The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3) (79 page)

The day was going to end soon, she felt. It had to be late afternoon. She was starved.

Colonel Alan approached her. He did not seem that dirty or weary. “Well done,” he admitted.

She decided to put aside any bickering that might have existed before the combat. It was time for celebration, and soldiers who survived the battle could always find extra generosity in their hearts. “Likewise, Colonel.”

His second-in-command handed him a report. He frowned at it and handed it back. “Not now.”

Mali heard a whistle. She looked behind her. Meagan was still patrolling the hills, searching for survivors and the friendly wounded, although the slopes had fallen quiet. The injured had been taken farther down the valley, their screams shielded by the earth’s creases.

She could not really see what was happening. There was the whistle again. She believed Meagan was standing in her saddle and waving. Urgently.

Mali felt her stomach tighten.

The battle is not over
.

Ignoring the hot pain in her limbs, she started walking. People around her began to pick up on her mood. Their cheerful attitude became one of desperation. For a soldier, there was nothing worse than to believe the fighting was concluded only to discover there was one last push left. They would all be thinking how lucky they had been to live through the last scuffle, and now, each one of them believed their good streak of luck would end.

A horn sounded from the other side of the valley. No, up on one of the slopes. The note that said,
Enemy army approaching
.

Mali scrambled up the slope. It was not a long climb, but it felt like the highest mountain.

“What is it? Talk to me,” she gasped.

Meagan’s face was white as chalk. “There, sir. Another force.”

Mali looked north, beyond the hill’s curve. About five miles away, an army was marching, advancing.
That dust earlier, that must have been them
, Mali thought.

It was huge.

The force stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, a carpet of living black, marching slowly, steadily, emerging from the boil of those bruised clouds like some demon army. The enemy was too far to see little details, but there was no mistaking its size or intent.

One thing was certain, this was not a nomad horde.

Then, the first silly question that rose to her head was,
Who are they?

The second was,
How could they be coming from the north?

“Sir, there must be tens of thousands of them,” her noble-born officer said in a thin, trembling voice.

“Hundreds of thousands,” Mali corrected her. She had spent long enough in the military to be able to judge army size easily. This strange force probably fielded more than all of Eracia could muster in the best of circumstances.

Alexa joined her on the top of the hill. “What…in the name of bloody Abyss! How? There’s nothing north!”

Mali leered. “Do you want to wait and ask them? I sure don’t.”

Her friend was silent for a moment. Then she just nodded.

“What do we do, sir?” Major Meagan asked.

Mali began unstrapping her chest plate. “We fucking run. That’s what we do.”

Soon, the entire Eracian camp was in uproar, horns blaring, officers shouting retreat.

Mali so would have loved to spend the night in bed with Gordon, but it appeared it would not be. Right now, she just had to escape this alien northern juggernaut. Survive. Warn
the others. Muster a defense. Something horrible was afoot, and she had no idea what it was. But in every fiber of her body, she knew she had to put as much distance as she could between this new enemy and her own troops.

Into the night and south, the exhausted Eracian army fled.

EPILOGUE

B
art was sitting in front of the barred room, anxiously tapping one foot. The person protecting the door was not an army soldier, one of the Borei, or one of his personal guards. It was an older woman, with gray hair, and a big mole on her right cheek. Her skin had a papery kind of quality, and she smelled of yeast.

And she would not let him enter.

He stood up, spun on his heels, and approached her, for the third time. “Please.”

She frowned, pursing her thin, bloodless lips into a single pale line. “Are you the father?” she repeated, completely unfazed by his presence.

Yes
, he wanted to say. “No,” he blurted.

The old woman nodded emphatically. “Then you have no business here, m’lord.”

Bart took a deep breath to calm his nerves. “And what if I were?” This was a new question.

She looked at him suspiciously. “Then, m’lord, I would tell you to sit and wait.”

He gestured in exasperation. “I am the viceroy of the realm! You cannot disobey me!”

The woman was adamant. “M’lord, you can be the monarch hisself; you still can’t enter.”

Bart opened his mouth, then closed it. He thought for a moment. “What is your name?”

“Prunella,” she said, “m’lord.”

He craned his neck, tried to listen past her unmoving frame, but she was just looking at him as if he were a village simpleton. “Is everything all right in there?” he asked in a small voice.

Prunella did not twitch a muscle. “When you fight your battles out there against them nomad scum, do you hear me asking you, how’s your war faring, m’lord? I don’t know why you’re here, m’lord, and it’s not my business. But birth is a woman’s affair, and men only get in the way. If I was you, I would be looking for the lad who’s about to become a father and bring him here. It ain’t proper for a young lady to raise a child on her own like that, m’lord.”

Look for the father
, he thought inanely. Irma, Prunella, they were both cruel and unyielding.

“Good suggestion. Thank you.” He retreated out of the little hut, into the warm morning. Half a dozen men stood watch, trying to keep their faces impassive. They were not stupid; they knew.

Corporal Kacey stepped over and smiled at him, a quick flash of her teeth. Even her Parusite companion managed a sympathetic face. Major Paul was leaning against a barrel, looking just as worried as Bart was. Junner was there, too, playing a game of twelve lines against Rickey. For all his deft fingers with coins and dice, the corporal was losing.

Finding midwives had not been difficult. It was just that Bart had the luck of getting the meanest, toughest bunch of old women left in Eracia. Two of them were with Constance inside, and Prunella was guarding the door.

The fatal moment had come. Soon, he would become a father, with a woman who was not his wife.

