Tower Lord

CHAPTER FOUR

Frentis

He found a hiding place in the hills several miles from the villa, a cluster of rocks atop a rise affording a clear view of the surrounding scrub desert, with sufficient brushwood for fuel and a rudimentary shelter. He set the stallion loose, whipping it towards the south in the hope it would lead any pursuers away. She continued to bleed that first night, thick streams of red flowing from her nose, ears and eyes, the dampness on her trews indicating she bled from everywhere she could. He stripped her and continued to wipe the blood away until, slowly, the flow began to ebb. She lay pale, naked and senseless, her breathing shallow, no fluttered eyes or groans to signal she might be dreaming. It occurred to Frentis that she might never wake, and if so, he could well be sitting here watching over her corpse for the rest of his life. The binding was as strong as ever, the itch vanished. He was hers again, even though she was defenceless, even though he wanted to sink his knife into her chest over and over. Instead he nursed her, kept her warm and sheltered against the night’s chill, until her eyes snapped open on the morning of the third day.

She smiled when she saw him, gratitude shining in her eyes. “I knew you couldn’t abandon me, my love.”

Frentis stared back, hoping she saw the hatred in his gaze, and said nothing.

She pushed aside the cloak he had used to cover her, stretching and flexing her limbs. She was thinner, but still lithe and strong . . . and beautiful. It made him hate her even more.

“Oh don’t sulk,” she said with a groan. “They were a necessity. For us as well as the Ally. You’ll understand in time.”

She grimaced at the sight of her blood-soiled clothing but pulled on the black cotton shirt and trews without hesitation. “Do we have food?”

He pointed to the only game he had been able to catch, a rock snake, caught, skinned and filleted the day before. He hung the strips of meat over a low-burning fire to smoke, finding it surprisingly tasty fare.

The woman fed on the remaining snake with evident gusto, grunting in pleasure as she chewed and swallowed. “A man of unending talents indeed,” she said when finished, grease shining on her lips. “What a fine husband you’ll make.”

They struck out in a north-easterly direction before the sun grew too hot to permit travel. A shallow rain pool nestling in a shaded crevice amidst the rocks provided a decent supply of water, though the going was hard due to the meagre sustenance of the last few days. A day and a half of slogging through the scrub brought them in sight of the coast, the woman judging them a good twenty miles north of Alpira.

“The port of Janellis lies another half-day north,” she said. “We’ll need to do some stealing, now that we’re just beggars in rags.”

Frentis hadn’t stolen anything of true value since his days as a pickpocket on the streets of Varinshold, the thievery he had been encouraged to indulge in during his time at the Order House had been much less lucrative in monetary terms. It transpired his childhood skills hadn’t deserted him, a few hours wandering the streets of Janellis netted two full purses and a decent collection of jewellery, sufficient for new clothes and a room at a suitably unremarkable inn. They were husband and wife again, newly wed and in the flush of marital bliss, seeking a ship to the northern ports to visit relatives. The innkeeper recommended a merchantman due to depart for Marbellis the next morning.

“I was expecting more of a reaction,” the woman mused that night, lying next to him. Her using had been gentler tonight, she had kissed him for the first time, trying to make their intimacy a reality he supposed. The binding forced him to reciprocate, to kiss and caress, hold her close as she shuddered against him. Afterwards she entwined her legs with his, fingers smoothing over the hard muscle of his belly.

“The wife and son of their fallen Hope die in a fiery calamity,” she said. “And not a voice speaks of it.”

Frentis willed the itch to return, to bring back the wonderful liberating agony that had allowed him to move, to be a man who saved rather than killed. He was careful to keep the truth from his thoughts, calling up images likely to provoke guilt and despair in an effort to mask the true outcome of their mission. The farmhand, the innkeeper, the boy staring up from the bed . . .

