Black River (The Hounds of the North Book 2) Read online

  "The Hounds," yelled Shield, his voice sending a shiver up Harad's spine.

  Harad smiled. It had felt good. Not the stuff of heroes, a drunken brawl, but a release from the slow death that had been their return.

  Hawk still lay on shadowy ground, panting.

  "We're old, but not that old," said Patch to his fallen mate. "Can't get winded that fast."

  Hawk lifted a quivering hand towards his companions.

  Harad fell to his knees. Warm blood soaked through his woolen trousers.

  Shield cursed. "Knife stuck in him."

  "Got to get help," said Patch pacing furiously up and down the alley. "Where'd they go? Kill them all."

  Harad stared deeply at Hawks's eyes, his lips, waiting for his friend to say something. He called his name and shook his shoulder. A baby cried far away in the darkness. Then Shield peeled Harad from the ground.

  "Can't lose Hawk," said Patch. "Not like this. Not after all these long years."

  A numbness clouded Harad. He had touched death so many times before – at the end of his hammer, in his mates fallen in muck and mud, on fields of blood. Tears had been shed and cups raised. In all those years, it had simply been luck running out for another.

  But now Harad felt that it was his luck that had been trickling out of him with each skirmish, with each charge into the enemy lines. Two dozen Hounds, now three. All those youths who had walked beside him, ridden out of the hills of the North together, to only find death.

  Shield's voice burned through the murkiness and Harad let the words guide him. He removed the knife from Hawk's soaking belly. He wrapped his companion in his cloak binding it tight around his form with leather straps and belts. He lifted the already cooling body on his shoulder. He followed his leader through the maze of alleys and streets.

  By the time they reached the edge of the river, dawn had sent tendrils of pink and purple across the sky. Silver swirled on the black surface. On the far shore, three men, shadows in the mist, pulled a small skiff along the mud.

  Patch bent over on hands and knees. "Hawk, you bastard. You can't escape so easily from us."

  The three of them cradled his body in their arms. The water lapped over boot, knee and hip and then they rolled their companion out of their embrace and into the river.

  They stood silent, heads hung, arms slack at their sides.

  The sound of men screaming rose in Harad's skull, an endless loop of echoing screams.

  "I'll go to Cassius tomorrow," said Shield. "I'll get us out of here. We can't die like this."

  APPRENTICE

  "AND WHO ARE you?" asked the blue-hooded gatekeeper, all but his eyes hidden behind the silk cloth. He stood, arms crossed, at the top of the marble stairs. Behind him, a chilled air seeped through the gilded gates of the Grand Collegium.

  "I already told you. I am Vincius of Xichil, Apprentice Chronicler. You know who I am. I finished my studies here three years ago."

  Through embroidered eyeholes, the man's dark eyes looked down on Vincius. "Three years ago? And still an Apprentice?"

  Vincius fought the trembling of his lower lip. "The Master Chronicler himself has summoned me for an appointment."

  The gatekeeper turned away, leather-gloved hand running down a scroll at a desk set up behind the gate. "Vincius of Xichil. Here it is. He does want to see you. Something more than an errand if he wants to see you here. Maybe time to send you back."

  Back to Xichil. That is what the gatekeeper meant. Six years here in Vas Dhurma and still Vincius was ridiculed and scorned as an outsider, even though Xichil itself had been a province of Empire for near a decade, and an unofficial territory for more than a generation.

  Vincius wished he could simply exist in Vas Dhurma without his history. His dark curled hair, hawkish nose and olive skin allowed him to blend in easily enough with the true-born. But on closer inspection, when men and women squinted past his fine clothing, they would see the rougher cut of the fisherman, the farmer of fields littered with lava stones, the peasant stock, still unbuffed by the luxury and indolence of Empire. His status among them was made clear in the curl of their lips and the persistent sighs.

