“Save your strength.” Stromgald grimaced. Lazlo’s words were rough and coarse. That the man had enough will to force the speech was fortunate, but the act drained him entirely. Good. There wasn’t much time left.
Stromgald gagged the unconscious guards with strips of their own stained vests and locking them in the very cell they protected. Then the ranger captain set his sheathed weapon on his hip, hefted Lazlo’s frame sideways on his broad shoulders, and began the trek out of the dungeon. Fortunately, the shadows had become comfortable to Stromgald; it seemed his fear of being turned about was unjustified. Within minutes Stromgald cleared the dungeon and the manor disguising it. It was as though he hadn’t been there at all.
A plaintive cry sounded from above. A raven, bright with gold, gliding towards the horizon. Stromgald smiled as he watched the messenger bird disappeared to the northeast. Both feathers and direction meant the fulfillment of the jord’s plan. For a moment he felt invincible, as though choice and consequence held no sway to him. Then the moment passed and Stromgald returning to his reasoning.
There was another problem, however. Come the morning there would be no shelter for either Lazlo or Daniel. When the Alix elders discovered Lazlo freed from his prison, they would seek to tighten loose ends. Daniel would be disposed of quickly and quietly. They need to be hidden. His eyes scanned the surroundings, mind blazing through the possibilities, and finally settled on the church towers just barely peeking over the violet domes of twilight. There. Within moments the church rose before him, towers dark and foreboding in the black night. The ranger captain sighed, the calm before the plunge. Then he rapped the door three times and waited.
The door creaked open to reveal a pair of calm, firm-set brown eyes. “What is your intent?”
Stromgald remembered the crease of the voice now. It was the nun he had scouted upon finding Father Laraty’s whereabouts. “I seek shelter for the night and beds for my companion.”
The brown eyes settled on the wiry, emancipated man in the shadows before giving a reluctant nod. The doors unfolded into a corridor of candle-light and incense. Stromgald didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until he crossed the threshold. The gentleness in those brown eyes, he remembered, was both real and a mask of the long toiling years hardened by the failure of generosity. There was as much chance of being denied as being allowed within.
“Is Father Laraty here? I must speak with him.”
“I would say that he is unavailable, but I know that wouldn’t stop you.”
Stromgald chuckled despite himself. “Forgive me, Sister –”
“Rose.”
“Yes. Rose.” Mentally the ranger slapped his head. He was usually better than this. “I would not dare the Father’s time is this was not of import.” He winced through the nun’s sudden laugh; his hasty inconveniences of protocol were still fresh in her mind. “Please, Sister. I mean you no harm.”
For a moment, Rose teetered on an emotional brink, her heart hardened to stone from countless lies from even more countless bravos and thieves, yet still soft to the plights and plagues of the common man. Without a word Rose spun on her heel and went to fetch the Father from his rest. Stromgald released a breath he knew not to be holding. She’s a firebrand. He’d have to be very, very careful.
Stromgald took the time to settle Lazlo onto the bench, wrapping linens on the worst of his injuries and blocking the blood seeping from a hundred minor cuts with herbs and vice-like grips. When he was done Lazlo looked even more ravaged than before, but there was nothing more to be done.
Sudden footfalls drew Stromgald’s attention the spiraling staircase at the room’s opposing side. Even with the distance between them the ranger captain knew the frustration on the holyman’s brow, not to mention the redoubled irritation of Rose’s furrowed face. Stromgald gave one last glance to Lazlo and the horde of nuns whisking him to the physician’s quarters and steeled himself. “Father.”
“My son. What brings you to us at this hour?”
“Sanctuary. Specifically, for that young man just now.”
“I know him. Lazlo Frey. One of the most capable magistrates I know.” He paused as a quick ripple of emotion softened his grim demeanor. “Where exactly did you find him?”
“In the black cells behind your baron’s manor.”
“That’s a lie!” So quiet was Rose that both men had forgotten her completely. Even the faraway apprentices roaming the room jerked their heads upward at the declaration, though most were smart enough to duck their heads into the safety of their tasks. “You are just making up these child’s tales to get your way!” She stopped abruptly at the priest’s gesture. “But Father –”
“Be silent, Sister. Remember you are in the house of God.”
“I ask only sanctuary.” Stromgald paused. Laraty’s stone mask slipped for but a second, revealing the desperation in his wide, age-etched eyes. “For him and one other. That is all I implore to you.” That, and the testimony you give against the Alix brothers.
The words, though unspoken, passed from ranger to priest in but a glance. And still Laraty feared for his vows. “Pardon me, if you will. I must retrieve our other guest.”
“Hold.” Stromgald had to bite his tongue not to hiss with frustration. He put on his best face before turning level with Laraty’s eyes. “You ask us to conspire in a controversy we know nothing about. There are answers that will decide our involvement.”
Tell us why or we walk, was what the priest was saying. The danger was the amount of truth to tell. Too little and Stromgald would be kicked from the cathedral. Too much and the ranger captain would spend the night in a prison cell in the catacombs beneath. A name, he decided. “Daniel Alix.”
