by Ian Graham
Closing his fingers around the penny, Ballas got to his feet.
‘He rutted with Felishia,’ said Bradburn. ‘He rutted with my wife. And when I went to the tavern to have my vengeance, this other man—this bloodyanimal—got up and … Aah!’
‘Be quiet!’ snapped Cobaris, a fat man in his middle sixties. He was bald, except for a white clump of hair over each ear. Upon his pate, sweat glistened. He disliked tending injuries. He was not a physician, neither by trade nor inclination. Yet he was the only man in the village capable of repairing—or, at least, trying to repair—such a wound.
Bradburn lay upon the table in Cobaris’s kitchen. His face was deathly pale. His skin twitched, as if every muscle underneath it were quivering.
Cobaris sighed. He did not hold out much hope for Bradburn’s arm. Not a single shoulder tendon remained whole. In itself, this was amazing: whoever had inflicted the wound was a man of considerable strength. The consequences for Bradburn would be unpleasant. Cobaris intended to bandage the limb flat against Bradburn’s side. Maybe—maybe—the tendons would heal. But he doubted it: the damage to them was too extreme. Realistically, one of two fates awaited Bradburn’s arm. It might, over time, grow rotten: the flesh would blacken, the blood turn poisonous, and Bradburn would die. Or the arm might stay untainted—but utterly useless: just a flopping tube of flesh, dangling from his body.
Cobaris lifted a cup of brandy to Bradburn’s lips. ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘It will ease the pain. And calm you down a little.’
‘I have no wish to be calm,’ snapped Bradburn. ‘I want only to be avenged.’ Yet he drank the brandy gratefully.
Bradburn’s arm lay draped across his chest. Cobaris lightly took hold of his wrist, in order to move it to his side. Bradburn howled. Cobaris recoiled, as if the damaged limb had turned into a serpent.
‘More brandy,’ groaned Bradburn. ‘Please—I want to feel nothing, absolutely nothing.’
‘Very well,’ murmured Cobaris. ‘I dare say I shall not be able to treat you while you are sober in any case, for you are as hysterical as a girl.’
‘It hurts, damn you!’
‘I dare say that it does,’ sighed Cobaris, picking up a brandy flagon. The fluid inside was twenty years old. It was a rare, expensive brandy; it caressed the tongue like some divine fire. Yet here he was, wasting it on a man ill placed to appreciate it. He filled the cup, watching the dark liquid glint in the candlelight. He fed a sip to Bradburn.
The injured man swallowed, then coughed. ‘Curse them. Curse every whoreson bargeman that visits this village! They are all of a kind. They are lazy, irresponsible … they care nothing for the people they meet or the places they stop at on their journeys. They are water rats, and nothing more.’
‘I take it, then, that it was a bargeman who made a dishonest woman of your wife?’
‘It was,’ muttered Bradburn. ‘And a bargeman who defended him. As I said, he was an animal—a pig-faced, ale-bellied animal. Still, it looked as though he had recently taken a beating. His face was bruised, and cut; it is a pity that whoever fought him did not kill him. More brandy, Cobaris.’
Cobaris retrieved the flagon.
‘The man was a barbarian,’ said Bradburn. ‘Worse than that, he was a peasant—in the ugliest sense. His clothes were soiled, and blood-speckled. He stank of sweat … But then, he did hail from Hearthfall—a land of unwashed rustics and cider-supping—’
‘Hearthfall?’ said Cobaris, pausing.
‘Yes, Hearthfall,’ repeated Bradburn. ‘Hurry up with the brandy. I am in—’
‘How do you know he is from Hearthfall?’ asked Cobaris, his voice quavering. ‘Did he tell you?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Bradburn sarcastically. ‘We had a pleasant chat before we tried to kill one another.’
‘I am being serious,’ snapped Cobaris, grasping Bradburn’s wrist. The injured man screamed.
‘What in Druine’s name are you doing? Let me go!’
‘Answer my question,’ said Cobaris impatiently.
‘He spoke with a Hearthfall accent,’ gasped Bradburn. ‘You must have heard it: that burr which rolls along like Hearthfall’s green hills and makes the speaker seem a halfwit.’
Cobaris released Bradburn’s wrist. ‘You said he was a big man?’
‘A forearm’s length taller than me, and as broad as a barn door.’
‘And he was bruised, you say, as if he had taken a recent thrashing?’
