Blackguards

by J. M. Martin

  The Prince cinched a belt with sword and axe about the waist of his chain shirt and spat in the river.

  "I am, and I speak your tongue, outlander," he declared in clear and well-spoken Galatti. "What business would you have?"

  Raddox's eyes twinkled. "A pleasure to finally meet you, Prince of the Tarqs."

  Then the golden autumn air filled with the whistle of streaking arrows.

  Three of Prince Vyan's men went down straight away under Old Oliver's hail from the south. The Prince himself took an arrow through the calf and two more of his men limped away wounded as well.

  Men scurried for cover. Horses screamed and reared in panic. The chaos of battle set in.

  "Boys!" Raddox bellowed. He ripped the spear from his stirrup and hefted his shield. "Have at 'em! Spare the Red-Haired Prince!"

  With a laughing roar Raddox charged and the sixty men remaining in his vanguard came on with him. Horses snorted and dashed through the bubbling river, pounding across the ford in a thunderous wave.

  Scrambling, desperate, out-manned, the Tarqs tried to reach their mounts to escape. Well-placed arrows cut more of them down, dumping them into the rocky river brush in choking bloodied heaps.

  Raddox's howling horde was upon them as fast as they could gain their mounts.

  A hulking yellow-bearded Tarq shivered Raddox's shield with a two-handed blow from a great iron axe. Twisting in the saddle, Raddox plunged his spear down through the Tarq's throat in a bloody tear.

  To his right, a bald-headed Tarq wearing a black wolf-pelt on his shoulder unhorsed poor Turro and stoved his head in with a scarred old mace. Knobber from Gilder Bay put a spear through the brute's back and ended him.

  As his men poured onto the Tarqs like an avalanche, Raddox swung down from his stirrups and stalked through the melee in search of the Prince.

  Shin deep in the river, hobbled by the arrow through his calf, and bleeding from handful of cruel cuts, Raddox found the Prince hedged in by four of his boys.

  A Tarq with a tattooed face and gory gash in the side of his head charged from the chaos to come at Raddox swinging a long handled axe. Raddox got his broken shield between the tattooed Tarq and the axe for two swings, recovered his footing, and shoved back with a brutal shield bash. The Tarq was unbalanced and Raddox rushed in low, bringing his spear up with a twist, knifing it through his enemy's leathers deep into his ribs. Grinding his blade in the savage's chest, Raddox drove him to the ground and finished him.

  It was over as quick as it had begun.

  Of the prince's twelve men, all but two were dead and the Prince himself was surrounded in a growing ring of Raddox's fighters.

  "Enough!" Raddox roared. "Throw down or die!" Old Oliver's boys closed in from the south and bent their bows. Raddox's vanguard tightened the circle, bristling with cruel steel. The only sounds were the last moans of the dying, the screams of horses, the sigh of the wind, and the babble of the river over the rocks.

  Prince Vyan spat a mouthful of hot blood and pitched his sword and axe into the stream in disgust. His last two men followed his example.

  "Good," Raddox grumbled. "Get him up here." Once ashore, Bolbo cracked the Tarqish Prince in the small of the back with the butt of his spear and drove him to his knees. Wounded and stunned, the Prince of the Tarqs knelt and complied.

  "You belong to me," Raddox told the Prince as he cast aside his ruined shield and stripped off his gauntlets. "I intend to keep you and ransom you back to your little cunt of a father, that is if he's king enough and has cock enough to come get you." Raddox made sure the furious Prince met his eyes. "Do you understand?"

  The Tarqish Prince nodded.

  "Tell them," Raddox ordered, nodding toward Prince Vyan's remaining men.

  Eyes burning with hate, face streaked with blood and sweat, the Tarqish Prince did as his captor commanded. He spoke to his men in the tongue of the Tarqs and as he spoke they looked sickened and stunned. Raddox figured that meant they got the point.

  "Send them back to your father-king," the mercenary captain ordered. "You tell them I'll trade your sorry hide back to him for ten thousand crown or its equal. Not a penny less. And you tell 'em, if he don't pay, then I'm gonna drag ya behind my horse all the way to Westergate, tar ya, string ya up in a tree, and set ya on fire. Divine help me so."

