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

by Corey Pemberton

  King Silas leaned back in the throne, a modest wooden one in this hall, and said, “I'm in a foul mood already, and you seem determined to make it worse.”

  Siggi held out his hands. “My intent is to do just the opposite, your grace.”

  “Your intent matters about as much as maggots on shit.”

  “A very… colorful metaphor, I'm sure. I didn't know you were a man with such a flair for wo—”

  “Shut up. State your business here, or I'll have my guards throw you out.”

  Bodyguards weren't supposed to draw attention to themselves, but Argus couldn't resist stealing glances at Kyra's son. Silas had a sharp jaw and sandy blond hair nearly down to his shoulders. There wasn't a single pinch of extra skin on his face. His brow and cheekbones jutted out, sinking into his green eyes. Argus couldn't figure him out. The flat nose and ears belonged to his father Belen, but the eyes were his grandfather's eyes—his uncle's eyes too.

  Siggi had launched into his rehearsed story about an invitation to one of Lord Syrio's feasts. He would be so honored if the king decided to attend that he'd sent a diplomat to relay the invitation in person.

  The king cut him off. “You said these people are your bodyguards?”

  “Yes, your grace. One can never be too careful with pirates roaming the open seas.”

  “That doesn't explain why your man keeps looking at me. Perhaps you should educate him that in Leith it's a sign of disrespect for lowborn to lock eyes with the king.”

  “Of course, your grace. I've told them countless times. They're good fighters. A bit thick, sadly.” He turned to Argus. “Apologize.”

  “I'm… sorry, your grace,” he said, keeping his head low.

  Silas scoffed. “This conversation is boring me. I have dozens more petitioners to hear.”

  “Will you at least consider attending, your grace?” Argus's eyes were still on the floor; all he heard were swishing robes and clanging bangles. “It will be a feast to remember—even by Lord Syrio's standards. We've secured the greatest bards and dancers from every corner of the world. The rarest vintages of Garvahn. Mead from Nalavac and Calladon's finest cheese.”

  “Enough. I was in Azmar hardly a week ago, and I still can't wash off the stench. I've grown quite tired of that place, and the man who rules it.”

  “Perhaps if we had an audience in private we could—”

  “No. I think not. Give Lord Syrio my regrets. Seeing the man who murdered my father hang was all the feast I needed.”

  Argus's heart pounded. Who had died for his crime? He'd probably never know.

  Siggi begged and pleaded, but in the end his efforts earned them a swift escort out of the hall. Once they were in the corridor, the Rivannan wrenched away from Silas's guards. “Unhand me, you brutes! We'll show ourselves out.”

  They looked at the diplomat's surly bodyguards, nodded, and went back into the hall.

  “Well,” said Nasira, “that was a disaster.”

  “Your nephew is a special kind of arsehole,” Brenn said. “Those are hard to find.”

  Argus said nothing. The king's features were on his mind. He and Silas looked too much alike. He didn't want to believe it, but he feared they acted too much alike as well.

  He doubled back.

  “Where are you going?” Siggi said.

  “Down to the dungeons. I can smell them. Follow me.” They padded across the navy blue carpet, past the hall where the king was rushing through the last of the petitioners. Those oak doors were closed now; everyone else would have to wait until tomorrow.

  The Legion passed a gauntlet of doorways. Most were shut, but suspicious eyes peeked out of the open ones. Argus didn't slow down. Then the corridor turned to the right, goading them deeper into the bowels of Silas's palace.

  They kept on. One tapestry blended into the next, and Argus couldn't imagine how they kept so many torches burning at the same time. More doorways. A pair of chambermaids shuttled out of one, eyed their weapons and froze.

  Brenn put a finger to his lips.

  “Mum's the word,” Siggi said. “Safer for all of us that way.”

  With their heads cowed, the women nodded, backed into the room and closed the door behind them.

  Siggi sighed. “Wouldn't it be nice if everything went so easily?”

