by Cindy Dees
But gradually one truth emerged. She must go on. She must go to the great city of Dupree and interview scholars and historians to find out more about this elven Mythar fellow. If she did not solve the puzzle of how to rouse the Great Mage, all would be lost.
CHAPTER
12
“For pity’s sake, give us a more cheerful tune!” Anton Constantine snapped at the paxan slave strumming a fat-bellied stringed instrument in the corner. She was dour and not his type, but her music could make the stars themselves smile. The dirge she strummed now, though, was killing the party mood. Of course, knowing her, that was her intent.
The paxan glanced up at him, the closed third eyelid in the middle of her forehead lending her a baleful expression. But she did shift into a lighter ditty. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth. Another slave girl, a young human he was nearly tired enough of to send away, stood behind him with a wine skin. Gads, Delphi’s vineyards produced fantastic wines. Mayhap he should kill the landsgrave and take them all for himself. The slave girl squirted a stream of deep ruby liquid into his mouth.
Nothing like a good love potion to put a female into a cooperative and affectionate frame of mind. He’d perfected the formula over the past decade and kept a good supply on hand at all times.
He reclined lazily among the pillows as yet another slave girl commenced massaging his neck and shoulders. He must remember to feed her another potion on the morrow. It had been nearly a full turning of the moon since he last fed the talented masseuse one of his special poi—
The chamber door flew open, interrupting his ruminations. A soldier marched in, full of himself, his uniform stiff and pristine. Krugar. Anton rolled his eyes. He almost preferred the lazy slobs the Haelan legion took in to these self-important, ambitious types who came along now and then.
“What do you want?” he snapped.
“I come from Southwatch Fort. Bearing a message for your ears only, Governor.”
He never did tire of hearing that title directed at him. He’d had to wait a full decade for that old fool Volen to kick the bucket. He might have engineered the old geezer’s demise at the hands of invading Boki, but he’d made certain that his hands were entirely clean of the murder. The first governor had been older than dirt and showing no signs of giving up on life.
If there had been any questions at court about the nature of Volen’s final death, Archduke Ammertus must have diverted them. More than once in his first few years down here, his mentor at court had intervened to protect Anton and make sure his man had free reign in the colonies to do whatever he willed. Anton figured it was the archduke’s way of taking petty revenge against the Emperor for banishing Ammertus’s son, Starfire. For his part, Anton was more than happy to run amok in Haelos and squeeze the land and people for every last copper they could choke up.
Krugar cleared his throat a touch impatiently. Impatient whoreson. Always had been. Effective officer though. His men were the best the bedraggled Haelan legion had to offer.
Anton rolled his eyes. What was that buffoon Mowery from Southwatch ranting about now? He’d stuck the sergeant in the farthest corner of Dupree he could so he didn’t have to deal with the fellow’s incompetence any more than absolutely necessary. “Let’s hear it then,” Anton drawled.
The soldier looked down pointedly at the slave girl now massaging Anton’s calves. Krugar never had approved of his extracurricular activities. Pointedly, he pulled her into his lap, and she immediately reached for his shoulders.
He waved an indolent hand to encompass all the females in the room. “No need to worry about them. They’re all wildly in love with me. Can’t see past it to pay the slightest attention to my business.”
On the off chance that Krugar was a spy for the emperor, Anton cultivated a persona of being a completely incompetent lush around Krugar. For years, he’d sought a way to turn Krugar, to blackmail or coerce the soldier into serving him and him only. But to no avail. Krugar lived a pristine life.
But Anton Constantine was no dummy, by the stars. He’d turned Imperial spies before, and this one would be no exception. He could be patient until Krugar revealed a flaw in his personal armor. Anton had long believed the adage that the best place for one’s enemy was clasped to one’s breast.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he snapped. “You have not delivered Mowery’s dire tidings, yet.”
“His troops report that orcs have attacked a village in the Wylde Wood. Several other sightings of an orc raiding party have been reported.”
