by Jon Jacks
Imp instinctively leapt down from the cart, running towards her fallen brother.
‘Stop, stop the carriage!’ she screamed out. ‘It’s going to crush Hoak!’
Lord Krag saw her, she was sure. He couldn’t mistake, either, her alarm at what was happening.
He ignored her.
‘Don’t stop, don’t stop!’ he ordered loudly, drowning out Imp’s own cries. ‘We can’t afford to slip back!’
Suddenly, Hoak was no longer unconscious – he cried out in fear and warning when he saw the danger he was in. He screamed in agony as the carriage’s great wheel bit into his waist, his stomach, effortlessly crushing him beneath its terrible weight.
‘It’s moving, it’s moving!’ Lord Krag cried out joyously. ‘Keep it going, keep it rolling!’
‘No, no! Stop, stop!’ Imp pleaded, grabbing hold of Hoak’s feet and frantically trying to drag him clear.
Using Hoak’s crumbling body as the traction it had been seeking, the carriage at last leapt forward, clearing the ditch’s lip with a satisfied groan.
‘Well done, at last!’ Lord Krag cheered from inside the carriage. ‘Keep going: don’t let it slip back!’
It was only as the carriage finally jerked free of the confining ditch that Hoak’s father, who had been pushing hard on the other side, saw his son crushed and dying in the mud. Horrified, disbelieving, he threw himself into the dirt alongside Hoak and a weeping Imp.
‘No, no! I didn’t know! What happened, how–’
He couldn’t speak anymore, his voice choked, his body wracked with sobs.
His son was now just a bloodied mess, as hacked and misshapen as any butchered flesh.
Hoak’s eyes were wide, almost white, with shock and agony. When he tried to speak, a frothing stream of hot blood burbled from his opened mouth.
He looked towards Imp, seemed to try to smile. He glanced towards his father, managed to reach out and grip his hand tightly.
A leather pouch of jangling coins landed on Hoak’s bloodied jerkin.
‘For your troubles,’ the outrider looming over them on his horse stated blankly. ‘Courtesy of Lord Krag.’
*
Chapter 6
1,000 Years Later
Despite Desri’s heartfelt intention to fail her interview with the Officer Training Academy’s admissions board, she passed. Supposedly with flying colours.
Why? How?
Of course, she had originally thought she could simply refuse to attend the appointment. But the letter of compensation had made clear that this wasn’t an option. Admission to the Academy was an incredibly well-sought after prize. An offer of admission couldn’t be treated lightly, let alone with disdain.
And so she had decided that, if she were just herself, if she answered all the questions honestly, how could anyone on the board be foolish enough to accept her?
She earnestly believed, she had answered in response to one question, that the Academy was ‘an outmoded and corrupt administration allowing a form of supposedly legal killing that, in all other ways, was murder, pure and simple.’ For this, she had received a commendation praising her ‘original, concise and brave dissection of the Academy’s ethos.’
Surely, she’d fumed after being told of her successful application, the Academy could pick and choose from far more worthy candidates? Why accept someone who not only didn’t want to be a cadet, but also actually hated just about everything the Academy stood for?
It wasn’t just the death of her father and the murders of Jaben and Maven that caused her to hate the Academy so: the longer she was left with no news of Cranden or the military expedition he’d taken part in, the more she hated it too.
Wherever the military was involved, it also seemed to involve an unnecessary waste of life. There was no way she could be persuaded to play even a minor role in such an organisation.
She screwed up the congratulatory letter of acceptance, threw it expertly into a waste bin she knew lay behind the bar.
The bar was empty. The tavern had been closed, as she wasn’t old enough to run it.
Old enough to kill people, obviously; but not old enough to look after a business she’d been more or less running anyway while her father had gone through his long period of deterioration. The tavern had been placed in the hands of a solicitor by the authorities, with all proceeds going to help pay for what would be an expensive education and training.
