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

“Disembarked already. They are searching for food and water with their men.”

  “How have their crews fared?”

  “Both caravels lost men to the storms, but even after accounting for all the losses, we still have five hundred soldiers combined.”

  Hope filled me. Five hundred might just be enough. I smiled at Batumar, and he returned the smile, brushing my hair from my face in a gentle caress. He claimed my hand, and my heart thrilled as always at his touch. My happiness did not last long, however.

  We reached the plank, and the sight of the dead, the aftermath of battle, tore at my heart. And that was before the debris floating in the narrow strip of water between our ships and the wharf caught my attention. Oh merciful spirits.

  Not driftwood but small bodies bobbed on the water, some caught on the rocks—babes so small that they could not have been weaned from their mothers’ breasts yet. Anguish ripped into me so hard that I lost my breath. My gaze sought Batumar’s. “How could they?”

  He put his arm around me and gathered me against his side. I wanted to bury my face into the comfort he offered. Yet I had brought men and ships here. I needed to lead them. I could not hide my eyes.

  I pulled away from the warlord and looked at the small bodies to remind myself what we were fighting for. “Why?”

  He responded, but in a tone that said he wished I had not asked the question. “The Kerghi can force the young mothers onto their ships more easily if they allow the women to hold on to their babes. Yet suckling babes are naught but a nuisance to slavers.”

  I could see it as if I had been there. Once the captured women were aboard, the Kerghi had ripped the babes from their mothers’ arms and tossed them overboard. The cries of the seabirds above sounded like the screams of women echoing in my ears.

  I put one foot in front of the other, willing myself to move forward. We walked off the plank and onto land, Batumar by my side, his sword free of his scabbard, his gaze scanning the harbor for any hidden danger. Marga trailed behind us, her thick tail swishing in the dirt. She sniffed at the dead, but as hungry as she had to be, she let them be for my sake. When, at last, she bounded ahead, Batumar’s gaze followed her.

  “She will do fine,” he said. “She can hunt rats.”

  I winced. I did not want to think about rats. I could see signs all around that they, along with the carrion birds, had already violated the bodies. As if that wasn’t enough, an army of flies buzzed in the harbor, the sound stomach-turning. And so was the smell.

  I drew shallow breaths. “Before we leave here, we must bury the dead.”

  “Burying this many would take days.” Batumar’s voice carried quiet frustration laced with regret. “We do not have enough provisions to stay. We have not, so far, found sufficient food stores. We must go on.”

  Everything in me protested. Grief weighed me down, as if someone was packing boulders onto my back, adding one for each body we passed, until I could not look at one more merchant, one more fishwife, one more babe.

  I had to turn my mind to other things or drop to the ground right there and scream until I too was dead. “Have our men found nothing to eat, then?”

  “What meat and fruit the attackers left behind has rotted,” Batumar said. “What few sacks of grain they missed have burned with the stalls. The Selorm lords are checking the orchards.”

  We had three ships full of men. We needed more than a few bushels of apples.

  “At least we can refill our water barrels.” I glanced back toward our small fleet. “Why are the men not bringing them?”

  Before Batumar could respond, I remembered the battles we had fought on the mainland where I learned more than I ever wished to know about warfare. “Bodies in the wells?”

  “Aye.”

  Tossing the dead into the wells was a common military tactic. The decomposing bodies spoiled the water for anyone who came after the battle moved on, for those who would want to rebuild.

  “How long can we last without water?” I looked up but found no cloud in the sky—all clear. Even the wind stood still, promising no rain.

  “The men are still looking,” Batumar said. “They might yet find something drinkable.”

  We walked north past the market, past the two-story brick houses where many of the merchants had their homes above their shops. Their servants and the island’s farmers lived farther from the harbor, most in modest mud huts. These too had been burned. Here too bodies littered the ground.

  “How did all this happen?” I asked. “When?”

