Lescari Revolution 03: Banners In The Wind (31 page)

If he were alive, Downy Scardin would know every word and whisper passing between the Caladhrian barons. The fat man would also know just how thoroughly Duke Iruvain was hitting his own thumb with what he fondly imagined was the hammer of his eloquence. If he could only be there in Ferl with Iruvain, listening, interpreting and advising, Triolle's chances of securing Caladhrian support would be doubled or trebled.

Karn drank, the liquor's aroma momentarily overwhelming his senses.

If he was in Ferl, he would cursed well know what had befallen those mercenaries who'd taken Wyril. The last he had heard, the renegades were holding the town, well able to defy whatever ramshackle companies the exiles were recruiting from the Carifate.

But he couldn't be in two places at once. Not even a wizard could manage that.

Karn scowled inwardly. He would still have owed Downy Scardin a beating, if the man was alive. He'd have taken whatever information the fat man could offer up to save his neck. That would be some recompense for the miserable failure that wizard Minelas had proved to be.

He refilled his cup and emptied it in a single swallow. He hadn't even had the satisfaction of gutting the useless mage. The lesser of those two cursed Mountain mercenaries had stolen that particular pleasure. It might only be a pennyweight's grudge against the incalculable loss of Master Hamare, but Karn would settle both debts with a length of steel in the ribs. He downed another drink.

'That's a sound notion, my friend.' Shanish did the same. 'Warm the innards before Aft-Winter's chill.'

'Let's see out the festival in style.' Karn slapped his jerkin and the fat purse beneath chinked. 'Where might a man find a lively game of runes among friends?'

That was one way to sniff out mercenaries in need of coin. Fumble the runes to favour some awkwardly indebted lieutenant and he could find new boon companions before night's end.

'Try the Spiked Collar,' Shanish suggested, 'or the sword school above the Plaited Pennants.'

'Wish me luck.' Karn gestured towards the bottle. 'Enjoy your evening. I'll see you here tomorrow?'

'And the next few days.' As the music stopped, Shanish beckoned to a milk-skinned dancer in cherry-pink ribbons.

Her quick step told Karn that the fool had been lavishing his coin on her all festival. The Firebrands must have had a successful year defending Caladhria's coasts against the corsairs.

Karn left him to his lechery. With luck he'd remember the metheglin and the Tormalin gold and mention Browd of Triolle's generous purse to someone more desperate for coin.

But Karn no more trusted to luck than he trusted to ice in a thaw. Deterring a hopeful slut with a forbidding look, he slipped through the cheerfully inebriated crowd to the tavern door.

The night was raw with a salt wind blowing from the sea. Karn turned up the collar of a Saltebre merchant's cloak as he strode through the white-walled streets. The man didn't need it on his way to a life of servitude in the steamy heat of the Archipelago.

He paused for a moment, listening. Had he heard a soft following step? Or just garbage tossed by the wind?

Karn walked on, his hand resting on his sword hilt underneath the heavy wool. If an air of purpose didn't deter footpads, that blade would settle any argument.

He passed the alley heading for the Spiked Collar and took a turn in quite a different direction. There were a few other scents to follow before he endured rune-play with drink-sodden mercenaries.

Crossing the narrow bridges that arched over the criss-crossing canals, he left the central tavern district for quieter, residential streets. By the time the last lamps were quenched, he had left these prosperous dwellings with their gardens and fountain courts behind.

Now he reached the noisy, crowded tenements where the poor sought some respite from their labours in Relshaz's workshops, and around the docks and the wharfs. The paved roads narrowed and white-plastered walls were stained with shadowy mould.

Karn walked more slowly, cutting unexpectedly through back alleys before returning to his intended route. If anyone was pursuing him, he knew how to spot the signs. But he was soon satisfied that the passers-by were hurrying elsewhere, intent on business of their own.

