Dark Healer (An Empire Falls Book 1)

by Harry Leighton

  “Your own family excluded of course,” Daeholf said, completely deadpan. Trimas stared at him. Daeholf might not have made the joke with many people, but he knew Trimas well enough to know that the mood needed breaking and that he’d eventually just get a withering look and the edges of his lips curling in mild amusement.

  “Well we’re pretty excluded now, yes. And maybe I’d actually dislike the Valades if they’d replaced us, but they didn’t.”

  “So what happened? If bribery is common, how’d they get thrown out of the senate?”

  “It’d be extremely unusual for anyone to be brought up for simple bribery. Everyone does it and so everyone is guilty.”

  “Then what?”

  “There’s more going on here. I half wish I was back there to get the proper story.”

  “I don’t think that would be wise in the circumstances.”

  “No. Obviously. Still, I’d love to know what sparked it off.”

  “Maybe being senatorial wasn’t enough anymore? They looking upwards? Ambitions? Made someone get a bit twitchy?” Daeholf suggested.

  “Like Emperor-upwards?” Zedek asked.

  “It’s a thought. It would certainly fit a… pattern,” Daeholf said.

  Trimas sat quietly for a moment before saying. “Yes. Yes it would. Maybe that’s it then. Maybe the Valades brought it on themselves.” The other two could hear the sympathy draining from Trimas’ voice. Zedek decided it was time to move on before the old memories took hold of his friend.

  “Your turn to sit down Daeholf.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes,” Trimas took over, “we’ve news for you.”

  He explained, as best he could having never had a poet’s grip on words, and Zedek chipped in with his own comments. Daeholf sat and listened to it all without speaking, until his friends had finished.

  “It sounds the same, the village, it sounds just like I left it.” And he held a hand up to stop his friends replying so he could gather his thoughts and continue. “Although of course it would. Nothing ever changes in these villages. We could return in a century and find the same.”

  “And find people who look like you.”

  Daeholf laughed and nodded at Trimas. “We’ve always had a strong family resemblance. Always. I never thought it would come in useful.”

  “Judging by your grandmothers, you’ll live to at least seventy.”

  “And my mother’s looking well? Really well?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Good. Good. I always worried what would happen without my father or me,” and the other two just nodded because they’d heard these fears before, but you didn’t stop a man working through this news. “To hear she’s alright…” He smiled, a rare genuine smile. It went a second later, as Daeholf leaned forward. “But they came. The army came for me.”

  “Yes. Ten soldiers, although their officer did all the talking.”

  “So they came all this way to find what had happened.” Now his smile came back, and it looked evil. “So I scared them alright, I scared them badly.”

  Trimas nodded. "They can't be sure it was you, but, yes, from the look of it, they're scared."

  Zedek raised an eyebrow. “You sound like having the apogee of human violence after you is a good thing.”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong, we’re going to have to rethink ever revealing who we are to the authorities, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pleased The Bastard is scared someone would appear one day to haunt him.”

  “I think he wants you a ghost.”

  Daeholf rolled his eyes at Trimas.

  “We didn’t tell him about the one-armed fishermen.”

  Daeholf turned sharply to Zedek, and asked him to continue.

  “There was a gathering on the dockside, a load of angry men. One of their number had gone to the city to complain about prices, and they believed he’d suffered some injury. Had vanished.”

  “Fellow called Brig I think,” Trimas added.

  Daeholf’s head snapped round to look at Trimas, who held his hands up in surprise.

  “What?”

  “Did you say Brig?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you said one armed?”

  “Not sure I believed that bit. How do you fish one armed?”

  “Brig’s my cousin.”

  “Ah.”

  “Could there be two of them?”

  Daeholf ignored Zedek’s question. “And you say something’s happened to him?”

  “Possibly vanished.”

  Trimas noticed the way Daeholf was tapping his fingers on the bed. “You want to go after him don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes. I can’t safely go into the village, but we can go back to Kelwich and find out what’s happened.”

  Trimas looked over at Zedek, who started laughing back to him, so he nodded at Daeholf. “It’s not like we’ve got a lot else to do besides plot revenge.”

  *****

  “So what do we know?” Jonas said, leaning back against a tree and drying his feet by the fire.

  “That I’m not much of a cook and you’re going to regret making me do it again?” Alia said, stirring a small pot suspended over the fire.

  “We’re still alive after last time so we’ll chance it. But you know what I meant.”

  Alia set the stick aside and looked over at him. “Our target is currently going by the name of Braxis and is posing as some sort of merchant. Seems to be operating out of Skelton and has some pull with the local thugs,” she said, ticking points off on her fingers.

  “Oh?” Jonas said, shifting slightly to work a knot out of his back on the trunk.

  “Reaction of those two men we buried. I might not have handled it well but I don’t think the fight was all my fault.”

  “Go on.”

  “They were twitchy anyway. Maybe they were expecting trouble or just scared of something.”

  “I think you’re right there. Carry on.”

  “I think it is safe to assume they either worked for Braxis or had regular dealings with him — that they were willing to fight us when they suspected trouble told us that — so I think we’re on the right track and closing in.”

