Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series) (39 page)

‘I’ll be sure to mention it to him,’ muttered the guard captain, unconvinced. He probably shared the same mental image.
Perhaps she could have her girls visit the castle instead
, she pondered…

‘Be sure that you do, sir…’

Her hand resting gingerly on the captain’s sweaty shoulder, Jeasin opened the door, and pushed him gently out. He didn’t move. Jeasin was about to tut when she felt the presence of somebody else standing in the doorway, somebody wet, dripping, and breathing heavily.

The captain was fumbling for his knife. A rough hand pushed Jeasin aside and she heard the distinct wet thud of a fist colliding with a rather saggy jaw. It was swiftly followed by the bang of a head on a wooden floor.

‘Hel…!’ A wet, calloused hand clamped over her mouth. Another hand pushed her up against the wall. The door slammed and locked. Hot, tired breath wafted across her cheek and into her ear.

‘Entertaining the guards now, are we? And a guard captain no less. That’s a step-up for this house,’ rasped a familiar voice. ‘Must have been quite the favour you did the Duke.’

Jeasin hissed his name under his hand. It was a muffled hiss of fury, garnished with a sour pinch of guilt. There was fear there too. Whatever the Duke had done with Farden, he had survived it. He had come for his revenge.

She struggled against his tight grip. He didn’t feel as strong as usual. There was a distinct smell of vomit on his hands. Soot on his clothes too. That coppery tang of blood, steel, murder. The fear grew. ‘
Mmhmm mmm!
’ she mumbled. Farden parted his fingers so she could speak but she tried to bite him instead. The mage thumped her head against the wall for good measure. ‘I s’pose you want to know why I did it? Why I sold you out?’ she spat, breathless.

Farden shook his head. He watched her misty blue eyes look this way and that, searching for something to glare at. Her hair was tousled and tangled. Her perfume, as always, verged on the overpowering, even with the smell of sweat and sex on her. ‘No,’ he said a long pause. That seemed to take her aback. ‘I know exactly why you did it.’

Jeasin lifted her chin away from the mage’s hand. ‘Well, good… and I’d do it again in a second,’ she asserted proudly. ‘For my girls.’ Farden didn’t reply. She stuck out her jaw. ‘What did they do to you, anyways?’

There was a squeak of wet leather as Farden slowly released her. ‘They killed me,’ he said.

Jeasin spat again. ‘Sounds like they didn’t do a good job. If you’re expectin’ me to feel guilty, you’ve come to the wrong place. If you’re ‘ere to take your revenge, then bloody get on with it.’ Behind her flinty bravado, she was quivering, but she didn’t dare show it. ‘Well, what you waitin’ for? Do whatever it is you came to do!’ Jeasin demanded, pulling open her robe and pointing to her heart.

‘Such a small target,’ remarked the mage. ‘But I’m not here to kill you, Jeasin. Just to let you know I’m alive. And to wish you luck.’

Jeasin snorted, barely masking her relief. ‘Luck? Luck with what?’

Farden kicked at the unconscious guard captain sprawled on the floor. He was rewarded with a groan. The sound of bells and horns suddenly began to emanate from the distant castle. ‘After what I just did, and after
he
wakes up,’ Farden kicked again at the limp body, ‘you’ll probably need it.’

Jeasin suddenly looked flustered. It was the first time Farden had ever seen her like that. ‘What did you do?’

‘Let’s just say that whatever protection you had from the Duke has now been revoked. And I doubt the guards will look too kindly on you harbouring a murderous fugitive like me, or for assaulting one of their fine captains.’

‘Murderous… wait! I ain’t harbourin’ you! An’ you punched him!’

‘Really?’ Farden shrugged. ‘The girls saw me come in. They saw me come upstairs. No screams. No cries for help. Not a mark on you. An unconscious body. Hmm, I wonder if they’re as loyal to you as you are to them. Tongues wag when the knives come out. I should know.’ The horns and bells were getting closer. Farden leant against the door and chuckled, chatting almost conversationally. ‘Of course, you could get those hands of yours real dirty. Kill the guard before he wakes up and hide the body. Say I came for you, I killed him in a struggle, and then escaped. Strange though. I suddenly feel like sticking around. Or you could run, of course, but nothing screams guilty like running. All in all, it looks pretty bad.’

