Crymson and the Old Man exchanged a few hushed words, and the Old Man spoke up. “Don’t move.”
Mendoza held up his hands. “Of course.”
They gathered around Slate, leaving Mendoza to swing his legs across the stage, where’d he’d clambered back up.
“Not a chance.” Slate cut his hand across the air.
“For once, I agree with him,” Crymson said. “Somebody who’s willing to kill before she talks to us isn’t going to keep us alive for longer than she has to.”
Isaac didn’t say anything, just watched the others’ faces.
“You two don’t think it’s at least worth a shot? If this person is as powerful as Mendoza says, then we might have enough manpower to track Angras down and get the answers ourselves. We might not be able to say no to this offer.”
“Are you drunk?” Slate asked. “Did you not hear him? He said they’ve been after Angras for a long time. What would accepting his offer change?”
“It may save our lives.”
“Bullshit. People don’t just change like that. They still have the same end goals, just found different ways of reaching it. One way or the other, this person ordered our deaths. That alone should decide us.”
The Old Man licked his thumb and slicked back an eyebrow. “Good point. Then it’s settled? We’re going with a no?”
“We’re going with a fuck no,” said Slate, his face dark.
They made their way to the front of the room. “You should probably rejoin us down here.” The Old Man gestured to Mendoza’s unoccupied chair.
Mendoza didn’t move. “You do realize, if you refuse me, it won’t stop here. She’ll keep hunting you.”
“We’ll take our chances.”
“I don’t have much choice in this matter.” Mendoza hopped down from the stage, wincing as he landed. “She asks, I do. The most I can leverage is doing things the right way. But if you say no here, you’re killing me, sure as the sunrise. You can’t beat her, you just can’t. Come with me, meet her. You’ll change your mind, you’ll see.”
The Old Man arched his back, which popped audibly, and said, “It’s been a pleasure, and I – rather, we – thank you for both the information and the help, but we’re going to do this on our own.”
“You have no idea who you’re up against.”
“Neither does she.”
The Old Man’s sword erupted from Mendoza’s back, coming out red. Mendoza gasped, twitching, his eyes to the ceiling, his mouth moving but emitting only the small sounds of the broken. As he lay dying, the Old Man walked up the stairs and wiped the blood on the curtains.
Atop the stage, he looked down at the rest of them, like a king without a crown. Slate turned his back before the Old Man could utter something high and mighty and then he walked out the entrance. “Come on, Teach is waiting on us.”
Angras
Pieces of glass lay shattered around the room, wine stains soaking into the walls at intervals.
It had to be done.
“Did it? So many innocents. So much blood . . . ”
Death comes to all, but great achievements erect monuments which endure until the sun grows cold.
I shook myself and poured another glass of wine; I would not stoop to chug from the bottle again. I swirled it, took a swallow, and let it slide down my throat as I tilted my head back, the mask off and on the floor next to me.
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to finish.”
Let me out. I can help.
The glass shattered on the floor, and I put the bottle to my lips.
“Not yet.”
Alocar
Back on the King’s Road, where the dull burden of travel once again wore and deadened their senses, where night and day merged into one, and their chief complaint became the lurking but ever present boredom. After Alocar had spitted Mendoza on his blade, they’d collected Teacher from the inn, scraped together some supplies and food, and then gotten the hell out of Hammonfall before this new unknown could lay hands on them.
Alocar pulled at the waistline of his pants and tightened his belt. His belly had shrunk with the miles, and though the taut stomach of his youth still evaded him, it wasn’t the debilitating old man’s paunch that he’d left Dradenhurst with. Another two weeks or thereabouts, and they’d arrive in Fayne. Given Isaac’s powers, their plan needed updating and no less than a few tweaks, a situation Alocar planned on remedying tonight; otherwise, they’d be riding hampered, an option only slightly better than slitting their wrists on the road.
They made camp that night on a small knoll surrounded by open fields of grass. No more than a few miles away, Alocar saw wide swaths of farmland: Prolifia’s breadbasket. People cultivated simple fares of potatoes, corn, oats, and wheat, grown between the eastern banks of the Idranian and the western current of the Elefon River, and though there was scant protection for their little band in terms of geography, neither did the land provide much cover for anybody to waylay them.
His body groaned in protest, but Alocar made no sign that he felt anything other than superb as he lowered himself onto the blanketed grass that separated the fields from the King’s Road, accepting and savoring the taste of Teacher’s newest soup, a medley of wild vegetables picked from the roadside, flavored with spices kept in the mule’s supply kit and bolstered with the meat of a rabbit they’d snared.
Slate got up and moved downwind from the soup, where parts of the rabbit were still cooking. “Can’t take that smell anymore,” he said, looking sidelong at Isaac.
“Has anybody thought about who Mendoza’s boss might be?” Alocar asked.
Late night insects chirped. Something howled, and the campfire crackled.
“Guess that answers that. Regardless, it looks like we need to be watching for a war on two fronts: Angras on one side, and Mendoza’s boss on the other.”
