The Black Hawks

FOUR

‘Welcome home, Master Chel! Back in time for the feast!’ Heali fell in step alongside Chel, fleshy face all smiles. It was, Chel supposed, nice to encounter someone pleased to see him for a change.

A dozen Brothers of the Thorn, their robes the colour of blood in the evening sun, had flanked the crude carriage that passed for royal conveyance. Chel had been stationed on its back plate, bounced by every rut and divot, exhausted by the first hour on the road. He’d exchanged little more than a shocked sentence with his sister before they’d swept him away, but her confused and reproachful stare had stayed with him long after Omundi’s broken valley dropped from view, along with her parting words.

‘Duty isn’t swearing to obey a person, Bear. It’s about service to the kingdom, its people. It’s about trying to make things better. Serve the people, Brother Bear. Make Father proud.’

He’d had no response for her.

Vashenda had ignored him on the road – which just served to make his anxiety worse – with the exception of a pointed remark to the prince that he was at least properly guarded for his return voyage. ‘Do you know what would happen if any harm came to you, highness?’ she’d said. ‘Do you know the trouble it would cause?’

With the sun sinking over the bay at their journey’s end, the column was dispersing at the city gates, the body of their escort departing for the croft and taking the carriage with them. Vashenda remained, a harbinger, to supervise the prince’s slow climb to the winter palace in person. Chel wondered if Hurkel lay up there in wait. The population of the refugees’ shack-village at the foot of the outer walls had trickled back after the screaming exodus of the days before, but the port’s fringes still looked strange and empty to Chel’s eyes. Odd shapes dangled from the walls, indistinct in the gloom of the structures’ shade, but his gut told him they were bodies. Bone-weary and ill-at-ease, part of him was glad when Heali appeared, unbidden, at his elbow, as what remained of the royal procession approached the gates.

‘You survived then, Heali? What did I miss?’

The big man chuckled. ‘A lot of bluster, Master Chel, then a lot of nothing. Norts calmed down a bit after making their point on the fort.’

‘I heard.’

Heali leaned in close. ‘Truth be told,’ he said, his odour unimproved in the days since Chel had seen him last, ‘the duke calmed down a fair stripe too. Think maybe he saw the merit of negotiation.’

‘Perhaps the duke’s a sensible man after all. Have they said what they want?’

Heali shrugged. ‘They’ve declared a blockade, it seems. Something about mistreatment of a citizen, or the return of stolen property … but what would a lowly guardsman know of international intrigue?’

‘What indeed?’

‘So now they just sit there, stopping up the bay. Nothing goes in or out. People in the port are going mad, whole place is …’ he waved a frustrated hand ‘… constipated.’

They began to climb the winding trail to the palace. The black ships lurked at the edge of Chel’s view, out at the harbour’s fringe, huge and dark and implacable. Heali followed his gaze, looking pained. ‘There have been some incidents. Place is swarming with refugees and pilgrims, watch can’t control all the outsiders, their notions of justice.’

Chel thought of the little man and his oven, his stern-eyed little daughter, and felt suddenly sick. He didn’t ask, afraid to hear the answer.

‘Duke’s insisting the festival is going ahead, ordered the folks to stay for the celebrations, but word’s out that he’s sent most of his own family south. Not sure most in the port can summon the enthusiasm.’ He scratched himself. ‘And you’re quite the popular fellow, it seems.’

‘Popular? What do you mean?’ Chel was hoping for something positive, but Heali’s words did nothing but stir queasiness in his gut.

‘Had a few folks asking after you – you know the types, funny little haircuts, like to wear a lot of red. Don’t worry, I told them you were long gone, although I wasn’t expecting you to come riding back into port by return, was I?’

‘Five bloody, blasted hells …’

‘Still, word is you’re the prince’s man, now. Quite the stroke of fortune, that; might even keep your ecclesiastical friends at bay. If you’re lucky.’ He raised a beetle-thick eyebrow. ‘Makes you a connected fellow, though, wouldn’t you say? An elevation like that could provide many opportunities. As it happens—’

They approached the palace gate, which stood wide open as ever. Chel blinked. ‘What does it take to close this bastard? City’s full of destitute and vigilantes, bay’s full of heathen alchemists, the palace is piled with feast-food and lingering nobility and still nobody thinks to shut the fucking gate?’ He threw up his hands. ‘How in five hells am I going to protect that pointless prince if we can’t even keep the door closed?’

