by CW Thomas
“Oh, I can’t wait to see mama and papa again.” Awlin’s eyes crinkled when she smiled and looked toward the sky at the stars visible through the gaps in the cozy forest canopy. “Some nights I can still smell papa’s pipe, or mama’s hands, like oil and flour. Mmm, frosting!” She closed her eyes, licking her lips. “Father always said she should open a bakery.” Awlin reclined on her hip, propping herself up with her elbow. “How are things at home? Is Edhen still at war?”
“The Black King conquered Aberdour several moons ago.”
Awlin’s cheerful disposition began to recede. “So is it over?”
“Hardly. There are pockets of resistance, but I doubt they will survive long.”
Awlin counted out four of her fingers. “Four years. He landed in the kingdom of Perth four years ago, and in that time he conquered the entire realm. Amazing. Where did he come from?”
“No one knows. They say he is an Edhenite, but he speaks Efferousian, Fellian, and other languages that few have ever heard. Some call him a demon, others say he is doing the work of a demon.”
Awlin curled her lip. “I’m not so certain I want to go home now.”
“The realm is not as bad off as some claim. Orkrash is a bastard after his own agenda, that much is for sure, but those kingdoms loyal to him are getting on just fine.”
“And the ones that don’t?”
Merek didn’t say anything, but his mind went immediately to Aberdour. Rumor was the Black King’s army had completely destroyed it. Regardless, it wasn’t anything Merek wanted to talk about.
“Awlin?” he asked. “Who gave you those scars on your back?” As soon as he asked, he regretted it. He wanted to know, but at the same time he knew where the conversation might lead.
Awlin’s smile faded. “Oh, you saw those? I almost forgot they were there.”
“Was it Adairous?” he asked.
“He only ever whipped me that one time,” she said.
“What did you do?”
Awlin started to say something, but then her lips broke into a wide grin. Her eyes glinted like she was about to tell a good joke. “On Efferous the word for mop sounds very much like the word catchyamish, which is what they call a street cat, an undesirable cat that smells bad and is mean and nobody wants. In fact, young boys are often paid a rosi or two by businessmen who want the catchyamishi in their area killed off.” She waved her hand as though shoeing away a fly. “Anyway, so one night Adairous was hosting an extravagant banquet in honor of the visiting matrona, a vile woman named—”
“Romola Duplicara,” Merek said. “I know of her.” He smirked. “There’s a rather risqué painting of her I’ve seen in a wizard’s tower in Malium. She’d love it.”
“I can’t stand the woman,” Awlin said. “The other servants were terrified of her as well. One girl was so nervous that during the serving of the meal she spilled the serving dish all over the matrona’s lap. The girl would have been whipped had it not been for me.” Awlin looked sheepish, her smile appearing again as though the punch line was coming. “I went to the matrona and tried to ask her if she wanted a mop to clean up with. Apparently, I called her a smelly, undesirable cat instead.”
Merek laughed. “I take it nobody thought that was funny.”
Awlin’s eyes widened. “You don’t make jokes about Romola, even if they are accidental. Adairous didn’t want to whip me. I always thought he had a soft spot for me, actually. But he had to make an example lest he risk losing favor in the eyes of the matrona.”
Awlin’s story amused him, and she told it with a noticeable degree of understanding born of humility and kind-heartedness. Awlin had never been one to hold a grudge.
Still, Merek found the humor of her story overshadowed by his guilt. His sister may have found a way to laugh it off, but she had yet to confront the man who was truly responsible.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking.
Awlin’s eyebrows cinched together. “It’s all right, brother. The scars have long healed. I’m just so happy to be here with you now and to be going home to see mama and—”
“You don’t understand,” Merek said, as his grief muscled his confession to the surface. “It’s my fault this happened to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s my fault you were sent away, Awlin. You were taken from our home and sold into slavery because of me.”
She huffed. “You’re exaggerating.”
“No. I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while.”
