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The Emperor and his Gypsy.
Chapter 7.
The days passed in a haze for Kierna, each one vanishing as quickly as a drop of water in this deathtrap of a place. She swore to herself, around her dry throat and swollen tongue, that she would never set foot in a desert again, if it was up to her. Luckily, the particular neck of the desert she was traversing was narrow, and it was only a few days’ march to reach the other side. At first, she believed herself to be hallucinating, but soon realized that she was not—there really was a forest, growing directly on the edge of the desert, separated only by a five-foot-wide, shallow stream.
Kierna stood, gaping at both the water and the trees. Siyamak moved up beside her, his veil covering the lower half of his face, but the crinkles around his eyes giving away his smile. “In our land, the landscape changes very quickly.” He glanced at her just briefly, and then plunged into the river, weapons held over his head. The others followed suit, dragging her along with them. At first, the water was a shock to her system, but very quickly she began to enjoy it, and her captors had to force her out of the stream; otherwise, she’d have laid down and soaked in it for hours.
They climbed the stream’s bank, and slipped beneath the velvet shadows of the forest. Kierna breathed the warm, crisp scent of leaves and pine needles, of moist earth and the vegetation living off of it. This forest was different from the one before; there was no underbrush at all, and the tree branches were so entwined that she could not tell the top of one tree from another as she looked up into the canopy above. She wasn’t allowed much time for sight-seeing, however, for Siyamak seemed to believe them behind schedule, and had been pushing each to their limits.
The trees had no branches near the ground, and were widely spaced, which made for easy travel. For the most part, the ground was flat, although there was the occasional gentle rise and fall. Kierna moved along easily, almost light-heartedly. For just a moment, she lost herself in the simplistic beauty of the forest. All cares, all worries, all thoughts were chased away by the soft sighs of the leaves, and the gentle groaning of the trunks. She breathed deeply, held the air in her lungs for a long time. Some carnal part of her fancied that, by holding in air so pure, so perfect, she herself would become such.
The trees thickened some, and the branches seemed to come further down the trunks. There seemed to be a different species of tree living further into the forest, that was more difficult to traverse than the previous species. The ground became hillier, as well. Siyamak assured her this meant they were nearing the capital. He seemed edgy, however, and sent the four men up ahead to scout. They happened upon a trail, and fell into place, each becoming more edgy with each step.
They rounded the bend, and two of his men were in the trees, one without a leg, and another without an arm. Both looked charred, and the scent of burning flesh hung heavy in the air. The other two were nowhere to be seen. Siyamak held out one hand to her, and drew forth his saber. Kierna shook her head, and silently motioned for him to untie her. After a moment of consideration, he cut her free.
As if on cue, three Draglets lowered down to eye-level, their riders chuckling with glee as they prodded their pikes at the both of them. Two of the Draglets were munching on a third corpse, and the third Draglet was eating his own. Siyamak bared his teeth in an angry growl, and stepped forward.
“No!” Kierna thrust her hand out and grabbed his arm. He turned the same angry look on her, but her steely nerves kept her from shrinking back. “Give me my weapons.”
He shook his head, and turned back towards the Caernies.
“Give them to me!” she shouted.
He looked at her again, and then drew from midair the belt bearing her sabers, and the greatsword. She strapped the sabers around her waist, and then drew the greatsword. She stepped forward, as did Siyamak; she shook her head at him. “I know these beasts. My Dragon and I have faced them before. Let me fight them; you do not know how.” He grunted and reluctantly slipped back.
She took another few steps forward, smiled a little at all three of them, and then raised her hands to hold the greatsword in front of her. The first Caernie let out a wicked giggle, and the Draglet thrust forward. She stepped forward, spun, and got the greatsword lodged halfway into the Draglet’s body. It fell to the ground; she put her foot on its twitching corpse, and jerked the sword free. She heard the spine-tingling battle cry of Siyamak’s people, and turned just in time to see him hack one of the Caernies to bits. The Draglet wheeled midair and began snapping at Siyamak.
