Herald of the Storm s-1

by Richard Ford

  ‘Want to know what I think?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Nobul, feeling no guilt at Denny’s immediate look of disappointment. As much as Denny made him smile sometimes, there was a time and a place for his madcap theories.

  They moved further down the street, and Denny turned to Nobul with a look of resignation on his face. ‘What about this one?’ He pointed to a door he’d picked at random.

  ‘It’s as good as any,’ Nobul replied. ‘You first.’

  ‘Why me? It’s always me. Right, we’re tossing for it.’ Denny fished for a coin.

  ‘Tails,’ Nobul said, as Denny sent the coin spinning through the air. He caught it, slapped it on the back of his hand, then sneaked a peek.

  ‘Balls,’ he said.

  Nobul allowed himself a smile.

  Denny braced his hands to either side of the door and kicked out. There was a splintering of wood, but it didn’t give all the way. A second kick and the door burst inwards. Denny rushed inside, Nobul at his back, weapon drawn.

  ‘No one move, in the name of King Cael,’ shouted Denny.

  Nobul could see there was only one man in the hovel. His lean features looked fearful and he glanced towards a short knife on his table, but clearly thought better of reaching for it.

  The place reeked, a stale mouldering stench, and Nobul wondered how this man had managed to manifest such a stink in the short time he’d been here. He gave the room a cursory glance. Nothing seemed untoward, but the man glanced around desperately, like a cornered animal.

  ‘Name?’ demanded Denny.

  ‘P- Pardo,’ the man replied. ‘Ivaar Pardo of Briar Lock.’

  ‘Dreldun, eh? Long walk from the north.’

  ‘Where else was I supposed to go?’

  Denny nodded his agreement. ‘Just you is it, Ivaar?’

  ‘Yes. No family to speak of.’

  No family, or none to speak of?

  ‘Do you know why we’re here, Ivaar?’ Nobul had to admit that, though Denny was shit in a fight, he could certainly sound authoritative when he wanted to.

  ‘Er … I guess it’s because of the missing folk?’

  ‘The missing folk, that’s right, Ivaar. What do you know about it?’

  Ivaar glanced at Nobul, then back at Denny, like he was a hare trying to work out which hound was going to rip his throat out first. ‘I don’t know nothing. Honest I don’t.’

  Denny let that one hang there. Sometimes it was best to say nothing, and let them stew in it. On occasion they’d wonder what you knew, wonder if you knew something they weren’t telling, and then tell you anyway. Ivaar didn’t say a word.

  Finally, Denny nodded. ‘Fair enough. If we turned this place over, Ivaar, would we find anything we shouldn’t?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing here.’

  ‘Good. I hate wasting my time, Ivaar.’ Nobul could tell Denny was almost done, but though he didn’t like spending much time in these hovels, something was niggling at him. Maybe it was that smell, or the guilty look Ivaar had put on as soon as he realised who they were.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, as Denny turned to leave. He walked to a chest in the corner over which two flies buzzed incessantly. ‘What’s in here?’ he said, flipping the lid open with his foot.

  ‘It’s mine!’ Ivaar cried, as Nobul revealed what lay in the chest.

  It was full of food. Some of it rotting, most of it well past ripe, but food nonetheless. Bread, hard sausage, dried meats, a bag of spuds more eyes than potato, apples more shrivelled than an old man’s ball sack, and a pig’s head with eyes still intact.

  ‘It’s mine,’ Ivaar cried again, moving towards the chest, but Denny pushed him back.

  ‘How long you had this lot?’ he asked, wrinkling his nose at the sudden stench that pervaded the tiny room.

  ‘Got nothing to do with you! It’s all mine!’

  ‘It’s all fucking rotten. You could have fed three families on this.’

  ‘It’s mine.’

  Denny backhanded Ivaar across the face. He staggered back, tears welling in his eyes. Nobul saw Ivaar eye the knife that sat on his table again, so he stared, holding him with that gaze of cold, dead steel, and gradually the man relented, even taking a step away.

  ‘So what we gonna do now?’ asked Denny, scrunching his nose up as he looked in the chest.

