The Larion Senators

by Rob Scott; Jay Gordon

  ‘Fine,’ Alen chuckled. ‘Never better, really. I’m actually thinking I would like a bit of corn about now.’

  ‘Stop it.’ Hoyt hugged his sides. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

  Alen knelt beside him. ‘Whoring virgins, you’re a mess. That shoulder’s going to need some stitching.’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’ Hoyt sat up. ‘Let’s get out of here. Those dogs were a nice trick, but they won’t keep the Seron away all night.’

  ‘You think they were real?’

  ‘They seemed real enough to me,’ Hoyt said. ‘Remind me to take Milla shopping tomorrow for whatever her little heart desires.’

  ‘I hope they were apparitions, you know, fighting the Seron from within, figments of our collective imagination,’ Alen said, helping Hoyt to his feet. ‘If they weren’t, the city is going to be a tough place to live.’

  ‘A highway full of dead soldiers?’

  ‘Not exactly how we had things planned.’

  ‘It was bark.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But it was different this time.’

  ‘I know.’

  VERSEN AND SALLAX

  The southern edge of the Falkan plain rolled beneath them as Gilmour and Steven, riding in tandem, encouraged the horse just a bit further before stopping to camp for the night. They were in no hurry to reach the fjord; they had eight days yet to arrive at their rendezvous point – if Garec and Kellin even survived the flood tide – and there was ample time to locate Mark’s boat, sail west and, on the appointed day, make for open water. Gilmour had assisted the stolen skiff with a Larion tailwind when he, Garec and Mark had navigated the twists and turns of the great granite cleft the previous Twinmoon, so he was sure he and Steven would be able to do the same on the return journey. A hearty northerly wind freshening behind them made him wonder if he could come up with a spell to turn periodic gusts westwards behind the skiff; it would be a tricky manoeuvre, but with nine days to reach the open sea, they would have time to experiment.

  ‘I think this poor horse has had just about as much of us as he can take for one day,’ Gilmour said. ‘There’s a place not far from here where we can tuck ourselves in for a couple of days, always assuming we don’t run into any occupation soldiers in there.’

  ‘A popular vacation spot, is it?’ Steven asked wryly.

  ‘Not really, but you never can tell where those rutters’ll turn up.’

  ‘I wonder why we haven’t seen any since the Medera did her thing,’ Steven mused.

  ‘I’ve been thinking that as well, and I don’t know.’ Gilmour patted the horse, whispering, ‘Not much further, my friend. We’ll rest soon.’ They had found the animal wandering along a hillside north of the river, Lessek’s spell book and the far portal still tied safely to the saddle. Though battered and bruised, the animal had come through the devastation without serious injury, and after walking beside them for a day, it finally permitted the two sorcerers to ride.

  ‘Don’t the Malakasians patrol this area?’ Stephen asked as they moved from a field lying fallow into a thick patch of cottonwoods lining a draw at the base of a gully. The gully separated the field and a rolling meadow that looked like it had been left for spring hay. There was a row of mature trees lining the draw-end of the meadow and Steven watched for the shallow stream he was sure they would cross before climbing into the dry, waist-high grass.

  ‘Of course they patrol. We haven’t used any major roads, but we also haven’t been too deliberate about hiding ourselves either. I can’t understand it, but if we get where we’re going without running into an entire brigade of soldiers there enjoying a professional lecture on the finer points of sword sharpening, I’ll be content to call it a great mountain of very good fortune.’

  ‘Drunks’ and children’s luck,’ Steven said.

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’ The horse broke through the thin ice of the stream and they began their climb into the meadow.

  ‘Do you think Mark’s boat will still be there?’ Gilmour didn’t sound as confident as he had when he initially presented this course of action to the others.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Steven said. ‘It was well hidden, and any snowfall would only add to its camouflage. Who on earth would be sailing for pleasure during this Twinmoon, anyway?’

  ‘Only fools,’ Gilmour laughed.

  ‘You and me, cousin,’ Steven said, then asked, ‘what if Kellin and Garec don’t make it?’ They had found no sign of the others after the flood waters receded.

  ‘Then we attempt the crossing on our own.’

