Too Cold to Bleed Read online

  “I’ll fucking kill them!” Halpern spat through gritted teeth, his fingers pulling an arrow from the quiver between his feet.

  Rinsell and Golden Hair walked on from Selby, and stopped at a knot of women Ruah recognised as some of the older workers of the Chicken House. Rinsell pointed to three of the women. Steel flashed in quick punches, and the ones Golden Hair stabbed crumpled into the mud, shock in their eyes as their life ebbed away.

  “Fuckers!” Halpern pulled back his bow and aimed. The arrow point hung in the air within the open window, then began to tremble, then lowered. The tension left the bowstring as Halpern’s fear bullied his bravery to shit.

  Fucking coward. Ruah ignored the fact that her own arrows remained firmly in her quiver, and looked back to the horror before her. There was more screaming, and more dying. She wanted to help. She wanted to rain arrows on the murdering bastards down there. Really, she did. But her fear was far from small, and her aim wasn’t that great anyway. Ruah watched as Rinsell moved over to the group of men. He spoke with the man in charge of separating them out. Rinsell laughed at something the man had said and slapped him on the back. The gathered men stared up at Rinsell, hate-filled eyes perhaps only tempered with the punishing sense of shame they must all have been feeling, having sat there and watched their women be appraised like cattle, or have their life bleed out into the mud. Maybe it was fear of their own deaths that kept them rooted in place.

  “They’re gonna kill them.” Halpern’s voice was small, his head lowered so his chin touched his chest. His knees were drawn up and his arms hugged them. “They’re gonna kill them all. And we’re doing nothing to help.”

  “Shut up,” Ruah snapped. She pulled an arrow out of her quiver. “They’ll not kill Paw.” She looked down as Rinsell moved between the crowd of men. He pointed out the old and sick as he went, and Golden Hair stepped in with his knife and slaughtered them. Ruah’s arrow remained loosely nocked. Her eyes happened on Paw. He was looking at her again, ignoring the advance of Rinsell and his killer. His old blue eyes stared hard at her. What are you saying to me? "Don’t you dare, Twisty"? "Don’t you dare show your position"? Or are those kind old eyes pleading for my help? She pulled tight the bowstring and aimed at Rinsell's back. But as Ruah's eyes flicked back to Paw, she fancied he shook his head a little. A subtle disapproval from her master. Wouldn’t be right for the apprentice to disobey the master, would it?

  Rinsell stepped up beside Paw and said something. Paw appeared to ignore whatever the captain had said and kept his eyes fixed on Ruah. Did he just nod? No. No, he’s saying no. Rinsell spoke again, and this time he kicked a toe into Paw’s thigh, causing the old man to look down. Paw appeared to speak, and then rolled up his sleeve, showing the old faded tattoo of a scorpion on his forearm. Rinsell bent down and looked at it, and then stood up smiling. He extended an arm to Paw, and pulled the old man to his feet before rolling up his own sleeve, revealing a dark smudge on his arm. Must be the same tattoo. Must be the same regiment that Paw was always talking about. The arrowhead lowered, and the tension went out of the bowstring. She barely even noticed.

  Paw flicked a glance Ruah’s way as Rinsell put a hand on his shoulder. He seemed to smile again, his blue eyes sparkling with the familiar old kindness. The only kindness she'd ever known. Then he gasped.

  “No!” Ruah’s voice squeaked out as Rinsell plunged a knife into Paw’s back, once, and then again. A thin line of red spilled out of the old man’s mouth and ran through his stubbly beard as he fell to his knees. He looked up at her, and she fancied his eyes were full of scorn.

  Paw had fallen face first into the mud. Ruah watched from her position in the attic of the Stock Drivers' Union House. The knife marks in his back had spread to two claret rosettes. He was joined in the mud by twenty-eight other men, if Ruah had her numbers right. She looked across at Halpern, who sat silently watching the scene before them. His face was void of any emotion.

  Men crossed the street and entered the buildings across from where they were hidden.

  “Come on,” she said. “They’ll check the building soon. Best get ourselves hid.”

  Halpern looked up at her, and then back out at the bodies in the street.

