Post by Seek on Dec 17, 2013 21:39:21 GMT 10
Title: Tasks
Rating: PG-13
For: kuno
Prompt: 1. Kel and Joren meeting as knights. A "If Joren hadn't died in the chamber" story.
Summary: Kel and Joren meet as knights. Some things change, others don't.
Notes and Warnings: I tried very hard not to make it cracky, but there is a bit of crack in it. It kind of works with the non-canon premise though. max's idea about Stone Mountain being conquered Scanran territory has become headcanon for me, and so it's made an appearance here.
-
Joren of Stone Mountain, Sir Paxton knew, was flawed. Very much gifted—and just as grievously flawed.
In Nond, they bred horses. Not the thundering, spirited warhorses with fire in their blood and steel in their bones—those came from the stables of Cavall. Nond horses were shaggy things, bred for endurance. Paxton had grown up taking his own turn in the stables. He knew about breeding, about lines and stock. And he knew, of course, about training.
All things considered, he had a rather overwhelmingly bad feeling about this particular Ordeal. Still, he said nothing, held his hands behind his back, and waited. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Stone Mountain family gathered: Lord Burchard waited, his wife a small figure standing to the side. He caught a glimpse of Nond yellow-and-brown amidst the Stone Mountain group—Kristoff, he thought, with the Stone Mountain woman he’d married. Joselia. That was her name.
Nonds, his grandfather was fond of saying, weren’t progressives or conservatives. They let the other nobles squabble over Tortall while they stayed home and saw to their people and their horses. Only the hurrocks had come, and then the spidren, and Nond’s herds and livestock had thinned. And then came the influx of Bazhir horses, when trade with the Bazhir opened under King Jonathan’s reign, and then the years of famine and flood.
Nond had been struggling, and Joselia’s dowry had been worthy of a princess. They pocketed the dowry, used Stone Mountain funds to rescue the ailing fief, and with that, bound themselves to the Stone Mountains. Not just conservatives, Paxton thought. He’d heard enough of their beliefs at the dinner table, and from his own squire. Dangerous conservatives. Some of the northern fiefs still remembered a time when there had been a king in the south.
Stone Mountain was one of them.
As Joren’s brother-in-law, he had been urged to take the young man on as his squire, and he had done so. He’d done his best to turn the boy into a respectable knight of the realm, and while Joren’s martial skills were entirely without fault, he was completely lacking in other areas. He had been the one to discover his squire’s own role in the kidnapping of Squire Keladry’s maid.
Breeding, Sir Paxton thought. It wasn’t just about blood and training, of course. It was about nature. It was stupid to blame rock-serpents when they bit a horse and the horse had to be put out of its misery. It was just the rock-serpent’s nature.
The great iron door of the Chamber swung open, noiselessly. He stared into the dark maw of the Chamber of the Ordeal, remembering what it had been like. He pushed away the memories before they could overwhelm him. He’d stopped having nightmares of his Ordeal only a year later.
No one walked out of the Chamber.
The bad feeling deepened; became a lead-weighted rock in his stomach. He forced himself to step forward. As Joren’s knight-master, he would have to go into the Chamber to retrieve his squire. He took one step, and then another. No one followed him.
He entered the Chamber, listening to the loud sound his boots made on the flagstones of the floor. Too loud, in the hush that had fallen over the crowd in the chapel. No doubt the news would already be making the rounds.
He found the crumpled body of his squire, sprawled on the floor of the Chamber. He knelt down. Joren’s skin was cold to the touch. Too cold.
Just a room, he thought, glancing around him. A room that could kill. A room that had given him nightmares for the better part of a year, and had driven other squires mad and sent some of them to their deaths.
He knew what it had done to one of Joren’s cronies, young Vinson of Genlith.
He felt for a pulse. Joren’s head lolled limp on his neck. He was prepared to give his squire up for dead, but then he felt it. The faintest flutter of breath. Was it…?
He drew his dagger; held it to his squire’s face, and watched mist condense on the surface of the cold steel. Satisfied, he sheathed it. He grunted as he bent down and tried to hoist the unconscious squire.
“Is he…?”
