by Robert Brady
Either way, this Raven’s flight might be a short one.
Chapter Sixteen
Courage
Hectar took a moment to check himself in the mirror in his room, perfect and slim in his dark green doublet and tails, thigh-high boots gleaming black and his rapier at his side. His Uman servant, whom he regularly bedded, had brushed his long, grey hair out and down past his shoulders, giving him an almost regal look, as well as accentuating his widow’s peak.
“Like a falcon,” he thought to himself. The angular nose and the almost-golden eyes made him look the predatory bird.
“Love the servants and they’ll make you look your best,” Glennen had told him, years before. Probably not what he meant, however you never knew with Glennen.
In that end, Glennen had tried to love his share of servants, among other things, and then this ‘Conqueror’ had come along.
Before then, even if things hadn’t been fine, they’d been under his control. Eldador hadn’t been the military and economic juggernaut of the new age; however it had been almost completely under Hectar’s hand. Glennen’s idea of running things had been to sit his throne and growl at peasants and minor nobles. Hectar had financed the kingdom from his duchy, and done a damn good job of it.
He straightened, looked himself up and down one last time, and turned on one heel to march himself out the door to a meeting he’d requested with Lee, the thirteen-year-old now running Eldador.
By Law, it should be Tartan if anyone; however Glennen hadn’t wanted that kind of monarchy. Glennen had looked fondly on Hectaro as his successor until ‘the Conqueror.’
Now, rather than trying to put Hectaro in Alekennen’s good graces, he pushed his son in the direction of Lee, and his best chances at a future. When Shela had come to him seven weeks before and told him to watch the Empire while she ran to her husband, he’d seen his opportunity and sent Hectaro to protect her. “Take your children, and mine as well, your Imperial Majesty,” he’d told her. “Hectaro is death with his sword, and doesn’t he ride one of Blizzard’s get?”
He’d come back with a scowling princess who hated him and sniggering Wolf Soldiers who told a story of his being raped by a Bounty Hunter.
Now he struggled just to keep the boy’s political future alive.
Lee Mordetur sat the Imperial throne with all of the dignity of a woman twice her age—back straight, hands in her lap, skirt of her dress spread out before her and, although her feet dangled, her heels stayed down as if she were riding it into the future of Fovea, much as she likely was. She’d brushed her brown hair back like her mother’s, no ribbons or bows, a silver tiara worn as a decoration reminding the throne room she spoke with her father’s power.
“Should be Tartan,” Hectar told himself, as he waited at the doorway to the throne room to be announced. Courtiers might wait in the galleries, but not the Duke of the most powerful city on Fovea.
“His Grace,” the liveried Uman announced from a podium beside the three Oligarchs, “Hectar Gelgelden, Duke of Galnesh Eldador.”
Hectar threw back his shoulders and took a warrior’s long, measured steps down the red carpet at the center of the throne room, ignoring courtiers and vassals. He smiled benevolently at the little girl who sometimes called him ‘Uncle Hectar.’
“We are honored, and await your wisdom, your Grace,” Lee told him, her voice a purr.
“We exist but to give it,” he answered, and bowed at the end of the carpet, before the throne. “In this case, we come to speak for our beloved son, Hectaro.”
The look of disgust that crossed Lee’s face still surprised him, especially considering that, two months before; he’d had to chastise his son for complaining of the swooning princess’ attentions.
“We listen,” Lee said, formally. Her father had started that about six years ago. Translation: I don’t like this subject.
“He is a young Man, and craves combat,” Hectar said, forcing the smile. “As many young Men, his blood boils at the thought of missing the opportunities your father—”
She waved a hand and he cut himself off, his heart pounding in his chest. If she hated Hectaro now, she could disgrace him and there’d be nothing Hectar could do. This gamble could cost father and son everything.
“He wants to go to Thera?” Lee asked, quite frankly.
“If you’d consult with your father—” Hectar began. If not the girl, then certainly Lupus would honor his request, if she’d make it.