Refuse choked the gutters as the paving gave way to bare mud. These were the sagging hovels where the truly destitute washed up. The stench of the river, the stink of human and animal filth all hung heavy this far from the cleansing breath of the sea.

Karn rapped on a black-tarred gate in a wall leprous with flaking plaster. No one answered. He knocked again and then a third time.

'Who's there?' A voice rose over the warning growl of a dog. More than one dog.

Karn contemplated his choices among his aliases. He wouldn't be here long enough to need to cover his tracks. 'Browd, for Egil the Toad.'

The dogs filled the silence with curious whines accompanied by the rattle of hefty chains.

'Wait there,' the voice eventually said.

'Gladly.' Karn looked around to make sure no one was approaching.

After a short while, bolts rattled and the gate grudgingly opened. 'What do you want?'

A short, stocky man blocked the entrance, warmly wrapped against the chill. He was well enough muscled to easily restrain the two thick-necked black dogs coupled by a chain.

The animals looked up at Karn with suspicion to equal their master's. Even with the clouds from the sea subduing the waning Greater Moon, their pelts shone with good health and grooming.

Karn glanced up and down the dilapidated street. 'Can we talk somewhere more private?'

'No,' the man said bluntly.

Karn shrugged. 'I'm looking for men to venture into Lescar--'

'Lescar's dukes are all spitted and roasted.' Egil raised a hand to close the gate.

Karn stopped it with a firmly planted boot.

'You can move that or lose it, friend,' warned Egil. 'Ebony's not been fed tonight.' The off-hand dog's lip curled in a snarl.

Karn didn't shift his foot. 'If the cockerels are spitted and roasted, who's guarding their flocks of hens? Where are all the scattered chicks running in hopes of cover? A man with an eye to the poultry market could make a tidy sum, if he moved quickly.'

The glint in Egil's eye told Karn that he had understood his meaning. The man soothed the rumbling dog's hackles with a broad hand.

'Provided no one turned up to dispute ownership of the flock,' he allowed.

'Work fast and no one would know where to lay a claim,' Karn pointed out. 'So such a man would need a few helping hands to set his nets discreetly.'

Egil angled his head. 'He would want to be certain his new friend had a ready market for these fowl.'

'You need have no worries on that score,' Karn assured him. 'Would you care to know--?'

'Details don't concern me.' Egil looked down at his dogs, which both pricked floppy ears. 'Where might such men find this hen-hawk roosting?'

Karn could see the Toad was already considering which desperate mercenaries he'd sell this opportunity to. 'Why don't you see who's interested in making good money in a penniless season? You suggest somewhere safely out of the way for them to meet me tomorrow at sunset. I'll call here beforehand and you can tell me where.'

There was something he didn't quite trust in Egil's eyes, even more than usual. So he would take his own sweet time approaching here and wherever Egil told him to go. He might even make his way over the rooftops where no one would be looking. It would be as well to be sure the man hadn't found some larger pay-off by setting a snare for him.

The stocky man glanced up and down the silent street. 'You'll pay me for such services?'

Karn crossed his arms. 'You'll get your share of the profits.'

'With no guarantee you'll catch more than a few feathers on the breeze?' Egil shook his head. 'That won't keep me warm through Aft-Winter.'

'Then I'll bring something to stuff your comforter tomorrow.' Karn hid his exasperation.

'Call back around mid-afternoon.' Egil pushed at the gate to conclude their conversation. The dogs obediently retreated.

Karn made as if to withdraw his foot before apparently recalling a trivial question. 'I'm hearing curious tales about this business in Wyril. What do you make of it all?'

'You don't know what happened?' Egil's laugh prompted a bark from one of the dogs. 'Fancy that.' He grinned unpleasantly at Karn. 'What's the truth of it worth?'

Karn considered the weight of the purse hidden within his jerkin. With a swiftness that made both dogs snarl, he pulled it out and sliced the strings around his waist with a dagger he'd palmed from his sleeve. He was pleased to see that blade's appearance took Egil by surprise.

