Tower Lord

CHAPTER FOUR

Frentis

They ambushed a Free Sword cavalry patrol on the north road, four men having the misfortune to dismount for a piss close to where they lay in the long grass. Davoka’s spear took one, Frentis’s sword two more whilst Ratter and Draker wrestled the fourth to the ground as he struggled to remount his horse, cudgel and knife rising and falling in a frenzy after which they squabbled over who got his boots. Davoka covered herself with a bloodstained jerkin taken from the man she killed and Frentis took the sword belt and scabbard from another, throwing away the long-bladed weapon favoured by Volarian cavalry and replacing it with his own Asraelin blade. He also found some bandages in the saddlebags to bind his knife wound which had begun to burn with increasing persistence, drawing sweat from his brow and adding an unwelcome cloudiness to his vision.

Daylight was coming on fast as they mounted up and rode west, Arendil riding double with Davoka. Ratter and Draker clearly demonstrated their lack of experience on horseback as they bounced along behind. Frentis had expected them to take to their heels as soon as they reached the beach on the other side of the bluffs, but for some reason they stayed, perhaps fearing his retribution, though he suspected their loyalty had more to do with the Volarians who now seemed to be everywhere. They passed two more patrols in the space of an hour, too distant to offer a threat, but then spied a full regiment of cavalry cresting a hill half a mile ahead.

“This is hopeless, brother,” Ratter said. “The road is choked with the bastards.”

He was right, the most direct route to the Order House was denied them, leaving only one option. “The Urlish,” he said, turning his horse towards the great mass of trees to the north. “Six miles in and we’ll be at the river. We can follow it to the house.”

“Don’t like the forest,” Draker grumbled. “Got bears in there.”

“Rather them than that lot,” Ratter said, kicking at his horse’s flanks. “Come on you bloody thing!”

Frentis spurred to a gallop, hearing a shrill pealing from the Volarian cavalry, similar to a noble’s hunting horn. They had been seen. The trees soon closed in, forcing them to slow to a canter, the ground becoming so rough they had to dismount. Frentis strained for signs of pursuit but heard only the song of the forest. Probably decided we weren’t worth the effort.

He removed the saddlebags from the horse and slapped a palm against its rump, sending it trotting off into the trees. “We walk from here,” he told the others.

“Thank the Faith!” Draker groaned, climbing down from the saddle and rubbing his backside.

“The house we go to,” Davoka said. “It’s the home of the blue cloaks?”

“That’s right.” My home.

“These new Merim Her seem to know much,” Davoka went on. “They will know of your House, your Order.”

“Yes.” Frentis hoisted the saddlebag over his shoulder and began to walk north.

“Then they will attack it,” she persisted, striding alongside. “Or already have.”

“Then we had best not linger.” The wound in his side flared again, making him hiss in discomfort, but he kept walking.

They came to the river around midday and paused for a brief rest, Draker and Ratter collapsing on the bank with a flurry of curses. Frentis took off his shirt and began to change the bandage on his wound. Davoka came over to peer at it, nose wrinkling as she sniffed, saying something in her own language.

“What?” Frentis asked.

“Wound is . . .” She fumbled for the right word. “Sick, more sick.”

“Festering,” he said, fingers gently probing the cut, still leaking some blood but also now swollen and angry, lines of deeper red tracing through the surrounding flesh. “I know.”

“I heal it,” she said, glancing around at the undergrowth. “Need to find the right plants.”

“No time,” Frentis told her, tossing aside the used bandage and extracting another from the saddlebag.

“I do it.” Davoka took the bandage and wrapped it around his midriff, binding it tight. “Shouldn’t leave it like this. Kill you before long.”

Killed by a princess, he thought. A fitting end. “We need to move on,” he said, getting to his feet.

They followed the river west, keeping back from the bank, shrouded by the trees. After a while they saw a barge, drifting with the current, ropes and blocks swaying, the sail tumbled from the rigging and covering the deck. There was no sign of any crew.

