“One today, two tomorrow, four the day after, eight the day after that and on and on and on, until somebody gives you up.”
“You’ll get me in a rush but I’ll leave a lot of small bodies in my wake,” Thornto told him. Cross had her crossbow levelled at his face before he’d finished. The Ponce held up his hand.
“This is a bad day to threaten children in my presence,” he said very quietly, somehow still menacing despite his tear and snot-stained face, or perhaps because of it.
“How’d they know you were involved?” Thornto asked, nodding towards Cross. “She covered her tracks well.”
“She shouldn’t have been involved at all. You used your name, like a fool, when you slaughtered the guards at the West Gate. They tracked you back to the bodypits. They know you must have had help from inside the city, so they’ll punish the people until you’re handed over. It was just Michaela’s bad luck that she was chosen first. They raised her up on a spear, the bastards!”
“Our deal?” Thornto demanded, some urgency in his voice. He was aware of Cross tensing. Her crossbow was still aimed at him.
“Our deal is a secondary consideration to the safety of my family.”
“Well we’re back to where we started,” Thornto growled. “It’s the Red Earl doing this?”
“Yes,” the Ponce told him, “he’s known for such tactics and my spies tell me he’s in charge of the city until the prince arrives.
“Prince Sieber is coming here?” Thornto asked.
“Which is why the Earl has to get the city under control before he arrives. He’s moving the Crimson Companies into the city. The rest of the army will march on Tivok. The Harlanian armies are in full retreat. There is talk of the prince forming a court here. Turning Maranges into the capital of the Iron Island’s holding in the Harlanian territories.”
“I need to know where the members of the Crimson Companies drink and whore.”
“I can make certain precautions to keep my people safe from their reprisals but I am not a monster. The people of this city have suffered enough. I will not tolerate many more deaths,” the Ponce told him.
Thornto almost asked him how many more he would tolerate. How much time he had, but he thought the better of it.
“I will need something else from you,” Thornto told him.
“You’re trying my patience. What do you have to offer?”
“We free the Crimson Companies’ captives. Those traded to the Red Earl by the Hierophant.” It was the first thing that had come to Thornto’s mind.
The Ponce narrowed his eyes. Thornto could see him thinking it through.
“And what else do you want from me?” the Ponce asked. He’d put some emphasis on the word ‘else’.
“Her help,” Thornto said stabbing a finger towards Cross.
Six:
The Ambush
Even Thornto was nervous carrying two cocked firelocks in their holsters, their lit match cords charring the mail of his hauberk as he leaned against the wall of a house. The house was on the corner of one of the tiny alleyways that criss-crossed the city, and one of the wider cobbled streets. Nearby he could hear the bustle of the Murdered Goat tavern, raucous cries, laughter, raised voices and the near constant sobbing that seemed to accompany the men of the Crimson Companies wherever they went. Thornto waited.
Some time later Jacamo sauntered into the alleyway.
“The Island Monkeys are coming,” the boy whispered. Jacamo picked his armour up from the small bundle of his belongings that he’d left with Thornto, pulling it on as quickly as he could.
“The one I told you about...?” Thornto asked.
“Yes,” Jacomo confirmed. His armour wasn’t properly strapped up but when they heard the sound of boots on the cobbles Jacamo dropped his cudgel through a loop on his belt and started climbing up the wall of the corner house making for the roof.
Thornto shifted his halberd and listened. Judging by the footsteps the approaching men were staggering. It seemed they’d drunk their fill. He could hear them talking and he recognised at least one of their voices. Jacamo had done his job well. It was luck that they happened to be coming down the same side of the street as the alleyway Thornto was hiding in.
He let them get close enough to smell before he swung out in front of them. Thornto rammed the base spike of his halberd through one of the soldiers. The sharp point penetrated his mail, went in through the soldier’s chest and exploded out the small of his back. Thornto drove it through until the point hit the cobbles and then left the soldier there impaled. Now the other two started to react. Drink-dulled instinct had them reaching for their swords. Thornto drew both pistols and fired one. Noise and light momentarily filled the street, the smoke lingered and the second soldier was falling to the ground. The remaining pistol was levelled at Rust Mouth’s face. The Crimson Companies sergeant froze, his sword half way out of its sheath.
