by Mark Smylie
When they hit the corner with Aqueduct Way, she saw a couple of bonfires being manned by a dozen of the Bastards of Baker Street standing armed and masked in the street; for a moment she thought they were about to have a fight but the Bastards waved them through, and the sneering leather-clad bravos made exaggerated bows as they ran past. Aqueduct Way ran along the south side of the ancient aqueducts, and they followed it until the Way hit the corner with Tinker Street and turned north. There she was shocked and mightily gladdened to see Petterwin Grim and his crew, masked and armed and out in force in front of the print shop, waiting with torches and lanterns and a trio of saddled horses; mightily gladdened indeed as she was about out of breath from running. The rearguard kept riding and running past the waiting men, turning up Aqueduct Way. Sir Clodin paused on his horse, looking at the three of them coming up behind them, but Stjepan waved him on.
One of the Grimsmen was holding the reins of Cúlain-mer and Erim practically flung herself into the saddle, barely breaking her stride, and for some reason she felt enormous relief that she managed to make the vault. That could have been embarrassing, was all she could think as she gathered up the reins from the Grimsman and brought the startled courser under control. One of the Grimsmen offered her a torch, and she lifted it high. Gilgwyr looked worse than she felt, and in fact he immediately slumped into the arms of several Grimsmen the moment he reached them, much to their general amusement, and they poured water into his mouth and over his head before pushing him to his feet. Gilgwyr shook his head, flinging water from his hair like a dog after a walk in the rain, and then let out a loud “Fuck me!” as he moved to mount the second waiting horse.
Stjepan had slowed to a walk and went right up to Petterwin Grim, who was holding the bridle of Cúlain-mal to keep the high-spirited courser still. The two men stood for a moment and shook hands and nodded to each other, and then Stjepan was pulling himself up into the saddle.
“Good to see you as always, Black-Heart,” Petterwin said, grinning behind his scars.
“Good to see you too, Grim,” Stjepan said with a smile, bringing his fingers up to lightly tap his forehead, and then they were off up Aqueduct Way at a brisk gallop. Erim looked over her shoulder and saw that the thirty-odd Grimsmen behind Petterwin had raised their swords silently into the air in a farewell salute.
They caught up with the rearguard halfway up the northbound stretch of the Way, falling in with Sirs Clodin and Colin at the back of the group. She was surprised to see some of the porters still running alongside the horse cart, holding torches high, along with Horne; she’d been right winded by the time they’d hit Grim & Sayles and these men were still going strong. But a few of the others, including Tall Myles and Little Lucius and the Tills, had jumped up into the now crowded wagon, and were watching the streets with loaded and cocked crossbows. It occurred to her suddenly that she’d forgotten to eat anything since the morning. No wonder I’m so beat, she thought. As they passed up the street, they ran a gauntlet of Red Rob Asprin’s men, calling out in encouragement to Jonas’ men in the wagon, and Red Rob nonchalantly gave a little wave to Stjepan and Gilgwyr. She suddenly realized they were being passed from the territory of one crew to another, and a shiver went up and down her spine.
By the gods, she thought. They’ve got the whole fucking city in on this. She laughed wildly.
Where Aqueduct Way hit the High Promenade they found their first sign of trouble. One of the wagons in the first group must have hit the corner too fast, despite Stjepan’s admonitions, and the wagon had flipped on its side. Some of Bad Mowbray’s men were there, milling about an injured and screaming horse that lay crumpled and thrashing on the road and trying to free the other from its yoke to the wagon’s draught pole, along with a large group of what appeared to be street urchins combing through the wreckage and abandoned provisions. Most of the rearguard started to slow as they approached the wagon but Sir Helgi, in the lead, looked over his shoulder and shouted, “Don’t stop. Move. Move!”
So the rearguard kept going, but Stjepan and Erim and Gilgwyr slowed down, as did Sir Clodin. Stjepan practically leapt from his saddle and drew his falchion as he walked up to the maimed and injured draft horse. The men clustered around it were just standing there confused, and they drew back as he approached. He crouched behind the thrashing horse, and held its head in his arm, and Erim could hear him whispering something to it. The horse grew still and then Stjepan cut its throat, and he held it as it bled out.