He looked up at Kristoff. “Alive,” Paxton said. “Help me get him out of here.” He was surprised to find he was relieved. Something must have gone wrong with Joren’s Ordeal, but the Chamber had seen fit to spare his squire. He supposed that was something. For all he’d taken Joren on out of obligation, it seemed that he cared anyway.
“Move over,” Kristoff said. He was bigger than his older brother; between the two of them, they managed to manhandle Joren of Stone Mountain out of the Chamber of the Ordeal, a few moments before the whispers began.
-
“Mindelan,” Lord Wyldon said, a moment before the refugee camp came into view, on the next rise, just beyond the valley. “A word.”
He dropped back from the company; she slowed Hoshi down to a walk to match the pace of his horse. “My lord?”
She noticed his hesitation. Lord Wyldon, as she knew him, hated to mince words. “You understand that you are taking over command of the refugee camp,” he said. “The camp is still being built, but an officer is temporarily in charge of it.”
“I assumed as much, my lord,” Kel said, cautiously.
“Hollyrose has not been assigned with you,” Wyldon continued. “He will be returning with me to Fort Mastiff.” Lucky Merric, Kel thought, before she firmly quashed the thought. She had accepted the assignment; she was not going to begrudge Merric the fact he was going to see actual combat under Lord Wyldon’s command.
“Sir?”
Wyldon sighed. He was rubbing at his bad arm again, she noticed.
The refugee camp itself came into view. A cluster of buildings made from sawn logs, with a single palisade. That was it. Her first command. Soldiers in army maroon wore helms and padded cuirasses, standing at regular intervals on the walls. They carried bows, she noticed and a horn call went up. They’d been spotted.
Wyldon’s trumpeter responded with the signal that they were friendly forces.
Two flags flew above the walls; the first was the silver blade and crown on a field of royal blue—the flag of the Tortallan crown. The second, was in the process of being lowered even as she watched. It was—
Kel blinked. It was the pale blue and white of Stone Mountain. She recognised the clenched white gauntlet and the mountain. She almost drew Hoshi to a halt. Wyldon followed the direction of her startled gaze. “The temporary commander of the camp,” he said quietly, “Is Sir Joren of Stone Mountain. He has been reassigned to a position as patrol captain and will be serving under your command.”
“My lord,” Kel blurted, it was really becoming a bad habit, she thought, “Is this wise?”
Wyldon said, heavily, “For all his skills, it is clear that Stone Mountain is no commander. He can lead men into battle, and he has done so for the past year. However, he lacks the other attributes needed to command a refugee camp.”
He’d paid a group of thugs to kidnap Lalasa, Kel thought. He’d sauntered into the courts, knowing the only thing the law could levy on him would be a fine. Her hands clenched into fists by her side, and she forced them to relax. She’d heard that there had been something irregular about Joren’s Ordeal—his knighting ceremony had not been held at sunrise, but had been delayed, and then held as a private affair. But she’d put it swiftly out of mind; Joren was a knight, and he’d known better than to try something on her again.
She hadn’t thought their paths would cross again. She hadn’t even thought of him.
No, Kel thought, Joren would just make a hash out of commanding a refugee camp. He’d never take the refugees seriously. She’d come to learn that concern for commoners was something exceedingly rare among the nobles. Most of them saw it as a sign of weakness, or sentiment.
Still, she remembered Quinden of Marti’s Hill. “Sir,” she said, “I’m not concerned about his lack of aptitude. I’m concerned that he may refuse orders.” From the Girl. She knew that disobeying orders from a commanding officer in times of war carried with it serious offenses; Lord Raoul had to courtmartial a few men of the King’s Own only a few times, and each case had been highly unpleasant. Joren’s hatred had carried over to kidnapping Lalasa in order to force Kel to be late for the big examinations. He’d thought that when confronted with having to repeat all four years, she would quit.
Did it extend so far as disobeying orders from the camp’s commander?
Lord Wyldon raised an eyebrow. “We are at war, Mindelan,” he said dryly. “Noble privilege provides little shelter from refusing a legitimate order.”
