Knives of Bastion (An Empire Falls Book 2)

by Harry Leighton

  Trimas muttered again and lifted the top box onto the floor. He lifted the end of the bed none-too-gently and shoved the first crate underneath.

  “Hey,” Daeholf said. “Easy there.”

  “Happy to do your bit you said,” Trimas said, moving the second crate alongside the first. He lowered the bed back down. The feet just touched the floor but the middle bulged up slightly. Daeholf sighed, trying to get comfortable again.

  “You wanted them hidden,” Trimas said.

  “You want to go to prison again?” Daeholf said.

  “Not really,” Trimas admitted. There was a call from below. Erik, but he didn’t sound distressed.

  “I’ll go,” Zedek said. He tossed the spear under the bed next to the crates before heading back downstairs.

  “Anything else I can do for you?” Trimas said sarcastically.

  “Empty the piss bucket?” Daeholf said.

  Trimas rolled his eyes. He grabbed the bucket, opened the window and tossed the contents out. “Just you wait until you’re mobile again,” he muttered.

  “Can’t wait,” Daeholf said. “Maybe after Elena is gone, you can help me to have a bath. I’m starting to get a bit whiffy.”

  “You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

  “Oh, it’s a laugh a minute.”

  “You still in pain?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Good.”

  “Am I interrupting something?” Elena said from the doorway with a hint of a smile. Zedek was stood behind her.

  “Do you want to bath him?” Trimas said before he caught himself.

  “Not until I know him better,” Elena said, composure undented.

  “Sorry,” Trimas said. “It’s not been an easy few days.”

  “I can imagine,” Elena said. Her eyes flicked to the bottom of the bed. The boxes she had sat on previously had been moved. She kept her expression neutral, not betraying any interest.

  “Please, come in,” Daeholf said. “Forgive me if I don’t get up.”

  Elena walked in, satchel under her arm.

  “Something for us?” Trimas said.

  “Paperwork I’d kept at home and stuff I managed to smuggle out of the station,” Elena said.

  “Isn’t that going to get you into trouble?” Zedek said from the door.

  “Probably no more than investigating this case after being suspended,” Elena said. She put the satchel down on the bed.

  “How do you want to play this?” Trimas said.

  “I’m not up to running across any rooftops at the moment so maybe it’s best if I stay here. I’ll make myself useful as a point of contact, collating any information we have and reading reports,” Daeholf said. “It’ll be good to be doing something productive. I’m going a bit mad cooped up in here.”

  “Then you should have looked where you were going,” Trimas said.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Daeholf said.

  Elena turned to look at Zedek. “Are they always like this?”

  “Often worse,” Zedek said.

  “I can’t tell if you’re taking this seriously,” Elena said.

  “We’re deadly serious,” Trimas said. “There’s nothing more important to us than catching the bastard at the moment.”

  “What about why you are here in the first place?” Elena said.

  “Trainee butchers,” Zedek said automatically.

  “If you say so,” Elena said. “As long as your other interests aren’t going to get in the way, for the time being at least I don’t much care what they are.”

  “That’s not very police-y of you,” Daeholf said.

  “I’m not sure that’s a word, but I think we can agree that side of me has been suspended for the time being too,” Elena said.

  “Not that we’re up to anything, but that suits us fine,” Trimas said.

  “Good,” Elena said. “So since I don’t know you, how about a little history? So that I know what our skillset is here.”

  “Ex soldiers,” Trimas said. He rolled up his sleeve to reveal his tattoo.

  “I’d surmised that much,” Elena said. “What did you do in the army? Any special skills that could be helpful?”

  “Logistics,” Zedek said.

  “Might help looking at paperwork,” Elena said, musing.

  “Junior officer,” Trimas said. “Though I was stationed here a long time ago.”

  “So you know the city then?” Elena said. “That’ll help.”

  “Not as well as he used to,” Daeholf said. Trimas gave him a stare. “For my part, I was a scout for a while but that won’t be much help from here.”

