The Talented Read online

  But if they left now, there would not be time to make careful plans for how to take back the village. Adrienne’s blood sang for her to act, but years of study had taught her that battles were won by strategy as often as by strength.

  Ricco must have read Adrienne’s expression and her intention to wait and plan, for he put a restraining hand on her arm. “Ade, what they’re doing in there…” he trailed off helplessly.

  Adrienne studied Ricco’s eyes, so dark they were nearly black, and saw the reflection of the brigands’ cruelty etched into the dark orbs. Waiting even a few hours would subject the people of Pelarion to more of the harsh treatment from the lawless men. Pain and death always played a part when villages such as Pelarion were assaulted, and Adrienne knew that the longer they waited, the more likely it was that villagers would be hurt and killed to entertain those who had taken Pelarion.

  “We’ll move now,” Adrienne said decisively.

  The flat plains that dominated this part of Samaro made it impossible to sneak up to Pelarion on horseback, so they picketed their horses in a grove as close to the village as they dared ride. The two hour march to Pelarion allowed Adrienne to consider and reject half a dozen plans. Ricco had been able to sneak up to the very edge of the village and observe what was happening. Although a few of the twenty-some men who had invaded the formerly peaceful village stood guard, most were enjoying the opportunities a village like Pelarion presented. There was food and drink aplenty, and women to be made sport of.

  “We’ll enter in groups of three,” Adrienne said, “and encircle the village. We’ll come in from different sides and keep the marauders from forming a unified defense.”

  Adrienne outlined the basic plan as they walked, splitting them into groups of three and one group of two. She, Ricco, and Rosch would approach on the main road, drawing attention away from the groups that would be sneaking in from the sides. When they got within sight of Pelarion, the groups split up, and Adrienne led her group brashly down the road.

  Five men were waiting for them when they arrived at the village, and from the leers on their faces when they caught sight of Adrienne garbed in her tight leather swa’il, she did not need to guess if they were some of the men who had invaded Pelarion.

  “They’re armed,” one of older men guarding the town cautioned, looking over the swords Adrienne, Ricco, and Rosch all wore sheathed at their sides. He seemed to be the leader of the small group, and intelligent enough to know that three armed people arriving at the village less than a week after it was taken was not mere coincidence. “No telling if they’re alone or not. Take care of them, and warn the other men.”

  Adrienne and Ricco gave the men no chance to do either. They sprang into action, leaping forward. Rosch joined the fight a moment later, when one of the men darted past Adrienne to engage him.

  Rosch’s moves lacked the grace of Adrienne’s or the brutal strength of Ricco’s, but all of the practice accumulated in the past months made him more than equal to the talents of the outlaw he was fighting. He fought the man with skill, blocking and parrying with his sword. He tried out one of the riskier maneuvers Adrienne had taught him, but when the brigand evaded it and came back with a powerful blow Rosch lost his grip on his sword.

  The sword went spinning out of his hand, and when his opponent swung his sword at Rosch’s head, Rosch did the only thing he could: he dove and rolled.

  Rosch got quickly to his feet behind the man, and in a move Adrienne had had him practice over and over, he kicked the man’s feet out from under him, buying Rosch enough time to recover his sword.

  They resumed the fight on equal ground, sword-for-sword, parry-for-parry.

  Rosch’s moves came faster and faster, pushing his opponent back. A strong slash drove the outlaw’s sword up and out with no time to block, and Rosch drove his sword into the man’s gut, stealing his life with one brutal stab.

  Rosch stared down at the fallen man, unaware of Adrienne’s presence until she laid a gloved hand on his shoulder. “You did what you had to do, Jeral,” Adrienne told him, not noticing that she had used his first name for the first time. Her grip tightened. “But there is more to be done.”

  The soldiers, led by Adrienne, reclaimed Pelarion with minimal injuries incurred. Ricco had received a shallow cut on one of his arms while fighting the two men who had targeted him, but it was only one mark amid dozens of other, older scars his skin bore. Another of the Kyrogeans had twisted an ankle in a bad roll, but otherwise the group Adrienne had led to Pelarion was unharmed.

