The Ragged Man

by Lloyd, Tom

  ‘Sorry, friend,’ Corl whispered, ‘but you tryin’ to kill me’s a promise to Kassalain, and I do her collecting.’ He drew the knife across the man’s throat, cutting as deep as he could in one movement. The man spasmed as the lifeblood flowed out of him, but in a matter of moments his heart stopped and he went limp.

  Just another sacrifice to my mistress, Corl though grimly. Better him than me.

  The body wouldn’t be discovered tonight, so he didn’t need to waste any more time. When he reached the other end of the alley he dropped to one knee and caught his breath. In a few moments he felt the veil of silence descend over the alley again. He chanced a look round the corner - and froze.

  There it was, apparently still unaware of its pursuer, its patchwork clothes and white porcelain mask stark and ghostly in the pale moonlight.

  Corl drew slowly back and reached for the blowpipe sheathed on his thigh. He allowed himself a quick flush of relief as he ran his fingers down its length and discovered no damage, then removed his darts pouch and selected one. The range wasn’t great compared to a bow, but he preferred a lack of moving parts in his weapons. He loaded and raised the pipe, and set himself to wait patiently for his target to appear at the alley entrance.

  Half a dozen heartbeats later he felt a prickle of fear - he couldn’t hear the Harlequin’s footsteps on the cobbles - then it appeared straight ahead of him, its head turned slightly away. There was no wind; it was as easy a shot as it could be. Corl filled his lungs, aimed the blowpipe and blew —

  — and the Harlequin flinched. One sword was halfway out of its scabbard before the Harlequin even saw what had happened. Corl slowly lowered the blowpipe, feeling secure in the shadows, and watched the Harlequin twist around to look at the finger-long dart in its buttock. With a flick of the wrist it slapped the dart away, then whipped a dagger from its belt and slashed down at the cut.

  Corl’s eyes widened, he’d never seen that before. The toxin on the dart was insect venom, fast-acting, but not instant. As he watched blood run down the Harlequin’s leg Corl found himself wondering how much had entered its bloodstream. Not much, I guess . . .

  He shook his head. Really not the time, he chided himself, stowing the pipe and drawing his longknives. The Harlequin detected his movement, even in the darkness, and peered forward, fully drawing one of its slim swords. It took a few steps forward and Corl felt a chill breath of wind on his neck, as though Lord Death had arrived to claim him.

  Larat’s Teeth, it knows it can’t wait for the venom to kick in.

  Corl took a step back. The Harlequin continued forward, still straining to make out any shapes in the black alley. Corl sheathed one of his longknives and drew a shorter blade, moving slowly and bringing it back behind his head, so the Harlequin wouldn’t see. As he readied himself, footsteps came from the street beyond - footsteps and voices.

  He hesitated, and so did his prey. Then a forced laugh rang out, echoing off the stone walls of the street and Corl realised it was Orolay, obviously as poor an actor as Isen.

  The Harlequin, a trained performer, recognised the same and it turned to face the new threat just as Alterr, the Greater Moon, broke from behind a cloud. Her light spilled over the street, illuminating the scene as though they had fallen into some myth and it was Kasi Farlan himself they hunted.

  Oh, another poor omen, Corl thought, his stomach clenched.

  The Harlequin drew its other longsword, the slender blades as luminous as its mask, and, thanking Kassalain for that moment’s distraction, Corl threw the dagger, straight and true —

  — and the Harlequin moved with blinding speed, arching backwards even as it swung up a sword up to deflect the missile. Corl’s mouth dropped open. What mortal could do that?

  He didn’t get a chance to find out. He heard Isen snarl and break into a run, and, inexplicably, the Harlequin broke and sprinted as gracefully as a gazelle for the side-street it had originally been headed for.

  Corl blinked in surprise as the Harlequin disappeared from view. It didn’t look as if the venom or the cut on its buttock had hampered it in the least.

  A few moments later Isen and Orolay barrelled past, chasing after it, and the sight of them started him into action again.

