by Eric Lewis
“Huah!” Gadanga went down easily enough, and two attendants in turn tripped over him, leaving several still on their trail.
“What now?” asked Corren.
“How…about…there?” Vinian pointed.
“What? No!”
“It’s that or nothing. Come on.”
A man sickened by a night of drinking can produce some truly revolting waste. A thousand men after an entire week of pugilistic debauchery…well, it was a thing best not thought long upon. Vinian tried hard not to think on it as they dove toward the filth of the newly dug latrine pit’s drain gate. If pain is nothing, stench is less than nothing. Control. I am in … “Yeach!”
Trozas’s training was thorough but wasn’t tough enough to motivate his operatives to swim through cack and puke to catch their quarry. Tumbling in a state of utter disgust down the slope into the encroaching forest, Corren chanced to open his mouth to breathe and was rewarded with a mix of air and piss. Next to him Vinian took hold of a protruding root and jerked her descent to a halt while Corren in turn clung to her shoe to stop his. A tiny brook intersected their path, and Corren frantically buried himself in its icy flow while Vinian peered back uphill. They were alone.
Corren spit mouthful after mouthful of water and bile in a desperate attempt to clear himself of the sewage. “Oh my gods….”
“All told,” said Vinian, her nostrils still burning with the acrid sting, “I’d say that went …rather well.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Just End It
“Hello? Anyone there?” The voice echoed back through the cavern. They still didn’t know how far back it went but Ulnoth figured this was far enough to store one of the precious few sacks of grain they’d managed to salvage. He set it down and took up one of the last remaining candles to light his way back out.
“Step light,” he answered. “Ground gets rough around here. It’s…wait. Who’s there? Nan, that you?”
“In the flesh.” Her tall form emerged into the candlegloom, looking years older than she had the last time they’d been together.
“Shit girl, where you been? The others, are they…?”
“Whole, more or less. Fine setup you’ve got. Too bad they put you in charge of it. Where is everyone? Seems a bit sparse out there.”
“Oh, you ain’t heard then. Let’s get outta this hole awhile – it’s a hard story I got.”
“We’ll trade them then,” Nan said.
They walked toward the daylight together. “How did you find us?” Ulnoth asked.
“I went out for a walk…to clear my head, I guess. I must’ve got turned around when I came upon a couple sloggers.”
“Hope you hid the bodies.”
“I…let one go,” Nan said.
“What? Why?”
Nan shook her head. “I don’t know. It was just a kid. Started cryin’, begging for his mummy, if you can believe it. All seemed…so pointless all of a sudden.”
“Huh,” grunted Ulnoth, “might be more than a few points pointed at us soon.”
Nan shrugged. “I made him take off his shoes, threw ’em down the hill. It’ll take him hours to find ’em or get back to where he came from. That’s when I saw the smoke, figured it was either you or an end to this godsfucked nightmare.”
“The former, I’m afraid….”
It was a sad palaver, no doubt of that. Truth be told, Ulnoth had the worse of it. Wengeddy had been bad, but at least there they could entertain the fantasy that some had got away. Taurix’s slow, methodical slaughter in Plisten and beyond was more like a sawmill with every bit cut, measured and accounted for. “All of ’em? Really? …all?” Ulnoth whimpered with his head resting in two filthy hands.
“I’m so sorry,” Nan said. “You must want the bastards dead, so badly.”
“This…this is my doing. I brought this. I…. Just end it, please,” he begged, broken out by a fresh weariness. He’d taken all the revenge a man could take, hated all the hate there was and by it accomplished exactly nothing. Now, emptied even of these things, the price of it all weighed heavy. “Don’t care how, just end it. Please.”
