Brotherband 3: The Hunters (35 page)

Thorn was breathing deeply as the berserker rage slowly subsided. He realised he was still half crouched in readiness for an attack and slowly stood upright.

‘Good work, Stig,’ he said quietly.

But Hal had stepped forward. ‘Where did you spring from, Thorn? Have you been keeping an eye on us?’

Thorn nodded. ‘Yes. Thought that swine Zavac might try something like this. It’s right up his alley.’ He paused, realising what he’d said. Lydia allowed herself a faint smile.

‘That’s a really terrible pun,’ she said and Thorn nodded apologetically.

‘Not one of my best,’ he admitted. ‘In any event, I’ve been keeping an eye on you since you left
Heron
earlier tonight. Trouble was, I had to hang back in the main street so you wouldn’t notice me. I didn’t see you turn off into this alley. When I realised that’s where you’d got to, I had to double back.’

‘Well, Stig held them off until you got here,’ Hal said. He slapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘Nicely done, Stig.’

‘I’ll second that,’ Lydia said. ‘That was a brilliant move when you took that sword off the first man.’

Stig flushed with pleasure, conscious that Thorn had turned an approving eye on him. He shrugged.

‘Ah, someone had to do something,’ he said. ‘As Thorn says, make the first move, and make it fast. I . . .’

He stopped as they heard a clatter of boots on the cobbles, and saw lights wavering and reflecting off the alley walls. Then a squad of the town guard, five men under a corporal, rounded the corner and stopped, staring, at the tableau that faced them.

‘What’s going on here? We had a report there was fighting,’ the corporal said warily. Two of his men were carrying torches and their light revealed a scene of carnage in the alley. The cobbles were strewn with unconscious men and scattered weapons. ‘And it looks as if there has been. Don’t you know that the Korpaljo forbids fighting within the boundaries of the city?’

Hal stopped forward. ‘These men attacked us. There were eight of them but one got away. We were simply defending ourselves – as you can see, we’re unarmed and they outnumbered us.’

Unobtrusively, Thorn had allowed his club-hand to fall to his side. In the dim light of the torches, it was virtually unnoticeable. Looking round, the corporal could see that the four young people were armed only with knives, which most seamen carried as a matter of course, while the seven men sprawled on the cobbles had obviously been carrying an assortment of clubs, swords and spears. He frowned.

‘How did you . . .?’ he began, but Hal cut across him, indicating Stig.

‘My friend here disarmed one of them and took his sword. Then, when they attacked us, Thorn heard the noise and came at them from behind.’ He shook his head dismissively. ‘They weren’t very good fighters.’

‘Obviously not,’ said the corporal, shaking his head as he surveyed the unconscious bodies littering the alley.

‘Why did they attack you?’ the sergeant asked.

‘We’re from the Skandian ship
Heron
,’ Hal explained. ‘We had a falling-out today with Zavac, skipper of the
Raven
. It was in the Korpaljo’s office. He’ll confirm it. I’ll wager these men are from the
Raven
and Zavac sent them to kill us.’

‘Can you prove that? Do you recognise any of them?’

One of the soldiers with a torch had been examining the dead and unconscious gang members. As he reached Vargas, he held the torch down to illuminate the man’s face.

‘This one’s alive, corporal,’ he said.

Thorn stepped forward as the soldier went to move the torch away. He stopped him and studied Vargas’s face. The man was familiar. Then he remembered where he’d seen him before.

‘I know this one. He was in the tavern in Krall,’ he said, looking up at Hal. ‘I’ll wager he’s one of Zavac’s crew.’

The corporal chewed on the ends of his moustache, considering the situation. On the whole, he tended to believe Hal’s story. It was highly unlikely that one older man and four teenagers, one of them a girl, would attack seven or eight heavily armed men – all of whom looked to be warriors. And he’d heard talk that Zavac had been in trouble with the Korpaljo earlier in the day. He came a decision.

‘Very well. Get back to your ship. And present yourselves at the Korpal building tomorrow at ten. The Korpaljo will want to hold an inquiry into this. If he decides that Zavac’s crew started the fight, they’ll be punished.’

