Reaver's Wail

by Corey Pemberton

Moments later, Nasira blew out the fire. “Supper,” she said with a grin, “is served.” They stabbed the hunks of hare and shoveled them down. The outside was charred, the middle raw, but it tasted so rich to Argus it might as well have been pilfered straight from Lord Lucius Syrio's banquet table.

  Neither of them said a word until their meager dinner was done. They collapsed against their packs and stretched out. Argus looked at the stars and spotted the Crown and Scepter of Eld, distant and cold.

  Nasira got up and put away the powders carefully, tucking the satchel into the bottom of her supplies.

  “You know,” said Argus, “you're more useful than you look.”

  “If that's your way of thanking me, you're welcome.” She pulled off her boots and sighed. “I didn't know you were an addict.”

  “What are you—”

  “Oh, come on. I saw the way your mouth watered when I opened my satchel. And why else haven't you taken it yet? To prove to yourself you can resist? Or because you know what will happen once you do?”

  “There's a lot you don't know about me.”

  Nasira crawled under a woolen mantle. “I know enough to realize I'm not the only captive on this journey.”

  “Fate makes a captive of us all.”

  She pursed her full lips, thinking. “Not if the voxtrap gets where it needs to go. Then I can prove it's mutable.”

  “That's not my concern. You look cold. Why not burn some of your powders to warm you while you rest?”

  “I need to make it last as long as I can. I won't be able to make another batch for quite a while.”

  Argus hoped he'd hid the disappointment on his face. A part of him craved for her to burn the whole damn stash. It pulled him almost as strongly as his desire to consume the powder himself.

  Nasira's eyes lingered on him as he watched the road. Finally she gave up. “You aren't exactly the conversationalist, are you, Argus?”

  He grunted, not allowing himself to look at her. Her beauty might cloud his judgment of what had to be done next.

  “Very well,” Nasira said. “Goodnight, then.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Argus watched the road until Nasira's breathing deepened. Once he was sure she was asleep, he closed his eyes. His weary limbs cried out for rest, but his mind was too active to allow it.

  For a long time he suffered like that, a prisoner to his roaming thoughts. He wasn't so worried about Harun or other bounty hunters as he was about himself. That powder was just out of reach, abundant and delicious. It was only a matter of time before his demons caught up with him…

  And that wasn't all. There was still Nasira's bounty to think about. And another bounty that wasn't advertised, but at least ten times as valuable. Some of the rulers of the eastern realms—those interested in avoiding a war to protect their wealth—would pay thousands of dragons for the information on that voxtrap. Yet if he took it and got caught before he left this continent, Calladon would brand him a traitor.

  Even if I don't take it, they might suspect me of working with the girl. Argus cringed. It would be a short drop in a very tight rope…

  He got up and crept down to the creek and splashed some cool water on his face. It did nothing to clear the cobwebs from his mind. So he opened his trousers, pissed, and settled on doing what he always did when things got complicated.

  Argus sneaked back to the campsite, checking on Nasira as he gathered his things. When he got everything together he took one last look at her, made for his mare, stopped.

  And then his feet were moving again, pulled along by strings he couldn't see.

  He watched himself wander over to her under the light of the full moon. Step, step, stop. Closer. So close he could reach her pack, slip his hand inside, and pull out the leather satchel.

  Holding his breath, Argus grabbed the satchel and slung it over his shoulder. The glass vials rattled together in the breeze. Nasira stirred. She muttered something in her sleep and crawled deeper under her mantle.

  Argus backed away, body buzzing with adrenaline. The way he felt before having some powder was similar to how he felt on the dawn of a battle. There were no guarantees how things would end, but there would be excitement.

  He didn't stop until he had mounted the mare and guided her back to the road. There, he spurred her into a trot and rode onward into the cold.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Argus didn't stop riding until dawn.

