by Rob J. Hayes
The boy looked worried, he wasn't sure if he should be talking to a client. Pern tapped him twice on the shoulder and nodded back towards the camp. “Go now, Tek. I will see you again in ten years.”
“Unless I'm on contract by then,” Tek said with a grin and ran off. Pern watched him go for a moment then turned back to the client. The man was no longer in front of him; he had dropped back silently and now walked besides Pern. The Haarin tried to hide his alarm that the man could move with so little noise.
“What 'bout you, Haarin Pern Suzku? Not likely ta get seduced by the shiny sights an' pretty ladies in my city?”
Pern kept his gaze level and face expressionless. “I am Haarin.”
Again the client laughed. “Aye. Well I seen loftier 'an you fall. I been all over these wilds. I've killed blooded lords and bit-less thugs. I've robbed from the rich and poor alike. I fucked pirate queens an’ two-bit whores an' even the most dangerous little bitch ya ever likely ta meet. I climbed ta the top of the Gods Eye an' swam the length o' the Jorl. Been everywhere an' done it all, I have. Even spent some time crewing with the Black Thorn an' let me tell you; a more murderous bastard ya never seen.”
Pern did not respond; he was not required to. His contract was to guard the client's life; not to pamper his ego. Instead he looked around the camp for one last time. He looked upon the small wood and hide huts that had housed him, painted white against the heat of the wild, pitiless sun. He looked at the large cook fire in the centre of the camp where all his meals had been cooked; almost every meal he had ever eaten. He looked at the women returning from the nearby river carrying buckets of water to refill the camp's stores. Pern had never known his mother, he had been chosen as Haarin from a very young age but it was possible she still lived here in the camp. He looked at the giant skeleton of a Carrock bird that hung outside the shaman's tent, the shaman who had helped bring him into this world, the shaman who had named him and the shaman who had decided he would be Haarin. His life had not been long so far; as a trainee it had been hard but simple, as Haarin not under contract it had been tiresome. Pern found himself wondering what his life would be now he had a contract, now he had a client.
“Aye, ol' Swift has done it all,” the client was still talking, more to himself than to Pern. “An now ol' Swift has got more enemies than he cares ta count an' every single one o' the fuckers knows where ta find me. So you best be worth the fortune I jus’ fuckin' spent on ya.”
Again Pern kept his gaze level and his face expressionless. “I am Haarin.”
Thorn
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He woke to a soft scuffing, or maybe a shuffling; it was hard to tell over the noise of the damned, ceaseless pounding. Thorn's eye flicked open and scanned the right side of the room. An elderly man was standing over him and staring at Betrim's chest while muttering to himself.
“Oh... you're awake,” the old man sounded surprised. Betrim just stared at the man with his one eye. “Your stab wounds seem to be healing well. An impressive collection of scars, I must say. How many times have you been wounded?” He had a kind face and an even kinder voice.
Betrim felt a tugging in his head, a pressing need to answer the man's question. “Too many,” he tried to say but all that came out was a scratchy growl.
“Ahh, sorry about that. Just one moment.” The old man disappeared from view and returned a short while later with a skin. He squirted some of the cold water into Betrim's mouth. Thorn had never tasted anything so good. “A little bit at a time,” the old man said. “Otherwise you'll choke. Have to get used to it.”
He wasn't wrong. Betrim sucked down some more water and ended up coughing most of it up over his face. It felt like an age before he could speak again.
“Who... are you?” He growled at the old man. Problem was it was hard to sound menacing when you were strapped down, naked, on a table.
“My name is Oswell Fields.”
“Arbiter?”
The old man hesitated for a moment then nodded. “Yes. I am an Arbiter.”
“Let. Me. Go,” Betrim hissed.
Arbiter Oswell Fields sighed and shook his head. He was a short man, would have been dwarfed by Betrim had he been standing, with short silver hair and shining blue eyes. His face was long, with too much skin and all of it sagging like a thin man who was once fat. Small grey hairs seemed to sprout from everywhere on his face; his nose, his chin, his ears. Betrim noticed his teeth when he talked; two missing from the looks of it and mostly white with a touch of brown on some. Betrim had seen that kind of discolouring before; the old Arbiter smoked casher weed.
