Bloody Teeth in Freezing Water

“We were lucky to kill them both before they managed to kill Queen Malin and Lady Guinevere. Soldiers are still searching the castle to be sure there aren’t other assassins targeting the princesses.” Sir Fabian Castel exhaled and looked away from the corpses on the mortuary slab.

            He nudged Danielle with his elbow and nodded to the brown garbed mortician, who was boiling something in the mortuary oven that usually incinerated remains. She presumed the man was making scent to cover the reek of death but instead the man pulled the pot from the heat and poured the steaming stuff into a wooden goblet for himself.

            “Would you like some tea, masters?” The man’s voice was gravel in phlegm. “It distracts you from the stink and works wonders for your insides.”

            “Tea?” Fabian asked.

            “A leaf from the far southeast, medicinal.” The man held up the pot and smiled a crooked smile.

            “No, thank you.” The knight bowed his head to decline.

            “Why are we here?” Danielle Longbow asked.

            “So that Mister Badru can use his nose to tell us where the assassins came from.” Fabian said, waving a hand at the slim man wearing a half mask that looked like a leather bird’s beak.

            “It’s Mister Quacey actually, Badru is my first name. Also, I think the tattoos on their feet might be as much help identifying them as scent.” The voice, obviously not native to Leonor city, was muffled by the leather.

            “They’re from the Church of the Red Knives. It’s an assassin’s cult based in the capital of Sliabh. They’re zealots of a murderous god.” Everyone turned to look at Lupita Smith, who had come holding Danielle’s hand. Lupita’s other hand was pressing her nostrils closed because the stench from the corpses, even in the cold, was hideous.

            Danielle could taste bile at the back of her throat. Stinking death invaded her lungs and clung to her clothes.

            “How do you know they’re Church of Red Knives?” Badru asked. His thick, curly ginger hair danced as he looked around. His brown eyes were huge as they absorbed the features of Miss Smith’s face.

            “The tattoos on their feet are considered pillars of the church. Life and Duty on his feet.” She pointed her brown fingers at the first pale assassin. “Death and Service on her feet.” Lupita checked the hair on both heads. “If we shave their heads, they should have numbers that reference the holy book of the cult tattooed on their scalps. All of those tattoos are easy to hide but obvious to their own.”

            The mortician shaved the heads of the bodies at their request. The numbers 6:2 on the man’s head and 8:7 on the woman’s head proved Lupita right.

            “Two assassins, one question. Who hired them?” Fabian asked. His armour was orange in the light of the mortuary torches. The bright green Crann Kingdom tabard was dulled in that muted light.

            “The empire. Obviously,” Danielle said.

            “Presumably. We cannot afford to assume unless there is evidence to confirm it though.” Miss Smith was cautious.

            “It makes sense,” Fabian agreed, nodding. “They’ve been losing in battle but if we lose our monarchy the kingdom would fall apart regardless.”

            “I don’t think so,” said Carl, who had been unusually quiet until then.

            “Why?”

            “The empire doesn’t do anything so small as one assassin per target. If they wanted two people dead to conquer Crann they would have hired half of the Red Church’s assassins to be sure the job was done the first time around.”

            As a child who had grown up in the empire his instincts for imperial behaviour were more attuned than theirs. Danielle still felt that the empire had the most to gain from the death of Crann’s line of succession.

            “We need to go there to be sure.” Fabian folded his arms

            “To Sliabh? Are you mad? Its midwinter. We’d freeze to death.”

            “We can meet with the Church of Red Knives and find out from them. It’s a business. If we make it worth their while I’m sure they’ll tell us who hired to of theirs.” Sir Castel nodded.

            “I take it you don’t need me then?” asked Mister Quacey, backing away from the bodies.

            “You have the best nose in the kingdom I’m told.” Fabian looked at the ginger man.

            “Perhaps.”

            “The queen told me you’re a loup garou related to those we fought in the prison. Related to the ones who killed my father.” Sir Castel’s face was colder than the stone the corpses lay on.

            Backing up more, Badru Quacey held up his hands. “I was sorry to hear about your father. He was a great man. You should know I turned them in.”

            “The queen told me that as well. It takes a deep conscience to recognise the need to turn in your own family. I admire that about you. A man with your acute sense of smell would be useful for us in our journey to the Church of Red Knives and a monster with your presumed strength would be useful in any fight we might end up in there.”

            “You know I’m a perfumer. Not a warrior.” The man’s shoulders sagged. It seemed he was trying to make himself smaller, less appealing as a warrior comrade.

