by Trish Mercer
Perrin nodded his agreement. “My father said the kings used a secret group of assassins. King Oren, not so much. When the Administrators took over, Relf thought he’d identified and eliminated the last of them that were still around. But I’m not sure he even knew of Pere’s suspicions, that Guarders might be abducting people? Over a hundred years ago, yes, that happened, but thirty years ago? He never said anything about that to me.”
“I’m sure your father didn’t know,” Yordin told him. “When your grandfather died the next year, and Relf replaced him, all communication with my father stopped.”
“I’m sorry, Gari. Pere was a sloppy record keeper. I think that’s why Relf was so obsessive about his paperwork. He must’ve suspected information had been lost when Pere died so suddenly—.” Perrin didn’t finish, but went back to studying his hands.
“But Major Yordin,” Thorne said, “what would Guarders want with an old man and an old woman?”
Yordin scoffed. “They weren’t old, Thorne! At least, I don’t consider fifty-four and fifty-five as ‘old’. Not since I turned forty,” he admitted. “But you ask a legitimate question. Why’d they take them? I’m not sure. I would’ve thought they weren’t taken at all but met with some kind of accident instead, if it weren’t for the fact that they went at different times. My grandmother knew something that she didn’t tell us, and I think she was kissing me goodbye because she knew her fate. That’s what’s troubled me all these years. That’s why I eventually chose a career that would allow me to make sure nothing like this ever happened again.”
Fadh had been very quiet, listening. “Yordin,” he started tentatively, “a family from Quake went missing about four weeks ago. A father, mother, and two little boys. No sign of forced entry.”
Yordin went wooden.
“People go missing all the time, Major,” Captain Thorne reminded him. “Maybe a hundred every year. The ones recovered had been kidnapped by past lovers or by angry land owners looking for back rent. That’s not our domain. Maybe they went for a walk and fell through the crust of a steam vent, or fell in a river and drowned. Little boys can’t swim. They could’ve been washed away—”
“Enough!” Perrin barked, noticing Yordin’s still frozen face.
Thorne shut his mouth, frustrated.
Fadh ignored the captain. “Yordin, do you remember any details about your grandparents’ disappearance?”
Yordin shook his head. “I was just eleven years old. So often I wished I had asked my parents about it, but I never did before they passed away.”
Shem cleared his throat. “Sirs, I wonder what would be the purpose in taking a family with two small boys?”
Fadh shifted in his seat before answering. “I must confess, Zenos, the idea that the family was taken occurred to me a while ago. I have nothing to go on but a hunch. But usually my hunches are correct. Consider, Master Sergeant, that if the Guarders are losing ranks—and since they were quiet for many years, that’s a fair assumption—what better way to increase those ranks than by forced conscription? Kidnap new recruits.”
Shem groaned. “In a few years, those two little boys would be fully indoctrinated to fight for the Guarders.”
“That’s brilliant!” Beneff said, shaking his head. “Because if the leather rips, ho-HO!”
The officers ignored that.
“But why take the parents?” Perrin wondered aloud, a terrible idea forming in his mind.
Fadh shrugged. “Maybe to get to the boys? Maybe they don’t even keep the parents once they have them.” He cringed as he considered the same conclusion Perrin had drawn.
Brillen blinked with a new idea. “They might be in Moorland—”
Yordin clapped his hand on the table. “That’s why the houses in Moorland! To raise a new fighting force! Shin, they’re growing a new force!”
Fadh leaped to his feet. “Colonel—those little boys . . . we can’t attack children!”
“Majors, Majors,” Perrin raised his hands. “Calm down. We’ve established nothing. We don’t even know why that family vanished. Fadh, who headed the investigation to their disappearance?”
“The chief of enforcement, but I assisted,” he said, slowly sitting down again. “My wife knew them. Even though we can’t have them, she loves children. They moved to our neighborhood a season ago and my wife would sneak the boys sweets when they walked past. She was very distressed by their disappearance.” Fadh sighed, his eyes clouding. “We found nothing at all. She’s still searching when she can.”
