by Jasmine Walt
These were her people.
She had spent the last eight years focused on her husband and the court. Worrying about the grand houses of Valliere and their fealty to the monarchy. She had been told the people were well cared for and loved and the borders were safe, but the only time she’d been out with the people was on the barge.
And it had always looked so rosy and beautiful.
She had never been with the people.
Alone.
The boat hit against the makeshift boards that acted as a jetty. One of the men jumped to the bank and tied their boat to the stump of a tree.
“Keep an eye on the boat and the horizon,” Bruno said, proffering his hand to Lorelai.
A steep bank rose from the river, too treacherous to navigate in her long skirts. Lorelai grabbed his hand, enjoying its warm earthiness. He pulled her up the bank until they stood at the top. Villagers dressed practically in rags were coming out to see them.
“We can’t outrun anyone following us,” he said. “Whatever you want to see here, make it quick.”
“They’re all women and children.” This wasn’t the first time Lorelai had to control her expression. As queen of the realm, she was trained in the art of putting on a placid yet interested face. But after sailing, her heart was open, and she was unable to remain impassive. She gaped at the awkward people dressed in tattered clothes who stood dirty and scrawny on the edge of the river.
She had to look.
These were her people.
Her stomach ached with sadness as she slowly walked towards them.
“Who is supposed to be caring for these people?” She gripped Bruno’s arm.
Bruno shook his head, gazing around. “I’m not sure. We are on the edge of a few lords’ lands, here. I chose this route specifically to keep us away from normal trade routes. I bet that’s why they live here, too.”
Farther back from the river, hidden from view, sat a ramshackle stone house. If anyone was in charge around here, surely they must be there.
“You can’t just walk in there,” Bruno said, striding next to her. “You don’t know who lives here.”
“Well, we need to find out.”
The building was not huge or magnificent, but it seemed so compared to the wooden boxes that were sprawled around. It was a small, squat, stone thing with one short tower in the corner and a flat-stone terrace out front. On the terrace were rows and rows of long wooden cylinders that looked like the trunks of thin trees hollowed out. Inside the hollows were small black beads.
“What are they?” she asked Bruno.
His shoulders lifted as he leaned over in curiosity. “I’m not sure.”
“Harvesting the seeds of the kamin,” a girl of about fourteen said.
“Kamin?” Lorelai was shocked. “But it is poison. A single drop can kill a mammoth. Who needs it in such great quantities?” Her gaze traveled over the long tree trunks brimming with kamin seeds.
“If you take it direct, it’s a poison,” an old woman with glazed red eyes said. “But mixed with sloth fat and mammoth tusk, the mages have some use for it, and in even smaller quantities, well, you can chew on it.”
At more stations farther down the terrace, people boiled fat and ground seeds and powder, mixing it all together to create small balls of black goo. It was…it was kamin paste, a resin of sorts. She had never seen anything like this. The old lady, her face creased with dark lines, had some of the black paste dribbling out of the corners of her slack-jawed mouth.
“What do you do with the paste?” she asked.
“It is collected by his lordship,” the old woman said.
“Who is your liege lord?” Lorelai asked as Bruno came up to stand next to her.
“You come from the big smoke?” The woman’s voice rang harsh with laughter. “Everyone there has some grand lord who will take care of them? Must be nice for them. We are given these houses and some food by a man who doesn’t bother us.”
“But don’t…isn’t there someone who owns these lands?” Lorelai asked, staring around at the children.
Bruno tugged at Lorelai’s elbow. “We should go.”
“But this is illegal,” Lorelai said.
From the look Bruno shot her, Lorelai realized this wasn’t the time to talk about legalities. These people clearly worked on the underground market. They were providing an outlawed substance to the mages.
“We don’t ask questions,” the old lady said, suddenly animated. “You see these kids here? They had nothing. Nothing. Their fathers and mothers are dead. You want to judge what is legal and what is illegal? How about a king who doesn’t take care of his people? That is something that should be illegal, don’t you think?”
“But…King Peverell cared for his people.” Surely, the woman was lying. How could any of this be true?
“Maybe he did at one time.” The woman spat the black juice from her mouth and let it splash to the dirt. She ground it into the dust with her heel. “But it has been a long time since these women lost husbands and these children lost their parents, and there has been no decree of care from the king or any other grand lord.”
“King Peverell has died,” Lorelai said. “He was ill, but he loved the people of this kingdom.”
“Words are cheap,” said the glazed-eyed woman. “And why is it you care so much for the king? I can’t imagine his brother is going to be any better than he was.”
“What happened to your men?” she asked.
Another black stream of spit flew out of the old woman’s mouth. “They were conscripted into the king’s army to defend the borders and fight back the Grosse Obscurite. We lost them all. The ones who lived got caught up in the life of the city, and if they remember us they send money, but the ones here, they receive no money. They’re lucky to be alive.”
Lorelai sat down on the stone step. “I lost family and friends to the Grosse Obscurite, also,” she said. “I lost my father.”
“Well, looks like you haven’t done too badly by yourself.” The old woman tossed her head towards Bruno.
