Alann shrugged away from the old-stone. He looked once more across the ragged band before him, a family of sorts, pack rather than herd, a band of brothers who knew what lay at the core of him because they shared it, killers all. He looked down at the crimson weapons in his crimson hands and knew that moment of peace which happens when a thing surrenders to its nature.
“I will.”
Footnote – Red Kent has always been a reader favourite despite getting very little ‘screen time’. There’s a tradition in fantasy that the ‘hero’ is a great swordsman, and an implicit connection between quality of character and martial talent. Red Kent started off as a play on that, a character with great weapons skill but no corresponding gravitas, vision, strength of character etc. A man of ‘average’ character who just happens to be lethal in combat.
The Nature of the Beast
Screams tore the night, underwritten by the crackle of fire in thatch. The smoke itched at Sabitha’s nose, invading beneath the door. She saw glimpses of flame, orange through the cracks in the shutters.
When the door burst in, flying off its leather hinges, Sabitha didn’t turn from the table or the work that occupied her hands.
“Take a seat, I’ll be with you in a moment.” She let flow what little enchantment she had. It never took a woman much magic to earn herself the title ‘witch’ and after that the power of suggestion did most of the work. People are a suggestible lot, providing you choose the right words.
“I’ll take more than a seat, old woman!” He made a strange noise, a kind of ‘hur hur hur’ that she supposed must be laughter.
“Of course you will.” Sabitha turned and found herself amazed by the size of the man who now sat on the three-legged stool beside her stove. He was a foot taller than Ben Wood, who in turn stood a foot taller than Sabitha, even before age bowed her. And Sabitha had never thought of herself as short. “Would you take a cup of ale to start with?” The man wore ragged chainmail over a padded tunic and despite his great size no part of him was clean. Blood spattered a broad forehead, a raw cheekbone, and a blunt chin. Soot stained his shoulder and side, mud smeared his hip and leg, filth of many kinds clumped around his boots.
“Who’s that?” He nodded toward the table, narrowing pale eyes.
“A patient,” Sabitha said. “I treat the sick, heal the injured. She has the Wasting Grey. I’ve done my best but I doubt she’ll wake again. It’s in God’s hands now.”
“Huh.” The man made to spit, then scowled. “You’re a witch then.”
“A healer. They call me Mother Sabitha. And you are?”
“Rike.” He spoke it like a bark. The stool stood too short for him and his knees were almost at his chest. The dull, bloodstained sword across his lap looked to be nearly as long as Sabitha was tall. The man’s brow beetled in confusion, and at a scream from outside he started to rise.
“Had me an old yellow dog once.” Sabitha took a wooden mug from its hook on a rafter went across to the small keg where she kept her ale. “Stayed with me for years. Loyal, honest – well, as honest as any dog ever is – then one day he upped and bit me. Out of nowhere … bit me and wouldn’t let go.” She held Rike’s gaze, narrow and full of unfocused malice. “You can never know what moves a beast to action. Even the simplest of them will surprise you. Surprise themselves too, often as not.”
She held out the mug of ale, dark stuff with scattered islands of suds. Rike reached out and took it, scowling as if his arm were betraying him. “I don’t care about your dog.”
“My sister, Chella. Now she is a witch. A black-hearted one at that. Had herself a grey dog, vicious thing. Would go for anyone that so much as looked at it.” Sabitha watched the raider, his blunt, scarred fingers tight about the untouched ale. She drew on him as she spoke, pulling away what she could of his fury, snagging a memory here and there. They floated in her head like fragments of nightmare. Ugly pieces of an ugly life. She smiled her warmest smile. “The funny thing about those dogs-”
“I don’t care about your sister’s dog either.” Rike seemed to overcome his inhibitions and spat upon the floor. “Where’s your valuables, woman?”
“Funny thing about them dogs, Rike, was that they were brothers. Bitch whelped ‘em one after the other, grey then yellow.” Sabitha cracked her knuckles. It relieved the ache just a little. Outside figures ran this way and that, glimpsed for a moment in the open doorway, then gone. “You got a brother, Rike?”
