A Draw of Kings

26

REFUGEE





ADORA PACED IN HER TENT, clothed in bone-deep weariness that made her light-headed even as it weighted each step. She locked her knees as reports continued to come in, none of them good. Rohka’s and Rula’s expressions were grim—Liam’s was unreadable.

Now back in Illustra, their forces had enough food for a fortnight, perhaps two if adults went to half rations. The refugees numbered nearly fifty thousand men, women, and children—fighting men accounted for perhaps a fifth of that. Scavenger parties returned empty-handed. The villages, too small to feed such numbers even during harvest, had been emptied of people and provender.

Waterson entered and stood before her, his empathy surprising, considering the circumstances. He no longer balked at the use of his title but continued to speak his mind in blunt terms, even so. Under the circumstances, Adora found his harsh honesty refreshing.

His mouth turned down at the edges. “That didn’t turn out well.”

Adora couldn’t tell if he referred to the overall mission into the shadow lands or the latest report from the scavengers. In the end, it didn’t matter. Both were a disaster, differing only in scale.

Rokha laughed. “Maybe you should banish all your nobles, Your Highness. It seems to provide a perspective most of them lack.”

Adora nodded. “I appreciate Lord Waterson’s honesty, but I’d appreciate a supply of food for our return to the west even more.”

“It’s not going to happen, Your Highness,” Rokha said with a toss of her head. “The villages are cleaned out. Only the most ignorant peasant could miss the change in the weather.” She cast a glance out the open flap of the tent. Darkness veiled the landscape, but Rokha sighed anyway. “Rain would help. Nothing slows an army like nice deep mud.”

Liam nodded his agreement. “Yet the fair weather offers some hope too. Our return will progress more quickly than it would otherwise.”

Lord Waterson nodded. “True enough. We’ll be able to get a few more leagues out of the horses before we have to slaughter them for meat.”

Adora searched his face but found no sign of jesting or sarcasm. Liam and Rokha nodded their agreement.

Lieutenant Jens entered the pavilion and made his way to Adora and Liam, trying to make eye contact with both of them at once before settling for staring into the distance halfway between them.

“Your Highness, Captain,” he bowed. “Our rear scouts have returned.” He hesitated, his manner furtive. “There are only two of them.”

Rokha growled out a curse that would have done the hardest sergeant proud, and Liam grew still. Adora made a summoning gesture with one hand. She tried to keep it from trembling. “Bring them in.”

A pair of men shambled in. Both bore wounds that would require treatment; rents and tears in their clothing bore traces of blood.

Liam stepped forward. “Sergeant Ancois, report.”

A blond-haired man with the chiseled features and strong chin of an Avenian stepped forward to essay a bow toward Adora. He stumbled, and pain leached color from his face. “Your Highness.”

Adora bowed. Her training with healer Norv split her mind, allowed her to continue the fa?ade of court protocol even as she surveyed his injuries, assessing which required immediate attention and which could wait. There were too many of the former. Ancois should have been in the infirmary, but watchman pride would never allow him to seek the healer’s arts before giving his dispatch to his superior.

“Make your report as brief as possible, Sergeant Ancois,” Adora said. “Time weighs against us.” If she couldn’t order him to the infirmary, perhaps she could hurry him there.

Ancois nodded. She might have detected relief on his pasty features.

“Of the score of watchmen who served as the rear scout, only I and Ianson remain. A dozen of us scaled the plateau to observe and harry the enemy in hopes of bringing report of their withdrawal from the shadow lands.”

He blinked, swaying.

“They have spawn with them, Your Highness,” he said, “creatures of vast strength that they are using to clear the canyon of the rock and rubble. The Merakhi are not retreating.”

Adora shivered, then pulled her cloak more tightly about her in the hope it would be attributed to the cold, if noticed.

“How long before they have it cleared?” Count Rula asked.

Ancois shifted to face him. His face blanched with the effort. “Perhaps three days.”

“They’ll be on top of us in seven,” Waterson said, “five if the weather holds. We can’t stay here.”

“Deas help us,” Rula muttered.

“We couldn’t remain at any rate,” Liam said. Somehow he managed to look unconcerned by the sergeant’s news. “The need for supplies drives us west as surely as the enemy’s advance.” He turned toward Ancois. “More troubling is their control of the spawn. The beasts possess greater intelligence than animals, but they’re insane. That they can control them well enough to force them to labor troubles me.”


Ancois nodded. “There was a man among the beasts, Captain.” He shook his head. “But he was more than that. Though distance makes such calculations difficult, he had to be close to three spans tall. The spawn feared him.”

Adora cut the air with one hand. “It matters little how they are controlled. We must either find a means to escape their notice or outpace their pursuit.” She turned to the scouts. “Is there anything else of immediate concern?” At the shake of their heads she thanked them for their service and ordered them to the infirmary.

Jens approached, again splitting the difference between Adora and Liam for his bow. “There is a group of men and women outside demanding an audience.”

A pain grew somewhere in the back of Adora’s neck, then traveled into her head, where it exerted a viselike grip on her skull. Before she could signal her refusal or assent, the flap of the large tent flew back and a group of men and women, fronted by a Lugarian man and a Talian woman, marched in. They spread around her in an arc, unarmed except for the sternness of their expressions.

