by Greg James
“An errand,” Murtagh said, ignoring Khale’s slight. “The King wishes you to perform ... an errand.”
“An errand?” Khale burst out laughing. “An errand? Does he think I’m his squire? Tell him to go fuck himself.”
Murtagh and Leste did not move.
“Go on, both of you. Get out and thank the Gods’ bones you made me laugh. I’ve grown short of good humour in these marshes.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Leste said.
Khale’s laughter trailed off. He drew himself erect once more. “I said go. It’ll be worse for you if you stay. These men are hungry. They’re angry. They’ve not had a woman in months, and an old man will do just as well for some of them. I’ll give you to them. You’ll be dead by morning.”
Leste stared into his eyes. “I understand your ... unwillingness, Master Khale. Men you call companions have been slain by the Watch. You do not wish to take coin from those who have ordered their deaths.”
Khale snorted. “These men are mine, but they’re not my brothers nor my friends. There’s no honour among thieves, little girl. Whoever’s knife is the sharpest wins. Whoever holds the most power is the strongest, that is the law. The only law.”
For some reason, she felt he was talking of more than the law of brigands.
“Then, why do you refuse?”
“For one thousand golden-eyes? My man already told you. I have ten thousand golden-eyes to spare. I want more than I’ve got.”
“How much more?”
“Make it double and we have something to talk about.”
“Twenty thousand golden-eyes?” she whispered.
“Aye, that’s more like it.”
“That’s a fortune. Ten fortunes, at least.”
“Kings have fortunes, do they not? I want Alosse’s in my saddlebags. Unless he does not have twenty thousand. Does he?”
“I ... I don’t know.” Leste stammered.
Murtagh shook his head, bewildered.
“Then you’d better go and ask him.” Khale laughed. “I’ll have a man at The Black Rat just before sundown tomorrow. Be there. He’ll find you. Then, we can talk terms about this errand of the King’s.”
Leste could tell he was not bluffing. He would not move from this camp for less than twenty thousand golden-eyes. Colm was poor; he knew it, and yet he was trying to bankrupt the city with his price.
He nodded towards the tent flap. She went through after Murtagh. There was a strange air about Khale, something more than mere grace or authority. She would have said it was power, strength perhaps, but the flickering yellow sheen of his eyes made her think of worse terms to describe his presence: malevolent, corrupt, benighted.
Evil.
*
They left the camp without being molested, though she could feel eyes watching her, and she heard a few tuneless whistles echo from among the rabble of tents. She guided her horse with care through the marshes; it felt a long, lonesome ride before the dim lights of Colm showed them the way through the mist.
Murtagh was not in a talkative mood. His eyes were set dead ahead, and he was no doubt thinking of the grim news he was bringing the King.
A wolf-whistle pierced the gloom, and dark figures emerged from the mist. Their faces were haggard, and she recognised the one leading—Ihlos, the mercenary from The Black Rat; the one whose cock she’d notched with her knife.
Murtagh saw them and spoke. “We have no quarrel with you. We have spoken with Khale, and we are returning to Colm.”
“Well, that may be,” the mercenary said, “but I have a quarrel with you.”
Leste dismounted and drew her sword.
“Leste, don’t be a fool,” Murtagh said.
She ignored him, watching them come. They were swaying on their feet, drunk and in a raping mood. It was in their eyes. She wanted to disembowel every single one of them, and she was certain they could see the anger etched across her face.
Leste breathed in as slowly as she could and tried to centre herself, tried to look them in the eyes. She saw in them only promises to do to her what had been done to the Red Woman of the old tales. One of them roared, and she braced herself as they came for her. Clumsy fists collided with air, thighs and calves were sliced by the flash of her sword, and arms raked by quick, nimble strikes. Murtagh still on his horse, rode into them with a cry of, “Colm and the King!”
