by K. M. Shea
“I should. That is a good idea,” Steffen said, his voice thoughtful.
Gabrielle would have rolled her eyes if she didn’t need to see where she was going. Instead, she settled for grumbling, “You really are a simpleton,” before she sucked in all the air she could manage and screamed, “Puss, you mangy cat! Help me!” She panted for a few steps before she glanced at Steffen. “You want to take the fight into the city? Fine. But we have to keep them focused on us.”
“And how do you propose that?”
“They’re bandits who camped a short ride from the city they ransacked. They can’t be too bright. Come on,” Gabrielle said before she darted up a small lane between two houses.
Steffen chased after her, jumping over fences and dodging crates and a sleepy milk cow with ease.
“Keep up, men. One of my family’s mules walks faster than you all—and it doesn’t wheeze either,” Gabrielle called. She spent a moment scooping up a handful of mud, which she threw at her pursuers.
The bandits shouted in outrage when mud spattered them, and they chased after her, ignoring the milk cow.
“That’s your plan?” Steffen asked.
“What?” Gabrielle panted, almost skidding on the slippery ground.
“You want to string them along by insulting them?”
“Do you have a better plan?”
“I do. Strategy, Lady Gabrielle, is of the utmost importance. We must get to the center of the village—my men will be waiting there,” Steffen said as they sprinted up a small alley between a barn and tanner’s storefront.
“Then lead on Master-Strategy—ack!” Steffen yanked Gabrielle aside just as a bandit almost succeeded in nailing her with a throwing axe.
Steffen and Gabrielle burst onto the road that cut through Wied like chickens escaping a fox. The street was abandoned, not a soul to be seen.
“This is the center of the village,” Gabrielle said.
“I know,” Steffen said as lightning danced across the sky and thunder shook the ground.
“So where are your soldiers?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to ‘strategy is of the utmost importance’?”
Steffen shot her a glare.
“Sorry. It’s my instinct to be a harpy.” Gabrielle pushed her sopping hair out of her face. She picked up a scorched board that had been removed from a damaged building and smacked it into the gut of the first bandit who was stupid enough to pop out of the alley behind them. He gasped and crumpled to the ground, and Gabrielle frowned as she studied him. “I recognize this man.”
“Wonderful. Why don’t you invite him for tea tomorrow? This way,” Steffen called as he ran up the road, leading the way towards the Green Ivy Inn.
Gabrielle followed, hitching up her wet skirts to run better.
“There they are!” a bandit shouted. Gabrielle fixed her gaze forward, even when she heard the rather dooming pounding of feet behind her.
“Where are they?” Steffen said, his voice creased with frustration when they reached the Green Ivy Inn.
“Steffen, we’re in more trouble than I thought,” Gabrielle panted.
“What?” Steffen demanded, his voice cross.
“The bandits Puss and I caught?”
Steffen opened the inn door and stuck his head in. “What of them?”
“I’m pretty certain the bandit I just hit in the gut was one of them.”
Steffen looked around before closing the door with a hiss and coming back outside. “My men aren’t here either. What are they doing?”
“Did you hear what I said?” Gabrielle asked.
“Yes, but I wasn’t really listening,” Steffen shrugged, sending water scattering from his shoulders.
“The bandits the villagers were holding escaped!”
Steffen looked up the road with a striking amount of nonchalance considering the rather large party of bandits hurtling towards them. “Let’s check,” he said, lunging into a run—this time heading straight for the bandits.
“What?” Gabrielle yipped, running after him. “Do you even know where they were being kept?”
“No, but you do,” Steffen said, raising his sword. “Start yelling,” he ordered before he pitched his voice in a roar.
Gabrielle yelled as well—it was easy to do given how frightening the situation was. The bandits stopped—the flickering lamps revealing a look of shock pasted on their dirty, hardened faces.
Steffen led the way—looking as if he would run straight into their band—but at the last possible moment he darted around them, Gabrielle on his heels.
It took the startled bandits several moments to shake themselves out of their stupor and give chase again.
