by K. J. Coble
“Wonder not, Ango Morug!” Lonadiel snapped. “The blood drenching these stones stains me as muchas you or any of these animals who think you a prophet.”
A silver-bearded Skinner cheiftain hissed and reached for his sword, but a chilly glance from Morug stilled him. The Verraxian smiled at Lonadiel. Eyes of strange, seemingly ever-flowing silver glittered. “Yet she is still on the loose.”
“Not for long,” Lonadiel replied. “I came here only to apprise you of the situation. By dawn, I will again be at the hunt.”
“There is no room for compassion,” Morug said. “This time, she must die.”
Lonadiel clenched his jaw shut at the implied accusation. He began to wheel Fearless about.
“Take a war party with you,” Morug said.
“I hunt alone,” Lonadiel replied over his shoulder. “They will only slow me.”
“They go with you,” Morug said, his voice rising with menace, “or you go not at all.”
Lonadiel turned in the saddle to glare at the wizard, hand on the grip of his sword. But growls and dark chuckles rippled around him. Skinners stepped from their plunder and depredations and moved in with gap-toothed smiles and clenched weapons.
Waves of chill fluttered up Lonadiel’s spine. “Very well,” he said finally, releasing his weapon. He offered Morug a smile as cool as the edge of the saber. “But do not think to doubt my commitment again.”
“Oh, I won’t.” The Verraxian’s eyes gleamed under languidly-drooping lids.
Lonadiel felt those eyes in his spine as he rode from the smoldering tower.
Chapter One
Eredynn
The Loving Imp Tavern had a kind of rhythm on its good nights and this night, Ascendance Eve, the end of the week-long festival commemorating the Seven Saints’ rise to the heavens, was a good one, indeed.
The festival climaxed at dusk on the final day of winter with a huge bonfire in the heart of Eredynn’s open market that consumed an effigy of the bitter, skeletal figure of Dagda Maur, fabled and feared Mistress of the Chill. With the long, dark months of a Remordan Valley winter bidden farewell, the crowds broke up, families returning to their homes before nefarious dark made their trek treacherous, the young or the unattached to the inns and taverns for further feasting and drink.
And there was no better-known tavern in the district capitol than Vohl Rhenn’s Loving Imp.
Vohl slid a tray heavy with earthenware mugs across the scarred wood of the bar to Kalla and exchanged a grin with the barmaid before she flitted back into the crowd with her wares. The laughing redhead slapped hands away, dancing between tables and exchanging harmless barbs with the overly familiar. Vohl’s smile expanded as he watched her and the other girls work; skinny Teelee, with the perpetual scowl that melted at good song, curvaceous Aenah who could wield a butcher’s knife with terrible precision if a patron got out of hand with the younger girls. But there was no such trouble this evening, the three of them moving to the rhythm, feeling the flow of a night promising fellowship and profit.
A pair of young farmers bustled to the bar and ordered. Vohl turned to the taps behind him, barrels of bitter, dark ale favored amongst the Valley’s rural populace and a holdover from the more restless days of their mountain barbarian ancestors. Barrels of wine brought upriver from Farawn waited, as well, for the city-dwellers, merchants and artisans pretending to the sophistication of southern Thyrria. Vohl returned to the youths with their ale and watched the crowd reabsorb them.
The air hung heavy with the smells of closely-packed bodies, the woody redolence of the roaring hearth, and molten beeswax, many of the candles already burned to nubs in their lanterns. In one corner a lively game of dice played out across a tabletop. With the increasingly poor light, that might spell trouble as professional gamers sought to cheat naïve youths in from the fields out of scant copper pieces they could ill afford to lose. But the fireplace crackled to full fury, throwing heat and light over the crowd, coloring intermingled forms in yellowy red that spoke to Vohl of fellowship and home. He leaned against the bar, for the moment unneeded, and allowed him self to revel in his new life’s work.
The crowd parted to his right as a towering form entered the room. The regulars noticed only as much as they usual did, casting quick glances at the bestial figure as it passed. Newer patrons and country folk who only made it to Eredynn once or twice a year cast much longer looks, some shivering in fear, others simply gaping.
