The Bloody North (The Fallen Crown) (8 page)

To eyes
that had only ever gazed upon the sprawling development of civilisation in the populated southern towns and cities, it would have been hard to believe the North could be so sparse.

H
e'd seen few people in his days on the road. Fewer still since the snow had fallen without end since that night in the barn. Between the many villages and townships spread across the North, under the watchful peaks of the Great Mountains in the far distance the roads were not readily travelled by common folk. The wagons and carts he passed were driven by merchants and traders who neither made eye contact nor showed any sign they'd even seen him.

The best way to be, out on the open road coming across someone
like him. Long sword at his side, face scarred and weathered by war. Sara had once told him he had cold eyes, and he'd reckoned she was right. They'd always been a piercing, bright blue. Perhaps they merely reflected the ice inside.

For a time
, he'd tried to leave all of that coldness in the past. Tried to move on, build a family, a business farming the land. He'd made it, too.

Or thought he had
 . . .

Now all
that was gone and he was back to being the man he'd been when he turned his back on Muriel Bonnet and chose his own path. Like the girl he'd helped days before, he too had chosen a new direction at the crossroads. Had rode on, begun a new life for himself. A life that was torn away from him, burned to the ground, best parts of it buried in the rock-hard dirt.

Now he was Rowan Black again. On
e half of one of the deadliest mercenary partnerships Starkgard had ever seen. A cold-eyed killer on a journey North, in the name of his family. A quest for vengeance.

And it got colder e
very day. Colder and colder.

Fitting,
he thought.
So, too, do I.

* * *

The fire spat and crackled as he fed it kindling. The snow lay in thick piles at the feet of the trees. Rowan had found a long slab of granite in amongst them and he bedded down on it, thankful to be out of the snow. The night was a deep blue colour, lit starkly by the bright moon. Away in the distance, the icy peaks of the Great Mountains shone, wispy clouds passing their faces. The stars winked in and out against the glare of the moonlight, and overhead an owl circled once, twice, and was gone.

His eyelids were getting heavy and he could feel himself slipping when he heard it.

Snap
.

Rowan
came to attention, eyes wild and alert, hand ready at the hilt of his sword.

Snap.

He didn't move, dared not do so in case it was not a friendly –
animal or otherwise
– approaching where he lay.

Snap.

Rowan looked left and right, eyes searching for any hint of movement. Any sign something was there that hadn't been earlier.

Nothing. Just the dark trunks of the trees against the midnight blue, the white snow under the light of the moon.

Snap.

That
was it. He couldn't just lay there, pretending to be asleep. Rowan sat up, hand still gripped around his sword. Ready to pull it free at a moment's notice. Where only seconds before he'd been at the cusp of sleep, Rowan was now wide awake. Alert to every sound around him. Listening to the breath of the night itself. He got slowly to his feet and felt the point of a blade at his back.

"Stop."

He held his breath.

"Hand off your sword," a female voice growled.

Rowan did as he was told, mind reeling as to how he'd been snuck up on without hearing them approach. The blade jabbed at his back as he put his hands behind his head. "I won't try anything."

"I know you won't," the woman said. "
But I'll take this, just in case, eh?"

She reached around his waist, released the buckle on his belt and his sword clanged to the granite. In other circumstances, a woman going so close to his prick might have i
nduced an enthusiastic response but not this time. His mind raced to find a way out of it.

"Who are you?"

She landed him a blow to the back of the head. "Shut your mouth. No questions," she snapped. "Gailan! Get the fuck up here!"

The twigs and detritus under foot snapped as a man ambled up from beyond the trees, a big grin on his face. The firelight made him look devilish,
standing there with his thumbs jammed into the hem of his trousers. "Got him, then."

"
That I did. See what else he's carrying, will ya? Don't worry. He won't try anything. If he does he'll get this blade 'twixt his buttocks."

Gailan
guffawed. He stepped in close, felt around Rowan's clothes. His fingers found the moneybag and he yanked it free, opened it, face delighted by the contents. "He's rich. Lookit that."

