Whisper strode across the bridge, Rennic leading the mule behind her, while Tarfel trotted alongside. They were the last people on the bridge now. The weak sun was high somewhere in the leaden northern sky, although the vicious wind that blew across the bridge robbed it of any warmth it might otherwise have offered. Chel quickened his steps again, telling himself that the thudding of his pulse in his ears was only from the speed at which they were crossing the foaming river, and nothing to do with the sharp, fluttery feeling in his gut.
‘Do you think there really was a rider?’ He kept his voice low as he caught up with Rennic, working hard not to look back over his shoulder at the dwindling bank.
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Nothing we can do about it now except get inside.’
‘Are they going to be all right?’
‘They’ll be fine.’ He didn’t look back either.
‘Are you s—’
‘Shepherd’s tits, little man, they’ll be just grand, understand? They’ll be exemplary. They’re professionals. Despite whatever lists that ink-fucker on the bridge might keep.’
Hushed but not reassured, Chel followed the others into the sumptuous might of the gatehouse.
***
‘Four Wars! Eastern Eagle! You’re really still alive.’
A broad man in a long, dark coat was approaching them across the stable-yard, a powerful dappled horse tied up behind him. Three spearmen waited beside it, weapons loose against their shoulders but angles precise. Their livery was mottled with stars. He was northern, a decent size, passing Rennic’s shoulder in height, his girth wrapped in a thick belt beneath the long coat. His beard and hair were short, wiry and more salt than pepper, his smile wide and seemingly genuine.
Rennic grunted. ‘Fest. It’s been a while.’
The two men clasped hands, although Chel detected reserve on Rennic’s side. The newcomer’s exposed arm boasted almost as many regimental tattoos as Rennic’s.
‘You got fat, I see.’
‘Ah, the perils of a well-run company.’ Fest grinned again, this time his eyes not quite so sparkly. ‘You’ve kept your narrow bones though, eh?’
‘Most of them.’
‘Heard you’d struck out on your own,’ Fest said, scanning the three others. ‘Is this your company?’
Rennic bared his teeth. ‘Plenty more waiting across the river. You’re here for the council?’
Fest affected surprise. ‘There’s a council here? Today?’ He smiled again, and this time Chel watched closely to see if it reached his eyes. ‘Of course, of course. They couldn’t start the thrice-damned thing without me. You coming inside?’
‘Of course. Little man, tie up the mule.’
***
The great hall of the Gracechurch more than matched its exterior for opulence. The distant ceiling was vaulted and panelled, rich paintwork vying with thick bands of gilt. The high walls around boasted frescoes and statues of what Chel guessed were past company captains. There seemed to be more than he’d expected. He was at least grateful for the fires burning in each of the room’s great hearths, even if the central fire-pit did rather obscure his view of the raised dais at the hall’s end.
The room was busy. As Lemon had suggested, the place was packed with armed and armoured types, sitting and standing in knots or apart in ones and twos. Boisterous laughter echoed from the thick stone walls, but the louder it got, the more Chel detected its false edge. Even the affiliates affecting the most jovial greetings were keeping their distance from each other, and the room reeked of mistrust.
‘Where do we go?’ he hissed to Whisper. Rennic had forged ahead with Fest and his men, and Chel had lost sight of him in the press. He was keeping Tarfel pinned to his side. ‘How do we ensure the prince can speak?’
She signed back, the room’s volume at least not impeding their communication. Don’t worry. Follow me.
Chel did as he was told, dragging the cloaked and hooded figure of Tarfel behind him. He found himself wondering, as they slipped through the press of rich and dangerous figures to the hall’s far side, what was Whisper’s history? Rennic wore his on his sleeves and in his rage, but Whisper seemed to have both more to say and less inclination to say it, her lack of speech notwithstanding. She’d had no problems at the bridge, she knew her way around a mercenary council, and she alone seemed able to mediate between Rennic and Loveless in their rich and varied disputes. He resolved to find out more about her, just as soon as he got a moment. Lemon had said that each company’s business was their own, but he was willing to risk at least asking some questions.
Rennic found them just as the room began to quiet, in that self-reinforcing way a pre-event hubbub ends. People were taking seats where they could find them. ‘Agenda’s tight,’ Rennic muttered as he reached them, ‘but I’ve twisted some arms. Princeling will speak.’
Chel looked from Rennic to Tarfel and back. The young prince seemed even paler in the flickering light of the hall, his skin damp with sweat in the firelight. ‘Did you announce him?’
‘Not exactly.’
Chel met Tarfel’s eye. ‘Are you ready to speak, Tarf?’
The prince nodded, but said nothing.