Meanwhile, his wife was alive and well in Somar, just a mile away.

What was a man to do in such a situation?

He had read a lot of comedies, old satire, humorous drama, biographies of kings and rich nobles and famous travelers. None of them seemed to have been in a predicament like his. The worst part was, he had delayed his decision, and now it was too late. He would become a father.

Do I acknowledge the child?
he wondered.
What would that mean for me, for Eracia, for Caytor?

Bloody Abyss.

The waiting, the anticipation did nothing to calm his nerves or focus his thoughts. In fact, he was growing more desperate by the hour. A child would be born soon, to a man who was supposedly the most powerful person in Eracia right now. If things went right, and this war was won, he would most likely become the monarch. Constance was going to whelp a possible heir to his realm. She was just a girl who would not tell him of her past in Eybalen. Was she a daughter of some councillor, or a guild master, or just a rich lord? Practically, he didn’t know anything about her.

She was to be the mother of his newborn.

The very thought of becoming a father fuddled his brain. He was not sure how to respond to the fragment of reality happening behind the closed door inside the hut. Was he proud? Happy? Elated? Disappointed? Terrified? Perhaps all of that together. He was not sure if he could handle the rush of fear and worry and anxiety that was trying to smother him.

Then he heard a soft keening noise. It sounded like a baby crying. Too late for thinking.

Prunella came out. She looked at him hard, as if wondering if she should tell him. “Tell the
lad
when you find
him
,” she said with sour emphasis, “that he has a healthy son.” And she retreated into the realm of female business only.

Bart stood, staring at the hut. He felt pats of congratulations on his back. At the moment, everyone was just happy for him, and the concerns of what would happen later on escaped them. On the other hand, he could only see the colossal complications that this child was going to be in his life.

I am a father
, he thought stupidly.
I have a son!

Then, he imagined Sonya seeing that baby.

The tiniest trace of happiness that had been coming to life in his confused head vanished entirely.

Nigella reached for the jute bag of herbs, undid the cord fastening it, and pinched a handful of dried leaves. She let them drop into the kettle of boiling water. The fragrant aroma of lemongrass and spearmint filled her cabin.

She then reached for a glass jar containing a different kind of herbs, comfrey, fool’s bane, laserwort. Ever since she had begun her profession, she had made sure to drink a cup of tea laced with the extract of these every day, to make sure she would never get another child by accident. In theory, magic gave her some protection, but she could not rely solely on that.

She reached for the jar and then withdrew her hand.

Now that Rob was finally dead, it was as if some great anchoring weight had been lifted from her soul. She was no longer afraid, no longer burdened by her past. She felt she could strive for new things, new dreams.

The Book of Lost Words
had given her some ideas.

Calemore might not be the perfect man—he might not even be a man—but he was kind and gentle with her, in his
special, magical way. He loved her food, and he was intriguing. She could talk to him; she could rely on him, even as he plotted grand and terrible things upon the world.

With the book in her hands, she could perhaps steer reality toward the future she wanted.

There was going to be much suffering in the world in the coming days, she knew. Calemore was going to render unimaginable evil. But not toward her. Not against her. She wondered if she should be feeling any compassion toward the world and people around her. Did they deserve it? The world that had ridiculed her her whole life? The people who had ousted her? What had she ever gotten from her neighbors but fear and mistrust?

For better or worse, her old life as Nigella the herbwoman was over. She would never be the same again. Sheldon had a trade. She no longer had to worry about his upbringing. It was time she put her long-buried passions and desires ahead of everything and everyone else. The bold thought exhilarated her. But she knew what she wanted.

Probably for the first time in her life, she knew.

Nigella stowed the glass jar away in the cabinet. The next time Calemore and she made love, her womb would be clean.

We will be together
, she promised herself and sipped hot tea, free of any poisons.

Lucas stood on an outcropping, watching the army stream by. Such a large force had not been seen in the realms for many thousands of years. Its presence signified a change. The White Witch of Naum was marching to war. And the continental people were unprepared, divided.

As a scholar, he felt privileged to be witnessing the turn of another age. Although this monumental event signified a
return of the previous one. The conclusion of the First Age of Mankind as told by these people, the conclusion of their sorry wars. The betrayals, the secret pacts, magical barriers, old enemies banished and returned, gods and goddesses dying, coming to life, dying again, plotting and scheming against one another.

It would have been a most intriguing historical adventure if not for his personal investment.

He had failed to punish the man responsible for Inessa’s death.

Now, there was a chance for him to make a difference and help Jarman fulfill his own revenge. Stopping Calemore was what mattered now. If they foiled his plans, if they brought him down, their mission would be complete. Lucas would be free of his lifetime obligation, not that he minded being bonded to his young friend.

The god Damian had surely tried to execute a brilliant plan. Had he succeeded, this invasion would probably never be taking place. In fact, Calemore would most likely have been dead. But Damian’s failure had created a dangerous new reality. Any other way, the Sirtai might have remained untouched by the silly divine affairs of the continental people. But now, with the White Witch trying to reacquire his dominion over the realms, there was a real risk of his homeland being drawn into the battle.

Stopping Calemore was imperative.

Lucas did not want to contemplate the possibility of Damian’s son subjugating the entire land and harnessing all its magical power to his will.

Unfortunately, that meant trying to convince the small-minded, obstinate rulers of the realms to put aside their bickering and unite their strength against a common foe. That meant
he had to stand by and watch passively as the massive column rolled past his lookout spot, almost without end.