  “Might be,” Elena said. “Our man is clearly a capable archer, you might have some insight on that.”

  “Zedek is the authority there,” Daeholf said.

  “From logistics?” Elena said.

  “Natural talent and something of a hobby,” Zedek said.

  “Fair enough. So is there any trouble that you’re all in that I need to know about?” Elena said. “Some reason you’re up here on the northern fringes learning to be butchers rather than somewhere warmer and more comfortable?”

  “Nope,” Trimas said.

  “If you say so,” Elena said. “So have you done anything like this before?”

  “Not really,” Trimas said. “Well, sort of.”

  “Which is it?” Elena said.

  “We’ve looked for a killer before but the circumstances were different,” Daeholf said.

  “Oh?” Elena said.

  “We had talented help,” Zedek said. “Ah, no offence,” he added. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “None taken,” Elena said. “The help you had still available?”

  “Sadly not,” Trimas said.

  “So what happened? Did you catch the killer?” Elena said.

  “After a fashion,” Daeholf said. “But we know a little about tracking, asking questions and looking for clues. And we’re pretty handy in a fight.”

  “Well most of us are,” Trimas said. “At the moment, anyway.”

  “I’ll mend,” Daeholf said.

  “Okay, that gives us something to start with,” Elena said.

  “And of course, I have this,” Zedek said, pulling out his Bounty Hunter rod.

  “Indeed,” Elena said. “You taken many bounties?”

  “Not many,” Zedek said. “I’m still fairly new to this,” he admitted.

  “I understand,” Elena said. “Let me try to put this delicately. If someone were to look too hard into your credentials, what would they find? And let me stress, I’m not investigating you.”

  “All above board,” Zedek said.

  “Okay,” Elena said. “In which case, I expect we may end up making a lot of use of them given my current lack of, ah, authority.”

  “Your turn,” Daeholf said. “You know enough about us for now. What about you?”

  Elena looked at the three of them. They were clearly holding a lot back but she’d not got the feeling that anything they’d said so far, if evasive, was untrue. She had to trust them to an extent.

  “I’ve been on the watch for many years,” she began. “Rose to sergeant from the bottom, though of course suspended now.” She thought for a moment. “You’ll probably hear about this anyway, if you’ve not already. Even before I was suspended from the watch, I wasn’t exactly popular.”

  “Hence your last assignment, catching the uncatchable,” Zedek said.

  “Basically,” Elena said. “But there’s a reason for it. A previous case of mine ruffled a lot of feathers. The details aren’t really relevant but I made a number of enemies. There’s going to be a lot of people that won’t be helpful now I can’t force them to be with a badge. Which is one of the reasons I need your help.”

  “How is this going to work though?” Trimas said. “I’m not sure we’re going to be comfortable taking orders. We don’t know you and we don’t really do that sort of thing anymore.”

  “Isn’t
one of you in charge then?” Elena said. “All of you carry a certain air of authority. But in different ways.”

  “No, no one is in charge. We sort of discuss and agree on what we’re going to do,” Daeholf said.

  “Interesting,” Elena said. “So how does that work?”

  “It just does somehow,” Trimas said. “And since I can’t see you taking any orders from us, you’ll need to fit into our way of doing things if we’re going to work together.”

  “Let’s see how it goes,” Elena said. “I’m guessing that your structure goes with a leader if someone is an expert on a certain subject?”

  “Basically,” Zedek said.

  “Then I think we can make it work,” Elena said. “Especially since I’m the expert here on detective work.” She smiled at them.

  “Walked into that one,” Trimas said.

  Elena just smiled.

  “Okay, expert, what do you want us to do?” Trimas said.

  “Let’s start with canvassing the neighbourhood to see if there were any witnesses. I gather none of you saw where the Nightwalker went after the arrow was loosed?” Elena said.

  “No,” Zedek admitted.

  “The maybe someone else did. Though let’s ask nicely. No more incidents with candlemakers that result in the watch being summoned…” Elena said.

