The Battle Lord Saga 02 - Her Battle Lord's Desire (2 page)

I’m personally going to lock you in our bedroom for your own safety.”

“For a week?” she giggled, and glanced up at him from the corner of her eye.

“Ohhh, at least,” he promised, smiling.

Behind them the Mutah hunters watched the interaction between the two. Although they

couldn’t hear their conversation, there was no way they could deny the obvious display of

affection between husband and wife.

Reluctantly, almost grudgingly, Fortune Kalich felt the tension of his distrust begin to

loosen, uncoiling like the snake that had given up its life at Atty’s hands.

“Hey, Atty! You know the old saying!” someone called from the crowd of soldiers. In

unison, they began to chat the old saw. “If you kill it, you clean it!”

Atty rolled her eyes before flashing her husband an apologetic smile. Her Ballock dagger

slipped into her hands like a live animal thirsty to do its work. Without another word, the warrior

woman walked over to the carcass, slicing through the rope that attached the snake to the saddle

of her mare with a single stroke. As a soldier took the horse’s reins to take the animal to the

stables, Atty began the task of disemboweling the creature before hacking off its head and

skinning it.

Yulen turned away to return to the main lodge as several women from the compound

hurried past him with large bowls to hold the meat. Silently, the two Mutah hunters followed

him inside.

As they entered through the doors, they found the Battle Lord issuing orders for them to

be directed to their own quarters. “Dinner will be in a couple of hours. I know the road from

Wallis is a long one. Berta will show you to where you can rest and refresh yourselves until the

meal is served. Afterwards we can sit down and discuss why you’re here.” He flashed them a

quick but apologetic smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a few things to tend to.” The two men

watched as the man hurried upstairs to his own suite of rooms, closing the door behind him.

“Sirs?”

It was the servant woman who’d brought them a tray. She gave a little wave for them to

follow her, and led them to a room on the opposite end of the main lodge. When the men entered

their room, both hunters started and turned to stare at each other.

“This isn’t what I was expecting,” Bertrand admitted to his friend. Compared to what

they expected, the guest room was opulent. There was a single bed, but it was enormous, and

with a thick mattress. Their furnishings also included a bowl with a washstand, and a small

writing table with two chairs.

“Neither was I,” Fortune reluctantly conceded.

They removed their weapons belts and outerwear, and took advantage of the bowl of fresh

water to get rid of the grime of the past few days from their faces and hands. Bertrand found that

one of the windows overlooked the main corridor leading to the soldiers’ barracks. He gestured

to Fortune, who joined him.

There was little trace left of the snake except for the pools of blood that several servants

were quickly covering with dirt before scooping it up for removal.

“Do you think there’s a chance he’ll offer his help?”

Fortune let out a small, whistling sigh. “I think our prayers have been answered, old

friend.”

It didn’t surprise him to see tears welling up in his companion’s eyes. If truth were told,

he felt like having a good cry himself.

It was a little more than two hours later when the two Mutah hunters were awakened from

their rest by the sounds of activity in the main hall of the lodge. Quickly they pulled on their

boots and weapons belts before opening the door to their room and walking directly into the hall

itself.

A few soldiers already eating stopped momentarily to peruse the two visitors, but went

back to their dinner and conversation once their curiosity had been satisfied. It was understood

that if the Battle Lord had them quartered in the guest rooms, it was safe to conclude they were

meant to be there and posed no threat.

Cautiously Fortune and Bertrand walked between the long tables now filled with talking

and laughing soldiers enjoying their evening meal. The smell of food cramped their stomachs,

reminding them of why they were here.

“Sirs?”

A young man tugged on Bertrand’s sleeve. He was fresh-faced and wore a simple dagger

at his waistband. A warrior in training, the men surmised.

“If you’ll follow me, please. The Battle Lord is waiting.” The pre-teen crooked a finger

at them and proceeded to lead them through the throng of men to a table closer to the fireplace.

The hunters immediately remembered it as the same table where they’d had a quick snack earlier

in the day.

Yulen watched as the two men from Wallis approached. His trained eye could see the

tension and animosity of earlier were gone. They appeared more relaxed, more at ease with their

situation, and he knew why.

“Gentlemen.” He waved at the bench on the other side of the table. “I detest formality.

May I call you by your given names?”

“What do we call you?” Fortune snapped back. Immediately he regretted his hostility. He

lowered his head, hoping Bertrand would cover for him. The last thing they needed to do was to

anger this man who was their last hope and possible salvation. Atty or no, he would have the final

say as to whether he would willingly risk the lives of his men for a compound full of mutants.

To their astonishment, Yulen chuckled at the outburst. Fortune glanced up to see an

amused smile on the man’s face. “Are you certain you’re not Atty’s father?” Yulen asked. “You

two are almost like peas in a pod.”

Fortune turned red. “Admittedly, Atty isn’t anything like her parents. Eenoi was a sweet,

gentle-hearted woman who never raised her voice, even with a child like Atty. And Dayman was

a rock of patience with her.” He sighed loudly as he took his seat. “She’s so different from her

sister.”

“She had a sister?” Yulen inquired.

“She hasn’t spoken to you about her family?” Bertrand inquired, folding his hands on the

table in front of him.

The Battle Lord shook his head. “I’ve tried to get her to open up about them, but so far

I’ve had little success. Last April was...quite traumatic for us. We’re both still in the process of

healing,” he admitted softly. “So if there’s anything you can share with me about her past, I

would greatly appreciate it.” He eyed the man with the lion-like tail. “You were made her

guardian after she was left orphaned, correct?”

Fortune nodded, pausing when a servant brought everyone a plate of food. “Dayman and

I were childhood buddies. Best friends growing up. His family moved to Wallis when he was an

infant.”

