The Elusive Taste of Kolchoan Blue
by Patrick Honovich
Satet Nosso is trying to finish his apprenticeship at the Verrin School. He’s equipped with quick wits and potent magic in the form of a set of intricate, enchanted tattoos that embed his spells literally under his skin.
Satet serves a strict and calculating master. As his last task, to get his master’s approval to continue to the next part of his magical education, Satet is sent to acquire a few key items at Auntighur, the Imperial Auction House. When he arrives on the coldest day of winter, he encounters Sarah Bailick, another apprentice who might just be his equal or better.
Can he win the items he needs and keep from being hamstrung by the maneuvering of the other bidders? Or will the schemes of Sarah’s own Mistress be his downfall? Will his own arrogance doom him? If he wins his items, will he survive long enough to get them back to the school? The doors are open at Auntighur, and Satet feels ready for anything, but is he?
Chapter 6: Turn, Turn, Step, Stumble, Turn
A crossbow bolt smashed through a candle shop window to our left as Raleigh beat the team into another turn. We slid over the road, the hooves of the team clattering on damp stone as the horses tried to get a step ahead of the sting of the whip.
The night air carried the faint scents of island spices, pepper, cuya leaf, lime, and we rolled on. Half-on and half-off the road, Raleigh snapped his crop again, called out to the horses to guide their dumb panic along a winding course.
One of the Auntighur guards took a long shot, across the street at the man driving the phaeton on our tail, then dropped the crossbow at his feet and drew his sword. The bolt passed with a glitter, which made it charm-crafted, and it sailed true, through muscle meat and bone tearing a chunk the size of a fist from a man’s thigh. The man dropped, rolled back, fell off the wagon with a sharp crack of broken bone when he hit the street. He died while clutching the hole in his leg as he bled away onto the cobblestones.
Another bolt split in two the hanging sign of a tavern as our pursuers’ aim jerked high on the uneven road, on through the darkness even though oil lamps and candles around us lit the Correm night piecemeal and left the rest unmercifully ink-black. In the dark, reacting, I wasn’t steady enough for any but the most inelegant of spells, and the way Raleigh beat his team on, my line-of-sight was shot.
Another bolt cracked a chunk out of the wagon’s rails and with the wiry man at the reins flogging the horses, we sped on, pursuers close at hand. The training took over, and everything slowed down. Still night, still riding fast, still clinging to the rail to keep from rolling off, but if I could leave off the rattling of the wagon for a few heartbeats... To be most effective I’d have to take the fight to them, but the crates weren’t leaving my side, which meant staying in the wagon and taking my lumps. I flipped back the hood of my cloak, and brushed the enchantment on my forearm again, bringing back the hawk’s eyes.
In the time it took for me to hold my gaze fast on a moving target — two, maybe three blinks of the eyelids, ten or twelve beats of the heart, one breath out, one breath in — my mind readied death, and sent it roaring out through the night air to meet our would-be attackers.
I caught motion at the edge of my sight, someone on the rooftops nearby, moving, but my eyes stayed on the man with the pale blouse under his vest who leveled a crossbow to take aim. Not a chance. There were a few coins in my purse, a few coppers — with a snap of the fingers, the soft slap of fingertips across a certain patch on my forearm, and a steady breath across a handful of small change, a hail of molten copper needles seared the air across the intervening space into his face, where hot metal met flesh with a crack and a scream.
Under the impact, suddenly riddled with holes, the man’s face simply came apart, blinding the men on either side of him, and, as the body slumped forward, knocking the man driving the cart off-course. With a scream. the terrified horses lost their footing and, squealing in panic, rolled along with the wagon until it hit the leading edge of the guardrail of one of Correm’s small parks and flipped, grinding the men beneath its weight into choppy stains on the cobblestones.
We passed under the shadow of a stone balcony and I heard footsteps. I listened, trying to guess direction, heard the faint pshpshpsh of slippered feet on the tiled roofs, but I couldn’t tell over the rattle of the buckboard or the snorts and puffs of the horses or the crack of Raleigh’s crop. The guards stayed sharp, reloading one of the crossbows while I held the other. I was looking for trouble, but I heard the two men grunt, the creak of the crank to draw back the bow, then another soft step on tile, mostly blotted out by Raleigh asking if they were still back there.
