by Billy Wong
"Yeah, you try and save face!" she taunted. "The left hand isn't weaker than the right."
But just after he got out of sight, she collapsed. Lying on the floor again, she heard her friends calling her name. "Red!" Herbert was saying. "Red, are you okay?"
She sat up effortfully and dragged herself back to sit against the counter. "I'm fine," she assured everyone, holding her nose. "Could've gone four more rounds if need be." Tonya knelt to hug her while the men patted her arms and shoulders. Herbert even did so to her head, the big ox maybe trying to remind her she was really a small person after all. She loved him for it, though. Especially with these spirited young admirers around to fuel her ego, somebody had to keep her humble.
"Damn, what a chin you have," Tonya said, touching said feature.
Red might have felt awkward, but for the fact her mind was too hazy to produce that emotion. "It's not that crazy... think I might've went unconscious for a second, and his continued beating woke me up. Maybe I'd have lost if not for that."
"Or maybe you would've recovered on your own anyway and fought back."
"Who knows? All I know is I'm astoundingly dizzy."
"So," Herbert proposed, "drinks before Aidan requests our presence for a lecture?"
#
Aidan found what had happened rather amusing, so they didn't get much of a lecture after all. He did warn Red and Chaser that they better not let their personal feud interfere with their jobs, to which she replied she would stay out of his way if he didn't get in hers. She stayed in the city for a while, enjoying unaccustomed banquets at the manor of Duke Carrol while they waited for more work. She and Herbert were surprised, however, when they heard Count Selgin was to be released. Their surprise grew when, shaking as from a great trauma, the count announced in the town square his newfound loyalty to the prince.
"So after being ready to die to thwart him," Eric asked, "now he's willing to serve him? How do you think he convinced him?"
Herbert observed the old noble's dejected mannerisms with a frown that reflected Red's own thoughts. "Convinced? Try broken."
"So what should we do?" she asked when they were away from the youngsters. "We can't go on helping someone who uses torture to bend people to his will."
"I wouldn't have expected this from Aidan, though. Maybe he's not responsible for what's going on, and just authorized something without being fully aware of what it meant."
"You really think so?"
"I don't know. But you have to give a man the benefit of the doubt."
She thoughtfully touched her chin. "Maybe we could ask around, and see if anybody knows what was going on with the count?"
It didn't take as long as she figured it might to get a lead, for just talking to Scott got them some interesting information. "I hear Chaser visited him in prisoner the night before they announced they would release him!" he said.
Red shook her head. "Probably threatened the old man's family or something to get him to submit. We should talk to the prince."
They found Aidan in the luxurious diplomats' guest room in Duke Carrol's house, a place famous for being used to impress foreign dignitaries before the fragmenting of the country discouraged them from visiting. The very tiles were patterned with lines of gold, and embedded jewels shone in the walls. A fitting retreat for a would-be king. "You're here," Aidan said, smiling at Red's still bruised face. "Good, I was just about to call for you."
"What for?" she asked, secretly annoyed at the delay to her intended discussion.
"A minor lord decided to attack my messenger who I sent to deliver my offer, and killed him. Since that can hardly be tolerated—the murder of our comrade, and the insult to me—it's time again for us to ride out and teach them a lesson."
"You use messengers for that now?" Herbert frowned. "Just weeks ago you were personally doing all the recruiting."
He gave an exaggerated shrug. "I'm getting busier with my work here. Tends to happen the more of a leader you become."
Red realized she hadn't gotten to know Aidan much in their brief time together before, and began to dislike him. He might have good intentions, but didn't doubt himself as much as she thought someone in his position should. "Can we talk to you about something before we go? The old count sure had a big change of heart. Do you know... why he might have had it?"
The prince exhaled. "I see the way you're watching me. You think I might lie. But I don't have any reason not to be honest with you. Chaser told me he could get the count to retract his criticism. So since he seems confident in his ability, I let him try—and now, your friend can enjoy his freedom early."
