"Our own people? The Death Clan?” Aetria almost whispered the last, as if afraid the source of nightmares could hear her.
"The Kanchala had been hired by the Hermanians very early in the war to train their assassins. The murders were made to look like Hermanian assassin work, but the method of killing was Kanchala. They would never have taught this method, for a master does not teach his apprentices everything he knows. No, this was a Rhuhani warning directly at us, and we had no choice but to obey it."
"But the Rhuhani no longer rule the clans. Why should they interfere?"
Her father looked off into the corner of the room, his eyes focused on something in his past. “Always respect the Rhuhani, Aetria—but watch your back. The Tierian who warned us off the first time was Rhuhani. There must be a very important reason for their actions if they involved the Ruling Clan."
Aetria pulled her feet up under her in chair, as if to protect them from some evil thing crawling around on the floor. She hugged herself, cold even in the warmth of the summer evening. She looked at her father, waiting for him to finish his story.
He shifted his eyes off the past and back to her face. “Several more years went by. Pleates continued to use our services, but infrequently. Perhaps our member had caused him to become cautious in his dealings with us. His activities were subdued. It was so until he returned to Inhestia in the spring of this year."
"That is when I rejoined the army."
The sadness in her father's deep-set eyes jolted Aetria. His voice dropped a level as he spoke. “You caused him a great deal of concern, my daughter. Whatever was his plan, you were interfering with it. On reaching the army encampment, he sought us out once more. He wanted you taken care of."
Her breath exploded out of her. “What?"
His voiced shifted, anger creeping into it. “He hired one of us to kill you. The member was a very old friend—one who had watched you raised from a babe-in-arms. He told me and then took an extended journey. While he was away, the Delmathians discovered Pleates’ activities, and the rest of the story you know."
Nodding, Aetria kept her eyes fixed on her father's. “Yes, but not who told the general about Pleates. Her own spies noticed the Hermanians getting set up to capture her and told her she had a spy in her staff, but that is not the whole story is it, Father?"
"There is never an end to a long story, Aetria. Just retellings and revisions."
She knew that he was not going to answer her last question. He had secrets that he was not going to tell.
"Does your ‘organization’ know why Pleates became a traitor to his Order and king?"
"No, but we know he had a fascination with the Logathian Mountains. Perhaps a journey there after the war would be profitable."
"Assuming we win, maybe so. In the meantime I have serious questions that I need answers for now. With him dead, who would know the answers?"
Her father rubbed his eyes, tired after a long day's work and this late evening reunion with his daughter. “The one who knows some of those answers leads the Hermanian Sorcerer Corps. But I do know the Hermanians had told their sorcerers to be on the lookout for Pleates, in the event he fled the Delmathians and sought shelter in Hermania. Perhaps a talk with a Hermanian sorcerer might be useful."
"Could you arrange that, Father?"
Laughing, he said jokingly, “For a price."
* * * *
From the safety of the trees, Aetria and Sergeant Delmona watched the worn path that came up and over the ridge to their south, wound past their hiding place, and continued across the grassy glade before starting a slow climb up the hill to the north of them. It was a path well traveled by horse in recent times, a path marking the easternmost flank of the Hermanians, made by patrols and skirmishers moving back and forth. In this area, the trees were thick and close together; the hills and little valleys made the lay of the land unsuited for movement of infantry and heavy horse. No serious battles would ever be fought here.
"If your father's information is as accurate as it has been up to now, they should be along soon.” The sergeant shifted in her saddle.
Aetria looked to her right and left, seeing the other seven Royal Guardsmen sitting quietly on their horses, watching the path as she had been. Her father's price for telling her how she could capture a Hermanian sorcerer for questioning was to return home more often for visits. He told her the Hermanians did not have enough sorcerers to station them in fortified strongholds as the Delmathians did, so they routinely sent a sorcerer riding the skirmish lines to scan for source activity. The sorcerer was protected by a patrol of cavalry, normally about a half dozen men. They rode quickly between their outposts, disguised as normal skirmishers, so their presence was not marked as anything out of the ordinary. He said they moved their sorcerers before dusk set in. She had been sensing movement from the south for the past hour, but the reading was very weak. Perhaps the sorcerer had powered himself down to maximize his own search for a source.
