The Heron Kings

by Eric Lewis

  Nan and Corren exchanged a glance that said much. Corren took the initiative. “Who do you think we are, you dolt? We were contracted to supply the forward post, but you can forget that now!”

  The soldier frowned. “Supply? But there ain’t no post for’rd of the fort!”

  “No shite! Someone shoulda told that arsehole cap’n what hired us that. You see the result.” Corren waved a hand at Alessia laid out as what he hoped was a convincing prop.

  “Wait,” said the unbadged soldier. “What cap’n? What happened here?”

  “I don’t recall his name,” said Corren, “but he was outta Duelleigh’s fort.”

  “Ah, that explains it. That place is full o’ fools don’t know their arses from a hole in the ground. So you get hit by that green bitch’s partisans, or…somethin’ else?”

  “Bandits,” said Nan. “Same trash been all over the valley for a season. Took everything and nearly did us in. We just got away.”

  “Bandits? Uh, so you don’t mean, well, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, you musta heard. Them. Chthonii! They’s crawling all over the mountains, woke up by the ruckus of the war. They been seen even!”

  Vinian raised an eyebrow. “Have they?”

  “Say,” said the badged soldier, “you’re a touch well-armed for a company of carters….”

  “In this place you better believe it,” said Nan a bit too quickly.

  “And overly feminine too. What lord granted your license exactly?”

  “Erm…Lady Nostrado?”

  The soldier sneered. “Well now, that is a bit of a problem. Y’see, Lady Nostrado’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “Aye, half a season dead. Bloody flux they say. Before the contracts was renewed.” He took a tighter grip on his sword. “Who are you really?”

  “Uh….”

  “You best come wi’ us,” the soldier said. Or began to say, as he was then inexplicably hit with a hail of arrows. Corren jumped back.

  Actually only a few arrows hit their mark out of the flurry that leaped from the opposite end of the road. The other soldier let out a wordless yelp and turned to run, and a wiry figure appeared from the cover of the trees brandishing an axe. They both disappeared around the first bend before a horrible shriek rang out, then cut off suddenly.

  It was a messy action, certainly. When it was over several skittish folk drifted from cover, indecisive and doubtful and looking with fear on the four they’d rescued. One man a bit more confident than the rest approached them. “Good bait yinz’re, no doubt. Sorry abaht dat, waitin’ so long but we’s unused to comin’ aht for strangers. Thought yinz might be some o’ us, but y’ain’t, huh?”

  “I was just thinking the same about you,” said Corren, though he strained to understand the man’s accent. “But thanks all the same, mister, uh….”

  “Oh, my name ain’t important. Names just makes us easier to track dahn….” The man stopped and looked down wide-eyed at Alessia. “Wha—? You. Don’t I know you from somewheres?”

  She smiled. “You should, Wrenth. You helped build my hospital, for all the good it did.”

  “Alessia? It…it is you! Damn girl, you look terrible.”

  * * *

  “Been a rough winter,” Wrenth said later, “but when ain’t it? Guess I don’t need to tell you that. Woulda been a worse but for the rumors goin’ round. Marchmen, monsters or whatever rainin’ hell down on the soldiers. I guess we have you folks to thank for it?”

  Alessia hobbled through the trees with a branch for a crutch, the others trailing behind. “Don’t thank us. A big joke’s what it is. Where’ve you been all this time? What happened after Firleaf? And…Quen?”

  “See for yourself.” They broke through a wall of whitened brush into a clearing set low in the ground, and a campsite far less than the Heron Kings had managed but no less welcome opened to them. They moved Alessia into a grove of oaks that’d somehow held on to a few leaves through the winter, and as the strangers tended inexpertly to Alessia’s wounds Wrenth spread his arms and a familiar eight – no, now nine-year-old jumped into them.

  “Quen!”

  The girl, grown more desiccated and angular and dirty yet undoubtedly Quennet, turned and laughed. “Lessi! You look terrible.”

