by Ari Marmell
ONCE MORE, Audriss and Mithraem sat beside a parchment-laden table. It stood within the Serpent’s personal tent, an enormous pavilion sufficient to house a dozen men comfortably. Within were all the comforts of home: the table, several capacious chairs, a down mattress, and, finally, an iron maiden, just in case the warlord felt the need to deal with any prisoners personally. A marvel of engineering, it possessed levers to control the length and angle of its inner spines with pinpoint accuracy.
At the moment, the black-clad Serpent was seated in one of those comfortable velvet-lined chairs, his feet propped up on a matching footstool, one armored hand wrapped carefully around the stem of a silver goblet. He glanced passively at the thin vessel, swirling it slightly and taking a long drink, lifting his face mask just enough to reach his lips.
Mithraem paced in the center of the tent. His face was tense, and his eyes flickered on occasion to the third figure in the room, the large ogre who now knelt before them. (It was more than merely a gesture of respect. The tent, large as it was, wasn’t tall enough to accommodate his height, and no one wanted to deal with Audriss’s reaction if a carelessly placed horn was to rip open the roof.)
“Sit down, Mithraem,” Audriss offered magnanimously, his attitude blunted ever so slightly by the wine he’d consumed. “Relax. He’s not going to be able to tell you anything now that he couldn’t five minutes ago, is he?”
Mithraem ignored him, focusing instead on the ogre. “You were sent,” he spat coldly, “to keep an eye—” Audriss chuckled once at the unintentional pun; Mithraem continued to ignore him. “—on Rebaine and the others. Was there some misunderstanding? Did you find your task too difficult?”
“No, Master,” the thing said in Urkran’s voice.
“So tell me again why you’ve brought an incomplete report.”
“As I said, Master, there was a great deal of commotion when they first reached the ogres. Between the return of Corvis Rebaine and the homecoming of the one called Davro, there was little to be done. When Rebaine and the chieftain finally decided it was time to negotiate, they went off into the chieftain’s own home. There was no opportunity to get near.”
“So then, of all times,” Audriss asked from his seat by the table, waving the goblet gently for emphasis, “you chose not to fade into mist? You do it so often, I can’t keep track of you lot as it is.”
The other three eyes in the room glared at Audriss and then turned back to regard one another.
“Well?” Mithraem said simply.
“I’m afraid that wasn’t possible either, Master. While Rebaine and the chieftain were in discussions, most of the tribe gathered to celebrate Davro’s return. It seems this one …” He gestured down at the body he currently wore. “… was known to look up to Davro, to emulate him, as do many of the warriors. There was a great deal of tale telling and drinking.” He shuddered in barely suppressed horror. “I had to eat food!” he spat. Then, more calmly, “There was no opportunity to slip away, not without arousing a great deal of suspicion.”
Mithraem shook his head, his dark hair glinting in the torchlight. “It would, I think, have been worth it. I doubt we’ll have need of this particular vessel again—but I suppose one never knows, does one? Very well, so what, precisely, do you know?”
“I know that Rebaine did come to some sort of agreement with the chieftain. I’ve no idea what offers or guarantees might have been made, but the tribe is preparing for war. When Rebaine is ready to march, the ogres will be with him.”
Mithraem glanced over at the Serpent, distractedly examining one of his maps. “You heard?”
“Of course I heard, Mithraem! I’m aggravated, not deaf.”
“And do you not feel something should be done?”
“Eh.” Audriss waved a dismissive hand at him. “This was to be expected, given Rebaine’s past alliances. The ogres are a problem, but not an insurmountable one.”
“You’re dismissed for now,” Mithraem told the not-quite-ogre. “We’ll continue this later.”
Urkran nodded once and faded into mist, seeping out through the tent flap and leaving a bloody swath on the floor as he passed. Mithraem snarled after his absent minion, then he, too, departed.
/These people,/ Pekatherosh complained with an exaggerated sigh, /are absolute murder on carpeting./
“This is a tent, Pekatherosh,” Audriss replied under his breath. “I haven’t got any carpeting.”
