“Nilly made it. What do you think?”
“I like it, especially the arm things. Never seen anything like those. Should probably get some shoes, though. Not very dignified.”
“Maybe later. Bare feet aren’t that bad. Ready to head out?”
“To Ankar.”
The trek south was slow but went more quickly than before, the roads seemed in better repair the closer they got to the large city. The freezing and thawing of winter months created terrible ruts and frost heaves, but Ankar had money and money filled potholes. As the days passed, they came upon many more villages, but only two were burned. The dead had already been buried, probably by neighboring villages. The Great Land was becoming accustomed to the terrible new state of things.
“The northernmost Ankar outpost is on this road, only half a day’s march to go,” Jahmai said from atop his horse. “If we keep going, we’ll hit it before dark. It’s the smallest one.”
Mykel turned to Nara. “Do you want these men to fight tired?”
She looked up at Jahmai. “How many will we face?”
He shrugged. “Fifty to seventy-five men, maybe a little more,” Jahmai said. “At least one gifted, maybe a pair.”
“I want to win,” she said. “Let’s not be rash. If we take the outpost tonight, we may have two more to fight in short order, and I don’t want to take on three outposts in one day. We rest soon, eat well, get a good night’s sleep. Early tomorrow we go straight at them.”
Another hour of walking took them within sight of a large river, huge snow-capped peaks on the other side. A wide bridge crossed the water in a narrow spot, and, in the distance, they could see the ocean.
“Those are the biggest mountains I’ve ever seen,” Nara said to Mykel. “Other than the Twins.”
“Yes. Ankar is beautiful. The river is the Sitna, which dumps into Kinnik Arm,” said a voice behind Nara.
She turned to see Martel standing nearby.
“Then the water goes out into the Landian Gulf,” he said.
Beyond the river and the bridge, along the far shore of Kinnik Arm, she could see buildings. Maybe only a few hours’ march. Ankar. The second-largest city in the Great Land and where Anne had spent a big part of her early life.
“It’s beautiful,” Nara said. “We camp here tonight. Fight tomorrow.”
They made fires and ate well, and they passed a fair amount of alcohol around—brandy, ale, and wine. Nara enjoyed a glass of wine. Able Wileman joined Ferron, an archer, and they both got very chatty after a few ales, then sang together in an ill-advised duet that brought many laughs and more than a few jeers. It was good to see the stuffy banker lighten up and enjoy himself. Sentries stood watch in the event a patrol might wander by, but nobody bothered them and most laid themselves down in time for a good night’s rest.
Nara woke early and found Mykel sitting on a rock, watching the sun rise over the mountains in the east.
“Gorgeous,” she said.
“I’ve heard stories of Ankar,” Mykel said. “But they never mentioned the mountains.”
“First time we visit this beautiful place, and we come to start a fight.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Think we can take seventy-five men and a couple gifted with this ratty crew?”
“I think you could take seventy-five men and a couple gifted by yourself,” Mykel said.
She laughed. “I’d like to recruit a few, if they’ll come. I can’t just bury them all under an avalanche and expect to get much loyalty afterward.”
“True. So, we overwhelm them, get them to surrender, and make a ‘come to the light’ pitch. ‘Redeem yourselves’ and stuff like that.”
Just then, Lieutenant Martel played a bugle to rouse the men.
“Time to go,” Mykel said, getting to his feet.
They broke camp, tucking tents into packs and gathering the wagons. Then they crossed the bridge over the Sitna River, skirting the mountain range as they approached their target, passing a few merchants and travelers. A few hours later, the outpost’s walls could be seen to the southeast.
“There,” Jahmai said, looking east and pointing. “Enemy lookout.”
“Nara followed his gaze. A rider on horseback galloped along a ridge-line trail at the base of the nearest mountain, heading for the outpost.
“Want me to stop him?” Martel asked. “I could intercept on horseback.”
