Foss & Loveless 2
The Righteous in its final form stuck with Chel’s POV for the duration, but in the original draft we saw a number of scenes from the POV of other members of the Black Hawks. In the middle part of the book, with the group split up, our heroes attempted to find allies for their coming battle against the forces of the crown.
In this section, Foss and Loveless attempt to convince an old warlord to join their forces.
‘Giving this one the charm assault?’ Foss leaned against dockyard pillar. It creaked.
Loveless was checking her reflection in a rust-coloured puddle. The red earth of the docks was glossy, sweating from the overnight downpour.
‘Best I can,’ she said, straightening. The great blue jewel was back at her throat, nestled under the throw of her cloak. ‘Unless you’d rather do it?’
‘Not my type, I’d wager.’
‘You’d be surprised, Fossy old boy. Geren Rashalien was quite the strapper in his youth, warlord of choice for the Amistrebi whenever they wanted to stick their oar into the Vistirlar’s politics. Course, when young princeling’s granddad kicked them back over the mountains, old Rashalien had a change of heart on his allegiances, decided maybe he was dutiful servant of the crown after all. Graciously offered to run affairs of the region, save the king appointing a viceroy.’
‘Charitable.’
‘Indeed. You can imagine his disappointment when Old King Akko declined his offer. Uneasy relationship with the crown and its minions since.’
‘And this makes him the man for us? Thirty years of animosity?’
‘Well,’ she said, arching her back, hands at her hips, and looking out over the wharves and the great vessel docked at their end. ‘He used to call Ghinspulol castle his home, and these days he’s permanently moored on an imported Hirauni pleasure barge at the wet end of the red docks, so I doubt he has much lingering love for the royals. He’ll smell an opportunity, and he’s still in with the Amistrebi. Ties run deep. Might be able to call in some favours.’
‘You could have told me all this on the way here.’
‘I could. But I wanted to see your face when you saw the boat.’
Foss looked back at it. A bloated, low-bodied thing, three-masted, bulbous towers jutting at each end. It was strung with lanterns and festooned with great silken throws, reds and golds, a picture of provincial wealth and status in the slanting late afternoon sun. Even at distance, he could hear the drifting strains of the music from its deck, something stringed and a horn or two, perhaps even a gentle tinkle of laughter its accompaniment.
‘Can we trust him?’
‘Ha, good one, Foss-bert. I’d trust Rashalien as far as I could throw you. But he’s an operator, he’ll see his margins.’
Foss stared at the barge, casting its long, tumescent shadow across the darkened wharves, its decks glittering infernal.
‘Evil days, my friend. Evil days.’
It took minimal shouting from the dock to get the gang lowered, a hinged and heavy thing with an ornate rail along one side. Either they were expected, or somebody else was. A liveried deckhand waved them aboard, but as he stomped up the gang, Foss noted the short blade at the man’s belt and the scarring on his knuckles. The sounds of merriment were unmissable once on deck, laughter and song coming from beyond the swooping veils of silk the criss-crossed the barge’s girth, swaying in the breeze and with the water’s gentle swell against the hull.
Loveless announced them to the two guards waiting at the rail, sour-faced men with scarred and bloodshot faces, bright tabards over old mail. To be precise, Loveless announced herself; Foss remained a nameless guardian in their prolonged charade. It was what people expected, he resigned himself, and he was accustomed to being unconsidered.
They walked along the deck, sandwiched between the guards, ducking beneath one sweep of material after another. To his disappointment, Foss realised that the hangings were embroidered linen, woven with enough twists of silk to give the impression of more. Up close, it was not nearly so impressive.
‘Rumour is,’ Loveless murmured as he held a shimmering curtain out of her way, ‘Rashalien has been running both the smugglers and the transit rackets in this neck of the woods. Let’s assume everyone here is armed, eh? And don’t eat or drink anything, just to be on the safe side.’
‘Why not?’
She offered an apologetic half-smile. ‘Bit of a reputation as a poisoner.’
‘Fabulous. Just fabulous.’
