Exiles of Forlorn

by Sean T. Poindexter

“Her name is Hratoe,” said the vulture man.

  “I thought you said you didn’t know her,” snapped Ferun, getting in his face as well as he could, the vulture man was nearly as tall as Uller.

  “I don’t.” He looked into Ferun’s one eye, undaunted. Volteri were difficult to frighten. “I just know her name.”

  “How?”

  He groaned in reply and grabbed the girl’s arm. She didn’t resist. He pushed the sleeve of her robe up past her elbow and held out her arm out for them to see. I couldn’t tell from where I stood what it was, but she appeared to have a long, twirling tattoo lacing up from wrist to bicep.

  “She has an indelible.” He ran his skinny fingers along it. “See? Hratoe Matgortius, daughter of Panen.” He let go of her arm and yanked back the black-feathered sleeve of his own robe. “And here is mine: Gargath Dantumia, son of Konst.” He released his sleeve and dropped his arm. “It makes it easier to identify the corpses if their previous occupants label them.”

  Ferun seemed displeased with the tone and tenor of Gargath’s explanation. He kept staring at him with that one eye. Arn chuckled.

  “That actually makes sense.” The Sand King nodded. “We’ve never had a vultureman before so we don’t know your ways. We usually send our dead to ashes. The corpse-handlers of your city clean the dead for . . . reuse, is that correct? You bind wounds and make the bodies whole so they can be reanimated?”

  Gargath ignored the looks of disgust on several of those around him and nodded. “Though I am not a necromancer, I can’t actually make them walk—”

  Arn stopped him with a wave and a quick nod. “That’s fine, we don’t need that. I figure if you can clean and stitch wounds on a dead body, you can do something similar to a live one?” Gargath took a second before shrugging his shoulders, making the soft black feathers running down his robe shiver. Arn nodded and looked at Ferun. “Tell Nol he’s got a new healer.”

  They spent a little time talking to a half dozen Illyrvolk—ethnic Illyrians who defected to Morment, likely to escape the taxes or the draft. In Morment, they tended to be farmers, and without surprise that was what they were assigned to do here, except for one. Following them was a family of savage Plainsfolk, two grown men, a half-grown boy and a pair of women, one with a baby in her arms. One of the men was older by far, so he was made a farmer. He seemed pleased with this assignment. The half-grown boy and the other man were made guards. The woman with the child was assigned to the nursery, while the other was given her choice of cooking or farming. She chose the former.

  Then they came to us. “What do you do?” asked Arn, looking down at Reiwyn with a grin. She put her hands on her hips.

  “I don’t cook.” That got some chuckles from Melvon and Ferun, and a little grin from Sharkhart.

  “No, I don’t suppose you do.” Arn scratched his beard and smiled. “You’re here for . . . what?”

  “I was a sailor—”

  “Sailor?” Melvon snorted and laughed. “You ain’t no sailor!”

  “She’s a pirate, sir,” came Ferun. His one good eye scanned Reiwyn’s little body so fast she couldn’t have noticed. I noticed, though. “She’s got the look of a crow-nester.”

  I had no idea what that was. Ships weren’t really my thing. Reiwyn knew, though. Just hearing him say it seemed to make her go a little limp. I watched her enough to notice. I watched her a lot.

  “He’s right.” She nodded.

  Arn apparently knew what that was too. He nodded and looked over his shoulder at Ferun. “Give her Banny’s old hornbow. He isn’t using it anymore.” He looked at her again. “Can you fletch your own arrows?” She nodded. “We don’t have much steel, but you can get the fishers to give you some gar scales. They’re plenty sharp, and lighter than flint.”

  Reiwyn seemed more than happy with that arrangement.

  “And what do you do?” Arn asked when he stepped to Blackfoot. He towered over him like a tree and gave him a wry grin.

  “What does it look like I do?”

  “Hmmm . . .” Arn stroked his short, yellow whiskers. “I bet you were a barber.”

  “What? No—”

  “No, no I can see it.” Arn waved a finger at him and glanced over each shoulder at his companions. Of the three, only Ferun didn’t grin, he was busy watching Reiwyn, and her him. “You gave some noble too short a trim and he had you carted off with all these thieving, treasonous dregs.”

