CHAPTER THREE

 

 

To fight the shadows, a man must first step into the darkness.

And sometimes, if he is not wary, he will get lost there.

—An ex-communicated priest of Raveza

 

Cutter watched the mage and assassin leave, frowning as the door closed behind them. He’d known the pair for a long time. Sometimes, it seemed since birth. Not true, of course, but in many ways, it was. After all, he, they, everyone had been changed when they had been forced to flee their kingdom to make it away from the Skaalden. They had all been forced to come here, to this place of strangeness, of Fey creatures and the Black Wood, and find new lives for themselves.

It had been a grim trip over the great seas, one during which more than one ship and its inhabitants had been lost to the sea’s terrible storms. Some others had simply vanished during the night, as if the vessels, and their grieving inhabitants—for all grieved in those days—simply sank beneath the water’s surface, not even bothering to raise so much as a shout or a creaking timber in protest.

Yes, the people of Daltenia had been born again among the ocean’s wind-tossed waves, birthed out of their grief. And if they were born again, then they had been born in the mist, in the cold that the frost demons brought with them, had been born and borne to a land that hated them. And since that day, he had known Maeve and Chall and Priest. He knew them better than anyone, knew them better, perhaps, than he knew himself.

It was for this reason that he knew they were keeping something from him. What that something was, he did not know and did not now have the time to think of it. Whatever it was would keep—it must keep, for there was much to be done.

He had to deal with the problems they faced, the corrupt guards, the Fey, or else Matt would never be safe. And so he rose from his bed. Or, at least, he tried to.

In actuality, he managed only to make it to where he was propped up on his elbows before his forehead was bathed in a cold sweat, and he collapsed, shaking and gasping with exhaustion and pain.

The greatest warrior in the world, his brother had said. Likely, he had been mocking when he said it, and he had been right to. Cutter never made any claims to being the greatest warrior in the world—not in fifteen years, at least—and no one would have claimed as much now, that was sure.

Besides, Cutter had seen many warriors in his time, and he knew well that he was not the most talented. He had not been the most skillful under the tutelage of his father’s master-at-arms, had never been the fastest or the strongest. But after his near-death experience at the hands of the mugger in a shadowed alleyway of Daltenia’s poor district, what he had been was willing to work harder than everyone else. He had wanted to be the best, but it had been more than even that. He had needed to be. It was the only way to quiet the voices, the voices that always told him he wasn’t good enough, that he was useless and always would be.

And in time he had managed to quiet those voices to no more than a whisper—they never left completely. But as they grew quieter, his own had grown louder and louder still until it wasn’t a voice anymore but a scream, a war cry of rage and hate and bloodthirst.

He was not that man, not any longer, but part of that man was left in him. And so, though he had failed once, though it hurt to fail, he gave himself only a few moments, no more than that, and then he tried again. And again. And again.

It took him five tries before he managed to lever himself up enough so that he was sitting in the bed. By the time he was finished his chest heaved, and his entire body was bathed in a cold sweat.

It took another fifteen minutes of recovering—fifteen minutes where he felt as if his heart would explode in his chest, where his entire body shook with exhaustion and pain—and three more tries before he made it to his feet.

But he did make it, and then he stood, one hand on the bed’s headboard for support, regarding the room’s door the way a man might regard an enemy commander across a battlefield before the bloodshed began.

Only feet away, that door, certainly no more than ten, but it felt as if it might as well have been in another world. Still, when a man had a long journey ahead, the way he did it, the only way he could do it was one step at a time. That was another of his father’s favorites and it, like those other bits of wisdom he’d given Bernard over the years, was a true one.

But while his father had been right, he had never claimed the “one step” would be easy, and it was not. In fact, the movement shot agony through him, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to finish it until he did. The second hurt, too, but this time he knew what to expect at least. And then he was moving.

