Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Galvin, Aaron (classic fiction txt) 📖

The Blackfin’s burly, second-in-command went in without accompaniment, already working his keys to release another prisoner. A moment later, Solomon led the former pod mother out of the shared cage.

Sydney’s brow furrowed. Makeda? She thought. I thought this was a trial about Mom . . .

Makeda kept her head held high as Solomon escorted her to the main platform, standing her at the center of all, then binding her to a pair of pillars located there.

Sydney’s gaze tracked with Rupert as he rounded on the former leader of the Painted Guard. “Makeda,” he cried. “Disgraced pod mother, formerly of the Painted Guard—”

“Not formerly,” Makeda interrupted.

“What?” Rupert asked.

“Not formerly,” Makeda reiterated. “Name me disgraced. Remove my title. Do, or say, as you will. I will never renounce my allegiance to the true Painted Guard.” She glared at Rupert. “‘An Orc without her pod is nothing.’”

“Be that as it may,” Rupert continued. “You are no longer in command of any Orc, Makeda. Why is that?”

“Let you ask my traitorous brother,” she said. “It was his orders that led his Violovar spies to betray our people and land me in chains.”

“Spies?” Rupert scoffed to quiet the murmur among the crowds. “No, Makeda. I have it on good authority that the Blackfin was not even in the city at such time as you were taken into custody. It was your own soldiers who turned on you for what they deemed to be a lack of leadership.”

“They were never true soldiers of mine, then,” said Makeda. “And where is my brother anyway? Or is your claim of ‘good authority’ what we call Violovar scum now?”

Rupert’s face darkened. “The Blackfin is not—”

“Where is my brother?” she demanded of him. “Where is the turn-fin who stole my father’s armor and abandons his duty, his city, aye, and all its people too, whenever it suits him?”

Rupert shrugged. “The Blackfin’s absence is noted and expected. He was pardoned from today’s trial by the king himself for a mission of royal importance. Still . . . the Blackfin’s allegiance and his honor is not in question.”

“No more than mine should be,” she fired back. “Tell me of the crime for which I am accused, Bowrider, or set me free.”

“I would have thought it obvious,” said Rupert. “You are here as both witness to the queen’s guilt or innocence. You also stand accused for the same crimes of high treason.”

Makeda laughed. “Treason? And when does my brother pretend that I betrayed my vows to the king and people of New Pearlaya?”

“Arguably the moment you fled your rightful post here in the capital,” said Rupert. “Abandoning your king’s safety to lesser leadership that you might instead—”

“That I might what?” Makeda cut in. “Swim out at the king’s order to find and rescue both the queen and the princess?”

“More like to rescue your bastard son, rather,” said Rupert.

Sydney’s brow wrinkled at the accusation. She was not alone in her surprise.

Makeda’s head cocked to the side as whispers were taken up among the crowd. “I don’t have a son,” she proclaimed loud enough to quiet some of the spectator murmurs.

Rupert shrugged. “And yet there are many among your own Painted Guard to claim you do. Tell me, Makeda, who is the hunted traitor and former Painted Guard recruit, Garrett Weaver?”

Along with the thousands in the stands, Sydney leaned forward in her chair. What is Rupert talking about? She glanced at the king, as if his face might reveal the answer to her question. What does Garrett have to do with any of this?

Darius seemed not to notice Sydney’s interest in him. All the king’s focus remained on the trials playing out before him. Turning back, Sydney found Makeda glaring at her inquisitor.

“Garrett Weaver,” said Makeda, “was once a recruit, hoping to join the Painted Guard.”

“Was?” said Rupert. “But no longer?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Rupert asked. “Was he not fit enough to join your illustrious ranks?”

“He was,” said Makeda. “Or would have been. But, as I recall, the boy opted to consign himself with banishment instead. Of his own free will, he blew the horn of shame and were banished for it.”

Even from afar, Sydney could see Owens shaking his head inside the Orcinian prisoner cages, his mouth gagged to keep him from speaking out of turn during the trials again. Rupert is lying . . . Sydney understood from Owens’s reaction. But why? Where is Rupert going with this?

At the trial’s center stage, Rupert scratched his cheek and continued his questioning of Makeda. “Do you often find new recruits willing to consign themselves with banishment?”

“Many.” Makeda bristled with a wary look toward the Orc soldiers standing guard around the platform. “We in the Painted Guard are made of a hardier grit. Yet to become a soldier of the Painted Guard is of the highest orders to which many even among our own kind cannot meet the standard.”

The crowd booed at that.

Unfazed, Makeda cast her scorn upon Rupert and all in the watching crowd. “Judge us all you will for our ancient ways, but your opinions come with the blessing of our protection to afford you such judgements. This city and the lot of you would not have survived our enemies this long, were it not for the constant watch and safeguarding of the Painted Guard. You live and breathe under the umbrella of strength that our united pods provide to this city and its citizens, great and small.”

“None here would argue against you there,” said Rupert. “However, I find your claims of this traitor and former recruit, Garret Weaver, most curious indeed.” He continued in such a way that belied he believed the matter curious at all. “If Recruit Weaver were strong enough to meet your high and ancient standards, Makeda, why then would he wish to opt out of further training and be banished for it? Why not take his place of illustrious honor among the pod?”

“Let you ask Garrett Weaver that question, not me,” said Makeda.

“I would,” said Rupert.