Warlords and Wastrels

by Julia Knight

  He was alone–the sniper had gone perhaps, perhaps not, but no one was taking chances at this end of the valley. Except him. He looked up at the sharp ridges which could hide a man, that had been scoured and found empty. Not Cospel, he thought vaguely. Cospel was with Kass, had been the one to tie up Eder, from what he’d said. Was Cospel enough to keep her alive?

  Maybe his gut was wrong: maybe Eder was the shot he reckoned himself, and she was dead. Petri couldn’t be sure if he was happy or not, whether it was as Scar kept telling him, or even what he wanted. Or whether Scar was just repeating back what Morro fed to her.

  He should take some of the crew in the morning, find Kass. Bury her properly, if they could find a place that wasn’t frozen. She’d abandoned him when he needed her the most but she shouldn’t be left out in the cold. Maybe take that Eder too, make the bastard walk all the way on his broken leg. In the morning because it was getting dark, and shadows filled the gaps between the mountains.

  “I said once,” a voice behind him said, “that before long someone might ask me to kill you. And that I might, depending on what you did next.”

  Petri didn’t turn or even put a hand on his sword. It’d do no good, not if Dom had a weapon, and he most likely did. Petri couldn’t have beaten him if he still had two hands and both eyes.

  “Do you think you might?” was all he said, and wondered as he said it.

  “It depends.”

  Dom moved around Petri’s good side, his dark shape visible against the snow, and yes, he had a sword in hand. Of course. What assassin would be without one?

  “Maitea cut your bonds,” Petri said.

  A sharp, dark smile from Dom that promised pain to follow. “She did. Cut my bonds and told me to fuck off out of her life. I consider myself lucky Morro hasn’t taught her much in the way of magic yet, or I’d be a small and messy pile. He and now Scar are teaching her a lot about hating me.”

  “So why are you still here? Come to try again for Scar? You’ll fail as surely as last time. Or is it Morro you want now?”

  Dom gave a little one-shouldered shrug that might have meant anything. “My attempt on Scar was… a brief aberration while my mind was disturbed by grief, which is the only reason she’s still alive. But hot-blooded revenge? I think I’ve seen enough of that to know it does no one any good. Seen too many people dash themselves against the rocks of it. Cold and canny is the way to go. Think first, then strike. Scar and Morro have my daughter, have turned her mind against me. I don’t blame her for hating me, but I can’t just walk away and leave her with them, leave her to her mother’s fate. I assume that capturing Kass to put in that hovel with Vocho is part of the plan?”

  “Eder shot her,” Petri said. “Killed her, he’s sure.” But if that were true, Morro would have found her by now, would have brought back her head gloating over it.

  A long silence, the gleam of light on steel, a faint crunch as Dom moved another step.

  “How sure?”

  “He shot her in the chest. There was a lot of blood.”

  “You must be very happy,” Dom said. “After all your hard work to get her here. After she almost killed us all to get to you, try to save you?”

  Petri gaped at him. “That’s true? Vocho said, but…”

  “But normally Vocho lies about anything and everything. Not this time. She tried, we all did, to get to Reyes in time. And later we told her you were dead, and it broke her–it’s still breaking her. Is that why you told us to say it? So you could blindside her, kill her when she wasn’t expecting you?”

  “I—”

  The blade whipped across his face perilously close to his one remaining eye, and he jerked back.

  “Truthfully,” Dom whispered. “For once in your miserable life, Petri Egimont, be truthful–with yourself, and me. We told her you were dead because you asked us to. Because we saw what he’d done to you and we thought it a kindness to you both. All we could do for you. Now this, keeping Vocho in a cell so that she’ll come to get him, so you and your delightful Scar can take their heads and show them to Bakar in some fool plan that you think will get him to leave you be. So, why did you ask? Was it so you could kill her later? Were you thinking of that even then?”

  Petri shut his one eye and tried to recall. He’d been a broken man, not thinking straight. He’d only wanted her not to see him like that. Like this. But the hate had been there already, bursting out, hot. It had cooled later–distilled, crystallised–and he’d put it aside, concentrated on just surviving. Until Scar, who had nurtured it for her own ends.

