Rogue's Pawn

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Larch handed me a basket of rolls. “The same.”

  “So, there’s no real purpose to this war?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. For immortal folk, jockeying for power is everything. Falcon is making a bold move with this war. Many are waiting to see how he succeeds.”

  I set the rolls down, too queasy to eat. “But people will die down there—yours and mine, both.”

  “Yes. But they won’t. That’s all that matters to them.”

  Groping for words, I studied the black embroidery of my dress. I’d dressed up for this, made plans. “Why do you all go along with it?” I finally asked.

  “Why, my lady?” Larch sounded suddenly angry. He scrambled up on stocky legs. “You, puppet of the nobles, ask me that?”

  I stared at him, steeling myself not to flinch at displeasing him.

  “The power is all theirs, Lady Gwynn,” he said more gently. “Best to learn it now.”

  He began packing up our lunch, so I slipped my shoes back on, brushed off my dress and made myself scarce. I’d long since ditched the cloak in deference to the hot sunshine. Larch must have efficiently packed it. At least now I could be confident that I hadn’t inadvertently zapped it away somewhere.

  Okay, I knew what I needed to do.

  I changed a loose rock at my observation point into a barstool. It manifested fused to the rock below, in all its chalky magnificence. Careless imagining on my part. Though fine for stability, it looked like something out of Monty Python. I decided to leave it as it was, sat on the stool—after I modified the top to make it into a cushion—and hooked my heels over the rungs. Larch declined my offer of another stool and squatted down next to me.

  I’d thought maybe a live war would make more sense than the movie ones, where I could never seem to keep track of the action. But I quickly lost track of who was who—complicated by the fact that the Enemy Men seemed to be very much the same as our own Men. Were the same, from what Larch had said.

  “So, the humans here—they’re like me?”

  Larch snorted. “Humans rarely can do magic. Something about you folks from the other side makes you special.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’re asking me? It’s your world.”

  The leading edges of leather and metal flung themselves against each other, boiled up, then smoothed once more into a flowing sea of movement. Two rivers meeting. If I watched the current closely, I could make out the line where the two joined, more defined in some places than others. But that line broke apart, splintered and swirled as some groups pushed forward and others back.

  I kept good thoughts for all involved, in case that helped, focusing on them being strong and courageous, being careful not to exceed my instructions. I felt like the ten-year-old cheerleader in sagging socks again, peering past the coaches, trying to figure out enough of what was going on in the game to know which cheer to use.

  Blood didn’t spurt up into the air or anything, but bodies dropped, disappearing beneath the melee, an ominous vanishing. The cavalry charged in from the side—plumes nodding indeed—and I picked out Puck’s celadon outfit easily. I couldn’t see whether Darling was with him and when I tried to query the cat, I got nothing back—whether due to distance, his preoccupation or worse, I didn’t know.

  After a bit, I was able to identify the knot of nobles, mostly by tracking the paths of the bright uniforms running back and forth from it. Figures seemed to forage out briefly and, after having grabbed a taste of battle for themselves, scurry back to their fortified hill, surrounded by a bastion of colorful pages.

  There was a similar grouping at the end of the other valley. I toyed with sending a little spell their way, but no—do what you’re told. This time I deliberately stroked my throat. Remember. Work within parameters. I could do this. My rebellions needed to be carefully chosen. And hidden.

  Then they brought out Lady Strawberry’s beasts, and monstrous they were.

  Now the blood did fly as four great rhinoceros-sized creatures waded through the infantry. I watched in congealing horror, glad I hadn’t eaten any more than I had. A page-jockey perched on the neck of each one. Massive horns gored and tossed. Maybe it was my own confusion, but the monsters looked to be rampaging equally through both armies. The line between them grew more diffused, blurring as soldiers ran in all directions from the beasts.

  Preoccupied with the nightmare of it all, I didn’t see the dragons until they flew right overhead.

