Martius shrugged. “I told you, Jhan, we just want to talk. I apologise for my error. You must be half Farisian, am I right? Born in the traders’ quarter, unless I am mistaken.”
Guttel scowled. “My father was a spice merchant. My mother is Adarnan. What is it to you?”
“Oh, nothing really. Just trying to make conversation…” Martius raised an eyebrow. “I was wondering though, as we are exchanging pleasantries, aren’t you going to ask who I am?”
Around the bar, people began to notice the altercation. Some stood and gawped, clearly enjoying the spectacle, but a large number made their way to the exits.
Guttel must have a reputation around here. The man he sent off must have gone for reinforcements. Conlan’s sword hand inched towards his weapon. Remember the general’s orders, his conscience chided. Stay calm.
Guttel snorted. “I know who you are, General Martius.”
“Ah, that is a shame. I was rather hoping you did not, and that your men were following me because they mistook me for someone else.”
Guttel’s bottom lip quivered. His eyes darted left and right and as if in answer, his men fanned out even further.
Conlan counted time with his heartbeat as it thrummed in his ears. Each beat a little faster than the last. He rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. Orders or no orders, I may need to be quick.
Martius seemed content to wait for a reply. He clasped his hands behind his back as if to prove to Guttel that he was not threatened, or perhaps to prove that he was no threat himself.
Conlan’s heart pounded an urgent rhythm as the silence grew.
Guttel’s man sprinted back into the tavern, his footsteps reverberating on the wooden floor. His face was ruddy. His chest heaved with exertion.
“Well?” Guttel called over his shoulder. He didn’t take his eyes off Martius for a moment.
The man nodded. “He’s coming, Jhan!”
Marek Tyll marched into the tavern. Two huge men, who each bore wooden clubs the size of a man’s arm, flanked him. At least a dozen more, all armed, followed behind. He was dressed in the same tattered clothing that he'd worn when he preached to the crowd near Bezel Square. It looked even more threadbare and worn than it had. The man’s beard had grown long and scraggly. He looked every bit the prophet of the gods that he claimed to be.
“General!” Conlan grasped Martius’s shoulder. “That’s Marek Tyll!” As he spoke, he searched Tyll’s face. Did I fight alongside you at Sothlind? Were you a sword brother like poor, dead, Jon Gyren? Like Dylon? But the man remained a stranger, just as before.
The inn erupted into chaos.
Those customers that remained, either recognising Tyll or spotting the weapons that his followers bore, scrambled towards the back door, climbing over tables and each other in their eagerness to escape.
A lack of movement amongst the chaos drew Conlan’s attention to a pair of cloaked and hooded drinkers. They sat at a small table in the opposite corner of the room. Their eyes gleamed at him from under their deep cowls. The smaller of the two stood, as she did, her hood slipped and revealed her hair-blood red, the colour of death.
Syke!
The sight of her shook Conlan like a blow. “Syke!” The shout ripped from his lungs and echoed across the tavern.
She glanced towards him and their eyes locked for one sweet moment. He lost sight of her as a crush of patrons sought the exit. When they had passed, she was gone, like a phantom conjured from the depths of his subconscious to taunt him. Just as she had in his dreams since Sothlind.
Jhan Guttel raised his chin and thrust his shoulders back. His eyes gleamed dangerously. “My men were following you, General, but only because goodman Marek Tyll here paid me, and — ”
“Where is my god?” Marek Tyll thundered at Martius as he approached. “You will tell me now, for I am his voice on Earth!”
Conlan thought he spotted a glimmer of indecision in Martius’s eyes.
“You saw them!” Tyll continued. “You saw them too… Why have you not spoken out? Tell me. Tell me now!” Then more quietly, plaintively almost. “Do you know where they are?”
Jhan Guttel slowly backed away. He shrugged his shoulders as if absolving himself of any involvement. He smiled, but he could not hide the relief in his eyes. “Master Tyll,” he addressed the ragged prophet, “my men and I have business elsewhere…”
“Aye, begone.” Tyll waved a hand in casual dismissal.
“No hard feelings I hope, General?” Jhan Guttel smirked, then turned and quickly departed with his men.
The tavern stood all but deserted beyond the ragged half-circle of zealots.
Conlan counted twenty-one men with Marek Tyll. Four against one. Not odds that they were likely to beat, even with swords. He was glad of Jhan Guttel’s departure though; his nine would have turned a difficult task impossible. There will be time to track that one down… If we survive.
Martius cocked his head to one side and glared at Tyll, his eyes unblinking. After a long moment he spoke. “Are you a deserter?” His voice was soft, almost gentle.
Tyll did not seem to notice. He pointed a crooked finger at Martius. “You have seen the gods. They have returned.” His face turned crimson. “Why would you deny them?”
Martius pursed his lips. “I asked you a question.” His voice was pitched low now, but commanding nonetheless. “Are you a deserter?”
“Sir?” Conlan touched Martius’s arm. What in all the hells is he doing? Marek Tyll was clearly beyond reason. Trapped, perhaps, in some warped world of his own making. A deserter, maybe, but he might have been driven mad by the bloody insanity of battle itself.
Conlan glanced towards the corner of the room to where Syke — or the phantom of her — had appeared, but there was no trace of the crimson goddess. The hawk had flown.
Marek Tyll’s eyes took on a lucid cast; just for a moment, they shone bright with the light of understanding. “Pah!” he spat. “Heretic!” Then he turned and walked away, flanked by his two giant bodyguards.
The rest of Tyll’s men charged in a mad scramble to reach the heretics before them. In his eagerness, one man tripped bringing two more down with him.
Martius drew his sword. “Back to back!” he barked.
Conlan needed no further instruction. His blade squeaked against the wood of his scabbard as he drew it. For a heart-stopping moment he thought it had jammed, then it pulled free.
A man swiped a meat cleaver at Conlan’s head. He ducked the blow and sliced his blade into the man’s groin. It was an automatic riposte, drilled into him through years of training. Martius had said that he did not want unnecessary death, but Conlan’s body was trained to slaughter. Now, after weeks of frustration, it jumped eagerly to its task. The man screamed and fell to the floor, his life pumping away onto the dusty planks.
“We cannot hold, sir.” Conlan kicked an attacker’s kneecap; the man howled and leaned forward. Conlan brained him with the pommel of his sword. He, at least, may survive.
“We don’t seem…” Martius dodged a knife blade and ripped his short-sword up in a tight arc. The blade sliced through the attacker’s shoulder and he fell back with a scream. “… to have much choice.” He stabbed forward, his eyes shining with fury or joy and another zealot fell back.
Is he still enjoying it? How can he smile at a time like this?
Conlan barely blocked a club. It grazed his shoulder and glanced off the site of his injury from Sothlind. The old wound twinged. A shock of pain coursed down his arm. For a moment, the vista before him morphed and he was back in the valley battling the horde once more.
However, this rabble of zealots were no warriors. They were not heedless of their own safety as the Wicklanders had been.