  “I have not questioned the survivors yet. I came to fetch you as soon as word reached me that the man and woman were discovered and were in need of help.”

  As we hurried on, I spotted the bodies of Kerghi mercenaries now and then, mixed in with the dead of Rabeen. The mercenaries no longer had weapons; their swords and lances had been stripped from them after death.

  For the most part, the Kerghi hordes had no uniform. Yet I could easily tell the killers apart from their victims. The Kerghi were covered in battle scars, but even beyond that… The evil that drove them to slay nations, the evil that lived in their hearts, showed on their faces even in death. Darkness still echoed in their blankly staring eyes and made me shudder.

  Batumar and I moved in silence like spirits, down crooked streets filled with death, until we reached barren rock. Only as we crossed the tops of the rising cliffs did I realize that the island was not as easy a target as I had first thought. On this side of Rabeen, at the cliffs, enemy approach would be near impossible. The only way up from the narrow, rocky beach was a crumbling footpath. Any invaders would be easily knocked back.

  “This way.” Batumar led me down the stone steps.

  About halfway to the water, on a long ledge that followed a sharp outcropping of rock, we came to a skeletal woman. Two of our soldiers guarded her from a distance.

  Her clothes torn, she had wedged herself into a crevice at the far end of the ledge. The crevice was the height of a grown man and equally wide, but only half as deep. Other crevices lined the rock wall, similar in size, rough-hewn but evenly spaced, clearly man-made. They had small holes in the stone up the sides, some with iron hinges, as if at one time the crevices had doors or bars.

  The woman snarled at us like a cornered animal. She had a sword, probably taken from one of the corpses in the market. Dirt streaked her face. No tears, though. Either she was past weeping or too dehydrated to cry.

  “Where is the man?” I asked Batumar as we walked closer. “You said a man and a woman.”

  “He is farther inland.”

  He would have to wait, then. I hoped he wasn’t too badly injured.

  I stepped past our soldiers and waved them back still farther, then shook my head at the warlord, telling him without words not to come any closer as I approached the fear-stricken survivor.

  “I mean no harm.” I realized I said the words in Kadar, the language I had been speaking with Batumar, so I quickly repeated them in the language of merchants. “I mean no harm.”

  The woman’s pale eyes were feral, her dusty hair a tangle, her simple clothes of rough linen torn and blood splattered. She might have been a cook or a maid. Her skeletal arm supporting the heavy sword was sagging with exhaustion. As she shifted, I caught sight of a festering wound on her thigh.

  I moved toward her, one slow step at a time, smiling, keeping my hands visible so she would see I had no weapon. “Are you in pain? I can help. Can you tell me what happened here?”

  Her wild eyes showed no sign of comprehension.

  “It might be days before she recovers enough to be able to answer our questions,” I said to Batumar in Kadar.

  I stopped out of reach of the woman’s blade and held my flask out for her. “Water. Please take it. You need to drink.”

  She only wedged herself more tightly into the far corner of the crevice and held her weapon higher, her eyes darting from me to Batumar, then skipping to the soldiers at our backs.

  “Return t
o the top of the cliffs,” Batumar quietly ordered the men, and then he too drew back a few more steps, but the woman did not relax.

  “I am Lady Tera, a Shahala healer.” I kept the smile on my face. “I travel with an army to chase the Kerghi hordes back across the ocean.”

  She watched me, unmoving.

  “We sail for Dahru,” I told her. “I would that you come with us. To stay on Rabeen is sure death. There is nothing left.”

  Her gaze cut to Batumar, then back to me once again. She did not move, but she blinked a few times as she thought over my offer. She looked utterly terrified and exhausted, and as if she did not entirely trust herself to make a decision.

  Then Marga caught up with us, bouncing down the path in giant leaps before padding toward the woman to sniff at her.

  “No, Marga!” I tried to stop the tiger, but I was too late.

  The woman held the sword out in front of her like a lance. With a fierce scream, she rushed forward to fight the tiger, and I caught a glimpse of a small girl who, all this time, had been hidden behind her mother.

