Dark Healer (An Empire Falls Book 1)

by Harry Leighton

Zedek looked at Daeholf’s horse. “How can you tell?” He then looked at Alia who was smirking. “Ah,” he said, moving over and taking the reins.

  Daeholf held the bushes carefully as they passed by then made an effort to put them back as they were.

  “Why fuss with that?” Trimas said.

  “It’s what we’d have done if we were supposed to be using the trail. And means we won’t have given ourselves away.”

  “Oh. Obvious.”

  They followed the trail for some distance, moving as quietly as they could, frequently stopping so that someone could move forwards and look around the next bend before they all proceeded.

  “We’re wasting our time,” Trimas muttered after they had proceeded like this for nearly an hour.

  “Normally I’d agree, but there’s still signs of recent use,” Daeholf said quietly.

  “It’s a little further from the main trail than I was expecting, given the sign,” Jonas said.

  “Let’s hope whatever is at the other end is worth it then,” Zedek said.

  They carried on until they heard noise ahead, dismounted and moved off the trail into the trees, approaching under cover and looking carefully for any guards. They stopped just back from the tree line at the edge of a clearing.

  “Some sort of encampment?” Alia asked quietly.

  They all looked at the series of small tents surrounding a shack and a number of people moving things around on hand carts.

  “Looks like some sort of unofficial market,” Jonas said.

  “Consistent with the smuggler theory then,” Trimas said.

  A cart bumped over a small mound and a leg poked out from under a tarp and hung down the side. The man pushing it stopped to tuck it back under before proceeding up to the shack.

  “Ah,” Daeholf said. “We’re here.”

  “Do you think he’s inside?” Alia said.

  “I hope so,” Jonas said grimly.

  Daeholf studied the camp layout. “Maybe five or six ‘workers’ and about the same number of guards,” he said. “We’ll need to be careful.”

  Zedek readied his bow. Daeholf stayed him. “Only if we have to. If someone is seen dropping with an arrow in them, alarm will be raised and we need surprise. We need to get in close to hide the bodies as soon as we take them to avoid alerting the others.”

  Zedek frowned at him. “I’m not comfortable sneaking up behind someone and putting a knife in their back,” he said.

  “But you are with putting an arrow in them?” Alia said curiously.

  “Yes. Well, sort of. It’s hard to explain,” Zedek said.

  Alia looked confused but shrugged. Jonas looked at him impassively.

  “Don’t start,” Zedek warned him.

  “I wanted you to cover us anyway,” Daeholf said. “Keep your eye out for anyone that sees us and take them.”

  “I’m not great at sneaking,” Trimas said, holding up and looking at his axe.

  “Imagine you’re trying to get out of a house after the husband gets home,” Daeholf said.

  “Funny,” Trimas replied. Daeholf was straight faced but out of the corner of his eye he caught Zedek trying to suppress a grin. Trimas sighed, tucked the axe through a strap on his back and pulled out a long knife. “Let’s get on with it then,” he said.

  “You okay with this?” Jonas said quietly to Alia.

  She drew a knife and looked at it. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she said.

  “Sticking a knife in someone who isn’t expecting it is very different to sticking one in someone who is actively trying to kill you,” he replied.

  “I’ve not really thought about it like that,” Alia said eventually.

  “So are you okay with this?”

  “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  “You need to be sure now, we’ll be relying on you to take your man. If you’re not sure you should cover with Zedek.”

  Alia looked him in the eyes and straightened her shoulders. “Like you always say, ‘a dirty job sometimes’. I’m good.”

  Jonas turned to look at the others who had been watching the exchange. “We have a plan then?” he said.

  “This isn’t going to be easy as they’re probably altered. We can’t just sneak up and each knife one in the back, they might have two hearts and we know how durable they can be. I’m thinking two teams, you and Alia, me and Trimas. Two on one should be safe enough. Zedek is in reserve with his bow in case anything goes sideways. We’ll go from this side. Take the guards first, then the closest workers. We take them all until only the shack remains which we rush all at once, and fully armed.”

