by R. S. Ford
Josten clicked his fingers. ‘Can you hear me,’ he asked.
She didn’t reply.
This was just perfect. His oldest friend was dead because of Josten’s dumb plans, and now this girl – a girl he’d kidnapped for his own greed – was catatonic.
If he’d known what trouble she was he would never have got involved. But then trouble seemed to follow Josten around like a stray dog.
When he was sure no one was following, he pulled Livia further into the wood. The thick undergrowth didn’t make the going any easier and they both found themselves tripping over roots and bushes. But he had to keep going despite the rough ground, had to put as much distance between them and the town as possible.
Eventually they came out into a clearing. The moon was bright enough to see and he sat Livia down, kneeling beside her. In the light he could see she still stared blankly. Josten took her by the shoulders and shook her, digging his fingers into her arms. She looked at him quizzically and he shook her again.
‘Livia?’ he said.
‘Where are we?’ the girl asked.
‘The middle of nowhere. But we’re safe,’ he said, relieved that she was coming to.
She glanced around the clearing, gripping her arms against the chill of night. He had nothing to give her to keep her warm; building a fire would be difficult but not impossible. There was a risk it would give away their location but what choice did he have? He hadn’t come this far to freeze to death in a shitty wood in the arse-end of nowhere.
It took him a while but he found enough dry wood to make a tinder bundle. Lighting a fire with sticks wasn’t easy, and it had been a while, but eventually he managed it. Josten breathed hard after, his hands almost raw from the effort. Livia watched him from the side of the clearing. She wasn’t in shock any longer, just a little bewildered at what she’d been through.
After piling more wood on the smouldering bundle, Josten told her to move closer. Soon the fire was crackling and he was relieved by the warmth. It did little to make him feel better though. Mullen was dead and nothing was going to make up for that.
As they sat in the light of the flames, Josten stared at the girl. What she’d done to those tallymen was inhuman. She’d kept the power she had a secret all this time and he had to admit it scared him some.
‘What are you?’ he asked, unable to stay silent any longer.
She looked up mournfully, then shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered.
‘If you could do that, if you had that power, why not use it earlier? Why let the tallymen take you? Why let me and Mullen?’
‘I… It’s not something I can control. It’s like I’m… in a dream. It’s like I’m someone else.’
‘That’s why Gothelm wants you so badly.’
‘I imagine he wants the power I can bring him.’
‘He won’t be the only one.’
Livia stared at him over the fire. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that every duke, king and warlord between here and the Ramadi Wastes will want you now. After what you did tonight, to those men, everyone is going to want a piece of you. There won’t be anywhere you can go this won’t follow you.’
Livia looked down. Her hair falling over her face, her shoulders trembling as she sobbed, still holding herself against the cold.
Josten felt sorrow and guilt creep up on him. He was partly responsible for this. Maybe he’d done the right thing letting her join him and Mullen, but then what good had it done her now? Mullen’s blood was on his hands and now this girl – this child – was weeping and alone in the night because he was such a selfish bastard.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, sitting down beside her. ‘We’ll find a way out of this.’
‘We?’ she said, looking up with tear-streaked eyes. ‘Why would you help me?’
Josten had to think. He was no hero. No bold knight saving the damsel in distress. And from what he’d seen tonight Livia could more than save herself.
Deep inside though, there was a part of Josten that needed to help her. He’d never killed any babies, never hung any old women, but he’d committed evil acts and he knew it. Maybe Livia was his way to redemption; a way to wipe all the dirt of his past away. But there was no way he could tell her that.
‘It’s what Mullen would have wanted,’ he said finally. ‘I think he saw you like the daughter he never had. Well, maybe a niece. A favourite one…’
‘And what about you?’ she asked.
Josten smiled. ‘I’m a mercenary. We make terrible fathers.’
‘Then I’ll hire you,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay you to take me somewhere safe.’
Josten had to stop himself laughing. ‘Two problems with that: firstly, you’ve got nothing to pay me with. Second, there’s nowhere safe. For either of us. Everyone I know wants to kill me. And you don’t seem to have friends in abundance right now.’
