by J. M. Martin
“What do those words mean?” he demanded, playing for time. “What is this place?”
“It’s my home,” a new voice cut in, rich and vibrant as it echoed about the chamber. “And you were not invited.”
Cohran Bera stood perhaps twenty paces away, cudgel in one hand and long-bladed knife in the other. On either side of him stood two Breakers, perhaps the only survivors of his once fearsome band, both armed with crossbows. Jehrid whirled to face Cohran, nudging Meriva behind him, still painfully aware of Sollis’s proximity but knowing this to be the greater threat for the moment.
“Fifteen of your cousins died today,” Cohran told him. “You bring the Sixth Order to my door and destroy what took a lifetime to build. Have you no words of contrition, my son?”
“Fifteen wasn’t enough,” Jehrid replied, feeling a familiar, unwise sensation building in his breast. The dim figures at the end of the pier, the sound of a body falling into the harbor…“And don’t call me that.”
“Deny your blood all you want, my lord.” Cohran’s face contorted as he spoke the title, like an ardent Faithful voicing heresy. “But I look at you and see no difference from that vicious little shit I pulled from a hundred dockside fights. The King chose well in you, a man who delights in slaughter and calls it justice.”
“As opposed to a man who slaughters innocents to build a pile of riches he’ll never spend.”
“Riches.” Cohran’s voice softened a fraction as his gaze went to the mound of plundered treasure. “No. Power, boy. Power enough to buy a king’s boon. He promised me, you see. Back when the wars raged as he built the realm. ‘Soldiers need pay,’ he said. ‘Bring me gold, and there will be no more bounty-men. Bring me enough and one day, perhaps, I’ll make a lord of you.’ And, when he’d built his realm, paying his guardsmen with the riches plundered from this shore, what did he do? Have the Tower Lord spout empty promises at me for twenty years until he could send you.”
Liar! Jehrid found the accusation dying on his lips as long-held suspicions tumbled into place. Al Serahl’s lengthy and corrupt tenure in the Tower, tolerated far longer than anyone could have expected. The smugglers and wreckers able to buy immunity from the South Guard for years whilst in the north even the most petty corruption earned a swift execution. The King took a loan from the shore, Jehrid realized. And now considers it paid, in me.
“Doesn’t have to happen, boy,” Cohran went on, nodding at Sollis. “With this one gone, there are no other witnesses to gainsay whatever tale you choose to tell.” He turned, gesturing behind him where the torchlight played on a series of irregular steps cut into the stone, ascending to a ledge far above.
“It’s a steep and winding path,” Cohran said, “but it’ll take you out of here. Keep the woman, if you like. I suspect she’ll have little to say about all this. You have secrets of your own do you not, my dear?”
Meriva moved to Jehrid’s side, face set in a mask of determined fury. “Yes,” she said. “I have secrets, but this one I’ll share.”
Her arm shot out, straight and true, hand once again like a spear point. Jehrid closed his eyes as the light blazed forth, birthing an instant scream. When he looked again he saw the man on Cohran’s right on his knees, crossbow forgotten as he clutched at his eyes, shrill panic and pain issuing from his mouth in a continual torrent. The Breaker on the left gaped at his fallen cousin for the briefest second, then at Meriva, his crossbow swinging towards her in a fear-born reflex.
Brother Sollis moved in a blur, doubling over as the knife flew from his hand, swift as an arrow as it described a perfect arc ending in the Breaker’s skull, the blade sinking in to the hilt. The Breaker remained upright for a heartbeat or two, mouth twisting around gibbered words and an odd, puzzled frown on his brow. Before collapsing, he managed to work the lock on his crossbow, the bolt missing Sollis by a clear foot before rebounding from the stone column and skittering off into the darkness.
Jehrid saw it all in the scant seconds it took him to close with Cohran. The Breaker chief was shaking his head in confusion, eyes moist and bleary, but some brawler’s instinct provided sufficient warning for him to duck the slash Jehrid aimed at his head. He growled and whirled towards Jehrid, club and knife whistling, a large man of middling years moving with all the grace and speed of a youthful dancer. Jehrid parried the knife, ducked the club and knew in an instant Cohran was doomed. He was a killer and a fighter, perhaps the most deadly ever seen on this shore, but he wasn’t a soldier. He had never faced a charging Lonak war band or hacked his way across a Meldenean deck. He fought for status or money but never truly for survival. He had never seen battle, until now.
