Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

‘I won’t kill you. You have enough of your own strength now to take your own lives if that is what you want. Or do something good for once; you have that power too.

‘That’s my mercy: I give you your choice. Goodbye.’

Alen closed the door behind him, shutting the foul stench inside the room, and walked quickly to where Milla was sitting on a high-backed mahogany chair, her feet dangling above the ground. Though his heart hammered in his chest, he felt strong, renewed of purpose, and as clear-headed as the night the slave-magicians had stopped their search, when he had recovered his dulled senses and his magical ability.

‘Did you hurt them?’ she asked softly.

‘No,’ he said with mock offence, ‘I told you I wasn’t mad at them.’

‘Yes, you were, I told you.’ She played with the fabric dog, not looking at him.

‘Pepperweed?’

‘Uh?’

‘Did you send the dog to follow the girl?’

Milla turned away; she had been caught. ‘I get so tired, and I need to sleep sometimes, so I asked the dog to follow the girl. Prince Nerak told me I had to do it, but I get so tired. The dog didn’t mind. He is the nicest dog.’

Alen felt choked. This is why Lessek hadn’t allowed him to die; it wasn’t Hannah Sorenson at all. ‘Pepperweed?’ He coughed to clear his throat. ‘Milly, you need to be a Larion Senator.’

‘What are those?’

‘You’ll see,’ he said, stroking her tangled hair.

‘Are you sad?’ she asked.

‘A little bit, Reia,’ he said, wiping his nose.

‘How many names do you have for me?’ She flapped her arms at him in frustration.

‘Sorry, Pepperweed, my mistake.’ He stood and reached out for her. ‘Come on, then. Time to go.’

‘Where are we going?’ Milla took his hand.

‘Back to Falkan, to find your mother.’

Milla’s eyes widened, and she leaped from the chair. ‘Really truly?’

‘Really truly.’

As quickly as it had brightened, though, her mood disintegrated. ‘Prince Nerak won’t let me go.’

Alen bit back rage. ‘You leave Prince Nerak to me, Pepperweed.’

She held up her wrist; a silver bracelet hung there, but it was loose. Room to grow. He knew it wouldn’t fall off, though it was bigger than her hand. He held the links between two fingers, incanted the spell and watched in satisfaction as the bracelet shattered and rained silver pieces across the Persian carpet.

‘Wow!’ Milla exclaimed. ‘I’ve been trying to do that for such a long time.’

‘I’ll teach you. Come on.’

They walked together down the hallway towards the catacomb tunnels.

Garec pointed his horse, a pinto mare of no more than five summers, towards the wall of pines. She was strong and quick, but she was no Renna. He missed his mare desperately, and promised himself that he would return to Rona and search for her as soon as he could.

The day was bright and cold, and the morning sun bouncing off the snow hurt his eyes, so he had to squint to pick out the trail. He was less than a day behind now, and would catch up with Steven, Mark and Gilmour by the day’s end. If he loosened the reins and let the horse run, he might overtake them by the midday aven, but right now he was in no hurry. He was enjoying the solitude. He had found a replacement horse quickly enough, and he could have been with them the previous evening, but he was not yet prepared to face Mark, or Brand.

Visions of the bloody skirmish on the Falkan plain haunted him; when he closed his eyes, Garec could see Mark, staring back at him in disgust. Perhaps by nightfall he would be ready to stand among them, and beg their forgiveness for his behaviour two days earlier.

Garec knew his future with the Resistance was in question. He had refused to fight beside them, and his failure to fire even a single arrow had cost lives. It would be quite some time before Brand would forget. But they didn’t understand how easy it had always been for him: he had been the Bringer of Death; it had never taken more than his willingness to fire.

He was also plagued by the memories of being shot himself, feeling the stone arrowhead break his skin, shatter his ribs and come to rest inside his lung, a constant reminder his days as a killer were behind him.

To the east, the river babbled and gurgled on its roundabout path to the Ravenian Sea; from time to time Garec caught sight of it between the ranks of pin-straight pine trunks that covered this part of what Steven called Meyers’ Vale. It was virgin forest, but he wasn’t surprised: this was the bone-collectors’ hunting ground.

‘Not a great place for a summer cottage,’ he warned the disinterested horse. He laughed and turned up a short rise. A deer leaped across the path, and Garec held the reins firmly to keep the mare from spooking. ‘Could’ve had him,’ he said, ‘a going-away shot into his left shoulder. It would have dropped him on his face before he reached the river. What do you think?’

The mare ignored him.

The sun’s rays burst through a break in the trees and Garec idled in the light for a few moments, looking at a wide clearing, in summer probably painted bright with wildflowers. He figured he could ride across the meadow, enjoying the sunshine, then rejoin the snowy path beneath the pines at the far end of the clearing.

He led the horse off into deeper snow. ‘Come on, Paint,’ he said cheerily. ‘Let’s go and get sunburned.’ The mare broke a trail out towards the meadow while the sun marked their passage between the twin ranks of shadowy pines. A crust of ice broke easily beneath them, making their approach noisy, and Garec hummed a song Brynne had been fond of, until the sound of a rising commotion interrupted him. He reached for his bow, praying to the gods of the Northern Forest he wouldn’t be forced to use it again. Three deer bounded through a thicket next to the clearing, leaping over fallen logs and snowy drifts; the animals barely slowed when they reached the deeper snow along the path

‘I wonder what scared them,’ Garec said. ‘Our big feet crunching all this ice, maybe? What do you think, Paint?’ A few moments of silence passed, and he added, ‘You aren’t much of a conversationalist, are you? All right, we’ll hurry. Maybe Steven or Mark’s horse will have something more interesting to say.’

They were only a few steps into the frozen meadow when Garec realised what had spooked the deer: a squad of soldiers, looking like ghosts of those Mark killed outside Wellham Ridge, galloped across the meadow towards the pine forest and the river. They were well ahead of him and would pick up his friends’ trail as soon as they reached the trees.

‘Grettan shit,’ Garec swore, looking around and hoping some solution might present itself. ‘They’ll beat us to the path. There’s no way to get ahead of them.’

Instinctively, he reached for an arrow. ‘Steven will stop them,’ he told the mare. ‘Steven and Gilmour together, they could handle anything, right?’ The riders crossed his field of view; he watched them go, oblivious to the fact that if they turned around, they would see him sitting there, gaping, in the corner of the meadow. ‘Not again, please, not again,’ he begged silently.

No one can stand against a cavalry charge, not even you and that staff.

He was their only protection; Steven and Gilmour, Mark, Brand and Kellin – they were exposed because they knew Garec was following them. They would be caught unawares, by cavalry riding hard and armed for close combat.

‘Steven and Gilmour-’ Garec looked down at the painted mare, closed his eyes and gripped the bridge of his nose between two fingers. ‘Please, don’t make me do this. Please.’

The Malakasians were nearly across the meadow now, their black-and-gold uniforms blurring together in the morning sunlight. Garec cursed his luck. ‘They must be part of the battalion we evaded the other day,’ he said, watching as flying hooves tore through the brilliantly white snow, leaving it churned up in their wake. ‘Please,’ he begged again to no one, ‘please, I don’t want to do this.’