“Perhaps the Emperor has stifled the news,” she wondered. “Sparing his people the shock of it. First the Hope, now this, just as he’s about to announce a new Choosing. Not that there’s anyone to choose now that bitch is dead.” She giggled a little, sensing his surprise. “I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely honest, darling. It wasn’t the boy’s name on the list, it was his mother. He was just my little lesson for you. No, she was the prize, the one name that had to be struck through, Emeren Nasur Ailers, the Emperor’s choice as the new Hope, future Empress of the Alpiran Empire.” She lay her head on his shoulder, voice fading as sleep took her. “Doesn’t matter who he chooses now, all hope is gone . . .”

The voyage to Marbellis took another eight days, all the time playing the loving young couple for the merchantman’s crew. They were a cheerful lot, given to ribald jokes and unsolicited advice concerning Frentis’s husbandly duties, although his meagre Alpiran forced him to limit his responses to embarrassed laughter. In their cabin at night, when she was done, he would use the limited freedom allowed him to explore the scar where the itch had burned. There was a definite change in the texture now, the smoothness more discernible, and he had a sense it might have grown in size. But still no itch, no freeing surge of pain. Grow, he implored continually, trying to keep his frustration in check lest she sense it.

They docked at Marbellis with the morning tide, exchanging farewells and a final bout of raucous banter with the sailors as they descended the gangplank. “Right.” The woman turned to survey the city beyond the quay. “Time to find some scum.”

Like all ports Marbellis had districts where wise feet didn’t tread. In Varinshold it had been the entire western quarter, here it was smaller, a cramped slum of listing terraces clustered around the warehouse district. As they walked the streets evidence of the Realm Guard’s occupation was still plain in the gaps in the terraces and patches of ash-blackened wall. The bustle of the docks and the liveliness of the people told of a city that had healed a great deal in the years since the war, but the poorer recesses still showed the scars of battle.

“They say a thousand women or more were raped when the walls fell,” the woman commented as they passed a hollowed-out shell that had once been a home. “Many of them had their throats cut afterwards. Is that how your people celebrate victory?”

I wasn’t here, he wanted to say but stilled his tongue. Here or not, doesn’t matter. Every soul in the army was stained by Janus’s war.

“Ah, guilt for the crimes of others.” She wagged a finger at him. “Won’t do, my love. Won’t do at all.”

She chose a wineshop in the darkest alley they could find, ordering a bottle of red with a conspicuous display of coin then settling down to wait at a table facing the door. Several patrons, mostly men in various states of dishevelment, got up and left in the few minutes following their arrival, leaving them alone save for a man sitting in an alcove, the smoke from his pipe pluming in the shadow.

“Always go for the one who lingers in a place like this,” the woman advised, lifting her wine cup to the man in the alcove and offering a bright smile. “He’ll have the keenest eye for opportunity.”

The man took another puff on his pipe then rose and sauntered over to their table. He was short, wiry but with a fighter’s face, displaying several gaps in the teeth he bared in a mirthless smile. Although Frentis judged him to be from northern climes he spoke to the woman in Alpiran.

“I speak the Realm’s tongue,” she replied. “And no, I have no need of five-leaf, thank you.”

The man inclined his head. “Ah, so it’s the redflower you’re after.” His accent was thick and familiar, Nilsaelin. He pulled a chair over to sit down at the table, helping himself to wine. “Available, but expensive. Not like the Realm here. The Emperor thinks redflower a great evil.”

“We’re not looking to buy any . . . amusements.” She gave a furtive glance around the shop, dropping her voice. “We need passage to the Realm.”

The wiry man sat back in his chair, grunting in amusement. “Good luck to you. Alpiran ships don’t dock there any more. You may have heard. There was this small matter of a war, y’see.”

The woman leaned closer, voice soft and intent. “I have heard there are . . . other ships for hire. Ships not so bound by the Emperor’s strictures.”

His face lost any vestige of humour, the eyes narrowing. “Dangerous talk, from a stranger.”

