The Cyber Chronicles - Book I: Queen of Arlin

by T C Southwell

Sabre muttered a curse and glanced eastward, where the first pale glow of dawn brightened the sky. “If we go to Olgara, you’ll end up back with Torrian, and I’m not saving your butt again. If you go to Olgara, you go alone.” He glared at her, a twinge in his brain warning him of the cyber’s dislike for this idea.

  “How dare you defy me?” she cried.

  He groaned and leant his forehead against the horse’s withers.

  She stamped her foot. “You will do as I say, damn you, Sabre! You will take me back to Olgara, now!”

  Shaking his head, Sabre untied the chestnut and gathered up the reins, preparing to mount. “Go if you want, but count me out.”

  Tassin flew at him and grabbed his webbing, trying to drag him away from the horse. He turned to her, and she pounded on his chest, then slapped his face. He frowned, surprised when she burst into tears and sank down in a plethora of frilly skirts, sobbed and covered her face. Sighing, he stared across the foothills, quelling a surge of sympathy and reminding himself that this was how women got their way, when all else failed, by resorting to tears. This particular gem of wisdom he had learnt at the women’s spa, when he had been the old woman’s bodyguard.

  “You cannot leave me like this. I need you!” she wailed.

  He shook his head. “You need me to kill people. You certainly don’t want my advice. You’re a damned warrior queen, and now you’ve got a sword, so kill them yourself.”

  “I need you to help me, not to tell me what to do!”

  “I’m trying to help you!”

  “Then kill Torrian!” she shouted.

  “What?” Sabre’s eyes snapped down to her.

  “Kill him! He has no heir. His cousin will inherit, and he is a coward. He will cause no trouble. Grisson and Bardok will not prevent me from marrying Victor. With Torrian dead, there will be no reason Victor cannot marry me. Do you not see? It will change everything!”

  He turned away. “I know you’re desperate, but that’s really low. I’m not murdering anyone to facilitate your little dream of what your life should be. If you want him dead, kill him yourself.”

  “If I am forced to marry him, I will!” She stood up, wiping her eyes.

  Sabre gathered up the chestnut’s reins. “Fine, go murder him then, but leave me out of your sick little plans.”

  She grabbed him again. “No! Do not leave me!”

  He pushed her away hard enough to make her stumble back and sit down with a thud. “What do you need me for? You’ve got it all worked out. A few convenient murders and your life will be idyllic.”

  “I cannot! I could not kill anyone in cold blood, not even Torrian!”

  “Well, at least you have that much sense. But I’m not doing it for you, either.”

  She gazed up at him, her eyes shimmering with tears. “You do not know what he is. If it was only a loveless marriage, I could live with that. He is not a decrepit drunkard like Grisson, or a fat smelly lecher like Bardok. He is far worse. He is a rapist and a woman beater. Would you condemn me to that?”

  Sabre frowned. “No.”

  Tassin drew up her knees and buried her face in them.

  Golden sunlight quested across the land, and he looked inward at the cyber’s scanner information. Many red and blue dots, indicating men and horses, moved on a black backdrop with a green grid for scale. A close-packed twenty came from the direction of Olgara, and the dozen in Torrian’s camp moved about. They had run out of time. Victor was coming after him, and Torrian would soon be heading back. They were caught in between, with a mountain range at their backs and a radioactive desert in front of them.

  Tassin looked up. “Help me, Sabre... please?”

  He took her wrist and hauled her to her feet, shoving her towards the bay horse. “Get on the bloody horse.”

  Shooting him a calculating look, she swung into the saddle. Sabre took her horse’s reins while she clung to the pommel, the copious skirts of the ridiculous dress billowing around her. Mounting the chestnut, he turned it towards the road.

  “We are going to Olgara?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Urging the chestnut into a canter, he guided it through the rough terrain. When they reached the road, he slowed it to a trot and glanced towards Olgara, where a distant cloud of dust marked Victor’s approach. The new-born sun glinted on weapons and armour, and the faint drumming of hooves carried on the wind.

  Tassin cried, “It is Victor! He has changed his mind! He is coming for me!”

  “No, he’s coming after me.”

  “Why would he do that? He is coming for me, I tell you!”

  Sabre guided the chestnut across the road, leading Tassin’s horse. “He wants me to show him how to fight. I escaped last night.”

  “Where are you going? Turn towards him!”

  “Shut up, Tassin, we’re crossing the desert.”

  “No! Let go of my horse! Victor is coming to rescue me!”

  Kicking his horse back into a canter, Sabre headed into the Badlands’ arid sands, ignoring the Queen’s enraged shouts. When her shrieks stopped abruptly, he glanced back. She had jumped off the horse, and was climbing to her feet, clearly intent on heading back to the soldiers. With a muttered curse, he brought the chestnut to a propping standstill, then yanked the horse’s head around and urged it into a canter again. The Queen gathered up her skirts and ran, kicking up plumes of sand.