  ‘You’ve been in the fennaroot again, haven’t you, old man?’

  ‘Not me, though there’s no doubt my horse and I both could use a bit of root right now.’

  ‘Your relationship with your horse is your own business, but I’ll reiterate, in case you didn’t hear me: cross the wide ocean, on our own, in that catboat?’

  ‘Any other suggestions?’

  ‘How about finding a clean, comfortable inn with a big fireplace, a well stocked bar and a squad of randy coeds next door?’

  ‘A lovely thought, Steven, truly.’ Gilmour sighed. ‘If only we had that kind of time …’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but it’s nice to dream,’ Steven acquiesced. ‘Fine, then, I’m going to figure on Garec and Kellin having survived the wave.’

  ‘You and me both, cousin.’

  ‘There’s the spirit,’ Steven laughed. ‘I am worried, though – I saw the water swallow them, and then I never saw them again. Of course, I was preoccupied at the time.’

  Gilmour changed the subject. ‘Regardless, we have a few days, and I need to look for something the Larion Brotherhood misplaced long ago.’

  ‘Why don’t I like the sound of that?’

  ‘Oh, this doesn’t concern you. Just think of it as a learning experience.’

  ‘That’s what my stats professor called the two-by-three-way analysis of covariance; we all called it “that fucking nightmare”.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Gilmour said, ‘an aven or two – in and out. We’ll be back on the road before nightfall.’

  ‘Where are we?’ Stephen asked as they crested the highest point in the meadow. He looked across a patchwork of fields at a jumble of dilapidated buildings marring the pastoral landscape.

  ‘At school.’

  ‘So you were with him; he made it here to Orindale?’ Garec sipped his tecan, considered it with a frown and motioned to the barman. ‘A beer, please, a big one.’

  Brexan waved at him too. ‘Make that two, please.’

  Kellin raised a hand. ‘Three.’

  It was still an aven early for the dinner crowds, so the front room of the alehouse they’d found was almost empty. Scarred wooden tables crowded the floor between the bar and the fireplace. Brexan drank what was left of her tecan, then turned to the beer before she replied, ‘No, Versen never made it to Orindale. I lost him … we lost him in a meadow near a stream south of the city. From what Gabriel told me, it was some time after you and Steven had battled the wraiths in the trapper’s cabin.’

  ‘Rutters,’ Garec said, ‘he lived that long? We were sure he had been killed at the base of Seer’s Peak. When we came down from the heights, the camp had been torn to shreds by grettans and the Seron.’

  Brexan grimaced. ‘We were unfortunate enough to meet the Seron, and if I ever find their leader, a big horsecock named Lahp, I’m going to gut him and fry his heart.’

  ‘Lahp?’ Garec said, visibly surprised. ‘You knew Lahp?’

  ‘The whoring rutter broke my cheek. I’m looking forward to killing him.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Not really,’ Garec said, ‘although I can see how you would think that. But shortly after you left Seer’s Peak, Lahp and the rest of his platoon were attacked by a pack of grettans sent by Prince Malagon to finish us off. Lahp was badly injured; Steven saved him, touched him somehow, and he helped us cross the Blackstones. He saved Steven�
�s life more than once and died protecting us as well as he could from the wraiths.’

  ‘That’s— well, surprising,’ Brexan admitted. ‘I wouldn’t have thought he had anything good in him at all.’

  ‘It surprised all of us,’ Garec said. ‘So tell us what happened to Versen.’

  ‘He died because I passed out. We were fighting a Seron, another ruthless big bastard called Haden. I left myself exposed and he shattered my cheek again. Versen had broken Haden’s leg; he was twisting and punching it when I lost consciousness.’ Brexan paused to take a breath; she didn’t want to break down in front of Garec. She had no idea what he thought of her, a deserter-turned-partisan who failed to save either of his childhood friends; she wasn’t about to cry in front of him.

  Instead, it was Garec who started to cry, as tears filled his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. He sniffed loudly, then wiped his face. He pressed his lips together and swallowed hard. ‘What happened to Haden?’

  ‘I cut him.’

  ‘Cut him?’

  ‘Two hundred and thirty-six times, give or take. I wanted to remember the number exactly, but after a while they ran together.’

