She twitched at a clonking sound, craned up at a creaking over the chatter of the river and squinted towards the archway at a bobbing light. A breeze stirred the branches, and the mist shifted, and she saw two men. One had a fine crested helmet, mail gleaming under a long cloak. The other had a bald head, lamp held high in one hand as he pushed the other door wide.
And the gates of Carleon stood invitingly open.
Rikke snapped the thong with a jerk of her wrist and tossed the dowel away into the bushes.
“Go,” she hissed, and Shivers sprang up, quick and quiet with the Nail right at his heels. With a metal whisper, the first dozen were up and after them, then the next dozen, then the next.
“Come on,” Rikke whispered, nails cutting at her palms she was clenching her fists so tight. “Come on…”
She winced at the clattering footfalls as Shivers and the rest ran out onto the wooden bridge. A moment she’d seen before, she was almost sure. Seen with the Long Eye. The cloaked man in the gateway fumbled for his sword.
His shout became a gurgle as the bald man stabbed him in the throat and shoved him back into the shadows of the tunnel. Proof once again that a little gold can succeed where a lot of steel might fail. He raised his lamp and stood politely out of the way as Shivers rushed past, leading a steady flood of armed men into Carleon.
Rikke slowly stood, wincing at the ache in her knees from all that squatting, and let her held breath sigh away. “So that’s it, then?”
“A good first step, anyway.” Isern planted one boot on a rock, grinning as a tide of warriors streamed through the misty woods around them and into the city, quiet as ghosts.
“Don’t kill anyone you don’t have to!” called Rikke as she set out towards the gates. She was far from the only one in the North with a taste for revenge, after all.
Things were surprisingly quiet inside the walls, for a city that just got taken.
Knots of Uffrith’s Carls stood on the corners, weapons drawn and shields in hand, one or two painted with the design of the Long Eye. Some prisoners sat about, weapons down and hands bound. A few townsfolk peered scared from windows and doors as Rikke walked past.
“Don’t worry!” She gave what she hoped was a reassuring grin, though the sight of her face didn’t reassure anyone much these days. “No one’s going to get hurt!” She saw a corpse being dragged away by a couple of Carls, leaving a bloody smear down the cobbles. “No one else’ll get hurt!” she corrected. “Long as you’re all, you know, polite.” She wasn’t sure she was helping. But at least she was trying. Trying a deal harder than when Black Calder took Uffrith, she reckoned.
The Nail was leaning against a wall, using a dagger to carefully drill a hole in the pointy end of an egg. He’d a way of standing very still, nothing moving until it had to.
“Worked, then,” he said as she walked up.
“Told you it would.”
“Not sure we’ve lost one dead.”
“Good news. On their side?”
“A couple. Weren’t a tenth o’ the men guarding the place there’d usually be.”
“Aye,” said Rikke. “They’re all off in Midderland, fighting King Orso.”
“Where you told ’em you’d be.”
“That’s why I told ’em so. Reckoned we’d have a lot more fun here.”
The Nail shook his head, blade flashing as he worked that dagger back and forth. “I knew you were a bad enemy to have.” He looked up at her from under his pale brows, his pale lashes. A long, slow look, just taking it all in. “Now I’m wondering if you might be a bad friend to have and all.”
“I’m a bad friend to betray, I can tell you that. Savine dan Brock would’ve sold me out soon enough.” Rikke realised she’d put her hand to the chain of emeralds she wore and took it away again. “She’s a woman who sells everything.” The two of them smiling together, on the bench in her father’s garden. Her hand on Savine’s belly. The baby shifting under her fingers. “As for her husband…” She thought of Leo’s boyish grin, all trusting, all heart, thought of him laughing with her father, thought of the boy he’d been, playing in the barn. She wondered what’d become of him now, in Midderland, without the help she’d promised. She felt a twinge of guilt, then was annoyed with herself for feeling it. You have to make of your heart a stone.
“Have I done what I said I’d do?” she asked.
“You have,” said the Nail.
“Has it worked out the way I said it would?”
“Thus far.”
“So what’s your complaint?”
“I’m not saying I’ve got one.”
“What are you saying?”
He blew a little dust from the top of his egg and his pale eyes rolled up to hers. “I’m saying don’t give me one.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” She nodded towards the big wall up ahead. The one Bethod had built on the high ground around Skarling’s Hall. The strongest wall in the North, maybe. Some men were easing towards the gate with their shields up, and a couple of arrows looped down and skittered from the cobbles, made them shuffle back. “In the meantime, we’ve still got work.”
“There’s always work.” The Nail kept on drilling at that egg with his dagger, patient as tree-roots. “The gates were shut when we got here. Whoever’s inside don’t feel like opening ’em. Keeps shooting arrows at us.”
“Not very neighbourly.”
“No. Come night-time, I was thinking I might climb over there and teach ’em better manners.”
Rikke considered the walls. Damned high, they were, and stark, and grey. “Let’s give ’em a while to consider their predicament. Meantime keep the peace, eh? Make sure no more blood gets spilled in town.”
“You’re forgiving.”
“A minute ago, I was too ruthless for you. Now forgiving’s a bad thing?”
“Depends who you forgive.” He squinted up towards the walls. “In war, you seize all the high ground you can.” He lifted the egg to his lips, looking small between his big finger and thumb. “Except the moral kind.” And he sucked the insides out through the hole. “That ain’t worth shit.”
Isern-i-Phail was in a square not far away, a row of disarmed warriors on their knees in front of her. Corleth stood nearby, proudly holding the standard of the Long Eye. Rikke walked over and planted her hands on her hips.
“I expect kneeling in the street wasn’t what you were hoping for when you got out of bed this morning,” she said. “I can only say I’m sorry for that.”
“Are you, though?” asked Isern. “Really?”
Rikke grinned all across her face. “Not one bit. The thought of Stour Nightfall’s face when he finds we stole his city is what’s been keeping me cheery these last few weeks.”
“Reckon he’ll shit his britches and cry for his mummy.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised,” said Rikke.
“But his mummy won’t come,” said Isern, cackling away to herself, “on account of being long years dead, d’you see, and he’ll be gnashing his teeth and kicking himself, and his mouth’ll pucker up like a little arsehole, and—”