by Gwynn White
“I imagine he was very skilled,” Retzen added, without waiting for Axel to answer. “If our emperor had not been heir to the throne, I am sure he would have made a great general.”
Axel almost choked on his food. The temptation to snort it over the table was overwhelming. He decided to forgo the pleasure. These men were programmed from birth to virtually worship Lukan. Nothing Axel could say would change that.
In fact, all it would achieve would be to make two unnecessary enemies. He forked up the last mouthful of his food and pushed the tin away. “So, anyone been to Treven yet?”
The cheer vanished.
“Ah, so it’s as bad as the reports have led me to believe.”
Gorgy blew out a slow breath. “It’s been a bloodbath, my lord. Our grunts didn’t know what hit them.”
“You were there?”
A nod as a shadow passed across Gorgy’s face. “From the start. The company we supported from the air did well on the borders. We killed a lot of people before we got to the capital.”
“Took those border farmers totally by surprise,” Retzen added, chest puffing with pride. “King Chad had no time to mount a proper response.”
The Chenayan forces had steamrolled in, destroying everything in their path. Helpless farmers included.
“And the capital?”
Gorgy picked at something on the table, a telling gesture for a man programmed to disregard all fear. It must have been like the depths of hell in the Trevenite capital, Maegkin.
“The gas came from nowhere, my lord. And . . . and—well, it was all over, wasn’t it? We had to retreat. The ones who survived. We airmen were protected in the airships, not like the men on ground.” Gorgy’s anguished face begged forgiveness for his part in the failure.
All those unnecessary deaths still galled Axel, but he hid all sign of it. If he had gotten his way, Chad and his heirs would have been assassinated and the mines taken while Treven dealt with the turmoil. Goosebumps broke out all over his skin at the thought. Thank Thorn’s Winds that his father had thwarted his plans.
“Well, that’s all in the past now,” Axel assured his men. “We will be in Treven in a week. Then we will claim the victory that should have been ours.”
Both guardsmen beamed at Axel, adding to the nausea left by his too-salty meal. It was time to beat a tactical retreat. Axel stood, and both men scrambled to their feet.
He waved them down. “At ease. Enjoy the night. I will be in my cabin if you need me.”
Axel closed his cabin door behind him and flopped down onto his bunk. Nowhere near ready for sleep, he pulled out his father’s informa to do some snooping. Hopefully, Felix hadn’t wiped it clean.
Line upon line of rolling text suggested he hadn’t. Axel settled down to listen to the news from the Fifteen since the assassination. Lots of commiseration for Felix at Axel’s shooting. Very little for the loss of Felix’s brother. Axel glossed over his father’s disingenuous replies. When it came down to it, Felix had been as responsible for the quarrel in Axel’s back as Morass and Lukan. Axel wouldn’t forgive that in a hurry.
Finally, Axel found what he was looking for: the discussion on Lukan’s pre-coronation meeting. He braced himself for vapid praise for Lukan. What else could the Fifteen say on an open forum like this? But maybe he’d get the gist of why Tao had refused to swear allegiance.
His blood chilled as he started listening. Forget vapid praise—the Fifteen were ecstatic, each extolling the brilliance of Lukan’s plan to embed ice crystals trackers and shockers into every person in the empire.
For the first time in his life, Axel hated being right.
Only Tao had defied Lukan’s death order to stand in opposition to the scheme. Everyone else had fallen all over themselves to express their support at turning the entire empire into one vast, mind-controlled prison.
Axel closed his eyes and sent Tao a silent salute for his courage.
The news just got worse.
Lukan promised the High Council a device so brilliant—so diabolical, in Axel’s view—it could project a virtual image of the wearer onto an informa in the palace. It would show the host’s every move, gauge his health, and even read his thoughts. Killing him was barely an optional extra.
Despite the many uses for such a device, Axel couldn’t ignore one particular potential use: to control and, if necessary, kill the single, greatest threat to Lukan.
Nicholas the Light-Bearer.
