Forgotten Stairs

by Hausladen, Blake;

  The Sten stepped forward again, flanked by scores of his red hat priests.

  “The Hessier are in league with the apostate East,” he cried. “Hunt them. Hunt the men of the Ministry. Their Edict of the Renewal and their Conservancy have failed us. The Ministry is false, all its teachings are false, and for this Bayen demands their deaths.”

  The smell of my murdered Hessier broke over the angry crowd.

  The last Ashmari and I were the only elder Hessier left in all of Zoviya. He would not like the fight. I turned to make my way out of the crowd. I stumbled and fell against a lantern post.

  My broken eye was not mending nor were my many other wounds.

  Silver. I could feel it. They had dusted their weapons with powered silver. They had planned this result—sacrificing themselves in a gambit to remove me. I was poisoned, and I could not call upon the Shadow to mend my flesh. I could not find him at all.

  I did not know what to do.

  The crowd began to take note of me again and the grisly mess of the Ashmari I had killed. Cries of alarm and disgust rose. One man threw something.

  “Demon Hessier—kill him!”

  I searched the ground around me and stumbled across to the fallen flask. I got hold of it but could not get back up. The savage crowd gathered close. More rocks struck me. I jammed the flask into a pocket before it was knocked away.

  Through the crowd I spotted a sewer grate and started toward it. More rocks and louder voices pelted me.

  A hand grabbed my head and a knife stabbed my face again and again. It punctured my remaining eye.

  I crawled. Blind and numb, I crawled.

  Cobblestone by cobblestone, I pulled myself across the cold Bessradi street. Other things struck me, and hands began to grab at my arms and legs.

  An iron bar! I held on and pulled. Their grip slipped on my slick gray blood. I slid through and fell.

  21

  Crown Prince Evand

  “Anything?” I yelled at Captain Ivinta a bit louder than was warranted as joined me at the single intersection of streets in the village of Doctrice.

  He shook his head. “Nothing, sir. The trail has gone cold.”

  This was not the answer I wanted. His company had lit out east along the road his scouts had found, and I’d had the rest of the brigade right after him. We rounded the second ridge and crossed the miserable black expanses of fern-choked swamp in one mad push. The maples there were little more than water-tortured saplings. Mist-covered ponds and lakes crowded the tithe road on both sides, leaving no other place for a man or horse to stand except the occasional hillock. To the south, the one substantial peak of the Krittle-Norean rose above the ill-looking lakes, and to the north was more and more of the same—the uninhabited heart of the Red Maple Swamps.

  We’d reached Doctrice expecting to have Sahin upon a short rope.

  “Explain,” I said to my captain of scouts.

  “No horse dung, no tracks, and no one in the village has any idea who we are after—not the slaves working the quarry, nor the parishioners of the church. We’ve gotten ahead of them somehow.”

  “For nine days we have been after them like a bear onto honey and then suddenly the trail goes cold?”

  “Unless they learned to fly, I am telling you they are not ahead of us. They must have found another route out of the swamp, sir.”

  “One that you did not find?”

  “Yes, sir. I do not know where they went or how they slipped us. I know only that they have not crossed this ridge.”

  The rest of my captains were just as angry. We’d thought we’d had them. I spat on the road, recognizing too late that the small building across the street was the village’s church. I nudged Marrow over the spot to hide the evidence of my foolishness.

  The breeze shifted slightly, and I was dealt a nose full of feet and decay from the company riding in. Captain Feseq had been right. The swamp was a killer. Too many men had failed to keep their feet or their rumps dry—an impossibility in a swamp upon the back of a horse. But the situation was getting out of hand. We had a single healer for 2,000 men, and hundreds were affected. If I didn’t get us free of the swamp soon, men would start losing toes and fingers.

  “Make camp here,” I said. “I want scouts and lookouts covering this ridge. Fill the water barrels from the village’s wells, and get every man bathed and dried. Gather up all those sutlers behind us and get them to tell us every trail and path between this ridge and the last.”

