Indomitus Sum (The Fovean Chronicles Book 4)

by Robert Brady

  Raven watched him, drying herself off. She’d laid her leathers out on a large rock next to the stream, and turned her back on him, picking up her halter. “Better not hurt that dog,” she said. “She took out more lancers than you did.”

  “She did, didn’t she,” Karl said, remaining behind her. She stepped into the leather halter, feeling it sliding up between her legs. She could feel his eyes on her ass. To her left, she saw their one prisoner, bound on his side, watching her.

  “Never seen a dog do that before,” he added. “And she didn’t ravage them after—it was like a game to her.”

  “Jack would know more about that,” Raven said, tying the halter behind her neck, under her wet hair. She thought about reusing the towel to bind it up, but being wet already, it would just make a mess of her hair and not dry it. “But I think there was something about knights and dogs and mastiffs and something that I remember from history.”

  “Yeah?” Karl seemed interested. She turned, and he was still holding the dirk. The dog had run off and was sniffing around Zarshar. They were buddies for some reason.

  “Something about mastiffs being heavy and knocking knights off their horses,” she said. “Seems to me that, once they were helpless, other knights had an easy time with them.”

  “Their armor traps them,” Karl said. “People like the Emperor who wear heavy armor are helpless on their backs, like a turtle.”

  “So, then, if you taught a dog to do that,” Raven said, stepping into her leather skirt, “you would want him just knocking down knights—lancers—because chewing them up is pointless.”

  Karl seemed to take a moment to digest that, giving her time to pull her boots on. She could put the raider jacket on, but at this point it wasn’t that cold, and she’d taken to wearing it over her bedroll. She’d convinced herself it still smelled like Bill.

  “So, what are you going to do with that?” she asked him, pointing at the dirk.

  He looked at it as if he’d forgotten that he’d drawn it. She told herself that, in fact, he probably had. He’d been acting strange around her lately, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

  “Oh, um—here,” he said, and held the handle out toward her.

  “You want me to have that?” she asked. She felt immediately on her guard. Men didn’t give gifts like that and not want something.

  “That pig sticker isn’t going to protect you if we get down into it,” Karl told her. “And any of these warriors could take it away from you in a second. If you’re going to defend yourself, you better learn to do it right.”

  “I have my magic,” she said.

  He dropped the dirk and in one fluid motion, he had her by the throat. She felt her neck strain as he picked her up to her tiptoes with one hand.

  “Errrk,” she protested. She tried to kick him and couldn’t. She dug her nails into his hand and upper arm but it didn’t seem to affect him. As she started to see little spots, he pushed her and she landed on her butt.

  “Sonofabitch,” she swore, rubbing her throat and trying to stand. He shoved her by her forehead and she was back on her ass.

  She stayed down, glaring at him. She itched to use her magic.

  He extended his hand to her and, grudgingly, she took it. He pulled her to her feet and proffered the dirk’s hilt again.

  “Bet you want it now,” he said a sloppy grin on his face.

  She sure did. She took the weapon and held it up between them, admiring the blade, which had been blackened, even the edge.

  “Let it rust and I’ll take it back,” he told her. “You need to learn how to use it, and how to respect it.”

  “Why?” she asked, looking into his brown eyes.

  “A weapon like that will protect you, or betray you, depending on how you treat it, just like a dog, or a horse, or a lover—” he began.

  “No,” she interrupted him. “Why are you giving this to me?”

  He frowned, looked down, then looked back at her.

  “First off, I don’t want to see you putting on a show like this again, understood?” he told her.

  She straightened. “I don’t have to do—” she began.

  He snatched the dirk out of her hand by the blade and turned on his heel. She let him take three steps before she finally said, “Okay, okay. That was stupid.”

  “Yes, it was,” he told her, turning. He stepped back up in front of her. “And one of those men was eventually going to get it into his head to join you, and then you’d have a hell of a time.”

  “All right,” she didn’t feel like being lectured like a little girl.

