Nest of Serpents (Book 4)

by Curtis Jobling

  Bergan sat on his haunches, looking back down the valley they had traversed that day, silently thanking Brenn for his favours. He and his small band were out of the awful catacombs deep beneath the earth, he’d enjoyed a meal of raw rabbit and black-hearts, he was reunited with his dear friend Hector and the sun shone up above. All things considered, life was good.

  The young magister stalked towards him up the trail, away from his resting Boarguard. The boy had gone through quite a transformation since the violence had begun. Drew had been the catalyst for the troubles, no doubt, although the Wolflord hadn’t been responsible for what had followed. As the Werelords of Lyssia – and beyond – had chosen sides, war had engulfed the Seven Realms, with those loyal to the Lion on one side, and those who rallied to the Wolf on the other. Hector had been drawn into the very heart of the storm alongside Drew, the two having been inseparable friends until fate tore them apart. Wergar’s son was lost to them now, no doubt dead if Hector’s news was to be believed, and the Boarlord had been left a shadow of his former self.

  ‘Put your rump here, lad,’ said Bergan, patting a space on the large boulder that was his seat. Hector smiled, moving his travelling robes to one side so he could perch upon the rock alongside the Bearlord.

  ‘How are you feeling, my lord?’

  ‘Hector, drop the formalities. If you must call me anything, call me uncle, but “my lord” doesn’t sit well, especially in light of your rescuing us from the Skirmishers.’

  Hector nodded, smiling. ‘How are you feeling, Uncle?’

  ‘All the better for having something in my belly that doesn’t resemble a grub. You’d shudder to imagine what we had to survive on in those catacombs. And the elixir you gave me, that’s worked wonders too. Thank you.’

  Hector and his medicine case; that was something else the group had to be thankful for. As a magister, he rarely went anywhere without it, and it was a miracle he’d had it with him when he’d been marooned on Moga by Vega. Within the leather bag he kept a variety of herbs and healing potions, salves and ointments that could be applied to all manner of injuries. Bergan’s chest had hurt terribly since half of Highcliff had collapsed upon him. Since then his condition had worsened; he’d developed a wheeze in the catacombs which continued to plague him when they returned to the light. The infections he’d suffered were alleviated by Hector’s ministrations, improving almost overnight. It was good to have the Boarlord with them. Bergan reached out with his foot and gave the leather medicine case a kick at Hector’s feet, causing its contents to jangle within.

  ‘I don’t know what you keep in that bag of tricks, but I’m grateful you brought it with you.’

  Hector smiled, carefully removing it from the duke’s reach. ‘Best to keep it safe, Uncle,’ he said, by way of explaining his caution.

  ‘Aye, don’t want to be breaking its contents, eh?’ said the old Bear, glancing back up the trail. ‘We’d best be moving soon while we still have daylight on our side. How long does your scout reckon until we’re in Henrik’s territory?’

  ‘Well, these are just the foothills according to the Creep,’ said Hector. ‘My man says we should be in the heart of Sturmland by tomorrow if we keep up this pace. It would be a miracle if we don’t run into some of the White Bear’s scouts before then, mind you.’

  ‘Let us hope that he is in assisting mood,’ said Bergan, scratching his threadbare beard.

  ‘You’re worried he won’t be?’

  ‘He and I go back a long way and our disagreements never have been resolved. He blames me for much of what came to pass, with the fall of Wergar and the rise of Leopold. The fact that the Wolf’s Council sent messages to him, seeking his aid, and not a single plea was answered causes me alarm.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll find him in accommodating mood, Uncle. He was an ally of the Wolf once, a long time ago, and I’m sure he can be so again. Come, we should prepare to move.’

  Hector bent to take his case by the handles before standing and stretching. Bergan watched him, startled to see just how thin and drawn he’d become.

  ‘You need to get some meat back on to those bones, Hector. It’s simply not right, a Boarlord being so skinny!’

  ‘You’re one to talk, Uncle,’ laughed the magister as he slung the case across his shoulder.

  ‘I’ve been living off worms and beetles, lad. What’s your excuse?’

