by Ed McDonald
‘Captain Galharrow. I need a word, there’s a good fellow.’
Whether by plan or by dark fortune, it was Stannard. I’d nearly walked into the fucker. I didn’t like the way he wore his greatcoat, only the top button done up and his arms inside, as though it were a cloak. Bloody ridiculous way to wear a coat. Easy to hide what’s beneath it, though.
‘I’m on business for the marshal,’ I sort of lied. ‘Your mistress wants me, she can speak to him.’
Stannard kept pace with me. My skin was creeping cold, my fists balling. You get an instinct for trouble when it’s your business to cause it. Something was about to go down. I stopped. Faced him.
‘You know Prince Herono doesn’t like to be denied. Funny how we end up having the same conversations, ain’t it? They go around and around,’ Stannard said. He smiled, empty, unctuous, wolf behind it. ‘We had you looking for the girl, and now we’re looking and you’ve got her. Where is she?’
‘You want the witch and her brother? They hit some tavern in Pikes,’ I said. ‘Went drinking. The Open Cask, I think it was. Fucked if I know where they are now, though.’
‘You really want to test my patience?’ Stannard said, smiling that insipid ‘I’m going to hurt you, and I’ll enjoy it’ smile. It was then that I saw the others, men in similar coats, loitering aimlessly at the end of the street. I took a breath, tried to get my thinking into military order. Checked the angles. Looked behind. Another pair of them were closing in that way as well, walking as casually as they could without seeming to get much nearer. Didn’t want to spook me. They were professional enough that they had me surrounded, clumsy enough that they all wore matching coats and stood out like a Bride at a wedding. Soldiers, not back-alley professionals. One of them had left the hilt of a longsword poking out through the gap at the front of his coat. A man doesn’t go around wearing a longsword unless he expects to use it. The sword at my side was half its length, short in the blade, single edged. None of that mattered. It doesn’t matter how good you think you are with a sword, nobody wins against five men. I knew it. Stannard knew it. His men all knew it.
‘Let’s be honest with each other,’ Stannard said, like he was reasonable and so was I. I kept my eyes moving every now and then to the men at the end of the road. They kept their distance. ‘Can save us all a lot of time if you take me to them so that I can get them safely back to the prince.’
She was moving faster now, taking a direct approach. The politics were over, her cover was crumbling. She must have known I’d figure it out after her men had been the ones to show up at the Maud. If Venzer managed to get Ezabeth back he wouldn’t let her out of his hands again. He’d understand her importance now. But if Stannard and his thugs got their hands on them, Dantry wouldn’t survive past nightfall and I didn’t want to imagine what they’d do to Ezabeth.
‘I have a counter-proposal,’ I said. I mimicked his smile. ‘You go fuck yourself and I go see the marshal. I don’t work for Herono any more.’
‘Friend,’ Stannard said, reaching out a hand to take my arm. As his hand pushed back the fabric of the greatcoat, I saw the naked knife blade in his other hand.
What happened next was not a conscious decision. I move purely by instinct. One moment the man was reaching for me, the next he was staggering back screaming, blood spraying from his face. Drawn and cut all in one motion, bright streaks of blood marred the dull grey steel of my cutlass. When you have to move there’s no time for thought. There is only the cut, and the kill.
Stannard reeled back clutching at the flaps of his cheek, screaming and staggering in pain. I took no chances and would have run him through between the ribs if he hadn’t been wearing armour beneath that coat, but he was and my sword glanced away. The rest of the Blue Brigade came alive and tore towards me, tossing back their coats and baring edges.
I ran.
An alleyway presented itself and I skittered into it, found it blocked at one end by a shoulder-height wooden fence. Without stopping, I put my faith in shoddy carpentry and mouldy wood and smashed straight into it. The fence disintegrated at the impact, shards of wood clattering about me. I scrambled back up, black-sludge dirty from the muck. The men were charging at me with weapons drawn, two of them with longswords and the others armed similarly to me. They’d shrugged away their greatcoats, Prince Herono’s livery evident now. There wasn’t any decision to be made, fighting that many men was as suicidal as charging a Darling.
