EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (20 page)

She turned back to Sara and said sharply, “Well?”

“I’m staying,” Sara said, fighting not to let weariness and dejection overcome her. For a journey to fight a war, her start was awfully depressing.

Karina eyed her in speculation. “Fine. But get your butt in gear. I don’t take mopers or whiners in my division. And yes, I am Commander of the third division. We work hard, we’re not grunts and you will have your ass handed to you if I hear one whine come out of your mouth about your assignments. Am I
clear,
Mercenary Fairchild?”

Sara nodded. “Crystal clear.”

“Good,” Karina said with a sharp smile.

“Now, I don’t take on green striplings lightly. You will do everything I say and do it promptly. You will train with your core from dawn to dusk. You will dig latrines and pitch tents. In short you will no longer be a Fairchild, an elite fighter among men, but a grunt who must earn her place.”

Sara stared at her stonily.

Then she shouted. “Can you do that?”
She didn’t flinch. “I can.”

“I didn’t hear you!” she roared.

“I can!”

Karina turned and gestured for a runner to come forth. “To you, I am Commander Karina. You’ll be joining the Corcoran third division as a weapons prepper, a probate-in-training, really, and from there we will see. Raze will take you to the archivist now.”

Sara nodded in agreement.

With that Sara Fairchild became the lowliest mercenary in the company of the Corcoran guard. Karina had to deal with a fight that broke out between five or six mercenaries before she had barely finished speaking.
 

To Sara, Raze said with a snicker, “The old man’s over here. How’s it feel to be a
common
mercenary?”

Sara gave him a side glance.

“Yeah, we heard every word,” he said with another snicker.

Her shoulders slumped as she looked around and saw several mercenaries eyeing her with glares on their faces. It was going to be a long training period, it seemed. She didn’t mind their ire. Her problem was that she couldn’t kill any of them, seeing as they were supposed to be on the same team.
 

Raze left her standing in front of an old man that was so flustered he was pacing in a circle.

Staring at the archivist, Sara waited.

Finally the man finished scribbling a note that he handed off to a messenger boy, who dashed away as fast his legs could carry him. As Sara watched, his feet barely seemed to hit the ground.

“By the gods, he’s fast.”

“Yes, yes he is,” said the archivist, “Half-windrunner, that one.”

Sara’s head snapped around. She desperately wanted to ask if he meant that literally. She’d never met a half-human, half-
kith
before. But even she knew that would be rude to ask, even if the boy wasn’t present. There weren’t many
kith
-human hybrids around for a reason. Unions between any species of
kith
and humans were forbidden. No one had told her why, but she suspected it had to do with a couple of mass murderers with
kith
ancestry in the past. At least that was what her father had hinted at when he had told her stories of olden times.

“You the new recruit?”

She nodded. “Mercenary Fairchild, sir.”
He grunted. “You’ll need new pants, shirts, jerkins, and to be fitted for armor. But first I need to notify the Mercenary Guild you’re heading out with us.”

He turned and whistled sharply.

Another messenger boy quickly came forth. “Rams, you have that new male recruit’s notification letter for the guild?”

Rams nodded eagerly.

“Good,” said the archivist as he wrote in a blur on the mobile desk he had in his arms. Ripping the sheet from the stick that held it in place, he handed it to Rams. “Give the guild official this as well and hurry back!”

Rams jumped on a horse and galloped off.

“Is he going with us?” Sara asked curiously.

The man gave her a glance. “Only if he gets back in time. Why are you still here?”

“Because I have a question,” she said firmly.

“No time, get going!”

“The sooner you answer, the sooner I leave,” she retorted.

He gave her an irritated look. “Well, what is it? Spit it out.”
“How long before we reach the battlefield?”

The man grimaced. “Depends on which one you mean. There’s a small skirmish on the edge supposedly three days’ ride from here.”

Yes,
thought Sara.
That’s the one.

Then the archivist continued, oblivious to her thought process, “But the larger battle is in deep Kade territory at least three weeks’ march away.”

