Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North (28 page)

To his surprise, Brick looked disappointed. ‘But I wanted to help,’ the boy said. He reminded Kayne of Magnar just then, and the old warrior’s objections died in his throat when he saw the hopeful expression in those emerald eyes. He glanced at Grunt, who shrugged, and then at Jerek, who seemed on the verge of exploding.

‘All right, lad. You and your uncle can guide us through the hills. But after that we go our separate ways.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Kayne.’ The Wolf shook his head in disgust and spat in the river. Brick, though, wore a big grin.

‘There were skeletons,’ Brick was telling his uncle. The two of them were riding double on Glaston’s horse up in front. ‘Skeletons that
moved
!’

Glaston listened to his nephew in silence. Occasionally he would stroke his moustache. Kayne followed behind, Jerek just to his right, Grunt to his left.

Hills rose all around them, blanketed by purple flowers. Glaston twisted in his saddle and gestured at the colourful view.

‘The dahlia flower,’ the bandit said. ‘The Yahan cultivated them. They believed the stems would drink the blood of the fallen, and that the flowers would house the souls of the dead until the Great Wheel turned and they were reborn anew. They were a primitive people, the horselords. Rather like your friend there. What exactly…
is
he?’

‘Grunt?’ Kayne replied. ‘Dunno. Never thought to ask. Don’t see as it’s important.’

‘Not important? You could be travelling with a monster.’

The big greenskin made a gesture with a finger you didn’t need to know hand language to understand.

Kayne thought about pointing out the fact that Grunt had never tried to kill him, but in the end he decided to let it pass for Brick’s sake. ‘How’d you know all this stuff? The names of flowers, facts about the horse tribes and such.’

‘My father taught me to read, just as I taught Brick. I have acquired many books over the years. There is nothing more valuable than the written word.’

‘Brick said you got noble blood in your veins. That your ancestors were Andarran princes.’

Glaston slumped slightly in his saddle. ‘That’s right.’ He seemed a good deal more subdued than during their last encounter, but then Kayne figured getting your followers killed and fleeing like a coward would rob anyone of a certain amount of bravado.

They squeezed along a narrow gulley winding down between two hills, and soon they emerged into a steep basin. Fast-rising slopes surrounded them all on sides, drowning in towering dahlia flowers dense enough to conceal a small army. The perfect spot for an ambush, in fact.

Jerek immediately brought his horse to a halt. ‘I fucking knew it,’ he growled.

The flowers shifted and then began to part. Bandits slunk out of the foliage, bows raised and arrows targeted at the small group below. Glaston suddenly spun his white stallion around, positioning his nephew between himself and the Highlanders.

‘Uncle?’ Brick said, panic rising in his voice. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Shush. Say nothing.’

The bandits kept on coming, a host of them, ready to launch a storm of arrows at a moment’s notice. From this distance, the bandits couldn’t miss.

‘Shit,’ Kayne said. He met Glaston’s eyes and saw the truth there. The man had set them up.

‘Well, well. If it’s not the two goat-fuckers that killed half my band this winter just past.’

Kayne squinted. His eyesight was bad and getting worse, but he didn’t need to strain hard to recognize the identity of the speaker. There weren’t many bandits wide enough for two men. ‘Fivebellies.’

‘You remember me!’ The corpulent bandit placed a hand over his huge stomach and gave it an affectionate pat. ‘Twenty-seven of my men are dead thanks to you. I should have listened to my stomach; it never lies. The pair of you turned the roads near Emmering into a bloodbath.’

‘Never start something you can’t finish.’

Fivebellies smiled nastily. ‘Oh, I plan to finish it right enough. But first we’re taking you to meet the Bandit King. My cousin’s got something special planned for you.’

Glaston shifted on his horse and ran a finger nervously over his moustache. ‘I delivered them as promised. Where’s my reward?’

Brick flung his arms back, whacking his uncle in the face. The youngster threw himself from the horse and scrambled to his feet. ‘You said you would lead them to safety,’ he screamed. ‘You lied!’

‘I had no choice in the matter!’ Glaston exclaimed. He dabbed at his nose, where Brick’s elbow had drawn blood. ‘I’m done with this life, boy. I spent years convincing Raff and Slater and the rest to join us. Now they’re all dead and we’re back to square one.’ The bandit yanked off his gloves and hurled them to the grass. ‘I’m too old for this,’ he said wearily. ‘We’re never going to beat Asander. Better to let bygones be bygones and take the gold. We’ll settle somewhere in the Unclaimed Lands. You can find yourself a girl.’

