by A. F. Dery
“We’re landlocked,” Malachi muttered disgustedly, shaking his head. One of the men riding ahead of him gave an anxious glance back at him and he waved away his interest without enthusiasm. Of course the elder Malachi hadn’t literally meant anything about ships or oceans. He’d meant that he expected his son to burn along with everything else, if it came down to that. It was what he would do. It was what his father would have done. Only in retrospect did Malachi recall the near-desperation in his father’s eyes when he’d been making that somewhat slurred speech, as if pleading without voice, Please, for the love of the gods, don’t be a disappointment in this one damn thing, Edmund. Just this once, all right?
Father had not had much patience with his son’s endless “tinkering.” Malachi sighed. The old man had likely turned somersaults in his grave when his son had replaced most of their army with the results of that little hobby. Had he really been so wrong?
He supposed he would soon see.
“My lord,” one of the solders, the same one who had noticed his mutterings and looked at him before, had fallen back, not quite to Malachi’s side, a cautious look on his face.
Malachi slowed his horse (a real one, much as it pained him- the other kind would have attracted too much notice for discretion’s sake) and answered with a wooden, “Yes?”
The younger man cleared his throat a little and said in a rush, “It is not so bad, my lord. I still have family out where we are headed. The council has done a fine job of leading us these past years. I don’t believe you will be seeing much disapproval.”
Malachi stared at him, his expression rather akin to what it would have been if the horse beneath him had suddenly gained the power of speech.
The soldier reddened a bit and pressed on hastily, “You look so worried, is all…and there’s no real need to be. I don’t know why the Raiders would come, things are not in such disarray, is all I’m saying…the people are content, for the most part. Oh the usual gripes about the taxes and whatnot, and I’m sure we’d all like to see more of you and your lady, but honestly, we see the council as being in power and the pair of you as our…eh, how do I put it?”
“Figureheads?” Malachi supplied helpfully. The soldier looked so relieved at this response that he nodded enthusiastically, failing to notice the sudden thundercloud darkening of his lord’s face.
“Aye, figureheads! Symbols of the old monarchy and so on! So you see, I do not know why they came- the Raiders, that is- but there is not that much trouble to be found, mark my words. My lord.” Seeing the strange look on Malachi’s face, he added, “We all love the council, my lord. We truly feel that we rule our own country, and we’d not soon see that change.”
Malachi considered this. In a way, he supposed it absolved him. The people were content. In another, he was fairly sure that if he met his father in the afterlife, the old coot would brain him, if the spirits of the dead could do such a thing. If not, he would surely be nagged to his second death about it. And in still another, he couldn’t help but perceive this as yet another failure of his. His people were politically agnostic, it seemed. Their monarch may or may not exist, but he almost certainly wouldn’t trouble himself with their little doings if he did. He wanted to smack himself in the head with something blunt, repeatedly. His one satisfaction was knowing that if Eladria ever heard of this, the man would probably crack some ribs laughing over it. And it would serve him right, the bastard. Maybe one would snap and poke him in the lung.
He cast about for an appropriate response and finally settled with a weak “…I see.” The soldier nodded gravely, looking as satisfied as if his lord had expressed some sort of gratitude, and correctly interpreting the ensuing silence as his dismissal, rode back to his previous position.
“Damn me,” Malachi mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose gingerly with one hand. He felt a headache coming on.
It was a headache that pounded on for the next three days. The soldier- whose name, Malachi eventually learned or rather remembered- was Herold. The other, who said little to his compatriot and less still to Malachi, was James. The three of them (plus sentries) camped outside each town each evening, then the two soldiers hit the taverns only to come back somewhat worse for the wear.
Herold consistently teemed with gossip, but none of it was anything of concern to Malachi. It seemed his earlier assessment of his country’s political climate was spot on: Lord Malachi and Lady Margaret were viewed more symbolically than anything else these days thanks to their apparent detachment from their country’s governance. The biggest complaint was that they did not turn up to festivals and such to wave at the common folk.
They- or at least the men in the taverns and inns- had more to say about the council, but it was the time-worn litany of complaints about taxation, demands for improvements in road conditions, and petty annoyances with neighbors, nothing that signaled the kind of unrest that invited Raiders like vultures to fresh carrion.
Of course, their purpose in coming was less important than how they even got there. The evening before their arrival, Malachi ordered the other two men to return before midnight, and sober. He wanted them to be fully prepared for the next day’s undertaking, which he intended to begin as soon as light broke.
When they’d returned with the usual unimpressive report, Malachi told them, “I’m sure you are both aware by now that these visits into the towns we’ve passed have been more to do with trying to determine a possible motivation for Lyntaran Raiders to be appearing very near to this area than my popularity.” Both men nodded grimly. “Regrettably, I am no more enlightened than I was before we began. However, our true goal is far more pressing. Tomorrow, when we survey the scene of battle, it is imperative that the two of you keep your eyes open for any signs, however subtle or uncertain, that could indicate how the Raiders came to our land, and from which direction they traveled. I cannot possibly understate the importance of these facts. If you have any doubts at all, please come to me at once, and do nothing at all to disturb anything you may find without first consulting me, no matter how insignificant it may initially appear. We already work with the odds against us after all these days passing, but frankly, lads, it’s all I have to go on.”
