Helfrick sifted through letters on his desk, lifting a few of them in her direction. “And then there’s the refugee situation out on the plains. I’m busy fighting a war against the most terrifying Greimere we’ve seen since Throm’s time, yet my people pester me endlessly about Denizens squatting on their land without rent. They’ve been kicked out of their homes and not one acre of land in the plains is without an owner. Where the fuck are they supposed to go?”
The King tossed the letters in his hand across the table, to flip off the other end. “I would conscript them to fill the massive vacancies we’re faced with in the military, but they’ve seen enough horrors already. I don’t even think they would fight for me. The Denizens have never submitted much to control. I am slmost surprised this warlord did not win them over to his side.”
“Why would the Greimere Warlord do that, father?” Helfria took a seat near his and stared at him until he met her gaze. “This isn’t the first time you’ve presumed to know the mind of this barbarian.”
“Daughter, when you’ve lived your entire life reading history and preparing to fight your kingdom’s age-old enemy, you get a pretty intimate understanding of their nature.”
Helfria continued to stare at him. “Father, I know about Uncle Tiberius’s armor and how it arrived. I know that set we buried at the funeral was a replica you had crafted. Those Twileens had a message just for you and I don’t have to be Faeir-educated to figure out that someone gave that message in our tongue for simple Hunters to be able to relay it.”
Helfria reached out and took Helfrick’s hand, lowering her voice to a softer tone. “I know there’s been some kind of correspondence between you two. I’ve even heard rumors that this warlord is from Rellizbix, which would explain this apparent grudge. But father, if any of this is true; if there is some link between you and the Warlord, that is an unprecedented opportunity.”
Helfrick took a deep breath and appeared slightly relieved at her admission. When he did not immediately reply, she continued, enjoying her moment of respectful attention. “Send me to the front-“
Helfrick pulled his hand free from her grasp and looked away. “Absolutely not, Helfria. You are my oldest child and a Senator of this kingdom, for Fate’s sake.”
“I would stay far from the river and the lines of battle. I wouldn’t try to enter the Wilderness.” Helfria’s voice lifted, trying to gain his attention again.
He turned on her, his face contorted and his eyes scanning her as if some imposter had replaced his daughter. “What are you talking about? Why would this even come into your mind?”
“I would need a team of Twileens, preferably female.” Helfria took advantage of him looking at her again and she spoke quickly to maintain his interest. “The Storm Line is full of women who hunt and hammer steel like men; hardy women who could be trained to enter the Wilderness and seek out this warlord. They would beseech him for an audience, then I would arrange a meeting under a white flag on our side of the river.”
“And become a priceless hostage.”
“Worst case scenario, yes,” Helfria agreed.
“No, Helfria, that is the best case scenario.” A maddened look came over her father and she faltered in pressing the rest of her idea. “The worst and most likely scenario is that he kills you and displays your desecrated corpse for some Commoner to find and spread word of faster than we can stomp it out. I don’t know this warlord, not like you imagine I do, but one thing is crystal clear to me about him: he harbors a hatred that dwarfs any emotion you or I have ever felt.”
“How could you possibly know that, father?” Helfria shook her head. This went beyond a strategic mind figuring out another. Her father lied to her about knowing the Warlord and she could not fathom why.
“You’re a very smart woman, Helfria. Despite the circumstances, you’ve clearly received Throm’s blessing in your blood. I’m proud of what you’ve done.” Helfrick’s face softened and he gave her a smile. “I’m tired and the sun will rise soon. Go back to bed, daughter… and leave this plan of yours here. It just won’t work.”
Helfria stood and left her father. His compliment filled her heart, but a part of her recognized the cunning in it. Helfrick Caelum was a man of his time and, like his father before him, did not take seriously a woman’s accomplishments outside of childrearing. He knew how she would react to his stated pride in a daughter well into her 20’s with no husband or children. He knew it would get her out of the room and give him some privacy.
