Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four (59 page)

“What’s he doing here?” Martaina asked Mendicant. She saw the goblin start in surprise at being addressed.

“I couldn’t just leave him at the campsite,” Mendicant said. “They’re all heading over here, now. So I brought him along.”

“He’s probably getting a deep feeling of joy from seeing this,” Aisling said, leering at Terian. The dark knight shrugged then shook his head. “No? Must be because you wanted the joy of doing it for yourself.” She waited, and Terian looked at her knowingly then nodded once. “A finer friend I doubt he’s ever known,” she said, and touched the headless body with the toe of her shoe, delicate, almost a caress. “At least when he killed your father, he didn’t know what he was doing, that he was harming you. His excuse was duty; what’s yours? Spite?”

“Enough of this,” Odellan said. “We need the officers, and we need them now.”

“They won’t be here for twenty more minutes,” Aisling said, wheeling about on him. “By then it’ll be too late to act. Do whatever you will, but I’m going to the Actaluere encampment. I’m likely to stir some trouble, and anyone who wants to come with me—”

“No,” Martaina said. “You know he wouldn’t want it. Not like this. Not a war without any proof, not a fight to no purpose. Odellan is right; we don’t know for fact it is Actaluere.”

“You’re a fool if you think it’s otherwise,” Aisling said, her eyes narrowed. “But since you make mention of it, there were other bodies here and now they’re gone. Why don’t we simply follow the trail, oh skillful ranger?” She indicated the drag marks in the dirt of the road that led off the embankment, back up into the woods, with a sweeping gesture that was as much sarcasm as grandiloquence. “You know … while we wait for the officers to appear and make their august rulings and decisions and whatnot.”

Martaina wanted to slap her own forehead.
Of course. Follow the trail.
She didn’t waste time agreeing or disagreeing, but instead sprang into motion, her feet finding purchase on the embankment as she followed the drag marks. It was a short jaunt, only a few feet, as the bodies were tucked into the underbrush, covered by a few pine needles and a couple of fallen branches. Their livery was obvious, and the smell of the fish and sea that was so dominant in the soldiers of Actaluere that she had met was present.

“The most obvious conclusion is most often the right one,” Aisling said, and her daggers were in her hands now. “Actaluere soldiers, dead at the edge of Praelior.”

“How can you tell?” Partus shuffled through the brush next to them, his head peeking out from just behind Martaina.

“Because some of these wounds look like something cut through them in impossible ways,” Martaina answered, turning her head to look at him. “This one, for example—through the bottom of the jaw and out. You see many non-mystical swords do that?”

“Gold coin for the pretty she-elf,” Partus said. “Looks like you got your culprits, you got your general fighting with them, and … you’ve still got no head. You gonna ride out into their camp and raise havoc, or what?”

“Or what,” came a voice from behind them, and the surface noise that was filling the air, all the soldiers, the low hum of conversations, was interrupted with the sweep of Curatio into the woods, silhouetted against the light coming from the break in the trees where the sun shone down closer to the road. His white cloak billowed as he walked, reminding her of the priests of Nessalima back in Pharesia, their robes just as loose as the healer’s. “Windrider rode back to Enrant Monge in such a fit that the lad who tends the stables swore to me he had been possessed by powers of darkness heretofore unseen in Luukessia.” The healer took a deep breath and his nostrils flared. “We have a dead general, we have no head, we have assailants from Actaluere, and we have more problems than we can safely count without an abacus.” Nyad, J’anda and Longwell followed in his wake; the younger Longwell was flushed, his helm carried in the crook of his arm as well and his lance not with him.

“These are Hoygraf’s men,” Longwell said, heavy boots crunching in the greenery as he came to stand next to Odellan, staring down at the bodies. “Let there be no doubt.”

“So now we know who took the head,” Curatio said, “but we can’t prove it beyond doubt, and that’s a flimsy premise to start a war on now, when we least need to be ensnared in other conflicts.”

