‘Let’s go in and see who he’s meeting,’ said Aren decisively. ‘Stay out of sight.’
He was about to set off when Grub hissed at him. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Look.’
Two men were approaching the Burned Bear from the other direction. They were straight-backed and tall, with the stern blond good looks of well-bred Krodans. Their clothes were unremarkable, but their arrogant stride gave them away. These were no passing citizens. The swords at their hips were fine and well cared for, and they entered the inn with solemn purpose.
‘Grub reckon we not the only ones interested in Keel.’
Aren felt himself go cold. If these were the men Keel had come to meet, they clearly meant him no kindness. He hurried up the alley towards the inn.
‘Where Mudslug going? Krodans got swords!’ Grub said, scampering behind him.
‘Yes,’ said Aren. ‘And Keel doesn’t know it. Want to do something heroic, or are you going to stay out here?’
Grub swore in the language of his homeland and followed.
The inn was cramped and busy, hot with bodies and heaving. Laughter, smoke and threat hung in the air. Sailors and locals of half a dozen races ate and drank at the tables, and whores slid between them. A ship must have come in recently; the docks were not far from here.
Aren pushed his way in, his stomach tight with nerves. Ordinarily he’d steer clear of an establishment like this. The clientele were hard-eyed and gruff, nothing like the friendly faces at the Cross Keys in Shoal Point. He was a boy again here, not the man he’d started to become.
He spotted the Krodans heading through the common room to a doorway on the far side. Grub hissed in his ear, having spotted two more Krodans sitting at a corner table, out of place among the roguish patrons. They exchanged a glance with their fellows as they passed.
‘Grub think Bitterbracker in real trouble,’ he murmured.
They could do nothing but follow the men through the doorway into a larger room with a bar at its centre, where they found Keel in conversation with a big-bellied man in an apron who Aren took to be the innkeeper. Keel passed him a coin and received a folded letter in exchange, which he tucked inside his jerkin. He didn’t notice the Krodans approaching him from behind, eyes fixed on him. There was no doubt left in Aren’s mind now: they meant to arrest him, or kill him.
‘Come on,’ said Grub. ‘Outside. We follow, see where they take him.’
Aren felt suddenly, overwhelmingly grateful to the Skarl for that suggestion. Yes, that was what they should do! Intervening would bring the Krodans down on their heads; doing nothing would be cowardice. This was the middle ground that would allow him to live with his conscience while staying out of danger.
And if Keel was slain first, or if they couldn’t save him from whatever torture the Krodans had in mind? Well, at least he’d have tried. What more could he do, really? Where was the sense in pitting himself against overwhelming odds? What was the point in getting them all killed to save one?
Some window of understanding gaped in his mind, and he heard those words on the lips of a thousand Ossian nobles as they laid down their arms before the Krodans. Heard it on Randill’s lips, too. For the first time ever, he saw into his father’s heart, and thought he knew him.
But he wasn’t his father.
‘Keel!’ he screamed at the top of his lungs. ‘It’s a trap!’
The Krodans at the bar whirled. Keel did, too, and he registered the danger in an instant. His meat knife appeared in his hand, and as the Krodans belatedly drew their swords he threw himself into them, driving his blade into the eye of the nearest as they all went crashing to the floor.
The crowd erupted into chaos. Men scrambled back from the combatants, shoving their fellows before them, who tumbled over stools and barged into others. Drinks were knocked to the floor and punches thrown in blind reaction. In seconds, the fragile peace inside the Burned Bear collapsed.
Aren was pitched this way and that in a churning sea of limbs, fighting to keep his balance. The corner of a table hammered into his thigh. Grub had disappeared in the melee. He caught sight of Keel through the crowd, struggling on the floor with his surviving assailant, his face spattered with blood. The Krodans had swords, but at such close quarters a short blade was better. He saw Keel raise the reddened knife again, his face a savage rictus of hate. The Krodan screamed in fear, and then the crowd closed in and Aren mercifully saw no more.
Rough arms seized him. A square-jawed face loomed in his vision, eyes dull with authority: one of the Krodans who’d been waiting inside. He struggled, but he was pinned against a table which gave way beneath him, sending him and his captor to the ground in a rain of mugs and platters.
