A woman like Shari would find a child-killer her perfect companion, she thought. Tilla looked at her boots and clenched her fists. Yet like it or not, Beras was the one leading this caravan. And Shari Cadigus, the emperor’s daughter, was the one who had recruited them.
I might find them repulsive. But if I’m to survive, I must follow them. Tilla gritted her teeth so mightily it hurt. I will live. I will return home. I will not be another Pery.
After what seemed like hours of darkness, the cart finally slowed to a halt. It came with both a sigh of relief and a chill of fear.
The girls around Tilla looked at one another, mewling and whispering. Mae grabbed Tilla’s arm, squeezing it so hard Tilla grunted and yanked herself free.
“What’s happening?” Mae whispered.
“Hush!” Tilla said. “Be quiet, Mae, and be strong. No more tears, okay? If you want to live, you can’t cry. Wipe your eyes.”
Sniffling, Mae obeyed. After knuckling her eyes dry, she bit her wobbling lip so hard it turned white.
Boots thumped outside, and a voice cried out hoarsely across the convoy, the words muffled. The door of her cart jolted madly, keys rattled in the lock, and a low voice muttered curses.
Mae trembled. The hundred girls in the cart fell silent, and all eyes turned toward the door. Tilla squared her shoulders, straightened her back, and raised her chin. She could easily stare above the shorter girls, and she sucked in her breath and held it.
The door yanked open.
Beras the Brute stood outside in the night, holding keys in one hand, a torch in the other.
The girls inside the cart stared, frozen. Beras stared back, his beady eyes shadowed beneath his thrusting brow. Dark sacks hung under those eyes, tugging them down toward his cheeks. His face was ashen, and though close-shaven, his beard was so dark it left his cheeks in perpetual shadow. He wore no black, polished steel like the other soldiers, but crude plates of iron over patches of mail. Even this suit of metal could not hide his size; he easily weighed twice as much as Tilla, a blend of muscle and fat that pushed at his armor.
For a long moment, he merely glared at the girls. He grumbled, then hawked loudly and spat. A few girls started and Mae whimpered.
For the first time, Tilla heard Beras speak.
“All right, you miserable lot of whores,” he rumbled. “If you ask me, you’re good for nothing but spreading your legs in a brothel, the lot of you.” He spat again. “But since Shari Cadigus thinks she can whip you into soldiers, you’re mine for a few days until you reach your barracks.” He clutched his groin and tugged it. “Any one of you harlots moves too slowly or disobeys my orders, you’ll get a taste of this.” His voice rose to a howl. “So move—now! Off the cart!”
For an instant, rage bloomed inside of Tilla. It coursed through her and spun her head. How dared this man threaten them? There were a hundred women in this cart, and each one could turn into a dragon. He was one man, one miserable murderer who—
She gritted her teeth.
He’s one miserable murderer who’s a darling of the empire, she reminded herself. Unless you want to shift into a dragon and have that empire hunt you down, obey him.
The girls began exiting the cart, silent, their eyes darting. Tilla moved among them. When she stepped outside, cold air stung her, so shocking after the stifling cart that she gasped. She found herself on a roadside in a forest clearing. All around the glade, dark trees rose naked to claw at a starless sky. Six carts camped here in a ring, and Cadport’s youths were stepping out from each one, faces pale. At every cart, a soldier stood shouting, threatening to flay, whip, or behead anyone who moved too slowly. The shouts rose across the forest.
“Move it, maggots!” howled one soldier.
“Form ranks, worms!” cried another and raised his punisher, its tip crackling.
Tilla had seen soldiers in Castellum Acta, the small hilltop fortress in Cadport; she knew about forming ranks, but did the others? The six hundred recruits stumbled into the center of the clearing. Around them spread the carts and twenty soldiers or more, each holding a crackling punisher.
“Form ranks—move it!” one soldier howled, a gaunt man with one eye. “Or I swear, blood will spill tonight.”
The other soldiers all shouted and thrust their punishers, goading the recruits closer together. All around the clearing, the trees creaked and distant wolves howled.
“Come on!” Tilla hissed and grabbed a girl beside her. She pulled her forward and stood her in place. “Stand here. You—Mae. Stand behind her, like this. Go. And stand tall and still, don’t slouch!”
