Serpentine (The Beggar's Ride Book 1)

by Tim Stead

  Narak sighed. Alwain was not a complete fool, it seemed. He wondered if Dunsandel was.

  “The king is the king,” he told the man. “There is no custom, tradition or law that bars him from the city of the gods. You will order your men to stand aside.”

  “I apologise if it inconveniences you,” Dunsandel said. “But I will hold the road.”

  “The order is treasonous,” Narak said. “It is treason to obey it. Do you understand that?”

  “That is a grave charge,” Dunsandel said. “But Bas Erinor commands the army, and we are a part of his command.” Despite his words Narak could see a trace of doubt in Dunsandel’s face. The man knew he was on thin ice. But Narak was losing patience with the dance. He could not be bothered to waste time persuading the man with polite words. He turned to the king.

  “With your permission, King Degoran?”

  Again it was obvious that Degoran didn’t want Narak to draw his blades, and the king played his hand well.

  “If you must, Deus,” he said. “I shall rejoin my regiment and wait for you there.”

  The title was not lost on Dunsandel. He blanched.

  “Deus? You are Wolf Narak?” The title and the twin blades together left no doubt. Narak turned back to him.

  “What if I am? Does that change your orders? Does it erase your treason?”

  “The wishes of Col Boran…”

  “I do not stand here as proxy for the god mage,” Narak interrupted.

  Dunsandel licked his lips. He was trapped in a small way. He could not change his course without looking dishonourable, or even cowardly, though none would blame him for not wasting his regiment against the Wolf.

  “Deus,” he said. “I will draw my men aside. You may pass with the king.”

  Narak smiled a cold smile. “You know that we are all your purpose, Dunsandel. If we pass you have failed your master in totality. You will follow us and accept the king’s authority. It’s the only way you’re getting out of this with your skin intact.”

  Dunsandel looked at Narak as though searching for a way out, but eventually he nodded. “We are the king’s men,” he said.

  It should have been over, but some of Dunsandel’s men seemed less convinced. A major spurred his mount forwards and rode across the line to where Narak faced the colonel.

  “Sir, we have our orders,” the man said. He was deliberately ignoring Narak, speaking to Dunsandel with his back half turned. “This man is just a man with two swords.”

  “Major, I have made my decision,” Dunsandel said.

  “Look at him,” the major said. “You know that Col Boran disdains the affairs of men, and Narak has not been in Avilian for a hundred years. Do you think he would come for this?”

  “Major,” Dunsandel said. “You are playing a dangerous game. Return to your place.”

  “Not until I have shown up this impostor.”

  “Dunsandel, your man wants me to perform,” Narak said. “How many men does he want me to kill?”

  “I will kill you myself,” the major said, finally turning his scorn on Narak.

  “No, no that will never do,” Narak said. “If I dispatch you there will still be a doubt. Shall we say fifty men? Or a round hundred? Are there that many who would follow you?”

  “I will call your bluff,” the major said, though Narak thought he detected a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “My company is two hundred men. Will you face so many?”

  “I faced five times that in Afael, and that was before I was dragon kin.” Narak smiled again, but there was no humour in it. He slid down from his horse. “Come then, bring out your men.”

  It was a strange thing to stand there and watch men choosing to die. He studied them as the Major’s company walked out in front of their regiment. They were men like any others, like the ones he’d fought beside at Afael, Finchbeak and Fal Verdan, and so like the ones he’d killed at those same places.

  A weary feeling settled over him. It was all happening again. These two hundred were no challenge. They could not injure him with their weapons – at least the Seth Yarra armed with blood silver had had that chance. They could not even parry his blades, which were the dragon steel pair gifted to him by Kirrith. They could cut through anything, even the common steel of the soldiers’ swords and armour. It would be a slaughter, and to what end?

  Narak looked back and saw that Degoran had not left. The king had merely retreated to the tree line and was watching from there.

