Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2 (12 page)

Besides, she might have hailed these airship crewmen as heroes, but she was no fool. Mercenary or soldier, they were all individuals who could betray and thwart at the turn of a blade. She should know. For now, better the lazy and incompetent enemy she knew than a cunning and corrupt one she didn’t.

It didn’t occur to her until her attention refocused on the coming group to think that Ezekiel had overheard their conversation. Sara felt a bit of unease move down through her gullet, because she couldn’t pin down whether or not she had ignored Ezekiel’s presence because he was
friend
or because dead-men-told-no-tales.

She wanted to think it was the former. Then again if these Algardis soldiers couldn’t cure Ezekiel, then it would be stupid of her to think of as Ezekiel as anything but the latter—a dying man gasping his last breath.

Ezekiel barely stirred in her arms. She sighed in relief and sternly whispered to herself,
Stop it. The man’s not dead. He’ll live. Have some faith.

Faith in
what
she didn’t know. She doubted very much that the gods were listening—and if they were, then heaven help them all, because they would be thrust in a situation far, far worse than their current one. You didn’t call upon the gods of Algardis unless you wanted to open up the fissures of the earth and wreak so much havoc that a civil war looked like child’s play. The founding of the empire had taught them that, and the tales of those times had been passed down generation after generation as a reminder. As if the newly-formed mountain ranges and swallowed cities hadn’t been enough.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Captain Simon click his muddy boot heels together as he raised his hand in salute. He hissed at her, “Salute, you fool, and have your invalid friend do the same.”

Hot fire of anger raised through Sara, quickly doused by the cool calm of worry. Ezekiel had chosen that moment to grumble in protest, either at the captain’s words or, more likely, at his own discomfort. But that grumble had her sitting back on her heels and clutching Ezekiel tighter. Sara realized that she had ignored Ezekiel Crane’s presence in her arms as she lambasted their captain because he was more than just another a mercenary.

Sara Fairchild muttered in astonishment, “He’s a friend. My only friend.”

It was the first time since her father’s death and the abandonment by her true friends that she had uttered those words. To Sara’s surprise the sentiment rang as true as it had moments earlier.

He really was. The other mercenaries, of course, didn’t count. Ezekiel was about all she had. Sara pushed thoughts of the others, the ones she had considered more than friends once, from her mind. Without thinking, she put two fingers against the pulse that lay like a comforting murmur under the flesh of Ezekiel’s throat, feeling for the beat. It was barely steady. With a tense look at her superior that matched the anger that was also on the captain’s face, Sara tilted her head back and looked up at the greeting party standing above her. She refused to rise and greet them properly. Sara might have believed in rank and formality, but she didn’t believe in it at the expense of her friend, who she would have to let sink into the swamp mud in order to stand.

Apparently, that resentment came across loud and clear.

T
he female soldier approaching, with three male soldiers behind her, almost reeled back at the unchecked anger on the kneeling mercenary’s face. But she quickly stiffened her shoulders and snapped a salute, “Captain Martha Simmons of the Air Guard, here for Captain Barthis Simon of the Corcoran Guard.”

Captain Simon snapped a salute back. “You’ve found him, and not a moment too soon. Between the dreary weather, the predatory animals, and the cursed land, my troops were losing hope.”

Captain Simmons of the Air Guard nodded. “We said we’d be here, and so we are.”

“And so you are,” echoed Captain Simon, as if he didn’t know what else to say. He couldn’t very well snap at his saviors. Sara had the uncharitable thought in that moment that she should deck his bum for being a pretentious maniac and then take the Captain of the Air Guard to task for not rescuing the group of Algardis mercenaries before they’d been forced to enter the swamp, walk for days in a hellhole, and lose over half of their company to its poisonous inhabitants. 

The female captain turned towards one of her men. “Summon the medics.” As the man ran off and the airship captain saw more wounded hobbling forth, she amended her order. “All four of them, Jones!”

The man turned mid-run. An unspoken question on his face.

