The hall erupted in a tumult of argument and shouting. The men around Orwin swung between angry declarations of war against King Acher, to squabbles over who could be the next captain and desperate laments over their guilt for their part in Gialdin’s fall. That battle had long been a sore subject for the army, and many of the older soldiers had simply refused to speak of it. But now almost twenty years of festering emotion rent itself free of the army’s wound and clattered around the confines of the massive hall. Morghiad surveyed the mess with a pained expression. Orwin felt torn. He cared deeply for both Artemi and Morghiad; they had become the very heart of his army. The wielder stared darkly at the rough floor, clearly hoping no one would notice her there. Was she crying? That was it. She was going to get a hug whether it was proper or not. He slipped an arm across her shoulders and squeezed her at his side. “Do you have any good ideas on how to sort this?” Sometimes that young-ancient mind of hers could be surprisingly astute. She stiffened and shook her head worriedly.
A booming voice ricocheted deafeningly through the hall, “Are you a complete and utter bloody idiot?” The army’s furious arguments crashed into a dead silence. Morghiad remained on the platform, blinking in surprise. Koviere stood opposite him, leaning on a staff for support, and with a fierce look on his square face. No one ever spoke to Morghiad like that, at least not in public. It was just not done to a kahr, no matter which country he hailed from. The stooped giant continued, “You can’t just leave them without any voice or leadership. Honestly, lad, your father would despair of you!”
Orwin dropped his arm from Artemi, in anticipation of a response or perhaps some violence from the former captain.
“I have no right here,” Morghiad said in a low voice.
Koviere boomed again, “Being a leader is not a right, lad. It is earned!”
Orwin thought he heard a harrumph from Artemi’s direction.
The giant turned to face the army. “Has this man not earned his place as your captain?” Many of the men shifted uncomfortably. “Is there anyone better to lead you?”
That caused a moment of introspection amongst the soldiers. Beodrin spoke, “Calidell has not known a finer captain. I believe many more of us would be littering the fields of Gorena if he had not been in charge.”
Those words carried weight when uttered by the most experienced of the lieutenants. Not so long ago he had been one of the leading candidates to replace the old captain.
Rahake jumped in almost immediately, “If we voted to keep you as our captain, would you stay, Kahr Morghiad?” His emphasis on the title was far from irreverent. There were some nods and shouts of agreement from the back of the hall.
The uncrowned King of Gialdin folded his arms and nodded solemnly. Traditionally, the captain had always been chosen by the king of Calidell, since he was the general in name. But these were special circumstances.
“Fine then.” Rahake joined the men on the platform. “All those in favour of retaining Kahr Morghiad as captain, move this way.” He gestured to the windowed side of the hall. The entire room appeared to tip as over eight-thousand uniformed bodies stamped to the windows. Artemi stayed close to Orwin, her smile plain across her face.
“And what are your orders for us, Lord-Captain Morghiad?” the dark lieutenant enquired.
He frowned for a moment, and then smiled. It was a small smile, but definitely there. “Rahake, I want you to send half your men to tell those currently guarding the city what has happened here. And for the rest of you, go home. The day of naming a captain is traditionally a day of holiday. So that is what you shall have. And Koviere, if you ever speak to me like that again I’ll have your hair braided like a little girl’s and you can wear a dress for the week.”
Koviere bowed his head as a fountain of giggles spread through the ranks.
Just as the sound died down: “My lord-captain, when are you going to get rid of Acher?” a somewhat young and boisterous recruit called out.
Morghiad unfolded his arms. “Not for a while yet. I need to make sure there is an adequate government in place to take control. Otherwise the entire country could descend into civil war. This will take some time to arrange...” He looked in Artemi’s direction. “Likely several years. And I will need the help of every man and woman here.”
