The Copper Promise (53 page)

Craning her head up as best she could, she looked around the cramped room. There was indeed a skeleton in the ceiling, directly above the long table she was tied to, but there were lots of other bones too, all set into the walls, and where there weren’t bones there were uneven shelves filled with jars and bottles of all sizes. A fire burned in a fireplace in the corner of the room, and that was where she discovered the main source of the smell; a corpse was curled there behind the grate, its head and shoulders now a blackened mess in the centre of the fire. It was naked, and she could see that it had once been an elderly woman with sallow skin and a deep scar down one arm. Wydrin swallowed hard. The old woman’s feet were thick with dirt, as though she went around constantly barefoot.
Not any more you won’t
, thought Wydrin.

There was a crash from behind her, a door being thrown open that she couldn’t see, and Roki strode into the room. The smell was on him too, a feverish hot stink, and he looked very little like the handsome boy with the cruel eyes she remembered from Pinehold. His silvery hair was lank and matted to his head with sweat and dirt, and the bones of his face were too evident through skin that looked grey. His eyes at least were filled with energy. They glittered with hate as he caught sight of her.

‘You’re awake at last!’ He came over to the table. Wydrin tried pulling her arms free again, longing to wrap her fingers around his throat but there was no give in the cord. ‘Don’t wear yourself out, it’s quite pointless.’

Wydrin lay still. Wriggling was making her head ache anyway.

‘Who are you cooking?’

Roki glanced at the fire as though he’d completely forgotten about the corpse lying there.

‘Oh her! That’s Irilda, the old woman who found me after Pinehold. I was wandering the forest, blood pouring from the mess where my hand used to be, half mad with pain, and she found me and brought me here.’ He spoke fondly, as though these were some of his most treasured memories. Wydrin suspected Roki had lost his sanity along with his hand in Pinehold. ‘She cleaned it, healed me as best she could. The dreadful old hag fed me with a spoon when I was delirious, can you believe that? Fed me and cleaned me and gave me these stinking medicines until I was better.’

‘So why is she now roasting on her own fire?’

‘I needed to get Bezcavar’s attention.’ He leaned back again, and drew his sword from where it rested at his hip. ‘A death in his name, and then a pound of flesh in sacrifice.’ He held up the stump again. His sleeve was rolled up past the elbow and Wydrin could see twisted red scar tissue where an old wound had been opened again and again, never given enough time to heal properly. ‘It was worth it, to watch you running, and to visit you in your sleep. You talk about the strangest things in your sleep. Does he—?’

‘What else did Bezcavar give you?’ she said hurriedly. The copper cuffs at her wrists were digging into the thin cord, so she began to twist her arm back and forth, ever so slightly. ‘Don’t tell me that’s all you got for cutting the end of your own arm off? Fane really didn’t employ you for your brains.’

‘Shut up.’ He touched the end of the sword to her throat, resting the point in the soft hollow at the base of her neck. Wydrin stopped moving. ‘I never thought you’d be stupid enough to come back to the Blackwood, but here you are, and now we’re going to have some fun.’ He leaned over her again, his sweating face a few inches above hers. ‘You were right, it’s so much better when I can smell you.’ He bent his head, and for a terrible moment Wydrin thought he was going to kiss her but instead he licked her cheek. His tongue was dry and his breath smelled of dung. Wydrin wrenched her head away, grimacing.

‘So, are you going to kill me then, or what?’ She was angry now, even more so because there was fear underneath it. Luring his physical presence to the Blackwood was one thing, but she hadn’t expected to get hit from behind.

‘Kill you?’ Roki grinned, showing nearly all his teeth. ‘Irilda might have been a hideous old baggage, but she was very good at medicine. All these jars and ointments, they did the job on me, I promise you that. Oh no, my little copper kitty.’ He ran the edge of the sword up to her chin, not quite breaking the skin. ‘I’m going to keep you alive for a very, very long time.’

‘You are sure of it?’

Frith paused. They were standing in the midst of the Blackwood, with four guards at their backs. Sebastian watched as the young lord fought to keep his temper under control.

‘No, I am not
sure
. I can’t feasibly know every inch of the forest.’

