Arielle awoke and grabbed her chest in alarm. Something was wrong. Was it her? Was she dying? Where was she? She wrapped the surrounding bedclothes around her naked body and attempted to gather her thoughts.
Her heart was hammering, though that may have just been the absence of her soul. No, that wasn’t right. Her soul wasn’t absent. It was just a little eaten away by her man. No, that wasn’t accurate either. He was more like a boy. Her boy. He might be more someday. So might she.
She wiped her brow, counted the beats in each pulse, and held her chest as she tried to calm herself. Everything about this place felt strange. She almost imagined the sky to be a different colour, but at dawn, it was exactly the same grey as a cloudy Dellerin.
Arielle lay back in the lavish bedding and stretched out magnificently. There was nothing like a magnificent stretch to return a tripping heart to its rightful beat. Sometimes her heart’s irregular beats kept her up all night. Sometimes it wiped her out completely. She never complained and asked no one to heal her. Why waste the soul on such a trivial matter?
“Calm down, skipping thing,” she whispered and enjoyed her recovery in the comfortable bedding.
Heygar had always insisted they sleep well before heading out into the scary world to earn their bread, and Denan insisted they continue the tradition. “Earn our bread,” she muttered. It was a finer way of saying they were in the business of barbaric murder. Sometimes with a cleaver. Heygar would have rolled in his watery grave at how Denan was behaving in the wake of his death. Not to mention her sister too, but any fool who knew her knew that her heart only belonged to one man, and it wasn’t Heygar.
“Oh, Heygar.” Her stomach lurched. Big Heygar had always been good to her. Truthfully, he had condemned her to this life, but apart from that, he was a decent enough man and a damn fine leader. “At least we’ll complete your last mission,” she said to the far walls of the rented room, and her stomach and heart settled.
“Are you awake, Arielle?” a distant voice whispered in her mind, and she dared a smile. He was still learning the art. It was a rare skill for any weaver to speak across thoughts. Eralorien couldn’t do it.
The door opened, and Arielle stifled a smile as Iaculous stumbled across the small room, clumsily navigating her bags, leathers, and womanly things. When troubled, he usually came to her. After the previous night’s horrors, it surprised her that dawn had come before he made an appearance. Perhaps he had needed sleep after eating so much of their souls. He should be dead, she thought, and her hidden smile faded entirely.
“Wake up, my temptress,” Iaculous whispered, and she turned in her silken coverings as though in sleep’s wondrous grip.
She was a temptress and a little more. She allowed her coverings to slide free of her upper half. Nothing like a glance at forbidden enticements to stir his desires. She had charmed him masterfully but to no avail. At least, not yet. He was an apprentice weaver, and her appreciated distraction was very much a distraction.
Arielle wondered how long she would wait for the fool to act upon her wishes. She wondered how long her stuttering heart would take his delicate rejection. She believed in love. She also believed in love at first sight, and though it had been a slow march from friendship to something more with Iaculous, she believed they were in love with each other. She wondered if he were even aware of this himself.
“Sleeping,” she muttered dreamily.
“You are putting on weight.” He stroked her cheek. Though he jested, she could feel the conflicting emotion in his voice. His hand hovered and almost touched her chest, but instead, he drew it away and pulled the covers over her, as only a gentleman would do.
She didn’t mind him seeing her like this. In fact, after the bet he had lost to her in the Addakkas inlets and the subsequent price of him stripping as her payment, she was always keen to repay the embarrassment. He had a fine manhood. She had fine naked parts.
“I have put on weight in all the right places, my friend,” Arielle purred, dazzling him with her smile. How many years had they played this game? One of these days, it would come to a head. They would kiss and beyond, or they would shake hands and stay as close as they had always been. She was comfortable enough to tempt him this way, and he was stubborn enough to reject her so openly. Cherrie did not approve of their relationship—or lack thereof—but she was no person to learn from, was she?
