Chapter Six

All the World, and Everything in It

‘Again.’

Oxford Blue gasped, bear-backed, his knees against the stone. His lungs clutched at vanishing air. It was a panicked sensation, like all the air in the world couldn’t satisfy him, like a soaked towel lain across his face.

‘I said, “again”, boy. Geddup.’

He wheezed, staggered to his feet. Immediately a blow lashed at the backs of his knees and Oxford collapsed in silence. He pushed the air through his cheeks, resolved to not cry out.

‘I pity you, boy.’ Baldrick Chen’s voice boomed over him, like streaks of thunder.

Oxford slowly raised his head. His dishevelled hair swallowed him like matted snakes. His beard was long at his breast and red marks painted him in a criss-cross of lashings.

‘Why?’ Oxford mumbled.

‘What was that?’

‘Why do you pity me?’

‘You came to me with your wailing, self-pity bullshit. Asking for purpose. But I see you’ve never been broken.’ Chen lowered his forearm and Oxford saw the pinkish scarring of half-healed burns. ‘Lynn’s men.’ He raised his tunic and Oxford saw a puncture wound above his hip. ‘Two Voyeurs jumped me on the Southerly Road. And, look at you, you’re clean.’

‘So, show me,’ Oxford begged.

‘The Travelling Sword is an instinct. Learned, but not taught. It is a worldly wisdom you’ve yet to possess. You’ve known this land not a year, boy. Try over fifty.’

Oxford bowed.

‘Yer a cub. Dinner’s ready,’ Chen grumbled then. ‘Get dressed.’

Nodding, Oxford backed into a corner of Chen’s stone homestead. It was a single room, hollowed out from a giant structure in the heart of the Flatlands, territory crossed only by bandits and the like. Sand-coloured walls held the light well. One wouldn’t know it was scarce dawn.

A fire crackled in the corner. Oxford slung a blanket Chen had tossed him across his shoulders and gathered in a bowl of porridge, wolfing down small spoonfuls.

‘You know, we choose,’ Chen said softly.

‘Hmm?’

‘The Sword. We choose who we take as apprentices. No one volunteers because few know where to find us. You’re unique. Aye, you’re thick as pig shit, but you got the mindset. You care without caring.’

Oxford knew better than to thank him for this ‘compliment’. He should just take it. It was a peculiar reversal. So long had Oxford told people that he knew better. That he knew these lands and roads like the back of his hand, their intimate secrets, and the unspoken ways of dealing with strangers. But as Chen said, he knew nothing since the Underground. He was an infant.

He recalled telling Agloff to shut up and do as he was told in the forests around Fort Backwater. Such a long time ago.

Agloff.

Oxford’s brain chewed on the name, before returning to his porridge.

‘What troubles you, boy? I see the way of a look behind those eyes.’

‘Nothing, Sir.’

Biggest lie anyone ever told, that is.’

‘What?’

‘That nothing’s wrong. They want your pity, but they don’t want to tell you why.’

‘I don’t need pity.’

‘You have mine all the same. For all and everything.’

Oxford had told Chen the story. At first, he assumed it passed through him, unattended. But every now and then, Oxford caught a moment where Chen seemed to see him, all of him. This was one of those moments.

‘You needn’t be grateful,’ Chen added. ‘Just take the sentiment.’

‘Yessir.’

No sooner had Oxford suckled his last spoonful of porridge than a shadow swept into the open doorway to the Flatlands. Oxford tipped back in his seat, and his head was caught in a moment’s fright. Chen sniggered at him, then beckoned the visitor to enter.

‘Allegiant Chen.’ It was a squeaky-voiced child, not yet a man of fifteen or so, yet to fill out. Leathery garb was cleaved into strips by his ankles and his greased hair was wild and unkempt. It swallowed him as Oxford’s did. ‘Allegiant Blue.’ He dipped his head at Oxford.

Oxford did not return the look.

‘Dahl,’ Chen said.

Allegiant Kasper Dahl was a weaselly child whom Oxford knew from scant meetings. He was an apprentice of Allegiant Allwyn as Oxford was of Chen. There was something of the pair of them Oxford didn’t like.

‘Use your words, boy. Say as needs saying,’ Chen spat at the kid.

‘I was holding the gaze at Went Town,’ the weasel said nervously.

