The Last Warrior

“Safe.” She spat the word as much as said it. Her fists closed in her skirt’s blue folds. “Life for the Kurel in this kingdom is no longer safe. There are random raids by the Home Guard. People jailed and never seen again. Senseless killings.” Her voice was low and passionate, and it echoed in Tao’s ears. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard.”

“Until today, I hadn’t.”

Her eyes were dark, her jaw firm. “If you were as smart and capable as everyone says you are, you would have known what was happening.”

“My hands were full battling the Gorr—”

“Chasing glory on a faraway battlefield—”

“Saving the human races from extinction. It wasn’t my choice to be kept in the dark. I was being protected, apparently. By Markam. Away in the Hinterlands, I was dependent on messengers for my information.”

“Even so.”

They glared at each other, and he gave his head an uncomprehending shake. “Even so? Even so what? That I sent our mortal enemy running, tails tucked between their hindquarters?” Dumbfounded, he couldn’t fathom how she could dismiss such a thing.

“By your own choice or someone else’s you were insulated against atrocities at home. I have no patience for men who bury their heads in the sand, Kurel or Tassagon. That kind of ignorance killed my parents.” Her anguished eyes misted over, and she turned her head.

“Elsabeth,” he started, in his shock unsure of what to say.

“They went out to the gates to reason with the soldiers,” she whispered. “I tried to get there as soon as I heard. I knew what would happen. But I was too late. Your army got to them first.”

Bloody hell. “Those weren’t my men. They were Beck’s.”

She shook her head. “I have to go.”

“Wait.” The pain of losing one’s parents he understood. He almost reached for her, but her glare stopped him. She wanted no sympathy from him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“What do Uhr-warriors know of loss? Your role on this planet is to destroy life, not create it.”

Wincing, Elsabeth pressed her lips together, but the hateful words were already out, her Tassagonian blood once again overtaking her hard-won Kurel composure.

The general’s face had turned hard. He wore the veneer of good manners very well for a Tassagon, but she saw how formidable he could be, if he ever loosed the outrage he seemed to keep in check so well.

He spoke quietly. “Have you smelled the stench after a Gorr attack, human corpses completely emptied of blood? Have you ever tried to sleep after hearing the Furs’ unholy jackal screams in the night, or the cries of your men being ripped apart?” His eyes narrowed against some inner agony. “No, you wouldn’t know. Or of losing three brothers on the battlefield, one by one. Then my parents were taken right here in Tassagonia by a swift and stealthy enemy no weapons could fight off.”

The plague. She wondered if he blamed her people for the epidemic as King Xim did.

“I thank Uhrth for my sister. She’s all I have left.”

Elsabeth forced herself to meet his eyes, seeing for the first time the man behind them. How could she possibly share anything in common with this Uhr-warrior, this Butcher of the Hinterlands? But she did. His family had been decimated, too.

“I would never have supported nor carried out atrocities against other humans,” he finished.

He told the truth. She heard it in his voice. She saw it in his eyes.

She pushed loose hair off her face. “Markam told me that you had nothing to do with the violence. I want to believe him. I…want to believe you,” she added grudgingly.

The general’s hackles went down somewhat, but a powerful heartbeat pulsed in his throat.

“I apologize for implying Kurel own the rights to loss,” she said.

“Grief and anger are close companions. Both have a way of overtaking reason. You are my sister’s children’s tutor. It says a lot about you if Aza trusts you. As for the actions against the Kurel, I will get to the bottom of this insanity, I swear to you.”

The sound of beads tinkling and the swish of slippers cut short their tense standoff. The dancer from dinner swayed toward him, flicking a dismissive glance at Elsabeth. Her breasts strained against filmy netting that barely contained them. She’d applied fresh perfume, a come-hither musk, and it filled the air. Dark, painted lashes fluttered at Tao, her full lips curving as she dragged her finger across the bottom of his chin. “Good Sir, I do believe it is time for your dessert.”

Elsabeth hoisted her skirt, her focus shifting to the dancer. “Stay with him until morning.” The remark came as much to the woman’s surprise as Tao’s, making the dancer smile like a kitt that had just been thrown a whole fish.

