When Goblins Rage (Book 3) (21 page)

Lord Sharpe was again on the walls, looking out at the campfires. She wondered if he'd really sent Pryke to her room. She'd met many men who preferred to let others do their killing, but Sharpe just didn't seem the type despite Eli's adamant explanation.

Especially given how he handled the heavy falchion at his side.

While she'd never accuse the former-mercenary of being an honest man, she just couldn't quite see him using someone like Pryke to attack her in her room.

His head half-turned toward her, as though he felt her gaze on him.

Eli peered over her shoulder and down at the man on the wall.

“Bastard,” he muttered.

“You gonna tell me what it is between you two?”

“Is this a thing you really want to know?” His voice breathed in the dark of the room.

The elf slid onto the bed, leaned up against the wall and lifted her knees so she could rest her arms. “Not really. But we've got time, and you look ready to talk.”

“That is as good a reason as any, I suppose. Very well. It is a simple thing. We fought for him, raiding fat merchants and small towns. We do this for many years beyond the Wall. He was a murderous bastard. Ruthless and cunning. He was a complete sonofabitch and you could not trust to turn your back on him. I liked him.” His gaze didn't soften as it stared through the window at Sharpe's back. “Many times we saved each other's lives. We got drunk together. He was like family to me and Balki.”

“Balki?”

“My brother. He was a good man, but not a good fighter, my friend. Not like you or I. To tell the truth, he was terrible. But he was good at other things, so it worked out.” The mercenary suddenly looked a lot older in the dim light. His gnarled fingers reached out to grip the window as bright tears edged the corner of his eyes. “I found his body, only a week ago. East of Highwall. I buried him in the dirt, Nysta. My brother. Who had given up fighting so he could make a family. I told him! Don't make it here, I said. Go north. Go back beyond the Wall. But he would not listen. He wanted to stay close. To be close to his brother, he said. So, for me, he stays. And for me, he dies. I loved him. He should not have been here. Never should have been here.”

“You followed me from there?”

“I found your footprints in the snow. At first, I think it is you who killed him. But then I have time to think about what I saw there, and I realised something was different. There was no blood on top of the snow. It must have fallen after he was murdered. I believe you arrived after his killers left.” He half-turned toward her. “Do you remember seeing him? Was he alive when you found him?”

She couldn't recall the farm he was talking about. Her memories were still murky, hidden by the clumps of fog still lingering in her brain. And getting cloudier by the day. “Can't say I do, Eli. Saw plenty of places with people in them. All of them in the same way. Dead. In any case, I don't reckon I'd have recognised him anyway.” Her mouth curled slightly. “To me, we were perfect strangers.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The elf reached inside her jacket to rub at her side, where she felt muscles twitching. Felt them clench and unclench under her fingertips before settling. She frowned, but her clouded mind still struggled to concentrate on Eli's words.

“We grew too bold, Nysta. We let Sharpe convince us to settle down. To claim land. Land the Emperor most certainly did not want us to have. But Sharpe believed we would be ignored long enough for him to make himself a king of this land. A foolish idea. But it didn't seem so foolish at the time. The Emperor is losing his power over the Fnordic Lands. There are many kings now. How could one more make a difference? Especially in a place like Whisperfall. Have you been there?”

“Whisperfall?” She tried to remember the old maps. Knew only that Whisperfall was on the south-eastern coast of the Fnordic Lands. “No. Never been beyond the Bloods, Eli.”

“It is a terrible place. There are more Draug haunting it than there are in the whole of the Deadlands. But Sharpe did not see them. All he could see was a place he could claim for his own. A place he told us the Emperor would not care about. We believed him. Why? Because we were fools. Fools who dreamed of an easier life than the hard one of a bandit.”

“Emperor didn't like it, uh?”

“No.” His grin was mirthless. “He did not like it one bit. And who would blame him? He is the Emperor of the Fnordic Lands. Even Icereach is not too far for him. And he decided to make Sharpe an example to all the others who thought they could take their own land. So we went to Trollspit. Into the high mountains there. And we hid in the caves like cockroaches even when we had run out of food. But still we could not leave. Because the Emperor had sent his daughter to deal with us. Do you know of her?”

She recalled the name Chukshene had given her. “Asa?”

