Sworn To Conflict: Courtlight #3 (12 page)

Her brother didn’t move, even when three soldiers soon encircled him and reached forward to disarm him. He put his hand on his hound’s head to stay its attack. When they slapped manacles on him, he said nothing, either. The
clang
of the manacles against the metal cuffs that sheathed his wrists was loud even in the dull rain. She felt discomfort even watching. This was her brother. And yet they shackled him like a common criminal, even though he’d been forced by the very magical restraints they placed on him to work for the Shadow Mage.

“Where are they taking him?” she asked as she watched him escorted away into the night. Her skin was beginning to feel clammy and she was practically shivering.

“To an empty tent for now,” said Kane. “And you should be in yours.”

For a moment Ciardis took in the delicious irony. Both Weathervanes were under guard. The only difference here was that she remained unshackled. Kane walked forward and peered into her tent. He must have deemed it safe, because he came right back out and gestured her inside.

“There’s a hot bath waiting on you, and food,” he said. “Eat and sleep.”

“Tomorrow—”

“Tomorrow’s another day,” he said firmly, with a dark gaze.

Ciardis closed her mouth and went inside. She would get nothing more from him tonight.

In the distance the dog lay on the ground, forgotten.

******

T
he next morning Ciardis woke up anxious. Through her tent walls she heard the clanging of metal, and when she stepped out of bed she barely managed to miss stepping in the wash bucket at her feet. A hot bath, indeed! It was a bucket with water. No tub in sight.

Sighing, she shrugged on the clean clothes left for her, this time choosing the more sensible tunic and jerkin lying at the foot of her cot. Peering out of tent, she was unsurprised to see Kane standing at attention at the crack of dawn. She was surprised to see Warlord Inga sitting next to him while picking her teeth with what looked suspiciously like shaved bone. Inga wasn’t there to guard Ciardis—at least she didn’t think so.

“What are you doing here, Warlord?” Ciardis said, trying to hold back a yawn.

Inga rose to her full, imposing height as she said, “Waiting for Your Highness to wake.” Sarcasm fairly dripped from her mouth.

Ciardis stared up into to the sky to make sure that the vision she had seen when she’d emerged from the tent was true. Yep, it was definitely the crack of dawn. Night still lingered in the sky as the sun insistently pushed its way forward. She really didn’t need attitude at the crack of dawn. She wasn’t an idiot, so she didn’t say that to Inga, but she did give Kane a reproachful look.

Inga said, “He wouldn’t let me wake you.”

Mouthing a silent thank you for that, Ciardis stepped forward. “How can I help you?”

“You promised us weapons.”

Whoa, back up. She had? Then she remembered the fateful discussion between Barnaren and Inga. “And you got them. Yesterday. General Barnaren promised.”

“A promise unfilled,” Inga said, throwing away the bone pick.

Ciardis gulped as she stared up at the warrior in the prime of her life. There were many things she wanted to do this morning, and on the top of the list were finding Titus’s body, conferring with Sebastian, volunteering at the healer’s tent, and getting something to eat. Nowhere on that list was playing around with Inga.

She didn’t have a choice.

“Let’s go see General Barnaren, shall we?”

Inga snorted. “Yes, let’s.”

Ciardis gave her a wan smile and started forward.

Behind her Kane cleared his throat. She looked back up at him, irritated. He nodded his head over to the right. “The general’s tent is that way.”

Ciardis didn’t bother acknowledging his help. She turned her nose up and went right like she’d meant to all along.

She heard laughter erupt from Inga as she walked behind her. She was glad someone found this morning amusing.

As they walked through the camp, Ciardis saw massive holes where tents used to be, craters from the falling capsules, and discarded weapons that were bent and melted from the poison spewed by the spidersilks. Men were already shoveling dirt into the large holes, but even she could see it was a difficult task to accomplish when the ground was half-frozen from last night’s freeze.

“Where’s your spidersilk?”

“He’s back at camp,” said Inga.

After a moment, Ciardis volunteered, “He saved my life last night.”

“He saved many lives last night.” She said it with pride.

Ciardis glanced back at her. “Why is he so different?”

