Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles) (40 page)

             
“War’s beard,” Xinto swore. They were going to engage it, and they thought with twelve they had enough. They didn’t know Swamp Devils.

             
“Wait here,” Xinto commanded Jack and Raven, who as like would have done nothing else. He adjusted his overcloak and trotted out after the Men. If they were willing to die, he might as well use the opportunity to put an arrow in this thing’s eye, if it presented itself.

             
The Devil didn’t say another word, and Xinto didn’t see it where it had been last. Challenged, it would fight, Xinto knew, and it was cunning enough not to give its position away. Swamp Devils are ambush hunters and it would press its body to the ground and wait until an enemy was almost upon it, then rise up bellowing and strike.

             
The Men pressed forward. Xinto could see that Jahunga and Jerod wanted to draw the thing out and let the other warriors flank it. They counted on their superior fighting ability to be able to hold the monster long enough for the Toorians to put a few spears in its back.

             
But those spears were metal-tipped and most metal weapons would bounce off a Devil’s hide. Their swords would likely be no different. If a person could penetrate an ear, or an eye, or the mouth, then one could damage a Devil, but then, the Devil knew this, too.

             
The night fell deadly quiet. Xinto could hear the Men’s feet shuffling in the loose earth and scrub. He could smell the swamp stink off of the Devil and, to his west, that of the Slee, who was closing in like he was. Slurn had also likely guessed what the Men were doing and would wait for them to entangle the Devil, then strike.

             
His mind racing, Xinto waited for the explosion of violence that a mixture of these three species was guaranteed to deliver.

             
A moment later a roar like an angry lion’s ripped the night and the Devil rose up before the four Men moving south, his red teeth and eyes gleaming in the moonlight, his arms spread wide and his talons bared. His muscles stood out gleaming and black. The thing’s long, black hair almost touched the ground behind it, waving to the left and the right as it slashed with one claw, then the next at the surprised Men.

             
It wore a steel breastplate. Xinto stood stunned for a moment. He knew this Swamp Devil—he knew it well.

             
The two Toorian warriors drove forward with their spears, stabbing for the legs and groin, trying to avoid the claws. The Swamp Devil stood nine feet tall and his arms reached over five—he caught one Toorian on his right along the side of the face and peeled the skin and flesh away from his skull. The Toorian fell screaming, a hideous site out of nightmare, one eye gone and the other exposed in the socket, the jaw bone visible all the way around as choking voice screamed and teeth chattered.

             
Jahunga leapt forward, driving his spear two-handed at the monster’s throat. Jerod swung his sword in a great arc and connected with the Devil’s thigh, his steel sword clanging against Swamp Devil hide. Toorians charged in from the southeast and southwest, driving their spears like battering-rams toward the Swamp Devil’s exposed back.

             
For any other creature it would have been a slaughter. The Swamp Devil back-handed the Volkhydran, then dragged his left claw down the front of the Toorian beside him. Jahunga stabbed again and his spear snapped as the head connected with the Devil’s breastplate. Seven Toorians stabbed again from behind, their steel spear points clanking against Swamp Devil skin and steel breastplate as the creature raised two giant claws into the air and, screaming his rage, drove them toward the helpless Toorian.

             
Like a green blur, the Slee sprinted in and tackled Jahunga from the side, driving him out of the way of the claws that dragged two divots into the ground. The Devil roared in anger and stood up to his full height, dirt clods dripping from his claws, looking for an enemy to kill.

             
“Hey!” a woman’s voice called out behind them. The Devil turned to see who called him out. Xinto dreaded it. Sure enough, putting herself in front of the fire, there was little Raven, the night breeze catching the tails of her Andaran raider’s jacket, drawing the monster’s attention.

             
“Mel—Raven, no!” Jack shouted. He’d moved next to Glynn for some reason and was now sprinting ‘round their fire. Raven stood there, fifty feet from the Swamp Devil with nothing between them, not knowing he could cross that distance in a breath of time.

             
She jabbed her outstretched palm at the Swamp Devil and shouted, “Feel my power!”

             
For just a second, Xinto wondered if the girl had been hiding some sort of magical talent. Swamp Devils could be deceptively gifted spell-casters, and Xinto knew this one certainly was. The creature threw up his hands in front of his face as if to block some bolt of energy then, realizing nothing was coming his way, dropped his left hand and took a step forward.

