Kingmaker (24 page)

She lowered her staff but kept it in a ready position. “Messenger from whom?"

"I'll show you.” He turned and started away from her.

"Not so fast. I've got questions."

"The Rissel are out searching. Do you want help, or do you want them to find you?"

Ellie wasn't comfortable with the situation. On the other hand, the kid was right. She needed someplace to hide and she needed help. If they'd been completely unfriendly, they could have turned her in.

"You'd better hope this isn't a trap, kid.” She did her best to sound threatening, although she didn't think she could actually go through with hurting a child.

"Hurry. The Rissel are getting closer."

Although she could never have found it alone, there was a path through the forest floor. Her bare toes still stubbed into tree roots and sharp rocks mangled the bottoms of her bare feet, but they certainly made better time than she'd been making on her own. Since she didn't know where she was going, it was hard to tell if that was good news or bad.

She noticed the smell first.

An almost overpowering stench of unwashed human, untreated human sewage, and rotting food. No military camp, whether Rissel or Lubica, would put up with that lack of hygiene. Centuries of military experience taught that a camp without hygiene breeds disease and death.

Whoever camped here, they weren't the Rissel army. But there were a lot of them and this wasn't a town that appeared on any map.

"You'd better tell me what's going on now,” she hissed to the kid.

"Welcome. We've been expecting you."

It wasn't the kid's voice. A man, not much taller than she, stepped from behind a tree. He carried a bow, strung and notched with an arrow. His smile exposed two missing front teeth and one of his eyes was the hazy blue of a cataract. He was probably only in his thirties, but deep furrows marred his face. A blackened knob was all that remained of one of his ears. The other stuck out at a sharp angle from his bald head.

"I've been trying to get my young friend here to tell me who you were,” Ellie said. The kid, she noticed, had taken advantage of the distraction to vanish.

"His job was to bring you to us, not to share our secrets."

From the stench, Ellie didn't guess they had too many secrets from anyone living nearby. And if this man was any example, they figured to be the worst Lubica had to offer—criminals, brigands, cutpurses, and other outlaws who fled to the forests in a no-man's land between Rissel and Harrison territory.

"If you aren't Rissel, I'm happy to be here. I suppose you know that they have a price on my head.” She might as well be honest.

"Funny you should mention that. The gang is trying to decide how you could be most valuable to us. The Rissel are offering plenty."

"The chances of actually collecting and keeping any Rissel money are slim."

The man nodded. “We were wondering what better offers might be made."

"I'll bite. What kind of offer are you looking for?"

He gave her a gap-toothed grin. “At least you're not like most nobles. I'm Lart."

"Ellie,” she said.

"I knew that. The supposed Witch-Princess Ellie. All of Lubica is in mourning at your capture by the Rissel in your hour of triumph."

"Really?"

Lart smirked. “That is the official word."

"What's the unofficial word?"

He looked hurt. “Unofficial word in our perfect and reunited kingdom? What are you thinking?"

The more she saw of Lart, the more she was convinced he was a criminal. The lopped-off ear was probably the result of some crime. Lubica didn't have the resources to lock its criminals away and resorted to more direct action. But she'd started by being honest and she intended to stay that way. For one thing, Sergius had soured her to lying.

"Lubica and King Sergius may find it convenient for me to be the savior of the Kingdom now that I'm in Rissel hands. I was less convenient when I was at his side, nagging him to do something for the people. I wouldn't count on any reward money from him or from his uncles."

Lart nodded slowly. “I was afraid the wind blew that way. But a man can hope. Still, you must have friends with money."

He didn't want to sell her to the Rissel, that much was obvious. But that wouldn't keep him from doing so if that was the only offer he got.

"You still haven't told me what kind of price you'd be looking for."

He shook his head, disgusted. “Gold, princess. What other reward proves as useful?"

"I could think of plenty. Amnesty for your crimes. A new start on life. Equal taxes for nobles and the common. No more nobles stealing women to be their mistresses. After all, gold can be taken away, but rights endure."

