Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series) Page 18

  ‘Of course, yer lordship. I’ll tell him.’

  Wodehallow plucked one of the gold rings from his chubby fingers and dropped it into Kint’s palm. ‘Something for your troubles.’

  Kint and Forluss bowed low. ‘Thank’ee, sire. Thank’ee kindly.’

  ‘Now, remove that bloody tripe from my sight. Do with him as you will. I’m sure you have some ideas,’ ordered the Duke.

  Fat Forluss grinned and patted the ugly head of The Fiend. ‘That we do, sire.’

  Still beetroot-angry, Wodehallow stepped out into the hall, arms raised like some sort of victor, basking in the cheering and laughter of his fawning subjects. Kint and Forluss stayed behind.

  Farden groaned. His ragged fingernails scraped on the cold stone beneath him, clawing for a way out. The pain thundering inside his skull was unbearable. He grit his teeth and held two hands to his bloody forehead. If only… he thought, in between the pounding. An itching at the base of his skull sent a fresh wave of fire through his brain. No. It was far too late for that. Far too late. Even if he could summon it, even if he let himself, the pain of it would kill him now, rather than save him. No. He had banished it a long time ago. He had sworn.

  As Kint half-closed the door, Forluss stood over the prostrate mage. He smacked his palm rhythmically with The Fiend. Kint soon joined him, and together they stared down at the gasping, bleeding mage.

  ‘What now then?’ Farden coughed. ‘This is it? Clubbed to death in a storeroom?’

  ‘Oho, just you wait, Four-Hand. We got a little business to take care of first,’ said Kint.

  Forluss bent down, not without some difficulty from his ample belly, and began to fold one of the mage’s sleeves. Farden wrenched his arm away, wide-eyed and frantic, but Kint kicked him hard in the ribs. He relented with a rasping wheeze. Forluss pulled the mage’s sleeve up past his wrist, and a splash of red and gold sparkled in the half-lit room. ‘Well, ain’t that a pretty sight?’ he mumbled, fingers roving the vambrace’s folds and joins.

  ‘Look at that. Duke was right after all,’ muttered Kint.

  Forluss looked up. ‘What, you think he was lying?’

  Kint had produced a blade. He twirled it around in his left hand while his eyes hungrily tugged at the armour on the mage’s forearm. ‘No, I just never thought this bastard would be that special. Scaluston armour. Well I never.’

  Farden tried his best not to laugh, nor to vomit. ‘Scalussen, you brainless shit.’

  Kint’s face flashed with rage. He dropped to his knees and seized Farden by his left ear. The tip of the blade nicked his earlobe. ‘Listen ‘ere, Farden. Right now, you ain’t in the place to be insulting anyone. So why don’t you just shut it, or I’ll see to it that your tongue finds its way to your stomach. Got it?’

  Farden didn’t answer. His vision was slowly misting over. He could feel the blood seeping into the collar of his tartan tunic. Kint grabbed the mage’s other arm. He dug the point of the knife into the sleeve and found metal underneath. ‘A matching pair,’ he grinned. ‘Where’s the rest, hmm?’ Kint jabbed at Farden’s pockets. The mage yelped as the blade punctured his thigh. ‘None in there,’ said Kint. Next he jabbed at his shins but found nothing but cloth, skin, and bone. Farden grit his teeth. Kint was turning red now. He stared at his fat comrade.

  Forluss shrugged. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’

  Kint swore darkly. ‘Not here, that’s where!’ he yelled shrilly as he got to his feet. He kicked Farden again and again, square in the ribs. The mage doubled up with pain. ‘Where is it?!’

  It took a while for Farden to regain his breath. When he did, a little smile crept across his lips. ‘Why don’t you ask your mother? She told me she’d keep it safe.’

  Kint’s face turned purple. He held the dagger high above his head, and would have plunged it into Farden’s chest had it not been for Forluss poking him with The Fiend. ‘Oi! Remember what the Duke said! No mage, no armour, and no armour…?’

  Kint bared his teeth. He made a strangled sound of exasperation in his throat. ‘No use coming back,’ he hissed. He kicked Farden one last time for good measure and then went to get some nearby rope. ‘Looks like we’re going on a little journey, Forluss.’

