by Lucas Thorn
Her mind couldn't focus on a single thought. Instead, the fog which had been lingering around her brain for months seemed to come back in force as though wakened by the cold. Absently, she made to hand the flask back to him.
“Don't fret about it,” the large mercenary said, waving the flask away. “I'll let you buy me another some time. Right now I think it's you that needs it more.”
“Obliged,” she said, and felt surprised to find she meant it.
“Well, let's not be so formal. My name's Padric. You can call me Pad if you're of a mind to. It's what my pa used to call me. I'm from Ravensholme if you've heard of it.” He aimed her toward a small cantina to the left of the large building she knew to be the inn. “You got a name?”
“Nysta.”
“Well, Nysta. You picked a terrible time to be visiting us here at Tannen's Run. Didn't you know there's a great army of Caspiellan bastards out there come to knock our walls down and have their wicked way with us? Our Lord Sharpe has a tough job ahead of him in keeping them out.”
“Met them,” she said through chattering teeth.
“Did that, did you? Well.” He sounded impressed. “That explains what happened to your face. Reckon it was mighty lucky of you to get away. Now, I'm taking you to old Ffloyd's. Not too sure I'm doing you a favour, mind. But the food's better than the swill you'd get at the poxy excuse we've got for an inn. There many of them? The bastards, I mean.”
He was fishing for information, she knew. Trying to be gentle about it. And she couldn't see the point of not telling him anything. All the same, her head was spinning. The past day was quickly becoming a blur of flashing moments. So she kept her answer curt. A little more abrupt than she meant. “Fifty.”
“Only fifty?”
“Could be more. Only saw fifty, I think.” She couldn't get the strength to shake her head. A feverish shudder ran down her body. “I'm not sure.”
“Don't push yourself, lass,” he said kindly. “You've had a long walk by looks of you. Though, if you could tell if they're on their way here or not, it'd be doing us all a big favour. Can you say which way they were headed?”
“Camped south. Half a day, maybe.”
“Then they'll be here tomorrow. I should tell his lordship. Some of the fellows were hoping they'd not pass this way, but it looks like we'll get our scrap after all.” His big hands held her fast as she stumbled again in the street. He didn't seem to notice her weight. “Not that I'm looking forward to it, mind. But it does help to ease the uncertainty, if you take my meaning?”
“Prefer to ease my hunger right now, Padric.”
“Padric, is it? Right you are then, Nysta. We're nearly there. As I warned you, though, in the state you're in it's highly probable that Ffloyd's food will kill you.”
“I've been here before,” she said, fighting a surge of nausea.
“Is that right?” He made a sound of mock surprise. “And you're still breathing? Why, you're full of surprises, my young elf.”
She thought of the curse which might be running through her veins and shivered again, though not from the cold. “Full of something,” she muttered, trying to get control of her legs which felt like rubber beneath her hips.
He led her into the cantina with a grin.
It was small and cramped. Hardly enough room to swing a goblin in.
The stink of burnt meat and stale sweat in a humid grip.
A sullen room. A few small tables and a smattering of mismatched stools and low-backed chairs.
She caught sight of the splotchy- faced old man behind the counter. He held a rag of indeterminate colour in one hand, which he'd been using to smudge the grease from a plate.
He hadn't looked up as they entered.
Had no reason to, because the place was empty of other customers. He kept his face aimed at the counter, eyes fuzzy as his mind drifted through the sewer of his life. Slowly, he reached out to a bottle of wine.
Hands shaking as they gripped the bottle. Pulled the cork with his teeth. Spat it out. The cork bounced off the counter and was lost among the small tables.
He took a long suck, pulling the wine like he was dying of thirst.
Wiped his mouth with a rag.
Upended the bottle and watched with a forlorn expression as the last drops fell loose to splash onto his counter.
Then realised they were there. His dull eyes first looked at Pad, then drifted to the elf he was struggling to keep on her feet.
“Oh no,” he moaned, a look of horror crawling up over his face. “Not you again.”
“Well, lass,” Pad said with a cheerful slap on her back. “Here we are, then. Welcome to Ffloyd's.”
