The Iron Dirge

by Sam Sykes

  Dread Niri canted her head to the side, regarding me through that one eye. “You know of many bandit clans renowned for reasonability?”

  “I don’t know many bandit clans that keep shit like this around, either.” I gestured toward Irvic. “Nor many bandit clans that target guards before loot. The peacekeepers going missing were your doing, I assume?”

  I didn’t expect remorse. But it wasn’t a boastful grin that played on her face.

  “We gave them a choice: run and live without their steel, or stay and die with it,” she whispered softly. “Most chose to run, if it comforts you.” She hefted her stick, pointed it toward the distant walls of Paarl’s Hollow. “We gave them the same choice, only asking them to leave behind their gold instead of their steel.” Her eye met mine. “Would you care to take a guess at how many of them chose to run?”

  I quirked a brow. You didn’t typically find bandits so eloquent, unless they watched a lot of opera. Which meant Niri was either well-read or well-watched and in either of those cases, I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better.

  But again, I was in a hurry.

  “I don’t, no,” I replied.

  Her face twisted beneath her makeup. “Do you suppose it would shock you? As it shocked me? As it shocked all of us? How many of them chose to stay and die for their money? How many peacekeepers they sent out, content that they should die so long as the gold and silver stays safe? How many—”

  “Holy SHIT.”

  Niri recoiled, shocked by my sudden interruption. Honestly, it just tumbled out.

  “Sorry, I know you had a whole speech there, but…” I scratched at a scar on my face. “I mean, can you condense it for me? I’m in kind of a hurry.”

  Shock turned to anger. “We’ve got our reasons for being here. Same as you. And if yours is to stop us on behalf of those fucks in there.” Her eyes drifted down toward my waist, to the sword and gun on my hip. “We’ll give you the same opportunity. Leave your steel, keep your life.”

  “Tempting.” I sniffed. “I could keep both, though. And take yours, instead.”

  “I don’t see an army with you.”

  I canted my head to the side. I let my grin stretch broad enough to join my scar in one long line across my face. I pulled back my scarf, let them see my dirty leathers, my scars… and him. I laid a hand on the Cacophony’s hilt, drummed my fingers across the black wood, let them get a good long look before I spoke.

  “Honey,” I said. “Do you really think you can be a warlord and not know Sal the Cacophony when you see her?”

  The fear that had been boiling in the ranks of her armies finally infected her. Bitterness and softness alike faded from voice and face. She took a step backward that was just a little too hasty and just a little not collected enough. And her entire clan took that step with her.

  I hate to sound vain, but fuck me if it didn’t make me just a little bit happy to know I could still do this. Not least because my plan relied on it.

  “I’ve got…” Niri swallowed, forced cold shock into a vague imitation of cold anger, tried again. “We have no quarrel with you, Cacophony.”

  “Nor I any with you or your delightful band of miscreants,” I replied. “I’m sure you run a fine business and all your boys and girls are all very happy with their pointy new toys. And if you turn around and go find some other town, we can keep it that way. But Paarl’s Hollow has a man in it. A man with a name.” I narrowed my eyes. “A name on my list.”

  Another step backward from the clan. Hastier.

  A little piece of parchment in my vest pocket. Thirty-three names in ink. Some crossed off. Some not. That’s all it was.

  But the list remembered the night Sal the Cacophony was born. Far away, long ago, in a dark place full of people with dark intentions. Some had fought me. Some had helped others fight against me. Some had simply stood by and watched.

  But all of them took something from me. Something that I would never get back.

  And if you knew the towns I’d left in ruins to get at the names on that list… well, maybe you’d be a little hasty, too.

  Many people knew this. The Children of the Dead knew this.

  Rogo the Dervish knew this.

  None of them were going to stop me.

  “You’re…” Niri gasped. “You’re here for one of the Crown Conspiracy?”

  Well-read, then. She knew her Imperial history.

  “I am.”

  “You’re going to do… what you did at Lowstaff.”

  A long, deliberate pause. “I am.”

