Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles)

by Robert Brady

  Xinto shrugged. “I’ve dealt with Volkhydrans before,” he said. “He could even know me.”

  Glynn smiled. “All the less reason to trust you,” she said. “No, we must leave together, and anon.”

  Xinto nodded. “How to convince your former charges, then?” he asked.

  Glynn sighed. “They’ll stand by each other and do nothing, if we ask the two of them together,” she said. “We got to get them apart, and then perhaps by guile or by force—”

  Xinto was already shaking his head. “You don’t want to bully them out of the city,” he said. “They’d escape the first opportunity they saw, and I don’t want to sleep in shifts watching them. Some spell to convince them, perhaps?”

  Now Glynn shook her head. “Another development anew is this Raven’s immunity to normal magix,” she said. “We’d noted among the Uman-Chi her abnormal resistance and resilience to magic, now it seems to absolutely evade her. Young Nina was rendered unconscious for hours and powerless for more than a day when she tried a spell on Raven. I myself was thrown from the Imperial dining room over the palace wall, merely floating a glamour toward her.”

  Xinto frowned, impressed. “No magic, no force. Too bad they’re Men, or we might try to reason with them.”

  Glynn sighed again. “Too well is it known that reason eludes the capabilities of Men,” she said.

  Xinto smiled. “Reason, yes,” he said. “But not raw emotion.”

  Glynn nodded. “It is ever true the way to engage Men is through their hearts,” she said. “Get their blood pumping and they might do almost anything.”

  Xinto smiled a wolfish grin. “Yes,” he said to her, leaping off of the bed and walking to the doorway to the open balcony.

  “Properly motivated, or properly engaged, I believe it’s safe to say Men might do anything, indeed.”

  * * *

  Shela entered the nursery to rouse Chawny from her nap. She’d just come from a meeting with J’her and a Wolf Soldier she’d assigned to follow the Baroness Glynn Escaroth on her dumpster-cleaning duties. He’d ended up drunk in a bar with no excuses for his action, and truth-saying revealed he honestly didn’t know. There was something wrong with that man, but whatever had been done with him had happened days earlier and was now too faint to sniff out.

  Now she didn’t sense one of her children, and that was strange. Normally her babies were like bells in her head, always ringing. Chawny’s bell had rung silent.

  She shook her head as she pushed open the door to the children’s bedroom. Strange, strange happenings.

  Her next annoyance came in finding Chawny’s bassinet empty. If Nina didn’t watch her closely, Lee liked to take the baby out and mother her; normal for a young girl but not good for Chawny.

  “Lee!” Shela called for her daughter.

  “Yes, mama,” her eldest daughter emerged from the playroom alongside the nursery, her brother in tow.

  “Lee, do you have your sister?”

  “No, mama.”

  “Do you know where Nina is?”

  Both children looked at each other, then at her, a warning signal to any mother.

  “She’s sleepin’,” Vulpe said.

  “Sleeping?”

  “She was crying,” Lee admitted.

  “Oh, no,” Shela said. She didn’t think it would be so easy for the girl to get over her conflict with White Wolf. He’d become a father to her. “Did she take the baby?”

  “Chawny is in here,” Lee said, and ran to the bassinet. She looked as surprised as Shela to find her missing.

  Nina’s room lay opposite the nursery, on the single hall to this place. Glynn burst through the door in a moment, to find Nina in a fetal position on top of her covers, and no Angry at the Sun.

  “Where is the baby?” Shela demanded.

  Nina leapt up in a moment, reaching for her knives. Shela didn’t need to ask again to know the answer.

  She summoned Power’s might and reached out with her mind for her youngest daughter, and found nothing on this hall.

  Nothing on this wing of the palace.

  Nothing within the palace walls.

  Nothing within the city of Eldador.

  “Alarm!” she called out. Behind her Lee started crying, so Vulpe of course joined her. “Alarm, the Guard!”

  Nina sprinted past her without asking—Shela bolted for her private rooms where she kept a large portion of her best materials and tools. Nina would protect the children and maintain contact with Shela. She dragged Lee and Vulpe into their room, and activated the wards that made them impervious.