Muddle stood a head taller than Vohl, who, at six feet, was no unimposing figure. But it was not the brute’s height, nor the broad wedge of muscled torso, crisscrossed with scar tissue under a battered leather vest that drew attention. His bull neck ended in a knobby skull, capped with a sparse patch of red-brown hair from which sprouted a pair of batwing ears. Together with skin a shade too red to be black and piggish, yellow eyes, these features made him something not human, made him, as his name suggested, a half-breed.
A half-hobgoblin.
Muddle’s massive jaw worked, occasionally jutting forth a jagged canine from thin, cracked lips as he tried to smile, crinkling leathery features and causing his crooked, manytimes-broken nose to flare. He came to the bar and leaned over.
“It’s a good night, my friend,” Vohl said to his partner.
“It was.”
Vohl frowned, picking up on the odd look in his friend’s jaundiced gaze. “Trouble?” His gaze flicked momentarily to where his sword, Thyrrian steel notched from the work of his younger days, hung over the hearth, crossed with Muddle’s equally-battered two-handed axe.
“Dodso,” Muddle replied.
“Ah, scat.” Vohl put a leg over the bar and hoisted himself over, joints that were not as young as they had been protesting as he landed on the other side. “Where is the little wretch?”
“On the patio,” Muddle said with a grimace, “politicizing.”
“I told him no stumping tonight!”
“That was before he started drinking.”
“I told everyone not to serve him!” Vohl said with hands up in exasperation.
Muddle shrugged mountainous shoulders. “He’s paying in gold cisterces.”
Vohl sighed and shook his head. “All right. Let’s go. But just for the record, whatever happens is your fault.”
“Teelee was serving him,” Muddle said as he followed Vohl to the door.
“Yeah, well Teelee weighs a fifth what you do!”
“She can say no, can’t she?”
Vohl didn’t hear the rest, wading through a din of laughter and song that was almost a living thing. Passing out the door, Vohl shivered in the chill of a night that had not quite forgotten winter. The “patio” was actually a stretch in front of the tavern under its placard, emblazoned with a leering imp holding a beer mug in one clawed fist and a woman in the other. On heavy nights, Vohl and his staff dragged tables out into the packed earth market and business continued under Muddle’s menacing stare. Beyond the patio, the night glittered with lights from the buildings of Eredynn, sloping up the hill upon which the district capitol had been founded. Dust raised by the still-dispersing crowds glimmered in the illumination of the sputtering blaze that had consumed the Dagda.
Another shiver worked its way down Vohl’s spine as he paused at the door to fully take in the scene.
A troop of imperial cavalry arrayed in a semicircle at the patio’s perimeter had taken much of the life out of the patio patrons. The riders had the bleary-eyed look of soldiers rousted out of barracks room parties. Some were not in full armor and a couple hadn’t even bothered to bring spears, relying on swords fortunately still in their sheaths. But the leader of their party, a sour-faced, thin-framed man with hair cut short and oiled in the Thyrrian fashion, appeared all business.
The center of the troop’s attention stood atop a table, a mug fully a sixth his size clenched in one fist and spilling ale every time he gesticulated. Flecks of foam hung in a tangled white beard that spread to his bulging belt line. One foot tamped,
causing the bell at the toe of an upwardly-curved slipper to jingle.
Even mounted on the tabletop, the gnome’s capped head did not reach Vohl’s neck.
“...one wonders what you do with all those taxes, Aigann!” Dodso spat.
Kodror Aigann, Imperial Procurator of the Remordan Valley, snorted and smoothed a sleeve of his fine, white robes of office. “You know perfectly well that the money goes to infrastructure and defense, Speaker Dodso.” He leaned forward in the saddle, trying to feign menace that only the troops at his back gave any weight. “Or do you suggest a more nefarious purpose?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Dodso took a long pull on his mug and wiped spume from his beard. “Am I to believe that our taxes – raised yet again, this spring – are paying for roads that have deteriorated so much that the river is the only reliable means of transportation and commerce?”