She stood, a stubborn look fixed to her face. ‘Then we’re stuck together. You and me against the world.’ She held out her hand.
Josten looked down at it, then back to her face, full of determination.
‘I guess we are,’ he said with a smile, grasping her hand and shaking it once.
Livia flinched.
She stared at him as though he’d just slapped her and Josten wondered what the hell was happening until he noticed something protruding from her neck. She fell, and he caught her. As he lowered her to the ground he could see her eyes glazing over.
Josten plucked the thing from her neck, holding it close. A dart.
There was a shriek of triumph from the woods. Josten couldn’t see from which direction it came; the light from the fire made it impossible.
‘I told you Randal was right!’
Josten span at the voice. He recognised it – one of the tallymen who’d given him a beating.
‘Poisoned fucking blowdart?’ Another voice Josten knew. ‘I don’t believe it worked.’
Josten spun again, expecting the tallymen to rush him from the dark at any moment. With no weapon he wouldn’t stand a chance, whether he could see them or not, but he wouldn’t go down without a fight.
He needn’t have worried. They walked out slowly and calmly. Two came out at first, smiling widely, then more, until half a dozen tallymen stood around the fire.
Josten looked at Livia lying on the ground. So much for being stuck together.
The first tallyman hit him from the side. Josten went down on one knee. He was more badly hurt than he’d realised. No way he should have been taken—
A kick to his ribs knocked him on his back. The wind was blown from his lungs and he tried to breathe, humiliated at the gasping noises he made.
‘Just do him quick and let’s get back to town,’ one of them said. ‘It’s fucking freezing out here.’
‘Fuck that,’ said another – was his name Deren? ‘I’ve been waiting ages for this.’
Another sharp kick to the side of Josten’s head and he rolled over onto his front. He could see the edge of the trees and the darkness beyond. In his stupor he wondered if he’d be able to make it, to slink off into the dark before these cunts kicked him to death. As he started to crawl he heard the tallymen laughing at him.
This was how he’d die. Being laughed at by a bunch of nobodies, crawling on his belly in the cold dark. All of a sudden he missed Mullen. He could only think of how much he needed his friend right now.
Then the laughing stopped.
Josten looked up groggily as another man limped into the firelight.
He stopped beside Josten, staring at the tallymen. For a second his eye twitched, and Josten could see a pattern of scars on the left side of his face, running up beneath the scant hairline.
‘What the fuck do you want?’ Deren asked the stranger.
The man regarded each tallyman in turn before pointing at Livia. ‘Give me the girl.’
Josten had forgotten his plans of escape. This was the dumbest thing he’d ever seen. If this idiot cripple didn�
��t limp away, and soon, Josten wouldn’t be the only one getting kicked to death.
Deren walked forward. ‘Are you insane? Fuck off before I make you sorry.’
‘Give me the girl,’ repeated the cripple.
The tallymen were finding this funny. Josten couldn’t bring himself to join in with their mirth.
‘I don’t think we will,’ said Deren. ‘So, what the fuck are you going to do now?’
The cripple regarded them all matter-of-factly. ‘If you do not give her to me I will have to kill you.’
More laughter.
‘And how are you gonna do that with one good leg and no weapon?’
‘I will take yours,’ said the cripple, his eye twitching in the night.
Deren laughed again. ‘And kill us all with it? Like fuck you will.’
‘Then, so that you may witness,’ said the cripple, like he was talking to an idiot, ‘I will kill you last.’
Not all the tallymen were laughing now. Some of them looked nervous, like the joke had all of a sudden turned sour.
‘Just fucking do him,’ said one of them.
Deren drew his sword and walked forward. The cripple made no move until Deren raised his blade and brought it down with a grunt.
Josten barely saw him move, could barely track him as he stepped aside on his one good leg, hand striking out to pluck Deren’s sword from his grip and spin, using the weight of its momentum to strike. The cripple swept the blade across Deren’s gut, opening it up to the night.
Deren squealed, falling on his back, trying to staunch the blood and guts spewing from his belly. The other tallymen drew their weapons.