Kierna took two giant leaping steps forward, and shoved the sword deep within the Draglet’s stomach. It squealed, and went tumbling backwards, wrenching the sword from her hands. She drew both of the sabers, and quickly turned on the last pair. The Draglet took her full force across the chest, and caught her left arm in its mouth. She brought the right hand up, and cut into the Caernie’s body. He cried out, and the Draglet released her arm. She fell to the ground, and Siyamak jumped over her to hack the Draglet down into the ground clumsily with her retrieved greatsword.
She let out a deep breath, and struggled to her feet. She was cleaning the blood from the sabers just as she heard Siyamak call out. A sharp pain began to race through her body, and her entire form went rigid. Darkness rose and faded in waves across her vision. Vaguely, she saw Siyamak rush forward, and throw his saber into something behind her. A dull thud followed, and her body was released. She sagged to the ground, her breath coming at ragged, uneven intervals, and her muscles kept twitching. She could feel her hair rising from her braid, and hovering around her face. Some of it clung with an unnatural persistency to her face, and others just stood straight up from her skull.
“What… was… that?”
She raised her head to look at Siyamak, and slowly, shakily rose to her feet. He held out a hand to her; she ignored it. She turned to look at whatever had been behind her, and found a Caernie warrior, with his pike still clutched in his hand. Where had he come from?
The battle replayed in her mind, and slowly the first Draglet to go down began to stick out in her mind. She’d killed him, but had forgotten all about his rider. She shook her head at her own stupidity, and stumbled a little. Siyamak caught her, and immediately cried out and leapt back.
She nodded a little to him. “Don’t touch me.”
“What was that?” he repeated.
Slowly, she lowered herself to the ground, and motioned for him to do the same. She repeated all of the history of Draglets and Caernies that she knew, and then explained the pikes to him—and why she had hurt him when he’d touched her. He seemed to only halfway understand, but that was enough for her. After all, even she had not truly understood this magic—this “science”—until she had seen it in action in the first war, and even now she was still a little fuzzy on the whole ordeal. She crawled over to each of her weapons, cleaned them on her pants’ legs thoroughly, and then re-sheathed them. She was about to strap each of them on again, when she saw him holding his hand out patiently. With a grunt, she thrust all three towards him, and then they vanished, just as mysteriously as they had earlier appeared.
Well, she thought, at least my knee is working fine.
Saorise forced her eyes to stay open as she and the stranger traversed another moonlit road towards the capital. She had not realized how long it would take to reach the capital with one on foot, and another on a slow-plodding carthorse. Still, she was not about to give up, for the stranger’s sake, and her own. He had a purpose, a reason for fighting towards the capital, although even he might no longer recall what that purpose was. She, however, had nothing. She had no home, no family—and more importantly, no money and no food. The stranger seemed to have money in his pockets, money she had somehow missed when they had first picked him up in the foothills. He had already given her some to purchase bread, and had seemed to not even blink at the questionable price the peddler had been charging. More importantly, he needed her. He was the only link to necessity that she had left.
She raised her head to look at him. He slept, mostly, although he spent a great deal of time awake as well. He never said anything—at least, nothing that made sense. He was always mumbling about this Merrif, and about the creature, and the capital. He spoke sometimes of the Empire, although she could not tell why, or what about it. Once, she heard mention of a Dragon, but could not coax him to repeat it. He seemed barely aware of her presence anyway, most of the time; he seemed to live only in a dream world, and never in reality. He was plagued by terrors that his mind had created.
He was one of the Mad.
Slowly, her eyelids were beginning to droop again. Her mind was lulled into peace by the steady clip-clop of the horse’s hooves, and the quiet rustle of the wind in the wheat to the left of the road. She had not even noticed she’d fallen asleep until she tripped on a rock and fell face-first into the dirt. For half a second, she contemplated staying there, but knew it was impossible, and forced herself to her feet. The horse had stopped alongside her. She heard a thunk, and moments later, two strong hands grasped her waist and lifted her up onto the back of the horse. She settled into place, her mind too sleepy to respond with the fright the situation truly called for. The stranger clucked to the horse, and the two of them began to walk again. She drooped in the saddle like a wilted flower, and let her eyes slip shut. She began to wonder if the stranger knew which way to go to gain the most ground towards the capitol…
…but she was asleep before she finished the thought.
