The Blacktongue Thief

16 Hornhead

I shot at Deerpants. If you were raised inside a castle’s walls, you’d prefer I told you she struck first; but if you grew up in the real world, you’ll know that would have been too late. The true attack was coming from the right side, and I couldn’t have her flinging that axe at us from the left.

I needed her down.

So I loosed.

It was a good shot, aimed right for the middle of her. I’ve handled the bent tree long enough so I need no aiming, just up and shoot, fast as you like. But she was faster. The arrow flew a Gallard’s nose behind her, and she sprinted to flank us. At the same time, a great noise came from my right, and I glanced just in time to see a spear the size of a sapling wobbling at my head, having glanced off the Spanth’s shield.

I ducked and set another arrow, loosed it at the shapes breaking from the tree line, then dropped the bow and turned to deal with Deerpants, my hand skinning Palthra from my belt, my left foot already launching me at the woman.

Norrigal had barked in pain at the sound of the spear on the shield and at that moment threw her staff in the air. It whipped in front of me like a thing alive and knocked down the thrown axe I hadn’t seen in the darkness—the deer girl was too fast for me, but not for that wonderful staff. Now she was running at me, pulling another axe from her belt even as her first axe disappeared in the river. I crouched with Palthra in hand, ready to meet her, not at all confident it would go well, but the staff wheeled forward and cracked the woman full in the mouth. She yelped and buckled down to all fours, spitting a tooth and moaning, her weapon dropped in the dark. The staff kept beating her.

I turned and saw too much to understand all at one glance. There was the mixling, Hornhead. A huge man with a flat, bovine nose and nubby horns on the sides of his head rushing at Galva, swinging overhead a flanged bronze mace I doubted I could pick up with both hands. His armor was nothing more than a leather girdle, but the tattoos on him thrummed with magic.

I recognized my arrow sticking out of the root of a horn, but he didn’t seem to mind it. Two more brigands, one a stout man with a proper battle-axe, shield, and brass ring mail, one a woman with a short sword in one hand and a flail in the other, were fighting for their lives against the same war corvid that had shredded my onetime companions in the Forest of Orphans. Where the fuck had it come from? The woman with the sword and flail, we’ll call her Flail, whipped her weapon at the bird, but it shivered its wings and warded the blow. The bird then bit off her nose and part of her cheek, and Flail fell screaming.

Hornhead, meanwhile, had grabbed the Spanth’s shield and was simultaneously flinging her about and trying to hit her with the mace. He probably could have crushed the shield with it, but he wanted that shield with its pretty, living, unburnable wood. Everyone wanted that shield. Galva licked at his legs with her short sword, and though it looked like she hit skin, the blade left no mark—it looked wrong.

Now I came behind him to try and cut a hamstring. The beast saw me, though, and back-kicked me in the chest so hard I felt my breath leave me even as my feet left the ground, keeping hold of my knife only because the Guild had trained that into me; you did not drop a knife at the Low School. I landed in the middle of the other fight.

The man with the axe, we’ll call him Axe, warded the corvid’s beak with the shield, spun, and aimed a dirty chop at my head. I rolled away from it, came up to my bow, sheathed Palthra, and picked the bow up. And there was Deerpants, and she had her fight back. She had lost her axe, but now she grabbed the bow I had just picked up and tugged for all she was worth, which was a lot.

Norrigal was out, lying on the ground, the staff inert beside her. The flail-woman’s scream must have wrecked her, with her hearing being magicked still, and I only hoped Deerpants hadn’t found a knife to plunge into her as well.

I pulled the bow, but Deerskins yanked harder, and was about to get it away from me. I suddenly let it go, and she fell on her side in the sand. If I pulled my dagger, I’d lose a beat, but a dropped arrow lay beside me, so I grabbed that and followed her, fluid as a snake, jamming it hard in her side. Not deep enough to kill her, though. Fuck, she was tough.

She kicked me in the side of the head so hard I started to black out, and she got on top of me, drooling blood from her wrecked mouth all over my face, straddling me so I couldn’t reach my knives. Her backup knife came out now, a small skinner, and she jabbed at my neck with it, but I writhed up under her and hunched so she only got my shoulder. The fight with the bird and the armored man had wobbled closer, though, and the bird now grabbed Deerskins by her hair and wrenched her up off me. It didn’t have time to do more than that before the axe-man was after it again, but that was enough.

