He winked at her, and she relaxed. A tiny bit.
He continued. “I have heard that things such as this are commonplace for you. Killing five demons with a mop handle—”
“Actually, a rake,” Kate corrected before she realized she had interrupted a superior. Her eyes went wide, and she snapped her mouth closed.
“Ah, yes, a rake. It is much more understandable, then.” He smiled at her again, making her feel more comfortable. “It seems we have a bit of a fan in our squad. I’m sure you know of whom I speak.”
Kate understood now. There was only one person she had met who was friendly at all, let alone a fan. “Wilfred.”
“Correct. He regales us often with tales of your heroism. I half think the boy idolizes you, though seeing you this closely, I’m betting he’s besotted.”
Kate felt her face flush, partly in embarrassment and partly in anger. Why were women always judged on their appearance and not on their skills?
“No offense intended,” Gallin Shuris said. “Your beauty will get you nowhere here. I am concerned with your service, and as I hear, you are committed wholly to the Order. I wonder, does that include doing whatever you can, or does it stop at swinging a sword? Do you find the work of the Blues somehow lesser?”
Kate did, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. “I am here to serve the Order in whatever capacity I can.”
“Hmmm, not very convincing. If we are to get along, Kate, I would ask that you be honest with me. Please.”
She looked to her feet and then back up to him. She did feel comfortable with him. If it was some kind of trap, if he was a great actor trying to snare her, what did it matter? Would they kick her out of the Order? She didn’t think so.
“I do not believe I will be used most efficiently as a Blue,” she said, and left it at that.
“Thank you for putting it plainly. For the worth of it, I agree. I think they should put a sword and shield in your hands and turn you loose. But I am just a sergeant. A sergeant of a Blue squad, at that. Most don’t care what my opinion is on the subject. Or any subject, in fact. We’ll just have to do what we can within our power.”
He got up from his bunk and stood at attention. He looked around furtively and then snapped a salute. “For your heroism and skill, I salute you. But from now on, you’re in my squad—at least until someone realizes how stupid it is to keep you from the battle—and you’ll have to do as the rest of Envoy Squad does. You’ll find that most of them are willing to help you learn what you need to know. Any who don’t, I would like you to report to me. I know you won’t, but I ask that you do.”
“Yes, Sergeant. Thank you.”
He considered her, and the corner of his mouth turned up into a wry smile. “Very well. Report here in the morning, and we can get started. Oh, and incidentally, that salute never happened, just for the record. A sergeant could get in trouble for something like that. Welcome to Envoy.”
Kate went back to her bunk. Two of the other women in the Red were there, whispering something as she entered. It was probably something about her being Blue now. She didn’t care. Most of the women in her barracks were Blue. Let them talk.
She ate later than normal that evening, not wanting to face any of her former squad. Not really wanting to face anyone. She climbed the stairs to the wall and looked out over the darkened plateau, wondering if she’d ever feel the thrill of battle again.
When she turned her eyes to the stars, they seemed to wink and ripple. Only when she wiped at her face did she realize her eyes were full of tears. Did her ancestors have the problems she was having? She thought not. They were not high nobles when they served, most of them, and none had been women. Had she pinned all her hopes on an unattainable dream?
She grabbed at her Blue robes in disgust. She was meant for battle, and she would be a servant to those morons and ingrates who made up her former squad. It was too much to take.
Standing there, looking at the dark, she replayed the battle from earlier in the day. Every move, every turn and thrust and shield bash, flashed in front of her face.
She suddenly straightened as it all played out in her head. She replayed it again, paying close attention to just before the wall seemed to falter.
It had been raining, and she was shoulder-to-shoulder with her squad mates. The demons pushed, and those to either side of Kate had simply fallen back. How did that happen? They were trained better than that.
Separating herself from the action, she imagined it as if she were a bird flying high overhead. There. A few looks from one soldier to another, and then they retreated. It was just slightly, enough to allow the demons to push them several paces back. Away from Kate.
She put her hands to her head. Was that the way it happened? Did her squad allow her to be isolated? Did they leave her there to die? Why? Did they hate her that much?
Kate Courtenay closed her eyes and tried to block out the images. The more they continued, the more she was sure they had tried to kill her. Not actively, but by letting the demons do the job.
First came the rage, a burning hot desire to take vengeance on them. Her mind plotted how to do it, personally and with a great deal of pain. But it only lasted a moment before she realized she couldn’t simply kill an entire squad. The energy drained out of her, and all that remained was a bone-deep sadness. Why was she constantly confronted with disappointment?
But she had survived. Despite their scheming, she had survived. And she would continue to do so. If they couldn’t kill her with a whole army of demons, she would be damned if they could make her give up by throwing her into the Blue.
She was of the Order, damn it, and she would work to the best of her ability to help the Order do its job. She would do their dirty work, if they forced her into it, but she wasn’t done. She had years to work toward gaining the honor she desired, the honor she deserved.
