Blackguards

by J. M. Martin

  “As of this morning, my lord,” Jehrid replied. “Though the Red Breakers remain elusive. Perhaps another week of investigation will root them out. My agents are busy, promise of rich reward always stirs them to greater efforts.”

  “A week is too long,” Brother Sollis stated. “With luck, our assistance will assuage any delays.”

  “The help of the Sixth Order is always welcome, brother,” Jehrid replied before casting a pointed glance at the two missionaries. “However, I confess myself at a loss as to the aid offered by your companions. No offense, good brother and sister, but the hearts of the Red Breakers will not open to the Faith, regardless of how many catechisms you cast at their ears.”

  Sister Cresia’s half-scowl twisted into a smirk, her voice betraying a faint note of contempt as she looked down, muttering “Got more than catechisms to throw at them.”

  Brother Lucin gave her a sharp glance, saying nothing, but the severity of his gaze was sufficient to make her lower her head further, sullenness replacing contempt. “My apologies, my lord,” Lucin said to Jehrid. “My pupil is barely a week into her first foray beyond the walls of our house and knows little of the world or, it seems, common courtesy.” He glared again at Cresia who kept her head lowered, though Jehrid saw her hands were now clasped tight together, quivering a little.

  This girl’s no more a missionary than I am, Jehrid thought. What do they want here?

  “The ranks of my Order are filled with varied talents,” Brother Lucin went on. “The missions test our bodies as well as our Faith. I myself was a hunter before I felt the call to don these robes.”

  No you weren’t, Jehrid surmised from the briefest glance at the brother’s spindly arms and lined but unweathered features. I doubt you spend one more minute out of doors than you have to. However, he merely nodded as the brother continued, “Sometimes my brothers in the Sixth have occasion to call on my tracking skills, when their own talents are otherwise occupied.”

  “We need to see the wreck,” Sollis said.

  “There’ll barely be anything left,” Jehrid told him. “A month of tides will have cleansed the shore of timber, and the sands of tracks.”

  “Even so,” Sollis said, meeting his gaze, pale eyes unblinking.

  Jehrid had been a soldier for twenty of his thirty-three years. He had fought Lonak, outlaws, heretics and, though he preferred not the dwell on it, Meldeneans, and knew himself to be the equal or superior of most men he was likely to meet in combat. But this one was different, for he had never forgotten seeing him fight. Nevertheless, he had ever been a slave to his temper and resentful of those who sought to stir fear in his breast, a long dulled sensation, summoning ugly boyhood memories and unwise notions.

  “May I ask,” he grated, turning to face Sollis squarely, “what interest you have in this particular wreck?”

  Sollis angled his head slightly, expression unchanged apart from a narrowing of his eyes. Jehrid felt his temper quicken yet further at the knowledge of being assessed and, no doubt, found wanting. Fortunately, the Tower Lord intervened before he could give voice to any anger.

  “It seems there was a passenger aboard,” Lord Al Modral groaned, levering himself out of his chair with difficulty, hand trembling on the heavy staff he was obliged to carry these days. Jehrid knew better than to offer assistance, the old man retained a surfeit of pride and had a temper of his own. “A passenger of some importance, eh brother?”

  “Quite so, my lord,” Sollis replied, blinking before switching his gaze to the Tower Lord. “One King Janus is keen to recover.”

  “Every soul on that ship perished on the rocks or drowned in the surf,” Jehrid said. “The Alpiran merchants in town saw to the bodies and did what they could to glean names from their belongings.”

  “The passenger we seek was not among them,” Lucin stated in an emphatic tone Jehrid found near as aggravating as Sollis’s appraising gaze.

  “They’re all dead,” Jehrid repeated. “You come here on a fool’s errand…”

  Lord Al Modral’s heavy staff thumped onto the flagstones. The old man’s legs might be failing but his arm remained strong. The echo birthed by his staff resounded through the chamber for some seconds before he spoke again, “Brothers, and sister, the Lord Collector will be more than happy to escort you to the wreck and render any and all assistance required. Please leave us whilst we discuss other matters.”

