Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series) (23 page)

Wodehallow reached the door. Farden was barely a few yards behind and swiftly closing in, weaving his way through the minglers and drunkards like a pickpocket. If this kill was to be public, then so be it. He would fight his way out, magick or no magick. He had done it before. Farden’s narrowed eyes burnt into the back of the Duke’s skull. His head throbbed with the music and the laughter in the hall, but he ignored it all. His sweating fingers throttled the handle of his hidden blade.

The Duke paused momentarily at the door. He laid a chubby hand on its handle while he muttered something to the pair of guards. The mage seized his moment. He surged forward, pushing his way through a gaggle of guests like a river punching through a weak dam. A woman squealed as she was shoved aside, making the guards at the door look up. Wodehallow turned, and saw death staring back at him. Death in the face and hands of a bedraggled, long-haired man in an ill-fitting outfit. His face was like steel, harder than the blade flashing in his hand. Wodehallow’s flushed cheeks ran a horrified shade of white.

‘Guards!’ he managed to gasp, before pushing through the door and hurtling into the dark room beyond. Farden leapt after him, snarling. The guards brought down their spears, but Farden was already too close for comfort. A knife slammed into the eye-socket of the first. A fist ploughed into the groin of the second. Both men crumpled to the floor, one dead, one wheezing. Farden’s head exploded with pain after the sudden, jerking movement, but he grit his teeth and ran on, dashing through the doorway and slamming it shut behind him. He was plunged into gloom. He felt for a bolt and found a wooden bar instead. It thudded as he rammed it down into its iron cradle. Farden turned around, and another knife snaked out from under his tunic, hungry for blood like its twin.

The room was musty, low-ceilinged, and dark, lit only by a single candle on the far wall. It was also a dead end. There were no windows, and no doors save for the one at his back. As fists began to pound on it, Farden took a step forward and scoured the shadows for his prey. It didn’t take him very long to find it. There, at the far end of the room, lit by the wobbling light of the lone flame, Wodehallow was cowering behind a crate of cabbages.

Farden couldn’t help but grin. This was all too easy.

Wait…
his pounding brain shouted.

All too late. Something painfully hard and thoroughly heavy struck him square in the back of the skull, sending a shower of sparks surging through his eyes. Farden crumpled to the floor. The pain left him breathless. He gasped against the cold stone of the floor. It pushed against his cheek, urging him to get up. He lifted his hands and began to push, but a blunt object prodded him hard in the back of his neck. He slumped to the stone again. A line of blood began to wander down his forehead.

‘The Fiend never misses!’ somebody chuckled.

‘That it don’t, Forluss, that it don’t,’ a high-pitched voice replied. Kint. It was unmistakeable. Farden groaned with pain and frustration. Somebody crouched beside him. He could feel their breath in his ear, slippery like the blood that was beginning to fill it. The toe of a black boot rocked onto his left hand and pressed down. Farden winced. ‘What have you gotten yourself into now, Four-Hand?’ Kint again.

The mage didn’t reply. His head swam with questions and skull-splitting pain. He twisted his head to watch Wodehallow rise from his hiding spot and waddle closer. ‘A fine job, you two,’ he gloated. Kint and Fat Forluss quickly bowed. They were wearing chainmail and leather, with surcoats emblazoned with the cat and daggers over the top.

‘Thank you, yer Duke.’

‘Thank’ee, lord,’ they chimed.

Wodehallow folded his arms across his fat belly. ‘Roll him over so I can see his treacherous face,’ he ordered.

Two pairs of hands grabbed Farden by his collar and turned him over. Farden tried to struggle but he quickly found the sharp edge of The Fiend pressing against his windpipe. Broken glass on rough skin. The mage tried to glare at Forluss but just felt nauseous instead. He wanted to vomit.

The upside-down face of Duke Wodehallow came into view, and an upside-down smirk as well. ‘I recognise you,’ he mused. ‘But why?’

‘Never forget a face, yer lordship?’ asked Kint, swaggering about behind Forluss, gathering rope and other things.

‘Never in a hundred years. It pays for a man of my position to recall every fellow you deal with, especially one as dangerous as this.’

‘Dangerous, is he?’ Forluss couldn’t help but chuckle, that low, burly grunting.

Wodehallow leant closer. He peered into the mage’s glazed eyes. ‘Indeed. This man isn’t just your average assassin. I wonder where young Duke Leath found you then, hmm?’ Wodehallow stood straight and kicked Farden viciously in the ribs with the pointy toe of his silk shoe. Farden coughed and spluttered. ‘Kiltyrin was right after all, what a vicious card that plucky young bastard Leath has been hiding up his sleeve. And barely off his mother’s tit too. Little shite.’ Wodehallow had turned an angry beetroot. ‘Try to kill me, in my own house? My own city? We will have to teach him a lesson!’

‘That you will, sire,’ Kint nodded. As Wodehallow stamped towards the door, Kint threw back the thick oak bar and opened the door wide for him. Bright torchlight flooded the room, half-blinding Farden in the process. Outside, two lines of smug-faced guards waited patiently for him, as well as a crowd of curious men and women. The dead guard had already been cleared away. By his side, the Duke leant close to Kint so he could mutter in his notched ear. ‘Be sure to thank your Duke for his kind warning. And please inform him I will be travelling to Tayn very soon. He and I need to have a very long discussion about how to deal with Leath’s treachery!’

‘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.

“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
.