Unbound Heart

by Jane Atchley

  Since the disastrous raid on his camp, Duncan strove to improve his accessibility, but apparently, he had not done enough. “I depend upon your honesty, Eamon, for without Captain Fawr to do the job, who else will tell me I am self-absorbed? Red Fist?”

  “What has Red Fist done now?” Bird reined alongside them.

  “Rather ask what you haven’t done.” Eamon laughed. “Duncan accuses you of not telling him he’s too contemplative.”

  “We thought he knew. Hell, the broody son-of-a-bitch goes for hours without a word, then, he blinks and comes out with a brilliant new idea that makes us all look like geniuses. It’s why we love him.”

  The broody son-of-a-bitch did not appreciate the imagery. Duncan glared at his man, and gestured toward the line of dust-covered infantry passing their position. “What do you think of today’s progress, Bird?”

  In answer, his sergeant major put both his hands around his throat and made choking noises.

  “I agree. We must lose the camp followers, the baggage train, and half the infantry if we expect to reach Cabot Crossing ahead of our enemy.”

  The trio turned their horses and cantered toward the front of the column. Duncan’s dog loped along beside him.

  “Which half?” Bird shouted. “The half we trust or the half we don’t?”

  As if commenting on the trooper’s remark Azure made the half-bark half-howl chortle that was solely her own. Duncan threw his head back and laughed. “I will make a strategist of you yet.”

  ****

  Cabot Crossing sprawled on the western bank of the Stirgra, connecting the Great Key Lakes to the sea. Vessels of every description unloaded goods, passengers, and rowdy sailors into her streets. Travelers making for Elhar ferried across the river here.

  Duncan abandoned the slow-moving infantry and pushed his cavalry hard, reaching the strategic city ahead of the advancing enemy army. A relieved populace waved them through the cobbled streets with cheers and shouts. Usually when cheering town folk greeted the cavalry, Duncan was just another trooper in a dragon’s eye blue uniform overshadowed by the garrison’s famous captain. Today he was the uncomfortable focus of the citizens’ relief. He did not share their confidence. Cities did not favor cavalry. He hoped to surprise the AOD outside the city walls, if he could do that—

  A commotion down a side street snagged Duncan’s ear.

  “Ride on. I will see you at the hotel.”

  Peeling away from the column, he kneed his horse through the crowd. Eamon and Azure followed. Ignoring his command, his troopers halted at the head for the street. The commotion centered on a slaver, who was forcing a young woman onto the auction block, or rather was trying to force her. She fought the man like a marlin, cursing in the familiar language of Duncan’s homeland.

  “Ka’moai’ aina, maoli,” Duncan shouted. Dismounting, he shoved his way through the crowd with Azure at his side, and Eamon trailing after.

  The moment the woman saw Duncan she threw herself at his feet. “Addiri! Kaya’so mio.”

  He stripped off his jacket, wrapped it around the woman’s shoulders, and drew her to her feet.

  Sensing a sale, the slaver hurried forward. “You understand this chit’s sing-song gibberish?”

  “She speaks Maoliou, an ancient beautiful tongue.” Duncan stared at the man long enough to make the slaver shiver. “How did you come by this woman?”

  “A Salt sold her to me?”

  “How much did you pay the sailor?”

  The slaver puffed out his chest. “A hundred gold ladies.”

  “Does he speak truth, Eamon?” Duncan’s gaze never left the slaver.

  “No.”

  The slaver glanced at the elf and spat on the ground, a ward against evil. “Twenty gold ladies.”

  Duncan took two ten-piece gold coins from his pocket and tossed them at the slaver’s feet. Hoisting the woman onto his saddle, he swung up behind her. Azure’s low growl pulled his attention to her. “Be easy, girl.”

  “What about my profit?” The slaver rushed forward and grabbed Duncan’s stirrup. “Expenses?”

  Duncan gave the man another hard look for good measure before rejoining his troopers at the head of the street.

  “I gave orders to ride on.”

  “No you didn’t. I didn’t hear a please.” Lady Bird shook her head. “What was all this about? Not that you weren’t magnificent. Just. You don’t usually show so much fire.”