"But don't you care how Chaser did this?"
"I figure he has a way with words. Some frightening ones, yes, maybe... but the man's alive and walking under his own power, isn't he? There are worse alternatives, I'd say."
She clenched her teeth. From what she'd heard, some of the evils of the old kingdom had been mandated by its leaders—but others had been committed independently by their subordinates while they merely turned a blind eye to it. "I still want to know exactly what happened, especially since Chaser might well offer to do it again."
Aidan waved, flinging his arm carelessly through the bright light pouring into the room from a towering window, his diamond ring sparking in it. Right now, it irritated Red how pretty he was. "Find out, by all means. But you'll have to take the matter up with him."
She wondered if it could be so simple as asking him, but... "Maybe we'll wait until after the next mission."
Prince Aidan led a force out to punish the noble's offense. As opposition was expected to be light, he only took a portion of his army. On the way, Red's young friends speculated among themselves what Chaser might have done to Count Selgin. "So how do you guys think he persuaded him to support us?" Eric was asking. "Think he tortured him?"
Jon cracked his knuckles. "Maybe he beat him."
"Beat him off, you mean?" said Scott.
Tonya shoved him. "Dirty mind!"
"He probably just used some choice words to scare him," Red said. "We have his wife in custody too, after all."
They reached the small keep, situated in the middle of a meager settlement of mostly straw houses. The civilians didn't offer any resistance, and neither could the town guards muster much. But after they broke through the gates of the outer keep wall and started inside, a loud grinding sounded as a large portcullis on the main keep's front went up. They heard a youthful laugh, and looked up to see a boy in his lower teens in a rich purple robe smiling on the roof. "Behold my pet," he said as growls and snarls broke forth from the darkness. The creature that made them followed them out—a mammoth white canine resembling a wolf, but larger than any bear.
"What the hell is that?" Herbert asked.
Red readied her knives. "Doesn't look like a werewolf... but, might be slightly related." Aidan's archers loosed on the beast, a dozen shafts piercing it. It shook its head as if in annoyance, and like a werewolf, the arrows were pushed out as it rapidly healed. "Very related," she corrected.
"My pet is invincible," the boy noble said. The monster wolf bounded forward, the frontmost soldiers who met it prodding at it with spears. It retaliated with a paw swipe that flattened three men, grabbed another in its mouth and bit him in half to shower his comrades with viscera. The line broke, screaming soldiers stumbling into each other in their haste to get away.
Chaser gazed towards Red and Herbert. "You handle it. You're the ones used to fighting wolves."
Her opinion of the man aside, that did make sense. "Your sword still silvered, Herbert?"
"Nope. All worn off, and I didn't get it redone thinking we'd just be fighting humans."
"I kept my knives silvered just in case. Habit. But I'm not sure they're big enough to put a thing like that down while it's in motion."
He flashed her a nervous look. "So the plan?"
"Disable it and then finish it off. Even if a steel sword through the spine won't kill it, it should still k
eep it down as long as it stays in."
"Got it." Taking the four young soldiers with him for backup, he ran for the nearby stairs.
Red rushed the creature, her first attack a double slash that opened up cuts on its nose and lower jaw. It yelped, struck at her with a huge paw. She jumped back, just getting out of its long reach. Quick for its bulk, it lunged after her. She dodged to the right and sliced its snout, tried to stab into its eye but had her blade glance off thick bone. It swung its great head sideways, butting her to her back. She rolled away, but a hair too slow as a claw laid open her thigh. Favoring her left leg, she lowered her stance and waited for it to make the next move. It charged at her with snapping jaws. She spun to its side, thinking to go for its eye again, but underestimated the breadth of its shoulders and was knocked back by one of them. While she staggered, it raked her deeply across the chest. Bumping against the inner keep wall, she gasped for breath. It leapt at her. She ducked out of the way and it slammed skull-first into the wall, stunning it. She stepped in, drove her knife up into its throat. Then a heavy weight fell on it from above, ripping the hilt from her hand as it was driven to its belly and she heard the sound of steel parting cartilage.
