Vile

by Keith Crawford

  “The mines!” Gwyion shouted, still struggling towards them.

  Beyond Shadowgate Town, past the bowl in the mountain and on to where the land fell away south, thick plumes of smoke rose. From this distance, they looked like discharge from a chimney stack, and Anton thought the fires from the town had relit. But then he realised what he was seeing.

  “They’re burning the mines,” Gwyion said.

  “What did you expect?”

  In truth, Anton had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Why do they call themselves conquerors, those who destroy? Destruction isn’t conquest. It’s a tantrum.

  “We have to defend the town.”

  Poor Gwyion. So earnest. “I’ll rebuild the mine once we’re done.”

  “Are you listening to yourself? People are dying.”

  Anton scratched his scars.

  “This was always a risk. We made a lot of money together, Gwyion, but I don’t owe you anything.”

  “You’re the father of my grandchild. Of my daughter’s son. Do they mean nothing to you?”

  It was the first time Gwyion had ever mentioned that. Had he really been saving it up for so long?

  “What answer would make you feel better?”

  “Olwen and Zach are with Haf at the hostel. If the mines are under attack, there’s nothing between our family and Tannyr Brek.”

  “We have to take the castle before the Magistrate returns. With Nathaniel away and Persephone isolated. Elianor Paine will support my claim if my father is already dead. Now is our only chance.”

  “What is the point if they destroy everything we’ve built?”

  “I’ll fix everything when I’m Lord of Shadowgate. I promise.”

  Gwyion snapped back as if someone had thrown water in his face.

  “Damn you, Anton, you can’t fix dead family!” Gwyion turned so hard he almost fell, then limped away. “I’m taking a horse!”

  “Gwyion, if you get on a horse, it will kill you.” Anton flung his hands out in a despairing shrug. “You’ll never make it.”

  “I’ll make it. Someone has to protect the people you love.”

  Anton stared after him, wondering what the hell he was talking about. He watched Gwyion struggle to mount his horse, then turned his back when it became too painful to witness.

  “You know,” Massen said, nodding towards the wagon’s cargo as if the altercation had never taken place. “I reckon the Captain would pay good money for one of these.”

  “Opportunity comes to the people who show up for battle.” Anton grinned at Massen. “We’ll talk more after we’ve won. Where did you put our prisoner?”

  “Under the porch, out of the rain. You let me know if you want it finishing.”

  “I can deal with it,” Anton said. “Make sure you eat as well.”

  He didn’t have to go inside the burned building. Just under the porch. He tried another step towards the porch but only moved sideways. To which weakness was it worse to submit? The fire was out. The heat gone from the wood. The damage wasn’t even that severe. Nothing compared to what he had seen before, to what he had done before.

  But he could still smell it on the wreckage. Rain on wet charcoal. Ashes where the corpses wait. He put his hands in his pockets, closed his eyes, and breathed it in. Was ten years still not enough time to recover? No wind on his face could feel as fresh as that morning, stood on the streets of Lutense waiting for what they had all assumed was just a silly little band of provincial royalists rallying to the banner of an infant Queen. Hair matted to his head beneath his helmet. Smiling at his soldiers.

  Had he really been as handsome as Lieutenant Massen? As strong as Persephone, charging into danger as if danger couldn’t touch her? Had he changed her, yesterday, shown her a defeat hard enough to open her eyes? He doubted she would have nightmares of falling fists and betrayal like he had nightmares of falling buildings and fire. Some people were more susceptible to injury than others. Some people were born to be cripples.

  He skirted around the outside of the building, far enough from the clearing that his boots crunched fresh snow, until he could see the man tied up on the porch like a sack discarded by tired workers. What would he have thought, if a Northern General had strolled through the wreckage and offered him a way out? Was he a cripple then, when the burns were still red, when the bones were still broken, or did that come later, in the hospital, in his bed, in the eyes of his family, at the hands of Persephone? He had to lean forward to drive his feet, one after another, up onto the porch, waiting for the wood to give way, watching for the walls to come tumbling and bury him in the dark and flames. It was the smell. Every time he smelled burned wood, he heard soldiers screaming. Anton did not wipe away the sweat. He turned left to face himself.

