Swords and Scoundrels

by Julia Knight

  “You were born to be a highwayman. Always did have itchy fingers,” Kacha said now.

  When he turned round she was grinning at him. Funny how she could do that, just throw away her anger like it was yesterday’s bathwater. He wished he could be so easy with his. Probably just as well he didn’t have much, because when he did, it tended to fester.

  “I wasn’t born for the hiding part. What good is it being a great robber if you don’t get to brag about it? Or have to play at being farmer?”

  “Yes, but—”

  That was as far as she got. The light coming in the window disappeared: blackness seemed to flow in from it, under the door, everywhere. The chest began to rattle, blue and green sparks arcing from the lid and earthing on the floor, bright in the sudden darkness. The itching on Vocho’s back turned to a burn that made him yelp. Kacha grabbed him and threw him to the floor just as the door blew in, flying across the room and cracking into the chest, smashing the lid off with a sound like someone was bowling at mountains.

  Sudden silence, broken only by the lights on the chest crackling and flickering in vivid blues and greens before they died.

  “What the fuck was that?” Vocho whispered from down in the straw.

  “No idea.” Kacha drew Egimont’s blade from where she’d hidden it in her ragged skirts. “But I think it wants the chest. I told you to dump it.”

  Vocho scrabbled about for his own sword. He felt lost without it at his waist, but his disguise had demanded it. Kacha was right too – whatever the blast had been, it had definitely targeted the chest. The thing rocked gently in the straw, loose locks flapping. He would be able to see inside now, see what it was that was so very valuable.

  His right hand found his blade where he’d put it, on a bracket under the chunky table where it was hidden but easy to reach. Even as he got it, his left hand was reaching out for the chest. Jewels, had to be. Jewels, gold, a king’s ransom, his and Kacha’s way out of this fucking hovel and back where they belonged.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Kacha hissed and whacked his hand with the flat of her blade. “Whatever it is, it’s still out there.”

  “You’ve really lost your sense of humour lately, you know that?” But Vocho withdrew his hand and faced the door. She might not be much fun of late, but she was usually, and annoyingly, right about when to be careful.

  Outside, it should have been sunshine through rain clouds, a yellow and green spring, but that was the opposite of what Vocho saw through the shattered doorway. Blackness, dim and swirling like fog. Silent too, as though it was sucking up all sound. Vocho gripped his sword harder and then wondered why – hard to duel a fog.

  Hard not to let the first thought into his head unnerve him: the magician was back for his chest. How in seven hells had he found them? Quickly followed by: could a magician really vaporise him?

  He didn’t want to find out. Something moved in the fog, and Vocho moved too. No thought behind it except get out alive, preferably with the contents of the chest. He launched himself forward into a roll, bounced up to his feet, sword at the ready and just piercing the blackness.

  “It’s not going to work,” a voice said. One he recognised. The cultured deadpan drawl of Petri bloody Egimont. The blackness lifted, and Vocho wished it hadn’t, because it revealed not just Egimont with a cruel little smile on his lips, but a cohort of men behind him too. All with swords at waist or in hand, some with guns ready. It also revealed a disturbing piece of paper dangling from Egimont’s left hand. Funny how a scrap like that could instil a sense of deep dread, but it wasn’t the paper itself; it was the markings on it, in blood still damp. Still active, if Dom was right.

  “Whatever you think you might do,” Egimont said, “it won’t work. All I have to do is say a word and boom, you’re dead. If you kill me before I get the chance –” he shrugged as if that was a minor detail “– then while you’re doing that, one of my men will shoot you dead. Both of you.”

  His gaze flickered over to Kacha, hesitated for long ticks of the clock on the mantel while he licked a lip as though wanting to say something and then reluctantly came back to Vocho. “So, perhaps you’d prefer to hand over the chest and live. However briefly before you’re executed for murder, and your sister for aiding you.”

  Vocho made to strike anyway – strike first, ask later, always his motto – when Kacha’s voiced snaked out from behind him and stayed his hand: “Get screwed, sideways.”