He closed his eyes and took a breath. Here it goes.
“I tried to steal some coins from what I thought was an old man, but he was actually Brutas Cathal, one the most famous knights in all of Edhen. Instead of turning me in he offered to train me. Mother and father were thrilled, of course. A member of the Viator family, a knight. How exceptional.”
Awlin smiled. “I remember. I didn’t know that Sir Brutas had caught you trying to steal, but I remember the day he honored you before our family. Mother and father were so proud.”
“Have you ever heard the name of Kruach?” Merek asked. “Do you remember hearing about him?”
“The gladiator?” she asked.
“That was me.”
Awlin’s face was blank at first. Her head cocked to one side, pondering, examining his eyes as though trying to catch him in a lie. “I didn’t think it was honorable for a knight to fight in the arenas.”
“It’s not. When mother and father found out what I was doing with the skills Sir Brutas had taught me, father shunned me. I brought dishonor upon the whole family. He made me leave.”
She gasped. “He can’t do that. Only a patriarch has the right to strip someone of their namesake.”
“Father didn’t care. And I didn’t know any better at the time. I was too angry, too eager to prove that I wasn’t worthy of their rejection. I thought if I won enough glory in the ring, that maybe… I don’t know. Maybe somehow I could win them as well, but in the end I just ended up losing more.”
Awlin’s full attention was fixed upon him now, her eyes unblinking.
“I became a drunkard. I found pleasure in the deepest circles of the morally deprived. One day, during a jousting match, I, um…” An ember formed in his throat that took his words for a moment. Merek fought down the tears edging at his eyes before he continued. “I was too drunk to fight. A man who doesn’t show up for a match is a worthless man. I would have lost all the credit I had earned for the name of Kruach were it not for my squire, a boy by the name of Quinn, barely fourteen years old.” The tears were coming now whether Merek liked it or not. “Quinn pretended to be me. He put on my armor, took up my shield, and fought in my stead. I was passed out at the time or I would’ve stopped him. There I was, a grown man shamed by a lad who knew more about the meaning of honor than I ever did. The next morning I found out that his opponent had skewered him through the neck with his lance.”
Awlin’s silence could’ve shattered Merek’s eardrums. His mind filled with memories of that awful day, of waking up to fists seizing him, guards beating him, and the heart-broken family of young Quinn demanding his execution.
“Father was going to give me to the authorities, but not before I took the blood march,” Merek said. “Father wanted our family name absolved of the sins of his rebellious son before they had me executed for Quinn’s death.”
Awlin’s eyes shut and a single tear trickled down her cheek. “Men have died taking the blood march.”
“I know. I was too afraid to take it. And so I ran away.” Merek’s head dropped as he sobbed. His stomach knotted because at last he had come to the part of his story that he feared the most. He collected himself and looked up at his sister, thinking of those horrible scars on her back. “Quinn had three older brothers, and they wanted revenge. When they couldn’t find me they went after you.”
Merek kept talking, but at this point his words didn’t matter. He could see in Awlin’s eyes that she already knew the rest o
f the story—taken from her home in the middle of the night by three men, whisked away to one of Turnberry’s harbors, and sold like a cheap whore to the first slave ship bound for Efferous. Her expression changed from shock, to horror, than sadness and tears.
“I’m so sorry, dear sister,” Merek said. He slid off the log and fell to his knees, intent on begging her for forgiveness, but her hands caught him by the shoulders before he could kneel. She pushed him up and threw her arms around him, hugging him in an embrace he didn’t deserve. “I’m so sorry,” he said again, crying into her chest. “I will never forgive myself for what happened to you.”
Awlin stroked the back of his head and said, “Then I will do it for you.”
He looked up at her. “What?”
“You’ve punished yourself enough,” she said. “The scars on my back are no more your fault than they are mine.”
“How can you say that?” he asked. “How can you forgive all that I’ve done?”
“Because you’re my brother. I love you.”