  Hector smiled and walked back to his men without answering, as Bergan rose stiffly from the boulder. The tall one from Highcliff, Ringlin, drew the Baron of Redmire to one side to have words. Bergan didn’t like the look of the rogue or his fat friend, Ibal, but he was unable to question their loyalty. Shifty though they appeared, they had stood shoulder to shoulder with their master when rescuing Bergan and his companions, and the Bearlord had gone out of his way to thank the fellow on frequent occasions since.

  ‘Keep themselves to themselves, don’t they?’

  Bergan turned, looking back up the trail to the man who had spoken. Bo Carver lay in the snow a short distance away, basking in the cold winter sun, his tattooed flesh scrunched up as he faced the bright heavens.

  ‘Can you blame them? The Ugri hardly speak our language, and one of that pair is mute.’

  ‘The fat one isn’t mute,’ said Carver, his eyes still closed, his hands folded neatly across his chest. It could have been summertime and the chilly slope a green meadow, so at peace was the Lord of Thieves.

  ‘Ibal chooses not to speak?’

  ‘I believe he speaks all right,’ said Carver. ‘He has Ringlin’s ear when he needs it; the saying “thick as thieves” could’ve been written with that pair in mind.’

  ‘You’ve a short memory, Carver,’ said Bergan as he trudged up the trail to where the man lay. ‘It wasn’t so long ago that your name was dragged through the mud on account of your previous transgressions, and there weren’t many who would speak in your defence as I recall. I thought you’d be more understanding of your Thieves Guild brethren.’

  ‘They’re no brothers of mine, Your Grace,’ said Carver, turning his hands to crack his knuckles. He sat upright, squinting at Bergan. ‘I never killed a man in cold blood. Not once on a single job. Same can’t be said about those two. We are different breeds, and I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.’

  Bergan looked back down the trail at the Boarguard, letting his eyes linger on the two longest-serving members of Hector’s staff. He caught Ibal looking back at him. Bergan smiled and the short, round thief waved back.

  ‘I doubt you could even lift him,’ muttered Bergan.

  ‘My point precisely,’ said Carver, hopping to his feet and coming to stand beside the Bearlord. ‘They scare Pick. Remember, I was incarcerated for many years in Traitors’ House. I’ve been removed from the goings-on of the Guild. Pick wasn’t, though. She’s seen a thing or two, and no doubt knows Ringlin and Ibal well enough. I trust what she tells me. She’s a good kid, a cat burglar who might have had a great future ahead of her.’

  ‘A future,’ chuckled Bergan. ‘You make cat-burgling sound like a profession.’

  ‘It’s the only one available to some, my lord,’ said Carver. ‘Fancy opportunities to live in your world very rarely filter down to the gutter.’

  Bergan grunted by way of showing he understood, which was the closest Carver was going to get to an apology from the Lord of Brackenholme. He continued. ‘The girl sleeps by my side at night; I appear to have become some kind of surrogate father to the child. But one thing’s for sure, Pick won’t be left alone with them.’

  ‘So they were bad men –’

  ‘They may still be bad men,’ said the Thief-lord swiftly.

  ‘Regardless, we’re not in a position to pick and choose our allies. They’re loyal to Hector, and that’s good enough for me.’

  ‘It is?’ whispered Carver, standing beside the Bearlord, turning his face away from the Boarguard. ‘Then you’re alone, it appears. I don’t trust the company the baron keeps and neithe
r does Fry.’

  Carver was right, of course: the Sturmlander, Fry, had serious reservations about the fact that Hector had Ugri warriors in his service. Between them, Carver and Fry had questions about the lot of them.

  ‘Enough suspicion, Carver,’ snapped Bergan, loud enough to make Hector and his men look up from further down the trail to see what the commotion was. Bergan smiled and waved nonchalantly before turning and taking Carver by the elbow. He led the man onwards up the trail, away from the Boarguard and closer to where Fry and Pick waited for them ahead.

  ‘They are with us,’ continued Bergan, ‘and you need to accept that, Bo. Let their actions prove their allegiance and start taking things at face value. Try to stop looking for ill in everyone.’

  Carver stopped walking when they’d passed a rock face on the trail and were out of earshot of Hector and his men. He prodded Bergan in the chest with a thick finger, no airs and graces, social standing put aside. ‘As long as we travel with them, I keep one eye open. You sleep well if your conscience is clear. Let me be the one who worries about a knife in our backs.’

