Unfortunately for her, Verna found herself summoned to the king moments later. The timing was too perfect to be a coincidence; she assumed Ieran had run to the king after their meeting. Prethos thwarted her plans at ransacking Ieran’s room, demanding updates about security in the castle and the safety of the town. He also required a sudden inspection of her new guards who would be responsible for fortifying the castle should they be attacked, and so though Verna had gotten rid of Ieran for the afternoon, she was unable to make use of the time.
Out in the town, Ruhk was exhausted and frustrated and he was finding it particularly difficult to keep himself in check. He was a full-blooded warrior at heart, as had been three generations of his family on all sides. Being diplomatic was vastly difficult, especially when people were being argumentative for no reason at all.
Magic was still essentially dead near the castle and the mages had all been assigned tasks with shops to tend to inventory and such. Most of them were accepted willingly, but some shopkeepers tried to do without them.
“I won’t be having some outsider in my shop fingering all my things!”
“I am only here to assist and I have knowledge of your craft so I can help better than most.”
“Knowledge of my craft, bah! You’re just looking to make off with my things, swine.”
“Once the null field lifts and I can ply my craft again, I would have no need of your things.”
“Aye, you say that now, but what if the—whatever you called it—never lifts? Then you’ll be needing all my things and you’ll never leave.”
“That’s nonsense! If it doesn’t lift then I’ll move on to a place where it doesn’t exist.”
“Then go there now!” yelled the shopkeeper.
Ruhk clapped his hands together loudly. “Are you two quite finished here?”
The mage shrugged. “I’ve only tried to do what I was assigned to do. Perhaps there is other work for me to tend to?”
“No,” Ruhk said stiffly. After all the hours it had taken matching up the new residents with the old, he wasn’t about to allow exceptions. That would only create more problems once word got out.
“It’s my shop and you can’t say who’s able to work here!”
“I can, actually, by decree of the king. We all make sacrifices in this time of crisis and you will accept this offered help without further complaint.”
The portly man’s face lit a deep red, his anger truly rising. “Get out of my shop, the lot of you!” He stamped his feet and raised his fists in warning.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Ruhk warned, but the man had lost himself in anger. He ran forward, pummeling Ruhk’s chest furiously. The commander took a few careful steps away from the shop door and out into the bustling street. The shopkeeper pursued, blinded by the injustice of it all, his arms flailing about. Ruhk called several warnings for him to stop, but he didn’t.
Ruhk took the brunt of the man’s anger, hoping he would wear out quickly and submit, but instead, the continued hits empowered him to swing again and again. Bruised, but not hurt in any major way, Ruhk took most of the punishment, blocked a few hits aimed at his face or other less protected areas, and when he could see that the man was out of control, he grabbed the battering wrists and spun on the spot, bringing the man close with his arms behind his back. Ruhk then tugged hard on the arms with a slight twist, causing the shopkeeper to scream out in agony.
“Well, it seems to me that you won’t be able to use your arms until they heal, so it looks like you’re going to need some help after all. Any questions?”
“You’re a… bloody tyrant, you are.”
Ruhk turned to the mage. “Your first order of business is to tend to his arms. Make him a pair of slings and then good luck.” Without word, the mage complied and though the shopkeeper tried to shrug away from the help, he simply couldn’t.
The villagers nearby responded to Ruhk’s behavior with mixed reactions. Some accepted that he had given the man every chance to back down and accept the new order of things, but others felt the tactics were barbaric. At least he was a full-blooded Hathren walking around the area, for if he had been Kallisorian, he might not have been able to carry himself back to the castle if all the shady looks were any indication.
As he made his way through the day, he kept turning his thoughts to Gabrion and how he must have felt in the outpost bringing together two warring factions under one roof. There hadn’t even been any official decree of peace then; he had just insisted upon it and made it happen. And sure, a few people had died there, but it wasn’t easy to change people who didn’t want to be changed. He realized that would always be a problem, and this plan of uniting the kingdoms would need some real policing if it was going to last long enough to take effect.