“The imperial healer stays on board,” snapped Captain Simmons.

Jones nodded and raced off to the ship. He didn’t have to climb the sides to get his message across; a man with a bird on his wrist conveyed the orders for him.

Sara watched dispassionately as the messenger hawk took off from his owner’s wrist with something in its claws, and she clutched Ezekiel closer to her chest.

The airship captain broke her reverie with a commanding voice. “Planning to execute the man?”

Sara turned startled eyes over to the airship captain. She had no idea what she was talking about. “Who?”

The woman nodded down at Ezekiel, clutched close in Sara’s arms. “Sure looks like you either want to put him out of his misery or put yourself out of yours.”

Sara pulled herself together and looked down from the airship captain’s face to the man who she clutched at her front. Ezekiel’s head rested on her leather jerkin, and he was unconscious. Sara realized that her weapons were what had caught the female captain’s gaze. Her sword was still sheathed, but her knife was out and resting near the flesh of Ezekiel’s throat, much too close for comfort. Sara had been careless.

“My apologies, my friend,” she whispered to Ezekiel while returning her gaze to the woman above. She eased the knife back and wearily said, “Protecting him. I was protecting him.”

The woman’s eyes held her own, then she gave a slow nod. The airship captain’s voice was sympathetic but stern as she said, “You’ve done your job, lass. Now let my people do theirs. We’ll take care of this right quick.”

Sara didn’t let hope bloom in her chest. It was too early for that. They were still neck-deep in this accursed swamp, after all. But she did tentatively ask, “You have the cure for what ails him?”

“Ails them all?” Sara’s captain quickly corrected with a questioning tone in his voice.

Even he didn’t know, which just made him more incompetent in her mind.
How can someone so stupid be in charge of the lives of more than two hundred men and women?
she wondered irritably
.
As the captain, his job was to lead by example and be knowledgeable about what kind of situation he was leading his command into. So far, their captain hadn’t done much of either.

And perhaps that’s it,
Sara realized with a start.
He might be able to command the battlefield with a ferocious nature, but the man is as incompetent as a newborn babe at guiding his mercenaries
to
the battlefield.

It made her visibly wince to think about it. Fortunately, the wince on her face could be put down to morbid thoughts about the dead and dying. She had winced because she knew her father must be rolling over in his grave at the thought of a Fairchild following a leader with only the skills to shed blood, rather than retain it. Sara knew that part of being a leader, a
commander
, meant finding ways to keep your troops alive and whole, not just triumphant.

It had been one of her father’s favorite sayings to harp on. “
Sara, a man or woman is only as good a leader in battle as they are off the field of war. But it’s knowing and acknowledging the need for both those qualities which is half the battle.”

A smile had cracked younger Sara’s face as she walked along the path beside him, determined to emulate him in every way. It must have been a comical sight to passersby in the garden. A six-foot-tall giant of a man with the muscles of an ox and the battle scars of a seasoned warrior walking slowly down a flower-strewn path with a slip of a girl by his side, all arms and legs at that point, and her hair up in a puff on the top her head, secured by a bright red bow—surely her mother’s touch.

If a delighted smile didn’t plaster her face in-between failed attempts at a grim demeanor matching the stalwart man beside her, then she would be overcome with energetic bouts and spin by her father’s side only to hurry to catch up with him as he kept striding forward. She could have stopped at any time, but she didn’t, partially because even though he didn’t say it, he approved. Her father approved of her happiness. He showed it in small ways with light squeezes of her hand when she’d skip back to him and grab hold of his calloused palm. She hadn’t been able to contain her excitement at the momentous occasion of that day. He still kept walking forward, though. Never stopping for her. Just minding her, and cautioning against any wild antics. Antics which would disturb the other walkers around them. 

If any passersby thought it funny that a scarred warrior with pale skin and young girl of five with dusky coloring were walking alongside one another without a care in the world, they said nothing. And Sara knew they had been wise to keep their mouths shut. As dangerous as she was now, her father had been a swordsman and mage twice her caliber. And even on an idyllic walk with his little girl in a flowering bower in the center of the capital, he was armed to the teeth with a saber on his back and a mace at his waist. Even she hadn’t been quite sure why he carried the mace on that day, but she was smart enough not to ask and ruin her father’s congenial mood.