             
“Feel mine, daughter of Men,” it snarled in that same, gravelly voice, and pointed the claws on his right hand at the girl. Green energy crackled in the air around his fingertips, then flew in a long, emerald arc toward Raven.

             
She stood her ground. The energy almost touched her.

             
Then, seconds before Jack could knock her out of the way, there was a bright flash and the Devil roared in pain. The creature actually flipped over backwards, his clawed feet rising higher than his head for a moment, as the back-surge from the attack struck him no differently than it had Glynn weeks before, and the Swamp Devil crashed into the ground.

             
A moment later a satisfied-looking Raven did the same as her overweight lover leapt for her. Xinto saw her body shimmer for a moment as the two of them fell in a tangle in the dirt.

             
The screaming Toorian stopped screaming as the goddess Life left him. His compatriots and Jerod slowly approached the Devil as it lay unconscious on the ground, its head turned to one side, its forked black tongue lolling from its open mouth. Slurn and Jahunga stood together from a tangle in the scrub.

             
“Well, I guess now that would be something,” Xinto said to no one in particular.

             
* * *

             
Part of the training necessary for the Emperor’s children was to watch their father in court. Lee at nearly fourteen and Vulpe at nearly twelve both hated it. They sat in the gallery on hard wooden benches and kicked their feet and scuffed their shoes, complained the court was boring and that the petitioners made no sense, and eventually got to noticing that their bottoms hurt.

             
Stern looks from Nina of the Aschire were usually sufficient to quell them if court ran less than three hours. More than that and threats could buy her another hour, and finally actual, physical harm to these children whom she loved as if she’d born them could keep them for another two.

             
She wasn’t above a slap to an over-used mouth to quell a petulant child, much as if any, other than then Imperial couple, did the same in her presence she wouldn’t hesitate to leave in a dagger in that person’s heart. It was Nina’s job to ward these children’s lives and she took it seriously.

             
She loved them. She’d make future Eldadorian statesmen out of both of them, given the opportunity. That was sometimes funny to her, who’d grown up living in a tree.

             
“We call Nina of the Aschire,” the court squire announced.

             
Nina looked up in surprise. She’d been called up to court twice in her entire life—once to officially bestow upon her the title of guardian of the Emperor’s children, and once on her birthday when she’d been presented with four dwarf-made daggers the Emperor had ordered for her, because he loved her.

             
She stood, she straightened her skin-tight leather pants and black leather vest, she shot a warning look both at the children and those around them, and she left the gallery for the long, red carpet that ran from the wooden double-doors to the throne room, to the raised dais where the white marble throne of Eldador held the Emperor, Rancor Mordetur the First.

             
She walked to the circle carved in the stone floor at the end of the red carpet. She stepped into that circle, her heart pounding, and she tilted her head back, her long, purple hair cascading back over her shoulders, and her eyes found those of the Emperor.

             
They hadn’t spoken since she’d defied him, since he’d struck her and she’d pulled her knife on him, and raised her hand in Power to him. He’d been busy, first with his lost daughter, then with finding his lost countrymen. Still, it was the longest week in her twelve years at court, where she’d gone without a word from him.

             
She readied herself for the worst. She failed him. This was it. She was being sent back to the Aschire.

             
“Nina of the Aschire,” the Emperor said in Uman, the language of the Eldadorian court.

             
He waited. She just stared into his blue, blue eyes. His lips were set in a thin line, his face dour, accentuated by the scar on the left side, the Mark of the Conqueror.

             
“Come to me,” he said.

             
He’d never done this. She took a step toward the throne. It was like being lost in a foggy field in the morning. Her feet found the way for her, up the steps, balancing on the balls of her feet, looking him in the eyes, his face all she seemed able to see.

             
She’s miss those children. She’d miss the Empress, almost a sister to her.

             
She admitted to herself she loved this man. He’d been more of a father to her than her own.

             
Finally she stood before the throne. Still, she hadn’t said a word.

             
“Clear the court,” the Emperor ordered.

