Hannel Wekker’s grasp of Warinese was at best poor. Not for the first time, he was finding himself forced to play second fiddle to a man not much over half his age; a fact that was beginning to get on his nerves.
“No, she is not a whore. No, we are not criminals. What? What do you mean, are we from the circus again?”
James Balliol, the young man in question, was very glad his companions couldn’t understand the full content of the conversation he was having with the little desk-bound man in front of them.
Defeated, he turned to leave. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man, who ran what of an archive of paper the eclectic tax office had, turn and wander back into his office. The tax office mostly levied sales taxes, which were done on a city-by-city basis to support the army. The army, unlike in Chaltarian towns, was in firm evidence here and two guards stood outside and watched, narrow-eyed, as the three spies slunk out again.
Shouts could be heard from down the street; not an unusual sound, but these sounded particularly… harsh. The sound of human voices lashed against the buildings and echoed down the street.
And then they saw them, a mob of people, shouting and screeching. Some carried lumps of wood, others stones, and they were running towards the tax office. The poor unemployed workers were rioting, driven by their starvation. A few had lit their torches, and a rioting mass of starvation and flame poured towards them.
The three of them, and the few other people on the narrow street, were shoved to one side in the sheer mass of people. James gripped Katja’s wrist, less out of practicality than a desperate bid to make sure something he knew was still nearby.
“Come on, we need to get out of here?”
”Where is the Captain?”
“I don’t know, Kat. But come on. Please.”
He’d never called her Kat before, but suddenly, in the swirl or fear and fire, it seemed desperately natural, they tried to make their way back through the crowds, but it was like walking against a river in full flow.
And then, from the shouting, came the shots. Riots often happened in the desperation these formerly rural poor were shoved into, in the life where work got you a pittance and unemployment death. The response was similarly formulaic; no mercy, but lead bullets for retribution.
First the crack of one musket. Then another, then another, as the anger and fear turned to just fear and flight. The fires were cast down, the people running like rats. The troops rushed after the fleeing men, a few firing indiscriminately in their charge.
Hannel ducked out of sight. Finding shadows in the buildings was not far different to the trees of the russet-coat passes; the aim was just to make yourself a less obvious target. He’d long since lost sight of the others, but surviving was the first thing. Always surviving.
James and Katja were running for their lives. They ducked into a side street, and turned left, then right, then right, barely looking as boots pounded behind them and the
“It’s a dead end.”
There were still boots on the ground behind them. The two of them looked at one another as the men rushed at them. James, at last, breathed out.
“I’m sorry.”
It was all he had time to say before the first soldier caught up with them. James turned round, but too slowly; the soldier rammed the butt of his musket under James’ ribcage, winding him, and then shoved him into the arms of a second man. He advanced on Katja.
“Ooh, she’s got a hairpin! Look out!”
The young Ussotian shook her hair loose and gripped the pommel of her hairpin tight. Snickering, the soldier advanced on her. She whisked the pin through the air, coming within a finger’s breadth of his wrist, but they were cornered, he had no other distractions, and she only got one swipe before he smashed the butt of his gun into the side of her head and kicked her sprawling onto the floor.
An officer walked up into the street.
“Take the man, that coat looks like it might have some money to back him.”
He had a broad face, with a slightly rubbery quality, and wide shoulders. Looking down at the slumped figure of what had once been a noblewoman, an almost mischevious smile played across his face.
“And the girl.” He grabbed her hair, dragging her up to her feet, and shoved her into the grip of another man. “She looks rather pretty.”
Pearson, having had a few figures pointed out to him, wandered off into the smoke of the Barrel in search of information. Ti’ak wondered a little how many men wandered off in search of information with a four barrelled pistol in one hand, but kept his thoughts to himself. Keeping his thoughts closed was something the Grenlach had always been fairly good at in his long travels across the continent of Sarpedonia, switching from one band of travellers to another, just barely staying alive.
“You look somewhat discomfited, little sir.”
Mort Turanne looked carefully at the stocky figure in front of him. Ti’ak looked a little huddled, pulling the folds of his dark cloak around him a little tighter.
“I am a scholar at heart… it is easy to grow weary of danger when your heart does not seek it. I have travelled from the Grenlach lands to here, and the violence I have seen… it hurts to see it, let alone have to keep running from it.”
“How poetic. So, Grenlach, what do you think of me?”