So she had listened and learned as he had continued speaking. “
You will need three things as you take up your own command someday – strategy, fortitude, and battle instincts. One without the other means you can easily win the battle and lose the war. Do you understand?”

She remembered that she had nodded her curly little head enthusiastically. She had been maybe eight years old at the time and eager to impress her commanding father. As she had gazed up into his face, a slight smile had cracked his stern and weathered face as he reached down a hand and put it squarely atop her head in the messy hold of curls that threatened to envelop his grip.

“You will someday
,” he said with a quiet chuckle.

What he had said then was true now. Today, she finally did understand.

She had yet to see Captain Barthis Simon on the field of battle, wielding a sword and shouting rapid fire commands, but she had no doubt that as a battle mage he would be quite good—at least with a sword. She suddenly doubted his capacity for strategic thinking.

What could have possibly convinced him to abandon the leadership of three of his core groups and race into a swamp, only to lose a further half of his men?

Command and orders be damned
, Sara thought distractedly.
At some point, a man has to take initiative for himself and his people. The empress isn’t here. Her people aren’t here, and I doubt she would have advised such a foolish trek if they were.

She was brought back from the thoughts going through her mind as the captain of the Air Guard cleared her through. Sara Fairchild knew she hadn’t moved a muscle and her face was impassive. Nothing about her showed the traitorous thoughts going through her head, not unless you looked into her eyes. And as far as she knew, having a passionate gaze wasn’t a crime. Yet.

“We have the cure,” the woman confirmed. “We’ve known about the paralysis bite for a while. The cure to medical ailments like that and others are what my healers are constantly searching for.”

Sara’s shoulders slumped in relief.

“Others?” Captain Simon asked.

The airship captain turned to him. “One of the war tactics Kade mages are fond of — coming up with all manner of ill disease to infect our men and women. We’ve seen so much.” Then she turned back to Sara and Ezekiel with a weary tone in her voice. “This paralytic is the least of it.”

Sara’s mouth gaped in shock, but she managed to stammer, “The
least
of it? My mercenaries are being slowly taken over by a paralytic so strong that they’re unable to move their bodies within days of being infected.”

She hadn’t consciously meant to say ‘
my mercenaries’
, but it was out now, and she couldn’t retract it.

The airship captain just smiled grimly. “It doesn’t dissolve your hands in seconds, or introduce a hemorrhaging factor in your blood that causes you to bleed out from every orifice. Those are the ones you have to worry about.” She gestured to Ezekiel. “This we can handle.”

Sara felt a shiver at the abject coldness in the woman’s voice. Still she forced herself to say, “But this, this can be cured? Now?
Right now
? He’s dying.”

“I know,” the airship captain confirmed as Sara saw white-robed healers descend en masse from the decks of the ships.

Sara felt darkness rise in her blood. Not ire. She was too far gone for irate hatred. She felt a serene bleakness come over her. The woman hadn’t said she could cure Ezekiel. She had said she
had
the cure. What would she demand for its release? If they had been having this conversation in Sandrin, years before, Sara would have asked her father to leverage their accounts to pay the woman in gold and silver. She would spare no expense to save her friend’s life.

When did I become this person?
she wondered silently to herself.
A person that would move the heavens and mortgage whatever I had to save this one man...and why?

She didn’t know. But she had the feeling that this change had crept in, like tendrils of fog in the night, when she had taken shelter in Ezekiel’s humble abode. She had run from the burned shell of her small house covered in blood and the stench of death—her mother’s death—and he hadn’t turned her away. He hadn’t shut the door in her face like so many of her so-called ‘friends’, hadn’t turned his back in mock sympathy, hadn’t stood over her and looked down upon her life with a barely-concealed mixture of pity and horror.