A small woman stepped over the dogs and into the tent. She was dressed in a long black cloak, but Tyvian glimpsed a sword at her hip as she took in the tent. She reached up with gloved hands and gently pulled back her hood. Midnight curls, delicate features, blind in one eye . . .
It was Adatha Voth.
Kroth.
Tyvian froze. How many seconds before she recognized him? His heart pounded in his chest. His immediate instinct was to put his borrowed sword through the base of Rodall’s skull while he had the chance and then see if he could cut his way out of the tent before Voth put a throwing knife in his spine. Of course, the ring would never permit him to do such a thing—stab a man in the back without cause—so while Tyvian was going through a secondary plan, he noticed something:
Voth had barely looked at him. She had noted his presence and the sword in his hands and the tabard on his chest, but that was it. The beard, the bald head, the poor nutrition and hard marching—Tyvian must not look remotely himself.
He was relieved, and yet . . . after all they’d shared, his pride was just a touch hurt.
Rodall eyed her warily, his hand resting on his knee beneath the table, in easy reach of the dagger in his boot. “Sahand sent you?”
Voth watched Rodall with razor-sharp focus. Tyvian could tell she knew about the knife Rodall had in reach, and Tyvian discerned from some subtle movements that she had just let a small throwing knife drop into the palm of her hand. If Rodall saw this, he gave no sign. “I need to speak with you privately, Captain,” she said.
“I might be a stupid old mercenary captain,” Rodall said. “But I’m smart enough not to be alone with you, assassin.”
Voth laughed—that throaty, sexy laugh Tyvian remembered so well from their evenings together in the House of Eddon, in a literally different life. “My dear captain—if I were sent here to kill you, do you really think you would have been told to expect me?”
Told? Told how? Tyvian hadn’t spotted any couriers coming or going, nor any messenger djinn. He cast an eye around the room—there, in the corner, was a sending stone. Rodall must be in direct contact with his commanders, which meant he was in contact with Sahand. The risks of his discovery just got even more serious.
Meanwhile, the standoff between Voth and Rodall had not abated. With slow movements, Voth pulled open her cloak to reveal a scroll tube in a concealed pocket. She pulled it out and threw it on the table. “There. This ought to explain things. It seems I’m going to be tagging along with your little band of cannibals for the immediate future.”
Rodall opened the scroll case. Idiot, Tyvian thought. If Voth wanted him dead, there would have been a poison needle concealed in the lid.
The captain glanced at the document, which was sealed with Sahand’s personal mark in the wax. He looked over his shoulder. “You—leave us.”
Tyvian didn’t need to be asked twice. Part of him wanted to stick around and eavesdrop, but Rodall’s hounds seemed disinclined toward his company. He decided to play it safe, even though with Voth in the camp he felt decidedly less safe.
What was Voth doing here? Could she . . . could she know or suspect he was alive? Could Sahand? Was Eddereon in danger? Should he warn him?
The ring throbbed in a dull, monotonous rhythm. Dammit all.
He turned back toward his tent. Desertion, it seemed, would have to wait for another day. He slipped back between his three tent-mates, marinating in their manly odors, and tried his best to get comfortable.
For the first time since he’d joined the Ghouls, Tyvian found he couldn’t sleep.
Chapter 3
Earning Pay
Tyvian spent the next few days waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never did. Rumors of Voth’s arrival were rampant—Rodall’s personal whore, some said. Others insisted she was a sorceress. Tyvian refused to offer an opinion. When someone asked what he thought, he’d say he didn’t know either way. Voth? Who’s that? Never heard of her.
In the meantime, Tyvian was getting a reputation for being the world’s best mule. Even Drawsher seemed mutely appreciative of the fact that he’d been carrying Hambone’s pack for days without falling behind a step. “That’s what yer good for, Duchess,” he said once, tapping Tyvian’s shoulder with his rod. “Carrying baggage.”
Tyvian couldn’t help but snort. If the man only knew . . .
