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

  “As did finding the people of Rabeen massacred, I suspect.”

  “The dead brought back memories, for certain. Our men have seen their own cities laid to waste just so. They wonder if our numbers are enough to fight the enemy. While here… If we built fortifications, we would have a fair chance of holding the island.”

  “The market city was prosperous before its destruction,” I agreed. “No reason why it could not be prosperous once more. New wells could be dug. We could live on fish until the fields Rabeen’s farmers planted in the spring would be ready for our harvest in the fall.”

  Tomron glanced toward the men once again, a frown creasing his brow. “Few of our army are trained soldiers. Most are farmers and merchants who joined up because Emperor Drakhar’s armies razed their villages and cities on the mainland.”

  I understood, I truly did. I wished to sail to Dahru to confront the enemy, to fight for my homeland and for my own people. Our soldiers, on the other hand, were going to battle, risking their lives, for strangers and countries they had never before seen. The thought of remaining here—with the fruit orchards and olive groves—had to tempt them.

  I drew a ragged breath, the vision of our army disintegrating on Rabeen’s rocks slamming into my chest like a battering ram.

  * * *

  “My guards tell me Rabeen could be made defensible,” Prince Graho said when I went below to check on him and shared my concerns about the mood amongst the men.

  Four royal guards stood by his side. They had washed him of the sweat of fever, combed his hair, and dressed him in fresh clothes. The sun was at an angle so that its rays reached the prince. I did not pull him into shade. Sunshine had its own healing powers. His eyes were clear. His fever was gone. The breeze outside pushed fresh air down into the hold, the heat not uncomfortable.

  “Your britches, my lord. I brought a poultice. We found some herbs at the market that will help.”

  He did not fight me this time, but he did look away from me as I began to change his bandages. These his men had not touched, on my orders.

  I washed the wound in herb water, then prepared the poultice, looking for infection or any spots of black near his injury, but found neither. He had minded my instructions to keep the wound clean and do nothing that would strain him.

  “Where is Commander Durak? Back on the island to gain more tactical information?” I asked to distract the prince. “Just as well. I do not think he altogether approves of me.”

  “If he’s said anything…”

  “He does not have to. His hard looks say aplenty.”

  “He is a hard man. Have I ever told you he was a childhood hero to me?” Prince Graho‘s eyes lit with frank admiration. “In his youth, in his first battle, after an enemy lance ran through his chest, he was left for dead on the battlefield. They say he came to at twilight, to rats chewing off his ear.”

  “That would explain why he only has the one.” I laid the poultice in place.

  “As enemy soldiers sorted through the dead,” the prince said, “stripping them of weapons and valuables, Durak overheard them talking about a surprise attack at dawn. He broke off the lance’s shaft and crawled to my father’s camp to warn him, the foot-long metal tip still stuck between his ribs.”

  I was beginning to understand why Durak was the commander of the prince’s guard. “And would he too prefer to stay on the island?”

  “With our three warships, we can repel the enemy should they return.” The prince paused, but only for a moment. “Rabeen has but two major harbors. The narrow beach is on a shallow inlet. The enemy could only come ashore there if they grounded their ships. The rest of the shoreline is mostly cliffs. With what force we have, we could stop any invaders from putting troops ashore.”

  As an admiral, his first thought, of course, was naval defenses.

  I was grateful for his experience and knowledge, and yet… “The enemy did put his troops ashore.”

  “And how many soldiers do you think, my lady, Rabeen had for its defenses?”

  “Too few, according to Batumar.” I had to agree. I could not remember seeing the slightest hint of an army the last time we had been here. “Rabeen was a market, not a military installation.”

  “There you have it,” Prince Graho said with satisfaction. “We, on the other hand, have ships well manned by sailors used to war, and over five hundred soldiers.”

  We both looked up as Tomron hurried down the ladder, his boots slapping hard onto the wooden rungs. While I waited for him to reach us, I addressed the prince again. “Would you stay, then? Give up now, when we are so close?”

