by R. K. Thorne
“Curse you.” Jenec spat on the ground. “You’re going to lead our land to ruin for your own selfish purposes.”
“Selfish? Trying to defend us from Kavanar is selfish?” Aven swaggered toward him, taking his time, emphasizing that he wasn’t affected by the calming spell.
“Selfish. You’re just under the spell of that mage. You’re doing whatever she tells you, including putting a mage on the throne.”
Aven snorted. “A mage is already on the throne, if you hadn’t noticed. And magic doesn’t work like that.” At least her magic didn’t. “And this war has nothing to do with her.”
The war would have happened with or without Miara. Wouldn’t it have?
Just then, Aven caught a hint of movement by Jenec’s belt. His hand had found its way to his sword pommel. Aven had been leaving that group for last to disarm because if the mages woke up, it would change the situation dramatically.
Aven stopped about five feet short of the group. Siliana had made her way closer and stood at the tent’s far side, eying Jenec warily.
“This war has everything to do with her. I don’t think you’d be fighting it if it weren’t for her. All those dead are her fault and yours.” Jenec was trembling now. Aven wasn’t sure if it was from rage or because he was fighting against the calming spell or something else altogether.
“Her fault?” Aven whispered. “You have some audacity to blame your treachery and betrayal on a woman who’s not even here.”
“You’re the traitor!” Jenec hissed, succeeding in drawing his sword an inch from the scabbard before stopping. “Evil, filthy mage scum—” As if he was heaving a great weight, his neck muscles strained and his face contorted as he forced his arm to move and his blade to slide from the scabbard. He staggered a step toward Aven.
Aven shook his head, not moving. “You sold us out to Kavanar. Death is the least you deserve for all the lives you’ve taken.”
He tossed the pack aside, drew his sword, and rested the blade against his shoulder, staring Jenec down. Waiting.
Jenec started forward, at first halting and uneven, then growing more certain. Aven steadied his breath. The footfalls sped up.
The lieutenant’s blade flashed, and Aven caught it, blocking and twisting it aside. Jenec countered with a slash upward, and Aven hopped quickly aside as he easily brought his blade to bear again. He heaved a gust of wind forward at the same time, knocking his opponent back.
Jenec’s wide eyes hardened to a scowl. “Fight fair, you bastard.”
“Like you fought the thousand who lie dead in the road?” Aven snapped. “Was that fair?”
Growling, Jenec surged forward again, sword raised overhead for a powerful blow. Aven’s blade hovered at eye level, and he shifted, expecting a feint, but no. Down the blow came.
Aven caught it near the cross guard and bound the two blades together, the two of them nearly eye to eye. He could feel Jenec’s breath—breath stolen from a thousand others who lay rotting on the road.
Lightning flickered up his sword, unbidden, and he twisted, driving down, forcing Jenec’s wrist back and the blade toward his feet. The flash of lightning charged down the length of Aven’s blade and up Jenec’s, and the sword fell from his hands, even as Aven continued the twist and drove the point of his steel into the traitor’s gut.
The lieutenant froze. Hands burned black hung limply for a moment before clutching at his stomach. Blood, dark and red, soaked through his gambeson and peeked out along the blade’s edge. Aven drew back viciously at an angle. Jenec groaned and collapsed to his knees.
“How could you betray them all?” Aven whispered. “What, was it for coin?”
“I did, and I’d do it again.” Jenec spat again, and this time blood splattered the earth. “And no, not coin.”
“What then.”
“Magic is too powerful to sit on the throne. And too evil. Even now, look at you. You’re corrupted by it.”
Aven narrowed his eyes. “They were your friends, your colleagues. They trusted you. I trusted you, and so did Dyon.”
“An unfortunate but necessary price.”
“Why? Why is it necessary?” Aven kicked dirt at the man in frustration.
“Because you’ve corrupted our monarchy. The Kavanarians were willing to help us restore leadership untainted by mages.”