  Despite pain and fatigue, Alessia smiled back. “So I’ve been told.”

  “I was so afraid when you didn’t come back.” Quen’s smile faded a bit. “Momma died. I was sad for a long time. I still am sometimes. But we revenged her a hundredfold.”

  “Now,” said Wrenth, “no more talk like that. Did you catch anything today?”

  Quen held up something brown and furry and limp. A groundhog. “It came out early. Big mistake.”

  “Good girl. Take it to the spit—”

  “I know, I know.” Quen moved toward a fiery pit with a spit slung empty above it, then turned. “I’m glad you’re back, Lessi.”

  “So am I, dear.”

  Wrenth bade them sit by the fire while the animal roasted. “Welcome to New Firleaf. Not much to look at but does the job. I heard about certain goings-on, didn’t quite believe ’em. Sure didn’t figure you for one to join up, Lessi, but whatever. Some of us even felt like adding to the soup, and any slogger we come across better watch out.”

  “Adding to the soup,” said Corren, “wouldn’t happen to include a couple pinned up in a field on a hill a few days from here, would it?”

  Wrenth grunted. “Saw that, did you? Weren’t my idea, but there you have it. That’s bad enough. Some o’ the other stories though, well I don’t right know what to believe.”

  “Believe what you like. Thanks for your help, but we really must find our own people. Things are heating up beyond what even we can deal with.”

  Wrenth frowned. “Meaning what? What exactly are you folks about?”

  Corren and Nan looked at Vinian, who’d held back and kept silent as a precaution. Now she took a step forward. “That, erm, might take some explaining.”

  * * *

  “Delayed! A week delayed!” Taurix hurled the message against the wind, and when it blew right back in his face it only made him madder.

  “What? What’s delayed?” Ludolphus had come to accept his role as observer in the bloody affair Taurix had wrought on the Carsa valley. The Marcher lord’s idea of pacification surpassed even his own jaded experience, and the miles of crosses had worn him thin. Confident in the county’s depopulation, they rode now in the shadow of the wild Marchman-infested hills that separated them from Thoriglyn. He’d stopped vomiting at the stench of rotting peasant, but his sleep remained restless even for one of his years. So he asked the question disinterestedly, as a bit player in an unpaid role.

  Taurix did not respond in like manner. “Pertinax! He let himself get boxed in at Wengeddy. Someone sabotaged the bridge before he could cross – whether he rebuilds or cuts south and over, it’s a week either way. I wanted to finish this hock-chopping and take the war to Pharamund’s doorstep at last. No chance now.”

  “If we push hard we can take some ground at least, and hold until the spring thaw.”

  “Aye, I’ll have to be content with—”

  “M’lord!” Tobius sidled up alongside Taurix, shoving Ludolphus out of the way without ceremony or apology. “Outriders are returned – they report smoke from the highlands. Likely Marchmen.”

  “Your own people,” mused Ludolphus. “Think you might like to go up and say hello?”

  Taurix laughed contemptuously. “Hardly. The tribes hate each other even more than they hate the Argovani. No, we’ll give them bastards a wide berth. One problem at a time – wait, what’s that?”

  “What?”

  “Up ahead!”

  Ludolphus squinted. “A clutch of riders, too few to be any harm – it’s that fatass
banker! What could he want?”

  When the company drew near enough they saw the banker sported a nasty face wound, attended by far fewer mercenaries than previous, and those in sorry shape.

  “Ah,” said Ludolphus, “Master Carthana. Seems some ill has befallen you.”

  The banker drew rein five yards from the pair of generals. “Carthagne,” he said, pronouncing each syllable as one would instruct a toddler – “Carr-thahn-yaa fadh-lahn…oh, never mind. It matters not now. Who’d ever trust one so marred by violence?” He barely brushed a finger across the poorly treated scab that meandered across his cheek like a red river and inhaled sharply.

  “Oh we ain’t trusted you before, never fear,” said Taurix, brightened just a bit by the man’s misery. “What happened?”

