The Last Warrior Read online

  When he got like this it reminded her that he didn’t want to be here. He wanted to return to his people and the life for which he was destined in the capital. A life where he’d not have spared her a second thought outside perhaps a stray compliment or two about her hair, which she knew he admired, or a passing acknowledgment that she was the palace tutor. He wasn’t a pet to keep close for companionship and protection like the Tassagon “dog” she’d once accused him of being. He was a man with responsibilities, most of which she’d foisted on his shoulders when she sprang him loose from the dungeon.

  You have to give him back once you’re done with him.

  “I’ll check.” She left a pot of rice and chicken breakfast congee simmering on the stove and climbed up to the aviary under the eaves.

  The ladder shook beneath her. “I’ll join you,” Tao said.

  She stopped. “But the muscle cramps…”

  “An aftereffect of gator venom. Gone. No spasms last night and all day yesterday.”

  True, he was healing so quickly he’d all but stopped limping. There’d be no more persuading him to stay at ground level now. She had a new warrior in her household, one who had the strength to do anything he cared to try. “Come on. You can learn the care and feeding of our valiant messengers.”

  They climbed up to the snug area under the roof. Tao had to bend over slightly to fit.

  Cuh-choo-coo, cuh-choo-coo.

  The pigeons were clustered in a boiling mass of rustling, feathered bodies, making her and Tao the focus of their red-rimmed, black-bead eyes. “Shake this,” she said, reaching for the can and handing it to Tao. The dry peas inside rattled. “A couple of times will do.”

  He reacted with a curious smile and gave the can a brisk few shakes. More pigeons roosting out on the roof flew in with a loud flapping of wings, jumping into the fray. “You’ve trained them to know the sound, obviously.”

  “Everyone’s voices and whistles are different but peas in a can—always the same, no matter who shakes it. Otherwise, if someone new were to take over their care, and everything changed, it would upset them. The birds might not eat, and sicken and die.” She reached for the bags of feed and grit. She turned to the birds. “Who’s hungry?”

  “I am,” Tao said hopefully.

  She’d thought his appetite would have leveled off after his body caught up from the deprivation of his first days back, but apparently he had the strenuous march home to account for, as well. He’d been eating her out of house and home, but she knew he wouldn’t be if he sensed it was a hardship. Chun had been craftily accepting donations of food and steering them her way. “Be glad you’re not a pigeon. The food can’t collect on the floor of the aviary—it will soil, a sure source of illness—so I’d feed you only what you could clean up in about ten minutes.”

  “I take no more than five minutes to eat,” he boasted. “Even with your tiny spoons.”

  “Pigeons can’t be fed before a flight. It makes the birds heavy and lazy, and prone not to return promptly.”

  “Much like soldiers.”

  “I put grit in with the feed to aid in digestion.”

  He laughed. “That’s where the differences between pigeons and soldiers diverge. Grit was a staple of our diet in the Hinterlands—but I never noticed any benefits.”

  Cuh-choo, cuh-choo-coo.

  “They sound like the hill doves,” he said, seeming to fall into a memory. “In the vineyards. I always liked the sound. Mournful…”

  “The sound reminds me of my mother. The morning after she was killed, I had to come up here and do what she always did, as if nothing had happened.” As if her quiet, predictable, happy life hadn’t been upended, everything destroyed. “Every morning and night, I’d come up and shake the can—during the grief, after the funeral and so on. To the birds, I was just another shaking can, calling them to feed. Perhaps this shaker took care of them a little differently, a little less confidently, but nothing that upset them. That’s when I learned the true meaning of ‘life goes on.’ Even though it was a lesson I didn’t want to learn at the time.”

  “It does go on,” he agreed. “It’s both the hardest and the most welcome aftermath of loss.”

  She threw him a look. Why did it always surprise her that this warrior could have deep, introspective feelings about the loss of life? Because it makes it more difficult to accept he’s spent years taking other’s lives. “My mother tended the aviary for all of Kurel Town, so I couldn’t skip even one day.”

  “For what purpose—messages to and from the palace?”