“Price.” Rike nodded. “Out there.”
“Every family has a price.” Sabitha grinned at her joke. “We don’t ask for them, we don’t choose them, but they come with a price.” She took another mug and started to fill it. “The thing about that grey dog was that years after I had to take a rock to my yellow hound a wolf came into the village. Big beast it was, all ribs and foam and teeth. Had the dry-sickness you see, gone mad. It caught me out by Jenner’s barn. I was coming back from the woods, basket of mushrooms under one arm, my stick in the other. It would have taken more than an old woman’s stick to stop that wolf though.”
A red-face appeared in the door, eyes wild, soot-smeared. The wild eyes fixed momentarily on Rike and the head withdrew.
“That wolf wasn’t going to leave much of my insides on the inside. But old Grey comes charging out of my sister’s house and leaps right at him. They went down together, all teeth and fur. Only Grey came up in the end.” She raised her ale to her lips and took a long sip. Outside someone was sobbing. “The wild ones are like that. You can never know them, or what they’ll do.”
“Huh.” Rike shook his head and put down the ale untouched.
A raider burst in through the open doorway, a lanky man with long hair in black rattails, clad in leather armour with wolf skins thrown over, still sporting the legs and trailing paws. He held a spear which he levelled at Sabitha. Whether he saw Rike by the stove she couldn’t say but it would be hard to miss so large a man. In any event the large man didn’t miss the smaller one. Rike surged up and clouted the newcomer around the head, so hard that he fell bonelessly to the floor and lay there without motion, blood spreading on the dirt floor beneath his head.
“Thank you, Rike. I do believe that wolf meant me harm.”
Outside, the shouts and screams were becoming fewer and the crackle of fire more steady. By dawn the village of Jonholt would be ashes. A light rain had begun to fall. Wet ashes.
“You’ve been cut, Rike.” Sabitha pointed to Rike’s wrist where something had sliced him, leaving an ugly gash a couple of inches long.
Rike blinked at the injury in surprise.
“I could tend it for you,” Sabitha said, her voice a sing-song, calming and rhythmic. “It could sour if not, and that’s no way for a warrior to end his days.”
Rike scowled then nodded, beckoning her closer. Sabitha took her bag from the shelf above her cot and knelt before him drawing his wrist closer. She fished out her needle and thread along with the pot of ointment she used for wounds, black ginger and thyme in a little oil. Rike growled as she set the first stitch.
“Wasn’t there a woman on that table?” He peered over her shoulder.
“No.” Sabitha set another stitch.
Another man appeared in the doorway, fat this one, jowly with it, dripping with the strengthening rain. “Come on! We’re going. Can’t stay.”
“Bugger off, Burlow!” Rike glared at the man, then as he turned to go, added, “And take Kevtin with you. The fat man barged in, grumbling and took hold of the fallen man’s ankle. He dragged him out into the rain, the legs of his wolf skins trailing.
Sabitha continued her stitching, tsking at Rike when he flinched. “A great big warrior like you scared of a little needle.” She took her time, waiting for the other raiders to leave. She had the big man under her glamor. All that weight of muscle and so little brain to drive it. He truly was like one of the dogs in her story, though that had had no more truth to it than anything else she’d told him. Her sister had been true though – Che
lla would make a short end of Master Rike if she were here. At last Sabitha tied the thread off and stood up.
“There.”
Rike sucked his teeth and inspected the work, still seeing the wound that wasn’t there. He took on a sly look. “I’d best pay you then. So it won’t get jinxed.”
Sabitha smiled inwardly. She would need as much coin as she could get. She doubted Rike’s friends had left much of the village standing or many of its inhabitants alive. She would need to move on, set up somewhere new. “Gold is the best seal.”
Rike muttered to himself and fished in his pocket. Coin chinked against coin and he drew out several gold pieces, selecting the smallest of them before returning the others.
“There!” He placed it in her hand.
“Thankee.” She resisted the urge to bite the coin and turned instead to put it away. “Drink your ale, Rike.” She let the remnants of her power flow around the suggestion.
