She was about to set off again when she remembered her hunger. Though she knew she was pressing her luck, she searched the hamlet’s storehouses until she found one that wasn’t empty. All it contained were a few sacks of paupers’ root. She grimaced. Paupers’ root tasted only a little better than urusk meat, but it was better than nothing. She took what she could carry and set off again.
As she was leaving, she heard an angry shout behind her. She flashed a coy smile over one shoulder and ran. When she was well away, she slowed to eat. Her stomach tightened as she chewed and swallowed the bitter roots, but she felt better once her belly was full.
By then, the rising sun cast a red-gold sheen over the hills and grasslands before her. She felt the muscles in her legs turning to stone and knew it was time for her to sleep. She had to find a place to hide first. But all she saw for miles were more hills and grasslands.
Cursing, she trudged on, then eventually surrendered to her weariness and chose a place where the grass grew higher. She lay down, covering herself—and the sword—with her new cloak. She closed her eyes and was asleep almost instantly. She slept lightly and woke often, often clawing the sword hilt and half drawing the blade as she looked around.
Better this than nightmares. She stayed there as long as she could bear it then rose at midday. She forced down the last of the stolen paupers’ root and pressed on. She felt horribly thirsty. She headed east, hoping at least to find a stream or a better place to hide. She tried to remember the last time she had looked at a map, wondering if any cities were nearby. She would be foolish to take the sword anywhere it could be seen, but she could always hide it, slip in and cut a few purse strings, then return for the sword and be on her way.
She traveled for hours and met nothing of consequence—no cities, not even a farmhouse or another little hamlet. Late in the afternoon, she froze in her tracks and looked down. The grasslands seemed to wilt into rougher soil spotted with thick deposits of red clay. She frowned at the eastern horizon, realizing that the distant hills looked faintly crimson, too. She cursed.
The Red Steppes. Gods, no wonder there’s nothing here! She shook her head. She’d veered too far south. The Red Steppes were barren, practically uninhabited save for a few exiled tribes of Dwarrs. South of the steppes were the Stillhammer Mountains, the Dwarrs’ ancestral homeland. Neither place would offer her any help or hospitality.
Wait, this can’t be… The Red Steppes were almost directly south of Lyos. That meant she could not be more than two or three days from her destination. But she had only been traveling one day. She could not have crossed so much of the sprawling Simurgh Plains so quickly.
She knelt and examined the soil. The red clay was unmistakable. No other realm in Ruun had it. She straightened, turned, and even thought she could see the gray-white blur of the Stillhammer Mountains, far to the south. She trembled.
How could this—“Silwren…”
The Shel’ai must have bewytched her somehow. Igrid rubbed her eyes. She remembered the way the trees had blurred as she raced from the camp and how suddenly quiet everything had seemed. Silwren must have used the same kind of magic that had spirited Igrid out of her jail cell to move her farther east, nearly all the way across the plains, far from Rowen.
“You weren’t asleep at all,” she whispered to the empty air. “You watched him bedding me. Then when you saw your chance, you spirited me as far away from him as you could.” Knightswrath still hung from her waist. She touched the sword. Her frown deepened.
“Why let me keep the sword?” She puzzled over that until her grumbling stomach captured her attention. She turned north and started walking again. I suppose I should thank you. You shaved a week off my journey when you should have turned me to cinders! She tried to laugh, but the sound died in her throat. She found herself shaking. She clasped her cloak with one hand and kept the other on her sword hilt as she started running.
Not long after, Igrid stumbled upon an orchard of wild fruit trees. She was so hungry that she nearly wept with gratitude. She did not recognize the small blue-black fruits, but they were pleasantly sweet. She ate all she could, wiping the juices from her chin. She knotted up her cloak and filled it with more fruits to take with her. The juice from the fruits had helped sate her thirst, too, but she was still grateful when she came across a stream.
It was barely a trickle, but she drank thirstily. Glancing around to make sure she was alone, she stripped off her clothes and bathed as the sun set. When she was done, she waded out of the red water and wrung the water from her hair. Then she turned and realized she was not alone.
