Karil shouted, “Behind you,” but before Braeden could turn, something crashed into his shoulder and knocked him to the ground.
Braeden tried raising himself up on one elbow, but his arm didn’t work. He used the other to roll to a seated position, and looked for his saber. It was impossible to see anything on the dark forest floor. His right arm throbbed, and when he touched his shoulder, his hand came away bloody. A taste of his own medicine, he thought with a grin.
Braeden felt bad about Karil, but reckoned this was the perfect way for a fighter to meet his death. Especially against a pack of ferocious Oricians; no shame in that. Far better than facing an executioner. He used his good arm to pull the dagger out of his boot. He’d take one more down with him before the end.
Braeden struggled to his feet, and looked for Karil, who’d dragged himself against a tree and sat there, still holding a sword. Another horseman came toward him, and Braeden stepped in his path. The arm holding the dagger wasn’t as strong as his right, but it was strong enough. He caught the saber’s blade with the dagger, dragging it aside, and slashed at the horseman’s leg. It didn’t stop him, but it got him out of the way. “Give me the sword, Karil,” he said, handing him the dagger. For the first time, he felt lightheaded.
“You’re bleeding an awful lot,” Karil said. “I don’t—” Another pistol-shot interrupted him, but this one came from another direction. The Orician, turning to face Braeden again, toppled out of the saddle.
“What?” Braeden and Karil said together.
More pistol-fire came from the east, and the few remaining Oricians turned and headed back toward the road.
“Let’s just sit here, and stay out of the way for a minute,” Braeden said, slumping to the ground next to Karil. He heard more shooting, but then a loud ringing in his ears drowned out all other sounds while he slid into darkness.
Anton
Serving in the infantry was very different from being page to a general, and Anton didn’t like anything about it. At first, he missed Skandar and Cid so much he could hardly move. He missed the count too, and the life he’d had with him.
Life in the Moraltan pike regiment was hard. Anton had no money, so he had to wear whatever rags the quartermaster doled out. He received two meals a day—horrible stuff—but at least it kept him alive. And he had to walk everywhere, wearing shoes that were both too small and falling apart. Every night before going to sleep, he closed his eyes, hoping that when he woke up he’d be back in the count’s camp, with everything the same as before.
He consoled himself with the belief that Skandar might still be somewhere in this camp, and kept an eye out for him. As soon as he found him, he’d make a plan to grab him and take him back to Galladium. But weeks went by, and he didn’t see him. In this vast camp, Anton never so much as glimpsed the general or any of her staff. He rarely even saw cavalry of any kind.
The only good in all of this was that he was now a real soldier, a professional who would be paid in real coin as soon as his regimental commander, Count Michalek, came into funds. Anton had no idea when that would be, and no one else seemed to know either.
They marched south slowly through Brandana, near as Anton could tell. But since Anton no longer spent time with the officers who always talked about where to go next and what to do there, he seldom knew exactly where they were.
On the days they didn’t march, Anton drilled with all of the other pikemen. It wasn’t so much hard as boring, and his pike wasn’t heavy, but on the second morning after his first day of drilling, Anton could hardly move, his muscles ached so.
“Bet you weren’t expecting that, were you, boy?” his tentmate Stasny asked, grinning. “Harder than it looks.”
Anton had made the mistake of saying how easy this was compared to firing a pistol from a galloping horse.
Anton shrugged, even though his shoulders screamed in pain. “I’ll get used to it.”
“Oh, you will. Though you’ll wish you hadn’t been born for the next few days.” Stasny was all right, as infantrymen went. Anton reckoned he might be about twenty, and had been in the army a good five years, since the beginning of the war. Tall and skinny, like Anton, he never let anyone else make fun of him for that.
The pain was bad for a few days, though Anton welcomed it, since it distracted him from even worse feelings. But once it went away, the days stretched ahead, long and repetitive, while he thought of nothing but getting back on a horse.
