Empire of Bones (31 page)

Ingrid

“Another seventy-three fighters came in during the day,” Orlek announced gleefully before downing a mouthful of almost brackish ale. “That brings our fighting strength close to two thousand just in this quadrant of the kingdom.”

“Two thousand won’t be enough once Harnin marshals his full force and marches on us,” Ingrid replied almost too quickly.

Two days had passed since the successful string of ambushes on Wolfsreik supply trains. Two days in which she’d gotten nearly no sleep. Fears of being discovered or worse, betrayed, prevented her from thinking clearly. She saw enemies lurking behind every building and in every shadow. It had happened before. She harbored no illusions that it wouldn’t again. Treachery had become the currency of the realm.

Ingrid bore her share of the blame. Abandoning Inaella at her greatest moment of need had been a sound tactical decision but poor from the humanitarian point of view. True, she fully expected the former leader of the rebellion to succumb to the plague and pose no further threat, but finding Inaella in the employ of Harnin One Eye was almost too much to bear. Ingrid couldn’t help but believe she’d created more of a problem than solution.

Harlan frowned from his seat beside the fireplace. Boots propped on the back of a rickety chair, he was kicked back, trying to regain some of the warmth stolen from a long day’s ride across Delranan. His thoughts centered on warm ale, semi-edible food, and the middle daughter of the local crofter. Everything else prevented him from enjoying the night. “You should look at the positive rather than the negative. Our rebellion is growing. You’ve successfully taken it out of Chadra and into the countryside. There is no way Harnin can crush it without committing much more than he has available to the field.”

“Harlan’s right. You need to relax,” Orlek seconded. “This new phase of the rebellion is just starting. You might not realize it but there are a lot of people depending on you to keep them alive until winter breaks.”

“I never wanted that responsibility,” she protested.

In truth she didn’t. Ingrid was content with her daily life, leaving the politics of the moment to those who knew better. Unfortunately those people didn’t and the kingdom plunged into complete chaos. Anarchy spread like a wildfire until nothing of the old Delranan remained. It fell to people like her to pick up the pieces and try to make a better life. Life that wasn’t coming as long as Harnin was on the throne. Becoming a hero didn’t interest her. She was a simple Woman trapped in turbulent times.

Orlek set his drink down and leaned forward to look her in the eyes. “Ingrid, good people don’t get the choices the rest of the world do. They either stand up for what’s right or they get trampled underfoot while evil rolls over them. What hero in any story every wanted to be one?”

“Hard times make heroes,” Harlan practically echoed. “Like it or not you have people looking to you, just like you wanted when you saved the rebellion from Inaella’s lead. Mothers, children, the old and the sick are all looking at you to save them. It’s too late to turn back. Leave the past where it belongs. I say if you can’t change it don’t bother worrying over it.”

She hung her head. Difficult decisions seemed to be flying at her faster than she was capable of dealing with them. “What must I do?”

“Honestly? Do what your heart tells you. It will lead you to the only possible conclusion more times than not,” Harlan said with a smile in his voice. He reached into his faded jacket pocket and produced a short stem pipe already packed. The strike of the match sizzled through the common room they’d adopted as their base of operations during their stay in Fendi. Soon the smell of earthy tobacco drifted across the room.

Ingrid frowned. “You make it all sound so gallant, so graceful. Too many people have died fighting this rebellion. Few of them were on my shoulders until I assumed command. All that follow from this point forward will be mine to bear as well. When have you ever been held accountable for so precious a gift?”

Harlan’s light-hearted demeanor soured. He turned towards the cackling fire and said no more. Some pains were still too close to speak of.

Orlek ran a hand through his hair and slammed his palm on the counter. “Damn it, Ingrid, what is this? You took control of a dying group and have produced numerous victories. You almost singlehandedly turned this war around and gave our people, your people, hope again. Now you want to take it away for the simple reason that you can’t handle it? That’s childish.”

“How dare y…”

“I dare because you’re giving me no choice! This is your war now, Ingrid, not Inaella’s. We will either win or lose by your decisions. Now stop acting like a spoiled child and be the leader you were always meant to be.”

Her cheeks reddened with embarrassment but she kept her mouth shut. There were times when a proper dress down was appropriate. This was clearly one of them. She replayed all she’d said and done in her mind and, in retrospect, came to the conclusion that her actions since killing her first Man two days ago had been excessively selfish. Orlek and Harlan were both right. She was a leader now whether she liked it or not.

Ingrid’s first action was to deploy her forces to achieve maximum effect. Harnin wasn’t going to be content with staying around the capitol. Any logistical problems could be resolved by breaking the forces up into small units with enough supplies to sustain a prolonged effort in the field. Getting them to where they needed to be to cause maximum havoc was another issue altogether.

The rebellion sorely lacked wagons and horses, even after their successes raiding the supply trains. They needed more of each if they were going to cover large areas of ground in a timely, effective manner. Time was a luxury she didn’t have. Word had come in just that morning that Harnin was moving out into the countryside. It wouldn’t take long before they realized what had happened to their supplies and would come looking for the responsible party in force. That left her with one inescapable conclusion.

“We must prepare to leave Fendi,” she said unexpectedly.

“So soon?” Harlan asked. His gloom seemed temporary, having already faded. “This is still a secured location.”

Golden hair danced around her face as she shook her head. “Not for much longer. Harnin will be heading this way much sooner than we’d like to believe. Word should reach Chadra Keep in the next few days of their losses and it won’t take a genius to realize our general location. He has enough forces to circle this entire portion of the kingdom and tighten it around us. Unless we escape to the next fallback position before he can act we’ll be trapped.”

