Falor was acting strangely. Quistis had been around him for long enough to understand the subtle changes in his demeanour. Every time their two new companions drew near, he became suddenly sterner, wary as if on edge. Sparks danced in his hair and the air crackled when he moved.
All of it worried her.
She hadn’t had a chance to warn Mertle and her friend about the danger of touching Falor. There simply hadn’t been time to take it into consideration. How could she have known she’d run into them out in the armpits of nowhere? It made her blood boil.
“You bit your lip, Quis,” Falor said from across the meagre camp fire. “I think you need to get that incisor filed down.”
She wiped her thumb over her lower lip and winced at the pain there. Blood coated her finger. She wouldn’t waste a prayer for something that small.
“Sorry. Was thinking of something.”
“Oh?”
He could ask a single syllable and imply everything by it. Now she had his attention. It wasn’t a light thing to bear on the best of days. Her shock at meeting Mertle in the bloody forest had been easy enough to conceal over the rush of saving the elendine from a gold-tongue. Now, the unease of having the two so close and Falor so thoughtful was getting hard to keep from him.
He knows me entirely too well.
“Those outlaws we’ve heard about,” she said carefully, picking at the words. “I don’t remember there being quite so many reports when we first came to Valen. Do you?”
Falor bit into his piece of jerky and chewed slowly. Nightfall was still chilly and the forest was dense enough that it trapped the moisture of the day. There was a wet cold in the air that the fire turned into a cloying steam. It was unbearable.
Barlo snored nearby, sounding like a lumberjack’s saw. Vial was at his back, huddled under his sleeping bag on the cold, wet earth. For him, this was pleasant enough.
Mertle and Tummy sat together some distance from the flames, talking in low voices. Quistis could catch snippets of conversation. They were to do with summertime plans over their shop, ways to expand the business and who on the Agora’s council they’d need to butter up to accept them taking over the back alley space. They were flawlessly playing up their cover roles.
“I don’t think we’ve had much banditry in the area, actually.”
She squeaked when Falor spoke, drawn out of her own head by his voice. She got a raised eyebrow but no comment.
“After those two raids in the first summer I remember reports going down to near nothing for a couple of cycles. There was that large camp near Bastra that I went and flattened. After that…” He scrunched up his face, focusing inward. “No, nothing for the past two cycles. Been mostly quiet, aside from the abduction issues. Since I hung those bastards, even those have stopped.”
“Yes, Lucian got quite happy at that,” Quistis muttered, letting her annoyance come to the fore to conceal other worries. “Do you know he tried take credit for quelling the issue? Advertised how he provided valuable intel for the Storm Guard that led to making the roads much safer for everyone. The Guild hall had a poster with this. Heard he spent a small fortune on it.”
That got a low chuckle out of Falor. “In the strictest sense, he’s absolutely right. His intel led to the ratmen. That led to the Vitalis.” And that led to Cinder, but he didn’t add that part. “Now that you mention it, it is rather strange we’re getting an uptick in banditry round these parts. Wonder if they figured we’d move away because I dealt with Cinder.”
She took a sip of her tea. “Could be.”
And it was true. They’d made no secret of their mission in Valen. So a reemergence from Tallah Amni had meant their mission was complete. They’d been assigned to limit the damage the sorceress could inflict if she showed up again.
Falor had done precisely that. Even if he hadn’t killed the sorceress, they’d accomplished what the Empress had promised Valen’s council. She’d pulled them out afterwards mostly to chagrin the likes of Diogron.
Now, Valen’s council would need to police their territories on their own. It wouldn’t be long until they knocked on the Empire’s door asking for support.
“We could leave them alone,” she ventured. “I think the Empress would actually prefer that.”
“Mother would prefer I were in Aztroa right now.” There was a boyish grin on his face which made her uncomfortable. “I aim to disappoint for once. These men praying on the local villages are becoming dangerous. Mother can play her political games in other fashions. I won’t stand for innocent people left to suffer just so a border can be shifted by a few leagues.”
Quistis became aware of a gaze on the back of her head. She turned and startled at Mertle being right behind her, looking down. “May I sit?” the elendine asked.
“Uh… certainly.” Quistis scooted aside on her own blanket and made room. “Haven’t heard you get close.”
Falor’s gaze had hardened a fraction. There it was again, a guarded look in his eyes. He suspected something about Mertle… but what?