“No,” Nara said. “Let him warn them. We will approach with confidence, speak with them, and give them a chance to surrender.”
“They won’t give up,” Jahmai said. “Not right away.”
“Just because you didn’t, doesn’t mean they won’t.”
“As you wish.”
It was almost midday when they formed up on a field that straddled the road just north of the outpost. Shoe prints and scuff marks on the nearby turf indicated that soldiers had used the area to train. The outpost was just beyond reach of their bows, sporting high walls and multiple sentry towers, archers at the ready. Nara counted at least a dozen bowmen standing proudly.
“Going alone?” Mykel asked.
“You and Jahmai can come but stay back a few steps. This is my show, but I want them to see his uniform so they know they are up against some of their own.”
Nara and Mykel walked up, while Jahmai followed on horseback, tabard visible over his chain mail. Less than a hundred paces from the outpost, they stopped.
A man on the top of the wall shouted, “Surrender as traitors, submit to the authority of the crown, and I will give you quick deaths.”
Nara turned to Mykel. “Want to surrender?”
“Nah,” he said.
“Me neither.” She turned back to the outpost. “No thanks. I’ll give you a counter-offer. You surrender, and we won’t raze your outpost and deliver the justice your soldiers have earned. We rise against the Queen, and we will have victory today.”
The man shook his head, then said something to another. Nara heard Jahmai spur his horse into action just before a volley of arrows launched into the air. She flared sight and speed as the arrows approached—slowly, now that she was in her magic. Five came straight at her. She dodged four and caught the fifth, whirling, flaring strength and sending it straight back at the leader who gave the order, sinking it deep into the wood just inches from his head. She then burst into a run at the gate, hoping that Mykel and the rest of the army would follow. As she sprinted, she flared earth and the northern wall lurched and buckled, the front gate cracking with rising stone that shifted it off its hinges. That would provide entry for her men, but she had another way in.
Arrows came at her again, but she was moving too fast and all went astray. She flared strength, leaping high in the air and landing on top of the damaged outpost wall. Two soldiers were near her landing spot, swinging swords clumsily at her racing form. Strength, speed, and protection alive in her mind, she engaged the first soldier, dodging his sword strike, then smashed his wrist with a fist, disarming him.
Before he fell, she was beyond him and on to the next, grabbing a spear and breaking it with ease, then punching the man in the gut before spinning and moving down the line. The next fell. Then the next. Five were down almost before they knew what was happening. She looked down to see Mykel just now entering the gate, followed by Jahmai and the rest of her army.
“Gifted!” screamed a man on the western wall.
Nara leaped down into the outpost’s common area, feet hitting the earth near at least three dozen soldiers who awaited what they likely thought would be a siege or at least a lengthy exchange of arrows. Swords came out of their sheaths, and she felt a wave of fatigue. Dropping all of her runes, she flared sight to assess, just in time to predict arrows about to come her way from archers on the eastern wall. Flaring speed again, she dodged the arrows just as they approached. Where were the enemy gifted? Then she heard a call from behind her.
“Racer!”
She didn’t recognize the voice but now chided h
erself for entering the outpost so quickly. Her desire to make a strong impression had left her men unprotected—an amateur move. Several of the enemy soldiers now surged to attack her, and soon they would be upon her. She couldn’t take so many at once in a melee.
She flared earth and a wall of dirt and rock rose between them, giving her ample time to dart out the gate and return to her men.
A red banner flew high, tied on the end of a spear held by a man in the front. The soldiers had retreated to form a circle, armored men on the perimeter, spears, and swords pointed out. Mykel was in pursuit of the racer but was badly outpaced. The racer was a bearded man, maybe twenty-five years old, holding a dagger in each hand. He was speeding around the perimeter of her army, stabbing her men, one at a time, so fast that they could not defend themselves.