Frantically he fought to get out from underneath the Krodan. Booted feet stamped and thundered all around him, inches from his nose. Suddenly the Krodan rocked sideways as he was kicked hard in the head. He rolled off Aren, dazed, and Grub lunged down, stabbing. The Krodan jerked twice and lay still.
Grub pulled Aren up as the bar went from brawling disorder to panic. The hot scent of murder was in the air.
‘More Krodans coming. Go!’ Grub shoved him into the crowd and was quickly lost to sight.
Aren stumbled towards the back of the room, where most of the patrons were disappearing through a rear door. He couldn’t find Keel anywhere. Handbells began ringing outside, the same alarm call he’d heard before the road patrol caught them at the Reaver’s Rest. Men with swords pushed in and the rear door was blocked. The main door would surely be covered by now, too.
He saw a booth next to a window. With no better idea, he shoved towards it, slipped into the booth and wrenched at the latch. It didn’t move. Painted shut.
Desperately, he snatched up a stool. His first blow bounced off the lead lattice and didn’t even crack the glass. It took two more blows before the cheap glue gave way and the window fell out of its frame in a rain of diamond-shaped panes. Someone shouted ‘Halt!’ in Krodan, and he knew it was meant for him, but he wasn’t to be halted now. He wriggled out through the window and tumbled into the dirty gutter beyond.
Panting, he got to his feet. A short distance to his left, standing at the corner where he could see the entrance to the inn, was a man he recognised. He wore a black coat, showing the double-barred cross of the Iron Hand, and there was a long, thin sword at his belt.
Harte.
Their eyes met, and for the briefest of instants a flashfire swept across Aren’s mind. He wanted throw himself at Harte, knock him down, strangle him with his bare hands. But it was an instant only, and then cold sense took hold, and he ran.
‘Get back here, boy!’ Harte cried and launched into pursuit.
Sailors were still milling about the rear entrance of the Burned Bear, trying to see what was going on inside. Aren dodged past them at a sprint. A Krodan reached out to stop him – an Iron Guardsman in disguise, like all the rest – but Aren jinked away and his fingers only brushed Aren’s arm.
The street ended where it was crossed by a sloped and busy road. Aren ran out onto it, darting in front of a cart. The horse reared with a snort, scraping at the air with its hooves, and the driver’s curses followed him downhill.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Harte catching up with him through the traffic. The Krodan who’d tried to grab him had also joined the chase, arms pumping as he ran in the watchman’s wake. Tall, athletic men, perfect specimens of Krodan manhood. Aren was quick and nimble, but not as fit and his stride was shorter. They’d run him down, given time.
Aren redoubled his speed, boots pounding, blood thumping in his ears as he searched for an escape. The crowded street descended sharply before him. To his left were rows of houses and shops; no shelter there. To his right, a low wall guarded against the drop to the next street, which ran parallel to this one but much lower, almost at the level of the river. He could see onto the roofs of the buildings there, which rose almost to the height of the wall, but there was no obvious way down.
&nbs
p; ‘Stop that boy!’ Harte cried. People slowed to look for him, but Aren had already raced past. Then he saw the soldiers ahead and realised who Harte had been shouting to: two stern men in the black and white livery of the Krodan army appeared in his path, standing low and ready to catch him.
With only a moment to act, he dug in his heels, ran to the side of the road and vaulted the wall.
Terror seized him as he swung his legs over the edge. If he’d miscalculated, there’d be nothing but a hard drop to the street several storeys below. But when he cleared the wall, the rooftop was there, only a half-dozen feet below him as he’d hoped it would be. He landed with a jolt and kept running.
The roof was bare but for a pile of decaying crates and a rickety old jib. He fled towards a door on the far side. Risking a look over his shoulder, he saw Harte jumping down after him, closer on his heels than he’d imagined. The other Iron Guardsman followed, but the soldiers, clad in armour, were too heavy to risk the jump.
The door was little more than a few planks nailed together, held shut by a rusty padlock. Driven by fear of the men at his back, Aren shoulder-charged the door at a run. It smashed open before him, rotten wood splintering, and he found himself at the top of a bare stone stairway.