“We already had a conflict with Hoygraf,” Aisling snapped, “that’s plain. We just haven’t seen the end of it, yet.” She spun one of her daggers, twisting it fast in her grip. “I mean to see it through though, even if the rest of you don’t—”

“This will be fruitless,” Curatio said, holding a hand up to forestall her. “Even if we rallied the army and ran down the entire Actaluere force, which—given their size and ours, would be quite the endeavor given the time constraint—there’s still no guarantee his head is there, in their camp. They’d be foolish to be caught with it, after all—”

“He never was all that bright,” Longwell said, “but proud, though.” Heads swiveled to him. “Hoygraf, I mean. If Cyrus did take the Baroness’s charms in the Garden again before we left,” no one noticed the slight flinch from Aisling save for Martaina, “then that is the last in a long line of insults and woundings that our general has inflicted on the man. It’s more than his pride can bear. He’ll keep the head, and it’ll be dipped in tar and put in a place of special favor so that he can keep it together for as long as possible.”

“Well, that’s the sort of fixation that’s not grotesque and disturbing at all,” J’anda muttered so low that no one else heard him.

“I’m not hearing solutions, and the clock is winding down,” Aisling said. “So let me propose one—you don’t want to send a whole army into the Actaluere camp because you don’t think we should start a war now, fine. I’ll go, and I’ll sneak my way—kill my way to Hoygraf, if necessary—and retrieve the head.” There was a dangerous glint in her eyes. “And I can do it, too.”

“Far be it from me to suggest otherwise,” J’anda said, “but we might benefit from a bit of guile instead. An illusion, perhaps, to ease your passage. Less sneaking, more walking through the middle of the camp without any questions.”

“Then what?” Curatio asked. “Go to the grand duke’s tent and ask politetly to see him? Ask for the head back?”

“Threaten him with the loss of his own as well as his manhood,” Aisling said, still twirling her daggers. “I think he’ll see the wisdom in parting with it.” She paused. “The head, not his manhood.”

“I don’t wish to be crude—” Longwell said.

“That hasn’t stopped anyone else,” J’anda said under his breath.

“But at this point, the grand duke’s manhood is inextricably tied to the head,” Longwell went on, grimly, “though I know that your Arkarian sense probably doesn’t understand or wish to acknowledge it. Cyrus has castrated Hoygraf—not literally, I would hope, but in a figurative sense, through everything he’s done, and the Grand Duke’s actions are absolutely in line with trying to regain his power and pride, as it were.”

“This is disturbing on so many levels I can’t even count them all,” Martaina said. “We have little time. You think he won’t give up the head?”

“I think he’d rather die,” Longwell said, “given the humiliations he’s been subjected to by our general. Stealing the man’s wife and having his way with her is well beyond the realm of embarrassement to be sure, especially since we all know—as he probably does—that she was with Cyrus more than happily.” Longwell shook his head. “If you want the head back, he won’t surrender it willingly; you’ll have to kill or cripple him further.”

“Done and done,” Aisling said, and turned west, disappearing into the brush.

“Dammit,” Curatio breathed, and Martaina cast him a look. “Go with her,” the healer said, “J’anda, you too. Find the head, bring it back. I’ll rally the army in case you fail.”

“You’re going to start a war over this, Curatio?” Partus said with muted excitement. “Ill-timed, but I admire that.”

“To hell with your admiration,” Curatio said. “I don’t care what time it is; if our general dies permanently, I will make an example of the Kingdom of Actaluere that even the scourge won’t find palatable.” He waved his hand at Martaina. “Go.”

She was off then and heard J’anda following behind, slower. She tried to match his pace, but the enchanter’s sandaled feet didn’t make for very fast travel and after a short distance, he said so. “I apologize, but this is going to be difficult.” They ran along the southern wall of Enrant Monge, the castle’s guards looking down on them from above on the battlements.

“It’s not far now,” she replied, and kept moving. “Just over that rise.” She pointed to a crest of the rough territory ahead.

“You know these woods already?” J’anda asked, keeping up with her.

“I’ve been hunting,” Martaina said. “What do you think the likelihood is that Aisling will wait for us?”

“Low. Lower than that, even, maybe. What’s lower than ground level?”

“Saekaj Sovar, as I understand it.” She met his weak smile, and they kept on, her quietly slipping through the woods and him crunching in the underbrush as though he were unaware of the noise he was causing.

They came to the top of an overlook, and down below was a camp. Not quite as simplistic as the Sanctuary encampment, this one had clearly been used many times over the years. It was open ground, with latrines clearly dug, tents set up in lines and in a careful order. “Looks like the same type of site that the Galbadien army uses,” Martaina said as the two of them hunched over in the bushes, looking down.

