A Sellsword's Will, page 36
part #5 of Seven Virtues Series
She told herself for the hundredth time that it would be okay. She would find the queen and tell her of the night’s events, and they would raise a force great enough to go and bring Aaron, Adina and the others back, whether they had been taken by Kevlane’s creatures, the Akalians, or even the gods themselves. They would get them back. She would get them back. But will you get them back alive?
She buried the thought under a pile of self-assurances and rationalizations. After all, why would they be killed? If Kevlane were after the Virtues—which seemed clear enough—he would want to see to them himself, to ensure that he or his people received the Virtues when the others were…well, never mind that. And the ancient mage wouldn’t have traveled so close to Perennia, not by himself, surely? As for the Akalians, what would they gain by killing her friends?
Yet for all her attempts to dissuade herself, she was unable to bury her fear deep enough, and she felt it clawing at her thoughts, threatening to drive her mad with panic for what she might lose. What reason would either group have for killing Silent and the others? When dealing with an insane, ancient mage and a group of men with as dark a reputation as the Akalians for death and destruction, no real reason was necessary.
She noted two guards patrolling the camp grounds a short way off, and she rushed toward them, calling on what little reserves of strength the night had left her. “Guards!” The two men turned from where they’d been talking to one of the remaining celebrants—questioning, it had looked to her, but there’d be time enough to worry about that later.
As she drew close, she noted the hard stares of the guards. Still, she was not entirely surprised—after all, with the partying of the night before, they had no doubt had a long, difficult time, forced to patrol and break up the fights that had surely arisen. Their dark moods made sense, and so she was shocked when they drew their swords. “That will be close enough,” one barked.
“Gods, man, why are you drawing your sword?” she asked. “I’m May, you all know me.” Not that there was any way they could have mistaken her, as her flaming red hair, perhaps less lustrous than usual given the night she’d had, was on full display, whipping behind her in the morning wind. “I have to speak to Queen Isabelle and now. Please, take me to her.”
“You traitorous bitch,” one said, his voice full of venom as he shook his head in disbelief. “You’ll not get anywhere near the queen, except maybe when she sees you hanged.”
“Enough of that,” the other barked, but May noted that his sword did not leave his hand as he regarded her closely.
May was too shocked by the open hostility to even respond for several seconds. “Listen,” she said finally, “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, I’m sure you’ve had a night no man or woman would envy, but I don’t have time for any foolishness just now. I have to see the—”
“Yeah,” the calmer of the two said, “you said that.” He stepped forward, withdrawing a set of manacles from his belt. “Madam May Tanarest, I place you under arrest by order of Queen Isabelle, ruler of Perennia and its outlying regions. Will you come peacefully?”
May took an involuntary step back. “If this is a joke,” she said, “then it isn’t funny.” She tried for the scolding, dangerous tone that so often quelled any disagreement from others, but she didn’t miss the tremor in her own voice.
The second guard growled and took a step toward her as if he meant to cut her down where she stood, but the first held up a hand, and he reluctantly subsided, though the unmasked fury did not leave his face. “I assure you, ma’am,” the calmer said, “that in Perennia, we do not make light of such things as this. Now, will you come peacefully? I warn you that, should you make us use force, it will not go well for you.”
May met the man’s eyes, hoping for some sign that it was all a joke, that, any minute now, they would laugh and sheathe their swords and apologize for their crude humor. But there was no laughter in the man’s eyes, nor any sympathy. Only a cold hardness, only the determination of a man to do his duty and do it well. “Okay,” she said, forcing her lips to keep from trembling with a will as tears of hurt and shock threatened. She held out her hands, and the guard gave one sharp nod, moving forward and clamping the manacles on her wrists.
The metal was cold against her skin, and the sound of the manacles locking rang in her ears with a dreaded finality. “May I ask with what I have been charged?” she managed in a weak whisper.
“I suspect you know well enough,” the guard said, motioning her to begin walking. “The charge is treason and conspiring to assassinate the queen. The sentence—at least if I have my say—will be death.”
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Grinner sat in the room’s single chair, staring at the blank wall before him as if he might divine some universal truth from the cracks and webbing in the stones. The healer had come a few hours before, had told him that, should he wish it, Grinner could leave. On the night stand sat a mixture of salve for the crime boss to apply to the wound, as well as some medicine for the pain. But, Grinner knew, the pain he felt was deeper than the physical, and the worst of it the medicine would not, could not touch.
The old healer had told him that he had done what he could, that it was a miracle Grinner was alive at all, given the severity of the wound. But he felt no gratitude or thankfulness, only hate for Aaron Envelar and all the others who had brought him to this. Grinner knew there were things he should be about, yet he had not left, and just as with his persistent refusal to look into a mirror, the decision had been one based on fear. For, it seemed to him, that should he leave, the mangled face would be his to keep. While still in the healer’s shop, he could believe there might be a miracle in store for him, that he might be fixed, mended into the man he had once been.
There was a knock on the door, but the crime boss did not bother turning. “Come.”
Eustice, his second-in-command, stepped inside with his head bowed, closing the door behind him. “Forgive me, Master, I do not mean to disturb you, but I wished to check in and see how you were doing.”