The girls glanced around nervously, but they stood where Tilla directed them. She grabbed their shoulders, pulled them straight, and shoved their chins up. Around them, the other recruits saw and followed suit.
“Form lines!” Tilla whispered, moving between the others. “Three soldiers deep; that’s the standard form. Go! And stand straight.”
Finally the recruits began to form ranks. They stood in three lines, every recruit a foot apart from the others. Tilla took her spot at the front line; Mae stood to her left, trembling and standing so straight her heels did not touch the ground.
Tilla stood frozen, barely daring to breathe. She stretched her own back straight, kept her arms firm at her sides, and raised her chin. She had seen this formation in Cadport before—it seemed the most common one—but she knew there were other formations too. Which one did these soldiers demand? If they formed these ranks wrong, and she was responsible, would they behead her too?
When the ranks were complete, and the recruits stood at attention, Beras began trundling down the lines. He lolloped like a bear, armor clanking and axe clattering against his back. His torch crackled and he grunted as he walked.
“He walks like he got a thorny stick up his arse,” whispered a girl beside Tilla, a scrawny little thing with short brown hair, an upturned nose, and fiery eyes. “You reckon he likes to shove sticks up there, Tilla? I knew me a man once who—”
“Shh!” Tilla hushed her.
She remembered this skinny girl—an orphan named Erry Docker, a dockside urchin who slept on the beach and ate whatever she stole. Some whispered that Erry was the daughter of a long-dead prostitute. Others whispered that Erry herself had taken up the profession and already bedded a thousand men.
“I was only—” Erry began, eyes flashing.
“Hush!” Tilla said.
Beras kept lumbering around, indeed moving much like Erry had described. The recruits stood silently.
“I could have bedded two whores by the time you formed ranks!” Beras shouted. “If you cannot form ranks here, in a guarded camp, how will you survive at war? When we send you miserable worms to fight the Resistance, do you think the enemy will wait for you to form the lines?” He spat and shouted hoarsely. “They will butcher you, and skin you alive, and they will rape your flayed bodies as you thrash and beg to die.”
Tilla’s throat tightened. She had heard many stories of the Resistance. They whispered that these rebels, wild men and women who lurked in the forests, were even crueler than the Cadigus family. They were bloodthirsty.
They killed my brother.
Cold sweat trickled down Tilla’s back. Could the Resistance be hiding in this forest, waiting to charge with steel and fire?
Beras kept moving down the lines, inspecting each recruit in turn.
“In a few days,” he called out, “you will reach your barracks, and they will try to train you, to turn you whelps into soldiers. If you ask me, they’ll be wasting their time. I don’t see soldiers. I see cannon fodder.” He stopped before one boy, leaned close, and sneered. “You’re a skinny one; I bet you weigh less than my axe.”
The thin, pale youth kept standing still. “Yes, my lord,” he whispered.
Beras grunted and walked on. He paused before another girl, licked his lips, and ogled her.
“And you,” he said, “you are soft and rounded. You’re made for a brothel, not a
barracks.” He spat at her feet. “I bet two coppers you end up in one. I’ll be there to break you in.”
He kept moving and stopped before a tall, broad youth with black hair. Tilla recognized him as Jem Chandler, the lazy lout who spent days drunk at the Old Wheel—the youth Mae pined for.
“You!” Beras barked. “You’ve got some meat on you. Big lad. You think you can be a soldier?”
Jem stood so stiffly it looked like his bones could shatter. He managed to nod.
“Yes, my lord.”
Beras spat at his feet. “I’m not a lord, boy. And you’re not a soldier and never will be. What did you do back at that cesspool you call a city?”
Jem held his head high, the veins straining in his neck. “I’m a chandler.”
“Chandler!” Beras rumbled. “What the Abyss is that—you rolled over in a whorehouse for sailors?”
“I… I made candles, my—” Jem bit his lip. “I just made candles. But I can be a soldier. I can fight. I’m strong.”
Beras snorted. “Are you now? We will see. Fight me.” He tossed his torch down; it crackled upon the earth. “Come on. Show me how you fight, boy.”
Jem looked aside nervously and licked his lips.