Helfria shut the door behind her as she made her way up to her room, but she did not leave her plan behind, as asked. Helfria prided herself in being a woman of firsts and diplomacy with the Greimere had never even been attempted before. This goal might as well rest atop the highest peak in the World’s Edge Mountains, but that would not stop her from attempting the climb.
Chapter 34
Raegith stood looking over the waterfall’s edge. Below, the wide tributary of the Pisces fell 200 feet into a lagoon that drained out to the south. Beside him raged the overflowing green flames of the Infernal.
Raegith had not yet come to grips with Beretta’s new appearance upon her return. Her short, flightless wings had nearly tripled in size and the flames of her hair, once spiking skyward, flowed over her shoulders in billowing, emerald tresses. She stood taller than Helkree now, her once petite body filled out with thicker curves. Her eyes blazed like live embers even during the brightest part of the day. The others refused to go near her, even her Gimlets, though they continued to worship her.
“So this is the place you found for us? The next Citadel?” Raegith turned around and surveyed the relatively flat surface of the jutting spike of land.
“Royalty built the first Citadel on top of one of the only aquafers in the Greimere. We will harness the river, build our fortress over the top of it and reshape it. Your new Sage friend, Isadora, will know how to accomplish what we need.” Beretta’s new, deeper voice added to the unfamiliarity Raegith felt in conversing with her. She glanced to the side where the other Helcats waited further up river. “They are uneasy at my presence. They should not be. I am still Beretta.”
“They’ll get over it. We’re all glad you’re back, though. I feared you might have returned home.”
Beretta turned back to him, glowering. “My home is with the Greimere. I just needed… some time. Besides, undergoing metamorphosis near people would have been disastrous.”
“What happened to you, Beretta? Is this normal for your kind?” Raegith glanced at the others, barely hiding his disappointment in their behavior toward a founding member of his new empire.
Beretta turned and strolled upstream, toward her sisters, ignoring their worrisome looks. “I have no idea how natural this is; the Greimere ancients were unable to investigate my kind much and most of their information came from studying me. Entering my chrysalis terrified me at first. I do not want to speak of it further.”
“So we’re building here, then?” Helkree asked as they drew close.
“I intend to bring Isadora back to look it over, first, but yes.” Raegith turned to Hitomi. “Gather our people, Hitomi, and bring them here.”
“And the women sent by the bugai’sha?” Hitomi nodded in the direction of the group of women sent from each Wilderness group. Hitomi and the other Helcats referred to them as outsiders, as they had not earned their place among the Greimere like Ariadne and Chev’El. “You brought them all the way out here. For what purpose?”
Raegith motioned Chev’El and Ariadne to his side. “This is where I will train our first group of disciples.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you wanted a harem.” Helkree looked at the group of Wilderness women. “I am not training new Helcats; not from that group of pink-fleshes. Fuck that.”
“I don’t need new Helcats, Hel, and I don’t need more ass.” Raegith walked back to the edge of the waterfall and the others followed, giving Beretta a wide berth. He stretched his arms wide as he gazed out over t
he Wilderness. “What I need is acceptance among the bugai’sha. I need them to do my work and follow my law without constant attempts at rebellion. They have sent me tributes they expect to become prisoners; these tributes will return to them as living embodiments of the power of the Greimere.”
Raegith turned. “Qufeng has given me an idea. I will instruct these women in the Path, just as I have with my Lokai disciple. I will make disciples of them as well, and they will bring their faith back to their former homes. Their neighbors and families will look upon them and see the strength the Greimere offers; strength Rellizbix kept from them.”
“The bugai’sha are frightened of what we’re capable of,” Helkree replied. “They wouldn’t dare run afoul of us.”
“For now,” Hitomi said, rubbing her chin and looking out over the land. “But how long before that memory fades and a new example must be made? How long before those examples turn fear into motivation? It motivated the shit out of us, Hel.”
“You all are getting way too afraid of violence.” Helkree scoffed and turned away.
