by Kari Cordis
In the ensuing round of roars and back-slapping, Rodge was pushed again, this time hard against the wall. He came up swinging, punching that same young, blond giant in the chest with all his strength. Hurtful as this no doubt was, it was his oral contribution that really did damage.
“You big, blind goat!” he yelled. “You’re obviously not flaming Blood if you don’t have the sense to see where you’re flaming going!”
Dead silence settled over the room.
Selah, who hadn’t said a word since the barge docked in Alene yesterday, said calmly, “Run.”
Cerise and the boys looked at her.
“Run!” she yelled, and bolted for the door. Whether it was the power of suggestion or the sudden incensed roar from a dozen large and galvanized Merranics, the rest of the Northerners jumped after her.
She headed directly for the narrowest, twistiest streets around. Within minutes, Ari was thoroughly lost and completely disoriented. Not so the Merranics, whose home turf it was and who seemed to have lost every vestige of their good nature. Ari, remembering Banion and Effenrike’s single-minded efficiency in the barge ambush, hoped the national temperament didn’t run to long memories.
He was not to be so assured. They raced through town, twisting and turning, doubling back on themselves, dashing through doorways and out windows, hiding for a few minutes while they caught ragged breaths, then forced to run again when they were on the brink of discovery. They slid around corners, ducked under tables, whirled through crowds. Selah had the reflexes and unerring instincts of, well, a street rat. Again and again she found sanctuary or a back door just when it looked hopeless. Ari could barely think fast enough to keep up with her.
Almost as impressive were the unshakeable Merranics. Almost an hour after they’d run out the door to the Post, Selah found them a place in a wood box deep in a warehouse. They were down by the docks by now and so winded that it was minutes before anyone had breath enough to speak.
“This is ridiculous—are these adults or are they boys off the playground?” Cerise demanded, breathless and mad.
“What have I done?” Rodge panted in ragged melodrama. They were all thinking something similar, in various modes of regret, disbelief, or aggravation.
“Insulted a Jarl’s son,” Selah answered calmly. She was the only one not breathing heavily, sitting quietly on her haunches keeping watch. Ari noticed she had bound her leggings to the knee in the old-fashioned crisscrossed style of field laborers. It kept the cloth from catching on anything, he had to admit, fashionable or not.
“Is it worth this?” Rodge demanded.
“It is to them. Here they come.” And they were off again.
They took stairwells, abandoned buildings, rooftops, crowded squares and empty straight-aways. They dashed, they crept, they climbed, they crawled, until even Selah began to look a little perplexed.
“This has to end sometime,” Cerise gasped wildly after almost three hours of pursuit. “I’m fed up with it—they are adults, aren’t they? We’ll just face them, explain Rodge is an idiot and it was an accident, and go on like intelligent, mature human beings.”
“They’ll kill you,” Selah observed dissuasively. Ari didn’t think she was exaggerating.
“There they are!” They could recognize most of their pursuers by now. Cerise gave almost a sob, and they were moving again.
It ended as abruptly as it started.
They were running full speed—not a very significant pace at this point—around a corner when they almost bowled over Dra Kai. Everyone skidded to a halt, staring at this vaguely remembered fragment of normal life like they weren’t sure if they were dreaming or not.
Then Cerise, who was closest, threw her arms around his neck, crying in frustration, “They won’t stop chasing us!”
‘They’ barreled around the same corner just then, a dozen or more supporters having joined the cause. At the sight of the Dra, every one of them came screeching to a halt. And then Ari noticed something he’d missed with the surprise of seeing Kai…there were two others with him. Neither was as tall as he, but both unmistakably wore double-hipped swords tied down to their black leathers. They had the same lean, dark bodies and implacable, unmoving faces. You hardly ever saw a Dra anymore—it was unheard of to see more than one together.
This evidently had penetrated the impassioned bloodlust of their pursuers as well, because there was a pause of perfect silence.
Kai firmly removed the half-sobbing aristocrat from his chest and stepped forward. “I am Dra Kai. What is the offense here?”
