Take the body and give me the rest (19 page)

Sudden the rift
tore like a sail in a heavy storm. Into the circle poured a
swirling, shrieking, dark mass. It swirled and swirled in the
circle like a howling whirlwind. He realised he’d made a mistake as
the hundreds of small dead bat creatures flew into his world and
pushed hard against the barrier.

He could see
the leathery wings with holes and bones jutting from their bodies.
It was a dead but moving mass. The barrier was pushing against his
mind and he felt it losing strength as they pushed their small
bodies against it. Fighting a sense of panic and gathering himself
in cold purpose, Seth directed them back into the rift and like a
black sheet or flow of water, the howling shrieking mass was gone
as quickly as it had come.

Seth stood
panting in the silence, sweat pouring from his face as if he had
just been running in full armour. Focusing his attention on one
creature alone, he called it through. It came and he closed the
rift shut behind it.

It flew in
circles inside of the ring. The creature was entirely like the bats
from the North except black instead of brown and it was clearly
dead. Seth could see where parts of its wings and body were rotten
and white bone claws jutted from wingtips. Seth reached out to it
with his thoughts and tried to get a feel for it. There were no
words, but he felt he could gain a sense of it.

He stepped into
the circle with the creature. He was going just on intuition now,
as the book was incredibly vague about this part. Seth reached down
and drew out his dagger, holding his arm up he bared the back of
his forearm and ran the steel blade along it. It scored his arm and
brought forth fresh blood. The creature smelled the blood and
landed, clinging to the arm, sinking its teeth into the wound and
drinking from him. Seth tried not to flinch as the cold, dead,
creature drank from him. He pushed a single thought into its mind
as it drank from him, that he was one of them, that he was kin with
the creature, that he would feed and protect it.

Once it had
stopped drinking, it stayed clinging to the back of his arm. Seth
watched in the moonlight as the holes of its wings closed, bones
were healed over and the creature even began to breathe slowly and
steady as it came back to life from the power of his mortal blood.
Seth knew the way it lived in the dead world. It was blind but
could sense the ill will of others. It could sense hate and harmful
intentions. Seth pushed the idea of his enemies to the Batling’s
mind, of people following him, wishing to hurt him. Seth stepped
out of the circle breaking the magic and thrusting his arm up into
the air, the Batling let go and flew on now strong leathery wings
into the night to locate the people wishing him ill.

Seth spent the
next hour creeping slowly back towards the caravan through the cold
night. He was waiting for some kind of signal from the Batling but
wasn’t sure what it would be. All he’d had felt in the past hour
was a vague sense of searching. Then if flashed in his mind, a
vision of red. The creature could see, actually see the colours of
those wishing Seth harm.

He didn’t know
where it was perched or if was still flying overhead, but he could
see his enemies as large red glowing shapes of colour. They weren’t
uniform at all. Two of them blazed bright red like a bolts of
freshly died fabric, some others in the low orange of a burning
down fire. He gathered the red ones were the woman Seraphina and
her main companion. Others hated him only through purpose, not
emotion.

Seth crept
through the woods, towards the source of the hateful energy and the
Batling who was guiding him along. He was amused to feel that the
creature was actually angry; he could feel the rage in its tiny
body, that people would wish its kindred harm. Still, he knew about
them and was coming to find them, which was good. These things
hated secrets, it seemed.

Voices and the
flickering light of a large fire found its ways through the trees
to him. Slowly and carefully he picked his way through trees and
around fallen branches to the edge of the road on which they were
directly camped. As Seth stood, he felt and heard the flutter of
leathery wings as the Batling flew in to cling to his right arm and
shoulder, small claws finding purchase in the fabric of his
clothes. He whispered a few words of thanks it wouldn’t understand
and found a position he could watch from without being in the glare
of the firelight.

The scene that
greeted him at the fire was a disappointment. Around the fire
sitting, drinking from cups and eating were the six dark-skinned
desert slaves and their keepers. Goldie had questioned them
already, and they certainly weren’t what he was looking for. Maybe
they hated the whole world.

