Red Valor

by Shad Callister

  CHAPTER 27: A QUEEN’S OFFER

  With the men encamped in the fields and heavy guards stationed all around, Damicos and his companions waited. They waited, and waited more.

  The sun turned in the sky until the shadows it cast had been reversed. The men ate and drank, growing comfortable but remaining near their arms. The two Leitran messengers that were waiting with them sat apart, watching them.

  “Does she mean to leave us here all day?” Jamson complained. “We need to retake the initiative, Damicos, and demand another audience.”

  “We will wait another hour. Then we’ll send a runner.”

  “Are you not worried that she is moving to stab us in the back?”

  Damicos shook his head. “I think we left her little room to disbelieve our capability. Unless I have misjudged her, she will not risk all that she has built here with ill-advised treachery. Not now that she understands what we represent. We need not be her enemy, and she would be foolish to now treat us as such.”

  “We don’t know her. Perhaps she is foolish.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I mislike this waiting. They could be massing for an assault within the city, and we won’t know it until too late.”

  “I do not fear assault,” Damicos replied. “Not here. This is a good position, and Gladwin will tell her as much. If they charged my hardened hoplites entrenched here in the field, it would be the last thing they would ever be able to do. No, I am more uncertain about what will happen when we go back in there to talk.”

  “I’m happy to talk,” Jamson said. “I’ll talk her in circles until she’s begging us to take her riches from her. But let’s just be sure we’ve got enough armed men at our backs to dissuade any foul play.”

  Lieutenant Leon, who stood nearby, spat on the ground. “I say we just sack the place and be done with it.” He amended his statement when the captain shot him a disapproving look. “While holding to the company charter, of course. No non-combatants harmed, and all that. Of course. But we lose our advantage by sitting here all day, see? We should press the queen, bend her to our will instead of awaiting her pleasure like this.”

  “We will negotiate to our favor, one way or the other,” Damicos declared. Then he lowered his voice so the Leitran guardsmen remaining with them could not hear. “But you well know the state of our supplies. The one thing we cannot do is retreat into the wilderness again. We would all be weakened to the point of death ere a single man made it back to Garrim.”

  Finally, when an hour had passed, Damicos sent one of the Leitran runners into the city to inform the queen they wished a second audience. Then they settled down to wait once more.

  Most of the men napped in the late afternoon sun in full armor, ready to leap to their feet at a moment’s notice, and Damicos switched out the lookouts regularly to avoid fatigue.

  It was sundown when the messenger returned. Gladwin was with him.

  “Her Highness wishes you to dine with her tonight, lord captain,” Gladwin announced. He looked directly at Damicos. “A private meal and conference, to begin two hours from sunset.”

  “With the captain?” Jamson asked, eyes narrowing. “Alone?”

  “That was the queen’s command,” Gladwin replied. “Given me a few minutes ago. You do wish for an audience, do you not?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I will come, and I will bring two men with me,” Damicos announced. “This is nonnegotiable. Jamson, Leon, prepare yourselves. We go in together. Armed.” He eyed Gladwin keenly. “See that you and your queen make no false moves. My men will be standing ready, and as I said in the hall earlier this day, they will fall upon your city the moment they suspect I am held against my will.”

  Gladwin frowned, but said nothing as Damicos gave orders.

  “Do not interfere or engage with the citizens of this place,” he told the sergeants, “unless you are attacked. If that happens, stand here if you can, or withdraw to a defensible location at the far end of the valley.”

  He gave a few other instructions, and then followed Gladwin across the fields with Jamson and Lieutenant Leon at his back.

  “Keep your swords close to hand, gentlemen,” Jamson cautioned as they rode out. “Now is the hour to try the queen’s true intent.”

  “Let us be courteous as possible until the moment we are threatened,” Damicos said. “Then, and only then, will we show what lions we can be when cornered.”

