In the baiting pit the bear roared, chained to its stake at the centre. Around it the pack of dogs circled, careful to keep out of reach of the bear’s claws. It was a smallish, brown mountain bear, and its coat was bald in places and matted elsewhere. In the bald places the scars of countless fights could be seen, and its nose was split unnaturally from an old wound. Though it was small for a bear and looked half-starved it was much larger than the mastiffs which circled it, and those of its claws which were unbroken could quickly disembowel any that came too close.
Rob finalised his bet with a man sitting on his right. Agmar sat on his left. Corin took a seat on Agmar’s left.
Rob cut the purse of the cobbler’s son, or whatever he was, sitting in front of him, dressed up, not very convincingly, as an aristocrat. Rob passed the purse back to Sandy, who was sitting behind him, who passed it back to Rose, who sat behind Sandy. Noticing Corin for the first time Agmar started, then padded himself, as though checking for missing items.
“I would never,” Corin said with affected indignation.
“Get caught,” Agmar said with a sly smile. “Your ethics are laudable, you little rascal.”
“Hey, I’m not little where it counts.”
“Not if Rose is any evidence. So, you survived. Or haven’t you been to the tower yet?”
“I’ve been. And found this.”
He drew the sword part way out of its scabbard to let Agmar see.
Rob looked sidelong past Agmar at the sword. Agmar said, “A bone sword?”
“I can see that. You’re always going on about how much esoteric lore you know. You’re a bard. Can you tell me something I don’t know?”
“Well, bone swords aren’t much use as weapons. It’d probably break the first time it hit anything hard. This sort of thing is usually a ritual object, not a weapon, though I suppose you might cut a tasty steak with it.”
“I think it’s more than that.” Corin told Agmar what had happened in the necromancer’s tower.
“Clearly an artefact of power then. May I?” He reached for the sword. Corin let him slide it all the way out of its sheath. Agmar turned it over and over, examining its length. He rapped it with a knuckle and it rang with a sweet sound, like a bell. “It doesn’t look remarkable. But no ordinary bone or ivory would make that sound. It sounds like metal, yet I’ve never seen any metal like it.” He stood and hefted it, swinging it, cutting the air. “It’s virtually weightless, as though it really was made of bone.” He balanced it a small way down its blade, across his index finger. “Its balance is perfect.” He stepped across to a wooden pillar and slashed. His eyes widened as it sliced straight through without resistance, then examined the cut. “I’ve never seen a blade cut so cleanly. It’s clearly no ordinary blade.” He sat down, and peered more closely at the surface, again turning it over and over, but bringing his eyes closer to the surface. “There are no visible runes. Most powerful swords are carved with runes.”
Corin reminded him of the runes he had seen in the necromancer’s tower. “The red energy formed runes along the blade, fiery runes.”
“Yes, that’s right. You did say. But was that the sword, or the necromancer’s power?”
Agmar pondered for a while, looking out across the baiting pit. Two dogs were down, one licking at its guts as they poured out on the dirt, the other dragging its now useless legs behind it, its spine broken above the tail.
“Damn!” Rob said. “Two or more. He’s stronger than he looks, scrawny, but still with a fire in his belly.”
The man next to him held out a hand and Rob flipped him a silver coin. Rob sighed as he looked back to Corin. “It’s just not my day.” Even if he had stolen more than he had lost.
Agmar said, “There is a legendary blade, but it was said to be covered in runes. Runes of fire and water. The chaos of the cosmos’s beginning written into a weapon of great power. This has no runes, of any kind. It’s missing its pommel stone.”
“That’s how I found it.”
Agmar held the blade in front of him, and sang a song in a language Corin couldn’t clearly understand, but the sound made his hair rise on the nape of his neck and at the edge of consciousness meanings flitted. He strained grasp them but they changed as quickly as they formed, flowing away like a handful of water. Rob turned his head towards the bard, as did many of the baiting pit’s other patrons. The blade seemed to hum in concert with the melody, Its outline slightly blurring, but nothing else happened. Then he stopped, the blade shimmered for a moment, then its outlines clarified. The audience turned their attention back to the arena of the baiting pit.
