“The entire country is at risk, Slate!” Crymson had to strive to keep the heat from her voice. “You don’t care at all?”
A sip of his beer. “Not really.”
Crymson didn’t have a reply.
Slate nodded, pushing the last half of his beer Teacher’s way, who promptly gulped it down. “I’m assuming your bleeding heart can’t take the idea of your precious Prolifia drowning in dead people, can it, Old Man?”
“You assume correctly.” He licked a forefinger and smoothed his wooly eyebrows into place. “But what would you propose us do?”
“I can’t do anything from the outside. It’d be too suspicious, and I’m expected back in Fayne, soon. But this thing is big, really big, and I can do more work from within anyway. Plus, I’m high enough in the hierarchy now that they’ve requested a favor of me, one that I’m looking to you with, Alocar.”
“And what is that?”
“The Cao Fen have sent word out to a few of their middling-upper people – namely, ones like me. They need a few old-timers, ones with qualifications to lead, and they asked me to find somebody. And so here I am, offering it to you.”
“Lead what, may I ask?”
Crymson blinked. “Why, the undead army – Grey People, is what they call them. The Cao Fen are a bunch of Priests and small-group fighters, not retired military used to leading thousands. This is about as good of an opportunity as we’re going to get. Me, working the hierarchy, drilling to find out those behind the blighted cause. You in the ranks, learning more of the enemy itself, what we need to do to defeat them. We can’t pass this up.”
Alocar sat back in his chair, free hand worrying at the stump beneath his sleeve, running his fingers over it again and again, but Crymson wasn’t too anxious. This was a chance to do the right thing, and if there was one thing Alocar did well, it was choosing right over wrong.
“When do we leave?” he asked.
“Two days.”
“Make it three and I’ll come along. They never connected us with Quintel or the royal family’s death?”
“Not as far as I know. We’re in the clear, which means the Cao Fen aren’t after us right now, and I’ve managed to convince them that I’m on board with their Grey People. If I bring you along, we have a fighting chance, but . . . ”
Crymson looked Slate in the eyes, the noise around them narrowing until the entire world was a small cloister. This was going to be the hard sell, and she still wasn’t sure that he’d take it.
“We’re going to need Isaac if we have a chance at this,” she said.
“Sounds about right,” replied Slate, refusing to back down, eyes locked with hers.
“We need to find him.”
“Still not arguing with you.”
“Will you do it?”
“Nope,” Slate said. “Told you, Teach and I, we’re done with this game. You and Alocar can go play the hero and save Prolifia, maybe even the world, but us? We’re going to go do what we do best, and the only places I need for that are a bar and a bed, sometimes a bath.”
“Are you really so selfish? After he saved your life so many times? I thought you’d finally become his friend.”
“Friend? I’ll give him this, the runt grew on me, but nobody is worth risking this precious hide for, not like that. Besides, I haven’t the faintest idea where he is. None of us do.” Teacher looked at Slate strangely, but he disregarded it.
“And that’s where you’re wrong,” Crymson said. “I was hoping he’d show here, but I fear the worst has passed. One of the stories I’ve been hearing from my new position is about the existence of a magical cabal of sorts – made up of captured Blessed, if you want my opinion – based near Browleson, or in it. I don’t know much more about it, but I’ve heard they’ve produced a couple new additions the last month, and one of them is rumored to have set an entire squadron aflame before they took him in.” She looked meaningfully at Slate. “I’d wager it was Isaac. Somebody needs to rescue him. He deserves better than being locked up and experimented upon.”
“Why don’t you get him out, Miss Archbishop?”
“You think it’s that easy? Oh, let me command the release of a Blessed, one who I’m not even supposed to know about. Let’s see how that works out for me. No, Alocar and I are needed on the inside. It has to be you.”
“No, it doesn’t, and I won’t. I’ve done my part, and so has Teacher.” He pushed his chair away from the table, his eyes circling back to connect with the redheaded barmaid’s. “We’ll be seeing you.”
