by Adrian Selby
She was shaking at the same time though, looking us over, as though some part of us, for being near him, meant him being near. I can’t write enough to say what I was feeling.
She rang a bell what was on the table and a girl appeared.
“Cheeses, chicken and three bottles of red from the old cellar,” said Araliah to her. “Gant, you’re wounded, you look also to be on some Alfra mix. Amahle, could you ready a horse for Stimmy? I want him to leave in the morning for the Commune.”
The girl gone, Araliah sat at the head of the table.
“Achi’s here then? Stimmy was wi’ his crew. They helped us, Kailen helped us,” said Shale.
“Someone’s bin tryin’ to kill us,” I said, “and looks like they got to Kailen I’m sorry to say. But not before he managed to get Achi an’ some of his boys to break us out.”
“He called fer us in the Crag. We came as quick as we could,” said Shale.
She had noticed the way I’d been walking through and how I held myself at the table. The travelling seemed to catch up with me fierce and I couldn’t keep a straight back. I saw her and Shale pass a look.
“Achi is on another errand for Kailen. He may not even know. He’s a good man, I hope I can tell him myself. Let me show you to your room, Gant, we can talk over everything tomorrow. There’s a posting I need to show you.”
I was grateful. I slept till morning.
To shouts of the wagon drivers moving out of the estate I woke, and saw robes Araliah must have left for me on a chair by the bed. My stomach was nagging at me bad. Shale come in shortly with her and they set about my wound. She didn’t flinch at the state of me. Kailen must have not been a pretty sight either with nothing on. She helped a bit but watched for the most part as Shale got the wound dressed and helped with my compounds; knees, elbows, neck and some swigs with water. He knew what I needed all these years and was quick about it, and I did the same for him, as I always do.
“Gant, you look better for the rest,” she said. “Stimmy has gone to the Commune for plant. Shale’s told me what it is you need and they’ll be quick about it when they see my seal.” She sat on the bed next to me. “Shale told me also that it was aconite that killed my husband.” I give him a look and he shook his head a touch so’s she wouldn’t see. “I know enough to know that whoever killed him and your old crew must be well funded to afford it. It makes some sense of that poster I was given. Now, put that thing away and I’ll find you both some food.” She smiled as she walked out, first proper smile, and it took me away a moment.
On the large table we sat at last night Araliah had put out a notice, drawings of men with swords in hand and a coinpurse between them. Kailen’s satchel was also there on the table, still buckled shut. The words on the drawing, in King’s Common, Juan and Issanaian were:
A sum of five gold coins for knowledge of the whereabouts of any of the vile mercenary soldiers known to have sought purses with Kailen’s Twenty. Message to Guildmaster Alon Filston of Ithil Bay. The Post waives its fee.
“That’ll explain a lot,” said Shale, “because we heard about this Filston as being him that was behind what happened at the Crag. But five gold coins! A lord’s ransom that.”
“This is the reason I could not use the Post to tell Kailen, though he may also have seen it.”
“Where is it from?” I said.
“It was found by one of his father’s retinue that was visiting Issana with a Senate party. There were a few posters around the city. This was over a month ago. Kailen had been away a long time looking for you survivors. I expect this satchel holds some answers for us.”
Thick slabs of bacon, still sizzling from the pan, were brought in. We were kings at a feast but my eyes could eat more than my stomach could take with pain like stabbing pins as I filled it. Fucking Blackhands. Still, it was warming to see that Araliah used only a knife, like us, to cut the bacon, and her fingers to eat it. She said she enjoyed not being an aristo and she was soon asking for honey to dip pieces of bacon in, which we followed in doing, for it was near perfect-tasting honey, and an ease to my guts.
“We din’t want to open the satchel without you opened it first, din’t seem right,” said Shale.
“Thank you. I’d be happy for you to open it now.”
In it we found papers what were correspondence from various quartermasters and the Post and so on where he’d been finding out where we had all got to, the Twenty. In there was a letter from Forthwald confirming our purse down in the Red Hills, which is how he managed to get Achi to us just in time. Letters were in there too from Achi and others of the crew he’d got looking after him and his estate now, all travelling about the Old Kingdoms and over the Sar looking for us.
We saw letters from The Prince and all, what he appeared to have kept a close friendship with and was now helping run some big guild out of Jua.
There was a letter in there what was addressed to Araliah and she took that and read it to herself and left us for a while.
There was a letter to us too. I can’t put it as well as him, so have copied his hand here:
Enemies close on me as they closed on us at Tharos. This time I do not have the Twenty. I have chosen and prepared the ground of the battle, however, and for that they will be sorry.
There is a letter here for Araliah that I hope you are honourable enough not to read, but to get to her if you can.
I sent Achi, the captain of my personal retinue who helps manage my estate’s affairs and its caravans, south to the Red Hills to find you. I feared you were also a target for these assassins that, from what Achi may have said and from these papers you will learn, have killed so many of us. We dare not assume it is many assassins, it may just be the one, but such a one would be unlike any I have encountered, given the detail of what follows.