  ‘Wait,’ he croaked, and stumbled after them, rounding the corner into the street in time to see them clatter to a halt. They stood looking around the empty street in bewilderment.

  ‘Where the fuck’s it gone?’ Isen growled.

  The answer appeared like the wrath of Nartis from the heavens as a blur of bone-white and glittering steel dropped between the pair of them. One sword plunged deep into Isen’s chest, throwing him off his feet while Orolay reacted with the speed of youth and Kassalain’s milk, slashing wildly and - through sheer luck - managing to deflect the blow.

  The Harlequin spun around, raising its sword and slashing at his ribs, and Orolay tried to deflect the blow, only to find it was a ruse: the Harlequin pulled back and withdrew, then gently rocked forward and stabbed at Orolay’s shoulder while the young man was still moving to parry the first blow to his ribs. The thrust sent him reeling, and the Harlequin pressed forward its advantage, twisting one sword to disarm Orolay, then lifting the other and slicing deep into his neck, the gleaming steel cutting through flesh as easily as butter.

  Corl faltered. He’d barely had a chance to move while his comrades died. As he raised his longknives, he felt his hands waver under the sudden weight. He had no hope at all of matching a Harlequin’s skill; his attack had relied entirely on stealth.

  Do I have time to run? he wondered, knowing the answer.

  ‘What venom?’ the Harlequin demanded in a voice so calm and controlled it could have been reclining in a chair rather than engaged in combat. ‘Tell me, and you can live.’

  ‘Ah, venom?’ Corl’s mind went blank for a moment, then as the Harlequin advanced his survival instinct kicked in again. ‘Wait! It’s ghost centipede — ’

  From nowhere an arrow struck the Harlequin in the side, the force of the blow driving it backwards a few steps, and Corl heard it gasp as it grasped the shaft and realised it was a crossbow bolt. The Harlequin sank to one knee, dropping one sword to press a hand to its side.

  Corl didn’t get any closer; he had just had ample demonstration of the Harlequin’s ambidextrous skill.

  ‘Never send a man to do a woman’s job,’ announced a dismissive voice on Corl’s left.

  He turned, and nearly dropped his knives in shock as he recognised the diamond patchwork cloak and black mask pushed up on top of a shorn head: his Wanton Woman. Of course, the last time he’d seen her she hadn’t had a large black crossbow held carelessly in her hands, or a cigar jammed into the corner of her mouth.

  The woman dropped the crossbow, reached behind her back and produced a cocked pistol-bow and dropped a quarrel into it. The end of the cigar glowed orange for a moment, then she pulled it from her mouth.

  ‘Why?’ wheezed the Harlequin, looking up at her while blood, pitch-black in the moonlight, seeped between its fingers.

  ‘For what you might do,’ the woman replied simply.

  Corl looked at her. She barely looked Farlan, with her cold eyes, cropped hair and scarred cheeks, but he’d seen this before. This one was a Hand of Fate - or had been, until the Goddess had died. It looked like Kassalain still had competition in Tirah; the woman’s profession hadn’t been removed with her copper-dyed hair, just her allegiance.

  Without warning the Harlequin launched forward, lunging for the woman, who calmly hopped backwards, away from its sword’s tip, even as she fired the pistol-bow. The quarrel hit it just below the shoulder, its sword clattered onto the cobbles and it dropped to its knees again. It bowed its head, as though in prayer, but all Corl could hear was shallow breathing as the Harlequin panted its last.

  The woman used her foot to nudge the sword out of the Harlequin’s reach before bending to pick it up. She hefted the weapon with an admiring look. ‘A thing of beauty,’ she whi
spered. ‘Perhaps I’ll keep it.’

  She swept the sword down and the Harlequin’s head tumbled away. Its torso flopped flat at her feet as the Wanton Woman stepped delicately out of the way.

  ‘Double pay for me, it appears,’ she said - not callously, to Corl’s surprise, more wearily.

  He bobbed his head and looked back at the corpses of his comrades. Double pay? She’s already killed one tonight? Gods, are they being wiped out?

