by Martin Scott
We’ve won. Thraxas, Makri and the unicorns beat off Horm and a dragon. When I tell them about it at the Avenging Axe, they’ll never believe me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I’m completely drained. I can barely stand. I haven’t been in a battle like that for a long time. I slump to the ground. The Centaurs and their friends take no rest, but immediately start dragging their wounded companions towards the pool. When I see the first badly wounded Dryad emerge healthily from the water just moments later I understand that the water has healing powers, and will protect the inhabitants of the Glade.
Makri has some wounds of her own. She has a gash on her arm and her nose is torn and bleeding where an Orcish blade ripped out her nose ring.
“Damn,” she says, and winces in pain.
Taur trots over. He’s looking pleased with himself.
“A fine battle,” he says, as he scoops up water from the pool to rub on Makri’s wounds. He carries on rubbing longer than is strictly necessary, but the bleeding stops, and Makri starts to heal right before our eyes.
“You have a strong constitution,” says Taur. “And a fine body. Are you planning on staying?”
“Won’t it drive me mad?”
“It drives Humans mad. But I’m sure that a woman of your extraordinary make-up would be quite safe.”
“You hear that, Thraxas? A woman of my extraordinary make-up.”
I snort. I’m getting fed up with this. She declines Taur’s offer however, telling him that she must get back to the city. The Centaur is disappointed.
“Visit us again soon,” he says.
“We love you,” say the Fairies, and settle on her shoulders. Makri is happy as an Elf in a tree. A pleasant visit to the Fairy Glade and a good battle all in one day. She’s particularly pleased to have killed the Orcish Commander.
“I knew him when I was a slave,” she tells us. “He badly needed killing.”
I drink plenty of water from the pool. Makri declares it to be the most refreshing thing she’s ever tasted. I’m not entirely satisfied.
“Got any beer?” I ask Taur as we saddle up our horses.
His eyes twinkle. “Not exactly, Thraxas, but we do have some fine mead.”
Mead. Alcohol made from honey. Not one of my favourites, but better than nothing I suppose. I accept the flagon from Taur and the rest of the Glade dwellers look kindly on us as we depart. They like us for helping protect the Glade against the Orcs, and for removing the dwa from their presence.
“Visit us again,” calls Taur to Makri, waving goodbye.
She waves farewell.
“You know, given that you’re a social outcast in polite society, it’s amazing the way some people take to you, Makri,” I say, as we ride out into the forest path.
“Well, the Centaurs certainly liked me,” agrees Makri. “And the Fairies. But they liked you too, I saw some of them resting on you.”
“They were using my belly as a sunshade.”
I guzzle down some mead. It tastes sweet; not unpleasant though no substitute for beer, and not nearly potent enough after my recent experiences.
“You want to be careful,” says Makri. “We have a long way to ride and I don’t want you falling off your horse.”
“Pah,” I snort, and drink more from the flagon. “It’ll take more than Fairy juice to affect me.”
By the time we’re halfway home I am spectacularly, roaringly, hopelessly drunk. Taur’s mead is obviously more powerful than I thought. As we pass some farm labourers I brandish my sword and sing a battle song to them. They laugh, and wave back genially. We pass through some lightly wooded hills and I let go with another fine old drinking song. Suddenly I feel overwhelmingly tired and fall off my horse. There is a loud thwack as something thuds into a tree next to me.
“What—?”
Makri leans over. “A crossbow bolt!”
It occurs to me, none too clearly, that it would have hit me had I not at that precise moment had the good fortune to fall off my horse.
I struggle to my feet. The bolt is embedded deep in the tree. Makri leaps from her horse, swords at the ready, and crouches watchfully. I grab my own sword and try to pull myself together.
A figure steps out from the trees to our right, a crossbow in his hands. He walks towards us with the shaft pointing at Makri. Fifteen feet away from us he halts. It’s not a him, it’s a her. A tall woman, plainly dressed, with her hair cropped very short, wearing, for some reason, a great many earrings. She turns her gaze on me.
