Fields of Wrath

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Captain studied Imorelda from all sides. “I thought your companion was the one with the cat.”

  Tae saw no reason to delve into details. They would have more than enough time for small talk on the voyage. “Matrinka’s infected me with her craziness, and Imorelda’s no ordinary cat.”

  *So now it’s crazy to associate with a cat?*

  Tae had known Imorelda would take offense, the reason he had added the second part of his comment. *It’s a bit crazy to carry one on a ship. Would you even agree to come if I didn’t need you?*

  *You always need me. You’re helpless without me.*

  Tae chose not to argue. He could not risk upsetting her when his life, and so many others, relied upon her bridging the gap between his mental abilities and those of the enemy.

  Captain reached a tentative hand toward Imorelda. “Nothing about you is ordinary, Tae Kahn. Like arriving without escort when the whole of Béarn is out looking for you. And jumping onto a captain’s ship without requesting permission to board and not getting yourself incidentally skewered.”

  Tae looked over Captain, for show rather than any necessary reason. Other than a utility knife, Captain never carried a weapon. “Were you planning to ‘skewer’ me with your bare hands?”

  “No,” Captain admitted. “I thought I’d leave that to the rampant Renshai that King Griff chose to accompany us.”

  Tae stiffened involuntarily and dropped to a wary crouch. He could not believe he had missed someone else on board, especially one quick enough to kill him. Imorelda’s claws penetrated deeper.

  A sinewy figure stepped from the shadows of the mast. “I’m not rampant enough to kill the charge I’m here to protect.” Bronze-colored braids dangled around a circular, female face; and gray eyes studied Tae fiercely.

  Tae recognized Rantire immediately. Appointed by Ravn to keep Griff safe prior to the day he took the throne, Rantire took her work seriously. Rigidly dedicated, she guarded him so tightly he could scarcely move. Had any king other than Griff assigned her to him, Tae would have believed he did so from selfish reasons, to rid himself of her overbearing presence. But Tae would never ascribe such motives to innocent, kind-hearted Griff. More likely, he had wanted Tae to have the most devoted guardian he could find, just as he had insisted on the most competent sailor.

  The captain placed a loving hand on the foremast. “Shipmaster, when do you wish to set sail?”

  Tae laughed. “You’re the shipmaster, Captain.” He stopped himself from adding that the elf should determine the time of launching. Though Captain had spent the majority of his millennia on Midgard and had the most human mannerisms of his kind, he still might not recognize the urgency of this quest. Tae would have preferred an immediate departure, if only to forestall the teasing he deserved for spying on those openly seeking him without recognizing their goal. “Did you know there’s another group of us preparing to meet with the elves?”

  Captain nodded. “King Griff mentioned it.”

  “Have you spoken with them? I’m sure they could use your guidance.”

  Captain’s features turned pensive, more alien. “Really?” He chuckled. “Then they truly are desperate.”

  “Would you mind trying to help them, at least?” Tae gestured toward the castle built into the mountain. “I’m sure they would appreciate anything you might know.” He added casually, “And I’m sure Rantire would like one more night to prepare. We’ll meet back here in the morning and cast off before lunch.”

  Imorelda saw through him. *You sneak. You’re looking for a way to ditch the bodyguard.*

  It bothered Tae that Imorelda knew him better than he knew himself. He had not yet considered his motives in such detail. *Do you want to travel with her? Let alone try to spy in secret while she’s all over us? At the first sign of trouble, she’ll want to fight, six hundred to two. I work much better when no one knows I’m around.*

  Imorelda shook out her fur. *You don’t have to justify it to me. I hate her.*

  Tae kept himself from frowning. He always tried not to allow his mental conversations to leech into physical expression. Imorelda could read his moods through the process and did not require it, and she could not see his face while perched on his shoulders anyway. *Hatred’s not fair or reasonable. She’s only doing her job; and she’s expert at it.* Trying to play both sides did not suit Tae. *It’s just, I’m not an heir to Béarn’s throne, so her job doesn’t include me. Even if her master ordered it.*

  Tae clambered back onto the dock. Captain sprang up after him. He offered a hand to Rantire, who refused it with a glare, then leaped to the dock with a dexterity that rivaled his own.

