“Well, then,” Daniel mused aloud, “we shall see you with that bracer.”
As though deeming the matter settled, Daniel turned back to the carcass and continued to scrape the meat from its bones. Which left Craig to sit in stunned silence, looking over the man who had somehow managed to sneak his way up from rival to annoyance to amusement, and then more shockingly, from savior to friend.
12. Daniel
Two days came and went with relative ease. Relative being the operative word. Daniel wouldn’t exactly call it “comfortable” in the cavern they had made their temporary home, but it was as safe and protected as they could hope to be in hostile territory.
Even if they wanted or needed to move, however, their ability to do so would be severely limited by Craig’s limp. The lieutenant was determined to continue his mission as soon as possible, a determination Daniel could respect. But his attempts at standing weren’t doing either of them any favors.
“It will be a good test.” Craig had somehow gotten it in his head that he would join Daniel on the morning’s hunting and gathering trip.
“You don’t need to test anything.” Daniel itched at the side of his jerkin. He’d made a rudimentary attempt at getting clean in the nearby steam he’d been using as their water source, but it wasn’t enough water for a proper bath. Beyond that, the idea of stripping down with the possibility of an enemy stumbling on him made Daniel nervous. A certain level of grime had settled in the cave as a kind of third companion.
“Prince Baldair will be wanting this letter. I have to—”
“I know you want to impress the prince.” Daniel understood what it was to be on a mission, and felt Craig’s dedication had cast the lieutenant in a new and favorable light. “But you’re not impressing anyone if you die in the process from infection or an enemy attack.”
“This area has been vacant of Northern activity for weeks.” Craig pointedly ignored the idea of an infection, Daniel noticed.
“It’s not impossible.” Daniel adjusted his sword belt at the thought. “Besides, the more you rest, the faster and cleaner your wound will heal. If you push it, chances are you could have lasting damage in the leg. Think of how that would affect your swordsmanship.”
Craig was silent. Daniel didn’t need to spell it out further. It was said that Prince Baldair only solicited the most talented soldiers for his guard, those whose swordsmanship matched or exceeded his own considerable skill.
“I think I’ll only need another day, thanks to the springroot.”
“We’ll see,” Daniel agreed mildly. The springroot did wonders: numbed pain, promoted healing, and kept wounds covered in thick slime that kept out dirt and infection. But it wasn’t a miracle cure. A proper cleric could’ve had Craig at full speed by now.
“I would like to request something other than sloth today, soldier.” Craig put on an air of superiority.
“I shall do my best, lieutenant.” Daniel played along, giving Craig a salute.
“See that you do, for when I have my golden bracer I will not forget what you’ve done for me here.”
“You are too kind,” Daniel said as he rounded the wounded man and squeezed himself into the narrow passage that led to the world beyond their sanctuary.
Daniel knew the tunnel by heart at this point. It was a simple walk and he’d made it a point to clear it of debris and rock as much as he could. Now he shimmied along the wall in the darkness, feeling the already familiar stone as it gnarled and curved round toward a spot of ambient light.
It was almost easy to forget that they were still at war. He had been focused for years on what was next: taking care of the farm, courting Willow, doing his best to secure a good life for her. He hadn’t taken time on his own for as long as he could remember. Even in his present circumstances, he was learning there was something to be said for taking time for one’s self. While this excursion paled in comparison to the hunting parties he’d heard men and women reminisce over with fondness around camp fires, and it was certainly not what he would’ve planned, it was surprisingly nice.
Minus the constant threat of death lurking behind every corner.
Daniel poked his head out of the opening to the narrow tunnel. Emerald shone brightly in every corner of his sight, contrasting the dim, gray cave that had been his home. Daniel gave his eyes a moment to adjust, taking in the sights and sounds, waiting tentatively for any potential threat to reveal itself.
But just as it had been the past two days, the world was calm and still. A stray breeze rustled the treetops. Dew drops turned wide, flat leaves into little drums, thrumming their own quiet song. Unseen animals rustled here and there as the jungle teemed with benign life.
The North was quite a beautiful place, actually, and vastly unlike anything else Daniel had ever seen. On the southern border of his home region, the fringes of the great pine forests of the South began to spring from the hilly ground. He had thought them mighty the first time he’d laid eyes on them, headed to the capital with Willow. But now that he had seen the trees in Shaldan, nothing could ever compare.
Daniel trekked down what was now a familiar path toward the small stream. Brush thickened the nearer he got to the water, and he had to slowly make his way through. It would have been easier if he hacked it away, but Daniel didn’t want to disturb the foliage more than necessary. It was best to leave as little trace of his existence as possible.
What Craig had said was true. The Imperial army had made a piercing attack to Soricium, the capital of the North, and then laid siege to the claimed land. After securing their foothold, the Emperor worked slowly outward, chipping away at the strength of the only remaining country on the Main Continent not under his control.
It was unlikely he’d encounter hostile forces this close to Soricium, especially in the wake of Raylynn’s company. Their job had been to clear resistance seeking to flank the army. Water was one of those weird things in nature, however; a great equalizer, it brought together both predator and prey.
