The Queen of Raiders Read online

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  To Dawn,

  who believed in this the most

  COMBINING TALENTS

  Alone, who firm of feet can stand

  ’Gainst tugging tide or greedy gale?

  Yet braced and plaited hand in hand

  Companions can survive travail.

  PART ONE

  Reign of Regent Matwyck, Year 12-13

  AUTUMN AND WINTER

  1

  Yosta, The Free States

  Thalen’s Tally Book: 4 Men

  Codek tipped his glass upside down to reach the clinging drops of wine while Wareth sucked on a chicken leg, getting the last shreds of meat and flavor. Thalen himself scarfed down the bread crust that Tristo had left behind on his plate. Meanwhile, the fire reached some pockets of sap in the burning logs, causing loud pops.

  They had supped in silence in this small sitting room normally saved for visitors too genteel for the common room, and easiest for the innkeep to heat in these empty hours before dawn. A moth-eaten rug held court to a jar of withered flowers, but the diners found even these details homey; they were starved for food and comfort after their desperate trip hiding in the dark, leaky hold of a small fishing vessel, fleeing from now-occupied Sutterdam to the seacoast city of Yosta on the other side of the Free States.

  The fire lifted curdles of briny steam from their damp clothes. Faintly, the men heard the clang of the fog bell guiding ships to harbor.

  Thalen broke the quiet. “How long do you think we’ll be safe here?”

  “Best not to dally,” said Sergeant Codek, absently tugging on his bushy sideburns. “The innkeep has put out the word. We’ll start interviewing candidates this morning, and I doubt we’ll have trouble finding volunteers. Our problem will be choosing the right men. Light cavalry is what we’re looking for.”

  Thalen nodded. “I’ve been thinking. They not only have to be formidable fighters—they should offer extra skills. We’ll need a healer, for sure.”

  “And someone good with horses,” added Wareth. “I’m going to miss that white mare of mine.”

  “And a cook,” said Codek. “Men fight on their stomachs.”

  They all contemplated the carcass of the cold chicken they’d just devoured.

  “You know we can’t take him with us,” Sergeant Codek said as he nodded toward Tristo. After leading them to the Three Coins Inn, cajoling the owner into heating them up a late-night supper, and shoveling in enough to fill his own empty belly, the youth had curled up on a short bench in front of the fire and fallen asleep. With his dirty, small face relaxed on his cushioning hands, Tristo looked even younger than the fifteen summers he claimed.

  Wareth, the Vígat cavalry scout, resettled his broken arm in its sling. “Ach. You can’t leave him behind. You’d crush him.”

  “But we’re putting together a troop of skilled fighters,” Codek argued. “Tristo can’t ride and can’t shoot; fuck, he’s never held a real sword. He’d just be an encumbrance. And it would be murder.”

  Both Codek and Wareth looked to Thalen for a ruling.

  This is how it’s going to be, from now on. A thousand decisions: from trivial things to matters of life and death. I didn’t ask for this role.

  Nevertheless, Thalen found himself the leader of this small group, a group he thought of as “the original survivors.” Thalen was the one who had hatched the plan of invading Oromondo with a tiny strike force to terrorize their enemy’s native land, in hopes that such an incursion would lift the occupation of the Free States. So he turned his blue eyes on the sleeping street urchin he’d known for about three weeks, since they met amongst the corpses after the battle. Tristo’s collarbone had healed quickly, and the lad had not complained once during their voyage.

  “We are all taking a suicidal gamble,” Thalen said slowly. “Tristo has as much of a right to make his life count as the rest of us. As to what he’d contribute … he offers something just as valuable as fighting skills—we’ve all seen how resourceful he is. If he wants to come, I want him with us.”

  It might have been a quirk of the fire shadows, but Thalen thought he saw the sleeping boy’s mouth twitch up at the corners.

  Free Staters had lost many kin in the battle they now self-derisively called “the Rout,” and in the days thereafter Oro soldiers had rampaged farther east, burning, looting, enslaving, and raping. The friends Thalen had left behind in Sutterdam had fanned rumors of Thalen’s plans. Men who escaped followed these murmurs about Thalen’s gamble to Yosta. Free Staters’ humiliation, desire for revenge, and willingness to do anything to rid their countries of these conquerors led to a crowd of men jostling outside the Three Coins Inn the next morning.

  The first person in line turned out to be the Three Coins’ own man-of-all-work.

  “I wanna go with ya,” he said.

  “We need to engage professional soldiers,” said Codek. “Have much experience in that line?”

  “A bit. Give us a chance, won’t ya?”

  The four original survivors exchanged glances.

  “Just a chance,” urged the man. “It’s only fair.”

  “Auditions in the yard out back?” Thalen asked his comrades.

  “All right,” agreed Codek. He turned to the applicant. “We’ll test your fencing and archery.”

  Thalen watched from a back window. Tristo ran about drawing a rough target on the woodshed wall. In the meantime, Wareth, who couldn’t fight with his broken arm, offered the candidate his own sword.

