Daygo's Fury (39 page)

“I don’t fucking know! I just did. I killed those fucking bastards and I fucking made them die screaming!”

“Why torture them?”

“Because they killed Racquel!”

“Who’s Racquel?”

“Now shut the fuck up!”

The swordsman rose with the speed of an uncoiling serpent. His right hand found Liam’s neck and, unaided, he lifted him up, walked across the room to the wall and slammed him against it, his grip vice-like.

“You will answer with some respect.” His voice was cold and there was a promise in his eyes, but Liam held them with ease. He could barely breathe through the man’s iron grip, but he managed to speak.

“Why would I fear you?” His voice was a strangled whisper.

The man frowned and, after a moment, released him. He turned and walked away. Grabbing a chair, he set it against the far wall and sat, looking across at Liam. Liam allowed himself to slide down to the floor where he sat, directly opposite the swordbearer. Time passed. The man never took his eyes from him. He seemed to be in thought. Liam’s gaze lazily roamed the room.

Finally, the swordbearer sat up and leaned forward onto his forearms. “I’ll give you a choice. I’ll tell you how it is. You have two options. One is that you stay here. There are two things that might happen to you if you do that. You will either be left in that gaol to rot, which is unlikely, or the gang will find out you’re here, which they will, and they will pay the gaoler for you, which they will. I don’t think I need to tell you what the gang will do then.

“The second option is that you come with me. I’m a swordbearer from Darwin. I’m sure you have heard of us before, though not likely the truth. For the moment, I am willing to pay the gaoler’s fee for your release. We are always looking for good warriors, great fighters, and by the sounds of it, you might be one. This I will have to test further myself. If you decide to come with me, you will have to swear not to run away until I release you. If you try to run away, I will kill you.” He paused for a moment at that, seemingly trying to hammer home the point to Liam. But that was a threat, a danger, that Liam had dealt with all of his life.

“Do not underestimate what I offer you here. I’m giving you a new life. As a swordbearer, you will be well paid and treated with respect for the rest of your life. You live honourably. You would be apprenticed for five years during which you are well fed and there is a roof over your head and a bed to sleep on, which I would say is more than you are used to. You might not make the five years, you might not pass the tests, in which case you will be released with enough coin to last you six months and a far better education than you currently have. It is rare, also, that someone with swordbearer training would not be accepted into the army. I am offering you a life, Liam, and for that life I will be demanding loyalty. I’m offering you a way out of the slums.”

Liam met the man’s eyes and kept them. He looked at him for a long moment, knowing, ironically, that his prayers had been answered, yet not feeling grateful for it but incredibly bitter. It was those last words that struck a chord with him. Was this not what he had been hoping and praying for over the last year? Was this not what he had desperately needed? His prayers had been answered, amazingly, but it felt so hollow, so empty. There was no reason not to go along with it. Everything else was gone. Anything was better than going back down to those cells, or being released to the gang. He held little enthusiasm, but he acquiesced. Ensio paid the gaoler and they left, Liam burping a sickened, sardonic laugh as they did so.

******

He hobbled out into the sunlight behind Ensio, wincing from the brightness, four sets of hate-filled eyes at their backs. He looked about to get his bearings and was surprised to see the wall only a hundred yards away. Up close it was domineering. An acute angle of shadow bore down from it at a southerly angle. Vaguely, he could see a lone soldier strolling over its battlements, visible through the crenels every couple of steps. He could hear the sounds of the river front but its sight was blocked from view by the buildings lining the street. The buildings seemed more stable and developed this close to the wall, the majority of which were made from stone as opposed to wood. There was a carpenter’s shop across the street with a small tavern and stables next to it. Sun-darkened men strolled in and out, some carrying large planks of wood off with them, probably roofers making repairs. Three men stood unsteadily outside the tavern, and Liam realised that it was fifth day. It was only three hours from dusk, and those men would probably be drunk until after dawn two days hence, when they would have to return to whatever job paid for their ale.

City watch gaolhouses and outposts were seldom far from the wall. They were more designed to help police entrance into the outer city than to police the slums.

Shadows floated across the street with the gentle movement of white wispy clouds overhead. It was a cool, fresh day, one of the last before the dead summer heat became consistent in Santos. A flock of Woangulls flew overhead, calling to one another in their lightly-sounding language, together like a chorus of musical chimes, unsynchronised yet complementary. Liam’s head rose momentarily as he trailed them through the sky, his eyes squinted and sore from the unaccustomed light. His limbs still ached and his breathing was shallow, though he immediately felt an improvement at his release from the confines of the cell.

Ensio took the lead, striding down the street. He took the first left which led down to the riverfront. As it came into view, Liam looked across at the great arch of stone under which the river flowed through a large metal grating. He wondered idly how so much stone could be supported without ever touching the ground.

He was forced to stop suddenly as Ensio reached his destination. He greeted a man of similar age who looked over Ensio’s shoulder at Liam curiously. He was introduced simply as Vara. He held two large brown horses by the reins; different to those Liam was used to seeing pulling wagons on the Great Road. Taller and leaner, they appeared more agile and energetic, tugging at the reins and occasionally clopping a hoof off the dirt floor. Liam assumed that they produced far more speed than the strong, docile animals that came with a wagon attached. Behind them, tied by the reins to the back of these saddles, were two packhorses, slightly more in line with the animals Liam was used to.

Ensio turned to attend to his horse while Vara looked Liam up and down appraisingly, wrinkling his nose slightly.

“We need to get you a bath and some new clothes first thing. I’m not having that smell follow me around.”

“We can use the bath in the smith’s,” replied Ensio into his horse’s saddle, while pushing his gloves into a pocket on its side. “Where would you …”

“I’ll sort it.” Vara cut across him. Ensio chuckled softly. Liam glanced from Vara to the big man, finding his change of demeanour off-putting.
The smith’s …

“Good, let’s mount up. I want to get out of here before sundown.”

