Lost Ones-Veil 3 (26 page)

But what he’d just said made her forget any favors he’d ever done her.

“What do you mean, ‘Don’t scream’?”

Frost narrowed his eyes. Ice-blue mist swirled up from them. “Precisely what I said. You will want to scream. You will be afraid. But I swear to you that I will not drop you.”

They had moved on from the air shark sighting perhaps another half mile. From the scrim of a stony ridge, they saw the troops mustered on the isthmus. Many were sleeping, but others were on patrol. Collette found herself strangely unafraid of encountering Atlantean soldiers, but if they were seen and a patrol raised the alarm, she feared what might answer that call.

She turned to Frost. “I won’t scream.”

The winter man nodded. If he doubted her, he did not put voice to those doubts.

He burst into a swirl of snow and ice. Frigid wind buffeted her. Collette shivered again and turned up her collar. Before her eyes the storm that was Frost grew, churning. The blizzard rose twenty feet in the air and spread a dozen in either direction.

She held her breath, staring in amazement at the power of the storm. The power of the winter man.

Then she gasped as the blizzard rushed at her. It whipped around her, circling a moment, and her teeth chattered. Her muscles clenched and she hugged herself against the icy grip of the storm. When the blizzard lifted her up off of the ground, blowing her up into the sky as though she had been catapulted, Collette nearly did scream.

Her mouth opened, but the freezing wind seared her throat and she clamped her lips. Her eyes went wide and she could not even curl in upon herself for warmth. The blizzard hurtled her through the air, buffeting her, carrying her on a slingshot wind, in a cocoon of driving snow. Her bones ached with the cold and she tried to breathe but found she could not. The wind lashed her face and she felt despair grip her heart. How could she survive this?

Barely aware of what she was seeing, she glimpsed enormous ships of glass in the distance, festooned with sails. She saw troops massing below as she spun across the sky in the grip of the blizzard.

Then the wind lessened. She found herself sliding downward, drifting. The blizzard buffeted her, blasted her, keeping her aloft. Her arms and legs pinwheeled as she descended.

The ground rushed up. At the last moment a final, powerful gust slowed her fall. Collette landed in a pile of fresh snow, tumbling through the white stuff and then onto rough, prickly grass and rocky earth.

The cold withdrew. The warmth of the southern night felt like a gift. Her flesh was seared. Her cheeks burned with the bite of the cold that had enveloped her. It was like nothing else she had ever felt and she wondered if she had frostbite.

The thought frightened her, but slowly, feeling and warmth returned to all but her hands and cheeks. Carefully, she sat up.

The snow was gone. Frost stood over her.

“We have to go. The hours before dawn are few, and we have no time to lose.”

Collette stared at him. “Don’t ever do that again.”

His eyes narrowed. “What else—”

“Leave me behind, next time.”

She wasn’t sure if she meant it, and it seemed clear Frost was not sure either. Collette didn’t care. She got up and marched north with him, bones still aching. It took a very long time for full feeling to return to her hands.

They’d gone only a few miles when they reached the end of the Isthmus. The Kingdom of Euphrasia spread out to the east and west. Already, Collette felt safer, and less inclined to be hostile toward Frost.

A Euphrasian cavalry patrol stopped them on the road. When they discovered that these strangers walking north were Frost of the Borderkind and Collette Bascombe, Legend-Born, a kind of euphoria seemed to come over them. One of the soldiers dismounted and gave Collette his horse. As she slid into the saddle, she felt a grim determination settle into her. They had arrived at last. Survived, at least this long. And now the war would truly begin.

Frost flowed through the air beside her as she rode, and one of Hunyadi’s horsemen paced her on the other side. The familiar feel of the horse beneath her, the leather reins in her hand, filled her with new vigor.

They rode through the battle lines set up by Euphrasian troops, who were dug in and waiting for the attack they knew would come with the dawn. The cavalryman signaled to the soldiers on the ground and soon voices could be heard. Collette heard them calling her name. At first she didn’t understand. How could any of these people know her name? Then she heard shouts of “Legend-Born,” and she understood.

