Beguiler

by Maxx Whittaker

  “Boy. Just keep back.” Bannock whirled the axe, felt its weight and heft. It wasn’t the junk he’d originally taken it for, just neglected for what must have been months.

  Raulf was done guessing. He attacked. His strikes were more controlled, this time, quick stabs and swipes. He was a professional, a soldier for years, and he didn’t waste time or movement when it wasn’t needed.

  Which was perfect, for what Bannock intended. His axe was a blur, deflecting, parrying, tangling Raulf’s sword over and over. None of the other man’s cuts came close to injuring Bannock, but he couldn’t do this forever, Bloodsworn or no.

  Luckily, he didn’t have to. Ducking a sideways cut that would have taken him in the neck, he flicked the axe out a joint in Raulf’s armor, an unprotected spot at his thigh. A killing blow, if he’d hit hard enough. But at the last moment Bannock pulled his blow, leaving a shallow slice.

  Raulf danced back, heaving with rage and exhaustion. “You jackarse… You cut me!”

  “Raulf, this is a fight. That’s what you do in a fight: cut each other.” Bannock threw a look at Witt. “We’re uncovering the first of your failures as a mercenary, my friend.”

  “You pigfucker,” spat Raulf.

  Bannock skimmed for Murad and didn’t see a sign of the man.

  Perfect.

  Raulf came again, slower now, more careful. Probably meant to tell Bannock that he was cautious now that he’d been injured, but Bannock knew better, knew his real reason for holding back. He watched Raulf’s eyes, for the sign he knew was coming.

  Dodging and deflecting a few halfhearted blows, he waited.

  There. Raulf’s eyes flicked up, at something over Bannock’s shoulder. His lip curled in the slightest of smiles. The smile of a man who has his opponent exactly where he wants him.

  Bannock would have laughed if he wasn’t taking a deep breath. Time to teach them why you didn’t cross a Bloodsworn.

  Time froze.

  Witt’s warning cry, Raulf’s descending blade; even the grass waving in a low breeze stopped as if it had never moved before. The world’s motion ceased to exist for as long as Bannock could hold his breath.

  Plenty of time.

  He ducked to the side, turned, knowing what he’d find. Murad, face frozen in a triumphant grin, his blades coming in like a pincer, aimed at the spot Bannock’s throat was moments ago.

  Moving behind Raulf, Bannock circled the other man with his massive arms, lifting him like a sack of grain. Raulf’s body was rigid, still frozen, muscles like stone as Bannock carried him a few steps forward.

  Right about there, he thought, setting Raulf down – directly in the path of Murad’s blades.

  Bannock moved behind the assassin, breath straining at aching lungs. After observing for a moment, admiring his handiwork, he nudged over a large stone, in front of Murad’s foot, for good measure.

  And then he exhaled.

  Several things happened rapidly.

  Murad’s eyes widened in confusion as he tried to pull his blow, battlefield reflexes screaming that something was wrong. Raulf opened his mouth to bellow, but his heavy blade was coming down with too much inertia to stop.

  Murad tripped.

  Bannock grinned.

  Twin blades punctured Raulf’s neck at the same moment his sword cut down, splitting Murad’s head like a ripe melon. Blood, ruby in the sunlight, gushed as the two screamed out, falling together.

  Dying together.

  Bannock didn’t have to check his Burdens; he was pretty good at this game by now.

  He strode back to Witt, rolling his shoulders. “Thanks for the axe.”

  For once, Witt had nothing to say. Predictably, this didn’t last long. “Watch out!” cried the boy.

  Bannock spun, fists ready for whatever smashed through the brush...

  -Seven-

  “Agh!” Bannock cried out.

  “Aaagh!” the woman crawling from the weeds cried out.

  Witt snapped a stalk of grass and stuck it between his teeth, his threshold for surprise adjusted beyond what was transpiring.

  It was hard to see much with the woman on hands and knees in the scrub, but her tangled brown hair was held with a faded blue kerchief the same color as her torn homespun dress. Her face was dirty when she looked up at the pair, a grime that settled in aged creases and made suspicious blue eyes stark in their appraisal.

  “Are you a witch?” Bannock demanded, understandably disturbed by the idea.