“Send him,” she said. “I can think of nothing more perfect than Hectaro Gelgelden not being here.”
Hectar smiled wide and bowed to the throne. Command of a company, perhaps even a Millennium, in victory, and no previous story of Hectaro and the Bounty Hunters would matter.
However who stood up in the gallery but his beloved son himself, two hands on the banister, a look in his eyes that could only be called fear?
“Your Highness—if I may?” he blurted, completely out of place and protocol.
As soon as Lupus had learned of the protocols of the throne room, he’d embraced and insisted on them. He loved anything structured, anything military. His warriors all marched in step, and so did he, once he knew what the drummer was playing.
His daughter could be expected to be no different. “We are offended,” she said, and raised an eyebrow.
The unseen one hundred Wolf Soldiers who always watched over the throne room melted from hidden doors and from behind tapestries. Son of a Duke or not, a word from Lee and Hectaro would be in irons or worse.
Hectaro vaulted over the banister and then leapt to his father’s side. Hectar closed his eyes and resisted the urge to take his brow between his thumb and forefinger.
“I beg your indulgence, your Highness,” he said, and knelt, his head down. Lee rolled her eyes.
“Speak,” she commanded him. “The sooner you’re done, the sooner I’m done with you.”
Like her father, Hectar thought, she can turn a phrase on a knife’s edge.
“I beg to stay, and to guard your person, as your brother instructed me” Hectaro said, and looked up from the floor directly at the princess.
Any other girl might be impressed, but not the daughter of Shela Mordetur. Hectar knew her well enough to know she liked her Men blooded, not devoted.
“There’s a surprise,” Lee said, and the gallery gasped.
Hectaro turned his face back to the floor.
Lee kicked her feet, then caught herself. She allowed herself one look at her Oligarchs, then turned back toward his son with an expression Hectar had seen on Shela’s face before.
Lee raised her hand majestically. “It seems to me,” she said, “that his blood only boils for warm beds, good meals and a stone wall between him and his enemies. So be it—I’m assigning him to J’her, your Grace. Wolf Soldiers guard my person, he can learn from them.”
“Your Highness,” Hectar couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d actually attacked him. “The—your Highness, your Highness—the Wolf Soldiers are volunteers, your Highness.”
“And he just volunteered,” she countered him. One look around the room showed him the sneers of courtiers and the exchange of knowing glances among the Wolf Soldier guards.
Hectaro stood to accept his fate. At least he had that in him.
“Your Highness,” Hectar began again.
She let loose a long sigh. “He doesn’t have to take the vows, not that he would. His cowardice cost a lot of Wolf Soldiers their lives. He wants to guard me? Well, they used to, so now he can. When father returns, Hectaro can go back to riding his horse and chasing servant girls.”
“You are too kind,” Hectaro said, and bowed low. Hectar could do nothing but bow after him.
The ‘Conqueror’ once had made a sarcastic comment about snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory, and Hectar hadn’t really gotten that until now.
* * *
A week after they’d made love for the first time, Raven finally saw the great, green stretch of trees that marked
the Salt Wood. Supposedly from here they would find the rescue they needed.
Where Bill—Jack—had been an occasional and gentle lover, Karl had been more energetic, more frequent and apparently used to forcing most of the women before her. She’d tried to educate him, to teach him how to kiss her and not hurt her jaw, to let her wrap her hands around him, rather than holding her wrists down.
One time when she hadn’t been in the mood, he’d actually slapped her. She’d burned his shoulder in her anger right after.
After that he’d spoken to her about her power. “You know, a lot of really powerful sorceresses have males in their lives to guide them,” he’d said, off-handedly.
“They do, huh?” she’d been able to guess where that was going. Glynn and Vedeen had been making excuses not to teach her anything new, so she’d been experimenting on her own. She’d found that a lot of what she’d learned of chemistry on her own world translated into magic here. She’d been able, for example, to take a lump of coal that their cooks carried and turned it into a huge diamond by rearranging its cell structure, just as she had her ruby. Afterwards, she’d been able to create a tiny vacuum in front of the diamond and shoot it over the horizon.
