by Ted Neill
“War has its strain,” Val said.
“No, it is more. I am his wife, I know. Suspicion grows while his trust diminishes,” she said, her eyes gleaming.
A pause followed. So long it was that even Red dared to look up. When Katlyn met her eyes, they both looked away to different corners of the room.
“What is it you advise, your highness?” Val said, his voice so low it was barely audible.
“You must save Prince Haille. If the strain of war has been too great, the people will need a leader.”
“Haille is only a young man, a prince, and with his father’s death, the Antan Council is in control of Antas until they pick a new king or queen,” Val said.
“The Antan Council is far away and the Karrithian Council, I’m afraid, is weak. I speak of Haille not as a military captain, but as a symbol of continuity, of hope. He saved the kingdom of Karrith with his actions, aided by you. He may have even saved the realm of Anthor.”
“Hope seems to be the one thing he has least of now,” Katlyn said, the bitterness of her own voice surprising her.
The queen let her eyes rest on Katlyn. They were empty of reproach. Even if Katlyn had spoken out of turn, she had spoken the truth.
“The people need hope,” Amberlyn said. “The Maurvant have been driven back, but are they defeated? We don’t know and with those four elks on their side—”
“Three,” Katlyn corrected. She had overstepped herself, for even Chloe shot her a glare to silence her. But there was no restraining herself. “Adamantus is on our side. I’m sure of it.”
“Adamantus, that is the creature’s name?”
“That is our friend’s name, yes,” Katlyn said.
“You are bold, in your certainty,” the queen said, addressing her directly, her opinion hidden behind a mask of formality.
“Even if he is still our ally, his whereabouts are unknown since the battle,” Val said, desperate to intervene.
Amberlyn turned her attention back to him. “So we must find . . . him. Darid’s squire, I understand, is an experienced tracker and has pledged to hunt down the beasts wherever they have gone.”
Darid motioned Red forward, but she hesitated. His brow furrowed, as if vexed by the sudden absence of confidence on her part.
“Alex is an experienced tracker and expert bowman—”
“Bow-woman.” Cody snorted. “We’ve seen her work.”
“‘Alex,’ is that the name you go by now?” Val asked.
Darid’s face turned red all the way to his ears as the queen shifted in her seat. “Is there a piece of this story I was not told?” she asked.
“There seems to be pieces of this story that even I have not been told,” Darid stammered. Red dropped to her knee before the queen in an effort to save him.
“The fault is mine your highness. I have disguised my gender in order to serve the king.”
“Which one,” Val asked.
“The dead one,” she answered, her gaze level.
“The last time we met, you betrayed the prince, enslaved children, and even us,” Val said.
“Not to mention shot an arrow in my neck,” Katlyn said, spit flying from her mouth.
Now it was the queen’s turn to shade to red. Darid’s expression was one of shock. Again, it was Red who bowed her head to beseech the queen for her grace.
“I beg of all of you for mercy. After you last saw me, I have been a loyal follower of King Talamar. I am no boy, not even a girl. I am a woman of thirty summers, despite my stature. I am stunted since I was a child. True, I used this for nefarious ends to lure children into trusting me. Yes, I sold them into slavery. Yes, I betrayed you and the prince. I have committed wrongs I will never atone for. All I wanted, when you saw me last, in the mines, was to be healed of my condition. But the font’s power was spent. Since then, I have tried to make up for my wrongs. I have served the king and my master Darid.”
“She speaks true. She saved Talamar’s life in a skirmish with the Maurvant. He trusted her himself. I have never had reason to doubt her loyalty or integrity,” Darid said.
Katlyn’s friends were silent, until Gunther spoke. “Perhaps the fountain cured you of an affliction worse than your stature.”
Red looked up; the motion caused a tear that had balanced on the end of her lashes to fall. Darid placed a hand on her back.