“Slate.”
“Yeah, Old Man?”
“If you change your mind, come by here. We’ll be meeting for a few days, sorting things out.” Alocar stood, extending his hand to Slate.
Slate shook it, and with Teacher in tow, disappeared into the night, but not before he’d flagged down the barmaid and talked to her near the entrance, one hand on her elbow.
“Think he’ll change his mind?”
Alocar shook his head. “I honestly don’t know, but if he doesn’t, then you and I still have to push on, even if nobody else will.”
With a half smile on her face, Crymson asked, “Why do you think I came here? I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
As she knew would happen, Crymson wound up at Beatty’s kitchen table, pipe smoke circling the ceiling like she’d never left, a bowl of soup in front of her, onions and pieces of tender meat floating in it, the same type of soup she’d eaten as a child, and then as a Priestess, and now as an Archbishop – another detail immune to time.
Beatty sat across from her, pipe a permanent fixture in his yellowed teeth. After finishing, she pushed the bowl to the middle of the table.
“It was good.”
“Course. I’ll tell Marla you said so.”
They sat together like that for a while, soaking up the quiet. Crymson thought of telling him about her new position, but decided against it. Beatty had never been one to be impressed with ranks.
“You were right,” she said eventually, opening herself up as she did only in front Beatty.
“Hmmm?” He took the pipe from his mouth.
“About power. Craving it. Wanting it. I finally got a taste, and the only thing that it’s given me is more restrictions.”
Beatty reinserted the pipe in his mouth and took a brief puff. “That’s the thing, girl. I wish everybody could become rich n’ powerful, just so they can see it’s not the thing that’ll fulfill your dreams. It’s the simpler things in life, the ones that come naturally.”
“How do you know?”
“I once had a past, too, daughter of mine.”
Crymson stood, wrapping her arms about her body, hugging them tightly to her. “How much is enough?”
“That’s a choice you have to make. For me, as long as I’m unbothered by the rest of the world, then I have more than enough.”
Knowing Beatty would never repeat anything that she revealed to him, Crymson said, “It’s just so damn hard. You get what you’ve desired for so long, and it turns out to be nothing better than what you’ve had before. When does it get better?”
Beatty put the pipe down on the table and stretched, his fingers interlaced behind him. “Honestly? It never gets better, lassie. Life is a long, brutal trudge through the mud, n’ reaching goals is nothin’ more than a brief patch of dry land to rest your head against for the night. The best thing you can do is not worry about things like that n’ look for something meaningful in your life, treasure the little things.”
“Like my independence?”
“Like your independence. Now, come here, lassie. Give your old man a hug before you leave us again.”
Crymson buried her face in her surrogate father’s hard shoulder, the muscle beneath it rough against her skin, but comforting nevertheless.
“Thanks for always being there for me,” she said, mind far from the coming difficulties, for once able to lose itself in old memories and not worry about the road ahead, the Cao Fen and th
e Grey People joining the pipe smoke circling the ceiling.
“Always, lassie. Always.”
Alocar
A glass of brandy had never tasted so good, nor felt so shameful, because Alocar knew that he’d follow it with another, and then another, until he fell asleep in his armchair, running from feelings that, as a leader, he needed to face.
After arriving back in Dradenhurst and seeing his family whole, Alocar had expected elation, a feeling of contentment that would carry him through the rest of his days. And, indeed, after seeing them, he’d felt happiness, knowing that he’d played a large part in their rescue, but that feeling had soon faded, and the drinking had soon started.
He took a sip, turning from the window that gave him a view into nothing but the night. It’d taken him weeks to identify his feelings, searching for them in empty brandy glasses, but in the end, he’d revealed them for what they were: the bastard children of the same emotions he’d battled before being recruited by Angras, so many months ago.
Another sip, this one for Rupert. Regardless of what the Queen had told him of his friend’s betrayal, Alocar couldn’t bring himself to believe that their friendship was never real, and even if contrived, it had been authentic to him.
