Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North (33 page)

‘May this accursed country and everyone in it
drown
in shit!’ he swore, unable to stop himself.

‘Reckon you could hold that torch still and shut the fuck up?’ the King shouted up at him from the pit.

Sir Meredith stiffened. If any other man had dared address him in that tone, he would have challenged them to a duel instantly. He had killed men for less back in Tarbonne. Yet somehow he managed to keep silent. An admirable feat of self-control, he told himself. He wasn’t
afraid
of the one-eyed barbarian King. Fear had absolutely nothing to do with it.

‘She’s gone!’ roared Krazka. ‘That bitch is gone! Get down here! All of you.’

The Kingsmen climbed down into the pit. Sir Meredith came last, cursing and blustering with every step, his armour feeling as though it weighed as much as a horse. He reached the bottom and felt his boots squelch on something unpleasant. He winced, and then he brought his torch up and looked around.

A moment later he saw the broken cage. Shattered pieces of wicker floated in pools of stinking piss and muddy faeces. It would have taken a strong man indeed to have hacked apart the prison and freed its occupant. Sir Meredith met Krazka’s gaze, and even the human effluence surrounding them was a pleasant sight compared with the fury burning in that lone orb.

‘
Yorn
,’ rasped the King.

He stomped through Heartstone, his armour clanking angrily with every step. A flash of magic lit the night sky to the west; the King’s circle were still laying waste to the Blacktooth’s camp. Shranree’s passions would run hot tonight, but Sir Meredith cared not for that. The acrid stench of burning flesh overpowered even the stink of the shit that clung to his boots, but he paid it no mind.

Behind him, Rayne and Ryder hurried to keep up. ‘Why’re you so pissed off, iron man?’ Rayne asked. ‘A sorceress and a bunch of kids fleeing town is nothing to get so worked up about.’

‘None of your bloody business!’ Sir Meredith snapped. The guards on the western gate had told them what had happened. He probably hadn’t needed to kill them afterwards, but their negligence in allowing Heartstone’s foundlings to flee uncontested was simply intolerable, and Sir Meredith was in no mood to be lenient.

They reached the Foundry. Judging by the red glow emanating from within, it appeared at least one of the furnaces still burned. Sir Meredith kicked open the door and stormed in.

It was deserted save for the old greybeard Braxus. The burly blacksmith had his back to them and didn’t turn as their booted feet echoed through the chamber. Instead he leaned over the anvil beside the furnace and continued to hammer away at whatever he was working on. The molten metal in the open forge cast an eerie orange glow over the scene.

‘Braxus.’ Meredith halted ten feet behind the blacksmith, who for a moment did not respond. Finally he seemed to nod, and then he very carefully placed his hammer down on the anvil before turning.

‘I guessed I’d be seeing you here.’

‘You know why we’ve come?’

‘I reckon so.’

Sir Meredith drew his sabre. ‘Then you also know what’s about to happen. Why did you do it, old man? Why let them go?’

Braxus’s brow furrowed as if he didn’t understand the question.

‘Was it the sorceress? Did she cast some kind of spell on you? It won’t change your fate, but it might at least excuse your actions. Your betrayal. It might save your
honour
.’

‘Honour?’ Braxus laughed, a deep, booming sound that reverberated through the chamber. ‘They call you the iron man. I know a thing or two about iron myself. Worked it for forty years. The thing to remember about iron is that no matter how long you spend beating it, shaping into something worthy, if the ore ain’t any good it’ll always break. You can’t disguise bad iron, no matter how hard you try. Same thing applies to a man’s character. You might act like some kind of knight or lord or whatever they call them in the Lowlands, wearing your shiny armour as if you’re better than everyone else. But inside you’re rotten.’

Sir Meredith’s eyes narrowed. ‘Tell me where Yorn and the sorceress are taking the foundlings.’

Braxus shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘Damned if I know. But if I did, I don’t reckon I’d be telling you.’

The Sword Lord took a couple of steps towards the blacksmith. ‘When we catch up with them I shall execute the traitor Yorn myself. No doubt my colleagues here will take advantage of the situation to rape the sorceress. One can hardly hold that against them – it is after all part of their base nature. Now, what happens to the children is still for me to decide. With every obstinate word that tumbles out of your mouth, I fear my heart grows harder.’