  Grano said, “Perhaps we should talk to that priest we picked up. This is his church, as I understand it. He’s more likely than any of them to offer up information.”

  “For a price, you mean,” I replied, but was left with little choice. “Very well. Set up a meeting with this whoremaster.”

  The weary guardsmen were ready for the order to make camp. We quickly selected a broad meadow between two stands of trees south of the village, and the tent city began to appear with its usual swiftness. Okel and I watched from above, and the moments of calm purpose cured much of my frustration. My position was not the disaster it appeared. I had the high ground, water, and was between my enemy and his goal.

  “A wise move,” someone said, and I turned to see Travijion. “Glad to see you are approaching this with the right temper. A day or two in camp to recover is the very mark of prudence.”

  “Sahin is not east of us,” I told the slaver with as flat a tone as I could manage.

  “What?”

  “Your Havishon royal ran out of horses. He went to ground somewhere back in the belly of that swamp.”

  “What do you intend?”

  “The matter is decided. All that remains is the race between Yarik and I to net him.”

  “This is not good for any of us.”

  “That is beyond my control. These bandits didn’t keep up their end of the bargain. They won’t make it to Havish. If you see another course open to me that does not betray my father, speak it.”

  He thought to argue, glanced once at the chief, and rode down toward the camp.

  After he had gone, I asked Okel, “Did you know that some of the girls from Dagoda keep lists?”

  “Lists? Of what?”

  “The names of all the men who owned them or thought they should—the ones they mean to kill.”

  “So you never know if you are going to wake up then,” he said.

  “Part of the attraction, I must confess.”

  “Made a list for yourself?” he asked. I nodded but he did not seem overly impressed. “You will let us know when you decide to start working that list, sir?”

  I nearly made reference to Captain Bellion, but I doubted the savage old sergeant would give a piss about a minor man from Eril.

  I was saved from further criticism by Captain Grano’s approach. “The priest will meet us now, sir,” he said, and we followed him to the church.

  I asked, “This wasn’t your idea, was it, Captain?”

  “No … not as such,” he said. “It may have been suggested by one of his girls that he would be willing to part with information for the right price.”

  “Was she worth the coin you paid?”

  He blushed scarlet. “She was, sir.”

  “Not one of the Bermish girls, I hope?”

  “No. A northern girl, Abodish she said.”

  “Well, there is that, at least. Come, let’s be to this. I suspect we’re about to be fleeced with promises of magical dust and listening devices. I want to get to bed.”

  We met a girl before the single simple door to the spire-topped square of dark wood. She was slight, with narrow lips, playful brown eyes, and a wide scar down her jaw. It had been broken, and her cheekbone too, judging by the slight skew of her face. The rest of her features: auburn hair, brown eyes, and narrow nose were undoubtedly northern. Grano’s whore. I was a bit surprised. I’d figured him to be charitable, but there was something very unsettling about her look. I was still trying to figure out what she had been hit with and wh
y when I realized that she had already introduced herself.

  I didn’t make her do it again, thanked her instead, and followed her through the church building to an apartment in the back corner. The space beyond yanked me far from the discomforts of the swamp. The room was warm from the glow of a stone fireplace and smelled of fresh-steeped mate. Gilded oil-lamps hung upon the paneled walls, and fine marble sculptures adorned the oak desk and bookshelves. I felt I was in an antechamber of the Tanayon, my sins on my mind and the purchase price of absolution ready in my purse. The oddly-garbed priest behind the desk and the cudgel resting beside him dispelled this illusion. He was from the dark, cold depths of the East—dull-eyed, weak-chinned, and unremarkable. He disguised this churlish face with an insulting amalgam of tusk-pierced hat, off-patterned robe, and wiry spiders’ webs of eyebrow, ear, and nose hairs. The wicked club at his side was fashioned from the long, curved jaw of an animal—caribou most likely.