The council began. Chel was immediately struck by both the similarities to and the differences from the conclave of the Rau Rel. It was organized and polite, perhaps kept civil by the weight of the history in the walls around them, or the fact that nearly everyone in the room bar Chel and his companions was very heavily armed. At least there was no chance of Spider gate-crashing this one.
During the opening formalities, Chel did his best to look around without betraying himself too obviously. As Lemon had said, there was clearly a lot of coin to be made in professional soldiery, but from the look of those gathered in the hall it was far from evenly distributed. On the dais, their host, the grey-bearded captain-general of the Company of Keys was speaking, dressed in glittering formal robes with a jewelled scabbard belted at his waist. Beyond him sat the other council members, most in armour, and most of the amour exquisite. The first of them to speak was a woman of around Rennic’s age, well-kept and mirthless, her mail dark, breastplate and bracers black and glossy. Her black hair was cut in the coastal fashion, cropped short on one side and tightly bound with small golden rings. Her visible ear bristled with more gold, a jewelled choker peeking from the rise of her breastplate at her neck. The breastplate, Chel noted, was embossed with the image of a radiant sun.
‘Saleh,’ Rennic murmured from beside him. ‘Captain of the Black Suns.’
Chel kept his voice low. ‘Who’s that one at the end? The shabby looking one?’ The woman was slouched in her chair, legs extended and boots crossed in open indifference to the pronouncements of the other council members. She was small and narrow, far younger than the others; the tribal scarring on her cheeks, split like grasping fingers, marked her as Bakani. She seemed more representative of the other half of the room, those without the gleaming armour or bejewelled weaponry. Perhaps that explained the fury in her eyes.
‘Don’t know.’ Uncertainty entered his voice. ‘But she’s wearing the sigil of Gold Peak. What the fuck happened to Lucky Pel?’
Chel was about to make a comment about luck running out when the young woman was called on and pushed herself to her feet. There was a large man standing behind her, another Bakani at first glance. He had the look of a strong, silent type, his hard eyes looking out over the hall for any hint of a challenge.
‘Nadej, I speak for the Peak,’ the young woman growled. Her eyes had an unstable, trembling quality, as if the effort of keeping them still and focused were greater than anyone should have to bear. Her fingers twitched at her belt, which, Chel noted, sported an impressive Rennic-esque array of knives. ‘Can we get the fuck on with this?’
Rennic chuckled. ‘A woman after my own heart.’
Whisper made a little snort of laughter. Be careful what you wish for.
The captain-general of the Keys, with a disapproving glance at the re-slouching Nadej, announced the first item on the agenda: The Situation in the North, and Are We at Risk? To hear the mercenary captains tell of it, their former rivals, the northern companies, had outlived their usefulness now that hostilities in the north were concluded, and been forcibly disbanded before they turned to structured banditry. There seemed to be a general nodding around the hall at this.
Saleh of the Black Suns added that the northern companies had been a vulgar, treacherous lot, more interested in plunder than steady income and contractual stability, and had long darkened the name of professional soldiery in that part of the kingdom. There was a reason, she added, with a pointed look at Nadej, that every northern company tried to come south the moment they could scrape together the wherewithal.
Nadej’s response was not recorded in the official account.
Chel waited for the counterpoint, assuming this was a matter to be debated. Instead, the next speaker merely agreed. The situation in the south was completely different, and come the thaw the southern tribes would still come rampaging from their mountain holds, certain barons would decide their tax burden was too heavy, and the rebel cities of the south would overstep their pretence of independence. Not to mention, nodded another, that some of those rebel cities were using their newfound wealth handsomely in maintaining that independent pretence. One by one, the captains and affiliates gave themselves reasons to avoid concern.
‘What is this?’ Chel murmured to the others, trying to keep Tarfel from hearing. ‘What’s going on?’
Whisper shook her head with a wry grimace.
‘An exercise in reassuring themselves,’ Rennic muttered.
The captain-general cleared his throat and looked out over the hall. ‘Fest tells me we have had a request for a special address. Normally there would be a place for this kind of thing but I feel—’
Rennic stood forward from the wall. ‘Princeling, this is your moment. You ready?’
‘Um, well—’
‘Good.’ Rennic pushed Tarfel forward and into the glare of the hall’s attention. ‘Prince Tarfel Merimonsun,’ Rennic bellowed, silencing the hall at a stroke. In the quiet, Chel heard the small, significant sounds of a hundred hands being placed delicately on a hundred weapons.
‘Fuck off,’ came Nadej’s voice from the dais. ‘The runt prince is twice-dead.’
