The War Queen

by Jane Merkley

  The pigeon arrived with the sun. Its message was simple:

  Twelve Hours.

  Byrone put the horn to his lips and blew.

  Excitement and anxiety rose and moaned around camp like ghosts, following men about their tasks and trying to fill them with dread. Ghosts entered Altarn’s heart but she chased them away as she dashed through camp on her gray horse she named Lotus, yelling to her soldiers that they would be in Blindvar tomorrow and would rescue the families that were still trapped there. Tomorrow was much too soon, but she achieved the outcome she wanted.

  With this thought, she watched soldiers arm with greater purpose, calling to their comrades, “For my sister!” and another, “For my mother!” and soon names of those who had been left behind rose to the sky so even the gods might utter them.

  The horses drafted to haul their supplies were turned into war mounts for leadership and Altarn’s grapplers who would ride to the rear of the enemy and attack them from behind.

  Altarn called for Kyree to help her get dressed.

  Kyree’s fingers shook as she braided Altarn’s hair into the war crown. When the braid was complete Kyree pulled a wooden box out of Altarn’s bag and removed the five glass vials she had affixed to her hair the night of the ceremony.

  The gems were flat, circular pieces of glass with an angry red liquid splashing about inside and these were pinned into the braid around her head; two on either side and one centered on her forehead.

  The tent flap swooshed open and Byrone stepped in, glancing at Kyree. “I’m going to get dressed. I do not care whether you stay or go.”

  Kyree secured the last piece and smiled at Altarn, placing her warm hands on either side of her face. “I wish you luck, Lady of Blindvar. I have full confidents in you and I won’t be lying when I say I speak for the troops. We will win Blindvar back and teach these bastards what happens when someone tries to take our land!”

  Altarn smiled at her uncouth choice of word and looked at Byrone to make sure he heard. In fact, she had never heard mother-loving Kyree use anything stronger than the word “arse”. Except when she was speaking about Byrone.

  Kyree reached in for a hug. “We’ll walk the bridge over the waterfall, like we were always too scared to do.”

  “Only to end up falling to our deaths anyway!”

  They both shared a brief laugh. Kyree kissed Altarn’s forehead and departed, shooting a glance at Byrone sharp enough to blade him. Byrone’s eyes followed her out.

  “I don’t know why that woman hates me,” he said mildly, then began to undress.

  Altarn had no idea.

  Jasper invited himself into the tent.

  “My Lady!” Jasper’s smile was anchored. “Your troops are ready and waiting for your call to march.”

  “Very good, Captain. You have done well.”

  “You will empower your troops by wearing that war crown.” He indicated her hair. “They’ve all been told the stories since they were toddlers that any time the female commander wore that crown, they won the war. It is just a story, but it is loaded with power in its symbolism. I am honored to serve next to you.”

  “I am honored to have you, Captain Jasper. Go with Gildeon.”

  Jasper chuckled. “Literally.” And he left.

  “Is there anyone else that’s going to barge in?” Byrone complained.

  “I hope not. The next one would be a stranger.” It then occurred to her that none of Byrone’s comrades came to wish him well and she wondered if that bothered him.

  She turned to her armor and he turned to his and the next few moments were filled with the sounds of tightening leather and the click of buckles.

  “Hand me that doublet, would you?” He pointed to a pile of clothes behind her.

  She huffed a little in annoyance and picked up a sleeveless leather coat from off the floor that had somehow made it to her side of the tent. When he undressed, his clothes ended up everywhere as if a whirlwind had come through.

  She picked it up and turned to him, catching sight of a silver chain around his neck and when he leaned forward, a flower shaped pendant slipped out of his shirt.

  “Oh!” Altarn exclaimed. Byrone looked up. “You really do wear the belldew flower pendant when you wear your armor.” She giggled and he ripped the leather coat out of her hands and pinned her with a stare that said he would end her life if she continued.

  She silenced her mirth and studied how his movements turned halted and harsh as he pulled clothes on and yanked ties closed.

