The Larion Senators

by Rob Scott; Jay Gordon

  Six, seven, eight of the creatures, ancient, and utterly alien to Eldarn, appeared now, slithering from the pages of the leather spell book. Their taste for human blood, denied for Ages, was maddening, and insatiable. They hissed wildly as they slipped into Gilmour’s boots, up his leggings and beneath his tunic, sliding their fangs into his tender flesh wherever they could, biting, and biting again.

  Gilmour’s vision blurred; he thought he heard Kellin shriek in terror, but his friends were far away, insubstantial, fading into the night. One of the snakes lost purchase on his shoulder and tumbled off the snowy ridge; it had been pierced through with an arrow. Garec, the old man thought as his consciousness folded in, only Garec could have made that shot.

  Then Gilmour fell backwards into the snow.

  THE SCRAMBLE

  ‘Whoring rutters!’ Brexan Carderic cursed as she examined the fresh burn across her palm. ‘How anyone can survive working in a kitchen is a gods-rutting mystery to me.’ The erstwhile Malakasian soldier shoved chunks of wood into the belly of Nedra Daubert’s old stove, then kicked the cast-iron door shut with a noisy clang. ‘Demonpiss,’ she swore, ‘that’ll bring her running.’

  It was still early, before dawn, and Brexan had hoped that Nedra would sleep another half an aven at least, but her crashing about the kitchen was bound to have Nedra investigating what drunken louts had invaded the Topgallant Boarding House.

  After her failed attempt to kill Jacrys, Brexan had limped back to the Topgallant, cold, wet with blood, and utterly distraught over the death of Sallax Farro. She had cried herself to sleep in her old room, that same room in which she and Sallax had interrogated the traitor Carpello Jax, the same man who had raped Sallax’s sister Brynne … until Nedra had clubbed him with a piece of this very same firewood.

  Brexan had slept the sleep of the truly exhausted, out cold all that night and the whole of the following day. When she finally came to, she had remained in her bed, staring hopelessly up at the smoke-stained ceiling. She had no idea what to do next. With Sallax gone, Brexan had expected vivid visions of her dead lover Versen to return – those near-tangible memories had kept her company during her time alone in Orindale, but they had vanished when she found Sallax and they began planning their revenge on Carpello and the spy Jacrys.

  Lying in bed, she had waited for Versen, attractively dishevelled and smelling of woodsmoke and wild herbs, to appear in her mind’s eye … but he never returned. Instead, Nedra Daubert came to her. She had not needed to ask where Sallax had gone. The bloodstains on Brexan’s tunic and cloak and the clanging alarm bells were evidence enough that their foray into the Malakasian fortress had not been successful.

  Nedra had sat on the edge of Brexan’s bed, stared out across the salt marsh, and said, ‘You ought to stay on here a while.’

  Brexan rolled over to face the wall. She didn’t want Nedra to see her come apart. ‘They’ll be looking for me,’ she whispered.

  ‘You’ve been on the marsh?’ Brexan had nodded slightly and Nedra patted her on the shoulder and said, ‘You’ll slip out there when they come; no one would look for you out there.’

  ‘But they—’

  ‘We’ll know when they’re coming.’ Nedra rubbed a hand gently over Brexan’s back. ‘There’s nothing happens in this area that goes unnoticed. You’ve seen how quickly the board fills when word gets out that we’re planning a bisque aven. We’ll know when they’re coming, so don’t you worry about that.’

  ‘I’ll be worried about you.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Nedra had said with a little laugh. ‘I’m three hundred and ninety-nine Twinmoons old, give or take a Twinmoon … I’ve been around longer than the mud in the marsh. I don’t need anyone worrying about me. Besides, I could use some help around here.’

  Brexan had rolled over, wiped her eyes and said, ‘You don’t need any help.’

  ‘Well then, maybe I need the company.’

  Brexan had felt her throat close, and she had pressed her lips together hard to keep the tears at bay. Finally, she had whispered, ‘I need it too.’ And that was sorted.

