Casket of Souls

by Lynn Flewelling

  “Yes.”

  The wizard smiled. “It will be good to see them again. It’s a shame Magyana is away in Sarikali. She’ll be sorry to miss it. So, what else will you two be doing, when you’re not burgling houses or floating around in my bath chamber?”

  “The usual small jobs, I suppose,” Seregil said as they rose to go. “Though the Cat has had more commissions from the pleasure houses than Silvermoon with so many nobles out of town.”

  “I’m not surprised. By the way, Seregil, I’ve been refining that translocation spell that gives you so much trouble. I’d like to test it to see if it still makes you so terribly ill.”

  “Another time. I’d hate to lose this fine supper,” Seregil told him, hurrying for the door.

  “Coward!” Thero called after him.

  “Sadist!” Seregil shot back with a laugh.

  BEKA Cavish crouched in the deeper shadow of a huge oak tree and bound her wild red hair back with a bit of leather lacing. Syra, her fellow scout tonight, did the same with her own dark hair. Or at least that’s what the uncertain shape in the darkness seemed to be doing. Between the gloom and the light ground fog, Beka could see her fellow soldier only because she knew where to look.

  It had been tricky getting this close to the Plenimaran encampment; the moon was just past full, and oak mast rustled and crunched inconveniently under cavalry boots. Beka envied her Aurënfaie husband his ability to make little noise as he moved and wished he were here, though Syra was a skilled scout, as well. Luckily there was no starlight to betray their movements.

  From here they could make out the enemy watch fires through the trees and mist, spread out across the Mycenian plain, and hear the soldiers laughing and singing. A raiding party wouldn’t be making so much noise. There must be enough of them that they weren’t worried about an attack.

  There would be sentries posted around the perimeter, of course. She and Syra were both armed, in case they ran into anyone here in the woods, but that would be a doubly unlucky thing, since dead or missing soldiers could alert the Plenimarans to the Skalans’ presence less than two miles away.

  They’d left their horses tethered at the far side of the long, narrow wood, knowing that, even through trees, sound carried. It had been a long walk, and slow going.

  They made it to the edge of the trees, and Syra boosted Beka up into an oak. Climbing higher, she counted the enemy watch fires spread out before her, scattered like bright flowers on a sea of fog. There were more than fifty. Beyond the encampment were the smoldering remains of some unlucky farmer’s house and barn, and beyond that, the crucial ford Queen Phoria had ordered her half sister to capture at any cost. The warm night breeze carried the sound of rushing water.

  “How many, Captain?” Syra whispered in Aurënfaie when Beka climbed down again. Nyal had taught Beka and the members of her Urghazi Turma the language when they were in Aurënen, and they used it in the field when an enemy might overhear.

  “Three hundred. Maybe more,” Beka replied, frowning.

  Princess Klia had nearly a third less than that. The Queen’s Horse Guard had taken heavy casualties, along with every other regiment. The queen had refused a truce offer from the Plenimaran Overlord a few months earlier, and there were plenty in the field who’d been disappointed. Despite recent successes in battle, there had been desertions.

  “Are we going to take a closer look?” whispered Syra.

  Beka grinned. “What do you think?”

  They kept to the forest for as long as they could and saw several sentries silhouetted against the light from the encampment. After a while, however, the forest line curved inconveniently away from the camp. There was no choice but to cut across in the open.

  The rolling meadow had been trampled down by the Plenimarans. At this close range, Beka could hear the night sounds of a herd of horses, and smell them on the warm summer breeze. So at least some of the Plenimaran force were cavalry.

  Beka put her lips to Syra’s ear. “Find out how many, then meet me at the lookout oak.”

  Syra saluted, then disappeared into the mist without a sound.

  Beka skirted the camp until she came in sight of a larger tent, then belly-crawled to just outside the ring of light from a blazing watch fire in front of it. There were too many guards to get any closer, but she could see two standards on poles in front of it: one cavalry, one infantry. She sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Sakor that there were none of the dreaded Plenimaran marines. She’d fought against them several times and it was always brutal. They had a nasty habit of torturing their captives, including nailing them by the hands to a board across the shoulders. Their treatment of captured female soldiers was—worse.

