The Hickory Staff

THE PICKET LINE

Mark watched the sun come up. Its glow shone through the branches with a comforting predictability. He stoked their campfire, drew a large packet of tecan leaves from his sack and began brewing a pot as the grey colours of pre-dawn magically gave way to the myriad hues of autumn. Red maple, yellow oak and fiery aspen mixed with the stolid evergreens to create a morning palate so picturesque he could almost taste it. Far behind him winter raged about the Blackstones: he could just make out the craggy white, grey and black peaks jutting above the horizon like the spiked backbone of an ancient dragon. Mark inhaled the essence of a Falkan autumn, chill despite the sun.

He hummed quietly to himself, pleased he could hear again. Two days after the battle on the underground lake Steven remained unconscious – he had taken a tremendous blow to the head, and then nearly drowned beneath the weight of the dead bone-collector – but Mark thought he might wake soon. After hauling Steven into the longboat, Mark had cleared his friend’s lungs and restarted his heart with a flurry of blows. Steven’s nose had bled for a while, and he’d coughed up a few mouthfuls of blood, but by the end of the first night, his condition had improved markedly. Fearing concussion, they had taken turns waking him periodically to answer simple questions, and he had given groggy but accurate answers each time.

Mark wondered if the staff’s magic had been helping Steven’s recovery: it seemed to him that the magic had somehow permeated Steven’s body and now refused to allow him to die. There was no other way Steven could have survived the bone-collector’s attack. Mark worried for a moment about how he would manage the transition to life in back in Colorado then, catching himself, he stifled a laugh. ‘Too far ahead, dummy. First things first.’

He poured himself a mug and winced as he took a seat beside a maple tree. Gita had applied querlis to his injured stomach before Hall had neatly stitched the loose flaps of skin back together – he was a cobbler, and skilled with a needle and thread. Mark ran the flat of his palm across the scar: very neat. Breathing the fresh sea air, he let his thoughts wander back to his dream. With everything that had happened, he’d had no time to think about Nerak’s possible weakness.

He let his mind drift back in time.

The rosewood box lay on Steven’s desk in the corner of their living room. The tapestry was stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace – they’d pushed the coffee table back against the couch to make room for it. Mark would never forget the shimmer that played in the air, or the tiny flecks of coloured light that danced about like a wellspring of magic and energy emanating from the far portal.

Afraid that the tapestry was radioactive, they’d planned to hurry back to Owen’s Pub and call the police – or perhaps a geologist, or a radiation expert. But they never made it: as Steven rushed down the hallway to grab Mark’s coat from the kitchen, Mark stood up and tripped on the hearth. As he stumbled, he planted one foot firmly on the tapestry – and an instant later it had come down in a shallow stream running into the ocean south of Rona’s forbidden forest.

Beside the fire, Brynne stirred, roused by the aroma of tecan. She lifted her head and sniffed, and looked around for Mark; he gave her a quick, reassuring wave and was pleased when she smiled and rolled back over. She was obviously still as tired as she looked: she was asleep again almost immediately.

The beach in Estrad had been hot and humid: Mark had pulled off his sweater and boots. He had spent much of that night mapping the unfamiliar constellations in the sand, poking holes to mirror the heavens. None of the patterns were even remotely familiar, even after racking his brain to recall any obscure Scandinavian, African, or South American star shapes. And there were two moons. Nothing could explain that away. Mark remembered leaving his star map to wade through the cool ocean water as it pushed and pulled at his legs.

With every group of stars he drew on Rona’s sedimentary canvas, his hopes for a sensible explanation had waned. By the time he fell asleep, he had accepted that either he was dead, or something impossible had happened.

But had he dreamed that night? He turned the question over and over in his mind, but had to give up. He had no idea. But something about that night continued to play about in his memory. He’d been half drunk. He remembered looking around for cigarette butts, cans or wrappers and finding nothing, and he remembered sitting down heavily in the sand and digging parallel ruts in the ground with his heels, something he always did when he sat in sand. He had done it that night.

That was it. Not a dream, but a memory. What had he been thinking about while he sat there digging his heels into the sand? What had he remembered – and why was it important? It was important: it was the only time in those early days in Eldarn when he was not frightened, when he had not cared that he had gone from Idaho Springs, Colorado, to Estrad Beach in Who-the-Hell-Knew-Where? For those few moments, he was back on Jones Beach with his family and things were fine. He was safe.

