Heroes' Reward (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Once it was
dark, twenty soldiers lined up and half a dozen casters prepared to make them
unseeable.

One of the
soldiers was Risa. I trotted over to her before one of the other casters could
work on her. “I’m sorry you were ordered to do this,” I whispered.

She grinned. “I
volunteered. All of us did.”

“Oh. I thought
this stunt would be particularly dangerous.”

She shrugged.
“Maybe it is. I just love the idea of walking into their camp, causing chaos,
and walking out with no one knowing what is going on.”

Causing chaos
was a pleasant, if unconvincing, euphemism for killing people. “Why are you
wearing one of Gifford’s uniforms?”

She wasn’t the
only one. All of the members of the party were wearing the Imperial
breastplate, cape, and trousers.

“In case your
cast fails for some reason. If they can see us, we want them to think they’re
being attacked by their own people. Add to the confusion.”

I assumed the
uniforms had been taken from Gifford’s dead. Just another disturbing element to
this whole affair.

But the only
thing I said was, “Good luck,” before casting the spell.

Risa and her
cohorts weren’t the only soldiers present. There were two dozen others to help
fight off any of Gifford’s people, should they follow ours back to us. There
were casters and healers and Pairs, including the Premier Pair and Taro and me.

Then Aryne just
showed up out of nowhere, Druce silently following behind, looking more than a
little beleaguered.

“Your presence
isn’t needed,” Sato informed them.

“I disagree,”
Aryne said formally.

“You can’t cast,
heal, or channel effectively.”

Well, that was
brutal. True, though.

“That doesn’t
mean I’m useless.”

“We can’t have
anyone distracted because they’re trying to watch over you.”

“Then it’s a
good thing I can take care of myself.”

The Commissioner
gave her a look, then rolled his eyes and said to Sato, “I recommend we get
started.”

In other words,
Aryne’s presence or absence was relatively unimportant. Aryne knew this was
what he meant, of course. She crossed her arms and grinned triumphantly.

Sato hid his
irritation at being overruled. He told the Commissioner, “Proceed.”

The Commissioner
nodded at me. “If you would, Shield Mallorough.”

“Are you ready?”
I asked Taro.

“Of course.”

I licked down a
palmful of kyrra powder. I placed four candles on the ground, the corners of a
square, grinding the bottoms into the soil to keep the candles standing. I
placed the two fans within the square, opened to their full width. I put the
moss in my mouth and chewed it fifteen times before swallowing. Its flavour
combined with that of the kyrra powder almost made me gag. Drinking the water
made me feel a little better.

“
Sharpen my
mind. Narrow my focus.”

With my fifth
candle, I lit one of the candles in the ground.

“
Winds of the
north, bide by me.”

I lit a second
candle.

“
Winds of the
south, bide by me.”

A third candle.

“
Winds of the
east, bide by me.”

And the last.

“
Winds of the
west, bide by me.”

I felt the
buzzing the spell taking effect and wind against my face. I picked up the fans,
one in each hand. Taro lowered his shields and let the forces flow through him.

This particular
cast was meant to bring only wind, but for some reason, the wind brought fog
with it. It had always been so. I had no idea why. Sometimes spells didn’t make
sense.

I raised the
fans, fighting through the wind that strove to keep them down.

“
Bide by me,
winds of all.”

I waved the fans
through the air, curving them up in an arc, then down to my right, and to my
left. I moved the wind with them.

Fog swirled around
me, threaded with translucent strings of blue. It surrounded all of our people,
thick and white against the dark night air, heavy with cool moisture.

I waved the wind
towards the northeast, where Gifford’s forces had settled.

“
Bide by me,
winds of all.”

I assumed Risa
and her comrades left.

“
Bide by me,
winds of all.”

The first
difficulty that hit me was my hands tiring, which I hadn’t anticipated. The
weight of the fans had seemed insignificant when I’d started, but they seemed
to grow heavier as time went on.

“
Bide by me,
winds of all.”

The scraping of
the wind against my skin increased until it felt like it was burning.

“
Bide by me,
winds of all.”

The wind began
to creep into my mind, raking against the back of my eyes. It was hard to keep
the words and the movements going.

Don’t let go.

“
Bide by me,
winds of all.”

I could hear it.
Wailing filled my ears. It hurt.

Don’t let go.

It was utterly
unnatural.

And like before,
my stomach flipped over. From the exclamations I heard, those around me felt
equally queasy and disoriented.

And then, it was
everything. It was all I could hear. All I could feel. All I could think. Dark
time passed.

It took me a
while to realise I was being shaken. Hard. An earthquake?

“Stop,” Taro
said into my ear as he raised his shields.

So I stopped.
The fog disappeared immediately.

I had to clear
my throat before I could speak. “It’s done?” I asked. “Did it work?”

“We don’t know,”
said Sato. He was standing right beside me. “We had to stop you. No one could
bear it anymore.”

“People were
starting to vomit,” Taro added.

“Oh.”
Disappointing. “Sorry.”

“I think it was
good enough,” the Commissioner told me. “They’ve had a couple of hours.”

So we waited.

And I, ringing
with the effects of the kyrra powder, paced. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t
keep still.

I couldn’t help
talking, either. “There are too many people in Gifford’s camp,” I said. “Too
many of them. I couldn’t have surrounded all of them. Risa’s going to be
killed. I should do it again. So what if people can’t bear it? We’ve been
pushing through rain and hunger. What’s a little fog?”

