The woods felt oppressive, trees high as two houses crowding the road and blocking out most of the daylight. They had been travelling in near-silence, as they had done the previous day. This time, the pace was slower, the Sudalrese girl tired after pushing herself too far and too fast yesterday. The Sworn man, Stetch, looked no different, but Kartane hadn’t expected a single day’s march to faze the man. He was quiet; Kartane liked that about him. He didn’t babble like the girl, wittering on about trivial things. He spoke only when he needed to. Lets his sword do the talking, I would say. And, Kartane knew, there were hundreds more like him back in Sudalra – perhaps even thousands. If it was really war coming in the east then the men of the Sworn would be a valuable weapon. If the Black Duke unleashes them. And that, Kartane knew, was far from certain. The Sudalrese people followed the teachings of some long-dead prophet. A vagrant who could write, based on the tales I’ve heard. And because of that, it would be difficult for them to join the coming war against the Gurdal. Difficult, but not impossible, Kartane decided. It would all hinge on the Black Duke: if he thought the Sworn could intercede without their enemies realising they were aligned with the Knights Reve – in some matters at least – then the Duke might well send some of them to aid the Meracians on the Spur. And if not, the Knights Reve would march down the sands and meet their old enemy in battle once again. The Meracians would almost certainly send an army, and perhaps one or two other nations – ones where the power of the church was strong, most likely – but Kartane knew the Reve would march alone if they had to. We all took the vow, he thought, and whatever the truth behind it, we are bound by our oaths.
Let the Gurdal take Shade, he thought. Let the enemy into the first of the Desolate Cities with minimal resistance. Once they’re in, me and a few of those Sworn could murder half the men in the city before they knew what was happening. Simple plans, Kartane had discovered, were often more likely to succeed. A bloody sight easier to execute, too.
‘Hood up.’
While Kartane had been pondering how to defeat the Gurdal, the Maw had opened up in front of them, a dark shadow that marked the sole route through the Demon’s Teeth. It was less than a hundred yards in front of them, and from the Sworn man’s urgency, something was most definitely waiting for them.
‘I really don’t—’
‘Now.’
She didn’t protest any more, raising the hood of her furs and staring sullenly ahead.
Little more than an unruly child, Kartane thought, his eyes scanning the way ahead. The trees faltered fifty feet shy of the mountain’s base, a patch of even ground north and south of the road. The grass was flat, bare, and a firepit on either side of the road attested to travellers breaking their journey here for a time. One of them, Kartane saw, had seen recent use, a slender tendril of smoke wafting up into the stammering breeze. His eyes searched again, and found the men easily. Six in total, and looking far too alert to have any good intentions. Four were seated at the dying fire, but rose at a whistle from one of the other two and as Kartane and his unwelcome companions drew closer, the two groups of men gravitated towards each other, lining the edges of the road as though awaiting a procession.
‘We can take them,’ Kartane said quietly.
‘No,’ Stetch grunted with such force that Kartane thought he might be coughing up a lung.
‘Who’s this then?’ one of the men said, taking a step into the road.
‘Merchant’s wife,’ Stetch grunted.
Kartane had his hand on his sword as the three of them stopped a few feet from the speaker.
‘So you say,’ the man sneered. ‘Wrong time of year for travelling. Whore, is she? Might be there’s a toll.’
‘My lady was stuck in Northam,’ Kartane said quickly, ‘visiting her parents. We were snowed in until a few days ago, and she is keen to get back to her husband.’
‘Show us the goods first,’ the man said, a grin blooming on his face. ‘Show us what’s under the hood and we’ll decide the price.’
Kartane heard a faint sigh, accompanied by a slow rasp of steel being drawn.
‘No,’ said Stetch, running a thumb carefully along the sword’s edge.
‘There’s six of us, and only two of you.’
The Sworn man thought for a moment. ‘And?’
‘Leave them be,’ one of the other men said. ‘Whoever’s under there, she’s too small to be who we’re looking for.’
‘Maybe he shrunk,’ the first replied.