Her head spun wildly and she grabbed hold of the large man to keep balance. Suddenly she wanted to throw up. Wanted to sit down.
Wanted to close her eyes.
She blinked, seeing double. A multitude of Ffloyds.
Spots glittered in front of her eyes. Little stars blossoming swiftly. Too swiftly. Like galaxies exploding. Her stomach lurched wildly as waves of vertigo erupted beneath her feet and dragged her down.
And, as she crashed, thought she managed to mutter; “Which one's Pink?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
This time she woke with a roar, sparked into consciousness by dreams of an arm tearing up from the ground. Reaching for the stars.
An arm of pale white flesh cracked open like broken tiles to let something dark and milky bleed out.
Her violet eyes snapped open as she flailed against dream-conjured ghosts, snatching at whatever was closest.
A chair.
And promptly fell out of the one she'd been propped in.
Landed on her hip and rolled over onto her side, fighting the need to vomit.
“Hey, hey!” The voice was gritty. Deep-bellied. And sounded far away, even though she could see his legs through a forest of chairs and small tables. “Not in here! If you're gonna puke, you take it outside. Grim's teeth, if it weren't for Pad, you wouldn't be here. You're lucky, you are, to have him speaking up for you. I'd have just dumped you out back for the rats to eat. Not that they'd get much from a scrawny thing like you.”
She lifted herself up onto her elbow and scowled at his feet, feeling the nausea drain away. Couldn't see him through the table above her head. But she knew what he looked like. Could remember him clearly.
An old Fnord with pale grey hair and enough scars down the left side of his face to make him look hideous. His beard grew in patches because of those scars, and his upper lip had been torn open and never healed right.
Three teeth missing, which left him with an easy lisp.
Once muscular, but now inclined more to fat. Squeezed into clothes which didn't quite fit. A greasy apron he used more to wipe the filth from his hands than anything else.
She couldn't see his hands, but knew there'd be a wine bottle in them. Uncorked.
Probably almost empty.
She closed her eyes and pressed her palm to her forehead. The pain was almost intolerable. A hammering pain which felt like a giant knocking on the inside of her skull as though it were a door he wanted to break down.
Again, vertigo assaulted her mind. But this time it didn't have the same effect on her guts, so she didn't retch.
Was able to squeeze her eyes shut to watch the glittering lights glimmer and fade before reaching up to grab the table for balance as she hauled herself to her feet.
Leaned heavily on it before sliding back onto the old chair.
“Food,” she growled. “I'm hungry.”
“What?”
“You heard me, feller.”
“I ain't feeding you,” he snorted. “Didn't you get the fucking hint? I don't want you in here. I let you sit there until you woke up. Now you're awake, you can fuck off to the inn next door. They ain't so picky about their customers. Took two days to clean up the blood from the last time you were in here. I'm not putting up with that shit again.”
“Beans will be fine,” she said as
evenly as she could. Used her foot to pull another chair close enough for her to put her feet up. “On account of how the way my stomach's acting up by the stink in here, you obviously still ain't got the hang of cooking meat.”
He blinked, suddenly realising the meat was burning on the spit behind him. He scowled. “Fuck you, Long-ear. You want better? Piss off back to Lostlight. For that matter, what the fuck do you think you're doing still staying here? I told you to fuck off. Get out. You ain't wanted here, and I ain't serving you no matter what the fuck you say! You hear me? I ain't scared of you.”
She dug into a pouch. Dropped a few copper coins on the table and let them roll to a stop. Said; “And I ain't listening to you, feller. I'm hungry. In fact, I could be hungry enough to eat the flesh off a cook who pisses me off. Raw. Get me?”
“Alright, alright.” He scratched at his armpit and spat on the floor. “No need to be so fucking unfriendly.”
He turned toward a large pot bubbling on the wide stove, and the elf pressed her fingers against her temples. Rubbed hard.
Thought something walked over her other hand resting on the table. Looked down but saw nothing. Grunting, she turned her gaze back to the cook.
“What happened to the feller who brought me here?”
“Pad? He's back on the walls with his Lordship,” the fat cook said, sneering over the title. Then sobered quickly as he continued. “Heard tell there's Caspiellans on the way. Couple of traders headed through here last week said the bastards were burning towns. Killing any folk they got their filthy hands on. Didn't reckon it was true until Scrab got back to town the other day. Said they'd burned out a farm not far south of here.”
