The Grim Company: 1

by Luke Scull

  He took the cloth from his assistant, shoved it in the aperture just behind the powder chamber, and lit a spark which took to the small scrap of cloth immediately. He figured he had maybe fifteen seconds. Just enough time.

  He thrust his head over the bulwark and pointed a finger in the direction of the furious men rowing towards him. ‘I’m Davarus Cole,’ he shouted down at them. ‘You made a mistake when you signed up for this life of villainy. At least you can go to your deaths knowing you were slain by the best—’

  ‘You forgot to swab the barrel!’ the sailor beside him hissed. He looked down.

  The fuse was halfway burned when the cannon went off. The force caused Cole’s head to strike the bulwark and he came close to pitching over the side. The iron shot splashed harmlessly into the sea a dozen feet to the right of the rowing boat.

  He looked around wildly, hoping nobody had witnessed his blunder. Everyone had. His head throbbed.

  ‘Pass me more cloth,’ he spat into the grinning face of the sailor.

  This time everything went as planned. He cleaned the barrel, loaded the shot, lit the fuse and lined up his target. The soldiers were within fifty yards of the carrack when the cannon fired, sending its projectile whistling into the side of the boat. There was an explosion of timber and water and flailing bodies. Screams filled the air.

  A loud cheer went up on the Redemption. Cole straightened and then stared out at the carnage. He froze. A moment ago he had faced a dozen men. Men with families, hopes and dreams. Now there was nothing but driftwood and a few corpses bobbing just below the surface of the sea.

  His face split into a wide grin. ‘Let that be a lesson to them!’ he yelled, spinning around and pumping a fist in the air at the men celebrating on deck. He swaggered down to join them, savouring each slap on the back and happy smile as his new comrades gave him a hero’s reception. Life had never felt so good.

  ‘You did well, kid. You did well,’ Three-Finger said.

  He puffed out his chest. ‘The name’s Davarus Cole. I told you that already.’ He sauntered over to where Soeman was shivering on the deck and hauled him up. ‘Look at that,’ he said to the engineer, gesturing at the setting sun and the dark water that stretched out across the horizon. ‘This is ours. All of it. We’re free men now.’

  Soeman sniffed and then coughed. Despite the blood at the edges of his mouth, he smiled. ‘I can’t believe your plan worked. I admit, I thought it sounded crazy. You’re a hero.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cole said quietly. ‘I am.’

  They stood together in silence for a time, watching the sun bid its final farewell. The last of the light faded. Soeman suddenly twitched and let out a faint gasp.

  Cole shook his head. ‘Your chest is getting worse. I thought the saltwater might have done you some good.’

  There was no response. He looked at the engineer. Something was sticking out of the back of his head. He reached across and touched it.

  A quarrel.

  Soeman fell flat on his face. He didn’t move.

  There was a rustling sound above him and a dark shadow soared into view. Cole squinted up at the figure. It looked like a man…

  Falcus! The Augmentor had survived the capsizing of the boat. His cloak billowed around him, glowing faintly in the night sky. He held a crossbow in one hand – and it was pointing at Cole.

  Cole threw himself to the deck, shouting wildly to get the attention of the rest of the crew. One of the men ran over and levelled his crossbow at the soaring figure above them. He pulled the trigger, but the bolt missed. The Augmentor circled them, dipped low and then flew by barely a dozen feet away, taking aim with his weapon. There was a thunk, and the fellow beside Cole dropped to the deck, a quarrel protruding from his chest.

  The young Shard turned and ran. He made it to the safety of the crowd that had gathered near the mainmast. Most still had no idea what was happening. ‘Get down!’ he yelled. One of the former prisoners was slow to react and ended up with a bolt quivering in his throat.

  He felt at his belt for Magebane. This time he found the knife the sailor had lent to him. Falcus was preparing for another deadly pass. He tensed.

  The Augmentor plummeted down out of the sky, arcing directly towards him. He waited until the last instant and threw the knife, aiming for the man’s chest. It missed but snagged his cloak, cutting a large gash in the fabric.

  Falcus cursed. Suddenly he was out of control, spinning wildly in the air. He crashed into the mainmast with a sickening thud and slid down it.

