by Ben Peek
Bueralan parried, then he pressed her. The mercenary was a disciplined sword-fighter, but Bueralan had caught her off-guard and it wasn’t long until he slipped past her defences. He drove the hilt of his sword into her cheekbone, smashing it up and sideways to distort her vision. She managed to parry his blows twice, but Bueralan’s stolen blade slammed into her head before she could raise her own sword for the third strike. That left him enough time to spin around to meet his purloined sword’s previous owner, as the first Scratch mercenary rose to his feet.
The blade split his skull like a melon.
Bueralan took a breath and wiped blood off his face with the Echoes’ shirt, before tearing off the insignia. Dropping to his knees, he forced it into the hands of the first mercenary, as if she had ripped it off in battle. He knew this murder was a clumsy tactic, designed to sow added discord in the town. But he figured it would be good enough for the guards who found the bodies. Khoury would not be able to suppress the rumour that emerged. And Scratch were eager enough for a fight that it wouldn’t take much for them to link these deaths and the stomach bug that was felling their mercenaries, to spell conspiracy.
Before he left, Bueralan threw the stolen sword into Leviathan’s Blood. The splash echoed, but did not follow him up the path back to Zajce.
15
The Last Courtesy was quiet when Bueralan returned. He made his way, still bloodstained and dirty, up to his room. He pushed the door open, stepped inside and had his shirt off, before he realized that he was not alone.
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ Vach Sala said from his bed, her voice muffled. ‘But if you could light the lamp first, that would let me admire the view more.’
The moonlight filled the room weakly. Sala, he saw, had pushed herself into the furthest corner of his bed. ‘There should really be locks on these doors,’ Bueralan said, reaching for the lamp on the floor.
The faint light revealed her bruised face, her blackened eyes and swollen lips.
‘Gertz did that?’ he asked. ‘When you took that gold back?’
‘He was angry.’ She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. On the bottom of the bed was her dress, stained with blood. ‘He said you were using me.’
There was a jug of water by the bed with a cloth over it and he carried it to the edge of the bed. Gently, he lifted her chin and gazed at the damage around her left eye. ‘Did you give him as good as you got?’ Bueralan asked, wetting the cloth to wipe away the blood.
She held still for him. ‘He’s my captain. He’s—’
‘Not much of one,’ he finished. ‘He’s saying you have to fuck another, to keep tabs on an innkeeper. It’s ridiculous. Our job is not one of bedrooms. Being a mercenary is about holding a sword and doing a job. You’re supposed to focus on fighting other paid soldiers, not worry about ones you’re paid to sleep with.’ He tilted her head to the light. ‘That’s going to bruise real ugly.’
‘You say the sweetest things.’ She pulled her head out of his grasp and leant back against the wall. ‘He hit me because I asked about Fia. I asked if she had been a real mercenary.’
Bueralan stood. ‘I don’t have to ask if you’re being used, do I?’
Sala drew her legs towards her chest and watched him, instead of answering. ‘Where do the scars on your back come from?’ she asked, after he turned away from her.
‘After I was exiled, I was sold into slavery.’ He wet the cloth again and ran it over his own face and arms, over the blood-splashed white of his tattoos. The tattoos that ran up to the scars on his back. ‘I was just one in a line – one at the end of a long line of men who had risen up against the First Queen of Ooila. In part, I did it so that my brother would have a future, but I can see now that not a lot of those involved in the revolution cared for what I did. Regardless, we were all there when the First Queen sold us.’ Bueralan kicked off his boots and blew out the lamp. In the dark, he climbed onto the bed and took part of the blanket. ‘Make some space, will you?’
Sala slid over for him, but the bed was narrow. When it was clear they would have to share the space, she slid her arm around him and pressed close. ‘Why did you come here then, if you hate slavers?’
His arm ran beneath her naked shoulders. ‘The slave trade is alive and well in Ooila,’ he said. ‘Nothing I did changed that. Nothing I do will change it in Zajce.’
‘You sound angry.’
‘Everyone should be angry.’
‘I guess I never thought about it.’ Sala laid her head against his shoulder. ‘Do you think about it every day you are here, when you see the slaves in the town?’
