What Remains of Heroes (10 page)

“I thank you again for your kindness, sir.” This guard seemed to possess nothing of Horus’s good nature. Nevertheless, Lannick reckoned he’d best be courteous to the man, as he certainly felt no desire for another beating.
Not before General Fane has his turn, anyway
.

The passageway gradually widened and windows to the outside world broke the monotony of the stone walls and heavy doors. They passed a hearth room and a large mess area, and Lannick guessed some prisoners were regarded as less threatening than others. A knot of inmates crowded about a mess table, laughing heartily as they bantered with a guardsman. It sounded almost like casual talk amongst free men.

“Captain?” shouted someone from the mess table. “Captain Lannick?”

Lannick turned suddenly to see one of the men waving wildly. He felt a flush of shame color his cheeks. He cast his head down and pretended not to hear the man.

“It
is
you!” the man said. “Boys! That there is Captain Lannick deVeers! The hero of Pryam’s Bay! The Scourge of Tallorrath, we called him! The High King himself declared him a Protector of Ironmoor. Isn’t that right, Captain?”

Lannick kept moving, hoping the guard would do the same. He did, much to Lannick’s relief. Soon they were out of the mess hall.

The guard turned again to regard Lannick. “That you? A captain?”

“No.”

Not anymore
.

“Your visitor’s in that room,” the guard said, gesturing to the door.

Lannick felt his guts wrench. He’d known this would come from the moment Fane leered over him two weeks before, the man’s grotesque face stretched to a sick grin. Lannick’s tongue felt suddenly thick in his mouth and the remaining taste of wine sickened him like poison.

The guard eyed Lannick with a crooked brow and beady eyes. “No tricky stuff,” he said. “No taking anything from anybody, and don’t even dream of getting out of here. I’ll be waiting just outside, and I’ll be watching. I’m fully prepared to run you clean through if you get any grand ideas.”

“You needn’t worry about that. I suspect my visitor will dispose of me long before you have the chance.”

The guard snorted. “Save your clever talk for your visitor.” He pressed the door open with one hand and yanked Lannick by his shackles with the other.

Lannick stumbled inside the small room. It was brightly lit by a large window of stained glass at its opposite end, and his eyes struggled in the light. A dark figure sat at a solitary table in the room’s center.

My end
awaits
.

Lannick felt a hand pressing him, forcing him into a chair opposite the figure. “Sit down, prisoner,” said the guard.

His eyes adjusted after a moment, and he realized his visitor was not General Fane. Not at all.

A woman sat tranquilly at the table, her hands folded before her. Although not classically beautiful, the sight of any woman, at this moment, was nearly enough to make Lannick swoon. Her dark hair was cut short, in a practical fashion. She wore simple clothes of earthy colors, all greens and browns. Lannick was mystified.

She smirked and arched her brow over eyes of warm brown. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

Lannick squinted at the woman as he fumbled through his memories. Did she have him confused with someone? She was utterly, completely unfamiliar. “Of course I do. How ever have you been?”

“Well, ever since our little encounter two weeks ago, I’ve found my life to be rather hectic.”

Encounter? Damn my wine-soaked head!
“Uh, I’m terribly sorry. How can I help?”

Her smile broadened. “You’ve already helped quite enough, thank you. We met two weeks ago, that night. You
do
remember my name, of course?”

Lannick’s jaw dropped as the gearwheels of his mind finally clicked into place. She was the friend. The friend of General Fane’s daughter.
Of course! But did she ever give me her name?

“Alisa,” she said with a knowing look. “And you are Lannick. I realize you were somewhat altered during our last encounter.”

Lannick grinned despite the awkwardness of the situation. Even though he’d been completely drunk that night, certain images had proven indelible. Rare was the man who could lay claim to such romancing such a beauty. “Yes, of course.”

She regarded him seriously. “‘Yes’ you remember my name, or ‘yes’ you were altered?”

Lannick’s grin vanished and he placed his head in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been quite myself since we last met.”

“Worry not.” She reached across the table and pulled his hand close to her. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Your captors will not permit us much time, so I need to get straight to the heart of things. I saw something that night, Lannick. Something that has drawn me here.”

Lannick’s eyes nearly crossed as he listened, for he had no idea what she meant.
Is this woman mad? Has she come to court my affections
again?

With her free hand Alisa pulled Lannick’s loose sleeve upward. Slowly it peeled back, until his mark was revealed. The watchtower and the elder word “
Variden
.”

“The Vigilant Ones,” Alisa whispered.

Lannick’s eyes widened. He tried to pull his arm away but she held him fast. When she finally released him he snatched his arm back as though it’d caught fire.

“We toil each of us in secret,” she said, “but we are never alone. The Vigilant ever stand guard.”

“What?” Lannick asked, dumbfounded.

