Conquest

by C B Samet

  He set down the bowl of eggs on a table beside her bed. “My tribe on southern Bellos had certain beliefs. Life debts were one of them.”

  Had? I wondered.

  I channeled the past to see Corky’s connections. The Widex Tribe. In a single night, his village had been wiped out by King Bellos’ forces. During the past eight years, King Bellos had been conquering pockets of the continent who defied his rule. Corky had no family left. At the age of ten, with no marketable skills, he’d gone to Victoria to seek revenge. Near starvation drove him to thievery, and he’d been too busy surviving to embark on a suicidal assassination mission.

  Abigail chopped the eggs with a utensil and began to eat. “Well, don’t make yourself uncomfortable. You don’t owe me any such debt.”

  “You can’t wave a hand and make it disappear,” Corky protested.

  “Well, you helped us sail to Crithos and helped me steal the scepter. Shouldn’t that account for something?”

  “Those are not equivalent to a life debt.” He shoved his hand through his hair. “You shouldn’t have taken that bullet.”

  “By all means, you can have the next one.”

  “I’ll fight tomorrow,” Corky said.

  Abigail roughly replaced her food bowl, launched to her feet, and went nose to nose with the young man, standing on the tips of her toes. “No, you won’t.”

  He startled at her sudden protectiveness.

  Her voice rose. “You don’t know how to fight in a battle. Soldiers do. If you want to repay a life debt, make it count. Dying on a battlefield in a war that isn’t yours is a waste.”

  “It is my battle!” he roared.

  Abigail stared at him, but didn’t flinch.

  “King Artemis killed my village. Those whose lives he spared were enslaved.” Corky’s eyes glistened, but no tears fell.

  Abigail took a steading breath and lowered her voice. “Fine. You have a right to fight. But ask yourself if that’s the best use of your talents.” She started to turn away but turned back toward him. “And yes, I’m acknowledging that your thieving is a talent. Don’t let it go to your head.” She sat back down on the bed and resumed eating her eggs.

  One corner of Corky’s mouth turned up. “What did it feel like?”

  “Getting shot? Worse than getting stabbed with a Ballik blade.”

  “You’ve been…”

  “Yes, I’ve been through that, too.”

  Corky turned to leave her tent. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

  Abigail glanced at me, something sweet and slightly seductive. “I’ve a guardian angel.”

  “Yeah,” Corky said, “I’ve seen him in action. If he ever gets tired of you, send him my way.”

  Coco entered. “You have company.”

  “Paul,” I said.

  Abigail jumped to her feet as Paul rushed into her tent. She collapsed to her knees sobbing and hugging him. “Oh, Paul!”

  I counted the days. She hadn’t seen her son in over a month, and she’d been through misery and pain over and over in that short time span.

  Fury joined them, nuzzling his black muzzle between them until Abigail wrapped one hand around his neck.

  “I’m so glad you made it, Paul. You too, Fury. You’re a good boy.”

  “Mama, are you okay?” His voice sounded small, different from his usual laughter and boisterous ramblings.

  I wondered if the boy noticed his mother was thinner compared to when she’d left. She also still looked pale from the bullet wound. I could heal, but it still cost the body metabolism and would take time to replace the blood loss.

  Abigail pulled away, wiping at her eyes. “I am now. I’m so proud of you. That was brave—and dangerous.” She gave him one quick, sharp, reproachful look before her expression softened again. “Rebekah sends her love, and Natalie is safe hiding in the castle.”

  “Do I get a hug?” Raven hopped onto the table beside the bed and crossed her legs.

  “I’m in your debt,” Abigail said.

  Raven shrugged, as if this was nothing new—as if she hadn’t just traveled a week on horseback with a rambunctious seven-year-old boy.

  I glanced at Snake Eyes, who’d gone from poking the shining scepter with his finger to drooling over the small, female brownie.

  Abigail turned back to Paul. “How was your trip?” She smoothed short strands of hair behind his ears.