  After the trio had made their exit the Tower Lord moved to the stained glass window set into the chamber’s south facing wall. The window was the only vestige of the deposed Lord Al Serahl’s love of expensive ornamentation, conceived to celebrate a battle, and an atrocity, he had taken no direct part in. It was a floor-to-ceiling wonder of expert craftsmanship, lead and glass of various hues rendered into an ascending narrative. At the bottom many ships sailed from a harbor, marked as South Tower by the lance-like structure rising above the docks. The middle panes depicted a vicious sea battle that failed to conform to Jehrid’s memory. Most of the Meldenean fleet had been absent that day and the pirates hadn’t been able to muster even a third of the ships ascribed to them here. Unlike the sea battle, the window’s upper panes were entirely in keeping with Jehrid’s memory: a city…burning. The late afternoon sun was clear of cloud today and painted the scene across the chamber floor in vivid detail, leaving Jehrid unable to escape its dreadful spectacle and the memories it provoked.

  “More than ten years on,” Lord Al Modral said, nodding at the window. “But it seems like yesterday sometimes. Then there are days when it’s just a dim memory, like a fragment from a nightmare you can’t quite shake.”

  “Indeed, my lord,” Jehrid said, keeping his gaze lowered. He hated the window and had in fact petitioned for its destruction. The Tower Lord, however, had far too much respect for the arts to allow it.

  “Before…this,” Al Modral waved his staff at the burning city. “I recall a captain less inclined to anger.”

  “Ten years is a long time, my lord,” Jehrid replied, resisting the impulse to close his eyes. Whoever had crafted the window had somehow managed to capture the exact shade of flame that had consumed the Meldenean capital, though fortunately, there was no art that could recreate the screams.

  “Nevertheless,” Al Modral went on. “I think the King would prefer his Lord Collector keep a clear and level head during this mission.”

  Jehrid blinked, forcing himself to focus on the Tower Lord. “Of course, my lord.”

  “They arrived unannounced, bearing missives from the Aspects of the Second and Sixth Orders, but no royal warrant. Curious, don’t you think? Given that they come on royal business.”

  “Certainly, my lord. Sufficiently curious to require them to wait whilst we seek clarification from court.”

  Al Modral shook his head. “Life as a Lord Marshal taught me many lessons, Jehrid. Lessons you would do well to learn if, as is my fervent wish, you are to succeed me one day in holding this Tower. Today’s lesson is twofold. First, the folly of obstructing the Orders, the Sixth in particular. Second, the value of information. I should like to know the identity of this passenger they seek, and the nature of their business on this shore.”

  Never reckoned him a schemer, Jehrid thought. But the king gave him the Tower for a reason. “I’ll see to it, my lord.”

  “Good.” The Tower Lord placed a hand on his shoulder as they turned and moved back to the chair, the old man more willing to accept aid now there were no witnesses. “And, if this passenger is still alive we know full well who holds them. With the Faith’s help, mayhap you’ll finally find what drew you back to this shore.”

  He settled back onto his chair with a sigh, his hand slipping from Jehrid’s shoulder like a limp rag. “Do you think it’ll be sweet when you finally taste it, my fierce and implacable friend?” he asked. “They say vengeance can be bitter.”

  “It could be wormwood and I’d still drink until my belly bursts.” Jehrid stepped back, dropping to one knee before rising to deliver a
n impeccable salute. “By your leave, my lord.”

  #

  Shelter Bay was a misnamed, rocky notch in the shoreline some thirty miles west of South Tower. It was formed of a hundred yards of beach flanked by tall bluffs. At high tide the sea became a fury of roaring breakers, churned up by the plentiful rocks lurking beneath the surface. They only became visible at low tide, a dark maze of jagged reefs making this such a favored spot for the wrecking gangs.

  They had set out from South Tower the previous evening, Jehrid riding with twenty of his most trusted men. Brother Sollis rode with the two missionaries and a dozen brothers from the Sixth Order. They had camped in the dunes overnight before proceeding to the bay where, contrary to Jehrid’s expectations, the tides had contrived to spare some vestige of the Alpiran vessel.

  She had been named as the Selennah by the Alpiran merchants who came to lay claim to whatever cargo Jehrid might recover, an archaic term but within his grasp of Alpiran: Voyager. An old ship, but large and well captained, though not well enough to resist the lure of the wreckers’ false lights. Jehrid assumed a junior mate must have had the watch when they neared the shore. A veteran sailor would have known better. Three of her arched beams rose from the waves like the bared ribs of some scavenged beast, all that remained of a freighter that had sailed the Erinean and beyond for three decades.