Sergeant Delmona had not protested her request for the use of the escort to capture a sorcerer. The sergeant said getting some action on an otherwise dull escort job, begging the captain's pardon, would be nice. Aetria felt that the odds were in their favor—eight Royal Guards were more than a match for six Hermanian horsemen. The sergeant asked how they were supposed to know which one of the party was a sorcerer, if they all dressed alike. Aetria answered it would probably be obvious at the time, “but just in case, don't kill anyone unless you have to.” Having powered herself down, Aetria knew she would be able to spot the sorcerer. So here they sat, waiting for the skirmishers. Her father's information was correct.
The horsemen crested the ridge to the south and cantered along the path in single file. The third soldier back had an aura. She did not have to tell Delmona anything; the sorcerer was wearing his robe underneath the leather armor, and the gray material was clearly evident. The sergeant signaled who the target was to her troop, and they readied their crossbows. As the skirmishers rode by, Sergeant Delmona dropped her raised fist and crossbow bolts sang out, felling the skirmishers and leaving the sorcerer trying to control a panicked horse, wondering where everybody went. Delmona came out of hiding and rode down upon the struggling sorcerer, backhanding him out of the saddle with an armored fist across his chest.
Dazed, the sorcerer crashed to the ground, and Delmona was at his throat with a dagger, ordering him not to try any magic or he was a dead man. The sorcerer froze in place, the sergeant's knife cutting into his skin. Her Hermanian may have been crude, but he seemed to understand. Aetria rode out of the trees and approached the man. She was in the process of dismounting when, without warning, crossbow bolts hissed by, a number of them hitting Aetria's horse, who reared and plunged under the deadly missiles. Aetria had already been hit, the bolt slamming through her armor into her right shoulder, and her last thoughts were of being pitched backwards through the air by the bucking horse.
The Royal Guardsmen broke cover on seeing Aetria go down, two rushing to assist their sergeant, the other five wheeling to face the onrushing group of skirmishers who had ridden down from the north just as Aetria's escort had executed their ambush. The emergence of armored horsemen out of the trees gave them pause, and they broke their charge, choosing to loose arrows and bolts at the armored troops instead of sword or lance. Two Royal Guardsmen went down while the sergeant and one of the men shoved Aetria into the arms of the last assisting horseman, who draped her across his saddle and headed for safety. Delmona turned to pull the sorcerer up, and saw that he was no longer of any value, his head pulped by the flailing hooves of Aetria's horse. She grabbed Aetria's saddlebags off the back of the now-dead horse and mounting, rallied her troops. They rode off down the southern trail, crossbow bolts arching out after them.
CHAPTER 8
Lying on her sleeping pad, looking at the bloody hole in her Captain of Cavalry commission sash, Aetria berated herself for the hundredth time that day for being so stupid. Taking a crossbow bol
t in the shoulder was certainly painful. But it was going to be nothing compared to the discomfiture she would experience when the general returned to her headquarters from a field unit inspection and found out her Chief Advisor had returned from Inhestia wounded, with two of her escorting squad of the general's own Royal Guard dead.
And for what? A questionable raid into enemy territory to kidnap a sorcerer, and no sorcerer gained for the losses.
The dull ache was returning to the wound site. Aetria slipped into meditation mode to release the healing spell she had coerced out of the Adept Healer, Loreana Jorell, who was very reluctant to provide such skills to any non-healing sorcerer, let alone Aetria. Trying to ease Loreana's fears, Aetria pointed out to the healer that it wasn't exactly a heavy-duty spell, more of a self-help, quick bandage kind of spell.
Loreana countered with the argument that, with Aetria's record of spell control, she could turn a toothache cure into a resurrection spell without any effort at all. Even coming from her closest friend on the general's staff, that comment stung.