  Vincius hurried past the gatekeeper and into the cool halls of the Grand Collegium. He followed the main columns before turning left into the Dressing Chambers. A stooped servant bent even lower in greeting and then led him far to the back of the chambers, beyond the ornate doors and the spilling steam of the baths, to an elbow banging wooden stall where his name had been chalked on a painted board.

  Vincius waited, hand on the door handle, until the servant scurried away before pushing open the door.

  A tan hemp robe lay on the warped bench.

  Nothing had changed.

  Vincius had hoped that he had been called to see the Master Chronicler because it was finally his time to graduate to becoming a real Chronicler, that his days as an Apprentice were behind him, that he finally was welcomed into the brotherhood, which protected Empire from the magic of the warlocks and witches.

  Instead, he was being called to the Master Chronicler again as an Apprentice, probably to deliver a scroll personally and secretly to one of the merchants to solidify another scheme to make the old man even more wealthy.

  Vincius stripped down to his loin cloth. He carefully folded his embroidered vests and silk shirt and freshly washed tunic and laid them on the bench. He shivered suddenly exposed, his knees knocked and bony elbows jutting. Then he pulled the robe over his head. It reeked of old sweat and worse the rough material made his perfumed skin itch all over.

  Would he never earn the white silk robe?

  ***

  Vincius followed half a dozens steps behind the shuffling white robed Chronicler as they moved through the streets of Vas Dhurma. Ahead of them unshaven men staggering beneath baskets of silver fish parted. Women jerked their children to the weathered walls of the listing buildings. At the end of the alley, the masts of boats swung with the lap of the water at the docks.

  Vincius pressed his lightly perfumed handkerchief just below his nose. Anything to block out the stench of fish and the decay of the wooden buildings. How could these people stand it here? Had they no desire to escape their miserable lives?

  The scented silk masked the smells but it could not ward off the sharp eyes and the muttered curses. He felt as if the eyes unfurled more hatred at him than the old man in front of him.

  Vincius desperately wanted to scratch his chest and back, but he knew to do so would only make the itch of the rough hemp even worse.

  All these years and still he wore the robes of an Apprentice.

  Just an hour before in a dark chamber in the Grand Collegium, the Master Chronicler from behind the smoke of his brazier had greeted Vincius with a scowl. "A new day for you," he had said, and for a moment, the young Xichil's hopes had risen. But then they were knuckled back down. One of the older Chroniclers had gotten lost yet again in the alleys and streets. It took three days to find him. Vincius was to be his helper, to get him to where he needed to go and back to the Collegium.

  Now he followed the decrepit shuffling Chronicler into the dock neighborhood, sniffing out the rumor of a recently arrived witch from the East, a woman who sang the words of old.

  Vincius had seen this Chronicler before, with his long white beard, crooked yellow teeth and piercing pale eyes. This one had rooted out witches in Hopht. Vincius could not imagine it.

  The old man stopped at an intersection of alleys, squinting, chewing his cracked lips.

  He held his leather-bound box tight to his chest.

  One day Vincius would have his own Keeper of Tongues and he too would capture the songs of the witches and warlocks – their magic, words that ate themselves as soon as they emerged. It was a forgotten tongue, now spoken only by a few at the edges of Empire, a language lost among the people of Dhurma.

  These words held power and that is why the Emperor desperately sought them.

  The Chroniclers, servants of Empire w
ho could not form the words of the magic on their own, had been trained in the Grand Collegium to capture the words as best as they could with quill and ink on scrolls as the words poured from the mouths of the warlocks and wizards.

  But the art was imperfect.

  Especially for the Speaker trying to speak the words that had been captured.

  A single mispronunciation or misplaced tone would result in the death of the Speaker.

  Increasingly the Emperor's efforts to control the magic failed, his anointed wizards bursting into flames when they should have been laying waste to soldiers before them.

  With that turn of events came the secondary role of the Chroniclers: after recording the words they heard, they cut the tongues from the witches and warlocks. Whispers among the Chroniclers were that it was more expedient to just remove the tongues and forget about the words.

