Crusader

Chapter 45

Martaina

There was something wrong in the air, something she couldn’t quite narrow down. It was as if the breeze had shifted direction, and it carried with it an ill smell, something far away, something like death. She sniffed again, and it was faint, something dead, some blood, and it was too early and the woods too sparse for the camp to be getting fresh meat tonight. And if we were, odds are better than good that I’d be the one providing it, Martaina thought.

There was a stir as the expedition returned, Aisling at the fore with Terian, bound and gagged on a horse that she led. Martaina caught sight of Partus, further down the line, untethered, riding a horse of his own. “Before you left,” Martaina called out to Aisling, who looked at her in return, “the dwarf was bound hand and foot, and Terian was loosed upon the world. You return and the dark knight is the one restrained.”

“Does that make you curious about what happened?” Aisling asked, a sly smile perched on her blue lips.

Martaina sniffed the air again, trying to tune out the dull, pungent scent of people and focus on what she was scenting from upwind. “Not really.”

“It’s quite the tale,” Aisling said, handing off her reins to one of the other rangers that Martaina had set to taking care of the animals. Mendicant hopped off his pony and took up the rope that was tied around Terian’s bindings as he started to lead him off. “Filled with adventure and derring-do.”

Martaina looked at the dark elf as she approached, the usual measure of thistles caught in her white hair. With another sniff, something else became obvious as well, something that was beyond the usual faint hint of cinnamon that Aisling used to freshen her breath, something primal and sweaty on her blue skin, something that wasn’t usually there, in spite of the dark elf’s self-proclaimed reputation. Martaina watched her evenly, not giving her much expression, though she knew that scent, would know it anywhere, as pronounced as it was. “And also,” Martaina said, “filled with much sex with your General, it would seem.”

Aisling’s face didn’t fall as expected, it almost flushed, near-aglow. “You can tell?”

“I can smell it,” Martaina said, and went back to her quiver, checking each arrow in turn for splintering on the shaft, and fussing about every fletching.

“Smell what?” Aisling stared back at her.

“Him,” Martaina replied, “on you. Every man in this guild has a unique smell when they sweat. His is faint most of the time, but after a long ride and strenuous activity, it gets more pronounced. It took me a minute to sort it out, because it smells like he might have been in a hot springs recently, and that sulphur really covers it over well, but no, it’s there, it’s obvious-oh, and his horse, too. Very different smell than other horses, and it clings to him like that thistle in your hair.” She watched with some minor satisfaction as Aisling’s face purpled about the cheeks, her race’s version of blushing. “Don’t fear; I won’t tell.”

“Much appreciated,” Aisling said tightly, “I doubt our esteemed general would much like it if this …” She searched for a word but admitted defeat after only a few seconds, “… this were to get out among the guild.”

“Because his last two relationships were something he actively tried to hide?” Martaina raised an eyebrow at her and watched Aisling flinch away, the fingers of one hand touching her lips almost self-consciously.

“Ah, good to see you’ve returned,” Odellan said, wandering in from the opposite direction. His smell was straightforward, clean whenever possible, just like him. Not bad looking, either, for one so young, Martaina thought. “Where are the officers?” he asked Aisling.

“Back at Enrant Monge,” Aisling said, all trace of her embarrassment gone. “I believe the general will be along shortly.”

The smell from the woods was stronger now, Martaina thought, something obvious about it, the blood. She hadn’t heard anything, but that was hardly an indicator given that the camp noise was so prevalent. I wouldn’t smell anything either, but I’m here at the fringe, and the wind is just right. “Somebody died,” she said.

“Beg pardon?” Odellan looked away from Aisling, to her, and Martaina realized now she’d said it out loud.

“There’s blood in the air, a lot of it,” Martaina said with some chagrin. “I can track based on many factors, and that is one of them-one I don’t talk about much, obviously. It’s faint, but there, and it’s a ways off, so that means there’s a lot of it.”

“You’re saying-” Odellan began.

“Someone died?” Aisling asked. “No … someone was killed, if there’s that much blood.” Martaina could hear the young dark elf, and the slow line of reasoning as she drew it out in her head.

“How close by?” Odellan asked. “After all, there are armies encamped to our east, north and west-”

“Somewhere between here and Enrant Monge, I think,” Martaina said, sifting through it.

“Let’s go take a look.” Aisling’s hand went to her dagger, resting on the hilt, palming it. “After all, it could be-”

Odellan whistled, and a few nearby warriors came trotting over. “Short march. I’ll need a couple of rangers as well, as runners if need be. And a healer, so someone fetch one and bring them to catch up.” He looked to Martaina. “Lead on?”

