‘Absolutely,’ he replied. ‘And a round of drinks for all my friends.’ With that he slapped a handful of coppers on the bar top. ‘Keep them coming, Uli. And have one yourself.’
At the promise of free drinks, Olleg and Gerlin finished their card game and practically fell over one another in their rush to get to the bar. Olleg sported a wide grin that split his fat face. Gerlin still wore his scowl.
‘Ryder, you old dog,’ Olleg bellowed for the entire bar to hear. ‘Where’ve you been hiding yourself these past few days?’
‘Here and there, Olleg. You know me – places to go, people to see.’
Olleg laughed and gave him a knowing wink. Uli placed a row of tankards on the table and filled them with wine from a pewter jug.
‘More like people’s wives to see,’ said Karll suddenly, raising his head from his drink and giving Merrick a reproachful look.
‘I never meant it to go so far, old friend,’ said Merrick, grasping one of the tankards and offering it to Karll. Olleg and Gerlin also took one. ‘Here’s to water under the bridge. We’ve all been friends a while now. Let’s drink to the future, not dwell on the past.’
‘Aye, the future,’ said Olleg, raising his tankard.
Reluctantly, Gerlin and Karll raised their tankards and the four of them, along with Uli, drained them with gusto.
When they’d all slammed their tankards back on the bar, and Uli began to fill them once more, Merrick slapped Karll on the arm.
‘Never mind, old mate. Have another drink.’ Uli had filled the tankards by now and Merrick was quick to offer Karll another one.
‘Yes, another drink,’ shouted Olleg. ‘I don’t remember a woman I couldn’t forget after a good drink.’ He raised his tankard to the ceiling.
Merrick furrowed his brow trying to follow the fat gambler’s logic, but it was too early in the day for any of that, and he satisfied himself by draining his tankard and demanding Uli fill it again.
Four rounds later, the room was satisfyingly hazy and the four of them were laughing together again like old times. It was good to block out the world and the Guild and mad slavers, to have a drink with friends without the threat of imminent violence.
The afternoon seemed to go by in a blur. Olleg laughed longest and loudest, but as ever became less annoying the more Merrick had to drink. They even managed to raise a smile from Karll, and it seemed Olleg had been right about the forgetting his woman thing. Gerlin tried to retain his sour expression, but Merrick managed to win him over eventually, and they were soon laughing like little boys about nothing in particular.
As the sky outside started to darken, a gaggle of drunken seamen stumbled in, doubling the number of patrons in an instant. A couple of them looked as if they were up for a bit of trouble, calling Olleg a ‘fat fucker’ on more than one occasion, as well as spotting Merrick for a preening fop – but he couldn’t argue there. It only took two rounds of ale for them to settle in though, and in no time the whole bar was joined together in a raucous chorus of ‘The Bosun’s Lost his Rigging’, quickly followed by a few verses of ‘My Dog Digs Deep Ditches’. Olleg insisted on singing the ‘put a stoat right down his britches’ line louder than any of the sailors.
In all the excitement, Merrick realised he hadn’t taken a piss since he’d arrived – no small feat considering the amount he’d had to drink – and stumbled out the back, still laughing at Olleg, at the sailors, at life in general.
He breathed an audible sigh as his piss broke free and pattered into the gutter. Merrick had always pissed like a horse and derived much pleasure from it – many said it was a sign of good health and who was he to argue with that? Once finished he fumbled to tie the drawstring of his breeks, glancing up at the moon, which glared back down at him, fat and blood red.
The killing moon.
‘Not a good sign, is it, Ryder?’ In his surprise he almost caught the end of his pecker in the knot he was tying. ‘Red moon’s a bad omen.’
Merrick turned, wobbling slightly, squinting to see who had been watching him through the gloom. ‘Who’s there?’ he called. ‘I warn you, I’m armed.’
‘We can see that.’ A figure walked out of the shadows of the alley, and Merrick felt the hairs prickle at the nape of his neck.
‘Shanka! How good to see you.’
