by Avell Kro
on my way.”
“I can pay you for the inconvenience. It’s not far.”
Ah, the magic words. “How much?”
The barbarian gave me a dirty look. “Time was a fellow could ask for aid and it would be given
without the need to barter coin. What happened to courage and honor?”
“They died of starvation, as will I if I don’t earn my keep. Look at me, friend-from- Grundvelt.” I
spread my arms. “Do I inspire charity? Or do you perhaps think an army of adoring benefactors
shower me with gold? Let me answer that for you. No, I do not, and the only things I am ever
showered with is rain or the contents of a well-aimed chamber pot. If I don’t work, I don’t eat.”
He thought about it for a while, his hooded eyes glittered beneath bristling brows, and then his
mustache twitched, and he gave vent to a deep laugh. “Aye. I can see that. I have eighteen crowns.
He patted his massive gut, kindly indicating where he kept his coin pouch. Will nine do you?”
“Say ten and you have a deal.”
He frowned, huffed and rubbed his chin, making such a show of thinking about it that I regretted
not asking for more. “Very well, ten it is, but not a penny more.”
“You drive a hard bargain, sirrah,” I said and resolved to steal the rest at the earliest opportunity.
Chapter Three
My new friend and I stripped the brigands of their valuables. It wasn’t greed, more a tax on the
stupid which amounted to the princely sum of two crowns in assorted coinage, a decent dagger,
and a gold hoop earring. One of them was wearing a good pair of boots, but Uli’s feet were twice
the size of the bandit’s and mine don’t conform to the shape of human feet. We dumped the bodies
in the house with the collapsed roof. It was a small consideration; giving them a more dignified
resting place than they deserved, but despite appearances, I’m not a monster.
The bear lit the fire he’d set before he was attacked and made camp for the second time that eve. It
was an unnecessary delay as far as I was concerned. I didn’t need much sleep, I didn’t eat often, and
the concept of ‘rest’ was lost on me. Humans, however, tend to get cranky if they don’t get a few
hours kip every day. While he rummaged in his pack, I sat back and enjoyed the olfactory banquet
to which my companion was happily oblivious. I could taste the iron stink of congealing blood and
the sickly, rancid flux that was beginning to ooze from the dead bandits. The noxious taste of
recent death clung to my bifurcated tongue along with the rotten meat smell of the fungus spores
blooming on the fertilizer we’d just dropped into their midst. In a few weeks’ time, fruit would set
on the bodies— a gangrenous lesson in how not to run a bandit crew. It was a lesson from which
the dead could learn nothing, but the wise cull who’d legged it might return and gain some insight.
Ulthvarr tossed a piece of the broken well cover onto the fire sending a swarm of embers spinning
into the sky. How he’d never set himself alight being as he was covered in wild, bushy hair and
wearing furs was a minor miracle. I tasted the air again, just to make sure he really was human
and not some bearish creature masquing as one. Not that I would have regarded him with less
esteem if he wasn’t. I was just curious.
“So, they got the drop on you, eh?” I said.
He stiffened. “Not as such. The woman came in openly enough, said she was lost, smiled sweetly as
they do, and then tried to cut my throat. If I hadn’t had my pack in my hands when she came at me,
she might have succeeded.” He laughed, shook his head, and spoke intothe flames. “I’m getting old. I
should have sniffed that honeytrap a mile off.”
“Aye. You should.” I grinned.
“I’ve always been a fool for a pretty face. Ask Murai when we see her. She and I were mercenaries
in the Ferric Cohort. We served under Imperator Septima in the Greenstahl campaign… are you
listening?”
“Yes, absolutely.” I wasn’t. I was scanning the crowding shadows in case the escaped bandit was
foolish enough to return and try his luck. “That battle happened before my time.”
“It was twenty years ago.”
“Like I say, before my time.”
He didn’t look like he believed me which was an irony, as for once I wasn’t lying. But even had I
been alive, I wouldn’t have known what he was talking about. Coves like me didn’t care who was
fighting or why. What mattered was how many whores and how much pel the weary warriors
could afford and how my guild could supply them. Given that there always seemed to be a war
somewhere, business was good for kings and queens of every stripe, even those who dwelt in the
shadows. “What kind of trouble is your friend in? Is it money?”
His face darkened. “I don’t know. I received a missive from here saying that she needed help. We
Ferrics know the meaning of loyalty. We swore a blood oath to each other and the Empire.”
“Twenty years ago?”
“Aye.” He settled into a storyteller’s hunch, and I composed an attentive face. “When the Greenstahl
campaign ended, our platoon decided to stay together. We became sellswords and damn good we
were.” His eyes shone, lit by the warmth of remembrance. “Many of my comrades fell. Alas, a
beautiful death in battle was denied me, and I retired, alive and well. But once a Ferric, always a
Ferric.” He spat in the fire, locked his raw-knuckled fingers together, and cracked them. “I became
a farmer. Can you imagine that?”