He’d been very lucky to become a cavalry page. You could barely live on a regular soldier’s pay, let alone come up with the funds to buy a horse, its trappings and all the equipment a cavalry trooper needed. Since he hadn’t been paid and had no idea when he would be, Anton reckoned he’d wait for the next city they plundered.
Stasny dashed that hope. “We in the pike seldom get plunder,” he groused when Anton asked him about it. “We’re always the last to get in, since we have to deal with our weapons before we can enter a city.”
“Can’t you throw the pike down when the battle is over?”
“Only if you want to get yourself killed. Throwing down your weapon before being ordered is called desertion, and sergeant’s allowed to shoot you on the spot if he so chooses. Besides, you put down your pike, you’re unarmed.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.” Anton said, wondering if he needed to save up for a pistol long before he considered a horse. Right now he didn’t even have a dagger. “How’s a fellow supposed to get ahead?”
“Luck and time. Some of Mattila’s best officers have come up from the pike ranks, but it takes years of distinguishing yourself in victorious units. If you’re smart and lucky, you ought to have a chance.”
“I’m smart,” Anton said. “And lucky, too. Or at least I was lucky until this happened. I’ll be lucky again. But I don’t have time to wait around for it.”
“The main thing is to survive. It seems easy right now and you’re bored, but just wait until your first battle.”
“I’ve been in lots of battles,” Anton said.
“Maybe so.” Anton liked it that Stasny never questioned Anton’s stories, like the other fellows did. No one else believed he’d been Count Orland’s page or done anything spectacular, although Anton didn’t mention Prince Kendryk’s rescue to anyone here. “But it’s different when you’re down in the ranks.” Stasny went on. “When you’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and can’t take a step unless the fellow in front of you does. And that goes for when cavalry is trying to ride over you, or the big guns are tearing your comrades to bits beside you. That’s the hard part.”
“I know something about that,” Anton said, remembering what had happened to the count. Nothing could be worse than that.
Braeden
Braeden woke up, feeling like he had a mouth full of cotton. His head hurt, and his whole right arm was on fire. He opened his eyes to canvas overhead. So he was inside a tent. He wondered if he’d been captured, and cautiously poked at his shoulder with his left hand. The slightest touch hurt, but his hand landed on a bandage, so the wound had been dressed. That was a good sign, unless they were keeping him alive long enough to face the executioner.
He was terribly thirsty, and propped himself up on his good elbow. A pewter pitcher stood on a box next to the cot he lay on, but he had no way to reach it.
“You’re awake,” a voice said from across the tent.
“Karil?” Braeden tried to sit up, and fell back. He hadn’t yet worked out how to manage with just the one arm. “You’re all right?”
“Well enough, considering.” Karil sounded downright cheerful.
“But you were hurt.” He remembered Karil on the ground, blood pooling around him.
“Flesh wound.” He heard rustling and thumping, then Karil flopped onto the edge of Braeden’s cot. “Got a pistol ball in the thigh. Plenty of blood, and it hurt worse than anything, but didn’t hit anything important.”
“Thank the gods,” Braeden said. “I didn’t mind going down l
ike that myself, but it didn’t seem right to take you with me.”
“I’m hard to kill,” Karil said, his voice dropping, becoming stern and manly. “But so are you, fortunately, though your wound is pretty bad.”
“Where are we?”
“Trystan Martinek’s camp, just inside Terragand.”
“How did that happen?” Braeden was both relieved and amazed at surviving such a hopeless situation.
“The duke will want to tell you the whole story, but first I need to tell the doctor you’re awake.”
“All right,” Braeden said weakly. “Might I have some water first?” He’d never had a wound this severe, and hated this helplessness.
Karil poured water from the pitcher into a tin cup, and helped Braeden drink it. That done, he made for the tent door, with a pronounced limp that didn’t slow him down much. Braeden was grateful for that at least.
