by Kal Spriggs
“We continue our fight against the Armen,” the man's voice spoke, his tone relaxed and human now. “We aid Lord Hector and try to encourage cooperation between the Duchies. You use your influence with him to try to get him to see the benefits of a greater alliance.”
“What about Lady Katarina?” Kerrel asked. “The heir to Duke Peter can be a threat to Lord Hector, might even provoke a civil war. Even if she doesn't, then Hector's own policies in the south might do the same. And from what I've uncovered, we are much weaker in the southern part of this Duchy.”
“That is true,” the man said. More and more Kerrel came to view him as either the spokesman or the leader of this chapter of the Luciel Order. “But our contacts suggest that she plays an essential role. And more, I have word that a Shrouded Wizard will soon join her.”
“Noth has taken a role?” Kerrel asked. She heard her voice squeak at the end of it and she coughed in embarrassment at her surprise. Yet even so... the greatest wizard alive, perhaps the most knowledgeable who had ever lived... the thought awed her.
She heard the man chuckle, “I felt the same way. I sometimes wonder if we chose the wrong noble, but Lord Hector showed such promise, especially before his cousin forced him to seize power.” He sighed, “But he's embraced the darker side of this war and he lost sight of the other threats. I fear his reliance on Vendakar gold and his trust of their mercenaries. They always retain loyalty to their Houses... and to their dark gods.”
“How deep does this slave trade go?” Kerrel asked
“It is one of several ties he's formed. The Vendakar houses of Rajpakopol and Rajdahar both have a strong trade with him in weapons and mercenaries,” the conspirator said. “The majority of the second battalion is made up of mercenaries from those two Great Houses.”
Kerrel winced, “I had not realized he had so many of them. How is it that he trusts them?”
“The Vendakar hatred of the Armen, and vice versa, is well established,” the woman said. “Also, they work cheaper than most other mercenaries, and they view casualties differently than most southerners.”
Kerrel shivered at that, for she'd heard about the ghastly rituals that the Vendakar gods required of their followers. Death on some foreign battlefield might seem far more preferable than to be called in service of their gods. “Do you suspect they are behind the betrayal?”
“We don't know. It doesn't make much sense, on the surface,” the leader said. He shook his head slightly, “Lord Hector supplies them with slaves, money and gives them a trade partner for their weapons and goods. But the Vendakar Houses often craft plots within plots, and they might throw all that away for some greater goal.”
“Or just to back-stab another House,” Kerrel said. “I've dealt with some of them before, they make the nobility back in the Duchy of Asador seem downright straightforward and trusting.” She frowned, “Do you think that they've gained some... influence over Hector?”
“We don't know,” the woman said. “There are no signs of magical interference, either through enchantment or runes. But we cannot rule out mind magic, though neither of the Houses he has dealings with are known to use it.”
“There are also drugs that might make him susceptible to advice,” Kerrel said. “I will do my best to get close to him and to search for such signs.” She remembered the Marovingian general that the Vendakar had turned from drugged wine. She hoped that Hector was more cautious than that.
“Good.” The man let out a sigh, “Lord Hector is our best hope, right now. We learned that Grand Duke Becket is dead and that the Duchy of Boir may fall into chaos soon. It seems that our enemies have laid many plans. We cannot allow them to kill Lord Hector or worse, to turn him into their tool.”
“I understand,” Kerrel said. “I'll do what I can.” She looked around, “How will I meet with you again?”
“There is a warrior from Aoriel who travels among the camp followers, a woman by the name of Rain,” the woman said. “You can find her in the tent where they wash and sew clothing. She owes us a favor and will remain here until she completes a task of her own. Tell her our motto and pass your message. She will get it to us. We cannot meet again soon, the threat that our enemies will reveal us to Hector and turn him against us is too high.”
“I understand,” Kerrel said. She still felt some bitterness that they didn't trust her enough to reveal themselves. For that matter, she wondered at their use of a foreign mercenary from distant Aoriel. “The spirit of the High Kings watch over you.”