“I have never known a single individual to be exactly like another, even if their species is the same,” Inga said with a shrug. “Why do some humans fight this war and others cower in their homes?”

That was the wrong thing to say in mixed company. A nearby soldier overheard and he whirled from where he was sharpening his sword to snarl, coming at Inga. Ciardis saw Kane move quickly from the corner of her eye. His new battleax came up out of nowhere and caught the man’s sword in a downward strike.

“Enough!” he shouted. “Inga wasn’t speaking of you and yours.”

“Then she should watch her tongue,” the man hissed.

The ominous sound of Inga’s sword leaving its sheath echoed in the morning.

“I can fight my own battles.”

Nervously, Ciardis stepped forward in between Kane and his opponent and Inga’s mighty sword. Speaking to the man firmly, she said, “Everyone showed bravery yesterday. Everyone. But more than bravery, we need unity.”

All three turned surprised glances to her. Finally the man stood back and said, “Who are you to speak to me?”

Ciardis straightened up to her full height of five and a half feet and said, “A citizen of this empire.”

“A citizen who consorts with frost giants,” the man said, spitting over his shoulder in disgust. He left and they continued on their way. The incident made Ciardis wonder, if soldiers reacted this way just upon seeing humans walk with frost giants, they would not take too well to consorting with them, either. Kane and Inga were a brave couple. She also had the suspicion that the barricade surrounding Inga’s camp was less a sign of antagonism on the frost giants’ part as opposed to a need for protection from xenophobic idiots.

Suddenly a messenger astride on horseback rode up to them out of nowhere. “Urgent message from the Prince Heir for Companion Weathervane.”

He didn’t jump down from his horse. He didn’t have to. Kane took the missive from his hands as the man hurriedly pulled his horse around and hurried away with more rolled-up parchment sticking out from his saddlebags.

“I’m not a companion,” Ciardis muttered half-heartedly as she watched the man race away like the hounds of hell were at his heels.

Kane gave her the letter without a word, standing off to her right decorously. Inga had no such compunctions and came right up to Ciardis to stand over her and look down at the letter. Since Ciardis barely reached the underside of Inga’s breasts, it was a comical sight.

Ciardis looked up at Inga and then shook her head and opened the letter. The frost giantess’s face was open and curious.

As Ciardis read, she couldn’t help but speak the words silently to herself.

“Dearest Ciardis,

I had hopes that you would see the lights of the winter rainbow with me before we took leave for the capital city of Sandrin. If you are amenable, please journey to the western guard tower at first light. I will be waiting.

Signed,

Sebastian Athanos Algardis.”

Ciardis crumpled the letter in her hands while her thoughts raced.

The first thing she said was, “What in the
hell
is going on?”

“Ciardis,” Kane said, stepping forward.

Ciardis turned to Kane with a perplexed look. “I think the Prince Heir just invited me on a lovers’ stroll.”

“And that’s bad because?” said Inga, sarcasm dripping from her words.

“Because we’re at war, for one, and he just got through torturing me, for another,” Ciardis grumbled.

“Oh,” said Inga, considering. “Literally?”

“Truth serum,” said Kane in response.

Ciardis looked at him askance. He looked away in the distance, his face as hard as stone.

“The general ordered me not to go inside,” Kane said quietly, “but I heard your cries.”

Ciardis bit the inside of her lip, in turmoil because he had heard her and hadn’t helped. But she could see that it distressed him, so for now his concern was enough for her.

“Do you think I should go?” she asked point-blank.

Kane turned to her, surprised that she would ask his opinion at all. “What do you have to gain?”

She tilted her head and looked up at him. “Most people would ask, ‘What do you have to lose?’”

“Most people don’t have the relationship that you have with the Prince Heir,” Kane pointed out. “You already claim most of his heart. Or at least as much of it as he has ever allowed. Now you need to see what else there is.”

“You speak like one born to the courts.”

“He was,” Inga said stiffly.

Surprise swept through Ciardis as she looked back and forth between the two former lovers who towered over her.

“Oh?” she said. Her single word was a question.

A question Kane deliberately ignored.

“Now is not the time or place,” he said just as stiffly.

