Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) (24 page)

When he went
back inside, he looked at Anolla and smiled pleasantly, then turned to his pack
and started stowing his gear, still absorbed in his thoughts.

- 2 -

Hoil wandered
aimlessly through the sprawling camp, restless without quite knowing why. Or
rather, he knew exactly why he was anxious, but he was trying desperately not
to let his hopes shine through or get the best of him. When Siran had first
appeared and suggested he accompany the elven force on some journey, Hoil had
been adamant in his refusal to just up and leave his business. Going legitimate
was a difficult undertaking and a gradual change, but he’d made a promise to
his brother, and Hoil was determined to keep it. With the people Hoil had
working for him, though, it was a constant battle toward legitimacy, and he had
to maintain a constant vigil to make sure one of his employees wasn’t trying to
reinterpret Hoil’s orders.

But then Hoil
had read a personal letter Saran had brought to him, one that had not been
signed in any way. When Hoil complained, “No one signed it,” he immediately
clamped his mouth shut and reversed his decision not to go. Hoil had dropped
everything in the lap of his stunned second-hand and left within the hour to
accompany the elves. Indeed, no one had signed it, and “no one” had pointed out
a possibility Hoil found impossible to ignore. The former thief had silently
blessed the note’s author for his foresight and intelligence.

“It’s why I
hired the pointy-eared sneak in the first place,” he grumbled good-naturedly to
himself.

Hoil picked his
way through the impossibly neat camp of the elves – who apparently pitched no
tents, used no sleeping rolls, and slept in single-file ranks with their
weapons by their sides – and made his way through the chaos of the paladin
encampment. He nearly tripped over three men sprawled haphazardly in the
shadows, and only Hoil’s natural grace and reflexes saved him from sprawling
face-first into a stack of lances leaning precariously against each other. He
silently cursed his way through the camp until he at last reached the fires of
Shadow Company.

The denarae on
sentry had known of his coming long before he was visible, Hoil knew. He had
learned something of their abilities, but his son had never explained the full
scope of denarae mind-reading. Hoil admitted he was curious… for reasons that
weren’t
entirely
financial, but close.

With no set
destination in mind, Hoil wandered through the orderly camp of the denarae
until he spotted Alicia sitting at a small fire by herself. Most of the other
women were busy cleaning the utensils from the evening’s dinner, a task Alicia
normally oversaw each night, which made her isolation somewhat puzzling to
Hoil.

If things go
as well as they have been between her and Danner, this could very well end up
being my daughter-in-law,
Hoil realized.
I suppose I’d better get to
know her, or at least see if she’s okay.

Hoil cleared his
throat as he entered the light of her fire, and Alicia looked up and quickly
back down again, but not before Hoil saw the gleam of unshed tears in her eyes.
Silently, he glided over and sat down near the distraught barmaid.

“What’s wrong,
child?” Hoil asked softly.

“Oh, I… it’s nothing,”
Alicia said unconvincingly, wiping at her eyes. One hand strayed to her belly
as though touching a tender injury.

“Alicia, you
know I’m a rather accomplished thief,” Hoil said dryly and without a trace of
modesty, “but more than that, I’m also an expert liar, and I can spot a poor
one. If you’re upset over
nothing
, then Danner’s a Menkan belly dancer.”

Alicia smiled
and choked a sobbing sort of giggle, but her tears stopped for the moment.

“I may not have
been the best of fathers,” Hoil said, “but I’ve been trying to remedy that
lately, which includes looking after the woman my son loves.”

Somehow, that
set Alicia’s eyes brimming over again, and with a sob she turned and buried her
head against Hoil’s shoulder. He hugged her awkwardly, having relatively little
experience with calming women and their often turbulent displays of emotions.
He’d never seen Alicia so distraught.

“Shhhh, there
there,” Hoil said softly, patting her head. “It’s got something to do with that
little snipe of mine, doesn’t it?” Hoil asked. “Has he done something? Or not
done something, perhaps? I can still give him a good thrashing, if you just say
the word.”

