Husk: A Maresman Tale (14 page)

He opened his eyes to a blur of disembodied faces circling him. His mother’s was wavy and ill-formed; he’d not set eyes on her for more than twenty years, and childhood memories had never been more than indistinct impressions for him. Her hair was golden, that much he was certain of, and he could’ve sworn her eyes were blue—the fresh blue of summer skies reflected in a mountain stream.

The man’s face that came up alongside her was vaguer still. Jeb had never actually seen his father, but in his dreams he’d done a fair job of constructing him over the years—his own face, but gentler, kinder, and radiating the kind of wisdom Jeb was all too aware he lacked.

The others were women he’d had or planned to have, all of them panting after him like bitches in heat. Dame Consilia floated among them, her lips working in time to the pounding of his heart. He tried to answer her soundless questions, croaked at her to leave him alone. He needed a drink, needed something to—

His fingers curled around the stem of a wine glass. He raised it to his parched and cracked lips, but it was empty.

Marlec appeared with a pitcher. “Here, allow me.”

As a stream of ruby wine poured from the jug, Maisie snatched the glass away and shook her head.

Jeb cried out, and then he was falling, plunging headfirst into a yawning chasm. His screams swirled about him like the shrieking of a mountain storm. He fell and fell, deeper and deeper into the blackness. Streaks of green rushed up to meet him, then passed him by. It was enough light to see walls of black rock shooting past on either side, and the green was the veins of precious scarolite ore that ran through them.

After long moments, the walls gave way to a noxious cloud of vapor that burned his lungs and inflamed his skin with buboes and pustules. Mortis’s masked face drifted up from the depths, and suddenly Jeb was staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Duty or death,” the Maresman whispered. “Duty or death.”

The gun went off with a thundercrack.

Jeb screamed.

There was another crack, then another.

Crack, crack, crack.

Thud, thud, thud.

He started awake, heart hammering ten to the dozen. There was another bang on the door, and he reached for the hilt of his saber.

Was it Sweet, back for more? Jeb tightened his grip on the saber and rolled from the bed.

“Mr. Skayne!” Dame Consilia stage-whispered from outside. “Let me in.”

“Go away,” Jeb said, sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing his sleepy eyes.

“More,” Dame Consilia said. “I must have more. You can’t leave me like this.” He caught her moaning and sighing in between pleas, and he could hear Malvin and Garth trying to goad her away.

Any other time, he’d have let her in, coupled with her the rest of the day and all night, too, but his dreams still had hold of him, ghosting through the nooks and crannies of his waking mind. They pulled and pushed him in every direction: make a move on Maisie; kill the stygian; avenge himself on Sweet; find the other husk before it found him. The memory of Mortis’s leather face hung heavy in the background like some malevolent ringmaster, urging him to act, and act speedily, else there’d be hell to pay.

Dame Consilia continued to rap on the door, begging him to open up, describing what she wanted to do to him in graphic detail. A door farther down the corridor creaked open and a man said he’d oblige. Dame Consilia’s response was far from ladylike.

Jeb flopped back on the bed and pulled a pillow over his ears.

“Go away,” he moaned again. “Go…”

Next he knew, he was coming round from an emptiness so complete, it was like dying and being born anew, like the Wayists said happened to them.

It was dark in the room, and outside was silent. He rolled from the bed and went to the window. Night had fallen, and only the two smaller moons were visible. He must’ve have slept through the day and half the night.

What was wrong with him? The beating? Too much to drink? Too much was happening, that was for sure. Too many decisions to make, and he knew there wasn’t a whole lot of time to make them.

The stygian was the easy part; he just needed to take the creature out; but this other husk was a different matter. If he did nothing, it could very well come for him when he least expected it. Even if it didn’t, it was only a matter of time before Mortis or one of the others came looking to see why he’d not got the job done.

The ruse he’d thought of was virtually dead and buried. It had been a false hope, a moment of bravado. That was the thing about indulging his husk nature: it burned away indecision, honed his mind to a knife’s edge of clarity. You had to face facts. The only way he was getting out of this alive was by taking down both husks, and that meant there was no more time to lose.

