King of Thorns

15

Four years earlier

Gog had a bad dream in the dry canyons of the Kentrow hills. So bad a dream that it chased us out of there, tripping over our smouldering blankets as the fire guttered and spat around us. While we hunted the horses in the dark, stumbling over every rock and bush, the far end of the canyon glowed with a fierce red heat.

“Going to find us a crispy little monster when we go back up there,” Rike said, the fire picking out the raw bones of his face in demonic tones.

“Never burned hisself before,” Grumlow said, tiny beside Rike.

Ahead of us, closer than we wanted to get to the heat, closer than we could get to it, Gorgoth waited to return. His silhouette against the glow had a disturbingly arachnid shape to it, the splayed ribs like legs reaching from his sides.

Young Sim came back leading Brath and his own nag. “Be more use on a winter trip.” He nodded toward the flames, shrugged, and led the horses off. Sim had a way with horses. He’d been a stable lad for some lord once upon a time. Spent time in a brothel too as a child, earning rather than spending.

We made a new camp and waited to see what was left of our old one.

When I went back with Gorgoth the sky had started shading into pearl. The rocks creaked as they cooled and I could feel the heat through the soles of my boots. Maical came with us. He seemed to like the leucrota.

We found Gog sleeping peacefully in a blackened area that resembled a burned-out campfire. I shone the only lantern we had left on the boy and he screwed his eyes tighter before rolling over. “Sorry to disturb.” I snorted and sat down, standing up again sharpish with a scorched arse.

“He’s changing,” Gorgoth said.

I’d noticed it too. The stippled red-and-black of his skin had taken on fiercer scarlet-on-grey tones and a more flame-like form, as if the fire had somehow frozen into his hide.

We slept then, us back at the new camp and Gorgoth with Gog in the ruins of the old. In the morning they joined us and Gog ran to the breakfast fire as though it were a new thing he’d not seen before. The flames flushed scarlet as he approached and the water in Row’s pots started to boil even though it was fresh in from the stream.

“Can’t you see them?” he asked as Gorgoth pulled him back.

“No,” I said, following them away from the camp. “And best you don’t see ‘them’ either. We’ll be meeting with a man who knows all about these things soon enough. Until then, just keep…cool.”

I sat with them farther down the canyon. We played throw-stones and cross-sticks. It seems that when you’re eight you can shake anything off, at least for the short term. Gog laughed when he won and smiled when he lost. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t play to win but I didn’t grate on him for his easy ways. When ambition gets its teeth into you it’s hard to know how to just enjoy what’s in front of you.

“Good boy.” Maical passed Gog the cross-sticks he’d gathered back up, a small bundle in his callused hand. “Bad dreams.”

I frowned at that. Gorgoth rumbled.

“We were all slow to wake…” I said. “Could have ended badly.” I remembered feeling the heat, the smell of char, and the slow struggle free of my own nightmares.

Gorgoth and I found the answer in the same moment, but he spoke first: “Sageous.”

I nodded, slow as the realization of just how stupid I’d been crept over me. Coddin had been right: many hands would seek to wield a weapon like Gog. Twice now the dream-witch had turned that power against me. He might not be able to kill me with my own dreams, but he’d had a good try with Gog’s.

“All the more reason to press on.” I might have said, Third time’s the charm, but there’s no point tempting the fates-unless you’ve got a big enough sword to kill them too.

After breaking fast we rode on, closing now on Remagen. There’s a small fort on a ridge not far from the river as you come out of the Kentrow hills. It commands a view of the road approaching the town. We could see the Rhyme as a bright ribbon behind the fort, and a hint of the bridge towers.

Kent and Maical flanked me at the front of our band and we approached the fort at a trot, Gog clutching my back, Gorgoth jogging close by. Makin and Rike rode behind, chuckling. Makin could even get a laugh out of Rike when he put his mind to it. Then Grumlow, then Sim and Row. I guess it could have been Gorgoth that spooked the fort-men, though at that distance they couldn’t have had a clear view of him. Either way, one moment I had Kent to my right and Maical to my left, and the next moment the grey had an empty saddle.

I pulled Brath in a tight circle and jumped down quick-smart even as the others rode past in confusion. It had to be a lucky shot. At the range between us and the fort walls a good archer would be hard-pressed to hit a house using a longbow. But there it was, one feathered end hard against his neck, the sharp end red and dripping and jutting a foot from the other side. Maical looked at me with unusual focus as I dropped to one knee beside him.

“Time to die, Brother Maical.” I didn’t want to lie to him. I took his hand.

He watched me, holding my eyes as the others wheeled their horses and started to shout.

“King Jorg,” he said, only without sound, blood running from the corners of his mouth. He looked strange with his helmet off to one side and a light in him, as if what had been broken all his life was fixed by a simple fall off his horse. He’d never called me “king” before, as if “brother” was all he could get hold of.

“Brother Maical,” I said. I’ve lost a lot of brothers but not many while I watched their eyes. The strength went from his hand. He coughed blood and went his way.

“What in hell?” Makin jumped down from his horse.

The glistening arrowhead kept my attention. A bead of blood hung from the point, a baby’s reflection distorting across its curve. I saw a red knife and Katherine walking amongst the graves.

“Hello, Jorg,” she had said.

“He dead.” Kent joined me on his knees beside Maical. “How?” The arrow was plain enough but it didn’t seem to answer the question.

I stood and walked past Makin’s horse, pulling the shield from over his saddlebags. I kept walking. A coldness crawled through me, tingling on my cheeks. I took the Nuban’s bow from its place on Brath’s back, checked its double load.

“Jorg?” Kent clambered to his feet.