“Hello Sergeant Black,” Thornto said.
Rust Mouth smiled, orange spittle running down his chin, his eyes glittering in the moonlight.
“Well, well, look at you,” he said. He let his sword drop back into its scabbard.
The soldier Thornto had impaled was still alive, barely. The man had managed to keep a hold of his tankard somehow as he slid down the bloody haft of the poleaxe.
Rust Mouth looked around the street.
“Good place for an ambush, you’re learning,” he said.
Thornto holstered the pistol he’d fired. The soldier he’d impaled finally finished his descent down the haft.
“Into the house, Sergeant,” he told Rust Mouth, gesturing with the still loaded firelock.
“Maybe a little too good,” Rust Mouth said and didn’t move. “A little too obvious.”
“Last chance, Sergeant,” Thornto told him. Then he heard the shouted command.
Arquebusiers appeared along the roofs of the surrounding buildings, in the windows, their match cords burning, their weapons all aimed at him.
“You killed some friends of mine, you piece of shit!” Rust Mouth spat.
“Drop your pistol!” Thornto recognised Frederick Cotter’s voice.
“Easy Fred and all his friends have got you covered,” Rust mouth told him.
Thornto risked taking his eyes off Rust Mouth to locate Cotter. He was atop the steep roof of a house that leaned precariously over the cobbles on the other side of the street. He had a firelock musket in its forked stand aimed at Thornto. Cotter’s normally vacant expression had been replaced by a smug smile.
“Now put it down,” Rust Mouth snapped, “the earl would like a bit of a chat with you.”
“Everything in time,” Thornto breathed.
A crossbow bolt suddenly grew out of the side of Cotter’s face. He lost his balance and slid down the roof, discharging his musket into the air before plummeting to the cobbles.
Thornto lowered the pistol and fired as Rust Mouth reached for his sword again. The ball hit Rust Mouth in the foot. The sergeant screamed but continued drawing his sword. All hell was breaking loosed on the rooftops. The Crimson Companies may have ruled the streets but the rooftops belonged to the Ponce’s people. Jacamo had told Rust Mouth that Thornto was hunting for him, that he could be drawn out, and the boy had been well rewarded for it. Then the Ponce’s children had watched the Crimson Companies move into position to ensure the ambush was going to happen, and that Rust Mouth would be used as bait. Thornto knew that right now the arquebusiers were being pelted with stones, sling bullets, sharpened coins, the odd crossbow bolt and anything else the kids could find to soften them up. Then the adults in the Ponce’s service would go in, the brawlers, street thugs and cutthroats. They weren’t taking risks, either. They knew the men of the Crimson Companies were hardened soldiers, so there were at least three of the Ponce’s people to each of the arquebusiers.
Several of the Crimson Company soldiers fired at Thornto but they were not the most accurate of weapons at the best of time and the smoke of Thorn
to’s own pistol had enveloped both him and Rust Mouth. Thornto flipped his pistol, caught the still hot barrel and struck Rust Mouth on the temple with the weapon’s butt. Rust Mouth’s sword had cleared its scabbard but the force of the blow put the sergeant down on one knee. Thornto stamped on the sword’s blade, wrenching it from Rust Mouth’s grip, and then moved around behind him, holstering his pistol. He drew one of his daggers and grabbed the sergeant by his hair, put his dagger to Rust Mouth’s throat and dragged him through the door into the empty house.
The sergeant grabbed for Thornto’s hand, so Thornto slammed the pommel of his dagger into Rust Mouth’s face. The sergeant stopped struggling and slumped to the floor. Thornto turned and walked back out into the street, sheathing his knife as he went.
The street was full of smoke now. There was a wet crunching noise as an arquebusier fell from the roof, narrowly missing Thornto. He pulled his halberd out of the body he’d impaled and walked across the street. On a rooftop opposite he saw one of the arquebusiers pulled down and small hands wielding narrow bladed knives went looking for gaps in armour and a new scream was added to the clamour. Fire from the arquebuses lit up the smoke from within. Thornto saw the passage of the ball through the smoke and felt something tug at his coat.