“What does it mean?” Arendil wondered.

“We’re close to the house,” Frentis said. “Barges rarely travel this far upriver except to bring us supplies.”

It was another mile before they saw it, a column of black smoke rising above the trees, Frentis breaking into an immediate run. Davoka called to him but he ran on, the wound now a burning cinder in his side and his vision starting to swim. He stumbled to a halt at the sight of the first body, a man in a blue cloak, propped against a tree, face white as marble. Frentis went to him, searching the face but seeing a stranger. Young, probably newly confirmed. The brother had a sword within reach of his right hand, the blade dark with dried blood. His chest was encrusted with his own, the earth beneath him damp from it.

“What is death?” Frentis whispered. “Death is but a gateway to the Beyond and union with the Departed. It is both ending and beginning. Fear it and welcome it.”

He got to his feet, swaying a little, wiping sweat from his eyes, stumbling on. He found more bodies, all Kuritai, at least a dozen littering the forest, a few still moving despite their wounds, quickly dispatched with the point of his sword. A hundred yards on he found another brother, a tall man with two arrows in his chest. Master Smentil, the tongueless gardener. You always let me get away, Frentis thought, recalling his apple-stealing missions to the orchard. And they always tasted so sweet.

His gaze was drawn to a strange sight, another dead Kuritai, but instead of lying on the forest floor he was impaled on the broken stump of a tree branch, hanging at least ten feet in the air, blood dripping into a growing puddle below.

Frentis staggered as a fresh bout of pain and fever tore through him. Tearing his eyes from the bloody spectacle of the impaled man, he stumbled on but managed only a few more steps before the pain forced him to his knees. No! He tried to crawl forward, seeing more blue-cloaked corpses ahead. I need to go home.

“Brother?” The voice was soft, cautious and familiar.

Frentis rolled onto his back, chest heaving, dazzled by the sun blazing through the swaying leaves above, the light dimming as a very large shadow came into view. “Were I a suspicious man,” Master Grealin said, “I might see some significance in your returning to us on this particular day.”

The shadow disappeared and Frentis felt himself being lifted, head lolling as he was carried away.

It was dark when he awoke, starting from the feel of fingers on his wound. “Lie still,” Davoka said. “You’ll work them loose.”

He relaxed, feeling a bed of soft ferns under his back, looking up at a roof of cloth. “Fat man’s cloak makes a good shelter,” Davoka said, wiping her hands and settling back on her haunches. Frentis looked down at the wound, grunting in disgust at the mass of wriggling white maggots covering it.

“Forests are full of dead things, rotting away,” Davoka said. “The white worms only eat dead flesh. Another day and they clean the wound.” She pressed a hand against his forehead, nodding in satisfaction. “Not so hot, good.”

“Where,” Frentis coughed and swallowed. “Where are we?”

“Deeper in the forest,” she said. “Trees are thick here.”

“The fat man? Is he the only one?”

She gave an expressionless nod. “I tell him you’re awake.”

The years had done little to diminish Master Grealin’s girth, though there was a hollowed-out look to his face as he settled his bulk next to Frentis, flesh hanging from prominent cheekbones below sunken eyes.

“The Aspect?” Frentis asked without preamble.

“Dead or captured, I expect. The storm broke far too quickly, brother, and with the regiment off chasing shadows in Cumbrael . . .” He spread his hands.

“Who did you see fall?”

“Master Haunlin and Master Hutril were both cut down on the walls, though they certainly made them pay for it. I saw Master Makril and his hound charge into the battalion that broke through the gate, but by then the Aspect had ordered us to flee and I was running for the vaults. There’s a passage, built centuries ago for just such an emergency, it leads from the vaults all the way into the Urlish. Myself, Master Smentil and a few brothers made it through but they caught us on the other side.”

