Page 21 of Fate of the Argosi

‘Complacent,’ Chedran said, the hunger for violence in him so strong he was practically smacking his lips. ‘They know they’ve more than enough time to ride down the children. They’ll cling to the comforts of their tower until the last moment.’ He glanced up at the position of the moon in the sky, then back at the flickering light barely visible through one of the slatted windows of the tower. ‘There’s been no movement for an hour, which means they’re asleep. Jan’Tep mages are too lazy and arrogant to set a sentry, and their concentration is weak when newly roused. If we attack now, we can slit their throats befo—’

‘I didn’t come here to slit nobody’s throat. Ain’t plannin’ on letting you do so either.’

We had argued this point so many times on the way here, I was pretty sure he only kept bringing it up to annoy me. Guess I was doing likewise. Enna used to say that the simplest lessons are the hardest to teach. Killing leads to more killing; every ounce of blood you spill stains the ground at your feet, flowing into a path that goes in only one direction. Seems obvious as a toothache to me now, but it had taken a while – and nearly cost Enna her life – for me to finally grasp that unbending law.

Chedran turned to me, the belligerence in his gaze giving way to a challenging stare that said:If you were Mahdek, you’d do what it takes to defend those children.

This was just another kind of mesmerism to him. Another tactic to tear down my convictions. Wouldn’t be hard to get lost in those dark eyes of his, especially when part of you couldn’t help but believe he was right. Too bad he hated the Argosi so much; he might’ve made a good one, what with all his cunning, courage and even that blunt eloquence that made you think he was the one speaking the truth, while everyone else was just playing with words. I’ll bet he would’ve been happier if he’d followed the Argosi ways, maybe called himself the Path of Boundless Steps or the Path of Copper Smiles.

The ugly truth was that love would forever keep Chedran from those brighter roads. Even as an exile, his intense, unrequited love of our people remained the yoke across his shoulders, the shackles around his ankles that yanked him back every time. I had to admit, there was something noble about his unwavering devotion. Chedran was Mahdek in a way that I could never be. He revered our culture and embodied our heritage; bled from every cut we’d suffered, seethed over every slur we’d ever been called. All of it –allof it – made him proud.

I guess I reallyhadabandoned my people seven years ago after Sir Rosarite and Sir Gervaise had rescued me from the Jan’Tep coven that had massacred my clan. They’d given me a nice home, put me in a fine school – I still remembered all my comportment lessons from Master Phinus – and offered a life to which I’d taken as if I’d never known another. After their kindness had seen them murdered by the Jan’Tep mage who’d tattooed that collar on me, I’d wandered aimlessly through the Seven Sands until at last I’d met Durral Brown, and he’d shown me you don’t need a destination to have a path. Never once had I tried to find another Mahdek family to take me in. Never once had I considered the debt I owed the clan into which I’d been born.

Was that what had me out here, staring through the darkness at some old ruined tower, risking my neck to protect a bunch of Mahdek runaways, yet refusing to kill on their behalf? Holding tight to the Argosi ways and my own path, yet desperate to prove to Chedran that I hadn’t abandoned the people who’d given me life?

‘Ruminations are a fine way to pass a lazy afternoon,’Durral used to tell me.‘Problem is, they tug you into the past so you can worry about the future, and by the time you’ve figured out you’ve been ruminating too long, someone else has decided the future for you.’

‘Damn it,’ I swore, shaking off my stupor. This is why the Argosi say that guilt, shame and grief are three words for wasted love: because they don’t do nobody any good and all too often trap you inside your own regrets.

‘What’s wrong?’ Arissa asked, pulling her horse close to mine. Her eyes were glazed, unfocused.

Guess he’d gotten to her too. I leaped off Quadlopo’s back and landed quietly on the soft ground – though not nearly so quiet as Chedran had been after he’d mesmerised me and Arissa.

She snapped out of it, glanced around and then swore in at least three languages that I was pretty sure she didn’t speak. She was so pissed off I could hear her footfalls as she followed me through the forest towards the tower. Too late now for philosophical debate or crisis of conscience. Chedran had decided for us that when it came to protecting the lives of twelve innocent kids whose only crime was the blood that ran in their veins, spilling someone else’s was just the cost of doing business.

Ruminations. They’ll get you every time.

13

The Climb

Silver-barked birch trees tall as oaks encroached on the grey tower’s domain – a ponderous siege fought across decades. Thick roots had displaced the foundations, tilting the three-storey building to one side as branches poked through cracks in crumbling mortar already weakened by vines wrapped like garrottes around the stone structure.

The three of us climbed in silence towards an upper window whose wooden slats had long ago rotted to jagged teeth. I couldn’t help but wonder who had built this long-abandoned stronghold, and for what purpose. Had sentries once stood upon its parapet to keep watch against Berabesq incursions from the south? Had pilgrims travelled here for quiet contemplation? What if these weary fortifications had once housed a grand library where books from every nation inspired scholars and diplomats from across the continent?

Chedran, who ascended the outer wall faster than either Arissa or I could keep up with, would no doubt have insisted the question was pointless. Whichever architects and masons had erected this tower were long dead, the aspirations they’d nurtured rendered irrelevant by the crumbling remains of their labours. Maybe I should’ve shared that view; wistful nostalgia isn’t a virtue espoused by the Argosi. And yet I couldn’t help but wonder what right any of us had to trample blood and mayhem across the ruins of someone else’s dream.

Night was fading fast, but dawn was still an hour away by the time we’d reached the top and squeezed ourselves between the busted wooden slats of the partially collapsed window Chedran had picked as our entry point. Moonlight seeped through the gaps left by crumbling mortar all around us, lending an eerie gleam to Chedran’s self-satisfied grin. He had good cause to be pleased with himself.

The roof above us looked sturdy enough, but the wooden beams supporting the top and middle levels must’ve rotted away years ago, giving us a clear view of the ground floor below where six mages slept on silk bedrolls around a cosy fire. No sentries, no telltale scents of the sorts of spells Jan’Tep mages sometimes use to ward against intruders. A grey haze hung heavy in the air thanks to the excess moisture and dust inside the tower, a welcome boost to the shadows that would help us sneak down the inner walls before the mages had any idea their sanctuary had been infiltrated.

‘Two each,’ Chedran said in a whisper so quiet that, even perched right next to him on the remnants of a rafter, I’d barely heard a thing. He brought a finger across his neck, his way of conveying that the obvious move was to slit their throats. Mages don’t do so well uttering their incantations when they’re choking on their own blood.

When I signalled my refusal, he tried to lock eyes with me. I made sure the moonlight glinted off one of my steel throwing cards so he’d be in no doubt as to what would happen if he tried to mesmerise me.

Arissa though, she put a hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear, ‘He’s right, Rat Girl. Too many of them, too few of us. Only chance is to do this ugly work quick and clean.’

Nothing clean about it.

Twelve Mahdek runaways. Six Jan’Tep mages. Three bloodthirsty killers. One lousy result. The same old arithmetic of violence I’d sworn never to let rule my life again.

‘Your equation is incorrect, that-which-once-called-itself-Ferius,’the Scarlet Verses informed me.

‘Shut the hells up. Last thing I need right now is advice from a homicidal language plague.’

‘Heed us,’they hissed insistently.‘You fail to underst—’

I shoved them away, sending my thoughts in a whirl that gave me a headache but spared me having to listen to their vile tactical suggestions. As they often reminded me, the Scarlet Verses were capable of strategic insights far beyond my own feeble understanding of warfare. Funny to think that I was probably carrying around more military genius in my thick skull than a hundred Daroman generals. Too bad all that shrewdness was good for was spreading madness and mayhem.

---