  Three-Finger was on the fallen man in an instant, his hatchet taking chunks out of the dazed Augmentor. Within seconds it was all over. Three-Finger continued to hack away, dismembering the corpse and then tossing the parts overboard.

  Cole got to his feet. They had lost three men, including Soeman. Jack was badly hurt too. He felt a sudden fury at his absolute triumph being sullied by the deaths of several of his crew – especially Soeman whom he had worked so hard to save from drowning. It just didn’t seem fair.

  Suddenly the air seemed to throb around him. He halted, staring around in shock, and then almost retched. A foul stench assaulted his nostrils. It smelled like a corpse left out in the sun, and it was overpowering, as if whatever was creating the smell was huge. All over the ship, men were leaning over and heaving onto the deck.

  A roaring filled his ears and Cole staggered. The sea began to shimmer, so brightly it made his eyes water and forced him to look away. He opened his mouth to ask what was happening – but sudden, intense pressure stole his words away and cold water forced its way down his throat. He flailed wildly, hopelessly disorientated and surrounded on all sides by crushing water. The deck beneath his feet had disappeared; he was being dragged downwards. Ever downwards.

  Darkness swallowed him.

  ‘He will live.’

  The words seemed to float into his ears from a long way away. He tasted bile and salt. His body shivered uncontrollably.

  ‘Open your eyes.’

  He did as he was ordered and stared up into the face of a beautiful woman. Her skin seemed almost supernaturally pale, but perhaps that was a trick of the moon behind her. There was something queer about her eyes. His own eyes felt full of grit, and he rubbed at them with salt-wrinkled hands.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

  ‘On The Lady’s Luck,’ the woman replied. ‘The Swell almost claimed you. Your ship was lost, as were most of her men.’

  ‘The Lady’s Luck?’ Cole noticed there were others near them, a crew of both men and women who glanced at him curiously.

  ‘The flagship of Thelassa’s fleet. We had orders to sink your carrack and the old cog trailing behind her.’ His rescuer looked down at him without expression. ‘The Swell saved us the bother.’

  The Swell. Cole shivered again. He had come within a whisker of being yet another victim of the Lord of the Deep’s undying wrath. ‘What now?’ he asked.

  The woman’s strange eyes narrowed on him. ‘War is imminent between our two cities. We sail to Thelassa.’

  ‘We?’ Cole managed.

  ‘Yes. You are our prisoner. The White Lady will have a great many questions for you.’

  The Gathering Storm

  His eyelids flickered open and the world shifted into focus. He was lying flat on his back, staring up at a huge grey cloud looming directly overhead. A gust of wind pushed at his hair, ruffled the growth of beard he felt bristling upon his neck. He tried to move his body, grunted at the sudden sharp pain in his midriff.

  He felt weak. Weak and half-starved. Memories rushed back to him. The collapse of the mine. The fight with the baby-faced Augmentor and his belt of knives. Cold steel slipping inside his stomach. Waking in sweat-drenched fever, swallowing desperately from a waterskin shoved halfway down his throat before the blackness took him again.

  ‘You’re awake. About fucking time.’ Jerek was there, crouched beside him. His right shoulder and thigh were wrapped in padded dressing. Blood had seeped through
the bandages, but it had long since dried and turned brown.

  Brodar Kayne forced himself up onto his elbows and glanced around. They were in a narrow depression, tree-covered hills rising on either side. The smell of rain was in the air. It was hard to be sure with the sun behind the clouds, but he reckoned it was late afternoon. How long?

  ‘You been out the better part of a week,’ the Wolf said, answering his unspoken question. ‘You were gutted good and proper, Kayne. Isaac stitched you up but the girl thought you was done for. I told her you was a stubborn cunt.’

  Kayne licked his lips. His mouth was dry and tasted foul. ‘Where are they?’ he asked.

  The Wolf reached down and passed him his water bottle. ‘Hunting,’ he replied. ‘Would have gone myself, but Isaac reckons my wounds still need time to heal. Turns out he’s an expert trapper.’

  He looked up at his friend. Jerek’s face was unreadable. He scowled slightly when he saw Kayne studying him. You’ve taken worse wounds and they ain’t slowed you an inch, Wolf. You stayed with me in case I regained my senses. Not that the grim Highlander would ever admit to the fact.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked.

