God of Night

by Tom Lloyd

  ‘Dammit,’ Suth hissed. ‘I’m not going to get that name out of my head all day now.’

  Payl, Knight of Sun and second in command of Anatin’s Mercenary Deck, felt the anger stir in her gut. ‘Is that supposed to be some sort of fucking joke?’

  ‘Aye – ah shit … Yeah, it was. I know, I just …’

  ‘Murdered someone and made a joke about it.’

  Suth screwed up her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Deepest black, I know, okay? I ain’t happy about it—’

  ‘But you still did it,’ Payl broke in. She took a step forward, forcing herself into Suth’s line of vision. Reluctantly, the smaller woman lifted her head to look her in the eye. ‘Where’s the line for us now?’ she said, softer than before. ‘I thought you were different to Toil. Or are you both cut from the same cloth?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Yes. Broken gods, does it even matter?’

  ‘It matters.’

  ‘Compared to stopping the Orders?’

  Payl took a breath. She felt the anger reach boiling point but stopped herself just in time. The air puffed out again in a faint wisp of white, autumn’s morning chill enough to show a trace of vapour. She slung her mage-gun over one shoulder.

  ‘Fucking right it matters,’ she repeated. ‘If it’s really just that one life to stop it all, okay, but it never is and it always matters. Winning isn’t enough, not if it means you become them.’

  ‘You think we are?’

  Payl paused. ‘No. Not yet, anyway. I ain’t forgotten what we were like before you joined. Mercs aren’t cuddly and kind, but the Cards aren’t the worst around by a long shot. I wouldn’t want us blindly following Toil down that dark path. None of that comes for free. Walk the dark path for long enough, one day you’ll find the footprints of monsters fit you best.’

  ‘And then what?’

  She gave Suth a morbid grin. ‘Then I’ll shoot you myself.’

  ‘You’re starting to sound like Lynx,’ Suth said with a shake of the head. ‘For the meantime though, we’re here to fucking look like them, remember? When you come up with a better plan, go ahead and tell me. Until then …’

  She put up her hands as a trio of figures left the trees, mage-guns raised, on the far side of the gully. They wore dirty and battered uniforms of green and black under stained brown coats, but had the faces of veterans. Each sported the spear-and-setting-sun device of the Knights-Charnel of the Long Dusk. From the sounds behind them, Payl could tell they weren’t alone.

  The lead man, a black-haired sergeant with a pointed beard, barked an order at them, mage-gun twitching. Payl’s Akodern wasn’t great, but ‘hands up!’ was easy in any language.

  ‘Who killed that one?’ the sergeant continued once he’d inspected the scene more carefully.

  ‘I did,’ Suth replied in Parthish. ‘Or, um, were you not going to? Do I owe her an apology?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Contract agents,’ Suth said, pointing down at her jacket. ‘I’ve got a writ here.’

  There was a mutter between the men behind the sergeant, but he quelled it with a glare.

  ‘There’s a bonus for anyone who gets us in front of the commanding officer,’ Suth added, just in case they were discussing whether killing them would be less trouble.

  Payl saw that catch their attention, as they both knew it would. Skirmishers tended to be a pragmatic breed, more interested in the realities of life than ideology or rules. A normal unit would likely turn them away or kill them without thinking much. The Knights-Charnel didn’t like mercenaries and given what had just happened beyond those trees, witnesses probably weren’t welcome either. Irregular troops could be the worst of soldiers, but they lived flexibly, in discipline as well as morals.

  ‘Guns,’ the man said at last.

  Reluctantly, Payl unbuckled her weapon-belt, setting it down on the ground beside Suth’s. A young man darted forward, as nimble as a goat, to gather the pile up.

  ‘What’re your names?’ the sergeant said once everything was secure.

  ‘Setony,’ Suth said without a pause, ‘Greil Setony – Lieutenant and Staff Agent of the Honourable Company of the Dregen Red Scarves. She’s Oun Sher.’

  ‘Sergeant Cadil, First Selois Regiment.’ The sergeant gave her a brief, cold grin and started patting at her pockets. ‘Good chance the general will kill you,’ he added conversationally. ‘I’ll hold your purse just in case.’