Jehrid anticipated his next attack with an ease that almost brought a laugh to his lips, the knife slashing at his sword arm whilst the club arced up for a strike at his chin. An attempt to stun and disarm, not to kill. Jehrid leapt and kicked before either blow could land, delivering the tip of his boot to the center of Cohran’s face, nose and teeth breaking under the impact. Cohran back-pedalled, trying to gain space for a parry. Jehrid slashed the knife from his grip with a quick swipe of his looted sword and drove a second kick into Cohran’s guts, doubling him over. He tried a final, ineffectual blow with the club, Jehrid catching his wrist and twisting until he heard a crack, the club falling from useless fingers.
He stood back as Cohran stared up at him, face showing neither anger nor defeat. But pride. “Quite a dance, eh son…”
Jehrid drove the iron tine of his sword into Cohran’s temple, sending him unconscious to the floor. “Don’t call me that.”
He turned at the sound of an echoing scream, seeing the blinded Breaker sprinting away into the darkness, his cries continuing to resound through the caverns until they were cut off by a faint splash. He found the pool, Jehrid surmised. Carried out to the Blades, blind and mad. Nawen’s Maw would’ve been a kinder end.
He went to Meriva, now on her knees, shoulders sagging with exhaustion. He placed a finger under her chin and gently lifted her face, now so streaked with blood she might have stepped from a slaughter pen. “Will you be all right?” he asked.
Her eyes flicked to Sollis, now bending to retrieve Cohran’s fallen knife. “Will either of us?” she whispered in Alpiran. “This place, those words. They were not meant for our eyes.”
Jehrid straightened, watching Sollis as he stood regarding Cohran’s prostrate form. For once the impassive mask had gone, a somber frown creasing the brother’s brow. “He taught you to fight?” he asked after a moment, his gaze still lingering on the fallen outlaw.
“Yes,” Jehrid said. “But war taught me more.”
Jehrid detected a faint note of regret in Sollis’s voice as he spoke again, “The pupil always steps from the master’s shadow.” Abruptly Sollis raised his gaze, all expression fading from his features as he briefly glanced at Jehrid and Meriva before gazing up at the winding steps with a critical eye. “Dragging him up there will be impossible. We’ll bind him to the column, send your men for him later.”
Jehrid gave a wary nod. “As you wish, brother.” He bent to take Meriva’s arm. “Can you walk, my lady?”
She sighed agreement and began to rise, then froze, her gaze snapping to the pile of treasure as it issued a jangling rattle, displaced metal sliding as something stirred beneath it. “No…” she breathed.
Something exploded from the mound in a fountain of glittering treasure, something wiry and dressed in rags, revealing pale flesh marked by many wounds, a feral grin shining in a face caked in dried blood. It screamed as it stumbled free of the pile; triumph, rage, and madness filling the chamber. A tremor thrummed through the rock beneath Jehrid’s feet, both he and Sollis pitched onto their backs by the force of it, powdered rock spouting as cracks rent the chamber floor from end to end.
Jehrid saw the blind Breaker’s crossbow lying barely five paces away and lunged for it, shouting in alarm as the rock beneath him lurched anew. The ragged thing issued another peeling laugh as a fresh crack op
ened to swallow the crossbow. Jehrid saw Sollis cast Cohran’s knife at the laughing wreck of a man, but the juddering floor made it an impossible task, the spinning blade missing its target by a handspan.
The tremor faded as the ragged thing staggered, eyes tracking over them in evident satisfaction before settling on Sollis. Blood flowed from its mouth in a thick stream as it spoke, “Sorry to lose you so soon, brother. I always did find your cruelty so…entertaining.” He sighed and raised his arms, head thrown back and his smile blazing anew. “I will miss this g—”
Something small and sharp streaked down from above, moving faster than any crossbow bolt or arrow, issuing a small whine as it sliced through the air to spear the ragged man through the eye. He staggered again, head swivelling about in confusion. Jehrid saw something metallic embedded in his eye, a dart of some kind, the needle-like point protruding from his skull as he reeled about, arms flailing like a drunk fighting imaginary foes. Another dart streaked down, a puff of red vapor spouting from the man’s bony chest as it tore clean through his torso, drawing a piercing note from the floor as it rebounded and spun away into the shadows. The thing groaned and collapsed onto the mound, limbs soon slackening in death as blood streamed in rivulets across the gleaming metal.
