Blood of an Exile

by Brian Naslund

  “Of course, I expect you will use some of that gold to rebuild the apothecary and hire a new alchemist to replace Morgan Mollevan,” Ashlyn added.

  “My queen?” Nimbu asked. His smile disappeared.

  “Since you went through the trouble of seeking reimbursement for the lost apothecary, I assume that your vassals found great value in the presence of a healer in Otter Rock.” Ashlyn hardened her voice. “And you do not strike me as the sort of lord who would deprive his people of aid, especially when you have just come into a rather large sum of gold. Am I correct?”

  Nimbu swallowed. His forehead had begun to sweat. “You are a very perceptive judge of character, my queen. The apothecary will be rebuilt right away.”

  “I’m glad we could come to terms, Lord Nimbu,” Ashlyn said, making a mental note to check the construction’s progress in a few weeks—she had an informant in the area who could send an update by pigeon. If someone didn’t find an antivenom for those snails’ poison soon, every village in Blakmar would be plagued with illness. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

  “The pleasure and honor is mine,” Nimbu said. “I shall ask the gods to deliver you clear skies and warm sun for many moons.”

  As Nimbu departed, Ashlyn clicked her teeth together behind tightly pressed lips. Thought of her father’s last words. She did not relish the idea of using steel to rule Almira, but gold worked just fine.

  She touched the thread on her wrist. Ashlyn would have preferred to spend the rest of the day practicing with it in her tower, but the next lord was already approaching the throne. She settled in for a long afternoon.

  23

  BERSHAD

  Skojit Territory, Razorback Mountains

  When Bershad and Vera woke up, they washed themselves in the warm water.

  “How many times have you used the moss to survive?” Vera asked, looking at his scars as she pulled her hair back into another tight bun.

  Bershad ran some water over his left arm—feeling the ridge of a scar that ran from elbow to shoulder. A Thundertail’s claw had done it years ago.

  “Too many,” he said.

  Vera scooped some water into her hands and splashed herself in the face. “Back to the others today, then?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She nodded. Waded back to the shore—skin shimmering in the morning light.

  “At least we got one pleasant memory from this mess,” she said.

  Vera hopped out of the water and began getting dressed. A minute later, her body was hidden once again behind the battered sharkskin armor. Bershad dressed, too. His back to Vera. They each took a few bites of the leftover fish while squatting around the remnants of the fire. Then they crossed the gentle river—leaving no evidence of the night before other than a charred mark in the earth.

  The plants around them continued to thicken. The ground became so overgrown with moss and vines that it felt springy and strange to walk on. Bershad put on his mask, unsheathed the dragontooth dagger, and began hacking and cutting a path through the foliage for Vera to follow behind. Each swipe of his blade created a wet crunch.

  “Jaguars are quiet, you know,” Vera said after Bershad nearly cut a tree down by accident.

  “I never was a very good jaguar,” he said. “Wasn’t a good lord, either.”

  “You are good at other things, at least,” she said. Paused. “Lots of other things.”

  Vera pulled ahead of him—slipping between a set of massive thorn trees without so much as shaking the branches. She quickly became little more than a black flicker in the trees ahead. A few hours later, Bershad half-stumbled into a big clearing. Vera was sitting cross-legged on a flat rock. Sharpening one of her blades.

  Vera motioned to the north. “The bridge is just ahead, along with the other two. I can smell Rowan’s pipe.”

  Bershad nodded. Wiped his dragontooth dagger on each side of his pants and then sheathed it. Stared at Vera for a few moments. “Look,” he started to say. “Last night…”

  “Last night isn’t something we need to talk about.”

  “It’d be dangerous, you and I going into Balaria and not knowing where we stand with each other,” Bershad said. More than the sex, he wanted to know how Vera would carry things, now that she knew what his body could do.

  Vera studied him. “I like what I see when I look at you,” she said. “And I liked last night. But as you said—we are both out here doing work for a different Malgrave. Anything happening along the way is a stepping-stone best forgotten once our feet pass onward. That’s where I stand. You standing somewhere different?”

