by Julia Knight
“I might be able to get it back into position or at least make it not as screwed, but you are still fucked without me and the guild to help you out. Or I suppose I could just leave you here to either starve or freeze to death, whichever happens first. I get why you don’t like me. But why do you hate the guild so much?”
“So do it then. Leave me behind like the guild always leaves behind anyone who isn’t one of its precious masters. And why? Isn’t it obvious? Bunch of arrogant bast—” He broke off with a hiss as Kass touched his leg as gently as she could. “Think they’re better than everyone else, worth more than everyone else. Look at your brother.”
“I’d rather not. Keep still. And try not to give away the fact we aren’t dead by screaming if you can. This is going to hurt. A lot.”
In fact she wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to make it worse, but she’d seen breaks like this before–a fall from a horse usually–and she’d seen what happened if no attempt was made to straighten the limb. If she recalled her lessons in basic field care, and she might not, the foot going that colour meant an artery or large vein was trapped in the break. Possibly. She had to get it straight though, she definitely remembered that part. It was do this or, if they actually managed to get out of the ravine, he’d lose the leg, or worse. Even if nothing was trapped, getting it back into its proper position was going to make things a lot easier when it came time to move.
She took a deep breath and a firm grip on his ankle that brought a clenched yelp from Eder. She thanked her lucky stars that all that sword work had left her with a decent set of muscles and pulled, slowly but steadily.
The scrape of bone on bone vibrating up her arm made her shudder and Eder bite on his arm to try to hold in the scream. Slowly, too bloody slowly for either of their likings, the leg came straight. The trick was to make sure she pulled so there was a gap between the ends of the bone before she eased it back into position and hoped like hell nothing got caught. She kept on pulling until she was sure the ends were clear and then let go. Eder flopped back, sweat soaked and shaking, but almost immediately the ominous swelling began to go down.
As did the sun. It winked out behind a bank of clouds on the far side of the narrow slice of sky above them, leaving snow and shadow in its wake, and the beginnings of fear of how they were going to get out of there. Kass turned to say something to Eder about it, but he’d passed out, which was probably a mercy.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Can’t you at least take another look?” Vocho said to the man holding a blade to the back of his neck.
The bald giant Kepa poked him with a finger the size and shape of a well stuffed sausage and said, “If they get to the bottom, they ain’t alive. And I seen ’em at the bottom, and they weren’t moving. Sent plenty down there before now. Even if they get to the bottom and live, they can’t get out again without help. So they’re dead, or soon will be. Get used to it.”
“Kepa’s quite right,” Petri said from somewhere behind him. “Several people have fallen there before. They never come back.”
He might have been talking about paperweights for all the emotion in his voice, but Vocho refused to believe him. It was going to take more than a little tumble to kill Kass. He hoped. He really, really hoped. She’d survived worse, survived being shot at, being stabbed–more than once–and any number of other things. Take more than a little tumble to kill Kass. Probably. He didn’t like the way his eye kept twitching when he told himself that.
To cover up the rancid pit of fear his stomach had become, he said, “I realise I probably don’t want to know the answer to this, but I’m not going to end up in there as well, am I?”
“Only if you don’t shut up.”
Vocho shut up. It didn’t stop him thinking though. He was going to assume she was alive. He had to because otherwise he’d crumble, and he was buggered if he’d do that in front of Petri. She wasn’t dead. Just like Petri hadn’t been dead. It was catching, not being dead.
Of course she’d probably kill Vocho first chance she got, for not telling her that small thing about Petri not being dead, for in fact lying outright about it. Probably rip him open balls to chin. But it’d be worth it because she’d be alive. Of course, he had to survive for her to be able to kill him.
First things first. Get the hell away from Petri and his cohorts. Only that didn’t seem all that achievable. There were a dozen of them that Vocho could see, some making sure their prisoners didn’t escape and of course there was that handy drop into nothing, should any of them get bolshy.