“Yes,” Martaina said, and let her bow find her hand, and an arrow nocked itself. “Follow.”

She didn’t run through the trees, not exactly, but followed the path, the one that Aisling and the others from the northern expedition had come in on just moments earlier. The wind had shifted directions, now, and was blowing from the east. I hope what we’re looking for is on the path, because wandering afield on a search like this will be like trying to hit an apple at forty yards with a black hood on. She smiled. I can do it, but it’ll strain me.

The wind was fair but shifted again as they got closer down the path. It was all woods around them now, slight bluffs and rises on one side of the road. She ran along, her feet on the uneven path, the suggestion of rocks through the leather soles of her shoes. Hers gave flexibility but not as much support or protection. But neither were they as weighty as what the warriors wore, either, and she had to slow down to keep from outrunning the escort behind her.

The wind shifted again, and the smell was obvious now, close, a bend or two ahead in the road. Too many scents, mingled together to make a distinction about what she was smelling other than blood. The leaves whipped by her on either side, the string of her bow bit into her fingers the way it always had, the elven twine. It wasn’t a problem and hadn’t been in the thousand years since she first started to use it, but it was there, the pull of the string, just another feeling, a reminder to her that she was alive.

She came around the corner, a hard twist in the road just beyond a rise that blocked the view and there it was; blood, plenty of it, oozed out all over the road. The bodies were gone, dragged off, save one, the black armor so familiar that she knew the scent then, at least one of them. Martaina heard a hiss behind her as Aisling came around the berm, and she too saw what was there in the road.

The body was laid out, defaced in the cruelest ways possible, the head missing. The sword was still there, amazingly enough, and stuck in the body, which had been stripped naked, the armor left off to the side. It was still obvious, even so, whose body it was, being so tall and muscled as it was. She dropped next to it, felt the slide on the dirt road against her knees, as her fingers ran over the shoulder, as though she could offer the corpse some reassurance.

Aisling was across from her now, kneeling, not saying anything. There was a pall and quiet, the warriors who had followed them speaking only in hushed voices. It was obvious to them, too, who it was, and the rage and tension in the air was palpable. The words “The General” were bandied about, over and over, and she heard one of the rangers that had followed along running back to camp even as another ran down the road toward Enrant Monge.

“How long?” Aisling asked, jarring Martaina out of the long stare she had given the uneven cut around the throat, the place where the lifeblood was draining out onto the sand even now, aided more by gravity than the beating of a heart that had ceased minutes ago. Martaina looked up at the dark elf, who stared her down, and in the red eyes there was a fierce flame, as though the gates of the Realm of Fire had opened and all blazes had spilled loose into the dark elf’s soul. “How long?”

“He’s been dead ten, perhaps fifteen minutes,” Martaina said as she felt the arm again. It wasn’t cool to the touch, not yet, and wouldn’t exactly cool in the warm summer sun. “It’s possible that the head is around here, somewhere-”

“Unlikely,” Odellan said, and he was standing over them. “If someone takes a head, it’s either meant as spite to deprive them of resurrection or it’s a trophy. It’s not meant to be done just to kick it around a clearing.” The elf grew thoughtful, his helm held in the crook of his arm, his usually dark, sun-kissed skin a bit white. “Not in an orchestrated attack like this.”

“Hoygraf, then,” Aisling said, and she stood. “Actaluere.”

“That would seem the most likely.” Martaina stood, the wind blowing a few grains of sand from the road across her face along with a few stray strands of hair.

“This is not an opportune time or place for us to make war on Actaluere,” Odellan said, responding more to the sudden rumble that ran through the thirty or so warriors, armored and armed, standing behind him arrayed along the road and even up on the embankment. “Calm yourselves.”

“I don’t wish to calm myself,” Aisling said, though she kept her pitch well under control. “I wish to find the bastards responsible and collect their heads for myself while returning his to where it belongs.”

“This is not a moment for rash action,” Odellan said.

“This is not a moment when we can afford to wait and NOT act, either,” Aisling said. “We have less than forty minutes to find his head and have a healer reattach it or else he will not be coming back to life. I would have to guess that will put at least some kink in our efforts to defend Luukessia.”

“We cannot simply charge into the midst of the army of Actaluere,” Odellan said, “regardless of how strong our suspicions might be. What if this is some feint by Galbadien, some political game by the Syloreans? Or a simple, ill-timed and gruesome bandit attack?”

