Battle Born

by K L Reinhart

  “We have a servant in Brecha’s employ called Thorogood. Find him.”

  We do? Terak reread the crabbed writing. He knew that the Enclave-External operated a wide network of contacts in the nearby towns. His disastrous mission with Ella had been to make contact with Mother Galda, an elvish lady, after all.

  Terak was contemplating his new mission when he heard a movement behind him. Hastily he yawned, swallowing the scrap of paper as he had been trained to do lest it fall before anyone else’s eyes.

  “Tertorlake! Finest red to the Lord General’s side of the table, quickly please.” It was the Chief Hospitality, emerging from the hustle of house staff and pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “You do know how to serve nobility, I take it?”

  Nope, Terak thought, but I’m a quick study. He had seen the way the other house staff had acted and knew that he could mimic them perfectly.

  “Yes, Chief-sir.” Terak grabbed a pitcher of the finest red wine that the Black Keep’s cellars had to offer and returned to the top table.

  The table was longer than it was wide, and Terak could see that it was entirely occupied by the very top tier of Enclave society. On the far side of the table sat the leading Fathers, Brothers, and Sisters, including the Chief Arcanum and Chief Martial, whilst on the near side sat their opposite number amongst the Lord General’s entourage. At the head of the table sat the Magister Inedi, who had apparently found the time or the magic to change out of her customary black robes and into a striking silvery-blue robe that contrasted strongly with every other Brother and Sister. It makes her look even more important, Terak realized.

  Although there was ample room for four places near the Magister at the head of the table, there was only one other beside her: the young Lord General Falan Brecha, who appeared to be in his element as he kept a polite, interested smile on his face the entire time that he dined.

  Terak felt Father Jacques’s eyes on him as he walked. The Chief External did not sit with the other chiefs, but in amongst the high-ranking Brothers and Sisters. It would be clear that he occupied an honored place in the life of the Enclave, but not precisely what.

  “It’s a bloody disgrace, is what it is, sitting here and smiling as if nothing is wrong!” he heard one of the Brecha company say. An older man had spoken, a man with sandy-white hair, wearing a close black leather cuirass that was studded with metal rings. There was a saber at the man’s hip, and around his neck he wore a heavy gold chain, ending in a fat star-shaped medal.

  “Captain Ormskirk . . .” whispered the woman next to him, a mature woman perhaps of an age with Magister Inedi, with brilliant red hair and a tunic and jacket of greens, blues, and whites. Terak had no idea who she was, but from the smaller gold chain around her neck, he presumed that she held some kind of high office. The woman appeared to be trying to silence the older soldier, who was having none of it.

  “What do I care who overhears!?” Captain Ormskirk said, keeping his voice in a hissed mutter all the same. “We should be demanding they tell us everything they know, right now. Or we’ll throw the lot of them in chains!”

  Terak jolted at such an obvious threat. It appeared that it did not go unnoticed either, as the woman beside him gave a low moan, but Father Gourdain, the Chief Martial, some three yards opposite the captain, cleared his throat loudly and thumped his glass onto the table beside his meal.

  Terak froze. Was he about to walk straight into the middle of a riot?

  “Gentlemen?” A younger, clearer voice cut through the mumbled conversations from the head of the table. It was the Lord General Falan Brecha. Terak saw that the young man with the choppy hair was squinting slightly with pursed lips at both his own Captain and Father Gourdain. “The Magister and I were just saying how important it was in these dark times to be able to rely upon each other. The Kingdom of Brecha has always been able to call on the Black Keep and the Enclave in times of need, isn’t that so, Magister Inedi?”

  Is the Lord General rebuking his own captain? Terak wondered. Or was it a veiled threat to Inedi that the Black Keep relied upon Brecha’s friendship?

  “The Enclave and the Kingdom of Brecha have enjoyed a historic alliance.” The Magister chose her words very carefully, which sent ripples of alarm through the Brecha side of the table.

