“We really haven't had to deal with any Kulta's or their mercenaries. Solah may just be granting us some peace in the rain at last.”
“Emeryk, sweet sweet Emeryk.”
Sarah brought her horse alongside her squires. She reached out with her arm still bearing a hand, as if to tap him, and grabbed a handful of hair.
“Damn our voyage with talk like that, and I will drag you by your heels with a rope.”
She spoke softly through her teeth, threatening him mostly in jest.
“Two weeks alone is plenty of time for much to go wrong. Remain realistic, boy, and you will live as long as you wish.”
Sarah released him, allowing himself to regain his balance on his steed.
“At best, we will reach the region of Damus in a year, twelve months, and sixteen days. That's a fair estimate, allowing for sudden fortune, and tragedy alike.”
She nodded to herself, watching the muddy path ahead as a light shower pelted it. The onset of winter was much nicer along this part of the coast this time of year, fall bringing by constant showers of gentle, yet blistering cold rain.
“Don your salamander skins! Best to remember to keep wolf and elk hides nice and dry. Otherwise, the shits will freeze and rot as winter comes!”
She yelled over her shoulder, her voice booming back down the trail to the fifty or so odd warriors she led. Each of the riders clambered for their skins and furs to insulate from the rain.
“So, captain, Beleka?”
“It’s Sarah, and yes, Beleka.”
The two spat back and forth, finding themselves best suited to each other's company. Aside from the natural relation of noble-woman and squire, Emeryk took to the display of ‘casual conversation' much easier than the rest of the company.
“I still figure it's best to match the mercenary cover. Calling you Sarah makes me feel oddly familiar with you.”
“That’s how it’s supposed to be, Emeryk. We’re meant to be equals. In the eyes of our lady? Queen Elexis doesn’t matter anymore, now we answer to Kiyomi… whenever it is we find her.”
The younger demon settled his furs over himself and his horse, leaving it uncovered from the saddle forward.
“Aye then, as before, Sarah. So Beleka? Why the fishing town?”
Sarah still left her head uncovered, allowing the light rain to coat her horns and clean any dust or grime in short work. Besides that, it calmed her.
“Aim to secure us a fishing vessel or two; we'll go under the cover of a temporary crew. It'll take us out of Kultan lands, and we’ll no doubt save a month or so on trying to cross the Imperial border. Hide the horses in the hold, while we bed on its decks”
“So you've decided on the eastern reach? Crossing through the mountain pass there instead of Mdina?”
“Aye, cut across the land from there and slip into Marseilles. That will be our safest route, with the least risk involved. When in Marseilles, we just have to keep up our income and ride through to Karalis.”
Emeryk stole a glance at Sarah, folding his furs and skins around him like a blanket as he did.
“You've thought this through. As much as the queen, haven't you?”
Sarah didn't deny it; she simply shrugged and turned to look at Emeryk.
“I have, on more nights than I can recall. So has our queen, but she stands in less of a position to act… No matter what her heart desires.”
She didn't break the lock they held in each other's gazes, allowing his next question.
“Why Damus? What of Morus? Of the empire?”
Sarah looked to the back of her horse's head, wrapping her reigns around her wrist before stroking at its mane.
“When I last knew of Kiyomi's whereabouts, I lay dying, mana starved, with my arm a fresh bleeding stump… I watched through barely opened slits as our king, Juro, rode off on his drake with his daughter screaming my name. I know she is in Damus because that is where he took her.”
Sarah became meek as her words trailed off.
“She refused to leave me… not a night goes by that those screams don't haunt me worse than the dead and dying of her kin.”
It was a moment, then two, before she let Emeryk’s voice reach her ears.
“Why not Mdina? We’ll have to cross the border again anyhow.”
Sarah rose her head, looking back to him once more.
“You’ve not heard the rumors?”
Emeryk shook his head.
“I thought the imperials simply financed the Kultan’s with gold and sellswords. Nothing of Mdina.”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
She seemed to look at Emeryk in a softer light as she did with Kiyomi. He was one of her little friends, so of course, Sarah took in the moment as she thought over what she would be dragging him to.