  *You know, you promised Griff you’d take his sailor and bodyguard.*

  Tae remembered his exact phrasing. *Actually, I promised I would take his sailor and a Renshai bodyguard. All I have to do is find one a bit less . . . impassioned.*

  Imorelda made a sound like a single, tamped purr. *A restrained Renshai? Good luck.*

  *I know just the one.* Tae could think of no Renshai he would prefer to have accompany him more than Saviar, though he recognized the irony. When they had traveled together, Ra-khir’s rigid honor had driven Tae to insanity; yet it was the manners Ra-khir had instilled in his son that made Saviar the most contemplative and easygoing of the Renshai. Tae only wished the twins had not disappeared shortly after the war. *Unfortunately, I don’t know if I can find him.*

  *You’d have had a lot better chance if you hadn’t wasted the day playing hide-and-seek with Béarn’s guardsmen.*

  Tae could hardly argue. *You’re right, as usual, my love.*

  They headed in silence toward Béarn Castle, each, apparently, lost in his or her own thoughts. Tae realized he did not have enough time to travel all the way to the Fields of Wrath to choose the best Renshai to accompany him. He would have to content himself with one already at the palace, which might prove difficult. Most, if not all, of the Renshai remaining in Béarn had been assigned to guard a particular heir who they would not abandon. In fact, Griff had probably chosen Rantire because she was redundant, free to leave on the quest whether or not she wanted to do so.

  Tae’s thoughts next went to the only Renshai in his command. Subikahn’s lover, Talamir, led a phalanx of the Eastern army by a strange twist of fate. Tae had condemned the Renshai to death before being called to Béarn. In Tae’s absence, Weile Kahn had stayed the execution and elevated Talamir to his current position. Tae now appreciated his father’s interference. A skilled and good man would have died, and Subikahn would never have forgiven him.

  Tae contemplated the thought of traveling with Talamir as his bodyguard. Though initially uncomfortable, the trip might give the two an opportunity to bond, to use their mutual love of Subikahn to become uneasy friends. Tae had grown up with the understanding that sodomy was repellent, shameful and loathsome, a capital crime without excuse or reason. Changing lifelong thought patterns did not come easily to anyone, and shifting his perceptions from Talamir as corruptor of his son to treasured by his son was a slow and painful process for Tae.

  The troops had come to appreciate Talamir’s intelligence and competence with a sword. Quick-thinking and -acting, he had won them over, as well as Weile Kahn, Subikahn, and even, grudgingly, Tae himself. Tae supposed weeks trapped on a ship with Talamir might force him to gain new insights, perhaps even teach him to value the Renshai as a general and a future son-in-law.

  Though logical, Tae discarded the thought. He preferred Talamir to Rantire as a traveling companion, but his army needed all of its lieutenants to guide them in Béarn and bring them safely home. Tae required his wits about him on this mission, and he did not know if dealing with an issue fraught with emotional peril might distract him. Even the in-laws of arranged marriages did not always get along with one another, and he still had serious conflicting feelings about the entire situation.

  Whil
e Captain and Rantire went directly to Béarn Castle, Tae found himself avoiding it without intention, instinctively choosing a path that took him to the outskirts of Béarn. For some time, he meandered along the edges of the mountain city, no attention given to location or goal, lost in thoughts of the upcoming mission. He did not want to talk to anyone at the palace, not to Matrinka, not to Darris, not to Griff, not to anyone who might mention Rantire.

  Tae did not know how long he had wandered aimlessly, but his shoulders ached from the weight of the cat, his gut growled from missing dinner, and he suddenly realized he had no clear idea where he was. The sun was slipping below the western horizon. The world around him had become shrouded in gray, premature dusk created by the confluence of trees, and the stony city streets had given way to dirt pathways lined with brush. Just to Tae’s left, something moved, an inky shadow slightly denser than the surrounding darkness. Wariness seized him. His heart quickened, and he trained his gaze fanatically on the figure, even as it disappeared into silent immobility.

