by Terah Edun
“You mean with my whip,” he said with a hollow laugh. “Yes, while I was enjoying giving her a punishment she so richly deserved, they were surrounding us all—is that what you wanted to say, Mercenary Fairchild?”
Sara rolled her shoulders uneasily. She didn’t want to assign blame, but he had been the one to let his and the entire camp’s guard down as they celebrated a victory that had turned into defeat that same night.
But she didn’t say that. She couldn’t, so she waited for him to change the subject.
“Now that you’re sworn in,” her captain said, “I can tell you at least some of the information I’ve found out about Kade forces. It’s not pretty.”
Sara nodded solemnly. “I’m ready, sir.”
“I don’t think you are, lieutenant commander,” he said dryly. “But nevertheless, here it is.”
Sara waited as he prepared to debrief her.
“First you should know the truth,” he said. “This is something I informed all my trusted commanding officers of, because we can’t afford for them not to know what we’re up against.”
He paused, then said, “It might also help you to understand why, even though it pains me, I gave the orders to leave our fallen brethren behind instead of transported back to the capital or given official burial ceremonies.”
Sara, unable to help herself, said, “You mean the mass graves.”
“Yes,” he replied hesitantly. “They act like nectar to flies by attracting Kade regiments to pick us off when we’re most vulnerable.”
“I know,” Sara said. “They sent their creatures after us as we shoveled and dug and tried to give our people the dignity of a burial. Instead of being eaten alive by pigs.”
He shot her a hard look. “You think that’s the worst fate imaginable, do you? Well, imagine this. The Kades sending their guard to kill you off and letting your bodies rot. We send another group and the same thing happens again. A third time, and we have to stop.”
Sara shifted uneasily. “You mean…is that truly what happened?”
He gripped the table so hard that she thought he would break off a piece. “More times than I can count.”
“Then I apologize. But surely there’s a way to turn the Kade determination to pick us off against them.”
He laughed. “Oh, we’ve tried. But they always seem one step ahead of us.”
“I wonder why that is,” Sara said, truly stumped. “We’re all built from the same cloth. Molded from the same imperial soil. But then seem to have a secret that we don’t share.”
“A secret or perhaps a gift,” the captain said. “But that is neither here nor there. What is important is the secret I’m about to share with you that I warn all my commanders of. I’m of the belief that at least they should take command knowing what they’re up against.”
“And what is that?”
“A force that can defeat them even with overwhelming odds in our favor,” he said.
Sara shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“It is true the Kade forces vastly outdo us in magical skills,” Barthis said. “But since the beginning of this fight, the imperial army, alongside the Mercenary’s Guild warriors, has outnumbered the Kades ten to one.”
“And yet we’re losing still now?” she asked, shocked.
“Now you see my dilemma,” he said. “And with the addition of those aerial bombardments, I do believe they have drastically reduced the capabilities we had before now.”
Sara hadn’t expected her day to go like this, promoted in one breath and demoralized in the next.
23
“So not only have the Kades recaptured one of their greatest mages,” Sara said slowly, “but they’ve also managed to devastate our forces and potentially swing the tides of battle even more drastically in their favor.”
“Brilliant summation,” he said dryly.
Sara nodded. Then, needing to know even if she feared the outcome, Sara asked, “How bad are the odds now?”
“Four to one if we’re lucky,” he said glumly.
She sighed heavily. “That doesn’t sound good, but we still have the advantage.”
He pumped a fist in the air. “That’s exactly right, and while we have it, we need to do all we can to maintain it and break them wherever we can. Our enemies are crafty, but we have to be craftier and more merciless than ever.” Sara turned away partly while he turned to her in excitement. “Don’t you see? This is why I will go as far as I have to make sure they don’t win.”
This was where their similarities diverged. She wanted to save her empire, but not at the cost of everything else she held dear, like her honor and integrity.
She said as much, feeling foolish, but not willing to let the point die.
He shook his head and laughed cruelly. “Your personal emotions have no place in my guild or my armed forces, Sara Fairchild.”
Sara was uneasy. She didn’t want to kick a gift horse in the mouth, but neither would she back down just because he’d promoted her. In fact, she felt that promotion should only galvanize her to push further. To do what was right, even with a cost.
Firmly, she said, “Those emotions help give me clarity, and as a commanding officer, it will be my duty to ensure that the actions I demand of my own regiment are ones I can give myself. Not because they’re orders. But because they’re right.”
“And what happens when every officer thinks like you do?” he asked. “When every commander questions command? Because I can tell you, it’s not pretty, and besides which, we have no time for internal struggle. The Kades have been chipping away at us like they’re hunting down elk for too long. With their precision strike less than a week ago, they have shown how strong they’ve grown…and that our time is almost up.”
Sara couldn’t argue with him on that. “I understand that. If you’re through with me then I’ll go and do my duty—I’ll find Nissa Sardonien.”
“No I’m not done,” he said sharply. “Because you truly don’t get it. There is no urgency in your tone. Yes, there’s duty, but I want to know that when you leave this tent, all you will see, all you will feel, and all you will act on is your belief that this empire is in mortal danger.”
