Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (13 page)

If Tollaf spared him from working his talent, it was
only because he buried his apprentice inside Natalie’s diary pages, demanding
that Marik uncover his error.  Marik had become relatively inured to Natalie’s
lifestyle through excessive exposure, though her particularly lurid
descriptions of an original technique she had created still brought a flush to
his cheeks.

Sloan tracked him down one day and curtly ordered,
“Command building.  Let’s go.”

Marik gladly followed his new sergeant to the summons
he’d anticipated for eightdays.  He entered the command building for the second
time in his life.

Its foyer differed little from the other official
buildings in the town, except coin had been spent to make it look more
grandiose.  The ever-present countertop still separated the room.  There were
two hallways on the entrance side, respectively leading west and east.  Sloan
turned into the east hallway.

Potted plants livened the corridor.  The walls were
lined with dark wood paneling behind leafy stalks.  Carved molding covered the
corners where wall met floor and ceiling.  The hallway dead-ended after only a
short distance except for two doors in the north wall.

They stopped at the far one.  Sloan entered after a
single hard rap.  Inside, Fraser and Kineta waited, each sitting on expensive
stuffed couches.  Sloan dropped into a separate chair, equally as comfortable,
yet it could have been a cold boulder on a mountaintop for all he noticed.

The couches and chairs were arranged around three
sides of a knee-high table.  Crystal bottles sparkling with sunset-colored
liquor occupied a glass-doored cabinet with shelves built into the upper half
for several books.  All in all, this must be a waiting room for prospective
contractors.

Uncertain of his place, Marik glanced to Fraser, who
nodded at the seats.  None faced the room’s rear.  Sloan had claimed the one
chair on his end.  He dropped beside Fraser, deciding that sitting next to
Kineta on her short couch might risk misinterpretation.  Besides, her less than
friendly mood could clearly be seen.

No one spoke in the short silence before the door
burst open.  Janus entered holding a small stack of papers and a canvas sack. 
He wasted no time in greetings or politeness, instead cutting straight to the
point.

“You three,” he began, sweeping in everyone except
Fraser with a hard stare, “are all headed to Spirratta.  You each have a charge
you’ve been assigned to guard during the tournament.  There’s not much you need
to know except that you better keep your charge alive.  If he dies, and you
didn’t, you’ll wish you had.”

Neither of the sergeants spoke, so Marik voiced the
question on his mind.  They must already have been informed about any relevant
information as yet unknown to him.  “What about the ‘not much’ part
do
we
need to know?”

Janus directed the full force of his irritation on the
only non-officer in the room.  “You’re a guard, not a bloody tactician, boy! 
Follow your orders when you get them.  This is hardly duty that calls for a
brain, which is why
you’re
the head of your group.  If you are attacked,
fight them off or get your own skin between the blade and your charge!  You
better fall before he does!”

Marik kept his mouth shut after that.  Whatever Janus
claimed, Torrance had told him differently. 
You have started building a
reputation.  As your reputation increases, so does the band’s.  And if you sour
your reputation, ours too will suffer.  It is only a four-man detail, but as
you are the one best known among the nobles you will be mixing with, you must
act as its head.  Perhaps your reputation among them will grow no further than
it has, but you must behave under the expectation that it will.

Janus continued.  “You are each in charge of your
group.  That means if anything goes wrong, it’s your head on the pike.  Here
are your contracts.  Always keep it on your person.  Read it until you know it
inside and out.”

He divided the paper stack into thirds and handed them
to the team leaders.  Marik read his name as well as Dietrik’s, Landon’s and
Kerwin’s.  Janus’ admonishment kicked loose memories of trouble that had
occurred between the Ninth’s previous lieutenant, Earnell, and the spoiled son
of Baron Dornory, Balfourth.  The advice was sound.  By the time they reached
Spirratta, he would be able to recite the contract word for word.

