But he hadn’t seen the whippet-thin fellow with the strangler’s fingers sidling along the wall in the shadows. The long, greasy hair told Rix that he was the aptly named Rancid.
“Holm! Beware on your right.”
The brothers Hox turned in identical movements and rushed Rix as though glad of an excuse to get away. Had they ever seen him fight, they would not have been so eager to take him on.
“Rix?” Glynnie choked. “Please be careful.”
He did not propose to give any sword-fighting lessons, nor take any prisoners. Mutineers threatened the whole fortress. They were worse than murderers.
He slashed the left-hand brother, Rasti Hox, across the throat, then danced sideways so the dying man would not fall on him. The other brother, Narli Hox, howled like a beast and threw himself at Rix, who killed him with a blow through the chest.
As he turned to scan the hall, Rancid sprang at Holm, six feet into the air, a manoeuvre Rix had never seen before. He had a dagger in each hand and was stabbing downwards, intending to drive them through the top of Holm’s head.
But Holm wasn’t where he should have been. He ducked low under the flying man, spun on his feet and put his blade in through both of Rancid’s kidneys.
“I thought you were never going to move,” said Rix. “What took you so long?”
“Used to be a surgeon,” said Holm. “It’s decades since I practised, but I still prefer patching wounds to making them.”
“You don’t fight like a healer.”
“I had a good instructor.”
“You fight as though you were an instructor.”
“I’ve done a bit in my time.”
“Anything you haven’t done in your time?”
“Not much.”
“Rix, Holm?” Tali shouting. “We need help.”
They ran downstairs and into the main hall, swords at the ready. Glynnie followed, still carrying Blathy’s long knife. Tali and half a dozen of the kitchen women were barricaded behind a wall of tumbled tables and chairs. Four mutineers, three men and a woman, were flinging kitchen knives at them. Five bodies were scattered about.
Rix picked up a fallen chair and hurled it at the mutineers, cracking a short, nuggetty man over his shaven head and bringing him to his knees. The others whirled, and their hopeful looks turned to blank despair when they recognised Rix.
“Blathy is dead,” said Rix. “Also the brothers Hox. And Rancid. The mutiny is over. Surrender or die.”
“Going to die either way,” said a giant of a man with biceps the size of Rix’s thighs — the blacksmith, Tiddler. “Might as well take you with me, you shifter-loving swine.”
He lumbered forwards, swinging a monstrous double-headed war hammer, a terrible weapon in the hands of a strong man. A direct hit would smash Rix to pulp. He dared not take the risk that he might slip on the bloody floor, or stumble over a piece of broken furniture and allow Tiddler to get in a lucky blow.
The war hammer had a major weakness, however. It was so heavy that a blow could not be changed in mid-swing, and it took a long time between swings. Rix watched his opponent, followed his first blow until it had gone past, then killed him the way he had cut down Leatherhead.
The body went one way, the head another, and it took the fight out of the remaining mutineers. They knew they were going to die traitors’ deaths but they surrendered anyway. It was over.
“I’m so sick of killing,” said Rix, the sleepless nights suddenly catching up with him. “How much longer is it going to go on?”
No one answered. Too damn long, he thought. Until one side or the other is no more.
Glynnie put an arm around his waist. He looked down at her gratefully. “Did I thank you for saving my life?”
“Not adequately, but you will.”
“What’s the toll down here?” said Rix.
“At least three of the servants were murdered in their bunks,” said Holm, “and another four, maybe five, died in the fighting. And I don’t think poor old Swelt is going to make it.”
“What happened to Swelt?” cried Rix.
“He took up a sword. Said he wasn’t going to stand back and see innocent people die. He knew how to use it, too. He fought bravely and gashed Blathy on the shoulder…”
“I saw the wound. That must have been the cry Tali heard.”
“But he was a fat, tired old man,” said Holm.
“Where is he?”
“In the rear corridor where he fell,” said Holm. “We couldn’t move him.”
Rix turned and ran across the bloody hall, out the rear door, then stopped, looking left and right.
Down to the right in the shadowed corridor he made out a still, arching mound. He raced down and went to his knees beside the old man. Swelt’s eyes were closed, his flesh sagging.
“Swelt?” whispered Rix. “Don’t die. Please.”
A small breath sighed out of the old man. He wasn’t dead.
“Healer! Light!” Rix yelled. “Quick!”
“No… use,” said Swelt.
“Where are you hurt?” Rix couldn’t see any blood, any wound.
“Stabbed in the back. Noth — nothing anyone can do.”
Tali came running with a lantern. Glynnie followed.
“You can’t die,” said Rix, choking. “How can I ever do without you?”
Swelt smiled, and for a moment he was again the handsome young man he had been so very long ago. “Nicest thing — anyone’s ever — said…”
“They say you fought like a hero.”
“Fought — for my house. What anyone — would do.” Swelt’s right hand rose. “Come — must pass — secret.”
“It’s all right,” said Rix. “Don’t trouble yourself.”
The pudgy hand caught Rix’s shirt and pulled him down. Swelt’s slitted eyes were fixed on Rix’s face. “No one knows — you must.”
“Knows what?”
“Passed down — great dame — me — now you.”
“What is it?” said Rix.
“Grandys — sterile. Daughter — not his. Adopted.”
“Why is that important?” said Rix.
Swelt’s fingers slipped free. His hand hit the floor with a small thud. He was dead.
Rix took the old man’s hand and knelt beside him, remembering all Swelt had done for him and for his beloved Garramide. Had he not marshalled the support of its people behind Rix, he would not have been here now.
“Why did he waste his last breath telling me that?” he said, rising wearily.
“Maybe he wanted you to know that Grandys wasn’t your ancestor,” Glynnie said quietly.
“No, for such a secret to have been passed down for two thousand years,” said Tali, “it must be important — and not just to you.”
Rix could not focus. “Poor old Swelt. No more loyal man has ever been. And to think I judged him, when we first met, on his appearance.”
“He’s at peace now,” said Glynnie.
“And will be buried with the highest honour,” said Rix, “next to the great dame herself.”
“He killed that swine Porfry,” said Tali. “And died a contented man, knowing he’d always done his duty.” She looked around. “Where’s Tobry?”
“I haven’t seen him. I thought he’d be with you.”
She blanched, then bolted for the door. Rix plodded after her, down the steps to the basement level and along to the black hole. She burst through Tobry’s door and stopped, staring at the blood-covered bed and floor, the bed clothes in disarray and the knocked-over table.
“No!” she whispered. “No, no, no!”
“They were all against him,” said Glynnie, from the door. “They must have killed him first, in his sleep.”
“But where is he?” said Rix. “Where’s the… the body?”
“Maybe they took it out and burned it,” said Glynnie.
Tali looked as though she was going to faint. “And I gave him the sleeping potion. Everything that’s happened to Tobry since I met him is my fault.”
“They’d hardly burn bodies in the middle of a mutiny,” said Rix.