  “No,” Bershad said. That suited him just fine.

  * * *

  The bridge was a decrepit structure made from blackened granite. When it was new, it may have been impressive—three humped arches hopping through the torrent of water below. But now it barely looked sturdier than the wood trunk that had collapsed beneath Rowan and Alfonso. Bershad ran his hand over the side and felt the bumpy, lichen-covered surface as they crossed.

  “Who built this so far up the mountain?” Vera asked. “It wasn’t Skojit.”

  “Alchemists. They’ve been delving inside dragon warrens for hundreds of years. The Balarians told me that the gray-robes used to hike this mountain in droves, collecting ingredients for their medicines and studying the land. The Skojit put an end to that, though.”

  “I see.”

  Rowan, Felgor, and Alfonso had set up a makeshift camp on the far side of the bridge. Felgor was napping beside a fire, using Alfonso’s stomach as a pillow. Rowan was sitting nearby, smoking his pipe. Sword drawn and within arm’s reach.

  “Took your sweet time,” Rowan said, pipe clenched between his teeth.

  One of Felgor’s eyes popped open, and he sat up. Smacked his lips together and rubbed both hands through his greasy hair. Looked them both up and down. Sniffed once.

  “You two fucked.”

  Rowan raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  “How long have you been here?” Vera asked.

  Felgor smiled, revealing his tiny teeth behind the scraggly beard. “‘Might be a bit ahead of us,’ he says.” The Balarian did his best to mock Bershad’s accent. “Two days we’ve been waiting. The path opened up a hundred yards past that crossing you two managed to destroy. Easy walking from there.” He looked around the camp. “I’ll be honest, though, things got a bit dull. Spent most of yesterday telling Rowan here about a butcher’s daughter I knew back in Drummond County with the biggest—”

  “And you two,” Rowan interrupted. “How did you fare?”

  Bershad shrugged. “Had some trouble, but we’re only down a finger.”

  Rowan’s eyes flicked to Bershad’s hands and then Vera’s. Lingered a while on the bandage covering the stump of her little finger.

  “Do you know where we are?” he asked.

  Bershad looked around. Got his bearings. The pathway cut north and led straight through a dragon warren, then to a mountain lake.

  “Yeah,” Bershad said. “I know where we are.”

  * * *

  They reached the entrance to the warren by midday. It was a tunnel that went straight through the middle of the mountain. The passageway inside was obscured by green and red and purple plants. A stream trickled out from beneath the plants that was lined with an explosion of Spartania moss. Rowan immediately scooped some up.

  The high peaks of the Razorback Mountains were an unusual place for a warren. Most of them formed in warm and damp places like the Dainwood. The alchemists still couldn’t agree on why or how dragons built the things, but they’d found plenty of reasons to keep coming back. Most of the alchemists’ precious medicines—from sleeping tinctures to cures for dysentery—were brewed with ingre dients found only in the warrens. They kept their recipes secret from the rest of the world, and amassed fortunes selling their products to the sick and needy.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” Felgor asked as Bershad began to cut his way through the th
orn-covered undergrowth that covered the entrance. “It looks … prickly.”

  “Well,” Bershad said as he hacked down a swollen vine that sprayed orange goo all over his chest and arms, “you’ve survived a dragon and a Skojit attack so far. Plant barbs should be pretty straightforward.”

  Felgor bit his lower lip and stared at the entrance for a few moments. Then he stepped behind Rowan and patted him twice on his chain-mailed shoulder. “Here’s a strategy—no vines or hooked barbs of doom can get me so long as I have my dear Rowan-shield ahead of me.”

  “Can’t you bother one of the others for a change?” Rowan asked, drawing his own dagger to begin clearing the growth.

  “I prefer bothering you. That’s what friends do.”

  “We’re not friends, Balarian,” Rowan said, although Bershad noticed he didn’t say it with much conviction.

  “Not as close as those two sparrows, maybe,” Felgor said. “But I feel a definitive bond growing between us.”

