Cleansing Fire

Dappled sunlight brushing across his face woke Marius. He yawned and stretched, standing up carefully as his muscles protested from the previous day’s exertion. Gods, he must have slept through the whole day. At least the fever was gone. Standing there, it took him a moment or two to remember what had happened and when he did, it was all he could do to keep his legs from dropping him back to the ground. His people were gone, burned in the fire and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing besides revenge left. I’ll just have to find the stranger, that’s all. He realised with a grim certainty that he would do whatever it took to make things right for his friends.

It was strange to feel this detachment now; he was numb now that he’d made a decision to kill the man. He ran his hand down the bark of the tree, trying to chafe some feeling into himself with the rough wood but he felt nothing.

He gave a start as he realised that the tree and those all around were partially burned. They certainly hadn’t been yesterday. An ember must have come from the house and set them alight while he slept. He gulped and sent a quick prayer to whichever gods might be listening. It was amazing that he hadn’t been burned alive himself.

He was about to step out from the trees and search the house for signs of the stranger’s leaving when the sound of voices stopped him.

“Say it was started sometime in the last two days.”

“Aye. Don’t know what she expected, taking in the sort she did.”

Marius grimaced and held himself back against the tree, careless of the extra soot on his shirt. Some of the people from Dunriver it seemed. They had always looked down on this place. Fools.

“They know who did it?”

“Nar. Not yet leastways. They searched the place though, no survivors inside but one o’ the lodgers is missing they say. Doesn’t matter, they’ll have an Initiate up soon enough and then there’ll be an end to it.”

There was a noise as someone spat into the ground noisily. Some others chuckled, their voices sounding false in his ears as he listened quietly.

“That for the Academy. Useful they may be but I’d sooner be rid of ’em. Give me an honest hound any day.”

There was more laughter and the first voice broke out of the noise.

“Yer but an ’ound can’t smell a man’s intentions, can’t fix on who were here, can it? No, no, don’t give me that look Travis, you know I don’t ‘old with them magic folk, I’m just sayin’ is all.”

An initiate could be useful. Perhaps I should wait around for one to arrive. A guaranteed way of finding the man who did all this.

He held his breath and carefully stole a glance around the trunk. He couldn’t see the group of men properly but there seemed to be quite a lot of movement near the house. One of the men he recognised, at least by his appearance. One of the farmers from the area, Dirk had always mistrusted the people that had lived here. Terril had told him Dirk only got his huge wolf-hounds when he learned who would be staying up at the farmhouse near him. The other man Marius could see was a stranger and looked to be from out of the area. His clothes were certainly nothing anyone around here would wear. Perhaps just a visitor from one of the cities. He didn’t look as if he fitted any of the voices Marius had heard.

He leaned a little further out and, scanning the area, saw at least ten other men sifting through the rubble and broken wood. They’d managed to force open the door at least and had removed Elsa’s body. From the number of buckets lying around the house, he guessed that one of the neighbours, perhaps even Dirk, had seen the smoke and gathered all the others to make sure the fire was dead. The people might not have liked Mistress Arfor’s habits but fire was fire and the land was dry of late.

He barely stifled a cry as he saw six blanket covered mounds set down on the field nearby. Six. Counting him and excluding the murderer, there had been eight people in the house yesterday. That meant someone else got out. He leaned back against the trunk, saying another brief prayer of thanks. They could be anywhere by now, scared, maybe even hurt. He’d have to check with Mr Tobea to see if anyone had come to him. He hated himself for thinking it but he hoped it was Kaylee who made it out.

This would have to take precedence over finding the murderer. Finding whoever had escaped would help him piece together the events and he could make decisions from there. He’d try to find them as soon as he could get away from here. He’d have to be very quiet though, the last thing he wanted was to be found by these men. They would be looking for someone to blame no doubt and he would make an easy enough target. He leaned around the trunk to get another look at the activity around the house. There really were quite a few people around; something like this didn’t happen too often so he supposed everyone who had heard about it had come to see. It would be difficult at best to get out of here without being spotted.

