by T. O. Munro
The man’s shoulders rose and fell in a twitch of indifference. “No reason, just answer the question.”
Hustag frowned. He had no response to the man’s smart reply. His gaze flicked around seeking inspiration in the bricks and mortar of the cell. When inspiration failed to put in an appearance, greed stepped up to the plate. “What in it for Hustag? What little man give Hustag if Hustag answer questions?”
“I can get you out of here.”
The orc just managed to restrain himself from immediately seizing on the offer. “Hustag not need help. Plenty time left. Grimbold not leave until dawn.”
“It’s nearly midday, you idiot.”
Hustag gestured round at the torches in the dank cell. “You wrong, it still dark here.”
“That’s because you’re underground in a dungeon, of course it’s dark here. It’s broad daylight outside.”
Hustag’s gnarled brow wrinkled into a deeper frown. He had an alarming suspicion that the human might be right.
“How old are you?” the man asked.
Hustag held up the splayed fingers of one hand. “Hustag this many summers old.”
“Five, a bloody orc child.”
Indignation drove Hustag into one of the longest speeches of his short life. “Hustag full grown, Hustag killed many, drank their blood. Hustag killed bigger humans than you. Orcs grow fast, get tall young. That why orcs will win. We make strong fighters, we make them quick.”
The man snorted, unimpressed by Hustag’s eloquence. “Certainly yes, that’s why orcs nearly rule the world. Never mind that the one thing likliest to kill an orc is another orc and precious few of your kind ever die of old age.”
“If Hustag had no chain, Hustag make you eat words.”
“If Hustag answered my question I might take his chain off.”
“What question?”
The man slapped his forehead with his palm, a pitiful blow barely audible across the space between them. If Hustag had wanted to impress someone with the strength of his feelings he would have headbutted the stone wall, and left a dent.
“What did you argue about? Why did you get thrown in here?”
Hustag screwed up his face in a constipation of concentration and then, shrugged off the futile endeavour. “Hustag not remember.”
“Was it about a lady?” The man’s mouth was a thin line. “Did you say you’d seen a lady?”
Hustag eyes searched the space over the man’s right shoulder for a memory. He nodded slowly as the angry faces resolved themselves in his mind. “Yes, Man said Hustag lied. Man said Hustag not seen her.”
“Not seen who?”
“Snake Lady.”
There was a long silence. Hustag wasn’t even sure the man was breathing. When at last an owlish blink showed he still lived, the orc held up his manacled wrist with a look of enquiry.
“Not yet,” the man insisted. “I need more detail.”
“Dee tail?” Hustag frowned. “Hustag not see any tail.”
“Where did you see the snake lady?”
“In castle, when we fetch dead walking people.”
“Morwencairn?”
Hustag frowned his agreement. “Where master lives.”
“And you saw the snake lady?”
The orc nodded slowly. “Hustag lost, trying to find way out. Saw snake lady, she was with others.”
“What others?”
Hustag shuddered and shook his head. “Others, master’s new friends. Hustag not stay. master’s new friends, they… they not orc.”
“But you saw the snake lady.”
The orc nodded eagerly “She looked at Hustag.”
The man snorted. “She looked at you. Then why aren’t you a statue?”
Hustag’s mouth curled in a sour grimace of displeasure. “She wore mask, like she always wore. Hustag see blue, cold blue, but not see snake lady eyes.”
“And what about the snakes?”
“Lady wore hood up.”
“So all you saw was a woman with a hooded cloak and a mask on.”
“Hood moved, snakes must wriggle beneath it. It was the snake lady, the same snake lady.”
“The same?”
“Same as snake lady from the mountains. Snake lady who took Sturmcairn. It was that snake lady.”
“Dema is dead.”
“Other man said that too. That why Hustag here. Hustag knows what Hustag saw. It was snake lady.”
The man knelt suddenly urgent infront of the orc. He traced a line along his left cheek just below the bone. “Did this snake lady have a scar here? On her face?”
Hustag shook his head. “No scar. No mark. Just mask, cold eyes and wriggling hood. It was the snake lady. Hustag not lie. You believe Hustag?”
The man straightened up slowly with a grim expression. “I believe Hustag saw a snake lady.”
“Then you help Hustag go free?”
“These ‘others’ that were with the snake lady, what were they like? How was she with them? Was she scared of them? Who are they?”
Hustag folded his arms with a clink of chain rings. “Man ask many questions. Hustag answer many questions. Man let Hustag free now or Hustag not say more.”
For a small fat man the human had strong hands. Hustag had to tense his neck muscles as the man fastened his fingers around the orc’s throat. “Tell me, you orc bastard. Or I’ll rip your throat out. Who are these others? What were they doing to the snake lady?”
Hustag grinned. For all the strength of his anger, for all the depth of the bruises his finger tips would leave, the little man had as much chance of strangling Hustag as the orc had of counting to ten. He waited a moment or two, while the man tried to burrow his fingers into the solid musculature of Hustag’s neck. Then he swung his manacled arm and caught the little man on the temple with the steel cuff about his wrist. The human went down like a toppled oak, groaning on the floor.