* * *
Winter wore itself out as it always did, and the brown death of an early spring gripped the forest. Here and there a few splotches of green poked up among the leaves and twigs, but mostly it held its chilly breath in anticipation of the new growth that had not yet begun in earnest. Several weeks passed with welome rest and uneventfulness, and when Alessia could walk they made the trek up to the cave. Corren nodded approvingly at the excellent shelter and Alessia wept at the stone cairns before it. The surviving Heron Kings and the folk of New Firleaf worked together to bleed Taurix and Pharamund both of what they needed to survive without raising too much ire. Emony and Alessia tried to guide Dannek back to his senses, knowing he’d never be the same.
“None of us will,” said Emony as the two stood over Allard’s cairn. “We’ll never live in the civilized world again, will we?”
“Not for me to say,” Alessia asserted, “but probably not. The person I was before is, well, gone. I could never go back to the temple.” She forced a smile. “Mother Tanusia would never allow it, with the habits I picked up from you lot. Nor would Livielle, gods bless her.”
Corren came out of the cave entrance. “Have to make a proper door to this place, then hide it well. It’s good,” he said. “Secret, secure. We can build on it. Yes, I think just maybe we’re home.”
* * *
They kept Vinian well away from the cave though she suspected with all their coming and going that they’d made a base somewhere close. She also watched Pharamund’s visit from afar, and had to admit it was impressive – even from a distance the fort looked cleaner by the time the great red banners plodded past the gates and newly dug latrines. She wondered time and again if Trozas had let her escape, and decided it best to assume not. But would he keep his promise? What then? If only she could get to the queen. But without her writ of safe conduct, no doubt now firmly in Carthagne’s grasp, what chance of making it did she have?
“Not terrible actually,” said Alessia while she packed her things. “But not certain either. It’s tough country, and as much your fault for that as anyone’s.”
“Not good enough,” said Vinian as she gutted what she hoped would be her last carp in the dwindling camp of New Firleaf. “Her Majesty needs to know everything; I can’t risk failure.”
“Well, who does have safe conduct? Surely Taurix?”
Vinian laughed bitterly. “He hates me. Hells, he’d put me in irons on any pretext no matter the consequence. If only there was someone…Ludolphus!”
“Who? Oh, the fellow Taurix was chasing when he invaded my temple. He’ll help you?”
“He might.”
That night Vinian donned her page boy clothes, which still smelled vaguely of sewage despite repeated washings, and crept into Taurix’s camp. It was a rectangular plot ringed by an earthwork palisade with sentries spaced along the edges. Inside it officers’ tents were surrounded by the legion of sloggers set under meaner shelters or none at all. Still plain and predictable as childsong I see. Taurix’s sentry placement was unchanged from the last time she’d infiltrated his camp. Some lessons must be learned many times…. She easily evaded the cold and tired guards, ducking and rolling overtop the frozen earthwork, down the inner slope and picking up the first object she saw – a pail of something. Look busy and you’ll avoid scrutiny, she taught her operatives.
Taurix’s tent was the biggest, and very well-guarded. He’d learned something at least. Not far from that the banker had erected his lodging – a white pavilion adorned with the golden scales emblem of the Marimines Isles. She avoided that one.
At last Vinian spotted Ludolphus’s tent, recognized from experience – the old general owed her many favors over many lost rounds of sneak-and-spy games to t
rain his men. But tonight was no game.
Backside of the tent. Moonlight. Cloud…cloud…cloud in front of the moon. Drop the pail. Dark. Down. Squeeze through. Quiet. In. Easiest thing in the world.
She knew Ludolphus by the sound of his snoring. She knelt and crept close. “General.”
“Hmmhmm….”
“General Ludolphus.”
“Wha…what the—?”
She pressed a hand over his mouth. “Ssh!” He struggled. “It’s me!”
He shook off her hand. “Vinian,” he said, “where’ve you been? That banker, he said—”
“I’m sure he did. Listen carefully, if you serve Her Majesty….”