  The others nodded. Daeholf signalled that from this point on they should be silent. He indicated which guard he and Trimas were going to take first and Jonas and Alia indicated their man. They looked at Zedek who nocked an arrow and nodded.

  They emerged from the trees on the guards’ blind side, running low, taking advantage of any cover. Daeholf stepped up behind the first guard, clamped his left hand across his mouth and angled his knife into the man’s back, Trimas controlling the man’s sword arm as he made sure with his own blade. The man dropped silently and they dragged the body out of the way behind a tent. He looked as Jonas and Alia took out the second guard. Alia hesitated for a second then snuck up behind her man before guiding her knife through his ribs, Jonas controlling him down. He went with barely a sigh. They moved on through the camp like deadly ghosts, Zedek taking the last two with arrows to the head. They lined up outside the shack, fully armed. Jonas indicated that he would take the door, raised his mace, and kicked the door in with a crash before launching himself through the opening, the others quickly following behind him. The main room had a number of tables with bodies on them but no one living. Not stopping to investigate, they crashed through into the room behind which turned out to be an office. A hooded figure jumped to his feet.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. The figure was tall, near Jonas in height and similar in bulk though there was something odd about the way the cloak hung on his left-hand side.

  “You’re not Marlen,” Jonas said.

  “No, I’m not,” the hooded man said, lifting his left hand and drawing back his hood. The man had a shock of thick blonde hair but that wasn’t the most remarkable thing about his face. His pupils were vertical like a cat’s. “I would ask what you want with him, but that seems obvious,” he said, indicating their weapons. He shook his cloak off and Jonas stepped back, gasping.

  “Three arms,” Jonas gasped as the man held a scabbard with one left hand, drawing a sword with his right and collecting a shield with his second left hand.

  “Impossible,” Zedek mumbled, lowering his bow for a second.

  The three-armed man took the opportunity and kicked over his desk in their direction, drawing the shield in front of him and trying to charge through them in the confusion. He shield-slammed Jonas, lashing out with the sword at the next biggest man, Trimas, trying to bull his way through. Trimas caught the blade on the shaft of his axe just in time. Alia and Zedek took an involuntary step backwards. Daeholf ducked and had the presence of mind to attempt a hamstringing blow as the three-armed man passed. The second left arm came down holding a knife as he did, attempting a block, but it was only partially successful and blood still sprayed. The three-armed man made it through the group and charged across the main room and out through the door, Zedek and Alia in pursuit.

  Alia and Zedek raised their bows. Alia loosed quickly and the three-armed man swung his shield behind his back, catching the arrow with a clang. Zedek took a moment to aim and put an arrow through his knee, bringing him crashing to the ground. He nocked again and carefully put an arrow through the other knee as the others emerged from the shack.

  “Down but dangerous,” Zedek said. The three-armed man used his sword to hack off the arrows and tried to rise, two hands on the ground. Alia put an arrow through one of the supporting arms and he crashed back to the ground.

  They all
approached the downed man who had rolled onto his back and was trying to defend himself with sword and shield.

  “I won’t talk,” he said.

  “We know,” Jonas said, deftly smashing the man’s right hand with his mace and forcing him to drop his sword.

  Trimas’s boot came down on the shield, knocking it to one side as Jonas picked up the fallen sword and slammed it down point first through the altered’s skull. The three-armed man went limp.

  “That was a bit dramatic,” Daeholf said.

  “He wouldn’t have talked anyway, we know what happened last time.”

  “I think I need to sit down,” Trimas said. He overturned a hand cart and sat on the side of it.

  Zedek stood looking at the altered corpse, expression both horrified and fascinated as he looked at the two shoulders on the left-hand side. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

  “I hope not,” Trimas said.

  “No, but how…?” Zedek said, lost.

  Jonas flexed his left arm and winced. The shield bash had hurt and the adrenaline was starting to wear off. He looked over at Alia to see if she was okay. She looked pale, very pale.

  “You okay?” he said, walking closer.