Frentis was struck by the absence of emotion in Grealin’s tone, his voice clear but distant, almost as if he were telling one of his innumerable stories of the Order’s history. “They killed the boys too,” he said, sounding more puzzled than outraged. “All the little men, fighting like wildcats to the last.” A faint, fond smile came to his plump lips and he lapsed into silence.

“Does this mean you are now Aspect?” Frentis asked after a moment.

“You know Aspects do not ascend by virtue of seniority. And I hardly think I stand as the best example of the Order’s ethos, do you? But it does mean that, until we can join with our brothers in the north, we are all that remains of the Order in this fief.”

“You were right.” Frentis paused to cough, accepting the canteen Grealin passed to him and gulping some water.

“Right?” he enquired. “About what?”

“To be suspicious of my return. My presence here is no coincidence.”

A glimmer of the old twinkle shone in Grealin’s eye. “I have a feeling you are about to tell me a very interesting story, brother.”

“The Lonak woman and the others,” Grealin said some hours later, the forest now pitch-dark save for the glow of the campfire outside the shelter. “I trust you’ve told them nothing of your enforced role in our King’s sad demise?”

“I told them it was an assassin, an assassin I killed. Master, I seek no pardon for my crime . . .”

“It was not your crime, brother. And I can see no good arising from any misguided honesty. Indulge your guilt when this war is won.”

“Yes, Master.”

“This woman with whom you journeyed. You’re certain she’s dead?”

Her red smile, the love shining in her eyes before he twisted the blade . . . Beloved . . . “Very.”

Grealin fell to silence, lost in thought for several long minutes. When he spoke again it was a reflective murmur. “She stole a gift . . .”

“Master?”

Grealin blinked then turned to him with a smile. “Rest, brother. Sooner you’re mended the sooner we can plan our war, eh?”

“You intend to fight?”

“That is our Order’s charge, is it not?”

Frentis nodded. “I am glad we are of like mind in this.”

“Hungry for revenge, brother?”

Frentis felt a smile come to his lips. “Starving, Master.”

He knew it was a dream from the slow even beat of his heart, free of hatred or guilt; the heart of a contented man. He stood on a beach, watching the surf crash on the shore. Gulls soared low over the waves and the air had a bitter chill, harsh on his skin but welcome all the same. There was a child playing near the water’s edge, a boy of perhaps seven years. Nearby a slender woman stood, close enough to catch the boy should he venture too close to the waves. Her face was turned from him, long dark hair twisted and tangled in the wind, a plain woollen shawl about her shoulders.

He walked to her, feet soft on the sand, keeping low. She kept her gaze on the boy, seemingly deaf to his approach, then spinning as he closed, catching the arm he sought to wrap around her neck, a kick sending him sprawling to the sand.

“One day,” he said, scowling up at her.

“But not today, beloved,” she replied with a laugh, helping him up.

She pressed herself against him, planting a soft kiss on his lips, then turned back to the boy as his arms enfolded her. “I did say he would be beautiful.”

“You did, and you were right.”

She shuddered against the wind, pulling his arms tighter about her. “Why did you kill me?”

Tears were falling down his face, his contented heart vanished now, replaced by something fierce and hungry. “Because of all the people we killed. Because of the madness I saw in your eyes. Because you refused this.”

She gasped as his arms tightened, ribs breaking. The boy was caught by a wave and began to jump in the water, laughing and waving at his parents. The woman laughed and coughed blood.

“Did you ever have a name?” Frentis asked her.

She convulsed in his arms and he knew she was smiling her red smile once more. “I still do, beloved . . .”

He was woken by shouting, rolling from his bed of ferns and feeling every muscle groan in protest. He looked at the wound, finding it bandaged with no sign of maggots. He was light-headed and possessed of a monstrous thirst, but the fever was gone, his skin cold to the touch and free of sweat. He pulled on his dead man’s jerkin and emerged from the shelter.

