by R. K. Thorne
A wolf he was going to fight to the death, if he had to.
“I didn’t mean it critically,” she said softly, bringing him back into the moment.
“I did.”
Her frown changed, incredulous now. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s barely been two days. But you are king now. If you want to help people, you can do it.”
“As soon as we’ve settled this war and then—”
“No,” she said sharply. “With this war coming, I think now is exactly when we need to do it.”
He was frowning nearly as hard as she was now. “Go on. I know you have more you’re thinking.”
“Think about all we talked about today,” she said, the words coming out fast and urgent now. “It’s horrifying what this war could bring on. This could be worse than the Dark Days.”
“But we’ll be defending people this time.”
“Maybe. Maybe they were defending people in the Dark Days too. I think we’re going to lose in the long run if all Akarians see are mages wreaking death and destruction.”
“Even if it’s on their behalf?”
“Maybe? I don’t know. There’s only a handful of us. Who will they remember, us or them? Will they even be able to see a difference?”
He frowned. She was right. Since they would likely be outnumbered twenty-five to one, if not fifty to one, the chances the average Akarian would see and remember an attacking mage slave over a helpful freemage were pretty good. He ran a hand over his face, the feeling of defeat he’d fought off all day looming larger. “You’re probably right. But we have to figure out how we’re going to win before we can even worry about who they remember.”
She eyed him. “You’re thinking something. What is it? You weren’t telling Dyon everything, were you?”
“No.”
“Tell me what were you holding back.”
He regarded her carefully for a moment. But if there was anyone he wasn’t going to scare the pants off of, it was Miara. She was the one person he could tell the truth.
He sighed deeply. Then, as quietly as he could keep his voice over the fire crackling, “Honestly? I don’t think we can win.”
Perhaps he’d been wrong about telling her the truth, because her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. “How can you say that?”
“Well, we have to try. We’ll do our damnedest. But they have too many mages. It’s not looking good, as is. Maybe if we figure out a way to recruit more mages, we’ll have more of a shot.” He kept his voice low.
“Why didn’t you tell that to Dyon?”
“He may be thinking the same thing. But I don’t want the lieutenants and wardens thinking things are hopeless, or they’ll make things hopeless.”
“What do you mean?”
“If our soldiers can find any hole, any weakness to exploit, we may find a way to win. We may get lucky. But that all requires hope and determination and showing up ready to fight. Having me tell them I think it’s a losing battle and we’re all dead this far in advance doesn’t exactly engender confidence. Which would be especially tragic if I’m wrong. Maybe when we’re facing down the enemy, but not yet.”
She frowned down at her lap. “Do you think you could be wrong? We can’t be beaten already. We can’t be. How can the Balance—” She cut off the words as her voice turned bitter.
“I certainly could be wrong. I’m trying to think it through, look for some weakness in their armor, some other weapon we can wield to neutralize so many mages.” All he could think of was the star map, and he didn’t really know if it’d say anything useful when Tharomar was done with it.
They sat in silence for a long moment.
She took a long, deep breath. “Gods, I hope you’re wrong.”
“I know. Me too.”
“Well, listen. I was thinking about something before the battle. When the battle is joined, all we can do is our best. Right?”
“Right.”
“The battle will come. People will see mages rain fire and hurl rock and wreak destruction. If that’s all they see, we’re going to have trouble getting people to accept us, or actually let mages live out in the open and free. Even if we win.”
“What other option do we have?”
“In battle, none. But before then, we can do something. We need to people to see mages helping people too.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Helping people?”
“I’m talking about showing people that mages can be something other than an evil nightmare from the Dark Days, deviant abominations who’ll corrupt all in their midst. We should do what you wanted to do all along: help people. Akarians need to see mages doing good work as well as bad.”
“But how, exactly?”
“Healing, for a start? Like Galen? Too bad it’s not summer, or we could do so much more in the fields.”
His mind was racing, trying to fit this piece into the overall plan. “If we shape the people’s opinion around mages, that may help us recruit mages, too.”
“You think?”
“Definitely. Mages won’t come forward if they think it means people will hate them. We need to give people reasons to not hate mages. That’s your point.”
“Yes. They need reasons to admire them, even. Other than that their handsome king is one of them.”
He snorted and then shook his head. He glanced at the darkness outside just as he caught Perik’s quiet yawn. “That’s a really good point. Have I told you how wise you are?”
She smiled widely. “Not enough.”
“You’re very wise. And I’m very exhausted. Let’s get started on that tomorrow, first thing.”
“Not right now?”
He grinned at her enthusiasm. “It’s midnight, you know. The whole city’s asleep.”
“Except fools like us.”
“Basically. People may not take kindly to you barging in, waking them up, and demanding to know if anyone is injured.”
She stifled a laugh. “All right, all right,” she said grudgingly. “But can’t we at least make a list? I’m full of ideas here.”
He rose to get a quill. “Anything for you, my love.”
