Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North (20 page)

‘My name is Davarus Cole,’ he hollered. ‘I’ve been tested at every turn. Suffered adversity you can’t even begin to understand. But I’m still standing. You would as well attempt to break mountains with your bare hands as break me! You would as well try to shackle a raging storm! Know this: Davarus Cole…
will not be caged!
’

‘Twat,’ someone muttered at a nearby table.

Cole swayed slightly. ‘I’m going for a piss,’ he announced dramatically, still lost in the moment. The glow-globes overhead seemed to pulse as he staggered towards the door. The floor heaved beneath him. Annoyed faces stared at him and he stared right back, unafraid. He felt almost like his old self again, and it felt good.

Just before he reached the door, it opened and a small group of women sauntered in. There were no female miners in Newharvest, only a handful of Freewomen looking to make some easy coin before they returned to the City of Towers. Many were the wives of Mad Dogs, though none were wedded to Whitecloaks; apparently Thelassa’s city guard did not take wives. In any case, these particular women did not look like the marrying sort.

‘Excuse me,’ Cole slurred, making to walk around the women. As he moved past, the wavy-haired blonde at the front of the group placed a hand on his arm.

‘Fancy a good time, darling?’ she drawled, giving him a wicked grin. Her breath was warm on his ear and Cole felt himself respond. It had been long time since he had felt the soft touch of a woman. He stared at her, noting the revealing cut of her clothing, and a suspicion began to take hold.

‘Are you a whore?’ he asked loudly.

The woman’s smile remained fixed on her face even as her eyes hardened. ‘We don’t use that word around here. I’m whatever you want me to be. A silver will buy you ten minutes with one of my ladies.’

‘I only need two,’ Cole said, thinking he might borrow a few coppers off someone. ‘Do you offer discounts?’

The whore’s eyes flashed in anger. ‘No.’

The sound of chairs scraping backwards filled the room as men rose and began fishing around in their pockets, counting their coins out onto the tables. Cole glanced at his own table with bleary eyes. Floater and his two friends had wandered over to the bar. Smiler was asleep, wide-open mouth revealing the sorry mess Corvac had made of his once perfect teeth. Whistler just looked angry, though Cole couldn’t think why.

One by one the whores paired off with punters and departed into one of the rooms at the back. No one approached the blonde. Cole thought that odd seeing as she possessed the most obvious assets, though if he were being honest none of the women were exactly great lookers.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, reaching out to guide the woman gently out of his path, but she chose that exact moment to turn and say something to another hooker and his hand accidentally brushed against her breasts.

The blonde slapped his hand away angrily. ‘You pay first, you fucking animal!’ she snapped. The sudden change in her demeanour shocked Cole even through his drunken haze. ‘Give me a silver and I’ll tug you off. That’s all you’re getting. I ain’t no piece of meat.’

‘I don’t have any money,’ Cole said. ‘I just want to go for a piss.’

The woman’s face twisted in rage. ‘You’ve already tasted the goods,’ she hissed. ‘Now you pay. Or I’ll see you get what Mockface got!’

‘Hang on, that’s not fair!’ Cole glanced over at his table again seeking support. Whistler seemed about to say something, but then he looked down at the tankard Cole had hurled to the floor and frowned.

‘No one fucks Corvac,’ Ed said suddenly.

‘You’re damn right they don’t!’ the blonde spat. She pointed a quivering finger at Cole, pressing it right up into his nose. ‘And no one fucks me without paying!’

‘Just get out of the way,’ Cole said, angry himself now. He thrust her aside and stormed towards the door. He turned back just before leaving, petty irritation getting the better of him. ‘Pay you?’ he said sarcastically. ‘You should pay
me
.’

Cole felt a little guilty when he saw the shocked outrage on the woman’s face, but it had been a long day. He had the girl of his dreams waiting for him back in Dorminia. Even if he had possessed the coin, he’d be damned if he’d disrespect himself or Sasha by paying for such an average-looking hooker.

The night air was pleasantly fresh after the stifling heat of the tavern. He made his stumbling way around the side of the Black Lord’s Re-Spite until he found a spot illuminated by the light from the building opposite. Then he tugged out his cock and began to relieve himself with a satisfied sigh.

