Arm Of Galemar (Book 2)

by Damien Lake

  Kerwin’s reply vanished under the cheers as Ferdinand’s scoring board elevated to eighteen, a single point beyond Keegan’s new seventeen. The crowd members who had attended all three events so far were well aware of the rivalry between the two, and had begun cheering for their favorites. Marik had noticed that the numbers for those two on Walsh’s betting board were rising quicker than most others, including Hilliard.

  “Nock up!” the official could be seen to shout, if not heard. He raised the red flag, which signaled the ten archers to sight on their targets with their last arrow. Marik could feel the hammering against his back from waves of noise washing over them.

  Do it, Hilliard, Marik prayed silently. He badly wanted the youth to win, yet his thoughts never touched on the Arm of Galemar. If Hilliard lost, and they immediately set out for Spirratta to see their charge safely back under Tilus’ roof, as we should!, then he would never see Ilona again. Never walk the streets with her in search of a shop that might not exist, never watch her feline grace or feel the scorching heaven/hells burn of her angry gaze. Are you going to put your coin where your mouth is and win this? You’d better, damn it!

  The red flag dropped. Ten arrows, the last arrows of the day for these men, cut across the field. Marik and the others were heartened to see Hilliard’s shaft bury its head in the dark blue of the imaginary Nolier’s arm. Delouen’s shaft sailed too far to the side, missing the target by inches. It streaked past into the hay bales and Delouen began cursing. He almost snapped the bow in half before hurling it to the ground with force enough to nearly plant it as a tent stake.

  “He’s out! Out for certain,” Kerwin crowed, but then studied Crossley’s target carefully. “Look’s like Crossley scored too, damn it all! Landon, can you see how he struck?”

  The archer, who possessed the best eyes of them all, shook his head. “It might be a two-point hit. I can see it is close to the target’s center, but only that.”

  Kerwin chewed on a cuticle while they waited for the official to score the flight. Hilliard received a white flag, as expected. It seemed to take all afternoon for the man to walk on past to Crossley’s target. Marik expected yet another close examination to determine the points earned, but his study was perfunctory. He lifted the white flag and moved on.

  This had happened before while they waited through the day’s previous rounds. Marik knew that both Hilliard and Crossley would be given new arrows and they would shoot until one outscored the other at the end of a flight. During the third block, the bottom three had needed to shoot a tiebreaker. After four additional flights, one finally dropped out. A further three flights finally left one man the victor.

  He looked far down the stands of benches, feeling queerly off balance from the odd perspective. The end lay far away and countless people crowded every available inch until it apparently stretched on forever. If he had not known exactly where to look, he never would have distinguished Walsh’s C-Double-R Unit from the rest.

  Sitting a mile distant, or so it seemed to his eyes, they had escorted the young contender and his bodyguards earlier that morning. Yet as early as they arrived, the common room regulars only barely managed to claim seats in the stands. High in the back row, they struck him as crows on a battlefield. Indistinguishable dots moving among lumps that had once been men.

  Except all of these lumps were moving rather than stationary in their demise. And the stenches of blood and excrement and rancid carnage rotting in the sun were instead the smells of honeyed dough-cakes, roasting meat and ale spilled everywhere. So maybe, Marik decided, the image was not quite accurate. Only the boiling sweat odors were consistent, but the picture refused to leave him.

  On their distant top row, Marik could see the regulars jumping up and waving their arms. The runners from the center island must have reached the group of page boys manning the score boards at that end of the field. Delayed encouraging shouts or derision always floated from the far ends after the nearer sections had yelled their own say. Their boards must have been updated, for the regulars gyrated their exuberant support of Hilliard Garroway, the Swan’s Down’s pet contender. Watching them bounce up and down only enforced the carrion crow image in Marik’s mind. Crows disturbed from their feast, yet gluttonous enough to not be frightened off by the living who still walked the fields of the slaughtered.

  Marik needed no soul searching to know why his thoughts were so grim. It was not the first time that day. Their blacker shades grew from the slowly growing certainty that the four mercenaries had miscalculated.