  Zedek rolled his eyes.

  “Whatever,” Trimas said.

  “And me?” Daeholf said. “I’ll need to shout to ask anyone beyond this room.”

  “Your idea about being the documents man was a good one. Why don’t you read through what I have so far, compare it against what you know whilst we’re out and people’s minds might still be relatively fresh,” Elena said. “We can regroup later and see what we have.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” Daeholf said.

  *****

  “So what’s in this?”

  “Pig.”

  Zedek looked at the seller, who was standing behind a storefront selling cooked foods of apparently questionable content.

  “Pig?”

  “Yeah. Pig.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to specify a bit more?”

  “What are you on about?”

  “Bacon. Pork. That fancy word for intestines. I don’t think you should be saying just pig, I think…”

  “You telling me how to do my job?”

  Trimas appeared behind Zedek, laid a large hand gently on his friend’s arm, and began steering him away.

  “Getting us some food is fine, I think we’ll pass on the brawl for the moment.”

  “I was just pointing out…”

  “Humans are a funny bunch, we really hate people pointing things out.”

  “You didn’t mind.”

  “I succeeded in my career because I was able to listen to people pointing the key things out. Most people … no. And lest we forget I failed in my second choice of career, probably because I then didn’t listen.”

  “You normally say, and I quote, the senate is ‘comprised of shitnuggets’.”

  “That is also true.”

  They had walked a short way from the shop, and were holding large pies in their hands.

  “This is really very nice,” Trimas said, munching.

  “It’s pork.”

  “My congratulations to the pig. Amazing what they taste like when not running around on screaming fire.”

  “Did that actually happen?”

  “You have a more perceptive view of history than I have. Perhaps we can study it sometime, when we’re free.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “I suspect you’ll find imperial history different again if we get you in the right libraries.”

  “If we get you in the right cities.”

  “True. But how recognisable can I be?”

  “There are a lot of humans to blend into.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I…” Zedek stopped as he wondered how to say it.

  “You feel bad for leaving Daeholf.”

  “Yes.”

  “So do I. But he, we, and Elena agreed. We need to find this killer, if not for revenge then for justice.”

  “The way you said that makes me think you mean revenge.”

  Trimas laughed. “Justice is a nebulous concept that can never really be imposed. Chopping some roof-running fucker’s heart out is, to be brutally pragmatic, at least possible to definitely do.”

  “Your briefings must have been legendary.”

  “No one was bored in my legion.”

  “What is the first task then?”

  “The Nightwalker was on our roofs. So we ask if anyone else saw him.”

  “If anyone else happened to be peering at the skies at the right moment.”

  “Stranger things have happened. First though we finish the pies.”

  “Of course. Actually, you know that house near where Daeholf fell off?”

  “No. I was distracted from architecture.”

  “Some people have just come out of it.”

  “Right, to business,” and Trimas held up a hand and directed Zedek. He just smiled, shook his head lightly and followed.

  “Excuse me!”

  Three people stopped and turned. A husband, a wife and a child who looked at apprentice age.

  “You’re those bounty hunters,” came the sniffy reply. Then Trimas saw they were looking at the half eaten pie in his hand, so he stuck both behind his back.

  “Yes, we’re sorry about problems we may have caused, but we are pursuing a major suspect.” That was how you did things politely, right?

  “We do not have any knowledge.”

  “I haven’t said who it is yet.”

  “Ah. Right. Who is it?”

  “Last night, did you happen to see anything unusual on the rooftops?”

  “Yes. Yes we did.”

  “Ooh, what?”

  “Three figures.”

  “Us you mean.”

  The trio smiled patronisingly at Trimas and Zedek to say yes. Then they said, “We saw one of you falling off, and the other two going to fetch him.”

  This made Trimas tilt his head and nod to Zedek. The latter nodded, pulled out the baton, and pointed it at the rooftop. “We are investigating the Nightwalker,” and this made their smiles drop, “and were in pursuit. Did you happen to see anything about him that might help us?”