             
She heard the commotion behind her as people stood and shuffled out. She wondered if the children remained. She wondered who’d watch over them. As shuffling feet found their way farther and farther behind her, she wondered what kind of man Vulpe would become. Would Lee be a mother? Would she herself be one now? Who among the Aschire would want her?

             
The throne room fell silent. The Emperor stood to his towering height. The only other Man she’d ever seen who approximated his size was this new countryman of his, and that man was gone.

             
“Nina,” he said, finally, “I need you.”

             
“M—my Lord?” she asked him. This made no sense.

             
“I don’t think the Mountain and Raven are coming back,” he said. “And I don’t trust that Uman-Chi whore as far as I—well, I don’t trust her.”

             
She looked down, then looked back up. “I,” she said, and swallowed. “I don’t trust her, either.”

             
“I want you to take twenty Wolf Soldiers and find them,” he said. “I know you haven’t done anything like this before, but I think it needs to be you. You have magic, so you can communicate back to us, and you can counter Glynn if you need to.

             
“But I want to send someone who’ll do it right, someone I can trust,” he said. He reached out and he took Nina’s hands in his, and he looked into her grey eyes with his blue ones.

             
“I think you’re ready for this,” he said. “Will you go find them for me and, if you can, bring them back?”

             
Someone I can trust. The words ran over and over in her mind.

             
He still loved her. He wasn’t sending her away; he was trusting her on a mission.

             
Almost before she realized it, she had her arms around his neck and her feet off of the ground. She heard his deep chuckle and felt his arm around her waist. For a moment she was the little, lost girl on her first night here, with him holding her until she fell asleep in his arms.

             
“I’ll do it,” she whispered into his ear. “I’ll do it for you.”

Chapter Twenty-Two:

              Missions and Contracts

Zarshar the Swamp Devil awoke with the sun shining in his eyes, trussed up on the ground with his face in the dust, a p
air of feet in front of him. He instinctively lashed out and found his arms bound behind him, bent backwards to prevent him from struggling against the ropes they’d used. If he flexed hard enough, he’d break his bones before he broke the ropes.

He lurched to one side in order to leap to his feet, and was rewarded with a painful tug on his hair that bent his neck back.
They’d woven rope into his long, black mane and then bent his legs back and bound them together and to his hair. If he fought to straighten them, he’d snap his neck before he was free.

Something wanted him for a prisoner.
He remembered coming across this strange band—Men, a Scitai, an Uman-Chi caster, female, no less. They rode horses and walked, and were moving in the direction of Kor.

They looked like fugitives, and fugitives are always easy prey.
Well, almost always.

He turned his head in the dust and looked skyward to see the owner of these feet, and saw none other than Xinto of the Woods, the Confluni Ambassador
he’d met years before.

“Hello, rat,” he said to it.

It smiled wide and bowed, the ridiculous orange feather in its ridiculous hat touching the ground before it.

“I knew I should have eaten you,” Zarshar said.

“My friends,” Xinto said, “I introduce you to Zarshar, the Black Adept, one of the most feared of the Swamp Devils.”

“I know of Zarshar,” someone with a Toorian accent said behind him.
“He’s killed many.”

“I’m not done yet,” Zarshar promised him.

“You may be,” Xinto said.
“I’m going to introduce you to a Lady, a Baroness in Eldador and a Duchess in Trenbon, and she’s going to sing you a song. I’d like to know your opinion of it.”

Zarshar chuckled.
“Then untie me,” he said. “I like songs.”

“You like nothing but other beings’ suffering,” Xinto challenged him.
Behind him, the green-haired Uman-Chi in a blue travel dress stepped up with her hands clasped before her, at her waist. “And I’m not foolish enough to untie you.”

“So sing,” Zarshar said.
If they wanted his opinion, they wanted him alive. If they wanted him alive, he’d escape.

His own kind would be scooping his heart of out his chest by now to ingest his courage.

The girl sang, her eyes always on him. Other races supposedly only saw silver when they looked into Uman-Chi eyes. He saw hers were an off-violet at the cornea; rare among her people.

At first he was surprised she’d bother to sing this song in his own language, seeing as he clearly spoke the languages of Uman and Men.
Next he was a little interested in the story of the song, the combat, the champion, the idea of weapons—all were good to a Swamp Devil.

