Sajani laughed. “You ever wonder how he got through his initial studies?”
Simon appeared shocked. “How can you say that, my Lady? He always struck me as the model student—determined and tenacious in his studies. I’m sure he took to the scholarly life of teaching very well.”
“He got fired, didn’t he?”
They both laughed. “Yes, yes.” Simon confessed. “The second time he opened a box of asps as part of his abjuration finals.” They laughed for a good while over that.
“I did get to talk to Westa the day before we left.”
“She’s been pretty busy lately.”
“I was hoping she’d come with me.” Sajani said in a melancholy voice. There was silence for a long moment. “I guess I thought that maybe she’d want…” she trailed off. She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped Westa would want. In her mind she believed that since she was giving up her assignment as Minister of War, Westa would be willing to step down from being Her Most Reverend Mother of the Drtithen Cathedral.
“You’re surprised she didn’t?”
No, Sajani admitted to herself, she hadn’t been surprised. She’d forgotten that Westa now had a son and she felt guilty for forgetting that. Her own mother had left her once. Her mother had left for a risky military assignment, but it was Benayle who came to their home when she was done.
Sajani’s father had not wanted to answer the door that day. He’d pushed aside the curtain to see who had knocked and hastily pulled it back into place. Sajani was ten at the time and she saw the panic in his face. He looked into his daughter’s eyes and the panic turned to sorrow. He did not cry. She could see the internal struggle as he slowly straightened himself up and turned to open the door.
“You are the husband of Lieutenant Colonel Malita Adida?” the vykati with Benayle had asked formally.
“Yes, I am.” He responded slowly and respectfully, motioning for them to enter. “Please come in, gentlemen.”
The two entered and stood awkwardly in the entryway. Benayle caught sight of her and crouched down to her level. “You must be Sajani,” he said. “I’ve come specially to talk to you.”
She’d only ever seen the vykati leader in pictures, but she knew that he was one her parent’s trusted. With her father’s permission, he’d taken her to the next room, still within sight of her father and the priest, and crouched down again. He gave her a hug and then he said, “Your mother is a hero, little Sajani. She saved thousands of vykati.”
He paused for a long while, making several false starts to say something. Then he broke down crying and said, “But heroes don’t always come home, my dear.” She was beginning to comprehend what he was saying. She was afraid, but also fascinated by the wolf who was hurt so much by the loss of her mother. “I’m so very sorry,” he sobbed, “I could not bring her home for you.” They cried together and again at the memorial.
She never saw her father cry over that. He stood stoically as the old priest who had accompanied Benayle explained the detail of his wife’s death. It was years before she knew enough about the nature of people to understand how different that was and how unhealthy it was considered. When she did confront him on it, he said, “I will face her death with the same courage she did.” That was all she could get him to say about it. He cried over other things, but not over the death of his wife.
“She’d have to have left her son.” Simon said. “I can’t imagine she’d do that and there’s no way her husband could go with her.
“I’d forgotten about her son.” Sajani admitted.
Simon didn’t seem to believe her and sounded shocked with his reply, “My dear, surely you didn’t think she should have left him?”
“No,” Sajani said sadly, “No one should ever have to leave her child.” She stopped in the middle of cinching the load and just stared down at the food chest she’d been working on.
Simon came up behind her and placed his good hand on her bent arm. “You would know that, my Lady. You would fight for that on other’s behalf.”
She nodded and clumsily tried to change the subject, clearing her throat roughly, “There was some interesting gossip she had to share about the cathedral…” Simon wouldn’t interrupt her if she was delivering gossip and it gave her a chance to think about something else.
