The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War)

by Brian J Moses

  Birch nodded, smiling at the description of Perky as fierce. Perky, or Perklet Perkal of the Green Facet as he was properly named, was about as fierce as a baby rabbit, and made about as much noise as one, too. Birch could probably count the number of times Perky had spoken to the group on his fingers.

  “Alright, I’ll see if I can’t be a bit more social with the both of them,” Birch said. “I didn’t even realize I excluded them.”

  “Nobody realizes it,” James said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “That’s why I pointed it out. I didn’t think you were being deliberately insensitive.”

  “Well, thanks for that at least.”

  “No charge.”

  James turned and walked back to help Moreen load supplies, leaving Birch alone with his thoughts.

  Chapter 4

  Language is a necessary evil for communication among mortals. Its very nature is to share knowledge and understanding, yet to ascribe a word to something in anything less than totality is to limit your understanding of that thing to the degree it is not that word.

  - Knerry Raltin,

  “Forms of Communication” (102 AL)

  - 1 -

  When the time came to depart, Birch was the last of the paladins to board the ship. James found him in the main hall of Den-Furral staring soberly at the throne. The majestic chair had once held a dwarf who was not only king, but also a paladin of the Blue Facet. Herrisan Stoneblood was the first and only paladin to ever hold a position of national authority other than an adviser, a position usually occupied by a Yellow paladin. The king’s daughter, Jerissa Stoneblood, was still a young dwarf, but already she showed a strength and pride that belied her few years. She would make an able leader, Birch knew, and had shown a marked maturity as they cremated and buried her father only the day before. She had yet to assume the title of queen, but she was already acting in that capacity among the dwarves that had survived the massacre.

  Sal had killed her father and destroyed the seat of power for the dwarven nation, but word would soon spread that Jerissa had survived and was leading her people to a new home. Dwarves were notoriously superstitious about death-related taboos[10] – especially those relating to murder – and rather than cleansing and refurbishing the mountain city, they were abandoning it and searching for a new place to call home. Den-Furral had been closed off as though preparing for a siege, with stone blocks filling every window and unbreakable locks securing every external door. From the outside, it was almost impossible to tell anything existed there except a sheer mountain face.

  The dwarves doused every stone hallway with flammable liquids and cremated the dead where they lay. Only the great hall remained untouched, and the passageways leading to the outer city and the docks. Those would be done last, when the fortress was sealed forever.

  When they found a new place to settle, dwarves from all over the world would flock there to take part in building a new home for their people. That was assuming, of course, there was a world left in which they could make a home. Lately, Birch had the ominous feeling that something terrible was on the horizon, and he was about to take the first step in what would soon become a mad rush toward survival.

  “It’s time to go, Birch,” James said, walking up behind him. “The tides wait for no man, no matter how fierce or faithful.”

  Birch turned and James just avoided meeting his eyes. During their voyage to this island, James had looked into Birch’s eyes while he was remembering part of his time in Hell, and the Yellow paladin had felt some small – yet terrifyingly vivid – part of Birch’s experience. He’d seen something there that had frightened him, Birch could tell, but he’d never asked James what it was. Now the leader of the jintaal avoided Birch’s direct gaze just the same as everyone else.

  From somewhere out in the hall, a gruff, barely intelligible voice grated out, “Cem on, Branch. Jams. Lois geta the shep. Thir waitin’ t’ fir thes place.”

  Birch turned and looked at Benatrangin Moroken, more popularly called Ben, and frowned slightly even as he tried not to smile. The dwarf seemed chronically incapable of saying Birch’s name correctly. Birch supposed he was lucky the dwarf hadn’t called him anything obscene or offensive.

  “Ye hear me, Barf?”

  Birch sighed.

