Orb ,Sceptre ,Throne

The man was frozen, eyes huge. He appeared to be struggling to take a breath to speak but failing. Yusek made a disgusted face. What’s this? So the fellow’s wearing a mask? So what?

No one moved or spoke; it was as if all were too terrified. A few like Yusek were peering about, confused; mostly men from the north. Since no one was saying anything she stepped forward, hands on the knives at her belt. ‘Hand over everything you have,’ she demanded.

A strangled high-pitched laugh burst from Orbern. He waved his hands frantically. ‘Don’t listen to her!’ he spluttered, almost squeaking. ‘You are free to go, of course!’

‘What’s this?’ called out Waynar, a great hairy fellow from the north who claimed Barghast blood. He uncrossed his thick arms and stepped forward. ‘Free to go?’

‘Would you shut up!’ Orbern snarled at him, then offered the two guests a nervous laugh.

‘You ain’t our king or anything,’ Waynar countered. He loomed up so close to the visitors that his out-thrust chin almost touched the masked forehead of the much shorter and slighter of the two. ‘Who in Hood’re you? An’ why’re you wearin’ that stupid mask?’

Damned straight! Yusek added silently. ’Bout time someone took charge. Looks like Orbern might be on the outs.

The spokesman tilted his head to peer past Waynar’s shaggy bulk. ‘Is this one in defiance of your orders?’

Orbern’s shoulders fell. He clasped his head in his hands and let out a long shuddering breath. ‘I am very sorry, Waynar,’ he said. ‘But … yes. He is.’

The spokesman shrugged. Or appeared to shrug. Something happened. Yusek wasn’t sure; she didn’t quite catch it. His cloak moved, anyway. Waynar’s eyes bulged. His mouth opened but nothing came out. Then a great torrent of blood and fluids came gushing down from the man’s waist, down over his legs, splattering amid falling wet glistening coils and viscera. The man almost split in half.

Yusek screamed, jumping backwards. Even the strangers stepped away from the spreading pool of gore.

Some went for their swords but others in the crowd stopped them, grabbing their arms. Orbern threw up his hands for calm. ‘Do not move!’ he called. To the travellers he offered a small bow of his head. ‘There will be no further challenges. Your demonstration is most … pointed. North of here you will find a handful of small settlements, homesteads and such. And I have heard rumours of a temple of some sort.’

‘Who knows this region best?’ the spokesman asked, his voice still mild and uninflected.

Orbern’s brows drew down once more. ‘Well, Yusek here has covered most of the slopes.’

Yusek tore her gaze from the pile of viscera and saw that the spokesman stranger was now regarding her through his painted mask. His eyes were hazel brown.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘You will guide us.’

‘Sure as the bony finger of the Taker, I will not.’

The spokesman turned away. ‘It is decided. We require food and water.’

Orbern exhaled his relief. ‘Shel-ken, find them some supplies.’

‘No! It is not decided!’ Yusek snarled. She glared at Orbern. ‘I won’t go with these murderers!’

‘Is this one also defying the hierarchy?’ the spokesman asked of Orbern.

Yusek backed up until her shoulder blades pressed against a wall. Orbern eyed her, one brow arched as if to ask: well?

All eyes swung to her. A few of Orbern’s men licked their lips as if eager to see her sliced from throat to crotch. ‘No,’ she said.

Yusek confronted Orbern after the two visitors had left the hall to wait outside. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded while he watched, pulling on one fat lip, as the mess that had been Waynar was hauled away. Fresh sawdust was thrown over the stained dirt floor. He returned to picking at the greasy bird carcass. ‘Well?’

His tired gaze flicked to her. ‘You’re hardly really a member of this little community of ours, are you, Yusek? You take every excuse to range over the slopes for days on end. It’s as if you’ve just been waiting for an excuse to cut and run anyway.’

She couldn’t find it in herself to deny any of what he said. ‘But with these two murderers? You saw what they did to Waynar! You just want to get me killed.’

Orbern pushed aside the bones. ‘Yusek …’ He rubbed his brow, sighing. ‘Firstly, dear, Waynar asked for it. He challenged the Seguleh. So, lesson number one — do not challenge them! Now, secondly, contrary to what we all just saw, in their company you will be the safest you’ve been in years.’ He sat back, opening his hands. ‘Thirdly, almost everyone here is a murderer — since when has that been a problem for you? And lastly, frankly, it has been a royal pain in the arse keeping everyone off your arse this last year.’

‘If they can’t control themselves that’s their problem, not mine. They can go hump animals.’

‘Oh, don’t fool yourself — some do. Or each other. In any case, I agree, yes. Why women get blamed for men’s callousness and lack of respect for others is beyond me. But it becomes your problem when it’s you they’re attacking. Yes?’

‘I’ll kill anyone who tries that. They know that.’

‘So I’m down yet another man.’

‘It’s not my damn fault they’re arseholes!’

He pulled savagely on his beard. ‘Yusek! The reason they’ve been driven out of all other towns and villages and families — any community of cooperative people — is because they are murderous, selfish, short-sighted, impulsive, cruel arseholes!’ He pointed to the door. ‘I’m doing you a favour.’

She didn’t move. ‘I can take care of myself.’

‘The fact that you’re still alive proves that, Yusek. But the odds are stacking up. Eventually, you’ll disappear and Ezzen, or Dullet, will have a self-satisfied smirk on his face for a few days … and that would be the end of it.’

Yusek lowered her chin. ‘I’m not asking you to do me any favours.’ She hated how sullen that sounded, but it was the truth.

Orbern sighed again. ‘I know. But I am anyway. Osserc knows why. Must be my civilized conscience.’

She went to pack the rest of her meagre belongings. Queen’s throw! I may as well just ditch ’em. She spotted Short-tall, out of the south, and raised her chin to him. ‘So who are these Segulath anyway?’

‘It’s Seguleh,’ he corrected her, then drew a slashing line across the air. ‘Swords, sweetmeat. Walking swords is what they are. Watch yourself or they’ll do you as they did Waynar.’

She gave him a face, threw her tied bedroll over her shoulder.

She found them waiting in the muddy garbage-strewn grounds that Orbern called the ‘Marshalling field’. A pack of gathered stores sat with them.

The spokesman indicated it. ‘Carry this.’

‘I ain’t no one’s pack mule.’

‘None the less.’

‘No. You can fucking carry it.’

Something whipped past her face — a silvery blur. Her bedroll fell from her shoulder into the mud, its rope tie cut. The man straightened, his cloak falling back into place.

Yusek stared. How in the name of Togg did he do that? She raised her gaze to the painted mask and the eyes behind: these studied her, narrowed, as if gauging her reaction. It was not the swaggering superior look she was used to from all those who’d bested her in the past.

She spat to one side — ‘Fine!’ — yanked up the pack, which was damned heavy, adjusted it on her back. ‘You do have a name …?’

The spokesman motioned for her to walk with him. The silent partner followed, hood still raised. As they approached the palisade door she spotted fat Orbern up on the catwalk. He waved for the solid log cross-piece to be pulled aside and the door pushed open. They exited into the woods with almost the entire crew of Orbern-town at the palisade watching them go.

‘My name is Sall,’ the spokesman said. Now, in the silence of the woods, he sounded rather young.