by Elliot Burns
“Two things,” said Jack. “One, I need to know how the poison you gave me was made.”
“It is too late. The toxin is already in your veins.”
“Let me worry about that. I want you to tell me what you used to make it. Don’t try telling me it was just the Hour Glass Kiss. I’m not stupid, and despite your current predicament, neither are you. The poison wasn’t designed to kill me; it was made to let you inside my head, and to weaken me.”
Feyen gritted his teeth. Though he was trying to control it, a deep anger was scratched into his expression.
“Secondly,” said Jack, “I want my debt wiped.”
“Not a chance,” said Feyen, all too smugly.
Jack had had enough of talking. He focused on Feyen and quickly activated mind lance. Then, hoping that the poison Feyen had consumed earlier had taken effect, he used his power to mentally sprint at Feyen’s mind shield with his lance in hand, just as he had earlier in their first meeting. This time, his lance didn’t break. He crashed into Feyen’s mind shield, and the shield snapped, cracked, and then crumbled completely.
For a second, Jack was elated. This feeling soon left him when he realized that behind Feyen’s mind shield, was a gigantic mind wall, twenty-feet high and re-enforced with steel. It must have been some sort of upgraded mind manipulation power. His lance would have no chance of cracking the metal structure that guarded the tacher’s mind.
“Playing your games again?” asked Feyen. “You never learn, do you?”
Feyen’s arrogance was really grating on him. He just wanted to get rid of the tacher’s smug smile, but how was he supposed to do it?
Well, maybe there was something he could do. If the brute force of his mind lance didn’t work, then perhaps another power would.
He imagined a concentration of energy drifting from his own mind, something that resembled a patch of dense smoke. Within it, the smoke carried a picture; it carried images of Feyen being scared, of his eyes widening in fear, and the hairs on his arms standing up. Jack pictured the patch of smoke drifting up and over Feyen’s steel mind wall, then heading straight to the centre of his brain. With that mental image held firm, he spoke.
“Modus,” he said.
Truespeech levelled up to level 3!
Trueword learned: Formido
[Formido is the Trueword of fear. Using it will make other terrified of you, giving them negative stat effects.]
He’d done it! Not only had he managed to level up Truespeech, but he could see from Feyen’s face that his Trueword had gotten through. Feyen seemed just a little less cocky now. He no longer wore a smug smile, and Jack noticed that he was clenching his fists. Right now, Feyen was vulnerable.
“Like I said, Feyen,” said Jack. “I need two things; tell me what you used in the poison and wipe my debt.”
“Certainly, Lord Halberd,” Feyen said, his voice as sweet as a birdsong. “Consider it done.”
Wait. Trueword or not, this seemed a little too easy. Was Feyen playing him? He had to make sure. “Do you think I’m an idiot? I don’t want words, Feyen. I want a blood oath.”
Feyen sighed. “Do what you must.”
Jack proclaimed the words of the blood oath that he’d learned from Crowley, adding terms to the pact that ensured Feyen would tell nobody else about what had happened, on pain of breaking it. Feyen growled back in return. When it was done, the tacher turned his back on Jack. He was so angry that his shoulders trembled, but he seemed to be trying to collect himself.
“We used a drine-milk pinch,” said Feyen. “Have your potion maker mix it with the standard Hourglass antidote. Satisfied?”
Footsteps sounded on the stone floor, slow and deliberate, getting louder and louder from the far end of the dungeon until a figure emerged from the shadows. Feyen turned to look, but Jack didn’t need to.
“Come now, Feyen,” said a voice. “We both know that isn’t right. Drine-milk is used to encourage fussy babes to suckle on their wet nurse’s tit. Why do you play games when a blood oath is invoked?”
Jack couldn’t help but smile when he saw recognition spark in Feyen’s eyes. The tacher grabbed the cage bars out of instinct, then recoiled when the spell zapped him.
“Drach. You mongrel of a potion-peddler,” said Feyen.
“I always loved your sweet words,” answered the alchemist.
“Shouldn’t Feyen be dead right now? Given he just lied under blood oath,” said Jack.
“The wording of your blood oath allowed room for maneuver. You weren’t specific enough, lord,” said Crowley. “Besides, Feyen is a slippery bastard. When forging promises, you must leave nothing to chance. Be precise with your language, or book-learned worms like this one will try to wriggle out of them.”
“You are working with Halberd?” asked Feyen.
“Not just working with him. The Lord and I are close. You might say we are blood brothers.”
“You are both dogs ripe for a strangling. I’ll see you swing for this, Halberd.”
“I doubt that very fucking much,” answered Jack.
“I thought you might be pleased to see me after everything I have done for you,” said Crowley. “Do you still use the oil needles? Are they still working?”
“How dare you show your mangy face anywhere near civilized Royaume?” spat Feyen. “Lord Hondon still has a price on your neck. You have only to travel within a mile of a town and you will soon see the sharp end of a sword.”
Crowley’s mask betrayed no emotion, but his voice was full of humor. “I know. I enjoy seeing myself on the warrant posters. I have such a pretty face, don’t I?”