He turned to one of his soldiers. ‘Get extra men from headquarters and clean up around here. The dead ones can go to the mortuary. Any still alive, take them to the infirmary. But keep them under guard.’

He stepped back and pushed his helmet back off his brow, still wondering about what had happened here. How had these five managed to cause such havoc among their attackers? He looked at the young Skandians again. The tall one looked pretty capable, he thought. But the other two were smaller than him and not as heavily built. Any one of the pirates would have been bigger and stronger. And of course, the fourth member of the group was a girl. She’d hardly count for anything in a fight, he thought, having no idea how very wrong he was in that assumption.

As for the older man, he noticed now that he had some kind of false arm. He couldn’t see any details, but he noticed the dull gleam of the polished wood where the flickering torchlight reflected from it. The northman was holding it close by his side, partially concealing it from view. Probably embarrassed him if people took too much notice of it. A one-armed man and four kids, he thought. Would wonders never cease?

It was beyond him. But he wasn’t paid to solve problems like this. He decided he’d leave it to the Korpaljo to get to the bottom of things.

‘Are you finished with us?’ Hal asked.

The corporal nodded distractedly. ‘Yes. Yes. You can go. But be at the Korpal building tomorrow and don’t try to leave Raguza in the meantime. I’ll set a guard over your ship to make sure of it.’

‘There’s no need for that,’ Hal said. The corporal eyed him cynically.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘But I’m going to do it anyway. And remember, the harbour is patrolled by guard boats night and day.’

Hal nodded. He had no intention of trying to leave Raguza. He gestured to his friends and the five of them trooped out of the alley and down the hill towards the harbour.

‘What if it turns out they’re not from Zavac’s crew?’ Jesper asked. Hal glanced at him.

‘They are,’ he said grimly.

T
he evidence against Zavac was overwhelming.

Naturally, he swore on the gods of several different religions, none of which counted him as a devoted follower, that he knew nothing about the fight in the alley. But two town guardsmen who were stationed in Goathead Bay recognised Vargas and some of the other men as coming from
Raven
’s crew.

Even then, Zavac might still have claimed innocence. The evidence against him was all circumstantial. But the crucial moment came when one of the survivors of the fight in the alley, offered immunity from punishment if he testified, swore to the Korpaljo that Zavac had sent him and seven others to ambush the Skandians and kill them.

After hearing the evidence, Mihaly eyed Zavac and the five Skandians with distaste. It was obvious that the Magyaran captain was to blame for the ambush. But if the cursed Skandians had stayed away from Raguza, and not brought their private feud with them, none of this would have happened.

Still, he thought, Zavac was the guilty party in this affair and he had to be punished. It did nothing to help his case that he had deceived the Korpaljo over the matter of the emeralds and tried to cheat him out of his fee. On top of all that, Mihaly simply disliked the man. Zavac was devious and untrustworthy and Mihaly had no doubt that he had done exactly as the Skandians said – deserting his comrades in Limmat and leaving the
Stingray
to her fate.

‘You’ve got forty-eight hours,’ he said, glaring coldly at Zavac.

The Magyaran recoiled in his seat, knowing what Mihaly was talking about, but feigning ignorance, on the faint chance that he could change his mind.

‘Forty-eight hours? For what?’ he asked.

‘To get out of Raguza. You’re expelled. You, your ship and your crew. You know the rules, Zavac. That’s it.’

Zavac, his jaw hanging open, pointed to Hal and the others. Like him, they were sitting before Mihaly’s massive desk. But there was a noticeable separation of space between them and Zavac.

‘What about them?’ he demanded.

The Korpaljo glared at them as he replied. ‘They stay here. You’re the guilty party. But if I have any more trouble from them, or any more incidents involving them, they’ll be thrown out as well.’

A crafty look came into Zavac’s eyes. ‘Then I’ll be expecting you to refund my haven fee,’ he said. ‘I paid for a month’s refuge and I’ve been here less than a week. In fact,’ he added, ‘I paid way beyond the going rate. I demand you return my emeralds to me.’