A flood of memories washed over him: he was staring out at the twin moons hovering overhead, recalling his father, the large yellow beach umbrella and the summer days on Jones Beach. His father would sit in a folding lawn chair drinking beer. Mark had been drunk when he arrived in Eldarn, drunk on beer he and Steven had consumed over a pizza – so why was that important? And why had he felt completely at home on that beach, not ten minutes after the most profound and unusual experience of his entire life? He had fallen through a crack in the universe, had found himself in another world – maybe even another time – and an errant memory had brought him peace.

It meant something, but he was missing the point. His father sitting on Jones Beach, drinking beer and eating ham sandwiches: that was the dream and the recollection. Mark sat on a beach in Estrad digging ruts in the sand with his heels. He had dug ruts in the sand as a child. The beach? The beer? His father.

‘Sonofabitch,’ Mark cried and leaped to his feet, spilling his tecan over his sweater. ‘ Lessek! ’ He was not missing an important lesson, he was missing a message: Lessek was trying to tell him something. Mark sat down and ordered himself to start again at the beginning.

It took two days for the small company to reach the outskirts of Orindale. They had been forced to take cover a number of times to avoid occupation forces patrolling the roads; thankfully, the horses could be heard thundering towards them from a great distance. Garec finally suggested they leave the road and use a parallel path through the forest, slower, but with less risk of being spotted. That night they huddled in a thick clump of trees. The Twinmoon was nearly complete and in the northern sky the two glowing bodies appeared to merge into one. The winds began to blow off the ocean with a fury: the tides would be high.

North lay the Malakasian army lines, their fortifications and trenches circling the city. Gita had not exaggerated: there were tens of thousands of soldiers. The light from their fires lit the horizon, like a great swathe of stars fallen to the ground. The random flickering gave the city the illusion of motion. The ocean breeze blew the smells of the army – smoke, grilled meat and open latrines – into the thicket where the friends were hiding. From this distance it was impossible to determine which platoons were Seron and which were traditional soldiers, but it made no real difference: one look was enough to tell them their tiny band of ragged freedom fighters would need an Abrams tank to break through those lines. Steven rubbed his temples. He was still getting headaches after his confrontation with the bone-collector, but this one was noticeably weaker: he hoped that was a good sign.

He remembered virtually nothing after the moment the Cthulhoid cavern dweller attacked him. He had a hazy recollection of Gita’s hideout, a large granite cave located somewhere near the surface, but he had no memory of either the fight or the journey through the upper caves to the Falkan forest beyond.

He was back in his tweed jacket. It had been washed, and covered a trimly cut tunic he assumed had come from the partisans. He felt clean and presentable for the first time in months. Garec’s quivers were filled and even Mark’s red sweater had scrubbed up nicely. Their packs were stuffed with dried fruit, smoked meat, bread and cheese and each skin was filled to bursting with a sweet Falkan wine that reminded Steven of a vintage Tokaji. Mark had a pouch of tecan leaves. Steven smiled: were it not for the thousands of enemy warriors encamped several hundred paces away, they might have been on an autumn camping trip.

They had approached the shore carefully: Garec and Mark had been wary of mounted patrols, while Steven could not help scanning the skies for the clouds of deadly mist Hall had described so vividly. Just before sundown they had spotted several of the deadly clouds massed over the Malakasian fortifications, quiet sentries hovering threateningly overhead like an Old Testament nightmare. Steven shuddered at the thought of battling the nebulous enemy.

There were two major roads running into the city from the east, both heavily guarded, with regular checkpoints. They had no chance of getting into Orindale that way.

Gita had told them about the large park in the centre of the city, once the private garden of the Falkan royal family, with the imperial palace, now a Malakasian military outpost, on the eastern edge. The former palace was a grand edifice, a three-storey building flanked by servants’ quarters, stables, gardeners’ sheds and livery, each painted the same pale beige. The doors were made of mahogany and opulently gilded bas-reliefs marked the keystones and window lintels. Since the collapse of Falkan’s government beneath the heel of Prince Marek’s dictatorial boot, the imperial complex had been allowed to fall into disrepair and now, like Riverend Palace in Estrad, there was only the vaguest resemblance to the majestic compound it had once been.

The river that had been both their lifeline and nearly their death disappeared between two enormous sentry fires some thousand paces north of their hiding place, cutting a watery path through the imperial garden and on into the Ravenian Sea. It was much wider and deeper here than in Meyers’ Vale, when it had so thoroughly battered the Capina Fair and her unhappy passengers.

