Gabe followed the captain out of the tent. His escort fell in behind, making Gabe smile. He was less than a threat at the moment. Saint Sevastian’s balls, he was hardly a threat at the best of times.
“So, that was the great and feared Roulier, eh? Didn’t seem a bad sort,” he muttered to himself.
Modisetto paused in mid stride. “Only because in his opinion, you aren’t a true mage. Your fellows, on the other hand... If the general hadn’t insisted he needed them, Colonel Roulier would have had the man hanged, drawn and quartered and the women burned yesterday.”
Gabe swallowed hard.
“I suggest, if you want to save their lives, you do more than try to put them to sleep.”
On that sour note, they trooped to the far side of the camp, where the women had been taken. Here, the female natives clustered about the huts as they usually did, beating blankets and washing sheets, grinding seeds between stones, chatting and laughing as if nothing had changed. Dulce was with them, pale and shocked, absently cuddling a squirming baby. Further along were huts with canvas barriers across the doors like Gabe’s cell and soldiers circling them. He guessed Meraz and the captured female soldiers were being held in them.
At last they came to two huts with a considerable number of guards. From inside one of them came loud giggles and the muffled tone of someone trying to shush the helpless glee.
Modisetto nodded to the guards and they pulled back one side of the canvas. Gabe was waved in.
“Gabriel,” Dina exclaimed, and then she was hugging him so tight he couldn’t breathe.
He didn’t care. She was alive. Gabe wrapped his arms around her. With the canvas ‘door’ closed, it was incredibly dark inside. He could just make out Dina’s face, the glistening tracks of tears down her cheeks.
“Dear Luz,” she sobbed into his shoulder. “I didn’t know what they’d done to you. Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”
“Whoo,” a feminine voice called from the darkness. “Kissy kissy.” She made sloppy kissing sounds, causing uproarious laughter from the third occupant.
“I’m fine.” He brushed her dishevelled hair back from her tear stained face. Apart from the tears, she looked unharmed. “Did they hurt you?”
Dina shook her head. “I’m all right. We’re all fine.”
“We?” he asked even as another body moved in between them.
“Well, hello, Mage Castillo.” Ofelia all but knocked Dina away before moulding herself against Gabe. Her arms wound around his neck and a hefty sigh pushed her breasts into his chest. “I knew you’d be back for me. You’ve been inside me deeper than anyone else. I’ve felt you, Gabriel, inside and out and it doesn’t scare me. I like the dark.” She began pulling at his clothes. “Come on, let’s move the earth together.”
“Mage Suelo, you don’t know what you’re doing.” Dina tried to pry the Earth Mage off Gabe. “Mage Castillo, help me.”
“I’m trying,” he insisted, looking for a part of Ofelia he could touch without encouraging her.
Ofelia pouted. “Tell the little Sacerdio to go away. You don’t want a girl.” She moved against him and managed to wipe all thought from his head. “You need a woman.”
Gabe groaned. “What I need is a clue. Dina, what’s going on here?”
“What’s going on here?” another voice asked. “Isn’t it obvious? We’re dead and we’re with the saints. Who are you? Are you Saint Ciro? Saint Casilde was here before. Very pretty but I think they’re right. Duchess Isabel is prettier.”
With a determined effort between them, Gabe and Dina detached Ofelia from him.
“Fine,” Ofelia snapped at Dina. “Just remember, girly, that I had him first and it’s me he’ll be comparing you to.” She tried to stalk away, but stumbled and ended up on the floor of the hut, rocking back and forth.
“I thought she was Saint Damacia,” Jacinta said from the shadows on the far side of the hut. She giggled. “But she didn’t get lucky, so she can’t be.”
“Dina, please explain,” Gabe pleaded.
The Sacerdio sank down against the wall. Gabe joined her before he ended up down there unwillingly anyway.
“Opio. When the mages woke up, they made me dose them with enough opio to ensure they wouldn’t use their magic.”
Gabe let out a shuddering breath. “Thank Luz. When they took you away I thought they were going to use you as a hostage against their good behaviour. Where’s Ruben?”
