The Pleasure of Memory (29 page)

She felt her way through fog as thick as milk.

A horse approached from somewhere out there in the white darkness. It was galloping at breakneck speed, its hooves pounding the earth like Osid’f’s hammers. Two more horses followed it, raging across the distant plains as if the devils of all nine hells were after them.

The leader rode several lengths ahead of the others, and in his face burned the twin suns of the Wyr Realm.

Koonta’s head snapped forward. Again, she suffered a shock of pain riding down her back. It was becoming a most irritating habit.

She shaded her eyes and looked around. She felt peculiarly disoriented, though the biting scent of cedar quickly guided her back to the world. She looked back at the dense hedge lining the base of the butte, looked out at the simmering radiance of the hot, dusty plains, looked over at her warriors mulling listlessly about their makeshift camp as they waited for something, anything, to happen. And then she simply cursed and shook her head and steadied herself against the tedium of her reality.

She looked off toward that distant hill. The sentinels were waving back at the camp and gesturing toward the backside of the knoll. She rolled to her knees, lowered her head, and listened to the earth. Soon, three horses materialized in her mind. The images were colorless and vague of detail at such a distance, but undeniable nonetheless. It’d been no dream. Riders did approach.

“Glad to see you’re awake, Saaro.”

The voice didn’t startle her. She’d sensed the vibrations of the officer’s clumsy gait long before he’d reached her.

“What do you hear in the dirt there?” he said in his prim little voice.

She pushed herself up from the dry grass and steadied herself. The fat little Vaemyn standing above her with his shiny gold mail and velvet amber cloak and all those pretty jewels wrapped around his little sausage fingers made her want to slap the stupid out of him rather than salute. Unfortunately, it was just another insult in the sorry state of her reality that he was her kadeer, the leader of their company.

“Well?” he pressed.

“Horses, Kad’r,” she said as carefully as she could manage, “About a half mile out and moving fast.” She climbed to her feet, but avoided his eyes.

Kadeer Fen’lar dug his thumbs into the wide blue leather belt harnessing his ample belly. He wore his hair trussed back a notch too tightly even by Vaemysh standards. He had a habit of tying it snug at the scalp rather than braiding it, so that a mop of hair stabbed out from the back of his crown like the tail on the rump of an ass. It was a most appropriate look.

She turned her attention to the distant hill as she struggled to conceal her irritation. In her exhaustion, she was finding it harder than usual to take him as seriously as the rank demanded.

“Well, Saaro,” he sniffed, “Are you inclined to finish your assessment? Or shall I rather climb yonder hill and look for myself?”

These spit and polish royal house types disgusted her. His family was one of the powerful Houses of Vaen and the first to throw alliance to Prae. His power came with his connections, and everyone knew it. If her dearest wish could come true, she’d find herself alone with him in a locked room for five minutes.

“Well?” the Kadeer demanded, “Are you deaf or simply taking a break?”

She forced herself to look at him. “It’d be an honor to spare you the climb, Kad’r,” she said.

Fen’lar’s eyes flared. Koonta immediately regretted her insolence. Attitude like that would just make things harder on her troops.

“Now, you listen to me, you dirty grunt,” he growled up at her, “I have had—”

“There are three horses, sir,” she said, cutting him off, “They’re at the point of exhaustion. One rider is well ahead of the others. It carries a greater weight than its fellows.”

Fen’lar’s face flushed. Koonta wondered for just an instant if he was going to strike her.

“Rider!” The voice came from the edge of the butte nearly directly above. “Rider approaching from the south!”

She and Fen’lar looked up in tandem to see the silhouette of a warrior standing against the blue sky high above them. He was pointing due south. They turned toward the distant hill just as the silhouette of a horse and rider crested it. An angry plume of dust pushed the pair swiftly down toward the plains. Sunlight flamed against the rider’s armor and a blood-red cloak snapped at his back like angry flames. This was exactly not the inspiration her team needed. It was a miserable wyrlaerd.