“Personally,” Slate tossed a stick in the fire, “I don’t give much of a damn about this new character. Once we do this shit and I collect Teacher’s antidote, I’m going to string Angras up by his heels and shoot arrows into him until I get bored.”
“Be that as it many, we need him to stay alive until the end of this ordeal. Maybe past it. He could be of some use.” Crymson blew on her soup, the steam shifting almost imperceptibly and blending with the campfire’s smoke.
“Threats to myself, I can handle, but threatening a man’s family smacks of cowardice. Angras isn’t going to live past this mission. Besides,” Alocar flicked a bit of soup at the fire, which hissed, “I know more than a few ways of keeping a man balancing on the brink of death.”
“Noble soul that you are? I doubt it,” Slate said.
“Live as long as I have and you’re bound to pick up a few tricks. But still, the first thing we need to worry about is what we’re going to do when we get inside Tabernack.”
“Thought we already had a plan for that?”
“Well,” said Crymson with a glance toward Isaac, “we did. But it’s undergone a few changes.”
“This involve you, little fire boy?”
Isaac met Slate’s gaze for a second, and something flashed within his eyes, but then he lowered them back to the fire. “Suppose so.”
“Seems I’ve been left out the loop. What’s changed?”
“Not purposefully,” Alocar said. “It was when you were asleep at the inn the other night. Crymson and I discussed things, and we feel this is the best way to go forward, but we’d like the rest of your input.”
“Do tell.”
Alocar caught Isaac’s eye. “You know back to your canteen theory? We’d like you to – ”
“ – see if you can start storing some of your energy,” Crymson swallowed a spoonful of soup. “The more you can store, the better chance we have of taking out their retinue and whatever other tricks they have in place for us. Without you, it’s shaky at best.”
“Hold on, what do you mean ‘store’ energy?” Slate asked.
“Short story: Isaac has th
e capability of being a lot more powerful than he’s let on. And based on what I’ve read in the Cao Fen records, I believe him.”
“So in essence, what you’re saying is that you want the runt who fucking roasted an entire squadron to become even more powerful? Why in the world do we want that? He can lay us to waste right now.” Slate had gotten to his feet, was pointing at Isaac. “What’s the purpose of adding more fuel to the fire? What if he turns on us? There’s no way in hell you can stop him, or even all four of us at once. We’re living and breathing by his whim and nothing else.”
“You’re confusing the definition of the word ‘us’,” Alocar said. “We’re a group, Isaac included. We can’t think of ourselves as individuals at this point.”
“Who the fuck are you kidding? We’ve thought of ourselves as nothing but individuals this entire time.”
“Then why’d you come after me, together?” Alocar also got to his feet.
Slate didn’t respond, and so Alocar continued. “Like it or not, we’ve come together. You may not admit it, even to yourself, but that doesn’t stop it from being the truth. And our best bet at coming out of this alive is for us to use Isaac and his power, so if you don’t have a better idea or a good reason not to use this one, then this is what we’re going to do.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking of me.” Isaac tangled his finger around the cowlick at the front of his hair and pulled.
“What?” Alocar almost let his irritation shift to Isaac.
“You don’t understand what it is you’re asking of me. I told you, I’ve never stored power like that before. What if I change? What if it’s something I can’t control? Maybe I’m not trustworthy. I don’t want to become a . . . creature, or whatever the records spoke of. I want to be me.”
“Do you want to be you so badly that you’re willing to get stuck back below ground?” asked Crymson, softly. “I remember what Angras threatened you with, the way your face looked. If we don’t succeed here, then it’s right back there you go, and other things just as bad for the rest of us.”
Isaac reached a hand in the fire and removed a piece of burning pitch. He withdrew it and played with its flames, his eyes down. “I’ll do it, but only on one condition: somebody needs to watch me. I don’t know how I’ll react to storing that much power. Maybe I’ll be completely normal, but I might also be completely changed. Somebody needs to make sure I keep a bit of me while I go through this.”
“Wait, so not only do you want him to become more powerful, but he can also become insane?” Slate snorted and moved to sit down. “Count me out. I’m not going to be around when things go belly-up.”
Alocar sighed. “We need to be willing to help Isaac. He’s our best, hell, maybe our only shot at taking this thing on and winning.”
“You think so? Because you know what? I think you’re wrong. I think you’ve been wrong this entire time.” Slate started stabbing his finger at Alocar’s chest. “Who rescued you in the woods? Me. Who saved your ass in Hammonfall? Me. Who should you have been listening to this entire time? Me. And now, when I say that I don’t trust this plan, that you’re gambling on a power you know nothing about, you dismiss it like it’s nothing? What has he done so far other than lie?”
“What does it matter to you?” Alocar moved closer to the fire, his bowl knocked to the ground. “If he can help us, then he can help us. You don’t just get to pick and choose the most convenient things in life. Yeah, you’ve been right more often than not on this trip, but you think you’ve done anything to earn any of our trust? At least he doesn’t bitch about every little thing.”
They stared at each other through the smoke. “Bitch? The only reason I say anything is because I got saddled with a has-been, a firestarting prisoner one spark away from killing us all, and a Priestess I don’t trust further than I can throw. Complain? You’re lucky I came at all.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have,” Alocar said.
