Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  His eyelids fluttered slower as he took a deep inhalation.

  “Anjelica…” he breathed, running his hands up over Ghrenna’s buttocks. A stifled guffaw came from Luc, still clicking through the puzzle. She shot him a hard gaze, then turned back to the Couthis.

  “I’m here, lover.” Ghrenna leaned in, wafting more smoke into Emry's mouth and nose, then giving him a long, slow kiss, feeling her tendrils plucking at his mind. She reached down to massage his crotch, willing him to focus on the eroticism of the touch. Anything to keep him from focusing on the noise from the puzzle-lock and seeing that Ghrenna was not the girl who now lay next to him, cold.

  “Mmm… threllis.” The Couthis pawed at Ghrenna’s throat. “Give me a draw, love…make me spin…”

  Ghrenna held her pipe to his lips. He sucked greedily like a babe at teat, inhaling fully and holding it for a ten-count. A practiced addict.

  “Mmm… Cheridwen Hills… where did you get Cheridwen?” The Couthis' eyelids slipped closed, smoke sighing from between his flushed lips.

  “I keep a little just for us, love.”

  The clicking from the puzzle-lock stopped abruptly. Ghrenna heard a chunk as Luc pulled the lockbox open, and then the sweet slither of velvet cases and pouches as he began to raid it.

  Emry’s eyebrows knit at the sound, and he struggled to pull his eyes open. “Is that Jhulinne? Aeon! Tell her to keep it down…! Give us another draw, love…”

  Ghrenna gave him her pipe again, letting him hold it, taking deep inhalations, willing him to relax. She massaged his crotch and Emry moaned, low and obliterated. He did not fight her when she reached to reclaim her pipe, his arm falling limply to the coverlet. But as his arm fell, it brushed the dead woman, and he shied away.

  “Ugh… who put a fish in my bed…?”

  Ghrenna hastily pushed the dead woman over some, willing him calm. “That’s just the tray, love. Jhulinne brought us some cold khremm. Here, let me move it off the bed.”

  Ghrenna shot a glare at Luc, who was nearly finished with his raiding. He played his part, right on cue, lifting the tray upon the table and setting it back, loud enough for it to clink.

  “There, love,” Ghrenna murmured. “It’s on the table now.”

  “Mmm… kiss me, sweetling…” Couthis Emry’s needy hands began pawing ineffectively at her harness and jerkin. “Kiss me again… you were so ripe at the ball… kiss me like that… are you dressed? Leather? I like leather… yes, let’s have sex again… let’s undo all this…”

  Luc was finished, now waiting by the door. Ghrenna gave the drug-addled Emry another deep kiss, then stood, extracting herself. “Just a moment, love… I need to use the chamber-pot.”

  “Go fast, love…” Couthis Emry settled into the lavender sachet-pillows, his words hardly a whisper and his stiffened ardor flagging. “Go fast…”

  Ghrenna paced quickly to the door where Luc waited, grinning, vastly amused. He flicked her nose. She narrowed her eyes, and then they were out the door. Gherris and Shara were vague shadows in the hall, and fell into step as the quartet retreated. Watching for movement, the four made their way back out the front door of the manse, paced the garden quietly, and slipped up and over the wall.

  Only once they were a good league away, moving through a forested swath north of town, did Luc start braying. “Ghrenna! You ice-hearted bint! Seducing a man half-naked and buried in fennewith! Next to a dead woman, no less! And right in front of me…?! Byrune!”

  “We’re not exclusive, Luc.” It was her regular answer. Luc wasn’t the only man who warmed Ghrenna’s bed from time to time, though she knew he desperately wanted to be. But like usual, he laughed it off, his pride in being a womanizer too great to show hurt. Ghrenna wouldn’t settle for any man, and she’d made it plain to Luc these past few years, though only Shara knew the truth of it.

  Ghrenna’s headache suddenly throbbed, lancing and vicious. A vision tried to surface, indistinct. Her stride paused as she blinked, trying to clear it, drawing deep on the threllis-pipe clenched between her teeth. A ship on a long lake, mountains rearing up into a cloud-heavy sky. A man, hunkering by the rails as wind lashed rain against his beard-roughened cheeks. His lost, empty grey eyes, as beautiful as the sea under storm-clouds.

