Official Reckoning

by Mark Albany

  Well, that was one way to kill it, I suppose. I looked around for the origin of the blast. The Official was still mounted on her horse, and her sword smoked.

  That was impressive, I thought. I wasn’t sure what kind of spell she’d used, but I couldn’t help wanting to try it out for myself.

  “You’re supposed to save your power, parcel it out so that it lasts for the duration of the battle,” I growled at her, annoyed by the seemingly common perception that I needed to be protected on the field of battle. This was the second time, after all.

  “I am,” Faye replied. She kept her face impassive as she said so then pulled her horse around and shouted orders for the Lancers to circle around the undead. They were retreating back into the woods as their unwitting leadership fell, one by one.

  It wouldn’t be enough. Too many of the monsters had been raised and our numbers were too few to prevent their retreat.

  My blade came up as I watched the last of the golems fall to a collaborative effort between Braire’s snake and the Lancers as the rest of the undead started to flee the battle en masse. Eventually, the Lancers, still on foot, were called off the pursuit. The sun was setting, which made a monster hunt in the growing darkness a dangerous prospect. Too dangerous, I assumed, even for us.

  Faye rode over to where Braire, Aliana, Norel, and I had assembled just beyond where the fight had started.

  “You’ll have to teach me that spell you used on that golem,” I told her as I joined the efforts to gather the bodies of the dead and bring them in for burning. Faye made no such attempt. She remained on her horse and looked down at the rest of us.

  Even so, she smiled as she nudged her horse forward a few steps to keep pace with me. “Well, you’ll have to show me how you flood the power into your sword and keep it there, ready for an attack.”

  I nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Then again, I still wasn’t sure how I did it. After the basic training that Aliana had put me through, almost everything I’d done seemed to come about naturally. Small tricks and mental exercises did help, I supposed.

  She smiled, pulled her horse around, and headed back toward the city, where the gates were already being closed.

  Aliana scowled at her back and shook her head. “Didn’t even offer to help, that bitch.”

  “Maybe she’s headed off to make sure that they have some accommodations for all of us,” Norel said. I couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic or not. “Maybe she’ll ensure that they don’t close the gate until we’re all safely inside the walls.”

  “Are you joking?” Aliana asked.

  “Yes and no,” Norel replied, smirking. “I don’t doubt that she will do those things, although whether or not she does them to escape helping with the bodies is up for debate.”

  “It will be a short debate,” I countered. All the aches and pains from riding all day had returned and didn’t help my mood. I felt even less forgiving than usual. With that said, though, I couldn’t help but let my mind drift back to my previous thoughts about the possibility of Faye turning against us. With the kind of power she could summon, that thought just became a lot more worrying.

  11

  It didn’t take too long to deal with the remnants from the skirmish since there were a lot of able men ready to help us burn them. Once that was finished, the Lancers remounted and headed toward the city. My horse, which had run away during the fight, had stopped with the rest that were left behind to keep them safe.

  It didn’t seem particularly happy to see me but it also didn’t bite or try to buck me off. I’d take what I could get in this circumstance.

  Our entrance into the city showed that Faye’s actions had been about what Norel had predicted. She’d used her position as Official of the Emperor to demand that they keep the gates open until she and her troop were safely inside the city walls. From the icy reception we received on entry, I assumed that it wasn’t a popular call despite the fact that we’d kept a group of civilians safe from attack.

  Then again, you couldn’t blame them for being cold and distant to an Official in a city that looked like it hadn’t seen any Imperial attention of this kind for a while. The men who manned the walls weren’t dressed in Lancer garb. Instead, they looked like they were a watch organized by the locals of the city. Since I hadn’t spent much time beyond the Imperial City, I wasn’t sure if that was by design or if it was a matter of not having enough trained soldiers to guard every city.

  Either way, it was a flaw in the Empire’s defenses.

  Finding a place for even this many people to board in a city this small was a complicated business. The Lancers set up camp in the city guard’s house, which gave them all plenty of room to stay for the night. It was better than camping out in the woods, I mused, but not by much.

  Which was why I felt rather guilty about having a nice, warm room in the city’s inn.

  We’d settled into our rooms. None of the ones available had a bed large enough for the four of us to comfortably share, which forced us to choose two separate rooms. Just as we headed down to the main room where food was served to all guests and patrons of the inn, Faye intercepted us. She placed a hand on Norel's shoulder, that politically pleasant smile on her face when she did.

  "I'm afraid that I have been invited to share a meal with the mayor of this little town," she said and looked around at the four of us. "The city's people feel a bit left out of the Imperial functions over the past few years. Since they feel less and less safe here with attacks from Cyron's monsters coming a bit more often than they'd like, I feel like I shouldn't go to this function alone."

  "Take one of your Lancers with you," I grumbled back at her. "Show this mayor the true colors of an Official."

  Faye smiled back at me, but it didn't reach her eyes, which looked a great deal more ominous in the flickering light of a nearby torch. "Engaging though that may be, I would feel a good deal more comfortable if a well-known member of the gentry were to come with me and show the support of the nobility for the Emperor. As such, I officially request that Norel and Aliana join me for the meal."