  The powder's pull strengthened with every mile he went, but he couldn't afford to give in. Not yet. Not until he was tucked away in an inn where no one would bother him. On the open road he was forced to play the role of perfect gentleman. Here in this new empire, where everything from alcohol and infidelity to magic powders and blaspheming the Sculptor were forbidden.

  Only a hard day's ride from Eldhaven, Argus kept his eyes on the road. He allowed himself a short rest. A part of him felt bad for abandoning the girl. She was a good enough shot against defenseless hares, but bounty hunters?

  It isn't worth it, he told himself. Harun can have her and her bloody voxtrap.

  He mounted up again, finished the last of his salted pork, and pressed on. To distract himself from the powders, he thought of Nasira. Something wasn't right with her. She seemed sweet enough—too sweet for these parts—but that didn't explain her willingness to defy rulers and cross seas just to deliver the voxtrap's message.

  Besides, she was an artificer. Of everyone who lived on the Comet Tail Isles, only ten in a hundred enjoyed that distinction. Thanks to their raw intelligence, artificers enjoyed lives of luxury. While the Comet Tail commoners—the maskali—put bread on their tables, they studied science in plush libraries and designed machines beyond his comprehension.

  There was another angle there. One he did not see.

  Argus puzzled with this until the sun peeked through the clouds. It was only out for a second before it disappeared again. A dreary morning. Like swimming in a bath of cold mist.

  That's when he heard galloping hooves.

  “Whoa,” Argus said, pulling on the reins. He looked left, then right, and found only flat empty fields. No one behind him, but still those horse hooves grew louder.

  He held his ground, lowered his right hand to his sword hilt.

  Out of the mist came a group of Calladonian soldiers. They rode four abreast. Their armor was the color of soot. They wore the golden gauntlets, greaves and helmets that marked them as members of the emperor's personal company.

  “Make way!” called the rider in front.

  Argus pulled off the road. His face was stern but his bowels were loose. It wasn't a fight he feared; it was a search and confiscation. Possession of powders meant long hours locked away in a cell, kneeling and praying and being whipped until he somehow convinced his captors that he'd reformed and seen the Sculptor's wisdom.

  The riders galloped forward, close enough now to spot the captain's sunken cheeks and bright blue eyes. He was gaunt and pale. Might as well have been a wight straight out of the grave. But his sword looked real enough…

  “Good morrow,” Argus said, forcing himself to smile.

  “Every day is a gift to serve as the Sculptor's instrument,” the man at the head of the column replied. “What business have you here, stranger?”

  “Hunting bounty, sir. Just returning from the frontier.” He fumbled through his pack for the piece of rolled-up parchment, moving slowly to steady his trembling hands. “Here's my commission.”

  The captain took it from him. He checked the emperor's seal, then studied Argus for a long time. “What happened to your hand?”

  “These?” Argus forced himself to smile, and held up the fingers Nasira had bitten. “A few scrapes and bruises come with the territory.”

  The captain's eyes narrowed. He turned to his men and said, “Doing the emperor's justice can get messy. You lads would do well to remember that. Very well. Carry on.”

  Once he got his parchment back, Argus waved and pulled onto the road before the
captain could change his mind. He rode past the column slowly and was met with a pack of scowls. He smiled anyway. Save for the captain, they were fresh-faced and puffed up with a false sense of moral superiority.

  War is the only thing they want, he told himself. Only because they've never seen it.

  The captain sent him off with the Sculptor's blessing. Argus thanked him and rode on. As soon as they were out of sight, he spat into the road and said, “Gods!”

  He loathed serving another man, the arse kissing and saccharine displays of enthusiasm. Yet sometimes that was the price one paid to stay out of a dungeon cell.

  Argus kept riding. The sun rose, but refused to burn off the cold mist that seeped into his bones. His fingers throbbed where Nasira had bitten him. He wondered if she would soon feel a bite of her own when the emperor's men swooped down on her and demanded to know her business.

  Hopefully she at least has enough sense to stay off the road.