  “I rather got that impression from your note.” Egimont’s voice had turned ice cold, clipped with scorn, but he didn’t seem able to take his eyes from Kacha, and there was heat there even if there was none in his voice. “The diagram was very instructional.”

  “Shame you didn’t take me up on my suggestion.”

  Vocho was lost – what note? What diagram? Still Egimont was looking at Kacha, looking like he wanted to forget everything except her. Vocho took advantage of the fact no one was taking any notice of him.

  Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a move he should have used. Strictly speaking. But then he wasn’t a member of the guild any more, and besides rules were for fools. His sword whipped towards Egimont’s eyes, almost got the bastard too, but he saw it just in time and bent back out of the way. Still, it left him unbalanced and concentrating on Vocho instead of mooning over Kacha.

  Egimont’s right hand came up, sword ready to beat back Vocho, while his left still held the paper. A word, the word, the one that would unleash whatever was on that paper, formed on his lips with a smile. “Des—”

  That was as far as he got before Kacha launched herself into him, leading with a kick to the groin that removed his ability to speak. She always did love that move.

  A familiar voice shouted, “Down!” and on instinct Vocho ducked, just in time for a bullet to whizz over his head and carry on to smash a china jug on the mantel that had miraculously survived the initial assault but now succumbed to a bullet to the heart. Outside, someone else was fighting, bringing grunts and yowls of pain from Egimont’s men and cries of “I’m terribly sorry about that,” “Pardon, I’m sure” and “Would you mind? Oh, I see. Perhaps not, my mistake.” Inside, Egimont had recovered enough to stand up, but he had both Kacha and Vocho against him. He still had the scrap of paper with its disturbing patterns on it, but Vocho thought maybe they’d gone past that.

  Egimont growled low in his throat at Kacha, lunged, turned it into a feint and caught Vocho off guard with a move he would never have expected of honourable stick-in-the-mud Egimont – an elbow to his face that knocked him flying.

  Looked like all bets were off, and anything went. No guild rules, which from Egimont was surprising but suited Vocho just fine. He and Eggy had a score to settle. All his blood was pumping as he sprang back to his feet. He could beat Egimont standing on his head.

  Three swift cuts, and none of them legal – to the face, the balls and back to the face in less time than it took to blink twice. Old Eggy caught the first two, but the last got him and whipped a triangle out of his cheek. Keep him on the hop, don’t give him the chance to say a damned word, any word. Three more slashes, and a line of blood appeared on Eggy’s arm, seeping through the silk.

  Outside was chaos from the sounds of it – at least two men were screaming, and the clash and clang of metal told Vocho there was going to be more screaming by the end of it. Inside, Kacha hefted her sword, itching to join in, but Vocho had the bastard now.

  Or so he thought. All that blood pumping, all the glorious excitement had made him forget the stupid bit of paper. Cool-headed Egimont hadn’t though. He flung the paper down and leaped back, away from Vocho’s sword, away from the paper, and stumbled into the yard, saying the nonsense word he needed.

  Vocho barely had time to do anything except duck as the paper caught fire. Blackness descended again, so total he might have gone blind, and then something lifted him off his feet and thrust him into the wall, hard enough to knock him out for a moment or two. It couldn’t have been longer be
cause when he opened his eyes again the blackness was shredding, revealing the mess it had made of their hovel. Half the table was splintered around the room, including several pieces buried in Vocho’s arm and one that was causing a dribble of blood to trickle down his face. The rest of the table wobbled in the centre of the room as though surprised it was still there. The straw that had graced the floor now floated in drifting eddies, lit by the bright sunlight that pierced the ruined roof. One wall had a new hole in it big enough to fit a cow through. The only thing that remained virtually undamaged was the damned chest.

  Vocho couldn’t see Egimont as he struggled up, his eyes going every which way from the knock to the head. His first thought was Kacha, but she’d ducked down behind the chest, which seemed to have saved her from any lasting damage, but she was white faced and shaking as hard as he was. Explosions were not a usual occurrence.

  A quick glance to the doorway showed Egimont advancing again, three of his men behind him. Kacha grabbed Vocho’s arm and pointed at the hole in the wall. “Time to go, right now.”

