Snakewood

by Adrian Selby

  “New into Ithil and straight to the East Dens, my friends? You must not want to be seen. Old soldiers too, so I can trust you to behave.”

  “Just wants stables, sir,” said Shale, swilling his rum about the cup.

  “Knocking the boys out in my quarter isn’t behaving.”

  “He were noisy,” I said, “pushing on us some mix. I could shit for more than the worth of it.”

  He wasn’t sure what to do. Our colour was too deep, too much.

  “Jaki got your stables, I’ll keep your horses good.”

  “Get some rest, Malk,” said Shale to me, keeping the names out of it, “I’ll see to your horse an’ have a talk wi’ Jaki.”

  The old barkeep took me through what passed for a kitchen to a small room, bare but for firewood and the beetles and rats enjoying it.

  I rested for the remainder of the day we arrived. My belly was sore from the riding and sleeping out.

  I come to when it was dark, the low murmur in the main room was now a bit more thirsty. Shale was stood over me.

  “Gant, we’re goin’ to see some ganger, runs these Dens, might help us find this Alon Filston. How’s the wound?”

  “Bearable,” I said. Didn’t see the need to patch it up till the morning and I was looking to get soaked after this meet.

  Jaki led us through the lanes and to a plain old door in a three-storey, noisy with shouting and music from inside. Shale spotted a couple of men on roofs opposite. This was a proper ganger then, a lot to lose.

  Jaki knocked. The door was opened by a young man, only chest high, but stocky and sober compared to the crowd of women and children behind him dancing to the playing of a mandolin and drum. They were being clapped on by a crowd with their backs to us, most puffing on the long Issanaian clay pipes they did most of their bacca in. Jaki left sharply and we were gestured in.

  “I hope you boys would leave those swords with me,” said the doorman, leaning in to be heard. He was wise enough not to ask for the belts, this was a ritual about respect and trust anyway. We obliged with the swords and he led us past the revellers filling a fairly plain sitting room and through a roomful of children behind it, who stopped their play to stare at and dare each other to touch our skin. I smiled to see Shale flex his arm as a dut reached up to touch it, sending him yelling and giggling back into the arms of some fine-looking girl in a red gown that betrayed the seeming modesty of the house.

  There was a fierce good smell as we followed the doorman down a short hall, to a kitchen you would expect of an estate. Here on various tables were all manner of stewed fruits, spiced and cured meats from over the Sar for sure, lobsters both steamed on boards and alive in buckets. There were many casks and crates of bottles also, and near the open hearth a table at which stood a small bald man who seemed like he was a boy that grew old in bones unchanged.

  He had a young girl lifted up in his arms, four summers I’d have guessed ’less she was older but small like him. She was helping to stir a fish stew in a bronze cauldron what was stood over the hearth. They were singing some ditty that had her counting up to ten for the chorus.

  He turned and looked at us and the doorman.

  “Pat! Look at all their colours!” she said, leaning out from his shoulder to better see us.

  “They give their swords, sir,” said the doorman.

  “That’s good. Thank you, Ralim. I’m Lokio, gentlemen. You’ve caused some sort of stir with Jaki it seems and now desiring to see me on this my daughter’s birthday. Water? Brandy?”

  “We’re fine, sir,” said Shale. “We appreciates you seein’ us an’ we’re sorry fer the trouble. We’re lookin’ fer someone, a guildmaster name of Alon Filston. I’m Shale an’ this is Gant.”

  Lokio nodded and smiled, pushing the smile through his eyes so you felt it, but he was giving us some scrutiny. He cuddled his girl in close and spoke to her.

  “Us grown-ups say that these men have ‘paid the colour’. Such rich colour suggests they’ve paid richly doesn’t it, my carina? You see that green shine in their eyes? It’s luta. To make luta you take a leaf, a very special small leaf, and you soak it and put the leaf under your eyelid, like this!”

  He pretended to go for her eye and she chuckled, pushing his hand away.

  “What does it do, pat?”

