“Same in this one,” said one of my mercenaries who had boarded the other wagon.
“We come from Ikkyl,” the woman blurted out. The man next to her looked enraged. She passively held out her hands in attempt to placate him. “We were heading for the great kingdom of Edenvaile.”
“I like you,” I said. “You don’t make me get my hands dirty for good information. But I’m afraid we have a small problem.”
“Don’t kill us!” she pleaded, her small round face sagging with fear. “I have a girl in Ikkyl, please, sir. Please.”
One of the mercenaries licked his lips. “Pretty girl, there. Wot do you think, Astul? Could share her fifteen times before sunset, eh?”
Terror poured into her chest and lungs. I could feel it on her heavy, warm breath. “If I release you,” I said, “you will wander into a messenger camp or a nearby village. You’ll send word to Ikkyl that your caravan was raided. Ikkyl will send word to Edenvaile, and then I find myself in a heap of trouble.”
Her teeth shivered, and her eyes puddled with tears. “I won’t. I promise you, swear upon the Pantheon, swear upon my daughter, I won’t do that.”
“If there is one thing men, women and children all share, it’s that they lie.”
The girl closed her eyes, hard, jettisoning a tear down her cheek.
The deeper I got in this game, the less I liked it. In my younger days, I’d raided plenty of caravans. Somewhat for the wealth aboard, but mostly for the thrill. My reputation as an assassin preceded me, but I never once put ebon to the throat of an innocent woman or man or child. Because what did it matter if I allowed them to live? I didn’t care if they told their fearless vassal or their boastful lady with her furs and jewelry. No one would cross me, and if they did, my agents of death would quickly dispose of them.
But now? Now I had to worry about a fucking lord in some abhorrent stronghold informing a fucking king that the caravan which entered his kingdom carried with it assassins. Vileoux would sniff out my men — my parasites — and so would go my grand siege. I depended on people now. People who influenced my actions. People who stripped me of my freedom.
This war couldn’t end soon enough, one way or the other.
“Step out,” I ordered the drivers.
The woman’s nostrils flared, and the dull skin stretching across her forehead tightened. The white of her knuckles glowed like a pale moon, and she snapped the reins. “Go, go!” she screamed.
The two steeds pulling the wagon stumbled forward exhaustedly. Just as the wooden wheels spun in the snow, I lacerated the thin vein that pulsed with excitement on the woman’s throat. I pushed the ebon deeper into her soft tissues, crushing and severing muscles and tubes.
She glugged as blood gushed from the flap of flesh my sword had incised, the red warmth surfing down her chest like a ripple of water down a flooded stream.
The man beside her jumped from the wagon and made a run for it. He took about nine steps before a sellsword cut him down and fouled the immaculate snow with the color of strong wine.
A couple mercenaries boarded the second wagon and hurled its occupants, two mustachioed men, out into the snow. The sellswords circled them like vultures, managing a few swift kicks to the drivers’ heads before I stopped them.
“End it,” I said. “We have an appointment to keep.”
Swords were raised, and swords were plunged. No cries, no desperate wails. Just some blood, a petering series of gasps and then a forceful wind blowing through, as if to collect the souls we’d just strewn.
“Look inside the beds,” I said. “Take what you want, but make it quick. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”
Like a flock of birds clamoring for a few morsels of bread, the sellswords pushed and shoved one another at the front of each caravan. They pulled hair, shouted and threatened. They reminded me of my brother and me when we’d spotted what we thought was a gold coin tucked away in a thicket. I punched him in the jaw and leaped on top of it. He picked himself up, dropped an elbow on my head, called me some choice names and kneed me in the ribs until the pain rolled me onto my side. Anton thought he’d won when he had the glittering gold between his fingers, but I bit his knuckle until I tasted blood and heard him scream like a little girl. In the end, what we found for our efforts was not gold but rather a flattened piece of duck shit covered in pollen.
Thankfully, the mercenaries withheld physical violence, and they calmed down after getting their grimy hands on some new iron.