  Duncan considered his answer. “No person should presume to own another. Such presumption is sin.” Azure yipped approval. “See. Even my dog understands that slavery is a sin against nature.”

  “Then you are a generational sinner, my friend.”

  “I am a philosopher and a chemist.” The fire in Duncan’s blood spiked. Sweat popped out on his forehead. “As for my family, our Maoliou are ku’ok’a kia’aiai, House-holden, part of our family.”

  “Our Maoliou,” Lady Bird grinned. “Sort of says it all doesn’t it?”

  Bird laid his hand on her arm. “Leave him be, my dove.”

  “No. It is all right, Bird. Maoliou and Addir enjoy a unique symbiotic relationship. I admit, it looks—Mainlanders cannot understand.” Strictly speaking, the Addir-Maoliou relationship skated too close to the line of master and slave for his comfort too. One of many reasons he’d left home.

  ****

  Later, gathered in the common room of Cabot Crossing’s finest inn Duncan outlined his newest strategy. General Rickman opposed him. No surprise there. The other generals agreed with his plan. His dog lay quietly beside his chair with her ears pricked forward and her muzzle resting on his instep. If the AOD meant to lay siege to Elhar, they must come to Cabot Crossing, and while the city boasted a strong civil guard, it was no match for the invading army. Duncan planned a simple hammer and anvil maneuver aimed at smashing the advancing army before it reached the crossing. His plan relied heavily on a holdback force under garrison control, but he had not shared that tidbit with his generals, any one of whom might be the traitor. After the combined council ended, Duncan met privately with his three most trusted officers. Unable to keep still, he paced the spacious chamber while he walked them through the holdback strategy step by step. Pausing at the window Azure had been scratching at for the last several minutes, Duncan threw open the shutters. “Don’t wander too far,” he said as if she understood him. Then he turned back to his men.

  ****

  As plans went, it was sound, as sound as any Duncan had ever conceived and it should have worked. But the AOD surprised and overran the holdback unit. Faced with losing them, Duncan rode to their relief leaving a gaping hole in his line. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting followed and collapsed the Allied infantry’s flank. The AOD poured into the city. The infantry rallied in bloody street-to-street fighting, but they could not stop the enemy’s advance.

  Determined to prevent the AOD from crossing into Elhar, Duncan ordered all remaining troops quayside. But it was too late. By morning Cabot Crossing’s docks and warehouses were ashes, and the Army of the Descendants had crossed the river and torched the ferryboats behind them.

  Exhausted, disheartened, Duncan sat on the bed in his room cradling his head in his hands. His closest confidants, Eamon and the Falconers sprawled around the room. The Maoliou girl sat cross-legged on the floor, exotic as an island flower.

  What chivalric idiocy had possessed him to intervene on her behalf? Invading armies and traitors were not enough for him? Oh, no! He had to pledge a House-holden, something he had sworn he would never do. Father had laughed when he’d said, “Your human flesh binds a dragon’s spirit. It’s in your blood, this need to guard your Maoliou treasure.”

  Well, Father’s words had proven true, but still…it was a bitter truth for a son to swallow, even at a score and five.

  Azure had gone missing again, but Duncan could not summon the energy to fret over his dog. She always turned up before he pulled out of a location or else she found her way to their camp. She was very cle
ver that way.

  “Is the AOD general sleeping with you, Shug?” Bird didn’t waste energy lifting his head off his arms. “‘Cos he sure knows every time you get up to take a piss.”

  Crude but true, Duncan chose not to comment.

  “At least we know Rickman isn’t our traitor,” Lady Bird speculated.

  “We do?” Confused, Eamon looked at her and then at Duncan.

  “Rickman’s infantry flank held the longest and took the heaviest casualties.” Duncan spoke to the floor between his boots. He could not bring himself to look at his companions. “And only we four knew our reserve position.”

  “That narrows it down,” Bird quipped. “It’s one of us.”

  Duncan raised his head, shot a glare at Bird, and then went back to studying the grain in the wood floor.

  “Yeah, I know. Not funny.”