“How old were the boys?” Perrin asked, as gently as he could.
“Four and two, almost.”
Shem groaned again. “Just babies.”
“I’m telling you, it’s brilliant!” Beneff said. “The bears may break berries, but hee-hee. Get them while they’re young—”
“Beneff!” Karna said, noticing that Fadh’s color had been fading. “Enough, please.”
Beneff raised his hands, but his face still reflected appreciation.
“Gentlemen,” Perrin said, “do we have access to records about how many people have disappeared over the years? Honestly, Yordin, Fadh, I think we’re chasing after nothing here but I’m intrigued. Maybe there’s a connection. Why are the Guarders in houses after all these years? It’s worth looking into.”
Karna shrugged. “We can contact all of the chiefs of enforcement around the world and ask them for numbers. I have a feeling they don’t keep very good records about their failures, though.”
“Probably true,” Perrin said. “But let’s see what we can find.”
“After all,” Beneff began again, “all water runs downhill.”
In the perplexed silence that followed that wholly accurate but still contextually odd comment from Beneff, a sergeant in the back whispered, “While I understood that one, I still don’t get it.”
“Colonel,” the young, slow captain piped up again, “I’m afraid I still don’t understand why the Guarders, if it were Guarders, would want to take Major Yordin’s grandparents.” Thorne turned to him. “I realize the fifties aren’t that old. My parents would agree with you there,” he offered a small smile.
Yordin didn’t accept it.
“But of what value would they be?” Thorne continued. “Not everyone is as in excellent fighting shape as my father or you gentlemen. Or would be, when you are that age.” His little speech was rapidly growing lame.
Perrin smirked at Thorne’s clumsy attempt at diplomacy. He was trying, in so many ways.
“The captain has a point,” he said reluctantly to the room. “But maybe they weren’t looking for soldiers. What did your grandfather do for a living, Gari?”
Yordin’s broad forehead wrinkled in thought. “He was a scientist. He worked for a time at the university in Idumea before moving to Vines. He was doing something with . . .” The major tugged on his ear until his eyes lit up. “Metallurgy! That was it!” Slap. “He was experimenting with different kinds of alloys. I remember all kinds of shiny samples in his study.”
Thorne tried not to scoff, but it came out anyway. “What good is that to Guarders?”
“Strength of metal,” Perrin said evenly. “The better the alloy, the stronger the sword. Or dagger.”
Yordin nodded. “He was working on swords for Querul the Fourth.” He closed his eyes. “Maybe that’s what they were after: better weapons.”
“But why take his wife?” Thorne pressed.
Yordin looked at Shin for ideas.
Perrin had one that he grudgingly shared. “What better way to coerce a man to work than to threaten what’s most precious to him? I’m sorry, Gari.”
Yordin closed his eyes again, and his hand rose to pinch the bridge of his nose. Shem put a consoling hand on his back.
The major released his nose and smiled feebly at the men, but his eyes were fierce. “Colonel Shin, you tell me the day and time, and I’ll be there with every man I have. Let’s eliminate them now!” He slapped the table.
“I appreciate your zeal, Major. But let’s do a little more investigating first,” Perrin suggested. “All we’ve tossed around this morning are speculation and ideas. Let’s spend a few days trying to find out who has disappeared in the last few years, and what evidence they left behind, or didn’t.”
Brillen shifted in agitation. “But if we wait too long, the Guarders may attack us first.”
“I know, Karna, I know,” Perrin assured him. “That’s why I recommend we spend only a few days gathering evidence, and no more. We’ll stay in contact until we have more information to go on. The idea that children are being housed is a long shot, but if there are children—and I don’t care whose they are, ours or the Guarders—we will not harm them. Unlike the Guarders, we don’t harm innocents. Is that understood?”
“Understood and appreciated,” Fadh answered.
