FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “What do you want?” she cried out.

  The Red Lion guard member smiled. “Those files in your hand will do.”

  Sara felt shock hit her system. Shock that her mother was dead before her eyes. Shock that was rapidly turning into rage.

  She dropped the file on the ground with a weighty plop. Then she unsheathed her sword with a quick jerk and ran straight at him with a war cry. They wouldn’t be able to put the pieces back together after she was done with him and his necromancer. But Sara got the second biggest shock of the night. Because the necromancer wasn’t the only mage standing with her mother. The man who had spoken raised up a hand and splayed his fingers. As he did so, her body became rigid and stopped obeying her commands. First her arms snapped outward, and then so did her legs. Her body made a cross shape with her arms spread to either side of her straight torso. When she tried to move, her muscles trembled and strained as if they pressed against a great weight and were losing the battle. She kept trying to move unsuccessfully, until a sharp pain arced through her body. The kind of pain that came when a body over-exerted itself or she hurt a muscle trying out a new weapon she hadn’t used before.

  She screamed at the sharp arc of pain that ran through her taut muscles.

  The man laughed.

  Sara forced herself to stop screaming. She took in deep breaths to regulate the pain and to gain control. He had caught her by surprise once. He wouldn’t do again. She stared at him as she felt him command her body to rise in mid-air. Trying to figure out his trick. Searching her mind for clues to what his power was. Every mage had a signifying trait. Abilities that were unique to their particular gifts. Some traits were easier to discern than others. His were subtler, but in that subtlety was a revelation. Very few mages could command a person’s body to do as they wanted, and less could move that person around without using a natural element for their bidding like the wind tunnel Cormar had used on Ezekiel.

  He’s a rithmatist, she realized.

  A mage with the ability to both control minds and move objects around through telekinesis. The combination was a fairly impressive one. As she struggled to move, Sara tried to process all she knew about the rithmatist’s ability. She felt her muscles bunch and twitch in her arms and legs. They should be moving, but nothing was happening. Nothing was working. The only part of her that he’d left unfettered was her mouth and she couldn’t talk him to death. Not to mention the fact that she still hovered spread-eagled in the air in front of the man with no apparent effort on his behalf. That was what scared Sara.

  Some mages made big displays of their magic. Calling in fierce winds, igniting roaring fires, or even creating objects out of thin air. But this foe was quiet. He was assessing her and she knew he found her weak. Why wouldn’t he? It was his quiet strength that made him so powerful.

  But at the same time, she realized, it makes him vulnerable. I see it in the gloating of his eyes and the boredom of his face. He is overconfident.

  She obviously couldn’t move, but that wouldn’t stop her. Time and again she’d faced opponents on the training field. Opponents two times her size, with longer swords, with swifter feet, and sometimes better defenses. Each time her father had said, “Look for their weakness. There you will find your way in.”

  She knew that even if she called on her battle magic at this moment, it would be a useless endeavor. A battle mage who couldn’t move was as defenseless as a babe in swaddling.

  She watched with hate-filled eyes as he sauntered up to the files on the floor beneath her feet and picked them up. It was then that she had a brilliant and desperate idea.

  With nothing to lose, Sara called out to the beast that hid in her loft. Like a demonic curse, the chattering voice of her pet immediately responded. Her mother had hated the thing and had tried to kill him more than once with her broom. Which was why he lived in the rafters. She heard his squeaky voice and she commanded him with a scream, “Chrimrale, attack!”

  The rithmatist looked up at the rafters with incredulity on his face. He didn’t think that anything that was lurking up there on the thin beams could do him damage. He was wrong. Chrimrale was fast. Too fast for the rithmatist to grab a hold of him with his magic. The flying squirrel didn’t hesitate and launched like a squirrel out of hell straight at the rithmatist’s face. With a yowl, the man fell back while clawing at the demonic squirrel whose claws were latched onto his face. He couldn’t fight a mad, demonic squirrel, and keep Sara bound in mid-air at the same time. The rithmatist’s concentration broke and Sara fell to the floor in a crouch with her blade still in hand. With a snarl, she stood up just as the man threw the flying squirrel from his face with such force that Chrimrale smacked against the far wall with an agonized squeak.

  But the squirrel hadn’t sacrificed himself in vain. His opponent was blinded by the blood streaming into his eyes. Sara could tell from the way he was stumbling backward with one hand to his face and the other in front to ward her off. Too bad for him—his talents were useless if he couldn’t see his target. Moving fast, she took off his head with her sword. But she didn’t have time to turn to the necromancer and finish him off before she heard him give a command that froze her heart. He did the one thing that she couldn’t fight against.

  He ordered her own mother to attack her.

  Sara fell back under the assault from the dead body. Her mother’s head flopped around in a gruesome display with congealed blood smearing on both of them as she grabbed on to Sara’s limbs. As she was forced back against the wall, Sara couldn’t breathe from the stench of death in her nose. What was worse was that her sword lay useless between them, its owner unable to force herself to bring it up and stab the blade into her dead mother’s body.

  Horror filled her mind. Besides, how do you kill the living dead? I doubt stabbing it will do much good, and the body’s practically headless already.

