Page 35 of The Devils

The Current Set of Enemies

Sunny crouched in the damp brush, in the gathering darkness towards sunset, and kept watch on her current set of enemies.

Four men, a woman, and a werewolf.

She spent a lot more of her time than she’d have liked holding her breath while slinking, skulking, and slithering through wet vegetation. Also muddy crawlspaces, cobwebby attics, ditches, cellars, and sewers. She’d much rather have been sitting in plain sight in a dry room, in a comfy chair, breathing easily and having her opinions taken very seriously. Like Cardinal Zizka.

But Jakob had been right. They weren’t going to make an enemy of God a cardinal and it was high time she accepted it. Who gets to pick their place, after all? You just get crammed into the slot the world finds for you on account of your luck and what you’re good at.

Sunny was a natural spy with the shittest luck imaginable.

So she kept low, like usual, in the shadows, like usual, her breath mostly held and her shoulders mostly hunched against the cold, peering through the wet fronds towards the fire.

The four men and the woman sat on one side of it, talking a bit, passing a bottle, tending to a steaming pot, and sharpening quite the arsenal of weapons. The werewolf sat apart on the other side, and all he had was a little knife, firelight winking on its blade as he whittled a stick. Not a particularly sinister pastime, but he managed to make it off-putting as stacking skulls. Maybe once you know someone might at any moment turn into a slavering bull-sized monster, everything he does seems sinister.

Sunny sighed, from right down in her stomach.

For her, making a friend could take years, but new enemies popped up like mushrooms after the rain. Glance out your window in the morning and there they were, by the dozen.

Not that she had a window, of course. They mostly kept her in a cellar.

Talking of mushrooms, she tugged up a few more of the Nun’s Worries scattered among the roots and added them to her handful. This many wouldn’t kill anyone who ate them. But they’d be far too busy shitting water to chase any would-be empresses.

Or any invisible elves, for that matter.

She was wondering about the best way to sneak them into the stew when her ears pricked up at hoofbeats, and she held her breath and wriggled deeper among the roots. The four men and the woman reached for weapons, but when they saw riders come from the trees into the light, they gave the sort of grins you give folk you’re expecting.

More enemies, then.

Sunny gently shook her head. Given how hard she tried to be liked, it was amazing how she could stack ’em up.

She counted eight riders, led by a man with a great golden cloak, gathered up high across his shoulders and trailing over the hindquarters of a skittish warhorse. Sunny learned in the circus you can usually judge a person’s character from how they treat their animals. The way this cloaked fellow wrenched the reins around made her reckon him quite the arsehole, and his comrades looked no better. There was a tall, gaunt, lank-haired bastard who glowered at everything like he was thinking of eating it, and a pair of smirking women with identical shaved heads, angular as anvils, who had quite the sorcerous flavour.

So she was up to fourteen enemies, purposeful, powerful, and prepared. Staying in the damp brush had rarely seemed so appealing, but if she did nothing, they’d catch Alex tomorrow, or maybe the day after. So Sunny dragged a breath to the deepest corners of her lungs, closed her fingers tight around her Nun’s Worries, and scurried closer.

‘Duke Sabbas!’ called the bastard with the corkscrew, standing up with a salesman’s grin.

‘Where are the others?’ asked the one with the cloak, and his voice was all silk and honey. So he was Sabbas. Alex’s cousins certainly had some extravagance when it came to tailoring. Sunny would’ve liked more extravagance in her tailoring. But spying really demands a low-key look.

‘Jenny the Promise and her boys are up the coast,’ said Corkscrew, ‘and Angelo’s lot went searching the other way.’ As if the odds hadn’t been bad enough already. ‘We’ve sent people to bring ’em back …’ The man paused a moment, licking his lips as he glanced at the werewolf. ‘Now the Dane’s got her scent.’

‘She’s not alone,’ said the Dane, not even looking up from his whittling. His voice was icebergs crashing into an angry bear pack and it made Sunny’s neck hairs prickle.

‘Who’s with her?’ asked one of the sorcerous twins, firelight gleaming in her narrowed eyes.

‘By the smell … an elf.’

Werewolves have deadly keen noses. Vigga could sniff Sunny out even when she couldn’t see her. She said she had a salty elf smell, which Sunny found rather unfair, as Vigga smelled like a damp haystack. So she made sure she stayed well downwind as she wriggled through the grass, closer to the fire.

‘An elf?’ sneered the gaunt man. ‘Here?’

Now the Dane peered up from his knife, firelight catching the warnings tattooed onto his craggy face. ‘I know what an elf smells like,’ he growled, now with an added hint of slobber. ‘That salty elf smell.’

‘God damn it …’ mouthed Sunny, tempted to sniff her pits to prove him wrong.