“How am I doing?” Grinner asked. He turned to the small man, noted the grimace of disgust on his face. It was only there for a fraction of a second, no more, before his expression took on its usual, subservient placidity. Only a fraction of a second, but Grinner’s world, his new world, shifted and revolved within that moment of revulsion. “Is it so bad then, Eustice?”
The man’s mouth worked as if he was unsure of what to say. Finally, “Sir, your plans have progressed better than we could have ever hoped. It seems—”
“Is it so bad?” Grinner roared, and the man flinched as if struck.
“It is bad, Master,” he said, fear in his eyes as if he thought Grinner might strike him down for the truth. Not that Grinner could blame him—he had punished other bearers of bad news in the past, after all.
Grinner gave the man a smile. “Perhaps now, I am as ugly as you then?”
“Perhaps, Master,” the small man said, not sharing the humor and refusing to meet Grinner’s eye.
The crime boss sighed heavily, turning back to the wall. “Tell me.”
Obviously relieved to have moved on to a different topic, Eustice began reciting the events of the night to Grinner, who listened with a cruel sort of pleasure. “Queen Adina went as well then.” He nodded slowly. “That is better news than I could have hoped for, and it will make things easier for us in the coming days.”
“Yes, Master.”
“And the woman, May?”
“Placed under arrest and now sitting in a cell in the dungeon, Master, as is Hale.”
An hour ago, if asked, Grinner would have said there was nothing short of his face miraculously going back to the way it had been before that could motivate him to leave the healer’s room. Now, though, after seeing Eustice’s ill-concealed revulsion, what little hope he harbored of being complete withered and died within him. Besides, now he had a reason to leave, for whatever suffering he had and would endure, he would make sure it was visited tenfold upon the big crime boss and the woman, May. He turned back to the small man, “Did you bring what I asked for?”
“Yes, Master.” The small man reached into his tunic and withdrew a silver, stylized mask. There were no features on it, yet it seemed to Grinner that it laughed at him as he took it.
Grinner slid it on. The mask felt cool, almost pleasant against his ravaged flesh, but he found he missed the warm, hugging comfort of the bandages. Still, the healer told him the wound must be allowed to breathe and so it would. He rose, turning to his second in command. “I think that I will pay the traitors a visit.”
“Of course, master.”
“And Eustice?”
“Sir?”
“Send the men out, all of them.”
“Who do you wish me to send them after, sir?”
“The whole city,” Grinner said, smiling underneath the silver mask. “But not to harm or hurt, not to steal or rob. Only to talk. I wish them to tell the story of Aaron Envelar and his companions, of the cowardice that sent them fleeing into the darkness on the eve of battle, and the traitorous intentions of those few that chose to remain. I wish it spoken of in every tavern and inn, in every whorehouse and guardhouse in this entire city until even their names become a curse to those they have abandoned.”
His second nodded, and there was a gleam of excitement in his dark, beady eyes. “As you wish, sir.”
“Yes,” Grinner said, “As I wish.”
***
The dungeon smelled of excrement and filth, but there was another smell, subtler than those, that drifted just beneath it. It was the smell of shattered dreams, of hope left to rot and fester, and Grinner breathed it in, its aroma serving better than any medicine to heal that which had broken inside him with the marring of his face.
He followed the two guards to the cell he asked for, and they left him there, standing in the hallway, a torch in his hand. The figure sitting in the corner did not stir at the appearance of the orange glow. The big man was covered in cuts and abrasions, his face a mask of blood and bruises, one of his eyes swelled shut and the other little better. Grinner noted that his knuckles were also bloody and why not? The guards had told him that it had taken eight men to bring him down. One left the encounter with a broken arm, and another would never walk again. “You always were good at fighting, weren’t you, Hale?”
The massive man slowly lifted his head from where it had rested on his chest, and in the flickering light of the torch his face was expressionless. Grinner rubbed a finger idly underneath his bad eye. Since awakening, what little blurred, distorted vision the ruined eye had afforded him had gone, and now it seeped foul-smelling tears onto his face almost continuously. “Always a fighter,” Grinner repeated, “but, then, there is more to recommend a man than just his skill in fighting, wouldn’t you say, Hale? Like his cleverness, perhaps, or his subtlety. His ability to lay his enemies low beneath him.”
“Grinner,” the man said, his voice raspy as if it hurt to talk. “I had thought as much.”
“Yes,” Grinner said leaning in, searching for the feeling of satisfaction he had hoped to find here much as a man with a pickaxe and a shovel might search for gold. “It is I who have brought you here.”
“And the woman, May, who was brought in a short time ago? That was your doing as well?”
Grinner did not respond, only watched the man from behind his silver mask. “You have a lesson coming, Hale. One that has been coming for some time now.”
“Yeah,” the crime boss grated, rubbing a hand at his throat, “I suspect I do. Never been hanged before.” His thick shoulders shifted in what might have been a shrug. “Be an experience, anyway, I’d wager.”