“That is the very name of the bitch. She turned every stone in search of us. Would not let us go. Many times we had to fight our way from one cave to another, losing more and more friends. And then, one day, they cornered us. Rats in a cellar. And she, the great cat licking her lips above us. They came in a wave. But this time, Sharpe was not there to lead us. You see, he had crept from our cave during the night like the coward he is. Slithered away to leave us to die. He knew we could not win. But he knew she would chase him forever unless she thought he was dead.”

“You lived.”

“Yes. My brother was with me. Two others. We managed to fight free and ran. Ran so fast I thought my legs would take me past the Shadowed Halls themselves. The screams of our friends still in our ears. We could not go back for them. But I swore one day I would make that bastard pay for what he did to us. It has been a long wait, my friend. I have watched him for many months now. Seen how careful he is. How he keeps his guards so close to him. He is afraid of me. And so he should be! He knows I will catch him. That I am only waiting for the right time. Letting him sweat it out. To feel the fear of dying. But still he clings to his hope. His dream that he might be King of something. I tell you this, my friend. He is already King to me. King of the Betrayers, I call him.”

Studying his face, she was struck by the granite expression which didn't seem to fit his face. She'd always thought of Eli as a weasel. A man whose killer nature was masked by a flippant, if somewhat contrived, mask.

Yet, now he looked like a man whose mask had been stripped away to reveal the scarred and indestructible skeleton of hate which must have always been there.

She wondered if she had looked the same when she was hunting Raste.

Had Chukshene seen a merciless killer with only relentless hatred to keep her alive?

No wonder he'd run from her as soon as he could.

She grunted at thought of the warlock.

Taking her grunt for a comment, the mercenary by the window nodded slowly. “I am melodramatic, my friend. I am sorry for this. It is not like Eli, I know. But my brother did not deserve to die as he did. And though I know for sure Sharpe had no hand in his death, I blame him for it anyway. His childish dream led us to our doom. Which drove us from our home in the Fnordic Lands. I can never return there, Nysta. Not even to tell our mother, if she is still alive, of my brother's death.” His hand gripped his knife tightly. “So I must kill this man. I must feel his blood warm my fist. Or else, Eli will die trying. And that, my friend, will be enough to face Balki's face in the Shadowed Halls without feeling the shame and humiliation of not trying at all.”

Raste's face flashed in front of her. His dying face. The red hair across her lap. Smell of his blood, a warm tang in the air.

And the feeling of cold relief as her thirst for vengeance was slaked, leaving only emptiness behind.

“Good luck to you, Eli,” she murmured into the dark.

“Thank you, my friend.”

“I mean it,” she said.

“I know. It is why I thank you.” He turned toward her, sucking a deep breath as he put his back to the window. “But do not think this means Eli would not fight you, too.”

“Easy, feller,” she said with a mocking twist of her mouth. “Try to stay alive until after breakfast.”

“Ah, Nysta,” he sighed, letting his grin return. “We are a dying breed.”

“Speak for yourself, Eli.”

“When this is over, and if we survive to leave this place. What will you do?”

She reached up to rub the scar on her cheek, thinking. Behind the town, the Bloods beckoned. But they'd been beckoning for months.

Perhaps even longer.

It was even greater now she had no ties to the Deadlands, and certainly none to Lostlight far to the west. But something kept her here. Kept tugging at her soul.

Inching around her body like the tentacles of a kraken. Wrapping her up and smothering her will to leave.

“I ain't too sure, Eli,” she admitted. “Some days, I want to go north. It's why I've come back here a couple of times. Each time, I'm certain I want to take that road through the Bloods. To make it all the way up to the Wall. Every time, I get so close I can almost feel that path under my boots. But then something pulls me back. Holds me here.”

“Maybe you feel you cannot leave because this place is a place of killing, my friend. And you are what you are. Maybe you need to accept this thing, first. Admit you enjoy doing what you do. What we do. That this place allows you to be something you could never be if you were in a civilised place. Not that a city is very much more civilised than here.” His humour was bitter. “You know what I mean.”

“I already know what I am, Eli. Never tried to hide that from myself. Or anyone else, for that matter. No, this is something else.” She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the ragged bits of knotted cloth woven into the thick locks. “Something less cold. And something I want to let go, but just can't bring myself to.”

