Call of Arcadia

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  “Well, it’s not nice of her to go missing on us like that,” he grumbled, but Jone could tell he didn’t really care. “But you’ll do.” He smirked.

  “Do for what, sir?” She smiled vacantly, tilting her head curiously as she drifted closer.

  “You know,” the big slaver reached out, wrapping a quick arm around her waist and dragging Jone into his lap. She didn’t have to fake a squeak of surprise and protest. “Keeping us company, that’s all.”

  She squirmed a bit and protested, but his grip tightened, a not-so-subtle threat. Otherwise, save for the initial crude jokes, he ignored her for the moment, gulping down steaming alcohol along with his buddies.

  They all burst out laughing as he drained his tankard nearly dry, like it was some kind of contest. Jone cringed, hoping he didn’t reach for the last one on her tray to replace it. She set it aside on the table, further from his grasp. One of his hands roamed down her thigh, and she simultaneously fought off anger, embarrassment, and an expression of naked disgust. Remembering what might be at stake, she managed to control her expressions, but just barely.

  Jone could feel the eyes on her; no doubt most of the other patrons here were regulars and knew full well she was lying through her fake smile. She just hoped no one would interfere, good intentions or no.

  She didn’t want anyone to get hurt over her.

  It was easy to tell when the slaver’s attention had returned to her, even if he didn’t say anything. A finger traced along her jaw, trying to turn her head, but she resisted it. Beneath her, she could feel something rigid and hard, but the man hadn’t been wearing a codpiece when he came in.

  That works.

  Whoever Jonelise really was, she knew she had little tolerance for slavers and sexual aggressors. In one smooth motion, she slipped a sharp-ended pair of kitchen shears out of one flowing white sleeve, grasped it in both hands—and jammed it down beneath her legs and his.

  The man howled like an evil spirit as the shears stuck deep into the soft, vulnerable flesh between his legs, but Jone was already in motion. She sprang from his grasp as his grip went slack in pain and shock. In an instant, she planted both feet and pushed against the wooden floor, building power and twisting her hips; like a coiled spring firing, she delivered an open palm full of momentum directly to the bridge of the big slaver’s nose.

  The soft cartilage crunched, bent, and gave way just like it was supposed to. Globs of blood flew, splattering her palm and the man’s face, his eyes glazing as his chair toppled over and spilled him head first onto the floor.

  The room erupted into shouts. No one had known what was going to happen save Adrienne and the innkeep, who had both thought she was insane; everyone else moved equally sluggish in their moment of surprise.

  Everyone else except Jone.

  As the nearest slaver, a thin man with a long sword, shot to his feet and began to draw steel, she grabbed the untouched tankard from the table and slung its contents directly into his face.

  It wasn’t full of warm liquor. It wasn’t even full of delicious steaming cider. Instead, it was full of water and honey, boiled to a fever pitch and kept searingly hot by the kitchen’s surprisingly helpful fire mephit.

  The thin slaver screamed, much like Jone would have expected a man with a double eyeful of near-boiling water and skin-searing, sticky honey to scream. And while he was busy screaming, she took his sword the rest of the way from his sheath.

  The weapon fell into her grasp like the hand of an old friend.

  Just in time, too. Her moment of surprise was past, and the third mercenary swung his mace overhand at her head, threatening to crush her skull like a melon. Jone pivoted without thinking, and the blow barely grazed her shoulder: painful, but not debilitating or lethal. In response, she slapped the sharp edge of her blade across his knuckles while he tried to stall his weapon’s momentum, cutting into heavy leather gloves and almost making him drop his mace. She flicked the light blade at his eyes while he was off balance, and the man succumbed to instinct and stumbled away, tripping over his chair.

  Jone cut across at the screaming slaver while he stood and pawed at his eyes, ripping a slash across his waist and severing his leather belt, not much caring if she cut a bit deeper by accident. His loose chain chausses fell to his knees, and Jone planted a foot in his stomach, bowling him over with her strong legs and lower center mass. He kept on screaming though.