‘I bet it is,’ said Shanka the Lender.
His long, lank hair framed a hard, angular face that was all malice and cruelty. Why had Merrick decided to borrow money from such a man? Was he insane? But then why did anyone borrow from men like Shanka – it was desperation.
‘I was going to come and see you, right after I’d—’
‘Save it, Ryder. It’s too late for any of that shit. You owe me, you’re overdue and it’s time to pay. One way or the other.’
Merrick knew without checking that the money he’d had in his coinpurse was all but gone. Not that it mattered; even before he’d bought drinks for the entire tavern he hadn’t had enough to cover the debt he owed.
‘Now, wait a minute, Shanka. I can pay. I’m working on a job for the Guild even as we speak.’
‘Yeah, it looks like it. If you were working for the Guild you wouldn’t be pissing it up in The Soggy Dog. You’d be doing your best to finish the job so they could pay you … and you could pay me.’
‘It’s the truth,’ Merrick said, more desperately than he would have liked.
The shadows behind Shanka suddenly moved and two more figures stepped forward, broad, dangerous-looking bastards. Merrick eyed the door back to the tavern, but before he could even think of using it, someone walked through, someone big and burly he didn’t recognise; another one of Shanka’s enforcers.
‘I want my money or I’ll take something you won’t want to lose. What’ll it be?’
‘You’ll get your money, Shanka. It’s a promise. I’ve just got to finish the jobuuufff!’
The nearest one of Shanka’s men hit him in the gut. It was a solid blow, one that went from your belly right down to your toes. Merrick was winded but he managed to stay on his feet, staggering back against the wall, conscious that he was wading ankle deep through muddy piss.
There was nothing else for it. He would have to teach these fuckers a thing or two. There was no way he was letting Shanka and his thugs take liberties.
Merrick stood as straight as he could, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword, the other gripping the top of the sheath.
‘I feel it only fair to warn you, Shanka, I know how to use this. Don’t test me, or I’ll be forced to draw steel. I was schooled in the Collegium of House Tarnath, taught the sixty-six Principiums Martial by Lord Macharias himself. I’ve killed twelve men in single combat and I’ll feel no remorse when I stand over your bleeding fucking corpses. Now back off.’
Though his men looked to one another uncertainly, Shanka was distinctly underwhelmed. ‘Break this cunt’s legs,’ he ordered.
If his men bore any doubts, Shanka dispelled them instantly with his command.
Merrick drew his sword … or at least the hilt of his sword. As he pulled it free the blade remained stuck in the ill-fitting sheath, leaving Merrick holding nothing but a useless hunk of metal.
Bollocks!
Shanka’s men were bearing down on him now, the first one clearly fighting the urge to laugh his head off. Merrick flung the hilt, which hit the man square in the face, and then he tried his best to bravely flee. He hadn’t taken three steps before another of Shanka’s men hit him in the jaw.
Merrick fell against the wall, his knees giving out beneath him. Another blow to the face and he was lying on the ground, wallowing in a pool of piss and mud.
They weighed in then, sticking the boot in, punching him mercilessly. He felt one of his ribs crack, curled into a ball, but then he took one straight in the spine. Merrick yelped, trying to cover his head and his body and his back, but he simply didn’t have enough arms to block the deluge of kicks and punches that were raining down. His nose burst. His lips cracked. One of his teeth ca
me loose.
They grabbed his arms, hauled him up, and through fast swelling eyes Merrick could see Shanka leering at him from behind dark locks of lank greasy hair.
‘What did I tell you, you little cu—’
A commotion behind Shanka made him turn. One of his men collapsed forward as if he’d been felled with an axe.
Merrick saw a figure in the shadows, moving fast and gracefully. Shanka’s thugs dropped him to the piss-wet floor, and he could do little more than listen to the cries and squeals of men in pain, men in a panic as they were beaten, a crack of a bone breaking, the slap of a body hitting the dirt.
