Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  “My sister.” It took a moment for Shayna to realize she was the one being spoken to. Hastily she thrust upward to meet the Princess’ height but not her gaze. Even Shayna knew the manners of high-born courts. “We are of the same blood, the same flesh.” The ritual went on and on. Shayna dared not to move, locking her eyes to the ground. When finally the rite was done the Princess’ hands clasped upon Shayna’s shoulders, and their eyes met. Shayna caught a flash of rage in the other’s eyes. That could not be. There was no enmity between them to warrant such hatred.

  “Princess Christina Lansplex, and her Companion Shayna Kae! May they be blessed and their fellowship long!” Cheers deafened the chamber. The Princess nodded warmly for a moment, then whirled about and left the chamber. Shayna hurried to match her pace. Together they entered a caravan embossed with all kinds of gems and sigils, with silk curtains donning the windows. The roar of the following Companions was muted, and then finally faded under the rumbling motion of the horses. “My Lady, I cannot express the joy to finally meet you—”

  “Be still.” The rage that Shayna had glimpsed before now tightened the whole of her face, and sharpened her words into daggers. “Were it not for some foolish custom I would not be here. Servants need not counter-mind my will.”

  “Excuse me, Highness, but I am not a servant. The Companions are—” The slap that followed snapped like a thunder-crack.

  “Do not ever think to command me. Not ever. These “Companions,” she said the word with sickening disgust, “are servants in all but name. That is your station. Do not ever think it otherwise. Did I say to rub your cheek? No! Keep your arms still or I will have them cut off. Do you understand?”

  Shayna nodded...and then the world vomited flame, and the stone tiles serving the foundation of the ancient keep were spinning through the air, joined with long, arcing feelers of black dirt. There was screaming, so much screaming.

  Numbly Shayna watched as a random girl running and howling, every inch of her body aflame. The fire whipped behind her like the hair of some fiery banshee. Dozens of others twitched where the ceiling cracked into slabs easily two arms’ width, eyes glossed with question; or others possessing a worse fate, legs jerking atop a slow-spreading pool of blood from the upper body squashed under falling slabs.

  Fire roared not a whisper from Shayna, ripping into her flesh with blades of brimstone. Everywhere there was chaos and death, with nary a speck of hope towards survival. Then she turned about and found Lansplex whimpering in fear. Death transformed her into an abused cur; there was no part in her spoiled lifestyle that prepared her for this.

  Fortunately, Shayna was. She pushed the unlucky guardsmen with a hollow skull aside and bundled the princess into her cloak. Crouching close to the wall, she hurried them through the keep. Finally, the pair came to the stables...only to find the place so deep in horse carcasses that everything was floating amidst a lake of blood.

  Shayna wanted to wail aloud at the senseless carnage; she had helped birth many of the foals once upon a time. Guilt was something she could not afford, and thus she forced her emotions down as she waded through the blood. Something leaked through from her closeted pain, a hope she knew was not worth the having, yet charging her with an abundance of strength. Please please please...yes! Shayna had to bite her tongue not to shout aloud.

  Grani was hardly what one would call the penultimate in horse breeding. Her birth was an accident by a lazy horse-hand who should have been guarding the pen’s wooden gate instead of fucking the local slut. The end result was a random coupling, resulting in the birth of a litter neither practical nor serviceable. Only one of the litters survived.

  “What is that?” the princess sputtered at Shayna’s return.

  “This is Grani. He’s our ride out of here.”

  “Are your brains moon-struck? She is too small!”

  “She may be small, but she has a firebrand’s will.”

  The princess gagged on the fresh scent of shit, but scrambled atop the beast at the sudden clap of marching boots. “Are you all right?” Shayna checked. Of course she isn’t all right. She hasn’t been in this kind of situation before. Neither have I. Strange how years of training numbed the fear with disciplined purpose. Especially at a time and place she hadn’t thought it to work at all. “Don’t worry, milady. I’ll get you out of here.”