  Elohl.

  The vision stopped her breath. Stopped her heart for just a moment. Just like her visions of him always did. Pacing in the darkness beneath the trees, her comrades hadn’t noticed.

  Gherris shot Ghrenna a sour look. “You killed someone tonight?”

  Ghrenna took a deep inhalation of threllis, forced herself to walk on. Her guildmates didn’t know about the visions, except for Shara. “The woman was already dead. Fennewith overdose.”

  Gherris grunted.

  “How much did we get?” Shara’s laugh was bright in the darkness.

  “A good haul, ladies and gents,” Luc chortled. “A good haul. Back to our digs? Divvy it? You girls can take our tithe to the Consortium. I have an appointment I’d rather not miss.”

  “Appointment?” Ghrenna glanced over. “Are you losing all your winnings dicing again?”

  “Losing?” He tweaked her nose, tried for a kiss. Ghrenna batted him out of the way, her thoughts full of Elohl. Luc paced onward, as if he didn’t care. “I never lose, ladies. After what I saw this evening? Lord Luc feels lucky tonight!”

  “You’re no lord.” Shara grinned.

  “Am I not?” Luc turned to her, his smile rakish.

  Shara gave him a false punch to the gut, which he mimed receiving. But Ghrenna was a thousand leagues away now. As if the tendrils of her mind had been pulled straight to Elohl, she could still see the boat in her mind’s eye, even though the actual vision was gone. She could still feel Elohl. The set of his jaw, the emptiness of his beautiful, commanding stare. A feeling of hopelessness rose in her, suddenly. A deep sensation of need.

  Ghrenna took a tremendous pull from her threllis-pipe, pushing back the headache that now rose into a relentless hammering.

  CHAPTER 4 – ELOHL

  Elohl contemplated the sharp crags of the Eleski mountain range one last time as the boat pulled up alongside the short dock on the southwestern shore of the Elsee. Their jutted, snowcapped peaks faced him this morning, free of clouds. Their shining tips shone cold and bright, uncaring of the hardships of men. The morning had dawned glorious, but it had been a miserable night aboard the boat, sluicing rain. Elohl had huddled between the ships’ railing and his pack, trying to stay warm, unable to. Freezing, he’d slept fitfully between rings of the ships bell and shouts of sailors, until the sun finally came at dawn.

  Muddled dreams had plagued him in the night. And now, they were half-remembered things as the day shone with sun, in strange contrast to the darkness of his nightmares. In his dreams, a door had loomed above him, snarling with a wolf and dragon fighting. A box, a puzzle, his throat choking with smoke. A steel-eyed man in herringbone leathers, a snarl of contempt upon his face as he broke into Elohl’s mind, dominating and sure. Lake-blue eyes watching it all, wrapping him in their chill tundra silence.

  Elohl could still feel her. As if Ghrenna had stood just behind his shoulder, observing his nightmares, reliving them with him. Stepping down the gangplank now, Elohl rubbed a hand behind his neck, working out the kinks that stitched him. The sun was warm on his sodden skin, his breath misting like the vegetation by the lakeshore, putting off curls of steam where the sunbeams touched. Hefting his pack more securely upon his shoulders, he reached up, adjusting his sword for trekking. The touch of cool steel eased him. Something about it was like the memory of Ghrenna. Certain. Practical. Implacable.

  Surveying the shore, Elohl noted that there were no wagons to cart him the rest of the way to Lintesh, just as he had expected. The handful of High Brigade who had been aboardship had left the boat at the first inlet, a cart-track through the mountains to Quelsis. Wagons waited at this stop for the Longvalley Brigade fellows, most of whom only served two years. Lord’s son
s with a cushy post in a valley surrounded by impenetrable mountains patrolled by the High Brigade, they saw little of the Red Valor. The Longvalley boys were soft, muttering and moaning about the rain. Young faces with hardly a beard to them, they clambered up on the wains as if every bone ached.