Jehrid turned at a huffing sound, seeing Brother Lucin clambering down the crude stairway. Sister Cresia followed behind. “Brother,” Lucin greeted Sollis on reaching the floor, a little out of breath as he moved towards the mound of riches, barely glancing at Jehrid or Meriva. Jehrid saw he wore a different face now, or more likely, felt no more need to conceal his true visage, free of any false serenity or deference. The face of a very serious man.
Lucin took a moment to survey the body slumped on the pile, eyes lingering on the blood-caked features though Jehrid saw no flicker of recognition. His expression grew yet more serious as he raised his gaze to the seven-sided column. “All too real,” he muttered before turning away, addressing his next words to Meriva in Alpiran, no doubt assuming that Jehrid couldn’t understand his meaning. “You have a message for me, honored lady.”
Meriva took hold of Jehrid’s proffered arm and hauled herself upright, wincing from the effort. “Yes,” she said, voice heavy with fatigue. “The answer is no.”
Lucin lowered his gaze in evident disappointment before inclining his head at the column. “You read that, I assume?”
“Some.”
“Then I hope it provided an inkling of what your refusal will force us to do.”
“The decision was not mine. I merely carry the message. The Servants have spoken. Your war is not our war.”
Lucin merely shook his head with a sigh. “It will be.” He nodded at Sister Cresia, now standing at the base of the stairway. Jehrid’s gaze was immediately drawn to the brace of darts clutched between her fingers, darts that were identical to those that had dispatched the ragged man, though he could see no device on her that could project them with such force. However, any doubts that she had been the author of his end vanished at the sight of her face, bleached white and gaze fixed on the body laying amid the bloodied treasure.
“The first is always the hardest,” Jehrid told her. She stared at him with moist eyes, no sign of a scowl on her brow. He saw that her hands were shaking.
“Sister,” Lucin said with a note of impatience. “This matter requires resolution.”
“No.” Sollis stepped in front of Cresia, though his gaze was fixed on Lucin.
Jehrid saw Lucin’s throat working before he found the nerve to reply. “Our Aspects are in agreement regarding the import of this mission…”
“Do not make an enemy of me, brother.” The words were softly spoken, little more than a whisper in fact, but they seemed to linger in the air, caught by the cavern walls and repeated until they faded to a hiss.
A new voice came echoing down from above, the words indistinct but Jehrid recognized his sergeant’s Nilsaelin brogue. “Lord Collector! Are you well?”
“Your men were kind enough to escort us,” Sister Cresia said, the darts now vanished from her fingers and a distinct note of relief in her voice.
Jehrid’s eyes tracked from Sollis to Lucin, noting how the elder brother’s gaze was now averted.
“Quite well!” Jehrid called back, glancing at Cohran’s still unconscious form. “Get down here! And bring rope!”
Cohran Bera stood gazing out to sea, a breeze stirring his thinning hair. It was a fine morning, barely a cloud in the sky and the rising sun a bright shimmering ball on a mostly becalmed Erinean. He favored Jehrid with a fond glance as he came forward, then offered a respectful nod to Meriva. She failed to respond, arms crossed tightly beneath her cloak, face rigid. Jehrid had invited her out of courtesy, as the wronged party she had every right to witness the proceedings, though he had hoped she might stay away. She has seen enough blood.
Sollis, Cresia and Lucin could be seen on the crest of a nearby hill, all on horseback. The Brother Commander’s arm still rested in a sling, the bones set and bound tight by the Fifth Order mission in South Tower, though the scabbard on his back remained empty.
“I’ll get another when I return to the Order House,” he said when Jehrid offered him the blade he had taken from the dead brother.
“I can keep it?”
