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  “The bread?” the man had replied. Well, he had whimpered a lot, had his head banged against a beam, and then said, “The bread?”

  “Where is it being?”

  The man had just cried. Balur had not understood it at all.

  He had then become vaguely aware of something tapping at his waist. He looked down. Standing there had been a man in his fifties. He wore an apron, a mustache, and a prominent bald spot. In his nontapping hand he had held a mug of ale.

  “Perhaps,” he had said, voice shaking, “you just fancy a brew? I think it’s been a long day for everyone.”

  Balur had considered this suggestion. Finally he nodded. The man had wilted visibly, a sigh exhaling.

  “This is being a good idea,” Balur had told him. He had been pleased that someone here beside himself had finally shown some initiative. “You will be fetching me five barrels.”

  “Five?” The man had sounded horrified, though for the life of him Balur had not understood why. He had looked around the room, reevaluated.

  “Four will probably be covering it. You are largely being gutless, I suppose.”

  The man had whimpered and retreated. Balur had waited with poorly concealed impatience. Beside him, Firkin had seemed to have recovered enough to be considering opening his mouth. Balur had given him a long look that he believed suitably conveyed how sick he was of Firkin’s bullshit and false promises of prophets, and that if he opened his idiotic mouth to give voice to more idiotic suggestions, he would soon find his idiotic tongue wrapped around his idiotic neck. Firkin had seemed to possess enough sense to understand that at least.

  Finally the man had appeared along with several others and the requisite barrels. They had fetched five after all. Using his claws Balur had yanked off the barrel lids, and upended the vial of Fire Root potion over them all, ensuring a liberal amount went into each barrel. He had dunked his arm in each one and swirled it around to ensure a good mixture. He licked a single talon clean. The Fire Root tang had been a powerful kick at the back of his throat. The growl in him had grown.

  “Drink!” he had barked at the crowd.

  Maybe it was him. Maybe it was his accent or his syntax. Sometimes humans did have trouble with that, though he was trying to make this fairly pissing simple for them all. Maybe they were all just horribly inbred and stupid. That would help explain Firkin, for one thing.

  Actions, he had decided, would speak louder than words.

  He had picked up the hapless, soiled villager who knew nothing about bread, and had dunked him headfirst in the ale. He held him there until he felt the man’s chest buck, and he started to kick. That should be a good long swallow.

  The man had come up barking, braying, and finally, it seemed, with a bit of fight in him. Balur was satisfied.

  “Drink!” he had barked at the room once more, and this time a very pleasing crowd had formed around the barrels as the villagers had scrambled forward to comply.

  Lette could say what she liked about his leadership skills. This was proof he could command the masses.

  After that, there had not been much left to do until the villagers had drunk their fill, and replaced all their cowardice with a bellyful of alchemically induced murder-lust. And that had led to contemplation, which had led to morose pondering upon Mattrax’s dismissal, which had led to embarrassment, which had led, inevitably, to a need for drink.

  By that point most mugs had been smashed over someone else’s head as the villagers raged and smashed at the confines of the tavern. So Balur had just grabbed a barrel, raised it to his lips, tipped, and poured.

  He had lowered it with a satisfied smack of his lips, and seen Firkin’s slightly horrified expression. There was a moment of suspicion that perhaps that had not been the smartest thing to do, and then the Fire Root had taken that idea out the back and kicked its head in.

  And Balur had drunk.

  Everyone had drunk.

  He drank again now. Feeling the fire expand out from his belly, into his arms, his fingers, his legs. He was a growl no longer. He had transcended the growl. He was an openmouthed howl of rage into the night. He was the imminence of violence. He was the potential for devastation. And he was tired of waiting.

  Above him, hunkered down in his pathetic cave, Mattrax was sleeping. Sleeping and not even thinking about him. Well, that would change. Mattrax would think of him long and hard. Or at least for as long as it took Balur to cave in his skull. Balur was rather beyond the specifics of timing by then.