  Not all Plenimaran soldiers were like that, of course. She’d crossed swords with a number of honorable officers, and their soldiers were no better or worse than any Skalan force. And the goal of all of them was victory.

  She remained there for some time, hoping the commander would show himself, but the camp was asleep. Giving up, she crept away and found Syra waiting for her.

  “Thought I’d lost you,” the rider whispered.

  “What did you find?”

  “At least two troops’ worth of horse.”

  “Damn!”

  “That was my thought exactly, Captain.”

  It was a few hours shy of dawn by the time they reached the Skalan lines again. Syra whistled to alert the pickets, and gave the countersign when they reached them.

  “How did it go, Captain?” Corporal Nikides asked.

  Beka shook her head. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

  The camp was already stirring, and the green-and-white tabards of the riders looked ghostly in the morning mist. They were on cold rations rather than risk the smell of cooking reaching the enemy.

  Captain Danos waved to her as she strode by his troop. They were sitting in small clusters on the dew-soaked grass with their cold beef and stolen cheese. This part of Mycena had been overrun by both armies twice this summer; there was little left to forage.

  Beka smiled and waved back. Tall, broad-shouldered, and fair, Danos was as good a fighter and able an officer as any under Klia’s command. She was proud to call him her friend.

  Her riders were on the far side of Klia’s tent, which was distinguished by the green horse-and-sword pennant flapping on a pole at the tent peak, and the black Aurënfaie horse with a distinctive white mane and tail tethered outside.

  “Go eat, if you can find anything,” she told Syra, her own empty belly rumbling with hunger. “I’ll give Klia our report.”

  “I’ll see if I can find us some meat that hasn’t turned green yet,” Syra replied with a laugh.

  As commander of the Queen’s Horse Guard, Princess Klia led a squadron—half the regiment—under General Moraus. There had been talk when she was not given the general’s position after her unexpected recall from Aurënen. Moraus was an able man, but Klia had proven her worth in the field, too, and was Queen’s Kin. It had only fueled the rumors of bad blood between them, but no one could say they’d heard Klia complain.

  Two of Captain Danos’s riders were on duty at the tent door and saluted Beka as she entered. Inside, the tent was divided into two rooms: this one, large enough for a map table and the commander’s council of officers, and a small one beyond a canvas wall at the back where Klia slept—when she slept, which didn’t seem to be very often these days.

  Klia and her aide-de-camp and friend, Major Myrhini, were at breakfast in the front room, eating the same rations as the soldiers. Beka’s heart skipped a beat when she saw that the Aurënfaie—her Aurënfaie, as she liked to think of him—was with them as well, lithe and handsome in his worn leathers and corselet.

  Even without the sen’gai of his clan, there was no mistaking what Nyal was. He had long, dark hair and fine ’faie features, and his lively hazel-green eyes were unlike any Skalan’s. He was a brave man, to be here in the midst of a war that was not his own. Harshly as the Plenimar
an marines treated captured female soldiers, they treated ’faie far worse. Those they didn’t eventually kill they shipped back to their homeland as slaves. She’d heard stories of ’faie falling on their own swords rather than be captured. It made it all the harder that she and Nyal were often apart from each other in the field; as her husband, it was against regulations for him to serve under her, so instead he was a scout for the whole troop, often working with Danos or directly for Klia. It had been nearly a week since she’d seen him.

  He smiled, hazel eyes tilting up at the corners as she came in; she could tell he was equally relieved to see her. Nyal had no official rank beyond scout, but in the field he took his orders directly from Klia. It had taken them both time to get used to that. In the winter they lived as husband and wife, but here in the field they were hardly more than fellow soldiers most of the time.

  Beka saluted Klia, pressing her fist to the front of her battle-stained tabard.

  “Good morning, Captain,” said Klia. “Come and join us. You must be starving.”

  “Thank you, Commander.” Beka pulled up a stool and gratefully broke her night’s fast. Even salted, the meat smelled a bit high, but she was too hungry to care.