Axel leaped up, hit his head on the low ceiling above his bunk, and cursed. He rubbed the rapidly forming egg and then started pacing the tiny cabin.
Never. Not while I draw breath. No price is too high. I will fight Lukan with everything I have to stop this.
It was the least he could do if he was ever to look Tao—and Lynx—in the eye again.
A plan started to unfurl in Axel’s mind.
He lay back down on his bunk to mull it over. Not needing the informa for this, he was about to shut it down when a message came in for his father from Vasily, who headed up Zakar satrapy.
Axel listened as Vasily wheezed, “Got your specs for the new weapon. Exciting times we live in. Possible problems ahead, though. Foundry space will be an issue. Will discuss when we next meet.”
Axel replayed it once, twice, a third time. Still, it made no sense. What new weapon would bog down Chenayan foundries?
Knowing he had a long night ahead of him, he set about breaking the encryption on his father’s files. A tedious and frustrating process, the sun loomed in the sky before he finally cracked the last of his father’s codes. He leaned forward eagerly—it had to be big news if Felix had given it so many levels of security—and opened the file.
All the air whooshed out of his lungs.
Rifles!
Lukan planned to reintroduce weapons banned by every nation on the planet four hundred years ago.
The idea was outrageous. Despicable. Brilliant. A masterful stroke for a man short on ice crystal.
It could not go unchallenged.
Axel scrambled to his desk and pulled out a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink. This was one idea he would never put out on the informa network until he had secured a line. He sketched out the design of a weapon to counter Lukan’s rifles.
Chapter 27
Lynx sighed. Tao’s jaw wore that mulish cast she had come to anticipate every time she suggested something a little out of the ordinary, a little dangerous, but still necessary to secure their existence in this benighted place.
She picked up the two logs he had just split and stacked them neatly on their growing woodpile. Chopping firewood to build up a supply of dry wood for the range that cooked their food, warmed their cottage, and heated tubs of water for their ablutions was a priority before the cold truly set in. Winter came quickly at this altitude, and already the nights in the forest had lengthened.
A plains girl, Lynx knew nothing of snow, other than it was supposed to be pretty and cold. Very cold. Colder than anything she could even imagine. Lynx pulled her thin coat around her shoulders against the biting wind. It already chilled her to the core. Her cotton palace dresses were entirely wrong for this kind of life, but until they hunted something meaningful in size, they were her only option. At least the bustle had gone. She now used it as a pillow.
“So if you don’t like my idea, what do you suggest for getting us winter coats?” she asked Tao.
“Anything but hunting a bear with nothing but a couple of primitive bows and arrows. You need dogs, horses, huntsmen, and spears to successfully bring down a bear. See any of those?” He waved his axe around their windswept yard.
It was encircled by their sagging wooden cottage, a small barn, a newly fenced enclosure for their two goats, a chicken coop, and the dark, grim forest. The barn housed a supply of preserving salt and a compact, wood-powered steam plow. Shiny and new, the plow was the only concession to the fact that she and Tao were not, and had never been, farmers.
Lynx stomped with irritation. “Wh
o needs horses when we have a plow?”
“A plow? You intend to chase a fast-moving bear through the forest with a slow-moving mechanical plow?”
Tao’s incredulity was embarrassing.
But what did she know about steam-driven farm equipment? Nothing. Horses were more her line. “Okay, maybe not the plow. But name your ‘anything’ else. Seen any sable? Foxes? Stag?”
“There was that snow leopard. We both saw the tracks.”
“Those tracks were weeks old. And you know that. The trapper who lived here before us wiped this place out.”
When they first arrived, they had found rows of pelt drying racks in the yard—next to a pair of newly dug graves, where they assumed the previous owners now rested.
Sadly, none of their clothing or pelts remained. The lack of feminine touches about the place led her to believe the previous owners were male. The idea that she now occupied the home of two dead men, using their things, made Lynx shiver.
She focused instead on the hunting.
Apart from rabbits and squirrels, which offered little in the way of sustenance, they had not spotted any meaningful wildlife. It made procuring meat for their cooking pot as imperative as finding warm furs for coats.