‘Demand away,’ Mihaly told him, with a hollow laugh. ‘You lied to me. You tried to cheat me. And then you violated the most basic rule of this city. You planned an attack on another crew. There are no refunds for rule-breakers and you know it.’

Zavac turned his furious gaze on Hal and his friends. ‘This is your fault,’ he snarled. ‘I’ll kill you for this. Every one of you!’

Hal said nothing, but Lydia leaned forward so that she could see past the others and met Zavac’s poisonous glare.

‘I think that’s the sort of attitude that got you into all this trouble in the first place,’ she said mildly. ‘Are you really so slow on the uptake?’

Thorn emitted a short bark of laughter. Even Mihaly’s lips twisted slightly in a smile.

Zavac stabbed a forefinger at Lydia. ‘You’ll be the first to die, girl,’ he spat.

She raised one eyebrow. ‘How terrifying,’ she said calmly. ‘Will you send another gang after me, or will you try to do it yourself?’ Her eyes went cold as she remembered her grandfather, killed without mercy in Limmat by Zavac and his marauders. ‘Because I’d love you to try. I’d really love that.’

Zavac knew little about this girl. He studied her uncertainly. Now he saw her fingers playing round the hilt of the long dirk she wore on her belt and he felt a twinge of uncertainty. Something told him that she would be a good person to steer clear of. He looked away, but Mihaly had been watching the exchange with keen eyes.

‘Just as I thought, Zavac,’ he said, shaking his head with disdain. ‘Faced down by a girl. You’re a coward as well as a cheat and a liar. I’ll be glad to be rid of you.’

‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ Thorn said with a grin. ‘She’s quite a girl. I keep telling the boys here, she’s a real keeper.’

‘Shut up, old man,’ Lydia snapped. It was a reflex reaction by now and Thorn grinned.

Mihaly was less amused. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘It’s decided. Zavac, you and –’

‘Just a minute,’ Hal interrupted. He shook his head doggedly. ‘It’s not enough.’

Mihaly looked at him, one eyebrow raised sardonically. ‘It’s not enough?’ he repeated. ‘What, exactly, is not enough?’

‘Simply expelling him. He tried to kill us. And he deserted us in Limmat –’

‘Are you still trying to peddle that lie?’ Zavac sneered.

Hal faced him directly now. ‘You caused the deaths of our friends. You tried to kill us when you left Limmat. And you tried again last night.’ He turned back to the Korpaljo, his face flushed with anger. ‘Expelling him is not enough. He deserves much more. He owes us.’

But he realised now that he had misread Mihaly’s motives. The Korpaljo disliked and distrusted Zavac. But that didn’t mean he was on the Herons’ side. Mihaly wasn’t interested in justice, he was interested in expediency. He had a chance to get rid of Zavac, a disruptive element who had tried to cheat him, and he had possession of the emeralds he had confiscated from the Magyaran. Beyond that, he had no interest in what Hal and his crew wanted. He leaned forward now.

‘That’s between you and him,’ he said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing more to say. He and his ship are expelled. You can stay here or go – as you choose.’

But that was the problem Hal had been considering. They had finally run Zavac to ground here in Raguza. If he left now, there was always the chance that he would slip away from them again. He had forty-eight hours to leave port. Since he had been in Raguza, Hal had noticed that the wind tended to die away around midnight, blowing up again around dawn. If Zavac left in the hours of darkness, they could lose him.

The
Raven
was faster under oars than
Heron
and, without a good breeze, they could never keep up. He could slip away to the south, into the Constant Sea or the Sea of Rostov. Presumably, Zavac would know of a dozen places there where he could hide from pursuit, and the
Heron
would be sailing in unknown waters. After all this, Hal couldn’t let that happen. He could see the Andomal slipping out of his grasp, when he had come so close to retrieving it. He thought desperately. Mihaly was interested in getting rid of Zavac, not providing justice for Hal and his crew. But before he could speak, Mihaly turned to Thorn with an exasperated gesture.