Lessek_s Key e-2

by Rob Scott

  ‘What are you doing up? You shouldn’t be putting weight on that leg.’ She moved to his bedside. ‘Here, let me see it.’

  ‘No way!’ Mark spat and swung for her, tumbling her into the wooden table at the back of the tent. The table collapsed over her, spilling packs, supplies, food and what looked like medical implements. Rolling to her feet, Raskin advanced with her own fists clenched. She stopped when she saw the tent flaps open.

  ‘Now that wasn’t very polite,’ said the sergeant, who had followed her in. He crossed quickly to Mark’s cot.

  ‘I don’t want her touching me again,’ Mark said angrily.

  ‘No, son, you don’t want me touching you.’ He slammed a fist down on Mark’s injured knee and Mark screamed, curled into a ball and rolled from his cot.

  The sergeant stooped to help Mark back into bed. ‘I hated to do that, son, but I can’t have you striking my soldiers. Raskin is the best healer we have in the northern corps, and you’re lucky to have her looking after you.’ He covered Mark with a wool blanket, careful to tuck the edges beneath the young man’s writhing frame. Now, get control of yourself, because we have to talk.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Garec threatened from his cot.

  ‘Or you’ll do what? Shoot me with that fancy bow of yours?’ The sergeant turned to Garec. ‘I noticed you didn’t fire one shot this morning, not one. And that after we stuck two arrows in you. Then you throw out one of the nicest rosewood bows I have ever seen. So I figure you’re either a coward or a rich coward. Either way, you shut yourself up until I tell you to speak. I’m not interested in getting involved in a lot of bureaucratic nonsense. If you’re border runners, you’ll go to the lock-up and await your hanging. I don’t read, myself, but books are books; I don’t begrudge a man the chance to make a bit of silver. I don’t like fennaroot runners, and you two claim to be root runners as well as rare book dealers. But you’ve got no root on you, you’ve got no books on you, so what am I to do with you?

  ‘I tend to hang fennaroot runners, and though you didn’t have anything on you today, if I hang you, no one is going to care. Unless you had it stashed there at the university, you’re lying to me, because I know there is no place to sell fennaroot on that hillside – it’s not a popular spot, that hillside, doesn’t draw a lot of visitors, especially not in the winter.’ He looked over at Mark again.

  ‘I don’t believe you know a way into the palace, because I don’t know a way into the palace, and I’ve been up here since before both of you were even born. If you had any root on you, you’d be dead. If you had any books on you, we might negotiate for a small fee, and you’d be on your way. But you didn’t have any books, and you don’t have hardly any silver at all. So what do I do with you?’

  ‘I think-’ Garec interrupted.

  ‘Shut yourself up firm and quick, boy. I am not making a joke with you,’ the sergeant said firmly. ‘I will ruin your life right this moment if you don’t shut your lip right now.’

  Garec complied without another word and the sergeant continued, ‘So, boys. There’ve been reports of some strange goings-on up at the palace: clouds that move against the winds, explosions, demon screams late at night. The villagers complain and our captain sends us up here to check on the place. Mind you, our lieutenant didn’t come along with the rest of us, because that would have meant getting up off his delicate little backside, and he doesn’t like to do that during this season. So we make the trip up and find you two, book dealers with no books, root runners with no root. I am a very reasonable man, me, and I didn’t kill you. I actually had my girl treat you with querlis, because I do not, not for one moment, believe anything you have told me.’ He spat onto the frozen ground by Mark’s head.

  ‘I am not famous for having border runners rush to tell me the truth, and normally I would just hang you boys and be done with this situation. But there are too many coincidences here. First, you aren’t who you say you are; I can see that. Second, you appear at the same time we get reports of odd – some might say magical – goings on up at the palace. And third, we find you two just at the moment our orders from Capehill fade to a trickle. You see, we here on the border receive our orders from a general in Capehill. He doesn’t come up this way too often, because it’s cold and grey and the wine doesn’t travel well out here in the territory. We have received no orders in the past Twinmoon except to come out here and check up on things. Now, rumour has it that Prince Malagon is dead – gone, killed, hiding out in a basement in Orindale, whatever – and I can assure you boys, I don’t care one rutting pinch if he’s on a dairy farm enjoying sexual relations with a heifer. But when I put all these pieces together at the same time, something tells me I need to keep you two alive long enough to satisfy my curiosity that these things are not somehow all related. What do you think?’