Chen passed a sideways glance at Oxford. He shunned the look. Apprentices of the Travelling Sword often served as passive observers in towns, roamers. It was an essential part of their education. Chen said it was in mundane observation that the world revealed itself.

‘I’ll see that you hold the gaze in a town of your own soon,’ Chen had told him.

‘But I don’t understand these people,’ Oxford argued. ‘How could I see their injustices? Know when to act and what’s common arguing?’

‘When you sit amongst them, share in their lives, that is when you understand. Apprentices don’t pass judgement. They observe, reason, and infer. When time comes to bloody your blade, I’ll let you know.’

Apprentices watched for signs of trouble, for days or weeks at a time, then alerted their or other Allegiants to the affair. There was a slickness to it. As Oxford saw it, the Travelling Sword were loners. Angry misers across the Colony who stalked the places between places. The likes that didn’t have a justice of their own.

In Oxford’s limited experience, Allegiants of the Sword held the peace by their reputations alone. But when they inflicted their justices, they were both swift and absolute.

‘There was a palaver, Sir,’ Dahl continued then.

‘A palaver at Went Town?’

Dahl nodded. ‘The Justice Mergot is dead, Sir. Topped by a wretch name of Cedes. He was due for a hanging. Took off and fled.’

‘I remember Mergot. More of a miser than me, that woman,’ said Chen, though Oxford wondered how that were possible. ‘How’s the town?’

‘Shaken but well, Sir.’

‘Good. And how long a head start does the rat have?’

‘No more than a few hours, Sir. Long as it took for me to reach you. Allegiant Allwyn was indisposed, and he’s always talked highly of you, Sir.’

Chen scoffed. ‘Flattered. But it will be twice that time by when we reach Went Town.’ He turned to Oxford. ‘Gather the swords and the coats, boy. Ready the horses too.’

Oxford bowed sharply from his bedside. He said nothing, gathering bundled fabrics and parcelling food into wrappings like the dutiful servant he now was.

‘Will you escort us, boy?’ Chen said to Dahl.

Dahl shook his head. ‘I should see to Allegiant Allwyn, Sir. He is content, but his illness takes its toll all the same.’

‘Very well.’ Chen passed a look to Oxford who hid his enthusiasm at this fact. ‘Consider yourself relieved.’

‘Thank you. I told the Macer, Ives, to expect you.’

They bowed at each other, and Dahl saw himself out onto the plains. His departing shadow cast shapes on the wind-carved channels that shaped the room.

Oxford watched the kid straddled the back of a squat horse. Dahl’s visit had all the brevity Oxford had come to expect from the Travelling Sword.

Oxford thought Allwyn and Chen friends, yet his master showed no sadness at the prospect of Allwyn’s illness, nor even the curiosity to enquire to its severity.

‘You should do better than to pass him sneering looks, Blue,’ Chen said then. ‘You’ll do well to rely on him one day, as I have on Allwyn. Our work is not so solitary. He’s a good lad.’

‘Sorry, Sir. It’s just he’s arrogant. They both are.’

Chen slung a pair of swords at Oxford who folded them into his bundle. ‘Are you not? I would be if I toppled the Red Cathedral. I see your looks. When you think you know better. Dahl’s a kid, no different. Leave him be.’

‘I’m sure he thinks the same of me.’

‘Hmm. In our situation, it serves to trust in our abilities. We have few others to rely on.’ Chen then passed a glance outside. The shadows were shortening as the sun climbed above them. ‘We should ride out.’

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Chen donned his travelling cloak and indicated Oxford do the same. They fastened their longswords to their backs, to ward off passing vagrants. Tethered to a post just beyond the shade of the giant rock they made their home were two horses, gnawing mindlessly on thick grass. Chen took the larger, an auburn Suffolk Punch called Welch. Even if it were impractical for his age, it signalled status.

He led Oxford on north-west, towards the shallower edge of the plains where ridged hills poked above the ribbons of forest ensnaring them. Sparse settlements covered these lands, of a dozen or two.

As they drew closer, Oxford spied walls running in concentric circles up the ridge’s tallest peak. Paths and roads connected them. Nested settlements sat inside each other. The uppermost was obscured from view by a wall as tall as its buildings.

