Chapter Arkai

Killisan is ignoring the mountain of hay and chewing instead on an old boot. That fall he took could have killed us both, yet somehow I’m the one with more scratches.

The tiny stable is hopelessly crowded; with three horses squeezed inside there is not even room for an extra pony. We are lucky that this rundown inn in the back-est of back alleys of Iris has a stable at all. No one would think to look for the hero of the Realms in a hovel like this, and if no one shows up, Kathanhiel wouldn’t have to kill them.

‘It was really scary, wasn’t it?’ I ask Killisan, who is shaking his head and nipping at my sleeve. ‘Didn’t know she could be like…that. I think I’m in over my head. What do you think?’

He bites a hole in my shirt and says nothing.

‘You know how bards usually talk about this kind of stuff? “A great thrust to the heart!” “Thus the blade its skull parted in two!” Sounds silly now, doesn’t it? People who sing stuff like that have never…never…’

Never taken down the body of an old recruiter that had been nailed to a tree. Never witnessed a hero slaughter fifty people in five minutes.

Killisan tosses his mane wisely, and tries to eat my belt. The attempt is partially successful.

I walk into Haylis’ room without knocking so she doesn’t get to ignore me. She shoots me a poisonous look from under the sheets, and puts her arms over the wet spots around her head.

‘Had the stable boy buy these.’ I set the bowl of dates in front of her. ‘Better pay me back later.’

She blinks. ’You got them for ?’

‘For sharing.’

She starts picking her nose. ‘You’re just trying to be nice.’

I grab her hand and put it in the bowl instead. ‘What’s the difference between that and actually being nice?’

After pondering that for a moment she takes a date. ‘How is she?’

‘Just about to check on her again.’

Suddenly she drops her head into the bowl like it’s a wash basin. ‘I was so stupid! So stupid!! Setting up camps…might as well put giant signs telling everyone where she’d be every night. And for what? A…a mattress! I almost got us killed because I wanted to sleep on a nice mattress!’

The entire bed trembles as Haylis hammers her fists on the frame as if she’s trying to fly.

‘That’s not your fault,’ I say without really meaning it. ‘We all agreed to it, so it’s not on you.’

As her face re-emerges from the bowl I count four dates rolling in her mouth – no, five. Somehow she is still intelligible, talking through them: ‘It didn’t even matter though, in the end. She just waved her sword and so many…they all just…’ She mimes brushing dirt off her shoulders.

So glad I’m not the only one disturbed by that. ‘Should we...talk her about it?’

‘What? Are you crazy? Why?’

‘So that we can...um...help her...I don’t know...’

She gives me look that reads We sit in silence for a while, then she snatches up seven dates in a blitz and shoves them into her mouth all at once. I try to slap her wrist and miss by a mile.

Afternoon rolls by; it’s time to check on Kathanhiel again. She has not left her room since we got here three days ago.

I knock on her door. ‘My lady, I’ve brought something to cool you down.’

‘Come in.’

She’s standing by the open window in a sleeveless gown, hugging the breeze. Sweat is draining – no, – out of her skin with unnatural intensity; there is a sizable puddle around her feet, and she has the wet look of having just came out the bath. Of the six barrels of water lined up by her bed, each holding enough to fill a feed trough, two are now empty. The big mug normally used to hold mead sits dry and unused on the corner table; when she drinks she simply picks up a barrel and knocks it down straight.

‘I’m afraid I need you to wipe my back again,’ she says. ‘My apologies. This is most unseemly, but stagnant sweat gives rashes…’

‘N-not at all.’

This was all supposed to be Haylis’ job, but after her dropping clean linen on the floor then nonchalantly picking it up and trying to use it again, it is now mine. No big deal. Just Kathanhiel in a silk gown, covered in sweat, heating baking off her body, and me wiping her skin while she’s half naked. No big deal.

Five minutes of working in awkward silence later, I remember why I knocked on her door in the first place.

‘I…I bought some ice. Tribute caravan happened to be in town and I thought – winter is coming anyway so…’

She looks around. ‘You’ve the right to utilise my finances, Kastor. One could say it’s your duty to spend my money.’

