The Forgotten War (69 page)

The river coiled ever southward like a menacing black snake, its surface mottled with green and brown leaves fallen from the many trees overhanging its darkly sinuous form. It
was silent, powerful, respected. Everyone knew the river; everyone deferred to it. It wasn’t even given a name round here; it was just ‘The River’ such was its silent
omnipotence.

Which, ruminated Whitey from his perch on the walkway overlooking it, was just exactly how he wanted to be. His entire life he had been shunned by his peers – from the moment he left his
mother’s womb, his pink eyes sending the midwife screaming, through his childhood spent cutting purses on the streets of Sketta, to his adulthood as a thug for hire, serving every erstwhile
crime lord in the south at some point or another. The Book of Artorus had a famous passage referring to Keth’s pale demons rising from the bowels of the earth to plague mankind for a thousand
years, and so, being an albino, things were never going to be easy for him. He had spent his entire life avoiding the authorities, constantly fighting hunger or manacled to the walls of a cell or
sleeping on excrement-covered stone floors, only waking sporadically to kick away the rats as they nibbled at his toes and fingers.

Now, however, things were different; now he was on the right side of the law for the first time in his life. Well, in a manner of speaking anyway. It had all come about through his meeting with
Gorton. Meeting was perhaps not the right word; he was actually caught cutting his purse. As he sat in the stocks for the thousandth time covered in the refuse donated by the locals, Gorton, a
merchant with a large round belly barely concealed under his green tunic, its gold buttons straining hard against the forces of nature opposing it, had come up to him with a member of the local
watch.

‘I am looking for a business partner,’ he had said, as the watchman released the lock on the stocks. ‘And I imagine you, sir, will be happy with employment of any kind, judging
from your present predicament.’

And that’s how it had started. The nature of the ‘partnership’ was unclear but he would have agreed with almost anything to get away from that village. It turned out that
Gorton was a well-connected man who knew a large number of well-to-do merchants and minor nobility covering an area of hundreds of miles close to the war zone. He also knew when these people would
be away from home and that’s where Whitey came in. Armed with a map of the property, and cloaked in black, he would break in, steal a few key items selected by Gorton, and make good his
escape. Whitey knew the right fences to use and the two men pocketed a fortune; to cap it all, Gorton had made him a junior partner in his legitimate import–export business. Whitey had
started to call himself a merchant.

There were numerous side-lines to get involved in, too, and this was why he was here, staring at the river in a remote part of the country. It involved buying up a lot of cheap tat, glass beads,
dull knives, coarse linen garments, soft metal arrowheads, and trading them with the strange Marsh Men that came here about once a week. In return, they would receive spices, herbs, drugs and
poisons worth over a hundred times their initial outlay. The Marsh Men in their mud huts had no Artoran tongue in their head and were as easy to fleece as a six-year-old child. Until meeting
Gorton, Whitey had no idea how many ways there were to make easy money. Now he wore an expensive silk shirt, fine leather breeches and a ring studded with small pearls, and he received unlimited
attention from the whores in Sketta, women who just two years ago used to spit on him as he walked past them.

Anyway, to business – Tath Wernig, the trading post they had lived in for the last week or so, was not a place to linger long in the memory. The long road from Sketta ended here; there was
nowhere else to go for to the south, the land was too boggy for anybody but the peat diggers. Just over a dozen buildings were built either side of this half forgotten cul-de-sac, including a sad
little inn, all fleas and straw pallets, where they had the misfortune to be staying at the moment, and a decrepit house of Artorus bereft of windows, whose priest spent most of the time comatose
with an empty flagon in his hand and vomit down his smock. There was a blacksmith-cum-cooper-cum-wheelwright and a building euphemistically called the manor house on account that it had a couple of
extra rooms and housed four or five soldiers and a magistrate all in the pay of Baron Eburg, who was fortunate enough, or maybe unfortunate enough, to hold suzerainty over the town.

And it had, of course, a trading post, a long, low building built on a platform overhanging the river and with a jetty pointing out into the gently churning waters. Whitey (he was never called
by his real name; he barely could remember it himself) was standing on it now, looking southwards, waiting. They had already seen two Marsh Men this week; one more and all their goods would be gone
and it would be back to Sketta to sell on what they had received in trade and so fill their purses.