I’m not much of a runner, but I’m fleet-footed when I’m scared. I dashed down Loom Street and onto a cluttered road, packed with the afternoon’s traffic. People got out of my way, either because I was running with a drawn, bloody sword, or because I shoved them when they didn’t look behind them. One young woman went flying, her basket of linen scattering bloomers into the mud. Herono’s men trampled over them in quick succession. One of them was shouting for me to stop, but none of the civilians were fool enough to try their luck against my bloodied sword.
I skidded around the corner and onto Tank Lane, only to realise that the far end of the street was a stone gatehouse, a covered archway at which two of Venzer’s soldiers lounged. I’d already started running towards them when I realised my mistake. Too late now, I had to throw the dice.
‘Help me,’ I called. ‘Those bastards are trying to kill me!’
The soldiers were already panicking because of the red-greased sword in my hand. They lowered their halberds towards me, menacing with the long steel spikes.
‘They’re right behind me!’ I yelled, and indeed, my pursuers were not far back. I turned on them now, raising my sword to a hanging guard, feeling that with the help of two of Venzer’s men I could now fend them off. Prince Herono’s men slowed up. They were panting, a couple of them labouring hard to find breath. My own lungs were on fire, never should have smoked so much. I looked the first man in the eye, let him see his friend’s blood on the sword. Somehow a grin – a fool’s grin at that – had made its way onto my face.
‘I arrest this man for attempted murder, in the name of Prince Herono of Heirengrad,’ the lead man said. It suddenly occurred to me just how bad this must all look from the perspective of the guardsmen.
I felt the point of a halberd nudge me in the back.
‘Give up the sword. Knife on the ground too,’ one of the guardsmen said. Of course he did. I looked like a civilian, and an ugly one at that, blood on my blade, blood on my shirt sleeves. These were prince’s men, dressed in fine blue and gold uniforms with the Heirengrad arms across the breast and fancy gold stitching around the cuffs and collar. Balls.
Once you’re unarmed, soldiers tend to want to dish out the beating they can finally deliver safely. I wasn’t on my knees two seconds before they began pummelling me. I couldn’t see, but Venzer’s boys probably threw a couple of blows with the poles of their halberds too. They didn’t have a fucking clue what I was being arrested for, not really, but soldiers aren’t paid to think for themselves. That’s what makes them good soldiers.
It hurt.
They didn’t have a rope, so instead they took my belt and used it to bind my wrists behind my back. Another of them had a hood that he threw over my head. I was a known face for a lot of people who mattered. They couldn’t very well go parading a Blackwing captain up and down the streets without drawing attention, but nobody would bat an eyelid at a drunk being dragged off to sober up.
‘Nice knife,’ one of the men said as he pocketed it. I liked that knife, Tnota had given it to me. I’d take it back after I’d killed them all.
‘We’ll take him from here,’ another said to the soldiers, who were more than happy enough to dispense with any formal proceedings and to let the prince’s men take care of it. When I tried to speak, one of them slugged me across the face. He wasn’t good at punching, so it mostly didn’t do anything, but even a bad punch is a punch. There wasn’t much point in trying to say more. Even if I manag
ed to convince the soldiers that Prince Herono was trying to have me murdered, or that she was trying to do the same to her own kin, even if I managed all of that – they’d probably still send me off with Herono’s men. You don’t wind up on civil guard duty when the might of the Dhojaran Empire is bearing down on the nation because you’re blessed with an overabundance of cognitive function, capability or ingenuity.
Blind, I was dragged across the town. They didn’t spare the shoves. My captors were all older men, veterans. Older men are typically better for quiet work, less likely to go spouting off after the fact, less likely to panic. Young men might get a taste for blood and slam you around just for the hell of it, but men who’d lasted as long as those grey-shot veterans would do their jobs right. Hard men, professional, the kind of men I’d have hired if they’d been looking for company work. They marched me along at a brisk step, deposited me in the back of a small carriage. I couldn’t sit up with my wrists bound behind me.