“In the next hut. They won’t let me tend him.” She pulled a sour face. “I’m only a woman. I can’t be alone with a man. One of their medics is with him. I wish it was the other way around. He at least seems to be a quiet patient. These pair have been either giggling or screaming at each other all night. What are you doing here?”
“I told the general I was ready to put them into a healing sleep.”
A faint splash came from Jacinta’s shadows. “Woops,” she said, then laughed.
Dina moaned. “She’s working through the drug. Gabriel, you have to put her to sleep. If any of those soldiers know what she’s doing...”
“I know.” He hauled himself to his feet and walked around the edge of the hut, using the wall for support. “Jacinta, it’s Gabe. How are you?”
“Gabe? Are you dead too?”
He crouched. “I’m not dead and neither are you, Jacinta. Come here, let me get a look at you.”
Her face came out of the dark, big pouty lips stretched in a wide, unabashed grin, eyes twinkling.
“I’ve been bad,” she whispered as water trickled down her face from her wet hair. “Dina said I wasn’t supposed to, but I wet myself.” She collapsed into convulsive laughter, rolling out of the shadows.
She was soaked. Hair and clothes flinging water everywhere as she wiggled about on the dirt. Her robe was open, revealing her white chemise, which was also wet and clinging to her curves.
“Oh, honestly.” Dina scrambled over to close the Water Mage’s robe.
Ofelia crawled over the top of Jacinta, heading for Gabe. Her robe was gone and her chemise hung loose below her chest, eyes glittering with predatory intent.
“Gabriel,” Dina snapped. “Do something.”
Gabe decided now wasn’t the time to tell Dina he wasn’t certain he could do anything, so he let Ofelia climb into his lap and straddle him. While she pushed her face into his neck, her lips and tongue working against his tingling skin, he put his hands on her temples. Trying to ignore the touch of her bare thighs, he concentrated.
His magic came sluggishly and with no small amount of pain. It felt like he was tugging on the lead of a very stubborn mule. The beast had set its hooves and wasn’t keen on moving, but he persisted and a trickle of power eased out of his hands and into the Earth Mage. She made soft noises of protest but slowly stopped moving and sank down, relaxing until she was a dead weight on top of him.
Dina manhandled Ofelia to the floor. Jacinta, still deliriously happy being dead and chatting with Saint Otoneil, didn’t put up much of a fight and she was quickly asleep beside Ofelia.
“If Ruben tries to get into my lap, I’m out of there,” Gabe muttered.
Dina gave him a rare smile that reached her eyes. She was tired and scared but the expression suited her face and Gabe smiled back.
“If I’d known invasion and capture by the enemy was all it took to get you to smile, I would have opened the gates to Alarie long ago.”
She tried to keep smiling, but it faltered and vanished. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one with everything to be sorry for. I should have made you get on that dirigible with Nacio. Dina, why didn’t you leave?”
“I told you why. You needed me with you.” Dina’s hand slid under his and he held it gently. “Let me take some of your pain.”
“Are you strong enough?”
Nodding, she put her free hand to his forehead. He relaxed under her touch and let her magic slip into him. It felt good as it worked its way through his head, banishing the pain.
/>
When he opened his eyes, she was leaning close, watching him intently.
“Dina,” he whispered.
She kissed him. It was soft and quick, tentative. His heart gave a single, hard thump.
“That’s why I stayed,” she whispered.
It was too much, far too much for his heart to even contemplate. So rather than think about her admission, he said, “Still not a winning argument, I’m afraid.”
Dina looked away from him. “Thank you for putting the mages to sleep, Mage Castillo. You should probably see to Mage Rico now.”
“Dina, don’t do this now. I’m sorry but I can’t deal with... with this... while all that is going on around us.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
He believed she did. Of all the people with Tejon Company she probably understood him the best.
“Thank you for easing the pain.” He stood. “I’ll let the general know they still need constant supervision. You should be safe in here.”
“Thank you.”
At the door, he paused. “Do you know what happened to Lieutenant Pena?”
