The Long War 02 - The Dark Blood

by A. J. Smith

  ‘There’s a line that the Purple won’t cross. Whether they’re misguided or not, they believe in the nobility of their god. The wind claws take the word of Jaa literally, which means they enjoy causing fear. If they’re here guarding Isabel the Seductress, I may have to be creative.’

  ‘I acknowledge that this may be a stupid question,’ began Glenwood, ‘but are their names chosen solely to sound scary, or can we expect some kind of... I don’t know... seduction?’

  ‘Not sure,’ replied the assassin. ‘I certainly didn’t see any spiders with the Mistress of Spiders.’ He bit his lower lip in thought. ‘Though the last time I saw the Lady of Death, she was pretty dead.’

  Both men burst out laughing, and for a moment Glenwood didn’t hate Rham Jas quite so much. He even momentarily forgot about the need to turn him in. Strangely, the man of Leith would have had no compunction about turning in his companion to the clerics or watchmen, but it would feel strange if he had to betray him to these wind claws. Whatever else Kale Glenwood might be, he was still a Ro, and instinctively he disliked the Karesian presence in Ro Leith.

  A movement caught his eye and Rham Jas suddenly became wary. On the far side of the tavern, two men had emerged from behind the bar and taken seats near the door. They were dressed well and were making an effort to appear relaxed, though something about the way the other patrons were regarding them made the man of Leith think they were not regulars in the establishment. Also, they had not come in through the tavern entrance.

  ‘You see them?’ he asked in a low voice.

  Rham Jas nodded and placed his wine goblet further on to the table, allowing him to see the two men in its reflective surface without turning round.

  ‘I do,’ he replied. ‘They’re both armed and making an effort to appear unarmed... that, my dear Kale, is what we in the trade call suspicious.’

  Glenwood was facing the men and took a sip of wine, surreptitiously sizing them up. Both men wore hard-wearing leather boots of military design and, although their clothing was common, it did not sit entirely comfortably on their shoulders. Both were Ro and their weapons were hidden under long travelling cloaks – cloaks that were clean and showed no signs of recent use.

  ‘Are they clerics?’ he asked in a whisper.

  ‘One is,’ replied Rham Jas, returning to his ice-cool professional manner. ‘The other is a watchman... maybe a sergeant, by the look of his hands.’

  Glenwood frowned. ‘His hands? How can you tell that?’

  ‘Sword play is not kind on the hands, Kale. A cleric wears gloves or gauntlets, a luxury not afforded to common men. This man has scarred hands, which means he’s been doing whatever it is he does for a while, hence, a sergeant.’

  The forger nodded, reluctantly impressed by his companion’s abilities. He tried to appear relaxed as he smiled and poured each of them another glass of wine. As he placed the bottle back on the table, the tavern door opened and three more men walked in.

  ‘I’ve been stupid,’ said Rham Jas with a grunt, watching the new arrivals in his wine goblet. ‘Of course she’d have people in the town.’ He chanced a look over his shoulder to the back of the tavern, trying to spot additional exits. ‘Someone must have reported seeing a Kirin.’

  The three men sat at the table opposite the cleric and the sergeant, making sure that both sides of the main door were covered. None showed any overt sign that they were there for Rham Jas, but even Glenwood could tell that these were not common folk looking for a drink. The tavern’s other patrons were utterly oblivious – twenty or so people, sipping drinks and commenting on the weather, quite unaware that violence was likely to erupt in short order.

  One of the newcomers was a Karesian, though his hood was covering half his face. The other two had scarred hands like the sergeant, though less pronouncedly so, and Glenwood thought they must be watchmen.

  ‘I make that three watchmen, a cleric and a Karesian,’ he said out of the side of his mouth.

  ‘There’ll be more outside,’ replied Rham Jas, still not turning to look directly at the men who had entered. ‘At both exits, most likely.’

  Glenwood gulped and looked down to reassure himself that he still had his sword. Any chance of getting out of this situation with a reward was rapidly disappearing.

  ‘Do you have a plan?’ he asked.

  Rham Jas had his hand inside his cloak, resting on the hilt of his katana, but otherwise looked calm. ‘We can’t fight them in here,’ he said, his eyes flicking around the tavern.