  Now Brexan grabbed a potholder and lifted the lid off a bubbling pan of seafood stew – her own recipe. Sadly, it smelled like something left outside to die. Grimacing, she scattered a large pinch of dried herbs into the mixture. She sniffed again and, still not satisfied, dumped in a great spoonful of seasoning and stirred the contents hopefully. There was no noticeable improvement and Brexan wondered if perhaps she had been sold bad fish. Granted, she’d seen it pulled from the sea, but as she wrinkled her nose, she wondered if it were possible for fish to contract some sort of pernicious infection that made them stink mercilessly when cooked up with winter vegetables.

  Her efforts to cast blame on anything other than her own ineptitude were interrupted by the smell of something burning. She had forgotten the pastry. Nedra’s desserts were as pleasant on the eye as they were on the palate. Brexan’s vision for her own sweetmeats had included a highly polished serving tray, a stately procession from the kitchen into the dining room, a smattering of applause as she unveiled her creation and a chorus of congratulations from patrons witnessing the advent of her career as a culinary master. Now Brexan was afraid to open the stove, from which smoke was seeping, in case the air caused what was left of her melt-in-the-mouth masterpiece to burst into flames. That would surely awaken Nedra, if not the entire neighbourhood.

  Brexan sighed, then jumped as a voice behind her said, ‘Mmm! What smells so good?’

  She whirled around, using her body to hide as much of the disaster area as possible. ‘You’re not supposed to be awake yet.’

  ‘I might have slept a little later, but with all the shattering and banging, I thought for certain we were under attack,’ Nedra said merrily.

  ‘I’m… cooking.’ Brexan looked at the stinky stew on the stovetop, the smoking remains of her tart in the oven and the butcher’s block, littered with flour, fish-blood and the remnants of what appeared to be an entire basket of winter vegetables. She smiled nervously and added, ‘A few things.’

  ‘I see,’ Nedra said dryly. ‘Do you need any help?’

  No, no,’ she said as she clumsily tried to move the iron pot, burning her hand once again. ‘I’m fine, I’ve got it.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because from the subtle aroma creeping through the rest of the house, it smells more like a serious case of something very nasty indeed!’ Nedra grinned.

  Brexan gave up. ‘I’m just no good at this! I was trying to work out a few things that I could make for your four-hundredth Twinmoon party.’

  Nedra looked surprised. ‘Am I having a four-hundredth Twinmoon party?’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to know,’ Brexan confessed. ‘Some of the regulars are helping me plan it, but I figured I had to get some practice in, otherwise I might ruin everything, and we’d be stuck eating—’ she cast the stove a look of disgust, ‘—well, something foul.’

  Nedra laughed. ‘I have an idea. For the next Twinmoon, which I might, grudgingly, admit might possibly be my four-hundredth, gods-rut-a-whore, if you collect the ingredients, I will take care of the cooking.’

  ‘But Nedra—’

  She went on, ignoring Brexan’s protest, ‘I’ll get everything started and you can spend all day in here stirring the pot. Come the dinner aven, I will be genuinely surprised that you have cooked, that I have friends in this city, and especially, that I have lived this long. Deal?’

  Brexan frowned. Given the smoke-filled room and the increasingly smelly pot, she would most likely not get a better offer in the next few days. ‘All right,’ she said, plainly dejected, ‘but I’m choosing the wine, and I’ll not hear another word on the subject.’

  Nedra snorted with laughter – which helped keep her from smelling the noxious brew. ‘For now, please, draw a bucket of water and extinguish whatever it is you’ve set aflame in my oven.’

  Brexan spun back to the stove, as if remembering her pastry shells for the first time th
at morning. ‘Rutting dogs,’ she spat, ‘I’ll be setting the whole house on fire.’

  ‘And Brexan, take whatever it is in that pot and dump it below the high water mark, please. I don’t want the occupation forces thinking we’re burning dead bodies.’

  ‘They won’t,’ Brexan giggled. ‘Burning bodies don’t smell this bad.’

  Later that day a fogbank crept over the marsh. The icy cloud swallowed everything in its path as it rolled up over the Falkan shoreline and froze solid. Brexan sat outside the Topgallant, watching as the waterline disappeared into the grey haze. The whole of the northern district was wrapped in a heavy, grey blanket and no one ventured out save for the few neighbourhood strays sniffing through the streets for scraps of food. The city was nearly silent.