  In the mind of the Emperor, if he could not control the ancient tongue, no one would.

  "Here," squawked the old Chronicler, pointing into a narrow alley between leaning buildings. "Her song pollutes the air."

  It started out as a moan as if the wind coursed along the walls of the alley. Then the moan deconstructed into words. Vincius knew the words. He had heard them before, words that had run through his childhood. But he could not understand. They came to him and then slipped away as if he were trying to grasp smoke.

  "I hear them. I hear the words," said Vincius.

  The Chronicler desperately pulled his quill and scroll from the folds of his robe. "Quiet, quiet, you idiot. I must capture the words."

  A dog barked from the far end of the alley.

  "Silence," screamed the Chronicler. His quill scratched and paused and scratched against the vellum. Vincius could see that the old man was failing in his task, the pauses and spaces longer than the words that were captured.

  Then the song stopped. The dog kept barking. The hulls of the boats creaked against the dock. A woman called for laundry.

  "Find her," said the Chronicler.

  ***

  A well-placed coin in the grimy trembling hand of a street urchin led them past barrels of rainwater, up claustrophobic steps and to the apartment.

  The door was ajar. Vincius pushed it open without knocking.

  Incense sticks burnt orange out of a battered copper urn, their strands of smoke twisting and braiding into the blackness above. Straight ahead was an altar: a small table filled with shells and bones, cups of wine, and a desiccated and blackened hand. A mirror hung in the middle of the altar and Vincius could make out the hazy reflection of himself and the Chronicler growing as they approached.

  In his hemp robe, Vincius seemed so insignificant next to the white robed Chronicler.

  The witch sat at the edge of a straw pallet, her hands dipping a cloth into a small bowl, wringing it out and then dabbing it on the forehead of an old woman.

  The witch turned at the sound of the Chronicler's scuffling feet.

  She was middle-aged, drawn with poverty, her dark hair tied into a bun, a few wisps of gray along her cheek. She looked like a nobody to Vincius. She could have been someone that he passed on the street every day without noticing. He had expected something more.

  She tugged her cotton shift to cover her knees. "I am only helping."

  "Give me the words," said the old Chronicler, his voice rattling with phlegm.

  "I only heal. It is all that I can touch. I don't want anything."

  "All this way and you think I will leave with nothing."

  "I can't sing for you." Her lips were cracked, bleeding. "It doesn't work that way. Not for me. I don't even know what it is but a gift. It comes when there is a need."

  Vincius wheeled about with a start. A small girl, hair tightly braided, stood in the doorway, clutching a rag doll against her chest.

  "Go away, sweet," said the witch. "Go to Alidra. Mama will come for you soon."

  The child rocked slightly.

  "Do you think I can return with nothing?" asked the old Chronicler. "In another life perhaps."

  "Please. Show mercy."

  "Mama."

  The old Chronicler glanced about the room at the altar, the jars of herbs, and the witch and the old woman on the pallet. He tottered for a moment as if he were lost in time. "You can heal? Help the old?"

  The witch nodded.

  The Chronicler shuffled forward, pale sandaled feet flicking out with each step. The witch rose to him, arms open. The old man's arms flashed open out of the folds of his robe.

  Then the old man smashed the handle of his knife into the witch's head. The room shuddered as her body hit the floor. Motes of dust twisted towards the light of the outside world.

  Vincius was held in place by the weight of his breath.

  Everything unraveled.

  The Chronicler straddled the witch, pulling her mouth open. The child rushed past Vincius screaming, fists pounding on the old man. The sick old woman fell off the bed and dragged herself back towards the doorway.

  "Mercy," the Chronicler spit out.

  Vincius lunged forward and grabbed the girl. She cried out in pain. Fists and knees forced him to turn her away from him and grasp her flesh hard. Her screams increased.

  The Chronicler now had the end of the witch's tongue between thumb and forefinger and was angling the hooked tip of his knife into her open mouth.

  The sick old woman, not yet at the door, clawed at the hem of Vincius's robe. "By the gods, the child."

