Soffjian moved her horse alongside the captain’s, and I thought Scorn was going to bite its face off. Or hers, if it got the chance. “You are involved in a very dangerous game, only you are merely pieces on a board. The only true player who matters is the one who ordered you to return. Promptly. And you can be sure he doesn’t appreciate his pieces suddenly declaring their autonomy or refusing his moves. You would do well to remember your position and role. Brother.”
Braylar laughed, coughed, and rubbed his bruised throat. “Oh, I can tell you without flattering myself in the slightest that my memory is nearly as sharp as a Memoridon’s, Soffjian. You can be sure I have difficulty forgetting anything of import. So never fear. Our detour will not be long, and we’ll return to the road north soon enough. I have no intention of ignoring our mandate or running afoul of our overlord.”
Skeelana watched, mostly with curiosity it seemed to me, as her fellow Memoridon spun her horse around again, laid her heels into its sides and rode off, heading west. And she had a small mischievous smile teetering on her face as she nodded in Braylar’s direction and said only, “Siblings,” before following Soffjian.
Braylar and his lieutenants watched the pair ride ahead before Mulldoos offered, “Be nice if she was riding all the way back to Sunwrack. Only she’s going the wrong way. Same as us, only faster. I wasn’t about to take her side-”
“Greatly appreciated, Mulldoos.”
“And it pains me to admit it even without her here-”
“Your angst is palpable.”
“Seems to me she might be wrong on some score, but she got one thing right. Even if she’s an evil bitch in her delivery. Why are we going the wrong way here, Cap?”
Braylar was still watching the dust settle after his sister’s departure. “We aren’t going the wrong way in the slightest, Lieutenant. While I might be suffering other ailments, my sense of direction is remarkably intact.”
Hewspear said, “As much as it would pain me to side with my temperamental young cohort-”
“You wrinkled cock,” Mulldoos interrupted, “only reason there’s two of us is so we can side together once in a while and talk sense into the man.”
Hewspear ignored him. “But I can’t help wondering about the wisdom of this particular venture, Captain. We do risk the emperor’s wrath, even if we arrive only a few days later than expected. And as much as Mulldoos would like your sister to disappear over the horizon, she will be with us the entire journey home. And gods know you have no reason to suspect she will go out of her way to paint a favorable portrait of any of your decisions or actions, whether questioned by commander or emperor.”
Braylar looked at his officers, clearly accustomed to their skepticism, though no less annoyed by it. “Insolence begets insolence. We still have an opportunity to seize High Priest Henlester, and we will explore it before quitting Anjuria.”
Mulldoos and Hewspear gave each other a look, the pale boar clearly perplexed, and the older, darker man pensive. Mulldoos replied first, though more carefully than I would have expected. “I figured with the way we left Alespell, we were done with that business.”
For the first time Braylar seemed to notice I was still present and his eyes were as hostile and piercing as spear points. “With the Hornmen driving us from our nest, we wouldn’t have had much longer to do anything in Anjuria as it was. Even if the Memoridons hadn’t arrived.”
I tried very hard not to let my cheeks color, which probably made them flush darker, as he continued, “So, we go after Henlester, because there is no telling if or when we will return to this region. This is our best, and last, opportunity. This is not a discussion. I am sorry for your confusion if you mistook it for one.”
Mulldoos looked at me, obviously not comfortable with me privy to this non-dialogic dialogue, but holding his tongue about it.
Perhaps riding with the Syldoon predisposed me to always look for a hidden secondary or tertiary reason behind every little thing they did, but suddenly I was almost certain that capturing Henlester was more complicated. I said, “This isn’t about Baron Brune, or causing unrest in Anjuria, is it? Not now, not since you’ve been recalled from Alespell. This has something to do with the scrolls you-” I nearly said “stole” and caught myself, “procured. Doesn’t it?”
Hewspear smiled, his bare upper lip curling. “Congratulations, Arki-you are our first scribe to actually live long enough to divine our other purpose here.” He turned to Mulldoos. “See, I knew he was a good wager. I have a nose for these things.”
“You have a nose for sticking in the dusty cracks of old crones. Plaguing goat.” Mulldoos looked at Braylar. “I’m guessing if the scribbler had broken into your chest, you would have brained him by now. Meaning, you must have told him what we were hauling around. Meaning, there’s one more thing I don’t fathom.”
Braylar replied, “Arki would have discovered-needed to discover-the nature of our cargo eventually. We do need them translated, better sooner than later. Especially since we have been recalled.”
His left hand drifted toward Bloodsounder’s chains, the tips of his fingers tracing their contours as he looked at me. “Yes, Arki, our pursuit of the nefarious high priest serves more than one end. Our operations in Anjuria might be over, for now anyway. But a hostage, particularly one so caught up in all kinds of blackmail, betrayal, and alleged assassination, well, he could prove quite useful, even sitting in a comfortable cell in Sunwrack.”
That seemed plausible. But piecemeal. There was too much unsaid, as always. I was about to ask more when Vendurro rode up to our group. I expected him to ask why we hadn’t moved forward at all, or something else of import. But instead he said, “Anybody here ever taste copper?”
Everyone looked at him, Braylar flatly, Hewspear with mild amusement, Mulldoos with the hints of exasperation already brewing. Vendurro continued, “Asking, on account of Yargos. See he got elbowed in the face back there in Alespell by one of the Horntoads. Lost a tooth. Bleeding like a stuck pig, he is. Still moaning about it like it’s going to make his plaguing mouth or our ears hurt less. Anyway, Yargos was going on about how blood tastes like metal. People always saying it tastes like metal. Copper usually. Heard that a lot. Everybody says it like it’s some kind of truth. But anybody here ever taste copper?”
Mulldoos shook his head. “Horsecunt.”
Vendurro looked confused. “Blood tastes like horsecunt? Or copper does? Or…?”
“You.”
“Thinking I don’t taste much like any of those things. Hope not, leastwise. Got some kind of problem if I do.”
Mulldoos looked at Hewspear. “We really got to talk to the recruiters about who we let in this outfit. Seems standards are slipping more every year.”
Vendurro smiled. Mulldoos shook his head and spat in the grass. Then he dismounted and walked his horse off.
Vendurro laughed and called after him, “You sure are the plaguing prickliest bastard I ever met. No question about that.” He looked at the rest of us, stopping at Braylar. “So…. looks like we’re stopping here, then?”
I laughed, and when everyone looked at me blankly, not knowing why I found this funny, I chose not to explain.
Braylar looked up the road where his sister had disappeared. “We could put a few more miles behind us today. But just now, I’m not feeling any urgency. We stop here.”
And so we did.
If the Syldoon were surprised we were stopping a little earlier than usual, they hid it well enough. Perhaps they were simply accustomed to their captain’s mercurial moods, or maybe they were glad not to be pushing too hard after a battle earlier that day. Or maybe they were wondering if Braylar was succumbing to the effects of Bloodsounder. They might not have all known the particulars, but there was no disguising the fact that he was afflicted by something unnatural. Which surely was disconcerting. Did they doubt the soundness of his judgment at all? While I understood why Hewspear and Mulldoos tried to prohibit the spread of information, not knowing all the details might have actually made it worse, leading his men to quietly conjecture more or question his fitness for command.