The Crimson Shield

by Nathan Hawke

  Jonnic spat again. ‘Twelvefingers the demon-prince? Worst of the lot.’ He looked around, nervous. You never knew who was listening. There were good Marroc, the ones like Valaric that you could trust. Then there were the bad Marroc, the ones who’d sell you out for a handful of pennies. Most of the men sitting and drinking in the riverside tavern were men he knew, but there were always a few strangers. He leaned forward. ‘He’s the one who’s been hanging people up in the square. So fond of his bloody ravens you’d think he was married to one. Even his own kinsmen don’t seem to like him that much but they still do what he says. Don’t know if the Widowmaker’s any better but he can’t be any worse. Funny, him showing up. Even the demon-beards thought he’d died at Fedderhun. Been drinking toasts to the end of his damned soul all week, we have.’

  Valaric twitched. ‘Turns out he didn’t die after all. How many men here you trust?’

  ‘In Andhun?’ Jonnic shook his head. ‘Fifty, maybe. Don’t know they’d take up arms against the Widowmaker though. Don’t know that I would either.’

  ‘You’ve seen what they’re doing to us,’ snarled Valaric. ‘You happy with that?’

  ‘’Course I’m not bloody happy!’ Jonnic growled right back at him. ‘But what are you going to do with fifty swords, Valaric?’

  ‘Make it two hundred.’

  ‘And then what? Against two thousand forkbeards led by the Widowmaker?’ He laughed. ‘I don’t mind swinging an axe for you, Valaric, but not when there’s no point. You’ll get us killed for nothing, and then this prick Twelvefingers, he’ll decimate the city. He’ll not baulk at murdering women and children, this one. You’ll have the streets swimming red with his bloody ravens.’

  ‘You get your men ready for the call, Jonnic, and then we’ll see. There might be two thousand of them now but there won’t be so many when the Vathen are done.’

  Jonnic shook his head. ‘They smashed the Vathen already, Valaric. You’re too late.’

  ‘No. I’ve seen their army and that was just the start.’ Valaric got up. ‘My money would be on the Vathen, if I had any. Doesn’t really matter though, does it? Whoever wins, you don’t suppose they’re just going to wave and go home? That’s not what they do. And this time it’ll be worse, because if it’s the forkbeards, we’ll just let them shove sticks up our arses and then ask for more. Like we already do.’

  Jonnic watched him go. That’s not what they do. He was right about that. Valaric had had a family once. Wasn’t the forkbeards that had killed them either. Just a winter that had been sharp and harsh, a wasting disease among the animals, and the whole village had simply frozen and starved to death, every last one of them. There were whispers of an Aulian shadewalker but Valaric blamed the demon-beards. If he hadn’t been off fighting them, he’d have been in his home. He could have saved them or else died with them, one or the other.

  Jonnic finished his drink and got up. When three forkbeards followed him out it didn’t seem that strange, not with so many of them in the city these days. Not until he turned down an alley to the river and they still they followed him and then stopped to watch while he took a piss into the Isset. By then he knew he was going to die.

  He turned. ‘So what do you three ugly nioingr want then?’

  They closed around him. All three had knives at their belts and Jonnic had nothing, so he lunged at the nearest, pushed him back and pulled out the man’s knife for himself. The other two grabbed him as he did it, one from each side. He stabbed backwards with the knife and one of the forkbeards shouted and fell away. ‘Maker-Devourer! He cut me!’ The other pulled him hard, spinning him around, and head-butted him. Jonnic staggered. For a moment the night was filled with stars.

  Arms tackled him from the side, lifting him up and throwing him down. He stabbed out with the knife again but this time they pinned his arm.

  ‘Maker-Devourer! The little mare’s killed me! Turn his face inside out!’

  He caught sight of a flying boot in time to turn his face away. It smashed into the side of his head in an explosion of noise and light and pain. Someone stamped on his hand and he dropped the knife. He screamed as they broke his fingers. When he looked up he could see that one of the three demon-beards was clutching his side, blood seeping through his fingers. After that he lay curled in a ball while they kicked him and stamped on him and cursed. Traitor! Bare-face! Nioingr! Feeble-finger! Mare! Caught one last glimpse of the stars as one of the forkbeards lifted a lump of wood and brought it down, and then nothing until a shock of cold water roused him again.

