Summoner: Book 1: The Novice (16 page)

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Fletcher grimaced as the red hot metal on the anvil slowly turned grey once again. Every time he removed the bar of steel from the roaring fire of the forge, it returned to a cool state after just a few hits with his hammer. He had shaped it into a rough sliver of metal, but it looked nothing like the dagger he wanted to create.

‘That’s dwarven steel for you,’ Othello said with a hint of pity. ‘It’s harder and sharper than any metal known to man, but it cools fast. You need to have a dwarf’s strength to make an impact on it before it hardens again.’

‘It was an unfair trick to play on you, Fletcher,’ Uhtred said, not unkindly. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it. Athol, fetch some of the pig iron from the back.’

‘At least he didn’t know what dwarf steel looked like, I could tell from the look of surprise on his face,’ Athol replied. ‘A spy from the Hominum military would know that. Now we will find out if he really was an apprentice.’

‘Wait,’ Fletcher said, an idea forming in his mind. ‘I can make this work.’

He pulled Ignatius from around his neck and prodded him awake. The imp yawned and scratched at his cheek with his back leg like a dog. Fletcher smiled and waited until Ignatius’s consciousness went from fuzzy to clear as he roused from his slumber.

‘Time to give you a work-out, you idle thing,’ Fletcher teased. Then he concentrated on the steel, willing it to become red hot once again. Ignatius chirred with excitement. He took a deep breath and blew a blue-tinged fan of flame on to the metal.

Slowly but surely, the metal turned red, then pink.

‘Wow . . . I could do with one of those,’ Uhtred breathed in wonder as the demon gulped in another breath, then intensified the flame. It turned the metal almost white and filled the room with an acrid, sulphuric scent.

Fletcher hammered away, the dagger taking shape with each swing. After what felt like an age, he calmed Ignatius with a thought. Exhausted, the demon crawled back up under his hood, its energy spent. Fletcher also felt drained, his arm aching from the rain of blows he had pounded on to the blade.

Uhtred took some tongs and held the weapon up to the light. The handle was a plain metal pommel with a round end, ready to be wrapped in leather for a firmer grip. The blade itself was a simple stiletto, the long, thin blade preferred by assassins.

‘Where did you learn to make one of these?’ Othello asked, prodding the tip with his thumb. ‘It’s not exactly standard issue.’

‘We sold to traders mostly. They liked an easily concealable weapon, so they could take highwaymen by surprise,’ Fletcher said, admiring his handiwork. It was one of his better pieces.

‘All right, lad, you’re free to go. It’s not like you’ve discovered much anyway. To make amends for my bad manners, we will make you a scabbard free of charge. You will need to leave your blade with us, but it should be back with you in a few days. My wife will organise a new uniform for you too. It won’t be tailored but it’s better than that moth-eaten thing you’re wearing now. We won’t have anyone saying our son’s companions are vagrants. No offence,’ Uhtred asserted with a smile.

‘How much do I owe you?’ Fletcher asked, digging out his purse.

‘Just this dagger and your promise to look out for my boy. You seem like a rare sort, Fletcher. It is people like you that give me hope for reconciliation between dwarves and men,’ Uhtred said.

Rain had begun to pour when they reached the meeting place, but there was no sign of the others. Othello kicked the wall as they shivered in a narrow doorway, planning their next move. There were no carts in sight, and the streets were nearly deserted.

‘Damn this rain,’ Othello grumbled. He was in a foul mood and the rain and lack of transport were not the only causes. In their rush to leave the Pinkertons, Othello’s tomahawk had been left on the ground. It had not been there when they returned the same way.

‘Damn the Pinkertons too. My side is as stiff as a ramrod and I’ve lost one of my father’s finest pieces,’ Othello continued, squinting through the deluge.

‘I’m sorry, Othello. I’m sure your father will make another one for you,’ Fletcher said, grimacing with sympathy.

‘How would you feel if you lost your khopesh?’ Othello sounded bitter, striding out into the street.

Fletcher didn’t know how to answer, so he kept his mouth shut. He followed the dejected dwarf through the rain. They were now chilled to the bone despite their jackets, and Fletcher knew that the journey home was going to be a cold and miserable affair.