A little later, someone else entered. The face of a young man, long and thin, topped with a mop of dark hair, hovered over him. “I’m Doctor Sarborg,” he said in such a mournful tone that Braeden worried he was about to tell him he was close to death. “I’m glad you’re awake since I was beginning to wonder …” He trailed off, peering at Braeden’s shoulder, sniffed, and pulled a face. “Smells all right, I suppose.”
“Will I get back the use of my arm?” Braeden asked, though he feared the answer. He wouldn’t be much use as a fighter without a strong right arm.
“Might be.” Doctor Sarborg still sounded mournful. “We must wait and see, while you follow my instructions precisely. At least it doesn’t appear to be festering, which is a start.”
If this was how the doctor delivered good news, Braeden didn’t want to think how he sounded when he told a patient he needed to saw off a limb.
Fortunately, Karil returned before the doctor could depress Braeden any further. “Duke Trystan is on his way,” he said. “He’s very anxious to speak with you.”
“Can you help me sit?” Braeden didn’t want to converse on his back.
“I don’t know …” Doctor Sarborg began.
“Help me sit,” Braeden barked in his best officering tone, and Karil hurried to his side.
Karil pulled on his good arm, while the doctor made clucking noises and arranged pillows to prop him up. “I won’t be held responsible if it starts bleeding again.”
“It’s fine,” Braeden said, doing his best to sound robust, and in the next instant swallowing down a wave of nausea. Sweat sprang out all over his face and he leaned back, breathing hard.
“It’s too much,” the doctor said. “You must go slower.”
“You fuss like my old nurse, Sarborg,” came a voice from the tent opening.
“Your Grace.” The doctor stiffened as if to attention, and bent into an even stiffer bow.
Braeden almost laughed, but that hurt, so he stopped with a somewhat strangled sound.
A young man stood at the foot of his cot. He didn’t look much older than Karil, or much taller. Dark red hair fell to his shoulders and piercing yellow-gray eyes regarded Braeden intently.
“Your Grace,” Braeden said, realizing this youngster must be Trystan Martinek, Duke of Podoska.
“Glad you made it, Terris,” Martinek said, taking a seat in a camp chair the doctor brought up. “We had trouble finding you until all hell broke loose near the ferry. Then you were so well-hidden in the woods, we almost didn’t get to you in time.”
“How did you know to look for me?”
“It was the strangest thing.” Martinek bent forward and regarded Braeden with a piercing gaze. “A slip of a girl, riding as though she had demons on her back, came flying into our camp, practically bowling over the pickets. An ensign in Mattila’s cavalry, bearing a white flag.”
Braeden’s mouth dried up again. “Dark hair, dark eyes?”
Martinek grinned. “Yes, and rather pretty, if you like ‘em skinny and fierce; which I do.”
“Trisa Torresia,” Braeden said. “The Sanova Hussars. I can’t believe—” He fell back against the pillows, nausea rising again.
“Old friends?” Martinek grinned again.
Braeden found that smile unsettling, though he couldn’t say why. “She was my page. I’ll strangle Dura next time I see her. She should never have risked it.”
“Good thing she did, or both you and young Andarosz would be dead. She said you and the boy would try to cross the river ahead of pursuers, and that you’d be looking for us. She told me you’d rescued Kendryk, so I wanted to help you. We waited for you at the bridge, but once Mattila’s forces crossed it, we thought you might try the Erzenbach ferry. We took a long time getting there, with imperial troops all over the road. By the time we reached you, the Oricians were pressing you hard.”
That was one way of putting it. Braeden felt even weaker than before. “Thank you,” he said. “Once I’ve recovered, I’ll try to help you in any way I can. I suppose you’re aware that the empress has a price on my head?”
Martinek nodded. “I don’t want her money. I want the satisfaction of letting her know that you’re alive and well, and aiding her enemies.”
“That sounds satisfying to me, too,” Braeden said.
Elektra
Elektra loved being back with the general. Even though she hadn’t caught Braeden and Karil, Mattila still treated her like a hero.