He used the wall for support as he made his way across the room. He retrieved his axe with a grunt of effort, securing it at his back, then moved to the door. He hesitated, staring at the handle. He had told Maeve he was fine, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. The truth was that he wasn’t sure he could even make it to the dungeons and, if he did and any of the guards there proved to have mixed allegiances, they could take care of him with little more effort than a harsh word or a heavy breath, axe or no axe.

But then, the rest of what he had told Maeve was true. Namely the fact that if they didn’t do something—and soon—then there was no telling what might happen. They had to secure the capital, had to secure it now. After all, if things were as bad with the Fey as they seemed then the last thing they needed was to have unrest and insurrection in the capital.

In the end, Cutter reached out and turned the handle, slowly easing the door open before stepping outside into the hallway.

One step at a time, he told himself as he began shambling down the hallway, his legs shaking with effort, it’s the only way to get it done.

 

***

 

The dungeons were much as he remembered them only this time there were two men on duty instead of one. Cutter spoke briefly to them, the two eyeing his bandages questioningly but saying nothing. In time, one began leading him down the staircase into the dungeons.

Down in the dank, dimly-lit corridor, Cutter tensed and prepared for the man to try to kill him now that they were alone, though what he hoped to do if the man did, he had no idea. Die probably.

The guard, though, didn’t seem to take any more notice of him, turning and peering into the shadows. “This way, Prince,” he said.

Cutter grunted—it was either that or gasp for breath in the man’s face—then followed as the guard started forward into the dungeons.

Some prisoners cried out for release, others in anger, shouting perverse curses at them and some few regarding them with silent, angry expressions. In time the guard brought them to a cell. “This is it, Prince. The one they call Aunt Belle. Though, I warn you,” he said quietly, turning to look at Cutter, “the torturers have been at her, askin’ their questions, you know and…based on the look of things….seems to me the woman wasn’t all that helpful, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I do,” Cutter said. “Thanks.”

The man nodded then winced, leaning forward. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Prince, but…well, that is…you don’t look so good either, you don’t mind my sayin’.”

Nor do I feel so good, Cutter thought. “I’m fine.”

The man nodded. “Of course, Prince. As you say. And can I just say—it’s good to have a king in New Daltenia again.”

Cutter watched the man carefully. A true guard making small talk, expressing his gratitude, or some corrupted soul looking for an opportunity? No way to know for sure. “Yes,” Cutter said, thinking of Matt, “it is.”

“Only…and I don’t mean no offense, sir,” the guard said, “but King Matthias…well, he’s a bit of a cold one, ain’t he?”

Cutter frowned. “Cold? Let me tell you something, guardsman, I have known many people in my time, and King Matthias is the kindest, most honorable person I have ever met.”

“O-of course,” the man said, obviously put-off by Cutter’s growled response. “I-I’m sure it is, of course, as you say, Prince.”

“Yes.”

The man nodded, swallowing hard, no doubt well aware of the stories regarding Cutter and his temper. “Well, Prince,” he said, “if there’s nothing else?”

“No.”

The man gave him a sickly smile, inclining his head in a bow then turned and hurried down the poorly-lit hallway of the dungeons, leaving the lantern sitting on the ground beside Cutter.

Once the man was gone, Cutter scolded himself. The guard had told him his opinion, that was all. There was no reason to snap at him over it. Anyway, the man was wrong, and he would learn just how wrong soon enough. After all, Matt had only been king for less than a week. Soon, the guard would realize that there could be no better person in all the realm, in all the world to lead the people of the Known Lands.

Cutter glanced at the lantern and cursed himself again for losing his temper with the guard. It was for that reason that the man had hurried away, setting the lantern down on the dungeon floor instead of handing it to him as he likely might have. Normally, reaching down and snatching it up would have been an easy enough thing but then Bernard hadn’t had a particularly normal night—after all, it wasn’t every day that assassins woke a man from his sleep to make an attempt on his life.

