The Heresy Within

by Rob J. Hayes

  Kessick on the other hand was not so free with his time. The man only ever seemed to leave the Inquisition compound to report to his heretical Inquisitor and he did that once every two days, always taking the same route and always careful to check for people following him with regular stops and the occasional waiting in alleys. Kessick would be the easiest to kill, Betrim reckoned, the man was too predictable. They could wait, ambush him three on one and Betrim could add a seventh to his list.

  Still Thanquil hesitated. The Arbiter himself wasn't one for sharing his plans with the Black Thorn and while Jezzet might be on the inside, she wasn't giving much away either, counselling to be patient and wait while the Arbiter came up with a plan.

  It came as a surprise when the Arbiter made a decision. Betrim was sat down stairs in the common room enjoying some bacon and a morning beer when Jezzet appeared and asked him to follow. The Arbiter was standing at the window of their room when they entered, leaning against the wall, looked like a nice spot; lots of light, no way for people to get behind or beside you and a commanding view of the entire room. A real nice leaning spot and no mistake.

  “Shut the door,” the Arbiter said, his eyes still seemed cold and hard and his voice was flat.

  Betrim did as he was asked and proceeded to lean against it. Truth was it weren't as good a spot as the Arbiter's, doors always had their problems, especially if someone was trying to break in with an axe, but it weren't far off.

  “Tomorrow,” the Arbiter said.

  “Aye, 'bout fuckin' time, way I see it,” Betrim replied. “Too much doin' nothin' an' not enough killin' makes a man edgy. So which one we doin' fer first?”

  “All of them.”

  That gave Betrim a fair sized portion of pause. The three targets were never seen together which could only mean they were splitting up. “Ya reckon that's a good plan? Ain't never been too good with numbers but at last count only one of us here ever killed an Arbiter 'fore.”

  “If we kill just one and the other two find out before we get to them... we won't get another chance. It has to be all three at the same time,” he paused. “Tomorrow Inquisitor Heron will be at her estate, Kessick will be making his way there to report and Kosh will be doing his rounds. We take one each; kill them before they know what's happening.”

  “That easy?” Betrim snorted.

  “That easy.”

  Betrim grinned. “Reckon ya want me killin' Kessick.”

  The Arbiter nodded. “He already knows what Jez looks like and I... I'll be taking Inquisitor Heron.”

  “On ya own?”

  “On my own.”

  Betrim sucked at his teeth, always annoyed him he had two missing but he wasn't crazy enough to have metal ones put in their place.

  “Now would be the time to voice any concerns, Thorn,” the Arbiter said still staring at Betrim.

  “Aye. Ya reckon ya can do it? I don't reckon she got ta be Inquisitor on looks alone though she's sure pretty enough. Way I hear it told there's a big difference between you Arbiters an' them Inquisitors. So...”

  “She's no Inquisitor. No more than if you wore a dress would you be a woman. Selice Heron may wear the title but she is nothing more than a heretic. So yes. Yes I reckon I can do it.”

  Betrim held his tongue. He couldn't say he was confident and if truth be told the Arbiter didn't look like he was either.

  “Tomorrow,” said the Arbiter, “two hours past nightfall. Thorn, you take Kessick on his way to meet with Inquisitor Heron. Jez, you'll meet up with Kosh at the brothel. I'll find the Inquisitor at her estate. After they're dead, if all goes well we'll meet back here.”

  “What if all don't go well?” Betrim asked.

  “Then some of us won't meet back here with the others,” Jezzet said with a half-smile.

  “Aye an' what if he's one o' the ones that don't come back?” Betrim asked pointing at the Arbiter. “I ain't doin' this out o' the goodness of my own heart. If you die, Arbiter, how do I get paid?”

  Thanquil paused for a moment, frowning, then walked over to his pack and started rifling through it. He tossed a small dagger, its blade no longer than a hand, to Betrim. Thorn caught it and drew the blade to get a better look at it. Seemed well made, good steel, not worth two hundred gold bits though. There was some sort of writing on the blade.

  “That dagger has the same charms as my sword. Take it to any reputable weapons dealer in this city and you'll get more than enough gold to cover my debt to you.”

