by Joe Jackson
Kari shrugged. “Just the word we got from Erik and the others about their plans. Why?”
Allerius chuckled again, but before he spoke, he entered the office fully and closed the door. He took a seat across from Kari and regarded the boxes on her desk briefly. He didn’t ask why Kari was going through Jason Bosimar’s things again, but the fact that she was piqued his interest. Finally, he smirked and said, “Apparently, your brother-in-law arrested the mayor of Winter’s Bounty, and some are saying he even threatened to arrest the local baron when they return to the city after the hunt.”
“Erik arrested the mayor of Winter’s Bounty?” Kari repeated incredulously. She knew her brother-in-law could be hard-nosed and a stickler for the rules, but that he’d take the time to arrest a mayor on the way to hunt a demon seemed a stretch even for Erik.
“Broke his nose and had him tossed in the stocks until further orders, from what the reports say,” Allerius added with another chuckle.
“But why?”
Her second-in-command shrugged. “Conflicting accounts, of course. The priesthood in Winter’s Bounty have said that it had something to do with disrespecting the Earl of Lajere, as well as violating some obscure animal protection law regarding fishing.”
Kari rolled her eyes. “Oh gods, but that does sound like something Erik would do,” she muttered. It seemed a strange thing even for Erik, but then she guessed it depended on just how bad the disrespect for Earl Lajere had been. Kari had no idea about any animal protection laws, but she was pretty sure that if Erik took the time to arrest someone over it, it had to at least be a flagrant violation. Kari figured maybe she’d be best served spending her administrative time brushing up on the laws of the duchies and the kingdom as a whole. She looked back up to Allerius once her thoughts were finished wandering. “Do we need to send anyone down there to smooth things over with the local baron?”
Lord Allerius shook his head. “Quite the opposite, I’d imagine,” he said. “From what the reports say, Earl Lajere has taken command of Marsdale County until the Duke officially recognizes Earl Pendergast’s son as the new Earl, so Baron Stevens should be worried about appeasing us.”
There was a knock on the door before Kari could even mutter That’s good. She called for the person to enter, and her assistant, Joaquim, poked his head in. “Ma’am, there’s…someone here to see you.”
“Who is it?” Kari asked impatiently. It wasn’t like the administrators or assistants to play guessing games when Kari had visitors.
“Eh, you should probably come see for yourself, ma’am,” the human said.
Kari sighed and waved Joaquim away. She got to her feet and took another kick to the bladder for her efforts, and she and Lord Allerius left the office to go see who the visitor was. As soon as Kari caught a glimpse of him, there was no need for anyone to explain their hesitance to tell her who the visitor was. The sight of crimson skin alone was enough to justify the stupor of the clerks, so Kari stepped forward with Lord Allerius close at her side.
The serilis-rir turned around at Kari’s approach and straightened out as he beheld her for the first time. They studied each other, the brys taking in every inch of Kari’s winged form while she did the same in turn. He was fairly tall for a brys, standing maybe five-foot-five, but he still had that slim build devoid of any flab that suggested a life where he rarely sat still. He had those same dark red, dragon-like eyes Makauric had, but unlike Kari’s companion from her work on Tsalbrin, this brys also had decorative black tattoos across his snout and under his eyes. They looked half stylish, half glyphic, as though he’d had protective runes cut and dyed in his skin in a decorative way. A field of short, thorny black horns on his crown completed the look.
“Can I help you?” Kari asked him as the silence in the room deepened.
“You are Karian Vanador?” he asked, his voice a little high-pitched, but not nearly as much as Makauric’s had been.
“Lady Karian Vanador, Hand of Zalkar,” Lord Allerius corrected.
The brys fixed those dragon-like eyes on Allerius, but Kari held her hand up to stop anyone from making the encounter any more awkward than it already was. “I am,” she answered. “What can I do for you?”
The brys made a gesture of respect and nodded his head slightly. “I am Shamus, lord of the brys,” he answered. “I wish to discuss the death of one of my people, called Makauric.”
