Rogue's Pawn (18 page)

We emerged from the tunnel of shade, white stones and green ferns, up over a last lip of rock, into a vast dome of startling blue. Puck sat his horse, grinning at me, sweeping his arms out as if he’d created the spot just for me.

“The Promontory of Magic!” he declared.

No trees stood on the windswept top, as big around as a basketball court, the white rock showing through in many places, with the mossy grass only clinging to dips and hollows. The deep-green fringe of the forest canopy stopped short of the plateau, making for a spectacular 360-degree view. In a Victorian novel, the cast of characters would have taken carriages up here to have a picnic.

Darling leaped down to explore, armor clinking. Larch followed, picking his way across like a mountain goat.

On the plain below, I could see our army. Armies. Rivers of people from several directions, all heading around the bend of the ridge line. The next watershed over was filled with another army, an angry, seething sea.

“The enemy,” Puck pointed out to me.

“Who are they?” I asked, studying the shifting mass. From this distance I could make out little detail.

“Barbarians,” Puck intoned.

“Aren’t they always?” I returned, but Puck only nodded agreement.

“Isn’t this perfect? Lord Falcon agreed to have the first battle here, so we could use this spot as the Promontory of Magic. We plan to have the first clash of infantry in that charming meadow there.” Puck pointed to a spot roughly between the leading edges of the two armies.

“And so I shall leave you.” Puck wheeled his horse around back toward the path. With great bounds, Darling ran after him and leaped up onto the back of Puck’s saddle.

“Wait!”

He stopped, looking impatient. “What, Lady Gwynn? I must away—the battle commences!”

“You’re leaving me here alone? What do I do?”

Puck sighed. “We’ve been over this. What you’re told, remember?”

I blew out an exasperated breath. “Yes, yes, yes, I know—”
yada yada yada
, “—but how do I know what that is? Remember that I don’t just know along with you!”

“We’ll send messages,” Puck said, speaking clearly so the dummy could understand. “Victory to you!” he called over his shoulder.

Darling didn’t even say goodbye.

“And also with you,” I grumbled. I looked around. “I thought there’d be more flags.”

Under that acid blue sky I amused only myself.

Chapter
Nineteen

In Which I Am Covered in Glory and Other Obnoxious Fluids

Pages were handy creatures to have around, especially because they were the ones who remembered to bring refreshments to war.

Larch had stowed a picnic worthy of a Victorian novel in Felicity’s saddlebags, unbeknownst to me. My new lifestyle as a pampered lady. I’d have giddily ridden up here and spent the day with nothing to eat and nothing to do except chase my horse to keep her from taking off to be with the other horses in the valley below.

Instead, Larch had efficiently hobbled her and set her to grazing so I could wander around the promontory, trying to look officially occupied. I picked out an observation spot where I could watch the slow progress of the two forces as they wound their way to the charming meadow.

I was a character in
The Thin Red Line
after all, bored and running a dull internal monologue. I’d had to watch the damn movie three times, Clive liked it so much. He thought it a great movie because it showed how monotonous much of war was. Anyone who could make Christian Slater boring had certainly accomplished something, but I was thinking it wasn’t a great thing.

To occupy myself with something besides mentally reviewing every war movie I’d ever seen, and the fewer war books I’d read—most of which were sword and sorcery and not nonfiction, anyway—I mulled over what magics I’d perform, given the leeway. If I wasn’t to do anything until the battle was nearly lost, this was going to be a long day. How long did battles take anyway? Long, grueling hours, by all accounts.

Left to me, I’d rather have tried to divert the enemy forces before they reached the charming meadow and prevent the battle altogether.

But Falcon and the others seemed to be scripting their war for last-minute, tide-turning action. They wanted spectacular, so I should do something fireworks-y, something loud and colorful. Except I wasn’t excited about killing anyone. Yes, yes—I knew it was freaking war, but I was a girly-girl. There was a reason I left the room during the brutal stuff.

Good thing I had lots of time to think about this. But then, there was restfulness—and an absolution of guilt, maybe—in simply doing what one was told. I could just follow instructions for once and not have to think up my own strategy. That would be playing it safe. The cowed and obedient part of me loved this idea.

That alone was reason not to do it.

I’d also learned better. Most of the fae did not seem possessed of noble intentions. Playful at best, cruel at worst—they operated on a totally different ethical system. What they could take by hook or crook, they would. If you believed their lies, too bad for you.

Simply doing as I was told could make me an accomplice—or the instigator—of something I would never support. And it wouldn’t help me heal.

When Larch called me to eat an early lunch, I sat gratefully on the little circle of mossy grass he’d picked out. The armies should close on each other within the hour, though they seemed to have slowed to nearly a standstill. I slipped off my shoes and laid them to the side, resting my arches. We made odd picnicking partners, while a war assembled below us.

