Ruby Guardian (29 page)

Immediately, the contingent of guards withdrew their weapons and allowed Emriana to rise. She did

so on shaky legs, feeling a rush of emotions coursing through her as she approached the man.

“I—I was afraid you wouldn’t remember me,” the girl said, greatly relieved. “I hoped, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Goodness, but you’re a mess,” Tharlgarl said, holding out a hand to help steady her.

The dam of emotions broke then, and tears flooded Emriana’s eyes. She tumbled into the huge man’s arms, hugging him tightly.

He wrapped his steel-clad arms around her gently and let her cry. “Easy,” he said, over and over again. It felt so good to the girl that she stayed there for a long time. When she had regained her composure, Emriana pulled back and drew a filthy sleeve across her face. She sniffed once and looked at Steelfists.

“I’ve had the worst day,” she began.

D

Vambran followed the woman with the piercing emerald eyes without saying anything. They walked together along a

path that paralleled a watercourse through the heart of the Nunwood. The lieutenant still wasn’t certain why she had returned later that day and fetched him from the cage, but when she had asked him to stroll with her, he had accepted quickly, though it meant leaving the others behind for a while. He wanted every chance to convince her to avert a war.

She led the way in silence away from the great rock, taking the mercenary down to the forest floor, where her footfalls were nearly silent. She seemed to revel in the greenness of it all, stopping occasionally and drawing deep breaths with her eyes closed in pure

contentment. Vambran tried to do the same, though it was hard to appreciate the beauty of the moment when there was so much going on, and so little time to resolve the cascade of events that seemed to be falling all around him.

The thought of running never seriously crossed the man’s mind, for he would not leave his companions behind, and he knew that she knew it. He did consider the possibility that he had been led out away from the others so that he would not be a witness to some dire fate for them, but he did not see the druids

being so devious. If they had wanted to kill the other five Crescents, they would have done so.

“You are wrong, you know,” the woman said, turning to the lieutenant at last, a hint of a grin on her face. Vambran shook his head, not understanding her, but she added, “I have been to Shining Arrabar.”

That had been the last thing the lieutenant had expected her to say. He waited for her to explain.

“I went there once, perhaps twenty summers ago. Your Lord Wianar and I were not seeing eye to eye over the encroachment of his population into my woods. I explained to him that, regardless of whether or not the elves had departed toward Ever-meet, the humans would not be expanding into the Chondalwood.”

Vambran gasped. “You!” he said, dumbfounded. He remembered the incident she spoke of clearly. He had been six years old, and there was a celebration taking place at the Generon. He could not have cared less at the time, but the festivities were to honor a “new era in expansionism.” Right in the middle of Lord Wianar’s speech, a woman dressed in verdant green clothing had hopped onto the stage and warned him against encroaching into the forest. Vambran still remembered the final warning: If death is all you can understand after all these years, feel free to

pursue the matter. He had only learned later that the woman was Shinthala Deeperest, a hierophant druid infamous throughout the Reach.

The realization that he had tongue-lashed one of the most powerful members of the druidic order back at the great rock gave Vambran serious pause. “You,” he repeated, barely able to breathe the word.

“Yes,” Shinthala said, obviously pleased with the reaction she had garnered from him.

Vambran, flustered, mumbled and stumbled over his words for a moment before managing to get out, “I was simply trying to make you see that you do not know me, my heart, and to make judgments about me based solely on your preconceptions is a dangerous fallacy. I meant no disrespect, Elder Deeperest.”

Shinthala waved his explanation away. “Of course you did,” she said. “But I deserved it. Do not fret, Son of Arrabar. I find your passion, your dedication to your ideals, refreshing. And you remind me that I should not label all others by their outward appearances. I offer apology for losing my temper before.” She turned then and walked on for a while, allowing Vambran a moment to gather his wits.

When he caught up to her again, Shinthala said in a troubled voice, “Tell me why the killing has begun to grow worse. Edilus thinks that someone is trying to draw the Emerald Enclave into your wars through viciousness and butchery. I say it is simply the nature of soldiers to fight until one side or the other is dead.”