That made Orwin’s back itch. The Calidellian army was very good at keeping secrets; perhaps the best at it in the world... but a long-term plan to oust their king was an entirely different matter from hiding a wielder. Something clicked in the sergeant’s head. In ‘several’ years Artemi would remember everything from her past. It could make her infinitely more useful, especially if she really had been a queen. He wondered if any of the other men had made the connection. And he wondered if the allegiances of the Artemi they knew would be entirely the same as the one in the storybooks.
The cold air bit at Artemi’s face and legs, even cutting through the satin-covered wool of her riding coat. Morghiad held her close, but even his warmth was not enough to fend off the bitter chill of the last vestiges of winter. He reined Tyshar to a halt and jumped to the frosted ground with her. It felt like an age had passed since they’d visited the clearing in the Cadran woods. The kahr who had taught her to ride seemed a different man entirely from the one who was currently tethering the horses. He had been a frozen man, more distant than the lands of Tedarah. This man exuded only warmth and tenderness. He shot her one of his exceptional smiles. The acceptance of the army had lifted his mood immeasurably, and his optimism was infectious. Morghiad unstrapped the ancient Blaze sword from the saddle and threw it to her. The weapon felt good in her hand, though the angle of it was somewhat peculiar. She gave it a few slashes to get a feel for the balance but had to admit she preferred the feel of her old sword; and Morghiad had insisted she try using only this one.
“I want you to give it a chance,” he said, withdrawing his own blade.
“Older does not necessarily mean better, my lord, and its design didn’t save its previous owner.” She swapped it to the other hand. It still felt odd.
Morghiad spun his sword in readiness for their duel. These days, their fights tended to last longer than she cared to think. “Be ready, my queen.” He grinned and lunged forward with a diagonal attack. It was very bad of him to try to throw her off with comments like that, but she could more than match them.
“My king, I hope you are ready to have your royal backside beaten into next week!” She unleashed a fast and powerful side swipe, but the blade turned oddly when it met his and she found herself struggling to keep her balance.
“Oh you can do better than that, surely?” he taunted her.
She struck again, and this time the sword bounced off his blade. Increasingly she found herself using her speed to escape the worst of his assaults.
“Artemi,” he said between moves, “This is just how I imagined fighting a woman to be. Defensive.”
She crushed her immediate annoyance and resisted the urge to go for a full rally of attacks. Rallies against Morghiad did not tend to end in her favour. “And you are just like all the other men: full of bluster when you know you will lose.”
He laughed. Smug man. How was she supposed to win with this misbehaving, misshapen weapon? The captain moved faster and harder in an effort to push her to her limits. She was surviving, but only just. The sword kept reacting in odd ways to his strikes and she found herself straining to keep it under control. She was fighting like a dairy farmer.
“You ought to stop thinking so hard while you fight,” he said in as patronising a tone as he could manage.
“At least I think with my brain.” A very old insult; something of a cliché, perhaps. But the occasional truth of it amused her. The thought sparked another in her mind. What if she acted more like a man of cliché, and let the weapon lead the way? Artemi went for a hard down-swipe instead of parrying Morghiad’s attack. When metal hit metal, her blade began to fly off to the right, but this time she followed it with her body. She found
herself leaping into the air and twisting over his left shoulder, before coming to land behind him. Artemi whipped up the sword, ready to swing at her lover again. The kahr was fast to spin round and meet her next strike. She felt a stab of satisfaction over his surprise at the unconventional move. He parried in time to save himself from injury, but her blade cut through some of his clothing. Again she followed the reaction of the sword to her next stance, which seemed to involve a roll to the left. Perhaps the acrobatics were getting a little silly, but this time she had the opportunity to pull his feet from under him and send his sword spinning into the undergrowth. Artemi pinned him to the ground and pressed the blade against his neck. In a real fight she’d have killed him before he’d known he was falling.
His reaction was not what she expected at all. Instead of embarrassment or surprise she sensed... excitement, admiration and even... was that pride? Peculiar man.
In response to her confusion he smiled broadly. “It’s a good feeling when a teacher sees his favourite pupil excel him.”