“Restore leadership?” Aven laughed incredulously. “You mean, their leadership. After you help them wipe out our entire army, who would oppose them? By the gods.”
“No!” Jenec said, blinking. His hands clutching his stomach were almost fully red with blood now, but he wasn’t pale. He had a lot more bleeding to do before the gods would judge him. “No, they wouldn’t—”
“Oh, you fool,” Aven whispered. “Of course they would.”
Jenec raised his chin. “It doesn’t matter. Anything is better than a mage as king.”
Aven took a deep breath, knowing what he needed to do, something hardening inside him. “Lieutenant Jenec, you are hereby accused and found guilty of treason against the crown and the murder of hundreds of your fellow soldiers. I sentence you to death.”
Aven raised the sword and swept it down, slashing into Jenec’s neck just deep enough to draw blood before pulling back. That was a wound that would hasten his meeting with the gods.
Jenec, eyes wide with surprise, fell from his knees to his side, sputtering. Coldly, Aven wiped the blood off the blade on the traitor’s trouser leg and watched the life drain from him for one heartbeat, two. Finally, Jenec’s eyes stared out into the forest, empty and blank.
Justice. But it wouldn’t bring back a single one of the people he’d lost.
He swallowed. One traitor down. Eight more to go.
“Siliana.”
“Yes, my lord?” To her credit, her voice was solid, and it steadied him. She strode closer but stopped well short of Jenec. “Most of the prisoners are recovered and can follow, when you’re ready.”
“Good. Take that stone they had on you and put it on their leader. Then bind the mages every way you can think of. Vines, webs, whatever you think will hold them the longest.”
“Just the mages, sire?” She hadn’t caught on yet.
“Yes, just the mages. They’re slaves; they had no other option than to attack us. The others… Well, they made their choice.”
He wasn’t sure if the sadness in her eyes was more for him or them, and he didn’t care.
The discomfort of her stone prison was starting to become unbearable, and it had only been a few hours. Or so it seemed. The room around her prison was still hopelessly dark and perfectly quiet, except for the sound of a fire burning in a hearth somewhere she couldn’t see. If it cast much light, it wasn’t doing her any good. It seemed to be night, unless she was simply deep underground. The lack of any references to time or geography left her a bit disoriented, and her swimming, pounding head didn’t help matters.
Incredibly, she must have found some way to sleep in spite of the torturous stone—or she’d passed out from exhaustion, because she roused to something cold poking her calf.
“Tell me where the brand is.” A lantern sat on the floor, sadly well out of reach, and its light was just enough for her to make out the wide skirts and scowling features. Evana. She had an iron hearth poker in her hand and was prodding Miara’s leg. Finally awake, she kicked the thing away, only regretting the hurt to the sole of her foot a little.
“I told you. I don’t know where it is.” At this moment, that was technically true.
“I have something that might change your mind.” Evana gestured to the doorway, and the form of a woman appeared out of the darkness. She walked in slowly, dragging her feet, as if she knew something dreadful awaited her here.
She was probably right.
“This is the mage who helped us capture you. After you killed the healer—”
“Killed him?” Miara exclaimed. “I didn’t kill him. I don’t kill people.” Except for Sorin, but that had been part accide
nt, part self-defense.
Evana raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I’m fairly certain you did. Not a wound on him but the blood from his nose. And elsewhere. Crushed his brain like the evil monstrosity you are. There was no one else there when we arrived, so it must have been you.”
Miara tightened her hands around the bars at that. “What about Kalan?”
“Who?”
“My attendant.”
“You had ladies-in-waiting, even?” Evana scoffed. “Those Akarians should be ashamed of themselves.”
Well, at least that meant maybe Kalan had gotten away.
“No matter. This mage also helped us transform the healer’s body into yours. So likely everyone you love thinks you are dead.” Evana smiled.
Miara narrowed her eyes. “You’re not going to get away with this,” she said softly.