  He, Dietrik and Ilona had started earlier yesterday, as planned. They investigated eight shops from the list, each ending when they felt grudgingly satisfied that while it might be a shop to be wary of, it was not a shop selling black market magical artifacts.

  Ilona had elaborated on their cover story over the night. Supposedly she and Marik were a team; she a nimble thief able to climb and crawl, he a magician knowledgeable in spells that aided her felonious activities. While he enjoyed this as it allowed him to act in a familiar manner with her, it left him puzzled as well. She had swung from violently spurning everything to do with him to practically treating him as an equal. And yet out in the streets, Ilona still retained the familiar biting comments he knew so well. Her instantaneous fluctuations left his head reeling.

  Then there was the magic. He had not imagined it after all. Anytime the slightest pretext arose, she would make him pretend to cast spells across the shop. Only in two shops had he felt his threat actually needed to be displayed. After asking her about this, she told him that setting the tone early on would avoid unnecessary trouble later. True…perhaps…except her answer struck him oddly. Surely she had other reasons for making him jump though hoops like a trained animal.

  Dietrik had warmed toward her, at least. Marik appreciated that, so he kept his unfounded doubts behind his teeth. Asking Dietrik for his take on her bizarre actions would only set his friend’s back hairs up all over.

  The other eight men in the archer line left the field, Delouen still furious with rage. His face reddened, presumably still cursing the officials, the gods, the bow maker, the fletchers…anyone who happened to cross his mind. Though the man’s words were beyond his ken, Marik recognized many of the oaths being hurled from the defeated noble’s lips.

  An official brought out a fresh arrow bundles. Hilliard and Crossley soon readied their next flight, each concentrating on the far away target. Marik held his breath as the red flag dropped.

  Both arrows streaked toward their straw men. Hilliard struck his target low in the leg. No possibility that he had scored on a higher point rewarding area. Crossley, though, might have done exactly that. His shaft protruded from either the neck or the lower head. Hard to tell from where Marik stood. If the arrow had sailed high enough, it would score on the two point target of the straw man’s head.

  The official darted to examine Crossley’s strike. After an eternity, he finally made his decision and raised the white flag.

  “Whew!” exhaled Kerwin and Marik together. The gambler continued, “That was too close.”

  “He is still jerking the bow at the moment of release,” Landon critiqued. “It’s only a slight movement, but it’s telling over the long shots.”

  The two readied their next flight. Marik leaned forward on the balls of his feet. Hilliard closed one eye to sight along the shaft, a habit Landon had tried to break him of. Still, it was the shooting style familiar to him and he chose to stay with the familiar during this critical moment.

  They released. Hilliard came as close to missing as possible. The arrow struck on the arm’s lowest curve. Rather than impaling straw flesh, the arrowhead tore into the hanging cloth on the Nolier uniform, becoming entangled. Forward momentum swung the arrow under and around so the fletching struck the backside, then the arrow dangled limply like an end of rope swaying in the breeze.

  Marik hoped the official would count that as a strike, especially since Crossley’s shaft went wide off the
mark. Rather than burying in the mock Nolier, it bit into the wall of straw bales.

  Three officials went to examine Hilliard’s straw man this time, spending long moments in quiet conference. Of course, they could have shouted their words at each other and escaped being overheard. They pulled their heads apart. The regular raised his white flag for Hilliard, signaling one point.

  Marik breathed a deep, relieved sigh while his stomach did flip-flops. Five more days. Crossley shook his head in disappointment. He still grasped Hilliard’s hand all the same. The four mercenaries walked over to congratulate their charge. Ferdinand Sestion beat them there. All four tensed when they watched the future court baron deliberately step over to Hilliard.

  Before they reached Hilliard, Ferdinand departed without fuss. He seemed in high spirits, despite having come in second to Keegan as in the horse race. When they reached Hilliard, Marik asked, “What did he want?”

