by Adrian Selby
The tent was getting into my nose. Who’s going to empty the buckets unless they’re shouted at?
“Need some air, Shale,” I said.
He hauled me up off the mat I was on and got hold of a pike for me to lean on.
A middling breeze picked up as we moved away from the tents and workshops and up some slopes to a view across Mandrik’s Hast, our current purse. It was mostly bald dry bluffs and some scrub, hard living in summer for those about.
Shale got me some bread and cheese and unstoppered us a flask when we reached somewhere to sit. We took a few kannab pipes and settled back.
“I’ll head up north wi’ you,” he said, “I in’t gettin’ younger. They had boys there pushin’ me a bit. Seems more an’ more it’s tactics an’ plant not muscle an’ steel that gets me over the crossin’.”
A boy come up the hill towards us. I see it now as clear as I did then, a moment polished up in my head. The start of it all.
He was a recruit, from seeing the scabbard bash about his legs and his skin still pale with the lack of fightbrews.
“Excuse. Captain Forthwald, he wants to see you. Says it’s important.”
Shale nodded and stared the boy away down the hill.
“What’s he want?” he said.
“I in’t in a fit state to be digging foundations.”
“In’t payin’ us fer that either. Pack us another pipe, Gant, bit more o’ the Rosie in this one before I got to help you back.”
Like many captains, Forthwald was too good at the job with the boys to move up out of harm’s way. He kept the hast-lords at bay and got the boys their due. There’s a way only a few have that can talk crews down off brews or talk them up from a loss of a leg or their seeing. Kailen had it too.
Evening was setting a deep pink that smoothed everything out when we were stood at the Purse’s tent with him. He had a few boys with him what helped keep an eye out while he was counting purses and scribbling out the inventories and that.
“With you in a second, boys.” He had a table full of tally foils in piles. There was sweat on his head made me think he had been going through the weapon forms with the kids what had been sent by levy from the hasts.
He looked up then.
“Good work on the caravan, the pincer was sound. Shale told me what happened, Gant, but even when it went ass over, it drew the guard away from the main ’van. We’ll be able to push their army back into the Wilds or their homeland. Some brandy?”
We nods, glad not to be hitting our own flasks so far from any decent refill.
“Dolly made me promise her purse goes to her da. See it does, Captain,” I said.
“Of course, Gant, of course.”
One of the boys in the tent then nods at him as he stood and moved over to a chest of drawers on which were a couple of bottles and some wooden cups. He splashes us out a good measure each as well as for himself.
“How long, Gant?” he said.
I nearly said it was a matter of weeks, my breath shortening with a thump as I faced what it meant again. Then I saw what he was referring to, how long before I could be back at it, earning the purse.
“About a week, Shale did some good work on me, guaia and rugara cleaned me out,” I said, though it wasn’t true enough. He nodded, and his eyes flicked from mine to over my shoulder, back out of the tent. They come back in a moment and he smiled.
“Good. Your purse sadly doesn’t let you see out this awful heat guarding the fort. There’ll be sorties in a few days and…”
“Got somethin’ else to say, Forthwald?” said Shale, draining his cup. “Only there’s a stream o’ shit leavin’ yer mouth much the same as what Gant passed into the drudha’s bucket this afternoon.”
Forthwald made to look shocked, but Shale wasn’t a man that other men found easy to be near, or be clever with.
“It got a bit quiet a bit quickly outside the tent, Forth,” said Shale, “and yer man here’s sweatin’ as bad as you are.”
Forthwald nodded, nursing the cup in both hands. The two men with us put their hands to their hilts.
“Fuck,” said Shale, “you boys are thicker than the wood o’ that table. You’d be dead if it weren’t for whoever our Captain has outside.”
