Snakewood

by Adrian Selby

  “Kigan? What the fuck!” She leaned in and kissed my cheek. Despite only a few candles around the walls I could see enough of her to know how far she’d sunk.

  “Bresken, it’s good to see you. I saw Ibsey on his run, I’d come from the south, he told me I could find you here.”

  “What do you need? Are you looking for work? Do you need me for work?” She moved back from me a bit to better look me over. “You’re looking strong, Kigan. You’re still taking purses?”

  She looked hopeful, perhaps thinking I actually would need her as a soldier.

  “I need to know the whereabouts of the Twenty, anyone other than Ibsey that you might have seen.” I caught a barmaid’s eye and gestured for a bottle.

  “Are you looking to get us back together? Are you still with Kailen?”

  “No, and no. One of us betrayed me.” I showed her my tat.

  “That’s bad. I thought you were set when you said you had that old king’s children, what was his name?”

  “Doran.”

  “Yes, Doran. Petir was the boy if I remember.” The bottle came over and I tipped the girl and filled Bresken’s cup. She took big greedy mouthfuls, desperate to get soaked.

  “Do you remember what happened? It was at Snakewood I was made a slave, at the time we had all just left the king’s service, when he was deposed.”

  “I don’t recall seeing you, Kigan, not at Snakewood. They said you were there, Ibsey, Dithnir and that.”

  “Do you recall seeing Mirisham, Valdir or Kailen?”

  “No, I think they’d gone on. Spent a few days there with Kheld. Yes, he said they’d gone on. This is all a long time ago for you to be here now asking about it.”

  She took some kannab from her pouch and pushed some into the side of her mouth, taking a spitton from the sill of a window behind us. She offered me, but I could see it was threaded, diluted, so she had little money. I am beyond kannab now.

  She asked about my being a slave, I gave her some answers. She complained about her lot, her Quarter, the bunks in the Post House, how she made some extra coin with the other Reds when the captains weren’t about. The day brews had done for her. Once Doran’s gold ran out on some ships she’d invested in with the Post, she took on work for them, but here, so far from Candar and the Old Kingdoms, the Post was little better than a crew of gangers. After causing unrest as part of a misguided captain’s decision to try to usurp the Post’s position and establish an independent factory, she ended up in jail for a few years and lost everything. The plant and ale she drinks must have done the rest, fatigue in her legs and back, eyesight poor. I had little doubt I could cure her, and even less interest in doing so. Seeing what she had become, more than any of the others, sickened me. Apart from Shale, she was a soldier I could admire, one of the few that I could talk to, that understood the value of the work I did on those Ibsey and I were given to try out new mixes on, prisoners we’d kept alive for such purpose.

  I made sure she was soaked before helping her up and out of the tavern, a few hours later. I slipped a knife into her side as I dragged her along a quiet alleyway. I eased her to the ground, seating her against a wall, and leaned close to her face as I did so, saw little in the dark but the roundedness of a life softened with guard duties and drink. She had some bad luck and now she was dead, wouldn’t be missed. She led a life more glorious than most, but all of this was simply wasting time until her body gave in. I saw little point in telling her of my disappointment during that night. I doubt she had anything to do with my betrayal, but word could not reach any of the others regarding her having seen me, for The Prince had suspected my involvement in the deaths of Milu, Digs and Harlain. The coin I left in her lap was as much to ensure that if she were found, little would be done by way of investigation, and those that had something to fear would feel it. This purpose of mine will not be compromised, not by a pitiful and sick old woman.

  Paying passage on a galleon a few days later, I spent the journey back across the Sar sick with fear below deck to escape the blue and my memories of what had gone before, a pipe of Rosie keeping me under till we reached the Ten Clan harbour of Mousakhor.

  It was clear that I needed to find Mirisham and Valdir, of all those that still lived. Without a lead to those two I pushed on east, hoping to find either Sho or Elimar, if they’d returned home.

