Rath and Storm

by Peter Archer (ed) (retail) (epub)

  Gerrard shrugged. “I’m not the only one who can teach you to dance, either. But no one will now.” He gestured at Torsten’s leg. “You’re done being a soldier, if you ever were one.”

  For a moment, Gerrard thought the young man might come at him. Torsten’s lips locked, his hands clenched into fists, and his eyebrows met in a scowl. Then he swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, “But I’m not done being a killer.”

  He limped to the training yard’s entrance, never looking back. Gerrard watched him go. When he had disappeared into the dark tunnel, Gerrard turned to Javero. The young man seemed to be having a difficult time catching his breath, but the panic was fading fast from his face. “Thank the gods you arrived when you did,” he half-whispered. “I have always heard you are one of the best, Master, but I never thought I would so desperately need you to be.”

  “Being the best usually means proving it.” Gerrard walked to his keys, picked them up, and turned back to the young man. “For Torsten’s sake, I hope you’re right about all this—and it looks like you are. But for the Benalish army’s sake, I hope you’re wrong. We have some things to talk about.”

  Javero nodded. “A few things, Master Gerrard.”

  The two of them retired to Gerrard’s chambers below the training yard. The three dusty rooms lay in shadows, cluttered with trappings and trinkets from days Gerrard had just begun to remember fondly. He watched Javero move around the main chamber, handling various artifacts and weapons and asking questions. The young man had apparently forgotten the heat of the battle despite the blood that trickled from his ear to stain his gold earring. Gerrard let him explore; students never came down here, and Javero’s curiosity kept him distracted while Gerrard considered the implications of what had just occurred in the yard.

  “And what’s this?” the young man asked, gesturing to a skin hanging on the wall above a row of shelves.

  “The hide of a scarmithal,” Gerrard answered absently as he sat down behind his disorganized desk. He wondered if Torsten had gone directly to Lord Kastan after the fight. “I was traveling with some friends along the coast of Denawa when we ran into them. If you wear the skin, it changes your shape into one so you can pass among the other scarmithals. Kind of a scarmithal spy’s cloak.”

  Javero nodded, paused as if he might ask something else, then gestured at the pendant around Gerrard’s neck. “I’ve seen you with that pendant before. What is it?”

  Gerrard held it up and across the desk for him to see. The pendant was shaped like a small hourglass, hung so that it could be up-ended to run its sands while remaining on the chain. As Javero leaned closer to examine it, Gerrard said, “The last treasure of a life I abandoned.”

  Javero was about to speak again, but Gerrard gestured for him to be silent. This was old soil, heavily tilled—memories of Weatherlight, Captain Sisay, and the Legacy were as untouchable as the gods themselves, and nearly as unforgiving. They were part of a time Gerrard couldn’t change and hadn’t understood at the time anyway. Regretting it only made him relive it. Besides, there were far more important things to discuss than Gerrard’s past life as a sailor of the skies.

  “So Lord Kastan is trying to recruit my soldiers as his bloodletters,” he said matter-of-factly. “Never mind that such behavior is treason in Benalia. Surely he knows who he’s taunting by even trying. I’m not exactly known for my diplomatic skills. Every master-at-arms, ranking officer, and infantry drudge would raise swords over this if word got out. But Kastan is jeopardizing my career with this arrogance. I’m obliged to do something about it or risk my entire life in Benalia. I’ll be damned if I’ll learn about a cure after the plague.”

  Javero touched his wounded ear and said, “I guess I should have been thinking the same way, Master. Confronting Torsten was a mistake. And now he has reason to hate me.”

  “You should have come to me with this,” Gerrard agreed, “or taken it over my head to Commander Alaric. If I can trust him, you can. But he’ll still spit poison when I tell him that the assassins are headhunting in the army’s ranks.”

  “Yes, sir. I know he will.”

  “You know he’s going to want the names of the others, everyone who Lord Kastan tried to recruit. There’ll be an investigation. The army has no tolerance for this sort of betrayal. That’s why I got into it in the first place. But at least the army will protect you from Torsten and the others, so you won’t have to sleep with a dagger under your pillow.” Gerrard paused, then asked, “So who else besides Torsten?”

