by Liam Reese
“As I was saying,” he went on, “I don’t think that you quite understand what I mean when I say that I was the only executioner who knew what he was doing.”
Two more rushed him. One received the knife and the other, improbably but effectively, was dispatched with the remains of the bird.
Flicek’s band had never been flush with members even during its heyday. If he lost many more, it wouldn’t really have qualified as a band anymore. It would have been more like a sprinkling. He threw both arms out at his sides, signaling to the few men left that they should hold off.
“You must want something,” he said, guardedly. “Apart from practicing your skill with a knife.”
“Oh, certainly,” said Serhiy. “Everyone wants something. Myself, I have always yearned for a life in the open air. But I recently was able to climb a tree, so that has satisfied my urges somewhat.”
Flicek was clearly nervous. Serhiy was clearly unhinged. Things were so obvious that it was a wonder he hadn’t seen it before.
“Why are you here?” he managed. “What do you want?”
“Oh, that,” said Serhiy. He crouched down and wiped his knife off on the grass at his feet. “I only wanted a little bit of information. I promise not to take up too much of your time.”
“What information?” said Flicek cautiously.
“I came in search of a girl,” said Serhiy, “a young woman by the name of — well, I don’t remember her name. Honestly, I’ve never been good with names as a general rule. I remember faces a bit more, but I’ve never seen her. Nonetheless she was a noble, and her father is a very important man to the king. I’ve been tasked with finding her. Rumor has it that she was last seen in this vicinity. Now, I’m not much for vilifying an entire subset of people solely based on rumor, but it does seem somewhat likely that rogues and highwaymen may have had something to do with her disappearance.”
“Oh, yes?” Flicek raised his chin defiantly. “And how exactly are we meant to help you find her when you don’t even know the name of the chit?”
Serhiy heaved a sigh.
“Think outside the box,” he advised the rogue. “It’s been only a week. Surely you haven’t stolen so many young female nobles in the last week that you can’t at least begin to pinpoint who it might have been?”
On Flicek’s face, the brief and bloody struggle between compliance and defiance was apparent. It took a brief reminder of Serhiy’s knife to settle the war, and Serhiy was more than happy to oblige. Flicek’s band was one step closer to being a club with only one member.
He held up his hands in surrender.
“All right, all right,” he said. “Look, I don’t know much about it. The orders came down. I’m not the head of the snake, I’m just the first coil. We heard there was a young noblewoman traveling through the area alone, and we were to pick her up and deliver her to the Damn Rogues.”
Serhiy cocked his head.
“The who?” he said.
“The Damn — Raff’s band. The Damn Rogues. We don’t often get orders, but when we do, it comes through them.”
Serhiy’s eyebrows lifted. “Why, pray tell, are they called the Damn Rogues?”
“Way I hear it, Raff figures they’ll get called something along those lines regardless, so he might as well make it official.”
The corner of Serhiy’s mouth twitched. Whether it was amusement or irritation was not easy to tell, since he smiled so frequently and with no apparent provocation.
“I sense that I am getting off track,” he said. “Who sent the order down to take the young noble, whoever she is?”
Flicek shrugged.
“Whoever sends the orders most of the time,” he said. “We get them from one of Raff’s men. He gets it from Raff himself.”
“And Raff, as you call him, got it from someone who knew she would be traveling on her own.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“That’s very interesting.” Serhiy nodded, as much to himself as to anyone. “Except she wasn’t traveling on her own, not at first. She had a guard. She was protected until she disappeared. Someone knew that she was going to disappear. She said she left because she saw someone she knew—”
Flicek felt that the danger was approaching its end and started to relax somewhat.
“Sounds fishy to me, my lord,” he said.
“Fishy,” repeated Serhiy somewhat hazily, but after the sound of it, the taste of it in his own mouth, his blue eyes cleared up, and he began again to smile. “Someone she knew. Well, who does she know apart from those at Balfour?”
“The castle, sir?”
“Yes, indeed. The castle. The town. Someone she knew well enough to follow away from her guard.”
“Sounds like it must have been someone in the castle, sir.”
“Indeed, it does. But who would have done such a thing? Someone who had to benefit from her abduction.” He scratched his head and began to pace a little, not far, just a few steps to either side, repeatedly to and from. “But no ransom was ever requested. Perhaps something else happened and she could not be ransomed? Perhaps she is dead.”
“Er — yes,” said Flicek, eagerly. “Perhaps she’s dead.”
Serhiy looked up at him swiftly, his eyes piercing.
“Did you kill her?” he said. His rich, dulcet tones were suddenly grating.
“No!” said Flicek, struck with panic. “I turned her over to Raff as nice as you please. Nothing was wrong with her at all. She couldn’t have been in better health.”
“Perhaps she escaped,” said Serhiy.
This seemed a safer option to Flicek, and he leaped on it.