  “Aye?”

  “Aye.”

  “An' what 'bout the pardon? Seems I remember something about ya stoppin' the Inquisition from chasin' me. No more Arbiters comin' after me.”

  “You don't need to worry about that.” The Arbiter turned and looked out the window.

  “I reckon I do.”

  “You don't.” The Arbiter's voice sounded terse.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  The Black Thorn might have sighed if he was the type of man to sigh, instead he growled. “And why the hell not?”

  The Arbiter turned and took two steps towards Betrim, his hands were clenched into fists and his voice was coarse and angry. “Because they've never been after you, Thorn. Not once has the Inquisition ever sent an Arbiter after you.”

  Betrim felt his jaw clench and his teeth grind together. “That ain't true. I been attacked by you witch hunters plenty o' times.”

  “Have you really, Thorn... Think back, if you can. Was there a single time the Arbiter attacked you, I wonder.”

  Betrim tried to remember back. Six Arbiters he'd killed and only one of them did he give a chance to fight back. “Back in Chade, you...”

  “No, Thorn. You attacked me. The Inquisition has never been after you.” The Arbiter snorted out a laugh. “There's actually a standing order to leave you be.”

  Betrim shook his head. “No...”

  “Yes. You're not a heretic, Thorn, just a petty criminal with a habit of murdering Arbiters. To the Inquisition you're just a mad man not worth taking the risk to hunt down.”

  The Black Thorn took a menacing step towards the Arbiter, for the first time he realised just how much taller he was. He towered over the witch hunter by almost a foot. “You said, back in the wilds, you would get me a pardon,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

  “I lied, Thorn. To get you here, to get you to help me. There's no pardon needed but I knew...”

  The Black Thorn's right fist connected with the Arbiter's face and he went sprawling across the floor. Jezzet was on her feet with her sword drawn before Betrim could take another step.

  “Don't do it, Thorn,” she warned her voice as sharp and dangerous as her blade.

  The Arbiter coughed and spat out some blood and then struggled to his feet and spat again, this time a tooth hit the floor with the red spittle. He walked over to Betrim and stood there again, within striking distance. A big red mark lit the left side of his face, the Black Thorn knew it would be black and blue in a couple of hours.

  “I still need your help, Thorn.” Betrim had to admire the Arbiter's stones. Not many men would take a punch from the Black Thorn and then ask for his help.

  “Tomorrow. Kessick. Two hours after nightfall.” Betrim turned and stalked towards the door, near ripping it from its hinges as he opened it. “Don't reckon I'll be comin' back here after.” The Arbiter said something but Betrim didn't hear it over the slamming of the door behind him.

  By midday Betrim found himself in a tavern drinking away his dwindling coin supply. By sundown he was stinking drunk and bleary eyed. Seemed the whole world was determined to sway around him. Drinking on your own held its perks but if truth be told Betrim would have preferred a drinking partner or two. Bones or Swift both liked their drink and knew how to put it away. Henry and the Boss, neither drank much around the other but if you got them alone they would empty a few mugs. Jezzet, back when Betrim first knew her, was well known for getting so drunk she often forgot which way was up. Even the Arbit
er, lying bastard though he may be, would do for a drinking partner. But the Black Thorn had none of those folk with him, he had no company but himself and the beer and the truth was right now he far preferred the beer's company to his own.

  “I came here...” he told his beer, pointing an unstable finger at the dark brown liquid. “I came here ta help. I thought... I dunno, maybe I reckoned I could do some good.”

  A man beside Betrim glanced at him, shook his head, and then said something funny to his three friends. They all laughed. Betrim ignored the drunkards.

  “An' they... they lied... ta me,” he slurred at the mug of beer. “They... they lied. And I never once attacked him... part from that first time but I thought... I reckoned it was him... it was all of 'em. I just... and they...” He sighed, both the best and worst thing about drinking was the fog and right now it was very foggy in the Black Thorn's head.

  “The first one... the first I... well he was lookin' fer me cos o' what I did so I killed him first. Damned if that weren't the right thing ta do,” he said to the man on the other table who was looking at him again. “First time was... well it were messy but first times always are. Gotta get 'em out o' the way.

