Winter Wren

by Miranda Honfleur

  Winter Wren

  A Blade and Rose Short Story

  Miranda Honfleur

  Copyright © 2017 by Miranda Honfleur

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Mirela Barbu

  http://www.mirandahonfleur.com/

  Contents

  “Winter Wren”

  Author’s Note

  Also by Miranda Honfleur

  Viscounty of Signy, Emaurria

  South Gate Forest

  Only three hundred mercenaries, and the mission would be over. All that remained was invading a walled town and defeating them all. Just the two of them.

  Rielle’s warm breath clouded the frigid air as she removed her gloves, then rubbed her sweaty palms on her coat. Here, among the dense, snow-capped white pines reaching for the stars, she and her master, Leigh, had gone unseen.

  But soon it would begin. The mission that would determine whether she could test for adept rank and finally accept her own missions; at seventeen, she’d be one of the youngest to do so. She tingled all over with nervous anticipation.

  Crag Company mercenaries manned posts in frosted watchtowers along the walls in the castle town of Signy. The viscount had hired the Crag to protect the town from bandits. Instead, the mercenaries had gone rogue, taken over, and now demanded a substantial fee from King Marcus. If they didn’t get it, they couldn’t “assure” the safety of the viscount or the townspeople.

  The opportunistic blackguards. She grumbled under her breath.

  “Do you know why you’re here today?” Leigh asked, his articulate voice smooth and melodious, always confident with an intelligence he never lacked. She loved listening to him talk.

  “Saving a viscount?”

  Leigh sighed.

  “Killing mercenaries?”

  A heavier sigh.

  “Testing how long it takes for frostbite to set in?” She blew warm breath onto her hands. “I would sing for a cup of tea.”

  He raised a brow—and a corner of his mouth. “Ma chère, you’re here to show me your understanding of ‘Save one, save many.’ Do that, and you’ll get your commendation to test for adept.”

  Save one, save many. Leigh loved to tout that one… the Divinity’s justification for serving kings and nobles—those who could afford their fee—and not the common folk. A saved king could implement policies to save thousands. A saved beggar couldn’t.

  Here, the Crag held the townspeople hostage, but Leigh wasn’t here for them. He was here for the viscount. And, by extension, so was she, regardless of her thoughts on the matter. Orders were orders.

  She drew in a lengthy cold breath. “Of course. ‘Save one, save many.’ My favorite. No worries there, promise.”

  “Good.” He narrowed his eyes in a lingering look that made her shiver—or maybe that was the cold—and then looked away to the watchtowers.

  One of the Crag panned a spyglass just past her. She huffed. As if he could see anything in the forest at twilight. He didn’t stand a chance. Nor did the rest of the Crag Company. Not against Leigh. Not against her.

  She tugged at her white mage coat sleeves bearing the apprentice’s two-bar chevron. Someday, she’d wear the five-bar Magister’s chevron, like Leigh.

  The mission would be quick and painless—for her and Leigh, anyway. Signy had two gates, one to the north and one to the south. As soon as she and Leigh blasted their way in through the southern gate, the Crag would escape through the northern. Quick and painless. After all, the Crag were mercenaries—soldiers of fortune—and there was no fortune to be had in death.

  Leigh took her hand and gave it a squeeze. A stolen moment before they stormed the castle… town.

  Whispers in the Tower’s corridors said that apprentices lusting after their masters did so in vain. She pursed her lips to suppress a smile. Amateurs.

  She and Leigh never held hands at the Tower, of course. Rules were rules; they had to be followed when people were watching. But the wilds had no rules and no watchers of consequence, so she relished this small, incidental benefit. “As much as I love our cloak-and-dagger affair, I wish we could stop hiding already.”

  Leigh kept his eyes fixed on a watchtower. Dark as night, they contrasted sharply with his unnaturally white-as-snow hair. Tied back today, it enhanced the severity of his Kamerish features.

  “Now really isn’t the time, ma chère.”

  “I know.” But she let her hand go limp in his.

  “We may never be able to stop hiding.” He brought two fingertips to his right shrine and exhaled deeply. Eleven years her senior, he’d earned an illustrious reputation and had a lot at stake. “And while affairs between masters and apprentices may be prohibited, those between masters and their former apprentices are still frowned upon.”

  “I’m already frowned upon,” she snapped, recalling the icy glares she’d gotten when they’d departed the Tower. If dirty looks were daggers, she’d have been a pincushion. Few apprentices gained the coveted clearance for field work.

  “Focus on becoming an adept first. Save one—”

  “Save many,” she blurted. “Got it.”

  He shook his head, but his gaze never left the watchtower. “The viscount is probably being held in the castle at the town’s center. Once we secure him, we make for the planned escape route. No deviations. No heroics with the household or the townspeople. Understand?”

  Heroics. She toed the snow. He was being ridiculous. It would be no trouble to secure the household, too, when they were already taking the viscount. But she couldn’t argue with him. Well, shouldn’t.

  Last mission, they’d been dispatched to guard an ambassador’s ship during its voyage across the Shining Sea. During a storm, three slave ships had come into view, and she could have becalmed the winds, stilled the waters, and freed them, but Leigh had forbidden it. Too dangerous. Unsanctioned. Unnecessary.