Which was a shame, because it was a very pretty diamond. She felt sure that, had Xinto been alive, he’d have jumped on one of the ponies here and gone after it. She missed the little pervert, who’d treated her body like a Braille novel.
“The Emperor and Empress, for example,” Karl had continued. “You know, she was his slave once.”
“I know,” she’d said, not looking at him, riding side-by-side.
“Because if you learn too fast, your power unrestrained…”
She’d looked into his brown eyes, the scar on his face twitching guiltily. “You’re all afraid I’m going to blow myself up or something?” she’d asked.
Say what she would about Karl, he admitted when he was caught, and he owned up to it. “Yeah,” he’d said, “and take us with you. It’s happened before.”
“Yeah?” she’d been intrigued.
Supposedly a lot of those of the race of Men learned too fast; burned out and destroyed themselves. They’d all been terrified she’d do the same.
Pretty stupid, but there you go, she’d thought. She’d agreed to let him guide her, and that night they’d screwed like bunnies.
Now they were beating a path back to the Salt Wood with more than eight thousand Daff Kanaar warriors on their tails, hoping the goddess Eveave was going to pull them out of this situation they’d found themselves in.
It still bothered her that some price had been paid for this, and she didn’t know what it was.
Even she could see the dust behind them from the Daff Kanaar army. No matter how far they had to go, they’d travel until they were sure their pursuers had made camp. The closer they came to the coast, the more sure she was their enemy would either just march them into the ground, or pull some trick to make the Confluni think the Daff Kanaar had camped before they actually had.
Lost in these thoughts, she didn’t even notice when Zarshar loped up alongside her on her Angadorian warhorse, and touched her thigh with a talon.
“Wuh—who, what?” she stammered.
“I said,” he growled, through the slobber on his chin, with his black tongue lolling, “I’m going to scout out the woods with Slurn. If I’m not back by moonrise, I’ll need you to send someone after us.”
She shifted in her saddle—a proper man’s saddle now. She was right about one thing—the leather did chaff her naked thighs.
“Why us?” Karl argued with him. “Tell Glynn or the
Con—”
“If I tell that weak-minded Confluni anything, it’ll be how happy I am to twist the heads off of her little play mates,” Zarshar sneered. “As for Glynn, she’ll just argue with me, and I’m going to do it anyway.”
Raven smiled and shook her head. No one could keep peace between the Swamp Devil and the rest of them since Xinto had fallen, especially now that Bill had switched sides. It seemed to her that Zarshar questioned how much loyalty he owed them more and more lately.
Because he still seemed to care what she thought, Raven reached out and stroked the heavily muscled shoulder, looking as soulfully as she could into the red eyes.
“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” she asked him.
He growled low in his throat. “I hate it when you do that.”
“But you will be careful,” she pressed him.
She held his eyes with hers, until he had to look away. “I won’t be killed today,” he informed her, then looked past her to Karl, riding on her other side.
“Be careful of this one,” he said. “She is far more evil than I.”
“Don’t I know it,” Karl said, smiling. Raven swatted him.
Zarshar loped off to the horizon, Slurn behind him without a backward glance. She’d lost some sort of connection with her ‘almost there.’ She wasn’t sure if it was her transition to more power, or her relationship with Karl, but the Slee kept his distance from her now.
“They’ll be okay, won’t they?” she asked Karl.
“He will,” Karl remarked, watching after them, “but woe to whoever he comes across. He really likes killing.”
* * *
Jack found Lupus in the captain’s cabin of the Bitch of Eldador, his wife with him. Shela still wore an Andaran raider outfit almost exactly like the one he’d gotten Raven.
They were still in port in Thera. All of the wharves were full and there were nearly one hundred ships at anchor, barges moving warriors out to them.