  Finding the door proved difficult. Simply tearing a hole through the cowshit and straw of the tavern’s outer wall less so. He sprang, howling into the night. Baying and screaming, the villagers followed hot on his heels.

  17

  The Smartest Man in the Room

  Bugger, thought Firkin as he started off after the crowd. This is about to go as well as that time I put a ferret in my britches.

  18

  Nom Nom Ethel Nom

  Mattrax chewed upon his dinner disconsolately. The meat they had brought him tasted funny. Maybe it was time to bring back the position of official taster once more. They never seemed to work out, though. He always got peckish while waiting for his cow, and ended up eating them.

  He shifted irritably on his pile of gold, sending coins skittering in rolling cascades. He picked up a crown with a single claw. The gold was pure, thick, worked into a design so fine that in places the metal had the texture of paper. It was a technique from a lost age. He thought he had pried it from some scholars who themselves had scavenged the thing from the tomb of a Vinland king. Some lunatic who had dedicated himself and his kingdom to Barph. Some fool willing to dedicate himself to a life of indulgence and pleasure.

  Mattrax breathed out and the crown melted in the corona of his fire. He smeared the dripping slag on the wall of his cave. He was thinking of coating the whole thing in gold. The stone was ominous, yes, but dreary too. It would be glorious to have a golden cave. He bet stupid Dathrax didn’t have a golden cave. Dathrax—living in the middle of a lake. He would have gold and Dathrax would have mold. He snorted at the thought.

  Still, melting his own gold was a lot of work. Maybe he’d reintroduce slavery. The Consortium had ruled against it. One of their annual meetings at the Hallows’ Mouth volcano. Something to do with riling up the masses. But there were no masses up here. Just idiots, like those ones swilling around his cave earlier. Gods, they had been annoying. And his ridiculous, pointless guards. Just standing there, dying. Did he have to do everything himself?

  He stifled a yawn. He was feeling unexpectedly sleepy. Probably all the murder earlier. Idiot guards exhausting him like that.

  He took another bite of his meal. What was wrong with this meat? He took a few more experimental mouthfuls, trying to identify the flavor. Were they trying to spice his meat now? Gods.

  He contemplated leaving it where it was. But he’d eaten three of the guards earlier and plate mail always upset his digestion. Some simple cow meat would be good for him.

  He gave into another yawn, and then settled in to chow down.

  19

  A Familiar Face

  While he had never given it too much thought, Will had always had the impression that he could describe himself as a strong-willed man. Stubborn, his mother had called it. And his father. And both Albor and Dunstan, at least every other day working on the farm. But Will just understood he was a man who knew his own mind, and who had the strength of resolve to see his plans through.

  That said, there was only so long one could hide out in a latrine at Castle Mattrax. Willpower could last only so long against that stench.

  He slipped out into the keep grounds. The sun had descended behind the peaks of the mountains, and night had mercifully fallen. In the safety of shadows and starlight, he should be able to slip out of the castle and…

  And…?

  He honestly wasn’t sure. The plan was clearly in violent disarray. Maybe he could reconnect with Quirk. Maybe he cou
ld find Balur or Firkin. Or at least their grave markers.

  Gods…

  He shook his head. He had enough concerns to deal with in the present moment, without trying to work out the ones he’d have to confront in the future. Those would simply have to form an orderly queue and wait their turn.

  He slunk slowly along the wall leading to the first of the inner gates, trying to plot out a route using half-remembered maps outlined in half-remembered conversations with Firkin half a life ago.

  The problem, he concluded, was that the castle was pressed up against a mountain on three sides. It was distinctly lacking in side doors. And, as his entry to the castle had shown, the one door that did exist was guarded by arseholes.

  He needed a good cover story. Some sort of urgent task that he had been sent upon. Something that even one of the spite-filled, gutter-minded guards could believe in.

  He sighed. This castle was supposed to be difficult to break into, not out of.

  “Hey! Hey, you! I said hey!”

