by Tim Stead
“You do not believe that,” Maryal said.
“Yet I believe there is hope. We must pray for deliverance, and I will make it my foremost concern to devise some strategy that may release us from this trap.”
She nodded, though he could see there was little hope in her eyes. The trap was perfect. It would require some gross error on Skal’s part to break it, and he did not expect such a thing. Now was not the time for despair, however. He smiled against his heart
“I must go,” he said. “Think carefully. Act carefully. Be wise.”
He left them. He wanted to talk to Harad. The old man was clever behind his rough manners, and it would be a comfort to talk to him, to be able to speak what he thought without fear of reproach.
He was most of the way to Harad’s armoury when he saw Ampet coming the other way down the passage. He had no desire to speak with Skal’s creature, and made sure he would pass on the other side, averted his eyes. Ampet thought otherwise, however, and stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop and lift his gaze. He was surprised to see sympathy, even embarrassment on the young man’s face.
“I heard,” he said.
“Yes. Well…” Quin had no words for him.
“I’m sorry. It is wicked.” Ampet shook his head. “Why did he do it?” he asked.
“You are asking me?”
“I don’t understand,” Ampet said. “For what it’s worth he is no longer my friend. I’m sorry. You and Maryal. We all knew.” He shrugged. “I was jealous, but this…” Again he was lost for words.
Quin did not feel generous, but he forced himself. He touched the young man’s arm, nodded. “Thank you, Ampet,” he said.
He walked on. Could Skal really have not understood? If even Ampet had turned against him then he would indeed be isolated. Perhaps there was some hope after all. Surely even Skal would see the folly of his actions.
He came to the armoury door and beat on it several times with his fist.
“Come!” Harad’s rough tones called from within. He pushed the door open and entered, closing it behind him. Harad believed in doors, and he liked them closed. The old warrior was sitting at a table with a selection of weapons laid out upon it. He was sharpening them, wiping them down with oil so that they would not rust.
Harad was not a tall man, but he was broad. He moved with no rough edges, smooth and unhurried. His hair had turned to iron, and was cut short. His face was scarred in three places. He was a fierce looking man.
“Ah, my lord Quinnial,” he said. “Today is not a good day.” His voice was quite different wrapped around these words. It was gentle and sympathetic.
“I am at a loss, Harad,” he said. “I do not know what to do.”
“If talking will help, then I will talk with you,” Harad said. “But we should talk of other things. Allow the gods a chance to undo this knot before you worry at it too much yourself.”
“The gods have bigger problems, I am sure,” Quin said.
Harad stood. “Come and sit,” he said. This was a signal honour. He had never been invited to sit in Harad’s inner chamber before. It was the man’s home.
Quin followed him through another door, and found himself in another armoury. It was not what he had expected. The walls were covered with blades in a bewildering selection of styles, a large chair sat before an unlit fire. There was a table with two chairs pushed beneath it, and a cot in the corner. The room was ordered and tidy, even more so than the armoury outside. Harad pointed to the table.
“Sit,” he said. Quin sat and watched while Harad retrieved a bottle and two glasses. He placed one of them before Quin, the other before himself and poured two small measures of a clear liquid. “Wine is not adequate for such sorrows,” he said. “This is Heclith, otherwise Firestone, the old drink of the north. Try it.”
He sipped, and it burned like fire, leaving a taste not unlike apples in his mouth. Somewhere in his body there was a burst of warmth. He sipped again.
“You like it?”
“I like it.”
“Good. I have a tale for you. It concerns your friend Narak.”
“Wolf Narak?”
“The same. Did you know he had gone to Berash?”
“He said that he might.”
“And you know Prince Havil?”
Quin had met Havil on three occasions, and two of those were when he was a child. He remembered a big man. He knew the prince by reputation, of course. A fierce warrior and commander of the dragon guard, and yet a good man and a good prince with the welfare of his people in his heart.
“I know of him,” he said.
“He attacked Narak.”
“What?”
“Went for him. His way of making sure he was who he said.”
“What happened?”
“There were a lot of witnesses, apparently. The bout lasted less than a minute before Narak put Havil down, and you’ll like this bit. He attacked Havil’s blades.”
“No!”
“That’s what they say, and Havil uses two, just like Narak. After he knocked him down he helped him up, slapped on the back and thanked him for the practice. Not a man you want to get on the wrong side of.”
Quin nodded. Attacking someone’s blade was almost an insult. It was what you might do to a child that you were teaching to fence. With anyone who knew what they were doing it was impossible, but perhaps not so impossible for a god.
“Do you know what they talked about?” he asked.
“I could guess,” Harad said. “But my guess would not be as good as yours.”
“Border troubles,” Quin said. “He asked us about them.”