‘But I promised them! You taught me never to break my word!’

Glaston sighed. ‘Things change, Brick.’ He turned to Fivebellies. ‘As we agreed? Twenty gold and you let my nephew and me leave in peace.’

Fivebellies nodded. ‘Sawyer, give the man what he’s owed.’

Kayne watched what happened next with a bone-deep weariness, a familiar sickness in his stomach. The bandit named Sawyer raised his bow and fired an arrow that hit Glaston in the shoulder, knocking him from his stallion. Glaston tried to rise, but a second arrow thudded into his back, knocking him face down in the mud. Still he struggled to his knees, began to crawl towards Brick, who tried to run to him.

Kayne saw the danger. He grabbed hold of the boy, dragging him back kicking and screaming. ‘Easy, lad,’ he whispered. ‘Easy. It’s too late now.’

Fivebellies heaved a big sigh. Then he ambled over to Glaston and drew his scimitar. ‘Seems I have to do everything myself,’ he grumbled. He reached down, jerked Glaston’s head back, and ran the edge of his blade across the man’s throat.

The blood seemed to pour out endlessly. It sprayed all over the grass, over Fivebellies’ face, even over Glaston’s white stallion, which snorted and danced away, crimson spots flecking its alabaster hide.

Brick went limp in Kayne’s grasp and began to sob.

Fivebellies let Glaston’s body fall to the ground. ‘The rest of you drop your weapons. That means you, whatever the hell you are.’

Grunt bared his tusks and looked like he was about to charge. Kayne caught his gaze, shaking his head desperately. The greenskin hesitated. Eventually he placed his swords on the grass, his amber eyes narrowed in fury. One of the bandits came over to inspect his sack.

‘Looks like some kind of giant egg,’ he said, sounding puzzled.

‘Just get it secured,’ Fivebellies replied. ‘We’ll see what the Seer makes of it. What you staring at, scarface?’

Jerek was glaring a hole in the fat bandit.

‘Let it go, Wolf,’ Kayne hissed.

‘I said, what are you staring at?’ Fivebellies glanced over his shoulder just to be sure there was still an army behind him.

‘Fuck if I know,’ Jerek rasped. ‘But if I had to guess, I’d say a bloated sack of shit that’ll be a corpse soon enough.’

Fivebellies’ face went a bright shade of crimson. ‘Asander said to bring you back alive,’ he snarled. ‘But he didn’t say in what condition.’ He lashed out hard with the pommel of his scimitar.

Jerek made no effort to block the blow, taking the full force of it right on the chin. A second later he grinned and spat a glob of blood right in the bandit’s face.

‘Hard man, are you?’ Fivebellies roared, wiping crimson drool from his face. ‘We’ll see about that. Sawyer, shoot him in the leg. I want to hear him scream.’

Kayne’s hands twitched. He was a moment away from drawing steel, consequences be damned. Then he looked down and saw Brick silently weeping and the desire to go down fighting drained away. If this turned into a bloodbath, Fivebellies might well decide to add Brick to the pile of corpses. He couldn’t be responsible for that.

The bandit named Sawyer nocked another arrow. Time seemed to stand still as he pulled back the bowstring. And then released.

Jerek didn’t even flinch. The Wolf looked down at the arrow sticking out of his leg with an expression that might’ve been carved from granite. He reached down, grabbed the shaft between his fists and then snapped it off, tossing the broken end away as if it were a stone he’d just dislodged from his boot.

Fivebellies’ mouth opened and closed, his jowls wobbling as he struggled for words. Finally, he turned to the men on the hill behind him. ‘Bind their wrists and ankles,’ he spluttered. ‘Don’t be gentle.’ He turned back to the captives, and though his beady eyes held the kind of dull malice Kayne had seen a hundred times before on a hundred different faces, his next words nonetheless sent a chill through the old warrior’s blood.

‘The Bandit King’s gonna have himself a nice big bonfire.’

Davarus Cole dropped the blue-veined rock into the cart. It landed with a clink that should have been satisfying. It should have been, but it wasn’t. Nothing seemed to matter any more.

‘Ghost? You all right?’

He flinched as if someone had struck him, but it was just Smiler delivering his day’s yield. The man flashed a gap-toothed grin beneath a thick layer of dust and grime.

‘Fine,’ Cole answered dully. The sun was already sinking below the horizon; the nights were coming in earlier now. Autumn was on the way.

