Snakewood

by Adrian Selby

  Both Prennen and Laun took a moment to register what they were seeing.

  “You’re The Red.”

  “Yes, Laun, I am The Red, and these are both Fieldsmen. Fieldsmen Seventy-seven has been on duty, so he has no formal dress, but Fieldsman Eighty-five came from Candar directly at my behest and she has done so for just this. She has carried the shirt here.”

  “Your wife told us there were no women that were Fieldsmen,” said Galathia.

  “We shall talk of my wife soon enough. There was much, sadly, she didn’t know. Prennen, see to Tofi, Midgie and Omara, give them some salts. They are not deeply asleep. You know how to treat the arrow wound. It will have done little damage.”

  Laun could not take her eyes off the small shirt, a child’s shirt, blackened with long-dried blood. It was the Post’s greatest relic. As I spoke to her I folded it into a square.

  “Marschal Laun, you have led your crew on forty-four assignments, and took part in thirty-eight others as part of Marschal Mesch’s crew. You have served with distinction, not failing to deliver the required outcome on any of those assignments. In the killing of one hundred and seventy-three across those assignments you have led, you have led your crew also with distinction, not least in the operation against the Jinzy Gang that plagued Strinmore’s Heights in the Ten Clan, which killed forty-seven Reds and six Agents prior. Your crew respect you and would die for you if you gave the word. You have been willing to question orders and suggest alternative strategems where you felt a better outcome for the Post could be achieved. These are essential qualities for a Fieldsman. You understand that I am here to give you a choice, and you know what that choice is. You have earned it with this final assignment, the protection of Galathia, winning her trust and friendship. You have performed exceptionally well. The evidence is plain in Galathia’s face. I need no more proof.

  “You see, Galathia, despite losing your family’s heirlooms, we, the Post, nevertheless benefited greatly from securing the North Passage through Argir, until recently.

  “There was no doubting your family’s line treated the people of Argir fairly and had maintained peace for a long time. Corruption sprang up, nobles at court feuding and vying for the Administrator role we made in your family’s absence. Immigrants moved into Argir’s borders from Lagrad, sensing its weakness, and as the court tore itself apart with conflicting alliances fractured along family lines of many generations, our problems multiplied, and your people clamoured and challenged us and demanded their royal family back.

  “Fortunately, my predecessor believed it was important to find you in the event of this outcome and had for years harvested reports of red-headed girls from the Citadels matching your age, you being the more distinctive of Doran’s children. Then you appear in the Juan High Commune, and from there we needed to ensure you were safe, we needed someone who could be with you constantly, a guard of course, but someone closer, more a husband.”

  “No!” she screamed. Laun grabbed her arm as she lunged again at Alon, who flinched before her, his head bowed. She screamed again and again, swore at us all, pulled at Laun, kicked her and spat in her face. Gradually she collapsed to her knees and sobbed. Laun kneeled with her but did not let her go.

  “Your husband has proved to be a most loyal ally to the Post. We have shared much success through collaboration on so many routes out of the Old Kingdoms.”

  I wavered for a moment, seeing vividly the small patch of freshly turned earth within which Araliah lay.

  “But unfortunately for all of us, because of my position, you had no idea what you were doing when you went to Harudan.”

  “Kailen, I…” began Alon, but the words died as it all dawned on him. It was clear to me that he remembered her, remembered what had happened.

  “Do you know Gant fucked your wife?” said Galathia.

  “If I know my wife, she fucked him.”

  “Laun was there. This sly bitch was at your estate as well. What will you do to her?”

  “I know, Galathia, and I can see what you’re trying to do. Laun never forgot her duty to the Post, nor would I have expected otherwise, in the circumstances, while she was paid as the Post. But she didn’t kill Araliah. She didn’t kill anyone on that estate who didn’t put up a resistance. You, Kigan and Alon, however, despite my wife not being of the Twenty, despite her telling you everything she could, you saw fit to kill her in such a way my own people would not tell me how she died. I implored them of course, and they would not tell me, though my quartermaster and our personal servant Imbrit wept while they refused me. I can imagine many awful things, for that has been my life. But she deserved better. This reckoning is for her, irrespective of its effect on the Post’s interests.

