It was late by the time she’d finished telling her tale. Long shadows were stalking across the glade; night’s gloom crowded the treeline. It was time to leave.
They mounted in silence; Alyda let the Prince ride ahead. Before she left the glade to the shadows and the ghosts, she raised her fist to her heart, and saluted the dead.
Chapter Four
On the day that the citizens of Weyhithe came out to bid farewell to the Hammer, Garian slipped quietly out of the city, his departure marked by no one. It would have taken a decent rider about two and a half days to reach the border between Antia and Cathlan; it took Garian three. A city boy by birth and choice, he wasn’t fond of horses and the brutes knew it.
As he rode deeper into Cathlan, he had to admit it was a wildly beautiful land. Snow crested mountains cradled glassy tarns in jagged crowns. Below them, the valleys were robed in purple heather, and clouds of fat, white sheep drifted across the verdant hillsides. For centuries, mines had been delved into the mountains by those who hunted the gold and iron buried deep within, but for the most part the hand of man had passed lightly over Cathlan.
Garian’s route crisscrossed the province. He stopped briefly in a handful of villages, towns and hamlets, quietly gathering reports and leaving new orders as he went. Like Garian, the King’s agents were very ordinary people, drawn more from the ranks of the humble than the privileged. Shepherds, bakers, innkeepers, and their ilk could be counted in the ranks of unobtrusive soldiers who fought in the Shadow War, a conflict that had never officially started. There were no rules of engagement, quarter was never asked, or given, and from what he’d seen so far in his nineteen years, it would probably never end.
On his way back to Antia, Garian mulled over the information he’d collected. Individually the disparate reports didn’t amount to much that would be of interest to anyone…at first glance. However, now that he’d brought them together they formed a picture of events unfolding in Cathlan.
There had been a bread shortage in Carngarthe that had tripled the price of a loaf in just one week. He’d found out that the shortage had been caused by Prince Jerim’s factors buying up the bulk of the grain coming into the capital of the province. In Trenatha and Shordain the blacksmiths and armourers had been paying top price for ore in order to keep up with demand from the Free Companies that were, as they said often and loudly, “just passing through”. Only they’d been there for weeks, and showed no sign of leaving. Most worryingly, there had been enough Guthani trade delegations coming and going in the last month that by his calculations, the whole of Cathlan could have been supplied with enough hides, horn and silver to meet demand for the next twenty years.
These were just a few of the many little scraps of information he’d gathered on his travels and pieced together. When they were viewed as a whole cloth it looked very much like Prince Jerim’s battle standard. Hyram might see things differently, but he doubted it. If the apprentice had eyes to see it, the master surely would.
The King and his brother were separated by two years and vastly different characters. Daris was passionate, whereas his brother was temperamental; the King was quick to anger and quick to forgive. Jerim never forgot a slight. Garian served Daris because he did only what was necessary to protect the kingdom. Jerim lived to control the lives of his subjects.
Hyram had told him that it was Jerim’s constant scheming that had prompted Daris to make him Governor of Cathlan and marry him off to a Guthani princess. According to Hyram, it was because he spent his every waking moment fermenting petty plots and breeding ill will in the court.
Garian remembered his master’s volcanic rage when, only six months after Jerim had gone, reports began to filter back that the new Governor had been heard to say that Cathlan should be a kingdom in its own right—with him as its ruler. Garian was rarely surprised by the baseness of humans, but he was still staggered that a few greedy men and women thought the misery and destruction of war was a price worth paying to put a crown on their heads.
He reached a crossroads. He could either ride straight to Weyhithe and deliver his report, or go and investigate a piece of information he’d picked up on his travels. He wanted to go home, his aching behind wanted him to go home, but he found himself turning towards the coast road anyway. Hyram had trained him too well.
It didn’t take Garian long to find the cliff path the journeyman had told him about. He dismounted and led his horse into the deepest part of a weather-beaten copse, startling a flock of seagulls into the sky. He cursed and hoped no one had seen their panicked flight as he tethered his mount out of sight of the path.
