38. THIRTY-EIGHT #3
Limtush dragged a palm across his face in response. The man was sweating profusely—more than seemed reasonable.
“If he’s wrong,” Niklaus continued. “If he’s lying, you are implicated in whatever Groundling stunt he’s trying to pull. You are at risk.”
No groans. No sighs. Silence.
Limtush looked doggedly at the horizon, where the port of Thaligan would appear in half a ten-day. Something was chewing at him. Time to turn that into a chomp.
“Here’s what’s been laid out to me: Curtaim murdered a Nelfinden statesman and his staff this winter, yet he walks freely among our envoy.
He’s tampered with the technology Aethertech Mechanics supplied this recruitment with so that it would inflict mass destruction on our numbers.
And now he is kidnapping an Azadonian expatriate living on Nelfinden soil to give to Tera’thian emissaries.
Those three things seem to serve disparate agendas.
” Niklaus shook his head. Voicing it made it seem all the more impossible.
“I’m not seeing how Thyatira would have knowledge of Curtaim’s objectives unless he also had access to Tera’thian communications which, following the ordinances in place by Taranil, he shouldn’t. You must agree with me?”
“I would rather be dead than come to an accord with you, Niklaus Meyernes.”
“My, but your commitment to your narcissism is commendable.”
Limtush’s face purpled. “If you would stand to accuse the General Prime of treason, the only thing it goes to show is that you are an apostate!”
It was so difficult for Limtush to see reason, the process literally had him out of breath. He was heaving for air.
Niklaus smiled, he honestly did, but it felt more like baring his teeth. He curled his pointer finger into a circle alongside his thumb. Then he squinted through it as though it were a monocle—or sphincter. “Is this what it’s like to see things from your perspective? That must be difficult.”
The spluttering that followed was hard to match up with the uniformed man that made it.
“Done. I am done.” Limtush unholstered the dowaga latched to his back with a growl.
Niklaus’s horse reared and pulled away as Limtush brandished the weapon like he was preparing to spike it into Niklaus’s head.
“I’m not waiting for a full day’s clearance.
I’m gutting you now, in the open, like I did to your father, and I’ll spend the extra time watching the vultures pick you clean. ”
The blood rushed from Niklaus’s head as Limtush charged him.
He dug his heels into his horse’s sweating flank and fled, sand kicking up into the air behind him.
Air rushed in his ears, rippling through his hair as he galloped in the direction Limtush had promised they would find Thaligan.
A full minute passed before Niklaus got a hold on his panic enough to glance over his shoulder.
Limtush was behind. Far, far behind. His horse had dug its hooves into the sand. Limtush slumped out of the saddle, hitting the ground hard. Niklaus pulled his horse to a stop, making a quarter turn.
Run. Run, you shratten idiot, and get ahead while you can.
Instead, he let his heart race while his hands steadied the horse to watch. Limtush rose to his hands and knees, then collapsed again.
A heat stroke.
A heart attack?
With a fruitless swallow, Niklaus ushered his reluctant mount back toward Limtush. He dismounted and approached him.
“I-it-it’s poison,” Limtush croaked.
But he and Limtush had shared the same rations. Their water came from the same station. It had been a full day: nothing could have affected him that wouldn’t have done them both in.
“What can I do?” Niklaus asked the man who, seconds earlier, had been prepared to decapitate him.
“You! You did this, you—”
“I didn’t. Please let me…”
Incoherent noises pitched from the officer’s throat. His eyes bulged. His limbs seized. His body went limp so quickly the moment seemed more dreamlike than real.
Niklaus dropped to his knees—felt for a pulse but found nothing. He jolted backwards and a cloud of dust kicked up around him. Breath catching in short, desperate gasps, he scuttled away from the corpse on hands and knees.
Suddenly, the infinite expanse of the desert seemed to collapse in on him. There was nowhere to go. No escaping this.
They were both supposed to die out here. If he returned, he would be framed for the murder of Baem Limtush.
Niklaus couldn’t bring himself to look at the body. Peril and death surrounded him any way he looked in this wasteland, and yet he was terrified of the thing that could do him no harm.
Baem would have killed him. And he’d implied that he’d killed Niklaus’s father—as if Niklaus didn’t already have enough to process. Niklaus was better for the man’s death. He could get to Calver unimpeded now. Problem dealt with.
So why were tears streaming down his face?
After long minutes of doing nothing but feeding water to thirsty ground, Niklaus dragged Limtush’s body by the collar of his uniform to the edge of a crag between buttes.
He looked into the dark chasm without a visible bottom.
A scavenger might find him—it, no point conferring sentience on a bag of bones—there.
That seemed wrong, but there was no way to bury it.
He gave the body an unceremonious roll, and it tumbled into the gap.
Niklaus rubbed at the wetness on his cheeks with the backs of his hands, smearing it with the dust caking his face.
Now for the eulogy.
He removed his hat and held it to his chest. “Baem Limtush was…” he started, speaking only to the aether. “He was…” Chaos. What could be said? That he was a right sack of kretch? That he was notorious for corrupt business practices? That his friends were strategic?
A breeze cut through the air. Niklaus looked to the skyline. Golden grasslands shimmered in the distance. He replaced his hat. “Baem Limtush was,” he finished.
And now he was not.
Those words dislodged an unrecognized fear he had clung to for as long as he could remember.
Limtush was: the worst that could become of a man.
But Niklaus still had a chance at being more: at gaining the immortality that came with doing the right thing in one grand gesture or a thousand small ones. Niklaus had a future.
He had twice the supplies he needed to see him safely to the shore, a writ from the General Prime that would grant him a vessel in Thaligan, and—so long as he hadn’t thoroughly fucked up—an ally that depended on him.