  The Prince relayed this to his battered kinsmen.

  "You're a good fighter," Raddox offered. "Some of your men was even fair fighters. But I'm gonna have a piss in your face anyway, just so your boys here know I'm serious."

  Prince Vyan scowled and Raddox's men clamped down on him and held him firm as their Captain unlaced and proceeded to piss in the captive Prince's face. The Prince's surviving men howled in outrage, just as Raddox intended.

  They seemed to get the message.

  "Cut 'em loose," Raddox ordered when it was done. The two surviving Tarqs scrounged up a single healthy mount between them and rode off frantically back toward the northwest.

  The wind shivered the forest again, bringing down another shower of golden leaves as the boys of the Blackfish finished off the enemy wounded and tended their own.

  The gambit was only just begun, but whichever way it turned out, this would be the last big score for the Captain of the Blackfish. Soldiering was a young and lucky man's game, and Raddox Edorian knew he was fast running out of both.

  #

  By the time Raddox was done with his story, bath time was over and he was drunk and hard and ready to make the little bronze skinned doe weep. He groped and grabbed and she laughed and played, but rather than take him to the bed, she led him back to the wooden bench. Drunk and chuckling, he flopped down beside his gear and pawed at her.

  She grinned and babbled at him in that meaningless language of hers and carefully, she pulled away, showing him gestures that seemed to indicate she was willing, but that she wanted him to wait a moment.

  Raddox was drunk and happy and miserable, so he complied.

  When she came back to him she brought a black silken satchel with her. It was decorated in a beautiful constellation of silver thread. She set the satchel beside him on the bench and began to meticulously move through its contents. The girl produced several little vials of ink and a quill adorned with a red and black feather.

  Raddox laughed. "What's this about?"

  The girl smiled. Reaching into the satchel, she produced a polished bronze mask. Giggling she placed it over her face, but it had no slits for eyes, mouth, or nostrils. Its surface was solid, and Raddox saw it was the face of a man, not a woman. There was something familiar in the shape of the face, but without eyes, beard, hair, and the tone of polished bronze rather than flesh, it eluded him.

  The girl peeked out from behind the mask, grinned lustily, and set it aside.

  She was half Raddox's size, if that, and he wanted to manhandle her like a doll. But she laid a gentle hand in the middle of his chest, gave his manhood a playful squeeze, and he played along, drunk and laughing.

  She opened her three inkwells and dipped the quill in each. Then, with fluid and practiced movements, a mischievous smile on her face the entire time, she began to inscribe flowing calligraphy across his bare chest. The ink, so dark as to be almost black, but not quite, did not run in the damp heat of the room.

  Raddox wondered what ridiculous Kosian love ritual this was and how long he'd be tattooed by the little girl's handiwork. Surely she was invoking the blessing of some little goatish love goddess before bouncing away merrily on his cock like she was paid to do. He chuckled and prattled on while she tickled his skin with her little quill.

  "Oh, hell, did the boys love to torment that damn Prince," he muttered. "And they did. They fed him live rats and made him piss in his own face." Raddox laughed without humor. "Guess I inspired 'em, huh? And his father-king was gonna pay up too, if you can believe that. He was riding to treat with us at Grippa when that little cunt of a son of his tries to escape. Well…we couldn't have that, could we? So Old Oliver puts
two arrows in the Prince's back and there wasn't nothing for it then but to take the hammer to his head and be done with it."

  Raddox's face darkened, and his eyes grew once more distant, the little girl scribbling her funny sigils across his body all but forgotten. His grim smile was all teeth and no joy.

  "The King of the Tarqs was mighty unhappy when he rode up to pay his ransom and found his son and kinsmen all dead. You shoulda seen his face when I says to him 'Your son was worth ten thousand…how much is you worth?"' The grizzled mercenary laughed, both sickened and amused by his own story.

  "Ah, we set on the big gray-bearded bastard then. Set on him good. Killed half his men and kicked the gooseshit outta the other half." Raddox nodded, self-satisfied. "Then they got away…the King and his men we'd offended…Just like they was supposed to."

