The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

  Farrasond continued to read in silence. The adjunct snapped his fingers and the bodies of Thekam, Lasser, and Rewlon were dragged away to a waiting nightsoil cart. The carter made a show of putting on his gloves before heaving them up; then he pushed the cart downwind of Bronlar and out of sight.

  “Warden Jemarial,” said the adjunct, “may I speak as a peer about Air Carbineer First Class and hero of ninety-seven victories in clear air war duels, Flyer Serjon Feydamor?”

  “You may, Sair Adjunct. Even the sound of his name cheers me.”

  “I saw that you spoke with him before he ascended this morning. Was it a cordial parting?”

  “No, Sair Adjunct. He took my most desperate attempt at apology very badly.”

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  “But I have something of him, the original of his apology to me, penned by his own hand. It is the only thing left to me of my darling, lost Serjon, so I wear it cupped around my left breast, close to my heart. It caresses my skin every hour, minute, and second of the day.”

  The sheer horror of Bronlar’s sudden and devastatingly unqualified worship of Serjon was too much for Ryban. His bowels failed him and he fouled himself noisily. Farrasond suddenly snapped out of the trance in which he had been reading the translated dispatch, and he flung himself on Ryban, seizing him by the hair.

  “Pick up that dispatch and read it!” he shrieked as he smashed Ryban’s face into the wingfield surface over and over. “Read it! Read it aloud! Read it!”

  Ryban’s hands were trembling so badly from Bronlar’s beating that it was some moments before he could unfold the papers and find the Cosdoran translation. He began to read through broken teeth, word for word. He got through the preliminaries slowly, knowing and dreading what was to come. A tiny detail loomed ahead like a mountain, a detail that detracted from Serjon’s undoubted guilt. It was an inconvenient detail that he had bent aside four days earlier.

  “‘Serjon Feydamor changed his testimony to exonerate you by mentioning details that he had not included in the previous testimony. Later that day the body of the tail gunner was exhumed and a bullet was recovered—’”

  “Later that day?” bellowed Farrasond. “You never read those words to Warden Jemarial! Monterbil told me so too, and the adjunct of Vernal.” He smashed Ryban’s face into the ground again. “You didn’t even read the sentences in that order!”

  “The, the light was b-bad,” said Ryban. “In jubilation … must have misarranged the, the sense, the g-grammar. An honest mistake, I swear.”

  “You read it to us five times that night!” Monterbil reminded him from where he lay. “You wanted to get her spirits soaring so that she would land in your bed again.”

  Farrasond took two cod-buttons from the folder and held them up.

  “You failed her, just as surely as if you ignored a bent valve or a clogged filter. You warped the translation. The rest of you were stupid enough not to check his work. As a result Warden Jemarial’s heart fell out of the sky and crashed to its death! Listen, all of you. The adjunct’s folder also contained the severance certificates of our articles of service, and there is a nullity endorsement from the Airlord of Cosdora. We do not exist! We are legally dead. Anyone can shoot us down who feels inclined to waste a bullet.”

  Farrasond stood up, walked over to Monterbil, and kicked him in the ribs.

  “Get up,” he ordered. “Stand with the others.”

  The guildsmen moved slowly, aware that the guns of the carbineers were tracking their every move. He pointed to Ryban.

  “Seize him,” Farrasond ordered, tossing the two brass buttons into the air and catching them.

  The guildsmen fell upon Ryban, and the shrieking went on for a very long time. Monterbil and Farrasond were later killed by demobilized carbineers while the guildsmen were fleeing through Condelor, but the remaining three escaped into the countryside and east into the mountains. They were never heard of again.

  Half an hour later Samondel returned with Serjon’s gunwing, to get compression spirit for another ascent. She noticed odd scraps of bloody meat on the ground near Serjon’s area and decided to complain.

  “They attract birds, and birds mean birdstrike,” Samondel said huffily to a wingfield directant, remembering a passage from some book of wingfield procedures.

  “No bird would bother, Ladyship,” replied the directant, “but I shall have them cleaned up.”