“No, it’s beyond me.”
“What’s that song?”
“It’s a song in the first language. The language used by mages and bards. The language of the gods.”
“The language of the gods? But the sister nymphs both spoke to me, and I understood them.”
“Of course. They wanted you to understand. If they want to the gods can speak to mortals in mortal tongues. But they have a language that they speak among themselves. That permeates the very texture of the cosmos. The language of creation. And destruction. The language of the beginning, and the end of all things. It’s all languages, and none.”
“And you know this language?”
“Only fragments. Even the greatest mortal sorcerers only know fragments. I know even less. Just enough to effect the imaginations of my audiences. To make them see more clearly. Sometimes to make the soldiers I fight alongside brave, when their hearts begin to fail them on the battlefield. And sometimes, in small ways, to affect the substance of things. But this is beyond me. It’s definitely an artefact of great power. It wants to alter, but something more powerful than my song is necessary to bring about the transformation.”
“Wants to alter? You mean…”
“The sword is sentient. It has a mind, however primitive or elemental. Some sentient swords have even been known to speak to their wielders. Has it spoken to you?”
“Screamed. Of blood.” Corin shuddered.
“A cursed sword perhaps. That would make sense. A necromancer might possess such an artefact.”
“Do you think?”
“I recommend you throw it into the deepest darkest hole you can find.”
“Are you sure it’s cursed?”
“Probably. Or maybe just thirsty.”
“For blood?”
“Well, it is a sword; what else is it going to be thirsty for?”
“You don’t really know what it is then.”
“Only more or less, more of less really. Anyway, it might not be cursed. From what you said about the goddess in the tower she wanted you to keep it. Goddesses can be cruel, but would she be cruel to the boy…man who saved her? I don’t think that’s very likely. She must want you to do something with it.”
“But what?”
Agmar shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe talk to the twins. They got you into this. Maybe they’ll help you out.”
Corin dropped a gold coin in Agmar’s hand as he stood to leave.
“What’s this for?”
“I wouldn’t steal from a friend, not even from those pouch belts wrapped so tightly under his tunic he thinks no one can get to them…except to prove I can.”
“Cheeky little bastard.” He feigned trying to kick Corin, and the young thief easily dodged away.
Chapter 8: Bard-song
Corin slunk through the warrens of the South East Quarter. Here the buildings were in worse shape than North Bank. The streets stank, when they could be called streets. Most were nothing more than tunnels of shit and animal corpse covered cobblestones beneath collapsing cantilevered upper stories and between walls that bulged and crumbled so that refuse and buildings frequently couldn’t be distinguished. While there was a broad main avenue as in all the quarters of the city, only the brave or foolish trod those paths alone, for bandits as savage as any in the wastes of the northern forests prowled there. Occasionally Corin climbed to the roof
s to escape notice, but their thatch or tiles, or even roof beams, were as likely to collapse under his weight as aid flight from danger, so he was more than usually wary up there, and returned as quickly as he could to the rancid air in the claustrophobic tunnels below.
One advantage Corin had over others passing this way was his ability to hide, and his sharp sixth sense for danger. He anticipated the ruffians at the end of the alleyway he was traversing and jumped to grab a gable. He would be gone before they realised he was there.
The gable collapsed, bringing down a foul burden of refuse on him, and the shadows at the end of the dark alley shouted and ran towards him. Their faces were obscured by the darkness, but their eyes glowed as if with the inner light of evil. Perhaps they were some of the mutants he had heard of. The disease and squalor of this quarter were so extreme that many were born with strange malformations of body. Those who were not were often twisted in mind in more frightening ways. Though the alleyway stank he could smell their approach and struggled to lift a beam that had fallen on him, trapping his legs beneath. The men, or barely human animals, snuffled and grunted as they approached, limping, scuffling, scampering through the darkness. Their eyes were like sparks from a fire, floating and jumping in unpredictable ways. They were almost upon him. He strained against the beam as they closed in, though he knew now there was no escape, even if he had been free.