She turned back to find Fen’lar’s round face sneering up at her.

“I'm not finished with you, Saaro,” he practically sang, “Not by a mile. So you can wipe that insolent smirk off your face!”

He turned on his heel and lumbered off toward the warriors who were milling about in preparation for the riders. Clapping his chubby hands dramatically, he shouted at the troops to form ranks. It was an intentional insult to her that he was doing her job. Still, as she followed him, she took some pleasure in the fact that her warriors had started assembling before he’d even opened his pretty little mouth. They needed his guidance about as much as they needed tracking advice from their prey.

She walked to the head of the formation so she could see each warrior down both lines. When Fen’lar demanded that the warriors in the front line brush the dirt from their legs, she could only shake her head in disbelief. These were the army's most prestigious trackers and scouts, not honor guards.

The rider thundered into camp on a flourish of dust and flying sweat. It rode a Baeldonian warhorse, a giant of a mount massive enough to support the weight of one of those huge mountain dwellers. Or a wyrlaerd. The demon leapt to the ground before the horse had even stopped, landing hard under the fanfare of a billowing red cape. Layers of road dirt and grime had dulled its normally black mudsteel, but the creature’s countenance felt no less lethal for it. Koonta was certain the demon was bound to be good and pissed after the affair back at the mage’s house.

The bastard’s horse looked even worse. The dark mare wore a sheen of foaming sweat. The pitiful beast looked like it hadn’t had a drink in the better part of a day. On her gesture, a warrior stepped forward and took the reins dropped by the Commander, and then escorted the winded animal away a little too quickly. Koonta understood his urgency.

Fen’lar strolled up to the demon like a horny fieldcock strutting before the hens. At nearly eight feet, the demon stood three feet taller than he did, which only made the show that much more ridiculous. Fen’lar was just another useless, self-important officer sucking up to Prae’s pets, and it made her sick.

The remaining two riders came galloping in from the plains moments later. They brought their steeds to a reckless stop, needlessly risking the safety of the horses for the sake of show. Their mounts were normal brown and white paint horses, standing a full third smaller than the warhorse, though they were in the same dishonorable condition as the other.

The riders’ faces were thankfully hidden from sight by their menacing black helms, which were cast in the image of the same skullish amulet Prae forced all his pets to wear. These were Prae’s personal warriors, his Faev’gel Tower Guards.

Faev’gel was an ancient Vaemysh word meaning shell or thick skin like armor, but she knew the essence of the word meant ‘skin of the dead’. It was said they were essentially hacks, little more than corpses whose souls Prae had extracted and replaced with lesser demons. One had only to stand in their presence for a moment to believe. That they were wearing those dark helms was almost certainly to her advantage.

The wyrlaerd walked past her and Fen’lar, marching down the line of warriors without saying a word. It examined each face it passed, an act Koonta found most odd. It was uncharacteristic for a demon to acknowledge a beating heart standing next to it, let alone pay such close attention to common warriors. She wondered just what it was looking for. Fen’lar followed close behind.

When the demon reached the end of the line, it turned and appeared almost startled to find the Fen’lar close on his heels. Though its face was hidden behind its mudsteel helm, it did not appear amused as it examined him. “You’re the kadeer of this company,” it said in its unnatural, grating voice. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, Lord Graezon,” Fen’lar said, quickly withdrawing his sword six inches and then sliding it sharply back into place in formal salute, “Kadeer Emon Fen’lar of the Council's Third Tracker Elite Infiltrate at your disposal.”

Koonta wondered if ‘disposal’ was the best choice of words.

The wyrlaerd flicked its head queerly, and then the helm quickly melted away like water running off a stone. The odor of hot tar fouled the air, and the emergence of that oily flesh and those burning yellow eyes felt as offensive as a slap.

“Report the status this expedition, Kadeer,” the beast said to Fen’lar, though it was looking directly at her.

