The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (65 page)

Roald nodded again as his tears began to dry. “Gully, did you really... I mean, would you have really let... you know... Krayell...” Roald’s voice tapered off, no longer able to give voice to the question.

“You don’t know what it has been like, Roald,” said Gully in honesty and regret.

Roald sat aghast for a moment.

“And thank you,” added Gully.

“Thank you?”

“For using my name.”

They stood and Gully pulled Roald into a tight hug, relishing the closeness with his brother that had left such a void in his life when it was no longer there.

He whispered into Roald’s ear, “You know me, Roald, always full of piss and vinegar!”

“Mostly piss, Gully Snipe... mostly piss!” returned Roald with a faint attempt at a chuckle.

Roald held Gully back by the shoulders, the humor finally seeping back into his face. “You gave me a terrible scare! All I saw was someone falling to their death from the tower! So tell me, how did you manage to disarm the Domo Regent and launch him off the top of this tower?” He knelt down and tore another long strip from his surcoat to wrap around Gully’s wounded arm to hold the knife cuts properly closed.

Gully held out his arm to allow Roald to tie more strips there, and said with a twinkle in his drying eyes, “Oh, that... yes, you’ll
definitely
enjoy that story, Roald...”

Gully paced back and forth restlessly, across the top of the oratory tower. The arm that had been cut in the fight with Krayell was now in a sling, but it throbbed with pain where the healers had dressed it. He found it hard not to take the accursed sling off, but the healers had insisted that he keep it there.

In the dark of night up on the tower, with only a small torch providing a modest light off to one side, Gully continued to stride back and forth like a trapped animal in a cage, still upset over his clash with the old Domo Regent. That, plus the sudden burning desire to have a question answered, had left him in enough agitation that all he could do was pace to and fro to keep himself from losing his head.

It did not help that he resented the sudden deep need to ask the question that he was waiting to ask.

Gallun and Gellen kept to the shadows in wolf form on the far side of the tower, even though Gully had tried to get them to leave him alone entirely. After the debacle with the Domo Regent, though, he was not surprised when they had pointedly refused to leave him. They had, at least, compromised by leaving him to his own fretting and turmoil instead of trying to console him.

Finally, at the far side of the tower, he saw the faint light of a lantern slowly coming up the tower steps.

“Your Highness?” asked the Archbishop as he emerged. “I came as soon as I heard my presence had been requested, but you must forgive me for taking my time climbing the stairs of the tower. My constitution is not what it once was in years past.”

Nellist crossed over to where Gully had stopped. He held the lantern up so that he could get a clearer view of the king standing there, waiting for him.

“Are you well, Your Majesty?” asked Nellist. “You seem upset.”

He stepped closer and Gully hesitated, but said nothing in the end.

“Perhaps even more upset than one would expect after the ordeal you faced earlier today with Krayell the traitor,” probed the Archbishop.

Gully still said nothing. He frowned deeply and his face screwed up in irritation, and hurt, and anxiety.

“Majesty?” asked Nellist in growing concern.

Gully was embarrassed to ask the question, but after this day, his heart needed an answer far more than he needed his pride.

“Where is her star, Nellist?” Gully wrung his hands together and his eyes pleaded with the Archbishop. “Did her sparks fly up into the night and find a home there?”

Once the question had been spoken aloud, Gully hoped he would feel some relief, but his anxiety only grew deeper as he anticipated the answer he had realized he needed to hear, and feared not hearing it.

Worse, he expected the man before him to lecture him on his lack of faith in their religion.

Nellist considered the king for a moment. “Mariealle?” he finally asked. “You ask after Mariealle, do you not, Your Highness?”

Gully nodded curtly, his lips pulled tight to hold his anxiousness in. He waited for the lecture to begin. Or to hear the terrible answer that she had not found the favor of her ancestors during her nighting.

Instead of the lecture, however, instead of the look of smug victory in the Archbishop’s eyes, Gully saw reassurance and kindness there.

“Please come and sit with me, Thayliss.” Nellist led Gully by the elbow over to one of the benches and placed his lantern on the stand next to it.