It all started with the next day, then the next, then the one after that. She angrily wiped the remnants of the tears from her face and stomped down to her bunk. The fire had dimmed, but she was stoking it again. She would show them what commitment to the Order meant. And heaven help anyone who stood in her way.
21
Kate set about learning her new tasks. She hadn’t realized how many different things had to be done to keep the city, and the Order itself, running. Her schedule for duty was the same as when she was a Red, three days on and three days off, but she was moving all the time. No standing around and waiting for battle to come; there were too many things that needed doing.
There were the tasks no one in their right minds would want to do, things like cleaning the latrines. Some of the Blues helped in the kitchens, though Kate’s new squad didn’t do that. Her work involved a lot of carrying buckets of water around to refill barrels, cleaning, and of course, catering to the Reds, in either battle or outside.
The first time Kate had to serve food to the Reds, she tried to hide her face. As if she could make her red hair invisible. She finally realized after an hour of people looking at her strangely that she couldn’t hide.
As she learned to do what she needed, Wilfred was her constant companion, happily trotting along beside her and telling her the little tricks he had found to make the tasks easier. He, at least, seemed happy with her new situation. Even if she wasn’t.
She wasn’t sure which was the hardest thing to deal with. On the one hand, every time she served the Reds during a battle, she couldn’t help but to look longingly at the shield wall, imagining she was there. It almost made her burst being that close to the action, bringing food and water and dragging the wounded or dead off the field, and not being able to take part.
Then there were the reactions she got when aiding or serving her former squad. For the most part, the Reds she saw from her former platoon didn’t react to her any differently than they did any other Blue. That is, they looked down on her but didn’t hold any particular malice toward her specifically.
Some in Kestrel Squad, though, deligh
ted in her misfortune and made sure she remembered it every minute they were around.
“Itn’t that the way it always is,” Clytus said in his monotone drawl. “You gone and done something you’d think was the right thing, and they kicked you back down to the Blue. Must’ve seen something lacking in you, I reckon. At least you’re safe there. I’m likely to be killed any day now. And after wasting all these years trying to get my twenty.”
Kate wasn’t sure how much of what the older soldier said was an insult and what was supposed to be wisdom for her to apply. She shrugged it off, an easy thing when there were worse things to deal with.
“I see you are finally where you belong,” Bachios Batille told her. “It is a fitting place for you, no? The thought of letting a woman hold a sword is ridiculous. I am glad to see the Order can think and act when necessary. Enjoy your servitude.” He shook his cup at her to refill. With gritted teeth, she did.
Kate never responded harshly, seeing no real reason to do so. It had the opposite effect from what she expected, emboldening the more spiteful of her detractors to be more aggressive.
One evening, after a short battle with the demons had produced a battle high for her former squad, Bachios decided to show his superiority. During the celebration, he tried to do what Kate had seen that other pompous ass do to Wilfred all those weeks ago. As she passed, carrying a pitcher, he thrust his shoulder at her with his full strength.
But Kate was not Wilfred. She was well-trained in combat, both armed and unarmed. She shifted her body, stiffened her torso, and braced herself when she saw the motion coming. When Bachios’s shoulder hit her, it was like striking a stone wall. He cried out and bounced off her, stumbling to regain his balance after throwing his whole weight toward her.
His stumbling foot found hers—in the perfect place, coincidentally—and he fell to the ground. She feigned losing her own balance and danced a few steps as if she was trying her hardest to regain her own balance. The result was that the pitcher upended, soaking the hapless Bachios with red wine.
He sputtered and spat, glaring at her in all his red glory. The laughter that assaulted him made his face nearly match the color.
“Be careful,” Kate said. “Trying to use a sword while being so clumsy will only get you hurt. Maybe you should switch to water for the rest of the night.”
She went to get another pitcher and continued in her duties. Though she regularly got dirty looks after that from Bachios, and others, no one else tried to assault her physically.
A few weeks passed, and Kate settled into her new responsibilities as a Blue. It didn’t get any easier to watch others do battle, but she did her tasks to the best of her ability, knowing it was more important overall to support the Order than to serve where she knew she should be.
Kestrel Squad came up in the rotation to go on leave for two weeks. They were allowed to stay at the little hamlet near Faerdham Fortress, Leydford. Envoy Squad had already had their leave several weeks past, so she missed out on both opportunities. The jeering from Kestrel went on for two days, until they headed out, giving Kate some peace.
Still, she fumed inside. Not only was she stuck being a servant, but she missed out on getting time off from her duties. Things just seemed to be getting worse and worse.
The day dawned on one of the last days of summer. Kate was up near the gate, preparing to bring water to the Reds on the line. It seemed the start of a bright, temperate day, the kind of day that made it great just to be outside. Provided a ravaging pack of demons didn’t try to mess it up by doing their best to kill you.
Wilfred was next to her, filling buckets from the water barrel nearby. He smiled at her, which he normally did any time he saw her. Kate nodded back to him.
Tension spread throughout the ranks of Reds and bled out into the rear of the area, where Kate and the other Blues were. She didn’t have to look to know what that meant.
