The last of the Burners was running. Orso caught a glimpse of her terrified eyes as she dropped her axe and bolted. Sulfur let the limp corpse fall, its throat one single glistening black wound. The air about his shoulders shimmered, like the horizon on a hot day. Orso flinched as the woman burst into flames, fell to the ground on fire, thrashing and squealing.
Perhaps they were living in the age of reason, but anyone proclaiming the death of magic had done so, it seemed, a little prematurely.
Sulfur turned towards Orso with the very same smile he had worn before the explosion. But what had been a bland salesman’s grin was become a monster’s leer, dotted with shreds of flesh, his mouth daubed red, different-coloured eyes twinkling with the reflected flames of the woman he had somehow set on fire.
“So, might I speak to the lord chancellor?” Sulfur asked.
Orso was not sure what word he wanted to make, but what came from his mouth was a breathy, “Uh?”
“Regarding the funding for new track-roads, Your Majesty. Under the auspices of the Banking House of Valint and Balk.”
Orso stood staring for what felt like a very long time, one hand weakly holding his mother’s limp arm, his sword dangling uselessly from the other. He would have dropped it had his fingers not been stuck in the elaborate basketwork. The first of the attackers lay on his side at their feet, the cloth twisted from his stubbly face, a steadily widening pool of blood bubbling from his nose and mouth.
“Yes,” muttered Orso. “Yes… of course.”
Sulfur looked down at himself and frowned, as if he had only just now realised he was spattered red from head to toe. He dragged a hank of bloody hair from between his fingers and flicked it away.
“I should probably change first.”
Through the steady hiss in his ears, Orso could hear shouting. Sobbing of wounded. Cries for help. A breeze came up and kissed his sweaty face. Perhaps the future they were heading for was not quite the one that Curnsbick was selling. His knees felt very weak.
“Sorry, Mother,” he muttered, flopping back into his chair. “Need to sit down.”
A Fitting Welcome
“What the hell are we all here for anyway?” grumbled Downside, uncomfortable in his finery, though his finery came down to a new cloak over his scarred mail and having cleaned his boots for the first time in six months. He hadn’t even done a good job of that.
“To give the Young Lion a fitting welcome,” said Clover.
“Weren’t we fighting that Union bastard a few months back? Fitting welcome for him would be an axe in the head.”
“Axe in the head is your answer to everything,” muttered Sholla, who’d borrowed some mail for the occasion she could only make fit by tightening five belts about her scrawny person.
“All too true.” Clover nodded sadly. “And an inadequate response in affairs of state, I think it’s fair to say.”
“In whats o’ what?” mumbled Downside, baffled.
“This is all about presentation.” Clover nodded towards Stour’s War Chiefs and Named Men, lining both sides of Skarling’s Hall. The best of the best, and in their best gear, so many jewels and gildings being flaunted, Clover was half-blinded by all the glitter whenever the sun came out. “Show o’ strength. Display o’ power. We don’t need a fire, ’cause the day is warm, but they’ve banked the fire high just to show they can.” And indeed, those unlucky enough to be standing close to the blaze were sweating through their mail from it. “It’s not so much what the welcome says about the guest as what it tells the guest about the host.”
Downside looked more baffled than ever. “What?”
“Stour wants all these bastards here because it makes him look big,” said Sholla.
“Ah. Why didn’t you just say that?”
Clover sighed. “Because I have this girl to translate into halfhead for me.”
“What the hell is this?” Greenway was pacing the room, making sure everything met his standards, as if he had any. Now he’d come up to Sholla, sneering so hard it was a wonder his skull wasn’t showing. “Why the shit did you bring her?”
Clover heard Downside give a disgusted grunt and shot an arm out in front of him ’fore he exposed Greenway’s skull for real.
“You told me bring two o’ my best,” said Clover, with his usual calming grin. Felt like a keeper in a menagerie, sometimes, always struggling to stop the animals killing each other. “You didn’t want her here, you should’ve given more thought to what best meant.”
Greenway made great spectacle of sucking his teeth as he turned away. If tooth-sucking had been the measure of a man, he’d have had a place in the songs, all right. Sholla took it well. If you could say a rock takes a rain shower well. Downside, on the other hand, was a man who made a point of taking everything badly.
“Going to let that fucking arsehole sneer at one of our own?” he growled in Clover’s ear.
“You sneer at her often enough.”
“She knows it’s in fun.”
Sholla raised her brows. “How would I know that?”
Downside ignored her. He ignored anything that might stop a fight from happening. “She’s three times the man that fool is. He looks over here again, I’ll break his fucking head open, Skarling’s Hall or no.”
“By the dead.” Clover rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Great in a fight if you kept him pointed the right way, but here was why they called him Downside. “What do you think you’ll find in his head worth having? Boy’s an idiot. He’ll trip over his own cock soon enough, then you can laugh at the outcome without getting your hands dirty. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that there’s rarely any need to wade into the bitter ocean for your vengeance. It’ll wash up on the shore soon enough.”
“I never been much for waiting,” grunted Downside, glaring daggers across at Greenway, who was complaining at some Named Man whose cloak-buckle wasn’t to his liking. “Time comes you have to stand up, Chief.”
“Maybe, but I’ll tell you one thing for damn sure, the time’s not now.” And Clover grinned about the crowded hall like they weren’t dancing on the edge o’ murder. “Got to pick your moment, Downside. Can’t solve every problem with your fist. Sometimes brain and mouth are better weapons.”
“Those the weapons you been using, the last few days?” asked Sholla.
“As a matter of fact. Went to meet old friends and neighbours, talk things through.”
“What friends and neighbours you got that aren’t here?”
“Believe it or not, there was a time before I was nursemaid to you squabbling geese. I’ve had a long and varied career. Many famous chiefs down the years—”
“Didn’t you kill most of ’em?” asked Sholla.
Clover’s smile slipped a little. “A few.”
Downside was busy glowering. He was every bit as deadly with a glower as Greenway was with a sneer, a great fold jutting between his brows and his little lips pressed tight together in his bush of beard. “Say what you like. I never had a problem I couldn’t solve with a big enough blade.”