‘You bastard,’ Jeasin spat.

‘I guess you’re not the only one who’s good at screwing. As I said, good luck,’ said Farden, with a long sigh.

Jeasin pulled at her hair. She began to pace back and forth. Farden was idly picking his nails. She could hear it, ticking by the seconds. ‘Oh, gods,’ she muttered. Her little safety net had been pulled apart by its seams. Without her protection her girls were vulnerable enough, but now, thanks to the mage’s meddling, they were more vulnerable than ever. The house would be torn apart. Their Jeasin, harbouring a fugitive, after all the Duke did for her. Double-cross they would call it. The girls would be locked up as traitors too. Beaten and worse. The half-empty bag of jewels in her bedside table would be all the proof they needed…

‘You bastard,’ she said again, venom dripping off her words. She considered going to her desk and fetching her little blade. Maybe she could catch Farden off guard, while he’s weak. Nonsense. He was a trained killer. She wrung her hands, feeling that sour sting of guilt again. He wasn’t the only one to blame here. She had brought this down upon herself. Her house. Her girls. All for a bag of bloody jewels.

Beaten. And worse.

‘Take me with you!’ she abruptly blurted. The girls could claim ignorance, claim they never knew. It would look like the mage had abducted her. She could hear the shouting of the guards in the street now.

‘I travel alone,’ said the mage, coldly.

Jeasin stamped her bare foot. ‘Get me out of Tayn!’

She couldn’t know, but Farden was staring deep into her misty blue eyes. Something made of old memories prodded his heart sharply, and he cursed it. Why did dead things refuse to stay in their murky, forgotten graves? He grit his teeth. ‘Jeasin. The scapegoat,’ he said. There was no trace of mirth in his words.

Jeasin nodded. ‘My girls,’ she gasped, barely a noise.

‘Fine,’ Farden grunted. ‘Put some clothes on.’

Jeasin quickly felt her way to her bedside table and frantically fished out some clothes. While she dressed, Farden went to the window and peeked out. A swarm of wet guards brandishing lanterns and spears was surging down the street, yelling and braying for the blood of the mage. They were heading straight for the cathouse.

‘If you’re coming with me, then you’re coming now,’ Farden ordered. He marched across the room and yanked Jeasin toward the door. She did as she was told, but her face bubbled with anger, pain, and a dozen other feelings.

Farden quickly ushered her down the hallway and down a quiet set of stairs that led to the larders. They passed nobody. It was merciful in a way, thought Jeasin. Her ears told her the girls were busy staring at the guards from the windows, or downstairs watching them barge through the door. She would be their scapegoat, as Farden had said, and they would go unharmed. She repeated that to herself as she was half-pushed, half-carried through the silent wine larder and out of the little hatch that was the back door. Jeasin thought of little Osha’s face then, her confusion. It took all she had to fight back the urge to shrug herself free and storm back to her room to confront the guards. She could tell them they had nothing to do with it, that Farden had broken in, held them hostage even.
No
, she told herself, the guards were too angry for explanation. They had already made their minds up. If she stood with the girls they would be seen as accomplices. Ignorance meant innocence.

Beaten. And worse.

Cold rain splashed on her hot face. She flinched. The cold quickly penetrated the clothes she’d managed to snatch from her drawers; a thin dress to cover up her thin robe. Farden led her onto the street and away from the cathouse.

‘I’ve never left Tayn in my life…’ Jeasin was saying. Farden gave her no reply; he simply pulled harder on her arm and broke into a jog.

Farden led her straight towards the nearest gate. The guards would be distracted at the house, but it wouldn’t be long before they realised Jeasin and Farden had disappeared, and alerted the gates. The bells and horns had already done half that job. They stumbled along a rain-soaked knife-edge.

It didn’t take long for a set of gates to loom out of the rainy haze. Smaller than those he had entered by, but bristling with guards all the same. Twenty, at a glance. Farden began to slow his pace. He began to wish he’d stripped the portly captain of his uniform. Shouting ‘Fire!’ wasn’t going to work a second time, not in this blasted rain.

Exhaustion had finally pounced on him. His bones and muscles were weary. He still felt sick from the mistfrond. All Farden wanted to do was find a warm, dry place, and curl up in it. Sleep for a hundred years.