  He did not introduce himself but invited us to sit in the plain chairs facing the desk. I did not like the mystery of his name but knew all I needed from his costume, the scarred whore who waited on him, and the club he had used on her. This was not a man who lived by the dictates of Bayen’s church or the laws of Zoviya. He was one of Minister Sikhek’s men, and all that was required of him was to catch those who made magic without license. The Ministry’s Conservancy preserved the worst.

  The girl poured cups of mate. She smiled at Grano as she handed him his. I declined. So did Okel.

  I did not bother to introduce myself, either, nor was I interested in the usual preamble of capital gossip. I said, “It was suggested that you may have information for me.”

  “We have the same prey,” he said after a time.

  “Do we?”

  “We do, but we will fail. This Havishon bandit is not an average man. He is a mage, a warlock—a man who has bargained his soul away for forbidden powers. He knows how to hide himself from the sight of men. He can call Bayen’s warmth from the darkness of night and mists from dry air. He can sing man and beast to sleep. You will not catch him unless he wants you to.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” I said. “But let us be plain. Whatever you hope to sell to me is something I have already or do not need. I have lived a half-decade in Alsonbrey and have heard the tale of every Bermish mage that ever was conjured by wine or the imagination. I think you tell tales of this man in order to deflect attention from yourself. A proper reporting of this place to my father will be required and word of you to the Tanayon would shorten your career.”

  The wizened priest chuckled and looked past me as if I were an apparition of little consequence. “As you wish, Son of the Sword of Bayen. Perhaps it was mundane skills that allowed him to slip your Hemari. Perhaps I have not been hunting men like this Havishon mage my whole life. Perhaps what I have to say would be better heard by another son of your father.”

  I shivered as though I watched maggots wriggling from the bowels of a dead calf. This corrupt little Conservancy mannequin knew where Sahin had gone and had just threatened me.

  “Very well, Your Grace, where then would you, a proper and revered man of Bayen, recommend this prince search for these lawless usurpers?”

  “The vapors you have passed upon the road through the swamps are not natural. They trick the senses. Such a man as this Havishon mage may have stood by the side of the road while you rode by. There may also be a trail near the green pond at the bottom of the swamp that leads around its western shore and northeast out of the swamp. Your Hemari scouts would do well to carry lanterns into the mists. It is a weak magic and easily unsettled.”

  The low swamp he spoke of was a place of dead trees, bright green algae blooms, and neck-deep water as far as the eye could see. “Have you met these Havishon?” I asked.

  “I did,” he said with remarkable frankness. “You are shocked by my honesty? Yes, I suppose you would be. What can I tell you about them? The meeting was two nights ago. They wore haggard bluecoats and tried to purchase provisions and fresh horses. It did not seem wise to sell them either. Bluecoats might purchase provisions from the likes of me, but never horses.”

  “What can you tell me of their captain? Sahin is the name I know him by.”

  “He did not give me his name, but it is certain that he is the kind of man who has many. There is a tale of a Ludoq bastard’s son who haunts the hills and forests of Havish whose betrothed was stolen by men from the Kaaryon. The East loves to tell tales of their royal line’s rise from the ashes. It is rubbish, I am sure. But the man I met in the swamps had a look to him you rarely see in the East. A fire burns in him that makes young men follow and old men stand aside. And whatever the truth of his tale, Havish is where he is heading.”

  The priest smiled politely at my displeasure. He rose, as if the interview had concluded.

  “And what do you ask in return for this information?”

  “Nothing at all. The work I do here is reward enough.”

  “And what is your work here? So that I may tell Bessradi of your noble enterprise.”

  “Doctrice is a slavers’ town, Prince Evand. It exists to maintain the road. We deliver 11,000 wagonloads of rock and gravel onto the tithe road every year. If we stopped, the road would sink and Pashwarmuth would be cut off from Bessradi. As long as Pashwarmuth pays its tithe, the work continues.”

  “I’ll be sure to detail the successes of your engineering.”

  I rose to depart. Grano was staring at the girl.

  The priest said to him, “You can buy her if you wish, Captain: two weights of gold—a bargain at thrice the price.”