Heali was looking at him through narrowed eyes, his gaze glittering in the light from the gate-side braziers. ‘You expecting trouble, Master Chel?’

Chel tutted in irritation. ‘No more than I have already. But two nights ago, I swore to give my life that Tarfel Merimonsun might keep his, and I’m thrice-damned if I’m giving it up to the first mask-wearing Nort or murderous Rau Rel partisan who wanders in off the fucking mountainside.’

The courtyard was eerily empty, devoid of its customary bustle. The minor damage from the preceding days had been patched and festival decorations were distastefully strung from every pillar and ledge, but unease permeated the atmosphere like a stink. No one from the palace was there to meet them. Chel wondered if Mercunin the ominous porter was still around.

Heali was still talking. ‘… fellow like you who walks beside a prince, he’s got a certain cachet, might find certain opportunities …’

Vashenda had stopped ahead of them and was addressing the prince in the manner of a stern master to a hopeless pupil. She instructed him to wait, then swept around to face Chel and Heali. Heali muttered something and excused himself immediately. With the slightest frown, Vashenda moved off to confer with another robed figure. Chel and the prince were left alone at the edge of the deserted courtyard.

Tarfel affected a semblance of regal bearing as he surveyed the festival decorations. Chel tried to sound reassuring. ‘Not what we were hoping for, highness. You were supposed to be safe with your brother by now, and I was supposed to be on my way home.’

‘No, no, indeed.’ For a moment the mask dropped, and Tarfel looked at him with wide, watery eyes. ‘Vedren Chel – our bargain stands. We just have to wait it out until reinforcements arrive, until storm season, whatever it takes. Keep me alive, keep me safe through this, and I’ll get you released. Again. Yes?’

Chel blinked. ‘I swore to serve you and protect you, highness. I mean to keep that oath.’

‘Of course, right you are. I’ll release you at the end of all this, prince’s word.’

Vashenda was back, a pair of guards at her heel; with a gesture she dismissed the prince in the direction of the residence, and the guards went with him. As Chel went to follow, she stepped in front.

‘You,’ Vashenda said, her silver scalp gleaming in the torchlight. ‘With me.’

Chel realized he was clutching his sealed oath scroll in his sweating hand, held against his body like a talisman. She can’t hurt me, he told himself. Not now I’m sworn to a prince. He swallowed, flicked a brief, troubled glance around the courtyard, and followed the good sister.

***

‘Get in my way, put one foot out of line or release any more heretics back into the city and you will spend your final days learning new meanings of pain,’ Vashenda said as they entered a small but plush bedchamber within the residence, adjoining a far grander set of rooms that Chel assumed belonged to the prince. ‘Am I understood?’

Chel nodded. He could feel the sweat beading on his brow.

‘Good. And thus let our understanding be reborn in the light of the Shepherd’s mercy,’ Vashenda continued, a sudden smile transforming her features into something even more terrifying. ‘The past marches ever away, and we must watch the grass before us.’ Chel wasn’t sure if that was scripture or merely church-speak. ‘You are now Prince Tarfel’s man.’

Although phrased as a question, it wasn’t delivered as such. He relaxed his sweaty grip on the oath scroll and nodded again.

‘These will be your new chambers, at the prince’s side. You will clean yourself, dress for the feast and await collection. You will attend the prince utterly, you will not leave his side.’

He nodded, too tired to do much more. At least he’d be able to collapse on the bed the moment the sister left; his legs were quivering beneath him.

Vashenda inclined her head, apparently satisfied. ‘Then do not leave this room until they come for you.’ She moved toward the door. He noted the bundle of sealed messages tucked into her robe; she looked in a hurry to deliver the last issuings from the pavilion at Omundi.

