Fortune's Toll (The Legion of the Wind, Book Two)

by Corey Pemberton

  He felt better. Stronger. Just strong enough to drag himself to bed and collapse in its warm embrace. For a moment he listened through the open window. Nothing there except the pounding sea.

  I should have killed that girl.

  She had come to rob him a few weeks earlier, a petite thing with freckles and fiery red hair. He'd awoken to someone rifling through the kitchen. When he found her she'd tried to run, but Argus was faster. After giving her a good belting, he'd sent her back down the hill.

  That was his mistake. She was just a teenage girl—little more than a beggar. But letting her go alive had drawn others. Argus imagined her at the bottom of the hill, regaling her friends with shocking tales about the hermit and his hoard of treasure.

  What's done is done, he thought. I'll see about it tomorrow.

  His hand found his sword hilt. Sleep swooped down on him, a raven from her perch, and carried him into a dreamless stupor.

  Argus didn't wake until hours later. The breeze had died, leaving him in a puddle of his own sweat. Outside it was still dark. He flipped onto his side, groaned and waited.

  Moments later he heard the knocking again.

  This time he was certain it was real.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Argus hopped out of bed and immediately regretted it. Every muscle ached. Every tendon quivered, and when he moved, his leg bones felt hollowed out from the inside.

  Still, that knocking continued.

  It grew louder; using the noise as cover, he drew Reaver and crept into the living room.

  More robbers?

  It seemed unlikely. Even amateur thieves knew not to advertise their presence. Probably someone looking to settle a score…

  Argus stepped over the poor kid from Harlock and into the kitchen. The pounding started up again, so loud this time a few cupboards flew open and sent their glasses shattering. Some of them sprinkled on the dead Pellmerean. When Argus reached the wall he stopped, angled Reaver at the door and waited.

  Boom boom boom.

  Dust kicked off the wall and covered him. Argus did his best to ignore his twitching nose. Somehow he held in a sneeze. The pounding kept on—someone had swapped a boot for a fist—and finally died down moments later.

  “Argus of Leith? Where are you, you old bastard?”

  Goosebumps prickled the back of his neck. How does he know? No one on Davos knows who I am.

  Curiosity nearly drove him to open the door. But the stranger sounded confident and strong—the last things Argus felt at the moment. He wasn't up for another fight.

  “Bastard,” the man said, and kicked the door one last time before retreating into the street.

  Argus counted to ten, listening to the receding footsteps. Once he was sure the man was away from the door he peeked through the window. Moonlight gleamed on a bald head. His back was broad, and growing smaller by the second. The man didn't walk so much as shuffle.

  Argus pressed against the windowpane, squinting. He watched the man trundle over to the next building—nothing more than a storehouse for some of Argus's favorite mementos from old Davos—and start kicking on that door too. After a few more attempts he moved on to the next, scouring every house on the street.

  He seemed harmless enough. No sign of a weapon. The problem was that Argus's enemies vastly outnumbered his friends. He wasn't sure if he had any of those left.

  Still, he was powerless to stand by and let the stranger escape. By the time he realized what was happening, his door was already open.

  “Who goes there?”

  The bald man turned, lethargic even in his surprise, and faced him. “Argus of Leith?”

  “Who's asking?”

  The stranger crossed his arms. “Come, now. Don't recognize your old friend?”

  Argus kept Reaver drawn as he approached. A cloud shifted, and in the moonlight he regarded the weathered face. The brown eyes. His beard was missing, and so was the mop of black hair, but that face was unmistakable.

  “Siggi?”

  The burly Rivannan grinned and greeted him with a stump where his hand should have been. “Never took you for a heavy sleeper, friend. What was your plan? Make me level the whole street before you crawled out of your hole?”

  Argus smiled. He'd almost forgotten how to do it; the muscles in his face trembled under unfamiliar strain. Yet by the time he put away Reaver and reached his old mercenary brother that smile had grown into a grin.

  “Get over here, you bastard!” said the Rivannan. He pulled him into an embrace and he was warm, sweating from his night's wanderings. He smelled like fried shrimp, saltwater, and a healthy dose of ale.