Janus reached into the sack to withdraw three small
pouches to which were tied pocket-sized books filled with blank pages.  He
declared while handing them out, “Here’s your traveling expenses.  Keep a log
of every copper you spend, because I’ll be checking them when you return. 
There’s enough coin for the round trip to Thoenar, plus extra emergency funds. 
If you spend more than that, it comes out of your own wages.  Don’t expect a
reimbursement unless you have a damned good reason,
and
proof!”

Kineta asked, “When are we supposed to leave?”

“Whenever you care to,” Janus snorted.  “Your mounts
are in the stables.  You can draw them whenever you want.  But I’d
suggest
you leave tomorrow.”

The old man had suffered them long enough and left the
door open behind him.  Marik peeked inside his bag to discover a small fortune
in silver.

Kineta rose facing Sloan, balled fists on hips. 
“We’ll ride together for the city.  The roads are full of refugees.”

Sloan shrugged his shoulders to indicate that the
issue was of no importance to him.  Silent as ever, he also left.

“What about you, lieutenant?” Marik asked.

“Since the squad’s not going out as a whole, what’s
left of it anyway, I don’t need to go out with it.  I have plenty of work
around here to see to.”

Which sounded like an important way of saying he would
be relaxing all summer, Marik thought.  He addressed Kineta.  “Uh, I’m Marik. 
I’d like to ride out along with you and Sergeant Sloan.”

She nodded.  “I’ve seen you around.  Heard a few
things too.”

He hesitated, momentarily worried about exactly
what
she might have heard.  “What time are you planning to leave?”

“Why wait?  Dawn suits me fine.”

“All right.  See you at the stables then.”  Marik left
her to a discussion with Fraser.  While he returned to the Tower, he fantasized
about what he could say to the chief mage now that he was no longer imprisoned
under his jurisdiction.  At the top of the stairs he yanked his mind back into
reality.  He knew what he
wanted
to do, but he also knew what he
ought
to do.  Sighing mightily, he opened the door.  Tollaf remained exactly as he
had been when he’d left.

The old man buried his nose in a book of his own, if
one less ostentatious than Natalie’s.  Whatever he researched he kept the
knowledge from his student.  This intense project had consumed most of his
waking candlemarks since the failed scrying attempt.

“Hey, old man!”

“What do you want?”  The normal irritation was dulled
under a weary tone.

“I’m heading out tomorrow to Spirratta on a contract. 
I want to take that book with me to study.”

Tollaf slowly spun on his stool, his fuzzy eyebrows
creeping up his forehead like escaping caterpillars.  He stuck his little
finger in one ear and rotated it dramatically.  “Old age is finally catching up
to me.  My hearing’s finally failing.  I
know
I misheard whatever you
said.”

Marik was not in the mood.  “Just answer me!”

The chief mage regained his irascible wind.  “You live
especially for this, don’t you?”

“For what?”

“I spend my entire life fighting to get you to study
your lessons, and the only time you actually want to is when there’s no way in
the hells I’ll let you!”

“Now what are you foaming at the mouth about?”

“Your answer is ‘no’.  You are not taking that tome
out of Kingshome, let alone to Spirratta!”

“Thoenar.”

“I don’t care where!  You haven’t the faintest idea
what that tome is worth, let alone how difficult it was to obtain!”

“I can be trusted!  That mirror wasn’t my fault!”

“I don’t give two apple cores about that!” Tollaf
shouted, surprising Marik.  “I’m talking about an irreplaceable treasure!  The
knowledge in those pages goes beyond value!  If you want to study it so bad,
then stay in town this summer.”

“Torrance already assigned me.”

Tollaf nearly spit.  “And I still want to know why he
did that!  You were supposed to spend this season studying.”

“Will you stop with that!  You’ll never make me put
down my blade.”

“It’s a crutch!  You’ll never master your power if you
keep thinking like a muscle-bound dunderhead!”

“I give up!  Keep your moldy old book, since it means
so much to you.  Maybe
you
can figure out what happened during the
scrye!”