  “Murdering unarmed men and then this,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure this is for me.”

  “It gets easier,” Jonas said gently.

  “I hope not,” Alia said. “What sort of monster would I become if stabbing people became easy?”

  “It comes with the job sometimes,” Jonas said.

  “The job is supposed to be catching people like that, not doing it myself,” Alia said. “It feels wrong. Fighting is one thing. This… I feel … dirty.”

  “Sometimes we don’t have a choice,” Jonas said, indicating the three-armed body on the ground.

  “Maybe,” Alia said doubtfully. “But how fucked up would my life be if that sort of thing was normal,” she added, indicating the body with her foot.

  “It’s not normal,” Jonas said. “But we have to stop the people who would try and make it so.”

  Alia stared at the corpse. “I know you’re right but something in me feels a little broken now. And I don’t think I’ll ever mend it.”

  Daeholf looked at her sadly. He remembered when he’d crossed that threshold. Innocence, once gone, could never come back. He stepped over and put a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off but then relaxed and smiled faintly at him.

  “I appreciate you all trying to comfort me,” she said. “But I need some time.”

  “Sometimes we do the bad things so that the innocent don’t have to,” Daeholf said. “We’re soldiers on the front line, fighting to keep the horror away from the unknowing civilians behind us.”

  “This is war?” Alia said.

  “In some ways, yes. A different kind of war.”

  Alia mused on that.

  “Speaking of time,” Trimas said, “we may not have much of it before someone else arrives and sees what we’ve done here and raises the alarm. Looking at him,” he said indicating the altered, “it’s clear that this place is Marlen’s. He’s not here and we don’t want to spook him and let him know someone’s coming any more than necessary.”

  “Burn it?” Daeholf said.

  “What I’m thinking,” Trimas said.

  “Not him though,” Zedek said, pointing at the three-armed man. “We might need him.”

  Daeholf studied Zedek for a moment. “I think you’re right but we’ll talk about that later. Jonas, can you help Trimas and I stack bodies and build a pyre? Alia, can you stand watch with Zedek?”

  “Why do I get to stack corpses rather than keep watch?” Trimas said.

  “It was your idea,” Daeholf said.

  “All the shit jobs,” Trimas muttered, turning to the nearest body, grabbing an arm and dragging it towards the shack.

  *****

  Marlen left the latest man in the recovery ‘room’ behind a partition at the end of the barn and walked out into the farmyard. Though he had to all intents and purposes created a satisfactory template for his upgrades, he still couldn’t resist the temptation to experiment and the men could always roast the remains of the goat later. The bits he now had left over from the man, well, he could always feed them to the failed experiment in the cage tucked away in an outbuilding at the other end of the yard. The partial brain transplant, though it hadn’t killed the patient, had not been a success and had left the man a complete psychotic, and one with a taste for human flesh. A salutary reminder to Marlen that he had not quite yet perfected his art and there was still much to learn.

  He wiped his hands on a cloth as he surveyed the farm from the yard in the late afternoon sunshine. It was a very useful base, he supposed, and the stock of animals had given him many ideas.

  The location was suitable, however, as it was not too far from the city and he was able to get there and back in a day to keep an eye on his plans.

  Ah, yes. His plans. There was always something new coming up that seemed to interfere, something that he had to adapt to or in some cases take advantage of. He’d picked this region of the empire carefully before setting up here. It was regarded as something of a backwater, with limited resources that weren’t more readily and cheaply available elsewhere. It was also far enough away from the imperial capital that it was considered of little importance and only the disgraced or incompetent officials tended to get posted here. Ripe, then, for him to play his hand.

