by Julia Knight
He wouldn’t look at Vocho, just stared down at his bound hands and watched them move for a long time.
“I’m sorry,” Vocho said when he couldn’t take the silence any more.
“So am I, Voch. So am I.” Dom sat up straight and made an effort to still his hands, stop them twitching. “What was your tactical error?”
So Vocho told him the lot: about Kass mooning about, and him and Bakar trying to get some life back into her, about Vocho’s niggling little doubts about who the Skull was, which had proved to be distressingly accurate. About Eder.
Dom interrupted: “Eder? Captain Eder, prelate’s guards? Supercilious-looking chap? Looks like Bakar’s played you for a mug, Voch. Or at least is trying to help Eder the same way you were trying to help Kass, though it might amount to the same thing. Bit of a risk, though.”
“Why?”
“Why? Cogs, man, don’t you know anything? Half the continent’s heard about Red Brook.”
“I did hear vaguely…”
Dom shook his head and laughed, and at least sounded a bit more like himself, which was a comfort, even if his words weren’t. “Captain Eder, who lost every single man and woman under his command in the brook. Well, he didn’t, and that’s the trouble. Bakar told him, told all of the guards, to listen to the guildsmen in the coming battle and take their orders. But guildsmen are only great at single combat or in small teams. Big battles? Tell me, Voch, how much training did you have in the tactics of two armies coming together?”
“Not a lot. Not that I paid attention to anyway.”
“How about two armies, each with a magician at its head?”
“Ah, I’m on firmer ground there. Bugger all.”
“Exactly. And the guildsman giving Eder his orders probably had less than that, and certainly less than Eder, who was a star soldier, one of Bakar’s best and brightest. It’s all a bit vague–not too many witnesses left, obviously–but the guildsman gave Eder his orders, and Eder argued the toss, and the guildsman pulled rank, got a couple of others to back him up, and Eder had to follow those orders or get a sword through the gut because it was a fraught night and no one had time to argue, they just had to fight. And if he carried on arguing his men and women would have to follow those orders, only without their captain. So, discretion being the better part of valour, he followed those orders to the letter. I think–again, hard to know for sure–I think he realised that they were attacking their own but too late, and all his troop died. Nastily. Eder went a bit odd afterwards.”
Well, that had the ring of truth to it. Vocho could imagine some of the masters being just that stupid. Explained a thing or two about Eder as well. “I’m not surprised.”
“No, neither am I. After the battle Eder tried his damnedest to murder at least three duellists, and managed it with two, including the one who’d given him his orders. The guild, presumably out of guilt or not wanting to look like a bunch of arseholes, hushed it up–duellists died in battle, saving Reyes and so forth.”
“Hang on. How don’t I know this? I’ve been running the guild for months.”
“Hushed up even from you and Kass. Afraid of looking even worse than they already did, what with having followed Eneko in his failed coup. Can you imagine what Kass would have done to whoever owned up? They didn’t even tell Bakar, I don’t think, except to say Eder needed to ‘rest’ because of the horror of the brook and until he could tell Bakar that he was fine and dandy and back in his right mind, and of course until then anything he might say about the brook was him being a bit strange in the head, delusional and so on and so forth. So now here Eder is, a man who loathes the very thought of the guild, under your and Kass’s orders. And where did you say Kass was?”
That explained everything. Only, only it was worse than that, wasn’t it?
“Kass is down a ravine. Hopefully alive. With Eder.”
Petri lay silent in the dawn, staring up at the low ceiling of the hayloft. This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To show them all what he could have been, if he’d had the chance. What better way than this? The guild master bested, perhaps dead. Morro and some men even now on their way with climbing gear to discover exactly that, and he grew restive thinking about what they’d find, what they’d bring back. What he wanted them to find. Maybe it wasn’t that he wanted to show them all. He wanted to show her. Even if Vocho was telling the truth–unlikely–about Kass not abandoning him, that she’d tried… here he was, still with half a face.