* * *
Before sunup Vinian left the camp by the same route she’d entered, and soon afterward Ludolphus announced his intention to return to Carsolan for ‘critical consultations with the queen’. Taurix was furious but dared not interfere for many of the men were yet loyal only to Ludolphus. He grudgingly let the man go with only a small entourage to accompany him. Half a day later Carthagne also decided to pack up and return to the capital, ostensibly to sail home. Nobody objected to that.
“Did you know?” asked Alessia while they watched the banker and his mercenaries depart. “Did you know he’d go too?”
Vinian grinned. “I didn’t know, but I suspected. He’s afraid Ludolphus knows something, which is true. What he doesn’t know is that if the good general follows my instructions exactly, he’ll have a little surprise waiting in store.”
“So why didn’t you go back with Ludolphus?”
“Because,” said Vinian, “whatever the next move is, one thing’s sure – I’m gonna need your help.”
Pharamund led an attack on Taurix’s camp. Taurix beat it back. Then Taurix launched an assault on the fort. The walls held. Men died on both sides and no ground changed hands. Taurix ordered catapults and ballistae and waited impatiently for them to arrive in pieces, and Pharamund pressed his barons for every last handful of grain to feed his troops.
New Firleaf died a slow unlamented death as people moved up to the cave, their ‘winter lodge’. Finally it was only Vinian, Alessia, Wrenth and Quen, lingering only to erase all traces of their presence. It was on the first day above freezing that Trozas strode with obscene ease into the nearly abandoned clearing.
“Not the most enviable of accommodations,” he observed, “but I’ve seen worse.”
Wrenth jumped up and trained a bow on him. “Stop right there!”
“It’s all right,” said Vinian stepping between Trozas and the bodkin tip. “I imagine he’s had this place in his sights for a while now.”
Trozas nodded. “Long enough to notice your petty thievery. You’ve fallen on hard times.”
“We all have at that.”
“Hmm. Can’t believe those green idiots haven’t winkled you out yet, but whatever. I’m here alone in case you’re wondering. This isn’t exactly the type of visit you announce in a place like Fort Pharamund.”
Vinian raised an eyebrow. “Fort Pharamund? Bit egotistical, innit?”
“Not my choice, believe me.”
After convincing Wrenth to put up his weapons, Vinian sat Trozas by the dwindling fire. “Did you talk to him about—”
“Yes. He doesn’t believe you.”
Alessia felt the energy drain out of her, replaced with a new despondence. “Oh for….” She sat down hard as a bolt of pain shot through her thigh wound.
“…but he doesn’t entirely disbelieve you either,” Trozas continued. “I did as you suggested, paid a visit to the edge of Taurix’s camp. Surprised how easy it was to get close.
“I saw the banker himself – you were right about his face. Which proves nothing, only that he’s here and got hurt somehow. I can’t take that to the king and seriously expect—”
“Show him,” said Vinian to Alessia. Alessia took out the letter. The thing was grown now so precious and legendary in her mind that she never parted with it, even for a moment. Vinian unrolled the leather and held it out to Trozas. Like any educated Porontan he scanned the Bhasan text with ease.
“Hmmm….”
“I know, I know,” said Vinian, “it could be a forgery, I’m a very good liar, blah blah blah. We could go back and forth like that until the sun burns out. But what do you believe?”
“It’s exactly the kind of thing Artabarzanes would do. I’d like to take this back, verify—”
“No,” snapped Alessia, “that’s our leverage – I’m not giving it up only to you. Try and take it and you won’t leave this place alive.”
“All right, all right. I’ll talk to the king again. I’ll try to convince him to hold some kind of conference with Engwara, for all the good it’ll do.”
“Trozas, we both know Pharamund does only and exactly as you tell him. You must tell me where it’s to be held. I can produce—”
“By the gods, woman, it’s not even agreed to yet. War’s put Pharamund on edge and he doesn’t listen to me as he used to. The stalemate helps, but…we’ll see. Meanwhile, I’ll have to work on my knife-throwing.”
“You do that.”
Trozas turned to go, then paused. “One question. I didn’t dare to ask it before, but….”
