Exile (Bloodforge Book 1) (13 page)

She smiled and it was a
genuine smile that made her eyes dance. “I’ll take the bed. It’s been too long
since I had one to myself.”

Hari fought to keep his
expression neutral. Was she a whore? Beds were hard to come by and many
waystations had a policy of bed-sharing, but the way she had said it...
Control yourself
, he thought.
It is none of your business, and she has
just saved your daughter.

He thought of Micah. The
old drunk had been in the tavern’s only fully furnished room for over two
weeks. It was time to kick him out anyway, but now he had an excuse. Micah
would forgive him. He had to. This was the only place to get ale for miles.

Hari stroked Hana’s hair
and spoke warmly to the young woman with the hidden face. “Do you have a name?”

“Of course, who doesn’t
have a name?”

Hari frowned and a bloom
of pale red spilled past the woman’s scarf so that it seemed the dye was
running on to her cheeks. Hari suddenly realised how young she really was
— as young as Hana maybe.

“I’m sorry,” she said.
“That wasn’t necessary.” She looked at Hana and reached out to lift the girl’s
head. “My name is Riella and I too used to be afraid.” Hana blinked at the
confident young woman who had rescued her. “Men rule us by fear. I learned to
conquer it with Esha.” She pulled the blade from her sleeve and twirled it
around artfully. “Men like him,” she turned to look briefly at Tollett, who sat
cowed and miserable and quiet, “will try to use their strength to beat and break
you. But Esha does not break. She cuts and bites deep enough to make them
stop.” Riella stopped twirling the knife and held it out by the blade. Hana
gasped and looked at her father. Hari realised she was asking for permission.
He nodded.

Hana reached out and
took hold of the simple wooden hilt, holding the knife up to the meagre light
that rippled from the few candles scattered here and there.

“Next time someone like
him tries something, let him meet Esha.” Riella’s eyes sparkled with mischief
but there was something else there too, and it looked all too much like pain
— something Hari knew well. His skin suddenly felt hot.

“Go put it somewhere
safe,” he snapped.

“No,” said Riella, too
sharply. “It must never leave her side. Esha is a gift that will not be
forgotten.” She winked at Hana who giggled and broke from her father’s grip to
disappear up the stairs in the back. Riella cast her gaze back to Hari and her
eyes were wary. He didn’t like the easy way she had overridden his authority,
but she had prevented bloodshed — he glanced at the thin scratch on the
miserable boy-soldier’s neck. He owed her his thanks. For a while, at least.

“Go sit down,” he
gestured at the corner seat she had occupied. “I will bring you some food and…
and some water.” If his ale was that bad, she could go without. “Hana!” he
cried up he stairs. “Water and bread and cheese for our lady friend.” Hana
appeared almost immediately, as if she had been waiting for her father to
remember his manners. She carried a wooden board with black bread and strong
orange cheese — their finest, he noted — from the headlands of
Pleippo. Hari watched as the girl led Riella to her seat, fussing over her and
casting hateful looks at the young soldier and his friends.

I
should say something,
thought Hari. Riella had successfully
emasculated the boisterous soldiers, but this was his home and he was the host.
He would be weakened if he did not speak his part. He made to move forward and
then stopped as the flimsy leather-wrapped door flew open to reveal another
young soldier, in armour that had been clumsily stained crimson. This one
seemed the youngest yet, and his face was frozen in a look of sheer horror.

“Dustan,” said Tollett,
half-standing and trying to resume his place of authority. “You were supposed
to stay outside.”

The young man called
Dustan stammered and stuttered and then started again. “The masked man! He’s
back!”

Tollett and his
erstwhile follower stood, whilst the third soldier tried but fell backwards
instead, landing on his back and splintering the wooden chair beneath him.
“Back?” asked Tollett. “With the others?”

“N-no,” said Dustan. “I
don’t think so. He was alone when I saw him.” Dustan took a deep breath. It
looked as if he had been running a footrace. “He’s coming here.”

Hari watched as the
redness of embarrassment faded from Tollett’s face to be replaced with pallid
unease. The young man’s fists clenched and unclenched as he thought what to do.
“You’re sure it’s him?”

“Of course. He had the
mask and…” Dustan paused. “He’s so big!”

“Big?” the soldier next
to Tollett frowned. “You mean tall?”

“Tall, big, whatever.
He’s coming!” Dustan shifted his weight between his feet, looking like a
restless child.