“There you are, then.”
Quin sipped the Heclith. It was making him feel warm and relaxed. Harad reached out and splashed another shot into his glass. He could not imagine the bout Harad had described. He had never seen a man move fast enough to do what Narak was said to have done, to follow every movement of two blades, to match it in the blink of an eye. Surely there was some exaggeration in it?
His drifting eye caught a familiar shape on the wall, a knife. It had a slightly curved blade ending in two points, the grip being leather strips bound around the tang. It gleamed, showing a different grey from the other blades.
“That blade,” he pointed to it. “The one with two points. I have seen one of those before. What is it?”
“I doubt it, my lord. That’s a very foreign piece.”
“I’m sure, Harad. It’s a distinctive blade, the curve just so, the two points.”
Harad sat forward and frowned. “It’s a Seth Yarra blade,” he said. “The very blade that Remard’s assassin carried. You’ve seen one? Here?”
“Seth Yarra?” Quin felt the hairs rise of the back of his neck, and the Heclith was no longer warming him. He remembered the man, the priest, the mad eyes, and he’d been standing opposite the wolf god’s temple.
“Have you seen such a blade?” Harad was serious now, leaning towards Quin, his eyes keen, his brow furrowed.
“Yes, Harad. Not three weeks ago in the city of the gods. It was carried by a priest. You remember the day that it rained so hard?”
“I do.”
“I saw him opposite Wolf Narak’s temple, and he seemed quite distracted, so I approached him. He drew the knife, so I showed him my sword and he fled.”
“You are sure? You have no doubt?”
“None.”
“Then you must go to the duke your father. Tell him.”
“I will tell the Wolf,” Quin said.
“You must tell the duke.”
“He will not believe me, Harad.” He could see that Harad was surprised by his words. “He puts no store by what I say; he excludes me from his counsels.” He does not love me as a son, he finished silently.
Harad was still for a moment, and then he nodded and poured another measure of Heclith. The nod was not one of agreement. It was a nod of understanding, the sort of nod he had seen a thousand times in training when Harad had
grasped the error of the student before him. For the moment he had put aside the matter of the Seth Yarra spy.
“I have noticed that there is a distance between you, and it saddens me,” Harad said. “It began with the horse, the fall, the arm. Of course. You know this. But your father did not turn away from you because he thinks you weak or foolish. He is still proud – more so since you took it upon yourself to live in the world again. He asks me, you know, quite often, ‘how is Quinnial progressing?’ and he listens to what I tell him. He asks the others, too, your masters of language and strategy and history.”
“He does not speak to me,” Quin said. He did not believe that Harad would lie, but nothing that the armourer said rang true.
“He fears you,” Harad said.
“My father fears nobody,” Quin snapped back, and at once he was surprised by his own vehemence.
“He does not fear your sword, my lord, nor that you may plot against him. He fears that you blame him, for that,” he pointed to Quin’s useless right arm. “It was your father that put you on the horse. He put you on the horse, not Aidon, and he did that because you were better than Aidon – at everything. You were his favourite. He blames himself for what came to pass.”
It was a long speech for Harad, but it made little sense to Quin.
“There was no blame, Harad,” he protested. “It was an accident. It was I who made the mistake, and I knew better. If anyone carries the blame it should be me.” He shrugged. “But I have put it aside. It serves no one.”
“You should tell the duke, my lord.”
“About the spy?”
“Speak to your father. Now finish your Heclith and be about your business, my lord. I have work to do.”
Quin was dismissed. The lesson was over. He walked out of the armoury into the afternoon air. The sun was shining on all his sorrows. He thought of Maryal and Skal. He thought of the desperate eyed priest, drenched and frightened in the midst of the city of gods. He would talk to his father, and if Harad was right it would begin a healing between them, but he would also tell the Wolf, and Narak would come again, and there would be blood.
12. Bel Erinor
Narak stepped out onto the road. It was a cart track more than a road. Not well kept, but clearly it had been used a lot in recent weeks. The wheel ruts were clear of vegetation and branches had been broken along the sides by passing wagons. He crouched and examined the tracks. They had been cut deep in the recent rains, so the wagons had been loaded, heavy with ore.
He had to assume that the mines had been reopened. Someone had been mining blood silver, and the only purpose for blood silver was to kill members of the Benetheon, and on a grand scale. He sniffed the air, and detected the faintest trace of smoke. The wolves also had the scent. They looked at him expectantly.
Follow the scent. Be slow. Be quiet. Stay off the path.
They vanished among the trees and he turned to follow them. He kept on the path because it was easier walking. On either side of the track the trees rose up, thickened by a concealing under storey of shrubs and bushes. It felt like walking down a tunnel, but he could feel the wolves moving all around him, a slender sixth sense dimly illuminating the things he could not see.
