Blackguards

by J. M. Martin

  #

  The folk of the hall had started to shuffle off, either lying down closer to the fire or braving the snow to return to their homes. A few found shadowed alcoves together, and Serris heard giggling and sharp intakes of breath that told her all she needed to know of their activities. She stood alone in the common hall, veritably trembling with rage, while Jeht’s soldiers looked on, smirking at her. Serris found Regel still sitting in the center of the room and went to stand over him.

  “You are a…slave to that man.” The word came hard. She had been a slave until Regel had freed her. “How dare you?”

  “What choice do I have?” Regel spoke softly. “I have a life here. I sleep in safety. I eat. I live.”

  “You live.” Contempt dripped from her tongue. “Flee, more like. How long have you hid in this place, away from your path?” She closed her fists. “What of tomorrow? Or the next day? When we become his whores to do with as he pleases?”

  “What is tomorrow?” Regel asked. “Or the next day? Or the next?”

  The fiery, fearless man who had saved her from a wrathful lord seemed to have melted away. No longer did Regel see any path before him. Serris understood, in a way, after his entire world had dissolved beneath his feet. And yet, she could not help the rage that built within her to see him so helpless.

  From her pocket, she drew forth a hunk of reddish rosewood, a piece of a dying tree in a very special garden back in Tar Vangr. As far as she knew, that tree numbered among the last of its kind in the World of Ruin, where centuries of conflict and the continual assault of the world’s monsters had all but eradicated civilization. Firmly but with a touch of reverence, Serris set the hunk of wood on the table beside Regel’s mostly empty trencher.

  “You saved me once,” she said as she turned to go. “Now it’s my turn.”

  Regel stared at the wood for a long, long time. He picked up the chunk of rosewood and turned it over in his hand, exploring its contours. What he saw in its depths, none could say, but he certainly saw something. Then he palmed a small, sharp knife from his sleeve and began to carve.

  #

  Serris woke later that night, though she could not immediately say why.

  At a glance the hall stood empty of activity, its rough-hewn floor covered with huddled bodies in varied attitudes of sleep. The fire had burned down to purple-glowing embers, their lavender scent reduced to the odor of wilting flowers. She half-expected to find Regel beside her, but Jeht’s favorite pet likely had his own chambers. Perhaps it was for the best. She had learned in their time together that he too slept only lightly, and his absence gave her the chance to deal with the threat alone.

  Only when she saw the shadowed figure lurking behind a pillar nearby did Serris understand what had awakened her: the scent of lilac.

  Serris drew her dagger subtly, then waited until the ale-bearer came upon her. When a tentative hand reached for her shoulder, Serris caught the woman by the wrist and put the dagger to her throat. She gazed up into her dark eyes, speaking without words. They exchanged a nod. Slowly, the women rose together and left the common hall, out into the snowy night.

  The storm had passed, and moonlight illumined the empty street and the yard littered with corroded bits of metal, splintered lengths of wood, and other trash. It felt entirely too open, where anyone could see or hear them. The cold made Serris’s exposed skin itch and she pulled the ale-bearer in close. She could feel the woman’s body like a blazing beacon in the night and wanted all of it. The blade in her hand grounded her, though, and she resisted the urge. They could not tarry out here.

  Serris forced the ale-bearer ahead of her and into the comparative warmth of the stable. The pitch-treated wood creaked around them, and snow made the roof groan. A dozen horses occupied the stalls, draped with blankets for warmth. The beasts seemed thin and weak compared to the one Serris had ridden to Gardh. At the end, her stallion whickered softly, luminous black eyes blinking sleepily at its mistress, then turned back to its rest. She recognized Regel’s black stallion snoring nearby.

  Serris pushed the ale-bearer ahead of her onto the loose hay and stood over her. “Why did you wake me?” She gestured with the dagger. “You trying to kill me?”

  The woman watched her, unmoved by the gleaming blade. She rose to her full height. “If you thought that, you’d have killed me already,” she said. “Do you have a name?”

  “My master named me Serris, for the angel of vengeance.”

  “That is beautiful.” She came forward and laid her hands on Serris’s hips gently. Suggestively. “I’ve done nothing worthy of a name, but I aspire to do so one day.”

  “Answer.” Serris pressed her dagger against the woman’s neck. “What do you want?”

  “I think you know.”

  Heedless of the blade, the ale-bearer leaned forward and kissed Serris. Her lips were warm and soft despite the frigid air. Her hands massaged Serris’s sore backside and slid along her taut muscles. In that touch, Serris felt the rage of so many futile months melting, and her body relaxed. She lowered the dagger and seized the woman’s head to kiss her back. When the ale-bearer pulled her down into the straw, Serris followed gladly. She dropped the dagger onto the floor.

