The Echoes of Sin (The Kinless Trilogy Book 3)

by Philbrook, Chris

  They both had said, “Yes Sir,” like good soldiers. Marcus had shaken their hands, and wished the ancestor’s blessings on them. One of the Apostles present even cast a series of blessings on them, which Inger swore up and down had given them good luck. She was devout, where Adam was less committed to the Church. He didn’t admit it to her, but the blessing did make him feel better.

  They had ridden all through the night until the creeping blue dawn peered above the eastern horizon. With what little light it afforded, they searched for, and found a good place to set up before the day was fully begun.

  If a lay person looked at a map of the rail lines of Elmoryn, they would see lines as straight as a ray of sunshine and just as long. No bends twists or curves between departure site, and arrival site. The reality of the lay of the land however showed that the straight line had some curves here and there due to hills, rivers, depressions, or any of a hundred manners of geographical oddities that were too small to show on a Guild map, but too large to ignore in the real world.

  Inger and Adam discovered a slight bend in the tracks that crossed a small but brutally built trestle bridge. The crossing that held the tracks aloft was made with beams the girth of a man’s torso, and had been constructed with wooden pegs as large as a spear. It had been made for a hundred thousand trains to cross a hundred thousand times before it showed any wear. The bridge itself spanned no more than ten yards of river, but for their purposes, the mixture of fresh clean water, a depression with good vegetation for the horses to sate their hunger on, and a clear view in both directions north and south meant it was a perfect location for them to wait out the sun, and see if the train that brought their allies came along.

  They got the two horses bare and brushed to rest behind a small copse of shrubs and trees at the side of the stream, and they took shifts sleeping in the shade of the squat bridge.

  Their journey was over for the moment, but for the waiting.

  “Get up,” Inger said in an urgent whisper to Adam, giving his shoulder a solid shake.

  His sleep crusted eyes parted slightly, wincing at the bright sky high above, shutting them again. The bridge gave some protection, but a ray of light had caught him like a spear to the face. Blind, he asked, “Is the train coming?”

  “No, get ready, there’s an Empire patrol coming along the tracks. They’re headed straight at us,” Inger said as she drew her short sword. “Get your bow ready. They’re a hundred and a half yards north of the bridge. I think they are six. Undead mixed with foot. They have a single mounted purple robed man with them.”

  Adam’s eyes snapped open and he sat up, peering over the edge of the stream’s hard bank to see them, grass in his face, and the smell of spilled earth rich in his nose. As Inger said a group approached. Against the flat ground of the plains the necromancer on horseback looked impossibly tall, like he stood the height of ten men. Waves of heat coming off the ground played tricks with Adam’s eyes, but the waves trickled upwards, like water floating to the sky. There was no breeze right now. That explained the heat, even with the stream right there at his back. Adam couldn’t help but feel that the Empire patrol moved at a gentle, arrogant pace in the foreign nation they were trespassing in. They looked comfortable. Fearless. It made him angry.

  “I see them,” Adam said. Do you think we can hide?”

  Inger looked around, especially back towards the heavier growth where the horses ate at tufts of tall grass, blissful with the fresh food and shade, unaware that violence and evil was headed their way. There wasn’t enough cover for them to disappear if the patrol came anywhere near them. “They’ll see the horses surely. We need to get them to go away, or come up with a plan to kill them right off.”

  Adam looked to Inger and knew they were in a bad way. “We should’ve brought an Apostle.”

  “Too late for that. If you can take the necromancer, I think we’re okay,” Inger thought out loud as she slid up beside Adam on the embankment. “Hell, there are eight, not six. They were walking single file…”

  The fresh faced soldier covered in summer sweat squinted hard, looking at the cage-headed undead, surrounding the mount the necromancer rode. He had an idea but it required for something to be a certain way. He stared until he saw the tail of the horse swish, brushing away an offending insect. Adam suddenly knew what to do to engineer his situation. He looked over to her. “Let’s saddle the horses fast. I’ll kill the mage’s mount, and draw them north. You wait a few seconds, and then you ride south as fast as you can.”

