by Damien Lake
“Perhaps you should head for Spirratta,” Landon thought. “You could find one in the city.”
“That’s my backup plan. I haven’t decided to build my own place yet, so why make the trip west if I decide not to? Plus, there’s all the expenses of a long trip, and whatever fees the architect will charge me. I’d rather find a place and just buy it.”
The food arrived, consisting of plain roasted chicken and bread. It was adequate fare, but only friendship would make a person abandon the beef cubes tenderly cooked in red wine gravy in favor of it.
Around a mouthful of food, Marik mumbled, “Are you going to stay for the entrance trials?”
Kerwin swallowed and nodded. “I’m here, so I may as well. Cedars won’t be of much use to me. I need to figure out where to try next.”
Edwin shot out, “And you’d never miss a betting opportunity, no matter what you say!” Kerwin shrugged in lieu of offering a denial.
“The trials are only two or three days away in any event,” Dietrik allowed. “Where are you staying?”
“Right here. Kerny was willing to rent me a room, even if he wasn’t willing to give it to me for keeps.”
“What percentage of the applicants do you think the officers will turn away this year?” Landon mused. “As many as they usually do?”
Kerwin grinned broadly. “Well, if it’s odds you’re asking for, let’s figure them out, shall we?”
Chapter 02
The crowd on festival night always swelled thicker than any other time of year, with so many people pressed together that Colbey met with difficulty when he tried to weave between them all. He kept swinging his head from left to right, looking for two in particular. An entire army of outlanders could hide in this mob though. Finding a specific pair might be impossible. Bodies swayed, people spoke, moved, gestured and raised their voices to be heard over the others raising theirs.
On the crowd’s edge, pungent aromas of roasting venison and rarer delicacies filled his nostrils. Eight men worked enormous spits that suspended the carcasses over low flames. At the cook area’s other end, several women toiled over massive kettles, yet never ceased smiling and chatting with those nearby.
A stream of children ran past. The lead child barreled headlong into Colbey’s legs. She recovered before she could spin out of control, then ran all the harder to catch up with the others. The Children’s Brigade charged the tables, assaulting the server with demands for the sugared festival juices in large quantities. It made Colbey smile. He remembered well how he had lived for little else besides the super-sweet drink during the Summerdawn festivals of his childhood. At least until the lighting of the lanterns.
He plunged deeper into the mass of humanity, wading through, searching…searching… Surrounded by hundreds, he briefly envisioned having stumbled upon a weirdling beast of the deep forest; a creature of a thousand arms and twice as many eyes. Legs and hair and fingers sprouted from its body following no discernable pattern. A hideous monstrosity resembling countless people fused into a single pulsating blob of unholy flesh.
Resembling a crowd at a festival.
Colbey broke through into a less populated area, one filled with private tables set within the deeper nighttime shadows. Vines had been coaxed along trellises to enclose the two dozen tables in a green cave. A single candle burned atop each, providing a miniscule halo while concealing the occupants. He scanned the relaxation grotto until he recognized Liam’s elaborate pants, his legs propped against an empty chair. Closer inspection revealed Sylvia’s profile in silhouette sitting beside him.
A chair opposite them sat empty. He claimed it for his own so he could gaze across the festival night tableau. People filled the walkways, lights dangled from the suspension bridges, the lantern strings were hung in every corner of the village. Smells and joy and goodwill filled the air.
“Here you are! I’ve been looking for the two of you since I got off patrol.”
He expected a flippant remark from Liam, or a chide from Sylvia. They did not reply. Neither so much as moved in the darkness.
“Leave it to me to pull duty the day of the festival. I’m positive Farr has it in for me. You both are lucky you weren’t stuck wandering the groves today, looking for outland idiots.”
Sylvia spoke. Her voice sounded odd. Forced. “You don’t think the outlanders are a serious threat?” Probably she was eating the jerked venison she loved so dearly and talking with her mouth full.