  She wasn’t saying that the alliance was going to continue, the elf realized. This is a game. Like the way that the semi-feral cats of the Black Keep would sometimes battle each other around the storehouses and kitchens, both sides were watching each other and waiting to find a weakness.

  “Wine,” Falan Brecha broke the silence, raising his glass and looking straight at Terak.

  Terak swallowed nervously and became aware that he was standing frozen in place with all eyes on him, before he nodded quickly, “Yes, Lord General sir,” and stepped to the end of the table.

  This close to the young man, Terak could scrutinize their newly-minted liege lord freely.

  Falan Brecha was a human, and perhaps in his mid or late second decade of life. His hair was disheveled, and his clothes were fine. But he is unused to his post. Terak picked up the minute fidgeting movements from the man as his hands went several times to tug on the cuffs of his cream-and-white linen shirt or readjust the ties on the front of his vest.

  His signet rings were oversized, too, Terak saw. Both on the right and the left hand were an array of fat gold and silver rings, some with precious stones in them—and at least two of them appeared too large for the man’s fingers.

  Is he wearing someone else’s jewelry? Terak wondered. His father’s?

  The new Lord General was nervous and was trying his best not to show it to anyone, Terak surmised.

  “If you please.” There was a small cough, as one of the Brecha guards hurriedly stepped forward before Terak could reach Falan’s side. Or, what Terak had taken to be a guard, but soon realized wasn’t. He was a man with long black hair, wearing a deep blue-and-purple jacket and cloak. A simple silver chain hung at this man’s neck.

  Terak paused, unsure of what he was expected to do, but the man ignored him as he raised one of his black-gloved hands over the pitcher in Terak’s hands. The elf saw the man’s hand glow with an eerie blue radiance.

  “Wait!” Lord General Falan said suddenly, holding out his hand at the exchange. “I think that, right now, we need to show trust to our allies in the north—don’t you think, Adviser Semuel?”

  The adviser was about to use his magic to detect poison in the wine, Terak thought, his heart hammering. That had been too close! The adviser might have also detected the strange effects of the Acai Juice—and the fact he was a null!

  “Sire?” the black-haired man frowned. “That would be unwise, sir. Especially considering last night’s events . . .”

  “Nevertheless, Semuel,” the young Falan said gravely. “Last night’s events are precisely the reason why I wish to show trust.”

  “Sire—” Semuel looked as though he was about to argue, and Terak saw the adviser’s eyes flicker down the Brecha line of the table, toward Captain Ormskirk. They are allies, Terak concluded.

  “Stand down, Adviser,” Falan said firmly, before looking up at Terak directly. “Please, pour the wine,” he said, and Terak bobbed his head, and did so, as Falan continued to talk.

  “Magister Inedi is fully aware that the eyes of all of Brecha are upon the Black Keep tonight, Semuel, and that our continued cooperation is paramount to our mutual safety,” Falan said easily. Terak lifted his eyes to see the Magister nod her head, just the once.

  “Of course, I am also fully aware of the air galleon that sits outside our holy walls.” Inedi wasn’t giving an inch.

  What is going on!? Terak wondered as he bowed once more and stepped back from the head of the table, gratefully slipping into insignificance. The elf pieced together the scraps of information that he had discovered. Falan’s father was assassinated, and the Kingdom of Brecha suspects that the Black Keep had something to do with it, which expl
ains the show of force.

  But the Enclave didn’t engage in assassinations. Did it? Then he remembered what Father Jacques himself had said to him, on his induction into the secretive Enclave-External.

  ‘We make these sorts of decisions . . . can you do that?’ the Chief External had asked him, talking about the fact that Terak would sometimes have to decide when and how to take a life in order to secure the lore of the world.

  We have a servant called Thorogood in Brecha’s employ. Terak recalled his assignment.

  Maybe the Enclave-External did assassinate people, Terak thought, as his eyes scanned the far table to find Father Jacques engaged in what appeared to be a low, jovial conversation with one of the Sisters next to him.

  Could I have been wrong about Father Jacques all this time? Terak thought. Was this Thorogood an Enclave-External assassin?

