by Jane Merkley
Her hair, as black as a raven’s wing, was twisted around her head in a braided crown. Five red, liquid filled glass vials were affixed to the braid and spaced evenly around her head to resemble thorns… or a crown? The glass vials appeared to absorb the firelight so her head was surrounded in a gentle glow.
Directly behind Altarn came Jasper and her two court members. They stood off to her left side.
“My good people of Blindvar,” she began, and her high voice sliced through the night, “our home is under attack for reasons unknown to us at this time. We owe Lord Byrone our sincerest thanks in accepting us into his land and aiding us in our survival during our temporary absence from our homeland. We are forever indebted to him and his people and will do everything in our power to repay them. This is our official declaration of war and the joining of our two great lands for that purpose. I see nothing but hope in my people’s eyes and we will harbor nothing but hope on the day we make battle. Who will follow me?”
A thunderous roar swept over the crowd.
“Rest tonight,” she had to shout to be heard. “For tomorrow we begin!”
Cheering mingled with the drums and Altarn stepped aside as a line of servants filed out behind her with food platters. She looked up in time to see Byrone look away from her.
Altarn’s own violinists joined in with Byrone’s drums and the courtyard opened up to give room to a small handful of soldiers who started a Ruid sword dance.
It took some time for the tables to be completely filled with food and the people patiently waited in line to get their share. When the Ruid sword dance ended, seven Blindvarn duel wielders entered the space, swords drenched in oil and set aflame and made a very showy dance of their own.
Altarn relocated to a balcony which hung over the courtyard to watch the display. The harsh tang of heated metal and burning oil reached her senses from below. She would have liked to show the Ruids how the shorn worked but there wasn’t enough space in the courtyard to do it safely.
“I was half expecting you to be wearing a dress with the train so long that three maids would be carrying it for you,” said a voice behind her that set her teeth on edge. She was hoping to avoid him tonight, despite the knowing that it was inevitable.
“I don’t make a habit of wearing tents.”
Byrone joined her at the railing and leaned over to watch the soldiers finalize their fire sword dance. “Don’t take this as a compliment, but you look like you could challenge hell itself. The clothes I bought for you are serving you well.”
“Fantasizing about me now, are you?” Altarn had learned she could get a foot hold on him if she made him feel awkward. It was the only hold she found she might have on him.
He snorted and she was impressed he didn’t so much as blush at her attempt. “Of course. I fantasize you tripping down the stairs and breaking your neck.”
“I would have thought a masculine figure as yourself would choose to end my rein in honor and not something as frail as a wish. But I will pass it on that if I randomly meet my demise on your staircase then they will know who to blame.”
Again, that unreadable expression he had perfected. They watched the conclusion of the dance in silence. Blindvarn females entered the circle, similarly dressed, holding lanterns and small bowls of water and flower petals. They were going to perform the Blindvarn blood prayer, a prayer meant to ask the god for good fortune on the day of battle and to pray that he would watch over departed souls and guide them to the realm of their first and final existence.
“I suppose it should come as no surprise to you,” he began, “that my payment for saving your state is... your state.”
It was no surprise. She knew it in her sleepless nights. But anger sizzled on her skin at the meaningless way he said it, as if it was a venture they had already signed and promised, as if Altarn had no say.
She turned sharply to him. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
“My land is not for bartering. It’s not even my land; it belongs to my people and to the history of why we are.” It took great effort to keep her voice at a level where it would not carry over the balcony to those engrossed in prayer below. “You will not demand anything from me or my people. We’ll go to war with you next if you think you can take anything from us.”
Byrone laughed and it made Altarn angrier.
“Then I will fight this enemy at the border and prevent them from entering Ruidenthall and YOU...” He had the audacity to point a finger at her, “can figure out how to reclaim your land with fifteen thousand soldiers.”
“I suppose we can manage.”
“Which means you can tell your people why Lord Byrone won’t help.”
“When they find out you want our land, I’m sure they will be grateful.”
He leaned in close, close enough she could see every faucet in his sinking blue eyes. “You sound so certain that they would prefer you over me as their State Head. I’ve done nothing but care for their needs and wants since they ran to my doorstep looking for my aid.”
“They will prefer me once they find out you are trying to make yourself King of Endendre.”
To this he smiled and leaned away again.
“Refreshments my Lord, Lady?” A young servant boy approached, holding a tray with bite-size meat pastries and two wine glasses.
Byrone nodded to him and he served Altarn first, pouring her a glass of peach wine. She took a pastry and once Byrone had likewise treated himself, the boy left.
“King,” Byrone mused as he took a sip of his wine, swirling it around inside the frosted glass as he thought. “Our Old Kings were hated because they did nothing for the sake of their state. The taxes went to their own pleasures. This castle...” He raised his eyes to the massive castle structure above them, “was built from the peoples’ tax. And this castle wasn’t to serve them. It served the last king and all his whores. This is my third term as Lord and not because I bribe or threaten anyone to stay out. It’s because my people love me for all I do, and your people will love me too, if they don’t already. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I have a plethora number of servants?”
