Reaver's Wail

by Corey Pemberton

  Argus twisted his mouth into a hideous grin. His life was nothing if not ironic. The outbreak of the War of Five Tribes had driven him from this place; its conclusion had drawn him back. The tribes had united, and a new empire formed. But there were still plenty of oathbreakers and outlaws running from the atrocities they'd committed during the war.

  He, along with a scad of other bounty hunters, served the new emperor now. When the price was right, they found these undesirables and brought them to justice.

  Argus got up and stretched his legs. His joints were sore from the night's ride, and his boots crunched over the burnt farmland. They'd need food soon. He only had a few hunks of cured pork and cheese in his pack; he wasn't about to share them with the girl or Harun or anyone else.

  Bastard, he thought. Why couldn't he just stay out of this?

  There was another thorn in his heel too. Nasira's insistence that there was something special about her, that taking her in would be more trouble than it was worth. Captives were no strangers to lying and spinning tales to keep their freedom. But his impression of the girl told him she couldn't do either.

  “Gods,” Argus muttered.

  He caught himself but the word was already out. He thanked those gods that he'd said it alone, out in open country, instead of in a crowded empire city where someone could hear him. There was only one god in the emperor's lands, and the silly curse might have cost him his tongue.

  Argus checked the road once more. It was still empty, wet patches gleaming in the dawn.

  He made a decision.

  After edging past the horses further up the ravine, he spotted Harun. His old mercenary brother was hidden among the tall grass. If it wasn't for his chest, rising and falling deeply, Argus would have mistaken him for a corpse.

  He backed away from the Tokati and worked his way downstream, where Nasira slept. He stepped softly through the grass, avoiding the muddy patches until he was right up on her. She had her precious satchel clutched tightly along with the rest of her things.

  Good. Everything in one place.

  Argus squatted beside the sleeping woman. Took a deep breath. Held it and slapped a hand over her mouth.

  Nasira's eyes bulged as she convulsed in the grass. Her hands were on him, clawing at him with about as much effect as a few ants. Argus dragged her to her feet, one hand still over her mouth, and whispered, “Quiet. We're leaving.”

  Nasira trembled beside him, a mess of dark hair and flowing fabric. She looked at him for a long time and finally went still.

  “Good,” said Argus. “Now come on.”

  She nodded. Then, just as Argus started to shove her up the slope, she bit him.

  Pain shot from hand to every other part of him. Blood spurted from his index and middle fingers. Argus tucked them inside his tunic and swore. Everything still seemed to be attached, but the girl had slipped away from his bloody grip.

  He bounded up the ravine after her.

  “Hey!” Harun called. “What's going on?”

  Argus ignored him. He half ran and half stumbled up the ravine, and by the time he had Nasira again both of them were bloody and panting. Her scream joined Harun's scream and their voices filled the air.

  “Stop it!” Argus yelled.

  Nasira didn't. She kept flailing and screaming until his only choice was to hit her on that special spot on the chin that put anyone to sleep—no matter if they were Brenndall the Bold himself, a frail chambermaid, or anyone in between.

  Her head snapped back, her eyes rolled upward, and Argus caught her just before she hit the ground.

  “What's going on?” asked Harun, wide awake now and trudging up the ravine. “Did she try to escape?”

  Argus threw the unconscious Comet Tailer over his shoulder and didn't reply. The horses were only a stone's throw away. Hand throbbing, bleeding freely onto the ground, he ran for them.

  “I don't think so!” Harun roared. “We're sharing that bounty, Argus.”

  “Come on, Harun. You know I don't play well with others.” He drew Reaver and hacked the rope keeping the horses tethered. Their huge eyes blinked at him, still glazed with sleep.

  Argus turned back when he heard ringing steel. Harun was so close he could see the whites in the man's eyes. He charged up the incline, twirling his dagger. “Don't make me fight an old friend.”