  Prince Graho’s pallid expression turned uncertain. “It might be better for some to live than for all to perish.”

  I could not deny the wisdom of his words.

  “And you?” I asked Tomron who came to a halt next to us and was trying not to stare at the prince’s injury.

  While I grabbed a roll of clean linen and began the careful work of swaddling my patient, Tomron said, “Where my Lady Tera leads, I follow, even into the jaws of death and down his slimy throat. And then I will cut his belly open.” He rattled his sword. “And I will set my lady free.”

  Gratitude flooded me. My general was normally more taciturn, but mayhap he knew I needed to hear his words of allegiance. “Thank you, Tomron.”

  Prince Graho gave a bitter groan. “I should have said what he said.”

  I finished with his bandages and patted his shoulder. “You are not in your best form. But by tomorrow, you will be your valiant prince self again. We will win this war, and there will be songs sung about your prowess.”

  His troubled gaze cleared. “One of those long ballads?”

  “Definitely so.”

  Tomron’s lips twisted into an amused smile at our banter. Then his expression grew serious. “My Lady Tera, we best get the men back on the ships without much delay.”

  The tension in his tone worried me. Bidding the prince to rest, I pushed to my feet and walked to the ladder, but I stopped with my foot on the bottom rung.

  “How bad is it?” I asked, and made sure my voice did not carry.

  “Time is of the essence,” Tomron said under his breath.

  The first person I saw when stepping on the deck was Batumar, thank the spirits. As soon as he spotted me, he strode straight toward me, his expression carrying enough thunder to have men move out of his way. His shirt and britches were covered in dust. He must have gone back to Rabeen to help our men sift through the rubble.

  “There you are.” He stopped in front of me, his gaze softening for a moment, but only a moment, before he said, scowling, “I do not like the looks of the men.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I would give much for a few hundred true Kadar warriors. They would not be having battle jitters.”

  Twice as many men loitered in the harbor than before, no longer performing tasks but remaining on shore regardless. I would have to bring them back on board and quickly, before even more joined them. The more they talked out there, the more they would convince themselves to stay.

  I considered standing in the prow of the ship as I addressed them. Then I decided to go among them instead.

  “If you wish…” Batumar began, but I shook my head.

  I could not leave the task to Batumar, even though I knew with certainty he would remove any burden from my shoulders to help. If I wanted the men to fully commit to fighting this war to the end, I had to remind them that I was fully committed to leading them.

  My mind churning, I left the ship once again. Instead of walking on the stone ramp, I climbed the rocks that separated the harbor from the market. I was close enough to the men to be heard and high enough to be seen.

  Now, I thought. Now I must win them.

  “Men!” With rows of bodies on the gallows providing the background, I addressed our troops, my voice flying out over the rubble. “You stand here not only as soldiers. You stand here as fathers, brothers, and sons.”

  I gestured
at the dead. “You have seen your families massacred. You have seen your homes burned. Yet you remained strong. You survived. And soon will come the time to rebuild.”

  They nodded in agreement, their faces hopeful. They expected me to suggest that we all rebuild here.

  Instead, I posed a question. “When a man’s house is on fire and his bed is burning, does he replace the bed before putting out the flames?”

  Their expressions turned puzzled then thoughtful. Understanding began to glint in eyes here and there.

  “You have lost much,” I said. “Most of you have lost everything. What would you not do to erase those losses? What would you not do to bring back your parents, your brothers and sisters, your wives, and your children? Would you not do anything? Are you willing to do whatever it takes, no matter the price?”

  Voices rose in the crowd. “Aye!”

  The men watched me intently now. Many of them knew me as a sorceress. I knew some expected me to suggest magic. I went on quickly to dispel such false hope.