I could indeed imagine the big ox pulling a plow. “No. Not at all. Although, I’m sure such a cunning
cove as your good self has mastered the intricacies of the business.”
He sat a little taller. “I do all right, but a long, healthy life is worthless. A warrior must earn his place
in the House of Eagles where the glorious dead go to roost in the Eyrie of the Gods.”
“I long to die in my bed, preferably in my sleep, and with a bellyful of ale. I’ll concern myself with
the afterlife when I’m in it.”
He gave me a look that could have cracked stone. “Each to their own, I suppose, but it is not the
way of my clan. We seek the glory of a beautiful death, fighting for a worthy cause, preferably
against overwhelming odds.”
With such a self-destructive tenet at their core, I was surprised any of his ilk had lived long enough
to form a clan. He rummaged in his tattered pack, took out a sewing kit, and repeatedly failed to
thread a needle. As entertaining as it was to watch his impression of a someone playing a tiny,
invisible trumpet, I decided to put the myopic cove out of his misery.
“Allow me,” I offered. “I’m good with needles.”
“Are you a tailor?”
“Nah. I’m just good with sharp things.”
“Tailoring aside, your kind are good fighters, strong and fast. What happened to your tail?”
I’d never had a tail, but I wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t tell that I was only half thoasa. Humans,
in particular, didn’t seem to notice those elements of my physiognomy that coincided with their
own. It was almost as though they didn’t want to think that there was anything human in a
monster like me. “It got bitten off by a brachuri, made a terrible mess. Where are we headed?” I rol ed the thread around the eye and poked the stiffened tip through the hole before handing it
&nb
sp; back. It’s an excellenttechnique if you have claws or thick fingers. I was taught the trick by an
upstanding fellow who used to sew shrouds for an undertaker of Mother’s acquaintance. He sold
her bodies that she sold on at a profit to anatomists and necromancers. It could not be said that I
had a happy childhood, but it was certainly interesting.
“My thanks.” He started to sew the rents in his pack, the needle little more than a gleaming splinter
gripped in his meaty paw. “There’s a keep about half a day’s walk from here, I’d guess. I’ve got
directions that came with the missive. It’s a bit vague, butMurai wouldn’t lead me wrong.”
“Why send a message to you? No offense, but if she’s being held against her will that’s
greenshank— I mean, imperial guard business and there are dozens of outposts closer than
Grundvelt. Why wastetime getting a message to you instead of them?”
He jabbed the needle into the pack like he was trying to kill it. “The Ferric’s swore a blood oath.
Honour demands that we help each other. Murai wouldn’t dream of going to the guards for help
while one of us yet lived. None of us would. You wouldn’t understand. I’ll bet you’ve never stood
beneath a silken banner, shoulder-to-shoulder with your comrades on the battlefield.”
I laughed at the thought. “Sweet salvation, no.” I warmed my feet by the fire, enjoyed the tickle of
heat and the hot ash between my claws.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“A beautiful death?”
“Aye. Death and honor! Courage and Blood!” He thumped his barrel chest.
“I’m more, ‘Life and Ale!’ ‘Hard beds and soft whores!’”
I laughed alone.
***
Dawn came. The suns didn’t rise, glum clouds gathered like mourners at a funeral, and a thick mist
rol ed down from the mountains and bound the deserted town in gauzy grey.
I hadn’t slept, I’d sat and watched shadows dance and later, as the sky lightened, iron bright
dewdrops grow and spread until they’d battened the ground as thick as nails in the deck of a ship.
Ulthvarr had dozed off for a couple of hours, snoring and cuddling his ax to his breast like a lover. I
could have cut his throat and taken his gold, but I wasn’t a murderer as such. But I also wasn’t
shackled by honor, that particular form of moral bondage being favoured by the likes of the bear
who was snoring and drooling on the other side of the dead fire. I preferred to play things by ear,
to weigh each situation on its own merits which seemed so much fairer. Certainly, I’d killed without
compunction those culls who’d crossed Mother. I had also inhumed several counterparts in other
ignoble houses of the Midnight Court of Appleton without losing sleep over the matter. But I wasn’t
an executioner, or so in love with coin that I’d slay with impunity to get my hands on it, not unless there was a great deal of coin at stake and then who knows?
I coaxed the fire back to life, found some black bread and hard tack in the poorly sewn pack, and
toasted them in the lackluster flames. The smell of hot, moldy yeast, dried meat, and rancid fat
worked its magic and woke him from his slumber, putting me and the local wildlife out of our
stertor-induced misery. He farted and eyed me suspiciously as though I’d done the deed before
spying his pack that I’d left open beside him. “You better not have stolen anything.”
I slow blinked my disdain. “I was bored of waiting for you to wake up, so I thought I’d get some
food going. Fear not, I resisted the urge to steal your spare breechcloth, whetstone, and sewing kit.
Although the ball of twine was tempting.”