  They thundered in from behind me and dropped into the belly of the valley below. The wake turbulence of their great passage nearly threw me from the stool and, as I clutched the sides of my seat, I saw Larch’s blueberry face raised in shock and terror. Glinting in the afternoon light, the two dragons swooped like raptors falling onto their prey. They seized the rhino-creatures, two each, carrying them into the sky, pages tumbling as they fell from their mounts.

  The dragons spiraled up, the pumping of their wings flattening both armies for a moment as the men crouched under the blast of hot wind. Then the dragons wheeled and roared directly over our plateau again. I crouched at the base of the stool, clutching Larch, as the bloody dripping carcasses of the rhinos dangling from the enormous dragon claws barely cleared us. Red and yellow mucousy gore rained down on us, along with a clump of flesh that hit my bare shoulder and slid greasily off.

  As quickly as the dragons arrived, they were gone again. Lady Strawberry’s monsters had been removed from the playing field like illegal chess pieces. The armies seemed at a loss for a moment, perhaps as stunned as I.

  They stood from their crouches.

  Regarded one another.

  Then fell to fighting again, prodded by who knows what. What could be worse for them than facing this?

  Larch offered me a cleaning cloth from his never-ending supply of noble-tending materials. I tried to wipe myself clean while Larch did the same.

  The fluids were oddly sticky. I felt as if I was trying to remove maple syrup with tissue—fibers of the gray cleaning cloths sticking to the smearing stains. I wiped harder with no better success. The stuff stank, too, like pond water and xylene mixed. What if it was toxic?

  Having had enough, I wished us both clean, which helped considerably, though not completely. I frowned at the yellow streaks still sprinkling down the skirt of my dress.

  “Dragon blood, Lady Sorceress,” Larch offered. “One of Lady Strawberry’s monsters must have gored one. Or perhaps an arrow. Magic doesn’t work on dragons,” he added as I continued to stare at him.

  “Why ever not?” I asked, to which he only shrugged in that fatalistic way. “That makes no sense. Aren’t they subject to the same physical laws as everything else here?”

  “Why can some perform magic and others not?” Larch countered.

  “Excellent question—why is that?”

  “Surely it’s not so different in your land. Some have power. Some don’t. Why is that?” Larch snapped back, which made me realize he’d dropped all obsequious servant attitude. Apparently he also caught himself, because he lowered his head and began muttering that he might be able to concoct a cleaning solution from some of the mosses in the area, combined with some water, liberally sprinkling the explanation with myladysorceresses.

  “Cut the crap, Larch.” We were both on edge, watching the horrors below. “You know I don’t care whether you ‘my lady’ me—what do you know of magic and where I’m from? If you know the answers to my questions, I sure as hell want to hear them. I’ve had it up to here with circuitous answers.”

  “Then why did you walk away from the one person who could answer them?” His bright eyes pierced me.

  “Who—Rogue?” Suddenly suspicious, I grabbed his little arm. “You work for Rogue, don’t you?”

  “I thought I worked for you, my lady sorceress.” His tone was deferent
ial but he wrenched his arm from my grasp and stalked away.

  I studied Larch as he yanked various supplies from his packs.

  “He abandoned me. To torture, I might add. And being drugged and packed off over someone’s shoulder hardly counts as walking away.”

  Larch snorted. The interruption gave me a chance to steady my voice, which had started to get wobbly. Don’t you dare cry.

  “He knew what would be done to me and consigned me to the worst of hells.” He kissed me and deserted me. I sounded pitiful, even to myself. Time to focus on someone else’s problems. Just as well, since Larch apparently had no come-back to that.

  The battlefield appeared to be in utter chaos, with the two sides virtually indistinguishable except for the two gaily bannered camps at each far end of the valleys. The cavalry charged in, gloriously, only to charge back out. The purpose of the battle remained unclear to me, whether we meant to advance down the valley or prevent them from doing so. More and more I dreaded what Falcon’s instructions would be. How could I possibly perform a magic that wouldn’t make me into a mass murderer?

