Dark Healer (An Empire Falls Book 1)

by Harry Leighton

  As they rode, a crossroads could be seen coming nearer, at which someone had handily erected a wooden pole with a board displaying directions. More ominously, there was a large gibbet from which hung two iron cages. Jonas and Alia talked as they came to the junction, carried straight over, and glanced at the hanging iron, both of which were shaped like human adults, and both of which contained the corpse of a criminal. The travellers glanced at them briefly, then back to the road ahead, but Jonas brought his steed to a sudden halt when he heard a voice hiss “water…”

  Alia stopped slightly after, turned, and looked at the gibbets. One occupant was clearly dead, much rotted and heavily pecked by birds, but now she looked more closely, she realised the other man was alive, just unable to move as he was locked standing and swinging. His face was pale, his eyes bulging, and he hissed again “water…”

  “Isn’t it curious,” Jonas mused, “that the dying always ask for water first, rather than being freed.”

  “Free me?” tried the rasping voice.

  Jonas nudged his horse over to the gibbet, and his mount reluctantly moved. “You’re interesting. This area hangs the poor, beheads the rich, only ever puts corpses in their gibbets. So, what can we conclude Alia?”

  “That’s he’s really annoyed someone.”

  “Yes, looks like it. Did you steal from a magistrate?”

  “Help…”

  Jonas shook his head and turned his horse.

  “We’re leaving him like that?” Alia asked.

  Jonas smiled, turned to the captive and asked, “Did you do it?”

  “No!”

  Now Jonas began riding off. “They always deny it. Watch out for that, they always deny it, and when they don’t they’re normally crazed.”

  “I did it!” the voice coughed out as the travellers moved away.

  “Then you deserve it,” Jonas called back.

  Alia raised an eyebrow. “Hang on, you leave him if he denies it, you leave him if he admits it?”

  “Yes. Right, Alia. We go after bounties, and often that means we bring people back dead. But often we bring them back alive, and they will always try and talk you out of it. Plead innocence, offer to cut you in on the profits, say they have a family, appeal to weakness, they will always try it, and you have to ignore it, because what they really mean is they’ll run, or they’ll cut you and run, first chance they get.” Jonas paused to consider his words. “Whatever that man did, someone could have cut him down if he’d had any support left and they could have fled. Everyone left him there, so he’s up to no good.”

  “You do realise you have a series of speeches you keep giving me?”

  Jonas furrowed his brow. “I do?”

  “Yes. We get that one every time we capture someone alive. It normally shuts them up as well as me.”

  “Well … er … have you learnt from it?”

  “We’re riding away aren’t we? But they haven’t always done it, whatever it is.”

  “No, but you come at that from a position of strength, not weakness.”

  *****

  Slightly worse for wear the next morning, they left the town and travelled the road towards the coast and Daeholf’s home, quickly burning through the last miles of their journey until they came to a crossroads in the middle of the road next to a large inn and associated stables and smithy.

  As the three approached they saw the militia. The group of buildings was too small for any sort of official guard, but the humans liked to think it had some proper guards and so they’d put a couple of people in garish uniform and stood them in front of the road. These militiamen stood forward, and the three travellers let themselves be questioned.

  “You merchant or military?” one asked gruffly, eyes squarely on Trimas.

  “Why just those two?” he asked.

  “You’re black, only time we get you round here is with them two.”

  “Ah, well, we came with a merchant caravan.”

  “Yeah? Thought you might have been with those soldiers who came through recently.”

  Trimas knew not to let his smile drop, but he, Zedek and Daeholf felt themselves go cold.

  “What were they doing?” Trimas asked.

  “Looking for someone.”

  “Ah, can we pass through?”

  “Yeah, go on.”

  Once they were walking into the hamlet, Zedek vocalised the question. “Who were the military after?”

  Daeholf knew one reason why, and it wasn’t good. “Could be after me.”

  “Could well be,” Trimas said, rubbing his newly grown beard. “Could well be.”

  “So close to home,” and Daeholf knew what it all meant. He stopped, and began to choke up as he explained. “I can’t go back, if anyone sees me, if they were after me, they’ll think my family know.”

  “We can’t turn round and go back,” Zedek protested.

  “No, no, but let’s do this,” and Trimas outlined a plan. “Daeholf, why don’t you stay here. Lie low. Zedek and I will go and see how your family are getting on. We can give a full report, and see if they tracked you back here.”

  “Sadly, that is probably our best option.”

  *****

  "I think we need to go over the rules again," Jonas said, looking down at the two bodies at his feet. It was a bad start to the morning.

  Alia sighed. The big man was about to give her another lesson. This time she probably deserved it.

  “Though perhaps not right now,” he said, looking around the inn at the startled patrons and flexing his fingers from a sore fist.

  “Later is good,” Alia agreed, crouching to carefully wipe off her long knife on a dead man’s shirt before resheathing it.

  Jonas looked around again. “We’ll discuss how this should have gone down. We’ll have to move, we’re clearly not staying here again tonight. Go get our bags. And try not to start any more fights on the way.”

  “On it,” Alia said, resisting the temptation to talk back.

