Zaraki.
As the pair left the room, Avrid rolled the unfamiliar name around in his mind, like a man trying wine for the first time. Concern and alarm stampeded through Zaraki’s mind as he looked at his lovely wife. He loved her without question or reservation and did nothing to hide it. Catching flashes of his thoughts and emotions, Avrid shamelessly plundered them, wanting to experience how it felt to love so deeply.
How different from the Deojrin with their obsessive worry about what the Cursed in their midst might hear, what tales they might carry. In response to their fears, they used the compulsions to dampen the ability of their slaves to feel. Like trying to listen to muffled music, eventually, frustrated with only crumbs of emotion, most Cursed lost interest and stopped paying attention to those swirling around them.
After seventeen years, to be free to experience these emotions again without the constraint muting and filtering them—it brought Avrid to tears.
The pretty queen and her lover left him with the old man and the dangerous redhead. Reading their thoughts, he saw bemusement. He would have to adjust his behavior to better match expectations. Here, he was not surrounded by other mind readers who spoke to each other in flashes and images. Names, he would need to get better with names.
Learning
After so long dressing in the formless black robes, Avrid greatly enjoyed the novelty of his new wardrobe. Leisha’s servants scavenged several tunics and pairs of trousers, but he kept his old boots, preferring them to the soft-soled shoes they found for him. He ran his hand over the top of his head, feeling hair cropping out, and could not decide if he liked it or not. His mind began to wander, remembering all the times one master or another ordered him to shave his head. Baldness defined one of the Cursed just as their black robes and silence did. Avrid did not care to remember these things anymore.
He turned his thoughts to freedom. No one fully explained his situation to him yesterday, and Avrid decided to test his boundaries. On this second morning after his release, he tried the door to his tiny chamber and found it unlocked. Perhaps someone watched from outside?
But opening the door, he saw only a long, empty hallway. Last night, the queen’s butler told him breakfast would be available in the morning downstairs, so Avrid decided to see what limits his hosts had set on him.
He left his rooms and descended the stairs at the far end of the hall. No one challenged him, not the servants who bustled past him or the strange, dangerous-looking fellow who stood waiting outside an ornately carved door. Avrid walked on after sensing the redheaded woman, Aniska, sat inside the room with several other people he did not recognize.
The staircase opened onto a wide, plain hall filled with tables and benches arranged opposite the great doors he guessed would lead out into the courtyard. Avrid smelled food and felt his knees weaken as his hunger returned with a vengeance. Yesterday they offered him food, but the stress of the day and the unfamiliar surroundings left him with no appetite. Today, however, his rumbling stomach told a different story. How long had it been since he had eaten?
When, apparently, he looked lost and confused, a servant directed him to sit and brought him a bowl of porridge and an apple. Avrid hesitated to ask for more, but seeing how he devoured his first helping, the serving man smiled and brought him another. Finally full and feeling much better than when he first woke up, Avrid wondered again how far he would be allowed to roam. Stuffing the apple in a pocket, he stood up and followed the press of servants heading outside.
Chaos met him as he stepped through the doors. Everywhere people hurried back and forth, some shouting orders, others rushing to obey them. Avrid had seen enough armies to know what this meant and it unsettled him, reminding him he had no place in this land except what the strange Cursed queen granted to him. If the army was leaving, would they take him with them? Did she have plans for him? Would she abandon him? Yesterday, they had no time for him to ask what she wanted from him as her husband whisked her out of the room. For the first time in years, Avrid did not know what others expected of him or what he could expect from them. It was a new kind of fear—one he did not enjoy.
Leisha, her husband, and the dark-skinned young woman found him outside in the courtyard, as he sat on the ground, out of the way, watching the tumult. Avrid stood and brushed the dust from his new clothes, before bowing. He needed to remember Zaraki was king, even if Leisha’s presence commanded the most attention.
“Good morning, Avrid. You remember Sarika from yesterday?”