As much as Jack loved to see Feyen full of impotent rage, he didn’t have time to enjoy their verbal jousting. “Tell me what you used in the poison,” he said. “Remember, we have a blood oath.”
Feyen looked at Crowley. “It was two-parts Hour Glass, one-part Gosethorn, and another was huntsman’s venom. Don’t bother to argue with me again, you mana-sapped snake, this is the end of it.”
Jack gave Crowley a questioning look, and the alchemist nodded. Jack touched the bars. Since Crowley had cast the spell on Jack’s behalf, the mana wouldn’t hurt him. He leaned as close to the tacher as the bars would allow.
“If my debt is wiped and nobody hears of this, the blood oath is fulfilled. When you go upstairs, tell your tachers that the kingdom stone was magnificent. Talk about it all you want, if you want to brag about having seen it. Then you’ll stay for a courteous drink, and after that, you’ll scramble back into your portal.”
Now that he had what he wanted, it was time to end the meeting. Crowley let Feyen out of the cell, and they led him back up the stairs. Jack had made sure that Elena was far away from the antechamber when he escorted Feyen to the antechamber. The last thing he needed was for either of them to lose their cool. Instead, he and Mav entertained the tachers and presented friendly faces while sipping fruit-laced claret. Sarna was nowhere to be seen, though he wasn’t surprised as he knew she wasn’t fond of Feyen and his order.
When Feyen had arrived at the castle he had walked over the drawbridge like a king. This time, when Feyen left the castle, he went via the backdoor. It seemed that he wasn’t in the mood for dramatic entrances anymore. As he watched the high tacher leave, Jack couldn’t help but notice that his glittering robe of jewels was covered in dungeon dust.
Feyen and his party stepped into a fresh portal that they cast at the back of the castle, after the flames fizzled out and left wafts of sulphur in their place, Jack heard steps approach from behind him. He’d heard their sound so many times that he knew who it was without looking.
“I’m sorry I had to send you away, Elena, but if you’d seen Feyen and had a bust up, it could have ruined everything.”
He turned to find himself staring into the glare of an extremely angry woman. Elena’s temper was a sight to behold when she took it out on Mav, but Jack didn’t like it focused on him. He must have done something wrong indeed for her to forget her usual unwavering
respect.
“I wish you hadn’t have done this, Jack. The tachers aren’t ones to make enemies of.”
“We took precautions. There’s nothing Feyen can do.”
“Screw it,” said Sarna, joining them, and then slapping him on the back. “You did good. You shoved a stick up the high tacher’s arse, and there’s nothing he can do about it.”
“Gotta agree with the broad on this one,” said Mav.
“Feyen doesn’t wear his loops as decorations; he earned them. He will think of something,” said Elena.
“His loops didn’t stop him getting locked in a cell,” said Jack.
“Sometimes, people spend so much time looking into the distance that they stumble on the pebble in front of them. This sort of trick would not work twice.”
“We don’t need it to,” said Jack. “The debt’s gone, and Crowley is making my antidote for me. And guess what? I have a surprise for you. When I made Feyen swear a blood oath, I included you in it. I made him release you from your service to the tachers.”
Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened. For a few seconds, Elena completely lost herself. It was as though she couldn’t even process what Jack had told her. He hoped that this was a pleasant feeling for her.
“Lord, I don’t know how to-”
“You’re free of them, Elena. Technically you’re free from me, too. Feyen posted you here, didn’t he? And now that you aren’t under his authority, you don’t have to stay. I mean, I wish you would…”
“Of course I will stay,” she said, without a second’s hesitation.
“Then maybe this was a good idea after all, eh?”
Elena smiled. Jack took this as agreement that he had done well. All in all, he was feeling pretty good about things. This was a massive victory, and with his tacher debt dealt with, the next thing was to kick the raiders off his turf. Unlike before, he felt sure that he could do it now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next day, Jack was laying on a thick patch of grass. It had seemed like a good place to kidnap someone at first, but now he wasn’t so sure. The tree branches curved overhead to form a canopy roof that blocked out the light. This was good for Jack and Mav, since they needed the cover of shadows that day. A stream was to their left, running down a hill that gently sloped out of the darkened nook, and the water babbled over rocks and washed twigs and pebbles down its channel.
They were a couple of miles north of Castle Halberd, still in Halberd’s Holuum but far enough away from the heart of it that the dirt roads of the peasant village didn’t wind their way here. It was strange. This was Jack’s land, if you looked at the border map of Royaume, but it didn’t feel like it. Much of his land had a special kind of sensation; homely, perhaps. This area, though, felt cold, wet, and desolate.
Jack had taken this place to be a miniature forest at first, but the trees didn’t extend back with any kind of depth. The trees served to make this a hidden passageway of sorts, with one path leading out and toward the flek fields, where the raider camp lay. Jack and Mav were on the floor, hidden under a tangle of knotweeds. From here, they would be able to see any lone raiders who came to the stream to get water. Their horses were tied to a tree a few minutes away, well out of harm’s way.