“Perhaps that is the point,” Aigann said with a self-satisfied sniff. “The river is far safer than—”
“And defense?” Dodso cut the man off with a dismissive wave. “Other than our glorious – and I might add, woefully-undermanned – Valley Legion, we fend for ourselves against bandits, barbarians, and goblinoids.”
That brought growls of agreement from some of the patrons, a few of whom were on their feet with ale-inspired courage in their eyes as they glared at the soldiers.
Aigann glanced about, not so foolish to have missed the tide already against him. “In case you’ve forgotten, these haven’t been the most stable past few years,” he said. “The Empire has more pressing issues.”
“But not so pressing that it couldn’t bring out the guard to terrorize its citizens,” Dodso said, gesturing grandly at the cavalry.
“Uh-oh.” Vohl noted more patrons coming to their feet.
“You want me to get my axe?” Muddle asked.
“No,” Vohl said, “just make a hole for me.”
Muddle grunted and stepped forth into the crowd, Vohl following with apologies to customers plowed out of the giant’s way.
“I am here to keep the peace,” Aigann was saying. “A peace that word got to me you were in the process of disturbing.”
“You’re here to keep people quiet!” Dodso shot back.
“I don’t have time for this.” Aigann folded his arms imperiously. “The place for your populist chatter is the Assembly, Speaker, not some roadhouse!”
“Yes, the gods forbid that someone speaks the truth,” Dodso said. He turned, again with arms theatrically spread. “Your taxes are being elevated to drive the rural farmer-class to the edge of bankruptcy where their only recourse is to sell their holdings to the big landowner families.” He turned to spear Aigann with a baleful stare. “Their goal is personal gratification; not the glory of our wondrous Empire!” He chuckled and looked to the crowd, now hanging on his words. “Why, you should be thanking me for resisting this decadence; I am a patriot!”
Howls and laughter rewarded the gnome and he lifted his mug in appreciation. Fists, clenched mugs, and wine bottles shot into the air in answer.
“What you are is a troublemaker!” Aigann snarled. “And I should have you arrested for inciting riot!”
“Hold, Procurator Aigann!” Vohl said, bursting finally to the fore of the crowd. “This is a peaceful gathering, a celebration of the rebirth of the seasons!”
“Rhenn...” Aigann looked down from his saddle, the name leaving his opulent lips like a curse. “Too long has this little ‘enterprise’ of yours been a haven for radicals, criminals, and sin.” He straightened up in the saddle, refusing to look at Vohl. “That my lord, Vennitius, tolerates your continued operation is something that ought to be on your mind.”
“Idle threats!” Dodso slurred after another draw at his mug. “If the Strategos is so hell-fired to—”
“Shut up, Dodso!” Vohl snarled over his shoulder at the gnome.
“Yes,” Aigann said with a sneer curling his lip. “Muzzle your little pet-friend, Rhenn. I grow weary of his bark.”
Dodso opened his mouth to retort but Muddle’s hand had already folded over the entirety of his face. Vohl offered his partner an appreciative nod before turning back to Aigann. “Procurator,” he said slowly, carefully, “I’m a legitimate businessman. If activities at my establishment are in violation of the law, I’ll most assuredly put a stop to them, but I’m aware of no such thing tonight. I see no reason for your presence or the calling out of the constabulary.” Vohl forced his most likeable grin. “Unless this is a social call?”
Aigann glowered long at Vohl before glancing over the crowd again. “You might want to think about the company you keep, Rhenn.” He leaned forward to lock gazes. “Old Vennitius won’t be Strategos of the Valley forever.” He cast his eyes over the crowd and stiffened formally. “I apologize for the disruption. May the blessings of the gods and the new season be with you all, good citizens!” He nodded to the leader of the cavalry troop and the soldiers wheeled about to canter away. He brought up the rear, throwing a final chill look at Dodso.
At the Procurator’s back, the patio burst into laughter and catcalls. Muddle released Dodso, who took another drink and raised his arms to the crowd and cheers. “Like a dog at the end of his leash, he skulks back to his master!”
Vohl watched Aigann’s procession file up the main road to the Imperial Bastion that crowned the hill of Eredynn. Hovering at his side, a mountain of tensed muscle, Muddle said quietly, “He’ll make trouble for us.”
