Adversaries Together (32 page)

“
Our last bit of
information from The Blockade; from the corsair we tasked to
terminate her, was that he had delivered her to the remaining
Rikonenese Alders.”

Sinclar looked at Ebon, “I was under the
impression that this mercenary’s task was to end Kira on the
highroad.”

Cowed, Ebon couldn’t look Sinclar in the
face, “As far as we knew, ours was his only contract.”

Sinclar stepped back into the solar and knelt
in the center of it. Light filled the room as Vander and Ebon stood
at the doorway as two black smears. Sinclar closed his eyes, “Seems
as though this isn’t your typical mercenary. A bit of a haranguer,
certainly.”

Vander took a cautious step into the solar,
“It appears as though he was hedging his bets, so to speak. But it
also looks like he wants to continue to serve our cause.”

“
What was he
paid?”

“
Five hundred aurei,” Ebon
responded, “And he was given…”

“
A marq.” Sinclar said
bluntly.

“
Yes.” Ebon
stuttered.

“
That was a poor decision
on Stilbon’s part.” Sinclar nodded his head slightly his eyes still
closed. “Leave.”

Ebon and Vander looked at each other and
hesitated, “What should we…”

“
I will finish my prayers,
Father Vander.” An edge returned to Sinclar’s voice. Ebon quickly
pulled Vander away and closed the door.

Sinclar could feel the sun’s heat on his skin
and his own searing blood, which pulsed hard in his head. He began
again mouthing the beginning of the First Prayer, his lips moved in
silence. Then he came to where he had been interrupted, he opened
his eyes and took in the whole of the sun.

Ando ced, cede mithi

Venci, fait, herc, et vitam

Et vitam glas

Pausing, he began the prayer again and then
again and then again. Each time in the same even tone, his eyes
open and unblinking. His mouth said the words, and his mind brooded
over them. The light before his eyes blurred and turned into a
smear of colors. Finally, he had to close his eyes but he still saw
the tempest of reds, greens, and yellows behind his eyelids. The
colors churned as Sinclar saw his design take shape.

Avostos Sea, Southern
Coast, 23
^rd
of Mabon

Cochrane watched his hand drift just beneath
the water’s skin. He gazed into the deep, long wound that tore
across his palm. Around his hand, a subtle pink cloud would settle
then disappear as the Avostos’ waves rippled into the cove. Along
the shoreline, Cochrane was perched squat and lost in thought. He
gazed at his injured hand, turned it over slowly in the cool water
to look at his fingertips which were grotesquely frayed, missing
their nails and raw.

He slowly wrapped his hand with a treated
bandage and gently slid his glove back on, feeling the throb of the
wound. Cochrane fell back to sit squarely on his ass, suddenly
looking entirely crestfallen. He allowed his head to droop and
dangle just above his chest. When he raised his head again, eyes
closed, he turned to his left and opened his eyes to look at a body
wrapped tightly in linen like a grotesque cocoon.

As Cochrane stood, large tears in his
gambeson were apparent, wet stains of odd fluid mixed with what
appeared to be blood, and as he moved toward the body he limped,
his left leg almost seemed to drag. Once he came to stand beside
the body, Cochrane slowly reached down in obvious pain and with
grave patience dug his arms beneath the body through the beach sand
so that he could lift it with more ease. When he was satisfied with
his grip, Cochrane took a deep breath and heaved the body up
turning it so that it would fall over his shoulder. He let himself
be acquainted with the new weight, staggered a bit but righted
himself. Moving agonizingly slow, he shuffled over to the rocks
where he had set a staff. With his free hand, he gripped it and
using it as a crutch, let the weight of his own body and the
corpse’s to be buttressed by the rod’s unbending steadiness.

He began to walk north
along the coast, maybe two days at this pace he guessed. Two days
to make it to Wick, where he would bury Towsend and pray the
Kopis
was waiting for
him.