Almost as one, every Merranic sword went back in its sheath. It made Ari wonder why Melkin was the spokesman for the group, when Kai was so obviously and profoundly effective. He wasn’t sure it was all just deadly reputation either. The Dra’s low, even-tenored voice carried both strength and that indescribable charisma that made people stop and listen, made them want to oblige.
“Dra,” the lead Merranic panted in wary greeting. He was the one that had been doing all the announcing at the Post. Ari supposed it was a measure of their respect that, despite the 5:1 odds, the sight of three Drae had brought the entire heedless rush of the Merranic mob to a dead halt, and made them courteous to boot.
“What do you call more than one Dra?” Loren whispered the old joke, apparently thinking along the same lines. Death walking.
“This boy,” the Merranic indicated Rodge, “gave insult to Jaegor, here.” The blond giant stepped forward, preceded by his enormous, outthrust chin. “We demand satisfaction.”
“Punishment will be exacted,” Kai promised, with a grim glance at Rodge out of the corner of his eye.
“He owes lifeblood,” the Merranic said, a touch of anger coloring his voice.
Ari and Loren exchanged looks with a very pale Rodge. That sounded bad.
There was a pause. Kai, in a voice one would use to discuss which vegetables were worth their price at the market, said, “He is a foreigner and not yet a man in his country. I ask leave to discuss this with his guardian.”
Rodge started to squeak in outrage and Loren firmly reached around and clamped a hand over his mouth.
Not a one of the Drae had so much as twitched a finger towards their sword hilts, but the Merranic quickly held up both hands in appeasement. “As you wish, Dra. We will meet at the Hanging Square at 3:00?” They waited for his solemn nod, then without another word or even a look at Rodge, drifted away, talking amongst themselves.
Rodge ran over to Kai. “We’ve gotta get out of here! We can make it out of town before 3:00—or just send me! You can say you don’t know what happened to me—that I fell in the sea or something! I’ll catch a ride back to the North! They’ll never know what happened and it will all just go away…” He must have babbled on like this for several minutes before he finally wound down at the look on Kai’s face…big and powerful and cold.
Kai turned to the other Drae. They had been very helpful, standing there, breathing, and looking deadly. Now, after a few quiet words, they unpretentiously glided away.
A half hour later, Rodge was confessing his story to Melkin while everyone else devoured their lunch, the morning’s activities having raised a splendid appetite. Banion smacked his boulder-sized forehead when Kai added a few quiet words of explanation at the end.
“Boiling blood!” he swore ferociously.
“We’ve got to run,” Rodge tried again, less hopeful, more miserable.
Melkin gave him a look of thundering disapproval. “You’re not in your pampered little Northern bubble anymore. You’re old enough to run your mouth to your elders and betters, you’ll pay the price.” He let this sink in for a minute, then growled, “We’ll negotiate a different punishment.”
“Hopefully,” Banion mumbled.
It was a subdued group that headed to the ominous-sounding Hanging Square later that afternoon, and a busy Banion, dexterously parrying a barrage of questions. Yes, Merranics were basically good-natured; they were just sticky about
their honor—a vague concept that Rodge and Cerise were having trouble pinning down. No, no one had actually been hung in the Square, well, for decades. Punishment was basically at the discretion of the offended party. Jarl Grevken, unfortunately, was a bit touchier than most about his good name and was infamous for his penchant for dueling. No excuse required. His son was hopefully more understanding.
Grevken was a Jarl of the Stone, Banion continued patiently, that last being an affectionate term for the Fortress of the Sea, the King of Merrani’s humble little pile of rocks in Merrane. Jarls were like Barons of the Empire, except noblemen in Merrani didn’t just sit around nobly and collect revenue like their Imperial version. They were all warriors and leaders of warriors, some Knights, some Fleet Captains. These Jarls of the Stone were the most elite of their rank, also serving as the King’s companions and personal guard.
Banion, it turned out, was one of these. Cerise’s face was a study with that revelation. The ‘bristling savage’ she’d spent the last couple weeks verbally denigrating outranked her by every standard in the Realms. Worse, he didn’t seem to care.
