Warbringer

by Aaron Hodges

  The lieutenant cast a cursory glance over the papers, then back at her. He raised an eyebrow. “Long journey, ma’am?”

  Erika’s cheeks warmed as she saw the judgement in his eyes. She’d hardly had time to find food on the long journey south, let alone bathe or purchase new clothes appropriate for her rank. In truth, she looked little better than the Calafe refugees. But the news she brought could not wait.

  “We are at war, Lieutenant,” she answered curtly, anger washing away her embarrassment. “I come with urgent news for the queen.”

  “Yes, I’m sure ancient history is littered with urgent news,” the man replied drolly. Erika balled her gauntleted hand into a fist, but after a moment he handed back the papers and stepped aside. “Go, though I suggest you bathe before entering the presence of Her Esteemed Majesty.”

  Snatching back her papers, Erika flashed him a scowl, but the lieutenant was already returning to his men. Stepping back into the saddle, she directed her mare into the gate tunnel. Snickers came from the guards as they watched her go but she ignored them. Their insolence would not be forgotten. Soon she would be one of the elites, a noble of Flumeer. Then the lieutenant and his men would learn the error of their ways.

  The shadows of the walls enclosed her as she entered the tunnel. She shivered in the sudden darkness, feeling the weight of stone looming overhead. The passage narrowed as she edged her horse around a corner designed to slow intruders, and in the black she felt herself losing control. Suddenly, she was back in the tunnels beneath the earth, in the realm of the Gods, and Sythe was creeping towards her, knife extended…

  She exhaled hard, fighting for control. Ahead, the tunnel twisted again, a shimmer of light promising an exit. She pressed her heels to the mare and with a snort it broke into a trot.

  A moment later she returned to the light. The nightmare banished, Erika pulled her mount to a stop and dragged in great lungfuls of air. Lifting her hand, she clenched and unclenched her gauntleted fist. Light danced upon the metal, though in full daylight it was difficult to pick the source. She knew, though…

  Nightmares banished, Erika lowered her hand and continued her journey. There were still several more hours of daylight remaining, but the city was large and she intended to call upon the queen before the court retired for the day.

  Beyond the gate tunnel, she found herself in a broad plaza with a dozen roads leading off from it. The buildings here were of the same red sandstone as the outer fortifications. They were squat and ugly things, reflecting the average Flumeeren’s mind for practicality over beauty.

  Erika directed her horse down the central avenue, settling her hood back in place. The walls protected the streets of Mildeth from the worst of winter’s winds, but she was still wary of being recognised. Sythe might have died with her secrets, but returning without her assistants would be suspicious. And who knew where else the Gemahan king might have watchers?

  Stones clicked beneath steel hooves as she made her way through the city. The streets were peaceful compared to the chaos beyond the city gates, the pavements clear of waste and detritus. Guards stood watch at intersections and citizens made their way through the grid-like streets with smiles on their faces. The occasional wagon rumbled by on the way to and from the docks.

  The order restored calm to Erika’s soul, banishing the stress of the past week. This was where she belonged, standing shoulder to shoulder amidst the elite of society. Memories of her past were naught but a passing shadow on a sunny day.

  It took her an hour to reach the citadel. She made only one stop on the way, a brief detour through a perfumery in which she was able to clean her face and augment the scent of a week spent on the road. This time she would approach the guards with more confidence, to avoid any further delays by men inflated by their own sense of power.

  Yet when she turned the final corner to the citadel, she couldn’t help a fluttering in her stomach. The sight that greeted her would have intimidated anyone. Soldiers in gold-embossed breastplates and full-faced helms lined the street. Each was armed with shield and spear, with swords strapped to their waists for good measure. To the ignorant, they might have appeared as statues, decorations to bid guests welcome to the towering citadel beyond.

  But Erika was anything but ignorant. Behind each of those impenetrable helmets was a veteran of a dozen battles. Soldiers did not earn a place amongst the warrior queen’s guard without proving their worth.