“Your man, I'm thinking.”

She nodded. “I ain't ever felt like anything special. Grew up on streets which were meaner than anything the Deadlands has thrown at me. I've seen things which'd turn your face white, Eli. Done things which would make you scream in the night. Not sure how I managed to stay sane. Maybe I ain't. Might help explain a few things.” She showed no reaction as something slithered up her spine. Realised she was getting used to the feeling. “But Talek never judged me for it. Never tried to talk me out of what I was doing. Just accepted it was who I was. Knew I had something I needed to deal with, and that I was dealing with it the only way I knew how. Maybe he even encouraged it. Hoping it would burn out of me. But it never did. I got too much hate. Too much fear. It lives inside like a solid thing. One moment, it's frozen. The next, it's white hot like the sun. Boiling me from inside. Taking all my thoughts and turning them all to ash. Not sure I can cope, Eli. Not without him. Sometimes, when you do the things we do, it's nice to know someone sees you as something else. Something cleaner. Know what I mean?”

“I know it.” His voice was tight.

“So, every time I get ready to leave. Ready to put some distance between me and this cursed place, I stop. And I think of him. And I think how hard he tried to keep us together. Then I turn around, and I go back. Back to where I can feel his presence.” She had to fight to keep her eyes from burning, but not as hard as she'd had to in the past. A flash of guilt wired through her heart as she realised she was losing the raw bleeding wound of sorrow. That it was turning into a scar. “You said I was running around like a beetle. Ain't a beetle I feel like, Eli. Feels more like a blind animal, wounded and confused. So much inside just building up. And then there's the Cage.”

“The Cage?”

“That's what Chukshene called it.”

He looked more confused. “Chukshene?”

“Feller I met a few months ago. Helped me kill a few other fellers.”

“Sounds like a man we could use right now.”

The elf snorted. “He'd have run away by now.” She rubbed at the scar on her cheek. Felt a restless shiver deep in her belly. “Anyway. It was Talek's. The Cage. He'd always looked after it. Said it was special. I figured I should take it. Protect it for him. But I ain't ever been good at protecting. Destroying, maybe. It broke. Opened. I don't know. Now everything's changed. I'm just waiting to find out how.”

“This Cage thing? What is it? I am not sure what you are talking about, my friend.”

“ A gift. A curse. I ain't sure what it is, yet. But it's been opened. And whatever was let loose, it got inside me, I think. I ain't too sure. Maybe it's just my mind playing tricks. Maybe it's just that fear I've always had, and it's grown too much to keep controlled. Maybe it got loose and is tearing my mind apart.” She rested her hands on her knees and closed her eyes. Could feel his gaze on her. Still confused, yet curious. But she didn't care if he understood or not. The words weren't for him. “Maybe I miss him so much I ain't sure I want to lose that final connection we have, even if it's just a few feet of frozen dirt.”

“Look at us both,” he said softly. “When we go out there, into the street, those men look at us. And they see the worst of their kind. They see two killers with hearts made of stone, and souls left behind somewhere in our past. But the truth, my friend, is our hearts are bigger than anyone can dream. Our fears more real, and our loss so much greater. Our souls, then, must shine so bright that they light up the Shadowed Halls when we arrive. It is no wonder the Old Skeleton loves our kind more than any other. We are needed, or his Hall would be very dark indeed.”

She gave a wry smile. “You looking for a new life, Eli? As the first poet of the Deadlands?”

“Why not?” His face flushed, recovering his grin. “I tell the best stories, my friend. All the Deadlands know this to be true.”

“I reckon we do,” she said lightly.

“We shall go out there soon,” he said, suddenly fierce. “And we shall kill them. All of them. This General? I will put my knife so hard into his belly, my fist will come out through his spine. We shall leave their corpses to feed the crows for decades to come, my friend. I may even see my old friend, Sharpe, dead at my feet. That would make me very happy. And would let Balki put his feet up in the Shadowed Halls. On Sharpe's yellow back, I tell you. And then we will fight, you and I. We will do this, because I say to you, Nysta, you are wonderful. You are the greatest fighter I have ever known. You inspire me. And it would be my honour to kill you.”