‘Wait,’ he called. ‘I need to talk to Lord Sokol, or at least send him a message, or something. I need to tell him what happened.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘I would suggest the latter, lest you strain your voice. Lord Sokol and his retinue departed the same day you did.’

‘What?’ With the port’s population looking so restored, he’d unconsciously assumed Sokol and his band had returned or remained.

Vashenda narrowed her eyes at his impertinence but continued. ‘I believe he had urgent business to attend to in the southeast, quite unexpected I’m told. So unfortunate it should coincide with the arrival of our northern cousins in the bay.’ She was entirely deadpan.

‘But what about me? I should have been with him!’

The eyebrow raised again. ‘Indeed, you should. And now you are the prince’s man.’ She walked through the doorway. ‘Do not leave this room until they come for you.’ The door closed with a clunk that sounded suitably final.

He flopped down on the bed. Sokol gone, fleeing home from the sound of it. And now Chel was anchored to a whelp of a prince, parked on a cliff-top, a beacon for belligerent Norts and their rains of witchfire and shrieking fireballs. If Hurkel didn’t wander in and stave in his skull first.

A basin in the corner took care of the worst of the road-grime, and the clothes laid out on the bed fitted no worse than anything else he’d worn since he’d left Barva. They were absurd, of course: garish and gaudy, fine working on the details without any investment in comfort or utility. He guessed this was the uniform of the royal guard, perhaps even specific to the junior prince himself. He’d seen no one dressed in such ridiculous fashion anywhere near Prince Mendel. A belted scabbard completed the ensemble, and he was irked to find that the short blade sheathed within was an edgeless ornament.

And how, he muttered to himself, am I supposed to defend a prince with that?

The palace was deathly quiet, only occasional distant kitchen sounds echoing up from the grates. He saw no guards in the courtyard, or on the towers above. The place seemed deserted. An unease began to settle within the pit of his stomach. The situation seemed absurd. The Norts were still in the bay and Prince Mendel had no intention of granting their wishes. Surely they wouldn’t simply sit and wait for the storms to wash them away? Why would the Norts not simply raze the rest of the port if they felt they were not being heard, and the rest of the north with it? And why would Mendel send his own brother back into the teeth of their alchemy for a mere festival?

No, not Mendel: Balise da Loran. And now Vashenda, another prelate, had ordered him to sit here and wait. Something untoward was happening, and he was at the centre of it. He should never have left the prince’s side.

Dark clouds scudded overhead, the fat moon behind them shining through in scrappy patches, throwing slow-moving patterns over the tiled rooftops. He watched them flow and shift, eyes glazed, when movement in a moon-patch drew his eye. At last a guard had appeared, moving slowly along the rampart above the courtyard. Chel squinted. The figure was too ragged to be a guard. It shuffled forward, climbed over the wall and dropped to the roof below. As it dropped, Chel saw a long staff in its hand and its ash-streaked and tattered robes. Chel’s heart stopped in his chest. It was the man from days ago, the beggar who had tripped him, who had landed him in the mess with the Rose in the first place. An intruder inside the walls.

‘Pig-fucker!’

Chel almost tore the door from its hinges as he raced from the room.

***

He pounded through the empty, darkened hallways of the residence, making for the main courtyard. The winter palace had more hidden corners than he’d given it credit for, and his fuddled brain was struggling to process navigation as well as haste.

A large figure stepped from the darkness into his path and he careered into it, sending them both sprawling.

‘Easy there, Master Chel! What’s the commotion?’

‘Heali?’ Chel knelt, dazed. ‘What the … Are you lying in wait for me or something? Where is everyone else?’

Heali dusted himself off as he got back to his feet. His clothes looked different, but it was hard to tell how. ‘Why, attending to duties, Master Chel, as I assume you are too. But as it happens, glad to run into you, a stroke of fortune, you might say—’

‘Not now, Heali.’

His dark eyes were narrow in the distant torchlight. ‘Something amiss, Master Chel?’

Chel shook his head, then looked past the heavyset guardsman into the courtyard. The main gate still stood open. A single sentry leaned against it, looking to all the world asleep. ‘Just look at this place! Guards missing from their posts, the gate hanging open, and I’ve seen an intruder climbing over the wall.’