  “They aren't used to our weapons,” Argus said. “Now come on.” He led them deeper into the palace until they were puffing and out of breath. Sometimes he sniffed the air. The rotten sewage scent whiffed stronger than ever, and he reminded himself not to gag. “We're almost right on top of them.”

  They kept following the carpet until it ended. What was left of the corridor crawled into darkness, disappearing except for the dim flicker of torchlight on stone.

  Argus smirked. “Here we are, friends.” He led them down the winding stairs. The ceiling was so low he had to duck while he climbed. Everyone stumbled over the uneven steps. Argus grabbed the first torch they found from its sconce and carried it with him.

  Still chanting the words from the Scent Branch, he heaved.

  “Easy, you bastard,” Siggi said. “Don't spoil my finest robe.”

  Argus groaned, and kept climbing until they reached a landing that spilled onto another corridor.

  “Is this the one?” Nasira said.

  He shook his head. Once they'd passed three more landings, each dimmer than the last, they reached the bottom and could go no further. The Legion shuffled into a dank tunnel. The air was heavy down here, so greasy from darkness and despair that Argus doubted his clothes would ever dry. Up ahead came a faint dripping sound, and the stone floor grew slippery.

  “This is the place.”

  He didn't need to use scent magic anymore. Unfortunately, his regular nose worked well enough.

  Argus drew Reaver as that tunnel curved away from the stairs. She slid out of her scabbard silently, gleaming before he snuffed out the torch. Behind him, the Legion readied their weapons.

  They trudged single file into the darkness. Argus whispered sight magic spells to brighten the specks of light that somehow managed to survive in this place. He led them around a corner, and had to cover his eyes when the light there struck him. Blinded, he ripped a torch from its sconce and stomped it out.

  After the hissing sound came voices.

  They were angry.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Silas's dungeon was well-guarded.

  Eight men rushed down the long corridor between the cells to meet them. They wore armor that didn't fit them. Their eyes were mismatches too; they belonged to powder fiends, madmen, shipwrecked sailors marooned with the gulls. They were drunk out of their skulls—either from ale or the new swords they flailed.

  Argus ran across the corridor and put out another torch. That left only a pair burning at the other end of the dungeon. If the guards wanted a fight, they'd have to do it in darkness.

  He rejoined his friends, who peered into the dungeon in their fighting stances, weapons drawn. Still the guards came. They rushed ahead like wild boars, shouting, clanging their blades on the metal bars. At the edge of the shadows they stopped.

  A pudgy man whose eyes were too far apart said, “Who goes there? These prisoners belong to the king!”

  Argus turned to the Legion. “Remember what I said earlier.” Everyone nodded except Brenn, who grumbled.

  “You promised, Brenn.”

  “At least let me have that one.”

  “Remember—your word is your bond.”

  “Hey,” the pudgy man said. “I asked you a question!”

  Argus edged out of the shadows. “We don't want to harm you. We're looking for one of your prisoners. One who shouldn't be down here.”

  “Who?”

  “You know who I'm talking about.”

  “Well she belongs to King Silas. You can't have her.”

  Argus shook his head. He had no desire to kill his countrymen. Reaver had other plans, of course, and their insolent faces were making it harder and
harder to ignore them. “That's your queen you're talking about.”

  “Not anymore,” the pudgy man said. “She defied King Silas. That makes her a traitor.”

  “Aye!” said the others. “Kyra the a traitor!”

  “I don't give a fuck what you call her,” Argus said. “She's the one we came for. And we'll have her.”

  “Oh yeah?” said the pudgy man, waving his sword. “Well come get her!” They charged with their blades leading the way. Reckless.

  Argus backpedaled into the shadows and sighed. Why do they insist on doing this the hard way?

  The guards lunged into the darkness, and there they learned what the hard way was. Their blades flashed in every direction, knocked aside by the Legion's. While the guards were blustering, the Legion had gotten accustomed to the darkness. The biggest danger of this fight—if one stooped to call it that—was dodging wayward swords as they careened through the air.

  Men groaned. One cried out for mercy as he was lifted by an angry Nalavacian, who threw him against a cell. Bones snapped. Some of them tried to limp away, but Nasira had found their keys and opened an empty cell.