  ‘What do you mean we?’

  ‘My dear Kale,’ said the assassin, his grin returning, ‘you are at best an accessory, at worst an accomplice. If I were you, I’d draw your sword when I draw mine and run when I run.’

  Glenwood shook his head in resignation and rubbed the sweat from his eyes. ‘Can you beat five men?’ He suspected that the answer was no, but held out a slight hope that the assassin’s gifts would stretch that far.

  ‘We’re in a crowded tavern. This presents certain logistical issues. Outside... I don’t know, maybe. But we still need a way to escape.’ He raised his eyebrows cheekily. ‘Let’s just hope the men outside don’t have crossbows.’

  ‘That is not reassuring,’ grumbled Glenwood.

  Just as Rham Jas was tensing his body in preparation for some kind of – no doubt impressive – combat manoeuvre, the Karesian stood up from his table and approached them. They looked up at the man and he greeted them with a suspicious smile. He motioned to an empty chair next to Glenwood.

  ‘May I join you?’ His accent was thick, indicating that he had not been in Tor Funweir very long.

  ‘By all means,’ replied the Kirin conversationally, still keeping half an eye on the others in the burnished surface of his wine goblet.

  ‘You are Rham Jas Rami?’ asked the Karesian as he sat down.

  Glenwood noticed two wave-bladed knives sheathed across his chest and guessed that the man was a wind claw.

  ‘No, I’m King Sebastian Tiris, you idiot,’ was the barbed response from the assassin. The comment was not delivered quietly, and now the other four men stood up and approached their table.

  ‘I’ll ask again,’ said the wind claw. ‘And your answer will determine how you are treated.’

  Rham Jas grinned broadly at the Karesian and scanned around the tavern, more blatantly this time. The four men stood behind him, allowing their hidden weapons to be seen. The cleric – possibly Black, possibly Purple – was a tall man in his early forties, casually holding a longsword across his shoulders, whilst the three watchmen each had heavy maces.

  Glenwood craned his neck upwards to see out of the tavern window. His breathing quickened as he saw a squad of watchmen with levelled crossbows, and several more wind claws, standing outside the main door.

  ‘What’s your name, wind claw?’ asked the assassin, his hand still resting on his sword.

  ‘I am called Kal Varaz and I am the right hand of Saara the Mistress of Pain.’ The words were spoken proudly and there was a glint of mania in the Karesian’s eyes.

  Rham Jas chuckled and the wind claw looked offended. The assassin then took a deep drink of his wine. ‘Well, if you ever make it back to Weir, tell the bitch that I’m going to kill her.’ He threw his goblet directly into the Karesian’s face.

  Kal Varaz grabbed at his nose and fell backwards. Rham Jas sprang away from the table, causing two watchmen behind him to stumble on to the floor in an ungainly heap. The Kirin rolled to his feet, his katana whistling free of its scabbard.

  The common folk in the tavern remained silent and watched with startled looks as the lightning-fast Kirin struck out. His katana sheared down into the head of a watchman and his right foot kicked the cleric solidly between the legs.

  ‘Now’s the time to drew that sword, Kale,’ said Rham Jas breathlessly, as Kal Varaz pulled himself to his feet.

  The two remaining watchmen attacked at once, using their maces with strength rather than skill, aiming at the Kirin’s h
ead. Rham Jas ducked under the clumsy attacks and sliced one man across the chest before doing another forward roll to end up by the door.

  Two of the watchmen were dead and the cleric was rolling around on the ground clutching his groin. Kal Varaz recovered quickly, but his nose had been broken by the goblet and, as he drew his two knives, he swayed unsteadily.

  Glenwood drew his longsword and moved towards Rham Jas, while the remaining watchman tried to mount some kind of counter-attack. The man of Leith had not used his sword in a fight for many years and was dangerously out of practice. Rham Jas moved to engage Kal Varaz and Glenwood found himself facing the watchman.

  He parried the first blow, but the shock that travelled up his arm nearly made him buckle. He parried the second blow more by luck than skill. As he saw Rham Jas kick Kal Varaz in the face, Glenwood felt his back touch the wood of the tavern door.

