by Jackson Lear
One night Zara flopped down next to me, her more exhausted than I was.
“Two weeks for one negotiation?” I asked.
“No. Three months for one negotiation.”
“That’s insane.”
“Not when there’s potentially a language barrier and the people you’re about to meet absolutely hate you,” said Zara.
“Three months is still insane. I can talk to people and so can she. She’s good at it. Better than I am.”
“You’re trained to keep calm when you’re fighting, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And the reckless fighters tend to fail more often than the calm ones?”
“More or less.”
Zara nodded. “That’s what I’m doing; training her to keep calm during a fight. This one will affect our lives just as much as a frontline battle in the middle of a ten year war.”
Too bad all of Alysia’s training had been to negotiate Draegor’s demise with Agnarr. Who the hell knew what she was going to do now. It really was her first day of being a negotiator on behalf of the empire … which was something not even the emperor or our own governor was aware of.
Two hours passed us by, forcing everyone into a state of ongoing dread. I leaned back against the wall for a while. Kept my eyes closed. Figured that rest might soon be in short supply.
Saskia shot one arm out to Lindum, dragging him away and stuffing her seeing wire into her clothing. Loken gave the signal – a quick circle above his head.
The doors buckled with a thump. The beam was free. The door swung open. The bear grunted at us. Mikael translated.
Our primary purpose in coming this far north was to overthrow the king. It was time to meet him and see if we would get our chance.
Chapter Five
The great hall was indeed impressive, not for its sense of color or wonderfully uninspired architecture, but for what they had managed to cram inside. At the far end of the room, up a set of steps and standing behind a sturdy table and even sturdier chair, stood the Vasslehün – the beast the whole country was named after. There are bears, there are dire bears, there are even blood bears. Then there was this thing; twenty feet tall with claws as long as my forearm. Legend had it that a king’s hunting party was ambushed by the beast who slaughtered all but two of them; one being an eight year old child who landed the killing blow, the other was the mortally wounded prince who would’ve been next in line to the throne, until he instead crowned the young lad as the rightful king due to some ‘might is right’ sense of duty.
The Vasslehün was easily the biggest creature I had ever seen and I gotta say … it was absolutely terrifying. Something that big shouldn’t be able to exist, yet there it was. The throne in front of it was a quarter of its size, like the occupant was a still-learning-to-walk child sitting in front of their bellowing father.
The rest of the great hall was draped with tapestries, fire pits along each of the longest walls, barred windows just below the ceiling, archways and alcoves, four tables running lengthwise up the room with a fifth in the distance reserved for the king and his family. Other beasts stood stuffed and upright throughout the hall. Bears and wolves were popular. The skull of an ancient cyclops lay mounted in the far corner, its grotesque tusks curving towards us. In the other corner stood the unmistakable skull of a wyvern, smaller than the cyclops’ but just as menacing. Aside from all of that the room was built in gray slabs of stone and furnished with dull wooden tables and benches that were scratched to all hell.
Surrounding us were the lords and mercenaries of the north. All armed. All sour. A few scarred women – some from fire, some from combat – stood among them, clad in leather armor and sporting a variety of dark scarves around the tops of their heads. They all carried thick swords of war, making them a little more attractive. The men not so much; the only thing interesting about most of them were their braided beards. Behind us stood the bear and his wolf cubs. I assumed they were the equivalent of a crown’s guard.
One of the noblemen was an odd sight. Mid-twenties. Deathly pale with a far-away stare fixed in place. Nervously sweating. Almost at the point of passing out while standing upright. Mikael’s expression mirrored the sickly nobleman’s the moment he saw him. Then Mikael hung his head as though we were already defeated.
The far door opened. A woman emerged, her eyes a murky white, her head weaving from side to side, suggesting she needed to use her hearing to guide her through the room. Rings adorned her fingers. Studs lined her ears. A shimmering blue dress which shifted towards a lilac color gripped her throat and ran down to her ankles. She sniffed us out, her mouth hanging open, her eyes absently staring above our heads. A chill ran down my back the moment she locked onto Alysia.
The woman stopped in front of the Vasslehün, wavered on her feet, and spoke in a soft voice. “You are Alysia Kasera Lavarta of the House Kasera, married to Auron Lavarta of the House Lavarta.”
“I am,” said Alysia.
The woman gazed over each of us blankly, paused, and returned to Alysia as though she was stuck on something she couldn’t quite identify. “You had a twin once. Long ago.”
Alysia shook her head. “No twin, I’m afraid.”
“No? Your soul is fractured into two, bleeding through your whole body. It is not unusual for one twin to devour the other, but yours …” She lingered for a moment while Alysia tensed. “… You’re right. Curious. You have a fractured soul yet no twin.”
“I was expecting to meet with King Draegor,” Alysia said quickly.
“He is on his way,” murmured the woman. “Your mages are a danger. And your emissaries are foreign to your lands as well as ours.”
“It’s a quirk of our legal system,” said Alysia. “Citizenship is not granted to all at birth unless they are born to citizens.”