Ciardis blinked and went back to perusing the letter. Her memory flashed back to her conversation with Sebastian before the Truthsayer had come.
He’s hiding something
, the Prince Heir had said with a stubborn look in his eyes. If she knew Sebastian, he hadn’t given up on finding out what it was. Perhaps the romantic interlude wasn’t going to be so romantic after all.

“Do you know where the western guard tower is?” she asked Kane absentmindedly.

Kane nodded. “Near the mages’ encampment.”

Ciardis raised an eyebrow. “They live on the outskirts of the soldiers’ camp? Doesn’t that make them vulnerable?”

“They prefer it there. There’s a giant ice shelf that protects them from the elements and apparently has magical properties.”

“Well, then, let’s go.”

Inga smiled.

“What?” said Ciardis, looking up at the frost giantess.

“The sleds,” she said with the look of a child who had won all the toys in the world.

“The what?”

Kane let out a laugh and shook his head. “You’ll see.”

Ciardis, Kane, and Inga took off in the direction that Kane had pointed to. They came to a stop just outside a farrier’s stall, which rang with the sounds of horses getting new shoes, nails being hammered, and armor plate being melded for the steeds’ chest plates. They walked to a clean patch of snow that stretched a quarter of a mile in the distance.

Looking down, Ciardis noted that while the snow was clean it wasn’t unmarred. Curious tracks marred its surface in deep grooves that ran in twin parallel lines. The parallel lines were everywhere, circling around in narrow lines. Peering closely, she noticed horse tracks, as well.

And then it came. First the sound of a harness slapping in the wind, then the harsh breaths of horses in the air, and finally the rhythmic jingle of small chains slapping against the sides of the sled. Far off in the distance six double-teamed horses crested a hill with a large sled strapped behind them. They were covering the distance toward the farriers’ camp at a good pace.

“That is the sled,” said Kane.

“It’s huge,” said Ciardis in wonder.

Inga nodded in satisfaction. “They use it to carry supplies to the mages’ camp as well as battle weapons that need to be safeguarded. Hence the size.”

The glee had not left her tone.

“It’s the only way to get to the mages’ camp near the western guard tower and the only sled I’ve ever seen that can bear a frost giant,” said Kane.

Inga didn’t seem to care. She was practically dancing in the snow.

Ciardis let her own joy grace her face. This was going to be fun.

They boarded the empty sled after a word with the two drivers, and with a
crack
of a heavy whip they were off across the snow. Inga sat across from Kane and Ciardis on the deep-bottomed floor of the sled. Her legs were crisscrossed and her hands were in her lap. With joy on her face and her blonde hair whipping about, the huge frost giant looked out on the passing landscape around them
.

Even sitting down, Inga’s head was above the edge while Ciardis’s lay just below so that she couldn’t see anything but the interior of the sled. Kane could peek out above, but he preferred to stare into the distance while sneaking side glances at Inga’s face with a half-smile. He only did it when Inga wasn’t looking at him, Ciardis noticed.

“How much longer?” Ciardis asked, looking over at Kane. The wood of the sled’s interior was stained a dark brown. A deep contrast from the white of the snow she knew was just outside the sled and the gray of the distant mountain peaks.

“Only a few minutes more to the mages’ outpost,” Kane shouted over the whistle of the sled runners.

True to his word, they arrived minutes later and climbed down with varying levels of reluctance and glee.

For the first time since arriving in the North Ciardis felt joy permeate through her. The sled made her feel like a child. Though she was not keen on repeating the experience.

“Who are you?” intoned a caustic voice to their right.

Ciardis gathered her presence and turned to confront whoever it was.

Before she could do that, another voice said, “Lady Weathervane. I had not expected to see you so far from camp.”

It was the Lord Chamberlain with a note of surprise in his voice.

“Lord Chamberlain,” Ciardis said with an elaborate curtsy. “I confess I thought the same of you. In fact, I had expected you would be preparing for your departure after the attacks so recently.” Ice was warmer than her tone.

He smiled coolly. “Yes, yes, I had hoped to be departing sooner than now. But problems have arisen.”

“Problems? For the Empire?”

“You might say that, Lady Weathervane,” he said. With a sharp tone, he turned to a porter and said, “Be careful with those. Mage orbs like that are delicate.”