The Beast of the North (8 page)

The angry group stopped in the middle of the street, making no noise, realizing they were in fact rats that were caught in the open. They stared at me suspiciously. I spotted a nobleman walking with another, not far, obviously drunk. I prayed for forgiveness from the gods, should there be any and pointed my finger at him. ‘That one! Grab him! Take him to the dungeons!’

And they did. They lost their apprehensions and charged him like mad, skittering things of Hel. The man was knocked down so quickly I barely noticed. There were screams in the dark and some guards yelled challenges as they came to rescue the poor man.

I stayed in the back of the group. My face flowed, and I took the face of the beastly jailer and ran. I was running as fast as my legs could carry me. My face felt fat and bloated in my otherwise fit body, but overall the disguise served its purpose. I ran like a madman, dashed through the gates that were to close at midnight, leaving some dizzied Mad Watch guards gaping as they had been checking for papers of some drunken merchants. I ran and ran, weaving amidst the hovels and formerly excellent residencies of the Gate District until I saw the Crumbling Tower of Bad Man’s Haunt. It was a former remains of a guard tower, jutting upwards in sad ruination like a broken finger of the damned, and at its base, I took a right for the wall. There was the Laughing Lamb, a long, low building with thin slits for windows, and I dodged to the alleyway, taking the seedy steps down a piss smelling side of the building and thrust open the familiar door to the Shifty Crab, our cellar apartment, and business.

Mir got up. A gigantic bald man turned to stare at me, the Bear. Sand was in the midst of beating his hand on a desk, and Ann was leaning on a doorframe, her face pallid.

‘Who in Hel’s name are you?’ the Bear asked, pulling at a brutal maul the size of a small trunk. ‘We are closed!’

I cursed and turned away, shedding the fat face and saw their eyes round in shock, save for Sand. ‘I’ll explain that bit of strangeness later. Right now, we should leave this place.’

Mother was pale. ‘That bit of strangeness? You explain it now! Who are you? I just came home after looking for my boy and—’

Sand echoed me. ‘He is right, and it is Maskan, indeed. I told you. We should leave—’

‘Why? We can defend our home,’ the Bear said with a deep growl, not letting go of the maul. ‘You sure you are Maskan?’

‘I am Maskan. Of course, I am. The Grim Jesters took me—’

‘I know. Sand told me. I was about to go and bargain—’

‘They won’t bargain. I met their leader, and they are out to kill the king. And the queen,’ I said hysterically. ‘And they think I’m crucial to their plans. In fact, they made it so there is none else who can help them. And they told me they would kill you.'

Bear hit his fist on the table. It cracked. ‘I say we stay, and we fight. This is our home. It’d be the day of shame I let those sewer dwelling dog eaters kick me out of my own hall!’

Mir nodded at Ann. The blonde girl sighed and walked forward. Ann’s voice was calm and soothing, and she spoke without any hesitation. ‘I think Maskan is right.’

Sand growled. ‘And me!’

Ann continued. ‘They are too powerful; they have a great need, and Maskan here can fulfill it. It will end up badly for us. All of us.’ The Bear stared at her; Mir was nodding reluctantly and so was Sand. Ann had a very sensible effect on people, and I regretted running after Shaduril. Ann was beautiful.
Sort of,
I thought and cursed myself for my shallowness, for I knew I only cared for Shaduril since I saw her. Ann looked at me and smiled quickly, then looked away. Women. They can all read thoughts; I cursed in my head.

‘Oh fine,’ the Bear rumbled and looked at Mir. She shrugged and came to me. She wiped my face experimentally and then my lip and looked deep into my eyes.

‘Maskan?’ she asked.

‘Mother?’

‘If we go now, someone else will take up the business,’ she told me. ‘It will be hard to rebuild what I have done for nearly two decades. We will go, but at least tell us why. They want to kill the royals?’

I rubbed my face. ‘I don’t want to tell you more. I think I should not have told you that much. The less you know—’

Bear grunted. ‘You’ll tell me, at least. And I’ll make sure Shakes don’t close the business,’ Bear said ominously.

‘You cannot touch Shakes,’ Ann told him, and she was right. Shakes was the owner of Lamb and unofficial king of Bad Man’s. ‘But we must go.’ Ann leaned on the Bear. He struggled, blushed with anger and resentment, but finally nodded at his wise daughter.

