Like the waystation, the inside of the inn was heat warded and quite warm. At its front was a general store, the only resource in town for the necessities of life. Shelves behind the counter were filled with various tools and implements on sale, and chalked slates listed prices for food, livestock, and specialty items.
The room was crowded with women, many with children at their skirts as they called to the women taking orders and coin at the counter, who then called stocking instruction to more of Baron Talor’s burly guards.
After the silence of the road, the din was overwhelming, but the baron quickly led the way through to the taproom in back and a quiet alcove with a richly appointed table. The bartender immediately brought them coffee.
Arlen blew on his steaming cup and sipped, the warmth beginning to seep back into his bones. The baron gave him time to take his ease until two women approached the table, one young, and another much older. Their dresses were plainer than Royal ladies favored in Fort Miln, but the fine cut and cloth still marked them.
Arlen stood politely as the baron kissed the women and turned to make introductions. “Messenger Arlen Bales, may I present my wife, Lady Delia Talor, and my daughter, Stasy.”
Arlen noted the lack of the title “Mother” before the baroness’ name, but he made no comment, bowing and kissing hands just as Cob had taught him.
The baroness was in her late fifties and no beauty, with a pinched face and a long neck, making her seem like a fishing bird. Stasy Talor, however, was all that Derek had claimed.
She was of an age with Arlen, with dark hair and blue eyes, tall and lithe in the Milnese way. She was pretty of face, but Arlen thought it was the sad cast to her eyes that made her truly beautiful. The lacings of her bodice were undone, as if the dress no longer fit well.
Reckon she must’ve bled by now, Derek had said, but suddenly Arlen wasn’t so sure. He had to force his eyes up to meet hers before he was caught staring.
They all sat, and the baron and baroness leaned in close as they broke the seal and read Count Brayan’s private letter. They began whispering harshly to one another and glancing at Stasy, but Arlen affected not to notice. He turned to the girl, hoping to engage her in conversation, but the baron’s daughter did not acknowledge him, watching the discussion with her sad eyes.
Finally, the baron grunted and turned back to Arlen. “We’ll soon be sending a caravan to Miln, so you can leave the cart here and head back with your horse alone. There will only be a handful of letters for your return.”
Arlen nodded, and soon after a rich lunch was served. The baron and his wife kept up a constant flow of questions, asking for news from Miln, and Arlen dutifully recited every going on of note in the great city, along with whatever gossip he had overheard around the Messengers’ Guildhouse. It was the gossip the Royals in exile seemed to covet most of all. Stasy took no part in the conversation, her eyes on her lap.
At last, a guard came over to the table with a chalked slate and the manifest. “There’s a thunderstick missing.” He eyed Arlen suspiciously.
“Nonsense,” Talor said. “Count them again.”
“Counted twice,” the guard said.
The baron scowled, and his eyes flicked to Arlen for just an instant. His smile was forced. “Count a third time,” he told the guard.
Arlen cleared his throat. “No, he’s right. The missing stick’s in front, tucked under the seat. I used it to scare my way past the bandits.” He tried to tell himself he had forgotten the stick was there, but he knew deep down that he had left it there on purpose, hoping that perhaps no one would notice it was missing from the crate.
Everyone looked at him in shock. Even Stasy’s eyes came up. Arlen quickly explained his encounter with the bandits, though he made no mention of Sandar.
Still, Baron Talor’s mouth fell open with the telling. “You bluffed your way through by waving a thunderstick?”
Arlen smiled. “Never said I was bluffing.”
Talor barked a laugh, and shook his head. “Not sure if that’s the bravest or the craziest thing I ever heard! If it’s true, you’ve got stones like a rock demon.”
“They say a man doesn’t become a Messenger unless he does,” the baroness purred, giving Arlen a look that made him shudder. “But how did they find out about the shipment? Only Mother Cera and I knew the exact date.”
“And Sandar,” Arlen said, “who supposedly broke his leg the morning of.”
“That’s a big accusation, Messenger,” Talor said, a quiet danger to his voice. “Have you any proof?”