As he walked down the track he stopped from time to time and examined the ruts. It looked as though the mining had been completed. He could see the ruts made during the last rains, and they had dried high and sharp. They were still unbroken, and he would have expected the clean edges to be crushed and flattened by wheels that had passed after the rains, but they were not. That indicated that nothing had travelled down the road for more than a week.
The smell of wood smoke grew stronger, and the wolves detected men – more than one, but not many. He paused again and looked at the thickets on either side. This was a good place for an ambush. He knew that he was nearing the end of the road, the mines themselves, and if there was anyone here they would be around the next bend, waiting for him.
Nobody would mine here, or even be here without lookouts, so he assumed that he had been seen, that he was awaited. He gave his last instructions to the wolves and stepped around the last corner.
For such a dreaded place it was unimpressive. The entrance to the mines was a simple tunnel, not much higher than a man and three times as wide. It gaped in the hillside at the back of a clearing that was less than an acre in size, roughly flattened and elevated by the spill that had been discarded from the diggings. There was a canvas shelter to the right of the mine, a small fire burning beneath it, and three horses tethered nearby. One man stood by the fire.
Narak walked slowly towards him. He was a man of middle years, dressed in a thick leather coat sewn with iron rings, a sort of poor man’s chain mail. He wore a sword and a dagger in the common style, heavy boots, and a number of scars that could have come from any number of weapons. He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword and watched Narak come. He didn’t smile or frown. He just watched.
Three horses and one man: Narak felt the wolves gathering behind him, still quiet, still hidden, but eager.
“Good day to you,” he greeted the man.
“What’s your business here?” the man demanded. His voice was harsh, but he spoke Avilian in the native manner. Narak could sense something else. Blood silver. He should have expected it. The man’s weapons were edged with the metal and would cut him if they touched.
“Revenge,” Narak said.
The man raised an eyebrow. “Revenge?”
“The woman you killed,” he said. “She was a friend of mine.” He drew both his blades and made a pattern with them. The air sparkled and the man took a step back.
“You’re the Wolf,” he said.
“I am.”
The man drew his own sword. It was long and heavy, a useless blade to bring against a swordsman of Narak’s quality. It would be slow, the sort of weapon that tried to batter through defences, to wear down the other man.
“I’ve done no wrong,” the man said. It was well said, convincing, but Narak did not doubt.
“Your blade convicts you,” he replied.
The man shrugged, and the shrug turned into a turn, the turn into a cut, the great blade swinging through the spot that Narak had occupied a moment earlier at about hip height. At the same moment he heard two bow strings let go, two notes played on a one stringed harp. He swung in the air, sweeping back and around and cut both arrows from the air, meeting the two shafts perfectly, one with each blade.
Now.
By the time his feet touched the ground again the man that faced him had barely recovered from his stroke. Narak saw his eyes look beyond his shoulder and all hope fade from them. He heard the wolves cascade out of the forest, the cries of surprised and terrified men. He did not look. He saw it all in the other man’s eyes.
“I have questions,” he said. The man backed away. Narak stepped after him. When the attack came it was slow and easily avoided. He caught the big sword on one blade and stepped around it, bringing his other blade down in a swift arc to sever the man’s sword arm at the wrist. The man screamed, and Narak stepped in close, swinging his fist into his opponent’s face, knocking him senseless. He sheathed his swords, grabbed the severed wrist, using his fingers as a tourniquet, and stooped to lift a burning length of wood from the fire, crudely cauterising the stump. He wanted the man to live, for a while at least.
* * * *
It was nearly an hour before the man awoke. Narak saw him twitch, a sudden jerk of the head. He had bound him, arms to his sides, ankles together. Another rope had been passed between his legs and was thrown over a branch and hauled up so that he hung head down barely a foot above the ground a little more than a yard from the fire.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you are alive,” Narak said.
The man twisted his head and looked at him. Tried to spit, but his mouth was too dry.
“I know,” Narak said. “You’ll tell me nothing.” He pushed the man with a foot so that his head swun
g above the fire and back again. There was a smell of burning hair. The man cursed.
“Let’s start with your name. That’s easy, isn’t it? What’s your name?”
He said nothing, so Narak put his foot against his shoulder again.
“Arbak,” the man grated. “My name is Arbak.”
“There, that was easy. Now I want you to understand that you’re dead, Arbak. Really dead, but you haven’t stopped breathing yet. You became dead when you killed my friend. There is no escape, no reprieve, no mercy. Between now and when you stop breathing there will be a certain amount of pain. It will be very bad for you, but you can end it at any time by telling me two things. How much blood silver did you get out of the mine, and who did you send it to?”