  “Jone! Behind you!”

  She reacted to the voice without thinking, throwing her sword end over end at the slaver with the mace in front of her, keeping him off balance for another precious second. As she threw, she whirled, stepping smoothly into the blow the voice indicated was coming. Jone huffed out a forceful breath as she stepped forward and blocked the next man’s forearm with her own, her last second maneuver barely stopping his broadsword from finding the flesh of her neck. Caught off guard, the slaver hesitated a half second too long, and Jone wrapped her hand around his wrist, tugging him low and off-balance.

  Then she slammed her open palm down into the outside of his elbow, twisting as she did so, thankful he had chosen to wear leather sleeves instead of a metal arm protection. Bones cracked and displaced as the joint bent the wrong way, and his heavy blade dropped from suddenly useless fingers. While he was caught in the grip of pain, she scooped the toes of Adrienne’s boot under his weapon and kicked it aside, then grabbed the sides of his head and smashed the top of her forehead down into his nose.

  It broke just like the leader’s nose had, spraying both of their faces with his blood, but her opponent was the only one who reeled, disoriented. Jone grabbed him by the back of his jacket and slammed him headfirst into the wall. Then she spun back, knowing that one last attacker was still upright and functional, knowing full well she’d taken too long.

  Knowing that if he was any good, she was already dead.

  She caught sight of him just in time to see a heavy sky-oak chair slam down on the back of his head, dropping him to the ground like a sack of beets. His mace, formerly raised high for a crippling blow to Jone’s spine, dented the floor next to her borrowed boot instead.

  Over his crumpled form stood the dark-skinned girl, her black hair hanging about her face like a wild mane, her dark emerald eyes alight and intense. With effort that made the muscles in her bare midriff stand stiffly out, she flipped the chair over, set it down backwards in front of her, and sat in it. Then she grinned. “Hey. Cut me free and I’ll give you a hand.” She rested her bound wrists across the back of the chair.

  “Do it!”

  Jone didn’t need the mysterious voice to encourage her; numbers won—and lost—fights all on their own. She put a foot on the big slaver and pried his large sword free, gripping it in both hands; he stirred, but his injuries had stolen the fight from him. The two-handed blade felt at home in her hands, even more so than the smaller one, despite the difference in bulk. Its familiarity sparked something in the back of her mind, but memories were a distant second priority right now. Jone flourished the blade for momentum and dropped it between the dark-haired woman’s wrists without a moment’s consideration, splitting the rope and digging into the back of the chair.

  The wild-eyed woman blinked up at her, face alight with eager excitement, and bent to grab the fallen mace as Jone tugged her new blade free of the wood trapping it. As soon as she was armed, the former slave raced directly for the door; Jone rushed to catch up, dodging past the fallen forms of moaning, groaning men. One of them, the slaver whose arm she’d broken, reached for her ankle with his working arm, almost causing her to fall flat on her face as she hurried for the door.

  Without thinking, she kicked him in the face, smearing blood across the toes of her ill-fitting boot, and spun to face the innkeep. “You,” she pointed the blade at him, “and you,” she indicated the next nearest man, a big fellow in nice, neat scholar's robes. “Don’t let them regain their feet.” Stunned, both men nodded, but Jone didn’t wait to see their response—she was alrea
dy rushing for the exit.

  As she shot past, the tall, attractive woman stood, holding out her manacles. “What about me?” she called after in a calm, educated voice, holding out her shackles. Jone could only shrug helplessly as she ran past, hot on the heels of the emerald-eyed girl, determined not to let her get herself killed.

  Jone slammed the door open in a rush, diving into a roll instead of standing and blinking, her sight blindsided by the sudden light of the sister-suns above. Fortunately, her caution was utterly unnecessary; no one waited beside the door to ambush her.

  Instead, the other five of the slavers’ party still stood and lounged around their wagon, a two-story contraption chained to an aged iron engine with heavy treads, its lower section made for cargo and brimming to burst, the higher level a cage tailored for men and women. Jone looked up and blinked away the light just in time to see the dark-skinned girl dive headlong into the first slaver she saw, burying her shoulder in his stomach and smashing him into the side of the wagon.