“I can't let you go, I'm afraid. It's just...”
“Why?” Betrim demanded, his one eye holding all the fury of a particularly angry thunderstorm.
“Because you're the Black Thorn.” The old Arbiter sighed and sat down on something Betrim couldn't see. He began to wring his hands together. “You've murdered... how many Arbiters?”
Again Betrim felt the tugging in his mind. “Six.”
The old Arbiter pulled a face, somewhere between a wince and having trapped wind, Betrim reckoned. “I don't think there is another man alive who can claim that. You're to be tried for heresy, I'm afraid to say. As soon as you're well enough which, I think, will be very soon. I don't mean to spoil the ending for you but I'm fairly certain you'll be burned.”
Betrim felt the need to rub at the burn scar on his face. Problem was his hands were bound to the table. He tried to move all the same, his left hand shifted some, not by much, just a little.
“What 'bout my pardon?” He asked the old Arbiter. “Thanquil promised me a pardon.”
“I'm not sure I know a Thanquil,” Arbiter Oswell Fields said looking confused.
“Uhh. Arbiter Thanquil Darkheart,” Betrim said. If he could get this man to find Thanquil he could get his friend to set him free. Assuming the Arbiter still counted Betrim as a friend. They hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms; the Black Thorn had left Thanquil bloody and spitting teeth.
“Oh... of course you wouldn't know.” The old Arbiter took a pouch from around his neck and pulled from it a small ceramic pipe, he filled the bowl of the pipe with a dried brown weed from the same pouch and then stood to light the weed from the torch. “Arbiter Darkheart was tried for heresy and found guilty,” he said as he sat back down and puffed out a breath of smoke.
“What?” Betrim felt an impending need to hit something. Hard.
“For the attempted murder of an Inquisitor no less. Ambitious undertaking I’d say.”
“Attempted?”
“Yes,” the old Arbiter was nodding to his words. “He failed thanks to someone I believe you know. Arbiter Kessick, the man who brought you in, arrived just in time to save Inquisitor Heron. Captured both you and Arbiter Darkheart in one night. A hero really. Back in the wilds now, I believe, though I can't be sure. These wandering Arbiters are so hard to keep track of.”
Now Betrim wanted to scream. It was all his fault. If he hadn't been so damned drunk, if he had been able to kill Kessick like they planned, Thanquil would have killed the traitorous Inquisitor and...
“Is he dead?” Betrim asked.
“Who?”
“Thanquil. Arbiter Darkheart.”
“Oh yes. Quite dead. Stripped of his title and burned at the stake for his crimes. An expected end for a Darkheart.”
“What about Jezzet?” Betrim asked, feeling a pressing need to know if any of his friends had survived.
“Uhhh...”
Of course this old Arbiter wouldn't know who Jezzet was. Betrim tried to think of the Arbiter she had been sent to kill. “Kosh! What about Arbiter Kosh?”
The old man nodded, took another deep puff of smoke and blew it out in Betrim’s face. “Yes I do seem to remember Arbiter Kosh was attacked that same night. By a woman I believe. Caused quite a stir when he killed her on the streets. I’m told she was stark naked of all things.” The Arbiter barked out a chuckle and shook his hea
d in wonder.
That was it then. They were gone. Betrim had lost two more friends and failed in their bargain. Truth was Betrim could now count the amount of friends he had left on one three-fingered hand and he was fairly certain he’d have fingers left to spare.
“Fuckin' witch hunters,” Betrim spat with as much venom as he could muster.
The old man's face went hard. “Yes, well I'm not sure that's entirely fair. I'll be recommending that you are ready to stand trial soon.”
Betrim tensed his left hand; there was some give in the bond, not much but it might be enough. “My eye...” he said before the old Arbiter could leave.
“Is gone,” the Arbiter replied in a terse tone, all friendliness gone. “Not that it will matter soon enough.”
