My brother lurched forward and grabbed the dagger from the slaver’s hand.
He pointed the oxidized tip at his stomach. “I start it. You finish it. You won’t have a choice, unless you want to see me suffer.”
“Anton! Wait.”
Big brother instincts kicked in, and my hand swung for his wrist. Little brother was too agile. He leaped back, steadied his feet and plunged the dagger into his belly.
Thunder boomed behind me, and blood spilled in front.
Haziness filtered across my eyes, as if I was looking at the world through frosted glass. A mist of limbs raced through the field like apparitions, seemingly drifting along without heads or torsos. It’d been a long time since I cried. Forgot just how disfigured the world looks through tears.
I blinked them away as Anton fell to his knees, dagger still buried in his belly. A sanguine smile touched his lips, and he pointed a bloody finger at me.
“You were right,” he rasped. “They came for you.”
An army of horses barreled out from the forest, draped with caparisons bearing a red fist. Heading the charge was my commander of the Black Rot, and beside her Rivon Eyrie.
I’d like to say I raised my hand for a sheath and sword to be thrown at my feet. I’d like to say I chased down Shroden, cut him off at the knees and then hacked his massive head clean off, right over the wall. I’d like to say the reputation that preceded me — that brutal, savage reputation that an assassin earns over the years — was reinforced as I ran my fingers over the warmth of slaver blood and tasted my revenge.
But life, she enjoys her irony. Killing going on all around me, swords clangoring, my Rots decapitating limbs and appendages, and there I was, most feared assassin in the world, Shepherd of the Black Rot, a man so dreadful that even Braddock Glannondil waited for me to come to him to make good on his promise — on my knees, eyes welling and nose running into my gaped mouth.
“We can save you,” I told my brother, reaching a shivering hand out and gingerly touching his shoulder.
Slavers shrieked as swords carved them into puzzles of missing flesh. Shrill laments of innocent slaves caught between pounding hooves and serrated blades echoed in my skull.
“It went deep, Astul,” Anton said. “I made sure of it.” He laid a bloody hand over my arm reassuringly. “I wanted this. It was freedom, brother… freedom from this terrible place.”
“Couldn’t you hear it?” I asked him. “Couldn’t you bloody hear it? The thunder coming from the forest, the birds, didn’t you see them? Something was coming.” I shoved an arm across my nose, wiping up the snot and tears. “Why couldn’t you fucking wait?”
He regarded my screams with a smile. “Hope, I’d… I’d lost it. Couldn’t see anything but the walls. Couldn’t hear anything but the voices telling me to find a way out, and out meant…” He looked at the dagger in his belly and winced. “Pain’s gettin’ bad.”
Through the unabating wetness of my eyes, I watched as my fingers swam to the unwrapped hilt of the dagger.
Something fell to the ground next to me, rolled over and rattled like steel. A belt.
“And this,” a voice said.
A long leather scabbard crashed onto the belt.
I turned to see Vayle. She nodded and walked toward a group of Rots and mumbled something. The hysteria had ended. The battle was over, the slavers dead, and the slaves — those who survived — shivered on the ground in terror.
An ebon dagger lay inside the sheath affixed to the belt.
“You deserve better than a rusted blade,” I told my brother.
He was on his elbows now, panting. “Just make it quick, Astul. It’s, ah! The pain is overwhelming.”
I straightened him, grabbed hold of the rusted dagger and counted.
“One.” And I pulled. Pain isn’t as bad when you don’t expect it.
Anton nonetheless cried in agony as his gut spat its fluids through the vertical gouge. No, that’s not quite right. He roared. Roared like a great beast stuck with a barrage of arrows.
With a fist in his sweaty, crusted hair, I tilted his head back. The twin blue veins snaking up his throat pulsed faster than a man can blink.
“I love you, Anton,” I said, pressing the ebon dagger into position. “I always have, you bloody bastard.”
We shared a laugh that shook the tears from our eyes.
“Goodbye, big brother,” he said.
