Guardian Queen: Epic Fantasy Romance (Hardstorm Saga Book 3) Read online

  “My Lady Tera.”

  “Prince Graho.” I smiled at his foolish bravery.

  Boscor cleared his throat and shifted to sit up straighter.

  “And this is Master Boscor,” I said, taking the hint. “Leader of the Rabeen Merchant League and Keeper of the Chronicles.”

  “Former Keeper,” Boscor corrected, but seemed pleased that I had used his full title. “Now a grateful refugee.” Then, the smile sliding off his face, he indicated the dwarf with his head. “Urdy. Assassin.”

  “Runaway Assassin,” Urdy amended.

  The prince took a good long look at him, and the look was not friendly.

  Batumar strode over, grumbling under his breath, “Why is it that every time I see you, you are surrounded by men?”

  “Mayhap, my lord, it is because I am the only woman on a deck full of sailors and soldiers.”

  His gaze sharpened as it landed on Urdy. “What business have you with the Lady Tera?”

  “My lord,” I interjected. “I need to see to his injuries every day.”

  Batumar’s obsidian gaze returned to me, frustration filling it first, then heat, as if he was thinking about throwing me over his shoulder and carrying me off to his sleeping rolls. Then he drew a full breath, and his eyes cut to the prince over my shoulder. Wordless communication passed between them. It lasted but a few heartbeats, then, with a brief nod at us, Batumar returned to practicing with the men.

  Prince Graho sat straighter. He glared at Urdy until the dwarf moved a little farther from me. The prince even fixed the chronicle keeper with a hard look, as if Batumar had given my safekeeping into Prince Graho’s hands for the time being. Maybe he had. I did not protest. Such trust from the warlord would restore the prince’s confidence and manly pride, which, I suspected, had suffered from recent events.

  Prince Graho indeed stuck by my side as I worked my small healings that amounted to little more than righting sour stomachs with herbal teas and treating training injuries. The healing claimed my time, but not my full attention. The closer we reached to home, the more worry filled my mind.

  I implored the spirits without ceasing: Let us find our people safe.

  Then, finally, late in the afternoon, a shout rose from the crow’s nest once again. “Land!”

  I had been about to seek out my dinner, but instead, I rushed to the prow of the ship. I squinted so hard, my eyes hurt, until I could finally make out enough of the landmass ahead to know that we indeed reached Dahru, the south end of the island, the Shahala port city of Sheharree.

  Thank you, merciful spirits!

  The beauty of our verdant island squeezed my heart. Dahru was a jewel, an enormous emerald floating on the perfect azure sea. A mosaic of fields lay past the harbor city, then began the gently rolling hills with their flowers and birds and tall numaba trees. Far in the distance, our majestic Mountain of No Top watched over our home with its snow-frosted peaks.

  As my gaze slid to the north of the harbor, toward my mother’s beach where I had grown up and first dreamed of becoming a healer, Batumar came over and claimed my hand, solace in his touch, questions in his eyes.

  I shook my head. I did not want to visit my old home. I did not come here to reminisce. I came to save our island.

  The warlord kept my hand even as his gaze turned back to the harbor. His posture stiffened. And then my smile too evaporated. We were close enough now so even without a spyglass I could make out the details of the single large ship in port.

  I gasped. “A warship!”

  Chapter Eleven

  (Rain of Fire)

  “A Kadar ship,” Batumar said, his voice tight and the words clipped. The wind whipped his light summer cape. Yet while the cape flitted behind him, the man himself appeared unmovable, as solidly rooted to the deck as our mainmast.

  When I had first met him, he had looked exactly what he was—the most powerful warlord of the land. And now… So much more. A hero from myth, a weapon forged in fire.

  My gaze lingered on the determined set of his jaw for another moment before returning to the city. Behind the warship, the harbor was just as welcoming as I remembered. Too trusting. No defensive walls of any kind blocked the view, no gates, no fortifications. In fact, from this distance, Sheharree’s harbor looked a lot like Rabeen’s.

