What Remains of Heroes (25 page)

There was silence for long moments. Paddyn and Drenj shifted nervously in their saddles, and Fencress maintained her bow so long that her back started aching. Paddyn shot a glance at Fencress, an anxious look upon his grubby face. Fencress winked, doing her best to appear unfailingly confident.

“We should leave this place,” whispered Drenj.

There came just then from the wall a guttural laugh which gave way to a hacking cough. “An old debt?” the voice croaked, and then there was the sound of its owner struggling to clear his throat. “To Fencress Fallcrow?” More laughter and coughing. “The Fencress I knew was always a funny lass, so maybe you’re talking straight. And the others?”

“Well if it isn’t Old Crook himself!” said Fencress, smiling widely. She gestured to her right. “May I present Paddyn of Barrendell, son of a simple farmer. He was a forthright young man who labored on his father’s hardscrabble farm. Little did he know his pa had a gambler’s soul, so the young fellow was forced to find work at
The Dead Messenger
to spare his dear pa from debtors’ prison. And to my left is Drenj, a Khaldisian who came to Rune seeking his fortune, but found love before he found honest work. Soon he’d fathered three whelps and only did the dark work to put food in their mouths. Before long he discovered that the path of dark deeds is a steep, downward one, and it’s never easy to turn back.”

“Touching stories, all. But will they help defend these walls if the Arranese stumble upon us?”

“I’ll vouch for them both.”

“And the sack of shit on your horse? It doesn’t look like you’ve brought me a nice set of tits in exchange for my hospitality. No offense against yours, of course.”

“Alas, no,” said Fencress. “We have a prisoner. This fellow followed us all the way from Raven’s Roost. I know not his name, but I’m hoping we can make use of your facilities to find out.”

“Anything for an old friend,” said Old Crook. “Speaking of friends, where’s your usual companion? I haven’t seen Karnag Mak Ragg in years.”

Fencress’s grin withered at the mention of the name. “That’s a sore matter. The sort of thing I’d prefer to speak of only among dear friends, Crook.”

“Very well. Lads, open the gate!”

Fencress took a long draw from her mug, draining the last of its contents. It was cider, and a strong cider at that. She’d had only one mug and already her head had the tingles.

“Good stuff, eh?” asked Old Crook, taking the mug and moving to refill it at the cask set near the wall. “I make it myself. Takes me back to my days as a simple old innkeeper.” He chuckled and returned the mug to Fencress, assuming a seat across from her at the circular table.

They sat alone in the comfortable room, a place of dark wood constructed upon the limbs of a massive oak. Narrow windows were carved into its circular wall and offered a full view of Crook’s Hole, as Old Crook called his place. It was a sprawling compound of interconnected structures situated among, between, and upon the forest’s thick trees, and all of it surrounded by a wall of wood and earth. Old Crook always kept a number of hard lads, and harder lasses, on retainer, so the place seemed sound as a fortress.

Old Crook took a sip from his mug—a bit too much—and it dribbled over his thick lips and jutting chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, revealing fingers even more crooked than Fencress remembered. Old Crook had told her once he’d been caught stealing bread as a boy, and that the shopkeeper had broken every one of his fingers to teach him a lesson. Fencress figured the story was a load of horseshit, as were most of her own, but reckoned it was a clever way of explaining the name “Crook” as something other than a moniker for a criminal.
Anything to make us seem better than the heartless scoundrels we really
are
.

“So what of Karnag?” Old Crook asked. “How is he?”

Fencress sighed and stared into her mug. “That’s a difficult question. One I have trouble answering even to myself. He… He’s not the same. I worry for him.”

Old Crook looked at Fencress, his dark brow easing from its usual glower. “We are friends, you and I. Some of you I thought of as children I’d never been able to father myself. You and Karnag most of all. You needn’t fear words with me, lass.”

Fencress nodded and sipped her cider. “We took a job from Handsome, a big money job which would allow us to take things easy for a good long while. It was a dangerous one for certain but Karnag thought we were up to the task.” She grinned. “You know Karnag. The man hasn’t a shred of fear in him, and always has something to prove.”

“A murder?”

“Of course. But not just any old murder. We were hired to kill the Lector of the Sanctum. Anyone holding to religion would say the Lector’s one of the most powerful people in all of Rune, perhaps all the world.” Fencress paused, letting the weight of the words settle.

Old Crook’s face was unreadable. “You’re the ones who killed the Lector of the Sanctum.”

“The very same, and in the forest not too far from here. It was a lot of coin, more than we’d ever seen.”

Old Crook took a long drink and then looked curiously into his mug, as though surprised to find he’d emptied it. “Folk can make a great pile of coin by sticking to the little things, so long as they’re willing to work hard. I always warned you and the rest not to get mixed up in things bigger than yourselves.”

Fencress felt shame coloring her cheeks. “You did, Old Crook. I wish we’d listened.”

Old Crook moved to the cask and refilled his mug. He then stood by a window and stared out in silence for a time before speaking. “We all start life accepting whatever crap our parents choose to feed us. Me? My mum, like most mums, taught me the Old Faith, or at least whatever scraps of it she’d learned as a child. I soon found I wasn’t much for it, but then I don’t figure you
can
be for such things in a profession such as ours. But as a man gets older those things no longer seem so… outlandish. You see things. You feel things shift inside you, a change of heart, or maybe just a
wanting
to have a change of heart. You begin to get the feeling there’s more to this world than just men and their madness.” He sighed and returned to his chair.

