by Jackson Lear
“We weren’t paying someone to kill you,” said Alysia, her voice bursting with nervous energy.
Draegor leapt from his chair. “You were paying Agnarr! I know it!” He pointed towards the seer. “Desdola has seen it! You come to my home with lies!”
Alysia clasped her hands together like a lady of manners, drew in a deep breath, and regained her composure. “You should apologize.”
The crowd of lords and mercenaries glanced from one face to another, some needing a translation for the brazen comment that Alysia had just led with.
Draegor’s eyes raged. “To you?”
“You threw a cup at me.”
“I could throw ax at you and it would be my right.”
Alysia waited for five whole seconds before speaking again. “You lost your temper. I have not lost mine. You should apologize.”
“You will die before I apologize to you.”
“You should know that making threats against my life will send a legion of Isparian soldiers to this very building. Where will you hide when they come? In the mountains? Hiding in a cave surrounded by snow?”
Draegor’s glare never faltered but his volume did drop somewhat. “Your people are weak against the snow.”
“My people are rich enough to hire mercenaries from Vasslehün to do the job for us. A king who treats his guests like scum is a king who needs to keep his door locked at night when he sleeps.” She took a moment to look over the intrigued faces among the crowd. I did the same, trying to pick out any enterprising killer who wanted to earn one hell of a payday for killing Draegor on our behalf. “My lords and ladies,” said Alysia. “We have a common enemy. The vampires rule through fear.”
Draegor leapt to his feet and roared threat after threat in his native tongue.
Alysia continued, ignoring the tirade from the king while Mikael translated in her ear. “They do not respect our laws or our pleas. An alliance with them will end the moment you fail to supply them with a victim to hunt. An alliance with Ispar, however, would last for centuries. We can offer safety against your enemies. We can provide trade: spices, gold, food, medicine, land to hunt, and lumber to mill. If you persuade your king, you and your families will never have to go hungry again.”
“…and there would be nothing Ispar could do about it,” whispered Mikael.
The room fell silent. Alysia started to resemble her father a lot more in that moment. “Forgive me Draegor, there’s a possibility that I heard a mistranslation. Do I understand that you intend to rape me in front of all these people and that there is nothing anyone could do about it?”
Draegor spat at her. “And I could keep you in castle for hundred years. Brilskeep has never been conquered by enemy.”
Alysia fired off one last resolute look at the king. “Ispar doesn’t care about saving your precious castle. We will build a new one when we’re done.” She turned, giving a courteous nod to the bear behind her. “We’re leaving.”
Chapter Six
We were escorted back into our cozy window-less dungeon. The door behind us clanged again with the heavy wooden beam trapping us inside. The mood was positively shitty, made all the more unpleasant by the fact that the only means of relieving ourselves involved aiming into a half-brick sized hole in the floor at the far end of the room.
Something bugged me about the spectacle we had seen with the seer and Draegor. I ran through all the faces of the northerners as best I could; their expressions, positions, mannerisms, whether they looked lost at the language barrier or not, whether they squinted at Alysia’s choice of words or cowered in fear from Draegor’s frequent outbursts. Something didn’t quite add up.
Loken took Alysia aside and held a quiet conversation with her, which I’m sure involved a lot of, “We’re ready whenever you are, my lady.”
“Let’s give it another few hours before doing anything rash.”
“We may not have another chance at this.”
“Exactly. There’s more at stake here than just our lives. There are thousands of others in peril on both sides of their alliance.”
Loken bowed with the final command from Alysia, a military man through and through having to accept the word of a civilian. I would’ve liked him if he’d had a wife. More so if he’d have children. Not so much because of the whole ‘children’ aspect but because it would’ve told me that he wasn’t expendable. It’s easier knowing who to stick beside when they have a reason to survive instead of nothing more than duty. From my enquiries during our limited time together, Loken was rumored to have a minor significant other. Name unknown. Details unknown. Whoever they were, they caused Loken undue turmoil since they were a decent cook – no bad thing in itself, except spices and far-eastern heat weren’t exactly cheap or easy to come by, so either Loken had fallen for a thief or someone open to hefty favors, or the unnamed ‘other’ was just surprisingly good at making carrots and grains taste out of this world.
Saskia had been a pale, rattled mess since returning from the great hall. Pushing twenty five. Universally considered ‘old’ by Isparian standards, even though General Kasera was approaching fifty and was still considered ‘formidable’. All it took was a single, “What the fuck are you looking at?” and she ended up on my ‘Zara list’. She might’ve stayed there indefinitely were it not for Draegor’s seer chilling the fuck out of her. ‘The suffering caused by this one will haunt whoever survives.’
“She was just stirring up trouble,” whispered Gaynun, the youngest of the vanguard. He hadn’t yet been able to grow a moustache but he was determined to make it happen. One day. I would bet that even at forty you could mistake him for a scraggly kid.
“And she could’ve been lying,” said Jarmella.
“You don’t know that,” said Saskia.