“There’s talk of an Imperial reprisal. They’re building a garrison in Mdina.”
She looked ahead once more.
“It may escalate into a war if other cities get involved. Though I know little else aside from that myself.”
The two were silent, the squelch of mud under their horses' hooves and the white noise of rainfall on the evergreen trees taking over.
----------------------------------------
“Will you permit us?”
Sarah asked aloud, looking down at a guard, a boy shielded from the rain by the loose overhang provided so guards would never abandon their post at the ramshackle gate of Beleka. The town was relatively untouched by the civil war that left Varen in turmoil. It was a fishing town, a town only in the sense that all infrastructure was no more developed than a palisade of sundered trees,nearly a thousand longhouses and a temple to Myr. The most developed part of the town was the docks, packed with all manner of fishing vessels and a small variety of slaying ships for the monsters that roamed too far into its waters.
“Aye.”
He pointed with his free hand, a small sack of silver dangling around his wrist, while his spear remained in the opposite. He was directing the company to a series of stables.
“Thank you.”
Sarah clicked her tongue against her teeth, pulling the reins to direct her horse. The company followed, Emeryk closer than the others.
“Plans for tonight?”
He asked, Sarah silently nodding.
“We will split into groups of five, no less, and bed down for the night. You will accompany me, as we will prioritize finding ourselves a vessel.”
The horses' stocking went smoothly; their saddles were left on their backsides, and their contents were stripped bare as each group split off. It was easy enough to disperse themselves in a town with so little military presence, Kultan, Imperial, or otherwise. The sun fell, the rain ceased, and the torches along the more occupied streets were lit by guards or nearby residents. Hours into the evening, with supper nearly passing, Sarah and Emeryk found themselves at an inn near the docks. It was an old storehouse with smaller room-like structures and even a pair of houses built within its confines. The two were greeted by one of the owners.
“We’re nearly full. Plan for dinner? Or a night's stay? Tell me now; otherwise, I can’t guarantee it later.”
He was a hell knight, standing shorter than even Emeryk for the man’s age. He was a pale blue in coloration, an eye fogging over thanks to cataracts. It wasn’t as crippling as it could have been, needing only to cut from his skull and an eye healed in place to amend it. Though, the old hell knight seemed less inclined out of inconvenience alone, given his tone of voice.
“This is indeed a busy one.”
Sarah mumbled, scanning the crowd.
“We’ll have a room.”
Emeryk answered in her place, handing over a gold piece to the inn-keep.
“You from that crowd that rode in this morning? Words about the war that it’s moving down this side of the coast. I’d hope you're not bringing it to burn this place with your rumors.”
Emeryk shook his head, sweeping his hair for a moment, and then sighed.
“No sir, we’re actually mercenaries. Our employer couldn't feed any more coin, so we’re headed to the west.”
He tapped Sarah’s nub of an arm, gaining her attention as she dropped her scanning gaze and stood at full height from her slouch. The hell knight looked up, himself and Emeryk dwarfed by her height. Her cloak parted along the center, and she swept it to fully obscure her missing arm in place of revealing her good one.
“God’s didn't realize you were hiding all that under that damned coat of fur.”
He looked down to Sarah’s hooves coated in mud, then to Emeryk.
“Myr’s tits, you’ve picked the biggest mare of the herd, haven't you?”
The innkeeper turned around, pointing to one of the rooms with its door closed, before sitting at a table with paperwork and a variety of boxes.
“For the coin, you get one night in that room.”
“Thank you, and, no, I haven’t. Captain?”
Emeryk diverted the lead on the conversation to Sarah, who raised her brows.
“You mean to say you don’t hang around me thanks to my figure?”
Emeryk rolled his eyes.
“No, because you make a fairly good shield against arrows.”
“Fair, I do. But damn, even a rejection in jest still hurts this heart.”
Sarah doubled over with her hand placed over her chest, trying to aid in lightening the mood with the hell knight.