They stopped. Or rather, their forward progress stopped. He wondered at this and gave one last heave. The beam lifted, and he slipped his legs out. He tried to stand. As far as he could tell he had broken no bones. He wondered why they had stopped, then saw that they had jammed themselves too tightly in the space. They struggled against each other. Here the light of the moon could reach and he was shocked by what he saw. The faces seemed to have been pushed in, or bloated as multiple cysts pressed through from underneath. Some had noses more reminiscent of pigs, others of dogs. Some were without ears, others had only one eye. The deformations were too multiform for him to take it all in. Then he realised he was mistaken. As those at the front fought against each other, a mask fell away. Beneath it was a face terrifying enough in its snarling rage, but more clearly human. Another mask fell, and the scarred, hate filled face beneath was exposed.
Corin looked up. He couldn’t get up on the side he had tried but the other seemed intact. He jumped and grabbed the gable, preparing himself in advance for its collapse so that he wouldn’t be taken off guard a second time. It held and he hauled himself up as they broke free of their scrum and shouting ran at him. One of the men who had lost his mask grabbed his ankle. He was nearly dragged down. Speedily he kicked the bandit’s face, but the bandit held on. Then, he didn’t know how, the bone sword was in his hand and plunging down into the mouth of the bandit. The man’s grip loosened and his face slid bloodily off the blade as Corin dragged himself up by his one free hand. The bandits howled up at him, but he lightly skipped across the rooftops until their voices were lost in the distance. Though it didn’t speak, he sensed the sword in his hand was satisfied. He looked down its length, but it was entirely clean despite the blood and brains it had just spilled. Corin re-sheathed it.
Corin saw an alley between the roofs and turned towards it. The tiles beneath his feet gave way. He instinctively sprang from the best supported foot, but it wasn’t merely a loose tile. The whole roof seemed to be giving way, and the force of his springing only made it worse. He scrambled, looking for anything solid to grab, but the roof seemed to be folding into a bowl beneath him. His feet were quick and he was running up the side of the bowl, but its curvature increased as he ran, until it completely fell away. He flung his hands towards the edge of the bowl, grasping at disintegrating tiles and rotting rafters as the whole roof sagged. Everything that he grabbed came away in his hands. As he fell through the air he twisted, trying to retain his balance, and hoping that he landed on a regular surface. His feet hit floorboards. They cracked beneath his feet, and he extended his arms to either side, anticipating a further fall, but the floorboards held.
Eyes stared at him from the darkness. His first instinct was to run, but then he recognised it was a clowder of cats. They shot off in all directions, their glowing eyes turned towards him suspiciously, their mouths hissing, but somehow less animalistic than the humans he had encountered in the alley. The cats looked better fed than those bandits. He supposed there must be an abundance of rats and other vermin in this quarter for them to feed on.
Climbing to what was left of the roof he made his way more cautiously to the next alley, choosing one a little closer to the main street so that the roofs were less fragile. This was not a part of the city he knew well. Few people here had anything worth stealing, and those that did steal, mostly only took lives. The poverty here made that of North Bank seem mild by comparison and he wondered what it would be like to grow up here. Only a few hundred yards away the elegant spires of the inner circle of the city, the palace ring, rose into the sky, and yet here was nothing but despair and death.
As he approached the southern gatehouse that separated the south west from the south east quarter the houses became less ramshackle, and here and there businesses sprang up, a tavern here, a farrier there, a tailor and an armourer. There was a ring of affluence around the gatehouse, for the wealth and power of The Duke, as duke Augustyn of Relyan was known, had attracted commerce and protected it with soldiers. Corin slid from the rooftops to a cobbled ally. It was as dark as any in the decrepit area, but the animal corpses were cleared away daily, and shit and piss formed only a slight patina on the cobblestones instead of an immovable sludge. He passed a tavern, its sign almost welcoming, though somewhat faded, with the symbol of a unicorn beside the peeled name of the same, and stepped into a broad square. The air was clean here, by Thedran standards. Only in the country or by the lake when the mountain breeze blew coolly down the valley would you breathe better.
