The Black Hawks Read online

  THE BLACK HAWKS

  David Wragg

  Copyright

  HarperVoyager

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

  Copyright © David Wragg 2019

  Cover illustration © Richard Anderson

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

  David Wragg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008331412

  Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 9780008331429

  Version: 2019-09-02

  Dedication

  For Sarah,

  for everything

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part II

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part III

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Part IV

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Footnote

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  PART I

  ONE

  Chel ran. His feet slapped against the dusty pale stone of the winter palace ramparts, blood thumping at his temples and breath rasping his throat, while gulls wheeled above and the sleepless harbour bustled beneath. He rounded a corner, the yawning guards on the tower watching his progress with vague interest at best.

  A mound of refuse lay stacked against the sea wall, a pile of ashen rags with a long stick propped beside it. Chel shifted to round it, teeth gritted, when the pile moved. It became abruptly man-shaped, and its stick swung out into his path. Before he could react, the stick smashed into his shin. He tumbled, arms outstretched, and sprawled head-first into the stones. A blast of pain tore up his shoulder.

  Cursing and swearing vengeance, he tried to whirl, but his vision went purple and the combination of running, falling, and a pounding hangover sent him retching back into the dust. By the time the convulsions passed, the rag-pile man and his stick were gone, the ramparts empty.

  ‘Thrice-damned pig-fucker!’ Chel spat onto the ground, still leaning on one arm.

  A pair of boots stepped to fill his vision, their laces intricately bound, the soft leather grime-free.

  ‘I admit it, I did not expect to find you on the walls this time.’

  He squinted up at the figure blotting the pink-flecked morning sky. ‘Marekhi,’ he coughed. ‘Was just on my way to you.’

  His liege’s first sworn regarded him steadily. Her face was placid, her tone light. ‘What did they challenge you with this time? A brandy cask? The barrel-dregs? Did you even make it back to the barracks?’

  Chel coughed again by way of answer, wiped at his mouth as he pushed back on his haunches. His shoulder throbbed in time with his headache.

  The slightest lip-curl marred Marekhi’s flawless cheek, although her tone remained even. ‘Lord Sokol will be expecting to see his festival robes at ten bells. You will be present, as will the robes, and you will look as though you belong.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll be up by then, will he?’

  ‘Your odour will also be much improved. Am I understood, Master Chel?’

  He sat back against the flagstones, no longer trying to stand. Her silhouette glowed golden in the morning light. ‘Come on, Marekhi, where’s your festival spirit?’ he croaked.

  ‘These petty defiances are a stain on our liege’s name, Master Chel.’ Her chin tilted. Her voice was quiet but carried clear over the sounds of the clamour of the port below. ‘You are a man in sworn service to a lord who is a guest at this palace, and your deeds and … presentation are those of our liege. It’s time you acted like it.’

  ‘I can take a beating, if Sokol wishes to make me an example.’

  ‘That should not be a point of pride,’ she said, her voice steel-edged. ‘You swore an oath. This behaviour shames your uncle and your family.’

  ‘If my step-uncle wants the value of my service, he can earn it.’

  ‘Boy, how much do you think your service is worth?’

  For a moment she was snarling, then calm swept over her face. She turned and began striding away, boots clicking on the flagstones. ‘Ten bells, Vedren Chel, with the robes,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Obey, or don’t. But attend to your stench.’

  A breeze ruffled the palms in the courtyard, and they slapped together like a round of sarcastic applause. Chel caught a whiff of himself, recoiled, then nodded his thudding head in bitter acknowledgement.

  ‘Fine.’

  ***

  Chel bent over one of the stables’ water-troughs, scooping handfuls of cool, musty water over his face. A palace horse watched him from the dark of its stable. Chel did his best to ignore it. He felt disapproved of enough already.

  ‘You’re up, Master Chel! Up-ish, at least.’ A broad and beaming figure in a battered guardsman’s uniform was at his elbow. ‘Didn’t think we’d be seeing you for a good while this morning.’

  ‘Ungh,’ Chel grunted, and wiped himself down with a horse blanket. ‘Heali.’

  ‘So,’ the guardsman said, leaning forward, in a conspiratorial fashion. ‘Did you win?’

  Chel pressed one palm to his thudding temple. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  Heali chuckled, a sound like marbles rattling. ‘Can’t say no to a challenge, can you, my boy?’

  Chel grunted again and leaned back against the stable wall. The stable-yard churned with a gathering retinue, another of the minor lords assembling his host now that the campaigning season was drawing to a close. Chel watched the formation of their column with envious eyes. Within the hour, the column would be on the road, and its host would be back in their homes before winter hit.

  ‘They’re not staying for
the festival, then,’ Heali said with a nod to the milling horse. ‘Any chance your lot …?’