  Jerek spat. ‘West of the Rift, maybe a dozen miles. A shipful of the red-cloaked pricks turned up the day after we collapsed the mine. Followed our trail for a while, but I reckon we lost them. We been lying low ever since.’

  Kayne sighed. How many had died at the Rift? The sabotage mission had turned into a massacre. ‘They discover it was us that destroyed the place?’

  Jerek shrugged. ‘Don’t think so. They never got close enough to see our faces. Still, ain’t much chance of us swanning back into the Grey City now, is there? Not with the trail of bodies we’ve left behind. I say we escort the girl back to the city and get her to retrieve our gold, then put some miles between us and Dorminia. I’m tired of this shit.’

  Kayne was of a like mind himself. He felt old. He felt ancient. Too many dead; too much sorrow. He was tired of running away, sick of killing. A man has to know when to quit.

  A disturbance up near a line of alders caught his attention. Isaac and Sasha emerged from the trees, the manservant clutching a trio of coneys in one hand. He smiled happily when he saw his charge had regained consciousness.

  In contrast, Sasha was looking mighty peeved. Her jaw clenched and unclenched in a manner not dissimilar to the Wolf when he got into one of his moods. She had a jagged tear down the side of her breeches and her left leg was caked up to the knee in mud.

  ‘So you made it after all,’ she said, somewhat coldly, hunkering down near to where he lay. She pulled her muddy boot off and turned it upside down, giving it a violent shake. Filthy water trickled out. ‘It would be nice if Isaac paid as much attention to our footing as he did your recovery.’ She glared at the manservant. ‘I can’t believe you led me into a bog.’

  Isaac looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I really am sorry about that. I was distracted.’

  ‘Distracted? You were ambling along drawing pictures of birds.’

  ‘I like to sketch. I have quite a collection back at the depository. Perhaps when we return to the city I could show them to you.’ His vapid face looked hopeful.

  Sasha snorted. ‘Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse. Don’t waste your time, Isaac. I’m not interested.’

  Isaac’s face fell. Kayne couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. ‘I guess I should thank you for patching me up,’ he said to the dejected manservant. He lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘I shouldn’t fret about the girl. I reckon she has her sights set on someone else.’ He gave her a knowing look, thought about winking but couldn’t quite muster the enthusiasm.

  Sasha shot him a poisonous glance. ‘As if you’re in any position to know what I want. You Highlanders and your women. How does it go? You hit them on the head with a rock and rape them while they’re unconscious? Or is it the other way around?’

  The girl’s words cut right through him. She might have been jesting, but if there was anything besides anger and contempt in those dark eyes he couldn’t see it.

  Her tone didn’t sit well with Jerek. ‘What’s your fucking problem?’ he demanded in an angry rasp. ‘You’ve been bitching like a she-bear with a twig up her arse for the last week. Did the alchemist mean that much to you?’

  ‘Vicard was a better man than you’ll ever be,’ Sasha spat back. ‘I suppose I should consider myself lucky Isaac is around, or who knows what you’d have done to me by now. I’m not scared of you.’

  Jerek’s face twisted in anger. He stepped towards her. She stared back, unflinching. The Wolf’s right hand went to his beard, tugging furiously. His left hand clenched into a fist. ‘Fuck yourself. I’m going for a walk.’ With that, he spun and stormed off into the trees.

  Kayne watched him go. He released the breath he’d been holding with a tired sigh and closed his eyes for a moment. The first light patters of rain fell, cooling his face and releasing some of the tension in the air.

  Isaac scratched the side of his head and risked a nervous smile. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I think we’d better find shelter from this downpour.’ He gave the rabbits he was holding a small shake. ‘Who’s hungry?’

  He watched the small fire dancing in the light breeze. The canopy of leaves and branches overhead shook with the strength of the downpour. Occasional droplets of rain splattered down through gaps in the foliage, but it was better than being out there in the open where the spring deluge was beating at the surrounding hills like an anvil. Isaac stirred the stew he was preparing with a stick, humming to himself. It smelled delicious. Even Sasha appeared to have relaxed somewhat.