‘I think our best bet is Valentius Square,’ Othello shouted as thunder began to rumble in the air. ‘That’s where most of the stables are.’

‘All right, let’s go! I just want to get a move on.’ Fletcher yelled back, eyeing the tumultuous sky.

They ran down the empty streets, splashing in the puddles that gathered on the road. Every few seconds the street would freeze with a flash of lightning, followed by a loud crash of thunder.

‘The lightning is close, Othello! There must be a real storm brewing,’ Fletcher cried, his voice almost snatched away by the wind.

‘Nearly there!’ Othello yelled back.

Finally they turned into a small square with an enormous awning, which kept the worst of the rain at bay. It was filled with a crowd of people, taking shelter from the storm and listening to a man on a raised platform. He was shouting, but Fletcher was too tired to listen.

‘They auction the horses off from that stage, if you ever feel the need to buy me one,’ Othello joked, wringing out his beard.

‘Hah, maybe a potbellied pony, that’s all you could manage,’ Fletcher joked back, glad that the dwarf had perked up again.

As they looked around for a cart, Fletcher caught the last words of the irate man’s speech.

‘. . . yet the elves drag the war on, costing both nations many times over what the tax would have been! But instead of taking the war to them, our King talks of peace, never realising the elves’ true intentions! They want us to lose the war, don’t you see? When Hominum falls, they will be free to take our lands from us! The orcs don’t want it, they just want us dead. When blood runs in the streets of Corcillum, the elves will rejoice in our deaths!’

The crowd roared back in approval, waving their fists in the air. Fletcher looked on, distracted from the task at hand. He had never seen a man talk so openly against the King, nor with such hatred for the elves. Not even Rotherham had been as vehement.

‘So what do we do about this? How do we force the King’s hand? I’ll tell you! We march on their embassy and kill every one of those pointy-eared bastards!’ the man howled, his passion so fervent that it verged on a scream.

This time the audience was less incensed. This suggestion was so audacious that a shocked hush fell on the crowd, accompanied by perturbed muttering. The man raised his hand as if he needed silence.

‘Oh, I know, the first step is always the hardest. But let us take it together. Let us seize this moment!’ he roared, accompanied by a smattering of cheers from the crowd, warming to his rhetoric. ‘But first, let me show you how it is done. Grindle, bring out the prisoner!’

A fat, baldheaded man with arms as big as Uhtred’s emerged from a door behind the stage and dragged a screaming elf on to the front of the platform. Even from his position, all the way at the back, Fletcher recognised the struggling figure.

‘Sylva!’ he cried.

30

The crowd pulsed with excitement, both outraged and thrilled at the same time. The fat man on stage flourished a club in the air, drawing fresh cries from the mob. Fletcher began to shove his way to the front, but was held back by Othello.

‘Let go!’ Fletcher shouted at him, struggling in the iron grip of the dwarf.

‘We don’t have any weapons, Fletcher. We need to go and get help!’ Othello yelled back as the mob around them heaved.

‘Who are we going to call, the Pinkertons? If we don’t do something right now, Sylva is going to die,’ Fletcher retorted, wrenching his arm away and barging forward.

He pushed and elbowed, but the crowd began to thicken as he got closer to the stage. Soon he was crushed in the mass of surging bodies, barely able to see above the heads of those in front of him.

‘The elves are so bold that they walk our streets, like the war means nothing to them!’ the man on stage shouted. ‘Grindle, bring her here so we can show everyone what we do with elves who don’t know their proper place.’

The crowd roared, some in favour, others in disagreement. The mood was as electric as the lightning that lit up the awning above them, freezing their screaming faces in place with every flash. The sun was almost set, with the sky the dark blue of winter dusk.

‘What’s going on?’ Othello shouted from behind him, jumping up and down to try and see what was happening. Solomon was crouched between his legs, growling at the feet that stamped in the wet mud around him.

‘I don’t know. We need to find a way of getting through this crowd!’ Fletcher yelled. The air was filled with the sound of thunder, angry shouts and rain drumming on the stretched cloth above. Sylva’s scream cut through it all, a long screech of mindless fear that cut straight through Fletcher’s core.

