Chapter 16 – Dain
The severed head regarded Dain evenly, eyeless and gaping. He struggled to escape. His jerkin, new that morning, ripped along a seam, and he was up. Knocking aside the fish-head he clambered from the waste heap. Its empty sockets watched him, from their new position in a drift of refuse, while he disentangled himself from the splintered crates.
Dain brushed off the worse of the mess, and looked up at the window through which he had escaped. A tight squeeze, a long drop and a soft though unpleasant landing. He scowled, and redistributed the grime across his face with a wipe of his sleeve. Without looking back he made off down the alley.
Mistress Maidel had been kind to Dain. Considering the number of silver coins that fell from Ingold's hand into her meaty paws, nothing less should be expected. They had thought him asleep, but Dain had seen the intrigue between Ingold and the innkeep's wife. All the money the bard had earned, from playing to the tavern on their first night, changed hands. And plenty more coins besides. Ingold had played for hours, his music a spell that led men through battles, into joy and under years. He made them love women woven from nothing but the melody of his voice. The bard had wrought magic in Oak Tree Tavern, miracles he sold for silvers and coppers.
He made that pale woman cry. She ran without paying. Dain remembered the pale woman, unnatural green eyes and short hair dyed black, very striking. But he remembered her more for her aura than for her looks or her tears. So complex and so dark.
When at last Ingold had climbed the stairs to bed, Dain still lay awake. He had watched the bard through slitted eyes. Ingold had looked deep in cups but when Dain woke at dawn, torn from a black dream with a startled cry, he found himself alone, the bard gone, pack and all. In an empty moment he understood the payment.
"Said 'e 'ad dangerous work ahead 'e did," Maidel set down a bowl of porridge before Dain.
Maidel was thick waisted, kind hearted, iron at the core, a breed Dain knew well from begging at the doors of many an inn.
"Said I 'ad to keep an eye on you, laddie. Said you weren't to run off. Said you'd sing like an angel and would earn your keep."
Maidel had been as good as her word. Dain's first escape attempt was foiled by the surprisingly quick interposition of her bulk 'twixt himself and door. His second had got him locked in the 'top room', a prison cell, albeit one equipped with clean clothes, bread and milk. When she'd discovered his way with locks a heavy barrel had kept the door closed instead. A week ago I'd have given anything for food and a warm place to sleep.
Now, freed from his cell after daring the drop from the window, Dain made his way through the narrow streets of Glorsa. He followed the cry of the gulls and made for the docks. The day was clear, the air cold despite the sunshine. High tails of cloud trailed against the pale wash of the sky. Dain had his freedom, but no direction. Ingold was three days gone. The bard had chosen his gaoler well and left no trail that Dain could follow. And why should I follow him? He doesn't want me.
"Because he needs you."
Dain stopped walking. The street stood empty save for an old man up ahead, coughing and leaning against the wall. A clatter of hooves came, and went. It's the voice again. The voice hardly ever spoke to him, not since his mother died. If he needs me, he'll come back. If I've got something he needs - he'll come back.
Dain walked on, past the old man who spat a green mess on the cobbles as he went by. Dain could see the canker in the ancient's lungs, a brown corruption in the feeble flame of his aura. He turned left into Port Street, angling down toward the harbour.
Trouble is on its way. Dain had absorbed this much from his immersion in the bubbling current of gossip at the Oak Tree. The first news came the day after Ingold's departure. Men in the service of Marluk, an Arkasian Blood Lord, had been raiding the coast west of Glorsa for months. Of late however his ships headed ever east, their forays into the Straits becoming daily more bold. The day after Ingold took ship for Conault, the blue sails of Marluk were seen, by fishermen casting their nets only three miles from Glorsa harbour.
The sound of pounding feet shook Dain from his thoughts. He pressed himself into a doorway. Guardsmen thundered by, a detachment of twenty-four. Clad all in mail, they were not a regular patrol. The cries from the docks now sounded less like gulls. Dain crouched in the shadows, straining his ears. Minutes passed. The distant shouts grew closer. Away, over roof-thatch and mast-tops, dark fingers of smoke crept skyward. Trouble is here.
Without warning two guardsmen rounded the corner, clattering over the cobbles, boots seeking purchase for the turn. Seconds behind them, four tall swordsmen, lightly armoured in sections of bright blue leather. Following the four, a shorter broader man, no weapon in hand, his dark cloak streaming as he ran. This last one turned his head, just a glance as he moved by, picking out Dain in his hiding place, dark eyes widening a fraction. A quick glance and gone – but enough to set the short hairs on Dain's neck prickling, enough to set him jittering with nervous energy.
The chase ended abruptly twenty yards past Dain. The fleeing guardsmen ran almost headlong into a dozen of their fellows hastening up from the gate barracks. With the tables abruptly turned, five met fourteen. Dain had never imagined it would be so loud. The crash of sword on shield, the crunch of bone, the howls of the maimed.