  “It was great! I rode Phobus, and Raven rode Fury. We tried to stay in inns because it was so chilly outside at night, but we also didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves—that’s what Raven said. But we were eating at this one inn, and a man stormed in. He had brown robes and magic, like Orrick, but he was mean so people were calling him the Dark Wizard.”

  I shook my head at Paul from an angle Abigail couldn’t see. I hadn’t had a chance to debrief her about the dark wizard.

  As Paul continued his stream of consciousness retelling of events, Abigail glanced at Raven and mouthed the question: ‘Dark Wizard?”

  Raven waved her off. “I’ll explain later.”

  “So we ducked and ran out of the inn. Mal guided us—saved us. He took the shape of a little purple dragon. We had to leave the rest of our dinner behind, which was really sad because I’d only drank half of my hot chocolate.”

  “That is sad,” Abigail agreed. She shot me a look.

  “I was going to tell you,” I said sheepishly.

  Paul tugged on Abigail’s shirt. “That night was too dark to make it to another inn so we had to sleep outside, but Raven slept with squirrels, and I slept with Fury.”

  “Did he keep you warm?”

  Paul nodded.

  “You can sleep with him tonight, too. We’ll get you set up in a tent.”

  “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

  “Yeah, you can stay with me.”

  “I brought Phobus.”

  “You did wonderful.”

  “I brought friends,” Raven said.

  Abigail stood. “Did you?”

  I extended my senses to see what Raven referred to. Brownies, with their hawks, were setting up camp and preparing for battle tomorrow. “Fifty-eight brownies and their birds… to be precise,” I told Abigail.

  She eyed Raven. “Just a few friends?”

  The brownie grinned.

  Abigail turned to Paul. “Sit tight in my tent. I’ll send food for you and Fury. Raven and I are going to talk to Commander Goran, and Captain Coco, and Baird in preparation for tomorrow.”

  “You’ll be back?”

  “I’ll be back. We’ll snuggle, just like home.”

  “All night?”

  She touched a finger to his nose. “All night.”

  36

  ABIGAIL

  Warmth hit my face when I entered the large command center tent. Goran and Coco leaned over a schematic of Marrington castle, while Baird paced off to one side, listening intently.

  They stopped and stared at me.

  “Are you better?” Goran asked.

  “I’m healed, though getting impaled with a bullet is one of the more agonizing injuries I’ve had.” I glanced at Baird, who gave me a solemn nod. When I turned back to Coco, I waited for her expression to turn into something disdainful—here was yet another shared experienced between Baird and I that she’d feel excluded from. Yet, her face remained calm and without judgment.

  “You rode on a miniature tornado back into camp. I’d call that quest accomplished,” Coco said.

  “Yes, fortunately the hunch that I could operate the scepter was correct.”

  Goran’s eyes were wide. “That was incredible magic. How did you know it would work? I suspect if just anyone could harness the scepter’s magic, it would have been heavily sought after long before now.”

  I glanced at Baird. Goran didn’t know my connection to Mal, and I didn’t want the trouble of explaining it. “Orrick, the wizard, suggested it.” Which was true.

  “I think my men were quite impressed with what they
saw—and quite relieved you’re on our side.”

  “I wish my abilities were enough to fight this alone, but they’re not.” I nodded toward their table. “What’s the plan?”

  “Are you still up for the attack tomorrow?” Coco asked.

  “Yes.”

  Baird shot a glance at me, as if he thought my answer should be ‘no.’

  Coco narrowed her eyes at me in scrutiny. “The plan is a carefully-orchestrated battle.”

  “Okay.”

  “That means you need to follow the plan. All the parts and pieces move in synchrony for us to win.”

  I crossed my arms. “I can follow the plan. You can stop implying I’m going to follow my own agenda.” Her antagonistic attitude felt more like comfortable banter. Did I have a real friend in Coco?

  She turned with a smirk and began pointing at their schematic. “Abigail takes the lead here. She’ll need to be the first through, so she can take down the outer gate.”