When she awoke, she was lying on her side, on hard ground, covered clumsily in one of their blankets. Dying embers of a fire were a few feet from her head, giving off the last small waves of heat left in their crimson hearts. She sat up slowly, letting her muscles reacquaint themselves with movement. One hand scrubbed at her eyes, and she looked around her. The horse was nowhere in site, and the stranger was leaning against a tree, head sagged. Soft snores met her ears. She smiled a bit, struggled her way out of the blanket, and stood. She walked over to him and tapped his shoulder, teeth clamped down on her lower lip. She hated to wake him…
He started, and his head whipped around to look at her. “Nn? Uh, oh…” He clambered to his feet. “Must have drifted off there…” He smiled a little, and turned around. “Hungry?”
She nodded, and then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she answered aloud. She felt awkward; this was the first time they’d ever had much of an exchange of words.
He grabbed the food, and was building up the fire when she recalled why she’d originally woken him. “Where’s the horse?”
One hand pointed to a spot that was empty, other than a few trees, one with a limb cracked off. She turned to look back at him, then did a double-take back to the tree. “Blessed Mother, the horse!” He spun around, just as she rushed over to the broken tree. “He’s gone!”
The stranger walked over, limping slightly still. He let out a loud curse. “There was a storm last night. He was moving around, but I didn’t think…” Another curse. Saorise frowned, unsure of what to say. It wasn’t his fault; he hadn’t known; but she couldn’t find it in her to be forgiving right now. “I have the food, and the supplies,” he continued. “So… all we lost is transportation, at least.”
She forced her expression to soften as he looked at her, and nodded some. “We’ll only be able to take what we can carry. There’s a town, a ways up the road, that I had been planning on bypassing, but now… it looks like we don’t have much of a choice.”
They returned to the fire, had breakfast, sorted out what they needed and what they didn’t, and set off. The road was easily gained, and they made a steady march, Saorise setting a hard pace, despite the knowledge that the stranger was still limping. It was her way of punishing him, and making up for the time they would lose, all at once. “I don’t have much money; we won’t be able to get much more than a nag.”
He hesitated a moment. “I… have a few coins, myself, though they’re Imperial currency.”
“I don’t think they’ll take it for much. The Empire isn’t in good standing with us, at the moment.”
“Why’s that?” he asked, his eyes belying his voice’s air of indifference.
She smiled a little to herself. “Well, the king is waiting for the request he knows will come: a request of an alliance. The Emperor has been trying for a long while to make an alliance, but our king steadfastly refuses. He doesn’t believe that he can stand against Legions—but neither does he believe he can stand against the Empire. Therefore, he intends to remain neutral, and the country’s grateful. The last thing we want are those wicked beasties burning down our homes.”
“Wicked beasties?” There was a note of hostility in his voice.
“The draglets,” she replied. “Though, the Dragons wouldn’t be a very pleasant enemy either. I’ve heard such stories. Have you ever seen them?”
“Once or twice, one flew over my home.” He looked uncomfortable. “You?”
She shook her head. “No, no. If one were caught flying over Turabel, it’d be a dead one shortly after. The king fears hostility from the Empire, if an alliance isn’t struck.”
“Then why not strike an alliance?”
“There’re rumors—and these are just rumors, mind you; we haven’t encountered anything to prove them to be more—that the king is receiving a bit of pressure from the other side of Turabel. They say Legions has made a few contacts, and promises a special wave of beasties, should Turabel change its colors.”
He was silent for a long while. She snuck a look at him, and he didn’t even notice. He was frowning deeply, and looking at the ground a few feet in front of him.
“Uh, so…” Now that he was speaking, she was eager to learn more about him. “Why is it so important that you get to the capital?”
He was silent for a moment, and then shrugged. “It isn’t really… important. It’s just my destination.”
She lowered her voice, made it nice and whispery, and then said, “The capital… imperative…” A giggle, and in her normal voice she continued: “Ring a bell? I seem to recall a certain lost stranger saying it to me in the back of my family’s cart.”
His silence hung thick in the air. Obviously, she’d struck a chord. She reached out, and touched him lightly on his forearm. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed. A nod was given her, but no words were granted.