Murtagh’s sword flickered, a silver tongue in the night, and one of the mob lost his head. It fell to the boggy ground and sank down into the marsh. Leste watched the face sink, seeing how young it was and seeing also a curious change come over the others. Murtagh had slain the youngest, the pup, and the eyes of the others seemed to burn all the blacker for it. The set of their shoulders became meaner. Before, this had been a drunken frolic, as much as rape and murder could be, but the death of one of their own made things serious. They closed in around Leste and Murtagh. The older man yelled as a meaty hand grabbed his leg and dragged him from his horse. The animal reared, kicked, and bolted, leaving them to their fate. Leste’s steed soon followed its brother.
Only a great shape, suddenly storming out of the night, deterred the would-be murderers from their task. It was him—Leste saw the wan light of his reptilian eyes.
It was Khale.
She watched as he took the mob apart.
Leste had been taught to fight by men who thought in terms of grace and honour. Khale was something else; he fought as a brute though there was skill in his movements. The kind that is born in the blood rather than taught by ageing tutors. For every blow he landed with his sword’s edge, he drove an elbow into a throat, a knee into chest or groin. He used his heavy feet to grind the whining flesh and bone of those who had fallen.
Khale’s arms fastened around the throat of Ihlos, the mercenary. He twisted the head sharply. She heard bone and cartilage crack. The mercenary dropped to the ground—dead. She was not sorry to see him die.
Khale spared her a glance, “Go! Get back to Colm and your barracks. I have to discipline these dogs.” He broke a man’s arm across his knee to punctuate the last word.
Leste nodded.
Murtagh took her arm, and they ran for Colm’s gates. She wondered why Khale had followed them. Had he meant to protect them on the road back to Colm? Or was he a predator himself, a cur in the dark, seeking slaughter and no more?
*
The city of Colm had seen better days—much, much better.
The King’s castle sat upon an earthwork hill overlooking its four districts. The earthwork was enclosed by a bailey with high, spiked battlements that bore numerous murder-holes and arrow-slits, as well as the rotting heads of traitors, murderers and unfortunates. A deep moat separated the King from his beloved subjects.
The defences of the city itself were less splendid with the watch-towers atop the gates falling into ruin, held in place by fate and chance as much as timbers and mortar.
The Kingsway, which Leste and Murtagh walked along, formed the boundary between the Merchant and Highblood districts. The road also divided the Church’s district so that it was able to flank the castle on both sides. The Pig District, the poorest, was to the rear of the castle and was considered to be beneath all others. But decades of poverty and war had brought all of the districts down at the heel in many ways.
Leste could feel the weight of bodies around her; all of them dreamed and hoped that the King would keep them safe from the war that was ripping the land apart. Brigand-chiefs like Khale were not the worst of the self-declared lords, barons, or dukes out there; they were just the ones that lacked of great halls and thrones to sit upon.
Leste had been born long after the war began. She knew no different. Her adoptive grandmother had told her stories when she was little; about the great Kings who once ruled from far-off Anaerthe Morn. The Bright City of the Kings was lost now, and there had been war ever since, as men and women who dreamed of absolute power repeatedly carved up the land again and again between themselves. None
were ever satisfied with what they gained; they always craved more. And so the bloodshed went on, with no end in sight. Some said it had lasted for only a few hundred years, others said it was nearing a thousand. The land was tired and worn from the fighting. The days grew darker and the sun was seen less and less in the sky.
Soon, she thought, there must come an end to this Hell. There must be a way.
She knew the King saw not how to bring peace to all of the land, but he did wish to protect his city and its people.
That was why he needed Khale.
But Khale wanted money, a lot of money.
Leste did not expect their audience with the King to go well.
Chapter Three
“How much?” asked King Alosse.
“Twenty thousand golden-eyes, your Grace,” Leste repeated.
The old man on the throne became even more shrunken and withered than he already was. His crown of polished blackwood looked too heavy for his brow, and his frail limbs were swallowed by his rich, but aged, robes of green and burgundy.
