by David Wragg
‘Palo?’
Rennic looked up as he tried to dig his sword from the confessor’s skull. ‘What?’
‘Nothi— Behind!’
Rennic ducked instinctively, and a great sweep of a metal arm passed over his head. He abandoned the sword and rolled away as another blow swung back, a length of blunt steel whistling over him as he dodged. The giant turned and noticed Chel, and a great, guttural laugh spilled from within the white wolf’s head.
‘Sand-crab! This is the Shepherd’s will!’
Chel backed away. The cold metal of the bars pressed into his back. ‘What is?’
‘That we should meet again!’
Chel blinked and looked again. The huge figure was clad in armour unlike any he’d ever seen, plates of steel wrapped around each limb, articulated joints blended without visible mailed seam. It looked impenetrable. The only uncovered parts were the head and hands, the former covered in a giant wolf’s head, its white hide draped over the massive shoulders and back, the latter—
One hand. The right wrist ended in a simple metal fork, a two-pronged piece of steel.
No.
He looked again at the legs. The knees were heavy, reinforced, the legs braced with extra lengths of metal. The giant’s gait was slow, lumbering. Painful.
‘Brother Hurkel?’
‘Best pray for the Shepherd’s mercy, sand-crab! You’ll be seeing her soon!’
A mace slammed against the giant’s back and he turned in irritation.
‘Didn’t we already kill you once, fuck-stick?’ Rennic said, flinging another discarded mace at the armoured figure. Dalim danced into view, spear still in his hands despite the close surroundings, its tip glossy in the low light. He whipped the weapon around, driving the blade against the steel torso faster than the giant could slap it away. It left only a small nick on the carapace.
Hurkel laughed again.
Something bright bloomed in the gloom of the circular chamber, something hot and fearsome, fierce enough to blind those closest and throw a cloud of choking black smoke into the passageway and upward into the dome. Confessors reeled, coughing and hacking, those at the end of the passageway scrambling back into the open space beyond, gasping.
‘The fuck was that?’ Chel said, muffled through the arm pressed over his nose and mouth.
At the chamber’s exit, Spider stood triumphant, rivers running from the curved blades in his hands. ‘Like a bit of fucking alchemy, do you?’ he bawled at the fleeing confessors, catching one with a vicious slash as he staggered past. Even Hurkel seemed stunned by the sudden burst of flame and its choking aftermath, spinning on stiff, ponderous legs, pawing at the miasma with his fork-hand.
Chel reacted fastest. He lashed out with the chain, whipping it out and around the giant’s tree-like shin. The chain wrapped around as Hurkel twisted, looking from his blinkered wolf-view for the source of constriction.
‘Yes, little man!’ Rennic had grabbed another mace from somewhere and ducked beneath Hurkel’s swing to slam it against his armoured chest. This time, the armour dented, just enough for the bump to show. Rennic fell back, calling toward Spider, who stood surrounded by a heap of stricken confessors at the chamber door.
‘Spider, let’s finish this fucker!’
Spider looked up, across the chamber at the steel giant and the handful of confessors still standing. Then his gaze swung to the empty passageway beyond.
Rennic dodged back from another of Hurkel’s swings. He was running out of room, even as Chel strained against the chain, trying to keep the giant in place.
‘Spider!’
Spider nodded, an odd, twitching gesture. ‘Cheerio, pricks.’ He fled down the passageway, past the blinded and choking confessors. A moment later, they heard the sound of breaking glass, and then nothing.
Chel stared after him in disbelief. ‘What in hells … What’s he—?’
‘Spider only cares about one thing, little man,’ Rennic growled back. ‘Spider.’
‘After him!’
Rennic jumped back again, jarring an elbow against the wall behind. ‘Can you climb like he can? Because I fucking c— Ah!’
Hurkel dragged his leg forward, wrenching Chel’s ruined shoulder and throwing him sideways to the flagstone floor. He caught Rennic with another blow, knocking him back against the wall, the mace clattering from his hand.
Three sharp bangs echoed against the steel of Hurkel’s armour, and he lumbered around to find Dalim stabbing at his back. Dalim swivelled and flowed, a sinuous human weapon, two confessors mortally wounded in his wake.
‘Time to die, shit-head,’ Dalim said, eyes aflame. He half stepped one way, then pirouetted back, spinning the spear around and driving it toward the great wolf’s head.