Some of Petri’s people were rounding up their new horses, Kass’s bastard of a thing gave a couple of them some new scars in the making before they ganged up on it, and it took four of them to manage it in the end. First a nosebag on it to muzzle its teeth, and then, after much swearing and what looked to Vocho like a broken arm, it was loosely hobbled so it could walk but kicking would be near on impossible, though he was sure it’d try anyway.
Another dozen or more men and women lurking, weapons ready, and the magician around too–he kept making little snide comments to Petri about how brave he was, but Petri seemed as oblivious as a plank.
I know it doesn’t come easy, Vocho my lad, but I think you may need to bide your time here.
Sensible advice from himself, but hard to follow nonetheless, especially with Carrola watching, slogging along in the snow next to him, silent, bruised and battered but slogging along nonetheless. His hand slid into his tunic and came out with an almost empty bottle. Cogs damn it. And where was he going to get any more? Whoever had taken to leaving it on his washstand–he liked to think of them as the Jollop Fairy–probably wasn’t up to clambering up a mountain in hip-deep snow in order to do it. He was going to have to ration himself, so he took a last sorrowful look at the bottle, stashed it back in his tunic and tried to take stock.
The only bright spot was that Cospel wasn’t among the captives. Neither was his new best friend, Sergeant Danel. Vocho had a faint hope that they’d kept out of the way and would now either help him escape or go and get Kass, who would then help him escape. He could rely on Cospel at least. It looked like he might have to.
The day grew colder, and his hip grew stiffer as a cruel wind whipped ice-edged snow around their ears. The magician at least made it easier–now it was obvious how Scar and her crew had managed to get around the mountain when everyone else was snowed in. He was melting the snow to clear a path, then making more snow behind to cover their tracks.
Carrola and the two men from Eder’s troop shivered in their too-thin furs. Vocho offered his thicker wolfskin cloak to Carrola, but she waved it away with a frown. His hip grew worse until he was certain he could hear the muscles twang with every step, but there was only a mouthful of the syrup left. He concentrated on how bloody great it would taste when they got to where they were going.
By the time night fell–sharply behind jumbled peaks–they’d reached a small hidden valley dotted with little snowy humps that on closer inspection turned out to be buildings, and Vocho was lurching along like a badly made doll.
Kepa shoved them into one of the meaner huts with nothing more than a smirk from Petri that twisted his features into something nightmarish before the door banged shut. At least it shut out his face too.
The hut was unlit except for torchlight coming through the many cracks in the log walls, so that Vocho could just about see his breath fogging in front of him. They all slumped to the frozen mud floor, Vocho with his bad leg stiffly out in front. No matter how he sat, his hip burned with cold, the muscles so tight he could probably use them as a drum.
His fellow captives settled down with worried murmurs, trying to rub some life back into frozen hands.
Suddenly a voice he recognised shot out of the dark: “Vocho? Is that you?”
He couldn’t make out much, but what he could see was the opposite of what he’d expected from the voice. He’d expected impeccable clothes, powdered silks and ridiculous brooches, a dark curl o
f hair over one shoulder. Maybe a smile as sharp as daggers on a man who looked like he was walking on oiled springs.
Instead he could make out a straggled beard shot through with grey, clothes so torn they looked like rags held together with string and covered with strips of mangy-looking fur. The ornaments were gone, along with all the poise, replaced by a god-awful smell and a cracked voice.
“Dom?”
“I’d bow but I seem to be rather restricted.”
An understatement. Dom hadn’t just had his wrists tied, but also his elbows, ankles and knees, not to mention the noose around his throat that was tied to a beam, leaving him just enough room not to hang himself as long as he stayed upright. Someone was taking no chances.
Vocho shuffled over. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“A slight tactical error involving being a bit overconfident and having a burning need to shove a knife right through someone’s eyeball, a need so burning in fact that I was oblivious to all else. You?”
Vocho raised an eyebrow, even if Dom couldn’t see it. Dom, usually so indolent it was a surprise he stayed awake, angry enough for that? It didn’t seem possible.
“A slight tactical error,” he replied, “involving being a bit overconfident, and then Kass seeing Petri alive. I suspect she may want to shove a knife through our eyeballs. If she’s still alive.”