He he
ld it out for the woman to see. "A fair amount. How's a rambling rose like you come across that kind of money?"

"Earned it. During the war."

She laughed over his shoulder as if she were a disembodied spirit sent to torment him. "The insurrection, huh? So you're one of those. A Royalist."

"No. Just a man finding his way," Rowan said. "And I'd take you two for a couple of
shithead bounty hunters, less I'm mistaken."

"Just a man
and a woman making a living," she said, unchastened. "So you'll be Rowan Black, would you? On the run for murdering a Captain of the guard, committing high treason and resisting arrest . . ."

"Listen.
The money. Keep it. Take it. I'll go on my way," Rowan said levelly. "It'll save a lot of bloodshed."

"From who? You?" sh
e laughed again. He'd not seen her face. Just her voice and the point of her weapon digging into his back. Gailan busily counted the contents of Rowan's moneybag, oblivious to their exchange.

"I'm giving you a choice," Rowan said.

She pressed the blade in tighter, piercing his skin. He heard her take a step back. "Turn around. Let's get a good look at the notorious Rowan Black."

The woman was decidedly past her best, but attractive in a dangerous way. Dark hair pulled back, brown eyes and full lips. A scar ran up her chin, another met it from behind one ear. She'd seen some action,
that was for sure, and she regarded him in the same way.

"You'r
e pretty for a bounty hunter," Rowan told her.

"I'd say you were good looking for a retired rogue," she said with a smirk. "If I didn't plan on killing you."

You made your decision.
"Aren't you taking me in alive? More reward money?"

She laughed. Now he could see her do it, all her attractiveness melted away. He wondered if his own good looks were diminished by his immoral a
cts. His Father had always said, eventually a person looks the way they are inside. If they're cruel and bitter, that's how they end up looking.

What did a murderer and scoundrel look
like, exactly? How about a man who'd tried to make a new start and lost everything? Perhaps they were more alike than he cared to admit . . .

"Reward's the same whether you're alive or not. Me, I'd prefer to drag your arse into the nearest town wrapped in a sheet. At least
then I don't have to worry about taking you for a piss every half hour. Suits me down to the ground," the woman said.

Like
it on the ground, do you? You'll be
under
it soon . . .

"Vix! There's over two
hundred damn coins in this purse!" Gailan yelled from behind.

She rolled her eyes, face flushed.
"Gailan you dumb fuck! How many times –"

Rowan moved in close, grabbed the sharp end of her sword
, and held it with one hand. With the other, he held the sleeve of her jacket to stop her pulling it free and slicing his hand open in the process. Her face was one of startled panic as she tried to wrestle her arm free. "Shit! Shit!"

Feet behind him. Rowan shifted to the left, yanked Vix forward, impaling
Gailan on her sword. Everything became jumbled. Her hand wacked at the side of his head, smacked him in the mouth, beat his arm, yet still he held on.

Gailan
dropped away, holding his guts, crying out in pain and fury. Vix glared at Rowan as she tried to struggle free, the two of them turning circles, locked into a fight for control of her weapon.

"Son of a whore
. Get off!"

Rowan ground his teeth as he exerted all his strength against the end of the sword, pushed it up
and over to face her. She tried her best to stop him, pushing against his efforts. But the sword turned nonetheless, the point braced against her throat.

"Sorry," he said and rammed it home. It went
clean through her neck and out the other side. She gasped, fell to the ground. Feet shuffled against the granite, he turned in time to see a huge log come down. It knocked him to the side, sent him reeling. He blinked away the fireworks, ran a hand over his face. Peered about, Gailan's dark shape came into focus as he dove into Rowan. Gailan's arm thrashing in and out rapidly, a blur.

A heavy, blunt
sensation erupted in Rowan's stomach with each blow, one after the other before he could drag the raw strength from inside himself and push the brute off.

Stabbed. I've been stabbed.