“You don’t have to eat every pie they offer you, my beauty,” Iaculous said and returned the smile as she opened the duvet. Comrades did this all the time out in the wilderness, didn’t they?
“What troubles you?” she asked, nestling into his chest. She had asked of his horrors already, but even death wasn’t enough for him to confide in her. She knew he didn’t come to her to empty his worries upon her platter either. He came for distraction.
“This place is strange,” he whispered and embraced her. His hold was stronger than usual, and she melted under his power. He was less the meek, delicate healing poet and more the first breeze of a growing hurricane. Perhaps she was mistaken and merely enjoying his embrace more after losing him.
“Yes, this room is strange. I think it is the colour. It is a strange-coloured wall, and I don’t like it,” she said. Iaculous sniggered. The wall in question was a dark olive. She would have chosen red and black. They were strong colours.
“I’m not talking about the thurken colour of the wall,” he said, and she knew her wit was having the desired effect. She always knew what her man needed. He needed her, but he was not ready to need it enough. When he found her in the arms of another man, that might change his tune quick enough, she imagined. It would not be hard to find a man, should she need such salacious things.
“I’m sorry I took from you. I feel stronger than I’ve ever felt before in my life.”
“Strong enough to make a man out of yourself?” Arielle said, stroking his arm playfully. She met his eyes and bit her lower lip. Cherrie always said this drove men wild.
Iaculous sighed loudly. She could see the desire to devour her. Wonderful.
“Without you in my life, I’d probably be a full weaver by now. You distract me, woman.”
Her hand slipped to his thigh, and he sighed again.
“You love me doing it, my love,” she countered and pinched him gently. Usually, by now, he would have smacked her hand away.
“Perhaps that’s the problem.”
She allowed her hand to glide up and down along his thigh before sliding across to his other thigh, touching his manhood delicately along the way. He gasped loudly and said nothing. That was a little more than usually allowed. At this rate, in two years, they might even touch tongues.
“Enter me,” she whispered, blowing gently on his ear. Iaculous smacked her hand away. “Ah, I almost had you.” She kissed his cheek. It wasn’t just love on her part. It was an itch that needed scratching. She was but a girl with needs, like anyone else.
“Yes, you did.”
“Tell me, young healer boy, if you have so little interest in my body, why not allow me to lie with others? Why string me along if there is no chance in life for us?”
He met her gaze. “Do you want me to say it?”
She ran her fingernail gently down his cheek and then scraped him suddenly. She wanted him to say it.
“I’ve loved you since the morning we met. My body yearns for you and you alone. You are my beating heart, and without you, I would find myself anguished and lost.”
Iaculous placed his finger across her lips. She saw the torment and desire on his face, and it pleased her. Yes, sometimes he crushed her, but when he was gentle and open, she knew why he was the man for her. He will be worth it, she told herself.
“Well, that’s better, I suppose, but that line will only work on me for so long.” She slid free of the bedcoverings to open the curtains and look out at the new day.
“Once I finish my apprenticeship, it will be different,” he pledged, as he usually did. Diligent little Iaculous. If he were as dedicated t
o his craft as he was to her, once they became lovers, those would be fine times.
“Just another couple years?” Arielle asked, shrugging, looking out over the eerily quiet town.
Though haggard people moved through its streets, any fool could recognise a town dying. Boarded-up buildings stretched up and down the cracked road, and the flavour of silence in the town was unnervingly bitter. Whatever wealth this place had known was long since gone. She felt bad for their hardship. It wasn’t their fault King Lemier had imposed such steep taxes, nor that the crops were battling a blight.
“After this mission, perhaps things will change,” he offered. It was hardly a resounding pledge of betrothal, was it?
“Everything will change after this mission,” she said, feeling a great sadness fall upon her. “Come on. I reckon Silvious will have stolen a fine breakfast from some unsuspecting Venistrian chef. I’m starving and bored from absolutely no dirty endeavours whatsoever.” Arielle slipped into her clothing and beckoned her future lover to come join her.