  Just then, a cadet entered the room carrying a platter of bread and cheese, deposited it on the table in front of the sergeant major, and quietly withdrew. The door clicked shut behind him.

  “Cadets,” Chana shouted startling everyone. “They have access to Duncan day and night, and he treats them like furniture.”

  Duncan raised his head. Enough was enough. “I do not treat people like furniture,” Lady Bird’s generational sinner remark still stung.

  “No offense, but you do.” The warrior-woman held her hand up. “We all do. We talk over cadets as if they don’t exist. Suppose one of them gets taken up by an officer or even an enlisted man.”

  “What do you mean, taken up?” Duncan’s specialist gave him a hello-what-world-do-you-live-in look. He had missed something.

  Bird enlightened him. “It happens, Shug, especially on campaigns where women aren’t always…available. And she’s right. If a…uh…protector asked the right innocent-sounding questions, any one of the boys could betray us without even realizing it.”

  Duncan fell back across his bed. He had forty-five thousand new suspects. “What a mess,” His mind spun. Assuming all his communications compromised, he needed a strategy with a life of its own. Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself to a sitting position. “Here is what we are going to do.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Duncan reviewed his pared-down army, one thousand garrison troopers, five hundred Thallasi archers, and three thousand allied infantry. Worthy men selected after extensive questioning under Eamon’s careful oversight. These men were the best of some ten thousand who answered his call for volunteers. They watched him with eager eyes. Even his dog gazed at him with almost human curiosity.

  He felt a spark of regret as he inspected their kit, tossing out comfort objects, a pair of dice, a rabbit’s foot charm. These little reminders of home were as necessary to a soldier’s well-being as his weapons, but Duncan planned to force-march these good men more than two hundred miles in less than three days. He did not want them carrying a wasted ounce.

  Faelan trotted at Duncan’s side as he rode up the line. Men who had been squatting for hours in the afternoon sun, stood, shouldered their gear and dressed their lines. The troopers mounted. At the first sharp trumpet blast, the horses jostled and shifted. Duncan took his usual vanguard position and gave a curt nod.

  Raising a hunting horn to his lips, a trooper blew two sharp blasts. The cavalry split neatly in half flanking the infantry. A wave of Duncan’s hand sent the cavalry surging forward.

  Colonel Isem bawled, “Step off.”

  Once underway, Duncan raised his arm, made a tight circular motion with his hand. In response, the cavalry moved from canter to trot. Picking up their pace, the infantry jogged between the horse lines. Thallasi archers brought up the rear leading the pack mules and remounts.

  Their double-quick pace held for a quarter hour. Duncan slowed them to a walk. His elf moved up alongside forcing Faelan to drop back. The elf leaned in and spoke to Duncan who ordered a twenty minute rest in response to Eamon’s urging.

  At midnight, they took another three-hour rest. Men gobbled dried meat and trail-bread, gulped down a ration of small beer, and fell into exhausted sleep. Duncan rested, his back propped against a tree trunk. Joining him, Eamon’s long fingers bushed hair off Duncan’s brow, whispered words Faelan didn’t understand. Moments later Faelan heard soft snoring and the surprisingly soothing sound of Eamon purring. Curling up on Duncan’s other side she dozed with her head on his thigh.

  The cavalry changed horses for fresh mounts. The infantry received an extra beer ration. The pace was slower, walk two hours, rest twenty minutes, canter, rest, and walk. The sun burned directly over head before Duncan called another three hour break, and Eamon sent him into sleep again.

  Faelan made a game of cataloging the elf’s powers for her next report. He communicated over unknown distances with someone call Eoin, presumably another elf. He put Duncan, and she supposed anyone, to sleep with a touch, for he always touched Duncan. Hours on foot or in the saddle did not tire him, and he did not require much sleep. These powers, while impressive, were not formidable enough to inspire her ancestor’s warnings. So what had earned elves the name of demon? Was it that their pointed ears and amber eyes looked so beautifully dangerous? One thing was sure she needed to figure out the truth before the mysterious captain brought a whole troop of these creatures against her people.

