by Kirby Crow
“Ah.” Margun lifted a brow. “And I’ve heard so much about the travels of ser Keriss.”
“Tall-tales,” Scarlet sighed. “I’ve traveled the lands from Ankar to Rusa, which is a fair distance, I grant, especially on foot. But until I met Liall, I’d never even crossed the Channel.”
They turned a corner, past a line of tall buildings, and the docks came into view. Margun frowned. “So, your people believe that no one lives in Rshan?”
“Not exactly,” Scarlet answered, his gaze fixed on the choppy waters of the sea and the tall sails of a hundred ships. “We believe that gods live here.”
CLOSER TO THE WATER, Scarlet could taste salt on his lips. He could feel the air drying the paint on his face to a tight mask.
As they ambled nearer to the waterline, a strange thing happened: he became aware that he liked what Margun had done to his face. There were no rude shouts from the crowds who moved aside for the royal banner, and the spot between his shoulder blades did not burn with a sense of danger. The people were staring, but only because of his men in their fine armor and the sleek horses. The Rshani weren't staring at him, or not as they usually did anyway. Margun had given him a shield to hide behind. He wondered if it was cowardly of him to be relieved.
I’d forgotten what belonging felt like, he thought. In Ankar, he’d been a mild curiosity: a traveling Hilurin. But Lysia had been his birthright: a Hilurin place for Hilurin people.
His eyes stung. He blinked several times, prompting Margun to ask if he was well.
“I’m fine,” he said brightly. “Is that a sloop over there?”
Margun talked while Scarlet looked his fill of sails and spires. The docks were overflowing with cargo. Bustling workers hauled crates, bales, and sacks from half a hundred holds while smaller boats threaded through the thick pilings of the quay like children through the legs of giants. The air was filled with hammering, ship bells, and the noise of workers calling back and forth across the waves.
Though the yellow-tinged light would have passed for a foggy dawn in Lysia, it seemed vivid to him now. “So many ships,” he marveled. “I didn’t know there were this many mariners in the whole world.”
Margun kept one hand close to his sword, and his eyes were watchful. “We should not linger here overlong, ser.”
Scarlet nodded, his eyes still fixed on the sails as gulls wheeled and cried overhead. “How tall they are. They look like they'd topple right over, some of them. I still don't see why they don't.” He spied a blue sail painted with stars and pointed. “Is that it?”
Margun reached over quickly and closed his gloved hand around Scarlet's wrist. “Please, ser. Put your hand down.”
Scarlet obeyed as he stared at the lines of the ship in question. It was a brigantine. “Sorry. I’m new to this sneaking thing.”
“Yes,” Margun said with biting patience. He took a wineskin tied to his pommel with a leather lace and uncapped it with his teeth. “Captain Qixa should be along soon. We will wait for him here. Will you drink?”
Scarlet took the skin with a nod of thanks and tipped his head back to let the cold wine splash on his tongue. Done, he tried to hand it back, only to have the skin fall from his nerveless fingers. It hit the street in slow-motion, red wine spreading like blood.
He stared at the puddle of it. “Funny,” he muttered, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth, lips rapidly turning numb. “Margun, I... funny... in my head.”
Falling, he tried to say, as he lost the reins and slipped from the saddle. The ground came rushing at him, and in his state, he took it for the cold sea. Then the hard chill swept over his body and he doubted his reality, certain he was truly in the water and that he would drown.
The last thing he imagined before the world went black, was that the ground shook with a sound like thunder and that the sky broke apart in red flames and fell on him.
No Miracle
THE HUNTING party was much less somber than when they had ridden out, which was a puzzle to Liall. Riding back is no different than riding out, he thought, and wondered why some men always seemed happier to return from a hunt than embarking on one. He could see the relief if their quarry had been a snow bear or ice cat, but it was only a tusked boar. The Sul guards among the hunters joked loudly about how they wished they had encountered a giant grandfather bear, how they would have ridden home in triumph with its blood on their spears.