            “We’re all warriors in Crann now. You’ve had the training like everyone. It’s not just your sense of smell that’s better, is it?” The knight of the realm was smiling with a warmth usually reserved for the heroes of chivalric epics. He was like that, the poster boy for knighthood, sandy brown hair in waves and eyes that everyone trusted on first sight.

            “For the kingdom. I will come.”

            “Thank you. Let us rest tonight and set out at first light tomorrow. I will meet you all at the southern gate. Bring provisions for the walk.”

Snow fell lightly as they met the next morning. Every citizen of Leonor city had their own set of armour and a sword. Lupita’s were the standard kind given out by order of Queen Malin. Fabian had the best armour money could buy. Danielle’s chainmail was taken from a dead tax collector. The shield on her arm had been her father’s, like her sword.

            Carl, who had taken the name Northman, was not allowed armour or weapons. He wore thick furs. Guards searched him on their way out of the city. No one with blue eyes and blonde hair was trusted in Leonor. That wasn’t going to change any time soon.

A few hours later they were crunching through the snow of Fisher’s Gasp, which had been Danielle’s home. She hadn’t been back since the Empire of the Holy Proclamation had laid waste to all Crann Kingdom but Leonor city.

            It would have been easy to mistake the remains of the village by the lake for piles of firewood in the snow. Walking between the remains Miss Longbow saw the houses that had been there and stopped at what had been her own.

            “I lived here.”

            “Someday the empire will pay for what it did to these people.”

            “It did.” Said the warrior from Fisher’s Gasp in monotone. “My dad died in the barn there.” She pointed to another vague shape blanketed in white. “There’s a place we can cross the river not far from here before it becomes another lake. The river is too wide after that.”

            “Lead the way,” said Fabian.

The river Danielle had fished from infancy narrowed for steppingstones not far from the village.

            The five of them managed across the icy stones with only a few slips. From there the march got harder. Ground between the river from Fisher’s Gasp to the Border River was boggy in summer. In winter it was crunchy. They frequently put a foot down on ground that seemed solid, only to give way with a crunch.

            “Fuck this. Why does the empire want this shitty little kingdom?” Carl asked. “Its bog, mountains, trees and rivers. You can walk from one end to the other in a day.”

            “Easy foreigner,” Danielle warned him. “You’re talking to Cranners.”

            “I’m just saying, I don’t understand the obsession. They lost and they should have just shrugged it off and picked another kingdom.”

            “They did, Afon.”

            “Oh, yeah.”

            “Assassins though, in winter? Seemed weird.”

            “It’s killing us. That’s what the empire is all about now.” Lupita stepped from one tuft of frozen grass to another, falling less than anyone but her girlfriend.

            “I get that. Fine. Why not the princesses though, if you send two assassins then why not the queen and the oldest princess. The empire knows about the royal family here. They know the king is dead. They would hire three. It feels like someone is trying to frame the empire and mucking it up.”

            The mountains loomed over them all as they approached Border River. Carl whistled. Danielle agreed. In Crann they were called the Sliabh Mountains, but she was sure the locals would have their own name for the mighty range which shielded their neighbours from the ambitions of northern kingdoms and empires.

They camped for the night on the Crann side of the river. The tent was designed for four soldiers. The five of them slept almost on top of each other.

            Lupita lay atop Danielle most nights. Most nights they were in bed and the ground beneath them wasn’t frozen solid. Waking in sunrise’s orange light she groaned as her back woke screaming in a dozen different kinds of pain.

            Everyone was grunting, swearing, and wishing they’d stayed in bed as they lit a fire to eat breakfast by.

            “We can’t swim that,” Lupita said.

            “I can,” said Danielle.

            “You’ll freeze or drown, or both.”

            “Give me a rope. If I get swept away, you can pull me back. If I make it across, I can tie it to a tree on the other side and come back to the fire to dry off.”

            Rope tied around her waist and only enough clothing to save her modesty, Danielle waded into the freezing waters of the river too wide for a stone’s throw. The gasp that spat out all her air was followed by rushed breaths as her heart began to race. She forced her breathing to steady. As the water rose to her hips the current began to tug at her. Looking back, she saw Lupita foremost with those holding the rope.

            Muscles which were used to carrying chainmail and full plate armour should have made easy work of the strokes to the other side. The chill of the water did its best to steal her air as she fought the current. She was downstream by the time she stepped onto the bank at the other side.

