That left one opponent who, on seeing his target was now dagger-less, grinned savagely and swung his cudgel at Constans' head. Reacting quicker than I would have thought possible, Constans ducked under the swing and rammed his shoulder into the thug's midriff. They both went down in a tangle of arms and legs, but Constans was on his feet first. He stamped down hard on his opponent's clenched fingers, then kicked him squarely in the head for good measure.
Constans turned back to look at me, his eyes alive. He wasn't even breathing hard. "Shall we go?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but closed it again as Balgan finally emerged from the smoke. Constans sensed his approach, but this time he was too slow. Balgan cuffed Constans around the head with enough force to spin him around. Then the giant clamped one meaty hand around his neck and hauled him clear of the ground.
Constans kicked madly at his captor, but if Balgan felt the blows he gave no sign.
Darting towards Ildaro's motionless form, I reclaimed my sword from the cobbles. I ran towards the struggling pair, skirting the trail of unconscious and mewling victims Constans had left in his wake. I didn't want to kill Balgan. Not that I was against removing one of Solomon's soldiers from the world – far from it – but I was only at liberty because Quintus was certain I hadn't killed anyone. As soon as that changed, he'd have no choice but to lock me up.
Irrelevantly, I wondered if that was why Constans had merely wounded the thugs – albeit seriously. He struck me less and less as a man who worried about consequences, but either murder was a line he refused to cross, or he was no less wary of Quintus than I was. Would I kill to save Constans? I wasn't sure.
For better or worse, Balgan took the decision out of my hands. Raising Constans a fraction higher, he half-spun in my direction and let fly. I tried to turn aside, but my reactions were too slow. Constans fell on top of me, I was knocked down, and my sword went skittering off down the street.
As Balgan bore down on us, Constans half-stood, half-toppled off me. I dragged myself upright and backed away. Everything blurred. A stab of pain warned me I'd hit my head during the fall. Behind Balgan, the smoke had dissipated entirely. Worse, I saw that the portcullis was now rising with a clatter of steel on stone.
Constans looked at the oncoming Balgan, the group of thugs streaming through the gateway and then at me. "Run?"
"Run," I agreed, and grabbed my sword.
By the time I turned back to Constans, he was halfway down the street and Balgan was almost within reach. Fortunately, strong as Balgan might have been, he was nowhere near as quick or desperate as I. Ducking away from his grasping hand, I turned and fled. Even as I did so, I heard shouting and the trample of feet as Balgan and the remaining thugs thundered in pursuit.
There were plenty of other people out on these streets, but they scattered before us. Life in this part of the city was dangerous enough without borrowing trouble off strangers. A few moments later, we reached the dockside. The calm waters of the bay stretched off in front of me, and I glimpsed a convoy of merchantmen passing by the great lighthouse.
"Come on!" Constans ran northward along the harbour, dodging through the obstacle course of crates, wagons and wandering citizens.
I followed him, my breathing increasingly ragged. Gods! I hadn't realised how soft I'd become in the last six months. I threw a look over my shoulder – perhaps some of our pursuers had remained behind to tend their wounded. They hadn't. Balgan at their head, they charged on, weapons drawn. One unfortunate dock worker blundered into their path only to be barged clean off the quay and into the water.
Another dozen paces and Constans veered right again, plunging us into the maze of alleyways and ramshackle houses. A handful of breakneck turns later, and I was completely lost, my only points of reference the man running a little to my front, and the wrathful band a few dozen paces behind.
As we took a left turn, a pair of quarrels ricocheted off the wall behind me. Clearly some of Ildaro's men were armed with pistol crossbows. Just as clearly, they'd decided not to take me alive.
"Tell me," I gasped. "Do you know where you're going?"
"Not as such, no." Constans spoke as if he were taking a gentle afternoon's walk. I hated him. "I will confess to focusing more on 'away' than on 'to'."
My rescuer's lack of preparation was made all the clearer seconds later when the alley widened not into a junction, but into a courtyard with a handful of closed doors, two stacks of barrels, but no exits.