He rolled over, tried to get up, Gailan's boot landed in his side. The blood rushed up, out of his mouth, out of his nose. He choked and gagged on it.

"Kill my partner, you bastard
 . . ." Gailan's voice sneered as he bent down, lifted Rowan's head back by his hair, pressed the edge of a knife against his throat.

So this is it. Throat cut. Brilliant
.

There was a flash of light
that made him jump. Gailan's body smashed into the granite, face turned to his, eyes glassy. Dead as a doorpost.

Rowan tried to turn over but couldn't. He lay
like that, staring into the eyes of his would-be killer. Wondering what had put an end to him. A hand touched his head for a moment, as if feeling his temperature.

"Lay still
," a deep voice ordered him. "You've been stabbed."

Rowan
felt the fight rush out of him, felt his energy drain away. Everything went black.

Lights out
.

Tarl offers him another drink but he shakes his head, decides he's better off pacing back and forth the way he has been the last hour.

"It'll do you no good, mate," Tarl says, knocking back the drink he'd offered Rowan. "Drive you nuts."

Rowan scowls at the closed door, at the noises coming from behind it. The grunts and groans of effort, the reassuring voice of Ceeli as she helps Sara give birth.

"I'm already fucking nuts," Rowan says. "I want to know what's happening. How she's doing."

"It's the way it's done," Tarl says. "You're not meant to be in there till it's all over."

"Shit on that," Rowan growls. But he doesn't touch the door handle. Doesn't make any attempt to enter the room. He knows better than that. Knows that this is the work of the woman, to bring that child safely into the world. There's nothing he can do in there.

Nothing I can do out here except wait,
he thinks.

"Here. Come on. Have a drink with me. It'll calm your nerves."

He's about to tell Tarl no for the umpteenth time, tell him just to drink the booze like he has been the last hour, necking every drink he's poured for Rowan. But he freezes in his tracks, face white with shock as a baby's cry pierces the air.

Tarl puts the bottle down with a grin. "Go on. Open the door. That's what you’ve been waiting for."

Rowan has fought in furious battles. He has swum through rivers clogged with dead bodies. Similarly, he has crawled through fields of fetid, rotting flesh simply to get back home. Shot at, cut, stabbed, thrown from great heights. Yet despite all that has happened to him, the sound of a baby stops him dead.

Makes him want to stay there, stuck to the spot. But his hand finds the door handle and gently, ever so gently, he steps inside.

* * *

Sounds. It takes a moment to realise it's a voice addressing him.

"An impressive scar you have up your back my friend," the gravelly voice said as he rose to the edge of consciousness, found the light and slowly opened his eyes. "Quite a feat of workmanship. Might I ask who healed you before?"

Rowan tried to work his
dry mouth but words wouldn't form there. Though his eyes were open, he could barely see anything. Just shapes and bleary outlines. Nothing that made any sense to him right there and then.

The dark shape of a man loomed over him.
"Don't worry. It's not important. Now, about those wounds at your front. You mustn't make any sudden movements, not until the wounds are closed, for fear of undoing all the good work that's been done while you've slept."

Rowan
breathed deep, smelled a fire going, tobacco smoke, food. His stomach gurgled, though he dared not sit up and demand anything. He felt incredibly weak.

"It's best if you rest for now, let your senses come back to you. They will. I am not
very skilled in the art of healing wounds and attending to sickness but I must say that I have, for once, done a particularly fine job," he said. "A fine job indeed."

Rowan groaned
– the only sound he could make.

He closed his foggy eyes, listened as something was prepared.
"Here. Drink this. It will soothe and revive," the man told him. He lifted his head to drink, pressed something cool to his lips.

"
I must warn you, this potion, though effective, does taste quite repugnant."

As he said
that, the mixture filled his mouth. A sickly, eggy, snotty, putrid concoction that burned its way down his gullet, swamped his head with the stench of sulphur, and filled him with an overwhelming urge to vomit. Rowan gasped, croaked, had no choice but to continue swallowing as it flooded down his gullet.