“I say that Edilus may be right,” Vambran said, to which the woman paused and turned back to him, one eyebrow raised.

“How would you know this, Son of Arrabar?”

Vambran smiled. “Though my soldiers and I are not here of our own volition, we are here nonetheless. I believe that others who have worked against

us—against me—back in Arrabar manipulated events so that my unit might be caught up in the midst of the chaos spreading through these woods. I believe they are also in some way responsible for the more vicious turn of affairs here. They scheme and plot for coin, and destroy anyone and anything that stands in their way.”

Shinthala grunted and looked to some distant, unseen point. “But the scheming and plotting has gone on since the beginning of time,” she said, sighing. “What would make this any different?”

Vambran shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Though I was trying to find out not so long ago, back in Arrabar. Perhaps I can renew my quest here in the Nunwood,” he suggested.

The woman laughed. “Again you suggest a pact!”

Vambran shrugged again. “I don’t think we work at such cross purposes that we couldn’t join together to put a stop to these events. My alternatives do not seem to be all that promising,” he added wryly.

Shinthala laughed again. “That is true, Son of Arrabar.” She turned to him and drew the slightest bit closer. “Then again, you might find that the alternatives are not so bad,” she said, staring at him with those emerald eyes. She brushed his arm with her fingers. “There are many kinds of pacts to be made,” she said, running those fingers up to his cheek.

Vambran blinked in surprise, caught totally off guard at her advances, but before he could respond, she turned and continued her casual journey, running her hands lovingly along the bark of tree trunks she passed along the way.

Several steps ahead, Shinthala glanced back at the soldier. “Don’t look so surprised,” she said. “Every woman has her needs, and you are easy on the eyes; that is certain.”

Vambran found his voice and replied indignantly,

“I may have a great need to be released, but I’m not willing to trade my favors for it. I’m not a trollop on the streets of Arrabar, you know.”

Shinthala turned back on the lieutenant and snorted. “Is that what you heard? That I was offering a deal? Bed me, and I’ll give you your freedom? You must not think as highly of me as you showed before, then. Do I seem that desperate to you?”

Vambran blushed, regretting his words. “Forgive me, Elder Deeperest,” he said, trying to smooth things over. “I—”

Shinthala’s anger fled as quickly as it had come. She dismissed his apology with a wave of her hand. “No,” she said. “You grew up in the city, as you so passionately explained to me earlier. I should have realized you would read my advances as politic. I should be the one apologizing, for putting you in such an awkward spot.” Then her smile softened, became somewhat sad. “I desired you from the moment they brought you before me,” she said, blushing. “I do not often act on such impulses, especially with soldiers who destroy my forests, but there was something … urgent … about you, and it sparked a fire in me.” She looked down, then, staring at the ground between them. “I felt torn, angry with myself for experiencing such feelings. That is why I was so harsh before.” Shinthala took a deep breath then, as though gathering her courage, and returned her gaze to Vambran’s. Her voice was tremulous. “I would share your bed, but only if you were drawn to me as I am to you, and only for its own reward. I do not play those games, warrior, regardless of our current situation. That is not my way.” She turned and hurried along the trail again then, hiding her face from his.

Vambran pursed his lips in thought, then caught up to the woman and took her hand firmly in his own, stopping her and turning her to face him. She

struggled to meet his gaze, and he saw that her emerald eyes glistened. “Then you flatter me,” he said. “And I have not said no,” he added.

Shinthala regarded him thoughtfully, seeming to study his eyes. She smiled, and he wanted to kiss her. “I am a simple woman, Son of Arrabar, and we have met under remarkably complicated circumstances. I don’t know what the future holds for either of us, but sometimes the simple pleasures help make the complicated things clear.” Then she began to stroll once more, her movements decidedly more lithe than he remembered.

“Vambran,” he said, catching up one last time. “My name is Vambran.”