Adora kept her tone civil. Just. “How may I serve you?”

“Serve us?” the woman said. “Serve us?” The tone rose an octave.

“Easy, Marya,” the man said. “We’ve been running at full retreat for the last three days. She doesn’t know who we are.”

The Talian whirled on him. “And she didn’t bother to seek us out either, did she, Garet.”

Adora straightened with an effort. The motion sent a stab of pain through her skull. “Am I addressing the council of Haven? Please accept my sincerest apologies. The haste of our retreat precluded meeting.” She allowed a hint of iron into her voice. “Once again, how may I serve you?”

The woman’s eyes, dark like her hair, blazed. “You can sign the writ of recognition the priest promised us, Your Highness.”

She leaned forward. “The writ of recognition is meant to acknowledge your kingdom as a sovereign nation in exchange for the cooperation of your military forces.” It might have been the fatigue that precipitated her response or perhaps a reaction to the Talian’s manner, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Forgive my blunt observation, but you no longer appear to have either.”

With a brusque gesture she waved an arm that included her advisors. “At this moment we’re discussing how to keep your people alive and out of the hands of the enemy.”

Even Waterson and Rokha winced.

“Go easy, Your Highness,” Liam said. “They have lost much.”

Adora’s eyes widened in spite of her effort to maintain a detached demeanor. She sighed. Had she ever been this tired? “Please forgive me, fatigue and disappointment weigh heavily upon me. Yet the question remains, to what end shall we sign the accords?”

Marya drew herself up, but Garet laid a hand on her arm, and she retreated to stand with the rest of the council, leaving him to face Adora alone. “Because it was promised,” he said.

His appeal touched her where Marya’s indignation didn’t. She took a deep breath. “If we are to be allies, then I think it only fair for you to hear our deliberation, if you wish, but be warned, I’ll put no restraint on my advisors’ counsel just to spare your feelings.”

“Agreed,” Garet said. Behind him, Marya gave a single nod.

“Count Rula,” Adora said, “what is your opinion on this matter?”

The count knuckled his mustache. With shoulder-length hair and the lean build of a swordsman, the count served as a continual reminder of his nephew Naaman Ru. In the presence of his great-niece, he exercised restraint. Rokha’s fierce love for her father, in spite of his faults, and Rula’s enmity toward him sometimes made for a tense atmosphere.

“The church will demand an accounting, Highness. The benefices are pragmatic. In the absence of an army, it would be more expedient to simply rule the shadow lands rather than recognize it as a sovereign country.” He inclined his head toward Adora. “And they will expect you to know this as well.”

Adora nodded. The count’s thoughts mirrored her own. “So you recommend against recognition?”

Rula shook his head. “No. I merely state what I believe to be the church’s position. As Rodran’s sole descendant, it is your place to honor the intentions of the kingdom, inconvenient or not.”

Adora shifted. “Lord Waterson?”

He stepped forward with a shake of his head. “You can sign the treaty if you want, Your Highness, but there’s not much left of the shadow lands or their army.” His mouth pulled to one side. “Unless you want to count me and a few thousand like me. I’m sorry, we’re not enough to make a difference against the Merakhi. We’re not enough to warrant a treaty.” If his possession of a strange dual citizenship affected his response, Adora couldn’t tell.

She nodded, tried to ignore the stricken looks on the faces of Garet, Marya, and the rest of their council. “Captain Liam?”

Liam stepped forward. Garet and Marya faced him and jerked in surprise.

The shadowlanders, their eyes wide, bent to each other, whispering as though something about the captain shocked them.

Liam waited until he had their attention, though they continued to stare at him in wonder. “Lord Waterson and Count Rula present cogent arguments, Your Highness. I might argue the kingdom should honor its promise, but doing so under the present circumstances offers little in the way of mutual advantage.” He turned from Adora to the council. “The treaty with the shadow lands must be a secondary consideration to safeguarding the refugees with us. Do you agree?”

Garet, Marya, and the rest nodded assent, but every line of their posture showed wariness.

“The present need of our two peoples is to evade the Merakhi forces behind us.” He turned to Adora. “Perhaps if the council could offer some means of accomplishing this, it would provide the justification Your Highness requires for fulfilling the kingdom’s promise.”

Garet and Marya eyed Liam with a mixture of wonder and distrust, as if he held the means of some secret they meant to keep hidden. Adora shoved that thought aside. She didn’t have time for such ruminations.

She turned to the council. “Do you know what Captain Liam speaks of ?”

Garet stepped forward, hesitant. “The council may have the ability to hinder the Merakhi in their pursuit.”

“Are you saying you have the ability to mask us from the Merakhi and their spawn?” She didn’t have the time or patience for word play. “Can it be done?”

Garet nodded. “It is possible.”

Adora stood. “If you can do this thing, I will sign the accords. But hidden or not, we will begin our retreat in the morning. Food and survival lay to the west.”

Garet and the rest of the council bowed to her, but she couldn’t help noticing that they bowed more deeply to Liam.



