Vaelin was surprised to find a smile on his lips. “Thank you, brother.” He retied the ribbon and consigned the blocks to his pocket. “Didn’t happen to bring some food did you? I’m quite starved.”
Frentis made a journey back down the hill and returned a half hour later with Caenis, Barkus and Dentos, each laden with provisions and bedrolls.
“Haven’t slept under the stars for weeks now,” Caenis commented. “I find I miss it.”
“Oh, quite,” Barkus drawled, unfolding his bedroll. “My backside has indeed missed the joys of hard earth and sudden rain.”
“Don’t you lot have duties?” Vaelin enquired.
“We’ve decided to shirk them, my lord,” Dentos replied. “Going to flog us?”
“Depends on what kind of meal you’ve brought me.”
They roasted a haunch of goat over the fire and shared bread and dates. Dentos opened a bottle of Cumbraelin red and passed it round. “This is the last one,” he said, his voice laden with regret. “Had Sergeant Gallis pack twenty bottles before we left.”
“Men do seem to drink more in time of war,” observed Caenis.
“Can’t imagine why,” Barkus grunted.
For a while it was almost as it had been all those years ago, when Master Hutril would led them into the woods and they would camp out, boys sharing stories and mockery around the fire. Except there were fewer of them now, and the humour had a bitter edge. Even Frentis, in his way the most guileless soul among them, was becoming prone to cynicism, regaling them with the news that the dungeons were once again empty as the king attempted to add ever more regiments to the Realm Guard. “More cut-throats ready to get their throats cut.”
“Seems fitting,” Caenis said. “Those who have besmirched the king’s peace should be obliged to make recompense. What better way than through service in war? And I have to say, former outlaws do make excellent soldiers.”
“No illusions,” Barkus agreed. “No expectations. When you live your whole life in hardship, a soldier’s life doesn’t seem so bad.”
“Ask those poor bastards we left behind at the Bloody Hill how much they liked a soldier’s life,” Dentos said.
Barkus shrugged. “Soldier’s life often means a soldier’s death. Least they get paid, what do we get?”
“We get to serve the Faith,” Frentis put in. “It’s enough for me.”
“Ah, but you’re still young, in mind and body. Give it another year or two and you’ll be reaching for Brother’s Friend to silence those pesky questions, like the rest of us.” Barkus tipped the wine bottle into his mouth, grimacing in disappointment as the last drops dribbled out. “Faith, I wish I was drunk,” he grumbled, hurling the bottle into the darkness.
“Don’t you believe it then?” Frentis went on. “What we’re fighting for?”
“We’re fighting so the king can double his tax income, oh innocent urchin.” Barkus pulled a flask of Brother’s Friend from his cloak and took a long pull. “That’s better.”
“That can’t be right,” Frentis protested. “I mean, I know all that stuff about Alpirans stealing children was so much horse-dung, but we’re bringing the Faith here, right? These people need us. That’s why the Aspect sent us.” His gaze swivelled to Vaelin. “Right?”
“Of course that’s right,” Caenis told him with his accustomed certainty. “Our brother sees the basest motives in the purest actions.”
“Pure?” Barkus gave a long and hearty laugh. “What’s pure about any of this? How many corpses are lying out there in the desert because of us? How many widows and orphans and cripples have we made? And what about this place? You think the Red Hand appearing here after we seize the city is just some huge coincidence?”
“If we brought it with us then it would have laid us low as well,” Caenis snapped back. “You speak such nonsense sometimes, brother.”
Vaelin glanced back at the mansion as they continued to bicker. A dim light was burning in one of the upstairs windows, vague shadows moving behind the blinds. Sherin at work, most probably. He felt a sudden lurch of concern, feeling her vulnerability. If her curative failed to work she was naked before the Red Hand, like Sister Gilma. He would have sent her to her death… and she was so angry.
He rose and went to the gate, eyes locked on the yellow square of the window, helplessness and guilt surging in his breast. He found he was already turning the key in the lock. If it works then there is no danger, if it doesn’t then I can’t linger here whilst she dies…
“Brother?” Caenis, voice heavy with warning.
“I have to…” The blood-song surged, a scream in his mind, sending him to his knees. He clutched at the gate to keep from falling, feeling Barkus’s strong hands bear him up.
