Shade of Honor: From the Federal Witch Series (Standard of Honor Series Book 1)

by Taki Drake

  Dascha was crouched down on the ground in a small ball. Zhanna could see blood splatter on the ground and knew that it was her familiar’s. Slamming through the air where she pictured a fighter holding a blade would be, Zhanna felt for an instant an insubstantial shape. Taller than she, broader than she was, and definitely more muscular. The young woman grabbed the sword as she came through the incorporeal body of the ghost, clutching the weapon to her chest.

  Grabbing a sword at high speed and immobilizing it against your body is not normally a recipe for success. It certainly wasn’t totally successful in this instance. Zhanna felt the edge of the blade cut into her shoulder slightly, and blood started to trickle down her chest. She ignored it, shoving that problem to the back of her mind. There is no time to worry about small injuries. At this point, she needed to worry about survival.

  As Zhanna spun to confront the other wielded sword, her ears finally caught up with what Irina had been screaming.

  “They have permission to be here, you idiot! Stop attacking them, Vadim! Nastia even approved of her! I’m telling you, you have to stop!”

  Zhanna could not hear any articulate response. Instead, she had to rely on her eyes. What she saw was the specter of a huge man, heavily muscled. What she heard was the bestial snarl of frustrated anger. He had the blade in his hands and was wielding it with accuracy and a casual style that told Zhanna that this is a man who knew swords.

  This was not a dispassionate swordsman. The intensity of his gaze and the grimace crippled by rage that she saw on his ghostly face told her that here was someone who would not be swayed by logic or speech. This man was a split second away from berserker mode.

  A voice, a human voice, yelled from outside, “Zhanna? Where are you?” The incongruity of that voice in this location almost sent Zhanna into a tailspin. Once again caught short by confusion in the middle of a fight, only a wrenching dive to the side prevented Zhanna from being skewered by a mighty blow. Her scream of fright and effort was enough to tell the others where she was.

  First Stefan and then Mikail entered the store at a run. The presence of two armed mages in his store sent the ghostly shopkeeper into a protective crouch, his back turned toward Zhanna. Ignoring the obviously weaker invader, the bladesmith specter concentrated on the greater threats.

  Spreading apart to force their opponent into dividing his attention, Stefan moved to the left and Mikail moved to the right. After a very quick glance to check on Zhanna, Stefan focused his attention on the fighter mage. The storekeeper chose that moment to attack. Darting at Mikail first, then spinning to attack Stefan, the fighter-mage presented a symphony of elegant death. All the hours of practice paid off in that one moment as both of the men from Zhanna’s village managed to deflect the blows. They managed, but they also knew that they were outclassed.

  This was a master bladesmith, a mage that knew how to wield and craft weapons, magical and mundane. The best they could hope for was that one of them could get Zhanna out of the store. Neither of them expected to live through the experience. That evaluation and commitment took only a small instant. Such a short time to recognize the place that they would die and to accept the consequences of their efforts and commitment.

  Zhanna recognized the moment when they decided to sacrifice themselves for her. The point where they decided that she was unable to take care of herself and that they would have to give up their lives for hers. Snarling in a rejection of her own limitations, Zhanna lurched to her feet. Pulling her athame from her belt and refusing to take the time to think, she flung herself at the back of the bladesmith, wrapping her left arm around his neck and her legs around his waist. Her bloodied right arm held her athame close to his neck she snarled her fury into his ear.

  “You attacked my cat, you addlepated cretin! Irina brought her here, and you didn’t even think that it was not an attack. You just wanted a chance to fight. It’s been what? Too long since you saw any action? So, you had to pick a fight? I thought you were an adult, perhaps even a respectable mage. But no, you have to pick on little cats and women that have never had any blade training.”

  There was dead silence in the room. Even Stefan and Mikail were holding their breath. The ghostly bladesmith was holding very still. Zhanna could see Irina’s shocked face from the corner of her eye but gave it no attention whatsoever. Her frustration and fury were driving her. She continued her diatribe, saying, “Where is your sense of decency, of honor? Did you abandon that because you’re dead? Put your blasted blade down, or I’m going to slit your throat myself.”

  The sword dropped to the ground as the ghostly fighter mage lost the focus of his rage. He said nothing. He just stood there.

  Zhanna could see Irina’s mouth opening and closing, but there was no sound coming out. There were other spectators to this drama now. Oleg and Pavel were in the forefront of the group from the bookstore. All of them staring at Zhanna. All of them quiet.

  “Stefan, pick up the blade and move it away from him. Mikail, check on Dascha. She’s been hurt.” The commands were sharp and crisp. Something had happened inside of Zhanna that had removed the “pleases” and the “if you woulds” from her vocabulary for the moment. Riding the runaway horse of rage and determination, the young witch gathered the reins of control.