  Suth gave him a bleak smile. ‘That’s kind, we wouldn’t want it to go to waste. Just make sure you first tell the general I’ve got five hundred mercs in the Collotain Hills, looking for work.’

  ‘That’s a way from here.’

  ‘That’s my problem,’ Suth countered. ‘Now does my money buy an escort or just helpful advice?’

  Cadil found Suth’s purse, tucked inside her jacket, and managed to avoid grabbing a handful while he was there. ‘Come,’ he said after a moment, turning back the way they’d come. ‘You a gambler, Setony?’

  Suth snorted. ‘I gave all that up, bad for the health.’

  ‘Best hope you didn’t use up all your luck then. You’re going to need it.’

  Chapter 15

  There’s no good place to die, Payl thought as they emerged from the trees, but this plain probably looked nice enough when they arrived.

  The battlefield didn’t look any better on second viewing. Payl had seen enough earlier and they all ended up the same anyway, all stank the same. The small army of Protectors of Light had been slaughtered – penned in by infantry, brutalised by grenadiers, run down by cavalry and mopped up by skirmishers. The professional in her noted the skill of execution. The woman in her felt her stomach turn at the slaughter.

  Eight broken wagons burned off the kingsroad – a raised stretch of chalky ground that was the lifeblood of these parts. All around them were dead bodies, several hundred at least. On a hump of ground to the right stood a command tent, stark against the pale blue sky above. The tent’s flanks were grubby white, the flags fluttering from each corner post a burst of colour amid the churned earth. Short northern summers meant the grass had been a dusty brown and scattered with wildflowers before a few thousand soldiers tore it up. Now it was sprouting grey canvas tents like depressed mushrooms.

  This had been a brisk and brutal fight. The Charnelers were badly mauled despite their numbers. There had been more than eight wagons three days ago when Payl and Suth had started to shadow it. Craters marked where the rear two had been, craters and the shattered pieces of probably an entire hundred-man battalion.

  Packing heavily armed troops around your ammo wagons? Payl shook her head. No wonder the Protectors are getting crushed.

  Half the Charneler army, those that still lived anyway, were busying themselves with those that didn’t and those who could yet go either way. Pits were being dug for the dead. Surgeons from the hospitaller corps – easily picked out as one section of their quartered uniforms was red – directed squads with the injured. Strangely, there were few soldiers with mage-guns to hand as the skirmishers led Payl and Suth towards the command tent. A picket at the perimeter, a dozen men around the command post itself, but the rest had abandoned their weapons.

  It didn’t take them long to be waved inside. One muttered conversation with the captain in charge and he’d ducked into the tent to pass word. It was less than a minute before the pair were admitted to a tent full of officers.

  Several were in collapsible campaign chairs around a long table, but there could be no doubt which was the general – who Sergeant Cadil had informed them was named Eperois. The whole assembly was focused on him, whether by art or design, and he filled the gap admirably. A tall, balding man in his fifties, the general was a scarred veteran with one milky eye. To Payl’s surprise, there was an easy expression on his face. It wasn’t the laughter of a madman amid slaughter, but a soldier who knew his business and didn’t hold with formality.

  ‘Sergeant Cadil,’ General Eperois called to thei
r herald. ‘I could have sworn my orders were to kill all witnesses – not fetch some back for a bit of a chat.’

  The sergeant bowed low. ‘Aye, my Lord General, but this one was looking for you.’

  ‘Yet to find that out, you must’ve chatted to her instead of shooting her, no?’

  There was an edge to his jibe, but Payl could tell the man was joking with his subordinate.

  One o’ those officers who knows half the veterans in his command I’d bet – a rare thing in a religious order. But they’d want their best on this job and a good general doesn’t hold with formality after a battle.

  Cadil coughed. ‘She’d just killed a witness for us, my Lord, as it were. I figured that wasn’t normal and maybe you’d be interested.’

  ‘Killed a witness?’ Eperois said with a nasty smile. ‘In cold blood? That’s a hanging offence.’ He looked over at a burly colonel, likely his second in command. ‘Or it would be if we had any decent-sized trees nearby. Still, I’m sure alternative forms of execution are available hereabouts, for criminals in sore need of some justice.’