  “Let’s keep moving,” Bershad said, then immediately stopped in his tracks. The noise of the warren had exploded in his ears—he could hear a thousand small animals and insects skittering around the loamy ground. But the rush of sound only lasted for a heartbeat before disappearing.

  “Are you all right?” Vera asked him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m fine,” Bershad said, blinking. It wasn’t the same feeling he got when a dragon approached, so they weren’t in that kind of danger. But it was still strange—nothing like that had happened when he came through the warren with the Balarians.

  They trudged into the gloom. Bershad considered lighting a torch, but the high ceiling of the cave was riddled with small tunnels that led to the surface and allowed just enough sunlight to creep into the area that he could see where he was going. The air was thick and heavy—weighted down with moisture and filled with little insects that zipped from plant to plant. Shadows from taller, twisted trees loomed close on either side. As they moved farther inside the warren, the twitch and flicker of creatures fleeing their approach became almost constant.

  “Just lizards and rats,” he said after noticing the fear-filled eyes of his companions. Even Vera seemed alarmed by the shifting shadows.

  “But not dragons?” Felgor asked.

  Bershad shook his head. “Doubt it.” He chopped through another engorged vine that blocked their path. Goo sprayed everywhere—purple this time. “There’s still a few weeks before they start the Great Migration. And most breeds’ll head for the warren in eastern Balaria.”

  That meant Bershad didn’t have much time left to stop the emperor before he started his cull. They couldn’t afford any more delays.

  “Why’s everyone so afraid of these things if there aren’t any dragons in them most of the time?” Vera asked.

  “Alchemists spread rumors about them.”

  “Them gray-robed fellows?” Felgor chimed in. “In Balaria they mostly do teeth pulling and tonics for cock rot. What do they care?”

  Bershad wiped his brow to try and get the sweat out of his eyes, but mostly succeeded in replacing it with plant goo. “If you’d discovered a thousand gold mines just sitting up in the mountains—unguarded and unclaimed—would you go rushing to tell everyone they’re not nearly as dangerous as they seem?”

  “Huh,” Felgor said. “Clever little con they’ve got working there. I’ll have to remember that. Think we’ll run into an alchemist up here? I do actually have a tooth that’s bothering me.”

  “That’s because you don’t wash your mouth out at night like I showed you,” Rowan said.

  “All right, all right,” Felgor said. “I’ll try it tonight. You Almirans pick strange things to care about, though. Mud and lice in your hair. No decent road to be found in the entire country. But teeth! Your teeth, you keep clean. I will never understand it.”

  Ahead, the trickling stream they’d been following turned into a small waterfall. Moss-covered rocks rose on either side. Rowan nudged Alfonso forward, who sniffed the near bank and then studied the far side. His ears twitched a few times, and then he crossed the shallow water and began working his way up the other side.

  “Is it wise to use a donkey as our guide?” Vera asked. She seemed amused more than angry.

  “He’s kept us alive this long,” Bershad said. Splashing through the stream to follow Alfonso.

  The donkey tromped up the cliff without trouble, but the humans in the party struggled on the slippery rocks. After they’d picked their way up the incline, things got rougher. The trickling stream disappeared inside a small cavern that only a baby could crawl into, depriving them of their path. Ahead, there was nothing but a wall of pricker bushes, thorn trees, and thick overgrowth.

  Bershad glared at Alfonso. The donkey chewed on some cud and turned away, looking embarrassed.

  “Might be we should try the other side?” Rowan offered.

  “It’ll be dark soon.”

  “It’s already dark,” Felgor said, waving his hand around in the gloom.

  “What I mean is, we shouldn’t be inside this thing when the sun goes down.”

  “Thought you said it wasn’t dangerous,” Felgor said.

  “No more dangerous than a swamp or a fucking forest of needles,” Bershad said. “Neither of which I want to deal with at night.”

  Bershad started to shove through. Hacking at the underbrush with one arm and flinging ruined foliage to the side with the other. After a few dozen paces, the foliage grew so thick he had to put his mask on to keep the thorns out of his face. As he crunched his dagger against another swollen purple vine, the violent blast of sound pummeled his ears again, but louder and longer this time. Pulses and thrums came from every direction. It was as if the heartbeats of every creature in the warren—from insect to rat to snake—were suddenly vibrating inside of his ears.

