The Soldier King

by Violette Malan

  Two

  ONCE PARNO HAD GONE, Dhulyn quickly stripped off her disguise; that was for later. She pulled off her vest, practice allowing her not to snag its laces in the braids and loops of her blood-red hair. She quickly unwrapped and discarded the length of silk scarf she used as a breastband before pulling her vest back on, adjusting the ties to push up her breasts and make them seem more round. Parno knew the plan, but there was no point in rubbing his nose in her part.

  The cavalry leaders’ tents were in the same southern corner of the camp as their own, but Dhulyn took a roundabout route, stopping once or twice to answer questions and taking care to acknowledge the hails and calls of the soldiers she’d been working beside for most of the past moon. She turned down several chances to join celebratory groups anxious to include a Mercenary Brother. Participation was Parno’s role; her part of the plan was to be noticed now, and not later.

  Her luck was in. Jedrick, his copper hair shining in the late afternoon sun, was sitting on a camp stool between the two squad leaders with whom he shared his tent.

  “We hear you’re leaving us, Mercenary,” the small dark one seated to Jedrick’s right called out as she neared them. The dark one’s voice was so carefully neutral that even Dhulyn could not be sure of his opinion on the matter of Prince Edmir’s captivity.

  “We are,” she said, coming to a stop just beyond arm’s length of the man she’d come to see. “I thought I’d see if you wanted a chance to win your cloak back, Jedrick.” She held up the scarlet wool she had over her left arm.

  Jedrick was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands, scarred and callused by the reins, loosely clasped. He glanced at his tent mates before replying, half a grin on his face. “So you admit you cheated?”

  Dhulyn shrugged, rolling her shoulders in a way that made her breasts bounce. “If the wind blew in my favor, I hardly think that is accounted cheating.”

  Jedrick blinked, cleared his throat, and raised his eyes to her face. “What wager do you have in mind?”

  “I had in mind we could discuss it in private.” She held his eyes a long moment before giving a pointed look at his two companions, showing them her wolf’s smile.

  Jedrick rose to his feet, smoothing his mustache with his right thumb and forefinger. “Would Parno Lionsmane not object?”

  “Parno? Why would he? He’s my Partner.” Dhulyn had fielded such questions before, so it was easy to look puzzled. Very few outside of the Mercenary Brotherhood—and some within it for that matter— understood what it meant to be Partnered.

  “I’ll never understand the Mercenary Brotherhood,” Jedrick said, shaking his head with a smile.

  “And that’s how we like it.” Dhulyn reached out and gave him the merest nudge on his shoulder.

  Not that Jedrick was truly concerned, she thought, as the man gave his fellow officers a mocking half bow and prepared to follow her. Dhulyn wished Parno were here to see how easy it was to seduce a man who claimed to dislike you.

  On the other hand, perhaps it was just as well that he was not.

  The route she took back to her tent was more direct than the one she used to reach Jedrick, but even so, a good many people saw them together. All part of the plan.

  Once in her tent, Dhulyn tossed the cloak down on the bed, and glanced over her shoulder in time to see Jedrick tying down the tent flap. She bit down on her lip to keep from smiling. There were always men who were too sure of themselves.

  “This is an interesting flask,” he said, coming to stand next to her. He picked it up and hefted it in his hand as if to weigh the contents.

  “I was given it in Berdana,” she said, taking it from him and letting the tips of her fingers linger on his skin. “It comes from the Tin Isles, and leaves the brandy’s taste unchanged.”

  “Given it? Then you would not wish to trade it for my cloak?”

  “I think you mean my cloak.”

  “I thought that was what we were here to . . . discuss?”

  Dhulyn had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Sun and Moon, this was almost too easy. “I’ve Imrion brandy here,” she said, holding up the flask. “Shall we toast our wager? I warn you, though, it’s quite strong.” She turned her back to fill the blue-glass cups.

  “Is it to be a drinking contest, then?” His breath, smelling not unpleasantly of wine, was warm on her cheek, his voice a soft murmur in her ear. But when she looked at him Dhulyn saw the same hard gleam in Jedrick’s eyes that was always there. How was it possible that eyes the same clear amber color as Parno’s could be so cold?

