Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

A husky voice answered, ‘Stand up. Now.’

‘We have to,’ Garec said to Mark. ‘They’ll kill us if we don’t.’

‘Look at the way they move together,’ Mark said. ‘They’re well trained.’ He winced with the effort to get up. ‘We have to hope they’re well-trained soldiers and not well-trained killers.’

‘They’re soldiers,’ Garec said, ‘look at their uniforms. This far from Malakasia, and they’re that disciplined: these are proper soldiers, border guards, probably.’

‘Let’s hope you’re right.’ Mark leaned on the rock for support. He could feel his knee was badly injured. Garec put a supporting arm around his waist, in case one of the soldiers might mistake falling down as reaching for weapons.

‘And the other weapons,’ the voice came again. Garec couldn’t see who it was, but he was somewhere to their left.

Garec drew his hunting knife and tossed it out in front of the rocks. Mark did likewise.

‘Anything else?’

‘No,’ Garec shouted back.

‘Come out slowly and lie down, face-down, away from your weapons.’ The disciplined line advanced as one.

‘Let’s go,’ Garec said. ‘I don’t think they’re going to kill us.’

‘Because they would have already?’

‘Something like that. But look at that fellow on their left, the short one with the stomach. He’s the one in charge.’

‘So what? Fat people don’t kill indiscriminately?’

‘Look at his uniform. He’s not an officer. He’s a sergeant.’

Mark grimaced with pain. ‘I hate to belabour a point, Garec, but so what?’

Garec was sweating, despite the chill; he was losing too much blood. He looked forward to lying down in the snow, at least there he could rest for a moment and cool off. His heart was racing, he was breathing heavily and on the verge of losing consciousness.

He pulled himself around the rocks, motioning for Mark to do the same. ‘Look at his gloves,’ he said softly. ‘They aren’t standard issue. He’s in knitted mittens, and he’s not carrying a bow. Old, unarmed sergeants in knitted mittens don’t kill indiscriminately.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because he’s out here by himself, that’s how. He’s been around for a while, long enough to substitute standard-issue gloves with something one of his daughters made for him back home, probably because he was complaining about working in Gorsk. His squad is disciplined, and no one has fired a shot since we threw out the bows. Finally, where’s his lieutenant? Back in the barracks, nice and warm beside the fire, because he trusts this guy.’ Garec felt his head loll momentarily to one side; he shook it several times to clear his thoughts. ‘We’re not going to die, Mark, not here.’

‘That’s great news, thanks.’ His voice faded as he fell forward in the snow.

Dropping down beside him, Garec winced as he jerked the arrowhead in his side. The squad moved into position, surrounding them.

‘Lay down, son,’ the sergeant said, coming forward. He pulled off one of the knit mittens and tucked it beneath his arm for safe keeping, then reached up to remove a wool hat emblazoned with the crest of Prince Malagon’s Border Guard. ‘Where are the others, son? Still up at the palace?’

Garec tried to remember what Rodler had said when Mark first threatened to kill him. ‘We’re from Capehill,’ he said. ‘We do a bit of book business down there. That’s all. This old palace has a library, most of it rotten or torn up, but there are a few volumes here that bring a decent price at home.’

The sergeant nodded. He had arranged his thinning hair to cover as much of his pate as possible, but there wasn’t much left to cover the pale skin, dotted with liver spots. From the look of his paunch, he was a beer drinker. His yellowing teeth suggested a tobacco habit. Garec thought this man might be any of their grandfathers; what he was doing serving along the Gorskan border at his age was a mystery.

‘A book business, eh? Well, that’s illegal, but you know that. And what about the root?’

Garec shrugged, affecting a sheepish child caught with one hand in the pastry drawer. ‘We do a bit of a fennaroot business as well, yes sir.’

‘And you, Southie? You’re pretty far north, eh, Southie? Books and fennaroot pay your way, did they?’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Mark was lying in the snow, his eyes closed, fading in and out of consciousness, ‘fat Irish flatfoot.’

‘What’s that then?’ The sergeant stepped over to him. ‘I didn’t hear you, but from your tone, Southie, I’d guess you just disparaged my parents, eh?’ He kicked Mark solidly in the ribs. ‘Eh, Southie?’

Mark groaned, and gurgled something unintelligible.

‘Raskin!’

‘Sergeant?’

‘This one needs surgery.’

A young soldier, lean and wiry, shouldered her bow and stepped forward. ‘Field surgery, Sergeant or tavern surgery?’

He pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers and closed his eyes. ‘Rutting headaches, um, make it tavern surgery. We don’t have all day to play at party games out here.’

‘Right,’ The soldier, Raskin, motioned for two others to join her. ‘Mox, Denny, hold him down.’ One broad-shouldered young man lay across Mark’s upper body, pinning his arms to the ground; another gripped his lower legs in a powerful hug, bending his knee to expose the arrow for Raskin. She removed a scarf from her neck and tied it around Mark’s thigh, tightening it with a piece of whittled wood she took from her belt, then she gripped the arrow with one hand.

‘One surgical procedure, tavern method, ready to go, sir,’ she announced. ‘Hang on boys,’ she said, looking at the two soldiers holding Mark fast, and drew the arrow with a tremendous wrenching pull. Mark, who was not strong enough to resist, screamed long and shrilly, and then fell silent.

The sergeant gave the trio an approving grin. ‘Well done, Raskin. Now, bind that up, quickly, mind.’

‘Right away, Sergeant,’ the woman said, removing the makeshift tourniquet and exposing the wound. Someone handed her a wad of cloth dampened with water from a canteen and she cleaned it, pressing too far into the flesh for Garec’s comfort, then bound it snugly with a length of gauze someone else had ready.

‘Does he need querlis?’ Garec asked.

The woman glanced up at her sergeant, who nodded. ‘He might need it later,’ she said. ‘It’s bleeding now, but I’ll check it after the blood has clotted. If it looks like it could become infected, I’ll give him some then.’

‘Thanks,’ Garec’s vision blurred again and he flushed. His stomach knotted, but he managed to quell the rush of nausea by pressing his face into the snow to cool the rush of blood and quiet his raging system. He croaked, ‘If you don’t mind, I think I prefer field surgery to tavern surgery.’ The last thing he heard as he passed out was the sergeant bellowing a hearty laugh, a grandfather’s laugh; nothing dangerous in it. Garec felt confident as he drifted away that he and Mark would live.

He didn’t wake, nor did he feel any pain when Raskin extracted the arrows from his hip and leg.

‘So it’s just a minor change in plans, that’s all.’ Hannah dried her tears and laughed. ‘Look at me, will you? I’m a mess.’

Alen’s heart wrenched. He hadn’t mentioned the far portal, but he had told Hannah that Steven and Mark were on their way to Traver’s Notch and that it was just a matter of time – and a significant dose of good luck – before they were reunited and returned safely to Colorado. She had flung her arms around his neck and squeezed him harder than anyone had in nearly a thousand Twinmoons. When she finally released him, her face was already tearstained.