A Sellsword's Resolve Page 4

  Aaron did, glad for the chance to be off his feet. He’d been working the men and himself hard. That, coupled with the fact that he was lucky to get three or four hours of troubled sleep a night because of the dreams meant that he was perpetually exhausted. “I have called you all here,” the queen said once he was seated, “because I have had some news I would like to share with you. We had only begun to speak on it when you arrived, general.”

  Aaron took a quick glance at the others seated at the table. Captain Gant looked as if he’d swallowed something sour. Adina’s face was etched with worry and even the normally affable Parnen seemed troubled. Aaron frowned, “Whatever the news is, it doesn’t look good. What, did somebody die?”

  Leomin coughed at that, and the queen winced. “Please, captain,” she said, turning to Brandon, “speak your piece first.”

  Brandon grunted, rubbing at the gray stubble on his jaw, “Well, Aaron,” he said, “to answer your question, yes. Somebody did die. General Vander.”

  Aaron glanced between those seated at the table, “As in the man who was taken prisoner for conspiring with Kevlane to kill the queen?”

  Brandon nodded, “The same, I’m afraid.”

  Aaron raised an eyebrow at that, “How could that happen? Did the questioners get too eager in their duties?”

  The captain shook his head slowly, “Sadly, no. The general was found dead in his cell this morning, his throat cut from one end to the other, a bloody dagger that was no doubt the tool he used lying on the cell floor beside him.”

  Aaron’s frown deepened, “I’m assuming you’re not in the habit of giving blades to your prisoners here in Perennia?”

  Brandon heaved a sigh, “No, General Envelar, we are not. The truth is, we don’t have any idea how Vander got hold of a blade. I’ve got several men looking into it, investigating anyone who visited Vander since his incarceration but, so far at least, no luck.”

  “Shit,” Aaron said. Obvious enough, then, why the others seemed so troubled. The general had been arrested along with Captain Francis for conspiring with Kevlane to assassinate the queen. Captain Francis had been questioned thoroughly, and it had been determined that he knew nothing more than his own role in the plot before he was executed. The general had been their last remaining link to Boyce Kevlane, their last hope of gaining any insight into what the ancient wizard wanted or what his plans might be. “Shit,” he said again.

  “Yes,” Brandon said, nodding slowly, “and there is more. The general left a … note, of sorts.”

  Aaron rubbed at his grainy eyes, “I don’t guess he decided to tell us the whereabouts of Boyce Kevlane, did he?”

  Brandon shook his head, “Not quite. It was found on the floor of the cell it read, and I quote, ‘You cannot kill a god.’” The captain met Aaron’s eyes, “he wrote it in his blood.”

  “So,” Aaron said, sitting back in his chair, “we’ve not only got a man who is pretty much unkillable out to get us, we’ve also got someone on the inside helping him.”

  “I wonder, captain,” the queen said, a glint of hope in her eyes, “is it not possible that, perhaps, General Vander had the blade on him when he was imprisoned?”

  The older man shook his head slowly, a grim expression on his face. “I’m afraid not, my queen. I arrested and searched the general myself before imprisoning him. Wherever the dagger came from, it was not on his person when he was put into that cell—of that I am certain. As for the possibility of someone on the inside working for him, my men have interviewed the dungeon guards and, as of yet, they have found nothing to indicate that any of them might be a traitor. Nor have there been any visits that were out of the ordinary.”

  “Still, it’s Kevlane,” Adina said, her own voice troubled as she looked at Aaron, “it has to be.”

  Aaron sighed, “Yes, Kevlane or someone that works for him. I’d like to think that if dropping hundreds of feet to a stone street doesn’t kill him, it would at least put a hitch in his gait. And judging from what I saw when we fought, the man is able to heal but it takes time. The more wounds he healed, the slower the magic seemed to work, I’d like to believe that having pretty much every bone in his body broken would preclude him sauntering into the dungeons and handing the general a weapon to kill himself with.”

  “Yes,” the queen said, “and so I think we would all like to believe. But there is no way to be sure.”