“This way,” Gabrielle said, leading Steffen up a side street. “They were housed in a cowshed behind the—no!” she shouted when they exited the alley. A rickety shed stood before them, its door smashed in, the shutters torn from the windows. “Yep, they’re all out,” her voice flat as she held her side. “PUSS! Oh, yuck!” she said, nearly losing a shoe to road muck.
“What’s wrong?” a deep, throaty male voice asked as one of the villagers opened the door of his home.
“Bandits,” Steffen said, his voice clipped. “Stay inside.”
The villager shut his door with slam.
“What do we do?” Gabrielle asked.
“There they are!” a bandit shouted, almost on top of them.
Gabrielle darted around a fence, and Steffen moved in with elegance, his sword poised to strike, but he never got the chance.
The deep-voiced villager opened his door and chucked a pitchfork in the bandit’s direction. The bandit squealed like a pig and ducked, but before he could recover, a smooth rock hit him in the forehead. He collapsed like a tent.
Gabrielle and Steffen swiveled, gaping at the villager and his brawny son—who brandished a slingshot. Both men were dressed in waterproofs.
“We best head to the road. We’ll have more elbow room there,” the villager said, retrieving his pitchfork as bandits swarmed the small lane.
“This way,” Gabrielle said, taking off.
Steffen followed after her, and behind him were the villager and his son, who shouted, “Hey-o! Bakers, coopers, potters, get up! Attack on Wied, attack on Wied!”
They made it to the road—although Steffen had to help the villager push off two bandits. They ground to a halt in the middle of the street and proceeded no farther. Gabrielle feared her lungs would soon collapse as the bandits spilled out of the lane and into the road like a swarm of angry bees.
“Attack on Wied, attack on Wied!” the villager shouted above rumbling thunder.
“Timo, Alwin, Moritz, Dominik, fall in!” Steffen called, his shouts joining in the cacophony.
A bandit chuckled darkly. “You think callin’ for help will save you? We sacked Wied last night. We’ll do it again.”
Light sliced through the road as doors groaned and were pushed open. Villagers stepped out of their homes, their faces sober. Men hefted hammers, the occasional bow and arrow, pitchforks, and staffs. The women held iron skillets, brooms, and hoes.
Metal clinked and leather groaned as a group of six or eight soldiers trotted down the road, their helms gleaming in the torchlight and lightning.
“I apologize,” the soldier in the lead said. “We were securing his majesty.”
“No matter,” Steffen said, a smile—not the perfect smile he had been forcing on his lips before, but a smile that held dark mirth—sliding across his lips. He turned to face the bandits. “I believe you said you would attempt to bring destruction to Wied again?” Steffen slid in like butter and disarmed the raider. “I would like to see you try,” he said before nailing the man in the windpipe with the pommel of his sword. The bandit fell, making a tremendous thud when he hit the ground.
“Attack!” the lead soldier said, rushing to Steffen’s side.
“For Wied!” the villagers shouted, their chosen weapons raised in
the air.
“Puss!” Gabrielle yelled as she took the hoe a villager offered her. “You’re missing all the fun!”
“PUSS!”
King Henrik tilted his head toward the female voice as thunder boomed. “Are you certain you do not wish to join your mistress? She seems…distressed.”
“She is fine,” King Henrik’s speaking companion—a black and white male cat—said. His ears flicked in irritation as he added, “She deserves to be ignored for a time, and she knows it. Now, where were we?”
“Before my commander hustled us into this fine house for our safety, you had just finished explaining that your remarkable mistress is the long-lost heir to the Marquis of Carabas. That is most interesting, as the family was killed off by the ogre two generations ago.”
“Yes, my mistress is the daughter of a distant cousin who escaped the slaughter,” the cat said.
“I see,” King Henrik said. “Your mistress wishes to seek financial aid from my family?”
“Not at all, Your Majesty. It is quite the opposite,” the cat said, appearing too contrite and innocent.
“Oh?” King Henrik asked, hitching his eyebrows upwards.
“Indeed. My mistress means to travel Arcainia and right wrongs.”
“We already have a justice system in place.”
