Wintercraft: Blackwatch (3 page)
A small shadow dropped towards the sea and a bedraggled crow skimmed the surface of the water and flapped up to land upon Silas’s shoulder. Its feathers were scruffier than usual and a white line of feathers upon its chest was dull and dirty. It did not like being on open water and it huddled close to Silas’s neck, fluffing itself stubbornly against the freezing wind as distant lights gradually sparkled into life on the horizon.
While many of Albion’s main towns clustered along the central spine of the country, most Continental towns clung to the coast, as if trying to escape from the sprawling forests, mountains and lakes that dominated the territory further inland. Every western town had guards posted along its beaches in case of an attack from Albion, but Grale’s guards were far less particular about whom they allowed in their waters compared to those posted in the larger towns further south. Grale was too far from anything to be a useful landing point for an invading army, and anyone who risked travelling there found nothing but the pungent smell of fish and smoke to welcome them. War or not, there was still silver to be made and Grale was still open for illegal trade.
At night the town looked shabby and bleak. The glowing lights came from lanterns slung along wires above Grale’s empty streets that hummed like strings of bees whenever the wind blew through them. The rough faces of Grale’s once white buildings had been stripped back by centuries of powerful sea winds and the people who lived in them were as cold as the streets they walked during the few sunlit hours of their darkened days. The town stood humbly at the mercy of the elements and its residents were opportunists, every one of them devious and unpredictable. Silas had endured dealings with them before.
‘Pull in the sail,’ he ordered. ‘Now.’
The boy obeyed. They were too close to the coast to risk being seen, and before Silas could even demand it the boy had a pair of oars at the ready, preparing to row them to the shore himself.
‘No,’ said Silas, noticing that the oars were the same thickness as the boy’s scrawny arms. ‘I plan upon arriving sometime before next week. Give them to me. You keep watch for lens lights.’
Grale had been a traders’ port before the Continent’s war with Albion had begun, and its inhabitants could still be persuaded to barter with smugglers who did not plan to stay too long. The smugglers’ ship’s arrival would already be expected. Special provision would have been made for it at the docks at a designated time, but Silas would be given no such privilege. If just one man saw the boat out there on the waves, the rest of them would know about it in moments and decide what to do about it.
Silas rowed swiftly. The sooner he was out of sight, the better.
The land rose into looming cliffs on either side of the wind-lashed town, each mass topped by a stone watchtower. The boy shivered in silence as they crept inshore. Silas was concentrating on avoiding the clutches of rocks that rose stealthily out of the rising waves when something glimmered up ahead, a flicker of light where a light should not have been.
Halfway up the cliff face, a shadow moved. Silas kept rowing. Another stroke of the oars … two … three, carrying the boat closer to the shore. The hairs on his neck began to bristle. He looked up – saw nothing – and then a sound high above him left no room for doubt. There was the thinnest rattle, a scrape of metal against stone, and a gentle hiss as something fell out of the sky.
Silas was already on his feet. He grabbed the boy’s arm and pulled him over the side of the boat. The crow fluttered up into the darkness and Silas hit the water on his back as a weighted net swamped down on to the boat. The ropes caught upon the mast and tented across it like a dead jellyfish. The air filled with arrows. Silas released the boy and plunged underwater.
More arrows ripped past him, but his attackers were shooting blind. They had expected him to strike out for the shore and were misjudging his position by a good few feet. He treaded water to stay close to the surface and a squeal of fear sounded nearby as the boy slapped the water uselessly with open palms, battling to stay afloat.
The frequency of the arrow strikes allowed Silas to calculate how many enemies there were as he swam back towards the frightened boy. A black-shafted arrow stabbed into his arm and he pulled it out without flinching, filling the water with a swirl of blood. He grabbed the boy’s ankle and pulled him down under the water. The sea foamed with air as the lad flailed and fought against him, but Silas kept hold of his foot and dragged him along, heading for the rocky shore.
The arrows stopped. Silas swam faster. Whoever was up there would be making their way down to the waterline. At last his hand came up against a cold mass of cliff shale. To his right was a huge expanse of rock, solid and black; to his left was a path leading up into the town.
The sea rose and fell against the coast, pulling the two swimmers away and forcing them back again. Above them four shadows ran along the sheer side of the cliff, suspended by ropes that let them swing between two distant ledges with ease. Silas knew that technique. He had seen it before, which meant that those men were not just ordinary guards. They were something far worse.
‘Blackwatch,’ he breathed.
The Blackwatch were elite soldiers of the Continental army, every one of them highly trained in stealth, infiltration and assassination. Silas had encountered many of their agents in the past but he had not expected to see them there. If the Blackwatch were in Grale, his search for Dalliah Grey was going to be more difficult than he had anticipated.
Soon the men moved out of sight and Silas pulled himself out of the sea, dragging himself up on to the rocks at the base of the cliff. The boy was right behind him, and the moment he slithered up on to solid ground Silas grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to his feet.
‘They
knew
,’ he said coldly. ‘They knew I was coming. How did they know?’
knew
,’ he said coldly. ‘They knew I was coming. How did they know?’
The boy did not answer.
‘What is this?’ Silas dragged on a leather cord hung round the boy’s neck and found a glass lens hanging there.
The boy cried out as loud as his pitiful lungs would let him. ‘Here! He’s here!’
Silas grabbed him by the neck and loomed over him. ‘You have chosen the wrong side, boy,’ he said. ‘Pray that you never see me again.’