He lay back, coughed
, and sputtered for a moment, fought back his gag reflex. The stranger's hand clamped down on his shoulder. "Good. I've seen bigger men bring it straight back up. Unfortunate when that happens. They only have to go through the whole ordeal again. You're obviously made of steelier stuff."

Rowan began to drift
back off to sleep, his guts cramped, whole body racked with frozen shivers.

The man pulled a rough, wiry blanket up under his chin.
"Get your head down, my friend. Rest."

* * *

Sitting with the babe held close against his chest, Sara sleeping on the bed, face washed-out with exhaustion, Rowan feels that sense of contentment he's been chasing for so long. A different emotion to winning on the battlefield. A new kind of euphoria that comes with being in love and being loved in turn.

Nothing has ever felt so good.

So why is it that he can still see the many fights he's been in. Why is it he can still taste the blood in his mouth, hear the cries of the dying all around him? Why does he always see it, every time he closes his eyes and lets his guard down?

He looks down at the baby in his arms. He wants to forget. He wants to move on. And even now, in this perfect moment, there is no release. A lifetime spent roaming the bloody north, from one shithole to the next, using his ability to kill and maim to pay his way. And now? A simple farmer.

A married man. A father. Yet still haunted.

He strokes the baby's head. He almost wants to cry at the sheer beauty of it.

But he can't. It's all still there like thunder on the horizon. And he's just waiting for it to break open. Because of course, one day it will.

* * *

Rowan lay on a simple pallet of straw on a raised dais a couple of feet off the floor. He peered about. A dark, smoky cabin with a roaring fire in the hearth, a heavy black pot bubbling over it. Again, the smell of food cooking met his nose, made his stomach ache with hunger.

In a corner, what looked
like a dog slept with its back to him, a mound of black fur curled in on itself. He cast about for the man who'd been tending to him, but saw no sign. It was then he saw the door open, revealing the stark white, frozen world outside as the man walked in, covered in a heavy dusting of snow. He carried several rabbits from the hooked fingers of one hand. With the other he held a tall staff of twisted wood.

Rowan sat up. Found he felt much better than when he'd first woke. His throat was no longer sore
, and his eyesight was sharp, everything around him perfectly defined.

"Ah. You're back with
us," the man said. He stood nearly seven feet tall, had a long black beard with streaks of silver and similarly long black and grey hair under a fur hat. He wore thick, heavy clothes but appeared to be heavyset and muscular beneath them. Rowan considered the staff and came to the conclusion the man must have used it for navigating the snows outside, for he seemed to move about with ease.

He
closed the door behind him, leaned his staff against the wall. The rabbits, he hung from a peg at the side of the fireplace.

"My name is Rowan."

"I know perfectly well who you are," he said. Rowan watched as he pulled up a chair with a grey fur throw over the back of it and sat. "Would I have been available to save your skin if I didn't?"

"You were following me?"

"No. Rather, I was in the area," the man said, a twinkle in his eye. Now Rowan truly looked at the man, it was hard to pin an age on him. Fifty perhaps? A hundred and fifty? . . . he looked old and young all at the same time. Wisened to the ways of the world, a traveler perhaps. Dressed in the way of the hill men. And yet he looked like any weed addict you'd find sprawled out in one of the smokehouses. The same dark shadows under the eyes, the same laid-back manner to his speech. If everything else had come into focus since he'd woken up, his saviour had not. To see him all the more clearly only made him harder to define, to pin down.

His host was . . . curious.

"Who are you?" Rowan asked.

"My name is
, or was, William Crowstone. Most people call me Bill. My friends prefer to call me Crow," he said. "I leave it to you to determine if I am friend or acquaintance."

"Crow," Rowan said. "Never heard of you."

He chuckled. "That does not surprise me."

"So how do you know me?"

Crow sighed with a smile as he considered the question. "I think we should eat first. It's not much. Just a mushroom soup. But I am sure you will find it most pleasant."

