The Archon's Assassin (36 page)

Galen stood at his shoulder, refusing to be cold, whiskers and eyebrows bristling with ice.

Albert sucked in his cheeks and shivered. He looked miserable, but at least the cold might numb his inclination to do the Archon’s bidding. “Couldn’t we go back to the plane ship, see if we can find some coats? Either that, or a cup of cocoa.”

“Should have thought of that last time you went snooping through my stuff,” Shadrak said.

“Your stuff?”

“My plane ship, ain’t it?” Or maybe the poisoner had got ahead of himself and considered it his already.

Albert huffed and sighed but said no more.

Shadrak did his best to ignore him. He could guess the sort of look he was getting, but it made no difference. The poisoner had no idea he knew, unless of course Bird was a double-crossing son of a scut.

He glanced at the homunculus, who was on his knees, scratching about in the snow.

Ekyls was crouched beside him, still naked from the waist up. Ice formed crystals on his chest, fringed his forehead, but he seemed not to notice.

“What is it?” Shadrak said. “What are you up to?”

Bird sniffed at the air, tilted his head this way and that. “I hear nothing,” he whispered.

The sweet scent of the pines washed over Shadrak as he strained to listen. Something rank mingled with it, made him put a hand over his nose.

“Sorry, laddie,” Nameless said. “It’s the muck old baldy tube-feeds me. Plays havoc with the intestines.”

“Shush,” Bird said, holding up a finger for quiet. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a gasp. “Nothing. No life in the trees, in the air, below ground.”

He was right. Save for the merest breeze swaying the tops of the pines, there was no movement, and the only sounds were those they made themselves.

“Wait!” Bird said, pressing his ear to the snow. He made quick, clutching movements with his fingers. “Something to dig with.”

Ekyls passed him his hatchet.

Bird slammed it into the hard earth again and again, dislodging soil and stones until he’d made a small hole. Passing the axe back to Ekyls, he wormed his hand into the ground, winced, and made a sharp clicking sound.

“Got you!” He stood and withdrew his hand.

At first, Shadrak thought he held a chunk of metal between thumb and forefinger. It was roughly ovoid and no bigger than a coin. As he peered closer, though, it moved. Legs like strands of silver wire uncurled; wings shook above an armored carapace; mandibles keen as scalpels clacked together.

“Don’t touch,” Bird said, palming the creature and cupping his free hand over it. “It can pierce steel, grind rock into dust. We are standing above a nest.”

Everyone stepped away, eyeing the ground nervously.

“And you’re holding it?” Galen said. “Silly risk to take, if you ask me, wot.”

“May I?” Ludo said, balancing his spectacles on his nose and peering at Bird’s clenched hands.

“No,” Bird whispered. “We must not alarm it.” He lowered his hands to the hole, and the insect scuttled back inside. He piled earth and snow over it then stood, rubbing his palms together. “Stone-eaters: leftovers from Sektis Gandaw’s Global Technocracy on Earth.”

“So, you didn’t get to chat,” Shadrak said. “Seeing as they ain’t natural.”

“A little,” Bird said. “They are not meldings like the mawgs. Enhanced, but still very much beetles.”

“Nasty looking fellow,” Albert said. “Don’t suppose they’re venomous, are they?”

The air shimmered, and Bird was gone. A white owl glided into the trees without so much as a sound.

Shadrak patted his pouches again, touched each of the knives in his baldric in turn, and then started off down into the valley. He’d given up worrying what Bird was up to. Way he saw it, they had a job to do, and the sooner they got it done, the sooner they could leave.

“Keep up,” he called over his shoulder. “Let’s not hang about this shithole any longer than we need to.”

“Quite right.” Galen’s gruff voice came from behind. “Can’t ruddy argue with you there, wot.”

***

The sun was coming up, a single bloodshot orb in a slate-gray sky, as they entered the town. A wide avenue, paved in the herringbone style, cut through box-houses of neatly mortared bricks. Slatted shutters were closed against the dawn light, but smoke plumed from chimneys, and Shadrak thought he could smell bacon.

“There has to be somewhere half-decent to eat around here.” Albert patted his paunch. “Because I, for one, am famished.”

“Thought you had your slave bring your pots and pans,” Nameless growled.

“And what are we going to do for fire?” Albert said. “Rub two snowballs together and hope they spark?”

Nameless’s laughter rumbled from deep within his helm, then he looked up at the castle overshadowing Wolfmalen.