  “Stop!” I jumped between the tiger and the woman. Marga would not have attacked her first, but the tiger would defend herself if attacked.

  They mean no harm. They are scared, I told Marga in spirit song and begged her to calm.

  Even as I threw my arms around her thick neck to hold her back, Batumar roared, “Tera!” and leaped to catch the desperate survivor whose sword missed my neck by a hairsbreadth, and only because the warlord grabbed her arm in time.

  Marga tensed and growled at the sudden burst of violence, so I kept my arms around her, whispering soothing words into her ear and letting my eyes tell Batumar that I was all right.

  He did not look reassured. He looked as if he was silently pledging never to allow me to leave the ship again and considering locking me into the storage room for good measure.

  By the time I calmed the tiger down, the warlord had disarmed the woman. He held both of her wrists in one hand, but gently so, careful to cause no harm, no matter how she screeched and fought.

  Then, worried for her mother, the young girl attacked Batumar with a sharp cry, a stone held tightly in her little fingers.

  I shoved Marga back when she growled again. “Go catch some fish.”

  The water was not far below us. I did not think she’d had the time to hunt for rats yet. She had to be hungry.

  I had to shove again before she left, even as I leaped forward to catch the girl for fear that she would fall off the narrow stone ledge.

  I need not have bothered. She stood frozen in place with wonder at the sight of the tiger obeying my command. The child and her mother both looked at me as if I were a sorceress.

  “A Selorm battle tiger,” I explained as Batumar released the woman at last.

  He kept her sword, stepping back again to give her space. She was no danger to us disarmed and had been little danger even with the sword she barely had the strength to wield. Finding herself free and empty-handed, she immediately picked up her child and darted back into her crevice.

  “We will not hurt you.” I moved closer, then crouched within reach to hold out my water flask again.

  The woman snatched the water from me in a blur of movement. She set her daughter down and let her drink first before quenching her own thirst, her gaze flitting between the warlord and me.

  She did not drain the flask but saved some and handed it back to her daughter, who finished the water to the last drop, then held the flask out to me with hesitation. The mother snatched the flask and tossed it to me instead.

  “How long since the battle?” I asked her.

  She shook her head.

  So, long enough for her to lose count of the days.

  “Do you know of any others who survived?”

  She shook her head again, and this time, a sharp sob escaped her. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her gaunt face. Her knees trembled as if her brave attack on the tiger had used up her last remaining strength.

  My heart clenched, filling with sorrow for her and her child.

  “Will you let us help? Will you come with us? We have some food on our ship.” Not much, but enough for the two of them. “I have raisins,” I told the little girl and watched her wary expression turn wistful.

  We waited while the woman came to accept that she could not stay here on the barren ledge. Then we waited while she accepted that everything she had, everything she loved, was lost. We waited until she wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. And then she finally nodded.

  She stepped forward, but her knees folded at last. Another sob escaped her as she fell. On the ground, she tugged the little girl into her arms and wrapped her body protectively around her child. The girl peered at us from behind her mother’s arms like a baby bird from a nest, scared and curious in equal measure.

  I spoke to them both and talked the mother into allowing me to treat her festering wound. I thought about using my power to close the gash at once, but I feared it might yet convince her that I was a sorceress. I wanted her to trust me more, not less. I asked Batumar to bring me some seawater, and while he was gone, I drew the infection from the woman’s body so slowly and carefully that she did not even notice.

  When I had my water, I set to repairing the injury the old-fashioned way, starting by cleaning off the dried blood. The salt in the water had to burn, but the woman barely flinched. She gritted her teeth as I cleansed the wound, then stitched it closed. I cut a strip from my own cloak to bandage it.

  When I was done, the warlord called the soldiers back from the top of the cliffs. “Take this mother and child to the flagship. Give them food and water.”