  She stood up and limped towards the small door to the eaves of the attic. “Come on. Unless you want to lie there bleeding out your life into the dirt like the rest of them?”

  Halpern got up and slowly made his way to her.

  She opened the small square door to the eaves, being careful not to cause the hinges to creak. She crouched, wincing with the pain in her leg, and shuffled herself into the dark space. Little light made its way into the eaves, but enough for her to see a pair of large wooden boxes a few feet back. “Shut it behind you and follow me,” she whispered.

  Halpern squeezed himself down, working hard to get his tall shape into the space, and closed the door without a creak. The space was plunged into blackness, save for the spears of light that wriggled through the split in the door. Halpern shuffled towards where Ruah was hidden and banged his head on a sloping beam. “Shit!” he hissed.

  “Careful!” It sounded like he was almost at her now. “Feel about for the box, and get behind it. Quick, there’ll be someone coming soon.”

  Halpern shuffled further. “I can feel it.” He made his way about behind the large box and it sounded like he settled himself into position. “Can you hear anything?”

  Ruah sat in silence with the black all about her. Her ears sought the slightest hint of movement outside of the eaves and down through the building. And there it was. Footsteps on floorboards, a level or two below. “Aye.” Her voice was the softest of whispers. “They’re in the building.”

  Several minutes passed as Ruah sat in silence and listened. The footsteps had grown louder, and she could hear the men searching the Stock Drivers' Union House. Footsteps creaked up the stairs towards the attic, and she swore she could hear Halpern weeping. “Don’t even breathe,” she hissed into the dark space to her right.

  The door to the attic burst open with the sound of splintering wood. “Come out, come out, it’s time to play!” a voice said from across the room.

  “You know you’re a right fucking arse, Grindle,” another man spoke.

  “Fuck's sake, man, just making a bit of fun for myself is all. Don’t be such a fucking bore.”

  “Bore?” the other man argued. “You think this is boring?” The floorboards creaked as they moved further into the room.

  “Aye, well.”

  “Aye fucking well. You're a right cold bastard if being made to kill half a fucking station is just worthy of an ‘ah, well’ from you.”

  “Fuck yourself, Ruger. We can’t all have your bleeding heart.”

  “Prick.”

  The footsteps creaked their way around the room before stopping. Ruah wasn’t sure, but she fancied she heard a whisper, and then footsteps sounded, coming across the room towards the eaves. The pulse of blood pumping in her throat was so strong it hurt. She squeezed herself tight into a ball, trying to make herself smaller behind the frame of the box. The door swung open and grainy light spread into the black space. She couldn’t really see Halpern across from her, but she could smell the piss he’d stained his trousers with earlier. He wasn’t breathing.

  “Can’t see nothing,” the voice said from the eaves.

  “Come on. Fuck all here.”

  They left the door open and walked out of the room. Creaks of wood sounded as the men descended the stairs, down past the other levels. It felt like an age before Ruah let her breath out, sucking in several great big gulps of air alongside Halpern.

  “Reckon they’re really gone?” he asked.

  “Dunno. But I reckon we’d best sit here a while yet. Just wait it out until they’re definitely away.”

  “Aye.”

  Ruah woke with start. A beam of amber light lit the entrance to the eaves. Looked like morning light. “You awake?” she asked Halpern.

  “Aye.”<
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  Fear had kept them hidden in the eaves. Fear had seen 'a while' grow into the long dark hours of night. Ruah had not slept well. Her mind had been full of nightmares and blood.

  “Reckon it’s safe now?” Halpern ventured.

  “Reckon so.” Ruah unfolded her legs. “Dajda!” she hissed as the pain from her leg shot up through her back. She’d been folded up too long.

  “What?”

  “My leg,” she replied. Halpern said nothing. She shuffled her way towards the door of the eaves, trying and failing to ignore the pulsing pain as the blood found its way around her twisted mockery of a leg. She stopped at the door and peered out. The morning sun was flooding the room. She always loved this time of the day. She hauled herself out and stood, rubbing the pain out of her leg, and limped towards the window. There were no bodies in the street, but the air stank. She knew the smell.