“Watch me.” She looked to the mage and pointed at the floor. “Kneel down.” The woman complied, her face darkening further.
“What are you doing?” Miara whispered.
“Tell me where the brand is. Now.”
“I told you I don’t know.”
“Tell me, or I’ll kill her.” She looked to one of the Devoted who stood guarding the door. He stepped forward, dagger proffered. The mage woman’s eyes widened, and she looked up at Miara with pleading green eyes.
Miara stared back, faltering. Could she give up the brand and her friends? Could she watch this woman die for not doing so?
An impossible choice. Jaena and Tharomar, compared to this stranger? How could she choose the life of a slave over giving them the power to enslave hundreds more? All mages everywhere?
No. The brand must be destroyed. Even if it cost this mage her life. And Miara’s too.
“Kill me instead,” Miara offered quickly. “I can’t help you. I don’t know where the brand is. You can still use her.”
But Evana was smiling. “You reveal yourself, foolish girl. Do you think I haven’t been paying attention, watching you weigh her life against the brand’s location? You’ve made your choice but told me what I wanted to know. You know exactly where it is.”
“Then you don’t need to kill her, if you learned what you want to know,” Miara said desperately, hope kindling.
“I’m afraid I do. I want the brand. Unless you’d care to reverse your decision?”
“I can’t,” Miara whispered, more to the woman than to Miara. That didn’t lessen the panic in the woman’s eyes.
“So be it.”
Miara reeled back, sharp crystal or no. Her whole body ached, her feet screamed with pain, and now her soul and her mind shrieked too, but she couldn’t look away as she watched the knight slice the woman’s throat.
The blood spurted fast, then slower, draining into a huge, languid puddle on the floor.
“What do we do now?” Siliana said, mounting up one of the horses Aven had led and tied off along the road closest to the camp. “How long do you think that will last?”
“The calming spell? I have no idea. Never tried it before. You seemed to get the prisoners out of it quickly enough.” Along with twenty or so escapees, they had about half that many horses, which was an immediate problem. They might have to leave some soldiers behind and send help back from the next town they reached. Perhaps Siliana could transform them and carry them somehow, but he wasn’t sure the men would be up for any more magic so soon. Or ever. “Dyon, are you feeling all right?”
Dyon cleared his throat as he settled himself in the saddle. “With so many dead? I’ve been better.”
“But after the spell. Are you feeling normal again?”
Dyon nodded. “Mostly. I think what’s left is only shock.”
“Well, there’s that, but we woke you up. It could last indefinitely, for all I know. If that’s the case, fine with me. But the safest course is to assume it won’t last much longer.” He didn’t mention the dead man, but Jenec had fought his way through the spell at the end too, so he assumed that meant it had been weakening. “We should get moving.”
Still, he didn’t move his horse.
“Which way?” Siliana asked.
“Keep going to the southern regiment?” Dyon asked, turning his horse north. Aven was impressed the man knew which direction was which.
“About that.” Aven winced now. How much bad news could this day bring? “I checked it when I was looking for you two. It was… in flames.”
Dyon’s eyes widened slightly. Too slightly. Yes, shock indeed. “So…”
“It and its regiment are lost.”
The tirade of swearing that erupted from Dyon was like nothing Aven had ever heard. He glanced up the road. Anonil had fallen, and the southern stronghold too. There were towns along the road to Anonil, but they were likely beset by Kavanarians too. They could head south, fall back to Panar, maybe even give those bodies the rites they deserved. Or he supposed they could try to head east to Dramsren, although there was no straight road leading that way until closer to Anonil, which could mean they’d run into Kavanarians before then.
And there were so few of them now.
“I’m sorry, my lord, my lady,” Dyon said, recovering slightly.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Aven said.
Siliana shrugged. “You said what I was thinking.”
At that, Dyon snorted. “All right. She’s right. What do we do?”
