“The men need a battle to feel as though they are doing something General!” Lord Gambril’s nasally voice broke in, “You are losing control of your soldiers!”
“And whose fault is that Gambril?” the man Lord Gambril had identified as the General spoke, “You are the one who pays my soldiers, something you have failed to do for the past month.” Lord Gambril choked on an angry remark but the General spoke over him, “And you have spread rumors about our inevitable defeat if we stay here doing nothing for the past month.”
“Lies!” Lord Gambril screamed, “Someone has set me up, I have told you before!”
Kant snorted in disgust but it was the General who spoke, “Yes, you have told us before and then gone and undermined your own word as soon as you gave it. Any other time I would have had you killed already but the King has made it clear that there is no one who can replace you and by law I am prevented from laying hands on a noble.”
Lord Gambril snarled at the other two men, “The Queen will hear about this attack. I am her own man! I have connections you couldn’t even dream of! You will both face consequences you can’t imagine for this insult.” A few seconds later the flaps to the tent blew open and a weasily, fat man stalked out of the tent. He wore brightly colored clothes patterned in stripes of gold and green and he seemed to be constantly on the verge of falling over his ridiculous looking shoes. He gave the soldiers guarding the tent a sneer before stomping off towards a richly furnished tent positioned close to the command center.
“Want me to kill him?” Kant’s voice echoed through the shadows to Selth. Her eyes bugged out and she almost lost concentration on the shadows. She couldn’t believe an Inquisitor, an upholder of the law to the highest extent, was talking about killing a man as though it were the same thing as buying fruit at the market.
“No,” the general sighed, “I wasn’t lying when I said no one could replace him. Lord Gambril is the last man with the power to distribute royal coin who’s willing to come to the border. If I could get anyone else I’d have the man dead in a heartbeat.”
She could almost imagine Kant’s shrug as he spoke again, “It might be better to kill him anyways. The Queen and King have not gotten along well of late. Some say she’s left Andin behind in support of Mardule after so long with the war.”
“Dangerous thing to say,” the General muttered, “I just wish it wasn’t true. There’s no other way to explain her support of Lord Gambril. Unfortunately, while we have no proof of either of their actions there’s nothing we can do.” He heaved another sigh, “So, you need to cross the border?”
Selth rocked back in surprise, there hadn’t even been a transition after such delicate information had been discussed. How could the Queen of Andin want Mardule to win the war. If that was the case why was she still alive? And what had Kant said about Mardule’s general? She needed to corner him and ask about the man. Every time she had seen Atlatraigan in her dreams he had been dressed as a Mardulian general and while she didn’t want to believe they were true it would make sense why Mardule was fighting so well if it had a man, a creature, like that at its head. Leaving Kant and the General to talk in peace she turned towards the tent Gambril had entered.
It had been ages since she’d had the opportunity to steal anything but if this man was a traitor then perhaps there was something more incriminating than words in his tent. A small smile playing across her lips, Selth moved away from the command tent as though she were planning on leaving. Calculating the distance she needed to move out of the guards sight, she turned smoothly into the opening between two tents, stepping over the bodies of the two men who lay in front of her. She carefully walked between the piles of weapons and sweaty, depressed soldiers who littered the ground and after half an hour of precise movement was positioned directly behind Lord Gambril’s tent. She dropped to her stomach and pulled up the back flap of the tent just enough so that she could see inside. A smile almost broke out onto her face as she remembered the first thing she had stolen, what felt like decades ago, in nearly the same manner but she viciously repressed it. It wouldn’t do to become distracted over something so trivial.
Slowly, Selth lifted the tent flap further and peered at the richly furnished interior of Lord Gambril’s tent. Lord was the right term going by the state of the man’s tent. Beautifully worked tapestries hung from wrought-iron stands which must have taken a team of horses just to move out to the encampment. Golden statues rested on intricately carved wooden tables and a massive, oak four poster bed lay in the middle of it all. Feelings of greed and disgust mixed in Selth’s stomach as she looked around and she almost moved to rip as much of it from this greedy pig as she could when a barely audible breath made her recall that Gambril was still in the tent.
