by Kirby Crow
Jochi wiped the blood from his nose. “Very little, sire. I knew only that ser Keriss had requested to buy new boots in the city. I knew of the disguise but... but ser Margun said it was to quell the curiosity of the market crowd.”
Liall believed him. He still wanted very badly to kill someone, but he believed Jochi. He put up his knife.
“We must leave,” Jochi repeated.
“We’re going nowhere,” Liall said. “I won’t run from cowards.”
“My lord, this structure may no longer be stable. You must—”
“Obey me!” Liall shouted at full throat.
Jochi bowed hastily and fled.
Liall looked down Chos, who had his forehead pressed to the stone. He nudged Chos with his boot. “Get up, boy.”
Chos raised a tear-stained face to him. Once, he would have felt guilt for inflicting such fear. Now he had no time for it, no room in his heart for pity. All that mattered was Scarlet.
“Sire,” Chos whispered, eyes on him.
Liall did not like the look in those eyes. He was accustomed to dealing with worship from servants and those he commanded. It was a common thing, beginning when he was barely man enough to recognize desire. Lessons from his tutors had made it plainer, that power was an aphrodisiac, and that there would always be men and women who lusted for those they must obey. Alexyin had explained it once as a thing of wolves, the pack abasing itself before the alpha.
I am a wolf.
“Go,” he growled.
Chos wiped his face and left with his dignity in shreds.
Liall waited, shuddering, listening to the sound of his soldiers clearing the floors of the last of his people.
My people. My own. My blood.
Hilurin barely understood cannons and gunpowder. In his sixty years of adventuring in Kalaslyn, the only cannons Liall had ever seen were in the port of Ankar, and those were poor examples; ancient Rshani wares traded a century ago. Cannons, like magic, could kill at range.
As far as Liall knew, no race in the Southern Continent was capable of making bombs. No foreign enemy had placed the device in the hearth. Whoever had done it was Rshani, on Rshani orders. If there was one innocent person in this, it was Scarlet, and he was the first one they would blame. Poor lad; always the peacemaker, and yet always the suspect. And for what? The shape of his hands, the color of his eyes, his skin.
There was nothing for Liall to do now but wait.
He stood staring sightlessly into the wreck of the chamber as Theor watched over him from the hall. Soldiers stumped up and down the broken stairs for more than an hour, their hollow shouts ringing with tension. Liall looked down at his hands. His vision wavered and began to narrow until he was looking down a long tunnel at the maze of cracks in the stone floor. Hunter vision. Berserker rage, or the first stages of it.
Calm, he thought. He groped blindly for the edge of the broken doorway and breathed shallowly, trying to still the frantic hammer of his heart.
“Sire?” Jochi's worried features swam into view. His voice seemed to be floating up from the bottom of the sea, muted and toneless.
Jochi shrank away from Liall’s glare. What must he see? Liall had witnessed soldiers in the grip of the same madness, their eyes turned black, their skin paled to ash, and such murder in their gazes that even the most battle-hardened of warriors would avoid their paths.
“Whose task was it to guard these rooms?” Liall asked.
“Twelve men on the third watch, sire,” Jochi replied nervously.
Liall had never seen Jochi in quite this mood. He was not surprised that Jochi knew precisely whose job it had been to guard the royal apartments, even though it was no longer his job to know. He believed he knew why Jochi was afraid. “And where were you?”
“The Queen’s Solar, sire. Ser Keriss was to meet me later for che. I was waiting for him when the bomb went off.”
Liall nodded and turned. “Theor?”
“Here, sire.” He stepped around the corner, that monstrous axe resting on his shoulder as if it weighed nothing more than a feather.
“Have those twelve men brought to me. Now. They failed here. They can die here.” He watched Jochi’s eyes go wide, waiting for an objection that never came. Perhaps he is finally realizing what kind of king I am. “I assume your axe is up to the task, Theor.”
“She is, lord,” Theor rumbled. He swung the blade down and tested its edge with his thumb.
She. He wondered if Theor sang songs to his weapons like warrior-poets were reputed to do. In the ancient days, men named them and wrote ballads and poems for them, and one Uzna woman even married her sword. Well, there would be no melodies sung about today.
