Chapter 18
Torver’s stomach flutters like there are moths inside him. Lavellin is wittering on, saying things that Torver can’t hear over the pounding in his ears.
He comes to when Lavellin stops walking abruptly. It turns to face him, wringing its hands.
“We can do this.” Its smile is small but determined. “They’re getting close enough that you should be able to hear them soon—but it’ll be okay! They might not even be that strong! We don’t know!”
Torver finds his head shaking from side to side.
“They’re Enforcers.” His gaze darts from ruin to ruin, still searching for signs of Bassen. “They’re powerful. Do you think they dish out job scrolls at random? Enforcers need to be able to subdue…criminals.”
He hesitates before the word criminals leaves his lips. His wrists had ached where the smoke shackles held him all that time ago, and they ache now, as if to remind him.
“No matter.” Lavellin brushes its hair behind its pointed ear. “Hold still.”
Before Torver can formulate a response, his face and body become hot and tingly. He isn’t familiar with the sensation, doesn’t know if he should panic. His mouth feels crowded, some pathetic gasp coming out of him while he rakes the pads of his fingers over his face.
“What are you doing to me? Am I melting?”
Lavellin’s face is a picture of stern concentration, its cheeks tinged pink.
“Lavellin, what’s happening?” Torver’s skin is taut and uncomfortable, like he’s sat too close to a roaring fire. Lavellin’s stare drops and it lets out a juddering breath.
“I was glamouring you,” it says with exasperation in its velvet voice. “You have to let me concentrate or I can’t hold it.”
Torver runs his hands over his face, once again cool with the breeze. He shudders, fingers twitching. He wants to know where Bassen is, wishes she were here. Facing danger without her feels both wrong and imprudent.
“You could have warned me about the feeling.” He rolls his shoulders. “What did I look like?”
Lavellin pauses, considering. “Bigger, hairier,” it decides. “Your eyebrows were thicker and you had a beard. I made your skin a different shade and I hid your earring, too.”
Torver’s hand flies to the small metal hoop in his earlobe.
“Unrecognisable,” it assures him, its face softening. “I promise that if they know you, they won’t recognise you. I won’t let them.”
He frowns at how it speaks to him, like it’s talking to a rabbit or a small child. Like it’s Bassen.
He stiffens his body, his resolve.
“Do it,” he says, steeling himself. “I can do it. Just watch me.”
He’s held in Lavellin’s tender gaze for a long second. Then it nods and the strange and horrible sensation resumes. Torver walks in the direction Lavellin points him. Into the wood, where a rough path weaves between the trees. A forest has never seemed so menacing and his tingling palms grow damp.
When he squints into the forest’s dim light, he can see them.
Far off down the path but getting closer.
Four enormous shires, their feathered legs swishing, and their cargo—Enforcers.
Resplendent in their armour, their swords each sticking out to the side with the angle of their seated legs.
They spot him after a while, one of them pointing a silver arm at him. They push their horses to a heavy trot.
“You there!” a distant voice rumbles. “Stay where you are!”
The Enforcer draws his sword and Torver swallows, reminding himself that the strange sensation of his face means he’s glamoured. That Lavellin is behind him somewhere, and that he’s safe.
He considers for a second putting on some bold new accent.
The ground beneath his feet begins to tremble as they close in.
One wears silver, two wear bronze, and a fourth wears chainmail.
Only their heads are exposed, their necks covered with gleaming gorgets, onto which their names are engraved.
The grooves catch the light through the rustling leaves overhead.
Torver swallows the contents of his sweating mouth.
They’re all men—as Enforcers usually are.
And unless their armour sits full of empty air, these men are huge.
Two are bearded with short brown hair, another has black hair that hangs to his ears and sweatily clings to his temples.
The final one, the one at the front, the one whose sword is pointed at his throat, is pale, eyes like ash. Not a man at all.
Conise.
“You there!” Conise draws her snorting shire to a halt. She resheaths her sword and looks down on Torver with a snarl. “What are you doing around here? Those ruins are of a temple—the old gods once walked here. Do you feel no shame?”
Torver feels an instant wave of relief when she doesn’t recognise him.
“I’m sorry.” Torver looks to the ground, attempting to look bashful. “I didn’t know it was a temple. I happened across it when I was travelling and I came to have a look…”
Conise lets out a low rumble. A familiar tendril of hard, grey smoke extends from her fingers. The smoke curves and coils through the air, approaching Torver, who feels suitably menaced.
