“Are you certain? Don’t want you to get there and change your mind.”
“Bit harsh this morning, aren’t you?” Halm said.
“It’s a big day. An important day.”
“I know it.”
“Then act like it.”
“Like you?” Halm grinned, flashing his horrible teeth. “No. I’m happy the way I am. I’ll fight this day, and I’ll win. Or I’ll probably be dead. Dark Curge’s lad, remember?”
Goll sighed. He did.
“Ah…” Halm flourished his hand once more. “Let’s find something to eat, friend Goll. You’ve got me up this early, I mean to test that purse of yours. See how deep it is. Perhaps even bring back old man Muluk something.”
“Perhaps.” Goll broke into a stride.
They walked on.
*
Caro watched the two men walking down the street away from both the tavern and where they lurked.
“Well?” Lantus asked, his shoulder against the wall. “They’re the ones, right?”
“They don’t have anything with them,” Caro noted. “No cloth sacks. It’s all in there.” He nodded at the tavern.
“Then we’re off.” Lantus motioned his men forward.
Caro turned on them. “You stupid punce. Wait at least until these bastards are well and away. The third one—the one they called Muluk—might come out anyway. The whole of Sunja doesn’t want to wake to a street fight.”
Lantus’s answering scowl hinted at his waning patience at being called names.
Caro stuck his head around the corner and saw the pair walk away, down the narrow street, past crates, closed stalls, and assorted other debris. Rays of light lit up their upper torsos as they meandered along. Then they were gone from sight. The smell of sewage wafted across his nose, pungent and offending. Somewhere a rooster crowed, twice. Nothing moved on the street.
Caro looked back at the waiting killers. “All right. Look for a cloth sack in one of the upstairs rooms. We don’t know which, but there are only three. Search them all. Be careful of Muluk and kill him. Get the coin and get out. Think you can do all that?”
Lantus screwed up his face at the orders. He purposely bumped his shoulder into Caro’s as he passed, knocking the man against the wall. Kurlin followed, his shortsword gleaming and ready for a fight. Caro kept his mouth shut this time. Morg shoved Ballan up against the nearby building, grinning maliciously at him.
In seconds, the six fighters left the secretive shade of the alley and looked around. Sunlight made their dusty colours seem all the more vibrant. They crossed the street and plodded up the front steps of the tavern, their boots clopping off the wood and causing Caro to shake his head.
“Ballan.”
“Yes?”
“Those are six right bastards I’d just as soon gut as trust.” Caro became pensive for a moment and then continued, “Go rouse whoever is nearby. Have them strap on steel and meet me back here.”
“You expect trouble?”
Caro’s features hardened. “I expect something…”
*
The night had been a rough one, and heaps of sleeping bodies filled both the floor and the alcoves. The smell wasn’t as bad as the cellar, a mixture of mostly spilled beer or ale. Beams of light speared through shuttered windows, tethering their ends to the wooden floor. Snores rumbled, undisturbed by the wooden footsteps of the six entering the alehouse. Even the old barkeep slept, his head in his arms behind the counter.
Lantus glanced about and noted every sleeping patron in the cavernous interior. They were sleeping, but he had been trained not to take chances. It wasn’t his fault they were here, and he had to ensure no one saw their faces.
Kurlin looked at him, not easy to look upon at any time and right now appearing quite evil.
Lantus’s fingers flexed on his sword’s hilt. “Kill them all. Quietly.”
The men broke away from their leader, eager to please.
*
In his bed, Muluk smacked his lips and cracked an eye. Like a bird taken to wing, sleep wouldn’t return to him, and for that, he cursed Goll in his native tongue. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, and just listened, eyes closed, feeling the air flow in and out of his body. Breakfast. Too damn early for breakfast.
Urk.
Whuck.
Clack.
The sounds made him frown as they drifted from downstairs. They reminded him of a throat being cut or a head being smashed. He thought it strange to hear any noise this time of the morning. Then a silence fell, deep and unsettling, in which he waited expectantly for the next soft note but heard nothing. Muluk scoffed and figured it was probably a few drunks stumbling off tables in their haste to get to a latrine.