Constans shrugged apologetically as he staggered to a halt in the shadow of the opposite wall. "I did warn you."
"Well, that's alright then."
Trying to ignore my burning lungs, I turned to face our pursuers who, sensing a trap, had slowed to walking pace. Balgan drew a serrated knife from a sheath on his belt and directed the other thugs forward. This, I decided, would hurt. Then my ears finally heard the sound I'd been hoping to hear since I'd left Solomon's tower – the peculiar rustling/crackling from the previous night. It stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Had it been my imagination?
"Anyway," Constans protested, "it nearly worked. One man's heroic rescue attempt in the face of twelve to one odds, and all that."
Balgan was nearly halfway across the courtyard now, his thugs fanning out to prevent any chance of our escape. They were still wary, but then I'd be wary too, having seen Constans fight.
"So, I'm curious," Constans went on. "Did you actually have your own plan of escape? I assume you must have done, seeing as you're so unimpressed with mine."
As if on cue, the sound came again. Our pursuers heard it that time and stopped advancing. A couple of them even turned to look back down the alleyway.
"Actually," I said, "I did."
The crackling sound rose to a sudden crescendo and the shadows in the alley came to terrifying life. The strawjack's entrance into the courtyard was everything I could have wished for. Balgan and his thugs froze as they took in the creature's full horror. Constans, I noticed, still displayed his customary lack of concern. I envied him his poise.
This was the second time I'd seen the strawjack. Even so, I was taken aback. Its woody hide was still blistered and fire-blackened from the lantern's explosion, and I glimpsed fresh green branches where the creature was healing from my sword-blows.
To give Balgan's men credit, they didn't stay frozen for long, though they might have been better served if they had. Convinced the strawjack was some trick of mine or Constans', they moved to engage it. They couldn't know, as I did, that the creature wasn't there to protect me; it had come for me, or rather, it had come for the thing I was carrying.
Had the thugs left the strawjack alone, it might have ignored them entirely. Fortunately for me, this was not the case. The thug on the far left of the line attacked first, hacking at the strawjack as it tried to push through to reach me. The crackling sound grew shrill as the blade hacked into the strawjack's branches.
The rest of Balgan's men joined the battle, screaming to chase away their fear as they cut and slashed at the towering monster. Crossbow bolts buried themselves in the monster's hide with no real sign that they'd done any damage.
At first, the strawjack fought as I had seen it do before, with great sweeping blows that knocked assailants sprawling, but mostly unharmed. Balgan and his men seemed to take heart from its seeming ineffectualness, and redoubled their efforts, ducking low under the flailing arms to deliver vicious strikes to the creature's body. One man, his face bloody from the strawjack's thorns, raised an axe high and then brought it down with punishing force, hacking deep into the creature's side.
The crackling stopped. The strawjack collapsed against a barrel, sap dripping from its wounds and pooling on the ground. The green fires of its eyes dimmed, and the thugs gave a ragged cheer. Balgan snorted contemptuously and turned back in my direction, gesturing to his men to do the same.
Suddenly the crackling was back, louder than ever, and the strawjack's eyes were blazing with anger. Staggering to its feet, it lurc
hed towards the axe-man, long and supple branches writhing from its outstretched fingers. The thug's arms were entangled in moments, his screams cut off as more tendrils forced their way into his mouth and down his throat. Swords and cudgels crashed down as Balgan's men tried to free their comrade, but they were too late. Bloody thorns burst from eye sockets and out through nose and ears. The thug went limp in the strawjack's embrace.
With a rasping crackle that sounded almost like laughter, the strawjack cast the corpse down. Its tendrils gathered up another thug. With a whip-like motion, it hurled him at the wall with sickening force. A third thug died as the creature ripped the sword from his grasp and plunged deep into his chest.
Through it all, I watched in horrified fascination. Had the strawjack held back with me, or had I just been very, very lucky? I didn't know.