Arlen knew his next words could mean life or death for Sandar. He shrugged. “Not accusing anybody. I’m just saying that if I was you, I’d get myself a new Messenger.”
“How do we know you aren’t just trying to get the job yourself?” the baroness asked.
“I’m just an apprentice,” Arlen said. “Guild won’t give me the job regardless.”
“Bah,” the baroness waved dismissively. “We could change that with a flick of a pen, and you know it. If you’re telling the truth, we owe you a great debt.”
Arlen nodded. “’Preciate that, milady, but I got an eye to see the world a bit before I settle on a regular run.”
The baroness tsked. “You young ones always do, but one day you may not think steady work on a familiar path such a bad thing.”
After lunch, the baron and the baroness stood. Arlen quickly got to his feet as well, and Stasy followed, her eyes still hollow.
“You’ll have to excuse us,” Talor said, “but we have some business to attend. Stasy will see you assigned a room and have the boys prepare supplies for your return. Compliments of Count Brayan, of course.”
They vanished in a swirl of expensive fur, and Stasy gave a shallow curtsey. “Daughter Stasy, to serve you,” she mumbled.
“You make it sound like a death sentence,” Arlen said.
Finally, the baron’s daughter met his eyes. “I apologize, Messenger, but the letter you brought from the count may as well have been.” Her tone was the resigned one of someone whose tears are long dried.
“My legs still ache from the climb,” Arlen said, gesturing to the table. “Will you sit with me a little longer?”
Stasy nodded and allowed Arlen to pull her chair. “As you wish.”
Taking his own seat across from her, Arlen leaned over the table, his voice low. “They say if you whisper a secret to a Messenger, it’s safer than a Tender’s ear. No man, nor all the demons of the Core, can pull it unwilling from his lips, save the one it’s meant for.”
“This from the man who spread court gossip to my parents for the last hour.” Stasy noted.
Arlen smiled. “Once those rumors reach the main hall of the Messengers’ Guild, they are no longer secret, but I will tell you something that is.”
Stasy raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Derek still thinks there ent no woman finer than Stasy Talor, and prays you haven’t bled,” Arlen said. “Said I could tell you so.”
Stasy gasped and put a hand to her chest. Her pale cheeks turned bright red and she looked around guiltily, but there was no one to see. She met his eyes fully now.
“Clearly I haven’t,” she said, absently touching the loose lacing about her belly. “But it makes no difference. He is not good enough for me.”
“Are those your words, or your father’s?” Arlen asked.
Stasy shrugged. “What does it matter? My father might have taken the ‘i’ from his name when mother died and he married Count Brayan’s Royal cousin, but amongst the other nobles, he still feels like a Merchant, because his access to Royal circles is only as strong as his marriage vows. He wants better for me, and that means bearing children to a proper Royal husband and attending the Mothers School.”
Arlen resisted the urge to spit on the floor. His father had tried to force him into an arranged marriage when he was eleven, and he remembered how it felt.
“Ent got anyone calling themselves Royal where I come f
rom,” he said. “Reckon we’re better for it.”
“Honest word,” Stasy agreed sadly.
“How will your father arrange that, once your state is known?” Arlen asked.
Stasy laughed mirthlessly. “Likely he won’t be able to, which is why that ‘caravan’ he’s sending will ship me off to Count Brayan’s Court to have my babe in secret amongst the Servants, at which point Countess Mother Cera will present me at court as having just arrived in the city and broker me a ‘proper’ marriage. Derek will never even know he’s a father.”
“You’ll have to pass the waystation,” Arlen said.
“Won’t matter,” Stasy said. “A new keeper will be sent with us to relieve him, and he’ll be on his way back up the mountain before he even knows I’m locked in the coach.”
She looked around to make sure they were not being watched, then reached out and gripped Arlen’s hand. He saw passion in her eyes, and a thirst for adventure. “But if Derek knew what was coming and had supplies hidden, he could sneak down the mountain instead of up. Even if father sent someone after us the moment Derek went missing, we’d have a week’s lead. More than enough to find each other, sell my jewelry, and disappear into the city. We could get married no matter what his station and raise our child together.”
