The Grim Company: 1

by Luke Scull

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  For Yesica

  A Tyrant’s Wager

  The wind whipped the flag of the warship swaying at anchor, the stylized ‘M’ wrought in silver thread on a black background proudly proclaiming her the head of Shadowport’s triumphant fleet.

  The conflict that had bloodied the waters of the Trine for the last six months was over. Two hundred miles to the north, across the Broken Sea, Dorminia was counting the cost of pitting its navy against the superior firepower of the ships from the City of Shades.

  Tarn watched the crew of the Liberty swagger onto the docks to be engulfed in an adoring crowd. Joyous laughter and breathless chatter rolled across the wharf; tears flowed as family and friends welcomed their returning heroes.

  Tarn stared for a moment longer, then turned and spat into the deep blue water of the harbour. He watched the phlegm bob for a moment before the choppy water disintegrated it. A passing woman gave him a hard look as she moved to mingle with the disembarking soldiers.

  He would have been among the first on the ships when the hostilities with Dorminia had escalated, but his lame leg had made that impossible. On the Broken Sea, as everywhere else, he would be useless: an anchor weighing down those who depended on him.

  Out of habit he glanced down at his hands. Crusted scabs and old bruises stared back, and he winced. Shame surged up like a geyser. He needed to see Sara. He needed to say sorry.

  Head bowed, Tarn began the slow limp home.

  To mark the city’s victory in the war for the Celestial Isles in the Endless Ocean far to the west, Lord Marius had issued an edict for three days’ suspension of labour. Revellers flitted in and out of the shadows cast by the dying sun, which this late in the day was a crimson half-orb slowly sinking beneath the waves of the Broken Sea.

  Tarn felt his anger mounting as he made his way through the jumble of buildings beyond the harbour. Marius’s decadence was extreme, his appetite for both food and flesh legendary. Like the Tyrant of Dorminia, and the mysterious White Lady who ruled Thelassa to the east, Marius was a Magelord: an immortal wizard of vast power who had brought about the Age of Ruin.

  A damned Godkiller.

  The crowd drifting towards the harbour had grown larger. Many of those heading down to the docks were whores, scantily clad and trailing cheap perfume, desperate to empty the purses of the disembarking soldiers.

  Sensing early custom, one stepped in front of Tarn. She pushed her chest out and gave him a smile. Her teeth were crooked, but her eyes were a lively blue and her dirty brown hair framed a face that might be called attractive.

  ‘Thirsty, darling? I got a cup that’ll wet your tongue and no mistake,’ she said, brushing her hands quickly down her thighs. Somehow she managed to raise the hem of her short dress as she did so. Her legs were pale and slightly bruised, like the white cheeses Shadowport exported up the coast of the Broken Sea to Thelassa and beyond. The sight triggered unpleasant memories.

  Tarn cleared his throat. ‘Ain’t interested. Got a wife waiting for me at home.’ He pointed to the plain band on his finger, trying to ignore the slight dent in the cheap silver.

  The whore tutted softly in disappointment, an ingratiating gesture designed to flatter, but the deceit was plain as her eyes swept over his ruddy face, his thinning hair, his expanding paunch.

  ‘Might be I can do you a special price, what with the celebrations and all. What your wife don’t know won’t harm her none, ain’t that so?’ The woman’s voice held a note of disinterest now, as if she’d decided she’d already worked hard enough for whatever meagre rewards she might glean. The assumption angered Tarn, not least because it was correct.

  ‘You know what it feels like to be loved? To have someone there for you no matter what, whatever stupid damn thing you do to drive ’em away? A woman like that deserves a man who stays faithful.’

  ‘Whatever you say, mister. Plenty more like you will pass this way tonight. Most with better spirits and deeper pockets, I’d wager.’ And the woman shoved past him.

  Tarn snorted in annoyance. His left knee was beginning to ache as it always did, ever since the accident.

  He resumed his slow journey home.

  The light was beginning to fade. Dark clouds had sprung up in the half-bell it had taken Tarn to reach the industrial sector known locally as East Tar, adding yet another layer of grey to the smog-filled skyline. The forges lay cold and dormant in the midst of the city’s celebrations, but little evidence of the festivities had permeated this part of Shadowport. East Tar was a dreary, moribund place; for Tarn, it was home.

