The Key To The Grave (#2 The Price Of Freedom)

by Chris Northern

  I had been fit enough when younger, made so against my will from the obligatory military training all nobles were put through, but had taken to a more sedentary lifestyle as soon as I could arrange it. From seventeen to twenty-two I hadn't done more than take a brisk walk, had eaten more than I needed and drank more than was wise. In the last month I had shed that excess weight and, I thought, tautened my flabby muscles. True, during much of that time I had been half-starved and endured other unpleasantness but I still regarded myself as a fairly fit man convalescing. Clearly I was wrong. When he finally stopped I was aching all over and breathing deeply, if slowly.

  “You could be brothers,” Dubaku said.

  I didn't say anything. Sapphire didn't say anything. It was an odd moment.

  “My father sent me this,” I said, passing him the letter and pretending I had not heard Dubaku's comment. “What do you think?”

  He read it, passed it back. “What's your answer?”

  “What is he up to?”

  “I am under instructions to discuss my mission with no one.” He walked to the wall where there was a bucket of water and filled a cup from it, drinking deeply.

  I reached for my flask of whiskey, stopped myself and went to join him instead. “Tell me what you feel you can.” The line had worked once before.

  He passed me the cup. “It's in the letter.”

  I didn't want it but drank anyway. Water wouldn't kill me. “Set up a trading post? Explore the north?”

  “More or less. Will you do it?”

  “I don't know yet.”

  “Let me know when you decide. I'm going for a run.”

  There was no way I was joining him for that. He probably meant about five miles and I just wasn't up to it. Not to mention the fact that running would strip the skin off my healing burns. So I just let him go and drank a little more water.

  “What about you?”

  Dubaku looked up at me. “I search for my people. If I knew where they were, one direction would not be as good as another.”

  “So if I go north, you will come with me?”

  He smiled. “You are still paying me, aren't you?”

  It was a joke. At least I thought it was. He had been part of a mercenary company, now destroyed, and I had once claimed authority over him on the pretext that I had not yet released the company from my service. Maybe it wasn't a joke. “Yes, I'm still paying you.”

  “Fifty coin a day, just in case you had forgotten.”

  See where the money goes? Still, if I wanted to pay a skilled artisan to paint murals on the walls of my house I would have to pay him that much a day. For Dubaku's skills, fifty coin a day was a bargain.

  #

  “I want you to go back to the city.”

  Meran stopped piling stew onto my plate and just looked at me. I picked up a fork and started eating anyway, talking thorough the food. “My house stands empty. I have a hundred and fifty thousand that I don't want to carry around with me. I need someone there. Someone I can count on.”

  He thought about it; put some food on another plate and sat opposite me. We were in the kitchens of the Eyrie; rooms big enough to cook for a small army. One oven was up and running, baking bread at the moment, and one open fire had a large pot hanging over it in which he had cooked the stew. For now we were on our own, but doubtless Dubaku and Sapphire would turn up soon enough; the smell of cooking food would bring them. I wanted this settled before they arrived. I'd decided I was going north. Curiosity had overcome my reservations. And I wanted the one year's military service under my belt. This seemed like an easy way to get it. Maybe that was part of what my father had in mind. It galled me slightly to accede to his wishes but not enough that I would deny myself the chance to attain a goal I also desired.

  “What will you want me to do?”

  “Maintain the house, look after Jocasta, buy her some female slaves and hire a freedwoman. Make it a respectable household. Look after things. Jocasta will be making the financial decisions but you will be actioning them, and I will make sure she listens to your advice.”

  He nodded. Of course. A woman of her class could not deal with men in business. If she were a commoner there would be no such bar. I had no doubt Jocasta would chafe under the restriction but there was no help for it. I intended a public career, in time, and needed all the trappings of respectability I could muster. “Try and make the money grow but be cautious.”

  He nodded again. “Anything else?”

  “Keep your ears to the ground. I need to know what is going on, all the gossip. Jocasta can help with that.”

  “How will I be able to contact you?”

  “I don't know yet.” I had no idea how, but I knew for certain that Sapphire and my father had a method of communication. With Sapphire's cooperation I would tack onto that. That would need my father's cooperation as well, of course, but I would work on that. “I'll keep you posted.” Father wanted me to do this, at least wanted me to do this rather than do nothing. If he wanted me to play ball he would have to make some concessions. I hoped.

  “Where will you be?”

  I hadn't told him. An oversight on my part, but he must have wondered why I hadn't said. “North. I don't think I'm going to say more than that.”

  He accepted it. I could tell he didn't like it, any of it, but he was my client and pretty much had to do as I asked. That's the way it worked. I looked after him and he did what I asked. It was the basis of our whole social system. Our whole political system, come to that. It worked.