  “What the hell?” Bershad said, tearing his mask off and leaning against a tree. He took a step forward, slipped on the mud, and fell.

  “Silas?” Rowan asked, grabbing his arm. His voice sounded like a roar. “What’s wrong? Gods, your nose is bleeding.”

  “Noise,” Bershad muttered. “So much fucking noise. It’s everywhere.”

  Bershad covered his ears but it just made things worse. He tried to take long, slow, deep breaths but nothing was working. His vision blurred.

  “What do we do?” Felgor asked. “He looks like an opium-head going for the long swim.”

  The wild roar continued in Bershad’s head.

  “I think it’s the warren,” Vera said. “We need to get him out of here. Now.”

  Bershad felt hands underneath his armpits. His body was lifted and dragged a few strides. When they touched him, he could feel their panicked heartbeats as if they were his own. The wild choir of animal noise continued to rage from every direction. For the smallest of moments, just a flicker of time, all the noises combined into a harmonized swell of sound.

  Then everything went quiet and black.

  24

  BERSHAD

  Unclaimed Lands, Razorback Mountains

  Bershad woke up on his back, staring at the clear blue sky. He listened for a moment, but his hearing had returned to normal. A light breeze. Distant birdcalls. His own pulse was alone inside his chest.

  “How do you feel?”

  Bershad propped himself up to find Rowan sitting on the ground across from him. He was holding a small glass vial with about a finger’s width of dark green moss at the bottom. It was sprouting blue flowers.

  “That what I think it is?”

  “Yeah. I tried some from our stash of Spartania first, but it didn’t help. I didn’t know what to do. Your body was shaking and there was blood pouring out of your nose like a fucking river. You were gonna die. So, I pushed a little further into the warren. Found this beneath a gnarled tree, grabbed a handful, and shoved a bunch down your throat. It turned you around quick.” He looked away. “I tried to go back and get more when I saw what it did, but I lost my
way. So we just hauled you out of there.”

  “You saved my life, Rowan. That’s what matters.”

  Bershad rubbed at his beard and looked around. The others had set up camp in a loose circle beneath a large oak tree. They were in a small valley that was surrounded by mountain peaks.

  “How long was I out for?” Bershad asked.

  “An hour, maybe.”

  Bershad flexed his hands. Blinked his eyes. He felt fine. Normal.

  “Vera and Felgor took Alfonso to get water from down there.” Rowan pointed behind Bershad. There was a large blue lake in the distance—Bershad could make out two figures hauling water from the shore. The donkey was grazing next to them.

  “I’ve never felt anything like that before. Not in all the warrens I crawled around in as a kid, or when I came through here ten years ago.”

  “A lot’s happened in ten years.”

  “Yeah.” Bershad shook his head. “It felt like the world was … waking up around me.”

  “It almost killed you.”

  “If I stay out of warrens I doubt it’ll happen again.”

  “You hope it won’t. That’s a big fucking assumption, Silas.”

  “Well, life’s full of uncertainties.”

  Rowan looked at the vial of moss for a moment, then held it out to Bershad. “You should keep this with you from here on out.”

  Bershad hesitated. “I don’t like using it unless there’s no other choice.”

  “You’re still fixing to kill an emperor at some point, yes?”

  Bershad nodded. Otherwise all of this was for nothing.

  “Well, this is the same shit that kid put in your leg back in Otter Rock. It makes sense for an alchemist to have some, seeing as they’re generally the only bastards prowling around warrens. And it certainly stopped whatever was going on inside your head back there. Time might arrive where you’re in a fix and this is the only way out.”

  Bershad was afraid of what the moss did to him, but he knew Rowan was right. If he did get in front of the emperor, Mercer would probably be surrounded by scores of guards. The moss would give him a chance, at least. He took the vial from Rowan and searched for a place he could keep it. He wound up tying the vial into a snarl of hair at the base of his skull where it’d be hidden and protected. All those years without a comb were finally useful.