  “She can’t take them all head-on from the start,” Goran protested.

  “She won’t be alone. Your team is here, to the right. My team is here, to the left.”

  “That still puts her taking them head-on.”

  “If you let me finish—she’ll also have the aerial strike. That will thin them out.”

  “What about the bullets?” Baird asked.

  Coco nodded. “I’ve been experimenting with the pistols we confiscated from Porter Stout and his men. The range is eighteen-hundred meters, but they’re accurate to only about thirty meters. They won’t fire from a distance.”

  “Still,” I added, in a tone of caution. “All men and women need strict instructions to keep helmets on and shields up at all times. Did you test the bullets against shields?”

  She gave me a do-you-have-to-ask semi-eye roll. “The Ballik ore shields will resist bullets.”

  “Arrows?” Goran asked.

  “They’ll probably start with an arrow launch,” Coco agreed.

  “Not a problem. The Wind Stone of the scepter can displace those,” I said.

  “Are there any other surprises the Bellosians could have concocted that we aren’t considering?” Baird asked.

  Coco shook her head. “We’ve had spies watching the castle grounds. There aren’t any traps set on the grounds—no trenches or fortifications. We’ve not seen any other weapons, such as catapults.”

  “I think they intend to win with sheer numbers,” Goran said. “And if I hadn’t seen the scepter in action, I’d have believed they were right.”

  “They also have superior experience,” I said. “They’ve been fighting battles on Bellos for nearly a decade. They aren’t newly-hired soldiers with dent-less armor.”

  Coco crossed her arms. “My soldiers will fight bravely. They’ve lost their Queen, and they want Bellosians to bleed for that.”

  “Everyone good with the plan?” she added. Her words were more of a statement than a question.

  “Shall we send a bird to let the King know to meet us in battle tomorrow?” Goran asked.

  “I’ll take the message personally to him in his dreams. Tonight.”

  After battle planning, I left to have a meal with Paul and talk about his trip to Marrington. We sat on my cot as he told his story.

  His body was animated as he talked about Mal joining them at the inn. Mal sat in one corner of the tent with a bemused expression as he listened to Paul recount the adventure.

  “Mal said danger was coming, and he was right. He said we needed to sneak away, so I dropped down under the table on all fours. Mal turned into a small dragon—like the size of Raven.”

  “A dragon?”

  “Uh-huh. A purple, fire-breathing dragon. With wings. His wings were purple, too.”

  “Purple, fire-breathing?” I glanced at Mal.

  He gave me a wry grin and a wink.

  I laughed. “Then what happened?”

  “Well, he thought Raven should escape through this high window, but she said she wasn’t going to let me out of her sight. She followed us. Mo had to go out the front, though, because he was too big to fit in the hatch.”

  “You escaped in a hatch?”

  “Yeah. The floor behind the bar had a door in it and Mal led us down into a crawl space. Once we got in there, we crawled away. We got away as all of the fighting was happening. Mal said the man was a dark wizard. Mo said the wizard didn’t even have a weapon, but he was able to hurt people.”

  “How did you escape in this crawl space?”

  “Mal kinda glowed, and I followed him out.”

  “A glowing, purple dragon?”

  In the corner, Mal gave one quick burst of purple light as he smiled.

  I grinned. “It sounds like you were very brave.”

  If Mal hadn’t helped Paul escape, would my son be alive? Would he have been a victim of this dark wizard that night? Mal sat in the corner, enjoying Paul’s recounting of events when Mal himself hadn’t told me. He hadn’t boasted about saving Paul—he hadn’t acted like he’d done anything wonderful or heroic.

  The depths of that man, I marveled. I may have given my heart away unconventionally to a spirit, but he was infinitely worthy of love.

  Paul continued, “I was brave. Raven was too. She flew on Carrot and helped Mo find us. Oh, and I rode Phobus really fast in the dark—but we were on the trail.” He added the last part as if concerned I might chide him for riding too fast and dangerously on unfamiliar ground.