“No. They took her away last night. I haven’t seen her since.”
He left and, steadier but more troubled, went to put Ruben to sleep.
Chapter 22
Ruben didn’t try to get into Gabe’s lap, thankfully. He was a lazy patient, extolling the virtues of mud-brick construction to anyone who would listen. When Gabe put him to sleep, his attending medic let out a sigh. Done with the mages, Gabe was escorted back to the new command tent.
The yard was now clear of all bodies and Ismael sat on an upturned bucket while a soldier poured water over him. Ismael scrubbed at his wet, tired face but couldn’t hide the fact he was crying. Outside the walls, thick, greasy smoke rose in a wide column, the stench of burning flesh wafting into the camp. Gabe’s empty stomach rolled. He began to head for the Dean but his guards blocked his way, directing him back into the command tent.
“I hope you were successful,” General du Serres said when Gabe was presented.
“The mages are asleep. It’ll last for three or four days but after that, they’ll need to be woken.”
“Good.”
“Can you tell me what happened to Lieutenant Pena?”
It was Roulier who answered. “The woman was punished for attacking one of our men.”
“Punished how?”
“Since you Delaluzians insist on treating your women like they’re men, I punished her as if she were. Twenty lashes.”
Gabe gaped at the cold-eyed man. “Twenty lashes?” He turned to the general, hoping that not only his higher rank would help but that he was more humane than the colonel. “You have to let me see to her.”
“She was tended by one of our medics,” du Serres said.
“Given some drugs and the wounds washed with salt water?” Gabe snorted. “A few moments with her and I could heal her completely.”
“And what would be the point of punishing her at all if you healed her?” the colonel asked, a chilling smile curling his thin lips. “We may as well have just slapped her wrist and sent her on her way. No, the lingering pain is perhaps the greatest part of the punishment, the memory that will deter such actions in the future.”
Looking from colonel to general, and even to the stoic face of the captain, Gabe knew he wouldn’t win this argument. While it seemed only Roulier took some sort of pleasure from the situation, it was clear the others weren’t about to object. Fucking military.
Seeing his helpless acceptance, the general said, “Did the company have an Air Mage? We seem to be missing one of the set.”
Feeling none too charitable toward any of the bastards, Gabe snapped, “Shouldn’t you be talking to Captain Meraz about these things? I’m not really a part of the company.”
Du Serres cut him a bland look. “It’s not your place to question me, just to answer my questions. Where is the Air Mage?”
“I don’t know.”
“He, or she, wasn’t dispatched to your command encampment to tell them of our attack?”
“I don’t know. I spent much of last night unconscious thanks to one of my patients blowing up my hospital and nearly me with it.”
Something flashed through the general’s eyes but it was gone before Gabe could decide what it had been.
“We in Alarie might not know everything about Delaluzian magic, but I do believe an Air Mage couldn’t fly as far as the next encampment very quickly. Not as fast as your dirigibles at least.” Consulting his map, he said, “I believe we have three days before your Air Mage gets that far.”
“Two days after the dirigibles,” Gabe muttered. “What you’ve done here won’t go unnoticed for long. We can move troops in quicker than you. You’ll be surrounded in two days, maybe less.”
Colonel Roulier smirked. “You might want to reconsider your timeline. None of your evacuated dirigibles have made it to the next encampment. I believe, along with non-urgent personnel, the first to be flown out were the wounded.”
“You sick bastards,” Gabe hissed. Nacio, Agata and Manuel had been on those dirigibles. He’d hoped they were safe now. And the rest of the company, the seventy odd people who had managed to escape... all gone because the Alarians had stooped lower than Gabe could have dreamed possible.
Roulier’s smirk deepened. Gabe had to keep himself from punching the man.
“We have only done what is necessary to put an end to this pathetic excuse for a war,” du Serres said. “Right at this moment, every frontline engagement is under a truce called by our Supreme General, Duc Raoul d’Ancar. D’Ancar is travelling to meet with General Baez de Ibarra to discuss the terms of Alarie’s withdrawal from, how do you call this place? The Valley?”
