Blood For Wages

1: A Fine Evening For It

The oak tree standing in the elbow of the river was old and beautiful and, in the stark winter light, its five main limbs resembled the frozen fingers of a dead hand. Fia had seen many hands like that; on many battlegrounds and in many alleyways over the past eleven years. Whether hacking away on a contested field, or walking along the dark side of some moonlit street, she would watch broken warriors––Frekirie, Mistrovers, the painted Kyn, whoever––grasping vainly for the undersides of the bloated, heavy clouds.

Crooked, desperate fingers. The hands of dying men clawing heavenwards. As if, in the desperation of their final throes, they thought they might be able to find purchase on the sky and pull themselves back to their feet.

Fia was yet to see it.

The oak was bare of leaves now. The biggest, strongest, most majestic tree for miles around, standing by a ford on the main road, it was where the tribeland of Arifold's recalcitrant and criminal were left to dangle and die.

Fia ran a callused, gentle hand over the rough bark of the hanging tree. Looked up at the two corpses swinging from it; eye sockets gaping empty, tongues swollen and black, shit caked down the inside of their naked legs.

The shit might have stank once. The blood too. Both were too dry now and the smell had faded.

She tucked the letter she'd written for her brother back into her coat. Sighed out through her nose. Cast an eye over to where her horse, a hardy brumby tamed by the horse-breakers of Skyvolla, was hobbled.

"I wager it reminds you of your family tree, does it not, lass?"

Fia's eyes were a mixed mess of deep blue and light jade. Big, honest and perceptive. Patient. Unafraid. Survivor's eyes. She revolved slowly on one worn boot heel and turned them on the stranger.

"How so?" she asked.

He was a bandy-legged cove with a dishonest and crooked cast to his features. Crooked so that if Fia had had a mind to follow his tracks she doubted she would've been able to tell if he were coming or going. He leaned upon a tumbledown stone wall as if he were lord of the river and the hanging tree both. His sneer ran both deep and wide.

"Full o' nooses!" he crowed, and then laughed as if he'd set a new benchmark for witticism.

Fia's face remained impassive. She had a pale countenance, heart-shaped and framed by mousy brown hair that she'd cut uncommonly short to just below her ears. It was down now, her hair, and mostly hid the swirling tattoos that were etched along the shaved sides of her head. She regarded the cackling man thoughtfully.

Here was a thinking man. Here was an adder. Here was a man who watched and waited for an excuse to cause trouble and strife. Who enjoyed small cruelties like other men enjoyed snuff or drink. The sort of bastard that'd slip a snake into your pocket and then ask you the loan of a copper.

"I can't say that I recognise your face, man," she said. "What makes you think you know my history?"

"The fuck has history to do with it? I know you, Fia McCrae. How can any man in these parts not, eh? I don't think there are any folk in this bit o' country that haven't heard tales o' you."

The man spat with marksman's eye into the grass at Fia's feet.

"The quiet lass who comes and goes, who sees faeries and boomen and bodachs, and has even crossed seas to argue with the devils of Toropuku."

Fia frowned and tilted her head to one side. So, here was another one who'd heard some yarn or other. Who had listened to the gossip in the alehouses, the ignorant insults of the idle, and the rhymes the children sang.