Sunshield

by Emily B. Martin

  “It’s,” I begin. “It’s . . .”

  “Rose!” Sedge has caught back up, clutching the loose reins of Rose’s horse, Blackeye, as well. He wheels Pokey to a halt and vaults from his back before the dust has settled. “Rose!”

  He sweeps down beside me, clasping her face. She closes her eyes and brushes his arm with one set of shaking fingers.

  There’s a click of a heavy lock, and the groan of hinges.

  “Dammit!” I push myself off my knees. The driver. I should have gone for the wagon first, should have checked to see if she’d been killed in the impact . . .

  I skid back around the ruined wagon, gripping my sword with white knuckles. Calm down. Keep control. I round the door of the wagon, buckler up, just as the driver crawls inside.

  After the harsh brightness of the desert sky, I have trouble making out the shapes inside. There seem to be three—the driver and two others. I’m not sure what the driver is doing, but I’m not going to wait to find out. I reach in to grab a handful of the closest captive’s tunic and haul the person out into the sunlight.

  I only have the barest moment to register a tiny girl, copper-skinned and dark-haired, before the driver spins around in the hold of the wagon.

  “You hold it right there,” she demands.

  I push the captive behind me, placing myself between her and the gaping wagon door. The driver is kneeling on the straw-strewn floor, her chest heaving in and out. Crouching in front of her is the second captive, a man a few years older than myself. He’s pinched and drawn, his skin a pallid gray, his hair colorless and wispy. With his arms shackled in front of him, I can see the line of mine tattoos running up his forearm. He’s likely been a slave all his life.

  The driver holds his head back and presses a knife to his throat. She’s got a gash on her forehead that’s bleeding heavily into her eye—I’m surprised she hasn’t passed out yet. She wobbles slightly, unsteady, but her mouth and eyes are hard with anger.

  I adjust my grip on my sword. “Let him go,” I say. “And I’ll let you walk away.” I’m hoping she won’t see through the promise—I plan to take her oxen with me, and if dehydration doesn’t get her, blood loss will. She’s already weaving, her right eye gummed shut.

  She hisses through her teeth. “How does the loss of life feel to you, little girl? Does it make you feel powerful? Does it make you feel good, to murder three hired guards with nothing against you—who were only hoping to go back to their families in Vittenta?”

  “They knew what their cargo was,” I say. “They’re no less innocent than you.”

  “But more so than you. You have more lives lost to your ledger than me. You already have four today—maybe five.” She jerks her head toward the back of the wagon, where I’m trying to ignore the sounds of Rose’s labored gasps. Four lives. That’s the three guards . . . plus Pickle.

  My stomach heaves, and I take a step closer, sword up. “Let him go.”

  “No, darling. You’ve ruined me in a matter of minutes—destroyed my property and my investments. You’ll forgive me if I deny you the satisfaction.”

  She jerks her wrist just as I lunge into the dark. My swordpoint finds the soft spot beneath her ribs, and I drive it upward, forcing a bubbled gasp from her lips. It’s not the only one. As she wilts forward, her blood washing my sleeve, the victim curls up beside her, a deep gash sliced from ear to ear. Thanks to the angle of the wagon, they both sink forward onto me, the weight of their fading bodies throwing me against the straw-strewn floor. I heave against them—someone’s blood dribbles across my throat, sliding up along my jaw. Sick, flushed with rage, I grasp the edges of the wagon door and haul myself out from under them, landing hard on the rocks. The man falls halfway out, his head dangling down, a steady stream of blood trickling over the parched earth.

  I breathe heavily for a moment, suddenly aware that the first captive is standing just over my shoulder. I look up into two massive green eyes framed by thick lashes. Dressed in a tunic cut from a rough cornmeal sack, she’s staring, stricken, and shaking all over.

  I try to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth, to tell her that she’s safe, that she’ll be all right, but I can’t seem to force the words out. The beat of uneven hooves approaches, and I lift my head to see an ashen Saiph pull up short with Pickle slumped in his arms.