  He cursed his bad leg as it sent a fierce stab of pain down into his knee. The sudden jolt caused him to stumble forwards into a suspicious damp patch on the ground.

  A boy’s laughter reached his ears. ‘See that, Tomaz? Fat bastard nearly flopped face down into your piss!’

  ‘He’s probably drunk again.’

  Tarn’s fists balled, the anger surging within him. There were six of them, local lads. An ugly bunch.

  One of the youths swaggered right up to him and sniffed. ‘He’s not drunk.’

  ‘For once. Guess his wife is safe tonight. You saw those bruises he gave her?’

  ‘Yeah. Her face was all yellow and brown, like a dog turd.’ The speaker, now safely back among his fellows, gave Tarn a sly look. ‘Still, put a bag over her head and it’d make no difference, know what I mean?’ The youth thrust his hips forwards and made grunting noises, much to the delight of the rest of the gang.

  Tarn began to shake. He stepped towards them, his face bulging in rage. In an instant the youths’ casual amusement switched to deadly seriousness, their feral eyes locked on him, hands straying to their belts. Tarn knew the odds weren’t in his favour. He didn’t care. He just wanted to hurt them.

  At that moment the first patter of rain began to fall. With it came something intangible and unseen, a convergence of vast energies that all present sensed but could not articulate.

  ‘Huh,’ said one of the gang, and looked around at his fellows.

  ‘Best get back,’ Tomaz said. ‘I have to let Tyro in. He don’t like the rain.’

  The others nodded, murderous thoughts replaced by concern for their friend’s dog. They melted away into the gathering rain, shooting Tarn baleful glares but saying nothing.

  Tarn bowed his head against the acidic rain as he made his unsteady way through the slippery streets. He needed to get home: Sara would be waiting for him. The wind had picked up, gusting cold water into his face. He blinked it away. Night had settled over the city like a blanket.

  He hated what he’d become, but what could he do? The drink had broken him – broken him as completely as the falling cargo had shattered his leg. All the coin he had put aside for the last ten years, a full ten gold spires, gone on a physician who had saved the limb but left him crippled and broke. Sara deserved better.

  He was almost home. What if she’d left before he had the chance to apologize? She was younger than him, a woman in her prime. She hadn’t been able to provide him with any children, but there were apothecaries in the city that might have helped with that. Shadowport’s recent advances in the sciences had been the talk of the Trine before the war.

  There was no chance of hiring an apothecary now, not with his pockets near empty.

  He approached the door to his modest home. There was no light from within. All was silent apart from the steady patter of rain rolling off the slate roof and down the red-brick walls to splash on the cobbles below. Tarn felt a moment of panic.

  A light suddenly flickered on and the door opened. Sara stood there before him, the candle in her hand
illuminating the fading bruises on her face. Without a word, she turned and moved into the kitchen. He followed her.

  The small dining table was set with two bowls. He took his seat as Sara placed the candle down and walked over to the iron stove. She returned with the battered old stew pot and ladled a generous portion of the warm casserole into his dish and a smaller portion into her own, and placed two wooden spoons on the table. Then she sat down opposite him.

  A half-bell passed. Sara barely glanced at him. She hardly touched her food. The dull ache in his skull was returning. He sat back and searched for the words he’d been waiting to say.

  ‘Sara… I never meant to touch you. You know that. I’m a bloody fool. A useless, crippled fool. I’m so—’

  The bowl flew past his head, missing it by scarcely an inch. Sara’s face was a cold mask, yet her hands shook.

  ‘You bastard,’ she said. She pushed herself to her feet. ‘How could you do this to me?’

  ‘I couldn’t help myself, Sara. I told you. You deserve better.’

  ‘You’re damn right I deserve better!’ She looked around in sudden fury, grabbed the pan off the stove and moved towards him threateningly. Tarn slid out of his chair, cursing as he jarred his knee. She swung the pan and it struck him hard, right on the side of the head.