‘I just want to go home,’ Katarina said meekly. And, Kartane noticed, in a voice that sounded very much like the wife of a middling Norvek merchant.
‘And grew teats?’ the second man asked. ‘Do you want to be the one to tell Kenzin you defied his orders?’
The man coloured and stepped away from the road. ‘Bugger off then, before I change my mind.’
Kartane heard Stetch sheathe his sword, stepping forward with one arm holding Katarina who, Kartane realised, was shaking beneath her furs. He quickly grabbed her right arm and together they pulled the quivering woman past the gauntlet of armed men. Both men held onto her as they entered the Maw, the tempestuous woman still shaking. When they were out of hearing range, the darkness ahead almost total, Kartane realised it was anger not fear that had shaken Katarina as she unleashed a torrent of Sudalrese curses, some of which even Kartane hadn’t heard before. It’s going to be a long journey, he thought sourly as the litany went on. Passage to the sands of the Spur might be a blessed relief.
*
The curses had died down midway through the Maw, its steep sides and dark shadows quieting the Sudalrese fireball. They travelled in near silence again, broken only by the occasional mutter from Katarina in Sudalrese. A taste for florid curses, Kartane judged, and a vivid imagination when it comes to killing a man. By the afternoon they had left the pass behind, the mountain range now at their backs. There were no other travellers on the road, too early for merchants driving their carts with the ground still largely frozen. If their oxen stumbled, then the goods would spoil long before another animal could be found, and merchants didn’t take such risks without good cause. The good ones, at any rate.
As the afternoon sun sank over the mountains they reached a solitary inn on the road. According to the garish sign outside, it was called Wayfarer’s Rest, which to Kartane’s mind sounded like a stupid name. Inns and taverns should have memorable names, he firmly believed, names that tell you what to expect: the Black Hand, the Dirty Slattern, the Cheap Ale, the Piss-Poor Meal. This one looked more promising than most on the road, a sturdy if modest establishment with stone foundations and thick oak walls topped by a slate roof. After val Sharvina’s daughter had led them as fast as her little legs could take her, Kartane thought they would press on, using the last of the light to reach the next inn on the road. There were several of them dotted along the East Road, servicing the procession of merchants that plied their trade in the spring and summer months. In one or two places, Kartane remembered, there had been enough demand for tiny villages to spring up around them. Katarina’s pace never faltered, but as she drew level with the inn’s entrance, she turned ninety degrees and hurried inside, this time breaching the door before Kartane and Stetch had chance to race ahead and claim their favoured seats. Kartane caught the Sworn man’s eye, but the diminutive woman’s companion just shrugged and gestured for him to go first. Which, Kartane thought, was a sensible precaution.
The inside was markedly better than the exterior, a gentle fire burning to Kartane’s right, a smooth, polished bar stretching beside the left wall, and eight tables of reasonable quality dotted around the room. Four chairs beside the fire, Kartane noticed, were comfortable, cushioned affairs with armrests and padding. She must have been here before, he realised, seeing Katarina already in the least worn chair, her legs stretched towards the hearth.
There were no other customers, just a tall Sudalrese man behind the bar, silently polishing the already bright surface. Stetch was already halfway
to the bar, so Kartane left him to it, dropping his furs on the back of a wooden chair at the nearest table beside Katarina’s own. He flopped into one of the comfortable chairs opposite her with a soft sigh. Stetch joined him a few moments later, his hands worryingly bereft of ale.
‘The drinks?’
Stetch ignored him, closing his eyes and shucking off his boots.
‘Really?’ Katarina asked, her voice high and brittle. ‘This is not your home.’
‘Next best thing.’
She smiled, hiding a yawn between one tiny hand. ‘I suppose it is.’
The proprietor’s wife arrived a few minutes later, a steaming clay mug in her hands.
‘Milady? Your cocoa.’
Kartane watched as the girl took the proffered mug, and thanked her so effusively Kartane wondered whether it was really brandy. The steam suggested otherwise.
