The Hero's Lot

by Patrick W. Carr

  Martin watched the throng, trying to remember how many years it had been since he’d drawn a sword in earnest. “Was it wrong to come here, Luis? You could have advised against it.”

  “I did.”

  The dry tone of the secondus’s voice belied the seriousness of their situation.

  “I know you too well, old friend,” Martin said. “You’re mulish when pushed to do something you don’t want to do. I tried to advise you against taking Errol to Erinon. Little good it did me.”

  The reader nodded. “Deep down I agreed with you. We needed to come here. Lots are stupid things, Martin. They can only tell you what you ask them. We asked them if coming here was safe. Humph. Any fool would realize coming here wasn’t safe. The question should have been, should we come here?”

  Martin saw his point. Insights such as this made Luis Montari a rarity among the conclave: a man who looked beyond his next cast. “But then we wouldn’t have known whether it was safe.”

  “Exactly,” Luis said. “I don’t speak for Deas, but I think it only right that you try to free the herbwoman if she is still held.”

  The crowd shifted and flowed in front of them, and Cruk soon emerged in front of their stand. He dismounted and joined them under the awning, his eyes slits against the rain and his mouth tight. “I saw a Morgol.” He paused. “I think.” His hand clenched and reclenched around the pommel of his sword.

  “You must be mistaken,” Luis said. “They never come off the steppes.”

  Cruk corrected the reader. “Almost never.”

  “How do you know it was a Morgol?” Martin asked.

  The captain’s massive shoulder shifted under his cloak in a shrug. “Morgols have a yellowish tinge to their skin. And they’re shorter. I saw an arm come out of a cloak. This is bad, Pater.” Cruk waved at the crowd at large. “Most of these people couldn’t tell a Merakhi from a Basqu or a Morgol from a Bellian.”

  Martin pulled the misty air into his lungs. “Our enemies know King Rodran’s time is short. Do you have an inn for us?” At Cruk’s nod, Martin pushed himself away from the shelter of the seller’s stall and into the rain. “Come. Haste is needed.”

  Cruk led them through the soaked crowd to a square on the far side of the market. Martin nodded his approval at the captain’s choice. The inn’s large common room thronged with customers who showed no sign of leaving anytime soon, yet there were still rooms available.

  “The question, Martin?” Luis asked.

  Gratitude spread warmth from his chest outward. “As it seems best to you, Secondus.” He gave a small bow, and Luis retreated up the stairs. Cruk gave his pouch an exploratory heft and wandered from the table in search of one of the city guards, leaving Martin in the corner with his thoughts.

  Questions chased each other through his mind like unruly acolytes playing tag before vespers. What made Errol so important? What had turned Sarin Valon, the brightest mind in the history of the conclave, to serve the enemy? Abbot Morin was dead, executed by the king without surrendering any of the information that might have remained in his broken mind, but what enemies remained in the watch, the conclave, or the church?

  And what of Liam?

  All instinct and reason told him that Liam would be the next king. So why did their enemies show so little interest in him? Martin cursed himself for a fool, so blinded by his quest to find and protect Liam that he’d ignored events taking place right in front of him.

  He took a pull from his tankard—dreadful stuff—and waited.

  Luis joined him an hour later, his brows furrowed and his eyes wary. Across the room, Cruk still sat, exchanging stories and tankards of ale with a medium-sized man with thinning light brown hair and a scar that ran through one eyebrow.

  “Well?” Martin asked.

  Luis shrugged. “Dawn.”

  “That doesn’t explain the crease in your forehead,” Martin said.

  The secondus gave a small shake of his head. “The lots . . .”

  “What about them?”

  The reader threw up his hands. “I don’t know. They felt strange.”

  A seed of doubt took root somewhere in Martin’s middle. They shouldn’t have come to Windridge. “Strange . . . how?”

  Luis forced a mirthless laugh. “It felt as if I were reading someone else’s question.”

  Martin tried to wave away Luis’s concern. “I’m sure your art is still as strong as ever. If the lots say dawn, then dawn it will be.”