“That was over three years ago,” Kari commented, confused that the lord of the brys himself would suddenly take in interest after so long.
The brys made a short gesture of agreement. “Though word travels quickly among my people, I am certain you can appreciate how difficult it is for one of my kind to find passage across the waters,” Shamus responded. “Since I make my abode on Terrassia, it has taken an effort for me to find the time and the transportation to come and see you myself. But I have done so, and I would like to speak with you about this.”
“Of course,” Kari said, and she gestured toward her office. “Come and sit with me.”
“Go and find Master Arinotte, and bring him to Lady Vanador’s office,” Lord Allerius ordered one of the clerks. He then followed the brys to Kari’s office.
Kari returned to her seat behind the desk, but she refrained from putting her feet up on its edge, as much as she would’ve liked to. She didn’t want to give the brys the impression that she was bored or disinterested in his presence and concerns. She recalled the letter she had helped the city council of Raugro on Tsalbrin write to the brys explaining the unfortunate circumstances that had led to Makauric’s death. She had specifically written that if they questioned the letter’s sincerity, to seek her out. One of them had, and it was their lord, no less, so Kari wanted to give him her utmost respect and undivided attention.
“What did you want to talk about, exactly?” Kari asked, when at last she became a little uncomfortable under the dragon-eyed gaze of the brys.
Her prompt spurred him to action, and he pulled out a finger-sized scroll that he unrolled and read through. “The transcription I received of your words confuses me,” he said, looking up to her when he finished perusing the scroll. “I have been lord of my kind only since our creator met her end, but I am by no means a whelp. Never have I heard one of my kind described by the words I am told you wrote of Makauric. What I want to know, Lady Vanador, is if these words hold any truth, or if you spoke them simply to safeguard your own people?”
A knock preceded the entrance of Master Arinotte, who quickly motioned for Kari not to rise as she normally would. She saluted him anyway, and he responded with a nod. Allerius got to his feet and offered his chair to the priest, who took a seat beside the brys while Lord Allerius went back to lean against the closed door. Master Arinotte and Shamus stared at each other for a couple of minutes, and Kari wondered if it was the first time the priest had been so close to a brys without either having a weapon in hand.
“Master Arinotte, this is Shamus, lord of the brys,” Kari said by way of introduction, and the priest and the brys exchanged curt nods.
“What did I miss?” Master Arinotte asked, turning back to Kari. Shamus handed the priest the scroll he was holding, and the human scanned it quickly. “Serilian…it’s been a while since I read anything in this language. What is this, exactly?”
“It is the letter Lady Vanador sent to my people on Tsalbrin, to explain the killing of one of my brothers called Makauric,” the lord of the brys answered. “My question to her is whether she actually meant anything she said therein, or if it was just a false pretense to keep my people from enacting vengeance.”
“I meant every word of it,” Kari said. She took a deep breath and sighed. “I don’t think they really did him justice, though. If it wasn’t for Makauric, a civil war may have started on Tsalbrin, and there may have been an invasion from Mehr’Durillia – the underworld.”
Master Arinotte and Lord Allerius both listened as intently as the brys to Kari’s words. She had spent considerable time
telling the priesthood about how instrumental the brys was to her work on Tsalbrin, but she wasn’t sure they had ever fully appreciated it. In the wake of the Apocalypse, tensions had still been high between the rir and serilis-rir, and though trust was building under Kaelariel’s unified rule, there were still always holdouts. Only after Kari’s work on Tsalbrin had the Order changed its policies of killing lesser serilis-rir on sight, and the results of that were slow in bearing fruit. Kari had to hope that the lord of the brys sitting across from her in her office meant that some of the fruit was about to blossom.
“You called him your friend…this is not something I would ever expect to hear from a hunter,” Shamus said. There was little emotion in his voice, despite how accusatory or even hostile his words made him seem. As was typical for his kind, he simply didn’t tread softly around delicate topics or consider others’ feelings when he wanted the truth of a matter.