  Will froze, and instantly regretted it. If panic hadn’t seized him for just that fraction of a second perhaps he could have pretended that he hadn’t heard, that he hadn’t understood. Perhaps when he broke into a run he could have made a half-believable excuse. But now all he could do was stumble five miserable yards before he was intercepted.

  The guard was running as he approached. He arrived panting, then doubled over, armor clanking as he sucked air in and out.

  “Hey,” he said, still panting. “I mean, hi. That is hello.” He doubled over again, sucked air. “Sorry, running in this stuff…” He gestured at the armor with his hand. “Does me in every time.”

  “Erm…” Will said, feeling that he had some requisite part to play in the conversation, but not really knowing what it was, now that it apparently wasn’t screaming and running for his life.

  “Sorry,” said the soldier. “Always horrible at introductions. General shortcoming in life. I think I do all right once I get past them, but they’re always sort of the inciting moment that I need to get past. So then I don’t get to the bit that’s past them, because I’m stuck on them. And it’s horribly awkward.” He looked up, looked around. “Sort of like this actually.”

  “I’m… sorry?” Will tried. He wished he knew magic like Quirk. Something that could open up a hole in the ground and swallow him.

  “Oh don’t be. Not your problem at all. Totally mine,” said the guard. And then, “Oh bugger, I forgot the bit where I tell you my name. I told you I’m horrible at these things.”

  It was slowly dawning on Will that there was something horribly familiar about this man.

  “I’m Bevvan,” said the guard. “You’re Will, right?”

  Will’s stomach lurched. Then it lurched again. Then it did a rather complicated gymnastic routine for good measure. Will tasted his own bile, which apparently preferred to take more of a bystander role in the back of his throat during such performances.

  Will opened his mouth to fill in his part of the conversation again. He was pretty sure that some stringent denials went here. Instead all that came out was a wheezing, croaking sound, like the death wail of a particularly flatulent frog.

  “Probably don’t remember me.” Bevvan the guard shook his head sadly. “I don’t have one of those memorable faces. At least that’s what my wife’s always telling me. She says it’s sort of plain and doughy and she wants to forget it.” He laughed. “She’s a funny woman. But yes, I was one of the guards that came to your farm the other day. Had to take your farm away. That whole clerical misunderstanding.”

  Oh gods. Oh gods why was he hated by the heavens so much? Had he forgotten to pour a libation one day? Had he blasphemed one time too many?

  “No.” His tongue felt like a stick of wood in his mouth. He forced the word out around it.

  “Yes!” said Bevvan, all smiles and joviality. “And now you’re here! I’m so glad you landed on your feet. I mean, that was horrible luck about the farm. It looked like debtors’ jail for you for sure, I thought. But here you are all safe and sound.”

  Muscles in Will’s face were starting to twitch. Some expression had to be formed, but each part of his anatomy seemed to have its own idea about which one. His eyebrows were jerked back and forth, his mouth curled and sneered.

  Bevvan grinned in much the same way as a man would, should his brains be replaced by a jug of milk.

  Then abruptly, he looked over Will’s shoulder and shouted, “Hey, Joeth! Joeth! Come and look who it is! It’s Will!”

  The time for filling in gaps in the conversation had clearly come and gone at this point, and Will had failed spectacularly at that. Now his options became, in some respects, even simpler. He had to flee. To simply put one leg in front of the other and push.

  He placed his right leg in front of his left. He bent his knee—

  Bevvan landed a meaty arm upon his shoulder, preparing to spin him around to meet Joeth as he strode toward them. On the point of rapid departure, Will was decidedly off-balance. Instead of either running or turning, he instead collapsed sideways, smacked his head against the wall, and got to think about how terrible a blacksmith Mattrax employed if these were the best helmets he could produce.

  “Will?” said Joeth, reaching the staggering pair. “Who the piss is Will?”

  Finally Will found his tongue. “Me?” he said. “I’m nobody.” The other soldiers had clearly all hated Bevvan. Joeth’s reluctance to be there interacting with them was writ large on his pinched, weaselly face. If he could, he would make this another pitiable nonevent.