“This is about as likely to be a bandit attack as you are to sprout gills and start swimming about in the wellsprings under Saekaj Sovar,” came a voice from the embankment. Martaina looked up, but not far; Partus stood there, a few feet above them, along with others now arriving, trickling in from the encampment as the news spread. The clink of chains heralded the arrival of Mendicant, Terian in tow. The dark knight’s eyes flashed as he saw the body, but his mouth was covered by the gag and his expression muted by the cloth that covered half his face.

“What’s he doing here?” Martaina asked Mendicant. She saw the goblin start in surprise at being addressed.

“I couldn’t just leave him at the campsite,” Mendicant said. “They’re all heading over here, now. So I brought him along.”

“He’s probably getting a deep feeling of joy from seeing this,” Aisling said, leering at Terian. The dark knight shrugged then shook his head. “No? Must be because you wanted the joy of doing it for yourself.” She waited, and Terian looked at her knowingly then nodded once. “A finer friend I doubt he’s ever known,” she said, and touched the headless body with the toe of her shoe, delicate, almost a caress. “At least when he killed your father, he didn’t know what he was doing, that he was harming you. His excuse was duty; what’s yours? Spite?”

“Enough of this,” Odellan said. “We need the officers, and we need them now.”

“They won’t be here for twenty more minutes,” Aisling said, wheeling about on him. “By then it’ll be too late to act. Do whatever you will, but I’m going to the Actaluere encampment. I’m likely to stir some trouble, and anyone who wants to come with me-”

“No,” Martaina said. “You know he wouldn’t want it. Not like this. Not a war without any proof, not a fight to no purpose. Odellan is right; we don’t know for fact it is Actaluere.”

“You’re a fool if you think it’s otherwise,” Aisling said, her eyes narrowed. “But since you make mention of it, there were other bodies here and now they’re gone. Why don’t we simply follow the trail, oh skillful ranger?” She indicated the drag marks in the dirt of the road that led off the embankment, back up into the woods, with a sweeping gesture that was as much sarcasm as grandiloquence. “You know … while we wait for the officers to appear and make their august rulings and decisions and whatnot.”

Martaina wanted to slap her own forehead. Of course. Follow the trail. She didn’t waste time agreeing or disagreeing, but instead sprang into motion, her feet finding purchase on the embankment as she followed the drag marks. It was a short jaunt, only a few feet, as the bodies were tucked into the underbrush, covered by a few pine needles and a couple of fallen branches. Their livery was obvious, and the smell of the fish and sea that was so dominant in the soldiers of Actaluere that she had met was present.

“The most obvious conclusion is most often the right one,” Aisling said, and her daggers were in her hands now. “Actaluere soldiers, dead at the edge of Praelior.”

“How can you tell?” Partus shuffled through the brush next to them, his head peeking out from just behind Martaina.

“Because some of these wounds look like something cut through them in impossible ways,” Martaina answered, turning her head to look at him. “This one, for example-through the bottom of the jaw and out. You see many non-mystical swords do that?”

“Gold coin for the pretty she-elf,” Partus said. “Looks like you got your culprits, you got your general fighting with them, and … you’ve still got no head. You gonna ride out into their camp and raise havoc, or what?”

“Or what,” came a voice from behind them, and the surface noise that was filling the air, all the soldiers, the low hum of conversations, was interrupted with the sweep of Curatio into the woods, silhouetted against the light coming from the break in the trees where the sun shone down closer to the road. His white cloak billowed as he walked, reminding her of the priests of Nessalima back in Pharesia, their robes just as loose as the healer’s. “Windrider rode back to Enrant Monge in such a fit that the lad who tends the stables swore to me he had been possessed by powers of darkness heretofore unseen in Luukessia.” The healer took a deep breath and his nostrils flared. “We have a dead general, we have no head, we have assailants from Actaluere, and we have more problems than we can safely count without an abacus.” Nyad, J’anda and Longwell followed in his wake; the younger Longwell was flushed, his helm carried in the crook of his arm as well and his lance not with him.

“These are Hoygraf’s men,” Longwell said, heavy boots crunching in the greenery as he came to stand next to Odellan, staring down at the bodies. “Let there be no doubt.”

“So now we know who took the head,” Curatio said, “but we can’t prove it beyond doubt, and that’s a flimsy premise to start a war on now, when we least need to be ensnared in other conflicts.”