One of Mowbray’s men, a tall Danian street captain that Erim recognized by the name of Peer Lance, stepped forward as Stjepan stood up. “You should find the ones from the wagon hoofing it on foot toward the Gate of Eldyr,” he said. “Two are in a bad way, one’s a woman with a broken leg.” Stjepan nodded and he got back on Cúlain-mal and then they were racing to catch up to the rearguard.
And indeed the rearguard started to overtake the stragglers from the lost wagon as they moved down the High Promenade. The first was a knot of men and women from the household helping to carry one of the kitchen maids, who had indeed broken her leg when the wagon flipped. This time Sir Helgi did signal the rearguard to stop, and the women were quickly loaded into the horse-drawn wagon alongside the wounded, with all of the able-bodied men now moving to run on foot, flanking or following the wagon. Erim caught a glimpse of the woman’s leg, and saw blood and exposed white bone in the torchlight, and she swallowed hard. They picked up other members of the household as they moved toward the Gate of Eldyr, including one man with a badly dislocated shoulder; but Erim heard some of their talk and apparently a few of them had panicked and run off into the night after the wagon flipped, and now no one knew where they were.
When they hit the Gate of Eldyr, in the Inner Wall that divided the Old City from the newer part of the city, she wasn’t sure what to expect. The gate was rarely closed but there were usually some men from the City Watch there, and she grew apprehensive as they neared it and saw lights. As they passed through it, all that were waiting for them were more of Bad Mowbray’s men, who stood casually in the gatehouse as though they were always on duty there, and a man on horseback dressed in dark leathers and wearing a black scarf tied over his mouth and nose, who turned out to be Cynyr. Stjepan slowed as he went through the gate. “We’re the last, officially, but there’s some lost little ducklings wandering the streets,” he called out to a swarthy man that Erim didn’t recognize.
“We’ll keep open another spell, see what comes through,” the man replied with a nod and a shrug.
“Give the Prince my regards,” Stjepan said, and then they were off again, Cynyr falling in behind them.
Once past the Gate of Eldyr it was some of Jon Galbroke’s men that provided a silent, running escort until they neared the Market Plaza and Jon Dhee’s domain, where they peeled off into the dark. The rearguard caravan, now numbering eleven horsemen, almost two dozen on foot, and fifteen or so piled high into the wagon, sped along the High Promenade past the empty market stalls until they were on the approach to the West Gate and its welcoming committee. Erim spotted men from the City Watch on the ramparts of the tower and wall and there were men on the street and in the gate, and her heart went to her throat again, but then up ahead she could see Jonas on one side waving them through the open gates, and indeed Sir Helgi and the other knights and the members of Arduin’s household didn’t stop but kept right on going through.
Jonas’ crew, running on foot, finally slowed to a stop by their captain, winded and laughing in relief. Gilgwyr and Stjepan slowed to a stop, and Erim did so as well, totally confused. There was no doubt that there were real Watch wardens glancing down at them as the fugitives of the Orwain clan rode loudly out the gates. But there was Jonas, and Little Myles was with him, she also spotted a half dozen heavily-armed enforcers from Jon Dhee’s crew, big nasty brutes with shaved heads and scarred cheeks, and then there was Jon Dhee himself stepping out of the barbican onto the gatehouse landing above them with Sir Owen Lirewed, several ot
her knights wearing the surcoat of the Watch guard, and then Coogan behind them. Dhee had a cool, calculating smile twisting across his scrunched, cruel visage under his long stringy hair, and Coogan was pulling up a black neck scarf to cover his mouth and nose as he grabbed the landing stairs and then vaulted onto a waiting horse.
Dumbfounded, she took in the scene and shook her head; there were handshakes and quick farewells all around, and she found her hand being firmly pressed by Horne and Little Lucius and Tall Myles, reaching up to her from on foot; they’d all seen her fight and she felt a bit of pride that they were all eager to wish her luck.