“You drunken oaf, Thraxas,” she says, with some contempt.
“A friend of yours?” enquires Makri, who is crouched ready to spring.
“I never saw her before.”
“You have. I looked rather different then. I am Sarin. Sarin the Merciless. And you would be one dead Investigator if you hadn’t fallen off your horse.”
She laughs, mirthlessly. “But I can soon fix that.”
Sensing Makri about to spring, she instantly turns the crossbow on her.
I can’t quite make this out. Sarin the Merciless never used to be a deadly woman with a crossbow. Must have been taking lessons. I curse myself for drinking so much mead, and shake my head to clear it.
“What do you want?”
She fixes me with a stare. Her eyes are black and cold as an Orc’s heart. This is not the same woman I remember at all.
“You dead would be a good start, drunkard. But that can wait. Right now I’ll take the dwa.”
Her black eyes flicker back to Makri.
“The Fairies liked you,” says Sarin. “Strange. They didn’t seem to take to me.”
“They didn’t like me either,” I growl. “They probably guessed I’ve got a terrible temper. So get out of my way.”
Sarin pulls something from her tunic. “I take it you are hoping to trade the dwa for this?”
It’s the Prince’s credit note, but Sarin doesn’t seem keen to enter into negotiations.
“I’ve decided I might as well keep the note and take the dwa. Now hand it over. I’m very good with this crossbow. I’d say you’re at my mercy. As you may know, that is not something I have much of.”
She laughs.
Unfortunately Makri is not the sort of person you can rob and expect to put up no resistance. Her fighting code, not to mention her pride, just won’t allow it. Any second now I can tell that she is either going to leap at Sarin or try and catch her with a throwing star or knife before she can shoot. I don’t like this too well. Sarin the Merciless has proved she’s skilful with that crossbow, and I’m not sure that she might not transfix Makri before she could come to grips.
A terrible wave of tiredness passes over me. Delayed shock from the war dragon. Or just too much mead. I take a quick decision to act before things get out of hand. I’m still carrying the sleep spell. I’ll take Sarin out before she can do any harm. The fatigue is overwhelming. I can hardly stand. I bark out the spell. Makri looks briefly surprised, then crumples gently to the ground. I realise that I have rather messed things up. The effort of casting the spell finishes me off. I fall to the ground. The last thing I hear before passing out is Sarin’s mocking laughter.
Chapter Twenty-Three
An Elf is standing over me. It’s Callis, brandishing a lesada leaf. He must have guessed I’ve been drinking. I wash it down and struggle to my feet. Makri is still sleeping gently on the grass. Jaris has rounded up our horses and is leading them over.
“What happened?” asks Callis, as he goes to attend to Makri. I decline to comment. Callis tells me that when he appeared a tall woman was in the process of loading sacks on to her horse.
“She rode off. Was it the Cloth?” he asks.
“No. Something else. But related to your case,” I add, just in case he thinks I’m not working hard enough for him. I curse. Everything has gone wrong. Now Sarin the Merciless has the dwa and the letter. It’s just as well the Elves appeared before she used my sleeping figure for target practice. I wonder why t
he Elves did happen along, and ask them.
“We were looking for you,” explains Callis. “Gurd at the Avenging Axe told us that you had gone to confront Horm the Dead and we wished to help. Even in the Elvish Lands Horm has an evil reputation.”
Makri wakes suddenly and leaps to her feet with a savage snarl and a sword in each hand. She looks round in confusion, wondering where the enemy is. When the realisation of what happened sinks in she is angrier than I’ve ever seen her. The Elves watch in bemusement as she berates me at length at my utter stupidity in misdirecting my sleep spell, sending her instead of Sarin crashing to the ground.
I can think of little to say in my defence and am forced to listen to her rage about my drunkenness, incompetence and general stupidity, after which she proceeds to fume about the disgrace to her fighting honour.