  Sabre guided his horse alongside her and pulled her onto his pommel. She fought and kicked as he turned the chestnut with one hand, forcing him to increase the pressure of his arm until she gasped. He eased it when she stopped struggling, allowing her to breathe again. The bay horse followed when he spurred the chestnut into the desert, and Tassin slumped, looking back at what she thought was her prince in shining armour.

  What a shock she would have got, Sabre mused, to find that she was not the object of Victor’s desire after all. The Prince would be after blood, for the insult of Sabre’s escape. He urged the horse on, and the chestnut stretched gamely into a full gallop across the hard sand.

  Victor’s troops turned off the road and followed, but their slower mounts fell behind as Sabre skirted a large area of black glass. According to the cyber, the radioactivity was still high in the glassy areas, where the bombs had exploded. Sabre kept checking the scanner information, and avoided invisible pockets of radiation. He slowed the tiring chestnut to a canter, allowing the bay horse to catch up. Far behind, the dust that marked Victor’s position had stopped. Evidently the Prince and his men were unwilling to brave the Badlands’ curse.

  Sabre slowed the blowing gelding to a walk, not wanting to exhaust it at the outset. Although it was unlikely that the animals would survive the trip, he wanted them to last for as long as possible. The scanners showed him that Victor’s men had turned back, and met up with Torrian’s dozen. They would have a nice little chat, he surmised, imagining how furious they would be. Tassin gazed over his shoulder until the troops vanished into the distance, then buried her face in his chest. The situation was rather too intimate for his liking, but he knew that if he objected, it would only spark another furious outburst and lead to an argument. After a few minutes, she leant back and scowled at him, her eyes accusing.

  “You have doomed us. We will die out here.”

  “Not necessarily. The cyber and I have come to an arrangement. It’s programmed to help you, so it’s agreed to help me. It can detect radiation, or the curse, as you call it, so I can avoid it. With a bit of luck, we’ll cross the desert.”

  “The Death Zone will kill us!”

  “The Death Zone is just radiation.”

  She shook her head. “It is evil, terrible magic, just like Mother Amy said.”

  “There’s no such thing as magic. Believe me, we’ll be all right.”

  “If we do not die of thirst,” she said.

  “There is that.”

  “And if we do reach the other side, we will be trapped in a strange land.”

  “Perhaps you�
�ll find a nice prince there, or even a king, then you can come back. If it can be crossed one way, it can be crossed the other.”

  Tassin stared over his shoulder. “I am the Queen of Arlin.”

  “Well, you don’t want to marry any of the kings, so you’re being a bit picky.”

  “Victor was coming to save me!”

  “Victor was coming to try to chop off my head,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  He shrugged. “Either that, or he still wanted me to train his troops.”

  “So you could have stayed with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you came after me.”

  “The cyber made me.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “So you did not want to?”

  “Not particularly. I knew you’d only find fault.”

  “You do not like me, do you?”

  He glanced at her. “You’re a hard person to like.”

  “Why?”

  Sabre gave a bark of laughter. “Because you’re bossy, selfish, pig-headed, thick-skinned, rude and abrasive.”

  “That is because I am a queen!”

  “You’re still a human being.”

  She snorted. “You are just a commoner. What do you know?”

  “Then don’t ask me.”

  “I will not.”

  “Good.”

  A thick silence fell, broken only by the steady thudding of the horses’ hooves. As the sun climbed higher, the heat increased, and shimmering waves danced on the horizon. Sweat trickled down Sabre’s chest, since having Tassin on his pommel blocked most of the breeze, making him hotter. She leant away, her expression one of disgusted indignation. Her hair grew limp with perspiration, clinging to her brow in damp tendrils. The chestnut sweated under the double load, but Sabre did not trust her not to steal the bay and make a dash back to the mountains.

  At midday, he stopped and helped her to dismount. The heat drained the horses’ strength, and sweating dehydrated them. The distant mountains danced in the heat waves, a beckoning haven of verdure and water. The horses stood with drooping heads, and Tassin flopped down in the bay’s shadow, her arms and face showing the first pink tinges of sunburn.

  He knelt beside her to inspect the burns. “You must cover yourself, or you’ll get sunstroke.”

  “How solicitous of you. Would it not be better if I died? Then you would be rid of an unwanted burden.”

  “Stop being stupid. Take off one of your petticoats.”

  Tassin complied, muttering, and he fashioned it into a hooded poncho, then retreated to his patch of shade and considered their situation. They had enough water for several days, if it was used sparingly. The food would last longer, and, if the Badlands could be crossed in a few days, they would be all right, but for all he knew, there might not be a paradise on the other side, only a poisonous sea. A gurgling made him glance around to find Tassin gulping from a water skin.

  He jumped up and grabbed the skin. “The water has to last. Drink only a little at a time.”

  “I am thirsty!”

  “So am I, but you’ll suffer more if we run out.”

  Hanging the water skin back on the horse, he retreated once more to his precious patch of shade and lay down, ignoring her glare.