by Jackson Lear
Ithka broke the bad news. “Message for Raike. Torunn says goodbye.” With a quick nod he scampered away.
Jarmella blew out a long sigh. Stared at the cloud cover limiting our vision to a hundred yards. “Wellllll shit. Menrihk? How bad is it?”
Menrihk lowered his seeing rod. “I can’t make them out. They won’t be far away but … I don’t know. Do you want to risk following them into an ambush?”
Jarmella fell quiet. Turned. Wiped her eyes.
Odalis crept forward. “What’s going on?”
Jarmella blew out another long sigh and grumbled. “Adalyn?”
Adalyn came over. The two women peeled off to talk it over, pitching the pros and cons back and forth between each other.
“Sir?” whispered Odalis. “What’s going on?”
Jarmella wiped her eyes again. Adalyn made an instinctive move to comfort her, then pulled back when Jarmella reminded her that everyone was watching them.
“Sir?”
“Fuck off back to your position and don’t break it again.”
Odalis retreated to the back of the line. Jarmella and Adalyn returned to the fore. “Back at the base of the mountain you told me you brought Draegor’s riders upon us to keep the northerners from disbanding. Was that the truth?”
“Yes.”
“And I asked you what would happen if they did it again when there were no riders to make use of.”
“True.”
“What do you honestly believe Agnarr is up to?”
“I think he sailed to Brilskeep or the surrounding area to meet with an ally. Now that he knows we’re responsible for Draegor he can offer our heads to whomever is on the throne as a way of publicly appeasing the rest of the nobles for his involvement in killing their king and throwing their lives into turmoil. He’ll argue that it was a necessary turmoil because of recent tensions and there will be enough of the nobles who agree with him. We will be held guilty of regicide and it will give the new king a chance to set some terms with Ispar, especially since Miss Kasera Lavarta was seen publicly and had to address all of the noble houses at once. There’s no way Ispar can refute that. So, Ispar and Vasslehün begin to make a few deals. Ispar promises not to invade; the new king promises to disband the alliance with the vampires; trade between us and them will resume; and in exchange for not beheading us the king will accept a generous ransom for our safe return. That sort of thing. But everyone here will know that none of this would’ve been possible without Agnarr. Maybe the king agrees that he will be next in line to the throne. Maybe in a year the rest of the nobles will realize that Agnarr was the true savior of Vasslehün after all and they turn on the current king. Whatever his plan is remains to be seen. Regardless, Agnarr was desperate to keep us all in Faersrock. Why? Because it benefits him. We could’ve used that ship of his to sail back to Orkust. He pleaded with us to stay. He made sure none of his other ships were going to return in time. When it looked like we were about to leave some of his people agreed to come with us as guides. But guides to where?”
“So we shouldn’t trust any of them at all?”
“No, I think we should.” Even Adalyn raised her eyebrows in surprise at that. “The greater Agnarr’s plan depends on us the more he needs his people to get us to Ice Bridge or Brilskeep alive. The problem they’re having right now is that there’s no single person leading the group. Some want to rescue their people, others want us dead right now, and a few of them need us to come along so that Agnarr’s plan is a success.”
“If he has a plan.”
“He does. He left in the dead of night and kept Torunn behind. He has a plan that involves us. That plan is now in jeopardy.”
“So why risk ruining it completely by abandoning us?”
“My best guess? The ones who are in on it are starting to realize that his plan might fail. Miss Kasera Lavarta managed to escape. None of us hold a rank higher than private. And there isn’t a single one of them who wants to be on this mountain, not even the ones trying to rescue their people. Why?” I looked to Jarmella and Adalyn, hoping they had an answer at the ready.
Adalyn did. “Because Agnarr wanted us to go the long way around.”
“Exactly. He probably kept his ship nearby, ready to pick us up and get us to Brilskeep safe and secure.”
Jarmella grumbled. “So what should we do?”
“We go after them. Give them hope that their plan can still be salvaged.”
Jarmella looked to Adalyn. Adalyn gave her a quick nod. “Something else. And bear in mind that whatever answer you tell me now is the one I’ll be relaying to Día. What are you up to?”
I glanced to Adalyn. Apparently she had no idea Jarmella was going to ask that either. “Just Día?”
“There might be others. If Desdola is dangling her in front of you like she’s doing with Jessica to me then Día matters to you. What are you up to?”
“I intend to get us all to Ice Bridge, rescue Loken, rescue Berik, and beg, borrow, or steal a ship out of here before a full blown war breaks out.”
“Do you intend to be on that ship with us?”
“Yes.”
“And when I tell Día that you instead stayed behind to hunt down Desdola and Agnarr because they made it personal?”
“Then you can tell her I hope to see her again. One day.”
“Wait …” muttered Adalyn. “You’re not coming with us?”
I didn’t answer her. Jarmella untied my restraints. “I can’t risk us getting lost up here. I can’t risk us falling into an ambush. You kept the northerners and vanguard together before. I need you to do it again.”
“Will Saskia still be alive when I get back?”