No, that felt too much like death.

‘Where are we?’ Jeasin whispered. She kept looking back, listening to the yelling and crashing of the guards, barely three streets away. It would not be long before they discovered they’d escaped.

‘By the gates,’ Farden gruffly replied.

‘Guards?’

‘Dozen.’

‘What’s your big plan?’

‘Kill everything that moves?’

‘Great plan.’

‘You didn’t have to come with me.’

‘Didn’t I?’ came the hiss. Farden swore he felt spit on the back of his neck. Maybe it was the rain. He pulled his hood up just in case. Farden bit his lip. It was risky, but it might just work. ‘You want to keep your girls safe?’

‘Stupid fuckin’ question.’

‘Then do as I say.’

‘What’s all that ruckus up there then, Cap?’

The captain swaggered through his bunch of men. There was mischief afoot, that was for sure. They could hear the bells of the castle clear enough. Lanterns too, in the streets up ahead. Like firefangs at dusk. ‘How should I know?’ he barked. ‘Jus’ you keep your mouths shut and your hands ready, understand?’

‘Aye,’ came a grumbled chorus.

‘I bet it’s Dunfoot and ‘is lot. They always get to have all the fun,’ muttered a voice in his ear. It was the sergeant.

‘You ain’t wrong Tirst, you ain’t. That’s what you get when your old father sits on the Duke’s court.’

‘What do you reckon the bells are ringin’ for?’

‘Mischief.’ That was for sure. There was always mischief going on, and Captain Yaggerfell was damned if he ever saw any of it. That’s what you get when your old father gets drunk and vomits on the Duke’s best rug.
Shitty posts with the dregs of the barracks
, he told himself. Yaggerfell spared his guards a glance. Reprobates all. Half of them couldn’t even put their armour on the right way round.

‘Somebody’s coming!’ hissed one of them, the fat one. Yaggerfell had forgotten his name.

‘Spears!’ Sergeant Tirst shouted. Sure enough, a figure was coming out of the rain. A slim figure at that.

‘Spears down, you morons. Don’t you know a woman when you see one?’ the captain snapped. Truth be told, with his lot, anything was possible. At the mention of a female, all alone and out in the rain, they perked up. Grins widened. Eyebrows raised. Elbows nudged.

A woman it was and pretty one too, albeit drenched to the bone. She clutched her soaked robes to her skin, betraying more than a hint of curve and bump here and there. A few of the guards began to edge forward. Tirst whacked them back into place with his spear. She was shivering, and she looked agitated. It was hard to tell through the rain and the bedraggled hair wrapping her face, but Yaggerfell still recognised her. That blind whore. He’d heard many a story of her over a mug of brimlugger.

‘Please…’ she began, teeth chattering. ‘He’s tryin’ to kill me!’

Yaggerfell stepped forward, eyeing the rainy gloom behind her. ‘Who is, m’dear?’ He threw open an arm and the woman ran into it, clutching at him. A whistle or two came from behind him. More whacks of the spear.

‘The man the others are chasing! The man who’s killed the Duke! He’s after me, tryin’ to kill me too!’ the woman wailed.

The guards erupted into shouting. ‘The what?’

‘An assassin?!’

‘Where ‘is ‘e?’

‘Duke’s dead?’

‘I’ll show him!’

Farden began at the back, knifing out of the hazy gloom. The blade opened the throat of the first, spinning him like a bloody top on the second. That one got the knife-point in his guts. It didn’t take long for him to start howling. A man will do that when he unexpectedly finds a long blade in his midriff.

As the guards began to turn and yell, Farden sprang from one to the next, slicing at legs and arms and throats and hands before they could even wipe the rain from their eyes. Mud splashed as he kicked and darted. The rippled puddles turned golden as blood mingled with the light of the lanterns. Roars met whimpers as the mage’s blades whirled.

There were three men left standing when the first spear caught him. Up high, in the shoulder. The other followed soon after, catching him just above his arse. Farden cried out as he twisted and knocked the blades aside. They had been frantic jabs, ill-aimed and desperate. He’d live, but their owners didn’t. Farden grabbed the nearest by the neck and dragged his head down, at the same time as he drove his knife up. The blade popped through the back of his skull with a sickening crunch.