  “Go with the men,” I told the poor woman. “Rest on our ship. I will find you and bring you healing tea.” I hoped to find some herbs on the island before we returned to the Shield.

  As the soldiers moved forward, fear rounded the woman’s eyes, but she was too weak to protest, let alone fight off the men. The burly soldiers scooped them up, then carried them off as easily as a farmer might carry a couple of wineskins to a feast. The woman looked near panic, but her daughter settled in, content with her fate.

  Batumar tossed the Kerghi sword into the sea, while I started up the path to the top of the cliffs. He followed, putting his hand at the small of my back for support, as if needing to make sure that I was there and hale and had not been harmed. I knew too well how he felt. I had lost him once and had him returned to me as a wraith. I touched him often, in myriad small ways, to make sure he was with me.

  After a moment, he began drawing distracting little circles with his thumb. When I stumbled on a loose rock and tipped backward, I came to rest against his hard chest, and his arms came around me to hold me in place. His warm lips nuzzled my neck.

  “My lord,” I gasped out a weak protest. “This is hardly the time or the place.” Yet I did not truly wish him to stop.

  “You spent the night with the prince,” he grumbled. “And the morning.”

  I sighed. “And with his royal guard.”

  “Do not remind me.”

  He growled, his hot breath tickling the sensitive skin under my ears, the sound vibrating inside me. After he’d lost his voice from torture in Ishaf, the first sounds he had been able to make were growls and mumbles. He had communicated with Marga the best, mimicking the animal. He could still growl like a tiger, although his voice had much recovered.

  Recovered, as in I healed it bit by bit, without his notice. He had forbidden me to waste my strength on healing his scars, but had not specified his voice, and so…

  He kissed the side of my neck.

  A soft shiver ran down my spine. “I meant to point out that I was hardly alone with the prince.”

  Batumar glanced up the path. As soon as the soldiers reached the top of the cliffs and hurried away toward the harbor, the warlord turned me and kissed me, fast and hard.

  “I love only you, my lord,” I said when I regained my ability to breathe
.

  “I am but an old warhorse,” he said, his tone dark. “Covered in scars.”

  I shook my head and began walking once again. “Which you refuse to let me see.”

  His tone suddenly hardened. “Half the army is in love with you. From the young men to the grizzled warriors.” He groaned. “Nay, make that the whole of the army.”

  “They appreciate my healing skill. They are soldiers. They feel safer knowing I will be going with them to battle.”

  I stopped to peer back at him. He knew my heart was his. He had never been the prince’s greatest admirer, but even so, his words felt to me out of character. As was his stormy countenance. His shoulders were stiff, his stance combative. Suddenly, he looked on the brink of violence.

  I stilled. “Batumar?”

  He caught himself and shook his shoulders as if shaking off snow from his winter cloak. “Forgive me, my Tera. I do not know what came over me.” He looked around. “This place has an odd…” He smacked his lips thoughtfully. “Taste.”

  I quieted my mind. Then I felt it too. Not a taste, closer to a smell. Sulfur? Something dark clung to the cliffs like invisible mist. Unease washed over me. Despite the noon sun, I shivered.

  Batumar drew his sword as he passed me and led me to the top. “The old man the soldiers found is somewhere on the other side of the cliffs.”

  Some of our men were searching through rubble, others hurrying toward the far end of the island, and about half a dozen standing in the middle of a field, their heads together.

  “You think they found another survivor?” I asked Batumar.

  “If they did, they will come for us.”

  He was right. I put them from my mind and moved along, following the warlord.

  We found the old man we sought lying under a dindin tree in the middle of a field, talking with one of our soldiers. But before we could reach him, another soldier cut across the fields and drew the warlord aside for a report. Nothing in the soldier’s expression alarmed me, so I hurried forward in case my healing was urgently needed.

  Marga caught up with me once again, dripping water. The tiger paid no attention to the two men by the dindin. On the other side of the field, an olive orchard stretched into the distance. The movement in the orchard held her full attention.