The Black Hawks

by David Wragg

  ‘Just— Just let me go first.’

  If anything, the air beyond the screen was colder than before. At the room’s centre, posed directly before the screen upon a dais, stood a huge, elevated bed, inclined to allow any occupant a view through the screen. Behind and over it stood another great stone statue: a crowned giant in hunter’s garb, a greatsword hefted in a two-handed grip, towering and muscular. If that was supposed to be Lubel Merimonsun, it seemed a little insensitive to have his invalid daybed directly beneath it. To one side, a stout door led elsewhere into the keep, presumably to the king’s private chambers. Palo tried it. It was locked. She made to draw her weapon on it, then stopped, looking back at the elevated bed at the chamber’s heart.

  The bed was occupied.

  Its covers and furs were rucked and tented over a figure, dwarfed by the grand scale of its furnishings. Colourless hair spilled out from the darkness of the pillows, flat and sallow. Palo, Chel and the prince advanced on it, none speaking. The alchemical smell was stronger here, far stronger, and Chel felt his eyes beginning to water.

  Palo had reached the dais and was climbing up beside the bed. Something glittered in her hand in the stumbling candlelight. Chel’s heart beat faster, his stomach lurching, his head light from more than the room’s unsettling smell. Tarfel was only a couple of paces behind him.

  He rounded the intercessor’s lectern and leapt up beside Palo, feeling a jolt of complaint from his shoulder as he gripped the side of the dais. If Palo noticed him, she gave no sign. The knife was in her hand, gripped ready to plunge, and as he reached her she whispered.

  ‘Death to tyrants.’

  ‘Nine rancid, sheep-fucking hells,’ came Rennic’s voice from across the dais. His head appeared at the bed’s headboard, level with the mounded pillows.

  Chel couldn’t yet reach Palo’s knife hand, but she was holding where she was.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Princeling. Uh, bad news, I’m afraid.’

  Tarfel had reached the foot of the dais.

  ‘What? What is it? Father! Father!’

  ‘I’m sorry, but your dad, he, uh, ain’t breathing.’

  ‘What? What?’

  ‘He’s dead. Look, no breath.’ Rennic swept a hand toward the pile at the bed’s head. No telltale plume rose in the frigid air.

  ‘And from the look of it,’ Rennic continued, reaching out and drawing back the covering furs, ‘he’s been that way for quite a long time.’

  The mummified face of Lubel Merimonsun stared sightlessly at them from silken pillows, white-gold tresses splayed around him like a classical halo. The body was hopelessly shrunken, shrivelled back to taut grey skin over the bones beneath.

  ‘That’s what that smell is.’ Rennic shook his head, more baffled than angry. ‘Not herbal manipulation. He’s been fucking embalmed.’

  ‘Father! No, no!’ Tarfel began to sob. Rennic gave Chel a look that strongly suggested he look after the grieving prince, but Chel felt no pressing inclination.

  ‘The king is dead, and we shall all of us burn.’

  Beside him, Palo stirred.

  ‘What? What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing. Just … something I heard once.’

  Below the dais, Tarfel was raging. ‘That bastard, that shit-pig-bastard! He killed Father. He killed his king. And he covered it up. My own father is dead … and I didn’t know. I didn’t know!’ He began to kick the side of the intercessor’s lectern, knocking over a candlestick.

  Rennic cleared his throat and nodded in the prince’s direction again for Chel’s benefit. Still, Chel didn’t move. Something had caught his eye as the candlestick rolled, a glimmering line through the air, rising up from the back of the bed and up toward the statue.

  ‘What’s that?’

  The door to the chamber rattled, then rattled again. Everyone froze, even Tarfel mid-kick.

  ‘Who’s in there? Sand-flower, is that you?’ Vashenda’s voice came muffled and alarmed through the thick wood. ‘Open this door! Where are the guards!’

  The door bucked against the bundled spears barring it shut, twice, three times. ‘Open this fucking door in the name of the Primarch!’

  Rennic gave Palo a sharp and hungry glance.

  ‘We need to leave. Now, before she gathers more.’

  Palo shook her head. Her face remained as expressionless as ever.

  ‘Our mission ends within this chamber.’