/That’s because they murdered it./
“I wonder,” Audriss muttered, “what sort of arrangement Rebaine came up with?”
/Worried about the ogres? I thought you said they weren’t an issue./
“Not substantially. They’re dangerous, and they’ll cost us some troops if it comes to direct conflict, but we can handle them. I’m more concerned with Rebaine. He’s raising his army, but so far he hasn’t taken any more dramatic steps.”
/I told you it wouldn’t be that easy. What you’re trying to get him to do is, in his mind, a last resort. He’ll need some additional motivation./
“Fine. Let’s motivate him.” Audriss grinned behind the mask. “And I think I know just the man to do it.” He clapped once, his stone gauntlets producing a dull cracking sound on impact. Instantly one of his soldiers stood in the tent’s entryway.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Find Valescienn. Bring him here.”
“COMMANDER? Sir, you’d better come with me.”
Garras Ilbin, a career soldier in the Regent’s Army of Imphallion, muttered darkly under his breath as he turned away from the current object of his attentions. The young woman only scowled in response to his apologetic grin, and wandered off.
He squeezed his eyes shut for one brief moment—gods save him from fools and small villages—and ran a leather-gloved finger across his red-brown mustache. Can’t face the boys with ale in the facial hair; wouldn’t be proper.
Then, his hauberk clinking as he rose, he dropped a handful of copper coins on the countertop. He picked his helmet up off the stool beside him and bulled past the young soldier who stood, fidgeting, in the doorway.
“What in Kassek’s name were you thinking, boy?” Garras demanded as he stepped into the street. His subordinate flinched, accustomed to hearing the war god invoked only in the heat of battle. His commander, on the other hand, was an old soldier, known to invoke Kassek for a spilled drink or a stubbed toe. “Shouting across a crowded room? Is that how we communicate these days?”
The young man stared intently at his commander’s leathery, weather-beaten face, his eyes wide. “My apologies, Commander! But—”
“No discipline today, that’s your problem,” Garras continued, paying little real attention to the boy he was lecturing. “In my day, we respected our commanding officers! We had something to report, we walked up to them, told them to their face. None of this screaming like a housewife and fluttering about, oh, no. We …” His eyes hardened at the youth’s expression. “Anxious, are you? Have something better to do than listen to your commanding officer?”
The soldier swallowed. “As a matter of fact, I do, sir! And so do you.”
“I beg your pardon. Are you telling me what I should or should not be—”
“Sir! You really need to come see this.”
It finally sank in, and Garras nearly groaned in self-disgust. The ale must have gotten to him more than he’d realized. But what could you expect, assigned to a patrol as mind-numbingly dull as the village of Kervone?
You’d think, Garras often griped, there’d be some action in patrolling a town so near to Denathere. Hell, the entire city is enemy territory, now. But no … Kervone, two days south of Denathere, was apparently far enough out of the way that the Serpent felt no need to bother with it. And that left Garras and his unit stuck guarding a town worth absolutely nobody’s time to attack. It wasn’t as if he wanted Audriss to raid the place; he was just so bored.
Well, maybe it was finally time for a little excitement.
The
soldiers jogged through the dusty roads of Kervone, making enough of a racket not only to wake the dead, but to send them complaining to the landlord.
They finally arrived, Garras puffing ever so slightly, at the Sleeping Vagabond, where the soldiers barracked. Rather than approach the door, however, the soldier made a beeline for the rear of the building, whistling sharply. In response to his signal, someone dropped a rope ladder to roll down the wall. The young man climbed, Garras following, cursing softly, a moment later.
He felt better once he’d reached the flat-topped roof of the inn. The man currently on watch, keeping an eye on the various roads into town, was a dark-haired, dark-complexioned giant of a man named Tuvold. Garras and Lieutenant Tuvold had served together for years. If he’d sent for the commander, Garras could be damn certain there was a valid reason.
“All right, then,” Garras barked. “What’s so bloody urgent?”
