Warrior

by Jennifer Fallon

  Luciena smiled warily, unsettled by their bantering. “I’m sure her highness is very fond of you, Master Tirstone,” she agreed, glancing out of the window. “Gracious! Is that the city?”

  Marla leaned out of the window and looked in the direction they were heading. As they topped the rise, the high granite walls of Krakandar came into view in the distance. Even from this far away, the city was an impressive sight and she smiled with relief at the thought that they were almost home.

  “Yes, Luciena, that is Krakandar.”

  “It’s huge.”

  “You were expecting something smaller, perhaps? Or something more primitive?”

  “I don’t know really,” the girl replied, obviously not sure what she had expected. “Will it take us long to get there?”

  “Less than an hour now,” Marla predicted, settling back into her seat. “If the lookouts have spotted us, I imagine they’re in a panic right about now, getting ready for our arrival.”

  Luciena turned to look at Marla. “Do you always get a big welcome home, your highness?”

  “Always,” Marla replied confidently.

  Chapter 14

  Where are the children?” Marla asked, as she ascended the palace steps.

  Orleon, Krakandar’s faithful chief steward, stood alone on the landing of Krakandar Palace.

  There wasn’t so much as a one-man guard of honour waiting for them.

  “I believe they are on an excursion down in the fens, your highness,” Orleon explained with a bow. “Good afternoon, Master Tirstone. Welcome back to Krakandar.”

  “Good afternoon, Orleon,” Ruxton replied cheerfully, less bothered than Marla that there was nobody there to greet them. “You’re looking well.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’m feeling quite well, too.”

  “Excellent! Has there been any correspondence sent on ahead for me?”

  The old man nodded. “A messenger came for you yesterday, sir. He’s most anxious for your arrival.”

  “The fens?” Marla demanded, glancing at Ruxton in annoyance. At that moment, Ruxton’s messenger could be bringing them news that Fardohnya was invading and she wouldn’t have cared.

  “What, in the name of all the Primal Gods, are they doing in the fens?”

  “Some sort of educational excursion, I believe, your highness.”

  “Where is Mahkas?”

  “Lord and Lady Damaran are in the city, visiting Lady Damaran’s father, your highness. He’s been unwell of late. I sent a messenger to advise them of your pending arrival as soon as your retinue was sighted on the highway. I’m sure they’ll be back soon.”

  “And they just went off into the city and let the children go down into the fens unescorted?”

  Marla demanded, horrified to think of the danger they might be in. “Where is Almodavar?”

  “Captain Almodavar is on a border patrol in Medalon, your highness. But you needn’t fear.

  Captain Harlen escorted the children on their excursion. And I don’t think they were planning anything too strenuous. Lady Kalan and Lady Leila went with the boys. I can have someone sent down to the fens to fetch them. It won’t take—”

  “Don’t bother, Orleon,” Marla cut in with a scowl. “I think I’ll fetch them myself.” She turned to her husband. “Care to accompany me while I find out what those demon-spawn you and I so optimistically refer to as our children are up to in the fens?”

  Ruxton shook his head with a smile. “They’re all yours, my dear. I’m a city boy at heart. All those midges and bogs and creepy-crawly things . . . no, I think I’ll stay behind, find out what news my messenger brings, and see if my daughter is still speaking to me. Feel free to tan the hides of those boys of mine if they’ve been causing trouble, though.”

  “Never fear, I will,” she promised, before turning to Luciena. “I’m sorry about this. Orleon will see you settled into the palace. I won’t be long.”

  “Could I come with you, your highness?”

  Marla looked at her in surprise. “It’s quite a walk.”

  “I don’t mind,” Luciena shrugged. “And in truth, after three weeks in that carriage I could do with the exercise.”

  Marla shrugged. “As you wish.” She turned to Orleon again. “If Mahkas returns while I’m gone, tell him where I am. And please make sure Luciena’s rooms are ready when we get back. She’ll want a bath by then, I’m sure.”