  Vashenda’s voice shrieked from outside. ‘Alarm! Sound the alarm! Guards, guards!’ Her cries receded as she disappeared back into the keep. Back toward legions of mail-clad red confessors.

  ‘Don’t give up on me, Palo. We can fight our way out if we move fast. Even Prince Ding-dong there.’

  Tarfel gave them a look of tear-streaked defiance.

  ‘Absolutely. I’m absolutely ready to kill something. Just give me a sword.’

  Palo was unmoved.

  ‘Our job is done. Done for us, in fact,’ she said, her voice almost a whisper. Louder, she said, ‘We must keep them from the tower, to give Raeden the best chance of reaching Vassad. We must draw them here and delay them as long as possible.’

  ‘You mean dying valiantly, yes?’ Rennic said. ‘Fuck. That. Little man, get the prince and get to the door to the king’s chambers. We’ll bust it open.’

  Tarfel shook his head. ‘The private chambers are a dead end. There’s only one connecting door from this wing to the main keep.’

  ‘What about elsewhere? Other doors to the outside?’

  The prince shrugged, sniffing angry tears. ‘We’re halfway up a hill, built into the rock. Where would they go?’

  ‘Fuck. Fuck!’

  Chel had followed the line of light, fingers tracing the slender thread. It passed through a loop at the edge of the wooden headboard, then travelled straight up the body of the statue into the darkness above. He gave the thread a gentle tug.

  Beneath the covers, the dead king’s hand twitched.

  ‘So that’s how they manage the audiences,’ he said, tugging the thread again. He scanned the headboard and spotted four more tiny rings, barely perceptible threads running through each. ‘A strong smell, no voice, only gestures and twitches,’ he recited as he clambered onto the statue’s plinth, eyes fixed on the path of the tiny threads up and over the stonework.

  ‘Little man, what the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘There’s something here. They were controlling the king like a puppet.’ He paused. ‘Apologies, your highness.’

  Tarfel waved a hand, past caring. Rennic was less serene.

  ‘Fascinating. And that helps us because …’

  Chel followed the threads through a single ring, barely visible, hammered into the statue’s shoulder, then out and across the far side. Very thin slits were visible between the stone blocks in the wall behind the statue.

  ‘I think there’s—’

  Something crashed against the chamber door, rocking it inward. The spears creaked.

  ‘Sand-flower! Open the door and receive the Shepherd’s mercy!’

  Rennic was beside him. ‘What? What is there? Hurry now!’

  Chel grabbed one of the feeble candles and held it toward the wall. ‘There’s something here. They made the king move with threads from behind here. Made it look like he was moving.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Fuck knows, Vassad, his minions, who cares now? Someone had to be back here, though.’

  ‘And you think there’s a way out?’

  ‘I think it’s possible.’

  The door crashed again, then again a moment later. The thumps against it picked up a sickening rhythm. The bundled spears began to splinter. All the while, Vashenda called through what she no doubt considered to be reassurance.

  ‘Open the door, sand-flower. We care only for the health of the king. Surrender now and receive only the Shepherd’s mercy!’

  Chel cocked an eyebrow. ‘Doesn’t she know about the king?’

  Rennic grunted
, indifferent. ‘If she does, would she tell?’

  Palo and Dalim were back at the screen door, watching. Waiting. Spider was closer to Chel and Rennic than to them.

  ‘What’s rat-boy found?’

  ‘Fuck off, Spider, let him work.’

  ‘There!’

  A concealed hinge lay in the wooden panelling that lined the far wall. Chel dug at it with his good knife, tracing the outline of a small door. He snagged the catch as the spears began to split.

  ‘Here! Everyone! Here!’

  Spider was inside before he could get the thing all the way open. Rennic ran back to grab the prince and drag him through. Only when Dalim bolted and it seemed she’d be left completely alone did Palo follow.

  Chel pulled the door closed and jammed his knife through its latch as darkness swallowed them. Slivers of wan yellow light from the chamber lent precious little illumination to their new surroundings.

  ‘What now?’ Dalim whispered and was immediately shushed. Chel crept along the cold stone and pressed his eye to one of the slits.