“Those fools? When have they ever posed a serious threat? They’re only a danger to themselves.”
“Except for some.”
Her words struck a strange chord within him for no reason he could put to name. Colbey felt sure he should know. A memory eluded his grasp, silvery quick as a river fish. “Such as whom?” he asked, troubled by his inability to remember something his instincts insisted was important. “Who has presented us a challenge in the last hundred years? Or the last thousand? All we deal with are trappers and hunters! I’ve yet to see one who has been gifted with a brain.”
Liam spoke from his side of the table. “Then why are you trying to become a Guardian? Why not stay in the scouts with us? You end up doing the same duties as it is.”
The question surprised him. Liam had declined to advance beyond the scouts, stating he was content in the position, but Colbey had always thought his friend secretly believed he lacked the talent to train as a Guardian. He might be jealous despite having always urged Colbey to go as far as his skills could bring him. “Why? Why not? I want to learn all the Guardian techniques, and work in the sealed areas.”
“The outlanders aren’t enough of a challenge, then?” Again Colbey sensed a deeper meaning he should understand.
“Of course not! I want to test my skill beyond the seals! I want to be better than any Guardian ever has been before me!”
Sylvia’s odd voice continued. “So that is all that Guardianship means to you? Are you lusting after power, like an ambitious outland mage?”
The accusation, and from his friend no less, stunned him. His temper rose. He verged on an angry retort when movement in the shadows stopped him. In fact, paralysis froze his every muscle.
Liam demanded, “What of the village, Colbey? Are you not sworn to protect it with your life’s blood?”
Colbey fought the fear ruling him to squeak out, “Of course! I am a Guardian! Or soon will be.”
Liam leaned over the table. His torso entered the illumination provided by the single candle. Colbey’s eyes, already wide, threatened to drop from his skull.
In the flicking light, Liam’s one eye stared accusingly. Where the other should have been was a gaping maw, a scarlet, yawning hole where black rot ate at the festering meat. Congealed blood and shreds of flesh dripped from the wound, slowly rolling down his cheek in gory tears. Within that raw pit’s depths, movement could be glimpsed.
Liam’s voice, cold as a winter blizzard, demanded, “Then where were you, Colbey? Why weren’t you in the village, Guardian, defending your people? Doing your sacred Guardian duty?” The pulsating wound abruptly belched forth a tide of writhing maggots that dripped off his lips.
The splintered railing, Colbey remembered in a flash. I pulled it from his head when I found his body…
He could make no answer. His throat seized, denying him breath as well as words.
Sylvia leaned forward at his silence. Her own ghastly wounds became visible. Her entire upper torso had been staved in. Rib fragments pierced through the skin. Gleaming blood pumped from her neck with every heartbeat, over her lacerated chest, which resembled ground meat. The forced voice fought its way through her ruined vocal cords. “You let them kill us! You ran to the outlands and abandoned us!”
Colbey wanted to shake his head in negation. He fought his immobile body without success.
“You left us to die! You left Thomas behind! You’re letting them go! You’re letting them do as they please, while we rot and decay in the Palaces of the Dead!”
T
he words were a chain wrapped around his heart, tightening until it should have burst.
“You promised us vengeance, Colbey,” accused Liam while a fresh wave of bloody maggots squirmed down his face and into his mouth. The stained white forms were spit across the table with each of his words. “You promised us! On the souls of the fallen and your vows as a Guardian. You have failed everyone who trusted you.”
I have failed…
Colbey finally broke the paralysis by lunging to his feet. His chair toppled backward. The harsh truth threatened to crush him forever. He needed to escape, to run, but after the first two steps he finally noticed the festival. No music played. Everyone had ceased moving. All watched him with dead, horribly butchered faces.
They pressed forward, surrounding him, reaching out with their decaying corpse hands. Colbey’s ears rang with their denouncements, chanted endlessly, each one clearly heard and understood despite several hundred voices moaning in unison. Surrounded by the dead. He felt their hands grasping him.