“The brother I know,” Ratter was shouting at Master Grealin. “You I don’t, fat man. Don’t give me no fuckin’ orders.”

Frentis looked on in wide-eyed wonder as the master failed to beat the wiry thief to the ground. Instead he gave a patient nod and clasped his hands together. “Not orders, good fellow. Merely an observation . . .”

“Oh, bugger off with the big words-”

Frentis’s cuff caught Ratter on the side of the head and sent him sprawling. “Don’t talk to him like that,” he stated, turning to Grealin. “Problem, Master?”

“I thought a little reconnaissance might be in order,” Grealin replied. “A brief ranging to ascertain if we are truly alone here.”

Frentis nodded. “I’ll go.” He gave a brief but formal bow to Davoka, presently engaged in skinning a freshly caught rabbit by the fire. “My lady ambassador, would you care for a stroll?”

She shrugged, handing the half-skinned catch to Arendil and reaching for her spear. “Like I showed you. Keep the fur.”

“Master Grealin’s words are to be respected at all times,” Frentis told a sullen Ratter, now rubbing his head. “And his commands obeyed. If you can’t do that, feel free to leave. It’s a big forest.”

“Your sleep is troubled,” Davoka observed as they struck out in an easterly direction. In addition to his sword Frentis carried an Order-fashioned bow Arendil had had the presence of mind to retrieve from one of the fallen brothers, although his foresight hadn’t extended to securing more than three arrows.

“The fever,” Frentis replied.

“In sleep you speak a tongue I don’t know. Sounds like the barking of the new Merim Her. And your fever is gone.”

Volarian. I have been dreaming in Volarian. “I’ve travelled far,” he said. “Since the war.”

Davoka halted and turned to face him. “Enough shadow talk. You know of these people. Your coming brought celebration, followed by death and fire. Now you speak their tongue in your dreams. You are part of this.”

“I am a brother of the Sixth Order and a loyal servant of the Faith and the Realm.”

“My people have a word, Garvish. You know this?”

He shook his head, increasingly aware of how she held her spear, a measured distance between each hand, grip tensed and ready.

“One who kills without purpose,” she said. “Not warrior, not hunter. Killer. I look at you, I see Garvish.”

“I always had a purpose,” he replied. Just not my own.

“What happened to my queen?” she demanded, her grip tightening.

“She was your friend?”

The Lonak woman’s mouth twisted as she suppressed something deep felt, and painful. Carrying some guilt of her own, Frentis surmised.

“My sister,” Davoka said.

“Then I grieve for you, and for her. I told you what happened. The assassin burned her and she fled.”

“The assassin only you saw.”

Beloved . . . “The assassin I killed.”

“Seen and killed only by you.”

“What do you think I am? A spy? What purpose would I serve in leading you and the boy here to skulk in a forest?”

She relaxed a little, the grip on her spear loosening. “I know you are Garvish. Beyond that, we’ll see.”

They kept on towards the east for five hundred paces then turned north, circling around in a wide arc until the trees began to thin. “You know this forest?” Davoka asked.

“We would train here often, but never this deep. I doubt even the King’s wardens come this far in more than they have to. There any many stories of those who ventured into the deep woods and vanished, swallowed by the trees and wandering until hunger claimed them.”

Davoka gave an irritated grunt. “In the mountains you can see. Here only green and more green.”

They stopped in unison as a sound reached their ears, distant but clear. A man screaming in pain.

They exchanged a glance. “We risk the camp,” Davoka said.

Frentis notched an arrow and set off at a run. “War is ever a risk.”

The screams trailed off to a piteous wailing as they neared, replaced by something else, a thick, savage cacophony of growls stirring a rush of memory for Frentis. He slowed to a walk, moving forward in a crouch, keeping to the thickest brush. He held up a hand to signal a halt and raised his head, nostrils flared, a pungent scent coming to him on the breeze stirring yet more memories. Upwind, he thought. Good.