She nodded, as they rode on to rejoin the company. A flag was now being raised over the fort—she blinked at it, and looked down until she’d gotten her emotions firmly under control. Double-bordered, with the Mindelan owl and crossed glaives. Someone had heard of her assignment and gone to the trouble of flying her flag over the camp, and whoever it was, Kel was pretty certain it had not been Joren.
-
As they entered the camp, a man in army maroon with short-cropped grey hair strode down the wooden staircase leading from the upper wall to greet them. She looked at his yellow armbands carefully—they bore crossed black swords. A regular army captain, then.
“My lord,” said the man. He came to attention before Lord Wyldon and saluted.
Wyldon returned the salute. “Captain Hobard Elbridge, I present Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the royal healers.” Elbridge bowed and Wyldon continued, introducing the rest of them. “Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan, who will be taking over from Sir Joren as camp commander.” He bowed to her, his expression inscrutable. “Sir Nealan of Queenscove, who will be camp healer. Sir Merric of Hollyrose, who is accompanying me.”
“Your grace, my lord Wyldon, sir knights,” Captain Elbridge said, “Sir Joren is currently not in the camp. We encountered a Scanran raiding party two days ago, and Sir Joren is leading a patrol in the valley, just beyond the river, to ensure no more slip through.”
We didn’t encounter them, Kel thought. She did not say it.
The captain beckoned to a man with the dot and circle insignia of a sergeant. “The patrol is likely to return by the evening watch. Sergeant Landwin here will take charge of your things and show you where you’re to sleep.”
Kel watched as their men followed the sergeant, wondering what she was to do next. She hadn’t expected to receive her first command so early. Of all the things—she’d expected to be put under the command of an experienced warrior in the frontlines. But you aren’t, she told herself fiercely, so do what you’re here for.
“In Sir Joren’s absence,” Captain Elbridge continued, “I am in charge of the camp. I am, therefore, entirely at your disposal, sir knight. Will you address the men? Tour the camp? Review the country? Sir Joren has left me with the keys to give you, and he has suggested I familiarise you with the state of affairs here. The camp is unnamed, we thought to leave that to you.”
She dismounted slowly from Hoshi, and resisted looking in Wyldon’s direction. She had been given no instructions about how to take command. She figured she would simply have to do her best about it. “First of all, Captain,” she said firmly, “I prefer the title ‘lady knight.’”
“Yes, lady knight.”
“Are you remaining with us?”
“No, milady,” Captain Elbridge said, his face an impassive mask. “It’s my hope to ride on to the new fort with my lord Wyldon in the morning. But of course, if you or Sir Joren have need of me…”
“That will be fine, Captain,” she said, all too aware of Lord Wyldon’s presence as he dismounted from his horse. “Why don’t we tour the camp and you tell me how things are. I’ll speak to the men at…supper? Are they all assembled at supper?”
“Yes, milady,” the captain said.
She passed Hoshi’s reins to Tobe. “You may as well tend the horses, Tobe, and bring my things to my quarters.”
“Very good, my lady,” he said, bowing in the saddle before he accepted Hoshi’s reins.
“Well, Captain,” Kel said, “We may as well get started.”
-
As Captain Elbridge had indicated, Joren rode into camp in the evening, when most of the men were taking supper. The nobles had a table to themselves at one end of the mess hall; they shared it with Captain Elbridge and Dom.
Listening to the conversation at their table, Kel wished that Dom and his squad were here to stay all summer. She would miss his easy sense of humour, his ready smile, and most importantly, that he never once doubted that she could pull her weight just as much as any of the men did. It was only underscored by the fact that Joren would be remaining to serve as the knight in charge of camp security.
Stop it, she told herself. She wasn’t here to spend the time mooning over Dom, even though he had a smile that made her stomach flip-flop. She was here to do her duty as the commander of the camp. Because no one else would do as good a job. No one else would care.
The doors to the mess hall swung open, and Joren strode in.
Little had changed; he was still icily handsome in Stone Mountain colours, though she noticed that a series of pale scars cleft across his nose and cheek, barely missing his eyes. As he walked, something bothered her about his gait, until she realised he was favouring his left leg. He had a slight limp, and she noticed that he wore a thick padded jacket over his tunic, covering his fief badge. Dark circles smudged his eyes; he looked as though he’d been run ragged.
