Women of War (18 page)

The rest?

Given that they walked on the edge of certain death, and at that, at the hands of their own, it was hard to instill in them the respect due the kings' army. Duarte didn't bother to try; that respect would render them useless for his purposes.

The Kalakar had come to visit.

Duarte had not expected her, and was genuinely surprised when she interrupted his training run by the simple action of observing it. He was barely aware of her presence, but Auralis and Alexis stopped almost instantly, as if disturbed by the shadow she didn't cast; the sun was high.

He could still see her clearly as she was that day.

“I know why you're here,” she told them, taking up a sitting position on a large, round rock and crossing her arms. It would have been easy to mistake that comment, and many of his ten did. But Duarte looked at her carefully.

“And I've come to tell you this: You serve me. I am Ellora AKalakar, Commander of the third army. You are the walking dead.” She had their attention. Held it. “You have committed crimes for which the kings' military police would see you executed. Fair enough.

“I believe you're worth more than that. You are not a part of the kings' army, upon this field. You are part of the Kalakar House Guard.”

Duarte's attention was riveted on her. When he had approached her, he had chosen caution; he had couched each phrase with care, so that she might have the opportunity, in the end, to disavow his small company.

But it was not just his attention. The words
Kalakar House Guard
had a power, both within and outside of its ranks, that had not yet become myth. It was a near thing, though. Because it was known that Commander AKalakar's House Guard
was
her family. The whole of it; she had no children, and had disavowed all ties of kin when she had chosen to take the House name. And she had done it gladly.

“What you will be asked to do in the name of this war, only the gods know,” she continued. “But you will be asked it, and more, in
my
name. You will
be
AKalakar, and you will be counted as AKalakar.”

Duarte closed his eyes.

She rose. “There are three birds of prey upon this field. The Eagle, the Hawk and the Falcon. I offer you the unenviable position of becoming the fourth, fleet and small.” She gestured, and Verrus Korama came to stand beside her. He held a standard, which he unfurled before their eyes.

It was not well made; there were few enough who could be spared for such endeavor. But it didn't matter. Upon the field of kings' Gray, wings stretched, claws extended, flew a black bird. Black Osprey.

A whisper went up among his men, his women, these handful of criminals that had yet to become a working unit, if it ever would.

“Your crimes are your own,” she told them. “And I will not ask you to detail them; they are your past. It is your present—and your future—that will define you. If you came to the Ospreys by the paths of the gallows, you have come, unknowing, to House Kalakar. If this war is to be won, we must alter its face; we must build our own legends, our own nightmares. Build as you must, and
only
as you must.

“I demand service,” she added. “And loyalty. They are the only things I will ask of you; they are
not
the only things that will be asked of you. But serve me loyally from this point on, and that is all that will grace your service record at the end of this war.

“You are
mine,
” she told them. “And if you have success in this war, you will
be
mine. I will not disavow you, and I will not desert you; all roads that lead to the gallows start—and end—with me.”

She left the standard pole planted in the ground, and shored up by rock. She left without another word. But words followed in her wake.

“House Guard? You take a risk,” Korama told her, when they were well away.

“I have to,” she replied. She stared at her mailed hands; the sun was bright and unrelenting. “And if we take the risk, we take it openly. Duarte is no fool; what he needs from me, I can't yet say. But I can give him what I can.” She paused, and then smiled grimly. “We need to let them hunt,” she said, seeing clear sky. “We need to learn to speak a different language.”

War's language. Death's language.

“You never did care about keeping your hands clean.”

“Not much, no, but then again, I don't have to. Some other poor bastard will be cleaning off the blood.”

Not all of the men seconded to the unit were part of the third army, and this caused strife almost instantly. Devran ABerrilya surrendered none of his dead, but Commander Allen chose to trust the instincts of Commander AKalakar, and in the weeks that followed, more men and women, execution papers unsigned, were taken from the shadows of the gallows.

Some of the men, Duarte almost rejected out of hand. He read their records, and he understood that he could make no easy use of them. But one use did suggest itself, and in the end, with reservations, he accepted them.

The raids upon the supply lines had been ferocious, and worse, the Annies were burning their own stockades as they anticipated lost ground. Food, always an issue with an army of any size, was in scant supply, and the heat of the Southern summer, drier than the season that graced Averalaan, made men mad.

The colors of the Black Ospreys were stitched upon surcoats that had been grudgingly surrendered by quartermasters across the encampment in ones and twos. Armor was returned to the Ospreys, and with it, weapons. Their attitude hovered between surprise and arrogance. He expected no less.

It was his duty to train them; his training was difficult. He had learned enough magery in the Order of Knowledge to test their reflexes; to test their ability to move silently and without detection. He was not a kind taskmaster, but he didn't have to be; popularity was not his concern.

Fear was. Fear could either make a man very smart or very stupid.

Alexis AKalakar was not a man. And she was not afraid. Not of Duarte, and not of the commander. She offered him the respect due his rank—but it was an ungainly, imperfect respect. The Ospreys had not been chosen for their ability to dress well.

When they numbered fifty-five, he began to teach them the shorthand that would become their silent language; it was almost the language of thieves. It was certainly the language of assassins. They took to it as well as the uneducated could be expected to: very.

“This is a lot of training for not a lot of work.”

He looked up from the paper he was examining. They were, as always, writs of execution. Without replying, he handed them to Alexis. He couldn't have said why, had she asked. But she was Alexis. She didn't. Instead, she took them. Leafed through them, her dark eyes focused, flicking over the sparse lines that described crimes, names, units.

“AKalakars?” She asked him, when she had finished. It hadn't taken her all that long. He wondered, for the first time, what she had been in her life before the army. When she had joined. Although the army had always been open to women, few indeed were those who picked up sword and stood in recruiting lines.