“This, sir.” The soldier passed a brass spyglass, the unit’s most valuable piece of equipment, to his commander. “I was making a regular sweep of the roads,” he said succinctly, his deep voice clipped, measured. “Watching for advance scouts or what have you.”
Garras nodded. “You found something?”
“Not in the way of an attacking force,” Tuvold said, “but look for yourself, sir. In that copse of trees, just west of north. No, farther over, in the other thicket. Yes, about there, sir.”
Garras scowled, one eye shut, the other pressed, squinting, against the spyglass. “I see a bit of movement, Tuvold. Maybe a lone figure and a horse, but I can’t make out much more than—good gods!” He choked as the “horse” moved about, apparently seeking a spot of sunshine amid the shadows of the trees. “By Kassek, that thing’s the size of a pony!”
“Bigger, sir,” Tuvold told him calmly, as though giant lizards were the sort of thing he saw twice before breakfast. “It gets better.”
“Oh? And how could this possibly get better?”
“Look at the figure standing beside it, sir.”
Garras shifted the spyglass and then started, the color draining from his face.
“A bit tall to be your average wanderer, Tuvold.”
“I’d noticed that myself, sir.”
“Ogre?”
“Can’t think of anything else it could be, sir.”
Garras nodded sharply, trying, to no avail, to bring the ogre into focus through the obscuring screen of greenery. “He’s not scouting,” he muttered. “He’s just sitting there, like he’s waiting for something.”
“Should we expect an attack, sir?” the young soldier asked, eyes wide.
“I shouldn’t think so. We’re a long way from ogre territory. No, he’s here on his own, or with a few companions, at most.”
“Companions, sir?” Tuvold asked.
“Indeed.” With a loud pop, Garras snapped the spyglass shut and handed it back to Tuvold. “Keep an eye on our large friend there, would you?”
“Certainly, sir. Where are you going?”
“I’m going to see if any travelers have entered town in the last few hours. I’m very interested in meeting anyone who’d keep company with an ogre.”
“And if they’re a threat, sir?”
Garras just smiled, and stepped to the ladder. “Assemble the men,” he ordered the younger soldier. “Have them ready to move, but don’t go anywhere until I get back. I’d hate for us to gang up on an innocent traveler by mistake. Makes us look bad, and that makes the baron look bad.”
Not that they were supposed to be there at all. Kervone was weeks away from Braetlyn. But Lord Jassion refused to sit by while the regent and the Guilds argued. Garras’s squad was but one of many he’d dispatched throughout the kingdom to guard against Audriss’s advance.
If the regent should learn that one of his lords had assigned troops to neighboring territories, things could grow ugly indeed. The townsfolk wouldn’t say anything, as they were happy to have the extra protection. But Garras wasn’t about to risk exposure by mobilizing his entire unit until he was certain these strangers posed a threat.
A few questions asked at the edge of town brought some interesting results. Two travelers had indeed come to Kervone, not two hours previously. A tall, lithe, grey-haired fellow, he was told, with an axe and a sword slung at his hip; and a woman, shorter, black of hair. Both were older—probably about Garras’s own age, one astute merchant specified—but in excellent shape. The man led a horse, a fine animal but not large enough to have carried the both of them any great distance.
It was the third person to whom he’d described the strange pair—a young boy, no older than twelve or so—who pointed him in the right direction.
“Aye, sir, I seen ’em just a while back. Gave me a copper to show ’em to the empty house over yonder.”
“Empty?” Garras asked. The house the boy indicated was a good, solid dwelling. Nothing fancy, but a nice enough home for any man or family who’d choose to occupy it. “Why is it empty? It looks fine to me.”
“That house, sir? ‘Sbeen empty long as I can remember. Nobody wants to move in. They’re afraid the old owner might come back an’ want it.”
“Old owner? Who would that be, son?”
The boy glanced down at his feet, muttered something under his breath, and dashed off down the nearest side street.
Garras let him go, his eyes narrowing. “Valescienn,” he muttered, turning it over in his mind. Why did that sound familiar …?