It wasn’t until Elsabeth turned to him that Tao saw she was serious. She stepped up to him, her voice a whisper. “Don’t let down your guard tonight, even with her.” She backed away from him quickly.

He swiveled his head to keep her in sight. “Explain.”

“Just…do as I say.” She took off in a dead run.

“Elsabeth!”

“Let her go.” The dancer circled behind him and slid her arms around his waist. Even as he felt his body react to her seductive touch, he took hold of her wrists and untangled her.

“You wish a Kurel over me?” She sounded stung.

It was true that he’d imagined teaching Aza’s tutor a few lessons of his own, but she’d just revealed that he had unfinished business to attend to. Amorous play of any sort would have to wait. He pressed his chamber key into the dancer’s hennaed hand. “I wish you in my bed, sweetling. Wait for me.”

Tao strode after the tutor, but reaching a confluence of several corridors, he couldn’t be sure which path she’d taken. Likely out the first exit and to K-Town.

Don’t let down his guard? Why?

He suspected that no one had given him the full story since he’d returned home. How serious was the Kurel unrest in the ghetto? What drove his sister’s unhappiness in her marriage? How likely was Xim to grant Tao’s men land and wives when he seemed to view them as a threat? Or was only Tao the threat?

It was time he found out the truth.

CHAPTER FIVE

“DAMN THAT ONE-EYED bastard,” Markam hissed.

As he escorted her to the palace exit, they spoke in low tones, their manner casual to anyone who would have observed, the routine of chatting at day’s end no different from what they’d done for years, no matter that her heart was kicking so hard it felt as if it would leap out of her rib cage and draw attention to her treasonous deeds.

“Beck was very nearly mortally wounded at the front, left blinded in both eyes. But the hotheaded fool survived—and regained sight in one eye. Tao should have let the man fall on his sword when he became useless on the battlefield, the way it was always done.”

Never had such open anger roughened Markam’s voice. His temper was always under tight control.

“Always done?” Appalled, Elsabeth glanced sideways at him. “Where is mercy in all this?”

“To an Uhr, the circumstances of his death are as important as his deeds in life. A warrior must die honorably, even if that end is hastened at the hand of his fellow soldiers to speed the boarding of the angels’ arks. But, Tao had Beck sent home to the Barracks for Maimed Veterans.”

“Tao being Tao?” she prompted.

“His personal sense of honor is so great, he sometimes neglects to believe the lack of it in others.”

“As in Beck…”

“Yes. Beck blames Tao for stealing his warrior’s death.”

“But Uhr-Tao saved him.”

“Of course. But to Beck, Tao dishonored him in the worst possible way. Beck recovered enough sight to train recruits here in the capital, yes, but he doesn’t see himself as serving a useful purpose—he sees himself as an object of shame, and Tao as the one responsible for his plight. Tao allowed a fellow Uhr the chance to resume being an essential part of the Tassagon army, but all he did was create a bitter enemy.”

Tao being Tao. “Because his personal sense of honor is so great, he sometimes neglects to believe the lack of it in others,” she said under her breath. Now she could see why Markam had described his friend that way. Her confrontation with the general had led to this conversation, and to something she hadn’t expected: a revelation.

At the exit, Markam stopped, his heels clicking crisply together as he wished her good-night. “Thank you for your help, Elsabeth.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What I always do. Talk sense into young Xim and steer him clear of Beck’s influence.” Markam nodded pleasantly to a passing guard, then his expression turned serious again. “And hope I’m not too late.”

MARKAM OWED HIM SOME answers.

At the guard barracks, Tao found a party in progress. The majority of his officers filled a balcony, whooping it up. The women hanging on their arms were just as inebriated. Uniforms were half undone, if they were on at all, and the pungent odor of alcoholic spirits was eye watering in the muggy air. Some sort of drinking game was under way that involved belting out awful songs.

Good on them. After all they’d suffered and lost, his men deserved a bit of fun.

“General! Why are you standing out there?” Mandalay cried. “Join us.”

Sandoval, his armory captain, waved his arm so vigorously he almost lost his balance. “Surely you’re not thinking of abandoning us for—” he belched “—royalty, are you, sir? Or better yet a willing wench. Not yet at any rate.”

“We’ve whiskey aplenty here,” Pirelli, his master-at-arms, called to him. “And I dare say a much better party than those stuffy upper-crusters.”