Perhaps that unkind slap at her friend's sorcerer's skills was the deciding factor that overcame Jorell's hesitation to teach her the spell, but in reality it was probably the fear of annoying one so close to General Borlock. Loreana gave her the spell, and it worked well. Aetria relaxed as the pain eased away.
The blare of trumpets from the direction of the encampment's main gate signaled the general's arrival and sent a shock of anxiety through Aetria. If she hadn't been so weak from blood loss, she would have struggled to her feet and started pacing up and down. She spent the time before the general's arrival calming herself, going over the argument again and again in her mind, trying to eliminate all emotion and leave sound reasoning and clear thinking as the basis for her actions, as she had been taught by Sonja. As the clatter of an armored body dismounting came from outside her tent, she mentally wailed, How could I be so stupid?
Sonja entered Aetria's tent without the normal courtesy call of “Request permission to enter,” an act which Aetria misread as being out of anger, instead of what it was, concern for her welfare. Aetria's response was to pretend to be asleep.
Sonja looked at the “sleeping” sorceress, noting the paleness of blood loss in her face and the worry lines wrinkling Aetria's brow. Sonja smiled in relief. The Healer's hastily delivered report of Aetria's status was that her wound was serious, but unless infection set in, not life-threatening. If Aetria was this worried about Sonja's reaction to the news, then she couldn't be that near death's door.
"Not too wise, Sorceress,” Sonja said bluntly.
Aetria sighed out her held breath. Sonja could read her too well. “I'm sorry, General."
Sonja responded to the apology somewhat harshly. “Why was a raid into enemy controlled territory so important that it lost me the services of my Chief Advisor and a squad of my personal Royal Guard?"
"I needed information from a Hermanian sorcerer, and I needed it as soon as possible,” Aetria answered in a subdued voice.
"So why didn't you tell that to my Chief of Staff and let him ‘acquire’ the sorcerer for you, instead of taking it upon yourself to lead such a foolish raid? Don't answer that. I know your answer already. I will point out to you that your commission in the cavalry is more honorary than actual. You received it for your invaluable participation in the mission to escort me to the king. As I have told you on numerous occasions, your purpose on my staff is advisory. I have officers to lead line troops and sorcerers. Your desire to be in the midst of everything is starting to be annoying."
Lying down as she was, it was hard for Aetria to use any body language to show her contrition other than with her face, and the fire in her eyes lit by the need to rise to her own defense was not helping that. She decided an aggressive offense might be better than a passive defense.
"I sincerely appreciate the value you place in my advice on a variety of subjects, but I cannot sit around and wait for wisdom and knowledge to come to me so I can be ready to advise you. I took what I considered to be a calculated risk to gather information, which I could then turn into facts. Those facts are needed to answer your question on how that traitor Adept Pleates was able to track us cross country, thus being in the position to ambush us and cause the death of Alenso Mythrian."
Sonja sat down wearily in a chair near the camp table that served Aetria as a place to dump her few personal belongings, and untied the leather thongs that held her breastplate in place, dropping it to the rug-covered ground with a dull clang.
"Good diversionary tactic to use Alenso's name. How I miss that man. He was more than just a stand-in puppet to play the general in my place. He was a true friend, and—"
"I'm sorry, General, I didn't mean to evoke sad memories, but that truly is the reason for my actions."
Sonja's eyes swivelled to focus on Aetria, returning from that point in space where memories rest. “Not sad memories, Aetria. Alenso died as he lived: eating, drinking, wenching, and fighting at the end. A near perfect death for an imperfect man. His death would have been perfect if his last kiss had been on a woman, instead of that cross-dressing traitor of a sorcerer."
"That kiss distressed Pleates as much as anything I can think of, probably saving your life by affecting his knife throw at you. Do you really miss that huge hunk of depravity you called friend?"
"Oh, yes,” Sonja smiled. “He was very good in the saddle."
"Being a good horseman is not a reason to miss someone, General."