He must have been slipping away fast. Must have taken one too many knocks to the head, because when the commotion had stopped, and he was just about to slide into oblivion, he was sure he heard a woman speak his name.
An angel spoke his name.
TWENTY-SIX
River had studied the palace layout so diligently that the images were scrawled across his mind’s eye as elaborately as they had been on the vellum scrolls the Father had given him.
He stood in the darkness of the street, waiting to go forward, but he had already done this a hundred times in his imagining, already scaled the walls, already stalked the palace corridors avoiding the Sentinels as they went about their duties.
Gaining entry to the Crown District had been easy enough; the wall that surrounded it was not high, the guards not vigilant enough to stop River as he flowed past, silent as the night. The sentries that roamed the palace would be a different prospect, however. Fortunate, then, that the Father of Killers had someone in the palace, someone who was happy to provide them with detailed layouts. Someone only too willing to patiently plot the movements of the palace guards as they patrolled the massive building.
Two burly sentries moved towards him along the base of the hundred foot wall that surrounded Skyhelm. They were silent, vigilant, rather than locked in conversation as the guards in the Crown District had been. But despite their watchfulness they were just men: they would not see and they would not hear.
River struck out from the dark as they passed by, his footfalls making no sound as he sprinted to the base of the wall and ran eight feet up the stone face before leaping to grasp the thick cornice that sprouted fifteen feet up its side. He pulled himself up easily, gripping the stone wall with fingers of iron, moving like a spider, keeping out of the light given off by the lanterns that ran along the wall’s base.
Slowly and silently he eased his way up, keeping himself flat. He knew there would be more sentries at the summit, and were one of them to peer over the side they might well see his black shadow moving towards them like a giant insect. This was the most dangerous time, when he was the most vulnerable, but he could not rush it; he had to remain silent.
When he was almost at the top of the wall he paused and waited, listening for footfalls on the causeway above. They came, slowly but surely, as he waited in the dark.
If the Father’s spy had told them true, it would be a crossbowman, lightly armoured. The man’s footsteps approached inexorably, then stopped right above where River clung. His heart began to race, but he managed to quell any panic. He was River, he flowed with the current, raced to meet the sea. Nothing could stop him.
After a brief pause, the footsteps moved on, and River breathed out long and slow. Once their sound became more distant, he slowly heaved himself up, peering over the lip of the wall. There was no one around in either direction, so River climbed onto the walkway and slipped silently into the shadows.
Even in the dark he could make out the palace, and the grounds surrounding it. He peered through the dimness, trying to spy the sentries that stood between him and the palace. To the north was a path that led up from the main gate. It was laid with fine gravel that would make a hellish racket underfoot and quickly give away his whereabouts. To the west were Skyhelm’s gardens, where the lawn would hide his footfalls, but where also patrolled a sentry and his hound. He couldn’t see them yet, though the dog might well have caught his scent – a strange new smell in the grounds. But River must press on.
He moved forward, keeping his head low and slipping down the stair that led from the walkway. Most of the palace grounds were brightly lit with ornamental lanterns, but there was still enough shadow for River to conceal himself. The gardens were in darkness, and he was only too eager to reach them and bathe in the concealment they offered.
Once his feet touched the soft grass, River knelt and reached for the sack tied to his back. He loosed it, taking out the contents that slumbered there, and untied the bonds that secured their tiny feet. From a pouch at his waist he took a vial and unstoppered it. The two rabbits he had brought were drugged, but only mildly. The smelling salts in the vial were enough to wake them with a start, and each one ran off in a desperate panic, hurtling into the dark as though a fox were after them.
River watched and waited, still as the lake in summer. Almost immediately he was greeted by the sound of barking off to the left, along with the desperate shout of a sentry trying to curb his dog. As the snarling moved in one direction, River moved in the other, closing in on the palace.
Torches surrounded the base of Skyhelm, lighting up the magnificent building like a pyre. It rose up into the air, myriad windows adorning its faces, towers rising still further out from the main structure. The corridors within would be like a maze, but one River had studied intently. He knew them by heart.
