Queenslayer

by Sebastien de Castell

  Reichis snorted. “Only every day of the last two years and every coin he ever earned.”

  Parsus looked at me. “What’d he say?”

  I shrugged. “How should I know? He’s just a dumb animal. Probably saw a bird and got scared.”

  “I’d say the dumb animal is the one tied to the horse,” Reichis observed.

  The marshal peered in at me a little closer. “You know, they’re not so much black as, well, I can’t rightly describe it. The queen’s got some fine doctors in the capital. Saw one cure a man what had a skin condition even nastier than yours one time. Maybe he can help.”

  I smiled. “Does he cure the burn around a man’s neck after the noose is done with it?”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry.”

  “Parsus, don’t go rilin’ the boy up,” Harrex shouted. “Just give him his water and leave him alone.”

  “Fine,” Parsus shouted back, then to me: “Your hands look a little singed, fella. Want me to pour some water on ’em and clean ’em off a bit?”

  “Don’t bother,” I said, clenching my fists. I wasn’t just being obstinate—I had a very good reason for not wanting my hands clean.

  “Suit yourself,” Parsus said. He nodded to the long, dusty road ahead that cut through the mountain ranges on either side of us. “But it’s two more days to the capital.” Then he went back to arguing with Harrex about whose turn it was to play with the squirrel cat.

  I tried flexing my shoulder where Merrell’s knife had made a temporary home. The marshals had dressed it, but it still burned. The smell of vomit and my own bad breath assaulted my nostrils, and my ears were filled with the sounds of the world’s most ornery creature making appreciative cooing noises.

  “Squirrel cats don’t even make that sound, you know,” I said.

  “What?” Harrex asked.

  “Nothing.”

  I turned my head a bit and looked up at the sky. The sun was starting to sink towards the horizon. The marshals would want to make camp for the night, which was good since my escape plan relied on me not being completely nauseous. The plan wasn’t brilliant and it depended on temporarily convincing them I was a much stronger mage than I appeared. It also meant burning the living hells out of my hands—never a good idea when the only magic you’re actually good at requires your fingers to be fast and sure. Still though, I was fairly confident it would work, just so long as nothing—

  “Raiders!” Parsus shouted.

  I tried to spin my head around so fast I would’ve fallen off the horse if I wasn’t tied to it.

  “Damn it all,” Harrex said. “How many and how far?”

  I could see Parsus out of the corner of my eye. He was looking through a brass-banded long-glass up towards the border mountains. “I count seven. At least half a mile out, I’d say.”

  The older marshal let out a grunt. “Damn, Parsus, you scared me for nothing.” He took the long-glass from Parsus and held it up to his eye. “It’ll take them a good three hours to get down that ridge on horseback.”

  Harrex put the long-glass in his saddlebag. “Damned Zhuban keep pushing further south every year.” He pulled his horse up to mine and reached over to make sure the ropes were tight. “Sorry, kid, no supper tonight.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my heart sinking deep enough into my stomach that it was a safe bet it was going to come right back up the next time I vomited.

  The marshal looked down at me. “We ain’t going to mess with no Zhubanese raiding party. We’ve spotted seven of them, and with just Parsus and me, well, I don’t like those odds. No, we’ll ride on through the night to the barracks at Castrum Tovus. There we can pick up a few more marshals to ensure we all make it nice and safe to the capital.”

  As I contemplated the fact that there was no way I was ever going to be able to escape an entire squad of marshals, I felt Harrex’s hand pat my back. “Sorry, kid. Looks like you’ll have a bit of a rough ride for the next few hours.”

  He flipped open the small quiver of crossbow bolts attached to the front of his saddle and tapped a finger on each one, counting aloud. I found myself counting along with him. He had eight bolts, which, if the Zhuban raiders caught up with us and Harrex was the best shot in the world, would be one more than he needed. I ran through all the things he might use that last crossbow bolt for: shooting dinner, picking his teeth, killing me… When you’re handcuffed and slung over the side of a horse you can’t help but think about those things. That extra crossbow bolt was nagging at me though.