  “And you found no survivors at all?” Sister Cresia asked, eyeing the wreck with little sign of the sullen frown she had worn throughout the journey.

  “The sea is ever an efficient assassin, sister,” Jehrid told her. “Though there were a few with their throats cut, fingers hacked off. Wreckers don’t like to leave witnesses behind, or their jewelry.”

  Her features gave a twitch of mingled disgust and anger which Jehrid found himself liking her for. Some sense of justice behind the scowl, it seems.

  “Best if we three proceed alone,” Brother Lucin said, climbing down from his horse with a discomforted wince. “My…skills work best without distraction.”

  “The sand is bare, as I said it would be,” Jehrid pointed out as Sister Cresia and Brother Sollis followed Lucin to the beach. The balding brother merely waved and kept laboring through the dunes. Jehrid watched the three of them approach the shoreline. For a time Lucin walked back and forth with Sollis and Cresia in tow, pausing occasionally to point at something on the sand before stroking his chin in apparent contemplation. Jehrid had never been one for plays, but he knew a performance when he saw one. Tracker my arse.

  After some further mummery, Lucin came to a halt, turning his gaze out to sea. He stood still for some time, back straight and arms loose at his sides, seemingly uncaring of the waves lapping around his feet and dampening the hem of his robe. Abruptly, Lucin jerked as if in pain, clasping himself tight and doubling over. Sister Cresia came to his side in evident concern but he waved her away. Even from this distance Jehrid could see his hand was trembling.

  “What is this, my lord?” the Sergeant of Excise murmured at his side, swarthy features bunched in suspicion.

  “King’s business!” Jehrid snapped, though in a low voice. “Still your tongue.”

  He watched Lucin say something to Brother Sollis before slumping with a weary shake of his head, kept upright only by Sister Cresia. Jehrid saw Lucin wipe at his nose before turning and raising a hand, now free of any tremble and pointing firmly west. It was too far away to tell for sure, but Jehrid could have sworn the brother’s hand was stained with blood.

  #

  They followed the coast until the sky began to dim, Brother Lucin riding in front with Sollis at his side. Jehrid found it odd that Lucin barely glanced at the ground as he led them in apparent pursuit of the wreckers’ trail. He had no guess as to where the brother was leading them; this stretch of coast was mostly bare of the caves or inlets beloved by smugglers, distinguished by tall cliffs and narrow stretches of shingle where only the most skilled or foolish sailor would seek to ground a boat.

  Lucin and Sollis eventually came to a halt after ascending a steep rise over twenty miles from Shelter Bay. Jehrid trotted his mount closer as Lucin indicated a point a few miles ahead, a narrow channel cutting into the shore where waves broke on a series of tall sandstone columns, each shaped and honed by centuries of tides and wind so that they resembled a line of jagged swords.

  “There,” Lucin said.

  “The Blades?” Jehrid asked, unable to keep the scorn from his voice. “You think the Red Breakers are sheltering in the Blades?”

  “You know this place?” Sollis asked.

  “Everyone raised on the southern shore knows this place, and they know to avoid it. It’s completely unnavigable, even at low tide.”

  “The channel leads to a waterfall, does it not?” Sollis pressed.

  “It does. Pretty enough place but the walls are too steep and damp to climb and free of caves, which is why it’s of no use to the Breakers.”

  He saw the brothers exchange a glance before Sollis gave a small nod. “Not caves,” Lucin said. There was a wariness to his voice, conveying the sense of a secret shared only through dire necessity. “Tunnels, built many years ago.”

  “By who’s hand?” Jehrid asked.

  “The Orders have a long history, my lord,” Lucin replied. “And there are builders in our ranks as well as trackers.”

  “That farce you played on the beach,” Jehrid grunted with a laugh. “Why not simply tell me of these tunnels back in South Tower?”

  “We needed to be certain. And now ask for your discretion.”