After three days of green, Sajani wasn’t sure she’d recognize any other color. Simon’s arm had started to heal, but he was limited on what he could do and even more limited on what spells he could cast. The rations they had were almost gone and she’d have to take to hunting if they didn’t cross a road soon. There was something about using her arrows that made her nervous and by the end of each day’s travel, she didn’t really feel up to making any sort of trap. By her best guess, they were just over the border to Rhidayar, but there was still no sign of a road, let alone any kind of civilization
They were both unprepared when the shots rang out. A bullet impacted below her shoulder blade, about halfway between her left armpit and the base of her neck. Another grazed the other side of her neck. Sajani painfully dropped from her mount and noticed Simon do the same, although she had no way of knowing if it was because he was hit or because he’d be safer on the ground.
The underbrush hid them long enough for them to circle behind a nearby tree. She tried to peer around the edge once they had their bearings, but was answered with a shot that ricocheted off the trunk and grazed her ear. She was relatively sure that whoever was shooting was not a bad shot, so much as she was very lucky. As she looked back at Simon, he had just finished casting a quick spell.
There’s at least three of them, probably four unless one is very fast at reloading, she thought to herself. She made sure Simon was watching and pointed to her eyes and then to his side of the tree. Watch your side of the tree, she’d told him. He responded by tapping his left index finger to his temple and wiggling his fingers. I have a spell ready, was his response. It made her somewhat relieved that she’d traveled with Simon before.
They’d have to circle around to be able to fire at them again, so she had a moment at least. She began by channeling some healing energy to close their wounds. The spell painfully extracted the bullet from her shoulder, but she was still bleeding. Simon’s wound had closed. Three arrows and three, maybe four targets. They’d already talked about what Simon’s spells could do. A good number of what he’d normally cast required him to move his arm, so he was limited to spells that would disable foes and help protect them. She readied her bow and waited.
Two had apparently come from Simon’s side of the tree. She heard him intone a spell followed by the sound of something heavy falling to the ground. But the second person was ready for him and she saw the conman fall backwards, nearly on top of her. His face was very pale, but he wasn’t dead. His shirt was moist with blood. He’d taken a shot to his upper left chest.
She channeled more healing energy, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop his bleeding. Another shot rang out and she felt the bullet graze her other ear. Sajani could just make out the shooter through the foliage. She let off a shot and was relieved to hear it strike home. If they were lucky the enemy didn’t have a healer, or even an almost healer, like she was.
Simon was working his way back to his side of the tree, but she hardly had time to notice that. The other set of enemies had moved around to her side and opened fire. There were three shots and they all missed her. How many are there, she wondered? She dropped further down and fired off a shot quickly. If it hit its target, there was no way to know. Her guess was that it didn’t, because yet another shot rang out. She revised her guess to six enemies and fired another shot at the only exposed enemy she could see. It connected. More shots answered though.
“Lay down your weapons!” a voice shouted to her, speaking haltingly in the common language. Well, she had to have done some damage, or they’d have just kept fighting.
“One moment!” she shouted back as she grabbed for the loaded flare gun. She heard Simon cast another s
pell and took aim in the direction of the voice.
“Surrender!” the person shouted again.
“Maybe,” she answered back.
“That’s not an answer!” came the response, backed up by another round of bullets.
“No,” she said mostly to herself, “but this is!” Sajani pulled the trigger and watched as the flare left the gun in exaggerated slow motion. She almost cursed to herself when the target dodged easily out of the way. A military flare wouldn’t have gone that slowly, she was sure of it, although she’d never used a flare as a weapon before.
She was hoping that she could get at least an idea of who her enemy was, but they mostly stayed low and just out of sight. Simon seemed to be busy to her right, but after another moment, he fell over again, whether from loss of blood or from a hit from the most recent volley, she couldn’t tell. She fired off the next four rounds of flare in quick succession and missed wildly, throwing the gun from her when she was done. She took two more bullets in the meantime: one had grazed her arm and another had ricocheted painfully into her leg, making it difficult for her to stand. She channeled healing again and grasped for Simon’s old rapier. Simon had managed to get back to his side of the tree and cast another spell.
“Surrender!” came the cry from their opponents again.
She looked over at Simon, who was still very pale. She placed her hands on his shoulders and healed him as best she could. He turned to face her and their gazes locked onto each other for a moment. “You’re not quitting on me now are you, you old gong farmer?”