Lart laughed, but Ellie thought she detected a note of desire, need, in his tone. “Princess, you're a dreamer, which only makes you dangerous for simple men like me. Gold would be plenty. Unlike you, we can't afford to dream."

"I don't have any gold,” Ellie admitted. “And I don't have friends with gold. But I can help with the other things I mentioned. If you're willing to fight for them with me."

This time Lart's laughter sounded completely convincing. “You're telling me you want us to refuse your ransom and to fight your battles? You aren't a witch, you're completely crazy."

Ellie waited until he stopped laughing. “They're not my battles,” she said softly. “They're
your
battles. I'm willing to fight them with you, but I can't fight them alone. What I can do is tell you of another world where those battles were fought—and won. And I can train those who want to fight for their freedom. And produce a bit of magical cover for those who want to keep this camp hidden from the Rissel and from the Lubica army that will soon come looking for you, whether you turn me in or keep me."

Lart didn't look impressed by her outburst. “The Dukes were always quick to hire bandits,” he said. “They offered big promises and dangled gold like a carrot before a donkey. But they only wanted us to die for them, to test out their enemy's power before they committed their precious knights. We came here to get away from that. You may say you're fighting our battles, but what good does that do us when we're dead?"

Ellie thought it was a positive sign that he was still talking, that he hadn't rejected her outright. And his question was dead-on. If Ellie hadn't seen the fields outside of Dinan, with the thousands of peasants slaughtered for a tactical advantages, she might have even sympathized, agreed that dying was too high a price to pay for a political cause. But this wasn't just a political cause, and people were dying already.

"Sell me to Sergius, the Rissel, or the Dukes and the only coin you'll keep will be the coppers put on your eyes after you're executed. I'm not promising to
give
you anything—I'm offering to teach you how to take what should be yours by right. And once you've learned to take and defend it, you won't need to worry about me or anyone else snatching it away from you because you will have the force to keep it."

"As if we need a woman to show us how to fight."

They probably could
fight
. They'd fought since they'd been born. But they'd never learned how to
win
. Mark probably hadn't noticed, but she had listened to him when he went off on his history lessons. And one of the lessons was that medieval peasant revolts never succeeded. Peasants achieve temporary goals and then collapse. The nobles would wait them out, and then strike hard. She thought she could teach a different kind of warfare. As she'd proven when she'd saved Sergius's life, the old-time Samurai had plenty of lessons that worked against mounted knights.

Things would have been a lot easier, though, if Mark and Dafed weren't busy recreating the Lubica army into this world's most sophisticated fighting machine.

She pulled the fishhook from her pocket. “In my country they have a saying that if you give a man a fish, you'll feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime. I'm ready to teach you to claim what's yours—and how to keep it for your children and grandchildren."

They didn't sell her to the Rissel that night.

Her nose gradually became not accustomed so much as numbed to the camp's stench and she was able to force down the food they had to offer.

It wasn't much—bits of meat mixed with some rough grain and boiled for hours—or days. Pots were never emptied or cleaned. More water, grain, and whatever game was captured were tossed into the already stewing mix.

After days of starvation, the coarse stew tasted better than anything Ellie had ever eaten.

When she'd finished, Lart tossed her a rough-woven blanket and a small canvas bag.

"What's this?"

"Magic stones. We had a witch, old Elmwood, but she died. You said you could offer magical cover."

Fortunately, Ellie had watched Lawgrave when he'd laid protective patterns. “Yeah. I can do that."

She spilled the stones out on the rug.

They weren't jewels like hers had been. Instead, they were pebbles, smooth stones that looked like they'd been taken from a river. But each was carved with the same sort of rune that had been inscribed on her gems.

She picked one up, double-checked the rune, then set it in its place in the pattern.

It resisted. These stones looked crude, but they held the same kind of power that her gems had contained.