  ‘It must be awful to trust nobody, Carver.’

  The Lord of Thieves gave the Bearlord a brief sideways glance. ‘You think so? It’s kept me alive all these years.’

  With that he turned and trudged onwards towards the Sturmlander and child, leaving Bergan to wait for the magister and his Boarguard. The Lord of Brackenholme heard Ibal’s sickly giggling well before the group finally appeared round the rocky corner.

  3

  The Dyre Road

  Drew twisted in his saddle, glancing back down the snow-blanketed Dyre Road at his companion. Some people weren’t born to ride, and the grumbling Hawklord was one of them. Red Rufus was locked in a constant battle of wills with his horse and the grey mare reluctantly following his instructions only when forced by both reins and boots. When the horse was in an especially belligerent mood, the old Hawk resorted to shouting a torrent of abuse, as he was presently doing. Drew turned Bravado round, biting his lip as he trotted back towards his comrade.

  ‘Quiet!’ he said. ‘You’ll alert every Wylderman from here to Darke!’

  ‘Not my fault I’m lumbered with a crotchety nag, is it?’ Rufus grumbled, from the saddle of his motionless mount.

  ‘I know how you feel,’ muttered Drew, but the Hawk didn’t hear him.

  ‘I swear this fool horse is mocking me!’

  The mare snorted right on cue.

  ‘A poor rider blames his horse,’ said Drew. ‘She’s picking up on your anxiety. Try to relax.’

  ‘If you hadn’t noticed, I’m a Hawklord. Don’t have much need for anything other than my wings to get me around, do I?’

  ‘But one of your wings is broken, remember?’

  ‘Sprained,’ sniffed the Hawklord.

  ‘However you dress this up, Red Rufus, flight is out of the question. So, for the time being, you need to be kind to your mount. If she bucks you off, you’ll have more than a broken wing to worry about.’

  As if in response to Drew’s words, the grey mare suddenly set off at a trot. Drew watched the glowering Red Rufus pass by, bouncing in his saddle with all the grace of a farmer on a donkey. Stifling a chuckle, Drew tapped his heels on Bravado’s flanks, urging the white charger on until he reined in alongside the Hawklord.

  The two of them were stuck together for the foreseeable future, travelling to Brackenholme to discover the cause of the fires. The Staglords had been unable to send any troops to accompany them and understandably so; Stormdale was wounded, her people and soldiers broken. The men of the Barebones were needed at home, to rebuild their defences as best they could in case of any future attack from the Catlords.

  Reinhardt’s young brother, Milo, had wanted to accompany Drew to the Bearlord city, in an official capacity as envoy from Stormdale. Reinhardt had dismissed the request immediately, forbidding Manfred’s son from leaving the castle; the Dyrewood was a dangerous enough place during peacetime. With the Seven Realms at war, Reinhardt had declared that a journey through the haunted forest towards a burning city was entirely out of the question for the young Stag. Drew liked the boy: he saw something of himself in Milo, a willingness to act when the time demanded, and the confidence to challenge his elders. Reluctantly the boy had disappeared to his quarters, but not before he’d given his older brother an earful as his parting shot.

  ‘Is this your first time in the Dyrewood?’ asked Drew now. The horses’ hooves crunched along the Dyre Road, the snow untouched by anything bigger than a fox, tracks criss-crossing the ground where animals had traversed the ancient avenue. Overhead, bare black branches were intertwined, obscuring the pale winter sun from view.

  ‘Aye, and hopefully my last; what a miserable hole it is! It’s a dead place: who’d want to make a home here? The Wyldermen can keep it …’

  ‘The Wyldermen aren’t the Dyrewood’s sole inhabitants, Red Rufus. They share it with a whole host of dangers, both beast and plant.’

  ‘Dangerous plants?’ said the Hawk. ‘Bad-tempered bracken? Hostile heather?’

  ‘You’re laughing, but you’d be a fool to ignore my warnings. The Dyrewood’s very much alive. Whatever happens, stay on the road.’

  ‘Didn’t have you down as the superstitious type, cub. You sound like some Romari Baba who’s had ’er palm crossed with coppers.’

  It was Drew’s turn to laugh now. He’d tried to warn Red Rufus, but suspected the old bird was a little long in the beak to be accepting the advice of others, especially someone as young as Drew. He looked over his shoulder, checking the road behind.

