Shield and Crown

by Michael Jason Brandt

  Nay, what Yohan feared was that a Gothenberg or Imperial army would arrive on the scene, forcing the tribesmen’s hand. Why this had not already happened was a mystery, for the empire was under invasion and this lack of response revealed either great neglect or great confusion within the halls of power.

  He knew that Emperor Eberhart had abdicated, of course, but it was still hard to imagine a void of power so vast that these raids were not countered. Was the fighting in Vilnia now so dire that every soldier was occupied there?

  From first-hand observation, Yohan was aware that the enemy occupied Sky’s Pass and threatened Halfsummit. But he had relayed that information long ago. Surely, those higher up the chain of command had used the report to plug the pass and hold the invaders in the mountains. That could be accomplished with a small army, leaving plenty of soldiers to handle other threats.

  He turned away from these confusing thoughts. There were too many unknown factors, and his mind was already too muddled to piece together a puzzle. All Yohan could do was react according to what he saw directly in front of him, and that meant continuing to operate like a lone hunter tracking its prey.

  Not completely alone, he reminded himself. The harpa had proven useful in prior trials, and perhaps would again—though it would be foolish to rely on him any more than necessary.

  “What do we do, then?”

  Yohan considered. “Wait for this eve. Without the cover of land, we’ll have to use the cover of darkness.”

  He began the uncomfortable half-crawl, half-slither away from the enemy encampment. After a significant hesitation, the harpa followed suit.

  Having finished the eve meal early in preparation for a long night, Yohan watched his companion muddle through another practice. As all amateurs did, the harpa awkwardly took long, pronounced slashes toward the body of a pretend opponent. A pretend, stationary opponent the approximate height of a small dog or large housecat. Even a light blade grew heavy to an arm unused to wielding it, and the swings arced lower and lower until Yohan expected the point to strike the ground.

  This exercise would certainly make the caravaneer more proficient at chopping down thin trees or thick stalks of wheat, but little else.

  Yohan looked away, considering the plan for the upcoming reconnaissance. Night’s enveloping darkness would allow them to get much nearer the camp, but would also hinder their own ability to see. As much as he, too, would like to see the women once more, he began to wonder whether they would not be better served to venture into town instead. Perhaps they could find a night watchman or discreet civilian who would fill in some of the many nagging holes in his understanding.

  He glanced back, noticing that the practice had transitioned from attack to defense. Patrik brought the sword up in a two-handed posture, parrying first an attack from the left then the right. His feet remained firmly planted a few feet apart, knees locked, ready to absorb the force of an incoming blow.

  It was all good work for preparing to fight an enemy with the agility of a cow. Or perhaps he was practicing for the collapse of that tree he had just cut down.

  “Bend your knees,” Yohan said aloud.

  Without replying, the harpa followed the suggestion. He blocked another pair of blows, his motion already looking more natural.

  “And keep your feet moving,” Yohan added.

  The caravaneer stepped sideways, blocked an attack, then a little more, blocking another. “How long?” he asked.

  “Always.” Yohan remembered this being one of the very first lessons drilled into him, yet one that was so easy to forget once fatigue set in.

  He stood up and drew his own sword. “Never stop moving, if you can help it. Alternate between short and long strides, left and right, forward and back. Combat is not a dance, you’re not communicating to your partner where you’re going next. You’re doing the opposite, so they never know where you’ll be.”

  An oversimplification, to be sure. There was more to it than that. Far more. Little ideas, difficult to express in words, that came instinctively to some swordsmen after long experience. For one, the feet were creatures of habit. Let them get used to moving, and they would do so without thinking. Allow them to get settled, and they would be slow to respond when you needed them most.

  There was also something to the dance comparison, now that he thought about it. This was a notion that had occurred to Yohan when Summer taught him a few basic steps, but now he applied it in the reverse direction. Just as with music, combat had a particular rhythm—a cadence that all participants could feel. Thinking of an opponent as a partner opened up new possibilities, except that instead of leading them where you were going next, you could deceive them in the wrong way to seize an advantage. This was the basic idea behind feinting, of course, but taken to a new level.

  Turning these thoughts over in his mind brought back memories of the harpa, memories so strong that he could hear the melody as though they were here, playing. He had known their music had a powerful influence on him, changing his perspective on life and love and spirit and happiness. But he had never before felt the music like this, blending with his martial mind as it calculated ebbs and flows, angles and speeds.

  Patrik’s right foot tripped on his left heel, sending him tumbling to the ground and snapping Yohan back to the moment. He reached down to pull the caravaneer upright. “Do not worry, that happens at first. It takes time for your feet to learn.”

  “How long?”

  Years. “A tenday or two.” He noted the burgeoning glare of a sunset. “Come on. That’s enough for now. It’s time to scout.”

  The breeze was all but dead by the time the two crawled within a few hundred yards of the encampment. That lack, along with a sky fairly lit by the bright moon, made this spring night feel very much like a late summer eve.