The invaders proved excellent warriors. Marluk chose his men well. Clearly they were not without hope, similar battles raged in nearby streets. If they could just hold on, then help might find them. The numbers told. The tallest of the Arkasians parried high, twisted past a lunge, drove his elbow into a guardsman's throat, then lost his sword-arm to a clumsy hack from the fourth of the men who pressed him. The butcher's blow sent the limb skittering towards Dain's hiding place. The fingers still writhed and clutched at nothing.
The last of the Arkasians stood five paces back as his fellows were cut down. He kept his head bowed, his gaze fixed on the ground. Dead leaves danced about him, caught in a sudden vortex. Every inch of Dain's skin tingled as he watched. The man seemed lit from within, radiant, somehow more real than his surroundings. A crackling streamer of blue-white energy crawled from elbow to shoulder and was gone. Minute worms of light writhed in the man's short dark beard.
A guardsman ran at the Arkasian, over the invaders' corpses. He lunged. The blade was seized with inhuman quickness. Lightning ran up the sword, turning its coating of gore to smoke. The guardsman stood, shaken by invisible energies, and yet nailed to the spot as the blood boiled in his veins. The Arkasian lifted his head and released the sword. The guardsman fell, nothing but charred meat. The Arkasian's eyes were hot white pits. The lightning flew then and thunder echoed in the street. The Arkasian moved through the men before him, killing with his hands. Punching through shields. In his wake the street became a charnel house.
Before the last Glorsan fell more came, loosing arrows down the length of the street. One caught the the Arkasian in the shoulder, staggering him. The Arkasian threw aside the remainder of his foes with a thunderclap and hurried away around the next corner.
More shouting, more confusion, men running. The street cleared eventually, leaving Dain alone with the dead.
Dain spent an eternity in those shadows, long enough to grow old in a child's body. When he finally ran it was through a street that still smoked and stank. Don't let him get me! Oh Ma! Don't let him get me!
He ran towards the docks, he could hear fighting there still but the man had gone the other way. Dain paused at the corner, casting left and right. Barrels had rolled into the street, one staved in and bleeding wine. Across the way flames licked from the door of a tailor's shop. Ingold! Where are you? Dain ventured forward, huddled to keep small, desperate to remain unseen. If he needs you he'll come back... The hand that caught him came from behind.
Pressed to the cold stone wall, in a narrow passage between two houses, Dain could see nothing of his attacker.
"Where is it?"
"Wh ... What?"
"My key!"
"Ingold?"
The grip loosened and Dain turned, finding himself face to face with the bard. He felt the knot in his stomach uncoil. The street still burned, the monster with his aura of blood and shards still roamed the streets. But Ingold is here.
"I promised myself I'd give you a hiding to remember." Ingold pressed a palm to his temple, fingers in his red hair. "But I didn't pick the safest of havens to leave you in."
He held his hand out. Dain dug into the pocket of his torn jerkin. The quartered iron circle covered his palm. It felt cold, heavier than it had a right to be.
It's something special. A key . . . to the world.
"The key to Ingold too – turned one way it will lock him forever, turned the other it will set him free." The voice again! Twice in a day!
Ingold took the circle key, his eyes of green and gold, stern.
"I knew you'd come back if I took it." Dain set his chin in defiance.
Ingold pursed his lips. Eloquence failed him for once. "I didn't mean... Well... maybe there are no safe havens these days. Best stick together eh?"
Ingold took Dain's hand and led him to the mouth of the passageway.
"We've got some more running to do. Marluk didn't send his Blood Guards here just to loot Glorsa. I think word of my adventure in Thelim Keep has spread." The bard patted his pocket. "Nice bit of thieving there by the way. Very slick."
"Ingold ...there was a man ... he killed ... well, everyone." He burned them, he ran lightning through their bones and left them in abattoir pieces.
Ingold nodded. "Blood of the Blue. Marluk has drunk his fill of it. They say he has thirty Blood Guards who survived Blood too. You met one of his lieutenants no doubt." The bard frowned then. "I've heard Marluk has ambitions to drink the Red, to become a mix-blood like the Blood Lords of old. Of course, to do that ... he'd need a key." The bard squeezed Dain's hand and grinned.
"Archers came. An arrow hit him here." Dain tapped where his shoulder joined his chest. "He ran then. Will he die do you think?" Let him be dead. Please.
Ingold shook his head, "The Blood of the Blue will heal him, just like the Red would. If it's a wound that could possibly be survived, he will survive, and he'll mend fast. If the arrow had gone through his heart, or an eye, then he'd die, but if he ran off..."
"He ... he saw me hiding and it was as though he recognised me. Then archers came and he was gone." He knew me. He will come for me. Smiling, with strings of flesh sizzling in his hands
Ingold looked worried for a moment. Dain didn't like that, it scared him. Ingold is never worried.
"Aye. Well. He would. Some people are more suited to the Blood than others, lad. Those that have had enough of the Blood can see it. With you, even I could see it." Ingold put a hand on Dain's shoulder and looked toward the docks. He shook his head. "...no safe havens. Looks like you're stuck with me for a while longer, lad."
If he wants you he'll come back.