“You’re a dangerous man. And you enjoy it. Your glasses are horn-rimmed and the lenses are well-made; you must probably have more than enough money to live comfortably somewhere other than among the underworld of Oris. I can therefore conclude that you enjoy their company and the lifestyle.”
“True enough. We’re not good men, people like Pearson and I. We’re often the ones who have to clear up the mess they leave behind them, though…
Surviving in this world’s more about holding your nerve than any special skills. I mean, you must have adventured a lot already. What was the most successful thing you did?”
“Ran away, very fast.”
“And the next most successful?”
“Ran away, slightly less fast.”
Mort sighed.
“You can keep running away from things, but that’s not always an option. Time to teach you Mort’s first rule of adventuring; when in doubt, set it on fire.”
“But I’m not good at setting things on fire! Scholar, remember? My only fighting training was in the militia back home, and you can’t even get our weaponry here!”
Mort only raised an eyebrow, barely reacting.
“I’m a scholar too at heart. Just because you’re a better man than me – sorry, better being – doesn’t mean you can’t be dangerous. You’ll just end up as dead weight when you most need to be pulling your weight otherwise. What you need to learn is how to use your brain to be effective in a fight.”
“How does that work? Headbutting?”
“No! You need to use things that don’t rely on your muscle strength, dexterity, or accuracy. Fire being the perfect example. Use your powers of observation, find your opponents’ weaknesses. There’s hardly a man alive who could fight me in this pub, not because I’m strong but because I’ve prepared the ground.”
Ti’ak said nothing, but looked – as far as the flat, shadowed face could be seen – distinctly uncomfortable. He… just hadn’t been involved, those other times. Then he’d found Nathaniel von Tamberdall, a man who didn’t let little things like legality or nationality or species get in the way of doing his job, and suddenly he’d had… home, of a sort. Almost, even, had friends… and then he’d volunteered for this, rashly but wanting to repay that trust.
A new face ducked into the room, and Pearson wandered over to talk to him. He’d already been listening intently to various shady figures, and threatened a few. This man looked a little more… streetwise, though. Focused, too.
At last, Pearson strode towards the bar. He looked almost agitated.
“There’s been a food riot in the middle of the city. Apparently bloody Balliol’s got himself dragged away. No idea what’s happened to Hannel. On the other hand, I know where we need to go. Turns out the guy with no legs had to have them amputated after finding and trying to rob the place.”
Ti’ak, had he been human, would have gulped. His ears, nevertheless, flicked back nervously.
“What will we do about the others?”
“I don’t know, but we’ve got a job to do here. And all getting back alive isn’t actually necessarily part of it.”
“We can’t leave them behind!”
Pearson looked almost grim.
“You can’t start caring, Ti’ak. Do the job. Have fun doing it if you can, crack some jokes with friends while you have them. But for god’s sake don’t start caring. We get the information, we get it back home. That’s it.”
“Pearson…”
“Stay here if you need to. We can’t storm a court building, Ti’ak. I’ll try and find Hannel and see what we can find, quick reconnaissance. We’ll get back to you with whatever we see and then see if we want to go in further. That’s what’s important.”
Mort laid a hand on Ti’ak’s shoulder.
”Let him.”
Pearson exhaled, done being serious.
“Now to do what I do best.”
He grinned at last, pulled a pistol from a pocket and tossed it up in the air, firing off a tripwire on the ceiling that sent a javelin whistling just above his head. Catching the gun, he ducked out of the door once more.
“I have to do something.”
Ti’ak looked at Mort, who put his head on one side, as if weighing him up. Then he reached under the counter, and produced a rather unusual weapon. It had a thick stock, with some sort of rotating chamber inside, but at the front it elongated into a long groove with a horn bow resting at the end.
“A Chukonua.”
He handed the repeating crossbow to Ti’ak, who looked at it in a sort of wonder. The traditional weapon of the Grenlach militia had found its way to this inn… and in an odd sort of way, as he cradled the stock, it reminded him of home.
“How...”
The innkeeper allowed himself to wink at the Grenlach.
“Go get ‘em.”
The courtroom was panelled in dark hardwood, an imposing statement of the power of the Union’s state. Dagalin Saye was not terribly used to the justice system – he had evaded it at times in his earlier career but never seen it first hand – but this opportunity seemed too good too miss if the reports were true. He’d had to leave the siege behind, but he doubted anyone would notice, let alone complain about the technical dereliction of duty.
He ducked out into the sunlight, and headed across to the prison on the other side of the square.