Detrax forgot about Thel for the rest of that day and into the next, presumably busy with Niat. She was not in the tent for most of the time that Thel was. The hours were long and dull and would have been frigidly cold without the blanket. He’d thought through just about every angle he could on how to escape. He’d listened to hours of guards talking about beer, their superior officers, their women back home, their women more recent than that. The chatter was just barely less tedious than staring blankly at the tent flap. When the sun reached its zenith, a bit more light filtered into the tent, and Thel would risk reading a bit of the tiny book, clutched so he could hide it at the first footstep or rustle.
He peppered them with requests to be moved to a different, more pleasant tent, but unsurprisingly, nothing came of it.
About midday of the third full day of his capture, someone remembered he existed and stumbled in via the tent flap. The soldier unlocked Thel’s manacles, led him out of the utterly desecrated tent, and clamped on a new set of chains.
A dozen or so people in plain clothes milled around a campfire in front of him. As they approached, the soldier shoved Thel’s shoulder down, forcing him to sitting on a log.
“Watch him,” the soldier snapped.
The nearest woman narrowed her eyes at him and didn’t acknowledge the order. The guard stalked away.
Thel glared after him, noting the short sword, the stripe of red on his shoulder. Kavanarians. Not that he was surprised, but it still stung a bit. Alikar had been suspected of working with Kavanar, but this was worse than Thel had expected. He would bet they were still inside Gilaren. This coup must have been underway long before anyone had suspected; the encampment was hardly new. The enemy troops must have crossed into Gilaren before the vote on Aven as heir had even happened.
The people fidgeting around Thel were not soldiers, but what wer
e they then? The air was tight with tension—knees jumping, hands whittling or polishing or prying or mending, eyes darting at the horizon or the woods. The woman ordered to watch him stayed near his side. Upon closer inspection, she wore leathers like those Miara had shown up to Estun in. Several others did as well. Not something that made him feel at all optimistic.
Shouts behind him drew his attention. She eyed him as he turned. A tent had collapsed down in a heap. An accident? No, the encampment was packing up. He scanned his surroundings as casually as he could. The carriage, horses, and wagons were being packed and readied. The gathering point was just behind them on the other side of a low, wide-branching tree.
Everyone in the entire camp could see this central point from where they were packing. Ah, so they weren’t depending on only this woman watching him. More than a few suspicious glares came his way as his gaze slid by.
He shivered and bounced his knee, blowing breath into his hands. The campfire cast some heat in his direction but not nearly enough. It was far too late in the year to be sitting still outside without a cloak.
He groped for ideas to use his magic to get out of this, especially now that he could see the whole encampment and what he had to work with. But people swarmed the place—Kavanarians in particular. He could try to split the earth or lob a boulder. But how far could he get? If he could even find a boulder or rip it out of the ground, how many could he really take out? Surely as soon as it started, someone would be at him with a dagger to the throat or worse. At the very luckiest, Detrax would still figure it out. Maybe there was a way he could cause a distraction instead.
He eyed the chains. Even if he managed to kill or distract enough to free himself, he’d still have these unfortunate companions.
A crack rang out behind him. He glanced back sharply, spotting where an arrow had connected with a tent pole. Several dozen more arrows rained down suddenly on the first row of tents, then the second.
Thel ducked automatically, hitting his knees and shrinking down as best he could. Another volley of arrows fell, all aimed at the tents behind him. A distant rumbling caught his ears over the shouts and grunts of the encampment rising.
The odd folks around him didn’t hunker down as he had. Several perked up, others rising to their feet. His guard glared down at him.
The rumbling grew louder—the thundering of hooves against the earth.
“Incoming!” shouted a man to her right.
“A wall, Ridan,” the woman beside him barked. “We need defenses now.”
“You heard her. Form it up!” the man—Ridan?—responded.
Out of the trees raced a dozen riders screaming a war cry Thel knew all too well. Another volley of arrows accompanied them, one piercing a man a few feet in front of Thel this time. Others riddled tents with holes, hitting who knew what inside.
The noise rose around him—cries, shouts, groans, horses neighing, swords drawing from scabbards. Thel knelt and scanned the camp behind him. Two men down behind him, three tents collapsed, one with a roiling monster of bodies writhing inside. Detrax stepped out of his tent, dragging Niat with him.
Flame erupted from the ground just before the riders. Thel gasped. The blaze curved up and over the campfire area.
Thel stared in horror, recoiling against the log as the flames thickened until he almost couldn’t see through them.
The riders. It was sweeping toward them fast. Barely enough time to change course.
Or none. The first rider and his mount plunged through the flames and into view. Screams of horse and man rang out, and Thel threw up a forearm to block his view of the horror.
The fiery barrier wasted no time, pushing outward to engulf more of the riders. Even those who struggled to turn couldn’t escape their fate. The barrier faltered at one spot, and one rider stormed through, his lowered sword catching a man in the throat before he, too, was engulfed in flames.
Mages, Thel realized. The people crowded around the campfire were mages. Killing Akarians.
Akarians here to save him? To capture Alikar?
It didn’t matter. They weren’t saving or capturing anyone.