Out of temper, Marik stalked from the Tower.  As much
as he hated Tollaf’s overbearing manner, he had hoped to spend the road time
figuring out why the mirror had exploded.  Whenever Tollaf forced him to the
task, he wasted half his mental energy fuming.  He always worked much better
when the master of his actions was himself.

But he had to prepare for tomorrow.  He began a mental
list of all the things he needed to pack.  Also, he needed to tell the others,
then…

Men and women ran frantically without direction,
shouting, gesturing and commanding others in frenzied voices.  If anyone
accomplished anything, Colbey saw no evidence of it.  Jabberzian; a city in
panic, every citizen concerned more for his own skin than his kingdom’s
welfare.  This teeming chaos resulted from people dodging conscription while
striving to appear helpful.

Colbey had visited this eastern Tullainia city during
his first summer with the Kings.  His familiarity allowed him to find his way
well enough.  He also knew the city’s normal routine, which the current bustle
made a mockery of.

A formal wall had never enclosed the city.  In the
last several months the Tullainians had undertaken a massive effort to
construct a perimeter defense.  The manual labor mostly came from soldiers and
prisoner work gangs, resulting in a barrier nearly as hodgepodge as the men
constructing it.  Very little of the wall was stone.  Building supplies were
limited on short notice, especially in the quantities needed to surround the
vast city.  Primarily, stout wood walls packed in-between with dirt, rocks,
rubble, or whatever else the builders could find would be their defense. 
Several stretches were only massive earthwork mounds thirty feet in height.

Inside the eclectic walls, Colbey encountered
atmospheres of opposing extremes.  People burned away their energy, frantic to
accomplish the impossible, succeeding in very little due to their inefficiency
and nonexistent coordination.  Others were silent, contemplating the gallows,
or hovering over ale, awaiting the end with fatalistic acceptance.

In the streets the scout saw few who failed to fit one
or the other category.  Several men carrying lumber atop their shoulders rushed
past a drunk crouched in the dirt.  To judge from the vagrant’s clothing, he
had not been one to sit amongst garbage and detritus for long.

Shops were still open, conducting business as though
nothing were amiss.  The only prosperous ones were the taverns and food
markets.  Colbey’s feet brought him down a shady street toward his fourth
tavern of the day.

He had visited these establishments during his last
visit, though under different objectives.  Whereas before he had fished for
information about the unknown assailants responsible for destroying his people,
this time he sought to learn how to be Tullainian.

Colbey had abandoned gathering any further information
from these frightened fools.  Most eyewitnesses had already fled east across
the border, or north up through the narrow non-desert stretches of Perrisan. 
Still shocked and terrified, they had provided him with details that the people
living here in the east could never believe, much less fabricate.  He credited
the locals’ uselessness to three factors.

Foremost was the lack of firsthand experience on the
part of the eastern Tullainians.  Though confronted with fleeing survivors from
their own kingdom, most were simply unable to fathom the true terror.  Yes,
they were building their defenses and sharpening their swords, but they still
harbored illusions regarding the threat facing them.

Secondly, their inability to see past the monsters. 
As far as the Tullainians believed, the threat they faced existed wholly within
the inhuman creatures that had devastated so many western towns.  Thus, none
peered beyond to see what drove the monsters, or who stood behind them.

This was reinforced by the third reason.  The
High-Lord Faylin-dow.  How much the man actually knew, Colbey could only guess,
yet the lord took advantage of the situation to smear his longtime rival,
Markis-gune.  Word had spread that the menace emanated from Kallied, the city
where Markis-gune held sway.  Faylin-dow declaimed loud and long, putting forth
his belief that these monsters originated from evil magical experiments funded
by his opposite high-lord.  Experiments gone hideously awry, allowing the
creatures to escape and wreck havoc across the surrounding land.

In a panic, many Tullainian aristocrats gave his words
credence.  Colbey doubted Faylin-dow would have long to wallow in the
satisfaction of his rival’s downfall.  The high-lord should have been focusing
his attention on his city’s defenses.  Perhaps then they might stand a chance
of lasting into a second day.