  When Larch silently handed me a damp cloth, I took it without a word and began wiping my arm and shoulder. It wasn’t perfect, but his concoction removed most of the yellow stuff and all of the smell. He promised to refine the formula at day’s end so that my dress could be cleaned. I wrapped the damp cloth around the sticky section of my hair and held it there, nodding absently to his remarks, as if completely absorbed in the battle instead of nursing my wounded soul.

  Larch stood when a raptor winged in our direction, silhouetted against the lengthening light. A hawk or falcon by the size, I thought. The bird swooped in and settled on Larch’s upraised arm, black eyes fixed on me with dark intelligence and a wickedly curved beak. More of a hawk, but colored a more vivid russet than any species I knew. The hawk and Larch bent their heads to each other, almost an affectionate curve.

  “Spectacular explosions, blindness, bodies flying through the air,” Larch described slowly. “Something that looks like spirals?”

  The hawk peeped softly in agreement.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “Let me see.” I tried looking in Larch’s thoughts and hit a big wall.

  “I don’t think so, my lady,” Larch said softly.

  “Great. I love having my fate resting on not getting clear instructions.”

  “Lord Falcon can’t kill you or permanently disfigure you without disrupting Lord Rogue’s claim. My lady’s fate does not ride on this.”

  “Believe me, there’s worse things than that,” I returned, fingering my neck. “Can I try directly with the hawk?”

  The great bird mantled a bit, but seemed more amenable than Larch, who looked decidedly grumpy. “My lady’s arms would be scored by the talons.”

  “You hold him. I’ll come to you.”

  I knelt down, coincidentally bringing myself to head height with Larch. From this perspective, I could see that his face, his head loomed out of proportion with the rest of his body. Uneasy, I looked away, focusing on the hawk instead. I dipped into its mind, and instantly dropped into spiraling vertigo, hot flight, tearing blood. Gasping, I yanked myself back out.

  Larch watched me with a sardonic look that reminded me of Rogue. But all he said was, “Raptors can be difficult to talk to.”

  I stood, as much to remove myself from the view of Larch’s odd proportions as to regain some dignity.

  “Okay—let’s do this empirically. What is the unmistakable essence of my instructions?”

  Larch blinked his catlike eyes at me solemnly. “Little in life is unmistakable, Lady Sorceress.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Yoda.”

  “My lady?”

  “Yeah, yeah, always in motion is the future, I get it. What do you think I am required to do?”

  Larch frowned at the hawk. I reached for Darling while I waited. Maybe I could get him just to ask Puck directly. No answer still. And no way to leave a voice mail, either.

  “Big, bright explosions spiraling in the sky that blind the enemy,” Larch finally said.

  “What about the side effects of blinding our guys? Or us, up here on the hill for that matter?”

  Larch squinted before conceding that wasn’t specified. I found myself picking at the dried dragon goo in my hair. “Does it specify permanent blindness? Or that the blinding must be a direct result of the sky explosions?”

  When Larch allowed that neither of these things were specified, I had my plan.

  I slipped off my shoes and clambered up to stand on the stool, which was nice and stable. Maybe I had known what I was doing after all when I fused it to the bedrock. The hawk showed no inclination to leave, so it and Larch watched me from below. I needed something more showy, like a wand or a few shouted words, but oh well.

  I pictured Fourth of July fireworks, a whole half-hour show’s worth—granted not all of those would spiral, but I did make sure to include those ones that swirl down in fuzzy worms and then break into starbursts. I set that going and was startled by the burst of music that accompanied it. Apparently my mental movie of fireworks shows carried the typical soundtrack of patriotic songs. Done deal now. Talk about not being able to run away from yourself.

  While the disembodied voice belted out his thanks to be an American and how at least he knew he was free, the fireworks exploded with gratifying brightness—though it would have been better with full dark. The battle had ground mostly to a halt below, with men either cowering down or staring in wonder and fear, or both. Only a few stolidly still hacked at one another. I implemented Phase II, converting sparks from an expanding starburst into myriad tiny fruit flies, implanted with a desire for salt instead of sugar.

