Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North

by Luke Scull

  Kayne’s reputation had spread far beyond Watcher’s Keep. Ever since he’d slain the two blink demons a couple of years back, more youngsters than ever were turning up at the great citadel, hoping to imitate the Warden with the bright blue eyes and the sword that never faltered. Over the last seven years Brodar Kayne had killed more demonkin that he could count, dire wolves and trolls by the dozen. Even a giant that had wandered down from the Spine the autumn just past.

  There was a certain satisfaction in his skills being acknowledged, he had to admit. Before stepping down to be replaced by the Foehammer, Kalgar had told Kayne that though he might be wild and reckless, he trained harder than any other Warden. It was that relentless anger which had driven Kayne to be the best. He reckoned he’d mastered that fury now he was a father, or at least he hoped he had.

  He was still thinking of Magnar, of the moment he’d first cradled his son in his arms, when his horse screamed and bucked wildly beneath him. He caught a glimpse of a feathered shaft sticking out of the animal’s flank a moment before he was thrown to the ground with bone-jarring force. The mare bolted, leaving him flat on his arse and staring up at the late-afternoon sky.

  Another arrow struck the mud a hand’s breadth from his head. He rolled and leaped to his feet, ignoring the explosion of pain in his back. Pain was just the body’s way of telling a man he needed to focus. Now that his burning anger had dulled, Kayne found ice-cold clarity easy to come by. So easy that Taran and the others had started to question if he had ice in his veins.

  With fire and ice the strongest swords are forged. Braxus had told him that once. He sometimes wondered if his friend had missed his true calling as a bard. He had a way with words, did Brax, when he chose to use them.

  Kayne drew his longsword, feeling naked without his shield. It was strapped to the back of his mount and the horse was probably halfway to Watcher’s Keep by now. He looked around without seeing his attackers, though a quick glance at the arrow sticking out of the ground suggested they were hiding in the hills some ways over to his left. Sure enough, a voice suddenly called out from that direction.

  ‘Been a while, angel eyes.’

  He’d been wondering why outlaws would attack a Warden, and a well-known one at that. Not any more. Like a dormant volcano stirring to life, the old rage began to burn. ‘Skarn.’

  ‘I knew you’d remember me! What did I tell you, Ryder? I told you he’d remember me!’

  ‘Should I shoot him?’

  ‘In a moment. So, angel eyes. We heard the stories while we was down in Glistig a few months back. Hard to believe it was the same coward who bailed on us all those years ago, but the description seemed to match. They say you’re a hero now.’

  Kayne tried to keep his voice calm, though his blood was like molten metal in his veins. ‘Come out where I can see you.’

  ‘I don’t think so. How are you enjoying fatherhood? Heard you got a wife and son over in the village near here. Thought the boys and me might go pay them a visit after we’re done with you.’

  His heart seemed to freeze in his chest. ‘You go near them, you’re a dead man. You and everyone with you.’

  ‘That’s the spirit! Could have done with that attitude back when we was cutting a bloody swathe through the Green Reaching. Instead you fled with that limp-dick Red Nose or whatever the fuck his name was. Lost half the band soon after. Men are like horses – once one breaks, they all start running off.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Kayne asked, mouth so dry his voice was little more than a rasp. He glanced around, searching for anything he could use to his advantage, praying that the archer wouldn’t take that as a sign to start shooting at him again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a building.

  ‘What do I want? I want you dead, angel eyes. And after that, I want your wife dead. Your babe, too.’

  The world seemed to go red. He wanted to scream his outrage, to charge at Skarn and tear the murdering bastard’s face off with his bare teeth. But he knew that meant certain death. No, he had to be ice. Not fire, but ice.

  ‘You’ll have to catch me first!’ he roared. He turned and made a break for the building.

  The spirits must have been looking out for him just then, as two more arrows missed him, one practically shaving the side of his neck. He reached the door of the house and flung himself inside. Three pairs of eyes stared at him, a father and a mother and their daughter. They were sitting at a table having their evening meal.

  ‘What the hell—’ the man started to say, but Kayne cut him short.