Alisa undid a button on her sleeve and pulled the cloth back to the crease of her elbow. About her wrist was a bracelet of heavy black iron which Lannick recognized as a Coda, the sacred instrument of the Variden order. And further up, upon her forearm, was emblazoned the same watchtower emblem. She sighed softly, then rejoined Lannick’s stare. Her brown eyes seemed to blaze. “The spirit of Valis moves within all the Variden, Lannick. It must have been the will of that spirit that caused me to choose you that night. I will return to save you.”

6

There is Poetry

“
B
loody work that
was,” Fencress said. She was the only one who’d spoken freely with Karnag since they’d murdered the Lector and his company. Drenj seemed ashamed of the mess he’d made of things, and Paddyn’s stare hadn’t left the ground.

“Aye,” Karnag said. “Murder usually is.”

Fencress grinned, her blue eyes dancing in the shadows of the black cowl she often wore. “I think when you kill that many men, it becomes something other than murder. But
what
, precisely? Assassination strikes me as implying the killing of just one man. So does execution. Slaughter sounds like we’ve just gutted pigs or cows or some such farm animals, and I don’t fancy the ring of it.”

“What about killing?” ventured Drenj.

“Too common,” said Fencress, waving her hand as though shooing a fly. “Too broad. Too… clumsy. I like to believe there is poetry in our work, and it is just a matter of giving it voice. What say you, Karnag? After all, it was you who did the very most of it.”

Karnag liked Fencress, but more for her skill with a blade than for the prattle of her tongue. “I’ll leave the poetry to you.”

They rode on in silence. The forested path seemed less taxing now that their task was done. Karnag found himself enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sunlight filtering through the canopy above them. He was breathing easier, and his restless thoughts had given way to a calm satisfaction.

As he’d anticipated, they’d not suffered the wrath of dead gods, the skies had not shaken, and the Lector had bled like any other man. There were those words he’d heard from the Lector, but aside from the strangeness of their utterance there’d been no terrible consequences.

Drenj cleared his throat behind them. “Maybe massacre?”

Fencress breathed sharply and then paused for a moment, as though she’d forgotten the earlier discussion. She turned about in his saddle and clapped her gloved hands. “Quite well done, Khaldisian.
Quite
well done. It was, indeed, a massacre. A
massacre
!” She slapped her knee as though struck by an epiphany. “You see, Karnag? There is poetry.”

That evening they found a clearing atop a low rise and made camp. Agreeing a modest feast was in order, they sorted through the stash of wine and foodstuffs they’d found in the Lector’s traveling crates. Paddyn managed to down a wild pig, and after gutting it they roasted it with onions over their fire.

Paddyn made most of the preparations, going about his work quietly and alone. Of all the company that remained, Karnag reckoned the young bowman was most affected by the events of the previous night. He was a rough-looking lad but just barely old enough to be called a man, and Karnag guessed he’d fallen into this business only through the worst kind of desperation.

“What ever are you doing, my friend?” Fencress shouted to Paddyn.

The lean bowman froze, holding a wine bottle over the spit to allow the liquid to drizzle on the pig. “Marinating.”

“Urinating?” exclaimed Drenj, waving his hands and starting toward the pig. “On my supper? You northerners are as barbaric as the spice merchants claim!”

“No,” Paddyn said with a gap-toothed grin and a welcome show of humor. “Marinating. With the wine. Flavoring the meat, is all.”

“You’re a fool nonetheless, boy!” Fencress shouted, rattling an empty bottle. “The dead don’t drink. The libations should be saved for the living!”

Paddyn’s smile broadened and he poured the wine liberally over the carcass.

The pig was done just before nightfall. They sat circled about the fire and ate as quickly as their jaws would allow. It was the best meal Karnag had tasted in weeks, perhaps longer, and the pork was tender and delicious, much better than the salted meat and molded cheese he’d eaten in the saddle.

Once the pig was picked clean the men settled back and spoke in carefree tones. Their anxieties over killing the Lector and his men seemed to subside.

“So, Karnag,” said Fencress, “what was it like? Killing the Lector I mean. He has to have been one of the greater names to have perished at your hands.”

Karnag shrugged. “The same as any other. He bled and fell still.” He’d not mentioned the strange words to the company, and reckoned he never would. Even now he wondered if the sound had been real or imagined.

“Poetry, indeed,” Fencress said mockingly. “I always knew you were much more than a mere murderer.”

The talk soon drifted to money, as it often did. Karnag listened as the killers spent money they’d not yet been paid. It was a source of distraction, so he didn’t bother to interrupt.

“I’ll start with a new set of clothes,” said Fencress, fingering her cowl. “Perhaps something ladylike for once.”