  He shook his head to Dom’s question, even as his words belied that denial. “I wanted them to pay. All of them: Kass, her ridiculous brother, Bakar, Eneko. Eneko was executed, so that left three. I wanted to show them they were wrong about me, who I really am underneath, and then I wanted them to pay.”

  “Is this who you really are, Petri?” Dom stepped closer and cocked his head. “A scruffy little man in a rat-arsed village built of frozen mud, with delusions of grandeur and obsessed by revenge? I don’t think so. Kass would never have the bad taste to love a man like that.”

  The old Petri would have stood and taken it, would have thought on it perhaps but would have stayed his hand. This Petri lashed out with his good hand, knocking the tip of Dom’s sword off point. He reached for Dom’s face with the other arm, flicking his wrist to bring out the knife that served instead of fingers.

  It found only air as Dom danced away, his sword back on point in an instant, if further away. His smile was dangerous.

  “Not bad. Not bad at all, for all the good it did. Now, do excuse me. Several people have mayhem in their near future, and I need to decide which people. First, I think I’ll have my sword back, if you don’t mind. I’ll be generous and let you have this in return. It’s not too bad, a bit rough, and the balance is slightly off, but it’ll do you. There, throw mine at my feet. Thank you.”

  In return, the sword he held plopped at Petri’s feet.

  “Think of this as a friendly warning,” Dom said. “Because my daughter thinks all I can do is kill. Because Kass would want me to give you notice. Don’t expect another.”

  With a whisper of swirling snow he was gone, leaving Petri cold with rage and a sick, exultant thrill. She’d come for him. She had.

  Vocho sat and shivered in the hovel, trying to massage his hip back into some sensible sort of arrangement instead of knotted to buggery. After a while Eder was brought in and hobbled over to sit in another corner. Despite the fact his leg was broken, that he’d no doubt never walk properly on it again, would never lead a prelate’s guard again, would lose his commission and everything he’d ever earned for himself if Bakar found out what he’d done, despite all that, the smug sod seemed to be gloating, especially when Carrola made a fuss of his leg and set to trying to make him as comfortable as anyone could get in their icebox of a hut.

  Vocho really wished Dom was still here but took a bit of hope from the fact he was around, and free. He wished he had some spare jollop too. But what he wished more than anything else was that Eder hadn’t shot Kass. Vocho watched Carrola as she tried to do something with a splint on the captain’s leg that had seen better days and wished his own leg worked so he could get up and strangle him.

  “Why?” he said at last, noting how Carrola shot him a look. “Why did you shoot Kass? What did she—”

  No mistaking the shock on Carrola’s face, the way she flinched back, let her hands drop from the splint in horror. “What?” she whispered.

  “She existed,” Eder spat. “The guild exists. Both turned me away as though I was nothing. I’d shoot you too if I had a gun handy, but it looks like I won’t need to. Seems like Petri wants you as dead as I do. Eventually. I shall probably cheer him on.”

  Carrola got up jerkily and moved away, her face unfathomable in the dimness of the hut as she peered through a crack in the door so as not to look at them.

  “No surprises there, then,” Vocho said to Eder.
“Feeling’s mutual, in fact. You are a surprise, though. I thought you were the prelate’s man. You are the prelate’s man. Then again, so was Petri once, and look how that turned out. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together, until he decides he wants to kill you too. But my sister, let’s get back to her. Did you kill her?”

  “I do hope so. Got her right in the chest. Unless your flunky is a doctor in disguise, I’d say it’s unlikely she’s alive.”

  Vocho levered himself to his feet, where he stood for a moment to let his hip settle, at least a touch. Sod the hip, sod no jollop. Sod everything.

  Vocho limped over and cracked Eder right in the face, to the detriment of his own knuckles. Someone yanked on his hair and pulled him away, and he rounded to see Carrola, hand up ready to belt him one in return. He managed to pull the punch he launched, but the effort cost him his balance and he dropped to the floor.

