by Ari Marmell
"For our other option." Kaleb grinned smugly, steadfastly refusing to elaborate.
That option caught up with them in the early evening, moments after they'd made their nightly camp. Jassion stood by a tree off in the shadows, checking the tethers on the horses, while Kaleb crouched by a crackling fire he'd lit without benefit of flint or tinder, preparing a haunch of heavily salted beef they'd acquired in Abtheum's market. Both looked up as one, heads cocked at the soft whinny and faint jingling of an approaching mount.
"Right on schedule," Kaleb muttered, dusting his hands off and rising to his feet. Jassion's hand strayed toward Talon's hilt as he moved to join his companion, but the sorcerer shook his head. "That won't be necessary, O master swordsman."
A small palfrey rounded the bend, clearly a beast of burden rather than war. The slender figure atop the saddle wore undyed tunic and leggings. Face and chest were concealed by a hooded cloak that might have been described as "pearl" if it were of higher quality but, as it was, could only be called "off-white."
Horse and rider drew to a halt, faces turned to study the men by the fire. Small hands lifted the hood, dropped it back, revealing slim features and dark hair.
"Good evening, Mellorin," Kaleb said.
Jassion just cursed. A lot.
The daughter of Corvis Rebaine slid from her saddle, landing softly on her feet and striding toward them as though she had every right and expectation of being there. As she approached, Jassion whispered to Kaleb, "How did you know?"
"I saw a rather familiar look on her face during our conversation."
"Familiar?"
"Just like one of yours, actually. The one you get when you're about to be idiotically pigheaded about something. I've seen it a lot, actually."
"Gentlemen," she greeted them, halting some feet away. Her voice was steady, confident, but the flickering of her eyes in the firelight betrayed an underlying unease.
"What are you doing here, Mellorin?" Jassion asked. "Is something wrong?" A sudden twitch of fear touched his face. "Did something happen back home?"
Kaleb sighed and rolled his eyes in a gesture that was becoming as familiar as breath. "Nothing happened, you jackass. She wants to come with us. Don't you, Mellorin?"
She nodded. "I know you're looking for my father. I need-I want to find him, myself."
"Absolutely not!" The baron advanced, hand outstretched to clutch her shoulder. "There's no way I'm letting you-"
Boots etching a crescent in the dust, Mellorin spun. Her right shoulder connected with Jassion's chest, throwing him off his stride, while her left hand closed about his wrist. She continued, feet crossing, and Jassion, already off-balance, found himself yanked forward. He slammed to the earth, landing hard on his back and kicking up a cloud of dirt around him.
One more cross-step and Mellorin ended her spin nose-to-nose with Kaleb. A truly ugly knife, short but broad of blade and serrated down one side, protruded from her fist in an underhanded grip and pressed-gently but unmistakably-against the sorcerer's throat.
"I don't like being touched," she told them softly. "And I can take care of myself. I'm not asking to just 'tag along.' I can help you."
"Feisty, aren't you?" Kaleb asked with a grin.
Mellorin's expression grew frosty. "I was-attacked once, when I was just a child. My dear father saved me, but just because the danger was gone didn't make me any less terrified, and he couldn't be bothered to wait around afterward and make sure I was all right."
"So you learned to take care of yourself." It was not a question.
"Anywhere I could."
"I admire the spirit, Mellorin, but there's a big difference between street fighting and what we do out here. Look behind you."
Scowling in distrust, she glanced down. Jassion, without rising from the dust, had twisted around and drawn Talon, leveling the tip, steady and unwavering, mere inches from the small of her back. Only after a long moment, once he was content that she understood, did he withdraw the blade and rise to his feet.
"And your uncle will tell you," Kaleb continued, "that the instant you decided to talk to me rather than just slit my throat and be done with it, you gave me all the time I needed to kill you, if that's what I'd wanted."
The blade disappeared up Mellorin's sleeve and she stepped away, flushing brightly in the firelight. "You don't understand," she protested, sounding now more like a child than the young woman she'd so recently become. "I have to go with you. I have to know. Please…"
"Know what?" Jassion asked carefully, twisting awkwardly to brush his back clean.