Hurkel’s fork-hand trapped the spear, snatching the shaft from the air and twisting it sideways. His good hand seized the lead arm that held it, grasping Dalim’s wrist and wrenching it around. Dalim screamed. As the spear dropped, Hurkel’s good hand clamped down over Dalim’s head, crushing at the skull beneath, a jubilant gurgle issuing from the bobbing wolf’s head.
‘Enough!’
Palo’s voice carried clear across the smoke-filled chamber. She stood at the gate, sword finally in her hand, blade extended, unwavering.
Hurkel turned, flinging Dalim against the wall with horrible ease. Palo stared at him, into the darkness of the white wolf’s jaws, then let the sword fall. Its clatter on the flagstones seemed to echo for an age.
‘We yield.’
Hurkel paused. ‘You yield?’
‘We yield.’
‘Do we … fuck,’ said Rennic, from the floor. His face was bloodied and one arm hung limp. Chel had managed to crouch, but his landing on the flagstones had been unforgiving.
‘We yield,’ Palo repeated. ‘It is over.’
‘Coward,’ Rennic said, voice cracked with blood and smoke.
‘It is over,’ Palo said again.
From the chambers beyond came Corvel’s voice. ‘Take them alive, good brothers! They must confess! The people must hear of their crimes!’
Chel had barely made it to his feet before the confessors bore them to the ground.
THIRTY-FOUR
Chel watched the drip form, watched the water congregate and swell, marking the heartbeats until it fell. His estimation was improving.
‘What are you counting?’ Rennic glowered from his straw-covered pallet in the cell’s opposite corner. His jaw was still swollen, but he could see through both eyes again now.
‘Nothing.’
An icy wind blew from the grille at the top of the cell wall, carrying a few drifting snowflakes from the courtyard beyond with the shouts and clatter of activity. The scaffold was being prepared again. From down the cell-block came the perpetual sounds of captive misery, the shuffling, whimpering aimlessness of multitudes held against their will. More had come, over the days that followed; the bulk of the Rau Rel force, the regulars and mercenaries, even some of the minor nobles who had lent their arms, then anyone who could be identified, however hazily, beyond that. The scaffold had gone up pretty promptly afterward.
Chel pondered, between the drips. He thought of the tower-top. He thought of the princes. He thought of Brecki the reaver’s smile as she’d watched them in the camp.
Footsteps echoed on the stairway, the clanking, juddering steps of an armoured company approaching. Torchlight flared against the walls beyond the cell’s screen of bars, lighting the grim stone with an almost cosy warmth it did not deserve. The monstrous gaoler stirred in her chair, shifting in discomfort at the arrival of someone of presumed importance.
Corvel marched straight past them to the cell beyond. He didn’t even turn his head to look in as he passed. The thin band of gold at his temple gleamed as he walked, his bearing regal, his rich cloak the colour of cream edged with crimson. A silver brooch in the shape of a familiar flower shone from his throat. Chel wondered if he was still pretending to be stupid. A phalanx of armoured
confessors followed him down the steps, the massive form of Brother Hurkel at their head.
‘Who else, Palo?’
No reply came from the next cell.
‘I know the late Watcher was your blood. What about the rest of your family? Who are they? Where are they? You have to tell me something. You know people are suffering. You’re supposed to care about the people, remember? That was the whole point.’
No answer again. Corvel leaned back against the wall, into Chel’s eyeline.
‘This is all very noble, but you’re only making things worse.’
Silence.
‘Very well.’ The prince made a quick signal with his hand. Armoured footsteps sounded, and a familiar, urgent terror gripped Chel until he heard one of the cells at the block’s dank end opened with an ominous groan, its occupants dragged struggling and screaming from within: two more of the regulars sent by the Names. Still no sign of Lemon, Foss, Loveless or Whisper. Perhaps they’d done as Rennic ordered and escaped the citadel after all. He dearly hoped so.
‘I shall be king soon,’ Corvel said, quite conversational, as the men were dragged away. ‘Word’s out about Father, and, well, Primarch Vassad’s end was rather public, wasn’t it? Strangest thing, it turns out he took the trouble to name me successor to both his estates and sacred duties, even though I’m not even a man of the cloth! So now I have to organize a coronation. We can wait for spring, I think, get a good turnout on the free way, grubby little hands waving in the sun. Perhaps I’ll strike a new coin. The plebs love a new coin, don’t they?’
Corvel grinned. His smile was nothing like the amiable jollity Chel had witnessed when he was Mendel.