“Not on your life, you crazy wolf lady!” he answered with surprising flare.
They turned their backs to each other and prepared to step away from the tree. This was it. Maybe if they were fast enough, they could take out the remaining enemies before they were shot down.
Before they had a chance to charge though, they heard Colonel Lahnk’s voice and the sound of many swords being drawn at once and rifles being cocked. “Put down your weapons, scum. Even if I didn’t have you surrounded, I’d take you out with nothing but my rifle, my sword and my wits. Call in the air support and let loose the dogs of war!” The air became full of vykati war howls.
The enemy was either not very bright or very determined to not be taken alive. The exchange of fire lasted several minutes and when it ended, Sergeant Tess appeared from behind their tree. “They only had you outnumbered five to one. It’s a good thing you were down to using a flare gun, or they’d have really been hurting.” Then she caught sight of the bow. “Oh, and maybe a few arrows.”
Sajani was relieved to see the sergeant. “I’ll gladly admit, you and the colonel got here just in time.”
Sergeant Tess smiled. Simon nodded in agreement and bowed deeply. “My good sergeant,” he said while still bowing low, “your timing was impeccable. I’d done all I could, but if you and the good colonel…” he paused when the sergeant and another soldier near her laughed also.
Then Sajani and Sergeant Tess said in unison, the latter in Colonel Lahnk’s voice, “Let loose the dogs of war!” It wasn’t that funny, but it seemed so at that moment.
It had been, apparently, elves. No one had ever actually seen elves before, but the attackers were not human and had the longer, pointed ears they’d heard about in rumors. Their rifles and equipment were also foreign to the vykati and Simon, as were the two floating vehicles they’d arrived on. They didn’t seem to be wearing any kind of protective gear at all, just a tough looking, strangely patterned canvas like cloth. The alien gear was all loaded onto the horses Sergeant Tess and her platoon had arrived with.
Their healer, Doc Cutter, had taken care of both her and Simon’s wounds, including his broken arm. He was now dressed in a spare military uniform top and a pair of much too wide human trousers that Sergeant Tess had the presence of mind to bring. He had tied his sling to the belt loops and used it as suspenders for now.
Sajani paused to examine a curious set of manacles that had been stored in one of the vehicles. She’d assumed that the call of surrender was because she was damaging the enemy, but the possibility they were to take a prisoner was present. The questions she wished could have been answered by the dead were:
Why only one set of shackles?
If they were out to take Sajani or Simon as prisoner, why use the rockets? They risked killing their prisoner. Beyond that, why the vicious ambush? She didn’t feel like they were holding back at all while fighting her.
Were they even after anyone, or did elven troops just randomly carry a single set of manacles with them? And if they were actually after someone, who?
Sergeant Tess explained as they were cleaning up how she’d gone straight to the colonel once she got the watchtower’s report and how the old dog had no problem giving her a platoon to take and examine the crash site and ride after them.
“I’m surprised he didn’t come with you.” Sajani said. “Shame on him! I can’t believe he’d be afraid.”
“Oh, he wasn’t.” Tess reassured her. “He’d have come after you by himself, if General Crore wasn’t there to hold him down.” Sajani laughed and the young sergeant continued, “I mean that literally. General Crore pushed the colonel over and put his foot on his face to keep him from getting up. He had to order a nearby soldier three times to restrain the colonel so he could remove his foot. No one wanted to embarrass Crusty, even if it was for his own good.”
Both Simon and Sajani looked very shocked. “Knocked him over?” Sajani repeated.
“Colonel Lahnk is getting pretty old, my Lady.” Tess explained softly. “He won’t admit it of course and hides it fairly well, but…” she trailed off.
Simon tactfully cleared his throat and changed the subject. “How close was that watchtower? I realize that it’d be impossible to know the location of all vykati watch towers, my lady,” he nodded to Sajani, “but I’m surprised we didn’t see it from the air.”