He took Gully’s hand as he sat next to him and said, “Your Majesty, of course she did. It was the very next evening after her nighting that my interpreters identified a new star among those of her family.”

Gully finally exhaled the breath he had been holding onto in anticipation.

Nellist said gently, “Here... allow me to show you...”

He pointed to the north-western sky. “Do you see the Father Star there?”

Gully nodded as he looked where the Archbishop pointed at the lonely spark of light above.

“To the west of it is the constellation of the noble family of veDellersean, the Quill and Codex. If you look, you will see it mid-way towards the edge of Pelaysha’s disk,” said Nellist. “Just east of the Quill and Codex are the Allerdaain’s family stars. There is a green one, next to the two large blue ones that alternate twinkling. The green one… that is your Mariealle, having joined her ancestors in the sky. She is now a resplendent emerald green star in our sky, watching over us. Watching over
you
, Your Highness.”

Gully’s breath caught in his chest, and he had no idea the impact that seeing her star in the sky would have upon him. After the day he had barely survived, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep his emotions in check, and so he remained still and said nothing, despite wanting to reach up to try to touch her star from where he sat.

He stared at the star for a long time, immensely relieved to hear these words from the Archbishop. He still was not sure if he believed in people becoming stars, but something about seeing that point of light, a magnificent green, calmed him in a way that he did not anticipate. It calmed him even as it made him long once again for the person he had known only painfully briefly.

“You probably think of me as being foolish, Nellist, for having claimed to have little faith in our religion just the other day, and now begging you for affirmation of it for Mariealle’s sake,” said Gully.

“There is no shame in seeking the comfort that comes in knowing that our lives are not wasted, Highness.” The Archbishop patted the king’s hand gently. “There is nothing foolish about wishing that people for whom we care will be rewarded for their good deeds and bravery after they have left us behind.”

Indeed, Gully felt very comforted, far more than he expected to, at Nellist’s words. He was quickly learning why his brother, Thaybrill, cared so much for the old man.

“You’ve had a very trying day, King Thayliss. And if I may say so, one that few would have survived were it not for your uniquely suited set of talents. You deserve this modest bit of succor,” said the Archbishop, “even if you wish you did not need it.”

Gully sighed heavily and nodded as they sat together. The Archbishop was far more insightful than he might otherwise seem, and Gully was very glad of that.

“And how many do you see?” asked Roald. His feet took long strides and his boots echoed heavily on the wide wooden planks of the hallway.

Ummalst practically sprinted to keep pace with the Lord Marshal. The windows they passed looked out from the previous Lord veBasstrolle’s manor house, across East End, and to the mountains to the east. The sky was still heavy and gray after the steady rain that had fallen earlier in the morning.

Ummalst said, “I count over a hundred, probably closer to a hundred and fifty.”

Roald stopped without warning, causing Ummalst to pass him before he stopped, too. Roald stared off towards the mountains as he thought. He shook his head and said, “That is not many. I was hoping there would be more slaves returning to us. The king will be discouraged.”

“There are soldiers camped nearby as well,” added Ummalst as he ran his hands through his black hair.

Roald shrugged. “I would expect that. They need to keep our people contained until they send them through the pass.”

“No,” said Ummalst. “It’s far too many for just that.”

Roald’s eyes narrowed. “How many?”

“Thousands.”

Roald’s lip twitched at the number. He couldn’t understand what the Maqarans were getting at. They couldn’t take the pass, even with ten times that many. It would be foolish for them to think they could take it by brute force. Why, then, this large build-up of men when they were ready to exchange slaves for soldiers?

“Ohh!” exclaimed Ummalst.

Roald snapped from his musings and said, “I’m sorry?”

“Nothing, Lord Marshal. Just had to dodge as I’m flying.”

Roald began walking the rest of the way to the large, dark doors at the end of the corridor. “Well, come on, let’s offer the king the benefit of what you’ve seen.”

They stepped into what had once been Chelders’s personal salon. Gully was seated at the desk, hurriedly putting his arm back into the sling at the sound of the door. Behind him, Gallun and Gellen stood by quietly in their human forms. Roald had noticed they seemed to be using that form a little more often the last week or so.