“I do not hold you responsible, Jochi,” Liall said. “Since I had already relieved you of your position. It was not your task to guard. You were not to blame.”
Jochi bowed his head. “Sire,” he said carefully, “I’ve questioned a mariner who was working on the docks this morning. He says a ship bearing royal sails took to sea just after the explosion. He thought it might have been you aboard, given the number of men guarding the cortege.”
“What ship?” Liall’s vision began to grey out again, though he had already guessed. “Where were they bound?”
Jochi exhaled and closed his eyes. “North. Shall I stay to witness the executions, sire?”
Damned If You Do
HIS DREAM was sour, all green shadows and stinking, smoky, torchlight, and a pain in his temples like a smith driving nails into his skull. Scarlet woke with a pounding head, his belly heaving with nausea. He groaned and rolled over, trying not to vomit, and soon realized that the sick, rolling sensation was not his imagination.
The light was dim and his breath steamed the air, but he recognized the familiar outlines of a ship’s cabin. He heard waves and smelled the sea.
Deva save me.
He was on a ship. He’d been on a horse, riding with Margun near the docks, looking at the sails, and then...nothing. His heart sped up in panic and he tried to think, to remember.
Margun offered me a drink.
What followed was a blur. He remembered... slipping. Falling from his saddle? Strong arms had caught him, and the sky had seemed to whirl around like a spinning top.
His fingers groped along the floor. He was on a pile of blankets, wide, wooden planks beneath his fingers. The walls were tarred timber. No windows, nothing to see. Waves lapped the hull, but he heard no voices, and the cabin was cold as death.
He shivered and pulled the blankets close, drawing his legs up into a huddle. The blankets were clean and smelled sweet with herbs. He was dressed in the same fine clothes as when he left the tower, but the wig was gone. He touched his face and realized that someone had cleaned the cosmetics from his skin when he was out cold. Thank Deva they didn’t do worse, he thought. His disguise was gone, though that hardly mattered. Whoever had brought him here knew very well who he was.
The cabin door was banded with iron. He wondered if it was wiser to get up and try the lock or to continue feigning sleep. Neither option seemed attractive.
I’m a prisoner, he thought. Liall wouldn’t have left him on the floor. Unless... Liall was a prisoner, too?
That last thought spurred him to act. He threw the blankets off and walked unsteadily to the door, palming the lock. It clicked and held. He heard footsteps scuffling beyond the door and he backed away hastily.
A sliding of metal on metal. The key. Then the door swung open and Margun filled the entryway, armed with a sword at his waist, and in armor.
Scarlet stared at him, blinking owlishly. What now? What new betrayal was this?
Incredibly, Margun bowed. “Ser Keriss,” he said, stepping into the cabin.
Scarlet balled his fists. “Where am I?”
“The Ostre Sul. You’re safe.”
“Safe,” he echoed hollowly. “In a locked cabin, on a ship I don’t remember boarding.”
Margun looked uncomfortable. He shifted a strap of his armor. “Yes. That i
s so.”
“I’m your prisoner, am I?”
“Not at all, ser. I regret the way you were brought here, but we had no choice.”
We? Scarlet swallowed hard and asked the question he’d been dreading. His voice came out thin and frightened: “Where’s Liall?”
“He’s safe. The king has been informed of your whereabouts. As soon as it’s possible, I will return you to him.”
“I don’t believe you,” he breathed, then aimed a punch at Margun’s jaw. He found himself slammed against the wall. His shoulder hit the hard wood and pain lanced through his arm and back so sharply that he gasped and went limp.
Margun cursed foully and gathered Scarlet up in his arms. “Fool boy,” he snarled. He laid Scarlet down on the blankets. Scarlet pushed at him weakly with his good arm.
“Be still!” Margun hissed. He tried to unlace Scarlet’s shirt. “Let me see what I’ve done.”
Scarlet fought, writhing and kicking to get away.
“Little idiot,” Margun growled. He pinned Scarlet’s wrists to the deck and used his body to hold him down.
A wave of pain made Scarlet’s vision blur. “Get off me!”
“I will.” Margun put his cheek close to his. “I will,” he breathed into Scarlet’s ear. “Be calm, ser. Please. Stop fighting me and be calm.”
