“Stand down!” Argus bellowed the words and looked around, making sure that he was obeyed. The next fool that tried to be brave would taste his steel. He had no intention of dying for someone else’s profits.
Let Beron come for him. He was bigger than Beron and he had a few secrets of his own. In any event he had no desire to die this night.
* * *
The rains kept coming and Beron trudged through them, disgusted by the mud, the cold and the wet.
To the side of the trail and their small caravan a gully had become a stream and then a creek, and was now a river. They adjusted accordingly.
The women they held as captives were silent, though some of them tended to smile at the strangest times. They were not normal people. He knew that now and he cared not at all. They were his. He’d paid for them. He would sell them for a profit. He would keep his earnings, and he would spend a small part of his fortune making certain that Brogan McTyre died slowly.
To that end he had spent the last day of his travels talking with a courier who would take his offer to Hollum. He’d planned to stop there himself, but had changed his mind when he heard that great numbers of people were already heading in that direction from Saramond. Best not to be seen with the refugees. The He-Kisshi were probably already headed there and looking for him and his. He did not doubt they had escaped his trap for them. They were Undying, after all.
Now his courier had done well and his prize was before him. There was real business to attend to.
“These ‘Undying’ you speak of, they are the ones who offer coins and take sacrifices?”
“Yes,” Beron replied to the woman walking next to him. She was scarcely half his size. He knew without thinking about it that she could kill him easily. She and her brethren were considered the most dangerous fighters alive.
“You should avoid them.”
“I intend to, but they are not why I’ve asked for your services.”
“You want us to find Brogan McTyre?”
“Precisely. I want him found, captured, brought to me. Him and all of the men who worked with him. I imagine he can tell you their names.”
“I would say that we don’t work cheaply, but in your case we can’t work for you at all.” She looked toward him and shrugged.
“Why so?” He felt the scowl on his face deepen. He was not a man used to being denied.
“We work as mercenaries from time to time, but King Parrish is our lord and he has claimed the lot of them.”
He could offer a lot, he could not offer as much as a king. “I don’t suppose I could pay you to geld them for me? Bring me their cocks?”
She smiled. “They’ve made you very angry.”
“They sold me a bill of goods that has already cost me a city. The Undying want me because of the slaves I travel with. I would have my satisfaction.”
“If I find them first, perhaps something can be arranged. King Parrish never said I had to bring them in complete, only alive.”
“Excellent. Of course, if I find them first I’ll kill the bastards.”
She looked at him again and he wished he knew a name to go with her. “As I understand it, the gods themselves want them. They are to be sacrificed in order to save the world.”
Beron shrugged. “I need to find someone who can talk to the gods for me. Can you do that?”
She laughed and shook her head. “No. Me and the rest of the Marked Men tend toward the other side of the equation.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the gods did not solve our problems, so we bartered with something else instead.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to. I will make you a counter offer, Beron. Find the men you seek, capture them, torture them if you want, but leave them alive. Whatever price you paid them, we will triple it as your reward.”
Beron stopped walking and looked hard at the woman. She stopped and matched his gaze.
“You’re actually serious, aren’t you?”
“King Parrish wants them. He needs them alive. He will pay you dearly.”
“Done.”
“Alive, Beron. If they are dead, they are useless to us. They must be alive.”
“Done.” Beron smiled.
“Excellent.” The rains continued and painted her hair to her scalp. She looked like a half-drowned urchin. Just the same he listened when she continued and he nodded solemnly. “Beron, do not try to offer them to anyone else. Do not try to get a higher bid. You will not and your profit will already be high. You know what the Marked Men are capable of. If you betray us, you earn our wrath.”
“Why would I betray you?”
“You are a slaver, Beron. You’re practically the high lord of all slavers. Your reputation precedes you, as well. You are a skilled fighter. You are a strong man, and you are a brave man. Make certain you are a wise man when it comes to this.”
Her body was cloaked against the cold, just the same she took the time to peel off one glove and show him the markings on her flesh. He could not tell if they were tattoos or something else completely, but when she showed him her palm the marking there, a serpentine spiral with a slash from the very center to the very end of the mark, writhed and shimmered on her flesh.
“My word to you, Beron of Saramond: deliver them alive and your reward will be wealth. Cheat me and the reward will be everything you would have done to Brogan McTyre.”
“My word to you, servant of King Parrish. If I find them they will be delivered alive, provided you pay what you have promised. Disappoint me, and I’ll see to it that you and yours are locked in irons and sold to the highest bidder. Do you doubt me?”
She smiled. “Not in the least.”
“I have always enjoyed coin more than revenge. I find it spends better.”
“On this we are in agreement.”
He nodded as she strode away from him. Wherever her horse was, it remained out of his sight.
He was cold and he was wet and he ached from the travel, but Beron smiled.
Brogan McTyre was a dead man any way you looked at it, but now he could profit from that death.