The location of his enemy’s apparent base of
operations was the only new intelligence gleaned from these outlanders.  His
next destination set, he forced himself to delay leaving for Kallied until
preparations were complete.  Tullainians wandering the western regions would be
in peril enough, but a foreigner would arouse particular interest.  To that
end, he needed to
become
a Tullainian for all apparent purposes.

A task inadequately suited to him.  Darkening his skin
tones to eastern Tullainia’s rich brown would be easy enough.  It was
pretending to be other than what he was that ran counter to Colbey’s nature. 
Partly this stemmed from his strong-willed personality, which dictated he never
live his life to suit others.  Emulating Galemarans, on the few occasions he
bothered to attempt it, never seemed worth the trouble.

Yet he headed into the dragon’s cave, to steal a
whisker as the deadly beast slept.  He needed a disguise to keep his enemy’s
eyes from focusing on him.  A disguise surpassing his clothing and the
overstuffed pack strapped to his back.

Shortly after crossing the border he had happened upon
an old tinker.  The man had died only marks before, succumbing to heart failure
while attempting to flee on foot with his belongings.  His physical needs at an
end, Colbey buried the old man in the mountains, then took his shabby clothing
and pack filled with tools of the tinker’s trade.

They served him well in Jabberzian’s streets.  Bodies
rushed past without second glances until he entered the next tavern.  The
taproom was filled to capacity, many of the customers forced to stand while
they drank.  Serving men and boys weaved through the crowd holding six or eight
tankards in each hand.  Around their waists were small gaping purses, easy
targets for coins dropped directly in by patrons while the server juggled
tankard handles.

No one left their possessions by the door, Colbey
noted with satisfaction.  His sword was strapped to his back, hidden by the
tinker’s pack.  The hilt protruded over his left shoulder, disguised by a cloth
remnant dangling from the pack’s flap.  Drawing it would require an additional
second and he hoped it would not be time he needed.  Soldiers were rounding up
every fighting man in the area so concealing his blade had become necessary.

When no seats cleared, he waded through the room to a
corner on the bar’s far end.  This afforded him a view of the room when
unblocked by people walking past.  A tall stool beside him vacated. 
Immediately a new man filled the perch.  Colbey glanced sideways at the man,
unshaven and with a sour reek about him, noticing he failed to ask what the
kitchen might have available.  Instead, the derelict scattered a handful of
coppers on the bar top.  The barman slid three from the pile without comment and
left a brimming ale in their place which the fragrant man dove straight into.

Colbey wanted to sneer, but checked his instinctive
reaction.  For all intents he worked as a spy.  Acting the part of another, as
ill-suited as he might be for it, was merely a matter of control.  Self-control
had always been a point of pride with him.  He retrained his natural
expressions.  There were greater considerations than a lout drinking his life
away.

If he calmed his mind he could still faintly hear the
voices of his slaughtered people, ever present, echoing as from far away.  He
felt their dead gazes hover at his neck’s nape, a physical, if feathery,
weight.  Until he found the murderers who had butchered them, they would remain
with him.  Whether in silent support or cold accusation, only time would
reveal.

He shifted his gaze to study those outlanders
populating the taproom.  Unconscious mannerisms, that was what he wanted. 
Close observation quickly marked traits he had noted in earlier taverns. 
Unlike Galemarans who immediately placed their weight against the chair back,
Tullainians tended to sit straighter.  Most sported a firm posture, their
spines avoiding contact with the chairs.  When one did, he immediately shifted
so he leaned forward slightly.  The only patrons who slumped in their seats
were those who had obviously consumed enough ale for one night.

Another common trait these Tullainians shared dealt
with their elbows.  Galemarans, slouched in their seats, rested their elbows on
a chair’s armrest, assuming it had any, gesturing while leaning weight on them,
except most would refrain from placing their elbows on the table.  The
Tullainians huddled closer to their tankards to speak privately, their entire
forearms laying on the table surface.