Orcs? He stared blankly at Krugar through the haze of the copious wine he’d been drinking. He sat up abruptly, dumping the slave girl on the floor. “Mowery’s men are mistaken,” he blurted.
“They are not. I have seen a destroyed wagon with two dead guards and a dead Heart healer upon the road with my own eyes. Orc sign was clear. Heavy axes were used to hack apart the bodies and the oxen were taken.”
“That does not mean we have been invaded by orcs. It merely means bandits with axes attacked a caravan.”
Krugar replied stubbornly, “It was orcs. I smelled their stench at the scene.”
Anton snorted in disbelief. His secret treaty with the Boki had held for nearly fifteen years. The Boki, who generally controlled all the other orcish tribes in the region, had made no rumblings whatsoever of any plans to break the truce. And they would do well not to break it, either.
His gaze narrowed as he stared up at the soldier. Orcs on the move, eh? What were they about, those cursed greenskins?
“Krugar, I need you to go north. To the Forest of Thorns. Find out what the orcs are up to and report back to me.”
“So shall it be, Governor.” Krugar turned smartly on his booted heel and marched out of the room while Anton gaped at the soldier’s retreating back. Anton hadn’t heard that phrase since Koth.
Why in the devil had Krugar chosen those words? What deep game was this spy of Maximillian’s about? Had Krugar just signaled a willingness to change his alliance from the Emperor to the governor of the colony? Or was it all an elaborate test of his loyalty by Maximillian? If the Emperor thought to trip him up, he was sadly mistaken. He could play at plots within plots with the best of Imperial courtiers.
Anton looked down at the slave girl hugging his calf adoringly. “Now where were we?”
“I was about to give you the best back rub of your life, my lord.”
Laughing darkly, he turned his attention away from political intrigue. Krugar should remember that he was very far away indeed from the Imperial Court. This was Anton’s turf. He pulled the strings in Dupree. Not Maximillian.
* * *
Arv told Raina that Imperial troops would be thick to the east. The wilds lay to the west, and those orcs had headed north. Castlegate Falls was the nearest settlement to the south, most of a day’s walk away. She had but to follow the road until she came to it. He seemed to think that even she could not get lost en route. Without Cicero to lead her, though, Raina was less certain of that. But after the elf’s failure to return from following that Boki squad north, she had no choice. Cicero could have headed back to Tyrel or be dead for all she knew. Arv needed to stay home and help Mag with the new babe, and he had a farm to tend.
It was high time and more that she grew up and learned to fend for herself. Justin would call her a ’fraidy muckling if she could not even follow a road to town by herself. With fond farewells all around and wishes of good speed on her journey, Raina set out.
It was the first time in her life she’d walked a road alone. She was struck by the pall that hung over the impoverished land, as if misery and suffering were the main crops grown and harvested in this place. Peasants waved a weary hullo now and again as she passed them toiling in their fields and vegetable patches. It was as if everyone had forgotten what happiness, or even hope, was.
Or mayhap the daily grind of simple survival was so overwhelming that no one had time or energy to think about aught but their next meal. Keeping a r
oof overhead. The next tax collection. An oppressive weight settled over her, and even Raina found herself having to fight off a sense of futility. What if she failed to find sufficient magicks of the olde kind to restore the Great Mage? Her chances of succeeding in her quest were extremely small. Why even try? Mayhap she should just give up and go home.
But then memory came to her of her sister laughing in delight over some bauble. Memory of her mother’s tears as Raina’s aunt left home and walked into the east. She reached forth with her spirit and found the spark from before. A tiny pinprick of vitality and energy within the dreariness. She drew it to herself carefully.
If she did not stand up for her future daughters, who would? The rightness of her cause filled Raina once more and she strode on, her step jauntier. It was a grand adventure, and she would relish the telling of it to an avid Justin someday.