  But the elf couldn’t believe it. Father Jacques would have told him, wouldn’t he? And Jacques had appeared to be as surprised as Inedi was over the air galleon’s sudden appearance outside. Terak allowed some of the other house staff to move past him and took the opportunity to turn away from the Banquet Hall. He made his way to the back where more of the Brecha guards stood.

  As if they weren’t going to let anyone out of the hall until this matter was decided, Terak thought, clearing his throat.

  “No one travels this way,” said the first of the burly guards. He was a man that was easily three times the width of the elf, with a rangy, auburn beard and hair streaming from around the face plate of his helmet.

  “I, uh, have a request from Adviser Semuel to fetch someone named Thorogood?” Terak plastered a look of innocent confusion over his face, as if he really were just another servant, way out of his depth.

  “He asked you, did he?” the guard said gruffly, and the elf realized his error. He was Enclave house staff—why wouldn’t Semuel send one of the Brecha guards?

  Terak bobbed his head, the rising anxiety on his face very real.

  “First Moon!” the guard grunted to one of his companions standing next to him.

  “Best not get involved in Semuel’s business, Hogar,” the other guard hissed from one side of his mouth. “You know what that snake is like . . .”

  “Hmph,” the first Brecha guard grunted, and stepped aside. “He’s a servant on the Lady of the North. Tell the ship guards you have my approval—Sergeant Hogar,” the man nodded. “Off you go. You don’t want to keep the Adviser waiting!”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Terak said as he hurried past the guards, and started to run as soon as his feet entered the empty corridors of the Black Keep.

  5

  Thorogood

  The storm was still howling when Terak jogged across the Eastern Courtyard to the still-open gates. He could clearly see the air galleon, The Lady of the North, outside, floating on its land anchors from the distant slope, and underlit by torches that guttered in the fierce winds. Already, a small encampment had sprung up around the ship, with tents forming a rough forward perimeter.

  Just inside of the Eastern Gate, Terak saw that there were two lines of very differently equipped guards standing, facing each other. One was the Brecha guards with their bronze-colored armor, while on the other side a line of Wall Brothers in much plainer, leather studded armor stood with their own short spears and crossbows, and more stood on the walls above. It wasn’t a stand-off, but it was close.

  “Name!” one of the Brecha guards demanded as Terak arrived.

  Thank the stars the Acai Juice is still working, Terak could feel his own Enclave Wall Guards eyeing him suspiciously. This was a night of conspiracies, it seemed.

  “Sergeant Hogar sent me, on Adviser Semuel’s business.” Terak gave a humble nod and allowed his face to look worried and fretful. It wasn’t hard.

  The Brecha guard eyed him for a moment, and then nodded more formally at Terak’s own Eastern Gate. “Go.”

  The open land on the other side of the Black Keep was barren and rocky, and Terak knew that just about every Wall Guard above him would watch him with intense concentration, as they tried to work out why an Enclave house staffer had been sent to the Lady.

  Well, Father Jacques will just have to come up with some story to appease them. Terak thought, as he neared the opposite encampment, and was once again challenged by a Brecha guard. The elf gave the same details that he had given the guard before. The woman grumbled and turned with a sigh, handing her halberd to her nearest fellow.

  “Follow me,” she said, leading him past the pitched canvas.

  Watch. Be silent. Observe, Terak recalled his lessons as he cast side-long glances at the tents and the people around him.

  The people of Brecha were predominantly lighter of skin and hair, but there were a number of southern peoples here too. Both men and women appeared to be employed equally as guards or servants, but there was a tight, nervous air that surrounded their small, huddled groups.

  “It’ll be war, I tell you . . .” Terak overheard as they walked near one such group of Brecha guards, clustered around a metal bonfire in the wind and rain. Each of them wore heavy, fur-lined green cloaks, and none of them looked very pleased to be out here.

