Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series) (24 page)

The cart bumbled on, led by its docile white cows, deep into the east. The forest around them died away, soon replaced by scrub and moorland, miles and miles of it. There wasn’t a landmark in sight, only hills, gorse bushes, and the winding flint road.

Kint and Forluss chatted idly between themselves, swapping stories of guts and glory. Wartan occasionally grunted something. All the while, the fourth man, who seemed perfectly content to let the miles trundle by under his feet, kept to his whistling. Farden floated in and out of consciousness as the hot day turned into desperately cold, shivering night, and then into blistering day once again. It was all a matter of moments and brief glimpses of the sky and a bumpy road, all sense of time and distance melted into flashes of pain, and a candle in the dark. Such things are dreams.

It was only when the mage cracked open his swollen and sunburnt eyelids and saw a silvery grey tangle of skeletal branches resting against a grey-blue sky that he truly awoke. A tree. An ash tree if he wasn’t mistaken. Just like the one that sat on the hill above his little shack…

Farden tried to sit up but the ropes dragged him back down. He caught a quick glimpse of the countryside over the edge of the cart and groaned. Fleahurst. Against the stench of his sour sweat and sticky blood, of greasy wood and tired cow, he could taste salt in the air. He could hear the hissing of nearby waves. Farden groaned.

‘Home sweet home,’ laughed Kint, from somewhere nearby. Farden looked up as far as he could, trying to ride the dizziness. His mouth tasted like ash. The four men lingered at the tail of the cart, smoking their pipes. Forluss idly twirled his club around in circles, laughing that doltish laugh of his. The other man, Wartan, was silent and expressionless. The last, the one Farden rightly guessed to be the whistler, simply tipped his flat hat and smiled. It took a moment, but Farden slowly began to recognise him. The man from the corridor outside Kiltyrin’s room in Castle Tayn, the tall man with the shaven head and the broken nose.

Farden put his head gently back and looked up at the ash tree, ignoring them all. Maybe this was just a nightmare. Maybe he would wake up. Fat chance. His head still had not stopped pounding. He was awake, and it was very, very real. He cursed it all as four pairs of hands set about untying the ropes that bound him.

Once they were loose, Farden was dragged from the cart and dumped unceremoniously in the dirt. He wasn’t even allowed a moment to rub the feeling back into his wrists and hands. After the tall man had bound his hands with some spare rope, Kint and Forluss wrenched him upwards by his long hair and pushed him forward. It was a miracle he actually managed to stand. His legs felt like rotten wood.

‘Go,’ said Kint, pushing him again. ‘Show us where you’re hiding the rest of it.’ Farden turned around to glare daggers at him, but found a spear-tip pressing against his neck. Wartan was at the end of it, narrow-eyed and broken-faced. He could see it now, in that unflinching stare. The man had murder in his eyes. Farden knew it well. He lowered his head and shuffled along the dirt path towards the sea.

Grudgingly, the mage led the four men down the path and towards his little shack. He desperately wracked his brain for an answer or a plan, but nothing came. Nobody for miles. Not a soul nor saviour, save for one rat. Farden thought of all the things in his shack, mentally assessing each one in turn to see if they could help him.

A crossbow behind the fireplace.

His little candle-carving knife, buried in the top of the lobster pot.

Various pieces of pilfered cutlery.

A pan.

Whiskers’ sharp teeth.

The mage winced as the spear nicked the back of his neck. He could feel a trickle of hot blood run down his numb back.

When they came to the shack, Farden was pushed to the side and kicked to his knees. A brave seagull hovered on a thermal above them, mewing plaintively. Kint and Forluss quickly went to the door, while the third man lingered by the step, arms crossed and patient. Wartan stayed behind Farden and kept his spear pressing against his skin.

There was a bang as Kint kicked in the door. Part of the door-frame shattered under the impact. Farden stared at the dirt; there was nothing to help him there either. Hopeless.

Inside the shack, Kint and Forluss wrinkled their noses at the smell of mouldy, rotting food, seaweed, and nevermar. Even for them, it was disgusting, a murderer and a torturer no less. Ignoring it, they began searching in earnest, pushing aside the threadbare furniture and smashing the boxes and chests that had been piled in one corner. Kint found a pan covered with a cloth. He lifted up the corner of it and wrinkled his nose at the foul smell. ‘Not in there,’ he muttered. Behind him Forluss was busy kicking the stove apart.

