by Tia Reed
“You had no right!” he growled aloud. His face was tight with an anger which robbed him of words.
Her breath as she waited for his verdict was so rapid she began to feel faint.
“Your rage declares the truth,” Ahkdul said.
A gang of sailors took that as a cue. They mobbed Arun, the dishonourable cowards, pulling his sword from its scabbard, grabbing his arms to tie them behind his back.
✽ ✽ ✽
Vinsant averted his eyes as, ahead, Padesh of the beige crystal stopped by a snowdusted crag and waited for him to trudge the increasing distance between them.
The nudge of the thoughtlink made him pause. It boggled the mind some upstart mahktashaan had not discovered a way to keep the body coordinated with an open link. Beat him how much more effort it required than talking to someone beside you. With a shake of his head, Vinsant opened his end of the link.
Hi Arun. Uh. He faltered as he realised Mariano was there.
Vinsant, were you just talking to Kordahla?
Boy, was his brother in a rage. And Arun, awash with caution, was trying to give a hint. Cool isn’t it, except for she’s miserable. What are you being so mean to her for?
“You had no right!” Mariano said. Vinsant sensed he had blurted it aloud.
The thoughtlink cut off before he could tell Mariano what he really thought. So much for his big, honourable brother who was forcing his sister on that pig. So what if they were talking? She was his sister.
“Who were you thoughtspeaking?” Padesh demanded. The mahktashaan had trudged up just to intimidate him, Vinsant was sure.
“Prince Mariano had the minoria contact me,” Vinsant said.
“You are not pleased. Have you learned nothing of respect for your elders?” Padesh turned and strode off.
“Mariano is not my elder,” Vinsant muttered. But keep up the silent treatment. If he didn’t have to talk he could wallow in remorse as they spent the twilight slipping and sliding down the treacherous mountain path towards the Temple of the Rift just so Padesh could be rid of him the sooner. As for the gruelling dusk and dawn drills in swordplay and magic, the concentration they needed left, for a brief time, no room for the guilt that was consuming him. Where his training was concerned, Padesh had become as exacting and merciless as Levi. What coach in his right mind would ask an apprentice to duel on a path the width of a jester’s foot? It didn’t take a genius to work out he could not attack with conviction when he was worried one misplaced foot would see him tumble to his death. Over and over, he executed simple swings, trying all the while to stay on the ledge, spell warmth into his clothes, and hit Padesh. His fingers were always so frozen he fumbled his grip on the sword. It was one lesson he hadn’t mastered, but Padesh had not let him give up. He supposed it all meant he was still an apprentice.
Perhaps not for much longer. “Padesh will guide you as far as the temple,” was hardly the most heartfelt of farewells. Add to that Fenz’s devastating order to stomp out of the mines and into the blustery elements within the hour and it was pretty obvious he was more unpopular than a scumdipper in a lady’s bedchamber. So what if he could fend for himself? What did it matter if he could shield against flurries of snow and biting wind, summon food and levitate the Myklaani sword almost without thinking when a man was dead because of him? It was all very well for Arun to validate his actions. He wasn’t the one who had seen Mahktos strike Tokver down. Yes, the arrogant toad had deserved a demotion at the very least, but Mahktos had not even considered a second chance. If he was honest, Vinsant had to admit that made him a teeny bit scared. He was starting to doubt he would measure up when he next faced Mahktos. Under the circumstances, he had a right to flagging spirits at the very least.
A rollicking from Mariano, however? That was uncalled for. His bossy big brother was acting like he owned Kordahla. He was acting like. . . Father.
✽ ✽ ✽
Cerulean light flashed. The sailors mobbing Arun sailed across the deck, crashing into rigging, bulwark and cabin. Arun’s sword was in his hand.
Kahlmed drew his weapon. A shield with a porrin leaf on it rested on his left arm. “Fight like a man, without hiding behind magic, coward.” He drove forward, slashing with brute force but no finesse.
Arun countered each stroke. As the minoria disengaged, Kahlmed butted his sword with the shield and pushed, forcing Arun’s blade up. The thug ducked beneath it and slashed sideways, his stroke aimed to cut through Arun’s thigh. Arun leaned over the sweeping blade and cartwheeled without his hands ever touching the ground. Kahlmed spun from the impetus of his swing. Off balance, the thug snarled and lashed out. Arun took his measure, refusing to engage.
