by Dora Machado
Hato took a deep breath. “My lord, our sails have been shredded—”
“You hit me, you whoremonger—”
“Allow me to explain—”
“Where is she?”
“I waited for longer than she asked—”
“What do you mean?”
“She signaled for an hour, but I delayed for as long as practicable—”
“You left her behind?” Bren gaped. “You deserted her in Khalia’s hands?”
With a full strike of his body, Bren slammed Hato against the wall, gripping him by the shoulders and hurling him overhead as if he was nothing but a dirty rag. Hato flew across the room, crashing upside down against the porthole and landing head-first on the crumpled mattress. When he next knew, Bren was back on him like a rabid beast.
His old warrior’s instinct was to strike back. He grazed Bren’s cheek with his fist, but this was no surprise blow like the one he had dealt his lord earlier. On equal terms, Bren was quicker and stronger than he was, cupping his knuckles with a gripping clutch while landing a blow just below the ribs. Hato doubled over, wheezing.
Blasted youth. Hato’s lot was the teacher’s proverbial fate. Bren had learned all the lessons he had taught him better than well. Bren wasn’t a lad anymore and Hato was no longer in his prime. The balance of strength had shifted between them.
Hato tried to deflect his lord’s blows with his forearms. Bren was beyond angry, incensed. Part of Hato felt as if he deserved the beating. After all, he knew what it felt like, the despair, the grief, the loss. The other part of Hato was aloof from the fight, contemplating his prized pupil’s performance with a teacher’s pride, while awaiting—albeit with a tinge of resignation—the blows he deserved.
Instead, Bren’s blows faltered. His fists missed the mark. His face twisted in pain. He slumped over his knees, pressing his forehead to the mattress. The repressed groan issuing from his throat was the most wretched sound that Hato had ever heard.
“My lord?” Hato said. “What is it?”
Bren dragged himself to a corner of the berth. He sank his ashen face into the walls, shaking like a man with the fever, shrinking away from Hato’s touch.
The realization struck Hato like a blade to the heart. “Oh, no, my lord. Is it—?”
The ague. The damn ague. He couldn’t get his mouth to spit out the words. Bren had lasted longer than all of his brothers. He had worked harder than all of his kin put together. He had come closer than all of the others to beating the curse. His courage and his tenacity had inspired a man as cynical as Hato to believe that his efforts could make a difference in the outcome. And yet exactly four years after the curse had killed Harald, the merciless ague had struck all the same.
Hato’s misery reached a new height when he spotted the tears springing from his lord’s tightly shut eyes. He had nursed Bren before, just once, when he had fallen prey to grief and regret, when loss, guilt and despair had driven him to the edge of madness, the only time in the long journey that his will had faltered. Bren had been in a very bad way, and yet even back then, Hato had never seen his lord cry.
His lord’s tears made Hato sick. The ague’s pain had to be unbearable. He searched the shelves, rummaging through Lusielle’s ingredients. He wished she were here to brew one of her soothing potions. It was no use. Hato couldn’t hope to match her skills. Instead, he grabbed a bottle of the strongest distilled spirits he could find and brought it to his lord.
“Here, my lord, drink this.” He pressed the bottle against Bren’s lips. “It will help dull the pain. It’ll put you to sleep.”
Bren refused the bottle. “It’ll pass.”
“You’ve felt it before?”
Bren’s nod left Hato reeling. This wasn’t his lord’s first skirmish with the ague. Hato had failed to detect the ailment’s onset. He had been so engrossed in the new verses that he had neglected to see what was happening to his lord. He realized time was running out—for Bren, and for Laonia.
How much longer could his lord live?
Hato poured a cup of water and pressed it against Bren’s mouth. He balked again.
“It’s just water, my lord.”
Bren managed a one-eye squint.
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Tonic,” he mumbled, groping for his belt.
Hato found a flask of the woman’s tonic tucked in Bren’s belt and put it up to his lord’s lips. “It’ll do you good.”