  The marshal gave me a cockeyed look as he checked his saddle. “You planning something, fella? Cos I don’t think you’re going to have much luck sneaking up on me while you’re tied to that horse.”

  My head snapped up. “Marshal Harrex?” I said as quietly as I could.

  “Yeah? What’s the matter? Straps too tight?”

  I shook my head. “You ever hear of the Zhuban Wheel of Destiny?”

  The old marshal shrugged. “Sure, sorta. It’s the symbol of their country, right? We got a big bronze one in one of the libraries in the royal palace.”

  “More importantly, it’s the symbol of their philosophy. They think fate turns like a wheel. You recall how many spokes there are on that wheel?”

  He pursed his lips. “Spokes. Right. Learned that in school. Eight, if I recall. Let’s see…beginnings, endings, duty, joy… Can’t remember the others.”

  “How many provinces in the Zhuban territories?”

  “Eight. What’s this abou—”

  “And how many times a day do the Zhuban meditate?”

  “Eight. They like eights, all right? They’re a very consistent people. Happy?”

  I shook my head. “How many raiders did you say you saw through the long-glass?”

  “Seve—Oh hell. Parsus!” he shouted. “Check for—”

  A flash of red silk and brown leather filled my vision for an instant as a huge, muscular man came out of nowhere and slammed into Harrex, knocking him off his horse. Barely giving me a glance, the attacker thrust his right arm downwards and a short knife appeared in his hand. He flicked it underhand at Parsus and took him in the right shoulder. The younger marshal screamed, his body twisting back in agony and sending him too tumbling to the ground.

  I tried frantically to twist myself out of the straps holding me to my horse, not that it would have done much good since I still had the handcuffs on.

  The Zhuban warrior was well over six and a half feet tall and looked strong enough to toss me, my horse and half of Darome off the mountain. The tanned skin of his face was exposed, revealing eight tattooed stars on his brow. Four sinewy lines stretched out across each cheek like the whiskers on a wildcat. He was dressed head to toe in red cloth bound with brown straps. A Crimson Elite. Why the hell would an Elite be part of a simple raiding party?

  Harrex, still on the ground, swung his marshal’s mace at the attacker’s knee. The Elite skipped back gracefully, bringing his hands up in front of him in one of those Zhuban guard positions that make no sense to anyone else. He didn’t even bother to pull out another knife. In Harrex’s defence, the move did allow him to get to his feet, where he could square off against his opponent.

  “Reichis,” I shouted. The little squirrel cat leaped to the back of my horse. “Get these things off me.”

  The squirrel cat looked at me like I was drunk. “What am I supposed to do? Chew through your handcuffs?”

  “Use the key, idiot.”

  “Harrex has it,” he said. “I saw him put it in his belt pouch.”

  “Why didn’t you steal it when he was feeding you?”

  Reichis’s snout went down towards his chest. “I…”

  “It didn’t occur to you that it might be helpful if you stole the key? What kind of thief are you?”

  “A hungry one?”

  Marshal Harrex went down hard to the ground, his mace falling from his hand. The Zhuban kicked him in the stomach to make sure he wouldn’t get back up. Then the big man tu
rned his attention to me. A bundle of brown blur flew towards his face. He caught Reichis under the neck and held him just far enough away that the squirrel cat’s claws couldn’t reach him.

  “You are fierce, little creature,” he said in broken Daroman, presumably for my benefit. “But the Fourth Aspect of Duty is dominion over the animals and the earth.”

  He threw Reichis a good thirty feet away and the squirrel cat landed with a painful-sounding thud.

  “You’re going to pay for that,” I said.

  The Zhuban smiled. “Would you like me to undo your bonds so that you can try?”

  “No need.”

  He nodded. “Because, free or not, I would break you in an instant, yes?”

  I shook my head. “No, because you hit Marshal Parsus in the right shoulder and I get the feeling he’s left-handed.”

