Себастьян Кастелл - Traitor's Blade

‘Any man reaches for this girl, he will be dead before he blinks,’ Brasti said, his voice resonating across the field. ‘If you have ever wanted to bet on a sure thing in this life, now’s the time.’

‘What is your name, dead man?’ Perault asked, his voice bringing a chill in the air to counter Brasti’s fire.

Brasti looked him straight in the eye, his right hand still relaxed on Aline’s shoulder as his left held his bow.

‘My name is Brasti Goodbow,’ he said. Then he glanced briefly back at Kest and me and said slowly, ‘and I am the King’s Arrow.’

Kest took a step forward beside him. ‘My name is Kest of Luth,’ he said, ‘son of Murrow the Swordsmith.’

He drew his sword from its sheath. ‘And I am the King’s Blade.’

Each of us had a name like that, given to us by the King himself. Dara was ‘the King’s Fury’, Nile was ‘the King’s Arm’, and I …

I had always hated the name I was given because I hadn’t deserved it. It was the King who made the Greatcoats, the King who had given us everything. I had only failed us all in our hours of greatest need.

‘It’s all right,’ Kest said to me, then more softly, ‘He’d want you to say it.’

‘Say it, damn you,’ Brasti spat. ‘If not now, when?’

I took a deep breath and stepped forward. ‘I am Falcio val Mond of Pertine,’ I said. ‘And I am the King’s Heart.’

I heard a sob from Aline as she looked back at me. Then one of Perault’s men pulled his sword and she aimed her imaginary bow once again.

‘Enough of this,’ Duchess Patriana spat, safe in her carriage. ‘No more posturing, Perault; no games. Take them all.’

Feltock stepped forward to us and turned to Brasti, Kest and me, his back to the Duke and his men. ‘Well, boys, I won’t say it’s been pleasant, but you’ve been all right to fight with. Now it’s time,’ he murmured.

‘Time for what?’ Brasti asked.

‘When the moment strikes, you take Valiana and the girl and travel east, as far and as fast as you can. Ten days’ ride from here is the village of Gaziah. There’s a monastery there, and an old monk, his name’s Hajan. He keeps an old woman there. She will take the girls and hide them until they can be moved further east to the Desert Kingdoms. They can join a Sun Sisterhood there – it’s not a great life, but it’s as good as we can hope for.’

‘You knew this would happen,’ I said.

‘I never knew what the old sow was planning but I could always tell she didn’t love Valiana, not the way a mother ought.’

‘But you work for the Duchess,’ Brasti pointed out.

‘Aye, I do. And a soldier follows orders. She told me to keep the girl safe, and that’s the order I am going to follow.’

‘And your men?’

‘Most are loyal to me. The rest – well, let’s just say I don’t begrudge you spiking that axeman in the face like you did.’

Something important occurred to me just then. ‘You wanted us,’ I said. ‘I was going to walk away, but you taunted me, and when I came back she goaded me into fighting those men.’

Feltock clamped his lips together, but there was a gleam in his eye.

‘There were plenty of men for hire in that market but you wanted us – why?’

‘I wanted Trattari,’ he said. ‘There’s no man alive the Duchess can’t buy if she wants to, and more than half the time she doesn’t even have to do that to get them going her way. But I reckoned if any man hated the Duchess enough not to get bought then it had to be Trattari, seeing as what she did to your King and all.’

He was your King too , I wanted to say, but I let it slide.

‘Feltock!’ the Duchess’s voice rang out.

‘You don’t owe me nothing, nor the girl either, for that matter, but soldier to soldier, I’m begging you, ride fast, ride hard and don’t look back.’

‘What about you?’ I asked.

‘Reckon me and the boys are going to die right about now. But we’re Gods-damned well going to take some of them with us. We’ll give you time to get away.’

I looked over at the men. Blondie was slowly pulling a sword out of one of the wagons. He caught my eye and nodded. He looked scared, but he looked solid, and I guess that’s what brave looks like, so I nodded back.

I looked at Valiana on the ground and Aline standing next to the carriage. ‘All right, Captain. We’ll move on your signal.’

Feltock smiled, a big toothy grin like a man who’s just thought of a dirty joke. ‘My signal, eh? All right, here’s my signal, then!’ and with that he turned, drew his sword and shouted at the heavens, ‘Come on, you great filthy whore! I’ve licked your bony ass long enough and now I’m gonna fuck you and your damn Duke until you start pissing pirates out of your privates!’

His men gave a roar and I saw Krug and one of the other men pull crossbows from the wagons and fire at the Duke’s men. I saw Perault staring in disbelief, and horses neighing and rearing in the chaos as Feltock’s men threw something heavy and round into their midst that promptly exploded into fire and dust.

‘Go!’ I said to Kest, and he raced for Aline, grabbed her up with one arm and threw her over the saddle before mounting himself. Brasti jumped on his own horse and nocked an arrow. He took a shot at the Duke, who was running back to the carriage, but the arrow hit him in the leg.

‘The girl!’ I shouted at him, ‘take out the girl!’

But it was too late: four armoured men stood around Trin, their shields protecting her and the Duchess.

I leapt onto Monster and kicked her hard towards Valiana, who had risen from the ground but was looking around in confusion.

‘Your hand, girl! Give me your hand!’ I cried, but she didn’t hear me.

One of the Duke’s soldiers tried to slice at Monster’s exposed neck. I parried the cut but he pulled back and aimed for me. I saw the shaft of an arrow appear in the slit of his helm – an almost impossible shot – and I thanked Saint Merhan-who-rides-the-arrow for Brasti’s miraculous aim. The man fell down – and then I saw it.

Two of the four men guarding the Duchess and her daughter had stepped out of formation, and I had an opening: with one good thrust I could kill the daughter and, if I was lucky, I might get the Duchess too, before the other soldiers got me in the back. I wanted it – and Monster wanted it too, I could tell: two broken creatures running headlong for the cliff.

I had a brief vision of seeing my King again, standing with the Saints, as I pulled my arm into line for the thrust, then I felt something on my left hand. Valiana was trying to get up behind me onto Monster. I turned back, but the soldiers had re-formed and all I saw in front of me were shields.

I gave Valiana my arm and pulled her up, and then Brasti, Kest and I raced like bloody black Death for the rising eastern sky. I felt sick at leaving behind Feltock, Blondie and the others to die, but this wasn’t the first time in my life that I had followed an order like that.

We rode through the morning skies and the evening sunsets, past the boundary markers for Orison and all the way into the yellow fields of the Duchy of Pulnam. I had to force Monster to stop often enough to keep the horses from running themselves to death, but though we rode for as long and as fast as we could, we never made it to the village of Gaziah or the monastery. The only way to pass Pulnam and get to the beginnings of the Eastern Desert was through the Arch: a fifty-foot gully with massive sheer walls on either side, formed by the wind and sand that blew west from the desert itself.

We stopped to rest in a small village a few miles west of the Arch. Valiana and Aline weren’t trained for hard riding and they were saddle-sore and exhausted. And then there was the matter of their lives being shattered …