“Twenty thousand. Do we have twenty thousand, Murtagh?”
“Barely, your Grace,” said the Captain.
“The man’s a monster, demanding so much of us. Can’t he see we are weak, that we are poor? He would see this kingdom bleed and weep just to fatten his purse,” the King spat.
“With respect, your Grace,” Leste said. “Khale is a lowlife, a lawless creature that haunts fenlands and barrows with a blade in his hand to cut the throats of the innocent for a few coins. We cannot, and should not, expect gentle treatment from such a man.”
“But who else is there?” asked the King. “The men and women of the Watch will not do for the errand that must be undertaken.”
“And why not, if I may ask, your Grace?”
“Because they are not Khale,” he answered.
“I would consider that to be a compliment, your Grace.”
“Not in this matter. It has to be him.” He sighed. “And we will have to pay him as he demands.”
“And bankrupt the city, your Grace? You speak insanity,” Murtagh said.
“I speak plainly,” the King said. “Better for us to be penniless and alive than to hoard our treasures only for Hruth Farness or Milius Barneth to take them from us.”
“Your Grace—”
The King’s gaze silenced Murtagh; it was the only strength the decrepit man seemed to have left. “It is agreed. Captain, you will meet with Khale’s man and tell him that Colm will pay his Master the sum of twenty thousand golden-eyes. You will then ask for his Master to attend us at court, so I may tell him of the errand I wish performed.”
“I understand, your Grace,” Murtagh said, tonelessly.
Leste thought of the children who sat in the gutters of Colm, with dirty water eddying around their ankles. The pale moons of their faces made hollow and cratered by sleepless nights and by their parents’ despair. With Alosse’s words in her ears, she felt sure a greater darkness was coming to overtake them—a darkness that might well slay them all.
*
Somewhere in Colm, two figures met in shadow and talked in halting whispers.
“We do not have twenty thousand golden-eyes in the city coffers. We have less than ten.”
“True, but I could not tell them that now, could I? There would be questions about where it had all gone and who we were paying it to.”
“To Farness and Barneth,” the other said, “to keep them from the city gates. You could have told them that.”
“No, no. It would mean my head on a spike. The King’s old—old enough to believe in chivalry, courage, justice and meeting your foe in battle on horseback. It would be our feet kicking from the market gallows if he knew Colm was only free because we were paying for it to stay so.”
“But what are we going to do? He wants to pay this Khale.”
“Khale will only be paid if he returns from this errand the King speaks of.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We are going to ensure that there are one or two ... difficulties … on his way. Be sure, my friend, he will not pass through the gates of Colm more than once.”
The two figures separated and went their own ways.
Chapter Four
Leste watched Khale stride into the court chamber and how all eyes quickly moved away from him. It was as she’d first thought: there was something about his presence that seemed wrong; a sense that he should not Be. She was sure it was a mere trick of the light, but the lanterns and sconces set around the walls of the court appeared to dim momentarily as he entered. Through the damp shadows of the court, a mountain walked. He did not bow, nor make any show of respect before the throne. He stood plainly in his furs and rags and met the gaze of the King.
“Alosse.”
No formality, Leste thought. He knows no respect for his betters. He approached the throne without being bidden to do so.
“Master Khale,” Alosse said, “you are welcome to our humble court and we extend the hospitality, the little that we have to offer, of Colm and its people to you.”
Leste watched a smile cross the brigand chief’s rude features. “Hospitality? Is that what you call it when your men ride down my own, run them through, and toss their bodies in the marshes to rot?”
Leste spoke before she could check herself. “They are brigands. They steal and kill. They get what they deserve.”
Khale turned on her and his face was tight with rugged lines. “You seem very sure of dealing in life and death, girl.”
“Those who kill without honour deserve the same fate.”
“Ah, deserve. There’s another word you don’t understand.”