  Grano blushed scarlet, abandoned his cup, and hurried out of the room. We caught up to him outside. Okel chuckled at him, and the captain said, “Was he serious? About the girl, I mean.”

  “It is like this for every man in the East, Captain. Their daughters are no different than their wives: all are whores to be bought, sold, and stolen.”

  Okel laughed. “You’re not seriously thinking of buying the scarred girl, are you son?”

  The captain shrugged, and we couldn’t help but laugh at him. “What would your father do when you brought her home?”

  “He …” His hopeful expression and sentence died right there.

  Okel left him be and turned the topic back to the priest. “That one is no more a man of Bayen than the crap I took this morning. And if this bandit Sahin is a royal, I’ll eat my helmet.”

  “You find his tales of magic more believable?”

  “Makes more sense to me than an entire company of Hemari scouts missing a trail these bandits could have taken.”

  “Could we beat Yarik to the spot?” I asked.

  “I can’t imagine how,” Okel said. “Not unless we were to pull up tent and move now. It would be a hard move.”

  “Do you think this can wait until morning?” I asked.

  “No. It can’t,” Okel said. “But I cannot promise you we will beat your brother to the trail.”

  “We must try,” I said. They turned, and a slow ripple of orders carried over the low din of the settling encampment. Tired men groaned, but slowly they began to move. They wanted Sahin as much as I did.

  On through into the dark we moved, each man and horse a faded version of itself. I slept in the saddle and woke to a gray dawn and voices. Riders were upon the road ahead of us.

  “Sir, gather yourself,” someone said. The scene did not yet make sense.

  “You’ll have to wait your turn,” someone said ahead of us.

  “Excuse me?” I asked. The man was a yellow-sheathed Hurdu colonel.

  The dawn was cold and dark. Fresh clouds from the Bergion Sea rolled overhead. My brigade was ragged.

  We had been stopped upon the rocky tithe road along the bleak shores of a bright green pond. The mists were gone, a wide trail curved north along its uncluttered western bank, and a detachment of Hurdu blocked my way.

  Sahin had evaded me, and Yarik had beaten me to him.

/>   “We have tracked them here,” the Colonel said and gestured up the narrow trail along the western shore of the wide pond. “Prince Yarik will be here presently to kill this bandit personally. It would be best, perhaps, if you withdrew the way you came.”

  I was beyond speech. Okel and Grano looked on with sunken rueful eyes. Another set of pyres lined the trailhead. Twenty I counted. Sahin was on foot.

  “All this for nothing,” Captain Grano said. There was nothing much else to say.

  The Hurdu began to whistle and cheer. Yentif-blue pennants moved up the column carried by Yarik’s personal guard. My brother appeared, towering a head above the rest on a great black courser. He returned this salute with a parade wave as he trotted toward the trailhead.

  An exhausted Travijion rode up behind us upon a half-dead mule. “Wait. Wait!” he cried toward Yarik, but to no avail.

  Yarik met his colonel briefly before he grinned at me like he had just cut the head off my favorite dog. He yelled his vanguard on, and the hundreds of Hurdu stacked there began to flow north along the dark trail.

  “Fools,” Travijion cried and leaned heavily across his saddle. “The Ludoq must escape.”

  An isthmus reached south into the center of the green pond. Something was moving there. I was too tired to be alarmed. I turned, instead, and looked down the long line of Hurdu. I was to their right and fifty paces back from the trailhead.

  The first crack of bowstrings did not register—nor did the low hiss of the arrows. The sharp clang of punctured armor and the screams of men woke me, at last.

  I yelled a warning, but it was too late. Flight after flight of heavy arrows stabbed through the cold air and speared man and horse alike. The Hurdu packed upon the trail fled in every direction. A few tried to race north and around to where the unseen enemy lay, but they were easy targets. Those that went south collided with those rushing north. The fools that tried the pond were quickly mired or fell in the thick tar-like water beneath the green carpet of algae. There were none who could go to their aid.