‘They’re kids, you crazy bastard. They’re innocent.’

‘There is no innocence. Not in this world.’

The old blacksmith stared at Sir Meredith, meeting his gaze, as if searching for something. ‘You’re not rotten,’ he said at last, as if some truth had just been confirmed. ‘You’re broken.’

You’re broken.

The words opened the black pit inside him and all the ugliness of his soul surged out, screaming.

He brought his sabre flashing around just as Braxus reached for the hammer resting on the anvil. The blacksmith was still a strong man, but he had slowed in old age, if indeed he had ever been fast. Sir Meredith cut his arm off at the elbow before the hammer was even halfway raised. Braxus stared dumbly as the severed limb flopped to the ground, the hammer tumbling from his fingers to strike the floor with a bang. Meredith sheathed his sabre, then grabbed Braxus around his thick neck. He spun the blacksmith around and forced his head down, down into the molten iron.

Red Rayne looked away, and even Ryder’s face paled a little. Braxus himself didn’t make a sound. He only shuddered, and a moment later his body went limp.

Sir Meredith hardly noticed. He was remembering hands running down his trousers. Pulling them off while he panicked, not knowing what was happening. Not knowing until he was much older, and by then it had been much too late.

He had tried to flee the memories. He had left the High Fangs and journeyed south, thinking he could be reborn in a distant land where no one knew his face or the things that had been done to him. For a time it had worked. He became someone else.

But eventually the inescapable truth caught up with him. It was there in the mocking smiles of the courtiers. It was there in the faces of the women he knew fucked him out of pity. It was there in the dark desires that had arisen within him of late, desires that had ultimately played some part in the Duke declaring war over the ugly matter of his grandson. Meredith bitterly regretted not disposing of the boy’s body.

He dragged Braxus’s corpse away from the furnace. The blacksmith’s head had melted away from his shoulders, leaving only part of his jaw. The knight let the body flop to the ground and turned to the other Kingsmen.

‘Krazka needs those orphans returned to Heartstone. He’s promised them to the Herald. We’ll chase them to the ends of the earth if we must.’

To fail in his quest wasn’t an option. After all, he too wanted what had been promised to him.

Brodar Kayne drew his cloak tighter and bent his head into the breeze. It sent his hair dancing around his shoulders as he leaned forward on his mare and listened to the howling of the wind through the nearby hills and the sound of the horse’s hoofs striking the road that led back to Watcher’s Keep. There’d been a bitter chill in the air the last few days. Winter was coming again.

Had it been almost a year already? He was going to miss the first anniversary of his joining, he realized unhappily. He wanted to turn around, to tug on the reins and gallop straight back to Mhaira and his newborn son. Duty called him back to the Keep before he’d barely got to know his beautiful little boy.

He saw Magnar’s face in his mind’s eye again. The babe had Mhaira’s eyes, sure enough, but he reckoned his son had been lumbered with his father’s nose. The more he takes after his mother the better, he thought wryly.

He tried to stay positive. Only three more years in the Borderland and he’d be free to return to Mhaira, this time for good. He would be a proper husband and father. Use his pension to build a house somewhere on the outskirts of Eastmeet. He wasn’t much of a carpenter, but he reckoned there was no small number of men who’d volunteer to lend a hand.

Kayne’s reputation had spread far beyond Watcher’s Keep. Ever since he’d slain the two blink demons a couple of years back, more youngsters than ever were turning up at the great citadel, hoping to imitate the Warden with the bright blue eyes and the sword that never faltered. Over the last seven years Brodar Kayne had killed more demonkin that he could count, dire wolves and trolls by the dozen. Even a giant that had wandered down from the Spine the autumn just past.

There was a certain satisfaction in his skills being acknowledged, he had to admit. Before stepping down to be replaced by the Foehammer, Kalgar had told Kayne that though he might be wild and reckless, he trained harder than any other Warden. It was that relentless anger which had driven Kayne to be the best. He reckoned he’d mastered that fury now he was a father, or at least he hoped he had.

He was still thinking of Magnar, of the moment he’d first cradled his son in his arms, when his horse screamed and bucked wildly beneath him. He caught a glimpse of a feathered shaft sticking out of the animal’s flank a moment before he was thrown to the ground with bone-jarring force. The mare bolted, leaving him flat on his arse and staring up at the late-afternoon sky.