“The implications suggest a measure of error,” Harlan said. “We spread our initial attacks out in a wide enough pattern to keep him guessing. The only way he’d know for certain which part of the kingdom to look would be if we had a spy in our ranks.”

“Which we must assume we do,” Ingrid countered firmly. “Many of us were loyal to the crown and the Wolfsreik at one point
after
the war began. Harnin will have loyalists emplaced within our camp just as we do in his. Or at least had until Lord Argis was discovered.”

Argis’s loss hurt more than any of the current leaders were willing to admit. He’d provided key tactical advantages to fighting the Wolfsreik while bolstering support for the rebellion. The executed lord was the singular greatest asset Ingrid could have ever hoped for, and Inaella had squandered him to the point where Harnin took his head on the Keep’s walls in front of the populace.
Yet another reason to despise that Man. I vow to take his head the same way he took Argis’s
.

“I don’t see how anyone this far out could be loyal to the crown,” Orlek told her. “Most of these villagers never had deeply set loyalties to Badron. They paid their taxes and did their part for crown and kingdom but much preferred being left alone, forgotten by the king. This is a simple life out here.”

“Simple or not I wouldn’t put it past anyone to accept his offer for the right price,” Ingrid answered.

Harlan exhaled a thick plume of bluish smoke. “How do you propose we discover the truth? No one in their right mind is going to admit being a spy in the middle of a war. That’s instant execution.”

“We leave it alone for now. Break the fighters up into small groups with missions so far apart they couldn’t possibly exchange information. Tell on the group leaders what their tasks are and where they need to go and make each believe theirs is the primary objective. Any spy will be forced to work three times as hard to get word back to Chadra Keep.”

“While giving us time to learn their identities and remove them,” Orlek finished. Where Ingrid and Harlan, to an extent, were reluctant when it came to killing, he bore no such hesitation. He’d killed more than his share and intended to keep doing so until the war ended. Only then would he find peace. He hoped.

“Exactly,” Ingrid confirmed. “I want you two to pick twenty Men and Women. Good, strong candidates or heads of family if there is enough. Each one will be responsible for a specific area of Delranan and have one hundred fighters at their command. Our first order of business is the disruption of their supply lines. Once they are harried to the point of keeping their precious supplies at home we can focus on taking out their smaller outposts and bases. Most of Harnin’s efforts are concentrated to the east. He fears Badron’s return and rightfully so. The deposed king had ten thousand soldiers at his disposal, paling Harnin’s forces by more than two to one, combat losses notwithstanding.”

“Come on, Harlan, old friend. She wants us to go back into the cold,” Orlek said glibly.

Harlan pretended to frown and emptied his pipe. “A cruel mistress she is, Orlek. Soon she’ll have us shoveling snow to make a proper ambush sight before too long.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes and waved them out the door. They had much to do before she would be comfortable enough to sleep again. Her greatest fears were breathing down her neck. Harnin and his army were coming to get her. Led by an overly vindictive Inaella, he would stop at nothing in catching and killing them all. Ingrid couldn’t let that happen. The time had come to take the fight back to the One Eye.

* * * * *

Harnin ripped his dagger from the chest of scout and kicked the body to the ground before he died. Thin ropes of crimson blood splashed down around the poor Man. The second scout meekly bowed his head, hoping to avoid the same fate. The lord of Delranan eyed the trembling soldier harshly. His dagger waivered. Blood dripped slowly from the exposed blade.

“You dare bring me news of this sort?” he raged.

“My lord, our captain thought it wise to dispatch us with the news immediately. Our losses were severe.” The scout’s words came quickly and lacked confidence.

Harnin lifted his dagger. “Stop speaking. I have grown tired of the gross incompetence surrounding me. Go back to your captain with orders to continue operations. I want the rebels found and executed. Leave me before I decide to mount your head on a pike.”

Saluting, the scout bowed and hurried off before Harnin changed his mind. Skaning and Jarrik exchanged nervous looks while deciding what to say. Harnin’s mood continued to devolve into borderline madness. Reason slipped through his fingers the longer the war drug on. Compounding matters was the inevitable return of the main army. The only way Harnin would be able to deal with Badron and the Wolfsreik effectively was through crushing the rebellion and putting the rebels in chains on the front lines. They’d die horribly but they might take enough of the Wolfsreik with them to make a difference in the outcome of the war.

Already on the fringes, Jarrik decided he had nothing to lose. “That could have been handled better, Harnin. Killing our own people doesn’t endear you to them and we need every available body to fight the war in the east.”

“Don’t make the assumption that I need your counsel, Jarrik. You have failed me too many times already. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine you with Argis’s face,” Harnin seethed. “I may need every loyal citizen but I do not need the fractious actions you seem so fond of.”

“I am merely bringing forth a different point of view, Harnin. The war isn’t going well for us. The plague should have all but ended our problems but Ingrid was able to escape with Argis’s body. Inaella has been helpful but not highly effective.”

Throwing the dagger into the already battered oak table, Harnin stalked back to his throne with a dire look haunting his face. “Perhaps I need to send the two of you west. That way if the enemy does overrun us I won’t have to worry about either of you fouling my plans in the future.”

Skaning finally spoke up. He’d sat in the background for too long. Lords were changing so rapidly he felt sure it was time to ascend to a higher position. As one of the last remaining old lords, he had just as much authority and knowledge of how Delranan worked as any of them. “Lord Harnin, sending Jarrik would certainly show our seriousness at eradicating the problem but will also leave us vulnerable on the eastern front. We will have need of quality commanders when Badron does decide to return.”

“Very well, I accept your offer. Take command of the troops in the east, Skaning. Our enemies will be coming soon, at winter’s end in the least.”

“Who will command here in Chadra?” Skaning asked in protest. Harnin’s command threw him off guard, leaving the bigger Man exposed.