I fervently hope this letter finds you alive. I heard you have become legends among the men fighting the Virates on the eastern borders of the Red Hills, on missions to starve out the aggressor on soil that is foreign to him. The Blackhands have too little alignment in their leadership to coordinate the various clansmen to adopt a coherent strategy for war and supply. I trust you have found much success; it is the correct strategy. Alas, you have a new and deadlier enemy.
Harlain was killed in Tetswana, in his royal pavilion in the middle of the Tetswanan desert, every man and woman at the gathering also killed. He was their king, a unique honour for a mercenary like us. Milu was killed in Alagar, another that had paid out and left to be a great horse-singer for a Maiol there (so you understand, a Maiol is like a lord, owns a lot of land and at least one major herd). Digs also has been killed, in the Ten Clan heartlands, remarkable enough in itself given their hostility. These deaths I had heard from The Prince, who I had stayed close with all these years. He had done well for himself; a partner in a guild, the colour paid out and he moved on with his life. Barring Digs, all of them died with a black coin. I have to presume Digs’s was stolen. It was clear to me someone was out to kill us, I can only presume a betrayed purse, though I can recall no particular purse that we betrayed.
I then learned Kheld was killed in Handar, had become a shipwright and paid out also. I had only heard of his death at the same time as I heard of the death of The Prince in Rhosidia. Whoever has us marked is not short of coin. I went to Rhosidia and investigated as best I could what had happened to him. At the time of his death a servant in the household where he was staying went missing the same day. They said he was once a mercenary, deep colour, had been working in the kitchens for months before The Prince showed up. This was meticulously planned, a most capable assassin. I fear for all of us, so I wanted to get warning to you. In trying to find out what had become of you I then discovered Connas’q and Sho have also been killed, the latter left with a coin, the former’s body not recovered. Connas’q, like Digs, was in the field when he was found and killed by Agents of the Post, far from your operations against the Virates. I have to assume the Post is working with the assassin or as
sassins. Connas’q was running the western borders against the Ten Clan. You may have heard of the incursions that are inflaming both peoples back to full-blown war. However, in seeking news of his death I found out from the Red Hills’ Master of War, a longstanding friend from our time in the Twenty, that Elimar had died before this assassin got to them. The Prince told me as well that Dithnir had died after making it home. Bresken, Ibsey, Kigan, Valdir and Mirisham I have no news of. I have found Stixie and Bense and both are still alive. My hope is that you can find them also. Bense is in a jail in Cusston, Jua. I put him there to get him off a betony mix he couldn’t afford to buy himself. I think someone’s using him, but I haven’t been able to establish why. Stixie will be at the Citadels tourney or heading south again for the winter. He has been going through the Old Kingdoms for years, Jua, Issana, Marola, Harudan. Look for the Great Fair of Gesalla in Jua. In Issana there’s a city you may remember, Bruinwen, which has its Burning of the Ship festival at harvest time, while in Marola he performs his act with the circus that follows the Secret Willows. In Harudan you’ll find him through winter and early spring if not before, but the midwinter festivals are numerous.
Of Mirisham I’m not aware, Valdir perhaps has gone back to Marola, Langer’s End if memory serves. No finer warrior than he has ever been born in that sorry little backwater and he would be a great help to us if he’s still alive.
You may rightly be asking now who I suspect has been killing us all, who we betrayed.
I must disappoint you, for I have no more idea than you. I have gone back through all the purses we ever took as a crew, from our first major success at Lagrad, through Ahmstad, Razhani, Tetswana to Tharos, and then those purses up to and including Doran’s at the Citadel Argir. In each we fulfilled the purse, behaved in accordance with it. I can think of no enemy that would undertake their revenge fifteen or more winters after Argir.
It was my hope that Achi would have found you and brought you to me sooner. There are Agents and Reds and the Crag militia closing on my position. I have no means of escape.
You still have your flint, both of you, perhaps now the pre-eminent frontline soldiers in all the world. I ask that you find those of us still alive, for your own survival. Together, it may be you have the means to confront and kill whoever it is has been pursuing us.
That was it. Araliah returned to us with some more wine.
“He wrote of your letter in my own. I believe he’s right, you should seek out your old crew.”
“I’m thinkin’ a good place to start is that Alon Filston. Seems it’s to do with him,” said Shale. “Perhaps we can kill him an’ this will sort itself out. Mercenaries without purses stop killing.”
“Might be that this Filston knows of the whereabouts of the others and all,” I said.
“We better do some forms, Gant, the wambos an’ leathers are bein’ mended while we wait for this Stimmy to return wi’ our plant. Kailen’s got all the cookin’ gear an’ presses an’ such fer gettin’ mixes sorted. We’re goin’ to take a full field spread fer this, sporebags, pitch blocks an’ all the usual.”
“Stimmy will be some days yet,” said Araliah. “You should rest and help a widow to drink her wine at the end of this harvest.”
And we did.
I managed to speak to the Scapo Ostler the summer following my father’s death. Of particular interest is Ostler’s account of Aniy’s meeting with the assassin, only a day or so after my father and Shale had, in effect, made her scapo of what was Darin’s district at the Crag.
