David Wragg - The Black Hawks

His head knocked against the crate behind him and with a gulp of air Chel woke. The reins were still in his hands, soaked through. Mortified, he tried to wipe away the worst of his slick sheen, while the mule plodded faithfully on. He felt in no hurry to sleep again.

It was a three-day trip to Omundi, rattling along the pitted dirt roads in the mule cart. The makeshift convoy moved as fast as it could, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the invading Norts as conditions allowed, the bulk of their contingent likewise seeking the safety of the League’s armies.

They camped only briefly and stopped at few roadside shrines. Prince Tarfel made for a dreadful travelling companion: he insisted on hiding among the kitchen supplies in the back of the cart, where he alternated between gibbering panic, which was tiresome, and ostentatious boredom, which was worse. He was prone to bursting into song when under-occupied; his reedy tenor could at least carry a tune, but his limited repertoire ground down Chel’s resolve as the journey wore on, to the extent that he considered teaching the prince some of the more rustic ditties favoured by Sokol’s regulars. When not singing, the prince demanded explanations for everything they passed on the road, from the meaning of the plague quarantine markers to the frequency of the smoking char pits. The only sight to hush him was a rack of gibbets strung at a crossroads, the bodies dangling beneath shorn of noses and ears, the signs around their shredded necks clearly reading ‘Rau Rel’. Otherwise, Chel kept his answers short. When a kingdom has been fighting the same war on itself for twenty years, there’s little new to say, he thought to himself.

Chel tried to focus on the immediate future. He would ditch the prince with his brother, hop back on the cart and roll on south, cut east at the Lakes and be home ahead of the news of Denirnas Port’s destruction. Away from the madness, away from murderous confessors and their lingering venom. By the time he arrived, he could shape the story of the Nort invasion to his choosing, his interactions with the prince, how he came to be reprieved from Sokol’s pointless service, assuming Sokol had even survived. Enough remained of the cart’s contents to barter his way all the way back to Barva. He was going far away from all this. He was going home. All he had to worry about was what to say when he arrived. What to say to his sisters, what to say to his step-father. What to say to his mother. Chel bit his lip in contemplation. At least he’d have plenty of time to think.

‘Look, the pennants, the pennants!’

Tarfel had roused himself and was pointing down into the river valley. Ahead of them, down the curve of the dusty road as it wound its way into the river valley, the bright walls of Omundi shone in the evening sun.

Spread like a dark blanket pocked with campfires before the walls, the armies of the Glorious League lay camped, the Church-blessed alliance of great Names and small, the crown-led instrument of divine unification. Siege engines stood idle in their earthworks, just out of bowshot, and Chel noted with distaste the rocky dam that had diverted the river’s flow away from the city and down deep-cut channels in the earth. Little seemed to be happening.

Highest of all the pennants that fluttered at the centre of the camp was the white lion of Merimonsun, and Tarfel squealed with glee at its sight. ‘Go there, go there!’ Chel geed the mule down the slope toward the camp.

***

Whether or not the pickets at the camp’s edge believed that the mule cart was an official royal conveyance, Tarfel’s shrieking, princely entitlement and signet-waving had them escorted to the camp’s centre in short order by nervous men-at-arms. An equally sceptical vizier bade them wait, still guarded, at the edge of a wide earth circle, ringed by the exotic tents of the great and good of the royal forces. Lions, pictorially speaking, were everywhere.

Overhead, a host of messenger-birds, doves and pigeons, seemed in constant circulation, teeming from the cotes stacked beside the grandest pavilion, coming and going in a ceaseless flutter of feathers. Panting foot messengers with grime-streaked faces came pelting past at regular intervals. All activity seemed centred on the pavilion, the hub for messages from hand and wing, a commotion of traffic in each direction at its entrance. Chel guessed that the news from Denirnas must have reached them by now. Beside the pavilion’s flap, watching every item in and out, stood a tall, hooded figure, robed in white and vermilion and dusted with travel-muck.

Chel’s heart thudded once and stopped, his pulse replaced with a sudden flooding lightness that spread over his skin. How had Vashenda got here ahead of them? His mouth was dry, tongue thick. Then his brain registered the difference of stance, of height, the curved sword belted beneath the robes, and he felt his heartbeat restart. It was not Vashenda. Another senior prelate, but not one who’d ordered him adjusted.

‘Bear?’ He was jolted out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder. ‘Bear, is that you?’

‘Five bastard hells, it can’t be,’ he whispered.

***

Chel and the prince turned to find a young woman standing behind them, excitement and trepidation surging over her face. Her straight hair was bound and shrouded in the fashion of the Star Court, and she gazed at them with eyes as grey as Chel’s own.

Her face split in a wide grin and she threw her arms around him. ‘I knew it was you!’

‘Sab?’ Chel reeled, carried backward by her momentum. ‘How are you here? What are the chances? You look …’

She released him from her crushing grip. ‘Taller? More dynamic? Matured like fine spiced wine?’

‘Different.’

‘It’s been three years, Bear, near as matters. I wasn’t going to stay small and grotty. You look the same, if dirtier. But what are you doing here?’

‘I should ask likewise. Why aren’t you at home?’

She arched an eyebrow. ‘Why’d you think, Bear-of-Mine?’

Tarfel cleared his throat with a frown, and the girl grinned again. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?’

Chel sighed. ‘May I present Sabina Chel of Barva, my little sister.’

Tarfel inclined his head, looking Sabina up and down. ‘Not so little any more, eh?’

Frowning, Chel continued. ‘Sab, this is His Royal Highness Tarfel Merimonsun, prince of the realm, youngest son of King Lubel.’

She’d already begun a bow of her own and she staggered at his words. ‘You’re friends with a fucking prince?’ she hissed, head bent.

‘Well, not friends exactly,’ he said, experiencing several different flavours of mortification.

‘Your brother was good enough to escort me here from Denirnas,’ Tarfel said haughtily. ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’ He extended a grubby hand for her to kiss. To Chel, he murmured, ‘Bear? You’re not very bear-like, Chel.’

‘It’s, ah, a family thing.’

The sneering vizier reappeared, informing them that negotiations with the city had paused, if not concluded, and Prince Mendel had a moment for an audience with his brother. Tarfel swanned off after the man and into the grand pavilion. The robed prelate lingered outside, her hooded gaze swinging back across the Chel siblings, black eyes glittering within. Chel felt an unpleasant tingling as it swept over him, then the figure ducked beneath the flaps and was gone.

‘Who is that? That prelate?’

Sab sniffed. ‘Ah, Balise da Loran: “Lo Vassad’s clenched fist”. She’s the Star’s chief minister and a double-bastard.’

‘Chief minister? She’s a Church prelate!’

‘She’s also first sworn to Prince Thick, you know, after he had to start afresh. Many feathers in that cap.’