by A. J. Smith
The first clear memory Rham Jas had was of Brom throwing a bucket of freezing water over him and Magnus barking out something about Rowanoco. The four men left Ro Tiris the next day and hid in the town of Cozz for several weeks until Brom was sure the encounter had not been seen by anyone and no one was looking for them.
Rham Jas had ingratiated himself with Brom straightaway, the young lord appreciating the Kirin’s sense of humour. Magnus and Al-Hasim shared a love of alcohol and women that made them near-instant friends and the four men spent their time in Cozz laughing, drinking and mocking the clerics.
A Karesian, a Ranen, a Ro and a Kirin were an odd mix in any of the lands of men, but they developed a swift and strong bond over their shared hatred of the laws of Tor Funweir.
The four men travelled together for over a year, Magnus learning about the culture of Tor Funweir, Rham Jas getting Brom into trouble, and Al-Hasim exploring the country through the medium of whores and wine. They teased Brom for being a Ro and antagonized Magnus into more than one pointless tavern fight, but they remained friends.
Rham Jas had few genuine friends and counted Brom as one of the best. A Kirin assassin and a Ro lord were unlikely companions, but the various times they had met since their initial encounter had simply confirmed that Brom was an honourable man and one of the few that Rham Jas could trust.
A noise pulled him from his thoughts and caused him to stand up quickly. He could hear the sound of chain mail and metal-shod feet from the street-level door three storeys below.
He swore to himself as he realized that he’d lingered in the storeroom too long. Quickly checking that all of his gear was hidden, Rham Jas opened the door and stole a peek down the wooden staircase. He swore again as he glimpsed a squad of watchmen ascending the stairs.
Taking a quick swig of whisky, he left the room. Silently closing the door, he took the steps leading up to the drunk tank three at a time. He was now barefoot and made little sound as he splashed whisky on his clothes so as to smell like a drunkard.
Two floors up and Rham Jas emerged into the tank. Within were five long wooden benches, each seating a dozen or so drunken men, secured in an upright position by a length of thick rope stretched across their chests. Rham Jas was glad to see an array of blank faces as all the men were either asleep or in various states of insensibility.
The spot left by the Kirin two hours ago was still empty and Rham Jas hoped his absence had not been noticed. The Brown clerics who maintained the tank would not return until daybreak to check on the occupants.
Rham Jas splashed more whisky on his face and downed as much as he could without vomiting. He dropped the bottle in a large piss-pot and tiptoed across the room to his seat. With great dexterity he wriggled under the restraining rope and took his place amongst the faceless drunks of Ro Weir. Leaning forward against the rope, he looked down, letting his hair fall over his face.
He didn’t spare a look up as the door opened and five watchmen in chain mail entered the room. They spread out loudly across the tank, shaking a few men into vague consciousness as they began checking faces.
Rham Jas kept cool and shook his head, playing the part of a drunk who’d been roused from his sleep. He felt a hand grab his hair and his head was pulled back. Through feigned bleariness he looked into the face of the watchman, a man wearing a belted chain-mail shirt and the tabard of Ro Weir, a black crow in flight.
‘Sergeant… over here,’ the watchman said, still holding Rham Jas’s head back.
Two of the watchmen remained by the door while the other two moved over to stand in front of Rham Jas. Several of the drunks were now awake. A few mumbled swear words and requests for quiet, and were answered with an array of kicks and slaps.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t our Kirin friend,’ the sergeant said with a sneer, as he levelled his crossbow at Rham Jas.
In response, the Kirin groaned and shook his head, making some show of trying to raise his arms and rub his eyes. The rope restricted movement and Rham Jas pretended he had just woken up and wasn’t sure what was happening.
‘Straighten yourself up, you Kirin piss-stain.’ The sergeant slapped Rham Jas hard across the face. ‘Where’s your bow?’
Rham Jas blinked rapidly several times and tasted the blood on his lower lip. ‘I don’t know what…’ The Kirin accentuated his accent and made a show of appearing the ignorant foreigner.