“AKalakar,” He replied. “And Commander Allen's. Commander ABerrilya will send us nothing.”

She shrugged. “Given his reputation, it's probably just as well.”

It surprised him. “Why are you here, private?”

“To pass along a bit of friendly advice.” Her expression was at odds with the word friendly. Her voice was thin edge.

He nodded slowly.

“Keep an eye on Kreegar.”

He nodded again.

She set aside five of the writs. “These,” she told him quietly.

“You know them?”

“One of them. But I'd take a risk on the rest.”

“The others?”

“Fiara will kill at least two of them.”

“If she does, she's dead.”

Alexis smiled grimly. It was the only way she smiled, but it changed the landscape of her face. “I know.” She turned from the tent, stopped, bent slightly, in its flaps. “But Fiara, you can trust.”

He almost laughed. “Not a single one of you could follow the orders you were given, not even when it meant your death otherwise.”

“Maybe we didn't like the orders.” She shrugged. “Take'em if you want. Fiara can look out for herself.”

He stared at the papers for a long time, musing. In the end, he kept five.

 

Where food was scant, alcohol was less so. It was a mystery to Duarte, who seldom drank; a mystery and a great annoyance. The first time, he chose to overlook it. Two men were sent to the infirmary with wounds that would render them useless for at least two weeks. The second time?

He shed his forced nonchalance. Drinking
after
battle was a time-honored tradition. Drinking right
before
it, time-honored as well. But this?

He found the men—and woman—who were drinking, and he set the alcohol alight. There were cries of surprise and pain as bottles dropped and cracked, some shattering where they hit the sparse rock along the plateau. Alcohol made men brave.

And stupid. Terribly stupid.

One, scarred, ugly in ways that had nothing at all to do with appearance, took exception to his loss. He recognized the man: Kreegar. Alexis' gift. His dagger glinted in the dying blue fire as he rose swiftly, his Weston a smattering of words that would make street thieves proud.

Duarte, dressed in the finery of a Primus of the Kalakar House Guards, lifted a brow. “Put it down,” he said quietly. It was clearly not a request.

Kreegar swore. He wasn't drunk enough to stumble; he certainly wasn't drunk enough to slur his words. Just enough to be foolish.

He lunged at Duarte, who didn't bother to move.

In all, the Kalakar Primus was underimpressed. They had trained
with
him. They should be aware of what he could do, by now. Of course, they hadn't seen it all. He was their Captain, Primus Duarte of the Kalakar House Guards. He was also their last jailer.

He used fire that would have been almost pathetic among the Warrior mages of the Order of Knowledge, seconded to the kings. And while the fire burned, and Kreegar screamed, he stepped in with his sword. It was not his favored weapon. Favored or no, it did its work. It passed through Kreegar's chest with unerring accuracy.

And Kreegar? Passed on to the Halls of Mandaros, where judgment awaited him.

All sound died; the wind seemed to hold its breath as he watched the twenty Ospreys who now lingered around him in a circle. If they chose to attack him, it was over.

He could see indecision at play across many faces, some more familiar than others. If the gallows hadn't held them back, death wouldn't.

The silence strengthened, thinned, grew oppressive.

It was broken by Alexis, who turned to her companion. “Pay up,” she said, holding out a flat palm.

Her companion was Auralis. “Pay up?”

“You said six days. I said three.”

“It was four. The way I see it, there are no winners.”

“Then open your damn eyes. I was closer. You owe me.”

Fiara laughed. “Don't mess with him, 'Lexis.”

“The hells. Pay up,” she added, sliding her dagger out of its sheath.

“Sentrus,” Duarte said coldly.

Everyone stared at him. He stared at Alexis. Her expression shifted instantly into a clean anger, but she jammed her dagger back into its sheath. She was fond of it; she didn't want to lose it.

Or have it embedded in her chest.

“The rest of you, back to your tents.”

Fiara whistled; she made a fist and pumped it once. “Sentrus,” she said, managing both syllables without a sneer.

Alexis still faced Duarte. After a moment, she said, “Do I get a raise?”

“My tent,” he said, still cold. “Now.”

All studied casualness was gone the minute the witnesses were. Alexis faced him across his pathetic excuse for a desk. Field desks were terrible, unless you were a commander. It was a rank he would never attain. And he thanked the gods daily for that fact.

“You've been here three weeks,” he told her quietly. He did not refer to her promotion. “I've had Dunbar confined three times; I've broken up eight fights. I've killed three men, including Kreegar.”

She lifted a hand. “Permission to speak freely?” she said, with a trace of humor.

His raised brow told her how much he appreciated the attempt. “Granted.”

“Nine fights.”

He thought, for a moment, that had he actually been a commander, the army would be a
lot
smaller. “Nine, then. Your point?”

“Give us something else to fight. Soon.”

“Sentrus—”

“Alexis will do.”

“I decide that.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. You can add a stripe or a quarter circle to the arm. Or the armpit. It won't make a damn bit of difference. No one trusts you. No one trusts each other. You have no idea if we ever will.”

He nodded quietly.

“But with people like us, there's only one way to test it. We're not theoreticians. We're not even army. We're just ... your cadets.” She said the word with a grimace. Lifted her hands, signaling, of all things, retreat. “We only learn one way, Primus. We don't know what you want. We can guess. Some of us are pissed off about it; some don't give a damn.”

“What do you ‘guess' we want?”

“You want us to fight like the Annies fight. We're ready to do that.” She paused, and then added, “But we're not ready to sit, to wait, to be picked off because we're stupid. Give us a fight.”