‘So be it,’ said Aren. ‘You have our thanks.’
Wilham pulled the dagger from the table, staring at Harod as he sheathed it again. Then he walked from the room and his people followed him uneasily, leaving only Aren and his companions behind.
‘Ha! Mudslug showed Carrot-Top who’s boss!’ Grub crowed.
‘I don’t know if I just made an ally or an enemy,’ Aren said. The tension of the confrontation was leaving him and he was light-headed with victory. ‘Thank you, Harod. It would have gone the worse for me if you had not been here.’
The knight merely nodded.
‘You spoke well,’ said Vika, stepping forward. ‘And Dawnwarden or not, Garric deserves more from us than to be abandoned. Whatever the odds.’ Ruck barked in agreement.
‘I will not abandon him, either,’ said Mara as she rose to stand with the others. ‘There is still hope.’
Cade spoke up next. ‘You’re sure he really is a … you know, a Dawnwarden?’ he said in awe.
‘I’m sure,’ said Aren.
‘Then count me in!’
‘We are with you,’ said Orica, speaking for Harod, too, as she laid a hand on his arm.
‘Hammerholt is impenetrable fortress, heavily guarded, very dangerous?’ Grub rubbed his hands together. ‘Good. Grub needs new tattoos!’
Aren looked last to Fen. She smiled at him and dipped her head in a nod, and the look she gave him kindled a hot glow in his chest.
‘There is one matter outstanding,’ Mara said. ‘What shall be done about Keel?’
Aren’s mood spoiled at the thought of the Bitterbracker. He mastered himself before he could let bitterness take control. There were greater things at stake. ‘Vengeance is not our business here,’ he said. ‘Keel will be gone with the tide and can harm us no further. Even if we could find him in time, punishing him would serve no purpose.’
‘Grub punish him for fun?’ the Skarl volunteered, raising a dagger.
‘Aye,’ snarled Cade. ‘We agree on something for once.’
‘No,’ Vika said. ‘Our time is short; we cannot waste it on pointless retribution.’
‘He is not worth the hunt,’ Fen said. ‘If we want him, we know where he’ll be.’
‘I concur,’ said Mara. ‘If we are to save Garric and retrieve the Ember Blade, we must work with all speed, and work together. Are we all committed to this course?’
‘Aye!’ they shouted in response, and even Harod, nodding grimly, had a new glint of fire in his eye.
82
Keel sat swollen-eyed, watching through a narrow window as morning stole over the docks. Two empty bottles stood on the table before him and he’d nearly finished a third. It had been a long and lonely watch by candlelight, here in the poky garret of a tumbledown inn. Many shadowed hours had dragged by with only his liquor for company, his thoughts circling like sharks round a kill. But soon it would be over. Soon.
The room was bare and draughty, holding little more than a table, a chair and a mean bed. Chill air seeped down from the rafters. Keel relished that small suffering. He didn’t deserve comfort, or joy, or love ever again.
The inn had a good view of the waterfront, where drunken sailors on their way back to their hammocks weaved between stevedores loading cargo. Among the forest of masts was the ship he was due to leave on, a fast clipper called the Merriweather, headed for Wracken Bay and other towns up the Cut. He’d met the captain and paid for a berth yesterday in anticipation of a swift departure. He wouldn’t survive long in Morgenholme once news of his betrayal spread. Wilham the Smiler would see to that.
He swilled his liquor, welcoming the burn in his throat and belly. Blearily he saw that the Merriweather was moving now, slipping away from the jetty, out into the Cay. He watched it head downriver, Sovereign’s Isle rising steep and green in the background. When it passed beyond his sight he let out a sob, surprising himself. He hadn’t known there were tears on his cheeks.
He wasn’t going home. He was never going home.
His eyes fell to the document beside the empty bottles. He couldn’t read Krodan in his current state – even reading it sober was like wading through mud – but he knew what it said. It was a promise. A lifetime income for Mariella and Tad. A grant of ownership to Fluke’s farm. A pardon for his crimes. And, most importantly of all, an instruction to Lord Jadrell to secure the best medical attention for Tad, with all costs paid by the Empire.