The elendine sat demurely and offered Quistis some sort of meat stick. It smelled viciously of spices. She accepted the offering and Mertle leaned over the fire to offer one to Falor as well.
“There’s a merchant in Valen that makes elend cuisine,” Mertle said. “He doesn’t always get it right, but his giudems are pretty close to the real thing. The meat’s wrong—we don’t use beef—but the flavour’s almost like home.” She grinned. “I’m told it has a kick for humans.”
The warning came a touch too late for Falor. He’d bitten into the thing. Whatever taste it had, the effect was immediate: his face turned bright crimson. With as much dignity as he could salvage, he cast about in barely concealed panic.
Quistis offered him her water canteen.
It would’ve been rude not to taste. She made a face and gingerly took a bite.
Well, that was a bloody mistake, she thought some time later as she wondered if she should drink an accelerant or invoke the Goddess’s help. She doubted she’d ever taste anything ever again.
“Sorry,” Mertle said after both of them were done coughing and emptying the canteen. “I didn’t realise you don’t eat spicy food in Aztroa.”
“Lady Mergara…” Falor wheezed. “There is spice in Aztroa.” His voice was hoarse. Quistis resented that he’d drank her entire canteen. “What manner of poison makes a spice like this?” He waved the giudem. “I could swallow red coal from the fire and it would be less painful.”
Mertle chewed on her own portion and looked at it quite serenely. “Really? It’s quite mild, I think.”
Quistis and Falor met each other’s eye and shrugged. “Elends,” they said in a voice.
“I overheard you talking bandits,” Mertle said, playing up the airhead persona.
Quistis had seen how the girl talked and looked when out of this skin. When they’d cornered her at the Sisters, she could’ve sword the elendine was ready to kill them all in cold blood, and had the confidence that she’d manage. Maybe that wasn’t far from the truth.
“I thought banditry was punished by death,” Mertle went on. “Don’t adventurers kill on sight anyone with a bounty?”
“They’re not allowed to kill on sight. That would still be murder,” Falor answered. “Any human killing must be sanctioned by the Guild.”
Mertle’s eyebrows rose. “Only human killing?”
“Empress Catharina has a wide definition of what it means to be human,” Falor said. “While within the Empire, any of the seven are afforded the same protection and rights. To stands with us is to be one of us. Yes, even the aelir.”
That was one of the oldest saying of the empire, as far as Quistis knew. Ever since Aztroa had been taken by the empress, and the gates of the realm opened to those seeking to escape the Dominion, the saying had become a statement of fact on Vas. Few places rejected this and openly criticised the empress’s edict. They weren’t worth talking about.
“And are you sanctioned?” Mertle went on, a particularly mean-spirited edge in her voice.
Why are you needling him? Cold sweat dripped down Quistis’s back as her gaze swivelled between the two.
“I sign the sanctions,” Falor replied without any rancour.
“Judge and executioner? Wow. You wield so much power!”
“Is this going somewhere, lady Mergara?”
“Curiosity, Commander Falor. In the Dominion, those that resorted to banditry were often the destitute and shunned. The aelir would cull them if they ever became too much of a burden.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“We are not the aelir,” Quistis said. “We do not cull.”
“Don’t you? Are you going to take prisoners here? March them through the forest, feed them, care for them until you get them to a prison so they may speak of their crimes?”
“That is hardly—”
“Fair?” Mertle asked. Nothing of her expression changed even minutely, but the tone of voice was chilling. “You’re about to sic a demigod—no offence, Your Majesty—on what are probably some farmers reeling from a bad winter. How is that fair?”
Falor sighed and took another bite of the impossible sausage. He managed to chew it without blood spurting from his nose.
“That is true, lady—”
“Mertle,” Mertle said. “Only Mertle, please.”
Falor nodded, “Mertle, then. What you say is true, of course. There are few men out there who choose the life of a criminal out of moral decay. Yes, it has been a hard winter in many a place. But it’s been like so for everyone.” He took another bite of the vile thing and managed to swallow it without hiccups. “I can’t take prisoners while I’m on my own mission. I can’t ignore the victims. I’m at a crossroads. Do nothing, and I am complicit in their crimes. Kill them all, and I am a murderer.”