“We need some
water here,” Taro ordered.

“What if they
realise it’s a cast and figure out how to do it?”

“You found it in
a book written by the First Landed and translated by – ”

I spoke over
him. “Reid had to give Gifford a copy of his notes.”

“Water!” Taro
demanded.

“Risa’s going to
die.”

“Shut her up!” I
heard the Commissioner snap.

How dare he?

The last time I
had been in such a state, Taro had just let me walk around and ramble. He
hadn’t tried to restrain me. This time, he put his arm around my shoulders,
which help me calm a little. He put a mug of water to my lips and I took a sip,
which soothed my thirst a bit but didn’t help my mind stop whirling.

“Hold on to me,”
said Taro. “Listen to me. Breathe. In slowly, out slowly.”

It was easier to
breathe following his instructions. In slowly, out slowly.

My mind narrowed
to his voice, his touch, and my breathing.

It worked, sort
of. Yet when my thoughts finally settled a little and I became aware of what
was going on around me, I was still experiencing an unpleasant reaction. It
felt as though my brain was vibrating, and I couldn’t stop squirming.

What if none of
them came back? What if we’d accomplished nothing more than giving Green a
useful tactic and she could do the same thing to us, only better, because she
had more people? What would we do then? How many more ideas could we be
expected to come up with?

Suddenly I heard
laughter and shouts. The soldiers around us drew their swords.

“Show yourselves,”
the Commissioner ordered tersely.

They all
appeared, rubbing the powder off their brows. Twenty figures. Some were
injured, needing help to walk, but everyone who had been sent out was alive,
and Risa appeared perfectly fine.

Two men were
dragging along the ground a bundle of about six feet in length. It was
wriggling. “Sir!” one of them called out. “We’ve got the Emperor!”

My jaw dropped.

Abduction hadn’t
been part of the plan, but hey, initiative was great.

The Commissioner
and the Premier Pair trotted over to the two soldiers. The Commissioner knelt
and pulled the canvas free. A moment or two later, the Emperor started
shouting.

“You will all be
executed! All of you! Your families! Everyone you love! There will be no
hangings for you, but whips and knives!”

I covered my
mouth with my hand. We had the Emperor. I had a hard time believing it. That
would change everything, wouldn’t it?

“What happened?”
the Commissioner asked.

“It was
brilliant!” The soldier’s grin was wide with triumph. “We were able to walk
right up to their tents and attack. Our rapiers could be seen, but that just
seemed to frighten them more. Most of them just screamed and ran away. Only
they didn’t know where to go, because we were able to run circles around them,
hit them from different directions.”

“And the
Emperor?”

“He was cowering
in his tent. There were two idiots standing in front, barely holding themselves
together. They couldn’t see our people, of course. Calley just yelled at them,
a beautiful high pitched scream, and that was enough to send them running off.
No one came back, even when we collapsed the tent to drag the Emperor here.”

Had they really
been that disoriented and panicked, or had they just tossed aside their
loyalty?

“What about
Green?” the Commissioner asked. “Why didn’t you take her, too?”

“She wasn’t
there.”

The Emperor was
still shouting threats, indignant and astounded. Not afraid, it seemed. A
private laughed and kicked him. The Commission cuffed the private up the back
of his head. “None of that,” he snapped. “We’re better than he is.”

Browne walked up
to me. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks.”

“You should get
some sleep.”

I raised an
eyebrow at her. “I won’t be able to sleep for hours, with all the kyrra powder
I took.”

“Still, we
should get out of everyone’s way,” said Taro.

“Our tent is too
small to pace in,” I complained.

“People will get
nervous seeing you fidget. You’ve done your bit, it’s time to let everyone else
do theirs.”

I let Taro prod
me back into our tent, but it was awful being confined when all I wanted to do
was move. It took hours for me to calm down enough to sleep.

Then I just
dropped.

It was the early
afternoon before I woke, starving and thirsty. Taro had lingered with me, and
as soon as I had washed up, we headed for the mess tent.

The camp seemed
disorganized. No one was drilling or performing any kind of chores. There was a
sense of excitement, and a lot of talking. And laughter. There hadn’t been much
of that, the past great while.

We were stopped
by a young private and told that the Commissioner wanted us in his pavilion. I
held in a sigh. I wanted to be left alone for a while.

The Premier Pair
and a handful of soldiers were waiting with the Commissioner.

“Good afternoon,
Shield Mallorough,” Sato greeted me. “I hope you’re well rested.”

So now I felt
guilty. I’d been sleeping while everyone else, from the looks of it, had been
running around doing useful things.

“Green has taken
the last of the Imperial forces and retreated,” the Commissioner told us. “From
what we can determine, she plans to return to Erstwhile.”

I stared at him.
“She’s leaving Gifford?”

“So it seems.”

“Seriously,
she’s not going to try to get him back?”

“It doesn’t look
like it.”

I couldn’t wrap
my head around it. This was insane. Her Emperor, her partner, her fiancé, had
been captured by the enemy, and she just deserted him? What kind of person did
that? “What’s Gifford’s reaction to this?”

“We haven’t told
him yet.”

“We’ve decided,”
said Sato, “to have you and Source Karish with us when we speak with Gifford.
We have questions for him. Given your time in his presence, we think you might
be able to provide us with unique insight.”