EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (22 page)

“Sara,” chided her father as he strode up. “Mind your mother.”

Sara ducked her head as her mother stood with her hands on her shoulders.

“I just want you to be safe, my darling,” her mother had said while tilting her face up with her left hand on Sara’s cheek.
“I knew what I was doing,” pouted Sara as her father encircled them both in his arms.

“What?” Her mother said with a laugh. “Scaring me to death?”

Sara had had enough of the family bonding time by then.

She had pushed away from her father in mock irritation. “Father, you stink.”

“You don’t smell so good yourself, Kitling,” he had said teasingly.

Sara had glared up at her father with her arms crossed and her staff awkwardly tucked in her elbow. “I do
not
stink.”

“You’ve been training all day,” her mother had said.

“I don’t stink.” It was said with all the stubbornness of a ten-year-old who knew that if she said it enough times it would be true.

Her father grinned down at her. “Off with you, scamp. Go bathe. We’ve had enough training for the day.”

Sara had sighed in exasperation. “I’m not tired.”

“I
am
,” said the commander of the imperial forces.

Sara had pouted and turned around. She didn’t want to beg for it. Her father would tell her in his own time, she had guessed.

As she left through the doorway, he had said, “Sara?”

She had half-turned with hope on her face. Hoping today would be the day. The day that she graduated from just training with her dad and his men, to training with the academy juniors. Real students her age. Real opponents.

He finally said, “You’re ready. Tomorrow you’re going to the militia academy.”

Sara couldn’t help it. She had screamed aloud as she jumped around. “I’ll be there with them all. The mercenary brats, the commanders’ kids, and the gladiators’ spawn.”

 
“Yes,” her father had said with a laugh.

Sara had beamed, her tongue peeking out through the hole left by a missing front tooth. “I’ll beat them all, Father. I am a Fairchild and we’re the very best!”

Her pride overtook her face.

Her father gave her a serious look as he held her mother lightly by her waist. “Pride will come before a downfall—always. We may be Fairchilds, daughter, but we are mortal.”

“I know, Father,” Sara had said while nodding. She was eager to be off and tell her friends. Barely listening to him at all now.

“Sara,” he had said, commanding her attention.

She’d straightened and looked at him.

He had stared down at her. “You might be surprised at what some of those mercenary brats can do.”

With that last word, Sara’s remembrance of the memory faded and she snapped back into the present. Surrounding by the same mercenary brats that she had derided for so long. But this time they were her equals and might someday save her life.

Chapter XVII

I
T
TOOK
TWO
DAYS
. T
WO
days of Ezekiel not speaking to her. Two days of setting up camp with strangers who glared at her and tried to pick fights. Two days of getting the last of the food from the slop cart because no one would tell her where the mobile kitchen would be located at the end of that evening’s ride. And a day since she fell off her horse because someone had cut the straps on the saddle without her noticing. It had been six hours since she’d woken up, huddled not in a tent but on the freezing cold ground, where she’d been forced to sleep next to her horse so that she could make
sure
no one messed with her tack or Danger again. Two days before she gave up. Gave up her stubbornness. Gave up her pride. She was damned tired of being alone.

She went to look for the only person who might even be half a friend in the entire convoy. She went after Ezekiel Crane. Well, she and Danger went after Ezekiel. The convoy was currently parked on a giant bluff overlooking a crystal clear lake and meadowland. Many of mercenaries were taking the day to enjoy their first bath since leaving Sandrin. Sara was hiking along the bluff with her horse in tow looking for the curator who didn’t want to be found. She couldn’t trust the horse wranglers to look after Danger like the other mercenaries could. Mainly because everyone seemed to hate her after that one outburst the first morning she joined.

So she led Danger by the reins with her scimitar strapped to the left side of the saddle, her sword on her back, and her knife at her waist. She had ridden Danger up the slope but it was more of a problem getting down. The slope was slippery, littered with rocks, and had a steep incline. Making it hard for a horse to get down without breaking its legs. She knew the wind mages and earth mages of the guard would work together to make a smooth incline when they were ready to leave. The way it was now was just a defensive tactic that would slow down any enemy’s forces.
 