  They crossed the open ground outside the city in a few minutes, and were soon winding through the same streets as before. With only two comrades, and only one outfitted for heavy combat, Damicos kept an extra sharp eye on his surroundings this time. That was how he caught sight of a flurry of movement in the space between two tall wooden structures at his left, even before the other men were aware.

  It turned out to be a mere boy of fourteen or fifteen years, with stringy brown hair and blue eyes. The lad wore the same blue-gray weave Damicos had noticed was common among the inhabitants of this city. He ran directly up to the captain, ignoring the rest, which caused Damicos to lay a hand on his sword hilt. But the boy quickly knelt and held out a hand beseeching him to pause in the street. Damicos did, remaining wary but seeing no reason to draw his weapon.

  “I am Tilo Temorson. I want to go with you!” the boy blurted.

  Gladwin waved the young man away with a threatening glare, but Damicos and Jamson turned to face him.

  “Come with us?” Damicos replied. “Where?”

  “You’re the soldiers from the coast, right? Take me with you. I’ll look after your horses and gear. I can cook, repair leather, and show you through the forest!”

  Leon laughed out loud. “He wants to be a soldier, captain. Here’s our next man-at-arms, a fresh recruit!”

  The boy scowled. “I’m strong enough. And you’ve got to take me along when you leave. I’ve nothing left here. The queen’s men have done away with my kin. Please, take me away.”

  Gladwin strode up to the boy. “Oh, you’re one of them, are you? You’ve caused enough trouble before; now you’ll hang!” The boy tried to leap to his feet, but Gladwin seized him by the collar of his shirt.

  Jamson held out a hand to stop whatever was to happen next. “No hanging. Let this boy go, as a gesture of good will to us.”

  Gladwin looked up at the man, confused, and the boy managed to jerk free and step away toward the mouth of the alleyway. He spoke quickly with the urgency of impending doom.

  “There’s others like me, sir, good strong lads who’ve been wronged. We’ll all follow you if you’ll have us among your ranks.”

  Damicos turned to Gladwin. “What goes on here. Who wronged this lad’s kin?”

  “It’s no matter of importance,” Gladwin gruffly replied. “Simply a case of internal strife that—”

  “The queen buried our parents in the forest for trying to leave and get back to the coast!” the boy yelled. “And it was you that took them there!”

  Gladwin signaled to the guardsman with him. “Seize that rat’s-child and deliver him to the guardhouse.”

  The boy sprinted away with the guardsman hot on his heels. Damicos watched them go with a frown on his face.

  “I apologize for that unseemly interruption,” Gladwin told the men he was now leading alone. “I assure you, the queen’s people are more loyal than any Kerathi. But there are malcontents that occasionally threaten our security and way of life, and we deal with them according to our laws. If they bring danger upon us all, then their punishment is just.”

  Damicos said nothing, and they continued on their way toward the palace. Eyes peered at them from windows, as before, and a few passersby in the streets stopped to watch them go. But no further disturbances were seen.

  Finally they entered the palace, and Gladwin led the way through corridor after corridor, deep into a part of the labyrinthine structure they hadn’t yet seen. Damicos counted three different staircases they had to tread before they approached a set of double doors that s
panned the width of the hallway and ran from floor to ceiling.

  Two spearmen opened the doors, and one called out to those within, “Visitors from Ostora, in company of Guardian Gladwin.”

  In what appeared to be her personal suite of chambers, the queen stood at one end of an oblong table set with a fine feast. Open doorways led off this area into darkened rooms that Damicos assumed were bedchambers, baths, dressing rooms, and the like.

  It was strange to be invited here, he thought, when there must have been other places in the palace waiting empty for such meetings, not to mention a hall for meals. But here she had summoned them, and whatever she planned for them here was apparently to be carried out in private.

  Leisha was dressed in a scarlet robe of a soft, shiny material that hugged her slim form and accentuated her height, tied with a striking yellow sash and a matching golden carcanet across her chest and throat. Her feet were bare, and her honeyed hair was still bound up and back with fine gold lace.