“Neither do you.” On it went, half of us spooked and reading too much into a seer’s babblings, the other half keeping our troubles to ourselves.
Alysia left Loken’s side and came to me instead. “How are you?”
Apparently my troubles weren’t supposed to remain my own. “Say the word.”
“No.”
“A better word than that.”
“No, and especially when people can listen in from afar: No.” Her mahogany eyes shimmered in the dull firelight from the middle of the room. “We’re not jeopardizing anyone’s life, not after only one meeting.”
“You’re sure there will be another?”
“Yes.”
“He’s not exactly experienced in Isparian negotiations.”
“No, but we got the measure of each other and he has something to think about. We could have a legion of soldiers here at the start of spring, a hundred catapults built by summer, and a whole city’s worth of stone buildings that can be broken down and rained upon the castle for years to come.” Her eyes softened towards me, making me wish all the more that I wasn’t surrounded by her father’s most loyal soldiers. Loyal to him, that is, and possibly holding onto orders concerning me that Alysia wasn’t aware of. “I want you to know that I’m not leaving you behind.”
“Where did that come from?”
“Desdola.”
“Come on.”
“She said you were going to die on a black shore.”
“She didn’t say when, or how, or even where. There’s thousands of miles of black shore here.”
Alysia fell into a pained silence as she tried to gather the right combination of words.
“Don’t.”
“It’s just …”
“I’m not dying on some stupid black shore. All she did was babble some bullshit to get under our skin and it worked. She might be no seer at all and simply did some research before we got here. All those bearded assholes in there are probably laughing themselves stupid at how easy it is to scare us. Do we have any proof that she’s telling the truth? No. So no need to worry about it.”
“She gave us proof and you know it.”
“What, your soul being fractured in two?”
&nb
sp; “Among other things.”
“Maybe I should stab her in the chest to see if she really can see things from afar. Although even a blind person would see that coming. Then again she is blind …”
Alysia didn’t seem to be in the mood to humor me.
“You really think you’re going to get another meeting?” I asked.
“Yes. That one was to save face. The second will be because he’s thought over our position. He’ll have listened to his people and he’ll be interested to see exactly how far we are willing to go to establish peace.”
“Can you really offer any of that?”
“Sort of,” she said, with a heavy dose of personal turmoil added into the mix.
“You mean privately you can?”
“For a while, maybe. The Kaseras might be able to finance a peace deal but doing so with an enemy warlord is going to bankrupt us before we see much benefit in our deal.”
“What about the Lavartas?”
“Both families are what the senators in Ispar would consider ‘low wealthy.’”
“So it’s cheaper to overthrow a king than to negotiate with one?”
“Always.”
“Good to know.” I pulled Mikael away from the fire pit. “Give us some good news.”
His voice cracked in bewildered defeat. “We’re trapped.”
“What did you see and who did it?”
We must’ve been black blobs silhouetted in darkness for all the squinting he threw our way. “One of Agnarr’s sons.”
That brought us to a standstill.
“Right now he’s … well …”
“How did Draegor get so many nobles here in so little time?”
“It’s the Golden Moon time.”
“Taxes?”
“Yeah. Everyone who’s had a harvest pays tribute, everyone who went on a raid pays a portion of their takings. At this time the king usually tells everyone what the forthcoming year will look like, where bountiful raids were, and everyone has a chance to air their grievances about other families before winter settles in.”
“And Agnarr sent his son?” asked Alysia.
“Johnan. His heir.”
I looked to Alysia, wondering if she was going to give the order.
Mikael carried on, oblivious to our silent conversation. “Usually, though, it’s something of a harvest madness, when every noble clamors to give Draegor more than someone else, lest they be thrown from the roof of the castle for not pulling their weight. People send spies from one tribe to another to figure out how much everyone is giving so they can adjust accordingly. No one wants to be the lowest provider. No one wants to be the highest, either.”
“Why not the highest?”
“Because next year they’re expected to be the highest again.”
“Did you see anyone else you recognized?”
“Some I’ve met briefly, some I’ve seen, the rest I’ve heard about. There’s forty two noble houses up here and they’re all loosely related to Draegor and the House Scoridge. Cousins of cousins of cousins, that sort of thing.”
“I counted thirty nine potential noble leaders.”
“Me too,” added Zara. “Including Draegor.”
I kept an eye on Alysia, waiting for the command.
“There’s more at stake than just us,” she said, through a shudder of heartfelt agony.
“We have thirty one soldiers within two hundred yards of the man we’re trying to overthrow.”
“And there are thirty nine warriors in our way, plus however many mercenaries, retainers, or guards they have at their disposal. I need another meeting with Draegor.”
I readied a retort.
She glared back at me, putting me in my place.
Zara looked to Mikael. “Can you tell us who else was there? Someone who can help us?”
Mikael trembled as he spoke. “I don’t know … I mean, I didn’t even know about his psychic.”
“Don’t worry about her for now.”
