Sword of the Scarred

by Jeffrey Hall

  If only she had learned enough to save their son.

  He knew it’s what ran through her head. Though he had turned to Ruse and the work it provided him as an answer to Mote’s illness, she had turned even harder to her books. Trying to find a cure, refusing to leave his side. Only daring to look away from him when he closed his eyes to sleep.

  They both had different escapes then.

  He’d told her as much when their marriage was at the bitter end. But she had refuted him, reminding him that her escape hadn’t put her anywhere but by Mote’s side.

  That was true too, but Requiem was just trying to save him in his own way. On his own terms.

  And in the end it didn’t matter. Neither of their actions saved their boy, nor their marriage. In the end, she went on to greater things, finding a greater love in a man who could give her the stability she wanted and the distraction from the loss of their son that she needed. She’d achieved becoming renown as a healer throughout all of Glimmer, at least so he heard.

  And Requiem, well, she was as great as he was ever going to get and he just hadn’t known it back then.

  And as he stumbled to tell her even a fraction of how he felt with his weak, complimentary words, all she did was press hard on the scars on his neck.

  He sucked in his breath as the pain radiated out from his body.

  “Finally found its way north I see.”

  “Yep,” said Requiem as she pressed harder. He couldn’t tell if she was dabbing on her hastily made makeup or just pushing on it to see him squirm.

  “It’s only a matter of time before it takes your head.”

  Requiem grunted as she pressed in the tender part of his neck, the place where the new scar given to him by the stone met his collarbone. She kept dabbing. Pressing. Until at last she pulled her fingers away.

  “Was it worth it?”

  “Huh?” said Requiem.

  “If you knew now what it was gonna lead to, would you have ever put your hands on that blasted stone?”

  “Doesn’t matter, does it?”

  Sasha shook her head. “Why are you here, Requiem? I thought the world was done with you. It’s been years since rumor of your passing came to my doorstep yet you pop up like a weed along my path, in cahoots with criminals, attacking a caravan, for what?”

  “Was never my plan,” he answered.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because of a girl.”

  “A girl? Some lass you met in some tavern near the Edge?”

  “She’s a child.”

  Sasha pursed her lips before she spoke. “A child?”

  “Found her amongst the Dread Cultists. Trying to see her safe is all. Didn’t mean to get caught up in all of this.”

  She gathered up her supplies hurriedly, folded them back into her belongings, and stood.

  “What?”

  “Thought time was supposed to change people.”

  Requiem frowned. “It does. It did.”

  “Then what are you doing here when there is this so-called child that needs saving?”

  “It’s a complicated story,” said Requiem.

  “Is it?”

  “She’s real,” interjected Grey. Sasha glared at him. “For what it’s worth. I’ve seen her.”

  “Yeah? Then where is she?”

  Grey looked from Requiem to Sasha and back.

  She didn’t answer. Instead she leaned out the lone window to the cart. “Oric, let me free of here.”

  “Work completed, my dear?”

  “See for yourself.”

  Commander Glassius trotted up alongside the covered wagon and put his face to the window. When he saw Requiem he smiled. “Is that you, Balestone? Or the tavern’s best whore?”

  Garp guffawed at this and even Grey couldn’t help but crack a smile.

  Requiem unsheathed Ruse, and that made everyone quiet. He raised it to his face, and in the word-marred reflection of the blade he saw himself. A younger, primped version of himself. One without scars. One with hair so red it looked like he had rinsed it with jam. She had even put a smudge of a birthmark beneath his right eye that looked like a piece of dirt he could not swipe away.

  “That’ll do,” said Glassius. “That’ll do.” He clucked his tongue at his horse, told the caravan’s driver to stop, and disappeared behind the wagon. There was a fumbling at the door as Sasha waited to be released.

  “Thanks,” said Requiem, awkwardly.

  “Thank me by coming through on this,” said Sasha.

  “Politics matter to you now?”