All minor behavioral traits to be sure, but Colbey was
a student of the Euvea Guardians.  Though he regarded most outlanders as sheep
waiting for a knife to slit their throat, he must never underestimate them. 
Many times, people would sense wrongness before they could pinpoint it. 
Something as simple as the way he sat might strike a discordant note and raise
attentions he would prefer to avoid.  That person might struggle to understand
why Colbey had caught his attention.  If so, then he would likely fixate on the
scout until his curiosity was satisfied.

He intended to be as Tullainian as the natives when he
infiltrated Kallied.  Firsthand knowledge would be key to planning his attack. 
After nearly three years, he finally hounded his sworn enemies’ trail.  What
would he find there?  Being a Tullainian might well prove as dangerous as being
a Galemaran.  Nevertheless, he would be ready.  No safety measure was too
extravagant while hunting dangerous prey.

Thomas had taught him that.

*        *        *        *        *

Twelve riders stopped at a road inn, the descending
sun elongating their shadows across half the yard.  Several stable hands ran
out to take charge over the mounts.  Marik gingerly rubbed his inner thighs
after sliding from his saddle.  Apparently, mastering the ways of the horse once
did not toughen one to the experience forever after.

A tall man approached, obviously familiar with horses
and their needs.  He reached for Marik’s reins.  The horse, a dark bay gelding
that looked impressively expensive, tried to remove his hand with a gnashing
bite.  Marik jumped away.  This damnable horse’s lightning-quick aggression
still caught him off guard.

The stable hand, faster than the carnivorous equine,
yanked his hand away, only to dart it back, clouting the gelding on the side of
the head.  With an indignant snort, as if the strike had been unprovoked, it
tossed its head and sidestepped, eyeballing the stable man.

“Sorry about that, good sir,” the tall man said to
Marik.  A wary edge pervaded his words.  He must have feared a redressing from
the rider.

“Go right ahead.  If you slap him around enough, you
might knock some sense into his head.”

He passed the reins over with greater care this time. 
The gelding shook, violently whipping its black mane from side to side.  “None
of that,” the tall man growled, tightening the reins, forcing the horse to
settle down.  “I think I better put this boy in a solitary stall.”

“Whatever you think best.”

“Name’s Birtle.  Stablemaster here,” he imparted while
he led the horse away.  “Tell Rufus how many mounts we’re to take care of.”

The others had already disappeared through the inn’s
yard door, leaving Marik to follow, wondering who Rufus might be.  Movement to
the north caught his eye before the stables obscured his view.  Behind the inn,
a large hayfield stretched for a considerable distance, bordering the Southern
Road.  Haystacks were piled near the roadside.  Marik knew what the movement
had been without needing a closer examination.

Refugees.  Having come three-quarters across Galemar
from Tullainia, most were broke, without a copper to their names.  Unable to
afford lodging, they slept in the haystacks, taking what meager shelter they
could find.

They had passed more lost souls that day than he’d
ever imagined.  Secluded within Kingshome’s walls all winter, seeing now just
how many people clogged the roadway startled him.  If the stream of them had
been constant all winter and spring, then could there be anyone left in their
native kingdom?

Yet
still
they ran.  Broke, starving, homeless
and destitute, whatever terrorized them drove them to keep moving.  How many
had died when they might have stopped and found paying work?

Kineta negotiated with the innkeeper inside.  A fair
number of travelers thronged the common room, including a highwayguard patrol. 
They sat around a table as everyone else, clearly off duty.  Their duties these
days consisted of tracking down bandits who were usually renegade Nolier
deserters, or arresting refugees who had been reduced to pilfering what they
could from farms.

It struck Marik as a cruel way to treat them.  Life
was already as hard as it could be for the refugees without needing to endure
the wrath of highwayguards for snitching a few corncobs from a farmer whose
fields abounded with them. 
Those who have get more, and those who lack get
less.  Is that truly the way the world is supposed to work?  Life is terrible
enough without the ‘haves’ crapping on the ‘have nots’ even more.