They were right in that regard. This gathering beat the one he’d just suffered through. Tao joined the crowd on the balcony. A good number of the palace guards were there. “Field-Colonel Markam… Have you seen the man?”

“He’s out on some business for the king,” someone answered. “That’s all he’d say.” The man wore the trousers of a palace guard and a plain white jersey on top.

“Find him for me. Tell him I wish his counsel.”

With an unsteady gait, the off-duty guard left to fetch his boss.

“Sir! Have a glass of ale, at least while you wait,” Sandoval offered, thrusting a glass into his hands.

Tao took a long draught of the ale. It was ice cold and slightly sweet, refreshing and welcome in the stuffy heat of a summer that had overstayed its visit to the capital and seemed to have lodged inside the palace walls as a permanent resident. For a moment Tao forgot his worries, too glad to see his men acting without a care. They had won the chance to pursue a civilian life and, perhaps, even grow old.

“General Uhr-Tao!”

Tao tensed instinctively. He’d know that raspy voice anywhere. “Colonel Uhr-Beck,” he greeted the one-eyed warrior.

The sleeves of Beck’s uniform shirt were rolled up, revealing arms that, like the rest of him, were thick and solid without an ounce of fat. Tao knew Beck drilled his basic recruits without mercy, accepting no excuses for less-than-stellar performance. That quality hardened boys into men who could match the fierceness of the Gorr, a quality that Tao had welcomed at the front. It was a less desirable trait when training men to deal with their fellow humans, Kurel included.

Beck wasted no time with pleasantries. “They can’t be gathered here, General Tao. Your men. It’s the law.”

“I know of no such law.”

“As of tonight, sir, there is one.” Shiny pale skin covered the socket of Beck’s blind eye like a leather tarp stretched over a trapdoor. His good eye dared Tao to challenge him.

Tao was in no mood to bicker with the man. “Ah, let them be. They’re enjoying themselves and causing no harm.”

“Congregating of army soldiers in groups greater than three inside the capital is prohibited—by order of the king.”

“Three?” Tao almost laughed. “How does the king expect to raise and maintain an army if no more than a trio of soldiers can be together at any one time?”

Tao’s men snickered at that, winning a deadly look from Beck. “Not other soldiers, General. It’s your men he’s got a problem with. Your army.”

So. There it was again, the insinuation that the army was somehow his to use for nefarious reasons. He was no longer in the Hinterlands where his decision was all that mattered. At home, the commander of the army couldn’t give the appearance of ignoring the king’s orders, however nonsensical they were.

He turned to the officers. “As reluctant as I am to end the party, we’ll have to break it up.”

Sandoval and Mandalay nodded. “It’s all right, sir. We don’t want to cause you any trouble. We’ll tell the men.” Yet, neither looked eager to do so at the height of the party.

Tao couldn’t blame them. “Gentlemen, if there were another other option, I’d take it, but there isn’t. I’ll see to this utterly insane law being struck out first thing in the morning.”

“Utterly insane, is it? Is that what you think of my lawmaking, brother-in-law?”

Xim. Hell and damnation. The king stood at the entrance to the balcony, surrounded by his cronies and, at long last, Markam.

You’ve done it now, his friend’s unhappy face said.

“Your Highness,” Tao greeted, dipping his head, cursing his timing. If this were the battlefield, he’d be dead.

“It’s not comforting to know my top military commander holds such a low opinion of my judgment. Not only that, you’ve just encouraged your entire army to have the same attitude.”

“Your Highness, my choice of words was poor. My aim was only to advocate a more lenient policy concerning my men—”

“I already know what your aim is, Tao. You’ve revealed your true colors. You declared your intent to overturn my law. Field-Colonel!” Xim scowled over his shoulder at Markam. “Arrest this man for treason.”

CHAPTER SIX

MARKAM MARCHED TAO DOWN a curving staircase, through one fortified doorway and then another, leaving a pair of hulking guards by each, until it was just the two of them climbing down the stairs. The lower they went, the denser, colder, damper the air became.

I am descending into hell.

“Put me on house arrest and we’ll revisit this in the morning when everyone’s sober.” Tao thought of the dancer waiting for him in the luxurious bedchamber he’d hardly visited since arriving. “Confinement to quarters works for me.”