Forcing his way through the tangled gorse that grew in abundance on the seaward side of the path, he crawled on his belly to the crumbling cliff edge. Sure enough, the distinctive black sail of a Guthani ship loomed into view as he inched forward, exactly where the journeyman had said it would be. A passing conversation with a fellow traveller had yielded gold, and all for the price of sharing a fire on a cold evening. You can’t make luck like that, Garian thought. The scent of trouble caught in his nostrils and fired his hunter’s senses.
It wasn’t a Wolf Raider. Their vessels were bigger and like their namesakes, the fearsome pirates hunted in packs. This was a lone, sleek hulled ship, built for speed, not for hauling over other vessels. He was glad that it wasn’t a Raider; he didn’t like the thought of being attacked by one of the sea drakes that always accompanied their ships.
The cove was guarded by jagged fangs of rock and from what Garian could see there was no obvious benefit to be gained anchoring so close to danger, other than to avoid being seen. Garian counted half a dozen men and women on the narrow strip of beach. They were standing near a row boat that was rocking in the foaming surf. Four of them were wearing brightly coloured woollen leggings favoured by the Guthani and bronze scale mail hauberks that came to their knees. They had axes hanging from their belts and painted shields slung across their backs. You didn’t need to be a spy to work out that they weren’t merchants. Three of the group held crossbows at the ready, and were scanning the cliff top. He smiled. They were no doubt looking for people like him. He tugged his scarf up over his face, to hide what his hood did not.
One of the group—a tall bristle-bearded fellow, beckoned for two men dressed in brown robes to follow him up the beach. He handed something to the thinner of the two, but it was impossible to make out what it was over the distance. The thin man tucked whatever it was into his robes. After a brief conversation, Bristle Beard returned to the others. The robed men set off along a narrow path that snaked up the cliff in long, lazy switchbacks.
Bristle Beard and his warriors climbed aboard the boat and rowed out to the ship. Garian studied the route the robed men had taken, marking the spot where the path came out at the top. He shuffled back from the edge and pelted along the cliff path to get ahead of them.
The path ran parallel to the cliff, in a roughly north south direction. He might have been a poor horseman, but he was an excellent sprinter, and easily beat them to the head of the track. Two horses were tethered nearby. He guessed they belonged to the men and wondered if he had time to search the saddlebags before they arrived. Tempting though it was, he had more pressing tasks to attend to.
When he was satisfied that he’d prepared as well as he could, Garian hid behind a wind-twisted tree, south of the path. It wasn’t the best hiding place, but it gave him a clear view of the path and the horses. The constant roar of the sea and gusting wind stole their words, but as the men drew nearer, he could hear that their accents were Guthani. The first up the path was the one who had been given the package, closely followed by his companion.
Now that they were closer, he saw they were wearing the robes of priests of Sestrian. Garian didn’t think much of their disguises. They were wearing shirts and breeches beneath the robes, unlike real priests of Sestrian who didn’t allow themselves such comforts even in the depths of winter. They were also wearing sturdy boots. Most of the
priests Garian had ever met were bookish fellows, used to shuffling through cloisters and had little need for hobnailed boots. But what shouted imposter louder than all their other mistakes were the sword-shaped bundles strapped across their saddle bows. Priests of Sestrian never carried weapons. Bloody amateurs, he thought as he watched them mount up and turn north, most likely headed to Carngarthe.
He slid a bolt into the track of the crossbow and stepped out from behind the tree. Before they had chance to break into a gallop he drew a steady breath and took aim at the one with the package. He exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The bolt buried itself between the man’s shoulder blades. He cried out, and fell from his horse, reins still gripped in his hand. The other Guthani immediately kicked his mount in the ribs and took off along the track, riding low across the horse’s neck.
