by Edun, Terah
She waited as he eyed her out of the side of his eye. For a moment her stomach flipped, worried that he hadn’t taken the bait.
Then he said, “I thought you didn’t do anything?”
She turned to him with a dark expression on her face. He held up a hand while forcing himself not to laugh. She could tell because even though he ducked his head to hide his face, chuckles were still escaping his mouth.
Nevertheless Ezekiel quickly sat back up and looked at her with a straight face. Or, well, as straight as he was capable. His mouth was pressed into a thin line that trembled every so often as he tried to hold back more laughter. Her mouth was set in a thin line of its own. One of irritation.
Lips twitching, Ezekiel said between sharp gasps of air, “Okay, okay. That was wrong. But did you really think that the mercenaries wouldn’t think you a bit of an upstart for trying to get into the premier division of their unit on your first day?”
Sara’s back stiffened and she looked straight ahead through her tall gelding’s black ears. Her gaze wasn’t focused on anything in particular. She just didn’t want to be looking at Ezekiel at the moment.
Nevertheless, she explained, “I’ve trained my entire life. Since the age of five I’ve studied with masters of hand-to-hand combat, swordplay, and archery. I speak three languages, including the tongue of the old ones, so that I can take my place as an officer in the army. I’ve studied with mages and mystics to learn the ways of the old ones and become the mistress of my magic rather than its servant.”
“You’ve trained your entire life?” was Ezekiel’s quiet question. His voice no longer held amusement, just contemplation. He was riding side-by-side with her and she knew he was staring straight ahead just as she was. Although she might have cheated and looked out of her peripheral vision once...maybe twice.
“Yes!” she said adamantly.
“For this?” Then she turned her head.
“Yes!”
“I didn’t ask if you’d trained your entire life for war, Sara. I want to know if you’ve trained for this.”
“This is war,” she growled at him. “Do you think we’re going to the front lines for a tea party? Or to sign a peace treaty with the Kade mages. They’ve been fighting for eight months against the imperial mages. With no end in sight. Make no mistake, there will be blood and there will be death.”
He turned to her. “Yes, there will be. But before we get to war. Before we get to the frontlines we must prove ourselves. We are strangers here, Sara. What you don’t get is that every mercenary in this guard knows one another. If they don’t know their fellow mercenary’s weaknesses, they know their strengths. They have worked together. Trained together. Bonded and they trust one another.”
She opened her mouth to interject. “I know that—”
“I’m not finished yet,” Ezekiel said with an angry look as he pushed his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose.
“You are an outsider. We are outsiders. And what’s more, you’re an outsider who thinks she’s better than them. Because you’ve trained with masters, studied with mages, and possess a magic like only a few of them have even seen glimpses of. Yes, Sara. You think you’re special.”
She glared at him as he continued. “You are special. You are gifted and unique. But you are also untried and untested.”
“I suppose you aren’t?”
“You’d be surprised what you don’t know about me,” he said.
Some of her anger dissipated as curiosity took its place. “You’ve been to war, Ezekiel Crane?”
He looked off into the distance. “I’ve been to many wars.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“I’ve studied the battles of Baen and Carnak. Lived the aerial dragon fights of Dannis and seen the great sea battle of Sandrin,” he said.
She listened to him list battle after battle from Algardis history.
Ezekiel finally turned back to war. “I’ve lived the wars through the memories of others, Sara. I am no more tested than you are in your trials to become the best fighter in Sandrin. But you want to know the difference between us?”
She raised her chin. “What?”
He said as he kicked his horse away, “I know when I am unprepared.”
Sara watched Ezekiel ride off. She didn’t go after him. She felt an odd sense of satisfaction. She’d managed to convince the only person in this blasted company that had a hint of her true self that she was an idiot who looked down upon other fighters.
She thought about getting angry. Angrier really. Angry at what she had to do. Even a small part of her was angry that he would doubt her abilities when she had proven herself time and again in the streets of Sandrin. She was a legend. But slowly she calmed. She merged with the rhythm of her horse’s hooves clopping on the stone thoroughfare beneath them and she thought about what Ezekiel had said. She thought about what the captain had said. They were only defending the reputation of the fighters around her, after all.
As she looked around at the uncouth faces around her, Sara flashed back to a memory with her father. They had been training on a bright sunny day. Sara still remembered the day she had turned ten as if was yesterday. She and her father had stood atop the battlements of their village home. She, he, and her mother had escaped the stuffiness of Sandrin to their estate just up the coast. It was a land of rolling green hills, dotted with heavy forestry on the west and a seafront estate on the east. That day the breeze had been lovely, not a cloud marred the sky, and she and her father had stood facing each other as they prepared to train.
Sara remembered standing fifteen feet away from her father. She wore a white tunic, billowing white pants, and a sash tied about her waist. In her hand was a medium-sized staff of hardwood, balanced carefully for an attack as she eased her left leg out from her body, ready to move. Her father mirrored her pose across from her, but he wore no shirt and no shoes. His hair was cropped short and spiked with the oil of the sand demons so that it stood stiff, like a parrot’s feathers. Sweat dripped down her face as he smiled at her in approval and his pale olive skin was dripping with it.