“I am the queen, and I walk the narrowest of paths, helping you while helping my husband. I cannot provide you material assistance on your journey, but I can send you to allies who will. You will have to decide among yourselves, whether or not to trust this . . . woman.”
“So you will help us to free Haille, your highness?” Val asked.
“I will. Meanwhile, if you are convinced of this squire’s transformation, we will send—” The queen glanced to Red as if to ask her name.
“Gail, your highness, Gail Redmont.”
“We will send Gail to seek out the creatures.”
“And what will you do when you find them?” Val asked.
“Kill them,” she said, steel in her voice.
“Not Adamantus,” Katlyn said, standing.
“At least not immediately,” Val said, his palm held out to Katlyn. “First we must ascertain whether he is for us or against us and what his relations are to these other three elk.”
“But even if she does find Adamantus, who’s to say he’ll trust her?” Katlyn asked.
“The young lady is right,” Cody said. “Like you said, Capt’, the last time we dealt with Red, we were the merchandise.”
Val steepled his fingers beneath his chin and looked across the table to Katlyn. “That is why Katlyn is going with her to find him.”
Chapter 5
Tallia
The fields surrounding Karrith were a hellscape. Funeral pyres cast a ghoulish pall over the sun and the stench of rotting and burning flesh was enough to turn the strongest of stomachs. Katlyn and Gail—as she preferred to be called now—rode with cloths soaked in wine over their faces, but even so the air made their eyes water. Everywhere bodies of men and horses waited to be burned. There was more work than there were undertakers in the kingdom so the citizens and soldiers helped in the grisly aftermath. They stripped bodies before burning them so that as the ashes settled, the piles of saddles, belts, boots, not to mention armor, swords, shields, spears, axes, and other weapons grew high alongside the funeral pyres—monuments to waste.
This was the last place Katlyn wished to be, but it was just where Gail wanted to begin their search. She started in the very spot where King Talamar had fallen. The tracks were hopeless, run over by so many soldiers, pickers, mourners, and undertakers. But here and there she at least found a stray print that was not man or horse that she followed towards the edges of the field of battle.
As they moved, Katlyn came to realize that some of the pickers and mourners searching the dead were Maurvant children looking for their fathers and women seeking their husbands, brothers, or sons. They were a grim lot, bent low with weakness, starvation, and loss. Many of them had marked their faces with paint. What these signs represented, mourning, surrender, resilience, Katlyn was not sure, but their air of defeat was unmistakable. Some of their numbers mixed with the Anthorians, neither side paying the other much heed, united as they were in their heavy task.
“Do you think we should be worried by any of the Maurvant?” Katlyn asked Gail, just to be certain.
“No. As long as they are within range of my bow they should be the ones that are worried,” Gail answered without looking up from the trampled earth. A hardness had returned to her eyes that was all too familiar to Katlyn. It had been there when Gail had led them through the Eastlands to her father’s manor; it had shone in her gaze when she had pledged to kill all the elks. But it had not been there when she had sought forgiveness, and if Katlyn had not seen that fleeting glimpse of humanity, sorrow, vulnerability, she might not have agreed to accompany Gail to find the elks.
They were well equipped
. Both of them had good horses, although Katlyn was doubtful if their mounts could catch one of the swift-footed elks. They also each had an extra horse packed with supplies. Katlyn led one with food stuffs, rations, water, and sleeping mats, while Gail’s bore spears, traps, snares, and a dozen tightly packed quivers. They were a small army of two, the war—according to Gail—far from over.
Gail’s transformation was remarkable to Katlyn, not only for what had changed but what had remained the same. Katlyn did not doubt the sincerity of Gail’s tears during her confession and apology. Katlyn wondered, like Gunther, if perhaps the font had indeed healed something in Gail . . . some childhood wound, some pitiful scar of self-loathing. But Gail’s focus, her intensity, her distance and abrupt nature were still much intact.
