The Heresy Within Read online

  Green leaned against the wall not a foot away from Betrim and eyed him, nodding to himself as he did. “You really him? The Black Thorn?”

  “Aye,” Betrim responded, one hand still hovering over his hidden pocket, the other over the shaft of his axe. He didn't reckon Green would try anything but he wouldn't be the first prick to try and make a name for himself by killing the Black Thorn. If Betrim had been just a little more cautious last time he might still have all nine of his fingers. And a couple more of his teeth. And a less bent nose.

  “Did you really do it?” Green asked.

  “Do what?” Betrim growled back.

  “Did you really kill all five o' 'em?”

  “Six.”

  “What?”

  “I killed six, everybody always forgets 'bout the first one.”

  “Shit.” Green's sneer had been replaced by something else now, something that looked a lot like awe. Betrim reckoned he preferred the sneer. “Is that how ya got the burn?”

  Betrim ran a three fingered hand over the left side of his face, smooth skin where it should have been rough, puckered where it should have been stubble, pitted where it should have been smooth and tugging where it should have been slack. Not an overly large burn but large enough considering it wasn't an overly large face. “Yeah, got this from the fourth one.”

  “Wow.”

  “I told ya not ta piss him off, didn't say ya had ta lick his arse.” Bones laughed from the floor.

  Swift rounded the corner at break-neck speed and slowed to a halt; bastard wasn't even breathing hard. He grinned from ear to ear showing a full set of white teeth; bastard had some good looking teeth.

  “You boys ready then?”

  “'Bout fuckin' time, Swift,” Bones said rolling onto his feet, “I'm freezin' my stones off out here.”

  “Ya ain't got no stones, couple o' shrivelled pebbles maybe,” Swift shot back at the giant, still grinning.

  “I'll bloody show ya I got stones!” Bones started reaching for his belt buckle so Betrim shoved himself off the wall and glanced out of the alleyway.

  “Everythin' in place?” he asked Swift.

  “Aye. Guards is paid off. They won't be comin' round here tonight. Boss an' Henry are inside waitin' fer us.”

  “Oh very fuckin' nice for them,” Bones whined in a deep voice. “We sit out here in the cold while they get ta 'ave a nice drink.”

  “They can afford a drink,” Swift muttered.

  “Good point,” Bones said and nudged Betrim in the ribs. “They here yet?”

  “No.”

  “Should be here real soon. I weren't too far ahead of 'em,” Swift said from behind having taken to leaning on Betrim's spot of wall. Something about that pissed the Black Thorn off but he kept silent.

  “How d'ya wanna do this?” Bones asked.

  “Flip a coin?” Betrim suggested.

  “You got a coin?”

  Betrim grunted and turned to Green. “Gimme a coin, lad.”

  “What for?”

  “Just fuckin' hand me a coin!”

  Green grumbled and shoved his hand into a pocket, pulling out a bronze bit. He stared at it for a moment and then slapped it into Betrim's waiting five fingered hand.

  “Heads or tails?” Betrim asked.

  Bones squinted at the Black Thorn. “Tails.”

  The coin flicked into the air, spinning and glinting in the dim lantern light before slapping back down into Betrim's waiting hand. Bones peered over.

  “Shit!”

  “Always bet heads,” Betrim sneered and pocketed the coin.

  “Hey wait a sec...”

  “Shut the fuck up, Green,” Bones snarled. “Target's here.”

  Eight men were walking down the street. Six of them were big lads, looked like they knew how to handle themselves and how to handle others if it came down to it. One was smaller, well dressed and walking at the head of the procession. The last of them was cloaked and hooded, all in black, shuffling along in the centre of the group, protected. None of them looked too worried about an ambush. A calm, unhurried stroll to a tavern is all it was. Except that the hooded one had a price on his head. A price large enough for the Boss to risk long odds in getting it. They entered the tavern with no rush and were gone from sight.

  “Right then,” Bones said rubbing his hands together, “five minutes?”

  “Give or take,” Betrim agreed.

  “Good. Green, you stand outside, watch the door, and kill anyone who tries to leave who ain't us. Swift...”