“Your trusted allies are an interesting few … so many names have been changed and even more lies have been told.” She lifted her hand, stretching one finger with an uncontrolled shake across every member of the vanguard until she settled upon Zara. “This one speaks to the haunting souls every night.” She shifted her finger towards me. “And this one lies dead on a blackened shore.”
“He is still very much alive,” said Alysia.
“Strange … he expects his last thoughts to be of you but they are not.” Her finger trailed through the air as she landed upon Saskia, our senior-most mage. A smile stretched across the woman’s face. “The suffering caused by this one will haunt whoever survives.”
“That’s enough,” said Alysia, as Saskia’s horrified look stretched across her brothers and sisters of the vanguard. “We are not here to be threatened. Every one of my people are under my protection. Any slight against them is a slight against Ispar.”
“It was no threat,” murmured the woman. She fell into a moment of silence that compelled Alysia to take the lead.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Vasslehün, I am Alysia Kasera Lavarta from Syuss. I wish to speak to you about your troubling alliance with the vampires. I know we have had our differences in the past; our frequent skirmishes, your raids, our blockades, and the good men and women who have fallen in combat instead of returning home to loved ones. We have all suffered.”
The far door flew open, interrupting Alysia. A juggernaut of a man thumped into the room. A full head taller than me and buried within a brown fur coat. Thick straw hair, a short blond beard, and emerald eyes that seemed larger than they should be. His nose had been broken several times in his life yet was reasonably well set. I could see him using his teeth to tear flesh from the bone at dinner, following that up by guzzling beer and then throwing the tankard – empty or not – at whoever displeased him.
He was followed by the lithe vampire. The king dropped into his throne, it groaning under his weight. The seer woman stepped to the side, kept her attention on each of us, and seemed to smile at whoever she lingered on the longest.
“Welcome,” said Draegor, in an almost-impossibly thick and spiteful
accent. “You are Ispar emissaries, yes? You: General Kasera’s daughter.”
“I am,” said Alysia, with a gentle curtsy. “I am Alysia Kasera Lavarta, daughter of Luqa Kasera.”
“Welcome,” Draegor said again. “Welcome to Vasslehün, my home. You may stay here, for time.”
“Thank you for your hospitality. I have come to ask for your help with a difficult matter.”
Draegor rolled his hand through the air, urging Alysia to hurry up. “You may ask.”
“Thank you. We have heard troubling news from Vasslehün that you have formed an alliance with the vampires. It is an alliance that is doomed to kill you all and leave both of our nations in ruins. I believe Ispar could help your people far more than the vampires ever could. I offer you the chance to show how much you value your noble kin by receiving me so that we can end our differences and live peacefully as neighbors full of trade, riches, wine, and spices.”
Draegor nodded, following along as best he could despite not grasping every word, and he again tumbled his hand through the air, dismissively this time. “This is Vasslehün alliance, not Ispar. This does not concern you.”
“It concerns us deeply. Vampires are a threat to all mankind and they have never maintained an alliance for more than a year. They hunt all of us for pleasure, answer to no laws, no justice, and no recompense …”
Draegor scowled at Alysia’s pompous words.
“… At least with humans we can negotiate and right some wrongs. Crimes committed by us can go punished. That is not the case with vampires. They are never held accountable for what they have done. But we are. We can open trade with you again and come to your aid if you ever need it. The vampires will not. They will take what they want from you and your families, and leave you to turn on each other.”
Draegor blew a shot of air from under his beard. “And you come out of goodness of your heart to help me? To no one else?”
Alysia nodded to the vampire. “The gentleman to your right brought us to you.”
“He is no gentleman. He is Lord of Fellgarden.”
“Then the Lord of Fellgarden brought us to you.”
“And we know why, don’t we?”
“I’m sure you do.”
“You know too. You want me dead.”
“That’s not true.”
“You want me not be king.”
“I want an end to the alliance you have with the vampires.”
“Alliance is because Ispar has ruined our lives for two hundred years. Your emperors take, take, take. Your snake thinks Galinnia is now Isparian. He is wrong. You are wrong. You do not have courage to tell me to my face you want me dead.”
“I don’t want you dead,” said Alysia, her voice starting to shake. “I want an end to the alliance you have with the vampires. That’s all.”
“And with no alliance the vampires feed on us. Now they don’t. You want my people fighting each other so they can’t defend themselves against you.” He leaned forward, staring out at Alysia from under excessively long, gray eyebrows. “You would pay Agnarr to rise against me.”
Alysia faltered, unsure of what to say.
The young man who was close to passing out swayed on his feet as the accusation struck. Fifty pairs of eyes flicked towards him. Perhaps they wanted to see him run or throw himself at the mercy of the king’s benevolence.
Draegor leaned back, waving one hand in the air with another dismissive huff. “Bring me their gold.”
A couple of the wolf cubs lumbered forward with our small chest of coins. They laid it on the table in front of the king, popped the catch, peeled the top back.