  When she didn’t answer, Leigh spun to face her. The tightness in his black gaze made her gasp. Indignation. Desire.

  “If I can’t trust you—”

  Stung, she backed away from him and straightened. “What trouble is it to—”

  “Rielle.”

  “We could easily—”

  “No.” An air of finality.

  She grimaced. Push and pull. Inevitably, their friction would tie them together later tonight. She planned to land on top. “I’m not allowed to disagree, ever?”

  Step by step, he invaded her personal space until her back hit the trunk of an old pine. His breath warmed her face. “Not on missions.”

  Mustering her courage, she stared up at him, struggling to focus on his too-close eyes, black and deep as midnight. “Why?”

  But she knew why. She’d even been tested on why during her field work examination. Magisters were privy to information that their subordinates weren’t, and disobeying orders from ignorance could disrupt actions beyond her knowledge. So when Leigh had put in his recommendation, she’d said the correct answer and been cleared for field work.

  Yet walking away from people in need never sat right with her.

  “Adjusting mission parameters on impulse leads to sloppy work. Our missions are precise. Even the slightest error could lead to catastrophe.” He leaned in. “Every mage is only one mistake away from de
ath. And for every five thousand of them,” he referred to non-mages with unmistakable distaste, “there is only one of us. And one mage can save the lives of millions.”

  Her chest tightened, narrowing the battlefield where apprehension fought admiration for control. “Leigh—”

  “Those are the stakes.” He snarled the words. “We determine the fates of nations. A ship of people, three ships of people, a town—they don’t compare. Our lives, the life of an ambassador, a viscount… It’s a hard truth, but it is true. They matter more. The Viscount of Signy can maintain stability in the entire viscounty for the king, but his household can’t. The townspeople can’t. That’s why we’re here to rescue him and not some servants, cobblers, and tavern wenches.” Caging her with his arms, Leigh lowered his face to hers. “But we can’t save nations if we die on an apprentice’s whim.”

  She didn’t look away. “The great Magister Leigh Galvan, afraid of battle?”

  “I don’t fear battle,” he said, enunciating every word with melodic intensity. “I fear my love for you, and how I indulge your naive whims. One day you’ll get the better of me.”

  Her breath caught.

  A heartbeat pulsed between them.

  But he released her. “Not now.”

  Agreed. They returned to surveillance.

  When darkness cloaked the town, the outlying land, and the forest, Leigh began the assault, force magic masterfully employed.

  Mere flicks of his fingers yanked the guards from their posts and sent them flying, screeching, hundreds of feet and into the trees’ canopy. The crunch of branches mingled with the squelch of flesh and bone not far behind her. A lone voice wailed its persistent cling to life among a dozen dead bodies.

  A grasping malaise spread over her, but she shook it off. Her stomach still growled, unsettled.

  The watchtowers were empty now, but Leigh remained vigilant. He pulled the few reinforcements that arrived to the same mortal fate in the forest as their broken comrades. But the thrum of human activity already sounded from behind the gates.

  She tucked a rebellious curl tickling her face back into her braid.

  Her time had come. She looked inward, issuing the invitation she would someday be able to dispense with. Fire, come to my aid. Water, Wind, Earth. Do my will. Her anima pushed against her inner barriers.

  She extended her arm, setting the town’s southern gate ablaze. While the flames devoured the wood, she followed with a wind spell, blasting the gates open with a fiery gust. A rumble tore through the air, a quake through the ground.

  Glowing embers floated into the night sky, joined by panicked shrieks. A shudder wove through her.

  Holding up a wind wall with one hand, she strode toward the town. No archers remained in the watchtowers to threaten her or Leigh.

  One gate hung off its hinges while the other lay amid the rubble of broken walls and thatching. Bodies—clad in Crag Company tabards—littered the end of a shallow trench filled with blood, cobblestones, soot, and snow.

  The surviving Crag were nowhere in sight. Perhaps they’d already had the good sense to flee through the northern gate.

  But they couldn’t be allowed to take the viscount with them.

  Distrustful of the momentary lull, she cast an ice shard and held it at the ready. A succession of footsteps crunched in the snow behind her—

  She spun.

  Leigh.

  Loud, rhythmic thundering came from afar. Unexpected. A faint tremor shook the ground. In the distance to the north, flames reached for the darkening sky.

  Her mouth fell open. “What in the Divine’s—”

  A diverted arrow thudded into the wall of a house next to her. She threw the ice shard. It found its target, eliciting a gurgled scream.

  “Watch yourself,” Leigh hissed through gritted teeth. “Another force is invading from the north.”

  Her breath hitched. “You were supposed to scout the north.”

  Leigh shrugged.

  Typical. She shouldn’t have been surprised—little truly threatened him. Even so, who had joined the battle?

  She didn’t ask. Leigh’s answer would be predictable: Their objective was to recover the viscount by any means necessary; the rest didn’t matter.

  But she and Leigh now stood between the Crag and the southern gate.

