James West - Queen of the North

“By the Fathers!” Len whimpered, hands curled near the shaft of the arrow, but not daring to touch it. “What do you want of me?”

“I want to know your interest in Rathe Lahkurin, the Scorpion of Cerrikoth.”

“I … I’ll tell you all I know,” Len said, the words clipped by his chattering teeth. “But … please … stop hurting me.”

“Ought to crush his head,” Captain Carlus said. “It’d be a mercy.”

“The mercy will be saving his life,” Jathen said, noting that young Len’s eyes had taken on a hopeful sheen. “But first, I’d hear all you can tell me.”

“We never wanted him dead,” Len said again. Other than the strained way he was talking, and the blood streaming over his lips, he seemed rather excited to provide answers. “The Oracle directed our footsteps in finding him. Rathe is to help us save Targas.” He looked past Jathen, searching upstream. If he saw his far-off companions, even now herding the survivors of the Lamprey together along the riverbank, he gave no notice. “We didn’t kill him, did we? By the Fathers … please tell me we didn’t.”

Jathen placed a firm hand on Len’s shoulder. Oracle? Targas? The first he had never heard of, other than the common term used for objects and the occasional folk who foretold future events. Targas … well, that was another word of the ancient Iron Kings, and meant Everlasting City of Light. Legends of Targas were few, but the name itself had occasionally served as the rallying cry for the folk of the Iron Marches, those who had once sought to throw off the yokes of oppressive lords after the fall of the Iron Kings. With the help of time and the greatest minds of Skalos, the name Targas had vanished from memory, along with the slow demise of all the old Houses throughout the Iron Marches. All, save the recently revived House Akarlen of Ravenhold, a deed for which Jathen had Rathe and his plaything Lady Nesaea to thank, the scheming bitch who had ruined Jathen’s face with her black alchemy. But Ravenhold was of no further concern to Jathen, for he had arranged for that fortress and its master, Lady Mylene Akarlen, to fall again.

“I hope you got all you wanted from the boy,” Captain Carlus said, “for he’s naught but a sack of meat.”

Jathen looked back into Len’s glazed eyes. The youth was good and truly dead. Jathen doubted most of his claims, especially all that about being a priest- vizien , if memory served, was the ancient word for keeper or caretaker, which would have made him a keeper or caretaker of dragon skin. A wholly foolish notion, and surely nothing to be proud of, even if it were true.

Jathen stood up at the same time a pair of scouts returned to the company. “What did you find?” He bit his tongue when they ignored him and spoke to Carlus.

“Two others from the ship came ashore not a hundred strides from us. Men, by the size of their footprints. Even with the dark, we could see where they crawled out of the river and up over the rocks. After that, they headed into the forest.”

Jathen looked to Carlus. “I trust those under your command are not as eager as you to kill any prisoners they take?”

“Long as they don’t kill the Scorpion-and that’s saying the river didn’t kill him-they can do whatever they want to anyone they find, by order of the king himself. Could be my men have a mind to warm themselves with those two wenches you mentioned, eh?” That garnered a few chuckles from the gathered soldiers.

Jathen felt anger heating his scar, but he resisted touching it. “I told you and your commander that Fira and Nesaea were mine alone.” If they’re still alive , he considered, struggling to ignore a wave of dread at the memory of Ruan Breach crumbling into the river and crushing the Lamprey . If Nesaea had drowned, so be it. Dead was dead, whether by his hand, or by the hand of fate. But the idea of Fira drowning was almost too much to bear.

“You can have the women,” Carlus allowed. “Though I cannot imagine what a monk would need with them.” This time his men erupted with boisterous laughter.

“Quiet, fools!” Jathen snarled. While they carried no torches, in order to hide in the snowy murk, laughing like a bunch of drunken idiots was sure to alert Len’s companions.

“Settle your mind, monk,” Carlus said, his shadowed features hard. “We’re too far downstream to hear over the river.” He turned. “As for the rest of you, shut your gobs. We’ve a Scorpion to catch, and after getting dumped in the river, he’s like to be ready to sting the stones off every one of you.”

After the laughter died, Carlus asked, “Now what, monk?”

Jathen surveyed the snow-covered forest. “If you please, Captain Carlus,” he said with forced pleasantness, “send word to our host that the time has come to see what our net has caught.” With all his heart, he hoped it had at least snared Fira.

After they had reached the tree line, Rathe and Loro began trudging toward the gathering of Edrik’s company and the Lamprey’s crew. Snowy brambles growing amid the trees made for slow going, but Rathe didn’t want to lose sight of the torches. The way his vision swam in and out of focus, those wavering lights served as his only guide.

“Are we any closer?” Loro asked, teeth chattering.

Rathe paused to catch his breath. The blood running from the split on his scalp had slowed, but the pain of the wound snaked down his spine and coiled in his guts. His mouth filled with bile, but he fought down the urge to vomit.

“Rathe? Are you ill, brother?”

Rathe wanted to answer, but to even think about it set his insides to sloshing. He shook his head, making it worse.

When Loro leaned over, his eyes widened at the sight of Rathe’s gore-streaked head. “Gods! It looks like your brains are leaking out.”

Rathe took a shaky breath, blinked a few times, swallowed. The sickening, hammering thuds continued, but the urge to spew diminished. “I think all this moving around is warming me up.”

“You’re either lying, or about to die.”

“I’m fine,” Rathe said, looking over Loro’s battered features. With the shadows and clots of half-melted snow mingling on his swollen brow and cheeks, Rathe found it hard to believe his friend had come out the victor against Liamas. “It’s you who looks risen from the grave.”

“Be that as it may, whatever you mean to do, we should do it before we become ice statues.”

Rathe searched through breaks in the foliage and spied the ring of torches circling those who had made it ashore. “Do you see Nesaea or Fira?”

A frown creased Loro’s brow. “The way this snow is coming down, they all look alike. I’m sure they made it out, though, and are waiting for us to come rescue them.”

Rathe shied from the hopefulness in his friend’s voice, but just as quickly latched onto it again when he saw a pair of Edrik’s companions struggling up the riverbank, guiding a huge man between them. “They have Liamas.”

“If they were smart,” Loro said, sounding more confident than ever, “they’d have drowned the Prythian oaf in the river, instead of bringing him into their midst.”

Rathe recalled how inept Edrik had been back at the Minstrel’s Cup. “They aren’t fighters, and the way they dropped the cliff on the Lamprey says they are not so very smart, either.”

“Say what you will, but they did stop the ship.”

“Only at the risk of killing us all. And, as Edrik made it plain that he wanted me to join him, toppling half a mountain on my head is likely the worst way to make that happen.”

Loro nodded in agreement, his gaze still on Liamas. The Prythian giant put up no fight, but Rathe noted a watchfulness in the way his head turned one way, then the other.