  Wind whistled between the rooftops as Erika made her way between the silent men. Goosebumps lifted on her neck as she sensed the unseen eyes watching her, but not one of them moved. Silence hung over the street like a blanket, heavy, suffocating, until she wanted nothing more than to scream. She continued, her horse plodding slowly towards the palace gates.

  Only there did movement finally come. As she stopped to dismount, she saw suddenly that soldiers had moved behind her, barring the path back down the street. For men in full-plate armour, they moved quickly, and with frightening silence.

  “Archivist.”

  One foot still in the stirrups, Erika spun towards the citadel, and almost ended up face-first in the dust. Thankfully she managed to get a hand on her saddle to steady herself before disaster struck, but too late to entirely save her dignity. Agitated, she finished dismounting and looked to the speaker.

  “Your return was not expected for another week,” the man continued before Erika could get a word in. Wearing a silken doublet of Flumeeren scarlet, he stood with arms clasped behind his back and a look of carefully crafted indifference on his face. “The queen trusts you have not returned empty-handed…again.”

  Erika’s mouth opened and then closed, her veins turning cold. His words cast her back to that last failure, when she had stood before the queen and her court and begged for one final chance. Most had called for her dismissal—or worse. The queen had been moved by her words, but she had implied another failure would require recourse.

  I did not fail!

  Clenching her gauntleted fist, Erika straightened and looked the queen’s emissary in the eye.

  “Take me to Her Majesty, steward,” she commanded. “I bring news that will change the future of the war.”

  9

  The Warrior

  Romaine sat in silence as the sun clawed its way over the eastern mountains, casting back the dark. Exhaustion hung across his shoulders like a cloak, but he had not slept. Through the long night he had waited, axe in hand, to see whether the Tangata would return. Now as he watched the light reclaim the world, he felt the weight of disappointment on his soul.

  It wasn’t that he wished to die. Only that…he was so tired of the pain. Every morning when he woke, there was a short moment when he did not remember, the briefest of seconds when his heart was free.

  Then the memories would return, and with them the agony of loss.

  Exhaling, Romaine looked across the earthen rampart to where Lieutenant Marco lay in the mud. Romaine hadn’t seen the man’s death, though it must have happened in the first hour of the attack. One of the beasts had torn out his throat. At least it had been quick.

  The irony of the man’s death was not missed on Romaine. Marco had survived the Tangata in the forest and the crossing, made it all the way back to Fogmore—only for death to find him on the town walls.

  Below, the mudflats were silent, the enemy long dead. He should have slept, should have retired to his bed after the long journey. But he could never sleep after a battle. And so he had sat here in the darkness, waiting, remembering.

  The light around the mountains grew brighter as the sun reached for open skies, and soon movement began below. Soldiers emerged from the river gates and walked amongst the dead, claiming armour and weapons to be inherited by a new generation of recruits. Slowly the dead were gathered into piles, one for the human fallen, another for the Tangata. The bodies cloaked in red and blue must have outnumbered the beasts five to one.

  Romaine was still sitting atop the ramparts when the first of the
pyres was lit. By then a soft snow was falling. The ice flakes glistened in the dawn light as they drifted down, settling on the barren earth. Come noon the combination of ice and marching boots would churn the ground to mud. Fogmore truly was a Godsforsaken place.

  Only when Romaine’s breath began to fog on the frozen air did he finally lift his axe and rise to turn away…

  …only to find a pair of amber eyes watching him.

  He had forgotten the strange Calafe woman, and the sight of her sitting on a nearby barrel gave him pause. He’d assumed someone had seen her to safety, but in the chaos, he supposed no one had thought to take responsibility for her safety. It was a miracle she had survived.

  “What are you doing here, lass?”

  Cara shrugged, her eyes lingering on the lieutenant’s body. Though she had not known the man, Romaine glimpsed sadness in those amber depths. He remembered having such compassion once. He had lost it long ago, somewhere between the endless battles and death. There had been no choice—caring, loving, it offered nothing but pain in this war. Against the Tangata, death was inevitable. It was just a matter of when.

