The Godless

by Ben Peek

  Today, however, what awaited her on the top of the wall were rows ten people deep made up from men and women, young and old. Ayae’s spot was behind a thirteen-year-old bakery apprentice, Jaerc, and next to two women, Desmonia, who worked in the bar Red’s Grin, and Keallis, one of the city’s planners.

  Shielding her eyes from the sun’s glare, Ayae saw Captain Heast, a lean, gray-haired man with his left leg made from steel, make his way slowly to the platform in front of everyone. It still surprised her that the old soldier joined them every day and led them in the stretching and light exercise. Once, she had seen him walk past her with a ring of blood seeping through the leg of his trousers.

  Behind him, two men took up positions by large drums, beginning a slow beat, accompanied by Captain Heast’s voice directing exercises. After thirty minutes of synchronized movements, the drums stopped and soldiers emerged in front of each column, wooden swords at their feet. She did not like sword practice: it reminded her too much of the camps, of the empty-eyed men who walked the walls, but she had come to accept it. In part, it had been made easier by the fact that she was paired with Jaerc, who was slim and quick and made a game out of it that did not begin to approach the reality of what real weapons could do. They had even begun to joke that it was a duel of apprentices, and that their masters gambled on who performed better; but she had seven years on him and a little more speed, and the contest invariably ended in her favor.

  With a grin, Jaerc broke the line and rushed forward to grab a pair of swords and a rope. The pair were seldom bothered in sword practice. Both were quick, did not fear a bruise and required no guidance from the soldiers who walked along the lines, helping others with basic instructions: how to hold a sword, how to thrust, how to block. Despite her reticence with the acts of war, Ayae had never had any trouble learning the first steps.

  After the rope line had been made, the young baker’s apprentice came in first, thrusting low. She met it easily. There was warmth in her limbs, an energy that she felt more keenly now that she moved around Jaerc, blocking and parrying, and then snapping high at him. Every time their swords hit she felt her grip tighten, her breath catch, and the energy in her press her forward. It almost got her caught twice, but a third and fourth time her attacks caught Jaerc—once on the thigh, then on his shoulder; the fifth time she moved too eagerly, and he slapped his blade against the side of her chest. Pushing that aside she readied to leap forward again, only to stop as she felt a presence behind her.

  Turning, she found herself staring at a large, bald black man. The only hair on his face was white stubble on his chin, hair that looked to have been dyed to match the spiraling white tattoos that twisted across his bare arms, disappearing beneath his clothing, a dark shirt and dark leather leggings, laced together with white straps. On his hips he wore a pair of curved hand axes, the hilts wrapped with worn, sweat-stained leather grips.

  “You got good speed, girl,” he said, his voice deep and heavy with an accent that betrayed his Ooilan nativity. “A natural eye.”

  The men and women around her stopped, while others accompanying him—three men and two women, road-stained, wearing similar black leather—watched.

  Turning to Jaerc, he said, “’Scuse me, son, mind if I borrow your sword?” It was dwarfed in his grasp as he spun it around, his attention back on Ayae. “Now, the problem is, your eye and your speed are not entirely in sync. You constantly leave yourself open, which against anyone with experience is going to have you hurt. You got a name, miss?”

  She told him.

  “My name is Bueralan. This a problem for you?”

  She felt the gaze of the crowd on her. “No,” she said. “I’m here to learn.”

  His grin was wide, revealing white teeth. “That natural speed you got, that’s more than what I have. I got some height and muscle on you, though.”

  “I would never have guessed.”

  Around her, the crowd laughed.

  “Go,” he said.

  Ayae’s sword snapped up, quicker than she had thought she could move. He blocked, but only just, and she pressed her attack, adrenaline coursing through her. This was not Jaerc, but a mercenary, a seasoned soldier. A danger. This was the kind of man who had been drawn to the camp in Sooia, deserters, scavengers and thieves, men with no hope and no honor. That he probably wasn’t any of that was, momentarily, lost to Ayae. His name meant nothing to her. He meant nothing. The fury of her past, the worries of her present gave her a strength and speed so that she pressed the mercenary backward, forcing the crowd to part, and felt a thrill at doing so.

  It was short-lived: Bueralan’s sword slapped her own aside, the force of it putting her off balance, and quicker than she thought possible, the wooden edge of his borrowed practice blade tapped her neck.

  “Balancing speed and eye,” he said, “that’s a virtue that goes missed by many fighters. A lot will try to hack their way through you with the first, think nothing of the second.”

  “You backed up though.”

  “That I did.” His nod was short, approving. “You caught me a little flat on my feet and it took a few steps to find my balance. If your swings had been a little more controlled, you might have had me.”

  Her eyebrow rose. “Might?”

  “Well.” Half a smile lifted his right cheek. “In a real fight, I probably would have cheated.”

  Despite herself, Ayae laughed.

  “Learn to juggle.” The big man handed the sword back to Jaerc. “Anything that helps with your hand-eye coordination won’t hurt.”

  Before she could ask him if he was serious, he nodded and walked through the crowd ringed around him. The men and women in leather followed him, except for one. He did not have the look of a mercenary about him: he wore a simple, loose-fitting shirt, his trousers tucked into riding boots. His plain, pale face and brown hair had nothing to recommend it and Ayae was not sure why he had caught her eye.