The interior of the carriage smelled of lavender and spiced oils. One of the vets slugged in beside me, not a lot of room for us both on the narrow seat. The bag came off my head, and sitting opposite me was the one-eyed prince.
‘Captain,’ she said by way of greeting. ‘I hear you tried to kill Stannard.’ Herono’s single eye was cold and clear. She had a long, slender poniard in one hand, fingers tracing the elaborate engraving along the blade. Herono’s maiming had taken the bluff vitality of her soldiering days, but she’d have no trouble at all putting that point into me, bound and useless as I was. She tapped the roof of the carriage and the driver started us into motion.
‘Damn. I hoped I’d succeeded,’ I said. I didn’t flinch from her gaze or show any other outward sign that I was feeling ready to shit my breeches any moment. I was all too aware of Herono’s capability for violence. She frightened me far more than her thugs.
‘Where are Dantry and Ezabeth?’ Straight to the point, then.
‘They’re safe,’ I said.
‘You left quite a mess behind when you took her. Quite the alarm and quite the affray,’ she said, a scowl across her scarred brow. We regarded one another for a few moments. Prince Herono did not speak. I looked into her single eye and found it dead, empty and soulless. A growing tide of hatred built within me.
‘What did they offer you?’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it’s just gold. Did the Deep Kings buy you? Did they offer to give you back your eye? Offer to make you immortal? What do you want so badly that you’re willing to sell out your whole damn species?’
Herono allowed a slight smirk to reach her scarred face. She wasn’t about to reel off a monologue for my benefit like the villain in a playhouse tragedy.
‘You, Captain Galharrow, are an enemy of the states. You have assaulted one of my men in broad daylight, and two dozen observers will swear to it. You broke into the Maud and murdered the staff, led poor Battle Spinner Rovelle into a trap. Your interrogation shall commence shortly.’
‘I’ll have your head for this,’ I said clumsily. My lip was split and swelling. Herono didn’t dignify my threat with a response.
I looked out the window as we bounced along the road. The carriage wasn’t going to the citadel to throw me in gaol, and it wasn’t heading to Willows either. You don’t drag your prisoners off to your luxury villa and parade them before your servants. You take them to some quiet part of town where everyone knows to turn a blind eye. Some dark little holding, rented under someone else’s name, fit for dark work with irons and saws. I knew the kind of place. To say that I wasn’t deeply, deeply worried about the future of my limbs, digits and appendages would have been a grotesque understatement.
I kept an eye on the street just in case I saw one of my crew. Nenn, Wheedle, even Lindrick would have done just then. Anyone to bring some sword-hands. Wasn’t like they’d be able to go up against a prince of Heirengrad, but any hope was better than none. I’d tried to suck a drop from emptier bottles than this before, but I couldn’t remember being successful.
‘We can end this quickly, you know,’ Herono said. She’d been silent for some time, letting events and my thoughts run their course. She toyed with the dagger, passing it between her hands. ‘In all honesty, Galharrow, as frustrating as yesterday’s stunt was, I understand you. You want to fuck the girl. Spirits of dread know why, with those scars, but I suppose everyone has a fetish. I always liked the blacks.’ She gave a little chuckle. ‘And while Stannard will probably take particular relish in cutting the information from you, I just want the girl. If you tell me where they are, I’ll kick you out on the street and we’ll go there now. I won’t even punish you for attacking my man. You should know from our dealings that I am nothing if not pragmatic. I can even forgive your wild accusations.’
I didn’t enjoy just how close to truth she was with every word. Who was I really fighting for? Ezabeth had told me how things stood. An eager little voice began suggesting that I was on the losing side. Would have been easy to accept it. I wondered how many of the traitors I’d sentenced had started by listening to that same voice.
