Catling's Bane (The Rose Shield Book 1) Read online

  “Give them to her,” Whitt pleaded. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll go tell Scuff.”

  “No,” Catling insisted.

  “Please, Catling.” Whitt tugged on her arm.

  A man’s voice broke through her panic. “How much do you have? Let me see it.”

  Catling cringed, another player for her coppers. She glanced up. The young man from the dock with the black curls and stubbled chin held out his hand. He smiled, his gray eyes calm.

  Keela’s lips twisted. “Don’t interfere, Gan. You’re not wanted.”

  Whitt drew Catling’s attention with a bobbing nod. “Show him.”

  A few coins at a time, Catling emptied her pockets into his palm. The man shuffled through the coppers with a finger, a sorry smirk on his lips. He poured them back into Catling’s cupped hands and dug into his pocket.

  “She’s got clipped coppers and half coppers,” he said. “Add it together, Keela, a half silver at most.” He flipped a coin high into the air, silver glittering in the sunlight.

  As it tumbled down, Keela thrust out a hand. It bounced on her fingers, clattered to the pavers, and rolled. She snatched it up and frowned. “A half silver?”

  “Have someone else count it.” The man waved toward the gathered faces. “Perhaps they won’t be so generous.”

  Keela’s eyes narrowed as she studied him. Her scrutiny flickered to Catling, and her lips moved without forming words. She slipped the coin into her smock’s pocket and walked away.

  Catling’s knees wobbled, and tears wet her cheeks. The stranger squatted down, blocking her view of her mother’s receding back. He chucked her chin with a knuckle. “You have nearly a whole silver in your pocket. Too much for a child. Take it home and hide it. Or give it to someone you trust.” He angled a thumb at Whitt. “We all have to trust someone. You hear me?” When she nodded, he straightened and shooed them off. “Now, back to where you belong and don’t forget what I said.”

  Chapter Six

  Before she faced the hangings, Catling covered her good eye and severed the touch of influence on her heart. The glee of hanging day would sweep through Whitt as it did the crowd, and she steeled herself to the onslaught of his joy. He would never laugh at plummeting bodies or find humor in death. None of those who ate, drank, and bargained in the Mur-Vallis market were themselves when influence stole their souls.

  Her gaze averted, she pulled Whitt toward the wagon. Scuff sat on the bench, snacking from the basket Zadie had packed for the day. Five piglings munched on mealy apples he’d tossed into the pen. Whitt giggled behind her.

  “Hung Tum and Brid,” Scuff said, pointing toward the tier. “Bromel’s next.”

  Catling spun. Below the tier, her two Farlander friends spun at the end of their tethers. Their heads bent crookedly on broken necks, their white hair shading swollen faces. Human scavengers had already ripped away whatever coins the guards had tied to their wrists, and the mob moved back before the next body fell. Bromel stood at the tier’s lip, the huge clansman placid despite his dead children swinging below his feet.

  Catling’s hands slapped her mouth as she screeched. The justice paused, and the two guards with their tall spears scanned the crowd. She swallowed the bile burning her throat, her body rigid and breath choked. The wail inside her battled for air. The justice resumed his recitation of the sentence, “He has admitted his guilt and accepted the punishment of death.”

  Bromel smiled at the crowd as fury seared Catling’s veins. With a stroke of her arm, she sliced through the influence gripping him.

  The Farlander’s face warped as he spun back from the tier’s lip. Rage thundered out of him, and he grabbed a pair of startled guards and flung them from the tier into the crowd below. The pool of spectators waiting for coins screamed when the bodies pounded them to the pavers. The rest of the crowd laughed as if these new deaths were a scene in a mummers’ show.

  With a roar, Bromel lunged. The justice stumbled backward toward the high ward and the boy. The rope around his neck wrenched him to a halt. His hands flew up and tore at the noose as he howled his pain, spilling oaths of vengeance into the air. The sacks of coins tied to his wrists split open. Copper showered down on the tier and rolled off the edge like sunlit rain. Immense, he towered above the market crowd, ridged with muscle, and majestic in his bearing, white hair wild in the wind.