“No, no, I’ve been fine.” The plight of the women and children pressed on her shoulders. “I understand, now. I had a husband who took good care of me. But now he’s gone…”
“Well, there’s not enough room here for another,” the woman said. “You both best be moving on. It looks you’ve a man who will take fine care of you.”
“But how will you survive?” She could not even understand where they got food. “We must stay.”
“Impossible.” Bruno shook his head. “We have to keep moving. You know that.”
“We have to do something! Look, these people are sick. They need to not be doing this. There’s plenty of other things they could be doing.” She stood, her hands gesticulating at the abject poverty. “There has to be some place better to live and more wholesome activities to do than this.”
“You can’t.” Bruno grabbed her elbows. “You can’t help everyone.”
She leaned into him, glaring up into his face, and whispered so no others could hear, “If you are asking me to be queen, I had best figure out a way to do just that.”
“Fine,” he said. “But today, you cannot solve the problems of the whole kingdom. Lorelai, this country has a gushing wound and you want to treat a pricked finger. Yes, this is sad. Where we are right now, these people need help. But to stay here and solve their problems will take time, and it’s not the thing the queen should do.”
Lorelai stared up at him, her eyes wide. He was right. He was so right. But how could she just stand here and do nothing to help them? The problem was so much deeper than she had imagined.
These were her people.
She spun toward the old woman, wrenching a garnet ring off her pinky finger, and placed it in the old woman’s hand. “Take this,” she said. “It is enough to buy proper food for the children for a year.”
She closed the old woman’s hand over the ring. The crone shoved the ring into her black, grimy mouth, mov
ing it around until tooth scraped metal. Her glazed eyes widened in appreciation, but she spit it back out. “There’s nowhere out here I can use this thing.” She turned her back on Lorelai and Bruno, hocking more black spittle onto the ground.
“But you need food,” Lorelai called after her.
“The man who takes the resin brings us enough flour to make bread.” The woman shrugged.
“A boat! A boat!” A cry came from the river.
“You can’t just eat bread and resin!” Lorelai exclaimed.
Bruno grabbed Lorelai’s waist. “Come.”
“These people—”
“We have stayed too long.” He moved her gently but insistently back towards the boat. Lorelai relented, but she glanced over her shoulder one last time and branded the image of the shantytown in her mind. She would not allow herself to forget, and when the time came, she would free these people from this abject squalor.
12
Marrok glared at Reyn in the dark shadows of the castle prison. “Would you keep your mouth closed?” He loved Reyn but sometimes wondered if the younger knight always engaged his brain before he opened his maw.
“Guntram is a complete idiot,” Reyn continued, unheeding.
“He is like us,” Marrok said. “A second son of a noble house. He’s a man without purpose who has always lived in the shadow of his brother. You know he failed his attempt to join the Order of the Regent.”
“So he’s an idiot who can’t fight.” Reyn shrugged.
“Your words are treason,” Marrok warned.
“So is trying to break his prisoners out of the dungeon,” Reyn argued.
“Which we won’t be able to do if you keep flapping your jaw.”
“Fine,” Reyn huffed. “But he’s still an idiot. Who would put Taron and Andre in the same cell? Does he not realize it simply makes it easier for us to get them out?”
“We’re not there yet,” Marrok said quietly.
They were quite a distance into the dungeons, disguised as soldiers for the king. Infiltrating the castle with their heads down and their words short hadn’t been too big of a problem with the help of a few solid friends in service to the castle. The knights were well known and loved and there were plenty of others hoping for something different than King Guntram on the throne.
As Marrok and Reyn arrived at the last checkpoint, their worry grew. Despite Reyn’s assertion, Guntram had put three strict loyalists on cell duty, and it would be a tough skirmish to get in and out quickly. A melee that would be joined by more of Guntram’s guards the moment anyone heard it.
Marrok wasn’t easily intimidated. He’d grown up in a duchy where the men averaged six feet four inches, and clubbing giant, short-faced bears to death at nine was a rite of passage. But the three hulking brutes who stood in front of Taron and Andre’s cell made the beasts of his youth seem like tame opossums. These men were bulging masses of scarred muscles. He hadn’t seen them on the front before, so he could only imagine they were part of Guntram’s private mercenary army. This wasn’t going to be easy. He only hoped they had enough energy in them after disposing of these troll-like men to get their fellow knights safely out of the dungeons. There was still no telling what condition they were in.
“Shall we?” Marrok asked.
A low growl came through the dim hallway, echoing lightly off the damp stone walls.
“Is that your stomach?” Reyn glanced at Marrok.
“No.” Marrok’s voice was laced with concern. “I’ve heard that rumble before.”
Reyn’s sword poked towards the shadows, and a snarl rattled the air around them.
“Stop.” Marrok stepped in front of Reyn. He dipped to his haunches, looking as best he could into the gloom lining the hallways of the dungeon. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Marrok’s voice was low and soothing. It was the tone he used on the beasts who came home from war spooked by loud noises and constant enemies.
“What is it?” Reyn asked.
“Come out now,” Marrok cooed. “That’s it. We are friends.”
Out of the blackness, the long, white teeth of Lorelai’s laircat shone.
“Elba.” Marrok held his hand out, fingers aimed down, allowing the beast to sniff his ebony skin.