“Ah,” Dom said through his tangled beard. “Knife through the eyeballs seems rather restrained in that case. I suspect more slicing us balls to chin?”
“I suspect you may be right.” Vocho tried to undo the knots that held Dom’s wrists, fumbled them and wiped a shaking hand across his eyes. Must be tired. Or missing his jollop. That was all. He kept on trying, more for something to concentrate on than anything else.
“And ‘If she’s still alive’?” Dom asked.
So Vocho told him the lot, ending with “And when she saw Petri… Balls to bloody chin, you’re right. And she was so busy staring at the ghost we made for her, she didn’t see Scar until it was too late, and then Eder tried to get in the middle, only Scar moved at the last second so Kass and Eder went over the edge.”
A long silence greeted that. Vocho gave up on the bonds that held Dom. Someone knew what they were about, enough to confound his numb fingers anyway.
“Do you know they’re dead?” Dom said at last. “No. Unless you know for sure, I wouldn’t write Kass off. Not ever. Not least because balls to chin would be nothing compared to what she’d do if we did that. However, perhaps more to the point, she’s hardly likely to come and rescue you if she hates your guts.”
“What is going on?” Carrola whispered from the far corner. “Vocho, who is this? And what in hells have you done now?”
“Ah,” Dom said. “There speaks someone who knows Vocho well.”
“Better than I’d like to, if half what my captain told me is true. And to think I was taken in by his ‘I’m just a naughty boy, but I don’t mean it’ act. Huh. Now I know better. Come on, Vocho, what new shitwittery of yours is this?”
“I meant it for a kindness,” Vocho said, unable to take any more reproaches, from himself as much as anyone else. “Petri bloody Egimont. I told her he was dead, we both did, me and Dom. We told everyone but especially her. Petri asked me to tell her that, and I did because… because I gave my word, and I thought it would be a kindness, for both of them. She’d have only blamed herself if she’d seen him. Of course she did anyway, but she didn’t need to see that, see what he’d become. It wasn’t just the face, it was him, inside. He wasn’t–isn’t–Petri any more, and she’d have blamed herself for that when it wasn’t her fault. Funny, I didn’t think he could be worse than the pompous sod he used to be, but I was wrong.”
Carrola moved close enough that he could see the disapproval twitching her face into a frown that struck fear into his heart. “You lied to her that he was dead?”
“He asked me to! Dom, tell her. He asked me to. I gave my word.”
Carrola looked at him aghast. “Vocho, Eder was right when he warned me about you.”
“Yes, but if I could just ex—”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. There are no excuses. You really are the most—”
“I know,” he said, slumping back against the freezing wall in defeat. “I try not to be but I am. I very, very am.”
Carrola pointedly turned her back on him, and he couldn’t say he blamed her. He took the bottle out again, squinted at it in the light and put it away with a sigh. His hip had totally seized so that any movement became a slow grind of muscles and bones, but he couldn’t have any, he told himself. Not even a nip, not a little something against the cold and pain. Things were bound to get worse than this. Even if things improved and Cospel or, even better, Kass turned up, he might need to run.
A sudden extra blast of cold as the door opened, and there was Petri, no mask now, half his face just… gone. He smiled, but there was nothing pleasant about what it did to the face that was left. Nothing pleasant in the eye that was left either, not a hint of the man Petri had been. Vocho might have reasoned with Petri once upon a time, but he had the feeling this man was no longer anything close to reasonable.
Petri strolled into the hut, outlined in torchlight from behind him. Left hand casually on a sword, right dangling uselessly. A certain swagger to him, a strident confidence that had never been there before. Shadows moved in front of the torchlight–the bald giant–and a racheting sound signalled a gun being wound.
“Just in case you feel like doing anything foolish,” Petri drawled. “Because we all know a fool is exactly what you are.”
“It does look that way, doesn’t it?” Vocho said. “I’d get up, but it’s only you so I can’t be arsed.”