  Sara sobbed as the lifeless body desperately tried its best to kill her. And yet she was still keenly aware of her surroundings as they struggled. She couldn’t do much with the sword in close quarters, so she dropped it as she quickly grabbed her knife from her belt. She knew that the weapon wouldn’t do much good with the dead, but there was one more person alive in this home. She pushed her mother’s body back with a jolt of strength and quickly threw the knife at the necromancer with all of her might. The aim was true. It flew straight for his head with enough force to pierce his skull directly between the eyes. He fell to the floor, as dead as she was sure Chrimrale was, and her mother’s body tumbled back to the floor, lifeless once more.

  Sara slid down the wall to her knees and sobbed. But she didn’t do so for very long. She heard booted steps coming up the side street minutes later. She didn’t know who they were, but it couldn’t be good. Sara rushed up the loft ladder to grab her remaining weapons and thrust everything else hastily in a bag. As she jumped down to the main floor, she had only moments to spare. She knew she needed to get out of here quickly. But she would be damned if she would leave her mother on the floor for strange men to desecrate her remains once more and trample through their home.

  So Sara gave her mother the only burial she could. She grabbed the files and stuffed them in her shirt so that she had two hands free for any fights. One to hold her sword and the other to grip the scimitar on the back, if necessary. Then she grabbed the lamp full of kerosene from the stove and tossed the lit missile to the floor. Fire immediately spread in all directions. With her home burning in the night, Sara fled to the only other place she knew she would find refuge.

  As she fled into the night, she was careful to keep to the dark shadows as she made her way to the fisherman’s wharf. When she came to the warehouse, she didn’t know what to expect. Her only hope was that Ezekiel would be there. Looking over her shoulder, she waited tensely until the door creaked open. She knew the warehouse had mage protections on it and the new watcher would probably rely on them as his primary protection. He would be wrong to do so, but on this night she was glad h
e was a fool. He opened the door, and with barely any effort, she disarmed him then forced him to stagger back into the building.

  Ezekiel stood to the right with his red bag slung across his shoulder and a large piece of wood in his hands. It looked like he had been preparing to leave before he had thought to fight.

  She gave him a wry glance even through the pain of her memories. “What were you going to do with that?”

  Ezekiel looked at her, opened his mouth a couple of times, and then looked back at the wood in his hands.

  “Club you with it?” he said helplessly.

  “What do you want? I though we left you at the plaza,” said the disgusted mercenary she had at sword point.

  Sara gave him a glare. “Oh, good, you recognize me. I wondered why you were fool enough to open the door.”

  He stopped talking then.

  “Sara, what are you doing? Here? At night? I was just about to leave. Mark is all set with his training now…”

  His voice trailed off as he got a better look at her appearance. Particularly the blood splattered on her clothes.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Tell your friend to take a walk,” she said harshly, dropping her sword tip from the mercenary’s neck.

  Ezekiel glanced over at the new watcher. Then he said, “You heard her. Check the perimeter in the back of the building.”

  Without protest, the new watcher left.

  “Now, Sara. Tell me,” Ezekiel said firmly.

  She took a deep breath. “They ambushed my mother. Killed her in her home.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say our home.

  She was on the verge of tumbling over into a darkness so deep she didn’t know if she could ever rise from it. From the worry on Ezekiel’s face, he could see it, too.

  “What? Who killed her?”

  “The Red Lion guard.”

  Ezekiel asked, “Why would they do that?” Confusion reigned on his face.

  “I don’t know,” she shouted, waving her sword about and pacing.

  “Okay, calm down.”

  She gave him a look filled with death.

  He shook his head. “You can’t think like this. You have to calm down. Deep breaths. We need to know what threat we face.”

  “We,” murmured Sara as she breathed in and out. The one word validated her choice to come here. To seek help.

  “We,” echoed Ezekiel firmly, looking at her with compassion and anger in his eyes. He didn’t approach her. He wouldn’t dare do that while she had her bloodied sword at her side, but she could tell just from looking at him that he felt her pain.

  “What did they want?” Ezekiel asked.

  She reached inside her shirt and pulled out the file. She threw it down on the floor in disgust. “My father’s death records.”

  He looked at her horror. “For a guard to come after you so blatantly, there must be something in there they don’t want found.”

  He gestured at the file. “May I?”

  She nodded. “What do you think you’ll find?”

  “Something that links your father to the Red Lions, and maybe something more,” Ezekiel said.

  “What about the Corcoran guard?” Ezekiel asked as he reached down to pick up the scattered papers.

  “What about them?”

  “Was it just attackers from the Red Lion guard?”

  “Does it matter?” she said tightly. “They’re all mercenaries.”

  He quickly shook his head. “Those companies hate each other. They’re the fiercest rival guards of all the mercenaries. I shudder to think what it would be like to have them on the same battlefield. In case it wasn’t clear, I’d be really surprised if they were working together. So if you saw the guards from both groups together, it’s really bad news for us.”

  “It was just the Red Lion guard and his pet necromancer.”

  “Which means for now we can hopefully trust the Corcoran.”

  She started pacing again as she asked, “What else do you know?”