  She shook her head. “Only the safety of the people I love, same as always.”

  The door swung open and there stood Glassius, dismounted from his horse, offering his hand to his wife and smiling.

  “Fine work, as always,” he said.

  She smiled, accepted his offer, and stepped off the wagon without looking back.

  Glassius led her away, but not before turning back to Requiem. “Careful, Requiem. The Elder has been known to have affairs with lesser-looking ladies than you.” He winked and closed the door, finally allowing Garp to let loose his laughter.

  “From Scarred to scarlet!”

  “Enough of it, Garp,” said Grey.

  Requiem watched out the window as Sasha retook her position on the line, and found himself asking the question she already had.

  What was he doing here?

  The girl, he answered, but he wasn’t sure that his answer was right.

  “As you’ll see, everything is accounted for and present, Commander Glassius,” said their host, the Elder’s accountant, a small man with wispy hair and a thin nose who went by the name of Benglar.

  The prince had yet to greet them; instead, their party had been met by a company of representatives, all with various titles and professions, a cadre meant to confuse and disarm the emissaries, clearly. A way to show the Elder’s prudence and dedication to keeping the order.

  Glassius knew it too. Requiem could see it in his face. It was a game and he was playing his part, blaming the need for his and his party’s presence on the bandits that stalked the roads, trying to make the squawking flock feel at ease. Telling them they would be quick in their review. That they were only there to sip on the wine Bothane was known for producing.

  He even shoved over the caught bandit, saying, “We apprehended the culprit responsible for your city’s irresponsible numbers.”

  And Benglar and the others took the man away, promising him the appropriate punishment. A swift death. A hanging over the side of Bothane Rock, letting his feet dangle over the Abyss.

  It was entertaining, really. And Requiem was content to watch it all unfold from the back of Glimmer’s crowd with Grey and Garp at his side, Garp moaning on about his anger towards him and his current lot in life like a dying delagore, a beast Requiem once faced near the Pool of Cligor, many moons ago, a time that often felt like another life.

  “What are we supposed to be doing? Counting?”

  “Stay quiet, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” said Grey, beneath his breath.

  Requiem tried not to pay attention, more intent on keeping the hood over his face and the disguise Sasha had crafted for him intact.

  It was a ridiculous mask, one he had seen put on by actors in plays, but one he knew he needed if he were to walk through the Elder’s keep unrecognized. It did the trick, and Sasha did hers up ahead, looking at the carts full of stone and scratching numbers onto a pad of paper. A useless exercise, one that was only meant to put pressure on the Bothanians.

  The real scrutiny would begin as soon as Requiem was let off his leash.

  They came to the last alley of the keep’s stores and Benglar waved his hands in the direction of four piles of snow shed, a stone whiter than clouds. “This should be the last of it. About nine wagons’ worth of snow shed, all collected and to be delivered within a month’s time as King Larken has requested.”

  Glassius stood there, scratching his fa
ce, before bursting into a smile. “Exactly as King Larken thought. No discrepancies within these walls. Does your count agree, my love?” The way Glassius said my love and looked back at Requiem it was like he was trying to rub it in his face.

  Sasha conferred with some of the other members of the party from Glimmer and nodded. “Agreed. Everything adds up.”

  “Excellent,” said Benglar. “The prince will be thrilled to hear of this conclusion. He would like to welcome you to Bothane properly and ensure you are rested from your journey.”

  “With some of that wine, I hope,” said Glassius.

  “Of course,” said Benglar as he led them out of the warehouse.

  Requiem took one last look at the storage before he followed. It was nothing but an absurd collection of all the stone in Moonsland, an exaggerated version of the countess other warehouses he had seen before, so why did it feel different? Perhaps it was the size. Something so monstrous could hold many secrets.

  He’d be back there soon, he had no doubt.

