Herald of the Storm s-1

by Richard Ford

  Merrick turned, wobbling slightly, squinting to see who had been watching him through the gloom. ‘Who’s there?’ he called. ‘I warn you, I’m armed.’

  ‘We can see that.’ A figure walked out of the shadows of the alley, and Merrick felt the hairs prickle at the nape of his neck.

  ‘Shanka! How good to see you.’

  ‘I bet it is,’ said Shanka the Lender.

  His long, lank hair framed a hard, angular face that was all malice and cruelty. Why had Merrick decided to borrow money from such a man? Was he insane? But then why did anyone borrow from men like Shanka — it was desperation.

  ‘I was going to come and see you, right after I’d-’

  ‘Save it, Ryder. It’s too late for any of that shit. You owe me, you’re overdue and it’s time to pay. One way or the other.’

  Merrick knew without checking that the money he’d had in his coinpurse was all but gone. Not that it mattered; even before he’d bought drinks for the entire tavern he hadn’t had enough to cover the debt he owed.

  ‘Now, wait a minute, Shanka. I can pay. I’m working on a job for the Guild even as we speak.’

  ‘Yeah, it looks like it. If you were working for the Guild you wouldn’t be pissing it up in The Soggy Dog. You’d be doing your best to finish the job so they could pay you … and you could pay me.’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Merrick said, more desperately than he would have liked.

  The shadows behind Shanka suddenly moved and two more figures stepped forward, broad, dangerous-looking bastards. Merrick eyed the door back to the tavern, but before he could even think of using it, someone walked through, someone big and burly he didn’t recognise; another one of Shanka’s enforcers.

  ‘I want my money or I’ll take something you won’t want to lose. What’ll it be?’

  ‘You’ll get your money, Shanka. It’s a promise. I’ve just got to finish the jobuuufff!’

  The nearest one of Shanka’s men hit him in the gut. It was a solid blow, one that went from your belly right down to your toes. Merrick was winded but he managed to stay on his feet, staggering back against the wall, conscious that he was wading ankle deep through muddy piss.

  There was nothing else for it. He would have to teach these fuckers a thing or two. There was no way he was letting Shanka and his thugs take liberties.

  Merrick stood as straight as he could, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword, the other gripping the top of the sheath.

  ‘I feel it only fair to warn you, Shanka, I know how to use this. Don’t test me, or I’ll be forced to draw steel. I was schooled in the Collegium of House Tarnath, taught the sixty-six Principiums Martial by Lord Macharias himself. I’ve killed twelve men in single combat and I’ll feel no remorse when I stand over your bleeding fucking corpses. Now back off.’

  Though his men looked to one another uncertainly, Shanka was distinctly underwhelmed. ‘Break this cunt’s legs,’ he ordered.

  If his men bore any doubts, Shanka dispelled them instantly with his command.

  Merrick drew his sword … or at least the hilt of his sword. As he pulled it free the blade remained stuck in the ill-fitting sheath, leaving Merrick holding nothing but a useless hunk of metal.

  Bollocks!

  Shanka’s men were bearing down on him now, the first one clearly fighting the urge to laugh his head off. Merrick flung the hilt, which hit the man square in the face, and then he tried his best to bravely flee. He hadn’t taken three steps before another of Shanka’s men hit him in the jaw.

  Merrick fell against the wall, his knees giving out beneath him. Another blow to the face and he was lying on the ground, wallowing in a pool of piss and mud.

  They weighed in then, sticking the boot in, punching him mercilessly. He felt one of his ribs crack, curled into a ball, but then he took one straight in the spine. Merrick yelped, trying to cover his head and his body and his back, but he simply didn’t have enough arms to block the deluge of kicks and punches that were raining down. His nose burst. His lips cracked. One of his teeth came loose.

  They grabbed his arms, hauled him up, and through fast swelling eyes Merrick could see Shanka leering at him from behind dark locks of lank greasy hair.

  ‘What did I tell you, you little cu-’

  A commotion behind Shanka made him turn. One of his men collapsed forward as if he’d been felled with an axe.

  Merrick saw a figure in the shadows, moving fast and gracefully. Shanka’s thugs dropped him to the piss-wet floor, and he could do little more than listen to the cries and squeals of men in pain, men in a panic as they were beaten, a crack of a bone breaking, the slap of a body hitting the dirt.

  He must have been slipping away fast. Must have taken one too many knocks to the head, because when the commotion had stopped, and he was just about to slide into oblivion, he was sure he heard a woman speak his name.

  An angel spoke his name.

  TWENTY-SIX

  River had studied the palace layout so diligently that the images were scrawled across his mind’s eye as elaborately as they had been on the vellum scrolls the Father had given him.

  He stood in the darkness of the street, waiting to go forward, but he had already done this a hundred times in his imagining, already scaled the walls, already stalked the palace corridors avoiding the Sentinels as they went about their duties.

  Gaining entry to the Crown District had been easy enough; the wall that surrounded it was not high, the guards not vigilant enough to stop River as he flowed past, silent as the night. The sentries that roamed the palace would be a different prospect, however. Fortunate, then, that the Father of Killers had someone in the palace, someone who was happy to provide them with detailed layouts. Someone only too willing to patiently plot the movements of the palace guards as they patrolled the massive building.