  “Do you really not understand why your mother makes you wear that?” She waited but he didn’t respond, busying himself with the greaves around his shins. “It’s quite romantic, really,” she offered in case he hadn’t heard. “Ages ago when the kings were in constant battle with each other, a certain knight was riding out to fight when he gave the belldew flower to his lady love as a parting gift.”

  Altarn tugged on her boots. “In battle, the knight was stabbed in the heart and fell. His lady love had been watching and went rushing to his aid, kneeling beside him. Because he had loved her so much when he gave her the flower and she had loved him equally back when she accepted it, the flower became a conduit for that love. With nothing to lose, she inserted the flower into his ruined heart… and the flower began to pump blood and revive him, taking over what his heart was too damaged to do. And he lived. So it is popular among every man in all three states to carry a symbol of that flower with them and give it to their lady loves when they go out to fight, so in case the man falls mortally wounded in battle, his lady love can bring him back to life with the flower. Rumor has it that the knight was Ruid and his lady love was Blindvarn. That is why our two states are so friendly to each other.”

  Byrone had thrown his chain mail shirt over the leather coat and was fighting with the clasps.

  “Cute. But I am no romantic.”

  “Then it begs the question why you wear the necklace. I can’t see a man like you doing anything his mother says.”

  “Because that mother used to be a great Lady of Ruidenthall and still compels people to do what she says.” He was fighting with the last buckle on the shirt. “Will you help me?”

  Altarn rolled her eyes and assisted him with the buckles. “So your parents weren’t taken by robbers.”

  “Do you still sleep with a stuffed animal?”

  She shut her mouth and conceded to lose this one, and cinched the last buckle angrily, hating herself for spilling such a sensitive secret to someone she had thought she would never see again. She tucked in the loose end and glanced briefly up at him to find him watching her with a steady gaze.

  She turned away to avoid the disturbing way he was looking at her and slid the shorns onto her back. Looking about for anything else she might have missed, she finalized securing her gear and pushed on the tent flap entrance to step out.

  “Good luck out there, Lady Altarn,” he called behind her. His gentle tone chilled her. He had never called her Lady when they were alone together. She glanced back over her shoulder at him. He caught her eye and winked.

  A disturbed shudder rushed through her and she ducked out of the tent, rubbing her chilled arms as if she could rub the disgust of his wink off her. She wouldn’t be going back in that tent again. Maybe she was overreacting and he really was wishing her well. But maybe he wasn’t. It disgusted her that he would attempt to flatter her in yet another ploy to get her land. What a pig.

  She mounted Lotus and kicked her into a gallop, spraying snow and dirt in her wake. Large, slow falling flakes of snow graced her shoulders. She was wearing the black and red clothing she had worn that night of the ceremony. A thick wool cloak wrapped her. It was cold for the moment, but once the battle began she would discard it.

  Jasper was waiting for her. She rode out of the darkness into the light of the torch he was holding.

  “Good graces,” he exclaimed. “Your silhouette looked like an angel of death approaching with your shorns on your back. But
now that you are in the light…” He made an act of moving the light about to look at her better. “You don’t look any different.”

  “It takes one to fight one, I suppose.” Altarn grinned. “Are we ready?”

  “Blindvarn ready.” He turned from her and disappeared into the snowing dark, calling loudly for the sergeants to begin march. Soon, the ground began to rumble with the hundreds of shod feet marching forward.

  Altarn galloped to the front of the column and reined in her horse which pranced in a threat to dash away from the crashing sound behind it. It was to Altarn’s knowledge that Lotus rode a farmer into town every so often when he had errands to run. She was impressed that the mare wasn’t complaining as loudly or as violently as one might suppose. But then, the poor horse wasn’t given a choice.

  Somewhere to her left, Byrone would be riding his black war horse as he led his own troops into position.

  The combined Blindvarn and Ruid archers mounted the cliff on the left of the area. One by one their tiny pin pricks of light extinguished as they got into position in the shrubbery.

