by Jean Johnson
“Ah ... of course. We would have sent her earlier, but the passes ... and the battle ...” Giving up trying to explain—wincing as something else exploded noisily, though the purple-clad mages seemed to be sheltering them from any possible shrapnel—Marta quickly accepted the scroll. “You’ll have to forgive me, but we’re a little busy at the moment.”
“Yes, we know. With your permission, Consul-in-Chief, now that we are bound as allies, I would be honored to direct my troops in mopping up these insurgents,” the Mage-Captain stated. “As you have reassured us many times in the last year, there should only be peace within these lands, and it would be our pleasure to teach them to properly behave.”
She eyed the thirty or so mounted men and women, their painted armor inlaid with gilded runes similar to the ones protecting her motorhorse, and nodded quickly. “By all means! Let there be peace!”
His smile visible through the grille of his helm, Ellett flicked up his hand. A sizzling line of light shot up, much like a festival-rocket, and exploded in bright purple sparks. All but a dozen of the mage-warriors surged forward, leaving the rest to cluster defensively around their captain and the two Guildaran women. They looked somewhat like Sir Catrine did, chanting spells and flinging them as they entered the fray, glowing with powers and mowing down the warlord’s troops with each fierce attack, save that they mostly used magic instead of the weapons slung at their backs, and that no rider-less horses, illusionary or otherwise, accompanied each warrior.
Absently, Marta shut off the engine of her motorhorse, conserving its fuel. She was sick of fighting, and neither she nor Gabria were the level of warriors and mages that these people were.
“... Your Highness, are you injured?” the Mage-Captain asked solicitously, diverting her attention.
Marta was fairly sure she had told her envoy, Pells, to tell them that her correct mode of address was Milady Chief, not Highness, but she didn’t quibble over protocol. The Aurulans were here to save her people, outnumbered by Durn’s forces, and she’d accept anything they called her, unless they called for her surrender. His inquiry did make her aware of her aches and pains, now that she wasn’t trying madly to steer a safe course through the destruction ruing the outer reaches of the Heiastowne Precinct fields.
“Um ... just some cuts and bruises. The worst one is on my cheek. Minor things, really. Gabria?” Marta asked, glancing back at her friend.
“A bruised ankle, a hoarse throat, and a couple scratches of my own from shrapnel and pellets, but I’m fine—save your healing spells for those out there who’ll need them far more than we will,” Gabria added, lifting her chin at the mess the warlord had wrought.
That reminded Marta of all the other casualties out there. The men and women groaning and bleeding from their injuries, the lives lost to munitions and machinery ... and the charred, exploded lump that had been the last giant-class motorman. Now that she wasn’t focused on her own survival, the tears came back, wavering her view of the battlefield.
This was why she didn’t like nor want war. Zeilas was only the most personal loss she knew of, so far. Undoubtedly there were plenty of others whose names and faces she knew, and far too many she didn’t.
The battle didn’t end instantly. It did end, though, particularly once Durn’s hexaleg transport, with its banner of a round, bronze munition on a white background, was immobilized by crackling violet-hued lightning. That banner burst into flame as the transport stumbled, faltered, and sagged to the ground, its limbs folding up awkwardly.
A swirling herd of horses cantered their way. They slowed and milled a short distance away as Sir Catrine, clad in the surcoat of Arbra with its brown-and-green tree on a white background, emerged from the mass of enchanted equines. She pushed up the visor of her helm, eyed the Mage-Captain warily, then nodded briefly to Marta. “Milady Chief, the battle is won. Thanks to these ... Aurulans, yes?”
“Mage-Captain Ellett of the Royal Guard of Aurul, sent here to protect Her Highness and lend aid to our western neighbors on this day,” the armored man explained. “You are a Knight of Arbra?”
“Sir Catrine, Knight-Mage. Milady Chief, where is Sir Zeilas?” Catrine asked Marta. “He set himself to provide cover for the two of you.”
She had to close her eyes against a fresh sting of tears. Tugging off a riding glove, she scrubbed them from her face, then pointed at the fourth fallen metal man. “He was behind us when we toppled that last giant-class, and ... was caught under it.”
