The Heresy Within (44 page)

The rest of the crew took to Betrim as well. They would drink and gamble and tell tales of women from every port. It seemed not a one of them made the connection with Thorn; the drunken seasick bastard with dark red hair and a burned face, and the Black Thorn; a murderous sell-sword on the run from the Inquisition and with a reputation darker than the rum they were drinking.

They'd been chased twice by ships that the Captain reckoned were pirates but neither had been able to keep pace with the
Blue Gull
even with only a slight breeze. They hadn't run across a single monster from the deep either, though the Arbiter insisted they existed and roamed the waters. Betrim was inclined to agree. He'd heard the stories; giant creatures with eight arms all with watery suckers that could pull a man's face off, hulking leviathans that could smash a ship to pieces with one flick of their tails, and the less said about the krakens the better. At times Betrim could swear he’d seen massive fish swimming below the surface of the deep blue, keeping easy pace with the boat. When he had pointed out the shapes sliding through the water to the Nose the man had laughed and said they were Sethwith; trained pets of merfolk that followed ships, waiting for any man who fell overboard so they could steal away the poor fellow to mate endlessly beneath the waves with mermaids. Betrim wasn't sure he believed in merfolk but he was damned sure he wasn't about to take a dip to find out.

There was a thud from the deck behind Betrim and he turned to find the Arbiter sat on the wood again rubbing yet another bruise from his sword arm. The Black Thorn laughed and a few of the sailors close by joined in.

“Ain't the point ya supposed ta be gettin' better, Ar... Thanquil.” It wasn't the first time Betrim had almost slipped up and called him, Arbiter and he was certain it wouldn't be the last. Truth was, even without the coat the man was a witch hunter through and through.

With a sigh and a glare in Betrim's direction the Arbiter picked himself off the deck, collected his sword and made ready for another beating. Jezzet Vel'urn stood on the balls of her feet, watching, waiting, sword in hand and eyes focused. They'd been practising every day since they set foot on the ship, blunted swords meant the Arbiter didn't sustain any mortal wounds but Betrim would have put money on him being black and blue under those leathers but at least he never complained.

At first the sailors had jeered and mocked the Arbiter for losing to a woman, some suggested they could show her how a real man uses a sword and one went so far as to make a grab for her breasts. Jez had broken the man's nose, twisted his arm and almost threw him overboard until the Captain roared his interruption. After that he'd decreed any man who tried to lay a hand on her would get five lashes and, if she wanted, Jezzet would be the one to swing the whip. The grin on her face said she'd be more than happy to do so.

The swords clashed, filling the air with the sweet song of metal on metal. The Arbiter was pushing the attack, driving Jezzet backwards. She blocked and parried, dodged and sometimes lashed out with her own blade. When the witch hunter was doing well she would call out encouragement, give him advice about movement and foot placement, when he should attack high or low, when to strike hard and when to feint. When the witch hunter was making mistakes she would beat him with her own sword, disarm him and then tell him where he went wrong while giving him stern looks.

All three of them shared a cabin but fact was Betrim rarely set foot in the room and only then to retrieve something from his pack. The rest of the time he preferred to spend up on deck, staring out at the sea with rum in his hand and in his stomach. The few times it had rained he went below deck and sat with the crew.

He still had dreams about that night at Hostown, some men might call them nightmares but the Black Thorn weren't the type of person to be unmanned by memories. All the same, it still made his spine shiver when he thought of how the shade had bit through the Boss' face, at how the Boss hadn't even screamed or shouted. Betrim had witnessed all sorts of carnage in his time but at Hostown... what those shades had done to folk... and the way the Arbiter had just ordered the creature to vanish.

Betrim took another swig of
Widow's Bounty
and sat back against the railing with his head swimming. The sky was bright blue, the sun was baking hot, there was only a single cloud in the sky and the wind was a nice gentle breeze, just enough to move the ship but not enough to stir the sea into chaos. If he forgot about the endless blue water below him and all the hidden dangers it held he was quite content. Not to mention that he hadn't had to kill anyone for somewhere close to seven weeks, Betrim wasn't sure how many days that was, numbers never being his strong point, but he reckoned it was some sort of record for him.