  They were led up a long flight of stairs. The walls were lined with paintings of the countryside, landscapes that were once a part of Bolliad, or so Benglar explained as they huffed their way up and out of the warehouse. When they finally arrived at the end, Benglar pushed the door open to welcome them to an opulent room.

  Tables lined the floor. Each one was made of a black stone that shone and sparkled beneath the thousands of glimmer stones set in the ceiling to mirror the night sky. The banners of Bothane and Bolliad and Glimmer hung over the walls, each cloth made of silk so fine it looked appropriate to wrap a child with. Then there were the platters of food, golden in their own right, as if to accentuate the various forms of cooked fowl and game gleaned from the Bothane countryside. But disrupting the perfection of that room was the hole in the eastern wall and the rubble that collected beneath it.

  The wound that won the war. The Shamble’s scar. The leftover destruction from the lone catapult to connect with the Elder’s keep during the siege of Bothane. The attack said to have caused the Elder to throw up his hands in surrender, yet a wound that was never sewn shut.

  And as Requiem and the others filed into the room, staring in awe at the blemish they had only seen from a distance for years, the Elder, Lord Ardan Larken, oldest of the two remaining in the Larken line, walked through the aisle made by the tables. His hands were turned up. He wore a thin golden circlet on his brow, which barely did a thing to hide his baldness. His eyes were dark and small, like two stones lost in the flesh of his face. The scar that ran over his face looked like a misplaced vein.

  Requiem had worked with him a handful of times before when the Elder’s father, the Fallen King, had ordered him to help him rid his lands of some beasts that plagued it. But that was many years ago. Before the Shamble. When business was good and the Scarred still trusted. A war and a lifetime had passed in that time, and Requiem doubted that the Elder could name him even without his disguise… well, unless he saw his scars.

  “It provides quite a view, doesn’t it?” said the prince. “I should thank my brother for allowing me to see my whole kingdom now, so long as the wind isn’t strong and doesn’t stir a nip in the air.”

  “His whole kingdom,” said Glassius.

  “Ah! Commander Glassius. I would have expected no one else to be sent by my brother to correct my mistakes.”

  Glassius bowed slightly as if to accept the compliment. “What mistakes? By our sum everything is accounted for. Only a few minor changes to securities to ensure said shipments arrive intact.”

  “Good. So you will tell him to call off his dogs?”

  Glassius smiled. “Should we eat? Drink? I appreciate a man who wants to get straight to business, but the road here was long. It does much to empty a man’s stomach.”

  The Elder nodded and waved at the seats. He led Glassius, Sasha, and some of the other higher-ranked officials to the main table. Requiem watched as Glassius slipped his hand through Sasha’s arm and led her to her seat, saying something to make her and the Elder laugh.

  And hearing that noise come from her robbed him of his thoughts and put him back into their bed, Mote between them, nothing more than a babe, naked after just being changed. A mistake, so Requiem had thought at the time when the child had urinated all over his chest. He had rolled off the bed, furious, ready to throw away the soiled rags, rub his skin with wood, and hack the bed to pieces with the help of the scar stone, but when he heard the hearty laughter of her, a sound that flirted with a lullaby, his rage left. And then he saw Mote laughing too. A noise even more disarming than hers.

  His anger was destroyed. Burned. Thrown back to the fire that always stormed inside of him back then.

  What was left to do, but laugh himself? But to join in and try to compete with such a noise. What left to do but to smile and lay down his weapons, the one in his hand and those inside.

  It was a beautiful noise, but it was no longer something given to him. It was someone else’s.

  “What are you smiling at with that damned grin?” said Garp, and he saved him from thinking of it anymore.

  A butler came forward dressed in a golden robe with black buttons and showed Requiem, Grey, and Garp to a lesser table, far in the corner of the room with a group of associates from Bothane, accountants and retired soldiers, those meant to add to the confusion and blind the representatives from Glimmer.

  “Look at all that food,” said Garp, wide-eyed.

  “Maybe this ain’t so bad after all, eh?” said Grey.