  “I’m not a barber!” Blackfoot tried kicking sand, but it was thick and dry and didn’t budge. He ended up just denting the ground a little. “And I don’t know what ‘tree-season-us’ means, but I’m ten times the thief of anyone here!”

  Antioc and I chuckled. Uller placed his face in his hands and Reiwyn giggled, much to the delight of Ferun, who watched her still. The Sand King smiled.

  “You have nimble fingers, do you?” Blackfoot nodded. “Good. Melvon, you were saying something about catching crabs?”

  “Longcrab, aye.” The little round fellow’s voice was a croak. “They’re too big for the traps, and strong enough to break the nets. But if we could have more of them, we’d have a lot more meat to go around.”

  “What do you think . . . what’s your name?”

  “Blackfoot.” He demonstrated the origin of his name by lifting one of his feet and pointing at the thick, black bottom.

  “Blackfoot, yes. What do you think; are you fast enough to catch a crab, and to show others how to do it too?”

  “I’m fast enough.”

  “We might make him take a bath.” Ferun winced at the little thief with his one good eye. “Lest the crabs have noses.”

  Arn moved to Antioc next. “You don’t look like a barber either.”

  “No, my lord.”

  Arn sighed. “A pity. We really need a barber.” He scratched his chin. “And don’t call me lord. There are no lords here, soldier. You were a soldier, weren’t you?”

  “I still am, my lor—sir.”

  Then he looked at me. “So were you.”

  “I—well, not a very good one.”

  Arn laughed. “But you were in the service together, I can tell. It’s the way you two stand. Like one of you is waiting for the other to tell him what to do.” His eyes passed between us for a moment. He seemed so familiar; not just his look, but the way he spoke and carried himself. He was no common man; that was certain. He spoke well and seemed aware of his posture, though he wasn’t overbearing about it like many noble sons.

  I realized then that he wasn’t the only one looking me over. Sharkhart had apparently taken an interest in me as well, and I found that more than a little disconcerting. I managed to get a closer look at the thing on his belt, though. The coil I thought was a rope turned out to be a whip, but the little white studs were actually teeth. Shark teeth, by the look of them, and they lined the leather strips of the whip from carved bone handle to the weighted end. Seeing it made me nervous, so I looked at Arn instead, and tried to pretend I didn’t notice Sharkhart hovering over me.

  Arn looked about to speak when Ferun cut him off. “We’ve got lots of soldiers. More than we know what to do with.”

  “Yes,” Arn replied, “but what we don’t have a lot of are officers.” He looked at me. “You were an officer, right?”

  “After a sort, I suppose. I was—am an engineer, though. I wasn’t a comb—”

  “And you were a footman, aye?” He looked at Antioc, but went on before he could answer. “Probably fresh from a battle when they put you in irons, taking orders from bloated secondsons and gouty old knights. You likely know more about battle formations than all those idiots combined.”

  Antioc stifled a grin.

  “You’re both lieutenants now. Congratulations. Sorry we don’t have any ribbons or medals to pin on your chests.” He gestured over his shoulder with a thumb at some armed men at the gate. “They answer to you, you answer to Ferun, and Ferun answers to me. Any questions?”

  Ferun had a question. “Arn, I didn’t s
ay I needed—”

  “You said you’ve got more soldiers than you know what to do with,” Arn interrupted. A tense moment was shared between them. “You’ve said it numerous times . . . all I ever hear about is how hard it is for you to keep track of them.” He gestured to us with open hands. “Well, now you’ve got help.”

  “Sir,” Antioc gestured to me. “He’s got more command experience than me. I was just a footman.”

  “I was an engineer.” I didn’t mind being an officer, I just didn’t want people expecting things of me that I couldn’t deliver. “I built walls. Or, ordered people to build walls . . . ”

  “Fair,” Arn said with a wave. He looked at me then Antioc. “You’re a captain and you’re a lieutenant. Everyone happy?”

  Ferun’s eye widened. “I’m a captain. That makes him of a rank with me.”