“We already had a conflict with Hoygraf,” Aisling snapped, “that’s plain. We just haven’t seen the end of it, yet.” She spun one of her daggers, twisting it fast in her grip. “I mean to see it through though, even if the rest of you don’t-”

“This will be fruitless,” Curatio said, holding a hand up to forestall her. “Even if we rallied the army and ran down the entire Actaluere force, which-given their size and ours, would be quite the endeavor given the time constraint-there’s still no guarantee his head is there, in their camp. They’d be foolish to be caught with it, after all-”

“He never was all that bright,” Longwell said, “but proud, though.” Heads swiveled to him. “Hoygraf, I mean. If Cyrus did take the Baroness’s charms in the Garden again before we left,” no one noticed the slight flinch from Aisling save for Martaina, “then that is the last in a long line of insults and woundings that our general has inflicted on the man. It’s more than his pride can bear. He’ll keep the head, and it’ll be dipped in tar and put in a place of special favor so that he can keep it together for as long as possible.”

“Well, that’s the sort of fixation that’s not grotesque and disturbing at all,” J’anda muttered so low that no one else heard him.

“I’m not hearing solutions, and the clock is winding down,” Aisling said. “So let me propose one-you don’t want to send a whole army into the Actaluere camp because you don’t think we should start a war now, fine. I’ll go, and I’ll sneak my way-kill my way to Hoygraf, if necessary-and retrieve the head.” There was a dangerous glint in her eyes. “And I can do it, too.”

“Far be it from me to suggest otherwise,” J’anda said, “but we might benefit from a bit of guile instead. An illusion, perhaps, to ease your passage. Less sneaking, more walking through the middle of the camp without any questions.”

“Then what?” Curatio asked. “Go to the grand duke’s tent and ask politetly to see him? Ask for the head back?”

“Threaten him with the loss of his own as well as his manhood,” Aisling said, still twirling her daggers. “I think he’ll see the wisdom in parting with it.” She paused. “The head, not his manhood.”

“I don’t wish to be crude-” Longwell said.

“That hasn’t stopped anyone else,” J’anda said under his breath.

“But at this point, the grand duke’s manhood is inextricably tied to the head,” Longwell went on, grimly, “though I know that your Arkarian sense probably doesn’t understand or wish to acknowledge it. Cyrus has castrated Hoygraf-not literally, I would hope, but in a figurative sense, through everything he’s done, and the Grand Duke’s actions are absolutely in line with trying to regain his power and pride, as it were.”

“This is disturbing on so many levels I can’t even count them all,” Martaina said. “We have little time. You think he won’t give up the head?”

“I think he’d rather die,” Longwell said, “given the humiliations he’s been subjected to by our general. Stealing the man’s wife and having his way with her is well beyond the realm of embarrassement to be sure, especially since we all know-as he probably does-that she was with Cyrus more than happily.” Longwell shook his head. “If you want the head back, he won’t surrender it willingly; you’ll have to kill or cripple him further.”

“Done and done,” Aisling said, and turned west, disappearing into the brush.

“Dammit,” Curatio breathed, and Martaina cast him a look. “Go with her,” the healer said, “J’anda, you too. Find the head, bring it back. I’ll rally the army in case you fail.”

“You’re going to start a war over this, Curatio?” Partus said with muted excitement. “Ill-timed, but I admire that.”

“To hell with your admiration,” Curatio said. “I don’t care what time it is; if our general dies permanently, I will make an example of the Kingdom of Actaluere that even the scourge won’t find palatable.” He waved his hand at Martaina. “Go.”

She was off then and heard J’anda following behind, slower. She tried to match his pace, but the enchanter’s sandaled feet didn’t make for very fast travel and after a short distance, he said so. “I apologize, but this is going to be difficult.” They ran along the southern wall of Enrant Monge, the castle’s guards looking down on them from above on the battlements.

“It’s not far now,” she replied, and kept moving. “Just over that rise.” She pointed to a crest of the rough territory ahead.

“You know these woods already?” J’anda asked, keeping up with her.

“I’ve been hunting,” Martaina said. “What do you think the likelihood is that Aisling will wait for us?”

“Low. Lower than that, even, maybe. What’s lower than ground level?”

“Saekaj Sovar, as I understand it.” She met his weak smile, and they kept on, her quietly slipping through the woods and him crunching in the underbrush as though he were unaware of the noise he was causing.

They came to the top of an overlook, and down below was a camp. Not quite as simplistic as the Sanctuary encampment, this one had clearly been used many times over the years. It was open ground, with latrines clearly dug, tents set up in lines and in a careful order. “Looks like the same type of site that the Galbadien army uses,” Martaina said as the two of them hunched over in the bushes, looking down.

“Here,” J’anda said, and his hand moved over her. The light around them shifted, and J’anda became a human, wrapped in the same helm and armor as the guards they had found dead in the woods. The enchanter regarded her carefully for a moment. “The illusion is perfect; you look like a man.”