Sergeant Tess laughed. “You’re not supposed to see it from the air!” Sajani motioned to Simon as if to ask why he hadn’t asked her earlier. “And,” the sergeant continued, “You were about eight kilometers away. It’s just that you were very noticeable, even from that far. So, once you lowered your altitude so that the safety spells would function, it would have been impossible for you to see it. If you’d stayed around…” she trailed off.
“I’m glad I didn’t though. Ten of them? It looked like two could have manned it just fine.” Sajani said. “Why so many just to take out a warden and a conman? Too many questions and I don’t have time to worry about them. Now I get to hire a crew without any money…”
“Can’t you just send for more from Mr. Benayle?” Tess asked. Simon smiled when she said it.
“None of it was from Benayle to begin with. The government is commissioning them, but so far is not funding the privateers themselves.”
“He’d send some for you though, wouldn’t he?”
“If I asked, but I’d rather not.”
Simon then stood and struck a pose, beckoning them to look at him. He actually managed to look a little better than your average vagabond beggar. “My dears, worry not. You have with you now, the extraordinary Sir Simon Francis. No task is beyond my ability.”
“Or beneath it, you insane gong farmer.” Sajani added. They all laughed and felt better for it.
Xahusha was a typical Rhidayar city, with many of the public buildings being rounded and topped with onion domes and the streets having extra-large gutters to accommodate monsoon season. It had only just recently come to prominence as a trade center with the vykati as Benayle’s public policies encouraged greater tolerance between the two nations (an ingratiating lowering of vykati standards, his critics said.)
Their arrival was slightly complicated from being escorted by a platoon of wolf pack soldiers, but between Simon’s knowledge of the diplomatic relations of the area and the hastily prepared paperwork Sergeant Tess had brought with her, they were able to cross into the city with minimal trauma. The lo
cal vykati embassy provided enough money for Sajani and Simon to have their clothing situation taken care of, saving them the embarrassment of asking Sergeant Tess for coin.
The embassy had tried to argue against helping Simon at all, but after a good tongue lashing from Sajani, the worker called in the ambassador, possibly hoping for backup to his decision. The ambassador was an elderly and dignified vykati named Ghenis. He entered slowly, leaning heavily on a metal cane, and sat down carefully at the chair provided for him.
Then he sat patiently listening to all the underling had to say, the whole time a slow smolder growing in his eyes, until the worker had finished. He nodded a few times to himself and then started speaking. “Gajini and Ramisi spare me!” he began, referencing the Aspects of governance. He then left little doubt as to his thoughts. Sajani thought the poor worker was going to be beaten over the head with the ambassador’s cane at a few points during the verbal onslaught that followed. Apparently, his job didn’t allow him enough options to fully express his feelings, she found herself jokingly thinking.
After the sight of the old man’s fury, the lesser diplomat grudgingly admitted that perhaps one who had “provided such valiant aide on behalf of the protection and well-being of our former Minister of War” warranted two gold in clothing allowance. Ambassador Ghenis nodded once solidly and rose to hobble out the room. He apparently couldn’t pass up the chance for a parting shot though, “See that you have ten silver taken from your own pay in demerits and add the amount to the general expense fund, for things like this.”
It’d been years since she’d worried about such a small sum. It wouldn’t take all of her two gold to repair her clothing (it wasn’t enough to replace her lost armor) and the extra would go for the new top hat she felt she owed her friend. She hadn’t realized before how iconic that hat was for him. He took missing it in stride, just like he’d always taken any setback the two had encountered through the years, or perhaps it just seemed insignificant compared to the loss of his beloved Wisp.
He had to be a true friend. There had not even been the slightest hint of blame in the days since they’d been ambushed, even though they both knew that the elves were much more likely to be targeting the former Minister of War than a simple flimflam artist. While she knew the friendship had great value before, she’d never placed a specific amount on it, let alone the value of an airship. Did a friendship have to be backed by the number of times they’d saved each other’s lives to reach such a value?
Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1) Page 5