01 - Honour of the Grave (10 page)

“That’s him,” he said. “Are the boots here?”

“They’re missing,” said Angelika.

Benno subjected her to a prolonged and searching look. She blinked blandly
back at him.

“It’s Claus, then?” Gelfrat asked.

“It’s Claus,” said Benno. The two stood and regarded the bones.

“Well then,” said Angelika.

Gelfrat turned and embarked on a search of the needle-strewn ground around
the flat rock.

“So this is him?” Angelika said.

Benno nodded, distractedly.

“Then my payment has now come due.”

“In a moment,” he said. “You didn’t find a… second pair of boots, also with
golden buckles?”

“I don’t recall saying I found any gold buckles.”

“There is a second officer. We must find his remains as well.” He glanced at
Gelfrat, then headed off in the opposite direction, vanishing into the trees.

Beckoning Franziskus to come with her, Angelika slipped gracefully through
the little forest. He kept up well, mimicking her stealth. The others still
thrashed enthusiastically amongst the spruces, unconscious of their movements.
She led Franziskus to the sinkhole’s westward edge, then hefted herself up the
slope, grabbing onto trunks and branches as she went. Soon her fingers were
sticky with their resin.

“Where are we going?” gasped Franziskus.

“Just follow,” she said.

Shouts came from below. She craned her head to see Gelfrat bouncing up and
down amid the spruces, shaking his fist. The big man was chasing, but he wasn’t
agile enough to thread between trees. He kept smacking into them. He ducked to
hurl a stone, but it landed wide of them and tumbled back down the incline.
Angelika reached the lip of the bowl and gave Franziskus a hand up. Gelfrat was
now battling his way up the slope, but for every forward stride he took, he slid
half a step back. Angelika yanked on Franziskus’ arm and pointed to the hills.

“What are we doing?” asked Franziskus. She did not answer. She ran at full
speed across a small stretch of flatland, then bounded up onto an incline of
exposed, yellowish rock. Nature had arranged it into a rough set of terraced
steps. She leapt from one ledge to the next.

Franziskus scrambled to match her. Blood crashed in his temples; he heard
more shouting from below. He did not dare turn around to see if the Averlanders
were giving chase, or how close they might be. Above him, Angelika sidestepped
into a copse of scraggly pines. She was a blur between trees. He copied her leap
and landed, to slide on wet needles. Franziskus pounded after her, as she hit
the peak of a ridge and then dropped down past it, disappearing from view. He
reached a flat bit of ground, which wound like an overgrown road, hugging a wall
of mountain rock. Finally he found her, behind a tall bush with broad and waxy
leaves. She was hunched over, with her hands on her knees, and out of breath.
Beads of sweat fell from her face to the forest floor. He threw himself against
a tree and heaved in cool lungfuls of mountain air. It took him a while to find
the power to speak. “Why—what did we just do? Why did we run?”

“They were lying to us,” she said. “They weren’t there for Claus’ sake.
Something else is afoot.”

“You misjudge them. They are good and fine soldiers. Better than me.”

“They’ve deceived us.”

“It’s because of the thrashing they gave Ekbert, isn’t it?
It’s turned you unfairly against them. You don’t understand—Benno’s
commands were harsh but correct. It was Gelfrat who was in the wrong.”

“No, no, it’s nothing to do with that. There’s another one of them—my guess
is another von Kopf—and they think he might still be alive.”

“What?”

“When we found Claus’ bones, did it seem to you like they knew what to do
with them? For all their talk of taking the body back for proper interment,
you’d think they’d have brought a coffin or casket with them. A fine box of
inlaid oak, at least. But they had nothing of the kind. And then when they asked
about a second pair of buckles…” She paused to stop and breathe again, and to
listen for the sounds of pursuit. “You see, I’ve been holding back something from
them, too.”

“I don’t like the sound of this.”

“It wasn’t the cawing of crows that took me to the scene of that battle. I’d
been following the Averlanders for weeks. I watched them as they drove off a
force of orcs three times their number.”

“That disappointed you, I’m sure.”

