The Ragged Man

by Tom Lloyd

  ‘Well, we’re in now,’ said the mercenary battle-mage, Wentersorn, as he emerged from his own barrel and immediately sidestepped away from Daken. The white-eye hadn’t had the opportunity yet to live up to his reputation, but the Mad Axe still clouted Wentersorn around the head every time he came within reach. ‘I take that as a good sign, so how’s about we find us some whores to celebrate my homecoming?’

  ‘Fucking mercenaries,’ Doranei sighed. ‘Does keeping a low profile mean nothing to you?’

  Wentersorn scowled and pointed at Daken. ‘He’s my commander, not you.’ He gave Daken a hopeful look, not a kindred spirit, but at least a common interest. The white-eye’s appetite for women was said to surpass even Coran’s.

  ‘Much as I’d love to agree with the ugly little shit and go get me some,’ Daken said, ‘we don’t need the trouble.’

  He lifted his shirt to reveal a mass of blue tattoos and pointed to the largest, a woman’s head and upper torso in profile. Her mouth was twisted into a cruel smile and her fingers ended in sharp claws. As Doranei watched the smile widened a shade and her fingers briefly stroked the line of Daken’s pectoral muscle.

  ‘Litania does love to join in,’ Daken said. He pointed to a series of scars just below his navel, adding, ‘And she’s a biter.’

  Doranei coughed to cover his surprise and forced himself to tear his gaze from the Aspect of Larat inhabiting a man’s skin. ‘Well, if that’s settled, have your men find bunks in there.’ He pointed to a wide door on his left. ‘That storeroom’s been cleared; it’s cramped, but it’ll serve for tonight. Food and beer will be provided. Daken, do you have a second-in-command?’

  The white-eye jabbed a thumb towards a bald man with bronze earrings and a pair of scimitars. ‘Brother Penitence there.’

  ‘Brother Penitence?’ Doranei and Derager gasped in unison, both sounding dismayed.

  ‘Aye, he’s a cleric — Mystic o’ Karkarn to be exact!’ Daken gave a laugh at their expressions. ‘Hah, look at the pair of ya; we ain’t completely dumb, I just wanted to see your faces at his name.’

  ‘I realise the name would be unwise in these troubled times,’ the Mystic of Karkarn said in a surprisingly cultured voice. Many of their number were former soldiers, and most barely educated. ‘Considering the way so many cults have abused the office of the Penitency in recent months I am willing to give it up for the time being. My birth name was Hambalay Osh; that is what you may use instead.’

  ‘What’s a mystic’s involvement here?’ Doranei demanded. ‘I can’t believe you’re being paid like a mercenary.’

  Osh dipped his head to acknowledge the point. ‘I am an old acquaintance of the king’s; one who owes him a considerable favour and whose skills are the only way of addressing the balance.’

  Doranei grunted. This was neither the time nor place to pursue the matter. ‘Follow me,’ he said, and led them up to a staircase. Coran, Daken and Osh followed him two floors up to an attic room that had two small beds and a table at the window. One of the beds was neatly made up, a man’s possessions arranged with military precision on top. As Coran passed it he kissed the knuckles of his right hand and touched them to the maker’s mark on the guard of the dagger that lay there. The little-known but much admired weaponsmith provided most of what the Brotherhood carried.

  Doranei headed for a seat at the window and took a moment to gaze out at the view across Breakale district to Eight Towers.

  ‘What’s the latest then?’ Coran asked after a minute or two, interrupting Doranei’s reverie.

  ‘Apart from the lifting of restrictions?’ he said. ‘Only Lord Styrax killing a dragon.’

  The white-eye whistled. ‘Must’ve taken some doing.’

  ‘Smacks of showin’ off if you ask me,’ Daken commented, perching carefully on one of the beds until he was sure it could take the weight of a white-eye.

  ‘Maybe,’ Doranei said. ‘Whatever the truth, it sounds like he’s won over more than a few by it. Folk here have never had such a powerful ruler and they’re beginning to think it’s better to be inside his empire reaping the benefits than outside trying to fight it.’

  ‘Might have a point there,’ Daken said with a grin. ‘So we’re goin’ to be the ones fightin’ it - folk call me mad; what’s your excuse?’

  ‘It’s not our concern at the moment; we’ve only got one target in Byora.’