  ‘Leave them,’ she ordered, ‘I’ll dispose of this one. The guard can find them and think what they like.’

  ‘I wasn’t told to hide the body,’ he said, returning to his senses.

  She gave him a fierce grin and raised the sword. ‘If I’m taking a memento, best they don’t find the body straight away.’

  With that she unclasped her cloak and wrapped the sword before fetching her crossbow. When she’d picked that up she carried on walking away, looking for a suitable hiding place, and Corl realised she was right. There wasn’t anything more to say; it was time to leave.

  Anyways, the night’s not over for me, he reminded himself as he paused over the bodies of his former colleagues. Someone with a grudge against Harlequins; that makes my next job look obvious by comparison.

  He sighed and sheathed his weapons. It would be foolish to linger. He summoned a map of the city in his mind and set off at a brisk walk.

  The Temple of Karkarn it is, then, and all by myself now . . . think I’d better pick up a crossbow on my way.

  CHAPTER 27

  Kastan Styrax waited, the dying sun on his face. A faint breath of wind danced across his cheek like a ghost’s lament, as unnoticed as the discordant song of cicadas all around. He watched the orange smears of cloud as though searching for meaning in their patterns, but they answered no questions. The beauty of the sunset was similarly lost on him. Styrax had always been a man of the dawn, as the mysteries of the darkness were slowly unveiled. Any fool could enjoy dusk, thinking it heralded the reward of another day survived. Great men preferred dawn.

  ‘You found me at dawn, Fate,’ he said to the sunset. ‘You sought me out when I was barely a man and told me I had a future like no other.’ He raised a wineskin and drank, but when he lowered the skin, he realised his thirst had not been assuaged, and tossed it carelessly behind him, prompting a snort from the wyvern crouched nearby. The beast sat low on its hind legs, dusty-blue wings half-outstretched as though ready to catch the dusk wind. A voice in the back of his mind told Styrax he too should shake out his muscles, loosen the knots in his body with a few repeated forms with his sword. He did nothing. He felt like the weariness of his soul was a well of ice deep inside him.

  The hillside was almost bare; low, gorse-like bushes with pale green leaves providing the only cover for the birds that nested there. Their nervous calls punctuated the summer evening, frantic chirps coming from all directions as though they were attempting to confuse the massive predator that had landed in their midst.

  ‘You told me it was a future you could not affect, that the choices were mine alone. All this has come about because I willed it.’ Styrax gestured to the Land around him, the open fields and olive groves, the glinting stream and serried ranks of sheltered vines. ‘So who could be blamed for Kohrad’s death but I? The Farlan boy? He sought to wound me; to distract me from the fight ahead, or excise the motive for conquest. As much as he deserves the lonely tortures of Ghenna, he was only reacting to my own actions. Thus the blame is ours to share.’

  He walked forward a few paces until he reached a big boulder and sat. The weight of years had never before pressed so hard upon his shoulders; it had increased tenfold since Major Amber had roused him from his murderous grief. Now Styrax slumped forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared down at the dirt. It was dry and dusty on the hillside, what little water in the soil used up by the bushes. He paused as six pairs of dark eyes peered up at him: some sort of game-bird, with grey mottled plumage. Her five brown chicks were looking anxiously up from underneath their mother’s wing.

  ‘Hello, supper,’ Styrax whispered. The bird bobbed its head in response, a nervous, wary reaction to the sound, no doubt, but one that filled him with a sudden sense of kinship. ‘Oh, see now I can’t eat you,’ he continued reproachfully, ‘not when you’ve welcomed me so respectfully.’

  From somewhere behind the bird was an urgent chirrup, and the call was taken up in all directions, producing a sudden riot of sound. The cacophony was interrupted by the voice of someone calling, ‘My Lord?’ from further down the hillside.