“Our aim is not to kill indiscriminately, Mertle,” Quistis said, surprised somewhat by Falor’s openness. “Long experience dictates that these groups rarely survive a decisive strike from authority. A single strike against wherever they’ve fortified their presence is generally sufficient to scatter them.”
“And scattered men are easier dealt with by the local communities,” Falor said. “I may be judge and executioner, as you said, but I am not a monster.”
“Yet you speak like one, Commander Falor.” Mertle didn’t look to be giving up on her protest. “You choose to kill because anything else would inconvenience you.”
“It’s true, yes. That is the path of least resistance with the best chance of a positive overall outcome.”
The smith approached. Quistis had less of an understanding of the man than she did of Mertle, and it seemed now that was poor reference. She hadn’t expected the elendine to be such a vehement critic of their methods.
“Leave them to their work, Mertle,” the smith said, squatting by the fire to place a hand on the elendine’s shoulder. “It’s not our place to speak.”
“But they’ll kill—”
“Not our place,” he repeated. “Come. We should rest for the night.”
Falor hadn’t moved from his place and watched the exchange with interest. “What would you do, smith Tummy? If you were faced with this responsibility?”
The smith rumbled and shared a look with Mertle. “Form a militia from local communities. Teach them to defend themselves. Elect one to represent the Guard and speak with its authority.”
“That takes time I do not have. And, often, those efforts fail.” Falor continued eating and Mertle offered him another stick. “Give responsibility to unprepared men, and they will squander it. Or, worse, abuse it. If my action raises a tyrant over a community, they will resent me.”
He shrugged and looked to Quistis. She understood immediately of what he spoke. It had been a particularly unpleasant intervention into Valen’s countryside, some seasons prior. He’d been in a black mood all winter after what he’d needed to do there.
“It could happen that the next time I pass through, I would be faced with an even worse choice. I will either need to do terrible things to depose an unjust ruler, or be met with pitchforks. And again need to do immoral things to reestablish the Empire’s peace.” He spread his hands. “My morality suffers whichever way I choose to lean.”
It’s just bandits, Quistis thought glumly. In the empire there was never a shortage of thieves and murderers, especially in those places where Aztroa’s reach grew weaker and thinner. Men preyed on those weaker than themselves. It would be no big loss to anyone if they were stopped.
But, then again, it had been that sort of necessity-first thinking that had pushed Dreea down her path. They were supposed to be better than this, better than to plan bloody massacres in the night, out outside the normal reach of law, with overwhelming force. If they were no better, then why were they there?
“Do you have a suggestion, Mertle?” Falor asked.
He sat still as a statue, elbows on his knees, his chin held in the net of his fingers. He had the look in his eyes that generally promised a lot of paperwork for Quistis. Something had his undivided attention and she couldn’t shake the feeling it wasn’t Mertle’s protestations.
Mertle didn’t answer, though the look on her face showed she was turning the words over.
Falor’s smile grew crooked.
“As is often the case, protesting only goes as far as pointing out the problem. It almost never offers a solution. Talk is cheap, Mertle. Making the decision and following it up… well, that’s a tad more difficult.”
She wasn’t ready to go down without a fight. “Become their leader then. Challenge whoever leads them and—”
“And flatten into a bloody smear whoever leads them now. Same tactic, just one victim. One or ten or a hundred, it’s still a bloody outcome.”
“There must be a better way than to simply act like the ae… like animals. I thought humans were civilised.”
“Civility must have a limit.” Falor raised a hand to forestall any more protestations. “I will give them a chance to draw back, break their camps, and scatter. I will not kill fleeing men. But that is all the concession I am willing to make.”
Before Mertle had a chance to digest this, he went on, “But why is this a concern of yours, Mertle? Of course, indiscriminate killing is wrong and should be abhorred. But this is justice to be met out. Why are you so determined to get in its way?”
“Because we’ve starved before,” the elendine answered, voice almost too small to hear. If it was true or an act, Quistis had no idea, but the tone was raw enough to believe. “We’ve been on the wrong end of culls before. We’ve been branded for being hungry and poor and lost.” She rolled her sleeve up and showed a strange scar on her left arm. It was a circle sectioned into two uneven pieces. A burned scar. “Sometimes the hunger is stronger than morals. I’m not proud of what I did to live, but not ashamed that I survived. Punishment for surviving shouldn’t be death.”