  “It was that witch what happened! That…that woman, Vinian!”

  Ludolphus frowned. “What about her?”

  “She turned on me! On us! On…on the queen! She was in league with those rebels all along. We were about to apprehend the ringleaders when she ordered them to attack us. I myself barely got away, lost my best man to a knife in the back—”

  “What is this cack?” Ludolphus almost fell from his saddle, shaking with incredulity. “You lie, that cannot be!”

  Carthagne’s jowls bobbed up and down rapidly. “Oh it be! How else do you imagine I suffered this?” He motioned to the wound, careful not to touch it this time.

  “Banker, there is no one – no one – in this world more loyal to Her Majesty than Vinian. Not even I. What have you really done?”

  “Why, it’s all true, I swear it!”

  “Oh good, you swear it,” said Ludolphus with a snort.

  “What cause could I have to dissemble?”

  “You’ve no cause out here at all. What game—”

  “Enough, both of you.” Taurix sliced the air with a mailed hand. “I’ll give orders to capture or kill the bitch on sight, but one more damned rebel or less I care not. I care about getting my arse and the arses behind me up this road and in Pharamund’s ugly face, so step aside, banker, and stop delaying things!”

  The army pressed on, wending its way unknowing past scores of eyes that watched with both fear and hatred, but more of the latter.

  * * *

  “Must be over a thousand men,” whispered Corren from his hiding place. “Pharamund holds all the country beyond – are they actually marching toward battle?”

  “His orders,” replied Vinian beside him, “were to put you lot down, but if he sees an opportunity he’ll take it.”

  Corren turned to the woman with suspicion. “So you aren’t at all of a mind to go join him?”

  Vinian shook her head. “He’s got no love for me. You see that pig riding next to him?”

  “Hard to miss.”

  “Taurix won’t believe anything I say now. Besides, thanks to you folk, things aren’t so clear-cut, are they?’

  “You’re welcome.”

  “A winter battle,” Nan mused, buried in the grass nearby. “Will he risk it?”

  “Maybe not,” Vinian answered, “but that’s good. Gives us time to work your magic. With a little help from a spymistress.”

  * * *

  “Will she live?” Nan asked.

  Wrenth shrugged. “How do I know? She’s the physic. We done what we can, followed her ’structions close as our supplies allow. Depends on luck now. If it gets affected….”

  Wrenth, Quen and their companions took turns watching over Alessia like mother hens fawning over a single precious egg. Vinian sat by as well, pondering her strange status somewhere between hostage and ally. When night fell she wondered whether she’d be spared the jerks for a second time. Almost makes being a prisoner worth it. There were other annoyances though.

  Nan glanced at Vinian’s marred face over and over again, and the spymistress could no longer credibly pretend not to notice. “Don’t worry, girl, you’re still prettier than I if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  Nan instinctively put a hand to her own scar. “What? N-no, it’s not that. Just…what happened to you anyway?”

  “What do you care?”

  “Maybe I like to know my enemies.”

  “Good policy. Nothing entertaining, if that’s what you’re hoping for. When I was a kid some baron’s son took a passing liking to me. Not knowing the finer points of feudal etiquette, I…constested his advance. So he threw me into a kitchen fire. I got burned. That’s all.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry….”

  “Why? Best damn thing that ever happened to me. With this beauty mark my dear parents, gods rot their souls, could never hope to marry me off, so they treated me like one of the cattle. Even made me sleep in the barn. Everyone was like that. People didn’t want to see me, and eventually they didn’t. And when people don’t see you, they can let slip the most interesting things. Valuable things. I learned to use that.”

  “That’s how you became a spy?”

  Vinian nodded. “Got pretty good at it. One day I aimed a bit too high, tried to blackmail that very same noble whoreson. I was lucky. Rather than getting skinned alive on the manor green I was taken before the countess, to be made an example of at court. Instead the countess was intrigued by my story, so she offered me a choice – a job in her household or burning at the stake. And as you might expect, fire held few secrets left for me.”