  The wyvern gave a hungry hiss, followed a ragged flapping sound as it hurriedly folded its wings in readiness to leap. The white-eye whispered a few soft words and a drift of magic slithered off his tongue. The wyvern quietened immediately, needing little encouragement to settle back down. It had flown for several hours that day and it was tired - no matter how tasty a morsel General Gaur might be.

  ‘Come, my friend,’ Styrax replied, not bothering to get up from the boulder, ‘how fares my war?’

  ‘About as hard as we anticipated,’ the beastman said, trudging up the slope towards Styrax. He had a plain breastplate strapped on and his axe was slung on his back, ready for battle. ‘And you?’

  Styrax’s gaze hardened, but the look had no effect on his long-time friend. He opened his mouth to speak, then the sight of Kohrad’s body appeared in his mind and momentarily paralysed him. He looked away, unable to meet Gaur’s bronze-flecked eyes any longer. ‘Bored by the Circle City,’ he said at last.

  ‘They like to talk, sure enough,’ Gaur agreed, the contempt obvious in his thick, deep voice. ‘I don’t have much good news for you, though.’

  ‘How far from Aroth?’

  ‘At the gates. King Emin pulls back at every thrust like a girl with pious guilt.’

  ‘That is not good news?’

  Gaur shrugged with a chink of steel. ‘Good enough, but no victories to speak of. I have strike forces ranging ahead of the main armies, chasing down the score or more warbands raiding our lines. The Cheme Third got close to wiped out, major sorcery of some sort finishing what, to hear the survivors tell, Colonel Uresh’s rashness started. Was timed with the only real assault they’ve ventured, one that decimated the Third Army’s supplies and stalled our centre entirely.’

  ‘Something tells me Major Amber won’t thank me for keeping him away from that.’

  ‘You’re not sending him forward?’

  Styrax shook his head. ‘Byora’s his mission now, Byora and Azaer.’

  ‘I understand - it’s a shame though. Spirits are low in the camps. It would be good for them to see their newest hero.’

  ‘Low?’ Styrax exclaimed. ‘The enemy fears to face us in open battle and it’s our morale that’s affected?’

  Gaur shook his dark mane. ‘The raids are sapping strength and will. They’ve lost friends, without being able to strike back properly. King Emin’s tactic is working, to a degree.’

  ‘His tactic is flawed,’ Styrax corrected, one finger raised. ‘King Emin knows it, and so do I, for it is Aryn Bwr’s own battle-plan.’

  ‘He casts you in the role of the Gods?’ Gaur gave an abrupt laugh. ‘How prophetic of him.’

  Styrax did not share his friend’s humour. ‘How reckless of him. His nation is nothing like as large as the last king’s. How long can he run before he meets the ocean - long enough to wear us down? He hopes to force us to turn, to slow our pace and buy himself time for the Farlan to recover and honour their agreements.’

  ‘Has there been word from our envoy?’

  ‘No, but the more I think on it, the more I believe he’ll be successful. Every report I get from the Farlan confirms my assessment. They’ve no stomach for a protracted foreign war, and they remain too divided for any ruler to sustain it.’

  Gaur was silent for a while, his attention focused completely on Styrax. The beastman had smothered his grief for his lord, taking up the slack when the white-eye had raged alone. Whe
n Styrax lifted his head he saw the pain in Gaur’s eyes that was eating away inside him. Kohrad, the youth Gaur had loved as a son, was dead before his eyes, while he had been brushed aside, left uninjured by the Farlan white-eye.

  I could send you back, Styrax thought, forcing himself to look at Gaur despite the horrific, gut-clenching images of Kohrad’s corpse that burst in his mind. I could send you away to Thotel and let you oversee the garrison there. The Chetse are mine, body and soul, so there you could grieve . . . and yet I will not. A general’s compassion is smoke on the wind; you know this though it may leave you dead inside.

  ‘What will you do in response?’ Gaur said, looking down as if he had heard his lord’s thoughts.

  Styrax gave him a grim, mirthless smile. ‘I will obliterate all he holds dear. I will be as the Gods of past Ages and lay waste to all before me. I will make my enemy realise he has no choice but to face me in battle.’