He found Cotter where he’d fallen. The man was still alive but looked like a wounded dog as he tried to crawl across the cobbles. Thornto put him out of his misery. He swung the halberd with all his might. Cotter saw the axehead falling towards him and opened his mouth to scream. The axe broke the remaining teeth in his mouth and cut off the top of his head.
Thornto turned and headed back towards the house. He’d almost reached the door when he saw the small, broken body in the street. He turned it over with his boot and recognised Jacamo despite the fact that half the boy’s face was missing. Something stirred within him. Some fragment of whom he’d once been, some sense that this shouldn’t have happened. Then he stepped over the body. There was another explosion within the drifting smoke. Thornto staggered sideways but remained on his feet. That he’d felt. His arm was wet. He practically threw himself into the house where he’d left Rust Mouth.
The sergeant was trying to push himself up onto his feet. Thornto kicked him in the groin, hard enough to make him scream and then puke. Rust Mouth collapsed, sobbing, face down on the wooden boards. Thornto opened a trap door in the floor and froze on hearing a crash followed by a thump from upstairs as someone fell through the house’s thatched roof. Moments later, one of the arquebusiers tumbled down the narrow staircase. Thornto readied his halberd but the man wasn’t paying any attention to him. Instead, crying, he dragged himself across the floor towards the door leaving a bloody trail behind him. A little girl, a dripping blade in each hand, arms red past the elbow, came down the stairs after him. She also paid no attention to Thornto until she’d cut the soldier’s throat. Then she turned around to look at him for a moment or two before going back up the stairs. Thornto watched her go and then dragged Rust Mouth across the floor and dropped him through the trapdoor and into the sewers.
Rust Mouth woke up when Cross nailed his hands to the table.
“Oh you fucking bitch!” he cried once he’d finished screaming. He was bent over the table face down.
A resigned Gritcham had removed the ball and sewn up the wound in Thornto’s arm without so much as a word. His arm didn’t feel right, it felt lighter, weaker, but he was able to move it fully as far as he could tell. When Thornto had left Gritcham, the ghoul had been curled up in the corner with his hands over his large membranous ears. Gritcham knew what was coming next.
The Ponce hadn’t been sure that he wanted Rust Mouth questioned in his warren. He thought the screams might be bad for the children, right up until he’d seen Jacamo’s body. The butcher’s bill had been relatively light, and mostly it had been the elder street fighters who’d died on the roof, but Jacamo had been popular. Nobody was going to blink an eye if they had to listen to one of the men responsible for his death screaming.
“The things we’ll do to you!” Rust Mouth promised Cross as she leaned against the wall and folded her arms. Thornto punched Rust Mouth in the face, too hard. The sergeant bit off the tip of his tongue with his rusted teeth, his eyes rolled up into his head and he vomited all over the table. The force of the blow had torn some of the flesh around the nails through his hands. Thornto spat on him.
“Oh, you fuggin’ bastards!” Rust Mouth managed, drooling blood and the tip of his tongue onto the table. He succeeded in turning his head to look at Thornto. “Look what you did to yourself... You stink like a dead man.” His speech was badly slurred. Thornto wondered if he’d hit the sergeant in the head too hard. “Does your corpse fucking whore know what a coward you are?” he asked. He turned to look at Cross. “When we stormed your city, raped it so all your children will look like us to remind you, I found this one lying in a puddle of his own shit whimpering like a baby.”
His rage powered by the element of truth in the story, Thornto rammed Rust Mouth down on the table, ready to beat in the back of his skull when Cross grabbed his raised arm. It was of course what Rust Mouth wanted. He knew that the best he could hope for was a quick death. Thornto lowered his fist and stepped back. Rust Mouth was laughing.
“Who would have thought an old blackened soul like me would end up being the good guy?” Rust Mouth asked. He really did seem to find the situation amusing.
“What are you talking about?” Thornto snapped. The sergeant’s words made no sense.
“You were dead when Faecal scraped his knife across your throat, dead when my lads threw you into the bodypits. The only way you’re coming back is necromancy or a deal with Old Forky hisself, probably both! Where’s the ghoul, aye?”
