The Black Hawks

by David Wragg

  ‘Is that so? Then why all this trouble?’

  ‘Because people can’t go around saying they’re princes!’

  ‘Was he doing that? How did you hear?’

  ‘They told me. Well, they told Varint, and she told me.’

  ‘And who is Varint?’

  The man blinked again. ‘She was in the boat.’

  ‘Ah. That’s a shame. What did Varint tell you?’

  ‘That some little piss-prick was going around calling himself a prince, and he needed ending. They said he might be going south on a boat, so we was to get aboard as flimsies at Sebemir and keep watch.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘If we saw anything, we signal shore. Varint had riders going up and down the river paths.’

  ‘Why the boat? Why not just stab him and hide?’

  The man didn’t answer, and Loveless leaned in close. ‘Why the boat of comrades, chum? Why come aboard?’

  ‘Because any fucker that took him aboard was a traitor, and they should be sliced along with him,’ he spat.

  ‘So you were going to kill everyone.’

  The man stared off into the middle distance. ‘Yeah. Traitors got it coming. Varint said we could keep the barge.’

  Loveless nodded. ‘An attractive offer. Who did Varint say had hired you?’

  The man shrugged.

  ‘You can do better than that. What kind of person did Varint talk to?’

  ‘The kind that don’t like being spoken of.’

  ‘You’re forgetting, chum. You’re already dead, remember? What do you have to fear from unseen others now?’

  The man started blinking again, and Loveless put a hand back on his shoulder. ‘Come now, it’ll be over soon. Everyone you had loyalty to is gone now, and those who remain were happy enough to see your blood spread for nothing. Who hired Varint?’

  ‘… Church. Red confessors.’

  Loveless stood up straight again. ‘Thank you, chum, you’ve been very helpful.’

  ‘Why do you keep calling me that!’

  Her voice was utterly expressionless. ‘Because it’s what gets fed to fish. Foss, would you see this arsehole out?’

  The dark shape detached itself from the pool of shadows by the wall and strode forward. Without ceremony, Foss squatted and scooped the squawking man onto his shoulder, then thumped out through the doorway. Chel heard the man’s cries grow in pitch, before a final shriek, and a moment later, a splash. Foss reappeared in the doorway shortly afterward, stone-faced.

  Loveless acknowledged his return, then shook her head and blew out her cheeks. ‘What a prick,’ she muttered.

  Spider chuckled. ‘Should have let me dose him, could have had him dancing a jig while he sang his little heart out.’ Rennic rolled his eyes as Spider slouched from the room, still chuckling to himself.

  ‘I will tell you what, I do not care to have that wanker along,’ Lemon muttered from her corner as the door closed.

  ‘Shut your yap, Lemon,’ Rennic growled in response. ‘He comes with the job, which is more than you’ve managed.’

  Loveless sloped forward and reclined in the chair, after dusting off the worst of the former assassin’s leavings. ‘Well, that confirms a few things. Where does this leave us?’

  Rennic leaned back against the wall, his mouth a hard line. ‘Unchanged. We knew they were following us, and now we know how. If luck holds, we’ve cleared all who had sight of our cargo.’

  ‘And if not?’

  ‘We’ll skip that one when it falls.’

  Lemon looked up again. ‘You know, a word of thanks wouldn’t go amiss. If I’d not roused you pillocks, that bastard and his pals would have carved us hither and yon.’

  Rennic nodded, his eyes twinkling in the light. ‘Yeah? And who got you up, Lem?’

  ‘Woke myself,’ came the hot reply. ‘Close duty, it was. On hand to deal with situation in yonder store.’ She waved her hammer toward the open door where Chel and Tarfel huddled, peering out. The eyes of the room turned on them. Tarfel shrank straight back into the shadows.

  Rennic walked toward the doorway, eyes fixed on Chel. Chel stood up, good hand on the frame, every muscle in his body united in complaint.

