by Tom Lloyd
With one strong hand she gripped the man’s wrist to keep his knife clear as she used her own bodyweight to bear him to the ground. She sank her teeth into his cheek for good measure, biting deep and shaking her head like a terrier, tearing a chunk of flesh from his face. The man shrieked as she pulled back. By now others had arrived and were kicking and stamping at them both in their frenzy. She felt him release his grip on his knife and she deftly scooped it up, and stabbed down furiously.
It was a killing blow, she knew that, but she kept going, artlessly slashing and stabbing until she was dragged off the brutalised corpse. She fell to the ground and let the knife fall from her hand as she looked around. There was fear and anger on the faces of the beggars around her, but more than a few looked back at Ruhen with concern. No one looked at all concerned with Ardela’s savage killing of the man and she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d just been quicker than the rest – they would all have done the same for their saviour.
She kept on her knees, fighting the urge to run before her assassination attempt was discovered. No venom was instantaneous, and once he saw the dart Ilumene would be on the lookout. All around them the Harlequins were spreading out, their swords drawn, and the crowd withdrew.
Then Ardela saw Ruhen hold something up to his bodyguard. Ilumene took it and inspected the dart quickly. ‘Wait,’ he called angrily, ‘check them all! One of them has a blowpipe!’
Ardela was careful to look around in bewilderment with the rest of Ruhen’s Children as the Harlequins converged upon the crowd. She knew it wouldn’t be long until they started to check the beggars too, and in the meantime anything suspicious could mean her death, but the longer the confusion took, the longer the venom would have to work.
After Aracnan’s poisoning had been exacerbated by his attempts to heal himself with magic, they would be hesitate before running to the nearest mage. Ruhen was a little boy, and ice cobra venom was fast-acting. It could be as little as five minutes before his throat closed up and the little saviour of Byora breathed his last.
A pair of Harlequins started directing the disordered crowd, and at last Ardela stood up and joined them as they began to stumble away from Ruhen. She saw Venn kneel, concern abruptly flourishing on his tattooed face.
Never send a man to do a woman’s job, Ardela thought to herself, recalling the Brotherhood’s failed assault on the Ruby Tower a few months before.
She watched Ruhen put his hand to his temple and felt a cruel sense of satisfaction rise inside her. The venom was already starting to act. Dizziness was the first sign. She just had to hope that it was also a symptom of seadiamond venom, the poison that had almost killed Aracnan. If even half of what the Brotherhood said about Illumene was true, he would know all the vicious little details; she didn’t need him to realise too soon a mage could be used.
Venn raised a hand towards Ruhen, but Ilumene grabbed it and shook his head. Ardela was too far away to hear their words, but she could imagine the debate easily enough: how long would they have? How long before the venom could not be purged and they would need a healer instead? How lethal was seadiamond venom when amplified by magical energy?
Ardela was fifty yards away when she saw Ilumene come to a decision. He wrenched the wrapped sword from his back and began to unroll it.
What in the name of Death’s bony cock is going on there? Ardela started to struggle against the bodies pushing her away, fighting to maintain her view. Another prickle went down her spine, this time one of foreboding. A sixth sense told her the glory of her success was about to be stolen, though she had no idea how Ilumene’s spare sword could help.
The last fold of cloth was removed just as a bulky man moved in front of her, shielding her view. Ardela bit back a curse and battered the man aside just in time to see a glitter of light emanate from the wrapped weapon. Ruhen put his hand around the shining sword and cried out in pain, his high voice clear against the scuffle of feet and muttered protests from the crowd. Ardela gasped in astonishment and stopped resisting the press of bodies around her, allowing herself to be carried away by the crowd.
What just happened? What the fuck just happened? she wanted to scream, knowing that if she did her death was assured.
What was that shining sword? How can a sword counteract ice cobra venom, for Fate’s sake? What just happened to my victory?
The prickle down her neck became a cold shard of ice.
Ardela took the long route to the Deragers’ wine shop, then spent an hour watching the Beristole, the dead-end street where it was located, as well as the surrounding tangle of alleys. A less paranoid agent might have missed the signs, but Ardela had survived this long only by assuming everyone was trying to kill her.