A wide-eyed girl stood on the banks of the stream, staring at her. Igrid did not think the girl could have been older than fourteen, though her belly was round and obviously in the late months of pregnancy. The girl was quite homely and wore dirty patchwork clothes. One hand carried an empty wicker basket.
Igrid saw Knightswrath on the bank of the stream, still covered by her cloak, and rushed toward it. She knew she had nothing to fear from an unarmed pregnant girl, but she had no desire to chase after her should the girl decide to steal her possessions.
Igrid brushed aside the cloak and snatched up the sword. It fairly leapt from the crude scabbard, gleaming in the setting sun. “Get out of here,” Igrid told the girl.
The girl did not move. “I didn’t mean to stare at you with no clothes on. I’s just going to pick berries when I saw you. Haven’t seen anybody else here for ages, years probably.” She hesitated. “You’re prettier than Ma.”
Igrid frowned. She wondered if the girl was feebleminded. She sheathed the sword but kept it close at hand. Then she dried off with her cloak and dressed. The girl’s eyes did not leave her. Igrid was accustomed to being stared at—she even used it to her advantage whenever possible—but the girl’s stare made her uncomfortable.
“Your clothes are wrong for you,” the girl said finally. She tugged at her own clothes, as though Igrid simply did not know what the word meant. “They’re too big. I got clothes you could have. They’s Ma’s, but she won’t mind ’cause she’s with the gods.”
Igrid knew she could use a different outfit, but the girl made her uncomfortable. “I don’t want your dead mother’s clothes, child. Now run along.” Igrid tugged on her boots, wincing as she did so. The girl was right. The boots were too big for her, too, and had shifted oddly as she walked, blistering her feet.
“We gots spare boots. You can have thems, too!”
Igrid considered shoving past the girl and heading on her way, but she eyed the girl’s empty basket. “Are you from a village nearby?”
The girl cocked her head, confused.
Igrid sighed and tried again. “Who do you live with?”
“My Da. That’s it. Nobody else this far south. Or north, I guess, if you’s lived in the south.” She paused. “I had a little brother, but he died coming out of Ma. That made her die, too.”
Igrid doubted such wretched people had anything worth stealing. Still, if there was a house nearby, that might prove a better shelter than the grove of fruit trees. She gave the girl her best charming smile. “Do you think your father would shelter me for the night if you asked?”
“Ain’t sheltered nobody for years. No travelers here. Closest village a ways north, but they don’t come down here. Plus the roof leaks when it rains. But it likely won’t rain tonight. You should stay. But I gots to fill my basket first, or he’ll beat me awful.” The girl headed for the orchard without awaiting a reply.
Igrid bit back a curse and followed her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BRAHASTI’S PLAN
Brahasti el Tarq reined in his horse and smiled. The scouts had been right. The citizens of Cassica—conquered only months ago by the Throng, only to have their conscripts returned when the Throng was disbanded—had learned from its mistakes. It was said that Cassica had been a mighty stronghold in ages past, rivaling even Lyos and Syros. But its defenses had fallen into disrepair over the years, esp
ecially after Fadarah’s legions swept in.
Since then, the people of Cassica had repaired the gates that the Nightmare had smashed, along with all the damaged sections of the wall. They had even reinforced the gates with a heavy iron portcullis. A steep mound of earth surrounded the city, making it more difficult for an enemy to tunnel beneath the walls or approach them with siege towers. Furthermore, the Cassicans had built wooden platforms draped with shields and animal hides that extended from the battlements, emboldened with arrow-slits. Thanks to the additional fortifications, no attacker could approach Cassica’s walls without coming under heavy crossbow fire from all sides.
And that has the Bloody Prince worried—though he’d never say so.
Brahasti lifted his gaze over the distant city’s battlements and saw that Cassica had its own engines of war: catapults, ballistae, trebuchets, and steaming cauldrons likely already filled with boiling water—maybe even boiling piss—ready to be up-ended on the heads of attackers. He turned to face the roiling legions behind him.