Castlegate Falls turned out to be a decent-sized settlement with defensive fortifications around it. The guard at the gate directed her to the far side of town to find a riverboat headed toward Dupree. Arv and Mag had assured her she would be able to trade her healing skills for the cost of passage. She was in no rush, however, and took her time wandering past storefronts offering rich fabrics and jewelry and fine furnishings she had never seen the like of before.
A friendly shopkeeper apologized for the pitiful selection of wares, citing a poor harvest that had depressed the local economy something terrible. Apparently, the city of Dupree was doing much better, however, and the merchants there were thriving. To her country-raised eye, though, this place was a sultan’s bazaar of exotic riches.
She might have had a top-notch education, but for the first time she comprehended just how isolated her life had been until now. A burgeoning sense of escape sent joy leaping through her. Who knew what wonders lay around the next corner?
She passed through the town square, agape at the imposing guild halls jostling among themselves for preeminence. From the sinister Slaver’s Guild to the garishly colorful Entertainer’s Guild, she was reluctantly enthralled by the display of wealth and power. Here was the mighty Kothite Empire at last, not a distant threat, but real and tangible before her.
Commoners were told to love the Emperor, who loved them in return. That the governor and his legion had their best interests at heart and could be counted upon to protect them. But in her experience, most people just wished to steer clear of the Empire and for it to steer clear of them. Even her parents didn’t much care who ruled them from afar, as long as governor, archduke, and Emperor stayed firmly ensconced in their distant palaces, and well away from their little corner of the world.
As she neared the docks, she heard a hawker shouting. A small crowd had gathered round a raised platform and she moved in to see what was being sold. She spied the auctioneer first and recognized with a start the feline features and lightly furred visage of a rakasha—a cat changeling. This one was a nondescript beige in coloring, reminiscent of a mountain lion. His fang-like teeth made him menacing in the extreme.
A human fellow of middle age stood dejectedly on a wooden box beside the rakasha, a chain looped around his neck. An ugly black mark marred the fellow’s right cheek, and Raina recognized the double chain-link symbol of the Slaver’s Guild ritually applied there. She recoiled in distaste. He lifted his gaze briefly, beseechingly, to her. His desperation coursed through her, but there was naught she could do to help him.
Her family did not deal in slaves as a rule. Rather, her mother preferred indentured servants and gave them a fair opportunity to work off their debt. Lady Charlotte said people with hope for their futures worked much more willingly and well than slaves with nothing left to lose or to gain.
The bidding for the slave started anemically, and Raina moved away quickly from the auction. This river was larger than any she’d seen before. She overheard someone say that it was the confluence point of the Minon Wae and the Covin Wae, each a large river in its own right. She’d never seen the mighty Kamchatka River that flowed past Tyrel northeast toward the Wust. It was supposedly the largest yet discovered on this continent. Still, this river was plenty intimidating to her.
She read a crude sign pointing the way to a ferry crossing, and another pointing toward the harbormaster’s office. Arv had told her to look for an honest-looking captain with kind eyes. Doubt in her ability to judge character assailed her as she hesitantly approached the boardwalk.
A gruff-looking dwarf was just shoving off, shouting irascible orders at his crew and looking completely disreputable. Good thing she’d missed his vessel, the Tough Knut. She searched for a likelier-looking ship. She’d nearly reached the end of the dock when a commotion erupted at the far end of the boardwalk.
She spied a pair of soldiers charging around the corner, weapons drawn. They raced to the edge of the dock and skidded to a halt, looking about frantically.
“Pssst. Over here.”
Raina started. It sounded like that whisper had been directed at her. She searched around quickly.
“Don’t look,” the whispered voice bit out, disgusted. “Make your way over here casually, behind the wagon.”
Her common sense ordered her in no uncertain terms to turn tail and run full tilt the other way. But there was something familiar about that voice.…
She peered around the end of the wagon and spied a golden-haired elf crouching in the shadows. “Cicero!” she exclaimed.
“Keep your voice down, for stars’ sake,” he muttered. He yanked her down beside him into the shadow of a stack of barrels.
“Are those soldiers after you?” she asked under her breath.
