Iron and Wood #Wattys2017

Chapter Sixteen

Marius flipped the desk with a scream of rage.

"What did you just say?!"

The cadet trembled on the blood-red rug in the captain's office.  The firelight from the hearth danced off his round, hairless cheeks.  He was a year away from initiation, only twelve years old.  The sword hanging at his hip was a foot from the ground. 

"I-in the-- sir, the keepers of the collars have reported that four members of the hunting party have not moved for a day and a half."

"Which four?" Marius growled.  

"Sara Fenn, Columer Sow, and the two-- the twins, sir."  The note off of which the boy read was rustling as it shook in his hand.  

Marius snatched up an inkwell from a nearby shelf and threw it at him.  The boy ducked.  Black splattered the wall behind him.

He felt a firm touch on his arm.  Dairine was there, as pale and sharp as a shard of glass, offering him an onyx goblet.  Blood sloshed inside.  He took it, not drinking.  

"They may not be dead," Dairine told him.

"Fenn wouldn't stay in place for a day and a half while her fugitives escaped," Marius retorted.  "If she's not dead, she's not in any state to be hunting, and no use to us anymore.  Sow has no attachment to her, he must be out of play as well."

"And the twins?"

"The last of the pack," Marius finally drank deeply.  "That's the end of that, then."

Dairine was staring at him.

"What?" Marius asked tersely.

"Templar Roda."

Marius raised his eyebrows.  

"For all we know, he was the one that killed him."

"I doubt it," Dairine shook her head.  "I know my charges.  Templar Roda is desperate to prove his loyalty.  Besides, he's not the sort to draw his sword without being ordered to, like how he had an opportunity to kill Sung and let it slip.  It was always his greatest flaw."

"Roda denies he had that opportunity.  Anyhow, my point stands,"  Marius set the blood down on the side table.  "No one's chasing them now."

Dairine glanced to the right.

"Boy, where is Templar Roda now?"

The boy looked at the note again.

"He-he's still heading towards the Channel, ma'am.  Quickly."

Dairine looked meaningfully at Marius.

"He's chasing them."

"Or making his escape," Marius said dryly. He wiped his mouth and looked at the boy.  "Prepare our horses."

The boy ducked his head and fled.

"Is that necessary?" Dairine demanded of Marius.  "The Turning is over.  We've wasted far too many precious resources chasing the two of them.  Perhaps it's time to declare them dead and move on."

"I want to know how Sung removed her collar," Marius snapped.  "And this isn't about the Turning.  No deserter has ever escaped the Empire.  I'm not going to put a dent in that legacy now."

He looked at the desk, and the mess of papers, quills and ink that had cascaded to the floor, and stepped around it.

"Are you coming?" he said over his shoulder as he moved for the door.

"I'll meet you there in twenty minutes."

Dairine returned to her room.  

It was slightly bigger than a Templar's quarters, with red curtains rather than rough sackcloth, and a bedspread with the Imperial seal.  Dairine pulled out a drawer at the bottom of her dresser, and then emptied out the clothes onto the floor.