When Daniel heard the lifting tones of the Northern tongue, he wasn’t sure which he was going to be.
He crouched low and pressed himself into the hollow of a nearby tree trunk. The voices were faint, barely audible over the sounds of the forest around him. But they were distinct. They were filled with words he’d heard shouted in hate at him countless times—as if he were the one who decreed the order to burn their homes and kill their friends. It could all be over if their head clan merely surrendered to the Empire.
Stay or retreat? If he stayed, he risked not only his life, but Craig’s as well. Instinct told him to collect whatever information he might extract from his hidden vantage point. His training told him to investigate on behalf of the Empire, no matter the cost.
Instinct and training won out, as usual.
Slowly, cautiously, Daniel slunk forward. He made every attempt to be as inconspicuous as possible, pressing into each nook and cranny he could see as he neared the source of the noise. Through the thick foliage, he could make out the vague shapes of two figures, hunched together by the river.
They spoke purposefully. Their gestures and manner betrayed no desire to be subversive; clearly they thought themselves alone.
Daniel kept one hand on his sword hilt at all times. It kept the blade flush against him, at the ready, and prevented any sort of clanking from his scabbard.
The two Northerners continued to gesture between them, their tabards swaying with their movements. Daniel wondered what had them so entranced, and desperately wished he could understand some of the lyrical-sounding phrases being passed between them.
Slowly, he crept forward. Close enough to see the shades cast by their boots and the threading on their clothes. Close enough that they could hear when his foot slipped on a root and crashed through the underbrush.
The next thirty seconds seemed to drag in slow-motion.
Daniel’s foot fell, hard, onto the fresh leaves and twigs he’d been trying to avoid. His ankle pulled awkwardly, just painfully enough to draw the hiss of a grimace across his mouth. The two Northerners turned instantly, looking directly at him.
The woman on the right with long braided hair raised their hand, and the trees seemed to shudder to life, scurrying and parting like bugs faced with a sunbeam. The branches and trunks arced outward and away from her focused gaze. Her eyes, the same color as the leaves she commanded, stared straight at him.
A sorcerer.
Wonderful.
Daniel gave into his training. He’d lost the element of surprise but that didn’t mean he also had to lose the first strike as well. The moment his foot was stable under him again, Daniel pushed upward on the strength of his good leg.
The pommel of his sword was already warm from his grip on it. The blade was drawn with a bright shiiing, and not a moment too late. The woman twisted her hand and several branches jutted forward like spears waiting to impale him. The sword shone brightly, hitting off the spotted light, as Daniel arced it through the air, beating away the branches and sheering off their pointed tips.
The Northern man was flat-footed and clumsy, scrambling for the blade at his hip. If he wasn’t attacking with magic as well, there was a chance Daniel was only dealing with one sorcerer. At the end of his sword swing, he brought his elbow to his waist, tucking it tightly. If he was right, the sorcerer should be dispatched first; magic was much harder to manage than blades.
Twisting his wrist slightly to put the point of his blade at the woman’s face, Daniel did a quick double-step, readjusting his footwork and shifting his momentum to go into a second lunge. He had killed too many now to feel any hesitation for the act. His sword was straight and true, all the force he could muster behind it.
The woman twisted at the last second, bringing up her hand. His sword vibrated with a loud echo as it hit her palm. Groundbreaker, Daniel thought with searing frustration. Their magic enabled them to turn their skin as hard as stone, completely impenetrable by blades. There was only one spot that wasn’t hardened…
Daniel slid a foot forward to bring his blade upward and around the woman’s wrist, pointing right for her eye. She swung her free hand up, forcing Daniel to give up his attack to jump away and avoid a spear of roots summoned from deep within the earth at his feet. By now, the man had found his weapon and charged forward with a snarl of a word that Daniel didn’t recognize but nonetheless assumed wasn’t good.
The Northerner charged with a standard short blade, one that Daniel knew would beat him in power if he let it turn into that sort of battle. So Daniel focused on finesse. He disengaged, over-parrying the man’s strike. The point of his blade drew a line up the Northerner’s sword hand, shearing through tendons and drawing a cry of both pain and frustration from his enemy’s lips as the man’s hand was no longer capable of holding the sword.
Rather than going in for the kill, Daniel made a strategic retreat, taking the opportunity to re-engage the sorcerer. In almost every battle he’d endured, he’d been outnumbered. Why should now be any different? Victory wasn’t about quick kills or grand attacks, but chipping away at an enemy’s strength, doing what needed to be done.
Daniel was a cautious fighter in that regard. Just like his sword, he wasn’t suited for charging in mindlessly and relying on brute strength. He found victory in the smallest of openings. His opponent need make only one tiny error, and the fight was as good as won.
Like when the man swung too wide, clumsy with only one hand on his sword.