18

T
HOUGHT OF WHAT
Jeb had to do overrode all other considerations. Maisie wasn’t going anywhere, and besides, he still couldn’t see what it was about her that had him so fired up. Things like that, things you had no understanding of, were best left alone in his opinion.

Then there was the stygian. If it was going to run, it would be long gone by now, and there wasn’t much he could do about that, not with its dampening amulet.

That left only Sweet and the second husk. If Sweet came for him again, Jeb would be ready. The urge to seek him out and challenge him was bubbling up to a boil, but what was the hurry? Sweet was a local through and through, and when the time was right, there wouldn’t be much trouble finding him.

The way Jeb saw it with his newfound sharpness, that made the mystery husk his priority.

He rubbed down the flintlock and reassured himself it was still loaded. He was mindful of what the pock-faced rogue had said, though, when he holstered it. Last thing he needed was to shoot his foot off. He arranged his saber so it hung just behind his hip, and let his coat close over it. With a tug on the brim of his hat, he locked up his room and headed downstairs.

Outside, ripples ran through the stars in the night sky as wisps of cloud drifted across them. Raphoe’s dimming glow limned the distant crags of the Gramble Range in silver, and that meant it wasn’t as late as he’d first thought. He’d slept through the day right enough, but it can’t have been long past midnight.

The murders had taken place in the vicinity of Carey’s Hostelry, and so he headed down the high street toward the lane Davy had shown him.

The sound of singing wafted up the incline, growing louder the nearer he got to the Crawfish. He stopped two or three times when he thought he heard footsteps following, but when he turned, there was no one there. More than likely, it was the echo of his boots on the road, but he couldn’t help thinking about the fate that had befallen his fellow Maresmen. It didn’t help that, as he spotted the Crawfish’s gently creaking sign, he grew jumpier on account of what Sweet had done to him there. Gritting his teeth and bunching his hands into fists, he beat the anxiety down, twisted it into anger. Sweet had it coming, and real soon, once the husks were taken care of.

The singing stopped as he came alongside the Crawfish’s front door. On the other side of the street, the group of men he’d seen from his window that first night were huddled around their brazier, watching him warily. He acknowledged them with a nod, but no one responded.

It took more time than he cared to lose locating the lane in the dark, but the minute he entered it, the singing started up again, tentative at first, then growing in strength.

A boot scuffed the cobbles behind him, and he turned. This time, there was a silhouette lingering in the soft glow spilling from the brazier. Another footfall sounded from the way he’d been heading. He flicked a look over his shoulder and felt his chest tighten. A broad-shouldered man was limping toward him, moonlight glinting from the knife in his hand. Jeb backed up against the wall of a house flanking the lane so he could keep watch both ways.

The silhouette took on more substance as it ran at him. A hooded cloak covered the features, save for a flash of white from the eyes. Steel rasped, and a longsword sprang into the man’s hand.

Jeb got his saber free of its scabbard in the nick of time, barely managing to parry a wild hack aimed at his head.

A grunt of effort and the quick scrape, scrape, scrape of a boot alerted him to the second man’s attack. He swayed aside from a dagger thrust, and slung out an elbow. It connected with something soft and giving. There was a whuff and a curse, a tug on Jeb’s belt as the assailant fell back.

The cloaked man swung again. Jeb blocked and turned the longsword. He backslashed at the other man but met only air. Instantly, he sent a vicious slash to the front, but the cloaked man skipped out of range. A click had Jeb switch his focus back to the one he’d elbowed.

“Much obliged to you,” the lame man said. Moonlight flicked over his cratered face, accentuated his bulbous nose with shadows. It was the rogue from the Sea Bed, and he was pointing a flintlock at Jeb.

Jeb’s hand shot to his holster and found it empty. The tugging at his belt! The other man’s attack had been a ruse, a distraction. His swordplay had been ham-fisted, amateurish, but then, it hadn’t needed to be any better than that.

“See, I told you,” the lame man said. “Never leave it loaded.”

Jeb scowled. He’d half a mind to leap at the thug, take his chances, but at this range, even Brau’s flintlock couldn’t miss.

“So, what now?” he said.

The cloaked man chuckled from behind. Jeb pointed his saber toward him, but kept his eyes on the flintlock.