Alicia gave
another choking laugh and eased off of his shoulder. Hoil handed her a
handkerchief he’d recently appropriated from one of the paladins for no better
reason than to stay in practice. She took the cloth gratefully and dabbed at
her eyes.

“Thank you,
Hoil,” she said, slowly calming her breathing down and composing herself.

“Can you tell me
what’s wrong, Alicia?” Hoil asked. “It does have to do with Danner, doesn’t
it?”

She nodded.

“It’s just… It’s
wonderful and yet…” she broke off flustered. “I don’t know how he’ll react, and
I don’t want him to feel pressured and do the right thing just for the sake of
it and I… I just haven’t known who I can talk to about it,” Alicia said. “I
can’t talk to any of the men around the company, and I don’t know any of the
women well enough except Moreen, and I’m afraid of what she’ll think of me.”

“Whoa,” Hoil
said gently, “why don’t you slow down a little bit and go back to the beginning
of that thought. I think you lost me somewhere before ‘it’s wonderful’.”

Alicia took a
deep breath, and finally seemed to relax.

“Well, um, I
guess I’ll just come out and say it.”

Alicia told him,
and Hoil started to grin.

- 3 -

Kala waited
patiently for Trames to finish saying his goodbyes. The batty old man seemed
insistent on thanking Alessa and her children for every conceivable kindness
they’d shown him. Finally, he was on his way out the door when he quickly
turned around and dashed back inside. Trames was remarkably agile and light on
his feet, despite his obvious age. He brought out the jar that he’d recently
emptied of all its honey, which had since been cleaned and washed by Alessa.

“May I keep
this?” Trames asked brightly.

“Well, uh, of
course,” Alessa said, a little surprised at the request.

“Trames,” Kala
said with a sigh, “why do you want the jar? You’ve already got two more jars
packed away that actually have honey in them.”

“Yes, but this
one’s empty,” Trames said patiently, “and emptiness is one of the most useful
things in the world.”

Kala heard a
snorting laugh from somewhere in Bronk’s vicinity.

“Fine, keep the
jar,” Kala said, resigning herself to the whims of her ward. The elders of her
village had instructed her to accede to Trames’s desires unless they posed a
threat of some sort. While doing so tried her patience at times, she was slowly
learning to just accept Trames’s strangeness and go along with him. That had
brought her here, and was apparently taking her on the road to the immortal
plane.

Kala knew that
Garnet was uneasy about taking them with him, but had reluctantly decided to
allow the two of them to come along, at least as far as the Binding, which was
apparently a portal of some sort into Heaven. He was noncommittal about letting
the pair cross with his force, and Kala thought it was perhaps only his
curiosity that was allowing them to come at all. He never stated his reasons
where she could hear them, and her abilities at kything were not strong enough
for her to read his mind. Besides which, doing so without permission was a
serious breach of etiquette, and if anyone found out she would be dishonored
and shamed.

Trames of course
never expressed a moment’s doubt about their course of action and seemed to
take it as a foregone conclusion that he’d get to see Heaven firsthand. Kala
bit her tongue and steeled herself to patience.

Danner swung
into place behind the Green paladin Perklet, and Kala stared at him, trying to
discover his secret by willpower alone. She’d finally pinpointed what about him
made her uneasy. Though her kything skills were quite limited, she was used to
hearing a sort of background noise from the thoughts of those around her, even
if she couldn’t always make out distinct words without direct concentration.
But from Danner she sensed absolutely nothing, as though he hadn’t a thought in
his head. Clearly that was impossible, which meant his thoughts were somehow
completely shielded, a phenomena she’d never thought possible. She resolved to
ask Brican about it once she felt the denarae was comfortable enough with her
to answer.