  ‘Guards!’ shouted the wind claw, spitting out blood. ‘To me!’

  Outside the tavern, the other watchmen and Karesians began to move forward.

  Glenwood spun round, letting the watchman’s mace strike the door. Remembering some of his lessons, he thrust hard at the man’s side. The fountain of blood was a surprisingly pleasing sight as his blade bit deeply into the exposed midriff.

  Before he could celebrate winning his duel, the door was kicked open and a heavy crossbow poked into the tavern. To his right, Rham Jas was keeping out of the way of Kal Varaz’s knives and delivering a series of swift but shallow cuts around his chest and stomach. The crossbowman quickly took in the scene, moving his aim from Glenwood to the Kirin. Without really thinking, Glenwood shoved the man aside and caused the bolt to fire wild.

  Then the remaining men rushed into the tavern. He darted backwards and vaulted over the bar to take cover behind the wooden counter, while Rham Jas disengaged and attempted to do the same. The man of Leith had been close to the bar, but the Kirin was quickly surrounded.

  Crossbows were poor weapons against a man as fast as Rham Jas, but two bolts hit him nonetheless. The assassin winced as his thigh and shoulder were pierced, but he didn’t appear to be hampered. He killed another watchman with an elegant thrust and spun round, delivering an impressive roundhouse kick to the head of a wind claw. Glenwood considered running out of the back of the tavern, but a quick look told him that another ten men were approaching and he’d likely find himself as isolated as the Kirin.

  Kal Varaz stood back, allowing his men to surround Rham Jas. Tough as he might be, the assassin clearly could not best twenty men in tight quarters. The Kirin was crouched, keeping his katana loose in his hands, but with nowhere to move, he couldn’t rely on his agility. Instead, he concentrated on defending himself. Glenwood looked on amazed as he parried, blocked, dodged and sidestepped, seeming almost to predict thrusts before they came and to avoid blows that would have killed any normal man.

  The patrons had now mostly fled to a corner of the common room and were huddled behind upturned tables. The barman was crouched not far from Glenwood, holding a club protectively in front of his cash box as if this were a robbery of some kind. Glenwood poked his head round the bar and saw armoured men enter from all sides. They wore the green tabard of Leith over chain mail, and took up positions to cut off any chance of escape. Strangely, they paid no particular attention to the sweating forger behind the bar. The hatch to the tavern’s wine store was just next to him and he was essentially unobserved.

  ‘He’s just a man... subdue him,’ shouted Kal Varaz, as Rham Jas deliberately fell to the floor and whirled round, slicing through three men’s legs, just below the knee. There was an instant when it looked as if the assassin might possibly escape, but then the cleric stood up. Glenwood didn’t know who he was or why he was fighting alongside the wind claws, but as the pain of being kicked in the balls began to fade, he shoved two watchmen out of the way and attacked Rham Jas. It was now apparent that he was of the Black aspect, his eyes burning with malevolent fury.

  ‘Elihas, we need him alive,’ ordered Kal Varaz, as the cleric swung downwards at the Kirin.

  Rham Jas raised his katana and parried the blow, but received a solid kick to the chest an instant later and another crossbow bolt in the back as he fell into a broken table. Then the watchmen were on him, kicking, punching and venting their frustration.

  As he edged towards the hatch and silently exited the tavern, Glenwood was sure that Rham Jas was still alive. How long he would remain so was open to debate.

  * * *

  Glenwood couldn’t get drunk, no matter how much alcohol he poured down his neck. He had wanted to be free of Rham Jas and he had wanted the annoying Kirin to suffer in some way, but his stomach was knotted and he couldn’t get the assassin’s bloodied face out of his mind.

  He’d cleaned the blood from his sword in a fountain and wandered aimlessly around the fifth hill of Leith for several hours. None of the men that had come after Rham Jas had cared about the forger. The wind claw, Kal Varaz, had not spared more than a cursory look round the tavern before hauling the unconscious assassin away. Glenwood had watched him from the back of the establishment after having pulled himself out of the wine cellar.