Sara stared at him, nonplussed. “I still don’t know what this empire is in mortal danger from,” she said. “No one does! The Kades are rebelling, and yet even the Algardis Empire’s citizens have no idea why.”
Her captain shook his head. “And they don’t need to know. The only thing the people need is safety and loyalty to their crown.”
Sara bared her teeth. “No one would ever question my faithfulness to the cause of either.”
Barthis began to pace. “And yet here we stand. Arguing the points of our mechanics to those solutions endlessly.”
She didn’t say anything. It was a moot point, and had been since she’d walked into that tent and saw him sanctioning inhuman torture tactics.
Barthis paced back toward her. “What about if your friends were dying? What if any remaining family, even distant, died as well? They’re all in Sandrin, right?”
Sara looked at him askance. Was he threatening the only people she could have had left? Not that she had any, but that was beside the point.
“What kind of commander would threaten such a thing?” she said. “I thought you liked my individuality, my persevering spirit.”
Barthis snorted. “I hate your sense of individuality, but it seems to make you a good leader under pressure, Fairchild, and I’m not threatening you—the Kades are.”
“What?” Sara asked as she tried to follow a conversation that seemed to be eating its own tail.
“Those portals were just a test phase,” Barthis said. “We’ve received actionable intelligence that the Kades are on the move. That they’ve found a way to portal long distances and they have their next target for a bombardment array.”
Sara stiffened. “They wouldn’t.”
Barthis flicked his glance over the still-smoking hole that had fo
rmed into a canyon in one day. “Wouldn’t they?”
“These are civilians!” she said. “Innocent citizens. They have no part in this war.”
The captain nodded. “I know that,” he said softly, concern in his eyes. “But perhaps you should tell that to our Kade invasion leader. Because from what I heard, the Kades are moving on their target in less than three days…and we still don’t know where they are to stop it.”
Sara shook her head. Not in denial, but in dismay. She knew she was being manipulated. She knew it. But she would do anything to keep her city safe. It was the only thing she had left that even resembled a memory of home. She couldn’t let what happened here make it there.
Even if it meant sacrificing her morals to get there.
Sara sighed. “You didn’t just bring me here to promote me, did you?”
“No,” Barthis said as he stood up.
She swallowed heavily even as the words stuck in her throat. “What do you want me to do?”
He grinned triumphantly. He knew that he had her. Even if there were things she wasn’t willing to do to save herself or for the cause of the empire, the idea of all those people dying in the capital city was too much for even Sara to bear.
“It’s simple,” he said. “As you could tell from this morning, our Kade prisoners are a little reluctant to talk. Even the ones whose memories we retrieve have been lackluster fonts of information, to say the least. Your Kade leader is a high enough official to have commanded a dragon regiment, and the only one we’ve captured alive. With his information, we might stand a chance of finding the location of the Kades before it’s too late.”
Sara stepped back and paced away. And then returned to within a few feet of where Barthis stood watching her, an anticipatory gleam in his eyes.
“I already agreed to speak to him,” Sara said angrily. “But you’re asking for so much more than I have the ability to produce. What makes you think he’ll tell me anything?”
“I don’t have much hope, to be honest,” Captain Barthis said. “But I’m willing to roll the dice and give you a half hour of alone time before I show up. If I don’t think your methods are working to persuade him—and I urge you to be very persuasive—then I’ll just have Davinis step in.”
“Why don’t you just start with him? Surely he could handle the torture that you seem so eager to produce, and I can go after Nissa in the meantime.”
Barthis clicked his tongue. “But don’t you see? Your prisoner of war holds the key to both secrets. The location of the Kade hideout and, in turn, where Nissa Sardonien should be at this very minute.”
Sara felt a chill run down her spine. He was right. Damn it, he was right. As if sensing her weakening attitude, Barthis leaned close and whispered into her ear, “You’re going to get me those answers, lieutenant.”
Sara stepped away and then turned back as she twisted the gloves she’d been given in her cold, cold hands.
“What makes you think I have any desire to do what you did in that tent to this Kade out here?” she asked. “Even after all of this.”
Emotions flickered in the captain’s eyes.
Sara held up a hand. “And before you answer—know that even this promotion doesn’t tempt me to follow your ways. I’d rather die first.”
Captain Barthis crossed his arms and cocked his head. “Because you want to save the people you care about. As you couldn’t save your family.”
She turned on him.
“I know it hurts, Sara, and that’s why it matters,” Barthis said. “Do the right thing. For your people, for your crown, get the answers we need so we can end this war.”
Sara was backed into a corner. The corner of wanting to save the people she cared about and serve her empire. And she could see that Barthis wouldn’t let her out of it until she acceded to his demands.
So she turned to him and said, “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll question him, but I’ll do it my way. No mind torture or magic involved.”
“Good,” he replied with a smile. “I always knew you would.”
Sara’s hands balled into fists at the satisfaction in his voice, but she had the thought that it was just part of his natural resting state.