‘Not in here either.’

Outside, Farden listened to the bangs and crashes, a little part of him dying with each one. A lobster pot flew out of the door, narrowly missing the tall man on the steps. He cleared his throat. ‘Kint, Forluss, enough. You’re wasting your time.’

Kint and his comrade appeared at the door. There was soot on their faces. ‘Well ain’t that the truth,’ Kint spat. ‘What would you suggest then, Loffrey? Any bright ideas?’

The man called Loffrey adjusted his flat cap and turned to face Farden. He stared down at the mage for a moment, and the mage stared right back up at him. All Farden could think of was what he planned on doing to the man’s face if he ever had the chance. Farden tried his hardest to look defiant, but deny it as he might, there was a dark hole of fear growing inside him, getting wider with every moment. Farden shivered even in the sunlight.

The man, this Loffrey, tapped his foot on the step. ‘What’s the strongest part of any house?’

‘Roof?’ ventured Forluss. He was sweating profusely, as always. He wiped his forehead with the back of his grubby, travel-dusty hand.

Loffrey shook his head. ‘The foundations, you dolt. Rip up the floorboards.’

Kint clicked his fingers and the three went inside to start hacking at the floorboards. Farden’s head sank into his chest. The dark hole kept growing. There was a grunt from behind him. ‘You don’t remember me, do yer?’ asked Wartan.

The mage didn’t answer. He was too busy counting the bangs and crashes, moving his dry husk of a tongue around a sandy mouth.

‘Oi. I’m asking you a question.’

Farden looked up at the man and his misshapen face. Whatever had happened to him had been truly brutal. ‘No, I don’t,’ he mumbled.

The spear jabbed again. Wartan moved to stand in front of the mage. He crouched down, spear up, and pointed to his face. ‘Remember Biennh?’

Farden couldn’t really care less. He had bigger things to worry about. ‘I vaguely recall that pitiful hole.’

Wartan beamed. It was not a pretty sight. ‘Well that pitiful ‘ole was where you broke me face. Remember that? I’ve been lookin’ for you fer many years, I ‘ave. Waitin’ to get my revenge on the mage who broke me and my gang.’

Farden recalled a stormy night and a band of thugs. He remembered a man with a boot in his face but the rest had been forgotten. Farden shrugged, wishing he had saliva to spit. Hopeless indeed. ‘Then get in line. You weren’t the first face I broke and you won’t be the last.’

‘Heh. We’ll just see ‘bout that now, won’t we, mage?’

Farden didn’t reply, but the man’s words rang true. Wider and wider grew that hole.

There came a shout from inside the shack. ‘Rat!’ Farden tried to stand up but Wartan kicked him back to his knees.

‘Kill it!’ shouted Kint. There was a chorus of stamping boots and Farden winced with every single thud. It was over in an instant. The mage strained against his ropes.

‘It’s gone,’ somebody said. Farden sighed with relief.

‘And look what we found instead.’

The sigh caught in his throat.

Moments later, Kint and Forluss emerged from the door of the shack. In their hands balanced glittering treasures of red and gold. Loffrey was close behind them, hopping around eagerly. Farden put his head in the dust, straining and straining. ‘Ain’t they pretty?’ Forluss chuckled.
Hur hur hur
…

Loffrey waggled a finger. ‘Give one here, and make sure you keep your greasy, sweaty fingers from smudging them, you hear me?’

Forluss nodded, looking to Kint. They obviously didn’t like being ordered about by this man. Nevertheless, they did what he said. Forluss handed Loffrey one of the gauntlets, and the man crouched down beside Farden. ‘Well these are beautiful, I must say,’ Loffrey began, pulling Farden’s head up. The mage’s dust and blood-smattered face burnt with hatred. Loffrey turned the gauntlet over and over in his hands. ‘I do hope they are what I think they are. It would be a shame to waste all this time and coin, wouldn’t it? The Duke would be most disappointed. Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out. Do tell me if I’m doing it right.’