  “Wish the company was better,” said Garp.

  Requiem eyed one of the others in the group as she approached him. She had golden hair that fell down to her shoulders and a silver ring put through her right nostril and another through her right eyebrow. A chain connected them, and upon each of the links were stars so pointy they looked like blades.

  She extended her hand to Requiem. “You’re marked.”

  Requiem stopped. “Huh?”

  She stopped, letting her hand dangle out in front of her, waiting for him to take it. “Your face. You were touched by the world before you even entered it.”

  Requiem relaxed, aware that she referenced the fake birthmark Sasha had put on his face. He took her hand and put his lips to the back of it. She smelled of berries and coriander. “Perry. Perry Winkle.”

  “Really? Still?” he thought he heard Garp whisper to Grey behind him.

  If the woman heard Garp’s commentary, she did not show it. She curtsied and bowed slightly. “Modaline Atrerian, Lady of the Seventh Spoke.”

  “And what does such a title provide?”

  “Exactly as it sounds. Commandership of the Seventh Spoke, widest and longest of all the bridges leading to and from Bothane Rock. I am in charge of keeping tabs on all crossings upon it.”

  Requiem nodded, having heard of the lord’s penchant for putting his people in key roles across the city.

  “And you do…?”

  “My associates and I do protection,” said Requiem, indicating Grey and Garp. Both had been given proper blades and patches that boasted the Glimmer sigil, a lesser disguise than his own, but one that helped them play the part.

  Lady Atrerian barely afforded the others a glance. “So we have you to thank for seeing Lord Larken’s shipment safely into the hands of his brother, despite those fanatics from Proth’s Prodigy.”

  “Almost,” said Requiem. “They made off with some of it.”

  “So I heard. A pity the king will be down a crate or two of specimens.”

  “Specimens?”

  “Ah, here comes the wine,” said the lady as she took a seat. Four butlers descended upon the table, pouring a cream-colored wine from decanters. They filled their cups to the brim.

  “Certainly ain’t shy up here, eh?” Grey went to grab the cup with his severed hand and knocked over his wine, its contents rolling over the table like a flood.

  “Watch what you’re doing!” shouted Grey.

  “Sorry
,” said Garp, embarrassed. “Thought I still had it.”

  Others were looking at them now. One of the others at the table called over a butler to deal with the mess. All the while Lady Atrerian kept talking, barely unsettled by the accident.

  “A grievous wound I am sure, and one looked to have been recently done by the bandages. A casualty of your profession?”

  Garp froze as he realized the woman was talking to him. “Uh, yep.”

  Along with the others, Grey and Requiem looked at him, waiting for him to say more, but his mouth closed tighter than a trap.

  Grey spoke for him instead. “He lost it fighting a sleeper.”

  “A sleeper! My, Glimmer has brave men to face off against such beasts. I’d ask you to lift your shirt to make sure you’re not one of the Scarred if it weren’t so rude.”

  Grey and Requiem looked at Garp. The man only nodded.

  “Apologies,” said Grey. “The battlefield is much more his place of comfort than a dinner table.”

  “And what of you?” said the lady.

  “Me?” said Grey.

  “You look no stranger to a battlefield either.”

  “Know it well,” said Grey, and Requiem was surprised by the man’s admission.

  “The Shamble introduce you to it?”

  Even more surprising was when he shook his head. “Fought the brimlings before they took the western stone, before the Scarred came and cleaned them up.”

  “You fought brimlings?”

  “Had no choice,” said Grey. “They were going to pummel our land. Either pick up a sword or fall into the Abyss. No way we were getting support from Bolliad or Bothane or Glimmer.”

  “They were dealing with their own problems at the time, from what I remember from my history lessons.”

  “Problems? They were trying to mine enough clink to build up their houses high enough to keep their noses out of the Abyss.”

  “They were trying to unify the land, to make something out of the scattered dung we called civilization,” said Lady Atrerian.