  The woman jumped to her feet, knees bent and arms bowed and hanging like a descending spider – a spider ready for a fistfight.

  “You’d count yerself a good sight luckier if’n I was!” She tugged up her kerchief and tugged down the hem of her torn skirt, doing nothing to hide leathery bronze legs that reminded Bannock of jerked meat. She swung side to side like a sailor, filling the salt air with a distinct odor of stale beer. At least a full butt or two.

  “Oh gods. You’re not a witch… you’re a fishwife!”

  “I ain’t nobody’s wife and don’t you put that evil thought into the world.” She swiped at Bannock with a small bony fist like a ship firing a warning shot.

  Bannock immediately wished he was shorter, lighter, and a much faster runner.

  “You don’t need to be anyone’s wife. Look at you, holding your own…” Witt chomped his grass, nodding too philosophically for a boy just old enough to scrape a razor over his chin.

  A comment about shoveling shite reached Bannock’s lips. When the woman lowered her fist and receded a fraction, his remark died an unexpected death. Maybe diplomacy had some merit, after all.

  “I do alright by myself,” she muttered in agreement.

  “Better than alright.” Witt swaggered forward. “Bet it’s a tough run for a lady like you to find a man her equal.”

  Her driftwood lips pursed at this. “Lad’s got the right of it.” This she aimed at Bannock, as though he could take a lesson.

  “You shouldn’t have to fend for yourself...” Witt pressed a hand to his heart.

  Bannock groaned.

  “But you can. Makes my heart beat like a drum.”

  “Oh you. Silver tongued serpent, ain’t ye?” She sheathed her deadly fists, setting them on the points of her hips. “Suppose I ought to be grateful there’s one decent person left in this dark world.” She accused Bannock with another look.

  “What are you doing out here?” Bannock asked, keeping Witt between himself and the fishwife, just in case.

  “Oh, larkin’ about.”

  “Burrowed in the weeds?”

  She tightened again. “Oh, you’re a right clooney one ain’t ye?”

  “My good humor is famous, in fact.”

  She spat at his hem. “Since you mean to pry it from me, I was followin’ them two lubberworts to pinch a bit of whatever they got stashed at their camp. When I seen ‘em have a run at you, why… I says to myself, Girt, I says, you let them gut two fools and you’ll have four for the price of a pair.”

  “You were going to let them kill us and steal from all four.” Bannock wondered anyone still surprised him, but here he was.

  “That ain’t fair! I was set on shankin’ them when they’d finished with ya’. You woulda had justice by my hand.”

  “Or you could have helped us and robbed them!”

  “And what do I get from that? Half as much booty and more trouble for meself!”

  “So unfair,” agreed Witt.

  Bannock buried his face in his hands.

  “Now hand over what you got and I’ll be off ‘fore the sheriffs come pokin’ about and my memory comes ‘round about who roused up who.” Girt prodded Raulf’s body with her gnarled toes for emphasis.

  “I haven’t got anything,” muttered Bannock, exhausted by the phrase.

  “Man of the Church witholdin’ charity! The Maker take my soul here and now.”

  “It’s not charity if you rob me, and you can’t rob me if I haven’t got anything.”

&nb
sp; Girt made a sound like stones rubbing together and gnawed her peeling lower lip. She chucked her pointy chin at Witt. “He’s a strapping one. Strong back. I’ll have the lad, then.”

  “No one can have the lad!” shouted Witt, losing composure for the first time, which was impressive, considering the fact that he’d just seen a man vanish and reappear somewhere else while the two thugs in question killed each other.

  Served him right.

  Bannock shook his head. “I’ll make a deal. We’ll walk with you to loot their camp and give protection in trade for some information.”

  Girt hunched and splayed into her fighting posture, eyes slitted. “What sort a’ information?”

  “I want to know some things about the city, the guild.”

  Witt cleared his throat with a sharp crack.

  “And I would be very grateful to you for it,” Bannock amended, trying to sound sincere.

  “Think I’ll just take that bauble you got on your arm,” snapped Girt, raking her fingers impatiently. “Have it over.”

  A clop of hoofbeats on hard ground tapped across the fen. Bannock squinted against the wind and made out three riders passing through a door in the city gates.