  I forced myself to eat. I'd need to put on some weight. I needed to cut down on the amount of alcohol I was consuming. The two were not very compatible but I was working on it. I was still fairly drunk by the end of each day but I had a full belly as well. I was trying to get in the habit of eating and drinking at the same time, and not drinking when I didn't have anything handy to eat. I'd instructed the soldiers looting the Eyrie to leave adequate supplies for us. They hadn't argued, so I assumed they had orders along the same lines. I hadn't tested them to see how far they would obey. There was nothing else I needed.

  “It will be a few days before we part company. Try and find my armor, swords, anything else lost during the campaign.”

  “I already put in a claim in your name and a description of what was lost. Nothing yet.”

  “Good. Should have guessed you would think of it. If nothing materializes I'll need replacement gear...” I thought about it. “We'll talk about that later,” after I had talked to Sapphire. “I'll give you the letter of commendation; it's worth fifty thousand. Chop it in for scrip and cash and get what I need.”

  “Should be no problem,” he agreed.

  The army was here. There was loot aplenty and people willing to deal. No problem. I'd rather have my own gear back, but I doubted it would surface. It was worth too much.

  I ate slowly, sipped beer, and thought about the north, trying to remember all I had read and put it into some kind of order. Directly north of us the highlands began, and there were more Garrian barbarians, more or less the same as we had recently defeated. Small tribes, and unattached clans spread from here to the mountains. There were several passes, each controlled by a different clan. Beyond that were vast tracts of wasteland, semi-arid and thinly populated, growing denser as Battling Plain was approached. They called the region that; Battling Plain. It was a large area where several rivers came together and merged, running through the only truly fertile land in the region. The surrounding people fought over it constantly, controlled areas expanding and contracting almost yearly, no one group powerful enough to take control of the whole. Surely that was enough intelligence for any commander? One legion could almost certainly take on the entire area should need for direct conflict arise.

  Why am I doing this? The question just popped into my mind and I reached for the beer. I don't like doubt and uncertainty. Questioning my own motives made me uncomfortable, made me look for other options and wonder what my life would be if I chose a
nother path and what would have happened if I had chosen another path in the past. I considered my past irresponsibility as objectively as I could. I had been born with wealth and privilege, into a prestigious and ancient family of the city, a patron by birth, and I had been pissing it all away. 'What do you know of suffering?' Kukran Epthel had asked me that. He had a point, as far as it went. Had I been born of a family of laborers my life would have been very different; working all day for twenty or twenty five coin a day, barely enough to live on, new clothes a luxury. It would have been a struggle to improve my lot, to learn a skill worth more, then become a master at that skill and advance myself enough to make enough coin to invest in business. Or, and this is where I guessed my subconscious had been going, I could have joined the army and become a career soldier. The pay for a common soldier was twice that of a common laborer, more for a centurion, more for first centurion. And that did not include shares of booty. And at the end of twenty-five years a pension and land. It is, I admitted to myself, what I would probably have done; the easiest thing. I couldn't see myself making bricks all day, that was for sure. Well, I'd failed as a soldier, but might yet succeed as a spy. I had to succeed at something. Or maybe all that was justification and I was doing it because I felt like it. Because I was curious. And I would have command of a hundred men, though Lendrin Treleth would set my objectives. I'd have to meet him and see what his mind was; set up a trading post, in the north, why?

  I shrugged the matter off as Sapphire came into the room.

  “I'm going north,” I told him at once.

  He held my gaze for a moment, then nodded once and went to get some stew from the pot over the fire.

  And that was it.

  #

  I woke with a start.

  It was the middle of the night. The faint light of the moon and stars sifted into the room. I could see well enough to pick out a few details of the room; a table, chairs, the mirror; Meran, half raised on a camp bed by the door.

  “What is it?”

  He turned to look at me. “I was hoping you would tell me.” A shout punctuated his comment, made indistinct with distance.

  “The camp?”

  Silence. He nodded, still listening.

  I considered the matter. It was three miles or so from here to the camp; more than a mile to the gate, more than a mile across the open area beyond the walls. In the dark it would take an hour to get there, at least. My body complained at the mere thought of it, and I didn't doubt Meran would relish the idea about as much as I did.

  I got up and padded across the room, knowing it was wasted effort but having to do something. Leaning into the deep crevice of the arrow slit, I stuck my head to the night, turning my head this way and that, trying to catch a glimpse of the camps. I couldn't make them out worth a damn. I could hear, though. Urgent voices; not many, not enough to indicate an attack. The power of the Alendi and their allies was broken; there were two other armies of ours in the field. This was something else. It would be an hour's walk in the dark to find out what was going on. If the sentinels were twitchy, and they would be now, they wouldn't be pleased to see me.

  “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. We'll wait till morning. There's nothing to be done now.” Whatever was going on would be done by the time we got there, and it was nothing to do with me anyway.

