Another Ranger came up the stairs and snapped a sharp salute. “My Lord,” he said, “resistance has ceased. The town is ours.”
It was a victory that left a bad taste in my mouth.
Only the Household Rangers could take a castle with three dozen men. Not much of a castle, granted, and the war had drawn off almost every male between fifteen and fifty, but still. The garrison numbered at least seventy, including the dead. Half had simply surrendered.
We paid a price for it. Nine of the Rangers lay dead. Four wounded, and one of them wouldn't last the night. And then... Adar.
We found the boy's body lying naked in the castle's refuse heap. Dry eyes locked open in awful surprise. Corpse flies clouded thick around him, taking their meal. Beaten and broken as we were, it took three of us to lift the boy out, and even then Sir Erroll did most of the work. We washed the body down with buckets of water until we could approach it despite the lingering smell of decay.
Aemedd stepped forward, leaning heavily on a walking staff, and studied the body from under half-closed eyelids. The scholar was a pale shadow of a man, even thinner than I remembered him, like a collection of tent-sticks supporting a dirty robe. He broke into another violent hacking fit as I watched.
“If anyone desires to speak,” he intoned, the words ritual and all too familiar, “make your voices heard.”
Faro moved first. He knelt by Adar's side and laid a hand on the boy's breast. He fought to swallow, tears on his cheeks, voice thick with grief. “He was... my friend. May God take pity on his soul. Grant him peace and life after life.”
“I would've died,” I said as I knelt painfully. I placed my hand on top of the squire's. “He saved us all, whether he meant to or not. May God take pity on his soul. Grant him peace and life after life.”
One by one, the others joined our semi-circle and spoke their own words. Only Yazizi kept quiet as she added her hand. She'd be offering different prayers to different gods, later.
Aemedd finished the chant. “We consign this boy into Your care, Merciful Father, imploring You to absolve him of the sins of the world and allow him to know Paradise.”
We carried him to a grave the Rangers had dug for us, lowered him gently into the hole, and gave him back to the earth.
The impromptu funeral broke up in a matter of moments. Sir Erroll excused himself, no doubt to go search for his shield. Aemedd followed him. I couldn't really blame them, I felt the same tug to get my breastplate back, and left the others to do the mourning. I still wasn't ready to tackle those feelings. I did my best grieving with a bottle in hand.
Most of our kit turned up in a ground-floor storeroom, in a crude pile. Anything valuable was already gone. The Duke's boys knew how to loot and pillage. The bronzes, however, weren't there. We went through the entire keep before we found a secret cubbyhole in the room Penn had been using for himself.
A collective sigh of relief went through us. Our artifacts lay neatly arranged on a writing desk inside the hidden niche, as if for inspection. The straps, buckles and bindings were gone, although I saw specks of ash where it looked like something had burnt away.
On the other side of the room was a small desk, taken up by hastily-abandoned writing equipment and a journal. I backed away and let Aemedd investigate, while the scholar clasped his helmet to his chest.
“It seems Master Saldette kept a diary of sorts,” he chortled, then coughed. “He was in the middle of writing when the Rangers surprised him.”
“What does it say?” demanded Sir Erroll.
The scholar put his fingertips on the open page and scanned its words. His lips moved faintly as he translated from the holy tongue. Whatever he read there, it turned his face grey, above and beyond his already sickly pallor.
“'I have tried to destroy them,'“ Aemedd read aloud. “'Hammers will not do it. Horses will not do it. The bronze refuses to break or bend. I threw them into a blacksmith's furnace and it accomplished nothing. It is becoming clear that she desires these pieces for a reason. Their value to the war effort is nebulous, yet I must entertain the possibility that her vision exceeds my own. There is something deeply nefarious about her quest. I can feel it in my bones.'“ He took a breath and shifted his finger to the next page. “'I shall increase the forcefulness of my questioning. The rest of her group has proven to be utterly clueless. She must be the focus of interrogation, and if she persists in her reticence, I must take a harder hand. I have already despatched a messenger bird to Saltring, informing my Lord of everything I have learned. He shall know what to do.'“
I said, “Wonderful. That's just what we needed.”