• X •

It was a long time later, well into the afternoon. They lay on a carpet of soft moss, most of their clothes spread out upon the ground beneath them. Vambran was on his back, staring at the bright sky partially visible through the trees, and Shinthala was sitting up, hugging her knees, her back to him. He had not realized how tense he had been until afterward. For the moment, at least, he was allowing himself to relax.

Shinthala’s words were sudden, unexpected, like everything she did. “You say that we do not work at cross purposes, but I do not see it. What is your goal, if it is not to fight, as all the other mercenaries battle, further despoiling the woods?”

Vambran glanced at the woman beside him. She was staring off at some distant point again, a sign that she was thinking. “My only ambition, and that of those who serve under me, is the rescue of our companions,” the lieutenant answered. “It is not my intention nor my desire to tarry in the Nunwood for longer than necessary.”

“Because you did not intend to be here in the first place,” Shinthala said, repeating what Vambran had told her earlier. “But you also told me that you are, in fact, embroiled in these vicious displays of brutality in some way.”

“Yes,” Vambran admitted, “but only indirectly. It is a long tale, suitable for telling at another time, but—”

“We are in no hurry,” Shinthala said, looking back at him languidly over her shoulder. Vambran cocked his head to one side, puzzled by her interest in the affairs of House Matrell. He wanted to tell her that he was actually in a hurry, but he doubted very seriously that she would share his sense of urgency just then.

So be it, he decided at last. He would tell the sordid truth in all its glory.

Vambran told Shinthala the story in its entirety. The woman stopped him and asked questions of him at several different points, to clarify events or to reveal some bit of information that he had glossed over. It took Vambran the better part of an hour to recount the whole events of the murdered kitchen maid and his family’s involvement in the business alliance that had been the architect of the dreadful crime. He finished with the revelation of his sister’s‘ communication, and her struggles with events back in Arrabar. Telling that part of it made him feel restless.

I should not be here, he thought. I should be at home, helping my family.

Shinthala was quiet again for a long time. After the silence stretched on for several moments, she returned to her original query. “The soldiers are fighting differently. There has always been war in this region, but it is a pale imitation of true war. The soldiers march about, chasing one another, but they rarely attack. Instead, they negotiate an outcome,

determined by sacks of coin and old debts repaid. Then they march away, ready to play this game again another day. It is foolish, but it is not so bloody.

“Now, they kill with abandon.”

Vambran saw her shoulders sag, sensed her sorrow. He understood that, though she had little tolerance for the world beyond her woods at large, she still suffered to see relentless killing. And though he knew he personally had little to do with the bloodshed and violence visited upon the people of the woods, he felt a sense of guilt wash over him, guilt at his chosen life, that of a professional soldier. “My uncle and brother and their partners sought to profit from the fighting,” he reminded her. “Perhaps they foresaw greater profit through protracted, total war.”

“Perhaps, but I think there is more to this tale,” Shinthala replied. “The men who kill with abandon fight on behalf of the city of Reth. They make a point of claiming so, to all who survive the carnage. It is as though the leaders of that city wish it to be known that they push against us, and against all other armies serving all other patrons.”

“Yes,” Vambran said, his sense of sorrow and guilt growing at the woman’s descriptions. “Perhaps they wish to have an insulating layer of anonymity between themselves and the actual armies. They will profit from the increased control of the woods and the logging that goes on there after they have secured the field, but they do not want the populace to make the connection between the coin they spent slaughtering all opposition and the coin they gained cutting down trees.”

“Perhaps,” Shinthala repeated, but she sounded doubtful. “But don’t you think it odd that these `businessmen”—and she spoke that word with great distaste, reminding Vambran just how vast was the gulf between their lives—”would choose to back the

government of Reth, formerly a part of your own country, against soldiers serving Chondath? Is not Hlath still under the rule of Lord Wianar?”

Vambran considered the woman’s words, trying to make some sense of why Grozier Talricci and Grand Trabbar Lavant would choose to fund an army to go against Chondath, especially in such a conspicuous manner. It was as though they were trying to draw attention to themselves, trying to see what Hlath would do in response.