by Jon Kiln
“Quite sensible, if you ask me,” Vekal muttered under his breath, as the whistles and the shouts turned into screams as the guards started using their metal-shod batons against the most recalcitrant.
“Sensible? Stopping a man if he wants to flee for his life? Ha! You have much to learn about freedom.” The devil snorted at what it considered the ‘weak’ moralizing of its host.
“Out of my way!” someone bellowed behind Vekal, loud and close enough to make him turn to see the captain of the Emerald with the red bandana, barging people out of the way as he hurried to his boat. The giant of man stood head and shoulders above the crowd, and, although annoyed, seemed to be at least a little excited at these turn of events too. “Kraggers!” he bellowed to one of his crewmates already on board. “Hoist the sails! Up anchor! Stow what you must, and leave what you don’t have to. Quick launch, boys!”
They were at the entrance to Last Wharf, which was aptly named as it was one of the smaller stone-built docks in the mess of larger and more elaborate shipping systems. This one had a small stone pier, with iron mooring rods placed here and there, all rusting and none seeming to stand in the same way as any other.
Vekal saw figures already aboard the fat-bellied Emerald, and watched as the green and blue sails started to unfurl to their full length in the breeze. There were splashes in the water as some of the sailors in the crowd jumped off the stone docks and swam to her grab ropes to get on board before the captain could leave them behind.
The captain’s eyes alighted on Vekal, and instead of meeting him with a snarl, they instead gleamed with a grin. “Ho! So you have a lucky streak in you, after all.” The captain laughed as he shoved at another knot of people, clearing the path for them to push through the press.
“Not so fast, devil!” A voice rose through the screams and press of the crowd on Last Wharf. Vekal knew, instinctively that the words were meant for him, and his hands disappeared under his cloak to the handles of his long knives. Was it the Friends? Had they found him?
But the voice did not belong to Suriyen, or the older one Aldameda, or even to Talon. A gang of toughened, rangy-looking men in ages from about twenty to fifty stepped out of the crowd, neatly making a barricade between The Emerald and the Sin Eater. They wore rough-cut jerkins and had in their hands gigantic fish hooks, bits of wood, and even a few knives. Their hair, skin, and painted faces betrayed why they were the ones to come for Vekal.
“Gypsies?” The captain laughed. He had no weapon in his hand, but his companion wondered if he would even need it with fists of his size. “You know me, Captain Jons of the Emerald. We’ve never had any quarrel with the gypsy clans before.”
“Well, Captain Jons, you’re not getting on board your boat until we’ve had what we came here for.” The young man in the lead growled, punching the air with a meat skewer in Vekal’s direction. “Him!”
“What did you say to me, lads?” Captain Jons said as he glared at the gypsies, come for revenge. “This here isn’t your dock, or your boat. Now, unless you want the soldiers to round us all up, I suggest you wait to conduct your business later, after the war perhaps…”
“Stand aside, Jons, or the family will cut you down as well,” the man snarled, raising his meat skewer threateningly at the captain. Right then, there came a shout from above and behind them.
Behind, the shouting was the barked orders of the charging Fuldoonian soldiers. Above them, it was the shout of three or so burly sailors leaping from the Emerald, cutlasses and wooden poles in their hands to protect their captain.
“Now! Kill!” The rage that always burned within the devil burst like a disease inside Vekal’s mind. All of a sudden his knives were out and he was moving, and he felt like his body was not his own. He moved faster than he ever had before, and struck with a strength that he had never even thought that he had, faster it seemed than thought itself.
Skewer, the first gypsy, was knocked back by the force of Vekal’s charge, and his forearm sliced in a spray of blood that sent the devil inside of him ecstatic. The man fell backwards amongst his family, who closed in around the Sin Eater with murderous intent.
Captain Jons roared, seizing one of the gypsies who had raised a fish hook over Vekal’s head, and lifting him bodily above his own head, he threw him off of the dock and into the water with a mighty splash. Jons’s next move was a solid punch into the jaw of an attacker ten years his junior, and the Sin Eater swore that he saw the man actually take off from the floor as he was knocked out cold.