  Raskin had begun changing the dressing on Garec’s injuries, peeling away the querlis leaves and replacing them with a fresh poultice. So much for escaping during the night. He nodded his thanks when she finished and watched as she moved warily to Mark’s cot.

  ‘If he so much as twitches, you leave his wound untended, you hear, girl? He can tie it up himself if he’s that tough.’ The sergeant stared down at Mark as he spoke.

  ‘So, boys, what do you think of my summary? Am I about right?’

  Garec had been trying to work out their story. ‘You’re right about much of it, sir, although we truly don’t know anything about any screaming demon or magic clouds. We do know a way into the palace, and we do have a stash, root, a few books and a purse of silver we left inside. We were going to go back for it, after we made a run down into the village for some supplies.’

  The sergeant grinned at him. ‘I’ll give you ten points for coming close to the truth, boy, but you missed it, didn’t you? Just by a bit, but you missed the truth.’ With that, he pressed the flat of his palm against Garec’s injured hip and began to lean forward. Pain flared up despite the fresh querlis and Garec groaned, fighting the urge to scream.

  ‘You want to try again, boy? You two weren’t going into that village for supplies. That village is a day-trip. You two were carrying everything you own, and if you were going in for supplies, you’d have taken more than the few copper Mareks you had on you. You were on your way out of those hills, right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right, all right,’ Garec spoke as quickly as he could between shallow breaths. His leg throbbed with every heartbeat, and his foot began to twitch involuntarily as his body fought the need to pass out. ‘You’re right. We were leaving.’

  The sergeant withdrew his hand. Garec rolled onto his back, sweating.

  ‘We were leaving for a few days. We’d done the first part of our job. The books were there in the library and the root was hidden inside the palace scullery.’ Garec decided to try lying one more time, assuming that if the sergeant pressed against his hip again, he would be unconscious until morning, anyway. ‘Our job was to get the root across the border and to hide it at Sandcliff. Our partner is the one with the connection here in Gorsk. He sells the root, brings the silver back and we return three days later to carry both the coins and the books across the border into Capehill.’

  ‘Ah, a partner now? This is getting thick, isn’t it?’ The sergeant approached again. ‘And I am quite sure you will be happy to share your partner’s name, will you not?’

  Garec prayed the sergeant really had been a border guard as long as he claimed. ‘Rodler Varn of Capehill,’ he said. ‘I’m Garec Haile; I come from Randel, down in Rona, but I live in Capehill now. That’s Mark Jenkins. He’s from the South Coast, obviously, but he lives in Capehill too, at least for the autumn harvest and our winter runs across the border. We get into the palace through a drainage track that runs from the scullery to the gardens. It was a fluke; our partner found it one morning running from a squad of your guards.’

  ‘Rodler Varn?’ The sergeant glanced at Raskin, who tried to hide her excitement. ‘That name might be familiar… Rodler Varn. Hm
mm.’ Garec could see the Malakasian was prevaricating; it was quite clear that young Rodler had been eluding them for some time; he was probably quite a thorn in their sides. ‘And you say he’ll be stopping by the palace in the next three days?’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘Don’t play games with me, boy. What you say in the next two breaths may save your life – your Southie friend’s life, too.’

  Garec felt a rush of adrenalin; the wind had changed in their favour. Now was his chance to misdirect the greedy border guards. ‘We can take you back. We can get you inside – though not many can fit through the opening. You won’t be able to, and the others we saw this morning, they won’t fit either.’

  ‘Mox and Denny,’ Mark said quietly.

  ‘Good memory, boy,’ the sergeant said with a laugh. ‘You were paying attention this morning.’

  ‘One tends to remember the names of people who have been so helpful.’ He shot Raskin a grim look.

  ‘Right. Denny and Mox. They won’t be able to fit, but she will.’ Garec indicated Raskin. ‘We could get her inside.’