"It took that long?" she asked Herbert who sat atop the wolf with his sword in its back, and plunged her second blade into its eye. She had to twist it a couple times in its brain before it went completely still.
"My pet!" the boy on the roof wailed. "But, but he's supposed to be invincible... He was with me since I found him with his dead mom, and you murdered him!" Crying, he disappeared out of sight.
Herbert replied to her question. "I needed to make sure it would stay put before committing myself. Thing moved darn quick, and if I missed..."
"Yeah, I suppose." She withdrew her other knife from under the carcass, cleaned both and then clutched her chest. "Ow... got me pretty good."
Herbert helped her sit down on a nearby wagon and lifted her shirt to clean her wounds. Even though she was a woman exposing her chest in front of many men, it didn't bother her much since most of them looked primarily at her with respect if not fear. He poured whiskey on a cloth and dabbed at the gashes with it, and she hissed. "Sorry about taking so long. You okay?"
"Yeah." Red found a cut on her hand she hadn't noticed taking, and ate some silver in case it might be from a tooth grazing her. She saw their allies advancing past them, Prince Aidan giving her a thankful nod along the way, and made him hurry up with her leg before standing. "Better get going, so we can make sure nothing bad happens while we're not there."
"So what do you think that thing was?" he asked as he helped her limp after Aidan and the others.
"Like I said, I have no clue. Something related to a werewolf... but nothing I've ever seen before."
Chapter 8
The remaining defenders of the keep fought hard, but were inevitably forced to surrender. After that, Aidan had the particular soldiers responsible for attacking his messenger singled out and herded before him in the keep's dining hall. A trio of older, gray-haired and gray-bearded men, they stood stoically amid their enemies awaiting their fate.
Red wasn't sure what the prince meant to do, but felt bad about what she thought might happen and gave voice to her fears. "Wait, are you going to punish them for your man's death? But they were just following orders, like any soldier must. Shouldn't the person who gave the command be held responsible?"
To her surprise, one of the aging warriors said, "No, Your Highness, don't listen to her! Let us carry the blame."
Aidan looked at Red. "What you say does make sense. It was the boy who these old fools stupidly listened to. Bring him."
Though it might not have been the most prudent decision, Red found it somewhat admirable the soldiers were so loyal to their master's bloodline that they would obey the kid's self-destructive order. She wished one of them had had the resolve to steer him away from his course of action, though. The purple-robed boy she'd seen on the roof was dragged before them by a pair of soldiers with tears running down his cheeks, and though his "pet" had done some damage, she couldn't help feeling a little sorry for him.
"You bastards wanted to take my father's land!" he wailed at her sad look, crying. "What, was I supposed to just let you make me your slave? My father fought hard to keep his property, and died too young from the bad lung an arrow gave him! What gives you the right to declare what was his, yours?"
"I wasn't going to make you my slave," Aidan said softly, and Red sensed genuine remorse in his voice. "I just... wanted to make you part of my family, so that we could help and protect one another in times of need. I wouldn't have taken anything away from you." He glanced over Red, Herbert, and the others. "I think he just misunderstood our intentions, and acted in haste. It's probably best that we forgive him."
"Thank you," Red breathed, though he probably didn't hear her.
The boy blinked. "So you won't kill me?"
Aidan shook his head. "I won't kill you. But this... misunderstanding has already cost a lot of lives, and I don't know how easy it will be to start over. Are you willing to try?"
"I..." He looked around, and seemed to realized he didn't have much of a choice. "I'm willing."
Chaser stepped forward then. "You should not do this, Prince. You already look soft for sparing the old man. Now that you have been defied again, someone should be punished to show you mean business."
"A lot more of their people have died than ours by now," Aidan said. "Isn't that enough punishment for not wanting to lose their freedom, as they thought it?"