  ‘Not much we can do,’ Nobul replied. ‘We can’t start handing it out — it’ll just make people sick.’

  Denny turned back to Ivaar. ‘People are starving and you’ve let this all go rotten. I’ve half a mind to make you eat the lot, right here and now.’

  Ivaar looked fearful, a tear breaking over his eyelid and running down his cheek.

  ‘Won’t do any good now,’ said Nobul. ‘Come on, I’ve had enough of this stink.’

  He walked out into the open air, Denny close behind.

  ‘We should have given him a beating,’ Denny said as they walked back towards the city.

  Nobul just shook his head. ‘What for? Teach him a lesson? Poor bloke’s got enough to contend with. We might all have before long.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means we might have several thousand angry fucking Khurtas knocking on our door in a few weeks. And what are we doing about it?’

  ‘Nah, the king’s taking them on at Kelbur Fenn. Should be any day now — could even be today. Once he’s given them a kicking things’ll get back to normal.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure about that. Doesn’t matter how many knights and archers and foot you’ve got, something can always turn a battle against you.’

  Nobul could see Denny wanted to argue, but they both knew who had the most experience of war.

  ‘This is pointless,’ said Denny after they’d made their way along the street for a while. ‘Let’s go back to the barracks. I could murder a drink.’

  On any other day, Nobul would have told him ‘no’. On any other day he would have carried out his duty, not for fear of what Kilgar might do, but because that was what kept him busy, kept his mind occupied. Today, though, it all just felt like shit, this place and its stink and the piteous faces of everyone living here. If you could call it living.

  He nodded, and Denny smiled. Obviously he hadn’t been expecting Nobul to agree.

  ‘So where do you think they are? The missing refugees?’ Denny asked as they made their way back over Saviour’s Bridge. Nobul had to admire his persistence.

  ‘Don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But I’m pretty sure kicking in slum doorways ain’t gonna find us the culprits.’

  ‘Where would you start then?’

  ‘Where d’you think? If the Guild doesn’t know what’s going on then nobody does. It’s them needs their doors kicking in.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Denny grinned. ‘But make sure you let me know the day you decide to take on those mad bastards, and I’ll make sure I’m on a different watch.’

  The boy had a point. The Guild had eyes and ears everywhere, and they greased plenty of palms in the Greencoats. It was a dangerous line of inquiry, and would most likely get whichever nosy bastard decided to investigate a quick knife between the shoulder blades.

  They walked on, and Nobul could tell Denny was just dying for him to ask.

  ‘Go on then, what’s your theory?’

  Denny’s grin widened. ‘Funny you should ask. You know these murders?’ Who didn’t? ‘It’s all linked. The murders we’ve seen, those poor mutilated fuckers all over the city — they’re just the start. Practice, if you will. Whatever mad bastard is doing that is the one what spirited off the refugees.’

  Nobul raised an eyebrow. ‘And how have they managed that?’

  ‘They’re a caster, ain’t they? It’s all magick.’ Denny wiggled his fingers in front of him as though conjuring something out of thin air. Nobul knew full well Denny could barely manage to conjure piss from his cock without help, so magick would have been more than a tall order.

  ‘Right,’ said Nobul,
managing a smile. He’d smiled a few times recently, and mostly it had been at things Denny said.

  ‘You mark me. When it all comes out in the wash, you’ll see those two things are linked. I’m telling you.’

  The barracks were almost in sight, when Denny spied two Greencoats ahead, leaning idly against a rough wooden shack.

  ‘There’s Platt and Firby,’ he said, lifting his hand up to wave, but they hadn’t seen him before two figures emerged from the passing crowd and grasped the Greencoats’ attention.

  Something about the pair gave Nobul pause. He couldn’t say what it was, just a feeling in his gut, but it was enough to make him stop Denny before he could call out, pulling him to one side of the street to watch.

  One of the newcomers was a man, lean, just over average height, with a mop of brown hair. The way he held himself Nobul could tell he displayed confidence. Whether that meant he was a fighter or a bluffer was impossible to tell, but either way he carried a sword at his side. He smiled at the two Greencoats, chatting with an easy familiarity, and it was clear he liked to talk. Even from this distance, though, Nobul could see a mass of bruises on his face. Clearly someone hadn’t liked what he had to say recently.