“Oh yeah?” Paddyn said, stoking the fire with a bent stick. “I’m hiring a big, fat whore. The kind capable of burying me in her gigantic tits.” He made a burbling sound and shook his head to and fro.

Fencress feigned offense with a hand over her mouth. “You speak of such things in front of
me
?”

“Maybe I won’t when you look all ladylike,” said Paddyn. “But then I might try a go with you when you do.”

Fencress smiled but her hands fell to her twin swords. “Those who’ve tried that have lost their cocks or their lives, and sometimes both. Which will you lose?”

Karnag grunted and spat. “Enough. There’ll be plenty of ways to spend your coin in Raven’s Roost.”

Drenj looked up from the fire, wiping his hands on his breeches. “We’re heading there, then?”

Karnag picked a piece of meat from his teeth. “Aye.”

“But you said you hadn’t decided,” said Drenj. “You said you thought we’d be cheated, or worse.”

Karnag eyed the Khaldisian squarely. “If we’d cut but one man I might be happy with the four hundred crowns we were tendered in advance. But thanks to the greed and stupidity of one of our number, we slaughtered eleven.”

Fencress cleared her throat. “Massacred, you mean.”

Drenj laughed loudly, seeming to desire a shift in subject and tone. Karnag, though, would not suffer it. “We should have left you to deal with that mess by yourself, Khaldisian. We should have watched as those brutes carved you to pieces.”

Drenj lowered his head. “I am sorry, to all of you. I drifted asleep. When I awoke the three of you were nowhere to be seen. I didn’t know whether you’d slain the Lector and left me. I saw those men sleeping and thought it would be an easy robbery.”

Karnag spat again into the fire. “I haven’t given you your share of the coin yet. I may find need to alter the terms of our bargain.”

Drenj stiffened, his dark-lined eyes narrowing. He said not a word for the balance of the evening.

Karnag’s night was fitful. Any sense of calm had abandoned him, and he jumped with every crunch of brush and groan of tree limbs. His hand frequently found the hilt of his short sword, and at last he decided to bring it into his bedroll to clutch it as he tried to sleep. He cursed his nerves as a weakness, and resolved to be their master. He breathed hard and squeezed his eyes shut.

Eventually sleep found him, but it was a restless sort haunted by horrors. A frantic, hissed phrase echoed incessantly through the depths of his dreams.
“Necrista traellus a abridalusi Yrghul y ogo alliata. Illienne cradus e Warduren renden e sallem orn argo
apocha.
”

He awoke with a start and could hear the phrase still. They were the Lector’s undead words, he knew. Although he felt he’d barely heard them when they were first spoken through unmoving lips, they were emblazoned upon his mind. He knew not their meaning, but knew they would never be forgotten.

He sought to summon his earlier bravado, closing his eyes and focusing on the memory of driving his steel into the Lector’s throat. He would not be troubled by the fears of faith. He resolved that the memory of that night would not be feared, but embraced. He was the Lector’s slayer, his conqueror.

After a time he opened his eyes to the sight of a sky filled with stars. He gripped the hilt of his sword, and felt the disquiet leaving him. He sensed the blade understood him, for he shared its purpose.

He turned in his bedroll to face the dying embers of the fire, following the drifts of short-lived sparks and moonlit smoke. He looked upon the glow for a time and thought of himself as the fire, that which consumed all else. In that, he found comfort.

At dawn they awoke to the thunder of hooves. Karnag scrambled from his bedroll and grabbed his short sword. He stood, trying to make sense of the commotion. He saw the blurred shapes of several riders in succession as they raced down the trail toward Raven’s Roost.

He noticed their own horses were spooked, wheeling wildly and nearly breaking free of their reins. He found Paddyn and gestured for him to tend to the horses, then he slipped through the trees to the path.

The riders who’d passed were already well distant, but from their dress they appeared to be ordinary folk, not bandits or fighting men.

“They must be in quite the hurry,” said Fencress, emerging from the trees to stand near Karnag. “Didn’t even stop to say hello. How
utterly
rude.”

Shouts sounded from the opposite direction of the trail. Karnag turned about and within moments caught sight of several more riders charging hard along the path.

“Off the road!” the lead rider screamed as he approached. He was an older man in rough-hewn clothes, pots and pans strapped to his pack and clanking as he rode. Behind him came a brown-robed woman on horseback, and behind her a boy a few years shy of manhood.

“What madness is this?” Karnag shouted as they passed.

The older man did not voice a reply, instead making a shooing motion with his hand. The woman, too, ignored them. The boy looked at them with eyes wide, but did not slow.

“Why do you flee?” Karnag screamed after him.

The boy twisted his head once he was beyond them. “The Arranese! They’re coming across the Southwalls!”

Karnag and Fencress watched until the riders faded from sight and then withdrew from the road.

“War,” said Fencress, “can be a most profitable thing for people with our talents.”