  “Well,” said Ezekiel as he thumbed through some pages, “who’s Farst?”

  “What?” she said, distracted.

  He waved a page with a death certificate labeled Cabel Farst in large black letters.

  “Oh.” She remembered with a wave of her hand. “I stole that to cover up taking the Fairchild file. Look for anything that mentions Vincent Fairchild, my father, instead.”

  “Right,” Ezekiel said. “Well, now I know your father was the commander in charge of all the mercenaries on the field of battle.”

  She turned to him. “That could be important.”

  “I daresay it has to be,” he said as he scanned the file. “As is this.”

  She stopped pacing and waiting as Ezekiel began to read aloud. “‘The Red Lions found a temple two miles west of the battlefield, four days before the great battle. Commander Fairchild ordered an investigation.’”

  “Why is that important?” she said.

  Ezekiel looked over at her. “It says here that he ordered the investigation be opened a day before he was accused of desertion and five days before he died.”

  Sara’s mouth tightened in anger. “Then in addition to my mother’s death, the Red Lion guard had something to do with my father’s.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Is there anything else in there?”

  “Just a certification of execution,” he said uncomfortably. “Do you want to see it?”

  “Just tell me,” she said quietly. “How did he die?”

  “By hanging on a low-rising hill,” he replied.

  She nodded and turned away to hide the moisture in her eyes. She didn’t want him to think she was weak. She wasn’t weak, and she didn’t have time for tears.

  Clearing her throat, Sara said, “What else?”

  “An officer signed the death certificate and personally transported your father’s body away for cremation. Officer Matteas Hillan.”

  “What about all those other papers in there? That file is stuffed with dozens of single sheets that even the inclusion of the Farst file couldn’t account for,” she said numbly. “Did they rip my father’s journal apart and stuff them in the file?”

  When she turned to look at Ezekiel, she saw his face the palest she had ever seen it. “What is it? Did you find the journal entries?”

  “No,” said Ezekiel. “They’re blank.”

  “What’s blank?” she said.

  “All of the rest of the papers,” he said helplessly as he held up blank page after page.

  Mouth agape, Sara quickly walked over. “How can that be? You said the mercenaries kept meticulous files.”

  “And they do,” assured Ezekiel.

  Turning, he grabbed the sheath of papers belonging to the man called Farst that he had set aside. He thumbed through page after page before holding them out to her.

  “Look at them. All of these pages are filled. Here’s Farst’s military service record. His honors. His death certificate. His next of kin and even his personal notations.”

  Sara stared in disbelief. “Then where are my father’s?”

  Ezekiel looked at her and back at the files he held in his hands. One set of files was practically empty of anything. The other bursting with knowledge.

  “I don’t know.”

  Sara stepped back and set her bloody sword to rest on a nearby bench. Always close at hand.

  “None of this makes sense.”

  “You’re telling me,” said Ezekiel.

  Sara thought aloud. “Why would the Red Lion guard come after me? What do they want with my father’s files? There’s nothing in there. Why is there nothing in there?”

  She paced and thought.

  “Maybe it’s whatever he was investigating,” offered Ezekiel. “Maybe they thought he had some information on the temple and had put it in his journals.”

  “But the journals aren’t in there!” shouted Sara.

&nbs
p; “I know,” said Ezekiel. “But they don’t know that.”

  “The question is where are they,” said Sara as she paced some more.

  Ezekiel muttered so low that she almost didn’t catch it, “Well, where were they last?”

  She turned to him as hope sparked amidst the anger raging inside her. “On the field of battle.”

  Ezekiel quickly said, “Well, I’m sure they’re not there now.”

  “How do you know?” demanded Sara.

  “I don’t,” spluttered Ezekiel. “But that was months ago.”

  Sara shook her head in irritation. “My father kept his journal close to his heart…always. If he went to his execution willingly, then he had it on him. He knew that the mercenaries were contracted to handle all death benefits. As such they would remove all of his possessions and transport them back to his family. At least they were supposed to.”

  “I can see that, but how do you know he went willingly?” ventured Ezekiel.

  “Because he had honor,” spat out Sara. “Unlike these damned mercenaries. And besides, if he hadn’t gone willingly there would be a trail of dead bodies from the battlefield to the capital city in his wake.”

  Ezekiel couldn’t dispute that.

  “So he had the journal on him when he died,” Ezekiel prompted her.

  “Which means this Matteas Hillan would know where it is now,” Sara said fiercely.

  Ezekiel was silent for a moment before he admitted, “He might.”

  “Then I need to find him,” Sara flatly. “Before the Red Lion guard does.”

  Chapter XIV

  “NO OFFENSE TO YOUR AWESOME planning skills, Sara,” Ezekiel said, “but you have no idea where he is.”

  “But we know someone who might,” said Sara darkly.

  “We do?”

  She looked toward the door. “Our new watcher is a Red Lion mercenary.”

  “That’s true,” Ezekiel said, coming up to stand beside her. “But it’s a large company. He might not have any idea who Hillan is.”

  “And he might be his best friend,” said Sara calmly.

  Ezekiel nodded and looked over at her with a pained expression on his face. The kind of expression that said he really hoped she wasn’t going to kill someone.