When I glanced at Sir Erroll, Penn's words shot back into my mind. Erick Selcourt. I'd heard the name mentioned in stories and rumours, but really, I knew very little. He defected long after I left the Army and ceased to care about the war's sordid details. Maybe I could speak to him later, in private.
“Anyone he sends after us is still days away,” the knight replied. He kept one hand on his shield, staring at my breastplate beside it. “More to the point, where is the fifth artifact?”
I quirked an eyebrow. “What?”
“The one we found. The vambrace. It isn't here.”
To my shock, he was right. Once Sir Erroll picked up the shield, only my breastplate remained on the table. My blood turned to ice at the thought of Penn smuggling one away to deny us. I met Sir Erroll's eyes and found the same conclusion in his mind.
“Search the room!” he snapped. “Leave no stone unturned!”
“There's no need to panic, Sir,” sang the woman. She stood in the open doorway, arms crossed, leaning against the frame. Yazizi and Faro were at her shoulders. “I told you, I hid them somewhere none of you would think to look.”
At a gesture from her, Yazizi pulled up her right sleeve to show the vambrace gleaming underneath. The knight's jaw almost hit the floor. I couldn't hide my surprise, but I didn't share the apoplectic rage that was making its way to Sir Erroll's face. His cheeks turned purple, no matter how hard he tried to keep a lid on it.
He squeaked, “You gave it to her?”
“You question my judgement?” She speared him with a look, and he wilted under its weight. “You have not taken the proper care in hiding what you carry, Sir. None of you have. Should I trust you with two pieces when I can't trust you with one?”
The knight shrank like a beaten dog. Wounded pride flickered in his eyes, but he had no defence against her wicked tongue. His vows and chivalric ideals kept him from responding in kind.
“How long do we have until the Duke comes battering down our doors?” she asked Aemedd.
“Three days. Less, if they push hard enough.”
“Then we should prepare to march tomorrow. We can travel at night, and once we reach the Catsclaws‒”
The clearing of a throat stopped her in mid-sentence. She turned and found Descard, down on one knee, eyes trained on her feet. He hadn't let her out of his sight since the rescue, but he'd kept his mouth shut until now. I wondered what caused him to break his silence.
“Milady,” he said. “With regret, I cannot allow you to continue that journey.”
She was taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“I have orders. Now that you're found, I am honour-bound to escort you and your companions back to Kingsport. No discussion is possible. Your wishes cannot supersede His Majesty's.”
I saw her eyes narrow with understanding. “I see. You mean to tell me my witless buffoon of a brother wants me led home like a piece of cattle. If you intend to treat me as property, to be ordered about at dear Lauric's whim, at least have the stones to say it.”
A collective hiss of shock went through the room. Those words would have gotten anyone else executed for treason on the spot. Descard remained on one knee, pretending he hadn't heard.
“Forgive me. I have no choice in it, nor do you.”
For the longest time she remained silent. I saw the faint trembling of her hands. She was sh
aking in anger, slipping through her vice-tight control. When she finally spoke, her voice rang out like a whip.
“As you wish, Ranger.” She pushed her wrists together and held them out. “Drag me back in chains.”
4. Book of the East
“One contract, one client.”
- Contractor's Fourth Rule
Fever finally overcame me while we rested in Grimsfield. They put me to bed in a town cabin under the care of some local medicine woman. She fed me spoonfuls of gruel and a dreadful green syrup that burned my mouth, and did the same for Aemedd in the bed next to me. I spent most of the time dreaming, whether asleep or awake. Every kind of faerie or monster my imagination could conjure up danced before my eyes. All that and an old man with a cane, smiling in the background, always watching but never an obvious threat.
In the few moments of lucidity, I drank more syrup and Ranger tea, and envied the others. Yazizi, Sir Erroll and his squire got off with only a sniffle. The woman either didn't get sick at all or somehow refused to show any symptoms.