The busy dead-end street was a street market during the day. Normally that meant a dearth of city guardsmen around the Beristole – the merchants had licence to police the area themselves – but not today. And they’re not useless amateurs either, Ardela noted as she watched a thin prostitute briefly catch the eye of a man at a window over the road. There are altogether too many innocent little gestures going on in this street – they might still be a bit green and lacking subtlety, but whoever trained them knows what they’re about.
She’d stopped for a hurried scrub in the cracked basin at the inn where she’d left her belongings and a change of clothes. That turned out to be all for the better; if it was her they were looking for and she’d managed to get here first, she’d have not been getting out of the wine shop any time soon.
The prostitute loitered within the shelter of a tavern’s side door, keeping a low profile in a dress modest enough not to induce the ire of the local matrons. She could have been a merchant’s young wife herself easily enough, but for the symbols of Etesia, Goddess of Lust, incorporated into the posy of flowers on her bodice. At the front window was a barman who was paying too much attention to the mug he was drying, while over the street a pair of drivers lounged on their empty cart rather too obviously to be in the employ of anyone nearby.
Add that to the face at the window, a pair of labourers waiting for work on the corner and complaining about their feet, and a beggar near Ardela whose patter lacked the usual mix of resignation and hope, and she was pretty sure she had marked out each assigned section of the street.
Eight at least and almost certainly more on the Beristole itself. That’s a lot of bodies for one foreign agent.
She slipped away from the main highway and into a side street and waited by a street vendor’s stall to watch for anyone following. A scarf covered the uneven mess of her scalp, but there was little she could do about the bruising on her face and she saw a spark of something other than pity in his eyes as he turned to her.
‘Over from Burn today?’ he inquired in a soft accent, looking her up and down as he continued rolling out flatbreads with the ball of one hand. He was more than a head taller than Ardela, and white wispy tufts of beard that made a man of middle years look past his prime.
‘You think men round here don’t beat their wives?’ she murmured softly. She kept her eyes fixed on his cart as she spoke; he was a Litse; he would take her staring him down as more of an insult than her actual words.
The man shrugged and gestured to the small iron stove that comprised a third of his stall. Ardela nodded and he tossed on a handful of thin meat strips, so heavily spiced they were dark red. With a practised hand he kept the strips turning until they were starting to blacken then scooped them all up into a cooked flatbread. She dropped two copper houses into the dish behind his stove and accepted the small parcel of food, using the time to think on her predicament.
So what’s suddenly so interesting about the Farlan’s agent in Byora? And how was Derager’s cover blown in the first place?
She started eating, barely registering the strong flavour of the meat until her stomach reminded how hungry she’d been the last few days.
Well, why did I come here? Because Legana told me King Emin had a communication slate here. She pause
d mid-mouthful as realisation dawned: Damn, he must know. The Brotherhood adopted Derager as their agent here and moved the slate to his shop to coordinate their assault on the Ruby Tower. So somehow Ilumene must have found that out. Clearly he’s set up a separate intelligence network here – that couldn’t have taxed him too greatly, not when he knows the Brotherhood’s faces and their methods.
But this isn’t the usual surveillance; they’re ready to pinch someone – which means he’s willing to risk revealing what he’s found out – that taking me is worth the loss. But is it to find out what poison I used, or to prevent King Emin hearing what I saw after?
She finished the flatbread and turned away. She was certain now she’d not been spotted by the watchers, and even more certain she wanted to be clear of them as swiftly as possible.
Time to start the long walk home, Ardela realised, heading for her lodgings to collect her remaining belongings and plan a quiet exit from the Circle City.
Whichever’s true, there’s a reason I’ve forced their hand and that’s something King Emin’ll want to know. Might not be the glorious return I was hoping for, but it’ll have to do.