Well met, Sarika, he said, and felt her skimming over his thoughts.
“How are you doing?” Leisha asked him.
“I’m making my way, Your Highness.”
Leisha thought his voice lacked the confidence from yesterday. “I hope we did the right thing for you, Avrid. We freed you without really thinking what it would mean.”
“No, thank you. It’s good,” he assured her, wanting to say more, but he could not find the words to describe freedom from the compulsion. “It’s just difficult for me to understand everything. It’s strange. A new life and a new culture. You’re all different from the Deojrin. But I’m sure I’ll settle in.”
Leisha grimaced. “Unfortunately we’ve overstayed our welcome here and have to move on. This morning my Lord Constable decided Prem can’t be expected to support even half my army for any longer. We’re rapidly depleting all the available food and supplies for miles around and wasting the food levies we receive from my nobles.
“I hope you’ve found you’re no prisoner here, Avrid. You’re free,” she said, backing up her words with thoughts. “If you want to leave, I’ll give you money and a horse and you can make your own way. But I want to save my kingdom and my people. I want to ask you if you’ll help me?”
Avrid greatly preferred being needed to being turned out in a land he could not understand or comprehend. But now free of the Deojrin, he feared being captured and forced back under the compulsion’s crushing weight. His fingers twitched as he found himself unsure how to respond. Finally, he settled on a question of his own. “What do you know about Gerolt?”
“I know he scares me,” Leisha said without hesitation.
“He should terrify you,” Avrid looked her in the eyes. “He’s a true believer in the religion of the Deojrin. A fanatic. You and I are Cursed. We’re abominations, but useful ones. There are two ways to salvation for us. Death by torture—” He saw Leisha stiffen as he caught wisps of her thoughts and felt her fear.
“I see you’ve met Edvard,” he said quietly. “So yes, death by unspeakable torture, as you have seen. Or salvation through the compulsion, through service to them and their god. They teach if we’re allowed to be free we’ll take over the minds of others, bend them to our will and force them to be our slaves.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m not a tyrant. I don’t oppress people. I’m proof it doesn’t happen.”
Avrid looked at her with pity, sadness swirling around him. “And that’s why you must die, painfully and horribly. That’s why he will torture you until he breaks you in front of crowds of the screaming faithful. You now realize you’re proof the Deojrin cult teaches lies. Lies even I believed, on some level, until I met you yesterday.
“To the question at hand, if you asked my counsel, I would tell you to run, screaming, into the hills and never look back. I would tell you to leave everything you have ever loved and anyone who knows about your abilities. Hide yourself and never use them again.”
Her heart raced and a fist closed around her lungs. Leisha wanted to bolt, to run away, just as Avrid said, as the memories Edvard had forced on her came shrieking back, showing her untold cruelty and pain. But this time, she used the fear to fuel her anger. “I’ve been down this road already and I’ve decided to fight him. I won’t abandon my people to his cruelty nor will I allow him to drive me from my kingdom, my home.”
Again, Avrid hesitated, letting her passion wash over him. The space between them burst with emotions of all
flavors and colors. Genuine affection and concern for the Tahaerin people, a great sense of responsibility for the wellbeing of those who followed her, anger, sadness and strongest of all, a vast ocean of arrogant, wounded pride. All of these played and danced around him, and he understood why she engendered the unfailing loyalty he felt from the people racing through the courtyard.
Leisha, never imprisoned by the compulsion, felt everything so deeply, because of strength of her talents and her sensitivity to the thoughts of others. Her love could consume a man, her rage could engulf and drown him. For Avrid, so long a prisoner, her emotions were a drug, and already he felt addicted, drawn to them. He wondered if the others around her knew the effect she had on them.
“Very well, then I’ll help you. Because I want vengeance more than I want to live.”
