“I’m not hearing solutions, and the clock is winding down,” Aisling said. “So let me propose one—you don’t want to send a whole army into the Actaluere camp because you don’t think we should start a war now, fine. I’ll go, and I’ll sneak my way—kill my way to Hoygraf, if necessary—and retrieve the head.” There was a dangerous glint in her eyes. “And I can do it, too.”
“Far be it from me to suggest otherwise,” J’anda said, “but we might benefit from a bit of guile instead. An illusion, perhaps, to ease your passage. Less sneaking, more walking through the middle of the camp without any questions.”
“Then what?” Curatio asked. “Go to the grand duke’s tent and ask politetly to see him? Ask for the head back?”
“Threaten him with the loss of his own as well as his manhood,” Aisling said, still twirling her daggers. “I think he’ll see the wisdom in parting with it.” She paused. “The head, not his manhood.”
“I don’t wish to be crude—” Longwell said.
“That hasn’t stopped anyone else,” J’anda said under his breath.
“But at this point, the grand duke’s manhood is inextricably tied to the head,” Longwell went on, grimly, “though I know that your Arkarian sense probably doesn’t understand or wish to acknowledge it. Cyrus has castrated Hoygraf—not literally, I would hope, but in a figurative sense, through everything he’s done, and the Grand Duke’s actions are absolutely in line with trying to regain his power and pride, as it were.”
“This is disturbing on so many levels I can’t even count them all,” Martaina said. “We have little time. You think he won’t give up the head?”
“I think he’d rather die,” Longwell said, “given the humiliations he’s been subjected to by our general. Stealing the man’s wife and having his way with her is well beyond the realm of embarrassement to be sure, especially since we all know—as he probably does—that she was with Cyrus more than happily.” Longwell shook his head. “If you want the head back, he won’t surrender it willingly; you’ll have to kill or cripple him further.”
“Done and done,” Aisling said, and turned west, disappearing into the brush.
“Dammit,” Curatio breathed, and Martaina cast him a look. “Go with her,” the healer said, “J’anda, you too. Find the head, bring it back. I’ll rally the army in case you fail.”
“You’re going to start a war over this, Curatio?” Partus said with muted excitement. “Ill-timed, but I admire that.”
“To hell with your admiration,” Curatio said. “I don’t care what time it is; if our general dies permanently, I will make an example of the Kingdom of Actaluere that even the scourge won’t find palatable.” He waved his hand at Martaina. “Go.”
She was off then and heard J’anda following behind, slower. She tried to match his pace, but the enchanter’s sandaled feet didn’t make for very fast travel and after a short distance, he said so. “I apologize, but this is going to be difficult.” They ran along the southern wall of Enrant Monge, the castle’s guards looking down on them from above on the battlements.
“It’s not far now,” she replied, and kept moving. “Just over that rise.” She pointed to a crest of the rough territory ahead.
“You know these woods already?” J’anda asked, keeping up with her.
“I’ve been hunting,” Martaina said. “What do you think the likelihood is that Aisling will wait for us?”
“Low. Lower than that, even, maybe. What’s lower than ground level?”
“Saekaj Sovar, as I understand it.” She met his weak smile, and they kept on, her quietly slipping through the woods and him crunching in the underbrush as though he were unaware of the noise he was causing.
They came to the top of an overlook, and down below was a camp. Not quite as simplistic as the Sanctuary encampment, this one had clearly been used many times over the years. It was open ground, with latrines clearly dug, tents set up in lines and in a careful order. “Looks like the same type of site that the Galbadien army uses,” Martaina said as the two of them hunched over in the bushes, looking down.
“Here,” J’anda said, and his hand moved over her. The light around them shifted, and J’anda became a human, wrapped in the same helm and armor as the guards they had found dead in the woods. The enchanter regarded her carefully for a moment. “The illusion is perfect; you look like a man.”
“Which is rather dramatically different for her,” came Aisling’s voice from behind them. Martaina looked to see the dark elf crouched only inches away, “Since that would doubtless scare off any of the five men she’s slept with since coming on this sojourn.”