"How my father could do what he did. How he could… How he could choose his damn crusade over his family."
Kaleb and Jassion glanced at each other, then at Mellorin, both sharing a comical expression of uncertainty.
"I know," she told them softly, sitting on a small log that Jassion had earlier dragged to the camp for use as a chair. "Mother never told us, and Lilander's too young to question, but… I know when he left, and everyone knows about the Serpent's War. It wasn't hard to figure it out. Just because Mother thinks I'm an idiot," she spat bitterly, "doesn't make me one."
"Don't you dare-" Jassion began hotly, but Kaleb was already kneeling at Mellorin's side.
"Your mother thinks no such thing," he told her gently, almost putting a hand on hers, recoiling at the last moment as he recalled her earlier words. "She was trying to protect you. And I think you know that, Mellorin."
She sniffed once, cleared her throat, offered the sorcerer a shallow shrug. "It doesn't matter. I have to know who he was. I have to ask him why."
"All right," he said, standing, smiling softly. "You can join us."
Even as Mellorin's face broke into an astonished smile, Kaleb could actually hear Jassion stiffening up behind him.
"Kaleb?" The baron's mouth barely moved, so tightly was his jaw clenched. "Can I speak with you over by the horses for a moment?"
The sorcerer frowned thoughtfully. "No, I don't think so. Mellorin's not a child, Jassion, no matter how much you treat her like one. The least you can do is respect her enough to say whatever you have to say to her face."
Mellorin actually beamed.
Jassion reached out, snagging the clasp of Kaleb's cloak-looking very much like he'd prefer it had been the man's throat beneath his fingers-and dragged him across the campsite. His niece glared after them but remained where she was, apparently deciding not to press the issue.
"Do that again," Kaleb said, knocking the baron's hand aside, "and we're going to have a disagreement."
"Did we not just discuss this?" Jassion demanded, so near that Kaleb felt the spittle on which those words rode. "Did you not understand me this afternoon?"
"We're not kidnapping anyone. She wants to join us, old boy. And she can take care of herself. You saw that."
"Pfft. She's a brawler, Kaleb, nothing more. You said as much."
"But she's good. We can teach her. Besides, I don't think even Rebaine would hurt his own daughter."
"I'm not so sure. Besides, there are other dangers-"
"And anything we can't teach her to handle, we can protect her from. I have several wards I can cast over her, just for an added bit of protection. Would you permit that, Mellorin?" he called so that she could hear. "Let me cast some defensive spells over you as we travel, to mollify your uncle?"
She blinked, then shrugged. "If that's what it takes."
"We need her," Kaleb continued, his voice hushed once more, "and you know it. Besides," he added, glancing again over Jassion's shoulder at the object of their discussion, "she'd probably just keep following us."
"You said the blood wouldn't help us much," Jassion protested, but his tone and even his posture were weakening.
"I said not unless he was nearby. But 'near' is a relative thing where magic's concerned. Suppose we manage to track him to the right city, then what? You plan to knock on doors at random? We've a far better chance with her than without her."
; Jassion turned reluctantly to study his niece. She, sensing his attention, glared back defiantly.
"If anything happens to her, Kaleb…"
"Don't fret, old boy. If it makes you feel any better, I'm a lot more likely to protect her than I am you."
Jassion snarled and went to tell his niece the "good" news. Unseen behind him, Kaleb couldn't quite repress a secret smile. That there was more to Mellorin's motives than she'd admitted, he was absolutely certain, as certain as he was of his own name. But he had time, plenty of time to draw out the truth.
It might prove almost as useful as the girl herself.
Chapter Ten
Rahariem had fallen.
From beyond its walls they'd come, a swarm of mercenaries both Imphallian and foreign, and if their armor, their weapons, and their war cries were all different, still they fought as a unified force.
Alongside them had marched warriors of far more fearsome mien. Horned, cyclopean ogres ripped soldiers and horses and siege engines apart with great serrated blades and bare hands. Twisted, creeping gnomes crawled from the earth, cloaked in gloom, to murder soldier and citizen alike. The grounds surrounding Rahariem had become a swamp, made clinging mud by the shedding of so much blood. The shadow of flapping wings and the squawking of uncounted crows were an endless storm in the skies.