Encender was also in the room, pacing back and forth. Thaybrill and the patriarch were seated on the couch in front of a roaring fire, which was needed for the cooler weather that the rain had brought. Raybb and Exoutur were sitting in large, cushioned chairs. Marshal Pumblennor, who had been placed over the Guard contingent in Basstrolle’s fief since the old one was one of the traitors that would be given to Maqara as slaves a few days hence, was standing at the window. Despite it being mid-morning, the dark wood of the room and the clouds outside cast the large study into deep shadows.

Roald said, “Your Highness, I have already seen you not wearing your sling on your arm as the healer specifically instructed. There is little point in rushing to put it on now.” It felt so much better to be able to needle him again now that he had capitulated on how he should behave around Gully and Thaybrill.

He added, to everyone, “Ummalst is flying over the Maqaran encampment now. The Iisen and Balmorean slaves are gathered as hoped.”

“How many?” asked Gully softly.

Roald frowned. “Between a hundred and a hundred and fifty.”

Gully’s mouth pulled down into a frown to match Roald’s. “That number is tragically low,” he mumbled. He seemed distracted by his own thoughts for a moment, then noticed all the eyes in the room watching him. He said, attempting a brighter tone, “But at least they are meeting our demand, and that is a lot of people to save today.”

“There’s more,” said Roald.

“More?” asked Encender.

Ummalst ducked violently and shouted in alarm, throwing his arms over his head for brief moment. “Um, sorry,” he said in embarrassment. “That was a little close.”

Gully said, “What is happening, Ummalst?”

“The clouds are low and heavy, and I’m flying under them. The Maqaran archers have started taking pot shots at me now and again. I think they know I’m not a typical eagle.”

Roald said, “No more, then, Ummalst. Return back to the Iisen side now.”

Ummalst smiled and said, “It’s of no concern, really. Most of their shots are poorly judged and far off the mark. Just one or two got a little close. Lucky shots, really. They probably are going to shoot one of their own men before—”

Gully stood and leaned over the desk, placing his good fist upon it. “Ummalst, come home. Now.”

“Besides, there’s not really much else to see, I daresay. There is no reason to court injury,” added Gully as he resumed his seat. “’Cender, I trust you will forbid Abella Jule from flying beyond Iisen’s borders?”

“Without a doubt!” snorted Encender.

Roald cleared his throat and said, “There are a large number of soldiers gathered in addition to our people, though.”

Gully’s eyes studied Roald for a moment, trying to divine his meaning. He finally asked, “How many is a large number?”

“I couldn’t count them all. A couple of thousand, I believe,” said Ummalst.

Gully leaned back in thought. His fingers worried absent-mindedly at his doublet where his pendant lay underneath.

Encender stepped closer and said, “They can’t invade. They know they can’t. The pass gate is too strong for them now.”

“True,” said Roald. “I cannot figure what game they are playing.”

“What else could they expect to do?” asked Exoutur.

“Perhaps their loss at our hands a few weeks ago was too much to bear and they are willing to try any wild gambit to invade again?” suggested Thaybrill.

“They’re not that foolish, Your Highness, and they know how heavily fortified our gate is now. They’ve sent men forward on a few occasions, and we’ve turned them back. Not violently, of course,” said Marshal Pumblennor.

Gully closed his eyes and breathed very heavily. After a protracted silence while everyone waited for his response, he said, “Marshal Pumblennor, before we release them back to their own land, you will put out the eyes of every Maqaran soldier.”

Every motion, every sound in the room, ceased in disbelief at the king’s order. The only sound among the men gathered was the crackle of the fire in the large hearth.

Roald was shocked beyond words, but he was the first to gather his wits. He said harshly, “Your Highness, may I speak to you privately for a moment?”

The look on Gully’s face was that of helplessness as he looked down at the desk in front of him. “I know what you wish to say, Roald. Go ahead. Even here, in front of all. Please.”

Roald turned red, hesitated, but then blurted out, “Gully, have you gone mad? We’ve already cut out their tongues! Now this?! This is
barbaric!
We may as well murder them in their sleep!”