  ‘Why? If not this season, then one comin’ soon, Lord Styrax is goin’ to want to add Narkang to his empire. Why not throw a few sails in the pond?’

  Seeing both Doranei and Coran looking puzzled by the expression Daken explained, ‘Sail-raptors? No? Ah well, type o’ lizard; swims, eats ducks, scares the shit out of ’em. Anyways, why not try slow him up a bit?’

  ‘You don’t get to question the king’s decisions,’ Doranei replied, ‘and we don’t have the time or resources to set up something that’ll catch a big-enough duck to make our lives worthwhile. The Menin can’t move much further, they must be badly stretched as it is. If they don’t stop to consolidate they’ll lose the city-states they’ve taken and while they’re doing that, we’ll be invoking our agreements with the Farlan. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s return to the reason why we’re here.’

  ‘Killing Ilumene,’ Coran said, savouring the words.

  ‘Not only,’ Doranei corrected sharply. ‘As you’ll see tomorrow — well, not you two, I guess, just Osh and me — there’s more than just Ilumene in Byora.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘A child, Ruhen, and the rest of Duchess Escral’s inner circle, a man called Luerce, even Aracnan, if he’s still alive after Sebe winged him with a poisoned bolt.’

  ‘Who’s this Luerce?’

  Doranei scratched the stubble on his cheek. ‘I don’t know if I’ve quite worked out his place in things yet. This is what I’ve got so far: there’s a crowd of beggars camped right outside the gates to the Ruby Tower, writing prayers and fixing them to the wall and gates, asking Ruhen to intercede with the Gods on their behalf. Ruhen is — well, we’ll come to him. The beggars are being organised by Luerce and his followers — they’re calling themselves something like Ruhen’s Children, though I’ve heard a few other names mentioned.’

  ‘So what’s the game?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ Doranei admitted. ‘The duchess has been turned against the cults; Hale district is still almost entirely shut off. The goal appears to be cutting the population off from the Gods, removing the priesthood from daily life. By having them call to Ruhen they’re weakening the Gods, but to what end I can’t say. This would have to go on for decades — and spread throughout most of the Land — before the Gods were weak enough for Azaer to be any sort of rival.’

  ‘Could someone else be a rival instead?’

  Doranei sighed. ‘Perhaps — certainly someone with a Skull could kill a God, and the weaker they got, the easier it would be.’

  ‘Remember that trip you got sent on after Scree?’ Coran asked pointedly, ‘to the monastery on the lake? You’re looking for mad and strong enough to kill Gods — there’s your answer.’

  Doranei considered Coran’s point. While King Emin had left the ruins of Scree with the Skull of Ruling, Azaer’s disciples had been intent on getting something else the island-monastery’s abbot had in his possession. The journal of Prince Vorizh Vukotic had been Azaer’s prize, and its contents remained a worrying mystery.

  ‘You could be right,’ Doranei mused, ‘but it doesn’t explain why — unless it’s revenge for something that happened in the Age of Myths, there’s not a good enough reason. Just to cause chaos and misery can’t be all there is to it: there has to be a plan, and that’s what we’re missing.’

  ‘What if this is a game of the heavens?’ Osh asked unexpectedly. ‘I don’t pretend to understand much of what is going on, but I suspect my theology is better than any of you. There is clear precedent of insurrection there — Lliot, the God of All Waters, rebelled against the rule of Death and His queen. Tha
t failed, so perhaps another God has chosen a different line of attack and found a daemon cunning enough to lay the way for it. If successful, the rewards would be commensurate.’

  ‘The king doesn’t believe so,’ Doranei said. ‘It’s the best explanation we have, but investigations say it ain’t right. No God of any significance has been spared the effects of the backlash, and the king’s mages have consulted a host of daemons — there would be some sort of a whisper about it if such a thing were happening. Anyway, Azaer’s no true daemon — ’

  ‘And too fucking arrogant to be a hired hand,’ Coran broke in.

  Doranei nodded. ‘Even with the collusion of a God it doesn’t fit with what we know of the shadow. If it sparks a war within the Pantheon it will be solely for its own purposes.’ He raised a hand to stop any further conversation. ‘We can discuss this later, but right now we have an assault to plan. Surviving that is my only concern at this time.’