‘Must I repeat everything I’ve already told you? Yes, yes and yes again—he is all those things. Now, for pity’s sake: more brandy!’
Cobaris wasn’t listening. Snatching up his cape, he hurried from his home and half ran through Barrelhand’s dark lanes to the tavern. He ducked into the common room and went straight to the serving bar.
The tavern-master looked up. ‘What will it be, Father—’
‘Silence,’ interrupted Cobaris.
The tavern-master blinked.
‘Just give me a cup of Baskirian Red,’ muttered the fat man, wiping a hand over his bare scalp. He looked furtively around the tavern. ‘Tell me,’ he said, as the tavern-master poured the wine, ‘there was a fight here but a half-hour ago. Bradburn lost—his friends brought him to me, his arm wrenched …’
‘I saw the entire thing,’ said the tavern-master, nodding. ‘Will he recover?’
‘That hardly matters,’ muttered Cobaris, snatching up the cup. ‘Where is the man he fought?’ His gaze swept around the common room. He could discern no man matching the description given by Bradburn.
‘He went upstairs, with a—’ began the tavern-master, then fell silent. He tapped Cobaris’s forearm lightly, then pointed to a flight of wooden stairs.
A tall, broad, preposterously ugly man was treading down the stairs into the common room. Bruises clouded his features. By his side walked a copper-haired whore.
Cobaris stared hard at the man. Then, draining his cup in a single gulp, he turned to go.
‘A ha’penny,’ called the tavern-master. ‘You haven’t paid—’
‘Later!’ replied Cobaris, waddling briskly from the tavern.
He returned home. Bradburn still lay upon the kitchen table. Only now he clutched the brandy bottle, and was suckling upon it like a baby at its mother’s teat. Yet this waste of fine brandy did not trouble Cobaris. He rushed upstairs to his study. Taking a tiny square of whisper-fine parchment, he quilled a note. In his haste, his writing skirled wildly; the ink blobbed, and the quill-tip pierced the parchment. Swearing, Cobaris tried again. Slowly, this time.
He turned to a metal birdcage in a corner of the room. Inside, a pigeon rested upon a perch. Only this morning, it had appeared outside his window, rapping its beak upon the glass. A message had been tied around its leg; an item of serious yet exciting news, from the Blessed Masters themselves. A fugitive was being sought. His crime, though undisclosed, was clearly one of enormity. If any holy man were to set eyes upon him—or someone whomight be him—they had to send word to the Sacros … without delay.
Father Cobaris opened the cage and attached the rolled-up square of parchment to the pigeon’s leg. Then he opened the study’s window.
The bird flapped out, got its bearings and then swerved westwards, towards Soriterath.
Father Cobaris of the Pilgrim Church felt quite breathless. Excitement gripped him—and optimism. Maybe, if he led the Masters to the fugitive, he would be moved to a better parish. One in a city somewhere. Not in a dreary village, beside a river of sour water.
He cursed; it was a shame that Barrelhand was so insignificant that no Wardens were posted there.
But it did not matter.
The Wardens would arrive soon enough. And then—
There came a shattering of glass. Then a lung-ripping howl.
‘Bradburn,’ muttered the priest.
Chapter 8
And this pilgrim suffered
The justice of men who believed him
Evil—yet he cast retribution upon th
em
And they perished …
At first light, Ballas and the oarsmen left the tavern. They went to the dock where The Otter was moored. Many of the oarsmen were hungover. They shuffled along the lane, on to the jetty, drag-footed and soreheaded. A few vomited, upchucking lurid gutfuls of half-digested ale. Others bore their pains in cringing silence. Under his bruises, the barge-master’s skin was green-tinted. Well accustomed to liquid excess, Ballas alone seemed unaffected. He drew deep breaths of cold morning air. And remembered with pleasure the previous night’s whore.
The oarsmen clambered on to the barge. The barge-master untied the mooring ropes and, very slowly, the vessel moved away from the jetty. Every dip, draw and lift of the oars extracted groans from some oarsman or other. Those who had made the walk from the tavern without upset, yet nonetheless had uncertain stomachs, found the sudden exertion fiercely emetic. Leaning over the side, they threw up into the Merefed’s clear waters. The barge moved sluggishly onwards. Fleetingly, it seemed to Ballas a craft of the dead: a boat manned by reanimated corpses.