  “I’ve got a bit of fire magic,” he overheard one of the cloaked figures grumble, “but the stories say that the Enclave are the masters of magic. Spells and curses the like of which hasn’t been seen in Midhara for hundreds of years!” The man was clearly worried what strange and eldritch forces the Enclave could deploy if it came to it.

  “If it wasn’t them, then who was it? Saddleheim?” said a female guard.

  “Bah! Those bunch of barbarians couldn’t plan what happened to the old Lord General!” the worried guard countered.

  Terak wondered just who Saddleheim was, and where. He was partly tempted to make some excuse to listen some more, but he had orders, and the female Brecha guard that he was following wasn’t stopping.

  The tents on either side appeared to be filled with more guards. At least two large tents were filled with off-duty men and women, sleeping on rolls of blankets or quietly checking their equipment. Beside them were large boxes and stacks of wood and rope. What are those? More tents? Terak wondered.

  “Here.” His guide paused, and Terak quickly raised his eyes. They were underneath the forward bulk of the Lady, and the sight of something that vast—completely obscuring the storm sky of the night above—made Terak feel uneasy.

  She waved upward. Although Terak couldn’t see them, there must have been someone watching from the line of dark portholes above, as there was a sudden creaking sound, and a section of the wooden hull swung outward and open on giant winch-wheels. From this lowered a simple square of wooden deck on ropes. It was a loading lift, Terak realized.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” the guide asked as she gestured for him to stand on the platform and waved her hand once more. The wooden planking underfoot wobbled suddenly and started to jerk upward into the night.

  “I’m sent to fetch a servant named Thorogood?” Terak shrugged.

  “Talk to Deck Captain Jonas,” the guard called back as she hurried away to her own warming fire.

  “Deck Captain Jonas, right,” Terak thought as he rose toward the Lady, foot by juddering foot. Find Jonas, get him to tell me where Thorogood is, Terak thought. This was getting complicated.

  He looked up at the open hull doors above him, lit from inside. Terak got the distinct impression that he was a very small elf who was about to be eaten by a wooden monster.

  No sooner had the platform thumped home, then Terak got an idea of just how vast the Lady was.

  The room that he had entered was more like a hall than a room. From its curved walls, he could see that it must occupy the bottom hull of the Lady, but only one section of it, as there was a flat wall ahead and behind him.

  But still, the place was immense, with enough room to fit the entire Banquet Hall inside several times over. There was a cleared aisle running down the center of
the hull, but the sides were a concertina of stacked crates and ladders, forming small alleyways and intersections.

  It was also remarkably busy, full of people who weren’t wearing the bronze armor of the Brecha guards, but who nonetheless wore green and black, and moved quickly and confidently. Terak saw that they were in a constant flow of movement as they loaded and moved crates, using overhead winches and ropes to draw the massive boxes through the air above their heads to different parts of the hull.

  “More lamp-oil requested for the Scouts!” he heard the air galleon’s crew shout.

  “Stack 7 and 8 need to be gone! If we have a fight in here, the Captain will want a muster point down here!”

  Everyone was busy with their tasks. No one paid him any mind at all, as they were all concentrating on the business of preparing for a possible battle. If the Lord General Falan doesn’t get what he wants to hear. Terak shivered.

  Suddenly, a shape barged into Terak where he hovered near the loading platform, looking for anyone who remotely might have the look of a Deck Captain. Whatever one of those were.

  “Get out of sight, now!” The shape was a man, taller than he was, dressed in the green and black jacket of one of the air galleon crew. He was shoving Terak down one of the smaller side alleys between the crates. Terak stumbled a few feet and then turned, his hands coming up in classic defensive stance.

  “First Maxim!” the air galleon crewmen demanded. He was looking at a man with heavily lidded eyes, his head topped in a red bandana.

  “Uh—to walk the Path of Corrections . . .” Terak began.

  “. . . You must first walk through Pain,” the air galleon crew member completed. “Just what the hell are you doing, walking in here dressed like that?” the man snapped, quickly stripping off his green jacket and passing it over to Terak. “Put it on. You’re going to blow my cover!”