  ‘I ain’t got time to explain,’ he said quickly, slamming the door shut behind him. ‘I got a notorious band of outlaws hot on my heels. Help me barricade the door and shutters.’

  After a moment’s hesitation the family rushed to assist him. They turned the table over and shoved it against the door, then locked the shutters and began piling the barrels that were stacked near the hallway against them. ‘Is there another exit?’ Kayne demanded.

  The father, a mead-maker judging by the barrels, gave a nervous nod of his bald head. ‘There’s a trapdoor in the back that leads to a cellar. A ladder exits to a orchard just behind the house.’

  There was a bang on the door. ‘I know he’s in there,’ Skarn shouted from outside. ‘Open up or you’ll soon learn why they call me the Scourge.’

  ‘Keep ’em distracted,’ Kayne barked. He darted out of the room and down the short hallway until he found the trapdoor. He grabbed hold of the iron ring and heaved it open, then leaped down into the cellar. Dozens of barrels lined the walls. Kayne sprinted past them towards the ladder at the far end. He scaled it, thrust open the wooden hatch above and dragged himself out. Big straw beehives filled the orchard. Kayne could hear a faint buzzing from within, but at that moment his attention was focused on the five men crowded around the door of the house. They’d yet to notice him.

  He crept around the outside of the orchard, moving from tree to tree just as he had during his Initiation test all those years ago. One of the outlaws had a torch and was trying to set fire to the building.

  Kayne watched the men for a moment, calculating the odds. He picked up a nearby rock and tossed it over the heads of the gang. He didn’t hear it clatter back to earth, but it must have alerted the men as Skarn and a young, thin-faced fellow with a bow moved away to investigate. That left three men, one of whom was preoccupied with burning the house down. It had already caught fire; thick smoke curled away from the front of the house, reducing the visibility. Improving the odds just that little bit more.

  Kayne seized his chance.

  He reached the men an instant before they noticed him. He thrust his sword through the chest of one, then yanked it free and opened another from neck to waist. The third rushed him, rusty short sword levelled at his face. Kayne dodged to avoid the clumsy thrust and chopped down, taking his attacker’s hand off. He was about to finish the shrieking outlaw when an arrow zipped past his cheek. Kayne grabbed hold of the wounded brigand and spun him around.

  ‘Fire at me again and this one gets it,’ he yelled, using the man as a shield. Without a moment’s hesitation, the narrow-faced archer nocked another arrow and fired. Kayne’s hostage screamed as the arrow hit him right in the stomach.

  ‘Sod this,’ Kayne muttered.

  He charged forward, using the brigand as a battering ram now. Another arrow thudded into his meat shield, and then Kayne was upon the archer. He thrust the dying man aside as the outlaw fumbled for his sword. Kayne slashed down with his own blade, but just then something hit him in the side. His longsword went wide, taking off half the archer’s ear rather than cleaving his skull as he’d intended.

  He became aware of a sudden, sharp pain and glanced down to see a bloody dagger emerging from his leather hauberk. The steel had gone in deep. Kayne, forcing himself to remain calm, looked up into the deceptively bland face of Skarn.

  ‘Didn’t see me lurking in the shadows, angel eyes?’ the outlaw leader hissed. ‘Seems you forgot h
ow to fight dirty.’

  Skarn’s long-bladed scalpel, that terrible weapon with which he’d done such wicked things all those years ago, glinted red in the light of the flames above them. There wasn’t room for Kayne to bring his sword to bear, no room to do much of anything except move his head. So he butted Skarn in the face.

  The outlaw was stunned only for a second, but Kayne was on him faster than that. He drove his sword through the man’s stomach and gave it a vicious twist, gutting the bastard just as Skarn had gutted that poor woman the night Kayne and Red Ear split from the gang.

  Kayne released the hilt of his sword and kicked the squealing outlaw to the ground. Then he threw himself on the man, punching him in the face again and again. He felt bone crack beneath his knuckles, felt his own hands crack. He didn’t care.

  ‘You threaten my family? You threaten my son? My little boy? Die, you fucker! Die!’ Kayne snarled and raved, oblivious to everyone and everything except the loathsome face beneath his bloodied fists. He didn’t stop, not even after Skarn the Scourge had passed from the world. It was the intense heat that eventually caused him to pause and look up.