“He was my friend,” Kari said, sitting up a little straighter. The blue glow of Zalkar’s symbol began to illuminate the faces of the men before her, but Kari paid it little heed, even in light of Shamus’ surprised reaction. “He helped me and my partner find what we were looking for when we were lost in the rainforest. He helped us avoid the notice of a dangerous dragon. He led us to the lair of the demon we were hunting, and then he came and helped take care of us after the battle. Maybe he didn’t help us fight, but I never held that against him; he was afraid the sylinth would control his mind again, so he thought we’d be better served if he stayed away. And after we dealt with that, he led us to where we needed to be to help put a stop to a civil war. If it wasn’t for Makauric, the gods only know how things would’ve turned out on Tsalbrin, and you know what? I doubt they know, either.”
“So you call him friend because he helped you in your service,” the brys said with a nod.
“No, I call him friend because he cared for me, and for us, and I grew to care for him in return,” Kari countered. “And considering he…made a pass at me, he apparently felt just as strongly about it, no matter how muted your peoples’ feelings might usually be.”
“Made a pass at you?” the brys repeated. “You mean he sought you as a mate?”
“More than once,” Kari said.
The brys considered her with his head turned slightly to the side, and he looked at Master Arinotte after a few silent moments. “What does this mean?” he asked, gesturing toward the blue glow of Zalkar’s symbol upon Kari’s breast. “Does your lord seek my death for merely speaking with your hunter?”
Master Arinotte chuckled and shook his head as though he could hardly believe what he was about to say. “No, quite the opposite, Lord Shamus,” he said, and the brys actually showed surprise at being addressed so formally and respectfully by the priest. “What you are witnessing is our lord directly agreeing with and vouching for Lady Vanador’s words. She is now under the testing of the Unyielding to become the next Avatar of Vengeance, and this visual cue from our lord demonstrates his satisfaction with the work she is doing with you right now.”
The brys thought on that briefly. “Indeed. I have killed a number of your hunters over the many years of my life,” he said, and Kari wasn’t the only one surprised by the admission, “and it was quite strange to suddenly be told to work alongside them when the War came. I have never had much respect for the nature of your Order, for while my people can be ruthless and vicious, it is rarely without cause or purpose. Your Order has spent the better part of my life hunting my kind with no mercy, and for most of my life, I have been happy to return that favor.”
Master Arinotte and Lord Allerius were both shocked speechless, and Shamus took the letter back from the human priest. He glanced at it briefly and then tossed it on the desk in front of Kari, and continued, “But this…this tells me things have actually changed. This letter is not on the orders of Kaelariel, at the tip of a sword, or staring down the length of a drawn bow and arrow. This is the word of someone who believes in what she fights for, and believes she can create the better world and lasting peace that Kaelariel has so long striven for and promised my people. This letter, these words of your hunter, are something I can believe in and trust.”
Shamus turned back to Master Arinotte. “Your Order and its lord have chosen wisely with this one,” he said. “Do well to safeguard her, and bring up others in her ways, for hers is the only avenue to any true and lasting peace between our peoples.”
“I must say, I agree whole-heartedly,” the priest said, trying not to sound like he was at a loss for words, though his expression betrayed him.
Shamus stood up and turned back to Kari. “As for you, Lady Vanador, you have earned my trust and respect. Though Kaelariel has ordered my people to give it, we do not give these things unless they are earned, and earn them you have. Now I believe I can trust you, and trust Kaelariel’s orders, and should you need the aid of my brys in anything, you have but to ask.”
Kari rose to her feet, ignoring the usual protests of her body, and she offered her hand to the brys. Shamus regarded her for a moment but then seemed to nod to himself, and he reached across to shake Kari’s hand. “If you need help rooting out problems among your people, you can always ask us, too,” she said, and Shamus nodded, though he didn’t seem to want things to go that far. “And, if you really are willing to help us, there’s something I could use one or two of your brys’ help with.”
“Then ask, and see it done,” the lord of the brys responded.
