The hills of Var Nordos were creased into sharp ridges only nearer to Noress-That-Was. Though locals called them “the mountains”, the occasional fishing village was really nestled between grassy rises and forested slopes that could hardly be considered true peaks. Farek and his guards had followed the road on the north side of the ridge, between green land and blue sea. Now, at last, they neared Soros again. Farek was always gone longer than he planned.
It made his heart swell to see the familiar slopes—all soft mossy angles—and the watermelon water of Raider’s Bay. His parents had raised him a Lord of Soros… or at least they had tried. Farek remembered running through those brushlands as a youngster with Norrey and Kio and then jumping along those rooftops as a lanky-legged teenager. Despite his extensive tutelage, he had first seen the body of a woman on that distant beach, where pink-mineral waves still lapped against a handful of Noressi bathers. This city and its panorama were his memories and—he hoped—his future.
Coming from the south-eastern, landlocked side of Soros meant meandering down the slope that was called Coin Hill, where the city wall extended. Farek hoped Jannia was at the estate and not down at the portside warehouse. He wouldn’t mind a walk through his city, but he wanted to settle in at home first, and rest.
So that’s what he did. It wasn’t a long walk through the mansions of Coin Hill to reach their own palace-like estate. The Gallendris guards at the gate were polishing their armour, as Farek’s arrival was pre-empted by some eager messenger or sentry from the outer gate. They saluted and smiled at him as he marched past; to Matek, Ayvim, and Ralla, they gave clapped-together hands and shoulder pats.
As he walked through the open doors of the Great Hall, he spotted Diaren sitting with a few subordinates at one of the tables. Farek’s men truly had returned! He wanted the full story, not the abridged version that Matriarch Haladia had given him before the fateful meeting in Squora.
But then a young woman yelped. “Ah! Farek!” Simisar screeched, rising from one of the tables in his periphery and bounding toward him. They met in an embrace—arms held around one another—and held close. He remembered speaking with her in jest that she might have restored her confidence enough by his return to meet him in the Great Hall—and she had. She mumbled into his shirt, “When we heard that no one knew what was happening in Squora, we thought… I was afraid….” His little sister held him tighter.
Farek was relieved to be home. He smiled against her hair and told her, “I’m sorry I worried you. Things didn’t go as planned, to put it lightly.”
“We’ve heard,” Simi said, pulling back from him to look at him. Her face and neck were still webbed with coarse reddish skin, and she wore a scarf with a hooded shawl so she could hide herself if she felt the need—but she was smiling, and that made Farek smile, too. “I’m glad you’re not hurt.”
“Well you look beautiful, as always,” Farek told her, to the roll of her eyes. “I am so happy to be back.”
Simi grinned. “You’ll have to tell me all about the ‘women of Lo Mallago’, and maybe all the politics you’ve become embroiled in too.” She crossed her arms as though she expected him to launch into a tale right then and there.
“I’ve had enough of politics…”
Meanwhile, Diaren had finished waving and was heading toward the corridor that joined the Great Hall and the barracks.
“Matek, go after him. Bring them to my rooms when they’re ready,” Farek called.
Matek was across the room by the time Farek rambled off his instructions. He flailed one hand over his head in acknowledgement and disappeared after Diaren. Ralla and Ayvim stood patiently behind Farek and his sister.
Simi smiled understandingly. “I’m sure there’ll be time after you’ve settled in. Jannia is meeting with a few of the treasurers, but the servants say that you are to be brought right to her—day or night—whenever you arrive.”
Farek tilted his head. “I’m afraid I must speak with them. It’s a tad urgent,” he assured her. He reached back and Ayvim passed him a cloth-bound object from one of the packs. “But first, I brought you gift. Got it from Noress-That-Was just before I left.”
She unwrapped it happily, revealing a book, and turned it over to read the cover. “The Greatest Historical Sites in the Known World.” She smiled broadly. “First, you convince me to frequent the Great Hall despite these scars… now you want me to travel abroad?”
“Well…” Farek chuckled. “You were reading a book about Soros’ history before I left. I thought this might be to your liking.”
“It is, it is,” Simi said. “Now go meet with your soldier friends. Dorean will be along shortly to keep me company.”