It was too much. Laraty’s face was long in shock. Rose’s face was harsh in the imagery of conspiracy her bitter mind was building, though in truth even the slightest bit of tinder would set her heart ablaze.
“What have you gotten him into?” Rose barked.
It was not Stromgald but Laraty who answered. “His brothers are responsible for the deaths in Aiagel village. They prepared a poisoned meal to the townsfolk that killed them in five days’ time. Daniel knows this; he overheard a conversation with a lotus merchant to that effect. It is my thought that the brothers will not regard him kindly if they discover him on the wrong side of the bargain.”
“How do you know this?” Rose asked.
“Arthur Alix told me in confession.”
Rose’s face was the very picture of shock. “Father...you...your vows...”
“I know,” Laraty said sternly. To Stromgald he said, “Go. You know what to do.”
The trek back to Daniel’s was even faster when the darkness had time to settle comfortably upon the town. Yet within a few steps the ranger captain stopped. A familiar silence blanketed the houses, the silence of a crypt. Suddenly the shadows about Daniel’s window became wicked and ominous. With the trepidation of a noose pulled taut Stromgald climbed the wall as another man might a stairwell.
The scene came to life in flickers and glances. The lanterns knocked astray in puddles of oil. The long rips like jagged lightning in the blankets, the felt beneath stiff and pink with blood. The three-legged stool catching the moonlight in its smooth amber wood. And finally, Daniel, swinging idly from a noose forged from bedsheet strips.
I’m sorry. Guilt called forth the memories of the day before in snatches and glimpses, where a thousand details lost in the living became abundantly and embarrassingly clear. Stromgald shoved the grief aside and assumed the cold mask of inspection.
There was little left to analyze. The dagger used to forge the noose from the feather-bed was a simple belt-knife, common to even the poorest citizen. And the note
left behind on a piece of yellowed parchment, written in the flowing script nobles favored nowadays. The ink smudged against Stromgald’s finger, its sharp smell jerking his head back in response. The ink wasn’t even dry yet.
You failed me. The ranger glanced at the airborne corpse, its eyes rolled over and lips purple from strangulation, and yet the words hissed in Stromgald’s ears. You said you would protect me. You said to act as though nothing had changed.
“I also said your brothers would not hesitate to kill you.” Stromgald paused as the words sank in. Giving form to grief-stricken regrets was the beginning of the end for a campaigner of battles. Time to go before guilt gained the upper hand. He gave brief consideration to liberating the corpse, but the act would only give the villagers cause to hunt their own streets. “I’m sorry, Daniel,” he whispered.
Stromgald catapulted himself across the streets, winding his way towards the town gates. Daniel’s corpse had been warm to the touch, which meant there was little time. If the Alix elders were smart enough to dispose their brother in a manner that absolved them of any guilt, then they were smart enough to flee while the iron was hot. Before long the darkness faded to reveal a pair of horses and then the riders themselves, wearing long hooded cloaks that obscured their faces. But the shadows had been Stromgald’s friend far longer than the pair in question. It might as well have been in full moonlight for the hawk-eyed ranger. Yes, they were the Alix elders. There was too much of Daniel in their faces for it to be otherwise.
Stromgald descended from the shadows like a wraith, his katana angled slightly to disarm rather than kill. The Alix brothers had other plans. They glided away from the assault and spun towards the ranger captain with weapons brandished for killing. They came upon him two to one, a broadsword in both of their calloused hands, swinging as freely in the inky twilight as they would in daylight. Meat Crackles on The Butcher’s Grill. Slaughterhouse’s Stench. Cutting the Meat into Strips.
Stromgald danced away from the last. Huh. Swordsmanship from cook’s sons. Probably garnered from play-acting. The thought brought a smile to Stromgald’s face as he put on a real show. Mist Rolls Over the Plains. Boulders Tumble from The Cliff. Twilight Shrouds the Sky.
And they, like the buffoonish amateurs they were, sought to verbalize their victory.
“Wait a bit. That eye-patch! Damn Alf. We’re fighting a blind man!”
“Don’t call me Alf, you fucking moron. What is it to you that he’s blind...Arty?”
Arthur Alix’s face twisted with so much loathing that he was poised on decapitating his brother and to hell with the consequences. “Think, you blithering idiot. Didn’t the runt say something about an eye-patch?”
Alf blinked stupidly as the memory struggled to form. “Yeah. Someone about being protected.”
“No no. Not being protected. About a protector. The runt said he had a protector.”
“What, you think this one is the one?”
“Do you know anyone else that has one eye? It has to be him!” Then all bravado dropped from his face upon seeing the spot of ground empty of its fallen guardian. “What the hell...”
They were quick and strong enough to hold their brother down to better deliver the bone-crushing blows they came to love, but no more. Stromgald was shadow, Stromgald was silent. It took less effort to breath than to club the idiotic pair on the back of their necks. The ranger captain looked at them, almost hoping they might stir so that further punishment could be inflicted. The temptation, however enticing, was brief; Stromgald contented himself with dragging their misbegotten forms all the way back to the cathedral.
The church remained much the same when he left. A few more citizens were praying their worries away on the oblong pews, and the few candles lit up had spread around the chamber’s edge in a banner of holy flame. At the northern wall sat Sister Rose, her features crunched tighter than ever before. Stromgald couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t every day that a stranger turned her entire life on its end.