  “Well, now you’re a general. Is all fair now?” Everyone got quiet.

  Melvon smiled. “Congratulations.”

  “Stow it,” growled Ferun.

  Arn exchanged a look with Sharkhart, and for a moment I could swear I saw the savage crack a smile. Ferun wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t looking at Reiwyn anymore, either. He was looking at me, and not nearly as lustily. He couldn’t blame me for this.

  “What about you?” He passed Sharkhart and moved to the end of the line, where stood Uller, his pasty skin growing moister and redder by the second. “What did you do?”

  “I—”

  “He’s a wizard,” said Blackfoot, followed by a laugh. It seemed like the little guy had been holding that in for hours.

  “Shut your hole, urchin,” Uller snapped. His boldness vanished as his eyes turned from the chuckling burglar to Arn. “I’m not a wizard. I was an apprentice to the head of the Hagorium at the Spire. I was exiled before my training could complete.”

  “Well, Yuten is in luck then. He’s been aching for an apprentice.”

  “An apprentice?” Uller’s eyes widened. “You have a wizard?”

  “Of a sort. I don’t know how much formal training he’s had.”

  Uller’s eyes narrowed, and he lowered them to the ground. “A hedge wizard?”

  “He lives in a hole, telling fortunes and brewing potions. He’s tried to take an apprentice from some of the younger folk here, but none of them seemed to have the knack for it. He’ll be overjoyed to meet someone he can discuss star-charts and ley-lines with.”

  Uller shrugged and nodded. It was a long way to fall, being the star pupil of the most elite school of sorcery, rubbing elbows and fetching tea for the greatest mages in the world to apprenticing for a hedge wizard. As he’d not expected to find any sort of training on Forlorn, it was better than he could have hoped for. Still, it made me feel sorry for him, just a little.

  Our new boss was gracious enough to give us a few hours to mingle with the residents before the noontime meal. After that, we’d be given housing assignments. As they left, I heard them chatting lightly. Melvon struggled to keep up with his taller fellows as they ascended the hill to the village. I heard him ask between heavy breaths if he could be a general now, too.

  The others mulled about uncertainly. Some climbed the hill to the village, others went to the shore and looked out over the water, possibly to see if they could still spot the skiffs, if it wasn’t too late to wave them down.

  Soon, it was just us by the beach, me and my little band of friends. We formed a ring in the sand with our bodies and exchanged looks. I looked past the village at the black, snow-capped mountains in the distance. We were closer now than we’d been since we learned what was there waiting for us, but it still seemed thousands of leagues from our grasp. I caught Uller giving the mountains a similar look, before our eyes met. He nodded, and I nodded back. We both looked at Reiwyn at the same time. Then all eyes were on me.

  “Welcome to Forlorn Colony.” That got grins from everyone and a laugh from Blackfoot. “Let’s go mingle, Lieutenant.” I gestured to Antioc.

  “After you, Captain.”

  5.

  Antioc dug about in the riverbed while I picked at my sunburn. The skin had already started flaking off, leaving a pinkish-brown layer that hopefully would be a bit more stalwart against the sun. Because the sun was always there in Forlorn, always there, leaning on you like a fat friend with foul breath and boundary problems.

  At least there was shade there, where the stream burst from the thick woods and met the sand and emptied to a big, round lagoon, before breaking into another stream and depositing into the sea. I soaked my feet in it and leaned against a rock. Further down, Blackfoot built a wall of sand with one of the boys his age from the village. To their back, down the hill and across a wide wooden bridge, was the northeastern gate to the village. It was always open at this time of the day. Other exiles came and went, most of them travelling to the lagoon for some recreation away from the crowd and stink of the colony. Though many had come and gone since we arrived, currently three women, two younger and one older, played naked in the lagoon.

  Uller had come out with us, but vanished right away to go looking for herbal components and reagents for spells and whatnot. That left us with a stocky plains savage with a bow and a reed quiver of stone-tipped arrows named Threestep. He seemed wholly interested in watching the ladies swimming. I watched them for a while but found it more annoying than enjoyable. It only reminded me of the one I truly wanted to see.