He lowered himself to the forest floor and moved forward at a crawl, Davoka moving beside him with equal stealth until the expected sight came into view through the foliage. The dog was huge, standing over three feet at the shoulder, thick with muscle from haunch to neck, the snout broad and blunt, ears small and flat. It growled as it fed, occasionally pausing to snap at the three other dogs clustered around, its jaws red and dripping gore.

Scratch, Frentis thought in automatic recognition, knowing the foolishness of the thought with instant chagrin. This animal was not quite Scratch’s size and its snout was mostly free of the scars for which his old friend was named. He often wondered what became of him, assuming he had been lost or killed when Vaelin sacrificed himself at Linesh. Wherever he was, this wasn’t him. This was a slave-hound pack leader, and it had made a kill.

“Please!” Frentis’s head came up in a jerk at the call from above, finding himself staring at a girl’s face, a pale oval of wide-eyed terror framed by dark oak leaves.

The pack leader left off feeding to issue a curious grunt at the new sound, raising its nose, nostrils flaring. Something pink and red dangled from its jaw, Frentis taking a moment to recognise it as a human ear.

“Oh please!” the face in the branches called again and the pack leader gave a loud rasping yelp, its brothers closing in around as they charged towards the oak barely fifteen paces from where they lay. The oak was old, and tall, the trunk thick and gnarled. Scant obstacle for a slave-hound. Frentis had seen Scratch clamber halfway up a birch without breaking stride.

He raised his head from the brush, casting his gaze about. No Volarians, yet. But they’ll soon come to see what the dogs brought down.

“Don’t let them get close,” he told Davoka and stood up.

He waited for the first dog to leap up the trunk then sent an arrow through its back, the beast slumping back to earth with a faint whine. The others turned, snarling, the pack leader charging straight for them, the other two circling round. Scratch was always so clever, Frentis remembered.

He made sure of the kill, waiting for the pack leader to close then putting the arrow in his eye. The animal’s momentum kept it coming as the arrowhead found its brain and its legs gave way, tumbling towards him. He leapt the corpse, dropping the bow and drawing his sword, slashing at the dog closing from the side, the blade slicing through its nose. It reared back, head shaking furiously from side to side, still snarling in fury . . . then pitching over dead as Davoka’s spear punched through its rib cage.

She pulled the weapon free then whirled on the remaining dog, now standing still, blinking in confusion, beginning to cower as Davoka charged.

“Wait!” Frentis called, too late as the Lonak woman skewered the animal through the neck.

“Strange,” she commented, wiping the spear-blade on the dog’s pelt. “Come at you like an enraged rock ape then cower like a sick pup.”

“It’s . . . in their nature.” His gaze was drawn to the sight of the girl dropping from the branches of the oak. She landed heavily on bare feet and ran to them, terror still lighting her gaze. She was perhaps fourteen, dressed in a fine but somewhat besmirched dress, her hair showing the semblance of a noble fashion.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She flung herself against Frentis, hugging him tight. “The Departed must have sent you.”

“Erm,” Frentis said. The war, the pits and a long journey of murder hadn’t prepared him for a circumstance like this. He touched the girl lightly on the shoulders. “There, there.”

She continued to sob into his chest until Davoka came over to tug her off. The girl started at the sight of the Lonak woman, pulling away and sheltering behind Frentis. “She’s a foreigner!” she hissed. “One of them!”

“No,” Frentis told her. “She’s from somewhere else. She’s a friend.”

The girl gave a dubious whimper and continued clutching at Frentis’s sleeve.

“Are there more of you?” he asked.

“Just Gaffil. We ran from the wagon. He hit one of the whippers and we ran.”

“Gaffil?”

“Lady Allin’s steward. He must be here somewhere.” She stepped away, raising her voice. “Gaffil!” She fell silent as Davoka pointed her spear at something in the brush, something that might once have been a man.