  She handed Jedrick one of the two cups, picked up the other and tossed its contents down her throat in a single quick swallow. Lowering the cup, she licked her upper lip slowly and smiled. Grinning back at her, Jedrick downed his own brandy just as quickly, smoothing his mustaches as he handed back his cup. Dhulyn raised her brows in a challenge, refilled the cups and, her eyes fixed on his, lifted her own to her lips, taking two long, slow swallows before lowering the cup again. She matched his smile with one of her own, careful to keep the small scar from turning her lip up in a snarl.

  Jedrick took three good-sized swallows, and as he lowered his cup from his lips, Dhulyn put her heel behind his, tipped him backward onto the cot, and threw herself down on him slowly enough to let him start twisting out of her way. The trick, she reminded herself, was to dampen her natural reflexes enough that Jedrick actually thought he was besting her. She telegraphed her next move to give him time to grab her wrists—a little too roughly for play, she noted—and flip her over onto her back.

  Dhulyn turned her head quickly enough to avoid his chin as he collapsed heavily on her chest.

  “Ah, iocain,” she whispered as she wriggled out from under the unconscious man. “Works every time.”

  Dhulyn dug her fingers under Jedrick’s jaw and checked his pulse, counting carefully. She’d measured the dose with great accuracy and calculated she had at least two hours before it would begin to wear off. That should give her more than enough time.

  She stripped Jedrick and carefully marked his back with several strategically placed scratches. She then sat on her heels and frowned. After a moment’s thought, she rolled him over and, using sometimes her closed fist, sometimes the side of her rigid hand and sometimes the tips of her fingers, made what would later be telltale bruises on Jedrick’s torso and limbs. She then bit him once on the neck, and once above the right nipple.

  If she knew her man—and she was sure she did—when faced with such evidence Jedrick would never admit that he had no memory of what had passed between them.

  Dhulyn straightened to her feet and took a slow deliberate breath, listening with all her training to the sound of the camp around her. Did she hear the drone of Parno’s pipes in the distance, or was it just wishful thinking? She shoved Jedrick’s leg aside and sat down to pull off her boots.

  Parno tossed back the slightly sour wine in his cup and concentrated on the story the man in front of him was trying to tell around the bellyful of beer he had in him. This particular campfire was well out of sight of their tent, and even if he wanted to keep an eye out for Dhulyn, Parno couldn’t see her from here. He’d chosen this particular gathering around this particular fire for that very reason.

  Parno distracted the storyteller with another mugful of beer and picked up his pipes, settling them at his side. As they saw what he was about, several others, having lost confidence in the beer drinker’s ability to find the end of his tale, began to call out.

  “That’s it, Lionsmane.”

  “Give us the one about the Finder’s apprentice!”

  Parno moistened his lips and tested the bag for air.

  “Oh, I know a better one than that.”

  There. That sound was Parno’s piping, no doubt about it. With tunic, boots, and hood in place, Dhulyn felt for the ioca leaves she’d tucked into a fold of her sash. Satisfied they were secure, she rolled under the rear edge of their tent and stayed crouched, makin
g sure the shadows covered her, before straightening slowly to her feet. Dhulyn tugged at her hood and set off in the direction of the tent that held the prince, hunching her shoulders and dragging her feet a little, in contrast to her usual freely swinging stride.

  She angled her progress through the camp so as to draw the least possible notice. Her pace was neither purposeful enough that it drew the questioning eye, nor casual enough to prompt the friendly invitation. And, further, she’d timed her approach to Prince Edmir’s tent for the middle of the second watch, when the moon was not yet up. Most of the host had found their beds, and the few souls hardy enough, or drunk enough, to be still awake around their small campfires reliving the unexpected triumph of the day before, paid her no mind.

  Sun and Moon grant you do not find cause to regret your victory, she prayed. Considering her present errand was unlikely to bring the Nisveans any good, the least she could do was wish them luck.