  “The second... I didn't mean that one I don't think. Jus' sorta bumped into him on the street. I was... where was I? Land's End, Five Kingdoms, I reckon. Jus' bumped into him... Can't remember his face but we stared at each other fer a bit. Then... then he started walkin' so I... I put my axe in his neck. Funniest thing, some folk actually cheered me.”

  “What are you talking about?” All four of the men on the other table were looking at him now.

  “The third... I remember that one. He were followin' me fer sure. So I waited fer him that time an'...”

  Betrim stared at his beer for a few moments. “The fourth. That were the bad one, the one gave me this.” He tapped the scarred side of his face with his hand. “My own fault I guess. I missed, ya see. Never was too good a shot with those fuckin' crossbow things... When he came after me... he liked fire did that one. Set the whole fuckin' town on fire ta get me. Hundreds dead an' they said it was me... I didn't light no fires though. Drowned that one in the end... they can't whisper their spells underwater... reckon that's worth knowin'.

  “The fifth... quick an' clean that one. In Chade it were. Quick an' clean. Never saw me comin'... one stab an' it were done. Quick an' clean.”

  “I think he's talking about killing Arbiters,” said a man with a pinched face and too much forehead.

  “The sixth... the sixth...”

  “Hey, you talking about killing Arbiters?” said the first man, the one with a bulbous nose and fat lips.

  There weren't many other folk in the common room. Just Betrim, the four on the table next to his, just about within arm’s reach, two men in a corner of the room looking like the last thing they wanted was to draw attention to themselves, the barkeep and a fat brown dog that couldn't seem to stop scratching at its ear. It was a dark little shit-hole of a tavern if truth be told, Betrim had found it in the poorer district where he judged his last silver bits would go further. Sad thing was he was down to his last bit.

  “You still awake there, old man?”

  Betrim looked at the man, looked at all four of them; fat lips, pinched face, pig nose and the pretty one. They were all younger than him to be sure but not by enough to call him, 'old man'.

  “Aye I'm still fuckin' awake. What the fuck do ya want?”

  “Are you talking to yourself about killing Arbiters?” Fat lips said each word loud and slow as if Betrim were deaf.

  The Black Thorn grinned his most horrific stretching of scarred face. “The best thing 'bout drinkin' in a place like this... the best thing is how sturdy the mugs are.”

  Betrim swung his mug at fat lips' face as hard as possible; he was rewarded by an unhealthy crunch, a scream and a spray of blood. Pinched face was up and on his feet first and before Betrim. As Thorn stumbled to a standing position the man with too much forehead caught him with a meaty punch that sent Betrim reeling.

  Pinched face followed up with a second punch which Betrim swayed away from then answered with a fist of his own. He felt something crack though whether it was one of his own fingers or a bone in Pinched face's pinched face he couldn't tell.

  Pig nose was fumbling at something on his belt but the Pretty one charged and took Betrim in the stomach pushing him back and slamming him onto a table. Big, strong hands closed around his throat. The Black Thorn knew this was the point where he should have been choking but he found himself laughing, not an easy thing to do with someone's hands around your throat but Betrim knew something; when people were trying to strangle you they tended to leave their stones wide open.

  He brought his knee up into the man's groin just as the table collapsed underneath him. Betrim heard something rip, sounded close. He rolled and found himself on top of the Pretty one. The Black Thorn grinned and rammed his head into the man's face once, twice, three times, four times and fifth for good luck. By the time he was done he could feel blood dripping down his face and the mess that had once been the Pretty one was considerably less pretty.

  A flash of shadow warned the Black Thorn something was coming and he lurched away from the broken man on the floor. Something hard caught him on his left shoulder; a flair of pain followed by a spreading numbness. Never a good sign, he knew even in his drunken state. Pig nose was swinging something heavy and metallic at him, a mace by the looks of things though a damned blurry one.

  Betrim dodged to his left and a chair turned to kindling in his place, then he ducked and a section of the wall behind him splintered above his head. The Black Thorn rushed forwards and shoved and elbow into Pig nose's neck. The man dropped his mace and fell backwards, coughing, spluttering, and gasping. Nothing like hitting a man in the neck to disable him, works better than the stones.

