Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3)

by Y. K. Willemse

  A nearby Tarhian rushed toward Rafen. Rafen leapt backward, snatching up Wilkins, and hurling him at the Tarhian’s head. The Tarhian threw himself sideways, the skull grazing his shoulder.

  “Enough!” the Ashurite shouted in ringing Tongue. He pointed his thin blade at Rafen, and it gleamed white with kesmal. “What is this about?”

  “One of your men started a brawl for no reason,” Rafen said innocently.

  “I tell,” Mainte said in broken Tongue. “Two-three-seven—”

  “Counting, Mainte?” the Ashurite said, eyeing him with disgust. It was clear he thought Tarhians lacked intelligence.

  “His name—” Mainte struggled.

  “He’s mad,” Rafen bellowed. “I don’t know him!”

  “Ra-fen,” Mainte pronounced.

  There was a short silence, in which Rafen violently hoped the Ashurite hadn’t understood Mainte. Then the philosopher’s eyes glittered dangerously.

  “I knew I had seen your face somewhere. Seize him!”

  Two dozen people moved. Rafen whipped his sword out, kesmal warming his fingers.

  “TO YOUR POSTS, FOOLS!” someone thundered, and then Sirius was before Rafen, arms spread, his coffee-colored robe making him look like some hideously huge brown bat.

  The Tarhians halted, uncertain. A satisfied smile spread over the Ashurite’s face.

  “Ha!” Sirius yelled. “And guard your walls; your city’s under attack.”

  Stalim’s face was white. Sirius reeked of spirits.

  “Get back,” Sirius gestured vaguely to the Tarhians before him, and to Rafen’s surprise, they stepped back. “Get back to your wives. A woman only lasts ten years before she no longer looks like a woman. Gor, the prime over. So fast.”

  “Do you have anything else to say, old fool?” the Ashurite said, stepping closer, the point of his blade hovering before Sirius’ nose.

  Sirius seized the blade with one weathered hand and grasped it so hard that his dark blood fell in heavy drops to the ground.

  “Your light’s out,” he said, and sure enough, after some slight vibrating, the Ashurite’s kesmal had faded from the blade.

  The Ashurite moved wide eyes from his weapon to Sirius’ face. Sirius’ mouth was working to produce some intelligible sentence.

  “Playersh,” he said. “P-players. Innocent. No charge. TOUCH MY BIRD AND DIE, YOU IDIOT!” he howled at the philosopher. “If you want a fight… start… lose… die. I have you all—” He described a semicircular line with his arm, and the Tarhians recoiled again at this passive sorcery.

  “You need more men,” Sirius said.

  “I think you are right,” the Ashurite said. “It is too much to take the Pirate King and the Fledgling with twenty-four men.” The philosopher returned to his horses, and the Tarhians rallied to him.

  “I will be back,” the Ashurite sneered. “You won’t get into the city, Sirius. And you won’t get away. The Lashki will know about this.”

  The Tarhians and the philosopher mounted and wheeled around.

  “You drunkard!” the Ashurite screeched as they galloped away. He gave a cackling, mad laugh.

  “Who told you to speak to them?” Sirius said, turning to stare wildly at Rafen.

  “I came myself,” Rafen said. “Marius was summoning me anyway. I didn’t know—”

  Sirius swore loudly. “You didn’t know?” he said. “You didn’t know that you weren’t to do anything without asking me?”

  Cursing Rafen, he swung his bleeding hand into the side of his face with a resounding smack. Rafen felt the warm liquid on his skin, even over the smarting. He ground his teeth with sudden hate. When he lifted his sword, it flamed.

  “WHERE IS MARIUS?” Sirius roared.

  Seeing a dark form move, Sirius whipped a pistol from the depths of his coffee-colored cloak. The explosion, seeming to come from nowhere, happened all at once. Marius sank to the ground, dribbling blood, his small eyes for once wide open with the shock of death. Rafen stared, his mind numb. The perishing man lay on his side, his jaw moving rigidly to form some last excuse, his eyes fixed on Rafen. His mouth froze.

  “To your posts!” Sirius shouted again.

  Rafen had stumbled over to Marius. “You Tarhian,” he whispered. “You dog!” he screamed, whirling around to face Sirius as he staggered back to his shark-smelling tent.