“Which is rather dramatically different for her,” came Aisling’s voice from behind them. Martaina looked to see the dark elf crouched only inches away, “Since that would doubtless scare off any of the five men she’s slept with since coming on this sojourn.”

Martaina felt her face redden, the heat coming to it. “You sound envious.”

“Not at all,” Aisling said, her face a mask, only the slightest edge of spite creeping out of her words. “I’m quite content with what I’ve got, and I’ll continue to be content with it if we manage to finish this out.”

Martaina shot a look at J’anda, whose hand was extended toward Aisling. A moment later, the illusion took hold and the dark elf was replaced with a dull-looking man of Actaluere, slack-jawed under his helm with its over-exaggerated nose guard. Aisling was off, down the slope with a cloud of dust trailing behind her. Martaina kept a careful eye on J’anda, who looked to her with a gentle shrug. “Five men?” The enchanter asked. “I’m envious.”

“Because you weren’t one of them?” Martaina asked, and felt the dryness in her mouth as she said it, the humiliation of her exposure.

“No,” J’anda said with a dismissive wave, “because you could have been sporting and saved one of the men for me, at least. Two if you were feeling charitable.”

She blinked at him, and he was gone down the slope in the moment after that before she had a chance to respond. She followed after, hoping the illusion worked hand in hand with the stir of dirt she was causing on the slope. She came to the end of it, the red dust of her descent caught up with her and overtook her for a minute, but she kept moving until it was cleared and she entered the edge of the tent city of Actaluere’s encampment. She saw the man who she knew was J’anda, just ahead of her, but could only tell him by the dust of the slide on his illusory surcoat. Aisling, ahead, was not only dusty but walked with a slight, almost unnoticeable sway.

“Playing games, soldier?” One of the men she passed, stirring a pot of stew over a fire, shook his head at her. “This is how you know you’ve been too long idle; men start playing like bloody children.”

She didn’t answer, afraid of what the response would sound like, feminine or not. Instead, she followed J’anda, the trailing blue of his stained surcoat, and they walked on past the small tents of the army, toward the larger ones ahead, the tents of the commanders and even one, the largest-for the King, surely-which stood higher than all the rest and was crowned with a circle of pennants atop it.

The smell of food was present, all manner of it, and the latrines, too, as she snaked her way through the camp. Her bow was still on her shoulder, she could feel it with a touch, but it was invisible, no sign that it was there at all. She felt the weight of it too, though, slung where it was. The aisles between tents were clear enough, though men lingered outside in the summer sun, laughing, slouching, aimless in most cases.

The ground between tents grew wider as they drew closer to the King’s tent. The gaps grew between them, the tents got bigger, and the spaces where men sat around fires were broader. Fewer men around these fires, she thought. More elite. There were no fires burning now, though, and few men, now that she thought about it. There was sound in the distance, though the sound of cheers or jeers, she couldn’t tell.

Aisling had slowed her pace, and now Martaina and J’anda caught her, walking as a triad down the quiet, abandoned pathways between tents. “Where did they all go?” J’anda asked, casting his gaze left, then right.

“To wherever that cheering comes from,” Aisling said, and the tension bled in her voice. “And likely where the head of our illustrious general is, too.”

They came out of a cluster of tents and the sound grew louder. There was a gathering in front of the King’s tent, where a wide space was cleared. Their view was obstructed though, and only the top of the massive tent was visible behind the last few large tents in the way. “Think they’re having a party around it?” J’anda asked.

“If so, the celebration will be short-lived,” Martaina said, and ran her hand onto her bow, checking to be sure it was still there even though she couldn’t see it. There was blood in the air again, fighting now to be scented over the camp smells.

They emerged from between two tents and found the source of the cheering and catcalls. There was a courtyard of sorts constructed before the King’s tent. A throne sat to one side, unoccupied, all done in brass but with places for poles to be threaded through so it could be carried on the shoulders of strong men, or placed atop a wagon.

It was not the empty throne that the crowd of soldiers of Actaluere were cheering, Martaina realized quickly. It was the woman stripped naked and tied to a post in the middle of it all, and the head on the top of the post. A flash of brown hair was obvious and visible, though it had been cut short, roughly-by a sword, she suspected-and the back was lashed and red with fresh blood from the shoulders to the buttocks and down the back of her thighs. The woman was on her knees, and the only proof Martaina could find that she was still alive was the steady, slow heave of her shoulders up and down with each breath, the rise and fall of her shoulder blades that put the lie to the idea that a human body could not take the punishment revealed on her skin.