  “Countess…Engwara?”

  “Just the same. Gave me education, training, position, and in time agents of my own. And a certain baron came very much to regret his decision not to flay me.”

  “Yet you’re still her creature. The choice is still service or the stake.”

  “That’s true for everyone. At least I know it.”

  “It’s not true for us.”

  Vinian’s temper flared. “No? Making a good go of it, are you? Fighting the good fight for freedom from tyranny? You fools have no idea what Taurix has done because of you.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me?”

  Vinian rummaged through her purse, the slivers of paper and whatever was writ on them now worthless except as kindling. When she found the one she sought, she hesitated. “I want you to know I had nothing to do with this. I never would, if only because of the sheer stupidity as a long-term governing strategy—”

  “Gods’ sakes, what is it?”

  Vinian handed Nan the note from the secretary in Lenocca and tensed for violence. Nan scanned the message, fire dancing across her eyes. Her lip began to tremble. The paper fell from her shaking hands, and for the first time since the debacle at Duelleigh’s fort, Nan curled up in a ball on the ground and wept.

  * * *

  The hillside was still littered with five or six corpses, shown in all their gruesome glory by the noonday sun. But it was a welcome sight for all of that, since it was now only dead mercenaries, the others mercifully having been moved somewhere else. But whoever had done it was gone now.

  “No sign,” said Gant after making a cursory circuit of the area. “Maybe it means we’re getting good, but I can’t make out where everybody went.”

  “Maybe they’re all dead,” said Verrell. “Maybe more of them Cynuviks came and finished ’em off. W-what if we’re all that’s left? What do we—”

  Ulnoth slapped Verrell just hard enough to shut him up. “Cut that! If we’re it then no use panicking, is there? Calm down and light a fire. Figure out what to do after I thaw my feet out.”

  Ulnoth barely had time to get one ragged boot off when Gant nudged him. “Hey. Don’t look now but there’s someone coming up the left side, real sneak-like.”

  “You sure?” Ulnoth slowly put his boot back on and took hold of a blade while keeping his gaze straight ahead.

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right, tell the others. Sneak-like as well, eh?”

  The f
igure darted between trees, stepping lightly to avoid any sound but not doing a good enough job of it, and when it was nearly upon them Ulnoth nodded to everyone. “Now!”

  They leaped to their feet armed and ready for a fight, but the intruder jumped back flailing. “Wha— Hold, I surrender!”

  “Godsdammit, Banwick,” breathed Ulnoth, unable to hide his relief under a layer of annoyance, “what were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that?”

  “I wasn’t sure who you were. I thought maybe they got you and came back for the rest of us.”

  “Huh. Turnabout serves you right, almost gutted you. Where is everyone?”

  “You won’t believe it,” said Banwick, “but we found us a place. A good place – a cave. It—”

  “A cave. Figures….”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds, really.”

  “Don’t see how that could be. Our dear leaders come back yet?”

  “Not yet,” said Banwick. “We lost a lot of folks and Emony’s got her hands full. How’d you get rid of those pricks anyway?”

  “You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” said Gant.

  When they came to the site of the cave, Ulnoth recognized the land and the sound of the waterfall above. “What, here again? Our hot spring. I never saw no cave under it.”

  “Couldn’t. Too much snow.”

  “Almost too good to be true. Ain’t no bears in there, are there?”

  “Uh, I don’t think so.”

  Ulnoth eyed the mouth of the cave – a smallish opening under an overhanging wall of rock, easily missed. Up above the water trickled and the spring steamed. Outside a dozen people sat nursing wounds, and just beyond an ominous cairn of stones. “What—?”

  “We buried them as best we could. Every walking body carried one that wasn’t. Listen, be light with Emony – Allard didn’t make it.”

  “Shit,” spat Ulnoth.

  “It was him what found this place. Me and him and Sal, we got separated in the attack, an’ this was the only place we could figure to find before we froze. Allard was hurt too bad, but he found it. Last thing he ever did, probably saved us all.”