Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North (34 page)

He crept around the outside of the orchard, moving from tree to tree just as he had during his Initiation test all those years ago. One of the outlaws had a torch and was trying to set fire to the building.

Kayne watched the men for a moment, calculating the odds. He picked up a nearby rock and tossed it over the heads of the gang. He didn’t hear it clatter back to earth, but it must have alerted the men as Skarn and a young, thin-faced fellow with a bow moved away to investigate. That left three men, one of whom was preoccupied with burning the house down. It had already caught fire; thick smoke curled away from the front of the house, reducing the visibility. Improving the odds just that little bit more.

Kayne seized his chance.

He reached the men an instant before they noticed him. He thrust his sword through the chest of one, then yanked it free and opened another from neck to waist. The third rushed him, rusty short sword levelled at his face. Kayne dodged to avoid the clumsy thrust and chopped down, taking his attacker’s hand off. He was about to finish the shrieking outlaw when an arrow zipped past his cheek. Kayne grabbed hold of the wounded brigand and spun him around.

‘Fire at me again and this one gets it,’ he yelled, using the man as a shield. Without a moment’s hesitation, the narrow-faced archer nocked another arrow and fired. Kayne’s hostage screamed as the arrow hit him right in the stomach.

‘Sod this,’ Kayne muttered.

He charged forward, using the brigand as a battering ram now. Another arrow thudded into his meat shield, and then Kayne was upon the archer. He thrust the dying man aside as the outlaw fumbled for his sword. Kayne slashed down with his own blade, but just then something hit him in the side. His longsword went wide, taking off half the archer’s ear rather than cleaving his skull as he’d intended.

He became aware of a sudden, sharp pain and glanced down to see a bloody dagger emerging from his leather hauberk. The steel had gone in deep. Kayne, forcing himself to remain calm, looked up into the deceptively bland face of Skarn.

‘Didn’t see me lurking in the shadows, angel eyes?’ the outlaw leader hissed. ‘Seems you forgot how to fight dirty.’

Skarn’s long-bladed scalpel, that terrible weapon with which he’d done such wicked things all those years ago, glinted red in the light of the flames above them. There wasn’t room for Kayne to bring his sword to bear, no room to do much of anything except move his head. So he butted Skarn in the face.

The outlaw was stunned only for a second, but Kayne was on him faster than that. He drove his sword through the man’s stomach and gave it a vicious twist, gutting the bastard just as Skarn had gutted that poor woman the night Kayne and Red Ear split from the gang.

Kayne released the hilt of his sword and kicked the squealing outlaw to the ground. Then he threw himself on the man, punching him in the face again and again. He felt bone crack beneath his knuckles, felt his own hands crack. He didn’t care.

‘You threaten my family? You threaten my son? My little boy? Die, you fucker! Die!’ Kayne snarled and raved, oblivious to everyone and everything except the loathsome face beneath his bloodied fists. He didn’t stop, not even after Skarn the Scourge had passed from the world. It was the intense heat that eventually caused him to pause and look up.

The whole house was ablaze, flames eating the timber like a hungry wolf devouring a deer. Kayne suddenly remembered there was a family inside.

Shit.

The entire front half of the building was a raging inferno. Even if the door hadn’t been blocked from the inside, the fire made it completely impassable. Unmindful of his injured hands and the blood running freely from the wound in his side, Kayne raced back to the orchard. He slid down the ladder into the cellar, coughing and spluttering as smoke filled his lungs. He ran on regardless, clambering out of the trapdoor and staring around wildly for any sign of the family.

The main room was a raging firestorm, too hot to approach. Burning timber had fallen from the ceiling and blocked the exit from the room, which was thick with black smoke. The girl was trapped under the pile of smouldering timber and lay unmoving. Kayne saw the other bodies then and knew that they were all dead, the parents fallen victim to the noxious smoke while they were trying in vain to free their daughter from the wreckage.

He collapsed to his knees, hot tears rolling down his soot-stained face. The superheated air burned his lungs but he didn’t care. An entire family had died because of him. They might have fled down into the cellar. Instead they’d stayed and tried to distract Skarn like he’d ordered them to, and now they were all dead. Because of him.