Josten watched as they rushed in. The cripple moved at the last second, effortlessly anticipating how each of them would attack. He cut a tallyman’s head from his shoulders, stepping aside to avoid a strike from another, the cripple’s blade sliding in and out of a ribcage so fast Josten could barely follow it. A third tallyman barely had a chance to scream as his arm was lopped off at the shoulder, his last cry cut short by the blade slicing across his throat.
Despite the cripple’s limp, his form was flawless. Josten had never seen its like. He parried blows from the last two tallymen, countering with such grace Josten barely registered the horror of one man losing a leg at the knee and the other his head.
Alone now, the cripple turned. Deren still floundered on the grass, staring in disbelief at the grievous wound in his gut.
‘Please,’ he said as the cripple limped slowly toward him. ‘Please don’t—’
The cripple finished him with a deft thrust, his free hand pushing the pommel so the sword ran Deren through, pinning him to the ground.
Then silence.
Josten felt panic suddenly grip him as he saw the cripple turn his attention to Livia.
‘Wait!’ he shouted, trying to get up off the ground. The pain in his ribs and hip meant he could barely get up on all fours.
The cripple crouched awkwardly on his bad leg, lifting Livia onto his shoulder.
‘Wait,’ cried Josten again, as the cripple walked past, not even deigning to glance in his direction.
All Josten could do was lay there as the cripple carried Livia off into the dark.
30
JOSTEN had been blindly wandering this freezing wood all night, and the rising sun brought some amount of relief. His ribs felt like they were poking out of his side and he could just about fill his lungs with air if he stopped and concentrated for long enough.
He leant against a tree, face resting against the damp, cold bark, feeling its roughness on his cheek. Just a moment’s respite. That was all he wanted. Just a few moments to rest and forget about how much his body hurt.
Someone shouted in the distance. Josten couldn’t see anyone through the trees but he knew they must be after him. Maybe more tallymen. Maybe Canio’s mercenaries. Either way it was unlikely they’d give him a big friendly hug when they found him.
Josten pushed himself off the tree trunk and moved. Every step was agony – down his hip, in his back, in his chest and lungs. His neck still burned from where they’d strung him up and his jaw and cheek ached from being beaten in the grain store. He was in a sorry state. But he was damned if he’d be caught out here in the woods like a snared rabbit.
Half a dozen tallymen lay butchered not too far back and there weren’t any witnesses to who had done the butchering. It was likely that Josten Cade was being blamed for the massacre right now. Not that it mattered anyway. Josten and Mullen had got away with more than their share of butchery over the years; it would be a fitting irony if he ended up being fingered for killings that weren’t his to claim.
Josten tried to put as much distance between him and the voices as he could but he wasn’t having much luck. In the state he was in he couldn’t cover his tracks, so it wouldn’t take a bloodhound to follow him through the dense woodland. Any fucker could follow his trail.
‘This way!’ The cry was only yards behind him.
In the dawn light he thought he could make someone out through the trees and he quickened his pace as best he could. Another glance behind reassured him there was no one too close, but with not watching where he was going his foot slipped out from under him.
He stifled a cry of alarm as he reached the edge of a ridge, realising he couldn’t stop himself. The fall was brief… and painful. He buffeted his shoulder, feeling his ribs scream at the impact as he rolled down the hill. Something sharp stuck in his leg.
Josten stuffed a fist in his mouth, biting down on muddy, bloody fingers and screwing his eyes up tight at whatever was embedded in his thigh. He braved a glance, seeing the branch of a thorn bush clinging to his leg.
Wheezing as quietly as he could he shuffled close to the ridge he had just fallen down, hearing his pursuers above. They were talking in whispers, like they knew he was close. The branch stung his leg and Josten felt tears well in his eyes. He had to get it off.
His hand shook as he grasped the branch and with a sharp tug he pulled, feeling the thorns tearing him open. He opened his mouth to scream, clamping his hand over it and letting out a muffled cry before the darkness enveloped him.
Josten fought against it, trying to stay awake, but it was too much.