  Chel spat a wad of sticky dust. ‘Sokol’s so obsessed with rubbing up against royalty that he’s hanging on for the court’s arrival, and he’s chummy enough with the grand duke that we’ll not be kicked onto the road any time soon. I’m not that lucky.’ He flicked away a spherical fly, hangover sweat mixed with trough water dripping from his brow. ‘Five hells, how can you stand this heat?’

  Heali chuckled again. ‘How can you not, Master Chel? Thought you Andriz were the blooms of the desert?’

  ‘Give it a rest, Heali. I grew up in the south. It’s not that hot down there, not like this – by the harvest festivals we’re usually a month or two into the rains.’

  Heali cast a glance up at the pristine, punishingly cloudless sky. ‘Doesn’t look like rain any time soon, Master Chel. So happens, I was heading down to the kitchen to muster a bit of breakfast – care to join me? You look like a man in need of a feed.’

  Chel’s stomach hissed bile. His hangover agreed.

  ***

  ‘Kitchen’s closed.’ A hard-faced woman in a smock barred the doorway.

  ‘Closed? Nonsense, my jewel,’ Heali replied. ‘How could the kitchen be closed in a festival week? We’re but days from the feast!’

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. She had a jaw like quarried stone and weathered hands to match. ‘Off-limits, then. Especially to you, Heali, and whoever’s riding your pocket today.’ She flicked a sneer at Chel, who was quite offended. ‘This is no time for your antics – we’ve got the Order of the Rose at our shoulders. Get your meat-fingers gone before the churchmen come looking at you too.’

  The door slammed shut. Heali frowned at it, thick lips pursed. Chel frowned at Heali.

  ‘My apologies, Master Chel, thought I’d be able to lend a hand to a brother in need. Come up looking a right pillock, eh?’

  Chel gave no answer. His head hurt, and his palms and shoulder ached. His hunger had become a hot blade in his gut. He rubbed one hand over his eyes and started walking back toward the courtyard. Sokol’s robes and the lowport beckoned, and he was in no fit state for it. ‘I need to be going—’

  ‘Heading out on an errand? Surely not on an empty stomach?’

  Chel stopped in the courtyard archway, one foot in brilliant sunlight, squinting against the glare, already tired of the guardsman’s manner. ‘You’re in luck, my boy,’ Heali continued with a munificent smile, ‘because your friend Heali knows where to get the best breakfast in all Denirnas Port.’

  ‘You do?’ At that, Chel perked up.

  ‘Of course, my boy. Permit me to atone for my failing – I’ll take you myself.’

  ‘For the last time, Heali, stop calling me boy.’

  ‘I mean no disrespect, Master Chel. You’re still boyish from my end of the wick, that’s all.’ Heali raised a hand with a disarming grin. ‘Come, let’s take a wander. There’s a little fellow in the lowport, does the most arresting grilled things.’

  Chel gave a sour glance back down the gloomy hallway to the closed kitchen door. ‘What do the Church care of festival preparations anyway?’ he said.

  A voice like the earth moving rumbled in the darkness behind them. Chel hadn’t even realized there was a passageway there. ‘Because the festival of King’s Vintage is a lie, a sop to the masses to blot the vile truth from their eyes.’

  He turned to find a gaunt figure looming over him, eyes mere hollows in the gloom, his dome of skull ringed by ragged grey locks. He carried a crate of earthenware oil lamps, clinking in time to his lurching steps. Heali sniffed. ‘Lengthened your chain for the festival, did they, Mad Mercunin?’

  ‘I know what they call me, Heali,’ the cadaverous giant replied. ‘Do you know what they call you?’

  Heali laughed, but Chel detected an edge to it. ‘Go on, sod off, you walking corpse. Go whisper your secrets to the cliff ducks.’

  Mercunin shuffled away into the gloom, the crate heavy in his arms. ‘Hey,’ Chel called, ‘what is the “vile truth”?’

  The well-deep voice echoed from the stones as the porter slid into darkness. ‘That the king is dead, and we shall all of us burn.’

  Heali snorted. ‘Take no heed of mad men, Master Chel,’ he said, then walked out into the bustle of the courtyard, nodding for Chel to follow. With a bemused sigh he did, the old porter’s words still rattling in his head.

  ***

  ‘Is this place far?’ Chel said as they wandered through the open palace gate, beneath the strutting statue of Grand Duke Reysel. A fresh streaking of bird shit adorned the statue; a pair of skivvies were doing their best to remove it. Duty guards nodded to Heali as they passed. ‘I need to be back by ten bells.’

  ‘And why’s that, Master Chel?’

  ‘Sokol will be expecting me to present him with his freshly arrived festival robes. Should have been here days ago, but you know what it’s like this time of year.’

  ‘I do indeed. Can’t spend days on the walls without learning the motion of the ocean, eh?’ Heali picked his way down the meandering ridge path, steering around the irregular mule traffic plodding uphill, festival loads stacked high.