He didn’t reply. Instead he lay in the bed, with the girl next to him. After a while he thought she had fallen asleep, but then she said, ‘Bueralan.’ Her voice was almost muffled, pressed against his skin. ‘Bueralan, are you using me?’
‘Go to sleep,’ he told her softly. ‘Tomorrow is going to be busy.’
16
‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ the Captain of Myntalo asked. ‘To throw a man into Leviathan’s Blood is no trivial thing.’
In the last light of the afternoon’s sun, Bueralan sat beside the solid, grey-bearded man on the deck of his ship. They had half a dozen bottles of beer before them, and it was from one of these that Bueralan drank while he nodded. ‘It has to look real,’ he said. ‘I can’t have you drop me off on the shore near Enaka. People in the town above will notice that. They’ll ask questions that I won’t want to answer.’
‘Yeah, but the black ocean,’ the captain protested. ‘Maybe you don’t understand just how that can kill a man.’
‘I don’t want to swim in it,’ Bueralan said. ‘In fact, I’d appreciate it if you gave me a boat to row my way to shore in.’
The captain did not reply.
‘I know it’s a risk, but it’s a calculated risk. The most important thing is that you can’t tell anyone in your crew about it. They have to really throw me off.’
The other man took a drink. ‘That was Mayor Kana I saw leave the other day, wasn’t it? With all those soldiers.’
The event had garnered a small amount of attention, as Bueralan had hoped. Word had to circulate that Kana was still alive, that he was returning to Zajce. Kae had left with Kana, and it would be his job to ensure that the word kept getting out – a job he’d thought Bueralan could have done as well as him. ‘There’s no need for you to go to Zajce,’ Kae had said, before he left.
Bueralan had stood beneath the night sky, later that evening, the quiet of the farmhouse drifting over him. ‘There’s a final push to be made in the town,’ he said. ‘Someone has to line everything up.’
‘One of the others can do that.’ Before he had become a saboteur, Kae had been the guard of an important woman, and when he spoke, Bueralan could hear shades of his own past. ‘You don’t need to make this job about yourself, my friend.’
Here and now, on the deck of Myntalo, Bueralan swirled the beer around in the bottom of his bottle. ‘Yeah,’ he said, finally. ‘It was Kana.’
‘I guess it’s true what they say,’ the captain said. ‘A man with a bit of a god in him is a hard man to kill. You got that same curse?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m just a man with all the normal problems a man has. So, we have a deal?’
‘It’s a damn fool idea, but it’s your gold.’
17
Bueralan awoke just after midday. Quietly he slipped out of the bed, careful not to wake Vach Sala. She lay on her side, turned to the wall. Her back revealed a series of ugly bruises that had kept her awake throughout the night. She had finally fallen into a real sleep an hour or so ago and, as quietly as he could, Bueralan grabbed his boots, his stained shirt and his broken sword, before walking barefoot downstairs.
He had his boots on by the time he reached the ground floor, his shirt on by the kitchen, and had just finished belting his sword in place when he ran into Sabine. The musician was standing by the counter, carving slices of roasted meat with
a large knife. Without looking up, she said, ‘I can smell you a room away, Bueralan. Do you know what Inen will say when he realizes you didn’t find the bathhouse?’
‘I’m sure he’ll give me another lecture.’ He stretched a kink out of his neck. ‘He appears to enjoy that.’
‘He’s just nervous.’
‘He has no reason to be.’ He finished tightening his belt. ‘Maybe you should keep an eye on Vach Sala, though.’
‘The girl?’ Sabine tapped the meat with her knife. ‘We all saw her come in with the bruises last night. She’s with Gertz, right?’
‘She’s young,’ Bueralan said. ‘We’ve all been young. We’ve all made mistakes because of it. She shouldn’t have to die because she’s young.’
The musician turned to face him. For a moment, he thought she was going to say something that she shouldn’t, that she would break from her script. ‘Are you sure about that?’ she said, instead.
He nodded.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep an eye on her.’