Ruhk checked in with his team throughout the town and then he headed back to the castle to reconvene with Verna. The two of them felt the heavy burden of keeping everything together, but in the end, it was better than having to do it all alone.
“Then his royal highness chewed my ear off on the uniforms,” Verna griped over a salad. “I never even got close to Ieran’s room.”
“No matter.” Ruhk sipped a glass of wine. “I think we have to focus on the people around us and make sure they see eye to eye with our goals and then hope they rise up to protect us if the time calls for it.”
“Hope?” she echoed. “My life hasn’t done well on hope.”
“Maybe not,” he conceded, “but I think we need to have a bit of it for this to work, don’t you? Besides, we’re not entirely alone in this. At some point, the others will return and that will make our jobs a lot easier.”
Verna snorted in denial. “More likely, Kitalla will send half of Kallisor into the castle and we’ll be up to our eyebrows in unhappy people.”
“We already have that honor, Verna.”
“Mzark brought a lot of anger all by himself,” she said. “And hacking away at the stone has done little to calm him down. I think it’s time we institute another of Kitalla’s witticisms.”
“Oh?”
She nodded with a grin, sipping her wine and then swirling it just to watch it spin. “Let’s make him captain of the royal guard.”
“You can’t be serious!” Ruhk shook his head and then laughed. “Never mind. You’re crazier than she is, after all. And you know what? I think you may even make it work.”
Verna tipped her glass toward him. “Most of the guards here are loyal to us, so it should be hard for him to change them overnight. Maybe in a week’s time, but he will have others to train, I think. Besides, it’s not like I’m handing them over to him and going on vacation.”
“He will be distrustful and he will test you.”
“And we will all make mistakes,” she agreed. “But you know… Ervinor put his faith in me when he had no need to. There were plenty of others who could have captained the Wrens, and even after I made a mess of things, he kept me in that role and he challenged me to be better than I was.”
“Mzark isn’t on some quest for redemption, Verna,” Ruhk said carefully. “He’s going to put his energy into usurping us and trying to get us out of here.”
“Yep.” She grinned. “And I doubt he will be all quiet and stealthy as he goes about it.”
“And that’ll put Ieran on edge that he’ll be found out—” Then he understood. “Oh! Ha! Verna, you’re a genius.”
She sipped her wine again. “Well, Ruhk, I thought you’d never notice.”
Chapter 24
An Oversight
She knew it was bound to happen. Still, she had hoped it would have been for something menial, like burning dinner or failing to strap her leggings on tight. Instead, it happened at a time where too many forces needed to be held in place and not falter. Yet, that’s when it happened.
Kitalla misjudged the situation.
She and Carrus had visited almost a dozen encampments as they neared the border between the kingdoms. At each stop along the way, they ba
ttled for a time, thankfully battling some less than others, and then Kitalla issued new orders. The Hathren camps had the word of their king to adhere to and not all were as skeptical as Mzark had been. Others, though, had needed some serious convincing. Kitalla’s troop always fought without killing, even when they took losses. She was adamant about this and her will forced them all to obey.
The Kallisorian camps were harder to convince, but her heritage, with Carrus’ support, brought over similar submissions among the captains. Though they were reluctant to venture off to Castle Hathreneir, most complied with Kitalla’s numerous urgings. One small battalion purely joined Kitalla’s forces to see her actions up front, while another faction denied her orders and retreated to Kallisor.
With each confrontation, Kitalla shifted her troops around. She had come from the castle with sixty or so fighters, and though she continued to travel with a similar number, their faces had mostly changed. Each group sent to the castle was escorted by people Kitalla had empowered with the task. Her original five captains were all gone now, only Merrlis having fallen in battle. The rest had each led the defeated forces to the Hathren king for the next phase of peace. Each time, Kitalla had kept some of the new fighters to bolster her troop, sometimes Hathren, sometimes Kallisorian.