  The girl offered no reply. She continued to scribble away with dexterous little flickers of her quill.

  "Then the Prince's brothers, they just kept comin' south. Smashed right into Outer Galadyr, burning farms and sacking at Valnya. And that…was that. There was war then, whether anybody wanted it or not."

  Raddox nodded. "A job done perfectly, I estimate. And so we was heading home to get paid." He was suddenly very quiet. His distant eyes teared up and his voice got husky. "I got a funny feelin' about it, ya know? Like maybe what we done wasn't something the men who'd hired us could afford to let get out. And they're the sort o' men who can move mountains if it suits 'em."

  A tear fell then. Just one. It rolled down his scruffy cheek and dripped from his chin to land on his rune-inscribed chest. The ink did not run, even under the salty tear.

  "So I did a very uncaptainly thing to my boys," Raddox said. "I robbed 'em blind and I ran. Took everything I could carry and made for a port and a boat as fast as I could fly." He blinked the tears away and tried to laugh. "And I wasn't wrong. Misfortune done caught up to all my boys, one by one, and fast. Tall men got their war. I got my boys' gold. My boys got their deaths."

  Raddox wanted to reach out for his goblet of wine. He didn't like feeling these things, and wine was a cure for that.

  Only then did he realize he couldn't move.

  There was no humor left on the girl's face as she finished the last rune with a flare of her quill. She stood up, naked and beautiful, skin glistening in the steamy bath chamber heat.

  But Raddox felt suddenly cold.

  Weight pushed in on his chest, making it hard to breathe. With each breath he let out, the pressure tightened, making the next one he took in smaller and smaller.

  "Wha…." he wheezed, frozen as a statue as the girl produced a small, keen, curved knife from the black satchel, wicked as a barber's razor.

  The runes inked on his flesh seeped into his skin, like glowing iron melting into ice, but cold rather than hot, dark rather than vibrant. No poison could take him, not with the runes of protection about his throat. There were few men he feared to face with steel in hand.

  But this witchcraft, this was something he was wholly unprepared for.

  Helpless, he watched as ghostly faces of his dead and betrayed comrades began to appear in the mist and the incense smoke. First one. Old Oliver. Then poor Turro. Knobber. Five Fingered Jack. They were there. They were coming.

  His breath was gone. His lungs would not expand.

  "What do you see?" the girl whispered to him flawlessly in his mother tongue, even though clearly he could not answer.

  The ghosts in the mist pressed in around them as she took up the glittering, evil razor. They whispered to him in the flickering nightmarish gloom. "Welcome, brother."

  Voice by ghostly voice, the chorus grew. Raddox would have screamed if he'd had the breath to do so. He looked desperately to the girl but found no more comfort there.

  Taking up the little silver blade, she angled it along his jaw.

  With a long, sweet final kiss, she began to cut.

  #

  Half a world away and many weeks later, Giori Dondain glided along the docks of Westergate like an alley cat. The hour was late and legitimate business was sparse. The groan of old planks, the creaking of ropes, the lap of the sea, the occasional bursts of distant laughter from the sailors' taverns. These were the only sounds.

  Giori was accustomed to this environment and the lateness of the hour. Such was his trade, from his days as a humble knife-boy for the Harbor Rats to his more lucrative and recent days currying favor with the wealthy and powerful. There was no rough dock or darkened alley that intimidated Giori Dondain.

  Meeting face to face with one of the Gray Sisters, however, was another matter. Dwelling on it too much slowed his pace and made his feet heavy, so he did his best to put it out of his mind.

  The ship he sought flew beneath a Sundish flag and he could read the rolling foreign script on the fantail marking it as the Silver Voyager.

  He walked up the gangplank like he owned the ship and the hidden shadows guarding the deck did nothing to bar his passage.

  He found her waiting for him below in a chamber lit by a single lantern.

  She was a tiny woman, a raven-haired beauty with rich bronze skin and dark almond shaped eyes. Her attire was simple, functional. She was the embodiment of stillness, seated at a small round table beside the pale glowing lantern. There were no guards with her in the chamber and no weapon in sight. That did nothing to ease Giori's sense of apprehension.

