by David Benem
After a time Fencress hoisted her tankard and tugged down the remaining ale. She slammed it on the table, shaking Drenj from his trance and drawing a grin from Paddyn.
“Boys,” she said, flashing her most winsome smile, “we need something to lighten your moods. Trouble. Mischief, perhaps…” she said, remembering again the wealthy crackpot who called Shank’s Hollow his home. “Yes, mischief. The visceral excitement of thievery is what’s needed to return those smiles to your handsome faces. The thrill of seizing things chance has failed to hand you! The fact is, you both look like ragamuffins and could use new clothes, and one can never have enough coin. I’ll retrieve your cloaks and we’ll set out to make our fortune!”
Fencress tiptoed up the final steps of the steep stairwell to the inn’s low-ceilinged second floor. She straightened her black clothing and tugged tight her leather cowl. Then she crept forward, slowly and silently through the short hallway—a squeeze of thin wood—to the doorway a few yards ahead. There were cracks in the door’s uneven planks and a hole in a large knot near its middle. Fencress peered through.
The meager inn had no private rooms, only a drafty attic with a dozen or so bunks. She smirked ruefully, noticing all the beds were empty. She remembered there’d been several others sleeping in the room when they’d arrived the previous night, all of whom had scurried out upon catching sight of Karnag.
And there he was, kneeling on the planked floor in the room’s center, his broad, dirty back to the door. He murmured something unintelligible, something that made her skin prickle.
Fencress pulled away from the door, steeling herself against the unnerving presence her friend had become. She felt uneven. Her head kept summoning thoughts of when she’d first met Karnag, years before, aside some filthy canal in Riverweave. She’d had too much Khaldisian spiced wine that night, and three rough bastards tried taking advantage after she’d taken their coin in deadman’s dice. Karnag happened upon them just before they could harm her, and all three were floating dead in the canal before they knew he was there. She’d never expressed her gratitude—she’d been too angry with herself for not playing things smart—but then he’d never asked for it nor did she wager he needed it.
Besides, she’d saved his skin a few times in return.
In the years that followed, rare was the job they’d not taken on together. She’d been mostly a gambler and petty thief before meeting Karnag, but quickly discovered the coin was a fair bit better with assassinations. She had some misgivings about the darker deeds at first, but always reminded herself that a price had been placed on her life, too, when she’d been sold among slavers.
She’d vowed never to be counted less than any other.
Between them, she and Karnag were damned good at killing folk—Karnag especially so, though at times he lacked the subtlety some jobs required. She provided that, and they split many a pile of coin over tankards of ale at The Dead Messenger in Raven’s Roost. Karnag’s slow nod and tilt of his mug were usually the only compliments he’d offer after a job, though those were enough to earn her the lasting respect of every crook in the city.
She smiled at the thought, fleeting though it was.
But she thought also of the danger he’d become, an unpredictable force possessed by some sort of horrid thing. Of his warning that she and the lads would die if they strayed from his side.
She swallowed hard, turned the knob, and eased the door open. She walked gingerly about him, mindful of the sound of her footfalls upon the creaky planks. Karnag seemed not to notice, remaining an implacable and imposing pillar of menace.
“There,” Karnag grated, voice low and seemingly addressed to none. “The spearhead of the war is there, scattering the cranes and dragonflies of the marshes. War rages along the winding coastline, those wetlands where armor is anchor and invaders can ambush with deadly speed. Brutal, it is. A suitable prelude for what comes. Infection festers in many wounds, that sickly-sweet scent drawing the spawn of Yrghul to beset the wailing wounded. The unblemished flesh and red blood of the still-living are their spoils…
“And Thaydorne? Ha. He must cower far from the clash of blades. He’d rather search the shadows, yearning for the fulfillment of promises spoken through a mouth of lies. He seeks answers in blood and darkness, but he cannot comprehend those scant things he’s discovered. There are far deeper truths. Those truths—the truths I foretell—are understood only through death.”
Fencress settled upon a plank. A groan escaped the wood and she grimaced, unnerved at the thought of drawing Karnag’s attention while he remained in this trance. She waited, but he said nothing to her, continuing instead with his strange soliloquy.