  They stepped back and looked at each other.

  “You look different,” Argus said. “You're practically naked without your beard and hair.”

  Siggi shrugged. “I don't pray to Blegga anymore, friend. Besides, looks like you've grown enough hair for the both of us.”

  “What do you—oh. Right.” Argus had forgotten all about his beard. He'd been meaning to trim it, but those magic books consumed every thought.

  Siggi's eyes narrowed. “You don't look so good.”

  Argus sighed. “I'd invite you inside, but the place is a mess.”

  “I don't mind. And if you have ale, I really don't mind.”

  Argus walked back toward the house and told the Rivannan to follow. Once they were inside he shut the door and lit a few candles. “Watch out for the—”

  “Gods!” Siggi flailed his arms and caught himself on the kitchen table just before he stumbled. “There are corpses in here. Why are there corpses in here, Argus of Leith?”

  Argus laughed. “Told you the place was a mess.”

  “After the ale,” said Siggi, who stepped over the corpse and collapsed into a creaky wooden chair.

  “Right.”

  Argus found a few mugs that had survived Siggi's late-night intrusion. He filled them from a keg he'd rolled up the hill from one of the burned-out taverns.

  “You owe me some glasses,” he said, and sat across the table from Siggi, near the dead Harlockian. “You kicked on that door like a mule.”

  Siggi laughed. His face was already covered in ale froth, which he sucked off the brim of his mug. “Cheers to that.”

  They clinked mugs and drank for a while in silence. When Siggi's was empty he got up and helped himself to another. Argus nursed his ale and tried not to look at the dead man right behind him.

  “They'll start to smell soon,” Siggi said. “The bodies.”

  “I'm aware of that.”

  “Does that explain why you greeted me with my old lovely?”

  Argus nodded, and tapped the sword that had once belonged to his friend until he won it off him in a game of king's folly.

  “She's still a beauty,” said Siggi, gulping down more ale. “But I'm glad to be rid of her.” He leaned forward. “How's that coming, anyhow? Did you figure out how to release the bond?”

  “Not yet.” Argus didn't elaborate. The truth was he'd hardly thought about Reaver since returning to Davos. The Five Branches were his world now. They took him places that were often terrifying, sometimes enlightening, and always confusing. But wherever they guided him, there he went.

  “Why'd these idiots attack you? They did attack you, right? I assume you aren't just dragging strangers inside and murdering them for sport.”

  Argus snorted. “I'm not Brenn the Bold. The people who live down below think I'm rich. Rumors are swirling around town.”

  “I know. That's how I found you.”

  “It's nonsense. I don't know what they think I have up here. Some hoard from the Builders Bank that the Calladonians forgot to plunder, maybe. Look around. All of this is junk.”

  “Hold on.” Siggi got up, belched, and went into the kitchen. This time he rolled the keg over and left it within arm's reach of the table. “That's better,” he said, refilling his mug. “A few of the sailors at the bottom of the hill said there's a sorcerer who roams up here. A man well-versed in
the dark arts.”

  “Aye. They say that too.”

  “Are they right?”

  Because he didn't know, Argus didn't answer. He could see by the way his friend surveyed the house, eyes darting among stacks of papers and inscriptions scrawled into the walls, that he'd already made up his mind on that account.

  “What are you doing in Davos?” Argus said. “And why in the blazes are you here so late?”

  “It isn't late, friend. It's early. Like the god Ghrol taught, it's all in how you look at it. As for why I left Rivanna… well, better pour yourself another ale.”

  * * *

  “I'd hardly been in Rivanna a week when Brimir got sick,” Siggi said.

  His homecoming had been joyous in the beginning. He talked to the priests of Blegga, and made some progress in getting readmitted into their temples. Because he had sold his old home during his mercenary years, he moved into his brother's house.

  “Therese was there, of course,” he said. “Having her under the same roof—just out of reach—it was torture! Anyhow, hardly a week goes by and Brimir comes down with Halek's Bane.”