Tarfel looked suddenly small, hunched and alone. Chel swallowed. Then the prince straightened and pulled back his hood. His gaze was clear-eyed and defiant.
‘I assure you, I am very much alive, and I come to you with a warning.’ With a flash of his signet, he began walking around the hall toward the dais, his voice initially scratchy but carrying over the murmurs that had begun in all corners. ‘You believe you are safe from the fate that befell your northern comrades.’
He reached the dais and stepped up.
‘You are wrong.’
Nadej went to speak again, but was waved to silence by the captain-general. Tarfel was on the dais now, before the chairs, facing out over the hall. ‘My brother the king,’ he called out, his voice echoing over Chel’s head, ‘intends to replace you, each and every one. The only barrier is time.’
‘Horseshit!’ Nadej could control herself no longer. ‘If this bleached bastard really is the prince, we should carve him here and now and send the strips to his brother. That ought to guarantee some contracts!’
‘Nadej, be silent,’ snapped Saleh of Black Suns, she of the glossy armour. ‘All in attendance are safe within these walls.’ She turned to Tarfel. ‘Please continue, but don’t dawdle. Your highness.’
‘I shall be direct. My brother pretends to empire, a union of church and crown and a conquest to restore the borders of Taneru times. The existence of the free companies is an obstacle to this. You have seen him remove the northern companies, absorb them into his army of churchmen. Now that the north is under his control, he will turn his attention to the south, and one by one, you will fall.’
Chel was impressed with his demeanour, his ability to address this hostile and sceptical collection of mercenary captains without becoming flustered or overawed. Perhaps this was the sort of thing that being a prince prepared you for.
‘The situation in the south is completely—’ began one voice from the hall.
‘Not to him,’ Tarfel shot back. ‘You are looking for logic where none exists. He dreams of empire, and in the service of this dream you must all be consumed.’
He’s enjoying this, Chel thought. Despite their murderous reputations, none of the mercenaries has ever seen him weeping and afraid, only as the strutting young man before them, and he knows it. Already he could feel doubt in the room.
Saleh’s hand rested on her chin. ‘You speak of our replacement. This is the fabled army of red confessors? Farmyard bullies, ill-trained and equipped, a rabble of sackcloth fanatics. Look around you, Prince Tarfel Merimonsun. You address the cream of professional soldiery—’ Chel covered Rennic’s snort of derision with a cough ‘—and our capabilities are second to none. Even with a few of our former northern sistren to swell their ranks, their numbers will not touch ours.’
Tarfel stood his ground. ‘Only if they are combined. Each company alone cannot stand. And for each company absorbed, their numbers grow.’
‘This is preposterous. Why would a professional of good standing choose servitude in—’
‘Because it is not a choice!’ Tarfel was pink-cheeked now, glowing in the firelight. ‘Despite what you may have heard, the crown is not making contractual offerings. The companies are disbanding because the alternative is annihilation. They are joining his ranks because they would otherwise face ruin or death.’
Saleh’s brow was furrowed deep, and a hush fell in the hall. ‘How can this be so? Have the bullies cavalry, have they steel armour and sword-craft? Will they learn the crossbow? The free companies are free because we choose to be so, because we work beyond simple ties of oaths and servitude. We are honed like—’
Tarfel fixed her with a baleful glare, and to Chel’s astonishment she fell silent. ‘Times have changed, company captains. You must open your eyes to what is coming. My brother has already begun his work, and he will not stop. Why would he stop? Because you wish him to?’ He swept around, his cloak swinging dramatically as he turned. ‘Many of you will already have received overtures, couched in familiar language, promising a new way of working. Do not be deceived. You will be absorbed, and your lives as you know them will be no more.’
This prompted some armoured shuffling from those around Chel. Muttered conversations sprang up; someone nearby him murmured, ‘I did hear the northern lot were offered terms … the first ones, anyway …’
‘—had an offer, via an intermediary, but you know, it all looked—’
‘—thought it was just us, made it sound—’
Saleh had risen to her feet. By now she looked deeply disturbed, lines etched hard around her face. ‘If you speak truly, Tarfel Merimonsun, you speak of abomination. We have long-term contracts—’
‘He will void them.’ Tarfel spoke quietly now, and the hall hushed once more to listen. ‘He will call you marauders and parasites, outlaws and rebels, and one by one you will be eliminated. No one will come out to fight for you, not jealous lords, nor loyal subjects. Who, after all, will mourn your passing?’
Nadej was still slouched in her chair. ‘Why tell us all this, ghost prince? Assuming there’s truth to your ravings, which I doubt. What’s your margin?’