The human soldiers were all Lost Ones. She represented the hope of their parents and grandparents and ancestors. For those who had been born in her world and crossed over themselves, she would seem even more like a savior come to their rescue. The legend said she could get them home again. And for the others, she would seem like Moses, ready to bring them to the Promised Land.

If only they knew that the world they so wanted to return to was only a more ordinary reflection of this one, she wondered if they would still long to go there. But perhaps they would. This world wasn’t home. Not really. They wanted to be reunited with their people. She could understand.

The thought made her wonder about Oliver. She had done her best not to think of him over the past few hours. But Collette felt sure he was all right. She had come to believe that if anything happened to him—if death came for her brother—she would know. Once, the idea would have seemed foolish to her. But now she knew it was not so far-fetched.

Hope went through the ranks as they passed. When she rode into the camp on the hill overlooking the battlefield, the word continued to spread. She could almost feel morale rising. Frost whipped along beside her, a blizzard sliding through the night air, but she could almost hear laughter coming from the storm he made.

The dour winter man was happy.

A small group of men and women in uniform—officers and advisors—were clustered outside a large tent at the apex of the hill. Twenty yards away, the cavalryman who’d accompanied them held up a hand to halt them. Collette pulled on the reins. She and the horseman both dismounted. The winter man coalesced out of the air and stood beside her. A young soldier—no more than a girl, really—ran over to take the reins of the two horses and led them away. Another, a boy of perhaps sixteen, came over and saluted the cavalryman.

“Run and tell the king that Frost has come with Collette Bascombe.”

The boy’s mouth opened in a kind of gasp, and then he grinned as he turned to bolt up the hill toward the tent of King Hunyadi. Collette’s heart soared at the reaction her arrival had brought out in the troops, but a shadow lingered there as well. These people had no idea of the kind of horrors Atlantis had mustered. Hunyadi might, but the soldiers likely did not. She feared for them.

Moments later, the boy came back down the hill. Behind him walked a bearded man with a wide-brimmed hat and a cane with a brass head that glinted in the moonlight. When he passed the conversing officers, they fell silent and shifted slightly away from him. Power seemed to radiate from him. Yet from the officers’ reaction she knew this could not be the king.

The man shooed the boy away and came down to meet them. He ignored Collette completely, turning to Frost.

“I’d not thought to see you alive again.”

The winter man cocked his head. His fingers were like ice knives and from the way he stood, Collette wondered if Frost would attack the man or embrace him. He did neither.

“Are you disappointed?” the winter man asked.

“Quite the opposite,” the tall, bearded man replied. He cast a quick glance at Collette and a smile touched his lips. “You’ve done well, Arcturus.”

Frost bristled. He tossed his head back, hair clinking. “That’s not my name.”

The man waved away the complaint. Collette saw that the brass head of his cane was the head of a fox, and she remembered Oliver telling her about him. The enigmatic Wayland Smith.

“Atlantis attacks at dawn,” Frost said. “I have details on their forces for the king.”

Smith nodded. “Most of which I’ve already provided.”

“I also observed the Yucatazcan warriors—those who retreated are now regrouping. But they don’t seem to have the heart for it. I wonder if they haven’t realized, by now, that they’re being manipulated.”

Wayland Smith frowned. “That may be, old friend, but they will still fight. They will fight and die because that is the command from Palenque. King Mahacuhta is dead, but Prince Tzajin lives. The only way the Yucatazcans will stop fighting is if the crown commands it, and that’s not going to happen as long as Tzajin is a prisoner in Atlantis.”

Frost swore under his breath. Cold mist plumed upward from the edges of his eyes again. “You’re sure of that?”

“I saw him with my own eyes. Hunyadi needed a spy.”

The winter man seemed surprised. “That’s unlike you, taking so overt a role. You so love working in the shadows.”

Smith gripped the head of his cane and glanced again at Collette, who’d watched the whole exchange.

“Time, I think, for you to speak to the king.”

CHAPTER
17

O
vid Tsing led his army along the Orient Road. Even above the stink of unwashed soldiers, he could smell the ocean on the breeze. The night was clear and warm and the starlight picked out each man and woman of the long march. At the back of the army, the Stonecoats trudged along at a steady pace.