As tempted as Steven had been to risk a night-time approach along the river, he realised that was too foolhardy. He was quite sure the Malakasians had been as thorough in closing down the river as they had been with the roads: they might not be able to see from here, but there would be barges lined with archers, and a series of sunken obstacles to inhibit the progress of enemy ships. And apart from staying very low in the water and hoping they would not be seen, Steven was not plagued by creative ideas as to how they would use the river for safe passage, anyway.

Mark’s suggestion, to stow away on one of the merchant vessels that appeared to move largely unaccosted through the checkpoints, was shouted down too: if their vessel were searched, they’d be cornered. In the end, with the surf pounding away endlessly, a cacophonous backdrop to their plotting, they agreed the beach would have to be their way in.

With this decision made, Garec insisted everyone study the roads and the river, in case they had to make a hasty retreat out of the city.

‘Good point, Garec,’ Steven agreed, ‘but we need somewhere to meet up if we get separated.’

‘Get back to the partisan cave and wait there,’ the bowman replied.

‘That won’t work for me.’ Steven shook his head. ‘I didn’t see enough of it to know where it is.’

‘But you remember our camp,’ Mark suggested. ‘Let’s at least get back there.’

Brynne pulled a wool blanket about her shoulders. ‘We should try to find a safe place in the city.’ Her breath formed small clouds that faded quickly on the breeze. ‘It’s a long way back to our camp.’

‘She’s right,’ Steven agreed. ‘Let’s hope Gita’s safe havens are still safe. She was pretty convinced those that had escaped the gaze of the Malakasian occupation were foolproof. ‘‘Hide in plain view’’, she said.’

‘Her hideouts make me nervous,’ Mark admitted. ‘I’m not convinced that woman is entirely committed to her own self-preservation.’

‘Chicken,’ Steven teased.

‘Well, think about it,’ Mark argued, ‘a Malakasian warehouse?’

‘She said the merchant was at sea,’ Garec replied, ‘which is why the place is empty.’

Brynne joined in. ‘And he moors his ship right offshore, so we’d have a good three avens’ warning if he came back.’

Mark suggested Hall’s cobbler’s shop. ‘We could hole up there, be warm, eat real food and sleep someplace dry.’

‘That’s the one that makes me nervous,’ Brynne said. ‘A Malakasian sympathiser as a landlord? At least we know the merchant is gone until the ship appears on the horizon. Hall’s landlord would be right next door, underfoot all day. I don’t know.’

Mark shrugged. ‘It’s certainly hiding in plain view.’

‘And it appears to have worked just fine for Hall,’ Garec agreed.

Brynne was unimpressed. ‘I still think the warehouse is our best bet.’ She looked pleadingly at the others. ‘And who knows what supplies or weapons might be there for the taking.’

‘True enough,’ said Steven.

‘We’d have to keep watch round the clock,’ Mark said, working through his strategy. ‘That way we’d be sure to see them if they come into harbour.’

‘And we’d hear anyone coming into the warehouse from the city.’ Garec added.

‘All right then.’ Brynne finally smiled. ‘That’s where we’ll go.’

‘And assuming it’s not breached, that’s where we’ll rendezvous if we get separated.’

‘Done.’ Garec adjusted his quivers with a sense of finality. ‘It’s dark enough now. Let’s go.’

The dunes rolled away, ranks of rogue waves frozen in place. The two moons illuminated the ghostly no-man’s land through which the killer moved stealthily, inching his way north on his stomach towards the distant city. It was difficult to discern where the stalker ended and the surrounding darkness began. Patience was one of his weapons. The Falkan partisans had come against these Malakasian lines with a force of thousands and had been routed easily, but could they do so with just one man? The few sentries standing guard this far west had no idea he was there; he would make that their fatal mistake.

Garec slid another few paces forward through the sand.

Gilmour had been positive that Nerak couldn’t detect the magic of Steven’s hickory staff, but this close, no one was willing to take that risk. Steven would refrain from using magic until it became absolutely necessary – hopefully, not before they were aboard the Prince Marek. Garec wasn’t sure how far behind him they were now; he tried not to worry. He had told them to wait two full avens before following.

‘Besides, we won’t need magic tonight,’ Garec whispered silently to himself. He slithered to the top of a shallow gully between two dunes and stopped to check the wind’s direction. Approaching from downwind had saved his life that morning in the forbidden forest so long ago, when he and Renna had fled from the grettan pack. He smiled at the thought of Renna; he hoped she had survived the attack on Seer’s Peak.

