After the couriers, scouts. The first few did not draw too close to Luss, but saw what remained of the city. Empty ruins, they said, smoke curling the sky. The great homes of the merchant houses torn down, the empty sockets of their windows lookingout to sea, the birds flying in and out through their ruined walls and unbarred doors.
The next few grew bolder, rode their horses around the walls, or what remained of them, canted and tipped as they were in huge, oblong slabs.
Eventually, they grew very bold. Hallooed over the walls, and crossed inside. They found dogs in the streets, amid the bones and the dried flesh. But not many bodies, for a city the size of Luss, they reported, not many at all.
A few of the bravest stayed overlong, so long they were thought lost. They returned swaying in the saddle and fell abed with fevers, their tongues and teeth clashing on words not their own. Shroudweaver ministered to them, feeling a fire in those bodies too familiar for comfort. On the third day of the fevers, every suffering man and woman tore from their sickbeds into the streets, bursting through windows and doors. Few made it far. Those that did grabbed orderlies and doctors, guards and watchers, scrabbling frantically with nails and teeth. And when they were finally brought to bay, they looked their pursuers in the eyes and drew broken glass and rusted blades across their throats with joyful finality.
No more scouts were sent. The roads north were closed, and new routes were found for people and goods that needed to pass. No caravans moved along the coast-ways, only the occasional large patrol of heavily armed men. The flow of information dried up along with the trade.
The heralds of Luss were not seen again until the battle to retake the north. There, outside the tilted and broken walls of their beautiful city, the gilded and bestoned heralds cavorted once more, in the ranks of the Empire of the Dead. Staring across the field with tarnished lips and bloodied teeth, they met their enemies’ eyes and called out, in desperation, once again. Armies. Ultimatums. Blades.
Shroudweaver shivers at the memory, cinching his scarves tighter. The streets have pulled him back up out of Thriftglow and into Peacock’s Rest. He can feel the shift under his feet, thecobbles and mud of Thrift smoothing out into the patterned brick that lined the streets and waterways of the Rest.
Evening trade now – hawkers bartering under the awnings. Snatches of music drifting out from beneath porticos as doors briefly swung open onto courtyards, bars, back-alley dives that had slid to the waterfront for a night or two.
Shroudweaver sidesteps the pleading hands of salesmen, lifts his sandals over a few ambitious drunkards already sprawled over the brick. Flinches as an amphora sails out of a second-floor window, painting the street with wine.
‘You look nervous.’
She almost falls out of the street-corner light. A brief flicker as a pipe sparks between her lips, her wide hat still low over her eyes. He recognises the hat and the feather first. ‘It’s Brimlicker now, right?’
She tips the hat back, revealing blue eyes, a lazy, pearly smile. ‘You remembered. Cute. A pleasure, Shroudweaver. It’s been a while.’ She sticks out a hand in greeting, smoothly falls into step next to him. ‘Brooding, are we? It’s a good time of night for it.’
He laughs. ‘Seems like everyone can read me today.’
She waves at a passing couple, blows them a kiss. ‘Takes one to know one. At least you’ve moved to the melancholy wandering stage. That took me a bit.’
He turns to her again, looks closer at her face, the curl of burnt flesh under the hair at her neck. ‘You were with us at Luss, weren’t you? One of the other captains, first through the breach. Saved my damn life.’ He laughs. ‘I’m sorry, it took me a moment.’
She shakes her head. ‘Not to worry. A lot of water under the keel. It sticks with you though.’ She runs a hand under her hat. Laughs. ‘Maybe if we’d stuck a little closer to you and Shipwright, I’d have a few less reminders.’
She guides him around a corner, towards a door with a hanging sign, and holds it open, ‘Every time I do what Fallon tells me, I get a little crispier. Come in, Shroudweaver, take a load off.’
The room inside is small, a bar running along one side racked with bottles that gleam dully. Shonky wooden steps stretch up toa second level where a band hang like bats, sawing at fiddle and accordion.
Below that, a circle of seats around the fire, familiar shapes. Declan’s broad back, Shipwright’s golden hair, her head tipped back in laughter.
Shroudweaver feels a pang in his heart as he recognises the room. ‘The Harrowed Gull? I thought she’d burnt down long ago.’
Brim moves to the bar, leans over, fills a couple of tankards. ‘I think she’s too rotten to burn.’ She holds the cup. ‘Here, drink. Fallon suggested a little reunion.’
He chinks cups, swigs back, grimaces. ‘Still swill.’
‘Never stopped you before.’ The voice harsh as a rusted hinge, its owner rounding the bar, rubbing raw knuckles with a starched rag. His hair fading at the edges into two wild tufts, his mouth home to a few defiant teeth.
Shroudweaver’s heart leaps. ‘Swallowgut? Is that you? I never thought I’d see you again.’
The old man waddles over to the bar, folds his arms on it. ‘You’d have seen me sooner if you’d visited, you young rat.’ His face breaks into a pink grin. ‘But better late than never. Look at you.’ He walks around the bar, reaches up to Shroudweaver’s shoulders. ‘Tall and thin as a fish-pole. And me remembering you in here, fresh-baked out the Aestering.’ He elbows Shroudweaver’s ribs. ‘Got yourself a lady, eh? And a title.TheShroudweaver. Very nice lad.’
‘Beats Swallowgut,’ Brim chimes in.
‘Says you,Brimlicker.’
Shroudweaver tilts his head questioningly. ‘I did wonder about that.’
She shoots him a look. ‘We can’t all have cool names,Shroudweaver. And no, I don’t really know where it came from.’ She pulls her hat down to her chin.
Shroudweaver taps the brim gently. ‘Come on, let’s go say hello.’