“You as well, child,” the man said, his voice friendly. “And be careful, there are too few of us to lose one with your dedication.”
***
Chapter Nine
Lady Katarina Emberhill
The Tucola Forest, Zielona Gora Barony, Duchy of Masov
Twenty-Seventh of Montied, cycle 999 Post Sundering
Lady Katarina winced as one of Bulmor's attacks broke through her defense and caught her on the shoulder. Her armor and padding caught the blade, and for that matter she knew he had pulled it. Even so, her arm tingled and her shoulder throbbed with pain.
“You need to focus,” Bulmor said. “That's the third time in a row I got you with that same series of attacks.”
“I know,” Katarina said as she worked her shoulder. “Break?”
He grunted, but lowered his sword. She sheathed her sword and looked around the ravine camp. Additional recruits had seemed to boil out of the forest over the past weeks. Almost forty people shared the clearing now, which did not count the best of the woodsmen who Gerlin took out with him earlier in the morning. The money and livestock from their one attack served to keep them fed, at least.
A dozen of the group trained with Jasen. All of them group showed previous experience, either as soldiers or village or town guards. For some of them, that experience lay cycles or even decades, in the past. She noticed no small number of gray beards and sagging bellies. Even so, she felt heartened to see that actual fighting men had joined her.
That thought inevitably led her to look at the other recruits. They varied in shape and condition. Some appeared to be scarecrows. They wore little more than rags on emaciated bodies, men and some women from lands where Hector's taxes had become not just a hardship, but crippling. Others came from better walks of life, in particular, Katarina's gaze focused on a tall, skinny, bald young man who wore a scribe's robes and had a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. He stood in discussion with a chubby young man who wore finely tailored, brightly colored clothing more appropriate to a festival or perhaps a brothel, than a rebel camp in the forest.
She shook her head at the sight of the pair, especially as the portly young man gave a broad gesture which nearly knocked the scribe over. Walker, whatever his stated background, clearly came from a wealthy background, perhaps even nobility. He had yet to prove any actual skill with the weapons and armor he arrived with, but he had brought food and medical supplies, which made his flamboyant dress and extravagant words tolerable. The scribe, on the other hand, Katarina had already come to secretly detest. Yarris Ingolsby claimed to be a wandering scholar and, indeed, he seemed to take notes about everything.
Behind the pair she saw the hunchback Agram. The simple man seemed drawn to all the new visitors in the camp. If he had shown any ability to talk or understand, Katarina would almost have thought he eavesdropped on conversations. Yet he never spoke and anything beyond the most simple of tasks seemed beyond him.
As she paused, she saw him look at her. His dark eyes glared at her out of his twisted face. She felt her heart race suddenly, almost as if something predatory met her gaze. The moment passed and the hunchback looked away.
Unfortunately, Yarris Ingolsby noticed her break. A broad smile lit up his skinny face. She held back a sigh as the man hurried over, “Lady Katarina, I simply must have that interview with you! The people of the Duchy of Masov must hear about your deeds, your history, and your childhood. I feel that writing these things down and giving
the villagers these notes will do so much to get the people behind you!”
Katarina bit back a desire to swing her sword at the stork-like man and his acne spotted face. She heard something behind her that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle from Bulmor. Katarina put as much patience in her voice as she could, “Scholar Ingolsby, I am certain that it might do some good. But anything I can tell you, you could hear from other people. I do not wish to set here and talk about myself, not when we have many other things to do.”
The scribe seemed to draw into himself and Katarina bit back a curse as she saw tears fill his eyes behind his spectacles. He seemed struck speechless, which Katarina felt absurdly guilty about. The man ran all over the camp with his questions, some of which seemed far too pointed and had too many details that, for the moment, might prove dangerous to her people. If Hector's men read it, they'd know all about where her people came from and what villages secretly supported them.
Which was why she had insisted that she must read anything he published before he carried it out to distribute it. And she had to admit, he did edit out any details that might conceivably endanger anyone and he managed to write in such a way that she found entertaining, even if the truth seemed far dirtier and more mundane.
