Blood For Wages

15: The Stink of Death

It seemed that the beans that Cameron Gray had spilled under Gunn's knife had been swallowed and digested overnight by the surviving members of Fia's motley crew. Chewed over, discussed, the facts were shat out anew in the form of questions and theories.

As the company cantered their horses along the jagged banks of a frothing mountain-fed river, which leapt, churned and chewed its way down through the faded plains, the talk turned to what the fuck Redmond Marr was thinking inviting the Vansgrimans unchecked into Fallaros.

"You'd just never pick it, would you?" Darach Lees said.

"Pick what, mate?" Lenix Allaway asked.

"Never pick Viscount Marr as one to sell his countrymen to one of the other Isles."

"Right, because you know the man so well," Lenix snorted.

"I'm not saying that I know the man, that I've ever met or seen the man," Lees replied acidly. "But from everything you hear about him, he sounds like your typical noble, doesn't he?"

Fergus' booming laugh came right up from his belly and rolled back along the shallow ravine through which the mountain torrent cut its way. Up ahead in the distance there was a notch in the hills which looked to open out into more grasslands.

"You point me at a noble and tell me what's typical about the bastard, and I'll tell you if Redmond Marr's got any of them characteristics," the big man said, swaying in his saddle as his sturdy grey mount negotiated the rough trail.

"What I mean," Lees tried again, "is that his reputation's always been so... so neat. Free from all the other muck that most of them rich folk manage to rake up around 'emselves, you know?"

"Oh, sure, you look at him quick and the man's a fuckin' gem––shiny, clean-cut," Hunter said. "But, I bet he's just like all the rest of 'em."

Darach Lees gave his horse a touch of the heels and loosened his rein so he could ride up the short column a little and hail Hunter.

"You don't know what you're talking about, woman," he said. "You've never served in the armed forces by the look of you. Not all those above your station––though I'd imagine there aren't too many that don't look down on you––are worthy of your scorn, you know."

Hunter gave Lees a look from over her shoulder. Worked her mouth as if she was thinking of sending some of that spit of hers his way. Then she turned back to the rugged path ahead, seemingly considering him a waste of good saliva.

Lees sneered after her, looking like a man who'd just come out on top in some scholarly debate.

"While I don't agree with, or know, the fine lady there," Gunn said casually, nodding at Hunter's skinny back from where he now rode abreast of Darach Lees, "I'd be inclined to agree with her on one aspect about the Counts, Countesses, and their nobles, Lees."

Fia, who'd been busy watching a flock of silver and black baker's birds and idly wondering what it was that compelled them to always form groups of thirteen, kept the corner of one eye on Lees and the outlaw he rode next to. Lees looked defiant but worried at suddenly finding himself so near to Torsten Gunn.

"And what would that be, Gunn?" the former infantryman asked.

"Well, you can bet your arse that they don't give a flying fuck about you, not one little bit. Nor me. Nor any one of our kind. All they care about is that we behave ourselves, stay in our places, and come to heel when they whistle for us to fight and die for 'em."

"That ain't how they do things in civilised society, Gunn," Lees replied.

Gunn smiled. All teeth, no humour. "Civilised society? I've heard o' that. Ain't never laid eyes on it though."