They were through the final fabric obstacle, and the main deck opened before them. A trio of veil dancers, either imports or impostors, swung and twirled before a collection of well-dressed but hard-faced types, drinks in their hands and no suggestion they’d moved from their placements all day. Loveless regarded the dancers with professional disinterest.
Rashalien himself was easy to spot, perched on a mountain of glittering cushions beneath a richly adorned awning, a sweet-girl cradled in one arm, a prettyboy curled at his feet, every bit the picture of the warlord gone to seed, as bloated as the barge beneath him.
The lead guard bade them wait, and trotted around the deck to notify a flunky of their arrival. Foss scanned the deck, taking in the fat tower looming from the stern, the crenellations that spread from it along the barge’s rails on either side. He noted the arrow slits, the shadows of unseen guards. He worked hard to keep his eyes away from the luminous boy at the warlord’s feet.
‘Place is like a floating fortress,’ he murmured, then tapped Loveless’s arm. ‘What do you see here, my friend? Strip away the faux-silk and the dancing. What do you see?’
Her eyes followed his, sweeping over the shape of the deck, looming towers, the high rails, the maze of silk-woven barriers behind them. ‘A killbox.’
‘Seems we should be on our best behaviour. You wearing your shirt?’
‘Don’t start.’
‘Then don’t come crying to me if you take a bolt to the spine.’
The flunky completed his whispers into Rashalien’s ear, and the warlord looked over at them. His glossy little eyes, closely spaced and murine, skipped over Foss and lingered on Loveless. He beamed, thick black beard splitting around a wide, hungry mouth. He waved a bulging arm, beckoning them over, shooing away his playmates.
‘Time to give him our song and dance.’
Foss wasn’t listening to the conversation, Loveless’s various claims and insinuations, the old warlord’s chuckles and smirks. Rashalien coloured his hair, from the look of it, and his beard too, their deep black too pure for natural colouring. Foss wondered if he would take well to Loveless’s vivid crest, or if he was hoping nobody had noticed. The old boy was still wearing armour, diamond-hatched soft leather, groaning over the bulk of his swollen gut. Foss doubted he’d held a sword in two decades.
His attention wandered, tracking shadows behind the arrow-slits in the tower above them, trying to gauge the number of guards that lurked within. Behind them, Rashalien’s party had moved up-deck, the dancers and musicians departed below while the hard-faced types drank on in their little circles. Foss counted the visible guards at three, the party guests at eight, the hidden shapes in the tower at between two and five. Little cover presented itself on the wide, open deck, the whole area at an archer’s mercy. His eyes lingered on the low, wide tables placed between the cushions, laden with bowls of nuts and snacks for the assemblage, and he pondered.
‘And your prince, is he with you?’ Rashalien’s voice was low, rasping, scrubbed raw from decades of bellowing. His little eyes glittered as he talked, almost lost within the crinkling folds of his skin. ‘Is he nearby?’
Loveless looked peeved, unable to keep the warlord on track. ‘He’s close, but he’s raising forces elsewhere in the south. The important thing to focus on here is that a great force is going to be marching south to disband the free companies in the territories and stamp down on them once and for all. This is a force, an army, with a core of church-bred fanatics, screaming vengeance in the name of the Shepherd and determined to immolate anything they consider heretical. This is, to be blunt, a very dangerous bunch. And if they crush the territories, they will start to look farther afield. They will start sniffing for the next heresy. They will be here before long.’
‘But where exactly is he? Perhaps he could grant me an audience. I’d be very keen to speak to him in person.’ He was smiling, a small, greasy thing, hungry for something more than the bowl of khash beside him.
Foss was alert now. He could feel it, a change in the man’s bearing, the tilt of his head, the slope of his hands. This was off. Foss trusted that Loveless would feel it too.
‘He is unavailable.’ She was keeping her voice level, but her hand had slipped from supplication to within her cloak. Foss stood straighter, his idle glances around the deck newly charged. He felt the crunch of his knuckles as he stretched out his fingers by his sides. ‘You can trust that, as his envoys, your words to us are as good as words to him.’
‘You know,’ Rashalien said, ‘there’s been a lot of upheaval recently. A lot of developments. I’m still not sure I’ve got the full picture on what’s been going on in Roniaman, but it sounds… interesting.’ The smile again, quick and greedy. ‘This great army, you think it could put the territories to bed, once and for all?’