‘I shall miss our chats, Ayla. Until next time.’
He turned and swept from the cells, the red-robed battalion in pursuit after Hurkel’s lumbering steps. Chel avoided the big man’s gaze as he departed. One of the guards lingered, hesitating before their cell, a flickering torch in hand. A narrow figure, small for a confessor, hood pulled forward over the head. Chel leaned forward, squinting into the hood’s darkness.
A pair of silver-grey eyes looked back, tearful but burning with purpose.
‘Don’t give up, Brother Bear. I’m going to get you out of here.’
Then Sabina was gone, footsteps echoing from the cold stone of the under-cells, her torchlight fading from the harsh, ugly walls.
Heart thumping in his chest, fingers tingling, Chel shuffled back on the creaking bench, stared up at where a new drip was forming, and dared to hope.
FOOTNOTE
* * *
Acknowledgements
1 A portion of the advance for this book was donated to Family Action’s campaign to help those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire. You can find out more at:
https://www.family-action.org.uk/what-we-do/grants/grenfell-response/
Back to text
* * *
Acknowledgements
This book would not exist without the support, hard work, and enthusiasm of a great many people, and I would like to use this space to distribute a plethora of vast and resonant Thank Yous. First and tallest, to my literary agent Harry Illingworth, who leapt on the manuscript with the tenacity of some kind of small Yorkshire dog and dragged it into the publishing world by his teeth. Harry’s youthful vigour has served as an inspiration to a jaded and disintegrating husk like me. Cheers, boss.
To my editor, the peerless Natasha Bardon, who carved a bloodier and more commanding swathe through the text than the Black Hawk Company ever managed; to Jack Renninson (who picked a far better title and wrote much better copy than I ever managed) and Vicky Leech; to the wise and measured Caroline Knight; to superlative cover artist Richard Anderson (hot DAMN is he good); and to all the production staff at HarperVoyager: you have made the book, in some cases literally. Thanks to the bally lot of you. (Any lingering typos and mistakes are, of course, all mine.)
To Francesca Haig, who donated her time and energies to the Authors for Grenfell auction[1] and who, when I was lucky enough to win her lot, went far, far beyond the norm in her level of review, feedback, enthusiasm, and absolute loveliness: I cannot thank you enough. (And anyone reading this should rush out to buy Francesca’s magnificent books.) To Kat Howard, for most excellent editorial feedback (Kat’s books are also stellar).
To my advance readers, cultural companions, sounding-boards, and suggesters-in-chief: Adam Iley, James G Smith and Laz Roberts. Thanks, chaps, couldn’t have done it without you. You’ll get yours.
To everyone who suffered through my early work and provided feedback and encouragement (or insufficient discouragement to stop me): Adam King, Bambos Xiouros, CP Grisold, Claire Gavin, DBF, Damian Francis, Dan Williams, David Winchurch, Ed Sayers, Jon ‘Global Head’ Brierly, Lexie Harrison-Cripps, Lisa Perry, Paul Bridges, Paul Fallon, Paul McEwan, and Paul Restall. Your mental and emotional sacrifices were not in vain.
To my colleagues, past and present, sadly too numerous to name (although a special shout-out to Steph Brown and Jon Atkins for inspiring parts of Foss and Lemon’s travel banter): I wonder what it was about working with you lot that led me to write about a bunch of shiftless, morally ambiguous mercenaries devoid of loyalty and compassion and perennially doomed to fail? We may never know. And no, none of you is Lemon.
To my parents, and my teachers, who razed me and tort me to rite gud. To my remaining friends and family, for maintaining an appropriate level of polite interest. To my daughters, for eventually going to sleep and giving me a chance to write anything at all.
Finally, and most wholeheartedly, to my wife Sarah, to whom this book is dedicated. For encouraging me, supporting me (always emotionally, often financially, occasionally physically), gracefully handling both my absences and my presences, and for shouldering so many burdens; for being the person who told me to stop wittering on about maybe writing a book and get on with it; for being my absolute rock, and the greatest source of fun I’ve ever known: thank you. You are the single best thing in the world. MWAH.
About the Author
Dave Wragg really got into writing stories just as he finished his English GCSE, then took about twenty years to get back to it. In the meantime, he studied software engineering, worked in global shipping and technical consultancy, and once spent a year in the Foreign Office ‘hiding in the basement’.
Dave lives in Hertfordshire with his wife, two small daughters, and two smaller cats.
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