  The whole house was ablaze, flames eating the timber like a hungry wolf devouring a deer. Kayne suddenly remembered there was a family inside.

  Shit.

  The entire front half of the building was a raging inferno. Even if the door hadn’t been blocked from the inside, the fire made it completely impassable. Unmindful of his injured hands and the blood running freely from the wound in his side, Kayne raced back to the orchard. He slid down the ladder into the cellar, coughing and spluttering as smoke filled his lungs. He ran on regardless, clambering out of the trapdoor and staring around wildly for any sign of the family.

  The main room was a raging firestorm, too hot to approach. Burning timber had fallen from the ceiling and blocked the exit from the room, which was thick with black smoke. The girl was trapped under the pile of smouldering timber and lay unmoving. Kayne saw the other bodies then and knew that they were all dead, the parents fallen victim to the noxious smoke while they were trying in vain to free their daughter from the wreckage.

  He collapsed to his knees, hot tears rolling down his soot-stained face. The superheated air burned his lungs but he didn’t care. An entire family had died because of him. They might have fled down into the cellar. Instead they’d stayed and tried to distract Skarn like he’d ordered them to, and now they were all dead. Because of him.

  Unexpectedly he heard a muffled cry for help. He wiped his eyes and looked up; he saw another door further down the hallway, one he hadn’t noticed before. The door was slowly being consumed by fast-moving fire. The cry sounded again, fainter this time.

  There was someone trapped in the room beyond the door.

  ‘Hold on,’ Kayne tried to shout, but it came out as a tortured rasp. He tried to charge at the door, but the heat drove him back. In desperation he picked up a nearby barrel and hurled it with all his strength. The barrel struck the door, and it exploded in a shower of shattered wood and sizzling mead.

  A moment later the room’s occupant crawled through the empty doorway.

  The youngster was terribly burned, his face a red and blistered mess and his ruined clothes smouldering gently on his body. Kayne grit his teeth and inched towards the boy, closing his mind to the terrible pain. He grabbed hold of the lad, lifted him across his broad shoulders.

  ‘Hold still,’ he gasped, choking on smoke and tasting blood in his mouth. ‘We’ll get you out of here.’

  He carried the youngster down the cellar and up through the orchard and away from the burning house. He would never understand how he managed it. Not with a handful of busted knuckles and a dagger wound in his side. He was certain they would die on the road to Watcher’s Keep.

  But somehow neither of them had died. It would become a habit in later years.

  The Seer

  ‘On your feet, greybeard.’

  Kayne gasped as the rope was pulled tighter around his throat, dragging him up from the ground. He clambered to his feet, his muscles protesting every inch of the way. He’d lost track of the days they’d spent trussed up and tied to horseback. Every scar and old ache he’d collected over the years seemed to hurt all at once.

  His captor finally let the rope go slack and Kayne moved his head from side to side, trying to work the stiffness out of his neck. The others were also being pulled roughly to their feet. The Wolf’s face was pale behind his burn scars and he clearly favoured his right leg. The arrowhead was still lodged in the left. If it wasn’t treated soon chances were he would lose the limb.

  All around them was a forest of tents. There must have been hundreds. The majority were tiny bivouacs made of leather or goat hair, but there were a handful of larger tents as well, stitched together from colourful fabrics stolen from the Free Cities of the Unclaimed Lands or plundered from travelling merchants.

  Far to the west, rising above even the tallest tents and bathed in the light of the dying sun, Kayne could see the Purple Hills. The four of them had been brought east. Deep into the Badlands, into the very heart of Asander’s domain.

  As they moved through the great camp, men scowled up at them from crackling campfires before returning to sharpening their weapons. Women huddled in groups and pointed before turning back to their gossip. Children peered out over the tops of barrels or from behind tent flaps. Most of the faces staring back at Kayne were filthy and decidedly underfed. The Badlands held little enough game to support small bands of skilled hunters, never mind a sprawling tent town housing thousands.