Yesterday, while out scavenging for late-season berries and nuts, Lynx and Tao had come upon fresh bear tracks. Following the spoor had led them to a den in the hollowed-out roots of an old tree. The bear hadn’t been home, but it was obvious from the scats and scratch marks on the tree trunks that it lived there and would be back. It probably planned to spend its winter hibernation there.
Lynx and Tao needed the fur and meat long before the first snows fell. Armed with a bow and a quiver filled with arrows, one of a small collection of hunting tools left for them in the cottage, Lynx had wanted to stay and monitor the den.
Despite her howls of protest, Tao had dragged her away. They had been arguing about their potentially hostile neighbor ever since.
Tao brought his axe crashing down into a log with more force than necessary. Wood chips shot across the yard, making Lynx jump. “As bad as it is having a bear living near us, we’re not equipped to hunt it. And anyway, how many coats do you think we’ll make from one bear?”
“One bear will be enough to at least line part of our palace coats. And I wasn’t equipped to kill an ostrich when I was fourteen, either, but I still did it! It’s not about what you have, Tao; it’s about what you need and want. With the right motivation, one can make anything happen. We both know our fifty miles of space isn’t big enough for us and a bear. And we need meat and warm clothing. That’s motivation enough for me.”
Tao rested the axe head on the ground and leaned on its handle. Despite their prison and the coal dust, the cuts Morass had inflicted to his face and head were healing nicely. The bruises had faded to pale yellow smudges. “Have you ever eaten bear meat?”
“No,” Lynx admitted. “No bears in Norin.”
“Right!” Tao slapped his forehead with his palm, as if that explained everything. “No bears in Norin, yet she’s the expert.”
Lynx resisted the urge to hit him. Instead, she pulled in a long, calming breath. “Tell me what bear meat tastes like, then.”
“Disgusting! Greasy and sickly sweet. Ugh.” He made a choking sound. “When we hunted bear, we only ever ate the thighs and the paws. I couldn’t even bring myself to eat those. We gave the rest of the meat to the huntsmen. Or the dogs.”
“Well, guess what, Tao? You no longer have a huntsman. Or a dressing room filled with fine furs for the winter.” Lynx waved her arms around their sorry home. “We have this. And if we don’t get some meat into the larder and some furs onto our backs, come the end of winter, Lukan will be burying us next to the previous owners. If that bear doesn’t get us first.”
“I am quite capable of fishing,” Tao said stiffly. “I have provided at least two fish meals this week. And you shot a couple of squirrels.”
That was true. She had bagged a brace of squirrels, and Tao had pulled a fair-sized pike from the stream flowing some two hundred yards from their cottage. Lynx hated fish; she’d eaten the pike with long teeth.
“But you said the river will freeze in winter. What then?”
“It’s called ice fishing. We do it all the time.”
Lynx sighed. She was getting nowhere with Tao. Who knew Lukan’s gentle, mild-mannered brother could be so stubborn? He had to have been, she reminded herself, or else he would have buckled under pressure to swear allegiance.
She tried again. “And we can dress in fish scales this winter? That will certainly keep out the cold.” Happily, the Winds sent a wild draft of icy air screaming past them.
Even Tao pulled his jacket tighter around him.
“See!” Lynx said with more jubilation than was politic—given she was dealing with Tao.
Tao surprised her. He shook his head and laughed softly. “I know now why you are so perfect for Axel. Lukan would never have coped with you.”
Lynx’s heart clenched. She didn’t want to speak about Axel, but she also couldn’t bear not speaking about him. To avoid him felt as if he had died, and he would never be dead to her. “Axel would have no problem hunting a bear with me.”
“Precisely. Now you know why I’m out here to watch over you and Talon, and not Axel. You and Axel are both so impetuous, you probably wouldn’t survive the first year.”
Lynx slumped down onto the woodpile. “At least we’d have fun.”
Tao sat down next to her. “Okay. I admit, having a bear for a neighbor is really bad news. I also know we need better clothing. But bear hunting is no easy task, Lynx. They are aggressive, huge, bad-tempered, and very hard to kill.”