Martaina felt her face redden, the heat coming to it. “You sound envious.”
“Not at all,” Aisling said, her face a mask, only the slightest edge of spite creeping out of her words. “I’m quite content with what I’ve got, and I’ll continue to be content with it if we manage to finish this out.”
Martaina shot a look at J’anda, whose hand was extended toward Aisling. A moment later, the illusion took hold and the dark elf was replaced with a dull-looking man of Actaluere, slack-jawed under his helm with its over-exaggerated nose guard. Aisling was off, down the slope with a cloud of dust trailing behind her. Martaina kept a careful eye on J’anda, who looked to her with a gentle shrug. “Five men?” The enchanter asked. “I’m envious.”
“Because you weren’t one of them?” Martaina asked, and felt the dryness in her mouth as she said it, the humiliation of her exposure.
“No,” J’anda said with a dismissive wave, “because you could have been sporting and saved one of the men for me, at least. Two if you were feeling charitable.”
She blinked at him, and he was gone down the slope in the moment after that before she had a chance to respond. She followed after, hoping the illusion worked hand in hand with the stir of dirt she was causing on the slope. She came to the end of it, the red dust of her descent caught up with her and overtook her for a minute, but she kept moving until it was cleared and she entered the edge of the tent city of Actaluere’s encampment. She saw the man who she knew was J’anda, just ahead of her, but could only tell him by the dust of the slide on his illusory surcoat. Aisling, ahead, was not only dusty but walked with a slight, almost unnoticeable sway.
“Playing games, soldier?” One of the men she passed, stirring a pot of stew over a fire, shook his head at her. “This is how you know you’ve been too long idle; men start playing like bloody children.”
She didn’t answer, afraid of what the response would sound like, feminine or not. Instead, she followed J’anda, the trailing blue of his stained surcoat, and they walked on past the small tents of the army, toward the larger ones ahead, the tents of the commanders and even one, the largest—for the King, surely—which stood higher than all the rest and was crowned with a circle of pennants atop it.
The smell of food was present, all manner of it, and the latrines, too, as she snaked her way through the camp. Her bow was still on her shoulder, she could feel it with a touch, but it was invisible, no sign that it was there at all. She felt the weight of it too, though, slung where it was. The aisles between tents were clear enough, though men lingered outside in the summer sun, laughing, slouching, aimless in most cases.
The ground between tents grew wider as they drew closer to the King’s tent. The gaps grew between them, the tents got bigger, and the spaces where men sat around fires were broader. Fewer men around these fires, she thought. More elite. There were no fires burning now, though, and few men, now that she thought about it. There was sound in the distance, though the sound of cheers or jeers, she couldn’t tell.
Aisling had slowed her pace, and now Martaina and J’anda caught her, walking as a triad down the quiet, abandoned pathways between tents. “Where did they all go?” J’anda asked, casting his gaze left, then right.
“To wherever that cheering comes from,” Aisling said, and the tension bled in her voice. “And likely where the head of our illus
trious general is, too.”
They came out of a cluster of tents and the sound grew louder. There was a gathering in front of the King’s tent, where a wide space was cleared. Their view was obstructed though, and only the top of the massive tent was visible behind the last few large tents in the way. “Think they’re having a party around it?” J’anda asked.
“If so, the celebration will be short-lived,” Martaina said, and ran her hand onto her bow, checking to be sure it was still there even though she couldn’t see it. There was blood in the air again, fighting now to be scented over the camp smells.
They emerged from between two tents and found the source of the cheering and catcalls. There was a courtyard of sorts constructed before the King’s tent. A throne sat to one side, unoccupied, all done in brass but with places for poles to be threaded through so it could be carried on the shoulders of strong men, or placed atop a wagon.