They were a further three days out from the nearest deployment site and Sara had to wonder who or what Captain Barthis Simon feared that he would stick his entire mercenary regiment atop a hill with defensive rings all around them.
 

Sara shrugged irritably at the thought.
It’s his problem, not mine. We’re sitting ducks up here. All it would take would be for
one
enemy soldier to get the brilliant idea of starving us out and we’d die on that hilltop.

That was part of the reason she was heading down. That and the solace of Ezekiel’s company.
 

“Crap!” yelled Sara as her foot nearly slid out from under her. She refocused on getting down the hill without breaking her neck.

What made life difficult for their enemies made life even more difficult for a single rider just trying to get from atop the slope to grassland.

As they eased down, Danger whinnied anxiously.

If he could talk, Sara had a feeling he’d be saying, “I’m a warhorse, not a mountain goat, you idiot.”

They came close to a few tumbles, the earth sliding out from underneath Danger’s hooves and the gelding almost pulling her down the slope with him. But they regained their footing and made it to the base. When they did he gave the loudest snort she’d ever heard.

“Good boy,” she cooed to him softly. “You were a good, agile boy.”

She reached a hand up toward his nose. Danger tossed his head away from her, refusing to let her pet him.

“Fine,” said Sara. “You’re welcome to be mad at me too. But make no mistake,
you’re coming
.”

With that, she turned around and pulled on the reins. Danger didn’t bother trying to throw his weight off and unbalance her, they’d had that fight before. He’d lost his pride and his access to his favorite carrots for the rest of the day. That had ended that stubborn streak right then.

As they walked forward, weaving around laughing men and women who wouldn’t even look at her, Sara stiffened her back. This was worse than Sandrin had ever been. There her family name had commanded respect. When that respect was lost, then indifference reigned. No one avoided her for being
her
in the capital, only for being the daughter of the most decorated and most reviled commander in imperial history. The exclusion from friends and acquaintances alike had eaten at her, but she realized that none of it was personal. More spite and comments than outright hatred. But here…here it was different. She was finally a fighter. One of the comrades. Or at least she was
supposed
to be.

But, in an unlikely turn of events, her comrades despised her. Her shoulders didn’t droop, but her confidence was surely shaken. It was hard not to be after two and a half days of cold shoulders and outright hostility. She knew part of it was her fault. She kept herself aloof from everyone. With good reason, she was on a mission. Not here to socialize. Still it hurt. Sara kept moving forward. Never stopping. She walked and walked the area surrounding the hilltop. For close to an hour she searched for Ezekiel, looking for him amongst the metal smiths, then the camp followers and even at the temporary training yard set-up. And then, with her ears burning, her eyes dangerously wet, and her back aching from the stiff arch, she kept walking. She walked until she left the voices behind and had cleared the perimeter of the guards set for watch.

She walked until she saw no one to her left or above, although the lake and its denizens was visible off to her right. If they didn’t want her here, then she would find somewhere else. Somewhere quiet. She wasn’t leaving. Oh no, not that. Just going to the farthest edge of perimeter where she could be away but still be seen.

Walking alongside the lake until she had gone at least half a mile from the nearest splashing group of mercenaries in the shallow water, she tied Danger’s reins to a log and sat on the white stone beach with a sigh. Nothing about her week was going right. She’d lost her mother, her only friend, and still had no clue where Mercenary Hillan was or what it was exactly that the Red Lions wanted from her father’s file. Resting her head on her folded arms, she brushed her hands through her long black curls and felt tiredness overwhelm her. She’d been going for four days and a half days with practically no rest. Starting from the time she’d entered into Cormar’s service until now, when she couldn’t sleep from the bitter cold and fear of other mercenaries raiding her possessions out of spite, it was a harsh way to live. And totally unexpected.

