Swords and Scoundrels

by Julia Knight

  Kacha looked as shaken as he felt. “Well,” she said at last. “This is an agreement between the king and the Ikaran government, handing over certain Reyen mining and trade interests in return for support from the Ikaran army, and promising the death of the prelate’s diplomatic envoy as a show of good faith. I suspect he wouldn’t have given away nearly as much in concessions, so it was worth it to the Ikarans to have him dead. This diplomatic envoy I seem to recall being a certain priest.” She cast Vocho a hard look, but all he could do was shrug and shake his head. “This is a loan agreement with the Bank of Ikaras for a staggering amount of money, and this is a message from Dom’s old university stating that they’d be delighted to assist the king, and that three have been sent. Three what it doesn’t specify.”

  “Hopefully not people who think they’re the second coming of the Clockwork God.”

  “Voch, you plank, this is serious. If we could at least attempt to keep our wandering minds on it for more than a few seconds?”

  He held up his hands. “All right, all right. Bang goes getting any money for this then.”

  “Oh, I know a few people who’d pay for this,” Dom said. His eyes had stopped watering and he looked oddly sharp.

  “We have to warn the prelate,” Kacha said, “or Eneko. We have to warn someone.”

  “Do we?” Vocho said. “It was better for a while, but now the prelate’s no better than the old king was.”

  “Voch, this is important, and the prelate is our head of state. He may be going slightly round the twist, but until recently he wasn’t doing so badly. People weren’t starving down on the docks, most people had jobs, and yes the clockers are a bunch of rich arseholes and it wasn’t perfect, but things were better than before. Were. We swore an oath to protect Reyes if it came to it, and I’d say finding out whether the prelate is really cracked counts. As does preventing a bloody revolution. And this is revolution we’re talking here; we can’t just ignore it. Whose heads do you think will top the walls around the Shrive this time? Ours? All those poor buggers in the square today? Do you want a magician behind the ruler of Reyes? We have to warn Bakar, or someone. Eneko maybe. Look at this one.”

  Kacha handed over the last translation. Most of it was a lot of legal-sounding words that made little sense to Vocho even if they had been translated. But Kacha tapped a portion at the bottom, and Vocho saw what she meant: “Lord Petri Egimont, Duke of Elona and Master of the Duelling Guild of Reyes”. Dated the day after that bloody priest had died.

  Vocho went back to the top of the paper. After a bit of squinting, he realised it was an assurance that the guild wouldn’t get in the way of Ikaras mining the iron seams that were the source of the long-running border dispute, that in fact the guild would remove the duellists that currently guarded said iron seams and instead place them at Ikaras’s disposal. A guild that it looked like Petri bloody Egimont was intent on taking over.

  Kacha pinched the bridge of her nose. Vocho hadn’t a clue what she was thinking, but Egimont co-signing this the day after it all went wrong with Kacha stank like week-old shark meat. And the guild – they may have been thrown out, but the guild was everything to Vocho. All he’d wanted from the start of all this was to get back in, get his old name back, his old life back. Fat chance of that with Petri in charge. Any way he sliced it, it looked like Vocho was going to end up on the block, Kacha with him. Unless, of course, they stopped a revolution.

  “So, what do you want to do?” he asked faintly. Maybe she was right – maybe warning Eneko was the best thing to do. It might get the guild back on their side if nothing else, and that might be the best way to avoid being executed. Even Bakar wouldn’t go openly against the guild. But they had to get to Eneko without being arrested, obviously. Warning Eneko and Bakar about this was the good thing. That didn’t make it the easy thing.

  There was a clink behind them, the sound of something being wound and the scrape of steel on leather.

  “I’d suggest giving yourselves up,” Egimont said in the cultured drawl that always made Vocho want to hit him.

  How in hells had he…? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Egimont stood in the dark doorway that led inside the tavern, that a rattle at the little gate at the rear of the courtyard suggested he wasn’t alone and that someone was definitely winding something up. A gun on closer inspection, one of the new revolving jobs that held ten shots. Something a sword wasn’t much use against in most circumstances. Vocho really needed to get the hang of guns.