  Across the room, Cruk plunked a coin down on the bar in front of two frothy tankards, grabbed one, and weaved his way through the patrons to rejoin them in the corner. He grabbed a seat and proceeded to take a long pull from the tankard that left it as full as before.

  “Ferrals,” he said.

  Luis slumped back, his face lost in shadow. “That would explain the order at the gate. They can walk upright, but there’s no disguising their faces.”

  “It gets worse,” Cruk growled. “They attacked the abbey. A band broke into the sanctuary. Tore the throats out of a pair of acolytes before the night watch knew anything was amiss. One of the brothers heard the cry of the acolytes and locked himself and the ferrals into the sanctuary and threw the key through a window. When reinforcements arrived they found the ferrals still inside. The monk was torn to pieces.”

  “A brave man,” Luis said.

  Martin bowed his head and recited the panikhida, the prayer for the dead. “We commend into thy mercy all thy servants which are departed hence from us with the sign of faith and now do rest in the sleep of peace: grant unto them, we beseech thee, thy mercy and everlasting peace, Deas, Eleison, and unknowable Aurae.”

  After a brief moment of silence, Cruk continued. “The ferrals were killed and their bodies burned. The abbot is trying to keep the matter quiet to keep from hurting trade in the city.” Cruk’s smile looked almost amused. “Fastest way I know of to spread information is to tell people to keep it quiet.”

  “What were the ferrals trying to do?” Luis asked.

  Cruk grimaced. “Ferrals don’t do, they kill.”

  Martin rubbed a sudden ache in his temples. “Gerold is the new abbot. Would he have just left her in prison?”

  “Left who?” Cruk asked.

  That brought Martin up short. Then he gave a rueful laugh. “I don’t even remember her name. The herbwoman Morin imprisoned.”

  “Odene,” Luis said. “Her name is Odene.”

  Luis would be the one to remember that. Not for the first time, Martin wished he was gifted with a reader’s memory.

  The smoky air of the common room burned his lungs. He let it out in a sigh. One more night before they might get some answers. “We should retire to our quarters before the crowd thins enough to make us conspicuous.”

  Cruk’s hand caught his arm as he started to rise, forced him back to his seat. “Too late for that. Look there.”

  At the entrance to the inn, four men in dark cloaks scanned the crowd. The torchlight, bright and cheery, reflected from the sallow-tinged skin of the one in back.

  7

  Flight

  MARTIN LIFTED HIS TANKARD and took a pull that wet his lips and nothing more. He cast a look toward the door again when he lowered his mug. Palpable relief washed over him as the men by the door turned to survey the crowd at the opposite end of the common room. A knot somewhere in his gut started to loosen. He had no doubt Cruk would exact a costly price if they were attacked, but his own best days with a sword were far behind him, and Luis had never been a fighter. And fights were risky, unpredictable.

  He leaned toward Cruk, moving so as to attract as little notice as possible. “I think they missed us.”

  The captain nodded, pulled his dagger to slice a wedge from the block of cheese in front of them. The blade passed through the dark yellow block with ridiculous ease. He grunted, not sounding convinced. “Maybe. If I were hunting someone, I’d do everything in my power to keep them from knowing they’d been spotted.”

  The kn
ot in Martin’s midsection re-formed.

  Luis ran one hand over the rough wooden texture of their table. “Perhaps we should slip into the kitchen and out through the door by the stables.”

  Cruk gave the best shake of his head. “No. If we do that, they’ll know we’ve spotted them. Let’s continue up to our room as if we had no suspicions. Then we can slip out through the window onto the roof and down into the stable yard.”

  “The roof? I’m not exactly built for rooftop adventures, my friend.” He gave his paunch a pat. “The trusses may pay a penance for my gluttony.”

  Luis laughed under his breath, but Cruk remained stoic.

  “I’ll go first,” the captain said. “Step where I step.” His brows drew together as if he resented the direction of his thoughts. “I’ll go up to the room first. That should cement the idea that we don’t know we’ve been spotted. The two of you follow me after a moment.” He rose and upended his tankard, spilling beer in a cascade down the front of his tunic.

  Martin let his head nod as if he were sleepy. “How did they find us, Luis? Sarin is a thousand miles away. Even if he can cast for us, there’s no way he could put men on us at such a distance.”

