by Julia Knight
Eder’s wry smirk faded at that and he sat forwards. “A few that match. A tall man, almost a giant, with a shaved head. A woman in charge, by all accounts, huge scar on her face, not afraid to use her sword–these two have been about for years, but while they’ve proved elusive, they also haven’t proved too much of a problem when it was just Scar’s men. Now the Scar has a second. Maybe, anyway. The Skull.”
“The Skull? That seems an odd name,” Kass said.
“It does until you know why,” Eder replied. “All we know about him, apart from thinking he’s the duellist, is he wears a mask over one side of his face. On the other side… there is no face, only bone, a few remnants of muscle. Hence the Skull. It’s enough to frighten the hell out of people. Other than that, he’s fairly tall, dark hair. Could be almost anyone. Could be Vocho, or me, only without all our faces.”
A little shiver at that, a remembrance of Petri in the Shrive, of his upper-class drawl, which always scraped across Vocho’s nerves. But while Petri had been badly wounded in the face, he still had one–he wasn’t down to the bone. Could be any number of ex-guildsmen, Vocho told himself. No point jumping at ghosts. He wished he’d brought his jollop nonetheless.
Eder laid his papers out across the table. “Apparently he supplies the threats; she carries them out if the victims don’t immediately do as they are told. Oh, yes, and she’s a mountain girl all the way, by the way she talks. He’s not. Doesn’t talk much but when he does… definitely not a mountain boy.”
Kass pored over the papers and nodded. “Makes sense. All the ex-nobles and richer clockers send their precious children for a guild education, even if they pull them out before they take their master’s. He could be any one of a hundred men–someone who left before he took his master’s, a retiree who got bored, someone who went missing after the battle last summer.” She stopped with a grimace but shook it away and carried on. “So, he’s your tactician. Odd he’s not doing the fighting though. Any ideas on where they might be based?”
Eder pulled a map out of the sheaf of papers. “Looks to me like somewhere around here. See, the attacks start close by, then radiate out.”
“And what’s there?”
“Not a lot. An inn where no one would even look our way let alone talk to us, a few ramshackle farms, one small manor house that’s seen better days and is now empty. Last time we managed to get there, anyway.”
Kass cocked an eyebrow his way.
“More snow than the mountains have had in years, apparently. Lost three men to an avalanche, and then they attacked us.” Eder looked down at the papers, folding the edge of one over and over. “We didn’t even hear them coming, and I couldn’t give you much more of a description either because they came, did what they set out to do in the dark and left. They aren’t just a bunch of farmers gone to thieving. My men–well they aren’t duellists but they aren’t poor with a blade or gun either. They all fought last summer against Ikaras; they know what they’re doing. Or they did. I left a dozen soldiers up on that mountain, buried wherever we could find some ground not totally frozen. I want to find the people who did that.”
Kass looked at him with more animation than Vocho had seen in her for a long time. Bakar had been right about this. What seems good to you–the guild motto that Kass lived by, or had done for a long time. Now he could see the beginnings of it in her eyes again, the sister he thought he knew.
“We will,” she said to Eder now. “I promise you we will.”
Strange how that promise only made Eder’s face all the darker.
Chapter Six
Five months ago
The barn wasn’t large, but it was the largest building in the valley and the warmest by far. Petri eyed it on his second night, imagining how much warmer a soft cushion and blanket of hay would be than the cold floor of last night. He slipped through the door, out of the snow and into the warm animal fug, and knew immediately that he’d made a mistake.
Stalls ran down one side, most with a warm horse’s or cow’s back showing above the rough planks. The ponies had better blankets than he did. As the door shut behind him, swirling a fresh drift of snow over the straw, human heads poked out of the stalls, and from the pen to the other side, where more ponies stood, heads down, contented as they sleepily munched on wisps of hay.