“I know.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “We need to be gone from here. My husband . . .” She nodded at Frentis. “He is from the Realm, we met before the war. Things were so much easier then, our union was blessed by my parents, but now.” She put a sorrowful expression on her face. “The years since the war have been hard for us, shunned by family and neighbours alike. In the Realm though, perhaps we’ll find a welcome.”

The wiry man raised his eyebrows, giving Frentis a long look of appraisal. “From the Realm, eh? Whereabouts?”

“Varinshold.”

“Yeh, I can hear that in your voice. What brought you to the empire? You look more a soldier than a merchant.”

“A sailor,” he said. “Started as a cabin boy when things got difficult in the quarter. Needed to leave.”

“Difficult how?”

“One Eye.”

“Ah.” The wiry man drained his wine cup. “A name I know. Y’heard he died years ago now?”

“Yes. I didn’t weep.”

A faint smile twisted his lips. “I might have a name or two for you. But it’ll cost.”

“We can pay,” the woman assured him, displaying the fullness of her purse.

He stroked his chin, giving every impression of careful consideration before nodding. “Wait here. I’ll be back by the ninth bell.”

The woman watched him leave before turning to Frentis with a raised eyebrow. “One Eye?”

He drank some wine, saying nothing until she flared the binding. “My scars,” he hissed through the pain. “He was the one who gave me my scars. My brothers killed him for it.”

“So,” she murmured, letting the binding fade, “you were one of the Messenger’s.” There was a gravity to her voice as she said this, an unwelcome realisation. The look she turned on him was intense in its scrutiny, like the time in the temple, only this time she refrained from torture. After a moment she blinked, shaking her head and patting his hand. “Forgive my doubts, beloved. But the centuries have made me cautious.”

She rose from the table, adjusting the short sword beneath her cloak. “We’d best adjourn to await our benefactor.”

They climbed onto the roof of a shed overlooking the alley and waited. The wiry man returned a good deal before the ninth bell, with four rather larger companions. They entered the shop in a rush, re-emerging almost as quickly. The largest of the wiry man’s companions rounded on him, hushed threats accompanied by hard jabs to the chest.

“Don’t kill any,” the woman whispered. “And keep the lingerer conscious.”

It was Frentis’s experience that the larger and more aggressive a man was, the poorer his fighting ability. Large men, especially those employed in criminal pursuits, were more accustomed to intimidation than combat. So it was scant surprise to find the man he dropped behind failed to duck the blow that crunched into the base of his skull, or that his even larger companion simply gaped and failed to react to the spinning kick that caught the side of his head. The third one, the least physically impressive, managed to pull his knife free before the woman’s punch found the nerve centre behind his ear. The fourth was swift enough to swing at her with a cudgel. She ducked under it, delivered a knee-cap-smashing backward kick and finished him with a blow to the temple.

She drew her sword and advanced on the wiry man, now cowering against the alley wall, hands raised and eyes averted. She placed the point of the sword under his chin and forced his face up. “We’ll take those names now.”

“This is supposed to impress me?” The smuggler looked down at the wiry man’s beaten and bloody form with a mix of disdain and amusement. He had led them, after some persuasion, to a warehouse seemingly full of nothing but tea chests. The smuggler, plus several crew-mates were playing dice behind a wall that wasn’t a wall. He was a powerfully built man, speaking in a Meldenean accent, with a sabre propped within easy reach. His comrades were all similarly well armed.

“This is a demonstration,” the woman said, tossing the smuggler a bulging purse. “Of the consequences of failing to keep a bargain.”

The smuggler considered the purse a moment then aimed a kick at the wiry man’s huddled back. “This one goes about with four others. Where’re they?”

“They felt sleepy.” The woman held up their remaining purse plus a clutch of the jewelled bracelets Frentis had stolen. “Yours when we reach the Realm. This one says you’re due to make another run past the King’s excisemen. Consider us just a little extra cargo.”

The smuggler pocketed his new earnings then waved a hand at two of his men, nodding at the wiry man. They hauled him upright, dragging him off to the dark recesses of the warehouse. “I’m grateful for the business, but he shouldn’t have told you my name.”

