by J. A. Comley
“That would change if I stepped outside like this,” she muttered to herself, imagining the stares.
Starla shook her head. When would she ever have occasion for such an opulent dress?
Practical, that's what I need.
Pushing aside the feeling of guilt that had surfaced with the memory of Father Joe, Starla got back into her red tunic and meticulously replaced her shawl. She turned to the other tunics. The least opulent had cotton embroidery along the top of the neckline, a silk ribbon threaded through it. The colours were more muted, too. Those would do.
The High Lord was watching her as she emerged from the dressing room. His eyebrows curved down at the look on her face. She tried to dispel the memory of those she had left behind, rearranging her features into a smile.
“Is—”
“Good, you're done. Which ones will you take, then?” interrupted Savianna.
“These five, thank you,” Starla said, handing over the ones she didn't want to Myrena. The diminutive woman disappeared instantly into the array of rainbow gowns.
“That is not too expensive, is it?” she asked the High Lord, who looked suddenly amused.
“Not at all, Starla.”
“Oh! Not that one.” Starla turned back to the Savianna.
“You are sure you don't want it?” Savianna said, taking the deep purple tunic, disappointment in her tone. “Myrena thought you liked it. And it must look utterly stunning with your colouring.”
“I do like it. It is beautiful. I just don't need anything so lavish,” Starla said, moving away to place the five simpler tunics on the counter to be paid for. Savianna seemed to be whispering furiously to the High Lord.
After a moment, the High Lord joined her there, his face cold, followed swiftly by a trembling Savianna. He handed over three silver, rose-shaped coins, five copper, oblong coins and one fat, gold coin shaped like a star.
Starla stifled a groan as they re-entered the street and several citizens froze in fright and then scampered off, looking terrified. Savianna shut the door on them the moment their feet had crossed the threshold.
“Is everything all right, Starla?” Larkel asked, shifting the packages he had insisted on carrying. “You seemed troubled in the store, and now … you look a little sick.”
Struck again by the genuine tone in his voice, Starla smiled up at him. “I was thinking of the people back home,” Starla began. “Now, I wish there was a way to show everyone that they don't need to be afraid of me.” Her voice dropped to a murmur as a man entered the street, and bit her tongue to stop from asking Larkel why everyone was afraid of the High Lord.
Larkel turned from the man to face her, his keen eyes sweeping her face as if they could read the question she hadn't asked. The eyes of the man who had entered the street swept up and locked on to Larkel's back. He stretched out a hand. The skin seemed to be melting off it, revealing blackness beneath.
Larkel opened his mouth, then paused as a slight tremor rocked through his body and he cursed. Behind Starla, a muffled scream came from the store and she heard the door's bolt slide home. The High Lord spun around, his staff appearing in his waiting left hand, Starla's packages thudding to the cobbles. He cursed himself for being distracted as he levelled his staff at the approaching monster.
The creature's skin was now entirely melted off and, though still humanoid, it now had black tentacles where its arms used to be and its mouth was filled with row upon row of razor-sharp teeth.
“Stay back,” the High Lord commanded, although Starla was entirely unsure if she could move at all.
The High Lord's first spell seemed to halt the creature in its tracks. It snarled and snapped. He kept hitting it with spell after spell but nothing seemed to be working. The creature suddenly burst from the constraints, launching itself towards Larkel. He cursed as a young girl hurtled around the corner, laughing hysterically and looking behind her. The slightly older boy who had been playfully chasing her stopped in horror and yelled a warning.
But it was too late. The girl had got too close to the writhing monster. It reached out its tentacled arms to grab her. Starla wanted to shut her eyes away from the horror, but they wouldn't obey the command.
The High Lord slashed his staff through the air.
Black blood began to fountain from the monster's neck, spattering the boy and drenching the girl. It crumpled to the ground, its head now barely attached to its body.
The High Lord's face was grim as the boy ran to his sister. She was weeping.
Larkel strode towards them, staff held out.
A man puffed around the corner, his face red from exertion. He froze for a moment, taking in the macabre scene in front of him. Then he was running toward the children, crying out for them to run.
His cry cut through Starla's shock. Couldn't he see the monster was already dead?
The High Lord stopped walking as the man tried to thrust himself between him and the children. It took Starla a moment to realise that the man was being held at bay by a spell, his legs still pumping with futile effort, tears now streaking down his cheeks.
“Don't. Please don't kill them, too,” he cried, still desperately fighting against the magic.
Starla's eyes flashed up in horror to the High Lord. His face was cold, his eyes held no pity.
He wouldn't.
He levelled his staff at the two children. Whether they were frozen by fear, or magic, Starla couldn't guess. Slowly, the blood drained off them. Three Makhi dashed down the road, staves at the ready. Barely a minute had passed since they had left the store.
“Dispose of the Corruption carefully,” Larkel ordered, his voice hard. “Take the children.”
“No! No!” the man screamed, his eyes bugging out of his head.
The High Lord turned to him. “Your children will be taken to the Makhi Keep. They must be cleaned, healed and observed.”
