What Remains of Heroes (7 page)

Karnag measured the four in his company. He knew Tream wasn’t the only of their number rotting with doubt. He’d seen Paddyn, their skinny archer, mumbling prayers when they’d caught sight of the ancient shrine, and the grimy lad averted his eyes now. Fencress Fallcrow, a cold-hearted assassin who’d never voiced any qualms about her dark work, kept a religious totem strung about her throat. “
I prefer my bets to be of the hedged variety,
” she’d once told Karnag. She was a good friend—perhaps Karnag’s only—and could be trusted, but her heart certainly held some measure of doubt for this task. Drenj was newest to their company, but Khaldisians were said to think paying tribute to gods was naught but a waste of good coin.

“I need neither dissent nor hesitation,” Karnag said, voice rising so to be heard by them all. “Any holding quarrels with our task should return to Raven’s Roost. Such a person will have no ill feeling from me, and I’ll gladly pay a third of their share upon my return. However, if you do remain, and your beliefs become a hindrance, you’ll be the first person I slay after the Lector.”

Drenj looked at him incredulously, waving his long-fingered hands wildly. Karnag leveled his eyes at him in hopes of silencing the protest, and the Khaldisian shut his mouth.

The others remained quiet. Karnag studied them each in turn. Even Fencress seemed pensive in that moment, twirling a strand of her black hair and looking askance. The whole of the company appeared to be waiting for someone to voice a decision.

“A third of his share,” Karnag said.

“But Karnag!” It was Fencress, rising from her seat on a stone. Her thoughtful look had been replaced by a playful grin Karnag was pleased to see. “If I left I wouldn’t get to kill anyone. Besides, think how dull this whole venture would be without my charm?”

“Death’s dancing mistress!” cheered Paddyn, slapping his hands on trousers that ruffled like empty sacks on his thin legs.

Fencress offered a genteel curtsy, her arms moving in a flourish. “The very same.”

The company laughed. It sounded as much like relief as good humor. Thereafter they resumed their casual banter. All but Tream, who kept to himself.

After a moment Tream turned about and strode toward the horses. He pulled himself astride his mare and turned the horse on the path, toward the way from which they’d come.

“I’m sorry, Karnag,” Tream said. “I’ve fought at your side many times. But you’re right. I can’t do this.” He looked away and rubbed at his eyes before continuing. “You’re getting involved in things much bigger than us, and to be honest it scares me. My mum prayed every night to the goddess Illienne. My da called her crazy, and I may have a time or two as well. But I’m not about to wager my soul on the chance the woman was dead wrong.”

They rode in silence the remainder of the morning. No one voiced questions about Tream’s departure, and there were no questions about their task, either. Karnag hoped the matter was settled, and those who’d stayed could be counted upon.

The forest about them was dense and the oaks and poplars squeezed the trail. Maintaining their pace proved difficult. The horses slowed to pick their way through brush strewn across the path, and low-hanging limbs made the group leery of a gallop.

The pace seemed to make them more aware of their surroundings. They were jumpy, and Karnag noticed their hands straying to their blades with every crunch and crash in the forest. Even he started once when an owl alighted from a tree to snatch a rodent in its talons. Karnag cursed his nerves, reminding himself he was the predator, not the prey.

“A thousand silver crowns is a lot of coin,” said Drenj, his voice jarring in the quiet.

Karnag turned to see the Khaldisian rubbing long fingers together. Karnag grinned, amused by the lad’s avarice. He also found himself glad for once to have the distraction of small talk. “I’m not so sure we’ll see any more than the four hundred we were paid in advance,” he said. “You think I’ve ever offered to pay even a partial share to a man who didn’t finish a job?”

Drenj cocked a black brow. “It had crossed my mind that you had lost yours. I was wrong for doubting you.” He paused, his smooth face twisted in thought. “Do you really doubt we’ll see the rest of the money?”

“It seems possible. Tream may be a dullard, but the man was right when he said we’re in a mess bigger than ourselves. Things like that don’t usually end as expected.”

“You think we’ll be swindled?”

Karnag shrugged his broad shoulders. “Perhaps worse. The Lector is a powerful man. Not the sort whose death will be treated lightly. There will be consequences. What’s more, the man who retained us might not be the sort to trust us with the knowledge of this deed. He may want his secrecy preserved by knowing we guard it in our graves.”

Drenj slumped in his saddle. “You’re not planning on returning to Raven’s Roost to try to collect, are you?”

“I may,” said Karnag. “I may not.”

The Khaldisian’s face brightened. “Why not just run with the coin we’ve already been paid?”

Karnag hadn’t considered that option. He was quiet for a moment, contemplative. He recalled his meeting with their patron, a thin man with a face hidden in the hood of his black robes. His voice had been that of a serpent. Karnag did not fear other men, but this one had unnerved him.

Drenj flailed his arms. “Why not run?” he asked, dark eyes pleading.

Karnag looked hard at the young Khaldisian, his gaze a reprimand, then settled back into his saddle. He fingered the hilts of his various blades and found comfort in them. Purpose.