An armoured sentry walked beneath a pergola at the base of the building, and River waited in the dark for him to pass before sprinting into the light. He planted a foot on one of the granite pillars that held up the structure and leapt to the roof.
His feet padded quietly across the tiled roof, making barely a sound as he reached the wall and the base of a huge window. It was open – the Father’s man in the palace had done his work well.
River slid the window open a touch more, squeezing himself into the room beyond. It was huge inside, a hall clearly used for entertaining the elite of the city, but now it lay silent and in darkness.
He moved across the marble floor to the northern end of the room where stood a massive double door. As he opened it, a chink of light lanced in and he paused, eyes fast adjusting to the corridor beyond. There were no sentries and he moved out into the well-lit corridor, feeling vulnerable once again in the harsh light, but keeping his heartbeat steady with the power of his will, a will none could withstand, like the coming of the tides.
A staircase rose up at the end of the corridor, which would take him to the upper levels of the palace. There, he would find fewer guards. And there he would find his mark.
Before he could take two steps a voice echoed down the corridor, rooting him to the spot.
‘Who goes? Stop where you are.’
An armoured figure was moving towards him from the other end of the passage. But how could this be? River had studied the plans: he knew the patrols, had learned them until he could recite them in his sleep.
Clearly the Father’s man was not as proficient as they had believed.
River merely stood tall in the corridor, showing the palms of his hands, which were splayed out to either side, giving the sentry no reason to think he would resist. The armoured man had drawn his sword now, brandishing it threateningly, but they were in a tight corridor – he would not be able to make a swing.
Not that River would ever have given him the chance.
Before he could reach out with a huge gauntleted hand, River moved in, one hand pushing the sword aside, the other reaching to grab the lip of the sentry’s helmet. He slammed the man’s head into the wall, the resultant clang louder than River would have liked, but necessary if he was going to down him quickly. The greatsword went clattering to the floor as the man struggled desperately to grab hold of his assailant, but River was on him now, moving with speed and grace, like the rapids flowing through the mountains, and had his arm about the sentry’s throat. The man was strong, gripping River’
s arm with incredible force, but he would never be able to wrestle himself free, not before he succumbed to lack of air. Steadily the strength left his limbs, and he sagged in River’s arms.
With some difficulty, River managed to pull the guard into the great, dark hall, concealing him in the shadows. There was no need to kill him: he would not wake for some time.
River took the stairs three at a time, still silent as the death he had come to bring, brushing past a curtain, like the currents past the reeds. This time, though, he was even more vigilant. If the Father’s man inside the palace had made one mistake, how many more might he have made? River could not afford to be stopped before he completed his task, could not afford to stumble into another lone sentry, or two, or three. Though he would be able to dispatch them easily enough, the alarm would most likely be raised, making it doubtful he would reach his mark before he was overwhelmed.
River stopped at the end of another passage, hearing the laughter of men through an open door. It was a ramshackle chamber that smelled strongly of male musk and pipe smoke. As he moved past, the men inside, unaware he was there, japed with one another, their faces creased in mirth.
It made River pause for a moment as he passed, remembering one of the Father’s lessons.
Laughter is for the weak, he had said, with a swipe of the lash. River had flinched, his movement provoking yet another stinging lick of the scourge. It reveals the hearts of men, and they too are weak. Your heart must be stone, like the pebble on the riverbed, unyielding, immovable.
He had often wondered what it must be like to share such mirth with another man. River had brothers, true, but he shared no brotherhood with them. They did not laugh like others, and they shared no love.
Such things were not for him. He was not weak like other men. He was strong, like the current after spring rains. Not prone to the failings that afflicted the weak. It was why he could not be stopped.
Up and up he went, the pattern of the corridors vivid in his mind. He knew his way before he reached a junction, could see the route laid out, forming before him even though he had never trodden these hallways before. Here and there were patrols of guards; here and there were courtiers and serfs going about their night time business, but River was a shadow, moving about them like a hushed breeze.