by G. A. Aiken
“Bored? No. Becoming weak and pathetic? Definitely.”
“Weak and pathetic? You? Really?” Annwyl nuzzled the horse’s snout and the horse nuzzled her back. He’d die for her, Kachka knew from just watching them. Then again, Kachka was also sure that Annwyl felt the same way. She seemed better with animals. Horses. Dogs. Dragons.
“You gave up a lot when you came here with your sister, didn’t you?”
Kachka had given up everything, but she didn’t want that to get back to her sister. So, instead, she said, “We all make choices. Then we must live with them.”
“You know your sister is safe here. With us. The dragons love her. Even Rhiannon, and she used to eat humans as a treat.”
“She sniffs my hair sometimes. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, don’t let her do that too long.” Annwyl walked to the stall gate, rested her foot on one slat and her arms on the top, the brush still in her hand. “How would you like a job, Kachka Shestakova?”
“I already hunt your food.”
“No, no. A real job.”
“I will not join your army, Annwyl the Bloody. I will not take orders from men.”
“Yeah, I sensed that when you told the captain of my guards that if he didn’t get away from you, you were going to tear off his penis and fuck him with it.”
“He is lucky I did not go through with it.”
“You need a job. I have one for you.”
“What job, if not hunter? Getting dragons their daily meat.”
“The Chramnesind cult has been attacking temples all across my lands. Killing the priests and priestesses. Or, as they call it, purifying them. They must be working in small groups because they’re in and out in a few hours, leaving nothing but death in their wake. By the time my troops arrive, it’s all over.”
“Groups?”
“There is more than one because they’ve been known to attack temples that are leagues apart in a single night.”
“And what do you want me to do about your cults?”
“Find them. Kill them all. Make sure to leave a nice, bloody message that Duke Salebiri and his Chramnesind cult will know is from me. From what I’ve seen of you . . . I think that’s something you can do.”
“You think I am what the world says? A barbarian Rider preferring to kill rather than talk?”
“Yes,” the queen immediately replied.
Kachka nodded. “You are right. I am. Now tell me more about your Chramnesind cult, Southland queen.”
“I understand all of this except one thing, brother.”
“What?”
“Why are the Mì-runach here?”
“Well—”
“No, Gaius. No politics. No centaur shit. Just tell me.”
Gaius let out a sigh. “I wanted you to be protected by someone outside the empire. So I sent word to Rhiannon. Asking her to send someone to protect you. I thought that she would send a Cadwaladr. They may not be smart, but they’re effective.”
“And the crazy bitch sent her Mì-runach instead? That’s lovely.”
“Well, if anything, they can be trusted. Their loyalty is to their queen, and our alliance with the Southland dragons and the human queen is ironclad.”
“So you say.”
“One queen is insane and obsessed with proving her honor. The other likes me. You can guess which is which. The bottom line is . . . I trust them both, and they wouldn’t send anyone they couldn’t trust themselves. That would embarrass them. Nothing they hate more than being embarrassed.” He put his arms around his sister’s shoulders, pulled her into his chest, hugged her tight. “But if you don’t want me to go—”
“Don’t even finish that statement,” his sister warned, her voice nearly angry. “I am not a hatchling, Gaius. I’m as strong as you, just different.”
“And we rule this empire together.”
“Aunt Lætitia won’t like that. She thinks it should just be you.”
“Lætitia is just a nosey old biddy.” Gaius looked at the door and called out, “Who should mind her own business!”
“I’m only trying to help!” Lætitia yelled back. “And stop giggling! You’re not hatchlings anymore! You’re rulers!”
Kachka tied off her travel pack, slung it, her bow, and a quiver of arrows over her shoulder, and walked out into the hallway. She made her way down to the Great Hall and found her sister sitting on one of the tables, in deep conversation with her mate, the black dragon Celyn. When she saw Kachka, she let out a relieved breath.
“Death found you well this day,” she nearly cheered.
“Yes. Now I must go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“To find honor or death.”