“I’m going in,” I said. “Nobody gets out alive. Is that understood? Any man follows me, I’ll kill them.” Without waiting for answer I moved on.

I walked a hundred yards before another arrow fell, sailing far to the left. The shot that killed Maical had to have been a freak, loosed with no real hope of hitting its target. I slung the Nuban’s crossbow over my shoulder. Thin ties held the bolts in their channels.

I could see four men on the battlements now. Fifty yards on and they loosed a volley. I raised the shield. One arrow hit it, the point just visible on my side, the others clattered on the rocks.

It wasn’t a big fort, more of a watch point. Thirty men would have filled it elbow to elbow, and it looked to have been many years since it was fully garrisoned.

By the time I stood properly in range the men on the walls had found their courage. A single warrior approached them at a steady walk, and he didn’t look much above sixteen. Three more joined them behind the battlements, not soldiers, no uniform, just a ragtag bunch, more of them looking out through the portcullis.

“You’re not going to let me in then?” I called to them.

“How’s your friend?” a fat one called from the wall. The others laughed.

“He’s fine,” I said. “Something spooked his horse and he fell. He’ll be up and about as soon as he gets his breath.” I peered over my shield and pulled the arrow from it. “Somebody want this back?” I felt utterly calm, serene, and yet at the same time with the sense of something rushing toward me like a squall racing across the grasslands beneath a darkening sky.

“Surely.” One of the half dozen behind the gate snorted and started to turn the wheel, raising the portcullis notch by notch while the chain ratcheted through its housings. The thick muscle on his arms gleamed white through the dirt as he strained.

I saw two of those on the wall exchange glances. I don’t think the arrow was all they planned to take from me. I started forward so that I would reach the gate just as it drew high enough for me to pass below without bending. The stink of the place after so many nights in the open made my eyes sting.

The storm that had been racing toward me across some hidden wasteland in my mind hit as I entered the fort. I offered the arrow to the closest man, a thin fellow with, of all things, a headman’s axe in hand. He reached for it and I stuck it through his eye.

There’s a still moment when something like that happens, when an arrow juts from a gleaming eyeball and the owner has yet to scream. The men who act in such still moments tend to live longer. Of the crowd behind the gate only one moved before the man’s scream, and I moved quicker. I caught his wrist as he reached for me and drove Makin’s shield against his elbow joint. With his arm held straight I pivoted him so his body struck another man before his head hit the wall. The quick men tend to live longer, but sometimes they just get themselves first in the queue.

I stepped back, almost to the portcullis that had started to fall, and shrugged the Nuban’s bow from my shoulder, letting its weight swing it under my arm. Bringing it up I pulled both triggers without bothering to aim. Both bolts hit the same man, which was a bit of a waste, but of all of them he had the most armour on and the Nuban’s crossbow put two big holes in it.

The portcullis slammed down behind me. The wind of it tickled on my neck as it sliced past. Four left in view. The big man at the gate-wheel hunting for his sword, another unhurt on the floor climbing to his feet. Two who could be brothers, both wide with straggly hair and rotting teeth, reaching for me. They made the right choice. When the numbers are on your side, grapple your foe before he gets his steel clear.

I pushed off the gate, using it to accelerate my charge. The pair before me both had the weight advantage but if you hurl yourself hard behind a shield, especially if you ensure the iron edge of it hits somewhere useful, like the throat, you can get yourself a little advantage of your own, whatever you weigh.

I had no fear in me, just the need to kill, just something crawling on me, in me, that might be washed away with enough blood.

One of the two uglies went down beneath me, blood, spit, and teeth spattering my face. The other loomed above us as I pulled Grumlow’s knife from my boot.

Knife-work is a red business, Brothers. With the knife you slice meat up close, lay it to the bone, and swim in what gushes out. The screams are in your ear, the hurting trembles through your short blade. I could say I remember all of it but I don’t. A fury took me, painting the world in scarlet, and I howled as I killed. I have a vision of the moment I left the gate-yard, drawing my sword for the first time as the remainder of the garrison hurried down two sets of narrow stairs to the right and left. The men coming into view first tried to back off, with the others crowding behind, pushing.

It wasn’t for Maical that I killed those men, or for the joy of slaughter, or the proud legend of King Jorg. Like Gog I have my own fires banked and burning, and on some days the right spark can set them blazing beyond my control. Perhaps that was the true reason I had come traipsing over half a dozen realms to find this fire-mage for my pet monster. Perhaps I wanted to know that such fires could be contained. That they didn’t have to kill us both.

I survived my foolishness, though fourteen men did not, and I walked, half-drunk with exhaustion, from the gate once more. The Brothers left their posts on their perimeter around the fort and followed me back toward the horses.

“Jorg,” Makin said.

I turned and they stopped.

“Red Jorg,” said Red Kent, and he clapped his hand across his chest.

“Red Jorg,” Rike grunted. He stamped.

Gorgoth stamped his great foot. Makin drew sword and clashed it against his breastplate. The others took up the chant. I looked down and saw that no part of me was without gore. I dripped with the blood of others, as red as Kent on the day we found him. And I knew then why he wouldn’t speak of it.

I went to Maical and took his head-axe from the grey’s harness. “We’ll make him a cairn,” I said. “And put the heads of the fort-men around to watch over it.” I threw the axe to Rike. He caught it and set off for the fort without complaint. For once I believed the taking of loot was not at the front of his thinking.

We built the cairn. Gorgoth brought rocks that no single man would be able to roll away. I don’t know that Maical would have wanted the heads, or cared, or have held any opinion on the matter, but we set them as his honour guard in any case. I don’t know what Maical would have wanted. I never really met him until those last seconds when he lay dying. It surprised me that I cared, but I found that I did.