The Triumphant Return

by N M Zoltack

She was talking to an armed man. Edmund blinked a few times, squinted, and recognized him as Ulric, a servant from the castle. Hadn’t he been imprisoned? Perhaps not because if he deserved to be, Rosalynne would have had him captured alongside the Vincanans they had managed to wound and overwhelm, including the one he had cut off the hands of.

  Jurian approached. “I fear there is nothing more we can do.”

  Edmund dropped the last shards of tables into a wagon, brushed his hands, and surveyed the scene. The marketplace was on a gravel surface rather than on a grassy field, a blessing as the fire hadn’t spread and had been easily contained and put out. Still, the scorched marks would remain for a long time, perhaps forever, a permanent reminder of the battle fought this day.

  “We’ll need to help rebuild,” Edmund said.

  “After the war.”

  Edmund shifted to eye the swiftly healing merchants and peasants. What would they do without a place to sell their wares? Or would they return here with their wagons and sell without tables? The peasants needed the merchants and their good. Times were tight for far too many, and without a place for people to market for what they needed…

  More people would leave Atlan. Perhaps that would be for the best. Clearly, the Vincanans sought the castle above anywhere else.

  Queen Rosalynne walked over to them and curtseyed. Edmund could hardly believe that a queen was giving him a sign of respect. How far he had come, and yet, at this very moment, all he wanted to do was lie down and sleep for days. His entire body ached. He was cold and sore, his limbs stiff.

  “If you would like to make a full report, I would very much appreciate it, but please, it can wait until the morning.” She nodded to Edmund and then to Jurian. “Please know how very grateful I am to you both, to you all. I shudder to think what might have happened if you had not come here.”

  “If you want someone to talk to those captives of yours…” Jurian grinned, his hand falling to his sword’s hilt, the weapon attached to his belt, his sheath gone.

  The queen smiled faintly. “I will let you know if that will be necessary,” she said dryly, and Edmund covered his mouth to hide a smirk. The queen would not be speaking to Jurian about that matter, and the knight knew it, given his scowl.

  She nodded again and returned to her carriage. The captives had been forced to line up behind it, and several other knights walked alongside and behind them to ensure the captives did not escape.

  Edmund moved to join them, but Jurian held up his hand.

  “You’ve done enough. We’ve done enough.”

  As much as Edmund wanted to argue, he could not. He slumped behind Jurian back to the barracks. With each piece of armor he removed, Edmund felt both lighter and heavier. There was a strange disconnect between his body and his mind. When he removed a pauldron, blood splattered onto the ground. It wasn’t until he untied his chest plate that he saw the wound.

  At some point during the battle, a blade had slid between the points of those two armor pieces. Just inside his shoulder, on his upper chest, was a deep puncture wound.

  A shock of pain rushed through him. Only now that he saw his injury did he feel it. He sank into a squat, blinking, trying desperately not to pass out.

  A grumbling, cursing Jurian yanked on Edmund’s good arm, forcing him to his feet and then outside the barracks. With water buckets filled with too-cold water, Jurian washed the wound and the rest of Edmund’s body, leaving him a dripping, soggy mess.

  Jurian brought him inside. “Your sister is—’

  “No.”

  “We might have some potions around here—”

  “No.” Edmund struggled to wrap a cloth around himself to protect the wound.

  Jurian lifted his eyebrows. “Why won’t you get healed?”

  “I’m not that wounded. I can still fight.”

  “You can’t use a shield, though.”

  “I didn’t use one today,” Edmund pointed out.

  “If you had, you might not have gotten hurt,” Jurian countered.

  “The potions are in limited supply. Save the potions for those who truly need them.” Edmund went to climb into his bed but spied the bloody puddle by his bunk and groaned.

  “I’ll clean it,” Jurian offered. “Later, though. I’m tired too.”

  They climbed into their beds and fell asleep quickly. No dreams came to Edmund, not true ones, only feelings—pain, suffering, worry… but also hope.

  41

  Olympia Li

  The Olacic Mountains were tall, rocky, and surprisingly full of life. Olympia had never seen so many creatures before, and she exclaimed at each new one she saw.

  Bjorn seemed to find this quite comical. He would smile and tell her the names of the various creatures and what they were known for, but he had to be telling falsehoods. He found a massive footprint and climbed it to be from a giant, but for a man to grow to the height that such a footprint required was unfathomable, and how could it be that the giant was not in sight? Such a tall man, nearly as tall as the mountains themselves, could not conceal himself, yet they did not see him.

  “Oh, that is simple,” Bjorn said when she told him her doubts. “Do you notice the fog?”

  "Yes," she said slowly, feeling as though she should not agree with the champion.

  “Giants can take on other forms, including the fog.”

  “I do not believe you,” she said boldly.

  “What then made that footprint?” he demanded.

  “You for all I know,” she retorted. “Last night, when you kept guard.”

  “Ah, but I did not keep watch last night.”

  Olympia gaped at him. “You did not? But I woke you for your turn…”

  “I fell back asleep,” he confessed.

  “How dare you!” she fumed. “We could have been killed in our sleep!”