  For a long time, Tae remained in place, trying to visually carve the figure from the darkness again. Human, he believed, or perhaps elfin, it moved with a natural grace and a well-trained ability to lose itself in shadow. Patiently, he watched the spot where he had last seen it, eventually rewarded by another movement as it glided deeper into the trees. Tae hesitated, wondering why he felt compelled to follow it. While in the woods, it posed him no threat, and he had no wish to face a bear or even a large deer so far from anyone who could assist him. However, with thoughts of spying on the Kjempemagiska foremost in Tae’s mind, it occurred to him that he had to worry for the enemy having the same idea. They had not come to the war wholly ignorant.

  The idea that he might have discovered an enemy spy became an obsession. Worried to lose track of the other, Tae followed the slithering figure soundlessly through the woodlands, taking care not to snap a twig, rattle brush or shuffle a pile of old leaves. The longer he followed, the more certain he became that it was human or, at least, humanoid. It moved with a wary caution that suggested it, too, fretted over making a revealing noise, and its pauses seemed more deliberate and well-timed than an animal. Then, abruptly, it disappeared.

  Damn. Tae shuffled cautiously forward, parsing shadows, seeking anything out-of-place as the setting sun made his job progressively more difficult. At length, he discovered something small, glinting red in the gathering dusk. Tae approached it cautiously, inching toward it with a slow steadiness intended to hide his movement. As he edged forward, he suffered an internal buzz of warning, a sensation of twice-seeing, as if he had lived this precise moment before. It reminded him of a maneuver he had invented: leaving a small, metallic object, usually a coin, in the path he had been following, as a distraction, before doubling straight back behind his pursuers. Tae froze in place.

  *Above!* Imorelda shouted suddenly in his head. She leaped from his shoulders.

  Tae dodged sideways. The weight intended to land fully atop him caught him a glancing blow instead. That proved enough to drive him off his balance. He toppled, attempted to roll, to catch his feet under him. The other was faster, more agile. It scrambled on top of him. In an instant, cold steel touched his throat. Tae went utterly still.

  Images flashed into Tae’s mind. It shocked him how many times he had found himself in similar situations. He reached for the solace of knowing he had escaped all of them, though never unscathed. This time, he had a hidden partner, Imorelda, who could change the odds. *Imorelda, stay out of sight.*

  The cat gave him nothing in return, only an insolent silence laced with something he could not quite identify.

  A familiar voice hissed into Tae’s ear. “You move, you’re dead.”

  Suddenly, Tae recognized the emotion in Imorelda’s sending. The cat was strangely amused by the situation. Obeying the order, he rolled an eye toward the man pinning him to the ground. “Subikahn? Is that you?”

  “Papa?” The sword retreated from Tae’s throat. The weight left him.

  Tae scrambled to his feet and whirled to face his only son. Subikahn looked thinner even than usual, his black hair a snarl, his dark eyes haunted, and his clothing covered in filth and burrs of every variety. He threw himself at the boy, this time wrapping him into a joyous embrace. “Have you taken up purse-snatching and ambush?”

  Subikahn hugged his father, stepped back, and sheathed his ever-present sword. “I was just coming home. You came skulking after me.” He grinned. “By the way, that distract and double-back trick really works.”

  Tae brushed dirt off his front and grumbled, “Yeah, it’s a gem.”

  Imorelda stepped into view. *Normal families just exchange greetings, hugs, and kisses.*

  Torn between appreciating his son’s competence and concern for his own, Tae did not feel much like bantering. *Is this the first you’ve noticed we’re not a ‘normal family’? Because the mother living halfway across the world and married to another man should have given you a hunch.*

  Gingerly, Subikahn hefted Imorelda, petting her in all the right places while she purred contentedly. She seemed happy to disengage from the conversation.

  Tae tried to make his question sound casual. “So, is Saviar with you?”

  “No.” Subikahn frowned so forcefully, Tae could see it through the gloom.