“No,” Grinner said, angry at the man’s refusal to see how soundly he had been defeated. “Do not try to mock or jest, Hale, for they will benefit you nothing, not now. Your lesson will be one of pain and, eventually, of death. I will see to it that each moment you breathe until then will be a moment filled with agony beyond your belief.”
The big man grunted what might have been a laugh. “All that for me? Gods, but you need a woman, you old bastard. Or maybe a man, as it suits.”
Grinner felt his ruined face heat with anger, and he wiped furiously at his eye which had begun to weep more in his agitation. “No!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth and sticking to the mask, leaving an unpleasant dampness. No. He would not have his victory stolen from him—he would not. He had hoped to come and see the man weeping, perhaps groveling, begging for his life. Instead, the big bastard seemed almost calm, serene, in fact. “Do you not understand, you son of a whore? You are to suffer and die, and it will be at my hand!”
The big man shrugged again. “Always figured I’d suffer and die—never had any illusions about that. Anyway, I heard…tale…that a loyal subject of the crown saved the queen’s life from my men. You, I suspect. Clever, using my own men against me—never would have taken Otis and Perryn for your spies, if for no other reason than they weren’t pretty enough.”
“Yes,” Grinner hissed, “that is the cost of wronging me, Hale, and your payment has been long overdue.”
“There’s always a cost, Grinner,” the prisoner said. “For all your ‘subtlety’ you never seemed to understand that. I’ll pay mine as I must. But I heard something else from the guards as well.” The ghost of a grin rose on the man’s swollen face. “Seems that the queen’s savior did not leave the encounter with her assassins untouched.” He leaned forward then, grunting as his bulk shifted. “Tell me, Grinner, why the mask? Was your own payment not to your liking?”
“You bastard!” Grinner screamed, rage and hate—not just for the man before him but for himself as well—flooding through him. He tore his mask free, leaning in as far as the bars of the cell would allow. “You think this is a cost? I will carve out your eyes. I will flay the flesh from your face and shove it down your own throat!”
The big crime boss stared at him and, for a moment, did not respond. When he finally did, he rocked his head back and laughed, great, booming bouts of laughter that seemed to shake the very walls of the dungeon.
“Stop it!” Grinner screeched, but the man did not, and his entire body continued to shake with his mirth even as Grinner’s own shook with rage and hate.
Suddenly, he could not be down in the dungeons any longer. He snatched up his mask from where it had fallen on the dungeon’s dirt floor, not bothering to clean it before snapping it back on his face. Without a word, he turned and fled for the exit, the big man’s booming laughter echoing around him, giving chase.
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
He sat with his back propped against a tree with no idea of how he had come to be there. Woods surrounded him in all directions. The sun rose on the distant horizon, and early morning shed its first light on the world, yet here, beneath the boughs of the thick, ancient trees, he sat in shadow.
“You are awake.”
“Yes.” Aaron had not known that someone shared the early morning silence with him, yet he felt no surprise or fear. It was as if he were caught fast in some dream, one in which no great emotion—fear or joy—could be felt, instead only an abiding melancholy. His companion sat a short distance away, similarly propped against a tree. He puffed on a pipe and the gray smoke billowed lazily in the air, seeming to hang there, and adding to Aaron’s growing certainty that he was dreaming.
“It is good,” the man said. “We feared that, perhaps, you would not awaken. Much of the drug was used—much more than has ever been used before, but then, you proved particularly stubborn against its effects.”
“I’ve been called such before.”
“I know.”
Aaron frowned at that, not because the man’s familiarity bothered him, but because it did not. Normally, such a thing would have set alarm bells ringing in his head, but he was filled with a strange, inexplicable peace. “How do you know?” he said, his words floating into the silence.
“Does it matter?”
Aaron thought about that and finally shook his head. “No, I don’t believe it does. Why did you take me?”
“To save you.”
The sellsword nodded. He did not know why he believed the stranger, but he found that he did, and he was comforted. Comforted by another in a way that he had not been since his own mother and father had died. Where normally the memory brought back sharp, emotional anguish, now it only brought forth a bittersweet melancholy, for to lose much, a man had to have first had it. Another question occurred to him with enough force to create a small crack in the unnatural tranquility of the moment. “What of the others?”
“Your friends are safe.”
Aaron nodded again, recalling the sight of the others staked down in the clearing, chained and awaiting their deaths. He remembered, too, the rage, but it seemed a distant, half-forgotten memory, one that held little force in the dream-world in which he found himself. “I do not know the woman who was with the others,” he said.
“No,” his companion said, and Aaron thought he detected a note of sadness in the man’s voice. Only a hint of it, but one that spoke of great fathoms of despair and emotion. “But I do.” The stranger glanced down at his hand, and Aaron noted that it was badly scarred, as if it had been burned nearly beyond repair, yet the stranger moved it with a surprising dexterity, flexing the fingers.
“Where are they?”
“They are with those few that remain.”
“Few what?”
The man turned to him, and there was sadness in his dark-eyed gaze. “Akalians.”
Remembering the battle in the clearing, Aaron thought he knew the answer to the question before he asked it, but he asked it anyway. “Where are the others?”