To Starla, that all sounded fairly reasonable, but the man broke down, sobbing, all the fight leaving him as the three Makhi set to work. The monster was encased in a red orb of magic, its form concealed. The children were herded forward, both looking terrified, a barrier of magic keeping them from running.
“You may call at the Keep for news as often as you wish,” Larkel added to the man, releasing him.
The man rose and spat at Larkel's feet. “I won't see them again. You'll murder them just like you did their mother. Do you remember my Aleitta?” his face filled with deep anger. Just as suddenly, it was gone. Nothing but a crippling sadness remained. Turning away, he hurried after his children.
Larkel turned to face Starla, his eyes grim. “See, they're not afraid of you,” he muttered, too low for Starla to be sure she had heard right. Raising his voice, he continued, “Please stand back.” There was an undercurrent of anguish to his voice that Starla wasn't sure she would have noticed before sharing his mind.
“Did you kill that man's wife?” she whispered, stepping back as ordered.
The High Lord's eyes filled with anguish for a moment then the ice reclaimed them.
“Yes,” he said, casting a spell and gouging out all the chunks of road and walls tainted by the blood.
“Why?” her voice so soft but she was sure he had heard her.
“She was tainted. She was a Corruption.” He gestured to the ground where the monster had lain. “They spread like a plague. It can be through touch, a bite, or blood. Once they have turned, they can infect others. I haven't found any magic powerful enough to reverse Kyron's spell.”
Starla finally understood the man's fear. “So, if the blood … if the children … they'll be killed too?”
The High Lord shut his eyes. Steeling himself.
“Yes,” he said, obliterating the tainted rocks until there was nothing left.
***
“We have all completed our tasks as Baron Braxton ordered?” Captain Trent asked, his tone precise and clipped as he emerged from the glittering trees and left the heat of the magmus behind him. The Hatri
on reptiles seemed to be taking a liking to Galatia. They must have at least doubled in size since the Captain's first encounter.
“Everything, Captain, except finding the grobblers. None of us have come across any,” replied Master Frockle.
“Find us for what purpose?” came a sly, guttural voice from the shadows of the bushes.
All the men jumped a step back, their eyes raking the bushes in vain.
Clearing his throat the Captain took a hesitant step towards the darkest bush.
“The esteemed Lord of Galatia, Baron Braxton, requests that you keep an eye out for any Sacrileons and also for this woman,” he said, tossing a picture of Starla he had stolen from the hearing's documents to the floor.
A scaly, long-clawed hand snatched it up.
“And the payment?” the voice in the shadows asked.
“A double payment,” Trent paused as the creature gargled in delight, “one offered by the Baron, if you agree to bring him the girl first. He offers the sacking of a Galatian noble’s home. The other offered by the Master, once you have handed her over to the magmus.”
“Fear not, we shall catch her.” The grobbler's fading voice, trailing deeper into the shadows, was the only indication that the creature was moving away from them.
“Now we're done, men. Let's return to the City before our absence is noted.”
The others nodded and split up, heading back to the City by different routes.
“Those grobblers may even get creative finding that girl, if she runs,” the Captain mused, hitting what he thought was a rock with the flat of his sword and causing it to roll over, before he strolled off through the forest.
“If I ever see that miserable excuse of a—” Heny's deep voice trailed off as he tried to flip himself the right way up again.
“Oh, no,” said Biki, materialising half way up a tree as Gaby jumped down from the golden leaves with Flek in her arms, “what will we do?”
“At least we know that she is still alive, though no doubt under guard,” Gaby said, staring off in the direction of the City. “And we know she kept her promise.”
“Whatever guard she's under can't be that good if the Baron thinks she'll get a chance to escape,” Heny commented, blue eyes still angry.
“Unless he plans to help her escape,” Biki said sagely.
“Never mind the whys and hows, we must just be ready. We need to find and foil any grobbler traps we can.”
“Thatwillbeverydangerous,” Flek said, his feather wobbling as he shook his head.
“I know, but I see no other way. Heny, you try and find the main grobbler camp and keep an eye on them. Biki, I need you to stay close to the City. Try and see if you can get to Starla first if she manages to escape. Flek, I'll need you to bring me daily reports from both of them. You will have to track me. I am going to use my magic to find help find the grobbler traps,” she said, her voice determined. “Hopefully, we can get to Starla before they 'get creative'.”
“And before those Makhi realise you haven't left Galatia,” Biki added before flying off towards the City Wall to keep watch.
***
They walked in grim silence back to the inn. Starla kept her eyes on the cobbles in front of her, unwilling to see the fear- and hate-filled eyes that peered from windows and doorways. News of the attack had spread faster than they had walked, the streets eerily quiet and all the stores shuttered and locked.
She thought about what she had witnessed. Her early shock had passed, leaving a heart-wrenching ache behind. Pain for the father and his children. Pain for the High Lord who had tried to save them, whose duty to protect Galatia meant killing those who could not be saved. She glanced up at him. His face was all hard edges and ice, his eyes colder than ever before. He had maintained a careful distance between them, as if afraid to frighten her.
He passed her parcels to a terrified servant as they reached the inn, who bolted inside as soon as Starla told him to put them on her bed.