Tarfel tried the baleful gaze on her, but her twitching stare more than matched his. The muscles on her jaw were pronounced. ‘No one will fight for you,’ he repeated, ‘unless you fight for each other. You must agree a common strategy now, and act in concert when he comes.’
‘We must do whatever the fuck we want,’ Nadej snarled back. ‘I did not take control of the Peak to have some floppy-haired sap give me commands.’
‘Then I suggest you coordinate your plans with your fellow captains, because worse commands than mine are coming your way.’
Rennic chuckled at that. ‘Doing well, our princeling, eh? Didn’t think he had it in him.’
Chel offered a nod and a weak smile. His palms were sweating. He still had no idea which way the hall would go.
Saleh looked to be wavering. ‘And what would you have us do? Rise up, march on Roniaman before winter’s end?’
Tarfel shook his head. ‘The reverse. Withdraw. Abandon your posts, retreat to your strongholds. Let the crown face what follows. And when you see its back, strike as one.’
‘Void our own contracts?’
‘They are already void; you merely await the paperwork.’
‘Then attack the king’s army?’
Tarfel met Saleh’s gaze and held it. ‘You will not be alone when you do. Which is more than can be said for the alternative.’
Chel nudged Rennic. ‘I think she’s going for it. That’s good, right?’
He nodded. ‘If Saleh swings, she’ll carry a lot with her. Black Suns are huge.’
Nadej was getting to her feet. ‘Where’s the fucking—’
A flunky rushed to the dais – not the same one as had been at the bridge, Chel noted – and whispered something urgent to the captain-general of the Keys. He stiffened. ‘Captains!’ he bellowed across the hall. ‘An armoured host approaches.’
The hall fell into uproar, both Saleh and the captain-general shouting for quiet. ‘A modest host,’ he added when the volume had dropped a notch, ‘but clad in red robes.’ He finished with a meaningful glance at Tarfel.
At once, the hall began to empty, the mercenaries streaming out through the wide doors. ‘What’s happening? Chel asked. ‘Where are they going?’
Rennic’s gaze was distant, his brows lowered. ‘Battlements. Grab the princeling. Seems the Foss might have been right about that rider after all.’
***
Not everyone was heading for the battlements. The stable-yard was teeming with activity as dozens of figures dragged their horses clear, mounted and made for the bridge. Chel hurried along beside the prince. ‘Well done, Tarf. That was … that was really good.’
Tarfel’s cheeks were flushed, his breath coming hard, but his eyes were wide with elation. ‘Do you think so, Vedren? Do you think they believed me?’
‘Even if they weren’t all the way convinced, whatever is across the bridge may well have nudged things our way.’
‘Four Wars!’ As they crossed the yard, Fest appeared once more, as if he’d been waiting in the shadows. ‘Looks like someone tipped the big bad king to our little gathering of southern captains. Wasn’t you, was it?’
Rennic grunted and shook his head, continuing his path toward the stairway at the yard’s end. Chel and the others followed, although Chel stepped a little closer to the prince.
‘Not joining us in riding out? Facing down our foe, or running to the hills?’ Fest tapped the side of his nose. ‘Although I understand the back gate is open, if you put a spurt on.’ He diverted to his dappled mount and swung himself into the saddle. ‘Be seeing you, Four Wars. Happy campaigning!’ With that, he rode for the gate, his spearmen in formation riding after.
Rennic turned to watch him go. ‘Prick,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s see what’s out there.’
***
Shafts of sunlight had cracked the silver canopy of cloud, narrow streaks of gold drifting across the snow-streaked landscape. The battlements were busy, but not packed; it triggered memories of Denirnas Port for Chel, of the arrival of the black ships of the Norts all those months before, and the witchfire assault that had followed. His fingers trembled with familiar foreboding.
The new force was approaching over the ridge that Foss had marked, coming from the north-east. A narrow column, maybe a few hundred in number, marching on foot, with heavy wagons at their rear. At the head of the column came two riders, one huge on a plodding beast that looked better suited to dray work than battle, the second smaller, but astride a magnificent charger, and dressed from head to foot in gleaming golden armour.
Tarfel gasped. ‘It’s Corvel. He’s here.’
‘And he brought Brother Hurkel and friends,’ Chel added, feeling the trembling reach his jaw. ‘How did they find us?’
Whisper was beside them, hands moving, gesturing to Tarfel. The prince nodded. ‘I don’t think they were looking for us, but they reached the same conclusion we did. The free companies are a risk.’
‘Have they come to negotiate? Surely that’s too small a force to take on “the cream of professional soldiery”.’
Rennic grunted. ‘Depends what else is over that ridge.’
