Thraxas - The Complete Series

by Martin Scott

  “Now do you understand why we wish to accommodate the Orc Lord?”

  “Just about. But I don’t like it.”

  “Your likes are of no concern to the King or the Consul.”

  “So I understand. But what’s this got to do with chariot racing anyway?”

  “Lord Rezaz Caseg is a keen racer, apparently. Furthermore, he has let us know, through diplomatic channels, that he has not forgotten the Elf Lord Lisith-ar-Moh. They fought hand to hand underneath the walls of Turai, but were separated by the press of bodies before a fatal blow could be struck. He tells us that while he respects Lord Lisith-ar-Moh as a soldier he would be pleased to match him in the Stadium.

  “The King believes that Rezaz may have other motives. He is under some pressure at home in Soraz from his rival, Prince Kalazar, who is supported by Makeza the Thunderer, a very powerful Orcish Sorcerer. Together they have had some success in gaining support. We believe that Lord Rezaz may be seeking to increase his prestige by defeating the Elvish chariot. Furthermore, with a powerful rival like Prince Kalazar waiting in the wings, he can’t allow any instability in the region. If this understanding ensures peace, everyone will benefit.”

  I don’t believe that we’ll ever get any benefit from co-operating with Orcs but Cicerius isn’t interested in my opinion.

  “The arrival of an Orcish chariot and racing crew will cause some concern in the city,” continues Cicerius. “It is possible that there may be objections.”

  “Objections? There’ll be a riot.”

  “Let the government deal with riots. You protect against sabotage. If anything goes wrong, you may have the chance to use your investigative powers to put it right. The King is depending on you.”

  Cicerius turns to Makri. “You will appreciate why I also need your help. Very few people in Turai have your grasp of the Orcish language. That, allied with your fighting skills, makes you an ideal person to assist Thraxas in this potentially difficult endeavour.”

  Makri has been standing there all this time speechless. She now raises her sword slightly—a terrible breach of etiquette in the presence of the Deputy Consul—and then spits on my floor.

  “I’d kill you, the King and all his children before I protected an Orc.”

  Well, you can’t make it clearer than that.

  Cicerius looks puzzled.

  “You are particularly averse to Orcs?”

  “I am,” explodes Makri. “I was born in an Orcish slave pit. I lived as a slave till I killed my own Orc Lord and most of his household a year ago. And if you take on the job, Thraxas, I’m leaving.”

  “I’m not taking it,” I say, quite emphatically. “Already people talk about bad luck falling on Turai because we have Orcish Ambassadors here. If more of them appear then every time something goes wrong—from a cup getting broken to a child dying—it will be blamed on them. Senator Lodius’s Populares won’t have to encourage the population to riot. They’ll be out doing it for themselves in no time. Anyone trying to protect the Orcs would soon find their life wasn’t worth living. He’d be the most hated man in the city. Protect an Orc? Not me.”

  Cicerius leans towards me. “Yes, Thraxas, you will. The alternative is losing your Investigator’s licence.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Not fair? I doubt the King would worry himself overmuch about some slight injustice if his wishes were ignored. I myself would not countenance a breach of the law, but consider. You have recently been convicted in court of assaulting an officer of the King. You are at present on bail, suspected of murdering Senator Mursius. It would be entirely right and proper to remove your licence. However, I will stretch a point, provided you do as I request. And you will be well paid.”

  “Doesn’t it worry you that Orcs are sneaking, treacherous, murderous animals who’d like nothing more than to wipe us off the face of the earth?” I fume.

  “Not at this moment,” replies the Deputy Consul. “We need that copper.”

  I ask him when the Orcs are arriving.

  “The chariot is coming in by ship in a week or so. Lord Rezaz is already in the city. So is his charioteer. We brought them in discreetly a few days ago. Do not mention this to anyone.”

  I won’t. The thought that Rezaz the Butcher is actually in Turai at this moment makes me tremble with rage.

  Cicerius turns to Makri.

  “How is Professor Toarius?”

  “What?” says Makri, surprised.

