by Mok, DK
It was impossible to tell how long he’d been there, dangling by his wrists, the cord black with dried blood. Seris stared in horror, overwhelmed by the urge to grab an axe and start chopping at the pole and, possibly, the person who’d put the man up there.
The body twitched.
Gods, he was still alive.
Seris turned around and found a dagger pressed to his chest.
“This way, please,” said the copper-haired woman.
Seris resisted the impulse to slap the woman’s dagger away, knowing it would only end with him holding his own entrails. He glanced at Elhan, who either hadn’t noticed the hanging man or didn’t seem particularly bothered by it.
“Why is he up there?” said Seris.
“Ask Lemlock,” said the woman.
Seris and Elhan were shoved through a set of canvas flaps into a sparsely furnished tent. A cluster of brigands stood in deep discussion before a large wooden board, shifting maps and pins across its surface. The man leading the conversation had the build of a timber wolf and the air of someone who could lead an army or fade into a crowd, depending on his mood.
The man turned to face them as they entered, and Seris could see the startling resemblance between him and the copper-haired woman. His jaw was a little stronger, her forehead a little higher, but other than that, their faces were near identical.
“Lemlock, we found this on them,” said the copper-haired woman, handing Falon’s scroll to the man.
Lemlock unrolled the battered parchment, his eyes skimming the text.
“That’s all I needed,” he said, grinning. “Lock, string ’em up with the other traitor.”
Several brigands grabbed Seris and Elhan, dragging them towards the exit.
“Hey!” said Elhan. “Parry del Alis said we should find you, to join your cause.”
Lemlock glanced casually at the scroll.
“I think you’ve already picked sides. And we don’t like people who switch their loyalties so easily.”
“Wait!” yelled Elhan. “String me up if you want, but don’t waste a good cleric!”
Lemlock raised a hand as he read the scroll again, and the brigands paused.
“Cleric of Eliantora?” Lemlock raised an eyebrow.
“That’s right,” said Elhan. “He can heal people and everything.”
Seris shot Elhan a look which he hoped said, “Just run! I’m doomed, but you might make it.”
Elhan shot him a return look which could have said, “What are you looking at?” Or, “I know.”
“String her up,” said Lemlock.
Lock and six brigands dragged a struggling Elhan from the tent.
“No! Wait!” Seris ran to follow.
He found the exit blocked by two burly brigands, and a vigorous scuffle ended with Seris sprawled in the mud. When everything stopped spinning, he wiped the dirt from his eyes and saw Lemlock standing above him, a hand extended. Seris wanted to smack the hand aside but decided it would be too childish. But only just.
“I won’t help you,” said Seris, pushing himself to his feet. “If you hang her up there, I won’t heal anyone. I won’t bandage any wounds. I won’t even wash dishes.”
“I think you’ll come around,” said Lemlock. “Take him to the Tent of Contemplation.”
A broad-shouldered man and a lean woman grabbed Seris’s arms and escorted him from the tent. As they marched him across the clearing, Seris looked upwards, and his stomach twisted.
Two figures hung limply from the crossbar.
“Get her down from there!” screamed Seris. “Elhan!”
He kicked and scratched, trying vainly to pull free. His arms were twisted roughly behind him as his captors dragged him away.
“Why didn’t you run?” screamed Seris. “Why didn’t you just run?”
Elhan didn’t respond, hanging motionless in the still air.
The tent was dim and barely larger than a barrow. A crack of daylight slid across the floor, illuminating a heavy wooden peg staked deep into the ground. A short length of chain stretched from the peg to the manacle around Seris’s ankle.
He huddled at the back of the tent, balled up tightly. Footsteps had entered and then left again. Voices had made vague commands involving the word “heal”, but Seris had refused to uncurl, remaining scrunched up in the darkness. Hours passed, possibly days, and he unfolded only to sip water from a nearby bowl. Eventually, he heard the tent flap open again, and the clink of something being placed on the ground. Lamplight glowed softly on the oiled walls.
