Shouts rose from the fortress bailey. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the storm that was almost upon them. Thunder boomed.
“Here!” Talen shouted into the wind. “On the tower!” But the other candidates were too busy. Or they didn’t hear him. Or worse, now that he had swung his platform around, they didn’t even see him. The first scattered drops of rain kissed Talen’s face. Clouds began to scuttle across the face of the moon.
The dreadman pushed his platform again. This was it, Talen thought: the crane holding the dreadman’s platform would swing father around, and then it would be but a hop for that dreadman from his platform to Talen’s.
There was only one way out. Talen looked down and prepared to drop to the ground that lay much too far below. But the dreadman’s platform suddenly lurched and swung back.
There were voices above. Then someone up there grabbed onto one of the ropes, leapt over the battlement, and dropped from the top of the tower above, using the rope to guide his fall.
He was a big man who dropped quickly and landed on the platform with a heavy thud. The platform shuddered. Part of the rope fastened to one corner loosened, and the platform sagged sideways a bit.
Talen recognized the man’s big silhouette. He’d recognize it anywhere.
“He’s quick!” Talen yelled to warn his brother.
The dreadman struck at Ke, but Ke countered the attack and slammed his fist into the dreadman’s face. The dreadman staggered back a step, then drew a knife that flashed in the pale moonlight. He thrust, but Ke grabbed the wrist of his knife hand. The two men held onto a rope with one hand and struggled for the knife with the other.
Men shouted from above. Talen looked up and saw archers leaning out over the edge. But there was no way they could get a good target with Ke and the dreadman struggling in their current grip.
The platform under Ke and the dreadman sagged further, and then the ropes supporting one end gave out altogether. A brush and other repair materials that had been with the bucket all fell, bouncing once off the sloping side of the tower. Moments later, both the dreadman and Ke followed. The two men plummeted, striking the tower wall where it widened. The collision knocked them apart, and they disappeared into the night shadows below.
The wind gusted, howling about the edges of the battlements. If Ke had broken a leg or his back in the fall, he’d be no match for the dreadman.
“Give me slack!” Talen yelled up to the men above. “Drop me down!”
Moments later his platform began to drop, but not quickly enough. When Talen thought he was about twenty feet from the ground, he jumped. It was a foolish thing to do because the exact location of the ground was hidden in the deep moon shadow, and, sure enough, Talen landed just slightly after he expected to and was leaning too far forward. Instead of rolling, he smacked into the ground. It was like being hit with a board. He lay there for a moment, stunned.
A number of yards to his left, in the deep shadows of the wall, there was a grunt, a snarl, the sounds of a struggle.
Back up on the tower the guards yelled for a mark.
“Hold your shots!” Talen shouted.
On the far side of the moonlit outer bailey, a group of soldiers ran to help, but they were headed the wrong way. Talen pushed himself up, and felt around for a rock. But it was all hard dirt and goat-chewed grass. In the darkness a few paces away, Ke and the dreadman wrestled upon the ground. The dreadman broke free and tried to scramble away. Ke lunged after him and caught his foot.
Talen rushed forward and prepared to do damage with a flying kick, but the dreadmen yanked himself free of Ke’s grasp. One moment he was there, and the next he was racing away, sprinting for the outer wall.
“There!” someone shouted from the battlement.
Bows twanged. But it was dark, and gusting, and the dreadman was moving fast. The arrows were blown wide. Ke raced after the dreadman. Talen followed.
The bows above thrummed again, but the dreadman was speed itself, a shadow fleeing across the bailey in the dappled moonlight. Ke ran much faster than Talen, but even he could not match the speed of their attacker.
They weren’t even halfway across the bailey when the dreadman reached the outer defenses. Lightning exploded in the sky. Deafening thundered blasted the bailey and the stone walls around them. When the flash passed, the dreadman had already gained the top of the outer wall. Lightning cracked again, and the dreadman leapt away in a great arc over the wall and disappeared. A moment later the belly of the sky split open, and the rain poured down.
Ke slowed, then stopped. “Where, by Regret, do they get such speed?”
“Goh,” said Talen. “What was he?”
“He wasn’t some backwater scum, I can tell you that.” Ke held his hand up and looked at it. The two small fingers of his left hand were twisted at odd angles, obviously broken.
The rain fell in sheets, but within the fortress a cry rose above its sound.
At first Talen thought it was another alarm, but then realized it was a cheer.
“Find out what’s going on,” Ke said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I knocked our visitor’s knife out of his hand. I’m going to find it to see if it has any stories to tell.”
Talen left Ke and ran back to the fortress gate. He entered the inner bailey and found a group of candidates crowding around a body lying upon the ground. Commander Eresh stood among them. He was livid. “You fool!” he said to Flax.
“I just killed you a dreadman,” Flax said.
“You just killed someone we might have gotten to talk.”
“He wouldn’t have talked.”
“He would have talked to me!” Eresh roared. He turned to a group of candidates.“Drag his body into the hall so we can get a better look at him. And bring his head.”
Four candidates picked up the body. Another grabbed the severed head that was still dripping gore.
Flax stood to one side, a number of the candidates slapping him on the shoulders in congratulations.