Liall ignored their boasting. He had seen such a bear up close and had no wish to repeat the experience. Then again, the Sul guardsmen were city-men. Not even proper soldiers, most of them. Liall doubted they had ever even glimpsed a snow bear.
Only the rangers kept their reserve, riding back to Sul with the same stoic dignity they had left with. Liall wondered what the freeriders were like when they were among their own, if they laughed and brawled and drank, or if they loved. There were no women among the freeriders. Some taboo of their own, the reasons long-forgotten and only the custom remaining, but since freeriding was a fate that few women seemed to aspire to, the custom had never been tested. Liall had seen no women at the holds, not even whores. It was curious to say the least, although he supposed that there were women in the towns and villages the freeriders guarded who were happy to be accommodating, for pay if not for love. They would also have male lovers among them, or would they? He doubted there would be any such taboo against that. If there were, it seemed extremely unfair to him.
He resolved to ask one day, but not today. Today was for riding and for enjoying the new warmth of the land. Tomorrow he would pick up his troubles again. Always plenty of time for that.
He motioned for Athan to move closer to him.
Athan drew his mount alongside and bent his neck respectfully. "Sire?"
Liall nodded to Athan's horse. "That is a fine animal. Where did you get her?" All the rangers seemed to have excellent horses.
"The village of Redbranch, my lord."
Liall had been there. It was a stubborn holdfast on the very outskirts of Uzna, north of Magur. The village was known for its red ore and ironworks, which made it a prime target for raiders. "You were there?" he asked.
"Only to clean up, my lord. We rode in after the battle at Magur when the soldiers moved south. With so many men killed, there was a great lot of lawlessness. We kept the peace for a month until the soldiers came back."
"Your horse was given in tribute, then?"
"Yes, my lord. A blacksmith gave me the beast for saving her daughters. I tried to refuse, but she wouldn't hear of it." Athan grinned. "She waved a hammer at me."
Liall chuckled. He noticed Athan's brother, Shivan, listening to the conversation from his place in the column. "And what think you of this war to come, ranger?"
Athan bit his lip and cast a sidelong glance at Shivan.
"Speak freely," Liall ordered. "Despite what you may have heard, lies and compliments serve only fools. A king needs the truth."
"Then, sire, I have to tell you that I don't see a great lot of difference between what an army does and what we do every day. I've heard the soldiers say that the king will put an end to all the raiding and wipe out those bastard Tribelanders forever. Well and good. It will make our jobs easier, at any rate, but unless the king has a magic glass for telling savage from villager, he'll never get them all. There's the problem, my lord; how can you wipe them out when they look just like us? You can't kill what you can't find."
It was the same dilemma Jarek had faced in Magur. "I take it that Queen Nadiushka's solution to that very problem did not meet with the approval of the freeriders?"
"You don't burn down your own house just because your enemy spits on it," Athan said frankly, then glanced about and shifted his shoulders. "My lord... sire... I would never speak against the queen, may she rest well."
To speak ill of the dead was a folk taboo, and it was unlikely that Athan had ever seen the inside of a palace.
"At court, if one does not criticize the dead, one tends to repeat their mistakes."
Liall said, but decided to let it be. He thanked Athan and waved him back to his position, where he earned a glare from his brother.
Burning houses. Scorched earth. It was all the same. It would be many years before the slaughter of Magur was forgotten. Or forgiven, Liall thought. Once again, he was back to dissecting why his mother had chosen such a drastic solution, and he very much feared that, in the coming war, he would get his answers.
He let his thoughts wander, mulling over fates, choices, and the legacy that brutal rulers leave behind, when a shout went up from the back of the column. Descending from the hills to the shore, the high strongholds and towers of the city had come into view. Liall lifted his gaze to the elegant skyline of Sul and blinked when a flash of light like a second sun bloomed among the spires.
At first, he thought the sky was fading. It did seem, for a moment, that the horizon grew lighter. Then, as he watched in dawning realization, the top of the Bleakwatch simply shattered. An orange fireball blossomed from the tower's peak. Shattered stone trailing black comets spread out like a fan and then slowly curved down, raining death on the streets below.
