Chapter Text
“HELP! . . . HELP!”
With his body hanging precariously off the edge of the building, Kalmar Wingfeather clung to the edge of the roof—the vice grip of his fingers all that separated him from falling to his death in the grimy street far below.
At the sound of his brother’s cry, Janner instinctively leaned over and reached out a hand.
“Not you!” Kalmar hissed in reminder before again bellowing, “HELP!”
Recalled to the point of all this, Janner stood. Covering his face with one hand, he massaged his temples and let out a long-suffering sigh. What Janner wanted more than anything in that moment was to be home at Castle Rysen telling his boys a bedtime story with an arm wrapped around his beautiful wife as she rocked their new daughter to sleep. But Janner Wingfeather was first and foremost the Throne Warden of Anniera, and instead of being home with his family he found himself standing atop a building in Dugtown in the middle of the night.
His brother, Janner reminded himself, never meant to be a bother. That didn’t change the fact that the only reason they were here was because Kalmar being Kalmar refused to pick a queen from one of the virtuous and lovely maidens of either the Shining Isle or the Green Hollows like the rest of their forbearers.
No, the High King of Anniera—who was currently dangling in midair—was in love with Maraly Weaver.
After spending considerable time in Maraly’s company, and only making it to the Ice Prairies alive because of her skill with a dagger and her now adoptive father Gammon, Janner understood his brother’s single-minded interest.
On the first day they met her, Maraly had engaged the brothers in a rousing round of tackleball in the thick fog of the East Bend—which left Janner bruised and battered, mostly from Maraly’s elbows—and afterwards Kalmar had confidently confided his feelings to his brother.
“I like Maraly a lot,” he said.
“She’s, uh, nice, I guess. A little rough, don’t you think?” Janner replied.
“Not that rough,” Kalmar protested.
Yes, yes she was, Janner thought, And still is—just like Kalmar.
Janner recalled Maraly’s reckless plan to kill a bombnubble for its fur during their trek over the Stony Mountains and his thought that she was a ‘girl version’ of Kalmar. Between taking down the largest Toothy Cow either brother had ever seen, winning a staring match with Podo, and kissing Kalmar on the cheek after his victory over Claxton, Maraly had made a deep and lasting impression on young Kalmar.
Janner completely got it. Although rough around the edges, Maraly was special.
He had been similarly taken with Sara Cobbler back when he was barely old enough to be aware of such things—Sara whom Janner had married the minute they were old enough. Although the new crime fighter, Maraly, had remained in Skree after the war when Sara moved to Anniera, the two women remained close friends and Maraly had been invited to be part of the wedding.
As brother of the groom, the High King had been much thrown about with the bridesmaid from Dugtown. Upon remaking Maraly’s acquaintance Kalmar’s old feelings had burst forth with new intensity and dimension, and by the end of the festivities Kalmar was completely gone for the reformed Strander.
When the wedding celebrations were over, however, Maraly had gone back to Dugtown with Gammon. Janner had returned from his honeymoon to find his brother expounding upon the importance of bolstering ‘Annieran Skreean relations’ and outlining a detailed action plan to his advisory counsel. Chief Councilman Cadwick had smiled a bit knowingly, but no one protested Kalmar’s perfectly sound proposal. Since then their brethren across the Dark Sea of Darkness had received a great deal of the High King’s personal attention.
As Throne Warden, Janner accompanied his brother on his numerous voyages to Skree, and somehow managed to keep a straight face whenever Kalmar complained that there was no crime in Anniera with which to attract vigilantes to the Shining Isle.
Although once harboring no small amount of resentment and doubt in his brother’s capabilities, by the time they all moved to the Shining Isle Janner would readily acknowledge that Kalmar was an excellent king, even though he was only eleven-years-old. He was still a boy, however, and had a tendency to vacillate between acting in his capacity for strong leadership and acting his age. As Kalmar entered his teens and then twenties that had not changed.
The brother’s time in Skree was resultantly split between days in Torrborro so Kalmar could to ‘King Stuff,’ and nights in Dugtown attracting as much attention from the city’s swashbuckling enforcers of the law as Kalmar could manage. And as with their Uncle Artham at the height of his madness, Kalmar quickly learned that the best way to draw the notice of Dugtown’s crime fighting duo was to place himself in faux peril and call out for assistance.
Which had come to mean hanging off the edge of buildings and yelling at the top of his lungs.
“HELP!” Kalmar again cried.
Behold . . . The High King of Anniera, Janner thought as he always did when his brother was in the middle of doing something ridiculous.
Looking up, Janner saw two figures bounding over the rooftops—noting they would thankfully reach them before Kalmar got tired and had to actually accept his brother’s offer for help to get back onto the roof.
