Watchmen

  Fenris Whiteeyes couldn’t see the two invaders’ faces, shadowed as they were from the moon. That made things worse, almost. Reminded the man of the spectres he’d been fighting four days earlier. Shivers in his spine. But at least, they had hesitated at his call, neither man coming any closer. That was a human thing.

  Fenris started to back up. He’d done his duty. If any more men came through that gate, he would be legging it back to the east gate, hoping that fear was a faster thing than fury. Hoping that his leg didn’t give out on the way. Light reflected off the wooden gate as someone holding a torch stepped through the gap. Fenris clenched his sword, was about to run for it when he recognised the lad holding the torch.

  Ruhner. The boy’s face was paler than usual, his expression uncertain, fearful. “What’s going on?”

  In the light of Ruhner’s torch, Fernis recognised the other two men that he’d been thinking of gutting and running from, only moments ago. They were both his soldiers, and like the lad, they had the same mix of puzzlement and fear on their faces. In the names of the Saints and bastard kings… Fenris scowled, marched past his would-be killers and smacked Ruhner across the jaw. The lad staggered back in shock, only to be kept on his feet as Fenris grabbed the scruff of his shirt.

  “That’s a fine bloody question,” Fenris said. “What is going on? Where are the men that are meant to be watching from the walls, Ruhner? What are you lot doing fucking around outside the gates?”

  To his credit, Ruhner did not start blubbing as other men might have, even as Whiteeyes pushed him against the gate. One wrong word. That was about all the lad had separating him and the fist of Fenris Whiteeyes. Hell, this could lead to a flogging or worse. Mistakes like this won and lost castles.

  “Talen’s dead,” Ruhner croaked.

  Fenris loosed his grip on the lad. “What?”

  “Talen’s dead,” Ruhner said, again. In the light of the torch, Fenris could see the glaze of tears in the lad’s eyes. “He was on sentry duty, posted by the spot near the river that you wanted. Found him dead. Talen’s dead.”

  Fenris let out a long sigh, let go of Ruhner, releasing a long stream of tension that was replaced by more stress. Talen’s dead. “I want every man back at his post. And you are coming with me.”

  Not only had the men been positioned back on their posts at the gate, with extra duties and the threat of a flogging if they were found off position again, but nearly the whole damned company had been woken up and stood too on the walls. A dead sentry could mean a lot of things in a position like this, with their enemies not far. None of them were good. Sure meant a lot more than the unconscious sentry that Fenris had left behind on that night in Lynetor. They were the ones under siege now, and there wasn’t the option of surrender after thirty days. Hell, there wasn’t thirty days’ worth of food.

  Fenris followed Ruhner out of the south gate, the lad holding the torch and solemnly looking to his right as they passed by the graveyard. Another stone pile would need to be made in the morning. They walked down the hill and through the trees to the point where the woods, river and open field met. There was a steep bank down to the river, a death trap to try and get an army up, but it provided good cover from anyone watching from Vannarbar’s walls. It’d be the route for any spies wanting to slip in and out of the city. That was why Fenris had put a sentry at the spot, and probably why the sentry was now dead.

  “Who goes…?” A shocked face appeared in the light of Ruhner’s torch. The man had his spear lowered at them, but raised it just as fast as he saw Fenris and Ruhner approach. “Shit.” He let out one long, shaky breath.

  “You were with Talen on watch?” Fenris asked.

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  “Yes,” he said.

  Fenris raised an eyebrow. “Why aren’t you dead then?”

  The sentry opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Nothing came out. He swallowed, the noise audible to all in the silent night.

  Fenris looked at Ruhner.

  “Dane said he was a little ways off to me, when I asked,” Ruhner said.

  The sentry, Dane, finally managed to get some noise out of his throat. “I was with him. We heard something rustling further down the bank. I went to have a look. When I came back, I found him.”

  “So, you weren’t with him then? Weren’t there when he died?” Fenris looked hard into Dane’s eyes. It was hard to tell if he was nervous because he’d been spooked or nervous because he was a liar.