“Thank you,” Farek said, grinning. He flourished one arm and lowered his head in a mock bow. “Milady.”
Ralla and Ayvim followed Farek through the Great Hall and up the steps to the second storey. While the servants stopped and bowed to them along the way, Farek found himself thinking about his friends’ quest to find the enigmatic magician of two years prior. Ralla and Ayvim had no idea what they were about to overhear. Devender, trailing behind at Farek’s offer, might be able to piece more of it together.
Farek poured them wine from his own alcohol cabinet—a good vintage, too—and then they sat in armchairs to await the arrival of the other guards. Matek entered first, declaring with surprise, “They both survived!” Then Diaren and Sievus were admitted.
Farek stood up and clasped arms with his men. Diaren had grown more of a beard than before, and Sievus’ arm showed a long scar-line, though it had healed well. He had nearly presumed them dead—almost a full year had passed since their departure. “I am very glad that you two aren’t dead,” he declared.
“Me too,” Diaren replied. “I was promised riches and they wouldn’t do me much good in the afterlife.”
“Well that depends,” Sievus interjected. “Which afterlife are you talking about?”
“The one with free teats and wine, of course,” Diaren jested. Then he blinked, noticing that a woman sat among them. Next, he observed the wine glass in Ralla’s hand. “Speaking of… may I? Er, sir?”
Ralla was grinning, but, of course, Diaren was already heading for the uncorked bottle on the cabinet.
“Glad to see you two haven’t lost your humour,” Farek said. “There are larger glasses inside.”
“Ah,” Diaren said. He brought out two enormous ones and poured a quarter bottle into each. Farek grinned as he saw how uneasy it made Ralla and Ayvim—Diaren hardly acted like Farek was his superior.
Sievus sat back, cradling the wine glass gently inside folded arms. “So, did the Matriarch spoil the story?” he asked.
“I’m afraid she did,” Farek admitted, “but I’m sure you can elaborate better than she.” He lowered his own wine glass and let his smile fade. “What happened?”
“When? From the start?” Diaren asked, still smiling like an idiot.
Farek nodded. “Yes.”
“We sailed for Aloor, carrying that secret letter of yours,” Sievus began. It had been around the same time that Farek had asked Devender about Gravagan. While the newer soldiers in the present company had no clue what the mission was, Devender leaned forward to listen intently. “Took us a few days to get wind of Gravagan’s contacts, but they were there just like you said they would be.”
“I thought that was the time-consuming part,” Diaren snorted. “Little did we know that we’d be traipsing across the whole cursed Isle.”
Sievus nodded and continued, “An alchemist and healer in Aloor told us that Gravagan had gone onward, to the city of Fargrove. Took a long time to get around Windrun Point. Probably should have hired a local ship or gone by land. Eventually, we got to Fargrove and started asking about Gravagan there, only to hear that Aloor had been besieged. This was the first we had heard of the war, mind you.”
“When we left Soros, we only knew of bandits near New Mallam,” Diaren contributed. He paused for a sip. “But they were already spread across to Aloor? Insanity!”
Farek pushed back in his chair. “I have a feeling the insanity was just starting for you two.”
“Indeed,” Sievus said. “Word from the magicians in Fargrove was to just wait. Gravagan was inland, meeting with the portions of Oshibor’s armies, but would return. It seemed that that city hadn’t fallen yet, even though Aloor was already under siege and even though it is farther away. But, such is naval warfare, I suppose.”
Diaren groaned. “Then… the bloody conscription,” he said. “The Baron of Fargrove was ordering all able-bodied citizens to join up. I said, ‘That’s just dandy. We’ll be the only able-bodied men left in a town of women’—”
Sievus elbowed him, prompting Farek to chuckle. Ralla wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable with Diaren’s street humour.
Diaren sorely rubbed his arm. “We were given a choice: join or leave. They couldn’t risk unaligned mercenaries in town after most of the soldiers had left. So Sievus and I had a few drinks and talked ‘what would Lord Farek do?’ We decided that if Gravagan was inland, so, too, we should be.”
This time it was Matek who started laughing. “So you joined another lord’s army?”