  Shayna only wished she was as confident as the comfort she offered. Pitch-black night, in the dead of winter, was not the best of environments. If the ice below did not shatter their legs in the ever-present possibility of slipping, then the icy chill would rob every inch of warmth from them. I can’t. I can’t die yet. I must protect her. That’s what Companions do. They protect their charge.

  Time blurred, and soon the horse was tired beyond reckoning. Shayna would have opted to ride all night had the terrain been not so perilous. A trek upon unstable ground, without an ounce of food or water, would make them easy meat for their captors. The makeshift tent was crude and ill-protected; something the princess detracted ad nauseam.

  “We will sleep here? Oh, very well. Place the tents up. I will be getting some air.”

  Shayna took on the task; work banished the lightning tearing at her throat, made her forget the crushing depression waiting like a predator deep in the shadows of her thoughts, waiting for the right moment to strike. All her friends, dead. All her teachers, dead. Everyone she knew, dead. I am the last Companion. In sleep, she hoped to find a remedy, albeit a temporary one. She just hoped the future Queen—wherever she was—would grant her the mercy of an unbroken sleep.

  II

  For a moment, Christina watched Shayna sleep. It would have been so easy to crush her skull and be done with this exhausting charade. But there were consequences to consider. The blood that flowed through the Companion’s veins might prove to be a considerable asset in the future. Thus, precious little Shayna survived the night, unaware of her would-be killer vanishing into the shadows as though a part of them and reappearing into a hut leagues away.

  Immediately she went to work. She carefully set a long rectangular item against a wall of burnished wood. She took great care in stripping the silken cover layer after layer until a dark luminance filled the chamber. The myriad candles in their odd-shaped candelabrum flickered as if in fear. A word that branded the soul to speak, and a part of the wall vanished in a thin haze of mist, revealing a staircase yawning into an impossible black. The figure smiled. With all that went wrong in the past few days, she needed a distraction.

  The cell boasted only a single torch to chase away the shadows. Chained to the far wall was a man, shrunken and smudged with grime from head to toe. The very fact that he raised feeble hands against the sudden light suggested he had been too long in the dark. “Hello, Taj.”

  “Why have you come? We have nothing more to discuss.”

  “Ah, but we do.” Red lightning suddenly crackled over a gauntleted fist. There was a certain satisfaction watching the same lightning ripping at the captive’s body; a pleasure heightened only by Taj’s gurgling screams. “I know it was you Taj. You unleashed the destruction of the Companions hoping I would be among the dead.”

  “You...You had to be stopped.” There was a certain strength to his eyes as he matched her gaze. “Your legacy is a proud one, a vital one. Your ancestors are the stuff of legends. And here you are, spitting on your heritage. You sicken me.”

  “I sicken you? Mother died of a chill after she was abandoned by your precious royalty. Or do you not remember how we had to leave her under a cairn of rocks because of the vultures overhead? She died on foreign soil. Her spirit will never know rest. All because she pretended to be royalty until the true queen came of age!”

  “A fate she would not have endured if you hadn’t spoken to the queen.�
�

  That bitch said she was my friend. “Is it wrong to want a destiny of my own making? You would have me a prisoner of tradition. I will not be a tool to be dismissed after its purpose is completed. I won’t.”

  “Then you will fail. You will never sit on the throne.” The talk seemed to fire Taj; he strained against the chains as though they were twigs. “Not while I live.”

  Damn you Taj. You had to say that, didn’t you? The broadsword was a bit heavy, but it sliced clean through Taj’s neck with a cloud’s resistance. She dared not look at the severed head bump against her boot. She didn’t know if she had the stomach for it.

  She forced herself to walk back up the stairs, where a wayward mirror provided the balm of vanity. Many men had assumed that the brains did not come with the beauty; the more fools them. Trickster, gamester, weaver of secret plots; she had been one and all ever since she was six, snug atop her mother’s knee. It was her dream that she carried out, her family’s dream. Years of buried secrets posed a safety beyond relief, but all ties had to be severed. Anything less would be sloppy, and as she first learned in this business of machinations, sloppiness only led to death. Thus, was the destiny of fools.