  Egimont stepped forward, and he at least wasn’t using a gun, though one was at his waist. A duellist at heart, always too fond of sticking to the rules. Something which might give Vocho an advantage. He flipped a quick glance at the papers and then to Kacha. A flicker of her eyelid – agreement.

  “Hands off weapons would be a nice start. I see you’ve even got the papers with you. Good. Saves time,” Egimont said. “I’d quite like my sword back too, Kacha, if it’s all the same.” There was something about his voice that wasn’t quite right, some hitch to it when he spoke her name, an odd, almost quizzical look to his eyes.

  Dom grinned knowingly at the use of Kacha’s real name, and Vocho had a split second to think. All the time he knew who we were. He knew but said nothing, didn’t turn us in. Who is he?

  Two men came to flank Egimont as another three came through the back gate, guns wound and ready. Kacha spared them a sneer and slid the scabbard from her waist. “You can stick it up with your ring,” she said.

  Vocho tensed, ready for it even though he didn’t know what it would be. Trouble with Kacha was it was impossible to tell.

  She hefted the scabbard, and she and Egimont stared at each other for a long moment that seemed stretched to breaking before he inclined his head in an if-you-please manner and held out his spare hand for it. Vocho wasn’t surprised to see a scrap of blood-marked paper tucked into his glove.

  Kacha bounced the blade in one hand, threw it at Egimont – he knew her well enough to flinch back – and grabbed for the hilt as it went, neatly pulling it from the scabbard, which despite Egimont’s efforts bounced off his shoulder.

  Vocho had moved as soon as Kacha threw. He leaped up, grabbed for the overhanging trellis and, using his momentum, swung at Egimont. Eggy, already off balance, caught a solid boot on one shoulder, which twisted him round and sent him crashing into one of his men.

  Dom seemed to have moved fast too. Vocho could already hear his apologies as he used his sword on the men by the gate, but at least he hadn’t stabbed himself. A shot pinged off the wall by Vocho’s ear. Egimont’s second flank man brought his gun to bear on Vocho, but he was too slow – a smack in the mouth made him stagger back into another group of Egimont’s men. Who didn’t look too happy about it.

  Vocho took two great steps back out of the door and around to the side, out of their line of sight. Kacha had swept up the papers and shoved them inside her shirt, and Cospel was giving her a leg up over the wall – always the plan if they needed to get something away. Even when Vocho had grown bigger than her, she could still outrun him. He didn’t plan to be long following her either.

  Dom was swatting men with his sword, then ran one through the shoulder – accidentally by the looks of it – with a cry of “Sorry!” and turned towards Vocho, before his eyebrows pretty much went through his hairline and he dived to one side. A bullet cracked from the doorway by Vocho and smacked into the back wall of the courtyard in a puff of terracotta paint and brick dust. It was probably very petty of Vocho to notice that, at last, Dom had a crease in his shirt.

  Vocho nodded towards Cospel, where he still waited, hands clasped. Dom shook his head and bounced back up, sword at the ready, cloak swept back, looking every inch the dapper duellist. Vocho shrugged and grabbed for a chair. Brute force was going to work best here. Another shot flew out of the doorway, but the man reached out just too far and got the chair across his wrist for his trouble. Vocho followed that up with a roundhouse smack into the doorway, was
rewarded with a crunch and a lot of swearing, dropped the chair and pulled out his sword.

  Using the distraction, Dom had managed to get to the other side of the door. They looked at each other, and all the twittering idiocy was gone from Dom’s face. Instead he winked at Vocho, put up his sword like a professional, grabbed a chair and inclined his head. “After you.”

  “If you insist.”

  They swung through the doorway within half a second of each other and were faced with three guns and a seriously pissed-off Egimont.

  “An impasse, perhaps, gentlemen?” Egimont said.

  “A fuck-up for you, you mean. Kass has taken your papers. And we know what they say too.”

  A strange sort of smile from Egimont, somewhat sly and cold and hot at the same time. It made a shudder weave its way through Vocho’s balls.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Egimont said. “See, you forget I know you and your sister. Quite well, for my sins. I had people all around the walls. She may have got away from me; she won’t have got away from them.”