“I—”
Beras drove his fist into Jem’s belly.
Tilla winced, clenched her jaw, and held her breath.
Jem doubled over, gasping for breath. Standing before the youth, Beras changed—his eyes burned with wildfire, his lips pulled back from his yellow teeth, and drool ran down his chin. He was like a rabid beast. He swung, and his fist cracked against Jem’s head.
At Tilla’s side, Mae whimpered.
“Hush!” Tilla whispered to the girl. Her fists trembled. “Don’t make a sound!”
Jem lay on the ground, hacking and coughing blood. Beras laughed and kicked him, again and again, as the youth mewled.
“See the mighty candlemaker!” Beras announced, arms raised and fists bloodied. “See the boy who thought himself a soldier!”
With a laugh, Beras kicked hard. The steel-tipped boot drove into Jem’s head. The youth’s neck snapped, and Tilla closed her eyes and struggled not to gag, not to faint.
Stars, oh stars. Her eyes stung and the world spun around her. Another death.
“You lot are nothing but maggots!” Beras shouted. “You think you can be soldiers? You can be dead! You will be fed to the cannons, and your flesh will rot in the fields. You are nothing! You will be nothing. You are worms and if any of you doubts it, I will crush you.”
Tilla opened her eyes and looked at Mae. The girl was trembling. She bit her lip so hard blood trickled down her chin. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she whimpered.
“Hush!” Tilla warned. “Mae, you—”
“What’s this?” Beras demanded. His boots thumped. Tilla turned to see him marching toward her, fists at his sides. Blood splashed his boots.
Tilla fell silent and straightened, standing as stiff as she could.
The stench of sweat and blood flared as Beras came to stand before her. Tilla was the tallest girl here, and taller than half the boys, but Beras towered above her; he made her feel small as a child. He thrust his head close, scrutinizing her, and his lips peeled back. His teeth were rotten, and his breath assailed her, scented of corpses.
“Well, well,” the brute said. “Look at what we’ve got here. My, you’re a tall one.” He reached out. With rough fingers, he grabbed her throat and squeezed. Pain shot through her; it took all her will to suppress a gasp. “I like tall women.”
Tilla dared not look into his eyes, but she stared at his forehead with all the strength she had in her. His fingers squeezed her tighter. She could barely wheeze. She managed to whisper through the pain.
“Shari Cadigus liked me too.” Her breath rasped, but she kept staring at the spot between his eyes. “You remember. You were there.”
Beras kept his hand around her throat, crushing her, and glared. He hissed and his breath blasted her face, and she nearly gagged at its rot. His beady eyes burned.
“Yes,” he hissed. “I remember. You’re that whore I grabbed in my claws. The Abyss knows what Shari saw in you. You look like nothing but a cheap harlot to me.” He spat onto her boot. “Shari isn’t here. You remember that. You remember that well. Over here, on this road, you are mine. What’s your name?”
“Tilla Roper,” she whispered, voice raspy.
He leaned closer. He whispered into her ear. “I’ll be watching you, Roper. You are trouble. You make one wrong move, and you will envy that boy whose misery I ended. You I would not kill so quickly.”
He released her, turned around, and kept trundling down the lines. Tilla allowed herself to gasp with pain. She sucked in air. Her throat ached and her head spun, and she could still smell his rot.
“Now get to bed!” Beras shouted. “We keep moving at dawn. Get some sleep, and if I see any worms crawl, I crush them.”
With that, the brute stepped into a cart and slammed the door shut. One soldier began dragging Jem’s body into the woods; the others entered the other carts, leaving the recruits outside in the clearing.
Nobody dared speak. Nobody even dared whimper or cry. Six hundred recruits lay down, glanced around, and huddled together.
Tilla lay on the hard, cold earth. The wind moaned and chilled her, and rain began to fall. She shivered and her belly ached; she had not eaten all day, and she didn’t know when she’d eat next. The forest creaked around them, and the wolves kept howling.
Another death, Tilla thought, the blood dancing before her eyes. Another memory that will haunt me. Oh Rune. If you knew how bad it was, you’d have hid me under your tavern’s floor with your old books.