  My people had no need of fortifications in the past, and I prayed to the spirits times would return when men could live this freely again. For now, I held my breath, fearing for the Shahala, who laid themselves so open to the sea, utterly defenseless.

  “The question is, is the ship under Kerghi command?” Prince Graho asked as he limped up to us. He inspected the harbor through the captain’s looking glass, then scoffed. “Worse defenses than Rabeen. I would not have thought that was possible. Are defensive structures out of fashion in this part of the world?”

  “The Kadar side of the island is fully fortified, my lord,” I told him. “You will like the fortress city of Karamur. But the Shahala are a people of peace.”

  In a just world, my people should need no protection. Before this war, I would have told the prince and Batumar how inhospitable walls were. I would have been proud that my people were open and welcoming, proud that we valued knowledge above strength. But after having seen what I had seen in this war… A lot of what I used to believe was now in question.

  “You must wish to take a closer look.” Prince Graho handed me the looking glass.

  The buildings still stood, as tightly packed as they ever had been. Sheharree being a southern city, the houses were built tall and close together so the streets between them would receive as much shade as possible. Rabeen’s streets had been twice as wide to allow for the transportation of goods and livestock that went in and out of the markets in an endless stream. Most of Rabeen’s trees—except for the orchards—had been cut to make room for more market stalls. In Sheharree, every public square was thickly planted, as were many of the rooftops. While Sheharree did brisk trade, its markets were certainly not on the scale of Rabeen’s.

  “No merchants ships,” I noted, and my stomach clenched as I thought of Rabeen’s empty harbor. That empty harbor had meant… But it does not have to mean the same here!

  Yet Sheharree always had its fair share of ships. As a child, I had never been to the docks with my mother without seeing at least a dozen sets of sails. She used to trade her healing services for exotic herbs brought from distant lands. Oh, how I had loved the harbor then—the sights, the sounds, the crush of the crowd. Now its unnatural stillness filled me with a dark sense of foreboding.

  I handed the looking glass to Batumar.

  He gentled his voice as he said, “We must assume that Sheharree has fallen.”

  I had thought I was prepared for whatever might face us at the end of our journey. I was not. Images of the piles of dead on Rabeen overwhelmed me. I was not certain I could bear to see the Shahala so destroyed.

  If only we had come sooner. If only we had more ships… If only we had more men…

  At least no forest of gallows waited for us here. Yet desperation cleaved my heart in half. “If the Kerghi sacked Sheharree, why would they leave a ship? They left none to hold Rabeen. They loaded up what they could and sailed away.”

  “Rabeen was but a market,” Batumar said. “They took what they needed. Nothing left there to guard. Here, the city still stands.”

  Understanding dawned on me. “The Kerghi khan wants to make Dahru the seat of his new empire. So sparing Sheharree made more sense than reducing it to ruins.”

  The warlord nodded.

  I was glad that all the buildings yet stood. Of course, that the city was not in ruin did not mean my people had not been massacred.

  “They left only the one ship here,” the prince said as Batumar inspected the coastline. “We do not know where the rest of their fleet is. The single ship could be a trap. We sail into port to fight it, then the rest of the fleet appears at our backs.”

  Dahru had a ragged coast, dott
ed with lagoons and inlets, plenty of places for ships to hide. More ships could be but waiting for a signal. Except…

  “They do not know that we are coming,” I told the prince. “Why would they have a trap waiting?”

  “In any case,” Batumar lowered the spyglass, “we must land. We did not fully resupply on Rabeen. We must purchase food for our army here. Our ships cannot sail to Kaharta Reh with hungry men. Our army must be strong enough to defeat the Kerghi horde when we find them.”

  “Aye,” the prince agreed, but still looked troubled. Turning, he called to the captain. “We will stay the rest of the day out at sea.”

  Better to face the enemy in the morning rather than at night. We had taken the same precaution at Rabeen. I silently prayed to the spirits that there would be no other similarities.

  “For now,” the prince said, “let the people in the harbor think that we are but a ship passing by.”