"What about our people who are out of the camp?” Lart demanded. “Will your spell keep them from finding their way home?"

Ellie pushed another stone into place. Purple sparks told her the magic was working. “This pattern will only hide your camp from magic. Your people, and Rissel soldiers, will still be able to find it if they know where it is. But they won't be able to use their mages to locate it for them."

"Ole Elmwood's spells were better. They hid it so well no one could find it."

Ellie shrugged and put another stone in place. “There are plenty of patterns I don't know.” If she could get access to the library in Moray again, she could do a lot more. But the only way she would gain that access again would be to force Sergius to deliver on his promises.

Lart spat near her feet. “I thought the famous Witch-Princess would be more powerful than that."

"Let me get some sleep and I'll teach you power."

Lart kicked her foot the next morning to wake her up.

She rolled into him, grasped his foot before he could kick her again, and swept his other foot out from under him.

When he fell, she followed him, gaining a choke.

"Just waking you up,” he croaked. “Couldn't persuade the council. They want to hear you themselves."

Ellie let him up and brushed some of the mud, dust, and filth whose origin she didn't want to know off her tunic and pants. “All right, let's talk to them."

The council turned out to be ten criminals whose appearance was every bit as disreputable as Lart's. Only one of them had an intact body. Of the others, one had been blinded, two had lost hands, four had at least one ear removed, and two were missing feet.

The man who looked whole signed something to Lart and Ellie guessed his secret. He'd had his tongue removed. It was a cruel punishment. People need to talk to live, and they need their tongue for eating and swallowing too.

"Micael says you're worth more dead than alive,” Lart reported.

Ellie ignored his threat. Like the bishop's army, these criminals needed to be convinced she was real, that she had things to teach them. Just magic wouldn't do the trick. She hauled out the same trick she'd used on the bishop's army. “Who's the best fighter in your camp?"

"What possible—"

"How do you think Sergius won his battles? It wasn't because he was the child of the Fell Prince. He won because his soldiers were better trained and led. It was I, along with my friends, who did the training and who led them. I can teach you to fight like soldiers, like winners. But first, I'll show you what you don't know."

She projected confidence into her voice. As when she'd met Dafed, she knew she could run into someone who had studied the art of fighting, someone who was better than she. Nobody would have survived in this camp without learning to scrap. But nobody would come to a camp like this if he knew how to win.

The sight of the man Lart finally pulled out of a tent reassured her. She hadn't met many fat people in Lubica, but this man was huge.

"This is Breca,” Lart said. “He's the best we have."

"Friendly fight,” she suggested. “Stop on submission."

"No magic,” Breca growled.

She opened her hands, showing that she'd left the stones behind, still in their protective pattern. “No magic."

The words hadn't left her mouth before Breca charged.

He was faster than she would have guessed. At the last instant, he swerved, avoiding the straight kick she thrust out, ducked and tried for a wrestler's hold.

Ellie caught one of his reaching arms and yanked, then used her body to twist him.

A hundred and ten pounds can't move three hundred pounds very easily, but the three hundred pounds can move itself and, carefully applied, the extra weight can throw it off balance. In this case, Breca was moving too fast to stop.

He went down—but rolled into a summersault and regained his feet before she could follow up on her throw.

Breca laughed. “Good trick. But I knew the answer."

That roll was textbook Judo. Breca wasn't just a street fighter, he'd studied. A good big man will beat a good small woman if she lets him. Ellie needed to set the tempo of the fight.

She went on the offensive.

Breca was a wrestler, a grappler. Which meant that she needed to rely on striking. But she wanted to avoid hurting him. She needed these outlaws behind her, actively supporting her rather than intimidated and looking for a chance to turn her over to her enemies. She feinted high, with a fingerstrike to his eyes, and then kicked Breca in the breadbasket.

He had plenty of fat, but her foot met with hard muscle underneath. Breca
ooffed
but snatched at her foot. A big man shouldn't be that quick—he almost caught her.