Crow got up, fetched two bowls and set about ladling soup into them, piping hot. "How long have I been out?" Rowan asked,
turning around, his legs over the side of the pallet.

"Several days. I put you into a controlled coma," Crow explained.
"Which sounds more complicated than it is. Just a mixture of the right elements."

"Eh?"

He shook his head. "Never mind. Suffice to say that you slept, you healed, and now you are better. You will be better still when you've eaten this broth. One of my Mother's recipes," Crow said. He looked away, into a far corner, his gaze distant. "I wish I could remember what she looked like. It was a very long time ago . . ."

Rowan
stood, felt his stomach muscles bunch up tight, but hobbled over to Crowstone anyway and took his bowl with thanks. There was no spoon so he sat back on the edge of the pallet and sipped it from the bowl. It was more than pleasant; it was delicious. "This is good."

"I have my moments, though I tire of mushrooms. Thankfully we shall have hare for the next few days," Crow said between sips of his own soup. "I'm quite partial to hare. Do you know, in the
West, people keep them as pets?"

"Is
that so? Pets, huh?" Rowan had to admit the notion of keeping hares or rabbits as domesticated pets seemed ludicrous. Who knew what they'd be doing next. Keeping them in the house? "I noticed your dog over there."

Crow's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Dog?"

"In the corner. The black dog," Rowan said with a frown. He watched as Crowstone turned to look in the direction of the furry lump curled up in the corner.

"
That's Kip," Crow said, returning to his soup with a chuckle. "He's no dog, my friend. Trust me."

"Well, what is he
then?" Rowan asked.

Crow blew over his soup before taking a
sip. "Kip! Get up and meet our friend! Kip!"

The animal shifted, stretched, got to its feet. Crow
was right. Most definitely
not
a dog. It stretched again, long claws poking out from big hairy paws. A big animal with a huge bushy tail. But its face was small, the snout short, large and intelligent amber eyes.

"Who's this?" Crow asked it, as if repeating a question. "His name is Rowan. He's going to be here a couple of days. No, no, no, nothing
like that."

Rowan watched the one-way exchange, a realisation dawning upon him
that all was not as it seemed. Kip came to sit on his haunches at Crowstone's feet.

"What do you mean by
that? Cheeky sod," Crow said.

Kip looked up at him,
then in the direction of the hares hanging from the wall and back again.

"Go on. Just the one
."

Rowan watched Kip pad over to where the hares hung
, stand on his hind legs and pull one free with ease. "Were you
talking
to it?" he asked.

"Well, yes. What did you think I was doing?" Crow said with a chuckle. "I'm not a loon, if
that's what you were wondering. Though I think by your expression you have the vague beginnings of a notion of what I may be."

"You
're one of those mages, aren't you?"

"Some call us by
that name. Others prefer shamans, wizards, even sorcerers . . ." he laughed again. "I've always liked pilgrim, myself. Unlike most of my order, I tend to wander. I find it suits my purpose better."

"Your order?"

"The Order of Eld. There are less of us now than there once was, it's true. But we are still very active, even if our numbers
are
significantly diminished," Crowstone explained. "We each have areas of expertise, I suppose you'd say. My own has always been in the natural, the organic, the flora and fauna. Never more at home than among the whistle of the wind through the trees, the song of the river. I was born with the ability to converse with animals. When they want to speak, that is. Some of them can be downright rude."

"Oh. Right," Rowan said, wondering
if what Crowstone had said initially about being a loon wasn't entirely incorrect. "I see . . ."

"Kip is what you call a bearcat. I found him nuzzled up to his dead mother as a pup, in the fore
st that borders us from the Eastern Empire," Crow said. "Nursed him, took him with me wherever I went, and we've been travelling companions ever since."

"
You've been east?"

"Yes. There are not many places I have not been," Crow said.
"You know, I used to carry him around my shoulders. Would you believe that to look at him now? He's very useful. Bearcats are fantastic climbers. Handy in foraging bird eggs. My tree climbing skills aren't what they were as a boy."