“I have a coach with a few friends headed south toward Gnarr, and I suspect they may be in danger of being ambushed,” she said. “If you could send one or two of your brys to keep watch over them, I’d consider that a personal favor.”
“South to Gnarr? Then they would cross the main bridge over the river you call the Great Divide, yes?” the brys asked. Kari nodded, and he thought to himself. Kari found it interesting that he knew anything about the lay of the land if he was from Terrassia, but she figured he may not have always lived there. “That bridge seems the most likely ambush point then, no? There are usually a couple of my people watching for trouble there; I will advise them of your request.”
“Thank you,” Kari said.
Shamus nodded, but didn’t get sentimental or congenial over it. “If you will excuse me, I will go and pass along the message as quickly as possible, so my people know ahead of your friends’ arrival.”
“Farewell, and be careful,” Kari said, and the brys regarded her curiously. “This city can be a bit rough.”
“So can I,” he said simply, and Allerius stepped aside so the brys could make his egress.
“Do you think that was wise?” Lord Allerius asked after enough of a pause to ensure the brys was far out of earshot with the door closed.
“I wanted to send Eryn Olgaryn with them, but I couldn’t get a hold of her,” Kari said. “I want to make sure any ambush gets foiled. Those are my friends out there, and even if it wasn’t, I’m not interested in delivering anyone else’s tags to their families anytime soon.”
The symbol of Zalkar began glowing on her chest again, and Master Arinotte simply patted Kari’s shoulder before he, too, left the office. Soon Lord Allerius followed, and Kari could finally do what she wanted. She sat down and put her swollen ankles up on the desk.
Chapter VIII – Separation
The city of Newport was a stark contrast to Winter’s Bounty. The piers and the harbor were crowded, but not nearly as much as those in Winter’s Bounty, and the harbormasters here did a better job of directing traffic. Erik was pleased with the lack of slain whales or other obvious ignorance of the law at first sight. As with their previous stop, he and the others waited impatiently while the ship was directed to dock. He wasn’t planning for this to be their final stop, but here they would part ways with Markus, and take a different vessel upriver to the city of Ballycastle. The Sword of the Coast was clearly not a river-going ship.
Markus came up on deck and spoke with the captain and master, and Erik as
sumed he was directing them to take him farther along the coast to the city of Marsdale. Erik was sorry to be losing a capable paladin and blade, but Markus’ skills were better served taking control of the county until the Duke stepped in personally. Erik was happier being directly in charge of the group, too, but Markus hadn’t overstepped Erik on much of anything, despite his noble station. The human had certainly changed Erik’s perceptions of the nobility a little, earning his respect instead of simply deserving it on account of his authority.
The others came up on deck once the ship was docked, and Markus gathered them all a short distance from the gangway to bid them farewell. “I will take command of things from the city of Marsdale, and start organizing efforts to send battalions to flush this creature out. My goal will be to have the armies push it west, whether it turns out to be a single demon as we suspect, or a larger force. By the time you reach Ballycastle, you will likely have a better idea of where to find our enemy, and you can send along word so that I may better direct the centralized efforts.”
“Will do. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Your Lordship,” Erik said, and he and the paladin shook hands.
Gabrius and Erik’s siblings shook hands with the paladin cordially, and Markus turned to his students and Sharyn. “I don’t believe I’ve said as much, but you have learned all I can teach you,” he said to the twins. “Consider this as your final test under my tutelage. Stay close to your allies, work together, and fulfill your callings. Remember that should you have questions, friend Gabrius is one of the Duke’s most trusted Avengers, and can help guide you. I will see you in Marsdale when your work is complete.”
Sherman bowed his head and shook hands with Markus, but Katarina gave the noble paladin a tight hug. Erik may have been mistaken, but he was pretty sure the hug was far from platonic. He hadn’t seen or heard anything during the trip to suggest Katarina and Markus were romantically involved, but considering they were paladins, he thought they might just keep it under wraps better than most. He thought perhaps he was overthinking things, but a quick glance at Aeligos and then Sonja confirmed he wasn’t the only one wondering.