Carefully, one hand clenched on his sword belt just beside the scabbard, Garras moved closer, ducking into a shadowed doorway as the pair of strangers stepped from the abandoned house and moved toward a small but sturdy horse tethered nearby.
“Damn! Damn it all!” That was the man.
The woman put a calming hand on his arm. “It’s not as though this is a surprise. We knew he might not be here, Corvis.”
The woman froze even as the words passed her lips, and the man snapped something in response—something about his name—but Garras, the blood pounding in his ears, barely heard a word of it. He felt his chest grow tight, and he found himself gasping for breath, leaning against the doorway to hold himself upright. Any one of the details could have been coincidence, any single fact was meaningless. But added up, they could only lead to one conclusion.
He remembered now who Valescienn was.
He knew who the ogre was waiting for, remembered who used to travel in their company.
And gods help him, he knew who “Corvis” was.
His face covered in sweat, his head pounding with fear, Garras ran down the street as fast as his legs would carry him, all thoughts of stealth or caution thrown to the winds. There was no time! He needed to reach his men, to warn them, to send a message to Lord Jassion. Everyone had to know! They …
Oh, gods!
Garras attempted to skid to a halt, caught one foot behind the other, and tumbled facedown into the dusty road. He looked up, mustache caked with dirt, to see two pairs of legs—one leather-clad, the other hidden behind a shifting curtain of brown fabric—standing over him.
“Well, Seilloah,” Corvis said, his voice even, “you were right. Someone’s been watching us.”
CORVIS RETREATED A STEP as the mail-clad soldier rolled smoothly to his feet, unsheathing his blade. Though the man’s jaw was clenched beneath his fox-hued mustache, and his eyes were anxious, the grip on his broadsword wavered not at all, and his stance was steady.
With a faint nod of respect, Corvis slipped Sunder from its own baldric.
“Make it quick,” Seilloah hissed from behind. “We’ve no time for this nonsense!”
“Tell him that!” he shot back.
“I know you!” the soldier shouted at him. “I know who you are, Rebaine!”
“Well, that’s done it,” Seilloah muttered.
Corvis agreed. Bad enough if Audriss learned that Corvis Rebaine was raising arms against him. He didn’t even want to contemplate the sheer chaos that would result should the nob
les or the Guilds learn that the Terror of the East was back among them.
He lashed out with Sunder, the strike of a steel scorpion, hoping to end the duel before it began. Other than another of the Kholben Shiar, no weapon could survive the demon-forged blade.
But the soldier made no attempt to parry. Instead he leapt backward, his mail clattering, and let the weapon slip harmlessly by. He dropped then into a desperate lunge, determined to skewer this living nightmare like a pincushion.
Corvis twisted his wrists, spinning the ancient weapon. Sparks flew as Sunder’s end-cap knocked the incoming blade off-track, nicking the edge. The soldier recovered swiftly, though, and for a moment the two opponents stood, once more crouched and ready, sizing each other up.
Corvis didn’t doubt he could win this fight, but could he win it fast enough? Behind him, he heard Seilloah whispering, her fingers drifting in beautifully alien patterns. Apparently she had decided to speed up the process.
Not a bad idea, at that. Already, faces appeared in windows up and down the street, and figures in doorways. Unlike the soldier himself, the citizens of Kervone didn’t know who they were staring at, but they knew him to be a stranger, and the other man to be a friend. Someone had surely gone for help …
“You there! Drop your weapon!”
The call came from behind the soldier, some distance down the street. Corvis cursed as he saw them, a squad of perhaps six, led by a huge man who twirled a massive ball-and-chain as if it were a toy. It was he who shouted.
“Drop the axe!” he yelled again.
“Tuvold, take care!” his commander called back, his eyes flickering over his shoulder for just an instant. “It’s Cor—”
Corvis lunged, desperate to shut the man’s mouth. The old soldier saw the blow coming, and to his credit he very nearly dodged aside. Corvis followed, redirecting his attack, and felt Sunder shudder with the impact—but so awkward was the blow that it was the flat of the blade, rather than the razor-edge, that landed.