It was not the empty throne that the crowd of soldiers of Actaluere were cheering, Martaina realized quickly. It was the woman stripped naked and tied to a post in the middle of it all, and the head on the top of the post. A flash of brown hair was obvious and visible, though it had been cut short, roughly—by a sword, she suspected—and the back was lashed and red with fresh blood from the shoulders to the buttocks and down the back of her thighs. The woman was on her knees, and the only proof Martaina could find that she was still alive was the steady, slow heave of her shoulders up and down with each breath, the rise and fall of her shoulder blades that put the lie to the idea that a human body could not take the punishment revealed on her skin.
“The head,” J’anda said under his breath. “It’s atop that pillar, where that woman is being … ugh.” He made a sound in the back of his throat, such utter disgust professed that aligned perfectly with Martaina’s sentiments. She had seen worse tortures but few enough. Crimson stained the dirt all around the post, the ground ran red with the woman’s blood.
“She’s still alive, whoever she is,” Aisling said. “Look at her—”
“I see,” Martaina said tightly. “They’ve cut her hair, but you can see the old scarring; it’s Baroness Hoygraf.”
“Dear gods,” J’anda said, staring as the woman turned her shorn scalp and revealed a face battered and bruised but still recognizable. “She was safe at Enrant Monge; how did they—”
“It matters not,” Aisling said, and her tone was hard and uninviting for further talk. “We need the head.”
“While we’re here, we might consider freeing her as a kindness,” Martaina said. “I, for one, wouldn’t wish to experience another moment of what she’s endured, not any of it.”
“Where is—” J’anda started but cut himself off. “There he is.”
From behind the crowd to their left, where he had been obscured from their view, came Grand Duke Hoygraf, his face waxy pale, and his limp pronounced with the cane he leaned on for guidance. His every step looked as though his abdomen caused him pain, though his face was already cut cruel enough into a scowl that it might not have mattered to his expression. He limped his way across the dirt, back to the pillar and his wife, the head of Cyrus perched atop, the lifeless eyes of their general bearing silent witness to everything that happened around them.
“If he starts to launch into a soliloquy, I’m begging you to send an arrow through his eye,” Aisling said.
“If he does,” J’anda said, “I might send an arrow to his eye myself. Hell, I might do it without him speaking. This is an atrocity. How a man could do such a thing to an enemy is beyond me, but his own wife?”
“Love and war are a thin line,” Aisling said, “and thinner here in Luukessia than anywhere else I’ve seen.” They stood at a distant edge of the crowd where it was less populous, but there were at least a hundred in attendance around the spectacle, and all armed with swords. “Can we win this fight?”
“Not by numbers,” J’anda said, “nor by easy deception. My spells would be of limited use with this large of a crowd. I could sow discord, perhaps by charming some of them, having them attack others, but it would be a small few, say fifty or so. There is no chance I could mesmerize this many of them, nor that I could divert all their attention from the center long enough or with enough guarantee that we wouldn’t be caught.” He shrugged. “I don’t think even an army marching into their midst right now would guarantee we wouldn’t be discovered while freeing her, gathering the head and making our escape.” He shook his head. “By the numbers, we need our army to finish this. Unless we all want to die in the process, in which case we might as well go now as later.”
“No deaths,” Aisling said. “Defeats the purpose. There has to be another way, and we only have a few minutes left, now. We need an opening, something to give us an out.” The grand duke hefted a whip in his hand and lashed his wife twice across the back in quick succession, opening fresh lines just above her buttocks. “Killing him before we die would be awfully satisfying, though.”
There was a stir in the crowd, something other than the ordinary jeers, and the grand duke stopped, and spoke. “See what happens? See what comes your way when you are wicked, deceptive, conniving, deceitful, and treat with our enemies?” He opened his arms wide in grand gesture, as if encompassing all with his motion, though he was careful to shift his weight so much of it still rested on the cane he leaned on with his left hand. “Be assured, we are a faithful enemy, and repayment of what is owed comes to all who give us cause.” He gestured to the head on the pole with his right hand, and the sneer on his face might have been mistaken for happiness in another man, Martaina thought, but not on his.