With Awlin’s arms around him, Merek felt a peace envelop him that he never expected to find. His mistakes became a memory, and his crimes insignificant in the face of Awlin’s willingness to look past what he had done.
The atmosphere around the campfire changed over the next several moments and Merek and Awlin talked until the embers of the fire were a calm red. He tossed a couple more logs on the coals and lay down on his blanket to look up at the stars. Awlin was quiet for a long time, and Merek began to wonder if she had drifted off to sleep.
Then she said, “Merek, did you ever marry?”
“Why of all questions to ask me would you think of that?”
“A good sister wants the best for her big brother.”
“No. I never married. Don’t suspect I ever will.”
“Can’t find many brown haired, brown eyed girls on Efferous can you?” She giggled, eyes crinkling in the firelight.
He smiled, a mental picture of such a woman forming in his mind. He did like the brunettes.
Merek lay awake for a while afterward, listening to the crackling of the campfire and the scampering of distant nighttime critters through the forest. He still couldn’t believe Awlin’s response to his admission of guilt. Though she had looked appalled during his story, and though she cried with him as he confessed, her response was the one thing that he never saw coming.
After a while his thoughts went to the cabin, one of only a few safe houses he had left. If he couldn’t get in there and retrieve his gold, he and Awlin would not be able to afford a ship ride back to Edhen.
He did have one option, however, and it was tucked in the pocket of his tunic in the form of two milky white gems. He had already used four of them to buy Awlin’s freedom, an act that had startled him when he thought about it a couple days later. He was now in debt in the worst way possible to the most ruthless high king ever to rule Edhen. Even if he and Awlin were able to afford passage home, Merek doubted he would be able to return. He was a wanted man now. He could take Awlin home, but, in the end, he would have to leave.
Eventually Merek slipped into a light sleep, waking many times to the forest sounds and the jarring thoughts of his own bleak imagination.
After dawn, he and Awlin ate a few bites of what little provisions they had, watered their horses by a nearby brook, and set off north toward the town of Faltonia.
A quiet place, Faltonia was rich with jungle greenery and strong stone homes occupied by craftsmen, seamstresses, carpenters, masons, and other talented tradesmen. The town had little to offer passersby. Other than the resources produced by its inhabitants—resources that were almost always carried away and sold elsewhere—the town had nothing that attracted visitors
Merek led Awlin along the outskirts of the town and into the jungle woods. He steered north through many fertile farmlands sectioned off by rows of emerald shrubs, flowery trees, and trickling brooks.
Leaving his horse in the woods for a few moments, Merek crept through the jungle underbrush and peered out into a small clearing where a simple single-level cabin sat, a dark square box in the midst of a rich verdant utopia.
He knew right away that something was wrong. A path of tall green grass to the right of the single-level structure was bent in the wrong direction as though a horse or a man had traipsed over it. The front door wasn’t shut and the native birds were far too quiet.
“What is it?” Awlin whispered, as she sat on her knees behind him.
The door to the cabin scraped open and a black viper stepped outside onto the warped wooden deck. He stood there a moment in black leather and chain mail, examining his surroundings as he munched a piece of dried meat.
Merek’s gut twisted. His safe haven was gone, his gold out of reach. His return journey to Edhen with Awlin had stalled yet again. Merek’s mind ticked through the possible ways the soldier had tracked him to this location, but there was a number of possibilities. Patryk might have told them, or another one of Merek’s collaborators, though there were few who knew about the cabin. Merek wondered if he had slipped up. Perhaps over the last two years of sneaking around Efferous and making the rich a wee-bit poorer had resulted in a few loose threads that he had failed to cut off.
However the cabin had been found, it didn’t matter now.
The soldier squinted in the late afternoon sun, his eyes searching the field. He looked like he was following a routine, one he had already done many times, which made Merek wonder just how long the soldier had been there. He probably wasn’t alone either, which made it even more possible that the cutaway in the floor under the table had been found, the gold pillaged.