The Bloody Prince rode ahead of his cavalry and gave him a scathing look. Brahasti had deliberately ridden ahead of the Bloody Prince as they neared the city, in full view of the rest of the Dhargothi legions, usurping Karhaati’s place of honor. Brahasti had been exiled from the empire for years, but not so long that he failed to recognize the insult he had just dealt. Surely that insult was made worse by the fact that Brahasti looked nothing like a Dhargothi warrior.
In place of armor, Brahasti wore silk robes sewn not with the sigil of the dragon impaled on a spear but the crimson greatwolf. Unlike other Dhargots, who shaved their heads and grew braided goatees, he was clean shaven with a full head of dark hair. He was not even wearing a sword.
Brahasti knew that the Bloody Prince wanted to kill him, but the prince did not yet have the courage to disobey Fadarah’s orders. Still, Fadarah’s commands did not prohibit Karhaati from angling his armored destrier frightfully close to Brahasti’s horse, leaning, and backhanding him with one mailed hand. Brahasti accepted the blow, spat blood, and concealed a grin. He knew he’d made his point.
The Bloody Prince removed his half-helm, an extravagant thing of steel and brass crowned with the visage of an impaled dragon, and scowled at the city. Even as the Dhargothi legions unfurled before the city, Cassica’s gates and portcullis slammed shut. Dark figures manned the battlements, crowned in glinting half-helms of their own.
Brahasti considered the reports they had received from spies: Cassica had a thousand defenders, less than one-twentieth of the force he commanded. But well-provisioned, well-fortified cities had been known to last for months against equally dismal odds.
Karhaati said, “Fadarah should have lent us magic. I want to be washing my sword in the blood of Noshans or Islemen, not overseeing some tedious siege!”
“May I remind you, Sire, that Ivairia is directly north of us. You may not wish to show the Ivairians your backside for that long.”
The Bloody Prince glowered at him. “I fear the Ivairians even less than I fear you. Every report says they’re holed up in their keeps, frightened and hungry.”
“Every report but the last one.”
Karhaati shrugged. “Fifty lancers, maybe another fifty squires. A scouting force, nothing more. The Ivairians are too sickly and scared to care what happens—”
“On their own border?” Brahasti laughed. “They might have minded their own business when it was the Throng razing their neighbors to the south, but your army consists of flesh and blood, not magic and Nightmares. If they think they’ll have to cross swords with a Dhargothi host sooner or later, they might decide to do it while your back is turned.”
Karhaati scowled. “Fadarah never said we would have to fight the Lancers.”
“Why should he? You battle his rivals in the northlands while he deals with his own in the west. Do you think he cares whether you lose ten men or ten thousand?”
The rage melted from Karhaati’s eyes. “But he needs my help to take the Wytchforest—”
“So he does. But he doesn’t want you so strong that he can’t keep you under his boot.”
Karhaati grunted his agreement. Nevertheless, he eyed Brahasti with mistrust. “Am I to believe that you care how many Dhargots die in the name of the empire?”
“Fadarah makes enemies the way your elephants’ shit draws flies. Should he one day end up dead, I would avail myself to the great man left standing.”
Karhaati turned, scrutinizing the deployment of the aforementioned war elephants that were, in fact, leaving a trail of shit and flies behind them. “If you aim for my friendship and loyalty, Earless One, you’re an archer in dire need of practice.”
“I aim for neither. I’ll settle for grudging appreciation for my talents.”
“So far, the only talents you’ve displayed involve drinking my wine and raping my slaves.”
Brahasti smiled. “Then I shall prove myself right now. This is what you should do. And instead of ordering the men myself, I’ll let you do it and claim credit.” He paused. “Send three hundred men to ride down the Ivairians. Tell them to take prisoners, drag them north, strip them naked, and leave them impaled on the Ivairian frontier. The Ivairians know a warning when they see it.”
Karhaati stroked his goatee idly. “A warning… or a challenge?”
Brahasti gestured to the massive host behind them. “You have over twenty thousand swords here! Your brothers have thousands more, just a few days behind us.”
