Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  It was all true. They were the words that had convinced Raz that Talo was a man worth respecting, a man worth following, and they were the words he had kept with him ever since that day in the Koyts’ cramped home.

  “I need you to take the opportunity that is me, Carro,” he said finally. “I need you to accept that the world is not black and white, and that there are times when the only path that can be taken is the better of two shitty opportunities. I need you to pick the lesser of the evils, as Talo did before you.”

  The words struck Carro hard. Raz could see that. The shaking had ended, but the man seemed also to have stopped breathing, like the disclosure of Talo’s actions had shaken something loose within him and he were struggling to replace it.

  When he moved again, he surprised Raz by giving a slow, unsound laugh.

  “That sounds like Talo,” he said wearily. “To a letter, that sounds just like him. I always envied him that ability. That strength…”

  “And you were one of many,” Raz told him. “But you have a chance now to borrow some of it for a purpose.”

  Carro nodded slowly.

  “You’ve backed me into a corner, Raz,” he said with a twisted grimace, looking down at the camp below them. “I’m not sure I like it.”

  “I told you, I’m giving you no ultimatum. These are simply the facts of the situation.”

  Carro nodded again. “I suppose so. Still… I don’t like it.”

  “No one would. It doesn’t change the fact that you need to make a choice…”

  Carro gave a pained, warped sort of smile.

  “Aye, that I do…” he said almost inaudibly, as though speaking to himself. “And if that’s the case, I might have an idea. Let’s go find out if there really is a difference between less and more.”

  XXIII

  RAZ WAS not a fan of Carro’s plan.

  He’d been thoroughly impressed with it, at first, as the Priest explained, outlining the concept to him on their brisk walk back along the path, Gale plodding along at their back after they’d retrieved him from where he’d been hidden among the trees. When they’d gotten to his role in the scheme, though, Raz had bristled.

  “You want me to what?”

  “Not actually,” Carro had told him in a huff. The man seemed to have found a bit of his old self now that they’d made a decision. “You’ll just need to pretend. Your hands won’t even be bound.”

  It didn’t make Raz feel any better. Still, as he hadn’t been able to come up with anything better—mostly, he thought, because he knew shit-all about what they were getting themselves into—he went with it. It was several minutes of rapid walking later, therefore, that they arrived at their initial destination.

  They’d snuffed out the torches the sentries had been carrying and dragged the unconscious forms behind the thickets along the left side of the path, out of easy view. By the time they returned, one of the mountain men was slowly coming to, groaning and blinking as he attempted to clear his head.

  Quick as a snake Raz fell to one knee beside him, drew his gladius, and slammed the sword’s pommel down between the man’s eyes, knocking him out cold once more.

  “What?” Raz asked innocently as Carro caught up to him and gave him a scathing look.

  The Priest had seemed to decide that silence was the best punishment, and set about his task without so much as a word to Raz.

  It took a while for them to make their preparations. They began by selecting the larger of the two men—the one closer to Carro’s size—and stripping him of his armor, leathers, and most of his furs. Raz would have taken him down to his loincloth and let him freeze, but Carro’s withering warnings of where he’d light his magical fires next time resulted in the man being left in a thick shirt, heavy cotton pants, and socks.

  He’d probably catch a cold, but it was doubtful he’d die before he or his companion woke up.

  This done, they moved north up the path again, then off into the Woods to get Carro dressed. It was tedious work, requiring the man to change first into the lighter traveler’s attire he’d apparently worn most of the way to Azbar when they’d left the Citadel at summer’s end, then don the heavier leather and iron armor they’d scavenged off the sentry. Both he and Raz shared in a number of curses throughout this process, Carro because the bulky layers stank and his broken arm made him grunt in pain every time it shifted, and Raz because he was so accustomed to the exquisite work of Allihmad Jerr that he had practically forgotten how much of a headache it could be to strap a man into armor. At last, though, they managed, and eventually Carro stood, huffing and wheezing, looking very much the part of a true mountain man in weathered gear, his blond, braided hair and beard touching it all off nicely.

