Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

Mark kicked open the barracks door. A soldier, a lieutenant by his uniform, was crossing the foyer. He looked irritated when he saw the private. ‘And where do you think you’re going, Stark?’ he shouted. ‘You’re on duty until the end of the dinner aven. Do I need to remind you-?’

‘Eat shit,’ Mark said, and hit him in the throat; his strength was unfathomable. The officer’s neck snapped, cracking audibly a moment before he sprawled in a clumsy pile of limbs.

Why? Mark tried to speak, to think his outrage, but the creature of smoke and steam pressed him back against the walls of darkness. Mark’s throat closed, his eyes bulged and he felt something inside himself rupture. The pain was instantaneous and unbearable.

I’ll take what I need from you when I need it. The voice was terrifying, that of a monstrous god capable of torturing him for all eternity. Until then, keep still.

Mark screamed; nothing came out. He tried to weep, to call for his mother, his father, anyone at all, but nothing changed. No thoughts breached the shallow well of his own mind. He forgot things the moment he dredged them up from his memory. There was no hope, no comfort; there was not even the relative relief that might come from an anguished cry or a desperate scream. There was only the realisation that he was trapped, frozen inside a stone slab.

Mark took the stairs three at a time and kicked open the door to Major Tavon’s private office. Tearing free from its hinges, it crashed across the room, upsetting a table strewn with maps of southern Falkan and the Blackstone Mountains.

Major Tavon, a thin, grey-haired woman of about four hundred and fifty Twinmoons, sat behind her desk, her feet propped up, a goblet of wine in one hand and a finger corkscrewing so far up her nose that Mark thought she might be trying to scratch an itch in her sinuses.

‘Good day, Major,’ Mark said.

Major Tavon spilled her wine as she hurriedly wiped her finger on her trousers. She looked aghast for a moment, and then flew into a rage. ‘Stark! You great, stupid horsecock! What in the name of all things unholy do you think you’re doing? I swear to all the gods of the Northern Forest, I will have you wiping the backside of every flatulent cavalry horse from here to Pellia for this interruption!’

‘Do shut up, you irritating old bitch,’ Mark said as he leaned on the woman’s desk. ‘I need a battalion, just for a few days.’

‘A what? A what? You’re done, Stark! Life as you know it is over!’ She was still screaming when Private Stark fell dead on the floor of her office.

Lieutenant Blackford, Major Tavon’s personal assistant, burst into the room, flanked by two soldiers brandishing short swords. He skidded to a stop when he saw the major calmly tugging a pair of worn leather gloves onto her hands. ‘Major? Are you all right?’ he asked breathlessly.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said coolly. ‘Nothing to worry about at all, Lieutenant.’ She knelt beside Private Stark’s body, took something from the pocket of a brightly coloured tunic he had been carrying and secreted it inside her own tunic. ‘Would you have the men dispose of this, please?’ She kicked at the body.

The young officer was dumbstruck. ‘Uh, yes ma’am,’ he murmured, wondering what was going on.

‘Oh, and Kranst is dead, too. You’ll find him downstairs.’

‘Ma’am?’

‘And I almost forgot.’ Major Tavon smiled. ‘Out front there is a young man, a South Coaster, in a red tunic. Please see to it that the bodies are incinerated out back, down near the stream. Get some of the others to help you, and be quick about it. We need to get word to Hershaw and Denne; I require an infantry battalion. I want the captains in Wellham Ridge and prepared to march south as soon as possible.’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Within two days, three at the most, understood?’ Major Tavon righted her goblet, refilled it and gulped down the wine with a flourish. ‘Lieutenant?’

‘Yes, ma’am?’ Blackford was still staring at Stark’s body.

‘Do you understand?’

An innate sense of self-preservation slapped Blackford hard across the face. He blinked several times and nodded yes.

‘Good. I am going to write two despatches. I need riders ready to take them north; I want them gone within the aven. One is to the garrison commander at Traver’s Notch, the other to the ranking officer at Capehill; there is to be a Resistance attack on Capehill within the Moon, and I want our forces prepared for the insurrectionists, should they still be in the city when the attack comes.’

‘But Major, how could-?’ Glancing at Stark’s body, Blackford decided not to ask anything else. ‘I will make the preparations, ma’am.’

‘Excellent. I will be at the tavern on the corner. Tell me when it is done.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Blackford snapped to attention as Major Tavon left the room. When she was gone, he asked aloud, ‘Still in the city when the attack comes? I wonder what that means-’ He looked again at the dead body and hurried to do his commanding officer’s bidding.

Steven rolled over. It had grown colder overnight; a little snow continued to fall in the river valley, but the bulk of the storm had passed them by. He longed for the comforting red glow of his bedside clock and squinted in the hope of making out the hands on Howard’s old wristwatch. No luck. A few embers still burned in the campfire; Steven poked the remaining coals to life with a stick and leaned over to see what time it was at home. Ten-thirty. Well, that’s no help, is it?

When the end of the twig caught fire, its glow brightened the meagre shelter they had constructed. Though little more than a few stacked trunks and a roof of interlocking boughs, the lean-to gave Steven the illusion of safety and comfort. Warmed by the firelight, it felt more like a cave than a stack of firewood. He gently urged the rest of the twig into flames. Adding a log and a bit of magic, he rekindled the small fire Brand had built before retiring for the night.

The glow reflected twin diamond glints in Kellin’s eyes; she was awake.

‘Good morning,’ Steven whispered, checking to see if he had roused the others as well.

Kellin nodded and forced a smile.

‘I don’t know what aven it is.’ He tried to shrug nonchalantly, but came off looking as though he had a tic.

‘Pre-dawn,’ Kellin whispered back. She reached for her overtunic. Without her cloak, Kellin was like the rest of them: too thin, and marked with a map of pink scar tissue, in her case across her arms and hands. Her body was like Brand’s, hard from too many Twinmoons of rationed food, forced marches and guerrilla warfare. With her overtunic and cloak on, the lean, wiry warrior reverted to the cold, frumpy woman who had joined them in Traver’s Notch.

‘You should go back to sleep,’ Steven said quietly. ‘We don’t need to get started yet.’

Kellin swallowed, summoned her courage and said, ‘I’m afraid of you.’

Steven sat up, genuinely surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Watching you kill that little girl was… unnerving,’ Kellin whispered. ‘I know it wasn’t really a little girl, but it’s been difficult to forget the look on her face when you cast her away.’

‘Nerak was terrified, beaten, and he knew it. He knew where he was going and he had no recourse but to beg. The fact that he did it from inside his own daughter’s dead body just reinforces what kind of a monster he really was. I don’t want to kill anyone, Kellin, I really don’t. I want to save Mark, find Hannah and go home, but I can’t do that until I’m sure that things here are set right. I’ve been given a gift, and I admit that I don’t know why. The staff’s magic…my magic… is a critical component of your fight. But it isn’t anything to fear, because I’m not someone to fear.’