  A moment of panic but then Dom stepped in, and he sounded nothing like his usual self – his voice was firm and decisive. “Funny that. Because I heard a lot of swearing behind that wall, and none of it was her. How sure are you of those people?”

  Egimont laughed under his breath. “Found someone with as much idiotic bravado as yourself then, Vocho? Weapons down now, please. I won’t ask again.” He indicated the piece of blood-marked paper from his glove. “I don’t know what this does. I only know I’m to use it in an emergency, and to make sure I’m not standing too close.” A strange look came to his eyes, as though remembering something long past. “They can vaporise a man where he stands, you know that? I saw it once. A spell almost as deadly for the magician as the victim because it needs so much blood, so they don’t do it often. Unless the blood isn’t theirs, obviously. And the Prelate’s put a lot of people in the Shrive just lately. No one misses one or two.”

  Vocho flicked his gaze about – a man and a woman, both holding guns, wound up and ready. Egimont with a spell at hand. Three more men on the floor groaning – it wouldn’t be long before they were up.

  This called for special measures. Vocho would have preferred Kacha to be there – she’d have known what he was doing – but Dom was looking sharp. Had to be worth a go.

  His sword was up before he knew it. Even against a gun, a good swordsman stood a chance. If he was quick, if he took them by surprise.

  He did.

  His sword arrowed for Egimont’s face, and Dom was half a second behind, his sword slashing at a hand holding a gun, his boot kicking out at another.

  The trouble with guns was that people came to rely on them. They forgot about speed or strength or a plan. Like a sword, a gun was only as good as the person holding it.

  Still, numbers counted for a lot too. He and Dom were outnumbered, and at least one of the people opposite them – Eggy – was no slouch with his blade, and he had a gun too. He used both to good effect almost immediately. Vocho only barely managed to duck the vicious slash, and was pretty sure he lost some hair, but had no time to consider it as the barrel of Eggy’s gun came into contact with his neck.

  He was already rolling away, looking for his best chance before Petri blew his brains out when he saw another barrel pointing his way, and another. There was nowhere left to go. He stood up slowly with his hands out, though he kept hold of his blade and all the while he was looking for a gap, a chance. Somewhere over to his left Dom was engaged in a battle of apologies with two more of Eggy’s men.

  “I’m rather glad Kacha isn’t here,” Eggy said as he moved forward, wary as a kicked cat. “It makes it so much easier.”

  “Easier to do what?” Vocho had a rough idea what Eggy intended, and it wasn’t to shake hands and let bygones be bygones.

  Eggy smiled, and it was no warmer than before. “I’m supposed to keep you alive, but… Well, I have this little piece of paper, you see, and it’s most tempting to use it. Most tempting to say that I had to, that I had no other choice and get you out of my life for good. Out of Kacha’s life, which can only be good after all the ways you’ve screwed things up for her.”

  “You’re very considerate. I’m sure she’ll thank you,” Vocho said, still looking for a way out. “Though if I were you I’d also consider that she’s a vengeful woman, and killing her brother might set her off.”

  “You might consider, brother dearest, all you’ve done to her over the years. When I bring her back into the guild, she probably will thank me.”

  Vocho had to concede he had a point.

  Petri slid the paper out of his glove, leaving a dark red smear behind it. How long did it take for the blood to dry? Vocho wondered. Did they do something to it to keep it damp longer? It didn’t matter because this blood was still gleaming wetly.

  That piece of paper loomed large in Vocho’s mind, made his back itch and burn in some half-remembered nightmare. He wanted to run – anywhere, didn’t matter, just not be here – and that thought was so strange it left him speechless for perhaps the first time in his life. He’d never run from a fair fight – from an arrest warrant for murder or an unfair fight, yes, but from a fair fight, never. He wanted to now. Quite badly.

  Eggy tipped his head to one side as though he could see the thought running through Vocho’s head. Such a self-possessed bastard, always had been. Eggy looked at the paper for a moment and then stepped forward smartly, dropped it in front of Vocho and stepped back at a much faster pace. The paper fluttered one way and another, and Eggy said a word.