  “Do you know who that is?” Jaerc asked.

  “Him?” She turned, and saw he was looking at the big black man heading toward the podium. “No.”

  “That was the exiled baron, Bueralan Le, Captain of Dark.”

  Shrugging, not having the background knowledge about mercenary groups to be able to share Jaerc’s awe, Ayae turned back toward the other man who had been staring at her, but he was gone.

  3.

  According to the friends of the disgraced Baron of Kein, Bueralan’s greatest character flaw was that after seventeen years in exile, he showed no remorse. One day, his enemies said, it would be the death of him.

  Beneath the steely gaze of Captain Heast, that assessment—inaccurate, the subject of it had said more than once—returned to Bueralan. His lack of so-called remorse arose from the fact that he did not often think himself wrong, but he knew he had overstepped his boundaries with the girl he was walking away from. Heast, loyal, pragmatic, professional and capable of shocking coldness, did not appreciate others breaking his discipline, and would remember that: the captain had long ago earned the reputation as a man who had a library of memories, each of them meticulously annotated and referenced.

  “I see the wilds and my cousin have taught you nothing,” the Captain of the Spine said evenly as the podium’s stairs creaked beneath Bueralan’s weight. “I was hoping for humility, at the very least.”

  “Only in death.”

  Their handshake was strong, firm.

  “She shows promise,” Bueralan said. “A lot of promise.”

  “The apprentices of cartographers are not here for careers in warfare.” Heast’s gaze swept over the men and women behind the exiled baron. “Your people can retire to the North Keep’s barracks.”

  Dark waited down the stairs, five in number, a mix of nationalities and ages clothed in aged, stained leather and bearing close-quarter weapons. Zean, who was all the family that Bueralan had left, stood at their head, tall and lean, an ugly knife on each hip and more hidden. Behind him stood the oldest, Kae, a pale-skinned
swordsman who stood taller than Zean and whose left hand was missing the two smallest fingers. The sisters, Aerala and Liaya, dark-haired and olive-skinned, stood next to him, the first holding a longbow in her hands, while the second, younger and slightly smaller, carried a worn satchel over her sword. And lastly, at the end, stood Ruk, a white man with mud-colored hair whose most blessed attribute was not the sword he carried but rather that he had nothing of note to distinguish him from another man on the street, not even when he spoke.

  As a whole, they were formidable, dangerous, but to Bueralan they looked mostly tired. It was not the journey that left them so, but the last job. Paid by a small lord in the equally small kingdom of Ille, the mercenary group had been hired for work that had been mean and dispiriting, a month spent cutting out the heart of a peasant rebellion in the poverty stricken countryside. At the end of it, they had had enough money to pay a widow poor compensation for her loss and, as he looked over them, he saw the scars of that experience, the weariness that was not so much about flesh, as it was about soul. With a nod to them they left to follow Heast’s directions; when he turned the captain’s fingers were pressed against his leg. A faint ring of blood showed at the hip.

  “You ought to see a healer about that,” Bueralan said.

  “I have.”

  “A real healer. Not the ones here that cover you in herbs and stitch wounds.”

  “You mean warlocks?” said Heast coldly. “Witches? Heal with blood and pay with gold.”

  Behind them, one of the drummers hit his skin softly, testing it. “It would make it easier to climb stairs, at least,” Bueralan said.

  “Ease is not something I concern myself with.” Approaching the drummer who was tapping out a soft beat, he said, “I’ll take this man to see the Lady, Oric. Ten more minutes and you can begin cleaning up.”

  The limping captain led Bueralan off his podium, the latter slowing his pace for the former as he made his way awkwardly down the stairs.

  Ahead sat the Keep of the Spine. Set against the solid stone of the mountain, it used the natural formation as a wall and a foundation for its four tall towers, the dark stones giving it the appearance of having been carved from the mountain, rather than built into it. The illusion had been recently broken by a huge wooden wall that ran from the edge of the Keep down into the Spine of Ger itself, the hard, warm light of the sun following each angle of the construction.

  As the Spine’s Keep drew closer, Bueralan saw that the walls in front had been reinforced, and the grounds there reduced to flat dirt. There had been gardens, once, and though they were not renowned, Lady Wagan’s reputation as a proud gardener, the mercenary recalled, was because of the diversity that she had managed to grow in the tropical heat. As he followed the path up to the Keep’s entrance, he remembered that previously the grounds had been an array of clashing colors, a living, visual equivalent of the diversity that swept through the cobbled streets of Mireea, and the trade found in its markets.

  It had been different last time he’d been here, Bueralan thought. Then as he’d walked through the famed markets of Mireea, and followed each turn of the cobbled road, he’d been accompanied by the clamor of merchants yelling, the aroma of food, of spice and tobacco. The best and most expensive merchants had been here, within easy reach of the Keep, but even in the working-class sections around yards and small houses, there had been stalls selling everyday necessities. But now, from the gate, through the wide roads that led to the poorer parts, Bueralan saw only a city that was defined by its silence. The archways in the Spine that had once been so full of people, bartering, a good-natured bickering, were now bricked-up lanes with mercenaries gathered, singly and in groups, waiting to see if they would be offered work by either the larger mercenary groups already hired, or by Heast himself. Beyond them, the woods that had pressed against the Spine were gone, making way for a wide, loosely packed killing ground of dirt.