  She pointed to the seats around the table. “Welcome, Captain, and friends of the captain. You may sit and dine with me.” If she was angered that Damicos had not come alone, she did not show it. Perhaps, the captain thought, she had been warned early while they made their way through the castle.

  Leon eyed the guardsmen cautiously as he stepped to the table, keeping one hand on his sword. Jamson and Damicos bowed stiffly to the queen and then waited for her to sit. A serving girl hurried past them and left the room. An elderly woman, dressed as if she were of high station, came out of a side room, closed the door, and left without a word.

  Then Leisha waved her guards away, including Gladwin in the gesture. “Close the doors behind you, and await my call without.”

  Gladwin froze. “Highness! These three men are armed. We cannot leave you alone—”

  “I bid you wait without!” Leisha snapped, her eyes blazing. “These men must know they cannot hope to escape alive if they assault my person. I would speak with them freely, without prying eyes and ears. Now go.”

  Gladwin reluctantly turned and ushered the others out into the antechamber, slowly closing the double doors behind him.

  The queen stood there, gazing at her guests. There was an odd mixture of fear, scorn, and interest in her gaze. Damicos waited, placid as ever, but ready.

  Finally the queen sat, and the men followed suit. Slowly, Leisha reached out and poured herself a small amount of wine. She drank, still staring at the men in the room over the rim of her goblet. None of them moved.

  “Do not restrain your appetites on my account; that is why we dine in private, is it not? You will find everything of the highest quality.” She waved a hand over the food on the table, and Leon hungrily eyed it while glancing sidelong at his captain. The queen, however, ignored the meal entirely as she continued speaking. Sitting straight and still in their seats, the three men listened with rapt attention.

  “You have come to my kingdom at a critical time, Captain Damicos. For as much as I have built up here in Leitra and surrounding areas, there are further challenges in the deep wilderness which are… perplexing in their stubborn resilience against my efforts. Especially with the difficulties of managing an isolated kingdom and a populace with needs and problems of its own.

  “I have thought deeply of how best to manage the dangers and difficulties I face in plucking the fruit this wilderness has to offer, and I have weighed them against the rewards—which are incalculably vast.”

  She looked up with the smile of a tigress, and for a moment Damicos thought he was looking at a much younger and more ambitious woman than he had met earlier.

  “You know the wealth I command in greenstone, in gold, in metal deposits.”

  “No, highness, I do not,” Damicos interrupted. “Please, tell me.”

  Her lips parted, but then she pressed them together firmly and smiled. “I can tell you this: if you come with me but a little farther into the wilds, I will show you enough wealth to stagger the imagination. I will bury you and your men in money, land, power, and prestige! All that you desire, all that you can ever ask for, I can give you.”

  Jamson folded his arms and looked sidewise at the captain. Leon surreptitiously slipped a piece of bread from the table and ate pieces from it, still watching the queen’s face.

  Damicos leaned one elbow on the table in front of him and twirled a finger around the rim of his own goblet, still empty. “What will you ask of us in return for showing—and sharing—this wealth?”

  “Are you not mercenaries?” the queen asked, her voice tinged with dramatic eloquence. “The mother lode, the beating heart of all Ostora’s riches, is not easy to get to. There are dangers along the route that make it a prospect both maddening and irresistible to us. My people dwell so close, and yet are so far from realizing the true potential of what we have discovered. We guard ourselves well, but we are not an army.”

  She left her place at the head of the table and came around to stand close to Damicos.

  “With your armor-hardened men, we could beat back those dangers. We could carry off enough wealth with us to make every man a king, every child a princeling.

  “And then—then, oh captain from the coast—we can march on the barons of Ostora and make them pay. Oh, they will pay dearly. They will empty their treasuries to me, they will sell their own daughters to get a few more coins with which to command an extra portion of this wealth. Because they know how much it will mean when it reaches Kerath.”