  Ben’s entire body was horrendously scarred, including his throat, which made him all but unintelligible. With practice, Birch could make out what the dwarf was trying to say, but sometimes it was difficult because the same word rarely sounded exactly the same from his damaged voice. Some words occasionally came through perfectly clear, too. Ben claimed the scars were the result of an accidental keel-hauling he’d received when he was a “mer pup o’ a dwerf,” as he put it. Apparently he’d gotten tangled up in a fishing line and yanked overboard, and by the time they were able to pull him free, Ben was half-drowned and had been dragged and scraped against most of the lower hull of the ship, which had the usual coating of sharp barnacles every deep-sea vessel accumulated. Birch thought it a miracle that Ben had even survived, much less that he was still so physically capable.

  “He’s right, Birch,” James said, laying a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Birch nodded, taking one final glance around the room before allowing James to lead him from the hall. A platoon of dwarves entered somberly after them and sprayed noxious liquids out of pump-driven barrels, preparing the room for incineration. They followed Birch and the others all the way out, coating every wall and floor. As they boarded the ship, flames roared through the abandoned citadel, and the doors of Den-Furral were locked and sealed against the living: a city entombed forever.

  - 2 -

  Their voyage was uneventful for the first week, with the exception of Moreen’s unrelenting seasickness. Birch winced every time her face turned green and she launched herself toward the side of the ship or the nearest bucket. Most of the time she made it. For his part, Birch spent his time either caring for Moreen or else talking with the other paladins.

  Ben and Dennet Stonefist, a longtime friend to the Prismatic Order, were on another ship with Jerissa, the young dwarven princess suddenly turned queen-in-waiting. Birch counted himself fortunate to escape the scarred dwarf before Ben found something else to call Birch – something more creative. Moreen’s dwarven friend Brit Grindstone was also on that ship, reacquainting himself with his people. Brit had been among humans for several decades, rarely in contact with another dwarf unless they happened to come into the inn Moreen had owned. He’d been the bartender and sometime bouncer at the Dragoenix Inn, which was now gone, destroyed by Sal’s rampage in Demar.

  As he’d promised James, Birch tried to spend more time around Vander and Perky. Perky was easy, since all Birch had to do was sit down and work on polishing his armor, sharpening his sword, or any other manner of chore. With a mere nod of invitation, the Green paladin would be nearby and mirroring whatever activity Birch was doing. Perky was characteristically silent, and Birch was as talkative as usual, which was to say not very. Usually Nuse would be nearby, though, and the rail-thin Blue paladin made enough conversation for all of them. Nuse Rojena was one of the oldest paladins Birch had ever met, and his salt-and-pepper hair had mostly deserted him, leaving a growing dome of skin atop his head. He had a sharp, dry sense of humor that made him impossible not to like, even if you were the butt of his jokes.

  “Birch, you really shouldn’t stare quite so fiercely at the deck when you’re sharpening your sword. I’d rather the whole ship didn’t burn down around us just because old Fire Eyes glared at the wood.”

  But try as he might, Birch could not get to know or like Vander Wayland. The Orange paladin was reserved around groups, and it was hard to really tell what he was thinking or doing. Whenever Birch was alone with him, out came the “I’m-too-secretive-to-tell-you” mystique, followed quickly by his “the-world’s-problems-revolve-around-me” attitude that set Birch’s teeth on edge. It was never anything Vander actually said, but Birch could fee
l it all the same. It wasn’t even haughtiness. It was as if Vander didn’t even know how he looked to others.

  Whenever possible, Birch stayed outside on the deck of the ship. The quarters on a ship were too close for him to be comfortable for long. Ever since his childhood, Birch had felt uncomfortable in enclosed spaces, both in a physical sense of having the walls around him and in a psychological sense, like being in a jail cell. He could usually ignore the discomfort, but if left long enough, he began to get agitated and felt like a thousand ants were just beneath the surface of his skin, all itching to break free.

  He envied Selti his freedom of the skies. Selti and the other dakkan mounts split their time wheeling in the skies above, cavorting in the waves behind them, or else resting inside the ship in their alternate forms. Because it was a dwarven ship, there was an ingenious lift mechanism that allowed large items of cargo, in this case dakkans in horse or runner shape,[11] to be transported from the cargo hold to the main deck and several locations within the ship. The dakkans were thus able to enjoy the freedom of the open air and still come back to the ship to rest. Selti often switched to his gray-scaled drann shape and settled about Birch’s shoulders. The cat-sized creature also preferred to sleep in Birch’s room, where it was much warmer than the cargo hold.