A grunt was her only answer. She’d take that as a yes. Cicero peeked past the barrels and then subsided next to her. “The barge just down there to our right is getting ready to cast off. We’ll make a run for it at the last second. Timing will be everything. When I say go, take off running for all you’re worth and don’t look back or slow down for anything. Understood?”
“Not at all. What’s going on?”
“No time to explain,” he replied. “Just do what I say if you wish to remain free.”
Alarmed, she nodded, securing her pack more tightly against her back, eyeing the barge Cicero indicated. He sidled along the wall of the warehouse, using stacks of crates for cover, and she followed along as best she could. They paused next to a straw pile, crouching huddled up to it.
Cicero stood and eased away from the wall. He mouthed silently, Ready … Set—
A jingling noise from an oxen harness very close by slammed them both back against the damp stone wall at their backs. She mimicked Cicero, who stood stock-still. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied soldiers milling in the road no more than twenty paces distant. Three more soldiers had joined the first two. They all looked to be reporting to one of the late arrivals. C’mon, c’mon. Finish talking already and go away! The first mooring line of their barge had just been cast off.
And still the soldiers chatted. They looked to be trying to figure out what to do next. The second line was cast off and thrown to the barge’s deck. One more line to go. Time was running out.
The barge’s crew cast off the last line with maddening slowness while she waited in an agony of impatience. The sailors picked up their long poles and walked to the front of the boat. Her muscles tensed. If she and Cicero were going to catch the barge, they had to go now.
With massive arms, the sailors jabbed the poles into the river bottom and commenced walking slowly toward the back of the boat. Cicero took a deep breath, and she did the same.
By inches, the heavy barge crept away from the dock. A balky ox on board bellowed as the vessel began to rock gently beneath his feet, and the captain shouted for one of his men to blindfold the animal. No help for it that the ruckus had drawn the full attention of the soldiers.
“Go!” Cicero ordered.
She went. As fast as her legs would carry her.
“Halt! You there! In the name of the Empire, halt!”
/> She and Cicero streaked across the road, cloaks flying. Footsteps pounded on the hard-packed dirt behind them. She gritted her teeth and ran for her life, concentrating fiercely on catching the barge before her. A gap appeared between the barge and the dock, some six feet of ominous, hungry-looking black water. Now seven feet. She barreled down the slope and clattered onto the wood dock. Eight feet. Nine.
It was too far for her to jump!
Cicero soared out into space in front of her. She had no choice but to do the same. One of the soldiers was tearing down the slope only a few yards behind her. It was the barge or a swim for her life. She took the last few steps at a dead run, flinging herself out into space, arms flailing.
Her toes just caught the edge of the barge’s flat platform. Her momentum carried her forward, but her feet slipped and she lost purchase on the slippery deck. She began to fall, her shins sliding painfully down the ends of the planks into the water. She wasn’t going to make it. Cold water closed around her legs. But then strong arms caught her under the armpits, rolling away from the edge of the barge and yanking her along. She was bodily dragged aboard in a heap, her sodden skirts dripping on the deck. She untangled herself enough to push up against a warm, strong chest. Cicero.
“Thanks be,” she panted
Exasperated, he snapped, “Next time you choose to run away from home, do not wear a fancy dress with such a heavy skirt. Had you fallen into the water, it would have weighed you down and drowned you. Adventurers, even women, must needs wear practical clothing!”
The first thing that registered was the complete absence of peasant accent in his voice. He sounded as educated as her parents or herself. Only secondarily did she register that he hadn’t shared with her exactly how dangerous his plan to jump for the barge had actually been.
As irritated as Cicero was about her dress, he wasn’t half so irritated as the soldiers shouting on the dock behind them for the barge to come back to shore. Raina glanced back and shuddered at the nearness of her escape. Apparently, the soldier who’d nearly caught up with her had thought better of duplicating her jump. Which was just as well, since he and all of his comrades wore heavy chain-mail shirts. A fall into the river for one of them would’ve meant certain drowning.