Drunken tears spilled afresh. My boy. You’ll live, my boy. You’ll live to see wonders, just like you did at the Marisport fair. I promised you that.
Secured to the foot of the document was a small silver disc, imprinted with a complex pattern around its edge and the double-barred cross in the centre. It was the work of a master craftsman, highly valuable and almost impossible to duplicate. The seal of the Iron Hand. No one would argue with a message that came with that seal attached.
Next to it was the tight, neat signature of Overwatchman Klyssen, the bespectacled demon who’d forged this contract. He’d met Klyssen in the headquarters of the Iron Hand, after they caught him outside the Burned Bear. If Klyssen had made threats, if he’d urged him to give up the others as well, Keel would have dug his heels in; but somehow Klyssen knew that. Instead, his proposal was as simple as it was cruel: Garric’s life for Tad’s.
And godspit, it wasn’t as if Garric had long to go anyway. Even before they’d talked in the barn, Keel had known Garric was headed for destruction. His plan was half-formed, making no provision for escape, and his obsession with ending the Krodan occupation bordered on madness. Everyone was expendable in service of his quest, and it had already claimed many lives. He was hurtling eagerly towards his end.
Yet even after Keel had made his deal, he’d held on to a last shred of faith. He’d gone to find Garric, still wanting to be persuaded, to be shown the wisdom of his path. Looking for a reason not to betray him.
The truth, when it emerged, was worse than he’d imagined. Barrels full of elarite oil! A plan to murder Prince Ottico and the entire Krodan high command in Ossia! Garric wasn’t just seeking death, but war as well, and if he succeeded he’d plunge them into a brutal state of occupation which Mariella and Tad would surely not survive.
But what hurt the most, what cut deepest of all, was that he’d decided to do it without Keel.
He folded up the document, took a stick of wax and held it unsteadily in the candle flame. He made a clumsy seal and pressed it with his thumb as a makeshift mark, then turned it over and wrote an address on the blank side, one eye closed as he carefully scratched the letters. That done, he pushed it away, sat back and took a bitter swig from his bottle.
Garric had cut him out. That was the crux of it. If he hadn’t, perhaps Keel wouldn’t have betrayed him. But Garric had grown remote and secretive, careless of Keel’s concerns. He dismissed Keel’s dilemma over his family as if Mariella was a nuisance and Tad was worth nothing. Fluke’s death lay at his door, but he barely acknowledged it, let alone admitted his responsibility.
Keel felt betrayed, so he’d betrayed Garric in return. For his family. For the good of Ossia.
He felt a wrench in his guts and sucked down another swallow of liquor to quell it. He wanted to kill all thought, but the thoughts kept coming, swarming up towards him like
black tentacles reaching from the dark and waiting behind them mouths within mouths within
He started back to reality with a jerk, gasping. He took another hit from the bottle. It didn’t work. Nothing worked.
A knock at the door made him jump again. Heart bumping against his ribs, he stared at it fearfully. Wilham’s men? Already? Garric himself, escaped and returned for vengeance?
‘Imperial courier,’ came the voice from beyond the door.
His muscles unclenched. In his drunken haze he’d forgotten he’d sent for a courier. ‘Come in.’
The door creaked open and a clean-cut young Krodan peered through, dressed in a neat uniform. He looked around the small, mis
erable room, clearly wondering if he’d come to the wrong place. ‘You have a message?’ he asked.
Keel tapped the document on the table. ‘Imperial post, eh?’
‘Of course,’ said the courier as he approached. ‘It will be delivered by hand. There is no way more sure or secure, short of delivering it yourself.’
‘That won’t be happening,’ Keel slurred. He took out a pouch of money and emptied it onto the table. It was all the money he had left in the world.
The courier raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s far too much,’
‘It’s yours,’ said Keel. ‘But listen close. I want you to open it and read it to her. She doesn’t have letters. Don’t … Don’t put it in her hands without reading it to her first. Understand? It’s life and death. She’ll destroy it.’
‘You may rest assured,’ said the courier, ‘it will be as you ask.’ He picked up the letter and read Keel’s drunken handwriting with some difficulty. ‘Mariella-from-Arianne of Wracken Bay. Do I have it aright?’