  Hilliard, a question in his eyes, replied, “He? Are you referring to Lord Ferdinand?”

  “Who else would I mean? What did he say? Another party?”

  “Not at all. He wanted to offer his congratulations that I succeeded in advancing through the third event.” He glanced from face to face, reading the concern in each. “Why are you worried? What is amiss?”

  “Nothing at all,” Dietrik hastily asserted. “We just wanted to know. Though,” he added, casting his gaze around, “I don’t seem to notice him saying so to any of the others who advanced as well.”

  “He also wanted to apologize for what happened the other night,” Hilliard revealed. “I imagine he is still upset over that horrible event. Anyone would feel so, after an invited guest was attacked under their very roof.”

  “Yes,” Landon agreed. “I’m sure that is why he singled you out this time.” Marik suspected the archer might harbor other feelings. Was Ferdinand truly above suspicion or reproach?

  A man in an event official’s vest came to collect Hilliard’s bow and return it to the stored equipment. Hilliard had explained this to them during their travels when they asked why he carried no equipment other than his sword. All equipment, from horses to armor to bows, would be provided by the crown to ensure equality. Skill alone would determine the best man to win.

  Dietrik suggested leaving the field behind. Hilliard agreed without fuss. The only positive note from the last attack was that it drove home to the young man how serious the threat against him was. Until his close brush, the possibility that the previous trouble might only be the work of overzealous back-alley thugs had been seductive in the face of the sprawling festival’s temptations.

  They only stopped long enough for each to collect a large, steaming beef pie, their flaky crusts still hot from the clay oven constructed eightdays earlier. Marik licked scalding gravy from his fingers, regretting that he and Dietrik had foregone a meeting with Ilona today. With no idea when they might finish the archery match, they decided it would be best to delay their search despite their urgency.

  After he, Dietrik and Ilona had left the Standing Spell the first day to search shops, the guards returned, exactly as Marik had predicted they might. They wished to ask further questions of the establishment’s madam, questions regarding connections she might have to a certain magical object. Magical artifacts were strictly regulated by the king’s law, and so the appearance of one during an attack on a noble-born drew acute attention. Six candlemarks of questioning ensued, ending with the cityguards’ departure, along with the investigating magistrate, immediately before Ilona returned. Vashti had been exhausted and ready to hear good news from her daughter.

  Perhaps it was Ilona’s renewed need to find a culprit she could hand over to the cityguard that prompted her to push Marik into exhibiting his magical talent so often. Time had become a precious commodity for her. Marik had no experience with these matters personally but he guessed the cityguard would be under pressure to find those responsible for such a blatant attack on the aristocracy. Having the assassin in custody was nice, though not enough to satisfy the higher-ups who mattered. The longer this dragged on, it was increasingly likely that the ton of horse manure hanging over someone’s head would drop on the Standing Spell’s roof.

  Still, there was time yet, and so they agreed to meet the morning after the archery event. But walking the streets with her today would have been…nice, his mind supplied. The possibly rain-laden clouds had blown away the night after their first investigation. With renewed vigor, to compensate for the day off, the sun had baked Thoenar with relentless fury. It was summer, and the sun let it be known that it was not fooling around.

  Though dressed lightly, Ilona had been no more immune to the swelter than he. A sheen of sweat had coated her tanned skin, adding an oily glow to her body he would be content to spend the rest of eternity gazing upon. He could have relived that wondrous spectacle today if the officials bothered to run this show with any concern to a specific time schedule. Oh well. Perhaps tomorrow.

  “Ahh!” Lost in thought, he had squeezed the remaining half-pie harder than he should have. It folded, opening a crack along the flaky bottom supported by his palm. Hot gravy spilled into his hand. He frantically sucked it up before it could run down his arm.

  “Problems?” Dietrik inquired.

  “No, nothing. I was lost in thought.”

  His friend smiled in that crooked way he could affect. “I think it would take only minor talents at imagination on my behalf to hit on where your thoughts wandered. Or to whom.”