  Aaron sighed, “No there isn’t. And anyway, it’ll be damned near impossible to figure out who might be working for him. Shit, your own general and captain were, that much we know at least, but nearly anyone could be.”

  “Not a particularly comforting thought, Mr. Envelar,” the queen said.

  “I find that the truth rarely is, Majesty.”

  The queen nodded slowly, “I still cannot believe that this could be the very Boyce Kevlane from the stories. I will confess that I had thought them nothing but that, would even still, had I not seen his … abilities with my own eye. To think that the Virtues are real, that men with such power walk among us …” she shook her head, “it is most troubling, indeed. No men should possess such power.”

  Aaron and Leomin shared a furtive glance but were saved from the uncomfortable silence by Adina. “As worrying as all this is, there are other matters we need to focus on. It’s been nearly two months since we fled Baresh, and I don’t think it will be much longer before Belgarin decides to bring the weight of his armies against us.”

  Captain Gant nodded, “As to that, our dear resourceful Leomin,” he said, winking his one good eye at the Parnen captain, “has found us some information that may be of use. Recently, thanks in large part to Leomin’s efforts, we were able to apprehend two of Belgarin’s spies. Luckily, they were captured quickly before they could send any messages back to their master.”

  “Too quickly, some might say,” the Parnen captain grumbled.

  Brandon grinned, having heard of the situation at the tavern from one of his men. “Yes, well, we all have our sacrifices to make, Leomin, and I’m sure we are all very thankful that you made yours. I still am amazed by how easily you were able to coax the identity of the woman’s companion from her. I find it … curious.”

  Leomin cleared his throat, “Yes, well, what can I say, captain? My questioning of the subject was most thorough.”

  Brandon raised an eyebrow, “Though not so thorough as some might have hoped, I suspect.”

  Leomin frowned at that, and in the following silence, the queen spoke, “Yes, well, very good work, Captain Leomin. Now, Brandon,” she said, turning to the older man, “what information did you find from these two individuals?”

  The sergeant nodded, “Right, apologies, Your Majesty. The spies were reluctant to speak, and your royal questioners are not done with their work, but they did report to me that, according to what they’ve learned, Belgarin’s army will march within three months.”

  The queen let out a hiss of frustration that was mirrored in the faces of the others around the table. “I had hoped for more time.”

  “Yeah,” Aaron agreed, “I myself was hoping for maybe another fifty, sixty years but, then, tyrants have a way of being unreasonable.”

  The queen arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow, “I find, Mr. Envelar, that while I am within your company, I must often remind myself that you are responsible for saving my life. Please, tell me, how do the men fare?”

  “Well,” Aaron said, “my queen, I’ll say that nobody has accidentally stabbed themselves for a while, so we’ve got that going.”

  “Quite. And will they be ready, do you suppose?”

  For dying? Aaron thought, sure, but one man can do that as well as the next, I think. “As ready as me and the captain here can make them, Your Majesty.”

  The queen nodded, “Very well. Now that those things are out of the way, I would like to get to the primary reason for which I summoned you all here. We have received word from Ellemont.”

  They all sat straighter at that, turning to study th
e queen. “What did he say?” Adina said, and Aaron couldn’t help but wince at the excitement he heard in her voice. From everything he’d heard of Ellemont, he didn’t hold out much hope of them being able to convince him to fight alongside them. “Is something wrong?” Adina asked.

  Isabelle smiled, shaking her head, “Nothing is wrong, sister. The messenger only rode ahead of Ellemont so that we might prepare for his master’s coming. He and his retinue are no more than a week away from Perennia, if the messenger has it right.”

  Adina’s eyes went wide, “You mean … Ellemont’s coming here? I’d thought—”

  “Yes,” Isabelle said, “you thought the same as I. I had expected our brother to bid us come to him. It is, I must admit, surprising that he should venture here, so far away from his place of power.”

  “Well,” Adina said, smiling, “that must mean he is serious. It’s … it’s fantastic.”

  “So it is, so it is,” The queen agreed, motioning to a servant who moved forward from the side of the room and filled each of their glasses with a light amber wine. “Now, I do believe this calls for a toast.” She raised her glass into the air, eyeing them each in turn. “To siblings—excepting the one who intends to kill us, of course.”