The Jokao were tireless. They had also turned out to be an excellent source of information. Whenever the King’s Volunteers—as they had begun to call themselves—stopped to rest, the leader of the Stonecoats would come and report what news the ground knew. As incredible as it seemed to Ovid that these stone soldiers could feel vibrations that traveled from stone to stone underground, he had no doubt of their value.

Atlantis had landed troops on the Isthmus of the Conquistadors. They massed there, now, preparing for war come dawn.

Ovid walked with one hand on his bow and the other on the hilt of his sword. He often marched in the ranks, but now he had come out in front of the King’s Volunteers. The Jokao estimated that they were barely a mile northeast of the Euphrasian army.

We’re here, Mother
, he thought.
It’s time.

Shaking off the ache of the long march, Ovid picked up his pace. Even as he did, he heard a familiar clacking sound and glanced to his left. The leader of the Jokao had come abreast of the front ranks of the King’s Volunteers and now joined Ovid in the lead. Once upon a time, the Jokao had been slaves in Atlantis. They despised the Atlanteans—Truce-Breakers, the Jokao called them—more than anyone. Ovid wondered if the three marks on the Jokao’s chest had been given to the Stonecoat while enslaved, but did not know how to ask without risking offense.

“We’re close, now?” Ovid asked.

The Stonecoat nodded. “Quite close. A rider comes.”

Ovid frowned and studied the road ahead. The moon and stars were bright enough that on the open road he could see quite clearly. As far as the horizon—a low hill—he could see nothing. But he did not argue. If the Jokao said a rider approached, then it had to be true.

Less than two minutes passed before a figure on horseback crested the hill.

The rider came on quickly. Ovid turned and called a halt to the King’s Volunteers. The order went back through the ranks and quickly they came to a stop. When they had first set out, such cohesion had been difficult. Now, working together was second nature.

The horse’s hooves kicked up dust from the road. The rider pulled the reins tight and came to a stop close enough that Ovid could have reached out and touched the animal. In the moonlight, the mounted soldier scanned the King’s Volunteers and then looked down at him.

“Our outriders spotted you hours ago and sent back word,” the soldier said, fine and neat in the uniform of the army of Euphrasia, emblazoned with the colors of King Hunyadi. His eyes narrowed. “Commander Damia Beck has sent me to discover your purpose. You’re not soldiers, that’s clear enough.”

Hands still on his weapons, Ovid glared at him. “Is it? We’ve among us men and women—and Stonecoats as well—who’ve marched from a dozen towns and cities along the Orient Road from here to Twillig’s Gorge. We’ve weapons and some of us training, and we’ve come to fight the invaders with our last breath. We’re the King’s Volunteers, boy. I doubt he’d have you send us away.”

The horse snuffled and sidestepped a few feet, perhaps unnerved by the presence of the leader of the Jokao. The rider, also, studied the Stonecoat for a long moment.

“Come with me to see Commander Beck,” the rider said. “Your troops remain here unless and until she or the king says otherwise. Is that clear?”

Ovid glanced at the Stonecoat, who nodded and withdrew back through the lines to join his kin. Then Ovid shouted for LeBeau, the swordsman who was one of his three lieutenants.

Without a word, LeBeau emerged from the troops and stood rigid, awaiting his instructions. They really were an army, now.

“It seems I must go and reassure this soldier’s commander that we support the king and not the enemy. Until I return, the King’s Volunteers are yours. And if I haven’t returned by dawn, attack the Atlantean invaders and kill as many as you can.”

LeBeau smiled thinly at that. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

The rider reached down for Ovid. “With me, sir.”

Ovid stared at his hand.

“There isn’t time for pride or propriety,” the rider said. “You’ve brought the king a great many soldiers. If you want them to be of use, ride with me.”

Ovid took his hand reluctantly and allowed himself to be assisted onto the saddle behind the cavalryman. The soldier spurred his horse and then they were galloping up the hill. From the crest of the hill, Ovid could see the ocean. Below them, the Orient Road wound through the sprawled camp of the Euphrasian army, with various battalions of infantry and cavalry divided like neighborhoods. Indeed, the army seemed like an entire city from that vantage point. Legends and Borderkind were scattered amongst them, though many had gathered to the south, not far from where soldiers had dug in to guard against nighttime assault.