“Oh,” the girl said in a small voice and fainted.

“You’re carrying her,” Davoka stated.

Her name was Illian Al Jervin, third daughter to Karlin Al Jervin, recently favoured by the King for the quality of his granite.

“Granite?” Davoka asked with a frown.

“Stone,” Frentis explained. “You build things with it.”

“The King loves to build!” Illian said. “And Father’s quarries make the best stone.”

“Quarries don’t make stone,” Arendil scoffed, stirring the stewpot suspended over the fire. “You take stone from them.”

“What do you know?” Illian rounded on him. “You’re a Renfaelin, and a peasant if I’m any judge.”

“Then you’re not,” he replied evenly. “My grandfather is Baron Hughlin Banders . . .”

“Enough!” Frentis said. “Lady Illian. You spoke of a wagon.”

She made a face at Arendil and continued her tale. “I was visiting with Lady Allin, she often invites me when father’s away. We saw smoke rising from the city, then those men came. Those horrid men, with whips and dogs . . .” She trailed off, sniffling.

“You were captured?” Frentis prompted.

“All of us, apart from the older servants and Lady Allin . . . They k-killed them all, right there in front of us. We were chained up together and put in wagons. They already had other people in the wagons. Mostly commoners but people of quality too.”

“How many?” Frentis asked, choosing to ignore her unconscious snobbery.

“Forty, maybe fifty. They were taking us back to the city, anyone who cried out or even gave them a bad look was whipped. There was a woman in the wagon next to ours, captured before they came for us. One of the whippers t-touched her, she spat at them and they cut her throat, her husband was chained beside her. He screamed until they beat him senseless.”

“How did you get away, my lady?” Master Grealin asked.

“Gaffil had a small pin in his boot, he used it to do something to the locks on the chains and they came off.”

“He would have been useful,” Ratter muttered.

“He freed everyone in the wagon and told us to wait until the trees were closer. When they were he hit one of the whippers with his chains and we ran. There were ten or twelve of us when we started running, soon it was just Gaffil and I. Then we heard those dogs.” She fell silent, face tensed against more tears.

“Other than the men with whips,” Frentis said. “Were there guards? Soldiers?”

“There were some men on horses with swords and spears. Perhaps six or seven.”

Frentis smiled and gestured at the stewpot. “Eat, my lady. You must be hungry.”

He inclined his head at Master Grealin and Davoka and they went a short distance into the trees, beyond earshot of the others.

“Two thieves and a couple of children,” Grealin said. “Plus a fat old man. Not an impressive army, brother.”

“Armies need recruits,” Frentis pointed out. “And thanks to her ladyship we know where to find some.”

“Be miles gone by now,” Davoka said.

“I doubt it. No slaver’s likely to leave his dogs behind.”

They had dragged the bodies of the dogs a good two miles north before doubling back to the camp. Finding the trail of those who came in search of them wasn’t especially difficult, though keeping Ratter and Draker quiet enough to follow without being detected was another matter.

“See?” Davoka said in a fierce whisper, picking up a broken twig from the forest floor. “Wood is dry. Step on it and it cracks.” She tossed it at Draker. “Look where you step.”

It was early evening before they found them, encamped in the more open fringes of the forest. Master Grealin waited with Illian and Arendil as Frentis led the others forward. “Wait until you see me,” he whispered to Ratter and Draker then beckoned Davoka to follow as he circled around to the right. The four wagons were arranged in a square, rows of cowed people chained within. There were six guards on the perimeter and five slavers sitting around a fire, one of them weeping openly.

Overconfident, Frentis decided, noting the casual saunter of the guards between the wagons. Shouldn’t have ventured so far in.

He crept up behind the nearest guard, waited until his closest compatriot disappeared behind a wagon and slit his throat with a hunting knife. Free Sword mercenary, he judged from the man’s nonuniform gear.