  As she drew nearer Prince Edmir’s tent, Dhulyn left off her slouching walk and began the Stalking Cat Shora—the real reason, to her way of thinking, that the rescue of the Prince was her part of tonight’s work. Like all Mercenaries, Parno had been Schooled in the twenty-seven basic Shora, the patterns that made up their intensive training. But Dhulyn was an Outlander, and the Stalking Shoras in particular came as naturally to her as sleep. Now, as her mind settled into the Stalking Cat, her breathing slowed, her thoughts focused. The smell of the camp surrounded her. Unwashed bodies, burning wood and oil, cooking smells—mostly onions. Behind this she sensed the warm, clean scent of the horses tethered off to her left, and beyond that, the smell of old blood and death from the river valley.

  Between her and her target, she could smell the beer being drunk by two women around a pinewood fire, hear the murmur of their voices, and the gurgle of the liquid as it poured into their cups. In the near distance she thought she could still hear the melodic drone of Parno’s pipes. Ahead and to the right, was the stench of the latrine ditch, unmistakable even under layers of shoveled dirt. She turned her feet toward it.

  As she went, her eyes adjusted, making full use of the available light, the campfires, the occasional torch smelling strongly of pine resin and oil. Even the starlight helped her as she slid easily into every shadow large enough to hold her—and one or two which she knew would appeartoo small to do so—moving only when her senses, heightened by the Shora, told her no human eye observed her.

  A flicker of movement—and she froze just as she was skirting six sleeping figures rolled in rugs and cloaks with their feet toward the embers of a fire. She turned her head slowly. One of the camp’s cats eyed her from the shadows, but the animal recognized the scent and stance of a fellow predator, and allowed her to pass with only a slashing tail as comment.

  She froze again as, circling around the back of War Commander Kispeko’s tent, she heard voices. No. Only one voice, Kispeko’s own.

  “I will see to it, my lord.”

  Dhulyn frowned. The man’s voice was oddly flat and toneless, and who could he be calling “my lord”? No one outranked Kispeko here in camp.

  “He will die as he tries to escape,” Kispeko said. “I will see to it, my lord.”

  Don’t put money on it, she thought. No one else had any need of escape. Kispeko must be speaking of Edmir. But to whom?

  Dhulyn waited, but Kispeko made no other sound. She concentrated, letting her awareness float. When she was satisfied that, strange as it was, only one person breathed within the commander’s tent, she continued on her way.

  Think about it later, the voice in the back of her mind instructed. Dhulyn finally came to a stop in a patch of shadow created by an uneven pile of cooking supplies covered over by a canvas tarp, her toe brushing against what felt and smelled like an empty wineskin. If what Parno had told her was correct, the prince was ahead and just to her left, in a plain, square-sided tent about twice the size of their own. Either the prince had no lamp lit, or the tent’s canvas was thick enough to show no shadows.

  Her awareness increased another notch as her immediate prey, the human guard, walked around the far corner of the tent and came within reach of the Stalking Cat Shora. She let him make three circuits around the tent, timing his pacing, matching her breathing to his, before she fell into step behind him, as close as his own shadow.

  The guard did not falter, but kept up his steady pace. Dhulyn moved with exactly the same rhythm, imitating even the slight hitch in the guard’s right hip, their breathing matched, their hearts beating in time.

  As they entered the shadows at the rear of the tent, Dhulyn glanced down at the rope stretched from one of the tent pegs on the short side. Only if you were looking very carefully could you tell that it had been sliced almost through.

  Well done, my heart, floated through her thoughts in time with her moving lungs. On one of his ramblings from fire to fire, or perhaps on a visit to the latrine, Parno had managed to pass unnoticed by this spot.

  The guard turned the corner, and as soon as he was out of sight Dhulyn dropped to her belly, snapped the cut rope between her hands, and snaked into the tent.

  The prince was sitting at a camp table, a shaded lantern casting a shaft of light on the open book in front of him. He had frozen in the act of dipping a pen into a small pot of ink. So, she thought, not a book to read, but one to write in. Dhulyn rolled to her knees and held a finger to her lips, tensed to spring until she saw the young man relax. The tent they’d given him may not have been much, but the accessories— judging by the quality of the carpet she knelt on—were the best the commander could supply. As were Prince Edmir’s clothes. His own boots, brushed and polished, lay neatly to one side of the camp bed, but his borrowed nightshirt was fine linen, and the tunic and leggings folded on a small table were likely from Commander Kispeko’s own chests.