“You’re still three hundred years strong, ole’mountain goat, you’ll find some old farmer or some other to drain the last of the youth from. Not me, though.”
Sarah halted the fake moping as she tilted her head to him.
“True enough.”
She sighed, standing at full height once more.
“I’m Captain–”
She thought for a moment.
No, my name would not fit here, Vakara is a noble name, even though it ended with me. Time to use the cover, like we rehearsed.
“Barbea, captain of the Wyrm’s brood. This is Emeryk, my lieutenant. As he said, we’re passing through. We were looking to find a captain, one that makes sail for imperial waters common enough.”
The hell knight shrugged, interlocking his fingers as he leaned back.
“That’s of no concern to me, looking to do some fishing work?”
Sarah shrugged.
“Work or not, we’ll employ. We’re missing our homeland, and we’re not fond of this place past its gold.”
The hell knight spat.
That’s right, make him want us gone. Make him feel like getting us out of here protects his livelihood.
She thought.
“There’s a few here bouncing about. Either at my inn for a drink, or any other establishment in town. Few of them hold time for their families until the season is off, and whaling is about to take over again.”
The innkeeper nodded across the floor at a few of the more ragged of the guests.
“Check around, but don’t be starting no fights. You’re on your own if you do.”
----------------------------------------
A night of introductions, negotiating, haggling, jest, and finally, drinking ensued. They had found their captain, and the evening after, they would depart. Two ships, twenty-five souls to each, excluding Sarah and Emeryk. The two sat on a bench behind the captain of their vessel, Sarah pinching the bridge of her nose while hanging her head over the stern, Emeryk awkwardly accounting for his journal in his pack.
“Boy, not a word to anyone.”
Sarah muttered.
“It’s boy now?”
She raised her head, her face pale as the sun shone against it. She was not built for the seas.
“God’s, when was the last time I did that? Eighty? A hundred years?”
Her stomach upturned as she spewed her guts over the stern. Wiping her mouth, she shook her head, then spat the last of the bile into the sea. Sarah turned to face Emeryk, nearly losing her stomach once more from the motion alone.
“I acknowledge that it was I who began the engagement, however–”
Sarah stole a glance at the crew, each man and woman either oiling leather or ensuring their steel and iron were kept insulated from the salt of the ocean.
“There is such a thing as too familiar, as you said. We never shared a room, we never drank, and you never met a woman last night.”
Emeryk nodded quietly, pulling free his ink well.
“What are you writing?”
He placed it at his boot, pulling out a crudely made fountain pen. He wrote a small series of notes, his thoughts, made quiet and dead to the world. He tilted the journal toward Sarah to read.
Maybe we should not speak so openly, either. Regrettable night of alcohol aside, what’s next? What of the port we make land in?
It read clearly, and thought out. Emeryk was more suited to moving on from one event to another, and he was of good stock to maintain his discipline. That was the whole reason he was made her squire; to look after Kiyomi and to serve as an advisor. Sarah leaned against the railing, looking back to him.
“Well, never let me say you aren’t the type to lose focus of the bigger picture.”
She nodded to his pack.
“The map.”
“Aye.”
He responded in kind, tearing the page from his journal and dropping it into the water. When he looked back to Sarah, he shrugged.
“The sea keeps better secrets than eavesdroppers, and I’m not so loose-lipped either. I’m a squire, Captain.”
He grabbed the map after sealing the ink well and wiping the pen.
“So, where was it we asked him to take us again?”
Emeryk flicked at the crude map of the continent.
“We will make land here, in the eastern reach, a port called Terzachu. It’s a settlement with an old Va-ranian populace if my memory serves me correctly. My father took us there to trade when I was young; there’s no reason it would have been burned down, and its roads should lead gently through the mountains to the north.”
Emeryk chuckled.
“Sarah, that was what, over two hundred years ago?”
She shook her head.
“Just shy of three hundred, I was your age now.”
Sarah looked ahead.
“All we can do is hope for it.”
She motioned for Emeryk to put the map away.
“In our earlier conversation, if you still care about it at the time, I’ll lend my ear once we’ve found her. Only then.”