The quarry was deep into the ambush zone now, moving at a trot, keen to be out the other side. And still nothing. Not an arrow, not a war cry, not so much as a fart on the wind. Spineless, toothless, cockless old bastard. Fucking loose.
Syl ground her teeth together. The front-riding Eyes were almost out the other end of the ambush site. Much further and they’d have ridden straight past Lobb and his squad, as well, and the lot of `em would be left hiding in the rocks and stroking their cocks. Those who had them.
Not today, Spineless.
‘Arrows.’ Syl hissed, low and urgent, and her dozen archers slithered into position. ‘Now,’ she added, not bothering to wait, not giving Garn another second or the Eyes any more time to exit the ambush. Arrows arced up to kiss the sky and fall humming, whining, screaming to find marks in seven Eyes, one horse, the wagon itself, and one entirely innocent rock by the side of the trail.
More in the air, and more, and arrows coming back the other way now, random, without targets. Just loosing and hoping, trying to disrupt the Iron Blades’ rhythm. Still nothing from Garn, though, and Syl wondered if she’d been listening to a dying rook after all.
She thought about abandoning it, running the way Garn must’ve, but it was too late. Besides, she was a mercenary, and a damn good one, her crew, too. She was the fucking Stoneheart.
‘We go,’ she said, low. ‘Count of twenty. Archers, keep their heads down. One. Two. Three...’
The wagon had stopped, and a couple of Eyes were rolling barrels off the top, the others hunkered down in whatever protection they could find, behind boulders or shields or the wagon itself, loosing back where they could, mostly just hiding. With arrow shot only coming from one side, it wasn’t that difficult to avoid. Piss and vinegar, but they looked a sloppy crew of amateurs in front of Etta.
‘Take the loot,’ an Eye called, gesturing at the barrels. Syl huffed a laugh through her teeth– eleven, twelve, thirteen–but it faded when the barrels came rolling in their direction, all the way to the edge of the road. Her gaze wandered the path, and she noted that now all of the Eyes were huddled behind the wagon with their horses, as far from the barrels as they could get. And that one was standing, smoke and yellow streaming from a fire arrow.
Syl’s eyes darted back to the barrels. ‘Get that fucking archer now!’ she screeched, not bothering with quiet, and three arrows arced into the air, but the one on fire was already flying in the opposite direction, trailing smoke and spitting malice. ‘Down!’
Syl hunched small and panicked behind her boulder, knees by her ears, arms over her head. The explosion rocked the ravine, shook the ground, and started several small avalanches of loose scree and pebbles. A shockwave of burning barrel splinters and rock shrapnel burst up the slope, and something laid open the back of Syl’s hand, stung her ear sharper than a wasp.
Horses screamed and careened madly down the trail, and there were shrieks as Blades were caught in the blast, and one deep, ululating wail that spoke of injuries Syl couldn’t cure out in the wastes, and probably not even if she’d been a surgeon in Talannest. Hooves faded into the distance, most of the screaming stopped, and a sort of quiet fell.
‘Still alive, Stoneheart?’ came the deep, amused voice of Etta Scarlet, bane of Syl’s former existence. The voice that still made her cringe inside. ‘That you making that sweet music?’
‘Alive. Armed. Pissed,’ Syl yelled back, checking as many of the Iron Blades as she could without giving away her position or letting any part of her body show past the protection of her rock. Her hand was bleeding good, hot and sticky, the fingers slow to respond.
‘On a job, as it happens,’ she shouted, ‘and I know the real cargo’s under the awning, so how about you drag it out and leave it with us? No more fighting, no more killing. You can be about your day with no hard feelings.’ She squinted up at the early sun. ‘Isn’t it past time you were passed out drunk somewhere?’
‘That sounds like a plan, Syl. A real good plan, and aye, I’ve got a thirst brewing. Just one problem, you don’t count that most of our horses have bolted.’
Syl’s guts tightened. ‘Yeah? What’s that?’ she called, peering up the ravine for Lobb and his fighters. Plan or not, you hear fire barrels go up and you come running. Friends need you. Hells, even acquaintances, even people who were mostly enemies, needed you when fire barrels were in play.
‘Me and Spineless and Lobb don’t want you to have it.’
The words dragged Syl’s full and disbelieving attention back to Etta standing concealed at the edge of the wagon. They wouldn’t. They fucking had.