‘Unless the people there can mount a sustained rebellion across the whole area, and the companies don’t allow themselves to be subsumed. They will need more than our best wishes to succeed. It is crucial that you draw in whatever influence you have with the Amistrebi, otherwise they will find their neighbour has become a ravenous and monstrous beast overnight.’
‘From what you’ve described, this sounds like…’ Rashalien sat back, plump on his cushions while Foss and Loveless stood before him. ‘…an opportunity. You were right to come to me. I’ll send word to Amistreb, rest assured.’
‘You’ll help? Fight back?’
Foss could sense them, by the creak of the deck behind him, the fall of long shadows in his periphery. The two guards, stepping closer.
Rashalien’s smile was wide, his eyes sparkling. ‘Not exactly. But they’ll want to be ready when the time comes and the dust settles. And they’ll be more than grateful for the chance to weigh their options from the sidelines.’
‘God’s balls, you want this to happen. You want a war. Foss, we’re leaving.’
‘…As, no doubt, will the church, when I hand them some of the perfidious heretics seeding revolt against our hapless new king. Tell me, how much do you think the Rose will pay for your heads?’
The guards were a pace away, their hands on their swords, unhurried. Rashalien looked delighted, thrilled at his game.
Loveless still had one hand beneath her cloak; the other extended, pointing one slim finger at the warlord. ‘Let us off this boat,’ she said, ‘and take some time to reconsider. Last chance.’
He laughed, taught armour creaking over the bounce of his distended belly. ‘It’s a shame you won’t live to see what happens. When carnage reigns across the south, you know who’s going to be there to sweep up? When all sides have smashed themselves to pieces against each other? Oh, my friends in Amistreb are going to be very, very happy with this news.’
‘You won’t reconsider?’
Rashalien’s coal-nugget eyes gleamed. ‘Why in hells would I?’
Loveless wasn’t smiling, but her teeth were bared.
‘Self-preservation. Fossy!’
He was moving as she was, driving away from the closing guards and towards the low food table that stood before the cushion-filled awning. Loveless seemed to roll on her feet, shifting and swivelling as she whipped her arm from beneath her cloak, that gleaming short-sword already a slashing arc. The air between her and Rashalien shimmered as if hot, then a crimson smile bloomed at his throat as his jowls flapped in confusion. The sword was already held out and still at her side, a long bloody smear along its edge, a single red drop forming at its point.
Rashalien screamed, wordless and hoarse, then the smile at his neck burst into flower, vivid lifeblood coursing through his desperate clawing fingers. Foss smashed one foot down on the table’s edge, flipping it and showering the deck with nuts and sweetmeats, then caught the top edge with one hand as it reared. The guards were closing, but shadows flitted in the tower.
‘Foss!’
He rolled around her, the table gripped and lifted in his hands, hoisting it over them as a volley of bolts from the tower punched into it. Loveless was still moving, skipping behind him as the two guards closed, darting lightning slashes to their hands and hamstrings. Cursing and bloodied, the two men fell back, one collapsing over the other as his injured leg gave out.
Another bolt slammed into the table, showering them with splinters as the tip burst through, and Foss swung around as Loveless advanced on the stricken guards. Beyond them, the party guests had roused themselves, grabbing weapons and bottles, crying bloody murder. From somewhere behind the table, Foss could hear Rashalien, gurgling and hissing as he bled.
The next bolt crashed low through the table-top, nudging his thigh as it came to a stop. ‘What’s our exit here? Over the side?’
She grunted, carving one of the retreating guards across the buttocks as he scrambled, blood-slick, away from them. ‘If we can even get over it, we’ll sink or they’ll hole us in the water. Back to the gang.’
He looked beyond her. Eight guests, another guard, the crossbowmen in the aft tower, and whoever was in the fore. Plus anyone else on board. He was going to need more than his punctured table. He ducked as they crabbed forward, flipping his table and snatching its thick stem. Now half a dozen fletchings bristled at him. As they passed another table, he bent low and grabbed it from underneath, hoicking it upwards and catching its stem with the same hand as its former contents rained down on the bloodied deck. A wide table in each hand, he swung around, presenting both to the archers in the tower, a wooden tortoise.
