The Crimson Shield (14 page)

‘Yours,’ Tolvis wrinkled his nose. ‘You won it fairly.’ He was breathing hard, still bemused he was alive. Gallow looked at the axe. It was a decent piece, similar to his
own and no small thing to give away.

‘That’s a fine axe and a fine gift then. I wish I had something that was its equal to give.’ He pulled his own axe from its loop on his belt and slid Tolvis’s in its
place. Then he held out his own. ‘Suppose I won’t be needing this one any more. It’s Marroc made but it has the blood of six Vathen on it.’

Tolvis stared at Gallow as if trying to read his mind. ‘I can’t take a gift from you, Truesword. I’d like to, but I can’t.’ He shook his head.

Gallow shrugged. ‘I have enough things hanging off my belt. Anything more would be uncomfortable. You can carry it for me, if you prefer.’

Tolvis took a deep breath and puffed his cheeks. He took the axe. ‘All right then.’

‘Do you know what Medrin wants?’

‘Not really. The Screambreaker said I should bring you back. Said something about there being something you needed to hear.’ He spat. ‘I know Medrin wants to go off looking for
the Crimson Shield of Modris. Maybe it’s something to do with that.’

Gallow laughed. ‘Well now, if you’d said all that at the start, we’d be halfway back by now.’

‘Wouldn’t have been half as much fun though, now would it?’ Tolvis laughed too, then shook his head and looked Gallow over. ‘Gallow Truesword eh? I remember him. You
I’m not so sure. Are you one of us or not?’

Gallow shrugged. ‘I suppose I’m a bit of both.’

S
ome days it seemed that every other Marroc in Andhun was called Jonnic. The harbour was full of them. There was Angry Jonnic and Laughing Jonnic
and Fat Jonnic and Thin Jonnic and about a dozen others. Now and then Grumpy Jonnic wished he’d been bald or red-headed or something else more obvious, but fate had endowed him with a dour
demeanour and an unremarkable unkempt appearance, and so Grumpy Jonnic he was, like it or not. It was little consolation that he was right about how often things turned out worse than they looked.
The Vathan horde drawing the forkbeards back from across the sea, there was a thing. He’d seen
that
coming clear as the sun, and now here they were. He did his best to avoid them but
it wasn’t always so easy.

‘Well?’

Valaric sat across the table. He had more scars than Jonnic remembered, most of them on the inside. The men with him were the Marroc soldiers from Lostring Hill. Years ago they’d all
fought the forkbeards together and lost. Jonnic reckoned you got a sixth sense for that sort of thing. They ought to have been friends, but something about them unsettled him. And then the Vathen
had come.

He took a deep swig of ale and glared at the other two Jonnics beside Valaric, Angry and Silent. ‘There’s a lot of them. Two thousand or so and more coming every day. They’re
eating everything and drinking the place dry.’ He spat on the floor. ‘This lot are demon-whores, that’s for sure. With the demon himself living in our whore of a duke’s
keep.’

‘Turns out the Widowmaker didn’t die at Lostring Hill after all, and never mind what—’

‘You think that’s news here?’ Jonnic hawked up a gob of phlegm. ‘You’re getting slow, Valaric. The Widowmaker came through the gates this afternoon.’

The look Valaric gave him after that was odd. Shifty, maybe. Troubled. ‘The Vathen are looking for him,’ he said after a bit. ‘I was wondering whether to help them, or whether
that was a bad idea. What’s this Medrin like?’

Jonnic spat again. ‘Twelvefingers the demon-prince? Worst of the lot.’ He looked around, nervous. You never knew who was listening. There were good Marroc, the ones like Valaric that
you could trust. Then there were the bad Marroc, the ones who’d sell you out for a handful of pennies. Most of the men sitting and drinking in the riverside tavern were men he knew, but there
were always a few strangers. He leaned forward. ‘He’s the one who’s been hanging people up in the square. So fond of his bloody ravens you’d think he was married to one.
Even his own kinsmen don’t seem to like him that much but they still do what he says. Don’t know if the Widowmaker’s any better but he can’t be any worse. Funny, him showing
up. Even the demon-beards thought he’d died at Fedderhun. Been drinking toasts to the end of his damned soul all week, we have.’

Valaric twitched. ‘Turns out he didn’t die after all. How many men here you trust?’