Bren took a sip then a swig. The worst was passing. Either that or he was somehow managing to master the pain.
“Lusielle,” Bren rasped. “She—she didn’t come back.”
“No, my lord.”
“We have to go find her.”
“I’m afraid, my lord, she’s most likely—”
“We’re going after her,” Bren said. “Do you hear me?”
“Aye, my lord, whatever you say. But we have to get to Teos. Remember? The tribute is due. If you fail to show—”
“If I can’t find Lusielle—you’ll do it. You’ll find her and get her to safety. Swear to me.”
Bren’s stare was on Hato, a pained but determined look that appealed not just to Hato’s honor, but to his breaking heart as well.
“I swear.”
“You’ll protect her. You’ll defend her if need be. Laonia owes this woman a huge debt of gratitude.”
“I’ll do what you ask, my lord.”
Bren flashed one of his rare smiles. His body relaxed against the wall. For sure, the worst of the ague was now over. Since Hato had witnessed the ague in Ethan and Robert, he knew what to expect. Bren would need some rest. The ague would return at irregular intervals, attacking without warning. His lord would grow more tired and weak in between episodes. Soon, the debilitating spells would increase in frequency, doing irreparable damage to his body, confining him to his bed, from where he would not rise again.
Bren took another drink from the flask. “When the madness comes—”
“I’ll be there,” Hato said.
“Even if I’m the last one, the revelations could be helpful.”
His lord needed to know that his death wouldn’t be wasted. “The madness’s revelations will be vital, my lord, to ensure the proper end of the blight and Laonia’s survival.”
“Make sure you write down whatever revelations the madness grants me.”
“You can rely on me.”
“One more thing,” Bren said. “This I ask as I would ask my best friend, my brother, my father, all of which you have been to me, and are, to this day.”
“You know that if it’s within my power ….”
“When I die—” In his long service to the house of Uras, it was the only time Hato had heard his lord’s voice break. “After I die, I want you to look out for her. She won’t be a great burden to you or anyone. She’s too self-reliant for that. But if she needs anything, if she comes into danger or trouble of any kind, it would give me great comfort to know that after I’m gone, she could come to you.”
It was in that instant that Hato discovered why he loved Bren more than any lord he’d had. Hato had served Edmund and loved all his sons. He had been at most of their deaths, witnessed their pain, their anger, the horror of their stifled lives. But Bren, he was different. He was more. He could hurl over his damaged self to improve the lives of others. He could see beyond his curse, and despite his broken life, he could see a future that didn’t include him.
It struck Hato then that he might have misjudged and underestimated the woman. Bren cared about her in a way new to his lord. She, who was so far from all he was, had come the closest to his heart. She had shown kindness to a man who had seldom known it, and in doing so, she had saved his lord’s soul beyond the grave.
Chapter Fifty-seven
BREN’S HEAD WAS STILL SPINNING WHEN he detected the first signs of trouble. The ague was an agonizing, disconcerting experience. Striking suddenly and with brutal violence, the pain of it was crushing. A flickering darkn
ess toyed with his eyesight. That maddening, primordial shriek pierced his hearing. It had taken all he had to prevent himself from ripping out his ears to stop the unbearable racket. It had taken all his willpower not to give in to the pain. He was better now, exhausted but pain-free and capable of spotting the alarm on Hato’s face.
“Do you hear that?” Hato whispered.
Nothing.
A cursory look out the porthole revealed that night had settled upon the Nerpes. The procession had long passed them by. Far to the south, an occasional flash of lightning betrayed the gray clouds blooming in the darkness, but this wide stretch of river was particularly empty of traffic and isolated. Bren remembered that Hato had mentioned something about shredded sails. Everything added up and not in an auspicious way.
“Door,” he mouthed.
Hato dropped the bar on the brackets, but the small bar, intended mostly to offer privacy, wasn’t going to hold up to an assault for very long. Bren stood up, testing his legs. They felt a little rubbery, but they would do. He piled the pillows under the blankets and motioned to Hato. Together, they moved the desk to block the door, jamming it under the bar to strengthen the cabin’s defenses.