A quick draw of breath into your lungs, and… hold it. Thumb on the crossguard for leverage. Relax the hand. Steady now. Close your eyes, set your jaw. And cut.
There it was, that familiar feeling of slicing into butter. Usually I was behind my target, but I couldn’t do that to my brother. I opened my eyes as his warmth sprayed into my face.
He glugged for a moment, and then fell into my arms. A clean cut across the throat gives you about ten seconds. I’d learned to end it in three, thankfully.
I laid him on the ground, angling his face toward the blue sky. And then, with a lick of my lips and the taste of copper on my tongue, I went off to find a shovel… and then, Rivon Eyrie.
The Rots aren’t known as a quiet bunch, but they are smart, which means they know when to put their heads down and shut their mouths. This was a particularly good time to do just that, as I walked past a loitering few, cleaning the blood from my face with the help of an unsullied shirt belonging to a trampled slaver.
They kept their eyes low and their questions to themselves, for now. It was a matter of respect. You don’t know how a man will react after killing his brother, so it’s best to let silence linger, because silence is to the soul what food is to the belly.
Wise men — or those who think they’re wise — say you’ve gotta move on after a tragedy. So that’s what I did. I moved. Onward. Toward a silver-haired man who received me with a hard swallow and a hand on his hilt.
“Allow me,” Rivon said, “to, er, well… explain.” He pushed himself away from a shed and rubbed his hands nervously.
Vayle emerged from the building, with Sybil in tow. They held bundles of tattered linens in their hands.
“These,” Vayle said, head buried in the clothes, “should keep the young and old warm at nights, until they reach Specure Village.”
“That’s a good six-day walk,” I said. I looked back at the slaves, who were sitting on the ground, knees pulled up to their chins. “Some will survive, I suppose.”
Sybil seemed to shrink in size when she saw me. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
“It’s done and buried. Quite literally, actually. I’ll forget all about it once I can wash his stench from my face and clothes.”
“Listen, listen,” Rivon said. “You gave me only two options, see. Well, no. No, that’s not entirely true, I suppose. Three options. One, let you kill Pristia.”
“Which would have been the preferred route,” I said.
Rivon steepled his hands in front of his chest in a pleading manner. “And we’d be no closer to finding out what kind of mess we’re in. Vileoux Verdan was not brought to Erior, I promise you that. He’s out there somewhere, mucking about as a corpse or the gods know what, mingling with conjurers, undoubtedly. Something very big is happening, Astul, bigger than the events unfolding in Erior. We can’t go killing queens willy-nilly without knowing what the big picture is, see?”
“Why didn’t you tell me this while we drank tea out of ceramic roosters?”
Rivon blushed. “I… those cups were gifts,” he explained to Vayle and Sybil. “And, for your information, you would have ignored me or argued. I know this because you are a very stubborn man.”
Vayle shrugged in agreement. “He’s got you there.”
“So,” Rivon said, “when you went to the tavern to meet your brother, I had an audience with Braddock, and I informed him you were here, which, by the way, he would have discovered inevitably, after you killed his wife, and I highly doubt”—he threw his finger into the air as if he was testing the wind direction—“he would
have done anything except string his banner up through your intestines as promised. I begged and pleaded, on account of our prior friendship, that he save your life and instead, er… well, send you to be tortured by the slavers. He agreed. It was not my intention for your brother to meet his end. I am sorry.”
“Yes,” I said, “you rather fucked up there, didn’t you?”
His shoulders sagged. “I’m a rooster keeper. I’ve spent the past six years working out why my hens won’t eat, why the eggs are soft and flaky, why my roosters aren’t crowing. I didn’t give it a second thought that your brother might perish here. I don’t think that way anymore, Astul. I am a very simple man now.”
“So why, if you’re such a simple man,” I asked, “are you here right now?”
Vayle stepped forward. “He was responsible for orchestrating your retrieval,” she said, in a tone that suggested I ought to apologize for being an ass.