Chen pointed the way up a track towards them and Oxford tugged at the reins on his Morgan. It jerked after Welch, cutting up the angle of the road.

‘Good thing about weather like this is the rat will leave tracks to follow. And out here, there aren’t all that many places a vagrant can hide.’

‘He’s a clumsy bastard,’ Oxford surmised.

‘Often are. All thought goes into the act itself. None for how they might survive thereafter.’

‘Have you seen a lot of his type then?’

Chen erred. ‘Aye, usually. Violent, vengeful men and women. The cruel sort. If they don’t enjoy it, they at least don’t feel remorse. Not like me and you.’

‘You feel remorseful?’ Oxford was surprised at this.

‘Of course. Any life taken is a violation. We are broken people, Oxford. It takes a perverse disposition to succeed as an Allegiant of the Sword. Our souls suffer to ease the burden on others. That’s why we do the work we do, is it not? To atone for some grievance.’

Again, Oxford was struck by surprise. The occasions on which Chen used his first name were scarce.

‘Don’t think me so much of a monster, boy,’ Chen added.

‘I never did.’ Oxford always imagined Chen best placed at the Gates of Hell. Not so worthy as to enter himself, but he guided its inhabitants there all the same.

‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You made a mistake. This is recompense. You hate that boy, and you hate that you hate him.’

He had no sympathy for Oxford’s suffering but for those fleeting moments. Chen was numb to the world, as Oxford saw it, while Oxford suffered eternally.

The work wasn’t atonement. It was distraction from the rumination. Endless thinking about thinking about how things could have gone differently. Oxford had good dreams sometimes but waking made them nightmares. They teased him with unspent possibilities. He saw Alice in them.

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Oxford said after a long silence.

‘People aren’t as much of a mystery as they like to think.’

‘But you don’t know anyone,’ Oxford jabbed. ‘You’re alone.’

‘Aye, but I see everyone. When you’ve done this yer whole life, folks are easy to read. There are patterns to how the world turns. You learn to spot them in time.’

‘Doesn’t mean you know how to read me.’

Why did the old git have to poke and probe? Why couldn’t he let Oxford be? Oxford had never asked after Chen’s reasons for joining the Sword, or Allwyn’s, or Dahl’s.

‘I know enough, boy. I know you’d make a sound Allegiant. You’d avenge the whole Colony if you could, of that I am in no doubt.’

‘Thanks,’ Oxford grunted.

‘I know you feel shackled to me. To the Flatlands. This world isn’t big enough for you. If you wanted to leave, I wouldn’t stop you. But you’d do better with structure, order, an apprentice of your own one day.’

He surprised Oxford again in his sharpness. He was right. The whole place was tarnished by Agloff and by Alice. Their memories choked him, in every ribbon of grass or belt of woodland. It was poison.

‘Let us ride around a bit,’ Chen said then. ‘It’s less steep for the horses.’

They circled round the base of the ridge where it was at its steepest, spiralling up towards the first and lowest of Went’s town walls. They were welcomed by high doors, pegged back on ropes that were fastened to spiked posts. The guards on duty took one look at Chen, his longsword and the ripples of cloven leather and waved them through wordlessly.

A wide dirt track led up the hill, with houses sprouting on either side. Boxy things, a family to a room, not unlike the residences of the Underground, thought Oxford. Each had a plot of crops fenced off round the back. Carrots or potatoes, he supposed. At the top of the track, they kinked towards a plantation house, fronted by a large crop field.

It was wide and grand, unlike the settlement it watched over. Pillars propped up a balcony, from where a white-haired man peered at them. Above, ornate windows jutted out along an angled roof, striking the fields in shadow.

‘Easy, boy.’

Oxford wasn’t sure if Chen was talking to him or Welch. Their path through the crop fields was lined by workers in fraying boiler suits. Their backs were contorted to near-right-angles from their labours, hunched over picking something or other. They snatched glances from the corner of their eyes, too scared to stare.

At the end, on the patio of the house, a man waved to greet them. He donned his leather cap to them.

‘Allegiant Chen!’ he called. ‘Master Dahl said he’d summon for you.’

‘You know me?’ Chen grunted, failing to dismount from Welch. Oxford mirrored him.

‘A man of your reputation, Sir, on the contrary, you are quite hard to miss.’ The odd man bowed shudderingly.