  “Uhrth, no. In those days we didn’t speak to the palace at all. It was all between us and the Barrier Peaks.”

  He peered out the hatch in the wall at the first sun rising over the distant, jagged mountains. “That’s a week’s worth of hard, steady travel.”

  “As the bird flies, mere days.”

  “What kind of information do you exchange with the guardians of the passes?” His green eyes were vivid, searching. She felt the sudden, keen interest of the battlefield general, instinct driving him to uncover useful intelligence.

  “Anything of importance,” she said vaguely, and saw his mouth tighten in reaction. Hadn’t he expressed the shared desire for an alliance between their people? Hadn’t she agreed to help? “For instance, we knew when your army was on the way home long before the palace did.”

  “We employ messengers on horseback, but these pigeons would have saved me time and men.” His brow furrowed. “But pigeons easily fall to hawks, or a hunter’s snare.”

  “Didn’t any of your messengers ever ride too close to a Gorr den? Or wind up stranded by a horse with a broken leg? The birds are very reliable. Few have ever failed to deliver their messages. But we do send out pairs, mated pairs, on the longer journeys.”

  “Hmm,” he said. He was thinking, plotting, coming up with ways her pigeons could benefit his army.

  Be careful, Beth, or he’ll exploit all your peaceful ways for use in war.

  “What’s that powder you’re mixing into the water?” he asked.

  “Vitamins—nutrients—to keep them healthy and strong—and antibiotics. Even when the aviary is kept scrupulously clean, they’re prone to infection.”

  “Potions and spells, even for your pigeons.”

  She spun toward him, the water jug in her hand sloshing, only to see a look of mischief: sparkling hazel-green eyes and the hint of a boyish grin. But he was only half joking. He still distrusted Kurel methods.

  “But unlike me, they can come and go as they please?” he asked.

  She filled the water dishes. “Except in foul weather, when rain or snow is likely to blow in, I lower the wooden flaps.”

  He reached over to one of swinging boards, rapping it against the outside wall. “By the arks, Elsabeth. That’s what I’ve been hearing at night when the wind picks up. This, hitting the side of the house.”

  “One of the dowels broke in the last storm of winter. I never got around to having it repaired.” She’d been consumed with the disappearances of several Kurel charged with sorcery, and then, midsummer, news of Tao’s returning army had kept her preoccupied. “There’s been no time…”

  Now the flap leaned against the house like a drunken old man, scraping the wall in an east wind, as it had last night. “I woke three times last night, thinking an intruder had come inside the boundaries,” Tao said. She thought, just maybe, it sounded as if he was sharing some secret.

  “Boundaries?”

  “We’d keep a ring of torches blazing around the encampment to keep the Gorr away.” He moved the flap back and forth, testing the flexibility. “It wasn’t a hundred percent effective.”

  She couldn’t imagine the strain of years on end of closing your eyes at night, never knowing if you’d wake to the sight of your killer’s eyes. A strain that apparently still robbed him of sleep.

  But Tao had moved on, preventing her from questioning him further, as she’d noticed he often did. “All these m
en around you,” he said, “and yet no one to fix what is broken in your house?”

  “None offer.”

  “That’s what happens from eating with spoons. I’ll fix this,” he said in a no-arguments tone. “Is there a place I can procure the supplies?”

  “The market.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Much like releasing a pigeon for its first flight, she worried about Tao venturing out in Kurel Town amongst those who’d see him as the enemy. “Chun or Navi will go with you, and show you what you’ll need.”

  A brilliant blue bird strutted by. Slowly and smoothly, she raised her hands above the bird and then swooped them downward, bringing both hands together over the creature. “This is how you can catch them, even if they try to take to the air.” She settled it in her palm; her thumb and fingers encircled the body. “Meet Prometheus, my best flier. He’s made many trips back and forth to the Barrier Peaks.”

  “Do you know all of them by name?”