Mae curled up at her side, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Though she had vowed to be strong, Tilla felt her own eyes dampen. Perhaps it was the death she had seen. Perhaps it was the cold, the hunger, or pain. Perhaps she simply missed home. But her own tears fell, and her own lips trembled. Here, in the dark night, she did not feel like a soldier, only like a young and frightened girl.
“Jem,” Mae whispered at her side and shook, sobbing quietly.
Tilla wriggled closer to the girl. The rain fell upon them. Lying in the mud, Tilla embraced the baker’s daughter. Mae wept against her shoulder, and Tilla shed her own silent tears. They held each other as rain fell, wolves howled, and the night wrapped around them like claws.
6
RUNE
They ran through the forest as the sky burned.
Smoke blazed in Rune’s lungs. His chest ached from where Kaelyn’s claws had clutched him. Branches slapped him and roots snagged at his feet. A green dragon, Kaelyn had crashed through the treetops a mile back; they had been running in human forms since, side by side.
A hundred dragons screamed above, soaring and swooping and tearing at trees. Their flames blazed across the sky in crisscrossing lines. Rain fell and smoke blew above the forest.
“Find them!” rose a shriek above. The blue dragon soared—Shari Cadigus blowing fire. “Bring them to me alive, or bring me their charred corpses, but find them!”
Rune snarled and kept running. His lungs blazed, his knees throbbed, and his chest felt ready to collapse. He looked at Kaelyn, who ran at his side. Sweat dampened her mane of golden hair, and mud covered her clothes. She ran with bared teeth, her eyes narrowed. Her sword clanked at her side, and her bow bounced across her back.
Rune looked up. The forest canopy was thick; he could barely glimpse the dragons between the branches. For now they were hidden, but how long would that last?
“Kaelyn, they will burn down the forest,” he said. “You can’t possibly outrun a hundred dragons, they—”
She glared at him. “They will not burn their empire. This is Shari Cadigus, and these are her lands; she still loves Requiem in her twisted way.” She panted and wiped sweat off her brow, but kept running. “Keep your voice low.”
She scuttled over a boulder, climbing as deftly as a squ
irrel. Rune cursed and scrambled after her; she had to grab his wrist and pull him over. They ran down a hillside bumpy with roots. Vines tangled around Rune’s feet, and a dragon swooped so low that he cursed and fell into the mud.
The dragon shrieked and roared fire skyward. Claws uprooted a tree. Rune cursed and ran aside, scurrying under the cover of an oak. Kaelyn ran at his side, and they raced between more trees. Fallen leaves and moss flew from under their boots.
“Tear down the trees!” Shari screamed above. Rune could not see her, but he heard her wings thud, and the trees bent as in a storm. “I can smell them. They cower below.”
Rune cursed and panted. Sweat drenched him. He had been running for so long. He could run no longer. Perhaps he should surrender, should explain to Princess Shari that this was all a mistake; surely she was mistaking him for somebody else. He had nothing to do with Kaelyn or the Resistance. He was just Rune Brewer, and Kaelyn had tried to kidnap him, and he just wanted to go home.
Only there is no home anymore, he remembered, and his eyes stung. Shari burned it down. And she killed my father. And like it or not, I’m stuck with Kaelyn now.
“Kaelyn,” he whispered between pants. “Kaelyn, where are—”
Her eyes lit up and she flashed a grin. “Here!”
She darted toward a mossy, twisting oak. Rune paused from running, and as soon as his legs stilled, pain bolted up them. His head spun and his chest felt full of fire.
Had Kaelyn gone mad? Rune had expected a camp full of warriors, or a hidden castle, or… not just a tree.
“Kaelyn!” he said and glanced skyward. Dragons streamed above the branches, dipping down to uproot trees. One beast grabbed a pine so close, Rune cursed and ducked. The roots yanked up, raining dirt and moss, less than a hundred feet away.
He looked back at Kaelyn. The young woman was scrambling around the tree, muttering curses and kicking the earth. She got down on her knees and began rummaging through the leaves.
“Stars damn it!” she said. “Come on, where are you—”
A dragon swooped fifty yards away. Another tree was uprooted and howls rose. The blue dragon dived above, wings bending the trees, and blew fire across the sky.
Magic, Myth & Majesty: 7 Fantasy Novels Page 35