Gritting his teeth, he held onto the cell bars with one hand and then knelt, reaching out and grabbing the lantern with the other. He hissed in pain at the sudden movement of standing up then hoisted the lantern, peering inside the cell.

He had expected her to be far back, curled into a ball the way the historian, Petran Quinn, had been, and he let out a grunt of surprise when the lantern light illuminated Belle, the crime boss, standing at the cell bars, gripping them with one hand and staring at him. The woman’s face was lined and stained with dried blood and it looked to Cutter as if she had aged a decade in the couple of days it had been since last he’d seen her, and these were far from the only changes time had wrought.

The woman’s head was shaved, at least mostly so, with patches of hair still clinging on. He frowned. The torturers’ work, no doubt, the men meaning to embarrass her, to steal her dignity and make of her little more than an animal. After all, men, women, people were notoriously difficult, possessed as they were of their own opinions, their own imperatives. Animals, though, were different. Animals might be taught, might be trained.

“Prince Bernard,” the woman hissed in a dry, rasping croak. “So you’ve come to kill me then.”

Bernard sighed. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard as much when visiting someone in the dungeons—Petran Quinn came to mind—but then such was his reputation, a reputation he had worked hard to create during the Fey Wars. “No, Belle,” he said. “I have not come to kill you. I’ve come to ask you some questions.”

“More questions, is it?” the woman asked, baring her teeth in a sharp, humorless smile and displaying several gaps that he had not noticed before. Likely because they had not been there. Not at least, until the torturers began their work on her. “The torturers have questions too, thousands of them it seems, and no matter how many I answer, no matter how fast I answer, they are never satisfied. No matter what I say or don’t say, no matter what I do or don’t do, they are never satisfied, and they make their dissatisfaction known with the instruments of their trade. That is my reward for answering their questions, but it is worse if I do not. Tell me, Prince, what is it you offer?”

“You know what I offer,” Cutter said. “We had a deal. A prince’s boon. Just so long as it does not endanger the lives of any of my companions or any of the people of Two Rivers.”

The woman snorted, a sneer coming to her face. “You have come to mock me then, is that it? Like some child visiting a traveling menagerie, you come to poke the lion in its cage, with its teeth safely behind iron bars. But I warn you, Prince, that the lion does not forget its tormenter, and so, too, will I never forget those who have wronged me.”

Cutter grunted, shaking his head. “You’re wrong, Belle. I’ve not come to taunt you. I’ve come with questions. As for the boon, it is true that you betrayed us to Feledias, but the boon still stands. Or, at least, it will if you answer some questions.”

“Questions,” she sneered. “Gods, but I am sick of men with their questions.”

“First…” Cutter hesitated. Belle had tried to have him and the others killed, it was true, or at the very least had betrayed them to Feledias without any major concern over the fact that it would almost certainly end in their deaths. And yet…looking at her…at her filthy clothes, her lined features and shaved head, he felt pity stirring in his chest. “Is there anything you need?” he asked. “Anything I can get you?”

The woman stared at him, blinking in the dim light, then, finally, she leaned back and let out a sharp, cackling laugh, sharp enough to cut. She leaned forward again, eyeing Cutter. “My hero, come to rescue me, is that it?” she asked.

“Say that it is.”

“And this hero wants to know if he can get me anything,” she hissed, and Cutter was surprised by the hate in her voice. “Very well, Prince.” She leaned forward and suddenly thrust her other hand at him. Or, at least, she thrust what was left of it forward, in between the cell bars. The hand was wrapped in bloody bandages, but it took Cutter only a moment to see that there were no fingers left. “What about my hand, Prince?” she hissed. “Can you get my hand back for me?”

He stared at the mangled hand, abruptly at a loss for words.

“Yes,” she said, grinning sharply, the expression reminding him of a vulture. “You see, those men, those torturers, they had their promises too. Promises of leniency, promises that they would stop, that the pain would stop, just as soon as I complied. Just as soon as I answered their questions to their satisfaction. The problem, you see, is that those men, they are never satisfied, and try as I might, I could never answer the questions as well as they wished.”