  I said bandits were bad and I meant it. But they weren’t the worst thing in the Scar. There were things that even swathes of murderous, heavily armed killers were afraid of.

  And, on a good day, I was one of them.

  Niri’s mouth hung open for a second before twisting into an uneasy grin. “Well, I won’t have it said that the Children of the Dead were unaccommodating, will I?”

  Won’t have it said? You asshole, I thought. That’s my thing.

  But, in the interests of getting on with the business of killing a man, I chose to hold my tongue.

  “We’ve got no grievance with you, Cacophony, and plenty of work to do. There’s no reason we can’t be civil about this.” She gestured to the township’s walls. “Go in first. Claim whatever you came here to claim. Take whatever you need to take. We will not begrudge you it.”

  She made a long, low bow. Too formal for a socialite, let alone a warlord.

  “You have our pledge of non-interference.”

  I had to admit I was impressed. Mostly with myself.

  Not that I hadn’t expected that plan to work, but I’m always reasonably happy when plots that amount to “talk tough and hope they’re too stupid to tell otherwise.” I couldn’t help but grin—behind my scarf, of course. She’d seen reason. This would mean less work for me, fewer complications for killing Rogo, and, as a pleasant little bonus, no one was going to—

  “We’ll sack the rest of the town, instead.”

  Ah, right. I forgot I was dealing with a murderer.

  “Huh?” I blurted out.

  “The Children aren’t some average band of thugs, madam,” she replied. “We don’t fight for wealth or glory or steel.”

  “Given that you’ve killed a bunch of peacekeepers for theirs, I don’t know if I quite believe that.”

  She didn’t respond because she wasn’t looking at me. She turned and pointed to a random man in the clan.

  “Derri,” she said. “Where are you from?”

  “Two Trees,” the man replied. “Little village five miles north of here.” His face hardened. “Destroyed a year ago. Bandits.”

  Niri nodded, pointed to another man. “You, Gonnol?”

  “Rook’s First Thought,” the man replied. “Three and a half miles east of here. Destroyed a year and a month ago. Monsters.”

  She pointed to the big lass I had originally thought was her. “Tulshi?”

  “Galapon,” the woman replied, her voice soft and trembling. She raised her hand and pointed toward somewhere beyond the tree line. “Just over those hills, there. Bandits. Just four of them. We weren’t…” She paused, swallowed something hard. “We were just two farms. Not even a village.”

  “All within five miles,” Niri muttered. “Your average bird can make five miles in an hour. Paarl’s Hollow has over forty birds for its peacekeepers.” She looked over the Children of the Dead. “Did any of them come to your aid?”

  Silence.

  Without fear or anger. A field of silent faces, hollow eyes, and mouths that no longer had a use for smiling. They stared. And they said nothing.

  Well.

  Fuck me for thinking this was going to be easy, right?

  She started to walk. The bandits started walking with her. And those hollow eyes, so empty they couldn’t even hold hate, were locked on the promise of taking their anger out on a whole town without Sal the Cacophony getting in the way.

  A town
full of people who couldn’t fight, who couldn’t think through the fear of the coming Beast, whose only hope of getting out of here alive… was about to be killed by me.

  “Come,” Niri said as she moved to walk past me. “We’ll take up positions and stay out of the Cacophony’s way, as she will stay out of—”

  She paused, in word and in step, and looked down. My hand was on her chest, stopping her. She looked up at me, puzzled.

  Honestly, I was a little confused myself.

  Even more confused, really, when I gave her a rude shove backward. I couldn’t offer a reason. All I could offer was the word that came to my mouth.

  “No,” I said.

  “No?”

  “No, you’re not going to do that,” I said. “Turn around. Keep walking until I can’t see you anymore. Whatever town you find along the way is yours.” I stared up, and up, and met her gaze. “This one is mine.”

  Irritation flashed across her face. Then an emptiness where puzzlement should be, and another where reasonability should be, until she came back to twisted-mouth rage.