  “We cannot undo the past. Yet together, we have the power to save the future. One day soon, you will have homes again. You will have wives. You will have children. But they will only be safe if first we defeat this enemy. We must clear them out of the islands of the Mirror Sea, or we will never have safe homes here. If we do not defeat the Kerghi hordes, what happened to your homes before will happen again. What happened here in Rabeen will come to pass once more.”

  The men stood still and silent.

  “Today, together, we decide what world we make for our future children—mine and yours. Will we huddle on this island, hoping to evade the eye of the enemy for a time? Will we live in false hope? Then, when they come, for they surely will, do we allow the enemy to take once again all that we hold dear?”

  “Nay!” came the response, most of the men shouting now. “Never again!”

  “We will defeat this enemy! We will push them into the sea. We have come this far. We will make the islands of the Mirror Sea into a place where our children live safely and free. What would you do to save your sons yet unborn?”

  All the men screamed, “Anything!”

  “Are you men who will hide on a rock? Or are you men whose names future generations will know and respect? Will your name be lost to history, or will you be legends? Will you fight?”

  “AYE!”

  I drew my lungs full. “Then let us go and fight!”

  “AYE!” The men cheered. Some threw their caps into the air; others waved their swords over their heads.

  I watched them, my heart racing with a savage pleasure.

  As they clamored to get back on the ships, I gave thanks to the spirits. Only then did I see Batumar standing a short distance behind me with Tomron and Lord Karnagh. They had lent me their full, unquestioning support in front of the men.

  Two warlords and a general. Yet they looked at me as if I were a queen.

  “My lady.” They bowed one after the other.

  Batumar beamed with pride and love. As Tomron had pledged his loyalty to me in the hold of the ship, Batumar pledged it with every breath he took.

  Lord Karnagh, warlord of the Selorms, stepped forward. When we had first met, his hair had been a striking lion’s mane. The thick, twisted locks still fell below his waist, but they had turned near silver during the winter he had spent at the Beast Lords’ Chapel, fighting death.

  He gifted me with a warm smile, his battle tiger, Tigran, by his side, and, of course, Marga next to the male tiger. “A speech fit for a war queen.”

  He was a friend, and I had missed him these past couple of mooncrossings. “How did you fare through the storms, my lord?”

  He made a dismissive gesture with his left hand. The right arm of his brown leather doublet hung empty. By the time I had found him at the chapel, near death, he had cut off his infected sword arm to save his own life. The worst injury for a warrior born for battle, but he would not let it stop him.

  “The storms tossed us some,” he said simply, a man who had stared death in the face more than once, “but we made it through with most of our men. We are ready to fight.”

  He flexed his left arm. “I have been practicing.”

  Our two tigers circled us, chuffing at each other with affection.

  Lord Karnagh watched the animals with undisguised pleasure. “Do you know Selorm tradition, my lady?” He went on without waiting for my answer. “From a litter of battle tigers, the sire always receives one cub, preferably male.”

  “No litter is expected.” Marga and I spent enough time together that I would have felt the new life growing in her.

  Lord Karnagh would not be discouraged. “Soon,” he said, and patted Tigran’s massive shoulder, as if urging the tiger to do his duty.

  We climbed off the rocks and headed back to our small fleet, trailing behind our soldiers as they boarded. The scent of goat stew wafted from the galleys and filled the air. Our cooks had been busy.

  Lord Karnagh strode to the Sword, Tomron to the Lance, while Batumar and I returned to the Shield.

  Even as the men ate, the captains drew anchor. As our ships left the harbor, Batumar went below to confer with the prince. I remained in the stern and watched the wharf behind us with its forest of gallows. I said the Last Blessing over the massacred, then swore to the sky that I would never forget Rabeen and its dead. I prayed to the spirits that Dahru had not suffered the same devastation.

  The last I saw of Rabeen was the cliffs, gilded in the rays of the setting sun. I watched the waves crash into the rocks where the ancient god’s temple stood submerged in water. I could not see even the tip of a single pillar, yet a cold shiver still ran down my spine.