“Vaelin? Is it the falling sickness again?”
Despite the pain throbbing in his head, Vaelin found he could stand unaided, and there was no tang of blood in his mouth. He wiped at his nose and eyes, finding them dry. Not the same, but it was Ahm Lin’s song. A sudden sick realisation struck him and he tore away from Barkus’s grasp, eyes scanning the dark mass of the city, finding it quickly, a bright beacon of flame shining in the artisan’s quarter. Ahm Lin’s shop was burning.
The flames were reaching high into the sky when they arrived, the roof of the shop was gone, the blackened beams wreathed in fire. The heat was so intense they couldn’t go within ten yards of the door. A line of townsfolk relayed buckets from the nearest well, although the water they cast at the inferno had little effect. Vaelin moved among the crowd, searching frantically. “Where’s the mason?” he demanded. “Is he inside?”
People shrank from him, fear and animosity on every face. He told Caenis to ask them for the mason and a few hands pointed to a cluster of people nearby. Ahm Lin lay on the street, his head cradled in his wife’s lap as she wept. Livid burns glistened on his face and arms. Vaelin knelt next to him, gently touching a hand to his chest to check he still drew breath.
“Get away!” His wife lashed out, catching him on the jaw, pushing his hand away. “Leave him alone!” Her face was blackened with soot and livid with grief and fury. “Your fault! Your fault, Hope Killer!”
Ahm Lin coughed, lurching on the ground as he fought for breath, eyes blinking open. “Nura-lah!” his wife sobbed, pulling him close. “Erha ne almash.”
“Thank the Nameless, not the gods” Ahm Lin rasped. His eyes found Vaelin and he beckoned him closer, whispering in his ear. “My wolf, brother…” His eyelids flickered and he lost consciousness, Vaelin sighing in relief at the sight of his swelling chest.
“Get him to the Guild house,” he ordered Dentos. “Find a healer.”
Caenis came to him as they carried Ahm Lin away, his wife clutching his hand. “They found the man who did this,” he said, gesturing at another knot of people. Vaelin rushed over, pushing through the cordon and finding a battered corpse lying on the cobbles. He kicked the body onto its back, seeing a bruised and completely unfamiliar face. An Alpiran face.
“Who is he?” Vaelin asked, his gaze tracking the crowd as Caenis translated. After a moment a swarthy man stepped forward and spoke a few words, glancing uneasily at Vaelin.
“The mason is well thought of,” Caenis related. “The work he does is considered sacred. This man shouldn’t have expected mercy.”
“I asked who he is,” Vaelin grated.
Caenis relayed the question to the man in his halting but precise Alpiran, receiving only a blank shake of the head. Questions to the rest of the crowd elicited only meagre information. “No one seems to know his name, but he was a servant in one of the big houses. He took a blow to the head when they tried to break out a few weeks ago, hasn’t been the same since.”
“Do they know why he did this?”
This produced a babble of seemingly unanimous responses. “He was found standing in the street with a flaming torch in his hand,” Caenis said. “Shouting that the mason was a traitor. It seems the mason’s friendship with you caused some bad talk, but no one expected this.”
Vaelin’s scrutiny of the crowd intensified under the blood-song’s guidance. The threat lingers. Someone here had a hand in this.
The sound of falling masonry made him turn back to the shop. The walls were crumbling as the fire ate the timbers inside. With the walls gone the many statues inside were revealed, gods, heroes and emperors serene and unmoving amidst the flames. The murmur of the crowd fell to hushed reverence, a few voices uttering prayers and supplications.
It’s not there, Vaelin realised, sweat beading on his brow as he moved closer to scan the blaze. The wolf is gone.
In the morning he searched amidst the wreckage, sifting ash under the impassive gaze of the blackened but otherwise undamaged marble gods. It had taken hours for the fire to subside, despite the countless water buckets heaved at it by the townsfolk and gathered soldiery. Eventually, when it became clear the surrounding houses were in no danger, he called a halt and let it burn. As dawn lit the city he sought out the block with its vital secret, finding nothing but ash and a few shattered pieces of marble which might have been anything. The blood-song was a constant mournful throb at the base of his skull. Nothing, he thought. This has all been for nothing.