‘I have a place out of the city,’ the Bear growled. ‘Ann found it a year ago. We go there. And then we try to settle this thing. Your skill. It is precious. Your face. If you can … change it. I don’t get it. How?’

‘Doesn’t matter, Father,’ Ann told him.

‘I can change faces,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t know why.’

The Bear shook his head in confusion. ‘Ann?’ The blonde girl looked startled but nodded. ‘Send word to Molun and Kallir. We are taking residence in the Green Hall. Pack up, you lot. We are leaving posthaste.’

‘Remember to kiss the girl. You kiss her. She will be happy. Grow bolder, fool.’

Ann to Maskan

‘
W
hy didn’t you tell me about it?’ Mir asked me as we stared at Dagnar’s walls, the Dagger Hill and the Five Rings rising majestically in the distance. It was not very far, just over some hills. It was chilly in the house they called Green Hall, and our guards, Bear’s two hulking, bald men Molun and Kallir had made it as warm as it could get. It was a spacious old hall with an excellent, long fireplace, hidden on the side of a hill, and a strange, mountainous waterfall was cascading from craggy rocks high above us. It was a place Bear used to hide in when he had committed some crime that attracted too much attention in the city. A small river formed by the cascading water was just a stone’s throw away from it. The water was bright as a star, the streams running from the craggy hills and mountains of the Wooded Blight, a hill, and a mountain range splitting the peninsula of Red Midgard far to the borders of Ygrin and beyond.

The place was peaceful, so peaceful I resented the fact we had not been there before.

‘Maskan!’ Mir chided and nudged me while I was sitting on a bench outside the hall. Sand was grinning at my discomfort on the side, toeing acorns. I turned to look at Mother. She had long, braided hair of dark and gray strands; she was thin and pale, and her well formed, beautiful face was mysterious in some strange way, especially when she was furious. And now she was. ‘You know what the priests do to those who tap into magical skills, especially in the south? The king might as well. It's so rare these days, you cannot afford to risk getting caught.’

‘They claim there are no magical skills at all,’ I brooded. ‘And I’ve had this discussion before with Sand.’

‘Well, we know they lie,’ she said mulishly and pushed me. ‘There is magic. You know it. I know it. I always did.’

I began to ask her what she meant, but the master of the hut arrived and leaned over me. ‘There are plenty of southern spies, even possibly some One Eyed priests in Dagnar, fool boy. I suspect I know of two, both working for the High King, no doubt,’ the Bear told me as he pulled me up. I dusted myself out and wondered how such a large man could move so silently. ‘They are looking for you. Not the priests, but the Jesters. They visited the Lamb thirty minutes after we left and were watching it like a hawk. Shakes is neutral. Cannot afford the trouble. They have a bounty on your head. And ours. They hope to find one of us to flush you out. But they won’t.’

‘Should we leave Red?’ I asked. ‘For good?’ Ann shook her head at me as she slid out of the house.

‘No,’ she said, and Bear nodded.

‘And go where?’ The Bear grunted in anger, and Ann made a small conciliatory gesture at her father, whose rage abated nearly that very instant. His tone was calmer, even if a vein in his forehead was throbbing. ‘The shit of northern kingdoms? The Fringe? There is naught but chunks of ice out there and their rich are Red Midgard’s equivalent to the poor. Shit hard to make a living there.’

‘It’s not exactly that bad, love,’ Mir purred, ‘but almost. I agree. But it is better than dying in here. We need a plan.’

‘And the south?’ I asked, for that is where I wanted to go. ‘Take our leave and start anew across the straits?’

Bear rubbed his face tiredly. ‘And risk the chaos of their wars and live in a rat infested hovel somewhere? We would stick out like a sore thumb there, at least for a time. Time enough for the Jesters to find us. And you can bet they are looking at ships leaving the port already. Some Jesters are in Aten, across the straits, you bet. And how the Hel am I supposed to work there, eh? I don’t know the land. It would get very dangerous to carve a nice little operation while we know nothing of their customs, laws, and rival gangs.’

‘We could—’ I began.

‘What?’ he asked thickly.

‘Abandon the Trade. Work? We could work,’ I suggested and looked away as I saw his face darken.

‘Work? Till the land? Carry bales for merchants? I … ’ he began shouting, and then Ann stepped to him and put her hand on his shoulder, and he went calm. ‘I won’t be a sell sword for some lord I care nothing for. I’m from the north, boy, and while I steal and make life miserable for some folks here, I don’t want to leave home.’