  “Well, when it goes onto the eye the leaf and its juice just soak into your eyeball and into your blood. Then you can see like an eagle.” She covered her eyes, supposing to stop these eyes of ours prying into her thoughts.

  “The nearest drudha capable of its preparation would be in Harudan, the old Orange Empire, and not even your pat could afford to buy it. These colours mean they are very strong men, stronger than all the men in the whole of Ithil Bay would you believe?”

  As he spoke he was pushing her hair behind her ears, a fierce love on him. His yellow swollen-knuckled fingers that spoke of a past life as a fighter brushed her cheek, revealing a face that was thin more like it was fragile than sickly, sticky with the remains of fruit.

  “Now, my carina, perhaps you could go through and tell Lamptey and Ralim that your pat’s not to be disturbed for a few minutes.”

  He leaned down a little after putting her to the floor so she could put her arms about his neck for a squeeze, then she passed between us and out the door, holding splayed fingers over her eyes.

  As the door closed Lokio seemed to sag slightly, but his fine words and manner of scrutiny suggested this may be some act to loosen our guard.

  “You really are Shale and Gant, once of Kailen’s Twenty?” He moved around the table closer to us, picking up an open bottle of wine.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Someone’s killin’ us all,” said Shale, “leavin’ the black coin. Seems it must be somethin’ to do wi’ this Filston from a postin’ we got hold of.”

  “There’s a bounty, a fine one,” said Lokio.

  “We can more’n match it fer the whereabouts of him,” said Shale.

  Lokio nodded, a downward look as he did that spoke of his head in some deep thinking. He turned from us and went to a shelf near the hearth on which his stew was bubbling. There were a few mugs on it, which he took down. He poured out the wine as he spoke. It was wine as good as Araliah give us.

  “Guildmaster Alon Filston,” he said, “has a spoiled snake of a wife from the Citadels, but an uncommon beauty. Alon lives, understandably for a man of twenty or more ships and plantation interests across Issana, in the West Head, upper hills. An exceptional estate, hosting Issana’s great and good regularly.”

  “You bin then,” said Shale smiling.

  He nodded. “Yes, I do much for these guildmasters and they do much for me. I deal with the unfortunate circumstances that arise between the guilds and cause their disputes and profit from resolving them. You don’t see Greens in the Docklands or Dens where the trouble is come dark, nor do they have much idea how the slavers are supplied so readily. Deckhands, quarters, captains, carpenters, runners, whores and the security of their sheds cannot be managed by the Greens. They are managed by me.”

  “In’t they got the Post fer that? Thought the Greens an’ the Post were tight,” said Shale.

  “The Post looks after the Post.” It was a well-worn saying in most lands that knew the Post.

  Lokio tried his stew from a ladle while we supped.

  “Which estate? There many up there?” said Shale.

  “Four gold coins.”

  “Two,” I said.

  “Four.”

  “Four, an’ the routine an’ places he works in the docks,” said Shale.

  Lokio smiled again, an approving nod I had no hope of telling was true or fake in making us assured of him.

  “His estate has the mast of a war galley that was sunk off the coast in his lawns. Easy to spot when you’re up there,” said Lokio.

  I put the coins out from my purse. He held and rubbed one to satisfy himself, then pocketed them smartly, a move speaking greatly of his position giv
en the sum was more than most earned in their lives as soldiers.

  “You won’t need the routine, boys, I can manage that. If you’ll let me finish in here and go and celebrate my daughter’s birthday, then you can join me here tomorrow and we’ll ride out there. They’ll believe you are guards of mine. Once there the subterfuge will be that you have me hostage, and you will release me for leading you to him. I do not wish to know what follows, so long as I am not implicated.”

  “Seems fair,” I said.

  “Good. Now, as fearsome as you are, you pale before my daughter if I delay her cake any longer. Ralim will see you out.” He give a whistle and Ralim come through shortly and led us out.

  Lokio give us a bottle of his Juan wine to leave with and we headed back to the Dens.

