Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

Captain Hershaw swallowed hard. This was no illness; Major Tavon was a demon, possessed by something evil, perhaps from Welstar Palace. He had never been there himself, but he had heard the legends. Clearing his throat, he asked, ‘Might I be excused, ma’am? I have preparations to make.’

‘Of course, Captain, of course,’ Major Tavon said. ‘I’ll see you for dinner tonight.’

Hershaw’s mind was blank. Should he run? Should he order the major taken under arrest? Should he direct his soldiers to sneak away during the day, to circle back and meet him in Wellham Ridge? He needed time to think, but she wasn’t giving him any. He swallowed again, wiped Denne’s blood from his face and said, ‘Very good, ma’am.’

‘One last thing,’ she added. ‘If you should come upon these two men, I want you to keep them alive for me. They can be broken, battered, missing limbs and crying for mercy, but I do need to speak with them before they die. Is that understood, gentlemen?

Blackford and Hershaw answered in unison, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

As he accompanied a trembling Blackford back through the lines of sleeping soldiers, Captain Hershaw overhead Major Tavon say, ‘I’m going to find you, Steven.’

*

‘Where were the moons last night?’ Garec asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Steven said. ‘They were in the north two nights ago. The clouds were heavy, though, and I didn’t see them for more than a moment.’

‘I haven’t noticed either,’ Kellin said.

‘So we don’t know how long it’s been?’ Garec said.

Steven said, ‘We can figure it out.’

‘All right. We left Traver’s Notch the same day Gita sent a rider to Capehill to get that magician, the one Gilmour is going to knock senseless.’

‘Stalwick,’ Gilmour added.

‘That’s him,’ Garec said, ‘and then we were… what? Fifteen days crossing the plains? It was so rutting cold out there, I can’t remember. Was it fifteen days before we ran into that cavalry battalion?’

‘I think so,’ Gilmour said, ‘then two in Wellham Ridge, three days to reach the glen, four more days to get here and one day to excavate the spell table.’

‘That’s twenty-five days,’ Steven said. ‘That should be enough time for Stalwick to get back to Traver’s Notch, right?’

‘Assuming they found him,’ Garec cautioned.

‘We have to take that chance,’ Steven said. ‘We have to contact Gita and get her marching on Capehill – we need the distraction to get the spell table out of here and hidden somewhere Mark will never think to look for it.’

‘Wellham Ridge?’ Kellin asked.

‘How about Orindale?’ Garec said.

‘I was thinking more like South Dakota or Paraguay or New Zealand.’

‘Ah,’ Garec said, ‘your side of town.’

‘Exactly,’ Steven turned to Gilmour, ‘and why not? We have the portals; we have that book. All Mark has is the keystone. If we get rid of the table, he’s screwed.’ Steven sounded childishly hopeful.

‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ Gilmour said.

‘But it would at least allow us to focus on Mark,’ Steven clarified. ‘Except for whatever damage he’d be doing with the occupation army – and I’ll grant that could be significant – he won’t be able to open the Fold. Evil’s ascendancy will be delayed, possibly for ever.’

‘He will come for us,’ Gilmour said, ‘for us, for the portals, and for our knowledge of where the table is hidden.’

‘Exactly. He’d be where we need him to be. We’re the only ones who have a chance of standing against him, and if he’s pursuing us, we’ll know where he is and what he’s doing. Gita can occupy the military in the east for a while, hopefully long enough for us to face Mark on our terms.’

Gilmour nodded slowly. ‘By now the forces called in to secure Orindale will be back on their normal patrols. Gita will face a relatively small force when they march on Capehill. She might just take the city.’

‘That would certainly agitate things over here,’ Garec said. ‘It’d buy us time and a much-needed distraction to get rid of this table.’

Brand interrupted, ‘But if Mark has infiltrated the occupation army, would he not have sent word to Capehill that Gita’s planning an assault?’

‘Probably,’ Steven said, ‘but it’s a long ride up there, so we may still have time to warn Gita that her cover’s blown.’

Gilmour agreed. ‘Right. And I don’t want to contact Stalwick until enough time has passed for Gita to get him into Traver’s Notch. Knocking him senseless on a Capehill street won’t do anyone any good.’

Kellin asked, ‘Steven, when will Hannah’s mother open her portal again?’

‘At seven a.m. on February twelfth,’ he said. ‘It’ll be open for fifteen minutes.’

‘Grand,’ Garec sighed, ‘and when is that?’

Steven started calculating.

‘While he’s thinking, what do we do with the table until febrerry-twelf?’ Brand asked.

‘We find a barn, someplace out of the way, and hide the table there,’ Gilmour suggested. ‘It’s too cold to keep it here, and with Mark coming for us we can’t hide out here in the Vale; we’ll be found.’

‘Or we’ll freeze to death,’ Kellin added.

‘That, too,’ Gilmour said. ‘There were a few farms between Wellham Ridge and the glen where we faced down Nerak. If one of those farmers would permit us to hide this in a barn, we can stay cosy, eat well and get caught up on our sleep while we wait around for Mrs Sorenson.’

‘Won’t Mark search every farm south of the foothills?’ Kellin asked.

‘Probably,’ Gilmour said, ‘but he knows that Gita is marching on Capehill so he might dispatch most of the Wellham Ridge battalion to assist in the north.’

‘That would leave him searching for us by himself,’ Garec said.

‘Just as Steven wants it,’ Brand said.

‘So, when do you plan to clobber this Stalwick fellow?’ Garec asked.

Brand said, ‘I do wish I could be there to see that one.’

‘You know him?’

‘Gods, yes,’ Kellin said. ‘He is, without hesitation, the worst Resistance fighter I have ever seen in my life. He remains the only soldier I’ve ever seen who I wished would defect and fight for the other side, because that would increase our chances of victory severalfold.’

‘Well then, I will delight in contacting him,’ Gilmour said.

‘Make it hurt,’ Brand added with an uncharacteristic smile.

‘I think I’ve got it,’ Steven interrupted. ‘It isn’t exactly right, but all this time I’ve been calculating based on a twenty-four-hour day in Colorado and a twenty-hour day here in Eldarn. I think I’m off by just a bit; I’d tell you exactly how much, but for that I either need a bit of paper or a calculator. At the moment, I have neither; so, you’ll just have to bear with me and accept the error margin. Agreed?’

Kellin shook her head, bemused. ‘What’s an hour?’

‘Actually, Kellin,’ Steven smiled, ‘it doesn’t really matter. Consider it one twenty-fourth of a day in my world or about one twentieth of a day here in Eldarn.’

‘Good enough,’ she said, ‘go on.’

‘When I left Colorado, it was at dawn on a Friday morning, October seventeenth. To my recollection, Mark and I were in Eldarn for sixty-six days before I fell back through the portal into Charleston Harbour. Now, if a day in Eldarn is twenty hours long, then I would take the sixty-six days we spent travelling through Rona and Falkan and multiply it by point eight three, or five-sixths, to get the amount of time that elapsed in Colorado while we were gone.’

‘You’re losing me,’ Garec confessed.

‘I’ll go slower,’ Steven said.

‘Thanks. My mother dropped me when I was a kid. Maths and I have never seen eye to eye.’