  The old Highlander was so hungry he felt sick but there was no point complaining about it. The food would be ready when it was ready. At least his stomach wound seemed to be healing. He’d managed to struggle to his feet and hobble up the hill without the help of the others. His knees hurt like hell and the piss he’d just taken had been two of the worst minutes of his life, but he reckoned he was on the mend.

  He cleared his throat and glanced across at Sasha. ‘Sorry for the loss of your friend, lass,’ he said. He tried to think of something else to add but couldn’t, so he stared at his scarred hands instead.

  For a moment she didn’t respond. Then she looked across the fire at him. ‘I have a name, you know. Sasha. Not “girl”, or “lass”. Or even “bitch”, as your brutish companion so endearingly refers to me.’

  ‘I don’t mean to offend,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been good with names, and my memory ain’t getting any better with age. Besides, most everyone seems a girl or boy when you’re as old as me.’

  She seemed to ponder this for a time. ‘Just how old are you?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Can’t say for sure. I killed my first man over forty years ago. I was, what, nine at the time. I guess that means I’m past fifty.’

  She stared at him in disbelief. ‘You killed your first man when you were nine years old? That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Aye, well, the High Fangs were wilder back in them days.’ He stared at the pot bubbling over the fire. ‘My village had come under attack from a nearby settlement. Our warriors drove them off, but they left some of their wounded behind. One of ’em was right there before me on the snow, stabbed through his chest and sobbing like a babe. Father handed me his spear, told me it was time I became a man.’ He shrugged. ‘I did what I had to do.’

  ‘You were a child,’ she said. He saw disgust in her eyes.

  Aye, I was. And yet in that moment I saw the truth of the world, and a smarter man would have heeded that lesson better than I ever could. Still. What’s done is done. I wager your own past ain’t all sweetness and light. Got some ghosts of your own, if I’m any judge.

  ‘It was the way things were done,’ Kayne said. ‘Still is, though the Reachings don’t war like they used to. The threat from the Devil’s Spine has made everyone a bit more cautious about killing each other. Most of the time,’ he added.

  Isaa
c decided the stew was ready. The manservant passed over the cook pot. ‘Have as much as you want,’ he said. ‘You need to eat. To tell the truth, I’m surprised you pulled through. You mountain folk are a hardy lot and no mistake.’

  Brodar Kayne didn’t respond. He was already stuffing his mouth. Hot stew spilled down his chin and burned his fingers, but he paid it no mind. He’d spent two years being pursued all over the High Fangs, never knowing where his next meal might come from. In that situation a man eats what he can, when he can, and in any way he can. There were times when he’d been forced to drink his own piss, and you know things are looking bleak when that prospect’s almost appealing.

  The other two watched him in silence. When he’d eaten as much as he could, he felt the weakness return. He was about to nod off when Sasha’s voice drifted over and tugged him back to wakefulness.

  ‘You never did tell me what you and Jerek were doing in Dorminia.’

  He shifted, blinked a few times to shake away the sleepiness. ‘We were on the run,’ he said, after an uncomfortable silence. ‘The Shaman has a bounty on our heads. Mine especially. Ain’t nothing he’d rather see than my ugly face on a spear above the Great Lodge.’

  ‘The Shaman? You mean the Magelord of the High Fangs? What did you do to upset him?’

  ‘Ain’t what I done, lass. It’s what I didn’t do.’ He closed his eyes and thought back to the morning the Shaman uttered the words that had frozen the blood in his veins.

  Beregund must be razed to the ground.

  ‘I wasn’t always the sorry old bastard you see now. The Sword of the North, they named me. I was the Defender of the High Fangs, the first bulwark against the fiends that came down from the Spine. In times of war I was the instrument of the Shaman’s will.’

  Sasha looked puzzled. ‘You served the Shaman?’

  He nodded. ‘The fact is, I didn’t much care for right and wrong when I was a younger man. I did many things I ain’t proud of. Wasn’t until I got older that the fame and respect began to lose their lustre. Once that happens, killing is the only thing that’s left, and being the best at killing ain’t enough. Not when the weight of a man’s deeds begins to drag on him.’