  Despite the corruption widespread across the Virates, trade flourished mainly because these lands had much to export; silver, gold, molasses, silverskins–a supple and very strong leather made from specially bred pigs–and a plant trade that specialised in teas, caffin and ska.

  The seas and harbours were contested heavily by the various Old Kingdoms guilds that put in, as well as ships from the nearer isles and the Post, the playing off of which for profit and favour determined the longevity of whatever Blackhand rulers inherited their power from the last incumbent to make one fatal mistake. I planned to settle in the Cull, a vast port I had suffered only once before, sure that here as well as anywhere I could find some talk of the Twenty. However, I soon discovered that this pursuit was already underway when I saw the poster Alon had put wherever his guild’s ships put in, seeking news of the Twenty.

  My first thought was that I was being sought for the killings that had gone before, but Alon’s name on the poster was new. For all that I had lost the memory of, it felt, strangely, as though this was a name quite unknown to me.

  Issana was distant, but the poster could not be ignored.

  I was readying myself to travel back when I found out that Sho was in Povey’s Valley, only a few miles inland from the Cull. He was well known in these parts for being allied with a prominent local ganger that ran his own quay, a minor player.

  I have left out Kigan’s account of meeting Galathia, as her account is already included.

  Goran

  I learned also that Elimar had died. I remembered he had family among farmers in the highlands of Corob’s Dicta. He hadn’t returned to them but they had been told, by some traders who hailed from their region, that he had died in the service of a warlord among the Blackhands. It was a pity, for we despised each other and I had hoped to be able to kill him myself.

  I realised I had to go to Issana and find out who this Alon Filston was that was looking also for news of the Twenty. I assumed Galathia, who, masked, I did not at first place, and her crew were just hired killers, when I went after Sho. I assumed they were killing for this guildmaster, and decided not to pursue them in favour of him, as he was so open about finding the Twenty. It was on my way to Issana that I decided I’d search Jua for word of Bense, and I found him easily enough, in the employ of a Lord and much ravaged by cheap-cut betony and other opia. I had thought Bense would be a drooper, but he was worse even than Ibsey, who could at least hold down a crew to a task. It was when I first used the Weeper on Bense that he told me he’d seen Stixie recently. More interestingly, Stixie had told him of meeting with Kailen. It seemed Stixie had stayed in touch with Bense and was intent on telling Kailen also to come. I decided then that Bense should live, that he could be controlled with a two-one betony threaded with greenhead kannab to help me, do my bidding. Over these last few weeks I have made Bense mine, ensured he obeyed every command I gave him alongside those of his lord, no matter how contrary or obscure mine were, to test his pliability and willingness to betray Stixie, but most of all Kailen; to tell me of their movements, earn their trust. I had succeeded in using the Weeper to make him suggestible to me only, to protect my identity in return for this most addictive of mixes.

  Stixie was famed for his bow, the draw of which was strong even for a people whose bowmasters were renowned across the Old Kingdoms. I remember not being able to draw that bow, brew or nought. The composite woods, Ash front and Orange Osim backstrips, had to be worked in as a compound over many months before the bow could reach its full potential. The “Four” he also became known as was for the occasion he put a single arrow clean through four armoured men. These were arrows h
e fletched of course, to withstand the force of the bow.

  Bense reminded me that Stixie visited the annual Hillfast tournament. It brought together warriors from all over. Here was a place a man could earn renown, either for himself or more usually for his sponsor. Over two weeks all manner of single and group combats played out, with the biggest crowds attending those contests that were a fight to the death. Underlying the contests, the work of the drudhas was on show, many representing their academies. This in turn attracted the buyers for the major guilds and lords that were looking to see what new brews could do for their soldiers. I put Stixie at the top of the Bowmaster contests every year I prepared plant for him. The war academies of the Old Kingdoms also continued their hallowed enmities and rivalries here.