  “Your Professor at the Guild College. I understand he dislikes you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He told me when he was my guest for dinner last week.”

  Makri shifts uncomfortably, not liking the way this conversation is going.

  “He does not approve of women attending the College and would rather you were not there. He can fail you at any time, and fully intends to do so.”

  “But I’m a good student!”

  “I don’t doubt it. Unfortunately the Professor’s word will be final. After all, his academic status far outshines that of anyone else at the Guild College. He is seconded there from the Imperial University as a favour to the lower orders by the Consul. If he refuses to pass you then you will not proceed to the next year. If that happens you will never gain the qualifications you require for the University.”

  Makri takes a stride back towards Cicerius. She tells him straight out that she doesn’t like being blackmailed into doing anything. Cicerius gives the slightest of shrugs, implying that it doesn’t matter to him if she likes it or not.

  “Are you saying you’ll get me into the University if I help?”

  “No. The Imperial University does not accept women. Nor anyone with Orcish blood. That is more than I can promise. But I will persuade Professor Toarius to pass you at College, providing your work is acceptable. I understand from other sources that it is indeed of good quality.”

  Cicerius stands up to leave. “Of course, when the time comes, I might be persuaded to use some influence in the matter of the Imperial University. I may well be Consul by then, and I am a very good friend of the Professor in charge of admissions. Who knows how he might react if the Consul were to promise additional funds. Farewell. In the next few days I shall send my assistant with details of what I require from you.”

  He leaves the room.

  Makri yells in anger and tosses her sword, blade first, into my couch.

  “I refuse to protect an Orc!” she shouts.

  “And so do I,” I agree.

  We light up some thazis to calm us down. I scrabble under the desk for my store of klee, the locally distilled spirit. There are times when beer won’t do. The klee burns my throat as it goes down. Makri makes a face, and holds out her glass for more. We sit in silence, letting the day’s events sink in. The rain beats on the door and windows. The light fades into evening gloom. After a while Makri breaks the silence.

  “So, what are you going to do when they take your licence away?”

  “I don’t know. What are you going to do when you fail at the College?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We sit in silence a while longer, and smoke some more thazis.

  “It’s not fair,” says Makri eventually. “I don’t want to protect an Orc.”

  “Me neither,” I sigh. “But it looks like we’re stuck with it. Maybe we won’t have to do anything. If nothing goes wrong for the Orcs, Cicerius won’t need our services.”

  “How likely is that?”

  “Not likely,” I admit. “As soon as the chariot arrives the city will be in uproar. The Butcher will be hacked to pieces and we’ll get the job of sorting it out.”

  Neither of us wants to be involved, but Cicerius has left us no choice.

  I pour us some more klee. Makri shudders as she drinks it.

  “Why do you buy this firewater?”

  “Top-quality klee. It’s good for you. You know, I learned long ago to expect strange things to happen. But I never thought I’d end up
playing nursemaid to an Orc Lord at the Turas Memorial. I’m tired. I’d better get some sleep before anything else weird happens.”

  A light tap comes on the outside door. It opens. In walks the delicate, dark-clad figure of Hanama. I fumble desperately for my sword. Hanama is number three in the Assassins Guild. The last time I saw her she tossed a dart into the Chief Abbot of a temple of warrior monks, sending him off to paradise rather more quickly than he had anticipated. I make ready to defend myself.

  “Relax, Investigator,” she says, in her soft voice. “Had I been here on business, I would not have knocked.”

  I glare at her, sword now firmly in hand. “Then what do you want?”

  “I’ve come to visit Makri.”

  “Just a social call?”

  “That is correct.”

  Hanama looks at Makri. Makri looks puzzled but gets to her feet and they go off to Makri’s room. Strange. I’ve never known Assassins to do much in the way of socialising.

  The door crashes open in the most violent manner. I whirl to face this new intruder. It’s Sarija, wife of the late Senator Mursius. She trips and falls. She’s wet through. Her face is drawn, with a yellowish hue. And she reeks of dwa, easily discernible even among the multitudinous unpleasant odours that waft in from the street outside.