  He was firmly back in charge, moving more easily now, not fully recovered but making fast progress. I kept offering him my healing powers, but he still refused them. He wore his sword belt once again. I pitied the commander of his guard if he thought he was going to keep the prince from fighting once we landed.

  Shouts rang out as Captain Temro ordered the ship to adjust course and sail out of sight. We had been coming in at an angle, so a slight adjustment would remove us from the horizon in short order. We would be glimpsed, then lost again. Our horns signaled to our two caravels trailing us at a distance to stay farther out to sea. This way, they would not be spotted from land.

  While Batumar and the prince discussed strategy, I kept watching the city. I hoped for a hint of a white Shahala robe, but I did not catch a single glimpse. I told myself we were too far out to be able to see people. They were not all dead. Then, as our ship adjusted course, the harbor disappeared from sight.

  I hated, hated, hated to leave. We had traveled across the wild ocean, through harsh and war-torn lands, and now we had returned. We were home at last. I wanted my feet planted on Dahru’s soil without any further delay.

  “Just a little longer.” Batumar caught my mood as he often did. His gaze filled with understanding as he turned to me. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we shall find out how our people fared in our absence.”

  “Tomorrow.” Impatience burned through me.

  For certain, I would have been a lot more grateful for being able to spend a night in peace if I had known all that awaited us the following day.

  Chapter Twelve

  (Battle for the Harbor)

  Our mainmast was on fire, moments after the enemy realized that our ship carried soldiers. It was barely past daybreak, the Shield only halfway to harbor.

  At least the Lance and the Sword were yet undamaged. The two caravels stayed out of the reach of the fire arrows, but close enough to reach us in time if our ship capsized and we needed saving from the water.

  “Hold still.” I was treating a burn wound, doing my best to help a squirming sailor.

  “It is unfortunate we can’t respond to fire with fire in full measure.” Boscor ducked as the enemy loosed another volley of flaming arrows. He was kneeling by my side, in the cover of our water barrels, helping with the wet rags.

  The arrows hit, I drew my patient’s pain, and he loudly offered his gratitude as he hurried back to his work, yanking burning arrows from the deck and handing them to the few archers we had onboard.

  I drew a deep breath and sank back to my heels, giving my body a moment to handle the pain of the burn I had just taken upon myself. “When we left Uramit, we stocked our ship for land battle,” I told Boscor as his gaze followed the man. “We did not anticipate finding the Kadar fleet in Kerghi hands.”

  “And you were not able to fully supply on Rabeen.” Boscor’s tone was apologetic. “My lady, are you well?”

  “Soon enough.” My gaze dropped to his abdomen. “I could heal you too. The battle has begun. I will be healing all day. I will be depleted no matter what. One more won’t matter.”

  He hesitated but a blink before he drew back. “Thank you, my lady. But the warlord is right. Save yourself for the fighting men.”

  Batumar strode toward us, as if he had heard his name being spoken. He gestured toward the enemy ship, handing me the looking glass he carried. “Look at the city.”

  I fitted the copper tube to my eye, my attention catching on the enormous enemy ship turning toward the Shield. “Is it preparing to ram us?”

  “Aye.”

  I could now clearly see the lettering on its side. “The Barmorid.”

  The Kadar named their warships after their High Lords. Barmorid had been the High Lord before Batumar. He had also been my father, although my mother had never told me. I had not found out the truth of my parentage until after her death. By then, Barmorid too had died, before I had a chance to meet him. I had too many questions and nobody to answer them—the least of my problems at the moment.

  “Look at the city, my Tera,” Batumar urged.

  I aimed the copper tube at the jumble of white buildings past the harbor and gasped when I saw people at long last. Then I could finally make out their familiar clothes, the customary Shahala thudrag and tunic.

  “My people live! I can see them.”

  The warlord’s hand came to rest on my shoulder. “The Shahala are not fighters. When the enemy came, the locals likely offered little resistance. I would wager there was no widespread battle on the streets.”