“I see.” And he probably did, as he’d spent some time in Nen in his earlier years. It was well-known. “While I understand your feelings, you must also understand that I will do what is within my power to help the innocents. If that blood on my hands is of the desperate, then so be it.”
“Can I go ahead and talk to the first villagers we meet?” Mertle asked. “Maybe with Captain Quistis accompanying me? Maybe we can learn something that’s not immediately obvious. Maybe even learn of a way to preserve more lives? If winter has been lean here, then there will be work in thaw. If there’s work, hands are needed.”
Falor leaned back, ate the sausage to the end, and hiccuped. He pressed knuckles to his mouth and squinted, tears streaking down his cheek. “Why is it hotter at the end?”
“You’re supposed to eat that end first,” Tummy said. “Don’t worry. No permanent damage.”
To Mertle, Falor said between hiccups, “If that will ease your mind, certainly. You do not need to be a part of this. I haven’t recruited you to a cause. There is no obligation.”
“It is a moral obligation, Commander Falor.”
He said nothing more but looked to Quistis. She read the question in his eyes and answered with a nod. “It’s worth a try. It’s odd to have banditry at all in this time of the cycle. Getting more information before we commit to a pig chase around the forest can’t be a bad thing.”
Barlo snored himself awake so loudly that he startled all of them. He mumbled and grumbled, then titanically turned over on his other side, facing them.
“He is very loud,” Mertle stage-whispered in to them all, and grinned. “When I first saw him I was certain he was an aelir’darst raider.”
“Never say that to his face,” Falor said softly.
“I heard it. May piss in yer coffee. Tomorrow—” Barlo mumbled without opening his eyes. He turned over again, sighed, and resumed snoring.
“Ew.” Mertle scrunched up her nose, yawned, stretched. She rose and looked at Falor for a while longer. “I… thank you, Commander.”
“I haven’t honestly done anything.”
“You’ve listened. We may not agree, but you still listened.” She did a gesture that Quistis didn’t understand. Index and middle finger to her lips, then forehead, and finally the centre of her chest. “Good night,” she called before both she and Tummy headed for their bedrolls.
“What does that mean?” Quistis whispered when they were out of earshot.
“I thank you for the words you’ve gifted. I will think long on them,” Falor answered. “It’s a sign of respect.”
“An odd culture.” She’d been around elends for a long time, but they mostly acted like humans did. She rarely saw any of them display any of their own ways of expressing themselves.
“It’s not odd. It’s survivalist. Some aelir households whip their elend servants if they speak in their presence.”
“Some?”
“Too many. The less said about what else they do, the better.”
That shed some light on the conversation, now that she thought of it. What had Mertle been doing actually? The elendine acted offended and acted like a fool, but she was neither. Of that, at least, Quistis was certain. So what had all this been about?
I must be going daft, she admonished herself when realisation dawned: Mertle had gotten her separated from the rest of the group.
Quistis had been too frightened of dropping her guard that she’d become stupid. It took an effort of will not to let her jaw drop.
The elendine had secured a moment for the two of them to talk. And she could be certain Deidra wasn’t far away either. This should have been Quistis’s job to achieve, not Mertle’s.
Who are you? She had wondered on this before. Who was this elendine? And how had she become her sister’s lover? Dreea had a particular taste in women, and Mertle was nothing like any of those that had come before. For one thing, she had a wonderfully bright head on her shoulders.
“You’ve drawn in,” Falor noted. “May I?” He reached for the giudem she still hung on to.
Quistis stared at his outstretched hand without understanding for a time. Then she caught herself and handed over the horrid thing.
“Don’t tell me you like these,” she said, aghast at the prospect.
He shrugged and bit into it. “Once you get past the pain, it’s quite tasty.”
“Once your taste buds die off, you mean.” She shuddered. “It shouldn’t be legal to produce that.”
“You’re being insensitive.”
“I’m preserving my taste capacity.”
“Quis.”
“Fine, fine. You know I don’t do well with anything rougher than pepper.”
He smiled and reached over, pressing his hand over hers.
“Something’s on your mind,” he said. “And it’s not bandits.”
To her choked protest, he went on. “In your own time, Quis. I know you don’t approve of this pig chase around the forest, but I promise it’s important.”
She could only smile at his concern and nod.
I wish I could tell you just how much I trust your judgement. And how much I want to tell you everything. The irony wasn’t lost on her, and it made the night’s chill much worse. How fair would you be if you knew all I had to say?