“They left the battlefield too clean for my tastes, if that’s what you mean. I
followed them north, keeping a few hours behind them. Then I heard the clanging
of swords. In accordance with my usual caution, I stayed well back of the fray.
I merely assumed they’d found a new party of orcs to fight. It wasn’t until a
troop of motley battlers came out from the trees, wiping their swords clean,
that I realised they’d been fighting other men. Even then, it never occurred to
me they were Prince Davio’s irregulars—I’d taken them for common bandits.”

“A fact you chose not to mention to Benno and Gelfrat.”

“To avoid awkward questions. Like: were any of their men still in the midst of
dying when I secured their valuables.”

“And were they?”

“The important point is this: late in the skirmish, I saw several of the
Averland side get up and run for the hills. Three of them had been playing dead.
And one had something glinting on his boots, as he ran.”

“The second set of gold buckles.”

“Which would make him the other officer they seek.”

“And this is why you ran?”

“If it’s him they truly want, and we can find traces of his passing, then we
can go back and demand a higher price for what we know.”

Franziskus sat down, flourished his cloak around him, and crossed his arms.
“Once more I’ve made myself a party to dishonour.”

Angelika smacked her hands together, then wiped the sweat from her hair.
“What harm have I done them? I took them to Claus’ body, as I’d promised, then
departed before they even had the chance to pay me. To me, that sounds like the
height of generosity.”

“But you left merely in hopes of extorting greater sums in future.”

She set off to the north. “You speak in hypotheticals. Who knows? It’s
unlikely, after so many weeks, but we might even find him in one piece. What
would be wrong with that?”

“Now you’re speaking rhetorically.”

“This is the way,” she said, eyes on the trail ahead. “They fled as we did,
running up that terraced incline, there—see?—and into these woods. And
there’s only one way to head from here.” Angelika proceeded slowly, scanning the
forest floor, in case she might spot a button on the ground or a tuft of yellow
fabric still stuck to a jabbing branch. A finch, his throat adorned in bright
red feathers, landed nearby and warbled, showing them the way. After a few
minutes, they spotted an upward path, which would lead them higher up into the
mountains. It presented them with a choice of routes. “So, you’re a skinny young
Imperial officer,” mused Angelika, “and you’ve fled into the mountains alongside
a couple of soldiers. Do you stay down here in the foothills, or do you keep
going up?”

“If I know the men chasing me are out for blood vengeance, I’ll take the
toughest, most discouraging path.”

“Then up we go.”

The trail terminated at the bottom of an incline made of loose, fist-sized
rocks. At the top, Angelika could see a lush stand of tall weeds. She and
Franziskus crawled to it like crabs, using their arms and feet to haul
themselves up. Every so often, one of them would hit a patch of looser stones,
and slide down with them, losing dozens of paces each time. Angelika got to the
weeds first, and reached out to grab at their roots.

A thick, stout-fingered hand reached out for her, wrapping itself around her
wrist. Its owner pulled her up. Her legs dangled wildly beneath her. Her rescuer
was a halfling. With his free hand, he smashed her in the face.

Suspended by one arm, Angelika could not move back to evade the halfling’s
second blow. It hit her right on the bridge of her nose, just as the first one
had. Her vision blurred. She stopped flailing her legs and instead jabbed them
in front of her, trying to find something solid to plant them against. A rock
sailed in from behind her; Franziskus had thrown it. The halfling ducked, and
Angelika wrenched herself free, dropping down onto the loose rocks. She landed
on her knees and slid, skidding down the incline past Franziskus, who now had
his rapier out. He charged up the slope, but his efforts just loosened more
rock, so he remained in one place, showering stones out behind his skiddering
boots. Angelika’s assailant appeared at the plateau’s edge, brandishing a
fat-headed cudgel of lacquered wood. It was the same halfling who’d assaulted
her back at the Castello. He opened his mouth and yowled at Franziskus, who
stooped to lob another stone at him. The halfling popped back, disappearing from
view.

Franziskus turned to check on Angelika; who’d regained her footing. “Do we
run?”

Angelika crouched to scoop up a rock. “We need to chat with him,” she said.