I looked off into the camp, where a mound of dirt concealed my brother’s body. “I suppose he would have died marching to Braddock’s war, if not here. I’m not going to offer my thanks, Rivon, but I understand.”
He laid a hand on my shoulder. “I would like to stay with you, until this all ends.”
I chuckled. “I don’t even know where we go next.”
“To Vereumene,” Vayle said confidently.
Vayle may have been second-in-command of the Black Rot, but I couldn’t recall a time when I ever refused one of her schemes, mostly because they were often inconceivably perfect.
My commander was ever the strategist. I had the creative touch, the one whose ideas would often be grand in scale, but Vayle was the one who brought the crushing reality to most of them. We worked well together.
Still, questions abounded. “What’s in Vereumene except a blabbering idiot of a king?”
“According to Miss Tath here,” Vayle said, “someone very interesting.”
“You didn’t tell me everything last night?”
“I did,” Sybil said. “But after you went on about the birds, you stopped listening to me.”
“Well, who is it?” Rivon asked.
Sybil tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Serith Rabthorn’s daughter.”
I blinked. “Serith Rabthorn doesn’t have a daughter. No fertile seed, no son, no daughter, no lineage — the man laments about his family’s nonexistent future every time you talk to him.”
“Go figure,” Vayle said. “A Rabthorn lied.”
“What’s this hidden daughter going to tell us?” Rivon asked.
“I think something very important,” Sybil said. “Considering she’s a conjurer.”
Chapter 8
Sybil Tath and I parted ways again. She went off to Watchmen’s Bay, chasing her lover boy in attempt to stop him from asking for Dercy Daniser’s help in a war against Braddock, and the Black Rot descended into the colorless South.
There was rock as smooth as glass and as black and brittle as the crispy corpse of a rabbit strung up and forgotten about over a campfire. Nature had packed it into the form of mountains that were said to be so tall you could stand on top of them and finger the clouds. But time had worn them into disfigured hills, chopped off at the head and thinning around the waist. They had shed their glazed black skin across the flat expanse, creating a harrowing land that glinted like a demonic eye when burnished by the sun.
This place used to be the site of an old volcano. Now, it looked like it belonged to a population of pyromaniacs who’d run a few too many experiments.
My horse, who I’d borrowed from the slavers, crunched across the rocks. Her hooves crushed the slag into dust that smelled like ancient smoke.
Rivon coughed as we trudged through Crillick, home of Vereumene. His lungs weren’t as good as they used to be, when he smoked every leafy herb rumored to induce psychosis. Probably because he used to smoke every leafy herb rumored to induce psychosis.
A few more nights of hoofing it over volcanic rock — a total of ten since we’d left Writmire Fields — and the circular outer wall of Vereumene greeted us through the fog of morning. An accessory parapet intersected the middle of the wall and rose far over the city, eventually forming a cross armed with trebuchets and catapults. Enormous nets were anchored into the rotund crags that surrounded the kingdom, snagging falling rock.
Vayle tilted her head back and poured the last of her wine — her fifth skin in as many hours — down her throat, then tossed the skin behind her.
“Knackered yet?” I asked.
“Perfectly subdued,” she said, winking.
With a hand in the air, I idled the advancing swarm of Rots behind me, stopping well short of the wall, in case a jittery city guardsmen let his finger slip from the twine of his bow.
“City’s closed,” hollered a voice.
“Open it,” I replied. “We’re here to have a chat with your king.”
“Said the city’s closed. No visitors.”
“Look—”
“Wait,” Vayle whispered, shushing me. She guided her mare in front of mine. “We, the Black Rot, seek an audience with the honorable Lord Serith Rabthorn, King of Vereumene, Lord of the Rabthorn family, and Gate of the South. If it pleases his lordship, only the Shepherd will enter.”
I side-eyed her. “You and your fancy language.”
“The word you are looking for is diplomatic.”
Behind the crossed parapet, a tiny figure appeared on an equally tiny balcony bolted into the high-rising rectangular keep itself.