  “Why don’t we both head south? Stick together.”

  “If this patrol was already this far south, then we have to assume they have more patrols or scouts around here. If we both ride together, they can tell them with The Way which direction we went. By splitting up, we guarantee that we divide their forces, or at least their attention.”

  “Fair enough,” Inger said as she got to her feet in the dirt. Her sword disappeared into her scabbard. Adam joined her. “Why do I get to go south to safety? You going for glory?” she teased him in a whisper.

  They started towards the horses at a trot. They didn’t have long for this plan to be put into motion, and their lives were at stake. “You’re a far better rider than me, on a stronger horse than mine. It’s more important that our message gets south than I survive.”

  Inger grabbed her saddle blanket off an old fallen tree and tossed it on the horse, clean side down. “You risk everything Adam. If they catch you, they will kill you. They’ll question your dead body, and turn you into an undead they’ll use against the rest of the 2nd. Your soul will be lost forever.”

  “I’m well aware of what we signed up for Inger. You stop and think that if you fall off your horse and break your neck while you’re alone heading south you’ll become undead without the kind assistance of the Empire, and no one will be the wiser? Two paths to the same destination. I see it that if we’re smart and fast, we’ll wind up where we need to be, living and whole, mission accomplished to the best of our ability.” Adam slung his saddle onto his horse once his blanket was placed.

  Inger grinned. The distance between her and death was nil, and for some reason, she loved the feeling of it. She walked over to him, and risked a few wasted moments. She stuck her hand out to Adam, and he took it. They shook firmly. “Ride hard and don’t look back,” she said.

  “I’d say the same to you.”

  Adam crouched low on the embankment at the perfect height where he could see the patrol coming, but they couldn’t see him through the blocky struts in the bridge. He muddled himself into the grasses and branches in the depression, and if they did manage to see his head, at best it would look like a peculiarly round, brown rock. The Varrland soldier, bow in hand, stuck an arrow in the ground just to his right, only a foot away from his easy reach. He’d save a fraction of a second with the arrow placed in front of his eyes, not over his back sitting in his quiver, and as he and Inger both knew, battles could be decided in the blink of an eye for better or worse. He preferred for better. He slowly and carefully put another arrow on the string of his bow and looked over his shoulder. Inger had the reins of both horses in her hands, one for herself in her lap, and the other ready to hand to Adam after his arrows were sent. It would be a lightning getaway under fire. She nodded to him that she was ready.

  Adam took a deep breath as the Empire patrol got to within fifty feet. He had two chances. Three if the ancestors wanted him to succeed or were watching at all in the vast empty space of the grasslands. Adam drew his string and extended his legs, bringing him up from his crouch and giving him a clear shot over the heads of the dead and the footmen, straight at the patrol’s leader. He lined the shot up on instinct and let it fly. He looked down and snagged his prepared arrow and got it on the string without looking to see if his first had hit. He drew and fired again at the same target the first arrow had gone to, straight at the necromancer’s mount.

  There would be no time for a third arrow. It seemed like the a
ncestors were elsewhere today. Somewhere in his mind as he turned and leapt off the sloped ground, he realized that he could hear the horse whinny in pain, and that it had reared up just as he spun. He had achieved some level of success with his two shots, and he felt mighty as a result. Ear to ear the fray made him smile, and he let his heart soar. He ran the few steps to the horses and Inger, and got up into his saddle after taking the reins from his partner.

  “Go!” he said in a whisper. She nodded, already moving. She and her horse took off at a full gallop south down the riverbed, out of sight of the Amaranthine scouting party. Adam got his horse down the riverbed on her horse’s heels, but turned hard behind some bushes and a tree, and came out on a gentle slope in the embankment. He hit the flat plains of northern Varrland, and urged his horse to give it everything it had. He heard the whizzing of an enemy arrow fly just over his head, and he ducked as his mount vaulted to top speed.

