The Fall of Lostport

by R. J. Vickers

  Something was going on. He wanted to believe that Duffrey was deliberately trying to keep him in the dark, but if that was the case, he couldn’t understand the man’s motives.

  He desperately wished to return to Lostport, but at the same time he would only weaken their side further if Whitland truly had infiltrated their kingdom; at least while he lived in Chelt, his father could still pretend he had a viable heir.

  He would bide his time, then, and learn as much as he could. When he returned to Lostport, he wanted to make a difference.

  * * *

  Five days later, Conard was still struggling each day to diminish his stack of fifty bricks. For two days he had toyed with the idea of giving up, accepting that he would never make it through and instead moving at a more reasonable pace, but on the third day he, Ian, and six other men were the only ones yet to succeed at their initial task.

  When the other men moved on to eat and camp with those in their newly-assigned groups, some with the masons and others with the brick-layers or cooks or woodcutters, Conard and Ian and the six other failures formed a tighter group of losers. The other men began to scorn or ignore the unlucky eight, but Conard and his fellows laughed it off.

  One of the eight failures was tall and burly and intimidating; Conard and Ian speculated whether he was actually unable to move the bricks or just perfectly happy working at the simple task, but neither was brave enough to ask the silent hulk. The others were men like Ian—wiry, intelligent, and unused to physical labor. While Conard wished he hadn’t proved so useless, Ian basked in the sudden camaraderie of men who were just as inept as him.

  Despite his exhaustion, Conard did not forget why he was here. After much thought, he had woven a full backstory for himself—he was the son of a middle-class family, disinherited after he was caught with a sworn Star of Totoleon who had pledged chastity (knowing little about Whitland, he had stolen the idea off Ian, who had guessed that to be Conard’s secret). If he returned home with enough riches, he would be able to buy the girl’s freedom from the Temple of Totoleon and marry her himself. The irony of it was that he had never slept with Laina, and probably never would.

  Whenever he and the seven other failures shared dinner together, their conversation turned to wistful memories of home. Conard was always careful to steer the talk in a useful direction.

  “When the war is over, I’ll buy my family a proper estate,” Quentin said. He was a short, earnest man with a passion for fine wine. His family had been vintners before their land was washed away in a colossal mudslide; it seemed Quentin’s luck had not improved since, but he was an indefatigable optimist.

  “I don’t think our chances of survival are too high,” Conard said darkly. “We’ll probably be on the front line, useless as we are, and none of us really stand a chance against the Varrilans.”

  “Don’t let the captains hear you saying that,” Ian muttered. “They’d probably think a public execution would be good for morale.”

  “It would be an execution either way,” Conard said, softer this time. “None of us know the Varrilan terrain. We just know it’s brutally hot. And we have no idea how many Varrilans there are. We could be up against millions of soldiers. They’ll stamp us out one by one. Wouldn’t you rather head home with a few gemstones from Port Emerald and keep your lives?”

  “’Course we’d rather do that,” said Emerett, a thin, grizzled ex-miner. His voice was forever hoarse from the rock dust in the mines. “Haven’t you noticed there are patrols, day in, day out, checking to be sure there aren’t any stray gemstones lying ‘round?”

  “True.” Conard grimaced. “I’ll let you know if I come up with a better idea.”

  “You do that,” Ian said sullenly. “I would do just about anything to stay out of the war.”

  The whiskey was flowing freely that night, honoring the completion of an entire terraced level of the city, and Conard stayed up late sipping at the spirit until the aches deep in his bones had dulled and the whisper of breeze overtook the dying murmur of voices.

  “Well, I can’t stay upright any longer,” Ian slurred at last, blinking rapidly. He stood, bracing himself on the long table, and clapped Conard on the shoulder. “Dream of your pretty lass, will you? I’m off.”

  Conard nodded, running a finger around the rim of his mug to collect the last drop of whiskey. “G’night. Hope we get the day off tomorrow.”