  He had tried to calm down, but even now, as he sat on a grassy verge with a bottle of Sixth Hill Reserve, he was a little dazed. It was getting dark and he had nowhere to stay and no idea of what to do. The fact that he’d chosen to get drunk within sight of the fourth hill, where the dungeons of Leith could be found, was testament to his confusion.

  The fourth hill was one of the smallest, and the large stone structure that perched on top of it was probably the ugliest building in Ro Leith. It had been designed by a particularly militant knight marshal who had been attempting to replicate the look of a Red church barracks. He had succeeded admirably and the building was a squat, castellated lump, which contained hundreds of gaol cells.

  Glenwood had casually wandered round the hill several times and had already identified the cell where Rham Jas had been taken, and the feeding trough that led to it. There was little he could do with this information but, on some level, he felt that by watching the dull light that emanated from the assassin’s cell he would be empathizing with his companion’s plight. In reality, this was horse-shit and all he wanted was to feel composed enough to return to Ro Tiris.

  As he drained the last of his bottle of wine and settled back against a tree, Glenwood thought that the Kirin’s twitchiness might be rubbing off on him. He had identified a dozen wind claws patrolling the base of the fourth hill and had noticed a slight blind spot in their guard pattern. If a man was so inclined, he could wait until one was out of sight and the other had not yet emerged, and simply walk past to reach the feeding troughs. Further to this, as the faithful of Jaa seemed only to be worried about the road, and not the troughs behind them, it was likely that a man could remain unobserved once past the perimeter.

  The man of Leith smiled to himself and looked at the empty bottle in his hand. He was well aware that a slight dulling of his senses from alcohol was likely responsible for the sharpening of his criminal instincts and that, were he to enact his unwise plan, he would probably need another bottle first. Unfortunately, he didn’t have one, and the forger silently chided himself for even considering so foolish a plan, rather than thanking his luck and leaving Ro Leith as quickly as possible.

  The wind claws continued their patrol. As one of the warriors disappeared round the base on the fourth hill, Glenwood began counting down from ten. Without really thinking about it, he stood and ambled slowly away from the grassy verge and towards the street.

  ‘Eight, seven,’ he whispered to himself, stepping into the dark cobbled street.

  ‘Six, five,’ he continued, making his way off the road and towards the stone walls of the dungeon.

  ‘Four, three,’ he muttered, hoping his timing would be accurate and the shadows sufficient to conceal him.

  ‘Two, one, zero.’ Just as he said the last word to himself he reached the top of the f
eeding trough. He hugged the stone wall that extended from the outside wall of the dungeon and separated the various troughs. The sound of armoured feet began to rise again and he saw a second wind claw approach from the other direction and continue his patrol. A mixture of fear and elation flooded over the slightly drunk criminal. The faithful of Jaa would continue their patrol, oblivious to the fact that Glenwood was skulking in the darkness at the top of the sloped feeding trough.

  At the bottom of the incline were solid steel bars and a dull glow of firelight. The troughs were an anachronism from the days when food had been thrown down to the prisoners. The knight marshal who had built the dungeon had done so with meticulous attention to detail, and with numerous unnecessary touches. It also had a large overhang above, from which, in ages past, criminals would have been hanged. These days, those judged worthy of death were given a slightly more dignified end.

  There were voices coming from below, though he couldn’t make out individual words and would have to climb further down in order to find out what was transpiring inside the Kirin’s cell. With the taste of wine still on his lips, the forger slowly inched down the gradual incline. There was no light, except what came from below and he was well hidden beneath the overhang.

  He stumbled several times, but used the sides of the trough to steady himself. Crouching down, he took up position to the side of the barred window. Rham Jas was hanging in the centre of the stone prison cell, his hands chained to the ceiling and his feet shackled to the floor. Next to him, in a corner of the room, was a chair with leather and metal restraints. Some kind of torture device, the like of which was not commonly used in Tor Funweir, Glenwood thought. A flaming brazier was positioned next to the chair and a well-tempered knife protruded upwards through the flames.

  His wounds had disappeared completely, though his grin was gone too, and he wore only a small piece of cloth covering his groin area. The one scar remaining was on his left shoulder and looked to be from an old crossbow wound. He was muscled but wiry, and he looked pathetic hanging helplessly in the stone room. There were two people with him, keeping their distance as they spoke.