  He passed a few more travelers as the day wore on. First came an elderly man with a long white beard and sunken chest. He held out a hand, begging for food Argus didn't have, and shuffled along barefoot. Then a traveling missionary for the Sculptor in a roughspun tunic. She carried a hammer and chisel, and blessed him as he passed. There were a few families too—pieces of them—adults and children whose eyes shared the same glazed character that made it look like they'd been wandering their entire lives.

  Then the road began to climb, and just as Argus crested a hell he saw a different kind of traveler, bearing down fast.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A figure ran straight for him.

  A shock of orange hair danced in the wind. Argus couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. The stranger's body was hidden under a loose white robe that flowed all the way to their feet, which were bare.

  That stranger ran straight for him, screaming.

  Argus looked back and found three more strangers charging for his rear. Their hair and garments were identical to the stranger's in front of them. The only thing that distinguished them were their horses: one black, one brown, and the third white with gray spots.

  Shit.

  Argus turned forward again, and the stranger was closer. A man. Bronze skin. He bore a morning star and glared at him with burning red eyes. Their screams were all around him, unsettling his mare, penetrating to his very core.

  Argus drew his sword. He knew then that this wasn't some ordinary band of highwaymen. These people wouldn't stop until he was dead. He went to pull off the road and into the fields, but two of the riders had split off and flanked him. They all had their morning stars drawn.

  In a matter of seconds they'd have him surrounded.

  He raised Reaver high and kicked his mare, heading right for the man on foot. The world fell away. His vision narrowed, and then there was only he and the man. Reaver whistled in the wind. Argus ached to send her slicing right through the man in the road; he craved it like he craved those powders in his pack.

  The other ambushers were still screaming, but their voices sounded faint and far away. He listened to his horse's hooves thundering along the road, the blood pounding inside his head.

  With one more gallop, Argus was on him.

  He yelled, and let Reaver fly. The morning star shot up just to his left. Argus ducked to the side and closed his eyes. When he opened them the man was sliced in two, his head sheared clean off from the body. Rivulets of blood ran down his sword and onto his hands.

  Still aware of the screams just behind him, Argus jerked the reins and tried to turn. His mare grunted, wavered, and flopped to the earth. He jumped off just before his leg was crushed. He rolled off the road and into a ditch, holding his sword.

  His mare groaned again, and this time Argus saw why: a morning store lodged in her side.

  Rage consumed him. Argus whirled. He felt the other riders breathing down his neck and there they were, orange hair flopping, a startling contrast with their olive skin. They smiled as they came at him with their morning stars, sucked into some type of blood trance.

  Argus looked at the man whose head he'd severed and swore that bastard was smiling too—like his sacrifice was all part of the plan.

  He raised his sword. The mist between them melted away, and then Argus felt he'd stepped into a blacksmith or castle kitchen.

  Closer they came.

  One man and two women. Their skin was the same shade as Nasira's, and only then did he realize that his would-be bounty was already causing complications. Argus had heard rumors about the attendants of the eternal flame. The flamewalkers. They could supposedly heat the air around them, and dyed their hair with an herb called dragonstongue.

  Their eyes burned red, and their horses' eyes burned too. Sweating and screaming, they came for him.

  He met the woman in the middle first.

  She lowered her morning star in a vicious arc. Argus lunged aside, spikes whistling over his head, and slit open her horse's belly. She flew headfirst over the wounded steed and landed crumpled on the road.

  He had just enough time to dodge the dying horse and pull out his blade when the other two riders surrounded him. One morning star came from his left. He thrust Reaver above his face and readied for impact.

  When it came, the blow sent him sprawling into the ditch, ears ringing from the clash their weapons made. Another morning star whizzed overhead. He dropped flat but was too slow to avoid it completely.

  The glancing blow tore into his shoulder.

  “Arghh!”

  Argus swore. He tried to lift his sword, but the third rider flew past and out of reach. He'd leaned almost completely out of his saddle to land the blow, and now he readjusted on the white horse, laughing.