  There was nothing to hide behind, no place to go because even though Eggy’s companions were retreating, they still had him in their sights. Vocho watched that piece of paper as it flapped down in front of him like it was the end of the world. Vaporised – not the way he’d expected to go.

  A strange noise came from his left, and Dom’s sword arrowed through the air in front of Vocho and neatly pinned the paper to one of Eggy’s cohorts. Eggy didn’t stop, and neither did Vocho – they ran out of the tavern like the Clockwork God would grind them in his gears if they stayed. A faint boom followed, along with a sizzle and the odour of freshly cooked meat. It fair made Vocho’s stomach turn. Vocho didn’t stop running either. He’d accidentally – perhaps – killed a priest, had run and hid and tried to keep his head down. Consequences were bound to follow, but this was getting ridiculous.

  He pounded down the street in the opposite direction to a certainly unnerved Eggy and considered himself lucky when, after some twists, turns and doubling back, he found he was on his own.

  Interlude

  Twelve years earlier

  Vocho swore under his breath and wiped sweat from his eyes. No matter what he did, Kacha was always one step ahead. Her face was set now, focused on making sure she won, and he tried to do the same, but the thought of Da and the way he always looked to Kacha first kept popping up. Now Eneko, the guild master, was doing the same, playing favourites. All these years at the guild and Kacha could still beat him. At reading, at writing, at everything, and especially the thing that had Vocho ready to spit, at swordplay. Always she got the praise, the smile, the pat on the back from Eneko if not from their guild mates, and he got the “Never mind, son.” Even now, the little group of other lessers in the guild – boys and a few girls all about turning into their teens who’d not yet taken their journeyman’s test – were rooting for her, not him. They crowded onto a green area in a quiet part of the little strip of land over the river that separated the guild from the rest of Reyes. Technically none of them should be there, but it was an old tradition, this unofficial sparring in sight of the Shrive.

  He was getting close, he could feel it. They were of a height now, at last, and that helped. He tried another attack, tried sneaking round on her off side, where she’d be part blinded by the setting sun, but she caught it at the last second and turned his blade.

  He recovered well, but that wasn’t enough. He wa
nted to beat her, just once. Just so he could say he had. OK, once probably wouldn’t be enough, but it would do to be going on with. Besides, he’d bet a fair sum that he’d win today, money he couldn’t afford to lose.

  Screw it – screw all the proprieties. Screw all the etiquette of formal sparring and Ruffelo’s rules for gentlefolk. The clockwork duellist, unofficial goddess to the Clockwork God, who watched over the guild, wasn’t overseeing this fight so the rules could get stuffed. He changed his stance slightly, subtly, to the more free-form Icthian style, where rules were what other people kept to and impulse, speed and brute force were the order of the day. They’d only just started learning it – Eneko insisted that this style wasn’t for duelling or sparring but for working – but Vocho had known it was more his sort of style from the off.

  She noticed his move – no matter how subtle he thought he’d been – and made to counter it, but not quickly enough. He went for her, three quick thrusts to the face that would have had him kicked out of the arena in a heartbeat. She skipped back. The little crowd cheered and Vocho ground his teeth as they called her name, exhorted her to just beat him and get it over with.

  Kacha allowed herself a small grin at his expense, and that’s when he lost it. Always she won. Always she was the favourite. Always she was one step ahead, leaving him second best. Kacha the golden, Kacha who’d never known the end of Da’s belt, who’d had all his attention and praise. Perfect bloody Kacha. Afterwards he was never sure, not really. He always told her it was an accident, and maybe it was. Or maybe it was his first really big lie.

  He thrust and thrust again followed by a flurry of brutal overhand blows that forced her back. His first bit of luck – he caught her blade with his and they struggled, faces an inch apart before he managed to shove her back. And was his foot in the way on purpose? Did he yank it back against her leg, too quick to see, making her overbalance? If he did, well, that was the Icthian style for you. Never use only your sword; use anything and everything you’ve got.