The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) (62 page)

Fuck
.

At this point, all she wanted was to see her son. She missed James badly. And he was growing up without her, in the clutches of some expensive Caytorean lady. That couldn’t be good for him. She had to see him before war tore them apart forever.

Maybe even now, he was leading his own forces against the northern menace somewhere in central Caytor. Maybe he was retreating, or pursuing the foe from behind, like she had been doing.

The near drowning at the bridge had shaken her. She was no longer a young woman. She was pushing her luck. She could die at any moment, and it would be a great pity if she died before seeing those she loved one last time.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Major Nolene will see to your accommodation.” That also meant a thorough investigation of all he knew. Mali didn’t wait for anyone to respond or say anything else. Pretending to be busy, she pushed back through the crowd and went to wrestle with her own thoughts.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Alexa said, approaching.

Mali slid off the coal wagon, dusting her numb rear of snow. “Do you?”

Alexa stopped walking. “Yes, I do. And I am coming with you.”

Mali smirked sadly. “Again?”

Her friend shrugged. “What the fuck am I supposed to do at my age? I’ve followed you for the past twenty-odd years. A few more won’t make much difference. At least we’ll be together, and I miss that boy as much as you do.”

Mali scooped up some old snow, its wind-blasted texture sharp and unpleasant against her skin. “How are we going to justify our departure? We can’t just vanish like the last time.”

Alexa looked behind her. Four female soldiers were standing about fifty paces away, uncomfortable yet alert, watching their commander. Mali waited. “A reconnaissance mission.”

Mali snorted. “One that requires a battalion commander and her deputy to leave the main body?”

The blond major inclined her head. “Does anything else make any sense in this bloody war?”

Mali left the mining gear behind and started walking toward her friend. The snow chattered under her soles, making guttural, incomprehensible accusations. “No, it does not.”

“You can relinquish your command to Finley. You can appoint one of the girls to lead the Third while we’re gone. And we should probably take your curly northerner with us in case we come across some of his fellow countrymen.”

Mali dropped the snowball, her fingers tingling with pain. “We head for Pain Daye.”

Alexa nodded. “That was the last place James wrote to us from. Let’s hope he is still there.”

Mali was about to respond when something tugged at the corner of her eye, a curious detail. Distracted, she veered away, toward the heap of old stone and broken timber blocking a mining shaft. There had been a major engagement here, sometime in the last year, she figured. Athesians fighting the northerners, maybe. Or some other army clashing with its foe. She had no idea. Lieutenant Holger might know something about it.

What drew her attention was a rib cage. It could have been a boar, only it was ten times the size, with huge spears rising like bent swords from the ground. Part of it was still buried,
and she didn’t want to stir the cover, didn’t want to know what else she might find underneath. But those ivory spears frightened her ever so slightly. What kind of monster was this? Did those northerners use some strange beasts no one had ever seen? She had heard of the Borei using large siege animals, but she had never seen one. Besides, what would the Borei be doing this deep in the realms?

“Pain Daye,” Mali repeated, reaching forward, but then she hesitated. She did not want to press her fingers against that bone.

Finley took her news with a great deal of surprise and suspicion. But living a whole life pretending to be someone else had taught Mali to become a decent liar, so her words came true and extremely reasonable, and the colonel found it hard to argue.

“You can send any number of your ordinary troops.” He tried to resist.

“And then what? What if they meet with the Caytorean forces? What if they encounter some of the enemy? Who makes the right decision? I can’t leave that responsibility to any of my girls or your men. If there’s a mission I wouldn’t volunteer for myself, then I have no right asking my own troops to risk their lives and do the same.”

Finley looked around him. He didn’t like the empty, haunted homes either. Their lodge was an inn, and she thought she had read “Brotherly Unity” on a faded billboard swaying above the entrance. “We cannot afford to lose you, Commander.”

Mali smiled. “You won’t lose me, Finley. I will return. Until today, we haven’t seen a living soul in a year. We don’t know anything that’s happening in the world. The enemy force has gone south, so that leaves us time and space to maneuver, to
prepare. I will not squander this opportunity to try and mobilize as much help and support as we can gather for the resistance against the white foe. Maybe Eracia and Caytor still bear a grudge, but I don’t care. I will not let even the slimmest chance for survival slip because of stupid pride and ancient slights.”

The colonel was still not fully convinced. “Mali, we are not politicians. From what this Holger fellow reports, the Parusites may have helped us win Somar back. So it means an alliance with their king. We cannot side with the Athesian rebels or the High Council.”

Does that make my son a rebel, too? One fighting for a lost cause?
But she said nothing on that matter. As far as the ugly world was concerned, Emperor James was Adam’s son, not hers.

“I don’t care about politics.” Maybe a little. “This isn’t about politics. This is about survival. You have seen the enemy, Finley. I will not rest until I’m certain everyone knows about the threat.”

“We have sent messages,” the colonel whispered.

“Can we afford to wait until they respond? I will not.”

He hesitated for a long while. Then he doffed his gloves and extended a pale hand. “Good luck, Commander. I am sure you will need it.”

That’s sorted out
, she thought.

“I am taking Bjaras with me,” she said.

Gordon said nothing. He stared at her, eyes big and full of hurt.

“I know what I did was a mistake.” She marched on, ignoring the emotional ambush. “And I am sorry. I never meant to hurt you. But you must remember we never promised each other anything beyond simple physical pleasure.”

“Thank you for reminding me,” he mumbled.

“I will return,” she repeated, hoping it was not a lie. “And when I do, I think I will have courage for us to try again. Together. Committed. I just hope you will be willing to forgive me and to give me another chance.”

