“I wasn’t keeping it from you for any—”
Brander cut him off with a shake of his head. “I didn’t mean why haven’t you told me. I long ago accepted that you have your reasons for whatever you do. I meant . . . why now?”
He saw him draw in a deep breath. “We have had some success.”
Brander grinned. “Indeed we have. You are driving them mad. One man, with less than a hundred fighters, and you harry them as if you had a force equal to their own.”
“The more successful we are, the angrier the Coalition gets.”
“And it’s wonderful to behold. They—”
He broke off suddenly as the implication hit him. It was followed quickly by realization. “You’re telling me this,” he said slowly, “in case they kill you.”
The Raider’s non-answer was answer enough.
Although the risk was always there, for all of them—you didn’t go up against the full might of the Coalition with minimal antiquated and patched weapons and equipment without knowing you had no chance of winning and a grimly good chance of getting killed—Brander hadn’t really contemplated the extent of the consequences should those planium-brained tyrants ever succeed in taking out the only man who had ever rallied Ziemites to fight back. This rebellion would die a quick and undistinguished death if that happened.
And yet he knew better than to suggest the Raider keep himself safe, or tell him he was more important alive than leading an attack. For never would the man stand down and send others into danger in his place. He had not built the fearsome reputation of the Raider by hunkering down in safety.
So instead, Brander looked again at the message in his hand. “Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “we should use this.”
The Raider looked at him questioningly. He shrugged.
“I mean, think of it . . . two legends, the Raider and the Spirit, working together to save Ziem. People would gorge on it. It would give them hope, perhaps even inspire some to join the fight.”
Above the scarred face, the Raider’s eyes looked thoughtful. “You might have an idea there.”
Brander nodded. “You know I do. You know I can read people at the chaser table, and what we’re doing here is just a bigger gamble.”
The Raider made a sound that could almost be a laugh, a rare enough occurrence to make Brander smile.
“I’ll have people thinking we’ll have the Coalition driven out by next sun-season.”
“Careful,” the Raider said, “or we’ll have our own rebellion when that doesn’t happen.”
“Okay,” Brander said easily, knowing he’d won, “the one after that, then.”
That night, in the taproom, Brander chose his target carefully. Carag Dreese himself wasn’t the sort who spread rumors, but he was pledged to Alcana, the biggest tale-teller in all of Zelos. And he told her everything.
He lingered in the corner of the room, hidden in the shadows, until Carag made his way up to the bar. Before the man could order—Drake was busy with two Coalition officers at the end of the bar—Brander slid in beside him, two drinks in his hand. One happened to be the man’s favored sun ale, made from a combination of grains and flowers that grew only in Ziem’s sun-season.
“It seems I’ve been forsaken,” he said with a heavy sigh. “The lady clearly isn’t going to show up.”
Carag glanced at him, then grinned.
“Another conquest?”
“Not tonight, obviously. Here, you might as well have this,” he said, sliding the mug of brew at him.
The man’s face lit. “Why, thank you.”
“Someone might as well enjoy it.” Brander turned to face the man, leaning on the bar with one elbow. “I envy you, having a good woman to go home to every night.”
Carag snorted. “There’s good and then there’s good.” He took a gulp of the brew as he gave Brander a sly glance. “Example, the Davorin girl.”
“Eirlys is but a child.” He gave a carefully disinterested wave.
“She is hardly that,” Carag said. “And lovely into the bargain. She’ll soon have all the unpledged men in Zelos at her feet. And probably a few who are pledged.”
That was a situation Brander didn’t care to contemplate. In part because he feared it was nothing less than the truth.
“That,” he said, “is Drake’s problem.”
Carag snorted, and foam from the brew frothed down his chin. He wiped at it with his sleeve, glanced around, spotted Drake still at the far end, and went on. “As if he’d stand up to anyone. Why, if Sorkost himself came to claim her, he’d probably hold the door for the skalworm.”
Brander said nothing, and after a moment, Carag shrugged. “Apologies. I know he is your friend. And it is true he has much to deal with already. Those twins alone . . .” He shook his head as he spoke of those two imps. Then he glanced around again, as if to see who was within hearing before adding, “No, it takes the likes of the Raider to stand up to those thuggers.”
And there was his opening.
“Speaking of the Raider, I heard the craziest story today,” Brander said.
“Oh?”
“I heard the Raider is working in concert with the Spirit. That she’s been providing him with information, gathered however she gathers it.”
“The Spirit?” Carag scoffed. “Everyone knows she’s just a tale told to children.”
“That’s what I told the man, but he was certain she is real. He said he had seen her himself, heard her true story.”
“Which is?”
“That she lives quietly above the Edge, practicing her healing arts. That she has healed many, some even on the point of death. That her skills are unmatched.”
“We’ve all heard those tales. That only the most desperate would risk the dangerous trek up the mountain for her skills, but those who survived returned with miraculous stories of her healing. Stories all. No first-hand accounts.”