“If I may, my lord?” Herold (unsurprisingly) spoke up. Malachi inclined his (still aching) head. “It surely shouldn’t be that difficult to determine where they came from. They could have only come from Ossian, Eladria, or Jarel, and Ossian only just attacked us!”
“I’m given to believe that was a misunderstanding,” Malachi said sourly.
“Really?” Herold looked surprised. “So they didn’t attack, my lord? Because word of it has even reached out here. The elders are even going on about how this is going to be the next Great War and placing bets on whether the High Lord will intervene sooner or later or at all.”
“No, no, they attacked, but it was supposedly a misunderstood order, and it is also tied to our Raider situation,” Malachi explained impatiently. “Ossian’s militia near the border feared rogues on our side.”
Herald gave Malachi an incredulous look and Malachi spread his hands helplessly. “What can I say, Herold. That’s the official story. I’m not pleased it with myself, but we must take into account that while Ossian remains a possibility, the recent skirmish at the border doesn’t necessarily figure into it at all.”
“I hear you, my lord,” Herold said respectfully, but disbelief was writ large over his face.
“Jarel and Eladria remain options,” Malachi reminded him.
Herold chuckled. At Malachi’s baleful stare, he paled a bit and offered, “Jarelites in league with Lyntara? Surely, my lord…”
Yes, Malachi could see the humor. Jarel would likely wet himself at the very word “Raider,” but he wasn’t about to share that now.
“Eladria seems more likely,” James put in for the first time. Malachi and Herold both looked at him. “Only they were armed to the teeth and buzzing at their borders like a bunch of angry hornets when the last at
tack happened. No Raiders could have sneaked past them, that’s for sure.”
“First, you think the Raiders must have sneaked by,” Malachi mused out loud. “Rather than our supposed allies assisting them.” At the twofold gasp he received in response to this, he suddenly wondered if he shouldn’t have been more discreet, but he continued on, “And second, what do you mean, they were at their borders?”
“No one told you, my lord?” Herold suddenly became very interested in the toes of his boots. “There must not have been time before we departed. They began to disperse shortly before we left, my lord. Their usual guard is there, of course. They are always there. But the road in has been reopened.”
“Huh,” Malachi said eloquently, inwardly seething that a common soldier knew more about the situation than he did. Somewhere along the line, there was a problem with communication going on that he would need to see about as soon as he got back. Possibly with heated metal implements. He pondered this image for a further moment, then added, “That sounds like glad tidings for our diplomatic envoy headed there, then.”
“We have an envoy, my lord?” Herold looked up from his boots, wide eyed. Malachi glared and he quickly returned to their scrutiny.
“Never mind that,” Malachi snapped. “Your orders should be clear to you now. We must determine, if at all possible, where those Raiders came from tomorrow, and how they happened to get to where they were. We must set their possible motives to the side for now. Disturb nothing, move nothing, show me anything that may be of value, however slight. Three pairs of eyes must be better than one, yes?”
“Yes, my lord,” both men answered in unison.
“We leave at daybreak, and not a moment after.”
“Yes, my lord.” Then, “My lord?”
Herold again. Malachi bit back a curse. “Yes?”
“If our allies have turned traitor…the High Lord would help us, my lord?”
Malachi didn’t care for the note of uncertainty in the other man’s voice. It was too close a cousin to the feeling in his chest whenever he thought of the High Lord. A year ago he never would have questioned that all parties in the Union would honor their expected obligations and that the High Lord would enforce them without equivocation. No matter how much they all disliked each other (and really, most of them did dislike each other a great deal), they were bound together too tightly, needed each other too much. Lyntara was an enormous threat to all of them, and it was precisely their unity that protected them. If one link in the chain failed, the whole chain would begin to crumble.
And it was the High Lord who understood that most of all, his own Court was in the very shadow of those brutes. They did not dare step one toe over his border, but their presence just beyond was perpetually felt.
Surely even with his delay in answering the High Lord’s prior summons, the man must hate Lyntara more than he did Malachi? After all, all Malachi had done was drag his feet, for perfectly understandable reasons (or so he thought, anyway). It was temporary. The harm that could be done to the Union and to the High Lord himself if Malachi was allowed to fall to Lyntara, right in the heart of the Union, would surely be far worse?
Malachi realized then, as Herold shifted uneasily on his feet before him, that he had not yet answered. He cleared his throat and said, looking him directly in the eyes, “Of course he will. Treachery would never be tolerated in the Union.”
Or so he hoped.