Cries of alarm and disbelief went up from the hunting party, but Liall could only watch, mute and horrified, as he wondered if he were caught in yet another nightmare. Any moment he would wake and find Scarlet warm next to him, the gray cobweb of dreams still clinging to his mind. Then the concussion wave reached them.
From the distance, it had dwindled to a slap of wind and a loud report shaking snow from the trees, but the shockwave in the city must have been deafening.
He was dimly aware of Alexyin shouting orders. The spooked horses snorted and pawed at the ground as the disturbed snow swirled around them like fairy lights. Argent reared and tossed his head. Liall tangled his fingers into the animal's long black mane and was speechless, mute with sudden, icy dread.
The Bleakwatch. He cannot have been in that tower. He cannot have been.
Alexyin had a hand on Liall’s reins. He was shouting at him. "Sire! We must go!"
"Go where?" Liall mouthed numbly. Then; "Scarlet..." He looked at Alexyin, his voice pleading. “He can’t be dead.”
Alexyin stared back for a moment, looking almost frightened himself. “My lord, we must get off the road.”
He knew what wise action Alexyin would want to take now. The nearest fortress was the Freerider keep of Graymark, in the hills to the northwest. Alexyin would insist they take sanctuary there as he gathered a royal guard and investigated the threat in the city, and—if Scarlet had been with him—Liall would have agreed. He made to retrieve his reins, but amazingly, Alexyin would not let go.
"You must remain here, my king," Alexyin intoned, strangely flat. "It is not safe for you in the city now. You cannot risk yourself."
Liall tore the reins from Alexyin’s hand. “Theor!” he bellowed.
“Here, lord.”
Theor's gray mare shouldered her way through the press of alarmed men and animals. A greataxe was bare in Theor's hand.
"You're with me," Liall said, his throat tight. He gave Alexyin a warning glare. “Unless you mean to drag me from my horse and keep me prisoner, I will go to my t’aishka.”
"Best give way to the king, ser," Theor put in.
Alexyin glanced at Theor's axe. “As you wish, sire. But I and these men will stay by your side.”
“If my Scarlet is harmed, you’ll want to rethink that.” No one would be safe around him, then. No one at all.
THEY RACED THROUGH the thinning woods, a column of riders galloping as fast as the road would allow down a steady downward slope, toward a pillar of smoke that grew larger and larger in their view.
The city was not the chaos that Liall expected. The mood among the folk milling in the streets before they arrived at the main thoroughfare leading to the Bleakwatch seemed bemused and wary, but not frightened. Liall recalled that cannon often sounded in the city in the summer months to herald the arrival of ships, or to test city defenses that were rarely used. An attack from the sea had not happened in any living Rshani's memory.
Crowds parted smoothly for the horses, but less so when they neared the destruction. Liall spotted broken chunks of stone littering the street from a hundred yards away, and he had to slow Argent’s pace or run someone down.
The smoke was clearing, the sea winds blowing a comet-trail of black into the north. He craned his neck upward and saw that the top of the tower battlements were intact, but a section of an upper story had been blown out from the side that faced the harbor.
The royal apartments.
He dismounted amid the press of confusion and people, nearly turning his ankle on a slab of rubble. Theor was instantly at his shoulder.
"Step back!" Theor boomed in his great voice. "Stand away for the king!"
The rest was a jumble of noise and blurred faces as he shoved his way through to the entrance of the greathall. A soldier barred his way at first, then looked into Liall’s face and paled.
The smoke may have cleared from the sky, but it was choking in the closed stairwell as they climbed. Liall wiped his face, his eyes streaming tears, as they ascended, his mind one long, agonizing call that he could not voice for fear he would begin howling.
He cannot be dead. He cannot. Deva, please, not for myself, but for him, for your good and gentle Scarlet, son of Scaja, who has always believed in you; do not let this be.