He had her brother captive too. A smile ghosted across what was left of Petri’s lips. How better to show her? Vocho the Great brought low in a duel, that was how. Petri had never beaten him, never had a hope before because while the prick had a vastly inflated sense of his own skills, he was a damned good swordsman. Vocho beaten, fair and square. That would show everyone, or everyone that mattered. Now, with Vocho’s leg seized so badly that he’d lurched along at the last yesterday, and after a night on a frozen floor it’d be worse, he might have a chance.
The day was grey with clouds, pregnant with more of Morro’s snow. Petri’s breath puffed out into a sea of ice crystals, and he took a deep draught of it, let the sharpness spear his head. His heart hammered hot blood into his temples. If he did this there was no going back. Whether Kass was alive or not, there would be no going back for them after this; it would slice his old life away for good, as the surgeon had sliced away his old face.
The men guarding the hut stood back as he approached, moved out of earshot at the wave of his hand. The hut stank, a fetid, rotting smell that made his stomach roll over, recalling a small dark cell under the guild. He was never going to be that person again.
He blinked away the ghosts and went in. The prelate’s guards sat huddled in one corner against the cold. Vocho and Dom were at the far end, but Petri was surprised to see Maitea standing over them, a knife in one hand. She whirled as Petri came in, lifted a lip in a brief sneer, then she was gone in whirl of grey shadows.
Petri gestured at Vocho. “You. Up.”
Vocho rolled his eyes. “Really? If I must.” He lurched to his feet, catching hold of a beam to steady himself. Favouring his left leg heavily, but that was all right because Petri would be fighting with his off hand. No one could say it wasn’t a fair fight. “Found Kass yet?”
Said with a nonchalance that didn’t hide the worry behind his eyes.
“Not yet,” Petri replied. “But we will. In the meantime I haven’t had anyone decent to spar against in months. I’m not fool enough to try against your friend there or let him free of his bonds even for a second. Come on, out.”
A quick glance between Vocho and Dom that Petri couldn’t fathom and didn’t care much about anyway. All he cared about was, here was Vocho the Great at his mercy. Here was his chance.
He held Vocho at the point of his sword, flanked by two of the men who’d guarded the hut, until they reached the circle that they used to practise–sheltered at least somewhat from the wind by an arm of rock, swept clear of snow to show dead grass underfoot. Plenty of places for people to sit and watch and learn.
As word flew around the camp, those places soon filled. Not to watch Petri, of that he was sure, and he ground his teeth with the old resentment. Vocho of the bloody guild, who’d had everything fall in his lap, who found life an effortless fun-filled jaunt. Vocho hadn’t been hemmed in, chained to clockwork for the rest of his miserable life. Vocho hadn’t been betrayed, abandoned to a grisly fate by the only person who’d ever mattered, the only person who’d ever cared, or seemed to until she left him to his fate and made that seeming a lie.
Petri watched Vocho now as someone handed him his sword, watched him check it was still true, test the edge, heft it like an old friend. Vocho, who coasted through life as though he was owed everything. Vocho who had everything Petri had ever wanted but didn’t even know he had it.
“Are you sure about this, Petri? Kass isn’t going to be happy with me if I kill you. Accidentally, obviously.”
T
hat had to be a lie. “If she cared, she would have come.”
“I told you, she did. Just too late. Been mooning about after you for months. Cogs know why. It’s not like you were ever much of a catch.” Vocho gave the sword a practice swish. “In fact it’s only this jolly jaunt to find the Skull that’s got her out of herself, so I suppose I can thank you for that.”
He had to be lying–he always was. Petri didn’t give him the dignity of an answer but raised his sword in the proper guild manner to start a duel.
Vocho cocked his head. “I could give you a point on account, seeing as you’re using your off hand, Petri. Seems only sporting.”
Vocho, who even now grated on every nerve he had left.
“Petri’s dead,” he growled out. “And I don’t need a point from you.”