  “Keep hoping,” Ian said.

  Then he was gone. It took Conard a long time to muster up the will to stand. The dining tent was warm and filled with sweet fumes, and he knew his own tent would be empty and bitterly cold. Maybe he should plead illness and take the next two days off. He could walk down to Lostport and visit Laina, slip into her room and kiss her awake. The thought sent fire through his veins.

  Scratching his neck blearily, he rose and pushed the bench backward with a scrape. Only two men remained in the dining tent, and one was the cook.

  On the way back to his tent, he veered into the forest to take a piss. The shadows looked darker than usual, more threatening. Glancing over his shoulder, he nearly walked into a thorny bush.

  As soon as his trousers were down, a hand shot out of the darkness and clamped itself around Conard’s mouth.

  He would have screamed if he hadn’t been half-smothered by a set of unnecessarily rough fingers.

  “Quiet.”

  That voice was familiar. In his befuddled state, Conard could not quite place it.

  “If I release you, will you promise not to run or shout?”

  Conard tried to reply, but ended up just biting down on the man’s fingers. At last he was released. “Nine plagues!” he hissed. “How am I bloody well supposed to answer that question when you’re strangling me?”

  Fumbling with his pants, he turned and immediately recognized the dark features of Laina’s Varrilan friend.

  “Jairus. Brilliant.”

  Jairus, nearly invisible in a murky brown tunic and trousers, did nothing to disguise his look of contempt. “I thought you would never appear. I worried you had broken your word and run for it. Instead you come out drunk and babbling nonsense. I think Laina would be ashamed to see you like this.”

  “What are you doing here? You’ll be drowned if they catch you.”

  “We have found a suitable cave. And the first gemstones are prepared. You need to see where the cave is, unless you wish to forsake your promise.”

  “Right, right,” Conard said. “You could’ve chosen a better time, though! Will you go away for a moment?”

  Once Conard had relieved himself, he trudged back to join Jairus just past the reach of the camp lanterns. All of his senses felt a bit muffled—though he would never admit it to Jairus, he would be hard-pressed to remember which direction the cave lay come morning.

  “Why were you out so late?” Jairus asked in an undertone as they crept through the forest as quietly as was possible given the dense undergrowth. “Have you been getting too friendly with the soldiers?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” Conard said tartly, “but I was sitting alone, trying to drown my woes. I miss Laina, my back is about to break in two, and despite my best efforts I’m still a failure at construction.” He gave Jairus a sidelong look. “You’re jealous, aren’t you? You like Laina. You’d sell me out to the captains if you had half a chance.” The whiskey had loosened his tongue; he had a feeling he would regret this tomorrow, but the very act of talking about Laina eased some of his wretchedness.

  “Neither of us are fit for the princess of Lostport,” Jairus said stiffly. “I am doing this for my people, for the good of all Varrival, not because of any personal interest in the matter. I would never betray Swick or Laina, nor you, so long as your loyalties are not swayed.”

  It was true, then. Jairus had feelings for Laina. Jealousy nipped at him as he calculated every hour of every day that Jairus had spent with Laina while he himself had been hiding at the gypsy camp and working himself to death hauling br
icks.

  “I was her friend for longer,” Conard muttered, mostly talking to himself.

  “Indeed.”

  The dim starlight reflected suddenly off something strapped at Jairus’s waist. Conard grabbed a tree to steady himself when he saw it for what it was: the blade of a wickedly sharp hatchet. Thank the Scorpion he had not continued to mock Jairus; the man could have cut him down in an instant.

  They were nearing the far reaches of the builders’ camp. The river shone like ink beneath the hazy starlight, with just one makeshift bridge spanning the waters.

  “Did you cross there?” Conard whispered.

  Jairus nodded.

  Conard’s senses were beginning to return to him. Ducking behind a tree, he scanned the meadow for any sign of a guard.