  Good. Smart. I wanted my people to live. Yet I had been at war long enough to feel a twinge of embarrassment that the city had given up its freedom without a fight. The warrior nation of the Kadar would have fought to the death.

  I used to think the Kadar bloodthirsty barbarians. And now…

  Now my heart belonged to a warlord, and I led an army. As I watched the port coming closer and closer, once again I felt as if I stood not by the railing of the ship, but on a dividing line between cultures and beliefs, straddling two worlds. Or as if I were two Teras—one a healer, maybe a little naïve even after all this time. And the other…a woman who would do whatever it took to save her people.

  “Tera!” The warlord ripped the top off the nearest crate and held the lid over my head like a shield just in time to save us from the next wave of flaming arrows.

  I ducked and caught sight of Urdy scampering down into the hold for safety. Don’t fall. But he seemed to manage, even with broken arms. “I will have someone take you below,” I told Boscor.

  “My lady, I would rather wait out the battle on deck.”

  I glanced toward the stern. “The captain’s cabin is the only cover, and it offers little protection. The roof is fair ruined.”

  “Still, if the captain would allow me…”

  I could see the truth in the chronicle keeper’s eyes. When the Kerghi had set the council hall of Rabeen on fire, he had been hiding in a secret closet. He could easily have been trapped and burned to death. With fire arrows flying above us, he was afraid of being trapped down below. Soldiers could carry him down, but if the battle did not go well, if the ship caught on fire and began sinking, in the chaos would anyone remember to bring him up again?

  Prince Graho ran up to help, and the warlord handed our makeshift cover to him. “Protect the Lady Tera.”

  The warlord’s gaze cut to mine and held for a moment. He knew as well as I that the prince was not ready for battle. Prince Graho would never have withdrawn to the safety of the other side of the ship for his own sake. He would, however, take me there to save me.

  We scrambled away under the protection of the crate top and the shields of the prince’s guards, who were running to us from every direction, Commander Durak in the lead. They reached us not a moment too soon, for we barely entered the dubious protection of the captain’s half-destroyed cabin when yet another volley of arrows hit our ship.

  “Here!” Boscor called us to the safest corner, with the most roof left over it.

  Outside, another one of our sa
ils caught on fire. Sailors scrambled for buckets, but the flames spread too quickly. Then Captain Temro’s voice rang out over the chaos. “Cut away the sails!”

  Even as fire licked the ropes, men raced up the rigging and hacked away at the burning canvas. Soon both sails were cut free and the wind blew them into the ocean, clear of the ship.

  Something crashed onto the top of the cabin and my heart jumped into my throat as I whirled to look through the large gap.

  Marga. “You scared me.”

  The tiger roared, pawing at the wood, thinking I was trapped in there. She was going to break me free.

  Another volley of fire arrows hit. One flaming missile flew right by her head.

  “Marga!” I reached my hands toward her, and she obeyed, leaping down to me, even as a burning, broken beam fell from the ceiling, barely missing her.

  When flames danced across the floor, Marga snapped her teeth at them, and I threw my arms around her thick neck so the distressed animal would not swipe at anyone. Far too many of us were crammed into the small space.

  I hummed my spirit song to her. All is well. It will be over soon. Stay.

  I did not want her to bolt, nor did I want her out in the open, exposed to the arrows.

  I caught Prince Graho looking toward the nearest hatch, the one that led down to the galley. If he had any dreams of taking us down there, they were cut short. Even as we watched, the hatch doors were slammed shut so no fire arrows could fall down into the hold when the next volley came. A heartbeat later, a burning chunk of rigging plummeted from above, right on top of the doors.

  Captain Temro ran past, shouting orders. Secondary sails unfurled. Our ship raced forward.

  “Faster!” our captain shouted. “Pull! Turn!”

  The prince grunted with frustration next to me, his feet poised to rush out, his hand reaching for his sword, then stalling. He would remain to protect me.

  I placed a hand on his hip. When his gaze cut to me, I pleaded, “You must be fit for battle.”