  Shela found the Wolf Soldier guards who stood at the one entrance to the hall, a full squad. Shela had its sergeant by the collar before she stopped running.

  “You,” she commanded the soldier next to him. “Alarm the Guard. Chawny is missing and not within the city.”

  “You,” she addressed the sergeant, the other soldier already sprinting off with two of his fellows. “Who has been down that hall?”

  “N-no one, m’lady,” he said. “Yourself, Nina, the children.”

  “Raven, the Mountain, Glynn Escaroth?” Shela demanded. Her magic reached into his mind, finding the answers before he uttered them.

  “No,” he said. “And none asked.”

  “On your life,” she told him, “no one but myself or the Emperor past these doors.”

  “On my life,” he said, and made a fist over his heart.

  * * *

  “I am so sick of your asking—” the Emperor complained, and a squad of Wolf Soldiers burst into the throne room.

  J’her knew the Emperor’s foul mood. He could likely lose this squad if this interruption proved frivolous.

  “Alarm,” the sergeant shouted. “Alarm the Guard!”

  The throne room erupted into chaos. J’her raced Lupus to the Wolf Soldiers.

  “What is this?” Lupus snarled, pounding across the throne room.

  “Lupus,” the man said. J’her recognized Thek Mandin, a Volkhydran, already ear-marked for captain. “From Shela—alarm the guard.

  “Your youngest daughter is missing and not in the city.”

  A momentary look of shock crossed Lupus’ face. No one expected those words.

  The look that replaced it spoke of an anger that actually made them all step back from him. When old King Glennen had died, J’her had seen Lupus on the verge of berserker rage. This seemed worse.

  “Seal the city,” he commanded, and turned to J’her.

  “Martial law,” he said. “Right now. Raise the whole Pack. I want a door to door of every room in the palace and every house in Eldador, and I want it now. Use Eldadorian regulars if you have to—Hectar has a thousand, they are yours.”

  “Lupus, Shela said—”

  In a moment, the Emperor’s face was inches from J’her’s, his eyes fixed on his Supreme Commander. J’her actually felt the huge Man’s breath on his cheeks and nose.

  “DID YOU HEAR ME, SUPREME COMMANDER?”

  “I HEARD YOU, SIR!” J’her responded immediately, a reflex. He was a Wolf Soldier.

  Lupus took J’her by the shoulders in his hands, the grip painfully tight, the Emperor’s eyes almost burning into J’her’s own.

  “Every room, every house, make it happen.”

  “I will,” J’her promised him.

  Lupus turned on his heel, J’her turn on his. The four majors whose Millennia were stationed permanently in Eldador the Port already waited for him at the throne room entrance.

  “You saw that?”

  Dev Nevala nodded, an Uman with scars on her face, the Mark of the Conqueror received for her bravery at the Battle for Wisex and the second invasion of Thera. Agtar and Belmar, both Volkhydrans—Lupus called them ‘the bookends’—nodded after. They were all muscle, with the stupid look of muscle men. In fact these were brilliant men whom the Emperor had saved from hanging in Ulep for running some kind of protection scam.

  “We saw,” answered M’den Grek, another Uman, fr
om Sental, his ever-present smile pointed at his Supreme Commander. “I’ve never seen him that angry.”

  “I have,” J’her answered him. “You know the situation?”

  “Hard not to,” Dev said. “What are your orders?”

  “Shut the city down,” J’her said. “Martial law—everyone off the streets. Dev, your Millennia and Duke Hectar’s regulars will search the city house-by-house. What you can’t enter, break down.”

  She turned on her heel. That would be a mean job. Eldadorians were used to a certain level of independence.

  “Agtar, your troops have the palace. Start with the dungeons and work your way up.”

  Agtar left. Since the inauguration when a Bounty Hunter had almost escaped from Eldador through the tunnels beneath the city, Wolf Soldiers had maintained squads who were specifically responsible for them. Agtar commanded these men.

  “Belmar, the wharves,” J’her said. “Every ship and, if any have left today, run them down with our Sea Wolves. If you have to leave the city, take one of our barely gifted messengers, every ship.”