  The royal chamber’s door slammed open, ripping apart the spears that had barred it in a burst of splintering wood. Vashenda strode into the room, as furious and haughty as the day he’d first seen her in Denirnas, even as a mashed blur of colour through the screen. ‘Sand-flower!’ she roared as she entered the chamber, flanked by a dozen or more red-robed shapes. They fanned out, spreading across the chamber, but came to a halt when they reached the screen. They seemed unwilling to go any further.

  ‘Sand-flower? Come out now, surrender yourself and end this farce. Stop being a thrice-damned fool.’ Vashenda waited, angry breath steaming in the pallid light, then she snarled. ‘Very well. You lot, get in there. Now!’

  The confessors’ reluctance broke against her fury, and they were through the screen a moment later, fanning out into the audience chamber. Vashenda’s pace and confidence slowed as they did, her certainty replaced by confusion. ‘Sand-flower,’ she said again, but this time her rage was undercut by suspicion. ‘Where are you hiding?’

  Tarfel tugged Chel’s elbow.

  ‘What if she knows about the little door?’ he said as quiet as he could.

  Cold panic bloomed in Chel’s guts. He swung his gaze around the darkness of the puppeteer’s enclosure, but his eyes were not yet adjusted. A gentle creaking from the corner drew his attention. Spider had found a ladder.

  The others quickly followed, movements furtive, but Chel risked another look through the wall-slit. Vashenda had made no move toward the hidden door. She stood, hesitant, in the shadow of the raised bed and its giant statue. Her confessors milled around, poking at the room’s periphery. One confirmed that the door to the royal chambers was locked.

  ‘She doesn’t know,’ he whispered.

  Another confessor called from the corner, having stumbled over the stacked corpses of his former colleagues. Vashenda scowled. ‘He had company. Who did he come in with? Where did they go? Who has the keys to the royal chambers? We must attend to the king.’

  ‘She doesn’t know.’

  A soft twang by his head drew his glance. Rennic had cut the threads. They floated gently into the darkness behind the statue, and the last clue to their location removed.

  ‘Uh, the king is here, Sister,’ one of the confessors said, nodding to the bed.

  Vashenda swivelled, mortified. ‘Your majesty! My apologies – are you hurt?’

  A confessor climbed aboard the bed.

  ‘He’s … He’s dead.’

  Vashenda’s jaw clacked shut in rage, her knuckles tight. ‘I knew it. Shepherd damn that Andriz bastard.’

  ‘Uh, he’s been dead a while, Sister.’

  She paused. ‘How long is a while?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Sister. He’s been embalmed.’

  Rennic put a hand on Chel’s arm and pulled him away with gentle insistence. Vashenda’s disbelieving roars covered the sound of their climb.

  THIRTY-TWO

  A rough, rocky passage, tunnelled straight from the hillside from its unfinished appearance, led away from the ladder’s rest, curling around and upward. Spider led the way, a fat candlestick in hand, half-invisible in the darkness. The air within was cold and stale, but free, at least, of the embalming stench.

  Tarfel walked alone, half sobbing, half muttering. As the sound of Vashenda’s inchoate rage fell away behind them, Chel risked a word.

  ‘I’m sorry about your father, highness.’

  Tarfel sniffed and nodded.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  The prince’s eyes were glossy pools in the low light. ‘See him? Ha. A few months ago. I made my presentations, as ever, and was rewarded with a nod and a gesture. A nod and a gesture! But I was grateful, you see. Grateful for the acknowledgement. Because he was so very … ill …’

  He spluttered into another choking sob, then wiped away the tears with his sleeve.

  ‘But it was puppetry! My father a primarch’s marionette!’ He swallowed, loud and wet, then cleared his throat. ‘My father, my sole parent, one third of what remains of my family, has been dead all this time, and I’ve been played for a fool!’

  His voice was loud enough to echo down the tunnel, and heads turned ahead of them, but nobody said anything. The prince turned on Rennic, who looked like he wanted no part of the conversation. He was already hunched against the tunnel’s low ceiling.

  ‘How long? You saw him. How long has my father been dead?’

  Rennic prevaricated. ‘Hard to say, uh, your highness.’