  I picked up a long stick and began to trace idly in the sand. I looked down at the beach and a wave of dark black hair in the distance. I started to smile when I realized it was Reiwyn. My smile vanished when I saw a cyclopean figure standing a little too close for my liking. I clenched my jaw and let out a breath like steam from a kettle.

  “That a map?” Threestep’s voice jolted me from my little trance. He pointed a thick finger to the sand at my feet, where I saw the half-drawn image of the map Roren had made me commit to memory.

  “Yes, sure,” I said, too shocked to hide my tension. Daevas, I’d started drawing the thing almost in my sleep at this point!

  “I don’t recognize it. Is it where you’re from?”

  I was happy he was oblivious, but couldn’t risk him figuring out this was part of the same island we now called home. I kicked sand over my drawing, turning it into an indecipherable mess. “Cartography is something of a hobby.”

  “Why’d you wreck it?” He looked offended, like I’d just snapped his arrows.

  “I’m not very good . . . it’s just a hobby I picked up as a child.” I feigned a smile and looked for a diversion. I found it sorting rocks by the lagoon’s edge. “Antioc, you find whatever it is you sought?”

  “I believe I did.” He lifted one stone from his collection above the rest and turned to face us. Threefoot’s attention quickly shifted.

  “Oh, you found a rock,” I said with a nod. “How fair. I was just thinking how short on rocks we were.”

  Antioc ignored my derision and polished the side of his prize with a flap of cloth. It wasn’t a particularly special rock, but its shape stood out from the rest of his excavation. It was roughly wedge shaped, with the edges rounded by decades in the water. As it dried, it took on a sandy beige hue with flicks of blue and white. I wouldn’t have called it pretty, but my big friend certainly seemed impressed by it.

  “I have what I need, let’s go.” He wrapped the stone in cloth and tied a strip of sinew around the top, fashioning a sack.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Uller?” I nodded to the woods. “You know how he gets.”

  “Of course. I forgot all about him.”

  “No doubt from the excitement of stone collecting.”

  Antioc narrowed his eyes to my sly grin and stood, looking into the woods. He shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand. “Where is he? He doesn’t usually wander this far.”

  “Maybe he got lost?” suggested Threestep. “We should go find him then?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” I sighed and stood beside them. “We should take Blackfo
ot. He’s got an uncanny knack for finding people.”

  Antioc looked over his shoulder at me. “What about Reiwyn?”

  “She’s busy.”

  After we’d pried Blackfoot from his great works in the sand, the four of us trotted into the forest after our wayward wizard’s apprentice. Our path was little more than a hunting trail. Threestep was the only hunter in the group, so he took the lead with Blackfoot close behind to check the path for signs of Uller. His keen eye for detail was quite useful, as he saw several things we’d have missed. He also had a weird fascination with Uller and always seemed to know what he was doing, which would make figuring out where he went easier.

  He almost jumped over Threestep when he found what he was looking for.

  “See this?” He held the end of a barren green stalk of a stugroot. Its usual pink and green blossom was missing, leaving only a blunted shaft at the end. Blackfoot pointed at it. “Uller picked this. He definitely came this way.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t eaten by wild swine?” asked Threestep. “They eat those flowers. They eat everything.”

  Blackfoot shook his head. “Definitely picked with care. The edge is sliced, like with Uller’s bone knife. A swine would have just mashed it all up.”

  “That’s why we brought Blackfoot,” I said with a satisfied smile.

  “Uller said he was looking for stugroot blossoms,” Blackfoot explained.

  “For a spell?” asked Antioc.

  Blackfoot shook his head. “He wanted to make red dye with it.”

  I crinkled my nose. “What does he need dye for?”

  “Why would I know?” Blackfoot tensed, his eyes widening. I almost saw his ears move. I’d barely considered asking him what was wrong when he put his finger to his mouth and gave me a hushing look.

  Antioc drew his long bone dagger in one hand and held the rock sack in the other. Threestep slowly knocked an arrow. They both scanned the woods around them. Now I was getting worried. I winced and listened as hard as I could. I heard birds singing, the beach in the distance, and the faint rustle of wind in the trees accompanied by a soft thumping . . .