced, returning to camp with a pair of white rabbits in hand.

  Hawkshaw said hardly a word to any of them. He tied Bedlam apart from the other horses (“He’s a biter,” the Warden explained) and sat removed from the rest of the band, hunched like a crone beneath his black straw cape. When Roderick offered him a smoke, he refused. When Cura passed him a wineskin, he waved it off.

  “You want soup?” asked Brune. The shaman had somehow managed to turn two scrawny rabbits, four frozen carrots, a stalk of brown celery, and a handful of salt into a shockingly delicious meal.

  “No,” said the Warden.

  Cura, who’d had nothing to do with preparing dinner, decided to take his refusal personally. “What’s the matter with you? I’m all for a little brooding—believe me, I do it better than most—but there’s brooding, and then there’s being a total sack of dicks.”

  The masked man said nothing in response.

  “You’re being a sack of dicks,” Cura said, in case her implication wasn’t obvious.

  Hawkshaw regarded her coolly.

  After supper, Rose pulled Thistle from its scabbard and passed it to Tam. “Follow me,” she said.

  “What? We’re training at night?”

  “You think monsters only attack in broad daylight?” she asked, sounding amused.

  “I—” The bard clamped her mouth shut, followed Rose out beyond the keep’s ruined walls, and proceeded to get her ass kicked in the cold for the next hour.

  Hawkshaw was in the saddle by the time Tam awoke. The band ate a hurried breakfast of stale scones and cold tea before getting under way. They climbed higher into the range of foothills bordering the northern edge of the Silverwood. The trees thinned, and the ground beneath Parsley’s hooves became less earth and more stone. Fearing game would soon become scarce, Freecloud took Tam ranging again while the others led their horses at a walk.

  There was a double-decked crossbow atop the Warden’s packs, and a quiver of bolts fletched with white feathers on the hip opposite his sword, but Hawkshaw never offered to hunt. The Widow’s man reminded Tam of an old dog out for a walk: He didn’t bother to stop or sniff at every stump and bush, just padded determinedly toward home so he could c
ollapse on a rug and rest his weary bones.

  “Crossbows aren’t a hunter’s weapon, anyway,” Freecloud told her, leaving Tam’s imagination to reach its own ominous conclusion as to what the druin meant by that.

  “I love this,” remarked Brune at some point in the afternoon. He was smiling contentedly, swaying on the back of his stocky garron. “This feels good, doesn’t it? To be off the tour, away from the stink and the noise, riding under an open sky.”

  Even Rose, who’d grown increasingly solemn the farther north they went, smiled at that.

  “It used to be like this all the time,” the shaman said to Tam. “The old bands had it best if you ask me. No arenas, if you can imagine that. No schedule to keep, or seedy wranglers. No bloodthirsty crowd howling for blood … Just an honest-to-goodness adventure, with a big bad beast waiting at the end.”

  “The Dragoneater,” Tam murmured.

  “Yes!” Brune slapped his knee, startling his horse. “The bloody Dragoneater! Who in the world can say they’ve gone head-to-head with the Simurg and lived to tell the tale?”

  “Not the Raincrows,” said Cura.

  Some people knew how to kill a conversation. Cura, on the other hand, could make it wish it had never been born.

  They took shelter that night in an abandoned village. There were four buildings more or less intact, and the party split themselves among them. Hawkshaw claimed a round guard tower on the outskirts of town, while Rose and Freecloud drove a fur-covered lizard the size of a dog out of an old forge and settled down there.

  Brune and Roderick (dubbed “the snorers” and sentenced to endure one another’s company) took up residence in what had formerly served as the local tavern. The satyr unearthed a crate of cheap white wine, which tasted to Tam like the worst possible combination of sugar and water. Roderick declared it “perfectly chilled!” and by morning he and Brune had polished off all six bottles.

  Tam and Cura were relegated to a small home at the edge of an iced-over pond. It was close quarters, but after they dug the snow and bramble from the hearth and got a fire going, it was pretty damned cozy. The dwelling must once have belonged to an herbalist, Tam reasoned, since the shelves were stocked with jars of basil, buckthorn, and catmint, while the skeletal remains of various flowers hung like thieves from the rafters overhead.