"The assassin?"
"He did injure himself on my behalf, he at least deserves an armed escort back to his family," Ciara said, "and I can finally sample some of that Dunlaw cuisine peddlers rave about."
It should have cowed her, hanging this albatross of a future of nothing but unknowns in a land she'd never been, accompanied by a witch she barely tolerated and a man paid to kill. But all she felt was lighter, as if her soul had been dusted off, ironed out and brought to the light. A future of her own making. No wonder her mother was always afraid of how much she reflected her father.
Aldrin's eyes shifted down to their interlocked hands, her fingers always so warm within his frozen mitts. He'd known in that cruel part of his pragmatic heart that this 'whatever it was' between them couldn't, wouldn't last. "I suppose I shall never see you again," he said softly.
Ciara smiled and turned her head to his, "Oh, I don't know about that." Her fingers ran around his whiskered cheek as she said, "Kings seem to get into an awful lot of trouble. I'm certain you could use the help once in a while."
Aldrin grabbed her fingers over his cheek and held them close as he leaned into her, "Forever and always," he said.
"Sire!"
"Scepticar infest that man's nostrils with lice!" Aldrin cursed as he leaned away from the tempting lips of Ciara to face the red-faced toady. Moren surely sent him to "keep watch."
"What is it, Barnaby?"
"Uh, um," the steward struggled, trying to come up with an excuse to pull the King away. The Queen was very strict about fraternization. "There is a matter you must attend to...."
"Urgently, yes, yes I get it," his muted eyes turned back to Ciara's and she shrugged her shoulders. A King's work was never done. Oh, to hell with it. Damning the lecture he'd face, Aldrin dashed his face forward, catching Ciara's lips in a surprise that turned to joy.
Toady coughed into his fist, trying to break apart the teenagers macking in front of him. When that didn't work he hummed loudly, and snapped his fingers. He was about to go find a bucket of water when the two came up for air.
"I should probably go and find Isa before she burns down my mother's Tower," Ciara said, still holding tight to Aldrin's fingers.
"Yes, and I am needed 'urgently,'" he said, glancing with disgust at the grateful Steward.
"See ya, Aldrin."
"See ya, Cia."
For a final time, Ciara let go of his hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Rutager jr. shifted in her saddle. The salty sea air did a number on her sinuses, and she'd be grateful for when they'd finally get their arses back to a real camp and away from all this nature. Her best friend Susan slugged her on the arm and said, "Look sharp, or we'll get the lash tonight."
"Nonsense, the Sergeant's been ass deep into a bottle since the truce was called. He's just happy he didn't lose both his legs before the fighting stopped."
Susan glared at her but fell silent, only pulling on his beard in frustration, or worry, or when he needed to take a piss. It was a wonder of the gods he had a beard at all. They made a strange pair at times, but it was no wonder the two bonded over a share of parents with a poor grasp of gendered names.
Some loud horn blared over the gathered battalion of riders, each trying to shush their startled horses. The reason they'd all been assembled in the first place parted through the line, his ash blonde hair streaked with a coming grey. A decade of war had been far kinder to him than most expected, his face folding into more laugh than worry lines as he turned to inspect his troops. He wasn't to Rutager's taste, but Susan sat up higher in his saddle.
The King, their King if you wanted to get technical, dismounted off his mount, a black beauty that turned any horseman's heart. Another man stood before him, dressed in a fading red robe. He was quiet up until someone got a few beers into him, then he couldn't stop talking about wild stories involving elves and some woman named Cas and how they all fooled the Empire with wooden ears and their King made for quite a convincing sorcerer. His hair was shoulder length, a rare fashion for the times. Whenever anyone asked, he'd look away and say it was to honor his brother.
"Step aside, step aside," the horses parted again as a man, nearing forty, tried to run up to join them, "Thought you could leave without me, eh?"
Their King only smiled, "I could never shake you off before, Kynton. What makes you think it'd work now?"