  ‘How the fuck are you still upright, scab-face?’ Rennic said, his head tilted. ‘Didn’t you head-butt that fucker unconscious and drop through the deck?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Rennic grinned, sharp and wolfish. ‘Maybe I’m not such a bad judge of character after all.’ He leaned in close, his voice low. ‘But understand this: you’re here because I want you here, and I want you here for him.’ He nodded toward the prince. ‘This may come as a shock, but I want to keep young Prince Fuck-face alive and well, and that’s more than can be said for most folk you’ll meet. So I would be most grateful if you would do me the considerable favour of not trying to run off again. Do you understand me? Just nod if you do, it’s been a long day.’

  Chel managed a nod.

  ‘Good. Now back in your box. We’ve got a long way to go and I’m tired as shit of looking at you.’

  He shunted Chel back with a palm, and Chel collapsed onto his sack-bed. The door closed and bolted and he and the prince were once again in darkness. Chel flopped back and looked up at the distant patch of stars. The grille was back over the hatch. That seemed about right.

  EIGHT

  In the morning, they were let out for good behaviour. Chel shuffled into the hold with tender steps, his entire body racked with aches and jolts. Lemon checked his dressings again and worked his strapped arm at the elbow. She muttered constantly as she worked, before finishing with a ‘No big moves for at least a week – you’ll have to train the other hand,’ then departed with a mucky chuckle.

  Tarfel was munching on some kind of radish. ‘I’ll admit,’ he said between crunches, ‘this could be worse.’

  Chel surveyed the now-deserted hold. Its doorway to the deck lay open and unguarded. His shoulder throbbed and his face itched. ‘We’ve been locked in a box on a riverboat for hours, while people have taken turns in trying to kill us, highness.’

  ‘But they haven’t, have they? Killed us, I mean. If they really had it in for us, they’d have done it by now. Karaman of Tawal was set upon in Lauwei, dragged off his horse in the street. They stabbed him up so much he was dead before he hit the ground. So I heard, anyway. All I need to do is sit tight until we reach Kurtemir, then it’s a quick ransom and off to the nearest palace. You’ll be a free man, I can start plotting my royal revenge.’

  Chel shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past this lot. Don’t confuse the absence of immediate cruelty with kindness, highness.’

  Tarfel nodded, mouth full of radish. ‘I’ll try not to.’

  ***

  The vessel in daylight was revealed as a low, wide-bodied barge, a smuggler’s crate. The crew avoided them all, for the most part. They were professionally unobservant. The Black Hawk Company were dotted around the vessel, which was making steady progress up the wide, curving river, past countless churning watermills, small riverboats with oars and poles, toll points and ferries. Chel and Tarfel were allowed the run of the deck in the dazzling morning sun. The rocky red shore was several hundred yards away on either side, and Chel doubted he’d get very far if he tried to swim one-armed. He glanced at Tarfel, who was wandering around the upper deck looking relaxed, almost cheerful, as if performing a royal inspection. Chel doubted the prince could swim either. He couldn’t even ride. How could a prince not ride?

  Chel wandered along the vessel’s edge, his good hand on the high rail, his eyes on the distant shore. Drifting around a cluster of barrels he almost trod on Spider. He and a dark, hollow-eyed girl of about Chel’s own age were sitting in the shade of the barrels, almost comatose. Dried pods crunched beneath Chel’s feet, and Spider’s eyes snapped open. He snaked out a claw-like hand and grabbed the front of Chel’s shirt, dragging him forward and down to his level.

  ‘You.’ Spider’s eyes w
ere bloodshot, unfocused.

  ‘Me,’ Chel said. His heart was already beating faster.

  ‘You.’

  Spider smiled then, a dreamy, inward smile, and his grip relaxed as his eyes closed and his head lolled back against the barrels. Chel backed away, tasting sour adrenaline, then skirted around to the far side of the barge, as far away as possible from the barrels and their occupants. He bumped into Tarfel, coming the other way. The prince was singing, and for a moment Chel flashed back to their trip in the mule cart to Omundi. It all seemed a very long time ago. It must have been all of five days.

  The princed finished off the final lines of ‘Red Runs the River’ with a beatific smile, took a breath, then launched into the opening of ‘The Ballad of the White Widow’. Chel liked this one; it was reasonably new.

  Lemon came racing across the deck, waving her hands and making a hissing noise. Chel and Tarfel turned to watch her approach, the prince pausing his singing. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Just, ancestors …’ She put her hands on her knees, took a couple of long breaths. ‘Just don’t sing that one, yes?’