Seeing up close the ghastly red all the way up her right arm makes spending seven hundred crowns on solid water seem a bit more reasonable. Using Kaishen’s power has given her a strange fever – not the sickly sort, but more like…an overwhelming vitality. Pretty sure human bodies are not supposed to be this hot for this long – sooner or later there will be some averse reaction. For now though, Kathanhiel seems perfectly fine apart from the sweating. She refuses to let people see her like this though. Understandable.

As I wrap the ice around her arm a sigh of pure pleasure runs from her lips. Her face, glistening with drops of sweat, is so close that her eyelashes could be counted strand by strand if they weren’t so stuck together. The heat radiating from her skin is intense but not at all hostile; if anything, it feels kind of…intimate…

‘Kastor?’

My eyes slam shut faster than the wings of a hummingbird.

‘S-s-s-sorry my lady. I didn’t mean to – it doesn’t look like what it looks like –’

‘You’re uncomfortable with intimacy.’ Her lips are wiggling. ‘If we’re to work together on the road –’

‘No it’s – well yes, but no – I’m just not used to…uh…’

Kathanhiel looks me in the eye and says, with a completely straight face: ‘You’re my esquire. You can bed half the women in this town with that.’

My brain is suddenly clucking with the chorus of a thousand angry roosters.

‘I don’t…want to…that’s too many at once.’

She freezes as if Bobby just grew a pair of wings and flew off. Two fat beads of sweat drip from her eyebrows and splatters onto her lap like meteors.

Then she starts laughing, not a “that was rather amusing” but an explosion. She doubles over, whooping and choking, her ice-wrapped arm making a hailstorm as she slaps the bed so hard a beam breaks and makes a dent in the floorboard.

I stare. ‘Um…my lady?’

‘My – my apologies this is so very rude of me I don’t know what –’ A snort, one right out of Haylis’ nose, ‘– what came over me it’s been so very long since I’ve laughed like a – like a – my dear Kastor, perhaps – perhaps it’s best we leave this conversation for another time, lest I am slain.’

‘As…as you wish.’

‘Rest easy. Perhaps after our quest concludes I’ll teach you a thing or two, if you desire it,’ she pauses, then adds solemnly, ‘and if by the mercy of the Maker I live to see that day.’

A knock from the door. ‘Aunt Kath, are you alright? Is he being a pervert?’ Haylis. What perfect timing. The stars have surely aligned for you to arrive this very moment.

‘Kastor is just cheering me up,’ Kathanhiel calls out. ‘Who’s that with you?’

‘Who? No one’s with –’ then Haylis screams.

Kathanhiel looks perfectly relaxed as she pulls on her gown. ‘Arkai, it is indecent to sneak up on women.’

The door opens and Haylis hops inside, the dagger in her hand missing its blade.

In the doorway stands the most handsome man I have ever seen: sweeping black hair tied back in a ponytail, flying brows, eagle eyes radiating confidence and unsubtle menace. He wears the black cloak of the Ink Scouts – uniform of the King’s agents – and boy is he born into it.

His voice, quiet but resonating, sounds even better than his looks. ‘Vigilant as ever, my lady. Curious place to meet. Hard to find.’

Kathanhiel clears her throat. ‘Kastor, Haylis, this is spymaster Arkai, vice-commander of Fort Iborus, head of the Northern Dispatch, and my comrade since the days of Elisaad.’

We both bow, Haylis pulling a face while doing so.

‘Interesting esquires, these two,’ he addresses Kathanhiel but looks at me. ‘I do not pretend to understand your choices, but on the Elisaad campaign you had the Champion of the Games.’

Kathanhiel’s face – so filled with laughter a moment ago – turns to stone. ‘You will not remind me of him,’ she says.

‘When the sword has put you in such a state in mere days, I’ve a right to question.’

‘That is neither required nor welcome.’

‘I speak for your own good.’

‘Need I remind you that you’re here to tell us about the dragon brood and not the merits of your personal judgement?’

A moment of silence, then Arkai shakes his head, ponytail swinging. ‘Why must we always fight when we meet? Not so long ago you would’ve been glad to see me.’

’I glad, Arkai. Just mind your own business.’

I offer him a seat, but he opts instead sit down beside Kathanhiel on her bed. From a hidden pocket he extracts a crystal vial filled with clear liquid.