  Klia looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. Months of steady battle had sapped some of her beauty. Her face was sun-browned and haggard under the dark widow’s peak, and her linen shirt hung more loosely on her than it had when they resumed the war in the spring. Myrhini, the older of the two, didn’t look any better. Beka supposed she didn’t, either.

  “What do you have to report?” asked Klia.

  “I estimate a force of at least three hundred, Commander. Half of it cavalry and the rest foot.”

  Klia raised an eyebrow at that. “You estimate? Don’t tell me you went out yourself again?”

  “It was my turn, Commander,” Beka replied. It was a matter of pride to endure the same dangers as her troop. In return, her riders had followed her through fire and hell. Klia wasn’t one to talk, either. She’d done the same as she came up through the officers’ ranks, and was equally respected by those who served under her.

  Klia took another bite of beef and stared down at the trampled grass that served as carpet. “We’ve got to take that ford before Phoria arrives. If we can pull this off, the queen’s army can push all the way to the Folcwine in a matter of days. And if we take one of the major fords there—” Her eyes shone at the prospect. “Then we can finally take on the Overlord’s regiment.”

  Beka shared her commander’s cautious excitement. For the first time in years, the possibility of victory glimmered before them.

  “Can we take the horses through the forest?” asked Myrhini.

  “I don’t advise it,” Beka replied. “The trees are thick enough that we’d get strung out and make enough noise for the Plenimarans to hear us coming.”

  “If the horses go south along the edge of it, it’s no more than a mile ’til it ends, close to the edge of the enemy camp,” said Nyal.

  “Beka, did you get a sense of the layout of their encampment?” asked Myrhini.

  “It was hard to tell in the dark, but I think they’ve set out the tents in lines, well away from the trees, roughly in a square.”

  Going to the map table, Beka took up a wax tablet and stylus and sketched the camp, with the ruined house and the bank of the Silver River. “They’re caught between the trees and the river, Commander, and the horses are corralled here, on the northern edge. If we can push them to the river, they’ll have no choice but to fan out into a thinner line.”

  Klia considered that for a moment, then nodded. “I want you to take your troop through the forest on foot here. Send your Urghazi Turma to scatter the enemy’s horses before the Plenimarans can get to them. I’ll take Captain Anri and Danos’s riders south around the wood, mounted. Nyal, I want you with me.”

  “Yes, Commander.” Nyal exchanged a quick look of regret with Beka. Separated again.

  “Myrhini, pass the word. We march at once,” Klia ordered. “Beka, Nyal, you’re dismissed.”

  Beka gave her a grateful nod; Klia was demanding, but not unkind.

  Outside Nyal took her hands in his. “I hope the Plenimarans provide us with a good supper.”

  Beka forced a weary smile. Neither of them ever said good-bye or spoke of the very real possibility that each parting could be their last.

  It had been easy for them when she was stationed with Klia in Aurënen. Several others in the turma had taken ’faie lovers; there was no rule against it, and in fact it had been encouraged. Half-breed children might carry some of the vigor of ’faie magic—something that was growing thin in Skala. Fewer wizard-born children were presented at the Orëska House every year.

  Not that Beka had any desire for children. Not yet. She loved Nyal with all her heart, but she lived to serve Klia. Nyal understood that, and had solved the problem by volunteering to become a scout when they returned to Skala. She’d married the handsome ’faie at her parents’ home at Watermead, then had gone back to soldiering with him in the spring, much to her mother’s disappointment. Her father had understood better. She and Micum shared the same restless spirit. He had Seregil and Alec, and the Watchers; she had the cavalry.

  He leaned down and kissed her, not caring if the sentries were watching. “Good hunting, beloved.”

  “And to you, my love.”

  Beka could feel his gaze on her as she walked away to gather her riders, but resisted the urge to look back.

  DUKE Reltheus—a tall, striking man with silver-streaked hair and dark eyes—kept them fairly busy. Their first night on watch, Seregil scaled the back wall, but the house was too well guarded front and back.