“Indeed, it seems to me, now that I think about it, that I heard of something along those lines,” he said. He furrowed his brow to think a little harder, since that always seemed to help. “Yes, I’m almost sure of it. No one ever escapes Raff— he’s notorious for it, the Damn Rogues all are — no one ever leaves him without there being a ransom paid for them. But it seems that there were rumors of an entire cargo slipping through his fingers. The girl might very well have been part of that.”
“Only rumors, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am heartily sick of rumors,” murmured Serhiy to himself.
“But they would only be that, no more,” Flicek assured him. “The last thing Raff would allow is for his reputation to be damaged by such a thing. You can be sure that if it did happen, no one would ever find out the truth about it.”
“Indeed,” said Serhiy, reflectively, and he seemed to ponder for a moment. Then he straightened up, as though having reached a conclusion which he liked. He smiled, and his eyes began to shine.
“Do you know what else I am heartily sick of?” he said.
“What?” asked Flicek, nervously.
“Your company. It’s been too long since I’ve been alone. I have many trees to climb. I thank you for your help, but now the time has come for us to part.”
“Oh, of course,” said Flicek, sensing his relief approaching as though from a long way off. “Don’t mention it!”
Serhiy eyed the last few members of Flicek’s band, speculatively.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t.”
He found himself another tree to sit in, with the same wild, intoxicating smell, and climbed up with joyous stretches and bloody fingertips.
“Now, Serhiy,” he instructed himself, “sit yourself down, and let’s have a serious conversation.”
He put his back against the trunk and leaned his head against the bark. He wriggled a little to let the rough bark scratch his back for him. He had so many itchy spots and never could get them scratched properly. But the bark did wonders, so he settled down after a moment of puppyish wriggling, doubled up his knees in front of him, and put his elbows on his knees.
“Well,” he said, “one thing is clear. Something is going on at the castle that I am not privy to.” He cocked his head thoughtfully. “And how do I feel about that?” he said. �
�Not as well as might be hoped,” he answered himself. “After all, I am the king’s most trusted advisor, whether he says so outright or not. If he’s sending down orders for the kidnapping and ransoming of nobles throughout the country, simply to fund his ailing government, he should be turning to me, not to bands of rogues.” He shook his head sternly. “Now, Serhiy,” he said, “can that possibly be what is really happening? Does the king have it in him to cause the suffering and destruction of family and fortune simply for his own benefit? Yes, of course,” he answered, “or else we would not get along nearly so well. But ought we to get along well? Or am I merely being used, until he comes up with another tool that works more effectively for him?”
He thought about this in silence for a few moments, then heaved a sigh.
“Either way,” he said, “I suppose I still have a job to do, and my work is cut out for me. If she isn’t with Flicek, she may be with Raff. If she isn’t with Raff, she may be dead. If she isn’t dead, who knows where she is? Only the good God himself.”
He thought about this, too, and his slit-eyed smile appeared once more.
“He needs me,” he said, and whether he was referring to God, or the king, it was not clear. But it was all the same to him. “No one else can do what I can do. I’ll only have to prove it to him in case he has forgotten.”
Thus, settled in his own mind, if unsettling to other people’s, he decided it was high time to get a little sleep. The sun was not far off from rising.
Below him, the charred remains of what was once a small band of rogues sent off smoke signals to no one.
In a small encampment outside Braeve’s woods, Thorn slept fitfully and dreamed.
Lisca was herself again, and not herself at the same time; she sat at his feet, child-size, ears pointed and with a tail that did not belong to her curled around her feet. She looked up at him with such trust in her eyes that it nearly broke his heart.
He put a hand on her head, as he had done before.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m still here,” she said, softly. “Karyl is dead, Lully is broken, your queen is destined for failure, but I’m still here.”
“I wish you weren’t,” he told her, desperately. “I wish you weren’t following us around, reminding me of what I’ve done.”
She closed her eyes. “Selfish,” she chided him gently. Thorn bit his lip and shook his head.
“I know it,” he said, “but I can’t help wishing it all the same.”
She took his hand, but her fingers were all of a piece. Her touch was warm, soft, and pawlike. He could feel claws.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He huffed out a breath. “It’s not your fault.”
“I’m sorry for you,” said Lisca. “This is not going to be pleasant.”
He could feel the claws curl around him, growing and unsheathed, and she was more like a cat than a fox or a girl. The claws pierced his skin, and she held him fast while he cried out, caught by the hand, trapped in a cage of his own design. Then she was neither fox nor girl nor cat, but a bird, wild-eyed and far from sanity, wings beating in a steady, powerful thump, dragging him from the surface of the earth. He knew his end was near.
5
Parting of the Ways
“If we’re going to go through the Badlands,” said Ruben nervously, “I’m going to need a bigger stick.”
“We are not going through the Badlands,” said Irae, sternly, turning to look at Thorn, “and someone in particular might as well forget about it. Your stick is fine, Ruben.”