At last,
everyone was mounted and ready to go, including Trames and his empty jar. The
old man rode a sturdy packhorse and was tucked in securely between their
various packs and bedrolls. He was not an accomplished rider and tended to
slide about rather precariously in the saddle, and Kala had learned through
trial and error that packing him in place was the safest way to travel with the
simple-minded man. For his part, Trames enjoyed riding on horseback as
thoroughly as he enjoyed everything in the world, and hadn’t a care as to where
the horse took him. Kala, therefore, had carefully tied the horse’s lead to her
own mount so she could prevent her charge from wandering off if he accidentally
kicked his horse in the wrong direction.

Which had
happened before. Twice.

The sun had set
by the time they reached the main road, and it was almost three hours of heavy riding
before they caught up to the camp. Trames had been blessedly silent during the
trip, and he stared at the rapidly approaching camp with bright enthusiasm.
Kala sighed.

I may need
help keeping an eye on him around here,
Kala thought to herself.
Too many
shiny objects with sharp edges.

She heard
Brican’s voice chuckle in her mind. The two of them had kept up a running
conversation during the nighttime journey, and he explained some of the details
about the war and the part they all had played in it. From the first call for
help by Brican’s cousin Trebor to the formation of Shadow Company and their
excursions against the Merishank army outside of Nocka, then the spearhead role
Shadow Company had assumed against the forces of Hell during the Barrier War. He
told her of Gerard Morningham (the son of General Morningham himself!) and his
death, and of how Garnet had picked up the tatters of Shadow Company that
threatened to crumble apart altogether, then went on to re-forge them into an
even stronger and more capable unit.

Kala gained some
appreciation for Garnet’s command abilities, as well as a cautious respect
based on the obvious regard in which Brican Dok held his commander and friend.
It still seemed strange to Kala that denarae and humans here seemed so close.
She had always been taught that humans despised denarae mindlessly and even
their religions had at times been turned against the gray-skinned demi-humans.
She had been raised to believe that the outside world would not understand
their community, in which humans and denarae had comingled and intermarried for
generations, and that she would be in danger should anyone ever learn of her
mixed heritage. Yet here already, Brican seemed to accept her, as a curiosity
at the very least, and he assured her the others would, as well.

“I wouldn’t
have been so open-minded had you met me a year ago, and perhaps even as little
as a month ago,”
Brican kythed to her,
“but I recently had a… well, a
change of heart, if you will, and suddenly the prospect of our two species
intermingling actually gives me hope. I won’t tell the others unless you say
it’s okay, but if you insist on using your kything, people will notice and it
will come out sooner or later. If you’ll take my advice, I suggest you just be
up front and tell Garnet and the other officers. That’s a tactic that seems to
work pretty well in this unit, ever since Gerard first met with us and dictated
the terms of his command.”

Brican chuckled
again.

“What’s so
funny?”
Kala asked.

“I was less
than happy about having a human commander,”
Brican replied ruefully,
“and
I challenged Gerard five minutes after he first came to us. I ended up on the
ground a few seconds later, and I think it was right then I started to respect
a human for the first time.”

As they moved through
the camp, Kala noted with approval the careful arrangement of the denarae
encampment. She had never actually seen or experienced troop-based combat or
command, but she had read several books belonging to the war master in her
village, and one had stressed the necessity of an orderly camp. It demonstrated
the overall orderliness of the command itself.

 “What a
wonderfully tidy place,” Trames commented.

They all
dismounted, and Garet and Perklet said their farewells and continued on to
where the bulk of the paladin army was camped.

Within minutes,
Garnet had gathered the officers of his company around him and was receiving a
full briefing. Kala followed him, curious to know more about him… his unit, she
corrected herself. And in truth, she didn’t know where else to go. Trames
walked along beside her, a content expression on his face.

But then, Trames
always looked content.

“How’s the
archery training coming in Yellow and Orange?” Garnet asked. “Michael? Marc?”

“More or less
smoothly,” Marc replied. He twitched his orange cloak so it was out of the way
as he squatted to sit on his heels. “The timing is literally a pain in the ass,
but I think the potential is definitely there with some more work. We’ve almost
got it down.”

“I think only
one person has gotten hit in the last three drills we ran,” Michael added.