Steel and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy (6 page)

             
“With luck,” he nodded back at the commander’s friend, knowing that while the shadow might be safe enough, if the city was roused, they might lose more than few men getting away.  He hoped that would not be the case.

             
“I will be as swift as possible,” he said, and even though the warrior had seen it before, he was still unnerved when the tall, lean figure seemed to blow away on the soft breeze promising rain as the stars began to vanish overhead.  Literally just blow away.

             
More than a few of the newer men shuddered, but Lt. Caleb Barques ignored his own disquiet knowing that none were as loyal to the commander as the young shadow, and quickly set to work ordering a swift, and cautious march to their rendezvous after picking the four men he could best trust for stealthy work.
             

X

             
Koa found the governor’s palatial townhouse just twenty minutes after he entered the city without being noticed.  He took a few more minutes exploring to get the lay of the household after he had overheard a few drunken stragglers crowing about the fact they had seen the young princess herself in Lord Claridan’s gardens, and declared themselves smitten.

             
He would have guessed the governor was hosting the family himself, but wondered in case the obvious were not just a blind.  Apparently, however, the governor felt that no blind was necessary, and was openly housing the royal family.

             
He knew them by sight based on a portrait he had seen at the duke’s house, he being an apparent friend of the king’s brother, who was currently some official of some kind in the kingdom.  He moved through the house, careful not to be seen, or heard.

             
He knew there would be at least four of them.  The queen herself, of course.  Her fourteen year old daughter, and the ten year old twin sons.  The older prince would be at the palace, at his father’s side, as the eighteen year old prince had a reputation of being a tactician himself.  He was also of an age that he was most likely staying to aid his sire in the defense of his palace, and kingdom as a whole.

             
Sliding around a corner, he reached the head of the stairs, then froze as he noted a couple entwined in one another’s arms halfway up the landing.  He grumbled, not fearing for himself, but it would be harder to bring down his captives once he took them with the pair in the way.  He glided up the steps, sending out a faint, shimmering mist ahead of him, and they slowly sank down onto the steps, still in one another’s arms, looking as if they had just fallen asleep of their own accord.

             
He eyed the apparent freemen that held the young maid clad in a servant’s dress, and wearing a slave’s collar.  He paused and glowered at the man who would exploit such a state.  The look on the maid’s face told him she was hardly a willing companion.  It made him think of Lia, and that angered him.

             
He went up the steps, saw two men in the green and gold of Galdynian colors standing outside three different doors, and frowned.  Three doors?  Surely not?

             
Still, best to be safe. 

             
He walked silently down the dimly lit hall, noting the men were awake, but in danger of nodding off on their own.  He walked into the first room so silently the men didn’t even look back, and noted the queen was sleeping with a stocky maid close by in a small cot set up for her.  He nodded, fixing her in his mind and senses before he turned to use the balcony to leap to the next room.  He found the twin boys in the next room, but he also found a lean, familiar blonde man sleeping with them.

             
Prince William, it seemed, had not stayed in Galdyra after all.  Their hostages’ value, he knew, had just risen exponentially.  They would not only have the royal family, but the king’s next heir himself.  He moved to the next room just to confirm his speculation, and found the young princess laying in a bed in that room.  Only there was also another young blonde the same age, and they both looked enough alike that even he had trouble ascertaining which might be which as they lay there in their night clothes.

             
He frowned, and decided he would simply take them both just to be cautious.  If she were with the princess, after all, then she might have some value of her own.

             
He went back and grabbed the twins first.  The two boys lighter, and easier to manage.  He then put a shadow on them to keep them sleeping before he leapt from the window, and raced through the dark alleys, and followed back lanes until he reached the gate where his companions would be waiting.  He walked out of the shadowed gate after dropping the sentries on duty, and handed the young boys up to two of the men waiting for him.

             
“Take them, and come back.  We’ve two more than expected coming.  Another lady of some import with the princess, and the crown-prince himself is with them.”

             
“Prince William,” Thomas Walker exclaimed.  “We’ll have the king’s balls in our hands for certain with that one!”

             
“Aye, so be quick, and be quiet.  I’ll deliver the next two soon enough, and then be back with the last.  But the sun is nearing the horizon already, so let’s not dally.”

             
He then turned, and raced back through the city, ignoring the guards and men he left laying in his wake.  He carried the young ladies next, knowing they’d be less trouble, and then went for the queen, who he carried over to the prince’s room, and then carried them both away as he had the others.

             
Inside, he left the guards standing lethargically at their posts, and that randy freeman in a collar of his own with a common brand now boldly adorning his brow for all to see.

             
Let them explain that one.

             
He closed the gate after him once he handed off his last captives, and then joined the men as they rode for the woods, the archers hidden in shadows and ditches falling back as they passed.  By then, faint fires and smoky smudges lit the western horizon, and Koa knew the commander’s ploy was bound to lead any man that sought them north or west, since they would find their water halved by the now dammed river, and the smoke an apparent indication the raiders had come and gone from that direction.  With just a bit of luck on their part, they’d slip away once more without anyone even seeing them.