Leaning over her cot she tapped the coin to the wall-post and let it slip in. A glamour stronger than any she could cast hid the slot it passed into. Her sister’s work, though where that evil crone might be now she couldn’t say. Chella had taken to necromancy long ago and followed where it led.
“RIKE!” The shout whirled Sabitha round towards the door. An enormous man, possibly even larger than Rike, stood outside, stooping to look in under the lintel. “Get out here! The others are already on the road!”
Rike got up, also stooping to prevent putting his head through the roof. He held his sword in the hand whose wrist Sabitha had stitched. “Coming.” With a lazy thrust he skewered Sabitha through the stomach. It hurt more than she imagined such a thing might and she folded around the cold iron, spitting curses in the old tongue.
“Can’t trust a dog any more than you can trust a witch.” Rike twisted the blade and the old witch screamed.
“You should have done that before, when there was time.” His brother Price withdrew his head and started to walk away.
“Had to wait for you to show me where the gold was, didn’t I?” Rike pulled his blade clear and let Sabitha fall. “Witches always have the best loot.” He drew back his sword for a swing. “But they hide it so well!” And hacked at the wall-post. It splintered, spilling gold and silver from its hollow interior.
Sabitha could see nothing but the floor now, her strength flowing from her. She could smell smoke and hear the crackle of flame. The other brother must have managed to fire the thatch despite the rain. Above the sound of the roof burning Sabitha could hear Rike’s chuckles and the chinking of her coin as he scooped it into his pockets. His laughter had a certain innocence to it, something kept over from a childhood rather than the humourless sound he’d made when he first sat down.
The witch lay on her floor, bleeding, dying, while the man stole all that she owned. She had often pondered death, though unlike her sister she had never come to terms with it. It surprised her to find that now, with a sword hole through her middle, her thoughts were not of the journey ahead but firmly on the moment, rooted in revenge. She couldn’t allow this man to triumph over her so casually, to take her gold and forget her before it was even spent. Sabitha had never been much of a witch, but the dying curse of a witch, even a weak one, holds power. How to curse this brute though? He wasn’t old, not yet thirty, practically a boy. He had no great fear of death. She was glad he hadn’t drunk the ale. Poison would have been too easy. Even that poison.
Sabitha bled and chewed on her revenge. Rike hadn’t the imagination for great fear. He had nothing he cared for, no-one whose loss would touch him. He stood literally beyond her revenge, incapable of feeling any sorrow deep enough to compensate her. If his brother fell dead in the next hour the brute would shrug and loot his corpse.
Rike rose, patting jingling pockets and strode toward the door. All about him the smoke coiled, the flames above starting to bite. Sabitha saw only his boots and muttered her curse from numb lips.
“You’ll learn to care. It might take a lifetime, but you’ll learn. You’ll find someone you can call brother and mean it. And you’ll lack the words to let them know or any quality to make them care. And at the last … you will fail them. And then my blood will take them from you.”
Rike left the hut and the smoke closed behind him. Sabitha lay around her hurt and felt the heat of the fire. Hell waited for her. Her life had not been a good one and she would leave nothing behind. Nothing but her curse.
It wouldn’t take effect immediately. It might take years, for the brute’s skin was thick and her powers weak. But one day … one day … it would make him deep enough to hurt. And then hurt him.
And perhaps Chella might even be the one to strike that blow.
Footnote – Readers expressed interest in a story about Rike. I’ve shied away from using him as the point-of-view. I think there’s more to be learned from the outside.
The witch’s curse comes to pass at the end of Emperor of Thorns. Rike fails to do the last thing Jorg asks of him, and we can imagine that it’s because Jorg means something to him. Moments later Sabitha’s sister ends the matter.
Select Mode
They call me a monster and if it were untrue the weight of my crimes would pin me to the ground. I have maimed and I have murdered and if this mountain stood but a little higher I would cut the angels from their heaven. I care less for accusations than for the rain that soaks me, that runs down every limb. I spit both from my lips. Judgment has always left a sour taste.