  Jehrid glanced again at the Blades, the silent monolithic swords rising from ceaseless white fury. He recalled his first sight of them one frigid morning years ago, shivering at the rail as a large man pulled him into a warm hug and reeled off a list of foolhardy sailors who had ventured too close to this channel, among them his great uncle, dashed to ruin during a desperate gamble at evading the Lord’s bounty-men. “That’s how they kept law in those days,” the large man had told him. “Put a bounty on our heads and set the scum of the fief on our tail. We fought a war to win this shore, boy, though you’ll not find it in any history. Now we have a king, things are more civilized, but blood always pays for blood.”

  “What’s in there?” Jehrid asked Lucin.

  “Something that will remain hidden,” Sollis stated before the tracker could answer. “With your assistance, for which the Faith will ever be grateful.”

  Jehrid had never been particularly scrupulous in his observance, but he had been raised in the Faith and the myriad dangers of a soldier’s life had often found him holding to it with fierce conviction. Also, he had an obligation to honor Lord Al Modral’s desire for information. “You know of a way in?” he asked Lucin.

  #

  Wary of lookouts, Jehrid insisted they approach on foot and in darkness. This scarcely troubled the Brothers of the Sixth, who moved with an unnerving silence and sureness of foot, or his own men, well accustomed to finding their way across darkened country. Brother Lucin and his pupil, however, were not so attuned to stealth.

  “Quiet!” Jehrid hissed at Sister Cresia as her foot contrived to find a rabbit hole, provoking a frustrated yelp. He saw her eyes gleam in the dark as she rounded on him, no doubt ready to deliver a retort, but a nudge from Brother Lucin was enough to still her voice.

  Jehrid could hear the waterfall now, a low, steady rumble drifting across through the small copse of trees where they lay. The narrow but fast flowing river that fed the waterfall gurgled past fifty yards to their left, a clear track to their goal, but guarded. They were only the dimmest shapes in the gloom, wisely denying themselves a fire but well wrapped against the chill, four in two pairs on either side of the river, each hefting a crossbow and moving in tight circles, one never straying from the sight of the other.

  “Easy targets,” Sollis whispered at Jehrid’s side, his bow already in hand, a gull-fletched arrow notched and ready.

  “Wait,” Jehrid murmured as Sollis turned to signal hi
s brothers. “There’s another. One you can’t see. It’ll be the youngest, small enough to be easily hidden. Kill these and he’ll be blasting a horn a second later.”

  Sollis’s lean features remained impassive, though a slight tightness in his voice told of a marked impatience. “This matter requires resolution,” he stated. “One way or another.”

  “Their prisoner, if they truly have one, will die the instant that horns sounds.”

  “The matter requires resolution,” Sollis repeated in the same clipped tone.

  Not here to rescue, Jehrid realized. Only to silence.

  He returned his gaze to the sentries, then scanned the surrounding grassland. This was not his usual hunting ground. Smugglers and wreckers tended to keep to the east, close to the main roads leading to northern towns. Where would he have put me? he pondered, eyes roaming the dim country. The falls are loud enough to mask all but the strongest blast. He would need me close…His gaze came to rest on a small mound near the edge of the spray-damp ledge next to the falls. It would have been easily taken for just a clump of grass in the gloom, but the shape was subtly wrong, the lean of the grass not quite the correct angle for the wind. He grows careless with age.

  Jehrid turned to his sergeant, nodding at the loaded crossbow in his grip and beckoning him closer. He lay at the sergeant’s side and pointed out the mound. “You have it?”

  The sergeant braced the crossbow against his shoulder, settling his cheek against the stock, fingers poised on the lock. “Clear as day, milord.”

  “He’ll stand when the others go down. Don’t miss.” Jehrid inclined his head at Sollis. “As you will, brother.”

  Sollis raised a hand to make a series of complex but rapid signs, seven brothers immediately rising in response and moving to the edge of the copse. They crouched in unison, arrows nocked and bows drawn, all without the barest rustle or creak of straining wood. There was no further instruction from the Brother Commander, he simply drew, aimed and sent his arrow into the chest of the left-most sentry, the man caught in mid-fall by another arrow before disappearing into the grass with barely a groan. Six more bowstrings snapped as one and Jehrid had a scant second to witness the demise of the remaining lookouts before a slim figure jerked upright from the tell-tale mound, a long sailor’s horn raised, back arched as he drew breath. The sergeant’s crossbow snapped and the slim figure had time for a spastic final twist before collapsing from sight.