Gail said little more to Katlyn than was necessary those first few hours in the battlefield. Katlyn was not sure if it was melancholy from the surroundings, the loss of a king she had become loyal to, or simply the grim nature of their mission—which to Gail was still one of vengeance. Katlyn processed the silence at first as an affront that insulted her, but eventually, after they had traveled for a few days she grew used to it and even bored of the tedium of following Gail as she studied the ground for signs too obscure for Katlyn to notice. Instead Katlyn spoke to Sapphire, who had accompanied them. She was the only jay left: Azure was last seen headed west, following Haille, and Cyan north, for reasons unknown. They were mysterious creatures, the jays, but Katlyn was glad to have at least one along. And Sapphire’s chirps and whistles were a welcome contrast to the harsh caws of Gail’s companion, the crow she called Soot.
On the third day out from the city they were approached by a group of Maurvant women with children. They did not share a common language but they conveyed with signs that they were looking for fresh water and any food they could spare. Katlyn, moved by mercy and a desperate urge to feel useful on this journey, shared some rations with the women and their hollowed-eyed children. Their gratitude needed no translation, but Katlyn’s generosity earned a rebuke from Gail.
“Note to yourself, that you are sharing your half of the rations, not mine. I won’t go hungry on the road because one of us was soft-hearted to our enemies.”
Katlyn did not reply and treated Gail with silence the rest of the day. Not that Gail even noticed. Near evening Gail found a fresh set of tracks leading to the east.
“Finally,” she said. “The chase begins.”
But if Katlyn had expected a heart pounding flight through fields and forests she had guessed wrong. They only rode an hour before the light failed them and Gail called for them to set up camp for the night.
It was a relief to be far from the horrors of the battlefield now, but alone in lands still unsecured, Katlyn desired more cooperation, or at least communication than Gail was willing to provide. After a silent meal of smoked meats, bread, and cheese, when Gail announced that they would light no fire and that she would take the first watch, Katlyn’s exasperation boiled over.
“It’s clear you have little to say to me but if we are to work together you might be more cordial.”
Gail looked at her, as if for the first time. She wiped her hand across her mouth, letting it linger over her lips before sliding it away, tugging her face into a frown. Her eyes were unfocused and dropped, blankly, to the ground.
“I’ve spoken my amends,” Gail said, picking up a twig and breaking its end with a press of her thumb. “I don’t know what more to say. It’s not often one meets someone they killed, at least on this side of death.” She was quiet, stabbing the earth near her foot with the stick. “To be frank, I am confounded. I will say again I am sorry, but I don’t know what good it does. That did not bring you back. The font did. I have no words for you that can equal those actions.”
Katlyn scratched her chin, considering. “Well, I guess as long as you don’t shoot me with another arrow, this is an improvement.”
“Is that a jest?”
“Really, I don’t know.”
They both went quiet and turned in unison at the sound of a leaf crumpling underfoot. Soot flapped up into the boughs above them, Sapphire followed. The noise came from the opposite direction of the horses and Gail was up, an arrow nocked in her bow before Katlyn had even remembered where she had left her sword.
“Come out now or I will shoot,” Gail said, aiming into the dark. The bushes rustled in response and a tiny figure wrapped in an oversized cloak stepped forth. It was a girl of ten, perhaps eleven, years. She had the dark hair, olive skin, and wide set eyes of the Maurvant, not to mention she looked starved and weary. Katlyn did not doubt she was looking for food but wondered if she was alone. Gail’s thoughts were the same.
“Where are the others?” Gail asked, her bowstring stretching under her fingers.
“Alone. I am alone,” the girl said. Her words were halting but she spoke their tongue.
“You know our language,” Katlyn said.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“My family was a family of merchants. It was good to know the language of the lowlanders.”
“That’s us I suppose,” Gail said. “What do you want?”
Katlyn took a different track. “What is your name?”
“Tallia Senkar.”
“Tallia, I am Katlyn. This is Gail.”
“Tallia, what do you want?”
“I am hungry.”