The next morning, Adora and Rokha watched the chaotic mass of humanity from a small rise. The sun, two hours into the sky, warmed Adora’s face, and a southerly wind foretold mild temperatures for the day.

They still hadn’t broken camp.

Pain in her hands reminded her to unclench her fists from around her horse’s reins, but a knot of frustration remained at the delay.

“They move like a bag full of cats,” Rokha said. Every soldier, watchman, and guard in camp was positioned in an attempt to bring order to the throng of refugees as they began their journey west, but to little avail.


“At this rate the Merakhi army will catch us before we break camp.”

“It’s not that bad, Your Highness. Even within my father’s caravan, the first day out from camp brought inevitable delay. If we managed to get under way before noon, we counted ourselves lucky.”

She pointed to their right, where Nob, their quartermaster, jockeyed the few carts and the multitude of mules into order. “He knows what he’s about. After today, those people will be ready to march with the dawn. You’ll see.”

She sighed. If Rokha saw no need to panic, there probably wasn’t one. Lieutenant Jens approached, reined his piebald stallion to a stop, and gave a perfunctory bow. “Your Highness, the council has requested that we alter our course.”

“Why?”

Jens balked at the question, and his gaze wandered the landscape instead of meeting hers. “They wouldn’t give a reason, Your Highness. They only said it was necessary. Captain Liam has given his provisional agreement.” He gave her a hopeful look.

“I’m sure he has,” Adora said. Something in the request set her hackles on edge. “Where are we to go?”

“Northwest,” Jens said. “Captain Liam and Count Rula say this will bring us to Escadrill.”

“Wretched place,” Rokha muttered, “but probably our best bet to obtain food before the stores run out.”

Adora nodded. “Why do I get the feeling that there’s something else at play here?”

She twitched the reins, and her mount came about to face east. In the distance, spread out in an arc facing the river, stood Haven’s council, all twelve of them on foot.

“Everyone holds secrets, Your Highness,” Rokha said.

“Lieutenant Jens,” Adora called over her shoulder, “tell Captain Liam and the rest of the watch I approve of the plan to move northwest, and have them plot the quickest route to Escadrill.” She turned to Rokha. “You know the town. Will there still be food merchants there?”

Rokha nodded. “It will cost you every gold crown those bandits can squeeze out of you, but I expect so.”

At the end of the third day, Rokha voiced her approval at the distance they’d traveled.

“How far?” Adora asked.

Ru’s daughter pursed her full lips before she answered. “About five leagues. Deas willing, we’ll be able to maintain it.”

Adora’s heart labored under a weight of disappointment. “We have to find a way to go faster.” She shook her head, trying to deny Rokha’s assessment. “If we do not, we will run out of food, or the Merakhi column will slip past us to the south—assuming the council can mask our route—and block the passages into the Arryth.” She beat a fist against her thigh in frustration. “I could make ten leagues on foot in one day.”

Rokha sighed. “But you’re not a creeping mass of humanity, Princess, and you wouldn’t be able to hold that pace day after day. Look.” She pointed to the wagons. “Every one of those wagons is filled with the very young and the old. Everyone without a horse—and that’s most of them—must walk.

“Consider that an army takes time to move as well. Two hours after the vanguard begins the day’s march, the rear is still motionless. The Merakhi army will not be so fast as you think. The larger they are, the slower they move.”

“You called me Princess again.”

Rokha shrugged. “You were being stupid.”

On the fifteenth day, Nob came to see her. “We’ve got to cut the rations again.” That he failed to duck his head or use her title told her the seriousness of their situation.

She winced. Bad news sent pain through her temples like one of Sevra’s kicks. “How many days until we reach Escadrill?”

Nob smacked his lips as he thought. “Another week, Your Highness.”

Rokha nodded confirmation.

Adora’s stomach growled its resentments. She’d been subject to rationing just like everyone else. “Cut the rations for every man on horseback and every adult in the wagons—and cut them hard. Leave full rations for nursing mothers and children.” She turned to Rokha. “Flog anyone caught stealing food.”



Four days from Escadrill the slithering mass of humanity in the vanguard stopped. With a jerk of her reins, Adora pulled out of the middle of the formation and sought Lieutenant Jens. The people close to the front milled around like bees without a queen.

After a moment she spotted the watchman riding back to her.

“Your Highness.” Jens bowed from his position in the saddle. At her apparent frustration, he hastened to explain. “We’ve encountered another band of refugees.”

Adora’s hands jerked in irritation. “You know what to do, Lieutenant. Assign the old and young positions in wagons and get someone to take a tally of their food stores.”

Jens sighed. “That’s just it, Your Highness. They refuse to give up their food stores.” He shrugged. “More accurately, their leader refused.”

Rokha snorted, and she eyed the lieutenant’s sword until he blushed. “What do you think you have that sharp pointy thing at your side for?”

Jens answered her with a glare. “He’s a priest. I work for the church, not the other way around.”

Adora clenched her teeth, then thought better of it as pain lanced across her skull. “We don’t have time for the niceties of church relations right now, Lieutenant. Where are these people from?”

Jens jerked his head in a nod. “The Sorland province, Your Highness, from the village of Callowford.”