“I don’t see why this is a problem,” argued Thorn. He wasn’t about to forget about it, just because she said so. Ever since they had rejoined their companions — no, ever since Braeve had mentioned the alchemists in Keler — he had been unable to get the idea out of his head. Maybe there was a way to find out more about himself, about his family. All those questions he had been asked, by the monks, and then the things hinted at by Braeve, the total lack of information he had, everything was swirling around in his head till he felt as though he were swimming in a sea of uncertainty. It had never bothered him, but then, he had never been around people who asked him questions like this before. The questions were scattered before him, his ignorance thrown into sharp relief.
“We can’t afford to take any more time,” said Irae. “It’s been too long as it is — any longer and it will be that much harder to regain my throne.”
“Are you worried about your people losing their loyalty?”
She looked away from him, biting her lip.
“Because if so,” said Thorn, “do you really want subjects that are so fickle? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I hear. But no one can miss you if you don’t stay away.”
The look she turned on him was wounded, and he thought perhaps his joking had gone a little too far. He was desperate to convince her, determined to go to Keler — but perhaps this was not the best way.
This suspicion was confirmed when even Ruben, who Thorn considered terminally unaware of social nuances, took him by the elbow and turned him aside.
“Perhaps,” suggested the legendarian, “this is not the best way.”
“If you have a better one —”
“— you’re all ears?” The bard wilted immediately at the look Thorn turned on him. “I’m sorry. Perhaps that was in bad taste.”
“— I am open to suggestions,” said Thorn. “Closed to bad jokes, but open to suggestions.”
“I don’t know anything about the alchemists in Keler,” said Ruben. “I can’t tell you whether they will be of help to you or no. But I can tell you that, from what Lully has been filling me in on — we had a long, intimate conversation whilst you were flirting with death in the woods — the concern is that Princess Irae will lose what little foothold she has left if she is gone too long. Perhaps the king is corrupt — I don’t know anything about politics. But he evidently has enough loyal subjects to support him within the castle itself. So, she must turn to the people for allies.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Or so Lully tells me.”
Thorn turned his gaze in the direction of Irae. She was tying her bedroll to the back of her saddle, straight black brows lowered over her nose as she concentrated. He watched her hands, sure and strong, and pictured them curved over the arms of a throne, pictured them stretched out to some poor subject asking for clemency.
He swallowed.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “What’s more important, what she wants or what I want?”
“That,” said Ruben, “is a very loaded question. I’m simply a legendarian, trained in stories and lore. I don’t feel qualified to discuss this.”
“Very well,” said Thorn, nodding briefly to himself. “That’s fine. I’ll do it myself, then.”
He advanced on Irae, determinedly.
“I want to go to Keler, to find the alchemists,” he said. “It could be important — it could be vital, in fact. If you want me to Forge your uncle, I need to know more about what I’m dealing with. I’ve told you already that my power fluctuates, that it doesn’t always work as I want it to. If they can help me, we should go there.”
Irae sighed and shook her head.
“The time it would take —”
“You took the time to go to Braeve!”
“To save Karyl! That’s a little different, don’t you think?”
“The reason is beside the point,” said Thorn, who didn’t want to discuss it since he knew she was right. “The point is, this could make all the difference as to whether you are successful or not in overtaking the throne.”
She folded her arms. “Thorn. Let us look at this logically. First you said you could Forge my uncle, even though you didn’t know whether you could or not. Then you needed the Anvil of the Soul in order to do it. Very well, we went and got the Anvil. Now it’s this, without even knowing whether it will make a difference or not. Will you ever actually do what you say you will? Or is this all one big game to y
ou, seeing how long you can string me along?” He opened his mouth and she held up her hand. “No, don’t protest. Don’t play the loyal, wounded friend. You have given me many reasons not to trust you. I need something solid to base my faith on. Do you see?”
He opened his mouth again, then closed it. Why was he doing this, after all? It was possible it would help her — it was possible, indeed, that it would make all the difference in her quest to reclaim what was rightfully hers. But did her need outweigh his, his desire to find out more about who he was, about who his family might have been? Did it outweigh his need to get rid of the dreams, to save Lisca from what he had done, or what might happen?
Their aims were the same, regardless of why he was doing it. That would have to be enough.
He said, “Have you considered the fact that you will have to get rid of at least most of the council?”
She looked startled, taken aback. She said nothing.
“They’ve had the chance to support you,” he said, “and did nothing. Perhaps some of them have been taken in by your uncle’s lies, but not all of them can possibly be entirely innocent. You want to get rid of your uncle by Forging, because he is immortal. It’s going to be much cleaner and simpler to kill off the others.”
She turned away from him abruptly, and he had a sneaking suspicion that she was fighting back tears. He went on regardless. If she wanted to be queen, to reign over an entire country, she was going to have to face these sorts of decisions.
“If you want to Forge them,” he said, “you’ll need more than me on your side. Take me to Keler. Let me learn about my family, who they are, who might have the same power that I do. You could gather an army more quickly than you know.”
“I don’t want an army,” said Irae quietly. “I want the loyalty of my subjects.”