The other woman twisted in the saddle to look that way, her Steed pivoting with her. “Was he with his Steed when it fell? Was Fireleaf with him?”
“Yes, but ...”
“Then there’s a chance he’s still alive. Gabria, I’ll need your help; it’s too big for one mage to lift,” Sir Catrine ordered.
“We will go with you and provide help, as well as an escort,” Ellett offered unsolicited.
I am not going to look for the made-by stamp on a gift toolbox, Marta warned herself, twisting the ignition crank on her motorhorse’s neck. I am not going to ask why they acknowledge us now, after over a year’s wait for more than merely acknowledging our existence. Never mind giving us this much help so freely! I am just going to nod and say thank you, and leave it at that.
Some of her own people rolled up on rumbling motorhorses. A few were missing their combat teammates, others were injured. All of them bore a mixture of emotions on their battle-grimed faces, somewhere between grimness over the gore and hope for all of the help. A look she suspected was echoed in her own eyes. The dozen riders with the Mage-Captain made room for them, along with Sir Catrine once she had dismissed the spells linking the illusionary horses from the real ones, and dismissed the real ones to trot obediently toward either Heiastowne or the palace, to await collection and tending by their rightful owners.
Many of whom had gone on to ride into battle on machine-made beasts, and some of whom wouldn’t return.
By the time they reached the towering chunks of brass and steel, pipes and gears that had been the last of the giant-class motormen, most of the fighting seemed to have stopped. More than that, a knot of purple-clad riders cantered up, two of the mages holding a bound and gagged, brown-clad figure aloft between them, floating in a cocoon of golden light that streamed from their palms. Gabria dismounted to follow Sir Catrine deeper into the wreckage, leaving Marta to face this new development.
“Milady Chief,” one of them stated, reining his horse to a snorting stop, “I present to you the miscreant known as Warlord Durn the Dreaded, bound and secured for your judgment. It is your lands which he has invaded, and your people which he has harmed the most.”
Torn between accepting their gift and watching the efforts of the Aurulan mage-warriors, the Arbran Knight, and her best friend to levitate the chunks of metal in their way, searching for signs of Sir Zeilas, Marta forced herself to acknowledge her duty. Facing the murderer responsible for this mess was bound to be more pleasant than staring at the squashed remains of her would-have-been lover.
Marta swung out the rear leg of her motorhorse, leaning the vehicle on the prop so that she could dismount. Turning to the Mage-Captain, who was dismounting as well, she asked, “Being that you are a mage ... you wouldn’t happen to have a Truth Stone or a Truth Wand somewhere about you, would you? I’m afraid they were banned from being used by all but the old priesthood and vanished or were rendered inert when the False God was finally cast down—I suspect because they had been corrupted somehow. None of my mages know how to craft an honest one, just yet.”
“I have a spell which will suffice. When he speaks a lie, he will glow red, and when he speaks a truth, he will glow green,” the Aurulan offered. Handing the reins of his horse to one of his fellow Aurulans, he lifted his chin at the activity behind her. “... I think you should turn around, Milady Chief. It seems your intended has survived. As predicted.”
Confused, Marta turned and looked over her shoulder. The crowd of bodies and metal parts was a
little thick, but she could just see Sir Catrine stooping to pick something off the ground ... and an overgrown, unruffled, red-and-cream stallion cropping placidly at the grass beneath what had been the house-sized, hip-joint casing for the motorman. The visibly dented hip-joint casing, its thick metal plates warped in a divot the length and size of an overgrown Arbran Steed.
“Zeilas?” she whispered.
A familiar armored body rose into view, aided by the lady Knight. He unstrapped and tugged off his helm, wincing and lifting a hand to the back of his head. Marta didn’t care that there were still half a dozen people between them. She sprinted toward the Knight, pushing people aside, torn between laughing and shouting and crying over the fact that he was still miraculously alive.
“Zeilas!” Flinging herself at him, Marta wrapped her arms around him. He was lumpy from armor and his helmet fell from his started hands, banging against her left boot as it clattered onto the ground, but she didn’t care. “Zeilas!”
He looked just as stunned and just as relieved to see her. “Goddess, Marta!”