  “Wait there,” Jairus mouthed. Like a shadow, he stole along the border of the trees until he reached the banks of the river. Dropping to his knees, he crawled toward the bridge, screened by a line of reeds. When he reached the bridge, he beckoned to Conard, who followed suit. He made too much noise as he shuffled along behind the reeds, though he hoped the river’s clamor was enough to disguise the sound of his footsteps.

  At last they had both darted across the bridge and dashed for the welcome shelter of the trees. Conard straightened, kneading his aching back with a fist.

  “Declare yourselves!” a voice rang out from several paces to their left.

  Conard jumped backward and caught his foot on a log. The next thing he knew, he was sprawled out on his back with his head in a sweet-smelling flower-bush.

  “Head down,” Jairus whispered, stepping behind a stubby palm.

  Conard could hardly have disobeyed the order, though he rolled over and struggled to his knees just in case he needed to flee.

  A guard stepped out from a grove of emberwood trees, his loaded crossbow aimed at Jairus’s forehead.

  “What’s a Varrilan doing in Lostport?” he said coldly. “Guess I’ll remedy that problem.”

  Before the man could fire, Jairus grabbed the crossbow and wrenched it from the man’s grip. Then, with his other hand, he yanked the hatchet from his belt. He slammed the handle down over the man’s forehead and used the crossbow to shove him backward.

  The guard swayed and dropped to the ground, his neck wrenching sideways at an unnatural angle.

  “Is he dead?” Conard asked, getting to his feet.

  “I don’t think we should stay here to find out.” Jairus sheathed the hatchet, his eyes a bit wider than usual. Conard was certain the weapon did not belong to him.

  In silence, both all too aware of the gravity of what had just happened, they followed the forest road as it wound its way up to the pass. Just as they crested the hill, Jairus turned right and plunged into the dense bush, following a track Conard could not see.

  “Remember this tree,” Jairus said at last, startling Conard. “It is the only true landmark you might recognize.”

  He indicated a towering pigeonwood tree draped in moss, ethereal and spooky-looking in the starlight.

  Just past the tree, Jairus stepped into a dried-up riverbed shrouded in vines and moss. Ducking beneath a low-hanging knot of spiraling branches, Conard emerged at the mouth of a cave. It did not look like much from where he stood, though that could have been due to the darkness.

  “How far does it go?”

  Jairus struck a match to a candle and stepped forward. “No one has explored it much. You will see why.”

  It went against Conard’s every instinct to follow Jairus into the impenetrable depths of the cave. The candle did little more than illuminate the rubble-strewn ground; they moved through a vast, empty cavern, every sound careening about the walls.

  “Here. To the left.”

  The mouth of the cave had diminished into a fuzzy halo of lesser blackness by the time they turned around a column of stone and emerged in a smaller chamber. Here the light actually reached the far walls and glinted off something on the ground. When Conard knelt to look closer, he saw what looked like scattered gemstones half-buried in dust and rubble. The glass simulacra were so convincing that Conard had to suppress the urge to pocket a deep crimson ruby.

  “It’s perfect,” Conard said. The hazy aftereffects of the whiskey had worn off as they climbed to the pass, and he was now certain he would remember the way to the cave. “Why did you say you haven’t explored farther?”

  Instead of answering, Jairus took three careful steps deeper into the belly of the cave. Slowing, he knelt and lowered the candle to the ground, where it flickered violently, the flame whipping side to side. “The cave drops away,” Jairus said. “You would need ropes to go any farther. You must be careful here, you and the men you invite. Never come in without a light. Swick nearly stepped off the edge the first time we found this place.”

  “Well, you’ll know where to find me if the blasted brick-hauling job gets too miserable,” Conard said.

  “You must not say that to Laina.”

  Conard snorted. “It was a joke. Though if you think Laina would respond well to suicide threats, by all means I’ll try.”

  Jairus rose and stalked out of the cave, leaving Conard to feel his way back in the dark. Even though he knew the drop was behind him, he could not shake the sensation that the ground was about to open up and consume him. Jairus was not waiting for him outside; Conard could hear the mossy underbrush rustling at the sound of his passage.

