Steel and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy (4 page)

             
Koa froze, and looked back at her, making the woman bless herself thrice as she refused to meet his gaze. 

             
“I see Galdyn remains an even more backward and ignorant realm than I had been told,” he drawled, and turned to walk out of the kitchen with Lia at his side.

             
Every servant in the manor that spotted him crossed themselves as he led Lia to the parlor.  A few even dared look at Koa, but none got in his way.

             
“Commander,” he began as he walked into the parlor where Jengus stood near the duke’s seat by the hearth.  He already knew the portly man in bright green silk was obviously his son by virtue of the arrogant smug he wore as he sat staring at his friend with a sneer while sipping the wine in a crystal goblet.

             
“Koa,” he nodded as he turned to face him.  “How goes the night?”

             
“Something stirs on the winds.  I thought I’d ride out and investigate.”

             
“Do as you think best, my friend.  You know I trust you in such matters.”

             
“Aye, commander.  In the meantime, I would leave Lia with you.  She is a Valdoran lass who requires sanctuary…..”

             
“Why are you calling that slave wench Lia,” Freddie Clarke huffed as his father eyed the young redhead.  “And where did her collar go?”

             
“The lass is Valdoran, and was unlawfully taken from her homeland.  I have given her my protection, commander,” he added for Jengus as he turned away, blatantly ignoring the lordling.  “Assuring her we are here to serve and protect all Valdorans, wherever they are found.”

             
“Just so, Koa,” Jengus nodded from his place near the hearth, accepting the words at face value as he knew what the nobles did not.  That in all the time since he had found the young shadow, he had never once looked on a lass of any age.  Nor had he ever spoke up for anyone of any blood, or background.  That he did so now suggested there was something telling about this lass.

             
“I should not be too long.  ’Tis possible I but sensed the stragglers from that band of craven dogs we routed earlier.  Best to make sure, though.”

             
“I think you are right.  Best to make sure.  And don’t fret over the lass.  We shall see her well treated in your absence,” Jengus told him with a nod at the redhead.

             
“She’s our slave…..”

             
Koa’s gaze cut Freddie off before his father could even snap, “Be still, Fredrick,” at him. 

             
“Don’t fret,” Koa murmured as he walked over to put a hand on the girl’s slender shoulder.  “Commander Sanz is a good man, and may be trusted.”

             
“I trust you,” she told him.  “Be careful, and return safely,” she bid him before he turned to go.

             
“Well, lass.  You are quite the unusual little imp,” Jengus told her as Koa departed.  “For never in all my years with Koa have I ever seen him befriend a woman, let alone champion her.”

             
“I did not ask it of him,” she answered demurely, head down as he eyed her just then, conscious of the Clarkes both studying her, too.  “He simply chose to be kind to me.”

             
“Which makes you all the more surprising,” Jengus smiled blandly at her.  “For Koa is not one to go out of his way to befriend anyone.”

             
“What demon does,” Freddie sneered.

             
“He is not a demon,” Lia replied bluntly, then realized who she had contradicted, and paled as the arrogant lordling narrowed cold, blue eyes on her.

             
“Don’t fret, lass.  I vow, the last man fool enough to call Koa a demon to his face is greeting true ones in hell even now.  Best you consider that, lordling, ere you see him again.”

             
“Forgive my son, commander.  He is yet young, and has yet to learn…..subtlety.”

             
“In our world, Your Grace, do you insult a man, you do it with steel in your hand.  Not hiding behind another’s back like a simpering fop.”

             
“Simpering….”

             
“Fredrick.  God’s bones, you lackwit,” his father snapped when his son actually flung his goblet down, shattering it on the nearby hearth as he rose to his feet with a speed belied by his bulk.  “Do you want to die?”

             
Freddie froze on the edge of his seat, and realized the big warrior in black armor wasn’t cowing before his noble indignation.  He was watching him with a smirk on his face.  He had not reached for his sword, but his size and shape suggested he wouldn’t need it to break him in half with relative ease.  He had the look of a man that would enjoy doing it, too.

             
Freddie just glowered, then sank back in his seat.

             
“Well, invaders, or nay, that….creature has little right to go about taking our slave stock as his own.”

             
Lia shrank back, looking pale again as Jengus stepped forward and put a big hand on her shoulder.  “Does Koa say the lass is free, then best you note he is not given to telling falsehoods.  Am I understood here, lordling?”

             
Freddie only glared at him.

             
“Am I understood,” Jengus demanded imperiously, taking a step forward now.  “Because when a man asks you something, you damn well answer him.”

             
”I do not see a…..”

             
“Fredrick!  Do not insult the man.  He is not one of your lackeys you may browbeat.  God’s mercy, son, use your wits here.”

             
Freddie frowned, then glanced away, but he grumbled, “I understand.”

             
“Did you raise a man, or a sullen child, Your Grace,” Jengus snorted as Lia couldn’t help but smile at his words.

             
The duke, at a loss how to respond diplomatically, only sighed.

