***
‘… cutting it fine, boss. Any finer we’d have been wafers.’ A rumbling, gentle voice. Peeved.
‘Not my choice. We had a run-in with some of our friends of the cloth.’ Chel remembered that voice: the beggar’s growl. He rubbed his good hand over his strapped shoulder and bared his teeth. So that was his kidnapper after all.
‘Ah, hells. I thought we’d be rid of the pricks at least.’
‘They had freelancers. Half a dozen horse-archers. Mawn if I’m any judge – and I am. They butchered some local militia they must have taken to be us.’
‘Twelve hells, boss, Mawn this far east?’
‘Forget it. We’re alive, and back on track. Despite enough cock-ups to leave a convent smiling.’
‘Ah, don’t be blaming me again, man!’ A reedy voice with a strong accent. Somewhere over the southern waters, Clyden most likely. ‘Told you before, friend Spider was covering while I took care of business. It’s not my fault I get tummy trouble, I’m delicate downstairs. You know, come to think it, could be a waterborne parasite from that last crossing. You ask me, it’s a wonder that we’re not laid low more frequently, given how often—’
‘Stop eating half-pickled fucking fish for breakfast, Lemon!’
‘I wasn’t the only one dropping bollocks out there, man! If Loveless could hold back on fucken every pretty thing she lays eyes on, we’d—’
Chel heard the creak and thump of the outer door.
‘We were just talking about you,’ the beggar said.
‘Nothing good, I hope,’ came the reply. ‘She’s aboard, by the way. In case you were worried.’
‘Not for a moment.’
‘No doubt. She wants a word. Or equivalent.’ The newcomer chuckled at that, for no clear reason.
Chel heard the beggar growl at the others and stomp away, then the groan of the door in his wake. All seemed quiet. He shifted, trying to catch something, when the bolt thunked and the door flew open. He pitched forward into an aching heap on the boards of the hold.
A sinewy, shaven-headed man with an aquiline nose and an abundance of earrings stood over him, a nasty grin on his face. He wore a tight, sleeveless tunic, exposing arms marked with a fearsome quantity of company tattoos. ‘Hello there, fuck-nuts. Having a good snoop, were we? Hear anything good?’ He rolled him over with the toe of his boot.
Chel said nothing for a moment, feeling his body throb beneath the pressure of the boot. Two other figures were in the low room, but he was struggling to make them out from where he was pinned. ‘Only,’ he said after a moment, his voice cracked, ‘that the little one should eat less fish.’
The bald man bellowed a laugh at that, as did the woman behind him.
‘Little one? Little? I’d wear your balls for earrings if you had any, chum,’ came the Clydish voice. ‘I’ve got a fucken name.’
Chel spread his good hand, still prone. The bald man’s foot hadn’t moved. ‘We’ve not been introduced.’
The man laughed again and removed his boot, then reached down with a muscular hand and dragged Chel upward until he was sitting against the wall. ‘Fair’s fair, now. Tell the sand-crab your names, boys and girls.’ He added under his breath, ‘Not like it’ll make much difference in the long run.’
A woman stepped forward from the gloom. She was the most striking woman Chel had ever seen: maybe a hand shorter than him, with a short shock of hair, alchemical blue, and a jawline so strong it could have been sculpted from marble. She kept one loose hand on the hilt of a short sword that hung from her hip. He had to wrench his gaze away from her, worried she’d think him simple.
‘Well, you’ve met the Spider here,’ she nodded at the bald man. Spider leered at him. Her accent was soft but distinct, something foreign but eroded to little more than uncommon vowels. ‘And the large and amiable gentleman back there is Foss.’
Behind her, a shape shifted against the wall, something Chel had at first glance taken to be a pile of sacks. He was enormous: big hands, big face, wide around the middle. He looked like a small hill. His hair was tied back in a thick bundle of dark braids, and his curly black beard boasted two streaks of grey at the corners of his chin. He offered Chel an awkward smile.
‘I go by Loveless,’ the blue-haired woman went on, ‘and this fine specimen of Clydish stock is Lemon.’
The final figure bowed her head in acknowledgement. She was small and wiry, her pale skin splashed copper with freckles. A mountain of orange hair bounced above a face that was round-eyed and squarish. She still looked irked.
Tarfel shuffled out of the store’s darkness beside and above him. ‘Why are you called Lemon?’
‘Because she’s round and bitter,’ Loveless said with a straight face.
‘I’m not fucken round!’
The laughter that filled the room met a sharp end when Spider rounded on the captives, his mirth vanished. ‘Now that’s enough about us. Who the fuck are you?’
‘I am Tarfel Merimonsun, Prince of—’
‘Oh, do shut up, princeling,’ Loveless said. ‘We know who you are, you blithering pillock. Why do you think you’re here?’
‘About that,’ Chel said, still sitting against the wall. His shoulder pulsed. He wondered if it had been Loveless who strapped him the night before. Perhaps it had been Lemon. Or maybe the other one they’d referred to?
‘The Spider asked you a question, Andriz piss-pot.’ Spider was still very close to him, and Chel could see the top of a freakish knife jutting from his belt. ‘Who are you, and what the fuck are you doing here?’
‘Vedren Chel, of Barva. I’m sworn to the prince.’
‘Chel?’ Loveless said. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I’m not sure it means anything. Do names always mean something?’
‘Oh, dear little scab-face, names mean everything.’
Lemon had wandered closer. ‘Got any nicknames? Any monikers or noms de guerre?’
‘Any what?’
‘Ah, come on, man. All our noms are de guerre these days. What do other people call you?’
Chel thought of the various names he’d been called over the last few years. ‘Chel.’
Tarfel pushed back into the conversation. He looked vexed at being excluded. ‘His sister calls him “Bear”!’
That got more sniggering. ‘You don’t look much like a fucking bear,’ Spider said. ‘More like a shit-eating rat. Are there rat-bears?’
‘I think there are in Tokemia,’ Lemon said.
Chel swung his sore head toward the prince. ‘Thank you, highness.’
Tarfel had the decency to look abashed, then a thought crossed his features before Chel’s eyes. ‘You’re not Rau Rel, are you?’ the prince said to the room.
More laughter. ‘No, princeling,’ Loveless said. ‘We’re mercenaries.’
Delight spread across Tarfel’s face. ‘See, Chel? Which company?’
The mercenaries exchanged cautious looks.
‘Black Hawk Company,’ Lemon said after a slight hesitation.
‘I’ve not heard of that one. How many strong are you? Two thousand? Five?’
Lemon