“Indeed,” Sievus said again, sheepishly.
Farek slapped his knee and guffawed. “I’m beginning to think I’m a bad influence,” he said, and sipped some more of his red wine.
“A few weeks later, we arrived at the battle lines of Smoke River. If you’re unfamiliar—as we were—Smoke River is south of Oshibor, east of Fargrove, and right smack-dab in the middle of nowhere,” Sievus explained. “There were armies there consisting of men from all over the Great Isle, but the bandit camps were just as large. That was the first time I worried we might not get back to you.”
Diaren raised a finger. “But—Gravagan was there!”
At that, Matek raised an eyebrow, impressed.
“The old man was running all over, busy as a bee. I thought he might keel over from heart failure just at the sight of us and in fear of yet another errand,” Diaren recounted.
Sievus lowered his big glass from his lips. “He read your letter, but it only seemed to make him rub his forehead more. He muttered lots and then saw us as though for the first time. He told us he would certainly be along to consult with you on Var Nordos, just after his responsibilities to help in the coming battle were over.”
Farek shook his head, still chuckling. This story was preposterous.
“So that’s why he never responded to any of my letters either,” Devender offered. “When Lord Gallendris asked me to try,” he added, for the benefit of the others.
Diaren blew through his loose lips, sputtering. “Boring, boring, boring,” he mumbled. “We sat around for weeks. The two armies, just looking at each other, skirmishing over resources and turf, and all-round pissing in the breeze.”
“We eventually tried finding him and asking that he just respond to you via letter, so we could get you a more immediate response,” Sievus said. “But then he wasn’t even in the siege camps. Sometimes, he and others from the Barons’ side would go to negotiate with the enemy. Other times, he was gone back to Oshibor or Fargrove on some errand. We even considered returning empty-handed, but ‘we tried our best’ was no way to hold up Matek’s feverish reputation from the first Great Isle adventure.”
“Hmph,” Matek said, and pursed his scruffy lips.
“By the way,” Diaren said, interrupting. “You said an assassin did that to your face?”
Matek’s eye-patched profile didn’t obscure his expression from souring further. “It’s a long story. There were multiple arrests to be made, here and abroad,” he said. “Best finish your tale first.”
Farek could scarcely believe there was still more. He sipped his wine cheerfully, while Diaren poured more. But their next words lowered his spirits a rung.
“And then…” Diaren said, lowering the bottle, “…the battle.”
Sievus looked at Farek grimly. “It was like nothing I’ve seen before—thousands of men dying for no reason,” he said. He drank another mouthful somberly. “I’ve been in a few good fights in my life. A few brawls, too. This was all different: people just shoving each other with shields or sharp objects. No wonder the Great Islanders wear metal suits when they fight—there’s no room to dance like you’re supposed to.”
Diaren, slinking back to his chair, nodded as he sat. “Sievus there got his arm opened up pretty badly and kept trying to fight. You get narrow vision after a few hours of that. It gets hard to breathe and think straight.”
“We fell back to the tents at one point, looking for a healer,” Sievus told the captive audience. “It wasn’t that my wound was that severe, but we thought Gravagan might be able to get us back in the fight quicker. By this point, we were forgetting about our original mission—we thought if we’re there, we might as well do our best to stop this bandit scourge. But… well, the camp was falling back, too.”
Oh gods, Farek thought. His poor men should have just come back.
“The battle was lost,” Diaren said. “We couldn’t find Gravagan anywhere, but one of his colleagues told us he was heading for Starath. They said the Great Isle would be lost, and Starath would be the next theatre of war. Gravagan had gone ahead to make preparations. For all his head-rubbing and mumbling, that man sure switches plans fast.”
“So that’s how you ended up in Starath,” Matek realized. “But we’ve heard that Starath is under siege, too.”
“It wasn’t at that time,” Sievus assured him. “We fell back to Oshibor, then set sail for Starath. We spent over a month looking for Gravagan. It’s a big city with a confusing layout, but I swear… Gravagan was not there. We looked everywhere, and asked everyone we could.”