  “Lark!” His voice is broken. My stomach drops at the unnatural angle of Pickle’s head. I roll onto my knees as Saiph slides from the limping mule’s back, his breath coming in throaty gasps. He hauls his friend off the horse in a heap, dropping to the ground with him in his arms. He bends over Pickle, crying into his shirt. Pickle doesn’t move, his arm bowing awkwardly out of Saiph’s embrace.

  I crouch on the ground and grip my head in my hands, shaking. Oh Light, this is the worst failure yet. In all my years chasing slavers’ wagons, it’s never gone this badly.

  It’s never gone so wrong.

  The little girl begins to cry.

  I’m too numb to join her.

  Veran

  “She grows more ruthless by the week!”

  Minister Kobok slams down a stack of parchment. “On this particular wagon, not only were the driver and guards slain, but the passenger was, as well. All items of value were stripped from the coach, including one of the oxen. Everything else they set on fire, burned to a crisp.”

  I glance at Rou beside me, who’s listening with a concentrated frown. When we heard about this emergency meeting following the reports of the Sunshield Bandit’s latest attack in the Ferinno, we were cautiously optimistic—making the desert safer is, after all, one of our major goals. But I expect Rou, like me, is irked by the fact that it was an attack on a slaver, not a passenger coach, that’s caused this uproar.

  “Bandits have been a thorn in our side as long as we have peacefully quarried the desert border,” the minister continues. “And for years, the council has ignored my regular pleas to authorize organized force against them. The reason given has always been that the bandits—the Sunshield Bandit in particular—seem only to kill either themselves or wandering criminals. But I hope it is now clear that this is no longer the case. These are vagabonds, lawless and ready to murder anyone for material gain. How soon before they waylay a full stagecoach? How soon before they start raids on the quarry outposts?” He slaps his palm over his parchment. “I put forth to you now—if you are still in favor of inaction, you are more concerned about public image than the safety of our citizens and the economic future of our country.”

  Around the room, folk shift in their chairs, murmuring. I look to Prince Iano, sitting next to his mother and staring at the table. This is the first I’ve seen him since eavesdropping from the trees a few days before. I can’t tell if he’s taken the grisly threats to act natural to heart—his stoic gaze could just as easily be attributed to the news of this latest wagon attack.

  Rou is silent, his knuckles over his lips. He’s got circles under his eyes—product of checking in on Eloise through the night. She’s still not feeling well, her rattly cough lingering in her chest. When I sought her out yesterday afternoon to parce out everything I’ve learned, Rou practically fenced me away with the fire poker, arguing that she was finally getting some sleep in between coughing fits and I could turn myself right around.

  Now he lifts his knuckles from his lips to mutter to me. “Catch me up—the Sunshield Bandit attacked a Moquoian wagon, and he’s wanting to go after her?”

  “Banditry in general, it sounds like,” I murmur back.

  He frowns, but before he can say anything, the queen clears her throat. “What do you suggest, Minister?”

  Kobok flips the top page of his stack with vehemence. “Set a bounty in all the border towns. Station a small garrison in Pasul.”

  “No,” Iano says suddenly, and all the attention in the room rivets on him. He sits up, a new ferocity on his face. “No bounty or garrison is going to do the work for us. We need soldiers out in the desert itself. It’s time to s
tart organizing searches. Hunts. It’s time to start flushing them out of their hideaways.”

  Several eyebrows raise, including the queen’s and Kobok’s.

  “Your support is encouraging, my prince,” the minister says. “Perhaps if we begin small, with an armed presence in Vittenta and Pasul, we can start to gather intelligence on the whereabouts—”

  “No, I want a sweep,” Iano says. “And I want it now. Before Mokonnsi ends. This lawlessness has gone on far too long.”

  Kobok takes a little breath. “I doubt I need to point out that the Ferinno is a huge place, my prince. The type of active presence you’re suggesting would take weeks just to organize—posses would have to be formed, with a budget, and a strategy. We cannot simply scatter soldiers across the desert . . .”

  “Then get on it,” Iano says. He turns to a startled woman with a badge pinned to her lapel. “Map a course for ten groups of fifteen soldiers each, with suggestions for provisions and base camps—”

  “Wait just a minute,” Rou says suddenly.