  It dawned on him that he’d had enough of killing. Any anger he’d felt towards these men for their treason was washed away by the apprehension he saw in their faces. Their Major had called them to his side, but it was not their battle. If they had committed a crime it was loyalty to the wrong man, and they shouldn’t die for that.

  He drew his blades. He did not know how many men could see them, but they were clearly unnatural. They were white, like the full moon, and had no fluting or marks upon them.

  “Are you ready?” the Major asked.

  “I will speak first,” Narak said. He spun the blades in his hands, made swift patterns in the air. “You men have been chosen to die before your comrades,” he said, speaking loudly in the still air. “You fight for a treasonous cause, and while treason may be forgotten, it will never be forgiven. Today I will make certain that the memory of your ill judged stand will never fade for as long as you live.” He looked at the Major. “I am ready,” he said.

  It began. The major attacked first, showing that his lack of judgement was not matched by a lack of courage. Narak dodged his blow and cut his blade off at the hilt. His other blade separated the man’s head from his shoulders.

  After that it was different. It became a dance in which Narak spun and ducked, cut and cut again. Each man that came against him, and they came in fours and fives, lost his blade, and by way of a remembrance Narak cut each one of them on both cheeks. It was an arrogant display of skill. Some men he punched or kicked to clear them from his way, but apart from the major he killed no-one.

  The mêlée took longer than he had expected, drawn out by his mercy, and after a short while he found that he was enjoying himself. He was like a bird pecking slugs off a garden wall. He was so fast and they were so slow, and there was a joy, he discovered, in not killing. His purpose would be achieved, his victory affirmed, and only one man would die. It was justice, proper justice, though he doubted a dragon would have named it so.

  At last it was over, and bloody, disarmed men were scattered about the meadow, none prepared to rise and face him again. He sheathed his blades and strode towards the colonel.

  “I think my name proven,” he said.

  “I did not doubt it,” Dunsandel said. “But I find myself more in awe today than if I had stood by you at Afael. You spared them.”

  “Their crime was slight,” Narak said. “And they will bear the scars of their shame.”

  Dunsandel nodded. “Tell the king we will ride with him to Bas Erinor, and that our swords are his if he has need of them. It will be an honour to ride with you, Deus.”

  Narak returned to his horse and rode back to join the king. Now there was only Bas Erinor and what awaited them there. He did not believe for a moment that they had cleared their path completely.

  46 An Accident

  The stalemate at the city walls had dragged on for two weeks. The young Falini was cautious, clinging to his positions on the city ramparts, and Derali seemed reluctant to risk his strength in an all-out assault. It was the ordinary people who suffered, of course.

  Falini had put a hundred men at the docks and every ship that came into the harbour was unloaded under their watchful gaze, the greater part of any food taken away in wagons to feed soldiers. What was left was scrabbled for by violent, hungry men. It was chaos.

  Francis used his gift to secure what food he could. He stole from under the noses of Falini’s men, providing enough for himself, for Jackan and for the families allied with Dock Ward. It was all he could do for now. />
  It was frustrating. There should have been a battle by now, one duke triumphant but weakened, the other destroyed. That would be the time to move. As it was, the city regiments stayed shut up in their barracks with whatever supplies they had and the populists readied themselves to join the uprising.

  Francis still worked at the forge, but every day he went down to the docks with Jackan to steal. He no longer worried that anybody would recognise the boy. The Former Prince Rubel now looked like any other Dock Ward apprentice, and it was only when he opened his mouth to speak that he seemed out of place.

  They had found a favourite alleyway. It was only a hundred paces from where the closest ships were berthed, so just far enough away that Falini’s soldiers couldn’t see into it. The alley was also just wide enough for a cart.

  Francis stole from the soldiers’ wagons after they were loaded. He waited until they were full because if he stole too early they just took more from the ships. What he stole he carried back to the alley and loaded into their own cart. It was a simple operation, and because Jackan knew about his gift he was one of the few people Francis felt safe with, stealing this way.