  They’d thrown him into the river. Into the Isset. He felt the pull of the water dragging him towards the sea, dragging him down and sucking him under.

  And then the darkness again.

  19

  GIVEN TO THE RIVER

  Tolvis and Gallow rode back to Andhun together. Gallow made sour faces at the burial pits and the Marroc hung up over the streets of their own city. Tolvis pursed his lips. ‘We never used to do this,’ he muttered. ‘The Screambreaker would never have had it.’

  Gallow snorted. There were ways of saying things without having to put them into words. The relief at having the Screambreaker back was a solid thing among the few Lhosir he’d seen in Andhun, real enough that Gallow could almost have reached out and grabbed hold and shaken it. Maybe that was why he hadn’t left Tolvis on the road.

  The blood-streaked corpses looked down, mocking. Stupid, coming back here. Stupid, thinking he could make some difference to the Marroc. Stupid to have left his old life at all. He almost turned right back round again. Go home, the bodies said. Put things right with Arda. Go home and shout and scream and then hold each other tight and forget about us.

  Tolvis sniffed and stretched his arms, cracking his shoulders. ‘I’m in your debt, Truesword. Don’t particularly want to be but here we are. Stuff Twelvefingers – the Marroc make good beer. You want . . .’ He chuckled and shook his head. ‘What am I saying? You already know that. Those Vathan horses – Medrin will take them if he sees them. He’s seized almost every horse in the city. Don’t see why he’d make yours an exception.’

  ‘You tell me that now?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t think I’d mention it when you had me flat on my back in the road, no. Didn’t seem the time, if you see what I mean. You want Medrin to have them or not? Because if you don’t then now’s the time to say.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  Tolvis roared with laughter. ‘With the Vathen coming, I’d have have a hard time showing you a man who wouldn’t take them off you. It’s finding someone who’s still here but who has the coin, that’s the trick.’ He jumped out of his saddle and curled a beckoning finger, pointing off the wide Gateharbour road and into a side street so narrow that Gallow had to dismount and lead his horses in a line and Maker-Devourer help anyone who wanted to come the other way. ‘Benelvic the Brewer. We drank him dry, but he’s got a few carts he uses to bring in beer from wherever he can get it. Twelvefingers tried to take his horses and Benelvic made like he was happy enough to give them up. Just wouldn’t be any more beer, that was all, and so we told Twelvefingers where to stick it right there and then.’ He laughed. ‘Benelvic does favours for some of the other Marroc. Sort of thing that would have him hanging from a wheel over the street if Medrin ever knew. Some of us do, but we don’t tell Medrin because we like our beer. We have an, ah . . . understanding. So he owes me a favour or two.’

  ‘That sounds very Marroc of you.’

  Tolvis didn’t rise to that. He pushed open a gate and led the way into a big yard filled with barrels, most of them empty. There was another gate on the other side, wide enough to take a cart. As Gallow led his horses into the space, Tolvis pushed him gently back again. ‘Go on down to the river. There’s a tavern at the bottom of the street. I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Why?’

  Tolvis kept pushing. There was a pained look on his face. ‘Because you look like a Marroc, and Marroc don’t have any money, and if he sees yo
u and thinks you’re not one of us, I won’t get as much for them, that’s why. Grow a beard, Gallow.’ He closed the gate with Gallow on the other side, left to the sounds of the Isset rippling its way to the sea at the far end of the alley.

  Benelvic turned out to be more than happy to have a handful of Vathan horses come his way for a fraction of their worth. Tolvis finished their business and sauntered down the alley towards the river, leading his own horse and with a nice fat purse on his belt, smiling to himself but also a little wary. He found Gallow quickly enough, not in the tavern like he was supposed to be but outside, standing on the river path over a dead Marroc, both of them soaking wet.

  ‘Can’t leave you alone, eh?’ Tolvis put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I was wondering where you’d gone. I suppose I should have warned you. There’s Marroc here who see a Lhosir alone at night and don’t think too much about the consequences of a quick knife in the dark.’

  ‘Can you blame them?’ Gallow sounded bitter.