“Here,” J’anda said, and his hand moved over her. The light around them shifted, and J’anda became a human, wrapped in the same helm and armor as the guards they had found dead in the woods. The enchanter regarded her carefully for a moment. “The illusion is perfect; you look like a man.”

“Which is rather dramatically different for her,” came Aisling’s voice from behind them. Martaina looked to see the dark elf crouched only inches away, “Since that would doubtless scare off any of the five men she’s slept with since coming on this sojourn.”

Martaina felt her face redden, the heat coming to it. “You sound envious.”

“Not at all,” Aisling said, her face a mask, only the slightest edge of spite creeping out of her words. “I’m quite content with what I’ve got, and I’ll continue to be content with it if we manage to finish this out.”

Martaina shot a look at J’anda, whose hand was extended toward Aisling. A moment later, the illusion took hold and the dark elf was replaced with a dull-looking man of Actaluere, slack-jawed under his helm with its over-exaggerated nose guard. Aisling was off, down the slope with a cloud of dust trailing behind her. Martaina kept a careful eye on J’anda, who looked to her with a gentle shrug. “Five men?” The enchanter asked. “I’m envious.”

“Because you weren’t one of them?” Martaina asked, and felt the dryness in her mouth as she said it, the humiliation of her exposure.

“No,” J’anda said with a dismissive wave, “because you could have been sporting and saved one of the men for me, at least. Two if you were feeling charitable.”

She blinked at him, and he was gone down the slope in the moment after that before she had a chance to respond. She followed after, hoping the illusion worked hand in hand with the stir of dirt she was causing on the slope. She came to the end of it, the red dust of her descent caught up with her and overtook her for a minute, but she kept moving until it was cleared and she entered the edge of the tent city of Actaluere’s encampment. She saw the man who she knew was J’anda, just ahead of her, but could only tell him by the dust of the slide on his illusory surcoat. Aisling, ahead, was not only dusty but walked with a slight, almost unnoticeable sway.

“Playing games, soldier?” One of the men she passed, stirring a pot of stew over a fire, shook his head at her. “This is how you know you’ve been too long idle; men start playing like bloody children.”

She didn’t answer, afraid of what the response would sound like, feminine or not. Instead, she followed J’anda, the trailing blue of his stained surcoat, and they walked on past the small tents of the army, toward the larger ones ahead, the tents of the commanders and even one, the largest—
for the King, surely
—which stood higher than all the rest and was crowned with a circle of pennants atop it.

The smell of food was present, all manner of it, and the latrines, too, as she snaked her way through the camp. Her bow was still on her shoulder, she could feel it with a touch, but it was invisible, no sign that it was there at all. She felt the weight of it too, though, slung where it was. The aisles between tents were clear enough, though men lingered outside in the summer sun, laughing, slouching, aimless in most cases.

The ground between tents grew wider as they drew closer to the King’s tent. The gaps grew between them, the tents got bigger, and the spaces where men sat around fires were broader.
Fewer men around these fires,
she thought.
More elite.
There were no fires burning now, though, and few men, now that she thought about it. There was sound in the distance, though the sound of cheers or jeers, she couldn’t tell.

Aisling had slowed her pace, and now Martaina and J’anda caught her, walking as a triad down the quiet, abandoned pathways between tents. “Where did they all go?” J’anda asked, casting his gaze left, then right.

“To wherever that cheering comes from,” Aisling said, and the tension bled in her voice. “And likely where the head of our illustrious general is, too.”

They came out of a cluster of tents and the sound grew louder. There was a gathering in front of the King’s tent, where a wide space was cleared. Their view was obstructed though, and only the top of the massive tent was visible behind the last few large tents in the way. “Think they’re having a party around it?” J’anda asked.

“If so, the celebration will be short-lived,” Martaina said, and ran her hand onto her bow, checking to be sure it was still there even though she couldn’t see it. There was blood in the air again, fighting now to be scented over the camp smells.

They emerged from between two tents and found the source of the cheering and catcalls. There was a courtyard of sorts constructed before the King’s tent. A throne sat to one side, unoccupied, all done in brass but with places for poles to be threaded through so it could be carried on the shoulders of strong men, or placed atop a wagon.