Unexpectedly he heard a muffled cry for help. He wiped his eyes and looked up; he saw another door further down the hallway, one he hadn’t noticed before. The door was slowly being consumed by fast-moving fire. The cry sounded again, fainter this time.

There was someone trapped in the room beyond the door.

‘Hold on,’ Kayne tried to shout, but it came out as a tortured rasp. He tried to charge at the door, but the heat drove him back. In desperation he picked up a nearby barrel and hurled it with all his strength. The barrel struck the door, and it exploded in a shower of shattered wood and sizzling mead.

A moment later the room’s occupant crawled through the empty doorway.

The youngster was terribly burned, his face a red and blistered mess and his ruined clothes smouldering gently on his body. Kayne grit his teeth and inched towards the boy, closing his mind to the terrible pain. He grabbed hold of the lad, lifted him across his broad shoulders.

‘Hold still,’ he gasped, choking on smoke and tasting blood in his mouth. ‘We’ll get you out of here.’

He carried the youngster down the cellar and up through the orchard and away from the burning house. He would never understand how he managed it. Not with a handful of busted knuckles and a dagger wound in his side. He was certain they would die on the road to Watcher’s Keep.

But somehow neither of them had died. It would become a habit in later years.

‘On your feet, greybeard.’

Kayne gasped as the rope was pulled tighter around his throat, dragging him up from the ground. He clambered to his feet, his muscles protesting every inch of the way. He’d lost track of the days they’d spent trussed up and tied to horseback. Every scar and old ache he’d collected over the years seemed to hurt all at once.

His captor finally let the rope go slack and Kayne moved his head from side to side, trying to work the stiffness out of his neck. The others were also being pulled roughly to their feet. The Wolf’s face was pale behind his burn scars and he clearly favoured his right leg. The arrowhead was still lodged in the left. If it wasn’t treated soon chances were he would lose the limb.

All around them was a forest of tents. There must have been hundreds. The majority were tiny bivouacs made of leather or goat hair, but there were a handful of larger tents as well, stitched together from colourful fabrics stolen from the Free Cities of the Unclaimed Lands or plundered from travelling merchants.

Far to the west, rising above even the tallest tents and bathed in the light of the dying sun, Kayne could see the Purple Hills. The four of them had been brought east. Deep into the Badlands, into the very heart of Asander’s domain.

As they moved through the great camp, men scowled up at them from crackling campfires before returning to sharpening their weapons. Women huddled in groups and pointed before turning back to their gossip. Children peered out over the tops of barrels or from behind tent flaps. Most of the faces staring back at Kayne were filthy and decidedly underfed. The Badlands held little enough game to support small bands of skilled hunters, never mind a sprawling tent town housing thousands.

Starvation didn’t seem an immediate concern for the bastard clutching the end of the rope tied around Kayne’s neck. Fivebellies was surprisingly fit for a man his size, setting a brisk pace that his saddle-stiff and injured captives struggled to match. Kayne tested the bonds around his wrists for the hundredth time, finding no joy. Fivebellies’ men had seized their weapons, including the greatsword Braxus had forged for him all those years ago. Attempting an escape would be suicide.

As they were marched deeper into the camp, one of the bandits led away the horses they’d purchased back in Ashfall. They were sorry creatures compared with the animals their captors rode. Kayne saw a team of horses that would fetch a king’s ransom in the Trine grazing a stretch of grassland between clusters of tents. He wondered briefly why the bandits hadn’t given up raiding and simply established a trade agreement with the Free Cities. He reckoned it would’ve made life a hell of a lot easier for everyone.

Suddenly Jerek stumbled, his wounded leg buckling. Fivebellies glared and then turned to the bandit beside him. ‘Hand me your whip,’ he rumbled. He took the riding crop from his subordinate and began to lash the Wolf with it, driving the leather deep into Jerek’s unprotected arms and neck, leaving deep red welts. ‘You like that, scarface?’ he taunted. ‘Not so tough now, huh? Know what we do with horses that’ve gone lame? We slit their throats, then chop them up and boil the remains. No sense wasting good horseflesh. Maybe we’ll do the same to you.’

‘They ought to boil your corpse,’ Jerek spat back. ‘You’d feed the entire north for a year. Fat prick.’

Fivebellies’ cheeks reddened. ‘We’ll see how clever you are when I cut out your tongue, scarface. After your meeting with the King I want you alone. Just you and me.’