“You’re to be held in the dungeon three days, after which the king plans on killing you.”

Tao coughed out a derisive laugh. “Why three days? Why not just do it now?”

“He needs time for a trial with false witnesses and testimony.” Markam’s voice dropped. “Xim’s not stupid. He knows the reason for your arrest is weak. He’ll simply find a stronger one, with the help of torture and truth serums.”

True. Drugged, a man could be made to say most anything. “This is madness. Yes, I should have watched my tongue in front of my officers. I knew better. But treason? I gave Xim peace on a silver platter.” Asking nothing for himself but the chance to fade away into the fabric of the precious lands he’d defended. “In thanks I get a death sentence.” The aftertaste of betrayal was bitter indeed. “You can’t let him go through with this.”

“What can I do?”

Come on, Markam, think outside the box. Maybe there was a reason his friend had stayed behind with the Palace Guard and Tao had gone off to fight in the Hinterlands battlefields, where thinking unconventionally was a requirement for survival. “Help me escape.”

“You’ll end up living like an animal on the run, Tao.”

“So be it. I have the survival skills. I’ll go back to the Hinterlands. I’ll disappear.”

“And I’ll be hanged for my role in it, leaving the madman in charge of the asylum. I can’t, Tao.”

Bleakly, Tao walked down the stairs, trying to think his way out of a dead end. He’d rather take his chances in the wild lands than wait for a mock trial, but he couldn’t leave his best friend to be tortured and killed.

“Don’t worry,” Markam said. “By tomorrow, it will be as if you never existed.”

Tao jerked his head up. “I thought I had three days.”

The dungeon stank of rat feces and decay, the smell of hopelessness. Markam steered him into a cell and locked him in. Although it was arguably the best of the lot, inside the tang of urine was downright eye-watering. “Be patient, and you will see.”

Tao gripped the bars. “You try being patient from inside a dungeon cell.”

“Too many lives hang in the balance to tell you more. People I care about greatly. If things were to go wrong now, and you were hauled in for an interrogation, and you revealed…” Markam stopped himself. His angular face took on the appearance of stone, his eyes full of secrets.

“You want protection for your men.” By Uhrth, Markam must have been thinking outside the box for years while Tao was away, if he had a network to protect. “In that case, I want protection for my men, also. Their service to the kingdom has been beyond the call. Beyond any crime blamed on me in a charade of a trial.”

“Xim will need to placate them after getting rid of their general. There’s enough land to go around, and a fair share of women, lonely from too many years of losing men to war. Knowing the alternative, they’ll let Xim buy them out, I suspect.”

Tao knew this was the unfortunate truth of a large fighting force. The average soldier didn’t know him, the general, personally; they received their orders through the chain of command. His officers were the ones most at risk in this. Their loyalty and honor to him ran blood deep. Yet, if they moved to defend him, they’d be hanged for mutiny.

Weary, Tao gripped the bars. “I trust you’ll look after Aza.”

“Always,” he said, his tone somber, his gaze flickering with something that gave Tao pause. It was more than just childhood friendship talking; Markam had feelings for Aza that transcended a palace guard protecting his queen.

I have indeed been gone from home too long. If Aza shared Markam’s feelings, Tao prayed the pair knew enough not to take any chances and reveal it to Xim, and that a pointless dream of star-crossed love wasn’t the motivation behind Markam’s desire to undermine the king. But he bit back the urge to demand the truth. Any such knowledge could be wrested out of him and be used to hurt Aza.

Tao let his hands slide off the bars. “You’d better go.” There was nothing more to be said, nothing more to do. Everything he cared about existed outside these prison walls. He was locked in a dungeon, and by tomorrow, according to Markam, it would be as if he’d never existed. We shall see.

“Good luck, my friend,” Markam said. “To both of us, actually.”

Then his oldest friend walked out, slamming the thick door closed behind him. The thunder echoed off the dungeon walls, the sound of boots hitting stone quickly faded and Tao was left alone with a chest thick with disbelief and a mind racing through a dwindling arsenal of options.