  Suth shook her head. ‘Sore need of a drink more like. Kill us if you must, but please not on a bloody technicality. I’ve cursed lawyers all my life, it’d feel like the bastards were getting revenge.’

  ‘Hah, that’s the bit that bothers you? Maybe you were right, Sergeant. They have my interest.’

  Suth cocked her head at Eperois, assessing how far to push him. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said after a pause, ‘I prefer to be doing the killing, but few of us ever get to choose the way we go out. So long as it doesn’t involve a lawyer, I’ll be hard-pressed to complain.’

  ‘Gracious of you.’

  She offered a joking curtsey. ‘Before you get to that bit though, you might want to hear what I’ve got to say.’

  ‘Might I indeed? Because I’m a busy man. If I think you’re wasting my time, I might have someone find some excruciating point of legalese to execute you on.’

  ‘I’m prepared to take that chance.’

  He sat back in his campaign chair with a broad smile. ‘What’s your name, mercenary?’

  ‘Setony.’

  ‘Very well – persuade me.’ Eperois pulled a mage-pistol as he spoke. ‘You have as long as it takes for me to decide what I should shoot you with.’

  Suth bobbed her head in acknowledgement. ‘Simple – I know what you want and I’ve got a way of getting it – or rather them.’

  ‘Do you now?’ Eperois mused. ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘God Fragments. Or are you going to pretend one of those carriages out there doesn’t contain any?’

  The air seemed to grow a little frosty. Several of the general’s aides exchanged glances. At the rear, a captain wearing the badge of the Order’s political branch, the Torquen, narrowed his eyes on her. She kept her gaze on the general – his face was giving little away, but she’d not been shot yet.

  That wasn’t much reassurance, Payl reflected, but she reckoned Suth had gauged the man right. Payl hoped so, anyway. She was betting both their lives on it.

  ‘You think that, in addition to the current turmoil, we’re breaking the Jang-Her Accords and throwing the whole of the Riven Kingdom into economic, political and spiritual upheaval? That’s quite a charge.’

  ‘It’s an educated guess,’ Suth said. ‘The game’s changed since Jarrazir and—’

  ‘A conflict your company of Red Scarves were on the wrong side of,’ interrupted the Torquen officer. ‘If I recall the intelligence reports correctly.’

  ‘Not by the end,’ Suth snapped a little sharply. ‘We made a deal.’

  ‘Word has it the Scarves reneged on that deal,’ he said. ‘Lord General, my advice would be to kill them and be done with it – or let me torture the truth out of them.’

  ‘We reneged on nothing,’ Suth snapped, ‘so keep your filthy little paws to yourself, inquisitor. The Monarch’s counter-attack killed your general. We were sat on our thumbs waiting for orders that never came. Afterwards, there was nothing for us to do except pretend the deal never happened.’

  ‘Temper temper,’ General Eperois chided. The flicker of a smile on his face showed the Torquen’s inquisitors hadn’t become any more popular among the rank and file. ‘Whatever deal was reached between General Faril and the Red Scarves, we know that one was reached. None of the reports have Red Scarves involved in her death and Faril wasn’t fool enough to drop her guard.’

  He gestured to Suth with the pistol. ‘I’m not saying you’re out of the woods yet, but let’s hold off on the torture for the time being. We can start with a seat first. Remind me of your name, mercenary.’

  ‘Setony.’ A stool was produced, but before she sat Suth shot a look at the skirmisher sergeant, Cadil, who was loitering by the tent entrance. He scowled when he caught the look but didn’t hesitate to fish out her purse and toss it over.

  ‘You had a wager?’

  Suth smiled. ‘O’ course not, the good sergeant was just looking after my purse in case I got shot.’

  ‘Most prudent,’ Eperois said, nodding. ‘Given I’m not minded to do so yet, Sergeant Cadil, you may go. How about a drink, Lieutenant Setony?’

  Suth nodded and a young lieutenant offered over a goblet of wine as the skirmishers fled. Once they were gone she took a long swig and fixed Eperois with a hard look.

  ‘I think you’re breaking the Accords and if you’re gonna do something, best do it good and hard.’