“Alright...” Katarina sighed. “This evening, I'll make some time to talk with you.”
“Thank you, Lady Katarina,” Yarris gave a bird-like bob that could be a bow or just him losing his balance. “I promise to take down every word you say, I'll immortalize you so that you will never be forgotten!”
“That's part of what I'm afraid of,” Katarina muttered as he hurried away.
***
Aerion
The Tucola Forest, Zielona Gora Barony, Duchy of Masov
Third of Eoban, Cycle 999 Post Sundering
Aerion adjusted the quiver of arrows on his hip and looked out through the dismal rain with a glower. He hadn't realized how the loss of an eye would affect his aim. For that matter, he hadn't fired a bow in over three months. Never the best hunter, he still thought he could manage to feed himself given a bow. Old Taggart had taken him hunting more than once to help fill the pot during his apprenticeship. Aerion had offered to go hunting to augment the food in the morning, expectant that he would bring back something.
Gerlin took most of the normal hunters with him on another scouting expedition. That meant the others in the camp had only encouraged him. Any meat they could forage was less money they needed to spend.
The dreadful weather came in not long after noon and the little bit of game he saw and failed to hit in the morning had disappeared with the downpour. As it was, Aerion's hunting expedition seemed cursed. He had almost reached the camp, though his circle had taken him in from the west and he would have to find some way down the ravine wall somehow.
He nearly missed the movement out of the corner of his eye. Aerion froze. Slowly, carefully, he turned, careful to never look directly at the source of movement. cycles of hunting had taught him that animals seemed to sense that, somehow, to realize that some predator had found them.
He saw the old buck, muzzle gray, and a broad rack of antlers. It browsed on a clump of grass almost a hundred yards distant. The movement he saw must have been its antlers as it tore another tuft of grass. Aerion slowly drew an arrow. A buck like that would be very welcome, and Aerion wondered at how the beast had come so close to their ravine camp, when normally the scent of men would keep it far away.
The rain, he supposed, might mask their scent. He hoped it masked his, in any case. The thought of such a success after such a dismal day gave him a warm glow in his stomach. Aerion judged the distance as best he could. At over a hundred yards, he would be pressed to make the shot, even before his disfiguring injury. He pursed his lips, then slowly began to move to the side. He picked each step with caution, well aware that any noise or apparent movement might spook the buck.
He finally put a dense clump of brush between him and the deer.
Aerion took his bowstring out of the oilskin pouch he had put it in earlier to keep dry. He strung the bow with a single motion and then drew an arrow. It looked as if the brush grew denser near the animal. If he circled around further to the west, he might be able to get close enough that even with his current terrible aim he could put the buck down.
He moved as quickly as he could and still maintain silence. His gaze would flick from the ground and then up in the direction of where he last saw the buck. Aerion steadily closed the distance, now and again he caught a glimpse of the deer through the briars. A dense tangle of brush halted him for a moment, until he noticed a faint path to his left. He ducked into it, hopeful that it would lead closer to the deer.
It seemed to lead somewhere, he decided, but not where he wanted to go. As a matter of fact, he found the trail seemed to descend, and a moment later, he emerged from the briars into a low hollow. A single quick look confirmed the only way into or out came from the path he had chosen.
Aerion bit back a curse.
It will take me several minutes to backtrack and find another way, he thought darkly. He turned, about to leave, when he noticed an odd dark spot near the far side of the hollow. It almost looked like a cave or opening in the embankment.
For a moment, Aerion's curiosity warred with his desire to get the buck. Something about the secret hollow and the strange trail that led here bothered him, though, especially the proximity to their camp. Surely someone must have discovered it, he knew.
Yet... why had no one mentioned it?
Aerion lowered his bow and put his arrow back into the quiver. The camp had food enough, for now. Aerion doubted that a single buck would make too great a difference. He doubted anyone would rib him on his aim, not with his eye and if they did, well... it wouldn't bother him as much as the thought that someone else might have a hidden camp near their own.