“Come on, you dog. Fight.” Kahlmed lurched forward. “Or yield!” The brute bashed his sword against Arun’s. Strike for strike, her dear, honourable mahktashaan countered, but the sheer power of Kahlmed’s blows forced him back. And yet, Arun’s moves were economical where Kahlmed’s raged wild, throwing him forward so Arun needed to do little else than step around and wait for him to recover. Their sparring drove them into a spiral until Arun found his exit blocked by a capstan. Their blades clanged left and right. Driving his full weight forward, Kahlmed pressed Arun flush against the wound rope. His shield came up to lock the lower edge of Arun’s sword as he disengaged his blade. With a wicked grin he dropped his sword to the side and swung his blade around to hit Arun from behind. Raising his sword above shield and head, Arun spun and pressed into the shield. Loosening his grip, he allowed his sword to flip in his hands so that the blade pointed down. He thrust it into the capstan, blocking Kahlmed’s sword an instant before it would have struck. Kahlmed moved around, retracting his sword before Arun had a chance to regain his. But Arun’s embedded sword blocked further blows, forcing Kahlmed to circle. Arun shadowed him. As Kahlmed jabbed, Arun dodged. He reclaimed his sword and parried one, two, three thrusts over the capstan. Kahlmed opened the distance between them and pointed his sword at Arun’s heart. Running, he swung his shield to Arun’s left to prevent a sidestep out of harm’s way and leapt over the capstan. Arun dropped his sword, crouched, grabbed Kahlmed’s legs and flipped him over his head. Kahlmed crashed onto the deck, and slid into the bulwark. Growling, the scarred thug picked himself up and turned to find Arun had retreated to the open deck.
“Yield.” Kahlmed raced at Arun. With perfect timing, Arun angled his blade perpendicular to Kahlmed’s and flicked the thug’s sword from his hand. Kahlmed fell forward, sliding across the deck where his open hand regained his sword. Rolling onto his back, he bent his knees and jumped to his feet. Arun was waiting, sword in hand. Kahlmed charged, feinted and jumped high onto the rigging, using the spring in the rope to flip and arc towards Arun, head first, his sword pointed at Arun’s neck, his shield protecting his own. Arun slid into a sideways lunge that saw Kahlmed sail right over him. Kahlmed’s sword pierced the deck. He tried to vault over it to land on his feet, but the clearance was low and his brawn inflexible. He flipped over the blade and thumped to the deck, his sword well behind him. Arun sheathed his weapon, picked up Kahlmed’s and walked to where his opponent lay gritting his teeth against the shock to his spine. He pressed the tip over Kahlmed’s heart.
“The mahktashaan are best swordsmen in The Three Realms. You would do well to remember it before you challenge one again.”
Sheer stubbornness saw the man rise, bent and pallid from pain. Arun reversed the sword and handed him the hilt. When Kahlmed took it, Arun turned to Mariano and knelt.
“I await the judgement of my liege. To him I will bow, but to no other.”
Without warning Kahlmed rammed his sword at Arun’s back. The minoria’s crystal flared blue and Kahlmed’s sword sailed out of his hands, spinning tip over hilt into the Bahmar River, where it was swallowed by the muddy water.
Without turning Arun said, “The fight I won like a man. I will not forfeit my life to a coward who will not concede defeat.”
Kahlmed hobbled across the deck, hi
s lips pressed into a thin line.
Ahkdul looked down at Arun from that position of power he loved to adopt, his hands twitching in and out of fists. Were it one of his own beneath him, he would have relished beating the unfortunate to a pulp, she was sure.
“This man has disobeyed your orders. Both yesterday and on the plains did I hear you warn him about his contact.”
Mariano nodded. “I did.”
“I demand his execution.” Ahkdul’s hand was outstretched. His second man laid a sword in it.
“No!” She flew to her brother, hung off him begging with her eyes, with her whispered pleas, with all her will.
Mariano’s gaze locked on Arun. He pushed her off him. A soldier rested a hand on her shoulder, staying her, but no one thought to condemn this brutish contact. In the guise of discipline, these men could touch, beat and hold. Their hands would not be stayed.