The Arbiter hit the deck again, shaking his wrist. Jezzet had twisted his sword from his grip with a simple flick of the wrist, it was a trick she liked to use and one he fell for every time. Betrim laughed and raised the bottle of rum to the Arbiter in salute before taking another gulp.

“You laugh, Thorn, but I don't see you stepping up to give Jez a challenge,” said the Arbiter from the deck.

Jezzet shot the witch hunter that stern look she used when he'd done wrong. “Get up and collect your sword, Thanquil. Else you won't be able to defend yourself when I attack.”

“I ain't so stupid as to fight with Jezzet Vel'urn. Doubt she'd go as easy on me as she does you,” Betrim slurred with a raspy chuckle.

“You call this going easy...”

“Well ya still ain't got ya sword an' she hasn't started hittin' ya yet so yeah.” Truth was the Arbiter was getting better and that had something to do with Jezzet having all the patience in the world. Problem was all the time in the world wasn't about to turn the witch hunter into a swordsman. Some people just didn't have the feel for it and he was one of those folk.

The Nose swaggered over and sat down next to Betrim, took the bottle from him and gulped down a mouthful. “By the sea you go through this stuff faster 'an any man I ever known.”

“Aye. Tastes like shit an' burns like fire but better that 'an go back ta retchin'.”

“Got the truth of it there I reckon, Thorn.” The song of metal clashing against metal started up again. “Do those two do anythin' but fight an' fuck?”

Jezzet caught the Arbiter's sword on her own, stepped into him and twisted herself so that he was flipped onto his back by her hip. Then she shot an acidic glare at Betrim and the Nose.

“I reckon she might have heard ya, Nose.”

“Aye,” the Nose said with a grin. “I reckon so. Sorry, miss V'urn. Didn't mean nothin' by it. Knew a lass like you in a port once. Land's End it was, in Five Kingdoms. Don't remember her name but when she weren't fuckin' she was practising launchin' knives at folk. Used ta be able ta skewer a thrown apple at twenty paces. Cost a pretty penny she did but was worth it, the things she could do with...”

“You're comparing me to a whore?” Jezzet asked. Thanquil was still lying on the deck grinning like a fool. The Nose was looking worried and Betrim couldn't care less. The talk of whores had reminded him of Rose.

Might be the rum but Betrim was finding it hard to remember what she had looked like, what she smelled like, what she had felt like. He remembered she made his cock feel right good and that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever been inside, not a hard boast to be sure, but everything else was fading.

Thinking of Swift's sister made his mind tumble onto thinking about Swift, how the two had kissed and then she'd refused to kiss the Black Thorn after. She'd said something too, something about their mother but he couldn't remember it. Fact was, bastard though he was, Betrim kind of missed Swift. The man always had a story to tell, lies for the most part to be sure but he made them fun all the same.

Betrim missed Bones as well. The big man had been as close to a friend as he'd ever had and had saved his life more than once. He hadn't seen the giant fall in Hostown, truth was Betrim had been too focused on saving Henry from the shade to pay attention to anything else but by the time he was finished Bones was gone, Swift too and Henry. All three of them dead or fled and as Betrim had seen no sign of them on the road he was leaning towards thinking it was the former. He missed Henry most of all. Ever since the murderous, crazy bitch had stabbed him they'd been friends though Betrim couldn't say why.

He even missed the Boss. Betrim could see the big black southerner standing there now, swaying from side to side; eyes open and full of sadness as the darkness reached for him, took him by the neck and lifted him off the ground. Those great black jaws opened so wide it seemed they would swallow him whole. Instead they closed around his head, slicing through flesh and bone as if it were butter. Blood gushed and flowed and the Boss' lifeless, faceless body dropped to the floor like the sack of meat it was.

“Thorn.”

Betrim's eyes flicked open and he glanced around. The Nose was gone, Jezzet and the Arbiter were still there but neither were holding swords. The Captain stood with them on the bow pointing at something. He was a well groomed man was the Captain; dressed in vivid finery with dark brown eyes and an impossibly square jaw beneath a trimmed beard. He held his back so straight it looked like it hurt and his hand was never far from his sword hilt.

