Exile (Bloodforge Book 1)

by Tom Stacey

  Loster needed no further urging and allowed Selene to tug him into the darkness, but all of a sudden she stopped and stood stock-still. She watched as the man called Beccorban sped past her.

  “Come on, Selene!” cried Loster. “What are you waiting for?!”

  She snapped out of her reverie and ran with him. She stumbled, and at first Loster thought she had tripped, but then she fell to her knees and he saw a small but wicked looking bolt jutting from the small of her back. Beccorban appeared alongside him and hauled her to her feet. She gave a little cry of pain and Beccorban unceremoniously draped her arm around Loster’s shoulders. “Good lad, help her walk.” And then he was gone, through the tunnel and out on to the open plain before the fortress. Loster and Selene staggered after him. As they emerged into the open, Beccorban was waiting for them, standing with several others by the vast rectangle of broken wood that had been the gate. Loster wondered if he should help them but he could not drop Selene. He ignored the mocking voice in his head.

  Beccorban squatted and put one enormous shoulder against the wood. He gave a great heave and the others joined him. There was a groaning creak and Loster was not sure whether it was the wood or the bending of old bones. At last, the broken gate began to shift, and the whole thing came crashing down to block the tunnel.

  “That should hold them,” breathed the old warrior. He jogged over to Riella and the girl. Loster and Selene followed.

  “Where is Papa?” Mirril was crying but they had no time for her grief.

  Loster looked questioningly at Selene. She still had that faraway look in her eyes but managed to whisper, “He fell.” Loster noted that her attention was fixed on Beccorban.

  If Faro was not with them then he was indeed dead. They could not go back and make sure for it would not take long for their pursuit to rally.

  “What do we do?” said the young woman, stroking the girl’s hair.

  “We could head west to Ruum,” said Beccorban. “It’s not far.”

  Loster waited for Selene to say something but she was silent and pale, still staring at the hammerman as though he were a demon himself. “We can’t go there,” he said. “They have already taken Ruum.”

  Beccorban grunted. “That is bad news, indeed. North, then. We might be able to find a stream and get to the Watch. Otherwise it’s the Fens, and I don’t much fancy being chased through marshland. Come, we haven’t much time.”

  Beccorban swung his hammer up and under his cloak to some unseen sheath and picked up Mirril in one huge arm. Selene opened her mouth and Loster thought she was about to speak, but she went limp instead and crumpled to the ground. Though she was a slight creature, she was heavier than she looked, and Loster awkwardly tried to save her from falling on the bolt that pierced her. Strong hands gripped her shoulders and she suddenly became very light. Together Beccorban and Loster laid her down on the grass, making sure to keep her upper body raised so as not to drive the bolt deeper.

  Blood oozed from the corner of her mouth, and when she coughed, there was pink foam on her lips.

  “Looks like you get away in the end, boy,” she said, trying to smile.

  Loster nodded, unsure of what to say. A meaty hand clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll leave you alone, lad.”

  “No!” Selene tried to sit up and fell backwards. “Go, boy. We have nothing more to say to each other. I want to speak to… Beccorban.”

  Loster looked at the big warrior and gave a wry smile. He was not happy at Selene’s passing, but nor was he sad, and that bothered him.

  “Tell me about your weapon…” he heard Selene say as he walked away.

  Loster went to stand with the woman and the weeping girl. Beccorban knelt close to Selene as she said something, then suddenly threw himself backwards and scrambled to his feet. He wheeled away and there was a small blade sticking from his side. Selene’s blade. “Oh gods,” said Loster and ran to help the big warrior.

  “The bitch stabbed me,” Beccorban said incredulously. He tugged the blade out of his side and hissed at the pain, pressing his hand against the wound. Loster made to go to Selene but Beccorban put a hand out. “Don’t, lad. She’s already dead.”

  Selene was not dead, merely dying. When she awoke it was bright, not yet day, but light enough to see by. She thought it intensely unfair that she was dying; she felt more alive than ever. She had found the Scourge — alive after all these years of uncertainty — and ended him. The blade would not kill him, of course, but the sweetwater would. She wanted to laugh but did not have the strength. She did not want to die.