  Sirius froze and turned to look him in the face. “Oh, is that right, birdie?” he said, his voice still slurred. “Why don’t you go then? Go… I won’t stop you.”

  Still clutching the smoking pistol, Sirius tore his black-handled dagger out of his cloak and pointed it at Rafen too. The blade glowed eerie green. “Go!” he shouted.

  Rafen realized that a philosopher and two dozen men had just fled from this drunkard, looking for reinforcements. There had to be a reason, and soon he was likely to see it. He remained poised with his fiery sword at the ready, uncertain whether he should risk everything and attack.

  Harmal cackled from somewhere in the darkness. Seventeen-year-old Jarvis stooped over the dead Marius, pulling him by the ankles out of the camp.

  “Do you not understand?” Sirius said. “You’re mine now, Fledgling. Wherever you go—” He indicated impatiently with his pistol, and the former farmer and Sartian soldier jumped back nervously. “I will find you,” Sirius said. “I will hunt you, and if I find your pretty friends first – Charlie and the rest – so much the worse for them.”

  Rafen’s torrent of flame roared toward Sirius’ head. With a flash of the dagger, Sirius consigned it to nothingness. Rafen stared, unable to comprehend how that was even possible.

  “I will go!” he shouted. “I won’t help you. I WILL GO!”

  He whirled around, making for the edge of the camp. In his head, he could see Erasmus staring at him; and King Robert, Elizabeth, and Alexander, and Etana, Francisco, and Sherwin. They were all looking at him, a collection of people sheltered under the Phoenix’s golden wingspan, and Zion’s fiery eyes were burning in spiraling circles. Rafen felt shame eating him alive; he had betrayed them all by staying with a man he had always known was a devil.

  “GO THEN!” Sirius roared after him. “Do you think I’m joking, boy? I will kill your brother. I’ll find him and kill him. I’ll hold him with kesmal and then squeeze him to death in it, until his eyeballs burst from his sockets. Then I’ll find your pretty princess ally. I’ll rip her throat open and drag out her innards through the wound. Then I’ll find your pale-faced scarecrow of a friend, and I’ll stick a knife in the back of his head, and watch his skull drain like an eggshell. DO YOU WANT THIS? IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?”

  Rafen had frozen, almost free of the camp. In his mind, the dead eyes of Marius held reflections of Sherwin, Francisco, and Etana… all corpses. Why hadn’t they looked for him? Why hadn’t they found him by now? He thought they could have prevented this. Now it was up to him.

  “You know I can track them,” Sirius whispered.

  Turning, Rafen put a hand to his right cheek to wipe away some blood Sirius had left there. “I hate you.”

  Sirius laughed his cracked, hoarse laugh. It sounded demonic. “Good boy. I need men that can hate, by Gor.”

  He vanished into the tent.

  *

  Rafen didn’t sleep any more that night. He returned to his little slope to wait for the sunrise, his eyes dewy. Marius hadn’t been dear to him. This was not like the passing of Erasmus. However, it was still a death that had occurred far too close to Rafen.

  It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault, Rafen told himself.

  If only he hadn’t listened, if only he hadn’t spoken to Mainte. And yet Sirius had ordered it. Either way, Marius would have died, Rafen realized.

  His hands became hot and sweaty, and he bit his tongue, enjoying the taste of blood. The brilliant spring sunlight had no impact on him.

  Sirius made no sense. He had chosen Rafen as his heir without telling him; yet he treated Rafen like a prisoner. He called Rafen to be h
is representative when he was drunk, but regretted it so quickly that he killed in the aftermath.

  As the sun rose, swathed in deep maroon and orange, Rafen’s head sank into his hands. His eyes blurred. This was not what he had wanted when he had left Fritz’s Hideout. He had thought Sirius could help him. Yet Sirius had his own agenda – the conquest of Siana, an increase in his empire, and the Fledgling to help him drive out the Lashki Mirah. A man who had killed someone like Marius would never intend to put someone like King Robert back on the throne.

  King Robert had once said Sirius liked the “element of surprise”. Rafen hated it. More than anything now, he wanted to see Etana, Francisco, and Sherwin again. And if he tried to, he would guarantee at least one of their deaths. Sirius had numerous men at his command throughout Siana. Even by himself, he was a menace.