CHAPTER 4
They stopped only when the ghost-hour came, not speaking except to quarrel and even then fatigue and hunger meant those quickly petered to nothing. General Gaur was the last to dismount. While his men flopped from their saddles and sprawled on the crushed moorland grass, Gaur stared off into the distance. His furred face was matted with blood, his right arm bound in a filthy sling, but he made no sign of noticing his injuries beyond the deeper hurt he bore.
‘Gaur?’
There was no response, though a few soldiers glanced up at him nervously. The beastman had already demonstrated the murderous rage within him that day, and none of them believed it had subsided. Gaur had only ever cared for two living beings, Kohrad and— and the lord they could no longer name. The lord who’d been stolen from them by some monstrous magic of King Emin’s devising, the lord they would have gladly followed to the ivory gates and beyond. They still could not believe he was gone so entirely.
‘Gaur!’ The speaker towered over the Menin soldiers who scrambled to clear his path. Even Larim’s robes were torn and dirty and marked with blood, his own and that of many others. That the Chosen of Larat had survived at all was a testament to his white-eye heritage as much as magery. Of the troops he’d led to attack the south flank of King Emin’s fort, only the Byoran allies at the rear had survived, by abandoning their comrades.
Slowly Gaur turned, aware he was being addressed. ‘Lord Larim,’ he said, his heavy tone even more of a growl than usual.
‘We’ve plans to make.’
Gaur regarded the Chosen of Larat. ‘Why?’
‘Why? Because our current options are death or slavery, and I would prefer to find another.’ Larim gestured to the soldiers with them, perhaps two legions’ worth, now that their former allies had left and headed back towards their home states. ‘I suspect most of them would agree with me.’
There was no reply; Gaur just stared at Larim with an unreadable expression, his tusked jaw still for once, his face empty of emotion.
‘Well? Do you want to live to return home?’
‘Home? What home?’
Larim walked closer. ‘The Ring of Fire is their home, and they look to you to take them there, General.’
The white-eye was bald, his smooth face ageless. He wore a brightly coloured patchwork robe of predominantly yellow and blue, within which were set half-a-dozen glowing magical charms. Though young, Larim had the reptilian air about him that all Larat’s Chosen seemed to possess: an unblinking dispassion that was far from human.
‘Then they will be disappointed,’ Gaur said. ‘My plans are only for revenge.’
‘Revenge?’ Larim laughed. ‘And how do you propose to manage that? There is no revenge to be had here, only more death. Can you not accept that we’ve lost?’
‘I will have revenge for my lord’s death,’ Gaur insisted. He looked away, not interested in listening to any more of Larim’s scorn, but the white-eye walked around Gaur’s horse until he was once more in the general’s field of view.
‘Gaur, you will only die,’ Larim said. He cocked his head at the beastman, puzzled by Gaur’s blind determination. ‘Do you think the Gods will care that your lord’s faithful hound followed him even unto death? Do you think the families of these men will appreciate this sacrifice?’
Larim shook his head when he received no answer and turned to the broken troops surrounding them. ‘Soldiers of the Menin, it’s time for you to decide! Do you want to live and one day, perhaps, return home, or do you wish to follow General Gaur to a pointless death?’
The faces were all turned towards him, but no one spoke. If that perturbed Larim he didn’t show it. ‘You have the night to make your decision. Helrect is the nearest city we have not waged war upon. You can go there, or head south and attempt to meet up with the Fourth Army, but either way you don’t have the numbers to cut a path through. The injured will not make it, but the rest of you can. You may live as mercenaries or die as fools. That is your choice.’
‘And your choice?’ Gaur growled.
Larim turned. ‘Mine? My choice is to survive, of course, to return to what is now mine in the Menin homeland.’
‘To run like a coward and abandon us here?’
‘You are only looking for death,’ Larim said with contempt, ‘and you’ll find it without my help. The Ring of Fire is a long way from here, but Govin and I alone can travel faster than any army might.’ He looked to the side, where his one remaining coterie member stood. The small man with a large head shrank under Gaur’s gaze.
‘The troops of the Hidden Tower were slaughtered in Thotel; I have no allegiance to these men.’ Larim opened his mouth to say something more but then he stopped, an expression of surprise appearing on his face.