Their mossy fingers pulled at his cheeks. They forced open his jaw and locked on his tongue. He felt them working their way deeper into his mouth, his throat, as others pawed at his ears, his nose, choking his neck. Grave dust scattered in his eyes, burning hotly, and their decomposing fingers pulled his eyelids away from the orbs they protected. A putrid smell filled his nostrils, charnel and acidic. Harsh coughs seized his neck when rotted fingernails broke free from green digits to lodge in his windpipe.
And all the while, their husky whispers of accusation rang endlessly in his ears.
His gorge rose too fast to control. Vomit ejected violently from his mouth, spewing from his nose. He tumbled in an eternal fall, plowed under by the pressing mass while he choked on his own bile.
Colbey’s arms flailed during a terrifying moment of vertigo where time stood still. His instincts took over at that point. While his mind gibbered and quailed, his hands lashed out, securing a firmer grip on the tree branch before he could slip off completely. He strove to force down the nausea but the dream had been far too vivid. Before he could finish pulling himself from deep sleep, Colbey began regurgitating in truth.
His disorientation slowed him. Vomit stained his tunic and breeches before he could turn his head to one side. He heaved everything his stomach had to offer until it spasmed dryly, long after it had emptied. When he felt he might finally be in control, he shakily descended to the ground.
The voices of his friends and fellow villagers still echoed in his mind, as clear as they had been in the dream. If it had been a dream. Had it been a dream? Surely their spirits were restless with their deaths unavenged. Perhaps they had come to him while he walked the halfworld.
Colbey shook in the chill darkness, feeling as small and helpless as a child. He could refute none of the accusations from the dead; not to them nor to himself. But he had been trying, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he?
But it is not enough. Those who did this evil deed still walk. They still draw breath. They have yet to pay for their crimes.
His shaking continued. For the first time in the years since he had left behind his few remaining people, Colbey wished desperately that Thomas were with him. He needed to talk. He needed to be with a compassionate soul who understood what it was to be a surviving Guardian. A Guardian who still lived after the lives under his care had been cruelly stolen. Colbey was lost, adrift in an endless night with no stars to steer him home.
He pounded his fist against the oak tree’s rough bark. The pain was pure and clean, unlike his soul. Again and again he struck until he felt the wetness of blood.
His shakes subsided after the pain gradually focused his mind. Quick self-examination led to emptying his water skin over his clothing, cleaning off the worst of the mess. The next time he came to a stream he would do a thorough job.
After collecting his pack from where his writhing had knocked it to the ground, he set off through the darkness. There would be no more sleep for him. He wondered if he would ever feel safe laying down to rest again.
Colbey pushed his body hard, forcing away the dream and the dead voices. He called upon two Guardian techniques useful for nighttime travels. One enhanced his night vision, enabling him to see slightly further than normal by forcing his irises open to their maximum. The other boosted his stamina, allowing him to run continuously for candlemarks, a wild deer taking flight through the forest. Using both at the same time required every ounce of concentration he could summon, driving out all extraneous thoughts.
Which was his intention.
Dawn broke while he continued running the empty road. He stopped only once for water, then pressed on after refilling his water skins. The dampness of his cleaned clothing was of no consequence.
Later in the morning, travelers slowed his progress. Men glared at him and animals sidestepped, tossing their heads when he charged past. Shouted imprecations went unnoticed. His entire mind was bent on the next step, on the next moment, on the next swing of his arms.
At noon he gained his destination, the place he had originally planned to reach around nightfall. He dug the small iron tag with a red crown embossed on it from his pack. The Homeguard beside the postern door nodded when they saw it and allowed him access to Kingshome.
Colbey wasted no time once inside the walls. He stalked straight across the Marching Grounds to the command building. For the first time in several marks, his mind was free to work. Rather than dwell on the dream, he prepared for the argument he meant to put forth. In his possession were all the elements his case would need, gleaned from countless sources over the last month.