  “Of course, your highness,” Orleon said with a bow, and then he snapped his fingers and several guards hurried across from the guard post on the gate and fell in behind them to accompany the princess and her stepdaughter into the fens.

  Krakandar was a walled city, built in three concentric circles, the last and most recent ring having been completed only two years ago. Mahkas had proposed the plan to increase the size of the city not long after he became regent, and the construction had boosted Krakandar’s prosperity as well as its aesthetic appearance. The only problem they had encountered during the construction of the outer wall was the area around the underground springs that fed Krakandar and provided the city with its water.

  While it was a strategically sound move to enclose the city’s water supply within the city walls, the ground around the springs was marshy and boggy and a breeding ground for insects, as well as home to hundreds of thousands of birds who thrived on the abundant food supply. The engineers had proposed numerous solutions about what to do with the area, which began with draining the bog entirely, and ended with one rather elaborate scheme to build a series of elevated aqueducts to carry the water throughout the city. Both solutions would have resulted in the starvation of the water birds and other creatures who called the fens their home, something Marla suspected was such an insult to Voden, the God of Green Life, that it would result in Krakandar being laid to waste.

  In the end, they had compromised. Enough of the fens were drained to allow a firm foundation for the enclosing wall. A less elaborate network of aqueducts had been constructed to keep the drained area dry and to channel the water into the city’s public wells, and the remaining area had been left in its natural state. It teemed with birdlife and all manner of insects, otters and amphibious creatures. Marla had suggested a series of paths be built through the pools to allow the citizens of Krakandar access to the fens and declared the whole area a water park. She had even had a special brick path constructed down from the palace, so there was a private entrance allowing any guest of the palace access to the fens without going the long way around through the city.

  It had all seemed a wonderful notion, until the children discovered how much fun you could have in a place like that. Since the first day she had taken the children down to view the newly completed pathways through the fens, Marla had fretted about one of them falling into and drowning in an unexpectedly deep pond, or being taken by some previously unidentified creature lurking in the depths of a murky pool.

  The gate to the fens was open as Marla, Luciena and their small escort approached, flung wide as if someone had opened it in a hurry and not thought to close it. A little concerned, Marla picked up the pace and hurried into the cool depths of the overhanging willows that bordered the fens. She was suddenly feeling ill, as a foreboding premonition washed over her.

  Her fears solidified into a sick certainty as she heard shouts in the distance. She broke into a run, leaving Luciena and her escort behind, certain it was Kalan’s voice she could hear crying out in desperation. The leaf-carpeted path was silent under her feet as she picked up her skirts and hurried towards the cries of pain, the shouts . . .

  Marla rounded a small curve in the path and skidded to a halt, stunned by what she found. The path skirted a muddy bog, veering away to the left. Standing on the edge of the path were the twins, Kalan and Narvell, the two Tirstone boys, Rodja and Adham, and Raek Harlen, the Raider captain assigned to watch over her children. None of them saw her; they were too busy shouting encouragement to another pair of boys involved in a fistfight, right in the middle of the mudd
y bog.

  Panting heavily, Marla took in the scene with disbelief. Luciena and the guards caught up just as Raek turned and then bowed hastily when he realised it was the princess who stood behind him.

  “Your highness!”

  “Captain Harlen.”

  “I . . . er . . . we weren’t expecting you for another few days.”

  “That is abundantly clear.”

  Raek glanced a little guiltily over his shoulder at the boys in the bog. Filtered sunlight streaked the muddy quagmire with bands of light that made it hard to tell one from the other. “They’re in no danger, your highness.”

  “Then would it be too much to ask, Captain Harlen, what those boys are doing?”

  “Settling a few differences,” the Raider replied, as one muddied combatant threw a wild punch at the other. They were covered in mud from head to toe. Marla couldn’t tell them apart.

  “What are they fighting about?”

  “It’s complicated, your highness.”