Brander nodded. “But this man said that after she had saved his son, he’d seen her sending a message to the Raider. She told him they were working together to try and rid Ziem of this pestilence. And that people she has helped tell her things, things she passes along to the Raider.”
Carag looked oddly and unexpectedly wistful. “Now that’s a tale worthy of telling, the Raider and the Spirit working together to save us.”
Brander nodded. And when Carag had finished his gifted brew and taken his leave, he knew the story was started.
It would be interesting to see how long it took for it to get back to him, and what form it would be in when it did.
“LOOKING AT YOU, it’s hard to believe heroics are in the Davorin blood.”
Drake kept stirring the stew, not even turning at his sister’s jibe. It was pointless, and he wished she would stop. “If you think constantly worrying at it is going to change it, perhaps you should go find a bone to chew on, like Eck’s barkhound.”
“I am just reminding you that, as much as you try to forget or ignore it, it is there. Our father, his father, and his father’s father.”
“Not in me.”
“Then I suppose it’s up to me to keep the honor of our name.”
He spun around then. “If you are thinking of brolleting up the mountain to join the rebellion, forget it.”
“I,” she said pointedly, “am not a helpless brollet.”
Her implication was unmistakable, that if this room held one of the easily frightened creatures whose only defense was to quickly run away, it was him. But right now, there was something more important to deal with.
“I have your word, Eirlys, and you will hold to it.”
Her head came up, and her eyes, darker than his own but still a clear, Ziem blue, narrowed. “You will make me?”
She said it as challenge, as dare, and it was
only with an effort that he didn’t rise to the bait. “I will not have to. You do not give a promise lightly.”
For a moment, she looked flummoxed, he supposed because he had in essence complimented her while she was attempting to spit him for roasting.
“You truly are content . . . like this?” she asked, stark disbelief echoing in her voice.
“I never said I was content.”
“Then why don’t you do something?”
He whirled on her then, unable to hold back. “What would you have me do? Kill them at the door? Openly charge their gates? Climb the walls and give a speech, like our father? All of these actions end the same way, me dead and you alone to take care of yourself and the twins.”
“But to welcome our oppressors, cater to them!”
“I have my reasons.”
“What reason could possibly—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “Please. We have been through this before. Countless times.”
“And you—”
This time it was a hammering on the door that cut her off.
“‘Tis Rest Day,” she muttered. “Can they not leave us alone even then?”
When she crossed the room and yanked the door open, Drake’s heart sank to see the very man he’d just referred to, Enish Eck, standing there, glowering.
The twins. It had to be.
“What did they do now?” Eirlys clearly had the same thought.
“If you don’t control those two demons, I will lock them in my cellar until they’re of age,” the older man declared in a rage.
“Don’t tempt me,” Drake muttered.
“You’ll do no such thing,” Eirlys said to Eck. “You’re too good a man.”
Eck blinked, then stared, as if he’d never seen Eirlys before when in fact he’d known them her entire childhood.
“Now,” she said, taking his arm and drawing him inside, “come in. We have a lovely brollet stew almost ready; you must join us while you tell us what those two pests did this time. With some brew, of course.”
Was she actually patting his arm? Drake wondered. And when had his little sister turned into a diplomat?
He was so surprised he barely followed Eck’s tale of a broken window, some type of incendiary device, and a fire that he began by saying nearly burned his house down but ended, by the time Eirlys poured him a second glass of brew, with a confession that it had barely singed his back door.
When the man had gone, after accepting her promise that the twins would personally see to repairing any damage, Eirlys closed the door and added, “And serves them right that we’ve fed him their share of dinner.”
“And then some,” Drake said; Eck was not a light eater when given the chance at free food. But he would consider the price cheap enough, considering. “So tell me, my sister, when did you become so . . . tactful?” With others, if not with me.
She shrugged. “I knew the brew would mellow him. He gets little enough chance to partake anymore.”
She’s grown up, truly. The thought did not cheer him, for it meant she was closer to the day when she was free of her promise. And he knew what would happen when that day came. And that had ramifications he was too weary to think about just now.
But he said only, “I thought I’d not seen him in for some time.”
She turned then, meeting his gaze. “You’ve not seen him, and many others, because they do not care to enter a taproom full of Coalition scum.”
And, that quickly, she was back at it.
“And how else do you think we eat as we do, not having to scrounge Coalition garbage heaps for food?”
“I think,” she said, “I would rather go hungry.”
“Then do so,” he snapped. He couldn’t stop himself. He was worn too thin, and she’d pressed too hard.
Eirlys turned on her heel and slammed out the same door Eck had used. All he could think of was what a far cry she was now from the girl who had once trailed worshipfully at his heels, who thought her big brother painted the sky.
Drake sank back down into his chair. He put his elbows on the table and cradled his head in his hands.