Cutter looked at the woman’s mutilated hand, and he felt a great surge of pity but not just that—anger. It was true that there was no knowing how much misery the woman had caused. After all, the first time he’d met her she had tried to convince Priest to kill a guardsman and his wife. There was no knowing how many people had died or suffered at her command…and yet that did nothing to change the fact that he felt sorry for her.

She must have seen something of that pity in his face, for she sneered, snatching her mangled hand back. “And what of you, Prince? You don’t look so good yourself. Looks to me like somebody did a number on you.” She grinned, displaying her gapped teeth again. “Maybe quite a few somebodies.”

Cutter nodded, hesitating, wondering if it was wise to share what had happened with the crime boss. He told himself that it didn’t matter—after all, Belle was in a cage, and she could do little enough harm here. Besides, if he wanted to have any chance of her telling him what he wanted to know he needed to build a little trust. “Some of the castle guards came into my room last night, led me into an ambush. There were five of them in all. They tried to kill me.”

She nodded slowly. “And by the looks of things, they failed, eh? Though, it appears it was a near thing. Still…assassins making it into the castle itself…why, that’s interesting, don’t you think?”

“That’s not all,” Cutter said. “I knew one of them.”

The woman grunted. “That’s not so surprising a thing, is it, Prince? I knew you only for a few minutes before I decided I wanted to see you dead.”

Cutter shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. He was the man—the one who worked for you. The same one who got us into the dungeons.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Ah. Now, that is interesting. Seems that Balk has not spent the time of my absence in mourning as I might have hoped.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Still. He always was a man who enjoyed his trade. Though…” She paused, glancing meaningfully at Cutter’s hands where they held the torch. More specifically at the cuts and scrapes on them. “If I’m any judge, something tells me he won’t be enjoying that trade any longer. Am I right?”

Cutter shrugged. “Hard to say. Who knows what a man does in the afterlife?”

She snorted, then winced, cradling her bandaged hand against her chest. “Don’t make me laugh, Prince. It makes it hurt. Of course, it always hurts, but laughing makes it hurt worse. Anyway, if you’re looking for sympathy, you’re not likely to get it here.”

“I didn’t come looking for sympathy.”

“Just as well,” she said. “So…why did you come?”

“I think you know why. The man who tried to kill me worked for you. I came to see what you know of it.”

She snorted. “What I know of it? In case it somehow escaped your damned attention, Prince Bernard, I have been stuck in this cell for what feels like an eternity now.”

“Someone like you, she probably has people, contacts, who can make it to her, even here. I don’t think something so small as being locked in a cage would keep you from giving orders.”

“Do you think if I had contacts, Prince, that I’d still be here, enjoying your brother’s…hospitality, as it were?”

“Maybe you don’t have someone in a position to effect your escape, but there’s a big difference between opening a cell door and sharing a quiet whisper between bars.”

The woman shrugged. “What difference does it make? You will either believe me or you will not, but I tell you this, Prince. I knew nothing of the attempt on your life—I was not behind it. If I had been, I can assure you, we would not be having this conversation right now.”

“If you weren’t behind it then who was?”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Seems to me that there’s no shortage of people—and Fey—who’d be willing to pay quite a bit to see you put in the ground. Might be they held a raffle to figure out who got the honor.”

Cutter frowned. “That’s it, then? That’s all you can tell me? All you know?”

“Of course not, Prince,” she said. “But anything more than that’ll cost you.”

“I already told you—there is still the boon to speak of. I promised you one and I’m still willing to offer it to you. In exchange for what you know.”

“Oh, Prince, you wouldn’t want to fill that pretty little head of yours with all the things I know. Why, the nightmares you’d have! Still…” She made a show of considering it. “Can’t say as getting out of this dungeon doesn’t offer some appeal.” She nodded. “Fine. What is it you’d like to know?”

