by Jackson Lear
I nudged a dried stack of something next to the fire pit, hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was and feeling disappointed at my lack of surprise. Dung. The pit hadn’t been cleaned in a while; partially burnt logs lay scattered at one end, yet instead of smoking us out there seemed to be a draft from within the pit that sucked the smoke away.
Zara sidled up beside me.
“I see you handed over your belt,” I said.
“Considering there’s a blade locked within it, yes.”
I peered at her long chestnut wig.
“I have no extra tricks up my sleeve that will help us get out of here. There’s only so much I can do against a heavy door barred on the other side.”
“We have mages, though. They gotta be worth something.”
“They are and Loken is coming up with a plan right now.”
“He has experience at breaking out of dungeons, does he?”
“Yes.”
“Real ones?”
“Practice ones.”
“I see.”
“Built by actual dungeon makers.”
“Full of safe conditions where no one is actually trying to kill him.”
“At this point, anything is better than nothing.”
“Kinda sounds like practicing to fight a vampire by killing a leopard.”
“So how would you break out of here, knowing that we’re surrounded by a hundred armed northerners and at least one vampire, with a thousand steps to run down before reaching the harbor, and no guarantee of a ship still being there when we need it?”
I puzzled it over, retracing my steps along the narrow stairways, around the corners, and anticipating the prospect of dodging archers, rocks, and ambush points no matter which direction we went. Despite the desire to abandon all hope of breaking the alliance between Draegor and the vampires, Alysia still seemed confident in beating an ill-tempered king with nothing more than her wits and deal-making.
Three people remained against the door: Loken strained to listen through ten inches of solid oak; Saskia, a mage who stared into one end of a thin silver wire that had been squeezed beneath the door; and Lindum, a cavalry steward who held a similar silver wire as Saskia, though he held his to his ear.
Beyond the door was a disjointed courtyard. The distance between our hut of a building and the cathedral-like monolith which housed Draegor was only three feet. Next to us was a narrow pathway with a staircase running alongside it. Nothing else on our level. If you worked your way down those stairs you were likely to find more buildings that roomed the staff, on-duty watchmen, or perhaps their endless supplies of northern kindness.
“Two sentries watching our door,” whispered Saskia. “Leaning against the wall, talking to each other. About ten yards away.”
Lindum clapped one hand against his open ear and tried to figure out what the sentries were saying.
Alysia moved over to the fire, still trying to suppress a shiver. “Mikael?”
“Yes, m’lady?”
“What can we expect?”
“I believe this is a waiting room to give the king time to prepare to see us.”
I asked Mikael, “When we’re all dragged before Draegor it’s going to be a public spectacle, right? Who else will be in the room?”
He blinked back at me. “I’ve never been here before.”
“Does he have a chief of staff? Next of kin? Princes and princesses? Nobles at his beck and call?”
“He has a type of chief of staff, yes. He also has children. His wives have a habit of dying in childbirth.”
“Genuinely?”
“I was never in the room when they died. Whether the official story is real or not I don’t know, but it happens whether he has sons or daughters so there doesn’t seem to be any favoritism that I can see.”
“So we’re certain to have a lot of witnesses?”
“Yes.”
“Good. The more people there are the greater the chance that there will be someone there who hates him. Or someone who has a big enough ego to believe that they could be a better king than Draegor. We need to get a signal or message to those people. How do we do that?”
Mikael stared back at me, blinking quickly. “I ...”
“Don’t say you don’t know. These are your people. You know their gestures, you know their mood, you know what will antagonize them and what threat of ours will be seen as amusing. You’re here to help us.”
Alysia waited for Mikael’s answer. It took him a moment to come up something. “He is a tyrant but he can be predictable so that’s some comfort to the people here. Or he was until this new alliance of his was formed. I suppose if you provoke an outburst or show some strength then you could look to see who listens closely. No one will dare reveal themselves in front of him but they will have discussed things privately. You can offer trade, yes, but they are mostly raiders up here so they can take whatever trade you were going to offer. Maybe you can push him into being reckless with the most powerful prisoner he’s ever had. Then the rest of the nobles might realize that he’s just sparked a war with Ispar.”
Alysia nodded, thinking it through with care. I really hoped she knew what she was doing. She had spent the last two weeks at her husband’s fort in Anglaterra practicing speech after speech for meeting Agnarr, of locking in on the finer details and picking out her best phrases. She had practiced endlessly with Zara while I ran through maneuvers with the vanguard. Zara would snap at Alysia to throw her off. She would change the topic every few seconds to keep Alysia on her toes, even getting Alysia so shit-faced drunk that Alysia started to sing and dance. Zara would be as stubborn and insubordinate as she could to provoke Alysia into saying something she regretted.
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 bu
t 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?”