  “Now, Laun, before I take my revenge on Alon and Galathia, let go of her and step forward. I need you to make your choice. Will you walk the Hiscan Road?” I held the folded shirt across my palms.

  Laun took a deep breath and stepped forward. She looked at Galathia, at her men, and then back at me calmly.

  “I will walk the Hiscan Road,” she said.

  “What? What are you doing, Laun, what’s going on?” said Galathia. Fieldsman Seventy-seven raised a hand to silence her.

  I kneeled before Laun and held up the shirt for her to take in her own hands, reciting the vow, specifically for Laun, which would have been said by the first to hold the mantle of The Red, long ago. “We serve each other. May the blood of my son make strong the blood of my sister, to protect those that are in our care and deliver to them reward fair for their toil. This shirt I keep, for the Post was born with his blood. On this shirt we pledge to bind nation with nation, and we honour those that die for that pledge. You are Fieldsman Ninety-three and you will walk the Hiscan Road.”

  I stood again, with the satchel, and took from her the shirt, gently, for she had gripped it tightly and had not realised. She was weeping, her head bowed. I stepped back and Fieldsman Eighty-five stepped forward, in her hands Laun’s new leathers and fieldbelt.

  “Please,” she said, gesturing for Laun to undress. Fieldsman Seventy-seven helped her out of her Agent leathers and then Eighty-five helped her into her new ones. She shivered through it, it was plain that she had grown attached to Galathia. How else could such subterfuge be effective?

  “You do not need the mask today,” I said, “for these Fieldsmen you may know, though there be many you will not.

  “Eighty-five, your duty now is to take Galathia back to the harbour and there, with this seal and purse, seek passage over Lake Issan and onto Candar Prime.” I walked forward and stood over Galathia. She stiffened, and I sensed some deceit or defiance about her.

  “When the time is right you will be Queen of Argir, assuming your brother sees sense. We shall find out how much he loves you when he learns you are my hostage.”

  “I’d rather die than be your puppet. Your pathetic ritual, the lies about binding nations when you cow them and control them for your own profit, you make me sick.” She rose and tried to push me away, her arm flicking out towards me. While she moved quickly, my dayer helped me read her intent, see the knife tucked against her wrist. I ducked back and spun to her side.

  “Nielus taught you well.” I took her arm in a lock and tore the wristband holding the knife from her. She yelped but I held her to me, her arm bent so close to breaking that she dared do no more than breathe, her defiance momentarily drained. I whispered to her.

  “The blood of the founder’s son made strong his own blood and through it he forged a company for the ages. You tell me these are lies, but I can say only that if you look past yourself, you will see your people, as all of our allies see theirs, as I see my own people, my Reds and Agents and Reeves. The blood of your people makes strong the line of Welvale, your blood. You would see them get the peace they crave, for their children, for their toil; the freedom from bandits and thieves and thugs, the coin they need for the skins they cure and cut, the plant they grow and harvest, the iron they hack and purify f
rom the mountains. If you love your people, what matter who it is you ally with but that they can provide you with the means to help your people thrive? Think on this in the coming years. You and I do not matter. To what extent we can make a difference to the majority? That matters.”

  I released her arm and pushed her away, then turned and walked up to Laun, now dressed in her new leathers. All who are born are born suffering. She went to bow but I held my arms out and embraced her.

  “Just make me proud,” I whispered. “You may hold the future of the Old Kingdoms in your hands, along with your fellow Fieldsmen, as we face up to the future this new warlord from the Wild presents us with.”

  She stepped back to Galathia who was rubbing her arm but otherwise downcast.

  “Now, Alon, Galathia is still necessary but you are not. Unlike your wife, you did not meet Captain Nielus. Sadly, I did not either, though Fieldsman Sixty-eight told me that he excelled with the knife, kept the blade so sharp he often achieved the compliance of his targets by demonstrating only its sharpness on a length of bamboo.” I took Galathia’s knife from its strap.