  “You should let me at him,” he gasped. “Bastard deserves more than that little love tap.”

  “What for? What good will punching him stupid do?”

  “It’d make me feel better? He shot Kass!”

  She stuck out a hand to help him up, and he was past feeling any sting to his pride when he took it.

  “So he says. But punching him won’t change that, or whether she’s still alive or not. I understand, I do. I understand you’re angry and worried, and so am I. But the little shit’s not worth it. I’m not sure yet about you. Leave him where he is and come look, and maybe we might live to find out what happened to Kass.”

  He knew she was right, but it didn’t stop him wanting to punch Eder until his knuckles bled. He took a deep breath, used it to push that down deep inside where he could maybe use it later. Time to grow up, Voch, past time probably. So suck it up and starting thinking, not just reacting. “All right. Anything as long as I don’t have to look at him.”

  She helped him over to the door, where a wider crack not only let in a frigid blast of air but also allowed a limited view across the valley. Where all had been dark before, now half a hundred torches blazed and moved across the snow.

  “What do you think’s going on?” Carrola asked.

  “Best guess Dom is going on, or soon will be. Well, he’s not having all the fun. And there’s whoever shot those men–my guess is either Danel or Cospel. But who knows where they are now, if they’ve been caught or are about to be? Petri made it clear I’m here as bait for Kass. If they no longer need me for that, then our usefulness ends. And so do we shortly afterwards. Petri’s not stupid either. He’ll go looking for her, find her one way or another. Alive or… or the other thing. And then, I am fairly certain, he will come to finish me off personally. Carrola, are you… are you with Eder or…?”

  She looked over at him sprawled on the floor, and a frown aged her face as she weighed things up.

  “He’s still a bastard,” Eder whispered. “You know that. I told you nothing untrue about him. He did all those things.”

  “I haven’t denied it,” Vocho said. Much, anyway. “But what you said wasn’t the whole story, was it?”

  “You did them, that’s all anyone needs to know.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Carrola snapped. “And you shot his sister for no more reason than she was part of the guild you hate so much. What does that make you?” She turned back to Vocho. “Now, no more of your buggering about. You can explain yourself later, and you will. For now what do you have in mind?”

  Vocho grinned at her in the dark, and received a matching smile that made him feel all warm and cosy despite the chill of the air.

  “A brave and dashing escape plan. What else?”

  Petri was still standing at the lip of the scarp when Scar came. He turned towards her when she called his name, but when she put out a hand to touch his arm, he couldn’t help but flinch. He could have sworn he heard his father laugh, heard someone whisper, You are weakness. Everything flooded back into his head–every action, every mistake that had led him here. Too late now to do anything about any of them. All he could do was live. Think. Survive. This was the life he’d made, for good or ill, and he had to live with those choices, take them as far as he had to. Now he had to be strong.

  “There’s still someone out there with a gun and a grudge who’s a damned good shot,” he said. “And Dom.” He turned to look at her, the scar flickering in the dim light, the strength of the bones underneath, the way she gazed at him. She’d used him, but he’d used her too, hadn’t he? He’d thought he’d loved her. Maybe he had once, but that had been the old Scar, who took in those no one else wanted and gave them a place to call their own. Who’d freed Maitea just because she’d been brave. Not this Scar, who thought nothing of killing, whose eyes shone whenever Morro was near.

  A moment of softness in her again, replaced by a brittle hardness that seemed as fragile as snowfall.

  “What are you doing out here?” she asked.

  “Thinking,” he said. “We’ve pissed off a very accomplished assassin. Cospel’s still around, if Eder is to be believed. Maybe Kass is dead, maybe she isn’t. But someone shot our men. Vocho has allies out there, and we’d do well to make sure they fail utterly when they come for him.”

  A brief nod and a sidelong look. “If any one of them gets back to say where we are… We want to reveal ourselves at out leisure, from a place of strength, not have him find us before we’re ready.”

  He hesitated, and she didn’t miss it so he rushed in with, “They won’t get back.” Not time to show his hand just yet. And what hand did he hold? Not a winning one. Time to bluff and hope.

