Firebrand

by Kristen Britain

  One of the guards from the dig, the one that carried the spiked cudgel, joined him in the clearing. “You are gonna entertain us, Dav,” he said. “Strong fellow like you, always helping the others carry their rocks, surely you can put a good show on for us.”

  There was boisterous shouting, and the circle opened to admit a large and heavily muscled man. Zachary had a very good idea of where this was leading.

  “This is Mace,” the guard said, indicating the big man. “One of our own looking for a workout. Poor lad hasn’t had anyone to pound in a while. Dav, you are going to fight him. Wagers, anyone?”

  Zachary stared at Mace, while the soldiers made their wagers all around him. He knew how to take down big men. His arms training, after all, had not consisted solely of learning the sword. He could use his hands as well as any warrior. The problem was, if he put to use too many of the techniques he’d been taught, he’d be identified as more than the son of a lumber merchant, even more so if he won. They expected him to fight as a brawler, not as a well-trained warrior.

  “Just in case you are thinking about throwing the fight,” the guard said, “we’ll cane your friend here real good.”

  Zachary’s heart sank as they dragged Binning to the edge of the circle. The older man’s face had gone pale. Zachary did not think the farmer was in any condition to survive a harsh caning. He’d have to fight convincingly, but as a brawler, in order to spare Binning. He sighed in resignation.

  PORTALS, AVATARS, AND KNITTING

  It was not difficult to give the audience a “show,” for Mace proved to be a skilled fighter. It was all Zachary could do to dodge the hammerlike blows from Mace’s fists. The soldier was both large and quick, a bad combination. It was hard for Zachary to hold back on the finer techniques he’d been taught in order to retain his brawler persona. He jabbed his own fists at his opponent, his feet moving lightly over the ground. If he hadn’t been half-starved and worked so hard, he might have been able to land a couple meaningful blows, but his poor condition left him slow.

  Do you think you have time to be tired in battle? he imagined Drent yelling at him. Do you think the enemy will take a break so you can nap?

  Had Drent ever been in a situation like this? Zachary didn’t think so, and he told his imagination to silence itself.

  Mace’s fist rammed straight for his face. Zachary hopped aside, but the blow clipped his ear. It felt like it had been ripped off. He backed away and touched it, and though it was still attached to his head, his fingers came away bloody. Then he noticed the dull gleam of metal on Mace’s fingers. Iron knuckles. It figured.

  The audience yelled and cursed at them. They wanted action. They wanted more blood. Zachary switched his stance and drove his fist under Mace’s guard. It slammed into a gut seemingly made of steel. Mace shoved him back and followed up with a punch that glanced off the side of his head. If it had been more than a glance, he would have been down.

  Then he got lucky and scored a hit across Mace’s jaw, but it crunched his fingers. He shook his hand out. Unfortunately, the lucky punch roused the big man, and he was on Zachary like a rabid wolf. The last thing Zachary saw was the iron knuckles flashing in front of his eyes.

  • • •

  Zachary could not see. He did not want to see, really, if the crackling in his head was any indication. Something cold covered his eyes and brow, and had an herby scent, which eased him. He seemed to be lying on a pallet and was covered by a blanket. The fire snapped nearby. It took him a while to remember the fight, though he couldn’t place exactly what had happened. He guessed he’d gotten hit good and was now back in the keep’s great hall for mending.

  Just as he did not want to see, he did not wish to move. He lay still, fading in and out. Someone changed the compress over his eyes, the blessed coolness, the serenity of the herbs. He was surprised they hadn’t just thrown him back with the other slaves to suffer as he would, but maybe they valued good workers.

  Presences came and went around him, and voices murmured in the background and faded. At some point, a pair of voices did catch his attention, though he was not sure if they were real or part of a dream.

  “How is the knitting coming along?” Immerez asked.

  “It is complicated,” Grandmother replied. “I have never made anything like this before.”

  Was she knitting a sweater? Zachary wondered.

  “So you do not know if it will work?” Immerez asked.

