“Business in the King’s City, Soldier?”
Elohl nodded and handed over his notice. The man scanned it, then looked up, his eyebrows raised with respect. “High Brigade? Honorable discharge of completed service? We don’t get many of these. Follow me, please, Lieutenant.”
The stocky guard left instructions and the rest saluted him, confirming Elohl’s suspicion of his position. He led the way, dodging and weaving through the mid-afternoon traffic of the Tradesman Quarter. Carts and people lingered at the colorful awnings of market-stalls all along the upsloped main avenue, leading towards the higher Tiers of the city, nestled in the embrace of the encircling Kingsmount. Pennants with the cobalt crest of House den’Ildrian fluttered in the hot breeze, lofted upon tall wrought-iron poles at intervals between solid buildings of ancient bluestone. Some of the buildings in this poorer Quarter were ornately gabled and fluted, carved straight from crags of the mountain, but the area was dominated by lower four-story affairs built of hewn stone blocks. Here and there were houses of thatch-and-beam, crammed in among the rest like an afterthought.
The broad avenues had been expertly designed long ago, their blocks tightly-fitted though deeply worn from the passage of traffic over time. Dust gathered, swirled up into the air with a reek that smelled of city, unclean to Elohl’s nose. Sweat and horse, shit and piss, the iron tang of smelted metals. Elohl swatted at a fly trying to lick sweat from his neck. But despite its brusque, impersonal nature, the city around the palace had the easy feel of summer. Wash lines extended from nearly every window, fluttering like festival flags. Folk laughed, worn faces smiling as they drank ale, listening to a bard belting out a humorous song on a tavern porch for the midday meal. A troupe of Travelers performed at the fountain ahead, tambourines chiming, drums pounding as a sextet of tumblers launched each other into the air.
Elohl stared around him, seeing such a different city than he remembered. That night it had been full of ghosts, but today, it was full of life. A life so hot and bright that something warm glowed in his chest. Something purposeful and good, that made him smile as he saw a tiny girl clearly enjoying the hell out of a ripe sour-melon. Bright green juice was all over her chubby little cheeks, being wiped at to no avail by her scolding mother.
Something bubbled up within him, and Elohl laughed. Eleshen blinked at him, stunned.
The soldier escorting them looked over, a grin upon his face. “Feel good to be home?”
“Lintesh isn’t my home. But it feels good all the same.” Elohl found he was smiling.
“So were you a rope-man, Lieutenant?” The solider spoke again.
Elohl shook his head. “Lead-hand.”
The man’s blonde eyebrows nearly crawled off his face. “Not many lead-hands make it ten years.”
“I’m the first in three seasons.”
“Seen some action?”
Elohl nodded. “Skirmishes the past few summers. But the Red Valor tend to not assault the border when the snows are more than ten feet deep in the low crags.”
“And in the high crags?”
Elohl smiled at the man. “High pass climbing is all snow, all the time. We pick our way up frozen gorges and waterfalls. Gotta watch out in summer, though. Usually the waterfalls aren’t as stout as they seem.”
The man blinked. “You are one ballsy—” he glanced briefly at Eleshen, “—gentleman.”
Elohl laughed, his heart soaring to the brightness and noise. He clapped the fellow on the back. “Whatever you say. I’m just glad it’s over. Time for me and the missus to settle down. Once we get my King’s Pension.” It was a light ruse, but one that was needed right now, just in case Elohl was still being followed.
The guard’s gaze slid to Eleshen, admiring, who smiled indulgently. “Are there any farms or inns for sale in the area, my good man?” She quipped, playing the ruse.
The Guardsman dipped his chin. “Not that I can say, missus. I just keep the gates. You’ll have to see the King’s Castellan, Lhaurent den'Karthus, about the buying and selling of property in the region. The King’s Household keeps all those lists.”
“And whom do I see about my pension?” Elohl asked, making conversation until he could delve deeper into asking about whether this fellow knew about Olea.
“The Captain-General should be in the West Guardhouse right about now. She’s the one to see. Her secretary can’t dispense funds without her present, so if she’s not there, you’ll have to wait a bit. But there’s plenty of shopping and amusement in the Central Plaza, good taverns, too. The White Wheat makes a great lamb mitlass, not to mention has a private contract with the Jenners for their best pale ale every season. Lots to do while you wait for Captain den’Alrahel.”