Jarmella eyed me carefully. “Depends how long you’re gone for.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I was starting to understand how each of the Kaseras held the weight of the world on their shoulders. There were sixty people within a mile of me and every one of them seemed to be plotting against someone else or aware that someone was plotting against them. Some knew who their opponents were, others didn’t. Everyone was surrounded by enemies. The exhaustion was getting significantly worse every couple of hours. It really was going to be a test of attrition. The northerners were used to the cold. We weren’t. We had the military-like discipline. They didn’t. They had the numbers. We had the training. They were fighting to save their way of life. We were fighting just to get out of there alive.
The cloud cover had increased, reducing my vision from a hundred yards to a hundred feet. I retrieved Día’s letter. Did my best to read as much as I could while walking at the same time, looking up every couple of steps to make sure I wasn’t about to walk into an ambush.
‘I just want to say thank you for saving my life. The Kaseras …’
That name had been easy to learn thanks to most of the letters also appearing in ‘Kiera’, even if it all sounded different. I hummed out the spacing of the words again, hoping that I hadn’t forgotten a word or changed it around somehow.
‘The Kaseras have been very kind to me and Kel since you heard about me …’
At least, that’s what I thought it said. Día’s handwriting wasn’t great, her spelling was still a work in progress, and my reading skills were severely limited. I knew most of the letters and could recite a couple of words, but forming sounds and gaining understanding out of written symbols took years to master and – honestly – being a professional killer had never required much reading as it was. I tried to recall the spelling of the first few words in Día’s letter based on what I’d heard from Alysia and Jarmella, repeating them back to myself and breaking down the words into smaller sounds, but no matter how much time I seemed to give it the words still appeared alien. There was just no obvious way of how these symbols made a unique sound.
I stuffed the scroll back into my coat. Carried on over that mountain with nothing but the thoughts in my own head keeping me company. Tried to recall the spelling of a few more words. Checked the
letter again. Found that I had not suddenly developed a gods given talent for memory. At this rate it was going to take – I counted the words in the whole letter … four hundred and twenty eight – years. It was going to take years. By then Día would be married, have kids, and will have accepted that she was never going to see me again.
The blob ahead of me in the white-out stopped. Disappeared quickly with a crunch crunch crunch through the snow. I veered off the path. Ducked between the trees to the south so that the sunlight would strain their eyes if they tried to target me. Found two blobs moving to the south as well. More likely to be a precautionary move than because they had seen me.
I called out. “Torunn?”
Crunch crunch crunch. “We said goodbye.”
“We still need your help.”
Torunn shrugged. “Bad luck. You find your own way off mountain.” Crunch crunch crunch, this time with his footfalls getting quieter.
“Why did Agnarr leave you behind?”
His footfalls stopped completely.
“I saw you get off the ship. He took your place. Why? If there was room for thirty five of Kasera’s people and half a dozen of Draegor’s raiders then why did you have to get off to make space for Agnarr?”
He didn’t answer.
“Is it because you fucked up and he decided you were the most useless of your crew?”
“You watch your tongue, korla.”
“Why should I? There were four of you in on this from the start. Mikael came to you because you’re his cousin. You don’t hold a high enough rank in your crew so you had to tell your captain. Your captain saw some value in Mikael’s offer so he told Agnarr. You and Mikael made a deal to keep you involved so Mikael would only deal with Agnarr if you were around. But the plan went to shit. The captain died in Brilskeep and Mikael became too injured to be of any use, so that left you and Agnarr to pick up the pieces of whatever plan remained. You had to stay behind to make sure that nothing else went wrong. Unfortunately, something did go wrong, didn’t it?”
I was met with another round of silence.
“Miss Kasera Lavarta wasn’t supposed to escape but she did. Is that going to make Agnarr happy?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No? Did you tell Agnarr that one of our riders escaped back in Orkust? You remember her, don’t you? You landed on the beach just as the blond rider rode off with a message. Agnarr might’ve had a plan to ambush her as well but our plan always relied on our rider reaching the general to say that everything went well. If she never makes it back then General Kasera knows that something went wrong. So which option is better; our rider tells the general that his daughter was kidnapped and the only person who knew that she would be there was Agnarr, or our rider is killed en-route and the general is left to assume that his daughter was kidnapped and the only person who knew she would be there was Agnarr?”
“Draegor had witch. She knew.”
“Does the general know that Draegor had a witch?”
Silence. Hopefully the good kind since the cloud cover was beginning to lift again.
“By now Miss Kasera Lavarta has reached Orkust and has told the general the truth: that Agnarr begged us to stay in Faersrock and then abandoned us in the dead of night. Luckily for you – and for Agnarr – no one in Orkust knows exactly what is happening right now so there is still a chance to save Faersrock. All it requires is for my people to tell the general the truth. It’s up to you to decide which truth we tell. The first possibility is: Agnarr agreed to meet us, Desdola found out and we were ambushed, but after working together we all managed to escape, we eventually met with Agnarr, he set sail to get help, we stayed behind to defend Faersrock against Draegor’s cavalry, and then you risked your lives trying to get us back home. That’s the truth I want to tell the general. You and Agnarr would be the heroes while proving that the north is still too dangerous for us to invade. But there’s the other possible truth: you, your captain, Mikael, and Agnarr decided to fuck us. You had us ambushed, you allowed for our people to die at Brilskeep, then Agnarr escaped to safety, leaving more of the general’s people to die defending a noble who had already betrayed us, then you agreed to help us over the mountain only to abandon us because some of you are still determined to see us dead. If we have to make our own way off this mountain then that’s the story we’ll be telling the general because no one has convinced us that Agnarr was actually on our side. So far he looks guilty as hell and if he is then our armies will land on your shore on the first day of spring. You might be able to kill thirty of us today but the general gets to kill three thousand of you in the new year.”