Hambone got back on his feet just in time for their first battle. Well, a skirmish, more like—Captain Rodall wasn’t about to deploy his greenest troops against anything that resembled a dangerous foe. They were mustered into ranks early one morning without explanation and marched to a green outside a small village. There they stood, pikes high—a mute display of force—while Rodall “negotiated” with the village leaders.
Tyvian squinted across the grassy meadow at the motley assembly of peasants with pots on their heads who had dared to oppose them. A few of them had small hunting bows—the kind you used to kill ducks in a pond. The ring throbbed. If it comes to fighting, this isn’t going to be a skirmish. It’s going to be murder.
Captain Rodall, astride his coal-black charger with his hounds at his heels, had advanced twenty paces from the two blocks he’d tasked to this operation—one of pikes, the other of broadswords and shields. He had Drawsher on one side of him and Adatha Voth on the other, both of them also mounted. Despite what he’d heard in the tent, Tyvian had to assume that if Voth were with the Ghouls, she was here to murder someone. Given that Tyvian was not yet dead, he presumed that someone wasn’t him.
He very much wanted to sneak out of his tent at night and find where in the camp she was bedded down. He wanted to lurk outside the command tent and eavesdrop on her discussions with Rodall. Of course, he was not alone—the presence of a beautiful woman in the camp was enough to drive half the Ghouls to distraction. Serving as her “escort” in camp had become a coveted position, afforded only those with the longest service records with the company—and “Duchess” didn’t rate. Besides, the closer he got, the more likely she’d recognize him, and he had been lucky enough the first time around to dissuade him from trying his luck for a second go.
“Duchess,” Hambone nudged him, “what’re they saying? We gonna fight?”
Tyvian tore his attention from Voth’s black curls. “What?”
“C’mon—do the trick!” Hambone thrust his chin toward the captain’s delegation and the three villagers who had come out to meet him.
Mort spat a wad of chewing tobacco into the grass. “What trick?”
Hambone giggled. “Duchess can read lips!”
Mort looked down at Tyvian. Standing nearly taller than Hool, this was a long way down for Mort. Tyvian felt like an ant. “The hell he can!”
“I certainly can, and if you two would shut up, I will.” Tyvian adjusted his helm to get the best view. Hambone and Mort fell silent, and he felt the rank behind him leaning in to listen to whatever he was going to say. “I can’t see the captain’s mouth, so I don’t know what he’s saying, but I can see the villagers well enough.”
Silence for a moment as Tyvian parsed out the words. “Well?” Hambone whispered.
“The fellow’s making Rodall an offer. They’ll give us a dozen chickens and five pigs in exchange for us marching away.”
Mort snorted through his cavernous nostrils. “We’re just gonna kill ’em and take ’em anyway.”
“But if we just take that much, we can march away and none of us get killed.”
Mort spat again. “Them farmers ain’t enough to kill me—won’t kill nobody in this company. Captain knows it, too. You’ll see.”
Hambone was grinning. “And then we get paid!”
Tyvian glimpsed nods from the corner of his eye. The Ghouls were excited, especially the bones. If they got to stick their pikes into some peasants today, they’d be eligible for the Ghouls’ very generous salary of three silver crowns a week. The ring tightened on Tyvian’s finger to the point that it went numb. And what do you propose I do about it?
Tyvian thought.
He felt a hand on his back—Eddereon, standing right behind him. The big man whispered in Tyvian’s ear. “This is going to get ugly. Prepare yourself.”
Tyvian nodded, though he had no realistic idea of what “preparing himself” would look like in this scenario.
The villagers’ delegation had finished talking. Tyvian supposed this was the point when Captain Rodall would tell the head villager in which end to stuff his bribe. Before he started speaking, though, Drawsher wheeled his horse and rode back toward the pikes. Here we go . . .
Rodall drew his broadsword and cut down the head villager with a savage blow to the temple that took the top of the man’s head off. On the backswing, he cut the arm off the lanky boy who was holding the village “standard”—just a plain blue flag on a stick. The third person—an old woman—screamed and fled, clutching her skirts. The captain twitched a finger, and his hounds leapt after her, running her down with ease. Her screams as they tore her apart made the ring blaze to the point that Tyvian’s knees felt weak. He leaned on his pike.