  With each explosion, another swarm of dark flies descended on the men, going for any exposed skin, attracted by the sweat on their faces and around the eyes vulnerable from the openings in their helmets. I made sure clouds of the irritating insects headed toward both cadres of colorful nobles, too.

  Oops, my bad. Just a happy coincidence that those little flies didn’t like to ascend to heights like ours.

  The fireworks continued through their set, unfortunately to the same loop of country song—the only thing worse than manifesting a bad song was that you didn’t know it well enough to at least play it all the way through. Earworm syndrome.

  “The Star-Spangled Banner” had to have been played, too—why wasn’t that booming through the valley? At least I knew all the words to that. I toyed with disconnecting the soundtrack from the spell but thought I might disrupt the whole thing.

  Men scattered, pulling off their helmets and wiping their eyes. The cavalry horses were crying out, rearing and bucking—that was definitely an unintended consequence.

  Apologies, horses. Both armies began to withdraw, trumpets sounding orderly calls to retreat that only highlighted the great disorder. I laughed to see the nobles hightailing it away from the battlefield, surprised to hear Larch chortling along with me.

  Both armies seemed to be closing up shop for the night, so I let the fireworks end when their half-hour cycle was up. I’d made the fruit flies all male, so they wouldn’t breed, and made them old enough that they should die off in the next few hours. Pleased with myself, I let Larch help me down from the stool and slipped my heels back on.

  “What now?” I asked. “Do we send a message back? Wait for Puck to come fetch us?”

  Larch opened his mouth to reply, but he clamped his mouth shut, gaze locked past me in frozen alarm. The hawk mantled and I wheeled around to see the Black Dog, like a piece of night forest with white-bladed teeth, charging at full speed toward us.

  Chapter Twenty

  In Which We Celebrate the First Pyrrhic Victory

  No!

  The scream welled up in my throat, though it had n
o time to make it past my lips.

  No! It wasn’t an accident this time. It was a job. I was made to do it. Not like the birds, not like the birds!

  I glimpsed what I thought was Larch moving to throw himself in front of me, but all I saw were the slavering jaws coming for me, for my blood. The mirrored glass coat of the Dog reflected night against the crepuscular shadows.

  I saw my death in it.

  I braced myself, mind racing for some image, some spell to stop it, but before I formed something cohesive from the shrieking birds of my thoughts, even as the Dog leaped for me, a thudding pain dropped me to the ground.

  Remnants of the fireworks sprang around the dark edges of my vision, bright pinpoints sparkling against blood red. I heard Larch screaming in thin wails, as Loden had. I couldn’t see through my eyelids. Sounds were muffled, distant.

  Of their own accord it seemed, my eyelids fluttered open to show me the unnatural ultramarine of the sky, wheeling with streaks of bright sunset.

  My stomach quailed and a headache throbbed between my eyes, piercing deeper with each of Larch’s cries. And someone else’s screams, too. At first I thought the hoarse shouts of battle still echoed in my head, those few that drifted up to us on the warm air currents. When I realized these were just beyond me, very immediate, their loudness penetrating the veil of my confusion, it galvanized me.

  Like a cat out of bath water, I sprang up and landed curled in a crouch before I finished the thought that I should move.

  It took a moment to make sense of what I saw. My visual cortex struggled to right the images, to make sense of the flailing limbs. Instead of seeing Larch convulse as the Black Dog gutted him, I saw men on the ground, Larch pinning one with a spearlike thing through the neck. The Black Dog tore the throat out of another man as I watched, the blood arcing in a violet stream against the graying sage of the mosses and white rocks. I heard the skirl of the hawk, circling above.

  The Dog stood on the chest of the man he’d just killed, and I caught my breath remembering the great weight of him. That vicious dark muzzle lowered and he sniffed the man’s congealing face.