Corin relaxed and strolled across the square, heading for the gatehouse, which towered above the houses and even the temples with their soaring spires, though not as high as the spires of the palace, unless you counted the strange spiral stairway.
He sensed something wasn’t right and turned to pick up a worthless stone from the cobblestones, pretending examining it while noticing that at the alley furthest from the gatehouse shadows were gathering. He threw the stone aside and stood again. Despite his unease he sauntered insouciantly in a slightly changed direction. The shapes he had seen would have seemed nothing but shadows to the uninitiated. Corin knew better. He slightly adjusted his pace and direction, but another alley had been cut off, and the one he had entered the square by was the same. He kept his head facing the cobblestones, as if looking for something and unaware of the danger. Then he suddenly broke into a run at an acute angle from his original direction. The gables were low there and he would almost be able to sprint onto the rooftops. He reached the edge of the square.
A cloaked shape dropped to the stones in front of him. He could hear the rush of the others. This was no motley band of deformed, dirty bandits. This was hundreds of low lawyers, and many were masters at law. The Lord of Law had clearly not been impressed by the claims of the King of Cripples. The Courts of Law had ruled against Corin, against his life. They closed in on all sides, manglers and low lawyers, enforcers and thieves, some only prentices, some journeymen, surprisingly many clearly masters; and at the edge of the shadows he thought he saw a vassal.
Inwardly Corin smiled; it was a form of flattery; the Lord of Law thought him so good that many masters at law and even a vassal were necessary to capture him. But despite his smug satisfaction, he knew he was in mortal danger. And while he would have stood a chance against a single master, being at least as sneaky and skilled, against so many he had failed.
Still he wondered: how did they find me? And why here? Why not in the theatre or baiting pit? Of course the answer to the last was simple: the King of Misrule would brook no interference in his realm. The treaties between the guild maste
rs would forbid so open an invasion of his dominion. The low lawyers would be denied the lucrative access to theatre patrons’ purses. But still, how had they tracked him here, given the paths he had taken, unless they had known his destination. Who could have told them?
He drew the strange sword and waited for death. Perhaps if he fought this way they would kill him quickly, since it would be too risky to take him alive. The sword was warm in his hand, like a living creature. In his head rose a murmuring voice. The voice demanded blood. Its murmur rose to a shout, its shout to a scream, and crimson washed over Corin’s vision. As if at the sword’s behest he charged at a tangle of manglers, the thuggish enforcers of the guild. They were surprised by his response and all but one leapt back. That one smiled cruelly, then fell screaming. Corin swung around himself methodically as they closed back in. He didn’t know how long he would last, but it was clear that he fought with more than his own skill. He heard the scream in his head, not quite articulate, lusting for blood, and like blood it flowed through his veins, made his arms vibrate with the demand. It was a battle cry of kings, but he was not a king, only a boy and a thief. He had trained with false swords against his actor friends, and had even used real daggers to save his life, but this was the first time he had fought real combat with a real sword.
The ranks of the guild fell back at his sudden fury, more like a warrior’s than a thief’s, as surprising to himself as it was to his foes. But they advanced again, and they had the advantage of numbers against which even a heavily armoured knight would have been wary. Their ranks closed in. He swung and turned and thrust and turned, always keeping them at bay on all sides. And he felt the sword draw him to its next victim instead of him thrusting it, and the slicing at the next, and parrying the next. The will of the sword had become indistinguishable from his own, and he wondered at this and feared it and knew despite his fear it was the only reason he still lived. But despite the sword’s power, despite the bloodlust that had become his own and unerringly guided his hand, he was tiring. He didn’t know how many of the thieves had fallen, or how many there were, but their ranks didn’t seem to be thinning and their circle closed more tightly around him. Tightened like a noose.
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