  “Did he die well?” Heast asked abruptly.

  “Does anyone?” They were talking about Elar, Heast’s cousin, the man Bueralan had lost in Ille. “He died hard,” he admitted.

  “Don’t we all?”

  “We were forced to cremate him before we sent him home.”

  Heast grunted, unsurprised. “Was the business finished?”

  “Yes.” A silence fell between the two, awkward for a moment. “Do you not run the markets any more?” Bueralan asked.

  “They stopped six months ago,” Heast said.

  “And the city’s economy?”

  “You’ll get paid, Baron.” The captain’s tone was dry. “You’ll not have to fear for your purse.”

  Bueralan chuckled. Both men knew the ritual, the mercenary’s concern and complaint about money, and how they used it. Both had fought for more than one lord and lady and found, once the dying began, that there was no money in the coffers to pay for their services. Some mercenary troops, especially the larger ones like Steel, worked for money that would be paid in ransoms, rewards and debts to be settled after the battles, but Dark did not take prisoners or petition for the safety of others. They were a small group, a private group who tried to stay out of the public’s gaze—unlike many other mercenary groups, they did not authorize cheap novels or plays about their exploits. Bueralan did not need to march into a city with flowers being thrown at his feet, accompanied by trumpet fanfares and mobbed by enthusiastic children. He did not need to look outside the window of his barracks and see youngsters reenacting scenes from the fictions that were created from his exploits—in short he did not feel the need to be a hero or legend to anyone but the members of Dark.

  Seeing how other mercenary groups had been short-changed or unpaid, Bueralan had changed the way they operated and ensured they were paid two-fifths in advance, the rest in completion, and their rates were reasonable. Until, that is, special requests were made.

  It did not make him popular, but he wasn’t out to win any contests in that area.

  He liked the money, liked that no one would take on a job just to meet him in combat in an attempt to make a name for themselves, and liked especially that no one asked why an exiled baron needed to lead an army. He had, for a while, tried to keep his exile a secret, but the very nature of it made that difficult and, surprisingly, it had given him a reputation of trustworthiness, for it was clear that he was only interested in the money rather than feats of glory, that he and his company would get the job done, keep quiet and honest and then leave. Despite his attempts at anonymity, such was the nature of the fascination with mercenary groups that he was known in some quarters by enthusiasts with more passion for fiction than reality. The boy who sparred with the girl had known him, he was sure. Half a dozen others might have, as well. Ever since the fictions had become popular, it had become harder for people like him to keep a low profile, and the more he worked at ensuring that he and Dark weren’t in books, weren’t in songs, the more, it seemed, a select few spent their time trying to aggrandize their exploits into something glorious and thrilling rather than the blood, dirt and shortened life he knew were associated with his line of work.

  The two men passed through the gates, leaving the empty streets behind and walking at a steady, albeit one-sided limping pace, to the Keep’s heavy doors. These were made from the timber of ancient trees that had grown along Ger’s Spine. Inside, the scent of spice drifted through the air. It reminded Bueralan of the Plateau, where the vegan diets of pacifist tribes were similarly spiced—and where he had been, but once, officially—but the direction from where the spices came was not where Heast led him. They made their way down the hall, walking over warm tiles to a second grand door, where two guards revealed a spacious, well-lit room.

  Inside, the floor was decorated with a sprawling, circular pattern, and at its center was a silver throne. High on the roof, an intricate array of lights shone and, with almost theater-like drama, a white light was centered on the throne whenever the Lord or Lady of the Spine held court. The immense throne was a relic of an
older age, recovered from the cities that had been built in the caves throughout the mountains, by a cult who had been outlawed during the Five Kingdoms, but who had been destroyed by the men and women who came to dig for a new life in the ground, for gold; the men and women who would later build Mireea. Heast led Bueralan past it without comment. Through a door on the other side of the room, a narrow corridor turned into a spiraling staircase where, at the end of several levels, a single guard stood. He nodded as Heast emerged and opened the door to reveal another large room.

  Inside sat the Lady of the Spine, Muriel Wagan.

  Despite her reputation for being strict with an iron will, she looked like a softer woman, verging gently into fat, her dyed red hair that hung like a younger woman’s ponytail over a gown of bright yellow and orange reflecting a mind that was anything but sharp and precise.

  “Your ladyship, I present to you Captain Bueralan Le,” Heast said, his hands folding before him.

  “My Lady.” Bueralan bowed his head. “A pleasure.”

  Her smile revealed discolored teeth. “My Lord. Captain, how are you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll take that to mean in considerable pain, as always.” Her smile was affectionate, taking no offense at his grunted reply. “Take yourself downstairs. Have that leg looked at.”

  The captain glanced at Bueralan.

  “Aned,” the Lady of the Spine said, “don’t make me dismiss you.”