“Thorn,” said the Arbiter. “If you're not too pickled might be you want to come and see this.”

“Aye,” Betrim said as he pushed himself to his feet, took him two attempts but he made it. “I'm comin' ya bastard witch... Which one of ya said that?”

The witch hunter glared at him, Betrim shrugged as he stepped up beside him. “What? I can't help it if there's three o' ya.” He went to put an arm on the Arbiter's shoulder to steady himself and caught hold of nothing. He found himself on his knees, staring at the deck. Then there was a hand underneath his arm, lifting him upwards.

“Ya too damned strong fer such a scrawny bastard,” Betrim slurred into the Arbiter's face. Good thing about being drunk, he decided, was that you could get away with almost anything. “What am I lookin' at?”

“That,” the Captain said in a thick accent. Betrim squinted in the direction the man pointed. All he could see was blue, blue sea, blue sky, some darker line on the horizon maybe. “The coast of Sarth. We make port in Sarth tomorrow.”

“'Bout damn time.”

“Sober up, Thorn,” the Arbiter said.

“Last thing I want ta be when I set foot in Sarth is sober.”

“Shame that,” the Arbiter took Betrim by the arm and led him away, Jezzet followed close behind, “because the last thing we need is you drunk as a fish.”

They didn't take him to the cabin but instead led him to the mess. A small room consisting of a couple of tables, each with a couple of benches and all nailed to the floor. The cook stood in the corner stirring a pot of something that smelled at once delicious and disgusting.

The witch hunter pushed the Black Thorn onto a bench. Seemed he should be taking offence to being man handled as such but Betrim couldn't quite work up the bother.

“We make port tomorrow if all is well,” the Arbiter said to the cook. “We need him sober, no rum.”

“Aye,” the cook said with a scowl. “No rum.”

Betrim watched three Arbiters and three Jezzet's leave and turned to the three cooks all of whom were eyeing him. “Got any rum?”

Never before in all his fifty years had Thanquil been so pleased to see Sarth and yet at the same time he dreaded it. It felt like years since he'd set sail away from here, away from the Inquisition and the dark looks, away from the God-Emperor and his suspicions. Hard to believe it was just a little over five months. Now he was back though, back without the proof Emperor Francis had ordered him to find. He had the name of one traitor but it wasn't the name he needed. He had the name of an underling, what he needed was the name of the Inquisitor behind Kessick.

He could go to the God-Emperor, tell what little he knew. That the traitor was an Inquisitor and a woman narrowed the list down to two; Inquisitor Heron and Inquisitor Downe but with no idea which and no proof, what could be done? The Emperor could not walk into the Inquisition and inform the council that he has it on poor authority one of them is a heretic any more than Thanquil could himself. No, it would be better to leave him out of this. Thanquil would find the name of the traitor and deal with her himself... And face the consequences of his actions after. Somehow he doubted whether he could rely on the God-Emperor to bail him out. He was chosen because he was expendable after all.

“That's your home then? Looks a nice place. Which one is the Inquisition; the white one or the black one?” Jezzet said from his right. She was close; she was always close these days. It took every bit of Thanquil's restraint not to reach out and touch her but that wouldn't do. She was here to help him not to...

“The black one,” he said pointing at it as if she couldn't see which was which. “The white one is the Imperial palace, home of the God-Emperor.”

They were stood on the bow of the ship, leaning on the railing and waiting. Sarth was a cautious port; all ships requesting to dock were greeted by a small skiff with a port official on board. The official would board the ship; talk with the Captain as to where he had come from and his next destination, and then tour the holds to inspect cargo. The man had already given the three passengers a brief look and decided they were no one of importance.

“It looks... dreary,” Jez said looking at the black tower of the Inquisition.

“It looks like hell,” Thorn rasped from behind. “Full o' demons ready ta come pourin' out at any moment. Risin' up all dark in the middle of a white city, all that spiky-looking rock. I know why it's black; soot an' ash from all the people burnin' is what that is.”

Thanquil might have laughed but there was a kernel of truth in the Black Thorn's paranoid rambling. The tower of the Inquisition had seen more burnings, hangings, dismemberments, massacres, beatings, mutilation and torture than any other building the human race had ever erected.