“Like hell,” he snarled, hating the feel of Margun’s body against his. It was wrong, too much like Liall, and not him in every way. “Get off!”
“If I let you up, will you listen to me?”
“If you don’t let me up, I’ll kill you!”
Margun huffed in amusement. His gray eyes glittered. “With your bare hands, I suppose, alone, out-matched, and on your back. I see why the king loves you. Such fire is nearly irresistible.” He sighed in resignation and released Scarlet’s wrists, rolling away from him.
Scarlet shoved himself into the corner, as far away from Margun was he could get. He put his hands flat on the floor, breathing hard and staring up at Margun with hatred. His injured shoulder throbbed unmercifully. Moving his arm was difficult.
“You’re injured,” Margun said. He sounded regretful.
Scarlet shook with rage and pain. “Go fuck yourself.”
Margun nodded, almost as if he expected that answer. He moved to the other side of the cabin and hunched down, his arms resting on his knees. “You were to be killed today,” he said softly. “In your rooms at the Bleakwatch. I prevented that.”
“By kidnapping me yourself?” Scarlet would have laughed if he wasn’t in so much pain.
“There was little time, and the plot against you was driven by a powerful man. Removing you from the equation seemed the safest way, the one with the most chance of success.” He shrugged. “You can’t kill a man who is simply not there.”
“Liall is going to kill you,” he gasped. The pain was worse when he tried to move.
“That’s a possibility.” Margun watched him closely. “I think I dislocated your shoulder.”
I think you’re right. He clamped his lips together and glared.
Margun held his hands up in a gesture that looked like surrender. “I’m trying to help you, ser. I swear it.”
After a long, tense moment, Scarlet nodded. “All right, bastard. But if you touch me in any way other than to make my fucking arm stop hurting, I’ll bite your gods-damned nose off.”
Margun smiled. “I am warned.” He moved closer, at first cautiously, then knelt at Scarlet’s side. His touch was gentle. “Put your hand on my shoulder, like so.”
Margun put his hand under Scarlet’s arm, then pressed and did something that made his shoulder pop audibly. After the wave of pain, relief washed over him. It still hurt, but not like before. He sagged as sweat broke out on his forehead. He flexed his fingers as Margun watched him closely.
“That’s going to ache for a time,” Margun said. “I truly am sorry, little ser. I didn’t realize your kind were so fragile.”
Scarlet narrowed his eyes. “We’re not. Fetch my knives and you’ll see how fragile I am.” He briefly fantasized cutting Margun off at the knees. “Little ser, my arse,” he growled.
Margun tilted his head. “Are you always this obscene when you’re angry?”
Scarlet ignored that. “Who wanted me killed?”
“I’m not the man who should tell you, but if you think about it, you will have your answer.”
“I don’t have enough fingers to count the people who want me dead, so save me the time.”
Margun hesitated. He motioned to the door. “We are well away from shore. I’ll take you above, and you can ask the question yourself.”
In the passageway, Scarlet stumbled over a water bucket, stubbing his toes painfully. He noted a long row of buckets lining the bulkhead. It seemed an odd way to store water on a ship.
Margun helped him up the ladder into a brisk wind, mindful of his arm. The sky was gray as lead and the rails were rimed with ice, the great sails snapping as the ship drove through the water. Land was a thin line to the east.
A scant crew of seasoned mariners bowed out of their way as Scarlet walked as steadily as he could to the aft of the ship, Margun following. Some of the mariners touched their foreheads in respect, and one man whispered “Luck,” as Scarlet passed.
Scarlet stared at them. “That’s different from my last welcome from this lot,” he murmured.
“Men can change, ser Keriss.”
“You couldn’t prove it by me.”
Margun smiled a little and steadied Scarlet when his boots slid on a patch of ice. He shivered violently as Margun slipped off his coat and draped it over him.
“I do forget how poorly you tolerate the cold,” Margun said. “This is a fine day to us.”
Scarlet clutched the thick fabric close around his neck. “This is more like winter back home, which was damn cold to me then, too.”