She cursed herself for a fool and turned her head towards the sound. It had come from beyond the bed which explained why she hadn’t seen him in the first place, the tent was massive. She quickly pulled her head out of it and glanced around to make sure no one had seen her lying prone on the ground then slithered into the tent itself. Quietly she stole up to the side of the bed and worked her way around it until she could see Gambril, writing something out at a beautifully made desk. Selth carefully pocketed a few of the more easily missed items which lay in hands’ reach – a purse under the bed, a small golden statue of a lion which was obscured by more intricate carvings – as she sat waiting for Gambril to move from his desk.
For thirty minutes she stayed that way, unmoving. Aches crept into her bones from the hard, dirt floor which even the plush, rabbit fur carpet couldn’t cover entirely but still she remained motionless. Finally, Gambril stood up, pushing back his chair and stretching his hands over his head. He turned towards the massive bed and Selth nearly gave herself away as she leapt back to avoid being seen. The rotund man gave no sign of having noticed his intruder, though, and she breathed a quite sigh of relief. The heavy thud of Gambril’s shoes on the ground echoed in the deafening silence of the tent and Selth barely contained a yelp of fright as the feather mattress she was pushed up against shifted. For a second she thought that Gambril had actually noticed her and that he was trying to grab her. Nothing happened but Selth felt as though her heart was about to burst from her chest. She stayed frozen for nearly ten minutes, ignoring the pains shooting through her calves from crouching for so long and the ache in her back from bending over.
She nearly collapsed in relief when the deep, even breaths indicating Lord Gambril was asleep drifted to her ears. Fear disappeared and she slowly stood and began to limber her legs, they had gone asleep as she crouched to avoid the imagined threat of Lord Gambril. The man was disgusting, in sleep he bore more resemblance to a rat than to an actual human being. Fighting the urge to knock him upside the head for scaring her, she moved around the bed and towards the seat Gambril had vacated. Her boots made no sound as she crossed the ground and when she reached the table which held his note she rested her hands lightly on the wood, careful not to touch anything.
Selth skimmed through the note he had written and felt her eyes bug out of her head. She had expected some sort of treachery from the Lord, Kant wouldn’t have raised such suspicions if they weren’t true, but this went far beyond anything she could have imagined. The note was to the Queen, and it indicated that Andian gold, Andian battle plans and Andian weapons were all being sent to Mardule according to plan. Shaken, she grabbed a fresh sheet of parchment from a stack on Gambril’s desk, careful not to move the others so much as an inch, and snatched the quill which lay in an open ink well. Her hand flickered across the page, quick as light, and soon she was holding an exact copy of the letter Gambril had written fifteen minutes prior. She dropped the quill back into its inkwell and waved the parchment in the air to dry it. A minute later it was tucked safely into her trousers and she was slithering out of Lord Gambril’s tent the same way she had entered it.
She brushed off her shirt and jacket then turned back towards the diplomatic tents she had spent the night in.
Selth barely paid attention to the soldiers that lay scattered under foot as she wandered through the camp, her mind was ablaze with the knowledge she had just uncovered. If the plot she had just learned of was revealed it could change the course of the war forever. It could explain every poor decision and loss felt by Andin’s armies for the past fifteen years!
Suddenly Aren came running around the tent in front of her, breaking her from her reverie. “Hold this!” he shouted and tossed her a bag. Selth snatched it out of the air instinctively and nearly dropped it. The thing was far heavier than Aren had made it look. Turning back towards him she almost dropped the bag again as a crowd of soldiers charged after him, angrily waving their swords and shouting at him to ‘give them back!’ Suddenly far more conscious of the heavy bag she held Selth broke into a trot away from the direction Aren was leading the angry soldiers. It took her a bit out of her way but she didn’t want to chance running into that mob again before she got back to the tents. An hour later Selth stepped back into the diplomatic area and hurried into her tent, setting the bag Aren had given her on her bed. She opened it up and stared at what lay within. There were a bunch of glass or crystal fragments piled together. It didn’t make sense. Soldiers didn’t care about useless bobbles so why were they chasing Aren for these?