  Pig nose turned to stumble away; Betrim stepped up behind him and slid a big right arm around the man's neck. Pig nose struggled, he was big and strong but the Black Thorn was bigger, stronger. After a while the body went limp in Betrim's arms and he let it drop to the floor.

  Staggering, Betrim looked around at the tavern. Pig nose was down, unconscious. Pinched face was in a corner crying. The Pretty one was a silent mess of blood and bone but still alive. Fat lips was gone, no doubt run off. The two shady men looked on in shady silence. The barkeep stood in open mouthed shock and the brown dog had stopped scratching to lap at a pool of blood on the floor.

  “Ya all saw them...” Betrim stumbled into a table and went down on top of it. A moment later he was hauling himself back to his feet using a chair for support. “They attacked me!” he told everyone.

  With that he staggered towards the door to the tavern and out into the warm night air. Sarth was always so damned humid at night. With a drunken stumble Betrim set off to his left. “There's gotta be a brothel round here somewhere,” he looked at his last silver bit. “A cheap one.”

  The BladeMaster

  The Pink Purse was not a subtle building. Built out of the same white stone as the most of the buildings in Sarth it may be but from every window hung a gaudy coloured cloth each with its own crest. Inside each window hung just as gaudy draperies no doubt designed to obscure any view of what might be going on inside the room. Even from across the street where Jezzet hid, out of sight, she could smell the perfume from the place.

  Thanquil had suggested the plan just after Thorn's dramatic exit and Jez had almost knocked out a few more of the Arbiter's teeth.

  “It's not an ordinary whore house.” He told her. “The... the women there are all noble born. It's a place where those of high birth can send their daughters to...”

  “To get them some experience in fucking,” Jezzet finished for him in angry tones. “So as better to seduce a man above their station. Much better to have a woman who already knows how to fuck and suck than have to teach one. Right?”

  Thanquil had nodded. “I suppose so. Some of the nobility also s
end their daughters there if they... have too many.”

  “Of course. I forgot here in Sarth you're so damned civilized. Women are married off with dowries aren't they? So if you can't afford to pay for someone to marry her you just send her to a whore house to get fucked for the rest of her life.”

  The Arbiter had winced. “It's more like renting them to the whore house... The family is given half of whatever is charged for the woman.”

  It wasn't his fault, she knew that. Thanquil didn't make the laws, didn't even live in Sarth most of the time but she'd felt like hitting someone and he was the only one there at the time. Somehow she managed to restrain herself.

  “The woman who runs the place calls herself Lady Frerry,” Thanquil continued. “She's well known among the... among the thieves of Sarth.”

  “How do you know the thieves?”

  Thanquil had grinned, the new gap in his teeth showing. “The Inquisition didn't teach me everything I know. Lady Frerry is known because she can be bribed. It won't be the first time they've dealt with a body.” He tossed Jezzet a purse, felt heavy at the time and later, when she checked it she counted just over a hundred gold bits, a small fortune by most folk’s count.

  “Give her that,” Jezzet was already shaking her head as Thanquil continued. “Tell her you want a room and you want Kosh.”

  “You want me to be his whore?” She almost hit him again.

  “No...”

  “How about I just ambush him in the street and kill him, like Thorn and Kessick?”

  “You're good, Jezzet, with your sword, probably the best I've ever seen but Kosh. Our old master at arms used to say Kosh was the best warrior the Inquisition had ever produced and he's an Arbiter on top of that. I don't want you to do anything but pretend you're there to... until...”

  “To fuck him.”

  “Until he puts aside his weapons. Then,” Thanquil had stood and handed Jezzet her sword, “you're going to need this.”

  The rest of the day had been awkward. They'd had awkward conversation, awkward sex, and awkward silence. It was like neither of them could think of anything to say to the other. Jezzet had just fled with sword and gold in hand and she hadn't returned. That was yesterday, she hadn't seen the Arbiter for a full day. Might be he thought she'd just gone, took the gold and left him.