“Morfyd said the queen was upset about the temples on her land. So she is sending you to stop the ones raiding those temples,” Elina guessed.
“Yes.”
The dragon’s back straightened. “Wait . . . what? What are you doing?”
Kachka ignored him, because he was male and this was an important discussion about battle plans. A discussion only women could truly understand.
“Will you bring some of her weak soldiers with you?”
“No, no. She offered them. But what could they do except clomp around and make too much noise, letting all enemies know we are coming. They would be useless. Instead, I return to homeland. Find strong woman to fight by my side.”
“Good.”
“But it will be dangerous. So if I do not return in the next year or two, and you get no message, assume my death,” Kachka stated flatly, “and make sure to perform sacred rites so that I can meet our ancestors in next world.”
“I will,” Elina promised. “And I will cut my face deep in honor of your death.”
“Thank you, sister.”
They gripped each other’s forearms and nodded, knowing this might be the last time they saw the other alive.
With nothing else to say, Kachka headed toward the big doors.
But she’d only moved a few feet before Celyn barked, “Is that it?”
“Is what it?” Elina asked.
“A promise of self-mutilation and a nod? Is that all you have to say when you may never see each other again?”
Elina frowned. “As opposed to what, dolt?”
“I don’t know. A hug? A kiss good-bye? Something!”
With a shake of her head, Elina let out a long, pained sigh. “Go, sister. You have important work to do and no time for . . .” She waved her hand at the aghast dragon standing beside her, mouth open in confusion. “. . . whatever this is.”
“Take good care of your dragon,” Kachka said as she moved on. “He will need your protection, being so weak and pathetic.”
“Weak? I am a mighty dragon of the Southland—”
The sisters’ combined laughter drowned out the rest of that ridiculous statement and sent Kachka off on a better note than she could have ever asked for.
Chapter Two
Egnatius Domitus couldn’t sleep. He had too much to do. He’d been promised so much and he planned to get everything he’d been promised. Even if that meant worshipping a god he couldn’t give a fat cock about.
These religious types with their bullshit rules and beliefs. It meant nothing to Egnatius. Really. He could not possibly care less about any god. What was important to him, the only thing important to him, was being overlord of the Quintilian Sovereigns. The throne was his by right. By hatching. And, most importantly, because he fucking wanted it.
His idiot cousin now ruled. Not as overlord, though. No, no. He was too “good” to be an overlord. He was King Gaius. Who wanted to be king when they could be overlord? When they could rule the world instead of just a small portion of it?
But his cousin had always tried too hard to be evenhanded. What, exactly, had that gotten him? A temporary spot as king.
What was funny, though . . . Egnatius’s cousin was far from “evenhanded.” He clearly remembered those dark days after Gaius’s tw
in sister had been taken by Vateria. The damage that had been done. The blood that had been splattered across good chunks of the Empire. Gaius hadn’t been able to go after Vateria directly. No. That would have only guaranteed to get his sister killed quicker. So he’d taken his rage out on everyone else.
It was, perhaps, the first and only time that Egnatius had ever respected his cousin. Seeing the damage he’d done. Smirking at the bodies that had been piled up out of frustration. It had earned Gaius the title Rebel King.
A lot of people thought Gaius had lost his eye during those dark times, but he hadn’t. It had been Thracius who’d ripped the eye from Gaius’s head when he’d still been a hatchling. Thracius hadn’t even blinked when Gaius had screamed in pain, his twin using her own body and wings in an attempt to shield her brother. But it had been too late. While they watched, Thracius had toasted that eye with his flame before gulping it down . . . and smiling. Then he’d gone on with his day.
That was Thracius’s style back then, and it would be Egnatius’s style when he became overlord. He’d lead as his father had. With fear and hatred and a touch of rage.
But first he had work to do. First he had to—
The blade didn’t go all the way through.... It just slammed into his spine, severing nerves, so his legs went out from under him as they lost the ability to feel. But Egnatius didn’t hit the ground; his cousin’s human arm was around him, holding him up.