Losing all stomach for the fight, Balgan's thugs fled desperately into the alley. The strawjack let them go and turned back to face me, blood and sap mingling in the hollows of its flesh.
Constans glanced at me, an expression of disbelief on his face. "This was your plan?"
"I didn't say it was a good plan."
Eyes blazing, the strawjack advanced.
Ten
"It's your ally," said Constans. "You deal with it."
I backed away from the advancing strawjack. "It following me around the city does not make it my friend. In fact, I'm fairly sure it'll kill me with as little compunction as it did that lot." A thought struck. "I don't suppose you've any more of those smoke bombs?"
Constans shook his head. "You probably didn't see, but the rest went over the other side of the gatehouse."
The strawjack was nearly within reach. Time for more desperate measures. I took my eyes from the oncoming creature and fixed Constans with my best authoritative stare.
"Give it a count of three, then run. The creature's here for me, so I'll draw it off and you can get clear."
"Not a chance. Arianwyn sent me out to retrieve you. Although the word 'alive' was not specifically mentioned, she'll not be at all happy if I arrive dragging your bloodied corpse... Hold on a moment. It's stopped moving."
He was right. The strawjack stood stock still, swaying slightly from side to side, the strange crackling muted almost to a whisper.
Constans shot a glance in my direction. "What now?"
"I don't know."
"Perhaps it's dying."
"Could be. Or it's waiting for something."
We stood before the motionless strawjack for what seemed like an age, unwilling to attempt escape in case this was merely a ruse. But the creature remained unmoving, as lifeless as it had seemed in the Highvale garden.
"Come on," I said. "Let's not waste the opportunity."
I'd taken only a step when Constans put his hand on my shoulder. "Look."
The strawjack raised its right arm, the palm of its hand facing the sky. No other part of the creature moved so much as an inch. When the arm was fully horizontal, the long fingers bent inward as if gripping a globe. As they did so, dozens of slender green shoots burst from the strawjack's hand and climbed upward. They moved with a life of their own, twisting and combining to form a spindly doll-like figure that stood about a foot high on the creature's palm.
The marionette was crude at first, a rough-cut imitation of a man with neither clothing nor features. I watched in astonishment as more tendrils sprouted from the strawjack's hand, wending their way around the doll-like figure, covering it in an imitation of a hooded robe whose skirts bled back into the palm from which they had sprung.
More shoots burst from the empty cowl. They clawed and lashed at the air before drawing back to weave a face for the marionette. No, not a face – a mask. The features were a little too exaggerated to be human, just like the masks I'd seen actors wear when playing the part of...
No, surely not. But I couldn't deny the resemblance.
An empty, fearful worry gnawed at my stomach as I watched the countenance form. Its frozen smile managed to be somehow both mischievous and sorrowful at the same time. A crown of thorns burst from the forehead. A thin scar – almost impossibly fine at this scale – ran from just above the centre of each brow and down across the eye sockets to end midway along the cheek.
Once again, the legends of my childhood were unfolding before me, and I found I wanted to do nothing more than run. My legs, alas, had other ideas and refused to take another step. Whether that was simply the result of fear, or something more insidious, I had no notion. I looked across at Constans, but he was staring at the strawjack in rapt fascination and spared me not even a glance.
"Well," he remarked, in a tone of mild interest, "I certainly can't claim that I've seen that before. I mean, I've seen that face before, obviously. It's a rare morality play in which he doesn't play a central role. Somehow, I rather thought he'd be taller. On the other hand, who can say what details are lost when legends get handed down?"
Did the man take nothing seriously? "I don't think that's actually him." Even as I spoke I knew I was rising to provocation. Strangely enough, the desire to flee had faded, replaced by curiosity. "At least, not in the physical sense."
The mask's eye sockets blazed with green fire and the bowed head rose to stare at me. It didn't move like a jointed marionette. Instead, the tendrils that made up its body rippled and shifted to assume new poses, like a statue resculpting itself.
{{Do you know me, Child of Ashana?}} The figure's voice droned like the beating wings of a thousand insects.