“They’re saying you’re not really a cleric,” said Lemlock. “That it’s a ploy to gather information, and we should just string you up.”
Seris remained hunched in the foetal position.
“You can do whatever you like,” said Seris. “You’ve made that perfectly clear.”
“I haven’t made up my mind about you. The only things remotely of value in your pack were a potato and a wooden pendant. That carries the scent of Eliantora, if nothing else.”
“I want those back,” said Seris, his voice muffled through his robes. “One of them’s a present.”
Something landed with a clink beside Seris, and he sneaked a sullen look. He scrambled away, jerking to a stop at the end of the taut chain. On the floor lay a smooth jade bangle. His heart pounded as he looked warily from the object to Lemlock.
“Eliantora doesn’t like bangles, does she?” Lemlock glanced slyly at him.
Seris felt it prudent to neither confirm nor deny.
“We’ve been around, my sister and I,” said Lemlock. “We’ve seen a lot of things, met a lot of people, heard a lot of rumours.”
“You and Lock. Twins, right?” said Seris, trying to keep his voice steady.
“If I tell you, you’re never going to leave here alive.” Lemlock smiled. “Yes, twins. I’m Lem; she’s Lock. We had a lot of fun in our younger days, terrorising the villages. The fearless brigand who could be in two places at once. Knock him down and he’s back the next day, stronger, faster, meaner.” Lemlock shrugged, as though waving away a pleasant, distant memory.
“After a couple of kids, Lock lost her taste for theatrics. Strategy, business, planning. Gotta think about the future. Can’t ride around forever. The world’s changing. I think you understand what I’m getting at.”
Seris was actually still thinking about the bangle, wondering exactly how much Lemlock knew about Eliantora.
“Now, I know I can’t make you heal someone,” said Lemlock, “and to be honest, I’m not a fan of coercion. I’d rather just kill a man and be done with it.”
“Like the hanging man and my companion?” said Seris bitterly.
“Traitors are different. Take something from in front of me, and I’ll fight you for it. Take something from behind my back, and I’ll make you an example.”
Seris said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes about what he thought of that.
“But I think we can come to some kind of cooperation,” said Lemlock.
The tent flap was suddenly flung aside and three brigands rushed in, including a distraught Lock. She grabbed Lemlock’s arm and pulled him aside, speaking in frantic undertones. She didn’t try to hide her tears as her fingers gripped his arm. The colour drained from Lemlock’s face, and he put his hands gently on Lock’s shoulders. He spoke to her softly, then turned steely eyes towards Seris.
“Bring him to the med tent,” said Lemlock.
Seris found himself hauled to his feet and the manacle unlocked from his ankle. His vision blurred in the sudden light as he was dragged across the camp, past storage tents and habitations. He suddenly smelled the acrid odour from before, sharp and pungent. It seemed to be coming from three large, heavily guarded tents—the flaps laced tightly closed with rope.
He didn’t have time to wonder at this before he was pushed into a wide tent that smelled of disinfecting alcohol, herbs, and rotting flesh. Several low cots lined the space, and crates of bandages and splints lay between
trays of pliers and needles. The cots were occupied by various jaundiced, bleeding, gangrenous individuals, but a cluster of people gathered around a cot near the back.
“Move aside!” said Lemlock. “Out of the way!”
The crowd parted, and Lock rushed to kneel beside a girl on the cot. Seris took a sharp breath.
Half the girl’s ribcage had collapsed, and blood bubbled from her mouth as she choked for air. Blood matted her dark copper hair, her skin turning grey as her eyes rolled back into her head. She must have been all of sixteen years old.
Seris took an instinctive step towards her, already rolling up his sleeves. He stopped abruptly.
“Take down Elhan and the man, or I won’t help you.”
“You’d let her die?” Lemlock’s eyes blazed coldly.
There was a pause.
“Yes,” said Seris, his voice trembling.
