The King's Blood (28 page)

"Then we resume our preparations. We must be twenty miles north before the sun rises," Medwin ordered, working his way back to his own caravan.

"I saw the door slam down. How did you escape?" Aldrin asked her, that hand of his still gripping hers tightly.

She shrugged, uncertain about how to get into her tale of rescue, "Got lucky. I'm surprised you weren't already on the road."
 

Ciara raced through the forest out running Taban, certain they'd already be packed and gone. And she'd be left with only a murderer in the darkest woods while hundreds of Empire soldiers hunted for her.

Aldrin shrugged himself and mumbled, "I wouldn't go without you."

"Oh," Ciara looked over the boy who seemed to be battling a terrible fever rushing across his cheeks. A face that looked a lot less like a wet bag in the moonless night, "What happened to your shoe?"

Bartrone, unmissed and ignored as everyone else got to their jobs, watched a pair of trees shake lightly as something moved deeper into the forest. Even as he pinched his nose to stall the blood he lightly scratched his chin and thought, 'The girl was not alone.' Then he screamed, as he remembered the gash on his chin as well.

Marciano shifted in the armor riveted a bit too tight for comfort in the rush. His night of quiet contemplation and hopefully quieter sleeping was dashed to bits by the wounded man riding up to the main gates. He was so slumped over in his saddle only a broken helmet greeted the guards.

"Who goes there?"

"Ugh."

"How do you spell that?"

Summoning up strength in the face of such ignorance the wounded man cried out, "I bring word to General Marciano."

"Is that word 'ugh'?"

"Let me through the gates you blighted fools before I bring my last wrath upon you!"
 

The guard turned to his companion, "How do we know he's telling the truth? He could be one o' them pies we're supposed to keep out."

The second guard poked his head through the small swinging gate and asked, "Is you lying?"

"No." The soldier had been through enough small towns he was well versed in the mental capabilities of the man put in charge of watching the main gate. A goat with a "No Trespassing" sign strapped to its back had about the same affect.

"Okay," the first guard responded, "But is you a pie?"

Rising in his saddle, the man looked up into the black hole of ignorance from which not a single intelligent thought could escape, and doled out slowly, "I am not, nor have I ever been, a pastry, pie, or other baked good you serve for dessert. Now get me General Marciano!"

Luckily for the dying man's sanity and vanishing blood pressure in the wake of his gushing wounds, one of the Empire's own came walking across the wall. "You," he reached back his black gauntlet arm and smacked the guard across the back of the head, "let the man in before he dies upon your doorstep."

The wounded man's horse trotted through the slowly widening gap in the gate and he slipped from the saddle into the guards's arms. "Ambush, army, hundreds strong," bluing lips whispered into the Empire's ear.

Laying the man down gently, the scout called for healing and, grabbing the gate guard, sent him after the General. "He'll be in the stables."

"But all the guests were ordered to the Great Hall for the..."

"Get your lily white ass to the stables before I shove my dagger into your ear," he kicked the guard on the lily ass to send him on.

Marciano, down to a simple tunic and pair of knee breeches, beat off the frosty night by kindling a fire for war in his belly as he jogged to the scene. The scout, a young man fresh out of Avari on his first trip into the rest of the world, greeted him solemnly.
 

"A dead man passed through the gates less than ten minutes ago. He wore the banner of the Eastern March."

The general's breath pillared around his head as he stomped his feet, "Their company was to set forth to Magton as our vanguard."

"Sir, he said it was an ambush. And he mumbled something about a Queen's crown upon their banner."

So, this errant Queen of Ostero was living up to her reputation after all. Grabbing one of the Baron's guards clustered around the poor man's body as if he'd never seen death before, he said, "Raise the alarm. We ride tonight."

"Sir?" the scout asked, trying to not imagine a long night on the back of a horse.

"If our vanguard has been wiped out that means the entire town of..." his memory failed as every tiny town throughout the eastern provinces sounded the blighted same ending with an -on or -an. "...where we were to meet them is under mob rule. We cannot let that stand. People under the Empire must feel safe within its arms."

"Yes, Sir." The scout saluted needlessly.

"Uh," the General started, hoping the lad would finish.

"Paulo, Sir."

"Yes, Paulo. I want you to circle the walls searching for any of our fellows who might have had a bit too much celebrating tonight and gotten lost. Sober them up as best you can and stick them on a horse."

"Sir," Paulo saluted once more and dashed up the rickety ladder, being needlessly careful to not fall over the edge into the forest spires below.

The General grabbed the last guard, who was still standing over the dead man's body, nudging it with his foot. "Do not let the man linger. Build a pyre and quickly. There is enough foul energy in the air, we need not add more to it."

Marciano looked down upon his attire and groaned. A battle like this would require suiting up, and thanks to a few blissful years of letting himself grow fat on spoils, the damn thing barely fit anymore. Sighing, he headed to his rooms, grabbing every soldier he passed and ordering them to spread the word, "Tonight we ride to kill a queen."

Being of the Empire, the Baron thought it the height of decorum to offer his own room to the General. The General tried to hold back a groan when he was shown to the place where statues went to die. Every open space was full of small rotund babies shooting other rotund babies with far too curly arrows. Corners contained images of both Argur and Scepticar. The former in her robes, holding her heart out to the viewer, while the latter was shielding the eye of fate in his hand. You bring whichever out depending upon which in-law happened to be visiting, so to speak.

And for a final touch, where finished oaken and mahogany wood would have sufficed, the Baron coated every inch in gold leaf. It was like stepping inside a glinting bar of gold burning behind your eyelid that was also inhabited by frozen gods. It was true what they say, money cannot buy common sense.