  The second was a woman, tall, statuesque even. She held her head down, as though trying to blend in, but with her cropped blonde hair and striking features that wasn’t easy. Despite her attempts to look insignificant, it was obvious she was thickly muscled about the shoulders, slim in the waist — a warrior’s frame.

  Something was odd about the pair of them, and Nobul knew it.

  ‘Friends of yours?’ he asked Denny, keeping his eyes on the four of them. The handsome one with the bruised face made a joke and the Greencoats laughed, but not the woman.

  ‘Platt and Firby? Yeah, known ’em for ages. Firby’s being tipped for serjeant before long. Why, what’s up?’

  Nobul didn’t answer. Something most definitely was up, and if he waited long enough … there — a purse passed from the dandy’s hand to one of the Greencoats while they were all still laughing.

  ‘See that?’ Nobul said, almost ready to walk over there and ask what the fuck they were up to.

  ‘See what?’ said Denny.

  ‘Bribe money.’

  ‘What the fuck do you care? Lots of the fellas do it.’

  Nobul was suddenly angry. Lots of fellas did do it, but that didn’t make it right. The Greencoats being so easy to buy off was why the Guild was rife in this city — because they were allowed to be. That was why he’d been forced to pay protection money for years — because there was no one he could turn to. That’s why there were people going missing — because the Greencoats were too scared or their palms too well greased to investigate who was really involved. That’s why his boy had died …

  No, that wasn’t why his boy had died, was it? His boy had died because Nobul was a cold, hard, bullying bastard.

  ‘Yeah. Lots of fellas do it,’ Nobul said, feeling his anger die.

  He watched as they finished their conversation, and the man bid his goodbyes to the two Greencoats. He and his woman disappeared into the crowd, and for a minute Nobul considered following them. He took a step forward, but there was a sudden wail, a cry that rose over the hubbub of the street.

  Denny turned. ‘What the fu-’

  He was cut off by another cry, this time from somewhere else.

  Like it was infectious, like a plague carried on the wind, the cries went from mouth to mouth and a panic gripped the streets. A woman ran past clutching her child’s hand. A man pushed his cart full of oysters, spilling his load and not caring a jot. Some old man dropped to his knees sobbing his eyes out.

  Nobul moved forward into the crowd, demanding to know what was wrong, but people were just pushing past, gripped by fear. Finally he grabbed a passer-by, a woman of middling years with tears in her eyes.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.

  She looked up at him as though in a daze. ‘We’ve lost,’ she gasped. ‘The Khurtas have beat them.’

  Nobul stared at her in disbelief, then, feeling her squirming in his grip, he let her go.

  Then he heard it — a mournful cry rising over the blather and noise.

  ‘The king is dead!’ someone cried. ‘They’ve murdered King Cael!’

  Nobul looked at Denny.

  Neither of them knew what to say.

  THIRTY-TWO

  It felt comfortable on his hip; the best blade he’d owned since … well, forever. It had been a bargain too. He and Kaira had bought it from a stall in a Northgate market, and as Merrick had tested its weight and run his finger along the keen edge he could only wonder what some scabby street trader was doing with such superior steel. The vendor obviously had no idea what he possessed, because he’d sold it for a pittance. Apparently the stallholder’s entire batch of weapons had come from an old burned-out forge, the owner having vanished. Someone had missed out on a lot of coin, but that wasn’t Merrick’s problem. He had a sword worthy of him now — that was all that mattered. If Shanka and his thugs, or any other bastard for that matter, wanted to take him on they’d better know how to fight or would find themselves stuck with three foot of folded steel.

  And that wasn’t the only ace up his sleeve.