Two men in hooded cloaks stood by the wheel on the aft deck, one slender, one bulky and wide-shouldered. The slender one threw off his hood and his long silver hair caught the wind, flowing behind him like a banner. Tesk.
The thickset man kept his hood, but Scarlet recognized him at once. Qixa bowed as he would to a prince, and Tesk stared pointedly at the arm Scarlet cradled close to his chest. Tesk looked to Margun with an eyebrow raised.
“Difficulty making myself understood,” Margun explained.
Tesk frowned. He spoke to Margun in Sinha, his words sharp and angry.
“We had a fight,” Scarlet spoke up. “It’s not his fault he’s a clumsy ox.” He glared at Margun. “And thick to boot.”
Tesk snorted, but he leveled a finger at Margun. “If there are any further difficulties, I’ll put that on his gravestone.”
“Here lies Margun,” Scarlet said. “A thick, clumsy ox.”
Margun gave a long-suffering sigh and went down on one knee to Scarlet, his head bowed. “I beg your forgiveness, my lord.”
“Enough,” Tesk said. “It seems your master is aware that it was an accident.” He looked at Scarlet with a gentle eye. “We’re all friends here, ser. I won’t let anyone harm you. Sorry about the cabin, by the way. Margun here was afraid you’d set the ship afire when you woke up.”
He remembered the lack of a bed and the buckets he’d tripped over. He looked at his fingers and flexed them. They were blue-tinged with cold, but they seemed harmless enough. He wondered if his magic was silent because of the drugged wine, or perhaps he had sensed Margun truly hadn’t meant to hurt him. Hells, is it even me doing the sensing anymore? His Gift seemed to have a mind of its own now. He was glad he hadn’t murdered someone without intending to.
“You’re shivering,” Tesk said, voice gentle with concern. “Let me take you to the captain’s cabin.”
Inside the great cabin, away from the curious eyes of the mariner crew, Tesk sat at the table and slipped his cloak from his shoulders, revealing a crimson virca heavily embroidered with black thread, his flowing white hair stark against the deep co
lors. He poured Scarlet a cup of red wine.
“Drink.”
Scarlet reached for the cup, then jumped, startled, when the cabin doors banged open. He turned in his chair and saw a man he had hoped never to see again. “Deva’s shrieking hell,” he blurted. “Oleksei.”
Oleksei’s eyes fixed on him, anger red in his gaze. “I had to see it for myself,” he said, his mouth curling in loathing. “The sailmaker said we were carrying lenilyn filth, but I could not believe it. I told him our captain was not that kind of man.”
Qixa bristled. “Go forward,” he commanded.
Scarlet stared in dismay. Oleksei was still the same sleek, handsome man who had made Scarlet so jealous during the voyage to Rshan, when Liall had seemed to pay attention to him. And the same man who tried to rape you, let’s not forget that charming bit.
Oleksei stared at Scarlet with a fixed, snake-like hatred and did not move.
Qixa’s square face flushed with color. “I gave an order, mariner.”
The thin scar across the bridge of Oleksei’s nose was paler than his skin, and Scarlet remembered throwing his head back to bash Oleksei in the face when he was dragged into the ship’s hold. I was afraid then. I will not be afraid now.
“Aye, it’s me, fellow,” Scarlet said, rising from his chair with a merry smile. “How’s the nose?”
Oleksei spat a curse in Sinha. Tesk watched everything without rising from his chair, only his eyes following every movement.
“I said go for’ard!” Qixa shouted. “Lord Wild has no business with you.”
“But he does with you?” Oleksei said, voice dripping with spite. “Lord, is it? You wish to speak to your slut in private, I suppose.”
Once, Scarlet would have been chilled by the hatred in Oleksei's voice. Now it merely tired him. “Leave, ser.”
Oleksei's eyes flashed. “And what will you do if I don’t, outlander?”
Scarlet clucked his tongue and Margun’s broadsword rang out with a silver sound. “You know better than me,” he answered. He waited while Oleksei fumed. “Your captain gave you an order.”
Oleksei gritted his teeth. “One day our king will see you for the craven obscenity you really are. He will brush you from his cloak like dirt and send you back to your hovel in Kalaslyn, but you will never make it there. I will be waiting for you on the sea, lenilyn.”