Another arrow struck the mud a hand’s breadth from his head. He rolled and leaped to his feet, ignoring the explosion of pain in his back. Pain was just the body’s way of telling a man he needed to focus. Now that his burning anger had dulled, Kayne found ice-cold clarity easy to come by. So easy that Taran and the others had started to question if he had ice in his veins.

With fire and ice the strongest swords are forged.
Braxus had told him that once. He sometimes wondered if his friend had missed his true calling as a bard. He had a way with words, did Brax, when he chose to use them.

Kayne drew his longsword, feeling naked without his shield. It was strapped to the back of his mount and the horse was probably halfway to Watcher’s Keep by now. He looked around without seeing his attackers, though a quick glance at the arrow sticking out of the ground suggested they were hiding in the hills some ways over to his left. Sure enough, a voice suddenly called out from that direction.

‘Been a while, angel eyes.’

He’d been wondering why outlaws would attack a Warden, and a well-known one at that. Not any more. Like a dormant volcano stirring to life, the old rage began to burn. ‘Skarn.’

‘I knew you’d remember me! What did I tell you, Ryder? I told you he’d remember me!’

‘Should I shoot him?’

‘In a moment. So, angel eyes. We heard the stories while we was down in Glistig a few months back. Hard to believe it was the same coward who bailed on us all those years ago, but the description seemed to match. They say you’re a hero now.’

Kayne tried to keep his voice calm, though his blood was like molten metal in his veins. ‘Come out where I can see you.’

‘I don’t think so. How are you enjoying fatherhood? Heard you got a wife and son over in the village near here. Thought the boys and me might go pay them a visit after we’re done with you.’

His heart seemed to freeze in his chest. ‘You go near them, you’re a dead man. You and everyone with you.’

‘That’s the spirit! Could have done with that attitude back when we was cutting a bloody swathe through the Green Reaching. Instead you fled with that limp-dick Red Nose or whatever the fuck his name was. Lost half the band soon after. Men are like horses – once one breaks, they all start running off.’

‘What do you want?’ Kayne asked, mouth so dry his voice was little more than a rasp. He glanced around, searching for anything he could use to his advantage, praying that the archer wouldn’t take that as a sign to start shooting at him again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a building.

‘What do I want? I want you
dead
, angel eyes. And after that, I want your wife dead. Your babe, too.’

The world seemed to go red. He wanted to scream his outrage, to charge at Skarn and tear the murdering bastard’s face off with his bare teeth. But he knew that meant certain death. No, he had to be ice. Not fire, but ice.

‘You’ll have to catch me first!’ he roared. He turned and made a break for the building.

The spirits must have been looking out for him just then, as two more arrows missed him, one practically shaving the side of his neck. He reached the door of the house and flung himself inside. Three pairs of eyes stared at him, a father and a mother and their daughter. They were sitting at a table having their evening meal.

‘What the hell—’ the man started to say, but Kayne cut him short.

‘I ain’t got time to explain,’ he said quickly, slamming the door shut behind him. ‘I got a notorious band of outlaws hot on my heels. Help me barricade the door and shutters.’

After a moment’s hesitation the family rushed to assist him. They turned the table over and shoved it against the door, then locked the shutters and began piling the barrels that were stacked near the hallway against them. ‘Is there another exit?’ Kayne demanded.

The father, a mead-maker judging by the barrels, gave a nervous nod of his bald head. ‘There’s a trapdoor in the back that leads to a cellar. A ladder exits to a orchard just behind the house.’

There was a bang on the door. ‘I know he’s in there,’ Skarn shouted from outside. ‘Open up or you’ll soon learn why they call me the Scourge.’

‘Keep ’em distracted,’ Kayne barked. He darted out of the room and down the short hallway until he found the trapdoor. He grabbed hold of the iron ring and heaved it open, then leaped down into the cellar. Dozens of barrels lined the walls. Kayne sprinted past them towards the ladder at the far end. He scaled it, thrust open the wooden hatch above and dragged himself out. Big straw beehives filled the orchard. Kayne could hear a faint buzzing from within, but at that moment his attention was focused on the five men crowded around the door of the house. They’d yet to notice him.