“Tell me something, Larch.” I laid cheese on apple slices—at least that was how they tasted. “What is the goal of this war?”

“To defeat the barbarians of course.”

“To accomplish what? Gain land? Property? Prove a religious point?”

Larch looked up at the sky. “You’re asking me for a real reason?”

“Yes.”

His blueberry eyes met mine. “They grow bored from time to time, Lady Gwynn. This is the latest diversion.”

“And our enemy—the barbarians?”

Larch handed me a basket of rolls. “The same.”

“So, there’s no real purpose to this war?”

“I wouldn’t say that. For immortal folk, jockeying for power is everything. Falcon is making a bold move with this war. Many are waiting to see how he succeeds.”

I set the rolls down, too queasy to eat. “But people will die down there—yours and mine, both.”

“Yes. But they won’t. That’s all that matters to them.”

Groping for words, I studied the black embroidery of my dress. I’d dressed up for this, made plans. “Why do you all go along with it?” I finally asked.

“Why, my lady?” Larch sounded suddenly angry. He scrambled up on stocky legs. “You, puppet of the nobles, ask me that?”

I stared at him, steeling myself not to flinch at displeasing him.

“The power is all theirs, Lady Gwynn,” he said more gently. “Best to learn it now.”

He began packing up our lunch, so I slipped my shoes back on, brushed off my dress and made myself scarce. I’d long since ditched the cloak in deference to the hot sunshine. Larch must have efficiently packed it. At least now I could be confident that I hadn’t inadvertently zapped it away somewhere.

Okay, I knew what I needed to do.

I changed a loose rock at my observation point into a barstool. It manifested fused to the rock below, in all its chalky magnificence. Careless imagining on my part. Though fine for stability, it looked like something out of Monty Python. I decided to leave it as it was, sat on the stool—after I modified the top to make it into a cushion—and hooked my heels over the rungs. Larch declined my offer of another stool and squatted down next to me.

I’d thought maybe a live war would make more sense than the movie ones, where I could never seem to keep track of the action. But I quickly lost track of who was who—complicated by the fact that the Enemy Men seemed to be very much the same as our own Men. Were the same, from what Larch had said.

“So, the humans here—they’re like me?”

Larch snorted. “Humans rarely can do magic. Something about you folks from the other side makes you special.”

“What is it?”

“You’re asking me? It’s your world.”

The leading edges of leather and metal flung themselves against each other, boiled up, then smoothed once more into a flowing sea of movement. Two rivers meeting. If I watched the current closely, I could make out the line where the two joined, more defined in some places than others. But that line broke apart, splintered and swirled as some groups pushed forward and others back.

I kept good thoughts for all involved, in case that helped, focusing on them being strong and courageous, being careful not to exceed my instructions. I felt like the ten-year-old cheerleader in sagging socks again, peering past the coaches, trying to figure out enough of what was going on in the game to know which cheer to use.

Blood didn’t spurt up into the air or anything, but bodies dropped, disappearing beneath the melee, an ominous vanishing. The cavalry charged in from the side—plumes nodding indeed—and I picked out Puck’s celadon outfit easily. I couldn’t see whether Darling was with him and when I tried to query the cat, I got nothing back—whether due to distance, his preoccupation or worse, I didn’t know.

After a bit, I was able to identify the knot of nobles, mostly by tracking the paths of the bright uniforms running back and forth from it. Figures seemed to forage out briefly and, after having grabbed a taste of battle for themselves, scurry back to their fortified hill, surrounded by a bastion of colorful pages.

There was a similar grouping at the end of the other valley. I toyed with sending a little spell their way, but no—
do what you’re told.
This time I deliberately stroked my throat.
Remember. Work within parameters.
I could do this. My rebellions needed to be carefully chosen. And hidden.

Then they brought out Lady Strawberry’s beasts, and monstrous they were.

Now the blood did fly as four great rhinoceros-sized creatures waded through the infantry. I watched in congealing horror, glad I hadn’t eaten any more than I had. A page-jockey perched on the neck of each one. Massive horns gored and tossed. Maybe it was my own confusion, but the monsters looked to be rampaging equally through both armies. The line between them grew more diffused, blurring as soldiers ran in all directions from the beasts.

Preoccupied with the nightmare of it all, I didn’t see the dragons until they flew right overhead.

They thundered in from behind me and dropped into the belly of the valley below. The wake turbulence of their great passage nearly threw me from the stool and, as I clutched the sides of my seat, I saw Larch’s blueberry face raised in shock and terror. Glinting in the afternoon light, the two dragons swooped like raptors falling onto their prey. They seized the rhino-creatures, two each, carrying them into the sky, pages tumbling as they fell from their mounts.