Goran
If it wasn’t for this war I don’t expect I’d have found myself in love with Aniy. Us scapos have had to work together to get anything done by way of supplying the soldiers that Hevendor is sending with Harudan. She’s a good woman, helped me like Kailen did. My time in jail I spent thinking over what he said and what he said was right. I’ve prospered by it, or I did until Caragula came.
It was only after I’d walked out with her a few times that we got talking about what happened in the Indra, and what happened to Darin with those mercenaries. She told me about the mercenary that came maybe a day or two after, similar age to the others, stronger colouring.
He had come asking after Kailen as well, she said he spoke funny though, nodding as if he was agreeing with his own thoughts, or else holding two conversations with her. I’ve seen it on some who paid the colour; a few ends up in the slums as they can’t keep a trade, drooped out because they couldn’t pay out.
She had been burying those that were killed by the other two mercenaries when he approached, at their Remembering.
As he approached it was clear he was on some sort of brew. His eyes were yellow she said, like a snake’s. He had a drudha’s double belt. She didn’t want a repeat of what the other two mercenaries had done, not at a Remembering. Few of us get to see soldiers like them when they’re brewed up. She said she’d never forget it, the speed at which they moved, cuts not even bleeding proper.
She had little choice then, telling him of the guildmaster and the Reds that he was paying, to look for those who used to fight in Kailen’s old crew.
She knew the guildmaster was from Issana, but that was all.
What she found odd was that after he’d kissed both cheeks in the aristo way on their initial meeting, coming across as the model of good manners despite how he looked, it seemed that everything he asked her she felt she could not do other than answer him. It was said that the magists could wave their hands and things would happen, great stones move or trees grow or even people near death come back to health. With him that was her first thought, that he had a sort of power. I don’t think magists had existed of course, least of all ones paying the colour. When he moved away from her she felt as though she had got some of her strength back. By then she’d told him about this merchant and much else she’d rather not have said besides.
Snakewood South / Hiscan Road Main route
The Riddle
Blenner
The Crag
Robbo,
Please relay to our friend.
I am at Snakewood as instructed.
Cleark to Zhilma Fellowship acknowledged your request. Took three days to find ledgers from archive for the years 653–657 OE.
Cleark confirmed that ship, The Wayward Lady, with cargo including slaves, left Citadel Northsea 653 OE and 654 OE, for The Dust Coast. The Wayward Lady completed first journey and reported missing presumed lost on second journey, south of the Knee of Gath’Fen. Cleark recommended I head up to Feirian’s Lock, confirm with their archives the inventory for both journeys.
The Harbour Master took some persuading, but my purse was adequate for the task. I can confirm the man you asked of left on the second trip. The Harbour Master recalled also that many months afterwards, the ship’s quartermaster, man name of Ethin, returned to the Lock. He reported the ship had gone down in a storm after a mutiny. He was the only known survivor. I requested his likely whereabouts but was told he had died the year previously on a voyage to Rhosidia.
I am returning to the Crag as instructed. I will go onto the estate to join up with my crew if you are not there.
It seems safe to assume the man you are looking for died on the far side of the world.
The Magist follow you.
Achi
Chapter 7
Sand
They told me they’d found me kneeling, whispering to myself and scratching to a bloody mess my scars and peeled skin, all infected by my attentions.
A fishing raft brought me to land. Held up on shoulders, my head spinning from voices I could not have invented, I was borne into a settlement of some sort. I heard children yapping and screeching, waves thrashing a beach nearby and I could smell smoked fish. Black-skinned women dribbled water into my mouth. They were frightened of my body, shaking necklaces and sprinkling some sort of pungent blackened seeds on me.
I had no words they could understand, they had none for me. They pointed at my brand; it must have been
clear I was a slave escaped.
I recall waking at different times; I had no idea for how long I had lain in this state. Some cream I never saw made and only learned of weeks later was put on my skin while I slept, to dry and harden like a crust of euca bark. On some other day, I think the morning after I could stand again, the crust was washed off in the sea, my skin raw but fresh, my colours paler under the hard sun.
A few more days passed and I seemed to lose the interest of the children and the groups of men that came and went, trading fish, leathers and spearheads with each other.
They fed me without question, this clan whose name I only learned months afterwards. Their leader put me in his house at the centre of the village. I slept on coarse white-and-black-striped animal skins, from an animal they drew in the sand that was very like a horse.
I watched their lives for a short time; the women using needles to place seeds in the skin of their children, forming the patterns of waves and the stars above. Most of all I watched them make mixes and brews, poisons for fishing, pitch to seal the frames of their rafts.
In the nights I found no rest without some brew made from the milk of giant nuts. I must have spoken out loud in dreams, for names that sounded odd on their tongues I would hear in otherwise inexplicable conversations, each name pregnant with some part of my past if only I could reach it. I knew I was from the Old Kingdoms, but I didn’t know where, nor of course, how I ended up a slave. From time to time I would mutter to myself; I would be walking along the beach or perhaps helping with the boats and I would talk, tell myself things. One day I told myself there was revenge to be had, though the answer left no echo or trail, no picture of what came before, except what I lived through on The Wayward Lady. Somebody had enslaved me and I had to know who. But how do you remember what is forgotten?