A third sip, this one for himself and the malignant thing he called a soul. At the bottom of his glass, he’d admitted the truth, not found it – Alocar had known the entire time. The kidnapping of his son and family had never been anything more than an excuse, one that allowed him to throw everything to the side and sprint toward meaningfulness, one hand open, hopeful it’d fall into his palm.
Save a family? You’re a hero again, aren’t you? You’re needed again, right? Not some old general far past his prime, a study in uselessness.
What kind of man cares more for his own feelings and legacy than his own family? Instead of setting him free, he’d found that the truth had sunk him deeper into depression.
A last sip finished the brandy, his hand tightening until he felt the creak of straining glass.
Help Prolifia? Protect its people? Worthy desires, ones that existed within him, doubtlessly. It would wound him greatly to see his country fall, especially when he’d had the chance to save it.
But were those his only desires? Did it matter why he helped save Prolifia, or did nothing but his actions matter, the intentions behind them meaningless?
Alocar poured himself another shot of brandy, tipping it so that the last drops fell in his glass before he tossed the bottle upon his chair, inside empty.
Returning to the window, he stared out into the nothingness that occupied his vision, a comfort to his swirling thoughts.
Bella poked her head inside the door. “Sir?”
“Yes?”
She walked into the room, a woman fully grown, something he forgot on occasion, still thinking of her as the meek child he’d taken in so long ago. “I have something to say, a thing I hadn’t the courage to voice, but should have when you returned.
She wrung her hands. “What you did, to get your family back, to face injury the way you have and still be able to push forward, well, it’s very brave of you. And I just wanted to say thank you, for me, if not anybody else. Most people would have given up, and to people like myself, it gives us somebody to look up to, to have some hope that we can move forward with our lives.”
Alocar shoved the brandy glass farther back on the table, hopefully out of sight. “You will never know how many times I wanted to do just that. But sometimes one does what one must.”
A smile, one that flickered on, off, and then on again. Bella moved farther into the room. “Sir?”
Alocar waved his hand, what he hoped was a patient smile on his face.
“You know the boy I’ve been seeing? You’ve met him a few times. His father is a merchant down the road, deals in dried goods and warehouses.”
He nodded, waiting for her to continue, itching to reclaim his lost drink.
“Well, he hasn’t told me yet, but I think he’s going to ask for my hand, and I just wanted to make sure that you, you know, approved of him before I answered. Because if you don’t – ” Bella blinked rapidly. “Then of course I will deny him, but I believe he’s the right one.”
Without needing to think, Alocar put his hand on Bella’s shoulder. “Absolutely. When he gets the courage to ask, send him this way, because I want to see the man who’s going to steal you away.”
She smiled and disappeared, leaving Alocar to himself and his thoughts. Looking at the brandy glass and the second full bottle on the counter, he shoved them both away, out of reach. If Bella could be selfish – rightfully so – and chase the things important to her, then why couldn’t he?
Did it matter that he did it partly, even largely, because he desired the meaningfulness that accompanied such a quest, because he would again find his place at the forefront of an army, or at least some of it? Maybe it did, but he didn’t see anybody else standing up and shouldering the burden. And people like Bella, those were the ones for whom he would fight.
The people needed him, now more than ever, and if he could recapture the fleeting desire of permanence, to feel like his life was meaningful, that he was wanted, and at the same time save Prolifia, then so be it.
Slate and Teacher
“There is zero fucking reason to put both of us back in harm’s way, not after the shit we just made it through.” Slate tipped back a beer, for once three ahead of Teacher.
They were in one of Dradenhurst’s many dives, The Stuck Pig, guzzling beers across from one another. Outside, rain smacked against the ground with the fury of an angered god, turning the ground to mush. A puddle had formed around the bar’s entrance, some water welling through small cracks in the flooring, the rest contributed by the comings and going of the city’s miscreants, dregs of the lower class.