  For a moment I stayed by the arrow slit, unable to see. “I'm going to the wall.” No sense going to the roof; it was a mile to the wall, and the stronghold was not even close to being high enough to give us a vantage.

  I heard him sigh and get up. It was the work of moments to dress and then we were away. The moon was nearly full in a star-studded sky. The cool breeze was enough to chill me; I'd expected it to feel good against my healing skin. It didn't. It stung. Ignoring the discomfort I strode purposefully across the empty pasture to the wall. It took a while. I avoided the breech, too much loose masonry around for comfort; in the dark I could turn an ankle or take a fall, and it would be worse for Meran. The steps were narrow but even and easy enough to negotiate in the half light. I moved along the battlements a way, staring out into the night. From here I could just make out the forts; there were some fires, burning low, but for the most part it was in darkness. The battle mages enhanced the night sight of the sentinels. Torches on the walls of the fortress would ruin their night sight. I couldn't see much. There was some movement in the right hand fort, figures passing in front of the few fires. Not many. Something had happened to stir things up, but I had no idea what. The occasional shout rang out but the distance was too great for me to make out what had them raising their voices.

  Meran joined me. “What do you think?”

  “No idea. Not an attack. Assassination attempt?” Where was Sapphire? The thought came unbidden to mind, and was dismissed just as quickly. The only person down there important enough to assassinate was my Uncle, and I couldn't see my father giving that order. They were pretty tight, as these things are measured. “Something.” An hour away. “How long till dawn?” I asked.

  “Two hours, maybe more.”

  I pulled out a flask of whiskey and took a sip. It burned its way down to my belly and warmed me. I wanted another, but put the flask away. “So we wait till dawn.” I didn't like not knowing. Curiosity again. But whatever it was, there was nothing to be done about it here and now. “No sense waiting here.” The cold was getting to me. We turned away.

  A thunderous concussion accompanied by a broiling cloud of fire and light froze us in our tracks. The sound rolled over us in stages. I had the feeling that if I had been looking at the fort I would be blinded. I looked now. The scattered wood of the gates burned and two horses and riders thundered through the gap in the walls at a gallop.

  Rogue mage. The thought sprang to mind. Who else could cast such magic? A priest, maybe, but there were no priests in the camp... apart from, perhaps, the Necromancer who had been captured at the Eyrie. I had forgotten about him. I struggled for a few moments, and just as his name came to mind another rider pelted through the wreckage of the gates and disappeared into the night.

  Ishal Laharek. I hadn't asked about him. Maybe I should have done.

  #

  I waited at the bridge into the stronghold. I'd had Meran light torches and ram them into the ground. I was hoping no one would come, but I knew they would. There was only one reason someone would come for me, and that was if this did have something to do with me, and there was only one reason for that. I don't know why I was so sure. Nothing I could put my finger on, nothing I could explain. Still, Meran didn't argue. We waited.

  I saw them long before I heard them. Torches at the gate, a mile away. Six torches moving in the night.

  “Get Dubaku,” I told Meran.

  “And Sapphire?”

  “Check if you like, but he isn't there.”

  He didn't ask how I knew. He just left at a fair pace, leaving me to my thoughts.

  Sapphire would have been woken at the same time as us, if not before. He would have acted at once, not paused to think about it. If he were here he would be here, so he wasn't here. It was as simple as that. I didn't want to speculate on where he was or what he was doing.

  I tried to count the spare horses as they approached. It was a while before I was sure. Three horses. So; my uncle, Orlyan was sending enough horses for all of us that were here. He knew where Sapphire was. One horse, for me alone, would have told me nothing more than I had already guessed. No horses would have been good news or very bad news. Three horses told me that my uncle expected me to move fast, and take all those who were here with me. He didn't know I had planned to send Meran south with Jocasta. That was redundant now. I'd send him anyway, I decided. There were things I needed done there and there was only him to do them; him or family.

  I watched the horsemen close on me. The brands they held high throwing pools of illumination, combined light and shadow dancing in the night. It struck me as eerie. I tried to assess how I fe
lt. I felt nothing. Distant. Calm. What the hell kind of man was I?

  My uncle was with them, leading. He drew rein, walking his mount the last few yards.

  “What happened?”

  “I'm sorry. He has her. Ishal, the Necromancer. He killed Urik Habrach, wounded the sister, but Jocasta he took.”

  I nodded. Better than it could have been. I walked forward, took control of one of the horses and pulled myself into the saddle. It hurt. It was going to hurt more. “Sapphire?”

  He nodded. “He was in camp. Went after them.”

  The second figure I'd seen ride through the burning gates. That was good. He might catch them. If he did, then he would surely kill Ishal. I didn't take seriously the possibility that he might die at Ishal's hands. Maybe I should have done, but I didn't. Why was Sapphire in the camp? “I had forgotten about Ishal. How did he get free?”