Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  “And your twin?” Eleshen’s murmur was soft.

  “She was made Lieutenant in the Palace Guard a number of years back, which is how she found me. I used to have letters from her, and I wrote her every month. I’ve been writing this whole time, but I haven’t gotten anything back for eight years.”

  Elohl settled at the end of his story. Eleshen was silent a long moment, when suddenly he felt her hand at his inner wrist. Her fingers, perusing his jagged scar there. Elohl's gaze slipped to his wrist. Lingered upon his weakness. And felt suddenly that he had to answer her unasked question. That he had to unburden himself of those events, too.

  “I first tried to kill myself only a year into my service,” he murmured. “It seemed easier than to face everything I had lost, all the ways I'd failed. But all the times I tried... my fingers simply slipped upon the knife, spasmed away, didn't cut deep enough. I could never quite seem to do myself in, no matter how many times I attempted it. And Ihbram... was always there to pull me back up from my fall.”

  Elohl stared at his wrist in the firelight for another long moment. At last, he looked up, settling his tea mug to the table. Eleshen squeezed his hand. “More tea?”

  “Please.” He nudged his cup forward with climb-hardened fingertips.

  “You know what happened in Lintesh, don’t you, after the Kingsmen marched?” She poured them each another round of tea, then set the kettle back on its iron trivet.

  Elohl took a single deep breath, grateful for the change of topic. “I’ve heard the rumors. Were you there?”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I was seventeen. Old enough to come learn statesship at court, so my father brought me along to Lintesh. The Kingsmen marched into the city in flawless formation, dressed in their finest, clad for battle. It was frightening, to see so many of them all together like that, like a sea of ravens. Rumor had already passed through the city of their treason, and most feared that they were going to make war upon the palace. But they didn’t. The Kingsmen didn’t make a sound as they marched. You could hear a dove’s wings in the Central Plaza, it was so quiet. It was like watching ghosts march. They flowed up the Palace steps, flanked by Guardsmen, then inside four-by-four. And when they shut the doors, that was the last anyone ever saw of the Kingsmen. My father and I waited in Lintesh seven whole days. But they had simply disappeared. There was never any trial. My father was livid, he sought a direct audience with the King, demanding to know what had happened. He never got his audience. Palace Guard came after us in the night at our lodgings. We had to flee.”

  Elohl sighed. “My sister wrote to me that she had heard as much. Her letters stopped coming shortly after that. She said she hadn’t found so much as a trace of the Kingsmen within the palace. Not a knife, not a buckle. Nothing. She'd walked those labyrinthine halls from dusk to sunup every night, and in two years, she’d found nothing.”

  “Vanished.” Eleshen murmured. “Roushenn keeps its secrets. Cursed stones.”

  “Cursed.” Elohl rubbed a hand over his beard. Images surfaced in his mind. A snarling wolf, fangs deep in a roaring dragon, clawing the wolf in turn. His fingertips settled to his tea mug, tracing the rim, feeling its texture.

  Eleshen fixed him with a piercing gaze. “You said you failed, Elohl. That you didn’t find it. What was it? What could you have failed at? Keeping the children safe?”

  “Partly,” he sighed. “Partly something else.”

  She gazed at his Inkings, just visible over the edge of his shirt. “How did you know to ink yourself? What was this errand you went on in the three days before your parents arrived at the palace?”

  Elohl met her gaze, and his eyes were hard. “Too much, and not nearly enough.”

  CHAPTER 9 – OLEA

  The sun was high, the summer morning just as sweltering as it had been for the past week. Olea made her rounds at a languid pace upon the Seventh Tier battlements of the palace, hundreds of fathoms above the ground. The bustling marketplace below was miniscule, hulking wagons of firewood small as matchsticks, people tiny as poppy-seeds near the circular fountain before Roushenn’s main gates. Her gaze blurred, eyes raw from too little sleep. Olea blinked, pushing back exhaustion. It was the seventh day since she’d seen that hulking man give her a Kingsman salute at the fountain. Seven days since her charge from the Dhenra. Seven nights in a row that her nightmares of Alden had come, sweet nightmares of her and the Dhenir together. Devastating visions of them exposed, Chancellors staring in the Small Hall.