  Zhanna slipped from the back of the bladesmith. He turned quickly to confront her with his hands spread in front of him. Zhanna stabbed him with a glance, “Yes, I know you can break me in half with your hands. Big strong man, small woman. So what? You’ve proved that you are bigger and stronger than I am? There was never any question of that. You’ve proved that you’re stronger than an 11-pound cat? Of course, you are.”

  Ignoring the indrawn breaths around her, Zhanna stalked up to the immense man, jumping up, and grabbing his beard. With all of her strength, the young witch yanked his face down to hers and said, “If you are going to attack me, you had better kill me immediately. Because otherwise, I will find a way of ripping your guts out through your nose and hang you with them.”

  Releasing his beard, the young woman continued in a fury, “You acted with no honor. You are a disgrace to your teachers. I will not tolerate this behavior.” Her statements came out like blows. With each one, the ghostly fighter mage dropped his head further down toward his chest.

  The spectators watched in amazement as the greatest fighter among them was reduced in spirit to an embarrassed little boy with a hangdog expression.

  Zhanna was not quite done yet. Still in a flaming fury, she turned to Irina. “I can guess that you and Dascha were trying to find me a blade to wield. While I appreciate that, it will have to be from a different store. I will not use these knives or swords. A smith puts part of himself into everything that he creates, especially a mage smith. I will not fight with a blade that has been forged without honor.”

  With that, Zhanna carefully picked up her cat and walked out of the building. No one said a word as she left. No one dared.

  Chapter 15

  The chime of bells and the rushing sound of the wind through the grass made a familiar background to the low murmur of voices in the ger. It had been such a long time since she last had lived in the ‘home of melodies,' the traditional hut of the Mongols. The ribs of its construction rising toward the crown, or toono were festooned with small bells. The ever-present winds over the steppes stirred them into singing their song of loneliness endured, and serenity found.

  The sounds and smells of her childhood and young adulthood seeped into Bolormaa’s bones, easing the strain that she had not noticed before. When she had stepped out of the cave in the standing rocks, she had not expected to be met. She should’ve known. Her mistress had always been ahead of her in vision, always knowing important events sooner. They had made a good pair, one with the quick vision and one with the long.

  It would be good to see her again. Taste familiar foods, be soothed by the cadence of childhood voices. Those sounds, smells, and tastes of childhood help to form the people. Helped to
form the culture and the attitude.

  This would never be totally home again, Bolormaa knew. She would never abandon her granddaughter and move back here. But for her weary and pained body, this is where she needed to be. She was safe from the marauding Krava and could not be used as a pawn against her granddaughter.

  As soon as she was safe in the tents of her tribe, she would check on Zhanna. Hopefully, everything was going well although the waves of intense fear and anguish keep touching her site and she feared for the last of her children.

  There had been a small group of three horsemen waiting for her. Dressed in traditional garb, their eyes widened when she stepped out of the cave. One of them moved toward her, his bowlegged, sturdy frame a match to her own.

  “Hovhey, sister. Welcome back. The seer told us that you would be here and we thought to give you an escort. We even brought a bag of clothing for you to change into. Something a little more suited…” The man stumbled to silence and confusion. Not wanting to insult her, and finding no way out of the trap that he had built for himself, he simply quit talking.

  Bolormaa, the Farsighted of the Steppes, was back in the area of the world where she was most comfortable. She was home. She laughed, free to be herself for the first time in decades.

  <<<>>>

  The explosion of people had finally quieted and left her alone. Bolormaa could not remember feeling this crowded in the years before she had left. So many people wanting to greet her. So many wanting to see what she had turned out like.

  Dochin had been waiting for her, looking a little bit older, a little bit more weathered. It was amazing that when she was a young girl first apprenticed to the seer, she thought the woman old and had constantly worried about the stress and strain of her position carrying the old woman off on a death ride. First, because she had desperately wanted training and then because she had grown to love her irascible mistress.

  Now an old woman herself, she realized that Dochin looked the same now as she had then. Like she had never aged.

  She wondered if that would happen to her.

  It was time to check on Zhanna. The servants of this seer’s tent had done their job unobtrusively and very well. Grandchildren of those that had served her in her youth, they were well trained and inconspicuous. The table was perfectly placed, the cushions ideally suited for the rigors of a farseeing. Bolormaa unwrapped her scrying bowl and dropped the waters of sight into the bottom of it. Swirling it in a pattern drilled into her muscles and bones, the Farseer slipped into her vision trance.

  Visions upon visions, layers over layers. Bolormaa was inundated with messages and portents that had been waiting since the last time she was on the steppes. It would have been overwhelming for a less powerful or well-trained seer. But Bolormaa had trained under the foremost seer of her nation. Under that direction, the promise of her childhood talents had seen her capacity and resiliency honed by stringent challenges.

