Lorcan wondered whose mistake that was, and if they even knew, before reopening his own portal and stepping back into Malbolge to prepare for his next meeting.
His feet had no more than touched the bone-tiled floor when his mind registered that something was very, very wrong on the other side of the portal. His knees buckled, slamming his body down into a supplicant’s bow. His vision turned black, as if someone had plucked his eyes entirely from his skull. The air burned hot enough Lorcan imagined it would burst into flames if he exhaled too hard. There was only the sound of his frightened breath against the floor.
And then Asmodeus spoke.
The ancient wood swallowed Mehen and the Harpers, the sun lost behind a canopy of emerald leaves. Even in the heart of Ches, the forest felt mild, the air brisk but nothing compared to Everlund’s chill. A carpet of feathermoss and brittle bracken muffled their footsteps, but the sharp, grassy scent of broken plants marked their path wherever they trod.
Daranna checked Mehen’s pace often, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of being the slow, ungainly creature she expected. He knew how to move through the wood, quickly and stealthily. They made camp late and broke early the first night, and by the time they stopped on a high hilltop for the second night, Mehen had to admit at least that the Harpers weren’t the worst folks to be traveling with.
Not as good as his girls, he thought sadly, digging an acorn cap out from beneath one of his foot-claws. He rubbed his sore foot.
“I may owe you a boon,” Khochen said, dropping down beside him. “Daranna swore it would take eight days with you along. I wagered a gold piece we could do it in five. I think you’ll win me my gold yet, goodman. Many thanks.”
“Thank me when you’ve won it,” Mehen said. “Don’t tempt the gods into your business.”
“But they are so easy to tempt, goodman.” Khochen tilted her head. “You must tell me what to call you, at least. ‘Goodman’ is terribly stiff, ‘Mehen’ is too familiar, and no one can tell me your clan or family name-”
“Mehen is fine. And don’t pretend you don’t know perfectly well I have no clan name.” He scratched the empty piercings along his jaw frill. “You know the difference between clan and family, you know what this means.”
“A hit!” she said clasping a hand to her chest. She considered him silently, that twitchy smile mocking him. “I have guesses,” she said. “The size of the holes, the placement. I’m no scholar of Tymanther, but I think you were somebody once.”
Mehen glared down his snout at her. “I’m still somebody: I am Clanless Mehen, Son of No One, Father of Farideh and Havilar.”
Khochen’s smile softened. “But you were Verthisathurgiesh Mehen. Once.”
All these years, and the sound of those words spoken aloud still sent a shock of shame and anger through Mehen. “Don’t you dare say that name,” he said, his voice a hiss. “I am clanless, and that means forever.”
“Indeed,” Khochen said. “I know that well enough too. But someone is looking for your old self.”
Mehen sighed and folded his arms, and all that sudden shock turned back to annoyance. “Let me guess: a dragonborn, clanless, but freshly enough to tell you that they, too, were Verthisathurgiesh once. Wears a symbol of the Platinum Dragon big enough to stop an axe. Tracked me out of Tymanther, but then the trail runs cold. They start asking, you think of Lord Crownsilver’s bodyguard.”
Khochen smiled. “An excellent guess, goodman.”
“I get one every five or seven years. They get themselves expelled from the clan for swearing too loudly to Bahamut. They’re lost and lonely. They’ve heard the tale of the favored son who called Old Pandjed’s bluff and took exile over obedience and they assume-every karshoji one-that it was the same ‘sin’ as theirs. That I will know their hearts and be their mentor, and turn them into the sort of warrior Verthisathurgiesh will be so proud of, that they will make an exception and bring them back into the fold.” Mehen fixed Khochen with a hard stare. “They are wrong on every count. Don’t encourage this one.” Khochen’s eyebrows raised. “Your clan doesn’t talk about what you did?” Mehen snorted. “Doesn’t sound like it.”
“That’s peculiar. Can’t warn anyone off unless an example’s made.”
“There are some things, where if you make an example, you give the young ones ideas,” Mehen pointed out. “Pandjed is nothing if not canny. He knows the difference.”
“So what did you do?” Khochen asked.
Mehen held her gaze. “I told you,” he said. “I told Verthisathurgiesh Pandjed he could exile me.”
“Does Verthisathurgiesh Pandjed do everything you tell. .” Khochen trailed off and peered into the distance over Mehen’s shoulder, down the hillside and into the depths of the darkening forest.
Mehen traced her gaze-nothing there. Not at first. Then the flash of magic, purple and gold, far into the distance peeked through the trees once more. He narrowed his eyes as it flashed again.
“Company,” Khochen noted, coming to her feet and retreating to Daranna’s side. A few quick, whispered words and the four scouts were on their feet once more, slipping through the trees toward the strange lights.
“Goodman,” Daranna said softly. “Hold. Let them do what they do best and get us information before we decide whether to strike.”
Mehen didn’t look back at her, watching the faint lights instead, and trying to pick out where the scouts had vanished into the fortress. He had no way to gauge the time this deep into the forest, but it might have been another seven and a half years before the four scouts returned one by one with the sort of answer Mehen was craving.
Thayans.
“What in the name of every dead god are Thayans doing in the High Forest?” Vescaras asked. Daranna remained silent, pondering the point between the trees where the lights had flashed.
“They’ve had trouble with them up in Neverwinter,” Khochen noted. “Maybe whatever they’re after’s not there but here.”
Mehen tapped the roof of his mouth with his tongue. Karshoji Harpers. “Are they supposed to be here?” he demanded. Daranna looked up at him through her hair.
“No.”
Mehen slid his falchion from its sheath. “Then let’s get rid of them.”
The sun has started its downward path, when one of the apprentices returns, his robes scattered with a constellation of blood droplets. Farideh studies them as he crosses the room, her pulse speeding with every step. Whose is it? The old woman’s? The tall man? The woman wrapped in red light? He bends his head in conversation with his fellows, his voice rushed and excited. Something has changed. The wizards all look up at her, like a herd of spooked deer, and out of habit, she looks away, down at the waters. Mehen would be disappointed-there are times a warrior shouldn’t back down.
She summons a memory of her father. The vision of Mehen plaiting her hair, before she heads out on patrol duty for the first time, back in the village of Arush Vayem, washes up as sharp-edged as it is in her mind. She is so young and gangly at fourteen- she knew it then, and the image only makes her want to hug her younger self close.
“Is it. .,” the younger Farideh starts. She tries again. “It’s just it’s supposed to be so dangerous.”
“It’s not dangerous,” Mehen says. “Stop listening to Criella.”
“If it’s not dangerous, then why is there a wall? Why do we need patrols?”
Mehen ties her hair off, tucks the end of the braid into the band at the nape of her neck, and steps around her to check her armor, her sword belt. “There is dangerous,” he says, “and there is dangerous. You’re watching for signs of bandits and monsters migrating through. Getting a little hunting in. That’s it. The day patrol is nothing, or they wouldn’t let a fourteen-year-old do it.”