Shadow of a Dark Queen

“I’ll ask him,” Erik said, and started to move off.

 

Rian restrained him with a gentle touch to the arm. “Zila’s a good enough fighter in a brawl,” he whispered, “but he’s no proper Captain. We were heading down to Maharta to seek service with the Raj. It should take the better part of the next year for that lot up north to get past Lanada.”

 

He glanced around to see if anyone else was listening. “Your Captain seems to know his way around a fortification, and you seem more like garrison soldiers than hired swords.”

 

Every man in Calis’s company had been warned against spies, so Erik responded without having to think. “I just follow orders. Captain Calis has kept every man here alive at least once, so I don’t question him.”

 

“You think he’s got room for another sword?”

 

“I’ll ask. But I thought you were heading for Maharta?”

 

“After the beating we took at Khaipur, you’d think a year or two of resting up and waiting might be nice, but truth to tell, there’s no booty and I get bored easily.”

 

“I’ll tell him that, too,” Erik said, leaving the man with the horses.

 

He moved through the village, and several of the villagers nodded greeting. Calis’s men weren’t treated with open fear anymore, but the villagers were equally split between those happy to have their swords around for protection as well as their gold and those who feared that the fortification would attract unwanted attention. The village was routinely raided over the years, and the villagers had a time-tested method of fleeing into the nearby hills. Few died if there was any advance warning. But this fortress on the road: that was both a protection and a trap.

 

Someone called Erik’s name, and he glanced over to see Embrisa, a girl of fourteen who had taken a liking to him. She was pretty in a large-boned way, with pale blue eyes her most striking feature, but Erik knew that she would be old before she was thirty, probably with three or four children and a husband who worked her from dawn to dusk. A town-bred boy, Erik had little sense of what real poverty and hard work were until he had come to this village.

 

He spoke a quick greeting, then excused himself as he went to the pavilion that served as an inn. Rough wooden benches and tables had been fashioned by an enterprising farmer named Shabo who had used the profits from serving Calis’s men poor wine and ale to build a wooden trellis alongside his rude hut. Erik considered that if they stayed long enough, Shabo would be a proper innkeeper, as he kept using his profits to improve his little enterprise. His latest innovation had been to knock out a second door to the hut so he could serve across a newly built bar that ran the length of the building. Erik considered the hut might get very cold during winter, though he had no idea how cold it got in these parts.

 

Calis and Zila and some others sat at one table, while other men in Zila’s company drank heavily and did indeed look like beaten men. Praji had joined Calis and was nodding as Zila said, “I’ve seen thirty years of fighting, man and boy, but nothing like this.” He drained his tankard and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

 

Calis raised an eyebrow at Erik, who said, “Half the mounts either need a month of grazing and no work or need to be put down. The rest could be ready to be ridden if they lay up a week.”

 

Calis nodded. Zila said, “We don’t have much—being on the losing side pays little—but we’ll buy some mounts from you if you’ll sell them.”

 

“What are you planning to do?” asked Calis.

 

“We’re heading for Maharta. The Raj is sending his Royal Immortals to help the Priest-King of Lanada defend against the greenskins and their army. That means his war elephants and those drug-crazed maniacs of the Priest-King are on the same side for a change.”

 

Praji said, “Things must be grim to make those two old enemies take the same cause.”

 

Zila waved for another tankard, and Shabo hurried over to replace the empty one. “Yes, but it also means the Raj will need more fighters to keep peace around his city, so there will be work for us. I could use a couple of years of keeping farmers in line after what we just went through.” He looked at Praji and Calis. “You say you were at Hamsa?”

 

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