He caught Davoka’s eye and pointed to the next guard, sitting on a wagon wheel with his back to the trees and guiding a whetstone over the blade of his short sword. Frentis didn’t wait for the spectacle and moved to the wagons, close enough to hear the slavers’ conversation.

“Raised ’em from pups,” the crying man was saying. “Trained ’em myself.”

“Cheer up,” one of the his companions said with a sympathetic smile. “Fuck one of the boys we found. Always perks me up.”

“When I find who did my pups,” the weeper went on. “I’ll do plenty of fuckin’ all right.” He brandished a long-bladed dagger. “With this.”

A shout came from the other side of the camp quickly followed by the din of an untidy scuffle; Ratter and Draker failing to remain hidden. Frentis drew his sword, keeping the hunting knife in his left hand, and stepped from behind the wagon. “In compensation for your loss,” he told the man with the long dagger, “I’ll kill you last.”

“No moving!” Davoka told Draker as she stitched the cut on his arm. The big man gritted his teeth with a whimper, arm trembling as the needle did its work.

“Serves you right, you clumsy bugger,” Ratter said. He sported a livid bruise on his cheek and badly scraped knuckles from beating one of the slavers half to death. The freed captives had gathered round to finish the job.

Altogether they had rescued some thirty-five people, none appearing to have passed their fortieth year, an even mix of men and women, plus a few barely in adolescence. There was also a decent haul of weapons and loot gathered by the slavers, some of which the captives had immediately begun to squabble over.

“This belonged to me old mum!” a young woman insisted as she hugged an antique vase in a tight grip.

“That belongs in the house of Lady Allin, as you well know,” Illian scolded. “Brother”-she tugged at Frentis’s sleeve as he passed-“this servant seeks to thieve from her employer.”

Frentis paused, staring hard at the young woman with the vase. After a moment she swallowed and handed it over. He turned it over in his hand, noting the artistry of the decoration, an exotic bird of some kind flying above a jungle, reminding him of the country south of Mirtesk. “Beautiful,” he said, and threw it against the nearest tree.

“Weapons, tools, clothing and food only,” he said, raising his voice, the squabblers falling silent. “That’s if you’re going to stay with us. This Realm is at war and any who stay are soldiers in that war. Or grab whatever loot you can carry and run, though I’d be surprised if you didn’t find yourself back in a slaver’s wagon within days. This is a free Realm, so I leave the choice to you.”

He moved on then paused at the sight of a man sifting through the pile of assembled weapons. He was thin with long hair veiling his face, but there was a familiarity to his movements, a noticeable limp as he sifted through the pile. He stopped, recognising something, his hair parting as he knelt down to retrieve it.

“Janril!” Frentis rushed over, extending a hand to the onetime bugler of the Wolfrunners. “Faith, it’s good to see you, Sergeant!”

Janril Norin didn’t look up from the assorted weaponry, lifting a sword from the pile. It was a Renfaelin blade, plain but serviceable. Janril sat back on his haunches, grasping the hilt, his fingers playing over the blade. Frentis took in the many bruises on his narrow face. They slit her throat . . . Her husband screamed until they beat him senseless . . .

“Janril,” he murmured, crouching at the minstrel’s side. “I . . .”

“We were sleeping when they came for us,” Janril said in a dull tone. “I hadn’t posted a guard, didn’t think we needed one so close to the capital. This”-he tapped the sword-“was under our bed, all cosy and tucked up in a blanket. I’d barely got a hand to it when they dragged us out. Sergeant Krelnik gave it to me the day I left the Wolfrunners. Said all men needed a sword, be they minstrel or soldier. Apparently he picked it up the night we stormed the High Keep. Don’t know why he kept it so long, not much to look at, is it?”

Janril’s gaze swivelled to Frentis, who knew he was looking into the eyes of a madman. “You kill them all?” the minstrel asked.

Frentis nodded.

“I want more.”

Frentis touched a hand to the sword blade. “You’ll have it.”