by J. P. Ashman
Shoulders sagging, Quin dropped onto the bed. He refused to move even as pinpricks reached up his leg, revealing two masked snouts, one on each knee. Quin looked at his polecats and snarled. One stood up on its hind legs, front paws held together as the other hopped off Quin’s knee and proceeded to nose around the bedding, unconcerned about Quin’s anguish and more concerned with what it could smell.
Dropping back onto all fours, the other polecat waddled up Quin’s body to curl in a circle on his chest, one eye looking up at Quin, who’d risen to his elbows.
Quin expelled air through his nose in a huff, before allowing a half-hearted smile.
‘That was poor timing, Arrik. Trust you to barge out, teeth first, as soon as her foot presented itself.’ The polecat merely closed its eye and fell asleep, its little flanks rising and falling.
‘And as for you,’ Quin said, turning to the other, which was teetering on the edge of the bed trying to work out whether it could jump across to the side unit or not, ‘you should know better, Guse. You’re supposed to be the sensible one and keep this one in check.’ Arrik opened one eye, but shut it when Quin looked at him.
Head dropping back to the straw mattress as a loud clatter came from Guse’s direction, Emms’ angry face came back to Quin, and the sick rose in his throat once more.
Well done, Quinnell, you’ve managed to upset her once again.
***
Warming his hands on the fire, Gleave looked into the yellow flames. The flickering light accompanied the warmth flowing through his palms and fingers, taking him back to a night he couldn’t forget.
Mearson’s burnt, motionless face stared back at him from those flames. Horses whinnied and people talked; elves. Dirt covered Mearson now, shovelled there by the elves who came to rescue them. Gleave last saw his friend, his brother-in-arms, disappearing into the earth, face and body mangled, bloody and crisp from the gnomish grenado that took him. A grenado thrown by a Samorlian witchunter, the Witchunter General himself for all Gleave knew.
Jaw bunched and teeth ground as the heat built, as the pain grew in Gleave’s fingertips. What must it have been like for Mearson? Did he have time to know the pain? Did he have time to know the end was upon him?
‘Gleave!’
Gleave jumped as Correia shouted. Pulling his hands back and rounding on the woman stood over him, his own pain became real. A white pain that shot through his fingers in time with his pulse.
‘What in Brisance were you doing?’ Correia said, crouching besides the man.
‘I…’ Gleave looked down to his fingers. They looked fine. A little red, but fine; they felt destroyed, the pain building, the throbbing pounding on. He winced and started to flex them, wave them through the air, attempting unsuccessfully to cool them. They were taken, his hands, his burning fingers, by Correia. Taken and the tips placed in her mouth. He looked to her as if in a dream, the image hazy. She returned his look and the sharpness there cut through the haze. She shook her head ever so slightly, but it was enough for Gleave to look away. The saliva helped, a little, but helped all the same. That was clear, for when Correia removed Gleave’s fingers from her mouth, the throbbing pounded once more.
‘There was nothing you could’ve done, Gleave,’ she said. ‘I’ve been through it enough times in my own head. Mearson was a tough soldier, one of the best. He didn’t need us looking after him. What happened was… well—’
‘I know,’ Gleave said, cutting over her words. He took a slow, deep breath as Correia placed his tender fingers back in her mouth, leaning against him as she did.
‘Perfect,’ Sav said as he walked up and dropped a blood-stained sack on the floor. ‘Bloody perfect.’ He walked out of camp as quickly as he’d arrived.
Correia pulled away from Gleave and the two of them shared a look of confusion, a look that changed to realisation. Correia closed her eyes and sighed across Gleave’s fingers. When she opened them again, Gleave grinned.
‘Well, that twat made me feel a whole lot better.’ Grinning all the more, Gleave removed his fingers from Correia’s mouth, thanked her with a nod and limped towards the nearby stream.
‘Where’s Sav going?’ Fal asked, as he and Starks approached.
Correia stood. ‘Never mind that,’ she looked to the sack Sav had dropped. ‘Where’s Starks’ deer, and what’s in that sack?’
‘Fal can explain,’ Starks said, rushing after Gleave, away towards the stream.
Correia looked to Fal, who shrugged.
‘Where do I start,’ Fal said, looking down to the sack.
