by Amy Hopkins
Rogan listened intently, mind running over his plans. They would march on Tahn in four days, an army amassed through his lies and his magic mind tricks. They would send the citizens of Muir against the gates first.
When the fool mystic girl brought out Adeline to parade her before them—and he knew she would—they would hammer the last nail in their coffin themselves. With Adeline supposedly dead, slaughtered before the very eyes of her avengers, he would call to attack.
The mystic bitch would come for him, if she wasn’t trampled by the very people she was trying to protect. Rogan closed his eyes, losing himself in a memory. It was the only time he had truly seen her, standing proud and strong against his magic.
She hadn’t shown fear or groveled at his feet like so many weaker men and women. Julianne, just like Adeline, had faced him proudly. Then, she had tricked him. Her illusions were perfectly crafted, showing a strength of power and quickness of mind he envied.
I will own you, he thought, imagining he could send the words straight to the girl’s mind. I will own you and make you dance for me. Perhaps, in front of your soldier friend? We can watch him squirm together.
Donna’s whining voice brought his attention back to her. “Yes, yes.” He waved his hand, dismissing her. “We leave in four days, no matter how many men, or horses, or useless fucking carts we have. If there’s not enough food, we’ll make them forget they’re hungry.”
“Even if they don’t feel it, they’ll still fall over dead if you starve them,” Donna pointed out.
Rogan could swear there was a thread of haughty condescension to her, something that hadn’t been there since he had broken her. “You presume I care. We’ll ride them hard, fight them until they’re dead. If they’re not strong enough to make it back, I don’t want them.”
Donna glared at him.
“Go. Your face irritates me,” Rogan snapped, unsettled at her sudden change in demeanor. He checked the spell latched onto her mind and breathed a sigh of relief to find that it was still intact.
Donna swept out, leaving Rogan alone.
All too often, he was alone. “What would you do if you were here, little Julianne?” he asked the empty room.
“I’d kill you, Rogan,” he replied to himself in a high, squeaky voice. “I’d use my pretty face to distract you and cast my magic.”
“And when I beat you?” he asked, voice deep again.
“I’ll fall at your feet and worship you, Master.”
Rogan smiled down at his imaginary foe. “That you will, girl. That you will.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Arnold slowly approached the tall, white wall. He held a flimsy stick aloft, twitching it to fan out the scrap of shirt that hung from it. The fabric was torn and muddied, but still, he hoped, recognizable as white.
“Who’s that?” someone yelled, voice muffled by the barrier between them.
“My name is Arnold!” he yelled back. “I’ve come to negotiate the surrender of my men.”
He supposed they were his men, now. Lawson was gone, their lord dead. Arnold was the highest-ranking officer left and, though his honor was likely in tatters from this cowardly move, his sense of right allowed him no other choice.
The soldiers he now led were dying. They were starving, their food supplies lost to whatever the hell had attacked their camp and fouled the supplies. Diarrhea was rife and three of his charges—of the seven that were left—and were now too weak to stand.
He might be a coward, but at least his men would live.
A gate screeched open. “Well? What are ye waitin’ for?”
Arnold squinted, wondering why the stocky man who spoke to him had the voice of a woman. When he got close enough to see the musclebound girl, he swallowed. Perhaps, then, that rumor was true.
His men had sworn they had faced down women on the battlefield. Not just one, and those they had seen fought like demons.
It was no secret his lord’s sister, Adeline, had convinced their father to overturn the law that prevented women from joining the army and guards, but George the Third had never had an applicant that met his standards.
Women, he had said, were just not built for fighting.
“Keep yer eyes up here, soldier,” the woman snapped as he reached the door.
Arnold blushed, realizing he had been staring at her chest. Not lustfully, but wondering how a tiny farming town had sourced such high quality armor.
He dropped a glance to her sword. No, he realized. That wasn’t made here. She must be a foreigner.
It would explain her odd manner of speaking, at least.