Then he heard of ‘a Devil, born and raised,” and his mind stuck on that.

They thought this song was about him—about them meeting him. Zarshar’s magic wasn’t great but he sensed the power in the song. They thought this was a prophecy, and they thought he figured in it.

Other races were so stupid, most of the time.
He’d enjoy pretending to play along with them and then betraying them.

“Very well,” the Swamp Devil said,
a moment after the song ended. “You need a Devil to guide you to a sacred place. You think that providence has brought me to you. Where’s the place?”

“More than providence, Sirrah,” the Uman-Chi informed him.
“Fate, destiny, a purpose divine. Your very essence has brought you to us—”

“We don’t know the place,” Xinto said, interrupting her.

Zarshar grinned a wide, evil grin. Uman-Chi hated being interrupted, even when they go on and on. He could see the anger in the girl’s eyes. He liked that.

“Well, I don’t know it,” he said.
“But, I suppose if you untie me, then I’ll have to help you find it. The song is a spell and now I’m compelled to obey you.”

Xinto chuckled.
“You’re not even trying,” he said.

Zarshar grinned even wider.
Of course they weren’t going to believe him, so why waste time with a good lie? Use up the predictable lies now, and then come up with something good later.

He’d tried that with this one before.
The Confluni had wanted the Swamp Devils to swarm up into Angador as they attacked Thera for the second time. Xinto had come with the gift of this very breast plate to bribe him to collect the hundred other Swamp Devils who’d sworn fealty to him and catch Lupus the Conqueror on his softer side.

Zarshar had negotiated for five hundred Confluni archers, marched north with them, set upon the Angadorians and abandoned them to Tartan Stowe.
He’d learned a lot about Eldadorian defenses watching them die. He knew he’d need even more Swamp Devils before he actually
did
take the south of Eldador.

“What do you think you have, that I want?” Zarshar asked Xinto.

“I have your life in my hands,” he said, holding his palms up before him. He clapped them together, and added, “And I can take it.”

“So take it,” Zarshar said.
“Everything dies eventually.”

They wanted him alive.
They’d talk and talk. Eventually they’d start to concede things to him, looking for something he wanted or would trade for his freedom. Zarshar knew these weaknesses. He could exploit them with patience.

Xinto turned to the Uman-Chi, who stepped forward to begin negotiations.

At the same time, a male of the race of Men stepped over him and placed himself between Zarshar and the negotiators. He turned, and the Swamp Devil saw the grey in his beard, the fat on his belly. He stood taller than most Men, but he was old.

“This is pointless,” the old Man said.

“Sirrah,” the Uman-Chi sighed, but the old Man held up his hand.

“I am called, ‘Jack,’” the old Man said.

“Good for you,” Zarshar growled.

“Jack,” the Uman-Chi said, stepping up next to him, “the Swamp Devils are a cunning race
—I think you’d do best to allow the Ambassador and myself to negotiate here.”

Jack made a strange face and shot a glance at the Uman-Chi as if she were crazy.
This was interesting.

“Can you think of anything in your song that says this Devil can’t be scarred, crippled, maybe missing its teeth or an eye?” he asked the Uman-Chi.

The Uman-Chi frowned but didn’t answer.

“Thought not,” he said.
He looked past Zarshar and said, “Come here, Slurn.”

A Slee leapt over his shoulder, turned and hissed at him, its tail waving behind him, its claws bared.

Zarshar instinctively roared and tried to leap to the attack. He failed—the bindings that held his arms and legs and hair simply wrenched at his bones. He tried to invoke his magic but it failed him.

What had these things done to him?
He wondered.

“Slurn,” Jack asked the Slee, “how would you like to show this Swamp Devil what you think of him?”

The Slee hissed appreciatively. It gripped the air with its long, white claws and took a step toward Zarshar.

The Black Adept was no coward, but certain indignities could not be suffered.
He wouldn’t let his body be the play-thing of a Slee.

“Enough!” he demanded.
He turned his red eyes to the Man. “What do you want?”

Jack shrugged.
“What can you give me?”

Zarshar could appreciate this
—put the onus of a deal on the one in the weaker position.