Half a mouth twisted into a snarl, and Vocho wasn’t unduly surprised when the sword tip came to rest, oh so gently, under his eye. “Perhaps I should tell you how all my patience was burned away with hot metal, along with my eye, my face, my hand. My life, in fact. I don’t especially need you alive, remember that.”
“So what do you need?”
“Hostages. I’ve killed the guild master—”
“She’s not dead.” Vocho wasn’t sure he believed it, but he had to keep telling himself that or he’d fall to pieces. He found his hands shook at the thought Petri might be lying, shoved them away where no one could see and laid on all the bravado he could muster. “Take more than that to kill her, and you know it as well as I do. Or you used to.”
That twisted, nightmare smile again. “Do you know, I rather hope that’s the case, that she’s alive knowing her shit stain of a brother was lying to her, and not just a small lie either. Dearest, brotherly Vocho, I do hope she’s still alive to kill you for it. We’ll find out soon enough. I’ve sent a few men with climbing equipment to discover that very thing. Maybe bring back her head on a plate.”
Before, Vocho had privately–OK, not all that privately–thought Petri had milk for blood. He’d thought today that Petri had changed, but now he was sure. This wasn’t Petri bloody Egimont, quiet, sneaky rather than brave, a double-dealing little shit hiding under a sheen of nobility. If he’d loved Kass with half the passion he seemed to putting into her death–into hating her–maybe Vocho wouldn’t have minded him half so much. Maybe. He hoped like hell not only that Kass was alive, but that she’d manage to carry on being alive with this loathing directed at her.
“Why is it you want her dead so much?” Vocho asked. “I did think you were supposed to be fond of her. You certainly seemed so in that letter you wrote.”
Petri leaned forward so the horror of his face was clear even in the gloom. “She let you read it.” The drawl was gone, replaced by a tone colder than Vocho’s fingers.
“Well, not let exactly. And I didn’t see all of it. Enough though. Very flowery, all those protestations of undying devotion.”
“Did she tell you, then, of how I put all myself into that letter. Into her. And then she left me. Abandoned me to
this.” A cock of his head so that Vocho could see the devastation more clearly. “Left me to Eneko and a hot knife, to having the old me cut away like a disease.”
“Abandoned?” Vocho laughed and was gratified by the flinch that got from Petri. “God’s cogs, she half killed me trying to get to you. She didn’t abandon you. She didn’t do that to you. Eneko did that to your face, but what’s behind it… that’s all you. Pathetic little Petri, who was never man enough for my sister. I for one am glad she never saw what a little chicken shit you are. Always were even. So why don’t you fuck off, my dearest duke, and leave us be?”
Petri straightened, and the smile on his lips made Vocho’s skin crawl. “Cut away the old me like a disease and left the strong part. She was the reason Bakar had his proof, sent me to Eneko for this and then she left me to it, left me to rot. She threw me away, but I’m not so easily got rid of. Her head, on a plate, that’s what I’m after. Then I’m going to send that head to Bakar with a little note. Eneko is dead; Kass may or may not be, but I’ve still Bakar to send my message to. Show him what he too threw away. That, idiot Vocho, is why hostages, and guild ones at that, are useful. If I can’t find her head, then yours will suffice. Until then, until we know for sure if she lives, you, alive, are tempting bait for her to come and rescue.”
“Well, it’s nice of you to—”
“Enough!” The sword pricked at the skin under Vocho’s eye, and he could feel the tremor in the blade, the rage of the hand that held it, all pent up and waiting to explode. Maybe now wasn’t the time to say something smart-arse. “If it could have been anyone but you. But no, I get Vocho the preening arsehole who speaks only banalities. Keep your idiocy to yourself or I might forgo the need to keep you alive. I might, in fact, thoroughly enjoy cutting your throat right now. Tell me, where’s Cospel?”
Vocho had been wondering much the same himself, but he wasn’t about to tell Petri that. “Had to leave him behind in Kastroa. Broke a leg falling off a horse. Silly bugger never did ride very well. Probably lucky for him this time, though, eh?”