She blinked in astonishment, thinking,
which one will I find Hillan at?

“And the Red Lion guard?” she asked hopefully.

“What do you want with those ingrates?” he said sharply.

She flinched. “I heard we were joining forces.”

“You didn’t hear wrong,” he said harshly. “But that’s far up in the Kade territory. Won’t see no Red Lions for a while, and that’s a good thing!”

“Right,” she said guiltily as her stomach plummeted. That was nowhere near as soon as she had planned.
 

“Didn’t I say you needed new clothes? Get to the tailor!”

She jumped, ready to do his bidding. He might have been old, but he had a voice like the crack of a whip through the air. You stopped what you were doing and did what you were told when he let loose.

Trouble was, she had no idea where to go.
 

It doesn’t matter,
Sara decided internally.
As long as it’s away from here.

She started walking, hoping to find a mercenary who could look her in the face without glaring to ask for directions.

Before she’d taken six steps, the archivist’s voice cracked through the air. “Wait! Do you have a horse?”

She looked at him and shook her head.

 
He clicked his tongue. “Go to the farrier as well, then. But the tailor is first.”

Deciding that she’d rather ask than wander around aimlessly, Sara said, “Where are they?”
 

Instead of answering, he snapped his fingers and a young girl came running up. “Tams, take her to the tailor first, the farrier second.”

Tams nodded eagerly.

As they walked away, Sara asked her new guide, “Are all the messengers named with something that ended in ‘ams?’”

Tams looked up at her with a wise expression and a gap-toothed smile. “Yep. The archivist took us in and we all got new names then. There’s Rams, Vams, and Wams, too.”

“Great.” muttered Sara as she wondered how anyone was supposed to keep them straight. She decided she’d just call all of them ‘Cams,’ as in,
Come here ‘ams
!

This Cams made short work of her getting outfitted in serviceable attire and assigned a spirited gelding with a white star on his chestnut forehead.

“Thank you,” said Sara when it was over.

As Cams was saying, “You’re welcome,” the sharp blare of a bugle blew out and then all of the mercenaries loitering around began to move.

“We’re on the move!” shouted Cams while running off towards the archivist’s. Shielding her eyes against the sun’s glare, Sara saw a messenger horse pull up beside the caravan and the owner quickly hand the reins off to a larger man. The other Cams was back.

As Sara mounted up, she wonder what adventures awaited her. But she knew for sure as she exited through the city gates with the others, that no matter what she would find out the secrets her father had uncovered, and heaven help anyone who stood in her way.

Chapter XVI

B
EFORE
TWO
HOURS
HAD
ROLLED
by, she’d managed to get a comfortable routine in place. She had her horse in a smooth trot and was getting used to the gelding’s fast gait. Once she got a feel for riding after so long walking the alleys of Sandrin, she kicked the horse she’d decided to name Danger into high gear. Unfortunately, she realized she only had a feel for his speed but not his energetic state when she kicked him in the ribs and he jumped a foot into the air. Before he landed on all four hooves, they were off racing in a gallop. By the time Sara got him under control, she found herself in a different section of the troop altogether. She was now surrounded by archers with bows of all sizes on their backs. But one bow in particular caught her attention.
 

It looks very familiar
, she thought. Even though there were two riders between her and the bow that had caught her attention, she could have sworn she recognized the crossbow across the rider’s back.

Dropping into her mage sight, she opened her eyes and took in a sharp gasp of surprise. This bow was definitely familiar. She knew because her battle magic
recognized
it as a weapon she’d seen in use before. An endless catalog ran in Sara’s mind of the swords, knifes, bows, staffs, and weapons she had used over the years. Like a normal human, she could see and recognize a weapon’s make and model with ease. But as a battle mage she could take that remembrance of a weapons catalog one step further and cross-reference any weapon she’d previously come across based on its magical aura. It was like having a walking encyclopedia of weapons in her head. She knew just by looking at it whatever she had previously learned—from the owner to the age of the instrument to the weapon’s abilities. On top of that, if the weapon stayed long enough in her presence it absorbed some of the magical signature of her own aura, forever marking it to her. She knew enough to know that she had seen this weapon before and perhaps had used it in some sense.