He knew he was in trouble when Kepa stepped out of the foremost stall, knife already to hand and a scowl making creases that went halfway around the back of his bald head. Within heartbeats others moved in the dimness behind him, half seen in the light of the one fitful lamp. Someone scampered down a rough ladder at the other end of the barn that led perhaps to a hayloft.
“You don’t got sleeping rights here,” Kepa said. “You have to earn them, and you ain’t earned shit. Get back to the mess.”
Petri stared at him, at the piggy little eyes in the centre of his moon-shaped face, at the gleam of the lamp off his shaven head. Instead of this man he saw others in that face. Eneko, perhaps, in he way he held the knife. A pudgy-faced innkeeper down on the plains who’d taunted Petri mercilessly, whose burly sons had done more than that and left him with cracked ribs and bruises that had taken weeks to heal. Bakar, who’d looked at him with gentle reproach as he sent Petri to the Shrive. He saw Kass, an unruly tangle of blonde hair flopping on her forehead, grinning at him crookedly before she abandoned him, left him to the cruel hot knife. He saw every man and woman who’d ever turned away from him, ever jeered at him, told him he was weaker than bad steel, softer than lead.
He was on Kepa before he’d even thought about it, good hand scrabbling for the knife, bad hand at least some use as a bludgeon. Kepa fell back, startled by the onslaught he hadn’t expected, and Petri pressed his advantage, mindful of the others standing behind, around them, watching. Maybe waiting to see who won.
Petri had never brawled–duelled yes, sparred within the strict rules. His only experience of brawling had been trying, and failing, to throttle Vocho in a pokey little cell in the Shrive. He surprised himself with his own viciousness, at the savage glee when a blow told, when Kepa rocked back on his heels after a brutal headbutt the old Petri would never have countenanced, would have considered unbecoming to a guildsman.
Petri grabbed a pitchfork and cracked it around the man’s head, making him stumble, and then had his good hand around Kepa’s neck, squeezing and squeezing. Weak, was he? Good for nothing? Worthless?
Hands yanked him upright, and he tried, flailed around him with good hand and bad, tried to fight them all because he was never going to be weak again. Not this man, not Petri who wasn’t Petri any more. He thrashed with elbows, slashed with Kepa’s knife, which was now in his hand, felt it catch at flesh, heard the warm patter of blood on the straw. The hands let go, and Petri stood back, panting, grinning with what was left of his lips.
He had a circle to himself now, Kepa groaning at his feet, another man holding a wound closed on his arm. Petri kicked at Kepa until he got to his knees, then to his feet, where he wobbled uncertainly, the red imprint of a hand around his neck darkening to purple, his lip swollen and leaking blood. Kepa wiped it away absently and looked at Petri from under lowered uncomprehending brows.
“Who don’t got sleeping rights?” Petri growled.
A long silence, then, “Reckon there’s room for one more tonight.”
He spent that night in the hayloft, warmed from the ponies underneath, snug under a cover of sweet-smelling hay. He made sure to find a corner on the far side of creaking planks to warn him if anyone came close, but he didn’t sleep except in snatches, for all the warmth.
The next night they were waiting for him, but he was ready. Only a practice blunt, a sword made from soft metal that wouldn’t hold an edge which he’d found in the makeshift forge behind the mess. He had the knife he’d taken from Kepa, but his rage wasn’t that far gone or had turned from heat to ice in the snow. He didn’t want to start killing people, or else Scar would send him on his way at best, and he’d freeze or starve. H
e wasn’t intending on doing either of those, nor being bottom of the pile once again. Not this Petri. This Petri was strong.
They came in a group this time, having learned their lesson. Two in front, the rest flanking, trying to get behind. Kepa, sporting a perfect purple handprint around his neck and a fat lip, led them. Petri let them come. Brawling had its place, but against a guild-trained duellist with a sword, even a blunt one in his off hand, was not the best place. The blade wobbled out, caught a flanker in the gut when Petri had been aiming for the chest, but it doubled the man over with a whoosh of breath. Half a second later the hilt smacked back into the face of the man trying to come up behind him.