The sergeant turned to one of his men. ‘Get him up, soldier.’
The watchman grabbed Rham Jas by the throat and pulled him upright, the rope restricting his stomach and making it difficult to stand. The smell of whisky was strong and the watchman held Rham Jas at arm’s length. ‘He stinks of cheap Ranen shit, sir.’
The sergeant leant in and immediately baulked at the smell. ‘Rham Jas, you smell like you’ve been swimming in the stuff.’
The Kirin smiled and made a show of retching. All three watchmen stepped back, leaving Rham Jas to fall theatrically to the floor.
‘A thousand apologies, my noble lords… I seem to be in a state unsuited for the company of dignified men such as yourselves.’ He spat on the floor and retched again, holding his hand up to the watchmen and asking for a moment.
‘Kirin, look at me,’ the sergeant said. ‘A man got a longbow arrow in the head less than half an hour ago.’ He held out the bloodied shaft of one of Rham Jas’s arrows. ‘Know anything about that, boy?’
Rham Jas looked up, letting a helpless and pathetic expression flow across his face. ‘Sorry, milord, I sold my bow to buy the cheap shit I’ve been swimming in… whisky is a much better master than death.’ His smile was broad, but unfocused, and Rham Jas retched again, this time summoning a small amount of vomit and aiming it at the sergeant’s feet.
‘Get the fuck away from me, you filthy Kirin.’ The sergeant roughly pushed Rham Jas back and turned to his men. ‘This piece of work can barely stand, let alone string a bow. He could maybe vomit a man to death, but he’s not our killer.’
Rham Jas saluted in a mocking gesture and fell face-first on to the floor, drooling and making low groaning sounds .
The watchmen laughed and mocked him loudly as they walked back to the door. The room filled with swearing from the assembled drunks for a few moments, but silence quickly returned to the tank and the sound of the metal-clad watchmen disappeared below.
Rham Jas allowed himself a smile, but remained on the ground, thinking a few moments of rest wouldn’t hurt.
* * *
Several hours later and Rham Jas found himself sitting outside a tavern on the far side of town. He’d retrieved his weapons and armour when the Brown cleric had come to wake everyone up, and the Kirin had swiftly removed himself and his belongings to a place of relative safety.
The sun had been up for less than an hour and Rham Jas had enjoyed watching the night turn to day from a wooden bench overlooking the port. The tavern was not yet open, but he liked the view of stone houses, tall ships and life slowly creeping into the streets.
Ro Weir was built on a hill with all the city streets sloping down towards the large harbour and the Kirin Ridge beyond.
His homeland was over the sea and deep in the primeval forests that lined the Ridge. There was a waterfall and a narrow wooded valley through which ran a sparkling river. His farm was one of several at the southern end of the valley. It was a land called Oslan by those that lived there, Lislan by the Karesians, and simply the Kirin woods by the Ro.
He’d not been back there for many years and he doubted there would be much left of his home. His wife was dead, as were all his friends and neighbours, killed by the Purple clerics who had assaulted his village looking for risen men. His children had survived, but were taken after the battle by Karesian slavers as they tried to find their father in the woods. Purple clerics were often followed by such men, who thought a cleric attack a good opportunity to secure new slaves.
Rham Jas had been deep in the forests of Oslan hunting Gorlan when he’d seen the plumes of s
moke. He’d known what it meant as he’d personally helped repulse several such attacks in the past, but he arrived only in time to see the tracks of a slaver wagon and the ruins of his home.
The clerics of nobility disliked people following dead gods, and the strange darkwood tree that lay in the middle of the valley had long been a focus of worship for the Kirin who lived there. The name of the god it symbolized was not known, but the simple people of Oslan did not need the One, Rowanoco or Jaa to help them sow crops and pray for a mild winter. The risen men who shared the valley, called the Dokkalfar in their own language, had long been allies of the Kirin and let them worship at the foot of their sacred tree.
