Kellanved's Reach

The girl’s laugh was mocking, but sadly so. ‘Just discovered life’s not fair, hey?’

‘And just who,’ Haraj asked, ‘are we with?’

‘You’re with the Yellows’ Fourth – the Seventh Lights,’ she drawled from her tattered horse-blanket. ‘And if the Bloorian League can be said to have an anus – you’re stuck in it.’

Haraj and Gregar exchanged another look and Gregar shook his head. ‘Wonderful.’

The next morning, after a hot meal that was hardly more than mere warmed broth, they mustered in the pattering rain. He and Haraj were issued spears, which they held straight up beside them as their sergeant – Teigan – walked up and down the lines heaping abuse on them. Though still fuming, it was all Gregar could do not to burst out laughing. It was all so clichéd and stupid.

‘Are we gonna fight?’ Haraj asked, dread in his voice.

‘Naw,’ Leah answered. ‘It’s raining, innit? Them Bloorian nobles won’t fight in the rain. Gets their fancy bird-feather helmet plumes all droopy.’

Gregar snorted a laugh.

Sergeant Teigan rounded on him. ‘Oh! The ingrate new recruit thinks this is all just hilarious!’

Gregar struggled to contain a new bout of laughter. Closing nose to nose with him, Teigan yelled, ‘Maybe the new recruit would like the honour of being the colour-bearer!’

Gregar had no idea what to say to that. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘if you think—’

‘Shut up!’ Teigan bellowed. ‘That’s yes sir!’

Showing great restraint, Gregar merely clenched his lips. ‘Yes,’ he ground out, ‘sir.’

‘Hand the colours over!’ Teigan yelled.

Another of the skirmishers came running bearing a tall spear from which hung a limp yellow silk banner. Teigan thrust it at Gregar. ‘There you go.’

A touch befuddled, Gregar took it. ‘Yellow? Really?’

‘March!’ Teigan yelled, and the troop set off.

As they went, Gregar murmured to Leah, ‘I don’t understand. Isn’t this an honour? Bearing the colours and all?’

Leah just smirked. ‘The Grisians think it great sport to collect regimental colours. They think it’s noble and courageous or some such rubbish to ride down a farmer and take the flag. We go through two or three colour-bearers every battle.’

Gregar shared another look with Haraj. ‘Wonderful. Fucking wonderful.’

*   *   *

Having finished his immediate orders recruiting a number of potential cadre mages, Tayschrenn found himself between duties and so sought out the Napan aristocrat, Surly, who – if anyone – was actually getting things done.

He had to push past numerous bodyguards and layers of security in Smiley’s bar before gaining entry to the second floor. And by the time he did it appeared to him that the bar seemed more a nest of spies, assassins and agents provocateurs than any drinking establishment.

Upstairs, he was allowed, with some reluctance, to edge past a final layer of bodyguards and enter the presence of the woman herself.

Standing, a sheaf of vellum sheets in her hands, Surly lowered the reports to eye him, a touch impatiently. ‘Yes?’

‘Timetable,’ Tayschrenn offered, being deliberately obscure.

The faintly bluish-hued and quite muscular woman eyed him for an instant without comment. Then she allowed one curt nod. ‘Proceeding.’

‘And what of our glorious leaders?’

She shrugged. ‘Irrelevant.’

Tayschrenn gave her a sceptical look. ‘Really? The plan calls for—’ He paused here to peer about the room, crowded as it was with the woman’s bodyguards, staff, and various agents.

‘These are the people executing said plan,’ Surly explained.

Tayschrenn coughed into a fist. ‘Ah. I see. Well, the plan calls for—’

‘I know the plan,’ Surly interrupted, not bothering to disguise her impatience. ‘Your point?’

Tayschrenn decided that she was trying to goad him, so he clamped down on any reaction and eyed her impassively. ‘What if Kellanved does not show?’

‘Then a vessel will land the assault party outside the city and you will proceed from there.’

‘You? I mean, me?’

‘Yes. You will be among the party.’

He peered about the room, searching for smirks or laughter, as if at a joke at his expense. ‘Me? Whatever for? There is nothing I could possibly contribute to such a mundane, ah, errand.’

She gave him a hard stare, from one eye. ‘You are a mage … are you not?’

Now he felt rather flustered. This curt woman was frankly intimidating him. ‘Well, yes. Of course. Just not that kind of mage.’

‘What kind? The useful kind?’

Instead of slipping into anger or withering beneath such scorn, Tayschrenn stepped back from the conversation to study it from afar. Why such hostility? If this was hostility – perhaps this was the woman at her most people-friendly. He simply did not know. One thing he did know, or suspect, was that some sort of contest was being acted out here; one he had heretofore been unaware of. And there could only be a contest between rivals.

And there he had it. If she could be said to be the head of her branch of this nascent organization they were pulling together here on this wretched island, then so too was he.