Petri was weak with his left hand, not as accurate as he would have liked, but he’d spent the day practising and had the balance of it now, and balance was half the distance. Besides, he wasn’t trying to kill, only to have them leave him be, and his left was enough for that against men and women never trained in fighting against a sword. Or it was now, with all this heat and ice running through him. He snarled at the man on his right, feinted with an elbow and brought the sword around in a clumsy arc that still managed to hit its mark, albeit his arse instead of the stomach.
A wild slash towards Kepa as he advanced, enough to make him leap back, and it was all coming back to Petri, old muscle memories and new realisations he’d never understood about duelling, never got to grips with. Use the length of your sword so that you take up all the available space, leaving none for your opponents. Be louder, taller, bigger, bolder, or seem to be. Petri had never managed it, too reined in, more likely to stand back and let the fight come to him. Now all the years of restraint fell away.
It was his reach with the sword that won in the end, as he’d suspected it would. These people brawled, got in close with a quiet knife or a set of knuckles. That he could swing for them, even wildly, clumsily, from a distance was his advantage, and he used it. The blunt smacked into flesh, with the flat of the blade where he’d meant the edge, or at the tip when he’d meant for the blow to come further up the blade, but his clumsiness didn’t matter against people who knew only how to punch and stab.
When he’d finished, victorious, he was wet with sweat, while they stood warily in a wide circle about him, not one without a purpling bruise at best to show for it.
“You got a way with a sword,” Kepa said grudgingly, and one or two murmurs agreed.
Petri stood a little taller. “And I’m here to show you, or so Scar said. If you can stand it.”
Kepa grinned suddenly. “I can if you can. Aye, reckon it’d be a handy thing to know all that. There’s room in the loft for tonight. But maybe not every night. It’s every man for hisself in here, and some time you’ll find yourself up against it when you ain’t expecting it. Reckon you’ll do all right, maybe.”
Petri took his place among the sweet-smelling hay and slept soundly for the first time in months.
Chapter Seven
Now
Kass packed her knapsack with mixed feelings. It’d be good to get out of the guild, away from a place that had too many ghosts swirling through it, that never let her forget. She was pretty sure that Vocho and Bakar had asked her to do this for just that reason, and maybe, OK, maybe they were right, but it was hard. It had all seemed so clear once, what the good thing, the right thing was. Now she couldn’t be certain they were the same.
Her horse, recalcitrant beast that it was, greeted her with a well aimed swipe with his teeth at her face that she dodged only barely. It settled when she put the saddle on, its whole stance indicating it was about bloody time she took it somewhere interesting, preferably with people to bite at the end of it.
Out in the courtyard four dozen of Eder’s men and women stood ready, horses waiting in the early mist-swirled light. With them were Cospel lurking on his pony and Eder looking resplendent in a sharply pressed uniform atop a gleaming chestnut that her horse took an instant dislike to. Behind them a couple of guildsmen that Bakar had insisted they take, “for the look of the thing”. Vocho stood beside his indolent nag, giving last-minute instructions to the master who’d given him the least trouble over the last few months, who he’d picked to run the guild in their absence. She wouldn’t do a bad job either, Kass thought–dependable if nothing else, and not quite ambitious enough to try a coup while they were gone. Other masters lurked further back. Some had been voluble about Kass and Voch both leaving, others had been suspiciously quiet, but Kass found she didn’t care overmuch about what they were planning while she was away.
Once they were out of the teeming city with its crowds of hawkers and beggars, clockers and tradesmen, the way grew quicker, and her heart lightened as she left memories behind her. A broad road wound its way up towards the mountains, a road she and Vocho had known well enough in their own brief days as highwaymen. Now that brought a wry smile–they had been pretty awful at it.
“Something amusing?” Eder asked with a sneering effort at being polite.
“Only if you think setting two ex-highwaymen to catch your band of cut-throats is amusing.”