At noon, things had grown a little better. The barge-master called a halt and handed out a sparse lunch of bread, cheese and—for those who believed an extra dose of poison relieved that same poison’s effects—whisky. Ballas ate greedily, and swallowed large mouthfuls of whisky. Then he gazed into the water. A few rainbow trout slid by, glinting under the surface.
‘Wishing you’d brought a fishing rod?’ asked the barge-master, settling cross-legged close by.
Ballas did not reply.
‘Sometimes I trail a line as we move onward,’ said the barge-master, smiling. ‘Every fish in the Merefed is strong-fleshed—and fine-tasting. There’s trout, roach, barbel, carp … and pike. You ever eaten pike?’
‘Once or twice,’ said Ballas vaguely.
‘It is surprisingly delicious, if properly cooked,’ said the barge-master. ‘Most people would no sooner eat a freshwater wolf than its land-dwelling namesake. And that is a shame. They deprive themselves not merely of its flavour but also of the joys of capture. Hook a pike—and the battle has only just begun. It is said that, in the south, where the waters are warmer, they grow as large as sharks. Venture into a lake or a river and they will rip a lump out of you. They have been known to devour dogs, even deer. Can you imagine such a thing?’
Ballas did not speak. He simply watched the trout moving past the barge.
‘You are not a talkative soul, are you? Even in your cups, you uttered scarcely a word,’ commented the barge-master.
‘My sister is ailing,’ said Ballas simply, remembering the fiction he had woven to obtain a place on the barge. ‘When I get home, perhaps she’ll be dead. Such thoughts are distracting.’
The barge-master sighed. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I had, for a moment, forgotten your unhappy circumstances. I will leave you in peace.’ Rising, he walked to the prow, then sat down with the other oarsmen.
Ballas chewed on a lump of cheese. He thought of Redreathe—of what he would do once he arrived there. He wondered whether he could any longer live safely as a vagrant; was it the wisest course, to wander from town to town, city to city, for the rest of his life? Would such constant movement make it harder for the Pilgrim Church to track him down? Or would it create difficulties of its own? Wherever he went, he would be a stranger; people would mistrust him, perhaps suspecting that he was a fugitive.
Would it be best if he settled down? Somewhere remote. Somewhere the Pilgrim Church’s influence was weaker.
He realised there was no such place. As Gerack, his fellow prisoner under the Sacros had said, the Church’s resources were limitless: they employed not only priests but Wardens and agents of various types.
Ballas rubbed his jaw.
‘Perhaps I’m doomed,’ he murmured, glancing at the sky. ‘And perhaps—perhaps it doesn’t matter.’
The barge-master returned to the tiller and gave orders to resume rowing. Ballas gripped an oar’s shaft in a blistered palm, and the barge inched steadily forwards. Once more, he allowed the slow rhythms of travel to put him in a half-trance.
The afternoon was darkening towards evening. The barge slipped into a narrow channel. On the bank to Ballas’s right silver-black willows grew, trailing their branch-tips in the water. Drawing back on the oars, Ballas felt the air suddenly hum. Something black streaked past his face. The air hummed again—and the screaming began.
Ballas’s gaze whipped to the bank.
Half a dozen Wardens emerged from the willows. Already, they were nocking fresh arrows to their bowstrings. On the barge, several men had been hit. A black shaft jutted from an oarsman’s throat; another was lodged in a different oarsman’s eye socket. Ballas threw himself face down on the deck. Six more arrows hurtled towards the barge. One slammed into an oarsman’s gut, pitching him into the water. Another plunged into a shouting oarsman’s open mouth; the arrowhead tore its way through the back of his neck.
Ballas swore.
On the bank every Warden nocked another arrow. Except for one. In his palm nestled a glass sphere; a dark liquid sloshed around inside it. A wick stuck out from its topmost curve, burning with a flickering flame. Drawing back his arm, the Warden lobbed the sphere on to the barge. As it struck the deck slats, it shattered, spilling the liquid—which burst into fire. Within seconds the deck was ablaze. An oarsman, standing close to the burning fluid, found his legs engulfed in flames. Shrieking, he stumbled towards the edge of the boat, intending to leap into the water. But an arrow pierced his lower back. Crying out, he arched backwards—then fell silent when another arrow skewered the back of his head.
Ballas crawled across the deck. Glancing at the bank, he saw that the Wardens were drawing more arrows from their quivers. Momentarily safe, he dragged himself over the side of the barge and into the river.