“What?”
He looked square at her. “Did you kill the old king’s son?”
Vinian’s mouth hung open in genuine surprise. “No.”
“Did Engwara?”
She frowned at him angrily. “Did Pharamund?” They parted in silence, neither question answered.
* * *
Over the next few days a series of strange mishaps kept the two forces precariously balanced. Taurix prepared a new assault on the fort, only to awake on the chosen morning to find his siege engines sabotaged beyond repair. Pharamund sent secret parties to raid Taurix’s camp but found them ready and waiting, warned by some unknown method. In this way the enemies were reduced to glaring at each other in helplessness. Artabarzanes himself couldn’t have achieved a better balance.
* * *
“That’s it, it’s just us now,” said Corren. “Wrenth and Quen moved out this morning.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me exactly where you’ve all got to?”
Corren gave Vinian a bemused look. “What do you think?”
“Had to try.” Vinian shrugged. “If by some miracle we end up surviving this…well, maybe I could convince the queen to look the other way just so long as you behave yourselves.”
“Us? None of us started this. All we wanted—”
“All right. Bad choice of words. All I’m saying is—” Vinian was interrupted by a hard thwack from somewhere behind her. She spun around. “What the hells was that?”
“There,” Corren pointed. An arrow protruded from a tree, its bark made soft by the thaw. “That wasn’t there before.” He walked over to the arrow and tugged at the sheaf of paper wrapped around the shaft.
“Another message from your people?”
“Don’t see why there’d be need for it. It’s not one of our arrows either….” He unrolled the paper, frowned, and held it out to Vinian. “It’s for you.”
“Me? Who could possibly know— Trozas.” She took it and read aloud.
V,
First,
let me apologize for the unusual way in which I’ve
elected to deliver this note. I hope the archer’s
shot was true and caused no injury.
However, the news is not good. His Grace has
ordered that there will be no meeting with his enemy the
Lady Engwara – no queen is she. Alas the war must continue. Furthermore he
desires that I have no more contact with you, as it is treasonous.
—T.
* * *
“Dammit,” spat
Corren, “all our effort for nothing. Your man’s not so impressive as you—”
“Hush,” said Vinian, “it’s not as you think. We have what we need.”
“What do you mean?”
“This was meant for me, but he couldn’t know who would read it. Look at the spacing of the words, look at the letters on the left edge.”
Corren looked, squinted at the tiny script. “I don’t—”
“Go find Alessia, and whoever else you need for hatching plans. We might not have much time.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Someone to Stand for ’Em
“Fleshold,” said Ulnoth. “What’s that?”
“An island,” replied Alessia, “in the Lacaryc Sea. And it makes our job a lot harder.”
Ulnoth stole a mistrustful glance at Vinian, not having met her in person before. “Never heard of it.”
“No reason you should,” said Vinian. “It’s a useless, jagged pile of rock half a mile off the coast. Scholars say Marchmen used to make sacrifices there before they were driven into the hills. Impossible to assault or approach in secret, and there’s only one place to land. Which makes it the perfect choice for a secret parley – no chance for a double-cross by either side, everything in the open once you’re there but hidden from outside eyes. Before the war got so bloody there were plans to meet there, but it never came to anything.”
Corren fidgeted on his log by the fire. “Then how are we supposed to get in front of these two and make our case?”
“I have an idea, but it’s risky.”
“Risky,” snorted Ulnoth. “Maybe you ain’t been payin’ attention, but out here every hour of every day’s been—”
“I mean it,” Vinian said. “We’ll only get one shot at this and it’s likely not everyone’ll come back from it.”
“We’ve lost so many already,” said Alessia. “Are you sure about this?”
“No. We need to find out some things, like when this is going to happen. Stay here and keep an eye on Pharamund and Taurix – if they leave here at the same time we’ll know for sure the parley’s happening. Do you have people that can help me run messages quickly and safely?”