  “Yeah, yeah. I'll take the window.” Swift strolled off towards the tavern, taking his bow from his shoulder and fingering his quiver of arrows like as if it were a woman. Something about the sight disgusted Betrim.

  “Why do I gotta stand outside?” Green complained.

  “Cos me an' the Black Thorn know what we doing. First time here with us, ya get the shit job.”

  Green grumbled but didn't argue any further. Everyone knew their job, there was nothing left to do but wait.

  “YOU SON OF A WHORE! OOOFF. CALL THAT A PUNCH?” Bones always did have a flair for the dramatic. Betrim's performances had always lacked a certain passion in comparison, something to do with not liking being hit, he reckoned.

  Bones burst through the door to the tavern backwards, stumbled a few steps caught his feet on each other and tripped, flipping a table over as he fell. The two occupants of the table sprang up from their chairs, faces somewhere between scared and confused, and backed away from the giant sprawling mess now groaning on the floor.

  Betrim followed through the door a moment later growling low in his throat as he stalked towards Bones. All eyes in the tavern turned to him, as good a distraction as he'd ever made.

  “By Pelsing's golden tits. It's the Black Thorn!” shouted one of the eight, the little well-dressed one. “He's here for us. Kill him!”

  Not the best of outcomes but a good distraction all the same. Two of the eight were dead before they'd gained their feet; one with the Boss' axe splitting his skull from top to jaw, the other with Henry's daggers in his neck. The crazy bitch grinned as she drew them out, cutting the man's neck open from the inside, spraying bright red gore all over the table.

  Betrim roared, axe in hand and charged at one of the eight. There was a dull thud and the man looked confused, reached up to find an arrow in his neck and stumbled a step. Betrim's axe bit deep into his face, dropping the corpse and spattering himself with blood.

  He turned just in time to catch the wrist of a man swinging a heavy-looking sword at him. A punch to the face sent Betrim reeling with bright lights in his eyes and the taste of blood in his mouth and he found himself being pushed backwards by a bigger man than him. He caught the man's other wrist just as he hit the wall, hard.

  Betrim spat into the face of the big man, sent a thick, metal-plated knee into his crotch and then butted his scarred forehead into the man's face once, twice, three times. The big man stumbled backwards clutching at the bloody ruined mess of his nose and then froze. He gurgled, bloody froth issuing from his mouth and then dropped to the floor in a messy heap. Betrim saw Henry standing there, cruel smile on her scarred lips and dark red blood dripping from her twin daggers.

  “Crazy bitch,” Betrim said as he started forwards, giving Henry a shove with his shoulder as he passed her. She stumbled a step then grinned up at him, full set of teeth, some yellowing but most good.

  Only two of the eight left now. One of them was a giant, towering over everyone but Bones who was, it had to be said, not a small lad. The other was the smaller, well-dressed man, the one who'd recognised the Black Thorn.

  “Don't just stand there,” the well-dressed one screeched at the giant, “fucking kill them!”

  The giant looked around, didn't like the odds and tossed his sword onto the floor. “Bollocks to that,” he said and held up his hands, began walking for the door.

  Bones moved aside to let the man pass but watched him all the way. Henry looked as if s
he wanted to stab him but she held back. The Boss was advancing on the well-dressed man.

  “Shit!” he hissed as he tossed down his sword. The Boss herded him against the wall, mouth full of metal grinning out of his black-as-night face. It was a tough man that could stomach having metal teeth, Betrim reckoned, and the Boss was all sorts of tough

  “Hold up,” Betrim called from behind and moved forwards. “Mind if I have a word, Boss?”

  The Boss looked sideways at Betrim and shrugged. “Suit ya'self, Thorn.”

  Betrim stared at the little well-dressed man pressed back against the wall. He was rightfully nervous, sweating dark, wet stains into his fancy clothing. His light, greasy hair was plastered to his skull and his bloodshot eyes flicked about from one member of the crew to the next.

  “How is it you knew me so quick?” Betrim asked.