  Something moved close by and a shadow blocked out her light. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again there was a young blond-haired man staring at her. He spoke through thin lips, though she could not make out his words. She knew she was dying but she had never felt more afraid. She gasped as she felt her bladder let go.

  The man spoke again but this time she could understand him. “Your friends. Where did they go?”

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me.” His voice was deep and as smooth as honey.

  “Help me and I’ll tell you. I want to live. I know, you need me.”

  Something sharp cut into her belly and she began to convulse. Fresh blood awoke the dried blood around her mouth and she gagged. The man held something up so she could see. It was an oily lump of flesh, dark purple and dripping with gore. She wanted to look away but knew she could not. He spoke to her again.

  “This is your liver. It is as sweet to me as the scent of your fear.” He opened his mouth and took a bite, and she could see that he had two sets of teeth.

  XVIII

  They ran over the bright open ground as fast as they could, driven by the knowledge that they might be ridden down at any moment. Loster felt weak and his legs burned with fatigue but he pushed on. The big man, Beccorban, was still bleeding and yet he ran ahead, the small form of Mirril slung over his shoulder.

  “If you think you’ve gotten away with it, think again.” The woman called Riella ran alongside, spitting venom between breaths. “Once we’re clear of the city, you can answer for what you did to him.”

  Loster looked at her. Her eyes sparkled and he could not tell if it was the glint from the moonlight or crystallised anger. “I didn’t stab him. Selene and I were not... I was her prisoner.”

  Riella snorted. “A fine job she was doing. Keep your distance or you’ll wish we left you back there with the tall men.” She quickened her pace and moved forward to Beccorban and Mirril. Loster hung his head and spat out something sticky.

  “Threatened by a woman. You really are formidable.”

  Loster ignored the mocking voice of the phantom in his head. There were dark shapes nearby: other escapees making their own way to safety. It could not be long before some of them were caught. A dark line ahead marked the end of the open plain and the beginning of the dense pine forests that skirted the Dantus. If they could make it inside the treeline they might be able to elude whatever came after them.

  Beccorban had stopped up ahead and Mirril stood by his side holding his hand. They were just outside the treeline but close enough to make a dash for it if they were chased. Beccorban waved them all into a group. Loster was grateful for the rest but he noticed how laboured the big man’s breathing was. He’s been carrying another person. You can barely carry yourself.

  “Once we get inside it’s going to be pitch dark,” said Beccorban. “Now, it won’t be long before they come for us.” Mirril whimpered at this. “Be calm, child. You’re safe with me.” He took a deep breath. “It’s going to be very dark. I want us all to stick together. No going off by yourself.”

  Riella moved towards him. “Let me see to your wound.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “It won’t take long, I—”

  “I’m fine! Now leave me be and I’ll get us out of this.” Beccorban took another big breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. His clothes were dark but the wetness where he had bee
n stabbed glistened as he moved. He turned and pointed to the forest. “I shall lead. Then the girl, the boy, and finally you, lass.”

  Riella nodded but Loster caught the wicked glance she threw in his direction. He was not comfortable with her behind him.

  “She’s going to stick a knife in your guts. Leave you for dead and say you fell.” Loster shook his head.

  ‘Is there a problem?” Riella asked.

  “Uh, no. I just have a headache.”

  “Poor you.”

  They took another minute to rest, then Beccorban hoisted Mirril on his shoulders and they all stepped into the soupy shadows of the forest.

  In the distance a horn sounded.

  The forest smelt musty and damp. Life was dense here and Loster felt like a million unseen eyes were staring straight at him. The forest drank light and sound, so his world was reduced to a small bubble around him. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand and he convinced himself that he was making too much noise. Every twig he stepped on was a huge tree crashing to the ground, every bump an echo that shook him like a physical blow. The others were silhouettes in front of him. Beccorban was right, there was no light here. It was as though the forest jealously guarded its secrets from the sky, blocking out anything from above.