  The Elite’s eyes widened as his stomach grew the tip of a crossbow bolt. He spun around, his back to me for a moment before he fell to the ground. Beyond him I saw Parsus, the knife still in his right shoulder, holding a shaky crossbow in his left hand. The freckle-faced young man looked as if he was about to say something. He didn’t though. His eyes went glassy and he fell unconscious to the ground.

  I turned my head to look at the others. Reichis, the Zhuban Elite and both marshals were now unconscious. That just left me, strapped to the side of a horse and wondering whether anyone would wake up before the rest of the raiding party arrived.

  6

  Cages and Crossbows

  I was impressed that Marshal Harrex was the first to pull himself together. He’d taken some heavy hits from the Zhuban warrior but still managed to grunt and growl himself to his feet as he shook off the effects of the beating. The marshal surveyed the scene in front of him, and gave a wry chuckle at the sight of me tied up, Parsus passed out, Reichis stumbling around in a daze and the Zhuban Elite unconscious, hopefully dying from the arrow protruding from his belly.

  Harrex’s first move was to check on the Elite. He didn’t kick or stab the other man—which most soldiers and guards I’d ever encountered would’ve done. But that’s the marshals for you: they have a set of rules and they play by them every time, no matter what cards they’re dealt. You have to admire the determined stupidity of it all. He placed a pair of handcuffs on the Zhuban’s wrists. The solid click made the ones binding me feel tighter.

  “It’s too bad I can’t untie you, kid,” he said to me as he went to work on Parsus’s wound. “I could use the help.”

  “I could just give you my word that I wouldn’t run. I suppose you wouldn’t believe me?”

  Harrex looked over at me and smiled. “You know what, kid? I probably would. But you’d never give me your word, would you?”

  “I—”

  Harrex pulled the knife from Parsus’s shoulder, eliciting a sharp grunt that made me admire the younger marshal’s grit. Then he poured a viscous substance from a copper flask onto the wound. The liquid had a colour that matched the flask and it sparked as it touched the gash in Parsus’s shoulder.

  “Is that really…?”

  Harrex nodded. “Aquae sulfex. More potent than oleus regia and twice as expensive.” He sighed as he walked over to the Zhuban Elite and poured some around his belly wound before pulling out the crossbow bolt.

  “You’re wasting it on that guy? He tried to kill you.”

  The old man shrugged. “He’s my prisoner now, and Marshal Colfax would have my head if we didn’t bring him back safely to the queen’s court.”

  Colfax was the legendary head of the marshals service. How legendary? Even I’d heard of him, and I’d never been to the Daroman capital. I doubted he cared much about a Zhuban raider though. “They’ll just hang your prisoner after the world’s shortest trial,” I said.

  “Yeah, probably. But that’s not my problem. I’m a lawman, son. My job is to get this fella in front of a magistrate, safe and sound.”

  I heard a shuffling sound coming from a few feet away and turned my head to see Reichis ambling towards us. “Tell the marshal to take a walk, Kellen. I’ll save him the trouble of a magistrate’s fee.”

  Harrex put the stopper back on the copper flask. He set it down and slowly pulled a knife from his belt. “Your little friend is growling, son. Call him off so I don’t have to hurt him.”

  I heard a groan as Parsus pushed his way to his feet and started reloading his crossbow.

  Reichis bared his teeth. “I’ll take ’em all.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Reichis,” I said. The little monster gets especially ornery when he loses a fight.

  “Does he really understand you?” Parsus asked, stepping closer to us but keeping his crossbow pointed at Reichis. The time for tummy tickles and tasty treats was over now that they saw Reichis for what he really was: ten miles of monster stuffed into two feet of mangy fur.

  Harrex rose and walked towards Parsus. “Give me the crossbow and go get the rabbit trap from the supply horse.”

  After a moment Parsus returned with a square metal cage barely big enough to hold Reichis. The young marshal set it on the ground with the snare door opened. Reichis growled. The shadowblack markings around his left eye were starting to twist and turn.

  “Listen, Kellen,” Marshal Harrex said. “There are two and only two ways this can go. You get your little friend to go in that cage and behave himself, and I swear no matter what else happens, I’ll set him free when all this is done. I don’t want to hurt him none, but I can’t have him ripping my face off tonight neither. The second option is I eliminate the problem before it becomes one.”