  Starvation didn’t seem an immediate concern for the bastard clutching the end of the rope tied around Kayne’s neck. Fivebellies was surprisingly fit for a man his size, setting a brisk pace that his saddle-stiff and injured captives struggled to match. Kayne tested the bonds around his wrists for the hundredth time, finding no joy. Fivebellies’ men had seized their weapons, including the greatsword Braxus had forged for him all those years ago. Attempting an escape would be suicide.

  As they were marched deeper into the camp, one of the bandits led away the horses they’d purchased back in Ashfall. They were sorry creatures compared with the animals their captors rode. Kayne saw a team of horses that would fetch a king’s ransom in the Trine grazing a stretch of grassland between clusters of tents. He wondered briefly why the bandits hadn’t given up raiding and simply established a trade agreement with the Free Cities. He reckoned it would’ve made life a hell of a lot easier for everyone.

  Suddenly Jerek stumbled, his wounded leg buckling. Fivebellies glared and then turned to the bandit beside him. ‘Hand me your whip,’ he rumbled. He took the riding crop from his subordinate and began to lash the Wolf with it, driving the leather deep into Jerek’s unprotected arms and neck, leaving deep red welts. ‘You like that, scarface?’ he taunted. ‘Not so tough now, huh? Know what we do with horses that’ve gone lame? We slit their throats, then chop them up and boil the remains. No sense wasting good horseflesh. Maybe we’ll do the same to you.’

  ‘They ought to boil your corpse,’ Jerek spat back. ‘You’d feed the entire north for a year. Fat prick.’

  Fivebellies’ cheeks reddened. ‘We’ll see how clever you are when I cut out your tongue, scarface. After your meeting with the King I want you alone. Just you and me.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself.’

  That earned the Wolf a fresh beating. Kayne struggled against his bonds again, but his hands were secured tight behind him. Grunt’s face was glum, utter despair in his yellow eyes. Brick was as pale as a ghost. The boy flinched every time the leather snapped against Jerek’s exposed flesh.

  ‘I ought to apologize,’ Kayne murmured to Brick. ‘I got us into this.’

  Brick’s mouth quivered. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry,’ he said in a voice filled with pain. ‘My uncle betrayed us.’

  ‘Not your fault, lad. Some point in our lives, we all hold faith with someone we shouldn’t.’ He remembered his e
ncounter with Borun down in the Trine months past. He looked at the Wolf, whose muscular arms were a mass of scarlet welts. This was what his friends got for trusting in his leadership.

  Fivebellies finally decided he’d beaten Jerek enough for one day. The corpulent bandit handed back his subordinate’s horsewhip and patted his stomach. ‘Whipping a man always makes me hungry,’ he complained. ‘Come on, move your arses, before I bloody starve to death.’

  The captives stumbled forward. Somehow Jerek remained on his feet, though the way he was staggering and lurching a casual onlooker might’ve easily mistaken him for one of the strollers back at the swamp. Seeing the look in the Wolf’s eyes, Kayne didn’t fancy being in Fivebellies’ shoes if the grim Highlander ever got free of his bonds.

  Soon they were led to a giant pavilion that dwarfed the other tents. Most of Fivebellies’ men broke away from the group at that point. The dozen that remained levelled their bows at the four prisoners, their expressions suggesting they would open fire if they so much as farted without permission. Fivebellies chose that moment to unleash a mighty belch. Then he gestured to the vast pavilion with a meaty hand. ‘The King awaits us,’ he declared. He gave Kayne’s rope a tug and the old warrior was forced to scramble behind the bandit as he waddled through the entrance flap.

  The torches affixed to poles around the circular structure gave off little light, and it took a moment for Kayne’s eyes to adjust to the gloom. He wasn’t greatly surprised to see the trove of plundered goods that filled nearly every inch of available space. Crates overflowing with fine fabrics were stacked alongside bookcases filled with ancient tomes worth their weight in gold coins. Expensive tapestries had been carelessly rolled up and tossed amongst the jumble of silverware. Plates and chalices, knives and forks and jewellery boxes stuffed with valuables were all piled haphazardly. Kayne didn’t have much of a merchant’s eye, but he reckoned there must be tens of thousands of spires’ worth of treasure stuffed under the pavilion’s dome.