  Brexan breathed deep, tasting the tang of salt and low tide at the back of her throat. She listened. From somewhere on the harbour, bells began to ring. The fishing boats were still out on the water, bringing in the day’s catch, and they rang bells or shouted, or whistled, each distinctive noise alerting others to their whereabouts, so the harbourmaster could pinpoint exactly where they were and what anchorage they had chosen to weather the fog.

  It was the bells that Brexan found unsettling.

  Searching the fogbank for any visible sign of the fishing fleet, she felt an invisible fist close over her heart. Wondering if this was what one felt in the moments before a heart seizure, she took another deep breath and tried to calm down. It’s just nerves, she thought. You need to get hold of yourself, relax.

  The bells rang again, some high-pitched and clear, others clanking like cast-iron pots. Brexan shuddered, recalling Jacrys and the bell rope. He had stared at it, though he was bleeding like a stuck pig, spitting vermilion bubbles through blue lips; that horsecock had seen the bell rope and had somehow – how? – dragged himself across the room to it. She and Sallax had left him for dead, stabbed in the heart, one lung punctured – and yet still he had managed to pull that gods-be-damned bell rope, and as she had escaped from the barracks, Brexan had heard it clanging above the din, rousing an entire platoon and reminding her that Jacrys, despite being so badly wounded, was still alive.

  The fog was a swirling cauldron of milky-white stew. Just one boat, for all the gods’ sake; let me see one whoring boat.

  She could see nothing through the gloom.

  Brexan knew the bells were some distance away. She had sat here coaxing Sallax back to sanity, morning after morning, watching the fishermen come and go, from the deep waters offshore to the harbour, headed for the southern wharf, if they were heavy vessels with big hauls, or to the northern wharf if they were smaller boats hoping to offload their catches to the locals. Today they seemed closer, just off the marsh where she had discovered the cleanly picked remains of Brynne Farro. They rang out more clearly in the fog; they had to, of course. They were never normally this loud, this intrusive, never usually so reminiscent of so many painful things.

  It’s fishermen, Brexan told herself, just fishermen. Jacrys is dead. He couldn’t possibly have survived. Let it all go now. Plan the party; get refocused. It’s all right for you to let it go. Nedra’s party; what a time everyone will have. Forgive yourself and move on.

  She was lost. Forsaking Malakasia and her commitment – her oath – to the army had been a decision made in a moment of anger. Jacrys was a cold-blooded murderer; he had killed those people in Estrad and he had murdered Lieutenant Bronfio outside Riverend Palace, and for those acts, he needed to be brought to justice. But she had deserted. She had stripped off her uniform and left her platoon without permission. She had fallen in love with the enemy, a partisan, and taken up arms against Malakasia – she had erased nearly two hundred Twinmoons of her life. She had no home to go back to now, no proud parents to boast of her army career. She had no skills, save perhaps for espionage; she couldn’t even make a decent stew. What did she have to show for two hundred Twinmoons of life? Nedra Daubert and the Topgallant Boarding House. Versen’s memory – sometimes, not when she truly needed him. The Eastern Resistance? Try as she might, Brexan was embarrassed to admit that she still couldn’t find them, no matter how hard she looked. She laughed, if only to keep from crying.

  Out on the harbour, voices exchanged their melodic foreign cries and bells rang out, alerting any captain brave enough or idiotic enough to attempt navigation under such conditions.

  Brexan buried her face in her hands.

  Jacrys was alive.

  You need to be the one to kill him.

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, pulled her cloak tight around herself and went back inside.

  On the harbour, the bells continued ringing.

  Inside, Nedra was pouring out tecan. ‘Drink,’ she said. ‘You’ll get sick sitting out there, and I’ll be left to plan my own old-lady party.’

  ‘You’re not an old lady, Nedra.’ Brexan blew across the top of the goblet and sipped.

  ‘Then why are we celebrating my getting older? I don’t need a party.’

  Brexan started crying again. ‘I guess I do,’ she murmured through her tears.

  Nedra wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘Then we’ll organise a great, drunken, sloppy Twinmoon fest for an old woman as she clings to life by a greying hair.’