She hadn’t been living a pampered lifestyle in Sandrin these past few months. After they’d lost their villa, she and her mother had lived in a one-room hovel in the dark part of the city. But that was part of the problem. She had gotten used to it because it was all they had. But these last six months had been a complete change in her life. Before her father had died and before their mansion had been repossessed by the imperial courts in light of her father’s actions and all of his land stripped from them, she and her mother had lived lives of comfortable opulence. The villa just outside the city had seven bedrooms, servants’ quarters, and a small garrison for his father’s men. They had fluffy beds, good clothes, and enough food to eat.

Since they were on their own, with her mother unable to work and Sara banned from gaining an honest day’s pay as a fighter, they had slowly lost everything, even their health. It was kind of hard to maintain a dedicated fighter’s dexterity and ability if you were starving for anything but thin soup and some bread. Sara’s weight had dropped drastically from the prime of a topnotch fighter to an underweight woman without the muscle of a sword mistress. The only reason her weakened state didn’t affect her sword play was because she’d practiced all her life and could use her battle magic to boost her strength.

She threw her head back with a sigh. “Now I’m heading off to a war that I’ve spent my whole life preparing for and I feel like I’m lost at sea.”

“Don’t we all,” said a voice from behind her. A stranger.

Sara whirled in a crouch.

Out of the shadow of the dense forest came a man. He wore a simple tunic and pants and was unarmed.
 

That didn’t stop Sara from quickly drawing her sword from its sheath and grabbing the knife at her waist. Her face tightened and her emotions dulled as she faced him with both weapons raised.

“Who are you?” she shouted. There was no way in hell a mercenary would walk about unarmed. Even on this leisurely day. They all had their weapons within reach. Even the ones lollygagging in the water had left weighted batons in the sand nearby.

He raised his hands slowly. “Not someone who wants to harm you.”

Sara narrowed her eyes as she said, “I think you need to be worried about
me
harming you.”

He gave a slow smile and kept coming forward. “Do tell.”

“Stop where you are,” said Sara with alarm in her voice. He was close enough that she could now tell he wasn’t a man. He was a mage.

He stopped and waited. Looking at her calmly.

“What do you want?” she said with unease. There was a good twenty feet between them and she could see without dipping into her enhanced physical sight that he wore no insignia on his breast or patch on his shoulder. Leaving no way for her to tell if he belonged to any of the mercenary guilds or military companies.

He could be a Kade mage for all she knew, but Sara doubted that. The Kade mages were warlocks, all eight of them. Each one had the power to devastate armies. She knew one of them even had the power to create earthquakes. He didn’t feel that powerful. Even as she sent out feelers and dipping into her mage sight, she sensed nothing unusual about his gifts.

Nothing remarkable showed up when she looked at him through a mage’s eyes, either. She couldn’t even see what type of mage he was because his aura was dark and cloudy. It was unlike anything she had ever seen. Clearly the sign of a weak-willed mage if he couldn’t use his gifts to project one color that shone above all. He didn’t have enough power.

“So are we going to just stand here and stare at each other all day?” he asked in a bored tone.

“Would you rather I pierced you in the heart and left you for dead?”

He laughed. “No, I would not.”

She tilted her head. “What’s a mage doing out here all alone? With no insignia
and
no guards?”

“What’s a pretty sword mistress doing loitering by the lake all alone?” he countered.

She didn’t answer for a second. Realizing he had left out the fact that she was mage. She wasn’t shielding, but she didn’t
have
to. The magic of battle mages was often undetectable to regular mages, even if they were looking. She knew it was because her gifts were different from a normal mage’s. As a battle mage, her magic was intrinsically tied to her body in order to increase functions like her eyesight or strength. It wasn’t something that affected the world around it so much, and therefore was almost a hidden gift.

A hidden gift that was rather useful on the battlefield or in a fight.

She kept her stance loose, ready to twist away or attack at any minute. But for a minute she would humor him. It wasn’t like anyone else was speaking to her anyway.