Beron strode on, his mind already working the necessary angles.
* * *
“You’ve changed, Parrish.” King Bron McNar sat upon his throne, looked upon his closest neighbor and tried to hide the feeling of dread that clawed at his guts. In the past King Parrish of Mentath had been a hard man, yes, but he’d been a man. Now Bron had his doubts.
He was the same size as before, true enough, and his face was still his face, but everything else about him seemed off-kilter. He was confident where before he had been unsure. He stood as if he had no worries in the world. Not like he had lost to Bron in their last battle.
It was the markings, of course. He’d heard of the Marked Men but seeing that the king of Mentath had done to himself whatever it was he’d had done to his finest soldiers left him doubting his abilities to fight the bastard a second time, should it come to that.
His arms and his neck, where they were bared, were covered in the markings. They seemed inked across his flesh, but they couldn’t have been as they also shimmered and changed even as Bron looked at them. The changes were subtle. They were small, but they were not his imagination and he was certain of that.
Parrish had brought a dozen fighters with him, but hardly seemed concerned about whether or not they were there. He exuded a preposterous level of confidence and the odd air that he was onto a joke no one else understood. He had that in common with Harper Ruttket, actually. That was probably why Bron so disliked Brogan McTyre’s second.
Parrish was not a large man. He was slender and he was tall, bordering on too thin to take seriously, but having met the man in close combat, Bron knew better. His hair was long and coiled into curls and adorned with stones and ringlets. The entire mass was drawn back into multiple smaller braids in the style of his people. The Mentath never cut their hair deliberately. When they had short hai
r it was either because they had offended their king and he demanded their honor or because someone had cut it for them when they lost a duel. Even asking why a Mentath had short hair was considered an offense, as Bron understood it.
“You have changed, too, Bron. You’re actually bigger than you were before.” There was a genial enough tone to the words, but the smile on the man’s face was cold and thin. “We are another year from a formal Gathering of Kings, but this seemed an important enough issue.”
Bron nodded and poured them both a heavy goblet of red wine that was thick and sweet. “Emissaries are on their way from Arthorne, Giddenland and Kaer-ru.”
Parrish took the wine and sipped it with a nod of thanks. He knew well enough that Bron wasn’t the sort to resort to poison. Besides which, these days they were supposed to be allies. He’d married Parrish’s sister, after all. “Even the islanders are coming this far?” Parrish nodded his approval. “I suppose the gods are serious about ending the world, after all.”
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
“‘Ten times before they have made their threats. Ten times before they have merely punished.’ Isn’t that the line the bards most often sing about the gods?”
Bron sighed. “I never really wanted to listen to the tales. I just followed the instructions and called it done.”
“What do you suppose they are, the gods? Have you ever known anyone who could say?”
Bron shook his head. “I’m not even sure what their punishments were. We’ve the Broken Swords to consider, where gods supposedly fought. No proof of course. And if those are swords, where are the hilts?”
“Maybe the hilts were crystal as well?”
“Well, that would certainly explain why they broke, I suppose.”
“The punishments I can explain. Ten times the kingdoms sinned and ten times the gods let demons into our world.”
“And what are demons, then, Parrish?”
“Bad things, one supposes.”
“Well, that explains it all then.”
“Don’t look at me, Bron. I’ve no notion what a demon is.” The worst part of the conversation? Bron knew at that moment that the other king was lying. He thought about the odd markings that moved and shimmered and closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t know what a demon was himself, but he intended to find out.
Bron took a small sip of the potent wine. “In any event, we know we must deal with what Brogan McTyre has done.”
Parrish nodded. “Aye, or face the end of the world.”
“You seem very calm about this.”
“As I’ve already said, ten times we’ve supposedly been warned. No reason to think the gods will destroy the world. If they did, who would sacrifice to them?”
Bron stared at the far wall for a moment then nodded his head. He had news that Parrish apparently did not. “Saramond is gone.”
“How’s that?”
“The city of Saramond is gone. Completely. The very land where it was has been destroyed, washed into the sea.”
Parrish shook his head as if to deny it, the calm arrogance knocked away from his face by the news. Bron felt a certain satisfaction in that knowledge. “That’s madness. Saramond is fifty miles from the sea.”
Bron bit back a harsh note of laughter. He didn’t want to laugh. It wasn’t the sort of thing that even made a good joke. “Oh yes, I know. Frankel will not be joining us. He’s dead. Died when the city was torn apart by lightning strikes. I doubt you could see them from where you live, but up here we had a good view from our towers. I haven’t advertised the knowledge to everyone in Stennis Brae, but I took the time to climb one of the towers and look myself. I can take you to see the view if you’d like.”
Parrish, who had been looking very confident until that moment, shook his head and wandered to the closest chair to sit.
“Gone? Completely gone?”