‘Thanks. Now I’m going to go take a bath before I leave this town.’ He meant to make a joke, after that. ‘Even I’ve begun to rebel against myself.’ But the words slurred as the side of his head was hit by a hard piece of leather. A sap. He stumbled as he realized he’d been hit and what had hit him. His hand pawed for his broken sword on instinct, right before the sap hit him again. ‘You put the knife down,’ he heard a woman say to Sabine as his legs gave way beneath him. ‘We’ve come here to talk,’ a man’s voice said – Gertz’s voice, Bueralan realized with dawning horror. ‘We don’t mean you no harm, musician. But we’re going to take him inside and ask him some questions. Nothing hard. Nothing you need to worry about.’
Bueralan tried to turn towards the mercenary, to face him, but the movement turned his vision into a blurred series of lines, and the sap hit him hard again.
‘Why?’ he heard Sabine ask.
‘Because the Captain of Scratch is dead,’ the other woman replied, the words turning into a burning question his subconscious had no answer for.
18
‘I’ll ask you again: what makes you think that my guard is responsible for the death of Rafya Khoury?’
‘He’s covered in blood, Inen. Isn’t that enough?’
‘He’s not covered in blood. His clothes are splashed with blood. What’s more, you have no idea whose blood it is. Now, if this is the level of thought that goes into your work, Captain Gertz, you and Jiqa Syl can leave this building.’
‘You know this is no ordinary man.’ A woman’s voice broke apart the conversation of the two men. ‘Now be quiet. He is coming to.’
Bueralan wanted to thank Syl for the compliment, but the words stuck in his throat and came out in a grunt. He tried to push himself up, but found that a thick chain was attached to his left arm and it jerked him back to the ground. He cracked his eyes open and gazed at the length of black metal that constrained him. It was bolted to the ground near the stage, where the drums and harmonica stands had been. Then, as if it was nothing to him, Bueralan sat up and crossed his legs, before turning to those in the brothel who were staring at him.
The room was well lit, the curtains thrown back over the windows to let in the midday’s sun, and it gave Bueralan a clear view of the mercenaries. Syl was dusty, as if she had ridden hard, and she had half a dozen other mercenaries with her. So did the ill-looking Gertz, who stood next to her. Vach Sala, Bueralan saw, was part of the group, but she did not look pleased to be so identified.
‘You didn’t have to hit me,’ he said. ‘I hate being hit on the head.’ He stretched his neck and turned to his left. Sabine and Inen stood there against the booths, the prostitutes around them. ‘I see you’ve come back from looking for this army, Syl,’ he said, focusing back on the woman. ‘Find much of interest?’
‘I have to give you credit, Bueralan,’ she said, lifting his sheathed, broken sword. ‘Another man in this situation would beg. But for the exiled Baron of Kein, I imagine fear is reserved exclusively for the Queens of Ooila.’
‘If this is going to turn into a biography, I’m going to ask for a drink.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s the only way I’ll get through the recital of my early poetry.’
‘You make jokes now,’ Gertz spat angrily, taking a step forward. ‘But just you wait until I’ve cut you.’
‘No one is going to cut anyone.’ Inen stepped between the two with a loud jangle. ‘There has been a simple—’
‘I don’t want to hear another word from you,’ Gertz roared. ‘Not one more or I will gut you – I’ll gut all of you!’
At the edge of the mercenaries, Vach Sala paled at the sight of his anger.
‘Now, Bueralan,’ Syl said calmly, as if the Captain of Echoes’ outburst had not happened. ‘How did you come here?’
‘Haven’t you heard the story?’ Bueralan’s shrug pulled at the chain. ‘I was on a boat called Myntalo—’
‘And you fled during the night – yes, I heard. Do you have anything else you wish to tell? Maybe a story about Mayor Kana and an army riding towards us?’ Syl met his gaze. ‘I see this doesn’t surprise you.’
‘It surprised me.’ Gertz strode carelessly within striking distance of Bueralan, within the circle of his chains. ‘But not as much as the story I heard about you from Syl this morning. The story about how you, the exiled baron, aren’t a mercenary at all. How you’re actually a saboteur. How you work lone jobs. How you are paid to come into towns and stir up trouble and set people against each other.’