‘So soon? Is that wise?’ Kathanhiel asks.

‘Iborus is in danger,’ Arkai replies, nodding as her eyes go wide. ‘We’ll need to hurry.’

Sewn onto his belt are little leather compartments, each holding a powder of some sort. He dips into one with his little finger, then taps his nail on the neck of the vial, releasing the fine grains stuck underneath. A chemist, as well as vice-commander and whatnot. Excellent.

Not a minute after Kathanhiel downs the liquid the redness on her arm begins to fade. Taking off his own cloak Arkai wraps it around her shoulders. ‘Make yourselves useful, the two of you,’ he says. ‘Kastor, go prepare the bath. Haylis, tell the innkeeper to start work in the kitchen. I’ve a squad on the way.’

How kind of him to get me back into scrubbing floors.

The bath in the basement takes two back-breaking hours to clean, during which the innkeeper had the gall to poke his nose in and ask if I needed any help. No sir, your fine establishment is unique in its offering that the guests get to clean out the bath themselves, and it would be remiss for me not to thoroughly partake in what is bound to be your most popular tourist attraction. By the way, why is your inn doing so poorly? Ah, the state of the economy, yes of course.

After that it’s off to the kitchen, where two cooks (both older than my grandad) plus the stable boy are trying frantically to cook for the thirty Ink Scouts that had showed up unannounced.

No one pays any mind as I stroll in, fire up a stove, and grab an armful of vegetables from the pantry. Just another little person, going about his business.

Haylis barges in during my attempt to make a stew and a stir fry at the same time, and instead of helping, starts whining about how she’s being given the run-around as if – surprise – esquires are supposed to be constantly working. The sentence “I didn’t sign the stupid contract” comes up twice a minute, and despite all the banging and shouting (as befit a kitchen) she just keeps on talking and talking and talking.

‘…and the minute I sit down he tells me to go pick up sandals! Sandals! When it’s raining all day every day! Where am I supposed to get those? And what kind of dragon slayer wears sandals? If I’d known he was coming I’d never have come along in the first place. He orders me around as if I’ve signed the stupid contract –’

’Why you come along?’ I yell at her above the browning onions.

‘What?’

‘I mean I…I’d understand if you don’t want to keep going anymore.’

‘Are you kidding? Aunt Kath needs me. I know the little giants.’

‘What?’

‘I KNOW THE LITTLE GIANTS.’

‘Yeah I heard you, but what?!’

‘I speak their language and my family owns a third of their coach business. If she needs to talk to them I’ll have to be there.’

‘Oh…that makes sense.’

We will probably end up hiring one of their coaches sooner or later; it’s the fastest way to travel by a large margin. Striking a deal with the little giants isn’t easy though, since there is a quirk to learning their language that stops most people from trying: one must be born with the ability to hear low pitches – really, low, that kind that shake bones and clatter teeth.

‘I find your surprise offensive,’ she says glumly.

‘No it’s…it’s actually the most sensible thing I’ve heard in a while.’

’Alright then. So why are here?’

Here the conversation stops, because I couldn’t come up with a single reason. Kathanhiel certainly doesn’t need help with fighting – fifty trained assassins couldn’t put a scratch on her. Despite her “fever” she’s perfectly capable of doing everything herself. What else? I suppose she does need someone else to clean out the bath; having the hero of the Realms scrubbing the tub just doesn’t seem right.

Maybe that’s why she chose me: I make a good servant.

Ah…that’s depressing. Can’t think about that.

‘Kastor? Kastor! The stew!’

Bubbling liquid is very effective at breaking trances. So are boils.

I finish clearing the table as night falls. Arkai goes to stand by the door as Kathanhiel lights up a roll of incense and beckons us over. ‘I’d hoped to spend more time in rest but…Arkai has bought ill news; the urgency of our quest is now such that there can be no more delay. We will leave at first light and ride for the enclave of the little giants. I aim to be on their coach and moving by midday.’

She takes out a stack of sealed letters and hands them to me. ‘Have the stable hand deliver these after we leave. One of them is receipt for your salary, as I’ll have little currency left at hand after paying for the coach. Your family can use it to claim the appropriate amount from the treasury. I hope this is acceptable.’