Like her husband, the woman was Sudalrese, though short and plump with dark brown hair pinned up in a bob. She hesitated after handing over the cocoa, casting a furtive glance in Kartane’s direction. He gave her his most charming smile, but it seemed to have no effect.
‘I have news, milady,’ she said quickly in Sudalrese. ‘And a message.’
Katarina nodded and caught the second glance at Kartane. ‘You may speak freely,’ she told the woman, not bothering to switch to her native tongue. ‘The news first.’
‘A group of men came through earlier heading east. Fourteen, Davit tells me. Mercenaries one and all.’
Katarina nodded. ‘How long ago?’
‘A few hours. They should reach Bitterhalk by nightfall.’
‘Thank you. And the message?’
‘Milady… one of them came in. He asked about travellers on the road – a man, maybe with a woman.’
‘Have you seen them?’ Katarina asked quickly.
‘No, milady, but he asked me to give you a message, the one who came inside.’
‘I see. And the message?’
The woman shifted, a frown creasing her bronzed brow. ‘Milady, he asked for you by name. It sounded like he knew you.’
Her husband joined them, two bountiful mugs in his hands. Kartane received it with a grateful sigh as Katarina offered a tiny shrug. ‘I know many people,’ she said.
‘My husband saw the men outside,’ the woman continued, ‘he recognised one of them from home.’
‘Lady Katarina doesn’t need to know about that,’ the innkeeper said quickly, one hand grasping his wife by the arm.
‘Davit said the boy went to join the Band of Blood,’ the woman continued. ‘Is it true, milady? You have a man within them?’
Kartane slurped the foam from his ale, noting how Katarina’s face remained calm, more calm than usual. Not a good sign, he decided.
‘That thought is one best not shared,’ Katarina said, her voice even. ‘If word were to reach the duke… You know the rumours.’
The husband was watching Stetch now, his face pale. His wife, too, kept snatching furtive glances at the warrior who was studiously examining his ale. They know what he is, Kartane decided. More worrying, though, was that there was a Sudalrese spy within the Band of Blood. Quite an achievement that, getting someone close to a man as paranoid as Kenzin Morrow.
‘The message,’ Katarina prompted, ‘what was it?’
‘He said… to tell you they’d been tricked into a contract for a demon, that they were after a book of secrets which could break the church and are on the trail of the boy who has it.’
‘I see. Anything else?’
The innkeeper’s wife nodded. ‘He said he thought they’d got ahead of the boy but his fellows would lay an ambush before Kron Vulder and wait for the lad there. It-it’s not true is it, milady? Demons aren’t real.’
Kartane could see Davit knew the truth of the message, his eyes wide and fearful. But what will she tell them? It would be easy, he supposed, to dismiss the contents of the message, perhaps pass it off as an elaborate code. Which was fine, he realised, right up until the point that news of the demon sighting reached them. Katarina already seemed to be one step ahead of him.
‘No,’ she said, ‘it is true.’ She peered from husband to wife, her eyes no longer warm and friendly. ‘Rhonda, isn’t it?’
The woman nodded.
‘You and Davit must forget what you have just told me. The man merely asked about a boy he is searching for – no more than that. You understand?’
‘Yes,’ they both said at once, eyes drawn to the silent figure of Stetch, who had produced a dagger from somewhere and was twirling it in his fingers.
‘Oh, stop that,’ Katarina told him, ‘you’ll scare them.’
Kartane saw the raised eyebrow that greeted her instruction, and knew, without a shadow of doubt, that scaring the innkeeper and his wife was precisely what Stetch was aiming for. And she knows it, too. A variation on an old routine, Kartane realised: good spy, murderous spy.
‘We will speak no more of this,’ Katarina said, returning her attention to the couple, ‘but if those words are ever heard beyond these walls, I will not be able to save you.’
‘As you say, milady,’ Davit said quickly. ‘Will you be staying for supper?’
Katarina smiled. ‘Yes, and for the night, I think. I would prefer not to meet those mercenaries in Bitterhalk at night.’ She glanced at Stetch. ‘There are dangerous men abroad in the night.’