“But where is he? I see him not, and Yrghul’s spawn obscure my vision more than all the whimsies of men. Something of Yrghul’s power lingers within them. No matter. I will draw him out. I will proclaim my challenge with all the bellow and bluster of the great war-horns of Gannock Ghunt. Does he remember the sound of those horns as they pealed across the Waters of World’s End? Does he remember the tremble of mountains?” Karnag smiled, his mouth stretching to reveal filthy teeth. “No, but through death he will be made to.”
She tried closing her ears to his voice and swept over to the beds to seize what she needed: rope, her lock-picks, and Drenj and Paddyn’s threadbare cloaks. She looked to Karnag one more time—finding his dark eyes as dead as ever as he droned on—and slipped out the door.
The common room of The Mewling Mutton now held a small clutch of other customers, grayish farm-folk worn to the nub and grasping tankards with weary hands. Drenj and Paddyn still sat by the window, silent with eyes downcast and speaking little.
Fencress donned her cheeriest look, trying to summon a sparkle to her blue eyes. She sauntered over and tossed them their cloaks. “Let’s find some mischief, boys.”
Paddyn sucked down the rest of his ale while Drenj sighed and took a last sip of his tea. After a moment, both rose from the table.
“Can’t say I’m up for much,” Drenj said, “though I’m certainly willing to get clear of Karnag for a while.”
Fencress pinched his cheek teasingly. “That’s the spirit! Now, let’s go make believe it’s months ago, like we’re back in Raven’s Roost and none of this ever happened. Let’s go score some coin and fancy clothing from the coffers of a wealthy son of a whore.”
Paddyn grinned, showing the gap left by his missing tooth. “Something easy, then? Easy with a good payoff?”
“Nothing like our last job?” Drenj asked, eyes sunken. “I tell you, Fencress, all the coin in the world isn’t worth the trouble that’s brought us.”
Fencress placed a gloved hand on their shoulders and looked to them with lips curled in a smirk. “Trust me.”
They made for the door. Fencress tugged her cowl overhead and gripped the rusty knob, then turned with a smile to her companions. They looked to her with a mixture of frazzled nerves and youthful eagerness, shifting ragged cloaks upon thin shoulders.
“Let’s go.” She turned the knob and pulled the door wide.
“Your bill!” crowed the bar hag.
Fencress grinned and dashed into the rain, onto a muddy street that sucked at her boots. She plunged across the slop and slowed to a halt beneath the leaky eaves of an abandoned smithy, waiting for the boys to catch her.
“What an awful mess of a place this is,” said Drenj.
Fencress stared about and had to agree. Sad folk trudged along sad streets, between sagging homes and shops and mills, and many of those structures appeared to have been hastily boarded up. Shank’s Hollow was a bit more than a hamlet, though the word ‘town’ seemed generous. Fencress guessed a few hundred or so people were unlucky enough to call the place home in peaceful times, and now there seemed far fewer.
“Any guards about?” Paddyn asked.
She squinted to sharpen her vision, ale still tickling her head. “I didn’t spot any red sashes last night and I see none now. It seems likely they were either sum
moned to the front or wise enough to flee north.” She spotted the home she’d burgled those many years before, a strange three-story thing with a gaudy tower of white stone that seemed woefully out of place among the town’s hovels. She pointed a gloved finger. “There. That’s where that rich bastard lives, that thane’s brother. With him having his share of coin, there’s a fair chance he left this place at the first rumor of war. This’ll be an easy score, boys. Just what our dastardly little threesome needs.”
The three-story home appeared in fine condition, a stark contrast to the weary structures crowded near it. It was a tall house of stained wood peaked with a pitched roof of many pointed gables. After waiting for the muddy street to empty, Fencress stalked over and looked about for a suitable entrance.
They found the oaken front door had been barred from within, a lock not breakable with the tools they had without making a ruckus. They searched the exterior and found every window of the first floor boarded over with fresh planks. Many on the second and third stories, though, remained unsecured.