Nara dropped speed and flared earth, hard. She willed the ground to erupt, urgency, anger, and passion in her thoughts. The earth responded with a violent quake, rocks and pits appearing beneath her army’s feet and also beneath her own. It was too much, the disturbed earth stretching out over a far greater area than she intended. Many of her own men dropped, but so did the racer. She saw him fall, his face striking a rock, stunning him. Before he could rise, Martel put a spear through his heart.
She whirled to see four soldiers coming through the destroyed gate behind her. Then ten. She was flaring no runes at the moment and seemed to move through a fog, a warm blanket of fatigue washing over her. So much energy spent and far too fast. If she’d had a cepp to replenish herself, she might have been able to keep going, but she had none. She’d planned this poorly and wouldn’t be able to finish this fight.
A blur moved by, and it took a moment for her to realize that it was Mykel, engaging the soldiers that streamed from the outpost before they could fall upon her. He waded through the enemy, breaking ribs and tossing them aside like sticks blown about in a storm. He then disappeared inside the outpost and her men followed, making their way as best they could on the broken earth.
Nara shook her head and took deep breaths, the fatigue fading slightly and vision clearing enough that she could move forward in pursuit of the others. As she entered the outpost again, she witnessed a grand melee before her. Mykel battled many at once and he was overwhelming them, moving with the staff as if doing some carefully choreographed dance. Dozens fell before him, and his relentless, perfectly-timed blows left the enemy no hope of victory. Several shouted their surrender and dropped their weapons, but others just gave ground, struggling in futility against Mykel and the others in what had become an unwinnable struggle.
Moments later, the end came, the enemy commander calling for his men to stop. Jahmai walked up to the man, who bled from several wounds, including one on his head. They spoke for a moment, but Nara couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“How ya doing?” Mykel said. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
She turned, surprised that she hadn’t noticed him walk up. “How many did we lose?”
“Three so far. That’s why I asked. We’re about to lose another. Ferron caught an arrow on the back of his neck. He’s bleeding badly.”
“Where is he?” she said, looking around, still fighting the fog that was clearing from her head far too slowly.
“Back here, by the wall.”
She turned and headed toward what little remained of the outpost’s northern wall.
“No, Nara. Your wall. This way.” He grabbed her arm and led her to one side of the wall of dirt she had summoned in the middle of the yard.
She was still disoriented. It was difficult to think, much less walk straight. Ferron sat with his head slumped forward, and one of the younger soldiers pressed a bloody bandage against the nape of his neck.
“I have it now,” she said, removing the bandage slowly. The blood flowed generously as she placed her hand over the wound. Closing her eyes and flaring sight, she visualized the damage. Muscles were severed and a vertebra damaged, as well a nearby vein. She willed the muscle, blood vessel, and skin to heal, but the vertebra was fractured; pieces had detached. Arrows from those powerful longbows did a lot of damage when they hit bone. If she healed the vertebra now, in her foggy state, it would be irregular, and she might cause damage to his nerve cord with a bad knit. She didn’t trust herself with something so delicate at the moment.
“Bleeding has stopped, but his spine is damaged. I’ll look at it again later. Immobilize his neck, and I’ll try again in a few hours.”
She rose to her feet.
“Who else?”
“Some minor injuries,” Mykel said, “but not life-threatening. You need to rest more than they do.”
“What happened? Why am I so tired?”
“Look around.”
She shook her head and tried to focus better. The walls of the outpost had been decimated, the ground pitted in some places and mounded in others. Several irregular columns of rock had risen a dozen feet in the air. She walked outside the wreckage, surveying the field where the racer fell. More pits and mounds, high columns standing tall and several boulders the size of a wagon had half-risen out of the ground. The damaged earth stretched as far as she could see, hundreds and hundreds of yards.
Dei, no.
“This is why you’re tired. Too much passion, no restraint. Hold back, will ya? We can win without you breaking the Great Land in the process.”
“How about ‘good job’ or something?”
Mykel smiled. “Impressive. They’ll be talking about this in Ankar for a while. I’m glad I was here because you almost got jumped by a dozen or more.”