“Hello, cousin,” Gaius whispered into his ear as his Praetorian Guard attacked Egnatius’s. “It’s been so very long.”
Kachka stared at the four Riders that the Anne Atli had allowed her to have.
After several minutes, while other tribe leaders watched, she finally said to the Anne Atli’s second in command, “You must be joking.”
“I do not know what you mean,” Magdalina Fyodorov replied.
Making sure to sound particularly disappointed—she had a lot to pull off in a short amount of time. She had to handle this just right—Kachka asked, “These are the best you can spare?”
“Watch what you say, Kachka Shestakova,” a voice murmured. “At least my sister wasn’t run out of here by our own mother.”
Kachka didn’t even look to see who spoke. Instead, she kept her focus on Magdalina. For many reasons she did this, but mostly because it was dangerous to turn one’s back on Magdalina.
“My list clearly requested—”
“Your list?” Magdalina asked. “The list where you requested some of our best warriors to go off with you on a suicide mission for some imperialist queen? Did you really think the Anne Atli would give up her best people for something so ridiculous? No. Instead, we give you these. You’ll be happy with them . . . for the short time you will all live.”
“You do know we’re right here?” a male voice asked. “We can hear you.”
“Take what you’ve been given, Kachka Shestakova, and be glad for it.”
Kachka gave a heavy, dramatic sigh, “Fine. If there is nothing else.”
“There isn’t.”
Kachka began to walk away when another of the tribe leaders exited the Anne Atli’s tent and whispered in Magdalina’s ear.
Kachka watched Magdalina’s eyes widen. For Southlanders, it would be a “look of concern.” But for a Daughter of the Steppes, it was more a look of horror.
“Wait . . . wait here,” Magdalina ordered Kachka before returning to the Anne Atli’s tent.
Kachka did wait, unable to hear much beyond the sound of Magdalina’s voice debating something with a much quieter Anne Atli. Because when one ruled the Steppes, there was no need to yell.
As she waited, Kachka looked over at the four warriors she’d been given to work with.
Marina Aleksandrovna. A truly solid fighter who had one major flaw. She questioned the way the Riders lived their lives. Not roughing it on the harsh Steppes. That wasn’t her issue. But the way they treated the males they took, and the harsh way they dealt with the towns and cities outside the Steppes. This particular flaw made her a real pain in the ass to work with.
Then there were the Khoruzhaya siblings. Both excellent trackers and hunters. Better than even Kachka, which she knew was saying much. But they weren’t sisters. They were a brother and sister, born only a year apart, and the boy . . . he thought being born into the tribe made him equal to the women. It didn’t. Even worse, his foolish sister followed along with that thinking, allowing her brother to speak out at tribal events rather than punching him in the mouth to shut him up as Kachka had been known to do to her own brothers and male cousins. She did it to help them. To keep them safe until they were chosen to be husbands. But Yelena Khoruzhaya’s indulgence just made Ivan feel still more empowered. Even worse, she protected him from her sisters and female cousins. In the end, Yelena and Ivan had only each other to rely on.
And, finally—and not surprisingly—one of Kachka’s own: Tatyana Shestakova. A cousin loathed because of her love of Southland ways. She’d taught herself the common tongue of the Southlander so well, even perfecting the accent, that no one from those territories could tell that she wasn’t local. She even went so far as to favor the clothes of the Southlander and the decadent lifestyle, often wishing—out loud—that she had a “proper bed to sleep in.”
“What is happening here?” a voice boomed. “What am I missing?”
Ivan Khoruzhaya let out a bone-deep sigh. “Horse gods of Ramsfor, not her.”
Kachka had to agree. She’d hoped to be gone long before . . . this.
