Shadowgod (21 page)

A succession of smells spoke of crafts and artisans - the rich yeastiness of a brewers, the woody smoke of a fish-curer, the aroma of freshly-baked bread. But all these were whipped away on an icy wind as the carriages came out from among the dense buildings and up onto a small, stone wharf on one side of a open canal. On the other side a stout wooden drawbridge stood up almost straight, held there by thick, taut ropes wound through a train of gears and winches manned by nervous-looking wharfers. A blunt-bowed barge was slowly passing through the channel, its crewmen using heavy staves to steer it clear of the sides while four guards with crossbows kept a tense watch on deck.

“Wonder what their cargo is?” Gilly muttered from the other carriage.

Keren would have answered but for an odd sensation that flickered through her, like some faint sound or the slight hint of an odour, there in one instant and gone the next. Frowning, she turned to look along the canal and as her gaze came round a figure on the towpath opposite quickly stepped back out of sight.

“Interesting,” she murmured.

“Indeed, my lady,” said Astalen. “Was that person watching the barge or us?”

“I expect we'll know soon enough,” Medwin said evenly, staring across the white-capped waves of the Sarlekwater, north to hidden lands.

Once the barge was through, the suspended bridge came down on its creaking hawsers and once a few people had hurried over on foot either way, the carriages continued across. Astalen kept them to an open road which crossed a number of short bridges and another larger swing bridge before finally reaching the solid ground of Eastbank. Throughout this eastward journey Keren noticed the growing prosperity, the better houses, the bigger, busier wharves, and the more frequent guard patrols. As the carriages rattled side by side along a cobbled street away from the ship-crowded main docks, Gilly asked Astalen how life was in Wracktown.

“Difficult,” was the reply. “Many good people have moved away while all manner of villains and brutes have made their lairs there. The submerged hulls of some of the ancient ships have rotted through and their lower decks have flooded. It is said that new, lethal kinds of fish and eel are breeding in the darkness down there, but I have seen no evidence of this.”

Gilly sighed. “A great pity. Wracktown had such character and life when I was there last.”

At a junction Astalen steered towards a narrow street, forcing Gilly's driver, Broen, to fall back into single file. The buildings here were straight and well-made and beyond several courtyard walls Keren spied small, luxurious gardens, ornate gazebos and balconies and pillared cloisters. All of which was in stark contrast to the outer facades of these residences with their plain stone walls, few windows and unremarkable front doors. So different, she thought, to the timber buildings of the Bridges district.

“Astalen,” she said. “Did we pass through Wracktown on our way here?”

“No, m'lady, Wracktown is the westerly part of South Bridges - it would be instantly recognisable from its dilapidated appearance, the roving gangs of feral children, and the reek of decaying refuse.”

Keren exchanged an amused glance with Medwin and whispered, “So it's not on our itinerary, then…”

Medwin coughed and said aloud, “Friend Astalen, am I right in thinking that talks between the Moon Council and the rebel septs are due to take place very soon?”

“That is so, ser mage. As a matter of fact, the discussions were almost abandoned since some of the rebels wanted to fight now and talk later. Then the Hevrin announced that he would attend and the others followed in his wake.”

Keren looked up, frowning. “The Hevrin.”

“Well, his given name is Rikketh Cul-Hevrin, but as the High Chief of Hevrin Sept he is simply referred to as the Hevrin.”

“I see,” she said, feeling the hard outline of the codex in its satchel under her arm. “Before leaving Besh-Darok, I met a merchant named Yared Hevrin. I wonder if there could be any connection.”

Astalen glanced round with new respect in his eyes. “Yared Hevrin is well-known and much-respected in Scallow, m'lady, and happens to be a half-cousin to the Hevrin himself. However, because he supports the Moon Council he is a figure of loathing and contempt for Hevrin Sept and its allies.”

“No blood is as bad as that between warring relatives,” Medwin said. “Is that likely to have a bearing on the talks?”

“Without a doubt, ser Medwin,” said Astalen. “Yared Hevrin is expected to arrive sometime tomorrow, and is bound to have his say.”