  Riella was a whisper of noise behind and Loster’s stomach clenched every time she fell silent. He knew she wanted to kill him and the injustice of it angered him. He had not hurt Beccorban — he had no reason to. Why should he pay for the crimes of the Sons of Iss? It made no sense for Selene to stab the big warrior. He had saved their lives and she repaid him with steel. All her talk of justice and ideals should have meant more.

  “You’re a fool, Loster, and fools die first,” said Barde.

  It came to him then. The hammer. Of course. Selene had asked Beccorban about his weapon, and his name… Hadn’t that been the name of the Helhammer? She thought he was the Scourge, the man who had burned Iss. But that man is dead…

  “Keep moving, you’re slowing us down.” Riella’s voice was closer than he thought it would be. He hoped she hadn’t seen him flinch.

  “Where are we going?” he whispered.

  “Don’t ask questions. The old man knows what he’s doing.”

  Loster frowned. He had not thought of Beccorban as old. He was — that was not in question — but he radiated such power, such confidence and strength. It didn’t seem right to call him old. It was dismissive. Old meant weak, close to death. He thought of Aifayne and realised that he had never asked how old the priest truly was. Aifayne would probably have thought that rude.

  His foot plunged into something cold and he gasped as water spilled in over the tops of his boots.

  “Quiet, you fool!”

  “It’s a stream!” he said too loudly, earning himself a shove in the back from Riella.

  “So what?”

  “So it must lead to something bigger. If we can find a boat…” he trailed off.

  Riella hesitated before she replied. “Wait here,” she snapped and shouldered past him. He heard her call out for Beccorban and they held a hushed conversation. When she returned she stepped into a pool of moonlight that had forced its way through the blockade above. Her expression was surly but it could not hide her beauty and Loster felt breathless. He had always been intimidated by pretty women. “Beccorban says to follow it. We will follow behind. Oh, and he said not to step in the water again.”

  Loster nodded and bent down to feel for the stream. It was cool and he wanted desperately to bend his head and drink, but in the darkness he could not see how filthy it was. He set off, following the glints of light that wove their way between pools of inky shadow. It looked to him like the slimy trail of a snail. The others came behind, though he had to keep turning to check — the only sound he could hear was the squelching of his sodden boot.

  They followed the stream for an hour or so. It grew wider quickly and Loster sped up with excitement before a sharp telling off from Riella brought him back. A few times they heard the sound of a horn in the distance but each time it was further away. For the first time in days, Loster began to feel something akin to hope. A steady tinkling sound grew louder in his ears and he realised that they were coming upon the river that fed the stream.

  There was a brightness in front where the water cut through the forest. Loster burst out on to the banks, ignoring the curses behind him. The river was not as wide as he had thought it would be but it seemed plenty deep.

  Riella exploded from the trees at his back. “I warned you to stay close. Don’t think he’ll protect you. I’m…” she stopped and looked over his shoulder, her wagging finger dropping limply to her side. Loster spun on his heel to follow her gaze.

  There, on the opposite bank, was a boat. It was not large, nor did it appear very sound, but it was big enough for four of them and it would carry them away from the fires of Kressel and the demons that haunted the coast. Beccorban and Mirril emerged from the treeline. The girl was still visibly upset but she had stopped sobbing. Beccorban left her with Riella and, upon seeing the boat, began to strip down. He folded his clothes as he went, making sure that his hammer was wrapped in the bearskin cloak and placed carefully on the ground. As he tugged off his tunic he winced in pain. The puncture wound was under his ribs on his right side, an angry-looking red-lipped wound that oozed with blood.

  “Beccorban,” Riella stepped forward. “Let me go. You’re hurt.”

  The big man shook his head and hopped on one foot as he yanked off a boot. “No, lass. I’m the only one who will be able to drag it back. Besides, the water should clean the wound.”

  Loster glanced at the black water. It looked clear enough.

  Riella’s face betrayed her opinion. “What about the boy?” She pointed at Loster and he felt his cheeks grow warm.