Yulen gave him an odd look. “Where did they move from?” he inquired.

“North Crestin. It’s about a six or seven day journey.”

Fortune watched as a peculiar look came over the Battle Lord’s face. A momentary

twinge of fear squeezed its fingers around his gut, until Yulen bit his lower lip, his eyes hooded.

“Forgive my observation, but now a lot makes sense to me.”

“And that being?”

“No inter-breeding. I take it there’s many other Mutah compounds I don’t know about?”

“Ask Atty,” Bernard told him, his tone of voice cautious. “She’s been as far as San

Remus.” They had never imagined they would be telling a Cleaner about the existence of other

compounds. Well-hidden ones, at that, and as guarded and fortified as Wallis.

As if realizing the importance of the information they were revealing to him, Yulen flashed

them a crooked grin. “I take it, if there’s a North Crestin, there’s also a South Crestin?”

Bernard barked with laughter. “Close, but no. There’s a
West
Crestin, however.”

Chuckling, Yulen turned the conversation back to Atty’s parents. “What was her father’s

mark?” he inquired.

“He had twelve fingers and fourteen toes,” Fortune told him. “He also had two navels,

but that’s inconsequential.”

“And her mother? Eenoi? That’s a beautiful name.”

“She was a beautiful woman,” Bertrand confessed. “Her family was long-established

Wallisites. She was what we refer to as a pseudo-normal. She bore no outward mark.”

“But she was Mutah? How could you tell?” Yulen leaned over the table, fascinated by

this part of Atty’s life he had yet to discover.

Bertrand giggled. “Oh, you could tell when you were around her. She sort of had this

aura about her. And she could grow the damndest things. Put two completely opposite plants in

her hands, and I’d swear two months later you’d see the fruit or bloom of their union. Eenoi

especially loved brown roses. Grew them in big pots by the front door of their home.”

“
Brown
roses?”

“Brown as dirt,” Fortune confirmed.

“You said Atty had a sister,” Yulen continued. “Older or younger?”

“Younger,” Fortune said. “Look, there’s something you need to understand...”

“Yulen,” the Battle Lord supplied with a smile.

“Yulen. Our birth rate barely keeps pace with the number of deaths in Wallis, and at other

Mutah compounds, as well. The infant mortality rate is more than seventy percent. We are

blessed if one out of every four births lives more than a few months. A Mutah child who survives

his first year is a reason to celebrate. If we are hit with a devastating disease, or if we lose a

goodly number of us through other means like attacks from wild animals or...” He stopped

suddenly and bit his tongue.

Yulen immediately realized what the man had begun to say. “You mean, if you were

attacked by Cleaners,” he said.

The Mutah nodded. This was strange and forbidding territory they were treading, he

realized. And yet, such a frank and open discussion about such things seemed long overdue. The

Battle Lord showed concern and sincere interest in what he had to say, which gave the man the

courage to continue freely.

“Before Atty was born, Eenoi had lost three previous pregnancies. It was a miracle Atty

was ever conceived.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She got a severe infection after her third miscarriage. Our doctors told her she would

never be able to bear a child. She was devastated by the news. Children are our most precious

treasure, Yulen. They are our future, and not being able to bear any is tantamount to ending that

family’s lineage. You can’t begin to imagine how thrilled we all were to hear Dayman’s news that

Eenoi was expecting again, after seven years of marriage.”

“I can imagine,” the Battle Lord answered in a low voice. “Go on.”

It was Bertrand who continued. “Atty was a fighter from the moment she was born. A

real little survivor. Bald as an egg. The doctors could see no outward sign of her mark, not at

that time, anyway, so it was assumed her mark would be inward like her mother’s. It wasn’t until

she started to grow hair that we could see the doctors were wrong...sort of.”

An eyebrow went up. “Sort of?” Yulen echoed.

Fortune shook his head, engulfed in memories. “She killed her first prey when she was

two months old.” Looking up at the astonished look on the Battle Lord’s face, he grinned. “It

was a scorpion, as big as your hand. The damn thing had managed to crawl up the side of her

cradle undetected. It must have been pure instinct for her to grab its tail with one chubby little

hand and its body with the other. She tore the thing apart, but it managed to get in one quick

pinch before it died. It was Atty’s cries that alerted her parents to it being there.”

Yulen looked suitably impressed, enough to where Fortune smiled and continued.

“As soon as Atty was able to walk, Dayman took her on excursions outside the

compound.”

“What did he do for a living?” asked Yulen.

“He was a furrier. Not a hunter, and not a member of the caste. That’s for the hunter

warriors who swear to protect and defend the compound. But he was a damn fine tracker and

trapper. He taught Atty all he knew about his trade, and she took to it like a fish to water.

When she got old enough to handle a weapon, he made her first longbow and taught her how to

shoot it.”

Bertrand interrupted with a cackle. Slapping his companion’s shoulder, he commented,

“Remember that skunk?”

The memory brought out a fresh round of laughter from the two men. Grinning, Yulen

tried to wait out their chuckles, and failed. “What about the skunk?” he urged.

Shaking his head, Bertrand confessed, “Atty must have been, what? Six or seven?

Anyway, she wanted to show her father how she was old enough to go out on her own. Of

course, when her parents found her missing, they were frantic with worry. We sent an entire

legion of men out into the forest to hunt for her. It was only a couple of hours later when here

she comes through the front gates of the compound, dragging this...how big do you think that

skunk was, Fortune?”

“It had to have been at least two hundred pounds. And she was just a slip of a girl, maybe

all of sixty pounds soaking wet, pulling this thing for I don’t know how far by its tail. And
reek!

Oh, good heavens, it was the most awful smelling thing you could ever imagine. But she’d caught

it and killed it, and, by God, she was going to bring it home to show it off to her parents if it was