“What happened?” Talen asked.
“That big blond is a wonder,” one of the candidates said. “He caught the whoreson.”
“We were pressed,” another man said. “Commander Eresh came. He drew first blood.”
“Aye,” the first candidate said. “But that Flax, he was lightning! The dreadman bloodied us and was about to kill another when Flax caught him in the back. Spitted him like a pig. The dreadman turned to strike, but Flax pulled his sword out and hacked his head off. One blow, like he was slicing butter, and so fast you could hardly know he’d actually made the stroke.”
“Yes, and put him beyond our questions!” Eresh roared back.
The men silenced.
Commander Eresh stormed into the hall.
Flax glanced over at Talen and their eyes met. “So much for repairing relations, eh? And so much for curfew.”
Talen nodded at the headless dreadmen. “It was curfew for him though.”
Flax smiled wryly, the rain soaking his blond hair. “Yes, he took one too many risks.”
They followed the candidates out of the rain and into the hall. When they entered, Eresh commanded a number of lamps be lit and brought over. The attacker was laid out on the cobbled floor, his head placed on the stones beside him. Blood from his wounds and severed neck ran onto the stones and mixed with the water dripping from the men and their clothes.
Eresh knelt next to the man and pulled up his sleeves. The tattoos there were the same odd markings Talen had seen on the man in his dream. Eresh searched pockets and pouches. He sliced open the tunic with his knife to bare the man’s chest. Nothing. No necklace, purse, pendant. Only the weave of might around the man’s arm and a weave of tattoos over his body.
“What is he?” a candidate asked.
“A slayer,” Ke said from beh
ind.
The men turned. Ke stood in the door holding up a dagger. He walked over and dropped the knife onto the table.
The knife had whorls etched into its curved blade.
Eresh raised his eyebrows and walked over to look down at the knife. “So it is,” he said.
Talen marveled. Slayers were dreadmen of the highest level. They fought in battles as no others could.
“Well, men,” said Eresh. “Tonight you have fought a dreadman I gauge to be of the fourth level at least. I hope it’s to your taste because I can guarantee you more will follow.”
Talen shook his head. A dreadman of the fourth! Few could survive such a multiplication of their Fire. However, he suspected the man chasing him had probably been the same. No wonder he was so quick, so strong. Then Talen thought of Ke, struggling with the dreadman, and holding his own. Ke had been stronger than that dreadman. He hadn’t been faster in a dead run, but he’d clearly had more might.
Talen looked at his brother with new eyes. Ke had bested a man of the fourth!
“Let us pray you all survive your quickening,” Eresh said. “Mokad has come. And for all our sakes they had better find an army here to meet them.”
* * *
Berosus looked over at Talen. This should have been an easy snatch, but it was clear the boy hadn’t drunk the drugged wine. Not enough of it, anyway. It annoyed Berosus that he’d lost Rosh. But there was no way he was going to let him fall into the hands of that Kish. At the same time, his death hadn’t been for naught. Berosus had seen how Eresh and Argoth looked at him. He knew they wouldn’t trust him until he’d proven his allegiance and worth.
Well, tonight’s display should convince them. They might not completely trust the Hand, but he had shown he was no friend of their enemy. As for Rosh, when the loose souls were collected in this land, Berosus would cut him out of the pack and reward him.
Berosus reached down and sliced a lock of hair from Rosh’s severed head with his knife. He kept remembrances of all his men. Then he took an ear in good sleth fashion. Finally, he slipped the weave from Rosh’s arm. As Rosh’s killer, it was his right to take the booty. He suspected Argoth would demand he turn it over, but he’d stand on principle, just as any man of the Hand would.
Berosus considered taking Talen now. But he needed to remain under cover until the plan was in place to capture them all.
One thing was clear: this rabble didn’t know what Talen was. You didn’t bunk such a one as he with common men. Of course, maybe they did know and wanted him to blend in. However, after tonight, they would know that wasn’t going to be possible. They would have to try to hide him somewhere else.
And that too was a bonus. It would make taking him all the simpler, which meant, in the long view, tonight’s raid had actually been a success.
18
Nilliam
ARGOTH STOOD UPON the tall wind tower in the northeast corner, looking out into the night. Shim stood next to him. The rain fell loudly upon the roof and blew in from the gaps between the roof and battlement, wetting the stone floor and Argoth’s legs.
Down in the great hall, Matiga and Eresh were already putting another group of candidates to the test. It would take more than two days to finish them all. Argoth prayed the ancestors they wouldn’t all break.
He looked out at the dark woods. There was no way they’d find any trace of the two slayers that escaped. Not with this rain. More than fifteen candidates had been wounded in tonight’s attack. Eight were dead. Another, he suspected, would not live to see the morning.
“How are we going to fight them?” Shim asked over the din of the rain.
“We’re not, remember? This is exactly why we’re breaking up. They caught us unaware. And they did it with some help.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and I both inspected the work done on the walls. There was no way anyone, even a dreadman as powerful as Ke, could scale them silently in the night.” Argoth picked up the rope he’d found hanging over the wall. “Our ship,” he said, “has rats.”
