Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

‘They’re adults,’ Gilmour said.

‘Yes,’ the outlaw professor confessed.

‘That’s good,’ Steven interjected. ‘You’re a teacher?’

‘I am.’

‘You’re teaching adults?’

‘Teachers.’

‘You’re teaching teachers?’ The magic warmed him, bubbling up with Steven’s adrenalin. ‘How many of you are there?’

‘We have one hundred and twelve altogether,’ the professor replied. ‘We mean no harm,’ he pleaded, ‘we just want to be able to instruct-’

‘No,’ Steven interrupted.

The little man gave a reflexive jerk and shrank bank.

‘No, no,’ Steven said quickly, ‘you misunderstand me. I think this is wonderful. It’s a damnable shame that you have to meet here in squalor. That’s what’s wrong.’

A sigh of relief passed through the classroom.

The professor looked around. ‘You’re right, young man, but the neighbouring farms are not always safe. Patrols come through frequently, oftentimes just looking for food, but we cannot risk being discovered so we meet here.’

‘But they must patrol the university as well, surely?’ Gilmour asked.

‘They’re gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘The soldiers are all gone; most rode south towards Orindale a few days ago. Some looked to be heading for Wellham Ridge, but wherever they were bound, there are none left out this far.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Gilmour said.

‘It’s true,’ said a woman near the brazier. ‘I saw them march past my farm. It had to be an entire brigade; they were making for Orindale.’

Steven leaned over one of the tables and was paging through a textbook. ‘How old are these?’

The professor joined him. ‘Nearly a thousand Twinmoons. I keep them in as good condition as I can, but they’re falling to pieces. Time and overuse, there’s nothing I can do.’

‘There are no newer texts?’ Steven asked.

Gilmour said, ‘Everything printed since Prince Marek’s takeover is nothing but-’

‘The party line,’ Steven felt growing anger meld with his magic in a flood of crimson and black. He wanted badly to find and kill Nerak all over again. To the professor he said, ‘I want you to keep going. I don’t want you to worry about the soldiers. I want you to keep teaching. I want you to find more students, more literate adults, and I want you to teach them economics and democracy, parliamentary government and language skills. Can you do that?’

‘Yes, I suppose we can use what little-’

‘Good,’ Steven interrupted again. ‘I want you to find them and teach them, and I want all of you to tell your students – I don’t care if you’re teaching in a barn, a wood or a university classroom – I want you to tell them all that they have to get ready. One more Twinmoon, that’s all it will take.’ His voice was rising, but Steven didn’t care. ‘I want you to tell them that in one Twinmoon Eldarn will be free, and a fair, compassionate, democratic prince will return to Riverend Palace. You need to get ready. Tell them. We’ll need teachers, leaders, economists, business managers and-’ he looked around the sparse, cold room, ‘-at least one mathematician.’

No one moved. Whatever relief they had felt at the discovery that Gilmour and Steven were friendly was dissipating: this was obviously a madman.

Steven went on, still too angry at what these people had suffered to lower his voice, ‘Which one of you is a mathematician?’

A frightened woman near the wall hesitantly raised her hand. ‘I am.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘That clock across the street, it’s working again.’

This news shocked them all. A few of the rag-tag students looked as though they might bolt, dive out the windows.

Steven asked, ‘Can you learn to read it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said, beginning to look less worried.

‘Good,’ he said, and then to the entire room, shouted, ‘Tell them to get ready! If you’re teachers, then you understand how important this moment is for Eldarn. One Twinmoon more. Then this world will be in your hands. If you know of outlaw classrooms elsewhere, in Praga or Rona or Gorsk, wherever they are, get word to them. I want it spreading like a prairie fire: Eldarn will be free in one Twinmoon.’

‘Excuse me, sir.’ The little professor with the pinched nose took Steven by the forearm and dropped it as quickly as if he’d been shocked with a bolt of electricity. His eyes widened and he backed a few steps towards the brazier.

‘What is it, professor?’

‘Sir, who are you?’

Steven looked at Gilmour and then grinned. ‘We’re the Larion Senators.’

Gita Kamrec shouted, ‘What do you mean we don’t know where they are? Bleeding whores, but I need Brand here! I can’t get a decent piece of intelligence from this band of pissing-’ She stormed along the path; her lieutenants avoided eye-contact with one another, each fearing that one of the others would roll their eyes or chuckle and that would be the end of them all. Gita might be small in stature, but she’d have them gutted and filleted for a Twinmoon festival in a heartbeat. Gita missed Brand Krug, her tough, level-headed commander. He was still not back from his foray south, escorting the Larion Senator, Gilmour Stow, and his company of freedom fighters into Wellham Ridge.

They knew he was coming, thanks to Stalwick Rees’s fit. He had collapsed, repeating over and over again: Brand is on his way and the Malakasians know about the Capehill attack. Several of her men were concerned, but Gita would not be swayed: she had agreed with Gilmour that taking Capehill would give the Falkans a foothold in the east, and she meant to follow through. It was an easier target than Orindale; the capital had a full infantry division, even without counting the Seron companies. She would need at least one more regiment and to make it a surprise attack if she had any hope of taking Orindale. Winning Capehill would give the Resistance a place to call home, a base in which to muster an army and prepare for a bloody march westwards.

In spite of all Gita’s planning, a problem had arisen. The Falkan Army, moving southeast as covertly as possible, had encountered no occupation forces. A battalion of partisans, travelling in small groups disguised as miners or farmers, had encountered just one Malakasian, a woman apparently separated from her unit. Sharr Becklen had killed her, a miracle shot into the rising sun. Apart from the woman, there had been no patrols, no soldiers away on leave, nothing. It was far, far too quiet. And that worried Gita.

Now, half an aven from Capehill, she wondered if she was marching her boys into a carefully baited snare. She had orchestrated what she believed to be one of the cleverest troop movements in the history of modern warfare, breaking her force up into its component parts and using everything from side roads to goat paths to move the squads and platoons – and she was certain no one, not even the country dwellers through whose land they were passing, had realised.

And now here they were, within striking distance, and no one could give her a cogent report on the Malakasian Army’s whereabouts.

She stalked through their temporary camp, fuming. ‘Tell me again!’ she barked, trying to think fast.

‘We just don’t know where they are, ma’am,’ said Markus Fillin, a lieutenant from the Central Plain, looking anywhere but at his commander.

‘Is the city that big?’ she mused aloud. ‘Can they really be hiding a brigade down there? If Stalwick was right, they know we’re coming, but how much do they know – do they know we’re here now, that we were coming from Traver’s Notch? Do they know how many soldiers we have, what we ate for breakfast this morning? Can anyone tell me anything?