I couldn’t spare a breath to warn the Auntighur guards, or Raleigh. There. The training gave me a little tickle as I turned my head side-to-side and I grasped my left wrist with my right hand, encircled it with my fingers, and pulled. The man on the rooftops was moving slowly; he’d been very quiet, and if I’d moved a split-second later. one of us would’ve been dead. As he rose up on his knees, I caught his profile, and his clothes burst into flames. The cart kept rolling, but showed signs of slowing.
“Keep moving, you idiot, or there will be more!” I tracked the man’s progress: in trying to beat the fire out of his garments, he slipped and fell off the edge of the roof like a too-mortal comet, sharp-eared, his scream rending the night. When he landed, smoking, he didn’t get up.
Raleigh whipped the horses around another turn, and I lost sight of the man, so I turned my attentions towards the road. It didn’t matter who was after me, or why — I had more theories than fingers — only that I make it to my garret, that I get the quick hour to make sure all of the risks I’d taken were worth it. I was frustrated, tired, and hungry; the few drinks from earlier had long since faded away, and it was looking like I’d have little time to feed or quench my thirst once I arrived home.
The wagon rattled over one of Correm’s bridges, the night water below us bouncing back a little scrap of moonlight in its reflection as Raleigh crossed, heading in a looping course to my quarter of the city, and I caught a glimpse of bare steel from one of the roads ahead. More trouble.
Raleigh turned left again, and I could tell we were being funneled along a chosen course, farther from Tellrus, farther from my garret, farther from the rest of the Verrin school. Whoever was after us knew if I could reach Tellrus, I’d be safe.
“Go right, next chance you get!” I shouted. “It’ll be blocked, but I’ll handle it.”
As the wagon swung hard right, I let the motion shift my knees, and I hopped to stand on the seat to Raleigh’s left. The men ahead of us were using two wagons and an assortment of odd lumber to build a barricade, but they hadn’t been properly warned. A chop through the air, right hand like a knife-blade and, at the other end of the street, their barricade tore itself in half and turned aside, spraying splinters and smoke.
“There are still men...” Raleigh started to say, leading his team towards the hole.
And indeed, there were still men. Half a dozen men raised crossbows, expecting that since I’d destroyed their wagons, I wouldn’t be able to muster the strength to stop a hail of crossbow bolts. To be fair, I was a little drained. But I didn’t have to stop a hail of crossbow bolts or the men with their fingers on the triggers.
Instead of reaching out, I did something about us, tapping my chest through a hole in my shirt, and straining to cover more area than usual, so to the eyes of the men trying to stop us, we disappeared. The wagon rolled right on through their barricade, and I watched the disbelief from the far side as we kept on towards relative safety.
Without a clear target, they couldn’t be certain they wouldn’t hurt my crates, and no man will waste a crossbow shot on the empty air, they take too damn long to reload. Another tap on a different piece of ink on the back of my right leg and we made no sound, either. I sat down.
“Ease back, sir,” I said to Raleigh, to give the horses a little rest. Once we were around the corner, I let the spell drop, and wiped the sweat out of my eyes. Someone had wanted to stop me between Auntighur and home. Which meant Auntighur had been in on it. Which meant Div had probably told someone exactly when I’d left his side, or at the least, someone else was watching the warehouse exit for me. Another reason to kill the old man, if I ever saw him again.
Six blocks passed, creeping down the streets of Correm as the city got a second wind and the taverns started to fill. On any other day I’d have been on my fifth drink. Lamplight showed us, two guards, two crates, two tired horses, one tired driver and one bone-weary me.
Raleigh passed a small clay jug of wine, the Auntighur guards declined, but I took it, raised its base to the stars, and saluted the heavens above as I slugged down half its contents. The red went down smooth, and I took a few moments to regather my strength, plucking a bit from the night air, a touch from my stubborn streak, a draught from my ambition. What I’d worked for would not be taken away. I drank more wine, and Raleigh didn’t seem to mind; I was engaged in thirsty business.
Raleigh let the horses slow up, and we turned onto a familiar street at the edges of the quarter, eight blocks from the school, and from my place in the tower at the top of a winding set of stairs. We weren’t there yet. The effort of trying to look everywhere at once was starting to wear on my nerves, so I finished off the wine, burped, and slipped my hand into my shirt to prod a mark on the edge of my ribs. The horses were barely moving now.