            Harsh as the currents was the chill breeze on her soaking body as she tied the rope to the tree. Pulling herself back across as fast as possible she ran to the fire for warmth.

            “How deep is it?” Carl asked.

            “Deep enough for you to drown in.” She shivered as she answered. Lupita shielded her from view with a fur cloak as she changed into a dry smock.

            Testing the rope by jumping up and down on it as he held the tree, Fabian nodded his approval. He then took a satchel on his back and began pulling himself across the river, upside down.

            Carl took another sack of clothes and followed behind the knight as soon as Sir Castel was across. They came back to pack up the tent together as Badru crossed with his bag and returned. Bags had to be emptied out to carry armour across. Wearing it if they fell in the water was just asking to drown.

            “Do we just leave the rope?” asked Carl when he was the last of them in Crann.

            “It would make it easier when we return.” Lupita shouted. The boy nodded.

            “I’ll be right over then.”

            They watched him slide across, bobbing up and down towards the water with each reach of his hand. When he was halfway, closest to the surface, a hand reached out of the water and ripped him from his hold into the dark depths and away.

            “Carl!” Lupita shouted. Danielle grabbed her shoulder and held her back from the edge of the water.

            “They’re riverfolk, squidfolk. Danielle grabbed a knife from her belt and dived into the black water.

            Cold again.

            Freezing.

            Breathless.

            Eyes looking at her.

            Deep black with only white around.

            Human torsos with tentacles instead of legs.

            She was drowning.

            She put her blade through one of those eyes. It blinked and shot away. Strong muscles wrapped around her other arm and pulled her down. She stabbed it, drawing her blade across whatever tried to hold her there.

            Where was he?

            She swam with the current, onwards, and down.

            Carl.

            He was pinned with one of them on each limb as he struggled. They were orange and red there in the shadow at the bottom of the river. He would be dead in moments if she couldn’t get him to the surface. She slashed at one.

            Her lungs begged for air. Danielle had to breathe to save him. She gasped at the surface and dived back again. A hand which was no longer human caught her ankle. She twisted in the water, stabbing. Teeth bit her neck.

            Bubbles of precious air escaped as she screamed. She followed them down again towards her ward. Carl was not going to die if she could help it.

            Stabs that would have been too quick to see in air were sluggish in the water. They cut the squidfolk to ribbons anyway. Teeth tore through the skin of her leg. Cold water drowned out pain with sheer damned chill. Sharp pain scraped across her already mutilated back.

            She grabbed the boy’s wrist and kicked for the surface. Hands pulled her back. Black and white eyes felt the pain of her knife and let go of the boy.

            Her gasp was desperate and all too little.

            “Danielle.” It was Fabian’s voice. “Grab the branch.”

            Hands on her again. Out went the blade and met flesh. She saw the branch as the knight ran along the river’s edge. The branch or the blade. She held Carl in the other hand. Letting the knife fall into the depths she grabbed for the branch.

            Her tired hand met empty air. Hands had her again. She kicked. She reached to the branch and felt the hard bark beneath her fingers, slipping as sharp pain split her leg.

            Sir Castel pulled, helped by Badru Quacey. Out they came, dark things holding on as they went. One had the knife in a hand that had shorter tentacles instead of fingers. She kicked at a dark face that still looked human. Hairy arms hauled her out of the water.

            Carl looked dead. He was pale. Fabian took the boy’s pulse and shook his head.

            “Move out of the way.” Lupita demanded. She rushed to Carl’s side and began pushing on his chest with a regular rhythm. “Don’t die you little shit. We’ve given up too much for you to die now. Come on.”

            Danielle gasped the free air, aware of blood leaking from bites and stab wounds.

            “Carl. Get up pervert. I’ll kiss you if you wake up.” Danielle propped herself up on an aching elbow. Everything ached. Hers was a life of pain.

            His skin was snow white. His lips were tinged the colour of blueberries.

            “Come on boy,” Fabian said.

            Lupita kept pumping his chest.

            Vomit and water started to dribble out of the boy’s mouth. Lupita tilted his head to the side and resumed compressing his chest over and over.

            He coughed, turning over, and puked up two lungs and a stomach’s worth of water, eyes closed in agony. Drowning was horrific. Being resuscitated didn’t look pleasant either. He continued vomiting and groaning for several minutes.

            “What were those things doing in the river?” Badru asked, looking back to the river.

            “It’s their home.” Danielle said. “We were the trespassers there.”