“The head,” J’anda said under his breath. “It’s atop that pillar, where that woman is being … ugh.” He made a sound in the back of his throat, such utter disgust professed that aligned perfectly with Martaina’s sentiments. She had seen worse tortures but few enough. Crimson stained the dirt all around the post, the ground ran red with the woman’s blood.

“She’s still alive, whoever she is,” Aisling said. “Look at her-”

“I see,” Martaina said tightly. “They’ve cut her hair, but you can see the old scarring; it’s Baroness Hoygraf.”

“Dear gods,” J’anda said, staring as the woman turned her shorn scalp and revealed a face battered and bruised but still recognizable. “She was safe at Enrant Monge; how did they-”

“It matters not,” Aisling said, and her tone was hard and uninviting for further talk. “We need the head.”

“While we’re here, we might consider freeing her as a kindness,” Martaina said. “I, for one, wouldn’t wish to experience another moment of what she’s endured, not any of it.”

“Where is-” J’anda started but cut himself off. “There he is.”

From behind the crowd to their left, where he had been obscured from their view, came Grand Duke Hoygraf, his face waxy pale, and his limp pronounced with the cane he leaned on for guidance. His every step looked as though his abdomen caused him pain, though his face was already cut cruel enough into a scowl that it might not have mattered to his expression. He limped his way across the dirt, back to the pillar and his wife, the head of Cyrus perched atop, the lifeless eyes of their general bearing silent witness to everything that happened around them.

“If he starts to launch into a soliloquy, I’m begging you to send an arrow through his eye,” Aisling said.

“If he does,” J’anda said, “I might send an arrow to his eye myself. Hell, I might do it without him speaking. This is an atrocity. How a man could do such a thing to an enemy is beyond me, but his own wife?”

“Love and war are a thin line,” Aisling said, “and thinner here in Luukessia than anywhere else I’ve seen.” They stood at a distant edge of the crowd where it was less populous, but there were at least a hundred in attendance around the spectacle, and all armed with swords. “Can we win this fight?”

“Not by numbers,” J’anda said, “nor by easy deception. My spells would be of limited use with this large of a crowd. I could sow discord, perhaps by charming some of them, having them attack others, but it would be a small few, say fifty or so. There is no chance I could mesmerize this many of them, nor that I could divert all their attention from the center long enough or with enough guarantee that we wouldn’t be caught.” He shrugged. “I don’t think even an army marching into their midst right now would guarantee we wouldn’t be discovered while freeing her, gathering the head and making our escape.” He shook his head. “By the numbers, we need our army to finish this. Unless we all want to die in the process, in which case we might as well go now as later.”

“No deaths,” Aisling said. “Defeats the purpose. There has to be another way, and we only have a few minutes left, now. We need an opening, something to give us an out.” The grand duke hefted a whip in his hand and lashed his wife twice across the back in quick succession, opening fresh lines just above her buttocks. “Killing him before we die would be awfully satisfying, though.”

There was a stir in the crowd, something other than the ordinary jeers, and the grand duke stopped, and spoke. “See what happens? See what comes your way when you are wicked, deceptive, conniving, deceitful, and treat with our enemies?” He opened his arms wide in grand gesture, as if encompassing all with his motion, though he was careful to shift his weight so much of it still rested on the cane he leaned on with his left hand. “Be assured, we are a faithful enemy, and repayment of what is owed comes to all who give us cause.” He gestured to the head on the pole with his right hand, and the sneer on his face might have been mistaken for happiness in another man, Martaina thought, but not on his.

“You … promised …” Martaina heard Cattrine speak, low, low enough that she was likely the only one other than the Grand Duke who heard. She caught the look on Hoygraf’s face that told her she had assumed correctly, as the man hobbled over to where his wife lay on her knees, still bound to the pole, totally exposed, bleeding. The Grand Duke leaned down, as if to listen. “You promised,” Cattrine said, gasping the words out in a low, guttural whisper, “if I submitted … you would return his … remains to his guildmates …”

“So I did,” the Grand Duke said, sotto voce; Martaina strained to listen, though the crowd had grown quieter, watching the Grand Duke in a seeming conversation with his battered and humiliated wife. “And so I shall.” A knife appeared from the leather of his belt and cut her bonds. Cattrine dropped to all fours when released, unable to hold her own weight. The Grand Duke reached up and grasped Cyrus’s head by the hair and lifted it off the pole, suspending it slightly over her, appearing to look it in the eyes for a moment before he dropped it onto her ravaged back, causing her to cry out from the pain of the impact. It rolled off and came to rest by her side. “Go on, then. I return him to you now, and you may carry him back to his fellows.” Martaina could see the grin form on Hoygraf’s face, beneath the dark, scraggly beard. “I think you have a few minutes left, so you might wish to hurry. If you can.” He stood and the grin on his face told Martaina everything she needed to know. He thinks there’s no chance for her to make it in time.