THE SUNS HADN’T YET peeked above the horizon when Elsabeth gave up trying to sleep and climbed up to the eaves to feed the pigeons. Her mother had always been the one to care for the messenger birds whose journeys could take them as far as the Barrier Peaks. Elsabeth had, by necessity, handed the running of the clinic over to others, but the aviary was hers to keep, in memory of her mother.

The interior of the roost was a simmering, cooing mass of gray and rainbow-hued feathers, bobbing heads, clawed feet and pecking beaks. “Hello, my friends.”

Cuh-choo-coo, cuh-choo-coo—their melody greeted. She shook a tin can of dried beans, calling them to breakfast. As they ate their feed, she filled the water dishes and trough and added grit to the floor of the pen.

A loud fluttering of wings erupted at the landing outside. The flock scattered, noisily reacting, as a large blue male strutted inside, immediately committing himself to breakfast. “Prometheus! If you stay out all night carousing, you do it at the risk of being dinner for an alley kitt.”

The bird strutted by, wearing a slender tube tied to its leg. A message.

A jolt went though her, sweeping her grogginess away. Her eyes opened wide. For most of the night she’d tossed and turned, suffering bursts of disjointed dreams, or had lain awake, worrying about Beck’s treachery, Markam’s plans, Aza’s fears and Tao’s return. Now, this message promised action.

“What do you have for me, little one?” She carefully unfastened the rolled paper and unfurled it. It was blank, and green.

“The green flag,” she whispered. She’d been the one to think up the way Markam should alert her to an emergency so she would not be caught unawares. Red meant stay at home, and green—she crushed the paper in her hand—come to the palace as soon as feasible.

In her gut, she knew why: if Markam had summoned her, General Tao was in danger, if not already dead. She didn’t want to analyze why she desperately hoped it wasn’t the latter.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE WEATHER HAD TURNED during the night, summer to autumn, the thick, humid heat of the past week replaced by the crackling air of harvest season. From the hooks behind the door she snatched a wool wrap and yanked it around her shoulders. She burst out her front door and ran around back to the medical clinic, where the current practitioner, Chun, slept with his family. The young physician, once mentored by her father, was trying to button a shirt with one hand as he answered her furious knocking at the door.

“Green flag,” she said. “Don’t know more. Tell Navi. Be at the Kurel canteen when Little Lume is straight up.” The young accountant, Navi, also worked at the palace. At high noon in the mess hall, no one would think anything strange about the royal tutor deep in conversation with the palace accountant and guest healer.

A nod from Chun assured her he knew what to do.

She waited at the ghetto gates until the suns lifted above the horizon, slowly, like two old men climbing out of bed. Then she darted toward the palace, her mind considering a multitude of possibilities for the summons. The streets were quiet, most windows still shuttered after the festivities had gone on late into the night. The streets stank of stale liquor, manure and urine. On the palace grounds, General Tao’s soldiers lay sleeping here and there, some with empty bottles clutched in their hands, others with women in their arms.

She hurried past them, her heart skittering, instinct calling out danger. Crossing the bustling upper bailey, she nodded to the regular staff, all the while pretending the green piece of paper hadn’t been balled in her fist only a short time ago. A guard stood at the workers’ entrance. Only his mouth was visible below the shadow of his helmet. Alarm twanged like the first pluck of a taut string. The entrance had always been unguarded before.

He waved her through. The only thing she could think to do next was to report to the classroom as normal and await contact from Markam. Before she’d traveled more than halfway across the grand foyer, Markam fell in step with her, his hands clasped behind his back. Shadows under his eyes proved he’d had no more rest than she.

“How do you do that,” she half scolded, “appearing out of thin air?”

“You’re simply not observant enough, Elsabeth. I was here the entire time.” Very subtly, he scanned the area to be sure no one was listening. “It’s begun. Xim arrested Tao last night. For treason.”

Her heart dropped like a stone down a well. She’d cautioned the general not to let down his guard, fearing she’d revealed too much. Instead it carelessly had been too little. He hadn’t retired to his chambers with that dancer; instead, he must have gone to seek answers after she’d refused to give him any.

Markam quickly summed up the events leading to Tao’s arrest and the planned trial, the assured guilty verdict and the inevitable hanging. “Opportunity coincided with intent. A single moment, a slip of the tongue and Xim pounced.”