A moment later his acolyte reacted in the same way, and both men turned to look west over the moor. Those soldiers who followed their gaze saw nothing, just the advancing gloom of dusk as the sun vanished below the eastern horizon for another day.
‘It seems you don’t need to go looking,’ Larim muttered, reaching inside his robe for a silver pendant that bore the rune of his God, Larat. ‘Death has come to find you.’
At last Gaur looked, but there remained nothing to see, just his exhausted soldiers trying to summon the energy to make camp for the night. And then there was something else: though indistinct in the waning light he could just make out something moving beyond the disordered clumps of troops.
Shouts of alarm erupted from the nearest soldiers; men scrambled to their feet and drew their weapons even as they retreated. Gaur turned to Larim but the mage clearly wasn’t the cause of the disruption: the white-eye appeared apprehensive at whatever was happening out there, and his acolyte, Govin, was clearly terrified.
Gaur mounted again and pulled his axe from his saddle. He urged his horse towards the disruption, ignoring Larim as the mage began to say something in protest. The beastman was too exhausted with grief to feel fear any longer – if this was Death come to claim him, so be it.
Overhead the sky darkened steadily as dusk marched on towards night. Gaur tasted the sharp tang of fear on the wind as his soldiers fell back from whatever it was that had found them. Before long his horse stopped too, tossing its head with anxiety as it smelled something amiss. He spurred the beast hard, but it had no effect, so Gaur dismounted and advanced on foot as Menin soldiers streamed forward and his horse fled.
Some animal sense danced down Gaur’s spine, like the raised hackles of a dog faced with the unnatural. He tightened his grip on the axe even as he started to make out the figure waiting for him: standing still with eyes fixed on Gaur as the gloom shimmered and danced on either side of it. Thick plates of chitin armour glowed a whitish-amber in the waning light, broad shoulders tapered into slender arms, each carrying a long javelin.
He walked on and at las
t the figure moved, advancing towards him with a few swift, delicate steps. He saw it more clearly now, a reddened body with pale limbs – four legs like a spider’s, jointed up at the height of its waist, and a segmented thorax twitching behind it like a grossly fat tail. The daemon peered at him with two slanted pairs of eyes formed in an X shape about a slit Gaur guessed was a mouth. Its torso was criss-crossed with burnished gold chains, each bearing shifting, arcane symbols that made Gaur’s eyes water to behold.
He came within ten yards of the monster and stopped, spending a long moment observing it before looking to its left and right as the shimmering air started to coalesce into shadows, hinting at fresh horrors arrayed around what the Menin had intended to call their camp. There were dozens of them, no, scores – far more, Gaur realised, than even Larim could have called into existence.
‘Unsummoned by man, yet here you are incarnate,’ Gaur called, unafraid.
‘The breeze sings a song of pain and fear,’ the daemon said in a soft, rasping voice. ‘Drawn to the horrors of your doing we find a Land altered.’ It gestured expansively, at its comrades and its own body. ‘The powers are weakened and we come out to drink the fear of mortals.’ It paused and cocked its head at Gaur. ‘But not you. Your scent is one of hatred alone. Tell me, little mortal, tell me why this is before my kin come to rend your flesh from your bones.’
‘My lord is dead. There is nothing within me but a thirst for revenge now.’ Gaur hefted his axe. ‘If you want my flesh, try to take it.’
The daemon didn’t move, but there came a whisper Gaur realised was laughter. ‘Revenge? How sweet a flavour! Tell me, little mortal, what would you give for your revenge?’
Gaur looked back at the broken army behind him, shrouded in the veil of dusk. ‘All I possess.’
The daemon laughed again, quietly joyful at the prospect of more than just mortal flesh now. It raised itself up high and brandished one javelin at the shadows on its right. The shapes drew back a shade while one was dragged forward and slowly coalesced into a grey lizard-like daemon – six-limbed and sinuous, with a frill of barbs to protect its head. The new daemon crawled up to its master, head low to the ground, subservient.