“He’s letting her go,” Martaina said, “with the head, to return it to Sanctuary.”

“Why?” J’anda breathed.

“Some sort of bargain between them,” Martaina said, and her fingers twitched, desirous to hold her bow, to feel the arrow knotted between her fingers, to let it fly and see it run through Hoygraf’s skull. “Doesn’t seem likely he intends her to actually be able to save him, though, does it?”

“We have minutes,” Aisling said. “Barely time enough, if that. Every moment we wait brings him closer to permanent death.”

“There is mercy in us, though, is there not?” Grand Duke Hoygraf had begun to speak again. “For a man of Actaluere, our superiority is nothing but obvious, and we can find it in ourselves to allow the fallen enemies to go back to their brethren, can we not?” He placed a boot on Cattrine’s cut and bleeding rump and rested his weight on it, causing her to cry out. “Once we show someone their place, and they are convinced of it, is there any reason not to be a little generous? When they know the price of betrayal, can we do any less than reassure them of their place in the order of things?”

He pressed on her again with his hard-soled leather shoe, and Cattrine, who had been trying to get to all fours to crawl was forced to the ground again, and her screams of pain were almost too much for Martaina to bear; the bow was in her hand and an arrow ready to fly before she felt J’anda’s hand on her wrist. “Hold,” J’anda said.

“No time,” Aisling said, and Martaina could hear the agitation in her voice. “He means to let the sands run through the hourglass before he lets her go, if even he does so then.”

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” A voice crackled through the air as though a thunder spell had been unleashed into the midst of the gathering, and all the heads turned. A phalanx of soldiers emerged to their right from the main road through the camp, their armored boots slapping the dirt into a cloud, their deep-blue armor and surcoats those of Actaluere, but different than the Grand Duke’s livery. In their midst was a man Martaina had not seen before, yet whose station was obvious by the amount of bodyguards surrounding him-

“Milos Tiernan,” J’anda said, “the King of Actaluere.”

“I figured that one out all by myself,” Martaina said, and let the bow dip downward; the illusion made it look as though she were doing nothing more than holding a sword over her shoulder.

Tiernan made his way through his crowd of bodyguards to Hoygraf, who waited with an air of patient expectation, seemingly unworried. In truth, Martaina could smell the fear on him; the man had begun to perspire the moment Tiernan had spoken. Tiernan closed to feet from Hoygraf, who stood between the King and Cattrine, who was now up on all fours, one of her hands clutching Cyrus’s hair tightly. “You mean to force us into a war?” Tiernan said under his breath, standing only two feet from Hoygraf now.

“No war,” Hoygraf said. “You heard them; the Westerners mean to go to Syloreas’s aid. And no war with Galbadien, either; my dear wife has pledged to return to me and has accepted her punishment-and more to come.”

“Has she now?” Martaina heard a distinct frosting on Tiernan’s inflection as it cooled. “I am certain she enjoyed your lash with all enthusiasm; but tell me, Hoygraf, what possessed her to accept your punishment, seeing that she was well free of your loving touch?”

“You would have to ask her,” Hoygraf said, with a minimal shrug. “Love of her husband, perhaps.”

“Trying to save my homeland, more like,” Cattrine said from her hands and knees.

“We all have our own reasons,” Hoygraf said with a further shrug. “She has received what she was promised and shall receive more in the bargain. Now she will return the head of Sanctuary’s General to them, then come back to me, and war will be averted with Galbadien because of it.” Hoygraf’s teeth showed, evenly, far too polished for Martaina’s taste, too white for the blackness of the man’s soul. “And you can send your forces north to Syloreas to counter this threat that has everyone so worried.”

“You know very damned well that western magic works to revive the dead for only so long after they’ve been killed.” Milos Tiernan appeared to shake with this pronouncement, as he stared down Hoygraf, but still he kept his voice low enough that none of the crowd could hear. “You have killed him, which I would suspect would be an act of war in the view of the westerners, and stripped him of his head, and now you sit here, torturing my sister and letting time pass idly by. How long ago did he die, Hoygraf?”

“I hardly know,” Hoygraf said. “An hour, perhaps? Perhaps less, perhaps a little more. It is hard to be worried about such things when you are striving to enforce richly deserved justice.” He broke a little smile again toothily and pretended to wipe a bead of perspiration from his brow that was not even there.