The captain of the skirmishers tried to keep his face passive, but his cheeks twitched, and the corners of his lips curled. “You are going to Pain Daye?”

Mali sighed. “That’s my plan. I will need Bjaras in case we encounter any of the northerners. Nothing more. But I must meet with the High Council, I must find Emperor James, and I must convince them all to join the war against the enemy.”

“They might have already,” he supplied in a thin, sad voice.

“We do not know that. But do you think this white foe will just vanish one day? They will march back north. I am certain. And we must find a way to stop them. This is my burden. But I must ask you to help Meagan keep the battalion intact. Avoid heavy battles. Keep safe. We will meet, if anything, in a few months.” She leaned over, trying to kiss him, but also to silence anything else he might try to say. She feared she knew what he might utter, and she didn’t want her chest hurting any more than it already was. Maybe she was a coward, but she was trying.

Gordon softened. He kissed her gently, chapped lips to chapped lips. He smelled like onions, and she didn’t dare think what she smelled like. “So long, Captain. We’ll meet again.”

He touched a hand to her shoulder, then retrieved it. Was he crying? Men! But then her vision started to mist, so she blinked hard, spun around, and walked away with a purposeful stride. Gordon was a decent person. For an old, bitter female officer with more scars than common sense, he was actually quite a catch. She should keep that in mind.

Later that day, they did a quick exchange of command. With only a few hours of daylight left, she was heading east, with Alexa, Bjaras, a burly female guard named Suzy, four horses, and fives mules swaying silly with packed food, blankets, and weapons. Hopefully, that would be enough until she found civilization again. If she found it, she reminded herself.

“Son, I miss you,” she whispered into the wind, marching away from Ecol.

CHAPTER 44

U
sually, Stephan liked the way Eybalen looked in the winter. He liked the sight of the city seen from inland. The land dipped slightly, the creases of hilly terrain sweeping away, and the cove opened, revealing terraces, the farming villages, the hive of the city, the sprawl of the harbor, the choppy shimmer of the sea.

Not this time.

The hills were dappled in ice, glistening like a mirror, blinding, sharp. Winds from the harbor had polished the crust to a sheen like silver, and his head hurt from squinting, trying to keep the glare out of his eyes. But he wouldn’t pull the curtains closed. He hated sitting and jolting in darkness. He could not hear the city yet, but the smoke from the chimneys and workshops, and the stillness in the port, told of a besieged place, waiting for winter to ease its grip.

What bothered him was not the smudge of chaos, the absence of white sails coming and going to Eybalen, or the howl of the wind bending the trees and shrubbery northward. It was the sight of two new large army camps on the slopes outside the town, expelling their own smoke and stench.

They looked like cow turds picked through by grubby fingers, as if someone had hoped to find nuggets of gold deep in
the brown piles. There was no order, just concentric rings of greater or lesser shit sprawling any which way the land went, and not even the cover of snow could hide the ugliness.

In all his life as a councillor, he had never seen an army outside Eybalen. Not during the Feoran revolution, not in the war against the Eracians, not once during Adam’s reign. Now, it seemed thousands of armed men hogged the road into the capital, one on each side. That could not be good. Not at all.

He was not bringing any good news either. Behind him, in the hundred-odd carriages, rode the displaced councillors, mayors, and investors from northern cities, now entirely without homes and at his mercy. Behind them farther still, endless convoys of refugees followed. He was bringing half the realm to its heart, and it could not be good either. But it was an opportunity.

The mythical army from the north turned out to be a real one, it seemed. Less than a week after arriving at Pain Daye, they had evacuated the mansion and gone back south, taking gold and food. A small, suicidal part of him wanted to see the enemy regiments, to see the myth stomp through Caytor, but he believed the words of so many scouts coming back slack faced with fear.

For several days, the enemy shadowed them, and there was a real fear they would be forced to engage in battle with a small cadre of inexperienced solders and thousands of refugees slowing them down. Then the foe veered west, going toward Athesia. A blessing, a curse, Stephan just did not know. When drunk, he suspected the enemy might be in league with Amalia, but sobriety brought back more logical thoughts to his mind. This northern army, whatever it was, brought doom to the realms. The rules of the game had changed. The game itself had changed.

Rheanna and he had done their best to consolidate their power among the destitute councillors. He had bedded his way through a number of less likely agreements with some of the female candidates, while James’s widow had more subtly hinted at potential rewards in return for cooperation. They had indebted dozens of men and women in return for funds and hope, and Stephan could not wait to get back to the city. He would have powerful backing in any meeting with the rest of the High Council, and he could slowly work toward grabbing more power, more influence, and sidelining his opponents.

If only this northern threat would go away.

He was genuinely surprised by the presence of army camps outside Eybalen.

The carriage jolted to a halt, and the woman in his lap stirred but didn’t wake. Hailey was a small honey merchant from Marlheim. Not that important in the greater scheme, but her vote still carried some small weight, and he’d liked her company during the long, boring days of travel.

Stephan pushed her off him, but she remained sound asleep. He craned his neck, stretching sore muscles, opened the door, and hopped out. Cold air slapped him.

Bader was sitting on a horse, looking alert, his always-filthy hair fluttering. His henchmen were spread all about, and hundreds followed around their caravan and in the fields. Some were private soldiers, others newly hired mercenaries, a handful of veterans from James’s time, disillusioned of their earlier ideals.

The road ahead was blocked. Several carts, loaded with stones, were parked perpendicularly to the hard-packed gravel, forcing any wagon or carriage coming south to weave slowly past their lumbering bulk—or sidetrack into the deep snow. Going around the barrier was trickier, because large, sharp
stakes broke through the white crust at least fifty paces on each side of the road.