“What’s that?” He pointed his axe at the tall spikes Shadrak had seen earlier, forming a palisade around the base.

Shadrak pulled the goggles over his eyes. The spikes stood in sharp relief against the lime hue imparted by the lenses. The rising sun cast them in silhouette, but even so, he was starting to suspect they weren’t scarecrows.

A red blur emerged from the gatehouse and headed toward the town, and other red shapes patrolled the parapets.

He raised the goggles and offered Nameless a shrug by way of explanation.

Somewhere beyond the houses, a rooster crowed as a beam of pale sunlight pierced the slurry of clouds. Almost immediately, shutters clattered open, radiating outward from the center of town in quick succession. Heads poked out from windows, faces flushed with health and looking far too awake for so early in the day. Voices rose in greeting, doors swung wide, and men in feathered caps leaned against the jambs, lighting pipes and exchanging platitudes.

“Now that’s more like it,” Galen said, striding over to a mustached man with woolen socks gartered below the knees and a billowing smock rolled up above the elbows. “Morning, sir. Could you tell us where we might break our fast?”

The man’s eyes bulged, pipe stem halfway to his lips.

“Hilda,” he yelled through the open door. “Come quickly! We have guests! Wonderful, wonderful guests.” His voice was thickly accented, and the words sounded forced, unfamiliar. But it was the same common tongue spoken everywhere on Earth.

A plump woman appeared behind him, mousy hair wound in buns beneath a straw bonnet. Her face was broad and plain; an honest face, it seemed to Shadrak. Like Kadee’s, only white; free from care, free from worry.

“Oh,” she cried, rushing toward Galen and embracing him like a long-lost son. “Oh, oh, oh!”

Galen blushed and looked to Ludo for help. When Ludo turned his palms up and shrugged, Galen coughed and said, “Breakfast, madam.” He managed to disengage himself and straighten his jacket. “Is there somewhere in town?”

“Oh, but you must come in.” She began to lead him by the hand. “Come in, all of you. There’s food a plenty for guests. We’d be honored to share our home. Honored!”

“We ain’t got time for this,” Shadrak muttered under his breath.

He glanced up at the forest of spikes beneath the castle. In and out, was how he’d thought it would be. Quick as you like. But once again, no one had bothered to plan, least of all that scut Aristodeus. He shook his head. They’d need time to scout the castle, find a way inside without being seen.

Galen and Ludo were first through the doorway, and Albert was close behind. You’d have thought the poisoner would have learned from his own practice that the surest way to catch a man off guard was through his stomach. Was Shadrak the only one who sensed it? The only one who thought these people were just a bit too shogging happy, a bit too welcoming of strangers.

Nameless waited in the doorway. “I like it even less than you, laddie,” he said. “The sooner we’re back on Aethir, the better. I don’t know what Shader and Rhiannon see in Earth. To be quite honest, I’d sooner take a stroll through Qlippoth than spend another minute in the shadow of that castle.”

“I was expecting worse,” Shadrak said. “Liches, dead-shit that walks, maybe even witches. I should be relieved, but I ain’t.”

“In my experience, that’s a good thing,” Nameless said. “Always keep your guard up, but don’t let anyone know you’re doing it. It’s a philosophy that’s got me a long way.”

“Yeah, well mine’s got me a long way, too: cut a shogger’s throat before they cut yours.”

***

With hot food in front of him, Shadrak felt his suspicions dwindle. Not all the way; just enough to let him wolf down his eggs and bacon without imagining himself choking on it. Not enough to unstrap the rifle from his back, even if it mean he had to stand rather than sit at the table. Course, their hosts assumed it was on account of his short legs not being able to reach the floor from a chair. Scuts.

On the other side of the table, Galen wiped yoke from his chops and stroked breadcrumbs from his mustache.

Ludo sipped water beside him, plate untouched. He tried to deflect their hosts by feigning interest in their pathetic little lives, as if he gave a shit about local culture and the pastimes of market gardeners, or whatever the shog it was these people did.

“May I?” Galen swapped plates with Ludo without waiting for an answer, and tucked in with gusto.

Ekyls stabbed at his food and glared at anyone who might have noticed.

Nameless brooded by the door, palms resting on the haft of his axe.

Their hosts continued to fawn and smile, pouring tea and talking about the weather.

Shadrak pushed his plate aside and nodded his thanks. Hilda handed him a cup and saucer. Her husband, George, hovered over him with a bowl of sugar lumps.