“I mean, why should we? It’s you and I, all the way, just like old times. What possible purpose would we have in putting our necks out for Isaac, let alone the rest of Prolifia? Last time I checked, people sucked, and I doubt anything has changed too drastically in the past few months. We’re better off alone, you and I. Leave the heroism for those desiring an early death.”
Slate quaffed the last of his beer, eighth of the night. Even with the ludicrously high tolerance he’d built up over the years, the room was spinning, the motion throwing words from his mouth with more than his usual candor.
“Well, if we did, what all would we need to do? Get some supplies, of course. Find more horses. Consolidate our money. And then spend half the next blasted winter mucking about Prolifia, searching for wherever he is? And not only that, but then we’ll probably have to break him out, if what Crymson says is anywhere near accurate, probably die in the meantime. No, we’re better off staying to ourselves.”
Teacher tilted his beer, for once taking small sips instead of great gulps. His eyes, however, never left Slate, almost accusing in their silence.
“Don’t take that tone with me! You know – ” Slate stopped speaking, watching as Teacher slowly lifted a finger and pointed to the scar on Slate’s neck, a patch of skin differently colored than the rest.
“That, well, that’s different, you fool. He needed us at the time, and it was just in his best interest to save my life. Doesn’t mean anything.”
Teacher shrugged and put the mug back to his lips, draining it in a single gulp. Slate followed the big man’s example, slamming his empty beer mug back on the table before him. He was about to call for another when Teacher got up and made his way to the door, stomping his way through the spreading puddle, drops flying, mug abandoned.
Frowning, Slate followed him, wondering where they were walking. Soon, the rain had drenched him, soaking through his clothes and dripping from his hair into his eyes. Slate’s boots made squelching sounds as they pulled free from the greedy mud, and he stumbled more than once, disorientation from the beer combining with the weather to form an obstacle only the drunk could curse.
They w
alked a reasonably straight path, Teacher leading, until eventually they made their way to Brewmaster’s. It was still early evening, and light leaked its way over the horizon, barely illuminating the open door, an awning protecting it from rain. Inside, Slate could see Alocar – when had he started thinking of him as that? – and Crymson at the same table as last night, the rest of the chairs empty.
“Isaac,” said Teacher, pointing toward the others, his nails still growing back from his time in the dungeon.
“You don’t understand, Teach! This is one mission we won’t be coming back from. It’s suicide. And there’s no guarantee we’ll even find the little bastard. I’ll admit to you that he grew on me, him and his creepy flames, but that’s it. Done. Gone.”
Teacher blinked, just once, as if deciding something, and then disappeared through the doorway into Brewmaster’s, leaving Slate standing alone in the rain, the awning no more than two feet away.
Through the open doorway, Slate watched Teacher seat himself alongside Crymson and Alocar, watched him receive backslaps and a beer, belonging, part of something. Something deep within Slate rumbled, a desire he crushed with the heel of his boot, refusing to admit that anything so obviously weak could cross his mind.
“Can’t let that big fool tramp all over Prolifia without me,” Slate said to the empty air. “Right?”
Inside, the air was warm, the noise of the crowd soothing. He settled into a chair beside the others, preparing himself to save Prolifia, and more importantly, to save Teacher, but nobody had to know that.
Isaac
He awakened from a nightmare, one with men disguised as dancing torches, their melting hands inches from his feet, screams driving nails into his brain. Small enough that even Isaac’s feet hung over its edge, a cot lay beneath him. Flexing his fingers and toes, Isaac swung his legs over the side and rubbed the back of his hand across both eyes.
In front of him was a blob of a woman, five feet wide if she was two, body spilling over the sides of the cot so that she looked like a melting bowl of pudding, oozing in the afternoon sun. Face like a squashed cat, nose broad and flattened, the snores emanating from her mouth sounded wretched, each a battle worthy of a hero’s song. Isaac watched for a few moments, ready to yell for help if necessary, sure that each breath would be her last, but soon decided that struggling for air must be her way of breathing.
Fallen Victors Page 27