Artemi withdrew the blade and thought for a moment. Power aside, she’d preferred being equally matched to him in most disciplines. “We still don’t know what that... thing is that we sense in one-another.” They’d spent many days trying to investigate the peculiar extension to the Blazes, and failed.
Morghiad sat up. “Perhaps it is just a sign that I was intended for you.”
Why did he always talk like that? “Surely if anyone was intended for anyone else it would be a servant for a kahr?”
The kahr gave one of those knowing smiles that had become annoyingly abundant in recent months, and Artemi suddenly became very aware of his intense appreciation for her. A noise drew their attention to the trees on the right.
Artemi lost no time in regaining her feet and stashed the odd sword into Tyshar’s saddle. Morghiad was quick to sheath his own blade, and went to investigate the source of the sound. He returned shortly to stand by the horse with her. “It’s Acher and his hunting party. I had no idea they’d be out here today,” he said in low tones. “I need you to stop me from stabbing his grotesque, overfed face. Can you keep me level, Artemi?” Hate surged in his river of emotions, making her skin grow colder.
It made little sense that he wanted to contain such anger, countries had been run with weaker governments than Morghiad could provide with no preparation. “If that is what you want, I’ll not encourage it.”
“Thank you.” He kissed her softly on her lips and lifted her onto his great warhorse, before taking his seat behind. They rode through the dried and frosted undergrowth towards the noises, which soon resolved into noisy chatter and horse movement from the king’s party. Something whisked towards them through the breeze, and in an instant Morghiad had swiped it from the air with his sword.
“Ah! My apologies,” laughed Acher’s voice from behind a tree, “Thought you were a lost wildebeest.” The king reined his horse out before them, holding a riding bow. He had grown considerably more overweight in the last few months; it was almost comical.
Morghiad’s temper flared briefly, but he nudged it aside as he thrust his sword into the holster at his back. “No trouble. I didn’t know you were hunting today.”
Acher grinned broadly. “I didn’t know you were out whoring today!”
Artemi was untouched by the insult, well-aware of how unconsciously the king had dispensed it. Her kahr on the other hand, continued to boil with irritation through her veins. He laid a hand on hers in an effort to regain control. The rest of the party filtered through the trees with their bows and spears held aloft. Most were nobles, one of them Passerid in his plain brown clothes; the rest were Acher’s guard for the day.
“Good to see you enjoying the fresh air, lord-captain,” Passerid offered a nod.
The kahr returned it. “Lord Collibry.”
The king’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, lord-captain, I have been meaning to discuss a few things with you about your recent trip to the south. I hear there’s been no progress in finding that young lady we discussed. What’s more, I hear your army came back almost completely unscathed. Now that is a combination of the impressive and unimpressive, is it not?”
Morghiad shifted in the saddle behind her. “My men are excellent fighters; perhaps we are not so well-trained for detective work.”
The king looked thoughtful for a moment. “They’ve always caught the runaways in the past, lad. What are you doing to that army of mine, eh?”
“I’ve done very little. They made themselves into an army, father.” His last word filled him with revulsion and self-loathing, so much so that Artemi almost cringed from the feeling of it. She interlocked her fingers with his and squeezed them instead.
Acher drew his bearded mouth tight and placed a curled fist on his meaty hip. “Find that girl, or I’ll have that pretty wench off you as a replacement!”
Some of the nobles chuckled from their mounts, though Passerid was notable in his solemnity.
At those words, Morghiad’s torrent of fury was close to exploding from his body. Artemi felt herself become similarly enraged, though she hadn’t had the slightest intention of becoming so. His emotions were pouring from their river, directly into her own! She took a deep breath and forced calm back into her thoughts, thinking of an iced-over glacier in the bleak mountains. She pushed the image hard into the roiling, searing swirl of anger. The effect on her lover was startling, and he spoke in even tones. “She’ll turn up, father.”
The king nodded in apparent satisfaction, and turned back to his party.