“Sure, I mean, let’s just ignore the woman who can read minds and see our futures …” He sighed, still jittery with nerves. “Okay, there’s Brienna of Velnick. Blond. Good looking. Like, ridiculously good looking. She got married six … no, eight … wait, nine? Nine years ago. There were three duels that night because everyone thought she should marry them, but these weren’t exactly civilized duels or authorized by the king so the winners were thrown off the top of the tower.”
“Good. What’s her political persuasion?”
“Her what?”
“Would she like us more than Draegor?”
“Well, no. Everyone here hates you more than him.”
“Then at the very least, does she hate the alliance? Does she want Draegor gone?”
“From what I’ve heard she’s not much of a thinker. She’s not dumb, she’s just not all that ambitious.”
“Then let’s have a look at the cunning people for now. Who was there?”
Mikael regaled us once more. For someone who didn’t recognize anyone in our meeting he sure did have a surprising amount of knowledge on who was who and what they were famous for. Alysia, Zara, and Loken helped to lock in on their identity and who was standing next to who, which helped more than I expected. Two houses often had quarrels and no one would want to stand next to someone they despised if they could help it, so from that we figured out that Skaven of Wren was the forty year old with a thick black beard as opposed to Temok of Bront who was the forty two year old with a thick black beard, officially first cousins and unofficially rumored to have the same father.
Mikael’s stories were not short but they were thorough. After a couple of hours he had finally detailed everyone he could think of who might’ve been at our interrogation.
“Thank you, Mikael,” said Alysia. No one else dared say a word.
I retreated to the far end of the fire pit, tired of facing everyone as they took a leak. Alysia sidled up next to me. “I can’t let you do something stupid like trying to rescue Johnan.”
“I know. But it would help you with Agnarr if we ever get out of here.”
“I know. In the mean time I’ll do what I can to negotiate Johnan’s release.”
“I’m sure you will.”
She peered at me, trying to read me like a scroll. “You don’t have to try to make up for every misdeed in your past by going overboard and rescuing everyone.”
“It’s not that. It’s the job. We came to help Agnarr so he could help us. Right now his kid is probably screaming his head off, wishing for death. If we can do something about that it will help Agnarr help us. Hell, Agnarr would be forever in your debt. And it will make Draegor look weak if we rescued Johnan out from under his nose.”
“With no weapons, no equipment, and just your wits?”
“Give me one hour with Zara and we could do it.”
Alysia shook her head at me. “I can’t. As much as I hate saying it, this is a diplomatic mission first, a military mission second, Zara’s mission third, and your mission last. That’s the chain of command here.”
I’ve been hit before. In the face a few times. In the gut plenty. The balls more than I cared to admit. Even a few times in my soul, my pride, and my conscience. Somehow, that one hit worse than all of the above.
“That’s fair,” I said.
Her eyes cracked, refusing to give up. “Please know that it is killing me.”
I warmed my hands by the flickering fire. Caught a few cold looks from the troops. “I never expected to see the army – let alone members of a general’s vanguard – get so easily rattled.”
Alysia sighed and dropped to a whisper. “You have a reputation. And they’re afraid of you because of it.”
“They’re afraid of me?”
“Probably more so now that they’ve met Draegor.” She shrugged at my not-too-subtle glare. “I don’t think you’re like Draegor.”
“Your father’s best of the best really think that mercenaries and warlords are no different? That w
e all make a living from terrorizing others, robbing anyone who’s weaker than us, prepared to kill anyone who stands in our … okay, I see it.”
“The army has a particular view point when it comes to mercenaries.”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure you really do.”
“Some of my best friends were ex-soldiers. I know. We take deserters, murderers, and thieves and hone their skills into becoming better criminals.” I glanced over the faces within the dungeon. Few caught my eye. Most gave me a second look, but it was followed by them turning away and being acutely aware that I was watching them.
“You used to rattle people for a living, didn’t you?” asked Alysia.
“Yeah.”
“Basically, you terrified someone into cooperating with you.”
“It wasn’t a forgone conclusion that it would work, but yeah.”
Alysia’s eyes shimmered by the flames. “Did you enjoy it?”
“I enjoyed being good at it.”
“That’s it, then. These people here are army. They’ve been trained to serve to the point of death. You’ve been trained to terrify.”
“Perhaps. But it wasn’t just deserters, murders, and thieves who taught me what it was like to be afraid and – later – how to terrify people.”
She fell quiet. It was nice. Of course that ended when she glanced back at me. “When I came over you had that look, like your gut is telling you that you saw something and your mind is trying to do your gut a favor by searching again for something you’ve covered a dozen times already.”
“I must have oddly specific looks.”
“Is it true?”
I shrugged. “I was thinking about that seer. She apparently told Draegor that Agnarr was plotting against him, yet Agnarr is still alive. From everything we’ve heard, Draegor is not the kind of person who would allow that, so what’s going on?”
“Maybe Desdola has been watching us as well and Draegor wanted to trap us both. There could be another plan at work here.”
I remained quiet.
“You don’t think so?”