Yordin shook his head. “How innocent would those children still be, Shin? You and I both have sons. I’d rather my son die than ever have sympathy for the Guarders.”
Shem flinched and turned to Yordin. “Major, certainly you don’t believe that. Your own son?”
Yordin glanced at him before saying to Perrin, “Would you want your son on the wrong side, Colonel?”
“No, Yordin, I wouldn’t,” he said heavily. “But I honestly don’t know how I’d react if I found my boy with my enemy. I’ve never considered the possibility.”
Shem leaned across the table toward Perrin. “You don’t know? I do! You’d rescue him! You’d drag him out of there! Whatever dark corner of the cold wasteland they convinced him to reside in, you’d crawl into and retrieve him!”
The entire table of men was silenced by Shem, now on his feet in earnestness to make his point as he stared at Perrin.
Perrin, startled, stared back.
Yordin’s voice broke the silence. “Zenos, are you a father?”
Shem, his chest heaving, answered with his eyes still on his friend. “No. Not yet. But I feel like one.”
Perrin cocked his head.
Yordin’s voice came gently, along with a hand on Shem’s shoulder to pull him back into his chair. “Until you have a son, Zenos, you wouldn’t know what such a betrayal would feel like. I appreciate your zeal, but you really don’t understand.”
Shem slowly sat down, finally taking his eyes off his colonel. He nodded reluctantly to Yordin and folded his arms.
Yordin now looked at Thorne who seemed to enjoy the public conflict between Shem and Perrin. He had a small smile on his face that lasted only until he noticed Yordin glaring at him.
“And Thorne, until you know what it’s like to lose family to the Guarders, you may not understand why some of us,” he gestured to Perrin, “refuse to wait for them to hunt us when we can hunt them first.” He leaned on the table. “Honestly, Lemuel, I don’t know how your grandparents can sleep in that mansion,” his voice was very low as he glanced at Perrin to gauge his steadiness. “Knowing what happened to the Shins, even under guard, which guard may not have been all the Shins were led to believe—”
Thorne wet his lips nervously.
“—if I were you, dear Captain, I’d be in the lead of that first attack wave. You may be the only one who can preserve your grandparents and parents.”
Thorne swallowed hard, the weight of Major Yordin’s words visibly piling on his shoulders. “Then sir, I guess I will have to race you to Moorland.”
Yordin broke out into a broad smile and nodded his approval to Colonel Shin.
Perrin sent a fake smile to Thorne as well and slapped his hand on the table before Yordin could.
Beneff slapped as well. “Because when the deer are in the meadow, you know the moons will soon be singing.”
That Beneff nugget froze every man in his position, as if every drop of thought was needed to evaluate the saying.
Eventually Fadh cleared his throat and leaned forward to resume his examination of the old man. “Beneff, what’s a meh-doh?”
“Meh?” Beneff blurted, as if someone had just awaken him up from the briefest nap in the world.
“Yes, I was wondering that too.” Yordin scratched his chin with his table-slapping hand. “Meh-doh?”
Beneff blinked.
Perrin noticed Shem watching him steadily. Shem shifted his glance to Perrin and pulled the corners of his mouth tightly, a signal which meant I’ll have a word with the surgeon about him.
Perrin twitched back in agreement.
“You know,” Beneff shrugged. “Meadow. Place where grass and flowers grow. Deer eat them.”
“So . . . like a garden?” Fadh the investigator watched him closely. “Next to the forests?”
Beneff pondered that. “Garden? I suppose so, but people don’t normally plant it, you see—”
Shem caught Fadh’s eye and shook his head slightly.
Fadh smiled faintly back. There wasn’t that much to figure out about the old man. He was merely old.
Glad to see that Beneff had confused himself into silence, Perrin slapped the table on last time. “One week, gentlemen. We’ll meet here again with our findings about the disappearances. Then we’ll finalize the arrangements for the first offensive attack on the Guarders. Agreed?”
Even Thorne chorused his approval.
Chapter 12 ~ “Do you think I’m ready?”
