Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

Denny, Mox, Maia, even Sergeant Greson with his homemade mittens, they all visited during the Moon she waited alone in camp. Sometimes they came all at once, whole, healthy and laughing. Other nights, they came to her one at a time, haunted, broken and bleeding. Mox was the worst. He had been torn to pieces by the first attack, and whatever remained of him the following day had been scattered when the grettans returned. When Mox visited Raskin’s tent, he came with pieces missing: one leg chewed off below the knee, both hands, part of an arm and half his throat. He never spoke; she worried that if he had, his voice would have been little more than a raspy gurgle. Raskin felt guilty about it, but in the end she was glad her old friend never said anything.

Occasionally she was visited by the Ronan, Garec Haile. He had saved her life. He knew the grettans were coming; he’d told her to get back to her horse. Had she not been in the saddle, ready to ride, Raskin would have died with the rest of the squad, but as it was, she barely managed to outrun the one grettan that pursued her down the draw and into the river. She had no idea where Garec was now, him and the South Coaster, the fennaroot smugglers working with Rodler of Capehill. She didn’t care.

One Moon. She had promised herself she would stay in camp for one Moon, following procedures, until someone arrived with orders or until one of their platoon mates came west from the border station for a visit.

No one did.

Before he’d died, Sergeant Greson had mentioned strange goings-on, and a curious lack of communication from Capehill. Raskin wasn’t sure, but she feared that perhaps she had heard nothing from the major because somehow the southern occupation had been jeopardised, perhaps even beaten by a surprise attack from the Falkan Resistance. Her fears were fuelled on this, her first trip out of the mountains; she had set off for the border station less than a day’s ride away, but when she reined in alongside the wooden gates spanning the Merchants’ Highway, she knew something was wrong. The second squad in her platoon, the one that staffed the border crossing, was missing.

She was alone, a full Twinmoon’s travel from home.

Capehill was too far, alone, so avoiding the main routes into Falkan, Raskin turned towards Traver’s Notch, conscious that she was fair game for any number of human predators. Whilst her chances of encountering other Malakasian soldiers along the Merchants’ Highway were good, her unwarranted fear that they had all been killed or pushed south continued to bother her all the way down the Remondian foothills.

Now, nearing the canyon leading into the Notch, Raskin began to breathe easier. Had she been travelling with the squad, they would have come into town from the northeast, through the mining encampments and over the ridge. There were several decent roads over those hills, kept open even during the worst Moons of winter. But she was riding alone and didn’t want to come too close to the mining camps for fear that she might disappear for other reasons entirely. So she dropped down from the foothills, entered the forest south of the Notch and picked her way west towards the main avenue running into town. Behind her, the sun rose and for the first time in the past Moon, it felt warm.

Raskin had done her duty; she had stood her post a Moon longer than most soldiers alone in the northern mountains, and she felt a sense of pride in having held out that long. With the sun on her shoulders, she could feel the memory of them all fading into the bright yellow glow, even Mox. She turned once to see if they were following, those ghostly apparitions that had kept her company in the dark avens, but they were gone, Garec Haile too.

Raskin crested a short rise and saw the miners moving towards her. She had no option but to ride through them. There was no one coming behind her, no serendipitous band of occupation infantry closing the gap.

‘Well, rutting horsecocks,’ she sighed. ‘I made it this far, and now I’m ruined.’

The rising sun was in their eyes, and several of the men pulled hat brims down in an effort to see more clearly. A few pointed, gesturing in her direction, and in a moment Raskin knew that despite the shovels, picks and coils of rope, these were not miners. ‘Demonshit!’ she cried, turning her horse into the sun, ‘what are they doing out here, anyway? Someone serving breakfast?’

They were Resistance fighters. All her worst nightmares had come true: the southern forces had been overrun. Raskin was on her own.

‘Look at that,’ Stalwick said, ‘who’s that? Who’s that, Sharr? That’s a soldier. What’s he doing out here? Oh no, oh no; we’re in trouble, we’re in trouble, Sharr. He saw us, he knows, he does; I’m sure of it. Look! Oh no, look, Sharr, look, he’s turning towards Capehill. He knows!’

‘Would you shut up for one godswhoring moment, please, Stalwick?’ Sharr fought the urge to slap the man. ‘Can anyone see him? Is it a soldier?’ He squinted into the sun.

They all tried to make out the mounted silhouette against the dawn.

‘That’s a soldier, Sharr, I know, I saw a whole column of them one time outside Cape-’

‘Shut up, Stalwick!’ Sharr pointed at a farmer from the plains. ‘Give me your bow, Sal, quickly.’

He sighted along the arrow. It was hard to see; the sun was blinding, its rays refracting through a hundred million glints of overnight frost. On any other morning, he would have found it beautiful, but right now it was a deadly nuisance. He fought to get a clear shot at the fleeing occupation soldier. ‘He’s alone,’ he muttered, ‘and if we can drop him, no one will be any wiser.’ He closed his eyes but could still see red behind his lids, his own blood, lit from across the heavens. He’s just like one of those sharks, just a fat old dogfish, fighting for his life, trying to drag the whole trawler out to sea.

Sharr aimed, blinked and released the arrow with a muted thunk. The others strained to follow as the shaft arced into the brilliance.

Raskin rode directly into the morning sun, chanting, Blind them; blind the bastards! like a mantra. She spurred her mount into a gallop; there was no sense masquerading as anything other than terrified. It was a long shot, but a skilled bowman could make it. She held her breath and counted the horse’s steps. A few more, maybe ten more, and I’ll be out of the fire, at least for now. She didn’t know what she might discover on the road to Capehill, but from the look of the miners walking southeast – marching, Raskin; they’re marching – away from the mountains, Traver’s Notch was no longer safe for her.

Sharr’s arrow took the Malakasian soldier in the leg. Sharr couldn’t see if it hit the thigh or the calf, but from its angle of descent, he knew he had missed anything vital.

When the rider screamed, Stalwick winced, visibly taken aback by the unnerving cry. ‘It was a woman, Sharr,’ he whispered. ‘You shot a woman. That was a woman, not a soldier.’

‘It wasn’t.’ Sharr’s hands shook. It was just a shark, a big, slow, stupid fish. That’s all. ‘It was a soldier; I don’t care whether it was a man or a woman. If he… or she… gets away, we’ll have a long and unpleasant walk into Capehill.’ Sharr had already nocked another arrow and was taking aim at the disappearing rider, a hazy shadow now. It was an impossible shot, a wasted arrow, but Sharr released it anyway.

It was almost half an aven later before they came upon Raskin’s body. She had ridden surprisingly far with an arrow in her leg and another in her right lung. Sharr couldn’t tell if her tumble from the saddle had pushed the arrowhead into an artery, or if the woman had bled out before falling.

Standing over the body, Sharr realised that were he to survive the coming Twinmoon and get to sea again, he had roped and drowned his last shark.