  Once they reached the road, Jairus turned back toward Lostport without saying farewell. Conard stood at the pass for a long time, staring down the familiar way home, the sea air ruffling his too-long hair. It had been ages since he last trimmed it, though perhaps it would prevent anyone from recognizing him immediately as the returned exile.

  With the guard no longer stationed at the start of the forest road, Conard picked his way easily back to his tent; stretched out on his straw mat, though, he could not sleep. Dark thoughts twisted his mind—the almost comic shock on the guard’s face when Jairus slammed his hatchet across his forehead; the fleeting urge Conard had to shove Jairus into the bottomless depths of the cave; the fear that Jairus was even now slipping into Laina’s bed, running his gentle, dark hands down her neck…

  Chapter 18

  A s the next quarter dragged on, Doran felt more and more trapped in his seaside palace. The balconies taunted him—they were so close to the freedom that beckoned beyond their walls, yet they were nothing more than cages themselves.

  He considered asking to take a trip into town so he could speak with the locals, but again he was afraid that he would weaken Lostport by exposing his disability.

  Instead he spent more and more time in his room, reading as many books as he could, his eyes itchy from lack of sleep. Here and there he would jot down notes, fragments of thoughts that seemed like revelations in the moment but which later appeared garbled and nonsensical.

  He knew there had to be a way to escape High King Luistan’s laws, to prevent Whitland from forcing an heir on Lostport when Lostport proved incapable of providing its own, and indeed there were many examples he found in the histories he read which described variations of this scenario.

  A royal family in Kohlmarsh had passed the king’s nephew off as his son when the royal couple was unable to bear an heir of their own. A brutal king of Dardensfell had forced a male courtesan on his eldest daughter when his own wife produced nothing but girls, and claimed his grandchild as his heir at the age of six. A queen of Ruunas had executed the heir that Whitland tried to foist upon them when she refused to marry, and Varrival backed her claim to the throne.

  The examples went on and on.

  But Kohlmarsh was completely beneath Whitland’s notice, bereft of any valuable land or resources, and Dardensfell was too powerful an ally for Whitland to offend. Ruunas, much like Cashabree and Varrival, only abided by Whitish law when it suited their kingdom.

  Doran’s father would have loved for Lostport to join the ranks of those outlier countries, independen
t in all but name, but Lostport was far too valuable for Whitland to lose, and too easy to maintain its hold on, given that Lostport had no army of its own.

  So, it came down to this, Doran was forced to admit one night as he sat on the deck, the night breeze ruffling his hair. Lostport could make no changes to Whitland’s law, so instead Doran would need to play by the rules. He would marry, and he would ask his wife to sleep with someone who would give her a child.

  It had been the obvious solution all along, yet Doran had dreaded coming to this conclusion. He hated the idea of being stuck with a woman who saw him for the invalid he was, who could never truly love him.

  Doran ran a hand through his hair, which had grown unruly since he left Lostport. He was twenty-five already—his birthday had passed, unremarked, at some point while he had lain in bed following his accident. His father had married and his wife had given birth to Doran by the age of twenty-five; Doran was hardly justified in considering it a burden. It was his duty, no more and no less.

  He thought briefly of Nejeela—oh, what a riot it would cause if he brought back a Varrilan to be his queen!—but he could not bear to become a burden for someone he actually felt something for. No, he needed to marry someone ugly, hopefully dull as well. Someone who could do her duty without making him feel like less of a man.

  As the wind picked up, flinging the occasional burst of stinging sea spray across Doran’s face, he put both hands on his knees and massaged his legs fiercely, as though he could work the feeling back into them.

  At least it had been he who fell, not Laina, he thought grimly. She would have died rather than lose her freedom.

  The next morning, Doran announced to his household that he was seeking a bride to bring with him back to Lostport.

  “You plan to leave us already?” Duffrey asked stiffly.