As Seth looked
on, he was suddenly struck by the oddness of the scene and then
realised he was watching a deception, but one that he couldn’t see
through. The slaves sat around the fire, talking and laughing as
anyone else would. The slave keeper was actually acting as a server
to one female slave who held court. She was regal and beautiful
even with her matted hair and few sparse leather clothes. The ratty
Cravosi slaver handed her a small silver plate with a steaming cut
of meat on it, with a fork and small knife. Then he bowed slightly
as he turned back to cut another slice. Clearly, he was seeing
something different to Seth. This lady slave was being treated like
the leader of the group and he had no idea why.

As he watched
he began hearing more words and realised they were also speaking in
the desert language. He knew he could understand it if he could get
closer. Seth concentrated, but from his position, he couldn’t hear
the conversation from the distance he was. He dared not leave the
cover but wanted to hear them badly.

Within a short
moment, the Batling clinging to his left shoulder had taken flight.
Seth watched it with his eye line as it flew the short gap from his
side of the roadway to a dark spot on top of one of the covered
wagons. If the slaves had seen the creature, they paid it no mind;
bats were common in Pelloss as well. Seth began to hear their words
more clearly. They were louder and with much deeper and richer
tones than he would have expected, but he knew he was now hearing
what the Batling heard, it was sharing its senses with him, it was
an incredible feeling. He had no idea if anyone in the Guild had
ever achieved this.

A dark-skinned
slave man, with incredible posture and a stern face, spoke to the
female one. ‘I don’t understand why we just don’t ride up the line
and kill him. There is Anton, me and more than four good
guardsmen,’ he said.

‘And he has
four Northmen and him more dangerous than the other four together.
You saw what they did in the library,’ she spat back.

‘No one fights
well when they are asleep. A simple knife across the throat we can
go home and stop living like travelling tramps,’ he said.

‘We need him
alive anyway, when we get to Pellota. His idiot Northern guards
will run loose in the city like sailors fresh from the sea, and
we’ll take him when he’s alone in his boarding house.’

‘Sounds too
easy Seraphina’

‘It will be.
Trust me, he won’t see us coming’

Seth now sat
with Elizebetha around her fire. Her attendant had quietly retired,
while his Northmen went to stand a discreet distance away from them
and spoke in low tones amongst themselves.

He’d crept back
to her camp after it was clear. He’d heard all he would of use that
night. The Batling had returned to cling to his shoulder, and he’d
almost forgotten it was there as he strode into the camp. Pulling
up a small wooden box with a cushion on top, he sat beside her. She
looked at him with an impatient glare.

‘You have a
passenger’ she said.

He looked at
the small black Batling clinging to his shoulder. It was still
breathing slowly but didn’t move. Seth was still partially
connected to it and could feel his warm blood swirling inside of
it, keeping it sustained. He had the strong thought that if it
didn’t feed soon it would either turn fierce or start to
decompose.

‘This little
fellow was quite handy tonight, he’d make a good pet, but I suppose
I should send him back.’ Without a word more, Seth gently took the
creature from his shoulder and with a, ‘Thanks again,’ reached his
hand through a small rift he’d created in space. He simply let go
of the creature and pulled his hand back through the nearly
invisible rift, closing it.

Elizebetha’s
impatient look had become one of horror and shock. Seth drew his
hand back and it was bright red with cold.

‘It’s so cold
through there, just like being back in the North,’ he said with a
smile.

‘Seth, you
can’t do things like that. Why did you put your hand through?
You’re getting so reckless’

‘Why not? It
was fine. I pulled it back’ he said.

‘We’re not
allowed to cross back the other way, because we can’t come back,
Seth. It’s a door that only opens in one direction. You could have
been stuck in that cold dead world forever.’ She took his hand in
hers and felt how cold it was.

‘My hand’s
fine, Elizebetha, never fear. Besides, I have something I need to
tell you. I found Seraphina and her men. They have been with the
caravan for the last few days in the guise of the slave train from
the south,’ he said.