‘Someone’s inside the palace? One person?’

‘Not just anyone, Heali. Something is going on! We need to rally the remaining guards, close the gate, secure the duke and his remaining family, the prince, everyone.’

‘You absolutely certain, Master Chel?’

‘I know what I saw, Heali. I’m heading for the walls. Maybe we can still catch him. Are you coming?’

Heali muttered something in reply, but Chel was already sprinting for the stairs. Somewhere a distant bell was ringing.

FIVE

‘There’s fire down in the city!’ Chel squinted in the darkness. The ramparts were deserted on either side, a cold wind blowing in from the sea. ‘What in five hells is going on?’

Heali was still a few steps behind him, wheezing from the climb. ‘God’s balls, boy, let me catch a breath.’

Another bell was ringing somewhere closer, down in the port. Chel darted along the ramparts. Beneath them, the gate was still open, but he hoped to see men rushing to close it at any moment.

‘He was there when I saw him, moon-side. Come on, he can’t have—’

Two riders galloped through the courtyard, fast enough to throw sparks from their horses’ shoes on the stones, then through the gate and onto the hillside. Chel stared after them. He watched them thunder down the winding trail toward the port below, heading for the city’s south gate. Beyond them, he saw a line of torches, bobbing in formation, making slow progress up the hill from the direction of the fires. The riders slowed as they approached the torches, came to a momentary stop, then accelerated again, disappearing into the darkness that pooled at the valley bottom. The torches bobbed on, continuing their climb.

‘What in hells was th—’ He turned to find Heali standing right behind him. The guardsman’s avuncular face had lost its habitual joviality.

‘Heali? You all right?’

He shook his head, features dark. ‘I’m sorry, my boy,’ he said, and Chel felt the chill of sweat on his back return. ‘I misjudged you.’

Chel took a step backward, part of his exhausted brain trying to recall how many paces from the edge of the rampart he’d stood. ‘Misjudged me how? What’s going on?’

‘I thought we’d be able to come to terms, Master Chel. I thought I’d be able to keep you clear. I was wrong. It’s a shame, truly.’

Chel took another backward step. His fingers were trembling, his voice hoarse. ‘What do you mean, Heali? The fuck are you talking about?’

‘You were supposed to be lucky.’

He saw the dull moonlight glint from the knife in the guardsman’s hand. Heali advanced, fleshy mouth a grim line. Chel’s back foot scraped over the rampart’s edge, emptiness beneath his heel. He met Heali’s dispassionate gaze.

‘Why?’ he whispered.

Heali offered a remorseful sigh.

‘You’re the goat.’

He jabbed forward. The knife caught Chel in the ribs, scraping along one of the ornate buckles and scoring a gash along his flank. He felt only the bump of impact, no pain, then the hot rush at his side. Heali tried to pull back the knife for another stab, but it had snagged in the excessive folds of Chel’s fancy dress.

Chel unfroze. He grabbed Heali’s knife-hand with his own, forcing the blade away from his body before it could carve him again. With his other hand he swung a wild punch at the guardsman’s head, glancing the meat of his cheek and making him curse. Heali warded a second flailing blow, then with both hands tore the knife clear of Chel’s uniform. Chel scrabbled backward, away from the drop, until his shoulders met the hard stone of the wall.

Heali put a finger to his cheek, probing for damage, then shook his head again. ‘Enough, boy.’

Heali took half a step when something dark smashed over his head, staggering him forward, shards of the object showering the ramparts. He turned in surprise as a figure at the top of the stairway lobbed another dark shape. It thumped into Heali’s face and bounced off, shattering on the stones at his feet in a dark splatter-mark. Chel squinted in the half-light. It looked like the remains of a lamp-oil jug from the kitchens.

Heali had recovered enough to take a step toward the figure, which stood with a crate at its feet and a grease-light in its hand. Too late, Heali realized what had doused him. He turned back toward Chel as the grease-light arced through the air, trying to outrun the flame that flared at his feet and leapt for his legs. Screaming, the big guardsman stumbled and flailed, flames surging up his body, then one foot missed the rampart and he was gone, a puddle of amber flame left fluttering on the stones.