“Why are you alone?” Gail asked as Soot returned, alighting on a branch next to her. Sapphire looped back at the same time with a merry whistle, which Katlyn took for a sign that the woods were indeed empty but for them.
“The others are dead. The flux.”
“Why were so many women and children following the Maurvant army?” Katlyn asked.
“We had to. The stores, the streams in our land ran out.”
“That is why your people came west, because of famine and drought?” Gail asked, her tone accusing.
Tallia looked at her feet and folded her hands. “That and because of the Magus. He ordered us.”
“The Magus?” Gail asked. “Who is that?”
Katlyn noticed Tallia’s eyes move towards the smoked bread and cheese she had left unfinished. “Gail, she is harmless and starved. If we’re going to interrogate her let’s give her something to eat.”
Gail’s mouth puckered a moment as if she had bit into a radish before she relaxed her pull on the bowstring and sat down, shooting one last glance into the nearest copse of trees beyond. “Fine, as long as it gets her to talk.”
Talk Tallia did. After a few minutes of devouring three helpings of meat, cheese, and bread, she took a long drink from the waterskin. Her strength recovered, Tallia began to tell her story and the story of the Maurvant.
“We are people of the steppes, living in view of the southernmost peaks of the Rimcur range. The mountains trap most of the rains and snow and the streams that run from them are cold, clear, and deep. Usually the flow is plentiful and allows us and our animals to live comfortably. Life has been good for generations. We trade with tribes to the east and even merchant trains that cross the great desert to the south. We are not warriors, at least not in my memory or that of my parents or their parents.
“But that changed when the Magus came. He was a magician with great knowledge of healing and sorcery. At first he only passed through during the turning of the seasons, spring and autumn. But one year he wintered with us. He was an honored guest. He stayed with our chief, Kiruna, but in the spring, calamity struck. The winter snows were thin and the streams did not flow to refill our reservoirs. It was the same throughout the steppes. Some said we had offended the gods and the elders called for a sacrifice. Others simply migrated. But they soon returned for our nearest neighbors to the east also were experiencing famine. Soon a disease struck the potato and tuber crops and we were left with few stores. When the next winter came, many starved.
“It was then that Chief Kiruna, the high chief of our lands, called the other ch
iefs for council. With the Magus at his side, he claimed to know why our land had been devastated: a powerful sorcerer in the lowlands, in the land of Karrith, had cursed us. War was the only answer.”
“That is a leap, from sheep herders and potato farmers to raiders. What proof did this Magus have?” Gail asked.
“His proof was in his power. He could conjure flame from his fingertips, lighting from his palms, and bring light to the darkest of night.”
“Too bad he could not bring rain to the driest of steppes,” Gail grumbled.
“So he persuaded your people to march on Karrith?” Katlyn asked.
“Yes,” Tallia said. As young as she was, she understood the shame of it, swallowing and casting her gaze downward.
Gail leaned forward on her haunches. “Where is this Magus now?”
“I do not know. Perhaps still in our village, for he did not come with us west.”
“Figures,” Gail said.
“He said he would remain behind to protect the weakest, those who could not travel. This was strange, but other strange things took place.”
“Tell us,” Katlyn said.
“Our chief, Kiruna, disappeared. It was said he went west to prepare the way to victory, but he was an old man. I did not think he could make such a journey. We never came across him as we moved west. It was like he disappeared.”
“So the Magus sent you to war but remained behind?”
“He sent his beasts, the elks. Three of them. They led us.”
“Led you, could they speak?” Katlyn asked.
Tallia tilted her head, her eyes narrowed. “No, why would they speak?”
Gail was baffled as well. “Sort of a preposterous question, Katlyn.”
“Not after what I’ve seen,” was all she felt like offering.
“They were cunning creatures though, almost wise, they seemed,” Tallia continued. “Some people even came to worship them. They were grand, terrifying beasts.”
“We have seen them,” Gail said, her lips a fine straight line.