  The woman had her bodice unlaced and her breast freed to the cool air before Serris came back to her senses. “Wait,” she said. “Why seduce me?”

  “You know that, too.” The woman smiled with her full, sweet lips. “Or do you object?”

  “No.” Serris kissed her.

  The woman wrapped her legs around Serris’s waist and pulled her back to the ground. Their bodies coursed together for one shivering moment. Warm hands reached inside Serris’s clothes, lighting her skin to tingling. Need burned in her core. It had been so long.

  Through force of will, Serris pulled back, breaking their lips apart. “I know you want something,” she said. “But why me? Why not my master? I am but a learner—he is far greater. Why have you never tried to win him?”

  That gave the woman pause, and Serris could almost see her mind working to find an answer that would not offend. “He is…broken.”

  The ardor cooled in Serris, and she pulled away to sit back on her haunches. The dagger Regel had given her lay next to her left foot, but she made no move to reclaim it. She did not want to touch it.

  “He watched the king he had served all his life die,” Serris said. “He has lost everything.”

  The woman sat up behind her and wrapped her arms around her. Serris welcomed the warmth. “He has you,” the woman said as she rubbed Serris’s shoulders. “You can save him. Save all of us.”

  “He has spent years fleeing me.” Serris shook her head.

  To that, the woman had no answer. She turned Serris toward her and ran her fingers along the lines of her cheeks and jaw. Her touch made the cut on Serris’s face stab sharply, and she looked away.

  “You shouldn’t hide it,” the woman said. “You’re beautiful despite it.”

  Serris drew in a breath, then blew it out slowly. “What would you have me do?”

  The dim moonlight dancing in her dark eyes, the ale-bearer smiled and kissed Serris again.

  #

  Later, as the moon dipped toward the distant horizon but dawn had not yet arrived, the storm returned in force, and the gale woke Semana as she lay entwined with the nameless, raven-haired woman in the stable. She thought, for a moment, that someone stood above her—perched upon one of the rafters like a carrion bird scrutinizing its next meal. She felt icy eyes watching her and thought the world had become just a touch colder. When she blinked to clear her gaze, her watcher had vanished.

  As she drifted toward wakefulness, Serris burrowed closer into the woman to cling to the warm comfort of that moment as much as she could. Then she rose silently, affixed her clothing, and pushed out into the swirling storm, head down against the wind.

  In the early hours before dawn, the Victorious Hunter seemed more like a death house than a common hall. All slumbered so
undly, desperately clawing at the last bit of sleep their harsh world granted them. The nauseating reek of lavender had subsided somewhat as the fire burned low, and now Serris could smell sweat and unwashed flesh. The whole place stank.

  Shortly, the cooks would rise to stoke the fire and commence the process of feeding Gardh, but Serris had an hour yet. She stole soundlessly among the sleeping bodies, a wraith made of winter wind and purpose. She climbed the stairs, making certain not to step on any of the boards that had creaked the first time. At the top of the stairs, Jeht’s soldiers stirred sleepily and raised their weapons, but she held out her hands to signify peace.

  “Need to see Lord Jeht,” she said. “Alone.”

  The burned woman narrowed her eyes. “To what end?”

  Slowly, Serris reached to the laces of her bodice and gave a tug, letting the garment slide loose to reveal a gentle expanse of bare flesh. She raised her chin and gave the guards a suggestive look.

  “Ruin smiles upon Jeht,” the male guard said under his breath.

  The other guard scowled. “Your weapons.”

  Serris flinched away from her grasp, stepping into the male guard, but the female guard pulled her off before the man could touch her. She ran her hands along Serris’s limbs and body, finding nothing but the fine dagger sheathed at her belt. The woman took the blade, then nodded.

  Serris entered into Jeht’s court above the common room. The ceiling creaked under the onslaught of the storm but held. The Defender of Gardh sat dozing upon his throne, while his slaves lay slumped about the room in various states of undress. Serris crept toward him, making no sound on her graceful feet, but his eyes opened all the same when she came within two paces.

  “Ah,” he said with a self-satisfied smile. He stretched, fully confident that she intended him no violence. “As I expected. You’ve come to bargain for your master.”

  “In a way.”

  Serris reached toward her laces, making Jeht’s smile widen. When she reached inside her bodice, however, his brow furrowed. When she drew forth a small scroll, his expression grew utterly confused.