He gritted his teeth with frustration and tried to push forward once again, but all he managed was a few inches.

‘Othello, get Solomon to make some noise! If we can’t get past, we’ll have to disperse them,’ Fletcher hollered over his shoulder.

A bellow blasted from behind him, a deep bass roar that reminded Fletcher of a mountain bear. The people around them turned and scrambled away, leaving a few feet of empty space.

‘Ignatius!’ Fletcher shouted, sending the demon on to his shoulder with a thought. The imp discharged a heavy plume of flame into the air, scaring the rest of the crowd into giving them a wider berth. As a path opened, they hurled themselves up the stairs and on to the stage.

Fletcher took in the scene at a glance. Sylva’s head was being held on a block by the angry speechmaker, who was kneeling beside her prone figure. Grindle had his club raised, about to smash her head to pieces. The poor girl was blindfolded – she wouldn’t even see it coming.

Ignatius reacted instinctively, spitting a ball of fire that took the fat man high in the shoulder and blasted him off his feet. As the heavy body collapsed to the ground, Othello sprinted in and kicked the speechmaker in the side of the head with a sharp crack, knocking him out cold.

Three more men charged at the dwarf, armed with cudgels not unlike those the Pinkertons carried. Othello took a blow to the face and went down like a puppet with its strings cut. Before the man could swing again, Solomon punched the man in the leg, bending it sideways with a sickening crunch. The Golem clambered on to his chest and stamped down. The pop of snapping ribs made Fletcher’s stomach churn.

The other two began to advance, swinging their cudgels with practised ease. Fletcher blanched and danced backwards to buy himself more time, wishing he had not left his bow in his room. This was going to be tricky.

‘All right, Ignatius. Sic ’em,’ Fletcher said. Ignatius leaped from his shoulder, a whirlwind of claws and flame. He landed on the closest man’s face and hissed, his thin tail-spike stabbing back and forth like a scorpion’s sting.

Before the other man could interfere, Fletcher ran in. As the cudgel swung at him, he blasted a flash of wyrdlight from his hand, blinding the man with a beam of blue light. He kicked him in the fork of his legs, then kneed him in the nose as he doubled over. Rotherham had been right; gentlemen’s fighting was for gentlemen. Ignatius had torn the other man’s face apart; he was rolling on the floor moaning whilst Ignatius lapped at his bloody snout with relish. Gone was the demon’s puppy-like innocence.

Sylva was trussed up like a turkey, but she struggled wildly on the floor. Solomon was wailing, burying his stony face in Othello’s beard.

Fletcher tugged off Sylva’s blindfold, then plucked at the knots with fingers made clumsy by the cold. The ropes were swollen from the wet, but they loosened as he tugged at them. All the time the crowd watched on, as if he were an actor on a stage and they the theatregoers.

‘Get them off, get them off!’ Sylva screamed. Her eyes were rolled back in her head. How on earth had she got herself into this situation? The last time he saw her she was with Isadora, back at Vocans.

Then the side of Fletcher’s head erupted in pain and he was on his back, the white of the canvas above filling his vision. Grindle’s gross bald head swam into focus, his club raised once more. It was an ugly, misshapen thing, all knotted and pitted like a roughly-hewn tree branch.

‘Race traitor,’ Grindle hissed. His shoulder was a mess of blackened cloth and burned flesh.

He clutched Ignatius by the neck as if he were holding a chicken, the demon’s tailspike stuck in his flabby arm. Fletcher’s heart filled with hope as Ignatius’s chest expanded, but nothing left the demon’s nostrils but a thin trickle of smoke. The fat man laid his foot across Fletcher’s neck to hold him still, then centred the club at his head. Fletcher closed his eyes and prayed it would be a quick death.

He heard a scream and then a thud. A weight fell across him, crushing his chest and knocking the wind out of him. He opened his eyes to see Sylva, holding a bloody cudgel in her hands. The fat man gurgled in Fletcher’s ear.

He struggled to lift the body, but it felt like he was trying to shift a tree.