He found himself thinking of the mysterious blind stranger who had appeared to him at the dosshouse. He wondered if it might have been a hallucination, some lingering effect of the poison that had knocked him unconscious for the best part of a month and sapped the colour from his skin. He still wasn’t sure how he had survived. Every now and then he thought he could hear a crow cawing, but it was always just on the edge of hearing, too faint for him to be sure.

‘There he is!’

The triumphant shriek came from behind him. Cole spun, inadvertently spraying piss over the trio of men who were charging right for him. Fumbling with his breeches, he barely had time to thrust his manhood away before they were upon him. One of them punched him in the head; another kicked his legs away. He fell against the wall of the tavern. A boot slammed into his chest, pinning him down.

‘Ghost!’ Corvac spat.

‘You know this little shit?’ It was the blonde from the tavern.

‘You bet I do. Ain’t that right, bitch? First you embarrass me in front of my men. Then you disrespect my woman. What, she ain’t good enough for you? My Goldie’s not fit for the mighty Ghost? Or maybe you’re just scared you can’t satisfy her?’

‘Tiny dick,’ Goldie sneered. ‘He’s got a tiny dick. I saw it just now. He ain’t no real man. Not like you, baby.’

Cole’s heart was hammering in his chest. Between the punch one of Corvac’s lackeys had just landed on him and the alcohol coursing through his veins, he was too dizzy to think straight.

‘Are we going to execute him like we did Mockface?’ Goldie asked hopefully.

Corvac shook his head. ‘That’d be too easy. This is personal.’ He gestured at his thugs. ‘Turn him around. Pin his arms. I’m gonna show this bitch what a real man is.’

Cole flailed desperately as Corvac’s goons grabbed his elbows. They were bigger than him and stronger than him. He couldn’t escape their iron grip. He felt his breeches being pulled down and suddenly bile rose in his stomach. He heard Corvac positioning himself behind him.

‘You don’t fuck Corvac,’ the Mad Dog leader whispered. ‘Corvac fucks you.’

Cole waited, eyes squeezed tightly shut, trying not to sob. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

He waited. Waited some more. For that awful moment.

‘Fuck. It’s happened again.
Fuck
. Useless piece of—’

‘I can help, baby, just let me just warm you up—’

‘Get away from it, you dirty whore! Gaz, pass me that cudgel you keep on your belt. The old pick handle.’

‘This? Shit, boss, I don’t want it shoved up—’

‘I don’t care give a fuck what you want! Bitch needs to learn his place. Now gag him. I don’t want his screams drawing attention. We’ve only got a quarter-bell until curfew.’

As it turned out, it was considerably shorter than a quarter-bell. Barely more than a few minutes, in fact. But for Davarus Cole it seemed to last an eternity.

‘Does... does it hurt?’

Her mother shook her head but couldn’t disguise a slight intake of breath as Yllandris gently wiped the blood from her brow with a wet rag. Her skin had already begun to swell. Soon she would bear a vicious bruise that nothing would be able to conceal. The other townswomen would gossip, muttering that perhaps she had done something to deserve it, that she must have disappointed her husband somehow. Yllandris had overheard them once when her mother had sent her to buy fish at the market. They saw only her father’s firm jaw, the reputation he had brought back with him from the West Reaching.

They didn’t see the blackness that had festered within him since he had returned from the war. The drink-fuelled rage that had her cowering in her room while her mother bore the brunt of his demons.

‘It’s only a bruise. You should go to bed. In case your father comes back.’

‘I wish he’d died at Red Valley.’

Yllandris caught the slap before it reached her cheek. Somehow that made it worse. ‘Don’t,’ her mother whispered. ‘Don’t speak like that.’

Her mother’s hand felt small and weak in her own. Yllandris stared down at the broken earthenware scattered across the floor with eyes suddenly wet with tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

Her mother hesitated; then she wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. ‘It’s not your fault, sweetheart. None of this is your fault.’

‘I’ll find a way to help us,’ Yllandris whispered. ‘I’m almost a woman now. I’ll find somewhere for us both to live, so he can’t hurt you any more. Just wait and see.’

Her mother smiled at her and took her chin gently in her hands. ‘I don’t doubt it. You’re strong and beautiful and clever. Whatever happens, I will never regret marrying your father. Because without him I wouldn’t have you.’