Shoulder smarting from the blow, he pelted down the steps and into a spacious room, musty with long emptiness. Old blankets and rat-eaten sacks had accumulated in the corners. Once it had been a small warehouse, but it was abandoned now and had fallen into dilapidation.
Aren ran for the first door he could see. Harte was too close behind to do otherwise. Birds exploded in a flutter from the sill of a window as he passed. A floorboard split beneath his feet, sending him stumbling. He fell, landed hard on his hands, scrambled up again. The door was there in front of him, its lock broken and hanging ajar. He shoved it open.
Unexpected daylight brought him to a halt and he found himself at the top of an exterior staircase. Once it had run down the front of the building, but it had long since rotted in the dank air of the Canal District, and all that was left was a precarious landing projecting out over an alley.
He cursed and turned to seek another route, but Harte had already run into the room and was between Aren and the exit. He slowed as he saw Aren’s predicament; an ironic smile slid across his face as he drew his sword. His companion appeared and began to circle round to prevent Aren from getting past them.
Cornered, Aren took a step backwards onto the landing. It creaked alarmingly beneath him as he peered over his shoulder. There was no chance of climbing down the wall, but the alley was narrow and the building opposite leaned close. There was a small balcony jutting out from it, one storey below him, surrounded by an iron railing with a shuttered door leading inside.
Could he make that jump? No, that was desperation talking. He’d fall short and break his legs for sure.
Nails pinged and wood groaned as the landing threatened to come away from the wall. Aren lurched back into the room.
‘No way out?’ said Harte. ‘That’s a shame. That’s a real shame.’
Aren pulled his knife from his belt. One of Rapha’s men had given it to him in the bathhouse of a Krodan work camp. Now he held it out before him, a feeble ward against the swords of his enemies. It felt like the only thing to do.
‘You want to resist arrest?’ said Harte. ‘Please do. I’m sure you remember how well that worked out for your father.’
Aren’s knuckles whitened on the hilt of his knife. He saw again his father struggling amid a mass of Iron Guardsmen; Harte holding a dagger to his throat; the look in his father’s eyes as the blade was driven home. Rage surged through him, sweeping aside all possibility of surrender. To submit to his father’s killer was something he could never do.
He flipped the knife in his hand and flung it spinning through the air towards Harte’s forehead. It flew harmlessly past his shoulder and clattered to the floor on the far side of the room.
Harte let out a surprised laugh. ‘My. You’re quite the formidable assassin, aren’t you?’
Aren felt a stab of impotent fury. There was no way he could beat this man today, no matter how much he wanted to. Instead he turned and ran out onto the landing. He clambered up on the wooden railing, braced himself and, before he could think better of it, he jumped.
Arms wheeling, he dropped through the air, throat locked shut with the terror of the plunge. He crashed down hard on the balcony, knees buckling, and slammed into the shuttered door with such force it turned his vision white.
Dizzily, he struggled to his feet and rattled the door. It was securely locked, but that didn’t matter. The balcony was only two storeys high; he could hang off it and drop down into the alley.
Harte appeared in the doorway of the warehouse landing and let out a cry of rage as he saw Aren on the balcony. Aren gave him a defiant grin. Ignoring the pain of his bruised muscles, he clambered over the rail and dropped to the cobbles below.
‘You’re claimed, you little bastard!’ Harte roared, his oily sarcasm replaced by bald fury. He stepped out onto the landing, climbed up on the railing and readied himself to spring. But the rotten wood had been tested enough; it broke beneath his weight and Harte, unbalanced, lunged forwards as the landing fell apart beneath him. Aren dodged away from the falling wood as Harte plummeted through the air with a yell, but the watchman had put enough strength into his jump to clear the alleyway and landed on the balcony in a helpless tumble.
Aren stood where he was, staring. He knew he should run, but he had to see if his father’s killer was dead.
It was too much to hope for. Harte stirred with a stifled groan of pain. His companion appeared in the warehouse doorway, but now the landing was gone he had no way down except back through the building.
