John Gwynne - Valour

‘I wanted to share a drink with you, welcome you aboard. I do it with all the new lads.’

Jace relaxed slightly, just a suggestion in the set of his shoulders, his feet.

‘Sit down,’ Lykos said, more order than request. Jace’s eyes flitted to the door and back. He sat, slowly, legs coiled beneath him. Still wary, then .

‘How’re you finding your new life?’ Lykos asked.

‘It’s good, chief. Better’n the pits, for sure.’

Deinon moved out of Jace’s view, stepping behind him.

‘Aye. Life with the Vin Thalun is not the easiest — some might say the hardest — but the rewards. .’ He grinned, emptied his own cup of wine and placed it carefully on a table beside Jace. ‘Stay alive long enough and who knows what you’ll earn — silver, your own war-galley, women. Lots of women. Isn’t that right, Deinon, even for someone as ugly as you, eh?’

‘True enough, chief,’ Deinon said with a wide grin.

Lykos stood before Jace, feeling his temper stir, flaring hot.

‘All I ask is loyalty .’

With no warning, Jace erupted from his chair, headbutting Lykos in the gut. Lykos had been expecting it, but still the lad caught him. Gods, but the pits make you fast , he thought, even as he doubled over, fighting to draw a breath.

Jace was trying to step away, reaching for a knife at his belt, when Deinon’s hand clutched his hair, yanked him backwards, the shieldman’s other fist crashing into the boy’s head, just above the ear. Jace staggered, though still managed to stay on his feet. Lykos headbutted him full in the face, felt cartilage break, crunching as blood spurted. Jace collapsed back into the chair, head lolling.

‘Loyalty,’ Lykos snarled, Jace’s blood dripping from his face. ‘I gave you a new life, but that wasn’t good enough for you. Had to run to Fidele. Why?’

‘I didn’t do nothing,’ Jace bubbled through his ruined face. ‘Don’t understand.’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ Lykos hissed. ‘Deinon.’

The shieldman grabbed one of Jace’s wrists and clamped his hand to the table. In a blur Lykos drew his knife and slammed it into Jace’s palm, pinning it to the wood beneath. Jace screamed, pain and terror mingled, eyes bulging.

‘Why?’ Lykos repeated, bending to stare into Jace’s eyes. ‘Speak the truth and the pain’ll end.’

Jace just stared at him.

‘All right then,’ Lykos said, ‘looks like you need a little more persuasion.’ With a sigh he drew another knife from his boot, this one small, thin and sharp. He held it hovering over Jace’s pinned hand and with a jerk cut one of the man’s fingers off.

Jace screamed, shaking his head wildly. Deinon held him clamped in place.

‘I can keep going like this all night,’ Lykos said. ‘There’s more than fingers I could be cutting.’

‘When I was taken,’ Jace whispered, ‘my family — mother, father, sister — all murdered, by you.’

‘How old were you, boy?’

‘F-fifteen.’

Lykos sighed, tutted. ‘Shame you didn’t learn your lesson.’

‘Wha. .?’ Jace said, his face contorted with pain.

‘That I control life and death for you.’ Lykos nodded to Deinon, who still had a fist twisted in Jace’s hair. He pulled the lad’s head back and cut his throat.

‘Take him out in the lake and sink him with something heavy,’ Lykos said, stepping away from the blood pooling at his feet. He poured himself a cup of wine.

‘Don’t you want to let his body be found, show Fidele what happens to squealers?’

‘No, wouldn’t put it past that bitch to put me on trial for murder,’ Lykos said.

Deinon chuckled, stooped and slung Jace’s corpse over his shoulder, heading for the door.

Lykos sat in his chair and started drinking. It was full night now; the exhilaration of the conflict with Jace drained away. He was feeling weary — no, exhausted. Sleep would follow soon. He gulped more wine down, afraid.

‘Father, who and what have I become?’ he muttered, cocking his head to hear an answer. When no response came he shrugged and continued drinking. Eventually he dozed off, still sitting in his chair.

He woke screaming, eyes bulging. Thaan poked his head through the door.

‘You all right, chief?’

‘Wha. .? I. Yes,’ Lykos mumbled, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. Making deals with a devil was sure to have a down side . He reached automatically for his jug of wine. Only a few dregs were left but he slurped them back. ‘Good news for you,’ he said. ‘There’s a change of plan. We need to round up the Jehar and take them to Ardan, and — even better for you — after that we’ll get to crack some heads. A lot of heads.’

‘Ardan?’ Thaan said.

‘Aye, Thaan. Ardan. We’ve been summoned.’

EVNIS

Evnis absently plucked at the petal of a rose, let it drift onto the stones at his feet. ‘Everything is turning to ash, Fain,’ he whispered.

He was standing before a stone cairn, weak sunlight streaming across the walls of Dun Carreg into the courtyard. The sounds of his hold waking stirred about him. Dogs were barking in the kennels, children teasing them with scraps from the tower kitchen. The smell of baking bread and ham frying wafted about on the breeze. The sun had not risen long enough to burn the chill of night away and Evnis shivered, pulling his cloak tighter about him. He took a deep breath, an attempt to steady himself for the coming day, but no matter how he tried to calm himself, to focus on what he must do, all his swirling thoughts returned to one thing.

Vonn.

Where was his son ?

They had argued, in the keep before the fortress fell, after he had told Vonn something of his plans. All Vonn had wanted to talk about was the girl from Havan, Bethan the drunkard’s daughter. Evnis had told Vonn to put her out of his mind, to focus on what was important, but that had only made Vonn worse. He had stormed out into the night. And now he was gone, disappeared in the chaos of Dun Carreg’s fall, before Evnis could talk to him and put things right.

Please, Fallen One, do not let him be dead . Evnis had spent most of a day searching, checking every corpse that had been piled in the streets, questioning survivors. Some had spoken of seeing Vonn with Edana and her handful of protectors.

He blew out a long breath. His son with Edana, with Brenin’s daughter. In other circumstances the irony of it would have made him smile.

It was two nights since Dun Carreg had fallen, since Owain’s boar of Narvon had replaced Brenin’s wolf. He remembered little of his fight with Brenin: it had been a red haze, over a year’s worth of pent-up rage and grief spilling out in a few moments. Until his knife had pierced Brenin’s chest, anyway. He remembered that clearly enough, could never forget it; the brief resistance of cloth, skin and bone, then the hot pulse of blood, Brenin’s strength fading so quickly, like a bird taking flight. There was a flutter of something in his gut. Shame? Perhaps . Certainly Fain, his gentle-hearted wife, would not have approved. But she was not here now, her corpse rotting beneath the cairn he was standing before. Brenin’s choices had sealed her death. If Brenin had allowed him to leave Dun Carreg, to take Fain away, to the cauldron, things would have been different. Fain had deserved a blood-price. There was some kind of justice in the way things had turned out — Brenin dying by his hand.

‘My lord.’ A voice pierced his thoughts. Conall was limping towards him, a few of his warriors following.

‘It is time,’ Conall said.

Evnis nodded curtly, crushed the rose in his hand and scattered it over the cairn. He stalked through the grounds of his hold, past the kennels where Helfach’s boy was feeding the hounds, through the wide gates. Conall and the other warriors settled about him, a tension amongst them all. They knew the stakes as well as he. The fortress may have fallen but it was far from safe, with many on both sides who would like Evnis dead. He glanced at the buildings either side, searching the shadows for assassins. I have rolled the dice, he thought. No going back now.