  Her destiny, on the other hand, was far more complex. For thousands of years, the blood of her family shielded the royal dynasties from ruin, pretending their own blood was highborn to keep the true heirs safe. A thousand years. It was all going to change. Finally, she would get what she deserved. Dressed in finery the figure made an impressive stride through chambers alien to her schedule. Everywhere servants bowed to her. Ah, servitude. Their lives were forfeit should she desire it. I will crush you all. That day was soon in coming. Very soon.

  Today is the day, thought young Ronald Jekai. Ten days into his father’s circuit against the Coicro, and for all of that he had scurried from one place to another, faint snickers echoing in his wake. Pulling guard duty, being responsible for the food, the laundry, and alternating between failing on the practice dummy and being the practice dummy were among his tasks. And his father, the great Robert Jekai, didn’t even bat an eye. Father’s grim mood showed at the tightness at his grimace, bringing forth the pale scars crisscrossing his face. Ronald paused. Perhaps this was not the best of times to advance. Father’s anger had a way of unleashing at the smallest flaw. Better to—

  No. No more excuses. His boots would not move. Move, you son of a whore! Move! Fear thrumming through his bones, Ronald took a tiny fleeting step forward, then another and another. Don’t think of his anger. He’s not angry. He just has a lot on his mind. The burdens of general-ship were many and complicated. By the time he finished his mantra he could see his father talking to a subordinate.

  “I want you to take a scouting party around the Lufen Pass. There are rumors of a Coicro camp within the valley. Stay out of sight, gather as much information as possible, then come back. No heroics, you understand.”

  “I understand. Have I given you any cause to doubt me?”

  The hard planes of Jekai’s face softened, then. “No. I pray for your success.” The soldier, a grizzled veteran long in his father’s service, freed a hand to muss up Ronald’s hair as they crossed paths. Ronald squirmed. I am a man grown! The other soldiers didn’t see it that way. They never saw it that way.

  “Ronald!” his father bellowed. Today is the day, Ronald reminded himself as he met his lord. It will be. The young Jekai put on his best face: nauseatingly devoted, polite and eager for orders. It did not work.

  “Father.”

  The elder Jekai’s face grew dark as a thundercloud. “I told you not to call me that.”

  “I’m sorry, Fa—sir.”

  “Are you now? You keep promising, and yet we have the same conversation every day. It grinds upon my nerves. Go to the hounds-master. His bitch just whelped. You are to aid in their care.”

  “The damn beast almost bit my hand off the last time she whelped!”

  “Dogs whelp often. They will be too small to bite anything off.”

  “B-but that is a child’s duty!”

  “Then perhaps you should stop acting like one.” Though Robert whispered, his words dripped with the ranker of a scream. “Your mother shielded you too much. No longer. Should you desire respect from anyone, you will have to prove your name is worth a damn. You must build it with your own two hands. Now be away from my sight.”

  Ronald flung himself towards the hound-master’s kennel, wiping glimmering tears from his eyes. Men do not cry. Father does not cry. Such were the woes of women and children. The hounds-master, a thin man named Odd, started waving the moment Ronald came within eyeshot.

  Ronald casually shook the other’s hand. “Odd.”

  “Young lord.”

  Ronald smiled. Up close Odd looked not like the twig-bound man he was known to be. His close-cropped beard featured thin mustachios that curved upward when in joy, but down when in hate. His nose jutted from his face like a hawk’s beak. Though his cheekbones had been high upon his features in youth, now blotches of fat all but hid the chiseled face. That was the kind of man Odd was, caught between young and old. “Well lad. Did you come with a purpose?”

  Oh. “My Lord Father says I am to take care of a whelp.”