  ‘So what’s the bet?’ Coran asked automatically.

  Doranei glowered and glanced at Sebe’s belongings on the bed. ‘You kill Ilumene or Ruhen, or you finish off Aracnan, you can name your fucking price. I’ll pay it gladly.’

  The next day was one of unexpected sunshine, long shafts of light cutting through clumps of drifting cloud to shine down upon Byora’s streets. It felt to Doranei like the entire population had been ushered outside, flocking to the recently replenished markets or just making the most of the weather after the months of grim, lingering cold. He had left the wine merchant’s not long after dawn, taking with him the Mystic of Karkarn, Hambalay Osh, and Veil, one of the Brotherhood.

  The trio took a long, winding route through the quarter. They were in no hurry to get to the Ruby Tower; it was the perfect day to get a feel for the city again — they’d be more inconspicuous than usual with so many people out and about. The streets of Wheel and Burn were hives of activity now the Menin had reinstated free passage and carts of all sizes had clogged the streets in their eagerness to deliver the raw materials Byora so desperately needed. The few Menin patrols they saw were carefully keeping out of the way of everyday life; many were sitting outside taverns and eateries, behaving themselves like soldiers under orders.

  Heading into Breakale, the central district where more than half of Byora’s citizens lived, they found the streets no less busy. Doranei led them past the Three Inns crossroad, where their Brother Sebe had died, to an eatery that faced east, towards Blackfang. The wedge-shaped building had been built to divert the floodwaters that occasionally swept off the mountain slopes, and from the tip of the wedge on the upper floor they had a good view of the surrounding area. Since it was well before midday, they had it to themselves.

  They sat in silence, sharing a jug of weak wine and watching gangs of labourers work through the rubble of the buildings that had once stood to the right of them; the place where Sebe had been holed up with his poison-tipped arrows, from where he shot Aracnan. And it was there he had died, when the immortal mercenary had indiscriminately unleashed the power of his Crystal Skull, killing hundreds in a storm of raging magic.

  ‘Here’s to you, Sebe,’ Veil said at last, raising his goblet in salute, ‘you monkey-faced little bugger. We’ll miss you.’

  Doranei kept quiet, he’d said his goodbyes already, but he downed the rest of his wine with the other two. When a girl brought them a plate of bread and white crumbly cheese he ignored it and picked up the wine jug, his eyes still on the workmen below.

  ‘Something I thought I’d never see,’ he said eventually, more to himself than the others. ‘You see those men with white scarves tied round their necks?’

  Veil looked up from his food a moment. ‘Look like they’re in charge of the work. Some sort of labourers’ guild? I saw a few on the way here like that.’

  Veil was a wiry man a few winters younger than Doranei. He wore his dark hair long, tied back with twine. Unlike Doranei he’d been late coming into the care of the Brotherhood; he’d been twelve winters when his parents died of the white plague. He’d been marked as someone worth watching from his very first night, when he’d blackened Ilumene’s eye before the older boy had managed to land a blow, a very rare occurrence.

  ‘I’ve been asking about that building. The owner was killed when it collapsed, but someone bought the plot and is rebuilding. Word is that it’s going to be some sort of sanctuary.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And that sanctuary will be for anyone in need, run by followers of the child Ruhen — that’s what the white scarves signify. They’re the ones camped outside the Ruby Tower.’

  Veil took a closer look at the men Doranei was talking about. One wore a tattered leather jerkin that looked like padding to go underneath mail; the rest looked in even worse condition. ‘It’s no sense of civic duty. The fucker’s pissing on Sebe’s grave.’

  ‘The ones you saw in the other districts have been preaching a bit too, mainly anti-cult talk. There’s no one in Byora going to defend any of the cults nowadays, not since the clerics’ rebellion when they tried to assassinate the duchess. Sebe and I started listening when we realised there’s a whole bunch of them spreading the word. Those who’re receptive to the message are taken aside and told about a prophecy, a prophecy of the Saviour that’s known to only the Harlequins.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Osh said grimly, ‘this prophecy sees no need for the cults at all?’

  ‘They’re keeping it close to their chests at the moment, only telling those willing to believe anything: the desperate, the poor, those with a grudge against the Gods or the cults. There have been stories running through the city for weeks now about Ruhen performing miracles — breaking a curse, protecting the duchess from the clerics trying to kill her — that’s what the crowd outside the compound are there for. They’re praying to this child to intercede on their behalf with the Gods.’