  He needed to steal small things. He was comfortable with the limitations of his gift and knew that he could steal a brace of ducks or loaves, but a sack of grain was too big.

  He left Jackan minding the cart and wandered down through the impatient crowd. He was quite invisible, but that didn’t mean that people couldn’t walk into him, and he had to look for gaps and slip through when they appeared. It took a couple of minutes to get past.

  There was a wagon just about loaded, and Francis dodged between two soldiers and looked at it. The load was promising. Several men were guarding it, but they were looking towards the city and the gathered people, and he slipped past them with no trouble.

  About a third of the wagon was grain – sacks of it piled towards the front, and that was no use to him. He couldn’t carry them without becoming a spectacle, a floating sack. Towards the front he saw bags of nuts – and they were small enough. He lifted one and tucked it into his coat. The problem, as always, was that staple foods were shipped in bulk. The grains, root vegetables, rice, even flour, were packed in large sacks, and they were what he needed most. But he’d come up with a partial solution.

  Francis pulled out a tall vase. It was a thing he’d picked up in a market for a few coins. It was slender enough that it remained invisible, but quite capacious. He used his blade to knick the corner of one of the sacks and allowed grain to flow into his vase. It made a quiet whisper as it filled, but he knew that the muttering of the sea against the docks was enough to cover it.

  When it was full he hugged it to his body and slipped back past the guards and the people to where Jackan was waiting. In the wagon they had their own sack, and the boy held it open while Francis poured the grain from the vase.

  “Almost full,” Jackan said. He was grinning like a schoolboy alive with some precious jape. Francis smiled back. He’d not had such fun as a child. It had been a hard time. His father had sickened when Francis was barely ten years old. He’d been apprenticed a year later, and his father had died a year after that. He’d never seen eye to eye with his mother between then and her death when he was seventeen. Since then he’d been alone in every sense that mattered, at least until he’d met Johan, and even with Johan he’d kept himself to himself.

  He went back to the wagon and filled his vase again. He had to hurry because they were getting ready to leave, but he managed to fill it and tuck the tail of the half empty sack back under itself so the hole wouldn’t show and the sack wouldn’t leak.

  He stepped through the departing guards and worked his invisible way back to Jackan where he released his gift again and poured what he’s stolen into the sack.

  “It’s enough for the day,” he said. Indeed, they had done well for themselves, and the cart was heavy with stolen food. They threw a cloth over it so that nobody would be tempted to try to steal it, and began to edge their way down the alley towards the far end. Francis pushed and Jackan pulled, leaning back and bracing his feet against the cobbles as he dragged on the cart’s shaft. It was something they’d done a dozen or more times.

  The alley ran between two streets, both leading down to the waterfront. At the far end of the alley they would turn inland, take the next left, and then they were in the warren of small streets that formed the heart of Dock Ward. Keron was waiting for them there with some other men. The food, such as it was, would be divided up and taken where it was needed.

  As they neared the far end Francis heard a commotion in the street ahead.

  “Hold,” he said to Jackan. “Let’s wait and see.”

  But Jackan had heard the noise as well, and he leaned further back, turning his head to see what it was.

  He lost his grip on the cart’s handle.

  The boy tried to get his feet under him as he fell backwards, but only succeeded partially, turning a fall into a staggering, backwards run out into the street. With the cart between them there was nothing Francis could do but watch. Jackan was there one moment, arms flailing, and then gone in a rush of hooves and horses.

  Francis jumped on top of the wagon, careless of its contents, and down on the other side. He stepped out into the street.

  Jackan was twenty paces down the road, lying in the gutter. He wasn’t moving.

  Francis ran to the boy and knelt at his side. He shook his arm gently, pinched his ear to try to wake him, but when he lifted him a little, to sit him up his neck lolled back at an unnatural angle.