Riders were crossing the bridge, supported by liveried infantry in the colours of the Keys. Most of the riders, on reaching the gatehouse, took to the north road and rode hard out of view. Chel was shocked.
‘They’re running? They’re not heading out to face the confessors?’
Rennic grimaced. ‘To their mind, it’s not their fight, not if they can get away from it. Nothing a mercenary hates more than unfunded violence.’
‘Do we head for the bridge too? The others are still on the far bank, we could catch them up, bring them across.’
Whisper pointed to where a group in shabby armour loitered near the bridge’s end, just outside the stronghold. Look. Not friends.
‘Nadej.’ Chel peered down. ‘And the rest of the Gold Peak delegation, presumably. What are they doing there?’
Whisper gestured again. Waiting for Tarfel.
‘Five hells,’ Chel breathed. ‘You mean …’
Rennic nodded. ‘The moment we step back on the bridge, our hospitality is at an end. I’d say there’s a good chance that Nadej intends to collect our princeling to take to his brother.’ He sucked air through his teeth. ‘Can’t blame her for direct thinking.’
‘What do we do? If we try to cross the bridge, we end up tangling with Nadej and anyone else who fancies following her lead. And if Corvel isn’t here to parley … Modest force or otherwise, if he lays siege and we’re stuck here, our plan withers on the vine.’
Rennic’s teeth were bared. ‘We’re missing something. Corvel’s blade-sharp, we’ve learnt that the hard way. He would not be here in person if he didn’t feel he had the force to make his point to his audience.’
‘And what’s that?’
Rennic’s gnarled fingers gripped the stone of the battlement. ‘I’m not sure, but it seems fair hazard he’s here to put the waking fear into every mercenary company that might otherwise have thought to face him. And if that motley bunch of confessors looks modest to us, it’s because he knows something we don’t.’ He pushed back from the wall. ‘We need to get out of here. Immediately.’
Chel swallowed. ‘The back gate that Fest mentioned? Can we get out that way?’
The big man’s gaze flicked to Whisper, who gave a soft nod.
‘Let’s go.’
***
The men were waiting for them at the rear gate, the pair tucked in behind two ornate pillars with their knives drawn. Unfortunately for their attempt, Rennic had been more than expecting them. As the first stepped out, he was carried from his feet by a roaring charge, his helmeted head smashed back against the gleaming flagstones. Two arrows punched through his companion as he lunged to intercede. The first man’s throat was cut before he knew what had hit him.
Rennic was getting to his feet as Chel and Tarfel crept around the corner, Chel still leading the mule. He nodded at the second man, from whom Whisper was removing her arrows. ‘Thanks, Whisp. Don’t know what I’d do without you.’
Chel now rarely voiced his disapproval of the big man’s cavalier attitude to taking lives, but his feelings must nonetheless have been evident from his expression.
‘Yes, little man, that was necessary,’ Rennic growled, wiping his knife clean. ‘So hammer down that gas-hole.’
Chel gave the fresh corpses a sad look. They were not well turned out, one mail shirt between them, rusted and part-rotted. ‘Nadej’s people?’
‘Maybe. Or enterprising freelancers.’ He paused. ‘Or something else.’
A clatter of armour echoed from the hallway’s end. ‘We’d better get out of here before the guards show. I’m pretty sure you just broke the rules of hospitality.’
‘What? They started it.’
‘Let’s go.’
***
They ran, Tarfel bobbing white-knuckled on the mule, until they were many hills away and out of sight of the Gracechurch. Only then did Whisper slow her pace and allow them to catch their breath. Rennic used most of his to let out a howl at the silvery sky.
‘What, what is it?’ Chel slapped at his arm, still bent double in recover. ‘Are you trying to bring the wolves on us? Lemon’s not here to brain them with her hammer.’
‘The plan’s fucked, little man,’ Rennic roared, kicking at a heap of loose earth, sending it spraying down the hillside. ‘King Corvel of Fuck-Town has come west already, our band are split either side of the river, the wrong people in the wrong places, and we’ve got barely three weeks before Ruumi lands her reavers. We can’t get everywhere in that time!’
Whisper had one hand raised, then placed it slowly on his shoulder. She followed it with a quick set of signs. Chel was fairly sure he saw ‘trust’ in there.
Rennic took a long breath. ‘Right. Right. They know what they’re doing. We do our part, they do theirs.’
Tarfel was looking back, his nose wrinkled. ‘Can anyone smell burning?’
The sun was already getting low in the north-western sky, but the eastern horizon behind them had a curious glow to it. They stood in silence for a moment, ears cocked against the wind’s soft moan. It sounded a little like … screaming.
Chel shivered. ‘Let’s keep moving’.