Very slowly, Marith got to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall. All three men turned towards him. No, four – they seemed to have gained someone. Not Emit? No, Emit was dead. Hadn’t he killed him somewhere? The other group of mercenaries, the ones who’d come down the corridor towards them. One of those. He blinked at the man, feeling as though he was looking up from under water.
‘Back with us, then?’ Tobias said coldly. He handed him a small leather bottle. ‘Drink?’
Marith took it and drank gratefully. His mouth was dry and parched, with the sharp tang of blood. Hadn’t realized how thirsty he was. Their new companion regarded him warily. ‘Where’s your friend?’ he almost asked.
‘You remember Riclin?’ said Tobias. Marith didn’t, but tried to smile at him like he did. The man flashed him a wide grin in return, showing two missing teeth. ‘Dragon killer. Didn’t expect you to faint at the first sight of real blood.’
‘He’s had a rough few days,’ said Rate, clapping Marith on the back so hard he almost fell over.
Tobias passed Marith a small hunk of dried meat and some dried fruit. He chewed cautiously, hungry but nauseous. He’d barely eaten anything in the last few days either, he realized. The food brought some strength back to him.
‘Right.’ Tobias looked them over. ‘Now we’ve all got ourselves together again, everyone ready to get on? We’ve still got a bloody job to do.’
They edged past the pile of bodies and carried on down the corridor. Screams and the clash of swords echoed towards them. And something else: faint, but increasingly obvious, the smell of smoke. The place was burning. An overturned candle, someone knocking over a lamp, wooden carvings and official paperwork and silk-hung walls … Tobias sniffed the air, a worried look on his face.
The next two rooms they came to were empty. The whole place was strangely empty. Marith’s head felt slightly clearer and he began to think properly about certain things. He’d been born and bred in a royal fortress. Even in the middle of the night, it was quite difficult to go far without encountering a sometimes humiliatingly large number of people wandering around. Yet they’d been here a good while now, thirty armed men spread out across the building with orders to kill on sight, and met nothing like the resistance he would have expected. They should have been having to fight their way forwards at every step now.
Unless …
He turned to Tobias. ‘This is a set-up isn’t it? They knew we were coming.’
Rate froze. ‘What? Knew what? Who knew?’ His face went white. ‘Oh gods and demons and all hells. No. No, Tobias.’
Silence, then Tobias shook his head. ‘Sorry, lad. Thought you’d probably worked it out by now, to be honest.’
‘But … I mean … If it’s a set-up … Oh fuck … I mean …’ Rate started to shake violently, tears coming into his eyes. ‘We’re getting out of here, aren’t we? Aren’t we?’
Idiot. Na?ve, trusting idiot. Thought things would somehow be all right. Thought there was more than pain and killing and dying. We fight and we die, Rate, Marith thought. We fight and we die and that’s the end of it. All there is. Death. Just death. That’s what life is, Rate. Dying.
Marith laughed. ‘You still haven’t understood yet, have you? There is no getting out. This really is a suicide mission. No one cares what happens to us, as long as the men we’re aiming for die first. Suits whoever gets here with the defence to cut down as many nasty foreign invaders as possible. Makes them look more heroic that way. That’s the basic idea, isn’t it, Tobias? As long as you and Skie survive, the more casualties the better.’
‘Shut the fuck up!’ shouted Rate. ‘Just bloody shut up!’ Stared around, trying to find something to reassure him, panic like claustrophobia. ‘Why the fuck would Skie even be here, if that was true?’
‘You think Skie’s here? He’s sitting in his lodgings somewhere, drinking good wine and waiting for you to die.’ Marith gestured at Alxine beside him. ‘You know all this, don’t you, Alxine? Just waiting for death like I am, aren’t you?’
‘Shut up.’ Tobias hit him in the face. Marith staggered backwards, licking blood from his lips. ‘Shut up, boy. Disease, you are. No wonder your father put it out you’re dead.’ Turned to Rate. Looked almost sorry about it. Like he cared. ‘It’s partly true, what he says, Rate. You’re clever enough to have worked that out already if you’d really wanted to. Part of the deal – most of the men die here, it makes the eventual outcome look better for the people involved. But not us, okay? We get out. Alxine’s done something like this before, he knows the drill.’ Alxine nodded. ‘The Company’s mostly beaten down ex-soldiers and petty criminals now. You saw them get mashed by the dragon. Not much cop in a fight, not much use for anything really. Except dying in exchange for a bag of gold. We’ll recruit again once we’re back in Immish. Drum up some men, train them up a bit, do a few normal sellsword jobs until somebody needs something a bit more specialized. Always men running from something or someone who’ll be more than happy to kill or be killed for a few marks and some company of an evening to keep their demons at bay, regular hot meals and the odd cask of strong drink.’ A grin. ‘Both of you two lads, for example.’
There was a howl from Riclin, who’d been trailing along behind them. He flung himself at Tobias, bearing him down to the ground. Alxine contemplated the situation for a brief moment, then stabbed the man in the back of the neck. Riclin’s arms and legs jerked frantically for a few heartbeats. Tobias shoved him off and pulled himself to his feet. His lip was split and he had a gash on his cheek to match Alxine’s. He spat a large gobbet of blood at Marith.
‘I take it he didn’t know either, then?’ said Rate savagely. Marith began to laugh uncontrollably at that, a wild, high-pitched laugh, until Tobias hit him again.
‘You shut up now or I’ll kill you too, whoever you are and whatever you’re worth. Or I’ll let Rate torture you first.’ Tobias sighed wearily. ‘I’m sorry, Rate. But you couldn’t be allowed to know, could you? “Sign up to the Free Company, two year contract, pay in arrears, we’ll set you up to die badly before you make it through to get the cash”. You’d probably have been another corpse, to be honest with you, except that Geth’s getting old and slow, and Alxine’d be bloody useless as a squad commander. But look, lad. I plan on getting you and Alxine out of here. And yes, it is probably a good idea to take the Lord Prince here with us, much as I’d like to slit his throat and piss on his corpse right now. So you need to do as I say, okay?’
Rate looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly. Not much else he could do. Trapped, as much as I am, Marith thought. Where have any of us got to go? They began to walk on down the corridor, treading over Riclin’s corpse.