He found Dentos atop the light-house at the far end of the mole forming the left shoulder of the harbour entrance. He sat with his legs dangling over the lip of the lighthouse’s flat top, staring out to sea and sipping from a flask of Brother’s Friend. His bow lay nearby, the quiver empty. Vaelin sat down next to him and Dentos passed him the flask.

“You didn’t come to hear the words for our sister,” he said, taking a small sip and handing the flask back, grimacing slightly as the mingled brandy and redflower burned its way down his throat.

“Said my own words,” Dentos muttered. “She heard me.”

Vaelin glanced down at the base of the light-house where numerous lifeless seagulls bobbed in the water, all neatly skewered with a single arrow. “Looks like the gulls heard you too.”

“Practising,” Dentos said. “Filthy scavengers anyhow, can’t stand them, bloody noise they make. Shite-hawks my Uncle Groll called ‘em. He was a sailor.” He grunted a laugh and took another drink. “Could be I killed him last night. Can’t rightly remember what the bastard looked like.”

“How many uncles do you have, brother? I’ve always wondered.”

Dentos’s face clouded and he said nothing for a long time. When he finally spoke there was a sombre tone to his voice Vaelin hadn’t heard before. “None.”

Vaelin frowned in puzzlement. “What about the one with the fighting dogs? And the one who taught you the bow…”

“I taught myself the bow. There was a master hunter in our village but he wasn’t my uncle, neither was that vicious shit-bag with the dogs. None of them were.” He glanced at Vaelin and smiled sadly. “My dear old mum was the village whore, brother. She called the many men who came to our door my uncles, made them be nice to me or they weren’t getting in her bed, any one of them could have been my dad after all. Never did find out which one, not that I give a dog’s fart. They were a pretty worthless bunch.

“Whore or not, my mum always did her best for me. I was never hungry and I always had clothes on my back and shoes on my feet, unlike most of the other children in the village. Bad enough being the whore’s whelp, worse to be an envied whore’s whelp. It was common knowledge my dad could’ve been one of thirty-odd men in the village, so the other kids called me ‘Whose bastard?’ I was about four when I first heard it, ‘Whose bastard? Whose bastard? Where’d you get your shoes from, Whose bastard?’ On and on it went, year after year. There was this one lad, Uncle Bab’s boy, mean little shit he was, always the first to start shouting. One day him and his gang started throwing stuff at me, sharp stuff some of it, I got all cut up, it made me angry. So I took my bow put an arrow through that boy’s leg. Can’t say I was sorry to watch him bleed and cry and flail around. After that,” he shrugged, “couldn’t really stay there any more. No one was going to apprentice a whore’s bastard, a dangerous bastard at that, so my mum packed me off to the Order. I can still remember her crying when the cart took me away. I’ve never been back.”

Watching him swig from his flask, Vaelin was struck by how old Dentos looked. Deep lines marked his brows and premature grey coloured in the close cropped hair at his temples. Years of battle and hard living had aged him and his grief for Sister Gilma was palpable. Of all the brothers she had been closest to him. When we return to the Realm I’ll ask the Aspect to give him a position at the Order House, Vaelin decided, then realised that there was every chance neither of them would see the Realm again. All he had to offer Dentos were yet more opportunities for a bloody end. His thoughts turned again to the marble block waiting in Ahm Lin’s shop and he knew he had delayed too long. It was time he did what he had been sent here to do. If he could achieve it before the Alpiran army arrived then perhaps another slaughter could be avoided, if he was willing to pay the price.

He got to his feet, touching Dentos on the shoulder in farewell. “I have business…”

Dentos’s weary eyes were suddenly bright with excitement and his finger shot out to point at the horizon. “A sail! You see it, brother?”

Vaelin shielded his eyes to scan the sea. It was the merest speck, a smudge of grey between water and sky, but unmistakably a sail. The Red Falcon was back.

Captain Nurin was first down the gangplank, his lean, weathered face drawn with exhaustion, but the light of triumph burned in his eyes along with the greed Vaelin remembered so well from their first meeting. “Twenty-one days!” he exulted. “Wouldn’t have thought it possible so late in the year, but Udonor heard our calls and made a gift of the winds. Would have been eighteen if we hadn’t had to tarry so long in Varinshold, nor carry so many passengers back.”