  “I’m glad you’re safe.” I leaned forward and kissed Paul on the forehead. “We’re fortunate to have friends like Raven, and Mal, and Mo.”

  “Yeah, Mal’s spectacular.”

  “I think so, too.” It was my turn to wink at Mal.

  “I wasn’t sure about him when we first met him, because he seemed rather ordinary—but he has neat tricks.”

  “He is extraordinary,” I agreed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Ready for bed?”

  “I guess so.”

  I curled up with Paul and Fury on the bed. Before I blew out the candle, I mouthed to Mal: “I love you.”

  I walked the hallway, passing gateways to other people's dreams on either side of me.

  I wore my sword and full battle armor. My next meeting wasn’t an amicable reunion with family members or friends. I shoved aside the drape and entered the dream world of Artemis Stout. He sat on the throne of golden skulls, looking down over the valley of worshipers prostrate on their knees before him. He appeared twenty years younger than his true age, with his bare-chested physique displaying a defined, muscular body I was certain in real-life lay hidden beneath a layer of blubber.

  As I entered his dream world, the tiny worshipers in the vastness of his fictional empire scattered like leaves on an autumn breeze, before dissipating altogether.

  Artemis startled, and confusion filled his eyes until they grew wide with recognition. “This is magic. The Avant Champion lives. It was you my men shot at stealing the scepter.”

  I raise my arms. “I live.”

  “And my son?”

  “He did not survive the assault he launched on me during the storm.”

  He stood from his throne and roared. In a fit of red-faced fury, he heaved over the golden throne. With his chest rising and falling like an enormous bellow, he turned a look of daggers toward me. “I should have killed you in the arena.”

  I blinked at him. “I've come to make you an offer. Leave Crithos, take your army with you, and you will live. Stay in occupation of the Marrington Castle and you will die.”

  He snorted. “You and what army dare threaten me?”

  “I have my stone back, Artemis—and I have the scepter with the power of Malos at my disposal. I will come for you, and you will regret the day you crossed me.” My voice cut the air like broken glass and was filled with such a threat of violence I startled even myself. But I meant every word.

  “How dare you…”

  “I dare! This is my country, not yours! You w
ill retreat, or you will suffer my wrath on the battlefield.”

  “Bellosians never retreat!” he cried, taking a menacing step toward me.

  I stood my ground. “Then Bellosians will bleed.”

  I turned on my heel and left his dream.

  I hadn't for a second thought the King would slink back to his continent under the weight of my threat, but now my conscience would be clear when I had to kill him. I’d fulfilled an obligation I felt by offering him an alternative to violence. The conversation probably would've gone better if it hadn’t begun with telling him I’d killed his son. Since the ship hadn’t survived the storm, surely he’d already surmised that Porter was dead. Perhaps some part of him hoped he lived against the odds. I certainly had hoped for almost a year that my parents were still alive after we’d received news of them being lost at sea.

  In any case, Artemis had closure and all of the terrible finality that accompanied it. Well, he didn't have long to suffer in mourning—he’d be joining his son soon enough.

  37

  MALAKAI

  I stood outside overlooking the battlefield. It was barren, but in a few short hours the green grass would be covered in a river of blood.

  Abigail stood beside me, wearing a metal breastplate and armed with sword, dagger, and scepter. She wore a red cape fashioned to the shoulders of her armor. Woman, warrior, and love of my life. She’d taken my breath away the other night. I’d watched her sleeping, longing to run a hand through her thick, dark hair or pull the covers snuggly around her amazing body. When she rolled over and the long scars on her back from Porter’s whip became visible, I grimaced. I hadn’t been able to heal her flawlessly. I wanted to run my lips along those scars and promise a lifetime of pleasure to erase the memories of what she’d suffered.

  We hadn’t spent last night together because she’d reunited with Paul. Paul had proceeded to describe in detail the attack on the inn and the dark wizard.

  “That was quite a bit of power we shared when I was falling. You healed me so fast and so completely,” Abigail said.