Mark Lawrence - The Liar's key

Genius! Years of habitual lying had left me with a tongue capable of invention without requiring any conscious input from my mind. I tensed up, preparing for the sprinting away stage as soon as he started tugging on that sword hilt. As I did so however, I noticed my right foot was resting on a sturdy-looking branch, about three foot in length-a splintered section broken from the tree in some recent storm.

Count Isen sheathed his knife and set both hands to his sword hilt, his back to me as he got ready to heave. I swapped my sword to my left hand, picked up the stick and advanced on stealthy feet. Slow steps brought me up behind the count, the gentle crump of leaf litter under my boots inaudible beneath his grunting as he strained to work the trapped blade free. I glanced at the stick. It had a good weight to it. I shrugged and-trusting to my longer legs to win me clear if anything should go wrong-I whacked him squarely around the side of the head. I’d had poor experience before pitting vases against the back of a man’s head, so I thought I’d try the side this time.

For a trouser-soaking heartbeat I thought Isen was going to stay on his feet. He started to turn, then fell into a boneless heap about halfway through the move. I stood there for a few moments, staring down at the unconscious count, breathing hard. At last it occurred to me to toss away the stick and at the same time I became aware of distant shouts and the clash of swords. I paused, wondering what the source might be.

“Nothing good.” Muttered to the forest. And with a shrug I set off. Left to my own devices I might have lightened the count’s purse to pay for the inconvenience and a new horse, but the sounds of fighting were drawing closer.

I set off at a decent pace, blundering through bushes into the bed of a dry stream that I proceeded to follow. I’d gone no distance at all when with a crashing of branches someone cannoned into me from the side, sending both of us tumbling in a confusion of twisted limbs and sharp elbows. A confused period of terrified shrieking and wild punches followed, ending with me managing to use my superior weight and larger frame to get on top with my hands around a scrawny neck.

“Poe?” I found myself looking down into the narrow and purpling face of Bonarti Poe. With a modicum of reluctance I unwrapped my fingers from his throat.

“T-” He hauled in a huge breath. “T-They followed-” He turned to the side and retched noisily into the leaf-filled streambed.

“Who followed what?” I got off him and stepped back, distaste twitching on my lips.

“T-Those men. .”

“The Slavs?” I spun around, imagining them advancing on us through the undergrowth. Poe hadn’t the spine to try and stop me, but those three needed me back in their clutches if they wanted to keep their skins.

“They attacked Stevenas and Sir Kritchen.” Poe nodded, clambering to his feet. “I ran.” He looked a sorry affair now, his city finery torn and dusty. “To get help.” A hasty addition. He had the grace to look guilty.

Away to my right leaves rustled, twigs snapped-something advanced unseen toward us.

“Oh God!” Bonarti clutched his chest. “They’re coming!”

“Shut. Up!” I grabbed his arm and yanked him down with me as I crouched low. The main thing about panicking is to do it quietly. I clutched him tight, wondering how long he’d slow the Slavs down if swung into their path. Insects buzzed around us, dry pebbles ground beneath my boot heels, the urge to piss built relentlessly, and all the time the crashing in the undergrowth drew nearer. It didn’t sound like a charge directly at us so much as a meandering search that just might uncover us.

“We should run,” Bonarti hissed.

“Wait.” Running is all well and good but it has to be balanced against hiding. “Wait.”

The rustling and tearing grew suddenly louder and a small figure stumbled from the bushes into the streambed about thirty yards from us.

“Count Isen!” Bonarti sprung to his feet as if the count’s presence solved all his problems.

I leapt up a split second later, or tried to, but wrong-footed by the count’s sudden appearance, my feet lost purchase amid the pebbles and I went sprawling forward onto all fours.

“You!” Isen pointed his over-long sword at me.

“I can explain!” I couldn’t.

“You just left me! You can’t abandon a man you’ve defeated!” He sounded disapproving rather than murderous. Sticky trickles of blood striated the side of his face below the spot where the branch caught him.

“Prince Jalan beat you?” Bonarti glanced round at me, surprised.

Count Isen advanced, a touch unsteady on his feet. “Found him in the forest, made my challenge, and had at him. Can’t remember much after that. Must have caught me on the head with the side of his sword.” He touched crimson fingers to his wound.

“Yes! Yes I did!” I got to my knees and shuffled backward.

The count paused a couple of yards before Bonarti and executed a short bow in my direction. “Well fought, sir!” He touched his matted hair again. “But-but, didn’t you run?” Confusion in those beady eyes of his, hardening toward anger.

“Of course I did! We were endangering honest citizens, swinging away on the queen’s highway like common brawlers. Besides, I needed to get clear of my captors and lead them into the forest where I could kill them without risk to the peasants.”

“Commoners! Pah.” Count Isen made to spit.

“Have a care, Isen.” I got to my feet. “Those are my grandmother’s citizens. The Red Queen says how their lives are spent, and nobody else!” I sheathed my sword just in case he should take offence.

Isen waved the matter away. “But you left me lying there!”

“I had to draw the Slavs off.” Sometimes my lies impressed the hell out of me. “I couldn’t have them find you unable to defend yourself. I would have stayed and fought them over your body but I couldn’t be sure enough of defeating all three of them if they all came at once. . so I drew them off.” I straightened up to my full height and with both hands tugged my tunic forward across my chest in what I hoped would seem an authoritative, manly, and self-righteous gesture.

“Well. .” Isen didn’t quite seem to know what to make of it all. I suspected his wits were still somewhat scrambled from the blow to the head. He narrowed his eyes at me, at Bonarti, at a nearby tree, puffed through his moustache, and at length sheathed his own sword.

“Right then!” I gave the smallest of bows. “Honour is served. Let’s go kill some Slavs!” And I led off in the opposite direction to the one in which I’d heard the clash of swordplay.

• • •

Forests, it turns out, are treacherous things. It’s damned easy to get turned around in among all those trees, and each one looks pretty much the same as the next. Somehow, despite declaring myself sure of the way and ignoring all of Isen’s advice about getting back to the road, we found the Slavs. Or at least two of them, sprawled inelegantly across the forest floor amid their own blood-thankfully face down. Sir Kritchen had been laid out with his arms folded across his chest, almost obscuring the wound that killed him. I spotted Stevenas last, sitting with his back to a fallen tree, legs stretched out before him, his sword across them, dark with drying blood. His arm and left side were crimson, the puncture wound in his shoulder bound about with strips of his torn shirt, the musculature of his torso on display.

“Where’s the other?” Isen, looking around, all business.

“Ran for it.” Stevenas nodded toward a dense thicket of saplings.

Isen gave a dissatisfied snort. “We’ll hunt him down soon enough.” A glance at Sir Kritchen then a wave toward Stevenas. “Get him up.” He paused for a moment, finding himself in the unusual position of not being able to order everyone around. “Bonarti, do it!”