Shim looked down at the rope.
“This is how they got in.”
“Who was it?” Shim demanded.
“I don’t know,” said Argoth.
“They were targeting Talen,” Shim said, “weren’t they?”
“It appears so.”
“What is that boy?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think he’s safe staying with the troops.”
“Find a place then. We’re breaking up anyway. And put all the hammermen we know we can trust on alert. Tell them to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. In the meantime, we’ll figure a way to flush the rats out.”
Argoth nodded.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Shim. “I’d rather face Slayers than another one of those grass and earth things you battled down in the caves.”
“Creators spare us,” said Argoth. “But I don’t think we’ll have to worry. I did get some insight as a thrall to Mokad. When I told the Skir Master Rubaloth about the creature Hunger, he was surprised. It was clear Mokad didn’t have that lore. If they did, I believe they would have already sent it against us.”
“Thank the Six,” said Shim. “We have our hands full with normal flesh and blood. And I have one particular flesh and blood woman that needs to be alerted. I want you to get a carriage and bring my wife in. I don’t think it’s safe for her to be visiting relatives any longer.”
“No, but will you be safe if you bring her in?” Argoth asked.
Shim smiled ruefully. “I’ll be a sight better with her than you are with your Serah.”
Serah, Argoth’s wife, was not happy with the lies he’d told her and the secret life he’d kept from her for all these years. But she could deal with lies and secrets. The problem was Nettle, his son. Saying that he was not doing well was an understatement. Half his mind was gone. And she blamed him, as was right, for his condition.
“I’ll send a carriage for her tonight,” said Argoth. “In fact, I think that will be the perfect ruse to smuggle Talen out.”
“Good,” said Shim. “And now I’m going down to submit myself to the Creek Widow. I’m not waiting another minute to be forced.”
* * *
Argoth knew Talen couldn’t just ride out in full view in daylight. He’d have to be smuggled out under the cover of darkness. For that, he’d need a carriage or wagon. But all the wagons in the fortress were full.
Shim was a practical commander and there was no room here for anything but what his army would use. But the village that stood close by would make up the lack. The tavern owner there hired out his carriage and wagon.
Argoth found Oaks and ordered him and his fist of men to join him. By the time they saddled their mounts, the storm had broken up. They rode to the village, the cold wind cutting through their clothes, the mud sucking at the horses’ hooves.
He found the village homes dark and quiet, but Argoth built his Fire nevertheless. There were two taverns for the soldiers. Argoth rode to the first and dismounted, but instead of calling to the house, he softly rapped on the shutters to the tavern owner’s bedroom around back. He rapped again.
“Who’s there?”
“Argoth.”
“Aye,” the innkeeper said. “A moment.” A minute later the tavern owner opened the back door and held his lamp aloft.
“Captain Argoth,” the man said too loudly.
Argoth motioned for him to speak quietly. “I need to be discrete. We don’t need a driver. Just the carriage and horse.”
“Goh, it’s a freezer tonight,” he said. “Can it wait until morning?”
“Quietly, man,” Argoth said. “It can’t wait. We’re fetching Lord Shim’s wife.”
The man’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why didn’t you say so right off? G’alls, we’ll have ever
ything hitched and ready in a moment. Do you want to come in?”
“No,” said Argoth. “We can hitch the carriage. I just didn’t want you thinking Fir-Noy thieves were taking it.”
“I won’t hear of it,” the man whispered. Then he shouted into the house for his two sons to get up.
Argoth sighed. This tavern owner did not know the meaning of quiet.
By the time Oaks and a few of his men pushed the carriage out of the barn, the tavern owners’ two sons were dressed and hitching the team to the carriage. “I’ll have my Courage drive; he’s a good lad.”
“We’ve got a driver,” said Argoth, pushing a piece of silver into the man’s hand. It was more than what it should cost to rent a carriage and team and driver. “What I need is for you to prepare a breakfast. There will be at least ten people to feed when she arrives.”
The tavern owner rubbed the silver between his fingers. “Aye, we can do that.”
“We’re keeping this just between us,” Argoth said.
“Right,” the man said and touched the side of his nose with his finger. “I’m the very picture of a mouse.”
“Indeed,” said Argoth. By this time the team was hitched and one of the men sat up top as driver. The others mounted, and then the carriage and escort moved down the lane at the side of the tavern and out into the dark street. Argoth lingered behind and bid the tavern owner and his sons good night and saw them to their door. Then he turned back to his horse which was tied up by the barn.
He had just taken the reins and was going to mount when a man spoke from the deep shadows. “I heard the fighting at the fortress tonight.”
Argoth dropped the reigns, drew his sword, and spun. He flared his Fire.
The man stood under the eaves of the thick thatch roof. “I mean no harm. In fact, I bring good news.”
His accent was odd. There wasn’t much light, but the storm had passed by and allowed the slim moon to shine through. “Step out so I can see you,” said Argoth, pointing the tip of the sword at the man.
The man walked out of the shadows. He was a tall man. His beard was cut short and tidy. His clothes were fringed with tassels and decorations. Argoth did not need to see his tattoos to know where he came from.
Curse: The Dark God Book 2 Page 18