  “There’s no gods-damned way I’m getting in that cage, Kellen,” Reichis chittered.

  Harrex’s finger was looking twitchy on the crossbow. “I’m not fooling here, Kellen. He gets in the cage alive or dead, but one way or another he’s going in.”

  “Reichis,” I said slowly, “listen, we’ve got to play this smart. You’ve got—”

  The squirrel cat growled at me, and I wondered if maybe the shadowblack was getting to him—making him angry. Mean. “Coward,” he snarled, his voice deeper than usual. “Play it smart. Run. Hide. Make excuses. That’s all you ever do. I should’ve never busted you out your parents’ house that day they were counter-banding you, Kellen. You never really left anyway.”

  “Reichis, he’s going to shoot you!”

  The beady little eyes twinkled, his fur going white and red to match the snow and blood around him. “Maybe. Maybe not. He’s old, and scared. I’ll bet he’s going to miss. I won’t! I sure as hell won’t be caged.”

  “Marshal, please, let’s figure something else out,” I begged.

  Harrex shook his head. “Sorry, kid.”

  “Reichis, get in the damned cage! They’re going to kill you!”

  The little squirrel cat’s eyes were fixated on Harrex and his lip curled, almost as if he was smiling.

  Parsus took a step towards Harrex. “I have an idea. Maybe we can make this work if we just—”

  Reichis took three fast steps and then sprang in the air towards Harrex’s face, the furry glider flaps between his front and rear legs catching the breeze just as the marshal squeezed the trigger on the crossbow. I watched as the bolt slammed into Reichis, the force momentarily suspending the momentum of his body before he fell to the ground.

  7

  Blood and Water

  We rode half the night down the high mountain passes until snow and ice gave way to cobblestone roads that marked the end of the border region and the entry into Darome proper. Now that we were out of danger from the rest of the Zhuban raiding party, Harrex called a halt and got me down from the horse, before doing the same for the Elite. Parsus worked up a fire and gave us all dried meat and brown bread before setting a pot of water to boil for coffee.

  We sat there, largely in silence. Harrex kept himself far enough away that if either the Elite or I tried to attack there would be more than enough time to pick up his reloaded crossbow and end us. The Zhuban d
idn’t eat; he just alternated between meditating and glaring at each of us in turn. Harrex did a passable job of ignoring everyone else as he cleaned and checked his weapons. Parsus sat next to the cage that held Reichis’s limp body, occasionally sticking a finger in the cage to lightly pet the squirrel cat’s damp fur.

  “You’re going to lose that finger if that thing wakes up,” Harrex warned, his eyes still focused on his long knife. The marshal shook his head as if he’d found a nick. “Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of, using aquae sulfex on a damned animal.”

  Parsus withdrew his finger. “Wasn’t the little fella’s fault. He was just being brave, trying to protect his master.”

  “Business partner,” I said reflexively.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  Harrex snorted. “You two deserve each other.”

  I watched the lump of fur lying in the cage. He was breathing. That was something. “Thank you,” I said.

  The fire crackled and my eyes went to the dried meat on a small metal plate in front of me. I was starving. The marshals had helpfully switched my cuffs so my hands were in front of me, but using my fingers to pick up the meat would mean losing the one ace I still had. There was just enough powder on them that if I could think of any way to get out of the handcuffs I might be able to get off one final shot.

  “Jan’Tep,” the Zhuban Elite grunted to me, his voice low enough to be buried under the crackling of the fire.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You Jan’Tep?” He said the word as if it was an insult.

  I nodded.

  “Naghram, eh?” he said, grinning. That last one required no inflection to be understood as an insult. To be fair, it is true that, centuries ago, many Jan’Tep had been eunuchs. They believed that castration relieved the mind of the distractions inherent in the desire to mate, thus freeing them to better focus their minds on magic. Turned out it just relieved them of their testicles. Also, since there aren’t a lot of Jan’Tep mages left, reproduction is kind of a big deal to my people.