  The back of the man’s head raked the solid wood of the wagon as he fell, the girl gleefully riding him to the ground, straddling his chest and raining down blows with her fists before the dust had even settled. Jone rushed to lend aid, but one of the other slavers rounded the end of the wagon first, raising his heavy, iron-bound shillelagh high to strike.

  Jone shouted a warning, but it was just one more shout and scream lost in the commotion as everyday folks fled the vicinity of the conflict. Fortunately, the girl didn’t need Jone’s help. She slammed a final blow home into the prone man’s cheek with the butt of the mace and rolled off of him with barely an instant to spare, leaving him whining in the dirt. The shillelagh fell anyway, already the subject of gravity and ill intent, slamming into the other slaver’s stomach and blasting away his breath to the sound of cracking ribs. Contrary to what Jone expected, the dark-haired woman didn’t rise to her feet; she rolled underneath the wagon instead.

  And when the club-wielding slaver bent low to check on his friend and peer under the wagon, she dragged him underneath as well.

  As a side effect, when the next three slavers—two of them women, which meant these were no sailors—came rushing around the wagon, responding to their fellows’ cries of alarm and pain, all they saw was Jone. Two rushed her immediately, bellowing challenges, while one hung back, grabbing an automatic crossbow from a rack on the wagon and ratcheting the mechanism in preparation to fire.

  Calm settled over Jone as she slid to a halt, bracing for the engagement and racking her brain for a way to survive it and avoid capture. But the odds were far from in her favor: three to one, with one ranged, her unarmored, and all opponents having likely fought together before, at least to capture goods for their enterprise.

  Jone set her jaw, made her decision. Legal or not, their crimes ended here, no matter what odds she was up against. Right was right, and she’d burn every other bridge when she came to it.

  “Got your back,” a voice whispered, a subtle curl in the wind, sultry and eager.

  Jone smiled and readied her stolen claymore.

  As she expected, her two assailants slowed their advance and spilt, circling her in opposite directions. The maneuver itself would confound a less certain adversary; it forced Jone on the defensive as they threatened to flank her. It also left her completely open to fire from the crossbow and rendered the reach advantage of her heavy blade less of a threat. Tactically, it wasn’t scenario Jone should expect to walk away from, especially not intact.

  Fortunately, Jone wasn’t fighting alone.

  The wild-eyed girl reemerged from the dark beneath the wagon, sporting excitement in her smile and a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth. Silently, she stood up behind the unaware crossbowman and gave Jone a big grin.

  The two female slavers circled Jone like wolves, proving that they were indeed experienced in fighting together, just like she’d feared. But they expected the smaller woman to be afraid; like many lesser predators, these two women were at their most confident with prey that didn’t have fangs akin to their own. The fact that she wasn’t scared made them hesitate.

  “Left rear, overhand strike,” the voice hissed, an instantaneous expression that was half words, half flashes of imagery. Jone pivoted smoothly, slapping aside a falling hammer with the flat of her blade, rolling her claymore with the momentum and delivering a quick chop to the enemy’s head that nearly lost the woman an ear. Her foe ducked away reflexively and staggered, as much from surprise as loss of balance, and Jone turned her back on her. “Straight thrust, spine.” Jone continued her momentum, spinning in place, dancing with the steel as she came full circle. She caught her foe’s arming sword on her claymore’s wide hilt, letting the blade pass an inch from her vulnerable flesh as she directed it safely aside.

  As she did so, she stepped past the woman, bringing her heavy pommel into brutal contact with the woman’s collarbone. Chainmail did little to protect against the blunt force, and the crack of bone preceded a cry of surprise and pain. Jone swept her blade in an arc at the woman’s legs, but she hopped frantically back, barely out of reach.