  One of the brigands had been captured during the attack and would be left to the justice of Pelarion. Adrienne doubted that he would long outlive his former companions.

  “Do we leave now?” Jeral asked Adrienne. The destruction of the village, the dead bodies of outlaws and civilians, the devastated women, the wide-eyed children, made him sick, and he longed for the familiar sights of Kyrog.

  Adrienne shook her head. “We will stay and help them with what we can,” she told the Yearling. She too had a heavy feeling in her stomach when she looked out at the village, and knew their job was not yet done. The hardest part, dealing with the survivors, had just begun.

  No soldiers had been here to stop the brigands before they had invaded the peaceful village, raping and destroying as they went. Now it would be up to soldiers to do what they could for those left behind. There was little Adrienne could do to help with their emotional losses. Growing up amongst soldiers had not taught her the platitudes other women might use to help soften the brutal punch of grief. But she could do other things.

  The next three days were spent repairing houses and digging graves. Adrienne enjoyed the physical labor of repairing roofs and walls damaged by fire. The outlaws had set fire to many of the homes and stables to show the villagers how helpless they were. Adrienne felt good helping to right those wrongs.

  It was the digging of graves that filled her with helpless rage. That Kyrog could be located so close to Pelarion and other villages, yet leave those villages completely defenseless and open to such senseless cruelty was hard to bear.

  Adrienne and Ricco had just finished digging a new grave when the villagers came to the graveyard bearing an open coffin. In it lay a fresh-faced girl of no more than thirteen, her innocent beauty marred only by a scrape on her cheek. Whatever horror had taken place before her life ended was not evidenced by more than that scrape on a face gone smooth and calm with death. Her long black hair had been lovingly washed and combed, and Adrienne had to force herself to watch as a lid was nailed to the top of the box and the girl placed into the ground.

  Adrienne could hear the story of the girl’s life in the wails of the mourners. The girl had been innocent and brilliantly alive before the raiders had come, and now she had been brutalized and killed for nothing but sport.

  Adrienne wanted to go back in time and stop the raiders before they had stolen the life of that innocent girl. She wanted to comfort the mother who had lost her daughter in such a horrible way. She could do neither.

  She knew that most people pictured Almet when they thought of soldiers and fighting. The constant battling on the border, waxing and waning but never ceasing, made the threat from Almet obvious. Adrienne herself felt called to go to the lines and fight the Almetian forces, and knew that one day she would likely do just that.

  But here, in Pelarion, as she watched dirt cover the box that held the body of the young girl, Adrienne knew that the enemy was not limited to Almet. The countryside itself had enough dangers to occupy Samaroan soldiers for a lifetime.

  Ricco came up to her and lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We got here as soon as we could.”

  “Not soon enough.”

  “This isn’t a story, and you are not Almyria. No one expects you to raise the dead.”

  “Almyria didn’t raise the dead,” Adrienne said, thinking of the mythical healer. “She got there in time to save the living.”

  When Adrienne and her men had done
what they could to rebuild and restore a sense of safety to the village, she knew it was time to leave. Though soldiers in Pelarion would provide safety, they would also be a constant reminder of what had happened there. They needed to leave and hope that the losses Pelarion had suffered would heal into a scar instead of remaining an open wound and festering.

  Ricco and the others were able to laugh on the way home, but Adrienne could not forget the girl who had died before they could get to her, and Jeral too was subdued. He had taken his first life, and Adrienne knew that nothing would ever be quite the same for the young soldier.

  “Ricco,” she called when they were a half hour’s ride from Pelarion.

  “Ya?” He trotted his gelding up next to hers.

  “Lord Neecham’s keep is a week’s ride from here.”

  “Closer to two,” Ricco said. “What of it?”