He tossed the purse and it landed with a thump. One of the dogs sniffed it suspiciously. 'There's plenty more where that came from.'

Egil made no move to pick it up. 'That could all be copper cut-pieces.'

'But it isn't.' Karn matched Egil's disagreeable smile. 'I told you. Selling fowl down the river is a profitable trade.'

Egil patted the dog that was looking upwards, its muzzle pressed against his thigh. 'Make hay while the sun's shining, my friend. Wyril has fallen to the exiles' and rebels' new captain, Tathrin Sayron. He trapped all the freebooters inside the walls and set the town alight. I hear barely a handful got out alive and they were cut down on the roads.'

Who was this new captain? Karn had heard that name before, though his recollection carried no hint of such ruthlessness. 'I heard he was recruiting in the Carifate. What companies were prepared to do that to their own?'

Other mercenary captains would be baying for the blood of those responsible. Any amount of brutality against peasants was excusable but undue savagery against other mercenaries was not. It only invited retaliation from a crushed company's allies and such battles offered no profit for anyone.

Could he use this news to Triolle's advantage? But why hadn't Shanish been full of outrage at such an atrocity?

Egil was shaking his head. 'This captain wasn't recruiting companies, just men and women who could make a fair claim to be Lescari-born. He's promising them land and livelihood in this new Lescar free of dukes and their quarrels. He swears there won't be another fighting season, so if they don't want to find themselves begging on the roads, they should throw in their lot with him.'

Karn could scarcely believe it. 'He's found enough folk to suck up this dream-smoke to make himself an army?' An army formidable enough to make Shanish think twice about venturing into Lescar?

'He's found enough sergeants-at-arms.' Egil's hollow laugh prompted an unhappy whine from his dogs. 'They're drilling fine new regiments of Lescari militia, all strutting like cocks on a dunghill. They've been enlisting volunteers in every town since the start of For-Winter. They'll have twice the number after festival now they have the conquest of Wyril to brag about.'

'Militiamen,' Karn sneered.

Egil shrugged. 'Corner the mangiest shithouse rat and it'll take on a dog five times its size, especially if it's fighting to protect its nest. Enough of them together can bring down a mastiff.'

'Or a vixen,' Karn commented. 'What does Marlier make of this?'

'That's a good question,' agreed Egil. He nodded at the dog and took the purse it retrieved for him. He weighed the coin in his hand and looked at Karn. 'Bring me the answer to that and I'll let you have half of this back.'

Karn shrugged. 'Maybe I will, maybe I won't.'

'As you see fit.' Egil nodded. 'Call back tomorrow and I'll tell you where to find your hunters.'

He closed the gate. As Karn walked away he heard the bolts slide securely home.

What did all this news mean for the plans he'd laid out for Duchess Litasse? Karn tried to think every new twist through but found he was simply too tired.

Not too tired to go gambling, especially when the other gamesters would be all the wearier, that much less observant. Now Karn would make sure the runes favoured him, refilling his own purse after paying off Egil for this perplexing news.

Would the Toad find enough unscrupulous men to go plundering Marlier's peasants and Caladhria's prosperous villages? Or would all Relshaz's mercenaries prove as reluctant as Shanish to risk themselves in Lescar?

Regardless, it was now all the more urgent that Caladhria's barons and Tormalin's legions marched quickly to quell the unrest in Marlier and Parnilesse. Karn spared a moment to regret that he didn't have the time to go to Ferl, or to Toremal, to hurry that turn of events along.

Still, whoever this rebel Captain Tathrin Sayron was, he was still only one man. He couldn't be in two places at once, any more than Karn could. He breathed a little more easily as he recalled another titbit of gossip around the taverns. That other Vanam exile, the other instigator of this rebellious plot, still lay close to death. Once the man succumbed, these exiles' ambitions would suffer a fatal blow.

Chapter Twenty-One

Failla

Carluse Castle,