It took him a long, silent few minutes to chide himself out of his weariness, labeling it self-pity he had no time for. Then he stood, and went back to work. Moments later, he was putting a crate of new glassware—amazing how the storage doors were opened when the Coalition were the ones facing drinking out of chipped glasses or stained wooden cups—on the bar. Only then did he look at his left hand, which had been telling him ever since he’d picked up the wooden box that he’d managed to acquire a sizeable splinter.
He frowned as he plucked at it. It was jagged, and buried deep, and his flesh clung to it stubbornly. In the string of aches, pains, and injuries he’d experienced, it was a mere pinprick, but it was nevertheless annoying.
But not annoying enough to keep him from hearing the faintest of steps from behind him.
He barely managed to stay as he was, feigning ignorance. The taproom keeper, after all, had no reason to be so aware, or to react as anything other than a cowed, broken servant. Only when even the most oblivious of men would have realized someone was there did he turn around, letting out a gasp of shock and cowering back.
He was trapped, pinned against the bar by a man in a Coalition uniform. His gaze shot to the man’s face. Caze Paledan.
And the man held a gleaming, razor-sharp blade. Pointed at him.
His prediction to Eirlys about his end might come true after all, and quickly.
Chapter 25
“NASTY,” PALEDAN said, gesturing with the point of the blade at Drake’s finger.
Drake started to say it was nothing, then caught himself. “It’s very painful,” he said, with a visible wince.
“Here. Use this.”
The major reversed the blade in his hand with a quick motion, offering Drake the handle. Drake hesitated. Not because it wouldn’t work, but because he was afraid of what he might do with that well-honed blade in his hand and a Coalition officer within stabbing distance.
As if the tapper could ever work up such nerve.
He realized two things then; first, that this was likely a test of just that. The man had probably heard he was broken, submissive. But given who Drake’s father had been, Paledan had probably wanted to test him out himself.
And secondly, and of primary importance . . . Paledan had no fear for himself. It was the self-assurance of a man who knew he could take on any man and win. Even if the tapper showed an unexpected spark of defiance, he had confidence he could put him down like an infected barkhound. Easily.
Drake took the dagger gingerly. He poked it at the thick sliver of wood. The spot quickly began to bleed, and he winced blatantly. But he got a large chunk of the splinter out, and quickly decided that was enough. The rest would work its way out eventually.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, handing the blade back in the same way it had been handed to him. Using a clean bar cloth to press against the small wound, he looked at the man who had so nearly snuck up upon him. “You left the other night without your change. I have it waiting for you.”
“I didn’t wish for change.” The man lifted a brow. “Are you always so scrupulous?”
“I’ve seen men killed for less,” he said neutrally. By other men in your uniform. “What can I get you, Major?”
“I understand you have clingfruit nectar available.”
Drake didn’t react, but inwardly, he was surprised. The juice of the native clingfruit was not frequently requested here where more potent brews were the usual fare. Clingfruit nectar had no effect except the soothing of an irritated throat.
“Of course,” he said. “I hope you’re not ill?”
“Not yet,” the man said dryly. “But I have a meeting with Jepson Ke
rrold shortly. I must assume nothing but talk will be the order of the day.”
Drake couldn’t stop the smallest quirk of his mouth before he turned to grasp the bottle with the drawing of the pinkish-orange fruit on it.
“You have met him, then?” Drake said neutrally as he filled a glass and held it out.
“Not yet. But I have heard enough to guess he is the sort of blowhard aspirant to glory I have dealt with in many places.” He took a sip of the nectar, seemed surprised at the taste, and took another. Then he looked at Drake levelly. “And you, tapper. Do you have an opinion of your representative?”
“A man in my position cannot afford opinions, sir.”
Paledan grimaced. “But if you did,” he persisted.
“If I did,” Drake said carefully, “I would say you are well prepared.”
There was a fraught split second of silence. And then Paledan gave a hearty laugh. “And you are the soul of diplomacy, delivering agreement without saying so, and leavened with a compliment.”
Drake caught himself smiling. And was startled to realize it was genuine. Something he never would have expected in the presence of a Coalition major. Paledan downed the last of the juice, insisted on paying for it despite Drake’s demurral, and nodded as he turned to go.
Drake’s smile vanished as the door opened before the man got there, and Kye stepped inside. Paledan looked her up and down, as any man with a beating heart would. And as any man would be, he was appreciative.
Kye, on the other hand, merely lifted her chin and strode past him without a word. Again to Drake’s surprise, the man merely smiled, and continued on his way. Most of the Coalition would have paused no matter what their agenda for the day, to remind the woman who was in charge. Had that Coalition man been Frall, the old commander, Drake shuddered to think what that cool disapproval would have earned her. He watched assessingly as the man exited, still trying to get the measure of this new commander who would in essence rule over Zelos and Ziem much more personally than Barcon and the governor.
He knew better than to express concern about the way Kye had treated the man. She would not welcome it from him. Not anymore. But he couldn’t completely quash it. “Why didn’t you just slap him?” he asked, keeping his tone mild.
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