  “Then don't poach my bounties.” Argus mounted his horse bareback and draped Nasira in front of him. Then he turned to Harun's horse and whacked it with the flat edge of his sword. “Sorry, my friend. Until next time.”

  Argus kicked his horse into a gallop just as Nasira woke up and started thrashing about. Harun's mount charged up the ravine, whinnying and trampling the burnt grass. He held the girl still and didn't breathe until they crested the top of the ravine.

  Then they were skidding, sliding across the muddy road with Harun's curses sailing behind him.

  Somehow the mare held her footing. Argus spurred her on toward the rising sun.

  “Bastard!” cried Harun. “Whoreson!”

  Argus chuckled and held up his hand in a mock salute. When he glanced over his shoulder he found the poacher doubled over at the top of the ridge. With one last curse he hurled his dagger at them; it clattered uselessly to the road some thirty yards behind.

  Harun was still screaming when the road turned north, and Argus led them around the bend and out of sight.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Do you always live like this?” Nasira asked.

  Argus cocked his head, considering it. “How do you mean?”

  She sighed and blew a few stray hairs from her face. “Oh, you know. Bounties and betrayals and chases that end in daggers being thrown at your back?”

  “Hmm. S'pose I do.” His sea green eyes glinted.

  Nasira shook her head, opened her mouth and closed it again. The sun was high above them, and their poor mare was covered in sweat. Argus kept her on the barren road. He was in too much of a hurry to be away from Harun—and whoever other scoundrels he might wrangle up to help him take the girl—for any attempt at subtlety.

  “How much longer before we rest?” she asked.

  Argus laughed. He had a big, hearty laugh that vibrated against her back. After all he'd seen—the carnage he'd caused—it was a wonder he'd kept it. “You shouldn't have come to Calladon, girl.”

  Nasira whirled to face him, nostrils flaring. “I'll have you know this is my twenty-third summer. That's well past 'girl.'”

  Argus looked right past her into the road. “I don't call you that for your age. I meant no offense. It's about your lack of knowledge regarding the ways of the world.”

  “So now you're calling me old and naive? Great!”

  “I know you're angry about getting caught. But with the way you were openly hawking powder like that—it was only a matter of time. Just be glad it was me.”

  Nasira finished the last of the cheese he'd given her and threw up her hands. “Glad? Why, pray tell?”

  “Others are less scrupulous with their bounties. Some would have raped you a few times. Others would have just killed you. You're still worth two hundred dragons dead.”

  She shivered despite the beating sun.

  “A pretty face will only take you so far,” Argus added. “But why here? You could have gone anywhere else in the world… and you choose Calladon, the Comet Tail's strongest ally?”

  She turned back again, silently pleading for understanding or sympathy or another softer part of Argus that had died out long ago. “I need to get to Azmar. This was the fastest route. I didn't have time to cross all of the eastern realms.”

  Argus shrugged. “Emperor Eamon will send you back. War touches us all.”

  Nasira grabbed his arm and squeezed. “What if I told you there doesn't have to be a war?”

  “I'd say you're in your cups. Men like Eamon—they never settle. It's never enough. And with the Comet Tail backing him—”

  “No!” She pounded him on the arm, rattling him out of
his sleep-deprived daze. “That's what I've been trying to tell you. The Comet Tail would reconsider her support if her people knew First Artificer Shanaz's rule was illegitimate.”

  “What?”

  Argus pulled the mare off the road. He dismounted and helped Nasira down too. He didn't stop walking until they were hidden safely behind a stand of pine trees. After checking to make sure no one was around, he pulled her close and asked her again what she meant.

  “I mean,” she said, “that she isn't the rightful ruler. She cheated the Ashrun. The eternal flame's gift to us from time before time.”

  “So?”

  Nasira squinted at him like she couldn't believe he was so dense. “It's the first artificer's place to govern matters like statecraft and trade. Support for the Calladonians is already shaky. If there were another ruler in her place, the alliance could very well fall apart.”