He panted slightly. But Sara hadn’t been foolish enough to think their quick parries had winded him. On the contrary, her battle with her father was just the end of a long day of training. Behind him knelt six of his best warriors. Each fearsome fighters in their own right. All of them breathing hard, some of them with blood running down their shirts or naked abs.
Her father had just single-handedly defeated all six in one fight. Now he faced her.
“Come, little one,” said the man before her. “Face your father. Learn your destiny.”
Sara dug her moccasin-covered feet into the mat beneath her. Itching to take them off, but she knew her mother was watching the fight from the doorway. Sara knew that her mother was the most beautiful woman in the entire empire just as she knew her father loved her mother more than anything else. Her parents were almost inseparable and had been ever since Sara could remember. He bore the scars of years in the gladiator’s arena on a six-foot-tall frame that was filled out muscles and straight brown hair on his head. Or at least what was left of his hair after he let the barber crop it close to his scalp in a warrior’s style. Her mother, on the other hand, had browner skin, like Sara, and long, curly black hair that she kept soft and luxurious for her occasional work as a wind dancer. Mother and daughter both had small, lithe forms. Her mother had been a dancer, renowned for her performances in the empress’s court when she had met Sara’s father at a ceremony awarding his prowess in the arena. Her mother had said he’d been smitten from the moment he saw her. Her father just smiled and pulled her close every time.
Even now nothing else could draw his eyes away from her mother when he looked to her. Sometimes Sara felt the burn of jealousy, the desire for her father to love her more than he loved her mother. But she knew that was impossible. Nevertheless, she had his love still. But even that love wouldn’t protect her if her mother caught her without her moc
casins on.
Sara called them booties, because they looked like the ridiculous shoes babies were forced to wear. She didn’t want to wear them, but the last time she had come home from training with torn and bloody feet her mother had pitched a fit. She had said if her father was going to train their daughter like one of his soldiers, she would not interfere. But no daughter of Anna Beth Fairchild would look anything less than beautiful—on or off the battlefield. That included soft and smooth feet unmarred by scars from a rough run across the training field.
Her mouth had cracked into a smile as she thought about that memorable conversation between her mother and father. Her father towered over her petite mom. Even if he had not been six feet and five inches to her mother’s four feet even, he still outweighed her by at least seventy pounds. But that didn’t matter. Because the man the empress had once called her lion had shrunk back from his vivacious wife and quickly acceded to her demands. Once her mother’s will had been put into play, there was no turning back. If Sara didn’t wear the moccasins, she faced her father’s wrath.
“Something amuses you?” her father had said chidingly from across the mat.
“Just you,” countered his daughter.
Back on her horse, Sara smiled the memory of what had come next. She had gotten him good.
“You and your lovesick eyes,” younger Sara had sniped as she ran to the right with the speed of a battle mage. With the strength and youth of a young gazelle, she had vaulted off the side of the battlements straight at her father.
Sara had received her battle mage abilities from her father. She had gotten her cunning from her mother. Mixed together, they made her a formidable opponent, even as young as she was.
As she had launched herself from the edge of the wall, the strength of her kickoff had managed to damage the stone wall so badly that it crumbled in her wake. Sara was already airborne by then, but her mother’s scream had rent the air. Her father’s concentration had broken as he turned to Anna Beth and Sara smiled. He had known just by looking at her that she wasn’t in danger. But her mother wasn’t a battle mage or a fighter. She couldn’t see what Sara and her father saw. It was underhanded but it worked. His look to his wife, to calm her without a touch, had given Sara the opening she had needed to move in on her father.
She wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t commander of the imperial forces and the highest-ranking former gladiator still living for nothing. Her flip in the middle of the air had brought her straight down onto her father. She hit his shoulder with her staff in a crushing swipe that probably would have broken a non-mage’s bones.
He leapt back to avoid a second blow to the neck, but she didn’t pursue. She didn’t have to. Sara landed in a crouch and brought up her staff in front of her with a triumphant smile. This training between them had been for the first blow, and she had successfully landed it. Slowly she had released her battle magic as she looked to her father, who stood off the side of the mat while breathing hard.
Sara remembered that for a moment, a flicker of unease had gone through her mind.
What if I had gone too far? she had thought.
Then her father’s battle-scarred face had broken into a smile and he boomed with laughter.
“You’ve learned from the best,” he said.
“From you?” said Sara with all the eagerness of a ten year old sopping up her father’s praise.
“No,” he’d said, shaking his head silently. “Only your mother would be that cunning.”
Her mother’s snort had come clearly from the doorway as she stepped into the sun’s light.
“Come here, Sara,” Anna Beth had called. “Let me see you.”
She received her running daughter in a tight hug that enveloped Sara in a wave of lavender. Her mother’s signature scent.