“Now you expect my sister to return him to his people, in the condition you have rendered her to, before the allotted time runs out?” Tiernan’s voice was steady, surprising Martaina. There was an edge of restrained fury in it, she could hear, but it was not raised at all. “You want this war, want to fight the westerners, want your revenge, do you?”

“I fear no westerner,” Hoygraf said, and leaned heavier, both hands on his cane, but the smile was gone. “And certainly no silliness of the north from the Syloreans. Let them come, and we will break these western fools. Let Syloreas fall to whatever chews at it, and the army of Actaluere will deal with that as well.”

“I need a courier.” Milos Tiernan raised his voice now, so that the entire crowd could hear. Martaina had set foot forward before she even realized she had, stepping out of the circle of observers, crossing the ground between her and the post, where Tiernan stood facing Hoygraf and Cattrine. The voice went low again, but Martaina followed it as she approached them, the lone person who did so. “You are a fool, Tematy, and your war is direly timed. You are twice the fool if you think that whatever afflicts Syloreas will be easier to defeat without their aid as with it. You may have dominion over my sister now-to my eternal shame and dismay-but you do not rule my Kingdom. You do not declare war for me or take action that will cause me to have to fight after you provoke others into them.” Martaina arrived at his side, then, and the King of Actaluere looked to her without any sign of recognition. “Please take my sister and her … accompanying package … to the Sanctuary camp to the southeast. Ensure that she is able to return their general’s head to them, but give them no further message.” His face twitched. “Stay with her while she is there, and perhaps one of their healers will find it in them to ease her pain. Do you understand?” Martaina nodded, and Tiernan waved her off. “Be on with it, then, with all alacrity. Hurry.”

Martaina knelt next to the Baroness, whose head snapped back at her approach and again as she wrapped an arm around Cattrine and pulled her to her feet. The Baroness’s legs did not work, not at all, and she was dead weight as Martaina carried her along, half-dragging her to the edge of the crowd, which watched her. There was silence from behind her as Tiernan and Hoygraf continued to stare at each other, or possibly at her, and she could almost taste the bitter conflict between the men, burning hotter than the summer day around them, and with none of the occasional idle breeze to break it up. The quiet was oppressive in its own way, and every step she could feel the Baroness sag against her and the slippery, bloody, naked skin of Cattrine was slick within her grasp.

They made their way past the circled crowd, and J’anda and Aisling joined them as they passed. “I’ll take this,” Aisling said, and laid a hand on Cyrus’s head. “I’ll run ahead.”

“No,” Cattrine said, halting, her words choked with pain. “I need to get it to … Curatio. To the Sanctuary guild members.”

“You have,” Aisling said quietly, and Cattrine cocked her head. Her eyelids fluttered. “Let me take it, so that I can get it there in time.”

“All right,” Cattrine said, weakly, and relinquished her hold. Aisling, for her part, did not waste a moment-she ran, no stealth, no guile, and faster than Martaina would have thought the little dark elf could have moved, disappearing between the tents ahead of them in a flat-out sprint in the direction of the Sanctuary camp.

“I’m going to get you to Curatio,” Martaina said to Cattrine. She could feel J’anda hovering next to her. “We need to get something to cover you, and we’ll make certain you’re healed.”

“I’ll give her my robes when we’re out of the camp,” J’anda said. “Take care with her, those wounds are …” The enchanter cursed, a word that Martaina had heard before, something in the dark elven language that was so foul it left a bitter taste in the air. “Barbarians.”

“No doubt,” Martaina said, hurrying along as fast as she could side-carry the Baroness. The tents around them passed in slowest speed. The soles of Cattrine’s feet were red with blood and covered with dirt, which stuck to the crimson in flecks, dust holding in place from the stickiness. Every time Martaina tried to readjust her grip, Cattrine cried out; there was nowhere to hold the woman that wasn’t hurt, oozing blood with her every motion. “I’m not certain she’s going to survive the walk to camp,” she whispered to J’anda and hoped he caught it.

“I will endure,” Cattrine said. “This is not the worst of my husband’s affections I have experienced, not by a very lot. I have saved him, and with him, this land, and that is all that matters.” With that, her head drooped, and she fell into unconsciousness, yet no more of a weight on Martaina’s shoulder than she was before.

Martaina exchanged a look with J’anda, and they hurried on, the trail left by the Baroness’s feet dragging a line of red through the pale dust that followed them all the way back to the Sanctuary camp.