  The boy on the tier shouted at High Ward Algar until the man slapped him across the face and shoved him toward the justice. Then Algar picked up a guard’s discarded spear, strode toward Bromel, and rammed it into his chest. Bromel staggered and dropped to his knees before the high ward kicked his body off the edge. The rope snapped taut, and the crowd clapped despite the absence of coins.

  Though Catling knew what her eyes had seen, she felt serene, the influencers drowning her and the crowd in contentment as she shielded Bromel, a dead man. The pleasure felt misplaced, unnatural against the backdrop of death. The revulsion she’d felt moments ago pulled on her reason, muddling her head. Contradictions stirred her stomach into a queasy swill. She raised a hand to her eye and shielded herself.

  The horror of the three bodies flooded her heart. She sank to the ground by the pigling’s fence and rested her head on her knees, breathing back a desire to retch.

  “Are you feeling sick from the sweets?” Whitt asked.

  “No.” She peered up and pointed across the market. “It’s that.”

  The look on his face told her nothing, his feelings pilfered, his smile hollow. She shifted her shield, cutting him free of the influencers’ touch. Whitt staggered backward, gasping. His gaze darted across the market in confusion before he stumbled behind the wagon and fell to his knees. Choking sobs blended with the hanging-day din.

  Then Wister balanced on the tier’s lip, replacement guards wary at his back. Catling covered her eye. She tapped the strange pleasure embracing her to fuel her resolve. Happiness filled her with a wave of invincibility. She maintained her shield over Whitt, leaving him to his misery, delighted that he saw the truth. Her gaze sought Scuff on the wagon bench, and she cut the strands of influence surrounding him.

  A second shield.

  His chin drew back in confusion, and despite his injured foot, he lurched to a stand. She gave him a grand smile.

  Once again facing the tiers, she focused on Wister, a third shield setting him free. The mage shook his head as if waking from a dream. Unlike Bromel, he stood motionless before the horde. As the justice read his list of crimes and the guards gingerly cinched the noose around his neck, Wister raised his arms. Slowly and softly, then in a great swarm, crows blackened the sky. Inky wings swept in from the forests, veiling the cloud-flecked blue. The squawking calls soared until they overpowered the justice’s voice, and he ceased shouting.

  The influencers ducked as crows streamed around them. A black wing brushed the back of the woman’s head, and she shrieked in terror. The high ward swatted a bird from the air, barking commands as if he were master of the skies. The influencers flailed at the swooping wings and screamed at the glowering mage. The boy on the tier hunched his shoulders and covered his head, abandoned to the swirling birds, while the high ward stood with fists on his hips, searching the crowd.

  Her arms holding her stomach, Catling laughed at the hilarity of the chaos until a giant hand gripped her shoulder. When she glanced up, she met the furious scowl on Scuff’s face. “We’re leaving,” he shouted. “And wipe that grin off your face, or I’ll wipe it off for you.”

  Catling scrambled to her feet and released the shields, allowing sweet influence to roll over him. Scuff took a deep breath and blew it out with an audible sigh. He rubbed his face, spat, and patted her head. “Must be the sore foot,” he said. “Regrets about the temper. Don’t know what got into me.” Whitt stumbled toward them from behind the wagon, and Scuff wiped the boy’s blotchy face with his sleeve. “You two pack up while I sell off these last piglings. Don’t feel right today. We’re going home.”

  “I thi
nk the sweets made me sick.” Whitt’s face was a wan shade of green, and his clothes looked like he’d tumbled down a hill.

  Scuff limped away, a pigling under his arm and four trotting along on strings. Wister’s body plunged from the tier, and the crowd scrabbled for the coins. The blue sky reverted to warm sunlight as the crows swirled and flew for the refuge of the verdant groves ringing the city. Catling and Whitt shared a smile and took apart the pen.

  ***

  Gannon idled in the tier’s shadow, sheltered from the influencer’s vision. He leaned on a century-old wall of stone some poor sod had built all the way up to the bottom of the tier. If it lasted another ten years before tumbling over, it would count a miracle.

  A head taller and double his weight, Tiler stood beside him, arms crossed over his beefy body, a combination of brawn and bulge in equal proportions. His sand-colored hair stuck up in stiff tufts, the result of eating too many eggs as a child, or so he said. Tiler liked eggs, not a bad thing since a half copper could buy him a handful.