‘Etta, Etta,’ Syl yelled after a long pause, ‘the drink’s made you a fool. You really think they’ll honour the bargain? You should know better than to trust scum like them.’ Silence answered her, and Syl took the reprieve to pass her orders with a series of simple gestures.
‘You’re saying they double-crossed me?’ Etta called eventually.
‘Why not? They have me. Probably just waiting for us to wipe each other out, then claim the booty for themselves.’
‘They wouldn’t,’ Etta said, but there was doubt in her voice now. Doubt was dangerous on a battlefield. Doubt was deadly.
Syl laughed and held up three fingers to her Blades. ‘Wouldn’t they?’ Two fingers. She rolled onto her hands and toes. ‘So where are they then? Haven’t killed us, aren’t aiding you.’ One finger. ‘They’re on your side, why aren’t I dead?’
She didn’t wait for an answer, instead bunched her fist, and her archers loosed three quick volleys to keep their heads down and kill the wagon horses–best hope the cargo’s lightweight–and Syl was up and running, dodging boulders, skidding through scree, using the butt of her spear to leap over rocks, mouth stretched and a howl tearing its way out of her throat.
The Iron Blades were with her, as always. Whatever their opinion of the situation, when the Stoneheart called the attack, the Blades attacked. There looked to be a second of genuine surprise from the Bleeding Eyes, but then they were racing into a ragged line.
A savage grin split Syl’s face as she vaulted the last rocks down to the road, landing in a spray of dirt and shrapnel and punching her spear tip into the groin of the closest Eye. She felt the blade lodge in, and then skitter off the bone, dragging, cutting deeper, and wrenched, twisting as she did. The Eye shrieked and flailed a longsword at her, but Syl was way out of reach of the blade and the woman’s leg was already buckling. Syl punched it in again, gut this time, and left the Eye to bleed, scanning the battleground for Etta.
Is it finally time for that reckoning, Etta Scarlet? Finally time to see who’s got the bigger Name?
There. Backing slowly away from the wagon, two Blades hunting her. She was about to tell them Etta was hers when a man charged her, looking ridiculous and embarrassed with red paint on his face, caked into eyebrows that were a weapon in themselves, though the sword he swung was no joke. Syl batted it aside, but he was quick, so she ducked back out of range, skipped sideways when he followed, whipping the spear around her so fast it did the job of a shield, then stabbing out with the butt and crunching it into his sternum. Blow like that didn’t need a blade on the end. She heard his chest crack, and he crumpled, wheezing, sword drooping and free hand pressed to his chest. His mouth gaped for air his lungs wouldn’t take.
Syl readied the death stroke, paused at the call of a sick crow. ‘You fucking wouldn’t,’ she whispered. But Spineless fucking would. He was. Arrows rose into the sky, humming like massive, pissed-off bees, and fell indiscriminately among Iron Blade and Bleeding Eye alike. Syl ducked beneath the big man as he slumped, felt the impact as three arrows took him in the back. Those had most definitely been aimed at her.
‘You traitorous bastard dog!’ she screamed in Garn’s direction. She crawled from beneath the corpse, found Etta, raised her chin.
Etta scowled, nodded. ‘Deal.’
‘Archers. Volleys!’ Syl spat. ‘Stand with the Eyes,’ she added, and the Iron Blade
s disengaged and formed up alongside the men and women they’d been trying to kill a second before. The Eyes moved just as swiftly, as though it’d all been rehearsed.
Oh, aye, if this’d been rehearsed, I wouldn’t have seven crew dead that I can see from here. And Garn would’ve been spitted on my spear arsehole first a long stretch of day ago.
‘You coming out, Garn, or do we need to come in there and drag you out?’ Her shout was all bravado–chances of anyone climbing into that mess of scree and boulder with the intention of coming out with captives was slimmer than a starving snake–but it was worth a try.
‘I think not, little girl,’ Garn yelled, and Syl’s eyes narrowed. ‘Not unless you’re thinking of dropping those trousers and giving me a seeing to.’
Syl sighed. ‘Yeah, that one never gets old.’ She raised her voice. ‘How about you drop yours first and I ram my spear up your shitter?’ Instead of a reply, there were arrows, and the Blades and Eyes scattered for cover.