  He’d long wanted somewhere to work undisturbed and in safety, but also somewhere he could make a real difference. He’d had many successes over the years. He’d successfully cured three outbreaks of plague and eased the suffering of many more. He’d spent time on the coast fixing sailors with their variety of diseases. Some of them disgusting. He’d delivered countless babies that would have been otherwise still born. He’d fixed many deformities and disabilities. There were countless people alive, or who had lived because of him over the years. Of course, there had been sacrifices. People who had given their lives for his research, so that he could better understand the things he needed to fix. Some of whom had even been willing. Ah, the human body was so fragile in so many ways. He’d made so many improvements. The small minded couldn’t appreciate his work though. And it was generally the small minded that ran things. Though perhaps not for too much longer, at least here. He’d slowly been building influence locally over the years, an informant here, a person who owed him a favour there. Local sentiment bubbled under as anti-imperial anyway and he’d been stoking it gently where he could. A word here, an unexplained disappearance there, blamed on the authorities of course, and things were starting to build. Two years, maybe three and he expected the first of the riots to begin, by which time his forces would fully be in place.

  The meeting with the imperial legion had been inconvenient but they were some distance away and he’d been able to gain influence on the general. They wouldn’t be a problem. But that was the problem with long term plans, you needed to adapt to unexpected events.

  Sometimes they caught him completely by surprise. Once he’d been a bit incautious and had attracted the attention of the authorities. Of course, they didn’t know the full extent of what he’d been up to — if they had they’d have sent an army after him. Instead they’d sent a bounty hunter. A good one, too. It had worked out okay in the end though as he’d persuaded the man to come and work for him. After he’d done a couple of operations on him anyway. And he was now one of his most trusted men.

  Speaking of whom … Marlen felt him approach before he saw him. That had been a useful addition to his recipe. Particularly in this case as the man had a talent for sneaking.

  “It’s about time you reported in,” Marlen said, turning to face the small hawk-nosed man who had stepped up behind him.

  “Did you miss me?” the man said.

  “I really should find a way to cut that arrogance out of you, Kylar.”

  “Nah, you find me too useful the way I am
,” Kylar said.

  Marlen sighed. It was true, though that didn’t make it any less annoying.

  “Do you have anything to report?” Marlen said, remaining calm.

  “Actually, yes. Bounty Hunter activity in the area.”

  “So?”

  “Lots of them.”

  Marlen frowned. That was unusual.

  “Who are they after?”

  Kylar grinned at him, drawing it out. “Not you,” he said eventually. “Merchant in a town a few days away.”

  Marlen sighed. “So this is newsworthy how?”

  “Seems they got into a fight with each other. Not sure what about. More than one of them died.”

  “So?”

  “One of them was … unexpected.”

  “Go on,” Marlen said, slowly losing patience.

  “Someone I’ve heard of, someone who wasn’t supposed to be here. Someone who was supposed to be retired. Someone who, given his past, may even have been interested in you if he knew you were here.”

  “Get to the point,” Marlen said harshly, though he was now intrigued.

  “Jonas Hunter.”

  Marlen stood stock still, in shock.

  “I see you’ve heard of him too then,” Kylar said.

  “He’s dead? Confirmed?” Marlen said quietly.

  “Charred corpse, identified by his rod of office. Had independent confirmation from someone reliable who had ‘spoken’ to him earlier that day.”

  “Jonas. You fool,” Marlen said softly to himself.

  “I was right then. You did know him,” Kylar said.

  “What?” Marlen said distantly.

  “I’ve pieced a little together about your past since I’ve known you, now I’m sure.”

  “Your mouth is going to get you killed one day,” Marlen said.

  “But not today. I’ve written up a report of local events, left it on your desk. This I wanted to bring to you in person though.”

  “Thank you. Now go do something useful before I decide that today is the day.”

  Kylar nodded and walked off quickly, disappearing round the corner of the barn.

  “Jonas, Jonas, Jonas,” Marlen said to himself. “What were you doing here?” He was supposed to be retired. Though things had ended badly between them, he still had a soft spot for the big man. They’d been through a lot together and he’d watched him grow from a wet-behind-the-ears thug into a reliable and intelligent, well, soldier. He’d been good company. Marlen thought back to the games of chess they’d played. The set was still probably amongst his belongings somewhere. And now he was dead. Why he was nearby was a mystery but not one that needed solving urgently. The dead told no tales.