Jack of Ravens(57)

‘You have a plan when we get within the walls?’ Aula said. ‘Or is it just running, and hiding?’

‘There’s an inn not far from the gate. I have friends there—’

‘That white-faced freak?’ Aula said incredulously.

‘My friend, Jerzy, and another woman, Niamh. We’ll collect them and decide what route to take.’ He glanced back through the never-ending rain and could just make out four grey shapes, heads down, riding hard. They appeared to be closing.

Decebalus saw them, too, and pulled his horse alongside Church’s. ‘They are fresher than us, their mounts stronger,’ he yelled. ‘I will fall back to hold them off.’

‘No,’ Church said. ‘You know this world better than I do. You’ll be needed to protect the others. I’ll try to find some way to delay our pursuers and meet you at the inn.’

Decebalus nodded, paused in thought, and then clapped Church on the shoulder in a gesture that meant more than words. He urged his horse on to join Lucia and Aula while Church dropped back.

Church finally found his place where the track passed between two steep banks and a rocky outcropping overhung the route. Leaving his horse, Church scrambled up the slippery bank as the noise of the four pursuers grew louder. Jamming his sword under the edge of a boulder, he drove down upon it. At first it didn’t move, but then the stone began to heave out of the turf. As the hoof-beats began to echo off the opposing banks, he made one final effort and the boulder crashed down onto the track, taking with it a landslip of soil and smaller stones.

Church threw himself down the bank and sprinted to his waiting horse. He was almost upon it when he was hit by a force from behind. Seeing stars, he sprawled across the mud and puddles.

When his vision cleared, a man stood over him, but it was neither Tannis, nor Owein. His hair was long and dark brown, plastered to his head by the rain, his chin bearded. The blackest eyes Church had ever seen stared out of a face like granite. The man was naked to the waist, his muscled torso covered with an array of strikingly vivid tattoos. Also striking was his left hand, which was an ornate mechanical claw that appeared to be made of silver. In his right hand he held a sword much like Church’s, but the fire that crackled along the length of the blade was a desolate black.

‘Hello, mate,’ he said in an emotionless South London accent. ‘It’s taken a few years to track you down, but I always knew we’d hook up sooner or later.’

Blankly staring, Church tried to draw on the distant echoes that rang in the gulf where his memory should be.

‘Don’t remember me? I’m hurt. The name’s Veitch. Ryan Veitch.’

Veitch stepped forward and swung his sword. The last thing Church saw was Veitch’s face, filled with venom.



12



Church woke to the creak of wood, the rhythmic splash of water and the tang of salt in the air. His head still rang from where it had taken the flat of Veitch’s blade. He was in the dark, damp confines of a ship’s hold, surrounded by amphorae, and the swelling motion of the boat told him he was at sea. Manacles had chafed his wrists raw. He didn’t know how long he had been out, but his throat was arid and his muscles ached from where his arms had been fastened behind him.

The first coherent thought that sprang to Church’s mind was Veitch. Was he the one who had killed Etain and the others, and had scrawled ‘SCUM’ on the wall? He clearly knew Church. But the weight of his hatred was shocking. What could possibly have happened between them?

After half an hour, an olive-skinned man with wild black hair brought a bowl of oats and honey which he fed to Church roughly. Church tried to engage his jailer in conversation, but the man ignored him, and wouldn’t meet Church’s eyes.

Sometime later, when the gloom had deepened, Veitch came to visit. He entered like a ghost; Church didn’t hear a thing and only noticed accidentally that Veitch was watching him, his hallucinogenic tattoos glowing in the shadows.

‘Come to taunt or torture?’ Church said.

‘Either would work for me.’ He crossed the space between them with the restrained grace and power of a jungle beast. His sword was sheathed, but Church could still sense it; his stomach churned and his teeth went on edge the closer it came to him.

Veitch leaned on the bulkhead a few feet away, tugging gently on his beard as he eyed Church coldly. Something crackled between them – a weight of history, a connection, rich and deep and complex, but Church had no context in which to place it.

‘You’re a tough bastard to catch, I’ll give you that,’ Veitch said.

‘You killed Etain and the others in Carn Euny.’