  Hillfast was a grand citadel that had, over the centuries, expanded across the channel it sided, becoming a great city of the northern Sar, a gateway to the Sardanna Strait I had suffered passage through below deck on The Wayward Lady.

  Riding in to the Post’s lodge I took directions from a Red for the tournament fields, still occupying a great plain to the north of the outer walls. Ferries crowded the shore, men and boys hollering for my custom to cross with them. More still waited at the far side, the usual stalls and gangers, pickers and whores. Everything was for sale, little of it as described. My colour, now the richer and more fluid for the years with Lorom Haluim, spared me much scrutiny or nuisance, but I still kept my hood up against the stinging winds as I followed a now boggy trail and many hundreds of others to the battlefields and pits. As I approached, the deep swell of a crowd’s roar blew through us on the road from the pits beyond. The young men ahead of me betrayed their cheap rise and knocked each other about, laughing wildly, passing a skin between them as they speculated on the day ahead. Other mercs walked or rode past me, here to pick up purses from among the various factions and guilds, all of them left alone by the pustulent ex-soldiers now begging for coin and the crack-voiced bards switching their jigs and ballads to those they guessed were native to each passing traveller’s homeland.

  Now, through the iron gates and inside the walls, it was a rancid cacophony of yelling and music, a swarm of rich and poor slopping through the muddy channels between pavilions flying the colours of their guilds or lords and the wagons of traders, cookers and entertainers that filled the spaces between. Before us rose the stone walls of the arenas, six in all, housing thousands crammed into their galleries and stairwells, screeching and betting on the contests before them.

  I heard the thunder of hooves from the nearest of these plainly architected structures, the Citadels never having had among their citizens a great desire for elegance and a flourish to their monuments. I confess I admired this trait, for was not excess of form a sop for the unworthy masses, a cost exceeding that required for the function of the thing?

  I passed the hub of these arenas and sought the archers, the fields they used being to one end of the great compound in which the tournament took place.

  Drawn to the gasps of those crowding at one range I saw Stixie, his flamboyant white breeches and silver stitched waistcoat stretched and faded to the colour of rainclouds by the years. Still too he wore his preposterous moustache, oiled, curled and itself now a mottled silver. His round felt cap had lost the vivid blue feather that seeing him woke the recollection of.

  The bow remained magnificent, a massive rare masterpiece once more a joy to look upon. Having bent his knee to the onlookers he bid some boy eighty or ninety yards off to line up some wooden shields, between each of which was suspended a sack of grain. He played us well, showered with copper for it, bidding us to call for more shields.

  Four hung there now and some who had seen him in previous years chanted his name, leading the others.

  He picked out a boy from the crowd, inviting him into the range. He gave the boy his bow and bade him draw it. The boy could not of course raise even a creak from the string, no doubt still a crafted twine of hemp and Rivvyroot that few outside the bowyers of his people could master the construction of.

  With an entertainer’s flourish, drawing a cheer for the lad, he invited any to a silver coin if they could fully draw the bow and a further ten if they could hit the first of the shields.

  A strong man, a smith or lumberer from his shape, was pushed and jeered into the range. Against Stixie he seemed diminished. Still he handed the man the bow. It was cleverly done, for the man had no plant about him that could have filled his muscle and made it the stronger.

  He took the bow confidently, held it forward to draw and then shuddered and shook as his fingers, first two, then all got the string to move no more than an inch. He looked astonished, then, with the cheering, flushed and gave Stixie the bow, retreating back to his friends. None more stepped forward but a clap started. From a quiver Stixie drew a silver arrow fletched with white feathers. His arrows were longer and heavier still than any I had seen, necessary to withstand the force of the release.

  He raised the bow, a subtle tug at the string initially that would not have been needed in his youth, but then the draw, the difficulty of which made his arms stand out with the strain as he asked of himself what only the plant could give.