‘Macer Ives, am I to presume?’

‘You presume correctly. Servant of the Court of Went Town, and yours, Sir.’ He dipped his chin at Oxford who reciprocated.

‘We’re not intruding, are we?’ Chen glanced at the workers who had slackened in their duties, listening to the conversation.

‘Not at all. I’ll show you uptown. It’s best we talk away from the fields, if that pleases your colleague? I didn’t catch a name.’ He looked at Oxford again.

‘I speak for both of us lad,’ Chen said.

‘As it pleases you. This way.’ Ives pointed towards the next wall up. ‘I’ll show you the gallows. It’s where Cedes broke from his ropes, loosened them somehow.’

They near enough caught the looks of the whole town, Oxford thought, as they rode through. ‘Curious folks,’ he said.

‘This is as much excitement as we’ve seen in many a moon.’

‘A woman’s death is excitement?’

‘If you’re not in anyway involved,’ Ives said humorously. ‘People have a taste for the sensational, whether they admit it or not. It appeals to our sense of…’

‘Morbidity,’ quipped Chen.

‘Our sense of narrative! Mergot is the talk of the town. It’s what you crave isn’t it, as Swordsmen? The melodramatic.’

Chen then turned back on his horse and leaned down to Oxford. ‘Irritating shit,’ he said before looking back at Ives. ‘I crave coin, lad.’

‘You’ll be well compensated. Baron Kyo himself requested you.’

‘Flattered.’

Oxford wondered if this would be his life, if he could be content in ambling between towns, chasing loose killers and vagrants. He would be tethered to no one. His was the world, and everything in it, to wreak his justice. And still, a creeping feeling inside told him it still wasn’t enough.

It owed him more. Didn’t it?

Chen could say they were the same, but they weren’t. Oxford had lost everything but himself. The petty justices they inflicted did little to console that. He thought the killing of pilgrims might help somewhat, but they were confined to the south these days, and he to the north.

They folded through the next gate, and uptown where the buildings were bigger. Their timber rooves jutted up the main road like a giant staircase. At the top, they smeared into an open square around Went Town’s gallows. Presumably placed, Oxford thought, to attract the crowds.

Ives led them up the steps and pointed down to where a muddy path had been cordoned off. Oxford spied tracks. They tapered off, out the square and back down the hill.

‘This Cedes can’t have got far fast,’ Oxford said, noting the tracks. He saw the arches of bare feet. ‘No shoes. No shade for miles. Must be no more than a couple of hours’ ride out, and in this weather, he’ll stick out like a dagger.’

Ives looked at Chen.

‘I agree,’ he grunted. ‘I’ve no interest in nattering, boy. I’ll have the body back by nightfall.’ Chen didn’t mince words. He avoided chitchat like the fever. He looked back. ‘I trust dead satisfies you.’

‘Dead will do nicely. As recompense, do stay the night. I was told the Baron wanted an audience. The Travelling Sword are of great renown.’

‘That may be, but if he knew us, he’d know I don’t give two shits. I’d sooner hang myself than dine with a Baron and his wife,’ Chen said dryly, feeding the noose through his leathery hands.

‘How… tactfully put,’ said Ives. ‘I’ll pass on your regards.’

‘Only recompense I want is my coinage.’

Ives smiled awkwardly, then fumbled to his hip. He collected a small satchel and passed it to Chen, who inspected it.

‘Not Winter money, I hope.’

‘A mix. The North is indisposed, Allegiant Chen. Impossible to say what the eminent coin of the future is, so we deal in all of it. After all, gold is gold.’

‘And why use five words when fifty will do, right boy?’ Chen smirked, nodding at Oxford.

‘Right, Sir.’

‘I’ll ride out now,’ he continued to Ives. ‘I’ll leave the boy with you. If you need anything, he’s yours. I’m sure he’d dine with your Baron.’ He laughed heartily.

Chen was but two paces down the gallows before he realised Oxford was scampering after him.

‘I meant it. Stay,’ he said quietly. ‘I work faster alone.’

‘Aren’t we partners? Good practice, no? You could help me learn to track.’

Chen’s mouth writhed into a half-smile. ‘We both know you know how to track, how to hunt, how to kill, as good as I do. Whoever trained you did a damn good job.’