  Two burly sentries moved towards him along the base of the hundred foot wall that surrounded Skyhelm. They were silent, vigilant, rather than locked in conversation as the guards in the Crown District had been. But despite their watchfulness they were just men: they would not see and they would not hear.

  River struck out from the dark as they passed by, his footfalls making no sound as he sprinted to the base of the wall and ran eight feet up the stone face before leaping to grasp the thick cornice that sprouted fifteen feet up its side. He pulled himself up easily, gripping the stone wall with fingers of iron, moving like a spider, keeping out of the light given off by the lanterns that ran along the wall’s base.

  Slowly and silently he eased his way up, keeping himself flat. He knew there would be more sentries at the summit, and were one of them to peer over the side they might well see his black shadow moving towards them like a giant insect. This was the most dangerous time, when he was the most vulnerable, but he could not rush it; he had to remain silent.

  When he was almost at the top of the wall he paused and waited, listening for footfalls on the causeway above. They came, slowly but surely, as he waited in the dark.

  If the Father’s spy had told them true, it would be a crossbowman, lightly armoured. The man’s footsteps approached inexorably, then stopped right above where River clung. His heart began to race, but he managed to quell any panic. He was River, he flowed with the current, raced to meet the sea. Nothing could stop him.

  After a brief pause, the footsteps moved on, and River breathed out long and slow. Once their sound became more distant, he slowly heaved himself up, peering over the lip of the wall. There was no one around in either direction, so River climbed onto the walkway and slipped silently into the shadows.

  Even in the dark he could make out the palace, and the grounds surrounding it. He peered through the dimness, trying to spy the sentries that stood between him and the palace. To the north was a path that led up from the main gate. It was laid with fine gravel that would make a hellish racket underfoot and quickly give away his whereabouts. To the west were Skyhelm’s gardens, where the lawn would hide his footfalls, but where also
patrolled a sentry and his hound. He couldn’t see them yet, though the dog might well have caught his scent — a strange new smell in the grounds. But River must press on.

  He moved forward, keeping his head low and slipping down the stair that led from the walkway. Most of the palace grounds were brightly lit with ornamental lanterns, but there was still enough shadow for River to conceal himself. The gardens were in darkness, and he was only too eager to reach them and bathe in the concealment they offered.

  Once his feet touched the soft grass, River knelt and reached for the sack tied to his back. He loosed it, taking out the contents that slumbered there, and untied the bonds that secured their tiny feet. From a pouch at his waist he took a vial and unstoppered it. The two rabbits he had brought were drugged, but only mildly. The smelling salts in the vial were enough to wake them with a start, and each one ran off in a desperate panic, hurtling into the dark as though a fox were after them.

  River watched and waited, still as the lake in summer. Almost immediately he was greeted by the sound of barking off to the left, along with the desperate shout of a sentry trying to curb his dog. As the snarling moved in one direction, River moved in the other, closing in on the palace.

  Torches surrounded the base of Skyhelm, lighting up the magnificent building like a pyre. It rose up into the air, myriad windows adorning its faces, towers rising still further out from the main structure. The corridors within would be like a maze, but one River had studied intently. He knew them by heart.

  An armoured sentry walked beneath a pergola at the base of the building, and River waited in the dark for him to pass before sprinting into the light. He planted a foot on one of the granite pillars that held up the structure and leapt to the roof.

  His feet padded quietly across the tiled roof, making barely a sound as he reached the wall and the base of a huge window. It was open — the Father’s man in the palace had done his work well.

  River slid the window open a touch more, squeezing himself into the room beyond. It was huge inside, a hall clearly used for entertaining the elite of the city, but now it lay silent and in darkness.

  He moved across the marble floor to the northern end of the room where stood a massive double door. As he opened it, a chink of light lanced in and he paused, eyes fast adjusting to the corridor beyond. There were no sentries and he moved out into the well-lit corridor, feeling vulnerable once again in the harsh light, but keeping his heartbeat steady with the power of his will, a will none could withstand, like the coming of the tides.

  A staircase rose up at the end of the corridor, which would take him to the upper levels of the palace. There, he would find fewer guards. And there he would find his mark.

  Before he could take two steps a voice echoed down the corridor, rooting him to the spot.

  ‘Who goes? Stop where you are.’

  An armoured figure was moving towards him from the other end of the passage. But how could this be? River had studied the plans: he knew the patrols, had learned them until he could recite them in his sleep.

  Clearly the Father’s man was not as proficient as they had believed.

  River merely stood tall in the corridor, showing the palms of his hands, which were splayed out to either side, giving the sentry no reason to think he would resist. The armoured man had drawn his sword now, brandishing it threateningly, but they were in a tight corridor — he would not be able to make a swing.

  Not that River would ever have given him the chance.