  “Rarely do I know, especially when dealing with unknown powers. If all goes as I hope, this will be like the web of a spider that traps its prey.”

  It must have been a dream, for spiders crawled through Zachary’s mind and wove fine strands in the eye sockets of his aching skull.

  “—really exists?” Immerez was asking.

  “There are sources that suggest that this being does exist, chosen by one of your gods.”

  Immerez laughed. “They’re not my gods, not anymore now that I am sworn to the one God.”

  “Yes, my friend, of course. Let me say one of your former gods then. The aspect of death called Westrion. It is said he chooses one, a human, to be his voice and presence on Earth when in need, to keep the dead in check, and dark beings, in particular, trapped beyond the portal. The avatar can communicate with and command the dead. I think I saw her once in a vision. I was in Blackveil, gazing into the fire, when she appeared clad in strange armor and a winged helm. She rode as a dark angel astride the death god’s stallion.”

  The description created an image in Zachary’s mind, recalling something from a dream. He was caught in the vision for some time and missed a portion of conversation between Immerez and Grandmother.

  “So, when you reach the seal . . .” Immerez mused.

  “Westrion’s avatar, if the sources are correct, will have no choice but to appear.”

  “Thus your knitting.”

  “Thus my knitting.”

  Portals and gods and avatars and knitting . . . Dreams, or just his hurt, foggy head trying to make sense of words? He faded out again, and when he briefly resurfaced, heard Grandmother say, “—tomorrow to go meet with General Birch.”

  “I look forward to it,” Immerez replied. “I will see you in the morning.”

  • • •

  “How are we doing?”

  Zachary blinked against gray light as the compress was pulled away from his eyes. Everything was a blur. “I feel like I’ve been buried in an avalanche.”

  Varius, the mender, chuckled. “Not surprising. I’ll give you a minute, and then let’s see if you can drink a little.”

  As Zachary thought about it, he did not feel as bad as he might have, and he was soon able to focus on Varius. The mender helped him sip water.

  “Grandmother was furious last night when she heard about the fight,” Varius said. “It was a breach of discipline and not the sort of thing she tolerates. She was not pleased one of her best workers got damaged. For punishment, the organizers of the fight, including Mace, are being made to move rocks today.” He sounded amused, and Zachary had to admit that he was, too.

  He tentatively touched the bridge of his nose and his temple. There was swelling and pain.

  “You were bad enough that Grandmother used a healing spell,” Varius said. “Mace’s iron knuckles cracked bone. It should be mended, but the rest of the healing will have to be done the conventional way.”

  “Why would she heal a slave?” Zachary asked, genuinely surprised.

  “She needs good workers, and you are one. When a slave is seriously hurt or sick, she will do what she can. She is determined to get that passage dug out.”

  Zachary was glad to know he had not been singled out. It meant she had not guessed his true identity.

  “She never heard the rest of my story,” he said, “of how I ended up with the groundmites.”

  Varius shrugged. �
��She has had other things on her mind of late.”

  “She’s going someplace . . .”

  “Went,” Varius replied. “You rest while you can. They’ll want you back hauling stone before you’re ready.”

  The keep’s great hall remained quiet through the day, with no sign of Fiori or Immerez about. He took advantage of the opportunity to rest, receiving a bite to eat at midday, and a cooling compress for his head. It was miraculous he was not feeling worse, and he enjoyed the dark irony of having received healing from his arch enemy.

  As the shadows deepened with dusk, Varius came to him again. “I am sorry to say, for your sake, that it is time for you to return to the workers quarters.”

  Zachary had expected this and rose from his pallet with Varius’ assistance. He walked unsteadily from the keep to the building that housed his fellow slaves, escorted by a sullen guard. When he stepped inside, he was met with silence. Everyone stared at him.

  Finally, Binning rose to his feet and said, “You’re alive. We thought you was dead for sure. You look like all five hells, lad, but you’re alive.”

  Binning brought him over to where Lorilie’s group sat, and helped him down. “Glad to see you’re all right, too,” Zachary told him.