"I do, my lord." I bowed my head in respect. "You are Jack i' the Wood to my folk. Jerack to the people of this city. You are Lord of Thorns and ruler of Fellhallow."
The figure laughed. {{I rule nothing. I am what the world requires. When it calls for a destroyer, I stretch out my hand and sweep aside all in my path; when a defender is needed, I stand as a bulwark. You, of all people, should understand how closely those paths are entwined.}}
"And which role are you playing now?" Constans demanded.
He was nowhere near as awestruck as I. For me, Jack was one of the legendary forces of the world, a divinity to be treated with fear and respect – all the more so as he was now seemingly neither so distant nor as legendary as I had believed a few moments ago. Conversely, the Tressians had long ago lost regard for any great power that was not of their own making. That spiritual dissolution had driven them into the arms of Sidarism.
Jack ignored him.
"My companion asks a fair question, lord," I said. The marionette stared in Constans' direction, but Jack said nothing. Plumbing the depths of my courage, I pressed on. "Do you come as a destroyer or as a protector?"
{{You have, in your possession, something that does not belong to you. I have no desire to cause you harm. Give it to me, or death will follow.}}
"Is that why your creature murdered Stefan? Because he'd stolen from you?"
{{The old man's death was unfortunate. He was weak. His heart could not withstand my servant's grasp.}}
"What if we don't have the fragment any longer?" Constans asked.
Again Jack ignored him, and I repeated the question. The marionette cocked its head and Jack made an amused noise. The fragment grew heavier in my pocket.
{{Do not test me, mortal. I can feel the portalstone's presence in ways you cannot imagine. I know you did not steal it, but you are the one who holds it now.}}
"Then why don't you take it from me? Have your servant kill me as well as these others?"
The strawjack shifted its position a little, the crackling sound rising briefly then falling away as it settled back down.
The marionette straightened. {{Their deaths too were not of my doing; they attacked my servant, and it defended itself, as it was entitled to. Did you not wish their deaths? They sought yours.}}
This conversation was becoming decidedly uncomfortable. "What happens if I hand over what you seek?"
Constans threw me a warning glance, but said nothing.
{{My servant will
return it to the proper place. Death will remain only a possibility.}}
That, I reflected, fell somewhat short of a guarantee of safety. "And if I refuse?"
{{Then the consequences are of your making.}}
I sighed. Deference was rapidly giving way to frustration. Even for a being legendary for double-talk, Jack was making this conversation very difficult. I tried another tack. "Can I have time to think it over? Please understand, lord, that I don't fully understand what is happening around me. I wouldn't want to make the wrong decision."
The marionette cocked its head on one side again. {{And my word is not to be trusted without question?}} To my relief, he sounded amused, rather than angry. {{Very well. The hour is not yet so late that I cannot afford to be generous. I shall grant you a day to reconcile yourself. But I will be watching.}}
Before I could register surprise or even offer thanks, the marionette dissolved into a whirl of thrashing stems and flowed back into the hand that had birthed it. With a last ominous crackle, the strawjack turned and lurched back into the alley, leaving no sign of its presence save for the men it had slain. I let out a deep breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding.
"That was unexpected," said Constans. "I thought you were dead." You, I noted, not we. Charming.
"Too easy, is what it was."
"True enough. Do you think it's a trick?"
I looked around the courtyard once again. "We can't talk here. Even if Balgan doesn't come back, someone's going to find these bodies. I'd rather not be here when they do."
*******
Arianwyn's house was the obvious destination, but we didn't head there immediately. Constans pointed out that Balgan would almost certainly be watching for us and suggested we shelter somewhere along the way. I readily agreed. If nothing else, it would give me time to recover from the evening's exertions. Besides, while I'd been talking to Jack, recent events had finally clicked into place, and I wanted to discuss my revelation with Constans without Arianwyn in earshot. Constans left me to decide exactly where we would take shelter and, after consideration, I led us through the streets to the Cathedral of Sidara.
Shadow of the Raven (The Reckoning Book 1) Page 10