“As you wish.”
16
And Away We Go
Like a pair of smooth thieves who had apprenticed under a wily old rodenerack, they made their way downstairs, appearing as innocent as the dawn. They were last to emerge from their chambers and met their comrades sitting around a table in the dining hall of the empty inn.
Eralorien offered a disapproving glance to Iaculous, who sat down beside him. The apprentice answered this disapproval by stealing his honey bread. He did so grinning, and Eralorien smiled despite himself. When needed, Iaculous was as charming as any silver-tongued pleasure-earner.
Arielle, however, didn’t have to steal her breakfast. As she sat, Cherrie slid a large, steaming platter of thickly cut meat across to her, as a mother would a starving child.
“There may be a famine in these parts, but the Hounds will always eat the juiciest meats. The innkeeper assured me they slaughtered it today,” Denan said, taking pride in his generosity.
Arielle didn’t recognise these cuts at all. She dared a bite and was pleasantly surprised. It was richer than most cuts, and barely a salty streak of fat ran through it. She devoured the slice and a second after that.
“Ugh, I’ll pass. Whatever beast that was, it didn’t want to die,” Iaculous hissed, and a few of his comrades rolled their eyes.
Arielle grabbed a third slice and ate it at him as pleasurably as she could. She saw the others would have done the same had they not all sated themselves already.
“Perhaps if you partook in a proper diet, you might be less of a skut.” Cherrie sniffed, and Iaculous’s face turned flush at the reprimand.
“What animal is it, anyway?” Arielle asked.
Denan shrugged. “Meat is meat. Add a little salt and cook it in butter, and it's all the same.” His face darkened. “We are yet another Hound down.” He took a beverage of steaming brew, grimacing as he did.
“A Hound down” was a term they saved for absentees and the worst conversation to have. The Seven were family, and sometimes family went their own way. Bereziel was the first Hound that Arielle remembered leaving them without warning. She hadn’t even been old enough to be a member herself, but she remembered her sister’s friends taking it terribly. However, that was the way with mercenaries. Sometimes they fell in a river. Sometimes they slipped away in the night without telling a soul.
Arielle looked around the table, frowned and remembered waking to terrible dreams.
“Where is Silvious?” she asked, eyeing the invisible weight on Denan’s shoulders. Sometimes she found it impossible not to read people’s emotions. It was something she had always done. Iaculous suggested it was a touch of the source upon her mind, but she supposed it was a skill she had not learned to tap into just yet. She was young though, and it would come eventually. She always believed things happened exactly as if they were written.
“The little rat has scampered away from us,” Eralorien said.
“Don’t call him that. He can't have left us. What did he say?” Arielle argued.
“I gave him a task, and he never returned,” Denan said.
“You think he left us because he’s a little late?” she asked.
“He’s late, even for a rat,” Cherrie said.
“Don’t call him that, Cherrie. Something could have happened to him. He wouldn’t just leave us without saying goodbye.”
It was Eralorien who countered her argument with damningly emphatic words, as though he spoke of a man who fled his haggard, loving wife for a divine, loving queen. “The little rat took employment upon the Celeste, and all the best to him. I saw the look in that barge captain’s eyes the moment he saw a rodenerack come aboard. He even had him sailing her by the end of the voyage, and I heard him sway the rat at the edge of the quay. A whole new life without blood on his hands? A man or beast can only deal such brutality until they cower away. Rats are simple creatures and born for water,” he said.
It crushed her, but Arielle showed no such misery on her face. Eralorien shouldn’t have called him a rat, but she lost the insistence in correcting him.
“He would have taken Heygar’s passing badly,” Iaculous said, and Cherrie nodded.
“He should have said goodbye.”
Denan did his best to conceal his disappointment that the rodenerack chose a terrifying new life over his leadership for a few days. “It's half a night now. He should have returned. Though it's disappointing, to know he’s happier among the waves is a fine thing.”