“I’ve already forgotten it,” the woman assured him.

The smuggler’s vessel was little larger than the river barges Frentis remembered from childhood, but with a deeper hull and a taller sail. The crew numbered only ten men besides the captain, moving about their tasks with quiet efficiency and none of the ribald chatter of the merchantman’s sailors. They were pointed to a small section of deck near the prow and told not to move from it, meals were brought to them and none of the smugglers attempted to engage them in conversation. It made for a dismal voyage, unleavened by the woman’s unending voice and a thick bank of fog greeting them halfway across the Erinean on the fourth day out.

“I’ve only been to your Realm once,” the woman said. “This must have been, oh, a century and a half ago. The scryers had picked out a minor noble who was likely to scheme his way to Kingship in a few years. It was a fairly easy kill as I recall, the man was a pig, ruled by his appetites, all I had to do was play the harlot. I killed him before he could touch me, of course. A single punch to the centre of the chest, a difficult technique I’d been trying to master for years. It was odd, but when Janus started his rise several decades later, the Ally gave no instruction for his death. Seems your mad king fit his plans perfectly.”

The fog began to lift in the early evening of the seventh day, revealing the dark mass of the Realm’s southern coastline a few miles off the port bow. The captain ordered a change of course, the small ship tacking towards the west. Frentis kept a close watch on the misted shore until a familiar landmark came into view, a free-standing column of rock nestled in a narrow cove.

“Something of interest?” the woman enquired, sensing his recognition.

“The Old Man of Uhlla’s Fall,” he said.

“Meaning?”

“We’re about thirty miles east of South Tower.”

“Can we land here?”

The Wolfrunners had spent the months prior to the mustering at South Tower chasing smugglers along this coast, and he knew the channel surrounding the Old Man was far too narrow for a ship, but an easy prospect for the smuggler’s rowboat. He nodded.

“The captain first,” she said, moving towards the steps leading down into the hold. “I’ll see to the lower deck.”

For all his ruthlessness and impressive physique the captain proved a feeble opponent, barely managing a parry with his sabre before the short sword took him in the chest. The first mate was a tougher prospect, fending him off with a boat hook for several seconds, calling for help in between voicing curses in a language Frentis didn’t know. But curses and courage availed him nothing. He died hard but, like the rest of the crew, he died.

“Why is it called Uhlla’s Fall?” the woman asked. They were on the bluffs overlooking the cove, the rowboat abandoned on the shingle beach below. Beyond the Old Man the smugglers’ ship ploughed a steady course towards the rocks beneath the cliffs, the tiller having been lashed in place by the tightest of the woman’s knots.

“Never thought to ask,” Frentis said, not caring that she would sense the lie. Caenis had told him the story, the cove had been named for a woman, lovelorn when her man was called to sea in service to some forgotten king’s war. Every day she would climb the Old Man’s treacherous flanks to stand on the summit and watch for his return. For weeks then months she climbed, through sun and rain, snow and gale. Then one day his ship hove into view, and when she could see him waving from the prow, she cast herself from the Old Man, finding death on the rocks below. For he had been untrue to her before he sailed, and she wished that he witness her end.

They watched the ship carry its lifeless crew onto the rocks, the hull splintering with a booming crack, the flailing sail dragged into the waves by the swaying mast. It was already half-sunk when they turned away. Night was coming in fast and a stiff breeze brought the sea’s chill to sting at their faces.

“Is your face known in South Tower?” the woman asked.

This time his reply was truthful, “I doubt there are any who would recall it.” With Vaelin Al Sorna in attendance when the King’s grand army gathered for invasion, who was likely to remember any other brother of the Sixth Order? He cherished all his memories of Vaelin but to stand beside him in a crowd was to know what it was to be invisible.