“You’ll see him when he’s hungry,” Thornto said, but it sounded weak even to his own ears. Just for a moment, however, he thought he saw a haunted expression on Rust Mouth’s features. It was an old soldier’s fear.
“We need you to tell us the Red Earl’s plans. Where he sleeps, his travel arrangements, what he’s doing with the captives he’s taking, all of it. Spare nothing.” Thornto told him. Rust Mouth just laughed.
“Look, I know you’re going to kill me, whether you hurt me beforehand doesn’t make much difference.”
Thornto believed the sergeant. He moved round behind him and started loosening his trews.
“’Ere, wait, what are you doing?” Rust Mouth demanded. Thornto dragged the sergeant’s trews down to his ankles, then his small clothes, and even with his dulled sense of smell he gagged. It didn’t look much better. “Do you think I’m afraid of a buggering!” Rust Mouth demanded. “I can take a buggering as well as any man in this army!”
Thornto held up the small wax sealed packet, offering it to Cross. She just shook her head. He steeled himself and then inserted it.
“What are you doing?” Rust Mouth screamed.
Thornto unspooled the fuse until it was long enough for Rust Mouth to see.
“What is that?” Rust Mouth demanded.
“A fuse,” Thornto said lighting it with a candle.
Rust Mouth stared in horror as the fuse started to burn.
“It’s not a very big charge,” Thornto told the sergeant who was watching the progress of the fuse very intently. “Probably not even enough to kill you. Immediately, anyway.”
“We did you quick, you cunt!” Rust Mouth screamed.
Thornto grabbed him by the hair and twisted his head round to look up at him.
“Tell me something useful and I’ll do you quick, you cunt!” Thornto spat. He’d underestimated just how much he hated Rust Mouth.
The sergeant’s eyes followed the fuse until it was out of his sight. Thornto just waited. Cross was leaning against the wall in the corner again. They waited, until Rust Mouth begged.
“I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” Rust Mouth screamed.
“Quickly,” Thornto suggested.
Rust Mouth told him something very inter
esting indeed. Thornto cut the fuse.
“Go on.”
It took a while for Rust Mouth to tell them everything he knew. When he’d finished, Thornto relit the fuse. Rust Mouth was still screaming obscenities at them as they left the room. It may have only been a small packet of black powder but the subsequent explosion was enough to blow the door off its hinges. Astonishingly Rust Mouth was still alive. His screaming had changed pitch, though. It sounded like the agonised death throes of a horribly wounded animal. The screams didn’t go on for too much longer, thankfully.
Seven:
The Kidnapping
The burning wagon rolled down the wooded slope and onto the road, knocking over one of the escorts’ mounts and bringing the carriage to a halt amidst panicking horseflesh.
Thornto waited in the woods, a firelock in each hand, match cords burning. The four Crimson Companies men-at-arms ahead of the carriage struggled to control their mounts amongst the flames. The carriage driver was attempting to control the panicking team of four that pulled the carriage.
Another four men-at-arms rode escort behind the carriage. They were drawing swords and looking into the woods. They knew what came next. Suddenly one of the rear escort’s mounts reared, throwing its rider. The horse started bucking, kicking out wildly. The other three riders tried to get out of the way of the frenzied warhorse but then another horse reared, and another, as Cross put crossbow bolts into their flesh. Each of her bolts was painted in a pain-inducing alchemical compound that Gritcham had mixed for her. Chaos rained on the road from the western coastal city of Sailesport.
Thornto walked out of the woods, making for the men-at-arms between the burning wagon and the panicking carriage team. One of the men-at-arms had just got his warhorse under control when Thornto walked up and shot him in the face at near point blank range. It was too much for the horse and it bolted. Thornto fired at a second man-at-arms but missed. He pulled his halberd from his back and calmly slipped the sling off it. The second man-at-arms’ horse reared again. Thornto stabbed at it with the point of the halberd, pushing with all his might. A hoof caught him on the shoulder, knocking him to the ground but not before he’d tipped the horse over so it landed on its rider.
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