“Of this we are aware. No, Lady Gabrielle does not seek to involve herself in disputes between individuals. Rather, she desires to extend a helping hand to whomever might need it—to battle off undesirables.”
“You mean to say my beloved son, Prince Rune, is not doing an adequate job of fighting off magical monsters and creatures,” King Henrik said.
“Quite the contrary, Your Majesty. Prince Rune—although mighty and dexterous—is but one man. While he drives river serpents from the southern rivers, he cannot possibly be in the north, dispatching bandits and reclaiming stolen property for innocent villagers,” the cat said. Although his tone was without even an ounce of guile, King Henrik could see the cat’s craftiness in the liquid way he twitched his tail and the artless tilt of his head. “Isn’t there room in Arcainia for two heroes—particularly one as quiet and discreet as my mistress?” the cat wheedled.
King Henrik tapped his fingers on the arms of his chair and glanced at a window. He could only see a soldier’s back—Timo had swaddled him in soldiers before going to see what scrape Steffen had gotten himself into. Judging by the roars and shouts that filled Wied, at least half of the villagers were involved as well.
“Very well,” King Henrik said. “I wish you and this Lady Gabrielle of yours nothing but good will on your journey—although I will be frank. If you seek to make your fortune by means of being a hero, you will be disappointed. My foster-daughter, Fürstin Elise, will never open the country’s coffers to pay your mistress when Steffen can tell Rune to do the same task for free.”
“My Lady seeks no payment for her services. She only wishes to establish a link of good will with the royal family,” the cat said, his voice throbbing with a throaty purr.
King Henrik nodded, carefully reviewing his words after noticing the cat’s pleasure.
“I must confess, I am most impressed with you, King Henrik,” the cat continued. “It is not often I meet a man so refined and learned.”
A ghost of a smile tugged at one corner of King Henrik’s lips. “You mean to say it isn’t often you find a man so accepting of your ability to speak intelligently?”
“Perhaps,” the cat said, his tail twitching back and forth. “If you do not mind my inquiries, what brought you to be able to accept talking, magical cats?”
King Henrik sighed—a motion that seemed to take more than just air out of him. “My deceased wife, Queen Ingrid, was an enchantress.”
“Of this I am aware. Also, please allow me to extend my condolences on my behalf, as well as behalf of the enchanters and enchantresses of the Veneno Conclave. Lady Enchantress Ingrid was talented and well-loved,” the cat said.
“You met her, then?”
“I saw her in passing, but I never conversed with her,” the cat said. “I worked with an enchanter and his pupil who were particularly reclusive as far as interacting with the Conclave goes.”
“Tell me, sir cat.”
“Please, call me Roland.”
“Then tell me, Roland. As you are obviously an enchanted cat, do you have a prolonged life—like that of the enchanters and enchantresses?” King Henrik asked.
“Yes.”
King Henrik leaned back in his chair and stared unseeingly at the ceiling. “I was prepared for that. When I fell in love with Ingrid and married her, I knew she would stay young and beautiful, and I would grow old and die—likely a century would pass before she would join me. Then Ingrid told me she knew she would die young. I thought she might pass away but a decade after me. I never imagined she would be the first to leave.” His voice was heavy with loss and pain.
The king and the cat were silent with only the crackling fire and the muted shouts and rolls of thunder from outside flavoring the air. “Although I did not personally know the Lady Enchantress Ingrid, I can assure you, Your Majesty, that she would not have left you if she had a choice,” the cat finally said. “Those of magic do not love lightly.”
“She gave up everything for me, and it killed her,” King Henrik said.
“No,” the cat said with surprising firmness. “She gave up being an enchantress. You gave everything to her—seven sons and a foster daughter. Do you think Lady Enchantress Ingrid would have given them up for mere magic?”
King Henrik straightened in his chair and shook his head. “No, no. Of course not. She loved our family, and she was truly happy.” He didn’t know why he was telling all of this to a cat. Perhaps it was because the cat understood magic, and magic society, which meant he also understood Ingrid.
“And you, Your Majesty?”