  Garec nodded grimly. ‘Good.’

  Kellin, looking tired and wan, ran an ashen hand between Garec’s shoulders. She let her fingers rest on his neck, toying with a lock of his hair. ‘So you came into the city on your own?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t remember how long it took me to get here,’ Brexan said, ‘things were pretty blurry. They still are, when I think back on it. It’s almost as though it happened Twinmoons and Twinmoons ago. But I made it here, and I was in the city less than an aven before I ran into Sallax.’

  Garec said, ‘We looked for him when we were here, but never found him.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Brexan said. ‘He was a mess, living like an animal behind and between the warehouses on the southern wharf. He was struggling badly with guilt and regret.’

  ‘He had a painful realisation the day he left us,’ Garec said softly.

  ‘I know, and he wanted me to find you. It was the last thing he asked me, actually. He specifically mentioned you, Garec. He wanted me to find you and to tell you the truth about what had happened.’

  Garec raised his eyebrows. ‘Me? Not Gilmour?’

  ‘Gilmour’s dead.’

  ‘No he isn’t, Brexan, Gilmour’s fine – well, he was the last time we saw him, anyway. We’re on our way to meet him now.’ The irony wasn’t lost on any of them, and Garec spat a string of curses into his beer. ‘If only Sallax had known.’

  Brexan repeated, ‘He wanted me to tell you the truth about him.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’ Garec was crying again. ‘I know the truth about him.’

  Kellin pulled him to her and Garec buried his face in the nape of her neck.

  Brexan felt horribly uncomfortable, an interloper with nothing but depressing news. She went across to the huge fireplace and threw a log onto the fire, giving them a moment alone together.

  ‘How was he?’ Garec finally asked.

  Brexan took her seat. ‘He struggled for a long time. He was sick with guilt, wild, almost out of his mind. I never knew for certain, but I think the wraiths in the Blackstones did something to him, forced him somehow to consider what he had done to Gilmour … or at least think on what he believed he had done. It took a long time to get him back.’

  ‘But you did?’

  ‘For a while, yes,’ Brexan said, then hesitated before adding, ‘until he made another tragic discovery.’

  ‘Brynne.’ It wasn’t a question.

  Brexan held up her wrist; her tunic sleeve fell to reveal Mark Jenkins’ old watch, still hanging where Sallax had strapped it while the fugitives huddled together in the empty barrel behind the seedy riverfront alehouse.

  ‘And afterwards?’ Garec asked, ‘did he run off on you again?’

  ‘No, but he did get cold, ruthless and deadly. We interrogated and killed – well, sort of killed – a merchant, Carpello Jax, who was shipping something nefarious from southern Rona to Welstar Palace through Pellia.’

  ‘Why? Who cares what some merchant is shipping north?’ Kellin asked. The beer had brought some colour back to her cheeks.

  ‘It’s something ugly, I don’t know what, but Prince Malagon is willing to pay almost anything to get it by the shipload, some kind of tree bark or leaves.’

  Garec and Kellin shared a knowing glance.

  ‘What?’ Brexan asked, ‘you know something about it?’

  Garec shook his head. ‘I’m not sure. Gilmour detected a shipment moving north along the Ravenian Sea a few days ago. Maybe there’s a connection, but either way, you don’t have to worry about Prince Malagon any longer. He’s dead; he’s been dead for over a Twinmoon now.’

  ‘And Nerak?’

  ‘Dead, lost, cast away; I don’t know how to describe it, but Steven did it, opened the Fold and tossed him in like a rubbish sack.’

  ‘It was actually pretty cathartic to watch,’ Kellin said, smiling. ‘I’m sorry you weren’t there. It sounds like you’ve had a difficult time.’

  ‘Well, Sallax and I had a catharsis of our own.’

  ‘This Carpello?’

  ‘He was essentially responsible for Versen’s death.’ Brexan took a long draught of beer and motioned for another round.

  ‘Then I’m glad you killed him,’ Garec said, ‘or sort of killed him … whatever that means.’

  ‘Oh, he’s dead,’ Brexan said, ‘and we were there. We just didn’t get to deliver the final blow.’

  ‘Sorry. It sounds like you deserved that one.’