“Aigann or Dodso?”
Muddle snorted and some of the tightness about his musculature eased.
“No,” Vohl said with a sigh, “it’ll be all right.”
Muddle shrugged. “You’re the brains.” He added, “But I wish I was so sure.”
Vohl glanced at his partner. “Me too.”
SARCHA URKAIMAT SIPPED Westport wine from a jeweled goblet worth more than most of these Valley-folk made in a year as she watched the half-moon’s reflection play in ripples of baleful light across Lake Remordan. From the balcony of the Imperial Bastion, she could take in the whole lakeside district of the city of Eredynn—though calling the frontier town a “city” was being charitable.
An outer wall spoke of Eredynn’s more auspicious roots but entire sections had crumbled and much of the rubble had been quarried to make repairs to dilapidated buildings crammed pell-mell along dirt streets. Along the edges of the wall crowded a belt of shanties, thrown up by the region’s transient farmers, seeking dubious protection in the long winter months. With spring come, she was told, these parasites would abandon their ramshackle existence to wander the valley in search of work with private farmers or more prosperous landowners, leaving their shack city to be demolished for firewood.
Sarcha let her lip curve in derision. She shivered in crisp night chill, woody with the reek of crude hearths, and turned to enter the columned reception hall of the Strategos and the heat of its massive, roaring fireplace.
But only the monumental cause that had brought her here, to the barbarous edge of civilization, truly warmed her blood.
Old Vennitius stood reading a scroll brought to him minutes ago by a harried-looking servant in purple imperial livery. The Strategos was a short man, late-middle-aged paunch obvious even in baggy tunic, cinched above his waist by gold chord. Salt-and-pepper hair trimmed short but without the scented oils a more refined Thyrrian would affect glimmered as he ran pudgy fingers through it. His free hand crumpled the scroll and tossed it into the face of the messenger. He waved the man away and returned to the couch he’d occupied across from Sarcha before the interruption.
“Problems?” Sarcha asked as she took her place in the other couch and let her fur-lined cloak slip from bare shoulders. Her own gown, strapless but bound tight below her breasts to allow a view of creamy skin, yet not reveal too much, was of the finest Ozerian silk, deep purple and shimmering in the fire light.
Vennitius slumped, clearly unused to dining Thyrrian fashion, likely long-accustomed to th
e northern fashion of sitting straight up. He shook his head. “Its taxation season and the citizenry are voicing their frustration. One of my subordinates got a bit overzealous, but nothing that won’t be quickly forgotten.”
“It must get maddening,” Sarcha said, “trying to enforce the Emperor’s will, out here on the frontier.”
“It does,” he replied with a sigh. “But I’ve found something of an equilibrium with these rustics. I allow them the illusion of semi-autonomy and they allow me to do my job.”
“A brilliant balancing act, yet you get so little recognition from those padded fops in Thyrr.” Sarcha sipped her wine, watching the Strategos over the rim of her goblet. “That must wear on you.”
Vennitius chuckled and shrugged. “I’m an old man and the ambition fires of youth have burned low.” He grinned as he took up his own wine from a tray table, his eyes wandering not too obviously over her body. “That is not to suggest that I don’t have need of...finer things.”
Sarcha grinned and rose from her couch. Her comeliness was high on the list of reasons her conspirators in Thyrr had chosen her for this, their most dark and daring scheme. She prowled slowly across the space between them and sidled beside the man onto the couch, letting her hip grind briefly against his leg. “Naturally,” she purred, “for one of your station.”
Vennitius offered her the heavy-lidded smile of too much drink and snaked his free hand around her neck, pulling her into a kiss that stank of wine and poor teeth. She groaned, leaning into the embrace and letting her body bend into his. She set her wine down and set fingertips to dancing over the rolls of his sagging form.
Suddenly, Vennitius pushed her back.
“Something bothers you?” she asked and brushed his neck with her lips.
Vennitius again resisted. “Not to suggest that I’m not enjoying such refined company, but you must tell me: what brings an Urkaimat of Thyrr out so far from the heartlands?”