The rider galloped along the road, then cut away on a straighter path between two large encampments whose banners flew from posts in the ground, showing that they followed different commanders. Like most residents of Twillig’s Gorge, Ovid had little experience on horseback, so he clung to the rider for dear life.

They passed a line of trees, beyond which lay a field of corpses shrouded in blankets and uniforms and ruined tents. Casualties of the Yucatazcan invasion. There must have been two or three hundred, at least, and there would have been others at the site of skirmishes all over southern Euphrasia.

“There will be far more blood spilled, come the dawn,” the rider said. “Are your volunteers prepared for that?”

“We’ve come a long way,” Ovid said coldly. “There has been plenty of time to think, and we’ve thought of nothing else. We’ll live free, or we’ll die. Atlantis cannot be allowed to prevail.”

The rider only nodded. Ovid managed to get his name—Ufland—but nothing more. Then the young cavalryman slowed the horse to a trot and guided the beast in amongst a group of tents set closer together than others, as though this battalion were themselves bonded more tightly. Ovid spotted two Northlander ogres.

With a tug on the reins, Ufland halted his steed. Ovid slipped off of its back. The rider followed suit, handed the reins to another soldier, and started toward the tent at the center of the cluster.

Before they reached it, something moved swiftly at the edge of his vision and he turned to see a Naga slithering toward him and Ufland. Ovid blinked in surprise, then the serpentine archer had reached him. Most would be terrified by the look on the creature’s face, but Ovid knew it as a grin. The Naga thrust out his hand and they shook.

“Welcome, Ovid Tsing,” the Naga said. “Your bow will be very welcome.”

“Thank you, Istarl,” Ovid replied. “I’m honored.”

This Naga had taught him how to use a bow when Ovid had been merely a boy. To see him now was strangely disconcerting, and yet comforting as well.

“Your mother is well?” Istarl asked.

Ovid gave a single shake of his head. “Returned to the eternal river,” he explained, referencing the Nagas’ beliefs about the afterlife.

The archer touched his forehead and then gestured to the horizon. “May her journey be gentle and sweet.”

Emotion welled up in Ovid’s throat. “Thank you, old friend.”

He might have discussed his mother’s murder, but the rider, Ufland, tapped his shoulder. Ovid turned to see a tall, regal woman emerging from the tent before them. Her skin was darker than night, and the moonlight shone upon her. She walked with one hand on the hilt of her sword, as if by habit rather than caution, and she strode toward them with a black cloak billowing behind her in the breeze.

A remarkable woman, that much was clear.

Ufland stood at attention and offered a short bow. “Commander, this is Ovid Tsing, leader of the militia on the Orient Road. They call themselves the King’s Volunteers.”

The rider could not quite keep the disdain from his voice.

Commander Beck silenced him with a hard look, and Ufland gazed at his boots. Ovid liked her for that. The woman studied him a moment, then looked at Istarl.

“You know him?”

The Naga’s serpentine lower half extended and he rose straight up so that he seemed also to be at attention. “I do, Commander Beck. Ovid learned the way of the bow from me and mine. He has courage and skill, though he is often far too serious.”

Commander Beck arched an eyebrow and studied Ovid. “Too serious? From a Naga, that’s saying something.”

Ovid said nothing. The moment lasted several seconds, then the commander glanced up the road, the way Ufland and Ovid had ridden.

“How many are in your command, Mister Tsing? How many in the King’s Volunteers?”

She gave them their name without a trace of irony.

“At last count, more than eleven hundred, Commander,” Ovid replied. “And nearly fifty Jokao.”

Commander Beck smiled, as though not quite sure whether she ought to believe him. “Stonecoats?”

Ovid nodded.

“Impressive, sir. More than a battalion, and Stonecoats besides.” The woman seemed to mull this over for several moments, glancing at Ufland and Istarl, then she looked out over the ranks of the army toward the ocean. Toward the Isthmus of the Conquistadors.

“Only His Majesty, King Hunyadi, can give you a commission. But in times of war, adjustments must be made. King’s Volunteers you call yourself, and King’s Volunteers you will remain. We will consider you Commander Tsing from this point forward, as you have an entire battalion and more at your back.”