Arielle was heartbroken. “I owe him three gold.”
“He left his winnings in Heygar’s safe. You can add to it when we return. Fear not, Arielle. You will see the little rat again someday,” Cherrie said and patted Arielle gently on the back.
Arielle smiled, and Cherrie’s face hardened as though it would break and a torrent of agonising pain would erupt from her features. Arielle took her sister’s hand in hers and squeezed. A silent moment of sadness passed between them. Two Hounds down.
“He’s gone. We are worse off for it. Though it seems bleak, we must complete our mission,” Denan said. He seemed to grow in nerve as he spoke the words. Arielle felt better hearing them.
Iaculous poked the meat curiously. “Five is a strong enough number. We can still do this with five.”
Eralorien did not appear to agree. “You speak out of line, apprentice. With seven, we were formidable. With six, we were capable. But five? In an island of gutless swine as this, I am wary of our path and the light which guides us.”
Denan winced. “Show respect, weaver. These are my lands, and this is still my outfit. Is the sea calling to you as well, or do you wish to continue with our task?” he hissed.
“We are no longer Heygar’s Hounds. We are less than we were. You are brave and careless, Denan. A strong servant, but are you fit to lead us … my friend?” the old weaver asked.
“You think a delicate weaver like you is fit to lead?” Denan growled as though he was a hound standing over a rotting bone. Sometimes it wasn’t about the prize. Sometimes it was the battle.
“I do not wish to lead this disparate outfit.”
“Five can just as easily become four. Do not dare speak of me or my country in such a way ever again. Ask to leave this table and be done with the Hounds, or else bow a pledge, weaver,” Denan said.
Arielle saw his hand drop beneath the table and take hold of his sword, lest Eralorien weave fire like his apprentice. She froze in fear. Only moments before, they were a tranquil group aiming to complete the same cause. Now there was pride, rage, and ill intent in the air.
“Easy, my boys,” Cherrie said, placing both her hands on the arms of both men.
Eralorien trailed off as though something deep within took control, and his face flashed a milliard of emotions that Arielle struggled to read. He was furious with Denan but desperate to stay in the fight. Fury, jealousy, sadness and love. All dangerous emotions at the best of times. He also reacted to Cherrie’s insistence
as most people did.
“Apologies, Denan. I was out of order. Call it an old man’s irritability first thing in the morning,” Eralorien said and smiled before offering a handshake. After a few pulses, Denan nodded an acceptance. He did not take the healer’s hand though.
“See, boys, we are much better when we aren’t spitting on each other’s plate?” Cherrie said, and the table relaxed.
Arielle had always thought her sister had a way of calming matters with a few easy words when war was in the air, and Arielle was almost as skilled. Often, she had wondered if this ability was a trait they shared with their mother. She had never met her mother, and she knew little of the woman. She had only had her older sister to teach her the ways of the world. To engage in embarrassing conversations about why she bled as she did, or why boys were different to girls, and why this was sometimes a good thing. In all but the title, Cherrie had been a good parent.
It was only Bereziel who had ever spoken of her mother—back when he still had a glint in his eye and a kind smile. He had told her that her mother was an important person that was unable to look after her. He had claimed he’d never known her father, but who knew if the weaver knew anything at all? She had asked many a time, but he had sworn on blood, and it forbade him to reveal anything further. As for asking Cherrie? Well, this was a subject her sister never once spoke of, let alone offered a grain of information on. By her fifteenth year, Arielle had stopped asking altogether.
“You are right, Cherrie. All that matters is finishing Heygar’s last mission. It’s what the great man would have wanted. May he rest in peace,” Eralorien said and touched his temple. After a moment, the table joined him in his silent prayer.
“I will not have us journey as a group while we are in Venistra,” Denan said after a time. He rolled a map of the lands across the table. He pointed to a notched inkblot and ran his finger down the page a few times as if reassuring himself of the route. “South to the Green.” He tipped a point on the creased brown parchment.
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