  But Elohl was a veteran, and hardship was familiar. He’d never had a wagon to cart his gear in the passes and he didn’t need one now. Shaking out his oiled raincloak, he slung it across his pack to dry, re-shouldered his burden, and took to his feet upon the shoulder of the byway. He heard the crack of a whip and a lowing of oxen as the Longvalley wains rolled out. One splashed through the slurried cart-track as it passed, spattering Elohl’s hazel-colored cloak with mud. One by one, the carts rolled by. No one offered the weather-beaten Brigadier a ride, and the teamsters didn’t slow.

  At last, they were out of sight and he was alone walking the ruts. Sun flooded down through the scattering clouds, hot already. Signs of late spring were here in the lowmountains. Daffodils and red harlen-bush in bloom. The last of the crocuses gone. Leaves of leatheroak and shudder-maple unfurling past their luminous green and beginning to darken as the warm days dawned.

  It would be full summer further down in the King’s City. Something about that thought made heat sear up his throat, clenching his chest. Elohl unbuckled his jerkin halfway and unlaced his shirt to bare his skin, craving the fresh air. His Inkings were plain to view in the dappled sunlight that cascaded down over the road. But there was no one to see him out here, no one to challenge him or call him Blackmark.

  A creeping unrest itched over his flesh. Not just his bared skin, but all over his body, like ants devouring him to his fingertips. Elohl halted, gazing around, scanning every bit of verge, every shadow along the byway. But there was nothing, no one. Just a feeling of dread, a sensation of unease.

  And suddenly, it hit him. He could see it all, just as it had been. Late summer, the leaves of the trees curling and browned. Cicadas thrumming in his ears. The creaking of the cart’s wheels as it bumped over the ruts. Chafing pain where the iron manacles bit his wrists, his ankles. Watching this very scenery, his heart full of anguish and his mind empty with astonishment. Astonishment and a young man’s consuming fear. That his world had crumbled, that his people were gone, that he was a captive and soon had a choice to make: serve the King as a Brigadier or be put to the sword.

  He’d almost chosen the sword.

  Elohl’s throat tightened, burning. He pulled his shirt open more, closing his eyes, inhaling deep, fighting for calm. Woods were just woods. A cart-track was just a cart-track. He’d breathed summer air for ten years after that day, and he lived to breathe it still. Nothing had changed. At last, the burning in his chest subsided. He opened his eyes, drawing a deep inhalation, feeling it all smooth back over, his inner lake glassy and placid once more.

  Ten years had ended. Ten years were finally over. And now the path left him was to go to Lintesh and face his past, whatever might be found of it now. One hand reached up, touching the leather-wrapped pommel of his sword. The steel cross-guard slid beneath his fingers, smooth and cool.

  Ghrenna’s presence rose in his mind. Calm. Controlled.

  Elohl took a step forward, and his feet walked him on.

  His morning passed, uneventful but for the sighting of a magnificent eight-point buck browsing by the roadside. Just as he was considering stopping for a noon meal of dried elk meat from his pack, Elohl spied a sprawling cottage near the road. A cheery affair with a byrunstone foundation and a wicker-woven porch, smoke drifted from the chimney welcomingly. As Elohl approached, he saw a sigil of Innship on a signboard out front. Halting his stride, he regarded the empty porch. Continuing on, there was no guarantee of an inn further down the road. And though he could sleep rough by the roadside, the promise of a real bed rather than a soldier’s cot or pine boughs, was alluring.

  Elohl tromped up. He announced his presence by knocking mud off his boots on the porch boards, as he drew his shirt lacings closed to hide his Inkings. A pretty young woman with a long honey-blonde braid over one shoulder peered through the summer screen, paused, then opened it. Good smells of bread and hearth drifted out to churn Elohl’s belly. She looked him up and down, taking in the state of his worn military gear with an arched blonde eyebrow. “High Brigade?”

  “Yes, milady.” Elohl nodded, suddenly conscious of how he must look to her, gruff and worn. For the first time in years, he found himself wishing he had stopped to shave and wash.

  “Milady!” She laughed, her pretty heart-shaped face instantly more friendly. He saw the cordage on her wrist relax, heard the hollow thump of a cast-iron pan being set down just inside the doorframe. Her work-roughened hand came into sight, and she ushered him in.

  “Not Milady! Goodness, do I look that old? Just Eleshen! Eleshen den’Fhenrir. Well? Come in! Eleshen’s Boarding Rooms, right here. I’ve got mitlass on the stove, though we don’t get many visitors. Those Longvalley lord’s boys never stop, you see, and all I really get are the Elsee fisherfolk and High Brigade fellows like yourself. Though not many of those, either.”