Artemi lessened her grip on Morghiad’s hand, realising she had very nearly squeezed the blood from it, and he moved it to her waist to pull her closer. “I need you like winter needs summer,” he whispered in her ear. Upon his expression of affection, or perhaps reliance, something happened in her body that took her entirely by surprise. Her vision became suffused by the brightest light, and her skin burned hot with the heat from inside her. She shook with the force of it, and drew the air in deeply. The Blazes were there, glowing brightly in her mind, no longer distant. She knew what it meant as Morghiad gripped her tightly and his concern filled her awareness, as her sight started to return. She was finally ready, finally mature. Artemi was a full, unfettered and powerful wielder. Passerid was staring, wide-eyed at her. But she moved her gaze to the king, the man who had wronged her captain so appallingly.
“Let it go, my heart,” Morghiad said in low tones. “Now.”
The fires burned furiously through her soul, permeating every muscle with its sheer might. Passerid took a step closer on his horse, and she readied herself to blast him out of the way.
“No.” The kahr reprised her hand and set about extracting her from the power she held. Artemi fought it vigorously, aware that she had the upper-hand with the Blazes coursing through her. “Artemi.” He grabbed her jaw and turned her face until she met his eyes. Those eyes...
“My apologies for interrupting your lover’s embrace -”
They both moved their gaze to the king, and the wielder felt her power dissolve to the corners of her mind. But it was still there, glowing with its fiery warmth.
Acher continued, “Well, you are holding up my hunt. And I want to get on with finding some tasty deer. Off with you children!”
The kahr gave a curt nod, and kicked Tyshar firmly to a fast walk. Once they were out of earshot he pulled the animal to a halt and dismounted to speak to her. “I thought you were going to blow everything to Achellon! What is to become of us if I cannot hold my temper and you want to destroy everything in your path?”
“I wanted to...” she sighed as she shifted in the saddle. “It seems the summer needs the winter, too.”
He smiled, and began to laugh. “I don’t think you’ve ever needed anyone else to achieve anything.”
Artemi allowed him to feel her annoyance. “The only thing I would have achieved without you would have been my own death.”
“How could anyone with eyes permit that?�
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“Quite easily, judging by the number who’ve tried.” Artemi fiddled absent-mindedly with the reins on the pommel of Tyshar’s saddle.
The kahr placed his hand on her leg. “They were simply bitter that they could not bed you.”
“Even the eisiel? And the entire rogue army in Kemen?”
“Of course,” Morghiad said. He almost seemed to believe it.
Artemi looked down at him with her chin raised. “You are a fool.”
“This fool has what no one else has.” His grin remained unchanged.
“I thought you said you could never own me.”
“I often own your company.” Morghiad reached around her waist to pull her from the saddle.
She swung her left leg across and slid down to join him on the ground. “I am your soldier, so you own me as you own your sword.”
“But now you are free to wield that weapon as you wish. Why don’t you have some fun? Surprise me.”
Artemi smiled broadly and reached into the rolling flames of the Blazes. Perhaps Cadra ought to experience a little sunshine against the cold.
Chapter 16
As she turned to leave the room, Artemi’s braid flicked from her shoulder to her back like a bolt of golden fire. Morghiad admired the figure-hugging, green scarves that caressed the curves of her sinuous hips. He found his love for her had transformed into something of a deep obsession over the years, and his hunger for her had grown rather than waned. Being locked away from Artemi was going to be the toughest trial he had ever faced. And he would have to face it very soon. Though she didn’t know it yet, she was nearly ready to rule. He had taken every opportunity to school her in the ways Calidell was run: dropping tid-bits into conversations, getting Silar to tell her of his secret network and its findings, introducing her to those he hoped to elect to government, even bringing items for administration into their chambers. Artemi did not seem to suspect that he intended to place her solely on the throne, and he did not know how much longer he could keep it from her. She, like much of the army, believed that he would assume the role of king once Acher was dead.
City of Blaze (The Fireblade Array) Page 37