  Forluss began to chuckle again, that slow, dumb-sounding hur-hur-hur noise he always made when sensing some delicious misfortune ahead. Such a laugh really did nothing to quash the low opinions of the man’s intellectual capacity. He poked Farden in the gut with his ugly club. ‘South?’

  Kint folded the rope into a stout knot and rolled Farden onto his face. The mage could taste his own blood on the floor. ‘South indeed. And a little east, if I remember rightly.’

  Farden’s insides died a little as his heart sank to his stomach. He had been followed back to his shack. Stalked, like common prey. The pain of that realisation duelled with his headache for dominance. He closed his eyes but found himself holding tightly to consciousness. Desperate. The fingers of a man clinging to a cliff. He could not let Kiltyrin get his claws on his armour…

  Kint and Forluss were discussing something above him.

  ‘You reckon you can keep him alive?’

  ‘I’m a torturer, I ain’t a healer, Kint.’

  ‘I know that, fool, but what I’m saying is does it work both ways? You keep ‘em alive for long enough, don’t you?’

  ‘Do what I can.’

  ‘Good, now roll that sleeve down. Don’t want ‘is lordship Wodehallow getting greedy. This armour’s meant for a different Duke.’

  ‘What’s so special about it anyway?’

  ‘Who knows. You tie him up and keep him quiet, I’ll go see if Wartan is ready with the cart.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  The following thwack from The Fiend sent Farden tumbling into a pain-soaked oblivion.

  Chapter 9

  “Greed is a curious monster. It has the eyes of a hawk, the feet of a cat, the poison of an adder, and the smile of a wolf.”

  Traditional Skölgard proverb

  A single tail of cloud split the sky in two. Farden watched it between the gaps in the virescent trees. Above, curious crows hopped from branch to branch, following the rattling, bumbling cart. They peered down at the mage like he stared up at them. They were silent, and watchful. Never what a dead man wants to see.

  Only he wasn’t dead. Dead men don’t feel pain.

  The cart hit yet another rut and his head banged on the wood. Farden squeezed his eyes shut as another wave of pain crashed down on him. It almost took his breath away. He had been better off unconscious, he thought.

  Even though his neck was numb from the effort, the mage tried once again to rest his head on his shoulder so that it wouldn’t collide with the wood. On this flint road, with the cart’s iron-clad wheels, Farden’s pain-wracked body felt every single bump and stone. Every single one. It felt as if they were being hurled at him. The mage gasped again as the cart hit another. The corners of his eyes throbbed. He hadn’t even thought that anatomically possible. There were other tortures too, lying in the grubby cart: the tight ropes around his wrists and ankles were beginning to chafe, his shoulders and hips ached from where he was splayed out and tied down, and his skin was starting to burn in the sun, even weak as it was. Farden closed his eyes and tried to retreat into the quiet semi-conscious darkness inside him, a place where he could cling to life but where the pain subsided. He was almost there when a deep voice dragged him back.

  ‘You still alive, Four-Hand?’ it yelled. Forluss was squinting at him. Farden moved his head so he could glare at him. A man, the guard from Tayn with the broken face, Wartan, if Farden recalled, sat beside him. He was staring intently at the mage. Kint was on Forluss’ other side. He was busy driving the two cows that pulled their cart. There was a fourth man somewhere nearby. He could hear him whistling a lively tune from somewhere, walking beside the cart. Farden cursed all four of them under his breath.

  ‘I said, are you alive?’

  Farden’s only reply
was to close his eyes and lift his middle finger up. Even that little movement hurt, but it was worth it to hear Fat Forluss grunt with anger. Moments later, he was splashed in the face with ice-cold water. The mage choked, but then quickly tried to lick it from his cracked lips before it slipped away.

  ‘Well, there goes your fucken’ water ration for the day. Enjoy. Idiot.’

  Another bump in the road, another skull-splitting thud. Farden squeezed his eyes tight, retreating into his darkness. In the gloom of his mind he could see a candle on a little wooden table, beset on all sides by thick shadows. Wind and rain prowled at the edges of the darkness. The candle was weak, but alight, afraid. Farden put his tired head on his shoulders and concentrated on keeping his candle lit. Always were a stubborn bastard, said a voice in his head. Maybe this time it’ll keep you alive.