‘I’ll kill you, boy!’ Harte snarled, levering himself up with the help of the balcony railing. ‘I swear to the Primus, I’ll kill you!’
Aren fled. Behind him, Harte climbed over the railing and dropped down into the alley. His leg gave way as he landed and he screamed and collapsed; but by the time Aren reached the corner of the alley, he was getting up again, unstoppable in his wrath.
‘I’ll kill you!’ he screamed again, and came limping after Aren, wincing and wheezing whenever he put his weight on his damaged leg.
Aren sprinted out of the alleyway into a small cobbled plaza where a canal dead-ended to form a miniature harbour. A dozen boats were moored haphazardly around a stone quay, and the waterside was cluttered with nets waiting to be repaired and piles of lobster pots. Stalls sold whelks and cress to the men and women who idled nearby, waiting for the next cargo to arrive. Their conversations faltered as Aren burst through, running for his life.
‘Stop!’ cried Harte as he limped to the mouth of the alleyway.
Small chance of that, Aren thought. Harte had been injured in the fall and his companion was far behind. There was no way they could catch him. A fierce smile spread across his face as he crossed the plaza. He’d outrun them. He’d escaped. He’d—
Something caught against his foot and he fell and smacked hard against the ground. The shock of the impact stunned him and he tasted blood. Dazed, he tried to raise himself. He’d tripped. Somehow he’d tripped.
Rough hands pulled him up, twisting his arms behind his back. He saw the grizzled faces of the men of the Canal District, set hard as they held him.
He hadn’t tripped. He’d been tripped. Disbelief rendered him speechless for an instant. When he found his voice, it was strangled and mewling.
‘You’re Ossians!’ he cried, appalled. He struggled, but they had him fast. Harte was limping across the plaza towards him, a knife in his hand and murder in his eyes. ‘Why are you helping him?’
His answer was a punch in the gut, driving the wind from him. He sagged in their arms, wheezing and helpless. When Harte reached him, he seized Aren by the throat and propelled him backwards, out of the hands of his captors and up against a wall.
The Ossians fell away, cow
ed by the sign of the Iron Hand and the blade Harte pressed to Aren’s throat. The watchman’s face was inches from Aren’s, eyes bulging and teeth gritted. Aren could feel the heat of his anger as the knife edge bit into his skin. That crazed stare promised death, and he was taken by a terror he’d never known before. He couldn’t die like this, killed by the blade that killed his father, betrayed by his own people. He squeezed his eyes shut. Meshuk, Joha, anyone, please!
A drop of blood trickled down onto his collarbone. He heard Harte’s heaving breath, smelled his hate and tensed for the final cut.
‘No,’ said Harte.
The knife withdrew. Aren opened his eyes, trembling, confused.
‘No, that’s exactly what he’d want me to do. It’s just the excuse he needs.’ His voice was thoughtful, sly. ‘One last black mark on my record.’
Harte took a shuddering breath, smoothed his damp hair back across his scalp and made a visible effort to control himself. Then he grabbed Aren, turned him around and slammed him up against the wall again, cheek-first. Aren was too weak with shock to resist as manacles closed around his wrists.
‘Don’t think it’s your lucky day, you vile little rat,’ Harte hissed. ‘You’ll wish you were dead by the time we’re done with you. By the Primus, I’m going to see you suffer. But first …’ He grabbed a fistful of hair, yanked his head back painfully and leaned in close to his ear. ‘First, you’ll talk.’
70
Ropes creaked, pulleys squeaked and sailcloth flapped in the wind. Gulls wheeled high over the granite-flagged docks of Morgenholme. Swifts darted between the ratlines of towering ships while sailors smoked and cursed happily on the quay, and stevedores unloaded cargoes from across the known world to be sold in the shops and dens of the capital.
Garric stood in the shadow of a Xulan merchant vessel, its gunwales carved with cavorting nudes and the Pradap Tet as its figurehead. Nearby, handlers were loading a cart with four large barrels and a dozen smaller ironbound ones, moving them slowly and with extreme care. Garric wondered if he should be standing further back in case of an accident, but on reflection he supposed it didn’t matter. Without that cargo, all was lost anyway.
The Ember Blade Page 59