  ‘How long could he have been dead? Months?’

  Rennic nodded to himself, as if he’d expected the question.

  ‘Years.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Four or five, maybe more. Less than ten, I’d guess, but I’m no practitioner. This tunnel is only a few years old, I can tell you that much. My guess is you’d find its diggers entombed in here if you had a proper rummage.’

  Tarfel’s eyes glazed as they shuffled on through the gloom.

  ‘It was five years ago that bandits attacked my brothers’ caravan. They killed my brother Corvel, and left Mendel the only survivor – gravely wounded, forever changed.’

  Chel pictured the crown prince, his bright, shining eyes, the jagged scar down his cheek, his earnest compliance.

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘I mean, Corvel could be cruel and devious, but he was our blood, and we loved him. At his loss, my father became bedridden. Struck down by grief, they told me. Of course, I was much younger then.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And thanks to Master Torht, our Watcher, I know that Vassad himself was behind my brother’s murder.’ He turned back to Rennic, gaze hard. ‘But what if there’s more to it? What if we have events backward?’

  Rennic offered only a blank look.

  ‘Did Vassad kill my father first? Tried to control him with alchemy, poisoned him by accident or design, then decided to kill my brothers before they could ascend, to cement his hold on the kingdom?’

  Rennic’s hands were spread. He could offer no answers in the echoing dark.

  ‘And that’s why Mendel still lives now.’ Tarfel’s voice fell away. ‘Because he was hurt, because he’s … he’s pliable. Am I pliable?’

  Rennic looked to Chel in pleading.

  ‘I’m pliable, aren’t I? Aren’t I, Vedren?’

  Chel swallowed. ‘You can’t be that pliable, highness. Look where you are now.’

  Tarfel laughed, surprising himself.

  ‘No, no, indeed. Ha. Maybe that’s what happened at Denirnas, eh? Maybe the old bastard saw something like this coming?’

  Chel offered half a nod, unconvinced.

  ‘Let’s hope not.’

  ***

  Palo held open the sturdy door at the tunnel’s far end. Spider and Dalim between them had burst the lock, using Dalim’s pilfered spear as a lever. The door opened into a crate-filled store-room, and Chel thought immediately of t
he room in the depths of the Silent Sepulchre, the secret wall, the smugglers’ caves beneath. He thought of Torht and Mendel, their laborious journey up the tower’s great spiral. They would have reached the top by now. They must have done. Unless they’d also been caught up in the confessors’ violent response.

  Rennic tilted his head, tracing what looked a well-worn path through the crates to a curtain-covered opening on the far side. ‘Well, I’m going to check every store-room I come across for hidden doors in future.’

  Spider was already at the curtain, peeping around, curved knife in his hand. Palo joined him.

  ‘Where are we?’

  Spider turned with a leering smirk.

  ‘We’re in the tower. Close to the meat.’

  An empty office lay beyond, the quills, ink and rolls of paper suggesting a senior church clerk’s. Chel wondered if such a clerk existed, and whether that clerk was in on the puppet-king conspiracy. How far did the tendrils reach?

  They crept through a narrow set of interconnecting rooms, each seemingly empty, then the passageway opened to reveal the great stone spiral at the tower’s heart. Palo cocked an ear at its edge.

  ‘Activity below, but doesn’t sound like it’s coming our way. They may still believe we are hidden in the royal wing.’ She turned and looked upward.

  Dalim stepped beside her.

  ‘Anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘Perhaps they have already succeeded. Perhaps the pennant of the free peoples is unfurling as we speak.’

  Dalim nodded, cradling the spear in his arms. His habitual assurance had deserted him.

  ‘Yeah. Maybe.’

  ‘Then let us finish our climb and find out for ourselves.’

  ***

  The upper reaches of the tower were devoted to the Primarch’s private chambers. The spiral stair curled around with a final, wide flourish, pitching them before a giant set of gold-inlaid doors at the tower-top’s inner edge. Above, the ceiling climbed in a gleaming dome, similarly golden, emblazoned with the figures of the sanctified and hierarchs past, drawn against a backdrop of swirling stars. From somewhere came a strange rumbling sound, and the distant clatter of rolling chain.