Diaren tapped his feet—one, two. “And then the siege came,” he said. As their silly escapades gave way to a trudge of a failed mission, their weariness grew more apparent. Farek suddenly realized that they all looked older after the year, himself included. Diaren and Sievus were as drained as he was.
“The bandit fleet was twice what the land army had been. There was a few hundred ships, I’d say.” Sievus rubbed his arm, likely a habit from his healed wound. “I don’t know what long-term plans the politicians were making with you, but Starath will surely fall before anyone comes to its aid.”
“How did you get out?” Ayvim asked, confused.
“Starath has a few passes through the mountains, and the city mustered a small force to escape before the land-siege lines were really set up,” Diaren answered. “We managed to tag along. It was kind of fight-and-run at the outskirts of the city, but we made it into the mountains, found a fishing village, and went our separate ways. We came straight back to Var Nordos because, frankly, we had no idea how to continue our mission. Gravagan was as gone as the morning mist.”
Farek sighed. He wasn’t bothered at his men in the least, but he sure could use Gravagan right about now. He absently wondered if the magician had seen any further visions since his visit in Soros over two years ago. He also pondered: had Gravagan also foreseen that battle?
He set his wine aside to give his guards his full attention. “Well, I am glad you made it back. Thank you for delivering the letter. That you would fight and try to defend people who weren’t your own, on lands that weren’t your own—it’s more than I would have asked of you. You are incredible men to have done so.”
Sievus and Diaren swelled with pride. “I’m sure that others would have done the same,” Sievus said, while Diaren just basked in the praise.
“I’ll pay you twice what I was originally thinking,” Farek said.
Smiles and fun cheers rose from the duo. Sievus bowed and Diaren was quick to thank his lord. Sievus tried to stammer some apology—that he hadn’t intended the extensive story to be milking the reward, just a report.
“You two deserve it,” Farek assured him. “I wish I could do more.” Of course, he could, but they were already going to be making a fortune for this quest. Jannia wouldn’t let him drain the Bank for his friends, unfortunately. “Now, I do have a question or two.”
Sievus set aside his wine, ready to do his duty. Diaren kept drinking.
“This army… did they seem to have an objective? Or were they just seeking out enemies to destroy? Did you ever see who was in charge, or hear anything about that?”
“In other words, do we think it’s…”
“Ahem,” Matek said. Farek didn’t care if Ralla, Ayvim, or Devender heard about Tarro, but Matek’s interruption stopped it anyway.
“We didn’t see their leadership,” Diaren said. “Just heard it was a powerful magician, as the rumours go.”
Sievus offered more tactical insights, though he was but an infantryman. “Their soldiers ranged from men and women in tribal garb, to Raderan corsairs in light-plate armour. Plenty were armed like the Great Islanders, too. If I had to reckon a reason for it all, these bandit armies have more men than they can move by ship, currently. Whatever their reason for conquering the Great Isle is, the cities are the key. Whoever is in charge decided that Aloor was best taken by ships because of its distance, and Oshibor best taken by troops. I reckon both Fargrove and Oshibor are defeated by now.”
Farek cursed beneath his breath. This is not good, he thought. The enemy was being smart and had a ton of people to back it up. There had yet to be any mention of a public announcement from the bandit army—any decree or demand or motive remained untold. Some military experts were spreading discourse that besieging Starath might not be a step toward the mainland, but just an attempt to truly rule the Great Isle. After all, there had been a dozen wars over the centuries between the Barons of the Great Isle and whichever faction was controlling the economy in Starath. That port, across Copper Cove from the Isle, was key to the region.
“Matek mentioned we will be leaving Soros again soon?” Diaren asked.
Farek nodded. “I’ll make sure you get your pay first. You can spend some of your new fortunes before we set out,” he said. He stood up and waved toward the liquor cabinet. “Help yourself to whatever’s left of the bottle. I’m afraid I must report to the Mazaar now. We’ll stay a couple weeks, and then be off to High Raena.”
“High Raena, huh?” Sievus said. “Another place I’ve never been.”
“You’ll like it,” Devender said. He smirked and looked at Diaren. “Or… you will, especially.” Hearing that, Diaren pursed his lips and shrugged.
Farek chuckled and pushed open the door into the corridor. Time for more politicking.