The Larion Senators

EPILOGUE
Crossroads
LINDEN TREES

Barrold Dayne adjusted his eye-patch and guided his horse along the line of partisans, resting now beside the thawing Falkan roadway. Spring was not yet in the air, but he could feel the frozen ground softening beneath his mount: it would be muddy going before they reached Orindale.

He felt good for the first time since leaving Capehill.

He spotted a lieutenant, a woman from Gorsk, giving curt orders to her platoon as they prepared a hasty meal by the roadside. Two soldiers, each laden with multiple leather skins, scrambled through a fallow field towards an irrigation pond a few hundred paces away, while others sifted through packs, cut strips of dried meat and sniffed dubiously at ageing blocks of cheese.

Seeing Barrold, the lieutenant asked, ‘We going to be here long?’

‘Probably overnight,’ Barrold replied. ‘We’ll wait for the order from Gita, but I’m betting there’s no need to rush.’

‘What’s up there?’ She nodded toward the forward ranks. The Falkan Resistance had grown to nearly three thousand, not an army, but still one of the largest fighting forces mustered in the Eldarni Eastlands in generations.

‘Get your crew settled, then take a ride up to that crossroads. You’ll see.’ Barrold didn’t know if General Oaklen’s infantry still held Rona or Orindale or southern Falkan; there had been no credible intelligence since Brand Krug’s arrival. But the way the locals described it, the Malakasian exodus had been as swift as it had been unexpected. ‘Where is she?’ he asked.

‘Back a bit, still trying to convince that group of farmhands they’re needed here.’

‘We could use them.’

‘So could that farm; the bloody thing’s bigger than any ten patches of greenroot we’ve got growing up in Gorsk, I can tell you.’

Barrold gave the woman a rare, tight-lipped smile, then urged his horse towards the tail-end of the partisan ranks.

Gita Kamrec had dismounted and was looking up into the faces of eight or nine young farmhands, mostly school-age boys, from the look of them. A few had worn canvas packs hefted over their shoulders, ready to march, and at least two carried field tools, the closest they could come to weaponry, Barrold guessed.

Gita, looking every bit this group’s grandmother, was entreating them to return to their homes. ‘-And I really appreciate your sense of duty, boy, I do, and I am going to use you – just in a different way. Boys, someone’s got to feed us, and that someone is you – all of you. You’re too important, all of you, to be running off to war with the spring Twinmoons only days away. Too important, and I don’t want to hear another word about it. You get yourselves home. You listen to your planting bosses and your farm foremen. Feeding the people of Capehill is your job, and gods rut us all, I’ll be back through this way, and I’ll want to see that you’re breaking your backs at it. Understand?’

A few of them offered a muffled Yes, ma’am, clearly disappointed.

Barrold smothered a laugh, then cleared his throat loudly to signal his presence.

Gita climbed into the saddle and turned to the boys again. ‘I’m not joking, boys: we really do appreciate the offer, but you’re needed far more where you are. So thank you again.’ She watched the would-be soldiers shuffle dejectedly towards a large farmhouse at the far end of a field that looked big enough to feed a nation all by itself.

To Barrold, she said, ‘What is it? And why are we making camp? There’s still a half-aven of decent light left.’

‘You need to see this, ma’am,’ he said, and spurred his horse back through the ranks, Gita hard on his heels.

The naked linden trees at the crossroads were stark black against the setting sun, their skeletal branches an unanticipated break in the monotonous Falkan plain. They lined a dirt road leading away from the Merchants’ Highway. Gita followed Barrold to the intersection, then reined in and shielded her eyes against the sun.

‘Unholy mothers,’ she whispered.

Hanging from every tree, for as far as Gita could see, were Malakasian soldiers, officers, mostly. They dangled like macabre ornaments, sometimes two and three to a branch, all with makeshift signs around their necks spelling out their crimes against the Eldarni people. It was a massive tag hanging, that very same punishment the occupation army had used to keep Falkan’s populace subdued for five generations. The dead soldiers’ naturally pale skin, bereft now of blood as well, matched the dusty beige hue of their ragged uniforms.

Some of the tags were misspelled; others looked to have been written in blood. Some had been nailed into the dead men’s chests. Gita read a few of them:

Lieutenant, murderer.

Captain, rapist.

Corporal, thief.

Captain, killed my son.

Major, burned homes.

Lieutenant, rapist, murderer.

Gita sighed. ‘Well, this answers six or seven of my nine hundred and thirteen questions.’

‘What do you suppose happened?’

‘I guess their men deserted, most likely, realised that they were over here alone.’

‘And that’s a long way from home, especially if you’re all by your lonesome,’ Barrold laughed. ‘Good for them.’

‘What I don’t understand is how it happened – I mean, where are we? What’s here? Who did this? Do you see another Resistance army out here anywhere? We’re in the middle of nowhere; there’s nothing but fallow fields and these few trees for as far as I can see.’

‘Maybe they’re up from Rona, or maybe it’s Sallax’s forces, following Oaklen up the Merchants’ Highway.’

‘Too many maybes,’ Gita said. ‘Well, regardless, I think the road to Orindale is going to be an interesting one, my friend. I’m sorry Sallax isn’t here to see this.’

‘This is his kind of entertainment.’

Gita took a last look at the corpses and said, ‘Have them cut down. No rites. Just burn the bodies, over there in that field. I want us on our way again with the dawn aven.’

Barrold rode for the Falkan ranks, while Gita stared west into the fading twilight.