  It was a brilliant location. Altarn hoped the army would take the bait and march up this way to claim the possessed girl perched at the top of the hill behind the troops. There was always a chance the army would change and come at them from another direction, but that was something Byrone had taken care of, posting scouts throughout the area on all sides who would report as quickly as possible if the army was coming from another direction.

  Her shredders moved to the front of the massive formation, duel wielders behind mingled with Byrone’s swordsman with shields. Her grapplers on their horses pawed patiently on the ridgeline to her right, who would rush in behind the enemy for their attack.

  Once she was satisfied that her troops were in position, she made her way to the hilltop and the wooden box hastily prepared for Lorn’s cage. Byrone was already waiting next to it and Torren next to him. Byrone was in a full suite of silver armor that seemed to glow with its own light in the dark falling snow. He looked romantically regal in it all, exactly like a knight from an old child’s story. But his right arm was naked, exposing the full length of the Ruid tattoo up to his shoulder.

  “Ruid pride is not armor,” she remarked as she reined her horse next to his.

  “There is always a chance that that pride may strike fear into the heart of the enemy and they will flee.” Of course she knew that was not going to happen, and so did he. But it still did not stop the entire Ruid army from leaving that one arm exposed.

  “But what of your armor?” he questioned. “It takes an extra step to make it blackened like it is.”

  Altarn pursed her lips, knowing how he’d react with her answer. “It was a female that wanted them black so it was harder to see the blood splatter. The sight of blood made her sick.” She looked at him. His expression was solid. “Yes,” she continued to his unasked question. “The same female that won our Old Wars.”

  She had to hand it to him. He didn’t so much as flinch or attempt to comment.

  “Lord Byrone.” The ranger who had arrived with the priestesses last night approached. Byrone looked down on him. “I am going to wait in the carriage with Lorn. She does better if she has company, and I cannot say how long the drug will work on her.”

  Byrone analyzed him. Byrone didn’t much care what the man did or did not do. At no point did Byrone draft him into his army. As far as he was concerned, the priestesses were in charge of dictating his actions. And what exactly did he mean that “she would do better if she had company”? He wanted to tell the boy to fess up and tell the truth as to why he really wanted to share the carriage with her, but he found he had little patience for a man who would choose to coddle a woman than to fight her enemies, and so wanted to finish the conversation as quickly as possible. “Suit yourself.”

  “Thank you, Lord.” Jaryd promptly disappeared inside the carriage, closing the door behind him.

  “You haven’t revealed to me how you intend to defeat this angel,” Byrone said to the sixteen year old boy next to him who was much too small for the horse he was astride. Byrone tried to keep any tones of doubt out of his voice, but it was hard to entertain a pretense that this was a god trapped inside a boy’s body. Byrone did not factor in any movement to include this boy’s fantasy on slaying an angel – if there even was an angel – and so when this boy failed to slay his imagination, there would be no loss to Byrone’s faith in him.

  Gildeon smiled. “You doubt?”

  “Give me a reason not to.”

  “You’ll see your reason soon enough. If you had faith, you would see it sooner.”

  “I have a sword. Is faith as sharp?”

  That smile again. “Longer reach.”

  Gildeon dismounted, seemingly to check on the members in the cage. He stopped beneath Torren’s right elbow on his way. The boy was just tall enough to reach up and gently touch the arm in the sling.

  “Good luck to you too, Captain Torren,” the boy said.

  “Well… thank you. And you too.” Torren smiled at the boy like a father might do for his over confident son, and then looked away as the boy went into the cage.

  But Torren looked down at his arm in the sling, the arm the boy had touched, and he flexed his fingers on that hand, his eyebrows drawing together.

  “My arm,” he said mostly to himself. He worked his fingers some more and then his wrist, and then worked his arm out of the sling entirely. “My elbow doesn’t hurt anymore.” He grasped his sword in his right hand and swung it twice around. “I think it’s been healed!”