“Scrab?”
“One of his Lordship's scouts.” He stared at the doorway as though expecting Grey Jackets to pour through at any second. “Reckon you got here at a bad time, Long-ear. The Shadowed Gates are about to open here, and the Old Skeleton's gonna get his fair share of souls. Gonna feast on this town. Eat more than enough for him to grow his body back, I'll wager. Pad said you saw them out there. You see him?”
“Who, feller?”
His voice dropped as a touch of horror settled on his shoulders. “Storr. They say it's him who's leading them. That he brought his cursed son with him, too. Bastard's supposed to be even worse than his father.” He twisted his neck to look at her, droplets of sweat clinging to his brow. Sweat not from the steam rising from the pot, but from the fear which curdled in his eyes.
She confirmed his fear with a nod. “I saw them.”
“Shit.” The word was rasped between his teeth. “True, then. We're fucked.”
“The General's just a man. A Grey Jacket. Ain't no harder to kill than any other, I'd imagine.”
The cook spooned some beans into a bowl, shaking his head. “Then you don't know him, I reckon.”
She suddenly remembered the note of safe passage Chukshene had taken from the body of one of Raste's men. It'd had Storr's name on it.
She leaned a little further back on her chair and scratched at the scar on her cheek. “Only by name. Something I should know about him?”
“Only that now he's here, he ranks as the meanest son of a bitch in the Deadlands. Meaner than Lord Sharpe out there. Wherever he's been, he leaves no one alive. And they die horribly, it's said. Like they were touched by the Old Skeleton himself. Fact is, way I heard it, he's even meaner than you.”
The elf's lip curled slightly at the cook's opinion of her.
When she'd scraped a living on the street, how mean you were often defined how much the other urchins left you alone. For the longest time, she'd not understood that.
It'd taken years to fully comprehend the change of attitude needed to survive the alleys of Lostlight.
Even then, it took longer to harden herself. To mould her heart into a solid ball of granite. A change made complete only in that moment when her shiv penetrated the flesh of a rich man and cover her fist in blood for the first time.
Sometimes, when she was feeling melancholy, she reflected that it wasn't him she'd been killing at the time. That it was herself.
For the cook, whose she figured had spent his life observing the cruellest characters the Deadlands could produce, he would never understand the lessons needed to scar a soul so brutally that acts of violence no longer felt alien.
Instead, each kill felt normal. Even familiar.
Sometimes as intimate as a lover's touch.
She wondered what lessons Storr had learnt. Her initial impression of him hadn't been of a man possessed with latent cruelty. Simply a man of a practical and military mind. She'd met plenty of those while serving in the King's Jukkala'Jadean.
Men who wouldn't flinch from the need to order violence, but who'd never actively participated. She found it hard to believe that Storr would ever hold a sword himself for anything other than to spur his men onward.
Not that this made him any less dangerous.
In most cases, it made him more so. Because he was hidden behind an army, making him practically untouchable. Unreachable. A shadowy and ruthless figure who might rise to something of a legend in the eyes of his enemies. A mythic creature of immense power.
No wonder the cook seemed in awe of him.
She wondered how many others watching from the walls of the old fort were feeling their bravery seep out through the soles of their boots at the thought of being close to such a man.
How many who, if standing in front of him with their sword in hand, wouldn't think of raising it even if the General was unarmed. Paralysed by fear, they'd stand waiting for their deaths. Probably kneel before him as though he were Rule himself.
She gave a low snort at the thought.
She'd never kneel. Never again.
Not to Storr.
And not to his god.
“He breathes,” she said, remembering another time she'd given this advice. “Therefore, he can die.”
The cook brought her the steaming bowl. Dropped it in front of her and scooped up the coins she'd dropped onto the table. Eyed one critically before slipping it away inside his apron.