Eder looked taken aback. “Ex-highwaymen? But I thought—”
“There was a time we weren’t very welcome at the guild,” Vocho said from the other side. “Or in the city, come to that.”
“Some might say you still aren’t. Welcome in the city, that is.” The curl at the corner of Eder’s mouth turned up a sly notch. “You were supposedly cleared of that though.”
“Sort of,” Vocho said with an airy wave of his hand that made Kass roll her eyes. “I mean, I did kill that priest; it’s just that I didn’t know a damned thing about it.”
Eder looked to her to explain. “Magicians,” was all she said, and that was enough. Magicians were blamed for everything that had gone wrong in Reyes last year, from the prelate going mad to Eneko trying a coup. And they had been to blame for a lot, but not all of it.
She spent the time looking around her at those who accompanied them. The guildsmen and -women she knew, solid duellists who’d seen action enough for this trip to seem like a nice, if rather chilly, outing. Vocho had picked them well–been a bit staid perhaps even, and the thought that it was because he’d shine better because of their stolidness made her snort a laugh. Eder’s troop on the other hand were a mystery, and she didn’t like to travel with mysteries. Eder too–a bit stern, very disapproving and rather held-in, but there was something underneath, there had to be. There always was.
She nudged her horse forward to ride next to him, though not too close because her horse was feeling frisky.
“You said you’d all fought against Ikaras,” she started, and was surprised at the flinch in his previously bland face.
“You weren’t the only ones fighting,” he said. “Everyone fought, not just the guild, though it’d be hard to tell from the stories the bards tell in the square.”
“I never thought—”
His face went to sneering in an instant. “Didn’t you? Everyone else does. We didn’t need you to come, but Bakar insisted. It’s not what you’re used to, all court manners and civilised duelling and people doing what you tell them. A bit rough for the likes of the guild, not half cultured enough. You’ll just be a hindrance up here.”
Kass glanced back at Vocho, got a puzzled shrug in return and looked up at Eder again. “We’ll do our best not to be, I’m sure. You seemed glad enough of us in Bakar’s palace.”
He pulled his horse to a snorting stop, and the rest of the company flowed around them as he glared at her. “Bakar said you might be able to tell us who this guildsman is up there. He didn’t mention you coming along, or not to start with. We’re perfectly capable of dealing with this ourselves. It’s not a guild matter.”
“If it involves a guildsman then it’s a guild matter. And I am guild master, so it’s definitely my business. Bakar employed us to help in any case, so we will. Besides, if you were so capable, your men wouldn’t be buried on the mountain.” A cheap shot, and one she regretted
the instant it left her mouth. “I’m sor—” she began, but he didn’t wait to hear it, instead kicking his horse into a canter until he was at the head of the little procession.
“What the hell was that all about?” Vocho asked as he came level with her.
“Ever get the feeling you’re not wanted?”
“Everyone wants me.”
She gave her brother a look. “Only if they’re blind. Eder seems to have a bit of a problem with us tagging along. Or with the guild in general. Wonder why.”
Vocho grinned, a conspiratorial thing that was odd given he didn’t have anyone to conspire with except her, and she hadn’t a clue what was behind it.
“Well then, maybe we should find out?” he said.
By the time they were ready to stop, they’d left the rain-sodden plains behind and were heading up into the snowline. Vocho’s hip was not slow to inform him it did not like the cold. It protested all the way through pitching their tent in among a stand of firs that clattered above them in the wind, and was positively howling by the time he could find somewhere private to swig his jollop. After that it settled into a mellow nagging, and he joined Cospel by the fire he’d got going in a clear space among the trees. The air smelled of snow and pine needles.
Vocho could see down across the plains, dark now with little rings of light that would be hamlets and villages, a further, blurrier but bigger splotch that was Reyes. All of it was coated in the sleet that seemed ever present. Behind, the mountains loomed, all tipped with snow. It had been cold and wet enough on the plains for Vocho. He wasn’t looking forward to worse than sleet.