They continued on in this way for an uncertain amount of time, though it was long enough for the sun to go from their right side to their left. Saorise was beginning to doubt her ability to navigate, when the first sounds of village life met her ears. A smile broke on her lips, and her pace quickened. The stranger, however, did not speed up. She glanced back at him, and the smile vanished; he looked rough. He looked haggard; he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. In fact, he looked like he hadn’t slept for days, either, which irked her. Still, she slowed, and forced herself to meet his pace.
It wasn’t long, then, until they reached the village. People stared, but didn’t say much; being positioned on a relatively well-traveled road, they were used to questionable travelers passing through. She gave him a few coins from the bag at her waist. “Go and find a general store; see if you can get some food. I’ll look for a horse.” He nodded, and wandered off down one branch of the road, and she turned to go down the other. Eyes were kept open for someone with a sizeable herd, or even someone selling horses. Luck was with them, it seemed, for there was a fair in the center of town, and every size and type of horse—for every price—was available. She wandered through the herds, critical eyes finding fault with every specimen. Too thin; too old; bad joints; capped hocks. She finally found a medium-sized hacking horse that would suit them perfectly. The seller, however, just laughed when she spoke to him about purchase.
“Take money?” Laughing. “From a gyppo?” More laughing. “You must think I’m stupid!” He was boldly guffawing now. Saorise seethed, and turned and stalked away. She managed to locate the stranger, who had purchased a good amount of supplies—he’d more than made up for everything they’d left behind. She led him off to one side.
“We’re stealing them.”
He blinked. “I’m sorry… I could have sworn you said we were going to steal something.”
She gave him a long, even stare, and then continued. “They won’t take my money, and I don’t know that it’s worth it, anyway, for just one horse. So we’ll take two.”
“I can’t steal something.” He looked… appalled at the suggestion. “I just can’t…”
“You don’t have to; I will. Now come on.” She hauled him off. “Leave the stuff in the forest, to the north. I’ll meet you. Leave me a sign… Place three large rocks, right in a row, at the exact spot on the road where you step off and into the woods.” He nodded weakly, heaved the supplies onto his back, and started off to the north. She watched him for a moment, whispered a prayer, and then turned back in the direction of the miniature fair.
Kierna… Memories of their last time together returned to him in a rush, though they were fuzzy, as if viewed through thick glass. It had been dark, in her rooms at the palace, both of them perched on the edge of her bed. He’d told her of his plans for this cursed mission, had sent her on a quest that, for all he knew, had seen the death of she and Arakhar. He could still smell her, the leathery, musky scent she always bore. He loved that she never perfumed her hair, never soaked in lavender water, never adorned herself as extravagantly as the ladies of the court.
The sound of hooves on the road pulled him back to the present. The gypsy’s urgent voice summoned him to the road, food and supplies in tow.
“Hurry!” she snapped, as she leapt from one horse’s back and helped him secure everything to the saddles. She’d chosen two glorious mounts, surely worth a king’s—or an emperor’s—ransom. Following her lead, he swung up into the saddle. Two geldings, both large and in good flesh, one a chestnut and one a dapple grey. Reins were snatched up, heels put to the equines’ sides, and they both took off—just in time to miss an arrow that whizzed by, thudding loudly into the trunk of a tree.
“Take the first field you see,” the gypsy shouted, “and just go until we lose them!” He didn’t even bother to reply, the wind and the hoof beats making communication nearly impossible.
He glanced over his shoulder, and saw several yellow-clad soldiers racing after them, two with knocked bows. He shouted to gain her attention, and abruptly swung his horse to the left. As if by a gods-granted miracle, a narrow path lay there, instead of forest. The gypsy stuck close to him, though one of the soldiers missed the turn-off, and another’s horse slipped and fell. They weren’t out of the race, though; both caught back up to the group easily.
"If we die," the gypsy yelled, "I want you to know my name."
He looked at her, baffled.
"Saorise," she continued. "My name is Saorise."
He looked forward, then back at her, frowning. After a moment of consideration, he replied, "I have no name, but most know me by..." He hesitated. "Most call me, 'The Emperor'."
She shot a look of shock over at him, but was called back to the problem at hand by an arrow whizzing between them.