  Alon stood and ran to his left, scrambling away to the safety of the trees. Fieldsman Seventy-seven, in a conical straw hat and long loose robe as you would see commonly worn on his people in Corob’s Dicta, lifted his iron blowpipe and hit Alon in the neck with a dart, sending him sprawling.

  Seventy-seven dragged Alon back to the centre of the hollow, near the campfire. He was dazed and whimpering. He tripped Alon flat to the ground, kneeling on his chest.

  Taking some short wooden stakes and twine from his pack, he then staked Alon to the ground and cut away his woollens to bare his chest and stomach. Alon was calling for Galathia now, who shook herself free of Laun but did not otherwise move, waiting. He started offering us money, all of his wealth and estates, and of course begged for mercy.

  I dipped Galathia’s knife in a pouch on my belt, kneeled before him and began. He was wide eyed now, his breathing coming in short gasps, and he cried freely. He could not lift his head up to see what I was doing, for his throat also was pinned to the grass.

  “While I complete this, I will tell you what is happening to the Filston-Blackmore guild. You have seventeen ships currently sailing short hauls to ports across the Sar, three more heading around to Western Farlsgrad, Ryylan and Rulamna. When they arrive your crews will be paid off and your cargo turned over to the respective militias to fund that payment and profit that militia. Your ships will of course also become the property of those countries.

  “You have sixty-four caravans travelling to thirty-three destinations. All of them will be taken similarly. By the time I’ve flayed you, your brother, Diens Filston, will be strangled in front of his family. Thiek Blackmore has been decapitated already and left at your headquarters at Jua. Well, outside them. We’ve killed everyone we found there and burned it to the ground, so your guild is finished. I say we, I mean the mercenaries I hired, because this has nothing to do with the Post, though I suppose the Post has benefited. This is my own revenge on you for what you did to Araliah, nothing more. I will have my revenge on Kigan in good time. Galathia, well, her blood denies me the chance of giving her a simple death, at least until she is no longer useful. Ahh, there we are. I’ve managed it all with a single cut.”

  I paused and held up a large flap of skin that had covered his chest before throwing it behind me.

  “There, you didn’t even feel it, did you? This is an exquisite knife. Now, you may have guessed I’m dipping your wife’s blade in a potent clove oil. It’s why you can’t feel a thing that is happening. In an hour or so it will start to hurt, and it will continue to hurt until you die, whenever that is.”

  I looked up to Galathia and Laun. Galathia was weeping, her fury overcome.

  “It is time for you to leave, Galathia. I hope you understand better now what your position in all this truly is. We will either put you on the throne of Argir in due course, or you will also die, and for your part in the death of my wife, you will die like this, at my hand. Fieldsman Seventy-seven and Laun, Fieldsman Ninety-three, will come with me to see Mirisham. We will no doubt see Kigan. I very much hope so. Fieldsman Eighty-five, would you take everyone else with you?”

  She helped Prennen bring the Agents awake, whispered in their ears as she did so, aligning them to what had transpired while they slept.

  “Fieldsman Ninety-three, your full induction will take place at Candar Prime, after we have found Mirisham. From there you will walk the Hiscan Road. When that journey is complete you will find a way to serve and when you do, I will find you again.”

  Laun embraced her old crew, stood also for a moment before Galathia. Before she could say anything Galathia slapped her, turned and left with Fieldsman Eighty-five. I looked down at Alon.

  “Let’s do the arms now, shall we?”

  Chapter 19

  Gant

  I must have slept, maybe a few hours. Like where I started this journal I’m in some trees and the air’s like iced clay on my face. Shale’s about, hasn’t slept proper in days. I know if I move it’ll hurt. He give me some plain betony last night, stupid to be taking it like that but it give me rest and anyway, I didn’t have much longer.

  “I bin dreaming again,” I said, “that time Mirisham had us loading those stinking dead sheep onto the trebucks and you puts his fieldbelt and sword on one of them and he watches it sail off over that river. I can see him now laying into you.”