By the window, there was a sound like the heavy groaning of an old, wind-warped tree.
There was no such tree by that window: it opened up onto an already darkened side street.
Desri’s head whirled, hoping to catch the eavesdropper before he could slink away. She was almost fast enough to catch him, despite his own amazingly swift reactions.
There was a sudden passing of dark shadows beyond the cheap, semi-opaque glass. Someone had been listening, watching; for how long, she didn’t know.
Was it that odious son of that lord again? Was he still looking for extra ways to punish her?
She leapt up from her stool, dashed towards the door, flung it open.
‘I know who you are!’ she screamed irately into the night. ‘You don’t scare me!’
It was true; Desri didn’t feel any fear as she stepped out into the almost pitch-black street, lit by little more than the odd candle or lamp burning in the windows of the nearby houses. The door opened up onto the main street, but she instantly broke into a run, slipping around the corner leading into the side street where she’d spotted the stalker.
Of course, there was no one there. Whoever it had been staring in through the window, he’d gone.
She sensed, however, that she was still being watched. Sensed that, somewhere at the end of the side street, where the darkness was even more complete, someone was standing there: watching, listening – waiting.
‘Who’s there?’
She felt more nervous now. She tried to hide the uneasiness she thought might be edging into her voice.
From around the back of the tavern, there came a shuffling, that odd groaning once more.
Something was there? But what? Yes, not who, but what?
Once again, she was going by what she sensed, rather than what she saw – or even who or what she believed must be there. It was human – wasn’t it? What else could it be?
And yet, that wasn’t fully what she sensed.
She sensed something incredibly, unbelievably dangerous. Something she had never encountered before: and yet, also, at one and the very same time, something incredibly familiar to her.
It didn’t make any sense. Did it?
She felt drawn to it, whatever it was. If only because she was intensely curious to find out what it could be.
Slowly, tentatively, she made her way farther down the street, her eyes only on that area of darkness where she could sense this strange presence. This area of shadows that breathed harder, heavier, the closer she drew towards it.
Behind her, there was another, much more familiar noise; the shuffling of feet on loose stones.
Desri spun around.
At the end of the alley where she’d entered, a group of boys were almost silently gathering in the darkness.
Uniformed boys.
Boys led by a mischievously grinning Barane.
‘Well, well, look who we have here,’ he sneered bitterly. ‘Little miss I’m good enough to be an army officer; or should that be, I’m too good to be an army officer?’
*
Chapter 7
1,000 Years Earlier
Without Hoak to help in both the hunt and the butchering, Imp’s father had to settle for the smaller, less full grown beasts: the meat of which was deemed inferior when it came to its essential qualities of being able to help instil and enhance a person’s Knowing abilities.
The contracts regarding supplying the Colleges and other official bodies were cancelled immediately. The prices of the meat he sold had to fall dramatically; Jarek had to accept that onl
y a much lower tier of cliental would now do business with him or frequent his shop.
All this, however, seemed a minor worry compared to the great hole in their lives left by the loss of Hoak. Hoak was the one who had always filled the shop with his booming laughter, his highly confident, amusing patter. His ready offers to help carry the great joints of meat to waiting carts of carriages. The way, too, he would do all this with a complete ease of manner, as if nothing ever really troubled him.
Imp, in particular, recalled the days when she was smaller, and how he used to hoist her on his shoulders as effortlessly as he did those huge, butchered slabs. Even on those days when he was tired after a hunt, he would charge around with her on his back, pretending she was a great lord hunting the beast with her gaily painted lance.
If only they hadn’t stopped that day to help free the carriage from the ditch.
If only they’d finished their hunt a little earlier, so that they would have completely missed seeing the stricken carriage.
If only, if only…
‘If only I could help,’ Imp nervously suggested one day to her father, ‘with the hunt and the butchering, I mean.’