While they inspected their new weapons, I took stock of the goods inside the wagons that lagged behind. Food was still plentiful, if stale and cold, and we still had rows of wine skins, which meant morale would remain stable, unless we had a teetotaler sellsword amongst us, which is a rarity along the lines of seeing a eunuch bending over a whore. After all, if you live to kill, you better have some wine to chase away the nightmares.
But while our goods were well-stocked, the horses did not fare as well. Many were heaving at their sides, heads drooping, nostrils flaring. Their backs and bellies were frothing beneath the saddles, a milky glaze that leaked down their thick coats.
So much for leaving in ten minutes. Half my horses would probably keel over by the time we made it twenty miles farther.
“Stoke some fires,” I hollered. “We rest here tonight and leave in the morning.”
“Wot about guards?” a man asked. “In case some wanderers or barbarians come looking for a poach.”
“Figure it out,” I said. “I’m not your fucking father.”
I missed my Rots during times like these. The Black Rot was the most organized and lethal fighting force this world had to offer, and I’d back that claim even in the face of the Glannondils’ Red Sentinels, the Danisers’ Blue Wave, the Verdans’ Royal Guard and all the highly specialized killers across Mizridahl. The Rots would never ask silly questions like who was standing guard. It was figured out before the first fire was even lit.
Perhaps I was being too hard on the mercenaries. After all, it is their intrinsic nature to be disorganized buffoons. They’re crude fighters, ones who can stab and poke, but asking them to make strategic decisions beyond that is useless. I didn’t have time to babysit them, though. I had maps to look at, thoughts to think, a blade to sharpen, and most importantly, wine to drink.
And I drank my wine, and another. Two skins’ worth coursing through my veins. I felt pretty fuckin’ sloshed as I raked a whetstone up the edge of my dagger, laughing to myself as I dropped the blade for the sixth time in my lap. I picked it up again, held it steady and caught the reflection of a small band of equally drunk sellswords approaching me. They crouched before my fire.
“Thought I’d introduce myself if we’re going to be killin’ together,” a man said. Scars zigzagged across his face, and a dense black beard hung to the middle of his chest. Caught within were flakes of snow and soot and splinters of twigs and crushed leaves.
“Story is Mama called me Art as I popped right out of her, but then she said I looked more like a Pog, so that’s my name. Pog.”
Two women and three other men huddled around Pog. They introduced themselves in order. There was a Crillean, a Svella, and the others I couldn’t remember. Didn’t care to remember, either. They weren’t my Rots. They were only sellswords. Buy ’em up, put ’em to work, and if they die, then you have simply lost an investment.
I laughed to myself. I liked the way the wine made me feel. Took away all that sentimental shit that wrenched my gut and made me question who I was.
“I like this,” Pog said. “It’s different for me. For all of us. Assassins like you, they don’t hire us. No, we get these pigheaded lords and ladies who haven’t seen a real fight in their whole lives. They think they can hold a sword just because their master-at-arms taught them how to parry once or twice. They come to us, lay some gold in our hands, and we follow ’em west and east and south and north, wherever they’re goin’. Make sure they get there safely.”
“You should he
ar the stories they tell,” Svella said. She rolled her eyes. “One time they drank wine that was sour, and it gave their tummy the cramps.”
“A little lord from Sedan bitched about the quality of his boots,” Pog bemoaned. “Said he hadn’t gotten new ones made in over a year. I told him I’d been wearing the same ones for eight years now. Shut up him real quick. Wealthy fuck probably couldn’t even patch a hole in the sole.”
I took a swig of wine. “I’m sure they pay well nevertheless.”
“Ah,” Pog grumbled. “You pay better.”
“As I should. Because this may cost you your life.”
Pog shrugged. “Don’t matter. Makes me feel alive again, camping in the wilds, hunting down caravans, storming walls. I got a savage’s heart, Astul. We all do, including you. We’re nothin’ but a bunch of ragged monsters loping around in search of blood.”
