Most of them had already gathered near the small barracks. Some were former Swords, disillusioned or dismissed. Some were civilians looking for an extra coin.
Mattin and Brenam Tofa were brothers taking jobs to tide them over until planting season pulled them back to the farms in the eastern plains. Tolan Mukir, Ana Zembis, and Jocon Bemelly were typical mercenary fare; picking up enough coin to live on until they could be hired on as some estate’s private guards.
Jezren found one member frowning at the stacked supplies set aside for them, her tight braid draped over her shoulder as she took stock. “Typical Dominion efficiency?"
She turned toward him with a raised brow, studying him before she stood. “Seris Veythorne,” she said flatly. “And unfortunately, yes. Although not as bad as some jobs. You’re the captain?”
“Jezren Thane,” he supplied, mentally checking the healer off his list. “That obvious?”
She smirked faintly. “Considering no one else has said a word to me, I assume you’re checking off the roster. Task number one, Captain.”
A knot tightened in his stomach at the title. “Just Jezren is fine,” he corrected with a nod.
Her gaze shifted slightly behind him just before a sharp clap on his back forced him to steady himself. He fought the instinct to draw his knife as he turned.
The large man behind him chuckled. “Never was one for formalities, myself,” he said jovially, his low voice resonating in his barrelled chest. His face had been weathered by as many years in the wilderness as Jezren had been alive, yet his smile was easy. “Rurik Sorn.”
A man that large had no right moving that quietly. “At least the choice for scout is clear,” Jezren said, straightening his gambeson.
Rurik laughed, hearty and booming, before turning to jerk his head toward the smith’s forge across the dusty expanse of the courtyard. “Got one more for you,” Rurik said, not bothering to hide a grin.
Jezren followed his gaze to find a slim figure standing beside a pile of chains meant for things far stronger than men. His gear was neat and clean, every item tucked perfectly in place. It looked almost as fresh as his face.
The knot in Jezren’s stomach tightened as he glanced back at Seris, who shook her head and turned back to cataloguing supplies. Rurik chuckled again as Jezren sighed, lowering his head as he headed toward the final name he needed to mark off.
“Ryn Korbray?”
His head snapped forward immediately. “Yes, sir,” he responded eagerly, grabbing his pack and pulling it over both shoulders.
This was not something Jezren needed on this job.
Hardly more than a boy, Ryn met Jezren near the center of the outpost’s courtyard, eyes bright and expectant. Jezren folded his arms, already trying to rearrange the assignments he’d mentally mapped out for the company to accommodate for the young man before him.
A shout from the outpost’s gate pulled Jezren’s attention. The massive wooden gates slowly swung open, allowing two large drafthorses to pull a large cart into the courtyard. The cart, despite its extra axle and six wheels, was of no great interest. No, it was its load that drew the eye of bystanders.
A great iron cage filled its box from side to side and nearly front to back. Its wide bars easily reached twice the height of any man. Merciless, sharp-edged runes had been forced into every surface. They caught the light and refused to let it go, giving them the faint sheen of what they had stolen from the world around them.
The knot in Jezren’s stomach grew. The force that lay curled deep within his chest responded to its presence, drifting toward the surface as if pulled by a long tether. And the cage seemed almost hungry for it.
Jezren’s gaze was only pulled away by the contrast of bright red Sanctum uniforms against the dark metal. Two guards walked with the cage, one on each side, as if their grim expressions were needed to keep people back from the cold and merciless iron. Two more trailed after it, one on each side of a woman with bound wrists who walked as if she dared the world to stop her.
Jezren pulled an awestruck Ryn to the side of the courtyard as the cart trundled to a stop at its center. Rurik joined them with a huff of approval. A rough hand came down on Ryn’s shoulder with a surprising softness. “The Will made iron. No Eirach’s beatin’ that,” he said, his wry smile easily visible over Ryn’s head.
Jezren didn’t respond.
With Ryn safely out of the way, Jezren forced down his rising anxiety and headed for the most senior looking of the Sanctum guards; a sergeant, judging from the double-sword pin set into his collar, who now stood next to their prisoner. Jezren gave the cart and cage a wide berth but even so the pull in his chest grew more taut with every pace he came closer to it.
By the time Jezren reached the guard, he had pulled a folded document from the inside of his jacket. He looked over Jezren with almost the same sour look he’d given the woman. “You the captain?”
Jezren nodded, then opened his mouth to speak but the sergeant’s rough hand shoved the document into his chest before the words could form.
“By order of The Holy Dominion of A’anu, this advisor is placed in your custody,” he said with a contemptuous glance toward the bound woman. “She is to aid in your assignment until its completion.” Jezren took the document without comment as the sergeant took another half step toward him, lowering his head and his voice to keep it from carrying to at least the entirety of the courtyard. “And if she doesn’t…”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
He let the sentence hang, but his meaning was clear enough. The Dominion, and especially the Sanctum, had little use for those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, serve their purposes.
Jezren unfolded the document, glancing over the familiar bureaucratic formalities that charged him with the care and return of Dominion property and laid out the penalties for damaging them. The loss of a company of mercenaries might be merely the price of a successful mission, but a draft horse gone lame could incur a heavy fine.
Only the final paragraph mentioned the woman, Terja Wen, although whether she was an advisor, a prisoner, or both was unclear. It said only that she had been assigned in accordance with her own agreement.