Marciano was strangely happy he need not risk a week of nightmares from attempting to sleep in the bed flanked by four golden bears carved from the bed frame. He pulled his tunic off his sweating body, the frost turning to dew and clinging to his scarred hide.

"Boy!" he called out, catching a glimpse of the old man in the gilded mirror. Marciano couldn't remember when his father agreed to this final march, as a weathered grey haired man of fifty stared back at him. No, it was fifty-one now, wasn't it? Birthdays were never something he celebrated much, measuring his life by surviving another campaign and returning to his home.

He delicately touched a scar across right of his chest, long since whitened out and faded against his olive skin. "I said boy, I know you are here!"

Just as the General was about to toss down his shirt, a tuft of straw poked up from around the corner. It was followed by a grummy face that appeared as if it'd been drug through chocolate. He lost his most faithful and trusted Squire on his last push to try and take the Southern Pass. The squat man with a small pair of spectacles pinched upon his nose even while bathing, had been as constant as the wind for Marciano.
 

When he fell to an enemy's stone, Marciano thought he'd never recover and declared himself retired. The Emperor could stew over it all he liked, but it was Marciano who had the love of the men, not the crazed man flocked by silent priests in the broken ivory tower. Even as Vasska all but begged for Marciano to return, brought up the destiny for all of Arda, and tried to drag the General's long waned religion into it, nothing worked. None until they got to his wife. She happily kissed her husband goodbye, and even his children seemed pleased that their father was heading off to save the world from magic. All except for little Imelda. She clung greedily to his neck from the moment he set foot back home vowing to never leave her, until a year and a half later when she found him packing his armor.
 

They didn't find the girl for almost a night, and Marciano was sick with a fear he'd never felt despite his decades facing down the other end of a sword. Eventually, one of the hounds led him to a small crumple of fabric tucked beneath an old tree's roots, snoring soundly. By the time she awoke, her father was already at the door. With tears as big as her fingertips, she watched him leave her one last time.

He whispered to her in the night, promised he would come back to her as soon as he was done. And he'd bring her the best present he could find, some real Ostero snow. The stuff so white it had to have fallen from a frost giant's hair. Her response was a small break in her sleeping breath.

"Wotcha want, sir?" the new squire broke through his maudlin thoughts.

And now I am saddled with this moron and facing a fight with an already entrenched enemy.
It might be a few more months than he wanted before he could bring Imelda that snow after all.

"Suit me up, we ride into battle."

"We?" the boy's pipes squeaked. He'd been culled from one of the passing carts full to the brim with urchins who were hoping to try their luck at honest work.

"No, not you. Me and my men."

"Right, right. So I'll go and get that metal stuff then."

As the boy worked his fingers, trying to lace straps into each other and untie knots he wasn't supposed to tie in the first place, Marciano's right hand man walked in, already brandishing his polished chest. The three rings glowed under Lanza's arm.

"The men have mostly saddled all the horses. The locals are giving them headaches, but so far I don't think anyone's been killed."

"The night is young," Marciano muttered to himself as his squire tried to put his greaves on backwards.

"Do you plan to take the road? If we're looking at an ambush perhaps sending the scouts ahead would be wiser."

Marciano sucked his weight in to help speed the lad along and said in a slightly higher tone, "Their men will be exhausted from the fight. They weren't expecting anyone to escape the attack, so any reinforcements will catch them off guard."
 

Lanza threaded his fingers with his beard, braided twice along the sides because it kept him busy while waiting for reports, "But the sounds of an army will give them time to prepare and, ah..." He caught the plans of the General, "you intend to send the other half from the rear."

Marciano smiled lightly, "It's a flat land, marshy to the north but still passable by a few horses and our best men. Gather the twenty or so elite, I want you to lead them."

Lanza's eyebrows met, "Shouldn't it be you, my lord?"

"No, I want them to see me. See the man who is bringing death to them. I want that panic at the crest that took their little scrap of land once and that will do it again." The squire stepped back from his master, surveying his handy work.

Marciano walked forward and grabbed his friend's arm, "And do not start with the 'Lord' business, Lans. 'Lords' are for able-bodied servant girls and ass-licking social climbers," he smiled warmly despite the frozen night awaiting him, "Last I remembered you did not fill out a dress well."

Lanza laughed, "You'll never let me live down that Soulday."

Marciano smiled and let go of his friend's hand. He shifted his gauntlets properly around while taking the brisk walk to the stables where he found his horse, Peter, already saddled. Most Generals would give their warhorses terrifying names, things to conjure up images of fire and pestilence and many hoof prints on your recently clean floors. Peter chewed happily at his hay and nuzzled his master. The bay had been through about as many battles as Marciano himself, but didn't seem to hold his master accountable for the lack of being put out to stud.

The fellow soldiers still suiting up in the rush saluted their General as he rose into his saddle and pulled the reins out to the assembled crowd. Nearly 150 strong men were mostly dressed and set upon their mounts with grim faces. Word of mouth was a terrible motivator. Most had probably heard that a giantic queen bee had swept up and spirited away the town or something.

Putting on his best "General voice" Marciano called to the assembled crowd, "Tonight the barbarians issued a challenge to the arm of the Empire. They decided they no longer need fear us or love us. Tonight we aim to prove them false."

He reared his horse up and broke into a cantor for the open gate. It wasn't one of his better ones but still far more commanding than the Greatest Hero speech they'd heard earlier that night. The soldiers broke into a line, following two abreast through the gate.