  "I'm not a member of the gentry," Aliana complained. "Why the hell should I go?"

  "Despite not being a noble as such, you are well-known as part of Norel's entourage," Faye replied, which gave me the feeling that she had already mapped this entire conversation out and had a good answer to pretty much any protest we might have. "Grant is as well, but considering certain situations, I feel that we have exhausted whatever civility we might have between us."

  I nodded. That statement was true enough, anyway.

  "Can I count on your support this evening, Lady Norel, Lady Aliana?" Faye asked as the silence continued.

  Norel sighed. From the frustration that bridged between us through the bond, I knew that she had run out of polite excuses to use to decline. I understood her hesitation, of course, but considering the interest that the Official had shown regarding the three sisters, I imagined that they’d learn more about her intentions if they went instead of me. Besides, it was like she said; there wasn't much in the way of civility between us anymore. Not that there had been any to begin with.

  "Very well," Norel finally said and forced a smile that I thought was a good deal more menacing than Faye's. "We would be honored to accompany you."

  "Excellent," Faye replied and bowed. "I shall await your arrival outside."

  With that, she moved down the stairs in front of of us and headed toward the front door.

  "Good luck," I mumbled to Norel and Aliana and lightly kissed them both. Braire offered each of them a kiss as well. Neither looked particularly happy about spending what few hours we had to rest during our journey with the woman, but they realized that there was little choice in the matter.

  Braire and I shared in a quick meal of beef stew and black bread, with ale or mead offered as a refreshment. I wasn't in the mood for alcohol and asked for water instead. Braire felt otherwise. We returned to our rooms less than an hour lat
er, with her a little inebriated. Not quite to the point of struggling to stand, but a warm buzz spread from her to me. Like most things that involved Braire, it was infectious.

  "How come you didn't drink any of the ale or mead, Grant?" she asked as we stepped into one of the rooms that had been set aside for us. It had a decently-sized bed and a small bath that hadn't been filled yet. I remembered my room back in Vis' mansion. It was a lot smaller and a lot less luxurious, but the people who were used to the luxuries of living in mansions and the like would probably consider it a step down.

  Braire moved over to the bed and patted the spot next to her. I smiled and lay close to her as she pulled my arms around her and laid her head on my chest.

  "What's the matter?" she asked, and I realized that she felt how tense I was as she ran her fingers over my chest.

  "You mean besides the fact that half of our group is currently with someone that we don't trust not to stab us in the back?" I asked.

  "No," Braire started, but then paused. "Well, yes, that too, but you seem a bit sore and... more tired than usual."

  "Well, I discovered today that I'm not that great a horse rider," I replied as I ran my fingers through her hair. "The horse was perfect, I just need to get used to it."

  Braire grinned up at me then moved from her spot against my chest to stare down at me. "I'm sure there's something I can do to help with that."

  I narrowed my eyes at her. "What did you have in mind, precisely?"

  "Well, it involves you taking your pants off, for starters," she replied and licked her lips as she ran her fingers down my chest, glided them over my stomach, and leaned closer. As she moved, I caught sight of a small gleaming object that had apparently fallen from one of her pockets while we laid there.

  "What's this?" I asked I didn’t want to move away from her touches, but was curious enough to reach over and pick it up from the sheets. It was a small gold nugget, untouched by the heat of a forge, but it also had a handful of runes cut into it.

  "Oh... that," Braire said softly as her hands tragically stopped their descent. "Well, it's a long story. I don't think you'd be interested in it." She made no attempt to snatch the piece back as I studied it closely.

  "I don't know much about runes," I admitted, “but if I had to guess, these look a lot like the runes on the pebble that you summon your creatures with. The wolf, the snake, even a hawk, now."

  "Vester, Kal, and Niar, yes," Braire said with a small smile. "You have a good eye. It might be time for me to teach you about how to use runes. I mean, you already use the ones on your hands, but you obtained those by accident, Aliana told me."

  "Something like that, yes," I agreed with a chuckle. "But I've never seen you use this one. I've actually never even seen it before."

  Braire straightened and sat on her heels next to me as she pulled the piece from my fingers and looked down at it. The bond told me that there were a lot of mixed feelings rushing through her at the moment, and not all of them were good. I reached out and lightly stroked her arm. I didn’t want to press her for answers.

  She drew a deep breath and looked up at me with an apologetic smile. "It's just... You need to have a personal connection between you and what you want to summon. I always connected best with animals. When I called, they came, as a rule. There's an emotional connection when you carve the rune as well, which means that... It's hard to explain, but you need to be in similar state of mind when you summon them as when you first carved the rune, or something like that. I usually go for a moment when I'm calm, which is a state that I can call on for myself, but at the time that I carved this one..."

  I leaned in and stroked her cheek. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," I murmured softly. Curious as I was, I didn't want her to delve into a painful memory.

