Chasing the Dragon (17 page)

Aleena waited for him to finish but he only glanced at her and then looked away. "And what? Raping her? Killing and eating her?"

Celos sighed. "Yes."

"I'm not a child and I'm not a delicate flower, Celos. I'm a warrior, the same as you. I bleed just as red as you do. Don't treat me like a
lady; treat me like a dame."

"But you are a lady!" Celos blurted out. He clamped his mouth shut and looked away,
and then shook his head. "You're difficult."

Aleena laughed. "Yes, I suppose I am. And I understand, you're very rigid and proper. Very old school. I remind myself of that every time I want to
smash a shield into the back of your head."

Celos's puff of breath as he looked at her brought a smile to her face. "Smash a shield into my head?"

Aleena smiled at him. "Sometimes. But I can go on for days about the things about you that I admire and the things that upset me. We don't have that kind of time. So let's just agree that you're a very flawed person who also happens to be an outstanding knight of Leander. Now we can talk about Rosalyn."

Celos stared at Aleena for a long moment until he shook his head. "You are a baffling woman," he admitted.

"I have to keep you guessing," she said.

"I shouldn't need to guess
. I should always know I can rely on you."

"You see, that's one of those things that makes me want to bonk you with my shield," Aleena said. "You know you can count on me."

Celos opened his mouth and then shut it. He nodded. "Very well, back to the mountains."

"Yes, good idea," Aleena agreed. "I really think Rosalyn is onto something."

Celos snorted.

"Maybe if you'd grown up as a girl you’d understand," she snapped at him. "Girls don't have it easy. We're taught the only way to get anywhere in life is to latch on to a good man. The ultimate goal of a woman? To bear her man children and hope he treats her well. To cook and to clean for him. I can't speak for royalty, but I imagine it's not so different. They have servants but they still have to bear heirs for their husbands."

"Woman do not have the stomach for fighting, nor the steel in their hearts," Celos insisted.

"By Leander's grace, do you even remember who you're talking to?" Aleena raised her voice as she chastised him. "Do you forget the blood my sword has spilled?
The decisions I've made that caused good men to die so others would live?"

Celos had the good sense to blush. "You're different," he admitted.

"I'm different because I was given a chance to be different," she asserted. "Leander saw something in me when I came to him and He gave me a chance to prove myself. All the other girls out there? They don't know how to do that. They've lived and breathed a life of domestic slavery."

"Domestic slavery?" Celos echoed. "They life free and can do what they choose! They are protected and respected. They don't need to pick up a sword or mace. Their husbands and fathers want them to stay safe. It's called chivalry
."

"Thus slavery is gilded with lace and made pretty enough to be acceptable."

Celos fell into a brooding silence as they continued their walk. Aleena risked several glances at him before she finally asked, "What is it about Rosalyn that bothers you?"

Celos took a deep breath and let it out before he responded. "I don't know. A lot. Anyone that holds congress with such creatures would be suspect, be it a man or a woman."

Aleena nodded. "I'll even agree that, if Rosalyn were a man, I'd be suspicious."

"But you're not because she's a woman?" Celos challenged. "How did a woman rise to such a position among those…people?"

The dame frowned as she considered Celos's question without bias. "I saw no sword and she didn't have the look of a warrior. Perhaps she's a witch?"

"My thoughts exactly," the elder paladin said. "Has she ensorcelled them or do they fear her? What evil is she capable of with her power?"

Aleena wiped the bitter look off her face almost as quickly as it arose. "For the sake of conversation and diplomacy, what you say is possible," she admitted. "But is it not also possible that her words ring of truth?"

Celos ran his tongue over his teeth before he responded. "Yes, it is possible. But very unlikely."

"She invited me back," Aleena said. "I think I should go."

"Now you're in need of a shield to your pretty head," Celos muttered.

Aleena stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him. Celos turned and cocked his head when he saw the smile on her face. "You just called me pretty," Aleena said.

He sighed and shook his head. "Pretty. Strong. Skilled. Pious," Celos rambled off several words. "That and more. I've told you as much before. You've earned your position with these traits
. It's nothing to gloat over."

"I'm not gloating," Aleena said. She resumed walking. "You've just never called me pretty before
. It surprised me."

"Knights of Leander don't focus on being pretty," he said.

"No, they don't," she agreed. "But I'm a woman, too, and we like to hear that sort of thing."

Celos threw his hands up in the air and muttered an almost silent prayer to Leander.

"What was that?" Aleena asked.

"I was thanking Leander for reminding me and testing me by putting you in my life. Then I was asking him for the strength to keep myself from strangling you."

Aleena laughed. "Be careful, Sir Celos, that's a fight you might not like the outcome of."

He shook his head and turned to the doors of Tristam's manor.
The guards opened the doors and Celos surged ahead and marched straight through, ahead of Aleena. She gasped and stumbled a half step before she glared at him. Both guards looked on in surprise as she passed them.

"What was that?" she snapped after the heat in her cheeks faded.

"Didn't you say you disapproved of being treated like a lady?" Celos asked.

Aleena's jaw dropped as the paladin moved ahead of her down the hall. She shook her head and narrowed her eyes
and then stormed after him. She reached out and grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around, nearly causing him to fall. She pushed her finger into his chest and backed him into the wall.

"
Don't twist my words against me, damn you," she hissed, her face only inches from his. "I have shed blood, sweat, and tears for you, and I deserve some respect. That's what I'm asking for, not to be put on a pedestal."