Herono, our great warrior hero. Mill owner, councillor to the Order of Aetherial Engineers, commander of the Blue Brigade. She’d welcomed Ezabeth in and then distracted me with silver when I came asking questions. She ran a mill operating at one-fifth its capacity, supplying too little phos to an Engine that couldn’t accept it all. She had the influence to deny Ezabeth access to the heart, the power to lock down Dantry’s credit at the banks. Always she wanted Ezabeth under her wing, had sent me to retrieve her when she disappeared. But why had Stannard burned Maldon’s house if she wanted Ezabeth to succeed? Even now, my face aching and her dagger poised, I didn’t have all of the pieces.
‘They’re long gone,’ I said. ‘I put them on fast horses and told them to get the hell out of here. Six hours ago they were riding out of the city. Now, I don’t even know which direction they travelled. You’ve missed your chance.’
‘That would be bad for you.’ Herono frowned, steepling her fingers. ‘I would have no choice but to burn you, cut you and otherwise take you to pieces until you tell me where they can be located. Now I confess, it’s possible that you genuinely don’t know. If that’s the case then I’ll have you tortured until you either guess correctly, or expire. Unfortunately for you, that may take days. Perhaps it will be infection that does for you in the end, but until I have Ezabeth Tanza under my protection again, I have no option but to assume you are lying to me. Ah, here we are.’
The carriage rolled to a stop and I heard the soldiers disembarking outside. We were in some residential area, a workshop opposite a rundown bath house. I didn’t recognise it. Herono’s men had their greatcoats on again, colourless greys and browns masking the bright blue and gold of their uniforms, and the prince donned a cloak and hat to make the six-foot journey into a disused ironworks. Old odours of charcoal and hot metal lingered in the brickwork. Scavengers had picked away any anvils, tools and furniture that had been left behind, leaving bare, scorched surfaces and an empty furnace. They shut the doors, giving us a few moments of blackness before kindling lamps.
Part of me was advising that I might as well tell her now. I knew torture. Plenty of personal experience, only I’d always been on the other side of the irons. I don’t claim to be a good man, and in a war, bad men do the worst things. What were the Tanzas to me? She wasn’t my woman. Would never be my woman. Dantry was a good kid but I’d done my part by him. More than I needed to. This wasn’t my fight.
It was always my fight.
There were no chairs in the old workshop to sit me on, but there was a post and an old bucket and propriety didn’t seem all that important. Sat on the bucket, they strapped my hands behind the beam, kept me upright. Easier to get to my vitals. It’s what I would have done.
Prince Herono stood over me, her sole rotten eye looking down on me with something between admiration and disgust. Maybe I was imaginin
g the former. Always did think too much of myself.
I think that ultimately, Herono rather liked me. She genuinely would have preferred to have had me on her team. If things had only been slightly different, I probably would have been.
‘We want the same thing, Galharrow,’ she said. ‘I won’t harm Ezabeth. I’ve done nothing but work to keep her safe. I paid you to find her when she was lost. I led you to a Bride, an important one. A damn big score for you. Was that not proof enough of my loyalty for you?’
I kept my mouth shut.
‘Last chance,’ she said. ‘Speed is my only interest. Tell me now and we don’t have to go through the tiresome process of cutting it out of you.’
‘Go fuck yourself, Herono,’ I said. ‘It isn’t that I love the girl. Truth is, I gave up on myself a long time ago. I’ve always been fucked over one way or another, and when your life’s as worthless as mine you get to stop caring about it altogether. You want to know why I’m going to sit through this until you break me?’
‘Enlighten me,’ the prince said, pulling a suede glove onto her right fist. I saw the gleam of brass across the knuckles. Very old-fashioned.
‘I know where they are. And every minute of every hour that I delay you is another minute that they might be somewhere else. I don’t have to hold out for ever. I just have to hold out until they move on.’
Wham, the brass knuckles smashed into my head. For an older woman, Herono could dish out one hell of a punch. Skin split, my skull rocked on my neck and jets of cold pain spurted through my brain. My head lolled for a few moments as the bright spears ran across my face, somehow turning it both numb and aflame at once. I couldn’t see for several moments, and I was so preoccupied with trying to get my vision back that I didn’t realise I was throwing up over myself until I found that I wasn’t breathing and had to choke a wad of bile from my mouth.