“Keep moving!” And he strikes me across the shoulders. The staff is thick and polished from hard use. I imagine how he’ll look when I make him eat it. Avery, they call him.
There are five left to guard us now, twenty when they found us on the Orlanth Road. A man like the Nuban doesn’t give up easy but two against twenty are poor odds, especially when one of the two is a child. He surrendered before the Select had even drawn their horses up around us. It took me longer to reach the same decision, hampered by my pride.
“Pick it up!” The stick catches me behind the knee and I stumble, loose rocks scattering beneath my feet, rolling away down the steep path. Rope chafes at my wrists. We exchanged our weapons for rope, but at least the odds have narrowed. They set only five men to take us into the mountains for judgment. Two against five are the best odds I’ve had in a while.
The Nuban is ahead of me, huge shoulders hunched against the downpour. If his hands were unbound he could throttle four of them while I fed Avery his staff.
Back on the Orlanth Road the Nuban had shrugged off his crossbow and let it fall. Set his short sword on the ground, leaving only the knife in his boot against the chance of discovery.
“One black as the devil and the other’s not thirteen!” Avery had called out when they surrounded us, horses stamping, tails flicking.
A second rider leaned from his saddle and slapped Avery, a cracking blow that set the white print of his hand on a red cheek.
“Who judges?” A thin man, gray, but hard-eyed.
“The arch, Selector John.” Avery pushed the words past clenched teeth, his scowl on me as if it were my handprint on his face.
“The arch.” And Selector John nodded, looking from one man to the next. “The arch judges. Not you, not I. The arch speaks for heaven.” He rode between us. “And if the man, or this boy, are Select then they will be your brothers!”
And now the pair of us walk, soaked, freezing, beaten toward judgment on the mountain, wrists bound. With Avery’s staff to encourage us on, and four more of the Select to see we don’t stray from the path.
I choose each step, head down, rain dripping from the black veil of my hair. I wonder at this arch of theirs, puzzle how an arch could judge, and what it might say. Certainly its words have power. The power to bind Selector John’s disparate band together and hold them to his command.
“If you are Select you will ride with me,” he had said.
“If not?” the Nuban rumbled.
“You won’t.”
And that seemed to be all that underwrote the Select, feared across the north counties of Orlanth, famed for their loyalty and discipline. Men taken at random from the road and judged in secret, bound by nothing but the good word of some arch, some relic of the Builders no doubt, some incomprehensible toy that survived their war.
The water runs in rivulets between my boots, their frayed leather black with it.
“Hell—” Avery’s cry turns into something inarticulate as his slip turns into a sprawl. Even his staff can’t save him. He lies for a moment, embracing the mountainside, stunned. As he starts to rise I skip forward and allow myself to fall, letting the whole of my weight land behind my knee as it hits the back of his neck. The sound of bone breaking is almost lost in the rain. With my bound hands pressed to his shoulder blades I manage to stand before the others reach me. Avery does not stand, or move, or complain.
Rough hands haul me back, a knife at my throat, colder than the wind. John stands before me, a hint of shock in pale eyes unused to such expression.
“You murdered him!” he shouts, fingers on the hilt of his sword, closing on it, opening, closing.
“Who judges?” I shout back and a laugh rips its path from me.
I slept until my ninth year, deep in the dream that blinds us to the world. The thorns woke me. They gave me sharp new truths to savour. Held me as my little brother died, embraced me for the long slow time it took my uncle’s men to kill my mother. I woke dark to the world, ready to give worse than I got.
“I will see this arch and listen to its pronouncement,” I say. “Because if it speaks for heaven then I have words of my own to speak back.”
Deep in the cloudbank lightning ricochets, making the thunderheads glow, a flat light edging the slopes for a heartbeat. The rain hammers down, pricked with ice, but I’m burning with the memory of those thorns and the fever they put in my blood. No absolution in this storm—the stain of sin is past water’s touch. The wounds the thorns gave turned sour, beyond cleansing. But heaven’s arch waits and suddenly I’m eager to let it speak of me.