  ‘So those who know the secret put two and two together and get a new God for their pains.’

  Veil grimaced, imagining what sort of God Azaer would make.

  Osh paused mid-bite. ‘There’s a crowd of beggars outside the Ruby Tower gates? How big?’

  ‘Few hundred at least,’ Doranei said.

  ‘Are we talking fanatics here?’

  ‘Not for the most part, mostly folk broken by the Land they’re living in and desperate for something better.’

  ‘Thank the Gods,’ Osh said with relief. ‘We already know we’re going to have to deal with guards and distract any Menin soldiers — I don’t much fancy cutting my way through a crowd of men and women willing to die to protect the child.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Doranei said, ‘what tricks do we have on that front? The crowd should be easy enough to frighten out of the way, but that’s the easy part. We need a diversion to give us a chance, and I guess we’ll need every mage we’ve got inside the compound.’

  ‘The king has assembled a box of tricks for you to play with,’ Veil said with a half-smile. ‘For fighters we got the Brotherhood. We’ve got four thieves from Tio He who’re bloody covered in charms of Cerdin, and we’ve got Osh here. Plus two high mages in the forms of our favourite bickering old women — Masters Shile Cetarn and Tomal Endine — plus two battle-mages. And then we’ve the more unusual members of our team: Camba Firnin is an illusionist by trade, but she’s from the College of Magic and her bag of powders and chemicals’ll do more than just make you think you’re dead. Telasin Daemon-Touch you must’a heard of, and Shim the Bastard is a mage-killer, probably our best chance to deal with Aracnan. Daken plans on tying him to a stick and keeping him out front.’

  Doranei sighed. ‘And then there’s Daken, the Mad Axe,’ he added.

  ‘Aye, and her that comes with him,’ Veil said darkly.

  ‘Daken and I have been speaking about that,’ Osh interjected. ‘Litania is a fickle bitch, to use Daken’s term. She comes out to play when she feels like it, and she causes havoc whenever she does. We cannot have her with us in the Ruby Tower; it’s just as like
ly she’ll be the death of us as she will any sort of help.’

  ‘So your suggestion is?’ Doranei asked, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.

  ‘Daken asks her to provide the diversion.’ Osh raised a hand, seeing Doranei open his mouth to argue. ‘We keep one of the king’s mages back in case all she does is swamp the district in butterflies or something of the like — you’ll want one in reserve anyway, to cover your retreat.’

  ‘But to willingly let the Trickster loose in a city?’ Veil asked, aghast. ‘You’ve no idea what destruction she could wreak!’

  ‘Do we have a choice?’

  Neither of the Brothers replied. Doranei looked towards the upper levels of the Ruby Tower, visible above the rooflines. Veil continued to stare at Osh, trying to think of an argument against the proposal. He closed his mouth again when Doranei gave him a slap on the arm and pointed at the street opposite.

  ‘Look, what’s that all about?’

  The cobbled street had a smoother patch just as it reached the crossroads, where Aracnan’s magic had somehow fused the cobbles together. It led from Eight Towers district, the widest and quickest route from the Ruby Tower through the city, and walking down it now was a group of a dozen men and women, some wearing white, some dressed entirely in white. Many carried long walking staffs, and all bore some sort of pack on their back.

  ‘They’re dressed for travel,’ Veil pointed out, peering forward.

  ‘Missionaries,’ Osh concluded with a grave face. ‘The word’s being spread beyond Byora.’

  ‘Piss and daemons,’ Doranei growled, pushing his wine aside and shoving a hunk of bread in his pocket. ‘As soon as they pass we go to look at the ground around the Ruby Tower. If they’re starting the next phase of their plan we need to stop it, and soon. I want Ilumene and the child dead by Prayerday.’

  CHAPTER 13

  Over the darkest hours Doranei’s élite company gathered by fits and bursts. Men and women in small, subdued groups appeared out of the mist at the door of a warehouse adjoining the minor gate between Coin, Byora’s financial district, and Breakale. At night Breakale was the quieter of the two — all Byora’s upscale gambling dens were located in Coin, well away from the disapproving clerics of Hale and the gangsters of Burn.