  “I did not mean to fall asleep,” Bjorn said, sounding a little annoyed. “That wasn’t my intention, and would you have preferred that I lied? I am not lying about the giant or about my… my shame.”

  His choice of words startled her into silence. The normally stoic Bjorn had been anything but lately. Not long after they started to climb the mountains, he had been eating less, talking more, and he had been harder to rouse of late for his watch. His complexion was a little pale lately, more so than normal, but his cheeks were flushed this day. From embarrassment or…

  He sank down and sat on a tree root, not looking in her direction. She crossed over to sit beside him and brought her hand up to touch his cheek and then his forehead.

  “You have a fever,” she murmured.

  “I’m fine,” he snapped.

  “You’re ill.”

  “I have not been sick a day in my life.”

  “How wonderful for me that your first sickness is on my watch,” she said dryly.

  Bjorn glowered at her. “I am not—”

  She held up her hands. “Fine. You know your body better than I do.”

  He grinned and leaned closer to her, their shoulders touching. “That doesn’t have to be the case,” he murmured.

  Honestly, she should be appalled by his attempt to seduce her, but then he turned his head to the side and had such a violent coughing fit that she thought he would vomit.

  Wordlessly, she handed him her canteen. He only took a sip of her water before he shoved his legs apart, leaned forward, and promptly retched up bile.

  “Not sick at all, eh?” she murmured.

  “Not a whit,” he said hoarsely as he tried to hand her back the canteen.

  “It’s yours,” she said dryly.

  That day, they did not travel, and Olympia hunted their meal, not that Bjorn would eat. He slept fitfully, his face growing pinker, almost red.

  Two more days they lingered, and again, he refused to eat. The next day, she hand-fed him, and he promptly vomited the meal back up the moment he finished eating.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered miserably. His voice was nearly gone.

  “Com
e with me.”

  She forced him onto his feet, wincing at how hot he felt through his clothes, and she dragged him to the small spring she had found. Bjorn’s fingers fumbled with his laces, and she stripped him down to his underclothing layer before pushing him into the water.

  Was it her imagination, or did the water partially turn into steam from the heat of his body?

  For hours, he remained in the spring until his lips turned blue. His face was pink now, instead of red, and he laid out beside her, shivering.

  “I will die here,” he muttered.

  “I won’t let you,” she said, but he was already asleep.

  So many days passed that Olympia stopped counting. Her hours were spent nursing the champion from Maloyan back to health. Somehow, this seemed more important than the throne that forever seemed too far away.

  On the night that Bjorn seemed to be a little better, he sat up with her and suddenly pointed. “There. Do you see it?”

  She squinted and discerned a dark form. “The shadow?”

  “The massive one.” He nodded, smirking.

  “That’s not…”

  “It is.”

  Perhaps he hadn’t been lying about the giant after all.

  42

  Princess Vivian Rivera

  The Olacic Mountains were a familiar sight to Vivian. She had gone to the other side what seemed like a lifetime ago, had seen Olac’s pyramid, had gone inside the monastery. The monk Garsea had been rather nice to her, and she hoped the war would never reach that far west.

  The war. She had no notion as to how Tenoch was faring, but given how fierce and powerful she knew the Vincanans to be, especially the Valkyries… Vivian shuddered. Even without the full brunt of the Vincanan force, they would be able to hold their own against the brunt of the Tenoch army.

  “Father was far too lax with the army, with the training of knights,” she murmured to herself as she headed around the mountains, on the eastern side. There would be no delays, no crossing the mountains to visit Garsea and then crossing over again. How long had it been since she last stepped foot inside the castle? Almost two years or so she thought, but she could be wrong. It wasn’t as if she had been counting the days.

  As much as she did not want to stop, Vivian had no choice but to visit a town here, a town there. She would leave the barrel outside with most of the armor hidden away and sell a piece here or there in exchange for food and lodging at the first such town. Sleeping in a bed had actually been uncomfortable for her. She was too used to the hammocks in the ship or else sleeping on the floor or hard ground. It wasn’t as if the bed was the softest, but it felt too foreign. To think she had been a princess with all the luxuries that entailed. Now, the idea of long dresses that reached to nearly cover her slippers disgusted her. She had worn the short-sleeved, knee-length tunic of the legionnaires for far too long. That she exchanged for a peasant woman’s attire—a shorter tunic with a skirt that did not billow and allowed her legs ease of movement. Honestly, if she could, she would wear a tunic and trousers and be done with it, but she needed to blend in as much as possible.

  Considering she did not wish for too many questions, she couldn’t sell all of the armor at once, and she always claimed she had found the clearly Vincanan armor during her travel, from a dead one, she would add with a grin. The villagers all loved to hear that, but they never stopped to consider that would mean a Vincanan had been relatively close by.

  By the time she managed to sell the last bit of armor in exchange for a horse, the battel was half-filled. Her diet consisted of whatever game she hunted and the sashews. She hoped securing the barrel with a long rope behind the horse would be sufficient, but if not, she would merely increase her hunting spoils.

  If only Noll could see her now! She had built a fire in less than three minutes, and the heat warmed her considerably. Would he like to hunt with her, she wondered, or would seeing the animals killed, defeathered, or skinned be too much for him?