‘I can’t breathe,’ Fletcher gasped with the last of the air in his lungs. Sylva crouched and pushed with all her might, but the body barely budged. Fletcher’s heartbeat pounded in his eardrums, the pulse erratic and frantic. The edges of his vision began to darken as he wheezed, snatching tiny mouthfuls of air.

Then Othello was there, staggering on to the scene with blood running down the side of his face. The elf and the dwarf heaved at the body until Fletcher could breathe once again, deep sobbing gasps that tasted sweeter than honey.

‘You monsters!’ Sylva cried, spitting at the silent onlookers.

‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ Othello said, looking at the crowd in disgust.

They lifted Fletcher to his feet then staggered down the steps like three drunks, almost unable to stand. This time, the rabble parted to give them a wide berth.

They lurched down the deserted streets, rain beating down on them in waves as the wind blew and ebbed. Othello seemed to know the way, leading them down tight alleyways and backstreets until they arrived at the main road that had brought them into Corcillum. They had no idea if they were being followed. Sundown would arrive at any minute, yet with Sylva in tow there was no way they could stay overnight in a tavern.

The trio walked for two hours without seeing a single cart or wagon. Sylva was dressed in nothing more than a silken gown, and she had somehow lost her shoes in her capture. She was shivering so violently that she could barely get her arms through Fletcher’s jacket when he offered it to her.

‘We need to stop and rest!’ Fletcher shouted over the roar of the wind and rain. Othello nodded, too tired to even look up from the road. His face was ashen white, and red-tinged rivulets of water trickled down the side of his face. The head wound was too wet to close up of its own accord.

There were green cornfields on either side of them, but Fletcher could see a wooden roof peeking out over the top, a few hundred yards to their right.

‘This way!’ he yelled, pulling them off the road. They brushed through the heavy stalks, snapping their brittle stems underfoot. Solomon led the way, desperate to get his master to safety.

It was nothing more than a glorified shed, long since abandoned. Fletcher’s heart dropped for a moment when he saw the outside had been locked up with a rusted chain, but Solomon snapped it with a blow from his stone fist.

The inside was damp and musty, filled with old barrels of flour that had succumbed to rot. Yet to be out of the torrent that pelted down on them was bliss.

Sylva and Othello collapsed to the floor, huddling together to keep warm. Fletcher slammed the door behind him and slumped down to the ground too. This was not how he had imagined his trip to Corcillum would go.

‘Don’t worry, guys, I’m going to warm you up. Ignatius, come down.’ The imp scampered down his arm and looked at him miserably. The little creature’s neck was bruised a dark red from Grindle’s grip. He took a deep breath and let out a thin plume of flame, but in the damp air it did nothing but illuminate their near pitch-black surroundings. The only light came from cracks in the walls, which also let in chilling draughts of wind. There had to be another way. If Fletcher didn’t do something, they would likely catch their death.

Solomon growled, then began to tear apart some of the barrels. The Golem’s hands were like stone mittens, but the opposable thumb gave him enough dexterity to crack the rotten timbers and throw them into the centre of the room.

‘Stop, Solomon, save your energy,’ Othello muttered. The demon paused, then gave Othello an apologetic rumble. He growled and motioned at the barrels, pointing with his stubby hands.

‘Oh, all right,’ Othello said, waving his hand in defeat. Solomon continued his work, but more methodically this time. What on earth was he doing?

‘He’s building a fire! Come on, before Sylva goes into shock,’ Fletcher said. The elf was still shuddering, hugging her knees to her chest. He couldn’t imagine the day she’d had. The escape had left the tips of her ears wind-bitten and red with cold.

Soon the wood was stacked high, but Fletcher put most of it aside for later. Solomon pummelled some planks into splinters to work as tinder, then Ignatius blew repeated bursts of flame until the fire flickered into life. Soon a warm light filled the shed, the smoke wafting up and out of the cracks in the corners of the roof. The wood was punky and slow burning, as rotten timber so often is. Though it added to the musty smell in the air, the chill slowly left their bones and their wet clothes began to dry on their bodies. Even so, it was going to be a long night.