Even so, he did the spell again, conjuring a flickering image of the miserable hut where Wydrin lay tied to a table. She was moving now, which was good – when they’d seen her earlier she had been unconscious, and it hadn’t been clear whether she was breathing or not. The small version of Wydrin in the vision strained against her bonds, the cords in her neck standing rigid with the effort. Then Frith muttered another name, and the view changed to outside the hut. Roki was there now, standing in a small clearing with the hut behind him. He was wrestling with a pile of firewood, obviously having trouble manoeuvring it with one good arm, but they were more interested in the other end of the grassy patch. It sloped up towards a small bare hill, and there, at the top, were a number of tall stones aligned in a circle.

‘Standing stones are quite common in the Blackwood,’ said Frith, before he dropped his hand and the vision blinked out of existence. ‘But if those are the ones I am thinking of, then Roki and Wydrin aren’t far from here.’

‘I think you’re right, m’lord,’ stuttered one of the guards. He was young, little more than a boy to Sebastian’s eyes, and his ears protruded like jug handles from his leather helm. ‘I know of them too, I’m sure. You have the way of it.’

Frith glanced at the guard, but said nothing.

They idolise him already
, thought Sebastian.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they declare him a god on his next birthday
. He scratched at the wound on his face.
Of course, they don’t know yet what a complete and utter shit he is.

‘I hope you’re right. My lord.’

Roki threw another log on the fire. The heat in the hovel was already stifling, and the flames flared up hungrily. The charred woman’s body began to blister, and once the fire was hot and bright he leaned an iron poker into the heart of it.

‘We’ll let it get hot a while,’ he said. ‘And then Bezcavar will have all the offerings he could possibly need.’

Wydrin held her head up, watching his back. There were a few frayed fibres on the cords holding her now, but progress was very slow.
I should have gone for the cheaper bracelets
.
They’d have had sharper edges
. As it was, Roki would have his poker glowing and ready long before she’d cut her way free of the table. She’d have to try something else.

‘Can this demon bring your brother back from the dead, then?’ She watched his shoulders stiffen and he turned back to her, eyes narrowed. ‘That’s got to be worth a hand or two, I’d have thought. I don’t suppose it occurred to you to ask for that, did it? Instead you waste your own flesh and blood on, well, someone who isn’t your own flesh and blood.’

Roki swept over to the table, his sword brandished once more at her throat. ‘Stop talking about him!’

‘Who? The demon? Or your brother?’

‘I will cut you.’ He leaned down over her, the sword against her breastbone and his other arm, the one that ended in a ragged mess, resting next to her cheek. His face filled her vision, waxy and speckled with sweat.
Closer, a little closer
. ‘I will cut off pieces of you – your fingers, your eyelids, your pretty lips – and I will feed them to Bezcavar, Prince of Wounds.’

This close the stench of him was overpowering. Wydrin could feel bile rising in the back of her throat, but she met his eyes steadily.

‘And then what? You get to live the rest of your life in this hovel with only Mr Bones up there for company? Great deal, that, well done.’

Now he was leaning on her, his chest crushing her breasts. His wounded arm scraped against her ear.

‘You can’t shut up, can you?’

‘It’s true, my mouth is always getting me into trouble.’ She wrenched her head to one side and bit into the end of Roki’s stump with all her strength. The flesh there was rotten and soft and tore open easily, so a hot stream of blood filled her mouth and splattered over the table.

Roki shrieked and dropped his sword, clamping his remaining hand over the suddenly reopened wound, while Wydrin twisted her hand round to grab the blade. It was awkward and she damn near cut her own fingers off, but she managed to force the edge against the taut cord and it snapped. Immediately, her bonds loosened and she struggled upright, but then Roki was on her, screaming incoherently and they both went crashing down onto the floor.

Wydrin, finding herself briefly on top, crashed an elbow down onto his nose and felt a satisfying crack as the delicate bones there shattered, but he bucked her off and slammed her head into the wooden floor. The lump on the back of her head exploded with pain, and for a frightening handful of seconds the edges of her vision went dark. When everything came back into focus he had his hand round her throat, squeezing, squeezing. He may have only had the one hand but he still had the strength of a man not entirely in touch with his sanity, and Wydrin could feel her windpipe constricting.