  He was setting the saddle on the horse we kept of those that belonged to Kigan. “I were lashed fierce fer that,” he said, smiling. I dreamed too of my ma, following her and the goats with my sister up Ravell’s Pass, past the burned-out fort nobody’d go near for fear of disturbing what was there. My sister said she heard men singing to her, but the magist that come to the war academy in Jua put us right on the matter of ghosts.

  “Let’s go, Gant. Eat this an’ let me do yer rubs an’ that fat gut yer got.”

  The birds started up, thrushes and sparrows I recognised as Shale led me on the horse at a brisk walk in the shadow of the near peaks. I was in and out of sleep as I rocked with the horse’s gait, Shale looking back every so often for signs we were being caught.

  “Hope this statue of Sillindar’s as obvious as Valdir reckons,” I said.

  We ate some bisks, honeyed as well, from the saddlebags of this horse. Kigan must have still been involved with Alon for such a luxury. The sun took the edge off the breeze, but offered little more as it got smothered by some low cloud out of the north. Shale kept up a good marching pace and I joined his chant to help keep him going. Each time I tried to get down to march with him he was ratty with me, telling me he needed me ready for the climb to the passes Valdir spoke of.

  We both hoped he’d got out of there with Achi, for Kigan could work his plant in ways even us mercs couldn’t watch. We didn’t say about it, so we both knew each was sure they were dead.

  Later that afternoon we saw a farmstead, tucked into a hollow beneath the wide rolls of hills we followed; a few turf-covered buildings, what looked like cow byres, and with his eyes juiced Shale saw some mountain leopards just as we heard a cow giving off an awful shriek.

  “Anyone about, Shale? Surely not if those are leopards.”

  He took his bow and made a few hundred yards. He put a bagged arrow into the enclosure, aggravating the leopards. He gestured me forward and I drew a sword as we closed on the homesteads and barns.

  The noise of flies and stink of the dead animals hit us first, then we saw it was a calf, lowing and thrashing about with its back legs torn and useless. The rest of what we smelled was a more organised slaughter. The leopards fled as Shale put arrows into one and about the others.

  “Not seen one o’ those in near twenty winters, not this far out and in the plains,” he said. I dismounted as he put an arrow in the calf’s head to silence it.

  “Look in the houses, Gant, I’ll get us some cuts off this.”

  Would’ve
been eight, ten families hereabouts, byres enough for maybe forty or fifty head and the sties too. The stink and the flies were in one of the byres. What was left of most of that herd was there, slaughtered for their meat. Most of the tools–spades, cleavers and the like–were left lying about.

  From the doorway of one of the houses I saw enough to confirm they all just fled quick as they could; some fine carved figures on a table, a chest open with some fine linen in it, useful for bandages I reckoned. They were probably on the Forstway, escaping the horde what had come to the edge of the Old Kingdoms.

  Outside, Shale was washing the calf’s blood off his hands in a water barrel.

  “Plenty o’ straw an’ wood about. I can get a fire goin’ an’ cook up these steaks so we can be on our way.”

  “They took the salt,” I said.

  “We sees Mirisham in a day if Valdir’s directed us right, no need fer it.”

  Meat was good in my mouth, blood and the burned flesh like hot bark, but I was soon needing the betony to cope with it as it hit my gut. I didn’t want my steak cut to slivers this time, thinking it had to be one of my last proper meals.

  We used some of the linen to help my wound and I got back on the horse and we’re off. We didn’t stop but for an hour or so that night. He took some of his snuff and I’m sat shivering and crowded out of the moments and the world about me by the memory of things. Seemed like my head was sorting through it all, like a dut tearing through a bale of hay looking for a hide-me. Shale wasn’t for hearing what I remembered. I was hoping he’d get a bit of sleep anyway. Most of what I was seeing was from before we met, clan tourneys we used to have in Lagrad, when I was the pride of my da. Some of those boys I beat were probably leading the clan now, settled with women and boys of their own, probably old enough too to be running their herd.

  Dawn come again. We found ourselves climbing steadily. Shale had a strong luta in his eyes, looking back and hoping there was a sign of Valdir. Soon enough his attention was drawn east, away from the range we tracked. He thought his eyes were tricking him, then he thrust the luta at me.