The Emperor spurred the horse on, and the grey leapt forwards in an even more furious gallop. The chestnut stuck close. Bright light was visible at the top of a rise, and the Emperor’s heart leapt. Could it be an opening? A… a field, perhaps? He almost didn’t dare hope. The pair bounded up the hill, burst from the cover of the trees, and into a field. Joy surged through him, and he turned the horse across the field. Ground fell away beneath them, and wind hit him so hard he could barley breathe. The grey and the chestnut never stumbled, never faltered, though the soldiers’ horses seemed to have a much harder time keeping their feet. An arrow whizzed by, its feathers whispering across the Emperor’s ear. He turned around in the saddle, one hand on the horse’s neck to keep him from losing his balance, and flung his hand out at the soldiers. Two of them, the archers, went rushing backwards as if caught by a hurricane’s winds. He turned back around, and pressed his heels against the grey’s side. The horse managed a feeble increase in pace, though not much; already he was sweating profusely, and the Emperor could hear his labored breathing.
“We can’t run forever!” he yelled at the gypsy. She nodded, and motioned to the right. Both of them turned that way, throwing up clods of dirt behind them, and rushed back towards the forest. Already, the soldiers were faltering, and when they hit the forest line, the soldiers stopped. “We’re out of their jurisdiction,” the gypsy called to him. The interference of noise was less now, for they’d had to slow considerably in order to navigate through the trees. “There are plains near here; we’ll camp there tonight.” She seemed to be purposefully keeping her tone neutral, and her attention away from what he had said, though she seemed a little more... distant.
“There’re plains everywhere,” he mumbled in reply.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing…”
His mind returned to that fateful day on the mountain pass, when the beast had attacked them. He'd been knocked unconscious, only to awake when he was being dragged up into the sky by three draglets, secured by ropes. He'd been deposited on a cart high above the narrow trail, and taken away--but not before they allowed him to watch their magicians casting illusions. He had seen, just as he knew his liege had seen, his own face and body, spread in gnawed pieces across the rocky floor. He'd been to hurt to fight them, too wounded to struggle against their weakly-tied bonds. He'd cried out, his one futile attempt to let his Emperor know he lived; they'd hit him for that, hard, and he'd drifted back into unconsciousness. Another moment of waking, briefly, en route to their home country, and then he'd slept the unnatural healing sleep of the human body. He'd not been fully awoken until they'd arrived at Legions' capital, where he'd been put in this dank, miserable place... and that was that. He'd not seen true daylight since then, though he'd been subjected to their lanterns at random intervals.
There was no question in his mind that he would die. The question was how long it would take them to grow tired of torturing him. Would they hold his capture over his liege’s head, or continue to allow the Emperor to think him dead? One face comforted him in the dark, her amber eyes soothing to him in his moments of most intense pain. He laughed at himself to think that he'd once thought it possible to live a true life with her; he'd known, that day in the palace, that she'd not loved him. She'd obviously never even considered the idea of settling down, and that didn't come as much of a surprise to him. Why should she? The life of a DragonRider was with their Dragon. Still... once upon a time, he had truly hoped. His heart ached to hear her voice, to hear her say his name...
...for then, perhaps he'd have been able to remember what it was. He'd lost so much in the dark, in the pain. Would he be able to recover it, or was it lost forever? Then again, did it even matter? He'd die here, either on their machines, or on their gallows tree--or perhaps, tied to their burning stake. The method didn't matter, not anymore, not after so much pain.
The sound of footsteps met his ears, and he tightened his grip on his knees. Slow, even breaths, and he tried to banish the thoughts of pain, tried to retreat into the cherished parts of his mind. He called up old memories, happy memories. Simple ones, though; sunsets, clouds, rainbows, Kierna...
He heard the key in the lock, and squeezed his brown eyes shut. Deeper and deeper he sank into his consciousness, so deep that he barely noticed them putting him on his feet, and dragging him back to their machines. By the time they'd fully prepared their devices, by the time the inquisitor had arrived, he was so deeply wrapped up in the leathery smell of her hair that he had no knowledge of the slow, painful wrenching of limbs, or of the burning of heated blades, or of the crushing of fingers. He knew only her.