He bent and unstrung his bow and then quickly coiled the string, even as he walked towards the dark spot he had noticed. He had to walk around a large pool of water, almost a pond, that had formed from the rain.
As Aerion grew closer, he saw that someone or perhaps something, had cut away a small shelter in the embankment. He thought it more likely a person, for excavator used the spoil to raise a small area around it, clearly in case of a rain such as this.
Aerion stepped onto the raised platform, and frowned down at the small shelter. He saw no sign of a pallet or place for someone to sleep. A single chair faced a small glass mirror, hung on a peg. Next to the chair, a couple of small chests and a set of saddlebags lay on shelves carved out of the embankment. A larger chest took up the rest of the space. A shuttered lantern dangled from a projecting root in the ceiling, though it wasn't lit.
None of it made any sense at all to Aerion, but it disturbed him, for it should not be here, not so close to the camp. “I should tell someone,” Aerion muttered, someone else, perhaps Arren or Gerlin could make sense of it.
He nodded at the decision to return to camp and inform someone else. Definitely not the kind of thing for someone to investigate on their own, he thought.
That was when he heard the snap of a twig behind him. Aerion spun. Through the rain, he dimly saw movement along the path. He looked around frantically and smothered a curse as he dove into the briars nearby. Aerion stayed as low to the ground as he could, but he still felt the thorns tear his skin and clothing as he crawled under them. Just when I found a tunic that almost fit, he thought darkly. Whoever this stranger was, he owed him a new shirt.
He had just enough time to adjust his position to keep the hollow in view before the figure emerged. Aerion's confusion deepened at the sight of Yarris Ingolsby. The traveling scholar seemed completely out of place as the rest of this. Aerion knew the young man normally stumbled through the brush with enough noise to be a small army. Yet now the scholar moved with quiet confidence. He didn't miss a step on the sodden ground as he moved to the shelter.
Aerion bit his tongue as he saw the other man remove
his spectacles and take a seat at the chair. Clearly, whatever this was, Yarris was involved. Yet the man had only arrived in the past couple weeks, he clearly didn't have time to dig such a shelter, much less move the chests and other items there, not by himself.
The scribe removed a set of keys from his robes. He cautiously opened the larger chest first, which seemed to open out into a wardrobe, with a number of shelves and a variety of clothing. Aerion watched with shock as Yarris seemed to peel his scalp off. A moment later, he set the bald scalp in the box and scratched at the closely cropped blonde hair revealed underneath. Aerion watched as he rubbed his face with a cloth, which wiped away the acne scars. The man then pulled the scribes robes over his head, kicked off Yarris's sandals, and then pulled off his oversized tunic.
The skinny-seeming scribe had disappeared, replaced by a well muscled young man who seemed somehow vaguely familiar.
Aerion's consternation grew as the young man drew out a patchwork robe, and both a long gray beard and a gray wig. The spy then donned both, and opened one of the smaller chests, even as he pulled a sword out of the chest.
“No.”
Aerion had not realized he spoke until he saw the other man start.
He pushed himself out of the briars, their stings didn't hurt nearly as much as the feeling of betrayal he felt lance through his stomach. “Who are you?” Aerion drew his new sword.
The man answered with Arren's familiar voice. “Aerion... I can explain everything.”
***
Lord Admiral Christoffer Tarken
The Ubelfurst, the Boir Sea
Third of Eoban, Cycle 999 Post Sundering
Admiral Christoffer Tarken looked up as his steward knocked on his door, “Sir, the Armen woman, Miss Siara is here.”
Christoffer set the charts down and gave a nod, “Very well, Nikolas, please send her in.”
The steward opened the door wide, and the Armen woman stepped inside. The first thing he noticed was that they'd dressed her in cast-off men's clothing. The trousers and oversized tunic should have made her appear boyish. It had quite the opposite effect. Siara Pall filled the sailor's uniform in a fashion which made Christoffer quite aware that he was far too old and she probably too young, for him to notice as much as he did.