  The light caught the black swelling across Dale’s face, new injuries added to the old. Anton drew his knife from his belt. A flowerpot had fallen from the windowsill and smashed by Dale’s feet. A mix of soil and water covered the shards. The miners had leaned Dale against a wall, but he had fallen at an odd angle. Anton grimaced as he crouched. The pain ran from his back through his leg. Dale stared. His shoulders trembled.

  “I’m cutting you free,” Anton said. “You can try to attack me, but you’ll only hurt yourself. Turn around.”

  Dale pulled his legs in under him and struggled up into a squat. He pulled his wrists up behind him, but he stayed facing forward, his eyes fixed on Anton’s knife.

  “If I wanted to stab you, I wouldn’t wait until you turned your back,” Anton said.

  Dale laughed. It came up like a belch, a sudden burst of snot and tears and great tearing hoots eviscerating his lungs. He rolled to one side and offered his wrists, his forehead leant against the wall as he fought for breath. Anton sawed through the ropes. The cord had ripped bloody marks along Dale’s wrists. He took the boy by the shoulders and lifted him away from the wall.

  “I’m going to replace my father, and then I’m going to stop the fighting,” Anton said. “Will you help me save Shadowgate?”

  “Fuck you.”

  The ash on Dale’s shirt had stained Anton’s palms. He rubbed them on his trousers.

  “Olwen Garn likes you.”

  “What?”

  “Once we’re done, clean yourself up and then go ask her to marry you. She’ll say yes. Listen to what she tells you. Treat her right and treat her son as your own. Once the fighting is over, you two will sort things out, mountain and town together.”

  “Who the fuck do you…” Dale ran his sleeve across his nose. “My father will never accept it.”

  It wasn’t clear if he considered this a benefit or a barrier.

  “Neither of our fathers will live to see tomorrow,” Anton said. “It’s up to us to do a better job.”

  Chapter 71

  The door to Persephone’s cell was just a hinge on another set of iron bars. She lay back on the cot, her arms behind her head, and let the thudding in her skull vibrate through her arms into her biceps. She’d never seen the town gaol from the inside. Like an animal in a cage, she had her pile of straw on the stone, a grate by way of latrine, and a view of the door into the street.

  Across the room, on the other side of the bars, Ty sat with her boots on a desk. She had a nasty scar on her face and a bandaged pad on her nose. The pad was soaked with a night's seepage of blood. When Persephone had struck her with Haf’s broken cane, the force had been enough to blacken Ty’s eyes. Good. I always liked Ty.

  “You knocked out one of my fucking teeth,” Ty said.

  Persephone got up off the cot and took a long, hard look at the bars.

  “Not gone to fight at the castle?” she said.

  “I’ve got nothing against you, Captain.” Ty took her feet off the desk. “You stay there until Lord Vile comes to sort things out.”

  “Oh, so Anton’s Lord Vile now?”

  “Sit back down,” Ty said. She tapped her fingers on the table. Her sword was propped against the wall.

 
“The night the Magistrate arrived, we found a dragon helm in the Black Dog’s cave,” Persephone said. “Did you know what it was when you saw it? Did you know and say nothing?”

  Persephone wrapped her hands around the bars as she spoke. She gave them a gentle tug, not to move them, just to get a feel for their strength.

  “Don’t make me come over there,” Ty said.

  “I have a better idea,” Persephone said. “Let me go and walk out of the door.”

  “Or what?”

  The strength of the grip sends a message. It tells the muscles in your arms to be ready to work. It lets the metal know it will bend before you.

  “Gods, look at you.” Slow and casual, Ty got to her feet, picked up her scabbard and drew her sword. “You’re actually arrogant enough to think you can bend the bars.”

  “I thought you had nothing against me?” Persephone said.