Bren focused on strategy. He had to think ahead of his next few moves. What was that stinking root Lusielle had used to evict the mite from Severo’s horse? Limber lout root. He rummaged through the shelves until he found the tightly sealed packet. Quickly, Bren set up the brazier, lit up the coals and, placing a pot with water over the little flames, dropped the contorted root into the pot. He was no remedy mixer, but then again, he wasn’t trying to brew a cure.
He took one last look around the cabin, searching for anything else that might be helpful to his cause. His eyes fell on Lusielle’s wares. Each flask, bottle and jar was clearly labeled. He went for the oils and the spirits, stuffing the corked jars in the leather pouch he slung over his shoulder. He had no time to linger.
“Porthole,” he mouthed.
“You’re too weak,” Hato mouthed back.
Nonsense. He wasn’t going to let the ague disable him before his time. The pain had been difficult to manage, but the exhaustion he could master. Setbacks and losses were part of the game he had been dealt; defeat, surrender or failure didn’t have to be. He wasn’t willing to sacrifice his men to a faltering cause either.
It wasn’t easy. Bren wasn’t a small man and the little porthole was far from spacious. He had to fit an arm first, followed by a shoulder, his head and his neck. Then he had to twist his other shoulder through the tiny space with a contortionist’s grit. With his shoulders—the widest part of him—hanging out of the porthole over the Nerpes, he twisted his torso and wiggled his hips out of the small opening, before rotating his body and reaching up to grab onto the cabin’s roof.
The barge’s construction offered him some advantages. The cabin was built to overhang the port side by a span or so. The little porthole protruded beyond the gunwales, creating a blind spot from the aft and forward decks. A lookout would have to lean over the railing to see the porthole. Bren spotted no such lookout at the moment.
Grabbing hold of the rafters above him and bracing his feet at the edge of the porthole, he managed to scramble up. Carefully, quietly, he flattened against the roof and elbowed himself to the edge. What he saw gave him pause to revisit his plan.
Three long reed boats were tied around the barge. They were fishing boats, common on the Nerpes and hardly likely to arouse suspicion from his lookouts even in this isolated stretch of the river. Bren counted some thirty men dressed in black cloaks moving about the deck with trained stealth. At least six of his men lay in a heap on the aft deck. The rest were out of sight or being led—or dragged, in some cases—down the stairs and into the hull.
Bren was furious. He should’ve listened to Hato. In his haste to protect Konia’s children, he had sent too many of the Twenty away. The smaller numbers, combined with the enemy’s clever tactics, had conspired to increase the barge’s vulnerabilities. Khalia’s arrival had ended all hope of traveling in stealth and Teos’s purported protection had ceased the moment the barge had fallen behind the White Tide procession.
Bren elbowed himself back onto the opposite side of the roof and reached down to the porthole. He grabbed his sword and scabbard from Hato then helped him climb out of the cabin. Instead of pulling him up onto the roof, Bren pointed down, towards the row of small, square vents hovering above the water line. He flashed ten fingers in pointed sequence. Hato nodded and began to climb down towards the lower deck. Despite his years, he got along rather well. Bren prayed that no harm would come to Hato. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if something happened to his old friend.
He concentrated on the next step of his plan. Even by his usually flexible standards, thirty-three warriors against one made for some poor pissing odds. His options were rather limited. His bow and arrows were stored below deck along with those of the Twenty. Firing the barge or destroying it in any way was not practicable. He needed the barge to go after Lusielle and get to Teos just as much as Laonia needed the cargo in the hull to pay the tribute and ensure its continued existence.
He watched as several of the barge’s assailants surrounded the cabin. The leader of the raiding party was a capable warrior. He deployed watchmen around the barge, below deck with the prisoners, and at the top of the stairs. He concentrated the rest of his forces around the cabin.
Time for Bren to get to work.