“Decision time,
dremani
,” sneered Hari, pumping venom
into the last word. He had no idea who this masked man was, but the thought
made him uncomfortable all the same. These men had been with a larger group who
had rested in the village for one night a few days before. Their officer had
wisely kept them away from the tavern, before heading off into the mountains.
Though he mocked the boy-soldier and his hapless cronies, the soldier in him
sympathised with their predicament. They had been left behind, doubtless
considered a hindrance by their officer. Maybe they were too young, or not
experienced enough. The one called Tollett had clearly been left in charge, but
it was due to his age rather than his rank — he didn’t seem to have any
kind of badge or insignia to mark him as anything more than just another
conscript.

“Take Frimal outside,
round the back,” said Tollett, glancing nervously around the small tavern for
an escape that wasn’t there.

“What for?” asked
Dustan.

“What do you think? He
needs to be out of sight. Make him throw up if you can.”

“How?” asked Dustan.

“I don’t know!” Tollett
shouted and the redness returned to his face. “Punch him in the belly, dunk him
in some water — I don’t care. Just get him out of here!”

Dustan scrambled to obey
and heaved the dribbling mess that was Frimal out into the snow. Tollett sat
down heavily and fought to control his breathing. He looked about him
helplessly, then began to frantically clear the piles of plates and half-filled
tankards that littered the table. His companion sat stock still, afraid to even
turn lest he be forced to see what came through the open door.

Hari looked over at
Riella, who simply shrugged and tucked into her bread and cheese. Hari waved
Hana back to the bar and motioned for her to go upstairs. “Wake Micah and tell
him to move. He can sit down here for a bit if he wants, then he needs to go
elsewhere.”

Hana nodded. “What
about…?” She angled her head towards the frightened soldiers.

“I’ll deal with them,
girl. Now go.”

Hana turned and hurried
upstairs. Hari began to move towards Tollett and his friend. “Listen here, boy.
You’ve caused me strife enough for one day. It is by luck alone that you still
have the strength to draw breath in my tavern, and if you are about to bring
more trouble, I’ll not have it here.”

Tollett looked up and
Hari could see the vein throbbing where his hairline, slick with sweat, met his
forehead. “Please, we won’t stay. We just need to meet this man.”

“Who?” asked Hari
impatiently.

“I don’t know. He was
supposed to guide us but he never spoke to us. He went with the others.”

“What was he guiding you
to?” asked Hari.

“I’m not allowed to
say,” said Tollett, looking down again at the table.

“Then you can’t stay,”
said Hari coldly, folding his arms.

Yet Tollett did not need
to say anything, for suddenly a shadow blocked the glare from the door, and the
shadow wore a mask.

No one
stopped them. Black thralls enjoyed a unique power in Daegermund: the power of
fear. They were the keepers of the secrets, the servants of the Unnamed, and
their strength lay in their mystery. Nobody knew what they did in the shadowed
halls of a Temple Deep. Some thought they spoke to the Black God himself,
others that they summoned demons and spirits from Hel and spun wicked spells
with them. Still more thought they were practitioners of human sacrifice,
stealing away the wastrels and urchins from the streets of the city and cutting
out their hearts for their dark god to feast upon. Whatever people thought, a
black thrall was not somebody you spoke to, nor even looked at if you could
help it.

They threw a sack of
rough cloth over Callistan’s head and grabbed his arms with fingers of steel,
then marched him from the square through a crowd of silent onlookers. The sack
robbed him of his sight but he could still make out light and dark by what
little made it between the threads. It scratched his skin, but it was dry and
smelt clean. It was the only clean thing he wore.

After a few minutes,
they made it out of the press of people in the square and into the relative
peace of Temple’s back alleys. These streets were mostly empty; most of the
tired populace had been drawn to the events in the square like flies to dung.

One of the men carrying
Callistan cursed as his foot tangled with the man in front. It was an odd loss
of poise for someone who had quieted a riotous mob, and Callistan’s fears dissolved
into thoughtful suspicion. “Who are you?” he asked, keeping his voice as calm
and as level as he could, and remaining limp to show that he had no intention
of trying to escape. The small group marched on, ignoring Callistan’s question,
and he began to grow angry. “Where are you taking me?”

A thick hand cuffed him
round the ear, and there was a brief flurry of conversation between his
captors. It was spoken in a series of harsh whispers, so Callistan could not
make out what they were saying, but it did not stop him from listening. After a
while, Callistan grew tired of trying to talk to the thralls and so bit his
tongue. His energies were better spent on achieving a solution to this mess.
Still, it was difficult to plan an escape without knowing where you were, where
you were going, or who had taken you prisoner.
You barely know who you are,
thought Callistan, and he laughed.

“Quiet,” growled a rough
voice — the first time his captors had spoken to him since they left the
square. Callistan obeyed but underneath the sack on his head he was grinning,
for he recognised that voice and it did not belong to a temple thrall.