“Did I hear that right? Black Rot? Open the gate for our friends. We are a welcoming kingdom, mm… not a… mm… come in, come in.” He turned and vanished inside the keep.
Vayle and I looked at one another. “Thought he couldn’t speak?” I said.
“Sounds like he’s not cured just yet.”
The weighty doors of the gate creaked open, and the Black Rot set on a path toward the walls. I swung around on my saddle and said to the guys and gals of the Rot, “Don’t drink the water here. Seriously.”
“Well, Shepherd,” Kale said, “we’re going to have to get proper fucked then on wine and ale.”
Some of the Rots belted out ragged laughs.
“There’s always tea,” I said.
“Tea has water,” Kale countered.
“Yes. Boiled water.”
“Not a big drinker of hot drinks in the South. Unless it’s mead, of course. Honey preferred.”
This may well have been the South in the cusp of an early spring, but the dregs of winter hadn’t dissipated quite yet. We trotted headlong into an autumn wind, the kind just cool enough to make you wish you had something covering your arms.
“Not sure I like this,” Rivon said cautiously. “No, no. Not sure whatsoever.”
“What’s your problem?” I asked.
“Gives me the pimplies, this place does. Look at it, just look! A very, very depressing place, mm hmm.”
He gave his lips a good tonguing and swiveled his eyes back and forth, perhaps hoping to spot something that reminded him of Erior. Unfortunately for Rivon, Vereumene was no capital of the world. But dredge of the world? It was in the running, if not the only one sprinting.
The guards received us with as much indifference as the walls. They barely recognized our presence, as if they had more important matters to attend, such as how they’d feed their family on the pittance Serith paid them.
As we passed under the looming shadow of the parapet above, the sphere of the city opened up into a mess of haphazardly laid volcanic paths, buildings rotting at their foundation, roofs collapsing, doors barely attached to the hinges. This place was never a jewel, but it didn’t look like this seven months ago.
“Strangely empty,” Vayle said.
Dust bunnies sewn to life with sticks and chunks of fermented fruit bounded along the streets, sticking themselves beneath signs and propped-open doors.
“Looks to me like everyone went out for a jolly walk,” Rivon said.
Se
rith Rabthorn greeted us at the steps of the keep. “The entirety of the Black Rot?” he asked, clapping his hands together in welcoming fashion.
“We’re having a family get-together,” I said.
He smiled the smile of Death, which wasn’t a large effort to imagine, given he had about as much flesh left on his decrepit face as a deer has fur after meeting a skinner. He wore a cream robe, or more accurately, the cream robe wore him. Thin white hair, frayed at the ends, greased at the roots, lay in a clomped mess at his shoulders.
Serith painfully unwound his bony fingers from each other. “Tell me. What is the occasion?”
“I was hoping we could indulge in a little chitchat. It’s been a while, after all.”
He smiled. “Of course, Shepherd. Your men”—as he examined the Rots, his eye caught the red hair of Malivvie—“and women will find plenty of…” He looked longingly into his abandoned kingdom. “Oh. Well, as we were.”
He forced his cadaverous body to shift from right to left and then back again. It was like moving a diseased tree you fully expected to crumble into a mess of rotting bark and limbs. He shuffled his feet along the black pressed stones, toward his keep.
I clambered down from my mare and adjusted my belt. “Rest your horses,” I told the Rots. “And set up camp here. Do not enter any of the buildings.”
“Wot if they’re offerin’ free ale?” Auren asked.
“Even then.” I turned to Vayle. “Find his daughter while I play entertain the king.”
She smirked. “Have fun.”
“I’m sure,” I muttered, following Serith.
The old king took us into the empty throne room, the creased eye of the Rabthorn fox resting on the many tapestries that hung from the columns.
Up a few steps, around a couple corners, down a hallway, quick right turn, sharp left and we stopped inside a room. A finely sanded table lay inside, beneath a golden chandelier. Dozens of pronged candles burned on shelves at both sides of the room. Six barrels spread out in rows of two and stacked upon each other sat under the left shelf, which was filled to the back with clay amphorae.
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