Leisha swallowed hard. She very much wanted to live, more than anything. Where once she wanted nothing more than to be queen, now she wanted to live and grow old with Zaraki. But duty tugged at her, too. If she abandoned this cause, who would protect her people? Who would stop the Deojrin from rampaging across the continent as they had on their own?
“But I want something return,” Avrid said suddenly, surprising himself.
Unused to bargaining, Leisha hesitated before nodding. “All right, you may ask,” she said, stressing the last word.
Avrid had never found himself in a position to negotiate, and it made him feel brave and reckless. This queen needed him, and he enjoyed the reaction he got out of needling these people. “You have to let me train you. There’s no excuse for someone as powerful as you to be so inept.”
Leisha raised her eyebrows, but let it pass. “Yes, that’s acceptable, Avrid. Once we’re traveling, I should have time.”
***
With half the army already marching south, it took far less time to prepare to leave. Leisha wanted to drag it out, uneasy at the prospect of abandoning the high walls and safety of Cheylm. The familiarity and the memories helped her when the fear occasionally reappeared, but she had made her decision and withdrawn the idea of abdicating. Now she needed to know what their plans would be.
On their last night in the castle, Andelko asked everyone to come meet with him and his marshals. After nearly five months, they had levied enough men and hired enough mercenaries to take the fight to their enemy. And with the last reports from the incoming scouts, they now had a plan.
Servants pulled several tables so everyone would have a place to sit and then Andelko dismissed them all. He posted guards outside to ensure no one would disturb them. This would be their last chance to speak easily without the threat of eavesdropping. Listening outside tents in the dark was a simple matter, as Aniska often demonstrated.
Ladvik and Vially approached the large table in the middle of the room, one carrying a large roll of heavy canvas and the other a box that rattled as he walked. They laid the fabric on the table and spread it to reveal a painted map of the kingdom, then set the box to one side.
Vially began, “I’m reasonably satisfied we have final numbers for the army in the south. It’s considerably smaller than the northern force. I think they’re just there to harass and annoy us as well as keeping us from simply marching around the southern mountains and retaking Lida. We haven’t really observed them doing much except for taking some strategic towns.” He reached into the box and drew out a number of black wooden squares to represent the southern forces arrayed against them.
Leisha saw a trail of towns and villages extending south from Lida to Otokar to Stesha, all marked with a cross showing which the Deojrin had attacked. North of Lida, she saw more of the same. Town after town, they swarmed over her kingdom, like rats. Worse, she could see how easily Gerolt could surround them. Until now, he had taken his time, slowly tightening the noose. Unless they defeated this southern army, they would soon find themselves out of room to run.
“The southern army has stalled around Otokar recently, probably because it’s a good place to restock and defend,” Vially explained. “But we don’t think they’re going to dig in there. They’ve been sending an increased number of scouts east towards us and we believe it means they’re planning on heading this way soon.” Placing a number of the wooden cubes on the map near Otokar, he reached into the box again and pulled out a few red cubes.
“These represent the slaves we have counted with them. I’ve had all of the scouts looking and counting, over and over. The numbers always come back the same. The bulk of their mind readers seem to be in the north with the aggressing army. There are very few with them in the south. Probably no more than twenty.”
“So few? Are we sure?” Zaraki asked.
Andelko nodded as excited murmurs and gasps passed around the table. “That’s the number the last three scouts brought in. However, assuming we decide to confront them based on this information, we should send a few spies to confirm.”
Ladvik stood up now and bowed crisply to Leisha. “Given this small number, Your Highness, Vially and I agree attacking this southern force should be our priority. And with the number of men we currently have, along with the levies promised to us in the next week or two to bolster those numbers, we can defeat the Deojrin here. This would then allow us to withdraw around to the south and prevent them from surrounding us. It would give us more time to figure out how to defeat the northern forces with its larger contingent of slaves.”