Garian dropped the heavy crossbow, scooped up the small handbow he’d taken from the assassin, and sprinted after him. The path curved out of sight around a rocky outcrop about thirty feet away. Beyond the rocks was a stand of birch trees, split by the track. As he approached the bend, he heard the horse scream. He rounded the corner in time to see it staggering to its feet.
The stunned rider was on his knees. He looked up; Garian levelled his handbow. The man narrowed his eyes and threw something at Garian before diving off the path. It felt like he’d been kicked. Garian glanced down; a knife was sticking in his thigh. He gritted his teeth and took aim, tracking slightly ahead of the man. He pulled the trigger. The man gave a strangled cry and crumpled, the shaft of the bolt jutting from his ruined eye. Garian took a step toward him and stumbled, a sharp pain gripped his leg.
“Bollocks.”
Hooking the bow onto his belt, he wiped his hands and took a firm grip on the hilt with both hands. There was a hot, stab of pain and a rush of blood as he pulled it from his leg. Cursing the names of as many gods as he could think of, he bound the wound with his scarf.
Other than being covered in his blood, the knife looked clean. He sniffed the blade, but couldn’t detect any unusual smells that might indicate the presence of poison. If it had been treated with anything he’d find out soon enough. Angry that he’d been hit, he kicked dirt over the blood on the path and limped over to the body.
He found a handful of gold coins in a pouch, and a sheath for a throwing knife hanging down the dead man’s back. When he finished searching the body, Garian rolled it into the undergrowth. The man’s horse had bolted, which was a pain in the arse—he would have liked to have searched the saddlebags. The rope he’d used to trip the horse had snapped when the animal ran into it. Rather than untying both ends as he should, he tossed them into the grass either side of the track. He was annoyed, in pain, and bleeding, and the scarf was doing little to stem the blood flow.
Garian limped back along the path to the other Guthani, cursing with every painful step. Why was nothing ever easy? At least the horse was still there, its reins clutched tightly in the dead man’s hand. Garian felt neither sympathy nor regret as he looked into the dead, dusty eyes of the Guthlander. He briefly considered that he spent a lot of time searching the corpses of people he’d killed. It didn’t bother him; at least that’s what he told himself.
The man had some coin, a dagger, and a leather wallet tucked into his jerkin. Inside the wallet was a piece of parchment with some kind of list written on it, but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t read it. This vexed him more than the wound in his leg. He had a talent for languages, which had brought him to the attention of Hyram when he’d visited the orphanage all those years ago. Such a kind patron, the master of spies. At least he’d picked Garian and the others for their brains, and not their youthful good looks, unlike some of the other ‘patrons’. He dragged his mind from the grim past and back to the slightly less grim present. The script looked familiar, perhaps some archaic form of Guthani, but he just wasn’t sure.
Annoyed, he tucked the wallet into his shirt and kicked the body into the grass before searching the saddlebags. He was again frustrated to find they only contained some food and a change of clothes. He just hoped the note was important enough to warrant two dead bodies and a knife wound.
It was dusk by the time he’d finished tidying up the most obvious signs of a fight. After some consideration he decided to leave the Guthlander’s horse. Its shoes were probably marked, and he wasn’t dressed like a man who owned two horses. The last thing he needed was to be pulled by some overzealous provincial militia, curious as to why a cove like him had two horses and a stab wound. He didn’t want to end up being hanged as a horse thief. Although, the way his luck was running it wouldn’t surprise him. As for the Guthani, he had to assume they’d been headed to Prince Jerim in Carngarthe. He didn’t rule out the possibility there were other plotters, but given what he had found out already, that seemed unlikely.
That night, Garian camped off the path in a small copse. He didn’t light a fire, but sat huddled in his blanket, cursing quietly at the pain that shot through his leg every time he moved. He’d brought a small supply of bandages with him, but by the time he’d set camp, they were already soaked through. He wrung them out and reapplied them before trying to get some sleep.
After a restless night, he woke up damp and cold, sometime before dawn. Mist had pooled around the feet of the trees and the world was washed in shades of grey. The sombre morning matched his mood. He got up and tested his leg—it was stiff and sore but the bleeding had stopped. He had a good idea where he was and figured he could be over the border by evening, if he cut east onto the main road south.
