“Oh,” said Spirk, “that’s Shapers’ work.”
“Something you could do?” Ron panted, a bit winded from the exertion.
“No, no,” Spirk replied dismissively. “I ain’t a Shaper, really.”
“Tell that to Lady Faenia,” Ron said. He’d thought his master might find that amusing, but Spirk said nothing in response.
Without warning, Spirk came to a halt and Ron stumbled right into his backside.
“Wall, here.”
“You can open it, right?” Ron asked, a hint of desperation in his voice.
“I hope so.”
And then there was a crack of light and a scent of flowers.
The ‘door’ opened into a little-used alley, a good two hundred or more paces from the eastern wall of the D’Escurzy estate. In the distance, the two men could hear shouting, but it was difficult to tell whether the tone was one of anger or joy.
Terrified of being apprehended, Ron swung his gaze left, right, left, right. “Where do we go now?”
“Do you know the Fretful Porpentine?” Spirk asked.
“That a tavern, is it?”
“And a good ‘un.”
“Well,” Ron said, “we can maybe pass the night there. But we’ll need to leave town by sun up. There’s no telling what the survivin’ D’Escurzys’ll do to us if they find us.”
“Have you ever been to Teshton?”
Ron thought for a moment. “Teshton? Can’t say as I have.”
“I know a place we can go.”
“Good enough, then. The Fretful Porpetine for tonight, and tomorrow it’s Teshton.”
~TEN~
Rem, the Queen’s Castle
It took much longer than Rem had anticipated to convince the Queen’s functionaries to admit him and the rest of his company, even with the ostentatious and highly perfumed letter Henton had sent along by way of introduction. Yet, the royal staff was distrustful, as was their wont, perhaps, or their charge. After nearly an hour’s wrangling, a dour bald man in robes appeared, snapped up the letter and glowered at Rem.
“It is almost midnight,” the man said flatly. “An unusual time of day to present yourself at Her Majesty’s door.”
Rem cleared his throat. “Well, yes, we…er…”
“I understand you are an actor, but let us dispense with the charades for the time being. You were initially employed by one Colonel Bailis, were you not?”
Rem could think of no clever way around the truth in this instance, so he confessed. “Aye.”
“Follow me,” the bald man commanded.
“With pleasure!” Rem answered gamely.
*****
Kittins, House Blackbyrne
He had come to kill this Kendell fellow and, beyond that, to wreak whatever havoc he might before the Blackbyrnes killed him in turn. Things weren’t turning out as he’d planned, though. So far, he’d only managed to kill one scrawny and nameless nobleman and several guards. Oh, and he’d gotten himself pinned down in a moonlit dressing room (from the look of it). He’d again considered starting a fire – another fire – but had thought better of it. Now, he second-guessed himself. A fire might cause the most panic and confusion, allowing him time to evade his pursuers long enough to find Kendell.
He waited for an instant, expecting reinforcements to come storming into this new room from the hallway, but none came. The men at his back kept advancing, however. Kittins slid his knife into his belt, ran for the door and yanked it open. It seemed no attack was forthcoming. Before running into the hall, he glanced backwards and saw two men following him, neither of whom were carrying…
Crossbows fired away at him as soon as he stepped fully outside the room. This time, he wasn’t so lucky, as one of the bolts slammed into his right hip. How the other bolt missed him defied comprehension. Rather than running away, Kittins took the initiative and charged the bowmen. He could see the fear in their eyes, as they considered whether or not to take precious seconds to reload or to drop their crossbows and draw their swords. Their indecision, though brief, cut short their lives. Kittins wasn’t fuckin’ around. He roared into them, his frustration and, now, his pain giving him strength. He killed one of the bowmen with a backhanded slash from his long sword. He crushed the other man’s skull when he brought his sword back around, smashing the pommel into the man’s unprotected forehead.
Agony bloomed in his upper back, near his shoulder. He’d been hit by a throwing knife. Kendell! Without bothering to turn and confirm this, Kittins ran/limped back the way he’d originally come, towards the stairs. If he could just get far enough ahead, he might be able to hide and ambush…
Another knife hit him on the same side, this time in the ass. Thank Mahnus for his chain shirt. The knives were penetrating, but not too deeply. Face to face, the other man could probably pick more vulnerable targets. Kittins didn’t intend to give him that opportunity. He gained some distance when Kendell and his men stopped to assess the two bowmen. He’d come up these stairs two at a time, but he went down in threes and fours. On the third floor landing, he found what he was looking for: a burning lamp. Ripping it off the wall, he tossed it into the first open door he found and continued down the third floor hallway. He came upon another lamp and did the same at the next open door. Again, Kendell hurled a knife at him, but either the distance was too great or the man was distracted by the first lamp Kittins had thrown; in any case, the knife missed. The big man grabbed the next lamp he saw and threw it behind him, in the middle of the hallway floor. He took a second to watch the flaming oil splatter and spread before he moved on. The knives stopped coming and the sound of footsteps faded a bit, so Kittins chanced a look backwards. The fire barrier had stopped his pursuers, but he still needed to kill Kendell. Not because Darley had commanded him to – Kittins didn’t give two shits for that anymore – but because it was the greatest challenge within reach and because, he had to admit, he looked forward to the violence of it.