But there were still many of the angered family gypsies, relatives or clan-allies of the same caravan that Vekal had traveled with so recently. They taunted him as they exchanged kicks, swipes, and beatings with the cornered man.
“Devil!”
“Beast!”
“Murderer!”
“We’ll teach you to cross the southern clans!”
One man stepped forward with a heavy club of wood, serving a glancing blow off Vekal’s shoulder, sending him spinning into the kick of another man on the other side.
Save me, spirit! Vekal snarled, unsure of what Ikrit could even do, but felt an answering surge of excitement inside his own breast, as his limbs moved faster, and faster.
“Step!” Ikrit guided his every move. He ducked under the next swing of the club. “Strike!” He punched upwards with his dagger, feeling it lodge into the man’s elbow with a scream, before letting go of the blade to turn again. “Duck. Turn. Parry!”
The devil seemed to register threats that the human could not, as he ducked first one way to avoid the sweep of a short sword, and then another to avoid a kick, before jabbing out with his free fist to hear a satisfying crunch of one man’s nose.
How many around him now? he thought, panting, his eyes stinging with sweat. Three? Four? The three sailors had already engaged with their own deadly partners, and Vekal wondered if he could manage to fight off another three himself.
“Get yer paws off my priest!” roared a looming shadow, as Jons seized another of the attackers by the shoulders, spinning him around into a bear hug and using him as a body-bludgeon on the next.
“Yeeesss!” The devil inside of Vekal was squealing with laughter as the poor manhandled thug yelled and screamed as he was almost used as a club. There came from the scuffle the heavy, muffled sounds of strikes, and the sharp cracks of joints and small bones fracturing.
Captain Jons stood in a wide circle on the dock, suddenly cleared of attackers all apart from one, who chose to dive into the harbor itself rather than face the wrath of the Emerald crew and their walrus-like captain.
“You’re a pretty vicious fighter for such a scrawny priest.” The captain regarded the crouching Sin Eater, still holding his one knife in hand. “Now, up you get, and get on board my boat!” Jons seized the priest by the scruff of the neck, and Vekal could do little as the devil’s power was fading inside his limbs, replaced by an itchy, trembling fatigue filling them instead. He was half carried, half pushed up the grab nets and over the edge of the railings to the wooden deck below, where he was shoved to one side to collapse by the barrels and crates.
“Up anchor, gentle-ladies and scabs!” the captain bellowed once more, even before his hobnail boots struck the wood of the deck.
Vekal, through his haze of exhaustion, could see the wide grin on the captain’s face as he cracked his shoulders from the recent fight. “We’ll not wait here to be some mercy-ship for the Fuldoonians, nor to be traded away in a peace settlement. Who wants that, do you?” he teased and prodded his surly-looking crew.
“No, cap’n! We don’t!” shouted back Kraggers, a man almost as thin Vekal was, but much older, with a face like a cliff face in winter, with white, stringy hair on top. The priest thought this must be the first mate or boatswain, or whatever it was that sailors had as their second-in-command. “You heard the cap’n. Up anchor boys. Get some oars in the drink and let’s get out of here!”
The captain turned to wave at the arriving, red-faced
Fuldoonian soldiers with their metal whistles.
There was a splash from down below as several oars hit the water on either side of the boat, extending from below decks by invisible hands. The Emerald moved agonizingly slowly, powered in bursts and lurches that seemed torturous to Vekal, until the sails above started to flap and pick up a little wind.
All around them, the harbor of Fuldoon was filled with a similar exodus of other vessels fleeing the soon-to-be war torn city. Some were spilling refugees from their decks, or were accepting others swimming alongside them. It looked to the Sin Eater like a strange sort of migration, which he guessed it kind of was in a sad way.
Behind them sat the great, dark, crowded and hazy expanse of a city preparing for war, and in front of them the vast blue realm of the Inner Sea. Vekal had never been on water, and he wondered to himself just which situation he would prefer right now, as the boat lurched once more to one side.