The dragons spiraled up, the pumping of their wings flattening both armies for a moment as the men crouched under the blast of hot wind. Then the dragons wheeled and roared directly over our plateau again. I crouched at the base of the stool, clutching Larch, as the bloody dripping carcasses of the rhinos dangling from the enormous dragon claws barely cleared us. Red and yellow mucousy gore rained down on us, along with a clump of flesh that hit my bare shoulder and slid greasily off.

As quickly as the dragons arrived, they were gone again. Lady Strawberry’s monsters had been removed from the playing field like illegal chess pieces. The armies seemed at a loss for a moment, perhaps as stunned as I.

They stood from their crouches.

Regarded one another.

Then fell to fighting again, prodded by who knows what. What could be worse for them than facing this?

Larch offered me a cleaning cloth from his never-ending supply of noble-tending materials. I tried to wipe myself clean while Larch did the same.

The fluids were oddly sticky. I felt as if I was trying to remove maple syrup with tissue—fibers of the gray cleaning cloths sticking to the smearing stains. I wiped harder with no better success. The stuff stank, too, like pond water and xylene mixed. What if it was toxic?

Having had enough, I wished us both clean, which helped considerably, though not completely. I frowned at the yellow streaks still sprinkling down the skirt of my dress.

“Dragon blood, Lady Sorceress,” Larch offered. “One of Lady Strawberry’s monsters must have gored one. Or perhaps an arrow. Magic doesn’t work on dragons,” he added as I continued to stare at him.

“Why ever not?” I asked, to which he only shrugged in that fatalistic way. “That makes no sense. Aren’t they subject to the same physical laws as everything else here?”

“Why can some perform magic and others not?” Larch countered.

“Excellent question—why is that?”

“Surely it’s not so different in your land. Some have power. Some don’t. Why is that?” Larch snapped back, which made me realize he’d dropped all obsequious servant attitude. Apparently he also caught himself, because he lowered his head and began muttering that he might be able to concoct a cleaning solution from some of the mosses in the area, combined with some water, liberally sprinkling the explanation with
myladysorceresses.

“Cut the crap, Larch.” We were both on edge, watching the horrors below. “You know I don’t care whether you ‘my lady’ me—what do you know of magic and where I’m from? If you know the answers to my questions, I sure as hell want to hear them. I’ve had it up to here with circuitous answers.”

“Then why did you walk away from the one person who could answer them?” His bright eyes pierced me.

“Who—Rogue?” Suddenly suspicious, I grabbed his little arm. “You work for Rogue, don’t you?”

“I thought I worked for you, my lady sorceress.” His tone was deferential but he wrenched his arm from my grasp and stalked away.

I studied Larch as he yanked various supplies from his packs.

“He abandoned me. To torture, I might add. And being drugged and packed off over someone’s shoulder hardly counts as walking away.”

Larch snorted. The interruption gave me a chance to steady my voice, which had started to get wobbly.
Don’t you dare cry
.

“He knew what would be done to me and consigned me to the worst of hells.” He kissed me and deserted me. I sounded pitiful, even to myself. Time to focus on someone else’s problems. Just as well, since Larch apparently had no come-back to that.

The battlefield appeared to be in utter chaos, with the two sides virtually indistinguishable except for the two gaily bannered camps at each far end of the valleys. The cavalry charged in, gloriously, only to charge back out. The purpose of the battle remained unclear to me, whether we meant to advance down the valley or prevent them from doing so. More and more I dreaded what Falcon’s instructions would be. How could I possibly perform a magic that wouldn’t make me into a mass murderer?

When Larch silently handed me a damp cloth, I took it without a word and began wiping my arm and shoulder. It wasn’t perfect, but his concoction removed most of the yellow stuff and all of the smell. He promised to refine the formula at day’s end so that my dress could be cleaned. I wrapped the damp cloth around the sticky section of my hair and held it there, nodding absently to his remarks, as if completely absorbed in the battle instead of nursing my wounded soul.

Larch stood when a raptor winged in our direction, silhouetted against the lengthening light. A hawk or falcon by the size, I thought. The bird swooped in and settled on Larch’s upraised arm, black eyes fixed on me with dark intelligence and a wickedly curved beak. More of a hawk, but colored a more vivid russet than any species I knew. The hawk and Larch bent their heads to each other, almost an affectionate curve.

“Spectacular explosions, blindness, bodies flying through the air,” Larch described slowly. “Something that looks like spirals?”

The hawk peeped softly in agreement.

“That’s it?” I asked. “Let me see.” I tried looking in Larch’s thoughts and hit a big wall.

“I don’t think so, my lady,” Larch said softly.

“Great. I love having my fate resting on not getting clear instructions.”

“Lord Falcon can’t kill you or permanently disfigure you without disrupting Lord Rogue’s claim. My lady’s fate does not ride on this.”

“Believe me, there’s worse things than that,” I returned, fingering my neck. “Can I try directly with the hawk?”