It can’t be
, Sara thought to herself as she urged the gelding to sidestep over.

But her eagle-sharp vision hadn’t failed her once.

Someone had stolen Cormar’s crossbow.

She didn’t particularly care how or why because whoever they were, they were a dead person. Whether they realized it or not, even if their convoy was already miles outside the city and heading farther northeast by the minute, Cormar would find them. She couldn’t imagine anyone stealing from Cormar and living to tell about it. He seemed like the type that would go to the ends of the earth to reclaim what was his. Curiosity piqued, she stared harder as she drew closer.

It could be another of those ancient crossbows Ezekiel was raving about,
she thought.

But even in her mind, she highly doubted it. What was the chance of coming across two of those things in less than a week?
 

With a wry grin, she relished telling Ezekiel about it when she got back.
He’s going to be furious!

She might not be seeing him for another two months if the plan went well, but she knew she would rue the day they met again. Because he would kill her if she let the opportunity to find out who the thief was pass her by. She urged her horse closer and closer to the hooded archer. She found it strange that he kept the hood atop his head in the hot midday sun. But she had known stranger people.

With one last urge of the gelding, she was riding side-by-side with the thieving archer. So close that she could have reached over and touched their thigh. She couldn’t tell if they were a man or a woman, but their hands were certainly small, so she guessed female.

Sara leaned forward a little and looked into the hood. She didn’t try to hide her actions. She wasn’t shy about anything and expected most mercenaries weren’t. So when they turned their head to look at her while she did the same, she wasn’t shocked by their actions. It was what lay inside their hood that gave her the surprise of her life. So shocked was she, that she almost didn’t correct her posture, and leaned over so much that she nearly fell off the horse. Sara hurried to right her position by grasping the saddle of the pommel frantically and pulling herself back upright. The archer beside her helped by pushing on her left shoulder.
 

Seat regained, she turned and stared with her mouth open.

Ezekiel looked back at her with amusement on his face as he said, “Did you really think I was going to let you go off to war without me?”

She spluttered a couple of nonsensical words. Finally ending up with, “What are you
doing
here?”

“Looking after you, of course,” he said, “Who else is going to keep you from going berserk but me?”

“I thought you said you had hideouts in the city,” she stammered.

“I never said I was going to use them,” he pointed out.

Sara sat on her horse with a butt that was growing sore and a mind a flurry with disbelief.

“You
can’t
be here,” she hissed. “We’re going to war.”

He gave her a wry look. “I know that. Didn’t I just say that?”

“This isn’t a joke, Ezekiel! You could get hurt. Even killed.”

He nodded. “I’m aware. This doesn’t seem any more dangerous than my treasure hunting adventures.”

“It’s a lot more dangerous, you moron. Go back to Sandrin!”

“I can’t,” he said, “Do you know what mercenaries do to deserters? A hanging would be kind by comparison.”

A pall descended over her.

He cursed. “I’m sorry, Sara. I wasn’t thinking of your father. I shouldn’t have said that. I just meant that I signed on the dotted line and I have to honor that commitment.”

She stared straight ahead. Teeth clenched. Angry at him, angry at the world. She had one friend.
One
friend, and here he was riding beside her into the maw of death. Sara had no illusions about being on the frontlines. It would be tough—for
her
—but she could survive it.

But Ezekiel
, she thought softly.
He’s helpless. A scholar if I’ve ever seen one. He can’t survive a war.

“Sara?” said Ezekiel softly. “I said I was sorry. Come on, don’t freeze me out. I don’t…”

He paused.

She turned to him. “You don’t what?”

He looked at her with a pained expression on his face. “I don’t have anyone else. No friends. No family. I came because for the first time in my life I felt a connection to someone. To
you
.”

She sighed. “I’m not freezing you out. Just trying to process. To think.”