  King Uhlas’ face of stone as Lhaurent divulged secrets Olea had been certain were safe.

  The wind shifted. The shrill cry of a ferrow-hawk came to her ears from far up the crags of the Kingsmount, dragging her back to the walls. Up ahead, her Second-Lieutenant Aldris den’Farahan waited for her. She could already see mirth all over his chisel-cheeked face. He slouched against the stones in a way that showed off his honed body, one hand upon his sword, wind rifling his short golden hair. She glanced over as she came abreast of him, and he fell into step beside her with a winsome smile.

  “Report,” Olea spoke briskly.

  “All quiet on Tiers Five, Six, and Seven, Captain. We had a thief climb as high as Tier Five last night, but three of my men took him down. He’s been transferred to Undercell Four, if you’d like to question.”

  “Damage?”

  “None. We did a sweep of the Royal Galleries, the Dawn Room, the Throne Hall, and the Receiving Hall, but everything seemed in order. He had no valuables on him. Just a few weapons, grappling hook, lock picking kit.”

  “Why was I not summoned?”

  Aldris rubbed his short blonde beard, his green eyes teasing. “Pardon, Captain. When my men went to get you, they heard… sounds… in your quarters. I made the call to not interrupt you if everything was in order.”

  Olea gave her Second-Lieutenant her sternest eyeball. “In the future, Aldris, you summon me for a disturbance inside the Fourth Tier, no matter what. Are we clear?”

  “Perfectly, Captain.” Her Second-Lieutenant was attempting to be appropriately chagrined. He couldn’t quite manage it. Aldris never could. Perhaps five years older than Olea, Aldris had served in the Palace Guard since before her time. Still in his prime, he was a handsome man, of quick temper but quicker with charm, indulging in his blonde good looks. His wit was a test like a tiger’s claws, making sure his Captain-General knew the hearts of her men. He was as competent as they came, but today, his rare lapse of judgment had saved her from explaining things better left alone.

  Olea sighed, tousling her curls. “Just come get me next time.”

  “Yes, sir.” Aldris gazed at her askance, his tongue barely held and only because there were men of his garrison within earshot.

  Olea gestured. “Walk with me, Aldris.”

  He fell into step beside her. The Seventh Tier commanded a view of the entire valley. But Olea noted that Aldris’ gaze was all for her, furtive glances with a grin that said he didn’t know whether to tease her or behave himself right now. The heat was searing, still two hours before noon. Olea tugged her shirt open more above her half-buckled jerkin. A breeze rifled her shirt, Inkings bared. She was pleased to see Aldris grin more. It was always thus between them, innuendo without substance.

  “Tell me, Aldris,” Olea gazed out over the byrunstone roofs of Lintesh as she walked the edge of the tier, “what do you know of the Kingsmen?”

  “I know there's a really hot one standing in front of me right now. Great ass. Nice tits. Black Inkings she likes to show off to get a rise out of people.”

  Olea eyeballed him. “Don't you have any respect?”

  He rubbed his short blonde beard and grinned wider. “Not so much, Captain. I was a pain in the ass long before you came along to flog me with your good looks and charm.”

  Olea’s mouth quirked. “So what do you know about the Kingsmen?”

  “Besides what you've told me? Not much. I was never interested in politics. Women, sure. Drink, definitely. Doing my job when I
was on watch and getting into brawls when I wasn't? Definitely.”

  “I know your sordid history, Aldris.”

  “I was a hothead in my youth, Olea. What can I say?” He grinned wider, clearly enjoying their banter.

  “You're still a hothead.”

  “Touché.”

  “So what do you know of the Kingsmen?”

  Aldris suddenly stopped her with a hand to her arm, turned to face her, his expression shrewd and deadly serious. There was a good mind inside Aldris, when he wasn't testing Olea's patience. And an even better swordsman. “What's this all about? Why are you asking now after all these years we've been friends? I thought you didn't like to talk about what happened to you…”

  Olea's eyes hardened in warning. “I asked you a question, Lieutenant. Answer it.”