Elohl pulled up short, stunned. “Captain?” His mouth fought for words. “Your captain is a she?” His heart hammered his chest, his senses soared wide, hoping. Fearing.
“Yeah! Most beautiful goddess of the sword you’ve ever met! But don’t tell Captain Olea I said that. She’d gut me, knives fast as she has and temper three times as quick! And a word of advice? No matter your feelings on the Kingsmen Treason, don’t mention her Inkings. She got ‘em, she flaunts ‘em, and she’ll not give you your pension if you get nasty. I’ve seen it. Here we are! The Central Plaza. West Guardhouse is just there, across the way. Enjoy Lintesh, Brigadier! You too, milady.”
With a salute to Elohl and a bow over Eleshen’s hand, he turned away, threading off into the throng. Elohl was left with his gaze pinned to the main gates of Roushenn Palace, looming between two towers of stone. The Guardhouses were austere, made of solid bluestone carven out with arrow-slits, topped with niches aplenty for a whole host of archers to rain hell down upon any invader. The massive wall above the gate was crowned with trebuchets, more spaced along the turrets of the wall, all glinting in the sunlight, well-oiled despite having never been used in recent memory.
But it was not what caught Elohl’s attention. The throng that dappled the broad market-plaza with its sprawling byrunstone fountain might as well have not been. There, far across the plaza, standing at the foot of the steps to the West Guardhouse, was his life. His feet sped, swift over the cobbles. Sound died away. Thought died away. There she was, stretching in the sunshine like a cat, currying her fingers though her tangle of blue-black curls and fanning that river of hair from the back on her neck in the sweltering heat. His gaze focused past her Guardsman's jerkin, to her Inking so brazenly displayed. To her slender-muscled height, beautiful as a sword. Closing the distance, he saw the sea-grey of her eyes now, so clear, so luminous.
Olea had always seemed that way, like her very being had been spun of pure light.
A smile Elohl hadn’t felt in ages blossomed over his face. He shucked his pack to the dusty flagstones. And in two final, running strides, he had closed the distance. She gasped, her eyes wide. But she had no more moments to react as Elohl scooped his twin into his arms, pulling her close, smelling her blue-black curls, feeling every part of her come back to him. Joy flooded him. Peace. Crushing her close, he felt her, all of her, so beautiful. Her body was thinner than he remembered, corded with sinew. He could feel ribs beneath her cobalt jerkin, as if she wasn’t eating well. He pressed his lips to her wayward curls, crushing her close. A sense of completion overtook him as he felt her lips upon his jaw. Elohl tasted salt. It took a moment before he realized he was crying.
“Elohl!” She breathed, her arms fierce around his neck. “You came!”
“Olea.” He murmured into her tousled hair. “Aeon… where have you been?!”
“I’ve been here! I’ve been here the whole time!” She squeezed him, fierce. “When you stopped writing, I… I thought… But your name never came off the lists, no one ever reported you dead or missing…!”
Elohl pulled back, gazing down into her lovely grey eyes, the storms in them roiling to match his own, but lighter, safer. His twin. A part of his being, a part of his very self and yet not. Emotion flooded out of him, drowning him, lifti
ng him, cracking whatever remained of his ice in sheets and sending it shuddering through his veins in a blissful tremor. He seized her face, rough and tender, kissing her brow, pressing their foreheads together.
“I never stopped writing, Olea! Every month, I wrote…”
“What?” Olea pulled back, her eyes red-rimmed. “But… I stopped getting letters eight years ago!”
Trepidation rippled Elohl’s gut. “I stopped getting yours at the same time…”
Olea’s grey eyes suddenly went hard and flicked around the wide plaza. “Not here. Inside.” She hissed suddenly. “Hold your tongue until I say it’s safe. Too many people may have seen us.”