Quietly, he clambered down from the cabin’s roof and, using the porthole for purchase, climbed down to the stretch beneath the gunwales where the deck protruded beyond the hull. Evenly spaced posts designed to strengthen and stabilize the heavy top supported the deck. The beams angled from the edge of the deck and anchored on the hull’s reinforcing ledge. Balancing on the narrow ledge and swinging from beam to beam, Bren managed to skirt around the barge.
The going was tricky. His muscles quivered under the strain and his shoulders ached with the effort. As he neared the bow, he slipped. His boot splashed in the river. A commotion ensued in the water. The current bubbled with a flash of white. The White Tide procession was far ahead, but huge numbers of yearlings lagged for leagues behind it, frenzied, famished and ready to feed on anything that came near the water. Nobody who fell into the river would be able to survive the Nerpes tonight.
Bren kept going. When he turned the corner, he found one of the boarding skiffs tied to the port side on the bow. The assailants had planned their approach well, coming at the barge from three different directions under the cover of dark. They were well-trained and organized. Bren would do well to remember that.
A racket announced that the first efforts to storm the cabin door had failed. A crash rattled the barge. The assailants were battering the jammed door. Bren reached the rickety boat and eased himself into the craft. He was surprised. It was light but sturdy, constructed from reeds and sealed with tar, probably requisitioned or stolen from some poor unsuspecting fisherman.
Bren uncorked one of the bottles he had brought along. The sharp whiff of distilled spirits stung his nostrils. He sprinkled the liquid around the boat and on the fishing nets piled on the stern. When the bottle was empty, he struck his flints together and lit up the soaked fabric. He scrambled off the reed boat as soon as the flame took.
He continued to work his way around the barge, sparing the skiff tied on the starboard side but firing the one at the stern. A quick glance revealed only a discreet puff of smoke coming over the bow, nothing to be noticed as of yet by the assailants who were focused on breaking down the door.
Bren set the fire as quickly as he had done with the first and climbed onto the barge’s beams again. Completing his arduous circuit, he hiked back onto the cabin’s roof just in time to witness the door’s breach. He covered his mouth and nose as six well-armed warriors barged into the cabin. Five of them didn’t come out. The sixth collapsed at the threshold foaming at the mouth. The rest of the warriors who had been standing aroun
d the cabin drew back, gagging at the limber lout root’s toxic stench.
The Triad was smiling on Bren tonight. A gust of wind stoked the fires he had set. The little boats began to burn in earnest. The assailants noticed. With trained efficiency, they split into two groups, approaching the fires with caution. Bren had anticipated the divided forces. Exactly ten minutes after his second fire was set, the watchmen standing at the top of the stairs were killed. Led by Hato, his men and the crew emerged from the hull, free and armed.
True to Bren’s training, the group huddled around the mid-barge mast. Kneeling back-to-back behind a cluster of barrels, they fired a first volley of arrows in opposite directions. Taken by surprise, the split forces lost at least half of their men each.
Clio pitched a bundle onto the cabin’s roof. Bren unwrapped his bow and notched an arrow. He took the leader out with one shot. The assailants rallied, coming at his men from both directions, intent on slamming them on both flanks.
A second volley thinned out the attack, a gruesome hail of arrows striking at close quarters. Still, the trained warriors kept coming, even as some stumbled, skewered and dying. As the lines clashed, foes mingled too close together. Bren discarded his bow and with a running start, jumped down from the roof and landed among the thick of his men.
A first wave of steel clashed against his unsheathed sword. The clang was like a song to his mind, a summons to his knotted muscles. His movements flowed fluid and precise, a dance he knew and loved, a skill that favored him and his sword, finally, an even set of odds.
The sword hacked and sliced at his two opponents, an intricate play of parries and thrusts. Bren punched through his foes and ducked, slicing the tendon above one man’s knee and stabbing the other man with a reverse thrust. Bren’s wrist bounced faintly as the blade collided with the man’s vertebrae. Bone cracked against steel. The spine gave way to the blade. The man’s legs collapsed from under him. He crumbled like a stack of rotten wood.