Yet the horrors of battle had paled before the horrors to come.
The courtyard of the Ducal Estate was crammed to bursting, its grasses and flowers trampled by the crush of so many feet. Rahariem's citizens milled aimlessly, aristocrat with pauper. Whimpers of terror rose as a single breath from the throng, and frightened eyes could not settle in any safe direction. From the fences surrounding the property, from the lampposts on the streets beyond, even from the flagpoles of the great keep, rancid bodies dangled, decanting vile fluids across the ground below. Thanks to the crows and creeping vermin, most were unrecognizable, and this, gruesome though it might have been, was a blessing-for each surviving face was known and loved by someone in the crowd.
Surrounding them-prodding with swords and spears; keeping the sheep from stampeding-were the invaders, human and otherwise. So long as the citizens held themselves in check and made no attempt to cause trouble or to escape, the soldiers left them largely unmolested. Any disruption, however, drew immediate and brutal response.
Nobody made a nuisance of themselves twice-because nobody survived the first time.
The keep's massive doors swung wide, and there he stood, framed within. The black steel of his armor faded into the darkness of the hall beyond, so that the plates of bone and the terrible skull seemed to hover, phantasmal and disembodied. For a long moment, precisely calculated for maximum effect, he waited, making no move save to rake that empty gaze across the assembly, examining every face and every soul, and disapproving of what he found. Then and only then did the monster who called himself Corvis Rebaine step into full view. Despite themselves, the crowd cowered away. Several began to weep.
"You've had the time I promised," he told them, and his voice was no less hollow than the empty sockets of the helm. "It is time to choose."
The people of Rahariem turned to one another, tearfully begging for understanding, for forgiveness. And they chose.
Many nobles and Guildmasters had escaped the city's fall, abandoning their offices and estates to hide among the populace. And now that populace grabbed them, exposed them, hauling them into the open to suffer Rebaine's judgment, for they knew what he would do to them otherwise.
He'd told them, after all, and they need only look at the dangling bodies to know he spoke the truth.
Most of them, aristocrats and Guildmasters both, screamed as they were dragged from amid their fellows, pleading for secrecy, for sanctuary. But some few stepped forward on their own, heads held high, unwilling to force their brethren into making such a terrible decision.
Sir Wyrrim, respected baron and landed knight, revered as highly in Rahariem as the duke himself, was the first to come forward. He faced the crowd around him, and to each of them he offered a gentle smile.
He felt a small hand take his own, and looking down saw his distant cousin, a young noblewoman of Rahariem. Her face was pallid with terror, a sheen of sweat across her brow, but she forced her lips into a matching smile.
Ignoring the weeping from all sides, the flapping of the fleshy banners above, Sir Wyrrim and the Lady Irrial joined their fellow prisoners, following Rebaine's soldiers toward whatever fate awaited in the dungeons below. DROWNING IN THE TIDE OF MEMORIES she had fought so long to escape, Irrial sat upon a knotty tree root and glared across the embers of the dying fire at the blanket-wrapped figure. Her bloodless lips were pressed together, her hands clasped tight about the hilt of her stolen sword. It would be so simple, the work of an instant, and so many years of unspeakable suffering would find some tiny measure of justice. No murder, this, but legitimate execution; perhaps even the putting down of a wild beast.
"If you're going to try to kill me," Corvis said without opening his eyes, "could you go ahead and get it over with? Cliches to the contrary, a man can't actually sleep with one eye open, so you're sort of keeping me up."
"You're really pushing me, Rebaine."
"Am I?" He sat, allowing the blankets to fall from his shoulders and finally opening his eyes. "Look, Irrial-my lady," he corrected at her expression, "we need each other. You accepted that when we left Rahariem. You're just making yourself miserable thinking the way you are now."
"I'm so sorry that my revulsion at your crimes is disturbing you."
Corvis sighed. "Just tell me that you'll wait until after this is all said and done before you decide to try anything stupid, all right?"