Lemlock looked from the dying girl to Seris, staring into the cleric’s eyes.
“I don’t believe you,” said Lemlock.
There was a beat.
Damn.
Seris rushed to the girl, peeling back her ripped and bloodied shirt. His fingers raced lightly over her lacerated skin, trying to find the breaks in the bone. There were so many…
One at a time, Seris told himself. Prioritise. You’ve seen worse.
Yes, but had they lived?
He placed his hands gently on the girl’s ribs, closing his eyes.
“Eliantora, take this prayer. This pain I bear in your divine name,” he murmured.
He felt Eliantora’s presence, like the rising of the sun, spilling daylight across the land. He felt her reaching through him, weaving his devotion, his life, into the girl. He felt his own ribs begin to ache as hers knitted slowly together. Seris focused, feeling the sweat dripping cold down his face as he drew a fragment of bone from her lung, slotting it painstakingly back into her sternum.
Everything around him faded into a dull buzz as the girl’s blood vessels snaked back into position, sealing weakly as her heart continued to pulse. Blood vessels were tedious, but organs…organs were complicated. You had to know what to do with them, and there were so many in the chest area.
One at a time, thought Seris. Heart, lungs, trachea, oesophagus, stomach…
Time pulsed, stretched, faded, and still Eliantora stayed with him, her pity wending its way through his body. Finally, Seris sagged against the cot, struggling for air as his hands slipped from the girl. Everything was spinning and darkening, and he felt as though he were packed in snow. Every part of him ached, and the floor was hard against his cheek. Noises burbled around him as though from a great distance.
“She’ll live…” said Seris as he passed out.
Seris dreamed of silence. A city deserted by all but the dead. Crows wheeled in a dull red sky. The broken land was littered with familiar shapes—a shoe, a broken bowl, a knitted bear. Houses gouged and blackened. Walls crumbled to rubble. He knew this scene, had all but forgotten it, except in his dreams. He called, but no one answered. He cried, but no one came. He was the last boy left in all the world, and no one would ever come for him.
But as he looked at the tattered flag of the rearing stag, tumbling slowly from the ruined castle, he realised he was no longer a boy in this dream. And this was not a memory of his homeland. He was standing in Algaris.
Seris woke in an aching blur, his throat painfully dry. He felt a tin cup pressed to his lips, and he coughed as water filled his mouth. He reached for the cup, his hand closing on warm fingers. He blinked in the low lamplight and saw a girl with dark copper hair crouched beside his camp bed.
“You look better,” croaked Seris.
“You look worse,” said the girl. “I’m Luara. They say you saved my life.”
Seris took the cup weakly from Luara.
“You sound sceptical.”
“You don’t look the hero type.”
“What does the hero type look like?” Seris swallowed several mouthfuls of cool water.
“Like my mother. Like my uncle. Like all the people out there fighting the enemy.”
“The enemy?”
“You know we fight the empire,” said Luara. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To join us or to stop us.”
Seris drained the cup, looking at the girl’s face. She had the same purpose, the same steel as her mother.
“Why do you fight the empire?” he said.
“To free the world from Talgaran oppression. The war isn’t just beginning; it’s practically over. We have armies, sorcerers, technology. Our resistance cells have been eroding support for the king in every major city, and soon Lord Haska will crush the evil tyrant and his useless offspring.”
You could have lit a bonfire with Luara’s eyes.
“You have sorcerers?” Seris barely dared to hope. Surely Olrios hadn’t found a way to break the binding, unless Elhan’s curse somehow—
“Well, a sorcerer. But her power is true and fearsome, not like the watered-down tricks of Delmar’s pets.”
Seris was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable talking to Luara, and he hoped she was just going through a fiery teenage phase, like the farming kids who hung around town sometimes, baiting soldiers. However, the incidence of this had declined sharply since Lord Qara had started doing patrols. She used to carry a small pouch of river pebbles in her saddlebag, and her aim was frighteningly accurate. Seris had been quite alarmed by the number of teenage boys turning up at the temple, embarrassed and limping, wanting to know if they’d ever be able to have children.