  "It is done," she said softly, her voice touched with the accent of Valar.

  "Are you certain?" Giori asked.

  The woman smiled. "With the certainty of my own hand." Reaching down beside the table, she produced a box and slid it across to Giori.

  With a nervous swallow, Giori removed the lid from the box and did his best to hide his revulsion. He'd seen his far share of violence, done his share of killing. Brutality and death were never pretty.

  However, he'd never seen a man's surgically skinned face so meticulously tanned and mounted to a bronze mask before. That was a first, even for a scoundrel as worldly as Giori. The likeness of Raddox Edorian was unmistakable. Alien and lifeless, with bronze teeth showing between thin lips and empty bronze eyes showing through sleepy, half-closed lids, but it was the man, nonetheless. Pale as fallen snow and dead as a doll, the fate of Raddox Edorian was certain as far as Giori was concerned.

  "We are…most pleased," Giori offered, putting the lid back on the ghoulish box. "All arrangements will be seen to, in good faith, as promised."

  "Good," the tiny woman offered with a gracious nod.

  "If we were…to need your services again, how would I find you?"

  "You and I will never see each other again," the woman assured him plainly. "But if you have need of us, my Sisters will find you. As we did before."

  "Understood," Giori offered with a forced, but charming smile. He swallowed and asked the hardest question of the night. "As…arranged…there are no means known to…compel Raddox Edorian to divulge secrets…even in death?" Most men would scoff at such a notion, but Giori knew it to be possible. He'd seen it, with his own horrified eyes. His employer knew it to be possible too.

  The little woman smiled, radiant and beautiful, even in the pale lamplight.

  "He who holds this, holds all the man's secrets," she offered, touching the tips of her fingers lightly to the gruesome box. "I assure you, no man's soul escapes the Long Kiss."

  The price of such assurances was nothing short of monstrous. But there were men in this world who could pay such prices. Giori's employer was among them.

  With that the little woman rose from behind the table, handed Giori his box, took him by the hand and led him back above decks to the gangplank.

  "It has been a pleasure," the Gray Sister told him. Then, stretching up on tiny tiptoes, she kissed him on the cheek in parting.

  For a moment, Giori's breath froze in fear, then he let it trickle slowly out.

  The woman smiled, her eyes twinkling in the moonlight.

  "Fear not," she said. "That is
only a small kiss."

  Giori, wanting no part of her kisses, Long or small, counted his blessings and shuffled quickly down the gangplank with his gruesome box. Before he was out of sight down the docks, the Silver Voyager's rowers were underway and she was moving into the harbor, sails unfurling in the moonlight.

  Neither she, nor the Gray Sister, would ever visit Westergate again.

  Of course, neither would Raddox Edorian. Or his secrets.

  The White Rose Thief

  Shawn Speakman

  When I finished writing The Dark Thorn, I knew I would further explore its dangerous fey world of Annwn.

  “The White Rose Thief” does that. It is the story of Rosenwyn Whyte, a musician with a dark past, a woman possessed of talents that are coveted by the evil and powerful alike. A repentant thief, she is coerced to steal powerful magic from a creature thought dead. Of course, things are not as they seem. I wanted to look at how being born different could affect a person’s life; I wanted to look at how those differences could push a person into a life they did not want--and possibly and ultimately save them.

  I hope you enjoy the path Rosenwyn Whyte must tread.

  ~

  The final note of the crwth died in silence, followed by raucous applause.

  Rosenwyn Whyte lowered the stringed instrument and its bow, inclining her head in polite recognition. The audience cheered all the more. She sat upon a slightly elevated stage at the Raging Drunk, the largest inn and tavern in Annwn’s northern city of Mur Castell, no other musicians accompanying her. Although larger than most, the Raging Drunk was like many such establishments she often played—smoky, loud, and the odor of crowded, unwashed humanity mingling with beer grown long sour. It attracted patrons from all castes, from the wealthy sitting in the upper balconies to the vagabonds who had managed to escape the notice of burly Byl Cornwyll, the owner. The Everwinter drove all of them inside, its snow and ice an indiscriminate hardship for all, while music and drunken fellowship offered the only solace.