‘So, what do you suggest?’ I asked with a sullen voice.

‘I don’t know!’

Ann tilted her head at him. ‘Remember what you planned for, a year past?’ He confided in Ann of his business plans.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘The heist none has accomplished?’ she whispered with a small smile. ‘In the city.’

‘In the city?’ he asked, and his eyes went dreamy for a moment. ‘Oh, yes. I remember. I put it off because we are highwaymen, and there is a terrible risk, but …’ he shook his head. ‘We don’t need the gold, though. We need to find a way around the Grim Jesters.’

Ann leaned closer to him. ‘Or over them. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. Those caves underneath the city have to be purged. Perhaps we could have the king scourge the bastard Jesters from the face of Midgard?’ Ann suggested. ‘Kill the lot off? His honor is at stake.’

‘You damned fool, Ann,’ the Bear said and froze mid-sentence. ‘How do they connect?’

‘Maskan can change his face,’ she said with a small grin. ‘He can get in.’

‘ I … ’ His eyes took on a glazed look and his full mouth turned into a lopsided grin.

‘What?’ Mir asked. ‘Honey?’

‘Ann is right.’

‘In what? ’ Sand asked, astonished.

The Bear pulled at his beard, agitated. ‘Yes. We cannot go and challenge them, that’s for sure. We are a tiny operation, and even if we allied with some others in the Bad Man’s, many other would take their side. They are just too powerful; we would be slaughtered. We will not leave and give up our home. No. Not just like that. So, we should make sure the king takes the time to finally kill the lot.’ He looked at me meaningfully.

‘What exactly are you thinking about,’ I whispered. ‘You look like that Horns now, sizing me up.’

He placed a meaty paw on my shoulder. ‘You will have to do something. There is something me and the boys have been yearning to do since forever,’ he said with a feral grin. ‘Ann has been thinking about it, and I think you just solved the problem. Show me your Valkai again,’ he told me.

I sighed and did. I felt the skill resisting me for a moment, but then my face flowed, and my family stared at me with astonished looks. Mother put a hand over her mouth and sighed, whether in astonishment or pride, I was not sure. ‘Close enough?’

‘Pretty damned close,’ the Bear said with an uneasy smile. ‘Ear gone and all. Nearly stabbed you. Listen.’

I did. Sand groaned. I did as well. The Bear clapped my shoulder. ‘It will be okay. You will have Molun and Kallir doing the killing bit, and you just get them in. It will take some weeks before we can move, I think, but this will be splendid.’ He looked happy, then embarrassed. ‘Or messy. It’s possible, of course.’

The following week, I sat in an excellent tavern situated in the Third Ring. I had been uneasy getting into the city, but Molun and Kallir had false papers and good disguises and mine, of course, was superior. Bear traded with a hunter in the Hall, a savagely handsome man with mustaches. I wore the face now.

The white and blue, near pristine housings, made me uncomfortable after living in woody hills of the Green Hall, but there was a sense of safety and peace in the better section of the city, one the harbor and the gate rarely granted a visitor. People were rough and strong as any northerner, yet well dressed in leathers, sensibly dyed wool and linen, their disposition calm and far less dour, and one did not have to expect trouble, not actively, not all the time. I had rarely ventured up the hill, but perhaps I should have, I thought as I gazed at a pair of maidens, their long legs flashing as they hiked up their skirts to jump over puddles. As they walked past, they flashed me a smile. I saluted them with a nod, self-conscious as I was wearing a wealthy tunic of red velvet and a doeskin vest. My pants were white and soft, and I felt uncomfortable with them, preferring the rougher styles of the Bad Man’s Haunt, but they went a long way if one wanted to play a noble of Dagnar.

I sipped my ale, kept my manners mild and listened in on the discussion of two armored soldiers nearby. They were tall and wide, part of the Hawk’s Talon, the first brigade of Red Midgard. Real army, not the Watch. Their helmets were swathed in a chain, covering their necks and throat, their armor was partly mail, partly plate and thick leathers covered their arms and legs, all dark red and black. The nation had four such armies of three thousand men each, and the Hawk’s were the most elite, holding the capital safe with the Mad Watch. Their fort was the Silver Spur, just outside the town, and they also manned the Navy and its galleys with a permanent troop of five hundred marines. They had some duties in the city, not many, but those important enough not to be given to lesser soldiers. These were the jobs reserved for real, disciplined fighters. I had been sitting there on that seat for days, staring at the two professional soldiers, who escorted a tall man with an expensive leather coat, elegant shoes, and oily hair. His name was Naram, and he was an important man.