The halfling stuck his head up past the weeds. She chucked her stone. It hit
with a satisfying thud. The halfling cried out. He yelled obscenities in the
halfling tongue—the only words of the language Angelika could recognise—and
hurled himself over the ledge onto the rocks. They sprayed out at his point of
impact. He shot past Franziskus, who tagged him with his rapier tip, drawing a
tiny gash along the back of his weapon-hand. Then he launched himself at
Angelika. She moved aside from his bullish charge, but he reached out on the way
past and seized a handful of her hair in his fist. He dived, using his momentum to pull her down. She landed on her shoulder blades and elbows. She
rolled onto his back and clawed at his leather helmet, hurling it aside. It hit
the rocks and bounced to the bottom of the slope. She grabbed onto his ears.

“Not that trick again, girlie,” he grunted, and pushed himself up, knocking
her off. He turned to smash her with his cudgel, but she’d already twisted out
of the way. He clambered up. A stone hit him in the gut: Franziskus again. The
halfling ducked down to claim a rock of his own, but Franziskus got him in the
temple with a second lob. He barked like an animal and ran at Franziskus, who
had dropped his rapier, to pick up stones. Franziskus hurled two rocks at the
halfling in the course of his charge, but both fell short. The halfling swung
his cudgel wide, and Franziskus ducked to miss the blow. This left his throat
exposed, so the halfling wrapped his hand around it. Franziskus’ eyes bugged
out.

Angelika leapt on the halfling, a six-pound rock clutched in both hands. She
smashed it repeatedly onto the back of the halfling’s bony head. After the third
blow, the halfling’s knees buckled. After the fourth, he released his grip on
Franziskus’ throat. Between the fifth and sixth, he sank down onto the rocks,
face up. His eyes fluttered shut. Moments later, they reopened.

“You should not be conscious,” Angelika said. She raised the rock above his
head, ready to crush his windpipe. The halfling weakly waved his hands. “I give
in,” he said.

“Resilient bugger, aren’t you?” she said.

“Mother Goatfield didn’t raise no weaklings, girlie,” the halfling croaked,
spitting foamy drool.

“Your name is Goatfield?”

“Toby Goatfield, not that it matters to you. The name of interest here is
Lukas von Kopf.”

“
Lukas
von Kopf?”

“Don’t play like you don’t know it.” He paused for a fit of choking. “That’s
who the Averlanders brought you here to find. And we think you know where he is.
He’s alive, isn’t he?”

“So you came to get your head half caved-in as part of an ingenious ploy to
wheedle information from us?”

He sat up. She put a foot on his chest, pushing him back down. He looked at
it like he might bite her toes. “You can arouse me into fits of tumescence all day long, girlie, if that’s what you
want, but maybe you’d prefer silver instead.”

Franziskus leaned forward to grab at Goatfield’s greasy jacket. “Speak
respectfully to the lady, you rancid heap of gutter trash!”

Goatfield wheezed. “You’re pretty, too, boy, though you’re not my type.” A
satyr’s grin bloomed on his wide and battered face. Franziskus lurched up,
disgust contorting his features.

“Who do you work for?” demanded Angelika.

The halfling added teeth to his smile. “It’s a secret, but if you lean in and
let me smell you, I might just let it slip.”

She kicked him in the groin. He doubled up, knees to chin, and made agonised
noises. She waited a while, then kicked him in the behind. “Ow! Enough torture,
girlie! I work for Davio Maurizzi!” He opened an eye, looking up to the top of
the slope. Together, Angelika and Franziskus took a step back.

“Do you have confederates up there?” she asked.

“What would make you think that?”

She said to Franziskus: “He has confederates up there.” She bent down to grab
a handful of the halfling’s ear and squeezed it like a rag. Tears dripped from
the sides of Goatfield’s eyes. “And if we took you to this Lukas, you’d just
bash his brains in, wouldn’t you?”

“No, no, girlie! If I don’t bring him in breathing, I don’t get paid!”

“And what does Prince Davio want with him?”

“As you know, the boy’s father has been holding a grudge against Maurizzi,
and has been killing his mercenaries. I suppose the prince reckons a hostage
might change old Jurgen’s tune. Your enemy’s last surviving legitimate heir—that’s a fine catch on any day of the week.”

“So you know Claus is dead?”

“We sifted through his bones, hours before you arrived. That makes Lukas the
prize. He’s worth more to us than whatever those cheese-paring Averlanders have
offered you.”

“How much?”

“If you turn him over to us, we’ll double their price.”

“That would be four hundred crowns.”