By nightfall he was back in Antia, and by his estimation, two days from Weyhithe. He wanted to press on, but his leg had started to bleed again after a long day in the saddle. There was an inn nearby where he’d stayed before. It had clean rooms and hot food—two things he was badly in need of.
As he got closer, he saw a Hadami caravan had pulled over by the turning to the inn. Crescent moons and wildflowers were carved into the doorframes and painted on the sides of the wagons marking them as Vodoni.
Hyram wasn’t as scathing about this clan as he was other Hadami. He considered them to be excellent herbalists who often traded him herbs that they gathered on their travels. He saw one of the wagons was having a broken wheel levered off its axle. While it was being repaired, the rest of the Hadami had taken the opportunity to set up cooking fires and let their horses graze.
The smell of food and hot chai made Garian’s empty stomach growl. He nodded politely as he passed a Hadami man who was standing by the roadside, smoking a pipe. The man returned the gesture and approached him.
Garian was eager to reach the inn and rest his leg, but he couldn’t ride on without appearing rude and there were too many Vodoni around to start causing offence. The pipe smoker was middle-aged and typically well dressed. He was wearing a scarf wrapped around his head in neat folds, and a pair of exquisite gold earrings. Garian noted the curling tendrils of his family tattoo peeking out of the collar of his grey, silk shirt. His outfit was completed by a pair of grey linen trousers tucked into calfskin boots, and a rapier hanging from a finely tooled baldric. The hilt of the weapon was an elegant construction of woven steel and brass, displayed either as a warning or for show. Garian wasn’t sure if he was talking to a master swordsman or a braggart; neither was appealing.
“Good evening, friend. You wouldn’t be with the blacksmith, would you?” The Vodoni asked.
“Good evening, sir. No, I’m afraid not. I’m heading to the inn.” Garian pointed down the side road.
“Ah, t’was a hopeful enquiry—I’m growing impatient waiting for the man and rather wished you were he. My apologies, sir.”
Garian decided to take the beautiful sword as a warning and not merely for show. Few braggarts had the grace or confidence to be polite to strangers.
“As you’re headed that way, I wonder if you would do me a small favour?” the swordsman asked. “If you see a Hadami lass at the inn, would you be kind enough to ask her to hurr
y back? I sent her to fetch some ale, though it would seem from the time she’s been gone that she’s waiting for it to be brewed.”
“I’ll most certainly pass on your message if I see her, sir.”
It didn’t hurt to keep on the right side of strangers, especially those who according to Hyram could brew some of the most lethal poisons in Antia.
The inn was a welcome sight, huddled against a pine clad hillside beneath a sky streaked with ragged slashes of red and gold. Two dun-coloured dray horses were tethered outside. A huge cart stacked with hay was drawn up beside them. The freshly cut grass scented the air with the sugary sweetness of wildflowers. A round of raucous laughter escaped through the gap under the door. Garian felt the tension of the last few days begin to ebb away.
When he opened the door he was hit by a wash of hot air and beery smokiness. The room was crowded; all he could see was a wall of broad backed farmhands, judging by the smocks they were wearing. They were watching something, but he couldn’t make out what it was, probably a cock fight. He wasn’t interested; all he wanted was a bed, some food, and a few pints of ale. He began to edge around the rowdy group to get to the bar when a meaty arm thrust out and blocked his way.
“Weems closed, s’get lost,” slurred the owner of the arm.
Garian cast a glance beneath the fleshy arch and saw a girl huddled on the floor. She saw him. Her big, blue eyes were shining with unshed tears. Garian sighed. He looked up at the beer bloated face of the Ox in his way, then back to the girl. Without saying a word, he turned and left the inn.
“Fire! There’s a fire outside, ‘tis the cart!” one of the thugs finally noticed and raised the alarm.
The Red Knight Page 9