Sollis shrugged. “It’s just a sword, my lord. We have many.” With that he strode to his horse and mounted up. Jehrid surmised this was the only farewell, or thanks, he was likely to receive.
“Cohran Bera,” Jehrid began in formal tones. “You stand convicted of murder, theft, piracy, suborning the Realm’s servants, and evading the King’s Excise. Accordingly you will be executed under the King’s Word in a manner deemed fit by the Lord Collector. As you have profited from the deaths of so many by casting them onto this shore, such shall be your fate.”
He stepped forward and rested his boot on the pear-shaped stone to which Cohran had been chained, gaze fixed on Nawen’s Maw as he tried to summon a face from his memory, one he thought he would never forget, One he hoped would be witnessing this event from the Beyond. And yet, though he strove to recall the dim figures at the end of the pier, seeking to stoke a hatred he had nurtured for more than twenty years, today he couldn’t find it. Why won’t she come? Surely she would want to see this.
“At least look me in the eye as you do this, son,” Cohran said.
For a moment Jehrid found he couldn’t lift his gaze, as if some invisible hand gripped him in place.
“You must have questions,” Cohran went on. “Ask me and I’ll tell you.”
“You will earn no reprieve,” Jehrid told him, still unable to meet his eye.
“I know. But perhaps I’ll earn my son’s regard.”
Jehrid closed his eyes for a second, his boot slipping from the boulder, a great weariness pressing down as he stood back. He forced his eyes open and faced his father, seeing the fearsome wrecker now vanished, leaving behind the man he recalled from childhood, the prideful shine in his eyes as he beheld his son.
“Why did you kill my mother?” Jehrid asked him.
Cohran’s smile faded slowly, the depth of his regret plain in the sagging, weathered features. “She was taking you away,” he said. “She had grown tired of this life of danger and distrust, and fearful of the future. For she knew one day you would become what I am. She sold us out to the Tower Lord’s men, not knowing they worked for me. She thought she was buying a new life in the north, with you. You know the code, Jehrid. Silence is the only law. And so I killed her, because my kin expected it, and because I needed to keep you with me…But you left anyway.”
Jehrid’s gaze returned to the stone, though he found he had no strength to lift his boot.
“It’s all right, son,” Cohran said. “Truth be told, I’d rather it was you than any other. Blood pays for blood. Let’s get it done.”
Jehrid was aware of the eyes of his men, all gathered to watch their Lord Collector’s nerve fail. But still he had no strength today. Not for thi
s.
“The ship you wrecked was called the Voyager.” Jehrid turned to find Meriva at his side, face pale but determined as she stared at Cohran, suffering no reluctance to meet his eye. “Crafted in the yards of Marbellis near thirty years ago, funded by the honorable trading house of Al Lebra. For many years it was captained by my father and, when he became too old to bear the hardships of the sea, by my brother. He was a good man, an honest sailor who rose to captain at a young age, respected by his crew and loved by his family. When word reached him that I must sail to this shore, he insisted it be the Voyager that carried me, unwilling to trust the task to any other.”
She stepped towards the stone, placing her foot on it, gaze still fixed on Cohran as she grated in Alpiran, “I watched your scum slit my brother’s throat, you piece of filth!”
Jehrid turned away as she shoved the stone into the maw, hearing the rattle of chains and the crack of breaking bones. But no scream. No, Jehrid thought. He never would.
He waited for the faint splash, then turned to his sergeant. “Return to the Excise House. Double rum ration tonight.” He glanced at Meriva, now staring down at the Maw as if frozen in place. “I’ll be along directly.”
He paused to watch Sollis turn his horse and ride away without pause, although his two companions lingered a moment. Jehrid found he didn’t like the way Brother Lucin’s gaze rested on Meriva, sensing far too much calculation behind it and experiencing a sudden wild desire to seize the brother and see him follow Cohran into the maw. Fortunately, it seemed Lucin sensed his intent for he gave an inexpert tug on his horse’s reins and quickly disappeared from view. Sister Cresia loitered a moment longer, Jehrid gaining the impression of a smile as she raised a hand to offer a tentative wave. He waved back and offered a bow, seeing her laugh before she too rode from sight.
“It wasn’t truly a man, was it?” he asked Meriva. “That thing we left in the tunnels.”