‘Then I can handle myself? Hell, let me go alone, and you rest.’

Oxford could see the motions behind the old man’s eyes, like he considered it for the slightest instant.

‘I know how much you want blood, boy,’ he said then. But trust an old man. I don’t want you falling for its taste any faster. You may not believe it, but there’s hope for your soul yet.’

Oxford thought Chen saw a beast inside him, for whom violence was an addiction waiting to happen. If Chen thought he could stem its urges long enough, maybe he could save Oxford. Maybe Oxford could heal. But the wound wasn’t ajar, it was gaping. It was a hole through the middle of his being.

There was no soul to save anymore.

‘If you say so,’ Oxford said then.

‘I do say so.’ He held a hand out to Oxford’s shoulder. ‘Hold the gaze. Amble this fine town, sample its pleasures. There are finer things in life than killing.’

How did Oxford make him understand? There wasn’t anything anymore. He was numb to good drink; it dulled his senses without rage nor joy. He was numb to the good women and men of the brothel. What he craved, they could never imitate. He was numb to good humour; he saw the world only exactly as it was.

If his person were a blade, it was blunt in every sense.

Oxford wasn’t sure if Chen waited for his reply. A moment later, he saw Welch cantering down the hill towards the lower wall, Chen astride it. Oxford watched until the pair were a blot on the grass, then turned and headed down.

Ives might have said something, but Oxford didn’t listen. He waded through a muddy path and cursed the land.

‘Shall I tell the Baron you’ll see him shortly?’ the Macer said a third or fourth time, prodding Oxford by the shoulder.

‘No!’ he snapped. He threw his arm and knocked the Macer to the mud. Oxford’s eyes flared, flashing to where he saw a row of onlookers. Ives shirked and bowed his head.

Oxford panted and pulled his arms in. He didn’t think to apologise. He left Ives to pick himself up and the people of Went Town parted from Oxford as if by some invisible force. He could strike the whole town down now and none would resist, he thought.

Why had Chen forced him to stay? Oxford had no interest in spending a minute in the Baron or Ives’ hospitality, and Chen knew that. He whistled for his unnamed Morgan down the way and saddled up, and the mudded Macer came running after him.

‘I’m going,’ Oxford said at him. ‘Chen will be back soon with your Cedes.’ He pushed a gloved hand through his greasy mane, sweeping it back in the wind.

Ives opened his mouth in a wordless splutter. Before any practiced farewell could come to him, Oxford was cantering down the hill and through the open gates.

At once, he felt calmed.

Alone, yes; that was what he needed. He could spend these few hours of peace. Oxford was at ease on horseback, trekking across the Southern Colony at the behest of the Underground. He served a different master now, but the journeys were calming all the same.

Oxford rode well and rode hard. But he was only quarter of a mile out when something caught him.

He heard a wailing. A distant bluster of cries, carried on the wind. He turned and watched from a crested peak, back at the rings of Went Town.

Flecks of villagers and horse riders cascaded down the hill, gripped by sudden panic.

‘The hell?’ he muttered.

Then, Oxford saw a column of smoke and a thatched building caught alight. Bodies scattered in random motions, falling from the hill, spilling out the gates and onto open pasture, to somewhere, anywhere.

Oxford couldn’t see what had happened, then the clouds parted, and he could. The flat belly of a starship pushed through the open sky, terribly grey and monstrous. Canons and turrets threatened from every surface. How tall it was, Oxford couldn’t say. The above hung in thick cloud. It moved with a whirring thrum, louder than anything. Disparate booms clapped across the sky as its engines pulsed and Oxford was suddenly caught in its shadow. It moved over him and past him. It didn’t care for the insignificance of Went Town.

The people-flecks stopped at its passing and watched. It was a moment they had imagined, Oxford was sure. It was a sight hitherto unseen since the first days of Colony Two.

Many in this place called them the Departed, the ones who left the Earth generations ago to worlds anew. Some imagined them heroes, saviours, the kind from storybooks. Some called them the other-kind. But all saw them worthy of their reverence.

Oxford knew them as the Confederacy of Colonies. He learned to hate them a long time ago. In that moment, all he had the capacity to think was, ‘why’.

The other Allegiants need to hear about this, he decided. And he rode onwards, chasing the beast’s shadow. He rode on, well and hard like always, and then some.