‘You want to go for a drink this evening? You’ve been keeping to yourself an awful lot lately.’

Cole shook his head.

Smiler leaned in close. ‘I thought you were going to escape?’ he whispered. ‘You hardly say a word any more. What happened to the man who faced down Corvac? The man who was determined to get home to his girl?’

‘He’s gone,’ Cole said quietly.

‘Gone?’

‘That’s right. There’s nothing left for me now but this place.’ He spread his hands towards the tortured landscape. The Horn rose tall and ominous, looming over fissures in the black earth from which the miners were currently being hauled up by the Mad Dogs.

Corvac sauntered over, and Cole flinched back. The Mad Dog leader peered into the cart and gave an approving grunt. ‘Not a bad day’s work. You keep this up, I might decide you deserve an allowance again.’

The overseer suddenly shoved himself up against Cole until they were chest-to-chest. Corvac’s crazy eyes glared up at him, his thin mouth twisting into a sneer. ‘Course, you try to fuck me again and you know what will happen. Don’t you, bitch?’ He slapped the handle of the pick he held in one hand slowly against the palm of the other.

Cole swallowed. ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

‘Good. Now get back to town. I don’t want to see your pasty face again until tomorrow. You got me?’

‘Yes.’

Corvac reached up and patted Cole’s cheek, then went to join his men. He said something to the other Mad Dogs and pointed at Cole, prompting an eruption of laughter.

‘What was that about?’ asked Smiler.

‘Nothing.’ Cole turned his back on his friend. Shoulders hunched, he began the long walk back to Newharvest alone.

The dosshouse was half-deserted when he arrived. He entered the common room and collected his evening meal from the cook, then descended the stairs and stepped quietly through the dormitory, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He found his bed at the end of the hall, sat down and kicked off his boots. He shovelled the warm stew into his mouth, hardly bothering to chew the food – it was too much effort; all he wanted was to collapse into bed. Despite his utter exhaustion, he hadn’t been able to sleep much recently. The nightmares were keeping him awake.

He was halfway through the bowl when a shadow fell across the bed. He looked up to see Shank staring down at him. He had something shiny in his hand. A knife stolen from the kitchens.

‘Give me your food,’ Shank said in a soft voice. He had some peculiar mannerisms and a funny way of walking that could lead men to underestimate him. That was a dangerous mistake – as one of the miners had already discovered.

Cole shook his head. ‘No, it’s mine.’

The glow-globe on the ceiling above illuminated Shank in a sinister light. Outside, the great cloud that had begun to gather as Cole walked back to Newharvest decided to shed its weight. The first patters of rain struck the roof.

‘Goldie says Corvac made you his bitch.’ Shank tittered and checked behind him, like a naughty child who’d discovered a secret he wasn’t supposed to know. ‘She says he’s going to break you.’

Cole’s heart sank. ‘Why won’t he leave me alone? I do what he tells me. What more does he want?’

Shank giggled. ‘Goldie won’t let him forget what you did to her.’

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘That’s not what she said.’ Shank shook his head, disgust plain on his face. ‘I’m not claiming to be an angel. I’ve murdered men. Skinned them alive, in fact. But I’ve never disrespected a woman like you disrespected Goldie. You don’t treat a lady like that.’

Cole stared up into Shank’s judgemental glare. After all he had suffered, the things done to him that night outside the tavern, this stone-cold killer was going to admonish
him
?

The glow-globe on the ceiling seemed to burn brighter. The beating of the rain on the roof outside turned into a roar. As if oil had been poured on a fire, rage flared inside Cole, sudden and terrible, just as on the night he’d first arrived in Newharvest and discovered someone had soiled his bed. He could feel the intense anger throbbing through his veins and it took all his willpower not to charge Shank there and then. ‘You’re an idiot,’ he spat. ‘Leave me alone.’

Shank kicked the bowl out of Cole’s hands. The contents splattered all over Cole’s face and his miner’s outfit and even the bed. The stew in that bowl had been the only food he would receive until morning. It would have been kinder had Shank simply pissed in his face.

Overcome with fury, Cole threw himself at Shank, trying to knock the other man to the ground. But the last couple of months had seen his strength waste away, and lost in rage he forgot all the lessons the Darkson had taught him. Shank managed to keep his balance and drove a knee into Cole’s nutsack, stunning him. The wiry knifeman forced him to the floor, twisting the blade to rest it against his neck.