“Lady of the Watch,” King Alosse said. “Please. Master Khale is our guest. Though we follow different roads in life, this is a time when those roads have crossed and we needs must meet as fellows, not as foes.”
Khale grunted, turned away from Leste, and addressed Alosse once more. “Your hospitality will do, Alosse. Now, you sent word of an errand and the gold that would go with it.”
“Master Khale, you agree to our terms?”
“I have agreed, as your Captain can testify. Now, I want to know more of this errand you wish to send me on.”
“Very well. As a man of the brigands yourself, you cannot help but be aware of the riven state of the land.”
“I find it to be profitable, Alosse, riven or not. It is to my liking, for the time being.”
“That being as it may,” the King went on, “Colm is poor and we share borders with the kingdoms of Farness and Barneth.”
“I know the names. I believe my men have robbed them well, and I have slain some of their men,” he said with a crooked smile and a glance at Leste.
She shifted her feet and ran her fingers over the pommel of her sword. He spoke of killing with such cold relish in his voice.
“Farness and Barneth are our superiors in men and wealth. When the time comes, Colm will fall before them and its people be trampled under their feet.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“This is why I wish to ask you, Master Khale, to perform a sacred duty for this kingdom.”
“A sacred duty? Interesting. Go on.”
“I need you to journey with my daughter, Milanda, to Neprokhodymh, where she will be wedded to the Autarch.”
Khale studied Alosse, and then Leste and the other guards and courtiers scattered about the chamber. He burst into raucous laughter. “Neprokhodymh? I’m glad I made the price twenty thousand. That nest of sorcerers and warlocks is home only to suicide and death.”
“So it is,” said the King, “and those who dwell there are powerful. The Autarch is a man who not even fierce Lord Barneth would dare to cross.”
Khale, his laughter spent, replied, “It is your wealth and blood that you are squandering on this foolhardy journey, Alosse, but I will take one and ferry the other as you wish.”
Leste looked at him and wished she could fathom the undercurre
nts to his words. She could feel in her gut that Khale had said something to Alosse, something significant that was between the two of them alone, but she could not tell what.
“Very well.” Alosse clapped. “Let the banquet to honour our guest commence.”
*
Khale sat beside Alosse at the long table; though this drew many disgruntled looks from the courtiers, none were brave enough to challenge him on his rudeness. The simple, languid brutality with which he tore into the roasted quail and partridge being served left little to the imagination regarding his strength.
Leste found herself wishing the truth were not true as she supped her wine and picked at her meat, black bread, and dried fruit.
This was more of a welcome than a brigand chief deserved in the King’s court. But these were hard times, and she understood that the King believed he needed Khale even though she thought he did not. It was not her place to question her liege.
The minstrels began to play earnestly on their fiddles and harps as maidens, coifed with flowers and dressed in plain white frocks, danced barefoot into the court chamber. They pivoted and spun with grace. They frolicked, wove, and swayed in time with the lilting melodies and strident rhythms. Leste watched them blandly. She did not like dancing and wondered, for a time, where Murtagh was. He should be here.
Looking along the table, she noticed that Khale’s face had altered as he watched the dancing girls; its beetle-brow crags creased and furrowed. If she had not known better, Leste would have said they were showing the lines of all the centuries he had lived.
“Get them away! Away from me—now! Out, I say, out!” he shouted, hurling his wine-cup at the girls.
Alosse rose and clapped his hands sharply, making the girls scatter back through the doors and the minstrels fall silent.
“Master Khale, what ails you?” he enquired gently.
“A memory,” was all Leste heard. A raw whisper from the back of Khale’s throat. “An old ghost or two. Nothing more.”
Khale sat up straight and the feast continued, more subdued than before, and with even more of the courtiers and guards regarding the brigand chief with open fear on their faces. After the feast was done, many excused themselves, leaving only Alosse, Khale, and Leste remaining at the table while the servants cleared away the dishes and flagons.