  Next came Ahna and Carro’s staff. Raz had always done his best to keep the dviassegai easily accessible, but after some deliberation they concluded it was neither likely nor practical for the plan at hand. In the end Raz had covered her blades with her old leather sack, then—with much help from Carro and no help from the horse—strapped her and the staff lengthwise along Gale’s left side. They’d shifted as much other weight as they could to the animal’s right, including Raz’s gladius and war-ax, and eventually seemed to find a good balance.

  Barring a deliberate inspection, Ahna and the steel staff could now pass as a pair of plain spears, and Gale as the well-armed charger of a mountain warrior.

  At last it was Raz’s turn. Grumbling all the while, he used a good length of browning vine he managed to pull down from a nearby sapling to wrap his heavy furs tightly about his hands and wrists. This served the dual purpose of hiding the steel of his gauntlets and making it look as though his hands—when held close together—had been bound. Once he’d managed this he pulled his tail in and about his waist, then tucked his wings in as tight as they would go. Drawing his hood up as high as he could over his face, Raz did a final check to make sure his gladius and ax were within easy reach, hanging off Gale’s saddle behind Carro’s thigh, having helped the man clambered up onto the horse a minute earlier.

  Then Raz reached up and, with a scowl he couldn’t help, grabbed the back-most saddle straps, keeping his wrists close together.

  In the space of twenty minutes, Carro al’Dor and Raz i’Syul Arro, Priest of Laor and the infamous Monster of Karth, had become nothing more than a tribesman dragging along a vanquished, enslaved prisoner.

  “Did I mention how much I really don’t like this?” Raz asked for the fourth time as they started to walk north and west again, back towards the mountain men’s camp, Gale limping steadily along. He wasn’t sure if it was just in his head, but he thought the bare skin of the twin scars that encircled his wrists beneath his gauntlets was itching suddenly. “I mean I really, really don’t like this.”

  “Well next time you can come up with a plan,” Carro snapped under his breath. “Now be quiet. We’ll be there soon.”

  Indeed, it wasn’t more than a minute before the orange glow of the fires made itself known through the Woods once more. Together Raz and Carro carved a careful route, aiming to get as close as they could while keeping to the very edges of the eastern side of the encampment. A majority of the activity they had been able to make out from the top of the hill seemed to have been limited to the center, south, west, and north. The east side, along which they aimed to trail, had looked to be where the Kayle’s men stored their supplies, equipment, foodstuffs, and other such materials. There were a couple of tents, but Raz hadn’t seen much activity going in and out of them, and he thought it likely they were just more storage areas.

  If they could keep out of the light, they might just be able to make it all the way around without getting spotted.

  They had debated taking a wide route and making for the base of the stairs at an angle, avoiding the mountain men altogether. Raz had nixed this, though, arguing that approaching the path indirectly would only be more suspicious, and give whatever guard had been posted there further time to make out the inconsistencies in
their—and especially Raz’s—disguise. He’d also vetoed avoiding the base of the path altogether and climbing the mountain from a different angle, or at least meeting with the stairs at another point. He’d pointed out that, if it were possible to manage the mountain face without taking the stairs, the Laorin would have very likely done so a long time ago. The sides of the Saragrias Ranges were simply too steep and too rocky for Carro to handle, and Raz didn’t know how much he trusted Gale’s footing in the depths of the snow already, injured as he was…

  In the end, the direct route was their only option, and so Raz and Carro found themselves creeping along the edge of the camp, doing their utmost to stay out of the light and away from the eyes of the more active areas to their left.

  For what seemed like an eternity they moved along, Carro doing his best to sit tall and proud in the saddle, trying to look the victorious warrior, and Raz working hard on seeming the cowering prisoner of war, stumbling along beside the horse. Neither were very convincing, but it proved an irrelevant concern for the time being. Not a soul moved among the stacked storage and narrow tents they crept along. They seemed to have punched a hole in the sentry line when Raz had knocked the two men they’d left back along the path unconscious, and were now reaping their reward. The majority of sound and voices Raz could make out were at least fifty or so yards away, well into the ranks of the camp.