Rough hands grabbed Arnold and held him still while a tall, blonde man patted him down. His movements were trained, precise, fingers darting into boots and gripping his sleeves firmly enough to discover any weapons.
He carried none, but the process was a clear sign that he was not dealing with amateurs. He hoped the man wouldn’t notice his trembling knees.
“Enough, Marcus. His intentions are honest.”
Arnold twitched his head to see a woman robed in white watching them.
She stepped forward and bowed her head to him slightly. “My name is Julianne. I’d offer you my hand, but I understand there’s been illness at your camp?”
“Yes, there—how did you know?” Arnold asked, suddenly afraid.
“I’m sorry. I’m a mystic—I read your mind while you waited outside.
He had heard of such things. The theatre performers were rumored to use mind-magic in their performances, and every now and then, a rumor about Lord George’s advisor would cross his path. Those stories were enough to make his toes curl.
Julianne waited for him to process the information. “So… you know why I’m here?”
“Yes,” Julianne said. “And we accept your terms.”
“We do?” the tall soldier asked.
“Yes, Marcus. Arnold here would like to submit his men to our mercy. He asks only that we treat them fairly and, if we put them to death, we do so quickly and cleanly.”
“Wow.” Marcus looked at Arnold with new respect. “Must be really bad out there.”
Arnold shrugged. “We’ll all be dead in three weeks, I imagine. I’d rather a knife at my throat than to shit myself to death, spending three days on my back waiting for it to happen.”
Marcus took a step back. “Ah. That illness.” He wiped his hands on his pants, face screwed up in distaste.
Arnold nodded. “It started with hallucinations. All of us, delirious. Then came the vomiting, and just when we began to recover, the shitting started to take us, one by one.”
Several people cleared their throats and looked away, but Arnold ignored them.
“If you surrender, wholly and completely—and we will know if any of you are lying—you may join us,” Julianne told Arnold. “We’ll offer medical care, food, and clothing. You will not take anything not given to you, and once you are well, you will fight for us if we ask it.”
“Fight against my city?” Arnold asked.
“Fight for it,” Marcus said. “We’re not out to take your city, you idiot. Our target is Rogan, and he’s done more to hurt Muir—and Tahn—than anyone else.”
Arnold gave a curt nod, shoulders slumped in defeat. “Fine. But please, one of my men is on his deathbed. If you plan to let us live, I beg you let me go for them now.”
“We’ll bring horses,” Marcus said. “Mathias?”
A thin man stepped out from the watching crowd. “I’ll get them. How many men?”
“Seven,” he said.
Julianne’s face fell. “I’m sorry for your losses,” she said, genuine feeling in her voice.
Arnold shrugged. “It’s the price of war. Nothing less.”
Mathias soon returned with a half-dozen horses. “This is all I could find,” he said. “The sick men can ride back. We’ll travel on foot.”
“Take Bastian,” Julianne said. “He could do with a walk.”
They set off, coming to the
pitiful group just beyond the tree line.
“Ack, it smells like a shithole,” Marcus said, gagging. “Only with more shit, less hole.”
“I told you,” Arnold said. “They’re not well.”
That much was obvious. The men were lethargic, their skin varying shades of a sickly blue-grey and more than one pile of vomit on the ground.
Bastian stood back, his shirt pulled up over his nose to mask the odor.
“Foraging in the woods, were you?” Mathias asked them with a grin.
“Nothing unusual,” one of Arnold’s men said. “Just some fruits and a couple of rabbits we caught.”
“And who brought back the Bear’s Grapes?” Mathias squatted down, poking a finger at the small pile of nuts and berries left on a tree stump.
“The red things?” another man asked. “Gant. He said they were safe!”
“And where’s Gant now?” Mathias asked.
Mumbling from the men revealed Gant was the first to shit and vomit himself to death.
“Never trust a dead man when it comes to wild berries, folks.” Mathias ran his eye over the miserable group, then picked out one man who lay on his side, watching but not responding.