Raegith chuckled and shook his head. “Chev’El, you will travel to the west and summon Isadora. Check in on your tribe while there. Kor’Rin is supposed to be assembling artisans to send to me. Make sure he is keeping to that.
“Ariadne, you will stay here with me to oversee medical care for the disciples. They may not be used to the rigors of Greimere training and will need educated in the Greimere tongue, a task I am incapable of. The rest of you will see to the migration of our people. Tributes of food should be arriving from the bugai’sha to replenish those we expended over the winter.”
Helkree remained and embraced her Helcat sisters before they departed to the temporary camps of the Greimere further north. It pained Raegith to retreat so deep into the Wilderness and abandon the Pisces River, but he no longer had the resources to patrol the shores.
“If you will excuse me, I must see to my own dwellings,” Beretta said, strolling toward the edge of the waterfall.
“You’re not staying?” Raegith asked, hopping after her.
“The Gimlets have been busy rebuilding what they once had in the Greimere. The death of Ardyx has motivated them greatly, but they still require guidance. And I… feel more comfortable around them. I will return in a few weeks.”
With that, Beretta fell sideways off the cliff. Raegith looked over the edge to see her spread her wings on the way down and catch the air. Like a hawk, she curved upward and took to the sky, leaving a fading trail of green fire drifting behind her.
“What a fascinating creature,” Ariadne whispered beside him. “Magic like I’ve never seen before. A sentient, living flame… her kind must be a gift from the Elements, but for them to only reside in the Greimere is very puzzling.”
“You don’t think the Elements have any power beyond the Hell Cliffs?”
“Of course they would have power everywhere, just as Sabans believe the Fates do,” Ariadne replied. “Yet, I simply had not considered how their influence might differ in those lands. I don’t suppose many Sages think on it outside of those dedicated to curating knowledge of the Greimere.”
Raegith shrugged and turned to look at the bugai’sha women huddled in the trees under the guard of Qufeng and two other Blade Dancers. As he motioned for them, Qufeng ordered the group forward.
Fourteen Denizens shambled forward to meet with Raegith for the first time since arriving. The groups had all been charged with sending a single female tribute, but that had been the extent of the instruction. Among the group were four Twileens who appeared of similar age, but their physiology made that difficult to determine. His mother held the look of a teenager well into her forties. The others were all Sabans of varying ages and looks. All appeared healthy and capable but several wore little more than rags and grime clung to their skin. All were likely the most expendable of their lot, which Raegith had counted on.
Discarded and neglected people traded loyalty for power much quicker than people with status.
“You all are gathered here because the communities you once called home have cast you out.” Raegith spoke to the women as they lined up before him. “To fulfill a bargain and avoid annihilation, your men were required to offer up a soul. You are all here because those men decided their people would be fine with your loss.
“I am going to prove them wrong.”
Raegith broke away from the group and approached the cliff, to a tree. The trunk mirrored his waist in thickness and stood nearly twelve feet tall. He closed his eyes and fed the beast within him. Thoughts of Onyx, Kalystra and Noriko swirled into a brilliant blue rage. His mind dredged up the feelings of impotence as he listened to Zakk being raped behind the prison wagon; of being held down as Garret dragged him away from Onyx’s corpse. He took the hatred born from seeing Kalystra’s broken body hanging slack on a spike, merging it with the emotions those memories carried, forging a dagger to slide slowly through his heart. Flames erupted from his fists and blazed upward, spiraling his forearms.
Raegith’s hips jerked and his shoulders twisted. Like a bolt of lightning, his right fist blinked from his side and connected with the trunk of the tree. At the moment of contact, Raegith exerted the full weight of his body and power of his rage into the pinpoints of his top and middle knuckle.
Bark and trunk exploded, sending wooden shrapnel in all directions. The tree groaned from the wide wound he inflicted. It teetered and swayed forward. With loud cracks and a whistling whine, the tree toppled and flipped off the edge of the cliff plummeting into the lagoon below.
Raegith walked back to the women, who stared open-mouthed at his approach. Two of the women retreated as he drew close before Qufeng pushed them forward to the line.