That was all she gave him time to say. Dragging him down by the back of his neck, Marta kissed him. She didn’t care that more and more people were gathering around the fallen machine, that more and more of her fellow Guildarans could see their Consul-in-Chief kissing the Arbran ambassador. She only cared that Zeilas was alive. Part of her reveled in his life, in his lips, in his embrace, despite the uncomfortable chunks of rune-carved cavalry armor he wore. Part of her mind did acknowledge that the others were all watching, and that the consequences of it couldn’t be damned and set aside so easily.
Part of her, having seen the Aurulans’ determination that Gabria return to Aurul with them, was struck with a brilliant, if slightly crazy, plan. One sparked in part by the Mage-Captain’s choice of words, though mostly prompted by her own desire.
Their kiss finally ended when he pulled back just enough to caress her face, then lean in again, resting his forehead against her own. Face flushed, eyes wide, he murmured, “So much for courting you discreetly ...”
She smiled and chuckled, eyes still a bit watery but otherwise feeling much, much better. “I have a solution for that. But, um ... first, the war field has to be cleaned up.”
“Right. Duty first.” Drawing in a deep breath, he squared his shoulders, his expression sobering. He winced in the next moment, shifting the hand on her cheek to the back of his head. “Duty, and a cold compress. I think I hit my head when I dived off my Steed, taking cover between his legs.”
Not wanting him to always put duty first, Marta leaned up and kissed him. Just a quick peck of their lips, but it was enough to put some of the warmth back into his expression. Both from embarrassment and from pleasure. Turning back to the others, Marta lifted her chin, resuming her role as Consul-in-Chief.
“Mage-Captain Ellett, please cast your lie-detecting spell on the prisoner. The chief prisoner,” she amended, realizing that some of her people, interspersed with his, were herding groups of other former Mekhanans their way, their hands manacled together and their ankles hobbled by more of the same golden glow that held the warlord aloft.
Bowing, he complied, lifting his hand and chanting a short piece. The syllables meant nothing to her, and Gabria had once confessed most of them were just mnemonics meant to help the mage shape the magic within them to his or her will. The effect was palpable, however. As the other two mage-warriors lowered him and released their levitation spell, the brown-armored man started to glow a dull silvery gray.
“... The gray is simply the color he assumes when he says nothing,” Ellett murmured.
She accepted the explanation with a nod. “Alright. Another request ... is there a way to make everyone see and hear what I’m about to do and say?”
One of the other Aurulans twisted her hands, fitting forefingers to thumbs in front of her face in a sort of rectangle shape, muttering words under her breath. Light and color rippled into existence overhead, forming a tableau of Ellett, Marta, Zeilas, and the bound man. That enlarged projection showed every detail of his tooled leather breastplate, carved with the insignia he had chosen for his banner, and the equally brown gambeson and trousers he wore underneath the various boiled leather plates. In fact, he wore velvet clothes under his armor, instead of sensible woolens and linens, she realized with distaste, no doubt copying the highest rankings of the False God’s wealth-bloated clergy.
Her own choice of common, knitted wool and plain leather was meant to bind her closer to the average Guildaran, not set her apart from them. All she could feel for this would-be conqueror was contempt and disgust, and a tightly reined anger that he had dared harm even a mere square inch of her realm. Suppressing the urge to wrinkle her nose in distaste, Marta addressed him sternly.
“Warlord Durn ...” She broke off as her voice echoed across the valley. Wrinkling her nose anyway, she continued, focusing on him instead of on the oversized illusion of herself floating high overhead. “Warlord Durn, the so-called Dreaded, you are bound and brought before us under the charges of unlawful invasion, wanton destruction of property, and the willful murder of sovereign citizens of the Guildaran nation. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
He lifted his chin, one of his eyebrows turning puffy and dark from bruising, and sneered at her. “I don’t talk to sheep. If there’s a leader among you worth his bollocks, I challenge him one on one! You had to use magic to defeat me. There’s not a one of you that can stand against me in a fair fight!”