  There was laughter at that from everyone at the table except for Aaron who frowned looking around at the others. Even Leomin was smiling as he tipped the glass back and drank its contents down in one swallow.

  What’s wrong, Aaron? Co said in his mind, this is good news—you should be happy.

  It is good news, firefly, he thought, too good. I learned a long time ago that anytime good news comes unexpectedly, there’s some bad following closely on the end of it.

  The virtue scoffed, Honestly, Aaron. I don’t know why it is that you think everyone is out to kill you.

  Because, in my experience, firefly, most people are.

  So? What, you think that Ellemont is plotting to betray us and, therefore, has traveled away from his own seat of power, completely putting himself under Isabelle’s control? A funny strategy for a man seeking to betray us.

  I spoke with a sailor once, years ago while I was out drinking in a tavern. The man told me an interesting story about a snake he’d seen on one of his trips. The thing wasn’t the biggest snake, nor was it particularly fast. It couldn’t hunt down its prey like some of its cousins, but the man claimed that the snake ate better than all others, anyway.

  Alright, Co said, her tone humoring, I’ll bite. How?

  See, this snake, Aaron thought back, it’s got a tail that looks like a worm. So what it’ll do, the thing hides in the sand and the dirt, leaves nothing but its tail sticking out. It’ll sit like that for hours, the man said. Then, sooner or later, some hungry animal—a frog, maybe—comes along thinking it has found its dinner. Only it’s the one that gets eaten.

  So you’re saying that Ellemont is the snake?

  I don’t know if he is or not, firefly, but if he is, I can damn sure tell you who’s the frog. He glanced around at the smiling faces as they laughed and talked amongst themselves, excited at the news of the prince’s visit. And, I think, we may have just been shown the worm.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Boyce Kevlane, the man who’d once been High Mage of an entire kingdom, the most powerful wielder of magic ever to walk the face of the earth, lay in a bloody mass of flesh and bone in the dark cave that now served as his home, nursing thoughts of revenge as his shattered body slowly reknit itself, a process that was both agonizingly painful and—when there was as much work to be done as there was now—terribly slow.

  He did not think of himself as a man—had not for a thousand years or more, for what mortal could claim to have lived for centuries upon centuries, his body weathering even the most grievous of hurts? Still, as he laid there, his broken body ever so slowly reshaping itself, a very mortal agony ran through him, making him shudder and sweat and whimper from the unbearable pain. It was this whimpering that enraged him the most, such a mortal thing, not fit for a god—for that was what he was, what he had become—yet he could not hold it back under the tidal wave of pain that rushed unceasingly through him.

  For weeks, he’d lain in torment, the gift and the curse that was the bond with the Virtue of Adaptability working its slow and laborious magic, slowly pushing and pulling on tendons and bones, forcing them back into place. Yet even now, he knew, he was monstrous to look upon, could see it in the eyes of Captain Savrin as he brought him his meals. Aaron Envelar. The name had been on his mind for every waking moment since his fall from the castle. The man who had caused all of his suffering. Sometimes, he thought of what he would do to the man when he recovered, not just to him but to everything he had ever cared about, and it was enough to bring a smile to his wretched, disfigured face—at least, for a moment. The pain never let such things last for long.

  His was a world of torment, of anguish no man or woman had ever or could ever experience. He broke his fast upon it in the morning and laid down with it at night, a mistress that would not let him sleep, that insisted on being known and being recognized, until there was little else in the world but the pain and the hate and, of course, the hunger. And perhaps that last most of all. For there was power in the bond, power to reshape his limbs, to reknit his flesh, yet such power made its own demands and no matter how much his broken body consumed, there was always that terrible, desperate hunger, as bad, if not worse, as the pain itself.

  A particularly powerful wave of agony swept over him as if to contest his thoughts, and he would have screamed, if he could have. His voice had long since gone hoarse, and when he spoke, his words came out as little more than a wet, gurgling croak, barely intelligible even to himself.