  Argus searched his pockets for the strip of leather, then gave up. It was too late for the gag. The girl's story was outlandish—what little he knew of life on the Comet Tail Isles, he knew that intelligence alone determined who would rule, and the ancient machine that measured it was revered like a god.

  “I speak true,” Nasira said. “I swear it by the eternal flame.”

  Argus nodded. She sounded sincere enough. “How do you know?”

  “I have it from Shanaz's lips themselves.” She went to one knee, hiked up her emerald dress, and revealed what looked like a tiny fishing net wrapped around her thigh. “Here,” she said, untying it and holding it in an open palm. “It's a voxtrap. I built it myself.”

  Argus took a step back. He couldn't look away from the girl's contraption, but he couldn't bear to touch it. Magic items had burned him in the past. He still had the scars to prove it.

  “You've never seen one before,” Nasira said with a smile. “I can assure you it's completely harmless.”

  “What does that have to do with who rules the Comet Tail Isles?”

  Nasira held the net in opposite corners and ruffled it in the breeze. “Listen closely. It will only work a few times before it begins to fray.” The silver strands, almost as fine as the hair of the woman who held them, sparkled in the sun.

  A voice spoke.

  A woman. She seemed to be carrying on a conversation with herself. “You wouldn't believe it, Nas. If you can—” Then came a few hiccups until she gathered her breath. “If you can outsmart the Ashrun as I did, who's to say you aren't the smartest in the land?” The voice cut off. Drunken giggles replaced it. They carried on a while longer until Nasira gently folded the strands together again.

  “How did you—that's her?”

  She nodded, tied the device around her lean thigh, and lowered her dress. “Maybe I'm not as naive as you assumed.”

  “You're a fool if you plan to share that with anyone else. Do yourself a favor and destroy it—while you still can.”

  “I can't do that. Do you have any idea how long it took to get her to admit this? How many late nights and shared secrets by the fire? I always had my doubts with how callously she disregarded sharpening her mind. It was only a matter of time before Shanaz confirmed them.” She smiled. “Alcohol is the downfall of us all—boorish or brilliant.”

  Argus scratched his scruffy face. “Get rid of it. You release that message and you have no idea what kind of misery you're in for.”

  “I'm ready. Prepared to die—if it comes to that.”

  Argus's hand hovered on his sword hilt. One simple cut would slice that fancy net of hers into a thousand pieces. Yet there were other consequences to consider. What if the wrong person—someone influential enough to have him killed—discovered he was the one who'd destroyed it?

  He couldn't decide which put him in greater danger: destroying the message, or letting it roam free.

  “See?” said Nasira. “I told you I'd bring nothing but complications.”

  Argus pulled her out of the trees and into the open farmland along the road. “Mount up,” he said, helping her onto the mare. “We ride for Eldhaven.”

  “You can't do this,” she said. “Think how many people will die in this war.”

  Argus said nothing. They rode until the sun warmed their backs. All the while, he thought of every angle. Nasira was right; she was nothing but trouble. But he also knew that if men like Eamon wanted a war badly enough, war was exactly what they would get. Voxtrap or not.

  He smelled her hair and noticed the way the sunlight gathered on her bare arms. Great, he thought. There's another complication to add to the tally.

  They rode on.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When the sun fell behind the rolling hills, they stopped and made camp.

  The cheese was gone, and only a few strips of cured pork remained. Argus contemplated the two day's hard ride that lay between them and Calladon's capital. With nothing around but spoiled farmland, it would be a hungry ride as well.

  Nasira drank from the creek—the same one they'd drunk from before—and rose to her feet. “You think the other man will come after us?”

  Argus shrugged. “Maybe Harun will give up and find another bounty. But with so many dragons on your head? Who can say?”

  Nasira tightened her cloak and watched the last of the sunlight wane. There wasn't much time to scavenge for wood. And with all the destruction the fire had caused, Argus decided it wouldn't be worth the trouble. The chill of fall pressed on them like a looming shadow.