He glanced up at her from delicately preparing some of the finer slivers of liver, testicles, and snout. He smiled gratefully yet sadly, giving her black bob of hair a playful rub.
“It’s too dangerous, Imp; let’s be honest, even taking into account you’re a girl, you don’t have the build for such strenuous work.’
At first glance, Imp appeared scrawny, even a little underfed (particularly for a butcher’s child). Yet she was wirily muscled, as well as being both tenacious and strangely virtually tireless. Despite this, even she knew she was crazy to suggest she could in anyway replace someone as incredibly powerfully built, talented, and enthusiastic as Hoak.
‘I can build myself up, lifting all those–’
Jarek chuckled. His wife frowned.
‘Impersia, you cannot go hunting!’ Imp’s mother Venia declared adamantly. ‘Losing Hoak: well, that’s bad enough. But I cannot let both of my children go!’
Her voice was choked with barely-held back tears, even though she was obviously trying to retain some degree of control.
‘Your mother’s right.’ Jarek nodded in agreement with his wife. ‘Any hunting’s dangerous, especially larger beasts like the buisoar: but even worse, I could sometimes swear they have an almost human intelligence.’
Imp knew what her father meant; there had been many times when a carefully set trap had proved useless when a buisoar had avoided it. It was almost as if it had been thinking ahead, too, rather than just reacting instinctively to the present circumstances, as you would expect of any other animal.
‘You and your buisoars!’ It could have been nothing more than a light-hearted comment, yet Venia seemed to lace it with a bitter venom. ‘Yes, and when kissed by a princess, they transform back into a handsome prince once more!’
Before Jarek could even notice his wife’s embittered barbs, let alone respond to them, there was a heavy knocking at the door.
The knock at the door took everyone by surprise, it being past sundown when – candles and oil lamps being expensive, especially the sweet-scented, calming variety made from the buisoar – most people took to their beds.
‘Whoever could be calling at this time?’ Venia wondered out loud, rising from her seat and heading towards the window.
She was so curious to see who it might be, she hadn’t noticed Jarek turn pale with anxiety. Imp had noticed, however; and she understood his concern.
When out hunting, he had increasingly called upon some of the more trusted men amongst the netters to help him cut up, pack and load the larger beasts, being unable to manage the heavy lifting required – and within a short space of time too – on his own. Although it wasn’t specifically illegal for anyone but a licensed butcher to do this, it was a major offence to claim such sorely treated meat was of the required quality. Even if a trained butcher had overseen everything.
At the very least, Jarek could lose his license if a commissionaire found him guilty of being involved in such blatant fraud.
And a time when most people were in bed was the perfect time for a suspicious or alerted commissionaire to call.
‘It’s Fegran: and in his commissionaire’s robes too,’ Venia observed innocently as she peered out of the window towards the door, where the knocking had become more urgent. ‘It’s so long since he saw fit to call on us officially too!’
She sensed the eerie silence in the room behind her. She turned around slowly, looked Jarek directly, suspiciously, in the eye.
‘Jarek? Is there something you think you should have told me?’
*
Chapter 7
1,000 Years Later
‘Where are your faithful slaves to protect you now?’
Barane relished Desri’s look of discomfort. She didn’t want to let him know that she was scared, naturally. Yet she was on her own, in a dark alley. Confronted by a number of boys who had mercilessly killed before.
‘I thought you were waiting for me out here.’ She managed at last to gather her thoughts together, to speak confidently and disrespectfully to him. ‘Where’s your other friend?’ she asked, looking over her shoulder towards where she had seen the first boy run. ‘He can come out of hiding now, you know.’
She spoke louder, letting the boy still hiding around the corner know that she knew he was there: that he might as well reveal himself now.
No one appeared at the other end of the alley.
Barane frowned at her in amused puzzlement.
‘Crazed too, are we?’ He looked towards the other boys for support. ‘See what I mean about her? Is she really the type we want at the Academy?’
