by Tom Lloyd
‘What do you want?’ The boy was no more than eleven or twelve winters, Nai guessed, old enough to be learn a trade but still just a skinny child when it came to intruders.
‘Somewhere to spend the day quietly. We’ll leave once nightfall comes.’
‘He’s a Menin.’ He pointed at Amber.
‘One the enemies of his people are keen to capture, so I cannot allow the duchess’ men to hang him before then, do you understand?’
The boy nodded and Nai helped Amber into a chair, where the big man slumped wearily down.
‘What’s your name, boy?’
‘Isalail, Isalail Hesh.’
‘Well Isalail, can you tell me if anyone’s likely to come visiting today?’ The boy shook his head and Nai looked around the small workshop, then walked over to a doorway in the far wall, watching Isalail out of the corner of his eye as he did so. The boy was staring at his father, clearly unable to understand why he was just standing there rather than grabbing a log and hitting Amber over the head with it.
Then Amber grunted and jerked up in his seat, as though waking from a bad dream. One of his scimitars was out of its scabbard before he was even aware of it, and that action seemed to end any thoughts Isalail might have had of escape.
The door led to a store rather than family quarters. ‘Your father is safe,’ Nai said. ‘Where’s your mother?’
‘Dead, sir.’
‘Brothers, sisters?’
‘Also dead. It’s just me and Da.’
‘Good.’ Nai returned and said to the man, ‘You, tie your son to the chair — not tight enough to hurt him, mind.’
The man at once moved to obey, fetching a coil of rope from a nail on the wall while his son shrank back in his seat.
‘Don’t worry, Isalail,’ Nai added, ‘you won’t be harmed, but I don’t want to have to put the same spell on you. It is not without its risks.’
Tears spilled from the boy’s face. ‘You said he was safe!’
‘And he is. There is, however, an unfortunate side-effect of the spell — he is perfectly safe until I break it, but afterwards he will be vulnerable to ah… outside influences. Before we leave I’ll show you what to do, but you will have to make sure you don’t leave him alone, or in the dark, until dawn — that’s very important.’
‘Why?’ Isalail asked miserably.
‘You really don’t want to know,’ Nai said firmly as he watched the father secure the first knot. ‘Is that too tight? Does it hurt?’
Isalail shook his head and looked away.
‘Good. Look at me: we’ll get through the day and then we’ll be gone, and come the dawn your life will be back to normal.’ He paused and walked over to Amber. Finding the Menin’s purse he pulled out two silver levels and dropped them on the worktable. ‘Back to normal,’ Nai repeated, ‘but best you fetch a priest and pay for an exorcism after, just in case. Now, do you have any food?’
Ardela scratched at her belly for the fiftieth time that day and tried not to swear. The dress was filthy and stank like a cavalryman’s crotch, but that was her own fault for getting one so rancid. The fact that it came with fleas was a delight too far, but there was little she could do about it now. She had sat on the fringes of the crowd outside the Ruby Tower for three days, fading into the background alongside a hundred other broken souls in dirty-white capes or scarves. Brutally cropped hair coupled with fading bruises and a haunted look in her eye had been all the explanation she’d needed to be there; folk knew what that indicated in the wake of invasion. They’d seen she belonged with the rest of the broken.
The truth was she’d chopped off her own hair, and for the second, she’d had no trouble talking some off-duty soldier into doing that. Though she had encouraged him to vent his petty frustrations on her, the man had been too practised at beating an unresisting woman for her liking.
No different to dogs, when they’re worked up, Ardela thought as she walked through the market in Burn’s main square, idly begging for food. The beating I’d asked for, sure enough, but more fool him for not stopping when I said.
A woman held out a hunk of bread to her and Ardela accepted it like a votive offering, tears of thanks in her eyes. The woman looked embarrassed at that and gestured for Ardela to move along, but she was far from the only one to have taken pity on Ruhen’s Children. They were a symbol now: the woes of Byora given form.
