He left Deshnar with one of the kids that counted as a groom and headed inside, a tiny part of his stomach lurching as he stepped off firm ground and onto the floor suspended almost entirely over the edge of the gorge. It creaked angrily under his weight.
Canyonview’s owner was a tiny, yellow-toothed woman of indeterminately advanced years with a shock of white hair and a mean streak as deep as the gorge. There were rumors that anyone who couldn’t pay their tab were tossed out a hatch beneath the bar, screaming their way into the gorge below. Before Canyonview, she had been a lancer – and a damned good one.
“Afternoon, Benjamin,” she said as he took his seat.
“How are you, Sunintiel?” he asked, sliding a coin across the bar and stretching his arms. He glanced around the half-full place, seeing more than a few eyes squinting in his direction.
Sunin cocked her head to one side and poured him a brown liquid out of a green bottle. “I thought you were dead.”
“I’m not sure why.” He lifted the glass she’d poured him and looked through the murky liquid. “What the pit is this?”
She beamed at him. “Made it myself.”
“It smells awful.” Styke took a sip and nearly spit it all over Sunin’s smiling face. “It tastes awful.” Someone had once tricked him into taking a shot of rancid whale oil. It tasted like that, only worse.
Her grin broadened. “I saved you a bottle.”
“I don’t want a bottle. I want a beer, and news.”
Sunin thumped a bottle onto the bar between them, pushing it below his nose. “You’re supposed to be dead,” she repeated.
“You mentioned that. Why?” Sunin nodded at the bottle. Reluctantly, Styke slid a few coins across the bar. She scowled at the coins, nudging them around with one bent finger as if counting them.
“I’m not paying you any more for that shit,” he told her.
Sunin scooped up the coins. “You’re supposed to be dead because Governor Sirod came through Landfall last night with the news that a renegade tribe of Palo slaughtered the Fernhollow garrison and burned the town to the ground.” She leaned forward, squinting at his face. “So either he’s telling a fib, or you’re a survivor. Or you got transferred recently, in which case I’m sorry to give you the news that Fernhollow is gone.” She put her elbow on the bar in a clear so give me your news gesture.
Styke finished off the shot of brown liquid, doing his best not to hurl all over Sunin’s clean bar, and let her stew in her curiosity. “What’s the fallout of this news?” he asked.
“Hmph,” Sunin said. “It’s gotten partially buried among all the other bad news. You hear that Redstone is in open revolt?”
“I heard that Lindet ejected the Kez garrison.”
“Well, that’s the real news today. She’s gone two steps further and claimed independence from the Kez crown. Stirring up a real hornet’s nest around here.”
“So nobody even cares about Fernhollow?” Styke asked, feeling his heart fall a little. It might have been a quiet, backwater town, but it had been his for a while.
“Oh, people care,” Sunin said. “Last night I had a rough crew of colonial skirmishers in here drinking till sunup. Said they were gonna go lynch some Palo, then volunteer for service on the frontier.”
Styke grunted. The thought made him sick. Colonials should know better. A “renegade tribe of Palo” was a weak story. Any Palo this far south were what a lot of Fatrastans liked to refer to as “domesticated.” They’d adopted city life, keeping their heads down and trying to make a living like anyone else. The violent tribes were way too far north to bother with a little place like Fernhollow.
“So were you there?” Sunin asked. “What really happened?”
Styke reached inside his jacket and produced a scrap of cloth that he’d taken off the body of a cuirassier back in Fernhollow. He laid it out on the bar.
“What’s that?” Sunin’s smile faltered slightly.
Styke ignored the question. “You know who Nons je Prost was?”
“Yeah.” Sunin drew the word out hesitantly. “Sirod’s bastard brother.”
“On Sirod’s orders, Prost’s company of cuirassiers burned down Fernhollow and slaughtered a couple hundred people – men, women, children. They tried to burn down the barracks, but the lancers managed to fight their way out and save what was left of the town.”
Sunin’s smile slid off her face completely. “Kresimir,” she breathed. “Why?”
“An insult.”
“An insult?” she echoed.
“Prost beat on the local innkeep for asking him to pay his tab. I broke Prost’s arms. Things… escalated from there.”
“That’s quite the escalation.” Sunin fell silent, clearing contemplating the consequences of what Styke had just told her. “So the governor doesn’t know that his brother’s attack wasn’t successful?”
“Nor that his brother and his whole company are corpses in the ashes of Fernhollow,” Styke confirmed. He decided to leave Cardin out of the story. Cardin was a deserter now, and he deserved a head start.
“You’re a wanted man,” Sunin said, eying the current patrons of the bar.
“I will be,” Styke said, “as soon as the governor hears what actually happened. You going to turn me in?”
“Pit, no. I want to keep my skin. But I can’t speak for any of these fools.” She gestured subtly at the patrons of her bar. “You should run, Ben. Get out of here before word spreads. I can lend you a little money and send you with some feed for Deshnar, but you’ve got to get out–”
Styke cut her off. “Prost’s men killed Rezi.”Sunin’s lips continued to move, but no sound came out. She swallowed hard and took a half step back. “What you gonna do?” she asked in a whisper.
Styke took out Rezi’s knife. He used it to pop the cork on the bottle of foul liquid Sunin had made him buy, then upended the bottle over his mouth. He downed about half of it in a single go, then slid the bottle over to Sunin while the warmth of the alcohol deadened the knot in the pit of his stomach.
“I’m going to make a delivery. Also, I need a favor.” He tapped the scrap of cloth he’d laid out on the bar. “This is Prost’s company colors. I want you to repeat that story I just told you. Get it moving. By tonight, I want everyone in Landfall to know what the governor did. Use these colors as proof.” Sirod seemed unconcerned with the revolution in Redstone. Angry citizens on his doorstep, however, would no doubt get his attention.
“Do you want him to come after you?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
Styke left Landfall within the hour, stopping only to purchase a small, waterproof sea chest. He filled it with the contents of the stinking, fly-blown sack that had been tied to his saddle horn for two days. He tied up the chest and rode on, hoping to stay ahead of the news that Fernhollow – and he – had survived Prost’s assault.
The tension within Landfall extended through the remaining suburbs and into the towns along the banks of the Hadshaw as he headed upriver. It seemed that everyone he met asked for news with a guilty duck of the head, hoping to find out something valuable that might let them ride out this new revolution growing in Redstone.
Late in the evening, Styke spotted a large gathering in the center of one such small town. He paused, curious as to what could get the attention of sixty or seventy people, and cautiously directed Deshnar off the highway and toward the town center.