“There’s going to be a few Hells to pay for this one, Black-Heart, particularly since you are on the blacklist,” called down Jon Dhee in his raspy, frightening voice. “But it’ll be our little secret, the Red Wyrm needn’t know, nor the Painted Prince nor Prince Cutter either, and this small thing is the least we can do for the man who killed Rodrick Urgoar, may he rot in the Six Hells.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Master Jon,” said Stjepan drily. “No idea at all. But no doubt you’re right that I’ll have to pay for this, one way or the other.”
“The city will miss you, Black-Heart,” called down Sir Owen with a laugh, as he leaned casually on the landing’s wooden guardrail. “It’s always a lot more interesting when you’re here.”
“You’re a liar, Sir Owen,” said Stjepan with a rueful grin. “I’m sure it won’t notice that I’m gone at all.”
“Come, come, no time for banter, I think your patron is waiting just down the way,” said Jonas, and he started jogging alongside them as they wheeled their horses about and through the gates. The rest of his crew stayed at the gatehouse, and Erim looked back to see them silhouetted in the archway along with some of the gate guards, with Jon Dhee and Sir Owen and the other knights watching from up top the landing.
Arduin sat high in his saddle, the visor of his sallet up, looking back across the expanse of the city visible from the road. Sir Helgi waited by his side, guzzling water from a leather bottle. Street lanterns and fire-lit windows twinkled across the city skyline, reflected off the sides of the highest and best-lit buildings. He could see the lights of the high spires of the High King’s Hall and the Great Temple of the Divine King on their distant rise; normally it would have been a stirring sight, but he felt nothing, just a hollow ache in his belly. He could see a bright fire of some sort in the High Quarter; he vaguely wondered if the mob had put the city house of his father to the torch. The alarm bells of the temples and the Watch still rang faintly and furiously; he’d gotten so used to them that they barely registered in his thoughts. Behind him the rest of the caravan had started to make its way down the road to Pierham, ten miles they’d have to cover as fast and as carefully as possible in the dark.
Stjepan, Erim, and Gilgwyr rode up, with a man that Arduin didn’t recognize at first jogging by their side, until he remembered seeing him briefly in the rear courtyard of the house as they prepared to flee, and then two other men in dark leathers and partially masked faces riding horses. He sighed. I’m not even going to ask, he thought wearily.
The group came to a halt around Arduin and Helgi, milling their horses about. Erim turned her horse and, like Arduin, stared back at the city skyline. She started to laugh lightly to herself, the relief and exhaustion palpable in her bones, and finally she let out a wild whoop. Gilgwyr, out of breath, his face sweaty and pale, looked over at her, at first askance, and then, as she stared at him and laughed and laughed, he started to laugh as well.
Stjepan dismounted and walked over to Jonas, his arms casually outstretched. The two men embraced, saying quiet words to each other, and then Stjepan was swinging back up onto his horse. “My Lords. May the Fates smile upon you ’til next we meet!” cried out Jonas with a wave, as he started to walk backwards toward the gate.
Erim could barely stop laughing to get the words out. “We crossed three-quarters of the fucking city, and the City Watch held the gates open for us on the way out!” she gasped out. “Who the fuck are you guys?” Coogan and Cynyr chuckled under their scarves, and Gilgwyr started laughing so hard he almost pissed himself.
Good question, that, thought Arduin.
“Why, we’re the Lords of Book and Street, my dear Erim, at your service,” shouted out Jonas with a shit-eating grin and a short bow. “Hasn’t anyone told you that yet?” And with that, he turned and started walking briskly back to the waiting gates.
“By the gods, I’ve always hated that name,” Gilgwyr barely managed to get out. Tears were rolling down his face. “I’ve forgotten which one of us fucking came up with it . . .”
“Fionne,” Coogan and Cynyr said together with exasperated shrugs. “May the gods keep him,” Coogan added. And with that their horses leapt into motion, surging down the road after the caravan. Erim and Gilgwyr turned to follow, as did Sir Helgi, and soon it was just Arduin and Stjepan sitting mounted and looking back at Therapoli Magni, capital of the Middle Kingdoms.