  Argus grimaced. He'd heard tales of that disease, which was confined to the continent of Rivanna. A terrible, wasting illness that made it impossible to eat or drink without ejecting it all from both ends. He also remembered something about angry red boils. But it was dehydration that killed them in the end.

  Brimir's decline had been swift. Three days after the first boils appeared on his face, he was bedridden and so exhausted he could hardly speak.

  “Therese stayed at his bedside until the end,” he said, swigging down ale like he was angry at it. “Dabbing his face with a wet cloth. Fluffing his pillows. Trying to sneak some broth down his throat.” He threw up his hands. “But in the end? Halek's Bane always wins.”

  “I'm sorry,” Argus said.

  Siggi nodded. “It's a terrible thing. Brimir and I didn't always get along, but it had been a long time and I was ready to see if we could be friends. It'd be one thing if it was just his time to die… but I can't shake the feeling that I'm responsible.”

  Because of your wish, Argus thought. He opened his mouth to offer comfort, but couldn't find the words. Willow was dead, but who was to say she hadn't set her promises into motion?

  Siggi stared at the table as if searching for answers in that wooden grain. “I wanted to be with Therese. Ever since she came into that temple and I laid eyes on her the first time.”

  “Your brother is dead, but both of you are alive. Why aren't you still in Rivanna writing her ballads and taking her on horse rides? You can't erase the tragedy, but something good may come out of it yet.”

  “Because,” said Siggi, slamming his stump onto the table, “I can't linger there if I was responsible. That plague claimed scores of lives, but I'll never know if it was I who killed Brimir—or old Halek.” He shook his head, refilled his glass. “I wanted Therese. But not like this.”

  “Go home. Give it time. See how you feel when the wound isn't so fresh.”

  “Not going to happen, my friend.” Siggi told him that his romance with Therese would never be rekindled. Too much time had passed. While his feelings strengthened hers had cooled, and it was only when he watched her by his brother's bedside, tending to every little detail, did he realize Therese loved Brimir in a way that she'd never love him.

  There was little left for Siggi after that. He stopped trying to get back into the temples of Blegga. Seeing the Cradle of Eld had made him question things, and coping with his brother's death confirmed it.

  “It isn't Blegga who rules,” he said. “If any of them are real, it's the old gods. The ones whose statues we saw on the Cradle with Willow. If one of their followers can kill my brother beyond the grave, just imagine what they can do themselves.”

  “And so you renounced your old god,” said Argus, draining his second ale. “Shaved your head and beard, packed up and left Rivanna. Lost a few pounds too. Looking svelte.”

  Siggi gave him a crooked grin. “Grief will do that to a man.”

  “I think you're moving too fast.”

  “That's the only way I know how.”

  “Think about it,” Argus said. “This damned sword is still in my house. If Willow was able to do what she promised, it'd be at the bottom of the ocean. I'd be free.”

  The Rivannan shrugged. “Maybe you're right. Did you hear what happened on the Comet Tail Isles?”

  He shook his head.

  “Right. S'pose you wouldn't hear much living like a hermit on top of this hill. The Comet had another election; after they ousted their ruler—what was her name, Shanaz?—they called everyone to the isles to choose the artificers who'd rule.”

  “And Nasira?” Argus leaned forward.

  “She didn't make it, friend. Had her sights set on First Artificer. Didn't even make it into the ruling twelve!”

  Argus whistled. It didn't make sense. Nasira had been so confident she'd crossed continents, become a fugitive, and nearly gotten herself killed countless times. All for that opportunity—the one she'd missed.

  “I don't know what she's doing know,” Siggi said. “I heard the news from a Tokati merchant who washed up in Rivanna. He recited the names for a tankard of ale.” His face darkened. “He said it rained in Tokat, too. Not just any rain. Torrents so strong they might as well have been poured from Remor's mouth itself.”

