The Black Hawks. David Wragg

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      A voice like the earth moving rumbled in the darkness behind them. Chel hadn’t even realized there was a passageway there. ‘Because the festival of King’s Vintage is a lie, a sop to the masses to blot the vile truth from their eyes.’

      He turned to find a gaunt figure looming over him, eyes mere hollows in the gloom, his dome of skull ringed by ragged grey locks. He carried a crate of earthenware oil lamps, clinking in time to his lurching steps. Heali sniffed. ‘Lengthened your chain for the festival, did they, Mad Mercunin?’

      ‘I know what they call me, Heali,’ the cadaverous giant replied. ‘Do you know what they call you?’

      Heali laughed, but Chel detected an edge to it. ‘Go on, sod off, you walking corpse. Go whisper your secrets to the cliff ducks.’

      Mercunin shuffled away into the gloom, the crate heavy in his arms. ‘Hey,’ Chel called, ‘what is the “vile truth”?’

      The well-deep voice echoed from the stones as the porter slid into darkness. ‘That the king is dead, and we shall all of us burn.’

      Heali snorted. ‘Take no heed of mad men, Master Chel,’ he said, then walked out into the bustle of the courtyard, nodding for Chel to follow. With a bemused sigh he did, the old porter’s words still rattling in his head.

      ***

      ‘Is this place far?’ Chel said as they wandered through the open palace gate, beneath the strutting statue of Grand Duke Reysel. A fresh streaking of bird shit adorned the statue; a pair of skivvies were doing their best to remove it. Duty guards nodded to Heali as they passed. ‘I need to be back by ten bells.’

      ‘And why’s that, Master Chel?’

      ‘Sokol will be expecting me to present him with his freshly arrived festival robes. Should have been here days ago, but you know what it’s like this time of year.’

      ‘I do indeed. Can’t spend days on the walls without learning the motion of the ocean, eh?’ Heali picked his way down the meandering ridge path, steering around the irregular mule traffic plodding uphill, festival loads stacked high.

      Across the bay on the opposite ridge, the domes of the Academy glowed in the morning sun, safely nestled along the crest of the highport that towered over the harbour’s eastern flank. In the handful of weeks he’d been in Denirnas, Chel hadn’t made it as far as the highport, let alone the Academy. It looked pleasantly peaceful up there.

      In the lowport, the summer’s-end sun was well up, as was the seething press of peddlers, pilgrims and panhandlers. Everywhere was noise and movement, heat and humanity, and Chel’s nausea came roaring back as he tried to follow Heali down the carved steps of the hill path into the town. He kept one hand on his purse and the other on Heali’s shoulder, buffeted by human tides.

      They skirted a grim-faced servant tasked with scrubbing the latest Rau Rel graffiti from a pale wall, the words ‘The Watcher sees all’ disappearing beneath his brush. One of the palace guards watched over him; he nodded to Heali and moved aside as they passed. Chel shook his head. The partisans’ graffiti would be back before they made it back to the palace. You couldn’t go twenty strides in the port without seeing ‘death to tyrants’ or some reference to ‘the Watcher’ scrawled across walls; the only thing that varied was the spelling.

      ‘Who keeps writing this stuff?’ Chel muttered to Heali. Heali didn’t respond.

      Preachers’ Plaza was already thick with idle folk circling the ranting box-clerics on their sea-crates, attending them or jeering them in equal measure. Chel took one look at the seething crowd and baulked; he could go no further. He almost cried with relief when Heali diverted from the main path, cutting round the plaza and between two of the low white buildings that blanketed the bluffs above the harbour. A narrow path led up to a flat roof, suddenly dim in the highport’s shadow.

      The shaded rooftop was still cool and mercifully removed from the madness below. A clutter of mismatched wooden furniture dotted it, tables and chairs arranged in haphazard fashion, some occupied by resting merchants and sea-folk. Silk pennants and throws hung from poles around the roof’s edge, teased by the brisk ocean breeze, their sigils and symbols a mystery to Chel. A great clay oven dominated the hillside end, already smoking and sizzling, tended to by a small, wiry man.

      Heali dumped himself in one of the chairs, nodded for Chel to join him and waved the little man over. Heali produced a purse from beneath his belt with a flourish, placing a stack of coins on the table that could pay for three breakfasts with change to spare. Chel made no comment.

      The little man was beside him, asking him something with a cavalcade of syllables. Chel blinked back in incomprehension. The little man repeated his noises with practised patience.

      Heali chuckled, marbles rattling again. ‘Chicken or fish, Master Chel? I can recommend the fish.’

      ‘Chicken.’

      ‘Ha! Suit yourself.’

      The little man nodded and scampered back to the oven, and a moment later the sizzling redoubled. Chel felt a surge of gratitude, although he declined the wine that was offered while they waited. He wasn’t mad.

      ‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’ Heali took a deep swig and smacked his lips, then topped up his mug. ‘No such thing as a hangover at your age, young man. Splash of spiced wine and a sea breeze, see you right. Heali’s little tip for you.’

      Chel ignored him, his gaze on the flapping silk hangings at the roof’s edge. ‘Those Serican?’

      Heali shot him an incredulous look, half smiling, anticipating a joke. ‘No, Master Chel,’ he said after a moment, the smile lingering. ‘Not every piece of silk comes from Serica.’

      Chel blushed at his ignorance, but at that moment the food arrived. Chel acknowledged that Heali had been right: it was excellent — spiced and fragrant and unfamiliar. He tore into it.

      ‘So,’ said the guardsman after a respectable number of chews, ‘you’ve been enjoying festival week?’ Chel only chewed. He could feel the food restoring him. ‘Partial to a bit of brandy myself, as it happens. I was a young man once: every night defiance, every morning … regret …’ Chel nodded along, half listening to Heali’s words, until his platter was empty.

      Hanging behind the oven was a wooden mask, taller than a man’s head, carved with intricate detail and inlaid with a silvery metal. Its expression was unfriendly. Chel stared at it.

      ‘What is that?’

      ‘Battle-mask,’ said a voice beside him. He turned to see a child looking back with wide, dark eyes. I must be hungover, he thought. That’s the third person to get the drop on me this morning.

      ‘A battle-mask?’

      ‘My father was a famous warrior in our home. He has many masks.’ The tone was even, the gaze level.

      Chel shot a look at the wiry little man, as the girl started clearing plates. He was scrubbing the inside of the oven with something. ‘He doesn’t look like a famous warrior,’ he said.

      ‘That is why he would have killed you.’

      Chel’s eyebrows climbed. ‘That a fact?’

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