The soldier’s eyes followed Mathias, but he didn’t react when the druid leaned down to press his fingers to the sick man’s face. Mathias breathed in and his eyes turned green.
When he pulled back, the sickly tinge had faded and his patient sat up, looking brighter, if not entirely better. “What did you do?” he asked in awe. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Mathias shook his head. “Bunch of idiots,” he muttered under his breath. He gave a second man a partial healing, then deemed the rest fit to ride.
“I’ll dole out healing as it’s needed, but I’d rather not do it standing in a puddle of puke,” he said.
“Come on, you heard him,” Arnold said.
He and Marcus helped get the sick men onto horses while Bastian slowly walked through the group, his eyes white. Each time he passed one of the men, he would pause, concentrating. Then, he would nod and walk on.
Once he had examined all of them, he stood off to the side and gestured for Marcus to join him.
“They’re all good to take back?” Marcus asked him quietly.
“They’d all sell their souls for a warm bed, and a clean bathroom. If we treat them well—or, honestly, as long as we don’t threaten them outright—I think they’ll do as we ask, and respect the treaty.”
Bastian watched as Arnold herded his men into a tight group, then looked to Marcus for permission to set off. Marcus gave him a wave, and the horses slowly plodded off, Arnold leading them on foot.
“What do they think of their new leader?” Marcus asked.
“They respect him. More than his commander, in fact.” Bastian frowned. “Look, these guys aren’t particularly smart or especially brave. But, given a good leader—not the shitheads they’ve had so far—they could do good things.”
Marcus chewed on that for a bit, then went to speak with Arnold himself.
“Are you well enough to walk?” he asked, noticing Arnold’s pale face, damp with sweat.
He nodded. “Well enough. I haven’t had the shits, not yet, anyway.”
“Why did you wait so long to come for help?” Marcus said. “And why aren’t you sick?”
Arnold dropped his head. “George… he made us think you were all traitors. He said your leader, Julianne, was out to take Muir and would kill any of us that tried to defect. Not that we would have.”
“Sounds like a douche,” Marcus said, matter-of-factly.
“He was an a-grade asshole. But we’re soldiers. We fight for our lord, no matter what.” Arnold squinted into the late afternoon sun, then turned back towards Muir. “We thought we were honorable.”
“Honor can be a complicated thing,” Marcus agreed. Then, he said, “Or, it can be dead simple. Do right by people. You do right by people, all the time, and your honor will stay intact.”
“Did I do right by surrendering?” Arnold asked. “I pledged to give up my men to the enemy.”
“Would you have led us to them if you thought we would string them up and torture them?” Marcus asked.
Arnold shook his head violently.
“So, you faced professional embarrassment and loss of your ranks if you ever return to Muir. You risked what little you had left to save the lives of your men.” Marcus grinned. “Seems pretty honorable to me.”
Arnold sighed in relief. “Thank you. As for your other question… well, I was faced with watching my men starve. I rationed out the food, but didn’t take any for myself.” He grimaced. “I thought I was doing them a favor.”
“Rather have a stomach not fed than one forcefully evacuated?” Marcus laughed. “You did a good thing, and it worked out for you. Don’t feel bad about it.”
“If you say so.” Arnold didn’t seem convinced, but he let the matter lie.
They travelled back to Tahn slowly, stopping every now and then so that Mathias could check on the men. He administered healings when needed, but spared himself as much as he could.
“How are you feeling, Mathias?” Marcus called after their third stop.
“Nothing a mug of that nice Tahnish mead won’t fix,” the druid called back.
“No more rest stops until you get that, hey? I’d like to make it past the gates by dusk.” Marcus didn’t say it out loud, but the druid looked tired and Marcus didn’t want to wear him out in case he was needed elsewhere.
“Don’t worry about him too much,” Bastian said. “Druids don’t tire as easily as mental magicians. They have ways of replenishing their energy.”
Marcus just shook his head. “I don’t even know what that means. If you say he’s ok, I believe you.”
