Blood in the Water (26 page)

Tathrin realised several girls were looking speculatively at Sorgrad and a few were gazing at him.

One lass caught his eye and grinned, her teeth white against copper skin. “You’re a tall boy, long hands, long feet. Are you made to the same measure everywhere?”

Gren chuckled. “No, he’d be three handspans taller, sweetness.”

“Excuse me.” Tathrin managed a tight smile as he grabbed Sorgrad’s shoulder and forced him around to face him. “What’s happening back in Carluse?” he demanded furiously.

Chapter Eighteen

Failla

Carluse Town,

13th of Aft-Autumn

Failla huddled in her sable cloak. The fur offered wonderful warmth as well as concealment. She only wished she’d asked Master Gruit for fur-lined boots as well.

The captain-general looked up at the last paring of the Greater Moon. The Lesser had waned to a gibbous oval. Stars glittered in the vast darkness and frosty grass crunched underfoot. The soldiers surrounding them faced into the night even though it was ten days since anyone had escaped the town’s locked gates.

“You’re sure about this?” Evord kept his voice low, despite the distance to the nearest mercenary tents.

“I am.” Failla fought not to shiver. It would only be the bitter cold but she didn’t want the Soluran doubting her.

“I would never have asked this of you, but since you have offered…” Evord shook his head. “We cannot delay any longer now the dukes are showing this common purpose.”

“I know.” Failla had told him as much, as soon as she’d arrived from Abray.

Captain-General Evord’s eyes reflected torchlight from the camp. “Tell your uncle I will send a herald to the gate at midday tomorrow. If the town does not surrender, we must attack.”

If that happened, innocent blood would be shed. Even Reniack’s talent for twisting the truth would be hard pressed to show Evord’s mercenaries as heroes fighting for Lescar’s freedom if that came to pass.

“I’ll tell them,” Failla promised.

“Are you sure you don’t want an escort?”

She shook her head. “Reher knows the way and he’s strong enough.”

The blacksmith was exchanging a few quiet words with one of the mercenary lieutenants. Hearing his name, he looked around, expectant. With a black sheepskin over his leather jerkin, his shoulders were twice as wide as the mercenary’s. If they were seen from the walls of the town, if any of the Carluse garrison pursued them, Failla was betting Reher could defend them both till her screams brought the mercenaries’ sentries running.

“Then I wish you success,” Evord said softly, “and commend your courage.”

“It’s my home.” Failla raised her hood to hide her pale face. “My family are trapped.”

Leaving the circle of soldiers, Reher at her side, Failla glanced back just once. The men were already marching away, towards the camp, ranks closed to protect their commander.

“Don’t look at the lights.” Reher’s voice rumbled in the darkness. With his black hair and dense beard, there was little enough of his face for the moons to betray. “Your eyes must get used to the darkness.”

“I know.”

Stubble crackled beneath Failla’s boots. Assuming Carluse sentries would be watching the road, they were keeping to the fields. Reher stooped to stay below the spindly hedge stirring in the night’s breeze.

He had family and acquaintances inside Carluse Town. The captain-general knew that. Once they were inside, anyone who knew Reher, friend or foe, would surely think twice before attacking him. Evord couldn’t deny that. So Failla was more than justified in seeking out the blacksmith among the artisans supporting the army.

She fervently hoped Reher wouldn’t need his other talents. They’d agreed magic was only excusable in the direst emergency, to save his life or hers. The last thing Reher wanted was to fall foul of Hadrumal. He was convinced the penalty would be imprisonment on the Wizards’ Isle, until his magic was trained as the master mages saw fit.

Failla wouldn’t have asked for his help if she’d had any other choice. But that would mean betraying the guildmasters’ secrets and the one hidden path into Carluse. Reher already knew about it and he was a man of Carluse, first and last, even though he was mageborn. Uncle Ernout always swore that Reher’s grasp of fire had only ever served his craft or furthered the guildmasters’ endeavours.