Stasy looked at him, her eyes burning. “If you’ll tell him this, Messenger, with no word to any other or mark in your log, I will pay whatever you ask.”
Arlen looked at her, feeling as protective as an elder brother. He would take her message for nothing, but he could not deny there was something he wanted. Something the baron’s daughter might be able to arrange.
“I need a thunderstick,” he said quietly.
Stasy snorted. “Is that all? I’ll have half a dozen of them packed with your supplies.”
Arlen gaped, shocked at how easy it had been, but it quickly melted into a smile.
“What do you need the stick for?” Stasy asked.
“Gonna kill a rock demon that’s been following me,” Arlen said.
Stasy tilted her head, studying him in that way people had, as if trying to determine if he were joking or simply mad. At last she gave a slight shrug and met his eyes. “Just promise you’ll deliver my message first.”
Arlen took an extra couple of days to catch his breath while the Goldmen finished preparing their messages for his return trip. He still tired easily in the thin mountain air, but the effects bothered him less each day. He spent the time wisely, watching the miners put the new thundersticks to use. Everyone wanted the favor of the new Messenger, so they were quick to answer his questions.
After watching as they reduced a solid rock face into tons of rubble in an ear-splitting instant, Arlen knew the destructive power of the thunderstick had not been exaggerated. If anything in the world could penetrate One Arm’s thick carapace, it was this.
At last all was in order, and on the third day he put his heavy armor back on and headed to the stables. His saddlebags were already packed with supplies, and in them, Arlen found a small box of thundersticks packed in straw, along with a sealed envelope addressed to Derek in flowing script.
As the Baron had promised, it was far easier going down the trail than coming up. He made it to the first wardpost early in the day and pressed on, making the station well before dusk. Derek came out to meet him.
“I’ve a special letter for you,” Arlen said, handing him the envelope. The keeper’s eyes lit up at the sight, and he held the unopened letter up to the sun.
“Creator,” he prayed, “please let it be that she ent bled.”
He tore the letter open excitedly, but as he read his smile faded and his face slowly drained of color, becoming as white as the snow around him. He looked up at Arlen in horror.
“Night,” he said. “She’s out of her corespawned mind. Does she honestly think I’m going to run off to Miln?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Arlen asked. “You just prayed to the Creator for this very thing.”
“Sure, when I thought it would make me the Baron’s son-in-law, not when it means a week and more alone with the corelings.”
“What of it?” Arlen asked. “There’re campsites the whole way, and you’re a fine Warder.”
“You know what the worst thing about being a keeper is, Messenger?” Derek asked.
“Loneliness?”
Derek shook his head. “It’s that one night it takes to get home. Sure, you can tumble downhill to the station in a day, but going back up, you always have to stop at that corespawned wardpost.” He shuddered. “Watching the corelings stalk with nothing between you but magic. Don’t know how you Messengers do it. I always come home with piss frozen to my breeches. I ent ever even done it alone. My da and brothers always come out when I’m relieved, so the four of us can take turns at watch.”
“Folk make the trip all the time,” Arlen said.
“And every year, at least half a dozen of them are cored on the way,” Derek said. “Sometimes more.”
“Careless people,” Arlen said.
“Or just unlucky,” Derek said. “Ent no girl worth that. I like Stasy well enough, and she’s a ripping good rut if you get her alone, but she ent the only girl in Brayan’s Gold.”
Arlen scowled. Derek’s calm obstinance, producing excuse after excuse for his cowardice, reminded him of his father. Jeph Bales, too, had turned his back on wife and child when it meant spending a night out of walls, and it had cost Arlen’s mother her life.
“You go back to Brayan’s Gold without Stasy and your child, you ent half a man,” he said, and spit on the ground.
Derek growled and balled a fist. “What’s it to you anyway, Messenger? What do you care if I run off with the Baron’s daughter or not?”