She tied the bag back up, determined to question Aren upon his return. An hour later he trotted back into their camp wearing a new cloak and with a soldier’s cap positioned jauntily on his head. “What in Hell was that all about?” Selth demanded in a hushed voice as he walked towards her tent.
“Soul shards.” he said distractedly as he pushed into her tent.
“What do they do?” she asked, still whispering as though the mob of soldiers was waiting right outside her tent.
He frowned and tapped his chin thoughtfully, “Think of them as black holes for happiness. Hold a soul shard for long enough and you’ll end up killing yourself just because you can’t see any reason left for living. Highly illegal and quite expensive on the black market.”
Selth jumped back a step from the bag of shards. “Why the hell do a bunch of soldiers have them?” she gaped, forgetting to keep her voice down, “And why do they want them back?”
Aren smiled almost happily, “That is the question is it not. Well the first one, not the second. The answer to that is quite simple. The soldiers want their soul shards because they can sense the happiness the shards contain. For some of them the soul shard might be their last link to a happier time.”
“And you took that?” Selth gasped, incredulous.
He looked up in confusion, “Oh! Yes. But in a few days those soldiers will be far happier than they would be with just the shard. These don’t hold happiness forever; they have to be held by the same person each day to work. The more important question was your first one. Why did the soldiers have them? Fortunately, I was able to find out why.” Aren stopped talking to give a flourishing bow. “A man named Lord Gambril has apparently been giving them out as tokens so that soldiers can collect their pay when it comes in.” he broke out laughing, “He’s probably been spending the soldiers’ actual pay on these.”
Selth cursed sharply when he mentioned Lord Gambril and Aren gave her a curious look, “I just came from the command tent where Lord Gambril was trying to get the General to send his soldiers into a death trap in Mardule. Then I went to his tent and it turns out he’s working to undermine Andin in any and every way he can.”
“It appears you’ve got a story of your own.” Aren leaned back on his staff and cocked an eyebrow. She nodded and quickly sketched out what had happened after she arrived at the command tent. When she finished Are was nodding thoughtfully, “If what you heard is true than I’ll have to tell Kant what I just told you. Even if Lord Gambril is the only man who can give out the soldiers pay he’s likely to leave it in such a state of depression that at the next battle they’ll all kill themselves rather than fight. He has to be dealt with.”
Selth opened her mouth to protest, she didn’t want Kant to know she’d been eavesdropping on his conversation with the General, but Aren appeared to know what she was going to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll make it sound as though the idea comes completely from me. Kant won’t know what you’ve told me.”
“What’s that?” Kant asked sharply, entering the tent. Selth jumped several feet into the air and gave a shriek of terror at the unexpected entrance. He eyed the bag lying on her bed. “I see the two of you couldn’t even follow the simplest of instructions for the day. Are you aware that the whole camp is in an uproar about an old man stealing men’s payment notes?” he gave Aren a pointed stare.
“Kant,” Aren started smoothly but he cut him off.
“No, I don’t care what you have to say. We’re leaving in two hours and between then and now I don’t want to see either of you.” he turned to stalk out of Selth’s tent.
“But Lord Gambril’s the reason the whole army’s about to fall apart where it stands, why everyone’s so depressed!” she called out in a panicked voice.
Kant swung back around, “Nonsense. Lord Gambril doesn’t have that kind of power and he wouldn’t deliberately sabotage the army that’s keeping him safe in such a way.”
“Are you sure about that?” Aren asked calmly, knocking over the bag which lay on Selth’s bed and causing the soul shards to spill across it and onto the floor. Kant bent to the ground and examined one. “What the hell is this?” he asked, picking up the shard.