“I’m sorry for this, boys. What can I say? There’s a bounty on your head so big that our Lord Olgin himself gave the order. An hour or two earlier and you might not have been on that ambush this morning. You’re good men. You’ve been good for this company as well in your time with us, got the respect of the lads. Only sorry I never got to see you and the Twenty in your prime. Come, let’s get this shitty business underway.”
He led us out of the tent, his two fearful guards behind us. There were a few pockets of men about, looking over at us, muttering, smoking and half naked in the evening. Between us and them was a circle of men positioned around the tent. Agents of the Post. They had the silver-grey leathers, a burgundy leather patch of the Post’s sign, the outline of a Coldbay Tern, stitched into the larger shoulderpad on their defensive arms. Each had two fieldbelts, double slung on the shoulders, and they were already masked, bubbling with a half-brew suitable for this work. We both could hear their breathing, faster than ours, their bodies humming like kingfishers over a stream.
One of them stepped forward, short and heavy, old as we were from the look of him, his colour similar, a paler red to it, years of good mixes.
“You can drop your fieldbelts and swords and strip, or we can do it. One ends up with lots of bleeding.”
I nods to Shale and we did it. Agents of the Post weren’t like your regular Reds, they had some fierce training and access to the best mixes the Post could buy, which was saying a lot. Whoever hired these boys to bring us in was a wealthy man.
“Who’s lookin’ fer us?” said Shale.
“You’ll find out. We’re just to look after you, take you north a bit and wait for the lady. Usual procedure, I’m surprised you asked.”
“Not that familiar with your ‘procedure’,” said Shale, “Post could never afford us, not for anythin’ ordinary anyway.”
I smiled, as did this little bear of a man.
“It’s our procedure for moving people around, usually from their hiding place to those that paid us to find them. Men that have paid colour we strip; no belts, no leathers, no tricks. We could give you a sheet if it rained I suppose.” He got a laugh for that, this being high summer in the Red Hills.
He picked up our swords, took mine out of its sheath.
“What do you call her?” he asked.
“Like I’m goin’ to tell you.”
“Patterning looks like Redwall steel, the finest. Might keep this one. What do you think, boys?”
“I’ll have the other,” said the one called Jador.
He picked up my belt then. He wore gloves of course, for we all pastes our belts and swords with a poison we’ve become immune to, stopping any casual thieves. He flipped open the pouches and pockets on it.
“White oak, rugara, raw betony. Think we’ll get us some fair coin for that.”
“What happened to yer Creed for yer conduct? Yer worse than wildmen,” said Shale.
“The Farlsgrad Creed? Might matter to our masters, but we ain’t paid enough.”
One of the others picks up our necklaces then what we’d put with our shirts. “Gilgul,” he says, addressing this cock what was winding us up, “they got Flowers.”
“Well fuck me, Flower of Fates, and two of them! All sealed up.” The caps on the tins were waxed and glued, needed snapping to open, the whole thing the size of a little finger. On them was etched the skull and two leaves.
“You seen ’em used?” he said.
I nodded. “Aye, we were defending Hevendor from Wildmen. They get organised from time to time, come in their thousands and had been pillaging at the borders and taking towns for themselves…”
“Fuck, I don’t want an old nana’s tale.” This made his crew laugh.
“Well, I s
aw ten men use ’em. No more Wildmen come to Hevendor ever since, far as I knows.”
He shrugged before putting the necklaces with the tins on them in his pocket.
There were eight Agents about us, and with us paying the colour right now, it was too much for us to try something as they approached to tie us. We would have to see what opportunities presented once we’d evened out a bit.
We were marched north that night, stopping only the following morning because I was bleeding badly from my wound.
“You’ve got to let me dress it,” Shale said to them, “or he’s going to be dead before you get wherever it is you’re going. It’s Blackhand poison in there.”
“How did he not get his bark in it?” said Gilgul. He come up close to me, bending down to take a look at the cotton that was soaked to my skin. He tore it off and I had to let out a yelp, though I expected he’d do something stupid. A few of his boys laughed. I fell to my knees, the pain was something else.
