Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

‘And when we arrived in Meyers’ Vale-’ Garec started.

‘Or when Nerak received word that we were coming this way,’ Gilmour added.

‘Who could have told him?’ Garec interrupted.

‘His men would have alerted the southern occupation officers when we gave that mounted battalion outside Orindale the slip.’

‘Oh, right.’ Garec winced and avoided looking at Kellin. ‘I’ve tried to forget that day.’

Kellin wrapped an arm around the bowman’s shoulders; Garec allowed himself to be drawn in, snuggling beside her.

‘No matter,’ Gilmour said. ‘When we started south along the river, Nerak marshalled the rest of the bone-collectors to meet us in the glen. By that time, if this bunch wasn’t already dead, any hope of getting replacements was lost.’

‘How did you get the table out?’ Brand asked.

‘That was an old spell,’ Gilmour admitted. ‘Any Larion sorcerer could have cast it. One of our duties was the loading and unloading of barges at docks half an aven’s ride from Sandcliff. Often we’d have to endure nasty stinging rain showers – even in summer, the weather in Gorsk can be positively petulant. Anyway, when it was rainy, the duty, however coveted on nice days, was delegated and re-delegated down to the greenest sorcerer on the campus. So even the most wet-nosed of beginners quickly learned the spells that helped the lifting, moving, shipping and shifting of heavy cargoes.’

‘So you hefted it up and pressed it through the mud of the ceiling? The riverbed?’ Garec asked.

Gilmour nodded. ‘Just as if I was unloading a pallet of lumber from a Ronan schooner.’

‘But the hopelessness snare…’ Kellin began.

‘I was trapped beneath the river in a death chamber full of decomposing bone-collectors. For all I knew, Steven had failed, and I would have to spend several days, Twinmoons even, eating rancid meat and waiting for our young friend over there to figure out the river trap and come down to retrieve me. For lack of a better option, I employed a beginner’s spell to help get the table up and into the mud. And when I encountered the hopelessness snare a second time, to say that all I had left was hope would be to understate my condition significantly.’

‘Then Steven destroyed the snare,’ Kellin said.

‘Right again. I outwitted it to save my life. Once he figured it out, he eviscerated it, literally ripped it apart from the inside out.’

Brand blew a low whistle through pursed lips.

‘I couldn’t have said it better myself. There is enormous power in that young man, enormous power.’

Garec glanced at Steven, asleep on the opposite side of the fire. ‘Why don’t you rest for a while, Gilmour? The three of us can work on fortifying that cart, and you two can… do whatever it is you need to do when Steven wakes up.’

Stretching his feet even closer to the flames, Gilmour refilled his pipe, smiled contentedly and said, ‘If you insist, Garec’

Gabriel O’Reilly moved undetected through the Malakasian ranks, flitting between rocks and trees in his search for Mark Jenkins. It was obvious the dark-skinned foreigner might look less conspicuous than he had in the Blackstones, when he had been wearing a bright red pullover and a pair of unusual leather boots, but Gabriel was still hopeful.

The infantry battalion stationed at Wellham Ridge did have several soldiers with dark skin, natives of the Ronan South Coast whose families had emigrated to Malakasia generations earlier. Gabriel passed as close to these few as he dared, careful not to make contact for fear of alerting them to his presence. The soldiers were weary and footsore, and it looked like most had been marching about as long as they physically could without a break. Some moved as if in a trance, mumbling strange sounds, barely able to lift their feet. There was a nervous lieutenant and an angry captain, both on horseback.

A rank of horse-drawn wagons loaded with all manner of engineering equipment, shovels, picks, heavy digging tools, pulleys and great coils of rope passed next. Even the horses looked tired out by the forced march. A soldier, a corporal, Gabriel thought, sat astride a splintery wooden bench in one of the wagons, loosely holding the reins and staring south along the trail through slitted eyes, seeing little, allowing the horses to meander down the path at their own pace.

Something – someone – was pushing these men southwards, Gabriel thought, but which one was it? Which one was Mark Jenkins?

A second company followed the wagons and Gabriel searched their ranks, coming as close as he dared to the dark-skinned soldiers but still finding nothing but angry, sick or terrified conscripts on the march into an unknown engagement with an unknown foe. There were two more tired lieutenants and another irritated captain, but no one Gabriel could sense in command of the battalion, no one obviously hell-bent on moving such a large force south into the foothills so quickly, with neither adequate provisions nor rest.

As the last of the soldiers passed him, Gabriel considered actually searching within their ranks; so many were nearly crippled with fatigue that he was sure he could move right through them and no one would be any the wiser…

Then she was there, materialising as if from behind a mystical cloak, a woman, the markings of a major on her sleeve, sitting astride a roan horse, and Gabriel cursed himself for a fool: he had been searching for a man.

‘Lovely to see you again, Mr O’Reilly,’ Major Tavon said.

‘I saved your life in that storm, Mark.’

‘You shouldn’t have.’

‘You wanted to go home.’

‘And you were going to come with us,’ she said as the last squad disappeared over a snowy rise, ‘back home, after one hundred and thirty-five years.’

‘Come with me now, Mark.’

‘You were going to Heaven to see your God.’

‘Our God.’

‘Not any more, O’Reilly.’ Her nostrils flared. ‘And this time, I want you to stay dead.’

Gabriel tried to flee over the river, to let his spectral body fade to fog, but he was too slow. Mark had him. Reaching out, the major – of course it was the major, stupid – caught him in midair, his mystical grip as strong as a blacksmith’s vice. Gabriel dived for the protection of the earth, hoping to bury himself in the frost and frozen mud of the riverbank, but Mark wouldn’t allow it.

Holding fast to the wraith, the major said, ‘You have been a troublesome fellow, Gabriel, troublesome indeed. But not any more.’

The former bank manager and erstwhile Union Army soldier watched as the forest itself began to melt. The colours, green, brown and white, ran together like a child’s drawing left out in the rain, and a dark cleft opened behind the major’s horse. Gabriel had seen it before and the realisation was quick to sink in: this time it would be for ever.

A recalcitrant Mark tried to rise up, to scream, but the presence keeping him inside Major Tavon’s body cried, ‘Shut up, you! Gods, but you are annoying! I expected more from you, more toughness, more resilience.’

‘Don’t,’ Mark pleaded, ‘stop this – he’s never harmed anyone.’

‘Shut up!’ Mark felt the hand again, that invisible weight pressing against his chest, against the major’s chest, stopping his air and leaving him gasping.

It’s killing itself, Mark thought. Jesus Christ, it’s willing to kill itself to make a point.

‘I’m not doing anything to him,’ the voice boomed, ‘you are, Mark Jenkins. I can’t do anything, I can’t harm one forgotten hair on his translucent head without you. So before you start assigning blame, remember, you represent half of this marriage, my friend.’