  The boy on the left retaliated with a blow that slid straight off his slimy opponent. Marla grimaced as he overbalanced and slipped, landing on the other boy, taking him down with him. They both fell into the mud, which made thick sucking noises as they struggled to regain their footing. It was as if the ground was hungry and didn’t want to let go of this unexpected bounty.

  “Try me, Raek. I’m sure I can handle it.”

  The tall Raider smiled. “I believe it started when young Leila refused to traipse through the bog to see the tadpole pool Kalan found here the other day.”

  “I see,” Marla replied, glaring at her daughter.

  Kalan had just noticed her mother had arrived. She smiled nervously and took a step closer to her twin. Marla could almost see the cogs of her mischievous little mind turning over as she desperately tried to come up with an excuse for being in the fens at all, a place she knew was off limits without the strictest supervision.

  “In the ensuing discussion about the merits of various amphibious life forms,” Raek continued in the same bland voice, “the boys decided there was an urgent need to collect a number of samples for scientific research.”

  “Scientific research?”

  “You have to give them points for being inventive, your highness.”

  “It still doesn’t explain why they’re fighting.”

  “When Leila complained about going into the fens, Damin called his cousin a sissy. She got upset. Starros felt it necessary to come to her defence.”

  Interesting, Marla thought. “And where is Leila now?”

  “She ran back to the palace in tears, your highness. I believe it was that which prompted Starros to reprimand your son. Things just sort of . . . degenerated from there.”

  “Who’s winning?”

  “Starros has the upper hand at present, your highness, although if the fight goes on much longer, Damin will surely triumph. Starros is quick, but Damin has more stamina.”

  Marla threw up her hands and turned to Luciena. “This wasn’t the introduction to your stepbrothers that I had in mind.”

  The girl was obviously trying hard not to smile. “I imagine it wasn’t.”

  “Which one is he, Raek?”

  “The one on the right, your highness.”

  Marla shook her head and sighed heavily. “And during all of this, you never felt the need to intervene, Captain?”

  “My orders are to see the children remain safe, your highness, not to fight their fights or make their decisions for them.”

  She shook her head at the folly of all men. “That sounds like something Almodavar would say.”

  “It was Captain Almodavar who gave me my orders, your highness.”

  And a good order it was, too, Marla conceded reluctantly. With vigilant bodyguards watching his every move, it would be easy to simply fall into the trap of always guiding Damin along the right path.

  Easy and dangerous. Damin had to learn to think for himself. There was just something fundamentally skewed about a captain of Krakandar’s Guard standing back while his two charges slugged it out over a trip into the fens that they shouldn’t have been allowed to make in the first place.

  “I think it’s time to put a stop to it, Captain.”

  “Starros won’t be pleased,” Raek remarked. “He doesn’t often get the better of Damin.”

  “I’m sure he’ll learn to live with the disappointment.”

  Raek nodded and put his index fingers into the corners of his mouth and let out a whistle that almost pierced Marla’s eardrums with its intensity. She instinctively covered her ears, but at the sound the boys immediately halted their fighting and looked up at where Raek Harlen waited with Marla and Luciena.

  “Enough!” Raek shouted to them. “Get up here.”

  The mud-encrusted boy on the left took a step backwards and slipped, landing on his backside.

  One of the Tirstone boys giggled at the sight, but stifled it quickly as Raek gave him a warning glare over his shoulder. The boy’s equally filthy companion, with whom he had been trading blows only moments before, helped him up and together they waded through the sucking black mud to the edge, then clambered up the slight embankment until they were only a few feet from Marla. Both boys had bloodied noses mixed in with the mud, but their eyes were bright and they were panting heavily from the exertion.

  The boy on the left grinned, a line of white teeth appearing in the black crack of his mouth. He took a step closer, his arms wide. “Mother! You’re back!”

  Marla glared at him. “Don’t you come one step nearer, Damin. You’re disgusting!”