I grinned and took another gulp of wine to the face.
“I’ve heard some tales about you,” Pog said, “don’t tell me they’re not true.”
“The better a tale sounds,” I said, “the taller it likely is.”
“Heard you were a murderer,” Pog said.
“Assassin,” I corrected. “Murderers are novices. You would never call a seasoned blacksmith an apprentice, would you?”
Pog flicked away debris from his beard. “That’s all fine and good, but still stands that you’re responsible for lots o’ graves. Also heard you were a liar.”
“Who hasn’t spun a story once in a while?” I retorted.
“And a thief.”
“Occasionally I have borrowed items and not returned them,” I confessed.
“And a kidnapper.”
“When the job calls for it, I suppose.”
“A broken, disparaged monster just like us,” Pog said. “But gods, it’s not our fault. Some of us were born to the wrong name, destined to plow fields. Some were pulled aside as little boys and girls by their lords, forced to sing songs, serve the nobles and maybe even forced to suck a few cocks. Some of us were captured by slavers, run ragged till we escaped. Life has chewed us up, Astul. Chewed us up, ground us into real mushy morsels, and then spat us out into what we are now. All we got left is to take as much revenge as we can before we eat some dust and take the eternal nap. That’s why we kill, pillage, rape — to take from others what was taken from us.”
Svella had a smile on her face that spread to the other mercenaries. They all nodded their heads as Pog talked, as if he was reciting their motto.
“Had a little princess approach me a few weeks ago,” Pog said. “Thirteen, maybe a few months older. She got separated from her lord father on a journey west. She had lots of gold on her, asked for my help in reuniting her.” He grinned maniacally and swept his snakelike tongue across his teeth. “I put her up on my horse, and we rode about twenty miles into the deep woods. She was clutchin’ my waist like she wanted it, pressing her little nubs against my back. So I stopped before a great big oak.
“Climbed down off my steed, and I reached up and put my fingers around her pretty little throat. Stripped her naked, threw her on the forest floor and I fucked her till she bled for the first time in her life. Took that princess’s innocence and I wrapped it around my cock and slammed it into her. By the time the sun rose, she had crusted thighs, and she was damn near bloating with my seed. With teary eyes and a hoarse voice, she asked me why. And I looked at her, and I told her, ‘Because you need to know what it feels like to be me. To be empty, ravaged and lifeless.’ She called me a monster, and I thanked her, then I took her gold and left her to wilt.”
“Well,” I said, “your reputation is everything.”
“That it is.”
I took a final swig of wine. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to rest. Long road tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait to kill me some Verdans,” Pog said, smiling. He picked himself up and walked away. The remaining mercenaries followed him like cattle.
I looked beyond the spitting flames of my campfire and followed the splash of blinking stars that threaded themselves into the fabric of the night like flashing buttons, all the way up, till I was lying on my back.
I thought about the story Pog told. I’d heard a lot worse over the years — spend a few nights among drunks in a tavern and you’ll get your fill of horror — but it gave me pause, which was something the wine was supposed to prevent. I wasn’t like the sellswords. I still had people to live for and a cause for which to fight. But if those were stolen from me… what would I be capable of?
The Astul I knew, the one I strived to become again, was no monster. A bold man, yes. Cold and cutthroat, yes. Merciless, often times. But murder, lying, stealing, kidnapping — they were the tools of my trade, not acts of impetuosity carried out under the very dangerous and always-shifting guise of revenge. But if I had nothing meaningful to fight for, and everyone I cared about was gone tomorrow, would I become Pog? If I was emptied out, ravaged and lifeless, would I become a monster like him?
I’d seen enough good men succumb to insanity that I already knew the answer.
There was a chance I wouldn’t die in this war. Maybe I’d take an arrow to the back or a club to the head. Dercy’s army would retreat from the Edenvaile walls, desperate to live another day, and they’d take me with them. Or maybe the North and the conjurers would take me prisoner. One way or another, I’d live in a world that wasn’t mine any longer. I’d look for revenge. I’d look for ways to strip those of the life that had been taken from me. I’d become a monster.