  He watched Javero’s eyes pan nervously across the room, pausing on each individual heirloom, and he knew then that the young man had yet another secret, poorly concealed. “If I were a gambling man, I’d bet you’ve been approached,” he said softly.

  Javero swallowed, clearing his throat and keeping his eyes averted, unable or unwilling to meet Gerrard’s steady gaze. “Yes, Master Gerrard. But not by Lord Kastan.”

  “Then who?”

  “There’s this mercenary band of siege breakers at the docks,” Javero answered. “They’re just passing through Benalia. I met with their recruiter yesterday, and he told me about their group—where they’ve been, what they’ve been doing. You know, the adventures that happen to mercenaries.”

  “Adventure’s just another way of saying your day started out badly,” Gerrard said.

  “No, no. You don’t understand.” Javero turned abruptly from Gerrard’s desk, picking up an elaborate rod from the shelf beneath the hide. Gerrard watched while Javero held it up as if his master had never seen it before. “Our first day of training, you showed this to us. ‘A weapon is only as good as the hand that wields it,’ you said. And then you fired it. Tt was amazing, all that magic coming from this little artifact. We were all impressed, by both the rod and the wielder. There’s a story behind this, yes? Some insane risk you took to find it, some amazing battle you fought to earn it. And here it is, the treasure that epitomizes that whole adventure.”

  Gerrard grinned. “It’s called the Null Rod, Javero. You know why? Because it doesn’t do anything. It’s all flash. I use it for show. Bad example.”

  “Then your pendant.”

  Gerrard’s grin faded, and he touched the hourglass absently. He sighed, scratching his thin beard. “You’re knight material. I know you know that. But you have to see your training through. You want adventure? Put Benalish armor on, and it’ll come at you tooth and claw.”

  Javero shook his head. “So I can fill out battle reports and serve as an ‘honor’ guard for every Benalish noble with a fat gut but a fatter purse? Sentry duty and parades just don’t suit me, Master Gerrard. The army is restrictive to the point of strangulation. It’s not service, it’s servitude. There’s got to be something more with the siege breakers.”

  “You’d be making a mistake,” Gerrard said. “The army is as good as it gets, and I should know. I’ve been out there. I was first mate on a ship for years. I traveled all over the world. You know what it got me? Dead friends. Bad dreams. I fought as hard as I could, Javero, and I still ended up right here, in ‘servitude’ to Benalia. I’m not saying you’ll be back, but I am saying you’ll wake up somewhere down the road with blood all over your hands. And you probably won’t know whose it is, even if it’s your own.”

  Standing rigid, Javero smoothed his dusty tunic and said formally, “I’d like to be dismissed, Master.” He paused and added, “I’m sorry.”

  Gerrard rose from behind his desk. This is it, then, he thought. Two in one day. “All right. I’ll dismiss you if that’s what you really want…but not without names. I’ll protect the army’s honor by keeping you in if I have to, but the door’s open and your password out is the names of the soldiers Lord Kastan approached.”

  Javero took a deep breath and began to speak, just as Gerrard knew he would.

  * * *

  —

  Gerrard went directly to C
ommander Alaric’s quarters after Javero left the training yard, and he made his report about Lord Kastan. Alaric’s chambers, even the dark and dusty entranceway where Gerrard waited to get his commander’s attention, were immaculate compared to Gerrard’s. Alaric was pure soldier: efficient, strict, orderly. He had been in the Benalish military for more than twenty years and had been one of the first officers to test Gerrard when he arrived in Benalia after leaving Weatherlight. Gerrard had heard him referred to by some of the knights as “the first dog of war,” and it suited Alaric’s character. He carried himself more like a mountain man than a soldier, moving through the streets of Benalia Port as if he were stalking prey. He was curt, opinionated, and firm, and when he talked, his thick steel-gray eyebrows drew together so tightly that his eyes vanished beneath them. Gerrard watched those eyebrows furrow as he finished his explanation of the morning’s events and the list of the soldiers Lord Kastan had approached, according to Javero.