“Hmm?”
“Would you give up your children?” the cat asked. His implication hung in the air, unspoken but powerful. Would you abandon your children and rejoin Ingrid in death soon if you could?
King Henrik didn’t reply.
“It seems things have quieted down.” The cat turned his unnerving, bronze-colored eyes from King Henrik to the door. “I must extend my greatest wishes of luck to you and your offspring and search out my mistress. Thank you for the conversation, Your Majesty. I hope you think well of myself and Lady Gabrielle.”
“I do. Safe journeys, Roland.”
“To you as well, Your Majesty.”
“Look out!” Steffen said, yanking Gabrielle out of the way of a mean-looking bandit with a cutlass as fat as Gabrielle’s arm. She hit the bandit on the back of the head, sending him tottering into two villagers.
“Is it just me, or does this feel like a tavern brawl? Ouch!” Gabrielle yelped when a bandit grabbed her by her wet hair and pulled. She applied her hoe to his gut, making him release her. Steffen plucked the bandit’s bow from his fingers and kicked him in the chest, knocking him into a puddle. Three village women descended on the bandit, trussing him up like a baby in swaddling clothes.
“It’s a brawl,” Steffen agreed, grimacing when a bandit landed a glancing blow to the side of his head. “And madness,” he added.
“We’re not outnumbered, but it’s too chaotic,” Gabrielle said as the rain poured from the sky. She swung at a bandit who had a woman slung over his shoulder and whacked him in the backs of his knees, toppling him.
Steffen pulled two bandits off a villager and smashed their skulls together. “Here, stand at my back,” Steffen instructed, pulling Gabrielle away from her fallen foe.
“What? Why?”
“It’s too dangerous to go with an unguarded back in this crowd. You watch my back, and I’ll watch yours,” Steffen said, moving close enough so his back brushed Gabrielle’s shoulder blades.
“This is incredible,” Gabrielle said with a reckless smile as she adjusted her grip on her slippery weapon.
“What?�
� Steffen said, swinging around to face her before he remembered himself and repositioned his body, fending off an attack from a bandit. “What would ever cause you to think that?”
Gabrielle laughed, an infectious sound that made the villager standing nearest to her grin. “Don’t you feel alive?”
“I feel that I could be impaled if I make a mistake,” Steffen said, disarming a bandit and kicking him to a group of villagers waiting with rope.
“I’m sorry for your sake. Life is more interesting when it’s an adventure,” Gabrielle said, her soaked skirts sticking to her legs.
“Are you mad?” Steffen demanded.
“No,” Gabrielle said, lifting her hoe as she eyed a bandit. “I’m free.” She hurled the hoe—hitting the bandit square in the head. He held his head and yowled, and several villagers descended on him.
The fight lasted several minutes. Some of the bandits tried to run, but the villagers and Steffen’s soldiers chased after them through the rain and mud like bloodhounds.
“I’m impressed,” Gabrielle said, wiping rain from her brow when the fighting was over. “I thought you were a soldier, but you’re a halfway decent fighter,” she said, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet with unspent energy.
Steffen squinted at her. “You weren’t joking, were you? You really enjoyed that.”
“Of course,” Gabrielle said, wringing water from her hair even though it still poured.
Steffen shrugged as he bent to tighten the knots of a bandit’s restraints. “You were more helpful than I thought you would be.”
Gabrielle snorted.
“I mean it,” Steffen said, wiping mud from his thighs when he straightened up. “You handled yourself well.”
Gabrielle’s smile was quieter as the rain seeped through her clothes, chilling her. “Thank you. You were right: it was better to bring the fight into the village so your men could help us.”
“As much as I appreciate the acknowledgement, I must admit I thought we would find them much sooner,” Steffen said. He tried to restore order to his perfect blond hair, but it appeared to be a useless endeavor. In the sputtering light of the lanterns and torches, with his perfect looks rain spattered and mussed from the fight, Steffen looked much more…real. His clothes were smeared with mud, and he had a cut on his cheek, but his face wasn’t plastered into a handsome, pleasing expression.