Hustag leaped ontop of him, turning him over and reaching for the little man’s throat to return the bruising grip. The orc grinned as his fingers found the soft pink flesh beneath the man’s chin. He started to squeeze slowly. “Your neck like soft fruit,” he said. “If Hustag squeeze too hard he squish your neck, not choke it.” He gave a spluttering laugh. “Hustag like to squish soft neck. Make it pop like grape.”
The man’s face was going an interesting colour. Hustag didn’t know that pink people could go so blue, or that their eyes would bulge so. It was probably the curious distraction of the man’s changing colours that did for him. He didn’t register until too late the approach of mailed boots, nor recognise their owner until a hefty kick sent him sprawling across the dungeon floor.
“You stupid bastard.” It was the big man from the inn, the one who had had him chained up here in the first place. As Hustag struggled to his feet, full of humiliated anger, another well placed kick deposited him on his backside.
The fat little man was sitting up, massaging his throat and speaking in a hoarse whisper. “Thank you Willem,” he was saying.
“Believe me,” the outlander leader replied. “Any favour done to you was entirely unintentional. What are you doing down here anyway, Odestus?”
“I wanted to talk to him, I heard he had been insulting Dema’s memory.”
The big man looked at the little one. He did not look like they were friends. “You’ve gone soft Odestus, soft as mush.”
“I need to speak to him some more.”
“You need to get out of here before I start wondering why my guard is asleep at his post.”
“You can’t speak to me like that.”
“Anyone can speak to you like that, Odestus. Now piss off, while I exchange a few words with laughing boy here.”
The little man lurched upright and ran a speculative hand over his chin. For a moment Hustag thought he might argue some more with the big man. Hustag hoped he would. Then maybe the big man would put the little one in chains and Hustag could go free. But the little man just gave a short nod and disapp
eared up the stairs out of the dungeon.
“Just you and me now, you orc bastard,” the big man said with a grin. He made a fist of one hand and punched the palm of the other, “I’m getting a little bit rusty with all this hanging around doing bugger all. Your orc friends have hightailed it back to Morwencairn so you’re just a bit of an anomaly now an anomaly with an inconvenient memory.” He smiled a little more broadly. “You know, we haven’t had a death in custody in a while.”
Hustag was puzzled. He liked custard and had never considered it particularly dangerous.
***
Niarmit was sweating with exertion. A long night’s prayer and then the effort of warping the fabric of space made for an exhausting experience. She could not comprehend how Maelgrum and Quintala could create such openings on a whim, and she now understood just how much she had demanded of Sorenson when he created the portal between Laviserve and Karlbad.
However, her efforts had been rewarded, a shimmering oval window hung before her neatly contained within the cavity of her cupboard. She glanced across at the door for the umpteenth time, checking it was still locked. The Helm sat on a side table, playing its dumb part in her subterfuge. She had claimed a need to commune with the Helm, to invoke its powers in deciphering the inconsequential riddle of the fragment of book which Hepdida had given her.
She frowned. They might expect her to share some insight when she emerged from convocation, but she could worry about that later. Either she would make something up, or she would give a sad smile and insist the Helm’s magic prevented her from speaking of it. She alighted on the second option with a nod; there were times when she had a right to enjoy the selective muteness which the Helm conferred.
A brief flutter in her stomach, a dampened echo of a greater nausea, reminded her of the more pressing matter. She hoped the Goddess would forgive her presumption. Requesting the grace to open a gate within the planes merely to visit the father of the child she carried, might be considered by some a trivial trespass on divine generosity. But she could see no other way.
Her thoughts had been a tumbling confusion for nearly twenty-four hours. She had been distracted in council and talked some utter nonsense she could not even remember to poor Deaconess Rhodra. She had no idea what to do and the only person she could think to speak to about it was Kimbolt. She could not guess at his reaction, but that conversation at least would impose some structure and direction on the void of fearful panic which filled her belly. There was no-one else she would turn to, not with this … this fucking accident.
She checked her appearance in the looking glass. Travel stained clothes of a simple cut and cloth, a hooded cloak, her hair tied back - its rich red subdued to a mouse brown by some ugents stolen from Hepdida’s store. She did not look like herself. Kaylan would have been proud. The thief had taught her well in the simple arts of achieving anonymity in a crowd.
No-one could know of her journey. At best they might perceive the strength of feeling for her seneschal which she had tried so hard to conceal from everyone, including Kimbolt himself. At worst they could guess at the condition she had found herself in and that was knowledge Niarmit had no intention of sharing one second before she was completely and utterly ready to do so.
Niarmit had visited Oostport just once as a child. General Matteus had promised to take her to the Eastern Lands to revisit the haunts of his youthful military service. She had been eager to see at first hand the places which featured in his many stories of martial glory and cultural adventure. But just as they took lodgings at an Inn in the centre of town, news had come of the death of the Prince of Undersalve without any legitimate issue to succeed him.
That had been the beginning of the end of innocence. Their journey stalled for weeks while Matteus considered his remote linkage to the house of the great provincial nobility. And then suddenly, the planned excursion abroad was postponed until this great matter of Undersalve should be settled. Matteus had promised they would go, that they would still go but later once this big grown up matter had become a little clearer.