  “This could well be running rampant throughout the military,” Alaric grunted, rubbing his mustache. He passed Gerrard a bottle of wine he had taken from the cabinet and opened just before Gerrard’s arrival, but Gerrard shook his head and put it down on the bare table between them next to his empty glass. “It could bring us down from within. It makes us vulnerable to defectors, spies, all sorts of other elements. Who else knows about this?”

  “Just you and I,” Gerrard said. “At least I hope so. What do you want to do, Commander? We could bring Lord Kastan in, put some pressure on him to flush out his contacts. The students who have been approached are all the sharpest swords. Lord Kastan is getting access to the training yards or the testing reports. Either way, we have a traitor.”

  “Kastan is an underground assassin. We’d never find him without being led directly to him. Besides, the traitor could easily have been Torsten or one of the other students.”

  Gerrard could tell the commander didn’t believe his own words. It would drag some knight out of secret back-alley meetings and would spill blood money from hidden coffers. Only someone in authority could pass reports to the assassins.

  “Watch your students,” the commander said. “See if you can get a sense for what they’ve been offered. Come see me immediately if you learn anything new.”

  “And Kastan?”

  “I’ll personally look into finding Lord Kastan,” Alaric answered ominously.

  Gerrard grinned tightly. “What’s the saying? ‘Before an assassin learns of murder, he should first learn of suicide.’ ”

  Picking up Gerrard’s wine glass, Alaric retrieved the Vesuvan wine bottle and poured. He passed the glass to Gerrard. “No assassin ever put stock in that thought. Here. Borlean. Best in the Domains.”

  “No, thanks,” Gerrard said, waving the glass away. “My drinking days are long past.”

  Alaric cleared his throat and set Gerrard’s declined glass on the table before him. “In truth, boy, those days are about to catch up with you. The past arrived on a flying ship just after dawn this morning. Your past.”

  Gerrard stared at the dark wine for long moments. When Alaric shifted uncomfortably in his chair, Gerrard looked up, brushing his dark hair out of his eyes as he did so. “Why didn’t you tell me this when I first walked in?”

  “Because you were wild-eyed about this situation with the assassins,” Alaric replied. “Because I didn’t want to take the fire out of your belly. You, Gerrard, are the Benalish military. If any other master-at-arms had learned what you learned today, they’d have shrugged it off and gone on about their business.”

  “I believe in the army,” Gerrard said quietly.

  “Yes, and that’s where I want your commitment. But I remember the things you said when you first came to us and signed on. I remember that same passionate commitment in your voice when you spoke of Weatherlight’s captain. Sisay, was it? Sisay.”

  “If I sounded passionate, it was only because I was angry. Sisay had been keeping secrets from me. People died because of what she alone knew.”

  Alaric said gently, “And people will die now for what you know. That’s the burden of responsibility. You can’t just run away from it.”

  Gerrard crossed his arms defiantly. “Are you saying that I’ll abandon Benalia now because I might be responsible for someone’s death?”

  Alaric got to his feet and drew himself up to his full and impressive height, any semblance of subtlety disappearing as he did so. “I’m saying that you turned away from Weatherlight crew when the situation became difficult. They’ve come looking for you. But you have a duty of honor to the present as well as the past now—this matter of the assassins grows within your very ranks. You’re going to be pulled in two different directions, and whatever you choose is honorable…and dishonorable at the same time.”

  Gerrard stood as well. “So you waited to tell me about Weatherlight until after I’d committed myself to the assassin matter?”

  “I have a vested interest in keeping you with us,” Alaric admitted. He picked up Gerrard’s wine glass and held it out to him. “I make no apologies for the things I do in the best interests of Benalia. Do you want that drink now?”

  But Gerrard had already turned and passed into the dark entranceway, banging Commander Alaric’s door loudly behind him as he departed.