  “Nothing against you?” Ty snarled, revealing the gap in her teeth. “You burned down half the town! You blew up the bloody Post Office! And why? Because some little aristo bitch turns up and tells you that Derec Garn is a thief!”

  She tossed her sword from her left hand to her right.

  “You’ve known Derec your whole life. He brings fresh bread up to the guardhouse on a Wednesday, and you got caught kissing him round the back of the stables when you were nine years old. But one word from another toff and you put a rope around his neck!”

  Ty took three steps towards Persephone and pointed the sword at her face. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bulging.

  “You act as if you’re one of us, but you only learn our names because you think we’re your pets. When it comes down to it, you sacrifice us like animals, the same way you left your horse to be shot, or little Wyn who died screaming your name. Even after she followed you against her own.”

  “Is that why you’re following Anton? Because you think he cares about you?”

  It hurt thinking about Anton, thinking about what he had said. Had she really violated him? That didn’t make any sense. If she hadn’t done what she had done, would he have ever gotten out of bed, gotten back on with living? She hadn’t violated him. She’d saved him.

  “Anton is a self-obsessed arsehole, but at least he knows what it means to serve,” Ty said. “He fought in a war. You’re just a guard who plays at soldier because your daddy gave you a sword and your brothers didn’t want the job. You get given the rank of Captain while better men and women get nothing.”

  “Do you all feel this way? Begw? Harran and Mabyn? Rees? Edern?”

  She had killed Edern. Cut him in half and thrown the bits off the mezzanine of The Last Chance. Without even giving it much thought. Because none of them had ever cared about her, never thought of her as a person; they just used her then called her dirty for doing what needed to be done.

  “Do you want to know what Rees calls you? Behind your back?”

  “Not really.”

  Persephone lunged for the sword. She thought she might take the flat of the blade, catch Ty off balance, pull her forward, and grab her wrist. But Ty was faster. She didn’t even move her feet, just snapped the blade up vertically across a gap-toothed grin that told Persephone she’d done exactly what Ty had expected.

  “He calls you Princess Piggy,” Ty said. “You’re slow, Princess. You’re propped up by people better than you.”

  “Talk is cheap, Ty,” Persephone said. “Let me out of the cell.”

  “You really think I’m that stupid, don’t you?” Ty sat back behind the desk. “Tell you what, though, you keep messing around with those bars and we’ll see what sort of soldier you make without any fingers.”

  Persephone adjusted her grip.

  “Let me go, now, or I’ll break down this door and kill you on my way out.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Ty snarled, jumping back up on her feet and raising her sword.

  Persephone took hold of the bars as if they were tough weeds that had dug deep into the earth. She levered them with her thighs and her trunk, and the roots answered the muscles straining in her neck. Ty ran forward and swung her sword.

  There was an enormous crack.

  The entire door came up in Persephone’s hands. She staggered back. Ty’s sword clashed against the bars, almost severing Persephone’s fingers. Under the force of the blow, the uprooted door tilted left, slinging them sideways across the cell. The top bars banged against the ceiling and Persephone’s knee crashed to the floor. Ty attacked again, light on her feet, trying to find a way through. Persephone held the door like a massive shield. The ringing clang of metal on metal shook her arms.

  “You’ve just given me an excuse to kill you,” Ty said.

  Persephone swung the door upwards to block a new attack, then slammed it towards Ty’s feet. Ty danced out of the way. Persephone leaned in, driving them both out through the hole where the door had been. The guard was on her heels, back towards the table. She grabbed the bars with her left hand and thrust through the gap. Persephone ducked and rolled her shoulder forward. She felt a searing pain across her face. The weight of the bars slammed Ty into the desk. Persephone fell hard; her enemy fell harder. There was a crunch and the sword went flying. Persephone surged back up to her knees and raised the broken door over her head. Ty was quick, already rolling onto her feet, trying to get back to her sword.

  Persephone brought the metal door down on Ty with all her might. The first blow wasn’t clean, but it caught her as she was getting up and drove her back to the floor. Persephone roared. The second strike was harder. The third and fourth crushed cartilage and bone until the spray of blood reached Persephone’s face, coating her lips and tongue. She paused, gritted her teeth, and took aim. After the fifth, Ty stopped moving.