“Was it you that hit me,
Crayne?” asked Callistan sweetly. The group stopped immediately with a scuff of
booted feet on stone. Callistan exploded into action, ripping himself clear of
the men holding him, whose grips had been slackened by shock. “Enough!” he
shouted, spreading his hands out from his body with palms facing downwards to
show he meant no harm. He drew in a breath, his lungs empty from the
excitement, and realised that they were not going to attack him. He reached up
to pull the sack from his head.

“No!” cried another
voice. Several strong hands gripped Callistan by his filthy clothes and dragged
him into darkness. He fought, but they managed to pin his arms at his sides, so
he screamed bloody murder instead. There was the crash of splintering wood
awfully close, and he thought that they had broken something so that they could
beat him over the head with it. He screamed twice as loud, desperate to attract
even the dubious help of a citizen of Temple, but a hand was clapped over his
mouth. He was pulled backwards and slammed down into a hard wooden chair, where
he cursed and struggled to no avail. Finally, he ran out of breath and so
calmed himself, waiting for his flagging strength to return.

Then something strange
happened. The hands holding him released him and there was silence, broken only
by his own ragged breathing and a distant muttering. Callistan began to get the
uncomfortable feeling that he was entirely alone. Slowly he reached up to the
sack that covered his face, wary of another attack. When it did not come, he
gripped the edge of the fabric and tugged it off.

He was not alone. There
were eight men in the room, all disguised as temple thralls but showing
tell-tale splashes of colour at the neck from the tunics they wore underneath.
Two of them stood a short distance away, their hoods thrown back and their
faces drawn and wary, whilst the others stood further back in heated
conversation punctuated with expansive gestures.

They had brought him to
a small courtyard, kicking in the flimsy door and risking the ire of the owner
to escape the notice of the street. But there was no owner, for as Callistan
looked about him, he could see that the courtyard had been abandoned for some
years. It had probably been pretty once, and peaceful, built by somebody of
modest wealth to mimic the summer homes of the powerful. The thick wooden beams
that fringed the open space where Callistan sat would have been bright and
gaily painted. Now they were mostly rotten and covered with a thick green-brown
moss. A filthy square of faded orange tarpaulin had been strung between two
high balconies to provide some protection from the summer sun, but excessive
rain had torn a great rent in the fabric, leaving a corner flapping lazily in
what little breeze reached down this far. The tarpaulin had probably been
chosen so that the light shining through it would bathe the lesser dignitaries
and minor merchants gathering in the courtyard in a warm brilliance. However
the jealousy of the sun had bleached it of any warmth and now the disguised
thralls stood in the pallid afterglow.

Callistan stood quickly
and immediately regretted it as his strength abandoned him. He gritted his
teeth, and though he wobbled a bit, took a step forward. He could give them the
appearance of strength, at least. The two men watching him shifted
uncomfortably, yet they did nothing as he took a few more steps towards them.
His feet were bruised and sore, but the flagstones felt cool and the weeds
sprouting from the cracks between the paving brushed his legs like the hands of
a lover.

Abruptly the six men in
front of him seemed to finish their discussion, and a tall, thin man turned to
face him, pulling off his hood to show himself.

It was Hapal.

“My Lord Callistan. We
feared we would be too late. Too late,” he said.

Callistan sucked in a
great lungful of air, threw his head back to the sky, and laughed.

“I’m sorry for hitting
you, milord, but I thought somebody would hear, then it all would have been for
naught.” Crayne stood before Callistan, twisting his robe in his hands like a
scolded child.

Callistan, bent over a
bucket, splashed a double handful of cold water on to his face, blinking the
droplets from his eyes and scrubbing the filth from his body with a coarse
cloth. He nodded. “I understand, Crayne, but I can’t say I approve. You hit
like a horse falling downhill.” Callistan rubbed the back of his head to prove
his point.

Crayne grinned. “Aye,
milord. Thank you.” He scuttled off, waved away by the impatient Hapal who drew
his robe up from around his skinny legs and squatted down next to Callistan.

“I must admit, my Lord,”
he said, toying nervously with a weed he had plucked from the floor, “I did
briefly think that you were one of those creatures. Briefly.”

Callistan looked up at
the older man and considered before he spoke. “One of?” he asked. “There are
more?”

“Oh, most certainly, my
Lord, most certainly.” Hapal threw a thumb over his shoulder at one of the men
guarding the door. “Virne thinks he saw one in Kressel a few months ago, the
double of a man he had once known."

“How did he know it
wasn’t the same man?”

“Because he killed the
man. A messy thing, my Lord, a messy thing. A tavern brawl or some such.”
Callistan grimaced. “For all we know there are slipskins in every city in
Veria. And beyond.”