Cutting through the noise and tumult all around them like a prayer, Vekal heard a noise so familiar as to be engraved in his very soul. It was the cry of one of the white-winged desert crows, emissaries of Lord Annwn and Lady Iliya themselves, and once resident in the City of Tir, the immortal city of the gods. The Sin Eater looked up, not seeing anything apart from the broad-winged, raucous gulls before he spotted it, small and high, a shadow on the horizon. Was it a promise, or a sign? A warning, or a blessing?
“My lord! Am I doing the right thing? Will you admit me to heaven when we find the Lockless Keys?” Vekal closed his eyes as he thought about what must come next.
23
Despite everything that Suriyen had said, Talon wouldn’t be dissuaded from his choice. He stood trying to fix the strap to his small tin helmet so it wouldn’t wobble back and forth quite so ridiculously on his head, raising himself up to his full height. I am not so little as all that! he thought to himself, seeing the age and height of some of the other soldiers on the wall. Although all must be at least three or four years older than him, he didn’t think he looked so out of place.
“I have no idea why you are so insistent on seeing a child die,” Suriyen snapped at Counselor Maaritz, who still wore his official robes from the recent council meeting.
Suriyen however, had managed to find for her new position a suit of gleaming scale armor with enough complicated straps and buckles to cinch tight around her torso. Her arms were bare except for her gloves, and she wore light-weight breeches with a multitude of small and long bladed weapons strapped to her back, hips, and down her thighs.
Talon thought that she looked about the toughest that he had ever seen her, and the toughest person there—but he guessed that he must be a little biased.
They stood on the walls of the city of Fuldoon, after a very unsuccessful council meeting, as far as he was concerned.
No one had mentioned helping us to find Vekal. He frowned into the distance, and gazed upon the horrible dark cloud of the Menaali tribesmen heading their way.
At the council meeting, he had found himself in a room that was taller than most buildings, with long, arched windows that spilled rays of dusty daylight onto a marble table, around which sat a selection of aging men and women.
These were, apparently, the Council of Fuldoon itself, and arguably the most powerful people south of the north lands. They were really a mixture of traders, merchants, and gang bosses who had risen to their seat by their wealth and influence in the city. There was one who controlled half of the docking spaces in the harbor, another who masterminded river traffic, one who had at least some hand in every mill and textile industry in the city, and others; bankers, builders, and a couple head priests of notably jovial and trade-friendly god-figures.
None of them had been interested in Talon and his tale of woe and slavery amongst the gypsies. They had glossed over his mistreatment, instead saying that the gypsy clans brought in a lot of revenue and news to the city, and so they wouldn’t investigate the issue further.
When the council found out that the only one of their group who had actually seen the Menaali and Dal Grehb up close—the Sin Eater from the City of Tir—wasn’t even with them but ‘lost in the city’, then they seemed even less interested.
“What do they want?” one of the merchant-bankers had insisted. “Every chieftain, king, princeling or warlord wants something. Give them enough fish or gold or whatever, and they’ll go away. They always do.”
“Fool,” Suriyen had muttered under her breath, but loud enough for eyebrows to be raised amongst the nearest of the councilors. “I have seen how the Menaali fight, many years ago. I was at the Iron Pass the day they took it, and where they killed my family. Dal Grehb isn’t like the Menaali tribe leaders of the past, councilors. He is a very dangerous man because he has one thing that his predecessors did not. Ambition.”
“So he wants to, what? Rule the south lands? Be named Emperor of the deserts? Is that it?” the belligerent councilor said. “Because I for one do not care what airs or graces he gives himself, as long as Fuldoon continues to thrive and prosper.”
“I never said his ambition was for land and wealth, although I am sure that they are gladly taken,” Suriyen snarled back at them. “I said that I saw the Menaali fight. They believe in fighting the way that you Fuldoonians believe in money. It is the mark of a great hero to be able to defeat ever more and bigger enemies, and retire on the spoils when they are too old to pick up an axe.