  Gannon flicked a spider from his shoulder. He loathed crawly creatures, bugs of any sort… and rodents. The warrens swarmed with all manner of vermin. He flicked cobwebs from his fingers, eyes on the two children retreating through the market crowd.

  “Since when do underlords trouble to save scrawny little chicks?” Tiler asked.

  “They told the truth,” Gannon said. “Keela tried to rob them.”

  “Her own chick.” Tiler shook his weary head. “She’s going to complain to Farrow.”

  “Farrow can spot a lie as well as I.” He shrugged. “Farrow knows Keela for a snake.”

  “Do you think she would have called for justice?”

  Gannon scratched his stubbled jaw. “No. Even down here we have scruples.”

  “Scruples?” Tiler furrowed his brow. “What the spank are scruples?”

  “Morality,” Gannon said. “Principles.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “And I’m not an underlord. My father is, and he doesn’t take kindly to competition.” He swatted at a fly buzzing his face.

  “Comes in handy, though,” Tiler stated. “Algar would’ve stretched your neck twenty times over by now.”

  “Without a doubt.” Gannon’s father protected him from other underlords and, more importantly, from their masters on the tiers. He wondered how high the corruption climbed. If a clip of every copper wound its way into the high ward’s vault, he wouldn’t be the least surprised.

  “Someday all this scheming will scratch the wrong itch. You know that?” Tiler belched. “You can’t play underlord enforcer while plotting to overthrow the wards with high-minded… uh, scruples.” The man grinned when Gannon eyed him. “I never did get how we’re ridding the tiers of corruption when we’re stuck in the middle of it. None of them trust you, Gan—the underlords, the wards, the influencers—and all for the same reason, you’re stirring the stew.”

  “Wait. Tiler, listen!” Above them on the tier, someone roared, while in front of him the idiot crowd chuckled and cheered like a pack of assjackers. Gannon leapt into the sunlight for a look and then ducked back, out the influencers’ vision. Two guards shouted and thumped to the ground not ten feet in front of him, smashing the people beneath them. Bodies littered the pavers and screams mixed with laughter.

  “I’m going out there.” Before Tiler could reply, Gannon darted along the tier’s edge and veered into the light. A monster of a Farlander bellowed curses at Mur-Vallis, and if not for the rope ringing his neck, he’d have sent the justice winging after the guards.

  The whole spectacle struck Gannon as more than a tad ridiculous. When Algar poled the clansman through the chest and kicked the body off the tier, Gannon couldn’t help chuckling—hanging a dead man was thoroughly redundant.

  Then he shut his eyes, resurrecting the scene in his mind’s eye. He applied logic, denying the incongruity of the emotions tickling his chest. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. People don’t laugh at hangings. No one should find this amusing, let alone just. He stifled an urge to chuckle. A man was dead, his children strung up beside him like hapless prey.

  “Gan!”

  He opened his eyes and shuddered. Tiler had trailed him, still beneath the tier’s edge, hidden from the influencer’s view. The big enforcer waved him back. Gannon loped into the shade, rubbing his forehead to clear his thoughts. “The Farlander fought back. The influence didn’t hold. That hasn’t happened before. What’s going on here?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Tiler said. “Those guards don’t look too keen on laughing either.”

  Gannon glanced at the injured and dead strewn on pavers. One guard laughed between his screams of pain, his leg bone jutting through his skin. In moments, the arrival of tier guards would increase the chaos.

  “Watch the crowd,” Gannon said. “Tell me if you see anything unusual.” Above him, the justice began a new oration as guards led another soul to his death. Gannon searched the faces of the gawkers and shoppers, seeking expressions without merry smiles and bright eyes. He scanned the tradesmen minding guild wares, the cooks, and crofters. Then it occurred to him that whatever force disrupted the influencers’ power might have originated beneath the tier, perhaps from those who loathed the brutal control of the warrens as much as he.

  “Sodding birds,” Tiler murmured. “Look at all the crows.”

  Gannon’s gaze flashed up. Birds streamed toward Mur-Vallis, thousands of birds. In a matter of heartbeats, they descended on the tiers, the shrill caws exploding into a scream. A black vortex circled the city. The human throng watched with wide eyes and not a hint of alarm.