The Stony Shore,
25
^th
of Mabon

Reg would say this; the Silvincians knew how
to make roads. Coming down out of the Siracenes his old mares had
endured nothing but rutted and uneven roads, just paths really. Now
though he was in Arderra’s realm of influence and the Seven Spires
made sure their roads were pristine. The constant crunch and
shuffle of horse hooves against the pale gravel was soothing,
almost as satisfying as the constant rush of the sea. Reg thought
of his little cottage, a lifetime of tinkering, trading, conniving,
saving, and lobbying to get that parcel of land. He had erected a
shitty little sod shanty when he first arrived. In fact, his first
real structure was that damn fence.

We was looking forward to seeing his son
again, get Colm away from Moria and that husband of hers, Tanner.
His face soured thinking of it. His sister-in-law and her husband
were ardent citizens, painfully provincial they were desperate to
curry favor. The sooner he got Colm back to their home working on
that fence the better. As he came around the bend, he saw his land,
a wide green swathe hedged by apple trees. He saw his black faced
sheep salt the meadow. Looking further on as he moved closer to his
chair, his stove, and his own bed he saw his cottage and
smiled.

Almost immediately, his grin turned quizzical
as he saw a line of smoke coming from his chimney. Colm shouldn’t
be home. Moria hated his house; she wouldn’t have stayed there. He
grimaced, if Tanner had been staying here as some kind of bachelor
retreat then Reg was going to be furious. That man needed a
beating, and Reg was itching to give it to him.

He dismounted once he got onto his property
proper and walked the horses into the barn, a rickety grey wood
structure that shared more with the dead villages than with a
proper barn or stable. He tied the horses and made for the cottage,
he needed to take care of this right away. Striding to the cottage,
the front door opened and Colm emerged.

“
Light be damned, son, what
are you doing here? Are you alone? Is your aunt in there?” Reg
barked but the boy just stared blankly at him.

“
Speak up, boy.” Colm was
shy, too shy for a boy of nearly ten years but this was
odd.

“
He doesn’t need to.” A man
stepped up behind Colm putting his hands on his shoulders. Reg
froze, suddenly there were two other men from behind the cottage
and two more behind him who must have been around the barn. He
cursed himself; how did he not see these men?

“
Colm, tell your father
what he needs to do.”

The boy blushed and Reg could see tears in
eyes, “You need to dig a hole.”

“
What’s all this? Who are
you?” Reg snarled. He softened his tone but kept a hard faced
looking into Colm’s eyes, “No worries, son, you’ll be just fine in
a moment.”

“
He’s just fine now,” the
man pushed the boy back into the cottage, and Reg took two quick
steps towards him; swords were drawn and Reg froze
again.

The strangers walked casually towards him,
hopped down from the short porch, and then sat on the edge of it
looking at Reg with his head cocked to one-side, “You need to
listen.”

“
I’ll not dig my own grave,
brigand.” Reg muttered.

“
No,” the man nodded, “no,
you won’t be digging your own. You’ll be digging your
son’s.”

“
Harm him and…”

The man waved him off, “Yes, yes. Nothing you
can say is new. The boy is in that cottage with a blade dangling
above his head. You fail to obey me and my men end his young
life.”

“
And then what? What do you
have to use against me, then?” Reg was brusque and it did seem to
surprise the man.

“
So you’d let your boy be
killed just so that I won’t have any leverage over you?” he gave a
cruel smile, “I hadn’t expected that gambit,” he wagged a finger at
Reg, “That’s going to make me reconsider your quality a
bit.”

“
You think I wouldn’t pay
you back? Ask the boy, how I discipline.”

“
He doesn’t talk much, kind
of just watches. It’s unnerving really; you’re raising a queer
child.” The man stood and slapped his thighs with the gloves he
held in one hand, “To the point…”
“Leave. You’re not welcome here.” Reg broke in.

Ignoring him, the man continued, “I know you
took a man up into the highlands. I need you to tell me where.”

“
I was in Rautia selling my
wool.”

“
Yeah, that’s an obvious
lie,” He pointed, “Those sheep haven’t been sheared in
ages.”

“
I got rabbits in pens,”
Reg nodded toward the barn, “Damn Rautians only want
angora.”

The bandit shrugged, “Sure, why not. Then,
you’ll tell me where you took the man and you’ll give me all your
aurei that you haggled out of those damn Rautians.”