The mood in this quarter of the Circle City was strange, a rare mix of pent-up frustration and ill-defined optimism. The priests had been displaced from their district of Hale, and now the Menin were gone too, murdered or chased away as the priests had been.
In their place stood the white-cloaked followers of the child Ruhen, now divided into three distinct groups: the broken and wretched beggars were Ruhen’s legitimacy, the proof that the priests had betrayed the people of Byora and their Gods had spurned them; the soldiers who bolstered the numbers of Byoran and Ruby Tower guards, Ruhen’s burgeoning power, and the preachers, who were his voice in the Land.
Ardela tore hungrily at the bread as she made her way back to the highway that ran down one side of the square. It was the main route between the looming dagger-shapes of the district of Eight Towers and the outer wall. She didn’t know why they were here yet: Luerce, first among these filthy disciples, had led his ragged flock there early that morning, and she’d known in her bones something significant was coming. As she reached the crowd a collective moan rose up on the air and Ardela turned to see the Duchess of Byora’s carriage approaching. She joined the rest of the crowd on their knees, reaching out as though for alms, droning their nonsensical prayer for intercession.
Ardela was furthest from the carriage when it stopped, but then the object of their worship stepped down and advanced towards them, his big bodyguard close behind. Ruhen wore a long white tunic and a single pearl at his throat. He looked to be ten or eleven winters, but Ardela knew from King Emin’s intelligence that he was far younger — and yet he surveyed the people of Byora with a king’s distant composure rather than a child’s curiosity.
Right then Ardela saw why they all believed, or hoped to believe: Ruhen looked both ethereal and immortal, a child apart from the rest of humanity, and he commanded their attention as easily as the grey-skinned Demi-God Koteer, who formed part of his retinue.
Let’s see how lasting their belief is, she thought cynically.
As the six- or seven-score beggars started forward towards Ruhen, the child’s bodyguard raised a hand before they could reach him and called, ‘Clear the road!’ One hand rested on his sword-hilt. ‘Make way!’
He wore a Ruby Tower uniform, but to Ardela’s practised eye it had been modified for combat, despite the gaudy gold buttons. While he wore a beautifully worked bastard sword on his hip there was another secured on his back, wrapped entirely in cloth.
Instinctively the beggars shrank back and retreated off the road. Ardela pushed her way to the front of the group and sank to her knees, ignoring those who tried to jostle her out of position. Ruhen approached them with a small, indulgent smile that had no place on a child’s face. Ardela felt her hand twitch as he came less than a dozen yards from her, but she made no other move. The renegade man of the Brotherhood, Ilumene, was too close for her liking, so she did nothing but mimic the others as they basked in his attention.
Somewhere off to her right she became aware of voices, breaking this moment of calm. Further down the road people on foot were heading towards them. The voices grew in number and volume while she strained to see past those with her at the roadside. Folk started to drift over from the market in the square, obscuring her view further, but Ardela couldn’t be seen to be impatient, so instead she watched those around her, the slack-faced addicts and haggard survivors of a region at war.
On the other side of the road was a group of labourers and shopboys. Most were looking down the road at whoever was coming, but a few stared at Ruhen still, and Ardela felt a prickle run down her neck. Once a devotee of the Lady a
nd now confidante of her Mortal-Aspect, Legana, Ardela knew in an instant something was coming, some twist of chance she might yet be able to exploit.
She turned her attention back to the newcomers as folk began to gasp and exclaim, her hand automatically tightening when she saw who was approaching. A group of eighty or ninety people had entered the square and were marching towards Ruhen, not quite in military order, but still in three distinct columns. At their head was a man in black, but the bulk of the rest were far more colourful and instantly recognisable, dressed identically to the man and woman she’d personally murdered in Tirah on Midsummer’s Day.
In a crowd the Harlequins would have looked almost comical, dressed as they were head to foot in diamond-patchwork clothes, but for the blank expressions on their white masks, each with a bloody teardrop under the right eye and slender swords crossed on their backs. They walked with an effortless gait that made their companions look awkward by comparison, but even they had an athletic aspect to them that suggested they were also of the Harlequin clans.