  “Second, you need to be able to defend yourself,” he said. “I’ve seen too many like Glynn, who have their magic but are useless without it. All they can do is run away. I don’t think you are the run away kind.”

  He held out the hilt to her again, and she took it. Their hands touched, she looked into his eyes.

  “You learn to use it right,” he said to her. “You aren’t the only woman ever to hold a sword. I’ve known a few. You have speed, you use your head; you can fight a man and live.

  “I’ll show you how,” he said, and released the blade.

  “Okay,” she told him. “Don’t I—um—don’t I need a sheath for this?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, girl,” he said. “You can sheath my sword.”

  He turned and left. It took her a moment to get the joke, and then she wished she hadn’t.

  * * *

  “Why are you here, grandfather?” Vulpe demanded of him. Jack saw the armed men, lined up behind the little boy—not looking so little with warriors forming a half-circle to either side of him.

  He was almost twelve years old—kind of young for this sort of thing. But then, the average age of Napoleon’s generals was sixteen.

  Regardless, he’d bungle this good if his men just followed him against experienced warriors. Jack didn’t know that he was any better qualified, but he was sure as hell no worse.

  And the kid had called him ‘grandfather,’ and meant it.

  “You’re about to make a really big mistake, son,” Jack said, keeping an eye on the men around him. “From what I’ve heard about your ‘Bounty Hunters,’ if they’re on to you, then they’ll come after you, not leave you behind. If I can get this close to you, they can.”

  Vulpe looked to his left and his right. There was a huge Man to one side, and an Uman to the other, and he clearly looked to them as his advisors. Jack knew that, if they resisted him, then he had no chance, grandfather or not. They were ‘in,’ and Jack had fought enough inter-office power struggles to know you don’t work against an ‘in’ guy, unless you can take him out entirely.

  “He did get past us,” the Uman admitted.

  “You should see what the gaffer knows,” the other said. Jack felt himself straighten. “You never know what someone will pick up after a lot of years.”

  “What the gaffer knows,” Jack said, and urged Little Storm up closer to the prince, “is that, if they think they have you, and you know better, then you don’t want to make them think otherwise. They’ll come to kill you, so you need to let them think they have a good chance of doing that, and take them out.”

  “You’re saying just sit here—” the Man began, but Vulpe raised his hand. The Man instantly quieted.

  The Uman smiled. “No,” he said. “Draw them in, like flies to our web, we being the spiders.”

  Vulpe looked up into Jack’s eyes. So young, so inquisitive, the eyes of a child with the responsibilities of an adult now. A kid trying to save his mom, if what he’d overheard was true.

  “Show me how,” he said.

  * * *

  Genna slinked forward, her belly to the ground, feeling the gravel on her skin. The land here consisted of scrub and pebbles, a wash, not good for farming. Usually with the spring rains this would all be flooded, but the spring rains were sparse this year.

  Probably why she’d never married a farmer.

  “See that?” the Man
beside her, Jarf, told her, pointing to the center of the camp, where seven of the nine of them slept. Two stood guard, one on either side of the camp. Their horses were billeted close to the sleepers with a good-sized pile of green-cut hay.

  “You mean that prince sitting there, bold as brass?” Genna asked him. “Asleep during the day with the sun shining, a collection of new-cut hay when there’s none for miles?”

  “A trap?” Jarf asked her. The man was a stone—a fighting Bounty Hunter, not a Stealthy one, like her. Of course, she was a little bit of both.

  “I don’t know that they’re smart enough for a trap,” Genna said to him. “I just don’t know that they’re all there, and I want to catch them at the same time.”

  “If there are others, they’ll come running when the fight begins,” Jarf said.

  “I know it,” Genna said, and began to scoot back. Jarf followed. “Have Tuuren take out the one guard, and Pheeru the other. We three Men will sweep in at the last minute and kill the others. Take the prince hostage, of course.”

  “And if he fights?” Jarf asked her.

  She knew Jarf. Killing children, women, helpless old people, didn’t bother him any more than lacing up his sandals. Life meant nothing more to him than the light did from the candle.