  Codek pushed his sleeves out of his way, pulled on the gauntlet tucked through his belt, and slashed the air a few times to warm up. Then he turned to the inn employee.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  The man grabbed Wareth’s sword too tightly. He raised it over his head two-handed—treating it as if it were an axe—and rushed at Codek, yelling, “Aargh!”

  Codek stepped forward, his sword blocking the overhead blow at a diagonal. He pushed outward in such a way that his attacker’s own momentum carried his sword wildly to the outside, while Codek deftly circled his point to the man’s throat. The inn worker scowled with embarrassment.

  Tristo broke the uncomfortable moment, coming forward to put his hand on the applicant’s sleeve. “It’s not fair, you know. Only soldiers like this sergeant get fencing lessons, and they practice for years. You, you’ve got something more special—you’ve got guts.

  “Maybe you’d do us a service? I need paint for this target here; you’re just the person who could help me find some. Where should we look for it?”

  Soon the survivors developed a ritual. Thalen and Wareth would conduct an initial interview, and then Tristo would esc
ort the man to the backyard. If he passed Codek’s audition, Tristo would then escort the applicant into the kitchen for something to drink. Growing up as a street orphan in Yosta, the boy, with his cropped hair and stunted growth, had developed a disarming facility in getting strangers to confide in him. Within moments they would be telling Tristo their darkest secrets. The “Mead Test,” once institutionalized, washed out blackguards and troublemakers. While Thalen wasn’t looking for under schoolteachers, he couldn’t sign up anyone so difficult he would disrupt their troop.

  After a few hours Codek grew bored humiliating farmers and dockworkers. He varied his audition routine by ambushing candidates in the inn’s shabby hallways: Wareth would escort them toward the sitting room where Thalen waited at a little table while Codek stood, dagger drawn, hiding in a recess.

  On that first afternoon, a muscled bald man wearing a silver earbob in his left ear smelled the ambush from six paces’ distance. He drew back with lowered brows and a suspicious smile.

  “What are you playing at?” he asked.

  Codek stepped out of hiding and held out his hand. “Who might you be?”

  “I’m Kambey,” said the stranger. “I’ve been the weapons master of Yosta’s Upper Academy for twenty years.”

  “And why do you want to join up with us?” asked Thalen.

  “I just told you,” Kambey growled in a gravelly voice. “I’ve taught hundreds of Yosta’s youths. How many did I send to the Rout? How many were slaughtered?”

  The original survivors exchanged looks. “Glad to have you with us, Kambey,” said Thalen. “Your skills will be invaluable. Could you confer with Sergeant Codek about our arms and equipment? We have no time or money to fashion armor—can we buy it secondhand from Yostamen?”

  “I doubt if there’s a breastplate left in town,” said Kambey. “But we could get gambesons or leathers fashioned. We’ll set Tailors Row to work.”

  In the morning of the second day they found their healer, a middle-aged man named Cerf who had lost his sons in the Rout and his grief-addled wife to suicide. And the original survivors were also gratified by the arrival of three trained Vígat cavalrymen—Fedak, Latof, and Jothile—who had escaped the chaos of the Rout as a group.

  These three worried that Thalen would think them cowards for fleeing the battlefield.

  “Set your minds at rest,” said Thalen. “I was there. I cursed the generals for not falling back to regroup. Retreating would have been far wiser and more effective.”

  “Besides.” Codek pointed to the grimy neck drape wrapping about Fedak’s throat and Latof’s bandaged foot and crutch. “Your scars show you engaged before you fled the field.”

  “Men, understand this,” Thalen said, “I won’t ask you to charge the whole Oro army—that’s not tactics, that’s folly. But we will be setting off to gain Oro attention and pull them back from the Free States, possibly at the cost of our lives. Nobody should harbor hopes of coming home. If you want to rethink volunteering, do it now.”

  The cavalrymen’s faces turned somber, but none of them backed out.

  Wareth asked to examine how well their horses had weathered the stress of the battle and the long journey. “Healthy, trained cavalry chargers are almost more valuable than men to us,” he reminded them all.

  In the afternoon, Kambey, the weapons master, who had taken over the tryouts, reported that a bodyguard to a rich Jutterdam merchant had a powerful arm. Moreover, his father had skill as a sword-smith. Though Tristo warned Thalen that this applicant, a stocky man named Kran, had a hot temper, Thalen decided that his skills made him worth the risk.

  After a break, Thalen, returning to the sitting room, was surprised to discover a stranger perched on the edge of his table, carefully cleaning caked dirt off the bottoms of his fine leather boots with the tip of his dagger.

  “How did you get in here?” Thalen asked. They had their newest recruits monitoring the line outside.

  The interloper was slender, with coiled muscles; he wore a neck drape and beret of shimmering black velvet, with his chestnut hair hanging in a long tail down his back. He motioned upward with his knife. “I jumped from the store next door onto the roof and then came down the stairs.”

  Wareth overheard this as he entered and emitted a low whistle of appreciation. “Huh. Nimble, I take it. And stealthy.”