He heard Gorton’s heavy tread on the planking.

‘Anything?’

‘Nothing, Master Gorton, what do you think? Shall we give it one more day?’

Gorton broke wind loudly; he did this quite often. Whitey reckoned it was something to do with his weight; even the planking on the jetty creaked under it.

‘Actually, I am rather tempted to leave now. There will hardly be any traffic up here what with winter coming, and there are some good opportunities coming up in Sketta. Filton Ottermore
of the Vintners’ Guild is taking his family to Tanaren City till the spring; his house will be guarded but I know of a side entrance that they won’t be watching. Also the house of
Meriel needs some torinbalm; they use it as a soporific and we have got plenty here.’

‘Why don’t we come here in the summer?’

‘It is full of merchants then; they all compete with each other and the Marshies get a far better deal. This time of year they are much more desperate; if you can stand Tath Wernig for a
week you can clean up here. Come, let us go; there will be nothing more here this year.’

‘Wait,’ said Whitey, pointing downriver. ‘I can see something.’

Both men shielded their eyes against the glare of the river and slowly Gorton could see that Whitey had been correct. There it was, blacker against black, a tiny speck heading their way.
‘By all the Gods, Pink-eye, you have a demon’s vision.’

‘Years of practice in avoiding the town watch,’ Whitey said with a smile. ‘Are you armed? Can’t trust these Marshies not to cut up rough if they think they are being done
over.’ He lifted his faithful purse-cutter up for Gorton to see.

‘I lack your ability with the blade but, yes, I am prepared.’ He opened his cloak to show Whitey a stiletto that he had strapped to his waist. A woman’s weapon, Whitey thought.
Gorton rarely had to do his own dirty work; he hired lackeys for that – lackeys or Whitey. Whitey grinned at the thought.

The boat came closer. It was a small circular boat with a single occupant; the Marsh Folk usually came in twos or threes, so both men were further encouraged. This will be easy, Whitey
thought.

They watched the man pull up to the jetty, clamber out and secure his boat. Once this was done, Gorton approached him, smiling broadly, trade goods carried in a large leather satchel. Whitey
thought the man was a typical Marshy, dark, weather-beaten, and wearing a woollen tunic and leather breeches. He had a metal knife, which wasn’t such a good thing, and there was something
about the way he looked at them that made the albino think that perhaps this wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought.

‘Hail, friend from the marsh,’ Gorton effused. ‘I take it you have come to trade. If this is so, you are a lucky man indeed. Please look at the goods I have to offer.’ He
opened the satchel and started to lay the various pieces of junk out on to the jetty.

Whitey looked into the man’s boat. In it was a covered basket far larger than the others he had seen before. Was it full of merchandise? Getting the man’s attention, he pointed to
the basket attempting through improvised sign language that he would like to see inside it.

‘I am not here to trade with you. I am here to see your elder.’

Gorton was open-mouthed. ‘You speak our language! Artorus above, I have never heard of such a thing. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Gorton the merchant and this strange fellow beside
me is Master Whitey, my partner in business. Please, peruse our goods at your leisure.’

‘As I have said, I am not here to trade. I would like to know who is in charge here; my elder wishes me to converse with him. The matter is very important.’

‘Important, eh?’ Whitey spoke. ‘You look like you’re here to trade to me. Look at that goods basket; you’re not telling me it’s full of apples.’

‘No, it is not, but I will discuss its contents only with your elder, or
baron
. Is baron the right word?’

Gorton smiled, all jowls and brown teeth. ‘With all due respect. my friend, the baron here – Eburg I think his name is – is not going to spare a swamp creature like yourself
ten seconds of his time. Why should he? What could a hut dweller possibly have or know that would interest a baron?’

‘Because his lands are in danger; I come to warn him of this.’

Whitey sneered at the man. ‘You are not threatening to attack us, are you? A whole two dozen of you with your pointy sticks and woolly armour.’ He smiled at Gorton who shared the
joke and spoke again to the Marsh Man.