  Suddenly Samondel gasped with shock and danced sideways. Serjon’s guildsmen were servicing Princess prior to bringing it back into operational service, but lying beside one wheel was a severed human head. The nostrils were sealed with two brass buttons, the lips had been sewn shut, and the cheeks bulged ominously.

  “That—” began Samondel, pointing with one hand while the other covered her mouth. “What—I mean, who?”

  “He learned by experience that while heroes are only human, they are very dangerous and not to be toyed with, Ladyship. Experience is a costly school, but there are always fools willing to pay the fee.”

  Ten days after leaving Condelor, Serjon was back at Pocatello to receive a dispatch containing the joint response of the three Bartolican rulers. Seyret met him at the wingfield as his sailwing was being refueled.

  “If things do not prosper for you in Yarron, the new dominions will always welcome you,” she assured him.

  “I did not get ninety-seven clear air victories by running away,” Serjon said, his manner more alive than it had been before. “Just in case I never return here, however, may I say that you were a quite exquisite hostess, Seyret.”

  “If all goes well, promise to return.”

  “I do promise.”

  He turned to check if the fuelers’ guild was done with his sailwing. Seyret took him by the arm after glancing about to see that they were still out of anyone’s earshot.

  “Bronlar came here three days ago, we had a long talk.”

  Serjon swallowed, and was dismayed to feel his warm glow of well-being chilling beneath a crust of ice.

  “Was she … civilized?”

  “She explained everything: every lie, misunderstanding, accident, betrayal, and plot. She needed to talk to someone, Serjon, to have someone understand. I heard about every lie she was told, every grunt and thrust her guildsmen gave, and everything else she has done since the night of the banquet in Condelor’s palace. She has made it up to you, Serjon, I believe that and you should too.”

  He looked to his sailwing again. A fueler was standing with a completion flag while other guildsmen were wheeling a steam trolley over to start the compression engine.

  “So what now? Will you hate me too if I don’t love her?”

  “Serjon, you could go over to the pennant pole and piss on my fiancé’s boot and I’d still love you. All I ask is that you soften a little for Bronlar, and I ask that as your friend.”

  Serjon went down on one knee and kissed her hand, then returned to his sailwing. Seyret’s fiancé now joined her and they stood together watching him taxi away to the flightstrip.

  “Did he listen?” asked the young warden.

  “He listened,” replied Seyret, “but he may not have heard.”

  9

  THE DOOMSDAY FLOCK

  30 August 3961: Condelor

  Serjon landed at the Condelor palace wingfield in brilliant sunshine and taxied to the crowded marshaling area. The adjunct was waiting, along with his field guildsmen. Off to the north Samondel was putting Starflower through spin recoveries in the blue sky. Serjon presented the dispatches from the north and was in turn presented with a folded, sealed sheet of paper.

  “This is a summons to appear before the council of Alliance Airlords on six charges, most seriously that of perjury,” the adjunct said, his face a mask.

  “Perjury?” asked Serjon, even though he knew the answer.

  “Perjury in your testimony in favor of Warden Jemarial.”

  “I see,” replied Serjon calmly. “All right, then, I know the way.�
��

  Bronlar was waiting close by, and came running over as soon as the adjunct had signed for the courier bag. Her face, her voice, her every gesture was a picture of relief and happiness.

  “Serjon, Serjon, I have the magistrate’s declaration!” she cried.

  “Now what?” he asked with a glance to the clouds.

  “I declared you a peer, free to hail me,” she replied, sounding hurt that he had not remembered or even put a hand out to her.

  “Ah, yes. Well that assumes that I want to hail you. Now then, the council of Alliance Airlords has some stern words for me, so I must be off.”

  “Serjon, I flew to Denver and brought Lombrosh, the famous advocate, back with me. He’s been working on the charges against you as your white advocate. He had two withdrawn and reduced another three to fines—which I paid. They were five thousand gold circars, but I paid.”

  Serjon stopped, genuinely surprised for once. “Is this another trick?”