  Doggedly she worked her way through the layers, sorting them out and touching them to make sure that they were not of urgent nature or of modern times.

  She sorted through the visions of old friends dying, of the sister who had died in childbirth, of ceremonies and celebrations, funerals and laments. The concentrated news of the time that she had spent away burned through her body like acid eating through her veins. The pain of assimilation seemed to go on and on, although it would have looked like just a few moments to someone else.

  She had been trained well, discipline to the forefront, responsibility backing it up. She had done her duty to her people, and now she was free to address her own personal concerns. Her granddaughter. She needed and wanted to see how her granddaughter did.

  Diving back into the maelstrom of visions, Bolormaa searched for the child of her child, her family. And came up empty. No trace of her to be caught by the worried seer. After searching for an hour, Bolormaa was shaking in exhaustion. There would be no comforting visions of her granddaughter tonight. No ease to her worry for a young one on her first test.

  One hot tear escaped the seer’s iron control. It burned its way down her cheek and dropped into the scrying bowl unnoticed. Neither she nor the two servants that came to help her stand and assisted her to bed noticed anything strange in the room. The image and scent of the Russian pasque flowers that Zhanna loved touched the air with a loving hand before fading into the darkness of the night.

  <<<>>>

  Zhanna refused to travel the next day. Dascha was healing, helped by the bond with her witch. However, Zhanna absolutely refused to take the bruised and traumatized cat on the road without another day of recovery. With the detailed assistance of the insubstantial ghosts, Zhanna had stitched up a wound in the cat’s side that had barely missed killing Dascha.

  It had been a traumatic end to a very intense day, and Zhanna was shaking in reaction. Tucking her familiar into a bed of soft blankets and a heated brick, Zhanna refused to leave her familiars side.

  She was preoccupied, or she would’ve noticed that Stefan and Mikail were uneasy around her. Bound by their promise to Bolormaa, the two men were obligated not to tell Zhanna what had happened between Krava and Bolormaa, or even where her grandmother had gone. They did, however, explain to Zhanna why they had followed her.

  The fact that her grandmother had sent them reconciled the young witch to their presence. She had to admit that they had been essential to the resolution of the battle. But she had not forgiven Stefan for his amused discounting of her value to the mercenary group.

  Stefan was feeling equally confused. He had thought that Zhanna was a pleasant and biddable young woman. Her daring attack on the bladesmith did not fit this vision. And the power of her voice and the strength of her command presence came as a rude shock. He was forced to re-examine his attitude in reaction to her, and he was not liking where his thoughts were leading him.

  <<<>>>

  Zhanna had slept the sleep of the truly exhausted. Curled around her familiar, the young witch had dropped into a deep pool of slumber seconds after lying down on the bed. Her rest had been untroubled by visions or premonitions. No attacks, no invasions for the whole night. It was a break that Zhanna desperately needed. Until this trip, she had never had to deal with life-threatening attacks or rapid decision-making. As she prepared to spend an extra day in exploration, Zhanna was contemplating the changes that happened in such a short period of time. She couldn’t wait to get back and tell her grandmother about them. Hopefully, by then, her muscles would stop aching, and Dascha’s hair would grow back.

  Her familiar was not happy with being left behind this morning. Even though Zhanna would be less than a mile away, Dascha was fretting. The wrappings on the cat’s side were bothering her, and she kept biting at them.

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  Preparing to change the dressings, Zhanna laid out the ointment and bandages that one of the ghosts had helped her find. Carefully removing the old bandages, Zhanna steeled herself to lift up the pad over the incision. Hoping that she had not messed up the stitches or find any sign of infection, the witch was so surprised at seeing the wound site that she dropped the scissors in reaction.

  Dascha who had been resolutely not staring at her side whipped her head around at the clatter of the scissors hitting the floor. Zhanna was staring down at the stitches she had put in the cat, her mouth slightly agape. The familiar looked at her side, bending over to sniff each of
the stitches. A rusty purr started, warming the air and their bond.

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  Zhanna had nothing to say. The wound looked like it was weeks old rather than less than a day. Without another word, the young woman started to remove the stitches carefully, clipping them and pulling them loose. There was no tenderness, no seepage, just clean wound healing.

  There was absolutely nothing to say.

  <<<>>>

  Stefan noticed that Zhanna was slightly preoccupied when she joined them. He couldn’t think of any good way of asking her what the problem was, so he decided to simply to watch her and respond if she opened the subject. Mikail was chatting happily with Irina. The ghost of the female mage was pleasant and had a melodious voice. Zhanna quite liked her, and it was obvious that Mikail also did.