“Sounds a bit like an ostrich.”
Tao sighed, and Lynx knew it was time to get serious.
Raiders did what was necessary to survive. She stood. “Tao, I admit I’ve been on the back foot since I got here. The forest is not my natural environment. I don’t like it. I don’t know it like you do. And yes, I almost picked those poisonous mushrooms, but I do know how to hunt. I have been hunting my whole life. Not for fun, not for an afternoon of sport, but to survive. Every Norin child who has any interest in winning an egg starts off by making a bow and arrow to hunt hares and porcupines for the family stew pot. I made my first bow when I was six—and killed my first porcupine the same day. With proper planning, I know I can take down that bear.”
Tao stared at her. “What are you suggesting?”
Lynx bit her lip, considering. Their larder boasted a barrel of precious molasses, their only sweetener. They eked it out, knowing that once it was eaten, there would be no more. They would have to find and tackle a wild bee hive to replace it. Tending bee hives was one of the many tasks performed by the servers in Norin. Still, procuring a bear skin and meat was worth the sacrifice of a cupful or two of molasses, followed by the bee stings she’d earn getting honey. “We bait it with something sweet. The molasses.”
Tao winced.
“We could mix it with that leftover fish. I’m sure the bear would like that. And then we get up high and shoot the bugger while he’s busy eating. A couple of arrows in the brain should do it.”
Tao snorted a laugh. “Anything to be rid of my poor pike, hey, Lynx?”
Lynx grinned at him. “Fish is an acquired taste. One I’m hoping to stave off acquiring for as long as possible. But, in a pinch, I will eat even fish. We Norin are like that. We’re opportunistic feeders. We have to be.”
“And that is the difference between us. I wouldn’t bait and take potshots at a bear just because the opportunity arises. The purpose of the hunt is to prove one’s manhood, that one is equal to the challenge of taking on the most dangerous animal in the forest.”
Now Lynx snorted. “The purpose of the hunt is to survive. I suggest we put out the bait, climb the trees next to the bear’s den, and wait. With carefully aimed shots, we could get him in the brain or the heart, so we don’t damage the skin too much.�
�
“I thought you said you didn’t get that many trees in Norin? Could you even climb an oak?”
“That’s the tree with all those sharp pins?”
When Tao smiled, she knew she’d messed up. She punched his arm. “I can do whatever it takes. Point me in the direction of the stupid tree, and I’ll climb the damn thing.”
Tao’s smile broadened into a grin. “With a rope, you can climb anything. There are some ropes in the barn. If I agree to this, we can use those.”
“And how would you know about ropes and climbing trees?”
Tao scratched his blond stubble. He had not shaved since Morass’s beating. “When Lukan refused to participate in the war games we were forced to play as kids, my father sent me. I’ve scaled just about every kind of tree in this forest.” He looked down at his scuffed boots. “That was when Axel and I became close friends. Him, me, and Stefan. Even though I was younger, we did everything together.”
The sadness in Tao’s eyes and tone suggested it was time to change the subject.
“Okay, ropes it is. When the bear dies, we can use that steam plow to drag him back here. It’ll take a day to skin and butcher him, I suppose. I’ll get the skin curing while you smoke the meat.”
“While I smoke the meat,” Tao repeated, looking quizzically at Lynx. “Which part of me being an heir to the Chenayan throne didn’t you understand, Lynx? The part where I had huntsmen to do all the grunt work? Or the bit about me being dished up three perfectly cooked meals every day for the last twenty-one years? Except, of course, when I was playing war games. Then the meals tasted rather like our cooking.”
When they first arrived here, Tao assumed Lynx could cook. She very quickly disabused him of that belief. They had bumbled around their kitchen together, and their first meals had been disasters. It helped that they both laughed about charred fish. Things were getting better, with fewer burnt pots.
“Useless boy,” Lynx said with a smile. “I’m not much better. But first, we have to catch us a bear. Tomorrow?”