  ‘A grey hair,’ Brexan corrected, a sob turning into a hiccough. ‘There’s no greying about them. I want to have music.’

  ‘Yes, of course, bring in the occupation army band; those old imperial songs always help me move my bowels – and at my age, a good bowel movement can mean the difference between a fine day and a rutting waste of sunshine.’

  Brexan couldn’t help but laugh through her tears. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

  ‘You don’t need to know, Brexan. You’ll learn, hopefully earlier than I ever did, that if you go a few Twinmoons without a compass, eh, it’s no great loss. I’m telling you that my worst days, my toughest struggles were invariably what led to the next wonderful turn in my life. But you can’t force anything. So you’re not a spy, or a killer. Who cares? I certainly don’t. I like you better knowing you’re not a killer. I sleep better at night.’

  ‘But what Jacrys did was—’

  ‘Jacrys will pay for his actions one day, and maybe you’ll be there to see it happen and maybe you won’t.’

  ‘I would like—’

  ‘And maybe you won’t,’ Nedra repeated. ‘I would like that even more. Don’t allow a wicked man to dictate who you become. Pursuing him across Eldarn is not a healthy undertaking for anyone, not even for the best of reasons.’

  ‘But I have to tell them what I know. I have to tell someone about Carpello and his shipments.’

  Nedra sighed deeply. ‘That’s true; you do.’

  ‘But I don’t know where to find the Falkan Resistance; it’s as if anyone who knows anything about them has been sworn to secrecy, or has no idea where they’ve gone. I can’t even find a pocket of disgruntled old men.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Nedra said. ‘Finding a pocket of old men in this city, disgruntled or not, has been my goal for quite a while.’

  Brexan laughed. ‘You old slut.’

  ‘Ageing slut, my dear. I’m an ageing slut; I’m not old yet.’ Nedra finished her tecan. ‘You’ll find them. There’s a wonderful vein of gossip running right along our street, as reliable as the tides. Some of it is nonsense, pure grettan shit, but you’ll hear something, catch a word here or a gesture there, and you’ll reconnect with your friends; I’m sure of it. But you can’t make it happen.’

  ‘You sound like—’

  ‘Like your mother? Good. I think I would like your mother.’ Nedra started towards the stairs. ‘There’s tecan on the stove. Try not to set it on fire. I’m going to rest for an aven or two while you plan my surprise party.’

  Hannah watched through the window of the Wayfarer Inn as the young Ronan pissed in the street. He was a South Coaster (she thought there must be something pejorative about that term), and couldn�
��t have been more than four years old – twenty-eight Twinmoons, younger than Milla – but there he was, leggings down, tunic pulled up over his stomach, leaning back dramatically as he splashed the cobblestones. A pair of elderly Malakasian women hurried past, silver-haired clones, cloaks flapping, carrying canvas bags of vegetables, flour and smoked meat. They scurried behind the boy, all but snarling their disgust, but he didn’t care. He finished relieving himself with a flourish, adjusted his clothing and watched them move away.

  Hannah poked her head out the front room door. ‘Hey, cheeky, you ought to do that inside; you’re going to catch pneumonia.’ She deliberately used English, and loudly enough to be heard by the frowning women. Don’t like foreigners, girls? Well, I’ll show you foreign.

  The boy, confused, took off down the road, disappearing into the crowded marketplace.

  Hannah smirked. Lingering a moment with the door open, she watched her breath cloud in the wintry air. It was a perfect day in Pellia, with cobalt-blue skies and a breeze from the north, cold but fresh. The sun didn’t hang around long during this Twinmoon, but there was something about the northern air that made sunny days brilliant. From their new base – Alen insisted they change inns periodically – she could see right into the waterfront market, a bustling hive of stores and wooden carts used as stalls. The market was convenient for supplies and, even better, for information.

  Hannah hoped they might stay on at this inn for a while. The rooms were comfortable, the food good and plentiful, and the proximity to the sea a refreshing change from the forests, swamps and fields they had called home for the past two Twinmoons. She silently promised to get Hoyt out today; some fresh air would do him good.

  ‘You shouldn’t hold the door open like that,’ a curt voice interrupted Hannah’s thoughts.