  “I’m hiring you to find out who killed my husband,” she says, then passes out in my arms. I dump her on the couch. I walk over to the door, close it, mutter my locking spell, then barricade it with a chair.

  “I don’t care who it is,” I grunt. “No one else is getting in here tonight.”

  I notice there’s an envelope pushed under the door. When did that arrive? I tear it open and read the message.

  You’ll be dead before the end of the rainy season, says the message.

  “I will be if things go on like this,” I mutter, and throw it in the bin.

  Chapter Eight

  The Deputy Consul is blackmailing me into protecting a hated Orcish enemy. A murderous Assassin has just called in to visit Makri. The dwa-addicted wife of Senator Mursius has collapsed in my office after asking me to find out who killed her husband, although I am in fact the main suspect. And now there’s another death threat. I hurry downstairs for a beer.

  The bar is crowded with thirsty dockers relaxing after their day’s work. I squeeze past some mercenaries singing a raucous drinking song and work my way to the bar.

  Gurd and I have known each other a long time. As soon as he sees me he can tell I’m troubled.

  “You’re looking as miserable as a Niojan whore. Guards still after you for Senator Mursius?”

  “Much worse,” I reply, and lean over to whisper in his ear. His eyes widen when I tell him about Cicerius and he lets out a Barbarian oath.

  “You better get ready to move to another city. Are there any where you aren’t wanted by the law?”

  “A couple. Nowhere good though. That Deputy Consul is as cold as an Orc’s heart. How dare he blackmail me like this?”

  Tanrose is stirring a cauldron of soup. I ask her if she can come upstairs and take a look at Sarija. As well as being an excellent cook, Tanrose is handy with a herbal potion and is competent at dealing with life’s little injuries. Since dwa swept the city, she’s become competent at dealing with overdoses as well.

  We meet Makri and Hanama in the corridor. Hanama is so small, pale and generally childlike it’s hard to reconcile her appearance with her reputation. But all the stories are true. People still talk in whispers of the small, anonymous figure who eluded one hundred Simnian soldiers and crawled along the rafters of our Consul’s private banqueting hall to fire an arrow into the Simnian Ambassador’s heart at the exact moment he undid his impenetrable magic cloak to scratch himself. The Ambassador had plenty of protection with him. I was still at Palace Security at the time and I’d have sworn he couldn’t be touched. A great many questions were asked, particularly by the Simnians, but no one was ever tried for the murder. The King swore to the Simnians that he’d track down the killer, but as his own agents had discreetly hired Hanama to do the job, the investigation didn’t get very far.

  Hanama is distressingly good at killing people. I don’t like her at all. I don’t like the Assassins, period. Coldblooded killers, dealing death for money. I’ve suspected for a while that Makri might be rather closer to the Assassin than she admits and the social call seems to bear it out. It’s probably something to do with the Association of Gentlewomen, which I believe Hanama secretly supports. That’s Assassins for you, very unpredictable. You can’t read their emotions or motives. They’re trained not to show them.

  Makri bids farewell to Hanama and follows me back into my office where Tanrose turns Sarija on her side to prevent her from choking on her own vomit. I frown. I don’t mind too much whether she chokes or not, but I’d rather she didn’t do it in my office. It’s untidy enough.

  My last client, a rich woman by the name of Soolanis, was a hopeless drunk. Now I have a Senator’s wife who’s a dwa addict. What’s the matter with these aristocratic women? They all have nice villas up in Thamlin and plenty of money to spread around. You’d think that would be enough.

  Tanrose thinks she’ll be fine in the morning, so I dump a blanket on her and leave her on the couch. And then I bid Makri and Tanrose good night, walk into my bedroom, lock the door, put a spell on it, and go to sleep. I’ve had more than enough for one day. Unfortunately I sleep badly. I’m troubled by dreams of huge Orcish armies rumbling over the Wastelands led by Rezaz the Butcher, on their way to sack Turai.