  I turned toward the open sea then and pushed away all feelings of unease. We were returning to Dahru. Home. We were bringing five hundred soldiers. And when the Shahala healers joined us, our five hundred would count as twice that number. The healers would be able to heal those injured in fighting and quickly return them to the battlefield.

  Thank you, kind spirits.

  Marga padded up next to me and rubbed her bushy head against my side.

  “We will free Dahru,” I told the tiger, my heart filled with hope. “We will make a new start. You will see. Only a little longer, and we will reach home. We will face our enemies. And we will win.”

  Chapter Nine

  (Heart be Brave)

  “An earworm,” I told the soldier who sat on an overturned bucket before me on deck the following morning.

  “I thought so, my lady.” The grizzled warrior nodded. “It screeched all night, leaving me no sleep. Gives me a fierce headache.”

  He had been rubbing his forehead and sticking his finger into his ear every time he took a break from morning practice. The way he winced made me suspect the worm, but, of course, the man would not come to me. I had to go to him.

  “You must have picked it up on Rabeen. I am going to pull it. Tilt your ear to the sky.”

  He did as I asked. “Will it hurt?”

  “Not nearly as much as if I left it in.” If it was a yellow-ringed worm, it would eventually burrow into his brain. But even if it was the slimmer black earworm, it would start eating the man’s eardrum eventually.

  “I need hot oil,” I told the soldier next to me. “Bring some from the galley.”

  Lucky for us, we had found a few dropped and rolled-away flasks of olive oil in the ruins of the market of Rabeen.

  “I will also need a bucket of seawater,” I told the nearest sailor, and he ran off to fetch it.

  The two men came back at the same time. I accepted the oil first, still in its flask and boiling hot, as if the cook had simply held it over the fire. Holding the metal flask with the rag the soldier used to carry it, I stuck it into the bucket of seawater to cool it a little. When I was sure I would not burn my patient, I poured as much as I could into his ear, then quickly handed off the flask to the nearest man.

  The worm took no time at all to show itself, fla
t head first, which I pinched, yanking. Yellow-ringed worm. Longer than my middle finger. Oh, how it screeched! The sound only stopped when the cursed worm bit me, winding around my finger as if it would never let go.

  I plunged my whole hand into the bucket by my feet. The worm squirmed right off my finger then, trying to escape the salt that burned its skin—only to sink deeper into the water.

  “Over the side!” I shouted, and one of the braver sailors grabbed the bucket, then ran off with it.

  “Toss the whole bucket!” I shouted after him.

  Ringed worms were quick. I would not want it to end up in his ear.

  I did not relax until I heard the splash, and neither did the men around me.

  “Thank you, my lady.” The soldier in front of me rose, rubbing his ear.

  I nodded, then called, “Next!”

  Another soldier sat, cradling his right arm with the left.

  “You should have come to me right away,” I scolded him as I grabbed his elbow and shoulder to rotate his dislocated shoulder. “I want everyone to come to me when they are hurt, instead of trying to protect me. I am a healer.”

  Judging by the swelling, he had hurt himself at the beginning of training, at dawn, and now it was midmorning.

  He swallowed a groan as I popped the joint back into place. “Yes, Lady Tera. We but wish you’d save your strength for battle. For when it really matters.”

  “This matters.”

  “Of course, my lady.”

  I shook my head, fair certain that he would hide his future training injuries just the same, then I moved on to my next patient and the next.

  The sun was high in the sky by the time I returned belowdecks, carrying a bucket of fresh water. I checked on the prince. No fever. He had royal guards aplenty to see to his needs, so I carried the water to the mother and child whom we had settled into the prince’s unused room.

  As I opened the door, I caught the woman jumping to her feet and shoving her daughter into the farthest corner. She stepped between us for good measure. Her gaze darted to the bucket, staying for a second, then moving on with disappointment, as if she had not assessed it for its content but whether it could be easily used as a weapon.