‘Of course my lady. I’m – I’m the one who spent all your money on the ice. If I’d known you’d be getting –’

‘The suppressant is very harsh medicine, one that puts me back on the road at a cost. If I had the luxury of healing naturally I would, but there is no more time.’ She’s combing her hair, rubbing chrysanthemum oil on her face, and addressing to us at the same time. ‘Kastor, are you paying attention?’

‘Yes my lady.’

‘You too Haylis.’

‘Yes Aunt Kath.’

‘The dragon brood has come south a season sooner than we expected. Garrisons between Iborus and the Ford have been systematically destroyed. To move so precisely a brood of thousands despite the coming of winter is far beyond the capability of Elisaad, who knew only to raze whatever it laid eyes on; this means that Rutherford is capable of exerting much greater control over the dragons than his predecessor.’

She speaks of these things with calm deliberation, like reciting passages from a dull book.

‘Iborus is already under siege. The fortress exists for the sole purpose of drawing the dragons’ attention so they are kept from roaming elsewhere. If we are to seek Rutherford without constantly having to fend off the brood, Iborus must survive. We must make it survive.’

‘The Mirror Phalanx will hold,’ Arkai speaks up, ‘if only because we’ve no other choice. It’ll be several months before the King sends reinforcements.’

Kathanhiel scoffs. ’

he sees the urgency. Ever since Elisaad I’ve petitioned for…but I digress. The coach of the little giants can get us there in under two week if we take the Highway: high visibility and high risk. A ferry from the Ford will be relatively safe, but I don’t doubt that Rutherford will force the brood on us anyway, and we will have to fend them off while riding turbulent waters on a wooden hull.’

Kathanhiel stops for a moment to grab Kaishen from beside her bed. The sword is sheathed now, but ever since that night it has never truly dimmed; the reddish, ember-like glow is noticeable even now.

‘I propose a compromise,’ she says. ‘We begin together on the coach, and part ways at the Ford. I shall draw their attention on the highway while the rest of you take to the river. By the time your ferry reaches Iborus I should already have the Mirrors ready and fortress secured.’

Haylis opens up her mouth before I can mine, but Kathanhiel raises a hand. ‘I shall be forthcoming: I can defend myself more ably if I am alone. If your argument involves only baseless sentiment then I shan’t hear it.’

‘Why did you bring us at all, if we’re just burdens?’ I ask. The question came out all by itself. It wouldn’t have if she didn’t just suggest taking on the dragon brood by herself. What are esquires for if at the first sign of an enemy they just pack up and leave?

Kathanhiel looks at me. ‘It is imperative that you survive, Kastor.’

But…but…’

Kaishen ‘It is not the place of an esquire to question, only to follow,’ says Arkai. I want to tell him to shut his mouth but of course only silence comes out.

Haylis speaks up: ‘I’m staying on the coach with you, Aunt Kath. It’s the only place I’ll be useful.’

Kathanhiel shakes her head. ‘I told you –’

’And I told , on the very first day, that I come and go as I please and you don’t get to decide for me. I’m staying with you.’

‘Haylis, dear, don’t be stubborn. Now’s not a good time.’

Her chair tips over. Haylis gets up all red-faced. ’I know you don’t like me, but can’t you at least pretend the way pretends?’ She jabs her finger at me. ‘Kastor is an idiot but at least he makes an effort. You…you don’t make an effort at all. Can’t you tell I care about you? What am I doing here if you just want me to go away and take a stupid boat?’

Silence.

‘I know I’ve messed up,’ she adds quietly, ‘but I can do better. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.’

Her eyes are swimming with tears; these past few days must have been tough. Sorry I’ve been so rude to you Haylis. Don’t think I’ll ever get over the nose picking and the constant jibes and the idiotic way you talk and the…but I shan’t make fun of you anymore. You deserve better.

Kathanhiel’s eyes shift to her lap. ‘You’re right, you didn’t sign the contract so I’ve no right to…so be it, if you wish you may stay on the coach. Arkai, may I still count on you?’

Arkai nods, clearly not because he wants to but because Kathanhiel is the one asking, ‘though I don’t know why I should bother, I shall see to Kastor’s safety aboard the ferry.’

‘Then it is settled. Go to bed, both of you. We’ve a long journey ahead.’