“It’s not your fault,” Mattila said to Elektra, after she received the news that Trystan Martinek had snatched the fugitives out from under an attack by a fierce Orician unit. “I suspect Captain Dura tipped off both Terris and Martinek, though I can’t prove anything. I’m sure we’ll get another chance.”
Elektra found she didn’t mind too much that her captors had escaped. All that mattered was that she had her old life back, and didn’t have to deal with either one of them anymore. Once it became certain they’d escaped, Elektra found the nearest League priestess. She wished for her own priestess, but Luca was far away, and Elektra needed to speak with someone now.
“Might I see you alone, Mother?” Elektra asked, after she’d tracked Mother Dava down to a half-ruined temple in the nearest village. League clerics occupied all of the Brandana temples while they returned their congregations to the true faith.
“Certainly, Your Grace.” The priestess had a calm, capable air about her that Elektra knew characterized those with League training. They were nearly impossible to upset, and even harder to argue with. “We’ll speak in my quarters straight away.” She beckoned over a young priest to finish the lesson she was giving to a group of about twenty sullen-looking peasant women. Perhaps conversion wasn’t going as easily as expected, and they preferred being heretics, though Elektra couldn’t imagine why.
She escaped their hostile glowers to a drafty study behind the main altar. Mother Dava poured tea from a pot hanging over a small fire in the hearth, and settled back into a camp chair. Elektra sat across from her in an identical one.
“What is it, my child?” she asked. “I can see something troubles you.”
“I’m afraid I’ve done an awful thing.” Elektra took a deep breath, surprised at how hard it was to get the words out. “I swore a vow on Holy Vica, and broke it. Even worse, I never intended to keep the vow while I made it.”
Mother Dava frowned, but appeared curious rather than angry. “I assume you had a good reason.”
“I did,” Elektra said eagerly. “I was in a desperate situation with a man who wanted to kill me. My only hope of escape was to swear on an icon of Vica that I would help with his plan.”
“Did his plan oppose the will of the Goddess?”
“I believe it did.” It didn’t seem wise to mention she really wanted her mother dead, but didn’t need help from rebels and heretics to do that.
“Then you have nothing to worry about.” Dava smiled at Elektra. “But to be safe, after the congregation has gone, pray for an hour before Vica’s icon, begging her forgiveness, then make an offering. I’ll leave the amount to your discret
ion.”
“I’m happy to do all of that.” Elektra’s relief was even more acute than when she first realized she’d escaped Braeden’s clutches. She feared for the state of her soul, and wanted to curse him for putting it in such jeopardy. She had no money, but hoped to borrow a substantial amount from the general. Perhaps she could give enough to buy a new icon from one of the great Cesiano religious artists. That would be something marvelous for a tiny Brandana temple.
Mother Dava kept smiling. “You have nothing to fear. Vica is loving, forgiving, and wise. She understands you did what was necessary to survive, so you can carry on her work.”
“I sometimes felt like she was guiding me,” Elektra whispered. “Not all the time. But when I was in the greatest danger, I swear I felt her presence.” Mother Dava seemed kind, but Elektra worried at being found presumptuous. Why would Vica bless an ignorant girl of sixteen with no special gifts when there were so many learned and devout clerics constantly praying for such blessings?
“Of course you did. My child, that is why we pray, and why we seek to know the will of the Goddess. In the moments you need her most, she will be there to guide and protect you. No matter the challenges and dangers you face, never forget that she helped you once and she will do so again, as often as you need her.”
Elektra nodded, tears starting to her eyes. She tried to blink them back, but suddenly all the danger and deprivation of the past months threatened to overwhelm her. Escaping death so narrowly seemed like a miracle.
Mother Dava was at her side in an instant, handing her a soft linen handkerchief. “Cry as much as you wish, my child. You have been strong for a long time and now you are amongst friends, in the shelter of the Goddess’s arms.”
The Desolate Empire Series: Books 1-3 Page 109