“Gotcha boy. Didn’t think you’d be smart enough to run far. I thought to myself, Bellak, if you was a lowlife; a murdering criminal, what would you do after you killed a buncha folks and torched a house?”

Marius spun around and made a break to the right, pushing through the bushes, heedless of the noise he was making. Before he’d gone more than a few steps, a hand clamped onto his shoulder and he stopped dead in his tracks. He looked up into the pitiless eyes of the man from out of town. He tried to struggle against the man’s grip but it was like pushing against rock. As if in a nightmare, he watched the massive man shove his way through the bush. At least seven feet tall and broad across the shoulders, Marius knew where he recognised the man from. Bellak was Dunriver’s blacksmith and he had a particularly foul temper – he and Marius had had a number of confrontations already. He clamped his hands on either side of Marius’ head and the other man simply turned his back and walked away, calling to some of the other men.

He struggled against the Bellak’s grip but years of working stubborn iron had turned muscles into steel and hands into vices. Bellak didn’t even have to strain to keep him still – in fact, he released one of his hands and was just as effective with one massive arm holding Marius in place.

“You should be listening to me boy. It’s rude to run off when your betters’r talking. Something you should have learned a long time ago.”

His free arm whipped around faster than Marius could believe and he felt a blinding pain in his left eye.

“I. Liked. Those. Ladies,” he said, punctuating his words with a flurry of blows. Soon, Marius felt himself sagging in Bellak’s grip and tried to force his legs to straighten but failed miserably. The blacksmith simply hauled him to his feet and continued punching him, raining blows onto all of Marius he could reach. His face and midriff were a sea of agony and he thought one of his ribs might be cracked.

“Don’t you go sleeping on me now. My good friend Eldon there has gone to call some people that want to ask you a question or two. Then you’ll hang boy. Mark my words. You’ll hang for what you’ve done here.”

Marius struggled against Bellak’s grip but nothing had changed so far. Gods, the man must be tired after giving a beating like that! His left eye was swollen shut and without Bellak’s hand he would have fallen but Marius still managed to pull against his guard. He could hear the others coming through the bushes, getting closer. He blacked out for a moment and when he came to he saw the face of a City Guard sneering down at him, his bronze helmet clutched under his arm. The strange man who had caught him simply stood and watched from the shadow of a tree, eerily still.

“Aah. I remember you, boy. A sneak thief and a liar. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have to guts for something like this.”

An unpleasant smile played across his face and he casually leaned forward and slapped Marius with his gauntlet. The steel edge bit into his lip and he could feel the warm flow of blood down his chin.

“Nobody to save you this time. No clemency. Governor Treilim will hang you for this, boy. Tell me who helped you and I’ll see if I can arrange for something… faster. I don’t believe for a second that you have the brains to pull this off by yourself. We found the empty safe, where did you put the gold, mm?”

Marius just stared at him, aghast. This was one of the governor’s men and clearly one who remembered him from his life long ago. I could be in some serious trouble here. Have to play for time while I think.

“Gold, what gold?” he muttered thickly as if his wits were addled by the blows. It wasn’t hard to act, though he’d recovered a little, his head still spun if he moved it.

The guard simply stared at him as if weighing him from toe to crown. He shrugged and put his helmet and gauntlet back on.

“Bring him. The questioners will find out soon enough. I need to be back in Dunriver by nightfall. If he struggles, make sure he’s quiet. You’ll be handsomely rewarded for your work this day, Bellak. So make sure you don’t lose him.”

Marius grunted as the blacksmith hoisted him onto his shoulder. He felt something crack inside and groaned. There was no way he was going to struggle now. It was all he could do to stay awake.

Forgive me Kaylee. I’ll come as soon as I can. There’ll be a way out of this. There always is.

He winced as Bellak started striding along next to the Guard. They kept a quick pace though the forest towards the main road. They’d be there by nightfall with no problem at this rate.