There was nothing that could have prepared Malachi for the scene before his eyes. He was no callow youth to be discomfited by signs of violence and death, and he knew enough of the Raiders to know what to expect.
But where a village had once sat near the border, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that could have been salvaged. Everything was burnt to the ground. The smell of rotting and burnt meat struck them like a fist to the face well before they reached the village proper. The charred remains of fleeing villagers began to greet them with silent, teeth-bared pleas for help that would never be heard or answered, first one, then two, then by the dozen. Even the livestock had been set ablaze. Everywhere, everything was death.
Soon enough he saw the glint of metal amid the ruins: those sentries he had lost. The Raiders had to have still been present when they arrived, though that made little sense to him: what could they possibly have been lingering here for? Even this scale of destruction could easily have been accomplished in the time it took the sentries to arrive.
He dismounted from his horse and approached one of them sadly. It looked surprisingly intact where it stood, and he wondered how they had disabled it, if it had not been the obvious way. He was within arm’s reach of the machine when one blade-tipped arm whipped out and slashed him across the chest.
He flailed backward, shocked, only just keeping his footing as the machine lunged towards him. He dropped to his knees, unsheathing the narrow blade strapped at his forearm and thrusting it upright into what would have been the sentry’s pelvis, had it had human anatomy. He knew exactly what workings were housed there, and indeed, the blade caught in the gears within, forcing it to a stuttering halt.
Then he heard a scream and whipped around just in time to see James’ head fall from his body, sliced off by a halberd-arm. He remembered suddenly how ridiculously pleased with himself he had been when he had designed that type! Just imagine, a two-handed blade that only needed one arm! He nearly choked on the thought now. The other missing sentries were converging on him, and the four of them were splitting off into pairs, one pair targeting him, one pair already turning towards Herold, including of course the one with the halberd.
“Run, you idiot!” Malachi shouted. He whirled back to the sentry he had stabbed, grabbing at the jutting handle of his blade in its torso, but one hard pull revealed what he had feared: it wasn’t going anywhere.
“Fool,” he hissed at himself under his breath, turning back to the pair of sentries advancing on him just in time to duck the flash of a scythe-like blade aimed at his neck. He drove an elbow into the workings at the back of one of its legs as the other brought down a metal hook on him. He dropped to one knee, pain searing through one shoulder blade as liquid heat streamed down his back. He scrambled for the knife in his boot (a knife, against a damned sentry! He wanted to laugh, or weep!) and jammed it upwards into the hooked sentry’s middle. It was far shorter and wider than his other blade, however, and seemed to have no effect at all. He didn’t even have time to swear as the sentry pulled its hook free of his back just as the scythe-blade from the other one flashed again by his ear.
He twisted away to avoid it, falling to the ground, as a sword swiped through the air once, twice, knocking aside the sentry and hacking off one slim “arm” at the joint. It fell to the ground by his head, fortuitously missing slicing him with the curved blade at the end. The hooked sentry paused and turned in its direction, its fellow mimicking it. Malachi looked up to see Herold, still mounted, luring them away. The pair that had targeted him were still active, still advancing, he must have simply knocked them aside to come to his lord’s aid.
But what made Malachi’s creations wonderful- or so he had once thought- was that though they might be easily thwarted for a moment or two, they were relentless. Indomitable. Even the one he had run his good blade through was still technically operational, if the blade could be removed cleanly enough.
The not-so-wonderful part, which he had spent much time attempting to remedy (thus far without success) was that his sentries required human direction to function. They could not identify an enemy themselves. That is why they needed human supervision, human orders. They could be given a set of instructions, but once the set was either completed or their gears ran down, that was it, that was all.
He had to find who was controlling them. He and one soldier could not hope to disable the machines themselves. He snatched up the blade from the one by the rod-like piece of metal “arm” still attached to it and hastily gained his feet while the sentries were distracted, eyes scanning the area wildly.
Whoever it was would need a clear vantage point to be able to divert two pairs, and could not be more than a dozen yards away at most. Even if they had been instructed to attack anything that moved, they would not have known to break off like that on their own. They possessed no such intelligence of their own (not such a momentous failure in Malachi’s mind; most flesh-and-blood people did not either.) They would have simply hacked away at whatever came in front of them, if nothing was identified to them as “ally.”
Then he saw it: the sudden rhythmic flash of light, aimed at the distracted sentries who had originally targeted him. It was coming from the half-intact rooftop of a charred husk of a building. He felt his stomach plummet, his skin going abruptly cold.
It was a Lyntaran. He was dressed all in black, as the Raiders did, and the crimson symbol of Lyntara was emblazoned across one bicep.
The bastard met his eyes and gave a single, deliberate wink.
Malachi cursed.
This isn’t possible, this is a nightmare, this isn’t possible, ran like a litany through his brain as he charged towards the Lyntaran, dashing around the sentries that were now closing in on Herold.