  ‘Whyever not?’

  She waved a hand and blew orange fronds from her face. ‘Just … anything else, all right?’

  The prince shrugged, turned and sauntered away across the deck, the reedy strains of ‘Blessed are the Liberators’ going with him. Chel hovered.

  ‘What’s the problem with that song?’

  Lemon stood, her breathing back under control, and shook her head. ‘Boss-man doesn’t like it. And you’d be voyaging on the right side of prudent to skirt his ire, given we’re all trapped on this wee boat together. Last time he heard a minstrel sing it, he threw a chair at his head.’

  ‘All … right …’ Chel nodded, no less puzzled. ‘Hey, who’s that girl? The one over with Spider. A bit … thousand-yard stare.’

  ‘She’s the Fly.’

  ‘Oh, that’s convenient.’

  ‘Not really. He always calls them that.’

  ‘Them?’

  But Lemon was already walking away, leaving Chel alone on the deck. He clambered, painfully, up the short ladder to the forecastle, where he found Loveless in the shadow of the mast, apparently in conversation with herself.

  ‘Keep on south, I suppose,’ she said. She was leaning back against the prow, beside a tall stack of crates, looking off toward the distant shore. ‘What would you do?’

  She paused, then shrugged. ‘Well, you know me. Whatever works.’

  Chel heard no reply, but Loveless snorted with laughter. Then she saw him.

  ‘Are you lost, bear cub?’

  He wanted to turn and run. ‘Who are you talking to?’ he said instead.

  She arched an eyebrow. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

  A shout came from the barge’s stern. It sounded like ‘Sail!’

  Loveless’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go and see what that is.’

  Chel went.

  ***

  He found Rennic and Foss already on the rear deck, staring out over the rail at the pale wash of water that trailed them. Neither looked over as he approached.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said.

  ‘How far back?’ Rennic said to Foss.

  The man-mountain tipped his head from side to side, his bundled braids swaying. ‘Half a day, maybe?’

  ‘Any chance it’s local?’

  Foss shook his head. ‘They closed the port, boss, and the river with it. That one has a dispensation.’

  Rennic grimaced. ‘How long until they catch us?’

  Again, Foss looked uncertain. ‘Depends on the currents and the wind. But she’ll be faster than us, no doubt. We chose this one for profile, not for speed.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Two days. Three at most.’

  ‘Fucking hells. We’ll be lucky even to reach the lake mouth in that time.’ He gripped the rail, knuckles white. Chel squinted in the early orange sunlight. He thought he could make out a pale smear at the distant curve of the glittering river. It might have been a sail, he supposed.

  ***

  Lemon roused them sometime in the small hours of their third night aboard the barge. Chel and Tarfel were still confined to the store, but they’d at least been allowed a couple of bedrolls and some blankets and had carved out a snug corner each among the sacks and barrels.

  She led them up onto the rear deck without speaking, and the humourless glitter of lamp light in her eyes made her silence contagious. There stood the rest of the company: Foss and Loveless by the tiller, gazing out over the lightless waters that lapped in their wake; Spider and his dead-eyed companion, looking at least more alert than Chel had seen since they pushed off; and Rennic, in low conversation with the captain, a hard-faced woman in her middle years, her thick, silver-black braids gleaming in the low deck light.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Tarfel whispered to Chel as they came to a stop by the top of the stairs. He could offer no reply. The night air was chill, the rippling sky overhead thick with dark veins of moonless cloud, and he found himself stuffing his good hand beneath his bandages to try to keep his fingers warm. The dwindling heat of the northern autumnal days was long gone by this hour, and the cool breeze blowing along the river left him shivering.

  Rennic looked over at them. His sharp features were exaggerated by the deep shadows cast by the fluttering lanterns, and for a moment he looked truly monstrous. ‘Gather your shit,’ he said. ‘We’re going ashore.’

  Chel turned toward the barge’s prow. They were still half a day or more from the lake, although he was sure he could see the amber glow of the lights of Kurtemir on the distant horizon. Then he looked back, beyond the figures at the rail. There, now only a few hundred yards behind, the forelights of the chasing vessel shimmered in the midnight fog.