“Slipskins?”

“An old term, my Lord,
but a relevant one.” Hapal leaned forward and lowered his voice. “We believe
that to wear a man’s skin, they have to first cut—”

Callistan held up a hand
to forestall the thin steward and shook his head. “Forgive me, Hapal, but I am
aware of the process involved. I have seen the evidence firsthand.”

“Truly?” said a shrill
voice at the back of the courtyard. A skinny boy of no more than fifteen
summers came tripping and stumbling towards the two men. “My Lord, you must
tell me everything you know. Master Droswain—”

“Quiet, Runt,” said
Hapal. “You quite forget yourself.”

Callistan smiled. “It’s
okay, Hapal.” He gestured for the boy to sit down. Runt sat where he stood,
crossing his legs and folding his hands in his lap like a child listening to a
story. He looked like he needed a good meal but the robe filled him out some;
the billowing black folds made him look comical. “Tell me, who is Master
Droswain?”

“Nobody of importance,
my Lord,” said Hapal. “He was a priest of the Temple Dawn who started preaching
the end of the world, but he is gone now.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“Anywhere that isn’t
Temple. He was banished, for trying to teach the secrets of the Temple Deep to
the uninitiated.”

“But only because he
noticed things that others didn’t,” said Runt with fervour.

“You would do well to
forget all he spoke of, boy,” said Hapal. “He was a sensationalist and an oath
breaker. Nothing more.”

“But what if he’s
right?” whined Runt.

“Enough!” snapped Hapal.

“Please,” Callistan held
up a hand, “what has this Droswain been saying?”

“Dark things,” Runt
continued, pointedly ignoring the molten glare from Hapal. “He said something
was coming that would threaten all of Veria and more, that he had seen the
signs. Slipskins were one, or rather ‘those that wear the face of their prey.’”

“More than that, my
Lord,” Hapal interrupted. “He broke into a Temple Deep and stole some of their
scripture. The Grand Thrall wanted him burned alive. It was only due to his
favour with the High Priest that he escaped retribution. He has been exiled, my
Lord.”

Callistan bit his lower
lip. “How many of these… slipskins,” he looked at Hapal, who nodded, “are there
in the city?”

Runt puffed out his
cheeks and sighed dramatically. “That’s difficult to say. It’s so hard to tell,
some of them can be very convincing—”

“My Lord,” Hapal
corrected.

“My Lord, yes, my Lord,”
spluttered Runt, flushing pink. “It doesn’t matter on the type of person. I
have reason to believe that they could be anywhere, or anyone."

“What makes you think
that?” said Callistan.

Runt looked at Hapal as
if for permission. “Well, the ease with which they impersonated you.”

The ensuing silence was
thick enough to chew, but Callistan was exhausted enough not to care. “So how
did you know that I was the real Callistan?”

Hapal coughed. “Several
things really, my Lord, several things. After you fell in the battle, you
didn’t reappear until that night in the tent. It made more sense to me that you
had been wounded and got lost rather than abandoned your regiment and vanished
from your post.” The elderly steward sighed. “There were other troubling things
as well. I have been your personal steward for fourteen years, my Lord. If I do
not know you now like my own son, then I am past use. A slipskin can steal a
man’s flesh but not his mind and not who he is. Not who he is. If I’m being
honest, it was just a feeling. I wasn’t entirely sure until you, uh, he made
that quip about the late Lady Imbros. The true Callistan would never have done
that. Never.”

Silence again held sway
in the courtyard. A sentry at the door opened it a crack to peer into the empty
street.

Callistan spread his
hands. “Do you wish to test me?”

“No, of course not!”
Hapal looked horrified. “Understand, Lord Callistan, that each of us here has
completely made up his mind. Completely. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think
you were genuine.”

“So this is a rescue.”

“Of a sort, yes. Though
we could not have anticipated the trouble in the square. As I said, you can
take a man’s flesh but you cannot become him so easily. Your double toyed with
the crowd and they responded. They responded, but not as he wanted.”

“What was going on back
there?” asked Callistan. “Those were council members. Illis’ chosen.”

Hapal nodded his head
gravely. “Aye, my Lord. I fear that paranoia has got the best of our Empron.
For too long too many have been dripping poison into his ears, and now it seems
he has chosen to act on it.”

“Why does he not do it
himself?”

“The Empron is in
Kressel, my Lord, to view the defences there, although many believe that is an
excuse.”

“For what?”

Hapal shrugged. “Perhaps
he does not have the stomach to witness the deaths of men he has trusted all
these years. Others say that it is a distraction. Those that pull the Empron’s
strings wanted him out of the city so that they could act on his authority
without his consent.”