  ‘You hurt?’

  ‘Me?’ Truesword laughed, full of scorn. ‘I just caught the end of it. Three of our brothers from over the sea. They beat him half to death and then threw him in the river. No idea why.’

  Tolvis shrugged. ‘Marroc say stupid things to get themselves killed every day.’

  ‘I’m Marroc now.’ Gallow spun to face him.

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  They stood by the water for a while, watching the Marroc, but he didn’t move. Drowned, by the looks of him when Tolvis knelt down to see. ‘You hauled him out again, did you?’ Stupid question. Who else? ‘Why? Thought you could save him?’

  ‘One of ours went away with a hole in him.’ Gallow was staring down the path as if he had half a mind to go after the three Lhosir, whoever they were. Tolvis caught his arm and pulled him towards the warmth of the tavern.

  ‘Come and share a cup or two with me before we go up to the castle, Gallow. Medrin won’t notice. Best you know how things are just now. Leave this be. Not your business.’

  ‘Then what is my business? Why did we come across the sea?’

  ‘To kick the sheep and make them bleed and take their women and their gold and drink their beer, that’s why! Maker-Devourer, maybe you are one of them after all.’

  ‘I thought we came because we were better.’ Gallow spoke softly.

  ‘We were!’ Tolvis put a hand on his shoulder, steering him away. ‘We were better than them every time apart from Selleuk’s Bridge. But only because I wasn’t well that day. Something I ate. If I’d been myself then it would have been a different story.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Could have ended it all there and then, I reckon.’

  Gallow spat. ‘I should have kept on to Varyxhun. I don’t belong in this war.’

  ‘Don’t belong in this war?’ Tolvis shook his head and guided Gallow inside. ‘Choice tavern this. Feel the air! Lhosir come here; Marroc come here. Both want the others gone. Good place for a fight later, if that’s what you need, but I’d suggest you choose your side before you start laying about with those fists.’ Tolvis tossed him the purse. ‘For your horses. I sold them all. You didn’t want to keep one, did you?’

  Gallow weighed it in his hand and looked inside. He wrinkled his nose. ‘Not really. No use for one in Varyxhun.’

  ‘That’s a lot of silver, that is. A good price in these times, I promise you.’ Tolvis flicked some pennies at a Marroc, who ran away and came back a moment later with two foaming cups of beer.

  ‘Mind you, I could have gotten twice this if I’d taken them with me.’ Gallow tied the purse to a string and tucked it under his shirt. ‘Ah well. Arda’s not to know how many there were.’

  ‘Arda your woman?’

  Gallow nodded, although with a pause as though he somehow wasn’t entirely sure. ‘She looks after the money.’

  Tolvis raised his cup and laughed. ‘Don’t they all. That should be enough to put a greedy smile on her face though.’ He stopped. Gallow was staring over his shoulder through the open doorway at the riverside. When Tolvis looked, the drowned dead Marroc was hauling himself up off the dirt, not quite as drowned and dead as Tolvis had thought. He glanced back at Gallow but the big man made no move. Just watched, and so they watched together until the Marroc was gone. He didn’t come inside. Tolvis shrugged and turned back. ‘She’s a Marroc then is she, your woman? She why you stayed?’

  Gallow looked dour. ‘With the Marroc, everything is coin.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s one thing about them I’ll never understand. There’s a carter who comes through our village. Fenaric.’ As he said the name a flash of something dark crossed his face. ‘Sometimes he needs work done at the forge. I tell him he doesn’t need to pay, that I can give him a list of things we need and he can bring them the next time he’s passing through. Or else a keg of Fedderhun ale when the chance arises. But he never does. He smiles and nods and then he goes to see my wife and pays her his money anyway; and then when he comes through with a keg of ale or a new hammer for the forge, or whatever else we need, we pay it back to him. I ask Arda sometimes: if Fenaric came to us and he had no money and all he could offer were promises, would we send him away? She calls me a fool and says no, of course not, the carter is our friend. So I ask her are his promises worth more when he has no money? And if they aren’t worth more, why are they not good enough when he has coins in his pocket? She tells me coins are better than promises, that coins can’t be broken. But coins can be lost or stolen and the Marroc are as much people of their word as we are. I’ve lived among them for nine years but I don’t think I’ll ever understand their fascination with money.’