She looked at the High Lord again. He was staring resolutely at the door frame. Slowly, it dawned on her that he may be avoiding her eyes because he didn't want to see the same fear and hatred that everyone else showed him. His responsibility was to keep the people safe, Kyron had used that to create a rift between him and his people.
“I'm sorry,” Starla said, her voice soft as she sought his eyes. “I'm sorry you had to do that. I'm sorry the people are so scared that they direct their anger at you instead of him.”
His eyes snapped to hers, uncertain, searching. The ice in them vanished and a deep well of pain was visible for a brief second before he looked away.
“They are right to hate me,” he whispered. Starla was sure she had misunderstood. “I am sorry you had to see that. I should have been paying more attention. If I had, those children wouldn't be facing a death sentence.”
Starla flinched at the raw pain in his voice and reached out to place a hand on his arm. She wanted to offer some comfort but didn't know how. He refused to meet her eyes.
Before she could find the words, a youth ran around the corner, threw a badly-aimed fruit at them, which splattered at her feet, and took off again, yelling over his shoulder.
“No one wants you here, outlander! Go home!”
Starla sighed. “I wish I could show them I mean no harm.”
The High Lord glared at the spot where the youth had vanished then looked at her again, calculating. “There is something I want to show you. Will you come with me?” His tone indicated a change of subject.
“Of course,” Starla said, happy to talk about something else and determined to show him that she didn't hate or fear him.
“This is what I wanted to show you,” the High Lord said as they reached the top of the narrow footpath they had been following to the rise of a small hill. They had been walking for some time, each lost in their own thoughts. After so long in silence, his voice made Starla jump. While they had been walking, she had begun and discarded hundreds of questions in her mind. Her own feelings about the High Lord conflicted with the warning the Sacrileons gave not to trust him. The people's innate fear of him and his own cold precision when carrying out his duties seemed at odds with the pain and care he revealed privately when those duties forced him to make hard decisions.
Sighing, she came to a stop beside him and looked up. Whatever she thought Larkel might have been taking her to, it didn't prepare her for the sight she beheld. Before her, claustrophobic and miserable, spread hundreds and hundreds of tents far off into the distance, to where the Tower Wall shone.
“These fields were once filled with flowers and soft birdsong,” Larkel began, his voice solemn. “They were our Festival Fields. Used for birthdays and weddings, for Trimoon and Starsong.”
Starla watched the people moving between the tents as he spoke. They looked wretched. Dirty and thin, many of them maimed. Dust billowed from under their footfalls. Everything before her was just various shades of brown. She remembered her first look at the city and the brown smudge that seemed to mare its otherwise glittering façade.
“Now, it is a refugee camp, holding the surviving Cosmaltians and Galatians from the outer towns and villages that made it here with nothing to their name,” Larkel continued, sorrow and anger in his voice. “The King does all he can for them, but without their farms, we are struggling to keep everyone properly fed. If it weren't for our magic, we would have failed already. There are several aid tents, the main one is right below us, but volunteers are scarce.”
Starla turned away from the tents and looked up at the man beside her. His hands gripped his staff tightly, the muscles in his back tensing as if wanting the power flowing in his veins to somehow fix everything in front of them.
They have to be wrong about him.
Suddenly his indigo gaze turned on her. “We have been under siege for over ten years, Starla. Kyron fights his wars by watching his enemies tear each other apart. He sends in spies and poisoned food. Corruptions. He seeds chaos. This has been
our life for so long now, the people don't know how to trust any more, never mind whom. All they know is war and all they want is a day of peace.”
“I understand, now,” Starla said, remembering in a new light the hostile stares she had been getting before the attack. She saw herself as the people here must: someone unknown, who might be the next disaster; or maybe someone good, but either way another mouth to feed. “I want to help.”
Larkel's eyes widened at the sudden steel in the her voice. “Starla, it might not change anything, the people may never view you differently.”
“I don't want to help because I want people to like me, High Lord. I want to help because people need it,” she said, emerald eyes flashing at his insinuation. “You said volunteers were scarce. Well, where do I sign up?”
Larkel smiled and with it, the very last of the horror of this morning faded from his features, leaving them a little softer. “This way. I'm sure Horato is at the main aid tent. He'll be the one to speak with.”
Horato turned out to be a rotund retired Cosmaltian Makhi, with ruddy face and a friendly disposition. The pointed ears and slightly elongated canines of his people were getting easier for Starla to ignore.
“Of course, sweet lady. The camp needs all the help we can get. Let's see, here. Fill out this form so that we know what you can do and we'll get you started first thing tomorrow morning,” Horato said, handing over a form and a rather odd-looking writing tool which needed no ink pot.
The High Lord tapped the sheet as it passed to her. She smiled up at him as the letters changed.
Starla took a seat and had just begun to complete the form when Larkel sat down beside her with a form of his own.
Starla grimaced. “Of course. Well, at least the camp will benefit from the High Lord's help, too.”
“Starla, I help out here as often as I can but, usually, it is in magical departments like Healing or checking food for poisons,” the High Lord said stiffly. “Now I will have enough time to help out in other departments, too.”