Altarn was watching the activities below without seeing any of it. Her grip on her wine glass was just shy of breaking it.
“Because I will not have beggars on my streets,” he continued. “If they are begging, then they need work. Those who truly want work will accept my offers to be a servant where they can eat, sleep, and earn a living. If they refuse to work, then they are escorted out of the city to beg a living off the land. The tax money goes to fixing roads and building public facilities, but a portion of those taxes goes into a tragedy account. If a shop owners shop burns down because of lightning, I pull from this fund to fix it for him. If pirates destroy a fisherman’s boat, that money buys him a new one. When I acquire your land, I can extend all my generosity to everyone, even Luthsinia. My method has worked so well here that I can make all of Endendre economically stable and happy.”
“And how are you to stop from getting buried next to the king in the castle garden?”
“Exactly, what do you mean?”
Altarn took a step closer, hoping she could penetrate her anger deeper into him at a closer distance. “The first kings of Endendre started out with good intentions to help the people. They gave and gave to assure their people’s happiness and well being. But they gave so much that they realized no one had given anything to them to show their appreciation, so they started to demand payment for all that they had given, and so they started to take instead, and took and took. It felt so good to reward themselves for the good they had done, that they never stopped. You cannot hand a boy a sack of sweets to hand out to all the other kids without him taking a piece for himself. But then, he has the whole bag and why should he share if it was with his hard labor he acquired the sweets?”
“The people could not vote their king out. I can be voted out.”
“But if you hold all the rules, you won’t let them.”
“I should throw you off this balcony right now to prevent your future tyranny,” she threatened.
He looked coolly at her. “Then why don’t you?”
Why indeed? Because she’d be blamed, because aid would cease to come to her people and she’d be left to conquer this enemy alone – if she wasn’t jailed for murder. Besides, he had to be at least two hundred and twenty pounds of iron muscle. That was her reasoning, she decided. She wouldn’t be able to lift him.
Byrone tssk’d as Altarn looked away and fixed her stare below. “Empty promises. A great fault in leadership. You’ve much to learn, Altarn. Much to learn.”
He nearly caught her ankle with his cloak with the speed he spun around as he walked darkly off the balcony.
Altarn Unleashed
Altarn was vastly relieved when there would be no more war councils for a while. She was far from ready to sit next to Byrone anymore than she had to and pretend they were equals and to treat him as if he were some merciful god because he was single-handedly taking care of her people. But then she was almost certain that there were war councils occurring every so often without her knowledge anyway, which made her sadistically pleased that he wanted to avoid her as much as she wanted to avoid him. Just as well, though. She wasn’t sure she could refrain from slamming a chair over his head.
She preferred being outside anyway – assisting in tasks about the camp, training her soldiers – as opposed to the stark confinements of the castle where a tyrant king was buried. In the field with her soldiers, she could unsheathe her emotional mess and obliterate targets in a controlled manner to which no one noticed except that she maybe had more vigor to her swings.
Along with honing fighting techniques, Altarn also threw in some exercises on rescue. Duel fighting and shredding worked the shoulders into hard muscle and the strength of it was proven by taking turns carrying each other across a certain distance on their shoulders. Altarn always participated, taking turns carrying the lightest of soldiers to as heavy as she could bear. She was not going to sit on the side lines and watch the battle.
She was remarkably pleased that she had plenty of volunteers to fill in the gap she was missing in her active troop count, for people were still coming across the border and she couldn’t count on all of them having their gear.
Byrone had summoned Luthsinia’s King to aid, but the king refused. Altarn found she was actually, if unwillingly, impressed when Byrone sent a scathing letter to the king and said when this enemy turned on him, that Ruidenthall and Blindvar would cheer the enemy on. Altarn had been the recipient of too many of those scathing letters and it was strange that he could use that same rash anger in such a way that pleased her.
Byrone had placed orders into his smithies just as he promised, and those who had left Blindvar without their assigned gear were equipped. Ruid blacksmiths were even pleased to learn a new skill, guided by Blindvarn smiths, of course.
Altarn had been training in the field with her soldiers almost every day, keeping up her skills as well as showing that she would hold her promise to lead them. But she showed up on the field at her usual time in the morning with her gear and in her abused clothing to find the field empty.
She cleared her head to reset what she thought she saw, only to still find it empty. Her soldiers were allowed one day of rest a week, but today was not that day. She knew. She rested with them. But the field was obviously empty.
She set her shorns and armor at her feet, walking across the field to figure out what was wrong before she let her anger loose. She heard a scraping noise around some stacked crates. She followed the sound, and found one of her younger volunteers sitting on a wooden box sharpening the edge of his sword with a flat rock. He spit on the rock, and went about it again.