With no more notice than that, he went for the heart. Vocho, who’d had everything Petri hadn’t, wasn’t going to have it for long.
By the time it was fully light, Kass and Eder had put some distance between them and the pile of bodies that had saved their lives, but progress was painfully slow. Eder’s weight leaning on her grew heavier with every step, and snow drifted across the way, knee deep and worse. She’d tied a cloak behind the travois to muddle their trail, but it probably wasn’t going to fool anyone for long. Not long enough anyway.
The bottom of the ravine began to slope up, making progress even slower. She wished desperately for a tree, an abandoned piece of something Eder could use as a crutch, but there was nothing but snow, rock, ice. It began to snow, slow swirling flakes that stuck to her face, her eyelashes, that melted down her neck. So much for the thaw.
“Stop,” Eder gasped out, and Kass didn’t need telling twice. They sank down under a small overhang and caught their breath. The back of her throat tasted like copper, and sweat had soaked the inside of her furs even as her nose had gone numb from cold.
Eder shut his eyes, and again she was struck by how old he looked, even though she knew he was younger than she was. His hands seemed struck with palsy, shaking so hard he couldn’t get them inside his tunic, to whatever it was he was after, and he swore viciously under his breath.
“Can’t,” he said. “Can’t go any more. Not yet.”
“Have to.” She could barely get the words out past her panting, but she was buggered if this was how she was going to die, waiting for Petri’s crew to find them like rats in a trap.
He opened his eyes a crack and regarded her from under the lids in a way that set her shoulder blades wriggling. “We can’t do this. Face it. We’re caught, and you know it. Why keep on?”
She set her jaw. Because I have to save you, to make up for not saving him. Because it stops me thinking about the fact he’s still alive. Because if I don’t, I’m going to sit here and put my head in my hands and cry. “Because.”
“Because it’s the good thing?”
The sneer in his voice snapped something inside her. “And why not? What’s wrong with that?”
“Tell me, how do you know what the good thing is? Do you ever think you picked wrong? Or do the guild always do right? Do you?”
She lurched to her feet and brushed snow from her face. “Get on the travois. I can pull you faster than you can walk.”
“Do you?” he said again.
She fussed with the cloaks, with the straps, rather than look at him. “No. And that’s why we’re going on. I can’t give in now.”
“Can’t? Or won’t? Did you ever think being stubborn isn’t a virtue?”
She rounded on him at that. “Fine, it’s won’t, all right? And if it pleases you, no, the guild doesn’t always get it right, because it has people in it and people screw up. But I’m not giving in. Do you want to know why I called you Petri? Because I didn’t get there in time, before. Because I couldn’t save him and I thought he was dead, and you looked to me like a man who needed saving. I wanted to pretend he was still alive, and I used you for it and I’m sorry for that. But now Petri isn’t dead but he does want me dead, and my brother’s up there somewhere too, probably getting into all sorts of trouble without me. If he’s still alive, that is, because Petri hates me–I saw it in the way he looked at me–he hates me because I didn’t get there in time, and he’s going to take it out on Voch and… and… and get on the fucking thing before I brain you and strap your unconscious body to it.”
They glared at each other for a long heartbeat before he looked away. “What do you think happened to the rest? Carrola, everyone?”
“I don’t know and I’m surprised you care enough to ask. But I do know I can’t help them sitting at the bottom of this bloody ravine, and neither can you. Get on.”
He didn’t move but sat in the thickening snow, which obscured his face so his voice seemed to come out of nowhere, cracked and thin.
“You think I don’t care? That some of those bodies we landed on were men and women I knew? That I rode with and ate with, and there they are, nothing more than a cushion to save us? That we had to leave them there? You think I don’t care about what’s happened to the rest of them? That I don’t care that you think nothing of me except someone to save? Someone who needs saving?”
Wind whipped the snow away for a moment, and she could see his face, grey and gaunt, wet with tears that he wiped away hurriedly as the wind dropped, letting more snow veil the space between them.