“I ain't one who likes killing, Long-ear. It's why I don't like you being in here. It's your kind that make the Deadlands the evil place it is. You all gather like flies on dead meat. You breed. And you change. You get meaner. And when it looks like there ain't no more cruelty left in the world, you go and dig up more from the foulest pits of the Shadowed Halls. And all this blood you spill, it's a disease blighting the world. And why? What for? You call it survival, but that's only because you don't have any other reason for what you do. Because there ain't no reason. Grim's dead. Rule won. And whether he comes today, or tomorrow, Rule's gonna come north. He'll walk right the fuck over us. Stomp us into the Deadlands like so much dirt. Then he'll head to the Great Wall. And then he'll kill everyone. Starting with you elfs. Then the orks. Then those of us left who won't bow to his cursed face. And what's gonna stop him? Not you. You're just a weapon, Long-ear. Great against bandits, or small armies. But what can you, with all your hate and cruelty, do against a god?”
He blinked as he finished speaking, shocked himself at the words which had tumbled from his mouth.
“You could be right, feller,” she said. “Maybe there ain't nothing I can do but die. But I'll tell you one thing. If he comes near me, I'll die with my knife buried in his guts.”
He watched as she picked up a warped spoon and began shovelling food into her mouth. Was surprised by the obvious hunger in her. He'd never seen an elf look so hungry.
“Yeah,” he allowed carefully. “I reckon you will at that. And good luck to you, Long-ear. Maybe when you stick it in, you'll give it a twist, too. Hurt the fucker real bad, even if you won't have a chance to kill him.”
The hairs on the back of her neck bristled as something crawled across her skin. A feeling she was slowly getting used to.
Her violet eyes glittered nastily as she swallowed a mouthful of beans. “Why not?”
�
�Huh?”
“Why can't I kill him? Ain't no reason he can't die.”
The cook looked at her like she was deranged. “Someone hit you too hard on the head out there, Long-ear? Your nose looks all busted up, so they must've got you bad. You can't kill a god. You've got boots too big for your fucking feet if you think you can.”
“There were gods before they came. Before Rule and Grim. Veil was one of them.”
“And Rule and Grim killed them all. They were weak.”
“Sure. But then Rule killed Grim.”
“So?”
“Means they breathe, feller.” She looked back down at the bowl. Silently admitted they didn't taste too bad. “And, like I always say. That means they can die.”
“Gods breathe? I've never heard anything more stupid. You're mad.” He said with certainty. He took a step back as though she might be contagious. “Completely fucked in the head. Of course a god can kill a god. They're gods! But you? You ain't no god. Or if you are, you're a pisspoor fucking excuse for one. Listen to you. Talking like you've got what it takes to kill a fucking god. Mad. Fucking insane. And now I'm locked up in here with you. Grim's teeth, if this ain't a sure sign we're doomed, then I'm a blind man. Bad enough we're surrounded by Grey Jackets. Now I've got to listen to the rambling boasts of a killer who thinks she's the hero from an old story. You're nothing, Long-ear. You hear me? Just a fucking murderer is all. A cheap fucking hunter of men with no heart. That don't make you special. There's a hundred of you out here in the Deadlands. A thousand. At least a dozen out there on that wall right now. And all of you will die in an eyeblink when Rule decides to squash you like the bugs you are. But, okay. I'll humour you. Maybe you will survive. Not because you're that good. But because you're crazy. And they say the crazy never die. Means you'll live forever, eh?” He gave a snort of disgust as he turned away. “Kill a god. Pah! You're fucking bat shit crazy.”
The elf shrugged. “Sounds like the country for it.”
“Look, I ain't trying to rile you,” he said, suddenly worried what she might do. “But sounds to me like you need a quick slap of reality across the face just so you know what's good for you. You get what I'm saying? You run around thinking you're good enough to fight a god, then you're gonna find yourself dead a whole lot quicker than you think. No matter how tough you think you are, you're still just flesh and blood. Just an elf. Sure, you're a good fighter. I've seen some of the best and know you're one of them. What you did to that ork last time you were through here was enough for me to know you're pretty fucking handy with those knives. But don't go getting ideas too big for your head. And, because I know you're the touchy unpredictable sort, that's all I'm gonna say on the subject. Already reckon I stepped too close to getting one of your stickers in my face as it is. So, there. That's it. Hope it's good enough for you.”