“We could try to head north and then east into Dramsren, or cut straight east through the forest. But it’s a few days’ ride. I could probably keep the snow off us if it threatens, actually, but still. No one’s expecting us there. Or we could return south.”
“With our tail between our legs.” Dyon spat in disgust.
“Focus on what comes next. If we head to Dramsren, and their forces head to Panar…”
“Beneral is there, with two regiments. Plus the city guard. Miara, Elise, Jaena, the others. They’re not without defense.”
Aven nodded. “True. And there are no mages in Dramsren right now. You can see what kind of slaughter it could be.”
“But there’s still only two of us,” Siliana said. “We couldn’t do much against twelve.”
“And there could be more than twelve that show up there.” He sighed. “A lot more.” The truth was even being outnumbered two-to-one was a huge disadvantage, and they were looking at much worse odds.
“I know you don’t relish returning in defeat,” Siliana said, “but after all this, I have to admit I think we should pool our forces. Our magical ones, I mean. All in Panar.”
Maybe he should have brought all the mages with them here. Then maybe they’d have had a shot. But that was impossible. The brand had to stay as far from enemy hands as possible, and they couldn’t recruit more mages if no one stayed in Panar. But was there even time for that? Things were getting worse very, very quickly.
“How many mages were we facing?” Dyon asked. “It looked like only a handful.”
“I counted twelve.”
The lord winced. “And you said there are five hundred, Aven?”
“Well, we haven’t confirmed that. We haven’t seen where they have which ones and how many. We can’t tell which are unarmored soldiers and which are mages—and technically the mages could be armored.”
“I suppose it’s too much to ask that they wear a sign.”
Aven snorted. “You could send them a letter perhaps. Also ask them to please leave, while you’re at it.” He glanced back over his shoulder toward the campsite in the distance. They were a half mile perhaps down the road, not at all close, but it also wasn’t wise to linger. “Let’s start south.”
Dyon swallowed even as he eased his horse into motion. “Then we’ll pass… the remains again. There might be more horses for the others.”
“Yes.” Aven nodded gravely as his horse began its way south. “I had wanted to give the dead some kind of rites—”
“We can’t,” Dyon said quickly. “The mages we escaped will know right where to look for us then. They’ll check t
here first.”
Aven groaned. “Can nothing go right today?”
As it turned out, they ran into other people before they reached the bodies. As they rode up, they spotted new fires blazing on either side of the road. Aven stopped, dumbfounded. The night was pitch-black, the moon hidden behind clouds, but in the dim firelight, he could see people moving from one fallen soldier to another in the darkness.
“Scavengers?” he whispered, barely containing a swelling edge of rage.
Siliana put a hand over her mouth. But Dyon surged forward, undeterred. Or perhaps indignant.
“Halt. Who goes there?”
“Who wants to know?” called a voice farther back. It sounded strangely familiar and carried a hint of authority. A thin figure straightened and began walking toward them.
“I am Lord Dyon of Liren, in the company of the king. And who are you?”
Aven winced, not entirely sure he wanted that to be known. Too late now.
“The king?” someone said, laughing a little.
“What’s the king doin’ out here with a lord and lady and a bunch of fools on foot in the middle of the night?”
“The king of tricksters, he means, methinks. What does he take us for?”
Dyon cleared his throat and glared haughtily. “I command you, in the name of King Aven Lanuken of Akaria, not to take anything from those bodies.”
“He thinks we’re common thieves,” another voice muttered, amused.
“Barbarians, eh?”
“We didn’t leave the road full of the dead,” said another.
The thin figure who’d first spoken had almost reached them now, coming into the light of the nearest fire. “King Aven, is it?”
“Regin!” Aven dismounted as fast as he could and ran to the wiry old man, throwing his arms around him. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“Certainly not here, I’d wager,” said Regin, patting Aven’s shoulder and smiling slightly.
Dyon cleared his throat. “You two—know each other?”
Aven nodded. “Our paths crossed ways once, not so long ago.”