Celos stared down at her, his surprise and then anger fading before her eyes. He nodded but said nothing.

Aleena sucked her lips into her mouth, biting them, and then turned away. Celos stepped away from the wall and stared at her before he looked down the hallway. He cleared his throat and said, "Let's fill the baron in on what we found."

"Good idea," she responded without looking at him. Neither knight spoke another word until they reached Tristam's office and then it was only to request an audience. Tristam's aid
e rushed them in, interrupting the baron as he pored over reports that had figures scrawled up and down them.

Tristam rubbed his hand over his face and rose up to greet them. His smile was thin and forced. "My friends, that was
a quick journey. What tidings do you bring from the mountains?"

Celos and Aleena glanced at
each other. "Go ahead," Aleena deferred to her mentor.

"Baron, it's a delicate situation," Celos said. "We found Ketten, the mountain guide, and it seems he's working for a woman named Rosalyn, the same lady he escorted into the mountains. She has appointed herself Queen of the North."

Tristam shook his head as though he was a dog that had gotten a bone stuck in its mouth. "She's what?"

"Queen Rosalyn," Aleena answered.

Celos nodded and continued. "She's secured the allegiance of the various, uh, people in the mountains."

"What people
? She's driven them all out!" Tristam growled.

"Ogres, goblins, trolls, giants. Those people," Aleena said.

Tristam shook his head and sat down in his chair. "So soon? We're not ready for another war!"

"She claims to not want war," Celos said.

He gestured at the reports on his desk. "War or not, without the mines Highpeak will be starving in weeks."

"We mentioned that," Aleena said. "And we came up with some possibilities."

"Possibilities?" Tristam repeated. "What possibilities can there be? They are monsters! Savages. They only know how to hunt and kill."

"They want more," Aleena said.

"So she claims," Celos added.

Aleena nodded. "Yes, so she claims. We discussed hiring the miners of Highpeak to help her with the mines. To teach her people and to receive a fair wage for working them. She will also need food if she's to civilize the mountains. There is much land south of Highpeak that could be used for crops or raising animals."

Tristam lifted his head. "Trade?" he asked.

Aleena nodded.

Tristam considered it for a moment and then shook his head. "Wait, she has no right to those mines. Those are Highpeak's mines. They belong to the kingdom!"

Celos shook his head and said,
"I'm of the same mind you are. Kingdom men dug those mines, yet Rosalyn has a valid point. The kingdom's border ends at Highpeak."

Tristam scowled and rubbed his face with his hand again. "Become a
baron, they said. Rule Highpeak, the duke offered. It's a small city with a steady stream of revenue. Not many problems. Why not?" he rambled to himself.

"Baron?" Aleena said, drawing him out of his self-pity. "Rosalyn invited you to visit and negotiate terms with her."

"Terms?" Tristam asked. "I thought you said she didn't want a war?"

"No! No war
." Aleena shook her head. "I meant regarding the miners and trade."

Tristam nodded. "I can see some benefit," he admitted. "And if she plans to sell her ore
, she'll need to go through Highpeak."

"She might secure a port through the northlands," Celos said. "Or even the dwarven mines to the east. She claims she will work with them."

"I don't see Highpeak's miners working alongside goblins and ogres," Tristam added. "These are the creatures that they fought just last year."

Aleena chewed on her lip as she considered the problem. "The kelgryn and kingdom have not always been at peace. Yet during the troubles at Highpeak
, Jarl Teorfyr marched with an army to come to our aid."

"It helped that we saved his daughter
." Tristam chuckled. "And that she fell in love with Alto. Saints know what she sees in the boy!"

Celos chuckled at Tristam's joke but Aleena frowned. Tristam looked at her and his smile faded. "Oh, um, sorry. I forgot who you were. Or at least where you came from."

Aleena shook her head. "I owe my life to Alto. I am who I am because of his influence on me. He believed in me and told me I could do anything. But it was up to me to prove it."

Tristam cleared his throat and glanced at the reports in front of him. He sighed. "So she wants to talk. That should be exciting. Not willing to come here
, though?"

"No, she's too busy building her kingdom," Celos said. "She doesn't even have a proper town yet."

"Who's building it?" Tristam asked, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"Ogres and goblins."

Tristam chuckled. "I trust the two of you. Not because you're knights of Leander and all that. I trust you because I've played cards with you, Celos, and you can't lie worth a damn. Aleena, I've watched you blossom over the last few years and I knew you when you were watering down ale and serving it at a premium."

"I never—"

Tristam waved her protest away. "Tell me, is this woman the real thing? Is she going to stick, or is she up to something else?"

"Something else?" Aleena asked. "Like what?"

"I don't know. I'm just a man paid to do what he's told and to make others do as I tell them."

Aleena snorted. "Alto told me once that one of the reasons he trusted you was because you weren't like that. You were a thinking man
and you valued that most in others."

Tristam chuckled and said, "So think, damn you. What could a lone woman possibly want living in mountains as harsh and unfriendly as the Northern Divide?"

Aleena and Celos looked at each other. This time, Celos spoke first. "She claims she wants to create a realm where a person is judged by their merit, not their race or gender."

"So she picks a place filled with creatures that are known for violence against humans," Tristam stated.

"Yes, but they are also a tolerant people," Aleena argued. Both men stared at her with a look on their faces that suggested she'd just hit them with an iron skillet. "Ogres, goblins, giants, trolls, and other races living together. They are violent, yes, but that was how they were taught to live. With a different teacher, perhaps they can change."