  Argus felt the hole in his shoulder and winced. The wound wasn't too deep, but by the looks of things it would be the first of many. He watched the man double back to face him. When he looked over his shoulder, he found the woman whose blow he'd parried.

  His eyes flickered between them. Every time he spotted them again they were closer, closing the gap. Menacing their morning stars.

  Argus forced himself to his feet and clutched Reaver, which felt much heavier than before. He turned to the man, then the woman, and asked, “Who wants to die first?”

  The flamewalkers looked at each other and hesitated like they weren't sure if he was serious. Smiling, they pushed their horses closer. “We're looking for a girl called Nasira.”

  “You have a funny way of looking.” Argus shrugged. “Can't you see I'm alone? I haven't seen any girl.”

  The woman smiled. “That isn't what the people in Hull said. A man called Rafe said you both left in a hurry two nights past.”

  Argus didn't reply. The look in the woman's eyes was one he'd seen countless times. He'd seen it on scorned lovers and back-alley magic fiends and Nalavacians of the frozen north. The look of a person gone mad—a look from which there was no coming back.

  “Do you deny it?” asked the man who'd struck his shoulder. “Are you calling us liars?”

  You die first, Argus thought. Then the silly woman.

  “Where is the girl?” she asked. “We are on a very important mission—”

  “Come find out for yourself,” said Argus. “My sword will whisper it right in your ear. She has all the answers.”

  The woman shrugged. “Very well.” She locked eyes with her conspirator and they pressed closer. Less than twenty yards away now. Tightening the noose.

  Argus held Reaver tightly. His shoulder bled, but he didn't feel it. The frenzy of battle was upon him. Between that and the heat the riders were generating—flamewalkers were said to never feel cold—he was covered in sweat.

  Argus stepped over the man he'd killed, and the sight of the headless corpse ignited his thirst for blood. He strode toward the woman, right into the furnace she created with her piety to the eternal flame, and was grateful he wasn't wearing plate and mail.

  “Come on,” he said. “I thought there was something you wanted to k
now?”

  The woman watched him. Doubt creased her lips.

  “Where is she?” the man asked. “Where is Nasira of the Comet Tail Isles?” He edged closer behind Argus and the air grew warmer there. Close, but not too close. He kept a safe distance; like the woman, he showed no real desire to fight.

  Argus whirled, sword in hand. “You die first.” He ran straight for the man, closing the gap between them as his vision tunneled. The man's horse neighed and started to shuffle backwards. The rider tugged at the reins, tried to hold onto his morning star…

  Trembled.

  Argus leaped for him with Reaver held high. He thrust as far as he could, extending his torso for the rider and his morning star. It fell out of the man's hand, which had gone limp, as he and Argus sailed through the air. They landed hard on the road, the flamewalker skewered by Argus's sword.

  He untangled himself from the flamewalker, who hadn't yet realized the severity of his injuries. The man rolled around on the ground. He tried to get up, felt the blade sticking all the way through him, and his eyes went wide.

  For a moment Argus's skin sizzled as he watched sparks try to ignite the packed earth around him. Then all that heat died and so did the flamewalker, still impaled on the sword.

  Argus staggered over to the body, still unsure what was up and what was down. He reached for Reaver but couldn't find the strength to remove her from the flamewalker's chest. He grabbed the hilt and tugged, then fell to his knees. The jump and the thrust had taken the last of his strength. No amount of battle adrenaline could overcome it.

  A shadow moved across the man's corpse.

  Wild hair. The spikes of a morning star.

  Argus turned.

  He found the woman off her horse with her weapon over her head. She shrieked at him. The fire that burned in her eyes had spread to the rest of her body. Flames licked along her limbs, searing skin, though she didn't seem aware of them.

  “You killed my sister and brothers!” she screamed. “Now die! Die in the eternal flame!”

  Argus reached for the sword once more, but it was useless. He only had time to hold up his hands before that morning star came hurtling down right for his skull.