In each case, she also appointed a new captain for the Eagles, Sparrows, and so on. Their rule did not last for long because eventually they were asked to escort a group of their own to the king. Soon, Kitalla barely recognized anyone aside from Carrus. She had spread the loyalty too thin.
The morning erupted with arguments cresting over the sand, and Kitalla sprang awake to put out the verbal fire. Kallisorians and Hathrens were enraged over the preparation of breakfast. Kitalla swept in and stopped the nonsensical debate, giving a third recipe for them to follow. It didn’t resolve the matter, but instead turned them all against her, though they held off their demonstration of their united anger until later.
Carrus was also up and heading off a sparring bout in the Nightingales. The friendly contest had turned nasty and clubs were flailing through the air furiously, cracking bones and raising terrible welts. The burly warrior threw himself in the tussle and separated the combatants, noticing only then that they were all Hathrens from different battalions and, for whatever reason, had lost control. The Kallisorians in the group were taking bets on the sidelines, and were furious with Carrus for interrupting.
From there the tensions spiraled out of control until all sixty fighters were battling each other, and Kitalla and Carrus were pressed together in the center trying to regain control. There was entirely too much commotion for Kitalla to even try using her dance skill to calm the troubled fighters. Instead, she grabbed her daggers for defense and channeled one of Randler’s best rhythms to guide her steps. The drum beat built slowly and she moved her arms in time with the music. She brought her arms out to the side and deflected an incoming sword throw, raising her leg up and clobbering another attacker. Finishing her spin, she lowered her leg and kicked up the other one, cracking a third fighter in the head and felling him.
One down, at least fifty-five more to go, she thought, wondering if along the way Carrus might also take a swipe at her just for fun. A spear came flying toward her and she dropped one dagger as she leaned aside and grabbed the wooden pole, wrenching the weapon away from its owner. She quickly reversed the direction of the strike and jabbed the man in the gut with the butt of the spear. Kitalla then hoisted the spear and shoved it into the sand, marking her location. She reclaimed her dagger and howled to draw all attention her way.
This rout felt personal and she needed to tend to it personally. Carrus was blocking with his shield and parrying with his war hammer, but Kitalla decided not to count on him. He had been a worthy companion so far, but her failure to recognize the gaps in her leadership with this group may have been due to her dalliances with him. Or not, she didn’t know. But it didn’t matter. She had to end this scuffle herself and if Carrus supported her, then all the better.
Four more challengers arose to Kitalla’s call and they raced ahead, swords in front to impale her. Two of them maintained their charge as the other two swept their swords upward when they drew close. Kitalla pounced into the air to avoid the swords. She didn’t expect the elevated strikes, but was prepared to meet them anyway. Her arms swept down and out and she deflected the attacks easily, her legs bent up high, kicking her assailants’ chests, stunning them briefly. The two men knelt to the sand as the other two halted their charge and turned around. Carrus clobbered them both with the hilt of his hammer, then returned to his fight.
Kitalla sprang up and punched the other two swordsmen to unconsciousness. Instinctively, she dropped to the ground, just as a pair of arrows flew overhead. She looked to her right and saw a team of archers readying their bows for another try. Clearly, everyone was fighting for themselves, clinging in small groups of the people they knew, for those arrows could have struck anyone. Annoyed, Kitalla spun about and let her daggers fly. One archer took a hit to the shoulder, while another tried to deflect the attack with her bow, but she missed and the knife caught her hand.
The third archer launched an arrow as Kitalla turned about and pulled more daggers from her boot. She wasn’t fast enough to avoid the full attack, but the graze to her side was minimal. Two swordsmen entered the fray and she paused to deal with them, keeping an eye alert for another arrow.