  The only solution was to enter the city that day as Sirius had bid him, and ensure he contacted the others. He would tell them what Sirius was up to, and then he would find some way of stopping the drunkard before he ruined Siana further. Warning the authorities was always an option. Yet the Tarhians in charge deserved Sirius’ assault, and Rafen didn’t want to move from one terrible partnership to another. He knew he endangered himself by entering Rusem at all, because descriptions of him had been handed out, though perhaps not to as many people here in the middle of Siana.

  Rafen gripped his phoenix feather tightly.

  In the moment Nazt would have destroyed him, Zion had answered his incoherent scream. Rafen straightened, his teeth clenched. The merchants were stirring, a few lonely figures tending some horses.

  Zion would not leave him. Zion never left him.

  Sirius’ nineteen men nervously cooked their broth and soups, and gulped down ale. Their strained features told Rafen they were expecting a visit from the Lashki Mirah any minute; at the sound of sparrow’s or quail’s song, they would jump. Rafen knew they were near the heart of Siana; the Ashurite philosopher would have had to travel supernaturally fast to report at New Isles by this time, and there was no guarantee the Lashki was in the Sianian capital, let alone Siana itself. But perhaps the Ashurite had a kesmalic method of reaching the Lashki. Rafen’s stomach knotted at the thought.

  Pebble half-slithered, half-wobbled over to where Rafen sat. Heavy footfalls sounded behind; Oram had, for once, followed his dragon. Pebble licked Rafen’s ear with a rough tongue that nearly took his skin off. Then the dragon dropped its smooth, gray-blue head to the ground and tried to suck a long stick into its mouth.

  “Nak, nak!” the Zaldian shouted, swinging a broad hand into the animal’s flank. While this might have broken a man’s ribs, it failed to harm the dragon.

  Pebble coughed and sank to the ground, giving up on the stick.

  “You eat?” Oram said.

  His long shadow fell over Rafen, who focused on the cubic city, staring at its tall stone walls and elegant terraced buildings within. He was the only one entering Rusem that day. The others would go tomorrow. The Ashurite had said Sirius couldn’t even get in. Then again, the Ashurite didn’t know Sirius’ little signal. He didn’t know how many men apparently already worked for the Pirate King.

  “I’m not hungry,” Rafen said.

  “You must go half hour,” Oram said. “His honor say. You stay for day. Have Wilkins?”

  “Yes.”

  Wilkins and the panflute lay in Rafen’s lap.

  “Stalim give this,” Oram said, bending double to lay a wooden stick on the ground. It was rutted, with the stains of spirits and sauces on it.

  Rafen turned to retrieve it. Pebble watched hungrily.

  Oram shook his head and watched the city with hard eyes. “I kill that stupid dragon,” he said. “Eat wrong things. You no save it next time. Let it die.”

  Sirius emerged from the shark-smelling tent. His gold hoop earrings glimmered in the sunlight, and he smiled menacingly at his men. He looked as fresh as a man who never drank.

  “The Lashki come,” Oram said, his face darkening.

  Rafen sprang to his feet, his insides cold as Wilkins and the panflute fell to the wet grass. He looked wildly around before realizing the Zaldian’s broken Vernacular had confused him.

  “What do you mean?” Rafen said.

  “He come,” Oram said. “He look for you. He only need to hear whisper. Come and kill. You be safe in city. He find you last.”

  “Sirius will fight for you,” Rafen said.

  The terrified light in the Zaldian’s gaze evoked his pity. “Sirius fight for himself,” Oram whispered. “He escape… we die. We come because we have nothing else. Sirius use us. He is big maggot that eat the corpse.”

  Oram folded bare, tattooed arms and narrowed his sad eyes. He continued watching the city.

  Chapter Ten

  The

  Woman in Rusem

  Sirius didn’t speak to Rafen before he departed. On his orders, Stalim had gathered some food for Rafen: a lump of cheese and some dry bread wrapped in part of an old, sweat-smelling shirt.

  Rafen descended the slope uneasily, the blue grama and goldenrods tickling his legs. He wore a large seafarer’s coat from Harmal, containing numerous pockets in which he had stowed his food, the skull, and the panflute. He carried the stick in his hand as he walked along, head ducked. He wasn’t thinking about what he was about to do for Sirius. His mind wandered to when he would write a message to the others, and how he would send it. A dove perhaps, or a traveler who could be trusted…

  The merchants ignored him. A dark-skinned man sweeping out of his tent almost careened into him, but even he scarcely saw Rafen. Rafen found a black covered wagon inscribed with rough Haran runes. Waiting in the shadow of a tent, he watched the three tall, pointy-bearded men who owned it fall into animated conversation. Stealing over to the wagon, he slid his jester’s stick inside, turned around, boosted himself up by his hands, and then fell silently into its interior.

