James West - Lady Of Regret

The gray tried to shy again, but Rathe kept him under tight rein. “Heave, you bloody nag!” The gray snorted, seemingly in affront, and Rathe laughed out loud. “Push, you tired tub of guts!”

The gray’s neck arched, its hindquarters rippled, and its hooves began slipping over the ground. Hairline cracks widened … widened. The pillar gave way all at once. Stonework began to fall. Rathe kicked the horse into a gallop.

An instant later, thunder rolled from the collapsing bridge. Dust billowed and, by the screams, shattered stonework had fallen on at least a few of the shadowkin. There were plenty to take their place. He gave the gray its head, and they galloped deep into the misty night.

After he passed through Deepreach’s second barbican gate, which had survived the ages no better than its counterpart at the far end of the city, he found Loro waiting next to a briar patch.

Rathe glanced around. “Horge?”

Loro slammed his sword into the scabbard. “He’s lost to us.”

The nearing cries of shadowkin were growing in intensity. Rathe called out for Horge, and looked for the scrawny little fellow to come bursting out of mist or brush, but he never did.

“Mayhap he got away,” Loro offered.

Rathe nodded doubtfully. There was no need for words, or time to speak them. They abandoned Deepreach and its atrocious inhabitants, and climbed higher into the Gyntors.

From high gibbets flanking either side of the road, men hung in rusted cages. As most were dead, or close enough not to matter, they offered no complaint to the squabbling crows busy plucking off strips of meat. A long summer had made dusty skeletons of those longest in the cages. Others were fresher and flyblown. Withered or seeping, all stared at passersby with cavernous sockets, for the carrion birds took the eyes of the dead first.

Squinting against the lowering sun, Lady Nesaea led the small caravan of gaily painted wagons, all fashioned after sailing ships, through the swinging garden of death and toward the low stone walls of Sazukford, a small city in northern Qairennor.

She did not have to look around to know she was not alone in holding a fragrant pomander to her nose to block the reek. Hanging cages, the impaled, tarred heads on spikes, all those and other morbid displays were common wherever men gathered in number. Such exhibitions never seemed to concern lawbreakers, for there was never a shortage of them, but open punishment and death kept order-seeking citizenry feeling safe, placid, and cared for by highborn who’d not squander their noble piss on a burning child. And if anyone had a grudge and gold enough, why, a word whispered into the right ear ensured their rival met a good and proper end, for all to see.

“Milady!” a man cried weakly. He still had his eyes, and they bulged with fright. The rest of him was a mass of dried blood. He had been flayed to the bone, and skin dangled in ribbons. Nesaea knew he would not survive the night, and within an hour of sunrise he, too, would lose his sight to feasting crows. “Bring word to Lord Arthard that … that I was returning his ring, not stealing it. Please, milady, have mercy!”

He fell to moaning after Nesaea’s wagon wheeled by. The possibility existed that he spoke the truth, but chances favored him being a thief who had realized too late that pilfering was not a game for fools or the unlucky, though thieving seemed to attract that sort, more often than not.

The sun dropped below the horizon, as the Maidens of the Lyre approached the stone wall. The gate guard gave Nesaea a penetrating look, demanded a trade levy despite her assurance that they had nothing to trade, then waved her through. As she passed, he went back to leaning on his spear, as if bored beyond all measure. The weapon’s leaf-shaped blade glimmered in the dusky light, and his well-kept mail shone silver under a tabard emblazoned with the device of House Arthard, a scarlet cockatrice constrained within a golden, seven-pointed star. More guards strode the wall walks. Sazukford was still a place to step lightly, much as Nesaea remembered it.

Beyond the east gate, the smallish city bustled in dusty twilight, the smell of the unwashed mingling with the scent of flowers in full bloom, roasting meat, open sewers, and rotting middens. Good and bad, places like Sazukford had a seedy charm Nesaea found alluring. Such places reminded her of home on the outskirts of Alhaz, across the Strait of Eroe-Si. She missed the evening sea breezes that cleared the dust, many stenches, and clamor of the city, and left the sky a dazzling shade of blue. Home. So long lost to her, she could scarcely understand the pang in her heart. She would go back, one day, but Sazukford and her father, first.

The last time she was here, she had been running from those who wanted to return her to the silken sheets and velvet shackles of her former master, on the island kingdom of Giliron. In Sazukford, she had laid her traps, and ended the hunt. After, she vanished as cleanly as a breath of night wind. If not for the help of one woman, whose aid she now sought again, she never would have succeeded.

Although their faces had changed over the years, Nesaea remembered the urchins scuttling among the forest of adults. Peddlers eager to earn a bit more coin, still hawked wares from booths set up along the main thoroughfare, all loud and obnoxious. Mongrels braved kicks to snuffle chickens and lambs and squealing shoats caged in wicker. Rich merchants in all their finery perused a hundred varied displays, eager to make a profitable deal.

The road wended through rows of slate-roofed houses, shops, taverns and inns, all wanting for fresh plaster and whitewash. As ever in such places, be they rich or poor, slatterns called from windows and stoops, their wares barely concealed under strips of silk or linen, or jingling garments of shiny brass coins. These last were oft the most beautiful, and so fetched the highest prices. In light or dark, they resembled fabled mermaids. Drunks reeled out of tavern doors, or were thrown out by bouncers. A dozen kinds of music merged into a discordant melody, setting a sordid but jubilant mood.

Nesaea took it all in, careful to keep an eye on those who might mistake her for the soft highborn lady she portrayed. Some lurked in the shadows, eyes beady and dark, like rats. Others sat in plain sight, sipping tankards of local brew, laughing boisterously, even as they measured the worth of every passerby. To both varieties of trouble, Nesaea showed a diamond-hard grin, daring them to make their play. Most looked to easier prey. Those who did not were the fools who might attempt a raid on her caravan. If so, they would suffer a harsh lesson.

Nesaea drew rein at a low wooden bridge spanning the River Idoril. Rickety and sagging, the bridge should have been rebuilt in stone a hundred years gone. With darkness closing fast, torches marched along its rails, lighting timbers and planking coated with tar. A barge of bloodwood logs, down from the southern foothills of the Gyntors, swept beneath the bridge’s leaning pilings, guided by a score of men with long push-poles.

After paying yet another levy, the bridge guard waved her on. Nesaea took a deep breath, whispered a fervent prayer of protection, and snapped the reins. The four-horse team took her onto the bridge. It groaned and shivered under the weight of the wagon. Nesaea did not stop praying until all her caravan had crossed.

Over the river, Sazukford was cleaner, the buildings taller and painted in rainbow hues, its cobbled streets patrolled by squads of Lord Arthard’s foot soldiers. The road split, and Nesaea turned north. The farther she led her troupe, the richer the surroundings became, until she drew rein in front of the Silver Archer, a three-story inn, its high-peaked tile roof guarded by four towers awash with flowering vines.