“What is all this?” the voice continued to ask as a very large body pushed its way through the crowd. It was only seconds before Zoya Kolesova stood before Elina. Towering over Kachka, Zoya gazed down at her from her lofty height. “Kachka Shestakova of the Black Bear Riders of the Midnight Mountains of Despair in the Far Reaches of the Steppes of the Outerplains?” she asked. “Whatever are you doing here? I thought you were tragically banished to the decadent world of the Southlands, never to be seen again!”
Kachka gazed up at the much larger woman. Even larger than her mother Glebovicha had been. Large and, like all of the Kolesovas, strong. Not strong like most of the Riders who had to live in the harsh Outerplains, but . . . strong. It was rumored that one of the earliest Kolesovas, determined to fight by the first Anne Atli’s side, had sacrificed her favorite husband to the horse gods in hopes of being “as strong as the man I’ve just killed.”
The gods must have liked the sacrifice because they did more than that. They’d not only made that Kolesova bigger and stronger than any man, but they’d done the same with the female offspring she had later in life. Now that strength and size was passed down from mother to daughter, again and again.
It seemed strange to outsiders that none of the Kolesovas, with all their physical strength, had ever once been the Anne Atli. But that was because they all shared a truly fatal flaw....
Zoya threw open her arms and swept Kachka up in a big bear hug, lifting her off her feet and nearly crushing her ribs in the process.
“I am so glad to see you, old friend!” Although they’d never been friends. Old or otherwise. “I thought for sure you were dead! I’m so glad you’re not! I’m so very happy!”
Yes. That was the problem. The gods-damn good nature of the Kolesovas. There wasn’t one of that tribe who didn’t find something to smile about. Laugh about. Rejoice about. Every day. All the time.
But, outsiders often asked, despite their good nature, with their strength and size and the number in their tribe, still at least one of them could have become the Anne Atli. So, why had they not?
Simply put . . . because they had no desire to be. They were just happy to battle occasionally. Drink a lot. And fuck their many husbands. On a battlefield, they were a blessing. Any other time . . . a complete cheery pain in the ass.
Kachka fought her way out of Zoya’s smothering embrace and lied. “Glad to see you as well, old friend.”
Again, they had never been friends. But Kachka didn’t w
ant Zoya to feel she had to prove how close friends they once were. That could be painful. Very, very painful.
“Why are you here?” Zoya asked, her voice still booming. “Returning to the Tribes, are you?”
“No, no. Just need a small team to help me on a—”
“I’ll come!” Zoya volunteered.
“No!” all five of them yelled.
“Ha-ha! You all make me laugh so! This will be such fun!”
That was another thing about the Kolesovas. They were never insulted. In more than a thousand years, they never once had a blood feud with anyone. Kachka didn’t know how that was possible. Even Glebovicha, who had had blood feuds with pretty much everyone, never had a blood feud with the Kolesovas. Because every insult she passed their way, they’d laughed about, slapping her on the back—and nearly shattering her spine in the process—and going on their merry way.
“What about your children, Zoya?” Kachka asked, desperate to keep her here.
“All one hundred and forty-seven of them,” Tatyana softly announced, eyebrows raised at Kachka.
“Yes,” Kachka said, trying not to show her shock at that number. Even for a Daughter of the Steppes who might easily live over a thousand years . . . that was gods-damn excessive! “What about all of them?”
“That’s what my husbands are for! They raise the girls while I am gone and the older girls will protect them all!”
“This is pretty much a suicide mission,” Ivan offered.
“Quiet, boy,” Zoya coldly snapped at Ivan. “No one speaks to you.”
And that’s what kept the Kolesovas in good standing with the other tribes despite their good-natured attitudes: their complete and utter lack of respect for anything with a penis.
Magdalina finally returned, her face . . . pale. And she suddenly refused to meet Kachka’s eyes.
“If you want what we have offered you here, there is . . . one other you must take.”
Must? Gods, what ineffectual loser were they trying to force on her?
“Really?” Kachka asked. “Who?”
Gaius forced his cousin to watch while his soldiers were slaughtered. It wasn’t a short fight—Egnatius’s soldiers were good—but it was still a battle they would not win.