  ‘And she could open the doors for the rest of us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Garec answered. ‘We’ve never tried to open them. We figured if anyone – you in particular – was monitoring the palace, you’d know if the main gate had been breached.’

  ‘Wise of you, young man, very wise.’ He turned to Raskin. ‘You’ll go inside with them.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Rutters, yes, Sergeant,’ Raskin said

  ‘Good, good. We’ll ride up that way in the morning. Trust me, boy, if you have someone waiting in that scullery for my soldiers, they’ll be dead. You, too.’

  He turned back to Raskin and said, ‘Send Mox and Denny back with two of the others to watch the place. I don’t want young Rodler Varn of Capehill coming and going before we can snare him. Have them go up the draw south of here. It’s faster.’

  Raskin looked concerned. Are you sure? The regular path up there is-’

  ‘It’s cold enough. No one has seen or heard one of them creatures in the last Moon. With this snow, they’ll all be down on the plain hunting livestock. It’ll be all right.’

  The sergeant pulled his hat down over his ears and tugged the knitted mittens back on his hands. ‘If we do capture your partner, boys, you’ll have the fun of a tag hanging down in the village.’

  Neither Mark nor Garec replied; they hadn’t been invited to speak. Garec was feeling drowsy as the querlis began to take effect, but before allowing himself to fall asleep, he made eye contact with Mark. They had learned something useful: none of the ranking officers were alarmed about the strange happenings at the old Larion keep; they hadn’t even bothered to send out a full platoon. That was good news for the partisans: they had infiltrated Gorsk and engaged in a noisy battle with Prince Malagon’s minions without alerting the entire army.

  The challenge now was not just to escape, but to make sure no one managed to spread the word that a company of partisans had breached the walls at Sandcliff.

  Garec’s vision began to blur and he slipped smoothly into the darkness. His last thought was that Mark had been right: Nerak hadn’t sent anyone to Sandcliff, because he thought the almor and the acid clouds would kill them off; he hadn’t even alerted his own border patrols. Garec hoped to make it a mistake the fallen Larion sorcerer would regret.

  At midmorning the following day they came upon what remained of Mox and Denny and the two soldiers dispatched to assist them at Sandcliff. Mark and Garec were riding one behind the other on a large roan which was quite comfortable carrying both men as long as it didn’t involve galloping. They were still groggy with the lingering effects of querlis, and in pain, even though the poultices had reduced the swelling and speeded the healing process. Raskin had visited several times during the night to make sure they were drinking enough water and, in the aven just before dawn, to change their dressings for the ride back to the palace. Garec didn’t believe they would have received such attention had Rodler’s name not been mentioned; he suspected transporting a few bandoliers of fennaroot was the least of the young man’s crimes north of the Gorskan border.

  They had been riding for nearly an aven, the roan’s reins securely attached to Raskin’s pommel, when they heard the sergeant cry out. A flurry of activity as soldiers dismounted and ran forward preceded screams of horror. One of the guards leant over and vomited repeatedly in the snow.

  Raskin remained in the saddle, her sword drawn. Neither Mark nor Garec made any move, both watching their guard carefully: it was obvious something nasty had happened to her colleagues.

  Garec wanted to sympathise, for Raskin had been good to them. He had lost Mika and Jerond, Versen and Sallax – he knew what was going through Raskin’s mind as she listened to her fellow soldiers crying out to the gods of the Northern Forest. He set his jaw, determined not to feel sorry for the border guard: she, like the rest of them, was Nerak’s servant, and thus his enemy.

  He gave her credit for being a steadfast soldier; maybe if she’d grown up in Estrad she might now be fighting for the Resistance.

  ‘It was grettans,’ Garec said.

  ‘Shut yourself up,’ Raskin scowled. She sat straighter, trying in vain to see what was happening ahead. After a bit, she said, ‘What makes you think it was grettans?’

  ‘Look at where we are,’ Garec said. ‘This is a game trail, running from the pond we passed near your encampment. Every animal in this forest probably comes down here for water and I imagine grettans hunt back and forth across the trail, waiting for the opportunity to attack downhill. They would be deadly fast downhill.’