‘I’ll make you proud,’ Yllandris said. She hugged her mother close: close enough to hear her heart beating.

‘You already have, child,’ her mother replied, running trembling fingers through her hair.

Yllandris opened her eyes. Early-morning sunlight seeped through the cracks in the roof far above, illuminating motes of dust dancing golden between thick wooden beams. For a moment she was hopelessly disorientated. She felt someone tugging on her hair and twisted her neck, half expecting to see her mother smiling down at her.

Instead she stared up into the sweaty face of a young boy. He blinked at her uncertainly. ‘Rinny said to wake you,’ he mumbled. He fiddled with her hair a moment longer, then wiped his nose with a grubby hand and stifled a big yawn.

Yllandris sat up and looked around, slowly familiarizing herself with her surroundings. She was curled up on the floor of the Foundry, in one of the many storage rooms off the central forge chamber. The heat was stifling: her shawl was covered in sweat and the dry skin on her cheek bothered her more than usual.

She remembered waking in the early hours of the morning, feeling terrified and alone
.
She thought she had heard a mysterious bang coming from the direction of the Great Lodge – a sound like a clap of thunder. Still half-asleep, she had walked the short distance from her hut to the welcoming glow of the Foundry and settled down among the town’s orphans. Several of the children were watching her now, wide-eyed and sleepy-faced.

‘Rinny?’ Yllandris repeated slowly.

The boy nodded. ‘She’s with Yorn and a stranger with weird eyes. The iron man is here too!’

The iron man?
Yllandris rose unsteadily. She felt uneasy, and a moment later she realized it was the absence of noise that unsettled her. For weeks the Foundry had reverberated with the pounding of hammers on anvils and the screeching of bellows. Now the roar of the furnace was the only sound she could hear through the thick stone walls.

She brushed herself down and then made her way towards the source of the heat, heedless of the sweat that trickled down her face and made a damp mop of her black hair. As recently as two months ago the thought of facing the world in such a state would have horrified her. Since then she had seen the face of true horror and it had chased away such petty vanities. They belonged to a different woman now.

She slowed as she approached the pair of huge furnaces that dominated the forge chamber. They still burned bright, but elsewhere anvils lay unused, hammers and tongs haphazardly left atop them. The blacksmiths had apparently downed tools and vacated the Foundry in a hurry. All except old Braxus, who had been tasked with overseeing the endless production of new weapons the King had ordered. He sagged before the leftmost furnace, looking exhausted.

To either side of the blacksmith were Yorn, and the Northman with the bloodshot eyes whose face seemed familiar. The third Kingsman, the armoured warrior who had helped murder the Black Reaching sorceresses, was facing Braxus and appeared to be remonstrating with him. Corinn waited timidly nearby.

‘Yllandris,’ Yorn grunted when he saw her. ‘The Shaman’s forces are marching on Heartstone. Your sisters are gathering at the north gate.’

Yllandris’s mouth was suddenly dry. ‘Did Shranree send you to fetch me?’

Yorn shook his head and gestured at Corinn. ‘The girl told me you were here. Figured I’d better let you know.’ The expression on his face might have been one of pity.

‘Thank you,’ Yllandris stammered. There was no telling what Shranree would do if she were late this time. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves.
Shranree doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now. I’ve made my choice. Soon it will be over.
She hoped she had the courage to follow through with her plan.

The Kingsman in the plate armour raised a gauntleted hand to wipe sweat from his brow, then folded his arms and scowled at Braxus. The movement was accompanied by a faint clanking sound.

The iron man
, Yllandris realized. She had never seen anyone covered in so much steel. He was encased from head to toe.

‘You see this sword?’ The Kingsman drew his blade and held it up before him. ‘This was forged by Dranthe, the finest steel smith in Tarbonne. I won it from one of the Old Masters in the Circle ten years past. With this weapon I have fought a dozen wars throughout the Shattered Realms. With this weapon I have killed a hundred men.’ The warrior tapped the blade and turned it slightly, showing off the perfect edge in the red light of the furnace behind him. ‘This sword can cleave through the strongest armour. The balance is so exquisite that I could place it tip down on that anvil there and it would not topple. This is art, created by an artist.’ He sheathed his weapon and turned to retrieve something from the table beside him.