Mariano drew his sword. “You are right, Ahkdul. Overt disobedience commands a heavy sentence, but I yet hold blood honour for my sister. The right to punish this man, my man, is mine.”
Ahkdul sneered. “A slap on the wrist? Is this the value you place on your women? I begin to think she is not worth the stench of this land.”
“She is worth all Verdaan would pay for her, and much, much more. This man, however –” Mariano walked behind Arun and pulled down his hood. “What sentence would the majoria, impose, mahktashaan, for disobeying the Crown Prince? For inappropriate contact with the princess? For fighting without due cause?”
“Death, Your Highness.”
Her knees trembled. Arun had not even flinched. The slight crease of Mariano’s eyes might be a sign of his justification, or dare she hope his surprise. Had he thrown the minoria a lifeline, a man too honourable to lie, whose very honour implicated even as it exonerated him?
“Stand and face me.” With his usual poise, Arun obeyed. “Remove your cloak and robe.” They fell to the ground, leaving him in the simple black shalvar and kurta of the mahktashaan. Were it not for his crystal nothing would have marked him as a man of power, and yet he held his head high. “By your own admission, you are sentenced to death, mahktashaan. In your dishonour you have forfeited the clean sweep of the sword. I condemn you to the jaws of the jabberweis in this mire.
“No!” She pulled free, and hurried to Arun to find herself caught in Mariano’s unyielding arms.
Among his executioners, Arun remained bold enough to offer her a deep bow. “I do not regret my actions, and neither must you. You must be strong, Your Highness, for the sake of Terlaan, the sake of your future husband, and Prince Vinsant’s sake.” Chosen with such care, devoid of blame, the words could offend neither Mariano nor Ahkdul. Of his own volition, he walked to the gate. Kahlmed opened it. The brute had procured a sword. Arun stepped to the edge.
“Think you to escape with magic a horde of these wicked beasts?” Kahlmed sliced Arun’s calf. Blood seeped into his clothing.
“Take his crystal,” Ahkdul commanded.
“No.” She struggled without a care for her dignity. Mariano kept her in a vice-like grip.
Kahlmed leered. “The jabberweis will feast.” His grab at Arun’s crystal ended with a yelp and a jerk of his hand. “Cursed magician –”
Arun cast a final look over his shoulder. In Daesoa’s light he looked to her like a hero of old. “Remember you once counted me as a friend,” he said. With a solemn nod of farewell, he leapt over the edge. The soft splash turned her giddy. The water churned. Mariano left her and peered over the gunwale. Her legs carried her body, stooped with grief, over to him even as her mind screamed denial. A dozen spiked tails were slapping the water, a score of hind legs stirring the muddy river. The faint hope his magic might prevail dwindled as the jabberweis dived, the boat sailed on and the waves behind them receded to calm. It died as the stern lanterns and the moons, the yellow one and the green, illuminated a pool of red bursting across the surface.
And she was suffocating, sobbing, raging, dying.
Mariano shovelled her through his cabin and into her closet, and shut the door. Through the shock of grief, she heard a bolt slide home. She bent over herself and cried until in her exhaustion she managed nothing more than to wilt onto the bed and fall into a dead, dreamless sleep, the jar Arun had summoned for her in her hand.
✽ ✽ ✽
“Get them inside,” a harried Physic Hamid deq Lamont said after he had taken one look at the ragged and bloodied soldiers crowding beneath the moonlit palms.
Jordayne supported her brave, brave mage down the corridor. The men, the few who did not lie slaughtered in the square, limped or were carried under Rokan’s direction into the messy treatment room. She took small consolation in knowing equal numbers of that villain Prahak’s scum lay dead.
“The next room,” Hamid said to her, leaving the other two physics to deal with the soldiers.
They entered a small annexe with a large pantry crammed with medical supplies on shelves that rose from the floor to the ceiling.
“I need porrin,” Drucilamere said as Jordayne helped him onto a stool. Her magus looked a fright with his face and hands red and blistered. She wanted to dust the ash from his moustache. What was he thinking by sliding right off his seat and into the store room? He poked among the pots of dried herbs while Hamid tore open Matisse’s sleeve and inspected the ragged wound.