  Siggi and Brenn herded the guards into it. Most went willingly. Those who resisted were picked up and tossed in there, or Argus dragged them in after choking them unconscious. Their moans filled the dungeon. Prisoners, most of whom had been too surprised to say much while the fighting went on, whistled and cheered.

  In the end all eight of them fit in there. They had to stand shoulder to shoulder in the cramped cell. Brenn squeezed in so Nasira could close the door and lock it.

  “I can't believe we did it,” he said.

  Siggi raised an eyebrow. “I told you it would be easy, my friend.”

  “Not that. The hard part was not killing any of them.”

  “Maybe they'll kill each other once they spend enough time together in that cell.”

  “Aye. That's true.” Brenn looked almost hopeful.

  Argus hurried into the corridor while the others waited by the cell, maces and daggers and axes ready for anyone who got too loud. He checked each cell one by one. Half were empty. Eyes bulged out of the others, men with stringy hair and boils. They begged for their freedom. Argus kept moving until he reached the end, where he found a woman huddled in the corner of her cell.

  She didn't come to the bars.

  “Hey,” he said. “Kyra!”

  She just stared into the wall. With ten fewer years and twenty more pounds, she might have been his sister. Now she was someone else.

  Argus leaned against the metal bars. Was he too late? Her body still lived. But what about her mind?

  “It's me,” he said. “It's your brother, Argus.”

  She turned and looked at him. Clumps of hair drifted off her shoulders onto the ground. She picked one of them up, ran her fingers through it and frowned. “My brother died in Azmar.”

  “Then I must be a ghost.”

  “Must be… not a very friendly one, either. One who makes a lot of noise and plays cruel jokes.”

  “Look at me, Kyra. Look at my face.”

  Her eyes settled on him, but they were looking someplace else. She brushed her hair away, pulling herself up. Her ankles creaked as she felt her way along the wall. At the cell bars she stopped. “There is… a remarkable resemblance. I'll give you that.”

  Argus smiled. It was either that or be forced to frown at what she'd become. He told her how they'd used to run through the fields together behind their house, catching lightning bugs in the summer twilight. How their mother always gave them a taste of the honey she harvested before it sold, but he never got any because Kyra ate it all. Finally he told her about the day Belen's man came to take her, and how he'd paid him back with a dagger after years in exile.

  “Oh, gods,” she said, quivering in her roughspun tunic. “Oh, gods, Argus. It's really you!”

  He smiled. “It's me, Kyra.”

  She launched herself at the bars, trying to squeeze her entire body through in a single desperate lunge. Only her fingers slipped out. Argus grabbed them. He held them and covered them in kisses.

  “I thought you… no. Silas saw you die. He was there.”

  “Lord Syrio was tired of your son breathing down his neck about finding me. So he gave him the wrong man as a peace offering.”

  Kyra covered her mouth. “That's terrible. But you're alive! You're here, and you came for me.”

  “Yes,” he said, and released her hand to sort through the keys. He started to try them one by one. An agonizing ordeal with the way his hands trembled.

  “Where will we go?” she said.

  “Anywhere away from Leith. Sorry to say, but my nephew's turning into quite the tyrant.”

  “We can't just leave! Silas is my son. I've sat on the throne for nearly twenty years. These are my people. They need me.”

  “I don't know what to do, Kyra…” His voice trailed off. There was one option. It had visited his nightmares ever since he heard Silas imprisoned his sister. But he didn't think he had the stomach for it. And he was certain he couldn't live with himself afterward.

  “Things have gotten all out of sorts,” Kyra said. “But Silas isn't evil.”

  “He threw you down in this hole!”

  “Because I threatened to do the same to him. He lost his way… ever since Belen. He hardly eats or sleeps. His only aim was revenge. I thought it would get better after he saw you—well, the man he thought was you—hang. But there's still a hole in there, Argus, and I don't know how to fill it.”

  “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—gods! How many bloody keys are on this thing?”