A cold wind blew in from the north with a light rain that pattered on the carriage's leather canopy. Keren shivered, thinking on all that Astalen had said and wondering if her part in this task was really necessary. She knew nothing of Dalbar or Scallow and its politics, and her confidence in her own fighting prowess was not what it once was. As for her sorcerous abilities, they seemed little more than vestigial to her for the optimism expressed by Bardow and Medwin. The Archmage was convinced of her potential, and at intervals during their journey Medwin had devoted several to teaching her the rudiments of Lesser Power cantos. Yet a part of her still yearned for that absent power, the ancient, implacable might of the Daemonkind, a part of her that would always play traitor to her loyalties.

The rain was coming down in gusts of hail as they drove through a market square. All around the townsfolk were laughing and ducking under stall covers or stepping into doorways for shelter as the hail came down with a hissing, rattling din that sounded especially loud under Keren and Medwin's carriage canopy. They were almost at the other side of the square when a group of bedraggled men wearing green sashes and carrying sticks came running out of an alley to the right, Keren's side. The leader made straight for the carriage, leaped onto the running board and leaned in close enough for Keren to smell ale on his breath.

He was young with coal-black beard and rain-matted hair, his face full of a casual hostility that faded when Keren pushed aside her cloak and half-slid her sword from its scabbard. Astalen was cursing him and ordering him off, but he ignored the tirade, sneered and banged his stick once against the side of the carriage, then uttered an odd howl before jumping lightly off. Other, different sounding calls went up behind them as Astalen began lashing the horse into a swift canter.

“It will be safer if we hurry,” he shouted above the racket of the wheels on the cobbles. “The Bodush factions will soon hold all of this district.”

“What about Gilly?” Keren said, but Medwin was already turning to pull aside a cotton flap in the rear of the canopy. Together they squinted through the gap, and Keren gasped to see Gilly's carriage brought to a halt by a crowd of rain-soaked people wearing red sashes. An argument between the crowd's leaders and Gilly's driver, Broen, led to him being dragged down from his seat under a hail of fists.

“Mother's name,” Keren said, angry at this brutality and wishing vainly that they had waited for Redrigh and his men.

Then she almost cheered when Gilly climbed over into the driver's seat and grabbed the reins, stamped on the fingers of a man trying to get on board then lashed the horse into motion. Members of yet another bodush faction, in white sashes gone grey in the rain, had emerged from a side street to taunt the red sash faction while blocking the road behind Astalen's carriage. Gilly yelled at his horse, yanking on the reins to turn its head and move off to the side, still hemmed in by howling, stick-brandishing bodush players.

“Astalen,” Keren cried. “Gilly's in trouble.”

“So are we.”

She just had time to see a mob in yellow sashes hurrying along a muddy alley towards them before the carriage suddenly leaped forward, throwing Medwin and her back into their seats.

“Greatest apologies,” Astalen called out. “We will have to go by another route, and with some haste.”

Buildings sped past, windows and doors a blur. Dogs ran yapping in short-lived pursuit and startled townsfolk shrieked curses and shook fists in their wake. The carriage swayed and rattled as it hurtled along, sometimes giving a banging jolt as it ran over a hole or a jutting cobble in the road. Keren had not thought Astalen capable of such skilfull charioteering but the way he took them round several narrow corners made her revise her opinion.

They managed to leave behind most of the yellow faction mob in the first five minutes, apart from a few dogged individuals who knew the back roads and alleys well enough to keep the carriage in sight for another ten minutes before being outdistanced. Astalen slowed the pace, following streets which curved around the southern flank of the hill occupied by Scallow Castle. Keren's tense alertness was just starting to ease when they rolled to halt before the tall, iron-banded gates of Golwyth's compound a short while later. Astalen called up to someone in the guard tower and as the gates began to open he turned to Medwin and Keren.

“Once Trader Golwyth learns what has befallen Ser Cordale and Broen he will send some of his guards out to find them.”

Medwin nodded wordlessly, as if resigned, but Keren could feel her anger rekindling.

“Tell your master that I have to go with them,” she said.

The carriage moved through the inward-swinging gates. The trader's compound was a high-walled enclosure with several storesheds along one wall, stabling and a barrack hut opposite, and a larger 2-storey building against the far wall. Before the building was a long, weather-beaten table around which were gathered a dozen leather-armoured men, all laughing uproariously. As the carriage came to a halt nearby, a familiar grinning figure stood up from amongst them and toasted Keren and Medwin with a sloshing cup of ale.