  Dane was new to Fenris. The man had joined up with a couple dozen other men who had signed into the company when they were travelling back for the war in Baidon, freshly decided that they’d be fighting for Lord Herik. It’d been a matter of pay more than principle. So, Dane was new, but you couldn’t hang a man for being new. Not yet, anyway.

  Dane nodded. “I wasn’t with him.”

  “What did you find when you went looking?” Fenris said.

  “Nothing,” the sentry replied.

  “Right,” Whiteeyes said, sceptically. “Except, of course, Talen dead on the ground when you came back.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dane looked at the ground.

  Fenris could come back to this later if it came down to it, but it was a better excuse than taking a shit in the bushes while his mate was being stabbed, and it was a darn sight worse than any lie that Fenris Whiteeyes could come up with to cover his tracks. You could ask the brothel owner back in Lynetor about that. That had been a cover story and a half, not that it had mattered in the end.

  Fenris started with the ground around the body. It was a hard thing to read in the night with just Ruhner’s torch. Harder still, because the movement of two watching sentries standing on guard and pacing had pushed down all the tall grass around the spot. But as he worked around the body to the riverside, one thing was certain. Someone had come up from the riverbank, making a small track through the reeds as they did so. A spy from Larker’s camp, perhaps. They could still be in the city then. Good luck finding them in the night.

  The dead sentry was face up, stunned eyes reflecting the glint of Ruhner’s torch. He didn’t have any weapons drawn. His shield was still on his back, and his spear had dropped where he had fallen. Could he have been taken by surprise? Could he have known the man? The second question played across the mercenary’s mind, sending shivers down his spine. Fenris took a knee. There was something clutched tight in Talen’s hand. He pried the fingers open, pulled a talisman free.

  Fenris held it up. “Was Talen a devout man, Ruhner?”

  Nothing heard from the lad. Fenris looked up. Ruhner was pale. His throat made a sound, and the lad turned, a wet, pouring sound as he vomited on the ground. Ruhner had killed men in battle, surely, helped at the very least, though he’d never murdered someone, far as Whiteeyes knew. For Fenris, there was no difference between the so-called honourable killing in a battle and a quiet murder like this one. It was all war. Not so for the lad, apparently.

  “You and Talen from the same town?” Fenris asked, trying to distract him.

  He nodded, wiped his mouth with his arm. “We travelled east together, too, to sign up with one of the mercenary companies. Ended up back west in Baidon for this.”

  “There’ll be more campaigns,” Fenris said. Not if we all die here, probably not still, if I don’t. Fenris beckoned the lad closer, held up the talisman that he’d got from the dead man’s hand. “Is Talen a devout man?”

  “Prayed for luck when gambling, but I never saw that on him before.” Ruhner squatted down, had a closer look. The thing was small and made of gold. Three beams radiated up from a thick base, almost like a rising sun, but it was capped by another horizontal line above. “Doesn’t look much like a symbol you’d find around Baidon. I haven’t travelled much, but it looks like something from further east.”

  Fenris cursed. “Kostian.” The words slipped from his lips in a whisper, but it was loud enough to reach Ruhner. Fenris looked up, fixed his eyes on the lad. “This stays between us, understand. You may not live to regret it if you say anything.”

  Ruhner nodded, his eyes wide. The air was heavy with an implication unsaid. Larker could have had Kostians amongst his ranks. His boats had come from the east, but it felt like a bleak and hopeless guess. If there was one thing that Fenris knew for sure, it was that Smashednose had over a hundred of the bastards, all under the leadership of Hessen.

  Having worked his way in from the ground around dead Talen, to the man’s body and limbs. It was now time for Fenris to turn his attention to the bloody cause of the thing. It had been in the corner of his eye, but he’d been trying to avoid it, and now couldn’t. There was a cut across Talen’s throat. It was a savage looking thing, running from ear to ear beneath the dead man’s jaw. Fenris ran a hand through the rough hair covering Talen’s jaw. He cursed softly to himself. He couldn’t be sure, but he had seen this handiwork before. He’d seen it back in the siege camp of Lynetor, across the neck of dead Ralke Grey.