  And praise the Sun for that, he thought, giving silent thanks. He had thought the dark and his boots might hide his feet well enough—the only part of him there was nothing he could do to disguise—but the light of the cooking fire was bright, to the point where anyone passing by would likely not have been fooled. All they had to do was get through the trees and into the snow, and he would be much less likely to be—

  Raz froze. A sound had reached his ears, muffled and horrifying. He stood in the semi-darkness, eyes scanning the boxes and barrels alongside him through the fur that hung over his face. After a moment they fell on a wide, patched canvas tent some thirty feet ahead, and the sound seemed to grow more distinct as he realized the source.

  He heard, in a furious, billowing thrall of rage, the unmistakable grunts and heavy breathing of a man in pleasure. This would have been unremarkable, perhaps, except for the fact that there seemed to be more than one male voice coming from within. At least another, maybe two, were present, laughing and talking in the strange, guttural speech of the mountains.

  And underlying it all, limited and muted behind the noise of the man’s exertion and his companion’s voiced amusement, were the distinct, pitiful whimpers of a woman, gagged and held against her will, struggling and fighting to be free of the hands and gazes that undoubtedly held her firm.

  “Raz!”

  Raz’s conscience ripped back into place so abruptly it left him reeling. He realized that he had stopped moving, transfixed by the sounds. Carro and Gale, unaware that he had let go of the saddle straps, had continued on a dozen feet, ambling slowly across the uneven ground. The Priest was looking around him in alarm, turned about in the saddle.

  “What are you doing?” the man demanded in an urgent whisper.

  Raz, in answer, put a finger to his lips with one hand, then pointed towards the tent with another. Carro whirled about as though expecting to see a patrol closing in on them, or perhaps some solitary drunkard who had wandered off to relieve himself in the trees.

  Then Raz saw the Priest stiffen, and he knew the man could make out the sounds of the woman’s struggles as well.

  Raz crept forward, doubly careful to stay quiet now, until he caught up with Carro and the horse. He paused for a moment, struggling with himself, the anger flaring in him as he continued to listen.

  Losing the battle, he reached up and began drawing the gladius from its sheath, steel scraping quietly like cold vengeance.

  He was taken completely by surprise when Carro stopped him, one big hand reaching back to close around his wrist.

  Raz snarled his frustration at the act, but the Priest ignored him. He hadn’t even looked away from the tent, and had reacted only to the sound of the sword being drawn. For a long time he stared at the leather canvas that only partially muffled the assault, and Raz could feel the tension in Carro’s body as thick fingers twitched about his gauntlet.

  Finally, the man turned around, his face sad and tense.

  “Can you stop them?” he asked, his voice chokingly hoarse.

  Raz nodded.

  “Without alerting the others?”

  At that, Raz hesitated. He turned his attention back on the tent, listening again. He was sure, now, that there were at least three men within. More might even be outside, waiting their turn. Pushing aside the violent emotions that welled up within him at that thought, Raz forced himself to consider the surroundings, assessing all the elements. There were three, maybe more. The rest of the Kayle’s men seemed to be congregated closer to the center of the camp, but it was doubtful they were all there. Someone was bound to hear a scuffle, and Raz couldn’t guarantee no one would have time to shout an alarm before he got to them. Even the woman, whoever she was, was a risk, as it wouldn’t have been the first time a girl had screamed at the sight of his face…

  Slowly, feeling as though every muscle in his body were fighting the motion, Raz shook his head.

  Carro’s grip tightened, and it was a few seconds before he spoke.

  “‘The lesser of the evils,’” he quoted, his voice breaking. “Getting ourselves killed serves no one. Not even that poor girl.”

  For a long time Raz didn’t move, the gladius still half drawn from where it hung behind Carro’s thigh.

  Then, slowly, he sheathed it again, releasing the hilt with a massive effort. He didn’t say a word as he wrapped his hands around the saddle straps again, and he didn’t look away from the tent until they had long passed it, Carro heeling Gale into a slow trot northward, keeping to the camp’s edge all the while.