Shela turned to cross behind the Emperor and Jack saw the bruises on the backs of her upper thighs and her lower back. She’d paid a heavy price for leaving Galnesh Eldador. Raven had told Jack the Emperor hit his wife, and that she expected it. His own wife drove him crazy and he’d divorced her, but he’d never raised a hand to her and he didn’t think much of anyone who did.
Lupus looked up from a writing desk when Jack entered, Vulpe in tow, then back down at some parchment he’d been scribbling on furiously. One of the inventions he’d brought to this world was the ballpoint pen, and he used one now. Oddly, he hadn’t figured out the pencil.
They waited for him to be done. Shela winked at them and stroked the side of Vulpe’s face in the close cabin. Wolf Soldier guards tramped in and out, making reports about the fleet being ready.
“Your ship in order?” Lupus asked Vulpe without looking up.
“Yes, father,” Vulpe said.
“Turned command over to your captain, did you?”
“Just of the loading.”
He nodded, then looked up from his work and laid his pen down. “Come to explain to me why you’re telling me you’re not good enough to wear the Mark of the Conqueror?”
One of the Wolf Soldiers actually walked into the door without opening it. He muttered something and beat a retreat, everyone else in the room with him. In seconds it was just ‘family,’ much as Jack was family.
“Yes, father,” Vulpe said.
Lupus turned his attention to Jack and looked him in the eye. “You here to take his side on this?” he asked.
“Really don’t see there being much of a side,” Jack said.
“The Mark of the Conqueror is the highest honor—” Shela began, but Lupus waved her off.
He looked at his son, and then at Jack. “Think I’m too hard on him?” he asked, surprisingly frank.
Jack knew that trick. Take the bait and Lupus would explode. Who the hell was he, right?
“I think you raised a boy who, when he had to, marshaled your warriors, made them his, and rescued his mother, and I don’t think too many eleven-year-olds could pull that off,” Jack said, honestly.
Lupus looked him in the eye and searched. Jack had to admit it was almost painful. He had this soul-searching gaze that made a guy’s brain feel like it was being poked and prodded.
“But?” he asked, finally.
“But h
e’s still eleven,” Jack said. “And he doesn’t want his own dad to cut his cheek open with a dagger, and at eleven years old, I don’t think I would have, either, and neither would you.”
Lupus turned to Shela, then his son. People said he loved his wife so much he didn’t need words to talk to her, and Jack wondered if that were true.
He sighed. “You happy with being in charge of the Eldadorian Regulars?” he asked.
Vulpe straightened. “Father, I’m very proud—” he began.
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Lupus said, and put a hand down on the table. “Talk to me, son—I know you did what you had to do, and there’s no going back from it, but you think maybe you need to take a break from this?”
Vulpe, to his credit, didn’t flicker. “Father,” he said, “I just want to go with you.”
Lupus smiled, reached out and roughed up his son’s head. His son batted at his forearm and his mother smiled.
“You know morale of the army is very important,” Lupus said. “How’s about, before we go, you get up on the crow’s nest of your ship and sing an aria for everyone? Something about blood and battles and invincible warriors?”
“I can do ‘The Battle of the Deceptions,’” Vulpe exclaimed, and suddenly he was almost hopping up and down. “I know that by heart, I just need a flutist—”
“I’m sure there’s a whole troupe of them at the Theatre au Thera,” Shela said, “if you hurry and catch them.”
Vulpe was out the door, then back in to make a fist over his heart in salute to his father, also his commander after taking a commission, then out the door and back in one more time to hug his mother, and then Jack. Jack gave him a solid thump on the back and the boy—the man—was out the door.
Lupus sighed and looked across the table at Jack. Shela pressed her side against her husband’s shoulder.
“You mad?” Jack asked him. Better to find out; and he didn’t think Lupus would lie.
“Nah,” he said. “Don’t like the way this all turned out, but there isn’t a lot I can do about it. I wanted a better childhood for my kids than this. It feels like I’m dragging them into my life too early.”