“For starters, I’d like to know who hired Balk.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “I can’t help you there, I’m afraid. A man like Balk, he enjoys his work, you see. When I was captured…well, it wouldn’t have taken him long to find someone who’d pay him for his favorite pastime. As for who that someone is…” She shrugged. “I can’t say for sure.”

“But you have a theory.”

“Oh, I have plenty of theories, Prince. There’s little else to do, sitting in this cell, besides mourn the loss of my fingers and come up with theories.”

Cutter sighed. “I’m not liking these answers, Belle. Seems to me that they’re not worth the price of your freedom.”

“If you aren’t liking the answers, Prince, then perhaps you aren’t asking the right questions.”

He frowned at that, thinking maybe he should have brought Chall and Maeve after all. Both would have been far better at knowing the right questions to ask than he was himself, for his strengths had always lain in different areas. Usually bloody ones.

Suddenly, a thought struck him, and he met the crime boss’s eyes. “When Priest and I first visited you in the poor district, you asked him to kill a man—a guardsman, I believe.”

Her eyes flashed, and she gave a small, humorless smile. “Better, Prince. Yes, I did. So go on—ask your question.”

“This guardsman,” Cutter said. “What’s his name?”

“Ah,” she said, nodding slowly. “That is the right question—at least, one of them. You’ll be looking for Guardsman Nigel. He’s stationed at the southern gate of the city, last I checked. But I’d hurry, if I were you, Prince. I’m not the only one who knows the danger Guardsman Nigel represents, not the only one who has been…inconvenienced by his investigations. If there really is a conspiracy in the city, they’ll be looking to silence anyone who might out them, and I do not doubt that Guardsman Nigel will be high on that list.”

Cutter nodded, thinking. The guardsman was obviously honest enough and persistent enough to warrant Belle’s attention. If there was anyone who might be able to tell him which of the city’s guards were honest and which weren’t it was this Nigel.

“Very well,” he said. “Thank you, Belle. I’ll go and see about the guardsman now.”

He started away, pausing as the woman spoke. “And what of my boon, Prince? What of my freedom?”

She was making an effort to sound casual, but he could hear the desperation in her voice. He turned back. “As soon as I get back from checking on this guardsman Nigel. If your information is good, I’ll see you released. Until then, I’ll make sure there’s no more…” He paused, glancing at her ruined hand where it hung at her side. “That is, I’ll make sure that no one bothers you. You’ll have your release tomorrow at the latest.”

She nodded. “I thank you, Prince. I don’t know if you really were the man that the stories said, but if so, then it seems you have proved me wrong. Maybe people really do change after all.”

Cutter met her eyes, nodding slowly. “Maybe.”

He turned to go again at that, and she stopped him by speaking once more. “Prince?”

“Yes?”

“I won’t tell you all that I know—I believe you when you say that you’ll free me from this…this place, but I’ve long since learned that leverage works far better than trust when it comes to not being disappointed by people. But I will tell you this much, at least. Whoever was behind the attempt on your life, they had to have intimate knowledge of the castle, likely access to it. And whoever they are, they are dangerous.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Despite how it may appear, it’s not easy to buy guards, and it is certainly not easy to sneak assassins into the castle. To do something like that, a person would have to have a lot of guards on their side and not all of those guards can be bought no matter the price—believe me, I’ve tried. I may not know who it is that hired the men to kill you, but I can tell you that, whoever he is—or she—they are powerful.”

Cutter considered that. It wasn’t exactly comforting to know that whoever had sought his life was powerful in his or her own right, but it made sense. “Thanks, Belle.”

She gave him a small, fragile smile. “You’re welcome. My Prince.”

Cutter gave her a nod, and then he was moving again, hurrying down the dungeon hallway as much as his wounds and his exhaustion would allow. He felt as if he were running out of time—could only hope that he wasn’t out already.