  Belmar made a fist over his heart and left. During the day when the Empress bore Angry at the Sun, Belmar had personally stood watch outside of her rooms with three of his captains. He had wanted to be the first Wolf Soldier to salute her.

  If Belmar caught the man or woman who took her…That was a thought for another day.

  J’her stood alone with M’den. M’den was the best of them. If J’her should die tomorrow, M’den would have the Supreme Commander’s job before laying J’her to rest.

  “Shela said that Chawny isn’t in the city,” J’her said.

  “I heard. Which roads?”

  “All of them.”

  “I think not,” M’den said. “Free Legionnaires will be in the city of Metz. Let’s have a wizard tell them to secure the east, and have Thera come in from the West with two thousand Lancers. I’ll go south.”

  J’her nodded, recognizing the better plan. “I’ll let the Emperor know,” he said. He took M’den by the shoulder, just as Lupus had done with him.

  “She doesn’t disappear,” he said, looking into M’den’s eyes. “Chawnaluh Nanahee Nudageehay sleeps in her own bed tonight, no matter the cost.”

  * * *

  Shela in her room searched for the personal signature which marked her daughter’s aura, as only a mother could know it. Her identity, her being, her smell. She’d expanded her search from Galnesh Eldador and moved to the roads and outlying villages.

  “Where are our troops?” Lupus demanded.

  “We have a thousand searching the palace,” J’her told him, “and a thousand at the wharves and marketplace. Two thousand are searching the city, Wolf Soldiers and Eldadorian regulars. Another thousand went south with M’den.”

  “East, west?” Lupus said. Courtiers put his armor on him, Blizzard had already been saddled. Wolf Soldiers buzzed in and out of the Empress’ rooms like bees to a hive.

  “We have confirmation the Free Legion has mobilized one hundred squads from Metz. Duke Two Spears has sent two thousand lancers east. Andurin is already searching their city, in case this is the work of a very gifted wizard.”

  “Check the other kids, Shela,” Lupus said.

  “I just did—they’re fine,” Shela said. She checked with Nina every fifteen minutes. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone came after them one way, to get at them another.

  Dev returned, and made a fist over her heart. “They aren’t in the palace, they aren’t in the tunnels,” she said. “They didn’t leave through there—the passages are secure from the inside.

  “But Lupus,” she said, and she waited for the Emperor to look into her eyes before continuing, “Xinto of the Woods is missing.”

  “War’s beard!” J’her swore. They’d kept a watch on the Scitai, and a watch on the watch. Shela couldn’t imagine how he’d snuck past that.

  “Take your Millennia southwest,” Lupus said. “Go as far as the Lone Wood. Search everything you—”

  “Got her!” Shela shouted.

  She had gone northeast on a hunch. Someone might think to leave the country on a fishing vessel. Yonega Waya had used them to invade Trenbon long ago.

  Sure enough, halfway between Tonkin and Eldador, she detected her daughter, moving fast.

  “The shore road, half way to Tonkin,” she said. “I can’t see her, but I can sense her movement. One of them must be a wizard, trying to mask her essence from me.”

  “I’ll go on Blizzard,” Lupus said, as the squire attached his breastplate to his black plate. “Dev, your Millennia will cross south of me. If they detect me and turn south, you’ll catch them.”

  “J’her you’ll catch M’den’s Millennia and divert them south of Dev’s. If they get in front of or behind Dev, you will catch them.”

  “I’m going with you,” Shela said.

  “You’re staying here to coordinate,” Lupus ordered her. She knew he would, even when she opened her mouth. She knew the decision made sense, too.

  Yonega Waya would more likely catch them if he could go as fast as Blizzard could take him.

  “You can’t go alone,” J’her protested. “Lupus, be reasonable—they know who you are.”

  Lupus nodded. He searched out Shela, and their eyes met.

  Only one horse could keep pace with Blizzard.

  “Fetch the Mountain to me,” he ordered J’her. “Tell him we’ll be riding fast. There’s a breast plate and greaves that used to belong to Glennen—they should fit him close enough. There’s a falchion the Volkhydrans made for me in the armory.”

  He turned to Shela when J’her saluted and left.

