Secret Meetings

  Hessen’s room was at the base of the eastern wall, the tents of his own men surrounding it in an unspoken partition. It was almost like wandering into the Reash quarter of Learona, trading familiar sounds for strange accents. Except, of course, they had survived the siege of Learona and the Reash had joined in mad jubilation with the rest of the city. There was no such joy amongst Hessen’s Kostians. No such joy in the rest of the damn company. Their leader’s room was a squat stone structure with a piece of canvas stretched across the roof. There was a man squat down by the door, and he rose to meet Whiteeyes.

  “You can’t come any further,” the guard said with a heavy accent.

  “I’ll go where I want,” Fenris said.

  The guard said something in Kostian. Fenris could only understand it from the few common words the language shared in Reasher, but he got the gist. It was something like fuck off. He would have given the man the benefit of the doubt if he hadn’t recognised the Kostian curse. In response, he shoved his hand in the man’s face. The guard stumbled backwards and tripped over the stool he’d been sitting on.

  There was more cursing after that, but it was behind him now. The archer was already through the doorway, daylight giving way to the dark steps inside. Voices rose as he descended towards the bottom of the stairs. When Fenris got there, he stopped in his tracks.

  “Well, shit.” Fenris said, “Must have missed the invitation.”

  It was hard to give Fenris Whiteeyes pause. Most fancied him the stubborn sort, but the small crowd that stared back at the archer had certainly caught him off guard. At least half the commander’s council was in Hessen’s little cellar. Hessen had a deep scowl and stopped mid-sentence. Lord Osward noticeably flinched at Fenris’s arrival. In the back of the room, the other levy commander, Lord Cutha, had been sitting and listening. Then there was Borke. The man looked sheepish, but straightened himself soon enough. It was a sharp reminder. They might work together, but Borke was his own man, even if he had let Fenris take the lead on things.

  Fenris hid his surprise behind a smile and stepped into the room with his head raised. “Fancy seeing you here,” he said to Borke.

  To his credit, Borke held Fenris’s gaze and shrugged back at him. “There’s no harm in talking, Fenris.”

  “That so?”

  “What do you want, Whiteeyes?” Hessen said. Raised to his full height, the lanky Kostian almost had to stoop to keep his head from hitting the roof beam.

  What do I want? Ideas played across Fenris’s mind. He thought of taking out the talisman he had found by Talen’s body, asking this yours? And then stabbing the Hessen based on the expression he made. It would probably end in his own death as well. The cellar had a window at head height, letting in light from the ground level. Hessen’s men would come running, make pretty work of Fenris. Worst of all, it might not even be Hessen.

  Instead, he prowled closer to the table, had a look at the rough battle plans that were laid out. Odd scraps, sheep knuckle bones and dice from people’s pockets marked the positions of troops. It was some type of withdrawal to the west. Looked to Fenris like everyone was about to be cut down. He wondered how Einar fit into the picture. Dead, probably.

  “Shown any of these to Smashednose?”

  “They are just… just ideas,” Osward stammered.

  “Aye. You can say that again,” Fenris said. “Know what happens after this?”

  Osward swallowed a lump in his throat. “If we were to withdraw during the night…”

  “Larker will wake up to kill you in the morning,” Fenris said. He was angry, but feigning it more than he felt it. There was a pit in the warrior’s stomach, a bad feeling. They were two steps away from coming to the same conclusion that Fenris had with Einar the night before. Leave half the company behind to fight to the death against Larker, and you might just make it out. It’d buy them a couple of weeks, maybe, but that thinking was the death of them. Although they might already have been thinking it, saying it was a different thing. Planting the seed. Out of what little loyalty the Fenris had left for Smashednose, he’d give them something else to say.

  Whiteeyes gripped the edge of the table and flipped it. The map fluttered up into the air. The pieces scattered on the floor, some crunching beneath the table as it banged on the ground. Osward, face red, made a move for Fenris. The lord didn’t take two steps before Whiteeyes punched his chin and sent him staggering back onto Cutha, who had only just risen to his feet.

  Hessen came at him. “You fucking…”

  They were about to clash when Fenris had the wind knocked out of his chest. Hessen, likewise, had a similar stunned expression as the man staggered back. It was Borke.

  “Enough!” Borke stood between the two men, arms outstretched as the single window painted him with its light like he was some stubby Saint. “Fenris, what are you doing here? Lord Osward wanted to make sure we’d thought through our options thoroughly. That’s all. And that we have.”

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  Good to see there was enough of a friend in Borke to not pile onto Fenris, but it was different now. Moves were being made. A meeting called by Osward, but hosted by Hessen, and now Borke was the peacemaker. Einar was losing his grip on these men, and in a deeper way than when Fenris had challenged the man when that bloody priest was around. Thrown into the mix, one of them could be his killer. Saints, give Fenris Whiteeyes a two-sided battlefield any day.

  “I came here for Hessen,” Fenris said. “I’ve spoken to all of my men who were on watch when we found Talen’s body. They didn’t see much, truth be told.”

  Hessen scoffed at that, but Fenris resisted the urge to rise to it.

  He continued, “There were plenty of Hessen’s men on the wall that night. I want to speak to them. Most of all, any that were on the walls close to the southern gate.”

  The Kostian shrugged. A little bit of the usual levity, forced or otherwise, came back to the man’s voice. “You can speak to whoever you want. I’ll have a man translate for you.”

  Almost as if on a prearranged signal, the guard that Fenris had knocked down on his way in stumbled down the steps. He had a small cut above his left eye, and a look in his eyes that said he wanted to settle the score.