But there was no noise, other than the grating of the gate swinging open. There were no howls, no screeches, not even any of the chaotic thoughts being pushed into her head. When the massive gate clanged fully open and stopped moving, it was eerily silent.
Kate jumped up onto one of the platforms made for officers to give their orders. It was empty, so she saw no reason not to use it. Once there, she looked over the heads of the archers and the shield wall, peering into the open gate.
Orange and red light danced, casting flickering shadows on the halves of the gate. From somewhere far below, a darker red and brighter yellow fought for dominance.
But still there were no bodies visible.
The horns began to blow, notifying the reserve troops that the gate had opened.
But nothing appeared.
The Reds looked at their friends, at their sergeants, and at the lieutenant on duty. The officer scratched his head. He didn’t know what was going on, either.
In an instant, a great monstrosity in humanoid shape tore through the open gate, heading for the platform where Kate stood. The soldiers in the shield wall tried to form up but were not fast enough. The monster, at least twenty-five feet tall, bashed through them, scattering the first three rows like they were twigs in a field.
It was a goliath. Kate had read about them in her frequent trips to the library.
“Archers,” the lieutenant shouted. “Fire. Fire at will. Take that thing down!”
Sporadic bunches of arrows flew toward the charging beast. Most of them struck, but they didn’t seem to have much of an effect other than causing the demon to scream in pain—or anger. It dipped its horned head, bald and armored with a bony structure, and pumped its legs harder.
Kate had to hand it to the Reds. They rallied and tried to slow the beast’s rampage. Its momentum was being slowly spent, and it huffed as it tried to move faster.
The arrows began to take their toll. Green ooze dripped from many places on the gargantuan body and it stumbled.
“Continue firing!” The officer’s white cloak caught the sun and made him look like a hero from the stories, glaring bright in the morning light. “It’s weakening.”
Two dozen more arrows struck, one of them puncturing the creature’s eye. It stutter-stepped, tripped, and finally hit the ground, sliding to bowl over the last of the shield wall Reds and finally coming to rest halfway down the stairs.
The archers continued to put arrows into every part of the creature’s body long after it stopped moving.
“Stand down,” the lieutenant finally said, blowing out a gust of air Kate could hear from her position on the platform nearby.
The beast was down, the threat ended, but Kate felt uncomfortable. Though everyone else’s attention was on the creature, waiting to see if it would move again, she looked to the gate.
Hordes of demons were pouring through.
“The gate,” she screamed at the officer. “They’re coming through the gate.”
The man looked to her, ready to give her a tongue-lashing, but then he noticed her arms swinging and pointing at the gate. He turned and his eyes doubled in size.
“The gate,” he shouted. “They’re coming through the gate. Shield wall, form up. Archers, nock. Archers draw and fire at will.”
Arrows flew toward the coming mass of demon bodies, but they didn’t have much time. Soon, the enemy was among the shields, and the archers could do nothing but try to pick off those demons still close to the gate or risk injuring their own troops.
Kate looked at the stair, and her heart dropped. The reserve units were at the bottom, with no way to get to the top. The demon’s carcass blocked the stairs at the bottleneck, effectively trapping those at the top and preventing those below from helping.
Officers and sergeants screamed back and forth up and down the stairs, each having their own idea how to clear the obstacle. A captain finally took command from the group below and started the men pushing and pulling on the massive corpse, striving to clear at least a small pathway.
Meanwhile, the demons were making a joke of t
he partially formed shield wall. They twisted in between shields that were not placed correctly and tore at the soldiers holding them. A few went down at a time, opening up even greater holes, allowing more demons to get through.
Kate was horrified. Her trainers had explained what would happen when a wall broke. She had even seen it happen during the shield wall push contests. Those things were nothing compared to what she was now witnessing. Without their primary tactic, the Reds had no defense against the demons. The monsters were tearing the men apart almost at will.
She took a step toward the edge of the platform, fully intending on joining the fray, but a noise caught her attention off to her left. It sounded like a cheer. A human cheer.
A swirl of black announced one of the Black brothers joining the fray. He strode through the soldiers manning the shield wall as if they weren’t even there and was soon beyond it, in the midst of the demons charging in.
Kate watched as the black-clothed and cloaked man with the death-face mask flowed from enemy to enemy, cutting them down as easily as if he was harvesting wheat with a razor-sharp scythe. It was a different man than she had seen before, his death-face mask a twisted parody of a wolf, but he fought just as effectively.
The demons rallied and swarmed him, but before Kate could even exhale the breath she had been holding, he spun free, slashing with his sword and shield—all of the edges of which appeared to be sharpened rather than just the serrated sections like on Kate’s shield—and made his way free of the mob. In his wake, piles of dead and dying demons lay, the ones not quite finished twitching wildly.
A shout rose up from the shield wall as they scrambled back into place. Kate’s heart leapt. How could one person be so powerful? Captain Wills must be crazy to want to disband the Black. This one member of the Order was going to save the day.
Call of Fire Page 16