  “I want him alive,” she said. “You weren’t at the Battle of Tamaran Glen, I was. Kill a member of his family, and you will have the full force of the Emperor brought to bear against you, and he won’t care what it takes or what he has to do to get his revenge.”

  “What do you suppose he’ll do for all of this, then?” Jarf asked her.

  Behind the rise from where they’d approached, she stood, Jarf with her. She’d made sure to scoot back even farther than she had to, knowing that Jarf, taller than she, would stand up the moment that she did.

  “What will he do?” she echoed him. “Nothing—that’s what. We have his family alive. To keep them that way, he’ll do whatever we want him to do, and that plan is already in place.”

  She clapped him on the shoulder. “Not to worry, Jarf, not to worry. A week from now, you will be an unimaginably wealthy man.”

  * * *

  Shela lay tied across her horse, the gelding picketed with Singer and Bastard, and their riders, in the temporary camp the Bounty Hunters had made.

  Her stomach roiled from hunger, her tongue swelled for want of water. Her daughter had cleaned her somewhat, but as emotionally as the girl had behaved during the initial battle, Shela hadn’t dared to let her know she’d regained her senses. No daughter should have to tend her mother this way, and she’d had to care for her baby sister, as well.

  Hectaro had surprised her, keeping a cool head, not letting them provoke him. He’d figured out her ruse and not betrayed her. If she’d ordered him to, he’d have taken his sword from its sheath and freed them, but it wasn’t time for that.

  Vulpe seemed to have escaped. They certainly hadn’t discussed killing him, and they talked about everything else. If Vulpe lived, he’d go right to his uncle and bring back help. If he were half the son she thought she’d raised, he’d have left one or two Wolf Soldiers to try to shadow them.

  Now she feared her captors had found those Wolf Soldiers, as they picketed their horses and left to kill them while they slept.

  If she were alone, then it was time to act.

  “Lee?” she whispered, in the unlikely event there was some guard whom she hadn’t sensed.

  “Mother?” she heard her daughter’s voice.

  “Your Imperial Majesty,” Hectaro interjected. “We’re alone—I can’t get to my sword—they bound us.”

  “Lee,” Shela said, unable to see them, “free us. The unbinding spell.”

  She heard Lee incant, and felt the ropes slither away from her wrists and ankles. She bounced herself off of her saddle, then remounted as quick as she was able.

  She winced at her sticky nethers. She’d have to be treated—she’d need a healer or an infection might leave her barren or worse.

  “Are you well, m’lady?” Hectaro asked her, his eyes searching hers.

  “I’m well,” Shela said. “Where did they leave for?”

  Hectaro stood and went for his sword, stuffed in the bedroll behind his saddle, laying in a pile with the others next to where they’d been tied. He had a swollen cheek from where they’d cuffed him. He pointed the sword almost directly south. “That way.”

  “Then who comes from the north?” she asked him.

  Any city person might have missed it, not an Andaran, born on the plains. The dust trail of at least six horses, moving fast, not trying to disguise themselves, not running single file.

  Her son had escaped after all.

  Hectaro moved his horse between them and the two women and mounted it, as she’d expect a male to do. “No need,” she told him, and touched his arm. “Those are Theran Lancers.”

  True enough, they passed to the east of a hill to their north, out wide in the open. They all recognized the uniforms immediately.

  The warriors reined in and their sergeant, a fellow Andaran, made a fist over his heart when he recognized her.

  “M’lady,” he said. “We are sent by your son.”

  She sighed. Any mother would worry. “Where is he, and my brother?” she asked him.

  “We haven’t seen Duke Tali Digatishi in days,” he said. “Vulpe arranged for this rescue. He is destroying his enemies now.”

  Shela’s heart ran cold.

  Her son, in battle, and warriors calling him by his first name? However he’d done it, he’d taken command of them. The boy was, as her husband, Yonega Waya, might say, his father’s son.

  “Bring us to him,” she commanded him.

  “Our orders are to keep you safe, m’lady,” he informed her.