  On their eleventh day at sea, they were still following a south-bound tack when the lookout reported sighting a sleek ship bearing directly toward them. The design was usually found only in pirate ships, and the captain had them all prepare for battle, just in case. Platemail armor was dangerous aboard a ship (or rather dangerous if you fell overboard), but James had them partially suit up anyway as a deterrent to any forthcoming hostilities. Their ship was the closest to the intruder, and should the three-to-one odds not provide sufficient deterrent, the sight of several paladins on board would make any pirate think twice about trying to close for battle.

  As the ship drew closer, the lookout reported someone signaling them with flags.

  “Whoever it is, he’s doing it right strange, too,” the first mate said from the rail beside Birch. The dwarf had a spyglass to his eye and was trying to decipher the message from the other ship.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, see that fellow standing there waving the flags? He’s waving the flags in the right sequence to tell us he means no harm, but he’s got something wrong with his arm motions. Up close, it don’t look like proper signaling.”

  “May I?” Birch asked, indicating the spyglass. “I know a thing or two about this sort of thing.”

  Birch took the proffered spyglass and put it to his eye, and almost immediately a smile broke out on his lips.

  “Do you have a set of signal flags I can borrow?” he asked.

  “What are you going to tell him?” the first mate asked, frowning.

  “It doesn’t matter what I tell him, it’s how I tell him that’s important.” The first mate looked confused. “Trust me.”

  Birch removed the pieces of his armor that would hamper his arm movements, not wanting to send the wrong signals by mistake. The first mate bellowed for flags, and a sailor was soon at their side and opening a box filled with flags of every conceivable pattern and color. Birch sorted through them until he had the ones he wanted, then he stood and began waving his arms.

  “Damned if he’s not doing it wrong,” the sailor said out the corner of his mouth to the first mate. “That ain’t proper signaling neither.”

  Birch ignored them, concentrating instead on translating his words into the complicated motions of the signal flags. On the surface, he was telling them the dimensions of the largest fish he’d ever caught. It was one of the few things he actually remembered how to sign correctly. More important than the flags and major motions he was using were the smaller, more intricate movements of the flags and his arms, which conveyed a far different message to the watchers on the other ship.

  In that language, he was saying approximately, “Yes, the paladin named Birch is on this vessel, and tell Hoil ‘Hello.’”

  The complex double language was something Birch’s brother had worked out years ago when he’d first started branching out into the world of smuggling and piracy as a part of his life of organized crime. Given his long, distinguished history in Marash, Hoil had probably broken every conceivable law regarding property and money. Birch had never asked if Hoil had personally broken any more serious laws, such as murder, and Hoil never volunteered the information.

  With the hidden language of the flags, which was based on a system Birch and Hoil had used as boys, Hoil’s ships could positively identify each other on the seas, communicate hidden messages when authorities were watching, and a variety of other things that had helped make Hoil one of the more successful thieves in history. Birch was perversely proud of his brother’s accomplishments, however far they were from the path Birch had chosen for himself.

  In a matter of minutes, the sleek vessel had pulled up alongside their boat, and Hoil and an elf leapt aboard the dwarven ship. Birch recognized the elf, who only had one ear – a mark of shame among his people, as Birch understood things.

  “El’Maran,” he said formally and inclined his head in respect.

  “Birch de’Valderat,” the elf replied with equal respect. The two of them had accompanied Danner when Birch’s nephew had been on the run from the Men for Mankind Coalition, and Maran[12] had stayed with them until they reached Nocka. Maran was already familiar with the other paladins on the ship, having met them on the road to Nocka, but none of them had yet met Birch’s brother.