Laying out blue cubes to represent their army and silver cubes, which he explained, stood for the mercenary forces, he walked them all through his plan of attack. Leisha saw each cube had differing numbers of colored dots painted on the top. These, Ladvik showed them, were assigned to the different types of units—heavy cavalry, archers, footmen and the like.
First he proposed sending several companies of men and mercenaries south and to the west to retake a few of the small towns and villages resting against the mountains. Pushing some of the little cubes in that direction, he said, “I want the men to see some battles and to win. Right now, there’s this undercurrent in camp—that we haven’t engaged because no one knows how to beat their mind readers.”
“We’ve heard the same from Aniska and it worries me a great deal,” Andelko admitted. They could not afford to lose troops to doubts about leadership or because they feared the Cursed.
“That’s why I asked Avrid to join us as well. He’s agreed to help us and answer some questions,” Andelko said.
Both marshals brightened. “Yes, I think that would be very useful,” Ladvik agreed.
“Avrid, are you comfortable speaking about the Deojrin?”
Unused to being asked, the stranger cocked his head before assuring them he would answer whatever questions they had. He found this entire endeavor fascinating, considering the number of times he had been on the other side, sitting and listening to plans to crush one rebellion or another.
“Excellent. How many slaves were brought over?” Ladvik asked.
“Five hundred,” Avrid said, enjoying being the expert in the room. It did not take much for him to feel superior, he knew. “That’s the standard number the Deojrin use for invasion forces. Not all of those are sent into battle. Some are too powerful to risk. But the number is still very high.”
“We saw them used at Lida to kill the archers on the beach, but what do they do in battle with cavalry charging at them?” Vially asked.
“They kill,” Avrid said simply. “Over and over and over.”
Leisha interrupted, “I don’t understand how they do it, though. How do they wreak such havoc as we’ve heard from survivors?”
Now Avrid looked at her, puzzled by her question. “You said before you could kill. How many men were you able to kill before you exhausted yourself or lost consciousness?”
“Ten, I think,” Leisha said with hesitation.
He clucked his tongue at her. “You need more practice.”
Annoyed, she frowned. “How many could you kill? If you had to, one after another after another?” She saw the m
uscles in his face tighten. “I’m sorry, Avrid. I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“No, Your Highness, I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. For myself, the number is probably thirty to forty before I would be exhausted and ask to withdraw from battle. For you the number should be closer to fifty.”
Everyone fell silent as they figured how many deaths five hundred slaves could cause in the course of battle. Staring at each other now, they realized the true threat they faced. Throwing men at the Deojrin would not bring them victory.
“Now you all see. This is how they’ve conquered all the lands on our continent and why they now turn their eyes to your lands,” Avrid said quietly. “Understand, Tahaerin is the first to fall, but it won’t be the last. They’ll swarm over all the kingdoms here and bring death to any who oppose them. It’s what their religion drives them to do. Once your kingdom is subdued, Gerolt will send for more men, more Cursed, more and more.”
Ladvik spoke into the uncomfortable silence. “Then it’s more important than ever then for us to retake some territory, show we can win and inspire some confidence in our army.” He pointed at the table with its colorful map and brightly painted cubes, “We take the fight to their little army here.”
***
As the army made its way south, Leisha kept her promise to meet with Avrid and let him train her. She often had little to do but listen intently and nod as Andelko discussed the merits of one strategy over another, so learning from Avrid gave her something to spend her time on.
The first day, he appeared at her tent just as the servants began clearing breakfast away. “At least he’s enthused about this,” she muttered to Zaraki, and motioned for the guard to admit their guest.
Avrid swept into the tent on a wave of excited energy and barely remembered to bow. “I’ve thought a great deal about this, Your Grace, and the first thing for you to learn is some finesse. You were like a rampaging bull in my mind when we first met.” From across the tent, Avrid felt Zaraki’s annoyance at his tone. It still amused him to irritate people after so many years forced to be docile and biddable.
As Dragons from Sleep (The Tahaerin Chronicles Book 2) Page 34