  I could see Shale was thinking the same as me as we walked through the lanes.

  “Din’t trust him, Gant, fer all the gold we give him. I’m thinkin’ we see where the estate is, got to be somethin’ or someone we can see that helps us figure who’s doin’ the killin’.”

  “Fair,” I said. “He mightn’t trick us but he couldn’t lose either by sellin’ us out. For all we know he could be getting a messenger up there to set something up. I needs me wound doin’ but it can wait till we get to some vantage point overlooking the estate. I can scout at dawn if we rides up tonight and you takes watch. If nobody comes we go back in the mornin’ an’ go with him to find this merchant. If there’s somethin’ goin’ on there then we’re prepared for him at least.”

  “Aye, you should rest up wi’ the horses once we’re up there an’ I’ll cover some ground,” said Shale.

  We set out straight away, getting our horses and riding back up through the old walls and the camps now peppered with fires and the smells of the food got with hard labour or fast fingers.

  We looked up past West Head as we rode out of the port and saw some points of vantage in the trees of the high hills beyond his estate, which as Lokio said was easy to spot with that mast and sail he’d got rigged up.

  Soon enough we were on foot pushing through the scrub to the treeline that fringed the back of the West Head. It was a few miles’ slog leading the horses through a heavy mist filling the euca trees and it caused us much turning about and struggle to get a line up the slopes in the dark.

  We set ourselves back from a ridge we reckoned was high up enough and about right for viewing the estates, roped the horses and Shale got to work on my wound.

  “Think we might get boar or foxes up here, Gant, I’ll trap about an’ see what comes in.”

  Cats and wolves were more my worry with the horses.

  Shale moved out and was gone till after dawn. I let my eyes go for a bit after chewing on some kannab and soon enough he give me a kick, and a flask he filled from a stream, to wake me.

  “Found ruins of some outpost about a mile over that should give us view o’ the main estates. The bilberry an’ luta mix’ll get us a good look at what’s there, long as yer takes a hood. Yer just got to follow the ridge, we’ll shift the horses closer before midday. Seen nothing so far to suggest there’s a plan against us.”

  We led the horses across the rocky slopes among the trees. In the light of morning it was easier to see the path for the once used outpost and before the sun hit midday we were at the ruins. The carvings about the beams of the entrance showed the lineage of some monarchy, giving the impression this was of an age before those that ruled Issana now. The carvings were badly bleached and worn, the woods fully drowning the walls, tree roots pulling them to pieces. We were glad for a bit of shade from what walls still stood.

  I sat and gave the horses some water while Shale headed up a broken stone stair to the upper level.

  “Throw us some o’ the mix then,” he shouted, balancing on top of a wall.

  I found it in a saddlebag and threw it up to him. He smeared his eyes with his usual cussing and stamping. It was a bit like sliding fresh-cut onion on them.

  “A fierce sight this, Gant, we got a good look down at those estates. I can see a few people about, mostly Greens, few tradesmen by the looks of it.”

  I looked about us for signs of boots or ash from nomads or soldiers but it was true deserted, only birds around, riding the winds off the Sar.

  I got my eyes juiced and saw good and clear little but what must have been quartermasters laden with books and scrolls, or women from the estates thereabouts, horses dressed like a princess’s dollies and colourful silks on their retinues that stood sharp and bright even this far out.

  It was Shale that spotted three riders heading up a slope what wound around a few of the big villas, noticeable for they were riding with purpose. The one at the front had a beautiful black horse, brown mane, plaited, must have been much loved by who was riding him.

  “Fuck!” said Shale. “Looks like Lokio has sold us out, it’s his man Ralim, what took our swords last night. Got a couple with him.”

  The luta give us a clear enough view of the pair to know it was them. Shale called it right. It was Ralim what was on that horse. They stopped short at some gates of one of the larger houses there, high walls all around, though not high enough for where we were.