Olea stepped out of his arms, brusque, as if nothing had happened. She turned and leaped the stairs to the guardhouse in a few long strides. Elohl followed, perplexed, Eleshen quiet upon his heels. Once they were inside in the stifling gloom, it was all business. Olea accepted Elohl’s notice of discharge, filing it in one of the many racks of scrolls and tomes that ringed the ample first level. She returned with a formal writ, had it witnessed by herself and her young secretary and stamped with a seal, her manner still efficient, kind but distant. She left the room. Elohl heard the clanking of a lockbox. Returning, she handed over a King’s Note in Elohl's name for the majority of his pension and the rest in gold and some smaller change in a leather pouch. Coin changed hands. A formal thanks was given in the thick heat of the guardhouse.
Olea was escorting him and Eleshen to the door, when she leaned in swiftly and murmured, “Follow the man at the fountain. I’ll be along.” Then she clasped Elohl's arm as if they were strangers, and shut the guardhouse door.
“Some homecoming! What was that all about?” Eleshen growled.
“Not now,” Elohl murmured. “Follow me.”
She shrugged, then followed in his wake through the throng in the plaza. Elohl scanned the crowd, wondering whom Olea had meant. But before he’d so much as turned in a circle, he suddenly felt a prickling blossom through his sensate sphere. He was being watched. He turned, his gaze sharpening upon the near edge of the fountain. And there, lounging upon the rim and staring at a potter’s stall, sat a man who was clearly Alrashemni. Broad-shouldered, thick like a mountain, he was all stone and strength, his black curls shining blue in the sun.
The man at the fountain stood as they approached, his gaze skating over Elohl, then Eleshen. Turning, he moved his bulk off through the crowd, dodging carts with an ease that any other man his size could never have mastered. His movement confirmed what Elohl had already known. That he and Eleshen were in good hands.
He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Winding through quiet alleys, then dipping back into the city throng under the gate-portcullises, they wound their way back down through the Tiers to the Tradesman Quarter. The man disappeared down an alley, and when Elohl turned in, he saw the double-doors of a workshop open at the end. With a glance at Eleshen, who had been increasingly silent all this while, he strode forwards, feeling out for any threat. But there was none as they gained the end of the alley. Elohl and Eleshen slipped in the doors and out of the muggy heat into a cool, well-drafted workshop that smelled of silver tang. Inside, the mountainous man studied Elohl, leaning with arms crossed at a workbench. The forge-fires were unlit in his shop, a soft gloom suffusing the space, lit by a filtering of light down from high panes of smoky glass set all along the shop’s apex. At last, the man took one knee. He put a hand to his side where a sword should have been, and fingers to the scars upon his chest, where an Inking should have been.
“Alrashemnesh ars veitriya rhovagnen,” he recited formally. “Alrashemni are welcomers of truth.”
Elohl shucked his pack by the door and took a knee also, making the same motion, one hand to a longknife at his hip as his sword was currently strapped to his back. The other palm went to his buckled leather jerkin, over his hidden Inkings. “Alrashemnesh ars veitriya rhovagnen.” He returned. It was a common start to Alrashemni negotiations. “I also welcome truth, and will speak whatever I can.”
The man rose, a kind smile lifting his scar-riven face. “You look just like your father, lad. Elohl, is it? Your sister said to expect you.”
A strange peace filled Elohl, gazing upon this man, knowing who he was, feeling the truth about him, shining and gentle. “You knew my father?”
He gave a small smile. “Some. Urloel was a great man. I hadn’t the occasion to meet him more than thrice, when he visited Dhemman to meet with our council, but he was tremendously wise, and patient. I’ve never seen such an accomplished negotiator. You should be proud, lad. He was a shining example of how we all should be.”
A choking feeling gripped Elohl’s throat, to hear such kindness, to feel it touching him, bolstering him. But there was no burn of anger anymore, and no freeze of calm. His emotions came naturally today, in a ripple that moved out from his heart and made him murmur, “Thank you.”
The big man nodded, stern but kind. “You’d be a Rakhan now—”
“I don’t wish to be.”
“Still.” The man’s deep grey eyes bored into Elohl. “It’s yours by right. By training. I can see the depth of leadership all over you, lad. I can feel it, deep in my heart. You’re Urloel’s son through and through. Hardship… has only honed it.”