I reached deep into my pocket and eased a finger along a tiny bottle I’d brought from the Hole. It calmed my racing heart, and if I opened the cap and I tilted the oily liquid down my throat… it would still my racing heart. It would thicken my blood, idle my thoughts. It was the only certainty I had that I would never become a monster.
I slid my fingernail beneath the cap, popping it off.
I licked my lips and I laughed.
Then I replaced the cap and closed my eyes, for tomorrow would be a long, hard day, and it would be immeasurably longer and unfathomably harder if I had to go through it dead.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A mercenary by the name of Logan stood back, hacksaw in hand, proudly admiring his work.
“Clean cut,” he said.
There were a few sniggers amongst the sellswords, and after poking my head inside the wagon I saw why.
I blinked, hoping that with each shutter of my eyelashes, a new vision would appear before me. “Logan,” I said, “we’re going to play a game. Are you ready?”
“Er. Sure.”
“It’s called yes or no. You told me you were adept at woodworking. Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“You understand what the word adept means. Yes or no?”
“Of course.”
“And you know what woodworking means. Yes or no?”
His eyes creased. “What’re you tryin’ to get at here?”
I peered inside the wagon again. Logan was supposed to cut the bed out of the wagon so we could place a false bed below for four or five sellswords to lie inside. A new plank of wood would be fitted on top, ideally in perfect alignment with the original, so that when the Edenvaile city guard glanced inside, they wouldn’t suspect a thing. Logan, however, had decided to make this problematic.
“Well,” Logan said, “you can’t expect perfect precision.”
“Some semblance of precision would be wonderful,” I said. “You’re about as precise at cutting a straight line as a virgin is at fucking. ‘Am I hitting the right spot? No, how about now? Over here, maybe? What about this side?’”
The mercenaries slapped their thighs as they hurled out booming laughs.
“I’ll fix ’er up,” one of them said. “I used to build walls as a lad.”
“Hopefully you didn’t practice under the same master as Logan over here,” I said.
The former carpenter went to work salvaging what he could of Logan’s ha
ck job. By the end of his sawing, hammering, whacking, clawing, swearing and knuckle-busting, he delivered a passable false bed, so long as the Edenvaile city guard didn’t examine it too thoroughly.
He then repeated the process on the second wagon.
When he finished, the morning sun was a ripened melon gushing with flavor and spilling its orange juices across the crystallized landscape. A sun like that ought to put some warmth in your bones, but here in the grasp of winter — beginning of spring or not throughout the rest of Mizridahl, it was always winter here — it was just a pretty bulb in the sky that sometimes blinded you.
The groups were set. The eight sellswords who would hide inside the false beds — four in each — wiggled their way in. A flat sheet of wood covered them, on which the promised delivery of weapons and armor was piled. The drivers were chosen based on who best resembled the Ollesean people — at least that was the reason I gave to placate the unrest that broke out amongst those who deeply wanted to have the lead roles. In truth, I had about as much knowledge of the average Ollesean person as I did of naked mole rat hierarchy. Were they all pasty white like those we butchered? Were their women all so slender and shrill? And surely their men couldn’t have been so old and frail. Who knows? Hopefully not the Edenvaile city guard.
I put Pog in charge of the mercenaries who would sneak inside the walls. The man was disgusting, vile and, yes, utter filth, but he seemed like a man who could lead. A man who could get things done, particularly when those things included chopping off heads.
We marched off toward the North, the lot of us, but only for another night. The morning after, the caravan with two wagons continued on, toward the gates of Edenvaile.
The fifty-some sellswords I retained devoured a stew of cabbage and boiled bread heated over a large campfire. After their bellies were full, I rounded them up.
“I paid for your swords,” I said, “but now I need your eyes and ears.”
I unfolded a large map I had taken from the Hole, and I flattened it over the frozen snow. I struck my fist at the eastern border of Rime.
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