“It itches.”
“Yes. It will do that,” the old Arbiter said with a sigh. “Missing bits of the body often do. I would have thought you, of all people, would know that.” Another sigh. “I'll take a look.”
The old man emptied his pipe on the floor and placed it back in its pouch then stood and shuffled his way around the table to Betrim's left side and bent himself over to peer into Betrim's face. It was a disconcerting thing to have someone that close, staring at you that hard and only be able to see them out of the corner of your eye. Betrim tensed his left arm. He pulled, pushed, twisted, wriggled and struggled to get his hand free from its binding.
“There's some inflammation around the socket. I could apply some ointment but... You'll be dead in a few days. Can’t you put up with it until then?”
The old Arbiter seemed to notice Betrim's arm moving for the first time and stepped away with alarm just as his hand scraped free from its bondage, leaving a fair portion of skin behind.
Betrim was slower than he'd have liked, slower than he remembered being. His hand caught hold of the Arbiter's wrist just as the man tried to leap away. Betrim pulled and the Arbiter stumbled backwards and fell on top of his prisoner. With a furious growl the Black Thorn wrapped a once meaty arm around the Arbiter's neck and tensed with all the strength he could muster though that unfortunately was not much.
Back before Kessick had stabbed him and ripped out his eye, before he had been strapped to a table for the Gods knew how long; Betrim had been strong, not as strong as some but strong enough all the same. Now he felt weak, his arms were tired and wasted, his bones felt as though they pushed against the skin and the old man he was trying to choke was putting up a fair sized fight.
The thing about Arbiters, Betrim knew, was that even if they weren't the strongest or fastest or most skilful; they tended to cheat. The bastards had all sorts of magic. With their prayers to their God they could increase their strength and speed, they had all sorts of charms that could purge a hangover or stop a man from remembering his own name. They had runes that could set things on fire and others that could cause the world to grow cold and dark. Betrim had even seen an Arbiter make a wall of stone explode with little more than a word once. The trick to killing an Arbiter, if you couldn't do it before they saw you coming, was to stop them from talking. With that thought in mind Betrim pressed down as hard as he could on the old man's neck, crushing his throat and stopping him from praying.
By the time the Arbiter went limp Betrim was as tired as he'd ever been and covered in an uncomfortable, cold sweat that made him, for possibly the first time in his life, wish for a bath. He let the old man's body slip to the floor with a crack as his skull hit the stone.
“Seven,” Betrim said with a grin and started fumbling with his three-fingered hand at the strap that held his five-fingered one. It seemed to take an age before the buckle was undone and his hand was free but he didn't have time to stop and rest. Betrim undid the strap on his head and for the first time in he didn't know how long, took a good long look at his own body.
He was wasted to be sure; all bones and skin and sagging bits of flesh where once there had been healthy and strong muscle. Four new scars stood out red and proud on his chest. Had Kessick really stabbed him so many times? Seemed some sort of miracle he had survived if that were the case. The Black Thorn was no stranger to a bit of stabbing, both giving and receiving. An old friend of his, Henry, had once stabbed him during sex just so she could watch him bleed. No one had ever stabbed him four times though. Seemed he had another reason to make Kessick pay.
With all the dexterity of a fish out of water Betrim worked at undoing the rest of the straps that held him down. Seemed to take a real long time before he was free. He swung his legs over the side of the stone slab and hopped down onto the floor where he collapsed in a heap next to the old Arbiter's body. His legs took a good few minutes before they felt strong enough to try holding his weight again so Betrim pulled on the stone slab and pushed on the floor until he was standing then stretched. His bones clicked and his muscles ached and trembled but it felt good to be upright again. Seemed a man could never miss walking so much as when he can't do it no more and Betrim was finding it felt more than a little good to pace a bit now.
The cell they had him kept in was little more than that. Maybe ten feet by another ten with two torches providing a soft orange glow, a stone slab of a table with a small wooden stool, another table with all manner of sharp blades and needles and a stone basin full of water. Betrim walked over to the basin, stuck his head into the cold liquid and drank deep, sucking down mouthful after mouthful until his stomach felt like it was bulging. Afterwards he found himself an unoccupied corner of the room and took a good, long piss. Stank the room up something fierce if truth be told but he felt all the better for letting it out.