  Aldris scoffed. “You only take that tone with me when something serious is up. What's going on? Olea. I'm your Third-in-Command. What are you looking into?”

  Olea took a long breath. Aldris was like Fenton. Sharp as tacks and hard to fool. “I just need to hear what you know. What you saw that day.”

  He gave her a wary eyeball, but finally began to talk. “It was surreal, you know? I saw them march into Lintesh, from way up here. All the men who were Seventh Tier with me at the time are retired or transferred on now. I was the youngest of the lot, but we started wagering. If the Summons was true, what treason the Kingsmen had committed, what was going to happen.”

  “What do you recall of the Kingsmen?”

  Aldris’ gaze flicked to her chest. “They were a hard lot. Hard, but… calm, you know? When I was a boy, I remember a bunch of Kingsmen settled a dispute among the grain merchants. We couldn’t get bread here in Lintesh, not for a week or more, because the merchant bank was bickering over the prices and the farmers wouldn’t sell their grain so low. But the Kingsmen came, and damn if that dispute wasn’t settled that very afternoon.”

  “And the day they marched on the palace?”

  “I don't know much, sad to say. I remember going down to the barracks after my shift. I thought I would see a few Kingsmen wandering around the palace like a lot of folk do at night. But I never saw a one of them. Maybe they were just a private lot, sticking to their rooms, but I didn’t even see them in the kitchens for a late-nighter, or out on the grounds for a walk. And the next day, the maids said they’d all gone. Left in the night. Gone more surely than the Ghost of Roushenn does when the torches flicker. But how do so many people leave so suddenly? Strange, you know? It was too bad. I was hoping to see a few of them up close.”

  Aldris’ clear eyes held Olea’s, and there was something angry in them before the teasing glint came back. “But now I get to see a Kingswoman up close everyday. And someone else did last night, apparently. Up close and personal from the sound of it…”

  “Is there something you’d like to ask, den'Farahan?” Olea growled.

  His lips curled up, wry, noting her sour mood. “There are many things I’d like to ask you, Captain, if they weren’t likely to get my head on a platter. Such as why you're looking into the Kingsmen disappearance. But I know when to keep my mouth shut. So I’ll ask something safer.” Aldris’ husky voice was breathless as he stepped close. “Do you have magic thighs that men slip into and get lost in? Is that what happened to the poor fellow last night that the lads heard you sighing for in your rooms?”

  “Yes.”

  Aldris nearly exploded with laughter. Their banter ever turned this way, while drinking and dicing or walking the ramparts. He was a friend and he knew it, pushing the limits of innuendo. “Magic thighs, Aeon be damned! I figured. Who was the lucky fellow that got trapped in there last night and sealed his doom?”

  “Stow it, den’Farahan.” Last night’s bad dreams were not something Olea would disclose. No man had graced her quarters for nearly two years. Not since Dhenir Alden’s death. But Aldris didn’t know that.

  “Come on.” Aldris sidled close. “Who was it? Den’Rhashak? Den’Sulith? I hear he has a monstrous cock, nearly as long as all six feet of him. Or are you fucking the Black Ghost of Roushenn? Is that why no one ever sees these men entering or leaving your quarters? He just slips through the walls like mist into your bedchamber at night, sliding right in to his pleasure…”

  Olea set her lips, but felt herself smiling anyway. Aldris was a boon, always teasing her out of brooding in black places. Her mood lifted, and at last she could feel the bright promise of the day. Fenton had been her safety, her right-hand man, keeping her calm all these years. But Aldris had been her partner in crime, quick with a laugh and an ale.

  “I said stow it.” Olea grinned.

  Aldris chuckled as he stepped away. “What other magic do you have besides your hot gates?”

  “The kind of magic that can pick out a conversation all the way down there.” Olea nodded over the ramparts, down at the throng in the market far below. “If the wind blows just right.”

  “That old tale again?” Aldris’ handsomely chiseled face made a tutting pout. “Would you swear it on your sword? Or better yet… on mine?”