  “I wanted to see,” Cara replied, her gaze turning to the burning pyres, and the blackened ruins of the ship that had carried them clear of her homeland.

  Romaine frowned. “I would have thought you saw enough last night.”

  A shudder shook the woman. “So much evil.” Her eyes did not leave the flickering fire. “So much death.”

  “They kill everything that crosses their path,” Romaine murmured, pain wrapping its thorny tendrils around his heart.

  Finally Cara broke off her watch over the fires. “You have suffered from them?”

  Romaine couldn’t help but shiver as their eyes met. There was something about the woman’s gaze, some ageless quality, as though she had seen far more than her youthful appearance implied. What had happened to her out there in those woods? How long had she wandered, without her family?

  After a moment, he realised he hadn’t answered her question. He shook his head and forced a grim smile. There was no point reliving that pain; it was enough that he still lived, and that his axe had sent another of the beasts into the abyss.

  “We should do something about your arm,” he said instead, nodding to his makeshift cast. “You might have other injuries too. The camp doctor should really check you over…”

  “No!” Cara hissed, taking a step back from him, eyes wide with fright.

  Romaine raised his hands, his heart inexplicably racing. “Okay, okay,” he murmured, “but we still need to do something about that arm. I’m no doctor, and that splint I made is already half falling off. You don’t want the bone to mend crooked.”

  Lips pursed, Cara looked from Romaine to her injured arm. As if to test his words, she stretched out her hand, and flinched. Pain tightened her face and she sank back to her barrel—though to her credit, she did not cry out.

  “I…I might be able to help.”

  Quick as a viper, Cara was back on her feet, arms raised as she swung on the newcomer. Beyond her, a young man in Perfugian colours yelped and leapt backwards. His feet slipped in the mud before he could flee and sent him crashing to the ground. Landing face-first in the mud atop the ramparts, he thrashed, and would have probably gone tumbling down the slope back to the city had Romaine not strode across and plucked him from the muck.

  “Hey…what…get off!” the man cried.

  Chuckling, Romaine set the man carefully on his feet. Behind him, Cara mirrored his mirth, her laughter peeling from the ramparts. The man’s blue uniform, along with his face, was now stained top to bottom with mud. Pink tinged his pale cheeks as he stood there, head bowed, brown eyes locked to the ground as though it had been cast by some great artist.

  “So, what were you saying, lad?” Romaine asked when the laughter finally died away.

  The man’s eyes flashed as he glanced at Cara, but she only responded with an innocent smile. Whatever the Perfugian had been expecting, it had not been that. Shaking his head, he looked back at Romaine.

  “You saved my life,” he said softly.

  Romaine raised his eyebrows. It was a moment before his memories clicked into place and he recognised where he’d seen the young man before. This was the recruit who had crouched at the feet of the Tangata Romaine had killed earlier.

  “It was nothing, lad,” he grunted. “I’ve made a habit of gutting the bastards.” A grin split his bearded cheeks. “Though you might want to consider keeping on your feet next time.” He glanced at the Perfugian’s mud-stained clothing. “Falling over is not a habit I would recommend around these parts.”

  The pink in the Perfugian’s cheeks darkened to red but Romaine only clapped him on the shoulder. From the crispness of the man’s uniform, he guessed this was one of the fresh recruits from Perfugia. Word amongst the Flumeeren soldiers was that the column had arrived just before the battle, and had actually participated. It was more than could be said for most of the recruits out of Perfugia, though from the number of blue uniforms amidst the pyres, it seemed their bravery had come at a hefty cost.

  “So what’s the name, lad?” he asked when the recruit did not respond to his goad.

  The recruit started, his head jerking up, as though surprised to be asked the question. “Lu…Lukys,” he stammered.

  “Romaine.” He held out a hand, and after a moment Lukys took it in his. “Now,” Romaine continued, “what were you saying about helping young Cara here?”

