City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [46]
‘You look like you got cash by your fancy clothes.’
Randur snapped, ‘Do you think we’d be all the bloody way out here, in the middle of fuck knows where, if we had any money?’
‘Got a point,’ the fat man grunted.
Something happened in the glances again.
Randur dived to his right, rolling under the shot of a crossbow, then intentionally spooked one of the horses so it backed into the other, and in the ensuing chaos he pulled both their shouting riders to the ground. One, two, he slashed the men’s throats, then plunged behind the caravan, underneath it and through to the other side. There, Randur caught the final horseman by surprise, slammed his head into the wooden side of the carriage twice so hard that it splintered, and shoved his sword through the man’s gaping mouth.
Up onto the carriage, then Randur hauled the fat man to the ground – the momentum increased by his target’s excessive weight.
Randur aimed his sword point between the man’s eyes.
‘Don’t you kill me!’ he spluttered, as a dark stain of urine bloomed at his crotch.
‘Right, you fat bastard,’ Randur grabbed a clump of greasy hair, ‘give me one reason to believe that the world would not be a better place without you.’
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘Sorry. You’ve failed to impress me.’ Randur stood up, and ran the near edge of his blade across the man’s throat.
He let him bleed slowly into the snow, lying on his back, his legs quivering. The horses merely stood there, their breath clouding the air.
Randur walked over to Denlin’s body, crouched down to cradle the old man’s head, staring at the gaping wound in his friend’s face. The snow all around was polluted with blood that spread out in vast stains highlighting the carnage.
He then went back to the farmhouse, headed straight across to the far end of one empty room, slumped in the corner, and slung his sword clattering across the floor. ‘Well, we’ve got ourselves some well-behaved horses, some food, and a fat pile of coin,’ he announced. ‘That’s progress.’
He rubbed at his face vigorously, felt an absurd urge to weep – from the continuing pressures, the tension, the relief of not dying, he wasn’t sure why.
No glory here, no get-the-girl.
Rika and Eir shuffled out from the dimness of the interior, clearly hesitant as to how to begin a conversation after that display. Randur could see pity in Eir’s face. He couldn’t be sure if she was appalled at his brutality or not, if she even witnessed it. She should be used to it, though, after seeing the butchery that occurred when he liberated her in Villjamur.
Rika said, ‘Did you really have to kill them?’
Closing his eyes, he breathed out slowly, then to Eir he said, ‘Not very grateful, this one, is she?’
‘Is Denlin . . . ?’ Eir began.
‘Dead. Very much so.’ Randur slid his knees up against his chest, and Eir crouched next to him, her hand resting on his arm, but he looked right past her, out through the open door, and across the scene where his friend had been dispatched so casually. He began to shiver.
*
Under a blood-red sky, Rika offered to perform burial rites for Denlin. Randur didn’t know what to say to her offer, and merely grunted some form of approval. Praying was what she did, generally, other than being dull company and seeming ungrateful for her rescue.
Well, not exactly ungrateful, but hoping for everything to be accomplished with religious purity. Saving the day couldn’t be achieved so cleanly.
Bugger that. She could freeze her arse off out here on her own, and see how long she’d last. Essentially, it dawned on him, he was here solely for Eir, doing whatever she wanted to do, and he was fine with that. It gave him some direction, a sense of purpose. Being back on Folke for the first time in months, he felt the urge to ride across the island to Ule, where his mother lived, to check if she was all right. He knew that when you couldn’t see the future, people tended to gaze longingly towards the past. So he now considered travelling to that town on the south coast where he