The first time the Purple had attacked, years before Rham Jas was a father, the Kirin had ended up pinned to the tree itself by a crossbow bolt. He’d hung there for several hours, as the other farmers held the village, getting weaker with each minute. However, the experience had changed Rham Jas. His blood had mixed with the sap of the strange tree and something in that union had given him sharper reflexes, a keener mind and a certain knowledge that other gods had once existed. Even now, thirteen years later, he still felt the strength that the tree had given him. He healed quickly and had, more than once, survived wounds that would kill a normal man.
As he thought of his past, Rham Jas shook his head as if to clear his mind. He disliked the thoughts, which were inevitably of the heat of burning wood and the bloodied body of his wife. Her name was Alice, and he missed her more than he could adequately express. His life since her death had been full, but he had never lost the feeling that, without her, no one truly understood him.
Rham Jas smiled as the breeze hit his face and he pictured Alice’s beautiful features. The grief he felt for his children was different, somehow more hollow, because he had never avenged them. He’d tracked the slavers to the city of Kessia, the capital of Karesia, but he had let his anger at the clerics take over and had left. His children had been lost to the slave markets and, when Rham Jas returned to pursue them, he and Al-Hasim had run into trouble that made returning to Karesia almost impossible.
Al-Hasim used to try and get Rham Jas to talk about his grief, as if it would help him overcome it. What his friend didn’t understand was that Rham Jas had already overcome his grief. He’d spent six years hunting down every single Purple cleric who had come to his village and had killed them all. Rham Jas had lost count of how many churchmen had died at the tip of an arrow or the point of his katana, but it was at least twenty. He’d hunted one through the wilds of the Fell on foot for three days, killing the man with his bare hands when he backed him into a wolf snare and strangled him. Another was asleep in a tavern in Ro Arnon when Rham Jas covered his mouth and slit his throat. He’d paid a group of mercenaries to assault a squad of watchmen in order to get to the cleric they were escorting and eventually he’d found the commander cowering in an old church beyond the plains of Leith. The leader of the squad that had burned Rham Jas’s village knew that death was looking for him; he wore his purple robes only to weekly prayers and had let his armour rust. He had even pleaded with the Kirin, saying that he had renounced violence and asked the One for forgiveness daily. Rham Jas remembered with exact detail what he’d said to the cleric before he’d cut off his arms and legs and watched him bleed to death.
The cleric had looked him in the eye and said that the One God was watching and would forgive him his heathen worship of a dead god. Rham Jas had replied simply, ‘Your god already has a taste for blood, so he should enjoy this.’
Once the last cleric was dead, Rham Jas was no longer the man who had lost a wife and two children. He became the Kirin assassin Rham Jas Rami and had no further use for soft talk of grief or kind words of comfort. He’d given up on goodness and had come to believe that no amount of good deeds could make a difference to the world.
The happiest he remembered being in the years since his wife had died was the time he’d spent travelling with Al-Hasim and later Brom and Magnus. He met the Karesian first, some months after he’d killed the commander, and they bonded quickly. Both men had a hatred of the church of Ro and both had reasons for not being able to return to their own lands.
They’d spent many months moving throughout Tor Funweir, sharing stories, alcohol and women. They’d been thieves, brigands, mercenaries and con men, never staying in the same place for long and constantly seeing the spectre of the clerics round each corner.
Rham Jas had never been charged with the numerous murders he’d committed and, after seven years, he thought his facility for stealth and assassination precluded any chance of the Purple clerics arresting him. He guessed that the varied ways in which he’d killed his wife’s murderers, and the time he’d waited in between, had been sufficient to confuse any clerics who had sought to investigate the killings.
No men knew of what he’d done; even Al-Hasim knew only that he’d wandered through the lands of men after his village had been burned, but not the true purpose of his wandering. When they returned to Karesia together to look for his children, Rham Jas had lied about what he’d been doing to delay the search.
‘Brom, are you going to hide in that alleyway and spy on me all morning?’ Rham Jas had already seen the young lord of Canarn several times as he’d walked away from the drunk tank.
Brom was a dangerous man, but stealth was not one of his gifts. Now he stepped out from his place of concealment and came to sit on the bench next to Rham Jas, sharing the impressive view of Ro Weir.