“So many passengers?” Vaelin asked. His gaze was fixed on the gangplank, expecting a slender, dark haired form to appear at any second.

“Nine in all. Though why a girl whose head barely reaches my shoulder needs seven men to guard her is beyond me, I must say.”

Vaelin turned to him, frowning. “Guards?”

Nurin shrugged, gesturing at the gangplank. “See for yourself.”

The heavy set man descending the gangplank had a squat, brutish face, unleavened by the scowl with which he regarded Vaelin and the surrounding Wolfrunners. More disconcerting still was the fact that he wore the black robe of the Fourth Order and a sword at his belt.

“Brother Vaelin?” he enquired in a flat tone, devoid of civility.

Vaelin nodded, growing unease dispelling any urge to offer a greeting.

“Brother Commander Iltis,” the black robed man introduced himself. “Faith Protection Company of the Fourth Order.”

“Never heard of you,” Vaelin told him. “Where are Sister Sherin and Brother Frentis?”

Brother Iltis blinked, clearly unused to disrespect. “The prisoner and Brother Frentis are aboard ship. We have some issues to discuss, brother. Certain arrangements must be made…”

Vaelin had heard only one word. “Prisoner?” His voice was soft but he was aware of the menace it possessed. Brother Iltis blinked again, his scowl fading to an uncertain frown. “What… prisoner?”

The sound of creaking wood made him turn back to the ship. Another brother of the Fourth Order, also armed with a sword, was leading a dark haired young woman by a chain attached to shackles on her wrists. Sherin was paler than he remembered, also somewhat thinner, but the bright, open smile that lit her face as their eyes met remained unchanged. Another five brothers followed her onto the quay, spreading out on either side and eyeing Vaelin and the Wolfrunners with cold distrust. Last to descend was Frentis, his face drawn in shame and his eyes averted.

“Sister,” Vaelin moved towards Sherin but found his path suddenly blocked by Iltis.

“The prisoner is forbidden discourse with the Faithful, brother.”

“Get out of my way!” Vaelin ordered him, precisely and deliberately annunciating each word.

Iltis paled visibly, but held his ground. “I have my orders, brother.”

“What is this?” Vaelin demanded, rage building in his chest. “Why is our sister shackled so?”

Behind Iltis, Sherin lifted her shackled wrists, grimacing ruefully. “I’m sorry you find me in chains once again…”

“The prisoner will not speak unless permitted!” Iltis barked, rounding on her, tugging sharply on her chain, the shackles chafing her flesh, producing a wince of pain. “The prisoner will not sully the ears of the Faithful with her heresy or treachery!”

Sherin’s eyes flicked to Vaelin, imploring. “Please don’t kill him!”

Chapter 7

She was angry, he could tell. Her expression rigid, eyes avoiding his gaze as they walked the track to the Governor’s mansion, her heavy chest of curatives weighing on his shoulder.

“I didn’t kill him,” Vaelin offered when the silence became unbearable.

“Because Brother Frentis stopped you,” she replied, eyes flashing at him.

She was right, of course. If Frentis hadn’t stopped him he would have continued to beat Brother Iltis to death on the quayside. The other brothers from the Fourth Order had unwisely begun reaching for their weapons when Vaelin’s first blow sent the man sprawling to the ground, quickly finding themselves disarmed by the surrounding Wolfrunners. They could only stand and watch helplessly as Vaelin continued to smash his fist into Iltis’s increasingly bloody and distorted face, deaf to Sherin’s pleading and leaving off only when Frentis hauled him away.

“What is this?” he snarled, wrenching himself free. “How could you allow this?”

Frentis looked more shamed and miserable than Vaelin could remember. “The Aspect’s orders, brother,” he replied in a soft murmur.

“Excuse me!” Sherin jangled her chains, glaring at Vaelin. “Do you think I might be freed to tend to our brother before he bleeds to death?”

And so she had tended to Brother Commander Iltis, ordering her chest be carried from the ship and applying balms and salves to his cuts before stitching the gash Vaelin had left in his brow when he pounded his forehead against the cobbles. She worked in silence, her deft hands doing their work with the clean efficiency he remembered, but there was a sharpness to her movements that bespoke a restrained anger.