A dizzying sway put Druce’s rummaging to an abrupt end as he sagged against a shelf.
“What happened?” Hamid asked.
“Let’s just say we had a disagreement with a porrin dealer,” Matisse answered.
The ginger-haired boy Ilyam slipped in the door with a candle. Hamid shot his young apprentice a querying look. The little interloper squeezed into the store, put his candle on a shelf, and worked his hands around them to select salves and bandages. He laid them out in a neat row on a worktable near Matisse, careful to face away from the physic.
“Was this fire or some magical curse?” Hamid asked.
“Fire alone,” Drucilamere said, leaning against the shelves.
Ilyam returned to the store and pretended to rearrange some nasty looking implements. Their shadows really were frightful. Better to focus on the big ears poking from the boy’s freckled face.
“Get me porrin.”
Hamid nodded at the boy, who ducked out of the room. Jordayne watched until she was sure the lad was out of earshot.
“What reason could Rondel deq Oakson have for stealing Timak’s quartz?” she asked.
“Considering he is now a ghost who has not climbed Daesoa’s beams to the Vae, I can only assume a djinn was at play,” Drucilamere replied.
“Havoc and mayhem,” Matisse said, poking around his wound.
“Leave that be,” Hamid ordered.
“If he is bound until he fulfils his deal, then Timak will never be safe,” she observed.
“We do not have the whole of it. He vowed to leave the boy alone if Timak delivered his message,” Drucilamere answered through gritted teeth.
“May I?” Hamid asked, looking in on them.
Jordayne supported Drucilamere out of the store.
“Is there a reason my lady and lord did not make use of the royal physic?” Hamid asked as he took Drucilamere’s pulse.
Matisse grimaced.
“Wedding preparations,” Jordayne sighed. “Dear Uncle Ordosteen will keep us under lock and key until after the happy event if we return home like this.”
“Not to mention flog me for ruining a ceremonial tabard,” Matisse said.
“This will hurt,” Hamid cautioned. He applied a salve to Drucilamere’s face, neck and hands.
“Ah, thank you, Ilyam,” the physic said when the boy returned with a cup. He was tying off a bandage around Druce’s right arm. “You may go and help the other physics. There are soldiers who need attention.”
The boy slunk to the door. He remained there, one hand on the latch, while Hamid cleaned her cut hand. She did hope the wound wouldn’t leave
a scar. Pretending to normality helped keep shock at bay so she fixed the boy with an icy stare, and rolled her eyes when he finally deigned to slither out.
It killed her she could not take Drucilamere’s hand as he fell to the bliss.
He reached for her anyway, squeezed tight and swayed. “Say his name,” he whispered.
Hamid threw a glare their way. “Enough of that. The porrin was for rest. The magus is in no condition to work magic.”
“His apprentice’s life is at stake,” Matisse said, waving aside an offer of the drug but drinking an infusion of ragroot for his pain. “I must check on my men. Don’t let my sister do anything foolish.” Ilyam ducked under his arm as he opened the door.
“Ilyam!” Hamid said with more reproach than she had ever heard from him.
Druce swayed to an alarming angle. Jordayne tried to prop him up. Hamid tsked at the faint red serum oozing through the bandage.
“Physic Chas needs you,” the sullen boy said, hanging around but out of reach.
Hamid moved straight away. “Bring bandages.”
Druce blinked. His whole body tensed. His face reddened as the impact of what he saw dawned on him. Standing, he kicked his stool and swiped the implements off the work table. His cry of pained frustration drowned their clatter.
Jordayne felt faint. “Is he. . ?”
Druce sank onto another stool. “He’s in the same place I scried Prahak. It looks like a cave or a tunnel.”
The boy slunk over but stayed out of reach. Her stare turned glacial. He fidgeted and shifted. If he had been determined to exasperate her, he could not have done a better job.
“Do you not have patients to attend?” she said.
He chewed on one cheek like an imbecile, making her wonder if the good reports she had heard of him were exaggerated. “Is it true you fought a porrin dealer?” he blurted.
“Perhaps now you will believe we are endeavouring to deal with the drug crisis. It is more than I can say for you. Take your master the bandages.”
Drucilamere groaned. “Where in Kaijoor are there caves?