‘In Andhun?’ Jonnic shook his head. ‘Fifty, maybe. Don’t know they’d take up arms against the Widowmaker though. Don’t know that I would either.’

‘You’ve seen what they’re doing to us,’ snarled Valaric. ‘You happy with that?’

‘’Course I’m not bloody happy!’ Jonnic growled right back at him. ‘But what are you going to do with fifty swords, Valaric?’

‘Make it two hundred.’

‘And then what? Against two thousand forkbeards led by the Widowmaker?’ He laughed. ‘I don’t mind swinging an axe for you, Valaric, but not when there’s no point.
You’ll get us killed for nothing, and then this prick Twelvefingers, he’ll decimate the city. He’ll not baulk at murdering women and children, this one. You’ll have the
streets swimming red with his bloody ravens.’

‘You get your men ready for the call, Jonnic, and then we’ll see. There might be two thousand of them now but there won’t be so many when the Vathen are done.’

Jonnic shook his head. ‘They smashed the Vathen already, Valaric. You’re too late.’

‘No. I’ve seen their army and that was just the start.’ Valaric got up. ‘My money would be on the Vathen, if I had any. Doesn’t really matter though, does it?
Whoever wins, you don’t suppose they’re just going to wave and go home? That’s not what they do. And this time it’ll be worse, because if it’s the forkbeards,
we’ll just let them shove sticks up our arses and then ask for more. Like we already do.’

Jonnic watched him go.
That’s not what they do.
He was right about that. Valaric had had a family once. Wasn’t the forkbeards that had killed them either. Just a winter that
had been sharp and harsh, a wasting disease among the animals, and the whole village had simply frozen and starved to death, every last one of them. There were whispers of an Aulian shadewalker but
Valaric blamed the demon-beards. If he hadn’t been off fighting them, he’d have been in his home. He could have saved them or else died with them, one or the other.

Jonnic finished his drink and got up. When three forkbeards followed him out it didn’t seem that strange, not with so many of them in the city these days. Not until he turned down an alley
to the river and they still they followed him and then stopped to watch while he took a piss into the Isset. By then he knew he was going to die.

He turned. ‘So what do you three ugly
nioingr
want then?’

They closed around him. All three had knives at their belts and Jonnic had nothing, so he lunged at the nearest, pushed him back and pulled out the man’s knife for himself. The other two
grabbed him as he did it, one from each side. He stabbed backwards with the knife and one of the forkbeards shouted and fell away. ‘Maker-Devourer! He cut me!’ The other pulled him
hard, spinning him around, and head-butted him. Jonnic staggered. For a moment the night was filled with stars.

Arms tackled him from the side, lifting him up and throwing him down. He stabbed out with the knife again but this time they pinned his arm.

‘Maker-Devourer! The little mare’s killed me! Turn his face inside out!’

He caught sight of a flying boot in time to turn his face away. It smashed into the side of his head in an explosion of noise and light and pain. Someone stamped on his hand and he dropped the
knife. He screamed as they broke his fingers. When he looked up he could see that one of the three demon-beards was clutching his side, blood seeping through his fingers. After that he lay curled
in a ball while they kicked him and stamped on him and cursed.
Traitor! Bare-face! Nioingr! Feeble-finger! Mare!
Caught one last glimpse of the stars as one of the forkbeards lifted a lump
of wood and brought it down, and then nothing until a shock of cold water roused him again.

They’d thrown him into the river. Into the Isset. He felt the pull of the water dragging him towards the sea, dragging him down and sucking him under.

And then the darkness again.

T
olvis and Gallow rode back to Andhun together. Gallow made sour faces at the burial pits and the Marroc hung up over the streets of their own
city. Tolvis pursed his lips. ‘We never used to do this,’ he muttered. ‘The Screambreaker would never have had it.’

Gallow snorted. There were ways of saying things without having to put them into words. The relief at having the Screambreaker back was a solid thing among the few Lhosir he’d seen in
Andhun, real enough that Gallow could almost have reached out and grabbed hold and shaken it. Maybe that was why he hadn’t left Tolvis on the road.

The blood-streaked corpses looked down, mocking.
Stupid, coming back here.
Stupid, thinking he could make some difference to the Marroc. Stupid to have left his old life at all. He
almost turned right back round again.
Go home
, the bodies said.
Put things right with Arda. Go home and shout and scream and then hold each other tight and forget about us.