  The cart bumbled on, led by its docile white cows, deep into the east. The forest around them died away, soon replaced by scrub and moorland, miles and miles of it. There wasn’t a landmark in sight, only hills, gorse bushes, and the winding flint road.

  Kint and Forluss chatted idly between themselves, swapping stories of guts and glory. Wartan occasionally grunted something. All the while, the fourth man, who seemed perfectly content to let the miles trundle by under his feet, kept to his whistling. Farden floated in and out of consciousness as the hot day turned into desperately cold, shivering night, and then into blistering day once again. It was all a matter of moments and brief glimpses of the sky and a bumpy road, all sense of time and distance melted into flashes of pain, and a candle in the dark. Such things are dreams.

  It was only when the mage cracked open his swollen and sunburnt eyelids and saw a silvery grey tangle of skeletal branches resting against a grey-blue sky that he truly awoke. A tree. An ash tree if he wasn’t mistaken. Just like the one that sat on the hill above his little shack…

  Farden tried to sit up but the ropes dragged him back down. He caught a quick glimpse of the countryside over the edge of the cart and groaned. Fleahurst. Against the stench of his sour sweat and sticky blood, of greasy wood and tired cow, he could taste salt in the air. He could hear the hissing of nearby waves. Farden groaned.

  ‘Home sweet home,’ laughed Kint, from somewhere nearby. Farden looked up as far as he could, trying to ride the dizziness. His mouth tasted like ash. The four men lingered at the tail of the cart, smoking their pipes. Forluss idly twirled his club around in circles, laughing that doltish laugh of his. The other man, Wartan, was silent and expressionless. The last, the one Farden rightly guessed to be the whistler, simply tipped his flat hat and smiled. It took a moment, but Farden slowly began to recognise him. The man from the corridor outside Kiltyrin’s room in Castle Tayn, the tall man with the shaven head and the broken nose.

  Farden put his head gently back and looked up at the ash tree, ignoring them all. Maybe this was just a nightmare. Maybe he would wake up. Fat chance. His head still had not stopped pounding. He was awake, and it was very, very real. He cursed it all as four pairs of hands set about untying the ropes that bound him.

  Once they were loose, Farden was dragged from the cart and dumped unceremoniously in the dirt. He wasn’t even allowed a moment to rub the feeling back into his wrists and hands. After the tall man had bound his hands with some spare rope, Kint and Forluss wrenched him upwards by his long hair and pushed him forward. It was a miracle he actually managed to stand. His legs felt like rotten wood.

  ‘Go,’ said Kint, pushing him again. ‘Show us where you’re hiding the rest of it.’ Farden turned around to glare daggers at him, but found a spear-tip pressing against his neck. Wartan was at the end of it, narrow-eyed and broken-faced. He could see it now, in that unflinching stare. The man had murder in his eyes. Farden knew it well. He lowered his head and shuffled along the dirt path towards the sea.

  Grudgingly, the mage led the four men down the path and towards his little shack. He desperately wracked his brain for an answer or a plan, but nothing came. Nobody for miles. Not a soul nor saviour, save for one rat. Farden thought of all the things in his shack, mentally assessing each one in turn to see if they could help him.

  A crossbow behind the fireplace.

  His little candle-carving knife, buried in the top of the lobster pot.

  Various pieces of pilfered cutlery.

  A pan.

  Whiskers’ sharp teeth.

  The mage winced as the spear nicked the back of his neck. He could feel a trickle of hot blood run down his numb back.

  When they came to the shack, Farden was pushed to the side and kicked to his knees. A brave seagull hovered on a thermal above them, mewing plaintively. Kint and Forluss quickly went to the door, while the third man lingered by the step, arms crossed and patient. Wartan stayed behind Farden and kept his spear pressing against his skin.

  There was a bang as Kint kicked in the door. Part of the door-frame shattered under the impact. Farden stared at the dirt; there was nothing to help him there either. Hopeless.

  Inside the shack, Kint and Forluss wrinkled their noses at the smell of mouldy, rotting food, seaweed, and nevermar. Even for them, it was disgusting, a murderer and a torturer no less. Ignoring it, they began searching in earnest, pushing aside the threadbare furniture and smashing the boxes and chests that had been piled in one corner. Kint found a pan covered with a cloth. He lifted up the corner of it and wrinkled his nose at the foul smell. ‘Not in there,’ he muttered. Behind him Forluss was busy kicking the stove apart.