  Byrone watched his friend calculatingly. Torren sheathed his sword and relocated it to his left hip, pulling his shield off his back and held it. Torren looked at Byrone but Byrone didn’t so much as flinch, except to move his eyes back on the battlefield, his posture a little more tense.

  They waited several hours in silence; the battle space below them was so quiet and motionless that a rabbit could have bounded between their legs and mistook them for trees. But because everyone was tense with anticipation, the wait ended too soon.

  Byrone’s scout came flying toward them from directly in front – Good. The enemy was approaching from that direction – his cloak spinning behind him like a black tornado.

  Altarn’s stomach hardened into a knot. On the horizon, a dark wave emerged.

  They watched the storm in heart-hammering silence, watched the wave stretch and grow taller. Altarn swallowed, but nothing but pained breaths escaped her pinched throat.

  She squinted sideways at Byrone. His back was rigid with anxiousness, his hands passing the reins back and forth impatiently. His horse shimmied sideways with agitation and he reined it back. Nothing about him betrayed fear. Was he hiding that just as well as he hid his sleeplessness? Or was he a true glutton for violence in the sickness of battle fever?

  Whatever the reason, Altarn could not produce courage like that – faked or real – so she copied his posture and willed herself to draw on his courage, battle lust, gluttonous violence, or whatever it was he was using so as to at least appear she had courage.

  The approaching army was close enough that they could make out individual bodies. A distant rumbling reached them as they came closer.

  A nervous violin player fidgeted close to Altarn’s horse, pacing in small movements about his area, clenching his instrument and bow in his gloved hands as if he might use them as a weapon.

  “Eldic.” Altarn’s voice sliced sharply in the cold dark. The violinist looked up at her. “Play.”

  The lad nodded stiffly, as if on instinct instead of willingness. Altarn could almost hear his bones scream in protest as he set the instrument under his chin and the bow against the strings.

  The first draw on the bow sang shakily, giving away the nervousness of the player. But the cold sound sliced through the air like a blade, reaching wide and far in the weightless silence of the gently falling snow.

  The reverse pull on the bow brought a soun
d slightly more confident, and Altarn relaxed her shoulders, having not realized they were tense. Another purpose of the music in battle.

  The music bloomed as the player soaked in its power, and he dipped and plunged to the intensities of each pitch. The song cried through the cold in a haunting strength that she watched absorb into her soldiers who began to shift and square their shoulders, feeding off the pleasant distraction from the fear beating in their ears.

  A shower of arrows burst from the cliff in a falling storm of daggers. The clouds had parted enough to shed more light below, as if they wanted to watch. Even with the dim moonlight, it was hard to tell how many soldiers the arrows felled. Two more volleys followed. The army was closer.

  “Prepare.”

  The player transitioned smoothly into a quicker pace with distinct turns in the chord. The violinists, flutists, and drummers mingling below with the army replied. They started out of tune with late players finally joining in; the new volunteers. But they caught on quick enough for Altarn’s anxious satisfaction.

  She looked over at Byrone to see what he thought of it. His eyes were wide and his head was in constant motion as if trying to catch the sound, to dissect it, because the song was causing something to stir within the soldiers that no battle cry could do.

  The army began to run.

  “Draw!” Altarn shouted unnecessarily, barely able to pinch the creep of fear invading her throat.

  The player changed the tune. Below, the sound was echoed. A distant hiss joined the song as the shredders drew their shorns.

  “Rush in line, start on cue.”

  The player communicated this through the song to the players ahead. The song made three jumps. On the third jump, the shredders lurched forward as one.

  The gap was closed too soon and the scream of metal echoed back to her on the hilltop. It was clear, even from her viewpoint, that Huilian’s army succumbed to the first strike; there was simply too much flying metal they were not prepared for. They had shields, but the teeth on the edge of the shorns and the shape of them easily pushed them aside. In a deadly dance, the shredders whirled in sync like a daggered whirlwind.