  Marik started to instinctively deny it. He stopped short. Why bother? Dietrik was essentially correct. Damn him…

  “Let me just remind you that we haven’t discovered all there is to know yet. Bad men are still scurrying about.”

  “Right.” He forced Ilona, and her lovely, glowing skin shining in the brilliant sunlight, from his mind with an effort. They still had half a city to traverse. Assassins could lurk within every shadow. Marik stuffed his remaining pie into his mouth in three giant bites, then walked closer to Hilliard, his hand hovering near his sword.

  * * * * *

  Huddled in the dark corner of a dispirited taproom sat a spy. Colbey saw through the man only moments after first spotting him. He took pride that his abilities were far superior to this lesser man’s, this pretender to skills he had no right to assume himself capable at. To judge from his sitting stance, the man was Galemaran.

  Colbey sneered. This outlander had not bothered to study the habits of the men who’s role he assumed. He leaned back in an effort to appear casual, oblivious to the fact that no others in the room sat so. His ankles were crossed and his hands steepled, elbows resting on the armrests. When a server handed him a plate of roasted chicken, Colbey saw the spy wore no tattoo on his hand, real or forged.

  He must be a Galemaran agent sent to ferret out information. How had he managed to cross the hostile territory and find his way into Kallied? Proof only that the gods favored halfwits.

  The taproom was silent. These were dark times for Tullainia. People walked with heads bowed, initiating no conversations as they once had, only answering questions when asked directly. There might as well be a collar around their necks, Colbey thought with scorn. It was contemptible, this slave’s acceptance of their bondage. True men and women, like those of his village, would fight tooth and nail until they achieved victory or until none remained standing. Cowed slaves such as these were not fit to be called men. Not fit to be considered so.

  Every moment spent among these downtrodden Tullainians made his scorn grow fiercer. Until not one of us was left standing. Not a one. Not one!

  Except he still stood. He still crawled through the mud and slime of the world, assuring himself he worked to avenge his people even as he huddled like a craven traitor. Rationalizing his cowardly slinking through the shadows as footsteps in the cause of justice.

  Why did he not strike at the serpent’s lair? Why bother with wasting time finding a way in and back out unnoticed? Why not slide between these guar
ds who thought themselves so dangerous? Slip inside and kill all the highest level officers. The officers who had sent their monsters into his home to slaughter every innocent in his village!

  The mage, his mind whispered, as it frequently did. He can aid you, as you planned. And you still assume too much. Assumption is the root of nine in ten mistakes made. These officers may be the head of this weirdling army, but who stands behind them? Who pulls their strings? You must learn more.

  His thoughts sounded like Thomas’ advice. That made the words very difficult to ignore or argue with. And the kernel of truth buried within them made him want to snarl. The rage in his heart had burned brighter every day since first seeing these monstrous beasts in the flesh. Rage that demanded a release he could not yet allow.

  Sweat popped out on his forehead while his wants wrestled with his training. His need for information warred with his need for satisfaction, making it hard to think clearly. He left the taproom.

  The evening air was cooler than the taproom. The sun was slowly vanishing behind the skyline. It helped to settle his boiling mind. Colbey wandered in the semi-palace’s direction. Two streets shy of the estate walls he came to a city square.

  In Kallied’s prosperous days, decorative flower gardens had surrounded a small statue here. The statues had been taken away and the flowers died without regular care. A different spectacle met the eye.

  Several heavy stones anchored a lattice of iron grating covering a pit. Nailed to a wooden post nearby was a notice, explaining the wretch’s fate to the public in Tullainian script. Colbey already knew the details.

  Following the deaths of four military aides and the severe illness of several others, soldiers had swept down on a certain merchant like a winter storm. Allegations of poisoning food meant for the plates of Tullainia’s oppressors sealed his fate as well as his family’s. After a day of rough interrogation, they paraded the man to this square while decrying his crimes. He had been allowed a single day to dig his own prison. Soldiers dropped the lattice over the hole to serve as his cell bars before leaving him to his slow death.