“’Fraid of a little fire, Knife Boy?” he yelled out.
“’Knife Boy?” Kendell scoffed. “That the best you got, ya stupid bastard?”
Sometimes, trying to goad a person into doing something backfired, and the goader became the goadee. Kittins wasn’t having it. “Oh, I’m the stupid one, am I? How many o’ your men have I sent to it, and I’m still free, aren‘t I? Looks to me like you’re the idiot, here.”
Kittins heard some mumbling, an exchange of orders or some such, and then Kendell dove through the now-roaring flames and scrambled to his feet, coming up with blades in both hands.
“Ah,” Kittins smiled. “Good. It’s you I came for, anyway.”
Kendell seemed nonplussed for a moment and then shrugged. “As you wish. You’ve only got a couple o’ minutes ‘til my crew returns with our Shaper, anyway. Best make it good.”
Kittins waded in, his sword and long knife in position to deflect anything thrown at him. “Have at you, then!” he roared.
The smaller man did, indeed, get off a couple of knives before his adversary reached him, but neither was able to penetrate the man’s defenses. Hand to hand, then. Kendell tried circling to his right, so he wouldn’t have the flames at his back. Kittins lunged to his left, to block the move. With astonishing speed, Kendell tossed a blade at the big man’s midriff and pulled another. Still spinning from the momentum of his leap, the knife skittered off Kittins’ side and thudded, hilt-first, into the wall, opposite. He swept his long knife upwards towards his opponent’s face, more to unnerve and unbalance the man than with any hope of actually hitting him. Meantime, he hacked overhand with his sword, aiming to separate the man’s shoulder from his neck. Kendell ducked out of the way of the long knife and crossed his own blades to parry the bigger man’s sword. Simultaneous with this, he kicked out with his right foot in a bid for Kittins’ family jewels. In response, Kittins brought his long knife around and down, swiping at the other man’s leg. The kick had been a feint, however, and Kendell launched yet another knife at his as
sailant – this time, in the direction of the man’s face.
This one hit home, piercing through the cheek on the ruined side of Kittins face and jutting out his now bloodied mouth. Kittins made an enormous sweep with his sword, pushing the smaller man away, in order to gain a few seconds to remove the blade.
“Enough o’ this bullshit!” Kittins slurred. He tossed his weapons and charged at his enemy.
Hand to hand was one thing; getting into a wrestling match with the big bastard was something else entirely, and Kendell wanted no part of it. He panicked for the briefest moment, and the big man was on him. Kittins punched him in the face, and Kendell felt something in his jaw crack. The next thing he knew, the brute was grappling for his hands, and, without his hands, Kendell understood he was as good as dead. He tried slashing at the bigger man’s hands and forearms in a series of too-quick-to-see blows, but Kittins’ gauntlets made it hard to score a satisfying hit. Then Kittins got a hold of Kendell’s left wrist and wrenched it as hard as he could in the opposite direction of the joint’s natural movement. Kendell heard another snap. In the second that the big man took to bask in his victory, Kendell put a dagger in his left thigh to the hilt. He’d been aiming for the femoral artery and missed; still, he got Kittins’ attention.
“You weaselly little shit!” Kittins smashed his body into the smaller man’s, pinning him to the wall, knocking the breath out of him. Kittins then bashed his head into Kendell’s face, breaking his nose and further damaging his jaw. While the Chief of Security was stunned, Kittins finally got a hold of his right hand and snapped a number of his fingers.
“The fuck?” Kittins gasped. A sharp, blazing pain raged in his gut. He risked a look down and saw that the other man had stabbed him with some sort of spring-loaded blade from the gauntlet of his broken left wrist. It was a serious damned wound, the worst he’d gotten so far. He didn’t have time to worry about it, though, because he could just make out the sounds of more men approaching beyond the flames. He spat blood in Kendell’s face, pulled his head out from the wall and drove it back again with all the force he could muster. The back of the other man’s head collapsed and a flood of bloody fluid gushed out his mouth and nose. Kittins let him slide down the wall, and then he bolted for the nearest open doorway.
As it happened, this room was lit, but unoccupied. It was a small, secondary kitchen with a large cupboard and what appeared to be a garbage chute. Kittins slammed the room’s door behind himself and dragged the cupboard over to stall his pursuers even longer. He knew it was unwise to pull arrows, knives and the like without bandaging himself, but he didn’t have the time to tend his wounds properly and, anyway, he hoped the blood – his and his enemy’s – that now covered him almost completely would serve the purpose he intended. A loud banging erupted on the other side of the door, but Kittins ignored it. Instead, he stripped naked, rubbed the blood over as much of himself as he could and strode towards the garbage chute. Without another thought, he yanked the door open and dove into the dark, rancid space before him. It was, as expected, a terribly tight fit, but untold years’ worth of rotting detritus nevertheless greased his passage and, after a few seconds’ rough passage through the chute, Kittins felt himself free-falling through open air. A moment later, he splashed into cold, pervasive darkness, too tired and disoriented even to tread water.