  Persephone got to her feet.

  “Told you,” she said.

  She spat on the bloody corpse and then ran her hand across her face. Princess Piggy. Fuck you, Ty. Fuck all of them, if that was what they thought. She’d worked to get where she was. She’d worked to be the best swordsman, the best fighter in Shadowgate. Nobody could take that away from her. The tattoo burned on her chest, but she paid it no mind.

  Chapter 72

  Lena found Arbalest in the guardhouse, standing over the body of his bastard. Fyrsil had grown up around the castle, played with the children. They had always called him cousin without ever asking their father why. Arbalest had even shown glimmers of pride when the boy had become foreman of the mine. She knew why, although she didn’t like the truth. Fyrsil was the only one of his children that had never been given the blood. Now the old man sat in the dark with his white hair over his face. His hands met on the table, close enough to his son’s fingers that, if either were capable of reaching out, they might touch. But Arbalest wouldn’t move and Fyrsil was dead.

  Lena waited, watching, in the corridor between the dark prison cells. Arbalest had left the door open. The back exit to the courtyard and Persephone’s quarters was closed. It gave the chamber the air of a crypt. The light from the main doorway refracted across iron bars and stone walls and made Arbalest Vile into a sheet of white and grey over a shuck of grey and black.

  There was a spyglass dropped on the floor by one cell, the one which had held Derec Garn. Lena picked up the spyglass. She knew who must have lost it, dropped it here in a rush from the guardhouse. Little Wyn, who should have been anything but a guard, whose hair she’d plaited and whose bruises she’s kissed when she was a girl. Wyn who had been killed in the fighting. Rees had told her this morning. Too long I’ve been watching over this place, Lena thought. I don’t want to be the only one left when the fires go out.

  A sharp hiss crossed the cold air. It came from the back of the cell. Lena didn’t start, simply turned her cat eyes towards the dark. The Warden sat in the shadows. Its hands trembled as it tried to stand. Lena hissed right back at it.

  “Get back where you belong. But take the stairs. I don’t want you breaking the ladder again.”

/>   She dragged her toe off the trapdoor, the one that led into the tunnels beneath Shadowgate, and pointed down. The Warden stopped trying to stand. Lena put the spyglass in the case alongside the bottle and the box.

  “Do you think we made a mistake?” Arbalest said, just as she turned to leave.

  “In the last forty years? Plenty. Which in particular?”

  His voice had sounded like an echo through a long, dark tunnel. Was that how he spoke or how she heard him now? It was colder in here than outside. One of Fyrsil’s boots had come part way off and she had to fight the urge to push it back in place as she stepped into the room.

  “His mother was beautiful,” Arbalest said. “Do you remember?”

  “You always picked the pretty ones.”

  “That’s why I picked you.”

  “Lucky for you I had more than a nice face.” Very gently, like placing a hand on a growling dog, she placed her hand on his shoulder. “I need you to come out and talk to your son.”

  “Is he here?”

  “He will be soon. This has to stop.”

  “I want to move him,” Arbalest said.

  “What?”

  “Fyrsil. We should bury him on the mountain.”

  She took her hand off his shoulder and pointed back South.

  “Anton, your living son Anton, is out there with two dozen soldiers.”

  “Tell Rees to bring whoever’s left and we’ll carry his coffin in state.”

  “I think Anton has a cannon. He will blow his way through if we don’t open the gates.”

  Arbalest sneered, and for a moment she thought he was coming back. The real Arbalest. The fighter.

  “Cannon fire will barely dent the walls. He’s wasting his time.”

  Then he turned back to Fyrsil and closed his eyes. Fyrsil’s face was so much like Arbalest’s father’s, his real father, that it must have been hard to look at him.

  “Did you see who killed him?”

  Lena took a slow, steady breath, and lied.

  “No.”

  Arbalest bowed his head lower.