  ‘A woman after my own heart,’ Eperois purred.

  ‘A man’s words actually,’ Suth said with a grin. ‘Commander Deshar, to be exact.’

  ‘You come with a message from your commander?’

  She nodded. ‘An offer. What happened in Jarrazir made a few things clear to him, the first of those being covert operations can do what armies can’t.’

  ‘The commander of a mercenary company says this to a general surrounded by his army?’

  ‘He says this to a senior officer of the Order that worked this bit out decades ago.’ Suth leaned forward. ‘Long before anyone else, by the looks of it. What the Torquen did in Jarrazir was brilliant and entirely unexpected, but it showed years of planning and preparation. Contingencies against the most unlikely events.’

  ‘What do we need the Red Scarves for then?’

  ‘For not being employed by the Knights-Charnel. For being the least likely company around to be in their pay.’

  Eperois glanced at the scowling Torquen officer. ‘Some might say that was for good reason.’

  She made a dismissive sound. ‘History don’t last so long as a good wage.’

  ‘I thought you people were notorious for pissing their money away as fast as they could?’

  ‘Depends on how much we get paid.’

  Eperois nodded slowly. ‘I still have yet to hear what you can offer us,’ he said at last.

  ‘God Fragments,’ Suth said. ‘Jarrazir showed the lengths you’re willing to go to acquire them and I think we can help with that. My company’s in the process of stealing some right now.’

  The general grinned as one or two of his officers looked alarmed. ‘Should I be rushing back to Highkeep?’ he said, in full knowledge that the Red Scarves didn’t have enough soldiers to take on his army, let alone the heart of the Charneler Order.

  ‘No, but someone else should be. We got a line on where the Knights-Artificer of Jekir have their secret vault.’

  ‘Offer us trifles,’ Eperois snorted, ‘and I can’t be bothered to listen any longer. The Knights-Artificer don’t have enough to tempt me all that way.’

  ‘Oh, General, do you think me such a tease? The temptation isn’t for you.’

  ‘Who then?’

  ‘We’re going to make them a gift to the Brethren of the Shards.’ Suth smiled. ‘Now if there was a marauding force of Knights-Charnel threatening the Lae Valley … well then, the Brethren might feel the need to hire mercenaries.’

  ‘Perhaps even trust one company more than the
y might normally?’ Eperois finished for her. He leaned forward. ‘If rumour said that company had recent bad blood with the invading force and had brought their Order a gift of incalculable value.’

  ‘We play every angle we can,’ Suth continued. ‘Spies will follow the gift however it is moved or divided – we should be able to discern their main vault.’

  ‘The Brethren’s vault will be heavily defended,’ Eperois pointed out. ‘My army could be broken on its walls without success.’

  ‘Commander Deshar sees them having two options. Either the Red Scarves march to the region’s defence as part of a larger Brethren army and help you slaughter them, or we’re divided and assigned to bolster garrisons at the most important areas. You wouldn’t entrust an entire city to us, after all.’

  ‘You think one of those locations would be the vault?’

  ‘The chances are good,’ Suth said. ‘If it doesn’t work as we plan, the Brethren are undermined in crucial locations and your job’s all the easier.’

  ‘My job remains ferociously complex and dangerous!’ Eperois laughed. ‘Once I go beyond the point of no return, this could still prove to be a trap.’

  ‘Do you believe the Brethren are so adept at military strategy?’

  ‘Your Commander Deshar may be that adept. His father commanded the Red Scarves before him, no? A renowned captain and ruthless too if I recall. That pedigree might sell the plan to a leadership who realise they’ve been slow to act.’

  ‘Possibly, yes.’

  The general hesitated. ‘What? No calm words of reassurance?’

  Suth shook her head. ‘At some point you must decide if you’re willing to make the gamble and trust the Torquen’s intelligence network. You might personally be a touch miffed, but the slaughter of your army wouldn’t cripple the Knights-Charnel. The Order would remain in a position to exact retribution and Commander Deshar hopes that’s assurance enough.’

  ‘Bring me a map!’ Eperois ordered, waving towards one of his aides. ‘The Torvonne region and east of Lake Crevail.’