  *****

  Alia jogged up the stairs to the room they shared. This had gone bad. The two men they had been here to question had turned up when expected, but been a lot less forthcoming than they’d hoped. When she’d insisted, Jonas had let her take the lead in the questioning. They hadn’t been responsive, and clearly caught on that Jonas and Alia were not the merchants they’d appeared to be. One not-so-veiled threat from her later, out came the knives and suddenly she and Jonas were fighting for their lives. The men had both gone for Jonas, thinking him the bigger threat. That rankled with Alia slightly, though given his size it wasn’t unexpected.

  She’d seen the big man fight before but she was still impressed. And he’d not even drawn a weapon, though he’d not really had time to.

  She ran down the hall to their room to grab their packs.

  *****

  Jonas watched as Alia climbed the stairs. She had a lot of potential — if she could stop rubbing people up the wrong way when they didn’t take her seriously. Useful to have around in a fight too, especially where blades were involved, reacting quickly, drawing her knife, defending his flank and taking one of the men down.

  Jonas sighed. There were too many witnesses, the watch were likely to be on their way and they didn’t need the attention or another, bigger fight. He needed to come up with a plan, and fast. He crouched and examined the bodies, taking a moment to think. This far out in the sticks, bounty hunters were feared and reviled, stemming from the fact that the more unscrupulous members of his profession were not above turning in similar looking innocents for the money when a chase got too hard. On the other hand, he was a big man and they’d just put down two men quickly in a fight. Ah well, been here before — this was about to go one of two ways…

  “We’re here to collect the bounty on these men,” he said loudly, standing and staring challengingly at each of the other patrons.

  The inn was silent for a moment and nobody moved. Intimidation was something he was very good at.

&nb
sp; “As duly appointed bounty hunters under imperial law. And I’d have rathered they came quietly,” he continued, putting a bit of growl in his tone. “Now I’ll have to drag their carcasses for miles.”

  The innkeeper cleared his throat nervously.

  “I don’t want no trouble with the law, but it’d be a mighty help if you could prove that,” he said hesitantly from behind the bar.

  *****

  Alia returned to the top of the stairs, one pack over each shoulder. She paused and looked down into the main room, checking that it was safe to approach. Jonas was holding up his rod of office, waving a piece of paper at the innkeeper and few remaining patrons, with his finest don’t-mess-with-me face on. He seemed to have things under control so she descended the stairs to join him as he put the paper back in his coat, and tucked his rod away again.

  Jonas nodded to her, reached down, grabbed a couple of fistfuls of tunic and picked up both bodies, one in each hand. He started walking towards the side door of the inn.

  “Get the door for me, would you?” he said to a shocked drinker nearby, raising his right arm and using the body to indicate the door.

  Alia was impressed. He wasn’t a young man but there was no doubting his strength.

  The inn was silent and they left without further challenge.

  *****

  The sea rolled in front of them. It wasn’t just the unstoppable rhythm of waves coming into the beach, but the power with which they came that impressed Trimas and Zedek, although the latter was also somewhat disturbed. Boats rose and fell, jetties creaked, birds circled around, and two pairs of eyes moved slowly, methodically, taking it all in. Behind them a bell was ringing.

  “Isn’t the ocean wonderful,” Trimas said, eyes never looking away, “isn’t there something magic about it?”

  “No,” was the sour response.

  “You don’t think there’s a magic to the sea? The constant movement, the sheer power of nature?”

  Zedek turned and met Trimas’ look, but his eyebrows were raised in dismissal. “The unfathomable deep, the bone-chilling cold, the way the sea, all seas, are full of things that want to eat me. It’s lethal, so no, I’ve no love for it.”

  Trimas nodded, turned back to the sea, and waited for another second to pass. He knew where he was taking this.

  “That’s true of caves.”

  Zedek looked at him askance. “I try not to go in caves.”

  “You grew up in a cave.” Now there was a smile on Trimas’ lips, just as a grimace appeared on Zedek’s.

  “Hardly a cave. Maybe some of our buildings were cut into the rock, but caves are not perfectly carved into mountains.” He looked ruefully back to the sea. “There were no hungry creatures in there.”

  “Apart from those people you hated.” Trimas turned to see the response.

  Zedek smiled, nodded and conceded. “Fair point. But my comment stands. I fully understand why Daeholf dislikes the sea. Look at this village, everyone stopped to pray to gods of the water. Why? Because it’s dangerous, danger without anything we can control. They are forced to go out on that water, in tiny boats, which can be swallowed by storms and waves within minutes of nature changing its mind, all for fish that the cities pay little for. No, I don’t think there’s magic to the sea. I think there’s death.”

  “You have been talking to Daeholf a lot.”

  “So you’d become a sailor, would you?” But Zedek regretted saying it when he saw Trimas’ face turn rueful.

  “I’m just good at killing people now. That works better on land.”

  *****

  "So are you just showing off or did that serve some purpose?" Alia said when they were a distance away outside, indicating the men Jonas was carrying.

  "It's all about making a show and keeping people off balance," he said, putting them down for a moment with a grunt.

  "How is that a useful lesson for me? I'm not a bear that can pick someone up in each hand."

  "You make use of what you have. You could undo your top or something."