  “After that Mace clobbered you, the chief guard found out what was going on and lit into the others over it.”

  “We heard Grandmother was displeased,” Lorilie said, a small smile on her lips. “There were guards carrying rocks with us all day.”

  Mockery of the guards followed, for they had been hardly able to keep up with the work without passing out. When the evening soup was ready, Binning fetched Zachary a bowl. It grew quiet as people ate, and Zachary considered telling Lorilie what Grandmother was after, or what he thought she was after. He figured there was no reason to withhold the information and so told the little group all about it.

  “She is after a portal to the hells?” Lorilie asked.

  “That seems to be what she has us trying to dig up,” he replied.

  “She doesn’t even believe in our gods,” Pitkin protested.

  Binning said, “Don’t mean they don’t exist. Lotsa strange stuff has been happening the last few years.”

  “Wouldn’t releasing these demons hurt her own people, too?” someone asked.

  “Grandmother has powers,” Zachary said. “Maybe she thinks she can control the demons.” Was her motive really to release them, or just to lure and ensnare Westrion’s avatar? Or, both? If she had some way of controlling the dark entities, they could devastate his people. By ensnaring the avatar, she would prevent the avatar from interfering with her plans.

  He contributed nothing more to the group’s speculation about the portal, and he was beginning to think that escape was not the best of ideas. If only he could get his hands on Grandmother, or at least prevent the opening of the portal, and should those efforts fail, somehow warn Westrion’s avatar. Unfortunately, Grandmother was away, and being significantly outnumbered by guards, he could not see how to disrupt the dig. Besides, how did one find a god’s avatar? Just thinking about it seemed beyond reason.

  “Dav,” Lorilie said.

  He looked up from his musings to see that the group had broken up. Lorilie knelt beside him.

  “Yes?”

  She gazed at him, assessing. Quietly she said, “I am a good judge of people, and you are no merchant’s son.”

  He stiffened. “What makes you say that?”

  “You don’t sound like one, and you don’t carry yourself like one. You are too, hmm, thoughtful to be the careless brawler you want Grandmother and her people to think you are.”

  He started to protest, but she cut him off with a curt shake of her head.

  Even more quietly, she continued, “I won’t say anything to the others. You might be an agent of the king, or someone more important. A noble, even. I hope, whoever you are, that you’ll find a way to put an end to all this.” She touched him lightly on the wrist and gave him an earnest look, then rose to go to her customary sleeping spot.

  He would have to be more careful, forget that he was Zachary. Even if the other workers and guards didn’t see as Lorilie saw, he knew Grandmother would.

  THE CAPTAIN’S RUNNER

  Anna shifted her burden on her shoulder, saddlebags stuffed with supplies. Gil, likewise burdened, walked beside her as they trekked across castle grounds toward Rider stables.

  “What about a Green Foot runner?” Gil asked, picking up on an earlier conversation.

  “I’m just about too old,” Anna said. “Plus, I don’t want to be a runner.”

  “Nay? What’re you doin’ now?”

  Gil, Anna had learned, was the newest Rider to hear the call. He arrived in late fall just as the first snowflakes began to swirl in the air. He hailed from Arey Province, way up in the northeast coast of Sacoridia, and came from a fishing family. His journey to Sacor City was an adventure tale of stowing away on a ship, being caught and pressed into service as a deckhand, and his eventual escape by diving overboard into the freezing waters off Hillander Province. Fortunately, he knew how to swim and made it to shore shivering and numb. With his thick Arey accent and all, he was right. She’d become something like Captain Mapstone’s personal runner, sent on errands all over castle grounds.

  They parted to avoid walking through a slushy mud puddle and came back together on the other side.

  “I just don’t understand why,” Anna said, “I am being asked to do these things if I can’t be a Green Rider.” It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help and be around Green Riders—she did!—but it was confusing and a little hurtful. She was still, of course, tending the hearths in the royal apartments, except those of the king’s. They’d been left cold since his disappearance.