Tears pricked Elohl. Eleshen was silent at his side. Her fingers stole out, clasping his lightly, a comfort. Elohl found he had nothing to say. Thoughts swirled in his mind of a time long gone, seeing how his life might have unfolded. Something must have shown upon his face, because the big man took a massive breath, then sighed it out.
“Forgive me.” He murmured. “I didn’t mean to—”
But just then, Olea strode in through the workshop’s heavy halberd-wood double doors, her curls wild. Elohl couldn’t stop himself from smiling with relief in his heart, singing his life like harp strings. She came straight to him, and Elohl wrapped his twin in his arms, fierce. She embraced him back, fervent, clutching him close.
“Elohl...” Olea breathed at his cheek. “Aeon be praised!”
“I told you I would find you.” He murmured in her ear, kissing her temple. “I told you I would always come for you. No matter what happened. No matter how far apart we are…”
He heard Olea's choked sob, felt her shudder as she gripped him. “You don't know how hard it's been, without you...! Feeling that you were alive but without any confirmation of it!”
“When I find out who was waylaying our letters...” A fierce anger rose in Elohl at last, raging hot in his gut. Protective, he clutched Olea closer, never wanting to be separated from her again. And in this moment of fierce love, he felt a stillness wrap he and Olea both, a moment of calm emptiness. Olea heaved a massive breath, then sighed, pulling back at last. Elohl set his lips to her forehead and she leaned into his kiss, eyes closed, breathing quietly.
“I love you.” Elohl murmured, feeling it, all the ferocity of it, all the pain, all the bliss.
“I love you too, Elohl.” Olea murmured. “I love you so much!”
But rather than indulging her emotions further, it was Olea who pulled back, setting her hands to his shoulders, regarding him with a frank intensity that was frightening in it levelness. Elohl saw his own hardship, his own maturation staring back at him, ten years honed, ten years of Halsos’ Hell. Olea had weathered it, same as he. And come out fighting with a natural strength and righteousness, the presence of a commander and the steadiness of one. Elohl had always had to fight his inner rage, to be glacial and calm. But Olea had steadiness in abundance, the true leader for war.
Brisk and efficient, she gave him a small shake at the shoulders. “We have information that must be shared, Elohl. I'm afraid you've come home under a strange moon. The interference in us keeping contact is not the only atrocity that's been brewed against the Kingsmen all these years.” Her hands fell from his shoulders and she turned, glancing at Vargen. “What did I miss?”
“We were just introducing
ourselves,” Vargen rumbled gently. “But I didn’t get your name, milady?” He smiled, welcoming, to Eleshen.
Eleshen flushed noticeably. If she’d taken a step out to shake Vargen’s hand, Elohl was certain she’d have bumbled it. Even so, she flicked her long honey-blonde braid distractedly, managing to get it tangled in her pack-strap. She hauled it out, ripping a number of strands of hair, all with her wide eyes pinned to the big Kingsman.
“Eleshen.” She cleared her throat, speaking louder. “Eleshen den’Fenrir.”
“Welcome, Eleshen.” Vargen’s lips lifted. “Welcome to a Council of the Kingsmen. Though you bear no Inking, I can see you are a friend. But be warned. Anything you see, hear, or do in our presence may put you at risk. It should be your choice, to stay for our council or no.”
She cleared her throat again. “Well. Forgive me, big man, but I’ve already been involved in two assassination attacks on the road since meeting Elohl. And I’m thinking that I’m safer here with the three of you in this workshop than anywhere else in the nation! So. I’ll stay put. Thank you very much.”
“Assassination attacks?” Olea’s grey eyes were livid. “What? Who?”
“I don’t know who.” Elohl murmured, reaching out to steady her with a hand to the shoulder. “And I don’t know why. But my life has been attempted a number of times these past years, Olea.”
She blinked at him, perusing his face, his skin, his forearms where he had his shirtsleeves rolled up from the heat. He saw her note the blade-scars on the backs of his forearms from fighting, though his other wrist-scars were still hidden. Her gaze traveled up, noting how his jerkin was fully buckled, even in this heat. Her gaze lingered upon the sides of his neck.
She blinked. “Did you have yourself Inked with gold-leaf? Where in Aeon’s blazes did you have that done…?”
Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Page 29