Tolvis sniffed and stretched his arms, cracking his shoulders. ‘I’m in your debt, Truesword. Don’t particularly want to be but here we are. Stuff Twelvefingers – the
Marroc make good beer. You want . . .’ He chuckled and shook his head. ‘What am I saying? You already know that. Those Vathan horses – Medrin will take them if he sees them.
He’s seized almost every horse in the city. Don’t see why he’d make yours an exception.’

‘You tell me that now?’

‘Well, I didn’t think I’d mention it when you had me flat on my back in the road, no. Didn’t seem the time, if you see what I mean. You want Medrin to have them or not?
Because if you don’t then now’s the time to say.’

‘Do I have a choice?’

Tolvis roared with laughter. ‘With the Vathen coming, I’d have have a hard time showing you a man who wouldn’t take them off you. It’s finding someone who’s still
here but who has the coin, that’s the trick.’ He jumped out of his saddle and curled a beckoning finger, pointing off the wide Gateharbour road and into a side street so narrow that
Gallow had to dismount and lead his horses in a line and Maker-Devourer help anyone who wanted to come the other way. ‘Benelvic the Brewer. We drank him dry, but he’s got a few carts he
uses to bring in beer from wherever he can get it. Twelvefingers tried to take his horses and Benelvic made like he was happy enough to give them up. Just wouldn’t be any more beer, that was
all, and so we told Twelvefingers where to stick it right there and then.’ He laughed. ‘Benelvic does favours for some of the other Marroc. Sort of thing that would have him hanging
from a wheel over the street if Medrin ever knew. Some of us do, but we don’t tell Medrin because we like our beer. We have an, ah . . .
understanding.
So he owes me a favour or
two.’

‘That sounds very Marroc of you.’

Tolvis didn’t rise to that. He pushed open a gate and led the way into a big yard filled with barrels, most of them empty. There was another gate on the other side, wide enough to take a
cart. As Gallow led his horses into the space, Tolvis pushed him gently back again. ‘Go on down to the river. There’s a tavern at the bottom of the street. I’ll meet you
there.’

‘Why?’

Tolvis kept pushing. There was a pained look on his face. ‘Because you look like a Marroc, and Marroc don’t have any money, and if he sees you and thinks you’re not one of us,
I won’t get as much for them, that’s why. Grow a beard, Gallow.’ He closed the gate with Gallow on the other side, left to the sounds of the Isset rippling its way to the sea at
the far end of the alley.

Benelvic turned out to be more than happy to have a handful of Vathan horses come his way for a fraction of their worth. Tolvis finished their business and sauntered down the
alley towards the river, leading his own horse and with a nice fat purse on his belt, smiling to himself but also a little wary. He found Gallow quickly enough, not in the tavern like he was
supposed to be but outside, standing on the river path over a dead Marroc, both of them soaking wet.

‘Can’t leave you alone, eh?’ Tolvis put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I was wondering where you’d gone. I suppose I should have warned you. There’s Marroc here who
see a Lhosir alone at night and don’t think too much about the consequences of a quick knife in the dark.’

‘Can you blame them?’ Gallow sounded bitter.

‘You hurt?’

‘Me?’ Truesword laughed, full of scorn. ‘I just caught the end of it. Three of our brothers from over the sea. They beat him half to death and then threw him in the river. No
idea why.’

Tolvis shrugged. ‘Marroc say stupid things to get themselves killed every day.’

‘
I’m
Marroc now.’ Gallow spun to face him.

‘No, you’re not.’

They stood by the water for a while, watching the Marroc, but he didn’t move. Drowned, by the looks of him when Tolvis knelt down to see. ‘You hauled him out again, did you?’
Stupid question. Who else? ‘Why? Thought you could save him?’

‘One of ours went away with a hole in him.’ Gallow was staring down the path as if he had half a mind to go after the three Lhosir, whoever they were. Tolvis caught his arm and
pulled him towards the warmth of the tavern.

‘Come and share a cup or two with me before we go up to the castle, Gallow. Medrin won’t notice. Best you know how things are just now. Leave this be. Not your business.’

‘Then what
is
my business? Why did we come across the sea?’

‘To kick the sheep and make them bleed and take their women and their gold and drink their beer, that’s why! Maker-Devourer, maybe you
are
one of them after all.’