  “If you insist on having us freeze here,” said Nasira, “at least let me try my chances with a hunt.”

  Argus laughed. “You must be mad, woman, if you expect me to put a weapon in your hands.”

  “I don't want to kill you,” she said. “It would be nice if you let me go. But I understand that's a fool's dream.” She looked young and delicate then, squatting among her pack and bedroll. “At least let me eat. You need to eat too.”

  Argus's rumbling stomach couldn't argue with that. He hadn't planned such a hasty exit from Hull, but opportunity had other plans. Now the nearest town was two days hence.

  “You can stay right by my side,” she said. “At swordpoint, if that makes you more comfortable.”

  He sighed. “Fine.” After rummaging through his things he found the simple short bow he'd confiscated. “Here. You can try your luck until dark, though I doubt you'll catch anything with that knave's weapon.”

  Nasira took the bow from him and smiled. “I might surprise you just yet.”

  He followed her along the creek until she pointed out a small cluster of dogwood shrubs on the other bank. They stepped across and wandered into them. Watching the water, Nasira took a knee, nocked an arrow and waited.

  Argus waited impatiently beside her, legs burning from the long ride. “Nothing alive here except us, Nasira. Eamon's fires killed everything off.”

  “Not everything,” she said. “I had hare stew day and night while I traveled across the western reaches of Calladon.”

  Argus watched and waited. Every few minutes she would scold him for making too much noise. The last rays of daylight disappeared and covered the creek in shadows. He pulled his cloak tight and was just about to tell Nasira to stop when out came a hare.

  They watched it skip down the bank from where they came, a brown ball of fur and not much else, tall ears twitching for any predators.

  As it approached the creek, Nasira readied her bow.

  Argus couldn't stand bows—or the people who favored them—but he'd seen enough to know when someone knew what they were doing.

  Nasira did. She waited for what felt like forever, even after the hare disappeared into a clump of tall grass and Argus thought it was lost to them. But sure enough it crept out and hopped across the last stretch of mud between it and the water.

  A deep, slow exhale.

  The twang of a loosed arrow.

  Argus looked at the creek and found the hare pinned against the bank, motionless.

  “See?” said Nasira, lowering the bow with a grin. “Don
't call me naive just yet.”

  Argus grabbed the bow from her outstretched hand. “Nice shot.”

  Nasira bounded across the creek and retrieved her kill. “The hares are skinny in these parts.”

  “Underfed. Just like the rest of us.”

  She carried the hare by the ears until they reached the spot where they'd left their supplies. Argus let her use her knife to skin and gut it, watching her close. “How are we supposed to cook it?” he asked. “There isn't any firewood.”

  Nasira wiped the knife clean on the grass and smiled. “Leave that to me.” She rummaged through her supplies until she found her satchel, which she opened. Argus watched her pick through the glass vials and found himself edging closer.

  The scents were overwhelming when she opened them. Familiar but forbidden, like an erstwhile lover's kiss. He'd tasted those powders before… and felt the consequences. But he wanted nothing more than to taste them again.

  Nasira tipped one vial above the hare's meat and sprinkled out some powder. She replaced the cap, then opened another. Once she had half a dozen powders on there, she rubbed the mixture into the meat.

  Argus watched her without a word, hypnotized by the scents and colors. He smelled bonberry and cat's paw, sugarroot and countless other plants he didn't recognize. Gray and yellow and white and fiery red stuck to the meat. Nasira kept rubbing until a tendril of smoke curled from the hare. She jerked her hand away and winced.

  “That should do it.”

  The powders foamed on the meat and began to boil. Then came more smoke. Flames followed, first a spark and then a healthy fire. Nasira stomped out the wayward sparks and watched the meat disappear in the greedy flames.

  Fat sizzled, and Argus's stomach rumbled. He often forgot about powder's other uses. Strike the right balance of ingredients, and one could cook foods or chill them, or even cure ailments. But eating those ground-up herbs raw altered body and mind. That was the only use worth remembering. That's what made them magic.