“Where’s Father Laraty?”
“Down in the physician’s quarters with that poor boy.” He wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for you, her eyes added. Then the nun embraced him like a long-forgotten son, muttered an excuse and disappeared through a side door. When she returned it was with Father Laraty in tow, his face icy with the news of the fallen.
“You are sure his brothers did this to him?”
“They are the only ones who profit from his death.”
“May God send him swift to Heaven.” Both nun and priest bowed their heads in prayer, only to look up at the sudden hammering of fists behind the closed doors. For a moment the ranger captain tensed, his hand slipping to his katana, then yanked back at Sister Rose’s sharp clap. Weapons in the House of God? Unheard of, and yet the night was still young. The ranger captain eased the sword lightly, just in case.
Father Laraty pulled open the church doors himself, a greeting cut short when a triad of cloaked men knocked him aside with a broad shoulder. They came to the heart of the main hall, their hooded faces tilting methodically about the chamber, scanning it in such a way that suggested disgust, as though even the holiness of the church held a fatal flaw.
“You are Bastion Laraty.” It was the foremost of the three, the hood of his cloak expanding and funneling his voice in such a way that a common man might think it the tongue of thunder. “The deacon of this...place.”
“Yes. Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“All crimes done against the Church are paramount, and deserve the utmost haste.”
Laraty nodded, and then drew himself to full height, his form swelling beneath his robes, drawing and hoarding air within to project some awesome feat. “I am Bastion Laraty. Three days ago, I heard the confession of one Arthur Alix.” He paused to nudge the would-be assassin most unkindly in the ribs. “He spoke to me how he concocted a plan that saw the senseless murder of the village called Aiagel, some leagues to the southeast. Just now I learned he and his brother Alfred Alix –” For a moment the priest bent over the fool in such a way that Stromgald thought him poised to spit on the elder Alix. “– had murdered their younger sibling Daniel. I have already given testimony to the local authorities. They need only time to ready the nooses for these two.”
The air, already cloying and heavy, thickened even more with an unsteady silence. The twilight-cloaked men seemed to digest the testimony, their minds turning the words from every angle, tasting the nuance of every word and its possible consequences. Just when the silence had stretched taut the three cloaked men pulled back their hoods, and Stromgald felt his heart stop.
They were men, but they had no humanity left in their eyes. The tattoos had burnt that out of them. The pattern of those symbols, meaning lost to time, curled and curled again upon their chiseled faces. The Scourge. The worst-kept secret of the Church. Damn, Stromgald thought. I didn’t know they had a station here. Stupid fool.
“Bastion Laraty. You are accused of breaking the solemn vows of the Church. How do you plead?”
“Will you protect this flock of children in my stead?”
“Of course. The safety of the sheep is paramount.”
“Then yes. I am guilty.”
“Very well then.” With a predator’s grace, a long sword emerged from the Scourge’s voluminous cloak and sheared Laraty’s head from the shoulders, a human ball of flesh and bone, rolling down the chamber to Stromgald’s boot.
“Justice has been served.”
No. Stromgald wanted to whip his katana free, wanted to rage and hate this situation his machinations had triggered, to end this tragedy by returning the punishment to the punishers. But he did not. He didn’t even move. The only thing he felt was Rose’s stick-like hands, crushing his fingers i
n a death-grip.
“You are free to go.”
Stromgald met the stare, met the blank eyes that held no compassion, no conscience. Just an emptiness that bordered on blind faith. Laraty knew. He did not call upon the Scourge for the crimes of the Alix family. He called the Scourge for his own heresy. He called them willingly, knowing his end would result. Damn you, old man.
The Scourge brushed by the ranger captain, taking Sister Rose in tow. They would have need of her. Her familiarity within current events would help them shape the authority they held over the town. It was their realm now, and it would be an iron fist.
But Ronald Jekai would not win.
Stromgald left the church. His task was done. The Scourge would declare sovereignty, making it anathema to both Solvicar and Coicro. Their blockade would choke the life out Ronald’s army piece by piece. And all it cost was a few lives. Who could argue against that?
I can, thought Stromgald as he mounted his horse. For a long moment, he stared at the village he came to destroy. The greater good has been served. Thousands of lives are saved. My cause was just.
If only I could believe that. Miserable, Stromgald rode into the dawn.
LXXI
No plan survives the launch of the first arrow, Christina reminded herself. This was not an arrow, though. This was an ambush.
The faux-Queen seethed in her throne. She had thought this marriage business dead with the royal family. Tradition had crept on her, however. The fools on the council thought to curtail her power by forcing a guardian for Nathan. A male guardian, with the same powers and abilities Christina coveted for herself. It was a mere fly to be swatted.
Until Nathan got wind of it, and his duty to give every potential suitor and his gifts. It was the gifts that perked his curiosity, and the faux-Queen couldn’t allow being away from Nathan, lest he become corrupted by the council. So now, instead of strengthening her position and removing obstacles, the Queen of Amden endured the tirade of idiots and their bribes.
Chased By War Page 72