His eyes dropped to the dirt as Vara led him to his mount. There was a mound of horse dung under its tail. Liam wondered which smelled worse, him or it. Vara switched two saddlebags slung across the animal’s saddle to his fellow and bid Liam climb on. Liam had never been on a horse before, but he swung up easily, feeling unsteady on the saddle. The animal did no more than turn its head to inspect its new cargo.

“Hold the reins and the saddle horn here,” Vara instructed. Liam nodded, ignoring the long glance that he received from Vara before he walked away.

Vara took the horse before him, Ensio the one beside that. The two men ahead dug in their heels and the pack animals followed their leaders. Liam held tightly to the saddle horn as he had been instructed.

They rounded the corner back onto the street. Travelling in the other direction was a troop of five men, clearly from the gang. They looked threateningly at Liam’s party but all noticed the blacks of Ensio and kept walking past. Liam turned in his saddle to look back, but Ensio led them around another corner before he could see if their destination was the gaol.

They wound their way onto the Great Road to Darwin and Liam felt a strange sensation, though removed, to be actually travelling on it. So often he had looked up and down it, from the wall to the distant forest, wondering at the wider world and wishing to see that forest and the countryside. He had a picture in his head of great expanses of dirt with occasional weeds and green shoots of grass spurting up from it in places, and the trees; they seemed so far away and so full. He had in his mind a great ceiling of branches above the ground, intertwined to leave no gap, full of green leaves, hanging fruit and flowers, taller than two men. He imagined walking below it and looking up. He had often promised himself that when he grew older he would go to see it for himself at some point. He had thought of going to see it anyway, apparently only a few hours’ walk away, but … he just never had.

As the horses walked further along the road, he began to feel uneasy about the thought of leaving the slums and Teruel. He frowned, uncomfortable with the feeling.

He glanced left and realised where they were. A hundred yards ahead was the gang’s storehouses for this side of the road. The place where he had brought Racquel, where he had first kissed her. He stared at it blankly and his heartbeat began to rise. Panic started to well up inside of him.

Then he saw the small convergence of gang members. There were seven or eight of them. Liam recognised Lollan and then, as he turned around, a familiar sandy-haired face. He stared at him as they approached, amazed to see him again. The man’s eyes widened as he saw him. Liam’s heart beat frantically but he did not move. He would have expected a different reaction within himself, but all he felt was a terrible sickness to the pit of his stomach. To the backdrop of the man who had killed her, the coward who had run twice, was the space where he had first kissed Racquel, where his heartbeat had quickened for a different reason; an excited, good reason.

He was tired. The slums were everywhere, like a disease-ridden carcass. It was not just this man; it was all of them, all men. All he had for the man was a tired, disgusted hate. A dead hate, a flat hate, a hate that knew no matter how many times he could take his vengeance, there were countless more like this man, it was a never ending stream. It was not one man but many. It was not many but a society, a whole species that he hated. And there, in that moment, he realised the hate was no longer personal, the desire for change, for vengeance no longer singular to one or a few individuals. He hated this place. He hated its kind. His kind, he knew. He hated it to the pit of his stomach. He did not know if there was something better elsewhere, he did not know what lay outside of this, but he did know that he never wanted to come back, for as long as he lived he never wanted to be reminded of what lay here. He could no longer deal with it, he could no longer live there, he could no longer compete.

He knew that he had been right when he was with Racquel, in what he had thought, that he could not live there without her, that she was the only reason to continue, that without her he was dead. It was true. Perhaps there was something for him outside the slums, though he held little hope for it. It did not matter. There was a blankness there, not an acceptance, simply a deflated defeat that ran so deep there was no resistance left, no hope. It might end now, it would end eventually, and he was done playing.

He felt disgust to his core, at the world, at the king, at the gang, at Deaglan and Carrick, at that one man there in front of him, amazement written on his face as he recognised Liam, but he did not move, he did not act, he watched it all go by.

The man turned as Liam and his crew passed by, talking frantically to the group behind him and pointing at Liam. He saw heads turn and look towards him. He saw Lollan’s piercing gaze and then a shake of his head. And then he saw the sandy-haired man jump out onto the road and start shouting and screaming in Liam’s direction. Liam turned around, making no effort to hear him. Though the words were vaguely audible, they never reached Liam’s thoughts but instead were filed away in the deep recesses of his mind.

Towards the outskirts of the slums, Ensio led them to the back of an inn. They tethered their horses but left them saddled and entered the tavern. The innkeeper knew Ensio, and Liam was led to the bath room where he was given a towel and instructed to wash. When he was finished, Vara had found a new tunic and underclothes for him to change into. No sooner was Liam dressed again than they left the inn, Ensio flipping a silver coin to the innkeeper on the way out.

The slums remained much the same until their outer edges, where some streets were only half built upon and then finally there were none at all. Immediately, the slums turned to farms, wide expanses of land, separated by fencing or sometimes ditches. Liam could make little sense of it. The grass fields looked stunning to him, thick and green; he felt an urge to leap from his horse and run along them.

Cretn wandered the fields; large, lumbering beasts with three horns, sawn off by the farmer at a young age, and a large snout like that of a pig. Liam looked at them with interest. They had wide, round eyes at either side of its pig-like head, nearly completely filled by large, black pupils, giving them a stupid, dead look. Occasionally it was possible to see them flick from side to side. Liam wondered at the small amount of movement afforded them, if this meant that their vision was more limited or in fact greater than his own. Two of the horns grew from underneath these eyes, to either side of the snout, and the third grew upwards from a tilted-back forehead. They were covered in long, dark brown hair of varying shades.