Page 12 of Crucible of Chaos

Estevar smiled indulgently, more to see what effect it had on the two Trumpeters than out of any genuine patience. He might be caught in the middle of someone else’s battlefield, but there was a limit to how long he would tolerate threats against him while poor Imperious was in dire need of medical care. ‘Both the intruder and the interloper might enter your home without permission, but where the first does so without just cause, sometimes the interloper comes bearing royal authority.’

‘A most apt distinction,’ Agneta said approvingly. ‘No doubt one with which our esteemed Eminence is especially familiar, given how often the Greatcoats are greeted as interlopers by those over whom they seek to impose the King’s Laws.’

‘No king reigns on Isola Sombra,’ Jaffen declared. Having nocked his arrow, he raised his bow. ‘Nor shall any, so long as the Trumpeters defend it.’

Estevar now had a pistol, a sword and an arrow waiting to settle the debate of which would kill him first, and still had no answer to what had transpired on Isola Sombra to turn its monks into homicidal thugs.

There is a way to do this, he thought, his gaze sweeping over each of the three aggressors, seeking out the flaws in their stances and how far the angle of their weapons would need to shift to diffuse their potential lethality. Agneta’s pistol was the first problem, but also the easiest to solve; he needed to distract her just long enough to spin sideways on his heel, jostle her weapon hand off-axis and then wrap his arm around hers to trap her. Doing so would require releasing Imperious’ reins, but since the mule would launch himself at the two monks in yellow, that would give more precious seconds for Estevar to gain control of Agneta’s weapon. The main problem was Sister Parietta. Her bowman companion would almost certainly shoot wide, given his agitated grip on the bowstring, but she would instinctively cut down with her longsword, missing Estevar but likely decapitating the mule.

We are beset, my friend, he thought, still clutching the reins.Beset by religious lunatics waging a war whose nature we cannot yet discern.

‘Of course no king rules Isola Sombra, Jaffen,’ Brother Agneta said, her eyes fixed on Estevar and her smile suggesting she was all too aware of his hopeless tactical position. ‘It’s much too cold and wet here for monarchs. Young Filian sits in his warm throne room in Aramor and sends those like our uninvited visitor to interfere in our affairs on his behalf. So, unlike the knights we graciously turned over to your faction, this one’– she gave a slight twitch of her pistol and Estevar found himself imagining the sensation of a lead ball piercing flesh and bone before finally reaching his heart– ‘belongs to us.’

‘You know full well the Hounds took the knights before we could get to them, you cankerous Bone-Rattler,’ Jaffen snarled. He shifted position, now aiming at Brother Agneta. ‘Set aside your foul schemes, Inquisitor. The pistol shaking in your hand cannot take both Parietta and me before one of us kills you.’

‘Of course not, dear,’ Agneta said, her tone exasperated. ‘That’s why I’m aiming it at our visiting magistrate. Save those calluses on your fingers from a nasty bowstring burn and place that arrow back in its quiver or I’ll fire this lead ball right through his Eminence’s heart. He’ll bleed out right here in front of us, his corpse desecrating this oh-so-holy street. If I understand the edicts of this new god your so-called “general” awaits, this will be cause for considerable consternation from your side of the abbey.’

Trumpeters, Hounds and Bone-Rattlers, Estevar thought, forcing his feverish brain to get to work divining the meaning behind the names of these three factions.A pact over who gains custody over captives. . . the Trumpeters were meant to have the knights, but the Hounds–whoever and whatever they are–got to them first, which means they’re the ones who etched those sigils into the knights’ flesh before sending them back across the causeway.

When a child in Gitabria, Estevar had sat for hours marvelling at his contraptioneer mother’s inventions, watching the tiny springs and cogs and gears move so smoothly this way and that. Now it was the gears in his own mind turning, and though their grinding was another ache to add to all the others, he felt more at home in this bizarre battle of wits than he had since coming to this gods-forsaken holy isle.

‘Well?’ he asked aloud, ‘who shall have the pleasure of my company this night, and ease their troubled spirits by confessing their crimes before a true and just magistrate?’ He looked first at the two in their militaristic yellow and black habits. ‘Will the General of the Trumpeters receive me and share her plans for the protection of this island from whichever god she fears is coming to this troubled place?’ Ignoring their shocked expressions, he turned back to Brother Agneta. ‘Or the Bone-Rattlers?’ He gestured negligently to the front of her habit. ‘I presume the sobriquet is in reference to the dice you keep on a chain around your neck– six sides for six gods? A way of deciding who to pray to even when most of those gods are dead?’