“You … promised …” Martaina heard Cattrine speak, low, low enough that she was likely the only one other than the Grand Duke who heard. She caught the look on Hoygraf’s face that told her she had assumed correctly, as the man hobbled over to where his wife lay on her knees, still bound to the pole, totally exposed, bleeding. The Grand Duke leaned down, as if to listen. “You promised,” Cattrine said, gasping the words out in a low, guttural whisper, “if I submitted … you would return his … remains to his guildmates …”
“So I did,” the Grand Duke said, sotto voce; Martaina strained to listen, though the crowd had grown quieter, watching the Grand Duke in a seeming conversation with his battered and humiliated wife. “And so I shall.” A knife appeared from the leather of his belt and cut her bonds. Cattrine dropped to all fours when released, unable to hold her own weight. The Grand Duke reached up and grasped Cyrus’s head by the hair and lifted it off the pole, suspending it slightly over her, appearing to look it in the eyes for a moment before he dropped it onto her ravaged back, causing her to cry out from the pain of the impact. It rolled off and came to rest by her side. “Go on, then. I return him to you now, and you may carry him back to his fellows.” Martaina could see the grin form on Hoygraf’s face, beneath the dark, scraggly beard. “I think you have a few minutes left, so you might wish to hurry. If you can.” He stood and the grin on his face told Martaina everything she needed to know. He thinks there’s no chance for her to make it in time.
“He’s letting her go,” Martaina said, “with the head, to return it to Sanctuary.”
“Why?” J’anda breathed.
“Some sort of bargain between them,” Martaina said, and her fingers twitched, desirous to hold her bow, to feel the arrow knotted between her fingers, to let it fly and see it run through Hoygraf’s skull. “Doesn’t seem likely he intends her to actually be able to save him, though, does it?”
“We have minutes,” Aisling said. “Barely time enough, if that. Every moment we wait brings him closer to permanent death.”
“There is mercy in us, though, is there not?” Grand Duke Hoygraf had begun to speak again. “For a man of Actaluere, our superiority is nothing but obvious, and we can find it in ourselves to allow the fallen enemies to go back to their brethren, can we not?” He placed a boot on Cattrine’s cut and bleeding rump and rested his weight on it, causing her to cry o
ut. “Once we show someone their place, and they are convinced of it, is there any reason not to be a little generous? When they know the price of betrayal, can we do any less than reassure them of their place in the order of things?”
He pressed on her again with his hard-soled leather shoe, and Cattrine, who had been trying to get to all fours to crawl was forced to the ground again, and her screams of pain were almost too much for Martaina to bear; the bow was in her hand and an arrow ready to fly before she felt J’anda’s hand on her wrist. “Hold,” J’anda said.
“No time,” Aisling said, and Martaina could hear the agitation in her voice. “He means to let the sands run through the hourglass before he lets her go, if even he does so then.”
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” A voice crackled through the air as though a thunder spell had been unleashed into the midst of the gathering, and all the heads turned. A phalanx of soldiers emerged to their right from the main road through the camp, their armored boots slapping the dirt into a cloud, their deep-blue armor and surcoats those of Actaluere, but different than the Grand Duke’s livery. In their midst was a man Martaina had not seen before, yet whose station was obvious by the amount of bodyguards surrounding him—
“Milos Tiernan,” J’anda said, “the King of Actaluere.”
“I figured that one out all by myself,” Martaina said, and let the bow dip downward; the illusion made it look as though she were doing nothing more than holding a sword over her shoulder.
Tiernan made his way through his crowd of bodyguards to Hoygraf, who waited with an air of patient expectation, seemingly unworried. In truth, Martaina could smell the fear on him; the man had begun to perspire the moment Tiernan had spoken. Tiernan closed to feet from Hoygraf, who stood between the King and Cattrine, who was now up on all fours, one of her hands clutching Cyrus’s hair tightly. “You mean to force us into a war?” Tiernan said under his breath, standing only two feet from Hoygraf now.
Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four Page 47