Draegor watched the cubs return to their position. He muttered something, presumably: “Where’s the rest?”
“That’s all they brought,” came the answer.
Draegor grabbed his goblet and hurled it at Alysia, forcing everyone on its path to scramble away. It skittered across the ground behind me, clattering against the stone floor and bouncing off the far door. “So cheap to kill a king?”
“We weren’t paying someone to kill you,” said Alysia, her voice bursting with nervous energy.
Draegor leapt from his chair. “You were paying Agnarr! I know it!” He pointed towards the seer. “Desdola has seen it! You come to my home with lies!”
Alysia clasped her hands together like a lady of manners, drew in a deep breath, and regained her composure. “You should apologize.”
The crowd of lords and mercenaries glanced from one face to another, some needing a translation for the brazen comment that Alysia had just led with.
Draegor’s eyes raged. “To you?”
“You threw a cup at me.”
“I could throw ax at you and it would be my right.”
Alysia waited for five whole seconds before speaking again. “You lost your temper. I have not lost mine. You should apologize.”
“You will die before I apologize to you.”
“You should know that making threats against my life will send a legion of Isparian soldiers to this very building. Where will you hide when they come? In the mountains? Hiding in a cave surrounded by snow?”
Draegor’s glare never faltered but his volume did drop somewhat. “Your people are weak against the snow.”
“My people are rich enough to hire mercenaries from Vasslehün to do the job for us. A king who treats his guests like scum is a king who needs to keep his door locked at night when he sleeps.” She took a moment to look over the intrigued faces among the crowd. I did the same, trying to pick out any enterprising killer who wanted to earn one hell of a payday for killing Draegor on our behalf. “My lords and ladies,” said Alysia. “We have a common enemy. The vampires rule through fear.”
Draegor leapt to his feet and roared threat after threat in his native tongue.
Alysia continued, ignoring the tirade from the king while Mikael translated in her ear. “They do not respect our laws or our pleas. An alliance with them will end the moment you fail to supply them with a victim to hunt. An alliance with Ispar, however, would last for centuries. We can offer safety against your enemies. We can provide trade: spices, gold, food, medicine, land to hunt, and lumber to mill. If you persuade your king, you and your families will never have to go hungry again.”
“…and there would be nothing Ispar could do about it,” whispered Mikael.
The room fell silent. Alysia started to resemble her father a lot more in that moment. “Forgive me Draegor, there’s a possibility that I heard a mistranslation. Do I understand that you intend to rape me in front of all these people and that there is nothing anyone could do about it?”
Draegor spat at her. “And I could keep you in castle for hundred years. Brilskeep has never been conquered by enemy.”
Alysia fired off one last resolute look at the king. “Ispar doesn’t care about saving your precious castle. We will build a new one when we’re done.” She turned, giving a courteous nod to the bear behind her. “We’re leaving.”
Chapter Six
We were escorted back into our cozy window-less dungeon. The door behind us clanged again with the heavy wooden beam trapping us inside. The mood was positively shitty, made all the more unpleasant by the fact that the only means of relieving ourselves involved aiming into a half-brick sized hole in the floor at the far end of the room.
Something bugged me about the spectacle we had seen with the seer and Draegor. I ran through all the faces of the northerners as best I could; their expressions, positions, mannerisms, whether they looked lost at the language barrier or not, whether they squinted at Alysia’s choice of words or cowered in fear from Draegor’s frequent outbursts. Something didn’t quite add up.
Loken took Alysia aside and held a quiet conversation with her, which I’m sure involved a lot of, “We’re ready whenever you are, my lady.”
“Let’s give it another few hours before doing anything rash.”
“We may not have another chance at this.”
“Exactly. Th
ere’s more at stake here than just our lives. There are thousands of others in peril on both sides of their alliance.”
Loken bowed with the final command from Alysia, a military man through and through having to accept the word of a civilian. I would’ve liked him if he’d had a wife. More so if he’d have children. Not so much because of the whole ‘children’ aspect but because it would’ve told me that he wasn’t expendable. It’s easier knowing who to stick beside when they have a reason to survive instead of nothing more than duty. From my enquiries during our limited time together, Loken was rumored to have a minor significant other. Name unknown. Details unknown. Whoever they were, they caused Loken undue turmoil since they were a decent cook – no bad thing in itself, except spices and far-eastern heat weren’t exactly cheap or easy to come by, so either Loken had fallen for a thief or someone open to hefty favors, or the unnamed ‘other’ was just surprisingly good at making carrots and grains taste out of this world.
Saskia had been a pale, rattled mess since returning from the great hall. Pushing twenty five. Universally considered ‘old’ by Isparian standards, even though General Kasera was approaching fifty and was still considered ‘formidable’. All it took was a single, “What the fuck are you looking at?” and she ended up on my ‘Zara list’. She might’ve stayed there indefinitely were it not for Draegor’s seer chilling the fuck out of her. ‘The suffering caused by this one will haunt whoever survives.’