“So, these useless offspring,” said Seris carefully. “You don’t happen know where the older one is?”
“I think Lord Haska’s going to do something nasty to him.”
“I don’t suppose you—”
The tent flap slapped open and Lemlock strode inside, a wedge of night briefly visible behind him.
“Luara,” said Lemlock. “Go help your mother.”
Luara rose to her feet, throwing a glance over her shoulder as she left the tent. Lemlock looked at Seris, appraising his condition.
“At least everyone believes you’re a cleric now,” said Lemlock.
“I think Luara has her doubts. How did she get that injury?”
“A boar-hunting accident. We don’t send our children to fight, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“How noble,” said Seris.
“You’re quick to judge what you don’t understand.”
“Is it the looting I don’t understand? Or my friend hanging from a pole?”
Lemlock crossed his arms, an unapologetic expression on his weathered face.
“I don’t know if you understand what’s at stake for us, for our families, or if you even care, living your cloistered life in some distant temple. But what we’re living out here, in what used to be the free lands, in what’s now the fringe of the Talgaran Empire, is a life I’m trying to protect. I’ve seen the world out here change—free nations, proud villages, vibrant towns are now dust, ash, and subjugated satellites of the Talgaran juggernaut. Sure, I used to loot and pillage those same villages, but I’ve seen the people change. I’ve seen hope die. I’ve seen a suffering that bleeds through generations like poison.”
“So, it upsets you to loot unhappy people.”
“Maybe I’m not doing it for all the right reasons,” said Lemlock, “but it’s my world, too. I recognise the greater threat, and I think you’ve started to as well. The time for conquest and corruption is over. We could use a cleric, and you need a cause you can believe in. Your only choice is to join us or join your friend.”
Seris said nothing, staring grimly at the wall. I already have a cause I believe in, he thought. And I think it’s hanging from a pole outside.
“May I rest?” said Seris. “I’m quite tired from saving your niece.”
Lemlock studied him for a moment.
“You have until morning.” Lemlock headed towards the exit. “It’s not so bad h
ere, cleric. And once we’ve won, the world you know will be gone.”
That seems to happen after every war, thought Seris as the tent slapped shut. But given enough time, things always ended up the same as before, until the next war.
He waited for the sound of movement to fade before making a quiet break for the door. Halfway across the room, his legs jerked out from under him, sending him sprawling onto the timber floor. He turned and noticed the loop of rope tied around one ankle, the other end secured to the leg of his camp bed, which appeared to be nailed to the floor.
As Seris’s fingers picked at the knot, his eyes scanned the room. The only thing in the cramped tent aside from the bed was a tin cup, and he doubted he could do much damage with that unless he was fighting a very slow beetle. He would have to rely on stealth to get out of the camp, but he had no idea how he was going to get Elhan down. He could barely climb a ladder, let alone a thirty-foot pole.
The rope finally loosened and fell to the floor. However, it was only when Seris cautiously pulled aside the door flap that he realised why they’d only bothered using rope.
It was a long drop, with a fair few branches along the way to break your fall or your bones. He could see stars glinting through the tangle of branches, and far below, muted campfires glowed. His tent was nailed to a small platform spanning two solid branches, and he could probably reach one of them if he had a grappling hook, a length of rope, and the ability to fly. He could tear up his bedsheets and make a rope, but he wasn’t sure that dangling thirty feet off the ground was significantly better than dangling thirty-five feet from the ground.
Seris stared at the dark horizon. He was determined not to be here in the morning; he just had to figure out how. His gaze caught on a jarring shadow in the distance, and he glared at the silhouette of the crooked wooden pole. He could feel the bile rising in his throat, but then he noticed—
Only one body hung from the crosspiece.
Elhan, thought Seris, his heart leaping. Elhan must have gotten away.