Rob Scott Jay Gordon

The Larion Senators

$6.3 MILLION

After his parents had finally stopped hugging him and gone to get some sleep, Mark joined Hannah and Steven on the porch. It had taken most of the afternoon to convince his mother and father that their son was actually living inside the body of a young sailor from another place and time. He had answered all their questions, esoteric facts that only Mark would know, but it was Milla, levitating and then rotating – gently – the family cat that finally convinced them something uncommon and wonderful was happening in their front room. The sight of their son, returned to them but not as he had been, ignited smouldering fires of protection deep inside Mr and Mrs Jenkins. They had wept openly, without embarrassment, desperately clinging to him, as if trying to keep him safe from whatever horrors might be lurking in the suburban streets outside. Like Jennifer Sorenson, they refused to entertain any discussion that involved his return to Eldarn and after a while, Mark let the conversation drop, content to address it with them in private, after they had had a few days to get used to his return.

Now Mark pulled on his coat and, after checking several times beneath a porch chair, leant against the railing.

Steven asked, ‘You lose something?’

‘No,’ Mark checked the chair again, ‘just looking for snakes.’

Hannah laughed. ‘Snakes? Are you kidding? It’s freezing out here.’

‘I know. I just think… well, I’m going to be a bit gun-shy around snakes for a while, a few decades, maybe.’

‘Anything we can do?’ Steven asked.

‘Nope,’ Mark replied, ‘just shout if you see anything poisonous slithering up behind me.’

‘Done,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ll take the first watch.’

Mark stared across the sleepy island neighbourhood. ‘How did we get here?’ he whispered.

Hannah took his arm. ‘For starters, Steven robbed the bank. After that, it was all an unstoppable rollercoaster ride for me.’

‘Hey,’ Steven defended himself, ‘I was always going to put that stuff back. It was just a little curiosity.’

‘Any way we can get our hands on the money?’ Mark huffed out a wintry cloud over the driveway. ‘Old whatshisname’s, Haggerty’s?’

‘Higgins,’ Steven said. ‘William Higgins, and if I’m not mistaken, I damned his soul to eternity inside the Fold, so I think we probably ought to leave his money alone.’

‘How much was he worth?’ Hannah asked.

‘Six point three million dollars,’ Steven said.

‘Holy cats. He did well, didn’t he?’

‘It was Nerak,’ Steven said. ‘He opened the account with silver he stole from hard-working miners, William Higgins included, in Oro City – Leadville.’

‘We could do a lot with that money, Steven,’ Mark said. ‘It would get us rolling in Eldarn. There’s a lot we could bring through the portals with six million and change.’

‘We don’t need money,’ Steven muttered, ‘we need to be able to bring Lessek back with us. We need Gilmour or Alen. Gilmour would be better, because Alen was in hiding for so long. Gilmour knows more about Eldarn and Eldarni culture than anyone – sorry, he knew more about it.’

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Mark said, ‘him and Alen living all that time and then dying five minutes apart.’

Steven whispered, ‘Get them going and they’ll go on for ever, like the Twinmoons, or the fountains at Sandcliff.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Just something Gilmour used to say.’ He shrugged. ‘It was time, I guess. Lessek let them go; he let a very old spell spin itself out… or maybe it was me.’

Hannah kissed him lightly. ‘You can’t blame yourself for Gilmour. No one could have done what you did today. You heard Lessek; everything had to be perfect. Everything had its place and yours was there, standing down that creature, the minion trying to open the Fold. The rest of us would have been swept away in its wake. You knew where it was coming and you knew what to do. Gilmour would have been proud of you.’

‘He was,’ Mark added, ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘We need him,’ Steven said. ‘We need his knowledge; we’re lost, just groping about in the dark without him. We don’t know the people, except for Gita. We don’t know the cities, the industries, the teachers, the business owners, the merchants. We’re starting off, what, ten, maybe even twenty years behind without him.’

‘But we have to do it,’ Mark said to the empty yard. ‘It will be the defining achievement of our lives.’

‘Unless we get the shit kicked out of us,’ Hannah said.

‘Unless that, of course.’ Mark chuckled. ‘And I think there’s a good chance of that happening, probably more than once. Hey, do either of you want anything before I go to bed? I’m pretty tired. Except for those few minutes this morning, I don’t think I’ve really slept in two months.’

‘Nothing for me,’ Hannah said. Steven didn’t answer.

‘What about you, Stevo?’

‘Look at that,’ Steven whispered to himself.

‘At what?’ Hannah said, sliding under his arm.

‘Down the block, just over there, behind those elms.’ He pointed. Hannah and Mark followed his gaze towards the dimly lit sidewalk.

‘Sonofabitch,’ he whispered.

An elderly man made his way hurriedly towards them. He was tall and gangly, dressed in a worn overcoat buckled at the waist. His balding pate reflected the streetlights like polished marble.

‘Who? That old dude?’ Mark said. ‘He’d better get inside; he’ll freeze out here tonight dressed like that.’

‘Do you recognise him?’ Steven asked urgently. ‘Is he somebody who lives on this block?’

Mark squinted. ‘Christ, but this sailor’s eyesight was shit.’ He leaned over the porch rail. ‘Nope, don’t know him.’

‘I do,’ Steven said, smiling. He pulled Hannah close and kissed her hard, then laughed. ‘My friends,’ Steven said into the night, ‘things are looking up.’

‘What are you up to, sailor?’ Hannah asked, moving even closer to him. ‘Things are not up yet,’ she whispered, sliding her hips forward, ‘but there’s definite potential.’

‘Slut,’ Steven teased. He looked longingly at her and felt his very soul lighten as he shouted towards the street, ‘Things are looking up! Aren’t they?’

The old man leaped the fence and started up the driveway. ‘I must learn to operate one of these automobiles. It’s gods-rutting cold here,’ he grumbled.