"Exactly," the bishop smiled wide, his bald spot turning into a tonsure no matter how much he cursed and rubbed "Brother Balm's Guaranteed Baldness Cure" over it. The smell was enough to knock out a horse two towns over. As the bishop passed by, Rutager was grateful for the salty breeze and the pungent air-clearing odor of seagull shit.
"They're not late are they? Be incredibly rude to be late to your own surrender," the bishop babbled. The King placed his hand upon the man's forearm as a pair of riders crested over the sandy hills. He let the Empire chose the place of their own humiliation. It only seemed fair.
A man, near the same age as their King, but looking far more run through the ringer and left in a pile to dry, spurred his horse down the sands. Susan gripped his reigns tight, excited to be a part of this history in the making.
Rutager did as she always did in the face of boredom, and let her eyes wander of their own accord. A pair of starlings circled in and out of their small nests in the craggy cliffs overlooking the beach. She brought a hand over her eyes to shield them and thought she spotted a shadow overlooking the cliff. It looked a bit like a man drawing back a long bow.
Actually, exactly like a man drawing back a long bow and aiming the arrow directly at their King. Assassin! She was about to call out to her Lord as he stood exposed for his triumph, when the shadow jerked and tipped forward before plummeting down the rocky cliffs, his body lost to the hungry crabs.
A new shadow stood in the old one's place, slowly wiping a blade off before sheathing it. Another shadow, much shorter, walked up beside and seemed to be arguing with the first one. A flare burst across the air as the second shadow tossed a fireball into the air. The first shadow didn't even notice, all its attention on the King.
Rutager turned from the display and spurred her horse, "Sire! My Lord!"
The King turned from his diplomatic greetings to the horsewoman baring down upon him, "Yes, Soldier?"
"Sir! There was an assassin at the top of that cliff!" Rutager said, and then saluted. She was always bollocks at all that pomp stuff. The King paid it all no heed.
Instead, a single eyebrow rose as he followed her finger to the shadows lining the cliff, "Oh?"
"Yeah, he was there and then he wasn't. Someone must have stabbed him in the back."
The King wasn't listening to Rutager's fascinating explanation of his near brush with death. He was shading his own eyes, squinting to the dark shadow on the far cliff. A smile curled his lips and he waved enthusiastically to the shade. It was probably the sun and salt playing old tricks on her eyes, but Rutager could almost swear the shadow waved back.
"You'll have to try much harder to dispose of me, Emperor," the King said gleefully to the man grinding his teeth in anger, "I have a guardian angel watching over me."
The treaty was signed, signed again, and sealed with little trouble. Only the bishop interrupted the rather smooth operation as the Emperor cursed his bad luck, by trying to get everyone to guess what number he was thinking of. As the King mounted his horse and pointed everyone back home, he sidled up to Rutager.
"Have you heard of the Order of Cas?"
Rutager shook her head, trying to not swallow. She was in for it this time, royalty didn't talk to the common riff raff unless there were going to be some heads going off. "No, Sire."
"They're a rather famous group of women who supposedly roam the countryside righting wrongs, and wronging rights."
"I see, Sire."
"Begun by a special woman," he confided in Rutager, as if he believed in the tales of children, "who could turn a boy into a King and an Emperor int
o a corpse. Well, help at least," he chuckled at his inside joke.
"Sire, not to be too overly critical, but why are you telling me all this?"
"Because," he said, his finger pointing towards a dark woman striding confidently towards the pair, her armor blinding in the setting sun, "I believe she's come to recruit you."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. E. Zbasnik has a degree in genetics, which means there may or may not be a horde of monkeoctopi doing her bidding to take over the world. Bringing that scientific approach to the fantasy world is her game, trying to put some common sense into magic and magic into common sense. She currently lives with her husband and beloved dog, who dress up like Sherlock Holmes and solve mysteries in their spare time.
She spends nearly of all her time in Nebraska but that's because it is impossible to leave without finding the lamppost. She lives in a house that has at least four walls and there are some other souls wandering forlornly calling to their lost lives within.
She loves and hates writing as she both loves and hates herself.