  “The Nightwalker was up there?”

  “Yes. You saw us, did you see him?”

  The adult eyes turned to the son. “I, er, I did see a fourth person, running first, that’s what caught my attention.”

  “You didn’t mention that?” the dad asked.

  “It wasn’t funny. The fallin’...anyway. Yes. Er, had a bow.”

  “We kind of got that bit ourselves.”

  “A man. Thin. Ran off towards the tariff gate.”

  “Now that is something we did not know. Thank you.”

  “So he’s on the roofs now?” the mother asked.

  “While pursuing us, yes.” That seemed like a reasonable and non-panic-spreading reply.

  “On our roof…”

  “So, we start questioning our way to the tariff gate?” Zedek asked.

  “Yes. After the pies.”

  *****

  It might have been his idea to sit and read all the reports Daeholf thought to himself. To take his mind off being stuck in the room. To do something productive. But all it was doing was reminding him of how little he could do. That he wasn’t capable of being out there, being active. Hunting the bastard. Instead, here he was, still sat in bed.

  He put the papers down for a minute. Breathe. This was productive. Helping. And it wouldn’t be long. He was feeling a little stronger every day. He’d been lucky. Very lucky. He still didn’t know how he was alive. The arrow itself should have killed him. The fall could have killed him. Falling with an arrow in his chest definitely should have. He still couldn’t remember a lot of what happened. The arrow hitting him was still clear.
The shock and pain. Losing his footing. Then it went … sort of blurry. The next clear thing was waking up in bed, his body on fire, weak as a baby whilst his friends took the piss as they thought he was out cold.

  He didn’t blame them. They must have been pretty shocked themselves. Worried about him. It couldn’t have looked good. Humour was a good defence mechanism. And he had to admit, the butcher was a stroke of genius. Not something he was sure he’d have come up with himself in the same circumstances. And the man had saved his life. Against the odds. He was grateful. So grateful. But it was hard to express it when every minute hurt like a bastard. Maybe a drink would help. For a while. Though maybe it would make his problems worse. He doubted either of the two of them would bring him one though. They both knew he had an iffy relationship with it at times. It wasn’t a good idea to start all that again in his condition.

  So, here he was. Trying to distract himself by reading. It wasn’t working very well. Maybe he just wasn’t trying hard enough. He tried to force himself to focus on the words again. The parchment he was holding was the fifth murder report. A priest. A fifth, different victim, no obvious link between any of them. Other than the fact that they had been alone and murdered with a knife. Except that now the Nightwalker was using a bow. Which may make everything that had gone before irrelevant.

  This was pointless. He grabbed the satchel and hurled it across the room. The wound pulled and he regretted the action instantly.

  “Fuck it,” he swore. He looked at where the satchel had landed. Papers had fallen out all over the place. Damnit. That hadn’t helped. Not at all. Now if he wanted to do any more someone would have to pick it all up. He was helpless. That thought just made him angrier. It was bad enough that he was making his friends sleep on the floor in winter. He could see they were suffering as a result. It was worse that he was making them empty out the bucket of shit and piss that he struggled to use because he couldn’t make it as far as the latrine. They’d even gone as far as wiping him down with a wet rag as a sort of bath substitute to stop him smelling too bad from not washing. And that was just plain humiliating. He knew they were more than willing to do it, but he burned with shame all the same.

  And now like some toddler throwing a tantrum he’d tossed the papers on the floor. It wasn’t good enough. They were already doing far more than he was comfortable with for him. Acting like a child was going too far. Much too far. He looked at the papers angrily. Fuck it. This wasn’t good enough and he knew it. Maybe they weren’t that far away. He could sit up without help. He could get to the edge of the bed to use the bucket without too much trouble, no matter how much moving hurt. He was fairly sure the fall hadn’t broken anything. Cracked maybe. Bruised definitely. But not broken. Not as far as he could tell. And as Zedek seemed to be fond of joking, they’d killed the only person who could be entirely sure of his condition and fix him.