  He clapped his hands to his mouth, silently suffocating. The wagon reeked of garlic, coriander, rotten leeks, and onions. Gasping, Rafen shuffled forward on his knees and lay facedown, trying not to breathe.

  Zion, please let us get to the city soon.

  His phoenix feather was warm against the fold of shirt material between the buttons near his heart. His fingers pinching his nose, Rafen marveled at the golden thickness of Zion’s presence. It came when he was most troubled. He glanced around, expecting a bright bird to appear. The abrupt movement dislodged his fingers from his nose, and he nearly expired.

  The rattling of the wagon soothed Rafen. It reminded him of when he and Sherwin had smuggled themselves into New Isles. Rafen’s heart ached: Sherwin had been a companion unlike any other. The wagon stopped abruptly, the champing of many horses becoming audible.

  “Your Graces enjoyed your stay in the city, I trust,” a Tarhian official said.

  “Yes. Indeed. We greatly enjoyed our stay.”

  Rafen tensed at Frankston’s oily voice.

  “Did we not enjoy our stay? Harold?”

  “Truly,” another man said nearby in the clipped accent of the nobility. “Quite a fruitful stay, I assure you. It appears you Tarhians haven’t managed to stamp out quite all of Robert Selson’s previous supporters. There was a band of thirty in this city stirring up some trouble. Their mischief making days are over now.”

  “You must watch the innkeepers, official,” Frankston sneered. “We found one. Planning a riot. He will find it hard to keep talking about it now that he has no tongue.”

  “Your Graces,” the official said nervously.

  A uniform flicking of the reins sounded, and a large train of horses passed outside Rafen’s covered wagon. The blood roared in his ears while he crouched there. He had always hated Frankston for handing the Selsons over to the Lashki and causing Bambi’s death. Yet this somehow made things worse: the fact that he was traveling around Siana, destroying any of his brother’s supporters. Cutting out tongues. Rafen had been meaning to simply hide in the city
for a day and then return to Sirius, so that the Pirate King would have no help when he entered Rusem tomorrow. However, if there had been any genuine Sianians in this city, they had probably been weeded out by now.

  I will give the signal, he thought furiously, clutching Wilkins where the skull was folded into his jacket. It could only disconcert men like Frankston. And Rafen desperately wanted to do that.

  “Papers,” a man snarled outside the wagon as it halted again.

  The accent was invariably Tarhian. The Harans on the wagon perch briefly rustled, before one of them said, “Not read, not write. Papers, no.”

  Rafen’s heart sank. He had picked the wrong wagon.

  “You will not enter,” the Tarhian voice said. “I need papers.”

  The Harans clamored, one howling and leaping from the perch to remonstrate.

  “I will check the wagon!” the Tarhian shouted. “Perhaps you will enter. We will see. You may have dangerous import.”

  Rafen struggled to crawl to the back of the wagon amid the stench that was making his head swim. The Tarhian tugged at the wagon’s opening before falling back with an offended cry.

  “Ugh,” he said. His heavy footfalls sounded again. “You enter. Make any trouble though, and I will handle it.”

  A pistol clicked warningly outside. The Harans understood. The wagon slowly moved forward.

  Anticipation warmed Rafen. The thought of being in fresh air had never been so exciting. He managed to sit up, still clasping his nose.

  Noise exploded around the cart, signaling its entrance into the thronging marketplace. The clucking of chickens, braying of donkeys, and shouts of children and merchants alike rang on the air. A steady babble of conversation filled the background. The horse team’s slow hoofbeats clopped on concrete flags.

  The wagon creaked to a halt, and the Harans began an intense discussion in their native language. Rafen slithered over to the wagon’s opening and parted it slightly so that a slice of wan sunlight cut into the overpowering atmosphere.

  The crowd was thick, and no Tarhians stood nearby. Clasping the jester’s stick, Rafen slid out of the wagon and dropped lithely to his knees, gasping in the blessed spring air. A large pig stopped to look inquisitively at him.