“A payment note” Aren said, looking smugly down at the Inquisitor, “And a soul shard.”
“A soul shard!” Kant roared with laughter, “Next you’ll say that dragons have returned and The Lord of Night stalks mortal land once more.” he shook his head in disgust, “Soul shards are a myth.”
Aren’s mouth dropped open in shock and Selth felt her own do the same. How could Kant so easily dismiss anything. He knew magic was real and he was an Inquisitor! She stepped forward, opening her mouth to shout something angry at his smirking face when she felt the paper she had taken from Lord Gambril crinkle beneath her shirt. “What about this then!” she shouted, ripping the paper from its hiding place and thrusting it towards him.
“A note that you wrote?” he asked, amusement still flickering in his voice.
“No.” she stated as calmly as she could, “A note that Lord Gambril wrote. I copied it from an identical one in his tent.”
A frown creased Kant’s forehead and he turned back to the letter, plucking it from her hand. Quickly, he skimmed through the document and when he finished a smoldering fire appeared in his eyes. “Be ready to leave in an hour.” he snarled, turning to exit the tent.
“What are you going to do?” Selth called before he could leave.
“I’m going to kill Lord Gambril.” Kant said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“But I thought the General,” she stopped herself but the damage was already done.
“So you were listening to what I said to General Daven then?” Kant turned to face her. Then some of the anger melted from his eyes and he gave a sigh, “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Mattle and Raxous are the only two who actually do the things a normal human being would do when I give them an order. And Raxous is a wolf!”
“Yes,” Aren broke in, “We understand that. But if General Daven wants Lord Gambril alive than you can’t exactly kill him, can you?”
Kant rolled his eyes, “The only reason Gambril isn’t dead is because no one else here has been given a warrant to dole out royal money and no noble who can is willing to come to the border.” he patted his pocket, the same one where he had pulled diplomatic papers from earlier. “But now that I have proof Gambril is a traitor I can authorize General Daven to give out payroll and kill Gambril.” Selth’s mouth dropped open a second time but Kant shrugged his shoulders unapologetically, “The King’s justice is a hard thing but justice it is.” He turned and stalked out of her tent before either she or Aren could say anything else.
The two of them looked at each other, “I don’t know about you but I’m going to get my stuff ready.” Aren said finally, “If the paymaster is murdered tonight there’ll be an uproar in the morning and then none of us will be getting out of here. We need to be ready to ride as soon as Kant gets back.” He hurried out of her tent and started towards his own. Selth stared distastefully at the shards scattered across the floor of her tent before kicking them into a corner and grabbing her saddlebags. She hadn’t unpacked so she was out of the tent in five minutes and her horse was ready to go in ten.
She stuck her head in Mattle’s tent when she was done saddling her own horse and quickly explained what had happened. He looked away in disgust when she started talking but by the time she had finished he had grabbed his saddlebags and was outside getting his own horse ready. When he was done Raxous trotted out of the tent and curled up beside him. Selth eyed the wolf somewhat enviously, it could speak with Mattle mind to mind and the two of them seemed to be inseparable. Mattle wouldn’t even give her the time of day.
In tense silence, the three of them waited by their horses for Kant to return to their camp. An hour after the sun had sunk below the horizon, he did. Selth opened her mouth to ask if Gambril was dead but he evidently knew what she was about to ask. He gave a curt nod then put a finger to his lips. Grabbing his horse by its reins he led their group out of the diplomatic section of the camp and towards the border. “Daven has let the guards know to let us pass but once we’re out of the encampment he can’t do anything for us. So no one make a sound and follow me exactly.” he said.
Selth and the others each gave nervous nods as he swung around to glare at them. Then they moved forward again, towards the empty space that marked the border between two countries responsible for fifteen years of untold death and destruction.
The God in the Shadows (The Story at the Heart of the Void Book 1) Page 22