  The moonlight was appreciated, for it allowed the men to see into and between the makeshift tents with a measure of clarity. But the temperature was not, for the exertion of moving at a brisk pace made them both sweat uncomfortably. After long minutes pushing earth, Yohan’s hands felt as though they had been washed in mud, and his eyes stung from the intrusion of unwiped moisture.

  Yet these were mere trivialities compared to the cruelties inflicted on the prisoners in the camp. He could see five—two who made his heart pound excitedly, along with two straight-haired girls and one smallish man who spent more time prostrate on the ground than sitting up like the others. None of the prisoners talked to one another, as each seemed preoccupied by personal torments—the man’s face shook into a meaty forearm, the girls contemplated their bonds, Jena stared daggers at every tribesmen within sight, and Summer rubbed one leg with such endless attention that Yohan feared she had suffered serious harm.

  He was desperate to make his presence known to the women, a compulsion no doubt shared by his trembling companion. Yohan began shaking as well, his muscles electrified by a surge of that same feeling that came during battle.

  Yet in combat, time always seemed to slow down. This was the opposite, as Yohan felt the minutes slipping by in a blur. During the entire long chase, this was as close as the pursuit had ever reached. His desperate desire to free the two women was so overwhelming, he felt his heart squeeze painfully, and his mind race with illogical anticipation. Feeling Patrik’s unspoken, impatient stare, Yohan doubted his own capacity to make a sound decision.

  He closed his eyes, gave his nerves a moment to relax, and focused. The fog in his mind cleared. Ever-so-slightly, but enough to think.

  Nay. It would not do. The opportunity was an illusion born of pure hope. The very idea was folly, for the countless enemy warriors in that camp had a far better chance to see trespassers long before the women did. There would be other, better chances. He had to believe that, or else he was condemning them all.

  Yohan shook his head, tapped Patrik on the shoulder, and pointed to a group of five tribesmen separating from the others. They appeared to be leaving camp.

  “We follow them,
for now,” Yohan whispered.

  Patrik stared back intently for a long moment, then closed his eyes tightly. His cheeks twitched, and a sudden stream of wetness rushed down one. But he nodded.

  Yohan felt a strong temptation to reach out to his companion. Instead he moved ahead, circling the perimeter of the camp as quickly as the awkward movements allowed, hands too busy to wipe the flow of moisture from his own eyes.

  Roughly halfway between the camp and town, the two of them found a rocky cluster suitable for cover. From there, they positioned themselves to watch the intermittent traffic that passed within a few dozen yards. The position was not without risk, but none of the passers-by seemed particularly alert. Most looked as tired as Yohan felt, and not a few yawned so loudly they could be heard from this distance.

  All appeared to be tribesmen, wandering casually in and out of town as if they had nothing to fear from it. At this hour, Yohan had a pretty good guess what they were doing there, and he felt sorry for the women of Threefork who had to endure those barbaric demands.

  But not until the original group made their way back toward the camp did he feel genuine revulsion so sickening that his judgment clouded again. Only now did he see their faces, and the distinctive gingery tint of one beard reflected in torchlight.

  Patrik pointed and whispered. “Look there. Isn’t that your friend?”

  The hair on Yohan’s neck bristled. “He’s no friend of mine.”

  “I mean—”

  “Aye. It’s him.”

  “Can we—”

  “Nay.”

  This was turning into a long series of frustrations, but there were five men in this party. Yohan might succeed in killing the traitor, with the effect of alerting every tribesman in the vicinity to his presence. “Not here. The next time, though, we’ll follow him into town.”

  Yohan saw the harpa’s disappointment, matching his own. But just as with the prisoners, he had to hope they would get another opportunity. When it came, they would be better prepared.

  Once it became clear the tribesmen were taking no risks—with either the prisoners, who remained guarded at all hours, or with their own patrols, which never ventured far from camp—there was little for Yohan and Patrik to do but bide their time, awaiting a change in disposition.

  There was always the temptation to sneak into Threefork itself, simply in hopes of learning what was going on. But the dubious relationship between the tribesmen and town gave Yohan pause. It would take no more than one citizen to sound an alarm, and all would be lost.

  Instead they returned to their hideaway far from town to spend more time scouting, more time resting, and more time practicing.

  Yohan remembered the hard lessons of his own drillmaster in Vilnia. He attempted to apply some of those lessons to Patrik’s training, although without the same curses and insults.

  “Yesterday was your feet. Today, let’s talk about your arms. They don’t just perform an attack, they also tell an opponent what that attack will be. Your swings are far too long, too pronounced. You’re indicating where the attack is going well before it gets there. Only a crippled foe or a fool wouldn’t be able to dodge.”

  Patrik watched a few sample movements then did his best to emulate them. It would take time, of course, but at least he was performing exercises that would improve his skill if he repeated them enough.

  Yohan had done what he could to help. Now it was up to the other man himself to learn from the instruction. For a civilian, he was not completely without potential. Give him a year or two and he might make a fine warrior, after all.

  Which was a ridiculous notion. They would both be dead in a matter of days, most likely. So, too, would the prisoners. They were being kept alive for some purpose, but Yohan did not doubt its climactic conclusion was nigh. He was not sure whether he wanted to know exactly what that purpose was, or not.