They were following the river towards the hidden ford where the Dalasorian lancers had suffered such grievous losses. An earthen mound rose dark against the night sky. They hadn’t buried their dead, not like the Mountain Men. Reher had explained their custom was to build pyres for all the fallen together, surrounded by their dead horses. When the flames died down, they had raised this mound to cover the whole.

Their campaign was leaving its mark in Lescar in more ways than one, Failla thought. So many deaths. There’d been death for as long as she could recall. Could this season of slaughter truly end the relentless bloodletting?

“This way.”

Reher left the rustling river for a line of twisted trees. They followed a rocky crevice up towards the castle crag, water whispering in the depths.

Struggling to pick out a path in the darkness, Failla was nevertheless relieved to see no sign of Reher raising even a glimmer of magelight. He was also impressively stealthy for such a big man, forging through the fresh drifts of leaves making no more noise than the animals rustling through the undergrowth.

Did Reher realise, Failla wondered, that she knew he had killed Lord Veblen? It hadn’t been Aldabreshin alchemy that burned Duke Garnot’s bastard son to a blackened husk. She wouldn’t say anything though. Not unless the Archmage threatened Reher. Then she’d tell how Carluse’s guildmasters had decreed that both Jaras of Sharlac and Veblen of Carluse must die on the same field of battle. Reher had just been their tool.

Were they wrong, the old men, when Carluse had seen two years of what passed for peace after that? Neither commander was left to carry forward that summer’s warfare in their father’s name. Would Uncle Ernout have done any different, if he’d known she had been fond of Veblen? Not loved him, nor desired him as she knew he desired her, but Failla had liked him well enough. She’d planned on seeking his protection when Duke Garnot tired of her. But Veblen had died and Anilt was born and everything had changed.

Failla was struck with sudden longing to know how Tathrin fared in Relshaz. After all the shams of Abray, it had been such a relief to see him again. He knew the worst of what she had done and still never condemned her. He understood the realities of life in Carluse, the agonising choices she had faced.

She hoped he’d understand when he returned and found she’d gone into Carluse Town. He had been adamant he and Reher should be the ones to run such a risk, when she’d first proposed her plan. But Captain-General Evord had refused to allow anyone to attempt it. Until Aremil’s messages and those from Kerith and Jettin brought such ominous news of the dukes’ machinations. Once Tathrin, Sorgrad and Gren were safely gone to Relshaz, Evord had turned to Failla and Reher. The Soluran wasn’t so different from the guildmasters, choosing the right tool for each task without compunction.

They reached the edge of the trees. Grazing stretched between the road and the town walls, cropped and trampled by the town’s cattle, the weather too cold and dry for the grass to recover.

Reher was studying the ramparts. Failla could see the evenly spaced torches burning by the watchtower doors. A few lighted windows showed as the hilly streets rose towards the castle. The black outline of the keep blotted out the stars.

Tadira would be saving every last candle to fuel her defiance.
Much good will it do her
, Failla thought savagely. The duchess would have no choice but surrender when the townsfolk opened the gates. But to secure that, they must get inside.

She pressed close to Reher, her whisper the barest breath. “Can you see the sentries?”

He grunted deep in his barrel of a chest. “Stay close.”

She had no option when he seized her arm and ran across the grazing. She snatched at her sable cloak, bundling it up so she wouldn’t trip. They dropped down behind a weathered statue of Ostrin, god of grape and grain, of hay and harvest.

Her heart pounding, Failla wondered why Duke Garnot had never rebuked the guildsmen for leaving such an eyesore on the road, when they took such pains to maintain other shrines. Presumably such things were beneath his notice.

“Keep watch.” Reher ran his hands around the base of the plinth.

Nothing stirred along the road save a hunting owl. A fox barked, answered by a vixen. The torches on the watchtowers burned steadily, unshaken by any suddenly opened doors.