*****
Mardine, Captive
When the bastard came ‘round again, Mardine pretended to be grateful for the attention. Men were suckers that way; if you told them they were unusually strong or brave or handsome or special in any way whatsoever, they believed it and started to put on airs. It went straight to their heads. And that meant they could be manipulated.
It was evening, again. Jaddo only came by at that time, perhaps because those with him – and Mardine had discovered there were more than just Nelby and Tresa; she could hear them – were preoccupied with the evening meal, or drinking themselves stupid, or whatever else it was they did to while away the time. Perhaps Nelby was busy cooking, which allowed Jaddo a few minutes for mischief. Whatever the case, he’d found his way to Mardine’s wagon once more and managed to “accidentally” grope her twice or thrice before speaking a word.
“I ‘magine yer a wild one ‘twixt the sheets, bein’ a giant and all, eh?”
It was difficult feigning a blush, but, in the gloaming, Mardine pulled it off well enough. “Might be,” she breathed, bashfully. “But I’ve not had much experience of late.”
Jaddo ogled her with his yellow eyes. “I ‘magine that’s as rough for a woman as a man…”
“You’ve no idea.”
“I mean, for a man, you go long enough without and you’re like to stick it any-old-wheres.”
That’s true for dogs and boars and rats, Mardine thought. But some men have more restraint. “It’s the same for us women,” she lied.
Jaddo grinned, his tobacco-stained teeth jutting out like a row of neglected tombstones. “Might be, we could take care of each other’s needs…” He said, letting his voice trail off suggestively.
“Yes?” Mardine asked, trying to sound hopeful, but feeling nauseous at the thought of it.
“I figure we got some time right now, when everyone else is at supper.”
She had him. “I’d want to get cleaned up a bit. A woman wants to look and smell right.”
“O’ course,” Jaddo smirked. “We been travelling along the Little Dilber. It’s a river. I can lead you down there, get you cleaned up and we can get acquainted, like.”
“Oh,” Mardine panted, “I can hardly wait.”
Jaddo helped her up off the wagon bed and onto her feet, pointing a crossbow at her the whole time. “No tricks, now. I can’t kill you with this, but I can make you wish you was dead.”
“No, no. No tricks.”
Jaddo led her towards the river by a circuitous route that avoided the camp, although once Mardine stood up (on shaky legs), she was able to see the fire. Halfway to the river, she got a good look at her captors and was stunned to see a lot of familiar faces belonging to people who had given her clues – the peddler and his wife, an “innkeeper,” and several others. So, it was a conspiracy, then. The whole group had assembled to steal her daughter and deceive Mardine. But why?
“I’m not surprised that Nelby can’t satisfy a man like you,” Mardine whispered.
“Nelby? That git? I’ve never ‘ad ‘er and wouldn’t want to. Girl’s like a starved chicken!”
“But didn’t the two of you plan this whole thing?” Mardine asked as she neared the river.
“Me and Nelby?” Jaddo laughed contemptuously. “Not on your life! Tresa’s ten times as clever and fifty as appealing. Still,” he said, “man needs something new once in a while, eh?”
Mardine was devastated. She’d falsely accused Nelby of stealing Esmine, when in reality, it appeared to have been Jaddo and Tresa all along. Mardine faced Jaddo. “I can’t really undress with my hands shackled behind my back.”
“I’ll take your skirts and leggin’s off,” Jaddo said. “Yer dugs don’t need cleaning, or, if they do, I’m the one’ll be cleaning ‘em!” He cackled as he set down his crossbow.
But as Jaddo began unwrapping her skirts, Mardine fell onto him, pinning him to the stones of the river bed with her great weight. He screamed, but the sound was muffled by Mardine’s body. She rose enough to allow her crushing momentum and crashed back to the ground. Jaddo tried to time his screams to her risings, but by the third time she fell upon him, he had no strength left with which to complain. Once he lost consciousness, Mardine stomped him to death in seconds, reducing his head to so much jelly.
As long as men were ruled by their pricks, they’d be inferior to thinking women.
Mardine rooted around in Jaddo’s foul-smelling, blood-drenched clothing until she found the keys to her shackles. It took almost more patience than she possessed, but she managed to free herself.
She’d killed her most obnoxious persecutor, but the most
dangerous, possibly, remained alive in the person of Tresa. In addition, there was a host of other folk around the fire that, one way or another, Mardine would have to deal with before she and her daughter were truly free to escape. Giants were big, yes, but capable of remarkable stealth when necessary. With utmost care, Mardine headed for the shadows beneath the trees, just beyond the fire’s reach. Sooner or later, someone would come looking for Jaddo; Mardine needed to act before that occurred. Moving more slowly than she could bear, the giantess worked her way around the fire, at one point even dashing across the path, in order to get an accurate assessment of the numbers she faced. Gods, there were at least twelve people and maybe more, if they had someone guarding Esmine. Nelby was nowhere in evidence, which suggested that she might be the one watching Esmine, still a part of the conspiracy. Or she might be dead, killed in the effort to save Esmine. It was all conjecture at this point.
As Flies to Wanton Boys (Immortal Treachery Book 2) Page 35