  “Is it the Farlander’s…?” Gannon’s voice trailed off. At the market’s back edge, he saw the pig farmer and the two children he’d saved from Keela. They looked angry, the gray-headed man about to cuff the girl, she shrinking back, eyes wide with alarm. The boy’s face was blotchy with tears when he should be laughing. They should all be giddy with influence, enjoying the show, but they were leaving.

  The rope snapped taut, another life ended, and the crowd scrambled for the coins like starved hounds. On any other day, he could picture Algar’s amusement, but this day something threatened the power of the tiers. When he glanced back at the pig farmer and his children, the ire in their faces had vanished, replaced with smiles. Yet, he hadn’t dreamed their defiance. Keela would tell him who they were.

  And he’d find them.

  Chapter Seven

  The wagon rolled to the stead long before due, the sun still tucked in afternoon clouds. Catling climbed down as if she’d aged a hundred years, the dull weariness of grief crimping her like an old woman. Wenna appeared at the door, brow creased with worry. Before Scuff said a word, she sent the twins out with Mouser and Daisy to hunt frogs.

  Inside the stead, the air congealed, too thick to breathe. Shafter, his skin bruised and scored with raw cuts, huddled in a corner. Catling sat mutely beside Whitt at the table as Scuff stumbled over his words. Piper bolted when he heard about Brid, and Wenna shook her head when Zadie offered to follow.

  The rest of them sat like boulders. Shafter buried his scarred face in his hands. “What will come of their bodies?” he whispered into the clotted silence.

  Scuff shook his gray head. “Buried or burned is my guess. Never thought much about it. The hangings I mean. Until…”

  His words drifted, but Catling knew what he meant to say. Until this day, the hangings hadn’t felt real; they’d never mattered. The influencers coated them in honey as if icing cakes, and later when the influence ended, the memory was only of the day’s sweetness.

  “Shafter,” Wenna rose from the bench and cautiously knelt before the man. “We are heartbroken, outraged, and ashamed. We’ll tend your wounds, and you may stay with us as long as you wish.”

  “No.” He gazed up at her. “I’ll leave at dusk. To bring word south, to tell Sim.”

  Whitt sniffled quietly, and Catling squeezed his hand, all their tears cried out.

  �
�Then we’ll dress your wounds,” Wenna said. “And Zadie will pack food for your journey.”

  Zadie handed baby Gussy to Catling and headed toward the cupboard. She froze at the window. “Someone’s here.”

  A knife flashed into Shafter’s hand, his feet under him before anyone else budged. Wenna hustled him into the bedroom, and Scuff strode out the door, slamming it shut behind him. Catling bit her lip, the presence of company never before evoking such fear. She rose and slipped to the window, handing Gussy back to Zadie. Leaning sideways, she stole a peek at the visitor.

  Out in the dirt yard, Scuff talked to a man who’d dismounted from a sleek terran horse. A red-haired woman in a green jacket and underdress sat atop a second mount. Only someone with gold to spare could hire one such horse, let alone two.

  When the man turned, Catling jerked back from the window and bumped into Whitt. She bent toward his ear, her voice hushed, “It’s the man from the market. The one who gave Keela the silver.”

  Whitt’s lip trembled. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Her hand brushed against her pocket and its jumble of copper. She pulled Whitt away from the window and shuffled all her coins into his pockets.

  “What should I do with them?” His eyes pooled with panic.

  “Hide them,” she whispered. “Don’t let anyone take them.”

  Wenna and Zadie crowded the window, preventing her from sneaking another glimpse of the strangers. She returned to the bench and clasped her hands in her lap, certain the strangers’ presence had everything to do with her. If Whitt weren’t staring at her and fretting about the bulge of coins in his pocket, she would have squeezed her eyes shut. Perhaps the man and woman would finish their conversation with Scuff and simply disappear.

  In a whirlwind, Zadie stepped back from the window, and Wenna darted to the door, shooing Whitt to the table beside Catling. She opened it as Scuff and the two strangers crossed the stoop. Piper leaned on the barn door, his arms crossed. He shook his head at Wenna’s worried beckon. She hesitated and shut the door.