  She laughed. “You sound the same way as when you asked if I’d read all the books in my library.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. But I have only twenty-six pigeons, and hundreds of books. You do have to get to know each bird, their individual fears, their quirks, to help them overcome them.” Her free hand smoothed over the pigeon’s folded wings. “Never frighten a bird in its home. Never trick a bird—it will never trust you again.” She soothed Prometheus until he’d utterly relaxed in her palm. “For instance, trapping a bird while it’s eating from your hand. And never handle a pigeon roughly, or it will fear you always.” Tao’s eyes followed her hand, stroking Prometheus as she murmured, “You want them to learn that you’re their friend, that their food, water and all their comforts will come through you.”

  The bird’s lids were blinking shut. “It works well, this technique of yours,” Tao said, smiling gently as she met his eyes. “In a short amount of time, I’ve come to rely on you for all my comforts, Kurel girl.”

  She didn’t expect the shiver his quiet tone sent through her, nor could she hide the fact that it did. Damn if his smile didn’t turn smug.

  She released Prometheus. “That concludes your first lesson in the care and feeding of our messenger pigeons. Breakfast?” Wiping her hands on her apron, she’d all but fled to the ladder when a tremendous beating of wings called her attention back to the hatch. A white-and-ginger-colored female she hadn’t seen in weeks had arrived—with a message secured to its leg.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ONE DAY AFTER THE PIGEON had brought a green flag from Markam, the Home Guard patrolled the streets, providing an ominous escort for the Kurel leaving for their jobs in the city, released to do so by the elders who had relented when the king lifted his ban, and only because he had. It marked a victory for the ghetto after too many years of defeats, albeit a psychological one.

  The guards called out and stopped several groups of workers, delaying them with silly demands in the name of security that were meant only to harass and slow them down. Uhr-Beck himself trotted by once, his eye sharp, searching the crowd. For Tao. Elsabeth kept hidden in the midst of others destined for the palace, doing her best not to look nervous.

  Navi was at her side. She couldn’t have shaken him if she’d wanted to; Tao had given the accountant strict orders not to let her out of his sight until they reached the palace. Even then, the general had not liked the idea of her reporting to the classroom alone, despite their receipt of the green flag.

  “The queen has no need for an accountant,” Elsabeth had tried to convince him. “It will draw too much attention. Navi has to do his duties, and I mine.”

  The memory of Tao’s stonelike, disapproving face, his muscled arms folded across his chest as she’d ducked out the door remained with her. He was upset that he couldn’t provide protection. But he had to accept that she’d been doing rebel work long before he’d met her. When she returned later with worthy intelligence gleaned from overheard palace conversations, hopefully he’d feel better about her working. He had no doubts about her courage and capabilities after the escape and the elders meeting. His reservations had more to do with her jeopardizing her safety. She’d have to prove she was essential to their plans, not just capable.

  A line of Kurel had formed on the upper bailey. “The bastards are checking each one of us,” said Leif, a royal supply clerk and rebel with a disturbing desire to see the rebellion turn violent. It was why she’d not chosen him for the dungeon mission. “What do they think—that we’ve got the general hidden in Kurel Town?”

  Her laugh sounded false but he seemed not to notice. Tao had stayed close to home the past week and out of public sight. To heal, they’d agreed, but to her that was only part of it. The man she’d begun to consider a friend her neighbors would view as an enemy.

  Elsabeth kept her eyes down and her ears tuned to danger until she finally reached the entrance. A couple of palace guards stood watch, armed and solemn. Their crisp white-and-blue uniforms reminded her how much she missed Markam. There was no sign of him. Bearing the crushing weight of his dual roles, he’d had to make himself scarce, she imagined.

  A Home Guard soldier stood with them. Beck’s man. Wrapped around his fist were the leashes of three, straining, muscular brown dogs. “Next,” he said.

  She stepped forward and submitted to the guard’s scrutiny and the dogs’ glistening, twitching noses. Did they smell the scent of a Tassagon on her Kurel clothing? Were they able to sense her lies and the treachery of her actions against their king? Could they hear how hard her heart pounded against her ribs? She nearly sagged to her knees when the dogs were pulled back and she was allowed to pass.

  “Thank Uhrth,” she murmured, entering the grand foyer without incident. She expected Markam to appear out of nowhere as he always did. “I’ll look for you in the Kurel Canteen,” Navi said.