Gasping, he splashed into ice-cold water. For a half-instant he was submerged; water rushed into his mouth, and panic gripped him. He kicked furiously and rose to the surface. Reaching out, he grasped the barge’s hull and wedged his fingertips into a join between the wooden planks. Suddenly, a brown-haired oarsman crashed into the water beside him. A moment later another oarsman joined them. Ballas looked at him. He was a scrawny, sharp-boned man: from the night before, in the tavern, Ballas recalled that his nickname was something bird-related … Sparrow: the man was known as Sparrow. He clawed frantically at the hull, trying to find a grip, and sank momentarily under the water. Then he surfaced, gasping.
‘Sweet grief,’ he said, finding a fingerhold on the hull, ‘what is happening? Why are the Wardens attacking us?’ He looked wildly at Ballas. ‘They are trying to kill us … I do not want to die!’ He shivered as if fever-gripped. On the deck, men were screaming. A stink of burning flesh drifted down. Sparrow sniffed—then groaned. ‘I don’t want to die,’ he repeated.
Ballas thought hard. ‘Do as I say, and you’ll live. You can swim?’
Sparrow nodded.
‘And you carry a knife?’
Sparrow nodded again. Then his eyes widened further. ‘What are you planning? Do you … do you want to fight them?’
‘We haven’t got much choice,’ said Ballas.
‘You are mad,’ said Sparrow, his voice quavering. ‘They do not merely outnumber us—they are Wardens. Do you suppose you can treat them like you treated … treated that man in the tavern last night?’ He blew out a long breath. Shaking his head, he said, ‘We must beg for mercy. Why … What have we done wrong? They …’ He grimaced, trying to find the correct words.
‘Beg if you wish,’ said Ballas. ‘But they’ll take no notice. They mean to slaughter us.’ He licked his lips. ‘I don’t know why, but that is their mission.’ He turned to the brown-haired oarsman. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Garrullon,’ he replied.
‘Are you carrying any weapons?’
‘Only a knife—short-bladed, blunt-edged … but all right for killing, if killing is necessary.’ Closing his eyes momentarily
, he shook his head. ‘I can scarcely believe my own words.’
‘It’s our blood or theirs,’ said Ballas flatly. He gestured at the river bank, across the water from where the Wardens stood. The ground was clear: there were no willows to hide behind. He pointed along the river, towards an arched bridge twenty paces away. ‘As soon as we are on dry land, they’ll cross over and attack us. We must be prepared. The bridge is narrow; if we meet them upon it, they’ll only be able to come at us two at a time. The odds will be more favourable, I reckon.’
‘Even so …’ said Sparrow uncertainly.
Ballas glanced at Garrullon. ‘Are you ready?’
The brown-haired oarsman nodded.
‘And you?’ said Ballas, turning to Sparrow.
Sparrow’s eyes were shut and his lips were moving noiselessly. He was praying, Ballas realised. The Papal Wardens, who served the Pilgrim Church, were about to slaughter him. Yet still he petitioned the Pilgrim Church’s divine beings; still he asked the Four for aid, absolution, mercy …
Sparrows eyes flicked open. ‘I am ready.’
‘Then let us go,’ said Ballas. ‘Swim to the bank, and climb straight out.’ He looked from Sparrow to Garrullon. ‘Then fight like dogs, yes?’
The two men nodded.
Pushing themselves off, they swam to the far bank. There they each seized hanks of grass, ready to drag themselves ashore. For a moment they paused. They looked at each other. In Sparrow’s eyes, Ballas saw fear: the man was not accustomed to such adventures. Garrullon also seemed nervous. Yet self-control gave his eyes a hard glitter.
In seconds, Ballas knew, both men would be dead. And their deaths were necessary, if Ballas himself was to escape.
‘On my third count,’ said the big man. ‘One, two, three …’
Sparrow and Garrullon heaved themselves on to the bank. Remaining in the water, Ballas glanced at the bow-clutching Wardens. Already they were drawing back their bowstrings. In an instant, they had taken aim. Then they released their black arrows, which sped across the river, cutting through the fire and smoke pouring from the barge. A shaft slammed into Sparrow’s neck and another thudded into his lower back. He shrieked. Then Garrullon gave a muffled grunt as an arrow struck him between his shoulders. Another drove into the back of his head. Both men fell to the ground. His body spreadeagled over the bank, Sparrow slid slowly down into the water.