‘You do.’
The courier scooped the money off the table into his pouch, straightened and gave Keel a look of concern. ‘Your pardon, but … Are you well? Is there someone I can fetch for you?’
‘I’ll be fetched soon enough,’ said Keel. ‘Go on.’
‘As you wish. Hail to the Emperor,’ said the courier. He saluted and left.
So it is done, thought Keel. He’d finally made his choice. Garric had always called him indecisive, but how was a man to decide when all choices left him wretched? Stay in Wracken Bay in misery, or abandon your family for adventure? Die in pain on a Krodan rack with your family condemned to starve, or save your loved ones at the expense of your only true friend? He was neither the husband he should be, nor the man he aspired to be. He was a failure and a traitor, and now he could never go home. Everyone would know he was a collaborator, including Mariella and Tad. To return would be to trap himself in the life he’d so desperately wanted to escape, despised by all those he’d once called friends. Every coin that came to his family would be stained with Garric’s blood. Mariella deserved more than him in a husband. Tad deserved more in a father.
Could he have chosen a different path, in the end? Was there any right way? Or did all routes lead here, to this meagre garret, with no options left?
No options but one.
He walked over to the bed and picked up the rope that lay coiled there. Easy to find rope on the docks. He set to work, fashioning himself a noose. He was a whaler; he knew knots. It was a relief to be doing something honest again. When he was ready, he dragged his chair over beneath the thick rafter overhead.
mouths slavering mouths exhaling dread and how they wanted him with such hideous lustful need
He stumbled away with a cry, back towards the table, where he drained the bottle. When he was done, he leaned there panting, face drawn and shiny with sweat in the cold morning light from the window.
No more.
He was driven back to the noose by that thought. He could suffer no longer the horror of what he’d seen, what he’d done, what he’d become. The darkness that had always stalked him had returned, and consumed him. He’d stayed ahead of it for a few years, on the road with Garric, but it had never lost his trail. Now there was only cold emptiness, and there’d be no laughter again. That was a hell worth escaping at any price.
Up on the chair he went and tied the rope round the rafter, working with grim efficiency. When it was done, he put his head through and tightened the loop.
No going back. He had not a coin to his name, nor a friend in the world. The future held nothing but starvation or murder at the hands of Wilham’s people. Only by shutting off all ways out could he take this way forward.
He closed his eyes, silent tears of relief running down his face. It was so simple now. So simple.
He kicked the chair, and dropped.
83
‘Are you all listening?’ said Aren. ‘This is the plan.’
Cade could hardly suppress his excitement. There were nine of them round the table, in the light of a lantern hanging from a chain overhead. Before them were jacks of ale and leather goblets of wine. Their faces were shadowed and grave and full of purpose. They’d come to learn how they might do the impossible, and write themselves into legend.
The safehouse basement had been transformed since Aren’s confrontation with Wilham. Now every wall was covered with nailed-up pieces of parchment showing diagrams, lists of dates, schedules, maps and other things incomprehensible to a slow reader like Cade. On the table were several plans showing the various floors of Hammerholt. Mara and Aren had spent the last two days in a frenzy of plotting, comparing staff rotas and consulting moon charts, wading through the mind-boggling complexities of a royal wedding. Neither had slept much, and it showed; but though Aren looked drawn, there was a fierce conviction in his voice.
‘Wilham’s people have learned that Garric is to be executed at dawn on Scorsday, the day before the wedding,’ he said. He was leaning over the table, his hands spread across the floorplans. ‘General Dakken – who destroyed the Dawnwardens thirty years ago – will wield the blade himself. They mean to tidy up the last loose end before the new era begins. The princess and her considerable retinue will arrive after the execution, which will cause chaos among the staff, so most guests have been instructed to arrive the day before, on Chainday. Hundreds will be coming, and all of them will need to be fed, entertained and accommodated. Even for such efficient organisers as the Krodans are, it will be pandemonium. That’s when we will strike.’