  “Just one for mine. The guards complain about it all the time. They never have that problem with any of the others, but Silas had this lock made special.”

  “I shouldn't have killed him, Kyra. Then you wouldn't be in this mess.”

  She clawed his arm with her long fingernails. “Are you mad? That was one of the best nights of my life. If only you knew some of the things he did, brother… Life with Belen was just life in a dungeon of a different sort.” She leaned closer. “Want to know a secret?”

  Argus nodded.

  “I was the one who killed that fat fool. You did most of it, of course, but there was a moment that night while I kept vigil. A moment he came to. When he opened his eyes my heart sank. I don't know what came over me but next thing I knew there was a pillow in my hands.”

  “You smothered him?”

  “Aye. Bastard was too wounded to fight back.”

  “Gods. What would mother think? Between us and father she raised a pack of murderers and criminals.”

  Kyra's eyes narrowed. “Father?”

  “He's alive. It's a long story.”

  “What?”

  “I'll tell you later. Let's get you out of here.”

  Kyra chuckled, and soon enough she was doubled over in her cell. Argus had never heard her laugh so hard. Crying, panting, her laughing fit kept on even after the lock clicked. Those bars creaked open, and his sister leaped into his arms.

  “Oh, Argus! Is it really you?”

  “It's me, Kyra.” He pulled her body into his. Bones poked him wherever he grabbed. Shoulder blades and collarbones jutted out like mountain ranges. She was too skinny and had the pall of a corpse, but he felt her heart beating against his. He showered her cheeks in kisses. Cheeks he'd spent his youth trying to make puff out in anger. “What's so funny?” he said.

  Kyra wiped away tears and said, “Life. Isn't it strange? When I woke up this morning my father and brother were dead. And now they're alive.”

  “I can't argue with that. Come on. Let's get out of here.”

  Just then, Siggi's wolf whistle pierced his ears.

  “What's that?” Kyra said.

  Argus looked into the other end of the dungeon. There the Rivannan stood, waving frantically with Brenn and Nasira at his side. They kept their eyes on the bottom of the stairway. Argus couldn't see what they were looking at, but he
didn't have to.

  Heavy footsteps thudded on the stone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Oh no,” Kyra said.

  Argus drew Reaver and she scrambled away from it, almost into the outstretched fingers of another prisoner.

  “What are we going to do?” she said. “You know how to use a sword?”

  He nodded. “I've had a bit of practice.” The footsteps were louder now. Angry voices accompanied them, and when Argus glanced at the bottom of the stairs he saw torchlight. With his free hand he grabbed Kyra and pulled her through the corridor.

  Prisoners shouted at them as they ran the gauntlet of cells. Sensing an opportunity, the foolish guards they'd captured—and should have killed, apparently—were screaming for help, for those footsteps and torches to come faster.

  Brother and sister stopped next to the Legion, who looked at them with curious eyes.

  Siggi said, “So this is Queen Kyra, then. A skinny thing. But I'm glad she's alive, my friend.”

  Kyra looked at Argus. “Are these people your friends?”

  “The only true ones I have.”

  “Then they're my friends too. Thank you all. I owe you my life.”

  Siggi smiled. “Your thanks are premature. First we have to get up those—”

  “Unhand her!”

  They turned and looked. The king stood at the bottom of the stairs, puffing for air. He held a sword forged for a man twice his size. It quivered in both hands; his fingers hardly wrapped around the hilt, which was encrusted with gems. “Unhand my mother at once!”

  Argus couldn't tell which glinted brighter: those gems or his nephew's eyes.

  He listened to the king's command. He shoved Kyra back toward her cell, stuffing the dungeon keys in her hands. “Let them out. Let them all out!”

  She sputtered in protest, but when he turned away, her footsteps were pattering across the stone.

  “What are you doing?” Nasira said.

  Argus shrugged. “Creating chaos.”

  They'd need a lot of it too, if they hoped to get past the dozen or so soldiers Silas had brought with him. They edged closer. Too calm, too quiet. Men and women they came. Most of them were too swarthy to have been born in Leith. A mercenary company?