  Vocho was in complete agreement, until he caught sight of the contents of the chest. A slew of papers, each headed with an official crest, each covered with the sort of swirly writing that meant Something Important. Something Important, and something someone might want to pay for. He was determined not to walk away from this without something to show for it, and grabbed a handful. Underneath the papers was the tantalising glint of gold. Lots of gold.

  “Come on,” Kacha said from the hole.

  But there was gold…

  He scrabbled in the chest but only came up with more papers. One of Egimont’s men fired. The bang was deafening inside the hovel, and something scored a hot line along Vocho’s arm, almost making him drop the papers. A sword ran Egimont’s man through from behind. As the man fell with a look of terminal surprise, Vocho caught sight of Dom, idiot face bemused as though startled he’d got hold of the right end of the sword. Vocho was certainly surprised.

  Dom saw Vocho with his mouth hanging open, sketched a wave and called, “This is quite fun, isn’t it? You go, I’ll catch up! Get the horses ready.”

  “What in hells…” Vocho said before he lost any words he might have said.

  “Don’t know, but getting the horses seems a bloody good idea,” Kacha said. “Come on.”

  Vocho hesitated. Getting out seemed like a good plan, but… but gold.

  Egimont roared towards them, but Dom was either craftier than he looked or, more likely, too clumsy to have much hope of living very long or impressing Kacha. He tried a dashing swish of his blade, got it caught up in his own cloak with the point sticking straight up and staggered in front of Egimont, forcing him to stop, or stop having a face.

  “Go!” Dom called again. He got his sword untangled and despite everything looked as though he was enjoying himself immensely, but there were more of Egimont’s men on the way. Vocho didn’t need telling again – he might be reckless but always tried to make sure he wasn’t entirely stupid. Still, it only took a second to grab two bars of gold and shove them inside his shirt, where they bulged and swayed alarmingly and made him run like a hunchback.

  He grabbed Kacha’s arm and dived through the hole. It led to part of what had once been a kitchen garden but was now a jungle of raspberry canes and blackcurrant bushes gone wild. Vocho crashed through, Kacha right behind, cursing her dress, which kept getting caught on twigs. In the end she ripped the skirt off and to hells with it. At least she was wearing a decent set of bloomers.

  They reached the corner of the hovel and peered around. Three men lay groaning in the mud. Two more weren’t groaning. Another sat propped against the wall with a silly smile on his face – concussed if Vocho was any kind of judge. No sign of more, though by the sounds coming from the ruined doorway, at least two were still inside backing up Egimont.

  “Dom did this?” Kacha whispered.

  “I think so. I’m not sure it was entirely on purpose though. Come on.”

  They drifted across the muddy yard, keeping to the shadows of the barn and sty before nipping inside the stable. Kacha’s horse greeted them with a whicker and a kick to the door of his stall that would have broken bones.

  “Have you still got those stupid papers?” Kacha asked as she grabbed for the bridles. “Just leave them, and let’s concentrate on getting out of here. I’ve got half the bulls anyway, and some of the rings.”

  Vocho looked down at his hands and was startled to see that yes, he did still have the papers. Ten thousand bulls reward, and whatever was in the chest must be worth ten times that. He’d left behind maybe five thousand bulls in gold and a whole mess of papers, but he wasn’t about to throw perhaps a fortune away. He shoved them inside his shirt with the gold. Time enough to look later.

  They hurriedly bridled the horses but didn’t bother with saddles – not enough time. Kacha’s evil-tempered bastard tried for Vocho’s leg with its teeth as he went past, but missed, and they kicked out into the yard just in time to see Dom strolling out of the farmhouse like he was looking forward to a picnic. Vocho was bloody annoyed to notice that he didn’t have a speck of muck or blood on him anywhere. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  With a clumsy flourish Dom saluted Kacha with his blade, sheathed it and whistled for his own horse, which sauntered out from behind a blackcurrant bush, as indolent-seeming as its master.

  He swung up into the saddle. “I think we should be going about now.”