  All the while he talked, Gallow stared at the table, at the floor, anywhere that was down. He held one hand pressed to his heart as if trying to keep something safe. Then he suddenly stood up. ‘You know, I have half a mind to ask everyone here about that Marroc I pulled out of the river. Who he is. And why—’

  Tolvis pushed Gallow gently back onto his stool and put his cup back in his hand. He raised his own. ‘To the crazy Marroc. May they find the strength to defend their homes against the Vathen. Leave it, Gallow. You saved him, or maybe he would have lived anyway, but he’s gone now, and, Marroc or Lhosir, no one here wants you to ask questions.’ He steered the talk to the old days then, to the fights against the Marroc and the Screambreaker’s campaigns. Turned out they’d both been at Vanhun and at Varyxhun and Andhun and half a dozen other places, even on the bridge together at Selleuk’s Bridge. Then later Tolvis had gone back home like most of the other Lhosir when the fighting was done, and now he filled the evening with stories of all the other soldiers they’d known and what had happened to them. Grown fat on all the plunder they’d carried home and made lots of children, mostly. ‘It’s strange,’ he said, ‘to see this place again. It’s not how I remember it. It was filthy back then and the Marroc were so terrified of us.’

  ‘They’re not now?’

  ‘Not like they were. But then we never touched Andhun. They must have been waiting for the Screambreaker to turn his eyes on them for more than a year. They knew he’d come for them one day, sooner or later. And then Tane died out in the middle of nowhere and . . .’ He paused. ‘What did happen at Varyxhun in the end? I heard all sorts at the time.’

  ‘We found the castle empty, the gates open, the last of the Marroc huscarls already dead. They killed themselves rather than be taken.’ As he spoke, Gallow touched a finger to his scar, to the small piece missing from his nose.

  Tolvis shook his head and chuckled into his cup. ‘That’s so . . . Marroc. No wonder they all looked so terrified when we got here at last. They must have thought we’d burn the place down around them.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been the first time.’

  ‘I remember all those stories about Varyxhun. The river flooding to wipe away anyone who attacked it and those other curses the Aulians left behind. How we laughed.’

  ‘No curses. Just dead men.’

  Tolvis stretched his neck and looked arou
nd the tavern. There were other Lhosir here but not so many Marroc tonight. Maybe they’d finally settled whose drinking place this was going to be. ‘I always liked a good burning. Pretty stuff, fire. Twelvefingers would never hold with it though. Too much waste. Empty their houses and then burn them down, that’s how it was at the start. Then the burnings stopped and we just emptied their houses. Now Twelvefingers acts like he wants to be some sort of king and we just empty their pockets instead. I suppose he will be king when old Yurlak goes, Maker-Devourer help us.’ He looked Gallow up and down. His eyes narrowed. ‘There’s a lot of us are going to miss Yurlak. Some would say it’s the Screambreaker who should follow him.’

  Gallow met his eye. ‘Do they say it to Medrin’s face?’

  Tolvis threw back his head and roared. ‘Not unless they want to end up like those Marroc sheep strung up over the streets!’

  ‘So who do they say it to, Loudmouth? I fought with the Screambreaker and so did you. He was never one to take cowards to his cause. Men spoke their minds freely in those days. Have things changed so much?’

  Tolvis flushed. His brow furrowed and then he paused and looked confused for a moment. ‘Strong words, Gallow Truesword. Be careful with them.’

  ‘I ask if things across the sea have changed, Tolvis Loudmouth.’ Gallow shrugged. ‘The Screambreaker judged men by their hearts. Marroc or Lhosir, it never mattered. If you showed courage, he kept you. If you were weak then he threw you away. He was the finest we had, and that’s why we followed him. Strong as an ox and sure as the sea, but the men around him weren’t ever afraid to tell him when he was wrong. If men are scared to speak before their prince, the Screambreaker will have naught but scorn for them.’

  ‘Would you tell the Screambreaker he was wrong?’

  ‘I did so on the road to Andhun, and more than once. I don’t say he listened, mind!’