‘Well.’ Sabbas perched himself beside the fire, folds of golden cloth spilling around him. ‘I daresay you can handle one little girl and one salty elf.’

‘Oh, we’ll see,’ breathed Sunny as the mercenaries competed to give the braggiest laughs, and she sucked in another breath, even longer, and held it as she stole across the open towards the horses.

A young lad had their saddles off and was roping them together, but they sensed her coming and stirred uneasily, Sabbas’s big stallion nickering and nipping at the mare beside him. The lad patted them, shushed them fondly, and Sunny felt a bit sorry for him. Someone always ends up with the blame, she’d been lumbered with far more than she deserved in her time. But she felt less sorry for him than she’d have felt being ridden down by that warhorse. So she leaned forwards and took the grip of his dagger, then flicked his ear so he whipped around, taking the scabbard with him and leaving her holding the drawn blade. She ducked under his arm while he looked about, rubbing his ear, then got down on his knees with some rope to hobble the horses.

He did a very conscientious job of it, too, tugging the knots tight and checking each one thoroughly. His problem was that Sunny was following along behind him, ribs starting to ache from holding her breath so long, sawing through each one with his own dagger as soon as he finished it.

He stood, slapping his palms together, very pleased with his work. Sunny slipped up next to the stallion, making it dance, one eye rolling towards her.

‘What the—’ The lad had spotted his empty scabbard. Then he saw the hobbles on the nearest horse were cut. Then he saw they were all cut. Stealing the horses would’ve been much the best thing, but now they were all riled and jostling and had no saddles and the bastards at the fire were looking over. Sometimes you’ve just got to toss your plans away and blow with the wind.

So as the lad started towards the horses Sunny gave an apologetic wince, stuck out one boot to hook his shin, and sent him sprawling in the grass. Then she gave an even more apologetic wince and smacked Sabbas’s horse across the rump hard as she could. It reared and was off like a shot, cut hobbles flapping. Roped together still, the others tore off with it in a whinnying crowd.

‘You damn fool!’ snarled Sabbas, jumping up, and Sunny had to do a little spin around him to keep from being barged. She could’ve stabbed him as he passed, but Sunny never liked to stab people if she could avoid it. In her experience, the more people you stab the sooner you end up stabbed yourself.

‘Get the horses!’ snarled the gaunt man, waving at the others.

‘Not my fault,’ the boy was shrieking. ‘Someone stole my dagger!’

‘She’s here!’ Of a sudden the Dane was looming over Sunny, big as a house, white shavings from his whittling scattered down his front. ‘The elf. I smell her.’

Sunny could smell him, too. Even holding her breath he had a haystack reek more pungent than Vigga’s. He jerked his head to one side, took a sudden step forwards, and Sunny had to duck under his sweeping arm and slip around behind him. Her lungs were bursting now so she grabbed one quick breath while his bulk was screening her from the others, who were fully occupied tearing after the horses in any case, then she tiptoed around in an arc, staying behind him as he slowly turned.

‘Where are you, mischief-maker?’ he growled, and she could hear him snuffling at the air, sniffling for her scent. ‘Come out, little Loki!’

‘She has hidden herself,’ snapped one of the sorcerous women, ‘but I will reveal her …’ She caught some crystal on a thong around her neck, shut her eyes, and started muttering, cut off in a squawk as Sunny shoved her hard in the back and sent her sprawling face first into the fire.

The werewolf hugged the air where Sunny had been with both huge arms but she’d already dropped, darted between his wide-planted boots, and slipped around the flames, tossing her handful of Nun’s Worries in the stew on the way and hopping over the sorceress, who was rolling about trying to slap the embers from her flowing clothes.

Really, you wear robes to a hunt you deserve everything you get.

‘Sister!’ shrieked her twin, eyes flicking furiously this way and that, and she thrust out her palms, heels of her hands together. A wind from nowhere ripped a wave through the grass, sending stalks whirling. As luck would have it, Sunny was lurking at the very edge of the blast, and it only plucked at her sleeve, made her ears pop, and near dragged her off her feet.

She needed no more encouragement and scurried for the treeline quick as she could. She heard fast footsteps behind but didn’t slow to look back, held her breath even though her heart was thudding and her ears ringing, and slid on her side into the brush where she’d begun.

The Dane was after her, bounding on all fours across the open ground, more animal than man. She took one quick breath then slithered away into the trees. She heard him crashing through the bushes behind her, his drooling snarl hardly a voice at all.

‘Where are you, salty bitch?’