Rodall and Voth wheeled their horses and headed back toward the Ghouls. A few arrows struck Rodall’s bow wards and bounced off. Voth was laughing.
Tyvian glanced back to see Eddereon clutching his right hand to his chest. Tyvian knew that exact feeling—the ring torturing him. Tyvian felt it too, from a numbing squeeze to a red-hot fire. An iron brand laid across his fingers and blazing up his forearm.
The drums sounded the advance.
Tyvian had little choice but to match pace with the pike block, but his feet were so heavy he felt like he was wading through mud. Beside him, he heard Hambone say, “Here we go!”
The peasants—about fifty of them—ranged from boys of maybe thirteen to old men two steps from the grave. It was probably the entire male population of the village here. They were armed with hatchets and pitchforks and scythes and other tools of agriculture and husbandry. They had pot lids and barrel tops for shields. He hadn’t been seeing things, either—they truly wore iron cooking pots on their heads.
They were screaming with rage.
Some old fellow with an actual rusty sabre—a makeshift sergeant—thrust his blade toward the approaching pike block. Arrows from the back rank of the village militia whistled in low arcs. They mostly missed, but a few managed to plink off the Ghouls’ helmets. Tyvian heard one man cry out—probably hit in the leg or arm. The drums doubled their pace, and so did the Ghouls. Tyvian lowered his pike. Over his shoulders, the pikes of the ranks behind him lowered as well. The twenty-five-man block was a solid wall of steel spikes, moving toward the peasants at an even march. The other block—the sword block—was wheeling wide. When the pikes engaged, the swords would sweep down on those villagers seeking to flee. Tyvian could only glance at the other unit between the waving weapon shafts that surrounded him, but he knew what was going on. It was obvious, really. Inevitable.
Half of the peasants charged, throwing themselves at the mercenaries, sledgehammers and wood splitters held high. The other half broke and ran.
It was hard to say who had the worst of it.
The first villager to come within range of Tyvian’s pike was a boy—a big barrel-chested lad, a bit like Hambone. He had a pitchfork. The ring atrophied Tyvian’s arms—he couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t stab the boy, but of course he didn’t have to. Hambone did, as did the pikeman just behind him and to his left, spitting the farmboy through the chest in two places. In a dying spasm, he threw his pitchfork at the block. It plinked off of Tyvian’s mail; it would probably leave a bruise. But then they were marching over the dying boy, their weapons poking holes in the next villager and the next and the next.
Tears streaked Tyvian’s cheeks as the fire in his hand burned. It was all he could do to hold the pike, but it hung down at his waist, inert—just a long pole to ward off danger. Five other peasants went down under the foot-long tips of the Ghouls’ weapons. Then the order came to drop the pikes and the formation broke up. Swords were drawn. The villagers were routed, and now the slaughter was set to begin.
Hambone whooped, waving his sword in the air, and charged into the fray. Mort was more deliberate, carefully stabbing injured villagers in the spine before advancing.
Tyvian let them go. He supposed he ought to be screaming at himself to get over it—to do something before someone noticed and his cover was blown. He supposed also he ought to have been angry at the idiot peasants who thought threatening a mercenary company with a couple of old men with garden tools was a wise plan. But he remembered, at alternate points in his life, thinking and doing just those kinds of things.
Not now, however. Not today. He could still remember the faces of all those people who had come to his coronation. The ones that had kissed his hands and wept with joy at the very sight of him. The ones that, ultimately, he’d thrown himself off a building to save.
And a fat lot of good that had done.
Somebody smacked him in the back of the head. It was Drawsher—on foot, his eyes wild. “Get your head out your arse, Duchess! Earn your pay!”
Tyvian nodded, his hand still blazing with pain, and dropped his pike. He followed Drawsher as he charged through the village and into a pigsty. The sergeant spitted a young pig with a precise thrust and then passed the corpse to Tyvian. “Hold that! That there’s mine, understand? For later.”
A woman in a bonnet poked her head out of a doorway and shot an arrow at Drawsher. It stuck in his mail, just below the collarbone, but the bow just wasn’t strong enough to pierce deep. Drawsher staggered back a pace, roaring. Then he charged into the house.