Stjepan looked out over the city toward the High King’s Hall, sweeping his gaze down across rooftops and towers, to the black of the bay and the bobbing lights of the ships of thirty different cities near and far. He looked up at the cloudless night sky, saw the waning Spring Moon and the Star Child dancing the last of her days before the coming of the Serpent. He closed his eyes and listened to the wind, to the ringing of distant bells, to what sounded like someone weeping alone in the dark. He sniffed the air, smelt fire and ash, the sharpness of honest clean steel and the lather of horse sweat, and an undercurrent of desperate and abject fear. His gaze fluttered open and grew hard and grim, and he turned his horse away from the city.
“So,” said Arduin, looking at Stjepan carefully. “Any reward, you say? I mean, I know, it’s Gladringer . . . but can any sword really be so valuable?”
Stjepan returned his gaze for a moment, measuring him.
“It’s fucking priceless,” Stjepan said. He gave a sharp whistle, and Cúlain-mal sprang forward and onto the road.
Arduin looked bitterly, wistfully back at the city and the fires in the distance, and then he wheeled Ironbound and put his horse to spurs.
The road to Pierham was decently maintained, being part of the royal lands around the capital city, but the New Moon was almost upon them and the night sky did not provide much light. The torches and lanterns helped, but with two coaches and two wagons piled high with people and provisions the going was slower than they might have hoped, and so Coogan, Cynyr, and Stjepan picked up their pace and rode on ahead to begin making arrangements for the crossing of the river. By the time the Dawn Maiden rose, the main caravan was finally arriving—tired, frightened, and sleep-deprived—in the town of Pierham on the north shore of the Estuary of the Abenbrae. There was a low wall and towers and what seemed to be a keep at one end of the town, but the guards at the town gate greeted them cheerfully and the keep did not appear to be particularly active; Erim guessed its lord, whoever that was, was absent with most of his household. Our luck is holding, she thought.
They found Stjepan awaiting them down on one of the docks, alongside two river captains and their spritsail-rigged hoys, large shallow-draught coasters designed to maneuver the estuary and river of the Abenbrae and the coastal tides that swept in from the Bay of Guirant. Erim scowled a bit on seeing the vessels; they would barely be considered sea-worthy, and shouldn’t be sailed out of sight of land, but she conceded that plenty of their type plied the port of her home city and they’d certainly do the job. Her bones aching, she dismounted gingerly and stood on the dock, sniffing the air and scanning across the estuary mouth toward the port city of Abenton, which anchored the southern side of the river as it opened into the Bay.
The Abenbrae was perhaps the greatest river in the Middle Kingdoms, almost three hundred and fifty miles in length, though almost half of that was in the Highlands of Daradja, where it started as a trickle from the base of the Dess Urharat, one of the great peaks of the
Harath Éduins. It collected the cold waters of most of the Daradjan plateau, and brought them down out of the mountains into the lowlands, where the river served as the boundary between the Plain of Stones and the Plain of Horns. Once out of the mountains the river was a mile or two wide until it expanded to almost five miles wide in the Estuary (which was, in fact, a slight misnomer, as the actual tidal estuary pushed up the river all the way to the city of Collwyn; but the name “Estuary” itself was only used for the lowest part of the river where it fed into the Bay of Guirant). The river had once been the easternmost boundary of the great Erid Wold, the wood of An-Athair, before the coming of the Aurians.
A half dozen rival clans of merchant shippers and traders, all of them mixed Danian and Athairi in lineage, controlled the river traffic up and down the Abenbrae and its offshoots; the river folk called themselves Abenbrayers. The Danias to the west also had their Volbrayers and Eridbrayers, clannish river folk who plied their great rivers and who were of similar mixed roots; but the principal rivers to the east in Auria, the Dusabrae and the Fasabrae, were seemingly bereft of the modern descendants of their ancient river populations. Two families dominated the town docks in Pierham: the Lyrians, the largest of the Abenbrayer clans and tenants of the Baroness of Abenton; and the Herlas, a smaller clan that called Pierham itself their home. The two captains that Stjepan had found were from the Herla family, though Erim wasn’t sure if he’d picked them because of some kind of local river politics, or just because they happened to have the two largest vessels in port at the moment.