Anger spilled out of Torunn. “You want to die now? To stop your lies? We are forty and you are one.”
“We could be sixty against Draegor’s cavalry or you could be forty without us. My people know how to fight riders. From what I saw in Faersrock, they’re better at it than you.” I gave them a moment to simmer. “Think carefully.”
I found a rock to sit on halfway between the squabbling northerners and uncertain vanguard. The clouds started to lift, sunk again, rose once more, then completely obscured the tree that was only ten feet away. I reached into my pouch for some meat. Chastised myself for not remembering that my pouch was empty the last time I dug into it. Considered chewing on a piece of leather to suck some flavor out of it.
This situation was probably one of those annoying quandaries that Alysia loved to explore. If the northerners agreed to help us then they are up to no good. If they refused we could trust them. Politicians love that crap. Soldiers don’t. Mercenaries would start renegotiating our payday or find something less complicated to be involved in.
I waited. Wished I had taken Draegor’s fur cloak as well as his gloves. I also wish Agnarr had actually caught a moose for our arrival. A spectacle like that would’ve helped convince me that we were actually expected to arrive and that our arrival was welcomed. And it would’ve given me a chance to fill my pouch and not have to sit on a mountain days later with my stomach growling at me.
Crunch crunch cruch.
Ithka jolted when he caught sight of me. Settled. “Jarmella?”
“This way.”
Two minutes later we stood in front of the vanguard, half of them stirring from an hour long nap, the other half still too wired to actually sleep. The young northerner looked over all of us quickly. Held his hand out to Jarmella. “Torunn says Agnarr trusts Miss Kasera.”
She shook his hand. The kid ran back to his people. Jarmella looked my way. “Agnarr trusts us?”
“That’s what they said.”
“Why does it sound like a problem?”
“Do we trust him?”
“No.”
“Do we trust anyone up here?”
“No.”
“So why should he trust us?”
Jarmella stared back at the kid running into the white-out. “We’re still trapped up here with them.”
“Which gives us the advantage.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because if their plan has gone to hell then they’re going to have to be a lot more cautious about when to strike.”
“Forgive me for not sharing your optimism.”
I held my wrists together, waiting to be re-roped.
“Not anymore. I need you in the lead.”
“With Wilbur pinned to my ass?”
“No. Me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Not really. You’re my defensive line and I don’t want them to be the only ones playing mind games.”
Chapter Forty
Miles dragged on. Day turned to dusk. The clouds smothered us completely, turning the whole mountain top white and reducing our visibility down to twenty yards. I could make out half of the vanguard behind me and only one of the northerners in front. The hunters in both groups had found a couple of light tracks in the snow. Came back empty handed. Stomachs rumbled, roiled, and stung, screaming at our own ine
ptitude for not being able to feed ourselves.
Our vampire had been a delirious for hours, murmuring from under her gag and pointing this way and that. The northerners refused to help us any further with the stretchers. It seemed like a fight we weren’t going to win so we didn’t make an issue out of it.
The sun continued to fall, changing the color of the sky from a murky gray to a plunging black. Jarmella gave the okay to use hooded lanterns. They were the size of a single mug of ale and illuminated next to nothing, but I was told you could still read by one if you didn’t mind straining your eyes. Mostly, she didn’t want anyone getting lost among the thick cloud cover. I imagine the sight from above would’ve looked like glow worms as we threaded our way through the uneven snowcapped mountain forest.
We stopped for five minutes. Gathered snow into our skins so that it would melt into water, reapplied bandages to our feet, and had a chance to finally sit after hours of ducking tree branches and tripping over hidden roots. Heads started to droop. Eyelids fell. Someone shifted in the snow and everyone around them jolted awake again.
“Gaynun, you watching the rear?”
“Nothing’s there.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I just looked.”
Elgrid scooped up some snow. Fashioned it into a ball. Hurled it into the back of Gaynun’s head. Gaynun barely reacted, turning slowly to death stare whoever threw the wet missile at him.
Odeh held a patch of snow against his eyes. Breathed in. Shook himself awake. Kilmur stretched, warming himself up as best he could before shivering once again. Ewen started sharpening his sword. Schnick. Saskia murmured. Schnick. Aedalis stood facing a tree, trying to take a piss and finding it impossible to do so. Schnick.
“Ewen?” mumbled Otario.
“Hmm?”
“Knock it off.”
Schnick. Otario’s shoulders rose with agitation. Schnick. And again.
Saskia murmured. “… erik …” Pointed to the east.
Five minutes turned into ten. Jarmella held her eyes closed as she massaged her temples.