  Before he could reach out with a huge gauntleted hand, River moved in, one hand pushing the sword aside, the other reaching to grab the lip of the sentry’s helmet. He slammed the man’s head into the wall, the resultant clang louder than River would have liked, but necessary if he was going to down him quickly. The greatsword went clattering to the floor as the man struggled desperately to grab hold of his assailant, but River was on him now, moving with speed and grace, like the rapids flowing through the mountains, and had his arm about the sentry’s throat. The man was strong, gripping River’s arm with incredible force, but he would never be able to wrestle himself free, not before he succumbed to lack of air. Steadily the strength left his limbs, and he sagged in River’s arms.

  With some difficulty, River managed to pull the guard into the great, dark hall, concealing him in the shadows. There was no need to kill him: he would not wake for some time.

  River took the stairs three at a time, still silent as the death he had come to bring, brushing past a curtain, like the currents past the reeds. This time, though, he was even more vigilant. If the Father’s man inside the palace had made one mistake, how many more might he have made? River could not afford to be stopped before he completed his task, could not afford to stumble into another lone sentry, or two, or three. Though he would be able to dispatch them easily enough, the alarm would most likely be raised, making it doubtful he would reach his mark before he was overwhelmed.

  River stopped at the end of another passage, hearing the laughter of men through an open door. It was a ramshackle chamber that smelled strongly of male musk and pipe smoke. As he moved past, the men inside, unaware he was there, japed with one another, their faces creased in mirth.

  It made River pause for a moment as he passed, remembering one of the Father’s lessons.

  Laughter is for the weak, he had said, with a swipe of the lash. River had flinched, his movement provoking yet another stinging lick of the scourge. It reveals the hearts of men, and they too are weak. Your heart must be stone, like the pebble on the riverbed, unyielding, immovable.

  He had often wondered what it must be like to share such mirth with another man. River had brothers, true, but he shared no brotherhood with them. They did not laugh like others, and they shared no love.

  Such things were not for him. He was not weak like other men. He was strong, like the current after spring rains. Not prone to the failings that afflicted the weak. It was why he could not be stopped.

  Up and up he went, the pattern of the corridors vivid in his mind. He knew his way before he reached a junction, could see the route laid out, forming before him even though he had never trodden these hallways before. Here and there were patrols of guards; here and there were courtiers and serfs going about their night time business, but River was a shadow, moving about them like a hushed breeze.

  The door to her chamber stood ahead of him. There was no one there to guard it, no one there to stand in his way. He grasped the handle and the door opened with merciful silence, and in a short breath he was inside, greeted by the near darkness within.

  A single candle guttered by the window, spreading a soft light across the chamber. Stairs led up to a huge bed which rested on a raised dais, its four posts carved of thick oak, a canopy of woven fabric covering its top. River didn’t move, allowing his eyes to adjust, allowing himself time to focus on his mark. He could hear her soft, even breath through the blackness and as he took a tentative step forward he pulled a single blade from its sheath.

  Then he stopped.

  A thought seemed to press in his head, a doubt he had felt before. More than once.

  This girl was innocent.

  But the Father of Killers had condemned her.

  From what little River understood of it, this was her father’s war … the king’s war. Nothing to do with her.

  But River could not disobey the Father of Killers.

  She had committed no crime.

  If he did not do as he was bid, he would be punished.Granted another scar to join those already displaying the shame of failure and weakness on his face.

  He took another step forward, creeping silently towards her, feeling the reassurance of the blade in his hand. This was what he did. This was what he was made to do. He was River, the unstoppable river, who lived to carry out his Father’s bidding.

  But what right did he have? No matter how many times he had been reminded with the word and the lash, he still could not justify it in his head.

  Ano
ther step took him up the stair to the dais on which the bed stood. Her breath was so soft, her dreams clearly untroubled. River could not remember the last time he had slept untroubled by nightmares, the last time he had not been plagued by terrors.

  But to succumb to them would only show weakness, to admit to them would only bring his Father’s wrath.

  He was at the bedside now, and she was within arm’s length. It would take only a single swift strike. One quick cut to end her life before she even had time to wake. River pressed forward as the flickering candlelight showed him her face.

  A face he knew.

  As his heart filled with a horror worse than a thousand night terrors, the blade slipped from his hand, clattering to the wooden floor.

  It was her, the girl from the gardens. His girl: the one of a hundred secret meetings. The girl of a thousand gentle kisses.

  Jay.

  She woke with a sharp intake of breath, her flame red hair falling about her face. She saw him standing there, a shadow in the night, but she did not scream.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, after what seemed like an age. There was no fear in her voice, and River could only admire her for that.

  Slowly he lowered his face so she could see his scarred features in the light.

  She smiled, though uncertainly, as she fought with her lack of understanding.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Jay rose from her bed. ‘How did you get in?’

  He did not answer, could not. What would he tell her — that he had been sent by the Father of Killers? That she was marked for death and he was the one to carry out the sentence? He could not tell her, and instead he stared at her, at that face, that beauty that never failed to make his heart leap.

  She moved from her bed and River could only watch her as she took another candle and lit it from the last barely glowing embers of the fire in her room. As she moved back towards him, her beautiful face radiant in the light, she suddenly saw his blade, lying between them on the floor.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked, her curiosity extinguished as realisation dawned.