  “What is—?” he asked, then his eyes went wide. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  Serris held out the item she had stolen from the guard at the stairs: the scroll promising the proscription prize for Regel’s return. Casually, she cast it into the nearest brazier, and the old, dry paper caught within a heartbeat. Jeht rose, but Serris kicked him back into his seat and held him down with one foot. Black char swept across the scroll, and the long-ago broken wax bubbled and melted away.

  “Do you…?” Jeht looked torn between confusion and fear. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

  Serris stepped off him, interlaced her fingers, and cracked her knuckles. “Murdered you.”

  The soldiers appeared within a three-count, drawn to the commotion. They hissed challenges and pointed their casters at Serris, who had eyes only for Jeht. His various love-slaves had started to awaken, and they scrambled away from the throne.

  A chill swept through the room, though Serris felt no breeze. The last remnants of warmth from the braziers vanished, consumed by something cold and ravenous. The burned soldier and the one with the patchwork beard shivered. The Defender of Gardh’s face widened in rising horror and Serris knew he understood what she had brought to pass.

  One of Jeht’s slaves noticed first and uttered a tiny gasp of surprise. That drew Serris’s gaze to the throne, and she saw him. Regel stood over Jeht, his curved sword like a sharpened icicle poised at the lord’s throat. None had seen his approach, and none could move fast enough to stop him. And now that his shackles had broken—Jeht’s last hold over him burned away—Regel Frostburn, once-shadow of the Winter King, would call no man master any longer.

  All fell to silence and stillness, but for Jeht’s accelerating breathing, which turned to terrified sobs. He inched away from the sword, but its unearthly cold held him in thrall. A dark stain spread across the front of his robes and his eyes rolled back and forth madly in his head. Serris watched as Regel destroyed his once-captor without uttering a word or making a single move. With only a glare and the weight of his presence, Regel the Frostburn unmade the man to his very core.

  “Squire,” he said finally.

  “Master?’ Serris replied, her voice soft.

  “Ready our horses.” He drew the sword away from Jeht’s throat and the man swooned on the throne. “We are done here.”

  “Not going to kill him?” Serris asked.

  Regel looked at the two soldiers, who lowered their weapons and refused to meet his eye. When he passed them on his way to the stairs, they turned murderous eyes on their humbled leader.

  As they walked away, Jeht pleaded for mercy that would not come, and his words became cries and then groans. Serris allowed herself a tiny smile of satisfaction.

  They descended toward the common hall, which had come drowsily awake at the sounds from above. Confusion reigned, and a thousand murmured questions danced across the room like crackling flames. But one stood ready to answer those questions: the dark-haired woman of an age with Serris, who had laid down her trays and rose to the center of the throng. All turned to the ale-bearer, and she held the residents of the hall under her sway.

  “Know that I have done this,” she said. “Jeht has betrayed the confidence of Gardh and has lost the power he once held to hold you under his thrall. I take the name Phend, the ancient guardian, for I will be Gardh’s new Defender.”

  At first, Serris did not understand, but then Regel answered her unspoken question.

  “She is Jeht’s daughter,” he said.

  The revelation stabbed Serris in the gut. She could almost feel a blade sawing through her innards, and she could imagine the dark eyes of the one who held it by the hilt.

  They paused on the threshold of the Victorious Hunter. The storm had lessened and now hung over the horizon, brooding and rousing itself to new violence. The road to Tar Vangr stretched before them, and Serris knew they should go. But she could not—not yet.

  “Hold!” The newly-named Phend appeared behind them, and Serris turned to her. The women stared at one another over the intervening pace, which felt like leagues.

  “I owe you a debt,” Phend said. “My father has lost the fear and respect of the people, and his power lies broken. You are the one who made that possible. I will not forget this.” She reached out and traced the scar on Serris’s face. “You are so beautiful—my flawed Angel.”

  Serris considered for a moment, then turned and left without a word. Phend bowed her head.

  #

  They saddled their horses in the stable, falling as of old into a companionable, efficient silence. Serris felt shame and sorrow rising, but she would not give it tears. She could still feel Phend’s fingers tracing the gash along her cheek, burning hot with angry shame. When she thought Regel was not watching, she touched it lightly and almost wept.

  Only when they sat stride their horses in Phend’s main street did master look to the squire who had saved him and speak.

  “Your scar is not a flaw,” Regel said. “It is part of you. A strength.”

  Serris glanced over at him and their eyes met. “So is your pain,” she said.

  Regel considered a moment, then nodded. He put out his hand and Serris took it.

  They rode away from Gardh under an uneasy sky.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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