“I met sub-Human Trolls in the gladiator pits who were smarter than you! Number one chariot, are you? Sarin would have stuck you full of holes if the Elves hadn’t rescued you. You’re about as much use as a one-legged gladiator. You made me fall asleep in front of an opponent!” she yells. “I’ll never live it down. That’s it, I’m finished. Next time you want some help, don’t bother asking, I’m busy.”
And with that she leaps on her horse and gallops off without even acknowledging the Elves’ presence. They look at me wonderingly.
“A very volatile character,” I say, waving my hands in vague explanation. “Takes defeat too personally.”
I ride back to Turai with the Elves. They are puzzled that a fine sorcerous Investigator like myself could actually misdirect a spell, thereby putting his companion to sleep, but after I explain about Sarin’s own considerable sorcerous powers, and the spells she was throwing at me right and left, I don’t think their confidence in me is shaken too badly.
Next morning I wake with the mother of all hangovers, the Brotherhood beating on my door, and the city in violent uproar. Once again it is a poor start to the day.
“Money’s due tomorrow,” says Karlox.
“Fine,” I grunt, avoiding some flying debris. “It’ll be there. Which is more than you’ll be if the Society of Friends keeps picking you off.”
Karlox snarls. He doesn’t like that. “We got their measure. And we got yours. You don’t pay up tomorrow, you better make sure you’ve been saying your prayers.”
I slam the door on him.
I don’t say my prayers but it doesn’t prevent young Pontifex Derlex from visiting me right after the riot calms down. The sun is beating down more ferociously than ever, making him sweat inside his black religious robe, but he declines my offer of a beer. The Pontifex is doing the rounds in his constituency, checking up on people after the riot. Makri pushes her head through the outside doorway and is about to say something when she notices the Pontifex and clams up. She departs. I notice Derlex’s deep frown.
“Loosen up, Derlex. No need to look like your soul’s in torment every time you catch sight of Makri.”
He apologises, rather stiffly, but admits that Makri does make him very uncomfortable. “The Orcish blood, you know.”
“She’s got Human blood as well. Elf too. Probably a very interesting soul. You should try and convert her.”
He looks uncomfortable again. “I don’t think I am allowed to try. It’s blasphemous to preach the True Religion to an Orc … even one quarter Orc might involve me in some heresy…”
I laugh at the thought, and tell him not to worry. Makri is not in line for any sudden conversion. After a little talk about this and that, he goes on his way.
I wander out into the corridor. A thought strikes me suddenly. Makri appears, heading downstairs for her first shift of the day. I ask her what she wanted earlier.
“To tell you never to speak to me again. Or communicate in any way. From now on, Thraxas, you don’t exist.”
“Makri—”
She walks stiffly past, tossing her head so that her long hair swings around her shoulders. Obviously she has not yet forgiven me for yesterday’s escapade.
“It could have happened to anyone!” I yell at her departing form. Now I’m distracted. What was I thinking about? The True Church. Something about it is nagging me.
Downstairs I sit over a beer and a plate of stew and think things over. Why did Derlex visit me? Plenty of other people in riot-torn Twelve Seas must need his help more than me. Now I think about it, Derlex never stops visiting me these days. I never used to see him from one year to the next. What made the Church so interested in my welfare all of a sudden?
Thinking about the Church nudges my memory along and I realise what it is that’s been bugging me. Pazaz. The Orc dragonkeeper. He said that no one spoke to him, apart from Bishop Gzekius. According to Pazaz, Gzekius tried to convert him.
“But that’s impossible,” I say, out loud to no one. “Derlex just told me it was blasphemous to preach the True Religion to an Orc. The Bishop couldn’t have been trying to convert him. He’s not going to lay himself open to a heresy charge just for one dragonkeeper. The other Bishops would be down on him like a bad spell.”