Ardela slowly forced herself to unclench her fist. Here at last was evidence that the murders King Emin had arranged on Midsummer’s Day had not been senseless. It made little difference to the weight on her soul, but any small comfort was not to be rejected.
Ruhen started forward to personally greet the Harlequins’ leader, the man in black, who Ardela remembered was named Venn. He dropped to one knee, head bowed low before his master. In the next instant the rest of the Harlequins did the same and a collective gasp ran through the crowd: the Harlequins, who served no master and bowed to no authority bar Lord Death himself knelt to Ruhen.
The power of that symbol was clear for all to see. They knelt to a child whose followers preached a new way of worship, free of the burdens and strictures of power-maddened clerics. They made obeisance to the promise of peace in a Land beset by war, and in that moment the watching people of Byora felt the blessing of the Gods upon them all.
‘Heretic!’ came a sudden cry from across the road, and a man started running towards Ruhen, who had moved ahead of Ilumene and was momentarily out of reach of his bodyguard. A second man started forward in the next instant, a knife in his hand, and two more broke from left and right to cover their fellows. Screams rang out from the beggars and Ardela wasn’t alone in starting forward, but before any of them could reach Ruhen Ilumene was there.
Ardela watched Ilumene explode into movement, thin knives appearing in each hand. Unable to get in front of Ruhen in time, he barged forward at the first ambusher and kicked him in the side. The man was knocked sideways by the blow and before he’d hit the ground Ilumene was turning away the second’s blade, then in the next instant swinging around to stab him in the kidney. He whipped his other knife up across the man’s throat and slashed it open before returning to the first.
Ilumene’s kick had knocked the man right over, but he found himself on his hands and knees only a yard or two from where Ruhen stood motionless. He lunged forward at the child, but Ruhen finally moved, stepping neatly away from the reaching weapon and into the protective lee of the Harlequin Venn. Ilumene pounced on the man and stabbed him in the neck, even as the crowd of beggars had started rushing forward, intent on reaching the remaining two attackers following close behind. Ardela’s hand was inside her cape, her fingers closing around a dart tucked into the waistband of her dress, before she’d even thought.
She gave a practised flick of the wrist as she passed Ruhen and threw the dart. There wasn’t time to watch it strike; her attention was already on the remaining ambushers, but amidst the chaos of voices and running feet she thought she heard a yelp from the boy. Ardela continued on, side by side with a thin man whose arm was covered in weeping sores.
She let him reach the last of the ambushers first. The man did not check his pace as he shrieked with rage and clawed at the man’s eyes. The first knife-blow to his stomach he appeared not to notice; the second was hard enough to drive the wind from his lungs, but then Ardela leapt on the ambusher.
With one strong hand she gripped the man’s wrist to keep his knife clear as she used her own bodyweight to bear him to the ground. She sank her teeth into his cheek for good measure, biting deep and shaking her head like a terrier, tearing a chunk of flesh from his face. The man shrieked as she pulled back. By now others had arrived and were kicking and stamping at them both in their frenzy. She felt him release his grip on his knife and she deftly scooped it up, and stabbed down furiously.
It was a killing blow, she knew that, but she kept going, artlessly slashing and stabbing until she was dragged off the brutalised corpse. She fell to the ground and let the knife fall from her hand as she looked around. There was fear and anger on the faces of the beggars around her, but more than a few looked back at Ruhen with concern. No one looked at all concerned with Ardela’s savage killing of the man and she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d just been quicker than the rest — they would all have done the same for their saviour.
She kept on her knees, fighting the urge to run before her assassination attempt was discovered. No venom was instantaneous, and once he saw the dart Ilumene would be on the lookout. All around them the Harlequins were spreading out, their swords drawn, and the crowd withdrew.
Then Ardela saw Ruhen hold something up to his bodyguard. Ilumene took it and inspected the dart quickly. ‘Wait,’ he called angrily, ‘check them all! One of them has a blowpipe!’