  “Looks like we’re going to have to get in by the front door,” he muttered.

  “Hopefully our friend Selin can help us with that,” said Alec.

  The duke’s house had only one main entrance, easily watched, and he came and went during the day at civilized hours over the next week—several times to the Palace, they noted with interest. He was often out in the evenings, as well—without his wife, Palmani, who was still in the days of her birthing confinement—visiting friends and attending Archduchess Alaya’s salon. Not quite the doting husband and father, he spent several evenings in the Street of Lights gambling houses, with a visit to the brothels here and there. From what they observed, his tastes ran solidly to women, including a fair-haired girl at their friend Eirual’s house.

  Dressed as beggars or workmen, Seregil and Alec took shifts shadowing him. It was too risky to ingratiate themselves with any of the servants here in the city where they were known, so they had to content themselves with watching from a distance and awaiting their chance.

  Silvermoon Street was the grandest avenue in the city, home to both the royal Palace and the villas of the most prominent nobles. Alec happened to be on duty in his one-armed beggar’s garb when he saw a carriage leave and caught sight of the duke’s face at the open window. Instead of heading for the Street of Lights, however, the carriage went west.

  It was an easy matter to follow. It had been another muggy day, and many nobles were out taking the air in carriages, on horseback, or on foot. The heavy traffic made for slow going.

  Alec’s dirty, bandaged face and empty right sleeve drew a few disgusted or pitying looks, but little surprise, beggars being a common sight in all parts of the city. His hair was well hidden under a grimy head rag.

  He nearly lost the duke when the carriage turned into Emerald Street. Alec narrowly missed being trampled by a band of drunken horsemen as he dodged across the street, managing to keep the carriage in sight until it turned in at the carved gate of one of the larger villas there, one they hadn’t seen Reltheus go to before.

  The gates remained open but were guarded by several armed men in green livery. Alec waited a few minutes, then limped over to the open gate, holding out his wooden begging bowl. “Penny for a cripple, kind sirs?”

  One of them took out a few pe
nnies and tossed them into his bowl. “Go on now, boy.”

  “Maker’s Mercy, sir. Who’s the master of this fine house?” Alec asked. “Does he have a heart of charity? Maybe a crust in the kitchen?”

  “Marquis Kyrin can’t be bothered with the likes of you!” another guard told him. “Now get before I take my cudgel to you.”

  “Bad luck to hit a beggar,” the kind one said.

  “Worse luck to have the marquis find this creature hanging around the front door. Go on, boy, off with you!”

  Satisfied, Alec made them a fawning bow, then limped away to take up his position across the avenue beneath a tree, waiting for it to get a bit darker to have a closer look. Kyrin had been mentioned in Princess Elani’s letter. Sitting on the ground, he set his bowl in front of him and began to rock slowly back and forth, droning his tale of woe.

  “Maker’s Mercy, kind people, a penny for a cripple,” he whined, keeping his gaze averted from any sharp-eyed acquaintances. Most people ignored him, but some paused to toss a coin or two in his bowl.

  He wasn’t the only one begging among the rich; there were more about this summer than he’d ever seen in the city. Half a dozen other ragged folk had staked out a position as he had, or wandered among the crowd, bowl in hand. A hollow-eyed man with an equally hollow-eyed boy on his shoulder passed by and gave Alec a nod. Some of the rich citizens were generous with these unfortunates; others simply averted their gaze, or looked through the beggars as if they weren’t there. There was no doubt that their sort wasn’t welcomed here, as Alec soon discovered.

  Before he’d collected the price of a cheap meal, rough hands hauled him to his feet and he found himself surrounded by five blue-coated men of the City Watch. One of them ran his hands down Alec’s sides and gave him a nasty grin as he felt Alec’s perfectly good arm hidden beneath his dirty peasant’s smock.

  “By the Flame, look what we have here,” he exclaimed loud enough for some of the well-dressed passersby to hear. A few even stopped. One of them was Lady Mallia, a good friend of theirs, on the arm of some blond nobleman Alec didn’t recognize. Alec kept his head down, heart hammering in his chest.