             
With the hostages King Eric wanted to put George Hastings’ balls in a vise, as his companion had put it.

             
He nodded at Lt. Barques when he rejoined him, mounting his own horse, and they all rode away without hesitation after the captives were bound and gagged despite still being unconscious.  They were then thrown back over a horse with a warrior to hold them.  Koa did spend one moment to tell the man trying to fondle one of the blonde’s that he could remove more than his hand did he not focus on his duty, and not his prick.

             
Not one man there didn’t believe him.

             
The man didn’t fondle his captive again.

             
Several hours later, they met up with Commander Sanz, and had confirmation that Captain Roberts had already gone ahead, and left a messenger to let them know they had.  Koa kept looking back at the twin blondes, as even the commander was confused by the look-alike.

             
“Who do you suppose she is,” one of the men asked the commander.

             
“We’ll find out soon enough.  When we reach the dukes, get them all suitably garbed for travel, and keep them secure.  We march within an hour of returning.  So don’t dawdle now, lads,” he told them. 

             
Koa agreed.  Time enough to water and feed their mounts, get a meal of their own, and be gone before anyone that might think to look their way could find them.  He anticipated no delay, even considering that he would have to collect Lia, and be gone.

             
He was, of course, wrong.

             
“Koa,” Jengus said as he stared in genuine fury at the limp, pale figure dangling from the wooden post where she had been left after a savage beating. 

             
Not half so furious, however, as his friend.

             
“Who.  Did.  This,” he hissed, looking back at the very fearful duke.

             
No one spoke at first as two men carefully lowered the girl, who while she did not regain consciousness, whimpered and moaned restlessly at being even touched.

             
“Who
?!!
,” he roared, and waves of ebony mist rose from him as he turned to eye the men around him, his eyes glittering as even his orbs turned solid black, and for the first time, Jengus saw the true power still contained in that seemingly innocuous shape.  A power Koa himself often stifled in his hope to present himself as normal as possible among men. 

             
“Best you talk,” Jengus ordered the duke.

             
Robbie Deakes, no fool, stepped forward before blood could be shed.

             
“The duke is not at fault.  His son ordered the deed this morn when he found the lass in his late mother’s room.”

             
Koa turned on the freeman, and demanded, “Where is he?”

             
“His…..room,” Duke Andrus choked. 

             
“She is with us.  One of us.  You do recall what you were told of lifting a hand to any of us,” Koa said in a voice made all the more ominous by its utter stillness as he grew eerily calm, yet remained visibly wrathful just then.

             
Were it not for his strangely impassioned visage as the estate healer approached the girl now resting on a warrior’s cloak on the ground before them, then he would not have seemed upset at all.  Jengus knew better.

             
“Aye.  I said any of us, Your Grace,” Jengus agreed.  “And as my friend has said, the lass is now one of us.  Your boy trespassed.”

             
“The fault is mine,” the old man said quietly.  “I shall bear the punishment.”

             
“Nay.  I will have the fat lordling, and I will have the whipmaster.  Only they, for one was too eager to find fault, and the other is obviously a sadistic cur that overly reveled in his task.  Bring them to me.  Now,” he demanded.

             
“Do it,” the duke sighed, and dropped his graying head. 

             
Even as Jengus looked to one of the young blonde lasses that was trying to speak behind her gag as she stood there with the others awaiting their departure.

             
“You’ve something to say,” Sgt. Winters asked as the badly beaten redhead still moaned as the healer, an older woman, poked and prodded her raw flesh indifferently. 

             
The blonde nodded vehemently.

             
“Let her speak,” Jengus said quietly.  “She might have some word we need to hear.”

             
“She does,” the blonde rasped once her makeshift gag was removed as the other blonde only stared sullenly.  “I am a healer, sirs.  A true healer.  Let me tend the lass, if only to show you that I wish to treat with you in good faith.”

             
The other blonde huffed, and muttered darkly behind her gag.  Jengus was a canny man, and nodded at his man to release her.  “You certainly aren’t a Hastings, are you, lass?”

             
“Nay,” she answered honestly.  “I am the princess’ companion, and a true healer assigned to see her, and our king’s family kept safe.”

             
“Not our king,” Jengus told her.  “But do you have any more skill than this ham-fisted midwife, I am certain you will be well considered, and rewarded.”

             
The queen was saying nothing, waiting in apparent patience though her blue eyes were dark with fear and apprehension.  Jengus found he admired her, for she seemed rather composed despite the circumstances.  Not like her sullen daughter, or the temperamental son he had himself knocked witless again soon after he woke to try to break free in vain.

             
“Tend her,” the commander nodded at the blonde when she freed.  Koa looked from Lia to the girl, and nodded his assent.

             
The healer, shoved away by then, merely smirked.  “She’s not the first t’be beat proper here ’bouts,” the old woman huffed.  “She might be scarred, but she’s only a Vald…..”

             
Not one man there didn’t cringe when a black, fist rose and stretched out from Koa’s out-flung hand, and slammed into the old woman’s jaw despite the fact she stood over ten foot from him at the time.  The fist hit hard enough to snap her jaw, and flung her to the ground another ten foot from where she had been standing.