“Ruined. Lost. Washed into the ocean, which is now fifty or more miles closer than before.” He rather enjoyed making Parrish nervous. It was a sad little victory, but he would take what he could from the man he knew could take him in a battle. “I daresay I’ll be fine up here in the mountains, at least for a while, but the plains of Arthorne are looking very different these days. Waters flooding everything out there, a little at a time. It’d be faster, but most of the plains are lower than the area closer to this end. The waters can only get so far before they’ll have to form a lake instead of rivers.”
“We’ve got to find those bastards.” Parrish looked up. He didn’t quite accuse, but he didn’t ask, either. “You had them. You let them go.”
“Aye. He offered me a valid argument.”
“How so?”
“The Undying took his entire family as a sacrifice.”
“Impossible. They’ve never done that before.”
“They did it just the same. He showed me the coins. Four of them. His wife, all three children. He asked me what I would have done.”
Parrish nodded.
“Would you have done differently, Parrish?”
“Possibly. Then again, I have four wives…”
“I can’t say I’m happy about the situation. I intend to do my part to see him and his men recaptured. Sent fifty of my best after them. Good soldiers, good hunters, and twenty dogs. He’ll be found and likely soon.” He did not mention the first twenty killed by Brogan. Why offer any sign that his soldiers might be weak?
Parrish nodded. “How long until the rest arrive?”
“Who can say? I’ve no idea where their emissaries are coming from.”
“Troubling times, Bron.”
“It was easier when we were younger,” Bron agreed. “Then all we had to worry about was whether or not we were going to kill each other on the battlefield.”
Parrish snorted laughter and raised his goblet in salute.
* * *
Brogan looked at the rolling hillside and the small hut on it, and shook his head. “Hut” was a generous word. The structure was made of rocks that had been slathered together with mud once upon a time, but now most of what seemed to hold it together were the creeping vines that covered the hill. The sort of vines, in his experience, that hid snakes and the like. He did not much like snakes.
Harper, who knew very well of his dislike, was smiling ear to ear and had one hand over the lower half of his face to try to hide that fact. A small army on their asses and Harper found something to laugh about. He always did.
“Why are we here, Anna?”
Desmond scowled at the question. His wife answered it.
Anna placed her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Because I was trained by the Galeans, and Darwa is a Galean. I can’t answer the questions you want answered. She can.”
“Can you have her come out here?”
“No. You have to go to her.”
“That’s a rule of some sort?”
“Darwa doesn’t like to leave her home. She has invested it with a great deal of her power. Leaving it would make her vulnerable.”
He stared at the woman and contemplated that. Had she left her powers behind when she left her house? Were they powers that could be stolen and used against them? He had no way of knowing and wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. Better to hope she had a few more defenses in place for the next time an army came knocking.
“Will you at least introduce us then?”
“No need.” Anna waved him toward the front of the dubious dwelling. “She’s expecting you.”
Harper’s body shook with suppressed laughter and when Brogan looked his way he shook all the harder, one hand waving frantically as if warding off a swarm of flies. His eyes streamed with tears.
Brogan jammed a finger in Harper’s direction. “Shut it!”
Harper leaned over his horse nearly braying laughter. No one else got it and Brogan wanted it to stay that way. He liked his dread of snakes left between him and no one else.
There were stones buried in the thick ivy. Brogan could see them if he squinte
d just so. Carefully planting his feet he moved across the lichen crusted steps, making certain not to slip. He had a powerful suspicion that falling into that heavy veil of ivy would be very bad for his health.
Once past the seventeen stepping stones he knocked at the door.
The woman who opened it was the very definition of average. She was middling in height, middling in weight, had mousy brown hair and a face that was utterly unremarkable. The good news was, she wasn’t quite the horrid hag he’d been expecting. Galeans were rare, but had reputations for looking much as they had lived. That is to say, a truly evil Galean was supposed to bear the marks of every sin upon her body. That was all just rumor of course. He’d never met one until just that moment.
She looked up at him, and squinted a bit as she took his measure. “You are Brogan McTyre of Stennis Brae.”
“I… Yes I am.” He hadn’t really thought she wouldd know his name. They had traveled several hours to meet her. At no point had Anna left them or ridden ahead.
“Come inside, then, and let’s have done with this.”
She moved back. Her simple dress was a functional thing, and like her, seemed designed to be as nondescript as possible.
Brogan followed, ducking through the door and into the structure itself. It was bigger than he expected, and bore the sign of the Lodges on the beams of the ceiling. A low fire burned in a stone fireplace. The walls were stone and unadorned, save for where water had run along and stained them over the years. There was a smell of burned herbs about the place that was cloying and oddly sweet. It made his senses ring.
She moved over to a small table with a seat on either side. All of them made of stone and designed for function instead of comfort. Still he sat when she gestured.
“Tell me what you want to know.”
“I want to know how to stop the gods. They want to end me and mine or end the world. I don’t like those choices.”
“You act as if that’s as easy as brewing a love potion or a curse.”
The Last Sacrifice Page 20