The journey to South Tower took the rest of the night, the woman having no desire to linger near the site of a shipwreck sure to attract salvage hunters before long. The sun was rising over the rooftops of the town by they time they paused to rest. South Tower was walled all around, the structure that gave it its name rising above the other buildings, a slender crenellated lance reaching into the morning sky. They entered via the western gate, still man and wife. He noticed she seemed to have forsaken all other guises and wondered if she had come to believe it was true.

The guards on the gate were thorough in searching them, finding them weaponless, their swords having been concealed in a grassy mound a mile away, and possessed of just enough coin to permit entry. One of them questioned the woman’s curious accent but Frentis told him she was from the Northern Reaches which seemed to satisfy him. They were allowed entry with a stern warning that vagrancy was not tolerated within the walls and they had to be gone by the tenth bell if they failed to find a lodging.

The South Tower from which Frentis set sail six years before had possessed all the bustle and noise of a thriving port, the quay crowded with ships waiting to carry the army across the Erinean. This was a quieter place, the streets free of the laden carts and hawkers he remembered, sloping down to a harbour where at most a dozen ships were berthed. No more silk, no more spices, he thought, recalling the colours and scents of the market. Janus cost us more than just blood.

They found an inn near the tower precincts and ate a meal served by a plump woman who fussed around them with an energy born of having little else to occupy her time. “The Northern Reaches you say?” she gushed at the woman. “Long way from home, deary.”

The woman clasped Frentis’s hand, caressing the back of it with her thumb. “I’d have travelled the whole world if he’d asked me.”

“Aww, aren’t you the loveliest. It was all I could do to walk across the room for the bugger I was shackled to.” Their heart-warming story earned a free helping of apple pie and a discount on the room.

There was no using that night, she sat on the bed, silent and immobile whilst he stood by the window watching the street. There was a tenseness to her he hadn’t seen before, a wariness to her gaze. She doesn’t know what’s coming, he decided.

The realisation earned him a stern look of rebuke, but she held off on flaring the binding. She rarely hurt him now, and there had been no repeat of the intense scrutiny from the wineshop in Marbellis. She thinks me hers completely, he thought. Like a dog whipped to the perfect pitch of obedience. His hands burned to explore the scar again, feel the smooth, healed flesh that broke the pattern. He kept the imprecation in his mind as quiet as he could, but never let it falter: Grow!

The moon had risen by the time a shadow played across the cobbles on the street outside, its owner unseen and moving with an unhurried fluency. Frentis turned to the door and the woman rose to her feet. For the first time he could remember they were unarmed and wondered if it was by accident or design.

There was a soft knock on the door and the woman nodded at Frentis to open it. The man standing outside was equal in stature to Frentis though at least a decade older, with sharp but handsome features, his black hair swept back from a smooth forehead. He was dressed in plain clothes and sturdy boots, scuffed from many miles of travel. Like them, he was unarmed but Frentis knew a warrior when he saw one. It was plain in the set of his shoulders, the way his green eyes took in every detail of the room in a single glance, lingering first on Frentis then fixing on the woman, instinct finding the greatest threat.

“Please come in,” the woman said.

The man entered slowly, keeping a good two arm’s lengths from the woman and standing close to the window.

“He fears us, beloved,” the woman observed as Frentis closed the door.

A flicker of anger passed across the man’s well-made face. “I fear nothing but the loss of the Father’s love,” he said, the accent cultured but clearly Cumbraelin.

The woman gave a soft sigh of disgust, but kept any ridicule from her tone. “You have a name?”

“My name is for the Father to know.”

Frentis had heard this before, when they had been chasing after those child-stealing fanatics in Nilsael. They had been led by a priest, excommunicated by the Church of the World Father for heresy but still a priest in his own mind, crying out his prayers in defiance before Dentos put an arrow through his eye.

The woman turned to him with a raised eyebrow as she sensed his remembrance. “He’s a priest,” he told her. “They give up their birth names when they take their orders. The church gives them a new one, known only to them and their god.”

A fresh curl of disdain twisted the woman’s lips before she forced a smile at the priest. “I assume great promises were made in return for your assistance.”