  He held the arrow at full draw, exhaled and let it fly. I wondered for that brief moment if anything had happened, then the first shield split in two, collapsing in on the grain behind it, which exploded. The other bags of grain and shields rocked and split apart, the arrow shattering against a natural rock outcrop behind the targets.

  In richer times the carcasses of bulls would be strung where now only these shields were hung. He took the cheers and as the crowd moved on to other entertainment he scolded his boy to help him fetch up the coins before other scavengers took their chance.

  He looked up from his knees as I approached. I had flicked him a silver coin.

  “Kigan?”

  “You are as strong as ever, Stix.”

  “Kigan, you’re alive!” He stood, glancing at the coin before pocketing it, and put a concerned hand on my shoulder. “Has Kailen yet found you?”

  “Kailen?”

  “Yes, he has sent me word from the Crag. I plan to go there after the single target tourney.” We began walking from the range.

  “What word, I…?”

  “Someone is killing us, Kigan, killing Kailen’s Twenty. A number of us have been killed: Harlain, Kheld, The Prince. I thought it would be why you had come.”

  “Does he know why?”

  Stixie shrugged.

  “I think we should get a brandy, Stixie, we have a lot to catch up on.”

  He shouted at the boy, who came running up.

  “I have them all,” he gasped.

  “Take two for yourself, find some supper.”

  “Is that…?” I began.

  “A son, yes, though by what wench I cannot remember. Some woman brought him to me last year. He has the eyes, I’ll give him that.”

  The vibrant blue that caused such a stir in the days we whored about the world with Kailen remained while his skin and the wild bristles of his brows sagged. He looked weary as the brew for his show started the cramps. His colour was as I remembered, though he marvelled at mine as he took a good look at me in the fading afternoon.

  “The world has been kind to you,” he said.

  His son would have found my purse, beside his father’s. I had no hatred for him. Stixie asked no questions or believed still any wrong had been done. He spoke truly when he said he did not join us at Snakewood. Still, I could not allow him to interfere, not given what he knew, and I could not let him see Kailen again now that he had seen me.

  Now I would kill Kailen himself, though he would be ready. This was a thrilling thought, an action requiring perfect execution, a test of what I had learned.

  Chapter 15

  Kigan

  It is appropriate now, with Kigan’s journals having outlined the story of his life after Snakewood up to the events concurrent with the other survivors of Kailen’
s Twenty, to continue with his account of visiting Kailen’s wife Araliah, as the course of his search nears its end.

  Goran

  Kailen had done well for himself of course.

  The wind was sweetened by the orange groves on his estate as we approached. A number of Alon’s retinue, led by Laun and her Agents, had already scaled perimeter walls and were approaching the villa we could see beyond the main gate. I approached the two guards on foot, sword drawn. One blew a horn but it wouldn’t matter. They were trained well. It took a few exchanges before they fell choking on the ground with the vapours from the paste on my blade. Our soldiers had stayed back from me for the same reason. No sap or barrier on a mask could withstand it. Only those with the counter to it could resist it.

  Ahead of us on the long road from gate to villa, Alon’s soldiers were seeing out the men, women and children from the house. Araliah, even from fifty yards, was easy to spot, Laun and the men around her were gesturing at her but not shoving or otherwise touching her as she moved freely away from them towards us.

  “You will let my workers go. If you have business of the sort that requires the type of soldier only a merchant would employ then you have business with me. Kailen is not here.”

  Galathia caught her husband’s eyes drinking in the sight of this woman in an exquisite dark green gown that was cut low on her bosom. Her feet were bare, a scandal among his society, and her beauty more than rivalled Galathia’s own. Araliah’s dark hair was messily tied in a bunch, the more appealing for the loose wisps of it across her cheeks.

  “You must be Araliah, so you may not know your husband is dead,” said Galathia.

  After a moment holding Galathia’s eye, Araliah turned and called for her people to join her. They came forward, trailed by Alon’s men. The children ran to her, before us, holding her gown about her legs and waist, fearing for her.