Ovid blinked in surprise. But Ufland seemed aghast at the idea that volunteers would be given stature equal to trained professional soldiers.

“You have something to say?” Commander Beck demanded of the cavalryman. “Some difficulty understanding the odds against us tomorrow, or the stakes involved?”

Ufland lowered his eyes. “No, Commander. None at all.”

Beck nodded. She turned to Ovid. “Take his horse. Ride back to your volunteers. Break from the road and lead them to the ocean. Your battalion will move west at dawn and stop where the shore turns south and becomes the Isthmus. You’ll guard the army’s eastern flank, Commander Tsing, and watch for further Atlantean incursion from the water. If the invaders break through, you’ll send the Jokao first. They’ll likely kill a hundred Atlanteans for each Stonecoat that falls. If we’re to die, Ovid, we’re going to make the scheming bastards pay for every life lost.”

Unsure if he ought to salute and not wanting to look a fool, Ovid only stood at attention as the others had done, chin high. “Understood, Commander Beck. The King’s Volunteers will not let you down.”

She studied him for one, final moment, then nodded.

Ovid started to turn, then paused. “One question, Commander.”

Her only reply was another arch of her eyebrow.

“The Legend-Born. Are they here, with the army? Are they still alive?”

Damia Beck smiled. “Collette is here. She and her brother both escaped from the dungeon in Palenque. The Lost Ones may go home, someday, Commander Tsing. Would that please you?”

She said it as though she wasn’t quite sure herself if it would be a good thing.

“I don’t know,” Ovid confessed, “but it would have given my mother great joy.”

The commander nodded. “For your mother, then.”

Ovid took Ufland’s horse. Carefully, not wanting to look clumsy, he slid one foot in the stirrup and threw the other leg over, settling into the saddle.

“Thank you for that, Commander Beck.”

The woman’s expression darkened. “Thank me tomorrow, at dusk.”

Unnerved, Ovid only nodded, turned the horse, and spurred it back toward the road and the King’s Volunteers.

Ty’Lis stood on the eastern shore of the Isthmus and watched the waves roll in. The gentle hush of water over sand and stone soothed him. His robes undulated with their own ebb and flow, but he calmed himself. Nothing would happen tonight. The eastern sky had begun to lighten and it filled him with anticipation.

At dawn, it would begin.

The warm ocean breeze ruffled his yellow hair and his robes. Even at this distance he could hear the flap of the sails of the glass ships. The sound lifted his gaze and he studied the beauty of those vessels. Amongst them the Kraken swam, its body surfacing in ripples and links. The legendary beast had followed the fleet of glass ships out of instinct, but it would be no use to Atlantis in the war. The Kraken was a sea creature and could not walk on land or fly.

Still, its presence was powerful. Ty’Lis was pleased the monstrosity had made the journey.

The sorcerer glanced along the shore and saw at least a dozen octopuses dragging their tentacles in the rushing surf. They would linger that way until commanded otherwise. Some floated higher, above the troops already, swimming with the air sharks. But most of the nearly two hundred that had accompanied the invasion force were arrayed all along the coast of the Isthmus. At dawn, they would be ready.

A smile touched the sorcerer’s lips. Ty’Lis had to fight the urge to look northward. Only a few miles distant, Hunyadi’s forces waited with the Borderkind abominations whose extermination he had hoped would precede this war. Not that it mattered. Far more than half of the Borderkind in the Two Kingdoms and beyond had been slaughtered at his instruction. When the conquest of Euphrasia had been completed, he would finish the job.

Far more worrisome were the Legend-Born. They offered hope to the Lost Ones. And much worse, if their legend was true. Ty’Lis had hoped to execute them publicly, on the battlefield, to demoralize the Euphrasians and destroy any resistance.

Now he had been forced to conceive another plan.

A lovely plan.

Again his robe began to undulate. He ran his hands over the fabric.

“Shhh. Quiet, darlings. Quietly now.”

A frisson of unease went through him and he realized what had disturbed him. Turning, Ty’Lis saw three sorcerers coming toward him, floating several inches above the ground, arms crossed in arrogance. The hems of their robes brushed the rocky earth that led down to the shore.