With that, he sniffed deeply, wrinkled his nose up, and rolled onto his side. He wondered absently if the lads might bring him back something to eat. Another sniff then and a rub at his nose.
Once again, he tried summoning sleep.
*
The street meandered quite a distance away from the alehouse, and Halm and Goll followed it until they came to a stall occupied by an old woman in a thin yellow dress. She sat behind a bare stone grill situated against the wall of a store with its shutters closed. Her sun-ravaged features questioned the two men.
“You have food here?” Goll asked.
“I do,” she crackled back. “You lads speak funny. Where’re you from?”
They stopped before the stall. “I’m from Kree, and this one’s a Zhiberian.”
She watched Halm warily, careful not to meet his eyes.
It caused him to chuckle. “I’ll not do anything wrong, good woman,” he said pleasantly. “My companion and I just want to eat.”
Still on guard, she puttered about her stone grill and produced a large iron frying pan.
“Can you pay?” she asked.
Goll held up a single gold coin. The sun caught the metal just so and made it twinkle.
No longer shy, the old woman got cooking.
*
The smell of blood soured the air and covered the floor in thick, ever-widening gobs. Some of it drained to the earth below through knots and seams in the wooden planks while the rest simply flowed with all the grace of slow-moving ice. Lantus dropped the head of the barkeep, angling it so the gush from his cut throat would not spatter his boots. It wasn’t that he worried about getting blood on himself, but he realized he’d have to step out into daylight once again and probably have to leave the city with haste. Even fresh blood was difficult to clean off, but he hated when it became sticky.
They’d made quick work of the people sleeping in the alehouse. The barkeep himself was a simple haul and gash. Barely a hitch, except for the unsettling hissing a person makes when their gullet’s been sliced open. Even with the grunts and breaking of bones, most of the patrons barely stirred in their drunken slumbers. Lantus decided he didn’t mind the lack of a challenge.
“Come on,” he whispered, motioning the others to follow him towards the stairs. They pulled themselves away from their individual acts of butchery, leaving the tavern floor and nearby alcoves with still-bleeding corpses. Blood coated the hands and leather of some and covered all of their blades. Golki held his diamond-shaped maces before him, bringing up the rear and shaking one iron head at the wall. A tattered piece of red scalp splashed against the wood and slunk in spurts to the floor.
Lantus went up the stairs, eyes set on the three doors at the top, taking two at a time.
He froze at a wooden squeal behind and turned about to see Kurlin, snarling as if he’d just stepped into a steaming cow kiss.
*
That one piercing squeal of wood, as sharp-sounding as one of Goll’s sleep farts, spiked the silence and made Muluk open his eyes again. Like it or not, he was quickly waking to the shrill murmurs of what almost sounded like birdcalls. It took him a moment more to realize the sound was the stairs. People were coming up, their boots softly clomping off wood.
Muluk squint
ed in the room full of shadows, leaned over the edge of the bed and spied the dark lump of the coin sack peeking out from underneath.
Goll, he thought, didn’t bring enough coin.
He sighed in weary wonder.
*
Dying Seddon, Lantus thought. He hoped he had killed the carpenter of those stairs below. If he spied one of the dead bodies with a hammer or any other tool on the way back down, he’d make it a point to stab the topper again. He reached the walkway and waved his men up and past him. Morg and Sulo grinned with anticipation as they passed. Golki lifted his twin maces. Plakus hefted his battle-axe.
Six men lined the walkway, two at each door. They readied themselves to kick in the doors and charge. All eyes latched onto Lantus, who crouched behind Plakus.
Lantus raised his hand.
And dropped it.
38
The soft rattling outside his door continued until Muluk sat up, a hand to his forehead. Goll had apparently paused outside the door, and squinting at the line of light at the base seam, Muluk could see that Halm was there as well. The pair was trying hard to be quiet.
Then the door flew open.
Two men barged into the room, gleaming shortswords out, and took a second to spot where the Kree was sleeping. Muluk jerked himself over the side of the bed, suddenly very much awake. The killers charged him, shouting, and Muluk did the only thing he could.