“
You don’t get my coin. You
don’t get what’s mine. You get to leave.”

The men behind Reg moved in closer and the
two who’d come around the cottage now stood behind the leader and
had Reg circled.

“
Where did you take him?”
The leader asked again, this time more forceful, as he drew a
dagger.

“
You think I’m gonna fold
just because you pull a pesh?” Reg mocked, he realized that he’d
have to move fast. He no idea how many were in the cottage but he
was betting on them coming out once the melee began.

“
You’re an odd one,
stubborn.” The leader said, “You need to be broken.” His eyes
signaled the men behind Reg who came up fast behind him.

But not fast enough, Reg dropped low and
tumbled back splitting the pair. Reg didn’t have a blade but he did
have a hoe scattered with some other tools by the barn. When he
came to his feet, the two were staring at a man holding a hoe in a
bizarrely menacing manner.

“
He’s a shepherd. Kill
him.” The leader said to his men with a sick disdain.

Reg stepped forward as the two men lunged at
him. He brought the hoe down horizontally over the men’s blades and
leapt straight up avoiding the sword tips. Coming down he twisted
his body and sent his right shoulder hard into the one on that
side. He fell into his fellow bandit and as Reg let his momentum
take him, he swung the hoe around in his left hand and cracked the
man in the skull as he hit the ground. The two bandits behind the
leader came at him now, and with powerful but sloppy slices, they
tried to split Reg in two. He was able to dodge the strikes and
land two strong blows to the chest of one of the men who fell back
with the wind knocked out of him. Reg grab the blade from his hands
in time to parry another strike on his knees, but not well enough.
The attacker was stronger than he was; the strike sent him
sprawling backward. The bandit swung around to hack at him again,
Reg scrambled to his feet and deflected the blow but it caught his
thigh cutting him deep.

“
Fuck this playing around,”
he heard the leader right behind him and he felt a hot sting in his
back, his heart seemed to burn. Reg tasted blood; the leader spun
him around like a doll and pointed to the porch. Colm stood in the
grip of another bandit, a pesh pushing into his throat.

“
Tell me where before you
die and I won’t open up your son in front of you,” the leader
hissed, “Don’t let this be the last thing you see before you
die.”

Reg coughed, realized he was on his knees.
The leader continued, “Tell me where you took him.”

Reg never took his eyes off Colm, his son was
weeping and had a silent terrified scream seemingly fixed on his
face, “Don’t…”

“
I won’t,” the leader’s hot
breath was in his ear, “I won’t kill the boy, if you tell
me.”

“
Cruor.”

The leader’s face tightened, “What? What is
that?”

Reg looked at the man’s face, he grabbed him
by the throat but he didn’t have the strength anymore and the
leader tossed him onto his back.

“
Where is he?”

Reg looked at Colm, pointed, “Cruor.”

The leader looked at Reg and then at the boy,
his eyes darted between the two several times. Reg felt the burning
change, the pain was different; he was a trembling now. He nodded
one last time, Colm staring into his eyes, “The Cruor.”

The bandit holding him pressed the blade to
Colm’s flesh and a thin ribbon began to appear when the leader
screamed, “No, wait. Wait.”

The leader came up to Colm slapping away his
man’s blade, he grabbed the boy’s throat, “You know that word.”

Colm was now devoid of color, wide-eye and
wet faced, when he managed to cough out a sound that resembled
assent.

“
It’s a place.”

Colm nodded.

“
You know how to get
there.”

Colm didn’t look at the leader, didn’t say
anything, but nodded again. The leader stood and spoke to the man
who had almost killed the boy, “Ah, you see. Now we have a guide.”
He turned back to Reg whose eyes were now slits and all but gone
from the world, “You’re a clever one. I’ll keep your boy
alive.”

He squatted next to Reg, leaning in close to
his face, and whispered, “So, I guess you win.”

Eastern Novostos Sea

His arms burned but he dared not stop
paddling. Declan was curled up under a piece of canvas in front of
him long asleep, Goshen had let him rest through his shift. Above
the moons were in full complement—one full and one new—hanging
large in the starry sky at opposite ends. The world was bathed in a
bizarre silvery and shadowed light.