He pulled the collar of his wamba down and I saw the bark in his neck, the sort that ended up being part of the skin, not the sort that broke up.
“Guaia’s what you old timers swear by, but for that hole you’d want birch bark and balsam. You look a bit Lagrad, or Vilmorian, but there isn’t a drudha up there worth shit is there, or it would be in your belt and saving your life, seeing as you’ve got so many of those trees up there. Though who knows why an old man like you’s in the front line taking arrows anyway. Greedy I’m guessing.” He started pressing the wound then, poking it to get a reaction, which he got I’m sorry to say. He was looking at Shale of course, trying to get him going. Shale was quiet, not looking over.
“Jador, best help keep this man’s guts from spilling out, or the lady won’t be happy. She’s paying for that pleasure for herself.”
They ate some rations, give us some durra sticks and water and after I was bound up we were led along again, hands and feet shackled and the sun a fucker for the next week or more as we crossed the stony ravines of the Red Hills. They were long, hard days on our feet and we burned a bit even with our colour. Purse seemed important enough they bound up the wound so’s I could bear the miles we did.
Evening come along then one night, and they chose a bit of grassland that grew around the few crumbling walls of what must have been a fort once.
“Tie them to those posts,” said Gilgul, “bit more water for our two guests, Jador. Well, we’ve arrived. How are you boys doing? I hope you got over your disappointment with losing a fat purse, well, your fieldbelts, swords, gold, horses and your fat purse. We just wait here for the lady now.”
We didn’t say anything, knowing it was the best way to get under the skin of those what are looking to wind you up.
“You know,” he went on, “the boys are finding it hard to believe you two were in Kailen’s Twenty and did something like Tharos Falls, fussing and shaking and scratching at yourselves as you have been this last week. A nice story though, eh? Suppose if I told enough people I had two cocks they might believe it too. What’s the truth when a big purse is at stake?” There was a moment’s silence then, but for the crack of an axe hitting a tree nearby as they were getting some wood for the fire.
“Nothing to say for yourselves, boys, your honour, such as it is?”
I had stabbing pains to fill my thoughts more than his rambling, needed my compounds and it’s been a while since I didn’t have them, forgot how bad my body gets without the plant it needs. He started barking at the others to hurry up the camp, perhaps reading their silence as a sort of challenge about what was next now we weren’t taking the bait and giving him banter.
I glanced over at Shale, and he give the barest flicker with his eyes that he was enjoying himself.
The long walk and a bit of bilt and some nuts settled me enough to sleep through the pain the poison was giving me, a few hours perhaps before a sharp whisper woke me.
It was night, and more Agents were in the camp, stood over us.
One of them spoke to Gilgul.
“You brought their horses?” he asked.
“We’ll be reporting this to the lady when we get there, and no, we left the horses, we were going to make these fuckers walk,” said Gilgul.
“What’s going on?” said Shale.
“Seems like the Post has a more pressing interest in you than the lady who hired the Post to bring you in,” said Gilgul.
“It’s wrong,” said Ranad, who was one of Gilgul’s crew, “Post don’t take a purse then turn it over. You sure those papers is right and proper?”
“The Red hisself wouldn’t doubt ’em. You saw the seal, they’re from Candar itself.” He turned back to the Agent what had come to claim us, stocky-looking man, not Gilgul’s size though, but a richer, proper colour on him.
“But I take my orders from Marschal Laun,” said Gilgul. “She’s with the purse. She should approve this, not me.”
“The seal and papers are all the approval you need. You’ve seen the High Reeve’s signature and your own roll confirms it. You’re to go to Guildmaster Filston’s estate and await his return.”
Gilgul looked him up and down. He smelled something was wrong, me and Shale did too, but whatever it was passed for their authority overcome it, the colour and the leathers were as proper as would be near impossible to fake.
“Get these men their clothes, weapons and belts, Gilgul. They’ll be coming with us.”