  Patrik had stopped, and now stared at Yohan curiously. “What are you about, Yohan?”

  “I was thinking about the man. The prisoner. Who is he?”

  “Someone important. A nobleman, judging by his outfit. Does it matter?”

  “What are they planning to do to them?”

  Patrik found a rock on which to sit, set the sword aside, and rummaged through a pocket. “Twoscar told us the Chekik—the Archon, he called him—intended them for ritual sacrifice.”

  “He also told us they were going west. How much can we believe, harpa? How much was truth, and how much lies?”

  “It was all truth to him.” Patrik had worked up an appetite, so he bit off a chunk of jerky with the kind of enthusiasm Yohan recalled from his own early days in the army. He continued to speak while he chewed. “The directions he was told. The sacrifice, he may have witnessed. I believe him.”

  Yohan nodded. “He said the Chekiks use valued prisoners for their ceremonies. The others they eat.” So shunned was the loathsome act that he felt shame simply from speaking of it. The next thought was even more difficult to say aloud. “So why is Summer still alive? I understand Jena, for she’s a princess—”

  “So is Summer,” Patrik said. He bit off another large chunk before swallowing the first.

  The idea made so little sense that Yohan was not sure he had heard correctly, or that his companion understood. “What’s that you say?” But the caravaneer continued chewing as if he had not heard.

  Is he making game of me? That seemed unlikely. “She told me nothing of this,” Yohan said.

  “Nay, she wouldn’t. It’s not her way.”

  “You speak in earnest, then?”

  Patrik swallowed at last, then sighed. He put down the jerky. “We don’t like talking of such things with outsiders. The empire has never respected our ways. Has seldom shown any curiosity, in fact.”

  Yohan could not deny the long, tragic history of the harpa people. The mistreatment, and the misunderstandings. Nor would he deny his own complicity in their plight, for ignorance and neglect were no excuse.

  Patrik looked at the setting sun. “I told you before that our people value girls more than boys, women than men. Our people trace family through the women, and family is everything to us. We are all one great family in community, but the blood bonds run even stronger.

  “In its wisdom, your empire took everything from us but family and trade. We have no role to play in your politics, no voice in choosing your emperors. We are allowed no weapons—though you see what we think of that rule—and cannot serve in your armies, should we be so naive to so desire. We cannot even own land, and so are forced to spend our lives wandering.

  “Yet if forced to the road, why not make the most of it? And so we began to carry goods, from one end of the empire to the other. Indeed, we are better at this than any other people I know of. The kingdoms rely on us, and hand their riches over to us, though we have little on which to spend those riches. But you Imperials do. Your need for wealth is as incessant as our need for music. And so, having no use for it ourselves, we lend this money out to your artisans, your armies, even your kings. I believe it can be said that the blood of the empire could not flow without harpa coin.

  “It became too bothersome for Imperials to keep track of the caravans. Wanting a convenient way to keep the money close, it only made sense to establish permanent homes in the cities for the wealthiest harpa. Not homes that we could own ourselves, of course…but great houses nonetheless, complete with housethralls and silken sheets so that Imperial guests might be made comfortable. And so the oldest, most prominent families of harpa live in luxury, a conduit between the true citizens of the empire and the harpa of the road.

  “Each of the large capitals has one such family, but the four greatest are in the richest four cities of the empire: Chissenhall, Neublusten, Darleaux, and Valos.

  “In one of these was Summersong born. The daughter of one of our wealthiest matriarchs…perhaps the wealthiest, such distinctions are unimportant to us. Most of her class enjoy their status, seldom leaving the cities. But of course that
life never held any appeal for her. The road is home to the harpa, and no one is more harpa than Summer.

  “It was my great fortune to accompany her first caravan. I fell in love with her immediately, of course. I know not how it happened, but she deigned to love me, also. I…” His voice trailed off suddenly. “I believe I have answered your question, Soldier Yohan.”

  “She never said so. She never so much as hinted.”

  “Nay, she wouldn’t. Nor did she lord her status over the rest of us. It’s one of the things I love about her. One of the many.” He studied Yohan for a moment. “What vexes you?”

  “I’m just surprised she didn’t tell me.”

  Patrik’s eyes narrowed. “Why would she tell you, Soldier Yohan?” His tone had shifted from remembrance to suspicion.

  Through fog and confusion, Yohan’s mind told him he was treading in dangerous waters. Yet his heart was aching again, as painfully as ever. It needed an outlet.

  “Soldier Yohan? You wish to say something, I think.”

  “I do. A favor to ask, actually.”

  Patrik raised an eyebrow. “A favor, from the caravaneer?”

  “From the musician. The mbe.” His voice choked.

  The harpa frowned. “You request music? Here? Now?”

  “Your story reminded me of my own lessons. To celebrate life while we can.”

  Patrik nodded. “And to mourn our fallen. The two are the same, to us.”

  “Will you play?”

  The man looked down without answering, and Yohan feared he had overstepped their connection. They may not be friends, but he had no desire to upset the only companion he had.