  “I was thinking that Rosch and I would go there. No one from Pelarion reported to him about the attack, and it has been awhile since anyone from Kyrog reported to him in person.”

  “Shouldn’t you talk to Captain Garrett before you go visit Lord Neecham? He is the captain?”

  Adrienne thought for a minute, and then dismissed the notion. “Neecham should know about Pelarion,” she insisted. “You can take the men back to Kyrog and tell the captain what Jeral and I are doing.”

  Ricco didn’t look happy about that. “Thinking of dragging me into the trouble with you? Why not take me with instead of Rosch; at least I’d be able to postpone my flogging until after we got back.”

  “No one is getting flogged. Go back to Kyrog. If any lumps need to be taken, I’ll take them.”

  “I’ll remind you of that when you get back to Kyrog.”

  ••••••

  The ride from Pelarion to Red Ridge Keep was interesting for both Adrienne and Jeral. Whatever Jeral had thought he might feel after the first time he killed a man, Adrienne knew the reality would be different. It would take time for Jeral to reconcile causing a death, and the reality that he would do so again.

  “It gets easier, Jeral,” Adrienne said.

  “Is that supposed to be a good thing?” Jeral’s tone was bitter and angry.

  “You chose to be a soldier,” Adrienne said sharply. “It was not forced upon you.”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “You didn’t think killing someone would feel bad? Did you think it would be easy? I gave you the skills, but I can’t give you what it takes to be able to take a life and live with it.”

  “How do you?”

  Adrienne stared off down the road for long enough that Jeral thought she wouldn’t answer, but finally she sighed and turned her head to look at him. “I was raised for this. Being a soldier was forced upon me. While your mother was singing you to sleep, I was listening to stories of battle. While you were shoveling muck from stalls, I was cleaning blood from armor. I always knew what being a soldier meant.”

  “How old—”

  “I went to my first camp when I was four,” Adrienne answered curtly. “That’s how long I’ve been a soldier.” She kicked her horse to a faster pace, knowing that was not the question Jeral had asked, but not wanting to answer.

  ••••••

  “I was not expecting visitors from Kyrog.”

  “Excuse us, my lord. I hope that we are not intruding,” Adrienne replied formally.

  Lord Neecham laughed; a warm, rich sound that seemed a perfect fit for the lord of Red Ridge. He was a man well into his middle years, but still hale by all appearances. His wavy black hair, which he wore down to his shoulders, was receding slightly, and he was closer to having two chins than one, but his eyes were sharply intelligent, and his smile seemed genuine. “Of course not. I’ve been meaning to send someone to Kyrog for weeks now. How is the camp?”

  Adrienne shifted her weight, a rare show of discomfort. “I can give you my opinions—which are positive—but I was not sent here by Captain Garrett.”

  Neecham’s brow crinkled. “Is something wrong with Garrett? I got a letter from him not long ago.”

  “No, sir. Captain Garrett and the camp are fine. I came here because the village of Pelarion was attacked a couple of weeks ago. I led the party that cleaned it up.”

  “‘Cleaned it up.’ That phrase sounds so tidy for such an unsavory matter.”

  “Lord—”

  Lord Neecham held up his hand. “I have shown a lack of hospitality that would shame my lady mother were she to see me now.” He grinned boyishly. “I will have rooms and baths made up for you, Adrienne, and—gah, I didn’t even get his name.”

  “Jeral Rosch, sir,” Jeral supplied.

  “Jeral. Jeral. Well then, Jeral, you and Adrienne can go freshen up and then join me for supper. We will talk about Pelarion and Kyrog then, yes?”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Jeral said brightly.

  “Thank you, my lord,” Adrienne said with more dignity.

  “I will have servants show you to your rooms and fetch you back for supper.”

  Over a feast of grouse, roasted antelope, fresh baked bread, and a selection of fruits and vegetables such as Adrienne had never seen, she and Jeral filled the lord of Red Ridge Keep in on what had happened to Pelarion.