Gasping for air, she brought her fist flying round to connect with his ear. It was enough to knock him off her and onto the floor, and for a brief moment they both lay there, dazed and covered in blood from Roki’s arm.

It was a shout from outside that got her moving. It sounded like Frith, and he was angry.

She scrambled up, racing for the door. Roki grabbed at her legs, and almost, almost she went flat back on her face but then she was falling through the rickety door and out into the blessedly cool evening air.

‘Wydrin!’ Sebastian was there, along with Frith and four men in patchwork armour. They were at the edge of the small clearing, their weapons drawn. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I …’

Before she could answer Roki burst through the door behind her. And then another came out. And another. He’d retrieved Bezcavar’s gauntlet and it was glowing softly, while the other arm left a trail of blood behind it. Wydrin backed off, watching with her lips pressed together as the gauntlet shivered with light and three, four, six, eight Rokis sprang into being, all with swords, all with ragged, bloody arms.

‘Stand aside!’ bellowed Frith, and she just managed to leap out the way before he threw a wave of freezing cold at the group. The air crackled with it, and each sword in its path was frosted white, but where it hit the men who looked like Roki it did nothing at all. They surged forward, multiplying as they came until the little clearing was filled with the last Child of the Fog. The real Roki was lost.

Wydrin ran to Frith and reached for his belt.

‘Do excuse me, princeling.’

She pulled his dagger from the sheath and turned in time to deflect a blade, while the guards, expressions of total confusion on their faces, took blow after blow on their shields. Sebastian joined the fray, sword against sword, and Frith was sending fireballs now, lighting the evening with bright orange flames. All was chaos.

She caught Frith’s eye and briefly squeezed his arm. ‘Try not to hit me with those things.’ And she threw herself into the crowd.

She heard Frith shout something at her, a warning to stay back, perhaps, but this had all gone on long enough. It was time to trust to her instincts, or accept a life spent continually looking over her shoulder.

Ducking and spinning and diving, her newly acquired dagger a blur, Wydrin watched the tangle of bodies, listened to the ringing song of blade against blade, and, yes – there it was.

A stench.

Neatly avoiding a lunge from one of the ghostly Rokis, she turned her spin into a thrust and pushed her dagger into the heart of the man standing right behind her. The blade found solid flesh and she sank it into the hilt, twisting as much as her sore hand would allow. She kept her eyes on Roki’s as she did so. His eyebrows were raised, an expression of dim surprise on his sweating face.

‘I could
smell
you a mile away, you idiot.’

He gasped, a tiny noise that became a thick gurgle, and black blood flowed over his lips. He tried to speak – an appeal to Bezcavar or a curse, perhaps – but the words caught in his throat. The duplicate Rokis vanished and he dropped to the ground in a boneless heap. Wydrin gave him a kick while he was down there.

‘Wydrin.’ Sebastian appeared at her elbow. Her eyes were drawn to the breastplate, scrawled with Bezcavar’s markings. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course I’m bloody all right. My weapons are still in that hut. Grab them for me, and let’s get out of here.’ He began to walk away, but she held up a hand. ‘Actually, wait.’ She bent down to Roki’s corpse and untied the straps on the gauntlet. It wasn’t glowing any more. ‘You should take this.’ She threw it at Sebastian, and he caught it awkwardly against his chest. ‘May as well have the full set.’

With the threat of torture and death removed, Pinehold seemed a much brighter place to Sebastian. The ruins of the barrack and the tower had been swept away, and new structures had been built in their place. The outer walls, which had once been dotted with gore-streaked cages, were now bright with trailing vines and flowers. More than that, though, the mark of fear had left the faces of the people, so that as he walked through the busy marketplace Sebastian exchanged greetings with men and women who looked happy enough to be getting on with their working day. It seemed like a simple thing, but it gave him a small sense of hope that he hadn’t felt in quite a while.

Dreyda had moved her premises from the disused warehouse to the stone temple he, Wydrin and Frith had once used to flee the town. It had been abandoned before, its dull facade filled with broken windows, but Dreyda had been busy. The temple was now as fine as any in Relios, with merrily burning lamps and banners covered in sacred words. As he approached, a woman carrying a wriggling child in her arms came out of the temple doors, exchanging a few last words with the fire-priestess.