by Joe Jackson
“Of course,” Sonja agreed.
“The rest of you, help the new mothers get settled next door and make sure you’re ready to go on a moment’s notice. Erik’s in trouble and the Anthraxis Council will be meeting soon, so we can’t waste a second.”
With everyone’s agreement, Kari dismissed them all to do as requested. Sonja and Kyrie lingered to stare at Kari for a minute, but then dispersed along with the others. Kari gestured for Corbanis to follow, and he fell into step beside her as she left for the campus of the Demonhunter Order. Kari was still walking stiffly and slowly, her Sakkrass-granted regeneration not healing the damage from the prior night as she’d hoped. She had other things to consider, though. They had managed to capture several of the beshathan attackers, and there was one in particular that Kari figured she might be able to leverage answers from. It depended on a detail, but she wondered what reaction she would get when she looked for it.
Corbanis was a bit stiff and silent walking beside her, and Kari frowned slightly. She had been quite short with him the night before, telling him to resign his post if he couldn’t follow her orders. It wasn’t the way she wanted to talk to one of her subordinates, especially when it was a member of her family, but it couldn’t be helped. The grey area of the relationships she had with Corbanis and Erik meant that sometimes she had to pull rank. Just because they were family and she loved them didn’t mean she could let them override her authority and judgment when it came to running the Order. Still…
“I’m sorry if I was a bit short with you last night,” she offered.
“You had every right to be,” he answered. “I was trying to take some of the weight off your shoulders, but Zalkar made you his avatar for a reason. Not me, not the Council, you. So if you feel like you need to be short to get your point across, by all means, do it.”
Kari smiled. “I do value your counsel. But I’ve learned so much about Mehr’Durillia and its people in the last year that it’s too much to bother trying to explain. You, the Council, and all of our hunters are going to have to take some of what I say and do on blind faith. It’s going to be enough for me to fight with the duke about a lot of it. I can’t have our Order pushing back against my plans, too.”
“I understand,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “Whatever anyone else may say and think about what you’ve done on Mehr’Durillia, you have my loyalty and trust.”
Kari met his eyes and had to suppress a grimace. Just how many of the family had Sonja told about Kari’s brief affair with King Morduri? It was hard enough for Kari to fully justify to herself, much less the rest of her family. At least Corbanis, despite hinting at it, didn’t seem to be passing any judgment on her. He remained perfectly formal as they saluted the guards at the gateway and passed into the grounds of the Order’s campus.
The central square had been cleared of the bodies. Most would be turned over to their families to memorialize as they pleased, though some were already being prepared for the pyres. Kari looked over the cadets training on the central square and tried to focus on the here and now. They all had a job to do, and while they had to take the time to honor the dead, they didn’t have the luxury of mourning for an extended period. Her best friend and former commander, Lord Albrecht Allerius, was dead, but Kari couldn’t spend excessive time lamenting, or there would be many, many more people that needed to be mourned.
“Not looking forward to notifications,” Kari said quietly.
“You could always have someone else handle them,” Corbanis suggested.
Kari shook her head. “I need to do it. I’ve got to set the example, and avoiding it when I’m not going with you to Mehr’Durillia would just make me look like a coward. The families deserve at least that bit of respect. I just… I don’t know how I’m going to look Lucille in the eye. Albrecht was like a brother to me, and even though I was never close with his family, they were always sort of like distant relatives, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” Corbanis practically whispered.
“Liria!” Kari called, attracting the attention of her syrinthian cadet. The snake-woman halted her training and came running over to stand rigidly before Kari with a salute. Tall and lithe with tan skin that had green undertones, Liria could almost pass for human at a distance, but her serpentine features were more obvious up close. “I’ll need to talk to you when we finish in the prison. Go get cleaned up, and then see how many of the Council you can get convened in the temple. Corbanis and I will be there shortly.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the syrinthian turncoat said with another salute, and she ran off to do as ordered. While she’d originally been sent to spy on Kari and the Order, since being turned, she was becoming one of Kari’s most trusted hunters, cadet though she was.
Corbanis watched the girl run off curiously, but didn’t share his thoughts. He followed Kari into the prison, and they walked slowly between the warded cages that kept arcane or divine power from freeing the inmates. They had captured two mallasti and an elestram, all of whom were males, during the prior night’s attack. They scowled at Kari as she strolled along, and she could see that none of their fingers had been set after being broken during their subdual. The reactions were so different from what Kari had gotten used to while she traveled through Sorelizar in the guise of a vulkinastra. While shape-changed into one of the white hyena-folk, Kari had received almost instant respect, if not reverence, from the beshathans as a whole. These, however, clearly wanted her dead under someone’s orders.
“Guards,” Kari called, and the two stationed at the entrance to the prison came to her side in moments. “I need you to go into this cell and strip this prisoner completely.”
“Ma’am?” one of them asked dumbly, but the other thought better of questioning her and unlocked the gate. Soon they both stepped inside. The elestram tried to resist, but with the magic-cancelling shackles that had been left upon him even in the warded prison, there wasn’t much he could do. It took only one threat to break all of his teeth if he bit either of the guards to settle him down, but he turned away from Kari in embarrassment once he was naked.