  I wake up sweating, feeling the heat of the city burning around me. I can still hear the screams of my comrades-in-arms as they fell beneath the blades and sorcerous attacks of the Orcs. I was a regular soldier at the time. Gurd was there beside me; he’d joined up as a mercenary. We stood alongside Mursius and a very few others, grimly holding out, seconds from death. A ragged collection of survivors from the regiments had been posted to defend the east wall before it was torn down by the catapults and dragon fire of the invaders. Kemlath Orc Slayer was with us too, I remember. Though young, he’d already gained a great reputation for the military power of his sorcery, and he’d scattered and broken many an Orc battalion with his magic. But by then his sorcery was all used up and he stood alongside us with only a sword for his protection. He was brave, and a good fighter for a Sorcerer.

  I remember Captain Rallee, a private like myself in those days, his long golden hair tied back in a braid, picking up a rock to throw as a final act of defiance after his spear was broken and his sword was shattered in the last assault. As the Orcs prepared to overwhelm us, suddenly there was the sound of Elvish trumpets, cutting through the terrible din of battle. Having given up even hoping for it, we were saved by the arrival of Lord Lisith-ar-Moh and the combined Elvish forces from the Southern Islands who’d slipped through the Orc naval blockade in the night and landed just outside the walls of the city.

  When the Elves fell upon the rear of the Orc Army it broke and fled. The Elves hunted a great many of them down. Most of us defenders were too badly wounded or too fatigued to join in the chase. All I remember is rescuing a case of klee from a burning tavern and getting so drunk I had to be held upright by Gurd when the Consul came round to congratulate us on our sterling efforts.

  Now Rezaz the Butcher and Lisith-ar-Moh are going to race their chariots against each other. Strange times.

  I can’t get back to sleep. Who killed Mursius? And why? Because of the stolen artwork? They hardly seem sufficient reason. What was he doing in the warehouse anyway? I suppose it’s possible he’d somehow tracked down the items himself and had been killed by the thief to prevent him being identified, but I’m not convinced. And what happened to the works of art after that? I know they were removed from the warehouse by sorcery, but it doesn’t make sense. Any Sorcerer powerful enough to do that shouldn’t need to go around stealing a few statues and paintings. He’d have his own collection.

  There aren’t t
hat many rogue Sorcerers around, which is fortunate. The Sorcerers Guild regulates its members pretty carefully. There’s always Glixius Dragon Killer, I suppose. He seems to operate outside the law when it suits him, although so far he has never been convicted of any crime. I strongly suspect that the death threats are coming from him. It’s just the sort of petty malice he’d enjoy. They might be some sort of diversion to distract me from his nefarious schemes. He’s wasting his time. I don’t have any ideas what his nefarious schemes might be.

  I can hear the rain beating down outside. In another couple of days the streets will start to resemble canals and no wheeled vehicle will be able to travel. I get up, light my lantern and go next door. Sarija is still sleeping on the couch. A masked man with a sword is standing over her, about to cut her throat. I wasn’t expecting that.

  I fling my lamp in his direction. He raises his arm to ward it off and it smashes on the floor. Now there’s no light in the room, and I’m facing an armed opponent. Before my eyes have time to adjust I hear him leap at me so I jump sideways, crash into something and fall heavily to the floor.

  I’m on my feet in an instant and as my eyes adjust to the gloom I see my assailant trying to outflank me. I let him think I haven’t seen him. He thrusts at me with his blade, but I’m ready for it and slide out of the way. I grab his wrist and he grunts in surprise. I drag him towards me.

  “You’re better than you look, fat man,” he snarls, kicking out at my shin. It hurts but I don’t let go till I’ve pulled him right up to me, then I butt him in the face. He yells in pain as his nose caves in. I like that.

  He swings his sword wildly, but he’s lost concentration. I stay calm and wait my chance. He makes another rash lunge towards me. I leap nimbly over the still comatose figure of Sarija and he stumbles into her body. I grab a dagger from my desk and fling it at him. It sinks into his chest, and he slumps dead to the floor.

  I stare at the body. He wasn’t much of a fighter. He should have known better than to attack me. I’ve had a great deal of experience.