Ardela was careful to look around in bewilderment with the rest of Ruhen’s Children as the Harlequins converged upon the crowd. She knew it wouldn’t be long until they started to check the beggars too, and in the meantime anything suspicious could mean her death, but the longer the confusion took, the longer the venom would have to work.
After Aracnan’s poisoning had been exacerbated by his attempts to heal himself with magic, they would be hesitate before running to the nearest mage. Ruhen was a little boy, and ice cobra venom was fast-acting. It could be as little as five minutes before his throat closed up and the little saviour of Byora breathed his last.
A pair of Harlequins started directing the disordered crowd, and at last Ardela stood up and joined them as they began to stumble away from Ruhen. She saw Venn kneel, concern abruptly flourishing on his tattooed face.
Never send a man to do a woman’s job, Ardela thought to herself, recalling the Brotherhood’s failed assault on the Ruby Tower a few months before.
She watched Ruhen put his hand to his temple and felt a cruel sense of satisfaction rise inside her. The venom was already starting to act. Dizziness was the first sign. She just had to hope that it was also a symptom of sea-diamond venom, the poison that had almost killed Aracnan. If even half of what the Brotherhood said about Illumene was true, he would know all the vicious little details; she didn’t need him to realise too soon a mage could be used.
Venn raised a hand towards Ruhen, but Ilumene grabbed it and shook his head. Ardela was too far away to hear their words, but she could imagine the debate easily enough: how long would they have? How long before the venom could not be purged and they would need a healer instead? How lethal was seadiamond venom when amplified by magical energy?
Ardela was fifty yards away when she saw Ilumene come to a decision. He wrenched the wrapped sword from his back and began to unroll it.
What in the name of Death’s bony cock is going on there? Ardela started to struggle against the bodies pushing her away, fighting to maintain her view. Another prickle went down her spine, this time one of foreboding. A sixth sense told her the glory of her success was about to be stolen, though she had no idea how Ilumene’s spare sword could help.
The last fold of cloth was removed just as a bulky man moved in front of her, shielding her view. Ardela bit back a curse and battered the man aside just in time to see a glitter of light emanate from the wrapped weapon. Ruhen put his hand around the shining sword and cried out in pain, his high voice clear against the scuffle of feet and muttered protests from the cro
wd. Ardela gasped in astonishment and stopped resisting the press of bodies around her, allowing herself to be carried away by the crowd.
What just happened? What the fuck just happened? she wanted to scream, knowing that if she did her death was assured.
What was that shining sword? How can a sword counteract ice cobra venom, for Fate’s sake? What just happened to my victory?
The prickle down her neck became a cold shard of ice.
Ardela took the long route to the Deragers’ wine shop, then spent an hour watching the Beristole, the dead-end street where it was located, as well as the surrounding tangle of alleys. A less paranoid agent might have missed the signs, but Ardela had survived this long only by assuming everyone was trying to kill her.
The busy dead-end street was a street market during the day. Normally that meant a dearth of city guardsmen around the Beristole — the merchants had licence to police the area themselves — but not today. And they’re not useless amateurs either, Ardela noted as she watched a thin prostitute briefly catch the eye of a man at a window over the road. There are altogether too many innocent little gestures going on in this street — they might still be a bit green and lacking subtlety, but whoever trained them knows what they’re about.
She’d stopped for a hurried scrub in the cracked basin at the inn where she’d left her belongings and a change of clothes. That turned out to be all for the better; if it was her they were looking for and she’d managed to get here first, she’d have not been getting out of the wine shop any time soon.
The prostitute loitered within the shelter of a tavern’s side door, keeping a low profile in a dress modest enough not to induce the ire of the local matrons. She could have been a merchant’s young wife herself easily enough, but for the symbols of Etesia, Goddess of Lust, incorporated into the posy of flowers on her bodice. At the front window was a barman who was paying too much attention to the mug he was drying, while over the street a pair of drivers lounged on their empty cart rather too obviously to be in the employ of anyone nearby.