  “Kill him!” Adam heard a sinister and profoundly angry voice scream. He kept his head down and even rolled a bit to the side, putting the thick horse body between him and the volley of incoming arrows.

  Ten yards passed then twenty, and the arrows sizzled through the air, missing everything. Thank the dead for shit archery training in the Empire.

  He felt the saddle strap suddenly lurch, and he lost his grip on the horse. He grasped at the warm air to stop his fall, but there was nothing to arrest his fall. The ground rushed up to meet his head, and then he went to the blackness as his horse galloped hard and fast from the pain that kept coming its way.

  Samrale had been a very busy beaver.

  With the Circle’s apparent blessing, he’d left the cramped and dusty hidden basement on old but swift feet with a list of names bouncing about in his head. He had to find these people, and make his offer quick. The list wasn’t about quantity. It was a careful selection based on quality.

  The staff that he knew had a grudge against the Empire on moral or personal history grounds were at the top of the list. Right beside them were the staff members who were originally residents of Varrland. As you might expect, there was considerable overlap in those two groups. After them, Samrale found the students who he felt were far enough along in their studies that they would be assets to the effort, and wouldn’t get themselves killed by doing something stupid. That was a short list, kept in check for the most part by the tremendous pressure of impending guilt Samrale felt should a student fall while on this mission.

  In all, Samrale approached twenty-three people at House Kulare in just a few hours that afternoon. Three declined immediately, six said they would get back to him by morning, and fourteen agreed immediately, and began to prepare. That was more than enough to do what he needed done. He’d only hoped for ten.

  Samrale handed out a special handwritten copy of his secret spell to the two staff members capable of casting the full version. His spell wouldn’t work alone; it required a minimum of two spellcasters working in unison, and powerful ones at that. He felt worry that the short notice they had to become proficient at the casting would make his mission vulnerable, but these were some of the finest minds Elmoryn had to offer, and if anyone could learn a spell overnight, it was these two. It helped that they had an expression of childish glee on their faces when he handed them the spell script. He also distributed a much simpler supportive spell to each of the other Waymancers who would travel with them. The easier spell was far less important, supportive of the primary magic, and could fail in small numbers with so many casters attempting it at the same time. All together though…

  After securing the reinforcements that he needed to wage his… mission in Varrland, he headed down to the docks of Davisville, far below the cliff where House Kulare stood, overshadowing the entire bay with its towers and tall walls, and old stories of arcane myth and history. The sun soared high in the sky, the same as it was above Inger and Adam very far away. They were preparing their escape from the Empire patrol as Samrale shuffled down the road to the small city, and made his way past the train market, and the homes for the families of the students on the hill, and then the neighborhood where the locals lived, and then the fish markets, and finally out onto a long pier where he knew a ship was for sale.

  A sleazy man with a toothful smile, wearing sand colored trousers and a blouse so white it looked like it had never been worn outside of a dressing room stepped up to meet Samrale as soon as he approached the ship’s berthing. His hair was slicked back with some kind of greasy substance and Samrale instantly didn’t like him. He never trusted anyone who didn’t look at least a little dirty. They seemed dishonest to him.

  “I’ve seen your face in very important places before, sir. You are Samrale Ironfist of House Kulare eh?”

  “Samrale Overfist actually, Second Seat of House Kulare. Thank you for your kind greeting young man. It is customary here in the Protectorate to introduce one’s self before guessing at the identity of a stranger. Pardon my rough nature, but might I have your name the easy way, over your teeth and through your lips? Or should I conjure up a spell to whisper it in my ear?” the old wizard said. He was happy that the man had made a social gaffe. It gave him the upper hand in the social engagement right from the start.