  Kaira was beautiful, he had to give her that. She could do with a bit of rouge on her cheeks and lips, perhaps some kohl around the eyes, but she was still better looking than most of the ladies Merrick was used to consorting with. And in addition to her looks she could clearly handle herself in a fight. She was almost as tall as he was, the muscles beneath her tunic taut and hard. Broad in the shoulder and keen of eye, she went about her duty of guarding him with a vigilance that made him feel … safe? Safer than he’d felt in a long time anyway, at least as long as he’d been in debt to Shanka.

  Now all he had to do was get a smile out of her, and who knew where that might lead. It wasn’t easy though; she was a solemn one and no mistake. News about the king certainly hadn’t made that any better.

  Merrick didn’t waste his time fawning over the Mastragalls, but neither did he despise them like some. He knew the necessity for a country to be ruled by a strong hand, and he of all people couldn’t begrudge someone a little bit of privilege — he’d had enough of his own before he’d pissed it all away. Kaira was taking it hard. She’d received the news of Cael’s murder with a stiff lip and a firm jaw when the hysteria had first hit the streets, but he could tell she was struggling with it.

  Well, he guessed some people were just unfailingly patriotic.

  The pair made their way through the streets, her at his shoulder, his ever-present guardian. Everyone they passed was subdued; there was something in the air, some sense of anticipation that before long something was going to happen; and nothing good.

  No announcement had yet been made by the street criers, but Merrick knew it was coming. Having defeated their armies at Kelbur Fenn there would be nothing to stop the Khurtas sweeping through the Free States. Rumour was rife and panic would soon follow. The best they could hope for was that the Khurtas would pillage enough to be satisfied, then piss off back where they came from. Deep down, Merrick knew the chances of that were slim, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care.

  He was finished with all this now, his part over with. As soon as he’d said his goodbyes and all debts were cleared, he’d be out of this shit tip faster than coin from a gambler’s purse.

  ‘Where are we going now?’ Kaira asked.

  Merrick hadn’t been expecting questions — she’d not asked anything of him so far — and he was almost caught off guard.

  ‘Sorry, is there somewhere else you need to be?’

  She didn’t answer, just shook her head, which only made him feel bad.

  ‘If you must know, we’re off to see Palien. My part’s all done; people have been paid off, everyone’s ready to move. I can tell him the whys and wherefores and be on my merry way. Don’t worry, we won’t be long. Then I can take you t
o that waterfront bar, as promised.’ May as well have one last drink before I leave all this behind.

  More silence. He’d tried to tempt her more than once with the promise of fine wine and finer company, but it was clear she wasn’t interested. Merrick found that most annoying.

  ‘Then we’re almost done?’

  ‘Seriously, do you have other plans? Is Palien not paying you enough? Have you got more lucrative prospects elsewhere?’

  She shook her head again. ‘I’m just keen for this to be over.’

  He glanced at her, but could read little on that strong face of hers. ‘If it makes you feel better, that makes two of us.’

  ‘You have doubts about this?’

  ‘Doubts? Who said anything about doubts? I just want this to be finished so I can go back to my life. You’ve got no idea how much I’m being inconvenienced.’

  ‘So all you care about is-’

  ‘What do you want to know, Kaira?’ He was beginning to prefer it when she was silent. ‘Is all I care about money? Yes, I guess it is. Do I feel guilty about …’

  He stopped. It wouldn’t do to be talking about this in the street but she’d prodded him in the wrong place.

  Was he proud of himself? Of course he fucking wasn’t, but what could he do? If he hadn’t done this, and to the best of his capability, he’d be rotting in a ditch somewhere. Kaira probably didn’t appreciate that, but he didn’t have to explain it to her. She was his strongarm, she wasn’t being paid to know the ins and outs, she was being paid to keep him alive long enough to see a boatload of slaves off across the deep blue.

  ‘Perhaps we should talk about this later,’ he found himself saying.

  Did he want to talk about it later? He’d thought he didn’t want to talk about it any time. Talking about it made it real, made him actually think about what he had done, what he was condemning those poor wretches to, and that couldn’t be good. Could it?

  They walked the rest of the way in silence, Merrick trying his best not to contemplate the consequences of his actions, both for him and for those whose lives he was brokering. When they got to the house where Palien was holed up, all he cared about was getting this business concluded and getting out alive.