But the Court of Werckib had conferred the provincial princedom on Matteus and there had never been time for the general turned prince to make good on his promise. So it was the memory of that five year old child which Niarmit drew on to site her gate and open a passage to Oostsalve.
The spot she had chosen was at the centre of The Great Maze of Oosport Cathedral. As those long ago days of delay had stretched into weeks, the redheaded child had explored every aspect of Oostport’s main claim to cultural fame. The twists and turns of its hedged pathways had amply entertained a child and her governess, both abandoned by a father suddenly given to tedious meetings and the writing and reading of long letters. In those days there had been many fellow travellers along the shrub lined central trail. However, a later Bishop of Oostport, dismayed at the indecorous hilarity of the maze goers had ordered the attraction closed on all but high days and holidays, and then only under strictest supervision.
The sight through the gate was of a slightly unkempt hedgerow awaiting a trim before its next public opening at midsummer. Niarmit smiled her satisfaction at a location that was both central and discrete. She stepped towards the shimmering oval window, pulling the cupboard door closed behind her. There was that familiar sliding sensation as she pressed against the magical membrane and slipped into that other place. The air was warmer here, the morning sun a half-hour higher in the sky than in more westerly Laviserve. It would be hard to justify raising the hood of the cloak as part of her disguise. But then again, there were few enough in this town as had ever set eyes on her and, with her blaze of hair subdued, there should be little risk of being identified by any save him she had come to talk with.
The maze was as she remembered, not so much a challenge as an excuse for a long but twisting walk. The side turnings were short deadended distractions that couples had been known to use in ways which infuriated the bishop. It was hard to get lost and a quarter of an hour’s untroubled stroll down leafy passages brought Niarmit to the locked gate at the maze’s entrance.
It was a lock of some consequence, but it still provided little obstruction to one armed with Kaylan’s training and a set of picks that the master thief had himself devised. A moment’s scratching within the bowels of the ironmongery and Niarmit slipped free.
The maze was the pre-eminent feature in Focal Park, the great open space which surrounded Oostport Cathedral. The founding bishop had wanted his place of worship to stand tall, unshadowed by any surrounding buildings and for his congregation to have lush green spaces to savour the peace of the Goddess and enjoy their time of rest within sight of her splendid house. However, it was not a goddess day. All the good people of Oostport were at work or school, and the park was sparsely populated. Here and there apprentice boys strode its intersecting paths, taking short cuts on errands for their masters. An elderly lady and her companion took a constititutional stroll around the ornamental lake at the centre of the park. But all in all it was a quiet day in Focal Park.
Niarmit looked for and spotted a familiar board as she emerged from the park gates. A glaring eye beneath the inscription “Focus Inn” denoted a hostelry she had sometimes been taken to after a day in the maze or the park. There was an implicit prosperity in the fresh bright paint and in the aroma and noise of lunch being prepared in advance of the customer’s arrival. Much could be discussed quietly over a pot of stew in its dining rooms, confidentiality assured by the hubbub and chatter of other people’s disinterest.
Niarmit hurried on to the main square, ducking past wagons and mules as they were driven along the dusty street. Here was a town as yet untouched by war. She choked back the thought of what had become of the smiling bakers and smiths of Morwencairn and how that same fate could befall smug happy Oostport if she failed. Today was not a day for thoughts of Maelgrum and his machinations. It was an altogether more personal mission.
The provincial palace towered over the eastern side of the main squ
are. Its double doors were bound in polished brass which dazzled in the morning sun. Niarmit hurried towards her goal so absorbed she barely noticed the pike carrying guardsmen until one hailed her. “Oi, where are you going lad? Sorry miss?” The correction was dragged from his mouth by Niarmit’s best withering stare. She hadn’t realised that her disguise was that good.
“I have a message to deliver.” She reached inside her jerkin for the folded piece of paper. She had anticipated a challenge, that she could not get to see Kimbolt personally without disclosing her identity, and in any case she had no desire to talk with him in the overheard confines of the palace. However, she had hoped to penetrate a little deeper than the doorman before being brought up short. “I need to make sure it is received. My master will be displeased if I do not.”
The guard eyed her up and down, his gaze lingering too long below the level of her eyes. “There’s not many as would send a woman on an important errand,” he said at last.
Niarmit resisted the urge to clench her fists. She thought herself back into those incursions into occupied Woldtag. Subtle raids when being unobtrusive was the goal no matter how much anyone might merit a punch in the face. “I have silver to see it safely delivered,” she said.
“Silver you say!” the man cried with a smack of his lips. “And there’s me not free to leave my post until noon.”
“Silver for him as delivers the message and silver for him that finds me the messenger,” she said through gritted teeth.
The pikeman rapped on the door behind him. A small hatch opened at eye level and a pink face peered out. “What is it?” the face demanded.
“Lady here has a message needs delivering, Greebo. Apparently there’s silver in it for you and for me.”
Niarmit held out the folded paper. “It’s to go to Seneschal Kimbolt, into his hands in person.”