Merek waited for the man to wander back into the cabin before moving away from his perch. He took Awlin by the hand and, staying low, led her back through the underbrush to where they had left the horses.
After Patryk’s death in Slavigo, Merek had abandoned the grumpy old horse his friend had loaned him and purchased two new horses with the money he had collected from the stolen purses at The Pit. The problem now was he needed money. He spent a moment debating in his mind about going after the gold anyway, wondering if he was skilled enough to take on the black viper and anyone else hiding inside. Without knowing for certain if his gold remained where he’d hidden it, however, he couldn’t justify the risk.
With the presence of the black vipers having put some fear into him, Merek led Awlin back toward Faltonia. Once they were in town Awlin ventured to break the silence and asked him where they were going.
“Just follow me,” he said.
Merek sauntered his horse up to a storefront with a broad window made of small square glass panes set in a bowed-out wooden frame to make a larger view. The shop belonged to a jeweler whose wares were on display through the glass.
He dismounted, tied his horse to a hitching rail, on the street, and instructed Awlin to wait with the horses. She must have sensed his souring mood because she said nothing to indicate that she heard him or that she would obey. Merek stepped up onto the raised wooden walkway that fronted the clapboard shop and went inside.
He shut the door behind him and looked around. The store was empty of people, but crowded with waist-high cabinets featuring pottery, brass, silver goblets, forks, spoons, and knives, and jewelry enclosed in protective glass cases.
An oversized man with a double chin hobbled out to the front desk to greet his customer. Unlike the humble, working man vibes the town of Faltonia exuded, Nheto Stult reeked of prosperity. His clothing was spotless, richly embroidered, and made of only the finest fabrics. The man had more money than anyone knew, and if Merek and he didn’t have a long history together, Merek would’ve hit him up years ago.
When he saw Merek, he stopped, sighed and shook his head. “Been worried,” he said. “Lots of talk going around about you.”
“Like what?” Merek asked.
“I’ve heard different things. It always seems to be about black vipers though. They’re looking for you everywh
ere. They were even in here asking questions about you two moons ago.” Before Merek could ask, the jeweler lifted his hands. “Don’t worry. I told them nothing. They were asking about your cabin though.”
Merek tried not to look as worried as he felt. “What can I say? I’ve hit a rough patch.”
The man gestured with his massive chin out the window where Awlin sat stroking the front shoulder of her horse. “Can’t be too rough. That’s a mighty pretty girl.”
Hoping to keep his sister out of the discussion altogether, Merek reached into his tunic and withdrew the two pieces of the regenstern. He set them on the counter in front of the jeweler and watched his eyes sparkle with awe. Few men on Efferous were as gifted in recognizing the quality and value of rare gems than Nheto Stult.
When Nheto saw the gems, he whistled. “I got one question. Are these from Edhen?”
“Why?”
“Cause if they are I’m not touching them.”
“My question remains. Why?”
Nheto sighed again, a heavy wheeze that sounded painful. He leaned forward over his generous girth, resting his elbows on the counter, and glancing out the window like he didn’t want anyone else to hear what he was about to say. “A man got murdered in Slavigo a few moons ago for having one of these gems,” Nheto said.
“What man?” But Merek had a strange feeling that he already knew.
Nheto shrugged. “Some rich nobleman. Was showing it off to a bunch of folks one night when black vipers started roughing him up, asking him where he got it. Some people say the man got real nasty and started fighting and that’s why they killed him, others tell it like the poor soul pissed himself in fear as they wrestled the stone from his grasp and then stuck him right then there.”
Merek remembered the obnoxious nobleman from the slave auction who had fallen in lust with Awlin the moment he heard that she was a virgin. It had cost Merek four pieces of the regenstern to buy her back from him. If black vipers were so eager to kill a wealthy man such as he to get the gems back, then surely Merek and Awlin stood no chance at all.