“Have I got a story to tell you,” said Gilly Cordale, making his way through his audience.

Stepping down from the carriage Keren tried to substitute sternness for relief but failed. “What happened? How did escape that mob, and just
how
did you get here before us?”

Gilly shrugged. “Sometime the dice roll for you, sometimes you roll for the dice.” He took a hefty gulp of ale. “Did you see how they dragged Broen off his perch? Aye, well, I quickly took his place, seized the reins and beat that horse into action again. Because the road ahead was blocked by the whites I couldn't drive after you. So, I tried to force a way across the square while punching and kicking any green rogues who attempted to board me.”

By now he was recounting the tale to Golwyth's men as well as Keren and Medwin, his gestures wide and dramatic. “But I didn't get far. A squad of greens charged at my carriage and tipped it over. The whites came in hard, then sticks cracked heads and a merry old brawl got into full swing all about me as I crawled out from the wrecked carriage. Back on my feet I made a run for a street leading off the square and down towards the docks. I was part way down it when there was a shout and I looked round to see a gang of yellows coming for me, with an ugly intent in their eyes. I ran as the Grey Lord himself as after me, ducked along an alley and onto the waterfront. But my pursuers weren't to be lost so easily, so I kept along the wharf and up a crowded side street full of stalls…” He held out his empty cup and it was swiftly refilled.

“But, my friends, this street was so busy with townsfolk and hawkers that I couldn't get through. I was filled with panic and fear, then a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me into the dimness of one of the stalls. Naturally, I reached for my sword but then suddenly a small, dwarfish figure dressed in a shroud and sporting a beard swooped down to hang before me. ‘Hold, brave stranger,’ it said in an odd voice. ‘Put up thy blade for we offer you sanctuary’.”

Everyone present was suddenly engrossed by this strange turn of the story.

“I was struck with fear at this apparition, but for only as long as it took me to notice the strings holding it up. For you see, I was standing behind the wings of a puppet theatre, and it was the puppet master -,” He winked at the guards, “ - and his beautiful daughter…” There was a chorus of jeers and ribald remarks at this, “...who saved me from a yellow-handed beating. They took me out a back door to a narrow wynd leading back up the main streets of Eastbank. Where, as fortune would have it, I encountered the valiant Captain Redrigh and a couple of his men who brought me here to Golwyth's refuge with all speed.” He drained the last of his ale. “And then my good friends here arrived in time to hear this amazing saga.”

He bowed as Keren and everyone applauded, including Captain and his men who had emerged from the stables midway through the performance.

“Well told, ser Cordale,” came a deep voice.

As the applause subsided, the guards made way for a tall, well-built man wearing a plain doublet and troos in rich grey leather edged with red, and a dark blue cloak fastened at the shoulder with a bronze wheel brooch. Keren guessed this to be Golwyth, the trader appointed by the High Conclave as their representative in Scallow. The man clearly possessed that charismatic air of purpose and experience that she had seen in all great leaders, among whom she incuded Mazaret and Yasgur. Golwyth, however, had something extra in his eyes, a mingling of wisdom and delight which countered the abundant silver in his neatly-clipped hair and beard. Once he and Gilly had shaken hands, Astalen came forward to introduce him to Medwin and Keren. When she met that dark, warm gaze a small, pleasurable shiver went through her.

Then he stepped back a little to survey all three for a moment.

“Survival in these bleak times requires strength,” he said. “But to survive and force back the tide of evil demands both strength and a rare courage. I have heard many reliable tales of the great struggle for Besh-Darok, and I am honoured to make you guests under my roof. I am just sorry that thus far you've only seen the worst that this city has to offer.”

“All cities have their dark byways, honoured Golwyth,” Medwin said. “Yet your gracious welcome gives light to our arrival and makes us glad to be in Scallow.”

As both men bowed slightly, Keren exchanged an amused look with Gilly, then spoke to the trader.

“Ser Golwyth - what reason would these bodush factions have for chasing us through the streets? Might there be a sinister motive at the back of it?”