Chel heard the impact on the courtyard below, then nothing more. One hand clutched to his injured side, he made wobbly progress to the rampart’s edge and peered down. A dark shape lay sprawled below, unmoving, small yellow flames flickering at its edges. He shivered, and felt the pain, hot and fresh, as well as a sudden urge to both vomit and piss himself.

Three guardsmen ran into the courtyard, gave the sprawled and burning shape a cursory glance, then ran straight through the gate and out into the night.

He turned to find Mercunin, the cadaverous porter, looming over him, his grease-light back in his hand. The man’s hollow eyes were pools of shadow, even with the light so close.

‘Thank you,’ Chel said, trying to stop his teeth chattering. ‘I … You … Thank you.’

The twin voids gave nothing away. ‘We shall all of us burn,’ the man intoned in his earthen rumble, and Chel thought his rictus mouth twitched upward at the words. Then Mercunin was stalking over the deserted ramparts as the fire-pool guttered and died. He collected his crate and vanished down the steps, clinking. Plenty of oil jugs remained.

Chel risked another look at Heali’s broken form, shivered and winced, then stumbled to the wall. The line of torches was almost at the gate. He could see the glimmer of steel in their dancing light.

Armed men were about to storm the palace, the guards had fled, and still the gate stood open.

***

By the time he’d lurched his way down to the courtyard, he could hear the thud of marching feet on the dusty road outside. The guards and sentries were long gone, and Chel realized he had no idea what, if any, mechanism operated the gate. Throwing his shoulder against the gate’s heavy wood achieved little more than forcing more blood from his abdomen. He didn’t have time to figure it out; the men were moments from the palace. No palace bells rang, no guards had come running. He was on his own.

He risked a quick look through the archway. The armed column made its way up the incline, maybe two dozen figures. They sported pikes and torches, and Chel spotted axes and knives at their belts. Their clothing was dark but motley. His eyes darted to their heads.

Each man sported a shaven head, save for a tuft of hair at its crest. Chel’s eyes widened. The men were confessors.

They halted before the gate, then at a signal each raised something to his face and affixed it. Wooden masks. Chel jerked his head back, breathing hard. The masks were crude, rough-made things, nothing like the fine-wrought snarling mask the little Nort in the lowport had displayed. Confessors were disguising themselves as Norts? Nothing here added up. He had to raise the alarm.

Skirting Heali’s still-smouldering corpse, he drove his aching body toward the palace interior.

***

Chel burst through the open archway and stumbled into the western hall, which had been dressed for the festival. A few people drifted between its elegant columns as Chel looked around, wheezing, singed and bleeding. The smell of smoke carried into here as well: something was burning within the palace, but no one seemed to be doing anything about it.

The handful of nobles who had chosen – or been forced – to stay rather than flee after the Nort attack looked up in shock at Chel’s entrance, as did the skeleton crew of servants, minstrels and feast entertainers who surrounded them. Ignoring their ire, Chel made for the grand duke and the remainder of his family at the high table, where they were surrounded by half a dozen or so of his preening house guard.

‘We’re under attack,’ Chel croaked, his voice scratched and hoarse. ‘Take shelter!’

‘Who in five hells are you?’ boomed the duke. He had remained seated. Beside him sat his strutting son Count Esen, who was staring at Chel with the same expression as he might a coil of catshit, and beside him his hairy cousin, Morara.

Chel tried to bow, wincing at the pain in his side. ‘Vedren Chel of Barva, sworn to Prince Tarfel, your grace.’

All heads turned to the far end of the table, where Prince Tarfel, scrubbed pink and draped in lace, was seated, flinching at the sound of his name. He looked up at Chel, his expression shifting from surprised confusion to embarrassment.

‘Well, Merimonsun?’ bellowed the duke. ‘Is this one of yours?’

The little prince flushed from head to foot. ‘Well, as you say, your grace, in fact—’

‘Answer me, boy!’

‘Yes, yes, he’s my sworn man. First sworn. Only, really, I’ve not—’