“Four hundred crowns is a small fortune,” Drenj said. “One hundred crowns a man. Enough almost for a dozen head of fine cattle. We could pocket the money without spilling a drop of blood. If you’re certain our patron will double cross us, then why shouldn’t we do this?”

Karnag drew his short sword from its scabbard and held it straight before him. He would drive this blade to the hilt through the Lector’s belly while the man wept in agony. Perhaps the Lector was holy. Perhaps killing him would invite the wrath of the dead gods.

But therein resided the challenge, the allure, the glory. By killing the Lector, Karnag would prove his measure. He would kill to prove he
could
.

“Why shouldn’t we?” Drenj’s voice was frantic.

“Because I do not do these things for the coin.”

Drenj shook his head dumbly. “It’s the coin that justifies these abominable deeds. The coin feeds my family and buys me a better life. It gives me a reason. Without the reason there is only depravity.”

“You sound even more the whore than you look.”

Drenj’s eyes snapped back to Karnag. “I daresay you are not a good man.”

Karnag chuckled and spat. “Good? I do not quibble with my conscience, nor do I try to divine the whims of dead gods. My ‘goodness,’ if there is such a thing, is defined by my usefulness, my effectiveness. I am a slayer of men, and in that I endeavor to be the very best of all.”

After midday they came upon the remnants of the Lector’s next encampment, a swath of trampled ground in a clearing. Karnag counted eleven empty wine bottles, and the amount of discarded food was enough to feed several men. He smiled, thinking how soft these men were, how easy the task suddenly seemed.

He found the carcass of a roasted pheasant near a fire pit and shooed away the flies buzzing about it. “The Lector eats well,” he said, picking a chunk of meat from the bones.

Paddyn scratched his short, sandy hair and squatted low to the ground. “Perhaps a dozen men,” he said, his voice whistling through his missing tooth. “And at least as many horses. More than we thought.”

“These are soft men, Paddyn,” Karnag said through a mouthful of meat, “and no match for us. You need not fear.”

Drenj inspected the fire pit. “The ashes are still wet. The Lector and his men got a late start, then lingered here for lunch. This fire was doused not long ago.”

“We’re close, then,” said Paddyn, green eyes searching the forest about them.

“Aye,” said Karnag, leaning back against a poplar and tossing away the bones of the pheasant. “We’ll let the horses rest for a while. We’ll wait and come at them in the night while they’re sleeping off another feast.”

“You’re right, of course.” Drenj said as he retrieved a discarded bottle and drained its contents. He looked at Karnag and smiled sheepishly. “Or we could run off with the advance we were paid.”

“You know my answer to that. You’re welcome to ride to Raven’s Roost with Tream, where the two of you can wait for me to pay you a third of your share.”

“I don’t take it you’d come,” said Drenj.

“Never.”

Karnag lurked in the darkness, masking himself in the trees near the camp’s perimeter. It was much as he’d expected. The Lector, a thin and ancient man draped in white robes, knelt close to a fire with hands knotted in prayer. His men bantered loudly, faces glazed with the grease of cooked meat and teeth stained by too much wine. Counting the Lector there were eleven in all.

Karnag turned to his company, making sure they’d not fled or strayed too close to the camp. Paddyn’s gap-toothed grin shone in the dark, an expression Karnag reckoned was one of anxiety. “Keep your mouth shut,” Karnag snapped. Paddyn shot him a puzzled look but complied.

The company had grown restless as they’d waited in the dark, their unease obvious. Karnag noticed Drenj’s eyes wandering back to the direction of their horses, a few hundred feet away. Few truly relished the moment of the kill.

“We do this,” Karnag growled.

He returned his attention to the firelight, studying the Lector and his party. The Lector seemed frail and unacquainted with the demands of travel. The man shivered in spite of the spring night’s warmth and the heat of his fire. His robes were frayed and he bore bruises hinting at a spill from horseback. He sat with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth moved in a murmur of prayer.

Beside him squatted a manservant, head cocked in constant regard of the Lector. Behind them were several dark-robed men with the reverent bearing of clerics, likely acolytes of the Ancient Sanctum. They seemed contemplative sorts, speaking infrequently as they read in the firelight or gazed at the night sky. They would prove no trouble in combat.

Five loudmouthed louts wore coin purses and rusty weapons on their belts. Karnag reckoned they were hired strongmen. They were big men, but unscarred and fat-handed. Tavern brawlers, enough to scare off brigands but little match for trained killers. Karnag thought it odd the Lector of the Sanctum would not travel with royal soldiers, but he wasted no thought on politics.

Finally, there was a square-jawed man far from the fire, a green cloak pulled tightly about him. He did not laugh at the men’s jokes nor did he partake of the wine offered to him. Karnag detected the outline of a weapon beneath the cloak, and reckoned the man knew how to use it.

“Paddyn,” he whispered, “if things go amiss, I want an arrow through that man’s heart.”

The young archer nodded firmly, making a decent show of steady nerves.

Karnag turned his eyes back to the camp. He fingered the hilts of his blades, each one in turn. His moment was coming.

Soon.