He drew his great scimitar and pointed it at the young lord, who blanched. "Their leaders should be punished."
"He's just a little boy, you asshole!" Red snapped. He looked about thirteen, but some exaggeration didn't hurt here. "You want to what, kill him and install a puppet ruler here? Yeah, that's going to go over well with his people. You have no respect for the value of human life or dignity, and in my book that makes you evil." She reached for her knives. "I should end you..."
Aidan raised his hand. "Enough! I won't kill the boy, you have my word on it." Chaser made to open his mouth, but a gesture from the prince stopped him. "You stay. The rest of you can wait for us outside."
Red trusted him enough to believe he wouldn't have the kid killed, but wondered as she left why he kept him in the room. Still, there wasn't much she could do, and she walked out with everyone else.
"That was a nice outburst," Herbert said.
"Hate him. How the boys do storming the wall while I was dogfighting?"
"They did good, Tonya too. Scott got a bit of a nick in the side."
Her eyes widened. "A nick? Is he okay?"
"He's fine," Jon said behind her. "Such a little pinprick even he didn't make a lot of noise."
When they got to the healers' tent to visit him, however, it became clear his injury was more than that. He lay ashen-faced on a cot, his breathing shallow and ragged. Herbert took the medic tending him aside while his friends stared with worry. "What's wrong with him?"
"He..." The thin woman paused, clasping her hands dejectedly. "He isn't going to make it."
"What?!" Despite his shock, he kept his voice low so the others wouldn't hear. "You told him he was going to be fine!"
"The speartip went deeper than we realized. I'm sorry."
Red remember when Leviatha had endured an entire greatsword blade going clean through her middle, and she herself survived nearly the same wound. But not everybody had the same natural fortitude, and you couldn't blame anyone for lacking it. Looking to see Scott spoke calmly to his friends now, she felt nothing but respect for his courage. She walked over to him. "I'm gonna die, aren't I?"
She figured him deserving of the truth, and capable of handling it. "You fought well," she said, and nodded.
"Barely made a peep," Jon added, tears on his big cheeks.
"I should... whack off to you one last time, eh Tonya?"
Jon and Eric laughed brittly, but the girl did
n't. She almost threw herself atop Scott, then remembered his injury and settled for gingerly hugging him. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked between sobs. "I love you, dammit!" And Red had thought she had a thing for her. Maybe she did, still.
Scott smiled, but immense sadness filled his eyes at what would never be. "I thought you liked girls."
"I like both. But I like you... the most..."
Red turned away. She felt sad for Scott's coming death, but knew his old friends were much closer to him and that she couldn't fully share their sorrow. However, she shared it enough to feel a tear roll out of her eye and down her face. "Sucks," she choked out when Herbert put a hand on her shoulder.
"It's a battle." He didn't sound unsympathetic, just a bit more inured. "I've lost more than one comrade on the field, and while I hated it every time, it's something you have to live with."
"In war? Sure, I accept that. But the longer I'm here, the more I feel I don't belong."
"You're an amazing warrior," he said, but the ambivalence in his voice let her know he understood there was more to the matter than that.
"I started fighting to save people—and for revenge, but still. I can deal with seeing some werewolf victims or fighting other bad guys I meet along the way, but killing folks on the regular without the excuse of them being monsters, while watching people I've gotten to know die around me? That doesn't suit me."
Herbert nodded. "I don't think it really suits anyone, save for some bloodthirsty souls. But it's for a good cause."
"Is it? I've no idea how Aidan's quest will turn out. All I know is, I don't want to be stuck drenching myself in the blood of fellow humans for years."
"You want to quit? What about me?"
She thought about it and bowed her head. "You can stay, if you want. I know you like the stability... of sorts, since it doesn't give me much sense of stability at all."
"I don't want to leave you. Meeting you turned my life around, I wouldn't like the thought of you facing all that danger out there alone again. But I don't think you should quit yet. This isn't really a war, not so far anyway, and maybe Aidan can unify the country without much more violence."