Even in the dim light of the alley, Desri could tell by the way that some of the boys were edgily shuffling on their feet that they would prefer to be somewhere else. Unlike Barane, they obviously didn’t think a girl out on her own was a fair or legitimate target.
‘She’s done us no harm,’ one of them growled. ‘You should go on home: we won’t hurt you,’ he added, now looking more towards Desri.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ Barane snapped. ‘Who’s made sure you’ve all received commendations for intuition, for bravery?’
There were a few mumbles of agreement from the boys. There were far less grumbles that he was over-claiming his role in their advancement.
The boy who had spoken out remained quiet, subdued by the more compliant attitude of his peers.
‘Is this how our brave officers are chosen? Picking on one person?’
Desri refused to say ‘girl’. She didn’t want to give them the pleasure, or further opportunity to mock her.
‘She’s just a girl, Barane!’ The boy who had defended her earlier tried once again to persuade his friends to call off their attack on her. ‘Not a tomboy either, even: just some pretty girl who’s probably got through life using her beauty rather than her wits!’
‘You choose an odd way to defend me!’ Desri complained assuredly. ‘Mocking me! Insulting me!’
‘Better that than what Barane has in mind for you,’ the boy retorted harshly.
It was true that Desri’s girlish prettiness was blooming into an enviable beauty. Even so, it would be hard for this boy to discern that in the poor light. Even her long, flowing blonde hair couldn’t shine and display its lustrously wonderful colours in these dim shadows. The boys must have been watching her earlier, Desri realised, with hardly any sense of surprise.
‘If any of you don’t have the courage, the determination, to ensure we only accept those worthy of the Academy,’ Barane snarled, emphasising certain words as if to highlight what he believed were the high ideals they were representing here, ‘then go now!’
Although he must have been at a similar level to all the other cadets there, Barane addressed them sternly and rudely, as if he were in command. Desri couldn’t see the expressions on any of the
boys’ faces, but she could make out the sheepish, uncertain scuffling of feet, the subserviently slightly-bowed postures.
Only a few of the boys decided that they weren’t following Barane’s orders any more. They stepped back, turned, then walked away.
They weren’t going to go through with the attack on her, Desri realised with a sickening lurch in her stomach; but neither were they going to do anything to stop it. Even the boy who had originally tried to halt the attack was one of those dejectedly shuffling away.
‘The cowards amongst us have finally left,’ Barane sneered triumphantly, drawing his dagger as he strode towards Desri. ‘I’m sure the Academy has the sense to refuse anyone marked with the cheek scars of an irredeemable thief!’
*
Chapter 8
1,000 Years Earlier
Fegran nodded in greeting to Jarek, his dour expression strained with a sad, perhaps apologetic frown.
‘Sorry to call at such a time, old friend,’ he said miserably, ‘but I’ve heard rumours – statements, in fact, statements – that give me no choice but to inspect your produce.’
Jarek grinned weakly, hoping to hide any signs of his guilt.
His mind spun: who could have told the authorities what he’d being doing? He’d paid the netters involved extremely well: they wouldn’t want to risk missing out on further payments. Had they got drunk on the extra money, boasting of their rewarding little ploy? Could it be the netters whom he hadn’t conscripted into his scheme, listening in with envy to these drunken fools?
No matter whom it had been, he was in trouble; serious trouble, which could see them all impoverished, his reputation destroyed forever.
‘Oh, we both know how embittered certain people can be, Fegran.’ He forced himself to put on an air of jollity, of complete nonchalance. ‘Come, let us get you a drink and–’
‘No, no: not on serious business such as this, Jarek!’
The way his old friend had cut him short worried Jarek all the more.
He had hoped to draw on their long-running friendship to ease any problems highlighted in the weights and timings recorded by his equipment, putting it all down, perhaps, to relatively minor discrepancies: a margin of error to be expected of tools that have seen such prolonged and otherwise highly faithful use.