  “And so?”

  “We know who we’re looking for, and probably where. Hopefully we should have this wrapped up soon and can get back where we belong.”

  “Okay,” Jonas said, looking faintly pleased with her. “You’ve picked up most of the important bits.”

  “Most?”

  “I think he knows someone is coming.”

  “We’ve been careful.” Alia paused. “Well, mostly.”

  “We’re not the first after him, the sheet had been up for a while.”

  “Last,” Alia said firmly.

  “Let’s hope so. But…”

  “But?”

  “Like you said, it’s as if the men we talked to were expecting trouble. That bothers me. I’m hoping that it was just the contact who set up the meeting gave a bad impression of us.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We’re still three days out of Skelton. We move quickly, ahead of any news and keep our eyes open for trouble.”

  “That’s why you were pushing the horses today.”

  “Yes.”

  “They didn’t like it,” Alia said. “They still look grumpy now.”

  Jonas looked over at them quizzically. Horse expressions?

  Alia laughed at him and Jonas sighed.

  “Am I really that easy?”

  “It’s been a long day and you’re tired.”

  “You’re not?”

  “I’m young remember. Loads of energy.”

  “I guess with all that energy you’ll be happy to use some of it making camp again while I watch for the next three days then?”

  “Walked into that, didn’t I?” Alia groaned.

  “How is dinner coming?”

  “I think it’s stuck to the bottom of the pot,” Alia said after picking up the stic
k and poking into the pot experimentally.

  Jonas now groaned. “I thought you were stirring it?”

  “I did tell you.”

  “I thought you used to be a camp follower?”

  “I don’t like that term. And anyway, I only washed clothes.”

  Jonas looked at the pair of them. “That’s a good idea too.”

  Alia slumped. “What did your last servant die from?”

  “Boredom. Not going to make the same mistake twice.”

  “You’ve been saving that one up, haven’t you?”

  “Little bit.”

  *****

  “The first time I saw these walls I was overawed,” Daeholf began, “totally stunned.”

  “We were only here two days ago. We’re back at Kel…”

  Trimas looked up at the uninspiring collection of stone. “Hadn’t you been out of the village before?”

  Daeholf’s face betrayed the memories. “I’d been far out of the village, but only across the sea. When I left to come here and join up with the army I’d never seen anything so high, so massive. Totally fucking innocent I must have looked, trying not to get slack jawed. Odd to say I fantasised about seeing this again at Vadoz.”

  Zedek wasn’t quite following this last point. “You were what?”

  Trimas tilted his head silently, wondering how this would go. It was best not to push Daeholf too hard about that siege.

  Daeholf turned to him. “We saw the walls at Vadoz every moment of the day, and we knew they’d charge in over them eventually. Massive walls, some of the greatest defences outside the Imperial City, and even that’s up for question if you’re not an imperial. So we fantasised alright, that we’d wake and Vadoz wouldn’t be a horror, that we’d come home to different walls, smaller walls, walls we could come and go from.”

  “And how do you feel now?” Trimas tried to change tack.

  “Now,” and Daeholf looked at the wall, “it’s odd, an odd feeling remembering, feeling what you did before you knew the world.”

  “Wish you’d just turned and gone back to the village?”

  Daeholf paused, weighing up what he felt. All those comrades, dead. And yet… “No. I’m who I am, why change it now. It would be worse than death, changing that, I’d vanish.”

  Zedek had finished studying the walls. “I am continually amazed you build these things so small all the time. Have we ever been to a city where the settlement hasn’t expanded beyond the ring of stone?”

  Trimas began to laugh, and Zedek raised an eyebrow at him. “You’ve obviously never been to a meeting between an architect and a treasurer.”

  “I assume they are as frustrating as trapping Knarls.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Er, try cats. You say herding cats.”

  “More like trying to part a dragon from his gold.”

  “Yes.” Zedek began to muse to himself.“Your culture has this connection between the great beasts and hordes of gold. I’m sure it means something.”

  Daeholf snorted at the pair of them. “For something that was made up to scare youngsters, you don’t half talk about them all the time.”

  Now the trio had reached the gates, and they slowly filed through, having been checked for anything that might yield the city a toll. This time they had nothing so rare it needed an extra payment, and the guards took little convincing that this trio, all tall men but dressed in travelling clothes that needed stitching, were here to do any selling, and so they went back into the city. A lodging house was found shortly after, stomachs filled with cheese, bread and cold meat, and the next task was tracking Brig’s movements. They decided the best place to start was the market, keeping an eye out for Magath and Slake.

  Market districts were always busy, and this one was no different: you could buy items shipped across an entire empire if you could afford it. But Daeholf was after the seller of items found far closer to home, and they soon discovered, after they had a few informal conversations, who was both buying the fish and who Brig had come to remonstrate with. With this information, it wasn’t too hard to find the right shop, where the man himself was busy trying to clear the latest stock. He was tall, broad and wore a bushy moustache beneath his bald head.