  The folk around the table all turn to us. Rou’s forehead has gone from a single crease to a collection of deep furrows.

  “The Ferinno is Alcoran land,” he says in punctuated Moquoian.

  An unreadable silence descends over the room—I can’t tell if it’s hostile or merely attentive. Rou leans forward over the polished table.

  “Moquoian soldiers do not have the authority to climb the Ferinno—”

  “Enter,” I amend quickly. “Enter the Ferinno.”

  “Enter, they don’t—damnation.” He lapses into Eastern and turns to me, gesturing between us and the rest of the table. “Tell them, Veran. They can’t send soldiers into the Ferinno—there are Alcoran citizens that live out along the stage road, and most of the bandits are likely Alcoran anyway. Tell them this kind of action requires authorization by Prime Councilor Itzpin and the Senate at the very least, if not—”

  “If that’s the case, Ambassador,” Iano says in crisp Eastern—balls, we’ve both forgotten again he’s perfectly fluent—“why has the Alcoran Senate not put any effort into stemming banditry in the Ferinno up to this point? They’ve left bandits to their own devices, leaving Moquoia to suffer the consequences.”

  “Alcoro has been focused on stanching the slave trade,” Rou counters, his usual affable diplomacy sharpened into a spearhead. “Which, I am loath to point out, generally flows in one direction. If there’s been a rise in bandit activity, it’s because Moquoia is bringing more ready targets right to their doorsteps.”

  Iano’s face sours. “The point of this discussion is that the attacks are going beyond just the slavers’ wagons—”

  “Speak so we might all understand,” Kobok booms, cutting through the volley of Eastern.

  I chew the inside of my lip—I know what’s going on in Iano’s mind. He’s latching on to the opportunity of hunting bandits to send soldiers to look for whoever he’s being blackmailed with, though I can’t think why he wants to start in the Ferinno and not within his own borders. I’m not sure how to adequately navigate this—not with Rou practically steaming out his ears next to me. But I think I’m probably the only one with all the pieces.

  I clear my throat and say in Moquoian, “The ambassador is concerned about the legality of sending Moquoian soldiers over Alcoran borders. There may be impacts to Alcoran citizens.”

  Kobok waves a hand. “There has already been a greater impact to Moquoian citizens. The quarries themselves are worked by Moquoian labor.”

  I start to translate for Rou, but he shakes his head—he’s understood the minister. “The quarries are on Alcoran soil, and they’re worked by slave labor,” he spits in Eastern. He jabs me in the ribs. “Tell them we’re done dancing around this subject. Time’s up.”

  Oh, by the Light. “The ambassador is concerned about the ownership of the quarries, and the, um, nature of employment of your workers—”

  “The recruitment of contract workers is not the concern of this conversation,” Iano says. “A wagon and its occupants, bound for Moquoia, have been attacked and killed just outside our borders, and there’s nothing to suggest it won’t happen again.”

  I try not to flick my gaze around the table full of Moquoian ministers. “Prince Iano, I understand the distress of your situation. But consider that this is an excellent reason to open the partnership with Alcoro and the rest of the East that we’ve spent so long discussing—”

  “There is no partnership,” Iano says sharply, his gaze boring into mine. “There will be no partnership until the threat to this court stops.”

  He’s not talking about the damn wagon. But nobody else knows that—certainly not Rou, who blinks in consternation at the Moquoian prince. I can tell from his expression that he doesn’t need this latest statement translated, either.

  “Did he just—look here, young man, we did not spend weeks of travel and hundreds of silvers for you to treat Alcoran territory as your own!”

  “Speak Moquoian, by the colors!” Kobok demands.

  Iano’s next words are in the language of the room, and they fall like a gavel. “Then leave. Go back to the East, and take no goodwill from our court to yours.”

  Rou stares at him momentarily, and then twists in his seat to me, his thumb jerked toward the prince. “Did he just—?”