  Hessen raised an eyebrow at the state of the man, but didn’t mention it, “Yoan will show you around.”

  Fenris’s Kostian guide spoke Baid well enough, if not incredibly sourly. He only had dirty looks for Whiteeyes, but Fenris wouldn’t hold that against him. The men camped around Hessen’s room were mostly unresponsive, uninterested. Sharp one-word answers were given in response to the questioning, most of which Yoan translated as No. He said he didn’t see anything. Even now, Vannarbar hadn’t shaken its reputation. Fenris got more rumours about ghouls and spirits than he did spies.

  After an hour, the guide shrugged his shoulders. “That’s all of them.” He began edging away from Fenris, like he’d been dismissed.

  Fenris held a hand up. “Steady.” It wasn’t quite all. Fenris remembered the Kostian who relieved him from the walls that night. He hadn’t spoken to him yet. There would be others, too. “Has Hessen got any men on guard right now?”

  Yoan looked at his boots, nodded. “There is a group watching on the western side.”

  “Not all yet then,” Fenris said. “We’re going for a walk, my friend.”

  “My friend. Friend?” Yoan repeated the phrase, testing it out in his mouth. “Maybe I don’t know this word as well as I think. Friend?”

  Whiteeyes chuckled bitterly. “I’d second that, lad.”

  It was a clear day, almost cloudless, though the incessant wind ensured that none could mistake the coming of Winter. The men camped on the tower of what was left of Vannarbar’s western keep. They held their cloaks close, most keeping their heads below the parapet, trying to keep their faces warm. It was a good vantage point. There was a good view across the forest to their north, and the road to the bridge. It passed the city on the south side before swinging north when it got west of the keep. The caravans had given the city a wide berth on the way to the Kings Pass.

  As Yoan wandered over to the guards, Fenris spotted the long, straw-coloured hair of Godrum, thin strands flittering in the breeze.

  “Goldmane,” Fenris greeted the man.

  “Hello, Whiteeyes,” Godrum said.

  Fenris left Yoan to his idle chatter with the guards and stood beside Godrum, looking north with the man. Despite his vibrant hair, Godrum was a good decade or two older than Fenris, perhaps close to Smashednose in age, though the portly man had fared better over the years.

  “I didn’t see you at Hessen’s meeting,” Fenris said.

  “I’ve declined the invitation for now,” Godrum said. “It’s a reactionary thing. Osward pissing himself and getting everyone riled up. That bitching lord is the last man I’d let lead. Fool could tie a rope to my prick, and I still wouldn’t go if he pulled.”

  “Still came all the way out here to see the road to the north,” Fenris said.

  “We might be taking it whether I like it or not.” Godrum leaned against the stonework. “What a shit-show that will be. For now, I’ll stand firm with Smashednose. Let the young pups yap. They want action, either a fight or a retreat, and they aren’t happy staying in place and living another day. What about you, Fenris?”

  Fenris shrugged. “I’ve got a man murdered, and a spy to catch. Sort that out, and we’ll have more of a chance no matter what move we make.”

  “I pray to the Old Father that you do,” Godrum Goldmane said.

  Fenris wasn’t a pious man, but he knew enough to raise an eyebrow at the statement. “Pray to the Old Father yourself?”

  “Aye. There are no priests around here anymore, Whiteeyes,” Godrum said. “And damn praying to the Saints. I’ll speak to the Old Father myself, like folk used to do.”

  “Yours are strange ways, Godrum.”

  “And what of the ways of Fenris Whiteeyes?”

  Fenris shrugged. He didn’t have much to say to that, didn’t do much thinking about it neither.

  “What a godless heathen you are.” Godrum slapped Fenris on the shoulder. “Find your killer, Fenris. I worry that calmer heads will only be able to prevail for so long.” After that, Godrum Goldmane descended the tower.

  Yoan, who had been waiting at a distance, approached Whiteeyes. “They haven’t seen anything either.”

  One of the men behind him called out. The guide smirked. “Except that Petri thinks that he saw a spirit.”

  “It didn’t hurt anyone?” Fenris asked. Fenris knew conceptually that the priest had cleansed the city, but he wasn’t going to rule out something hanging around.

  “No,” Yoan said.

  Behind him, one of the Kostian mercenaries stood, eyes wide and serious. He started yelling, berating the other guards. If there had been any levity at the man's fear before, it went away as the men were reminded of that night of shadows. Fenris only caught phrases of it. Something about a moving shadow… A glowing window… Bad luck…

  “What was that?” Fenris asked.

  “About the spirit?”

  “No,” Fenris said. “About the window? Where?”

  Fenris was not a scholarly man, but if there was one thing he knew about the spectres that the priest had fought, it was that there was nothing glowing about them. They had been the absence of light. If there were still some left in the city, they would not have been glowing.

  Yoan said something to the man in Kostian, and he halted his tirade. The man, Petri, looked confused, but after a bit of back and forth, Yoan got an answer.

  “He said that it was in a house in the southwest of the city; he can show you from here,” Yoan said. “He also asks if you’re going to be able to get the priest to come back.”

  “No need,” Whiteeyes said. He smiled to himself. It’s not a spirit. It’ll be a man, and my dagger will carve him up just fine. “Thank the man for his help, Yoan. I’ll make sure his spirit gets dealt with.”

  After the man pointed out the house, Fenris Whiteeyes left the tower with a pep in his step. It was a secret meeting place, perhaps. That meant skulking about, hunting in the shadows. It meant revenge. All things Fenris Whiteeyes understood better than the squabbling of leaders.