A crowd was already gathering when they made the Square, akin to crowds everywhere—drawn by the smell of blood. Jaegor stood proudly on one side of the open space, stripped to the waist, arms crossed across the graceless slabs of muscle that hung on his raw-boned frame. Encouraging as it was to not actually see a gibbet…Jaegor himself was depressing enough. Rodge seemed to wilt when the Merranic looked his way, throwing daggers with his eyes.
“He’s gigantic,” Rodge moaned.
“It’s your own fault,” Cerise said briskly, and when everyone looked at her, relented slightly, “It’s not like they’re going to kill you or anything.”
“I think he’s already pretty miserable, Cerise,” Ari discouraged dryly, and she surprised him by closing her mouth.
“Be easy, Rodge,” Selah said into the tensing silence, her voice like a soothing poultice on everyone’s raw nerves. “It’ll come out right in the end.” He smiled weakly.
They had come right up opposite the offended party and Banion brought them to a halt. He stepped out in front, obviously representing the drooping Northerner trying to disappear behind him.
The Merranic that had done all the talking in the Post had come with Jaegor and was apparently his spokesman, because he stepped forward and said loudly, “We are here to address the grievous insult paid to young Jaegor here, qualified for Wolfing just this morning—” the surrounding crowd oohed and aahed approvingly, “—as given by this ignorant Northerner.” The crowd obligingly changed their tone to a dark mutter. Quite a few people were gathering around and Rodge seemed to shrink with every body that joined the onlookers.
Jaegor stepped forward. “I demand a fight to the death.” His voice was very clear and woefully unambiguous, sea-gray eyes roiling with anger.
With the exception of Melkin, the Northerners gasped.
“No,” Ari and Loren said, looking aghast at each other. Rodge looked faint.
“I am Banion, Jarl of Ransok,” Banion said, raising his voice so that all sound ceased. Everyone’s eyes turned to him. “This young foreigner is a minor in his own land and our ways are not known to him. He spoke hastily and on impulse at unintentionally rough handling. I ask, as a personal favor, that his sentence might be lightened.”
There was an impressed pause. Several approving cries of “Jarl Banion!” floated through the air.
Jaegor’s spokesperson looked torn. He moved slowly back to the younger man’s side, talking to him in a low voice and glancing back at Banion as if to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. Jaegor’s jaw jutted stubbornly. The spokesman began to sound like he was pleading.
“He probably sees the bigger political picture here,” Cerise mused quietly, eyes narrowed. Ari had a feeling court intrigue was a specialty of hers.
“It won’t do any good if all Jaegor sees is red,” Loren remarked worriedly.
With a final impatient shake of his lank blond hair, Jaegor stepped away from his counselor and repeated stubbornly, “I request a fight to the death.”
The crowd murmured, sounding displeased, though Ari’s perception may have been slanted. Banion turned slowly to Kai and Melkin. The Northerners all gathered in close. “This is bad,” he rumbled. “It’ll have to go to Kane if it’s to be stopped now.”
Jaegor’s spokesman stepped up by his side and announced reluctantly, “Heard and witnessed.”
“Who is he?” Melkin snapped, as if they could silence him then the day’s events would disappear.
“The Jarl of Alene,” Banion said.
Suddenly, a woman’s strong voice broke into the waiting silence. “I demand the right of substitution!” she cried, and as everyone turned, rubber-necking, she pushed her way to the edge of the crowd.
Ari felt a faint, inexplicable stab of recognition, though he was sure he had never seen her before in his life. She wasn’t the sort of girl you forgot. A tall, big-boned Merranic, she had reddish-brown curls bobbing around her shoulders, a thick smattering of ginger freckles, and eyes that you could see dancing from across the square. Voluminous skirts in serviceable dark brown flowed out from under her bright red corselet, and though a lot of Merranic women went barefoot, she was booted. She was young, the boys’ age. And pretty.