When she lingered for a moment, waiting for his orders to leave, the captain looked up in surprise at her from where he had turned to go through a stack of papers.
“You’re dismissed,” Barthis said. “Though I had half expected you to stalk out without my leave.”
Sara said wryly, “I’ve been taking lessons on proper armed forces etiquette.”
“And only taking it half to heart,” he said as he settled his scarred hands at his waist. “Was there something else?”
“Well, yes,” Sara said reluctantly. “There’s one problem.”
“Out with it,” he said. “I knew you would have another complaint.”
“Well,” she said, “what will the imperial courts think?”
“Of?” he said, a dark glint in his eye.
“You elevating a traitor’s daughter,” she said. “One who is not supposed to be fighting for pay, let alone leading individuals into battle. They still don’t have my new orders as a mercenary on record, do they? If they did, we would have heard something by now.”
“Why don’t you let me handle the empress’ representatives?” he said. “And you just follow my commands.”
Sara was stumped, but he clearly didn’t see it as the issue she did.
“Very well, sir,” she said.
“Good—just don’t make me regret this, Fairchild,” he said. “Now get out.”
Pressing her mouth into a thin line, Sara held her tongue. She just hoped that, whatever she had to do to the Kade to get those answers, she never shared Barthis’s studied non-concern. When she felt that, she would lose her humanity.
As she walked away, she felt his look on her back. It wasn’t one of malevolence but rather of frustration. But for some reason that he wasn’t willing to tell, he needed her. Oh, he had spouted pretty lies about her deserving the promotion and being the only one who could get information out of the prisoner. But she believed that just as much as she believed it was necessary to put flowers in her hair and dance around a fire to be a proper woman.
Which was to say…not at all.
Her captain had gone through an awful lot of trouble to elevate a nobody mercenary and keep her initial records off the imperial books. Which was a feat in itself, considering how meticulous mercenary records tended to be. So Sara had double the concerns now. What did he want from her so badly that would force his hand to be so persistent for a woman who knew him not at all?
She would find out, and when she did, Sara wouldn’t be surprised to find other secrets. Clasping her cloak around her, as well as the protection her newly elevated command presented, she hunched her shoulders and decided to go to work. For herself this time, no one else. There were secrets to unbury, including finding out if a certain mercenary was alive and well.
24
Walking outside, Sara ignored the distant gazes of the guards who surrounded Captain Barthis’s second command tent. This one, unlike the first, wasn’t warded against prying eyes. Instead, it sat out in the open, like a prized jewel waiting to be stolen, and Sara supposed that was why he’d left it there. It had originally been his primary—and only, as far as she knew—command tent, but after the bombardment from the Kades, he had switched locations and heavily shielded his new place of residence.
Now one, the one they’d left, acted as a decoy in case the Kades came back for more.
She had to admit, it was smart of him to keep it up. It sounded like a good part of the imperial armed forces leadership had been massacred in the Kades’ retaliatory attack. If this pompous white tent with fluttering pennants helped draw attention away from his actual residence, then it would serve its purpose well.
“Though he may need to rethink having meetings there,” she said to herself as she stalked to the end of the long, roped-off corridor of gra
ss that made an elegant entrance to a true commander’s tent.
As she did, she took one long look back, and her gaze passed over the guards who were doing sweeping perimeter checks—making sure that no enemy, from the skies or from the ground, could sneak up on them unseen. As they did so, they ignored her. And when she thought about the fact that many of these guards were a part of Captain Barthis’s roving protection force and therefore had also been present at the other tent, she wondered if that was the right thing for them to do.
Oh, she didn’t question the effectiveness of their ability to do their duty—protecting their captain. But where was the honor in ignoring the screams of a dying man tortured inside? Or, if they couldn’t hear, what did they do when they saw the bodies—because Sara was sure this had happened more than once—that left the tent maimed and butchered beyond recognition? The answer was probably nothing…beyond whatever directives Captain Barthis gave them.
On one hand, she didn’t blame them. On the other, she did. There was nothing honorable in this. But as she walked into camp and passed a corner that gave her a brief glimpse of the canyon on the edge of their location, she had the thought that there was nothing honorable about a mass grave, either.
As she thought about what she’d witnessed, it was this kind of moral ambiguity that made her question everything she was. And everything she was becoming. Before now, she had never thought she would see the day when she would be explicitly aiding Captain Barthis, but here they were. Although their mutual loathing was still intact.
Once she was out of sight and had walked far enough away Sara Fairchild ripped off the hated disc from her neck and stuck it into the folds of her clothes. She didn’t discard it because she might need it but that didn’t mean she would flaunt it about either.
Taking a deep breath, she sucked in the dry air and then she went to do what he’d requested of her. She sought out the Kade invasion leader to get some answers. For all of their sakes. Barthis’s words echoed in her ears as she walked through the camp as if she was numb to the world. Oh, her hand was on the hilt of her sword, ready for any surprise attacks from adventurous Kades, but her heart wasn’t in her stride. Instead, she worried about what she was about to do and who she had become.