  That surprised Tae, who suspected he was not getting the entire story. “No? When you both disappeared at the same time, I figured you’d gone off together. Ra-khir said he saw Saviar when he took Chymmerlee home.”

  “Saw Saviar?” Subikahn studied his father. “Is that what he said?”

  Tae had no trouble remembering. “Exactly.”

  “Did he mention the shouting match? The threats?”

  “No.” Tae realized Subikahn had just answered his first concern. “So you were with Saviar.”

  “Only if you consider sneaking around behind him without his knowledge to see what he’s up to being with him.”

  Tae had done the same thing to Ra-khir, Darris, Matrinka, and Kevral so many times he had lost count. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Oh.” That seemed to catch Subikahn off guard. “Then I was with Saviar. And the Knights of Erythane, too.”

  “Hmmm. I can’t help but notice the knights have returned, you have returned, and Saviar has not . . . returned.”

  Subikahn’s hands balled to fists at his sides. “Saviar . . . is a moron.”

  “And Calistin?”

  “A bully . . . and a moron.”

  Tae could not resist trying, “And Subikahn?”

  Subikahn hesitated. “A bonta.” He used the Eastern vulgar term for a homosexual, a word he knew his father despised.

  Tae ignored the impropriety in an attempt to mend the relationship with his son. “. . . and a moron?”

  Subikahn sighed. “Probably. But not as big a moron as either of my brothers.”

  “Ah.” Tae feigned sudden understanding. “So the size of the moronicism is significant. And the lesser of morons gets a pass.”

  Subikahn managed a chuckle.

  Tae wrapped an arm around his son’s shoulder and steered him toward Béarn. “You don’t usually put Saviar in the same category as Calistin when it comes to acting stupidly.”

  Subikahn walked along with his father, still clutching Imorelda. “Trust me, Papa. This time, he deserves it.”

  “What did he do?”

  Subikahn shook his head. “I promised not to tell.”

  Tae groaned but did not press. “Never make a vow to a Knight of Erythane or any of his offspring. Haven’t I taught you that yet?”

  “Over and over again, but I don’t seem to get the message.” Subikahn sighed again. “His heart’s in the right place. He’s just lucky no one’s shoved a dagger through it.”

  Tae shivered involuntarily. Such phrasing always took him back to his own chi
ldhood, when enemies of his father had murdered his mother, stabbed Tae sixteen times, and left him for dead. He still had vicious scars, including one directly over his heart. Thus far, he had refused to explain them to his son, so he knew Subikahn had not deliberately baited him. “Saviar’s just like his father, you know.”

  “Yeah, well. I can hardly hold that against him. I resemble mine quite a bit, too.”

  Tae nodded. Not only did Subikahn resemble him physically, the younger man had used his own trick against him to great effect. Whenever Tae doubled back, he either found a better hiding place or put as much distance between himself and his pursuers as he could. Trained as a warrior, Subikahn chose a more confrontational approach.

  “Including some of his idiotic ideas.”

  “Idioticisms,” Tae corrected, deliberately wrongly. Playing with words came as naturally to him as swords did to Renshai.

  Tae stopped suddenly. He could not recruit Saviar, apparently; but he did have a shot at another Renshai, a better choice than Rantire or Talamir, at least. “Subikahn, would you be interested in helping out your dear old Papa?”

  Subikahn came to a halt so fluidly anyone watching might not know who had initiated it. “I don’t have a ‘dear, old’ Papa. I have a hardheaded, obnoxious, young Papa. You were my age when I was born.”

  Tae never liked it when the conversation went in this direction, although it bothered him less since learning of his son’s sexual orientation. The one clear advantage to a male lover was the impossibility of accidental pregnancy. “But now I’m your age plus your age and feeling every year. I’ll be starting my fifth decade soon.”

  “You’re thirty-eight, Papa. You’re hardly a swaybacked old nag ready for pasture.”

  Tae resumed walking, and Subikahn, again, joined him seamlessly. “I can’t kick your ass anymore.”

  “In your prime, you couldn’t kick my mother’s ass, and you couldn’t kick mine since I turned nine. We’d have been worthless Renshai if you could.”