Bastian laughed. “This, from a man I would bet my balls has a talent for mental magic.”
“Me?” Marcus snorted. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard since we started this journey. And we’ve seen some weird shit!”
It was Bastian’s turn to shake his head. “You have a natural, untrained shield. There has to be some magic in you, you’re just too set in your ways to access it.”
“Damn straight I am,” Marcus insisted. “I don’t want it. I don’t even want to know about it! As much as I appreciate having the ability to keep my girlfriend from reading my thoughts, I—” he cut off abruptly, realizing what he had just said.
“Does Julianne know she’s your girlfriend?” Bastian teased.
“It was a figure of speech!” Marcus protested.
“Not a word from me,” Bastian said. Just as Marcus was about to thank him, he added, “But thoughts? Now, that’s a whole other story.”
Marcus let Bastian walk on a little ahead. Then, he reached into the saddlebag of a nearby horse. The mare didn’t flinch, nor did her rider as he pulled out a pair of wadded up socks.
Marcus gave them a quick sniff. Yep, they stink, he assured himself. Then, he lobbed them at Bastian’s head, the damp, smelly ball thumping him on the back of the head.
“Hey!” Bastian yelped and turned around, hand clutching his head. “What the hell was that?”
“Just enjoying my magical ability to block out mind reading smartasses,” Marcus taunted.
“Oh, that’s it.” Bastian screwed up his face, eyes white. He whispered a word and something slammed into Marcus’s shield.
Accustomed to brute force attacks after training so often with Julianne, Marcus resisted. He breathed slowly, focusing his mind on repelling the attack.
The horse beside his walked, its steady, clopping hoofbeats striking a rhythm with Marcus’s heart. As the pressure on his mind increased, so did his resistance.
The world shrank to his own boots, one foot hitting the hard ground as another lifted up to take the next step.
The sun on his neck. The shuffling people. All of it narrowed in his mind to bolster his shield.
When an icy cold stream of water poured down his
back, Marcus squealed. “What the utter fuck?” he shrieked.
Behind him, Bastian burst out laughing. “Yeah, soldier. You try blocking that shit out of your mind.” He slipped his waterskin back into his belt as he tried to catch his breath.
“Why did you do that, you fucking sadist? I’m drenched!” Marcus could feel the water dripping down his ass crack and leaking down the leg of his pants. He was soaked, from the back of his neck down the the trickle of water pooling in his boots.
“Lesson one: never assume a mental magician will only use mental magic against you.” Bastian lifted one finger up, then added another. “Lesson two: as a mental magician, always make sure you have moves to rely on that don’t use magic.”
“Let me guess, your esteemed Master Mystic taught you that?” Marcus asked through clenched teeth. He shivered as a cool breeze touched his wet skin.
“Of course!” Bastian said, cheerfully. “She is the best, you know.”
“Admit it, lad,” Mathias said with a chuckle. “He won that round.”
“This round, maybe. Next time?” Marcus shook the water off and started walking again. “Better watch your back, Mystic!”
By the time they returned to Tahn, Julianne had mobilized the townspeople. Men and women bustled back and forth, clearing out one of the barns near the center of town. Sharne greeted them at the gate and led them to it.
“The weather is mild enough that it shouldn’t be uncomfortable, and we found enough beds for all of you,” she said flatly.
They reached the barn and dismounted. Mathias led the horses away as Sharne pushed open the barn doors. It was only when he saw the flood of light inside the old building that Marcus realized the sky had turned purple and the air chilled.
Duty done, Sharne let the door swing shut behind Arnold, the last to enter.
“You ok with this?” Marcus asked.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?” she asked.
He could see the angry set of her shoulders, but she didn’t let it show on her face. Still, if Marcus had been made to provide refuge to someone who had attacked him in his sleep, he didn’t think he would be too happy about it.
“Bastian said they’re not bad men,” he reassured her. “They were just under some shitty leaders. Those are now dead, and these guys are itching for a second chance.”