  Mid-afternoon of the following day, found them on the move again. Duncan kept to his slower pace until sundown then pushed his men back to a jog interspersed with short rest stops. Faelan estimated they had covered at least a hundred miles since leaving Cabot Crossing. She wondered where Duncan was leading them. On this, he was uncharacteristically silent. Very early on the third day they crossed into Elhar province. They were now in front of Faelan’s army.

  ****

  “They got a good look at you?” Duncan set aside the piece of tack he’d been working on. He hated these sorts of mindless routine tasks. Blood and ashes. He missed his cadets. “And?”

  “And nothing. Hell, sir, it ain’t like we’re out there swapping yarns.” The trooper gave an exasperated snort. “Don’t engage the enemy, so you ordered.”

  Duncan dragged his hands through his hair. These were worthy men, but they did not grasp the simplest concepts of psychological warfare. People believed what their eyes told them. Right now for instance, because he was not speaking, his trooper saw his report as lacking.

  “We showed them our banners like you says to do, sir, and they high-tails it, like they do, sir. That’s all there was to it.”

  For weeks now Duncan paralleled the AOD sending teams of outriders far ahead hoping to demoralize the enemy by making them believe his force was far greater than actually existed.

  Further promoting this illusion, Duncan had extra tents pitched each night and ordered dozens of additional campfires lit. Doubtless, his men thought him crazy. But at the end of the day, his army parked itself squarely between the AOD and Elhar. As a result, the enemy was no nearer their target than they were three weeks ago. And for that, Duncan breathed a sigh of relief. It was about time something he planned worked.

  Each passing day saw the main body of his army closing the gap between them. According to Eamon Captain Fawr left the garrison with the Nhurstari cavalry nine days ago. Duncan’s mind raced. With any luck—

  A soft cough recalled him to the moment. The trooper shifted from boot to boot, eager to be gone now that his field marshal had gone silent and distant.

  “You’re dismissed Corporal…” Concentration squeezed Duncan’s eyes down to slits. "Timms." The man smiled, nodded, and made good his escape.

  “Well done, Aimery.”

  “Thank you, Eamon. I am glad someone recognizes my efforts.”

  “I do and you are doing beautifully. Now, if you could just keep your mind on one thing at a time—”

  “If I could to that, my friend, I would have stayed home watching cane grow and never have come soldiering.” Duncan picked up the equipment he was repairing and took a deep breath. “What distance does Eoi
n report Captain Fawr’s force makes per day? Have you seen Azure since breakfast? Do we have a position on the main army?"

  Eamon laughed. “They cover about 120 furlongs a day, or so my twin says. I have not seen your dog since morning, but she will turn up by evening mess. That creature never misses a meal. And I have not received a report on our army’s progress today.”

  A quick mental calculation brought a smile to Duncan’s lips. “Fifteen miles per day, at his current pace Captain Fawr will overhaul us in two days time.”

  He fiddled with the broken strap while he talked, and Eamon reached for it.

  “Let me do that for you.”

  “I know how to repair my own tack.”

  “Clearly you don’t. See how you’ve botched those stitches. Give it over.”

  Duncan handed the strap over with a sigh. “My services to date must sorely disappoint him.”

  Eamon frowned. “My Captain? Why?”

  “I have lost cadets, Eamon, a thing unprecedented in garrison history. Who will trust us with their sons now?”

  His friend considered his words, raised one shoulder, and let it fall. “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t know there was a traitor in the camp.”

  “But still…” Duncan caught his lower lip between his teeth. “I made the decision. I left the camp under defended.”

  ****

  Faelan tasted the breeze searching for Quinn’s unique musky scent. She had not contacted her brother since the victory at Cabot Crossing. Could it be weeks ago? It was difficult to judge time in wolf form, and with Duncan’s army moving daily, she feared ranging too far afield. She never knew his plans. There were no council meetings. Tactical maneuvers came directly from Duncan. Even so, the point behind his constant movement was simple to deduce, frustrate her peoples’ eastward progress.

  What advice could she offer her people? Backtrack around Duncan’s rear? He could change directions effortlessly, and the bulk of his army was behind him. Somewhere. They could engage their enemy, but such action played into Duncan’s hand. His hand-picked forces itched for a fight.