Syl snared Renn’s gaze. A flick of the fingers and a jerk of the head, and the man grabbed two more Blades and slid behind the wagon, then ducked into the rocks on Garn’s side of the ravine.
‘They’re keeping us here,’ Syl whispered at Etta as they crouched together behind the dubious shelter of a dead horse. ‘Waiting for Lobb’s crew is my guess. I’ve sent Renn to scout, but a perimeter’d be a fine idea about now, aye?’
‘You’re a backstabbing, crooked-dealing little bitch, Syl Stoneheart,’ Etta said, and the line of her shoulders spoke of her defeat. ‘This a double double-cross? Knew of Garn’s deal with me, did you, then offered him a sweeter purse to kill me?’
Syl’s mouth was hanging open. ‘Aye, and get my own killed alongside yours? Gods, but the drink’s rotted your brain, Mother. This isn’t a double-cross. Whatever we’ve done, no matter the blood in our past, I wouldn’t set you up to fall in front of your crew. I’m Stoneheart, aye, but I’m not a cold heart. Or a cunt,’ she added.
More arrows killed the conversation. Syl’s stomach churned. Etta really thought her capable of that? They hadn’t spoken much in recent years, true enough, and the words they had said had been bitter and full of sharp edges, but still…Etta was her mother.
She chanced a glance over the saddle. There were men picking their way out of the rocks on the opposite side of the ravine, now. Garn and his crew coming to end it.
‘Pity,’ Etta said.
‘What is?’
‘This’d hurt me less if you had betrayed me.’ Etta’s knife took Syl in the gut, the point penetrating the jerkin, sticking in the chainmail, and then, mostly because Etta was hammering on the hilt with the heel of her other hand, sliding-squealing-grating through into flesh.
Syl gasped in a breath and found both her hands on Etta’s, straining away even as Etta strained in. ‘What?’ she managed, and then groaned, the sound as long and protracted as the blade’s slow path through her flesh.
‘You really thought I’d forgiven what you did, girl?’ Etta grunted. ‘You killed Dyran. You killed him, and then you walked away like you’d saved the world.’ Her breath was liquor-rank. ‘Had this coming a long time.’
It was a long knife, and a lot of it was inside Syl now, hot and cold and sharp and liquid and pain, dead gods, the pain. Fire chased ice chased molten steel in her gut, and Syl’s strong hands were so weak, slipping from her mother’s, implacable, unstoppable.
She wanted to remind Etta that Dyran had been a flesh-peddler, snatching and ransoming important people’s children. That he’d deserved every hour of the death she’d given him when she’d seen what he did to those whose families couldn’t pay. But the knife had taken her voice, just as surely as it was taking her life, and the words stuck in her chest.
‘I have a reputation, little girl, forged from my years with Dyran.’ Etta hissed. ‘And the Bleeding Eyes have a reputation. So expect no mercy, daughter mine, expect no leniency for your crew. They all die here. With you.’ Etta snorted and a faint smile crossed her face. ‘I’m a poet.’
‘Poet, is it?’ Syl groaned. ‘Then rhyme this.’ The last of her strength went into ramming her knife up under Etta’s chin and into her spine. Missed the joint that would’ve killed her instantly, but caused a fair amount of surprise so she at least stopped pushing the dagger into Syl’s gut. Etta’s hands rose to her throat and a look of pure panic crossed her face. Jugular. Red, gushing death. Only Syl had missed that, too, on account of being skewered like a rabbit, so the blow, while serious, hadn’t yet killed Etta.
‘Can’t be having that.’ Syl grunted, slapped Etta’s hands away and waggled the hilt of the knife, sawing the blade left and right, hoping something inside would snap and kill the old bitch. Something snapped, and Syl was coated in hot, sticky red.
Shouting, the pounding of feet, clash of weapons and grunts of pain as the Iron Blades and the Bleeding Eyes started killing one another again in response to the bloody tableau of mother and daughter and dead horse and red. Lots of red.
And then Renn was there, planting himself over Syl and kicking Etta square in the face, sending her over onto her back. ‘Blades!’ he roared, ‘protect the Stoneheart.’
More arrows, a shriek of pain from close, so close, and the edges of Syl’s world turning black. She clutched Renn’s leg, tugged on his trousers. ‘What?’ he snarled.
‘What’s…cargo?’ She panted as a horrible emptiness found her.