  Lukys blinked, looking at the still smiling woman, then back to Romaine. “What…oh, yes right, her arm.”

  “Her arm,” Romaine agreed.

  “It’s broken?”

  The axe man sighed, already regretting entertaining the young man. “Well, we’d need a doctor to say for sure…”

  “Yes,” Cara interrupted. She stepped up beside them, arm cradled to her chest. “I fell, out there,” she said, indicating the land beyond the river. “I’m sorry for laughing,” she added. “I am not used to…people.”

  Silence answered her words. Romaine glanced at Lukys and saw the youth’s mouth had fallen open. His eyes were on the river, and he realised the recruit probably knew nothing about Calafe and his people.

  “You…were…you came…from Calafe?” the young man finally managed to stammer.

  Laughter danced in Cara’s eyes as she shared a glance with Romaine, but this time she was wise enough not to voice it. Instead she nodded to her forearm. “Do you think you can help?”

  Lukys glanced from the river to Cara. “I…” He swallowed, then drew in a great breath. It must have helped him gather his wits, for when he spoke next, his tone was almost calm. “I…yes, I think so. They taught us all sorts of things at the academy, to prepare us, you see, may I?”

  It took a moment for Romaine to pick the meaning from the man’s jumbled words. It took Cara longer still, but after a pause she finally offered her arm. She stood with her back arched, jaw clenched as Lukys gently took her arm in his hands.

  “You’re a medic?” Romaine asked, attempting to distract the woman from her phobia.

  “What?” Lukys murmured, then shook his head. “No, I wanted to be, but I…failed, apparently,” he answered before Romaine could repeat the question. He didn’t seem to notice the tension in his patient as he carefully removed the makeshift splint Romaine had made. “We…all did, I suppose, all of us here.” His eyes flickered and Romaine glimpsed the shame that hid there. “But then, you already knew that.”

  “We’re all failures at something, lad.”

  Lukys snorted, but this time he did not reply. The last bandage came loose, revealing the purple bruises that marked Cara’s pale skin. They spread almost the length of her forearm. It must have been quite the fall, to leave such a bad break.

  “Fortunately, I do remember how to treat a fracture,” Lukys added finally. He shot Cara a smile, as though to reassure her.

  Cara did not reply. All colour had drained from her face an
d she looked like she might explode from her coat of heavy furs at any moment. The recruit’s eyebrows lifted in surprise and he glanced at Romaine in question.

  “Will you heal her with your hands, lad?” Romaine asked in response.

  “I…” He trailed off, looking around, as though checking for listeners. “I have some supplies in my pack. I left it in the plaza, but I can get them.” Carefully he lowered Cara’s arm to her side and released her, then turned and hurried down the slope into the town.

  In his absence, Romaine turned back to Cara. “You okay, lass?”

  Cara nodded, though she had grown pale enough to be mistaken for a ghost. “Are…all the people of Perfugia so strange?” she asked.

  Romaine grinned and took a seat on another of the water barrels that stood nearby. “Hard to say,” he replied. “We only get the misfits down here. Lad’s heart seems in the right place. You sure you don’t want a real doctor though? They’ve got stuff that’ll help with the pain.”

  Cara’s face darkened. “No,” she said shortly.

  After that, they waited in silence for the young man to return. He appeared a few minutes later, large pack strapped to his back. A spear hung from one side, a helmet the other. With a sleeping roll atop, he looked more tortoise than man as he rattled his way up the slope. Romaine watched his approach with amusement, too fatigued to go down and help.

  “You carried all that from Perfugia?” he asked when the young man finally reached them.

  Lukys was puffing so hard he only managed a nod by way of answer. Uncaring for the mud, he threw the pack down near Cara and started rummaging around inside. When he rose again, he held several rods of copper and a handful of dried herbs. He handed them to Romaine before pulling out a pack of bandages.

  Cara flinched as he turned towards her, and he paused, glancing uncertainly at Romaine.