The lad’s eyes widened in fear, but he was not looking at Silas; he was looking behind him. Silas saw a shadow move in the reflection within the boy’s eye. He watched it carefully, saw the gleam of a blade shining in the moonlight, and dodged smoothly as it stabbed towards his back. The man wielding it stumbled, the boy ran and Silas killed his attacker instantly with a swift snap of the neck.
Silas reached for the rock face and pulled himself up the cliff, hand over hand, making for a ledge a few feet above him. The rocks were slippery and smooth, but he reached the ledge, got to his feet and drew his sword ready to defend himself. The ledge was part of a curved pathway sliced into the cliff rock and Silas followed it upwards to gain the advantage of higher ground as the rest of the Blackwatch closed in.
The sea roared against the cliffs as he climbed higher. His crow screeched a warning and he stopped, spotting a bowman posted up ahead, watching the waves. Silas moved along the rock face, staying out of sight, and took the bowman by surprise. The man loosed an arrow, missed his target, and was dead before the arrowhead found its way into the sea.
More Blackwatch moved in, flanking Silas on both sides. There was nowhere to go. Arrows flew, but Silas was fast on his feet, dodging every one until a second net edged with weighted blades launched towards him from the dark. The net tangled around him, capturing him beneath it. Silas fought to free himself but the rope had a metal core that could not be cut. He stopped struggling as his enemies gathered around him. He waited, choosing his moment.
‘Secure him.’
Silas did not see who had given the order, but he had no intention of letting anyone see it through. Only six men were left, five with bows or swords raised, and one – the leader – standing behind them, silhouetted in the moonlight. Silas waited until they had crept close enough and then stood up quickly, making the net lift with him. The Blackwatch scrambled to secure the edges and Silas lashed the ropes, using the weighting blades as weapons against them. Two men died when their throats were slashed and a third fell to a thrust of Silas’s sword. He wrenched the net up over his shoulders and threw a fourth man into the sea, leaving only the leader and his last man standing close by.
‘Silas Dane,’ said the leader. ‘Welcome back.’
Silas knew that voice, thick with the deep tones of the Continental north. The voice of an enemy. It had been twelve years since he had heard it last.
‘Bandermain,’ he said. ‘I should have known.’
Silas’s fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword, eager to fight, but this was no time for bloody reunions. The Blackwatch never worked alone. For every group Silas had encountered in the past another had always been posted nearby, and he did not have time to fight them all. He had been betrayed by a child, and the enemy had found him before he had even set foot on land. His arrival on the Continent was not going to plan.
The last Blackwatch agent raised his bow ready to let loose an arrow. Silas looked out across the ocean, and as the bow snapped he bolted straight for the edge of the path. The arrow snicked behind him, dangerously close to his neck. The bowman quickly readied another and Silas’s feet left the ground as he leapt from the cliff, launching himself far out into the air. The north wind streamed against his face and the sea beneath him bristled with rocks as he brought his arms up into a deathly dive and plummeted down into the waves.
He plunged hard into the shallow water, buffeted by the tide, which sent him slamming back into the cliff. The rocks sliced his arms and the force of the ocean raked his body hard against the coast.
The remaining Blackwatch looked down from the path, not daring to follow their target into the sea, but there was no sign of life in the water.
Silas was gone.
2
Judgement
Kate Winters sat at the back of the empty meeting hall, staring at a pair of slim wooden boxes that stood side by side on a small semicircular stage at the front of the room. One was painted white, the other black, with a wire basket hooked on to either side, each box standing half as tall as a man.
‘There they are,’ she said quietly. ‘Those boxes are going to decide everything.’
Edgar sat down, passed Kate half a sandwich and propped his feet on the arm of the chair beside her.
‘They’re just boxes,’ he said. ‘It’s the people who use them you’ve got to watch out for.’
Kate looked back at the main door. The meeting hall was the largest chamber in the sanctuary of the Skilled’s underground cavern, and one of the oldest. Like most of the structures there most of it was built into the cavern wall, but the stone outer walls were curved slightly, making it look different from the rest. It was a communal space set aside for important meetings and events, and was left standing empty most of the time.
Edgar leaned back and stared up at the vaulted ceiling, where paintings of all the Skilled who had lived and died there in the last twenty years were pinned into place. ‘I don’t know who thought that was a good idea,’ he said between bites. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’
Kate did not look up. She could sense the pale ghosts of the people those faces had belonged to, caught within the veil between life and death, unable or unwilling to leave the living world behind. She tried to ignore them, but since the Night of Souls it had become difficult to block them out.
‘When do you think they’ll start to arrive?’ she asked.
‘We’ve got plenty of time,’ said Edgar. ‘You’d think they’d at least let you sit in on the decision. It’s your life. If anyone deserves to hear the verdict, it’s you.’
‘I don’t think we should have come here.’
‘Why? No one’s going to see us.’
‘No, I mean
here
. To this cavern. The Skilled don’t want me here. None of them do.’
here
. To this cavern. The Skilled don’t want me here. None of them do.’
‘They’re just nervous,’ said Edgar. ‘They’ll do what’s right in the end.’
‘I hope so,’ said Kate.
Asking the Skilled for help had been more difficult than Kate had expected. From the moment she entered their cavern on the Night of Souls she had feared she was making a big mistake. Silas was right. The Skilled did not understand her, and they definitely did not want her among them.
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