  They hastened off the path into a crusty, dirty snowbank as a unit of infantry in formation trotted by at a good clip, splashing right through the puddles without a flinch. Castle grounds had become very busy with the general muster of troops for the forthcoming trouble with Second Empire. The fields outside the city had become a major encampment, and the city itself and castle were filled with uniformed men and women. Provincial militias were being summoned to their own capitals, as well. From Sacor City, the troops would move out to wherever their generals wanted them. It was all beyond Anna, but she did her best to stay out of everyone’s way.

  When finally they reached Rider stables, they found Mara and Brandall waiting for them, and Sophina just leading her horse outside.

  “Good,” Mara said, “the provisions are here.”

  They helped strap the saddlebags to each horse’s saddle, while Mara gave Brandall and Sophina instructions. When Anna finished with her saddlebag, she patted Brandall’s mare, Eagle, on the neck. She’d grown much more at ease around the horses, thanks to her riding lessons.

  “And here come your traveling companions now,” Mara said.

  Anna glanced up as the two Weapons rode their black horses toward them. Actually, only one, Willis, was a full Weapon. The young woman beside him, dressed in charcoal gray, was a Weapon-in-training, but she looked just as grim as any full Weapon. Trainees and instructors alike had been summoned from the Forge to aid in the search for King Zachary, and to make sure there was no shortfall in protection for the queen. Parties of four had been going out to search for the past few weeks, consisting of a pair of Riders, a Weapon, and a Weapon trainee.

  Gil sidled over to Anna and nudged her shoulder. “Mebbe you can become one of them.” He nodded toward Willis and the trainee.

  The trainee appeared to overhear and watched Anna to see what she would say. Inside, she shrieked, No! Not for nothing! The idea of standing silently in the shadows did not appeal. Their ways were mysterious and they seemed unreal to her.

  Aloud, she said, “It is a worthy profession, but I’d make a poor Weapon.”

  When the p
arty rode away and the Weapon trainee was no longer in earshot, Anna turned and socked Gil in the shoulder.

  “Ow!” he exclaimed. “What’d that be for, eh?”

  “For asking me that question in front of Weapons.”

  He rubbed his shoulder. “You afraid they’d stick you with their swords? It was a good question.”

  “Do I look like a Weapon to you? Can you see me like that?”

  “Weeell, I s’pose not.”

  She noticed, abashed, that Mara was watching their exchange with her hands on her hips.

  “If you two are done,” the Chief Rider said, “Hep could use Gil’s help inventorying and cleaning tack.” When Gil groaned, she pointed toward the stables. “Now.”

  “Aye, Chief.” He flashed Anna a smile and trotted toward the stables.

  Anna then found Mara’s attention entirely on her. She swallowed hard.

  “You don’t have hearth duty till this evening, right?” Mara asked.

  “Yes’m.”

  Mara looked relieved. “I am running all out and someone needs to check on the captain. Sometimes she works too hard and forgets meals. Think you could look in on her for me?”

  “Yes’m.”

  Mara smiled. “Good. And make sure she’s resting her shoulder, or Vanlynn will have my hide.”

  • • •

  Instead of going directly to officers quarters, Anna set off for the castle and its kitchens. She figured that even if the captain had remembered her midday meal, a snack would not be remiss. The cooks gave her a full basket to lug back to officers quarters. Apparently they were aware of the captain’s habit of missing meals.

  She tapped softly on the captain’s door, and entered at the sound of a weary, “Come.” She found the captain crouched over her work table, brow creased in concentration. She barely noticed Anna. Anna carried the basket in, using her skill as a servant to move as silently and unobtrusively as she could. There was a small table that could be used for dining, but presently it was covered with ledgers, papers, and an old glove. On top was what appeared to be a personal letter, its blue seal broken. Her reading skills were still nascent, but she was able to make out the name “G’ladheon” in the signature, and she realized it must be from Sir Karigan’s father. She did not dare try to read it. She moved the items aside into a neat pile, the glove splayed on top, and started unpacking the food.