  Not only had he taken command of them, they were loyal to him over her.

  She raised a hand, white with power. There were times to be the Lady Shela Mordetur, mother of the Empire.

  There was a time to be the Bitch of Eldador as well.

  “You defy me?” she demanded. “Empress of the realm? Wife of the Conqueror?”

  The Andaran’s eyes went wide. “Of course not, your Imperial Majesty,” he spluttered.

  “On your life,” she informed him, “bring me to my son.”

  The Lancers straightened. No one questioned her power.

  “Immediately, m’lady,” he said, and turned his horse. The Lancers took up a defensive ring around her, one in front, one to either side, and three behind, in a triangle shape. Lee reached Chawny up to Shela and mounted Singer, refusing to look at the young prince. When she seated herself the Andaran Lancer put heels to his mount and they cantered to the south. As they rode, she took Chawny in her arms and rubbed her nose on her baby’s face. Chawny made pouty lips but wasn’t about to betray them by crying.

  Whatever her son had planned, she wasn’t about to leap into it and betray him, neither would she let him fight his first battle alone.

  The horses pounded out four daheer, none of the riders speaking. Already she could feel the skin tear around her nethers. She’d be sore and riding sidesaddle if she couldn’t find a healer.

  Perhaps worse if she couldn’t find clean water or alcohol. Infection killed more insidiously than arrows.

  Along the way she saw riders’ sign, fresh in the gravel. She caught five distinctive tracks, then two breaking off to east and west. They’d decided to circle around and entrap her son. She gave the Andaran sergeant the sign for wanting to go faster.

  They thundered over a rise and found themselves at the edge of a battle.

  She saw the signs of a camp, broken apart. Half a dozen horses ran free with Eldadorian saddles, more with mixed. Two Wolf Soldiers lay dead on the ground, one to the side of the camp, one at its center. A small Wolf Soldier squad with her son at the center of it formed in the middle, three unmounted Bounty Hunters trying to defend themselves from it, while another dozen Lancers passed in single file, their l
ances down.

  Before she could even react, two of the three Bounty Hunters fell to the lancers, the third to two pikemen.

  If they’d been dispatched so quickly—

  They hadn’t, she noted. The remaining two Bounty Hunters were fleeing to the east on their horses. Her power swelled, and she called the fire.

  She wasn’t at her strongest, but the ball of fire she threw at them scored the flank of one of the horses.

  Her daughter’s follow up knocked an Uman from the wounded animal’s saddle. The last disappeared over a ridge. Vulpe was already sending half a dozen Lancers after them.

  Five lancers, and an old man on a black stallion.

  Little Storm!

  * * *

  Nina of the Aschire had never really taken to horseback riding. Her nature was to rely on her feet and, when in any forest, her hands. On the plains, however, one needed horses, so she’d learned to ride from the Empress.

  Andarans rode fast and, as light as she was, she rode faster than most Andarans. She’d learned to relax, to move with the animal, to let the saddle support her without being bounced around in it.

  In three days, she’d found herself in Thera, only to find the garrison turned out in search of the Empress, Lee and Chawny. She didn’t care what her orders were, or who gave them. If Lee was in danger, that overrode everything.

  She reached out for Lee with her mind and found nothing. She turned south, passing squad after squad of Lancers and Wolf Soldiers, and at one she even believed she’d seen Duke Two Spears. She didn’t approach him—she barely knew the man and didn’t want him to tell her to fetch the Emperor or to return to Galnesh Eldador.

  Once she had to replace her mount—she’d simply worn the poor beast out. This part of Eldador was almost overrun with Angadorian horses, and she had no trouble trading at a Hostel. By the end of the fourth day, she was exhausted from riding and trying to reach out to Lee. She made herself a cold camp and pulled the saddle from her horse.

  She immediately heard another mount, running alone, coming toward her from the west.

  As Shela had taught her, she bound her mount’s reins to the saddle horn and sprinted to the north, out of the rider’s path. There’d be no hiding the horse from a rider, however she could use it to bring the rider into striking distance.