  ‘Ow!’ he bellowed, blinding light exploding in his vision. He felt blood running down his cheek, dribbling over his chin. It hurt like hell. Sara raised the pan again.

  He caught her arm and squeezed tight. The pan fell from her weakening grip. The anger that had been bubbling within him all day suddenly surged upwards, unstoppable, a mindless fury. He squeezed tighter and she gasped. He raised the scabbed knuckles of his other hand, clenched them tight. Her eyes met his. His fist wavered.

  And then they both heard it. A crashing like a thousand waves striking a cliff. The patter of rain on the roof became a fierce drumming. The ceiling shook. Leaks began to appear, streams of water showering down and soaking the table, the floor, the furniture. Screams echoed from the street, barely audible above the roaring and splashing.

  Tarn released his wife’s arm. Together they rushed outside.

  The waters of Dusk Bay raged and boiled a hundred feet above the city, blanketing the skyline from horizon to horizon. A billion tons of water hung in the sky, suspended by some unimaginable power, streaming droplets that splattered onto the city below. Some men and women huddled on the street, frozen by fear; others locked themselves inside their houses. A few elders closed their eyes and prayed to gods they knew couldn’t hear them. The gods had been dead for five centuries, murdered during the Godswar, their corpses cast down from the heavens by the Magelords who now ruled over the shattered continent.

  Tarn stared at the impossible spectacle above him. He felt no fear. No sorrow. His mind was numb, unable to comprehend the scale of what was happening. A dog barked wildly nearby, running back and forth in terror. A young man cried a name – Tyro? – and threw his arms around the animal to soothe it.

  Tarn felt a hand in his, soft skin against his grazed knuckles. Gently, he pulled Sara close to him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, and kissed her forehead.

  Sara buried her head in his chest. He stood there stroking her wet hair, blinking up at the raging maelstrom. Without warning it ceased to move, hanging still for a heartbeat. He could make out a ship, the prow and half the deck protruding from the water almost directly above his head. The Liberty.

  The sky fell.

  Angel of Death

  EARLIER THAT DAY…

  The water seemed to crush him with a giant’s grip, forcing the air from his lungs. He thrashed wildly and shook his head, willing his body to resist just a moment longer. His chest burned.

  He could do this. Three minutes. That was all. A few more seconds and—

  It was no good. With a mighty exhalation, Davarus Cole’s head burst from the water. He beat the sides of the iron washtub furiously with his fists, cursing the Magelord whose death was his life’s goal. The tyrant who ruled this city with an iron fist.

  Salazar. We’ll have our reckoning one day.

  He placed a hand on each side of the tub and pushed himself up. He stood there for a moment, blinking water from his eyes. His gaze went to the small mirror in the corner of the room. It was a rare item in Dorminia, where only the nobles could normally afford such extravagance. His mentor and foster father, Garrett, had procured it for him at some cost. As far as Cole was concerned it was a luxury he fully deserved.

  After all, he thought, a hero has to look the part.

  His lean, sinewy body looked back at him from the mirror, neck-length black hair and short goatee contrasted sharply with pale and glistening skin. The chill water in the tub had sapped what faint colour he possessed, and he looked almost ghostlike. An angel of death.

  Cole narrowed his grey eyes and marvelled at his forbidding appearance. He imagined the look on Salazar’s wrinkled old face when Magebane slid home, the soft sigh of recognition as the tyrant’s blood spilled from his mouth and his body sagged. Remember my father, you old bastard? What you did to him? I’m Davarus Cole, and I’ve come to take what’s mine.

  He frowned. What was his? Vengeance, certainly, but there had to be more than that. It wouldn’t do to tarnish his moment of triumph with doubt as to the true meaning of his grand utterance. Then again, perhaps it summed up Davarus Cole perfectly. A man of mystery. He liked the sound of that.

  On an impulse Cole tensed and leaped backwards out of the tub, somersaulting in the air and landing in a crouch several feet away. He rose slowly and turned back to the mirror for one last admiring glance. His mind drifted again to the moment of his inevitable glory. Not now. Not today. But someday soon.