“Not promises, assurances.” The man became agitated, a red flush creeping into his cheeks. “Proof was given. You do the World Father’s work. Is this not so?”

Frentis could tell the woman was suppressing a laugh. “Of course. Forgive my testing words. But we have to be careful. The, ah, servants of the World Father have many enemies.”

“And different faces, it seems,” the priest said in a soft murmur.

“I was told you would have word,” the woman went on. “Of Al Sorna.”

“He was in Varinshold a month ago. The heretic King sent him to the Northern Reaches as Tower Lord.”

“I was given to understand there was a stratagem. Something either fatal or damaging.”

“There was. The results were . . . unexpected.”

“They usually are where he’s concerned.”

“Steps have been taken. The Reaches are not so far.” He produced a small leather wallet, placing it on the bed and stepping back.

The woman reached for the wallet and briefly leafed through the contents. “My list is complete,” she said. “We have an appointment in Varinshold.”

“Another name has been added. Although this is a task well within my skills, the Messenger insisted it be left to you. The Tower Lord of the Southern Shore keeps an efficient household, but there are occasions when he makes himself vulnerable.”

The woman extracted a sheet from the wallet, a block-printed image of a white flame on a black background. Frentis knew it well, the fanatics the Wolfrunners hunted would deface the homes of the Faithful with it after killing the parents and stealing the children: the Pure Flame of the World Father’s Love.

“I was told to tell you that the Fief Lord alone is not enough,” the woman said. “The whore has to die too.”

His gaze tracked from her feet to her face, eyes bright with enmity and voice heavy with righteous conviction. “All whores have to die.”

She moved in a blur, appearing in front of him, her face inches from his, hands open in clawlike readiness.

The priest took an involuntary step back before mastering himself.

“When I see you again,” she said. “Perhaps I’ll arrange for you to meet this god you’re so fond of.”

The priest’s gaze shifted between them and Frentis had a sense of how threatening they must appear; her fury and his stillness. He has no notion of what we are, he realised. No clue as to the true nature of his bargain.

The priest moved to the door in silence and left without a word.

“Go and kill that sow downstairs,” the woman instructed. “We made too great an impression on her.”

“Your realm is an insane place,” she commented the next morning, watching the Tower Lord of the Southern Shore and his lady hand out alms to the poor. There were only two South Guard in attendance despite the large number of beggars lined up outside the tower gate.

“In Volaria,” she went on, “no-one goes hungry, slaves are no use when they starve. Those freeborn too lazy or lacking in intelligence to turn sufficient profit to feed themselves are made slaves so they can generate wealth for those deserving of freedom, and be fed in return. Here, your people are chained by their freedom, free to starve and beg from the rich. It’s disgusting.”

There weren’t always so many, he thought but didn’t say. But I was one of the few, even though I never begged.

They took some rags from a pair of drunken vagrants found passed out in a dockside alley, draping the stinking garments over their own clothes and veiling their faces with scrapings of dirt and threadbare cloth. The plump innkeeper’s kitchen had supplied two knives of good steel, freshly sharpened and well hidden beneath their rags.

The Tower Lord stood next to a table piled high with clean clothing, greeting each stooped unfortunate with a smile and a kind word, waving their thanks away. His lady looked to the children, handing out sweets or guiding them and their mothers, if they had one, to a secondary line headed by a pair of grey-robed brothers from the Fifth Order.

Grow, he implored the itch as they joined the line, shuffling ever closer to the Tower Lord. But there was no answer from the itch, not now and not last night when he held a pillow over the plump woman’s sleeping face.

“See to the guards,” the woman whispered. “The generous fellow is mine. Oh, how I despise hypocrisy.”

Grow!

The Tower Lord’s face was vaguely familiar, though Frentis couldn’t conjure his name. Had they met during the war? A Sword of the Realm somehow spared the slaughter to return home to Lordship and charitable pursuits? He greeted every unfortunate differently, free of stock phrases or forced conviviality, some even by name. “Arkel! How’s the leg? . . . Dimela, still off the grog I trust?”