“Fuck that. Jador, get their things.” He turned to look at me. “Hope to see you again. The lady will not be put off and I’d hate for that sauce to kill you before I did.”
“Best give us those Flowers too, eh,” said Shale. Gilgul give a look to Achi and he took out the necklaces and threw them at us.
Other than that we kept quiet of course, doing nothing what would stop us from getting those fieldbelts back. If they weren’t emptied then we had a chance, though this new Agent wouldn’t risk us with belts if he weren’t speaking true.
It was a small crew that come to claim us, four in all. They took over the camp, got a pot on the fire that Gilgul’s boys had going from before while his lot packed up and left.
One of the crew cut us free and Shale come over as I was sorting through my shirt and wamba. He dressed my wound, put a salve on it and some leaf in it and got it tight, then he helped me into my leathers and a cloak to warm me up.
The Agent helped him to get me over to the fire, where they had some cups of stew for us, oily, probably neck broth. It was plain to see they’d been drilled well, and their belts, leathers and masks were well used. They moved like us, in control of the plant. Each was quiet, looking to the man what had spoken to Gilgul. There was no grey in him, but his eyes had seen a bit too much, a stillness about him what good commanders and leaders have.
“I’m Achi,” he said, “and for me and the boys it’s an honour to meet you. This is Hau, this is Danik. Danik, fetch their clothes and belts. The big man here is Stimmy.” Stimmy looked like he’d been breaking and lifting rocks all his life.
“We’re most grateful to you,” said Shale, “but we don’t know you an’ we got no powerful friends to speak of.”
“No? Kailen sent us. But he’s in trouble, you all are, the Twenty.”
Kailen.
It was a shock to hear his name, all these years on, and for this Achi to speak of us all, the Twenty, though we were all these winters on from when we broke up.
“Kailen? We in’t seen him in a long time. What trouble is he in?” I asked.
It was a blessing to be free of the bindings, and Stimmy helped me and Shale with the cuts from them now my wound was sorted out.
“He’s at the Crag. We don’t know much more and I think that’s his purpose,” said Achi. “He found out a few of the Twenty had been killed recently, black coin. He’d learned you were in the Red Hills, and you can guess he was on terms with Olgin, head of the Starun Hast, or some of his quartermasters. Must’ve been him that confirmed you were taking a purse here.”
Achi nodded. “I couldn’t disagree, but something is wrong, Kailen is convinced of it, convinced enough for us to seek you out, to do this. He was keen we find you and get you to head to the Crag to see him.”
“You in’t the Post then,” I said. “Those leathers and whatever you showed that Gilgul looked real, but he din’t trust you all the same.”
“We aren’t the Post, but you boys should know a bit about subterfuge and in particular what Kailen is capable of.”
“He got a new crew now then? You and these boys?” I asked.
Achi smiled. “He drills us like we’re a crew, but he retired, we work on his estate down in Harudan, we run his ’vans now, preserves, wines and the like. He’s paid out.”
Paid out was a way of saying that you had left the soldiering life, settled your account as it were with the fightbrews, and what they took from you, and you had moved on.
“So yer takin’ us to the Crag?” asked Shale.
He shook his head. “He’s asked my crew and I go back to Harudan. He’s worried whoever is giving the Twenty a black coin might learn where he’s living and he wants his wife and estate safe.”
Good for him he got out of this shit.
“We headin’ for the Crag in the mornin’ then,” said Shale.
“We’ll come with you for a day or so, to be sure this Gilgul’s convinced of us, then we’re off south, well, my boys are, Kailen’s got me going north.”
“He called up anyone else from the Twenty?” said Shale.
“He has. You’re the only ones that are able to go it seems, of those he found still alive.”
“In’t right,” said Shale, “in’t right at all, what we owe him.”
“Where in the Crag is he?” I asked. “Been there only a few times over the years, not familiar with it.”