  The soldier, despite her discipline, began to shake. ‘Oh, gods, Denny-’ she whispered to herself. ‘Poor Mox-’

  ‘Go and see for yourself, Raskin,’ Mark said in a kindly tone. ‘We aren’t going anywhere – neither of us could even get off this horse without help, and it would be suicide for us to try and outrun you with two of us in the saddle. We’ll be here when you get back.’

  Raskin pulled herself together and put her shoulders back. ‘I’m fine. Sergeant Greson will get everything in order.’

  ‘Raskin,’ Garec hoped using her name would soften her, ‘those were your friends. Mark and I would be crushed if we knew four of our friends were lying mutil- well, you know, just up the path. Go ahead. We will be here when you get back.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Mark said. ‘You know we can’t ride far.’

  ‘Or take us with you if you must,’ Garec went on, ignoring Mark’s hard poke in the ribs. ‘You can’t get up there with both horses; so dismount and lead ours along.’

  Her eyes grew distant for a moment. ‘Maybe that will be all right – it’s not like I’m leaving you alone.’

  ‘We’ve both lost friends, Raskin,’ Garec said soothingly. ‘We know how difficult it is.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘but any move and I swear I’ll run you both through.’ She untied their reins from her pommel and slid from the saddle, never taking her eyes off the two prisoners. Walking backwards through the snow, she led the big roan by the bridle. After a few paces, and nothing untoward from Garec or Mark, she relented and turned her attention to the trail ahead.

  As soon as she did, Mark whispered, ‘Are you insane? She was going to leave us.’

  ‘I wanted to get up the ridge,’ Garec said. ‘Being down there does us no good – we could run headlong into another patrol without seeing a thing.’

  ‘Can you ride?’

  ‘It’s going to hurt. You?’

  ‘Same, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Our bows and quivers are tied to the back of the sergeant’s saddle. If they stayed in line, his horse will be second from the front, the dapple-grey mare with the braid in her mane.’

  ‘You get us close enough and I’ll get the bows.’

  ‘Can you turn and fire?’

  ‘Like a Parthian.’

  ‘Does that mean yes?’

  �
��It’s going to hurt.’

  ‘We’ll deal with that later. If they’re scattered all over this clearing, we’ll have one chance to break away. The ever-charming Sergeant Greson won’t lose control of this group for very long. If they’re on their knees or huddled together, that’ll be our only chance.’

  ‘I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts their discipline returns as soon as they see us.’

  ‘Right. So you’ll have to be quick.’

  As they neared the clearing, Garec numbered off the remaining soldiers: two were bent over a fallen tree. The sergeant was pushing his way through deeper snow off to one side of the trail, pushing back branches and peering into scrubby patches of brush. At first, Garec couldn’t work out what he was doing, then he realised he was collecting the pieces of his men left by the grettan pack. The sergeant was muttering inaudibly to himself: the worst thing that could ever happen had come to pass that morning: he had lost half his squad, young people he had taught, disciplined, and most certainly loved.

  Finally Mark spotted the fourth, a middle-aged man of perhaps three hundred Twinmoons who knelt in the snow clutching an unidentifiable limb resting across his lap.

  A squad this tight-knit was closer than family, and with four men lost, and so gruesomely, the Malakasians had forgotten – just for the moment – that they were soldiers, with prisoners. If they were to escape, Mark and Garec had one brief window of opportunity.

  Raskin’s boots crunched through the snow as she approached the scene. Shaking noticeably, she brought her hands to her face, still holding the roan’s bridle, and covered her eyes. Mark hadn’t known the dead men; he’d used a whole quiver of arrows trying to kill them… but he winced when he saw the carnage left by the grettan pack.

  The trail was awash with blood, staining the trampled snow, pooling in beastly footprints, coating trees and bushes – drops had even frozen into jewel-like icicles. And strewn about were sundry pieces of men and horse and bits of accoutrements: a hunk of shoulder, arm partly attached, still sporting epaulettes and the insignia of the Malakasian border guard; half a hand adorned by a flattened ring with huge tooth marks in the metal; a horse’s head, intact save for a torn ear, rearing up out of the ground, the bridle bit gripped between bloody teeth: a war horse even in death.