“Up there.” Fencress gestured to a window less than ten feet up the silly stone tower built against the house’s side. “The fool must’ve been in a hurry to leave town or at least too foolish to expect the likes of us. A little help from one of you fine young men and I’ll be through.”
Paddyn obliged, holding his hands outward and knotted together. Fencress placed her boot upon the improvised step and thrust herself up, coming even with the rectangular window. It was locked from inside, albeit lazily. She produced a lock-pick, slipped it between the shutters, and with a deft flick of her wrist felt the latch give way.
“Welcome home, my friends,” she said through a grin. “Let’s see if we can brighten your sad faces with some stealing and skullduggery.” She hefted herself through the window, into the tower, and onto a spiral stairway of stone.
The stairwell was dimly lit and musty. Dust fell in a fading curtain from the parts of the window she’d disturbed. Fencress crinkled her nose. The place held the faint stink of shit. She reckoned the bastard who owned it hadn’t bothered to empty his chamberpot before skipping town.
She kept still, listening. The rain-muted barking of a dog outside. Groans of the house’s wood with the wind. The patter of rain on the roof’s shingles. A distant dripping sound from up the stairwell.
But nothing that sounded like a person inhabiting the place.
She turned back to the window and signaled her companions. Drenj hoisted Paddyn through then acknowledged Fencress’s sign to keep watch.
“The place seems empty but for the treasures awaiting us,” she whispered to Paddyn now crouched at her side. “Let’s inspect the top floors first. Follow me.”
She crept upward, rounding the stairwell and coming upon a sitting room lined with plush chairs and faded tapestries. Closed doors stood in the middle of each of three other walls. Within the room itself several empty wine bottles lay tumbled about, as well as dinner plates speckled with crumbs. The dripping sound seemed just louder and Fencress guessed the house’s roof had a leak the owner had been too lazy to repair.
“The man lives well,” Paddyn muttered. “This plate is real silver.”
Fencress nodded. “Family money is a fine thing if you can come by it. Keep the plate. It’ll fetch us a handful of crowns.”
She moved to a nearby door and opened it, finding a library filled with leather-bound tomes. A desk squatted in the room’s center, a thing with curving legs of expensive wood. She didn’t fancy the thane’s brother a scholar so wagered the desk and shelves contained more than just books.
A lock bound the desk’s single drawer but Fencress quickly opened it with one of her picks. She slid the drawer wide and smiled. There were scattered coins, a gold signet ring, a silver spyglass, and a few scattered gems. She swept them all from the drawer with a gloved hand and tucked them neatly in her pocket.
“What do you think of this?” came Paddyn’s voice from the doorway. He was draped in a long cloak of oiled leather trimmed with fur. Against the pauper’s clothes that hung from the rest of him, it looked positively ridiculous.
“Most elegant,” Fencress said. “Most elegant, indeed, my young friend. You found our little lordling’s wardrobe, I take it?”
Paddyn nodded with a wide, gap-toothed smile. “That door just there. A whole room of clothes. Just clothes! Shirts and trousers and boots and such. I’ve never seen such a thing!”
“Well, have at it. Treat yourself to things more befitting a man of your substance, and grab Drenj a few fashionable items, as well.”
Paddyn returned to the wardrobe, a spring in his step.
Fencress shook her head and followed Paddyn from the room. She looked about the sitting room’s chairs and tapestries. All seemed rather expensive, though she figured she had neither the time nor the means to remove them. There were large vases of crystal and painted porcelain, as well, but she knew they’d never manage to get them to a suitable buyer without breaking them first.
An unfortunately useless fortune.
She turned next to the one door that remained unopened, guessing it to be that of the owner’s bedchamber. She placed a hand upon the knob, sniffing as she noticed the stink of excrement hanging stronger in the air.
“What of these?” Paddyn asked from behind her. The lad was now festooned with a foppish hat and upon his feet were black boots that shone from much polish, the leather folded over just below the knees. He had a new satchel slung about his shoulder, as well.