“Fuck you.” Slate stalked into the night, away from the fire, away from the others, and away from Isaac.
Slate sat at the bottom of the small hill, looking out into the empty fields, his eyes seeing nothing, or more appropriately, seeing something that wasn’t there. A weight thumped to the ground beside him, and Slate looked over. Teacher.
He grabbed the big man’s thigh and gave it a squeeze before returning his hand to his lap. Another thump and the Old Man sat to his other side.
“Something you want to talk about?”
“With you? That’ll be the day.”
“Believe it or not, I’ve been where you are now. Sometimes just saying a few words can help give you some release, take the weight off your chest. God knows how many times I did it for my men, years ago.” The Old Man’s eyes grew unfocused.
“Yeah? Well I’m not one of your men.”
“Is it just a problem with Isaac that you have, or what he is?”
Slate turned toward him, his eyes barely visible in the night. “Who said I had more of a problem with him than any of you?”
“Oh come off it, son. You’re a tough man. I know it, I’ve seen it. So what’s the holdup?”
“Lay off, Old Man.”
“I don’t think so. It’s obvious to everybody that something is wrong. I’ve been there. Still am there, sometimes. It’s good to talk about it.”
“I said lay off.” Slate’s voice gained a dangerous edge.
“No. You need this.”
Slate grabbed the Old Man’s collar and threw him to the ground, pouncing atop him and punching the dirt beside his face. “You ever wonder how Teacher got this way?” Slate’s voice was broken, barely understandable.
The Old Man collapsed Slate’s elbow and then, with a hand against Slate’s chest, pushed him off. “You told us you didn’t know,” he said, after a grunt of effort.
“I lied. I do that sometimes.” Slate threw his knife into the dirt and sat down beside it, next to Teacher.
“I met Teach a long time ago, back before I was a mercenary, when him and I both ran down criminals for a living. Private work. We called him Teacher because that’s what he did. Had a little classroom set up in downtown Dradenhurst. Taught kids their sums, reading, little things like that on his off days. He didn’t have to, didn’t even get paid for it, just did it because he felt like he was making a difference.”
“The other guys, they made fun of him, but Teach and I, we got along really well, and I admired him for it. Nobody else would admit it, but they couldn’t have done what he did; they didn’t have the heart for it.”
Slate looked at Teacher, out into the starry night, and continued, “One time we were after this guy – Zimmers. We’d be chasing him quite a while. Had a reputation for putting his pursuers in the ground, and the bounty on his head was huge. Teach figured, if we can take him down and split the reward money, he’d be able to settle down full-time, be in that little classroom as much as he wanted.”
“Well, we caught that guy. Cornered him up in the slums, in the middle of an alley. I figured he’d be scared, wide eyes and the like, but he was waiting for us, calm as you please. Teach went to the right, and I went left, swords drawn, but this little guy made a gesture, said something – I couldn’t make out what – and Teach hit the ground, all curled up in a ball, weeping.”
“Zimmers turned to me. I had no idea what to do. My only friend lying on the ground, crying like a child,” Slate curled his fingers around his blade, “so I threw my knife. Got lucky. Went straight through his forehead. I called some people down, and got Teacher lifted back into the better parts of Dradenhurst. He didn’t wake up for two, three days in a row, so I went and collected the bounty. It was richer than we thought. They’d given us a bonus.”
He tore a blade of grass into bits and tossed it into the wind. “Came back, waited on Teacher. Waited a week, then another. Three weeks later, he woke up, but he wasn’t there. All his thoughts and dreams and desires, gone. He woke up then just like you see now. Empty.”
“I donated half the money to his little classroom, set them up with another instructor, made sure they had enough to get started, and then I took Teach with me. We left Dradenhurst, explored, eventually wound up as mercenaries. I’ve been taking care of him ever since.”
They sat in silence for a while, the only sounds the fire and Crymson’s low voice, presumably talking to Isaac, up on the hilltop.
“You think the man that did this to Teacher, you think he was a Blessed?”
“What else could he be?”
“But you’ve seen Teacher and Isaac together. The only person in this group that cares more for Teacher than Isaac is you.”
“Doesn’t mean a damn thing. That kind of power? It drives people to do things they never wanted to do. The people they want to be get lost in the mix, and they come out the other side twisted, doesn’t matter their intentions. And Angras making mention of reversing history, like he could do something about it? No.”
The Old Man put his hand on Slate’s shoulder and squeezed. “Give him a chance. Determine a man by his actions, the things he chooses to do in life, not the things he has thrust upon him. We all play the hand we’re dealt as best we can.”
Slate shook off the hand and didn’t reply. The Old Man walked off, back up the hill, and Slate murmured into the night, “I don’t think I can.”
Angras
Five years ago
A red robe. Cao Fen? A pleading voice. The sear of whiskey down my throat. Could they see me?
They can’t see us. Listen.
“Please, why? I’ve served you as well as can be asked.” A Priest held a knife to the speaker’s throat, and the speaker’s knees dug into the ground, his arms tied behind him.
Fallen Victors Page 17