“You were near, so I was fine. But thank you.”
Jahmai approached Nara. “Ready for a report? You look a little pale.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I’m fine.” She reached to steady herself on Mykel’s arm.
“Four of ours are down,” Jahmai said. “Three dead, and we almost lost Ferron too. He’s still breathing and looking better now, but you already knew that. Nice work there. I’ve never seen anyone knit such a grievous neck wound.”
“He needs more work,” Nara said.
“Still impressive. Another five of ours injured, but not badly. They’ll wait. As for the enemy: twelve dead and twenty injured. Another fifteen escaped. Fifty prisoners inside, some are injured. Many will join us. The racer is dead. And you have a harvester now.”
Three of her men dead. And a dozen of the enemy dead. This was her first battle report, and it was an odd feeling. They were talking about human beings like they were potatoes that fell out of a basket on the way from the market.
“Is that good?” she asked.
“Nara, you just led an assault on a well-defended fortification. You attacked veteran soldiers, single-handedly at first, while unarmed. Nobody does that. They wielded ranged weapons and held an elevated position, yet your army overcame them with a force composed mostly of civilians. Even so, you inflicted several times the casualties your army suffered and obliterated their outpost without catapult or ballista. In military terms, this was a rout. I’d call it a miracle.”
“And so many want to join,” she said. “What did you tell them?”
“I told them you’re the most powerful blessed the world has ever seen, and you’re taking Fairmont from the Queen. You resurrect the dead, punish the wicked, and reward your followers. They have two options. Get out of the way or march with the righteous and make history.” He looked about at the disturbed earth. “You did the rest. My Lord, girl, this was something else.”
“Resurrect the dead, Ander Jahmai? Are you kidding me?”
“You‘re the best knitter I’ve ever seen. I ran with the healing theme and got carried away.”
“Stop that.”
“Sorry,” he said with a wide grin. He wasn’t sorry at all.
“And the other outposts?” Mykel asked. “Will they move on us now?”
“When they hear what happened here? Not a chance.”
“Good,” Nara said. “’
Cuz I need a nap.”
27
A Grand Display
As Kayna walked along the cobblestone paths, she lifted the bottom of her black robes to keep them from getting soiled. She looked about as she walked, marveling at the wide swaths of well-groomed grass and trees that separated her from the main building. The Ministry of War and Justice was more like a castle than a ministry campus, and Kayna wondered at the hubris shown by her father in making it so. The sprawling grounds comprised a half-oval central building containing the courtrooms, administrative offices, many meeting rooms, and the minister’s private garden in the center. Around the periphery were several smaller buildings, interrogation rooms, execution stages, kitchens, laundries, and cells for housing prisoners that awaited trial. Throughout the campus were beautiful, winding paths, bushes, well-manicured trees, and many flowers, as if Papa planned for prisoners to marvel at his civility and refinement while they were being prodded along to their deaths. Beautiful justice.
“This way, Highness.” The newly appointed Minister of Transport, Darin Ripowski, wore a lavish blue military coat as he guided her along to the main building. The coat bore multiple ribbons that he’d never earned, gold braids that crisscrossed the front, embroidered sleeves, and oversized epaulets. The tails of his coat almost touched the ground, flapping with each solid, manly stride. Why the Minister of Transport should be decorated like a general, Kayna had no idea. Darin was always quite the peacock, however, and his vanity had only grown with the recent appointment.
They entered through a side entrance, climbed several stone staircases, and traversed a high balcony, finally descending a small stairway to arrive at the courtroom where she would pronounce the sentence. The gathering was large, several hundred barristers and administrators, along with every minster on the council. The audience was appropriate for the crime but even more appropriate for the prisoner: a former man of authority, shackled and sitting cross-legged in a cage in the center of the chamber. His matted hair and unkempt beard gave witness to an uncomfortable time in the dungeon for his recent transgressions.
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