  Alia sighed. It was going to be a long road before she was going to be taken seriously in this business, though she was sure Jonas meant no harm and was just bantering. And he was right. You did have to make do with what you had.

  "I thought the idea was to stop people interfering with us?" she said after a moment, taking a different tack and smiling sweetly at him.

  "I'm never going to win, am I?" Jonas said.

  "Not if I can help it, no. Um, boss?"

  "Mmm?"

  “I know you’ve got the whole bounty hunter rod badge thing going but that’s hardly a get-out-of-jail-free, kill people token. What was the paper you showed them? I saw the innkeeper glance at it and back off. You got some sort of extra kill people license I don't know about?"

  It was Jonas's turn to sigh. He picked up the bodies again.

  "I showed them a bounty sheet," he said quietly.

  "Didn't know there was one out on them," Alia said, worried where this was going.

  "Isn't as far as I know. Was just one I had to hand," Jonas said. "I was bluffing," he added. He looked at Alia and the early morning light illuminated the disappointment in her face.

  "That's wrong. It gives us all a bad name," she said after a moment.

  "This is a dirty business. It's not something I make a habit of, and we were in a tight spot. Enough talking now, time to move." He walked in the direction of the stables.

  Alia noted what he'd not said as much as that he had. It was ultimately her fault that they'd got into the fight in the first place. When it was over, he'd got them out of it without further trouble. She didn't have to like how. She nodded to herself and followed him, knowing that she still had a lot to learn.

  *****

  Behind Trimas and Zedek the bell had stopped ringing, leaving echoes in everyone’s ears, so the two men turned and walked from their position on the edge of the beach until they stood at the back of the crowd that had gathered.

  Two priests were at the front, dressed in robes as worn and patched up as the fishing nets, and they performed a service. It was dedicated to the souls of the oceans, to all those who had been lost out there. When one priest claimed there wasn’t a single family in the village who hadn’t been touched by that loss, Trimas could well believe it.

  The pair stood unmoving until the very end, until the crowd had formed into a long snake and slowly and calmly filed through to leave offerings, before both Trimas and Zedek joined the end, and left a small gift of food for the gods. They did it on behalf of Daeholf, who’d selected the offering himself.

  With the ceremony finished they returned to the beach to discuss what to do next, but they found their path intersected by a large man. He was huge, as tall as them but heavy muscle turning to fat, and he had a scowl on his face that suggested, if not trouble, then at least some upset. This stranger, although in fact he was the local and they were the strangers, stopped in front of the pair, and looked them up and down, clearly noticing they were both carrying weapons. Looking from Trimas’ axe to Zedek’s sword, the local then stared Trimas in the eye and asked, “You ex-soldiers?” Which, given that they had weapons, they had better be or they’d be in trouble with the law, never mind him.

  Trimas smiled, and said, “Yes,” which had the desired effect as the huge man’s equally large head split into a grin. He stepped forward, and Trimas allowed himself to be embraced, before an introduction was given.

  “I’m Wald, I was in the fourth army.”

  Trimas nodded, and filled in the gaps. “Were you with Markam in the north dealing with the pirates, or when they were restored and taken south with Felis?”

  “Markam,” the man beamed, pleased to meet real soldiers who knew their recent history. He began to reminisce about his time in the army, a friendly and benign nostalgia that Trimas was able to stoke by knowing all the commanders, armies and locations. But as Wald grew more at ease with the two travellers he looked Zedek up and down, and obse
rved, “You’re thin for the army.”

  Zedek, quiet until now, forced a smile and replied, “Logistics.”

  “There’s no glory in feeding troops,” Trimas began, “but no glory without it.”

  “Ah, true, true.” Wald looked at Zedek’s long hair which he kept pulled near the front of his face. “I know a lot of soldiers who grew their hair once they got out, once they were free,” and he laughed at the idea of ever being free of the army, or ever wanting to be, “but this one is taking it to extremes.” He caught himself pointing at Zedek and added, “What did you say your names were?”

  “Trimas and Zedek, pleased to meet you Wald.”

  “And what are you doing here?”

  Raising a hand and gesturing round the village, Trimas began to lie. “We work for a family of builders that’s trying to drum up some more imperial money. They know this stretch of coast has been starved of funds, and everything has been allowed to decay, and it’s time to talk the Emperor or one of his many underlings into sending some silver this way.”

  “Good, good.” Now Wald looked a little concerned to mention it, but he had to. “I was afraid you’d be like the others.”

  “Others?” Zedek asked.

  “Yeah, last lot of soldiers we had here came looking for one of us.”

  Trimas remained outwardly calm. “How do you mean?”

  “One of us, fellow named Daeholf, he went off to the army, years ago, when I was still in it, but recently they came by asking about him, like they don’t know where he is. Lots of ways to die of course, but some folks reckon he deserted, most others know he’d never do that. Good lad by all accounts.”

  Trimas casually rubbed his beard. “Deserted. Hmm, so does he have family here still?”

  “Yeah, his mother lives in a house, he’s got a sister, nieces and nephews, plenty of reason to come back.”

  “And,” Zedek was playing ignorant, “has he, would he?”