“You are too kind.” Albert slurped the dregs of his tea and held his cup out for a refill. “A splendid repast.
Wunderbar
, as I believe they used to say before the Templum taught us all how to speak correctly.” He tapped his nose at that and winked.

Hilda and George exchanged glances, then, as if on cue, laughed politely.

“Don’t worry,” Albert said. “They have the same problem in Gallia, only there, when there are no Nousians about, there’s seldom a word of the
lingua vulgaris
uttered.”

“Thank you for your kindness, sir,” Hilda said, pouring Albert more tea.

“Thank you indeed,” George said. “All of you.” He plopped a sugar lump in the cup, raised an eyebrow, and plopped in another one when Albert held up two fingers.

“What I’d like to know,” Shadrak said, stirring his tea with a silver spoon, “is what those spikes are around the castle.”

Hilda coughed and spluttered then started to wheeze.

George took her by the shoulders and led her to a seat. “Sets her off,” he explained. “Not breakfast table talk, but you weren’t to know, not being from around here.”

Hilda dabbed at her lips with a handkerchief. “Sorry. It’s my heart. Always been weak, hasn’t it, George?”

“Always been weak.” George put his arm around her. “The gentleman didn’t mean anything by it, dear. It is natural to ask, is it not?”

“Natural,” Hilda said.

George ducked his head and put a hand to his cheek. There was a pause, as if he were deliberating what to say, and then he flicked a quick look at Shadrak. “There have been… bad folk in these parts. We are all still a little on edge.”

“Bad folk,” Hilda said.

“Raiders, they say. Troublemakers. Terrorizers. It’s all the same thing. Happens from time to time. All dealt with now, isn’t it Hilda? Safe as houses.”

“Safe as houses, George. Thanks to the Prior.”

George turned to the window, where the brooding bulk of the castle dominated the view. He touched his forehead, chest, and both shoulders. “Praise be.”

“This Prior of yours,”—Ludo leaned across the table, eyebrows dancing atop his spectacles. “That’s a somewhat antiquated title. Do you see much of him?”

Hilda pushed down on her thighs and rolled out of her seat to start collecting cups and plates. “See him? See the Prior? Well, I don’t know!”

“Have you been up to the castle?” Ludo said.

Hilda dropped a saucer. It crashed to the tiles and split clean in half. Both halves wobbled noisily for a moment, all eyes upon them until they clattered to a stop.

“No one goes up to the castle.” George was all grim seriousness. “Not decent folk, anyway. Not without an invitation, and they don’t come often.”

“There’s a lottery,” Hilda said. “Once a year, at Easter. Only others that go that way are sinners.”

Albert leaned back in his seat with a smug look on his face. “So, a faceless watcher, your Prior, keeping an eye on you from his castle on the hill. It’s so—what’s the Ancients’ word for it?—feudal.”

“Oh no.” Hilda crossed herself the same way her husband had done earlier. “Not at all.”

“Nothing wrong with a distant ruler.” Everyone started at the boom of Nameless’s voice. “Keeps up the mystique of power. All part of good government.”

Hilda and George shook their heads, tutting and muttering.

“There are no rulers here,” George said.

“That’s right,” Hilda said. “No rulers. This isn’t Aeterna, you know.” This time, they crossed themselves in unison. “None of that Ipsissimist tyranny here.”

“None in Aeterna nowadays, either.” There was nothing amiable about Galen’s tone. He lay down his utensils, pulled a half-chewed rind of bacon from his mouth, and dropped it on the plate.

“None?” Hilda said. “In Aeterna?”

“You’ve not heard?” Ludo said. “The Sahulian Emperor Hagalle drove the Ipsissimus from the Eternal City. The heart of the Templum has moved to Londinium.”

“Ruddy scandalous,” Galen growled.

“No Templum of ours,” George said. His tone had changed, too. Now, he was all brusqueness, like he couldn’t wait to get rid of them. He pushed past Nameless and held the door open. “Good day.”

“Thank you so much for your hospitality.” Albert sneered as he pushed his chair back and stood. “A most serviceable breakfast. I hope to return the favor some day.”

They filed out of the house, and George slammed the door behind them. The lock clicked, and bolts were slammed in place.

Shadrak looked over the rooftops, beyond the huge dome at the center of town, and up at the castle and the spikes set beneath it. He had a nasty feeling he knew what they were now.