Koonta suffered a chill as its yellow eyes seized her. She forced herself to stand taller as she struggled against the shame of her fear. She couldn’t allow the demon to intimidate her so. She was a better warrior than that. Or she should at least pretend to be.

“Of course, sir,” Fen’lar said, “We tracked the scoundrels by torchlight after they confounded us with the altercation at the enemy's base.”

Koonta’ar nearly choked. Altercation? They’d damned well lost a Divinic Demon!

“My trackers worked relentlessly through the night,” Fen’lar continued, “They haven't the reputation as the Council's finest tracking unit simply because they’re led by the House of Fen’lar, you understand.” He chuckled and glanced about for an audience.

“This is your second in command?” Graezon asked. It was still glaring down at her, and she still felt uneasy for it.

Fen’lar threw a look back at her that told her to hold her tongue, that the impending introduction was for ceremony only and she shouldn’t be overly flattered by it. Then he informally took the demon’s arm and directed it toward her. “Allow me to present my lead tracker and saaro of this company, Koonta’ar.”

Koonta watched as the demon’s eyes locked on the fleshy hand gripping its arm just at the elbow. The air suddenly filled with the scent of hot metal, like the biting smell of ozone that emerges just seconds before lightning strikes. She felt her skin tingling and recognized it as a psychic pulse induced by the demon’s irritation. It was a warning sign that, once felt, could never be forgotten.

Fen’lar, however, simply stood there grinning like a monkey, with his hand still on the demon’s arm. Koonta was about to intervene and urge the fool back when the demon seized his hand. A sickening crack resounded. Fen’lar cried out sharply.

“I don’t appreciate being touched by mortals, Kad’r,” the demon said as it squeezed his hand, “Not even by an officer as clearly esteemed as you.”

Another bone snapped. Fen’lar groaned. His legs failed him. He sagged toward the dirt, but the demon’s merciless grip kept him just barely on his feet. A third sharp snap resounded.

In that moment, Koonta could have murdered Fen’lar herself. Thanks to the fool’s arrogance, she was going to have to intervene and risk her own safety, maybe even that of the entire company, to save his undeserving ass.

“Lord Graezon,” she said, stepping closer to the wyrlaerd, “He meant no disrespect by his touch! He merely meant to—”

The demon’s glare hit her like a fist. She backed away reflexively, her hands held up defensively. Its yellow eyes burned down on her as if it were considering whether to abandon Fen’lar and kill her, or finish Fen’lar first and then kill her. But in the end, it simply released him. Fen’lar collapsed into the dirt. The fool was whimpering in the dust like a baby, to the deep shame of all of them.

Graezon stepped over him like shit in the street and stopped directly before her. “You’re the one responsible?” it said from two feet above her.

Koonta’s mind flashed to the dead wyrlaerd back at the mage’s house, and her knees nearly melted beneath her. “Responsible?” she asked carefully, “Responsible for…?”

“Responsible for recovering the trail.”

The sense of relief was nearly incapacitating. She looked down at her kadeer moaning in the dirt behind the demon’s feet. Her first reaction was to break the rest of the fat bastard’s bones for having put her in this situation, but her sense of duty rushed in to save her. Physically harming an officer before his men was a disgraceful, even treasonable act in this army. Respect among officers and simple warriors alike was an honored tradition among the Vaemyn. The beast had shamed them all with its actions.

“I’m speaking to you, Saaro.” Its voice pushed the word out like ‘Say-ro’ rather than the proper pronunciation of ‘Swa-ro’, leaving her to wonder if there were even a tongue in that unnatural mouth.

“This man is a lord from the House of Fen’lar,” she said because duty required it, and because now she was good and pissed, “He’s a Patrician, a member of a Royal Family.”

“I don’t care if he’s Calina’s brother,” the beast growled.

“He’s an officer,” she said as directly as she could manage, though her heart was beating so hard she could barely focus.

“He’s incompetent. I don’t tolerate incompetence.”

“I don’t know how it works where you come from,” she pressed, “But here—”