  Lost in thought, his usually sharp ears failed to detect the approaching footsteps until they were almost at the door of his apartment. With a sudden feeling of dread, Cole realized he’d forgotten to turn the key. He froze. The door thudded open and Sasha bustled in.

  They stared at each other. Sasha was a couple of years his senior, tall and slender, with dark brown hair that reached her shoulders and captivating eyes. He watched in rising panic as they made their way down his naked body.

  A ghost of a smile danced on Sasha’s lips as she said, ‘Well, that’s a less than impressive sight. I thought you possessed a weapon that could absorb magic and skewer Magelords like a hog. I have trouble believing an instrument like that could slay a farm girl.’

  Cole looked down at his shrunken manhood. He quickly covered it with his left hand and gestured towards the washtub with the other. ‘It’s the water,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s extremely cold.’

  Sasha watched him for a moment, her oddly dilated eyes glittering with amusement. ‘You might want to lock the door next time.’ Her smile faded. ‘Garrett wants us all at the Hook a bell from now. Make sure you’re there on time – I think this is serious. No messing around, Cole.’

  ‘Right,’ he said meekly as she turned back to the door. She paused.

  Without looking back, she said, ‘Don’t worry. As far as I’m concerned, you’re still a prize cock.’ And with a small laugh, Sasha swept out of his apartment.

  To most in the Trine, Dorminia was known as the Grey City. The title was apt in more than one way: almost all Dorminia’s buildings were constructed from granite quarried in the Demonfire Hills, which rose up just beyond the city’s north wall. The hills had once been home to tribes of wild hill-folk, but the random magical abominations and other terrors that had blighted the land since the Godswar had driven those tribes north into the Badlands. A few ancient records mentioned a catastrophe in ages past that had given the Demonfire Hills their name, but the exact details were vague; much of the world’s history had been lost in the cataclysmic aftermath of the deicide.

  The wind grew fierce as Davarus Cole exited his small apartment and made his way up the Tyrant’s Road. The wide thoroughfare sloped gently down towards the harbour in the sout
h; to the north, it passed through the large circular plaza known as the Hook and up into the Noble Quarter, where a pampered and privileged few governed Dorminia in the name of the Magelord Salazar.

  Cole could just about see the pinnacle of the Obelisk piercing the skyline. A monolith of magically reinforced granite in the centre of the Noble Quarter, the Obelisk had become the symbol of Salazar’s tyranny.

  The city’s despotic Magelord had founded Dorminia almost five hundred years ago, shortly after the cataclysmic Godswar altered the region beyond recognition. The death of Malantis and his plunge from the heavens into the Azure Sea flooded the Kingdom of Andarr and eventually formed the inhospitable Drowned Coast, which now ran for hundreds of miles south and west of the Trine. Despite the fact they had murdered the gods, Salazar and his fellow Magelords were the only protection the survivors of the devastated kingdom had to cling to while chaotic magic ravaged the land. They fled north and east to Thelassa, which survived the flooding, and helped build the cities of Shadowport and Dorminia. Even life under a deicidal wizard was preferable to a certain death.

  In the centuries since the Godswar, the Trine had grown into one of the largest pockets of civilization north of the Sun Lands. True, the Confederation dwarfed the Trine, but that alliance of nations, which had reclaimed their independence after the Gharzian Empire fragmented, was a month’s ride to the east, beyond the abomination-plagued Unclaimed Lands.

  Cole had never set foot past the hinterland settlements that supplied Dorminia’s demand for food and other resources. He remembered escorting Garrett on a business trip to Malbrec three years ago, and feeling terribly bored. The provinces were the homes of farmers and miners and other common sorts, not men like him – men destined for greatness.

  The gurgling waters of the Redbelly River accompanied Cole as he walked up the Tyrant’s Road. The Redbelly ran almost parallel, a hundred or so yards to his left, winding down from the Demonfire Hills into the harbour. Few vessels plied the waters of the river this time of year; winter’s bitter touch was still heavy in the spring air, and the cold would last a while longer. There was also the matter of the war with Shadowport. What had begun late last autumn as a dispute over the newly discovered Celestial Isles in the Endless Ocean hundreds of miles to the west had ended in Dorminia’s humiliating defeat.