Baron Rikard might’ve considered it a breach of etiquette, but she decided against making an introduction. Instead she wove through the trees in widening circles, the cries of Sabbas and his mercenaries fading into the distance, leading a werewolf in a spiral dance through the darkened greenwood till he hardly knew which trail he was following. She snatched a breather pressed against the dark side of a tree trunk, winked from sight, and slipped away, leaving him snapping and snarling and snuffling at the dark.

The sun was almost altogether sunk, so there was no shortage of shadows.

‘Alex!’ snapped Sunny, catching her by the elbow.

‘You’re back.’ Alex grinned at her, which took some of the heat out of Sunny’s panic. Must be nice, to have a winning smile. ‘This is Sunny. The one I was telling you about.’

The man and woman huddled together on the seat of their cart, shocked by Sunny’s sudden appearance. Or shocked by what they could glimpse of her face. She dropped her head, pulling the peak of her hood down.

‘We have to go,’ Sunny grunted, marching Alex away down the road, away from the cart, away from the torchlight.

‘We have to go!’ Alex shouted over her shoulder. ‘Hope you find your boy!’ Then softly, to Sunny, ‘Are you angry with me?’

‘Yes.’ Sunny was angry she’d put herself in danger. Or maybe she was angry at herself for giving her the chance to put herself in danger. More angry than she had any right or reason to be. ‘You should’ve stayed hidden. Like I told you.’

‘We can’t all turn invisible. Thought I could learn a few things. I wanted to be useful.’

Sunny thought about saying that would be a first, but Alex looked a bit hangdog so she didn’t have the heart. Her hangdog look was quite winning, too. ‘So were you?’ she said instead, letting go of Alex’s arm, then feeling a bit guilty and patting her dirty jacket ineffectually where she’d wrinkled it.

‘There’s a war on. Between the Count of Niksic and the Countess of …’ Alex crushed her face up. ‘No. Forgot where.’

‘Fighting over what?’

‘Rich people stuff, I guess. Not like the rest of us, are they?’

‘Says the would-be Empress of Troy.’

‘And I’ll be pouring scorn on the ruling class till the moment my arse hits the throne.’

Sunny snorted. She couldn’t seem to stay annoyed with Alex. ‘Anything else?’

‘Troy’s that way.’ Alex pointed towards the darkened hills. ‘I did get some bread.’ She held out a stale-looking heel and Sunny’s stomach gave an audible squelch. She hadn’t realised till then quite how hungry she was. ‘Thanks,’ she grumbled.

‘Thank them, I guess.’ Alex jerked her head towards the cart, dwindling into the darkness behind them. ‘They didn’t have much.’

Sunny closed her eyes as she tore a bit off. It was tough. It was dry. It was delicious. She slowly chewed, and slowly swallowed.

‘Did you find them?’ asked Alex. ‘The ones who’re chasing us?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many?’

‘A few.’ She thought about mentioning all the weapons, and the gaunt man with the hard eyes, and the twin sorcerers, and the Dane, but Jakob sometimes said, No one wants to hear all the truth , so she stuck to the good news. ‘I slowed them down a bit.’

‘How’d you do that?’

‘Scattered their horses. Poisoned their stew.’

Alex blinked. ‘Remind me not to annoy you.’

‘I wouldn’t poison you for annoying me.’

‘Phew.’

‘I’d just leave you and let fate take its course.’

‘Oh.’

‘Your cousin Sabbas was there.’

Alex glanced up. ‘What was he like?’

‘Seemed very nice, actually, not at all like his brothers.’

‘Really?’

‘No, not really. Every bit as bad. Likely worse. He had the stupidest cloak.’

Alex scrubbed at the sides of her head with her nails. ‘All your life you dream of being special. Having a family somewhere. Then they find you, and it turns out you are special. So special they want to kill you so they can steal your inheritance.’

‘There’s still your uncle.’

‘Duke Michael? If he made it back to the Holy City alive. And my cousins haven’t killed him since.’

‘If he sailed from Ancona like we were meant to, he might be in Troy already,’ said Sunny, still trying to stick to the good news. ‘Getting ready for you to arrive. With that friend of his, Lady Whatsface.’

‘Severa. Maybe. I guess. I hope.’ Alex looked less than convinced.

‘How do you do it?’ Sunny glanced back towards the cart, a couple of twinkling torches in the darkness now. ‘Make friends?’

‘Start talking and see where you get to. Tell ’em a story they want to hear.’

‘No one wants to hear my story.’

Alex shrugged. ‘Then tell ’em a different one.’

‘I’m a bad liar.’

‘Then leave all the bad bits out till it’s only good bits.’

‘If I left the bad bits out there’d just be silence.’ An owl hooted somewhere, off in the trees, low and lonely. ‘I never can make friends.’

And there was silence as they trudged on through the gathering darkness. Sunny felt Alex glance across at her, then away.

‘You’ve made one,’ she said.