  A brief stillness gave way to the chaos of rushing booted feet. She stiffened. This was it. Two platoons charged toward their position. About a hundred men.

  Her heart leapt into her throat.

  The moment Leigh’s repulsion shield sprang into place, she devoted both hands to offense. Steeling herself, she channeled the cold with one free hand, conjuring another shard of ice, and fire in the other. Any Crag foolish enough to threaten them would pay the ultimate price.

  No prisoners. The Divinity’s orders—and the king’s—had been clear. And she was here to do their will.

  Most of the Crag present ran past them toward the destroyed gate, affording them a large berth. Two squads closed in, spaced far apart.

  “Kill them, or they kill us!” one yelled.

  Foolish.

  Shards of ice impaled heads, blood sploshing through helmets. Bursts of flame incinerated chainmail, baking the men within. Smoke singed her nostrils, accompanied by the stench of scorched flesh.

  The rest fled north. The smoking remains must have been persuasive.

  As the road ahead of them narrowed to a path, she took over the shielding. Unlike her anima, which dimmed with every spell, Leigh’s didn't. He was a wild mage, connected to the earth, infinite. Divine. A Magister, Leigh took destruction to a whole new level. With his signature finesse, he crushed buildings, crumbling their walls onto the Crag soldiers charging through.

  He blasted the debris, toppling adjacent structures onto the mercenaries, sending a great puff of dust into the sky.

  Although voices still carried from afar, no threats remained in the immediate vicinity. He grabbed her shoulder and, in a fluid motion, yanked her into cover with him.

  Over the remnants of the wall they hid behind, distant flames glowed. Damn it. Who had come from the north? “Bandits?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Not if they’ve breached the town. They’re not equipped for it.” He frowned. “The king’s forces have war machines, but they’re using them to repel the bandits at the border with Skadden. And the Crag would have seen their slow coming. That leaves…”

  He pressed a fist to his mouth and exhaled sharply.

  She sighed. The only other force with both the reason and the capability to invade Signy was the Order of Terra, to liberate the townspeople from the Crag Company’s control. The knight-priests with weapons and armor made of the magic-nullifying metal, arcanir. The paladins.

  She cursed. The Order’s arcanir was primarily used for handling magic practitioners operating outside of the Divinity—heretics or the occasional hedge witches who hurt others or committed other crimes.

  Regardless, the paladins weren’t known for their love of Tower mages either.

  Leigh scanned their route to the viscount’s castle: narrow streets on a mild incline leading up a hill in the center of Signy. He took a deep breath, a determined frown hardening his face, and crept toward their destination. “Come. Let’s keep to the shadows. Less unwanted attention.”

  She scoffed. “We blasted the gates open.”

  “I said ‘less,’ didn’t I?” he answered with an amused sniff.

  He led her farther in, and she followed. Once they were among intact buildings, shouts came from a nearby alley, and the clang of blades.

  She cocked her head toward the clamor. “We have company.”

  A throng of fighters spilled past them farther down the alley, Crag Company mercenaries in steel chainmail and leather jerkins. They battled massively armored swordsmen.

  The faint sage hue of their plate armor—it was arcanir. Paladins. Some bore crossbows while others wielded swords and shields. A few half-sworded their blades in close qu
arters.

  Well equipped and well trained. And here for the townspeople. At least someone was. She’d rather not fight them.

  Leigh moved in front of her and watched from the shadows. She stood ready behind him.

  Despite the paladins’ usual goal of protecting the common folk, they’d advanced through the merchant quarter toward the lower gentry’s residences and the castle.

  “A forward team,” she whispered, thinking aloud, “to secure the castle and to prevent the Crag from falling back to a strong defensive position.” By the sound of swords, boots, and voices, about three squads of paladins had to be fighting the Crag Company mercenaries in the passage.

  “Very good.” Leigh reached out to her, pressing her to move until her back met the wall. Silently, he drew in, too, his watchful eyes on the combat. “Their small numbers here mean the Crag captain—Gilles—and his doubles are likely in the square. In force.”

  Doubles, named for the double pay they earned, filled out the front lines, trained in fearsome two-handed swords and the crossbow. Even mages of the Divinity knew of the doubles’ most successful use: breaking through infantry.

  The doomed Crag wanted out of the town… and as she and Leigh had done, the paladins now stood between the mercenaries and their exit.

  She gasped. “The paladins will be slaughtered.”

  “Not our concern. The Divinity does not bow to the Order.”

  She frowned. “I know, but—”

  “You must accept that I know better.”

  Her chest tightened, and she wanted to argue, but there was no point when he got this way. He would never agree to help the Order, even for a good cause. To the death, a few beleaguered paladins would defend innocents in the town square, ready to die for that which mages deemed inconsequential. For mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers—

  The clamor faded as the last Crag body fell. A young paladin paused and squinted in their direction.

  “Mages!” he roared.

  Paladins formed ranks in a thundering of plate and boots; their first rank, bearing heavy shields, wheeled to enclose the crossbowmen, then dropped to one knee and held their shields before them. The second rank bore their shields over the heads of the first, the men behind them taking up the same position.