I pushed to my feet, and Palthra came out now, Deerskins and I circling each other. Behind her, I could make out the bull-man and the Spanth still at it, Galva still refusing to let go of her shield, still untouched by the great mace, but tiring. It wouldn’t go much longer. She angled a vicious backhand cut at Hornhead’s arm and her wicked-sharp sword did nothing to it. But now I knew why—a tattoo on the thing’s arm lit up like coal embers. That tattoo was a spell to keep the creature safe.

I had to get closer and read it.

I broke from Deerpants, who I gambled wouldn’t be so fast with my arrow in her side, and ran for Hornhead. He had to be killed. The only reason these thieves were fighting to the death was because they feared him more than us. As long as he fought, they would, but when he fell, they’d likely run. He should have quit and pulled them back when he saw they were well matched, but he was too proud. He should have splintered that shield and the arm behind it, but he was too greedy.

And he thought magic would keep him safe.

I saw the tattoo as I ran at him.

Old Kesh letters.

True Hand Turns.

Also a pictograph of a shield.

I didn’t get it yet.

“Marrus!” Deerpants yelled at Hornhead to warn him.

Closer to me, Flail, who was on all fours, sobbing and blind with her own blood, was in just the right place to serve me for a vault-horse—I leapt on her back and launched myself at Galva, gambling she was about to get jerked in another quarter turn. I gambled right. Quick as clapping, Hornhead had his flank to me. I wanted the jugular, couldn’t reach it at my angle, so fetched him what should have been a brutal cut from the corner of his eye to the back of his head, just under one of his awful bits of horn.

He swung at me as I went by, tangling up my legs a bit, so I touched the ground with my hand but still landed running. I glanced back to see what I’d done to him, but I’d not even nicked him. Fuck! A pretty move like that and I hadn’t hurt him—it had felt like my blade had pressed hard air and got knocked at a bad angle to cut.

True Hand Turns.

Now I understood.

“Galva!” I yelled. “Cut him with your other hand!”

The bull-man, who hadn’t much cared about me running a knife over his head now glanced wide-eyed at me, and Galva understood. She let go the shield and ducked a mace-blow that never came, simultaneously tossing her blade into her off hand, then lunging forward and up the monster’s mail skirt, putting the bullnutter to its true use.

“No!” Deerpants screamed, but stopped as the Spanth wheeled from the stricken Hornhead to face her. The corvid had Axe flipped on his back now. His weapon was down, and he had his mailed arms covering his face, but the bird was breaking him apart with rib-splintering pecks to his body. He was already coughing wet, dying coughs, though he said “Caelm!” and “Bretha!” and I thought it might be another language, but I knew they were names when he wheezed out a Holtish “Please” and “Help.” For all his armor, I knew him then not to be a knight—they don’t use those words.

I came up behind Hornhead, or Marrus, where he knelt groaning, my arrow jutting out of his bony head like a panache. I was just able to reach his great neck as he was on his knees, so I traded Palthra into my right hand and cut his cords in a great wash of blood. His hands never left his crotch while I did it. I heard an animal sound and looked where Deerpants bared her teeth at me. She wanted to run at me but knew she’d never make it past Galva. A good fighter, her. Wish she were on our side, but she’d let a bull-man turn her evil. We all make our choices.

Deerpants screamed, wild with hate, and hobble-ran off into the darkness. The bird looked at the Spanth, and Galva shook her head. She let Deerpants go, which was folly—her ideas about honor, if that’s what stayed her hand, were going to get her killed. On the other hand, it was exactly that sense of fair play that caused her to spare me when I tried to rob her in the Forest of Orphans, so who was I to complain?

I couldn’t resist shouting a proper goodbye at the brigand as she went.

“Hope you enjoyed your chicken stew, you murdering bitch!”

I noticed something queer about Galva now, as she limped toward Norrigal, her naked, flat chest and muscly shoulders steaming in the cold.

One of her two inked ravens was gone, and the spot where it had been was a bloody mess.

Hornhead wasn’t the only one using enchanted tattoos in battle.

That beautiful, killing bird was a sleeper; a magicked tattoo. The chain mail Galva wore over it damped it so it was harder to detect. It also meant she’d have to remove the armor to free the bird or put it back. By all the hoary, whoring gods, the Spanth hid a war corvid on her chest.