“The Affront” was a tavern next to a huge, brick fountain of uncannily blue water. It was flowing from the mouths of strange beasts with antlers. The tavern specialized in spiced dishes from the far south, and the man the soldiers dutifully escorted had an appetite for them. He sat a few tables away, eating; his duty was forgotten as he stared at the cleavage of a sultry redhead sitting just across from him and chatting merrily.
That was his lover, a whore
, I thought. She looked expensive, sophisticated. This man, the king’s Master of Coins, subject to the Lord of Harbor was always spending an hour of the early morning in the whorehouse disguised as a tavern.

‘Lith, dear,’ he drawled as he licked his fingers like a delicate cat. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow. Shall I bring you anything?’ the man cooed and the woman purred, whispering something in his ear, nibbling it, and the man laughed. ‘That is part of the deal, love. I never leave home without it. Never worry!’ Then he kissed her hand, and I watched him go. The stoic guards stomped after him for the Cliffside Mint, the king’s own mint, and the crucial business this man was supposed to be overseeing. I stayed put, and the woman walked over. She sat down and smiled at me voraciously. I sipped at the ale and smiled at her. There was something about her that made me very nervous. A bit like Shaduril had, I decided. Or any girl, for that matter. But she was strange and odd, and there was intensity in her I did not understand.

‘I don’t get it,’ she said bluntly. ‘I usually get it, but not this.’

‘The Bear gets it, Lithiana,’ I told her with confidence I did not feel.

‘Lith,’ she whispered. Her low cleavage was overwhelmingly disturbing, and I fought to keep my eyes on hers. Where Shaduril had been like a goddess, she was different. She was brazen and confident and spoke bluntly. A whore, I reminded myself, is brazen. Yet there was more to her, a layer of intelligence and bravery I could not understand. I feared and admired her.

I shrugged arrogantly and waved my hand imperiously to the direction of the mint. ‘It is our business, and you are paid. That is enough.’ I hoped such a come-what-may attitude would make her stop the questions. She frowned, doggedly interested in our business. I went on, hoping to finish the business fast. ‘Tomorrow, he will come up to your room, as is the norm. And we shall be there. It is time, the Bear says.’

She leaned on her hand, smiling demurely. ‘But why? Did my Naram gamble down in the Brewery and then refused to pay up?’ the woman asked, tilting her head. ‘He does that, I hear.’ She scowled briefly as she saw I was indeed reluctant to lift the veils of mystery on the matter. Perhaps she was unused to not being able to sway a man, and she tapped her long fingernail on the table to get my full attention. ‘He has been good to me. He has good manners, plenty of money, and he calls me pretty. He does not have to, but he does. It is nice. He is the sort of catch you don’t easily let slip through your fingers. So yes, I am still wondering what you will do with him.’

I snorted and leaned forward. ‘Catch? He is skinny, arrogant and should his wife die, and he would marry you, he would soon find another special whore,’ I said and froze, for I did not know what had prompted such an outburst. ‘Though you are most beautiful,’ I added meekly. She stared at me with huge, shocked eyes.

‘Am I?’ she finally purred. ‘The most beautiful thing you have ever seen?’

I stammered and for some reason, did not wish to lie. ‘No.’

‘What?’ she asked me, cocking her head as if she had misheard. ‘Not?’

‘I recently saw a girl,’ I told her. ‘A blonde girl I saved. I am hers. And she does not even know who I am.’ I felt embarrassed, and I was sure she would not take well to my honesty. I had called her a whore and then placed another above her. I was terrible with women.

She did look upset. Very upset. Then her eyes softened, and something changed in her. Where she had been arrogant and demanding and flirting, now she seemed determined to make me relax. She clapped my hand and nodded at me kindly.

She smiled knowingly. ‘I thank you for the compliment and laugh at the insult. My, my, but the lusty, drooling, silent man on the side table has claws after all,’ she breathed and leaned closer. ‘And he is a romantic. A true romantic.’

‘I am not drooling!’ I insisted.