“I care because that girl and the babe she’s carrying deserve better than a ripping coward,” Arlen said, and then there was a flash behind his eyes as Derek punched him. He rolled with the blow, coming around to drive his steel-plated elbow hard into the keeper’s kidney. Derek howled and doubled over, and Arlen’s next swing took him full in the face, laying him out flat in the snow. Feelings long buried came roaring to the surface, and Arlen had to check himself against a desire to continue the beating. He got back on his horse. “Don’t think I’ll be staying,” he told Derek as the keeper rolled up onto his elbow, shaking his head to clear it. “Rather spend a night alone with the corelings than behind warded walls with a man who’ll turn his back on his own child.”
The trail climbed a ridge and then dropped steeply, leaving Brayan’s Gold and the Waystation on the far side of the mountain. Arlen’s bruised cheek throbbed dully in the cold, and his mood grew blacker as he went. It was not the first time he had underestimated a man and felt betrayed, nor would it likely be the last, but always it was for the same reason. Fear. Fear of the corelings. Fear of the night. Fear of death.
Fear’s a good thing, his father used to say. It keeps us alive.
But as with so many things, his father had been wrong. Jeph Bales had taken his fear and embraced it so fully he was convinced it was wisdom. Allowing himself to be ruled by fear might have extended Jeph’s years, but under its heavy yoke, Arlen doubted his father had ever truly lived.
I will respect the corelings, Arlen thought, but I will never stop fighting them.
An hour before sunset, he stopped and made camp, laying out his circles and hobbling Dawn Runner, making sure she was well blanketed. He glanced at the crate of thundersticks, and decided he could wait no longer. Not far back he had crossed a narrow pass that was perfect for his purposes. He took two spears, two thundersticks, and his shield, hiking back uphill. He soon found the pass, overlooked by an escarpment much like the spot Sandar had chosen to waylay him and Curk.
He headed up the trail a bit further, scattering small lacquered plates etched with light wards in the snow along the path One Arm was soon to come bounding down. He returned to the pass and climbed the escarpment, looking out eagerly over the trail as he waited f
or dusk.
Twilight came quickly, and the stench of the demons rose with their foul mist, seeping from the ground to pollute the surface. The demons were sparse here, but not three feet from Arlen, a rock demon began to form on the escarpment, a squat beast, with armor the same color as the stone.
Arlen knew the demon would not notice him until it was fully formed, but he did not run or prepare a circle. Instead he crouched, waiting for the demon to solidify. When it was fully opaque he rushed in, shield leading. There was a full elemental circle of protection etched around the shield’s edge, and magic flared as Arlen reached the coreling, stopping him short and hurling the rock demon off the outcropping, clear over the side of the cliff face.
Arlen smiled as the demon’s roar receded to a distant crashing. There was a crack, and a shelf of snow far below broke free, burying the coreling where it landed. He doubted a fall could ever do lasting harm to a rock demon, but he took pleasure in its rage all the same.
It was a clear night, and twilight gave way to moon and stars that cast a dim glow on the snow. Even so, he heard the distant rumble of One Arm’s approach long before he caught sight of the giant rock demon.
He waited, match held in his shield hand and thunderstick in the other. His spears were stuck point-down in the snow, in easy reach. When the ward plates on the trail flared, filling the pass with light, Arlen struck his thumbnail against the match tip, lighting it with a pop. He touched the fuse of the thunderstick to the fire where it caught with a crackle. Immediately, he drew back his arm and threw, raising his shield and peeking over its edge.
One Arm stopped its charge, looking at the projectile curiously, but then its good arm whipped across, faster than Arlen would have imagined possible, to bat the stick away. It flew up out of sight before exploding with a force that shook the whole mountainside and knocked Arlen to one knee, his ears ringing. The bang echoed in the distance. One Arm was distracted for a moment, but seemed otherwise unaffected.
“Corespawn it,” Arlen muttered as the giant demon turned its attention back toward him. He was thankful he had brought a spare.
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