"Fine. But only for Rahariem and Imphallion."
"I don't really care why." He lay down once more, hauling the blanket up to his chin.
"That's it?" she asked after a moment, curious despite herself. "You trust me just like that?"
"I've trusted you for years," he told her. "Nothing's changed for me, even if you think it has for you. But if it'll make you feel better, you can swear an oath to one of the gods. That's how I made it work last time."
Another pause. "Last time?"
"Somehow, my lady, I doubt you'd be surprised to learn that I've had other traveling companions who wanted to kill me."
"Rebaine, I'd be surprised if you had any that didn't."
"Funny."
"I wasn't joking," she insisted.
"I know." Corvis yawned once, loudly. "Wake me when it's my watch. Irrial?"
"What?"
"It's very simple to set up a spell to wake me if anyone comes too close. I really do trust you, but I'm not an idiot."
He was snoring softly before she could come up with a viable answer to that one. THEIR FIRST DAYS ON THE ROAD had been more than a little harrowing. Travel was a nervous affair, as they remained alert for approaching soldiers, ready to scurry into whatever cover might make itself available. Once they'd ambushed a small patrol-obtaining mounts, supplies, and a replacement weapon for Irrial-they moved a bit faster, but it was only after they'd passed beyond Cephiran-held territory, and the highways began to boast Imphallian travelers, that they breathed easy. Corvis felt his shoulders and back relaxing, and the next morning was the first in a week that he'd awakened without a headache crawling up the back of his neck.
Not that they'd escaped the invasion's shadow; far from it. Long stretches of road were packed with refugees, making their slow and sad way westward. Some rode mounts with saddlebags stuffed to bursting, others drove wagons laden with the pitiful remnants of homes and lives, and many carried only what they could hoist on their backs. Uncounted plodding feet kicked up the dirt of the highways, tromped flat the grasses alongside, all accompanied by muffled sobs, whispered reassurances, and tear-streaked prayers. Sweat perfumed the air-sweat and, somehow, the stink of despair. It turned the stomach, this stench of slowly rotting hope.
Corvis, though it shamed him, found h
imself grateful for their presence. They offered plenty of cover for Irrial and him to hide, should any Cephiran scouts range this far; and they held the baroness's attentions, so conversation-and acrimony, and accusation-remained scarce.
'Well, we always knew the masses had to be good for something, right?'
After some days, however, the bulk of the refugees turned aside. The road passed by the city of Emdimir, the informal line of demarcation between central and eastern Imphallion. Already the city was so crowded the stone walls threatened to bulge, like the distended belly of a starving man, and every moment more people arrived. The air above the city wavered with the heat, and Corvis was sure he could actually see pestilence lurking within the clouds above. But the people had, for the most part, no strength to travel farther, and Emdimir's government hadn't yet hardened their hearts enough to begin turning them away.
Once past that city, Corvis and Irrial made excellent time, thanks to the horses and the highways-and a good thing it was, for the journey remained remarkably unpleasant, even without the sorrowful throng. The sun seemed utterly determined to cook them into some sort of stew, its heat letting up only for the occasional summer squall-which, in turn, summoned up mosquitoes by the bushel. After the second such shower, Corvis had scratched himself bloody and was fairly convinced that he'd prefer a dagger in a vital organ over one more bite.
Irrial promptly offered hers, and Corvis decided to keep his future complaints to himself.
Nor were these the only bites he had to endure. The Cephiran warhorse he'd acquired was a nasty, ill-tempered brute who still wasn't entirely sold on his new master. The beast was more than cooperative while Corvis was riding-its training saw to that-but it constantly tugged at the reins when they walked, balked while he was trying to lead. It had bitten him thrice already, once drawing blood as he tethered it up for the night, and had even once kicked at him, a blow that would assuredly have broken bone had it landed.
Corvis, sick to the death of the whole thing, had cuffed the horse hard across the nose. Apparently he'd gotten some of the message across, because the kicking had ceased, though the biting continued unabated. Also, he had to endure an extra-intensive glare from Irrial for a day and a half after he struck "that helpless creature."
