The ox-cart trundled on down roads that became steadily better-paved as they came closer to the city of Sarderis.
Will Brandiman bit into the chicken and ripped a wing free. He answered himself thickly, “Yes. It’s worth it. Not our payment—our revenge. What was it you overheard, brother? The nameless has a sister who is called The Named and who wears the armour of Light? I think we should find her, offer our services, and betray what we know to her.”
The vulture lets the wind feather its wings, rising on a hot thermal. The mountains lie below it like wrinkled grey flesh. Its central vision focuses on the parasites that crawl on that skin. A numerous hive of them, cupped in the fort’s stone claws…
Pickings are good now. The tough-hided beasts are cast out from the walls, bloodied and sometimes dead, in increasing numbers. True, it is commonly the little or the sick ones. And, true, there is a surprising lack of pickable rubbish in the compound.
It wheels, wings fingering the sky. Other vultures flock in from the wilderness’s wide skies.
Below, the orc marine garrison trains.
Midnight chimed from Sarderis’s city bells. Will Brandiman froze until the harsh clangs ceased. He strained his ears to hear movement from the closed doors that presumably—he and Ned had not been able to case more than the lower floor of the clothier’s shop in daylight—led to bedrooms.
His night-vision adjusted. He watched Ned pad along the upper-floor corridor, stop at the first door on the left-hand side, and listen for some moments. Ned signalled:
—No movement.
Ned reached up, tried the latch, and silently opened the door.
—Child’s room. Girl asleep.
Will passed him, treading barefoot and silent to the door on the right. Faint sounds came through the wood. He hesitated, signalled Ned to remain still, and padded down to the end of the corridor. Probably the master bedroom…
The latch of its door clicked, horrifically loud.
Will froze, not even daring to look back at his brother. The beamed and low-ceilinged corridor seemed suddenly airless in the summer night’s heat. A scuffling sound came from the room on the right, behind him—someone turning over in bed. But nothing from the room at whose door he stood.
He opened the door and signalled back, exaggerating the finger-movements in the poor light:
—One man. One woman. Both asleep.
Ned nodded, fading back into the little girl’s bedroom. During the day the clothes shop had seemed to have two girls—one seven or eight, the other sixteen or so, almost grown—and a much older male and female Man: the family living over the shop. In a shop doing reasonably well, but not well enough to afford protective spells.
Will’s nostrils flared. No scent of guard dog. Nothing but the wool-and-herb smell of the clothier’s shop, and the warm odour of sleeping Men. He waited no longer. Eyeing the wooden locker at the foot of the bed, he drew his eight-inch knife and approached the side of the mattress on which the middle-aged Man was sleeping. The man had yellow-tinged grey hair and liver-spotted hands.
Will clamped his hand over the Man’s mouth, pinching the nostrils shut; sliced the razor-edged hunting knife through the Man’s throat, and then stabbed it up under the ribs into the heart. The body heaved and twitched once, going instantly into shock and then death.
The female Man stirred, rolled a little, and reached out her hand towards the man.
Will Brandiman got one knee up onto the mattress, heaved his body up onto the Man-sized bed, and lurched over the bleeding body. His left hand flailed down, striking the woman above the eyes. She grunted. He slid his hand down over her mouth, hooked the knife across her windpipe and pulled it sharply towards him, and still with the same grip lifted the knife and slammed it down between her ribs. The woman’s throat gurgled. Her body relaxed.
Weak and shaking, he slid down off the bed. Blood soaked the sheets and mattress, dripping down to the floor. It would soak through the plaster and drip through the ceiling to the shop, he guessed; but that would only be discovered later. Tonight there would be no nosy neighbours—not unless something disturbed the silence.
Will trod stickily across the bedroom floor and looked down the corridor. Ned stepped out of the small girl’s bedroom. He held his knife, and the front of his doublet and trunk-hose were stained red. He pointed across to the remaining closed bedroom door and cupped his hand to his ears.
—Eldest daughter, Will signalled.
He walked down the corridor. A plank gave under his heel. Caught unprepared, he had shifted his weight before he realised, and the wood groaned. He froze.
Ned pressed his back to the corridor wall, a foot to the side of the right-hand door. Will crossed swiftly to the far side. Inside the room, flint scraped and a lantern sputtered. He heard footsteps move—cross the room—a chair-leg scraped. Nothing more.
Somewhere a city clock chimed a quarter past the hour.
Will flexed his shaking hands. The blood dried and flaked off, itching. He pressed his back against the wall, listening until his head felt as though it would burst. The faintest whisking sound might have been pages turning.
—We have to get her out of there.
Will nodded, and signalled back:—Get her to the open door. Then we can take her.
He let his chin rest down on his chest for a moment, and then raised his head. The starlight shone in through the bedroom’s open door opposite, illuminating in that room a bed too small for any Man but a child—a bed full of wet darkness.
Will put out his fist and knocked on the door, low down. “Lizzey, is that you?”
Knock, knock, knock.
“Go back to bed. I’ll get mum and dad up.”
Knock, knock.
“Go back to bed, Lizzey.”
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
“Lizzey, go away. I’ll get mum and dad up, and they’ll give you a hiding.”
Will knocked again, low down on the door. Behind the closed door he heard a chair scrape on floorboards.
“All right, Lizzey, you just wait—”
The latch lifted and the door opened.
“Lizzey?”
The yellow-haired young woman frowned, caught stooping over to the height of a child. Ned brought his hunting knife up double-handed, slashing across her throat, and buried it in the back of her neck as she pitched forward onto her hands and knees and slowly slumped onto her side.
Will stabbed up under the ribs and into the heart. The girl’s throat gurgled. He straightened up.
Less careful of noise now, Will walked through the corridor towards the master bedroom. A faint lamplight streamed out of the older daughter’s room, shining on the sprawled dead body. It gave enough light for to see the lock on the chest.
“Damn.” Ned swapped lock-picks. “Damn.”
“Easy…” Will put a hand on his brother’s arm. “Take it slow. There’s no hurry now. It won’t be light for another three hours.”
The lid gave, opening with a creak that made him flinch by reflex. Will stared into the empty chest. He grunted, smiling slightly; reached down and pulled the false bottom out. The distant lamplight glinted on coin—mostly silver, a few copper bits, and a very few pieces of gold.
“Just that?” Ned complained.
“Sarderis is a city. There are such things as banks. This will be today’s takings, nothing more.” Will sifted the money between his stained palms, taking the heft of the cold metal. “It’s still what we said it would be: the easiest way to replenish our funds. Anything more profitable would be harder and take more planning.”