Grow!

He reached under his rags, gripping the sandalwood handle of the knife.

“Ah, new faces.” The Tower Lord smiled as they reached the head of the line. “Welcome, friends. And what can I call you?”

GROW!

“Hentes Mustor,” the woman said, loud enough for all the crowd to hear.

The Tower Lord frowned. “I don’t . . .”

Her first blow was deliberately non-fatal, designed to produce as much shock amongst the onlooking poor folk as possible, this was as much theatre as murder. The Tower Lord gasped in pained astonishment as the knife blade sank into his shoulder, the woman ripping it free, crying, “In the name of the Trueblade!” before bringing it down again, this time straight at his heart. The Tower Lord, surely once a soldier, managed to raise his arm in time to block the knife, the blade sinking deep into his forearm.

The two guards were quick to recover from the shock, charging forward with pole-axes lowered, the one in front pitching to the ground as Frentis’s knife throw found the gap in his armour between chest and neck. Frentis darted forward, snatching up the fallen pole-axe and delivering an overhead swing at the second guard. His parry was swift, however, and his riposte the precise jab of a veteran, nearly skewering Frentis through the thigh. He managed to side-step the thrust and replied with a whirling sweep to the guard’s legs, sending him sprawling.

There was a shout behind him and he turned to see the woman advancing on the Tower Lord, now on his back, bleeding freely from both wounds, legs working to push himself away.

“Die, heretic!” the woman screamed, raising the knife. “Such is the fate of the Father’s ene-”

A pair of skinny arms wrapped themselves around her, pulling her back. It was one of the ragged beggars, the grog-addicted woman the Tower Lord knew by name, Dimela.

The woman jerked her head back into Dimela’s face, breaking teeth in a plume of red. The beggar-woman howled but held on. More arms reached out to grab the Tower Lord’s assailant, an old man clutching at her legs, a cripple swinging his crutch at her midriff, more and more closing in until she was lost from view in a press of rags and unwashed flesh.

Please! Frentis begged. Please die!

But the binding surged, fiercer and stronger than ever. HELP HER!

He delivered a hard kick to the helmeted head of the fallen guard then charged into the throng of flailing poor folk, the pole-axe laying about with deadly effect, four of them felled in as many seconds as he tried to hack his way through, all the time hoping the binding would suddenly fade as the beggars tore the woman’s life from her.

He was halfway through the crowd when it happened, a blast of heat and a surge of flame burning a hole in the centre of the throng, people reeling back in shock and pain, screams and panic amidst the sudden smoke.

Frentis fought his way through the dazed remnants of the crowd, finding her on her knees, bloodied as he knew she would be, both from use of the stolen gift and the attentions of the mob. Her face was a red mask of malice and fury. Behind her Dimela’s body lay in a twisted tangle of scorched rags and flesh. Frentis dragged the woman to her feet and they ran.

“One hundred and seventy-two years,” she said, voice soft, reflective, but the anger still shining in her eyes. “That’s how long it’s been since I last failed, beloved.”

Frentis had known many sewers in his time, they made for fine hideaways or speedy thoroughfares beneath the streets of Varinshold and later he had helped Vaelin seize Linesh via its shit-choked underground channels. This one was the cleanest so far, wider too with well-pointed brickwork and a ledge or two to rest on. The stench, however, was everything he remembered.

Making for open country would have been suicide with the South Guard sure to be ranging in strength, so he followed his street-born instincts and dragged her to the sewers. They followed the flow to the outlets in the harbour, waiting for night when the evening tide would allow them to swim away.

“One hundred and seventy-two years.” She turned her gaze on him, beseeching a response and freeing his mouth of the binding.

She wants comfort, he thought. Commiseration for her failed murder. Not for the first time, he wondered at the depth of her madness.

“There’s a difference,” he said.

She was baffled, shaking her head and gesturing for him to continue.

For the first time in weeks he smiled. “Between a hungry beggar and a sated slave.”