“She looks rabid,” Reyn said. “Be careful.”
Marrok never took his gaze off the gleaming green eyes of the laircat. “I trust her.” His voice was kind and soothing. This was no different than when he had to train a warhorse or turn some other anxious beast. Except this one could snap his head off with a single bite of her massive maw. It was imperative he held steady and showed no fear.
Slowly, the giant beast stepped forward, her chest low and cautious. Marrok stifled a grimace at the stench of damp fur and shit wafting in with the laircat.
“By the saints of all that is putrid. That thing needs a bath.” Reyn wrinkled his nose. “How did it even get here?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Marrok said in a soothing voice. His words were not important to the animal, only his tone. She needed to trust him and feel safe. In many ways, animals were so much like women. “She belongs to Lorelai, and we will return her to her mistress.”
“How the hell does it even survive down here?”
But Marrok wasn’t listening to Reyn. He was looking at the laircat’s eyes. “I think she can help us.” He nodded slowly and smiled as the feline mirrored his bobbing motion.
Reyn sighed. “She looks like she’s about to pass out.”
Marrok agreed. The beast clearly hadn’t been having an easy time of it. Her fur was matted, her stomach sunken, and her eyes wild, but Marrok knew this would make her more vulnerable to a friend and easier to get on their side.
“There are three more guards down the hall,” Marrok said, his words directed to the grimy beast. “They are the last ones, and then we will have Taron and Andre. When we have them, I will take you to your mistress. We are meeting her in Affama.”
“Why the hell are you telling a dumb cat all that information?” Reyn asked.
Marrok sighed. “First of all, the dumb cat can hear you.”
“It doesn’t understand what I’m saying.” Reyn waved Marrok’s concern away.
“And second of all, I am earning her trust by telling her what we know and letting her grow accustomed to my voice. Come on, Reyn, how hard is it for you to understand? You’ve soothed quite a few frightened girls in your day by telling them what they want to hear.”
Reyn raised his eyebrows, a smile playing on his lips, and finally shrugged. “Fair enough, but do you think she can take them all out?”
Elba looked down the hallway, seeming to size up the opposition.
“She’s got a better chance than we do,” Marrok said. They stood in the shadows as Elba let out a deep growl like the rumbling of a minor earthquake and started stalking down the hall.
“You can’t let her get killed,” Reyn said, clearly worried. “The queen will never forgive us.”
“I’m pretty sure Elba can take care of herself.” Marrok smiled as the massive animal made a single sudden leap. There was only one muted scream from a guard, and then the sickening sound of bones cracking and flesh tearing. With a single toss of her head, Elba snapped the head of one of the men, and before the others could raise their swords, she had clawed the arms off one and then turned her attention to the last guard. Blood pooled on the floor as the guard with the severed arms bled out. His body was in a state of shock, his mouth moving silently as he stared at the ceiling. Elba had landed her paws on the chest of the last one, knocking him over and ripping his throat out with her teeth.
“Now’s our chance.” Marrok pointed two fingers forward, down the darkened hall.
Reyn leapt into action, thrusting out his spear and stabbing into one of the severed arms. “Disgusting,” he said as he slid the metal bracelet with the keys down the amputated limb.
“Good girl.” Marrok smiled as they slipped past the beast, who held the remnants of the last guar
d in her paws, blood dripping from her mouth.
“Remind me never to get on her bad side,” Reyn said.
The prison hallway had a low ceiling and small metal doors on either side. They split up, each taking a side as they moved down the hall quickly. As efficient as Elba had been, she hadn’t been fast enough to completely silence the guards, and Marrok was pretty sure reinforcements wouldn’t be far away. He slid open the tiny window at the top of each door, but it seemed like the entire hall was empty. But when he got to the last door and glanced in, relief flooded his heart.
“They’re here.” Marrok waved Reyn to the cell door. Reyn wiped the blood from the key and jammed it in the lock. The door opened to a small stone room with close walls and a low ceiling.
Taron’s body sagged against the wet stone floor, his beard matted with blood, his eye swollen shut. Anger stiffened Marrok’s body at the sight of his brother knight beaten and hurting. Andre bent over him, his face creased with worry as he tried to press the blood out of the swelling.
“Brothers.” Andre stood to greet them, his deep voice echoing in the small chamber. “I knew you’d come.”
Reyn clasped him in a relieved hug. “You’re an arse for getting injured on the tournament field.”
“Did you see the other guy?” Andre chuckled.
Reyn snorted. “Yes, but I bet he’ll be offered your place on the Order.”
“I’d rather be an outcast with you lot than in bed with the new king.” Andre patted Marrok on the back.
“How bad is he?” Marrok squatted by Taron.
“He’ll recover, but it’ll be a few days.” Andre nodded, his expression serious.
“We don’t have a few days.” Marrok shook his head. “We have to leave now.”
“How are we going to get him out of here?” Reyn frowned.
The stench of wet cat filled the air as the bedraggled laircat jammed her head through the cell door. An idea came to Marrok as he stared at the beast.
“Can he ride?” Marrok asked Andre.
Andre shrugged. “He’s going to have to.”