Around him the misty ocean spray blanketed him in a damp shroud. The length and breadth of his world fell in about him and shrank to the few paces separating him from the Malakasian soldiers guarding the beach behind three large picket fires. The Bringer of Death felt neither hunger, nor thirst, nor fatigue as he crawled forward, unseen. His senses were sharp, his heart rate quick but strong. His hands were steady. From where he lay, he could see six or seven Malakasian guards idling about the fires, drinking wine, while what smelled like steaks were cooking over the coals.

They would all be dead in a few moments. Garec knew he would regret killing them later, but he had to see his friends safely into Orindale, and this was the only way to do that. He must be quick: he had just a breath or two to silence every soldier on the beach. Arrows through the neck would be the only way to keep them from raising the alarm, but six of them? Seven? He had never attempted anything that difficult. As he lay there, feeling the salty spray of the ocean on his face, he considered summoning Steven forward to wipe them all out with one sweep of the staff – but no. He could do it. He could make the shots.

He would wait another half an aven: they were drinking and eating and would grow sleepy soon. A couple might even return to their encampment further east in the dunes; that would even the odds a little. It was a good two hundred paces to their tents: Garec was sure the pounding waves would mask any sound of trouble.

‘Go on,’ he encouraged, ‘go on back to camp. Get some sleep.’ He licked his lips, surprised at how dry they were in the mist, pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head, and settled in to wait.

Private Fallon trundled slowly up the beach, grabbed a chunk of driftwood from the dwindling stack thrown carelessly in a pile and turned back to join the others. He had been with this platoon for a Moon now and had hustled about his duties in hopes of earning the respect of his fellow soldiers. It had not worked. Instead, the sergeants simply had given him more to do, more menial tasks, more late-night duties, while the other soldiers had ridiculed him mercilessly. ‘Fallon, you rutting fool,’ they chided, ‘why such a hurry? Is there a war going on somewhere you’re missing?’ They had all laughed at his expense; when he had tried to join in, hoping his ability to laugh at himself might make them like him, they had bullied him mercilessly. Now here he was, posted two avens’ march from the closest action – not that that had been much, just a skirmish against a band of local ruffians. Prince Malagon’s Special Forces had taken care of that by themselves.

The officers told them little. Dig in. Stand your post. That was it. They had no idea what was happening. There were rumours of a huge Falkan and Ronan resistance force crossing the Black-stones in the east, but Private Fallon believed the Malakasian Army was stretched out around the city for no other reason than to feed Prince Malagon’s ego. He snorted: some prince! Travelling in that huge, cumbersome ship, the Prince Marek – and it was all black, black rigging, black sails, black flags. What message was he trying to send anyway? Was he planning to outlaw colours next? He never gave the troops anything, not even a wave: his own army and he never acknowledged them, never lowered the curtains of that black carriage for one moment to smile or salute. He just climbed in, all robes and secrets, ordered the driver east to that broken-down Falkan family palace and sequestered himself there with his generals and admirals.

Private Fallon spat in the sand and imagined the prince warm beside a fireplace, sipping vintage wine from a fine crystal glass while he was out here, the least popular soldier in the entire battalion, forced to haul firewood all night along a flank that couldn’t be reached by all the combined military forces ever assembled in the Eastlands.

Tonight he had cleaned the pots, cut stakes and polished the lieutenant’s boots. Now he was on firewood duty. He was sick of being the platoon’s lackey and he deliberately picked up just one log from the stack at his feet then sauntered back towards the pickets.

Sergeant Tereno called out, ‘Fallon, you dog-dumb mud-rutter!’ The others chuckled. ‘Don’t you dare come back down here with only one log, laddie, or I’ll beat your frame to grettan dung. Get back up there and haul an armload. We have to keep this thing burning until dawn.’

Fallon stopped and spat down the beach at his platoon mates, but Sergeant Tereno was unimpressed. ‘I’ll deal with your attitude problem when you get back, laddie. Now, at the double!’

Fallon turned on his heel and stomped quickly back up the beach, taking his frustration and fear out on the forgiving sand. ‘Mud-whoring rutters,’ he muttered, ‘this is it. They’re going to kill me.’ And for the ten thousandth time in the last thirty days he wished he were someplace else, someplace warm and dry.

He pulled a large log from the stack. ‘Fat, slovenly, drunken tyrant,’ he grumbled to himself as he bundled a collection of thinner branches and logs around the first and bent over to heft the entire load. ‘I ought to whip him hard across that puffy gut of his with one of these branches. That’d show him.’ Fallon knew he would keep his head down and his face expressionless in the vain hope of avoiding a terrific thrashing at the hands of Sergeant Tereno and his bullyboys. He sighed heavily.