  ‘Not in here either.’

  Outside, Farden listened to the bangs and crashes, a little part of him dying with each one. A lobster pot flew out of the door, narrowly missing the tall man on the steps. He cleared his throat. ‘Kint, Forluss, enough. You’re wasting your time.’

  Kint and his comrade appeared at the door. There was soot on their faces. ‘Well ain’t that the truth,’ Kint spat. ‘What would you suggest then, Loffrey? Any bright ideas?’

  The man called Loffrey adjusted his flat cap and turned to face Farden. He stared down at the mage for a moment, and the mage stared right back up at him. All Farden could think of was what he planned on doing to the man’s face if he ever had the chance. Farden tried his hardest to look defiant, but deny it as he might, there was a dark hole of fear growing inside him, getting wider with every moment. Farden shivered even in the sunlight.

  The man, this Loffrey, tapped his foot on the step. ‘What’s the strongest part of any house?’

  ‘Roof?’ ventured Forluss. He was sweating profusely, as always. He wiped his forehead with the back of his grubby, travel-dusty hand.

  Loffrey shook his head. ‘The foundations, you dolt. Rip up the floorboards.’

  Kint clicked his fingers and the three went inside to start hacking at the floorboards. Farden’s head sank into his chest. The dark hole kept growing. There was a grunt from behind him. ‘You don’t remember me, do yer?’ asked Wartan.

  The mage didn’t answer. He was too busy counting the bangs and crashes, moving his dry husk of a tongue around a sandy mouth.

  ‘Oi. I’m asking you a question.’

  Farden looked up at the man and his misshapen face. Whatever had happened to him had been truly brutal. ‘No, I don’t,’ he mumbled.

  The spear jabbed again. Wartan moved to stand in front of the mage. He crouched down, spear up, and pointed to his face. ‘Remember Biennh?’

  Farden couldn’t really care less. He had bigger things to worry about. ‘I vaguely recall that pitiful hole.’

  Wartan beamed. It was not a pretty sight. ‘Well that pitiful ‘ole was where you broke me face. Remember that? I’ve been lookin’ for you fer many years, I ‘ave. Waitin’ to get my revenge on the mage who broke me and my gang.’

  Farden recalled a stormy night and a band of thugs. He remembered a man with a boot in his face but the rest had been forgotten. Farden shrugged, wishing he had saliva to spit. Hopeless indeed. ‘Then get in line. You weren’t the first face I broke and you won’t
be the last.’

  ‘Heh. We’ll just see ‘bout that now, won’t we, mage?’

  Farden didn’t reply, but the man’s words rang true. Wider and wider grew that hole.

  There came a shout from inside the shack. ‘Rat!’ Farden tried to stand up but Wartan kicked him back to his knees.

  ‘Kill it!’ shouted Kint. There was a chorus of stamping boots and Farden winced with every single thud. It was over in an instant. The mage strained against his ropes.

  ‘It’s gone,’ somebody said. Farden sighed with relief.

  ‘And look what we found instead.’

  The sigh caught in his throat.

  Moments later, Kint and Forluss emerged from the door of the shack. In their hands balanced glittering treasures of red and gold. Loffrey was close behind them, hopping around eagerly. Farden put his head in the dust, straining and straining. ‘Ain’t they pretty?’ Forluss chuckled. Hur hur hur…

  Loffrey waggled a finger. ‘Give one here, and make sure you keep your greasy, sweaty fingers from smudging them, you hear me?’

  Forluss nodded, looking to Kint. They obviously didn’t like being ordered about by this man. Nevertheless, they did what he said. Forluss handed Loffrey one of the gauntlets, and the man crouched down beside Farden. ‘Well these are beautiful, I must say,’ Loffrey began, pulling Farden’s head up. The mage’s dust and blood-smattered face burnt with hatred. Loffrey turned the gauntlet over and over in his hands. ‘I do hope they are what I think they are. It would be a shame to waste all this time and coin, wouldn’t it? The Duke would be most disappointed. Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out. Do tell me if I’m doing it right.’

  Farden growled as Loffrey put his hand inside the gauntlet. The metal contracted around his fingers and he clenched a fist. ‘Incredible,’ said the man. Farden wondered who the hell this man was and how he had come to know so much about Scalussen armour.