“To Dal Grehb, arguably the greatest Menaali of them all, he probably views the crossing of the Sand Seas, and the taking of Tir as things no tribesman has ever attempted. Those are the things that have made him great. He has the ambition to dare to reach for the things that only the gods themselves should give, and that is why he will try to take Fuldoon within a few hours, not just for the money, nor the women, but because it would prove for all time that he is the best fighter of them all.” Suriyen finished, and glared at them all seated before her.
“I think what the lady is saying,” Councilor Maaritz took over, “is that even if we offer to pay them a large ransom, they came a long way, and went to an awful lot of trouble already; they won’t leave until they have had a fight.”
“Well, it seems to me as if this lady of yours, Councilor,” the previously belligerent questioner said, “rather admires the brute, Dal Grehb.”
Before he had even finished his dry, sarcastic laugh, the table rang with the sound of a six inch throwing knife embedding itself in front of the recent commentator, thrown in one expert movement by Suriyen. There was uproar among the others and the guards.
“Don’t you ever insult me like that again, councilor,” Suriyen said evenly. “This lady is named Suriyen of the North, and I took an oath to avenge myself against Dal Grehb, and I won’t stop until I have.”
Her words, and the still vibrating dagger, seemed to drive home to the councilors just what sort of situation they had been dealing with. After much discussion of tactics, Suriyen, the only person here who had seen the Menaali fight, was chosen to be wall-sergeant, helping with the city’s defenses.
And it is a position that she relishes, I can tell, Talon thought, checking the fit of his helmet once more. She had tried to send him back to Aldameda’s of course, but he had stubbornly refused to go. If they were not going to find Vekal, and free him of the demon with the packet of Devil’s Bane that Suriyen kept at her hip, then Talon thought he would do the only other thing that he could; he would stick by the woman who had saved him.
“Despite her misgivings,” Talon muttered, as he watched Suriyen throw her hands up at Maaritz with a snort of disgust.
“His choice, captain,” the councilor said. “He has as much right to fight for his life as any here in the city.”
Suriyen shook her head and stalked over to the boy they were arguing about; Talon himself. With a few expert movements she had tightened his helmet until it sat comfortably on the leather cap between his hair and the metal.
“There.” She even managed a wan smile. “Just sta
y behind me, and if I head for the ground, head back into the city. Got that?”
No. Talon nodded. I will be at the front of the battle, by your side, but no sense in worrying her. “And then, after today, we can find Vekal?” Talon whispered to her. “Save him from the devil, remember?”
Suriyen blinked, frowned, then sighed. “After tomorrow? You have a lot of faith in me already, I see. Don’t think about Vekal just yet. He is one man, with one devil. Aldameda has her contacts looking for him, but believe me, Talon, we have plenty of things to be worried about before that.”
“Suriyen! You gave your word to me that we would find him,” Talon insisted. “He saved my life, remember? Twice.”
Suriyen was silent for a moment, before finally nodding. “It is important to keep your promises, Talon, and once, a long time ago, I gave a promise to my ancestors that I would have revenge on that warlord out there, so yes, I will try to honor your promise just as I hope to honor mine. After. After the battle we will try to find and exorcise Vekal.”
“Wall-sergeant,” called a herald, approaching the whispering pair, and Suriyen stood up to look at charts and diagrams of troops and fortifications. She shot Talon one last glance, then turned and started pointing up and down the walls with her ideas.
Talon sighed, and settled back into watching the tide of the enemy grow larger and deeper ahead of them. It looked like a wave about to crash against the walls of Fuldoon, and Talon felt scared, even though the walls were very high. The battlements stretched, it seemed, from the coast to as far as the eye could see southwards, and appeared easily six or seven stories high, and thick, made of the same yellow-reddish desert stone that was easy to carve, but impossible to move.
They stood at the heart of the action, in the gate house near the double gates, with the many flags of Fuldoon fluttering over their heads in the wind. On either side of Talon the walls had teams of twenty to thirty soldiers stretched out in perforated lines, each man holding their spear or a banner. At their feet were small bows, and wicker-baskets of rocks.