  When she stirred the next morning, she dallied for the first time, making a crude bow and arrow. She fired it a few times, but her attempts at hitting a tree’s trunk all failed.

  “I’m no better at archery than you had been,” she murmured.

  Tears burned her eyes, and she angrily plucked the arrow from the grass one last time. She looped the bow onto her shoulder, untethered the horse, and climbed onto the mount.

  “Let’s go,” she murmured.

  But the horse was older than she would have preferred, and she could not go that fast for long at all, and Vivian grimaced. As much as she wanted to return to the castle immediately, it would take longer than she wished.

  Return to the castle.

  Return home.

  Would the castle feel like home again once she returned? Honestly, she wasn’t so sure. So much would be different now. Noll wouldn’t be there to hound her with a million questions. All of this time, Rosalynne and Sabine both had been queen. Then, there was the matter of the war.

  Nothing would be the same, and as Vivian tried to encourage a little more speed out of the mare, she realized that she herself had been changed as well.

  The question begged—would Rosalynne even recognize Vivian upon her return?

  43

  Queen Sabine Grantham

  The sun rose on the morning after the battle, but Sabine was already dressed and prepared for the day, a simple matter, really, as she had been unable to sleep. The shock of witnessing the battle, of watching her men die right in front of her, of the blood spraying everywhere, the smell, the sounds…

  Her guards had to defend her several times, and they always prevailed, but both had been injured, even Thorley Everett, the guard Sabine had accused Rosalynne of using to spy. He hadn’t hesitated to take a blow that had been intended for her.

  Perhaps he had only been doing his duty, but Sabine vowed to treat the guard, to treat all of her guards, with far more kindness.

  She recalled the weight of the dagger in her hand, a blade the guards insisted she had in case they should both fall. It had felt so very heavy that she recalled wondering how they could their sword let alone wield them as deadly blades.

  A knock sounded at the door. As she had sent her maid away, Sabine crossed over and opened it.

  Rosalynne stood in the doorway. “I am on my way to talk to the prisoners,” she said. “I thought you might like to join me.”

  Sabine smiled even though a chill washed over her. “Very much so.”

  The two fell into step beside one another.

  “I heard you witnessed the battle,” Rosalynne said.

  “Yes. I went to the marketplace and… I never thought there would be an attack there.”

  “I’m glad no harm came to you.”

  Did she truly feel that? Sabine could not tell from the younger queen’s side profile.

  “So many innocents had been killed,” Rosalynne said.

  “They went after the merchants first, the peasants… They killed just to kill.” Sabine shuddered.

  “We will have to do a mass grave.”

  "Surely, we can give them each a grave," Sabine protested.

  “Considering there are far more Vincanans on Tenoch now, and not that far from the castle either, mind you, we do not have the time to spare on individual graves. I wish we did,” Rosalynne said ruefully, “but…”

  “Far more Vincanans…” Sabine repeated.

  “Did you not hear?”

  "I returned to the castle immediately after the battle in the marketplace. What happened?"

  "A battle at the sea," Rosalynne said, her tone grim, but then she gave a bitter laugh. "A battle at the beach would be more apt, I suppose. We sank a few of their ships and killed a great deal, but their numbers have swelled."

  “By the Four,” Sabine swore. “The prisoners…”

  “Four new ones from the marketplace.”

  To combine with the ones they had gathered previously from a skirmish here, a skirmish there. They might h
ave an even dozen now.

  Their guards had fallen into step behind them as they walked, even Sabine’s injured ones. She had given up trying to get them to rest. They refused to leave her side, and she had overheard two of them whispering that her refusal to leave once the battle started meant she courted death. While that wasn’t the truth, she also couldn’t say why she had stayed. Too afraid to move or do anything. Too worried fleeing would draw attention. Too morbidly curious about how an actual battle transpired. It was one thing to hear about an attack after the fact, but to see it…

  “They might be more willing to speak outside of the cells,” Rosalynne said.

  “You wish to have them in separate rooms.”

  Rosalynne pointed to one of her guards. He nodded and rushed away.

  She turned to Sabine. “I wish for the other prisoners to not hear what details the first gives.”

  “You want to see if they tell us the same story.”

  “I doubt it will be easy to get the truth from them.”

  “Indeed,” Sabine murmured, thinking back to alchemy and potions.

  Rosalynne’s guard returned before they reached the cells, and he brought with him a dozen guards. In short order, one prisoner at a time was escorted to one of four tea rooms. Rosalynne nodded to Sabine, and they entered separate rooms.

  This particular captive was a female. Her hair was tightly braided, and she had her wrists bound, her wrists that had no hands attached.

  Sabine forced herself not to stare. “Tell me everything you know.”

  The Vincanan grinned. “Fish swim, and birds fly, and one day soon, you will die.”

  “As will you,” Sabine said dryly. “Tell me about your plans.”

  “I plan on telling you nothing before dying.”

  “You wish to die?”

  “Only because I can no longer fight you and your kind.” She leaned forward and held up her stumps.

  “If you had your hands, you would…”

  “I would have killed you already.”

  As one, the three guards in the room stepped forward.