For all his effort, he had learned very little he hadn’t known before. Tracking down and questioning every Tullainian refugee he could find revealed no new facts to add to his meager store. Several had seen the horrors most Galemarans took for exaggerated tall-tales, and his own acceptance of their existence gave many an outlet to pour their savaged lives through.
But though many had seen, none could supply him with anything other than fear-colored descriptions. Valuable knowledge, such as the identity of the men behind the monsters, would not be extracted from fleeing peasants.
Their only useful information was where they hailed from. In his pack he kept a rough map of Tullainia, covered in small red crosses. Each cross represented a town from which a refugee had fled after being attacked. Armed with knowledge of his foes’ location, the next step could hardly be clearer.
Colbey barged into the command building and advanced on the clerk in a semi-hostile manner. The clerk jerked away nervously, unaware that Colbey’s threatening bearing was due only to his preoccupation. Before the man could demand to know what Colbey wanted, or scream for help, the Guardian spoke with decisive authority.
“I am Colbey, Second Squad. Tell Torrance I am here to speak with him. Remind him that he owes me a favor.”
* * * * *
Commander Torrance, leader of the Crimson Kings Mercenary Band, sank deeper into his overstuffed chair after Colbey left his office. He sighed, a trait he indulged in with increasing frequency he had come to notice. Colbey was already a superb fighter, a B Class by rights, and so when Torrance had needed to reward the man for outstanding performance in the Nolier war, a simple raise in rank would not do for him. No one in the band claimed an A Class fighter rank, and it was a designation not to be handed out lightly, even to one as capable as Colbey.
Instead, he had promised the scout a favor, within reason. Torrance disliked leaving himself open in such a fashion but the essence of a good commander was to acknowledge a job well done by his men. Particularly a feat as impressive as Colbey’s.
Since the younger Crimson King had decided to call that favor in, Torrance needed to ante up. Well, truthfully, what Colbey wanted was relatively minor. The scout could have demanded any number of favors that would have forced the commander into a tight corner. Torrance flipped through the papers on his desk, searching for the relevant documents, when a knock on the door drew hi
s attention.
“Yes?”
Wainright entered. He had clearly been waiting for Colbey’s conference to conclude before bothering the commander. “There’s a client waiting to speak to you.”
“A client? Who?”
“Baron Garroway.”
Now here was a surprise. The baron was a longtime contractor with the Kings, though had contracted no men last year. Torrance had assumed Wainright meant one of last year’s few clients wanted to complain about their results. Garroway could only have come to arrange for a new contract next year.
“Why is he here now?”
“He said he’d rather discuss it over brandy.”
Torrance snorted. “Did he? Very well, have him come in.”
Wainright left. Torrance crossed the room to retrieve a fresh bottle of spiced brandy from his liquor cabinet. It was imported from Saer, a city-state in Vyajion, and horribly expensive. That was one of the perks afforded by his job. And Garroway never missed an opportunity to indulge at Torrance’s expense.
But why come to Kingshome so early? Garroway was among the very few nobles able to call directly on his office, the benefit of being a longtime contractor who treated the mercenaries as well as his own men. Most prospective clients had to work their way through Janus’ clerk network, several never meeting the commander at all. Either their contracts were rejected or the situations so standard an agreement could be hammered out by the subordinates.
Torrance lifted two crystal glasses when the door opened to admit Baron Garroway.
“Ah-ha, Torrance! It’s good to see you, my friend!”
“Likewise, baron. You’ve arrived rather early this year. Come, have a seat by my hearth.”
“It is my great pleasure!”
A solid man, the baron’s only remarkable feature was his hair, which had turned half-gray. His unremarkable clothing fit him well; finer quality than most, though people would easily mistake him for a merchant rather than a member of the gentility. He accepted the proffered glass, then sat before the cheery blaze in Torrance’s fireplace.