  Luis brushed his fingers across a dark stain in the wood—blood or oil, impossible to tell which. “You know as well as I do. Sarin isn’t the only reader they have. The conclave can only guess at what the circle he’s formed can do—a group of readers bonded to his will and thoughts by a malus . . . I shudder to think of the possibilities.”

  Martin exhaled in an attempt to defuse the flash of anger washing over him like the sudden heat from an oven. “By the three, it’s the conclave’s job to know.”

  “And how could we, old friend? To plumb the depths of Sarin’s ability we would have to replicate what he’s done. Our enemies are beyond restraint.”

  Martin accepted the rebuke. “You are right, of course.” He lifted himself from his chair. “The roof awaits.” He permitted his feet a stumble to give the appearance of fatigue and made for the stairs that led to their room. Luis’s footsteps made shuffling noises behind him.

  Cruk closed the room’s door behind them and knelt to hammer a wedge-shaped piece of wood between the floor and the door with the butt of his dagger. With deft movements he rose and hammered two more wedges in between the door and the jamb. “Hopefully, by the time they get through those into our room, we’ll be long gone.”

  Martin followed him to the narrow window whose dirty glass reflected the lamplight, keeping the night beyond shrouded. Cruk forced the latch and swung the frame open. The sound of distant laughter spilled in on the warm breeze. The watchman turned and squeezed through the narrow opening, then beckoned Martin to follow.

  He turned sideways as Cruk had done and stepped through. His foot found purchase on the slanted wooden shingles of the roof, but the window frame scraped against his side, then his middle.

  Then he got stuck.

  “This would be funny if our lives didn’t depend on getting away from here,” Cruk said. His mouth twitched to the right in an amused grimace.

  Luis smiled. “Most people won’t trust a thin priest. It makes them wonder what vice he has instead of gluttony. Still. I think you’ve skipped too many fasts.”

  Martin exhaled and sucked in his stomach in a vain attempt to get through the window. The rough wood scraped another couple of inches across his belly before the need for air curtailed his effort.

  Cruk grabbed his arm. “Push, Luis.”

  Together the two of them forced him through the window accompanied by the creak of wood and the rasp of tearing cloth. Cruk caught him as he fell toward the roof. The watchman’s grip crushed his forearm. “You weren’t this fat in Callowford, Pater. I think Erinon is bad for your health.”

  Martin assessed the damage to his middle. “My health is fine, thank you. I just need to stop eating so much.”

  Luis stepped through the window as he would have a door and alighted on the roof next to him with a grace Martin found annoying.

  The reader’s face betrayed no further hint of amusement. “I think that’s what the captain just said.”

  Cruk rolled his footsteps toward the stable. “This way.”

  The sound of soft knocking drifted to Martin’s ears through the open window. A moment later a sharp crack of splintering wood split the air.

  Cruk hissed a curse. “Run!”

  Martin forced himself across the slanted roof, tried to ignore the sound of cracking trusses that sounded with each step. Snatches of prayers pulled from half a dozen different liturgies merged into a plea for help. “Deas, please strengthen this roof.” He slowed when Cruk turned the corner and disappeared. Another staccato sound of cracking wood sounded from their room.

  “Hurry, Martin,” Luis said. “We’re an easy target on this roof for a bow or a well-thrown knife.”

  He nodded in the gloom. “Me, especially.”

  Around the corner, Cruk stood at the edge of the roof overlooking the grounds in front of the stable. He shifted to his right and jumped. Martin stopped, dismayed by the expectation implicit in Cruk’s actions. If he jumped from this height, he’d break his ankles.

  Luis nudged him from behind. “Martin, we’re going to have company out here very soon.”

  Sweat plastered his tunic to his skin. With a shake of his head and a rebuke for his lack of faith, he forced himself forward. When he got to the edge of the roof, he laughed with relief. Beneath him a pile of hay beckoned. Across the enclosed yard, he could just see Cruk moving into the stable. With a quick intake he stepped off. A cloud of chaff rose on impact, and the grassy smell filled his nose. The landing hit him harder than he expected. His teeth clacked together and a spasm of complaint shot across the muscles of his back, but everything seemed intact. Luis landed next to him and bounced up.