“And why were you travelling?” Conise growls. “Does your job scroll permit it?”
Torver’s eyes widen.
Why does he never think these things through? Why is he so stupid? Stupid, stupid.
“I…” The words choke him as his mind swirls with unpleasant images.
Being asked for papers he doesn’t have, being slammed against an ancient wall by rock-hard smoke, Lavellin’s glamour dropping.
Him being extra-judicially executed before the altar of this temple, the gods watching his life sputter out, impassive, uncaring.
Before he can ever see the Mere or his mother again.
“I was just heading up here to collect firewood,” he tries the words in the most certain voice he can muster.
One of the Enforcers, the one who hasn’t yet earned his plate armour, squeezes his shire a few steps forward. His chainmail rattles.
“Should we ask if he’s seen her?” The man’s voice is soft and high, like adolescence didn’t quite hit him right.
Conise regards the man with narrowed eyes, before nodding curtly.
The chainmailled Enforcer must be a trainee, or perhaps Conise’s apprentice. His face is young, his hands too hard on the mouth of his mount. He seems inexperienced. Torver prays that will work to his advantage. That they won’t ask to see his papers.
“There is a woman from the Wen,” the young knight says. “Her hair is all silver, but she’s no older than her mid-twenties. Sickly, dark eyes.”
It takes everything that Torver possesses to keep his expression one of calm interest and not jolting panic. The knight continues brusquely.
“We’ve been tracking her and her companions in connection with a Rath fugitive. Have you seen anyone untoward? Any young women who might fit that description? By the Beast below, you are compelled to tell us, citizen.”
Torver’s mouth dries. They were followed from the Wen. Conise or someone else must have seen Lavellin through the window or—
The sounds of the ruins, the forest, fade from his ears. Gone are the noises of wind-jostled leaves, of singing birds. Instead, all Torver can hear is a rushing. Blood propelled by his pounding heart.
Enforcers have been tracking them this entire time. They were likely behind the incident with the lost girl.
He swallows hard, forces the panic down.
“How awful!” He pitches his voice up. “There’s a fugitive Rath? Beast below!”
“Indeed,” Conise says grimly. “A farmer spotted it crossing the border wall and informed the patrolling Enforcers, too scared to face the foul creature on his own. We’re not sure on how the Rath managed to evade capture at first, but we know now that it’s receiving help from the deathmancer.
It’s uncertain if we can arrest them without casualties, but we intend to track them until the situation becomes clearer.
The People’s Kingdom thanks you for any information you can give us. ”
Torver braces his stomach muscles against the urge to vomit.
“Of course, of course—but, deathmancy…what’s that?” He pretends his blinks are those of polite incomprehension.
The Enforcers share uncomfortable looks.
“An abhorrent magic,” Conise spits. “One I hope never reappears again once its consequence inevitably overtakes that woman. She thinks it makes her immune to the laws that bind us.”
Conise’s bay shire shifts beneath her.
“And speaking of the laws,” she drawls. “I would like to see your papers.”
Torver almost swears out loud, almost gives voice to the carousel of fucks looping in his head.
“Several concerned citizens,” the bronze Enforcer to her side adds, “have stopped us on our journey to report the most senseless of crimes in this area. Just awful. A whole herd of longhorns were slaughtered and we managed to follow wagontracks for a few miles, but—”
A noise behind Torver interrupts him and Conise’s harsh gaze shifts.
Torver hopes fervently that it’s Bassen, come to rescue him like always. But when he turns—to his surprise—he sees Winander.
The traitor himself is strolling confidently towards them, his blond hair pushed back, his hands thrust casually into his pockets.
“Good afternoon!” Winander calls chummily and Torver’s heart sinks.
He’s here to betray them. He probably led them right into the Enforcer’s path.
But despite the glamour and the panic on his face, Winander seems to recognise Torver, must have found Lavellin in a bush, stupefied in concentration.
Bassen must have told him about its ability to glamour, along with all their other treasonous secrets.
Torver wishes she were here, wishes she could—
Winander claps his hand on Torver’s shoulder.
Torver tenses.
Here it comes. The final betrayal from this rat of a man and—
“My grandson appears to have wandered off!” Winander beams up at the frowning knights. “I hope he’s not in any trouble. I’ll have to teach him a thing or two about obedience. It keeps the Beast asleep, doesn’t it?”
Torver blinks in confusion.
Is Winander… helping him?