  “No playing with your sword up here while you’re on duty, den’Farahan. Or swearing. I’ll hear it.”

  He grinned, enlivened. “I may just have to say some very specific things, Captain, to see if you can hear them.”

  “Say whatever you like, Lieutenant, just be sure the wind is blowing in the opposite direction.” Olea turned to go, needing to continue her rounds. She turned her back and walked along the ramparts towards the stairs down to Tier Six. But she had not gone fifty paces before a whisper upon the wind caught her ears.

  “Wish I was the Ghost of Roushenn…”

  She turned, giving Aldris a raised eyebrow. Second-Lieutenant Aldris den’Farahan looked stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter so loud that Guardsmen all along the tier turned their heads to look.

  * * *

  Down in the West Guardhouse at the end of her day, Olea had been unable to concentrate upon the week’s supply lists. As Fourth-Captain of the Realm, it was part of her job to review lists not just for the Guard, but also the Lintesh reports for the companies at the Valenghian border before they went to the Chancellate. The tedious list blurred before her as she thought about Aldris' disturbing report of the night the Kingsmen had disappeared. And of the man who’d saluted her at the fountain nearly a week ago, though she’d not seen him since.

  At last, Olea gave up, signing the whole damn thing. The guardhouse had emptied after the change of watch, and she was alone with Corporal Jherrick den’Tharn, a young man who had proven himself whip-smart with just about everything. But just as Olea was about to dump all the week’s lists upon young Jherrick’s desk so he could do one last review before they went to Chancellor Rudaric den’Ghen, her attention suddenly alighted upon a curious discrepancy.

  Olea hesitated at the edge of Jherrick’s desk, list still to hand.

  “Something off, Captain?” Jherrick den’Tharn looked up with a frown, scrubbing a hand through his wheat-blonde hair. He blinked blonde-lashed grey eyes behind his spectacles, then took them off and cast them thoughtlessly to the desk. Jherrick, Olea had noticed, hated wearing his reading spectacles, and was forever fussing with them. Olea supposed it was considered weak for a Guardsman to need spectacles, and Jherrick didn’t wish to appear more physically inept than he already was.

  Jherrick den’Tharn had only four years in the Guard. In the practice yards, he was atrocious, with balance so awful it was like both his legs had been put on backwards, his blade swings clumsy and wild. The palace serving-lad with no family had almost been cut from the recruits until Olea had found out he was learned with numbers and languages. She had needed someone with brains for the lists, and thankfully, Jherrick was exceptionally brainy. And so had secured his position at her side, day in and day out, other than his occasional duties in the Upper Cells.

  “Jherrick…” Olea set the ledger down in front of him, her finger marking one spot.
“Why is Lintesh sending two hundred barrels of dried plums to the Valenghian border every month when we’re only sending a hundred new recruits? The recruits only need a barrel apiece to keep their bowels regular when they get on front-rations.”

  Jherrick blinked at the ledger, but did not put his spectacles back on. “Unusual constipation?”

  Olea chuckled. “That would be some constipation, to need that many prunes.”

  Jherrick sat back in his chair, put one boot up against the desk. Olea and Jherrick were casual in the Guardhouse when no one else was about. They often worked long hours pouring over lists, and in his last four years, Jherrick had proven himself of agile mind and wry humor.

  “Maybe they’re feeding the new recruits too much wheat-mush when they get to the border. Stopping them up so they don’t shit themselves when they catch their first skirmish. Then they need more prunes to get everything out afterwards.” Jherrick was grinning like a younger version of Aldris, though something somber in his nature could never match Aldris’ levity.

  Olea scuffed her boot on the floor, put her hands on her hips, chuckling. “Could be. But I doubt it. Check into it. It could be a calculation error, but that many prunes would imply that we’re sending far more recruits than we are. Unless there are magical troops appearing from nowhere to go fight for us at the border… then we’ve got some prune thievery going on.”

  Jherrick chuckled, his eyes glinting with dark mischief. “The prune thief. Let’s see… whom do we know that is chronically constipated and would want to steal all the realm’s prunes?”