Tyvian, still holding the bleeding pig, followed him. He could scarcely think—the pain was so intense. It had never been this bad before. The world was just a tunnel of fire and blood, and at the end was Drawsher’s broad back, pieces of his kit jingling as he ran.
They were in the cottage. The woman was screaming, throwing pots and plates and bowls at Drawsher as she sought to keep the butcher’s table between her and the sergeant. Drawsher batted the projectiles aside with his shield and leered. “Only gonna make it all the sweeter, duckling! I like the fighters!”
Tyvian dropped the dead pig.
Drawsher glared at him. “Go search the rest of the house, bone!”
Tyvian drew his sword. “No.”
Getting through Drawsher’s guard took only two moves. Tyvian left his broadsword sticking in the sergeant’s eye, its tip pushing through the back of Drawsher’s skull and his chain coif and pinning him to a wooden support beam.
The pain torturing him subsided, if momentarily. The woman screamed and fled. Not even a thank you. But his next thought was this: What does she have to krothing thank you for, anyway?
Numb, Tyvian worked his sword out of Drawsher’s face. He had to put his foot on the man’s breastbone to get it out.
Outside there was a flash of fire, and a wave of heat rushed through the open door. Tyvian went outside to see three Ghouls lying on their backs, their bodies smoking. Across the village square, on the roof of what was probably a blacksmith’s shop, an old woman was waving around a wand. A hedge wizard.
She fired another ball of flame at some more men, but these were a bit more nimble and dove behind a water trough. One of them was Hambone. His face was blistering up from a severe burn. He was screaming.
The hedge wizard powered up her wand again and shot another fireball at a group of the sword block that was trying to advance on the smithy. They scattered.
From the ground floor of the smithy, three men with bows started shooting. With the wizard’s wand providing cover, they could take their time and aim well. Two more Ghouls went down.
What the hell do I do now?
“Duchess!” It was Hambone, screaming to him from behind his trough. “Get that bitch on the roof! Get her!”
Tyvian looked down. There was a bow at his feet—the woman’s bow.
Tyvian had never shot a bow in his entire life.
/> A fireball exploded against the trough, causing it to light on fire. The men hunkered down with Hambone, screaming.
The ring sent Tyvian conflicting signals. On the one hand, the Ghouls had already lit half the village aflame and killed dozens of people. On the other, that old woman with the wand was trying to kill his ostensible friends. His whole right arm tingled with the conflict. He froze up.
In the end, he didn’t have to decide. The hedge wizard dropped her wand and clawed at her neck. Behind her, gloved hands twisted a garrote deeper into the old woman’s throat.
Of course, it was Adatha Voth.
Chapter 4
The Spoils
Tyvian spent the remainder of the “battle” in a pain-soaked stupor. The ring inflicted on him every torture, every hurt, and every death the Ghouls perpetrated. He knew he might have picked up a sword and begun a campaign of violence on his own, but to what end? Nothing could save that nameless little village now, least of all him. He might have felt the satisfaction of cutting the throats of a half-dozen rapists and murderers, but that scenario only ended with him running through the fields from Captain Rodall and his dogs, hunting new ears for his necklace.
So he curled himself into a ball somewhere, closed his eyes, and waited for it all to be over. Like a stinking coward. He only wondered, as he listened to the screams of the women and the crying children, how Eddereon was faring in all this. No better, certainly. Or perhaps Eddereon’s better self wasn’t quite as good as his own.
When it had quieted down some, the horn was sounded for retreat. Tyvian crawled out from beneath the oxcart he’d been hiding under and tried to leave the village without looking at anything. The heat from the burning homes hit him in waves. He had to step over a little boy—perhaps five years old—whose head was bashed open like a melon. One of his tiny, shoeless feet still twitched. The ring burned Tyvian from within while real flames burned him from without. He felt like his bones were grinding together, dry and brittle as sandpaper. He gasped, trying to keep the tears from falling. Somehow, he pressed on.
The Far Far Better Thing Page 4