  Daeholf paused in the doorway, and whispered back to his friends. “Notice the prices it’s all selling for. We,” and he felt awkward using ‘we’ about a village he’d left, but his indignation was stronger, “get paid a lot, lot less.” He walked up to the counter, adopted a neutral face as the fishmonger smiled at him, and said, “We’re looking for someone, we think you might have seen them.”

  “We get a lot of people in here.” Quite why the bragging was needed to these men no one was sure. “So I might have seen them. What did they look like?”

  “Fellow called Brig, came to talk about prices.”

  Trimas had come to stand alongside Daeholf, and Zedek was blocking the door, just in case something nasty began, but the fishmonger didn’t bat an eyelid.

  “Figured someone would come looking.”

  “Why d’you say that?” Daeholf wasn’t judging.

  “He was here alright, came in, wanting to argue I think, but we got down to it and we were getting to an agreement. Less than he wanted, more than I wanted, but no need for either of us to cut our noses off.”

  “And then?”

  “He vanished. Never saw him again. Figured he hadn’t left willingly, not when he’d got somewhere with me.”

  “Any ideas what happened?” Daeholf might not have been judging, but this man was now on the list of people who’d benefit if Brig went missing.

  “No. None. All I know is where he lived.”

  Daeholf ran his tongue around his lower teeth. “How do you know that?”

  “I wanted to know what was happening, so I asked a few people. I need to know my fish’ll still be coming in.”

  “Good point.”

  “You don’t look like you’re from the village. You look like you’ve travelled half the world. They hired you?”

  “Yes,” Trimas lied.

  “Well go sniff around where he vanished from. I can’t help you.”

  *****

  “Reason for visit?” said the guard at the gate to an older looking big man in clean and pressed clothes and the glowering young woman stood behind him.

  “Some contracts to deliver for my boss,” the big man said deferentially, patting a bag draped over one shoulder.

  “Aren’t you a bit old to be a courier?” the guard said, mildly curious.

  “Got let go from the farm so I’m taking work wherever I find it. New boss took pity on me, said I looked big enough to carry things without being bothered, so here I am.”

  The guard frowned.

  “Trust me, I’d much rather be warming my feet in a nice inn with a tankard in my hand than working in the rain,” the big man said.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” the guard said with a smile. “Still, you’ve got a lot of scars for a farmer.”

  “Been doing the courier thing for a while, sometimes people want to see what’s in the bag.”

  The guard nodded to himself, seemingly satisfied. “You know where you’re going?”

  Jonas nodded. Alia stepped up close behind him and nudged him in the back none too gently, before stepping to his side and smiling shyly at the guard.

  “Please forgive my father,” she said. “He gets a little forgetful at times.”

  “Boss’s directions were a little vague actually,” Jonas said, carefully expressionless. “If you could point me in the direction of the merchant’s guild house they can probably steer me right.”

  “That’s not much more than a run down warehouse these days. Most of the real merchants do their deals from home,” the guard said, glancing at Alia who was adjusting her dress slightly.

  “Oh?” Jonas said, frowning.

  “Yeah. Bit of a disagreement amongst a few of them recently over fees I think. The big three all moved their business dealings
to their large houses in Hightown,” the guard said, pointing towards a gated-off hill on one side of town.

  “And the rest?”

  “Slowly going out of business.”

  “Oh.”

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “Merchant called…” Jonas said, rummaging in the bag. He looked at a piece of paper. “Mandal,” he said.

  “Hmm, don’t know him.”

  “We’ll try the guild house then.”

  “Good luck,” the guard said. “It’s on the edge of Hightown, just off the main road.”

  “So who are the big three then?” Alia said innocently, smiling at the guard.

  “Dargal, Braxis and Fallon,” the guard said, smiling back.

  Alia nodded then looked around idly.

  “We best be going,” Jonas said.

  “I, um, get off duty in a couple of hours. Maybe I could buy your daughter a drink?” the guard said, looking at Jonas, whilst keeping Alia at the corner of his eye.

  Jonas didn’t move, but suddenly seemed to be looming as he looked at the guard intently.

  “Perhaps not then,” the guard said.

  Alia shrugged.

  The guard turned his attention to the next traveller and Jonas and Alia led their horses into the city.

  Alia glanced back at the guard as they walked off. “Thanks Dad,” she said.

  “Not in the back next time please,” Jonas said quietly.

  “Oh, sorry. Still sore?”

  “Very.”

  “This could be a problem,” Alia said, looking up the hill at Hightown.

  “My back?” Jonas said, distracted, fidgeting.

  “No. If Braxis is one of ‘the big three’ and lives up there, this could be a problem.”

  “Let’s stable the horses and go look. Might not be as bad as you think.”

  *****

  As Daeholf, Trimas and Zedek walked through the streets they discussed the probability of the fishmonger having killed Brig. If the pair really were about to agree a new pricing structure it could be considered foolish to murder the other side, but the fact Brig seemed to be getting somewhere was ample reason: costs were about to go up. And the man hadn’t exactly contacted the village to change prices once Brig had gone, he’d just kept the old arrangement. So he was on the list, which was currently just one name, and a return visit might be in order.