“There—on the far hill under that oak!” shouted Ridan, who seemed to be their leader.
“I see them,” answered his companion. Her hands were braced in front of her as if she held off the Akarian onslaught with them directly. Her face and brow were creased with effort, and sweat beaded at her temples. Was there a touch of the same horror he felt in her voice? “Are those their leaders?”
“Commanders, I’d wager, a mage among them—take them out! We can hold the wall.”
She winced, before grunting, “Fine.” Her hands relaxed and then she raised them higher, fingers splayed out. She eyed a hill in the distance. Thel followed her gaze. Four horses stood in shadow on a slight slope three hundred yards back. They should have been hard to spot and out of arrow range.
Could Aven be among them? Any number of friends, family, and comrades could be waiting there, doomed on that hilltop. He had to help them.
The mage’s fingers began to curl slowly into fists.
Thel didn’t wait to discover what that gesture portended. He launched himself at her, shoulder first, and collided with her ribs. She toppled immediately, sprawling off the log and onto the ground.
“Gods!” she swore as she went down.
The man barreled toward him now, and Thel ducked, catching his assailant in the stomach. Grabbing Ridan’s knees wasn’t too hard even with manacles, and he easily sent the man flying over his shoulder.
Thel straightened to see the blaze sweep forward through the trees toward the Akarians and catching on them too. By the gods, they’d burn the whole forest at this rate.
The woman straightened and renewed her focus on the hilltop group, ignoring Thel. He staggered forward, but hesitated when he realized Ridan had recovered and refocused too. He couldn’t stop them both, so he opted to tackle the girl again, the two of them sprawling into the dirt as she dug up a new string of curses at him.
A sharp crack split the air behind them, silencing them both. The mage leader had fallen flat on his back, the skin on the side of his face red and black as though burned and eyes gazing emptily at the sky.
Thel staggered to his feet and squinted just in time to see the four far-off riders turn and pick up speed. Good—he wasn’t going to have to keep launching himself shoulder-first at mages and hoping for the best.
Footsteps to his left caught his attention just in time for him to lean back, a third mage’s punch missing his jaw by an inch. Thel reeled back, tripping over one of the logs. The woman and the new mage closed in on him and hauled him to his feet, calling out for help.
They dug their fingers into his arms like talons, but Thel didn’t struggle. Knowing they could make a wall of flame that obliterated any hope of rescue didn’t make him inclined to try to break away.
Instead, he looked out at the devastation.
Steaming, reeking black mounds before him had once been living Akarians, both human and equine. Steeds loyal and brave. Men and women who’d had children, lovers, homes to return to.
All of them, no more.
Thel realized his mouth had fallen open and snapped it shut. He gritted his teeth as that horror teetered on the edge of a mad rage.
Dead. All of them. And what had Kavanar lost? A few tents?
Thel didn’t know how long he stared. Detrax snapped him out of his shock by responding to the calls of his captors, a sullen and pale Niat in tow.
“Hey—you there.” Detrax snapped his fingers at a soldier behind them, frozen and staring. “Get these two into the carriage. No reason to be delayin’. This place reeks enough as it is.”
Numbness setting in, Thel let himself be dragged to the carriage, Niat now by his side.
“Hopeless,” he muttered. “I see.”
“I told you,” she whispered.
Soldiers shoved them into the dark wooden cage, and the two of them fell silent. Th
e image of charred bodies and the sound of their cries echoed long after they’d left the carnage behind.
Golden curls appeared in the doorway of Miara’s room, followed by Elise in one of her sapphire dresses. Intimidatingly elegant as usual. Her skin was paler now, though, and her smile weak and tired. Two attendants followed Elise, both middle-aged women, one with a high chin and proud shoulders in a black robe, and another more matronly looking woman with freckles.
“Ah, there you are, Miara,” Elise said, clasping her hands in front of her. Miara made a note of the poised gesture. She needed all the poise she could get. “I have something to show you. That is, if you don’t mind taking a break from your studies?”
Miara had been poring over the list they’d made last night and a map of Panar, trying to decide what good they could do with the most visible impact. A bit of a crazy idea was stirring in her mind, but she was looking for something better and more of a sure win. But she wasn’t really getting anywhere.
“Of course, my lady,” Miara said. “Is Samul doing all right?”
“Siliana just stopped by to give me a rest.”
Miara wasn’t entirely sure why they were taking shifts when the old king had so many servants and healers around him, but she got the vague impression that Elise and Siliana were guarding him. That they dare not leave the old king alone. “My father is a creature mage, and I’m sure he would be happy to assist you if you need it,” she offered as she stood and put the papers and map away.
“That is good to know. I think Aven may have been concerned about burdening him so soon after his recent ordeals.”
“Oh, he gets just as bored as the rest of us.”
Joining the queen, she nodded at the door and followed them out of her room. Elise led them down the hall and up the grand staircase that led to the king’s rooms. Miara hadn’t thought there was anything up on that level of Ranok other than the king’s rooms, but surely Elise would have mentioned if that was their destination.