  “Contact Ancenon and let him know what you know. Tell him to cut them off from Tonkin.”

  “I will,” Shela said. He stepped down from the dressing stand, and she ran to him.

  “And as for Xinto—he’s yours. You can do whatever you want to him, I don’t care. He wants to run; you make an example of him—a scary example. If he has anything to do with this, you make it worse.”

  Shela nodded.

  He kissed her and he gave her a squeeze. “She will sleep in her own bed tonight,” he told her.

  “Just bring her home safe,” she said, and she felt the tears on her cheeks.

  * * *

  Melissa sat alone in her rooms on a stool by their one window, a paintbrush in her hand with the paint drying on it, a blank canvas in front of her. She smelled the oil in the paint, the salt air coming off of Tren Bay. A breeze blew in through the window, caught her hair and the ruffles at the neckline of the purple blouse she wore.

  They’d come for Bill an hour ago. Might be more time or less—there wasn’t a clock in this room. The sun hadn’t moved very far or the shadows on the floor lengthened much since then. Lupus was leaving because someone had kidnapped his daughter, and he was going after them. He needed Bill, because Little Storm could run with Blizzard.

  They’d dressed him up in a leather vest and a breast plate over it and strapped steel shielding to his shins and arms. They’d pushed a huge sword into his hand, and then given him a sheath for it that he could wear over his shoulder. Finally they’d pushed a helmet over his head and guided him out the door.

  She’d wanted to kiss him before he left, to warn him to be careful, to wish him well. The Uman J’her and his Wolf Soldiers weren’t having it. They’d burst in with the armor and weapon and told him what was going on as they dressed him. They weren’t asking him if he would help, they told him they were going. The princess was missing and this was serious.

  People who’d take a princess from an emperor would kill to keep her. Supposedly the Emperor could handle himself, but Bill wasn’t a warrior. He could die in a fight.

  He could die without her ever getting to tell him that she loved him.

  “My Lady, Raven,” she heard behind her.

  She spun around on her stool to see Glynn standing in her rooms, her hands held one-in-the-other before her
, dressed in a heavy cotton blue dress with bows on the skirt and white lace at the neck and cuffs. Her green hair hung loose at her shoulders, the breeze not affecting it.

  “Oh, Glynn,” she said, and couldn’t help bursting into tears. She didn’t run to the other woman because, even though she was really more than a century and a half old, she looked sixteen, but she felt the tears run down her cheeks and her nose fill up. “Glynn, someone took Chawny, and now Lupus took Buh—took the Mountain to find them.”

  Glynn smiled a smug little smile and Xinto stepped out from behind her. He was wearing the same cloak he’d had when she first saw him, and a pointed hat with a rakish, orange feather.

  “The princess is fine,” he said. “Your man is going to go on a hard ride, but he’s in no danger.”

  Melissa straightened. Xinto was a prisoner. If Glynn released him…

  What was she getting into?

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  Glynn smiled that irritating little smile again. “Raven,” she said, “You’ve heard my song, and you know Lupus is the One about whom we were warned,” she said.

  She shook her head. “Oh, Glynn,” she said.

  Xinto stepped forward. “Believe me when I tell you,” he said, “I am no more anxious than you to make an enemy of the Emperor Rancor Mordetur.”

  “You,” Raven said, and wiped the tears from her cheeks and eyes with her blouse’s cuff, “are just afraid of him.”

  “Of course I’m afraid of him,” Xinto said. “I’m afraid of him, she’s afraid of him, most of Fovea is afraid of him. You’d be afraid of him, too, if you knew him.”

  Raven shook her head. “He’s been nothing but decent,” she began.

  “You mean, he gives you things,” Xinto interrupted her, “but you’ve spoken to him, just as I have. What does your countryman want, Raven?”

  Melissa had been thinking a lot about this. She reflected on that conversation she’d had with Shela after dinner one day, when she’d learned that Lupus planned to go conquer the rest of Fovea.

  Forget the fact that he was probably going to take Bill with him. He was going to go conquer Fovea. He was going to do it because he felt like it. They hadn’t done anything to him, they didn’t have anything he needed, he just wanted to.