‘Did she tell you that story?’ Bueralan said, turning his free hand up, in half a shrug. ‘Why’d she tell you that? I thought her captain was Khoury.’
‘She’s dead,’ Syl said.
‘That makes you a captain, doesn’t it?’
‘You can say whatever you want, but I know it’s true,’ Gertz said angrily. ‘See, after I heard that, I got thinking about saboteurs I’ve known, about the kind of dishonourable shit they do if you pay them enough. About the same time, I thought about this pain in my stomach. This pain I’ve had for a week. This pain a lot of soldiers have. And then I looked out my window to see that the streets are empty. There’s just cages of slaves out there, unguarded. There’s no one building that wall or down by that port. Then I started to hear about soldiers being sick. Soldiers so sick that some die.’ The Captain of Echoes dropped his hand over his own stomach. ‘When Syl comes to find me and tells me this story, it’s like the last bit of a puzzle slots together for me. Only difference is: I know no saboteur is solo. I know that’s a lie. I know a saboteur has other saboteurs. And I know one of them is an apothecary who mixes the poison that rots your guts. That rots my guts.’
‘You think I have an apothecary?’ Bueralan again offered half a shrug. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t trust Syl so easily.’
‘You sound so confident,’ Gertz said, his voice dripping with contempt. ‘But you would kill at the turn of a coin. You saboteurs are all like that. I bet you killed Khoury in her bed.’
‘Why would I do that? Makara was going to pay me a fortune. Come on, be smart—’
Gertz’s heavy boot crashed into his stomach. Bueralan tried to roll with it, but the chain tightened, pinned him to the ground, and the second kick slammed into his kidneys.
‘Who are they?’ the mercenary yelled. ‘Where are they? I will not die of this rot!’ He kicked again and again, until Vach Sala shouted for him to stop. Until, through his weeping eyes, Bueralan saw her rush in front of Gertz, to block his blows.
‘Stop,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to do this!’
‘Who?’ Gertz shouted at Bueralan over her shoulder, ignoring her. ‘I will cut off your fingers piece by piece, if you don’t tell me.’
Bueralan forced out a wheezing, painful laugh. ‘I swear you’re the dumbest mercenary I’ve ever met, Gertz. How are you going to cut me, if you’re too sick to fight?’
Gertz screamed, but Sala stood between him and Bueralan, so he struck h
er across the face and threw her among the prostitutes instead.
‘Enough!’ Syl shouted.
‘Don’t you stop this. Don’t you dare.’ The Captain of Echoes spun round, his face a mask of anguished sweat. ‘This man is playing us! He knows who set the poison!’
‘You give him too much credit,’ she said in a cold voice. ‘The exiled baron has too much ego to work with others. He told me that himself, in the most vulnerable of positions.’
‘And you believed him?’ Gertz said. ‘That man is the mercenary’s snake, Syl. Every word – every day – is a lie from him.’
‘Like she’d believe anyone who beats their own partner.’ Bueralan pushed himself painfully back into his casual, cross-legged sitting position. He spat a glob of blood onto the wooden floor. ‘A man who leaves them dead when they get too old for him.’
‘I’m going to cut you with your own blade.’ Gertz took two steps towards Syl and snatched Bueralan’s sword from her. He grabbed the hilt and drew the blade angrily – only for its five pieces of broken steel to clatter to the floor.
‘You want me to put my hand here.’ Bueralan knocked on the floor with his knuckles for emphasis. ‘You might need a few swings.’
‘There are other swords,’ Syl said, folding her arms across her chest. Gertz’s outburst had not caused her soldiers to move from their positions beside her, any more than his own had. ‘I have eaten the same food and drunk the same water as the others here, Bueralan. It was a good thing while it was going, but I know it’s over. Mayor Kana will have his town back. He’ll punish those who took it from him and I will be gone when that happens. But before I go, I will know how you made us sick, Bueralan, and if I have any of that rot in me.’
Behind him, the front door opened.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ the laudanum seller said, standing in the doorway, a key in one hand, her bag in the other. Behind her, the streets of Zajce were empty beneath the afternoon’s sun. ‘I didn’t realize I was interrupting.’