             
Koa stood on the bank of the river, his dark armor wreathed in the shadows around him.  All but invisible, he listened to the voices on the breeze, noting the location of the fires beyond the next shore, and the number of men indicated by stamping horses, cook fires, and the voices he overheard.  Not quite a legion, but not just stragglers either. 

             
It was the late reinforcements from the northern garrison of Kybera that had been expected by the enemy when they first encountered them.  A full two days late, they had arrived in time to find only dead men, and a few stragglers that survived the ambush.  Now, joining with men from the immediate region, they were preparing to march on the duke’s estate where their own scouts had tracked the invading mercenaries. 

             
It was, Koa now realized, those scouts that had roused his suspicions.  Unlike him, they were not quite as invisible in the night, and his enhanced senses had noted their passage despite the caution they wrapped around themselves as they had ensured the invaders had entered the walls, but not left.  They likely felt they could trap them there, besiege the duchy, and hold them helpless until more men arrived to help them cut down the enemy.

             
They obviously were very foolish men.  The commander had anticipated their arrival, and already had plans in the works for dealing with them.  Still, he was here now.  He considered his best course of action, and didn’t feel the slightest degree of fear as he noted the roving sentries that crossed just a few feet from his hiding place.  It would take better eyes than theirs to spy him when he was wrapped in his shadow cloak. 

             
Not that it would matter.  In over six years, he had yet to find a man or weapon that could touch him.  Just as Jengus had told him that first night.  Some men felt that should make him glad.  Or arrogant with power and ambition.  In fact, it made him sad.  In his own heart and mind, it lessened his own sense of humanity, and further disconnected him from the world of men around him. 

             
He suspected of all those he knew, or had known, only the commander truly understood how that made him feel. 

             
He watched the sentries walk past him again, timing their passage, and noting the voices that were dying down as men settled in for the night, or dozed off.  Only a few voices remained now, but he could tell they were all coming from the same area.  A place just off center in the middle of the camp of some four or five hundred men. 

             
The command tent for certain, and that made one of them the commander, or leader of these men. 

             
He watched for another fifteen minutes after the last voice faded, and the only sounds that could be heard were the occasional coughs of sentries, and the snorts and nickers of the restless mounts picketed not far away. 

             
He lowered his cloak just enough to step back into the world of men, and left his hiding place as he headed directly for the horses.  He pulled a slender dagger from his belt, and set to work slicing the cinches of the saddles almost through as he visited each in turn.  He then set to cutting the reins on bridles he found dangling from a makeshift equipment rail formed of branches and a few ropes slung between close saplings.  He worked the reins so that they were all but cut through at critical points on the underside, but looked quite fine at first glance on the exterior.

             
He smirked slightly, imagining the chaos sure to follow when the men tried to manage horses that were used to firm and sure handling.

             
His sabotage done, he now moved toward the camp itself without bothering the horses themselves.  Warhorses, after all, were still too well trained to run off like raw stock.  Trying to run them off would be futile, and tip the sentries to his presence.  He didn’t intend to do that just yet.

             
He walked over to the command tent, slipping between tents and bedrolls, and moving so quietly that not even the few hounds dozing around the camp ever woke.  He reached the tent he sought, and slipped inside.  The man stretched out on a narrow bunk made with genuine satin sheets was wearing a colorful uniform better suited for parade fields, or palace balls.  He had pulled his boots off, but was otherwise still fully dressed.

             
He walked over to a nearby table, and studied the maps and charts that were lain out as he sifted a few parchments that had several lists scribbled out on them, and then turned back to the man that was obviously a garrison commander more than a true warrior.  Likely a nobleman who was called into service by virtue of the fact that every legion in the land just now was riding off hither and yon as Ericson’s legions struck and ran, harassing the kingdom at key points, all while leaving a telling, and gaping hole in the borderlands they had entered to ride right through the center of Galdyn. 

             
Their destination was the greatest prize of all as the Valdorans kept the other enemy legions busy.  They would ride right to Trinidad, and take King George’s entire family hostage before anyone realized what they were about.  With the royal family in hand, even the mad king would have to yield, or watch his future die before his eyes. 

             
It was a clever, and daring ploy, and he had to admit that Commander Sanz was beyond bold in selling it to King Eric V when the man first wanted to simply invade, and lay waste to the entire land after the latest incursions against his own people.

             
Having studied all the maps, reports, and papers to be had, he walked over to the apparent commander himself, and slid a forefinger over the man’s closed eyes.  A faint smudge colored the man’s lids, and Koa stepped back, feeling the faint thrum as his power stirred, and carried out his will.  When the man woke in the morning, he was going to find himself a part of the confusion and inevitable panic. 

             
Giving a faint smirk of satisfaction, Koa walked out of the tent, out of the camp, and seemed to flow through the shadows until he reached his own waiting horse.  Mounting up, he turned in the direction of the estate in spite of the moonless night that left the forest darker than usual as he guided his horse without effort.

             
It was, he decided, a good thing he had decided to investigate. 

             
He had found out information that would ease their mission, and make things all but fall in their favor for a change.  They just had to be clever.

             
He rode up to the gates, waved at the men on watch, and kept going up to the manor where he found the commander resting on an overstuffed divan, staring at the banked fire as he sat alone in the room.