  “They gone?” Halpern asked from behind her.

  “They burned them.”

  “What?” he asked, stepping up beside her and looking out at the street.

  “They burned the bodies.”

  “Dajda!”

  “Come on.” Ruah hobbled away from the window and towards the stairs.

  They crossed the empty street, seeing torn rags of clothes and dropped possessions ground into the mud. Small pools of blood mingled with muddy water, creating a filthy soup that pock-marked the main street.

  “The smoke’s down there.” Halpern pointed in the direction of the church.

  Her guts twisted as she thought of how it could easily hold the entire population of the town. Her leg shot pain up and down her back as she limped her way up the street. Breathe. Step. Pain. Pray. Her morning ritual.

  “Never seen the place so quiet,” Halpern muttered beside her.

  Ruah looked across at him as he gazed about the empty buildings. About the only time I ever enjoyed walking these streets was when you scorn-filled bastards were all in your beds. “Aye, it’s quiet,” she muttered.

  They saw the smoke and smelled the char before they rounded the corner to the central square. There was no doubting it. A pillar of greasy smoke curled its way from the church towards the pink-and-blue sky, the usual offering of prayers replaced with the rank reminder of butchery.

  The remains of the church were smouldering. The charred beams from the caved-in roof pricked at the spiralling tower of smoke. It was a mass of black remains: wood, bench, or body, it was impossible to tell.

  “They burned them.” Halpern flopped down onto the ground, his hands resting between his legs, and his shoulders slumped.

  Ruah could see tears in his eyes. They welled, and then fell freely down his face.

  “And we did nothing about it. They killed my ma, and took my Selby. We just let it happen.”

  “We’d have ended up in there too.” Ruah pointed to the smoking church. “We’d have been burned with the rest of them.”

  “You would’ve,” Halpern snapped. “I’m young and strong. They’d have kept me alive.”

  Ruah ignored the insult. She’d had plenty of practice. “It doesn’t matter what we didn’t do. What matters is what we do now.”

  Halpern looked back up at her, wiping away tears with the backs of his big hands. “What do you mean?”

  Ruah looked at him square. She felt a fierceness creeping into her face, a lifetime of defiance welling up. Might have been it was a day late. “We can get them back.”

  “Against an army like that? You fucking mad, Twisty?”

  She bent down and screamed into Halpern’s face, “My name’s not fucking Twisty!” Spit flew over his face.

  He recoiled from her.

  She stood back up, the fury draining. “It’s Ruah.”

  “Aye. Right enough. Sorry.”

  “We can track them, and maybe we can sneak them free. Even if we can get a few of them, it’s better than none. Better than staying here and picking a life out of the ash and ruin and blood and shit.”

  “Aye.” Halpern stood and wiped at the last of his tears.

  “We’ll grab whatever supplies we can, whatever they’ve left, and we’ll pick up their trail. I heard them say they were going east. Won’t be hard to find them.”

  “We go now?” Halpern asked, a thread of fear creeping back into his voice.

  Do you really want to stay here and have the stink of our cowardice clawing at our throats, at our eyes? “Aye, we pissing well go now.”

  Seven

  Where In The World

  Kalfinar watched from the window as the twists of smoke snaked their way to the blackened sky, heavy with moisture and traveling on cold winds. The pyres of the dead were drawing their last breaths, and spewing out their waste to smother the shattered city. There was an almost constant echo of crying about the city, as though the streets and walls of Carte themselves were given eyes to see the horror, and a voice to wail plaintively for her loss. A knock sounded on the door to his father’s study– his study, now – and he turned to see two servants carrying in a platter of food and drink.

  “No, no,” Kalfinar said, stepping towards them. “Please, no. We don’t need this. Take it to the kitchen, and make sure it’s added to the boxes being sent out into the city.”

  The servants nodded and removed themselves from the room.

  Kalfinar pulled out his chair at the head of the long table and slumped down into it with a groan. His body ached; from fighting, from hauling the dead, from anything, and everything.

