Chapter Twenty-Five
Heggenauer, the Duchess Claudja, and her knight protector Sir Towsan were led through the Dead Possum’s bawdy common room by two legionnaires while the third had gone upstairs to fetch his commanding officer. Heggenauer felt a pang for the debauchery on display was hardly suitable for a woman of the Duchess’s high station, but on being informed by Father Corallo that there were Codian Legionnaires in Camp Town awaiting the arrival of anyone from Daul, the Duchess had insisted on being taken to them immediately rather than having them summoned to the Builder’s House. Sir Towsan had not been pleased, but the noblewoman who no amount of rude outfitting could make look common had been adamant.
They were led down a hall away from the noise and smell and ushered into a narrow room where the light from a lantern illuminated towers of spent ale kegs lining the walls. Towsan looked about dubiously and turned to eye the legionnaires with his arms folded across his chest.
“Sorry ’bout this,” one of them said. “The Sarge will find a better place for a talk.”
Heggenauer looked between the two soldiers. Their armor and weapons were spotless but the clothes underneath deeply soiled. Their chinstraps crossed faces badly needing shaves, and one of their helmets was not even Legion issue. Heggenauer looked at that man’s tower shield, noting the identifying numerals under the Book- from-the-Water standard.
“Where is the 34 ^ Foot now stationed, soldier?”
“Orstaf, sir.”
“You are a long way from there.”
“Detached special duty, sir.”
The man’s answers were smartly given but Heggenauer still did not like his looks. Before he could ask anything else boots clopped in the hall and the door was opened by another bearded Legion man wearing the plain helmet of a sergeant-of-the-line, and boots instead of marching sandals. He carried no tower shield and looked over all those in the room with shining green eyes, smiling broadly and snapping a salute.
“Good evening, or very early morning,” he chirped in the cadence of a native Gweiyerman. “Sorry about the digs…”
The Duchess squeezed around Heggenauer and Towsan.
“We were told there is a Codian official here awaiting us,” she said, then gave the sergeant a haughty looking-over. “Would you be him?”
“Indeed no, your Highness. He awaits just across the rear yard. Fetching wine and what not to the empty stable there. It is clean, and altogether nicer. Won’t you step this way?”
The sergeant backed into the hall and stepped to the right. The Duchess and her knight exchanged a look before the old man led the way with her close behind. Heggenauer moved to follow them but when Claudja was through the doorway the two legionnaires still in the room leaned their shields across it.
“We have it from here, Brother,” one said. “Best go back to your temple.”
“Legion business, sir,” said the other. “No need for you to be involved.”
“Involved in what?” Heggenauer demanded.
The Duchess shrieked, and Heggenauer snatched up his mace by its wrist cord even faster than the Legion men drew their swords.
*
Zeb ran awkwardly and with his helmet bouncing on his head for they had left the Shugak palisade so fast he had not had time to cinch-up his armor. He had barely gotten his boots on.
Amatesu noticed him struggling and dropped back, leaving Shikashe a quarter block ahead and Nesha-tari out in front even farther. The shukenja ran alongside Zeb and managed to pull the straps of his ring mail jerkin tight on the fly. He handed her his crossbow and buckled his chin strap, crashed to the ground and rolled once, but stumbled up and kept running.
Amatesu handed the crossbow back and before she sprinted ahead Zeb managed to shout between gasps.
“Will you tell me where we are going now?”
Amatesu looked back at him.
“We are going to kill a priest.”
Zeb hitched a step and Amatesu began to pull away.
“What? Wait! Why?”
“He is not a nice priest,” Amatesu called over her shoulder.
They ran for several blocks, managing the crowd as all the men in the street seemed to have stopped what they were doing when Nesha-tari ran by. They were standing still and staring silently in the direction she had gone even as Amatesu and Zeb passed them.
They reached an intersection, Zeb trundling up last as Shikashe, Nesha-tari, and Amatesu stood in a row under a willow tree, facing an inn. There was a colorful but revolting sign painted on the front of an opossum squashed flat by a wagon wheel.
Zeb put the head of his crossbow on the ground and wriggled a foot into the stirrup. He had already cranked it but now placed a bolt in the groove atop the shaft. He stood up straight and began to gasp a question, but stopped as Nesha-tari threw her cloak back off of her shoulders.
She was magnificent. Zeb was well aware that she was some sort of dangerous monster, but in that moment he could not have cared any less. Her body in loose trousers and shirt was plainly ridiculous, both supple and strong. Her face was sharp and beautiful in a corona of tumbling red hair, and her blue eyes blazed.
Nesha-tari pulled her gloves off with her perfect white teeth on the leather fingers and it was the most fascinating process Zeb had ever seen. She said something Zeb did not hear, and when she turned her eyes on him he nearly swooned. Then she snarled and slapped the vacant look off his face.
Zeb yelled and grabbed his nose, which was bleeding across the bridge.
“You split open my nose!” Zeb said accusingly, and as the sharp sting of it cleared his head for a moment he understood Nesha-tari as she repeated herself with a growl.
“Tell Shikashe he is with me, through the front door. You and Amatesu go ‘round the back. Kill anyone coming out who looks like a Zant.”
Zeb translated into Codian automatically and Amatesu did so into Ashinese even as he spoke. On the last few words Amatesu stopped speaking and gave Nesha-tari an alarmed look, but the woman was already rolling like a storm for the Dead Possum’s porch and the open front door. Uriako Shikashe strode at her side and drew both of his swords.
Amatesu ran for an alley on the right side of the inn and as his head was still clearer than it had been in a good long time, Zeb hesitated before following her. Killing priests could not possibly be good luck, and none of this had anything to do with him. He should be in the lines at Larbonne with his mates, or better-yet home in Wakminau sniffing around a barroom for a mate of a different sort. There was a place high on the bluffs with a glorious cherry wine, half bitter and half sweet, that would have tasted like the most wonderful thing in the world right now. And really, he did not owe any of the people here a thing. He had been kidnapped and enchanted and Nesha-tari had just cut his nose open, and it stung like hell.
In short, a man of the Riven Kingdoms had to know when to run if he was to live for long.
Amatesu disappeared into the dark alley. Zeb knew the shukenja was formidable but she looked very small and alone in that moment.
Zeb spit out blood that was trickling into his mouth and cursed himself. He hoisted his crossbow and ran into the alley.
It was pitch black and he could not see Amatesu. What he did see was light from an enclosed yard behind the inn, and as he stumbled toward it over mounded refuse and through foul puddles he heard the unmistakable clash of arms.
Zeb leaned around the corner to look into the yard and tried to make sense of what he saw. There was a tall old man laying about with a long sword while two Codian legionnaires crouched behind their tower shields trying to maneuver behind him, both darting forward in turn to poke at him with their short gladius swords. As they shuffled, swung, and parried, a third legionnaire tumbled out of the inn’s backdoor followed closely by a blonde fellow with mace and shield, fighting him.
