Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

… whatever that means.’

‘Oh, he’s dead,’ Brexan said, ‘and we were there. We just didn’t get to deliver the final blow.’

‘Sorry. It sounds like you deserved that one.’

‘Brynne deserved it more than I.’

‘Brynne?’ Garec frowned. ‘Why Brynne?’

‘Versen saw it right away. It took Sallax a bit longer, but he eventually realised it as well. Carpello Jax was the man who raped Brynne as a child.’

Garec’s lip quivered and instead he twisted his face into a sneer, malevolent and deadly. He spoke through welling tears. ‘I want to know how you did it.’

Brexan was happy to impart the details. Remembering Carpello’s death was like recalling a pleasant experience. ‘We clubbed him a few times, we beat him up and terrorised him until he was weeping like a baby. He shat his leggings, bled all over himself and finally summoned the courage to try and escape.’

‘And?’

‘And a friend of mine struck him with a piece of firewood. It didn’t kill him, but slipping and falling headlong into the stone fireplace did.’

‘What did you do with the body?’

Brexan didn’t like the tone of Garec’s question; she had a sudden and disturbing image of the Bringer of Death digging up a corpse and eating it, just to make certain it was dead. Shrugging off the image, she said, ‘We set him adrift on the outgoing tide. It was just north of here, around the point, up near the marsh.’

Garec regained his composure. ‘It ruined Brynne as a kid. I never knew her to have serious feelings for anyone until she met Mark Jenkins; she joked and played around with men who sometimes came by the tavern, but she wasn’t able to show real affection for anyone. Maybe it was different because Mark was from somewhere else; he wasn’t tainted by whatever she believed tarnished Eldarni men. Carpello Jax… so that was his name. He turned her into a killer. We didn’t know it at the time, but she was the first of us to fall; she did it with such grace and conviction, using a pair of knives – I wouldn’t have wanted to fight her. She was the best, better even than Sallax, with a short blade.’

Recalling the deftness with which Sallax had killed the Seron, Brexan understood that Brynne must have been deadly. She changed the subject. ‘How’s your head?’

‘Inside or outside?’

‘Outside, I suppose.’

‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘although I worry about Kellin’s skill with a needle. I’m afraid I might end up with a few permanent wrinkles up there.’

‘Rutting ingrate,’ Kellin chided, then to Brexan said, ‘He was passed out, bleeding everywhere. My horse was already dead, crushed against a tree; his died while I was tending to him, scared the dogpiss out of me. It barked, or shouted a horse curse, who knows? My fingers were cold, and I had two cracked ribs and a broken collarbone; so yes, I might have mis-stitched a time or two.’

‘Demonpiss, broken bones?’ Brexan said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ Kellin replied. ‘We saw a healer yesterday and went back for more querlis this morning.’ Brexan hadn’t noticed the heavy bandages holding Kellin’s arm immobile against her ribs. ‘I can feel it working, but it makes me so tired; I can barely stand up, never mind traipse all over Orindale looking for one of the six remaining captains who haven’t committed suicide in the past three days.’

‘You ought to rest,’ Brexan said. ‘Do you have a place to stay?’

‘We found an inn a few streets east of here, about halfway between the wharf and the old imperial palace. Why? Where are you staying?’

‘You should come with me. It’s a comfortable place, up north, around the point. It’s a quiet district off the salt marsh. Nedra keeps a quiet, clean inn, and she’s the best cook I’ve known since I came east from Malakasia.’

‘We have a few things in our room: my bow, some clothes and a bit of silver. We have about six days to find some transport heading north.’

‘Where could you possibly need to get to?’ Brexan asked. ‘You two are a mess – sorry, but you are. You ought to spend a few days in bed, a Moon. Take some time; get healed up. You’re in no condition to be travelling now.’

‘Gods, but that sounds tempting,’ Kellin sighed. ‘And as much as I would like to spend a Moon in bed, with or without Garec-’

‘With, please,’ he interrupted, ‘I mean, what else would you do with all that time? Rest? Sleep? Talk to yourself?’ He smiled for the first time all day. Brexan thought he looked refreshingly boyish.

‘You have other suggestions?’ Kellin asked.

Garec slid an arm around her waist. ‘I don’t want to commit too early, but I’m sure I could come up with something.’

‘Ahem,’ Brexan flushed, ‘sorry to interrupt you two, but where are Gilmour and Steven?’

Garec left his hand on Kellin’s backside. There was comfort in touching her. ‘We’re not sure, but we’re supposed to meet them in nine days off the coast of a narrow fjord about three days’ journey north of here.’

‘On the ocean?’ Brexan nearly spat a mouthful of beer across the table. ‘Have you not seen it outside? The northern Twinmoon is coming and has kicked up a nightmare wind; the tides are going to be high and running fast. Did you see those frigates this morning? They were damned near skipping across the surface of the harbour. They’ll be in Pellia by the dinner aven at the rate they’re going.’

‘We have to try,’ Garec said. And Steven and Gilmour have a way of encouraging things to work out in their favour.’

‘How will they get to the meeting place?’

‘In a boat, of course.’

‘So if they have a boat already, why can’t you all just sail in that?’

‘It’s too small, dangerously small, given the conditions,’ Garec said. ‘And if it’s this bad in here, I can’t imagine what it’s like out on the sea. We’d capsize inside an aven.’

‘But Gilmour and Steven are using this boat to sail offshore and… what, wait around for you two?’

‘We were hoping for good timing and quiet seas.’

‘Why didn’t they come into the city with you? You could have left together,’ Brexan asked.

Kellin answered, ‘Because some of their magic and a few of the artefacts they carry can be tracked from afar.’

‘But with Nerak dead, who’s-’

‘Mark Jenkins,’ Garec said. ‘He was overwhelmed and taken, just like Nerak almost a thousand Twinmoons ago. Mark is trapped inside his own mind by the same minion of evil that held the Malakasian royal family hostage for more than five generations. It can certainly track Gilmour and it might be able to track Steven, but we don’t know for certain. That’s why Orindale Harbour was all but destroyed, and that’s why the massive floodtide was sent up the Medera. Mark knew we were following downriver so he sent the flood to kill us, or at least to delay us until he could-’

‘Could what?’ Brexan was held transfixed.

‘I don’t know,’ Garec said. ‘Open the Fold, ensure evil’s ascendancy in Eldarn, destroy the world, enslave us all, I don’t know. But that’s why we have to find a ship and that’s why we have to meet Gilmour and Steven. We have to get to Pellia and then, perhaps, to Welstar Palace to find and deal with Mark Jenkins.’

‘Deal with?’ Brexan pressed.

‘If I can get within two hundred paces of him, I’ll kill him,’ Garec said. ‘That’s why we need a ship.’

Kellin glanced out the front window towards the harbour.

‘I don’t think we’re going to make it, though. There don’t look to be too many heading north – or heading anywhere, for that matter. Other than those three frigates, that’s been the extent of the traffic’