‘You can start, Fal, with why I can already smell cooked meat?’
Fal chuckled. ‘Oh no, that’s the end of the story. Needless to say, we won’t be doing any cooking for a while.’
‘Gleave?’ Starks said, as he approached. Gleave was holding his hands in the stream, enjoying the numbing sensation the fast-flowing waters allowed.
‘Starks m’boy.’
Starks crouched down next to Gleave. Filling his water-skin, he looked to the weathered man besides him. ‘What happened to your hands? They look red.’
‘Correia burnt them with one of her stares.’
Starks smiled and stoppered his full skin.
‘That damned bird is driving me mad.’
Looking about, Starks cocked his head. He heard the repetitive call. ‘It’s a chiffchaff,’ he said. ‘Errolas pointed one out on the way to Broadleaf Forest. After the fight with the goblins in Beresford. Pretty sure I’ve told you that—’
‘I don’t give two shits what it’s called, Starks. It’s a pain in my arse.’
There was silence between them for a while, interrupted only by rushing water and the chiffchaff, which caused Gleave’s right eye to twitch whenever he heard it. Which was a lot.
‘So, slotted your first deer, did you?’ Gleave asked, breaking the silence. ‘I hope so, since you three are back. I ain’t for going hungry, lad, and I ain’t in any fit state to hunt, what with this leg and these fingers. It’s been rough going since Towton, and no mistake.’
‘You’re in the wars alright,’ Starks said, sitting back out of Gleave’s periphery. ‘Perhaps Errolas will bring something back, anyway.’
Gleave half-turned, so he could see Starks, who was looking upstream.
‘Why would he need to, Starks, if you stuck you a deer? A deer would feed us for days.’
‘Didn’t say I didn’t hit it.’
‘Ha! Good lad.’
‘Didn’t say I did though, either.’
‘’Morl’s sweaty arse, Starks, out with it.’
Starks swallowed hard. ‘I chose the wrong bolt.’
Gleave screwed his face up. ‘Eh? A bolt’s a bolt.’
‘Some bolts are more than others, Gleave.’
Gleave spun on Starks. ‘Oh shit.’
Starks nodded.
Filling cheeks with air, Gleave held the breath a moment before letting it out. Images of explosions in the dark filled his head again. He sat back, pulling his numb hands from the stream.
‘Gleave?’ Nothing. ‘I did hit it, at least.’
Gleave nodded slowly, a nod that became an equally slow shake of the head. ‘You need to improve, lad.’
Starks looked down a moment, then back up to Gleave. ‘I’m trying.’
‘Oh aye, you’re trying alright.’ Gleave bunched his jaw, like he’d been doing earlier when first thinking about Mearson’s death. ‘Being a pathfinder’s tough, Starks. You can’t walk in and pretend to be one.’ Gleave’s eyes were locked on his red fingers, whilst Starks’ dropped to his own. ‘Takes a certain man, with certain skills. Hunting is the basics to survive outside a city. It isn’t a pathfinder’s skill, Starks, just a basic one, you hear?’
Starks nodded.
‘I don’t know what we’re to do with you, lad.’ Gleave groaned as he rose to his feet, his leg – despite his fingers – the worst of a myriad of aches and pains. ‘We’re having to waste time training you on the basics…’
Hard eyes settled on Starks, who didn’t look back. ‘We went from a strong unit, strong men like Tom and Mearson, to… well, you.’ A heavy sigh, a shake of the head and Gleave limped back to camp, leaving Starks to stare at his hands.
Starks’ eyes moistened and he cursed himself for it, wiping at them aggressively with his padded sleeve.
After a few moments listening to water rushing over stones, through roots and past his own feet, Starks surged up and set off across the stream, splashing as he went. He balled his fists and clenched his teeth, nose wrinkling as anger churned in his stomach, in his chest.
‘Starks?’
The melodic voice made Starks jump. He turned to see Errolas leaning against a nearby tree. Now he saw the elf, it was obvious he was there, but before that, Starks would have walked straight past him.
‘I heard all of that,’ Errolas said, nodding back towards the stream.
‘Course you did, you hear everything,’ Starks said, his tone harsher than he’d intended. He relaxed a little. ‘I’m sorry—’ A hand cut his apology short.
‘No need, Starks. You have nothing to apologise for.’