“Might take hours before we see a raider,” Mav said, “But it’s a matter of patience. Buggers need to drink just like the rest of us. They’ll come here eventually.”
The plan was a simple one, and that was how Jack liked it. They hoped to capture a raider alive. Then, they’d take him to Crowley Drach, where the alchemist-mage would use his magic to implant a false memory into the raider; one that showed Jack’s army and defenses to be much greater than they really were. They would then release the raider near Henry Veik’s lands. After that, Jack hoped that Bruce Frier would dredge the raider’s memories for information, and in doing so, he’d see the false memory that Crowley had implanted.
Hmm…maybe it wasn’t so simple after all. Still, chaos was beautiful.
They had been there so long that Jack’s whole body had gone numb from staying in one position. It didn’t matter how many times he adjusted, after a few hours he’d lose feeling again.
They’d seen plenty of raiders during the day, but the problem was that most of them travelled in twos or threes. Once, a man and a woman snuck through the forest canopy and into a nearby bush, where they had proceeded to make noises that Jack desperately tried to block out. Mav had brought a few nibbles to get them through the day and Jack had brought water, but their supplies were long gone now, as the suns would be gone too, before long. When the light faded their day would be done, and they’d have to call it an unsuccessful trip. Jack couldn’t let that happen. He didn’t have the luxury of time.
The fact that raiders rarely walked alone to the stream had called for an on-the-spot change in plan. It was riskier, but it should work. It meant that they’d have to abandon the idea of catching a raider alone, and would have to take out a group of them, but there was nothing else they could do.
Jack had relayed his plan to Mav, who’d ridden back to the castle, told the others, and then joined him again near the mill. While he was alone, Jack didn’t see a soul. Now, Mav was back. After more waiting, they finally saw someone.
Mav nudged him. “Think we’ve got company,” he said.
“Remember,” said Jack. “We need one of them alive, but we don’t want the whole camp after us.”
Fifty meters away, five raiders entered the mini-forest. They were dressed in leathers of different cuts and hues. One carried an axe made for wood felling, two had iron swords, one held a dagger, and a man in the middle carried a falchion. Jack felt there had to be a story behind him having a weapon that was rarely found in Royaume and one that, from his studies, he knew to be ineffective in combat.
Holding their nerve was the next part of the plan. Move too soon, and the raiders would spot them. If they moved too late, they would face a fight before they were ready. As the ragtag bunch of raiders walked to the centre of the tree canopy, Jack tensed up.
“Wait for it…” whispered Mav. “Wait for it….”
The taller raider in the middle was telling a story, emphasizing important points of the tale by swiping his falchion. He had a rough, eastern accent, and he’d cut his black moustache and goatee into the style commonly found in the docks on the far side of Royaume, where merchants made mountains of flek by selling rare spices.
“That’s our man,” said Jack. “We’ll take him and kill the rest.”
Mav shrugged. “Suits me.”
It didn’t matter which of they chose, of course, it only mattered that they captured one. Jack hoped that the change in plan went smoothly.
Mav elbowed him. The raiders were halfway toward them now. “That’s our cue. Ready?”
Jack nodded. Mav stood up. That morning, Jack had discovered the reason Mav always wore his coat, even in stuffy weather. His garment had a thin, and permanent, layer of spell on it so that it gave a light camouflage no matter what the environment. This was good for stealth, but today it meant that Mav had to wave and holler at the raiders for them to notice him.
When they did, a plethora of swear words turned the forest air a shade of blue. The middle raider was the first to run, falchion held high, sailor-language spewing from his lips.
Mav had already stepped to the right and was ready to run back toward the meeting point they’d set with Sarna and a few soldiers. As all the raiders charged at them, Jack realized he had a problem. A tug of his leg confirmed it, and his stomach lurched.
“My foot is snagged on a vine,” he said. Snagged wasn’t quite right; it was more like the tendril of forest twine had slithered over his foot and wrapped around his boot, and now it held him securely.
The raiders got closer. Their blades glinted when rare streams of fading-sunlight snuck through the canopy of leaves, flashing red and orange in turn.
Jack pulled out his dagger and sawed at the vines. Green juice spi
lled out and covered his hands.
“Come on,” said Mav.
Jack risked looking up; the raiders were closer now. He hacked quicker. With the last thread of vine cut, he stood up and started to run, and soon the forest bed of leaves and twigs crunched under his and Mav’s boots. It was just in time, too, because their footsteps were followed by five more behind them.
“Not bad so far,” shouted Mav, as they reached a clearing that marked the end of the mini forest. Jack could have sworn the thief was enjoying himself.
They hadn’t had to lead the chase too far; just away from the mini-forest there was a hill, and beyond it, the flek field and raiders camp were completely hidden from view. Jack reached the hill, rounded a corner, and found himself stood amidst several other mounds in the earth that formed a small-scale valley. These were capped just south by an even larger swell of land that rose like a dirt tidal wave. Such was its height that from way back in Castle Halberd, it would be impossible to see the several other mounds in the earth beyond it. This made it the perfect place for an abduction.