  The man nearly toppled over, he bent so low to apologize for his mistake. Not one strand of his hair moved. Samrale snorted at the grandiose show. “My apologies Lord Overfist. A simple mistake on my part, as I am a mere transplant to the mighty Protectorate. I am Nicholas Longwind, lord salesman for the Davisville branch of the Ryobian shipping conglomerate Coastal Traders, based out of Port Caelin and known all over the Northern Protectorate and Ryobia—and likely many places I’m unaware—for my egregious overuse of the spoken word. I beg your forgiveness for my loose lips should I go on unnecessarily.”

  Samrale stared at the man like he’d grown a horn in the middle of his chest. There was a soft silence between the men with nothing but the sound of the waves lapping against the piers and nearby rocky coast. “This boat. I like it. It is for rent?” the Waymancer asked in a curt fashion.

  Nicholas made an apologetic showing with his hands that would’ve made a court jester jealous. All flourish and no substance. “No my lord. My most sincere and utmost apologies. The captain of said vessel—a rare flute style vessel, a design that predates The Great Plague, I’ll have you know—has opted to retire to move to Varrland to join the war movement against the Purple Queen. With the sale of Bridgette Marie he hopes to garner enough coin to hire mercenaries, and gather supplies to bolster the Varrland army’s stand against the most uncouth invasion that has just begun. He hopes to sell today in fact. We’ve already many buyers lined up with handsome offers. You wouldn’t happen to be a fellow patriot like the good captain would you?”

  “Shush,” Samrale said as he stroked his long white beard, shutting the man up. Nicholas looked offended beyond mortal belief. “Where is the Captain? What is his name? I would like to speak to him immediately.”

  “Captain Sarkett has asked that Coastal Traders handle the sale of this top-notch sailing vessel Lord Overfist. Specifically, all offers and inquires may be directed to me, thank you,” Nicholas said in a silky smooth and practiced way.

  Though smaller than the slimy salesman, Samrale stepped into the man’s space without fear, pushing him back onto his heels. He pressed into the man, getting underneath him just a bit and keeping him off balance. “I asked you two questions Nicholas Longwind of Coastal Traders, and then I gave you a very clear wish of mine. Your statement answered neither of my questions, and it certainly didn’t fetch the Captain of the Bridgette Marie. That’s terrible service. If I may offer some advice before you give me some spiel you’ve practiced in front of a mirror a hundred times and get yourself the new name of ‘Nicholas Got Thrown into the Ocean by a cranky Waymancer;’ go get the Captain, and bring him to me now. Please, and thank you.”

  Nicholas stammered and stuttered, backing away, shocked at the small man’s audacity. “Why… you… If I wer
e a less patient and peaceful man, Samrale Ironfist, and were you younger, I would’ve struck your face for offending me!”

  “It’s Overfist, and you still haven’t answered my questions. I’ll be sure to thank the ancestors later on today you’re such a kind and benevolent soul. Now go. Do as I’ve asked, it’s in your best interest,” he said. Samrale ushered him off with a wave of the hand, and the salesman stormed up the boarding plank to the deck of the Bridgette Marie with a harrumph of frustration and indignation. Samrale waited patiently on the damp wooden dock, failing to keep a smile of satisfaction off his face. After a few minutes of raised voices inside the boat, a reedy man came to the rail, and leaned over. A younger version of him came as well, a few inches shorter, and a few decades lighter. They stood side by side, curious, and a bit perplexed by the representative’s fluster. The older man had dark skin, reminiscent of the Ebonvalites to the south. Samrale credited it to years under the sun on the open water.

  “Why do you heckle the person I have agreed to pay handsomely to sell my boat, old man?”

  “Do you know what I appreciate? People who are honest and people who are blunt. I heckled your man because if you are indeed the Captain of this ship, I have an opportunity for you that I feel needed to be presented face to face. I apologize for his lack of good sense.”

  The thin man with the dark skin changed from irritated and curious to outright anger and dismissal. “You can extend your offer to Nicholas sir, good day,” the man Samrale presumed to be Captain said before leaving the railing. His son stayed, intrigued. His skin was youthful, and much lighter. His career on the seas had only just begun. The boy looked down at the mage with a curious interest. He almost seemed…bidden to stay.