  The muffled sounds of the woman’s plaintive, wretched wailing dogged Raz unforgivingly.

  It wasn’t more than two minutes before they traded the last of the tents for the shadows again, and another couple before the trees began to thin, snow starting to pile thicker and thicker along the forest floor once more. They’d managed to sneak in and out of the encampment without running into so much as a soul, and Raz breathed a tiny bit easier as his booted feet became lost in the piling white. He offered up another brief thanks to the Sun, squinting up at its pale outline against the overcast sky as the canopy gapped and thinned.

  Then he turned his gaze earthward again, keeping his face well shaded beneath his hood, eyes skimming the rapidly brightening edge of the Woods that opened up before them, marking the end of the trees.

  As they stepped out into the open air for what Raz hoped would be the last time in a good long while, he forced himself not to look up and gape at the harsh angles of the Saragrias again. He kept his head resolutely tucked in mock defeat, no longer struggling to fake a stumbling gait as his shorter legs slipped and caught in the snows that Gale’s long limbs made easy work of. He studied the scene before him carefully, peering once more from between the long hairs of the furs that hid his face. He couldn’t see much at first, most everything being a distorted jumble of white and grey of snow and earth and granite, but with patient study he eventually made out what he assumed to be their goal. Straight ahead of them a gap existed in the boulders and trees of the rapidly inclining mountain face. It wasn’t a massive space—probably about a dozen feet wide—but it was distinct against the otherwise rough-hewn rock that marked the ranges. Past this opening, Raz was barely able to make out staggered shelvings in the heavy snow, rising and twisting up and off to the left.

  The stairs, he realized with amazement, unable to help himself and tilting his chin up just a fraction, trying to follow the path as high as it went. The steps curved around themselves several times within his limited vision, then were lost in the slope of the earth and the scattered patches of stunted, bent spr
uces and firs that dotted the peaks.

  It took Carro’s sharp inhale of alarm to bring Raz’s attention back to their base, and he cursed silently.

  Damn…

  Scattered about the bottom of the stairway, lounging in a wide space that seemed to have been periodically cleared of snow, the dark outlines of no less than a full score of armed men contrasted sharply with the white and grey of the scene. Raz sized them all up, watching the group take note of the horse, its rider, and the apparently unfortunate soul being dragged along towards them. He wasn’t surprised, of course. He had hoped whoever was in command of the Kayle’s men now laying siege to the Citadel might have been fool enough to leave only a light guard on the stairs, but it had been a dubious wish. It made sense to secure the one avenue by which the Laorin could possibly escape. While twenty men weren’t enough to hold back an onslaught from above if the Priests and Priestesses decided to make a play for their freedom, it was more than sufficient to secure the path long enough for the rest of the advance guard to be summoned. The outcroppings and boulders on either side of the stairs provided plenty of cover from whatever magic or weaponry the Laorin might have been able to hurl from higher up, and as several of the men got to their feet Raz saw more than one bow slung behind backs and over shoulders. They were crude looking weapons, worn and well used, but the slim men who carried them—bedecked in thin leathers and dark furs adorned with what seemed to be at least one animal skull of some kind or another—looked well versed in their use.

  They came ready, Raz thought, impressed as he watched the rest of the sentries stand up and turn to face him and Carro. They could easily defend the path long enough to keep the Laorin from getting too far down and—

  Raz’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden, alarming notion. They were more than halfway to the base of the stairs now, less than thirty feet from the first steps. The plan had been for Carro to hail whoever guarded the path with a raised hand, then tell them Raz was a deserter dragged along for their entertainment—a phrase Carro had been practicing under his breath in the mountain tongue over and over the last few minutes. The hope was that he would be able to “kick” Raz into the middle of them, and from there the Monster of Karth would be allowed to wreak all the havoc of his profession while Carro cleared a path through on Gale. The bows posed an issue to this, obviously, as the Priest would be a large, slow target atop the horse as they struggled up the first curve in the snowy path.