Daniel slid back and angled his body so that when he pressed forward, he and the Northerner were shoulder to shoulder, facing different directions. The blade plunged into the man’s throat, spurting blood from the jugular like a tap, and extending clean out the other side. His dying breath gurgled and his knees went loose. Daniel quickly withdrew his weapon before the collapsing deadweight could take it down with him.
When he turned, blade at the ready, the sorcerer was gone.
A rustling of leaves and swaying of branches brought his attention upward. High above, the woman stood. A vine snaked around one of her legs through to her middle and then across her arm, where she held onto it with tension.
They stared at each other. Two fighters from different sides of the field. Neither was operating under express commands to kill the other, merely the understanding that this was what being “enemies” meant. The woman squinted down at him before turning and stepping from the wide branch where she’d made her perch.
The vine pulled her upward magically. She rose into the canopy and disappeared into the leaves above. Daniel watched until the thick leaves stopped rustling and the forest was still—or, as still as it ever was—once more.
Daniel wiped the blood off his blade onto the dead man’s tabard, and considered his next steps. The woman was no doubt making a tactical retreat… They were both random soldiers, and what point would it serve to attack each other as they were? Would she alert her allies to the rogue Imperial soldier she’d found? Or would she let the matter rest, a one-off skirmish that war produced by chance?
Daniel’s thoughts were interrupted when his roving gaze finally took in the source of the Northerners’ heated discussion. In the packed, damp earth near the stream, lines had been carefully drawn. Arrows and circles crossed and looped. While a part of the diagram had been smudged away by the woman’s foot, the overall outline remained clear.
Daniel turned, and made his way toward Craig as quickly and as stealthily as he could.
13. Craig
Daniel was later than normal. Craig knew something wrong even before he arrived, and confirmed as much the second he laid eyes on his friend. Daniel was empty-handed save the fresh wounds that seeped ominous crimson onto his already stained clothes.
“What happened?”
“Northerners.” Daniel adjusted his posture just slightly, and Craig realized he was no longer talking to the casual comrade he’d come to expect, but a solider in the Imperial army. “I was going for water and heard voices. Upon investigating, I was discovered and engaged. I killed one, the other—a sorcerer—got away.”
“Do you think the sorcerer followed you back?” Craig glanced over his shoulder at the opening Daniel had been coming and going through.
“No, she retreated when her ally fell.”
“Then we should be safe, for now.” That fact was a relief, but what wasn’t so relieving was enemy activity in what should be an otherwise cleared area. What place was ever truly safe in war?
“There’s something else.” Daniel sat next to him.
“What?”
“I don’t think they were merely rogue Northerners lost or in transit between two places.” The man fished around the gravel and lose rock, tapping a few stones on the floor of the cavern until he settled on one.
“And you suspect this because…?”
“I think they were scouts. Passing messages.” Daniel began dragging the stone he’d selected across the rocky floor of the cavern. “They were drawing something—discussing it. It seemed important.”
Craig knew what Daniel was going to say next before he said it.
“You’re better with maps and direction than I am, but doesn’t this look like—”
“Soricium,” Craig whispered as Daniel finished his drawing. The rendering was surprisingly precise, and the outline of the capital city was unmistakable. The inner sanctuary of Soricium, walled from the Imperial army, was surrounded by boxes that no doubt represented siege towers and weaponry. Circling around it was an outer rim that Craig knew to represent a wide perimeter of scorched earth. Even the “camp palace,” a roughly crafted structure created for the comfort of head majors and Imperials, was marked.
“That’s what I thought,” Daniel affirmed.
“What’re these?” Craig pointed at the
arrows and circles Daniel had drawn last.
“I’m not sure. But I can only think they represent markers for an attack.”
Craig was inclined to agree. “Things have been quiet…”
“And the Emperor just arrived,” Daniel added.
That, Craig had forgotten. The Emperor had just marched back North from spending the late spring attending to matters in the Imperial capital. If the Northerners were going to launch an attack, it made the most sense that they would do it with him there, to try to cut off the head of the serpent.
“You’re sure of this map?”
“I am.” Daniel hesitated not at all, and Craig detected none of the false confidence that had led them astray the last time Daniel took the navigational lead. The man may not be able to use a map, but he certainly could draw one.
“Then we need to let the army at Soricium know as quickly as possible.” Craig bent his knee slowly and flexed his foot. The movement was easy until the muscles in his calf fully engaged, sending searing pain into his knee. He fought a grimace. Soldiers had endured worse, and he could as well. He’d had enough time to convalesce. They were in the midst of war, after all.
“I’ll find some wood to splint it with,” Daniel said, standing. “And another piece you can use for a walking stick.”
“I’ll be slow enough as it is.” Craig frowned at his calf. If they only had a cleric.
“Better slow, alive, and well, than running to your death.” There was a note of finality to Daniel’s tone, one that assured Craig the matter was no longer up for discussion. How far his little foot soldier had come from the man who would be obedient to a fault that Craig had first met when they set out together.
“I want to leave tonight.”
“No.” Much to his every frustration, Daniel prevented him from standing.
“If I am ever going to get back on my feet, I need to actually get back on my feet.” Craig scowled at the other man.