  Beccorban pursed his lips. “How old are you, lad?”

  “Fourteen summers.”

  “Not a boy then, lass. A man grown.” Beccorban winked at him and he could not help but grin. “Stay here while I fetch the boat.” He grinned. “Loster will protect you.”

  Loster caught the hiss of indrawn breath from Riella and hung his head. He knew he should be doing something but the big man was right. He would not have the strength.

  “Weak,” said a muted voice nestled between his ears.

  Riella snorted with anger and turned away but Beccorban just laughed, naked in the moonlight. Loster had never seen anything like him. Sometimes strongmen had visited Elk with travelling troupes but none could boast of such a physique. Beccorban’s arms and chest were huge mounds of knotted muscle, smoothing down to a flat plate of a belly. His upper body was a patchwork of pale scars that criss-crossed his arms and chest yet, as he turned and stepped into the water, Loster could see that his back was unmarred. This man had never run from an enemy. Loster’s eyes were drawn to a thick wormy rope of scar tissue that stretched from Beccorban’s collar bone and disappeared under his arm. The knife-wound in his side seemed puny in comparison, though it still leaked sluggish rivers of blood into the water.

  “I’m not happy about this,” Riella called over her shoulder, covering Mirril’s eyes with her hand.

  “That’s not the reaction I usually get,” said the hammerman.

  Loster laughed and watched as Beccorban waded into the river, pulling himself out into the middle with long, powerful strokes. He crossed it in no time at all, climbing the opposite bank and hauling the small boat towards the water. It was stuck fast at first but he rocked it back and forth and eventually it came loose, slipping down into the river. Loster felt relief flutter to life in his chest. They had made it.

  Beccorban stopped when the boat was in the water. He stood suddenly upright, holding on to the boat for support. “Why doesn’t he get in?” said Loster under his breath.

  Riella came to his side. “What’s the matter?” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Beccorban!”

  Loster looked at her. “I thought we were sup
posed to be quiet?”

  She ignored him and called out again. “Beccorban!”

  The big warrior did not move but just stood there, swaying slightly now.

  “Something is wrong,” said Loster. He had a sudden memory of Selene and the phial she kept hidden in her robes.

  “We could put it in his water, or I could dip my blade in it…”

  “Sweetwater,” he said quietly. “Riella, I think he’s been poisoned.”

  Riella stared hard at him and opened her mouth to speak, and then, at the corner of vision, Beccorban collapsed.

  More than anything it was rage. Annoyance, frustration and pain, but above all that a white hot, bubbling rage that pulsed from somewhere behind his eyes and blurred his vision, until he was not sure whether it was from the poison or the turmoil in his mind. Poison was a coward’s weapon, of course, a weapon of women and limp-wristed mother’s sons who could not stand and fight like real men. Beccorban had never been poisoned before. In all that time of fighting and killing and making enemies, every foe he had faced had met him with steel in hand, ready to feel the warm rush of spilled blood as they took a life.

  He pictured Selene’s face and how, even as she lay dying, her hatred had the strength to twist her features into a mask of rage. “Stay dead this time, Scourge,” she had said as she plunged the knife into his side. He had thought the Sons of Iss above this but then he had been gone for a long time. Even his enemies had forgotten their honour.

  Beccorban spat and shook his head, flicking sweat from his brow. He couldn’t tell the others. They would doubt him, tell him he was not fit for service. He had seen what happened to cripples, to the men whose minds and bodies had been sacrificed on the altar of violence. They were abandoned, patted on the back and handed some paltry compensation and then forgotten about, left to waste away or do the noble thing and take their own lives. That would not be him. Not ever. He would not be brought low by herbs and foul waters. He had killed more men than most met in their lives, some reluctantly, others with a casual ease, still more he had slain with a savage joy — but he was ashamed of those deaths. A few had died hard, men like the Sons of Iss and Greathelm, patron of the Forgotten. Greathelm had died spitting and cursing as Beccorban sawed a knife between his ribs, but it had been honourable, at least.