Notes
1. No one had a clue what that one was about, most suspected something involving logging.
2. Somewhere in the coatroom were the archers, probably drinking white tea and discussing their quivers. It was hard to know how they passed their time. No one spent more than two minutes talking to an archer including their own mothers.
3. Who never had anything very interesting to talk about outside of land, gold and bastards.
4. Who talked of exciting nights spent locked inside cages waiting to dance with some hangman.
5. Who only spoke of sorghum, pig shit, and the effect the tax rate upon unrotated crops would have for this coming winter.
6. Which would surprise most as they could at best remember the Queen making a strange little snigger at anything she found humorous; about once an age.
7. Their mother didn't care how many came out of her, she was only naming one baby.
8. If archers thought they could get away with firing swords from their bows in a bid to out extreme their peers, they would.
9. In this case it was the local pig union 12, he was a man of little taste.
10. A spoonful of liquor helps the medicine go down.
11. The owner was going through a Hobbit phase.
12. A knife was a necessity to cut through the clotted soups favored in the mountains and a rather enterprising man, tired of having to switch hands to get through his beef bullion, crafted the world's first spife.
13. Her first aid boiled down the old acronym, MEAD: Motionlessness Elevation Aid Death
14. Or conversely, a house made fully of gingerbread and hand stretched candies, ignoring the clear code violations and lack of structural support it could provide against a slight drizzle. Peasants could be quite silly at times.
15. And the Southern Pass, off the coasts of Scepton, and on a ship to Dunlaw. Bored soldiers could have wild imaginations.
16. Depending on if Brother Stephen could make it across town before service at Our Lady of Perpetual Waiting began.
17. The short answer was "none," but he'd been able to ride that out to tenure.
18. First rule, kill the other bastard.
19. In case anyone ever tried to determine just how many books the man had to his name. Alan Smithee as an academic may not be well respected, but he gets his name out there and in the most varying of disciplines.
20. Which were actually pits carved into scorpions. It was never wise to go wandering the dark Dunes of the South at night without a sword, or twelve.
21. Which, even when not imaginary plates, at best gets a meh, at worst gets a cook threatening serious bodily harm with a cleaver.
22. Mostly a few apple crates swiped from the townsfolk when they were all too busy throwing their knickers at Mitrione who stuffed them in his pocket for later. No one wanted to ask what later meant.
23. They can all go to hell, was the meteorologist's general consensus.
24. Even though there had been no students for hundreds of years, exam time was still a period of quiet reflection upon the knowledge they gained in the past year and trying to get at least one person to cry.
25. Isa had some interesting childhood books, especially "Why is your liver green, Sam?"
26. Not sleeping with your half sister was number nine. Never trusting a man named MacBeth to hold your favorite dagger while you pissed was number seven.
27. "You sunk my Galleon!"
28. The elephant stepping on his head was always considered a bit much.
29. Organizing by color made as much sense as "how much someone likes the pretty pictures on the cover" for the illiterate librarian.
30. Aldrin's choice of bedtime reading would have sent the Historians into apoplectic fits.
31. No one wanted to ask why the brothers had such a flair for elaborate fabrics, or what all the feathers were for.
32. "Was not friendly to guests of different species. Bread tasted of lost hopes and dreams. Seating ample."
33. Though as it kept them from the snow perhaps he should have been grateful.
34. It was the first love poem to include a stanza about a dagger to the kidneys.
35. Aldrin made a mental note to look into normalizing their currencies nomenclature. Trading three drawings of peas for two real peas did not strike one as a proper way to run a country.
36. Damsels were women unable to do anything more complicated than get themselves captured by overgrown lizards with virgin fetishes.
37. A common sight for anyone who drank enough of the barley water.
38. Taban was many things, a master of metaphors; however, wasn't one of them.
39. Which is about as disgusting a metaphor as one can make. You're welcome.
40. Brother Maynar worked his fear of frogs into every catchy sermon. Idle amphibians are the devil's playthings.
41. First, do no harm; unless the patient cannot pay.
42. Ostero always got saddled with the losing side's commemorative blades. A few even claimed to have some Elven daggers proclaiming their victory over all humankind.
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