  “None of them?”

  “None,” and because she seemed to expect something more, “I promise you that.”

  When he led the way back from the lip to their ragtag village, saw men and women look to him for answers, for guidance, listen to his every word, he knew he wanted this. It was what he’d always wanted and had never dared to hope he’d get. He thrust all thoughts of Kass away, of the look on her face when she’d seen him up at the pass, the thought of her shot, and made his way to the cleared space at the centre of the huts.

  Kepa had scared up as many men and women as he could find. Petri got them lighting torches and searching.

  “Searching for what?” Scar asked.

  “Not what–who. Kass, dead or not.” A painful spasm in his heart at that, but he dismissed it as just more weakness. “Both Dom and Cospel are here. Those two will find Vocho and Maitea if they can, and just as likely kill anyone in their way. You, Kepa, take half and make sure no one gets Vocho or Maitea. The rest, we search everywhere. Start at this end of the valley and work outwards, in groups. If you find either Dom and Cospel, send for me. Go.”

  Men and women scattered, muttering. A few made pointed remarks to Scar, who sent them off with a snarl.

  “They aren’t happy,” she said.

  “Neither am I.”

  “If Dom or any of the rest get back to Kastroa…”

  “I promised you, didn’t I? And if they do, we’ll move. Regroup. Hide until we’re ready.”

  She shook her head and seemed more herself than she had in weeks. “No. No more hiding. I was done with running a long while back. And you’re sick of running–from the man who did that to you, from yourself. We all ran here. But now we stand, we fight, we live. Now let the others find who they can. Morro’s back, and you and me have other work.”

  Petri watched with a roiling stomach as Scar and Morro sat in his hut, heads together, planning what they’d do come morning.

  “We couldn’t find her, but she’s here somewhere.” Morro waved at the map. He’d returned from Razor Gorge, where they’d ambushed Eder and his troop in the first place, disgruntled at not finding Kass, and had taken it out on the first man he’d found, who likely would never have his mind back as his own now. “She’s somewhere close,” Morro carried on. “She’ll be coming for her brother, and when she does we’ll have her.”

  Scar looked up at Petri, caught his set loo
k. “That’s right. With all the snow you’ve sent perhaps she’ll freeze. If not, there’s enough to stop her going anywhere else. With your help, Petri is going to find and kill her. Isn’t that so, Petri?” Scar had changed since Morro’s return. Her voice was edged like her blade, like the shards of thin ice Petri was skating on, playing both sides, theirs and his, and he’d not done so well before at that. He had to now, the last throw of his dice. His only chance to be the man he always wanted to be.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She bent back to the map, and Morro smiled at him over her bent head, raised one bare hand with its writhing markings, showing swords and a severed head. His.

  Not even trying to hide what he was doing with his hands, openly using his magic on her, Morro turned to Scar with a different sort of smile, and the markings changed as he murmured in her ear. The swords remained, but the head was replaced with a crown, a throne. The changes in Scar became blindingly obvious at last, not just suspicions.

  Inside Petri grew ever colder. Trapped again, at the mercy of a magician’s whim. He twisted his ruined lip into a silent snarl that brought a wider grin from Morro and more patterns that showed only death for himself.

  “We know where she’s headed,” Scar was saying. “Here. We can make sure we’re ready to meet them.”

  “Make sure she doesn’t tell anyone where we are until we want them to know,” Morro murmured. “Eder will do well for that when the time comes. The valiant captain, horrendously injured, battling his way down the mountain to raise the alarm.”

  “With us right behind him,” Scar said.

  “For what?” Petri asked.

  Scar looked up at him, and he saw it, that shine of mania behind the eyes. Like Bakar, like Licio, like him, all manipulated into doing what a magician wanted, believing it to be their own desire.

  Scar stood up, and the edge was gone from her voice, instead a softness. More her than she’d been for days, but he saw it now for the act it was. “For us, Petri. All of us. You and me and Kepa, all of us. They cast us off, threw us away. Aren’t we worth more than that? Worth a place down there with the rest of them?”