Fencress smirked. “Dead gods! Dead gods, indeed! I daresay every last strumpet in Raven’s Roost will be vying for your affections!”
“Don’t know about the hat,” he said, removing it, “though the boots fit me well. Too bad the fellow’s trousers are too large. Drenj and I could both fit into a single pair.”
“Perhaps the two of you should give that a go,” she laughed, then pressed the door open and stepped within.
And froze.
In the ill-lit room before her stood a bed upon which was splayed a fat corpse. She’d seen countless corpses, of course, but this was no ordinary corpse. This one had no face. Just sinew and bone stuck in a sickening grin, complete with lifeless eyeballs bulging from their sockets and staring gleefully at nothing.
She steeled herself, leveling her breathing. The smell of shit had grown noticeably worse and she knew now the source: the man’s bowels had emptied at the moment of death. Watery shit mingled with blood and dripped in a puddle upon the wood floor—the dripping she’d heard. She rubbed at her face and willed her stomach not to spill.
A hoot sounded from outside.
Then again.
A signal?
“Fencress?” came Paddyn’s voice. “Fencress, I think that’s Drenj. Did—” A guttural sound followed. “Dead gods.”
Fencress shook her head. “Hardly a dead god, but most certainly dead, yes.”
“That’s the rich fellow who owns this house?”
“Hard to tell without the face, don’t you think? But I’d wager it is. It’d be terribly rude of someone to shit all over another’s bed, and I like to think better of people.”
Paddyn groaned. “Who would do such a thing? Take his face?”
“A revenge killing, most likely. Perhaps an assassin hired by a former lover or someone holding his debt.” She winked at Paddyn. “The world is full of sick bastards who do that kind of thing for coin.”
Another hoot.
“We’d best go,” Paddyn said.
Fencress looked about the room’s heavy shadows for anything of value but found nothing. She moved toward Paddyn and the two of them found the stairs.
Drenj stood in the gray haze outside, near the window. He appeared wet and miserable, and his nervous-seeming eyes were fixed upon some point farther along the street.
“We have trouble?” Fencress asked, poking her head into the rain.
Drenj’s gaze didn’t stray from the street. “I-I… I don’t know. I saw�
��”
“These are not excellent answers, my friend. There are plenty of things in here worth taking. Is there cause to leave?”
“Five men approaching. Two had green cloaks like the one Merek wore, the others were robed like wise men. They were coming this way but something distracted them. There were shadows at the street’s far end. Shadows that moved. The men ran that way and the shadows fled. The shadows moved…”
“Lots of folk wear green, Drenj—it is quite fashionable. You’d learn that if you took just a peek at this little lordling’s closets. And moving shadows? This rainy haze is playing tricks on your eyes. You’re talking nonsense.”
He turned sharply to her, his kohl-lined eyes narrow. “Am I? After the things we’ve seen, you question me?”
Fencress opened her mouth to speak but promptly snapped it shut. She thought of the structure of severed heads and hands and whatever else Karnag had assembled from the Arranese he’d killed. Of Merek and the strange sorceries he’d worked upon Karnag when he’d captured him. Of the awful words Karnag now spoke.
And of the faceless corpse she’d just stumbled upon.
No. Drenj tells the truth. Something follows us.
She looked to him kindly. “Sorry, Drenj. You’re wise to worry. Let’s rouse Karnag and get clear of this town.”
Fencress and Paddyn slipped from the dead man’s home, hauling a score that seemed paltry considering the relative riches they’d discovered. They found Drenj huddled against the structure’s stones, shying from the rain with eyes darting about the surroundings. Fear seemed to widen the young man’s face.
“Over that way,” the Khaldisian hissed, gesturing around the home’s corner and toward the street. “There were lights a moment ago. Lights and shadows.”
Fencress tugged at her cowl and motioned for the boys to stay put. She skulked along the side of the house toward the street, hearing nothing but the drum of the rain. She reached the corner of the home then peered around it.
The street was a stretch of muck lined with shabby shacks, just as they’d first found it. She spied a few locals plodding along, another guiding a cart drawn by a droop-eared donkey that seemed near death.