‘Your boots have steel buckles on them, much better quality than most around here can afford. They make a cleaner sound and don’t grate as much as cheaper ones,’ Rham Jas said as he turned to look at his friend. ‘You look tired. Maybe you should get a few hours’ rest before you try to persuade me again. I don’t want your mind to be addled by fatigue.’
Brom didn’t smile or turn to face his friend. He shielded his eyes from the sun and continued to gaze down over the roofs of stone houses to the tall ships at anchor in the harbour. The Kirin thought he saw a tear in his friend’s eye, but it may have been a trick of the light. Brom was a guarded man, not given to displays of emotion, and Rham Jas guessed that he was composing himself. With patience and a rare acknowledgement that he had nothing immediately pressing to attend to, Rham Jas waited, giving Brom as much time as he needed.
‘This is as far south as the knights of the Red have ever been. Did you know that, Rham Jas?’ Brom asked.
The Kirin knew little of the history of Tor Funweir, but he’d certainly never heard of the knights crossing the Ridge. ‘Men in steel armour don’t fight well in the desert, I suppose,’ he replied.
‘Too cold or too hot and they go home. It’s strange that their supposed honour takes a back seat to temperature. They never got as far north as Fjorlan either… too cold,’ Brom said.
Rham Jas had endured many nights of Magnus going on and on about his land being unconquered. The men of Ranen thought it a great thing that the north of the Freelands had never been invaded by the Ro.
‘I don’t like the cold either,’ Rham Jas said, ‘but then I’m not a conquering army of warriors… I suppose I’m probably a poor example.’
Brom didn’t smile. ‘Even the Kirin woods and scablands are too hot for them. I’m amazed they’ve held on to Ro Weir for this long… though, I suppose, the sea breeze does cool the place down,’ he said.
Rham Jas had first-hand experience of the Purple clerics’ various low-key expeditions into Oslan on the far side of the Ridge, but they had never gone there in force. Brom was probably right – bringing the word of the One was apparently conditional on the temperature being just right.
‘Is this as far south as you were planning to run?’ Rham Jas asked.
Brom leant back and let the bright morning sunshine play across his face. ‘I wasn’t running. I was looking for you,’ he replied.
Rham Jas was uncomfortable with responsibility and thought his friend was far too distraught to be thinking clearly. He
decided to try and lighten the mood. ‘How about we go and get properly drunk and let a few women tell us how amazing we are?’ he suggested cheerfully. ‘There’s a whore around here somewhere called Jacinta… seriously, the way she purred my name made me melt. I reckon she could roll Lord Bromvy of Canarn around her mouth a few times, yes?’
Again, Brom gave no reaction to his friend’s attempt at humour. He breathed in deeply and shifted his weight, pulling his longsword across his lap. ‘How much gold did you make for killing that man last night?’ he asked.
‘Enough for us to get a woman each, just like old times… well, without Magnus entertaining half a dozen of them in the next room.’
Brom finally decided to smile and turned to face his friend. ‘Rham Jas, I appreciate your attempts at making light of absolutely everything, but I don’t want a woman and I don’t want to be cheered up. You’re welcome to go and visit Jacinta if you wish, but I’ll be waiting for you outside when you’re finished.’
Rham Jas stood up sharply. ‘Then what the fuck do you want, Brom? You didn’t come all the way here to drink, fuck and be merry, and you certainly didn’t come for my company,’ he rattled off angrily, missing a few syllables and letting his Kirin accent become broad.
For a second, Brom looked confused as he tried to make sense of his friend. ‘Rham Jas, sit down, anger doesn’t suit you,’ he said calmly, ‘and you never could curse convincingly.’
Rham Jas felt a moment of childish petulance at being told off, but he slowly sat down nonetheless. He crossed his arms and adopted a rather comical display of annoyance. He had never been good at showing concern or being serious and he wished that Brom had sought out someone else. His friend’s pain was difficult for Rham Jas to understand; he had long since reconciled his own grief, and did not like seeing it in others.