“What’s this about?” Corbanis asked Kari curiously.
“Turn around,” Kari directed the elestram, but she gestured for the guards to leave him be, to do so on his own, if at all. “You’ll hardly be the first naked elestram man I’ve ever seen, married or otherwise.”
The guards’ brows all rose in unison at that statement, and Corbanis bit his lower lip as nonchalantly as he could. Kari ignored them and waited on the elestram, who eventually sighed and turned to face her. The coat of a mallasti was longer and hid their genitals well, but the same was not true for an elestram. They were much more prudish by nature, and didn’t like to be seen naked in public. Kari was looking for something in particular, though, and had to stop herself from smiling when she found it.
Corbanis and the guards followed her gaze hesitantly. “Oh, that had to hurt,” said one of the warders with a sharp intake of breath.
“That’s the point,” Kari said, drawing their looks away from the naked male easily. “You see, elestram don’t wear wedding bands like we do. When they get married, they get pierced: Females have a chain strung across their brow, while males get one stretched along their sheath like that. It’s so any woman he tries to seduce will know he’s married the moment he takes his clothes off.”
“Oh, uh, that’s interesting,” the other guard said, clearing his throat.
Humans, Kari mused with a roll of her eyes. Her people weren’t fazed by nudity at all. Serilian-rir like Corbanis could be, but it wasn’t always the case. “Gentlemen, we now know something about this elestram, don’t we?”
“Um, he has a wife?”
Kari nodded encouragingly. “That’s right. He has a wife,” she said coldly as she turned back to face the elestram and met his eyes. “He has a wife we can find on Mehr’Durillia, and pay back what he’s done here upon her.”
“No!” the elestram croaked in the beshathan t
ongue. “Leave her out of this.”
“I think not,” Kari returned in beshathan, shocking the three men with her and the beshathans in their cages. “I think I’ll keep you alive at least long enough for us to deliver your wife’s wedding chain to you. Maybe then we’ll kill you, but then, maybe not.”
“You cannot do this! Is it not against your god’s laws?”
Kari snorted. “You burned my house down. The rules don’t apply anymore. They don’t call me the Avatar of Vengeance for nothing.” She held her finger up to stop him from speaking. “I may, however, be willing to spare your wife if you tell me what I want to know.”
“And you will release us?”
Kari laughed and turned to Corbanis and the guards. “He wants to know if we’re going to release him.”
The others laughed. “Then why should I help you?” he challenged her in beshathan.
“Because if you don’t, it’s going to cost your wife her life, too. And whatever other family we find with her.”
There was no hesitation. “You swear to me you will spare her?” he demanded, and Kari nodded. The elestram closed his eyes and sighed. “Very well. What do you want to know?”
“Who sent you?” she asked in the Citarian trade tongue. He looked away and remained silent, so Kari approached the bars of his cell. “If I leave this prison without an answer, you won’t get a second chance, understand? You can either answer me, or I’ll make good on my first promise to you. And don’t you even think about lying to me, or I’ll tear out that piercing and shove it down your throat.”
He narrowed his eyes as he met her gaze, but then sighed again. “King Arku.”
“What were your specific orders?”
“Tell her nothing!” shouted one of the mallasti in the neighboring cell.
“You shut up or I’ll have you shaved,” Kari told him, and his eyes widened as his ears angled back sharply.
“Mine, or all of us collectively?” the elestram returned.
“All of you. Was this just chaos?”
“Hardly,” he answered with a condescending tone. “Attack your campus, kill as many of your officers as possible. Kill your children, set your home ablaze, and then set as much of the city afire as possible. The goal was to break you, and keep you away from Mehr’Durillia.”
“And that kaeshmor set all this in motion?” Kari asked, unconvinced. The elestram’s eyes went wide. “Do you know what I was doing before I came home and helped put a stop to your attack? Killing Prince Amnastru. That’s right: Prince Amnastru and three of his brothers are dead. Your kings think they’re untouchable, but they’re not. I’m about to hit your king back so hard his head is going to be facing the wrong way.”
Corbanis managed to keep his mirth in check, and glared at the two human guards to get them back in line.
“That is what he wants, you fool,” the elestram said, shaking his head. “He has your… what do you call him? Brother-by-law? And he has struck directly at your home and family. He knows you will be coming for him. If you think he is afraid, you are sorely mistaken. You are already set on walking into his trap, and when he captures you, you will learn a great many things about him that you will wish you could remain ignorant to.”
“What kind of trap?” Kari pressed.
“I cannot say; just know that he is expecting you, and if you think to rescue your brother-by-law by simply walking to Si’Dorra and fighting your way to him, you will all die,” he said with a derisive chuckle.
Kari grabbed his snout and yanked his face against the bars. “I am the only reason you are still alive, do you understand?” she asked him coldly in beshathan. “You will live or die by my word alone, so you may want to stop taunting me. Now, tell me where my brother-by-law is or I’m going to turn your head until your snout breaks.”
“Dauchin-Rache,” he answered hastily as soon as she applied pressure. “He is being held at Dauchin-Rache, at the keep of Duke Curlamanx. That is all I know, please!”