  Across the bay on the opposite ridge, the domes of the Academy glowed in the morning sun, safely nestled along the crest of the highport that towered over the harbour’s eastern flank. In the handful of weeks he’d been in Denirnas, Chel hadn’t made it as far as the highport, let alone the Academy. It looked pleasantly peaceful up there.

  In the lowport, the summer’s-end sun was well up, as was the seething press of peddlers, pilgrims and panhandlers. Everywhere was noise and movement, heat and humanity, and Chel’s nausea came roaring back as he tried to follow Heali down the carved steps of the hill path into the town. He kept one hand on his purse and the other on Heali’s shoulder, buffeted by human tides.

  They skirted a grim-faced servant tasked with scrubbing the latest Rau Rel graffiti from a pale wall, the words ‘The Watcher sees all’ disappearing beneath his brush. One of the palace guards watched over him; he nodded to Heali and moved aside as they passed. Chel shook his head. The partisans’ graffiti would be back before they made it back to the palace. You couldn’t go twenty strides in the port without seeing ‘death to tyrants’ or some reference to ‘the Watcher’ scrawled across walls; the only thing that varied was the spelling.

  ‘Who keeps writing this stuff?’ Chel muttered to Heali. Heali didn’t respond.

  Preachers’ Plaza was already thick with idle folk circling the ranting box-clerics on their sea-crates, attending them or jeering them in equal measure. Chel took one look at the seething crowd and baulked; he could go no further. He almost cried with relief when Heali diverted from the main path, cutting round the plaza and between two of the low white buildings that blanketed the bluffs above the harbour. A narrow path led up to a flat roof, suddenly dim in the highport’s shadow.

  The shaded rooftop was still cool and mercifully removed from the madness below. A clutter of mismatched wooden furniture dotted it, tables and chairs arranged in haphazard fashion, some occupied by resting merchants and sea-folk. Silk pennants and throws hung from poles around the roof’s edge, teased by the brisk ocean breeze, their sigils and symbols a mystery to Chel. A great clay oven dominated the hillside end, already smoking and sizzling, tended to by a small, wiry man.

  Heali dumped himself in one of the chairs, nodded for Chel to join him and waved the little man over. Heali produced a purse from beneath his belt with a flourish, placing a stack of coins on the table that could pay for three breakfasts with change to spare. Chel made no comment.

  The little man was beside him, asking him something with a cavalcade of syllables. Chel blinked back in incomprehension. The little man repeated his noises with practised patience.

  Heali chuckled, marbles rattling again. ‘Chicken or fish, Master Chel? I can recommend the fish.’

  ‘Chicken.’

  ‘Ha! Suit yourself.’
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  The little man nodded and scampered back to the oven, and a moment later the sizzling redoubled. Chel felt a surge of gratitude, although he declined the wine that was offered while they waited. He wasn’t mad.

  ‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’ Heali took a deep swig and smacked his lips, then topped up his mug. ‘No such thing as a hangover at your age, young man. Splash of spiced wine and a sea breeze, see you right. Heali’s little tip for you.’

  Chel ignored him, his gaze on the flapping silk hangings at the roof’s edge. ‘Those Serican?’

  Heali shot him an incredulous look, half smiling, anticipating a joke. ‘No, Master Chel,’ he said after a moment, the smile lingering. ‘Not every piece of silk comes from Serica.’

  Chel blushed at his ignorance, but at that moment the food arrived. Chel acknowledged that Heali had been right: it was excellent — spiced and fragrant and unfamiliar. He tore into it.

  ‘So,’ said the guardsman after a respectable number of chews, ‘you’ve been enjoying festival week?’ Chel only chewed. He could feel the food restoring him. ‘Partial to a bit of brandy myself, as it happens. I was a young man once: every night defiance, every morning … regret …’ Chel nodded along, half listening to Heali’s words, until his platter was empty.

  Hanging behind the oven was a wooden mask, taller than a man’s head, carved with intricate detail and inlaid with a silvery metal. Its expression was unfriendly. Chel stared at it.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Battle-mask,’ said a voice beside him. He turned to see a child looking back with wide, dark eyes. I must be hungover, he thought. That’s the third person to get the drop on me this morning.

  ‘A battle-mask?’

  ‘My father was a famous warrior in our home. He has many masks.’ The tone was even, the gaze level.

  Chel shot a look at the wiry little man, as the girl started clearing plates. He was scrubbing the inside of the oven with something. ‘He doesn’t look like a famous warrior,’ he said.

  ‘That is why he would have killed you.’

  Chel’s eyebrows climbed. ‘That a fact?’

  The girl nodded, her contemptuous expression not far off the mask’s. Chel squinted; he could see faded paint on it, yellow and maybe blue. ‘The champions of the cantons were given masks if they won a great battle or defeated another champion in a duel. My father has six masks.’