  That'll end the drought, Argus thought. At least Harun's death wasn't a total forfeit. The erstwhile king finally paid his debts. He shivered then, and pulled his musty cloak tighter around his shoulders. He couldn't stop thinking about the sandshade who carried his friend away. Those terrible burning eyes. To distract himself, he asked about Brenn.

  “I haven't heard a whisper,” said Siggi, who was busy scouring the cupboards and growing ever more disappointed to find them empty. “Don't you have any food in here? Gods. Anyway, I figured Brenn would get himself involved in Calladon. Plenty of room for mercenary work with the civil war raging. But I talked to sailors at the port of Hythe all the time. No one said a word about our terror from Nalavac.”

  “Maybe he's still there. Freezing his arse off and making good with his kinfolk.”

  The old mercenary brothers looked at each other, then burst out laughing. Imagining Brenn doing anything besides hacking his way through a bloody battlefield, roaring, torso bare, towering over his fleeing enemies, was impossible. Yet a quiet domestic life was exactly what the Nalavacian had wanted after the slaughter in Garvahn.

  Siggi sat at the table again, his gloomy face lifted by another ale.

  “You still haven't told me why you're here,” Argus said.

  “Can't a man come visit an old friend?”

  “He can. But there's something more to it. You have another scheme afoot. I see it in your eyes.”

  “Very perceptive, my friend, though it's little like the schemes I'm known for. What I'm after this time is knowledge. Today I sail for the Atheneum, in Azmar.” He waited for Argus to answer, received none, and continued. “After seeing the Cradle I want to find out everything I can about the gods of Eld. There were a few artifacts in Rivanna, buried deep in the archives. Parables and rituals that passed down through the ages. I want to collect as many as I can. Study them. Write them down. Know the truth.”

  Argus leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “So no more Therese? Truly?”

  “That life is over for me, friend. It's time to move on. Join me. Get away from this dank little hole you've cooped yourself up in.”

  “I don't think so. All of my books are here, my papers. I have to study every day if I hope to unravel the mysteries of the Five Branches.”

  Siggi's eyes narrowed. “That's what I'm worried about, friend. You look like you did back when you were chasing powders in the alleys of Azmar. Maybe you're going too deep. Maybe some mysteries aren't meant to be unraveled.”

  “You don't understand,” said Argus. “My mind—it's different now.”
<
br />   The one-handed man from Rivanna sighed. “At least think about it. I set sail in a few hours. An adventure will do you some good. Come on, let's get these bodies buried.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Argus watched the bodies plunge into the sea.

  He convinced Siggi to bury the men in true Davosi fashion: a toss from the cliffside. He'd pushed countless others into the same watery grave. Months of clearing the carnage from the Calladonian invasion had taught him the soil was no good, mostly just sand and rock. Finally he'd given up and found an old handcart to wheel them up the hill.

  He leaned on that handcart now, and watched the moonlight strike tonight's additions. For a moment limbs jutted through the froth, reaching, and the torsos moved like they were very much alive. Yet the end was always the same. The water claimed them. Then they disappeared.

  Siggi clapped Argus on the shoulder. “S'pose that does it, then.”

  “Thanks for the help. I couldn't have lifted them by myself. Not tonight.”

  “Let's get on down the hill. It'll be morning soon.”

  The sun peeked over the horizon just as they turned off Bank Road and onto the street Argus called home.

  Siggi stopped at the corner. “You really aren't coming? Now that we cleared out those corpses your house will smell nice and fresh when you return.”

  Argus gave him a wan smile. “It isn't a good time. There are things I need to learn. I'm this close.”

  “This isn't about Reaver anymore, is it?”

  “What?”

  “This isn't about releasing the sword's hold over you. You're going further. Becoming another Willow. Either that or going insane.”

  Argus shook the Rivannan's hand. “Safe travels to Azmar. I hope you find what you're looking for.”

  Siggi sighed. “Likewise. Be careful, friend. If you change your mind, I'll be down by the docks until I leave.”

  “To the Legion,” Argus said.

  “To the Legion.”

  Siggi waved. Then he shuffled down Bank Road, toward the sound of gulls and children's voices, a tiny town waking to greet the sun.