  “Did he now?” That was another mystery about Odd. Rank meant nothing to him, and yet no one dared to chastise him for it. “Well, it’s a huge responsibility.”

  “I am aware of that.” The whelps all nestled at their mother’s tits, warm and snug in her fur. They looked so small, so frail. What if they die in the cold? Tears glittered at his eyes from the possibility. “Which one should I take?”

  “You can take any one you choose, Milord.”

  Oh, right. Straightening he closed his eyes and stabbed a finger at random. “That one.” Without so much as a grunt Odd gently plucked the puppy from its mother and put it into Roland’s waiting hands. “It’s so small.”

  “I’m glad that you lord father has seen fit to give you a task worthy of your skills, lad.”

  “Huh? Oh, yes. He was only waiting for the right task.” Why are you defending him? Ronald shuddered as though his father was behind him, listening to his every word. “Well, I’d best be going. Don’t want the little critter to die of cold.”

  “That would be best.” A palm laced with muscle clamped upon his shoulder. “I know you will succeed. Arion would be very proud of you.”

  Tears brimmed at the mention of the name. Arion. His playmate of childhood. His best friend. His only friend. He taught Ronald how to ride a horse, how to use a sword without stabbing one’s own foot, everything. Then someday a puffed-up nobleman thought him a traitor for “influencing” a Jekai. He was casually killed, like crushing a baby bird. He would have been a man grown, had he lived.

  Ronald was halfway to his tent when he realized the camp hummed with activity. A knot of men filled the camp’s entrance, a sea of heads bobbing and shifting. At the forefront, Robert Jekai stood ramrod straight, silent. One by one the men realized the fools they looked against their leader’s calm demeanor, and one by one, cold quiet descended upon the men. Roland poked and prodded through the crowd to his father’s side, where he tried to mimic the authority that rippled from his father’s stone-still frame. Oh no. Not him.

  The elder Jekai welcomed the new visitor with open arms. “Richard.”

  “Father.” So stiff, so sickeningly perfect. His light hair so pale it was almost white, the sharp eyes of a hunter, the fine chiseled chin and the heavy-muscled frame that had long been a trademark of his bloodline, Richard Jekai was the very picture of virtue and justice. Women swooned before him; the enemy respected him; men wanted to be him. Bloated warthog, Ronald thought before transforming his grim visage in an adoring smile. “B
rother.”

  “Brother. You look chipper today. Ready to embrace the day’s trails?”

  Ever since that day as children, when Richard had soundly beat him with practice swords before the whole family, Ronald prayed deeply to find a weakness in his elder’s impervious armor. A taste for fucking sheep, perhaps. Or a moment of idiocy to finally crack Richard’s reputation in twain. Then Ronald might have cause to blackmail and humiliate his sibling, just as Richard done to him all those years ago. But no. Richard was perfection incarnate. Richard was a god made flesh. Richard could do no wrong.

  “Well dear brother. I have important work to do. May the Lord’s blessing be upon you.” Stiff-backed, Richard marched towards the stables; an organic grace to his gait as though he glided instead of walked. God, I hate him.

  Richard waded through a sea of cheers. They knew him long. Many watched him grow from a child to manhood. There was not a man within the camp that did not love him. Just as there was no man within the camp that saw Ronald as a little brother, playing clumsily with swords. No one would see him a man grown unless Richard never returned from his duty. Stop it. I am a Jekai. Such weakness was never a thought in the Family Jekai.

  The pup. In all the excitement, he had forgotten all about it. He hurried – or, most like, fled – to a place nice and snug behind the stables. The stable-master? Twin, thick lines of drool flittered like banners at the old man’s snore. Even then Ronald took watch until he was sure no one was inches within hearing distance. It was bad enough that he be deemed a child within the eyes of soldiers long in the service of the Jekai family; should any eye discover the pup, Ronald would never be free of the amusement. Not just the soldiers. Every man that crossed his path, every girl giggling into her hands, would know of his weakness. No more.