  “I did not realize that there were brigands this close to the keep,” Neecham said, “and even closer to Kyrog.”

  “I don’t remember them ever striking so close before,” Adrienne agreed.

  “You have not been at Kyrog long, not in the grand scheme of things. When my father was a boy, a large group of raiders—there must have been a hundred at least—came to the keep direct. The guard here was not so big then, maybe half the size it is now. They held though, for the three weeks it took soldiers from Kyrog to get here and save the keep.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You wouldn’t. Your parents would not even have been born at the time, and although it was a terrifying three weeks for those here, the rescue mission to Red Ridge was not one for the legends of Kyrog. I expect it was a rather dull affair, all things considered. There is no reason for it to still be told after such a long time.”

  Adrienne did not know what to say to that, so she said nothing. Jeral had spoken often at the beginning of the meal, but after repeated kicks from Adrienne, he had finally stopped speaking out of turn.

  “But that moment, when Kyrog came to the aid of Red Ridge, was the turning point for that particular camp,” Lord Neecham reminisced. “It was not nearly so well-funded then. My great-grandfather, and his father before him, had always given Kyrog a stipend, but not a fraction of what my grandfather and father ended up giving. What I give. Kyrog was a small camp, though well disciplined even before the attack on Red Ridge, and it relied greatly on trade and payments for services to stay functioning.”

  “Payments for services?” Adrienne asked.

  Neecham smiled. “When brigands are plentiful and funding is not, it is not unheard of for camps that ‘saved’ a village to demand payment of some sort afterwards.”

  “That happened at Kyrog?” Adrienne was horrified at the very idea. She could not imagine asking anyone at Pelarion to pay her after what had just happened.

  “Yes. Before Red Ridge began funding the camp, there was no other way to support the soldiers. Having a camp that was more mercenary than army was better than having no camp at all, but for a while there was resentment and even fear between civilians and soldiers. It has faded now, as memories do, but it was real for a time.”

  “I have never heard any of this,” Adrienne said. “And all camps did this?” She wondered why Karse had never told her. Surely someone as interested in history as he would have known.

  “I can’t know for sure that every camp had the same practices, but to the best of my knowledge Kyrog was—if anything—less mercenary than the others.”

  “But it is still kept a secret,” Adrienne argued, unsettled that the camp she proudly called hers had such an unsavory history.

>   “Not a secret, but not something that is advertised. People need to trust soldiers, not fear them. Or worse, consider them on the same level as bandits who demand ‘protection money’ and attack the villages themselves if they are not paid.” Neecham took another sip of palm wine. “As well-funded camps like Kyrog and Roua,” he tipped his head to Jeral, “grew, the smaller, more mercenary camps disbanded. The soldiers that remain in Samaro are loyal to the country…or as loyal as the lords who fund them…and nothing will be gained by stirring up old memories.”

  “Why do we have separate armies?” Jeral asked. Evidently Adrienne’s warning kicks had a limited effectiveness. “Why not just one?”

  “Just one like Almet does?” Lord Neecham seemed amused. “It is one of the things that I asked my father about.”

  “And?”

  “And I never got a satisfactory answer. Almet stayed strong despite the war not coming to an end. It had strong rulers, and did not splinter.”

  “And Samaro did?” Jeral asked.

  Lord Neecham smiled and gave a lazy shrug. “King Burin is my sovereign leader,” he said easily. “Who am I to naysay his rule?”

  Adrienne hardly heard the rest of their conversation. Something they had said had sparked a memory. She couldn’t place why their conversation would bring up such a memory, but she remembered suddenly the Old Samaroan text she had seen in Captain Garrett’s office months ago. In her upset, she had not wondered why Garrett, who could not read Old Samaroan, would have the original text out if he had a translation.

  And if he needed to check something, why wouldn’t he come to her with it? It would hardly be the first time she had served as a translator when dealing with old documents.

  And why would Captain Garrett, so stolid and dependable, have in his possession a piece of writing about necromancers?