  “You kidding me? Burnt up, scarred face like yours? Be a bloody prick not to know you.” The little man sneered up at Betrim. “Inquisition is after you something fierce, Black Thorn. If I'd knew you were here I'd have told that Arbiter.”

  “There's one here? In Korral?”

  The little well-dressed man grinned.

  “Fuck! Ya need this one, Boss?”

  “Nope.” The Boss shrugged and turned away.

  Betrim swung a heavy, five fingered fist into the little man's face, felt a satisfying crunch and a just as satisfying squeal of pain cut off as his axe chopped into the man's neck. There was a quiet hissing noise accompanied by bulging eyes and a spurt of blood and the body dropped to the floor.

  “What happened ta the target? The hooded one,” asked the Boss.

  “Urghh.”

  “Ummm.”

  Henry just shrugged, wiping her daggers on the tunic of the tavern owner as he stared at her in horror.

  “SHIT!” roared the Boss. “C'mon. We don't kill him, we don't get paid!” He began storming for the door. “Leave that, Bones.”

  Bones was busy collecting fingers from the two men he'd killed. He spat on the floor and hurried, unwilling to let two new additions to his collection go.

  Outside, two bodies were sprawled on the floor; tavern patrons, the two Bones had scared. They had nothing to do with the matter at hand but died just the same.

  “Got them two, big one made it half way down that way 'fore Swift took him in the back. Dumb bastard.” Green had the hooded target by the neck. “But look what I found, target's a fuckin' bitch!”

  Green gave the hooded figured a shove towards the Boss and she collapsed at his feet. She was terrified but to her credit she didn't cry. Betrim hated the sound of women crying.

  There was an uncomfortable silence as all looked down at the target, broken only by Henry sucking at her teeth, a cruel glint in her eye.

  Betrim took a step forward and knelt by the girl. Dainty little thing, pretty little face, looked as much like a doll as a person. She glared at him through terrified eyes.

  “Damn shame but here it is. Dunno what ya done, maybe nothing, ain't really important now. Chances are ya a good person, or were anyways; certainly better 'an me. But the nature of the game means we do bad things fer bad people an' the good ones is usually the ones that get hurt... or stabbed. Thing is, we been hired fer a job an' you're that job. Ain't gonna say sorry but... well.”

  Betrim raised his axe and the woman's pretty green eyes went wide. A moment later and it was done. He picked up the severed head and held it out to the Boss. “Be needin' this I reckon, Boss.”

  “What the hell was that about?” Green asked.

  Bones put one of his giant paws on the boy's shoulders again. “Don't worry about it, kid. Black Thorn always gets all wordy when it comes ta killin' like that.”

  The hideout, if you could call it that, was on the outskirts of Korral. It was little more than a derelict wooden hut that Bones had found on their first day in town. Of course, what Bones meant when he'd said, 'found' was that he'd chucked the previous occupants, a couple of old beggars, out on their arses with a sound kicking. The result was the same, they got themselves a rat and lice infested place to hide with four walls and a patchy roof to keep out at least some of the rain. Betrim always found it funny how rain didn't bother a man until he had a roof to keep it off him, then it seemed a right nuisance.

  Bones had sat himself down, his large frame managing to fill one of the few dry spots, and started cleaning the flesh off the newest bits of his collection. Rats darted forwards to collect the scraps of discarded meat, coming ever closer as they decided Bones was a meal ticket instead of a threat.

  Green paced about the place making stabbing motions with his dull, cheap sword. He hadn't even bothered to clean the blood off the blade. Boys like that didn't last long in the game.

  Swift was perched near the window, practising some slight-of-hand trick he'd learned from a thief who'd tried to pick his pocket. It seemed to involve making a gold coin disappear up his sleeve. Betrim could think of much better uses for a gold bit.

  The door slammed open making Green jump for the rafters and point his sword towards the sound. The Boss ignored him and sauntered his way into the room before sitting down on the one and only bed. Henry followed the Boss in, closing the door then eyeing the crew with savage scrutiny.

  “Job went well, lads,” the Boss said cracking a metallic grin.