‘They are in
disguise?’

‘No, not a
costume, I mean they look like slaves, they even speak the
language. It’s some power she has. Once I saw the guise and heard
her true name, I got all of the General’s memories of her talent.
She can bend the way things look.’ he said.

Again, she had
a reason to be shocked tonight. ‘I had no idea that Seraphina or
indeed anyone alive could do that. It’s such an old, old power. It
is said to have come from the goddess Sumner who had the power to
make all things beautiful. It seems she can turn it to make things
appear as she likes.’

‘What are we
going to do?’ he asked.

‘Did you find
out what they plan?’ she asked.

‘They plan to
wait until I’m alone in the city without my men and ambush me in
the boarding house. They are still keen on taking me alive, and
they don’t seem to know about hearts blood.’

Duchess
Elizebetha called out to the men and so began a very unlikely war
council; Grimm, Goldie, Stone and Flint with Seth and Elizebetha.
Seth relayed to them about the group at the end of the train.

‘That can’t be;
I questioned them directly. It wasn’t some theatre troupe in wigs,
I know that,’ said Goldie.

‘It’s not, it’s
something else, but I assure you it’s them all right or let’s say
people working for them if that’s easier to understand. They are
waiting for us to reach the city tomorrow and, when you boys go off
to enjoy some of the city’s distractions, they’ll be coming for me
alone,’ Seth said.

‘Boss, this is
going to be too easy. We just wait at the side of the roadway
tomorrow and as they pass, we fill every one of them with a handful
of arrows. The only good enemy is a dead one,’ said Grimm.

Flint and Stone
gave dual grunts of agreement. Seth was actually thinking that was
a fairly good, if cold-hearted, plan.

‘
No, I want her alive,’ Elizebetha said. She had a look of
greed in her eyes that Seth had never seen in another person, but
he knew the feeling well enough. To this point, Elizebetha had
never spoken of the creature or its gifts. She was old; no one in
the Guild looked old, which meant she never summoned. That she had
never given in to the hunger or greed, before now.

She laid out
the plan for them. ‘We’ll get to the city. You four make a big
noise about drinking and chasing women in true Northern fashion.
We’ll go to a rooming house I know of with a nice big room and
we’ll wait for them to come to us. You boys double back and—sober,
mind—you aid us.’

‘Sounds much
more dangerous than the initial plan. ‘Let’s do it!’ Seth said.

If Seth had
kept the Batling by his side, it would have sensed a flare of red
hateful energy crouched near their camp, listening to their words.
The guardsman, who was still in the guise of the ratty slaver,
crept back to his own camp with all they had said.

Chapter 22

The sun was
halfway through its daily journey when the caravan drew in sight of
the city of Pellota or Little Pelloss. It was indeed a mirror city
of the much bigger Pelloss. Its harbour was less accessible than
its big sister’s, and so the city was home only to a few hundred
thousand, as they would say in the west. It was the same beautiful
construction: large sandstone buildings, a blazing sun and thriving
markets. This city seemed to have even more slaves than the
capital. Every corner contained some dark-skinned slaves from the
desert and beyond. Looking forlorn and miserable or resigned to
hopelessness.

As the caravan
pulled in, Seth and his troop rode beside Rosen in his open wagon.
Rosen was a happy man to have arrived at his first stop alive and
profitable. His white teeth gleamed in his overweight face as he
was helped down from the wagon and shook each of their hands’.

‘Now, we head
out tomorrow morning. I still have to pay you the rest, so make
sure you come back,’ Rosen said. ‘I’ll be more than glad to have
the men of the Brave North along with me,’ he said.

They laughed at
that. ‘Who are the Brave North?’ asked Seth.

‘Why, that’s
you and your men here. That’s what the caravan people are calling
you,’ he said.

‘More like
that’s what you’re calling us. When you tell the story Rosen are
you up there with us, by any chance?’ Seth teased.

Rosen blushed
red. ‘Of course not, of course not. Just come back tomorrow morning
when we head out for our next stop.’ With that, he turned his back
on the men.