“Don’t see we got much choice,” the lame man said.

“You’ve got what you wanted.” Jeb cast a quick look over his shoulder. The hooded man’s eyes were on his accomplice, and he was nodding, as if he agreed. Everything about him, from his butcher’s hacks with the sword to his lack of stealth and his eagerness to break off combat, told Jeb he was new to this game. He’d probably been sold a lie by the lame man, told he could make his fortune if he followed suit.

“Oh, yeah,” the lame man said, wagging the flintlock. “I got it, all right, but it ain’t all about me, now, is it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, Tharn,” the hooded man said. “You got your thingy back. We don’t need to do this.”

“Oh, but we do, son. We do. I got a fat purse of coin that says so.” He patted his pocket, and it clinked in return. “See, Maresman, you gone and made yourself enemies. If it was just me, well, like you said, I got what I wanted; but business is business, see. No hard feelings?”

He pulled the trigger—

Jeb threw his arm up and flung himself to the side—

A wet phwat farted from the end of the barrel amid a puff of soot.

“Shit!” Tharn cried, dropping the flintlock. “Shogging piece of shite!”

Jeb was moving even as it clattered to the ground. He swung his saber in a vicious arc. Tharn screamed and clutched at his guts. Jeb spun, expecting an attack from behind, but the hooded man threw down his sword and ran.

“Does that sometimes,” Jeb said, turning back to Tharn.

It was a nasty wound he’d dealt. The only thing stopping it from spilling entrails all over the ground was Tharn’s gore-stained fingers.

Jeb crouched down and picked up the smoking flintlock. “My fault, really. Should’ve cleaned it properly.”

Tharn looked up at him with bulging eyes and blood trickling from his mouth. He shook uncontrollably and dropped his horrified gaze to his crimson hands. Suddenly, he stiffened, and the gash ruptured. Offal slopped over his boots, and with a rasping choke, he keeled over.

Jeb cursed himself for not just disabling him. Someone had paid Tharn to kill him, and though he had his suspicions, it never hurt to verify them. Coupled with that, the last thing he wanted was the sheriff making enquiries about another corpse, especially when it was obvious the husk wasn’t to blame this time. It didn’t take much to realize Jeb would be the prime suspect. However you looked at it, he’d gone and made his predicament a whole lot worse.

He reached down and took the purse from Tharn’s pocket. It was full of coin all right, and when he peeked inside, he reckoned it was gold, though there was scant light to see by. A lot of gold. Something told him only one person in Portis could afford that kind of blood money. It was enough to repair the damage of the seven-card, his and Dame Consilia’s, if he ever saw her again. The thought struck him it wasn’t his problem, but somehow her plight touched him. Beauty like that, reduced to a life of vain hope and the company of wasters like Slythe. He felt bad about losing her money, and, oddly for him, even worse about using her and discarding her like a half-eaten meal.

He shook his head as he pocketed the coin purse. There it was again: the same unsettling yearning that had overcome him that first night at the Crawfish. That first time he’d seen Maisie. The hardened shell that had kept him alive all these years had cracks in it and was in danger of sloughing off. And for what? Some ill-defined need, better suited to a child than a man. Some romantic notion of a home and a wife and a family who cared whether he lived or died. He hawked and spat, shook the thoughts from his mind. There was still a job to be done.

He set off after the hooded man. Perhaps if he caught him and forced a confession, the sheriff would see he’d acted in self-defense. It wasn’t a lot to pin your hopes on, especially given the bitter welcome the sheriff had given Jeb on his arrival in Portis.

He’d barely gotten into his stride, when a shrill scream came the vicinity of the Crawfish. He quickened his pace amid more screaming and the sounds of a scuffle. What he’d taken for a woman sounded more and more like a man. Someone had attacked the hooded thug, he realized. Or something.

His breathing came hard and ragged—far more than it should have for a man his age—and the air whistled in and out of his lungs.

A few more strides and he saw how wrong he was. The hooded man stood rooted to the spot, gawping at the tussle taking place on the high street. He backed into Jeb, spun past him, and ran back the other way. Jeb barely even registered it, he was so intent on what was happening up ahead.