He threw his blanket.
The blanket covered one man’s upper torso, and he thrashed to be free of it. Muluk faced the second man, who rushed around the expanse of the bed. He swung his sword at the naked Kree, who slept without a stitch on, and missed the top of his head by a hair. Muluk sprang at him, grabbed him up in a bear hug, and with whatever strength he possessed, squeezed about his midsection. A gasp of surprise and pain burst from his victim’s lungs.
“To Morg and Sulo!” Muluk heard from outside, and panic rose in his gullet. He threw his attacker into the other, already freed of the blanket, and slammed both of them into the wall where they stumbled to the floor. Naked and unarmed, Muluk ran at the door.
Just as a man appeared there with a pair of heavy maces.
Golki’s face twisted up in anger and swung a mace an instant before Muluk crashed into him. The mace swept a killer arc over his head, splintering a chunk of doorframe as Muluk forced him backwards onto the walkway. A man with a fearsome battle-axe flashed by, but Muluk could pay him little mind. He and Golki crashed through the wooden railing and fell roaring onto the bar below.
Golki landed on his back with a solid slap of flesh on wood, still holding his weapons and with Muluk on top of him.
The impact was enough to jar the Kree for a moment, but then he regained his wits. He looked up in time to see the brute with the battle-axe about to leap. With a huff, he scrambled off the motionless body and the bar and onto his feet, landing barefoot in blood and nearly losing his balance. Muluk glanced down, too energized to feel horror at the mess coating the tavern floor, and fleetingly took in the dead bodies. He grabbed one of the maces from the slow-moving Golki, who did nothing to stop him.
“Kill him, Plakus!” another yelled out—two more men were racing down the stairs.
Above him, Plakus jumped.
He landed through the section of the countertop, up to his knees, his face a shocked rictus of pain. The battle-axe slipped from his fingers as he doubled over as if bowing to royalty.
Mace in hand, Muluk raced to the stairs to head off the two descending men. They met at the bottom, and a ferocious monster of a man swung a sword at his head. The mace wasn’t the choice weapon of the Kree, but he wielded it like a heavy blade. He blocked the sword and knocked the lead man off balance with a countering two-handed swipe, flinging him out of the way and into the gore-covered floor. The second man slashed at Muluk’s stomach, drawing a line that spat blood. Muluk sprang back, noting the two men he’d thrown into the wall of his room now charging down the steps two at a time.
The Kree lashed out with the mace. His foe ducked to one side, escaping the scything arc of the heavy weapon. Muluk crashed into him and heaved him into the descending men. All three attackers dropped to their knees, hands grasping at wood to halt their falls, giving Muluk a few more seconds.
The first swordsman pulled himself up from the blood on the tavern floor, snarled, and attacked. He slashed right and then left and finally stabbed. Muluk evaded both attacks and smashed the sword to the floor before stepping in close and uppercutting with his mace. The weapon crushed his foe’s jaw, cracking his head back in a spurt of broken teeth and dropping him to the floor.
“I’ll gut you!” someone shouted from behind.
Muluk whirled about to face the first man to untangle himself from the clutter of limbs on the stairs. He drew back his sword for an over-the-shoulder chop. The Kree deflected the swipe with his mace and parried another, and for a moment, the pair stood toe to toe exchanging heavy blows. The sword finally punched through Muluk’s guard and flashed across his lower ribs, parting flesh. Muluk retreated, backing towards the bar and eyeing the remaining killers, who were rising from the stairs, recovered and angry.
“You think that stings,” Kurlin hissed with a grin behind his guard, nodding at Muluk’s bleeding wound. “I’ll make you sing.”
He lunged at the Kree.
*
Halm smelled the toasting bread and smiled. Perhaps an early rise wasn’t a bad idea at all. He sipped on a cup of water while Goll eyed a pot full of boiling eggs, next to the bread.
“This,” the old lady said, her bottom lip hanging as she pointed at a jar, “is honey butter. Very good. Made just this week.”