  He remembered little of what had occurred since his fall from the tower, his memories no more than jagged images that drew blood when touched. Memories of flesh and bone and blood and all of it in the wrong places, of being thrown into a sack, a sack for the gods’ sake, memories of his limbs, twisted and bent and shattered, of agony beyond what any mortal might experience. For in their fragility they also held release—such pain that cannot be endured, is not endured, for death has its say, finishes the story when words to describe such agony do not and could not exist. For mortals, death served as an answer, an ending, pain and suffering only its prelude but not for him. Not for gods. “It is no great gift,” the thing lying shattered in the corner croaked, “to be a god.”

  He knew that he was mad, had been driven insane by what he had suffered. First, at the hands of Caltriss and the barbarian hordes and then at the hands of Aaron Envelar, but he was not overly worried. The sanity of the gods had ever been in question, and they need not concern themselves with it as mortals might—a god was a god, after all.

  Over his whimpers and cries, he heard the cloth flap that served as a door move at the entrance to the cave and turned his one good eye to it. Good, of course, was relative. It was a bulging, blood-coated thing, though it was in much better shape than its companion, smashed into little more than jelly by his fall and not yet healed. It had been too much, too fast, that was all. First the wounds he’d taken by the guards and then by the sellsword and then from the fall. Too much even for the magic to heal quickly and completely. It would be another few weeks, months, perhaps, before he could so much as venture into public without eliciting screams. And, once he was able, there would be screaming enough. Once he found Aaron Envelar, tracked down those the man cared about, there would be screams enough to deafen the world.

  “Master, I’ve brought food.”

  The thing in the corner watched with its one good eye as Captain Savrin stepped inside, two dead chickens in his hand. The man tried and failed to disguise the wince of disgust that came over him as he came into the cave, and Kevlane would have laughed, had he been able. He did not blame the man. The parts of him necessary to detecting smell had begun to heal, and he knew the odor well enough. It was the smell of a charnel house, a butcher’s storeroom gone spoiled and ran
cid in the sun. It was rot and blood and filth—yes, that too, for despite the fact that he was little more than a puddled heap of broken bones and shattered cartilage, his flesh doughy and misshapen like a sack filled with a conglomeration of rocks and sticks, despite all of that, his body still found a way to expel the waste of that which he ate, and so he lay in it, a puddle of his own filth, lacking even the ability to move himself away from it.

  The thing watched the captain, but he did not speak. Words were pain. The world was pain, and he did not speak, only watched the captain with that red eye, filled with blood, and though he needed the man, though he’d served him well, he found that he still hated him. Hated watching him walk in on two legs, his own bones and tendons and veins all in their proper place, hated the way he so casually held the two chickens, a feat that would have been impossible for Kevlane, just then, and that he would have experienced incredible agony in the attempting of.

  The captain swallowed hard as he stared into the corner in which his master lay. He could see little in the dark cave, the only light what weak moonlight made its way past the draped cloth, but what he could see was more than enough. The glisten of blood-slicked flesh, the blood black in the moonlight, the pale, ghastly white shards of bones sticking out of the mass of flesh, the man not a man at all but some cruel god’s fashioning. A thing with little discernible shape or form to it, only sloughing, doughy skin and the sharp twisted angles of bones broken and shattered. There was no hand to put the chickens in, and no functional stomach to digest them even if there were, so the captain did as he had done the previous nights and only threw the chickens—feathers and all—onto the mass of flesh.

  He saw the shadowed figures of the dead chickens slowly, painstakingly begin to disappear in that mound of flesh, as if they were somehow being absorbed by it. He fought back the urge to vomit, swallowing hard. Savrin had seen corpses before—had made more than a few himself. He’d seen injuries caused from battle and war, but the thing lying pooled in the corner of the room was unnatural, and he found that his stomach had its limits. “I’ll go get some more,” he managed. The creature in the corner was insatiable, he found, eating more than ten normal men, if eating it could still be called. He suspected that the meat and the flesh he brought it were used with the dark powers it possessed, used as some means of healing, but he did not think of it often. Or ever, if he could help it.