  “Fucking right.” Joeth spat a stream of brown phlegm onto the ground at his feet and turned to walk away.

  “No,” Bevvan persisted, because apparently he was some Hallow-spawned demon dressed up in the skin of a bumbling imbecile, “Will. You remember. From the other night. We took his farm and were going to put him in debtors’ jail. And then he ran into the barn and we set it on fire. And Kurr kept telling us how he was going to kill him. He’d burned his face and was terribly upset. But look! We didn’t kill him! And he’s enlisted! I mean, isn’t that a funny coincidence?”

  Joeth, it turned out, was not as stupid as Bevvan. It wasn’t that surprising. Will used to own stools that weren’t as stupid as Bevvan.

  He got almost an entire stride before Joeth caught him by the shoulder and threw him to the ground. Will kicked out hard, felt a satisfying crunch as his heel connected with something hard, and then a less satisfying thump, as a wailing Bevvan collapsed on top of him.

  “Joeth!” he howled. “What are you—?”

  “He’s not a fucking soldier, you dim-witted son of Cois. He was condemned to debtors’ prison and burned off half of Kurr’s face. We tend not to enlist fugitives. If we tended not to enlist idiots then arseholes like him might not sneak in here to get up to whatever the fuck he’s been up to.”

  Joeth, it turned out, was not a mumbler. Indeed he shouted this into Bevvan’s tear-streaked face with almost perfect diction, and at considerable volume. He attracted considerable attention. By the time Will had fought free of Bevvan’s weight, several pairs of hands were ready to help him to his feet. And then to help him slam face-first into the wall. And then to hold his hands at an excruciating angle behind his back while they were bound together.

  Conversation had failed. Fleeing had failed. Will could only hope that when it came to dying painfully he would prove himself equally inept.

  20

  Ignorance Is Bliss

  Always a light sleeper, Lette—who was at that moment sandwiched between a gear the size of a wagon wheel and a chain thicker than her own waist—had rarely been pleased to hear the sound of snoring. Balur was a snorer. His mouth would flop open as he slept, and from the back of his throat would emerge a sound that she could only liken to two mountains making love. A guttural gasping rasp that sawed through her mind and erased sleep from the list of options that the night held for her. She had once trekked an additional mil
e through a kobold-infested forest just to escape the sound.

  This snore was different, though. This was a deeper, rumbling sound, like fresh earth settling itself. It made the rock reverberate around her, deep and sonorous. It was the sound of a dragon snoring.

  Mattrax was drugged up to his eyeballs.

  Slowly, with exaggerated care, Lette began to move. She had spent the first hour of her seclusion learning how to navigate the portcullis lock in the dark, charting out crawl spaces, gaps in the pressure plate’s mechanics. The next hour she had spent firming up her understanding of the mechanism, its operation, its critical junctures, its weak points. Then she had waited. She had expected to have heard Quirk’s and Will’s voices. But there had been simply the sound of Mattrax moving around, huffing and grunting to himself in injured tones. What in Toil’s name a dragon rolling in gold and food had to complain about escaped her, but at least the fat sack of fire had shown no sign of suspicion. All the job had really required so far was flexibility and patience.

  Neither was she worried about the blow Balur had taken in the earlier confrontation. She had seen him shake off worse. The Batarran giant they once fought had literally picked him up and used him as a club to try to smash her. Right up until Balur had gotten an arm free, torn off the giant’s thumbnail, and used it to slit the giant’s wrist. Sailing a hundred yards or so into some trees was eminently survivable.

  No, what worried her was that Balur’s part of the plan had already gone awry and he was the one other member of their current team who had professional experience. Now she was relying on a university professor and an angry farmer to keep her safe from being roasted alive.

  What if Mattrax was not drugged? What if he was simply asleep? Rumor had it that dragons could detect the removal of even a single coin from their stockpile. Lette had her doubts about that, but removing several sacks full of gold and jewels could definitely tip the balance against them.