  “I’d prefer to say I’m quiet,” said the stranger. “I’m the best scout in the Free States.”

  “Why didn’t you wait in line with the others?” asked Thalen.

  “Because,” said Kambey in his guttural tones, scowling, “folk might have recognized him.”

  Thalen turned to Kambey. “You know this man?”

  “Well, we haven’t spoken before, but I can guess who he is. Gentlemen, may I present Adair, the leader of the Wígat Waylayers.”

  “At your service,” said Adair, with a graceful bow.

  “No shit?” said Tristo. “The Waylayers are the most fearsome band in Wígat!”

  “In the Free States,” Adair corrected him mildly. “We’re respected because we always get our haul.”

  “Modest too, I see,” said Thalen.

  “I don’t see the point of modesty or of waiting in lines,” said Adair. “I have certain”—he waved his dagger in a graceful circle—“talents. And I’d like to offer them to your team.” He turned to face Thalen, intuiting who made the final decisions.

  “But how could we trust you?” asked Kambey.

  “I doubt there’s much to steal where we’re going,” said Adair with a dazzling smile.

  “No, of course not. But we could be double-crossed,” said Thalen.

  “Double-crossing is too much trouble. I relieve travelers of their goods because I’m lazy. I make it a point not to injure them—much—because riling up the law causes too much trouble. Besides, consider: if I wanted to turn you in to the Oros, I could tell them you’re gathering here.”

  “I’d run you through!” Kambey growled.

  “You could try,” Adair replied, with that same smile.

  “How about we spar a bit in the yard so I can test your skill with that fancy piece of steel you’re carting round your waist?” Kambey challenged him.

  When they left the room, Thalen turned to Tristo. “Forget about the mead. This one’s too poised. But bring him back to me after the fencing.”

  “You already know he’ll pass the audition?” asked Tristo.

  “Without a doubt. No one’s that cocky without reason,” Thalen replied.

  To the clang of metal and the roar of Kambey’s curses, Thalen gently turned away an archer with a hacking cough whom Cerf, the healer, had vetoed, saying he doubted the man would survive the winter. Thalen then updated his notebook tally of the list of volunteers, considering their strengths and skills. As of now Wareth was their only trained scout.

  Tristo escorted Adair to Thalen with an admiring light in his eyes.

  Thalen expected Adair to swagger, but the man who sat in front of him grew serious as he met Thalen’s gaze. He kept his body still—he didn’t fidget or show nervousness—but Thalen sensed that he could spring into action any second.

  “Tell me, why do you want to enlist?”

  “Just because a man’s a thief doesn’t mean he can’t be a patriot.”

  “Well, let’s think about that,” said Thalen. “Patriotism implies caring about your fellow countrymen, while stealing from them implies the opposite.”

  “Maybe a man wants a second chance?”

  “A second chance at what? Be specific,” said Thalen.

  Adair paused a moment. “Freedom,” he answered. “I’d rather be dead than an Oro slave.”

  Thalen held his glance, wondering if he dared trust him.

  “And I have more to offer,” said the highwayman. “Do you have a cobbler? You’re going to need one. Men travel and fight on their feet, and boots can make all the difference. Before I joined my current ‘trade,’ I apprenticed to a cobbler.” He thrust his f
eet forward, showing off his elegant boots.

  “I hadn’t thought about that; you have a point. But how do I know you made these? After all, you could afford to buy the best boots available—or you could have stolen those.”

  “I sign each pair with my mark.” Adair turned down the leather on his calf; Thalen saw the carving of an intricate “A” floating on a sword.

  Perhaps the whimsy and conceitedness amused Thalen, or perhaps he felt drawn to someone with artisanal skill. He decided.

  “Be sure you gather all the shoemaking tools you need.”

  Adair stood up, his cocky smile back in place. “‘Gather’ as in ‘purchase,’ or ‘gather’ as in ‘collect’?”

  “Purchase,” Thalen said firmly, and he reached in the box on the table for some coin Hake had already sent.

  “Save your money,” said Adair. “Come to think of it—catch!” He tossed Thalen a coin purse.

  “Ill-gotten gains?” Thalen asked, hefting the weighty leather bag.

  “Too proud to use it?” Adair asked.

  “Maybe once,” Thalen admitted, “but I left a lot of pride on a field outside of Sutterdam.”

  Adair stopped at the doorway. “By the way, one of the men queuing outside goes by the name Slown. You might be tempted not to take him because he has a hitch in his stride. That would be a mistake. Slown’s got the best aim I’ve ever seen. He can hit a sparrow midflight.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” said Thalen.

  Although the people who lived in Yosta were busy trying to prepare for the upcoming Oro invasion, Yostamen who had been turned down for the expedition still wanted to contribute to their venture. Thalen gratefully accepted their help: he asked volunteers to obtain supplies and to find them a ship. For both the town’s safety and his own purposes, he also sent men and women out to relay stations, watching the roads for any sign of Oro approach. Each additional day they remained they gathered essential fighters and supplies, but these preparations would all go for naught if Oros arrived en masse and captured them.