“Recruit,” she began.
Instead of jumping to his feet as if he had been caught at something, he looked up and paused his sharpening. “Lady?”
“Why is no one on the field today?”
He looked at her quizzically, as if she were the one who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
“But Lady... Lord Byrone told us all yesterday to take the day off today. Said that we deserved an extra day to rest.”
Had Altarn still been holding her shorns, the grips would have melted in her hands. It took immense restraint not to yell at this boy. It was not his fault.
Without another word she turned stiffly around, her knees unwilling to bend as she walked disjointed with rage back up the street and into the castle, her heart hammering as if she had just run the whole distance.
She had wandered the castle enough to know where Byrone’s bed chamber was. She grabbed the door handle and was pleased to see that it was not locked. Not that it would have stopped her, in her current state of near madness.
Without knocking or stopping, she pushed the door open with rage-blind strength, causing it to slam against the wall.
Byrone was at his wash basin shaving. He spun around at the sound, and then proceeded to clutch madly at his towel about his waist.
“Altarn!” He was so alarmed at her blatant disregard for his privacy that any tones of anger could not fight through.
Altarn marched right at him.
“Whoa whoa whoa!” Byrone, caught off guard, backed up and hit the wall. “Are you crazy? Get out of my room!”
Altarn stopped right in front of him and jammed a finger into his chest. Since both his hands were occupied keeping his towel modest about him, she got away with it.
“You will never, NEVER tell MY soldiers what to DO!” she was practically screaming by the end of it. “You will command YOUR soldiers and I will command MINE! You don’t see ME telling YOUR soldiers what to do. How DARE you think you can bully me over and take command of what is MINE!” Altarn had worked herself up to the point that she couldn’t breathe and her arms went numb. She took a step back and began pacing back and forth in short circuits, continuing her rant.
Byrone cautiously moved to the wall where a robe was hanging. Deftly, he slid into it and tied it closed.
“Your soldiers needed a break,” Byrone said as she paused briefly to take a breath.
Altarn stomped over to him at his new location, but did not jab a finger at him this time. “YOU do not decide that. My soldiers have a training pattern that they have been doing since before I was born and NO ONE but the training masters will change that, especially someone who is not Blindvarn. You do not decide what training they do, or how much. I know my soldiers and I know how to prepare them. I will not have that structure fail because someone thought they could do a better job than me!”
Altarn had never been this incensed. She could feel heat blooming out of her ears. She knew Byrone felt the force of her anger because he was still stammering for a response, unusual for him.
“Do I make myself clear?”
“Altarn, this is –”
“DO I?”
Byrone made a face and looked away from her. “Yes. Now get out of my room and don’t you EVER barge in like that again.”
“Why?”
“Wh – are you crazy? You were lucky I was in a towel.”
“Hmmm. That’s weird. I thought that is what bathing chambers were for. Why in the world would you be prancing about naked outside the bathing chamber in your own house?”
“It doesn’t work the same when you say it.”
Altarn snorted like some monster out of a story and moved like a snake toward the door. “This is your last warning. Don’t you EVER tell my soldiers what to do.” And she slammed his door shut behind her.
Her stride was longer than usual, and she stood a little taller, weightless, as if her flash of rage had burned every impurity out of her.
She marched back onto the field and the first soldier she came across who was simply crossing the field to get to the hygiene tent, she told to round all the soldiers up and to be on the field in the hour.
He looked at her as if she had spoken gibberish.
“Did you understand me, soldier? Or must I slap it into you to make it penetrate?”
“N – no, Lady. It’s just that Lord Byrone –”
“You will go round up all my soldiers RIGHT NOW or your will dig a six by six by six hole and then bury yourself. NOW GO!”
The soldier turned around and half skipped, half walked back the way he had come, as if still trying to figure out if she was serious. She surprised herself with the ferocity she blasted at him. Her confrontation with Byrone had left her energetic and fearless.
But he did what she asked and soon soldiers were milling about the field, if a little grumpily. She made her team leaders account for everyone in their team and then stood upon the mountain of crates to get everyone’s attention.
“Let it be known,” she shouted, “that the only orders you will follow will come from me and me alone. Lord Byrone was mistaken when he told you to take today off. I have spoken to him and he will no longer give my soldiers any direction. Know for fact, that if orders do not come from me then they are not valid and are not to be followed. You will obey all of my orders and no one else’s.” She spoke clearly and slowly and worded it in several different ways so as to be understood by the lowest level. Soldiers were not dumb, but most times information did not penetrate the first time. “Understood?”
Nods and mummers rippled among the mass.
“Good. We are going to run to the tree line.” She pointed over their heads. “And we will chop wood.” She was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t complain as loudly as she always expected from soldiers when tasked with physical exertion.