“I will swear not to harm you, or yours,” he said.
“Unless of course you first harm me, in which case all deals are void.”

“Nah,” Jack said.
“That’s too convenient. You’ll just swear to that and leave.”

Zarshar couldn’t hold back a wicked grin.
Yes, that is what he would have done.

“I will travel with you to this sacred place, as well,” he said.

“You’ll travel with us to this sacred place,” Jack repeated, "and you will not harm us, or lead us into harm, or contract with others to harm us
and
if we are attacked, you will defend us to the best of your abilities.”

“Unless you first harm me
—” Zarshar repeated.

“Unless we
intentionally
try to harm you,” Jack corrected him.

The Swamp Devil sighed.
The Uman-Chi and Xinto were looking on curiously now. He could have negotiated a better deal with these. Men could be cunning, but this one seemed quite smart, and that made the dealing harder.

“Agreed,” Zarshar growled.

“This to include our horses, or any other animals or other persons which we may need to join our group,” Jack said.

Blast!
Zarshar swore in his mind. He’d just realized he could attack the horses and goad at least one of them into fighting.

“Agreed,” Zarshar growled again.

“And afterward,” Jack continued, “you will leave us, and never come looking for us, or come seek any of us out to harm us.”

This thing’s negotiating skills were maddening.
Yes, Zarshar would try to get them to harm him in some way but, that failing, the moment they achieved their ‘sacred place,’ he could have fallen on them.

“Agreed,” Zarshar growled.

“Everyone in front of him,” the old Man commanded the rest.

“Sirrah,” the Uman-Chi began.

He turned to her and said, “Otherwise he’s going to say, ‘I didn’t know
that one
was a part of your group’ after he beheads one of us.”

The Uman-Chi looked to the Scitai, who nodded.
As a group they lined up where he could see them, including their horses.

“Now swear it all, at the same time,” Jack instructed him.

They had him. For a moment he thought it might be better just to kick his own legs out and break his neck, but that would be admitting someone from the race of Men had bested him, and that was almost as bad as being torn apart by the Slee.

He swore.

“Happy, lummox?” Xinto chided him.

“No, but I can live with it,” Jack said.
“Untie him.”

“With your permission, of course,” Xinto inclined his head.
Jahunga ordered his men to approach him, and Zarshar had to wait for the hour it took to release him.

In that time, the large man left with
a Volkhydran. As his legs were being unbound, they returned with a raw haunch, large enough to be from a stag or a young horse.

“Feed,” the Volkhydran,
Jerod, said, and tossed it on the ground before him.

“You are kind,” Zarshar inclined his head.

“Thank this one,” Jerod corrected him. “He said you were going to tell us you had hunger pains, it was our fault, and then attack us.”

Jack smiled a satisfied smile.
Xinto rolled his eyes. A dark female in Andaran clothes walked up to this ‘Jack’ and kissed his cheek, bending her left leg at the knee as she stretched to his height. She perhaps enjoyed him—it was impossible to say.

Zarshar hadn’t thought of that, but he would have.
Hunger would have pained him, and he would have struck without explanation. He could not claim now their causing him the pain of hunger was intentional. Power was not so naïve a god.

“You vex me, Man,” he said to Jack.
“I like you, but I assure you that, when the time comes, you will be the first to die.”

This Jack didn’t seem scared, but the female clearly felt threatened.
“You can’t tell me—” Xinto began.

The last
knot came untied, and Zarshar leapt to his feet as fast as any of them could follow. Slurn had his spear in place as quickly, the Toorians only slightly slower. The dark-haired female gripped Jack’s belly and the Uman-Chi raised a hand white with power.

Zarshar had the Scitai in his grip in one sweep of his hand.
Xinto’s head emerged from his thumb and forefinger, his legs kicked free past the heel of his hand, as Zarshar lifted Xinto from the ground.

“Rest assured, I would have marched to
your picket and killed every horse you own,” he said. “I would have forced you either to attack me or watch them die horribly.

“Your Man is someone you are wise to listen to.
He knows my mind, and I do
not
like to be bound.”

He expected the usual complaints of Men, the irritating reasoning of Uman-Chi, the Slee to threaten and the Toorians to argue to attack him
—which he would have considered an assault.