  “But—” Vocho said.

  “Oh, they aren’t dead. Egimont in particular will be… Oh, look, here he comes. Shall we?”

  Egimont staggered through the doorway, looking like he’d survived a fight with a big cat, but only barely. His fine clothes were in tatters and a bloody line sprang from a nasty-looking cut in his scalp.

  He also had a gun, and was winding it up, pointing it their way.

  “Yes, now’s good.” Kacha kicked her horse into a canter, leaped the wall of the yard and out of Egimont’s sight. Dom’s horse seemed to amble along like it had all the time in the world, but still somehow managed to beat Vocho’s tired beast over the wall. A shot smacked into the stones, and then all that was left of the ambush was the lonely sound of Egimont swearing while the three of them galloped up the lane.

  Chapter Six

  Egimont paced up and down on the rug that graced the floor of the magician’s rooms in the king’s palace, the ruined chest on a table by the fire. Every so often he’d stop by the chest, glare inside and then carry on his pacing.

  He’d almost worn a groove in the rug by the time Sabates glided in like a swan crossing a still pond – calm and serene on the surface. His eyes were hooded, his face implacable, and Egimont stopped pacing. Sabates might seem calm, but Egimont knew what boiled beneath the surface.

  The king didn’t even pretend to be calm. He burst into the room behind Sabates, arms waving and eyes alight, and launched straight into Egimont.

  “The chest! Excellent. You recovered all its contents? The thieves? Dead or waiting for it, I assume.”

  Egimont hesitated. Sabates knew some papers and gold were missing, that Kacha and Vocho had escaped, but gave no sign to Egimont of whether he expected him to lie or tell it true. Start with the truth and lie if necessary – one of the prelate’s first lessons. Egimont held himself straight and tall, eyes forward, looking at a vast painting on the far side of the room and barely seeing its colours. “The chest, yes, your highness. Some papers are missing though, and some small amount of the gold.”

  “Missing?” Licio started pulling papers out of the chest onto the polished golden wood of the table. “What do you mean, missing? And the thieves?”

  Egimont cast a glance at Sabates, but the magician seemed to be examining his reflection in the mirror over the mantel in minute detail.

  “Managed to escape, your highness. I’ve a dozen good men—”

  “Pfft, good men. You took ten with you and couldn’t apprehend two peasant thieve
s.” Licio glared at Egimont, and there was the whiff of alcohol on his breath, even this early in the day. The man fairly reeked of it, as he often did since Sabates had come. Egimont took a moment to wonder if Licio wasn’t as naïve as he’d thought, whether it was fear of the magician that was driving him to drink. “Tell me again, why am I employing you?”

  Egimont bristled at “employing”, as though he was some lowly gardener or skivvy instead of the son of one of the king’s old dukes. Noble blood, if no longer noble by title. If now only the prelate’s pet.

  Sabates turned smoothly from the mirror. “Because Lord Egimont here has a plan. One which involves knowing who it is that conspires against you, highness. Isn’t that right, Lord Egimont?”

  “I—”

  “Because,” Sabates went on, “I fear there’s undoubtedly a plot. When isn’t there? It’s unthinkable that your plans wouldn’t become known at some point and that someone wouldn’t try to counter them. Now we know who, and where they’re going. We follow them and see where they lead. Use a little fish to catch a bigger fish.”

  “Fish?” Licio’s brows furrowed. He’d never got the hang of metaphors.

  Sabates pursed his lips. “The prelate, highness. If we can prove he’s moved maliciously – and illegally – against you…” He let the rest hang in the air.

  Licio’s lips moved while he tried to think it through, until Egimont almost screamed at him in frustration, and at Sabates for throwing him into this with no preparation. Yet that “Lord” – he could forgive the magician a lot for that one little thing.

  Finally, Licio came out with, “Then I could have the council move against the prelate?”

  Sabates spread his hands as though blessing the room. “Indeed, highness. Use his democracy against him, then no suspicion falls on you.”

  “But the army I’ve negotiated, the alliances, the loans. The Ikaras bank was very insistent on certain terms being met, you see and—”