He grunted and fixed me with a sullen stare, but the hard line of his shoulders relaxed. He ate the
bread and tack without comment and stared gloomily into the guttering flames, the shreds of a
troubling dream clinging to his waking mind like the oppressive mist hanging over the town. We
shared a drink of stale water that had been mulling in his flask for gods knew how long. Like the
barbarian he was, he cleaned his teeth with the muddy hem of his woolen cloak. Being a well-bred
cove, I used a sweet wood twig to keep my fangs in bite-worthy condition, although, after six
months this one was wearing thin.
We left the road a short way out of town and headed higher into the foothills along an overgrown,
cobbled trackway. Judging by the wear, it must have once been a busy artery, thronged with rustics
and their beasts going back and forth to the market in the town we’d just left. What blight had
befallen these hardy souls was lost to history, but the remains of their steads lay scattered like old
bones across the hillside ossuary. I wondered if perhaps we were near an old Schism battle site and
the land had been poisoned by foul magic. Either way, it was an inhospitable place wedged
between jagged crags. The thin air was playing havoc with my aging barbarian friend whose face
beneath his whiskers was as red as a slapped arse by the time we reached our destination.
“There,” he said between labored breaths, as though I hadn’t spotted the looming towers spearing
through the gloom on the far side of a crumbling bridge. When the mist briefly parted, I could see
that the gate was bound with chains and marked by sigils of warding which was rarely a good
sign. To emphasize the point that this place was proscribed the Holy Eye had also been crudely
painted above thegate. There were no signs of life, and the shrieking winds driving through the
keep were infused with a sepulchral smell of decay.
To my surprise, my companion was bent almost double after crossing the snowline where hills
became mountain. I’d expected a rugged Grundvelt barbarian to be at home in such terrain, but
his bel ows breathing said otherwise. Despite his apparent discomfort, he trudged on with a
bovine tenacity that I had to admire.
The bridge had once been a grand affair, as befitted the forbidding edifice before us. Like Ulthvarr,
it was past its best. Rock slides had taken bites out of it over the years, pocked the masonry and
beheaded the statues of mighty warriors that flanked the walkway. Above us, tattered banners
bearing the faded arms of a noble house fluttered bravely from the lofty ramparts. As we crossed, I
glanced below and saw the remains of carts and carriages scattered on rocky ledges and caught up in the branches of sickly pines. The remains of the occupants lay in various states of
decomposition amid the wreckage. That some appeared to be recently deceased was a matter of
concern.
“They didn’t fall down there by accident.” My words were absorbed by the dense brume and
carried no distance at all, forcing the warrior to lean in to hear me.
“It is a treacherous path, to be sure.” His acknowledgment was half-hearted. I guessed that he
thought I’d do a runner if he admitted what we both could see. He was mistaken. After coming this
far, I wasn’t going anywhere without the gold he’d promised me.
“Someone or thing threw those carts down there, along with the unfortunate cargo,” I observed
casually. “And then hid their tracks.”
He shrugged. “Your imagination is running away with you. It was probably landslides. Now hurry,
whatever happened this is a dangerous place to loiter.”
“Yes, let's go into the keep marked by the Holy Eye, and is that a human skull hanging from the
&n
bsp; gate?”
He gave me a knowing look. “It’s probably been put there to scare away thieves. Come on, it’s
bloody freezing out here.”
“I thought you were a barbarian?”
He stopped, framed by the black maw of the gateway. “You’re judging me by what I look like?”
He had a point. “I, well…”
“Is it because I have a beard and long hair or because I prefer axes to swords? Perhaps it’s what
I’m wearing. Do you think I look like a Nuntka hunter from the Fang Frost wastes?”
“Wel , you are wearing a lot of fur, so…”
“Because it’s cold here, ” he retorted. “I hate the cold. I was born on a beach, under the heat of the midday suns.” He hunched his shoulders and plodded over the bridge like a constipated mammoth.
A little voice told me that I should leave him to it, but as is quite often the case, my little voice was
silenced by the brash shout of coin.
“Are you ready for this?” The barbarian unslung his ax.
As there weren’t any signs of life or activity of any kind I wasn’t sure what ‘this’ he was referring
to. “Aye, my friend. I’m ready,” I said without a quip or sharp comment for the ax he was carrying
was as long as I was tall.
I fol owed him through the gatehouse into the bastion, but wecould progress no further as the
walls of the inner bailey had collapsed into rubble. Moss and scrubby plants were growing on the
stones indicating the fall had happened years ago. I thought I caught the scent of another human,
but the wind shifted and snatched it away. The only tracks I could see were those of beasts hunting in the ruins.
“You sure this is where your friend’s being held?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m sure.” He didn’t sound sure.
“Wel , my friend, unless you’re a sorcerer we’re not getting in that way. We should probably head
back before the fog really closes in.”
He paused a moment then spotted what I had seen but had chosen to ignore. “Over there.” He
stalked over to a flight of stairs. The steps led to a door beneath a partially collapsed arch. “It’s
locked.” His voice echoed. Reluctantly, I headed down after him. A shaft of wan light silvered the
rain blackened stone and illuminated a heavy door. Ulthvarr put his shoulder to it. It didn’t budge.