Karhaati bristled at the mention of brothers, whom he, in true Dhargothi fashion, viewed as competitors. “We still have this city to contend with. My elephants and chariots won’t be much use against those walls. We could sling battering rams between the elephants, but—”
“Even their armor won’t protect them from ballistae. Besides, elephants panic at the sight of fire.”
Karhaati’s painted eyes narrowed. “Then what does Fadarah’s lapdog suggest?”
A great orchard growing against one of Cassica’s walls drew Brahasti’s attention. The boughs were thick with songbirds. From his vantage point, he could see over the walls, to a sea of wooden rooftops. Many more songbirds had roosted within the city. He imagined the Cassicans found the birds quaint, charming even, though to Brahasti’s ears, the beasts sounded hungry.
“Dear prince,” he said with deliberate slowness, “I suggest you prepare slave pens. And a tent full of wine and whores for me. Cassica will be yours by nightfall. But first, I need raw meat and fifty men with nets.”
Karhaati frowned. “You’ve piqued my curiosity, Earless One. I don’t know what you’re planning, but choose your men and be on with it.”
Brahasti moved quickly, filled with dreadful excitement. He chose his men, pointed at the orchard, and issued his orders. Then he turned to another man. “Fetch twigs, small ones, and string. Then prepare a fire.”
By sundown, half the rooftops of Cassica were ablaze. Brahasti’s men were still tying burning twigs soaked in pitch to the feet of the songbirds they had caught. Once released, the frantic, burning creatures screeched up into the sky. They arced over the walls then either shuddered from the impact of crossbow bolts or succumbed to the flames and plummeted onto the wooden rooftops.
While the city’s frantic defenders were busy battling fires and trying to shoot birds from the sky, Karhaati’s siege engines rolled forward, battering the gates and flinging even more fire over the battlements. Within two hours, it was over. A horn sounded, signaling Cassica’s surrender. The gates of Cassica swung open. Brahasti watched. Beside him, Karhaati shook his head. For the moment, grudging admiration had replaced the Bloody Prince’s loathing. “I misjudged you, General…”
Brahasti said, “The city is yours. I trust you’ve already filled my tent with the appropriate awards?” He waited for Karhaati to nod then turned his horse and rode off.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE FIRST LANCER
Igrid reluctantly followed the girl to the orchar
d, helped her fill the basket with fruit, then volunteered to carry it back to the farmhouse. When she asked the girl’s name, the girl did not answer, so Igrid asked again. After two more attempts, Igrid began to wonder if the girl’s parents had ever even bothered to name her.
Igrid’s pulse quickened. She began to suspect what she would find at the farmhouse. She wished she weren’t carrying the basket so she could loosen her sword.
Twilight darkened the road before her. Igrid felt her unease grow with each step. The girl seemed eager to ask her questions about her travels—what she did and what realms she had seen—but she clearly lacked the vocabulary to phrase her questions. Igrid strained to understand her and to keep from losing her temper. She reminded herself that a night’s shelter from the wilderness was well worth the sacrifice.
Gods, the girl stinks, though! Igrid considered setting down the basket and tossing the girl in the stream, pretending it was some kind of game, but the girl hinted that her father was waiting and would be angry if she did not return home as quickly as possible.
When they reached the girl’s home, Igrid stopped in her tracks. It was a small, simple dung hut with one uneven hole where a window should have been. The patches of dead grass that served as a yard were scattered with the bones of dead animals, probably the rabbits, urusks, and wild dogs they’d turned into suppers. A turnip garden was nearby, shabby and ill tended, but no privy. Flies and a putrid smell hung over the place like a funeral pall.
“You… live here?”
Before the girl could reply, her father appeared in the doorway. He was a small man, but the dung hut wasn’t much taller than he was, so he had to stoop to exit and glare at her. When he saw that his daughter was not alone, he leaned back into the dung hut and withdrew a rusty hatchet. Igrid could not understand the curse he spat at his daughter. The girl took the basket from Igrid, gave her a warning look, and hurried inside. Igrid bristled when the man patted the girl’s rump as she passed. Then the father turned to face Igrid.
Knightswrath (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 2) Page 17