Reher grunted and straightened up. His massive hands were lifting the plinth. Stone grated on stone, so loud Failla feared the sentries on the wall must hear. With no one using the passage since Uncle Ernout’s final messenger, no one had greased the hinges so cunningly wrought by the master stonemason. She stood frozen with apprehension.

“I can’t hold this forever,” Reher growled through gritted teeth.

She wasted no time with apology, slipping into the stone-lined hole. Her hands frantically searched the darkness. Where was the oak post she had to drop into the socket in the top step? Stubbing her fingers on it, she ignored the pain, swiftly securing its foot. Looking up, she saw Reher already lowering the statue. She held the post steady so its top slid into the hollow in the plinth’s underside.

“Out of the way.” Reher’s boots nearly kicked her down the steps as his bulk blotted out what little light there was.

She heard a tearing sound and a hiss of pain. “Are you all right?” The hole was a tight fit for a man of his heft.

“Nothing that won’t heal.” Hobnails scraped on stone. “Move the post when I lift the statue.”

Taking the weight on his shoulders, he forced it up. Failla wrenched at the heavy oak. It came free so easily she nearly fell backwards. Saving herself by letting it fall, she heard it clatter down the steps as the plinth thudded back into its stone surround.

Failla pressed against the wall in the absolute blackness. Her fingernails scraped the masonry, muck slick beneath her fingers. Her sable cloak would be filthy, she thought inconsequentially.

“Let’s get on without breaking our necks.”

Failla was surprised to hear the scrape of steel and flint. A shaving of kindling flared and she saw Reher’s massive hand reaching for a lantern on a stone shelf. He lit the stub of candle and shut the pierced tin front, heading down the steps. “I’ll go first.”

The lamp shed enough light to show Failla that the passage was dry underfoot, the walls stone-lined, oak lintels supporting the roof. How long had it taken the guildsmen to construct it? How had it been done without the duke’s men knowing? Without someone betraying such a secret for the gold and the favour it would win? How many barrels of white brandy, brought to the tunnel from the hidden ford, had bought someone’s silence?

At first, the tunnel looked endless. Then it seemed no time at all before Reher stopped at more steps and handed her the lantern.

“Wait here.”

“No.” Failla spoke quickly to forestall whatever Reher might say. “I can hardly go back and get out on my own if they catch you. If they send someone down to find me, I’ll be trapped like a rat in a drain. If we’re taken above ground, we can both raise a riot that might just save our lives.”

“Stay close then.” He didn’t sound pleased.

This stair was roofed with floorboards. At the top, Failla lifted the lantern to give Reher more light as his blunt fingers searched the planks. Finding some cunning latch, he raised a silent trapdoor.

Every nerve strained to snapping, Failla emerged into a cellar, empty but for discarded sacks stained with grease and two grain tubs hoarding a handful of husks. The air tasted of rancid pig fat.

Reher noiselessly lowered the trapdoor and moved to the room’s main door to listen. He lifted a finger to his bearded lips.

Failla scowled. Did he think she was such a fool?

Reher lifted the latch. Failla followed close. This second cellar was as barren as the first. One hogshead remained on its curved rest, lacking bung or spigot. The other two stands lacked even empty barrels.

Reher opened the far door as cautiously as the first. They both heard a steely slither.

“I have a sword.”

The lantern went out so fast only Reher’s magecraft could have snuffed it.

Failla spoke first. “Milar?”

The unseen man was astonished. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Failla.”

“What?” Disbelief rang through the darkness.

Reher chuckled. “What kind of inn do you keep, if you can’t offer a working man ale?”

“Reher?” The sword slid back into its sheath. “Wait a minute.”

The exasperated voice faded and a wiry man returned with a candle in a brass stick. His nightshirt hung loose over hastily donned breeches and bare feet. He stared at Failla, gaunt with shock. “They said you were dead.”

She flinched at the pain in his voice. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my choice.”