  She looked from man to man.

  “Do you understand the king’s dependence on a steady supply of goods to his realm? Kerath’s native resources were depleted a generation ago. He depends on his barons bringing back wealth from abroad, and when they are no longer productive, he recalls or abandons them. Imagine the way these Ostoran swine will scurry to show what they can offer. Imagine what this will make of Ostora. And imagine the power we will wield, not only here but throughout Ostora, throughout the known world!”

  There was a light in her eyes that Damicos had glimpsed earlier. Now he understood it better. It was the look of one who been denied something she desperately wanted, and was now on the verge of taking. But he didn’t think what Leisha wanted would be satisfied with wealth, redemption, or even honor. There was a feral edge to her words.

  She abruptly stood and drained her wine goblet. Then she whirled, scarlet robe whipping through the air, and beckoned to Damicos as she left the table and walked through one of the side rooms toward an open-air balcony. Leon lingered behind. Jamson came to the doorway, but waited there as Damicos approached the queen. All three men kept hands near their weapons.

  Leisha now stood overlooking the city, lit by a thousand torches twinkling through the night. The open cut of her robe showed her bare back down to the waist, and when she placed both hands on the railing in front of her and gripped it, Damicos noted the undulation of impressively toned muscles. This was not a queen accustomed to sitting idly in her palace day in and day out.

  Still facing away from Damicos, the queen lifted one arm and spread her fingers toward the wooden city, regarding the sum of her accomplishments in the wilderness.

  “All this, Captain,” she whispered, “all of it means nothing to me now. Whatever victories I have won in hiding, they are meaningless. I seek something now that neither security nor wealth alone can bring me. Do you know what it is?”

  Damicos stepped up to the railing beside her and looked out across the night-darkened cityscape. It was considerably more than nothing, especially considering that it had been carved from the bare wilderness in a few short decades, and considering that he might have to conquer it if the tall woman next to him turned her wrath against his men.

  But before he could answer, she continued.

  “The time that I have long awaited has come. You, Captain Damicos, will be the key to unlocking my long-delayed destiny. You were meant to come here.” She turned her head and looked at him. “You were born to this, Captain.”

  He
raised his eyebrows at her.

  “Queen, this grand triumph you speak of—I hope that it does not involve warring against the combined might of all the barons on the coast. You would need many more men for that than either you or I can command.”

  “The barons!” scoffed the queen. “They have not faced anything like what I could bring to bear against them.”

  “You speak of your beast-riding warriors?” Damicos asked. “It was a shock when first we heard rumors, and then laid our own eyes on men riding monsters. But even they—”

  “It is not just my own guardians I speak of, Damicos,” Leisha declared. “I can command other beasts, things in the forest and on the mountain slopes that the barons in their cobbled courtyards have never seen or dreamt of in their nightmares. I can unleash destruction across Ostora that they would beg to forestall.” The woman’s eyes flared, and she bared her teeth at the thought.

  Then she swallowed, and regained a bit of composure. “But that future depends on the choices of men. You are one such man, Damicos. One who can have a hand in the fate that awaits us all. Will you come with me into the mountains and find treasure sufficient to change the world? Will you be my sword and shield?”

  The captain was aware of the unhinged desperation in the queen’s words. He was aware of Jamson listening from a few paces away, and of the madness the queen had finally revealed.

  He had waited her out, pursued her to the proposal she had struggled to form all that day, and now he understood at least some of the strange behavior and fantastic reckoning behind her mad zeal. She needed the might of his armored infantry to finally grasp the vengeful victory she had been seeking for the past thirty years.

  And, truth be told… he was tempted.

  Was this not why he had led his men all this way? Was it not to delve deep and come away with the richest things Ostora had to offer? Perhaps this mad queen would turn on him, perhaps she would lose herself in the desperate quest for a way back to her former glory. He was more than capable of handling her, of taking what he wanted and denying her the chance to harm him or anything he chose to protect.