“I’d forgotten about that,” Banion said, fingering his beard. “Hasn’t been used in forever, but it’s perfectly valid by Merrani law. Anyone can claim it and no one refuse it—came about during the Wars, so good fighting men didn’t end up getting wasted in things like this…”
The party turned anxiously to the Jarl of Alene, to the girl, to Jaegor, and back to the Jarl. Alene’s Jarl cleared his throat, looking several fathoms out of his comfort zone. Jaegor looked mortified, obviously torn between appreciation for the comely female complicating his life and dismay for the implications of what she’d offered. This time he listened closely to what the Jarl had to say, bending his head over on a neck the width of Cerise’s waist.
After a few minutes of rushed advice, he addressed the girl. “Agreed,” he said reluctantly, then added quickly, “The sentence has been changed to five lashes.”
“Agreed,” she said promptly, in that same bold voice, and handed off her basket of flowers. Completely composed, she marched across the Square like she was going to do the milking, entering one of the surrounding buildings. Jaegor, swallowing audibly and looking like he was being dragged by his toenails, followed.
The crowd murmured in approval, a current of obvious and pleased satisfaction running through them. No one seemed particularly distressed or alarmed at any of it. The same could not be said of the huddled Northerners, feeling deeply out of place and shocked to the core.
“These people are mad!” Cerise hissed, pale eyes bulging out of her narrow face. “Rodge pushed someone three times his size and called him a name and they want to kill him?!” Rodge’s face was a conflicting palette of relief, shock, and consternation.
“I could have taken five lashes,” he mumbled, which while factually correct, gave the misleading impression that he didn’t mind a little pain. But it was a little shaming to have a girl take his punishment for him, undeserved or not.
Banion exchanged somber glances with Kai and Melkin, then without a word followed the others across the square.
“Back to the tavern,” Melkin growled.
“Shouldn’t we wait…to talk to her…to thank her, or something?” Ari protested. The North’s back country was still very old-fashioned. Happy as he and Loren were about Rodge not having to get terminated, it was still almost unthinkable to them that a girl…a girl was…that anyone would…well, whipping? A girl? Even Archemounte, for all its talk of women’s equality, would never dream of doing anything so brutal. Though, this entire spectacle was so foreign to Northern ways that it pushed the boundaries of believability.
“Banion will take care of it.”
No one rolled their eyes at Cerise’s
ranting on the way back, and the first thing they all did at the tavern was order big mugs of ale. Poor Banion almost got jumped when he finally came through the door. He looked flummoxed as he told them what he knew, which wasn’t much. She had no reason, she was no relation—everyone raised their eyebrows at that addition—she had no stake in the outcome of the proceedings at all. But she’d agreed to meet them, there, tonight. After she got cleaned up, Banion added, and took a quick swig out of his tankard. No one really wanted to think about that.
The night passed with tortuous slowness. They ate more for something to do than to sate their appetites. They paced. They made uninteresting conversation. They drank ale and then had to use the little house. They paced some more. It was late when they finally had to conclude that she wasn’t coming. Rodge, probably feeling nibblings of humiliation, seemed almost cheerful, but Ari was strangely dejected. There’d been something about her… something arresting about her brightness that had nothing to do with her pretty face or laughing eyes.
They headed up the stairs to their rooms, tromping after Melkin and Kai, but were all brought to a domino-effect halt when the Dra stopped right in the middle of the hall. Ari, at the end of the line, craned his neck around the gaggle of bodies—and saw a cloaked figure. It was leaning quietly against the wall, hood drawn up, outside of Banion’s room. As they watched, standing warily and in some cases stupidly, two white hands lifted the folds of cloth off the hidden face.
It was her. ‘She,’ to be grammatical. Without any appreciable sign of distress over her recent ordeal, her eyes sparkling with mischief, she laid a finger against her lips. Kai moved quickly to Banion’s room, opening it, and she slipped inside with a curious, swift grace. As if someone had poured water on them, the frozen conglomeration in the hallway moved in a rush to follow her, jamming up in the doorway and losing considerable dignity trying to get into the room.