  She clucked her tongue and henned over him in a motherly fashion, though she wasn’t any older than Elohl. Elohl slung his pack to the porch, leaving it in the sunshine to dry. He bent to unlace his sodden kneeboots, to leave them out also.

  The innkeeper held out her hand impudently. “I’ll set your cloak up on the line to dry. I can take your jerkin and shirt, too, Brigadier. Just give them here, now!” Her hands reached out, trying to undo the last buckles on his jerkin.

  “It’s fine, really… I’ll just let them dry as I eat.” Elohl moved her hands away.

  But the feisty innkeeper wouldn’t have it. “No, they need drying, you are just soaked through!” Her fingers fussed and Elohl finally relented, letting her help him out of his still-damp jerkin. But when her feisty hands tried to pull his wet shirt from his trousers, he flinched back, not wanting her to see his Inkings and be upset by them.

  “No, really, I’ll just leave it on.”

  She eyeballed him, green eyes cool. “You’re going to take sick in a damp shirt like that, sunshine or no sunshine. Spring isn’t over yet up here. Or have you got the belly-blisters? Let me see, now… I have a salve for that.”

  “No, it’s not that, just…”

  “Just what? Shuck it, or you don’t eat!”

  A flash of irritation lanced through Elohl, resistant of a woman’s fussing, and he blinked. He had forgotten what it was like, to have women in your life. How charming and demanding they could be. This woman didn’t care how often he had starved in a blizzard, rubbing his chest with blue hands to try to keep warm. She didn’t care that he could walk a hundred leagues in three days and still climb to a lookout. She didn’t care how many men had tried to knife him or cut his line, or had stolen in to slit his throat in his bunk.

  She won’t care about my Inkings.

  Elohl paused, then pulled his wet shirt off over his head. He heard the innkeeper’s sharp breath. When their eyes met, hers were full of pity. She held out her hand for the shirt, and he gave it up. But instead of taking the clothes away, she piled the wet laundry dismissively on a side table and grasped his hand, pulling him towards the fire in the kitchen.

  “Sit, please! Please! My hearth is yours. Please, you must not pay for your meal, it wouldn’t be right. You must eat and rest the night. No charge.”

  “I'm more than happy to pay... I can afford it...” Elohl murmured, embarrassed at her manner, thinking that he must look penniless with his worn gear and scruff of beard.

  “No! No charge. I insist!”

  “No, really, a Brigadier's stipend is more —”

  “I don’t get many Kingsmen here.” She interrupted, then blushed furiously to the roots of her hair and looked down. Then looked back up, bold. “Please. It's the least I can do for your service. For your real service, I mean.”

  Elohl blinked, surprised. Heat flared up his throat, clench
ing it. It had been a long time since someone had said such a thing to him, and it stung, to hear it now after wanting it so long. And here, in the house of a sweet stranger, he sat wordlessly upon the long bench at the rough table by the kitchen fire, succumbing to a tumbling riot of emotions too thick and fast to tease apart or even respond to.

  And when she placed a bowl of mutton mitlass in his hands, he found his hands trembling. She held him, pressed his hands between hers for just a moment. Elohl’s eyes flicked up, meeting hers. And as he watched, he saw his own raw pain reflected in her visage. She flushed crimson at the cheeks and looked down, released his hands. Then bustled away, whisking up his laundry and marching out the back door of the guesthouse.

  Elohl heard her singing a lilting march as she pinned his clothes to the line. An Alrashemni war-song. It dove into him, the rhythm a striking of swords on the practice grounds, a pounding of drums around the fire, dancing at the midsummer celebrations in Alrashesh. His chest burned, his throat tight. He watched the innkeeper’s movements through the open window, saw her pat her cheeks and rub her eyes as if she shed tears before stomping back up the porch. Inside, she was all business as if their moment had never occurred. Offering him fresh-baked bread to accompany his meal, she gave him good salt with rosemary and winter pepperberry, and sheepsbutter flavored with thyme. Hunkered by the fire, Elohl watched her as he ate, flooded with memories, wondering about her manner.