  The prince shifted, and Dhulyn was beside him, her hand over his mouth, while he was still drawing in breath to speak.

  “Stay silent,” she breathed in the nightwatch whisper. “Dress as quietly as you can. If you need to speak, mouth the words against my hand, slowly, do you understand?” When the prince nodded, Dhulyn relaxed her hold on his face, leaving her fingers lightly in place over his lips.

  “The guard?” he asked. Dhulyn had to ask him to repeat it before she understood.

  “Will be distracted. Trust me and dress.”

  Dhulyn had to give the boy credit; he moved as quietly as she’d ever seen a town man do. They had one bad moment when he couldn’t bend his injured leg to pull the leggings on, but he let Dhulyn help him without sign of embarrassment. Probably has a dresser, she thought. He hissed when her hand brushed against his wound, but stifled it quickly enough that the sound drew no notice. She touched the wound more carefully with the back of her hand, frowning when she found it markedly hotter than the surrounding skin.

  “Did they give you nothing for the wound?” she asked, laying her fingers once more against his lips.

  “Fens bark tea,” he mouthed.

  Dhulyn nodded. They had sense enough for that at any rate. Cleaning the wound, plus an infusion to keep the fever down, was the most anyone could do in the absence of a Healer. And she shouldn’t be surprised that Kispeko had used his own Knife to attend the prince, rather than asking either of the Mercenaries for help. She smiled in the darkness as a clever thought occurred to her. She could use that in the morning. But for now, she felt for and removed the ioca leaves from her sash. “Chew this,” she said, handing him one. “It will dull the pain.”

  When Edmir pulled the tunic on directly over the nightshirt, Dhulyn shook her head. It was the long formal tunic a noble might wear to dine, not the short surcoat of a commoner. She waved the prince closer to her and pulled out her knife.

  “I’ll have to cut that short,” she said in his ear. “We need to look like a pair of common drunks.”

  Again Edmir nodded, this time taking her hand and placing it on his mouth.

  “Soon?”

  “
Listen for it, and be ready.”

  “My Partner, Dhulyn Wolfshead, has never been unhorsed,” Parno said, folding his pipes against the now-emptied air bag. “Not even in practice, though I grant you she’s ‘fallen off on purpose’ when she’s had to, just to make a point.” He paused, furrowed his brow as if a thought had just occurred to him. “ ’Course, she is a Red Horseman.”

  “I’ll concede that, horseman to horseman, the Mercenary Brotherhood often matches trained cavalry, and might well be able to unhorse almost anyone. But the question was a man afoot, and such an encounter never ends badly for the one ahorse.” Nilo was the closest of the five cavalrymen sitting around the fire. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and offered the wineskin.

  Parno shook his head. “I’ve heard you say this so often, Nilo, you must believe it’s true.” Two carefully chosen songs and a little subtle prodding had finally led the discussion where he wanted it to go. Not that it usually took much to get professional soldiers to brag about their own specialties.

  Nilo covered a burp with exaggerated care. So exaggerated that Parno began to wonder if he was the only one more sober than he wanted people to think. “Perhaps,” the cavalryman said, “I should say no true horseman can be unseated from the ground—barring archers, of course.”

  “True horseman be blooded. I’ll do it.” Parno stood and let himself sway ever so slightly, as if he’d actually drunk all the wine that was in the skin at his feet. “Caids, I’ll wager that I not only unhorse you, but I do it unarmed.”

  Nilo also managed to stand, his hand on the shoulder of one of his fellows. “What’s the wager, then, Mercenary?”

  There it was, the calls in the distance, the flaring up of fresh torches as the word was passed and men and women rose from their sleep in answer to a summons that had them laughing and calling out odds.

  “Here it comes,” Dhulyn said, barely breathing the words as she drew Edmir toward the place where she’d rolled into the tent. The shadow that was the prince’s guard had stopped his steady pacing and seemed to be listening to the din.