She came to sit by my bedside once. She spoke in a soothing voice and put cold cloths on my forehead. Heaven.
Meanwhile, the Rangers worked through the night to destroy the town's defences. I could hear some of the work from my bed. They fouled the water and food stores. The single, tiny bombard on the keep's roof was pushed off. It crashed at the bottom of the motte in a heap of ruined wood and bronze. They tore down the palisade gate and chopped it into kindling. Finally, they poured lantern oil all through the keep and set fire to it. It burned through the night, collapsing part of the tower, consuming everything until the interior was a blackened wreck.
Job done.
In the morning, I was barely aware of being loaded onto a wooden cart. Brief argument about moving Aemedd and myself. The Ducal army was undoubtedly on its way; Descard wouldn't give anyone the option of staying behind. He whistled to his men and gave the order to put what remained of the town to the torch.
It went up like a pile of kindling. I moaned for someone to take me away from the flames. I was hot enough already.
Not to worry, old son, Humber told me. You'll be right as rain in a few days. You'll see.
I nodded and threw up.
The days and nights ran together out on the road. An endless succession of jarring impacts on the cart's rough wooden wheels. We followed old, rarely-used paths through the riverlands, hunting for ford after ford until we finally made it across the Six Rivers delta. About half the Rangers stayed behind to cover our tracks and continue their mission.
Just like that, we were back in the South. Where the front lines lay was anyone's guess at this point, but it felt good to be closer to home.
We pushed due south-east through more of the riverlands, flat country, coloured green and brown all the way to the horizon. Our heavy wagons forced us to use the local cart tracks. Those were either pits of sucking mud or bumpy enough to break your spine. Many had been left abandoned for years, since the war first started, now overgrown or simply washed away by the pounding rains.
I breathed a sigh of relief when we reached the beautiful, glorious smoothness of the Port Road. Even feverish, I could tell the difference, and it helped.
The Port Road snaked its way up and down the eastern half of the Kingdom, connecting Kingsport to Wollin, Burford, Gallowan and the other major cities and strongholds of the East. Following it, we passed a handful of burnt-out villages. Some were decrepit ghost towns, long-dead, while others had been put to the torch only a few weeks ago. The Duke's troops had been through here.
One morning I awoke under a soft canopy of blossoming cherry trees. Seemed we'd reached Red Aran's Wood. Bandit country. Someone, maybe Faro, asked if these bandits could pose any threat to us. The Rangers just laughed.
The country softened closer to Kingsport. Untouched villages lined the road, and whenever we stopped, the locals gave us a warm welcome. Someone would feed me hot meals and tea. That did me more good than anything else along the way.
My fever broke at last on the morning of our arrival. Consciousness crept up on me like a thief. My eyes fluttered open to the touch of sunlight. Weakly, I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked around. The woods had given way to grassy, rolling hills. The dirt-brown ribbon of the Port Road wound up and down the landscape towards a white speck on the horizon. The towering walls of Kingsport itself. I basked in the sight of them. Never thought I'd set eyes on something so friendly and welcoming again.
A sharp pain in my chest broke the spell. I looked down and realised Penn's needles were gone. Peeling back the stinging poultice over my breast, I found only a few semi-healed pinholes. The flesh was red and raw, but it looked like it would heal.
Aemedd lay on the cart beside me. I glanced over, and flinched at the state of him. His skin was grey and stretched like parchment, his lips cracked and scabbed. He stared straight upward with blank eyes. For a while I really thought he'd died. Then he blinked and let out a soft groan.
“Professor,” I whispered. “Can you hear me?”
Vacant eyes flickered and rolled to look at me. A dry pink tongue came out to lick his lips. His voice croaked out of his throat like a listless drift of wind, “Byren. I am still here.”
“Thank God! We're almost home. You'll be fine once we get to Kingsport.”
“Thank you,” he forced a smile, “for the sentiment.”