Night in Correm is a tricky business; you have to watch yourself closely in Correm and, upriver, Jearnum too. The port brings the sailors off their boats, and the thieves go for the easy money, which brings in the watch, who are worse in the shadows than in daylight.
We rolled into familiar territory, horses tired, men weary and on edge, looking around but seeing nothing. The Verrin school, with its high walls and lone rear tower, sat back from the road behind a walled courtyard with a leaky fountain, marble cherubs as waterspouts down into a cracked tile basin that Master Tellrus had imported from the West but didn’t bother to repair.
We rolled slowly through the streets, on guard, searching for the lights atop the two watch-posts at the corners of the school’s front. My shoulders slumped the tiniest bit lower when out of the Correm night we saw nothing. Whores, thieves, sailors, watch, merchants going home and merchants opening up shop around us, Correm went about her evening, propositioning the night sky. Raleigh kept the horses moving.
I thought ahead, a mistake I’m sure. I thought we were almost there, I thought I could turn my mind towards climbing the stairs, unlocking my door, shifting around the wreckage in my room to admit the crate. I thought about the crates safe in my room instead of thinking about how best to get them inside. When the wagon slowed, then stopped, I looked up, certain I’d see one of the novices holding open the courtyard door.
Instead, I saw an arrow, wrapped in flames and drawn back nearly far enough to scorch the archer, then released. I couldn’t tell much about him: sallow-cheeked, lips pressed tight, loose-fitting cloak of no particular allegiance with a jade clasp. He let his arrow fly and ran left, widdershins to us.
The night air in Correm was latticed by trails of fire as not one or three but a dozen flaming arrows rained down on the wagon from the balconies, rooftops, and side streets two blocks from the school. None of the arrows met flesh — they all sank into wood, and sinking, the arrows threw fire against sideboards. The wagon, which had brought my precious cargo safe so far, was ablaze.
“Get the crates! I’ll keep the fire back — ” I told half the truth, but there wasn’t time. The men drew rods, and slotted one in each hand into opposite corners. I drew the heat of the flames down away from the crates, but knew it would suck embers into the surface of the wood, making it burn faster.
I didn’t think they stood much of a chance, but my bottles could be broken, easily, if they were so inclined. As I turned, I took hold of the fire from a different angle, raising my right hand with my left clamped hard over the curl of muscle at the elbow, and with flames scorching the loose threads off my cloak and boot-laces, drew it off the wagon, hurled it at them, the fire scattering like drops of rain as it fell, searing skin and burning through cloaks.
Struggling down from the wagon, the Auntighur guards drew swords as soon as they were safely away from the blaze. Raleigh’s team, faint-hearted as most horses are, reared up, and kicked back hard, breaking the rig, and fled. The wagon was past saving, I jumped off as the flames started to get pushier, and saw Raleigh cursing the gods as he did the same, his livelihood up in coiled clouds of smoke, lost to the night.
I drew my knife, and the guards drew swords. The fight was over in the space of time it takes for a child to count fingers and toes. Bad night for them, good luck for us. The guards proved their worth by dispatching two quite neatly at my feet, I slashed up my man, and they fled, leaving their dead behind. I bent to yank two rings off dead men’s fingers, then fourteen silver from a dead man’s purse. When I looked up the block, we were nearly alone again.
“Raleigh, we’re walking.Will Auntighur pay for your lost cart? Will your horses come back to their stables, or are you out a team, too?”
“Auntighur will pay, no doubt. Let’s go. I want to get home to the wife and sleep.”
“Any wine left?” I asked, feeling a little unsteady, hoping he had another jug.
“Screw you.” I took it as a no.
The crates weren’t heavy, and the charmed pallets made them featherweight, but they were bulky and difficult to handle. It’s hard to know where to step when the object you’re carrying cuts off any view of your feet. We walked the last few blocks to the school, manhandling them around the debris, castoff vegetables, scraps of wood, a few broken tables and chairs.
My master was waiting on the steps of the school. A wave of his hand and the crates lifted free from their pallets, through the open door, into his receiving room.
“Thanks, gentlemen.” He tossed a pouch to Raleigh. “Divide up the tip however you’d like, I don’t care, you’ve earned your pay. Our business with you is complete, I think, so we’ll retire.”
He turned to me. “Satet, had a rough night of it? Come inside, have some wine.” The smile on his face made me cringe.
Copyright © 2023 by Patrick Honovich