With their capes swooshing behind them, the masked pair leapt from the neighboring building, and with a thud of their black-boots landed on the roof near Janner.
“Aha! ‘Tis I, the Florid Sword, accompanieth at my side by Shadowblade!” the dark haired man in a wide brimmed black hat announced.
With a flourish of his cape he continued, “The clamorous cries hath reach mine ears from across the vast expanse of this hive of scum and wretchery. And we have arrived! Aha! With noble intent to at all haste offer rescue, and hasten the safetifying of the personage in peril until once more the firmness of the ground be firmly beneath his feet, and render such assistance as swiftly runs the Mighty Blapp, may she flow wide and muddy down through the epochs and the course of mine own life!”
Janner felt justified in his concern that one of these days Gammon’s ‘Florid Sword’ speech would carry on so long that Kalmar would actually fall before they got around to pulling the young monarch to safety. Maraly apparently shared Janner’s opinion, and the Throne Warden was happy to see her race towards the edge of the building and grab hold of Kalmar long before the Florid Sword had paused for breath.
Bracing her feet she gave a mighty heave and dragged Kalmar back onto the building. For a moment the High King lay ungracefully sprawled on the dirty roof before springing to his feet.
“Shadowblade!” Kalmar melodramatically gushed, “Oh thank goodness!”
Not taking his eyes off the masked maiden standing before him for even a moment, Kalmar expectantly held out his hand towards Janner. “I pray thee, do not depart before allowing me to express my most heartfelt gratitude!”
With the familiar theatrics playing out before him, Janner was well aware of his cue. Tamping down the urge to roll his eyes, he removed the wooden box from the bag slung across his chest and handed it to his brother.
Maraly stood before Kalmar, her long dark hair cascading down her back and rustling in the faint breeze, her cheeks flushed from the effort of running across rooftops and pulling him to safety. With his gaze still transfixed on Maraly’s face, Kalmar opened the box and watched her take in the contents—a pair of daggers. With a steady hand she took up one of the blades and unsheathed it. It glinted in the torchlight.
“Their beautiful . . . thank ye,” she said as her eyes locked onto Kalmar’s.
For many many heartbeats they silently stared at each other with an intensity that made Janner look away out of respect for their privacy.
From the dim light of the torches, he saw that the new tower that had been under construction the last time he and Kalmar were here was now finished—albeit leaning a bit to one side. Across the street someone was attempting—in Janner’s opinion extremely unsuccessfully—to grow flowers in a box planter beneath an upper floor window. A gust of wind blew up from the south, and Janner wrinkled his nose—the River Blapp was just as pungent as it always was even this far from the bank.
From somewhere nearby a new cry reached them, “Stop! Thief!”
Janner looked back at the young couple in time to see Maraly sigh as she resheathed the dagger, and clipped it and its twin to her belt.
“I have to go,” she said, regret audible in her voice.
“I know,” Kalmar replied with equal regret.
With the crime fighters’ services actually needed the ‘Florid Sword’ broke his silence.
“Avast! Elstwhere foul fiends are afoot who must be foiled. Fah! For ne’er-do-wellers doth tremble and flee at one view of mine volage and the gleam shining forth from Shadowblade’s blades!”
Maraly flashed Kalmar another parting look before joining Gammon on the far edge of the building.
“We fly! Aha! Away!” Gammon cried in his ‘Florid Sword’ voice before he and Maraly leapt off the roof.
Leaning over the edge, Janner and Kalmar watched as in unison the pair bounced off an awning, flipped gracefully through the air, and landed on their feet in the dusty street below. Turning they looked up to bid the brothers adieu—Maraly with a wave and Gammon with a grand bow—before they dashed past ‘A Place for Foots’ and into the night.
Janner waited patiently as Kalmar stared down the dark street long after the caped crusaders had disappeared, a dreamy look on his face. At last he rose with a lovesick sigh, and Janner followed him back across the roof towards the other side of the building.
“Happy?” Janner asked his brother dryly.
“Very,” Kalmar replied with a wide grin.
Handing the box back to Janner, Kalmar hopped off the edge of the roof and swung nimbly back through the window of their top floor room of the Roundish Widow, which Ronchy McHiggins was always kind enough to give the brothers whenever they stayed at the inn.
Janner sighed again as he stared at the now empty box.
It had previously contained numerous other gifts in support of Kalmar’s attempt to woo Maraly—including a new cape, mask, boots, and tonight’s daggers were an upgrade of ones Kalmar had previously given her.
Because Kalmar and Maraly had been doing this for years—with Maraly refusing to marry him, and Kalmar refusing to move on and find someone else.
As he followed his brother back through the window of the inn, Janner racked his brain for some way to end this ridiculous and never-ending cycle in which they all—including Janner—were stuck.