  * * *

  —

  He stormed through the streets of the city town, dodging through the open-air market to avoid a patrol of guards whose names and handshakes were known to him. Old friends were both the first and last things on his mind right now. He didn’t want to talk to any comrades from the army for fear that he would tip his hand about Lord Kastan and the assassins, but he also could not stop thinking about Sisay and Weatherlight. What did she want? It had been a long time since he’d leveled his accusations at her and walked off the ship, but a stirring in him made him wonder if maybe it had been too long. The old, familiar anger clenched in his belly—the things she had known about his past that he didn’t, the things she hadn’t told him until one of their own lay dying, the high-handed self-righteousness with which she had detailed his destiny to him, lecturing him about “responsibility,” these all came back to him now. He could still see the disappointment in her eyes. He could see it in the faces of the others, especially Hanna’s. A broken heart bled into the eyes, he’d heard, and Hanna was the only one who had cried for him as he left Weatherlight.

  The minotaur was waiting for him in the training yard, as Gerrard knew he would be.

  “You’ve grown taller, Tahngarth,” Gerrard called out casually as he let himself in and crossed the sands to the towering minotaur who had been Sisay’s closest ally. “So when does puberty end for minotaurs?”

  “I’ve not grown,” Tahngarth retorted. “You’ve shrunk.”

  Gerrard bent down and picked up Torsten’s sword, brushing sand from its oils as he rose. “I bet I’m not the only human who rues the day the gods gave the gift of speech to cows.”

  He looked up at the minotaur. “Have I mentioned yet that it’s good to see you?”

  “I am here for a reason,” Tahngarth said gruffly, tossing his dreadlocks back over his broad brown shoulders. A deep breath erupted as a snort, puffing out his great nostrils. “Sisay needs you.”

  “ ‘Need’ can be interpreted a dozen different ways.” Gerrard gestured for Tahngarth to follow him. The two of them moved to the south wall of the training yard, the tall minotaur’s shadow stretching well beyond Gerrard’s. At the wall, Gerrard knelt and unlocked one of the war chests where he kept the exercise swords. As he fished around inside for a sheath, he said, “So which way does Sisay think she needs me now?”

  “She is gone, Gerrard. She’s been taken prisoner to another plane, a place called Rath. The one who holds her is Volrath, and he means to kill her if we don’t act on her behalf now.”

  “Dammit,” Gerrard grunted under his breath, pulling a b
attered sheath from the war chest. He pretended to look it over, curled his lip at its condition, put it back, and continued to search.

  Tahngarth said, “You know that after you bolted, we continued to seek out the pieces of the Legacy.”

  “Oh?” Gerrard pulled another sheath from the chest. “Don’t you know that hunting for the Legacy is the same thing as pinning an archer’s target to your forehead? Sooner or later, somebody gets killed.”

  “And by Torahn’s horns,” Tahngarth roared, “this time it might be Sisay!”

  Rising, Gerrard faced the minotaur, glaring up at him. “Sisay knew the risks better than anyone. Last time, it was Rofellos who died. That elf was like kin to me, you know. And when Sisay finally admitted that she’d tricked me into looking for the Legacy—”

  “You are the rightful heir to the Legacy’s power,” Tahngarth interrupted, shouting over Gerrard’s protests. “She knew what you would not acknowledge, that your destiny lies in wielding the artifacts of the Legacy against all the evils that would destroy the world.”

  “Those same evils wiped out the clan that reared me,” Gerrard countered. “My adopted father, the sorcerer who trained me, everybody I ever knew. All for the Legacy, a grubby little collection of mismatched artifacts. I walked away from the Legacy the first time because it was surrounded by death, and Sisay fooled me into looking for it ‘for its financial value’ the second time. Why would I come back to it now?”

  “Because Sisay needs you. And because you walked away from your obligations, no matter how noble the reason.”

  Gerrard sheathed Torsten’s long sword; the fit was tight. “That doesn’t tell me a thing, Tahngarth. I’ve heard this ‘you owe us’ argument before. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  “You owe her. She is your past,” Tahngarth said.