‘Go fuck yourself.’

That earned the Wolf a fresh beating. Kayne struggled against his bonds again, but his hands were secured tight behind him. Grunt’s face was glum, utter despair in his yellow eyes. Brick was as pale as a ghost. The boy flinched every time the leather snapped against Jerek’s exposed flesh.

‘I ought to apologize,’ Kayne murmured to Brick. ‘I got us into this.’

Brick’s mouth quivered. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry,’ he said in a voice filled with pain. ‘My uncle betrayed us.’

‘Not your fault, lad. Some point in our lives, we all hold faith with someone we shouldn’t.’ He remembered his encounter with Borun down in the Trine months past. He looked at the Wolf, whose muscular arms were a mass of scarlet welts. This was what his friends got for trusting in his leadership.

Fivebellies finally decided he’d beaten Jerek enough for one day. The corpulent bandit handed back his subordinate’s horsewhip and patted his stomach. ‘Whipping a man always makes me hungry,’ he complained. ‘Come on, move your arses, before I bloody starve to death.’

The captives stumbled forward. Somehow Jerek remained on his feet, though the way he was staggering and lurching a casual onlooker might’ve easily mistaken him for one of the strollers back at the swamp. Seeing the look in the Wolf’s eyes, Kayne didn’t fancy being in Fivebellies’ shoes if the grim Highlander ever got free of his bonds.

Soon they were led to a giant pavilion that dwarfed the other tents. Most of Fivebellies’ men broke away from the group at that point. The dozen that remained levelled their bows at the four prisoners, their expressions suggesting they would open fire if they so much as farted without permission. Fivebellies chose that moment to unleash a mighty belch. Then he gestured to the vast pavilion with a meaty hand. ‘The King awaits us,’ he declared. He gave Kayne’s rope a tug and the old warrior was forced to scramble behind the bandit as he waddled through the entrance flap.

The torches affixed to poles around the circular structure gave off little light, and it took a moment for Kayne’s eyes to adjust to the gloom. He wasn’t greatly surprised to see the trove of plundered goods that filled nearly every inch of available space. Crates overflowing with fine fabrics were stacked alongside bookcases filled with ancient tomes worth their weight in gold coins. Expensive tapestries had been carelessly rolled up and tossed amongst the jumble of silverware. Plates and chalices, knives and forks and jewellery boxes stuffed with valuables were all piled haphazardly. Kayne didn’t have much of a merchant’s eye, but he reckoned there must be tens of thousands of spires’ worth of treasure stuffed under the pavilion’s dome.

On the far side of the pavilion, illuminated by the light of two braziers positioned either side of the high-backed wooden dining chair serving as his throne, towered Asander the Bandit King.

He was an extremely tall man – a good few inches taller even than Kayne, despite the fact his shoulders were stooped a little with age. He wore a deep blue doublet over his thin frame. No doubt it had once belonged to some rich merchant down in the Trine, but it didn’t look out of place on the Bandit King. Kayne had been around powerful sorts much of his life and he recognized when someone had what folk might call a presence. This Asander had it in spades.

The Bandit King was staring down at a table, stroking his long grey moustache and examining what appeared to be a map. As Fivebellies led the captives forward, he looked up and fixed them with a stare that spoke of a mind as sharp as steel.

‘Cousin,’ Asander said in a clear voice belying his advancing years. ‘Shara told me to expect your return.’

A shadow unfolded from the darkness behind the throne. As it drifted nearer, the light of the braziers revealed the soft curves of a woman wearing tight-fitting silks as dark as her features. Kayne had seen a similar face before; the resemblance was striking. Shara the Seer was every inch her brother’s sister.

‘I serve you as ever, my king,’ she said in a voice like velvet. She drifted closer and placed a hand on Brick’s brow. The dusky scent of her perfume made Kayne’s nose tingle. ‘My divinations informed me of the death of my twin. They also intimated that a prophecy I foretold years ago would shortly be fulfilled. This young man is the catalyst I spoke of. The boy who will bring blood and fire to the north.’

‘He’s but a child,’ Asander said. ‘Are you certain?’

‘The future is never certain. The Pattern can be discerned by those with the talent for divination, but the view it affords is hazy, liable to be misread by the careless eye.’