“If that’s true, why attack our camp? Why kill all our evacuees? Our wounded?”
Du Serres ignored his questions. “Do you know why this war began, de Roque?”
“You invaded the Valley. Duke Ibarra decided it was up to him to protect the natives from you.”
The Alarian officers exchanged pained looks.
“If he believes that then perhaps we would be better off talking to the woman who thinks she runs this camp,” Roulier muttered.
That was when Gabe realised why they were bothering with him. He wasn’t de Ibarra. If the Alarians suspected Duke Ibarra’s reasons for the war weren’t sound, they’d naturally look to the opinion of someone not loyal to the duke.
He didn’t believe Ibarra’s stated reason for going to war but he couldn’t see himself admitting that to the enemy. When push turned into shove and shove became pistols at ten paces, the Delaluzian duchies stood together against the common enemy.
Either way, while he didn’t believe Duke Ibarra, he also had no idea what the true reason for the war might be.
Oddly, it was Captain Modisetto who came to his rescue.
“What he believes is hardly important, is it?” he asked mildly. “Shouldn’t we be concerning ourselves with our mission rather than debating politics with a medic?”
Roulier looked as if he was going to disagree, then stepped back with an if-you-insist wave of his hand.
“Have the de Ibarra man brought in,” du Serres said to Modisetto.
While the captain left and Roulier busied himself with a sheaf of papers handed over by a clerk, the general motioned Gabe to sit at a large table at the very back of the tent. A clerk rushed over and poured water into waiting mugs and asked if the general would like anything more.
“Have you eaten?” du Serres asked Gabe.
Gabe realised the last he’d eaten had been a few mouthfuls of native mash the previous evening.
“I could eat,” he admitted.
“Bring a plate for the Bone Mage,” the general ordered the clerk. As the clerk hurried away, he said, “I’m genuinely interested in how a de Roque became involved in Ibarra’s war.”
“As I said, this is my punishment for angering the Duke of Ibarra, nothing more. I’m
not here for any special reason.”
“You said you saved a life. How is that worthy of punishment? Was this person an enemy of Duke Ibarra?”
Gabe stared into the mug before him, his empty stomach shifting nervously. “No. She wasn’t his enemy, she’s not anyone’s enemy. She’s... she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was more what I did in order to save her that angered the Duke. And the Abbess. In truth, if Duke Ibarra hadn’t intervened and sent me here as punishment, Abbess Morales would have taken me for her inquisition.”
Du Serres rubbed his clean-shaven, square chin. “The Abbess suspected you were a demon?”
“To hear her talk she didn’t suspect. She knew.”
“And are you?”
“Isn’t that what all Alarians believe?” Gabe snuck a look at the colonel, who sat at the desk, writing.
Du Serres noted it. “Some, but in recent years, the belief has lost popularity. Especially considering the growing notion within Delaluz itself that Bone Mages aren’t true mages.”
“It’s not a growing notion,” Gabe lied.
The general’s gaze did not waver.
Uncomfortable, Gabe muttered, “Whether or not I am a true mage, the fact remains that our magic isn’t demonic. It came from Luz. He was the first ever mage and he possessed the magics of fire, air, water and earth. Luz taught seven others how to use magic as well and they became his devoted followers, though each of them only mastered one of the castes.”
“Yes, yes,” du Serres said. “I know my history as well as you do. And after this Luz split Alarie in two, his saints called their half the land of the light, the land de la luz. Tell me this, Mage Castillo, have you ever wondered why it is only within Delaluz the churches conduct inquisitions? Have you ever heard of an Alarian being declared a demon?”
“You have no demons in Alarie. They only exist in Delaluz with us mages,” he replied dryly. “But that’s because Luz defined the borders of Delaluz to keep the demons in. He didn’t want them running amuck in Alarie or Talamh. Mages aren’t demons. We express emotion, we suffer pain, we can reproduce.”
“Being unable to do those things is how you define a demon. Wielding unnatural powers is how we Alarians define them. Who is right?”
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