included: “these robbers are now fast becoming notorious for their audacity, cunning and banter”.
“I knew I should have told them the names we wanted to use.”
“But we’re notorious anyway,” Kacha said. “And look, they’ve given us names.”
Vocho scanned down further. So they had, and better ones than he’d thought of as well: the Dread Swordsmen of Fusta Wood.
And under that a bit of a shock. “Ten thousand bulls reward? Ten thousand?”
“Only if they get back what we stole.”
The pair of them looked at the chest. It seemed so innocuous. Plain wood stained a deep blue, brass bound. A chest like a hundred others. Except for those locks, that reward and knowing who had previously either been guarding it or owned it.
Vocho was now even more desperate to find out what was in it. If they were offering ten thousand, it was probably worth ten times that. Never mind getting their names back, he could buy half of Reyes with that much money.
“Right, I say we open it and see why they want it back so much.”
Chapter Three
Petri Egimont made his way through the tiny little town dressed in borrowed breeches likely to fall down if he didn’t hold them up with one hand, and a shirt that was two sizes too small and ten years out of date. Over it all a cloak that was more a loose collection of patches and what looked like mould.
Stares and whispers followed him, but he ignored them. There had never been a time when he hadn’t been whispered about. He did what he usually did, and sank into the background. Berie and Flashy were making enough noise for ten men anyway, and soon all eyes were on them as they made raucous demands for ale and food and women and some decent clothes, right now, damn it. Petri slid down a small side alley and found the curtained carriage at the other end, ready and waiting. No one saw him get in or saw him leave the little town. Just as it should be. What wasn’t as it should be was the lack of chest.
Past the square with its new clock tower, its shrine to the reborn Clockwork God. Past the temple, where the worshippers weren’t certain whether they believed in the reborn Clockwork God or were hanging on to the gods that had replaced him when he fell. A punishment, men had called it when Castan empire fell to pieces. A punishment for turning away from the Clockwork God and leaving him to rust as they concentrated on their work, on making clockwork in his image. Blasphemy and heresy had brought down the empire and killed their god, leaving the good people to turn away from both him and what engineering the Castans had left. Until Bakar had brought the Clockwork God back to life.
Out here in the country though, people didn’t trust this reborn god yet, so were hedging their bets by displaying icons of all of them, interim and reborn. Back in the city of Reyes the prelate would have had a fit if he’d known. At last something made Petri smile. Out of the city changes took a lot longer to take root, and here the other gods, even the old way of looking to the Clockwork God, were still in people’s minds and superstitions.
It didn’t take long to get out of town, and then the carriage took a broad unpaved road up into the twisting mountains. Mud clogged the wheels, but the way was smooth enough. Before long his destination came into view, white towers against the black bare stone of the mountains, all wreathed in cloud and rain today so the buildings looked insubstantial, as though they might blow away at any moment.
Petri had never been to the king’s palace before. Once it had been his summer residence, a retreat from the heat and fug of summer Reyes, a place to lie cool and comfortable by the waterfalls that glittered in every available tree-swagged nook. Now it was the king’s only palace, and Petri came not in triumph or summer, but in rags and in a cold and blustery spring with snow still on the upper slopes of the mountains.
The road narrowed as they climbed, and the palace played hide and seek among the crags and clouds until a last turn and the carriage rumbled to a stop before the main gates.
“Can’t take the carriage through, sir,” the driver said as he opened the door. “Sets off