His next moments flashed by in dark glimpses. Voices shouting in alarm as his hiding place was discovered. Someone taking his arms, and him too weak to resist. Being dragged, legs trailing in the dirt.
He realised he’d been caught but there was nothing he could do.
By the time they’d dragged Josten back to Canio’s camp it was dark, the stink of campfires and the waft of meat hitting him as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
They laid him on a bed. Through the fug of his stupor Josten felt tender hands treating his wounds until he finally lapsed into the blessed arms of sleep.
Freezing cold water dragged him out of a pleasant dream.
Josten sat up in a wide tent, wincing at the pain that wracked his body. Canio’s face was the first thing he focused on. It didn’t look pleased to see him.
‘Always a fucking problem, aren’t you, Cade?’ Canio said. Josten thought about replying with a smart-arsed comment but the look on Canio’s face kept him silent. ‘Lucky for you my men found you when they did or you’d be rotting in the woods somewhere.’
‘My gratitude knows no depths, Canio,’ Josten replied.
‘Don’t thank me yet. I took payment for you. We both know that means I’m bound to hold up my end of the bargain.’
‘If any of those tallymen were left alive that would worry me,’ said Josten, unable to suppress a painful smile. ‘But they’re all dead if my count’s right.’
Canio stared at him. ‘Confident of that, are you?’
Josten had a familiar sinking feeling he’d grown used to over the past few years.
The flaps to the tent opened at one end as though on cue. Randal limped in, clutching his left arm close to his body. He looked exactly how Josten felt. He’d look
a lot worse when Josten had finished with the little cunt, but as he tried to rise he felt the ache of his wounds. Two of Canio’s men pressed him back down to the bed, one half-drawing his sword.
‘Where is she?’ demanded Randal.
‘Fuck you,’ Josten spat. ‘I’ll cut your fucking throat.’
Canio stepped in between them. ‘All right, calm down,’ he said.
‘Fuck you, calm down,’ Josten replied. ‘This bastard is why Mullen’s in the dirt.’
‘I know,’ said Canio, raising his hand. ‘And I’m sorry. We all liked that big fucker, but right now you should be worrying about yourself.’
‘What have you done with her?’ Randal repeated. ‘I know there’s more in your crew. You must have had help to kill all my men. Where have they taken her?’
Seeing Randal so upset was truly satisfying, though it didn’t dull the ache he felt at the loss of Mullen.
‘It was one man,’ said Josten, the memory of it hitting him hard. ‘He cut through your boys like they were nothing. He was a cripple too. Limp, twitch, the whole show.’
‘Utter shit.’ Randal turned to Canio. ‘I paid you for delivery of the girl. You owe me.’
Canio was unmoved by Randal’s petulance. ‘And I delivered the girl. What do you expect me to do about it now?’
‘He knows where she is.’ Randal jabbed a finger toward Josten. ‘Make him tell you where they’ve got her.’
‘And how do I—’
‘Fucking cut his balls off for all I care. Just find out.’
Canio glanced over at Josten as though he was considering it, then back at Randal. ‘No one is getting their balls cut off.’
‘Is that right?’ Randal said, drawing the knife at his belt.
He stalked towards Josten but before he could get close enough to geld him, Canio grasped Randal’s wrist.
‘I said no.’ Canio had never been a man to ask a thing twice.
The tallyman backed down, moving away and reluctantly sheathing his blade. Arrogance fell like a mask over his face. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll find their trail. But I need to borrow your men.’
‘You must be kidding,’ said Canio.
‘Do I look like I make jokes? I’ve paid you handsomely for delivery of the girl. I want my money’s worth. You’ve been paid for services that weren’t delivered. I think that will tarnish your reputation among the mercenary companies when it gets out. And I know what you’re thinking, but making me disappear won’t solve anything. My men are dead; there’s an entire village that saw us arrive. As soon as word gets back to Gothelm that you’re responsible for the deaths of his tallymen, half the duchy will be sent to wipe your company from the face of the earth.’ He paused, letting his words sink in. ‘Five men should do it.’