He cast his gaze around the table. ‘If we are to triumph, we must be like the workings of a clock, everyone doing their part, acting in perfect harmony. We work as a team, or we fall together.’ He glanced briefly at Fen. ‘Are we all of one mind in this?’
‘Tell us what must be done,’ said Vika, scratching behind Ruck’s ear. She seemed recovered from her poisoned wound, but the need to rest had kept her from joining in the planning as much as she’d wanted.
Aren pushed away from the table and pointed to a faded and ancient-looking diagram on the wall that showed nothing Cade understood. ‘Hammerholt gets its water from Lake Calagria, in the mountains nearby,’ he said. ‘It passes through a series of caves into a tunnel, probably built by the urds in the First Empire.’ He returned to the table and stabbed the floorplans with a finger. ‘We think that this door in the sewers underneath Hammerholt opens into a cave at the end of that tunnel. A secret escape route, perhaps, or a way for engineers to access the caves in days gone by when the lake was lower. It’s possible the Krodans don’t know about it; the fortress is vast and most of it lies unused. Either way, a small boat can make it through the caves to that door. But there are two significant problems.’
Mara took over. ‘First of all, we can’t open the door from the cave side, and it will certainly be too thick to break down.’
‘Grub can pick any lock!’ the Skarl boasted.
‘There will likely be no lock at all, only a handle. According to my calculations, the cave is submerged when the lake is high. This door will have been built to withstand that, and I suspect it will be barred on the other side to prevent Hammerholt from flooding.’
‘So how will you open it?’ Wilham the Smiler asked. He’d insisted on joining them tonight, to hear their plans. Since they were here on his sufferance, he wanted to know what they were up to, and they had little choice but to let him listen.
‘One of us will have to open it from the other side,’ Aren said. ‘Only five of us will be in that boat, six if Ruck is coming—’
‘She is,’ said Vika. Ruck put her paws up on the table and barked, as if offended at the possibility she might be left behind. ‘Do not fear; she can be stealthy when she needs to be.’
‘Six, then,’ said Aren. He gave Ruck a tired smile. ‘Harod, Orica and Mara will get inside another way.’
Cade sat back in his chair, a jack of ale in his hand, marvelling. All his life, A
ren had just been Aren: strong-willed and full of plans, but still a small-town boy for all that, no more remarkable than Cade was. Now here stood a different Aren, who spoke with clarity and command, and bore himself with a presence beyond his years. In Ossia, adulthood wasn’t an age but an attitude; their history was littered with child queens, young generals and precocious scholars. Aren was barely sixteen, but the last few months had made him a man worthy and willing to take the lead in Garric’s absence. They listened to him, though he was the youngest here.
Cade grinned. He’d never been more proud to be Aren’s best friend.
‘Earlier this afternoon, Wilham and his people located Morgenholme’s most eminent lutist in an inn,’ said Aren. He nodded at Wilham; he’d been careful to keep him sweet since their encounter. Cade would never have forgiven him so, but Aren had a way of making enemies into allies.
‘There was an unfortunate accident,’ Aren went on. ‘A passer-by gracelessly spilled her drink. Of course, being polite, he bought her another one, this time laced with one of Vika’s potions.’
Grub, who’d been squirming with glee in his seat, could no longer contain himself. ‘It was Grub! Grub did that!’
‘Right now she is beginning to feel very ill indeed,’ said Vika solemnly. She’d painted her face again and wore all of her trinkets, including the effigy of Sarla that Fen had whittled for her. In the lanternlight, she was shaggy and feral and strange. ‘There will be no lasting damage, but she will not stray far from a bucket for the next few days.’
‘The leader of the troupe is desperate,’ said Aren. ‘They were due to perform at one of the many feasts in Hammerholt, but now their star musician cannot play. They will be forced to miss the wedding and the generous payment for their services.’ He held out a hand towards Orica. ‘Luckily he will soon cross paths with a wandering minstrel who happens to be prodigiously talented and familiar with all the songs they are likely to play.’
‘Tsss, you are very kind,’ Orica said with a smile.
‘I still say it is too dangerous,’ Harod said. ‘This city is unsafe for Sards.’
The Ember Blade Page 69