These two fighters were better trained than most of the other scrappers she had traveled with. Her twists and kicks were met with brutal counterattacks and her arms shuddered with their intensity. Agility was her greatest ally as she faced them, for they worked well together, filling in the gaps in each attack and defending against her strikes. Kitalla was hard-pressed to maintain her footing, for if she fell, she didn’t know if the sand would provide a solid enough surface for her to spring away.
One sword swept downward and smacked into the sand beside her, causing her to step over it, but it put her in line with the other sword, which was coming in low. She turned and held her daggers out before her, catching the incoming sword with a jarring crash. Her arms folded in sharply against her chest and numbed from the impact. She couldn’t hesitate, though, for already the sand behind her shifted as the first sword was drawn again. Kitalla pushed her feet hard against the ground and she tucked her head into her chest, entering a forward flip. The sword against her chest was wrenched away, cutting into her leather tunic and drawing blood. And as her feet were in the air for that one moment, an arrow pierced her left foot. She landed heavily on it and screamed.
She knew there was no time to tend to the foot, but she couldn’t do anything with the arrow in it. Collapsing to the ground for a mere three seconds, Kitalla wrenched the arrow out and blindly threw it toward the nearest swordsman, catching him off-guard long enough to delay his fatal strike. Kitalla rolled aside and hopped up on her right foot, unable to see through the tears in her eyes.
Seeing her weakened state, the two swordsmen rushed in, and they were not the only ones. Kitalla ignored the new threats coming closer and focused her energy on finishing off the experienced swordsmen. She bent her knee and pounced for the nearest blur of movement, sweeping her arms in front of her to push away a possible sword. Her body crashed into his and toppled him to the ground. She scrabbled for his face with one hand and then swept in the hilt of her dagger with the other, knocking him out. She then quickly rolled over, assuming correctly that the next soldier was on the move. Kitalla hit the sand as the fighter’s sword struck the downed swordsman, cutting through his chestplate and killing him.
Kitalla wiped her eyes quickly and blinked against the pain in her foot. The swordsman withdrew his grisly blade from the corpse and hacked at Kitalla. Reflexively, she lifted her left foot to block him but she misjudged the distance and the sword bit into her toes. She screamed again, reaching blindly for the dead fighter’s fallen sword. With a mighty yowl, she swung the weapon about, and it cut into her assailant’
s chest, batting him lifelessly aside, blood splattering her like warm rain.
Pain and rage overwhelmed her and she automatically rose up even though she just wanted to lie there. She snatched two swords from the fallen fighters, setting her daggers aside, and a fire burned in her eyes that only fools would ignore. Sadly for them, she was surrounded by fools.
The swords became whirling death as she stalked one aggressor after the next, cutting them down without a care. She limped fiercely and that drew attention, but she deflected attacks with one arm and struck for blood with the other. Soon the area was littered with dead or severely wounded fighters. She could barely even see for she was splattered in the blood of her foes and the tears that ran unchecked down her face.
She heard her name echoing in the distance and she turned about, cutting an arrow out of the sky. She didn’t hesitate; with a series of painful hops, she hurried over to the frantic archer as he fired off four more arrows, all badly aimed or deflected. Her name sounded again as she brought the swords down to lop off the man’s head, and the power in the tone distracted her long enough for the archer to pull away and drop his weapon.
Kitalla felt her body thrown to the ground. She flailed about, batting away her attacker, but she was hurting too much to win this match. Her swords were ripped from her hands and tossed out of reach and then powerful legs came up and pressed into her back, making it hard to breathe. All she could tell was that no effort was made to kill her, and when she couldn’t struggle any more, she went limp.
Carrus held her there for a few extra minutes until he was sure she was calm. Fearing retaliation, he leaped off her and sprang away rather than let her up slowly. The move saved him a severe beating, for Kitalla came up fighting. She threw sand in the air and whirled her feet around to knock down her attacker, but he was safely out of range.
“It’s over now, Kitalla,” he said when he thought she would listen. “Kitalla. You need… help.”
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