Private Fallon had taken several steps before he noticed something odd – not a stupid joke, as he first thought, but something else. Something was wrong. Three of his platoon mates lay still, one with an arrow protruding from his chest. Two were kneeling, their foreheads resting on the sand as they groped awkwardly at the cruel shafts impaling their throats. Thick black blood ran down each to soak the dusty brown sand. Sergeant Tereno had an arrow through his abdomen. He looked up and saw Fallon, and reached for him imploringly as he gurgled a plea for help. Blood dripped from his wound. Fallon froze for a moment, then, still gripping the wood firmly against his chest, turned down the beach and waited to see or hear the forward ranks of an approaching Resistance army.

Materialising out of the gloom like a wraith, the killer slowly took shape. He came alone, cowled in black, on softly padding feet that left barely a trace, while the booming crash of the surf drowned out all sound, as if the land itself were muting the man’s advance. Fallon wondered whether the mysterious assassin were truly there: he could have sworn that he had seen the surf breaking white through the midnight folds of the bowman’s robe.

Private Fallon was still holding the driftwood when Garec clubbed him hard across the temple. His vision faded to black.

Garec kicked the driftwood aside and began dragging the fallen soldier’s body north towards Orindale.

When Private Fallon woke, it was still dark and he could feel sand moving beneath his body. Despite a ponderous headache and what felt like a splash of blood across his cheek, he didn’t think he was seriously injured. He had not been unconscious for very long. He struggled to catch a glimpse of his captor, then he remembered the mysterious bowman and he closed his eyes tightly, hoping against hope that it was his fellow soldiers who were dragging him, and they were heading back to camp. Then they stopped and Fallon was dropped onto the beach. His worst fears were realised: he was the archer’s prisoner.

A gloved hand closed over his mouth and a voice whispered harshly in his ear, ‘Where is Malagon?’

The hand relaxed slightly as Fallon choked back an incoherent sob.

The hand closed over his mouth again and the voice repeated, ‘Is he on board the ship? Where is Malagon?’

Answer the questions. Answer and live. Blinking to clear his vision, Fallon nodded clumsily.

The gloved hand pulled slowly away and Fallon swallowed hard before croaking out, ‘He is at the old palace. He made a big show of going there in his carriage and hasn’t come out since.’

‘Good.’ The voice was hollow. ‘What about the ship? Where is it moored?’

Fallon’s mind raced, searching for anything he could recall that would help save his life. His stomach turned and he felt his vision begin to fade again. He had never imagined fear like this.

‘The ship? Where is it?’ The bowman was unaffected by the Malakasian’s terror.

Fallon forced himself to focus. ‘Orindale. The wharf.’

‘The town wharf? Which one?’

‘Ah- ah… north. The north wharf, that’s it. About a thousand paces out. You can’t miss it, all black, big as a city.’ Fallon thought he detected the presence of other people coming up the beach behind them.

‘Very good.’ The gloved hand once again closed over his mouth and he felt the stranger’s knee lean heavily on his chest. ‘And now, my friend… I have to kill you.’

Fallon thrashed wildly beneath the bowman’s grasp, but it was no use. His chest. He could not raise his chest. His breath came faster and faster, but it was not enough. His eyes filled with tears and a sharp pain lanced across his torso. He gripped handfuls of sand, dropping them and picking them up again, and all the while a voice in his mind was asking, ‘What good is that doing? Think of something! Think of something!’ Panic overtook him completely and Fallon lost control of his bowels. He tried to scream, but couldn’t draw breath. His vision narrowed to a point and Fallon stopped struggling.

Garec stumbled to his feet and staggered for a moment like a drunk, no longer the cool assassin. Brynne gripped him in a bear hug and whispered, ‘He’ll live, Garec. He’ll live.’

Steven, kneeling beside the young soldier, reported, ‘He has a couple of cracked ribs, but he’ll be fine in a few days.’

‘Sore, but fine,’ Mark added.

‘The others won’t,’ Garec choked and collapsed to the sand beside his victim.

Brynne started to cry softly as she watched her lifelong friend struggle with what he had done. She wished it could have been her responsibility; she would not have wrestled with her conscience as Garec always did. Garec had the most skill, but he also fell furthest after each battle. He could never stand himself after using his skills to their full grim potential. Brynne’s heart wrenched as she watched him curled up in the sand, so unlike the entirely professional soldier who had started stalking the enemy such a short time ago.

‘Just give him a moment,’ Brynne said as Steven moved to help him up. ‘He’ll be all right.’