‘Make for the hangings. They’ll struggle to hit us in there.’
She was already a pace ahead, keeping to one side of the deck as the former guests closed. A mixed bunch in age and stance, they looked unsteady but enraged and had no shortage of weapons. One of the swaying men grabbed a knife from his belt and coiled to throw.
‘To you!’
She stepped back into his body as he swung around her, one table to the archers, the other blocking the path of the knife. It thudded from the pitted wooden surface and clattered to the deck to a howl of rage from beyond. Foss and Loveless moved as one, she matching his steps with precision and delicacy, pressed against his body between the tables but flowing like water around him. Bolts from the tower skittered and thunked around them, decorating the new table with porcupine fletchings.
They were ten paces from the first of the hangings when the guests charged, steaming towards the turtling pair with curved blades held high. Foss watched their approach over the near table, tracking them as the other table thumped and quivered in his hand from bolt impacts. He counted down their steps, then whipped the table aside as they went to strike. Loveless surged from within, a sinuous blur of steel, slicing limbs and opening veins. Foss smashed the table back around as their charge faltered, knocking men sideways and back into Loveless’s swirling blade. Then the billowing hangings were in reach.
They ran. Foss hurled the more battered table into the reeling guests, then lumbered after Loveless with the remaining makeshift shield hoisted over his back. They tore into the first of the linen banners, Loveless’s blade swiping a far more efficient entry-point through the shimmering surface than their original entrance. She looked like she enjoyed doing it, too.
Foss raced after her, feeling the whiffle of bolts passing overhead and slapping into the silk-woven linen that dangled around them. Loveless carved a wide gash through the next couple and ducked through, and he followed, only to find her halted the far side. He stopped, feeling the raw heat of his breath, tight in his chest, the burning of his muscles. His leg was bleeding, and he had no idea why.
He heard the footsteps ahead, the jingle of mail over the shouts from behind. The third guard. A shadow fell beneath the fluttering barriers, and Loveless swivelled and slashed, her reward a great carmine spray over the pale dancing silk, a garbled scream through the jagged rent she’d opened. Thumps and clattering from below drew Foss’s attention to a lower stairway beneath the floating throws.
‘More coming. Maybe on the wharf already.’ He looked around, the table over his back a sudden dead-weight. They needed a distraction. ‘Lanterns.’
‘Got it.’
Two swishing swipes and a string of lanterns fell, swinging down and away from the rail, crashing into the hangings and the deck. Several broke, spraying oil and flame over the stretched banners, catching on the gaping wounds in the fabric where it flapped against the deck. Curls of white smoke began to rise, a foul smell of burnt hair where flame touched the silk embroidery.
‘That should give them something to think about.’
The man at the gang was ready for them, but it made no difference. Foss charged with the remaining table high over his head, the twin bolts from the fore tower deflected by instinct. The gang man had a knife and little more, and Foss crashed the ruined table against him, driving him through the rail gap and over the side. Loveless stepped ahead of him, her cloak thrown back over, as flames began to roar in the mid-deck and thick smoke plumed into the russet evening sky. She descended the gang swiftly, her blade hidden, and when a cluster of shoremen came running she called out for help.
‘He’s hurt, he needs help! Everyone back aboard! Douse the flames!’
The men bundled past, tearing up the gang in search of their boss. Foss let them pass, then ducked out and down the gang, the table left propped at its end as a warning to others. The two of them sprinted down the wharf, ducking from parting bolts from the fore tower that never came.
They came to rest, panting, singed and bloodied, several alleys away from the docks, leaning against the wall in shadow until they were sure they were not pursued.
‘Well,’ Loveless said, cleaning her blade on her cloak and sliding it back into its scabbard with tender care. ‘That did not go well.’
‘It did not,’ Foss said, hands on knees, staring in contemplation at a murky puddle as he waited for the flame in his lungs to dampen. ‘Does this mean we can finally sell that infernal jewel?’