  A man come out from the main house shortly and Ralim walked up to meet him in the middle of the stone path that went from gates to a suitably grand entrance, showy with the walls all washed white. We thought it was Filston. They spoke for a bit. The man was dressed well enough, a nice belly what come from his living, young enough his hair was dark.

  “Lokio fucked up,” said Shale.

  “We need to get back then before Jaki tells him we in’t about at the inn and he gets suspicious.”

  “We do. Wait though.” We watched and saw Lokio’s man leave but he spoke to the other two and they rode one way and he rode another, heading northeast.

  “We need to get after Ralim, something’s bin agreed,” I said.

  Shale nodded.

  The seeing mix isn’t good for looking close about. I put a rope to Shale to help me as we guided our horses down through the wooded slopes to where we could mount and head back to the roads out of the port.

  It was a fair race back to Ithil Bay. We had to hope that if he was leaving Ithil Bay with some message, someone in the fields about would have noticed the horse.

  Luck was with us. A slaver’s crew and mercs working a wine caravan from some outlying yards recalled the plaited horse and pointed us inland along the East West.

  We spread some coin about for sightings and knew he’d fled the highway when some herders pointed across a valley. He was heading for hills, a silvery hint of them beyond the stony yellowed grasslands that give him few copses for hiding.

  Eyes juiced, Shale picked him out while we were stopped at a trickle of water dribbling from a sharp ridge what was a feature of this land and that I hated slogging over as infantry.

  We give the horses a mix and pushed on. Closing on him was inevitable now.

  Sure enough he’d hidden up, one of a few spots we reasoned. He must have seen our following. With arrows bagged and masked up we split and closed to some clusters of trees. Shale signed first.

  *Horse one hundred fifty west*

  I knew some action would rip my wound and I was hoping he would spring for Shale. I quickly dropped some swigs of a shiel and caffin mix, hoping the Honour wouldn’t be needed with the price I paid for the fall. I was in pain enough.

  We fired arrows into the copses we thought he was hidden in. I heard him clear enough after the third arrow.

  A moment later an arrow whipped by me not two feet off.

  This one was looking to make a fight of it. I signed for Shale to flank and let the mix fill my head. I shut my eyes and only listened. Leather cracked different to wood, hemp different again. He was shifting about some trees ahead, his footfall stirring the grasses that crackled like bacon as he moved. I dropped as the hemp was stretched, opened my eyes and saw the one side of him out of cover. The arrow flew past me and I whistled
the call to Shale, give him the whereabouts. Ralim had me spotted and I wasn’t quick enough for the approach with this hole in me and no fightbrew.

  I heard two bags thump the ground near him, the arrowheads they were on driving them to pieces as they struck.

  He was less careful now, beating a retreat from the bags and their dust kicking up into the branches about him.

  I moved up with Shale, flushing him out the copse into open land. He took Shale’s arrow to his leg, crying out as he twisted over.

  “Get hold of him, Shale, he’ll do himself!” I shouted.

  Shale was on him in moments, ripping off him the fieldbelt and tearing his leathers off to stop him dropping poison.

  The shivering and paralysis spread through him fast, standard bitter nightshade, ska base with juberry alka for softening the truth out of him.

  “Yer about ta shit and bleed so bad only a bag o’ skin’ll be left,” said Shale up close to his face as he sat astride him. “Yer whole guts is goin’ ta fall out an’ I’m sorry fer it, but I got this mix takes all that away if yer quick with yer answers. Yer goin’ ta share some answers?”

  Sun was setting. Poison took all that strength out of him and he was younger than I recalled the previous night, now I took notice of him. I think it made it worse, for he give me the feeling he was only ever in our position as others lay before him begging and yelling, being one of Lokio’s gangers. There was nothing he could do against the likes of us though, and he was seeing his life close out already, his eyes wide and throat gone to sand.

  Between the gasping, spasms and the hopeless attempt to stop himself from shitting his breeches, he was begging for something, probably us to end him swift. Shale was going through his fieldbelt while the boy started bawling. Fresh drudharch mixes from the Harudan Commune were a fierce experience for whatever end they were made.