Agneta gaped at him, but she hid her anxiety faster than the others. ‘Be careful when mocking an old woman,’ she warned, pressing the muzzle of her wheellock pistol against his chest. ‘We have precious little to live for and vengeance is as good a reason to die as any.’

But Estevar was done playing the helpless victim. He might be held captive by their weapons, but the longer they played this game, the faster his mind would unlock the secrets they were keeping hidden from him–and each other.

‘Perhaps I will instead take my supper with the Hounds,’ he saidsomewhat wistfully, for his stomach had finally muzzled his other complaints so that it could protest the lack of food in his belly. Watching their reactions, he added, ‘Discussing the purported occult effects achieved through the inscribing of certain esoteric sigils upon human flesh over a nice hot meal and a glass of wine would offer a most diverting beginning to my investigations.’

Jaffen, apparently no longer quite sure where to aim his arrow, spat in outrage, ‘You think yourself amusing? You fat foreign bast—’

‘Look at my face,boy. Does it look as if I’m laughing?’ He held Imperious back; the mule might be wounded and exhausted, but it clearly shared his fury, and was looking all too eager to translate it into reckless action. ‘I am cold, wet and suffering a fever that grows worse by the hour. My companion has a head wound badly in need of tending.’ He turned his gaze towards Agneta. ‘They are right, Cogneri; your pistol hand begins to shake. Either shoot me now and put an end to this rank idiocy or shoot the swordswoman. Imperious desires to remonstrate with the bowman himself.’

There was silence then, save for the petulant drumming of rain upon the flagstones of the winding street and the breeze whistling through the torn awnings of the shuttered shops. The quiet was oddly comforting, despite the drawn weapons. But Estevar had no use for quiet or comfort right now– he didn’t wish his opponents to have time to hatch some other scheme to take him away.

‘You have to the count of three,’ he told Agneta, ignoring the inquisitor’s defiant stare. ‘At that moment, if the three of you have not put down your weapons, I will release Imperious’– the mule did him the exquisite service of straining especially hard at the reins at that moment– ‘and then, you self-styled “holy” brethren, we shall find out whose god loves whom the most.’ He patted the mule’s side. ‘Mine gets especially cantankerous at times like these.’

Sister Parietta tightened her grip on the hilt of her longsword. ‘You do not issue ultimatums here, Trat—’

‘One,’ he said, pulling Imperious’ reins a fraction to the left while avoiding so sudden a move that Agneta might accidentally shoot him. If he could convince the mule to flank rather than charge their opponents, he could hurl his bulk past Agneta, knocking her pistol arm aside, dropping low enough that Parietta’s longsword would slice the empty air above him while he barrelled into her legs. The two would fall in a tangle of limbs, where his dagger would have the advantage over her sword.

‘He’s bluffing,’ Jaffen insisted, his gaze darting to Parietta before returning to Estevar, proving the sister was indeed his superior in the Trumpeters’ hierarchy.

‘Two,’ Estevar said.

He wished his plan had some hope of succeeding, but the odds were abysmal. Only the notoriously lucky Falcio val Mond–that same former First Cantor who’d saddled Estevar and his Greatcoat colleagues with his untried nineteen-year-old replacement–could hope to emerge unscathed from a standoff like this one.

‘He’s not bluffing,’ Agneta replied. ‘What you mistake for deception is, in fact, the arrogance of a man who’d rather die than allow himself to be under the control of others. I have met many such men in my years.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘Usually they were strapped to a rack at the time, but still, that’s how one learns which ones won’t break.’

‘Three,’ Estevar said.

Agneta’s arm swung to the right, the brass and mahogany barrel of her wheellock pistol now aimed at the forehead of Sister Parietta. ‘If your general were here, she would point out that sound tactics dictate that I should shoot the bowman before the swordswoman, but if I can only kill one of you before I die, I’d prefer you, my dear.’

‘You heretical bitch,’ Sister Parietta cursed. ‘Even your false gods must be looking down on you in disgust.’

The inquisitor shrugged. ‘My gods are a lot less uptight than yours, dear. By the way, that’s a bad word you just used. Best run off to your cell so you can slap your blade against your naked buttocks for a few hours in penance.’

‘Do not—’

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