Kari released him. “Get dressed. I’m only going to warn you three once: Cause my people any trouble whatsoever, and your life ends. That’s a promise. If you want any hope of returning home alive, eat and sleep and otherwise make us forget we’re even holding you here. Because the first time I get a report of you causing trouble will also be the last.”
One of the mallasti growled and made a gesture at her, but the warding on the cells did its work and his attempt to call upon the arcane was foiled. It caused a feedback that struck him like an electric shock. Despite the fact that his people were normally immune to such, he stumbled back, hissing in pain at the jolt to his broken fingers.
Kari stumbled away from the bars as well. She saw the beshathan child from her dreams in her mind, and both she and the mallasti straightened out and stared at each other. He looked mystified at first, but then the scowl returned to his face. She was unaccustomed to seeing such a thing from the normally impassive hyena-folk.
“Shall I?” Corbanis asked, putting a hand to the hilt of his blade.
“No. I think he and the others just learned the only lesson they’ll need. Next time, be my guest,” Kari said, gesturing for the others to follow her.
She dismissed the guards back to their posts, and walked over to stand before her former assistant. Joaquim had fed the Order’s secrets to their enemies for months, perhaps even years, leading to an unknown number of deaths. It was all part of some twisted plan of his to lower the Order’s recruitment standards so he could become a hunter, as he’d failed to pass the training. He had spent the better part of a year in this cell now, and he looked broken.
“This is all your fault,” Kari told him, and the human hung his head and curled into an upright fetal position against the wall. “All those months or years feeding information to our enemies, you had to know this would be the end result. Give thanks to the gods that I’ve met your mother, because that woman’s heart is the only thing that keeps me from taking your head off or putting you in a cell with one of those bastards down the hall to do with as they please. I’m still not even sure what to do with you. Frankly, taking care of you isn’t worth the trouble, so I’m thinking maybe I’ll just turn you over to the duke. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to deal with someone directly responsible for an attack on his city.”
No answer came forth, so Kari shook her head. “Pathetic.”
She led Corbanis from the prison and they made their way to the temple. They passed through the chapel and to the rear, where the audience chamber of the Order’s Council was. Here the nine human priests of Zalkar met to discuss policies and procedures for the Order to follow, based on the law of Zalkar. Each of the priests oversaw a different facet of the Order, but the actual running of the Order was left to Kari. At present, there were only five Councilors in the chamber, along with Liria, as requested.
Master Bennet, the head of the council and its eldest member, addressed Kari. “Lady Vanador, I would welcome you home, though it would hardly be fitting under the circumstances.”
Kari saluted the priests, who each acknowledged her with a nod. “Masters, I’m going to be staying home for a change, but my brother-in-law, Erik, has been captured by Arku. We’re in the process of getting the Silver Blades ready to go rescue him.”
“You are… staying home?” Master Bennet echoed.
“Not sure if you noticed, Master, but I can hardly walk right now. It was a rough few weeks on Mehr’Durillia, and I’m still suffering the side-effects of some magic we used while I was there. All the fighting didn’t help, either, there or here. So, yes: Against what I want, I’m going to do the smart thing and stay home. I’ll be leaving this mission in the capable hands of Kris Jir’tana.”
“And you?” the priest asked Corbanis.
“Yes, Master,” Corbanis answered. “I have sworn a Blood Oath against Curlamanx. I would see to the rescue of my son personally.”
Kari nodded along with the priests, impressed.
Master Bennet turned back to Ka
ri. “And what will you be doing in the meantime, Lady Vanador?”
“Well, as you may have heard, my house was burned to the ground, so I have a lot of little things to take care of. I’ll also be overseeing relief efforts, we’ve got a dragon to thank, and I have to get my children settled into a new place to live until I can find another house. Not to mention the many notifications that have to go out to the families of those we lost.”
“And heal up,” Master Arinotte offered with a grim smile.
“Yeah, that too,” Kari said with a sigh. “Anyway, I wanted to meet with you to ask if I’m within my rights to do something.”
She hesitated for a moment, but Master Bennet encouraged her, “Speak freely.”
Kari glanced at her syrinthian assistant. “I want to send Liria with the Silver Blades,” she said, and the girl’s brows rose. “I know she’s still a cadet, but she’s from Mehr’Durillia: She can speak the languages there, she can teach the Silver Blades about many of the little nuances of Mehr’Durillian society, and she can act as a, what do you call it? Liaison? She can probably talk to many of the people that might not talk to us.”
“What do you think of this, young lady?” Master Bennet asked the syrinthian.
“I would be happy to help, Master,” Liria said.
Kari bobbed her head. “I think she’s late enough in her training that we can consider this her final test. If she comes home safely and Kris is satisfied with her efforts, I plan to promote her directly to the rank of Enforcer.”
Liria blinked slowly. “Wow, I…”
“Quiet, cadet,” Kari told her with a playful scowl.
“You have spent an extensive amount of time with this young woman, so I see no reason we should distrust your assessment,” Master Bennet said, the other councilors agreeing. “If this is what you would like to do, you are well within your rights to do so.”