The siege lines were tightening around Nurreich. The tiny country was in itself a fortress, built in the centre of a steep-sided mountain range. It was just cut off by a single river valley from the rolling mountains of the Draklands; the valley and the plain on the other side were both massed with troops.
It was possibly, thought Alicar, one of the largest siege lines in history. Or at least, in the history he knew of. The Vampire was nevertheless one of Kahlenbach’s Legion, and had seen a fair few sieges since his creation.
He stalked through the camp, noting with a faint approval the deference, the bowing, the scurrying out of his path.
“Where is the General?”
”We don’t know, sir. He hasn’t been seen in some days.”
“He left?”
“On his own, sir. Went northwest up the road.”
“How strange. I would have thought I might have met him on the way then. No explanation at all?”
“Nothing. Wrote all the officers notes on what they needed to do, then went.”
“And you have no ideas on why?”
He sounded so human, thought the officer. So damned human. He’d been commanded Alicar before, one of the cleverer Vampires he’d come across. He liked to mask his lack of understanding of human brains with conversation; he lacked inspiration, but he was good at teasing it out of those around him in a way that rarely betrayed that it hadn’t been his all along. And he hadn’t spent much time playing politics, he’d gone for the army and now was governing the defeated province that had once been the Axiosan kingdom. He knew a few things about power, did Alicar.
“No, sir. No word, nothing.”
“Curious. Nevertheless, to business. I have brought as many militiamen as I can spare. I will take command of the siege for the time being. I want an errand runner as soon as possible, with a fast horse. The time has come to make a move, gentlemen.”
He meant it, and the officer knew it. However, the officer only knew one way in which he meant it. Alicar knew several.
Kaia gritted her teeth, and pulled the cannon-spike free. Dangerous work, but the walls had to hold. But it was all very odd indeed. You have an enemy, you think they can make Vampires at will. You find their largest army, it is entirely lacking in anything remotely of the night whatsoever. What is that about?
Nevertheless, they were here so they may as well be useful. Olaf walked over to where bodies of the four guards were lying in a neat pile, and looked down from the escarpment where the cannons were sat back down to the main Union camp.
“Get down! Down!”
The there of them huddled behind a cannon, and watched as a figure strode through the camp by torchlight. Men hurried out of their tents in rank and file; orders were being barked.
“Who is that?”
The plainsman stared, hawk-eyed.
”Vampire. Senior, old one. You can tell by the coat, he’s got medals and a lot of class.”
Kaia looked up.
“What does he look like?”
“Longish hair tied back, high hat, tapered jaw…”
”Wears a coat with slight tails? Carries pistols with gold butts?”
“Aye. You know him?”
She bit her lip.
“The beast that destroyed Axiosa? The thing that killed my father and my brother? The best holder of grudges in the known world? Oh, yes… I know Alicar.”
Then, suddenly, she grinned. Huar and Olaf looked at her quizzically, but she quickly explained.
"If the guard we killed was right and that was General Saye that left recently without warning, he's just caught him on a dereliction of duty. Which is exactly the charge on which Saye managed to take control of the Axiosa campaign from him. Alicar held a grudge against my family for an entire human lifetime for what we did at Jungra. I think he can spare half a decade for Dagalin Saye."
Dagalin brushed past, glancing to one side. There was a figure, hooded and cloaked, standing in the shadows. How interesting. It looked very like an escape attempt.
For a moment, he considered finding out, or telling the gate guards. That said, they looked pretty scrawny, and they could do with the initiative test. Instead, he plucked a dart from the lower lining of his coat, and after passing the guards he surreptitiously slotted it into a slim tube that was concealed in an inner pocket. That would be sufficient. He strode up the steps into the tower over the prison entrance. The room had a couple of grilles in the floor from where the duty captain could look down on the two guards below.
He stood over the guard captain, tall and pale. The square-jawed man looked up at him, and blinked in surprise.
“You know who I am.”
The man looked up. He went pale. Then a little paler.
”Yessir.”
“Three things, then. Firstly, I want to see the werewolf you apparently have cooped up here. Don’t bother denying it. Secondly, your prison is a tip and the security is terrible. And thirdly… now, what was the third thing?”
There was a quiet whoosh of air, a rattling gurgle, and then the thud of a dead body below them. And then another. Footsteps pattered off into the prison courtyard.
“Ah yes,” he said brightly. “That was it.”
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