  ‘Worrying, though, isn’t it?’ said Drew.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Red Rufus, binding the gnarled fingers of one hand round the reins.

  ‘The Wyldermen: no sign of them at all. Reinhardt mentioned that we should expect to encounter them when we hit the forest. They have villages all around, within easy reach of the Dyre Road.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re up to their scrawny chins in rituals, worshipping whatever monster passes for a god in these parts.’

  Drew felt his skin crawl, thinking back to the Wylderman shaman he’d encountered and the creature he and his people had worshipped: Vala, the Wereserpent.

  ‘I know more than enough about the Wyldermen. I lived in the Dyrewood for a while.’

  ‘You?’ said Red Rufus, his usual sarcastic tone missing for once.

  ‘I spent an autumn and winter here, the two harshest seasons one could imagine. It was after I first discovered my … abilities. I’d fled my parents’ farmstead, after the man I believed was my father stuck his Wolfshead blade clean through my gut, believing I’d killed the mother who raised me. He found me, half-transformed, with Ma dead in my arms and … Anyway, I ran, leaving my brother Trent and Pa behind, my old man blowing his hunting horn. The only sanctuary I could find was the Dyrewood.’

  Red Rufus scratched his grizzled chin, looking around them into the dark, gloomy forest. ‘This was your sanctuary? I’d hate to have seen what chased you.’

  ‘Every farmer up and down the Cold Coast must have answered my pa’s hue and cry. They thought they were chasing a monster.’

  ‘They were, weren’t they?’

  Drew shot the Hawklord a withering look. ‘It was the Ratlord, Vanmorten, King Leopold’s High Chancellor who killed her. Apparently Ma was a loose end, since she’d worked for Wergar and Amelie when Wergar was king. She’d seen Leopold butchering the Wolf’s children, all but me who she’d managed to save. I’m sure it was as much a surprise to the Rat as it was to me when I transformed for the first time that night.’

  ‘Devils, them Rats,’ snarled Red Rufus, hawking up a glob of phlegm and spitting it to the ground. ‘Good company for Leopold, and no mistake. You get a claw into ’im, then?’

  Drew’s smile was forced, his mind’s eye still lingering on the sight of Tilly Ferran lying dead in his arms.

  ‘I tore half his face off.’

  Red Ruf
us clapped his thigh with his free hand. ‘You’re all right by me, Wolf. Anyone who can maim a Ratlord and live to tell the tale’s my kinda fellow.’

  Drew’s mood was lightening as he watched the cantankerous old raptor relax. On reflection, this was the first time the two of them had spent any time truly alone in each other’s company. Their flight from Windfell had been a tense affair, with the Hawk resenting Drew’s command to take him directly to Stormdale. Their time in the Staglord city had provided few opportunities for the two to get to know one another better, instead providing them with fresh reasons to irritate one another. Red Rufus might have been a throwback to the dark ages of Wergar, but he was slowly growing on Drew. The young Wolflord wasn’t entirely sure he was happy with the notion.

  ‘You say you know all about the Wyldermen, then?’

  ‘I’ve had my run-ins. You could say we were neighbours for six months.’

  ‘Can’t imagine they took too kindly to sharing their forest with the likes o’ you.’

  ‘I spent the entire time hiding, avoiding them whenever I was away from my cave. I never knew whether each new day would be my last. I allowed the Wolf to take over. Entirely. I surrendered to it: if I hadn’t, I’d have been dead meat. They knew I was out there, realized they were sharing their forest with another predator. They’re brutal and fiercely territorial. I once saw a fight between two rival tribes. The victors dragged their fallen enemies back to their village. Back to the cooking pot …’

  Red Rufus didn’t have much to say about the last comment. Everyone had heard the stories about the Wyldermen. Drew had been told them himself when he’d been a wee boy, Pa taking great delight in scaring both Trent and him to sleep at night with his bogeyman tales. To the young Drew, those terrible wild men had been just that: bogeymen. The stories had served their purpose when he was a child, ensuring that he never wandered into the haunted forest. As he’d grown, he’d forgotten about them, and consigned them to childhood along with faeries and dragons. To his horror he’d discovered first hand that the bad places and the bad people were all too real.