And two of them are right under your roof, Kartane thought. The troubled expressions on the innkeeper and his wife told him that they knew it, too.
44.
Tol watched her for as long as he dared, her chest rising and falling to some unheard rhythm. She looked so peaceful and… so very nearly dead, he thought. Tol pursed his lips, certain that if he waited much longer the gentle rhythm of her breathing would stop altogether. He waited a few moments more, but never knew whether each breath would be her last, and the uncertainty sawed at his nerves. He sighed, and shook the angel’s shoulder. She awoke slowly.
Tol slipped the tin cup into Kalashadria’s hands. She frowned at it, still in that half-confused state between sleep and wakefulness.
‘Medicine,’ Tol explained. ‘It might help with the pain.’ He wrapped his fingers over hers and guided the cup towards her lips. ‘It may taste unpleasant,’ he said, ‘but you need to drink it all.’
‘Playing nurse again?’ She stared into the dark contents. ‘What’s in it?’
‘Herbs. I collected some while you slept. I added some wine, so it shouldn’t taste too bad.’
‘Trying to get me drunk?’ Kalashadria smiled, the jibe gentle.
‘I bet you could drink me under the table. Just drink it, will you, it’s not like it’s going to kill you.’
She laughed, a small trickle of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth. Tol wiped it away with his sleeve. ‘Trust me.’
Kalashadria sighed. She raised the cup aloft, then held it there, peering over its lip at the dark contents, sprinkles of herbs floating on its surface. Another soft sigh and Kalashadria raised it fully to her lips, downing the contents in a single attempt. She pulled a face at the taste, her expression both endearing and comical. Tol would have laughed. If the circumstances were different.
‘It tastes foul.’
‘My mother once said that if it tasted bad, it probably did you good.’
One eye was closed, half the angel’s face scrunched in distaste. ‘It certainly lives up to the first half.’
Tol smiled, and took the cup gently from her hands. ‘There’s more,’ he said, refilling it from the pot he had used to brew the remedy. ‘Just one more.’
‘Too much pepper,’ she told him, reluctantly taking the mug and blinking her eyes quickly. ‘I hope you’re better with that sword than a brewing spoon.’
Tol smiled. ‘I am.’
She downed the second cupful faster than the first, this time maintaining a bland expression. ‘Do not expect a miracle,’ Kalashadria warned him.
‘I know. Still,�
� Tol brightened, ‘I wasn’t expecting the first, so a second might not be such a stretch.’
The angel’s face clouded over. ‘I told you—’
‘—There is no Maker,’ Tol finished. ‘I know. And yet here you are and, Maker or no, that’s still a miracle as far as I’m concerned – maybe even a bigger one because of it.’
‘You are a sweet boy, Tol Kraven,’ Kalashadria said, reaching out and clasping his hand. ‘But wishing something does not make it so.’
He sighed. ‘My mother said that, too.’
*
Seven.
Count down from three hundred, Kalashadria had told him.
Six.
Actually, she had said that if he couldn’t do that, Tol should count down from one hundred three times.
Five.
The gentle, dry smile had been new, though. A joke at his expense, to be sure, but the mockery had softened.
Four.
There were six of them. Six men that, if all went well, would die in the shadow of the Demon’s Teeth.
Three.
Four sat around the small fire.
Two.
The other two were here, twenty yards from Tol on the south side of the road. They were his. Or he would be theirs. His pulse was pounding now, an ocean roaring in his ears. It was time.
One.
Tol sprinted out from behind the tree, racing straight towards the men. Seventeen yards left now, and they hadn’t seen him yet. Fourteen yards, and they sensed him, stiffening as if some sixth sense warned of danger. Tol tugged on Galandor’s blade, and felt a last moment of doubt that it would, again, stick firm in the scabbard.
They turned towards him as the sword came free with a high, crystalline note. They’re good, Tol realised as the two men moved away from each other, hands already on hilts. Seasoned warriors, he thought.
Angel's Truth (Angelwar Book 1) Page 31