  “Dirty badge hounds. Come on then; give over the silver.”

  “It doesn’t come off.”

  “Neither does the blood on your boots. What ya’ ken the sheriffs will make of that and two stiffs laid out here in the coulter like dead deer?”

  Bannock noticed that as she spoke, Girt’s eyes flicked increasingly toward the riders’ progress.

  “You’re right. This does look bad and I don’t want any trouble in Madainn, or with the guild.” He clapped Witt on the shoulder. “We’ll stay and make our case to the sheriffs.”

  “It’s your neck!” Girt whirled away, body taut as a bow string.

  Bannock grabbed her by the kerchief, stumbling her back. “Now, I’ll need you to stay as a witness. They’ll want to hear your part of the story.”

  “Not a bloody chance in hell!” hissed Girt, thrashing.

  “Oh? Why not?”

  She twisted free, panting and swinging her limbs. “You ken the reason just fine!”

  Bannock smiled. “So I do. You want no trouble with the law and neither do I. So, let’s help each other.”

  “Oh, you pressed me into it. Fine. We’ll come back secret-like after dark.” Girt turned, grabbed Raulf by the ankles and dragged his corpse into the weeds where she’d hidden before.

  She didn’t return.

  Bannock looked at Witt, and at the men approaching faster now.

  “It’s your bleedin’ necks but if you want ‘em short you’ll scurry in here!”

  Witt shrugged, grabbed Murad by a purple arm, and disappeared into the weeds.

  Thick grass at the boulder’s base had concealed a hole almost too narrow to fit Bannock’s shoulders. It sloped at a short angle and opened into what he guessed was an entire warren of tunnels beneath the massive chunks of coastline bedrock.

  Grunting and straining, Girt rolled Raulf’s corpulent body into a shallow pool and spat on him. She seemed to love a hearty spit. “Good riddance.”

  Bannock had his bad blood with Raulf. Rancid enough to justify killing, but Girt’s farewell seemed ruthlessly cruel for a man who’d done little more than fail to be robbed by her. Bannock made a second, bolder-lettered note to never cross her.

  “What should we do with them?” asked Witt, looking less willing to damn Murad in the same fashion.

  “We got fen wolves in the tidelands. Leave ‘em as they are and the fen’ll keep your secret.” With that, Girt smacked barefooted off down the puddle-ridden track, not seeming to care if they followed.

  “She is hateful,” Bannock uttered to no one in particular.

  Witt nodded. “I’m going to learn so much from her.”

  “What!”

  “Nothing.” The glee in Witt’s eyes faded a touch.

  “I wouldn’t take lessons from a woman who likely clobbers beggars for their alms.”

  “Never! I keep my stealing honest.”

  Bannock snorted, prodding Witt in the back. “On with you. Let’s get this over with quick before any more bad influence colors your path.”

  They started through the sun speckled tunnel, Girt nowhere to be seen. Bannock wasn’t sure they should hurry to find her; she was probably waiting around a corner to slit their throats.

  -Eight-

  Girt did not slit their throats. By the time Bannock and Witt caught up with her, she was outside the cave’s mouth, on her hands and knees digging at the sand.

  “Oh, I think she’s gone and lost her mind,” Witt whispered, eyes downturned.

  “What…” Bannock spit out sand and dodged a few more gritty sprays. “What are you –”

  “Hah!” Girt raised the earthenware jug triumphantly overhead. “Can’t go on so parched as I am.” She uncorked the jug and gulped, liquid dribbling over her chin.

  “Water?” Bannock realized he was parched too, enough to weigh parting with an appendage for a mouthful.

  Girt mashed the jug into his gut, and Bannock tipped it back. The smell hit just before the contents and after it was too late to close his lips. What filled his mouth had the distinct flavor of a good ale cursed by a demon with the flavor of roughly one thousand onions.

  Spit, his brain screamed. But his mouth mutinied and his throat spasmed. Bannock’s gut grumbled in protest before his swallow was complete. He thrust the jug at Girt. “Ugh! Maker’s bollocks, what abomination is that?”

  Girt cackled and glugged down another mouthful. “Only thing that grows half decent in the sand is spring onions. Soups, pies, stuffed eel, beer, salve, poultices, women’s troubles, pecker pox and –”

  “Ubiquitous,” Bannock cut in, weighing if a swish with some sand would cleanse his tongue.