Farden growled as Loffrey put his hand inside the gauntlet. The metal contracted around his fingers and he clenched a fist. ‘Incredible,’ said the man. Farden wondered who the hell this man was and how he had come to know so much about Scalussen armour.

Loffrey closed his eyes and waved his hand in a figure-of-eight in the air.

‘What does it feel like?’ asked Kint.

‘It actually feels like nothing.’

‘Must be broken then.’ This from Fat Forluss.

‘On the contrary, gentlemen. Only very few people can feel the effects of true Scalussen armour. I bet a fair bit of coin that you can, mage, hmm?’

‘How do you know it ain’t broken then? Or a fake?’

Loffrey shook his head. He tugged at the gauntlet and the metal peeled away all by itself, releasing his hand. ‘Do you think that looks broken or fake to you, man?’

Kint had to shake his head. Forluss piped up. ‘What’s so rare about this lot then?’

Loffrey sighed, a sigh of a man who had explained this a dozen times already. ‘All Scalussen armour is rare, you idiot. It was made a thousand years ago by the Scalussen smiths, who to this day managed to make the finest armour and arms known to mankind. That’s why you’ll only ever see it being worn by those who are rich enough to buy it, brave enough to steal it, or hardy enough to take it.’

‘So? I’ve seen some good armour in my time. The pretty stuff don’t always do the job. Why’s this lot so special then, aside from doing that shrinking trick and how bloody old it is?’

Loffrey bit his lip. ‘Why don’t you take your knife and see if you can scratch it, Kint?’

Kint drew his knife with relish. He held one of the greaves he was carrying in one hand and his knife with the other. With a screeching sound, Kint dragged the tip of the knife along one of the greave’s steel scales. There wasn’t even a hint of a scratch. He tried again, and again, getting angrier every time he tried, until Loffrey snatched it from him. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Scalussen armour is magick armour. Some of it moves on its own. Some of it changes colour. Some of it even burns you if you touch it.’

‘And what does this lot do?’ Forluss asked, still sweating.

‘
This
lot, gentlemen, is more than rare. So rare, in fact, that everybody thinks it doesn’t exist.’ Loffrey turned back to the mage and lifted his aching head up and into the sunlight. ‘How old do you think he looks, hmm? What would you guess?’

Kint shrugged. ‘Not a year older than me.’

‘Or me,’ added Forluss.

‘Or me,’ said Wartan.

‘And how old is that?’

‘Thirty?’ Kint looked around and the other two nodded. Forluss didn’t actually know. He had lost count a few years back thanks to the perpetual Long Winter and a poorer-than-average skill with a calendar. ‘Thirty-ish,’ asserted Kint.

‘Farden has barely aged a day since I last saw him,’ said Loffrey, and at this the mage narrowed his eyes, trying to place the man’s face. ‘And that was more than fifteen years ago. Who knows how old he was then. Isn’t that right, Written?’

Farden glared, confused, defeated. Doomed.

If one looked close enough, it was possible to see the cogs turning in Forluss’ head. The man looked down at the armour in his hands. ‘So how did
he
manage to get his hands on this? Did yer steal it, Four-Hand? Kill someone for it?’ he asked, confused.

Loffrey put his hands on his hips. ‘That’s what I want to find out. There was a book by that armchair. A diary by the looks of it. Go get it.’

Forluss and Kint traded glances. Kint smacked Forluss on the arm and the fat man went back inside the shack. He reappeared a minute later with a book. He gave it to Loffrey with a grunt and the man quickly flipped through it, noting the names and dates that had been scribbled down. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Take those back to the cart, and be careful with them. Kiltyrin will have your head if you’re not.’

Kint could be heard muttering to Forluss as they walked back up the hill. ‘So I can dig a knife into it but I have to be careful putting it in a cart. Who’s the idiot now?’ he said, quietly.

Loffrey knelt down and grabbed the mage’s armoured left wrist. Farden flinched away, but quickly found the tip of the spear digging into the base of his skull again. He clenched his fist as Loffrey probed the metal. ‘How did you do it again? Ah yes.’ He pinched the bottom of the vambrace but nothing happened. He shifted his grip and tried again, but still nothing happened. ‘Let go, Farden,’ he warned, pulling at the metal. ‘Let it go I say!’