I stand up, banging my fist on the table. Makri looks at me very coolly.
“That’s it! That’s why Derlex has been round here all the time. He’s spying on me for the Bishop. And the Bishop is after the Cloth! The Church is behind it all! The Royal Family was attending some special religious service when the dragon was cut open. Which means that the Church would know exactly when the zoo was going to be empty. And the Bishop was talking to the dragonkeeper before that. He wasn’t trying to convert him. He was pumping him for information! Just like Derlex has been round here pumping me for information! Derlex was at the Palace that day; he rode home with us in the landus. He probably had the Cloth on him then, passed to him by some other Churchman. And now I think about it, when I returned to Attilan’s house to retrieve the spell there was another young Pontifex passing by. He could have stolen the spell, just before I came looking for it.”
Makri raises her eyebrows. Sweat is running down her body, making her muscles glisten. She’s been listening, but still refuses to acknowledge me.
I wonder why the Church would want the Elvish Cloth. There could be any number of reasons. Maybe just to sell it. Or perhaps the Bishop needs to do some secret planning without getting spied on by the other Bishops. Gzekius is an ambitious man, it’s about time he made a try for the Archbishopric. It seems to fit together well enough. And if I’m right, then the Red Elvish Cloth should be somewhere in the Church’s possession right now.
“It might even be in Derlex’s church. And if it is, I’m going to find it! Are you free tonight?”
Makri glowers at me. “No. I’m studying. You’re on your own.”
She grabs a tablecloth, savagely wipes a few tables, then stalks off through the back to bring in a box of tankards. Tanrose appears carrying a large chunk of beef for the lunchtime stew. I buy a pastry and tell her about Makri being mad at me. Tanrose already knows all about it.
“She’s angrier than a Troll with a toothache,” says Tanrose. “But she’ll get over it.”
“I need her help tonight. Any suggestions for helping her get over it quickly?”
“Bring her some flowers,” says the cook.
The suggestion is so strange that at first I fail to grasp what she means. “Flowers? What for?”
“To say sorry of course.”
“Say sorry with flowers? To Makri? You mean go out and buy some flowers and give them to Makri as a present? As a way of saying sorry? Flowers?”
“That’s right.”
“Are we talking about the same Makri here? Makri the axe woman?”
“Just because a woman wields an axe doesn’t mean she wouldn’t appreciate a bunch of flowers.”
“She’d probably attack me with them.”
“You’d be surprised,” says Tanrose, and gets on with hacking up the lump of beef.
Tanrose must be losing her mind. Flowers for Makri, indeed! The idea makes my head
hurt. Right then Praetor Cicerius walks in, accompanied by the Consul himself. Well, well. I certainly get a higher class of visitor these days.
Cicerius tersely relates that the city is fast degenerating into chaos. The fighting between the Brotherhood and the Society of Friends has reached new heights and the Civil Guard is losing control.
“I’ve advised the King to suspend the constitution,” says Consul Kalius, “and send in the Army.”
I imagine the King will be hesitant to do this. The Populares might come out in open revolution. Various generals are suspected of being supporters of Senator Lodius, and there’s no knowing how obedient the Army would be.
“We’re facing complete anarchy,” complains Cicerius. “The Traditionals must retain power if the city is to survive. Did you get the letter?”
I admit that I didn’t. This doesn’t go down too well. I relate the events of the previous day, more or less. I don’t explain exactly how Sarin the Merciless ended up with the dwa and the letter. Cicerius and Kalius are aghast and berate me for my failure. The Consul openly implies that I’m fabricating the whole story about the dragon in the Fairy Glade just to make my failure look better, and wonders out loud if I might not have sold the dwa for myself.
I haven’t had enough sleep. I never get enough sleep. It’s hot as Orcish hell in here. My head is pounding. I can’t take much more of this. I point to the door and order them to leave. The Consul is shocked. As Turai’s most powerful administrator, he’s not used to being shown the door.