  Hoil was every bit as large as Birch, and the two were almost identical from the neck down. Hoil was noticeably less muscular, and his broad frame belied a speed that was so fast it was almost inhuman. Birch’s speed and reflexes were similarly impressive, but he’d always known his brother was faster.

  “My luck runs true,” Hoil said boisterously as he clapped his brother on the back. “I saw the armor and told the signalman to send the coded message just in case, and lo and behold, here you are, Birch.”

  “Gentlemen, this is my brother, Hoil de’Valderat, a thief from the city of Marash,” Birch said in introduction. “Hoil, may I present James Tarmin, Perklet Perkal, Garet jo’Meerkit, Vander Wayland, and Nuse Rojena.” At a noise behind Birch, he turned and smiled. “And of course, you already know Moreen.”

  “Hello, Hoil,” she said, smiling wanly as she extended a hand. Instead, Hoil gripped her in a massive bear hug and swung her around, which was a mistake. Moreen’s face turned a peculiar shade of bluish green and she threw up over Hoil’s shoulder, drenching the back of his tunic.

  Moreen murmured an apology, then darted back toward her cabin, her cheeks aflame with mortification.

  “Sorry ‘bout that, Birch,” Hoil said, his own cheeks slightly red, “I should have remembered.” Maran was helpfully wiping down the back of Hoil’s gray tunic with a cloth, and every few seconds Birch saw the elf’s lips twitch.

  Birch waved it away. “What are you doing out here? Or is this something I really shouldn’t be asking about?”

  Hoil glanced uneasily over his shoulder at Maran, who nodded slightly.

  “He may know,” the one-eared elf said with his soft voice, then he glanced meaningfully at the first mate and several nearby deckhands. “However…”

  James quickly asked the dwarven sailors to give them some privacy, and they grudgingly complied. Birch was grateful no one had suggested they all go below decks. Some of the rooms might accommodate all of them, but it would be cramped, and Birch felt uneasy just thinking about it.

  Even with the sailors gone, Hoil spoke in a low, calm voice. “Maran received a message that his brother was dead, and he…”

  “Not just dead,” Maran said quietly, “murdered.”

  “Right,” Hoil said with a shrug. “Anyway, he’s returning home to El’aman’niren’a, the elven capital, for his funeral, and I decided it was time for a change in scenery, so I’m going with him.”
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br />   “Hoil,” Maran said quietly, “he is your brother. It is unseemly to lie to one’s kin.”

  Birch quirked an eyebrow and stared curiously at Hoil, who was busy scowling at Maran.

  “You know, for a thief, you pick some of the most unfortunate times to develop these little streaks of integrity,” Hoil said crossly. “I was going to tell him the rest without the other ears around,” he added, gesturing without a shred of shame at the other paladins gathered around him. James glanced bemusedly at Birch, then back at Hoil, who sighed before adding, “Fine, you tell him then. You keep telling me it’s only a family member’s job to talk about family, so start talking.”

  Maran smiled thinly, then stared evenly at Birch.

  “Your brother is correct as far as he said, but he neglected to mention a few details. First, I am not returning for his funeral so much as I am to pay my respects, but more importantly, I intend to discover the identity of his murderer and avenge him. Second, your brother agreed to accompany me because it was likely a political killing, and I may need some assistance from someone I can trust.”

  “Why a political killing?” James asked, interrupting.

  Maran glanced calmly at him, then addressed Birch as though the Yellow paladin hadn’t spoken.

  “Third, this is no small matter, because my brother was the crown prince of the elven nation. My father is the king.”

  James let out a low whistle and his eyes grew troubled. Birch’s reaction was similar, and James’s next words confirmed they’d been thinking the same thing.

  “Imagine the political turmoil, and at such a crucial point with the rest of what’s going on,” James said behind Birch, echoing his thoughts. “Coincidence?”

  “What does he mean?” Maran asked Birch.

  With a quick glance at James, who nodded, Birch told Hoil and Maran the history of their quest and described its first milestone with the destruction of Sal. When he told them their current destination, Merishank, and their reasons for going there, the thieving pair finally nodded in comprehension.