‘The deer? Gleave?’
‘Nothing,’ Errolas asserted. He came forward and pulled Starks into a casual hold, walking him besides him, as Fal usually did, although Errolas carried a limp not too dissimilar to Gleave’s.
‘Gleave has a troubled mind and he takes it out on you, because you are the easiest for him to do that to.’
Starks made to talk, but Errolas continued.
‘That is in no way a criticism of you, but of Gleave.’ They followed the stream up its winding path, through the undergrowth. They stepped over fallen branches, pushed through bushes and avoided brier patches. ‘We all have issues,’ Errolas went on, squeezing Starks’ shoulder. ‘Some of us more than others, but we all have them. We all deal with them differently, too. I believe you would call Gleave a bully, but he struggles with his friend’s death.’
‘Mearson?’
‘Yes. He feels responsible, I believe, and so takes it out on others when he can.’
‘On me.’
‘Yes. However,’ Errolas looked to Starks, who turned to him upon hearing that word, ‘I believe part of Gleave’s heavy handed tactics with you is because he likes you—’
‘I highly doubt that,’ Starks said, looking away again.
‘Do you? Truly?’ Errolas stopped and turned Starks to face him. He held Starks at arms-length, a hand on each shoulder, gentle, yet a solid presence. ‘Does he not banter with you? Does he not talk to you at other times, as an equal?’
‘Not as an equal, no,’ Starks said, angry at the thought. ‘He talks to me like a child, like a—’
‘An apprentice?’ Errolas smiled. Starks frowned. ‘He has taken you under his wing, whether you realise it or not. I’m not even sure he realises it, but he hounds you about hunting and other things because he worries for you and he wants you to improve, to succeed. He doesn’t want to see another friend die, when he could do something about it.’
Starks swallowed and tried to turn away, tears threatening him again. Errolas held him firm.
‘I think you are clever enough to know the truth in what I say, Starks. Aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, we can never know such things for sure, but I have a few centuries on you, on all of you, and I’ve seen such things countless times.’
‘Amongst the elves?’ Starks asked, eyes widening a fraction. His mind raced to Leiina, the red-haired elf dancer who’d made him feel more a man than any other being he’d ever met.
Errolas laughed. ‘Yes, Starks. We are not infallible you know, us elves.’ He laughed again, a short, sharp, musical skip of a laugh. ‘Far from it, in fact. If you humans only knew half the truth about us… Well, perhaps one day I’ll elaborate more, for such a friend as you.’
Would that I could go back there and live with Errolas and his kin, with Leiina. Be with her and leave all this behind. Shaking the melancholy away as Leiina’s face and hair and the memorable feel and taste of her lips lingered in his mind, Starks smiled and Errolas offered the same in return.
‘Now come, Starks, let us return to the camp and partake in some crisped meat.’ Errolas laughed all the more at Starks’ crestfallen face, and pulled Starks alongside him, drawing laughter to match his own as they made their way slowly through the wood.
Chapter 6 – All too much
Couples twirled, swayed, danced to the melodic tunes that flowed through the grand hall of Eudes de Geelan, the Marquis d’Easson, Marcher Lord of Sirreta.
Spectacular tapestries lined the château’s stone walls, candle-topped chandeliers hung from the oak-beamed ceiling and a large hearth acted as a focal point for all in attendance. Until they strode into the room, that was, through oak doors studded with iron.
A slender, elegant woman practically glided alongside an impressive young man in black hose and a tight fitting, yellow coat, arming sword dressed to his left like every other man present. The beautiful young woman wore rich burgundy, from subtle headdress to floor skimming open surcoat, her full-lipped, down-turned mouth spreading into a wondrous smile that disarmed the regal air of the gentlemen who looked upon her; as her companion’s subtle smile melted the hearts of the ladies who looked upon him.
Eudes de Geelan rose from his chair at the side of the room, his lady wife and daughters three doing the same as the new arrivals crossed stone slabs, parting the crowd to be announced by Eudes’ herald. The herald smiled and bowed low to the stunning duo, before turning to his liege. He cleared his throat before announcing the new arrivals in the finest Sirretan.
‘Messires and mesdames, may I humbly announce Mademoiselle Flavell de Steedon, daughter of Guiscard de Steedon, and her trusted companion and protector, Amis de Valmont, chevalier.’