  She shook her head. "No, I want to tell you. The situation when I carved this rune... well, we were in the middle of a battle. During the war. You know which one, of course. We were pushed back, and I was isolated from the rest of my group, pushed into a series of tunnels. I guess they used to be some kind of gold mine at the time. Well, I was trapped with no way out other than through the men who were tracking me down. I was afraid, wounded, in pain and desperate, and had reached a dead end."

  She paused and exhaled a deep shaky sigh as I reached over, pulled her into my arms, and guided her head to rest on my chest as she continued. I still had no idea how much emotional pain was involved in such a large-scale war as the one they had fought before me, but I wanted to at least try to understand.

  "In that moment, I realized that I had a friend I'd never called before," she continued as she idly traced her fingers over my neck and torso. "A big black bear. The tunnels were large enough to accommodate him, but I didn't have the resources on me to carve something new on pure rock, so I found a small nugget of pliable gold and carved it in with my knife. I poured all the pain I was in at that moment into it, and I called him."

  I nodded. I remembered that Aliana or Norel had mentioned that she'd had a bear at one point. It had slipped my mind until this moment.

  "Anyway, he came, and thrashed the people that tried to trap me," Aliana said. "There were other moments in that war when I was able to call on him again, in the most desperate of situations, of course. One-bear army, that beast was... well, is, I suppose. He's still out there, but I haven't been able to...feel the way I need to in order to call him back again."

  "I think that's a good thing," I mused as I tried to offer what little insight I could. "You know, between you and me. The bear helped you in some rough times, true enough, and you miss him. But you shouldn't feel guilty about being in a happy place in your life, I think. You are in, well, if not a happy place, then at least not one as bad as the one when you summoned him before, right?"

  She nodded. “I still miss him, though.”

  “And you’ll find a way to him again,” I said and smiled as I ran my fingers through her hair. “I can’t say I know much about runes or the magic that they bind, but I do know there isn’t anything in the universe that would keep me away from the three of you for too long. I imagine that the sentiment extends to bears too. What is his name?”

  “Caster,” she said with a chuckle. “I don’t think he ever took to the name. Bears aren’t like other animals, and he’s not like other bears. It’s like he understands that I tried to give him a name, and he thinks it’s cute and funny.”

  A smile touched my face as I thought about that. Bears thinking that humans and elves were cute and funny. That had to be interesting. I’d always thought that animals considered humans to be a nuisance at best.

  As Braire moved closer to me, my hands wrapped around her waist and I pulled her in, up onto my lap and pressed a kiss right to her lips. “How could anyone stay away from you for too long, anyway?”

  She grinned back at me and tilted her head as her fingers moved up, climbed the sides of my neck, and pulled me closer to her as she returned the kiss, softly sighing as she pressed her body into mine.

  “Hell if I know,” she finally replied as she broke the kiss. “I’m rather delicious, I’ve been told. Addictive too, so that just one taste could leave someone forever wanting more.”

  “Well, I can testify to that,” I replied and leaned in to lightly nip her neck. “Although I really hope that the… bear…”

  “Don’t be gross,” she chided then kissed my neck and nibbled the exposed skin. “I’m trying to get you in the mood for something, over here.”

  “Well, you’ve put me in the mood for a taste of what has me so desperately in need of more,” I growled and leaned closer, pressing my body to hers as my hands cupped her breasts.

  “And that would be delightful,” she moaned in my ear, then arched her back and pushed her breasts into my hands before she gently bit my earlobe. “But if you think that your addiction to my taste isn’t mutual, I’ll want to prove you wrong. So very, very wrong.”

  I pulled away. My eyes narrowed as I studied
her. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Why tell when I can show?” she asked and ran her fingers down my chest, raising goosebumps as she leaned closer. She undid the buttons on my shirt and pulled it open to place light kisses all the way down. I couldn’t help a couple of moans as her kisses moved down my stomach, sending bolts of pleasure up my spine and causing a very visible reaction by the time that she reached the spot still covered by my trousers.

  “I’ve wanted to try something,” she said as her hands played with the bindings that kept them in place. She looked up at me, almost waiting for me to tell her continue. I couldn’t wait to see what she had in mind. I licked my lips.

  “Try away,” I finally managed to say, my voice thick with need.

  She grinned and left the lightest of teeth marks on my hip as her hands continued to undo my pants, fully aware that her touches were felt by the growing shaft underneath. I let out a shuddering breath of anticipation as she pushed the piece of clothing down, looked up at me and bit her bottom lip as my cock came free.

  It was an intoxicating sight, I thought as she leaned in, eyes locked on my quickly-growing member. Her head dipped underneath, and I felt her hot breath on the sensitive skin on the underside. I narrowed my eyes as I wondered what she was doing. I wasn’t left wondering for long. Her lips pressed against the underside of the almost fully-erect shaft… as her fingers wrapped around its girth. Her right hand stroked up and down as her left caressed the throbbing head with her fingertips.

  Her lips continued down until she reached my balls. She sucked on them, the rough, wet skin of her tongue toying with the pair as she moved from one to the other. I couldn’t help a shudder of need. One hand gripped at the smooth sheets beneath us as the other moved down to gently run through her hair as I enjoyed the sensation of her mouth and hands working in tandem.