  “Getting old, cousin,” Broden said in a weak effort at easing the mood. The big man sat at the table, stroking the heads of Harruld’s wolfhounds as they rested in his lap.

  “We’re all getting old,” Kalfinar replied. “Just feel like I’m getting there sooner than most.” He looked about the faces around the table. Dedicant Valus sat at one end, her face impassive as Subath and Merkham pored over maps of the Cullanain.

  Merkham wore a look of deep contemplation, his brows knit, each hand wringing the other. “The dedicant suggests that the Lady Evelyne is presently in the north east of Solansia?” Merkham asked, raising his head and looking to Kalfinar, and then to Valus.

  “That’s correct,” Valus said.

  “There’s nothing of note there. Just cattle stations and grasslands,” Merkham continued, his forehead crinkling with apparent confusion. “Our intelligence doesn’t place any Solansian stronghold in the area.”

  “Maybe our intelligence is wrong,” Kalfinar said. “The last intelligence missions into Solansia had Bergnon’s touch to them. There could’ve been misdirection from his end. It’s a big country. We could have missed something. In any case, Valus believes they have still to make their final destination.”

  Broden leaned forward and peered at the map. “Here.” He pointed. “Hagra Peninsula. That’s where the Ravenmayne are from. If Grunnxe has allied himself to them, it may be that they’ve some bolthole up there he can hide away in.”

  “I don’t get why he’s running,” Subath growled. “He had us on our arses. Why didn’t he just finish it?”

  Valus looked across the table at the new chief marshal. “Grunnxe is reliant on the Usurper’s power to outstrip his enemies. Balzath may be a powerful god, but he is young. He cannot sustain drawing on his force endlessly. You say these Desverukan, these demons, were made flesh? And you say Grunnxe’s great army simply vanished? These are all acts requiring much of Balzath’s strength. He will almost certainly have retreated to recover, and to consolidate. He has Dajda captured now, trapped in a cage of her own making. The arrogance of her,” Valus sneered, showing her contempt. “With Dajda trapped, the Tuannan have no gift, and so it is just the might of the Free Provinces army that Balzath and Grunnxe must face. I think Balzath believes he can afford to recover his strength. What’s more, I think he feels he can feed off Dajda too.”

  “So Balzath has fled somewhere to recover his strength?” Kalfinar asked.

  “I suspect so,” Valus replied.

  “And i
t stands to reason that Grunnxe follows Balzath there?” Broden asked.

  “It’s reasonable to assume.”

  Kalfinar eyed Valus a moment. “So where would Balzath seek to recover?”

  “At the source,” she replied, casting her eyes over the map. “Balzath rose from being Bhalur’s servant because he was worshipped in Bhalur’s place. I believe that source will be the Ravenmayne’s stronghold.”

  “And that would take us into Hagra,” Kalfinar said, standing and looking over the map of the ragged peninsula. “Do you know where this stronghold is?”

  Valus shook her head. “I can’t say for certain. But I know the Ravenmayne centred around a place called Hagra Iolach. I suspect it can’t be too far into Hagra. The further north it goes, the less hospitable the peninsula becomes.”

  “Hagra is hellish,” Merkham said. “No one in their right-thinking mind travels there. We could as easily lose them, and you, there.”

  “But if we can be quick,” Valus interrupted. “If we travel quickly, there’s still a chance we can intercept them and recover Lady Evelyne before the Usurper can draw strength again.”

  “That’s halfway across the shitting Cullanain, lassie!” Subath blurted. “It’s hard into winter, and we’re behind them in both days and magical bloody intervention, so just how do you think we can intercept them before they get rooted into this Hagra Iolach?”

  “We can travel up the Valeswater by boat to the north coast. From there we can sail east along the coast,” Kalfinar said, standing and motioning for Merkham to slide the map of the Cullanain across to him.

  “The Northern Swells,” Subath grumbled, shaking his head. “In the middle of winter? Only a fool would take to the Swells in winter. You’ll be foundered.”

  “A fool is just a man with no more choices,” Kalfinar replied. He turned the map around and studied it a moment. “Can we land a ship anywhere along the western coast of Hagra?” He asked.