  Henry threw one small purse at Betrim and another smaller one at Green. She dropped a third into Bones' lap making his growing audience of rat admirers scatter, and handed a fourth to Swift. Swift grabbed at the purse and held Henry's hand with it.

  “How 'bout a bonus, Henry?” he leered into her face.

  Henry smiled, as sweet a smile as can be possible with a nasty scar from cheek to lip anyways, and took a step forwards, her hips swinging. She pressed herself up close to Swift and brought her knee up into his groin.

  “Hard an' fast. Jus' the way I like it.” She spat on him and then, with more grace than the average cat, deposited herself on the bed next to the Boss.

  “Your lovin' caress is as cruel as ever, Henry,” Swift groaned from the floor as he rolled about, laughing through the pain. Best way to get through a knee to the stones Betrim reckoned. You either laugh or cry and tears would get you no-where in this crowd.

  “Boss, I got a problem,” Betrim spoke from the section of wall he'd taken to leaning against. A good spot of wall, nice and dry.

  “The Arbiter,” the Boss growled, his bright eyes going hard in his dark face.

  “Aye,” Betrim growled back. “If that prick from the job recognised me, chances are others will.”

  “Might be time we all moved on for a spell,” the Boss said with a nod. “Reckon that last target was blooded by the look o' her. Reckon her family might come lookin' fer those that did her. Best we skip town whiles we can. Good?”

  Betrim nodded. “Good.”

  The Blademaster

  Jezzet watched the river. She watched the waters moving along their lazy course. She watched the froth where the water rushed over rocks. She watched a fish battling its way up stream, an eternal struggle against the current. It felt peaceful, not a word she often associated with anything in her life.

  Here in the forest, among the sparse trees, all jutting up reaching for the sky their branches thrusting in random directions, some growing downwards to grace the earth, some upwards towards the hot sun, others twisting and coiling around themselves. Here in the forest everything felt calm.

  She started walking again, following the river up-stream. You wouldn't have thought it to look at its lazy waters but, Jezzet knew, a long way away the river joined up with the furious Jorl; a crazy, thrashing mess of white rapids and currents that whipped in all directions at once. A person could get reduced to a bloody, messy pulp in moments in the Jorl. She'd seen it, witnessed it first hand, not something she'd like to experience.

  The noise of the river made Jezzet smile. Not too loud, and not too quiet; it was almost like a thousand tiny waterfalls all joining
together in one chorus. Nice smell too; clean water, clean earth, clean trees. A far cry from the greasy, rancid stink that accompanied larger settlements, all smoke and waste.

  Here a woman could almost make a decent life for herself, Jez... you know if not for the wild animals and occasional bandits. Jezzet tried not to think about those things, best just to keep on thinking happier thoughts. Dream of bandits and they'd no doubt appear. Much like dreaming of a fight. Shame dreaming of coin never makes it appear though.

  She saw something that didn't belong sticking out of the earth near a tree. A jagged strip of rusted metal half buried in the ground. An ancient sword. No doubt this forest was the site of some old, glorious battle. Seemed everywhere people went, glorious battles weren't far behind. Jezzet had seen plenty of battles; she'd yet to see a glorious one though. In her experience they were all just messy and painful and full of blood and shit. Still, it couldn't hurt to have a look at the sword.

  Jezzet started towards the antique. As she stepped in front of a large oak she heard something, only for a moment, only when the tree blocked out most of the sound from the river but she definitely heard... something. Could have been a bird in the bush somewhere, Gods knew there were enough birds but...

  Always best to be cautious, better to be cautious and wrong than careless and dead.

  She stopped by the ancient sword and gave it a poke with her foot; still sturdy but rusted beyond use. Jezzet looked around, as if searching for other artefacts, scanning the trees, the bushes for any sign of the noise she had heard. Nothing. Nothing made her more nervous than something. Nothing usually meant something while something had a habit of being nothing.

  She picked a direction away from the river, tightened the straps on her backpack and started walking. There were no leaves in the trees this time of year; they were all long since littering the dry earth, dead and rotting. Would make it hard to be silent should anything be following her; hard but not impossible.