  “I think we should go,” I say quickly, shoving back my chair. I nod to Prince Iano. “Allow me to speak to the ambassador and Princess Eloise and see if we can come to an accord.”

  Rou tries to shake off my tug on his arm. “I’m not done here—”

  “I need to talk to you,” I whisper. “It’s important.”

  He frowns at me but rises to his feet. He turns momentarily back to the prince and raps on the table. “We are not finished here.”

  I offer a vague bow to the room and proceed to drag him out the door of the ministerial chamber.

  We’re barely through the two guards outside the door when Rou flicks his arm out of my grip. “All right, what is this about?”

  “Okay, stay with me,” I say, beckoning him to keep moving—I want to get up to Eloise’s room to get her input as well. “Iano doesn’t want to get out in the desert to hunt bandits. He wants soldiers out there to look for someone he’s lost—and I think it’s the previous ashoki.”

  “So . . . nope, you’ve lost me.”

  We reach the main staircase, which I take with speed—I’m wearing Moquoian shoes again today, and the hobnails echo off the steps. “You know how the ashoki before Kimela died before we got here? There’s a rumor in court that the Sunshield Bandit was the one to attack her stagecoach. But just yesterday I overheard Iano taking a message from one of the servants. It sounded like he’s being blackmailed with the safety of somebody.”

  “Blackmailed into what?”

  “I don’t know, but it might have something to do with his drastic switch in politics. At least, that’s the only thing that makes sense to me.” We reach the landing in the atrium and cut a line down the guest wing.

  “Why hasn’t he told anybody?” Rou’s voice has a puff to it as he matches my stride.

  “I don’t think he knows where the threats are coming from, or how to stop them, short of just doing what they’re demanding.”

  “Why is this the first I’m hearing of it, five weeks into this thrice-cursed attempt at diplomacy?”

  “Because I’ve only just found out, and, well . . . you’ve been so busy with Eloise . . .”

  Rou sighs. “You’re right—I’ve been neglecting one duty for another. Okay, I’m listening now. And what you’re saying is that Iano wants to use banditry as an excuse to send troops onto Alcoran soil?”

  “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “This despite the fact that part of our negotiations was supposed to revolve around ownership of the quarries? That’s going to look an awful lot like a border expansion back in Callais, and I can’t say I’d blame them for the assumption.” He shakes his head as
we approach Eloise’s door. “And why is he homing in on the Ferinno in the first place? Wouldn’t a Moquoian captive be held somewhere in Moquoia? Has he checked the forests? The islands? Why’s he got his eye on the desert?”

  I’m about to answer that I don’t know that, either, readying myself to bring this into Eloise’s room and hash it out with her, when the answer suddenly hits me, plain as day.

  “Oh,” I say. “It’s probably . . .”

  “What?”

  “It’s probably because he thinks we’re doing the blackmailing.”

  Rou’s hand pauses on the doorknob, and he stares at me. His lips move wordlessly for a moment.

  “Blazes, why?” he asks.

  “Well . . . probably first because he’s desperate and panicking. And probably because it all happened around our arrival, and because he knows we’re after the slave trade, and because the first he heard of the attack, it was all tied up with the Sunshield Bandit—though I’m not entirely sure she had anything to do with it.”

  He waves a hand as if swatting a fly. “This is all walnuts, and what’s more, it’s insulting. I’ve dealt with some wild card politicians in my time, but this is just plain dangerous. If he’s not careful, he’ll be starting his reign with a full-fledged declaration of enmity instead of an alliance.”

  I’m worried that’s exactly what he’s already done. “What if I can talk to him?” I ask. “If I approach him frankly, tell him what I know—”

  “Based on what you just told me, if he hasn’t told anybody else, it’ll only confirm that we’re somehow behind it. Fire and smoke, what a nightmare.” He jerks the doorknob and storms into Eloise’s parlor. I follow, my thoughts a thundercloud.

  “Eloise?” Rou calls. “How’re you feeling, lolly?”

  I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts, it takes me a moment to realize Eloise hasn’t answered with her usual exasperated affirmation. I snap back to reality when Rou’s voice rings out in a bark.