"Wrong saddle, Sorceress."
Aetria bit her lip to stop the response that almost flew from her mouth. She quickly changed the subject. “There has been a slight complication in my life as a result of my recent visit to my mentor to tell her of my second loss of control and subsequent grid burnout."
The need to do more than lie on her back and talk was too much for Aetria. She struggled to sit erect and get up, but Sonja prevented her from leaving the sleeping pallet, actively forcing her back down. She acquiesced to her friend's protested desire to sit up by pulling Aetria's saddle around to the pallet and bracing the sorceress’ back in a sitting position.
"My mentor, Magess Trelana, had already heard of the death of Adept Pleates and was gravely concerned about his traitorous acts, especially their impact on the relations between sorcerer and non-sorcerer. After I had told her the story of the escort mission, and Pleates’ ability to track us down despite my not using an exposed source, she was quite surprised he could do that. Although she also thought it odd he had insisted I take his source with me when I started the escort mission, she had no idea on how he did it."
"So my theory of something special with personalized sources doesn't hold,” Sonja asked.
"Yes, and no.” Aetria winced when the general snorted in derision. She hastily added, “Now, please, I know you dislike my mushy answers, but this really is the case here. I had said I didn't know if Adepts was trained with special skills associated with the sources given to them by the Mage Council.
"It turns out there are no secrets attached to personal sources. A candidate for advancement to the level of Adept, after receiving the necessary training and approval by their mentor to try, must develop a new spell in their field of expertise. To increase concentration and effort, the candidate is ordered out into seclusion, given a Power source to work with, and not allowed back into the Order until she or he has mastered the new spell. If you pass, you keep your source. They are rare and valuable, but not unique. On the other hand, I think you may be correct about Pleates’ source."
"The ‘complication’ you mentioned, Sorceress?"
"Yes, Ma'am, get to the point. Since I had kept his source, I gave it to her. She looked at the source itself, but sensed nothing out of the ordinary. She gave it back to me and asked why I thought she should. I knew better than lie to her, and risking her displeasure, told her I felt an odd discordance."
"Why should she have been upset with you?"
"Since my first burnout
experience, she has been struggling with the decision to terminate my sorcerer abilities."
Sonja shot out of her chair. “Who does she think she is, that she can do that to one of my officers?"
"She is on the High Council of Magi, and my mentor. If she believes I endanger our order of sorcerers, then it is her duty to report me to the Council. It has nothing to do with the army."
"It is not the army she will have to answer to, it is me, and if I can't influence minds, I'm sure the king can."
"Now, General, please sit down and stop throwing your weight around.” Aetria's pleading tone mollified Sonja somewhat, and she returned to her seat, muttering curses into her wine cup.
"Since I am to be nice, please explain to me why you could be thrown out of your order?"
"Trelana believes my grid burnouts may have had serious effects on my sorcerer ability. When I was sent back to her the first time for additional training, after the incident with the guard elephants, I discovered I could sense the presence of Powered sorcerers. When I related that to her, she became quite concerned. Her initial belief was that I was super-sensitized by the burnout, and that as I healed, the phenomenon would go away."
"Which it did not, as you used it to get us around the Hermanian pickets,” Sonja interjected.
"As I said then, General, it was a secret I needed kept. Trelana lectured me on the dangers of abnormal spell use and the possibility of being thrown out of the Order. It scared me so much I did nothing to dispel her belief and avoided the topic as best I could."
"She took an awfully big chance with you, Aetria."
The Sorceress blushed, looking down to avoid eye contact. “I know, but I was her best pupil. She allowed me to train to Sorceress level and beyond. She doubled the usual level of control exercises to test me to the limit. I passed and exceeded her expectations, but she would not sponsor me for Adept level until I had proven myself once again. She sent me back into the field—with a stiff warning not to dabble in areas in which I was not specifically trained. Two months later I return, having experienced another burnout. This loss of control, plus sensing a ‘discordance’ from a source—well it might be the point of no return for her."
Wild Sorceress Page 17