He returned to the Arbiter and stripped the body. The clothes were too small but ill-fitting was better than naked, Betrim reckoned. There were spots of blood on the shirt. The Arbiter was bleeding from where his head had hit the stone floor.
“Fuckin' witch hunters,” Betrim said and spat on the body. He might have given the corpse a good kicking but he was feeling far too weak for such an exertion.
He found the old man's Arbiter coat hanging on a coat peg by the cell door and took it. Again the garment was too small but with Betrim's wasted body it would serve for a while as long as no one looked too closely. He found a heavy set of dark-iron keys in one of the pockets and started trying them in the door. Didn't take long for him to find the correct key and with a quick glance at the corridor outside Betrim slipped from the room and closed the door behind him.
The first thing he noticed was the thump thump thump'ing stopped. The moment the door to his cell was closed he could no longer hear the noise. It was as if the monotonous and repetitive noise had only existed inside his cell. It had been so long since Betrim had been without it he almost felt like he missed it; as if the noise had somehow become a reassuring constant in his life. That very thought made the Black Thorn as angry as he'd ever been and he turned, launched a thick glob of spittle at the door and stalked away down the corridor; not caring where it went or who he might run into.
Black stone walls lit by intermittent torches stretched out in front of Betrim about as far as he could see. Might be they ended in a set of stairs but he was finding it hard to tell from this distance. Having one less eye seemed to mean he couldn't see so far, nor so good as he used to. Not to mention he had to fight the constant, overwhelming desire to poke at the now empty socket.
The walls were rough and sharp to the touch, Betrim liked himself a good lean but to do so here might well cause an injury. He limped along; heading to what he thought might be the stairs and scratched at an itch on his skull. That's when he realised his hair was gone. The bastard Arbiters had shaved his head bald. Seemed a right insult to Betrim. Not only did they damned near kill him then fix him up only to keep him captive and strapped to a table until they could be arsed to burn him; they had to go and shave his head too. Now the Black Thorn had never been best pleased about having a head full of red hair, fact is that's why he took to dying it black every few weeks, but he was far less pleased about having no
hair.
It wasn't that being bald was a bad thing for folk; truth was Betrim had known plenty of bald people and they seemed much the same as anyone else. Some were good people, some were right pricks but each were people all the same. Problem was Betrim quite liked having hair that could obscure his face some; came in useful when you were as ugly and scarred as him.
He reached the area that might have been stairs to find it was a door set back in a dark alcove. After a fair amount of fumbling with the keys the door swung open to reveal a winding stone stair case leading upwards. Up seemed as good a direction as any to Betrim, although he had no idea whether he was above or below ground.
By the time he reached the top of the stair case Betrim was panting from the exertion, leaning against the large, wooden door and wishing he had some hair to soak up the sweat that was running from his forehead like a river. Truth was Betrim would have paid good money for a bed and some time in it but truth was Betrim didn't have a bit to his name and didn't have the time to rest up. He had to get as far away from wherever he was before anyone came looking for him.
He tried eight different keys before he found the right one and pulled the door open to the brightest light he had ever seen. It was everywhere, so bright it blinded, so bright it hurt. The afternoon sun shone in through the doorway and directed its full wrath at Betrim's one remaining eye. He found himself struggling to even squint, holding his hands over his eyes for shade. Then he remembered he only had the one eye these days and took his left hand away. No need to shade an eyeball that wasn't there, that would only make him look a right fool.
The light began to dim to tolerable levels and Betrim peered out of the door like some sort of mouse peering out of its burrow; frightened of what it might find and what he found did indeed frighten him. In front of him was a courtyard, bright and dusty in the sun and populated by more buildings than Betrim could count; which put it somewhere above twenty. People walked to and fro; all of them looking busy and a good half of them wearing Arbiter coats.