When he saw the wreck of the royal apartments, he was too stunned to even marvel at himself for praying. The inner wall was blown out, leaving the bedroom open to the adjoining hallway, and a great patch of floor was missing. He could see right into the hall below it. The tower stank of burning and soot, but the ensuing fire had been a small one, mostly contained to the floor directly before and below the hearth, which seemed to be the center of the explosion. A layer of blue-gray dust lay upon every surface where parts of the massive hearth had been vaporized. A section of the outer shield wall on the floor below him was completely gone. Liall could see waves beyond the shattered wall.
“It’s a miracle the fire did not spread,” Theor growled. “The whole tower could have gone up.”
Liall swiped his fingers over the top of the intact mantel and looked at the sparkle of bluish dust coating them.
“No miracle,” he murmured. “Dragons.”
Dragon scales, at any rate. He had told Scarlet that the stones of the hearth were not stones at all, but scales taken from the back of the akul, the great predator of the deeps. Scarlet had doubted stories of scales and water dragons both, but the truth remained: such scales did not burn. They were incredibly tough, imperious to fire and impact alike. Hammer and sword would not dent it. Any form of explosive placed in such a hearth would be highly unpredictable in outcome.
“What was below this room?” Liall asked numbly.
“A dining hall, sire. It was empty at the time. I’m told they don’t use that one often.”
Liall turned at a commotion in the stairwell as Jochi burst through the men crowding there. Jochi dragged the servant Chos by the wrist, hauling him bodily forward. Chos did not seem to want to go. The guards closed ranks, blocking them.
“Let him through!” Theor commanded.
“Sire.” Jochi’s face was stained with black, his nose bloodied and his tunic torn. He must have been near when the explosion occurred. Jochi shoved Chos forward. “Tell the king what you overheard, you miserable spy.”
Chos stood there gaping and afraid.
Spy. Liall struck Chos twice in the face before Jochi stepped forward.
“Sire, wait!”
Liall gripped Chos’s collar and lifted him roughly from the floor. From the corner of his eye, Liall saw remnants of Scarlet’s possessions strewn about the bedchamber; his comb, the book on blacksmithing he had been trying so hard to read, its pages blackened and curled.
“Tell me what you know!” Liall shouted.
Chos’s cheekbone was dark red from the blows. “They left to buy boots after... after.
..”
Liall raised his hand again.
“After Margun prepared him!”
Jochi seized his arm. “Sire!”
Only then did Liall realize he had drawn a knife from his belt and placed it against Chos’s throat. “Prepared him for what?” he snarled. “Tell me.”
“Margun disguised his appearance,” Chos rasped, eyes wide and terrified. “They went to the docks. They were to meet a man there. Margun did not say so... he did not tell ser Jochi what he intended, but they were alone together and I...” He broke off and his eyes rolled as if searching for a friendly face. He would find none here.
Liall pressed the knife until a line of blood welled up under the edge. “Who was alone together?”
“Ser Margun was alone with your consort. I listened at the door and heard.”
“Spied, you mean,” Jochi snapped. “No better than a thief, to hear words that were not meant for you. You are no true servant, wretch.”
“No!” Chos blubbered. “I only meant to protect the king, I swear it.”
“Where is he?” Liall roared out.
“A s-ship,” Chos whispered. “They were to meet a man on a ship.”
The shock was a physical thing, a sickness sweeping over Liall from head to toe as he realized that Scarlet was gone. He could feel the blood draining from his face.
“They’ve taken him away,” he said numbly. He let Chos drop to the floor, where the servant knelt quivering. “They’ve taken my redbird.”
“Sire,” Jochi said urgently. “You must go to Arrowgate. It is not safe here.”
Liall turned a look on Jochi so fierce that even Jochi, brave Setna that he was, quailed and bowed his head. I am going to go mad, he thought wildly, gritting his teeth so hard that his jaw ached. Deva help me, I will go mad and slaughter everyone in this keep.
Liall gulped air and turned away, trying to soothe the rage in his blood. “What do you know of this?” he grated, voice raw, hands shaking.