“Honey butter?” Goll asked.
“Yes, and this…” She brought up another jar and attempted to open it. Halm reached out, but she drew back with a shake of her head. With a little grunt, she opened the jar. “This is redberry jam. Very sweet.”
The jam intrigued the Zhiberian. He had a taste for sugary things.
“How much longer for the eggs?” Goll asked.
“I just put them to boil. Are you in a hurry?” the woman asked him.
The Kree shrugged. “Not really.”
*
Lantus held his wrecked jaw and crawled along the floor. Golki moved weakly on the countertop like a shell-less turtle on its back writhing pitifully, attempting to turn over, while Plakus, in obvious pain, bent over at the waist where he had crashed through the wood, his battle-axe on the floor.
Muluk and Kurlin savagely exchanged blows, sword and mace clanging. Muluk then twisted away from the counter, weaving between the heavy tables and benches to throw off his opponent.
“Morg, Sulo, go around!” Kurlin cried as he navigated the obstructions.
Muluk changed course and retreated back around the corner of the bar, leaving bloody footprints in his wake.
“He’s a slippery one, Kurlin,” Morg shouted, grinning and seemingly enjoying the hunt.
The naked Kree got behind a table and shoved it towards Sulo, slowing him. Muluk then faced the two men rushing towards him. He circled Morg’s flank, placing the killer between Kurlin and himself. Kurlin cursed and opted to climb onto a table to go around his companion.
Morg stabbed for Muluk’s gut. The Kree parried it and burst his opponent’s nose with a counterpunch. He changed targets and crashed his mace into a stunned Morg’s chest, driving him backwards and causing him to stumble over a bench.
Kurlin jumped from table to table, moved in, and slashed downwards, missing the naked man’s head narrowly but cutting a sliver of flesh from the outer curve of his right shoulder. The Kree cried out, the force of the blow causing him to slip. He fell to his knees, and as he went, he grabbed Kurlin’s ankle and yanked him off his feet, landing him flat on his back.
Then Muluk scuttled on hands and knees under a table.
Sulo maneuvered around the bodies just as Muluk sprang out from underneath a thick slab of polished wood. He slashed downwards at
the naked man, cutting a shallow line down his bare back. Muluk bolted for the far wall where he righted himself just in time to see Sulo pursuing.
Muluk dropped to a knee and threw the mace with both arms.
The weapon bounced off Sulo’s unprotected shins and sent him crashing down between tables just as a nearby Golki, still on the bar, flipped himself onto his belly.
Muluk drove a fist into the piggish face, snapping the man’s head to the left and dropping him once more. Wasting no further time on him, Muluk bent over and grabbed the other mace.
A wounded Sulo struggled to his knees just as Muluk crushed his skull with a clack and a fleshy splash, the impact toppling the killer against a table.
Grunting, Muluk backed up and looked at his shoulder. Meat, red and raw, oozed distressing streams of blood down his flesh. He could still work the arm, but it stung to Saimon’s hell.
Across from him, both Morg and Kurlin got to their feet.
“That’s one,” Muluk breathed, glaring at them both. He hefted the mace with two hands and shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“No one’s coming to save you,” Kurlin growled, raising his shortsword. Morg extracted a dagger for his off hand and circled to his right.
Muluk bared teeth. “Or you.”
“Kill him,” screeched a red-faced Plakus, still transfixed by the shards of the countertop, the cords in his neck protruding. Near him, Golki struggled to rise again.
On some unheard signal, Kurlin, Morg, and Muluk flung themselves at each other.
For a moment, blades seemingly stitched together as the three traded blows. Muluk stopped one sword and then another, purely on the defensive and maneuvering to place one man between himself and the other. He parried Kurlin’s sword to the floor and uppercut with his mace, letting it fly to crunch into Morg’s jaw and halting him in mid-attack. The man flopped to the floor as Kurlin righted himself. Muluk swarmed him, throwing his arms about the other’s torso, and both fell heavily over a table, suddenly wrestling for Kurlin’s sword.
131 Days [Book 1] Page 47