  She nodded. They’d return to the ghetto together as well.

  Still no sign of Markam as she pressed on toward the nursery classroom. It felt as if it had been a lifetime since she’d last navigated these hallways of marble and plaster, since she’d last slid her fingers about the lever to open the classroom door and let herself inside.

  The pleasure of familiar smells was immediate—the sun-warmed wooden shelves, paper and ink for drawing—but there was Aza’s floral perfume, too, and the sweet powdery scent of the children.

  “Miss Elsabeth! Miss Elsabeth!” Prince Maxim and Princess Sofia dropped their toys and ran to her with exuberance. Elsabeth laughed, gathering the squirming pair close, her heart wrenching with joy and sorrow. How much she’d missed the little prince and princess.

  Max snatched her hand. “Come and hear Mother!” His fingers were moist and sticky. Elsabeth smiled. Someone had already gotten into the plate of little iced cakes this early in the morning.

  “Mama reading!” Sofia breathed, her golden-green eyes wide and full of wonder. Tao’s eyes. “Look!”

  Dressed in black, and as pale as the marble floor, Aza sat in her favorite chair, a book open on her lap, or rather what was left of her lap. Her stomach had grown even larger in one short week. Only a couple of months remained before the babe arrived.

  The two children took their places on each side of her.

  Elsabeth sat on the couch opposite the trio.

  The queen did not take her steady, questioning gaze off Elsabeth. “The children don’t know,” Aza murmured to her with a warning glance. “They think their uncle went away.” Her regard sharpened. “Maybe, he did.”

  Elsabeth remained neutral. “Maybe so.”

  Aza nodded, her eyes threatening to fill with tears of relief. Then she inhaled, seeming to perk up. “He always thinks of me. He’d want to know that I’m holding up. And, how much less crowded it is around here now that all those soldiers have started moving west. They are, Elsabeth. With their officers, the fine men who once served with my brother. They’re building a city of tents, taking women with them, too. Soon there will be
no soldiers in the city at all.”

  Tao’s officers were alive. The army was intact. Elsabeth sent her silent thanks for the information.

  “Mama.” Sofia poked the book cover with her little finger. “Read.”

  Aza returned her attention to the book. “I wasn’t sure when you would be able to return to teach the children, Miss Elsabeth, so I thought I’d best brush up on my reading.”

  Shyly, the queen lifted the children’s storybook in her lap. “The Starry Ark,” she said, pausing to wink at Elsabeth. “I have memorized that much, at least.”

  Elsabeth nodded along with Aza’s halting phonetic pronunciations, smiling when the children pitched in to shout out the words that they’d already memorized from Elsabeth’s prior readings.

  The classroom door swung open with a crash. Sofia’s tiny body visibly stiffened with fear as her father lurched into the room. King Xim was frozen at first, his handsome face pulled back in a mask of unpleasant shock. Elsabeth shot to her feet, aware at how casual and far too cozy the scene would look. “Your Highness,” she said, curtsying.

  His outraged glare swung from her to Aza. “How did this get in here?” He marched forward and snatched the book from Aza’s fingers. “It’s a book, Aza. A damned book!”

  For a horrified moment, Elsabeth feared he might strike his wife with it, but the queen’s gaze was steady, unafraid, and he changed his mind, grabbing Elsabeth’s arm instead.

  “No,” Aza bit out through clenched teeth.

  Xim’s fingers dug into Elsabeth’s upper arm. “You brought this curse here, Kurel! The books. Poisoning my family—my children—with your sorcery, year after year. This is the end of it. The end!”

  “I took the book out, Xim.” Aza pleaded, clutching her stomach as if in pain. “I’m to blame. I was reading it. Not Elsabeth.”

  Xim’s fury—and his grip on Elsabeth’s arm—ratcheted up another notch. “You took the book out of where? Are you keeping books in here? In the presence of my children? In my palace?” With a crashing of thrown toys, the king swiped the top of a trunk clear and lifted the lid, looking for more books. One lid after another, he slammed his way through the children’s belongings, forcing Elsabeth to walk along with him.