‘Fuck should I know?’
‘Show…me,’ she demanded. Her hand fell limp. Opposite, in a tangle of smeared red makeup and greying hair and bubbling pink froth, Etta watched her with dead eyes in a dying face. She seemed oddly triumphant.
When it was over, when Spineless’s crew had fled and Lobb’s had been cut down to a man and the Bleeding Eyes had thrown down their weapons for mercy the Blades didn’t much feel like giving them, Renn opened the hidden door in the side of the wagon. He peered into the gloom, knife held tight in his fist.
‘Gold?’ Syl coughed, still hoping even now.
‘Not exactly.’ Renn’s hand trembled, and he sheathed the knife. ‘Come to me,’ he said, ‘and I promise you won’t be hurt.’ There was movement, a shift of material, a whimper, and the girl wrapped her arms and legs around him as he lifted her out. He looked to Syl.
‘Tinker’s not having her,’ Syl managed. Her gaze wobbled across the kneeling Eyes. ‘This what you do now?’ she panted. ‘This how you line your pockets?’
‘We ain’t pure and principled,’ a grizzled woman shouted back. ‘Gotta eat.’
‘Us too. But Tinker’s still not having her. Children are not currency.’
Renn’s eyes were cold. ‘Then it looks like we need us a new leader,’ he said. ‘And as I’m carrying the cargo, guess that makes it me. Three days to Tinker’s hideout and the gold, lads and lasses. Or you can stay with the dying.’
The Iron Blades looked between the two, Renn standing tall, Syl lying in a pool of her own blood. As one they moved to Renn’s side. The Bleeding Eyes scrubbed the paint off their faces and followed.
‘Bye then, Stoneheart,’ Renn said.
Syl waved a bloody hand. ‘Shit,’ she said.
The Hero of Aral Pass
Mark Lawrence
“War, my friend, is a thing of beauty.”
I once spent a whiskey-soaked night with a very dangerous young man in the middle of the desert, and that little gem is one of the few memories that survived the hangover.
“To war is human. To run away is sublime,” was my reply. Though in truth, the very best escape artist arranges to be carried away, ideally by a horse. Running involves entirely too much effort and is best avoided unless the only other choice is a camel.
I am Cardinal Jalan Kendeth, the highest-ranking cleric of the Church of Roma in the entirety of the New World. Also, prince of Red March, favourite grandson of the Red Queen, marshal of Vermillion, and hero of the Aral Pass. This is my last will and testament. I entreat whoever finds this document to car
ry my bones from this miserable cave and have them returned across the ocean so that I may be interred in a mausoleum of sufficient grandeur on the banks of the Selene.
Forgive my shaky hand, but even now the bear is tearing at our barricades and…by the sounds of it…has eaten another of the trainee priests. I worry it will not be long before we run out of neophytes…
“God damn it!” I dipped my quill into the pot to discover that the ink had run out before the trainees.
I held the parchment up and blew across the glistening words to dry them off. The writing was rather shaky, but the bit about the bear was artistic license. I’ve met a couple of bears in my time, and whilst the main thing to do is have someone else fight them, the next thing on the to-do list is getting the hell out of there. Writing wills doesn’t enter into bear wrangling at all.
No, the uneven calligraphy was all down to the ministrations of my native guide, a delightful creature named Ashley, blessed with long golden hair and an open mind.
“Like this, my lord?” She looked up at me. “Have I got it right?”
“Mmmmm.” The part of me that wanted to shout, ‘I’m a bloody cardinal! It’s EMMINENCE!’ and the part of me that wanted to remind her that ‘Prince Jalan’ and ‘Your highness’ were acceptable alternatives, were all drowned out by the part of me she was getting it so right for.
The bit about the cave was artistic license, too. But I did have trainee priests waiting for me downstairs in the tavern’s main room.
To properly fake one’s death requires a number of key ingredients. There’s the manner, which is where the bear and the cave come in. There’s witnesses. And three of my six young neophytes would serve to see me heading off into the mountains for forty days and forty nights of fasting in the wild. Then there are accomplices: the three fakes among my half-dozen trainees who would accompany me into the wilds, and then go back to their lives a few dollars richer. And finally, physical evidence. This to be provided by my hastily written last words and the judicious scattering of assorted bones. To which end I’d recently added grave-robbing to my long list of sins.
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