  “Sal the Cacophony,” she hissed, “destroyer of cities, bringer of doom, wielder of the Herald of the End Times. I’ve heard the stories, the exaggerated tales of your ruthlessness, your viciousness, the bodies they’ve left in their wake.” She narrowed her good eye. “You know how many people this town has killed? You’re going to protect them for trivial sentiment?”

  Maybe.

  Maybe sentiment. Maybe morality. Maybe fear. Like I said, it was a dumb thing to do. But maybe…

  I couldn’t have it said that Sal the Cacophony let that happen to so many people and did nothing.

  Not that it really mattered, I guess.

  “I am disappointed, Cacophony.”

  What with this about to get ugly and all.

  “Very…” Niri slid into a combat stance—how the fuck did she learn a combat stance? “Very disappointed.”

  Ah, fuck.

  I raised one hand for calm, but it didn’t take long for that hand to find my blade. She lowered her body, taking her stick in both hands like it were a sword, and rushed toward me. I drew my blade, watching her as she came sweeping forward. She was so low to the ground, darting back and forth in a way I’d never seen before. What kind of style was this? What kind of obscure technique did she know that I didn’t?

  I had no time to study, no time to think, no time for anything as she lunged at me, swung her stick, and…

  “NYUH!”

  … missed by a good two and a half feet.

  Okay, so it wasn’t a secret technique, she was just fucking terrible at this.

  She swung again. And again. And again. Each time, skinny arms trembled with the effort of her graceless flailing. Each time, she missed—and I think one time she actually hit herself in the face?

  I effortlessly side-stepped a blow, glanced to the bandits. Any other clan, this show of failure would end an entire army’s aspirations, let alone a warlord. Yet all of them, even the tall woman, did nothing more than stare, unfazed by their leader’s ineptitude.

  Which might be fine for them, but this was taking too long.

  Niri roared, stepped into her next swing. I swiveled my head back, let the air whistle as it swung. In the wake of her swing, I stepped forward, found her wrist with my hand and her belly with the hilt of my blade.

  Her heels left the ground. The blow knocked the wind, and hopefully the shit, out of her. Gasping, she hung from my grip, head lolling as every part of her focused on trying to find her breath again.

  “This is embarrassing,” I sighed, pulling her closer. “Take whatever cronies you have left after this and go find another town. Whatever the fuck they did to you, revenge can’t be worth this kind of beating.”

  I made move to shove her to the ground. But she didn’t fall. Her stick dropped, her arm shot out, jerked me tight against her as she slumped to the earth. What the fuck was this, I wondered? Some kind of begging for mercy? I was already in a hurry to—

  “It’s not about revenge.”

  She looked up at me. With both eyes. One human.

  The other metal and alight with tiny, glowing sigils.

  A spellwritten eye. I didn’t even fucking know they could spellwright eyes.

  “It’s about principle,” she growled. And, then, shouted: “NOW!”

  I sneered. “The fuck kind of shitty pageantry do you have—”

  Point of reference: it turns it out it’s really hard to finish what you were thinking when there’s a crossbow bolt in your leg.

  I had barely heard the click and the rush of wind before I felt my right leg go out from under me. I glanced down, saw the fletching of the bolt sticking out of my thigh. And, as if it were a coy young thing waiting to be noticed across the dance floor, the pain followed.

  I screamed as agony lanced my leg, shredded skin and muscle ablaze as they bunched around the bolt. I looked toward the bushes where a painted bandit with a heavy crossbow sat, concealed—how the fuck had I missed him? I felt something moving in my grip, glanced back to my hand, and where a bandit warlord had once been, I clutched only a bundle of dirty rags.

  “Apologies, Cacophony.” Niri, now ten feet away and gasping for breath, nevertheless made the shit-eatingest grin I’d ever seen. “Don’t hold this against me when you reach the black table.”

  “You shitty little runt,” I snarled, lunging for her.

  A spear cut me off as a pair of bandits rushed forward, thrusting barbed heads at me. I swung clumsily at them, batting away their weapons as they swung between me and their leader.