  “No, no, Lombrosh is over there with all the papers and briefs. You only have to answer perjury, and he has some powerful cases in precedent that could reduce the mandatory sentence to another fine and loss of rank. The nightmare is over, I promise.”

  Although ruthless in clear air combat, Serjon was not a vindictive man. Being a somewhat kindly romantic besides, he was unable to sustain his already waning bitterness.

  “It’s good to have you back, Little Sister, but the nightmare’s still alive and flying,” he warned. “Come now, introduce me to your advocate.”

  They began walking, Bronlar clutching the embroidered fabric of his sleeve tightly.

  “Have you passed thirteen onto some poor yoick as yet?” he asked.

  “I’ve vowed to let nobody but you touch me, ever again.”

  “So you won’t lift your thirteen curse?”

  “Serjon, I can’t! But nobody else will ever touch me. Ever. Once I feared the lonely blackness of my bed, now it is a blessed refuge and fortress.”

  The sharp-witted, bearded advocate from Denver briefed Serjon to plead not guilty and to cite a defense of a chivalric conspiracy, which apparently had a precedent going back to a case two centuries earlier. Guildsmen stood to rigid attention as the three of them passed, and a sphere of silence seemed to travel along with them.

  Within half an hour Serjon was standing before the five airlords who were currently in the palace, with a packed gallery of onlookers behind him.

  “You have heard the charge, brought by Airlord Sartov after being given testimony by Warden Bronlar Jemarial,” said Proclaimant Virtrian. “How do you plead?”

  “Guilty, as charged.”

  The white advocate from Denver dropped to his seat with his head in his hands and Bronlar squeezed her eyes shut. There was a flurry of hushed whispers from the gallery, and the red advocate returned to his seat.

  “In that case, there is nothing else to do but pronounce sentence,” Virtrian declared. “Free Flyer Serjon Feydamor, you are guilty of perjury before the council of Alliance Airlords, albeit in extenuating circumstances. In reparation you are to be discharged from the courier duties in the Airlord’s Gunwings, and will forfeit all reparations from the estate of former Warden, the late Alion Damaric. Do you accept the sentence without question?”

  Serjon shrugged. “Yes, I do accept it.”

  “In that case, the sentence is pronounced,” Virtrian declared.

  Virtrian sat down, nodding to Sartov. Sartov rose to his feet, holding papers with the crest of the new dominion of Eastgarde. He shook out his robes before speaking.

  “Sair Feydamor, speaking as your Airlord, if I find you hauled up before me one more time on any matter regarding love, hate, honor, betrayal, your lovers’ good or bad names, or amorous hanky panky in general I swear I’ll send you to a chain gang in the Red Desert and you’ll stay there long enough to grow a beard down to your knees.

  “Moving on to more important matters, I have a request from the Airlord Designate of Eastgarde before me. He requests that you be made the new Warden Liaisory between Yarron and Eastgarde, Highland Bartolica, and the other new dominions. His request is rather emphatic. Are you willing to accept this position?”

  “Lordship, to be Warden Liaisory one has to be a warden,” said Serjon, his composure suddenly shaken.

  “You have been discharged from my personal service, nothing more. As you are the son-expedient of the late Warden Remat Jannian, whose other sons are dead, you can inherit the title at my discretion and I really do want Eastgarde’s goodwill! What say you?”

  “Accepted, Lordship,” replied Serjon after hurriedly deciding that there was no alternative.

  “Will you take the name Jannian?”

  “Feydamor, Lordship, if you please.”

  “Your choice, Warden Feydamor.”

  “May I keep my Air Carbineer gunwing and field guildsmen until I can find a sponsor?”

  “Why do you want a sponsor?” asked Sartov as he shuf fled the papers he held. “The moment that you became a warden you were awarded nine hundred thousand gold circars in war duel reparations from wardenly families in Eastgarde, and further sums will be forthcoming from the other new dominions. You shot seventy-four wardens out of the sky, Warden Serjon Feydamor. The cost of your gunwing has been deducted already, and I have the invoice here. Your guildsmen volunteered to work for you for free but I suggest that you pay them, now that you are richer than any other Yarronese—myself included.”