Fencress hunched over her mug and took another long drink. “I can’t say I take such things lightly anymore, either. Not after what we’ve been through.”

“Karnag? He lives, yes?”

Fencress nodded. “He lives, but he’s changed, Crook. The murder itself was nothing of note, aside from being an utter mess with more people dead than we intended, just as such things sometimes are. But after that… After that Karnag was different. He spoke in a strange tongue, at first when he slept, and later when he killed a man. He possessed some kind of power. When we returned to Raven’s Roost to collect what was owed us, Karnag killed a man with a
word
. We headed south to Hargrave, a couple of days from here, and he did it again, only worse.” She tapped her mug on the table. “I’ve seen sorcery, but this was something else. It was as though he could
will
the death of men, and he seemed to make a ritual of it. I fear he’s cursed. Cursed in the oldest, worst of ways.”

Old Crook looked toward the window and tapped his crooked fingers against his mug. “That’s a sad thing, Fencress. Folk like us shouldn’t meddle in those things. I believe one of my lads found the site of the murder. The body was
black
, Fencress. All black and powdery like something burned. Yet, there was no sign of a fire being set to the body. His clothes and the sheet about him were untouched, still white and pristine in the places not soaked with blood. It was as though all life had been sucked out of that body, leaving it no more than a hollowed-out husk. I saw it myself, and when I did I knew the man to be some high ranking member of the Sanctum. I had the remains thrown into a pyre with the rest of the dead, out of respect for my mum. I’ve no need of devilry on my doorstep.”

Fencress frowned. “I can make no sense of this, but I know I can’t leave Karnag like this.”

“You need to help the lad.”

“I can’t imagine where to begin. He’s my friend, but I deal in murder, Crook. Not madness.”

Old Crook’s brow arched thoughtfully. “You said your prisoner followed you from Raven’s Roost? And you’d just returned there to collect your coin?”

“Aye. We noticed him on our tail just after Karnag had one of his… episodes. I’m guessing the fellow also saw what Karnag did in Hargrave. After that he decided to head north, and we grabbed him.”

Old Crook’s face twisted into a grin. “Maybe he knows a thing or two?”

“He seems like a tough sort. I’ll need some time with him to get the answers I need.”

“Maybe not as much time as you think. My lads are softening him up right now in the stockade, for practice and such. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

The stockade of Crook’s Hole was a deep, wide pit in the ground, its walls all black soil held back by wooden planks. Fencress entered it from the ramp dug out of one of its corners and regarded the prisoner shackled to a post in the center. She walked round the man, still blindfolded and gagged, and noticed blood dripping from a dozen fresh wounds. The fellow shuddered with frantic breaths, and his blindfold was damp with tears.
Old Crook’s lads know their
business
.

Fencress moved behind the man and began untying his gag. The prisoner recoiled and whimpered, seeming to fear another beating. “Hush,” Fencress said. “There will be no need for violence so long as we understand each other.”

The man settled back against the post, his breathing becoming more even. After a moment he nodded.

“Very well,” said Fencress, removing the man’s blindfold and walking to stand before him. She bowed politely. “I am Fencress Fallcrow, and I am equally willing to serve as your executioner as I am your liberator. The choice, friend, is yours. And you are?”

“Merek,” he answered, his voice ragged and hoarse. His nose was flattened and blood trickled from both nostrils and through his greasy beard.

“Let me apologize, Merek, for the circumstances of our first encounter, and this, our second. However, I do not take kindly to being spied upon, nor do I fancy seeing one of my friends nearly murdered in his sleep.”

“I intended no harm.”

Fencress twirled a strand of black hair that had fallen from her cowl. “A convenient explanation to make, now that you find yourself in this predicament. The way I saw things—and I have very sharp eyes—you were crouched over him as he slept, your hands ready to wrap around his throat.” She waggled a gloved finger at him, scolding. “Friends don’t treat each other so, do they?”

“If I’d thought to kill your friend I’d have gutted him with my blade while he slept.”

Fencress measured the man’s eyes, searching for the tics of a liar. The fellow’s gaze was unwavering. Fencress was certain the man was hiding something, but he wasn’t lying about this. “Perhaps you’re no murderer, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t hold ill intent. You practice witchcraft, do you not?”

“I am no witch,” Merek said, his eyes narrowing.

“Not a witch, eh? Does the term insult you? Tell me, then, what you are? I recognize sorcery when I see it.”

The man looked away, his bloody chin held high.

“Do we no longer understand each other, friend?” Fencress tucked her hand into one of the pockets of her cloak and retrieved the iron bracelet they’d taken from the man. It was an odd thing, etched with strange writing and its surface seemed to reflect no light. “I’ve fenced my fair share of jewelry, and this strikes me as much more than a mere bauble.”

Merek looked hungrily at the object, momentarily struggling against the heavy chains that bound him.

“Ah,” said Fencress, moving closer. “You want this?”

Merek cast his eyes downward and was still. “Yes,” he said quietly. “You must let me go. There are things afoot, great forces at work. You must set me free!”

Fencress drew one of her blades and pressed the point against the fellow’s forehead, easing his head upward. “You are in no position to make demands upon me, friend. I do not trust sorcerers, which means I do not trust you. I will ask my questions only once, and if you have any desire to leave this place with your head, you will answer them earnestly. Do we understand each other?”