  I struck where I could, attacked where I thought I had an opening, but pain blinded my senses and slowed my movement. Whichever one I swung at fell back, leaving her companion to rush in and tangle with me. They struck like this—organized, careful, clever—over and over and, before I knew it, I had forgotten all about Dread Niri, all about anything except getting away.

  What the fuck had happened? These were bandits. Not even very good bandits. Had it been my haste? Had I gotten too overconfident? Or were all the scars and wounds and memories finally starting to catch up with me?

  Ah, well. I guess it didn’t matter.

  Since I was going to die and all.

  The spear-carriers suddenly fell back, leaving me just enough time to wonder what the fuck was happening before the shield caught my chin. I fell back—the blow had come out of nowhere, caught me beneath the jaw, sent me sprawling to the ground.

  Dazed, breathless, agonized—I couldn’t tell which part of me was in worse shape. But as I tried to sit up, I realized it was my chest that hurt the worst. Largely because of the giant boot that came down upon it.

  “You shouldn’t have come here.”

  The tall woman. The one I originally thought was the leader. She towered over me, boot on my chest, heel digging into my sternum. She raised her sword over her head, the war paint on her face struggling to hide the tremble in her eyes.

  Struggling. And failing.

  “Please,” she said, soft as a woman holding a blade could manage, “don’t make this difficult.”

  She inhaled sharply. She brought the sword down. She hesitated. Froze, really.

  As she stared down into a pair of brass eyes.

  And the Cacophony, through a mouthful of burning teeth, smiled back at her.

  “Little fucking late for that, isn’t it?” I growled.

  And pulled the trigger.

  There was a soft click. A spark of light. And a roar of flame.

  A great gout of fire poured out of the Cacophony’s mouth, swept over the woman’s face, smothering her fear, her screams, everything beneath a great sheet of flame. It lasted for but a moment—maybe a second or three of bright, laughing flame. But for that moment, the sky was filled with fire, the earth was blackened by heat, the sound of flame and metal filled the air.

  And when it abated, when all had fallen silent once more, the woman standing over me swayed, fell, a
nd broke. Into ten bubbling, blackened pieces.

  I found my feet. Or foot, anyway—the other leg was numb from the thigh down. And stared out over the remaining bandits. And the remaining bandits stared back. Dumbfounded. Silent. Terrified.

  The Cacophony seethed in my grip, delighted at the reaction. And if I hadn’t had a bolt in my leg, I might have shared it.

  It’s one thing to hear the stories about the Cacophony. The tales of cities left in ruins, of armies left destroyed, of foes left scattered and broken across the land. It’s quite another thing to see it in action, to see what he can do, to know that no one walks away from him.

  A sight like that can make the blood run cold enough to freeze. It can make a hard man stay home and a soft man move towns. That devastation can destroy a mind as easily as a body, it can leave a person shattered to pieces with one little brass trigger, and it can sure as shit scatter the remnants of a bunch of shitty, overly dramatic bandits playing at revenge.

  “KILL HER!”

  For fuck’s sake, what was with these guys?

  They shed their empty eyes and their quiescence, cast aside their timidity and horror. What came surging toward me on that day—that roiling, wailing mass of flesh and steel and screams that was the Children of the Dead—had trembling eyes and mouths full of anguish.

  I’ve fought bandits. I’ve killed bandits. I knew their faces. I knew their petty angers and trivial ambitions. I knew their simpering fear and their empty bravado. I knew their hates, their lusts, their vendettas. But this… this full-throated, formless wailing that tore free from them like broken arrowheads…

  I didn’t know that scream. That sorrow. That pain.

  Not from bandits, anyway.

  There was probably a lesson in empathy there somewhere. But they’d have to not be trying to kill me for me to learn it, so…

  I could feel the thunder of their feet, that scream rippling in my blood. My hand fumbled in my satchel, desperately fishing through the clinking metal therein. My leg fought my brain fought the rest of me to see which pain would blind me first, but they were all in vain.

  Before anything, the Cacophony had something to say.

  My fingers brushed against engraved metal. My fingers recognized a name.