  “Your highness.” Starros greeted her with a surprisingly courtly bow, given he appeared to have been freshly spat out of the earth after being buried alive.

  “Starros.”

  “It’s not what it looks like, Mother—,” Damin began.

  “Get back to the palace,” Marla ordered stiffly. “Both of you. I expect you in the dining room in one hour, looking like civilised human beings.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Damin replied. He grinned a little wider, nudged Starros and the two of them took off at a run, back through the fens.

  Marla shook her head as she watched them leave. “He’s incorrigible.”

  “Aye,” Raek agreed.

  Marla looked at him askance.

  “But there’s not a man in Krakandar who wouldn’t die for him, your highness,” he added.

  “Is that so?” She turned her attention to Kalan, Narvell and her stepsons. They were all looking more than a little shamefaced. “Rodja, Adham. I suggest you follow Damin’s example. Your father is waiting for you at the palace.”

  The boys fled wordlessly in the direction Damin and Starros had gone. The twins made to follow but Marla caught them by the collars of their shirts. “As for you two . . .”

  “It wasn’t my fault, Mama!” Kalan protested, trying to wriggle free. “Narvell made me do it!”

  “But I’m the youngest!” Narvell objected, looking up at his mother with a plaintive smile. “And Lirena says I’m easily led.” Marla felt her heart constrict for a moment. He was so like Nash, sometimes it actually hurt to look at him.

  “I expect you both in the dining room in one hour also,” she informed them sternly. Then to Kalan she added, “Dressed in your own clothes, young lady. Not your brother’s castoffs.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Kalan replied with entirely false submission. Marla let it pass and released the twins, who bolted in the direction their brothers had gone.

  Marla turned to discover Luciena trying very hard not to smile as she waved away a cloud of midges. “You find this amusing, Luciena?”

  “No, your highness,” she said hurriedly. “What will you do to them?”

  “Kill them, probably,” Marla announced flatly.

  The young woman raised a brow curiously. “After all the trouble you’ve gone to, protecting your children’s lives?”

  “I said I wouldn’t risk another attack against Damin succeeding,
Luciena,” she reminded her new stepdaughter grumpily as she picked up her skirts and headed back along the path. “I never said I wouldn’t be willing to do the job myself.”

  There wasn’t really anything Luciena could say to that. The young woman fell into step beside Marla and, with their escort, they made their way back through the clouds of midges to the palace.

  Chapter 15

  Mahkas Damaran, Regent of Krakandar, was mortified when he realised Princess Marla had returned to the palace while he was in the city visiting his father-in-law. He was even more upset to learn that the children had been caught playing down in the fens, and positively distressed when he learned that Damin and Starros had got into a fistfight.

  He was even more horrified to discover that his own daughter had been the cause of the fight.

  “What were you thinking?” he demanded of Leila, as she tried to explain things to her mother.

  He had found her hiding in Bylinda’s bedroom, where she had fled when she realised how angry her father was after he had spoken to Princess Marla. He grabbed his daughter by the shoulder and spun her round to face him.

  Leila’s eyes filled with tears at his rough handling.

  “You knew your aunt was due any day! Why did you follow the others down into the fens?

  Marla found the boys fighting in a bog! Over you!”

  “It’s not my fault!” she sobbed, frightened by his tone. “I said I didn’t want to go. Damin called me a sissy. I didn’t know Starros was going to fight him.”

  Bylinda looked almost as distressed as Leila did. She rose to her feet and stepped a little closer to Leila. “Mahkas, it’s hardly her fault if—”

  “Of course it’s her fault!” he snapped at his wife. He turned back to Leila and shook her impatiently by the shoulders. “You should have done what Damin asked, Leila, and then none of this would have happened.”

  “But I hate it down in the fens! It’s full of bugs and creepy-crawly things. And we’re not supposed to go there anyway.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mahkas insisted. “You’ll be Damin’s wife one day and you’ll have to do everything he says then. You might as well get used to it now.”