Anna Beth had first looked at Sara’s feet. The soles of her moccasins had been torn to shreds, but no blood marred the cloth, indicating that her skin was unbroken. Still her mother had sighed heavily.
“You’ve ruined another pair,” she said.
“Maybe you should stop making me wear them,” Sara had said defiantly.
“Sara,” chided her father as he strode up. “Mind your mother.”
Sara ducked her head as her mother stood with her hands on her shoulders.
“I just want you to be safe, my darling,” her mother had said while tilting her face up with her left hand on Sara’s cheek.
“I knew what I was doing,” pouted Sara as her father encircled them both in his arms.
“What?” said her mother with a laugh. “Scaring me to death?”
Sara had had enough of the family bonding time by that moment.
She had pushed away from her father in mock irritation. “Father, you stink.”
“You don’t smell so good yourself, kitling,” he had said teasingly.
Sara had glared up at her father with her arms crossed and her staff awkwardly tucked in her elbow. “I do not stink.”
“You’ve been training all day,” her mother had said.
“I don’t stink.” It was said with all the stubbornness of a ten year old who knew that if she said it enough times it would be true.
Her father grinned down at her. “Off with you, scamp. Go bathe. We’ve had enough training for the day.”
Sara had sighed in exasperation. “I’m not tired.”
“I am,” said the commander of the imperial forces.
Sara had pouted and turned around. She didn’t want to beg for it. Her father would tell her in his own time, she had guessed.
As she left through the doorway, he had said, “Sara?”
She had half-turned with hope on her face. Hoping today would be the day. The day that she graduated from just training with her dad and his men. To training with the academy juniors. Real students her age. Real opponents.
He finally said, “You’re ready. Tomorrow you’re going to the militia academy.”
Sara couldn’t help it. She had screamed aloud as she jumped around. “I’ll be there with them all. The mercenary brats, the commanders’ kids, and the gladiators’ spawn.”
“Yes,” her father had said with a laugh.
Sara had beamed, her tongue peeking out through the hole left by a missing front tooth. “I’ll beat them all, Father. I am a Fairchild and we’re the very best!”
Her pride overtook her face.
Her father gave her a serious look as he held her mother lightly by her waist. “Pride will come before a downfall—always. We may be Fairchilds, daughter, but we are mortal.”
“I know, Father,” Sara had said while nodding. She was eager to be off and tell her friends. Barely listening to him at all now.
“Sara,” he had said, commanding her attention.
She’d straightened and looked at him.
He had stared down at her. “You might be surprised at what some of those mercenary brats can do.”
With that last word, Sara’s remembrance of the memory faded and she snapped back into the present. Surrounding by the same mercenary brats that she had derided for so long. But this time they were her equals and might someday save her life.
Chapter 17
It took two days. Two days of Ezekiel not speaking to her. Two days of setting up camp with strangers who glared at her and tried to pick fights. Two days of getting the last of the food from the slop cart because no one would tell her where the mobile kitchen would be located at the end of that evening’s ride. And a day since she fell off her horse because someone had cut the straps on the saddle without her noticing. It had been six hours since she’d woken up, huddled not in a tent but on the freezing cold ground, where she’d been forced to sleep next to her horse so that she could make sure no one messed with her tack or Danger again. Two days before she gave up. Gave up her stubbornness. Gave up her pride. She was damned tired of being alone.
She went to look for the only person who might even be half a friend in the entire convoy. She went after Ezekiel Crane. Well, she a
nd Danger went after Ezekiel. The convoy was currently parked on a giant bluff overlooking a crystal clear lake and meadowland. Many of mercenaries were taking the day to enjoy their first bath since leaving Sandrin. Sara was hiking along the bluff looking for a curator who didn’t want to be found with her horse in tow. She couldn’t trust the horse wranglers to look after Danger like the other mercenaries could. Mainly because everyone seemed to hate her after that one outburst the first morning she joined.
So she led Danger by the reins with her scimitar strapped to the left side of the saddle, her sword on her back, and her knife at her waist. She had ridden Danger up the slope but it was more of a problem getting down. The slope was slippery, littered with rocks, and had a steep incline. Making it hard for a horse to get down without breaking its legs. She knew the wind mages and earth mages of the guard would work together to make a smooth incline when they were ready to leave. The way it was now was just a defensive tactic that would slow down any enemy’s forces.
They were a further three days out from the nearest deployment site and Sara had to wonder who or what Captain Barthis Simon feared that he would stick his entire mercenary regiment atop a hill with defensive rings all around them.
Sara shrugged irritably at the thought. It’s his problem, not mine. We’re sitting ducks up here. All it would take would be for one enemy soldier to get the brilliant idea of starving us out and we’d die on that hilltop.
That was part of the reason she was heading down. That and the solace of Ezekiel’s company.
“Crap!” yelled Sara as her foot nearly slid out from under her. She refocused on getting down the hill without breaking her neck.
What made life difficult for their enemies made life even more difficult for a single rider just trying to get from atop the slope to grassland.
As they eased down, Danger whinnied anxiously.