Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

He let her go and sat dejectedly on the side of the bed, his face buried in his hands while she pulled on her tunic properly. ‘It’s called a watch,’ he said at last.

‘A watch? Am I supposed to watch it?’

‘It tells the time of day and night.’

‘Really?’ Fascinated now, she picked up the candle to study the trinket more closely. ‘I don’t understand. How does it work?’

‘It doesn’t tell the time here.’

‘Well, what good-?’ She stopped. ‘Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, Sallax, how do you know of this watch?’

The big man started to cry, the sobs shaking his body. Brexan sat beside him, rubbing his shoulders and crooning comfortingly to the distraught man for an aven or more, until he drifted off into uneasy slumber. She washed the tears from her own face, and unclasped the watch from her wrist and left it beside the candle. She lay awake and listened for sounds of raiding parties outside.

Later, still awake, Brexan watched the sun come up over the city.

Captain Thadrake eyed the pastries; one had been bitten nearly in half, but the other two were untouched. Beside the plate was a flagon of wine, Falkan red, he guessed, the best wine in Eldarn, and a half-empty goblet. He didn’t understand how anyone could get so blase as to ignore such delicacies, but he forced his attention from the bedside table.

The captain was standing in a lavishly appointed apartment in the one-time imperial palace in Orindale, formerly occupied by one of Prince Malagon’s generals. The general and several members of his staff had been killed in an unexplained explosion during the last Twinmoon and several days ago the apartment had become an impromptu hospital, with one bed in the centre of the room for the patient. The bedding was the finest Orindale could offer: down-filled pillows, thick, soft blankets and a firm mattress softened with several layers of goose-down. A fire crackled day and night in the fireplace.

He noticed a leather-bound book, tucked beneath the pillow as if in a hasty effort to hide it from visitors. He shuffled his feet nervously.

‘Who is he?’ Not much of the patient was visible – his head was bandaged and only one eye, part of his nose and a corner of his mouth showed outside the gauze wrap – but it was obvious he was irritated.

‘My assistant, sir, Hendrick.’

‘Well, get him out of here, you rutting fool! Why don’t you just parade me in front of the entire army? Let’s make certain everyone can see me: oh, yes, there goes the prince’s spymaster; everyone knows him. Great whoring monks…

‘What is your name, Captain?’

‘Thadrake, sir.’ He tried not to cringe.

‘Captain Thadrake, do you want to be responsible for everyone knowing what I look like?’

It was obvious a crunching blow to the back of the head had left the spy near death, but Thadrake had no idea why Jacrys Marseth had come here, to a public Malakasian facility, to recuperate. Most spies found ways to deal with their injuries without jeopardising their cover. Maybe it was because no one had seen Prince Malagon in the past Moon, or perhaps the spy was to be assigned to another Eldarni territory under a new identity. Whatever the reason, Jacrys was obviously in no mood to discuss his decision to come in from the field, and Thadrake wasn’t about to ask why. He loathed Jacrys, and everything the man represented. They were an occupation army, the most powerful military force in Eldarn; they didn’t need spies scurrying about, eating pastries and drinking good Falkan wines.

Thadrake would have been quite happy to face the combined Resistance forces in the Eastlands in a final, conclusive battle – that would be far preferable to the cowardly terror strikes along the Merchants’ Highway and all the throat-slitting that went on in the streets of Orindale after dark. His corps had lost several officers to a terrorist, a merciless cowled man who stalked the back alleys. Thadrake himself had been part of the response team, rounding up any suspected Resistance members – and a good few who had never before been under suspicion – each time an officer had been murdered.

The Malakasian response had been swift, brutal and public and whilst the people of Orindale were not happy about hangings in the imperial gardens, Captain Thadrake didn’t care. If they wanted the capricious justice to stop, they had to hand over this homicidal rutter themselves. He was quite sure they all knew who he was; they probably toasted his very good health every night in those filthy waterfront taverns.

‘What progress have you made in your search?’ The spy’s voice was muffled by bandages.

‘Which search, sir?’ Thadrake wanted to hear the spy say out loud that he was more interested in their search for his assailants than for the caped lunatic killing Malakasian soldiers – his men. Given the number of people lost to terrorists in the past Twinmoon, all their attention needed to be on nightly sweeps of the waterfront area; if the Ronan partisans turned up, good, but if not, at least they were making a concerted effort to avenge those Malakasians who had given their lives. The increased patrols did appear to be having an effect, for the murders had stopped – at least for the time being – but the extra raids were taking their toll on the army.

How he hated working with Seron… Thadrake couldn’t stand the sight or the smell of them, and racing through Orindale during the middlenight aven, pursuing some so-called Resistance leader and a traitor soldier who were obviously well into Rona by now seemed a pointless, self-indulgent directive.

When Jacrys didn’t answer right away, Thadrake asked again, ‘I’m sorry, but which search do you mean? Sir?’

‘The search for my attackers, you whore-spawned rutter!’ It looked as if he was about to choke on his bandages.

Thadrake fought back a smile. ‘Sorry, sir, but we have not yet found anyone fitting those descriptions.’

‘Have you been thorough?’

‘I have a map of the city, sir. Each night we have searched random, unpredictable quadrants, but thus far, we have turned up nothing.’

‘Then you are an idiot, Captain Thadrake.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the officer said, thinking, I am an idiot for not leaving with Hendrick.

‘I understand that the woman might be able to secrete herself somewhere, but Sallax? He is as big as a blazing mountain. He has long black hair, pale skin, and he is a gods-rutting dolt who can barely speak. He doesn’t make eye contact, and he looks as though he has been kicked squarely in the head by a horse, Captain. So I don’t know what you have been doing each night, but you had better find a way to tighten the noose about this city and to find those two for me, or I will have your-’

‘Sorry, sir,’ Thadrake interrupted, ‘but would you repeat that?’

Jacrys grunted. ‘What?’

‘What you just said, sir.’

‘Sallax Farro is a piece of limp-brained grettan shit.’

‘Who looks as though he has been kicked in the head by a horse, sir?’

‘Exactly, yes. Captain, let me remind you that when I am speaking-’

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘You did it again, you son of a bleeding whore!’

‘I know where he is, sir.’ Thadrake snapped a salute, turned on his heel and started out. Several steps away, he froze, realised his mistake and turned back smartly. ‘Sorry, sir, but am I excused? I expect I can have Sallax here by the midday aven, sir.’

Jacrys was almost speechless. ‘Yes, by all means, go. Get him now, and bring him here with the girl. But Captain, if she should resist, feel free to kill her.’

‘She’s a traitor, sir?’

‘Yes’

‘She should be hanged, sir.’

‘Captain, if she resists, cut her down, but I want Sallax Farro alive. Understand?’