  ‘They’re going to catch us,’ he said.

  ‘Not if we’re not here. Now get your shit.’

  Tarfel looked panicked. ‘But we don’t have anything!’

  ‘Good. The boat’s tied at the rail. While the mist holds, come on.’

  They were bundled swiftly down the rope ladder to the long, narrow vessel that had brought their would-be assassins, still tied at the barge’s flank. Spider and the Fly went first, squeezing around the bundles of supplies that were already packed along the boat’s centre. Lemon and Foss sandwiched Chel and the prince, no doubt to keep them from any rash action, and finally Loveless and Rennic descended. Rennic looked up and back, gave a signal of acknowledgement, and Loveless began to cast off.

  ‘What about them?’ Chel said, his eyes on the handful of crew up on the decks. The water seemed so much louder in the boat that he had to raise his voice.

  Rennic didn’t look at him. ‘They’ll be fine.’

  ‘If we’re pursued, they’re at risk.’

  ‘They know what they’re doing. Now shut your mouth.’ He looked around in frustration. ‘We need to be away. Where in hells is she?’

  Chel frowned. Loveless had untied them, and they had begun to drift on the rising waves of the barge’s wash. Everyone he expected was already aboard.

  A shadow detached itself from the great dark shape of the barge that loomed over them, then with a hissing sound it spooled itself down the loose rope that dangled from the rail until it was only a foot from the waterline. A moment’s flexion, then the shadow pushed itself away from the barge’s hull and out over the water, arcing around. As it passed over the boat, the shadow detached itself and dropped onto them. The boat bucked and rocked as the shadow landed with a thump, then unfolded itself between Rennic and Loveless at the rear of the vessel.

  ‘God’s breath!’ Tarfel shrieked. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Lemon said, and cuffed the prince around the head.

  ‘A fucking show-off, that’s who,’ said Loveless, before clamping an affectionate arm around the new arrival. A patch of starlight revealed their latecomer to be a spare-framed woman, her shaven head gleaming almo
st blue. Chel spotted an unstrung bow poking up from her back, along with the dark-fletched arrows he’d seen thumping into the last occupant of their current vessel. She grinned at Loveless, then made a series of curious gestures with her fingers. Loveless laughed and said, ‘Would I bollocks.’

  ‘Voices down, eh?’ Lemon growled again, then she and Foss slid their paddles over the side and they began their slow voyage through the mist to the shore.

  ***

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Tarfel said, slapping water from his boots on the rough loose stone of the river bank. ‘How is this any faster? It’ll take much longer to get to Kurtemir if we’re walking, surely?’

  ‘We’re not going to Kurtemir,’ Rennic said. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘But … Well, where are we going then?’

  Rennic pointed. Not upriver, toward the lake, but inland, and upward. Giant black shapes blotted the western horizon, little more than jagged crests of darkness against the predawn bruise of the sky.

  Tarfel followed his finger. ‘We’re going toward the mountains?’

  ‘No. We’re going over them.’

  ‘What? Are you mad? There are savages up there, wild animals, storms!’ The prince was almost screaming, and Chel stepped between him and Lemon before a cuff arrived. ‘Well, clearly you are mad – you kidnapped a prince of the realm, for God’s sake – but … but …’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry.’ Rennic stepped close to them both, his hard face expressionless in the gloom. ‘Safer to cross at the Low Passes than stay on the river. I hope those noble legs of yours were bred for climbing. Now grab a pack and get moving.’

  ‘I won’t, you can’t make me! There are rules.’

  ‘Is. That. So.’

  ‘Just take me to any of the Names, hells, anyone with a pennant, a castle and an oath.’

  Chel pursed his lips. Grand Duke Reysel had been a Name, and his own son had offed him. Would any other Name be safe?

  ‘Thrice-damn it,’ Tarfel went on, ‘I’m a prince and I’m worth a fortune.’

  ‘From where I’m standing, you’re neither.’

  ‘What?’

  Loveless slung one of the supply packs onto her back. ‘See, that’s the funny thing, princeling,’ she said.