“I am Grass-Hair, Warlord of the Greimere, and unlike Rellizbix, the Greimere do not harbor weak women.” Raegith motioned toward Helkree, Qufeng and the Blade Dancers as evidence of his claim. “I don’t care what your profession was, the status of your birth or why you were sent. I don’t care how many of you I lose. You will prevail and become Greimere or you will die in the attempt.”
“Why are you doing this?”
The voice came from a dark-skinned Saban with thick, coarse hair wearing little more than rags.
Raegith approached her and stared into her ice-blue eyes. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
“Why are you leading the Greimere?” she asked. “Why are you terrorizing us? Why can’t you go home and leave us alone?”
Raegith smiled and stepped away from her, addressing the rest of the group. “You may have noticed the Faeir woman in my company. Her name is Ariadne. Other than me, she is the only one here who speaks your tongue. She will heal your wounds and she will instruct you in the Greimere tongue, but she is not your friend; she is not even your compatriot. Ariadne is Greimere.”
Raegith grinned at Helkree for a moment, long enough to draw her ire, before pointing at Qufeng. “The Lokai with the dark hair and knife at her back is Qufeng. She will be handling your physical training. I won’t lie; that’s going to be most of your day for a while. She understands only a few words in your tongue. If you try to talk back to her or refuse her orders, she will fuck you up. In fact, I would really encourage one of you to try that soon, just so the others can witness how terrifying she is.”
“Is that one going to eat us?” a Twileen girl asked, pointing at Helkree. “She looks at us like a wolf looks at meat scraps.”
Raegith contained his laughter. “This is Helkree. She doesn’t speak your tongue at all, because she hates you. Don’t try to talk to her. Don’t try to run, either, because she will hunt you down and murder you with an axe. She will start with your feet and work her way up with a smile.”
One of the girls cried and the one beside her tried to hug her, but Qufeng stopped her.
Raegith approached the girl, a short-haired Saban who looked barely over seventeen years old. He bent down and tilted his head so that he looked her in her wet eyes. “It’s
okay. This is a tough thing to come to grips with. Maybe you never will and Qufeng will leave your corpse right where you failed. Maybe you cry now, but in a month, you’re leading this group.”
Raegith stepped back and nodded at Qufeng. “Take them for a run. Don’t return until the sun drops below the trees. Then meet Ariadne at the lagoon below. Most of them are long due for a bath and some grooming.”
Chapter 35
Helfria sat staring at the envelope on her desk with a smile. The red tying ribbon clung haphazardly to the broken wax of the seal of Gaius’s family crest. The weight of the paper hinted at the intimate nature of the letter within, separating it from her normal political mail and ensuring her special attention.
She had read the contents several times before folding the letter up and pushing it back into the envelope so she could get back to her work. Half an hour later she stared at the envelope instead of the books on refugee history.
Helfria’s duties had tripled a year after High Paladin Andronicus forcibly inserted himself back on the Senate with a near-treasonous public display. She had spearheaded a project to open diplomatic relations with the new nation of Gaia hopefully bringing the Faeir back into the Kingdom of Rellizbix under favorable terms. Yet as she picked up steam on her project, Andronicus abandoned his anti-Faeir rhetoric to focus on the issue of refugees from the Wilderness. Suddenly she found herself putting aside her work on Gaia in order to combat the High Paladin’s calls to action in the south.
Andronicus effortlessly adjusted his positions according to what concerned the public most. When the Greimere threatened the kingdom’s existence, he spoke about ending them. The moment time confirmed his one victory, he moved on to the Faeir, disregarding the King’s insistence that the Greimere threat remained. When it became apparent that the new nation of Gaia did not intend on war, Andronicus switched his rhetoric to combatting the scourge of refugees. Despite only three confirmed incidents of violence in three years, the High Paladin spoke of the refugees with the same tone and vocabulary as he once did with the Greimere.
Wrath of the Greimere (Hell Cliffs Book 2) Page 26