  Ramsdel took Serjon aside while the council was making a number of other pronouncements.

  “What did I miss while I was away?” Serjon asked.

  “Have you heard nothing?”

  “Only that Bronlar got me an expensive advocate who had some of the less serious charges dropped. Oh, and that she swore that nobody else will ever raise her coattails and lower her drawers but me—which is unlikely because, ah …”

  “I know about the thirteen business. Did you know that she’s barely sane?”

  “What? But I’ve spoken with her. She seemed distraught but coherent.”

  “Her guildsmen were flown in from Cosdora, a special boon by the Cosdoran Airlord. She beat two of them to a pulp for daring to say hullo first—including the chubby one who had deflowered her and lied about the trial. Three more were shot by wingfield carbineers for trying to hold her back. The other Cosdoran guildsmen laid hold of the chubby one, jammed two brass cod buttons up his nose then stuffed his mouth with his own—well, he choked to death, then they—brrr, you don’t want to know. The rest were endorsed as nullity, declared ney vitiar mondinil: the walking dead. Two were shot dead on the outskirts of Condelor, the other three may have reached the mountains.”

  Serjon folded his hands and thought for a time.

  “None of that is beyond the law, strictly speaking. Wardens can beat any guildsman for negligence, undue familiarity, or insolence. I’d certainly class tricking her into jiggery as undue familiarity.”

  “It’s far, far worse. Just … just wait, and watch. I need to find a very brave friend.”

  Bronlar stood before the council soon after that, and stated that she had been disgracefully negligent in the discipline of her guild crew. This had led her to make an unlawful assault on Warden Liaisory Serjon Feydamor. Virtrian fined her one gold circar and told her to take all such cases to the Yarronese civil magistrates in future. She returned to stand near where Serjon was sitting, obviously wanting to leave with him when the council rose. An ashen-faced guildsman from Ramsdel’s crew shuffled forward and inclined his head to speak. Serjon was close enough to hear his whisper.

  “That was a brave thing to do, Warden Jem—”

  Bronlar screamed with rage, seized the guildsman, and whirled him around, slamming him against the advocate’s dock. She punched him twice in the face before he went down, and had seized the council’s winged mace to strike him before Serjon managed to tackle her and pin her arms.

  “Let go! He hailed me!” Bronlar shouted hysterically
as Serjon dragged her back. “That guildsman filth hailed me, I demand reparation in the letter of chivalric law!”

  “Strictly speaking, the law is with her,” said Serjon as he and Ramsdel sat in the Flying Swinelet nursing untouched goblets of wine.

  “She thrashed eleven guildsmen thus before the word spread,” Ramsdel explained. “Today is twelve.”

  “Of course I’ll pay your fine and compensate your guildsman. That was a brave, loyal thing for him to do.”

  “Pah, he agreed that you needed to see her at her worst. He’s all right. Only some bruising and loose teeth.”

  “Don’t the Airlords frown upon this? Why, they just sat there while she was beating him.”

  Ramsdel explained how the airlords were trying to restore some of the credibility of chivalric law, which had been weakened seriously in the war between Bartolica and Yarron. They could not censure Bronlar without bringing in reforms, and in a way she served to show the citizens of Mounthaven how lenient their wardens really were in practice but how powerful in principle. The air and ground carbineers had done their work, and now they were expected to accept the leash again. Making Serjon a warden was part of the same conspiracy. He was a hero, therefore he had to be a noble.

  That evening Serjon and Ramsdel assembled a field ground crew for Bronlar, after asking her to promise to merely report lapses by the guildsmen rather than thrashing them instantly. He also gave Starflower to Samondel, and bought Princess for himself. What with all that had happened, he did not want her to be in Alion’s former gunwing. After dinner at one of the serveries near the palace Serjon and Bronlar strolled the gardens by a canal as the sky darkened and Mirrorsun rose. Bronlar clung to Serjon’s sleeve all the time, and when they were far from the nearest strollers she shyly drew out a small pubic comb of jade inlaid with gold. The inlay spelled Serjon’s name.