Shem trudged in the thick mud to the steam vent late at night. His contact was already waiting at the log which was now pushed slightly away from the hot steam. By Weeding Season the log would be several feet away from the heat.
“I think these boots are each five pounds heavier,” Shem said. He sat down and tried to scrape off the mud with a stick.
The large man with the deep voice chuckled. “Building muscle, Shem. Remember that.”
Shem rolled his eyes. “How much more muscle can I build?”
His companion held out his arms.
“All right, Jothan. Until I’m as big as you, I’ll quit complaining. And of course, no one’s as big as you.” He gave up on the mud and tossed the stick. “Had an interesting meeting.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Shin wants the four forts in the area to attack Moorland.”
Jothan let out a low whistle. “Unexpected. Interesting.”
“Told you. There’s more. I need to know—was there a group of four, from Quake recently? With two young boys?”
“Yes. Through your channel,” Jothan said. “Why?”
Shem sighed. “The commander of the Quake fort knows about their disappearance. A major with a name you should enjoy— Graeson Fadh.”
“Ah, wonderful!”
“And the officers suspect Guarders.”
Slowly Jothan nodded. “Even more interesting.”
“Do we need to be worried?”
Jothan thought about that. “I’ll relay that information and get back to you at the usual time. But unless someone uncovers more, I can’t imagine that explanation would be a problem.”
“They’re sending messages to all the villages requesting details about people who’ve vanished over the years,” Shem said. “They’re worried that abducted people might be housed in Moorland.”
“Hmm,” Jothan pondered that. “We’ve been very careful over the years. I doubt more than a dozen or so names will be uncovered. Surely not enough to look suspicious.”
“That’s what I thought,” Shem agreed. “It’s been rare that anyone asked. Usually no one seems to care about new neighbors suddenly vanishing. The Fadhs were just unusual.”
“Well, with a name like that, of course they would be.”
Shem chuckled. “I have another name for you to check: Yordin. About thirty years ago?”
“Yordin? Yordin . . . oh, yes. Yes, there were two. Gone now, but they came through as well.”
Shem nodded slowly. “Their grandson is another major.”
“Wished I could have been at that meeting!” Jothan laughed.
Shem smiled. “You would’ve enjoyed it. I certainly d
id. There’s also going to be a new play,” he grinned, but only for a moment. “Jothan, I’m worried about Beneff. He used the word ‘meadow.’”
Jothan whistled under his breath. “Did anyone hear him?”
“Everyone heard him! Fadh and Yordin even asked what it meant.”
“Not good. And what did he say?”
“Well, he got confused on those points. Now everyone thinks a meadow is a garden by the forest where deer come to eat. But no one plants the garden.”
Jothan sighed. “His mind’s really slipping then, isn’t it.”
“I told Shin I’d have the surgeon take a look at him. He thinks Beneff’s just getting confused in his old age.”
“Good. That can cover a whole multitude of Beneff mistakes.”
“Agreed. But in the meantime, tell the others to keep an eye out for him. If he wanders out here he should be taken care of.”
“We’ve been trying to get our hands on him for a very long time. Nudge him out here, if you can. Incidentally, Shem, we have another group coming through. An emergency situation all the way from Waves. We predict they will reach here by midday meal, day after tomorrow.”
“In the day?”
“Time’s critical. There’s no other option. Can you keep the east clear?”
“I’ve already scheduled massive maneuvers for the western edge of the forest to practice for the attack,” Shem said. “I’ll need to get the colonel distracted. He was going to stay in the command tower to work on the details of the plans. He rarely looks out the eastern window, but still the spyglass could pick them up . . .” A smile began to spread across Shem’s face. “I have the very thing. Our new chief of enforcement is greener than a meadow,” he said with a wink. “He’s going to encounter a problem day after tomorrow, and may need to call on Perrin.” Shem nodded. “All will be clear.”
“You always find a way, don’t you, Shem?” Jothan nudged him with his elbow.
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