  He tried. He reached inside himself for the heat that had healed the boy before, but this time it was like filling a blocked sink. The heat refused to leave him. More than anything else this told him that Jackan, Prince Rubel Casraes, was dead. Killed by a horse, knocked aside as though he mattered no more than any beggar boy.

  The heat Francis had summoned turned to anger. He stood and looked down towards the docks again. He could see the horsemen, three of them, dressed in Falini colours. They were shouting at the soldiers on the dock and the latter were quickly packing up their things and getting ready to leave.

  They hadn’t even stopped to see if the boy was all right.

  His anger reached out towards them. He could describe it no other way. It was like a red hand in his mind, seeking the three mounted men who had killed his apprentice, and it found them. He was astonished by what happened next.

  All three riders slumped in their saddles, and one by one they toppled in a clatter of armour and weapons onto the cobbled street. He knew at once that they were dead, and he knew that he had killed them, ripped from each soldier what it was to be alive. He felt what he had taken inside him, a roiling mass of power that was his to use as he wished.

  He turned back to Jackan. Even his new store of power had no effect. He had taken the lives of three men, but it wasn’t enough to fix the boy. Jackan was beyond fixing.

  He picked him up and carried him back to the cart, laid him gently on top of the grain sack and picked up the shaft. The anger had not left him, and as he pulled the cart out of the alley and up the shallow hill towards safety he swore to himself that Falini would pay for this, too.

  A man ran past him. Then another. He looked around and saw that the crowd down by the ships had dispersed. More than one ship had thrown up a hasty sail and men were running to and fro on the docks loosing the mooring ropes.

  “What’s happening?” he asked a man as he hurried by.

  “Derali,” the man said. “He’s in the city. There’s fighting in the streets.”

  Francis bent his back to his task, pulling the cart faster. He saw Keron up ahead in the mouth of a lane. So it had begun. He felt good about that. There would be a lot of killing and he was in the mood for killing.

  There would be blood for blood.

  47 Eran Callista

  Callista woke into a different world. She had been certain of success, but had really no idea what that success might
mean. She would be a god mage, like Pascha, she assumed, but it was not at all like that.

  She opened her eyes in the side chamber, the lesser hall, and looked up at the faces that surrounded her. She read surprise in those faces. They were so used to failure that they had expected it, but Pascha was not surprised. Now that her memory had returned Callista was certain that Pascha had been in the dream with her, lurking behind Finch’s eyes, in the old woman’s rough tongue.

  Pascha smiled. “Well done,” she said. She took Callista’s hand and helped her to sit up. She needed the help. She found that she was weak, and sitting up made her dizzy.

  She looked around the room. The most surprised of all seemed to be the Under-Steward, Mordo. His mouth was open and he stared. Sithmaree looked relieved, but Callista couldn’t read Sheyani at all. Her face was blank, but she watched Callista’s every movement. That was caution, she supposed.

  “How did you know to call her Finch?” Pascha asked.

  “Know? I made the name up, Eran.”

  “There was someone called Finch, a thousand years ago,” Pascha said. “We were friends. She died. I put her face, her voice into the dream.”

  She thought about that for a moment. Why had she called the woman Finch? It had not been the first name she’d tried, but Finch seemed right.

  “I suppose I knew, somehow,” she said.

  Pascha and Sheyani exchanged looks. “I suppose that will have to do for now,” Pascha said. “But you need to rest. It’s late and you have a lot to do tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” It had been morning when she had approached Mordo, and early. Her experience in the test was fading just like a true dream. Already it was no more that a collection of bright moments connected by shadows. It seemed to her that she had closed her eyes only minutes ago.

  “Tomorrow I shall begin to train you,” Pascha said. “You did not think that the test was everything?”

  Callista had not thought about it at all. The test had been the beginning and the end of her thinking. It made sense, though. The test had not given her new knowledge, it had not filled her mind with magic. She was the same person she had been yesterday, but for the small matter of the test.