  She stuffed her ungodly spirits back in the grave where they belonged. “On then. No good slinkin’ through the caves if’n we’re caught by the law or the tide.” She stomped off toward a narrow strip of sand clinging to the cliff base.

  Witt rocked up on his toes, smelling at Bannock’s mouth.

  “What in the hell…” Bannock pushed the lad an arm’s length away.

  “I’m curious!”

  Bannock kicked at Girt’s mound. “Try for yourself.”

  “I’m right enough, thanks.” Witt sniffed the air again and rubbed his belly. “Suddenly want venison, though.”

  “Why hunt the deer when you can just drink it, root vegetables and all?”

  They followed Girt along a narrow defile and across a pool-dotted isthmus that Bannock guessed ceased to exist at high tide. On the far side, mud smeared women crouched with splintered wooden pails clutched between their knees, picking mussels and starfish from the water. They were less aggressively suspicious than Girt, but watched the newcomers pass with an exchange of wary glances.

  When they reached the next narrow shoreline, Girt turned and brandished her finger like a knife. “You tell one bleedin’ soul about this and I’ll geld ya’ both! However long, or far, I’ll keep my word. I done it before!” She gripped a flaccid cloth sack hung from her belt, shook it at them and cackled again as its dry contents rustled.

  Bannock swallowed. Witt crossed his arms to shield himself.

  “On then! Don’t drag arse.”

  They rounded the cliff into an angled cove tucked out of sight from Madainn, and likely all but the smallest passing boats. Men, women, and children in a similar state as Girt peered out from cave mouths set into the cliff. The open space was lined with drying racks, neat rows of Girt’s trusty onions, and rain barrels. But Bannock noted these things were kept near the cliffs, easily tucked away on a moment’s warning.

  Girt stomped over to a ratty lean-to against one wall, hackles raised at a balding man hunched over his still, tending the coals beneath. Concentratedly tending, Bannock thought, almost as though he were avoiding looking at Girt. Or speaking to Girt. Or
recalling that Girt was real.

  “Look at me and speak ta’ me you great daft lump!” shouted Girt, bending her lips at the back of the man’s head.

  “Leave a man some peace, you harpy.” He sounded as though he wanted to shout, and maybe the words had formed in his chest as shout, but the vampire of utter, prolonged weariness robbed them of strength, and they escaped his thin lips as a plea.

  “I won’t! You’re the self-appointed leader of this here shanty shitehole, Jeorge Cooper. So, go be a leader and tell these two hay stalks what they want to know.”

  “This is why she doesn’t carry a knife,” whispered Witt. “She can cut your bollocks off with that razor tongue.”

  Bannock snorted and nudged Witt with an elbow.

  Jeorge’s eyes lolled at the announcement of visitors. His shoulders drew up until they became cheek-jowls and his hunted gaze fell upon the pair. Bannock pursed his lips in what he hoped was a silent conveyance of sympathy.

  “She owe you coin from the cock fights, then?” Jeorge shouted, clutching his purse with the rigored fingers of a dead man.

  “No, no. I just have some questions,” promised Bannock.

  “The fighting bears was all a story, if that’s what she promised you,” said Jeorge, still sitting. “She thinks on the bears when she’s deep in the drink. We had fighting pigs once but they was et last autumn.”

  “Oh, how sad,” said Witt, looking genuinely distressed. Or disappointed.

  Girt expelled a vulgar sound and snatched Jeorge’s ear, twisting and hauling his behemoth frame to full height. “About the goblin hellhole, you donkey’s arse.” She kicked him in the shin and spun away.

  “This is why I tossed you out! I’ve enough of your broken-winged screeching to put me in my grave!” Jeorge kicked sand at her back.

  Girt made a rude gesture over her shoulder. “Tossed me out. I left you! And I’ve enough of this and enough a’ you for all my days! I’m going in to have a lie-down.”

  “Girt…” Jeorge took a step after her. “You’ll be up in time for supper, aye?”

  She turned back, fists on her hips and eye creases soft. “Course I will. Wouldn’t have you sat out ‘ere, eatin’ alone now, would I?”