His words, like hers, echoed over the fields. Not all of his speech glowed green, however. Parts of it glowed red, notably his last statement. Marta heard the answering growl from her people, not magically projected, but audible all the same. She was not swayed in the least by his challenge, and not taken in by his lie.
“Warlord Durn, to hear you speak of a ‘fair’ fight is, at best, a poor and failed piece of mockery. As for sheep, I wouldn’t toss a sick lamb to a rabid wolf, even if that rabid wolf were starving and beaten ... just like you.”
“You little piece of dung!” he snarled, and lunged at her. Or tried to. While most of him was unbound, his hands and feet were still shackled by golden power. All it took was the lifting of a hand from one of his two mage-captors and he jerked to a halt, straining against his glowing, immobile bonds.
“This ‘little piece of dung’ is Marta Grenspun, Goddess-chosen Consul-in-Chief, ruler of the free nation of Guildara,” she stated coldly. “Beside me stand Mage-Captain Ellett of the Royal Guard of Aurul, and Sir Zeilas, Knight-Envoy of Arbra. Your offenses against Guildara have affected not only our sovereign selves, but our good neighbors who, like us, only desire peace. You have brought war to my nation, and shed the blood of my citizens, the blood of the Arbrans, and the blood of the Aurulans.
“You aren’t even a wolf,” she disdained. “You are a rabid dog, bringing pain and misery to all you encounter. We have heard how you have conquered much of the northern lands of former Mekhana through fear, intimidation, sabotage, and outright battle. You think to proclaim yourself both a warlord and a king ... yet no God or Goddess will Manifest to support your bloody methods, never mind your mad ideology.” Turning to look first at Zeilas, then at Ellett, she asked, “Sir Knight, Mage-Captain, it is my best judgment that a rabid dog should be put down, to prevent his madness from further contaminating our otherwise peaceful lives. What would you and your governments have to say about this?”
Zeilas looked around at the debris of the battlefield. “This used to be good farmland. It will likely take a full year before it can be used for such again, if not longer. Arbra as a nation will not condone such wanton destruction of property, ours or Guildara’s. I believe His Majesty, King Tethek, will agree. You do not allow a rabid dog to run loose, destroying everything it meets. But you do grant it a swift death, giving it the mercy which, in its madness, it does not comprehend.”
“I am not a dog!” Durn growled.
“As it was said, so it was
written; thus it is proved, and so shall it be,” the Mage-Captain stated, his words sounding almost ritualistic. Ellett shrugged calmly. “I have no objections to granting him a swift, clean death. I am here to aid your people specifically because my liege foresaw that he must fall, if there is to be peace within this realm.”
A fifth figure joined their projected tableau as Precinct General Stalos joined them. “I would concur, Milady Chief. We have too much healing, repairing, and rebuilding to do to worry about an ambitious madman getting free and starting up all over again.” He drew a dagger from his belt and saluted her with it. “I stand ready to execute the sentence.”
“We are not madmen, nor bullies, nor evil,” Marta agreed. “And we should be merciful ... but you gentlemen are right. He is too dangerous to lock up, in the fear that he might break free. Too mad to be reasoned with. Make it swift, and may the Gods have mercy when judging his soul. We have more important things to do.”
Nodding, Stalos dragged the former warlord off to the side. It was swift, with the dagger applied to the other man’s spine. Marta dragged her gaze away, glad that part had not been projected. Mindful of her giant illusion-self, she addressed the war field. “Those of you who followed Durn the Would-Be Warlord will be questioned under truth-verifying spell, as administered by our Mage’s Guild, by the Arbran Knight-mages, and the Aurulan Royal Guard. If you fought under duress, you will be free to return to your homes in the north.
“If you are here of your own free will, and intend to continue harming the people of any of these three nations ... you will be granted the same swift and merciful death. The rest of you will be treated according to the severity of your participation and war crimes. Expect to labor for the restoration of these fields as payment for your actions, at the very least. Take the time now to make up your minds as to how truthfully you will answer. For those of you set free to return to the north, carry this piece of news for us: Guildara will accept into our nation any village or town or populated expanse of land who votes to join us by a majority of eighty percent of its adult population. Otherwise ... you’re on your own. We have no interest in conquering you in return.”