  ‘Brynne deserved it more than I.’

  ‘Brynne?’ Garec frowned. ‘Why Brynne?’

  ‘Versen saw it right away. It took Sallax a bit longer, but he eventually realised it as well. Carpello Jax was the man who raped Brynne as a child.’

  Garec’s lip quivered and instead he twisted his face into a sneer, malevolent and deadly. He spoke through welling tears. ‘I want to know how you did it.’

  Brexan was happy to impart the details. Remembering Carpello’s death was like recalling a pleasant experience. ‘We clubbed him a few times, we beat him up and terrorised him until he was weeping like a baby. He shat his leggings, bled all over himself and finally summoned the courage to try and escape.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And a friend of mine struck him with a piece of firewood. It didn’t kill him, but slipping and falling headlong into the stone fireplace did.’

  ‘What did you do with the body?’

  Brexan didn’t like the tone of Garec’s question; she had a sudden and disturbing image of the Bringer of Death digging up a corpse and eating it, just to make certain it was dead. Shrugging off the image, she said, ‘We set him adrift on the outgoing tide. It was just north of here, around the point, up near the marsh.’

  Garec regained his composure. ‘It ruined Brynne as a kid. I never knew her to have serious feelings for anyone until she met Mark Jenkins; she joked and played around with men who sometimes came by the tavern, but she wasn’t able to show real affection for anyone. Maybe it was different because Mark was from somewhere else; he wasn’t tainted by whatever she believed tarnished Eldarni men. Carpello Jax … so that was his name. He turned her into a killer. We didn’t know it at the time, but she was the first of us to fall; she did it with such grace and conviction, using a pair of knives – I wouldn’t have wanted to fight her. She was the best, better even than Sallax, with a short blade.’

  Recalling the deftness with which Sallax had killed the Seron, Brexan understood that Brynne must have been deadly. She changed the subject. ‘How’s your head?’

  ‘Inside or outside?’

  ‘Outside, I suppose.’

  ‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘although I worry about Kellin’s skill with a needle. I’m afraid I might end up with a few permanent wrinkles up there.’

  ‘Rutting ingrate,’ Kellin chided, then to Brexan said,
‘He was passed out, bleeding everywhere. My horse was already dead, crushed against a tree; his died while I was tending to him, scared the dogpiss out of me. It barked, or shouted a horse curse, who knows? My fingers were cold, and I had two cracked ribs and a broken collarbone; so yes, I might have mis-stitched a time or two.’

  ‘Demonpiss, broken bones?’ Brexan said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Kellin replied. ‘We saw a healer yesterday and went back for more querlis this morning.’ Brexan hadn’t noticed the heavy bandages holding Kellin’s arm immobile against her ribs. ‘I can feel it working, but it makes me so tired; I can barely stand up, never mind traipse all over Orindale looking for one of the six remaining captains who haven’t committed suicide in the past three days.’

  ‘You ought to rest,’ Brexan said. ‘Do you have a place to stay?’

  ‘We found an inn a few streets east of here, about halfway between the wharf and the old imperial palace. Why? Where are you staying?’

  ‘You should come with me. It’s a comfortable place, up north, around the point. It’s a quiet district off the salt marsh. Nedra keeps a quiet, clean inn, and she’s the best cook I’ve known since I came east from Malakasia.’

  ‘We have a few things in our room: my bow, some clothes and a bit of silver. We have about six days to find some transport heading north.’

  ‘Where could you possibly need to get to?’ Brexan asked. ‘You two are a mess – sorry, but you are. You ought to spend a few days in bed, a Moon. Take some time; get healed up. You’re in no condition to be travelling now.’

  ‘Gods, but that sounds tempting,’ Kellin sighed. ‘And as much as I would like to spend a Moon in bed, with or without Garec—’

  ‘With, please,’ he interrupted, ‘I mean, what else would you do with all that time? Rest? Sleep? Talk to yourself?’ He smiled for the first time all day. Brexan thought he looked refreshingly boyish.

  ‘You have other suggestions?’ Kellin asked.

  Garec slid an arm around her waist. ‘I don’t want to commit too early, but I’m sure I could come up with something.’