  Vincius, with one hand tangled in the child's hair, pulled her from the room and into the hall. She does not need to see this, thought Vincius. She does not need to understand that her mother had betrayed her. He could spare her that.

  BEGGING

  SHIELD HAD BEEN waiting on that hard, cold bench for more than an hour when he had finally had enough. Cassius should have come out for him already. Shield rose and walked along the fluted columns, his giant shape reflected in the polished marble floor towards the receiving desk. The others waiting on the benches that lined the wall – fat merchants, a burly dock captain, and a cluster of farmers with sacks of grain – glanced up and then back down at their feet.

  Shield placed both palms on the edge of the polished wooden desk.

  The secretary, dressed in his Dhurman military leathers, scrawled tally marks in his book, transferring notes about the movement of field supplies from a pile of scrolls to his ledger.

  After a moment, he sighed and, keeping the index finger on his left hand on a particular line on an open scroll, slid his right hand and the quill to a guest log sheet. His eyes did not rise from the vellum. "Name, position and nature of your business."

  "I've been sitting on the bench for more than an hour waiting to have a word with Captain Cassius."

  The quilled hand slid back to the ledger and still without looking up, the secretary droned. "First Captain Cassius has wide-ranging responsibilities, with many unexpected challenges, and humbly asks for the patience of petitioners." The eyes of the man lifted. "So sit back down, Northman, or I'll move you to the bottom of the list."

  Shield lay his hand over the secretary's quilled fist and slowly began compressing it. "You may think you can use the power of Cassius's position." The quill fell to the writing desk. "But you are not Cassius." The man began to tear at Shield's grip with his other hand. Shield turned the man's hand into a wristlock, bending his fingers towards his forearm. "Cassius never hid behind a desk, never treated his men with such utter disrespect." Bones shifted and joints popped beneath Shield's closing grip. The Dhurman secretary winced, his face trapped in a grimace, his cheek flat against the surface of the desk. "When I let go of you, you will get up from the comfort of your desk and you will personally tell Cassius that Shield Scyldmund, leader of the Hounds of the North, hunter of warlocks for Dhurma, has come to claim his chit." The secretary nodded vigorously, tears welling at his eyes. "If not, I will break you."

  When the man nodded again, Shield released him and walked back to his place o
n the bench.

  A jowly Hyber merchant swaddled in a blue robe sucked at his lower lip before blurting out, "Might not have been the most politic move you could have made. Might I suggest a speedy retreat before Finius there returns with men who actually wear their swords as more than jewelry."

  Shield grunted, leaned back against the cold wall behind him and crossed his arms high over his chest. "I will break all of them."

  The Hyber touched his ringed fingers to his forehead and chest, bowed his head ever so slightly and then gathering his cotton and silks about him rocked forward off the bench and shuffled to the bench on the opposite side of the receiving hall. The other merchants and common petitioners likewise slid away giving Shield most of the bench to himself. He touched the stone floor, the pommel of his sword and his chest. He would die for the Hounds of the North.

  Sandals slapped against the marble floors of the inner chambers of Cassius's quarters and within a few moments half a dozen men armed with swords and shields emerged from the hall. The secretary, clutching his injured hand to his chest and rubbing it with the other hand, leaned in close to the ear of the guard, a young, heavy-jawed Dhurman, and then pointed at Shield. The head of the guard spoke a few clipped words to his men and in small arc they began to approach Shield.

  The rest of the petitioners on his bench fell over themselves as they raced to the small huddle of merchants on the other side of the hall.

  "I am telling you once and only once," said the head of the guard as he swept back his short red cape and rested a big hand on his sword, "bend your knee to accept the justice due to you."

  Shield dug a thumbnail between his teeth and picked at a string of meat that had been annoying him since breakfast. "And I will say this once and only once, tell Cassius that Shield Scyldmund is here or send for a slave to clean up the blood that will wash these floors."

  "You insolent pig."