He glanced over her with a soldier’s eye. Slim, but well muscled. Light hair once cropped close but with several months growth, likely cut during a stay in the prisons to minimize lice. Her eyes held a fire he’d seen before.
The memory came unbidden. The rain. The village elder. The fight he couldn’t hope to win but would fight anyway.
Jezren forcibly cleared his throat and his head, turning to the sergeant with a nod. The other guard took this cue to shove Terja forward and scowled when she moved with the momentum instead of stumbling.
“You’ll keep her tied if you know what’s good for you,” the sergeant muttered. “Walk in the Will,” he added absently, motioning for the others to follow as he headed back towards the gate.
Terja was left before him, muscles as taut as the thread from the cage that still pulled at the deepest part of him. He didn’t dare meet her eyes again.
Instead, he took her arm just above the elbow and turned toward his awaiting company. Some were still transfixed by the cage. Seris and Tolan were eying the new advisor with undisguised suspicion.
Rurik was already halfway to where Jezren and Terja stood, his long legs carrying him in quick, ground-eating strides. His easy smile had been replaced by a tight jaw and hard eyes. He reached them a moment later, one massive hand wrapping around Terja’s other arm as if it were a twig while the other pulled something from his pocket. Jezren’s hand was already on the hilt of his weapon before he realized what it was.
A wardstone.
Not a weapon. Not to most people. Jezren found himself taking a step back, the knot in his stomach twisting around the thread from the cage that refused to release him. Wardstones were unpredictable. Counterfeits were common and even genuine wardstones could vary widely in sensitivity. It would take only a small reaction at the wrong time to expose Jezren’s secret.
Rurik roughly shoved Terja’s loose sleeve up and pressed the stone to her upper arm, his thumb and forefinger wrapped around the edge of the dull stone so that the polished runes in its center were clearly visible; winding, flowing symbols etched with more care than those forced into the iron of the cage.
Terja didn’t resist, only glancing at the stone with a derisive snort. Rurik was unphased, his eyes fixed on the stone jammed against her arm. Jezren, too, had his attention fully on the stone as his heart hammered in his ears.
The runes of the stone were intricate and highly polished. Were they merely reflecting the early afternoon light, or was it something else that flowed faintly over them? Jezren wasn’t sure.
The moment seemed to stretch for far longer than the handful of heartbeats he knew it had to have been.
Rurik finally spoke, his deep tones carrying without having to shout. “What’s your crime?” he asked flatly, meeting the challenge in her eyes with unimpressed resolve.
She huffed slightly, a smirk pulling at the edge of her lips. “I knew how to make that.” She jerked her head toward the cage without breaking eye contact.
The knot in Jezren’s stomach twisted itself into a chasm. Worse than a useless Sanctum clerk, his newest charge was a magic scholar. If the wardstone was to be believed she didn’t seem to be a Holder, but Holders like Jezren rarely learned much about the force that lived inside them aside from what their own lives taught them. Even the language of magic with its flowing runes was alien, banned to all but a select few and used only for what the Dominion deemed appropriate. Like the cage.
If she knew enough to create something that pulled at the center of his being…
Jezren abandoned the thought, focusing on the issue in front of him. “We leave for Wodstrem in one hour,” he said firmly. “Gather your supplies and load the wagon.”
Rurik’s gaze flickered to meet Jezren’s for just a moment before looking Terja over. He released her arm, almost tossing it aside as he turned, walking back toward the store rooms without a word.
Jezren, his hand still just above Terja’s elbow, guided her forward in Rurik’s wake, although at a slower pace. Once a fair gap had opened between them, Jezren leaned slightly toward her, his voice low enough for only her ear. “I don’t know or care what your agreement with the Sanctum is. Run in the Westwood and we follow orders to track you down. Run in the Shatterwilds, and I won’t risk others’ lives for yours.”
She scoffed again without looking at him. “I stay with my cage.”
The possessiveness in her tone did nothing to ease the pit in his stomach.
The next hour was filled with orders and logistics as the little space in the cart not filled with the cage was loaded with their supplies and Jezren assigned the group to their various positions. Mattin and Brenam, used to plows and farmwork, would handle the cart itself and the horses. Rurik and Ana would travel ahead of the cart as scouts. Tolan and Jocon would be positioned at the head of the cart, and Jezren and Seris would be the rear guard. This would allow Jezren to place Terja and Ryn at the center of their procession next to the cage- her cage, his gut reminded him- where both could be easily monitored. The fact that it also allowed Jezren to keep a healthy distance from the cage was beside the point.
With the sun just past mid-afternoon, the gates of the outpost creaked open once again to allow the company of mercenaries, their cart with its massive cage, and their bound “advisor,” to head out through the city and onto the winding roads of the Westwood province.
Jezren paused as the cart trundled through the gate, the massive cage just clearing the upper frame. He took a steadying breath, forcing aside thoughts of the way it pulled at him and whether Terja would be able to tell that it did. He had a job to do and, like it or not, he was going to do it.
“Nine brought out means nine to bring back.” That was his job. No matter what the contract said, at the end of it that was always his job.
A soft chuckle to his right made him turn to see Seris, shaking her head as she adjusted her heavy pack. She gave him a wry smile as she took up her position behind the cart. “You say that like it’s up to you.”