The conversation ended there, both because he slipped back into sleep and because Faro noticed my recovery with an immense cry of elation. He jumped off his horse and ran to clasp my hand.
“You!” he laughed. Others began to gather round, all smiles and relief. “You like to make us worry, don't you?”
Sir Erroll pushed him back, growling, “Don't crowd the man. Let him breathe!”
“I'm fine,” I protested and tried to sit up. Bad idea. The altitude made me dizzy, the blood rushing out of my head all at once. Thankfully the knight caught me before I bashed my skull against the cart. He supported me until the feeling passed.
The woman met my eyes and tilted her head to the side, amused. I got the feeling she hadn't been this happy in a while. “I don't think Master Byren is ever willing to accept defeat.”
“Nor you, Milady,” I said, grinning weakly at her. Her attention mattered more to me than anyone else's. Humber was right ‒ just her smile could bring me back from the brink of death.
She bowed her head and let the other well-wishers offer their words. Sir Erroll and Descard shook my hand in turn. If nothing else, the knight appreciated me saving his skin, although the lingering resentments hadn't gone anywhere. As for the Ranger... He hadn't made many friends in this group. The woman hated him by default, which meant Sir Erroll did too, and Faro took the brunt of his master's moods. Misery always trickled down from the top. Even now there was a definite chill when Descard entered our space.
At the rear of the group, Yazizi blew me a surreptitious kiss. Strange girl... I thought she would've fully shifted her sights to the squire by now. Was she teasing me, or trying to have us both?
There was a great deal about Harari women I didn't understand. Then again, I could say that about all women, everywhere.
“Let's get you to the city,” said Descard. “A room at Winter Court and a few hot meals from His Majesty's kitchen will fix you right up.”
That did sound awfully appealing. I still felt a faint tug at the back of my mind, annoyed at this detour from the mission, but maybe I could push it down for a few days of living in the lap of luxury. Maybe I could suffer through it.
By God, I had to try.
The city of Kingsport actually began several miles outside the wall. The vast stretches of farmland, all but bare after the harvest, merged into slums and roadside businesses. Haulers, stables, taverns. A street market offered every kind of fresh food and drink. Not enough of it, though. The stalls I saw were far from well-stocked. Few people seemed to be buying, and from the inflated prices the sellers bandied about,
I could understand why.
A heavy, insistent drizzle started to fall around us. Going by the thick grey blanket in the sky, it wouldn't stop anytime soon. The autumn rains were beginning.
The road to the wall climbed higher and higher up one of Kingsport's many hills. It was steep and bone-jarringly uncomfortable, at least for me in the cart. The reception made up for a few things, though. The moment they saw us, the men on the wall sprang to attention and cleared the way to let us pass. Dozens of people were pushed aside, wagons and all, so we could speed through the huge iron-bound gates. The grey cloaks of the Household Rangers carried a lot of weight here.
Aran's Cross spread out below me. It was a small valley between the hills, shaped roughly like a prayer cross, where a young warlord called Aran ‒ the First, King of Kings ‒ decided to found his new capital. Now, hundreds of years later, it no longer looked like a collection of crude huts around a palisade. Now it was a mass of whitewashed stone, marble and exotic wood. Roofs came in every colour of the rainbow: blue clay, zinc, copper, and gold.
Underneath them lived every variety of rich wanker in the Kingdom. Oh, I'd heard stories.
At the head of the cross stood the Twins, two of the tallest hills in the city, pressed together like a woman's bosom. What was on top of them took my breath away.
Like the buildings in Aran's Cross, Winter Court was white as snow. It was the only building on the Twins, stretching its immense curtain walls across both hills and the little plateau between them. From where I sat I could count one, two, three separate ring-walls. Dozens of turrets and gatehouses commanded every approach. They bristled with heavy bombards and catapults. At the beating heart of the castle, the Ivory Tower loomed over everything else, giving archers and artillery a clear shot at every inch of ground below them.
Written in Blood Page 27