  Jone leveled her sword at her two startled opponents in a gesture of warning and challenge, giving them a thin, confident smile.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the crossbowman take careful aim, then continued to observe calmly as the wild-haired girl smashed one of his knees in with her mace. He choked out a cry, the brutalized knee crumpling, and before he could fall, the woman put a hand on his shoulder, spun him to face her, and shattered his jaw with a two-handed blow from her heavy mace.

  He hit the dirt and remained there.

  The two slaver women glanced at each other. They’d expected a three-on-one, but this fight had been more akin to a three-on-three with two invisible opponents. And those were odds Jone would bet on any day. With an abrupt cry, she pressed the attack.

  Stepping to the side to line her enemies up, she stepped into a powerful, diagonal slash, forcing the girl with the injured collarbone to block with her weapon grasped tight in both hands. Her broken bone failed to meet her demands, and Jone powered through her guard, then reversed her momentum, stepped in close, and uppercut the pained woman under the chin with the pommel of her claymore. The second slaver darted around to the side, trying to help, and Jone simply circled in the other direction, catching the defenseless, stunned slaver with a heavy chop to the midsection. The woman’s long chainmail shirt blunted the sword’s edge and saved her life, but she still hit the ground winded, injured, and writhing in agony.

  With a wordless shout of anger, the other slaver bulled forward, catching Jone off guard, choking up on her hammer and slapping the blade of Jone’s claymore aside with its hilt. Jone tried to fall back, but it was too late; the slaver whipped the hammer head across, catching Jone in the meat of her arm. It wasn’t a deadly blow, and it didn’t even break bone. But it hurt like the Abyss, and the force of the blow spun her partway around, one hand losing its grip on her long, heavy blade.

  Jone’s eyes went wide; she hadn’t expected to be turned around and see a mace spiraling end over end, headed for her face.

  Long, wheat-blond hair stirred in the wake of the heavy weapon as it whipped by her head, so close that she could have stuck out her tongue and gotten a taste of steel. She could only stand, stunned and a little scared, as death hurtled headlong past her head. The crunch of bone and cartilage behind her was loud, seemingly right in her ear, just like how the sound of one more body falling limply to the packed earth seemed to echo loudly in the near-silent marketplace.

  The dark-haired, barely clothed woman gave her a blood-flecked grin and sauntered Jone’s way, but the dust had barely begun to settle before a strong, unyielding voice rang out.

  “Lay down your arms and surrender, in the Queen’s name!”

  3

  Obligation

  “Elizabethians,” the invisible voice said, a growl overlaid with sweet honey.

&nbs
p; Jone barely kept herself from nodding her agreement; the authoritative, proper Elizabethian accent wasn’t exactly what she expected, but it was still familiar enough to be instantly recognizable. Carefully, she willed her fingers to release their angry death-grip from the handle of her greatsword, letting the borrowed blade fall to the dirt. Her comrade-in-arms rolled her emerald eyes, looking bored, then cocked a hip and threw up her hands in a “surrender” gesture that managed to look somehow practiced and sarcastic all at once.

  Four guards approached, three in dark uniforms with halberds at the ready, one in Queen Elizabeth’s red and gold, holding back with her musket trained on Jone’s face.

  “You two are under arrest,” continued the tall, red-headed officer, her tone harsh and unforgiving. “For disturbing the Queen’s peace, for unlawful assault, for bodily harm, potential murder, property damage, and inciting a riot.” The three men with polearms spread out, circling them in blades.

  “A riot of two?” The dark-skinned girl rolled her eyes again, pointedly. “Oh, please. I guess you’ve never—”

  At a nod from their commanding officer, one of the guardsmen stepped up and rammed the butt end of his weapon into the woman’s gut, cutting her words off with a rush of her own breath. Instead of a pained exhalation, like Jone would have expected, the air came out as a hoarse chuckle.

  Jone caught herself sizing up the situation, running the odds and looking for the best avenue to success, and stopped herself. Even if they could get away, it wasn’t wise to throw the law back in the Queen’s face like that.

  Besides, it wasn’t like the charges were false.

  “Well?” The officer menaced them both with her rifle, her voice rough and demanding. “What have you to say for yourselves?”