  Sounds of pursuit came to them from behind.

  Martin scrambled out of the hay and lumbered toward the stables. He found Cruk just inside the darkened entrance, the reins to three horses twined through his fingers. “They’re not as good as ours, but they’re decent. More important, they’re saddled.”

  Martin nodded his approval. “Maybe the difference in horseflesh will pay the innkeeper for the broken shingles.”

  “It’ll leak the next time it rains,” Luis said.

  Cruk’s amused grimace froze halfway, interrupted by the buzz of an arrow. With a yell he dove into Martin and Luis, knocking them deeper into the stable. Martin fell with Cruk on top, his ribs groaning under the weight. He motioned the captain to slide off, but the watchman’s hiss of pain stopped him. He rolled, his face knotted in agony.

  The point of a broadhead arrow, wet with crimson, protruded from Cruk’s shoulder. Blood grew in an ever-increasing stain around the wound.

  Cruk staggered and led them to the back of the stable that opened onto the streets of Windridge. “Orders, Pater?” His voice sounded thin and pinched.

  “Orders? By the book, man! Take us to a healer before you drop dead.”

  Cruk shook his head, gave a low growl of negation. “We can’t do that.”

  Martin balled his fists until they ached with his impotence. “Why not?”

  Luis stepped up to his shoulder. “They’ll find us if we stop long enough to get Cruk medical attention.”

  Cruk’s voice wheezed past a spasm of pain. “Listen to him, Pater. I can still ride. I’ve been wounded before. I know what to do.”

  Martin’s blood dropped from his face to settle somewhere in his gut. “When we get to a safe stopping point, Luis and I will pull the arrow for you.”

  “No,” Cruk said. “You’ll disturb the wound if you do—and we don’t have the time. We have to leave it. I promise to try not to bleed to death.” He barked a weak laugh. “Last rites would take too much time.”

  Martin’s middle constricted with fear despite Cruk’s banter. A ride through the city would kill him as surely as a headsman’s axe.

  Cruk bit his lips as
he threw the bar to the broad doors at the back of the stable and led them out to the street. He mounted, his face pale and pinched. “Stay close. Once we get away from the inn, walk your mounts unless you see pursuit.”

  Luis coughed. “If we follow a course chosen at random, they can’t cast for our path. Don’t plan our route.”

  Cruk gave the barest nod, then yanked the reins to the left.

  Earthy smells of horse came to Martin as he mounted and nudged his mare into motion. Hooves clopped against cobblestones, and the outlines of the buildings around them, already muddied in the gloaming of the day, blurred until the lines of the city became indistinguishable from each other. Cruk led them on a meandering path that defied logic or prediction.

  Martin held his breath whenever they rounded a corner, waiting for Cruk’s strength to fail him. Each time he swayed in the saddle, then righted. They continued on. Behind them the streets were silent as death. An agony of minutes and miles later, Cruk held up a hand in the weak torchlight and motioned them to slow.

  Martin pulled the reins and turned to Cruk. Blood clotted the arrow’s fletching and a rich, dark stain covered most of Cruk’s tunic. For all that, his face looked worse. Pain and blood loss leached the color from him until his skin held no hue of its own; it merely reflected the sickly yellow of the streetlamps.

  When Cruk pulled to a stop, he looked like a ghoul. “I think we have some time to spare. I need you to bind the wound.”

  Martin nodded. Inside he quailed at the layers of thick, sticky blood on his friend’s tunic. “Tell us what to do.”

  “Fold up four pieces of cloth into tight bundles. Place them around the arrow—both front and back. Then take long strips and wrap my shoulder as tightly as you can. The pressure will help slow the bleeding.” Cruk grinned, his lips bloodless. “You might want to pray, Pater. I’m likely to say some things I’ll need to be forgiven for.”

  Hot tears blurred Martin’s vision. He rebuked them. This was no time for maudlin sentimentality. Determined to adopt Cruk’s stoicism, he pulled his dagger and began ripping his cloak into strips. Luis stepped in with his carpenter’s knife. The sound of tearing cloth filled his ears like the growling hiss of a predator.