Flavell curtsied, burgundy skirts bunching about her as Amis bowed low. The marquis and marquise of the hall, their three daughters in tow, mirrored the formal greeting.
Flavell smiled wonderfully and glanced sidelong at Amis, waiting for him to compliment the noble family.
‘Good evening to you, messire,’ Amis said, with such a soothing tone that the hard-faced marquis smiled back. ‘And to you, madame,’ Amis continued, bowing again. ‘And, of course,’ he said, smile broad yet soft, ‘your most beautiful daughters.’ Amis presented his largest bow yet.
Flavell stopped herself rolling her eyes as the children giggled.
‘We thank you for your attendance, mademoiselle,’ Eudes said, eyes locked on Flavell’s unusually high and wide cheekbones and green eyes, features commented on often during her journey north. ‘It is a pleasure to have you accept our invitation to my ball,’ Eudes went on, eyes lingering on Flavell, who blushed under the intrusive gaze, especially when it dropped to her tight bodice and partially visible bosom.
‘Not at all, messire,’ Amis said, drawing Eudes’ attention. ‘It was a pleasure for Messire Guiscard, the Sieur de Steedon, to receive an invitation to such a prestigious event. He sends his apologies that he could not attend in person, for he has heard much about your wonderful balls…’ Amis left a brief but obvious pause before continuing, causing a flash of anger to show on Eudes’ face. ‘…and thus decided, with ease, to send his most beloved daughter in his stead. May I ask, messire, how you came to hear of the Sieur de Steedon? It is a far-off land he holds for our Queen; close to the Kaja Strip. Not a place I thought you would have heard of this far north?’
Gods below, Amis, bate the beast why don’t you, Flavell thought, her disarming smile carefully maintained. Eudes’ eyes flicked back to Flavell, his anger fading away. Men have swords to clank together, we have smiles. Flavell’s smile almost slipped as she noticed the stern gaze of Eudes’ wife upon her. Almost.
‘I know much, young man,’ Eudes said, eyes remaining on Flavell whilst he plucked at his greying moustache ‘Enjoy your time here, Amis de Valmont, and I shall look forward to seeing you t
ilt at the joust four days from now. Perhaps you can ride against my nephew, the Seneschal d’Easson?’ It was only at the end that Eudes’ eyes moved back Amis.
Amis guided Flavell away, without answering the question, their bow and curtsy rushed as they moved across the hall, dozens of eyes following them.
‘Must you antagonise him so, de Valmont?’ Flavell said through her maintained smile. ‘We are his guests, are we not?’
‘Apologies, mademoiselle.’ Amis flashed her a sidelong glance that pulled at her mouth, hinting at the mirth she hid. She allowed him that much.
‘You didn’t like the way he was looking at me, did you?’
A group of women meandered past, trying to hide their lust for Amis.
‘I doubt your father would be impressed is all; the ageing marquis isn’t whom you are intended to meet and wed.’
Flavell scoffed, her slip of a nose wrinkling as she did so. She glanced about the hall, from gaudily dressed women to stiff-backed men of all ages, some of whom openly leered at her.
Amis looked about the room, eyes searching as much as Flavell’s. ‘Do you see the seneschal at all?’
‘No, de Valmont, I do not. Nor was he what I was looking for.’
Amis frowned. ‘Food?’
‘Food. It’s been a long road.’ Her stomach churned and her mouth watered at the thought of sating her hunger and thirst.
Amis took Flavell’s arm once more. ‘Come, let us wine and dine.’
Her smile continuous, Flavell allowed Amis to guide her around the hall. ‘If you keep this up, the seneschal will think me spoken for, by you.’
It was Amis’ turn to scoff. ‘A mere chevalier such as me? I doubt it. I’m here to escort and guide you, mademoiselle. I’m quite sure no one will think otherwise, what with your breeding and all.’
Flavell’s smile slipped from her wide eyes, but not her mouth. ‘You overstep the mark sometimes, de Valmont. You know that, don’t you? You’re lucky I allow it.’
‘I am indeed very lucky.’ Amis scooped up two glasses of ruby wine and offered one to Flavell whilst sipping the other. The fruity scent and rich taste brought satisfied sighs from them both.