‘Look, my friend,’ – he put his arm around the man’s shoulder – ‘no one gives a wren’s beak for your problems up here. If I were to take you to the
Baron, we would as likely be flogged for our temerity in thinking he would deign to see
us
, let alone you. Now, be reasonable; you have bought goods with you, that we can both see; now, why
don’t we barter a good deal for us both? Then you can go home and tell your elder the audience you sought was refused but, that on the other hand, you have traded for some quality goods from
myself and my colleague. What say you, eh?’

The Marsh Man poked the merchant’s wares with his foot. ‘Even if I were to accept what you are saying, these are hardly “quality goods”. Other tribes may be grateful for
this rubbish but not mine. Is that where your baron lives?’ He pointed to the magistrate’s house.

Whitey was about to reply in the negative but Gorton spoke before him.

‘I see you are far too clever to fall for my salesman’s talk. I tell you what, I will send my colleague to the nobleman’s house to see if he will grant you an audience,
but’ – he drew breath loudly – ‘in order to do that we will need to see the goods that you bring; otherwise you will just get the door slammed in your face.’

Behind him, outside the inn, two of the magistrate’s men leaned by its door, flagons in hand, while a third one was relieving himself against the wall; they were watching the proceedings
at the trading post with a studied disinterest. The Marsh Man stared back at them; he was considering the merchant’s words.

‘Very well,’ he said. He reached into the boat and pulled out the basket. Uncovering it, he showed its contents to both men. Gorton looked appraisingly at the display then cleared
his throat.

‘Please, just give us a minute, I just need to confer with my colleague.’ He beckoned Whitey to follow him and took a few steps away from the Marsh Man before whispering: ‘Did
you see all that! There is at least ten times what these people normally bring. We are made I tell you, made!’

‘The house of Meriel will pay a fortune for this,’ said Whitey, grinning.

‘Forget them! See all that blackroot. Think what the gangs in Sketta will pay for that! You’ve got the connections. What would the Fists of Guerric or the Nemesis gang give us? We
could sell half to each of them and watch them kill each other. Your old firm, the Dead Hand, could take over! This, my friend, is that house on Loubian Hill I have always dreamed of!’ he
chuckled softly.

‘There is only one small problem,’ Whitey looked at the Marsh Man.

‘Mmmm,’ said the merchant. ‘Are the guards still watching us?’ Whitey nodded.

‘Do you think,’ the merchant said slowly, ‘that it would be a terrible thing if this man had an accident and fell into the river, or perhaps even fell on to your knife first?
Could such a thing be contrived, I wonder? We could tell the baron’s men he went for us; what say you?’

The two men exchanged a knowing look. ‘Stand between me and the guards; we will have to do this quickly.’ Whitey silently loosened the knife at his belt and strode forward, failing
to notice the sweat beading on Gorton’s brow.

‘What are you two talking about,’ said the Marsh Man suspiciously.

Whitey moved towards him, trying to look as friendly as he could.

‘It is just that carrying all those expensive items, and on your own...’ He put a confidential arm around the man’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you think that perhaps that
might be a little bit ... dangerous.’ And with that, and swift as a snake, he went to slip the knife between the man’s ribs. Unfortunately for him, Cyganexatavan knew exactly what the
man intended.

He had been to this place many times before and had met many traders from the northern lands, so much so that he could read most of them pretty easily. There were honest ones and then there were
ones like these two. The second he had opened the basket and saw the greed shine in their eyes, he knew what was going to happen. And so as Whitey thrust his blade towards him, he turned his body
in the same direction, so that the knife cut his tunic and scored the flesh over his rib but did no real damage; then he grabbed the off-balance albino and smacked his head against one of the jetty
posts. The man’s legs turned to jelly and he screamed as he pitched downwards on to the planking. Cygan kicked him hard in the ribs and turned towards Gorton.

The man’s face had turned as pale white as Whitey’s and broke into a full sweat. The stiletto he held in his right hand was shaking wildly as he held it outwards towards Cygan.

‘Put it down and get out of here,’ Cygan said, walking firmly towards him. Gorton started, stepping backwards away from the man, but was so panic-stricken that he paid no heed to
where his feet were landing.