She took a step towards him. “I—”
“I always cared,” he said, voice low and tight now. “I cared when the guild turned me away, when all the duellists sneered at me. I cared when my whole troop died because of the guild. I cared when Carrola turned me away, and when you did too. Because of the guild, because I’m not one of you, because they wouldn’t give me the chance. Everyone turns me away.”
He exploded out of the snow, knocking her onto her back and the breath out of her. Red and blue cartwheeled across her vision, and she vaguely realised she’d hit her head. Hands tightened on her throat, and there was Eder’s face, an inch from hers, as he bashed her head against the rock-strewn snow. She scrabbled uselessly at his furs, found no purchase, thrashed and kicked and caught his broken leg so that he howled and let her go, flailing backwards. She scrambled to her feet, hand on the hilt of her sword as she got there. It was halfway out when a cold gun muzzle found her cheek. She stood very still and looked into Eder’s twisted face. He was still crying, though he didn’t seem to be aware of it.
“Guild,” he snarled, pressing the gun into her skin. “Fucking guild. Killed all my troop, all of them but me. Red Brook… We could have lived but for the orders the guild gave me, which I had no choice but to obey. Afterwards, it was all Kass the heroine this and Vocho the bloody great that, and it’s all shit. No one cared that we died. Everyone looks to you, fawns over the two of you like you’re god’s bloody gift to the world. And it’s all lies, nothing but lies. More of my men and women dead at the bottom of a ravine but, hey, the fucking guild is all right, the guild will be the heroes of the hour. Who cares about a few guardsmen dying as long as Kass and Vocho live, as long as there’s a dashing tale to tell about the guild saving Reyes once again? Who cares about those poor dead bastards, whose only grave will be snow? No one. No one gives a crap except me. I care. I always cared, and they always turned me away, everyone.”
Slowly, carefully, she raised her empty hands. “Eder, I—”
Eder cocked the gun, and she could feel the tremble of it against her cheek. “Shut up. Shut up with your stupid bleating. Petri has it right, I think. Oh, he hates you, the guild. Why not? I read all of it in the papers, heard the rumours, and more informed rumours than the papers got too. I heard what happened to him, and then, up there, I saw the state of his face, and I thought, I can see why he did what he did. The guild screwed him over; you screwed him over, left him to that horror, and he had enough. Maybe he’ll have a use for a captain of the guard, broken leg or no. If I show him that I’m on his side. On your knees. I said, on your fucking knees, so I can shoot you in the bac
k, which is all you deserve for a death.”
The gun jabbed into her cheek, his finger tight and twitching on the trigger. She dropped to her knees, hands out, breath tight as she struggled to think. The muzzle left her cheek and there was no thinking, there was only instinct. Her shoulder into his gut, his scream as he slammed onto his back. Her hands on the gun, trying to wrestle it out of his grip, but he was stronger than she was. The grip smacked into her face and blood came, searing her skin, smelling of copper and death. Another smack, and blood was in her mouth now, making her gag. Eder’s face swam in front of her, his breath hot, his wet eyes hotter as he bore down, all his weight on her so that her own breath was squeezed out. No room for a sword, but a knife, she had a pilfered knife, and it was in her hand before she’d even finished the thought.
A punch like being hit with a rock, and all thoughts fled. The weight came off her, and she lurched onto her knees, trying to get clear. She couldn’t see anything except snow and her blood dripping into it. Eder’s harsh breath right behind her. She fell, twisting as she did, trying to bring her knife to bear. A bang that seemed to drive her ears into her head, a smack into her chest like a bull had just charged, and more blood, oh god’s cogs, there was blood everywhere, pooling under her, melting little rivers in the snow. Shot, she thought disjointedly, this is what it feels like to be shot. But it’d take him time to reload, rewind the gun, and she still had the knife in her hand.
She stood shakily to face Eder, slipped in her own blood and caught herself, knife raised and ready, just in time to see Cospel brain the bastard with his trusty tankard.