He headed straight for the long table.
Kel watched him approach, noted that his hand rested casually on the well-worn hilt of the sword that hung by his side. “Sir Joren of Stone Mountain,” she said coolly.
“Lady knight Keladry,” he said. His lips twisted with his sneer. “I surrender command of this camp to you.” The way he said camp, Kel thought, spoke volumes. His tone was exactly the same as if he’d said, mudpit. His disdain was clear.
It suddenly occurred to her that she was probably not the only knight in this room chafing at her assignment. No doubt, Joren had expected to be out in the field, fighting. He hadn’t expected to be tied down to managing a refugee camp, and then put under the command of the lady knight managing the camp.
She hid her sharp smile beneath a smooth Yamani mask.
“Captain Elbridge said you were leading a patrol party. Report.”
He favoured her with a cold stare. She returned it with a level gaze, merely waited. Lord Wyldon cleared his throat.
“We had a brief skirmish with a Scanran party,” Joren remarked. “Nothing much. No killing devices this time.”
“A war party?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Joren said, dismissively. “A scouting party.”
Neal said, loudly, “You know, it’s funny, isn’t it? I used to think that people who cared so much about tradition cared enough not to insult their commanding officers.”
“Harder to get away with it these days. I hear they flog people in the army.” That was Dom, Kel knew. She didn’t have to look; she recognised his voice, the light way it moved through deep spaces within her. “After all, this is wartime.”
While she wasn’t ungrateful for her friends’ intervention, Kel wished they would shut up. They weren’t making things any better.
She stood up, and immediately felt all eyes shift to her. She took the opportunity to glance around the room; she caught sight of anger on some faces, emotions running from annoyance to mild apathy to outright contempt on others. Lord Wyldon was right, she thought. Joren was no commander, not where commoners were concerned. Soldiers he could order about by virtue of rank. Refugees were less likely to be impressed by nobility and it showed. The mood in the mess hall had dimmed noticeably when Joren entered.
“Whatever your issues with my intelligence are,” Kel said, evenly, “I asked you a question.”
Joren’s sneer had an edge to it. “I answered it,” he replied, arms crossed insouciantly over his chest. His hand, at least, had left his sword hilt. “Commander.”
Only Joren could make that last word sound like an insult. “Carry on,” Kel said. She saw the eyes of the men turn to them, and drew a deep breath, keeping her indifferent mask firmly in place. It wasn’t time to address them now; Joren had come mid-meal and most of them were still eating.
Neal said, “What a pleasant assignment.”
She looked at him.
“No, really,” he drawled, “It just reminds you of being a page all over again, doesn’t it?”
“We’re not pages anymore,” Kel said, quietly, aware of the silence at their table. She glanced over at Joren; he made no move to join them, even though he must have been hungry. Instead, he commandeered an empty bench in the mess and ate there. She frowned; she hadn’t thought that Joren would have been able to move past his own fixation on what was proper for a noble and wasn’t.
The mess hall was probably the warmest building in the entire camp, but he hadn’t shed the jacket. As she watched, he pulled it tighter about him. It was a small, familiar gesture, and she realised he’d been doing it, even in their short exchange.
“No,” Neal replied after a pause. “I guess we aren’t. Time to grow up, is that what you’re saying?” He followed the direction of her gaze. “I don’t think Joren got the message. Perhaps we need a herald, with trumpets?”
She cracked a smile at the thought. “Don’t bait him.”
“Even Sir Meathead would be hard-pressed to,” Dom said, cutting into their conversation. “He’s bent on taking offense to you. It’s not going to end well.”
She met his pleasant blue eyes. “I know,” Kel said. “If I cared about what people like him thought, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with my shield.”
“I know,” Dom said. “Look, Kel. Just…be careful, alright? Watch your back around him.”
Neal said, “Who’s the mother now?” He glanced at Kel. “Just so you know, I’ve got my eye on him.”
Kel sighed; she wouldn’t put it past Joren to make more trouble for her. “Eat your vegetables,” she said instead. “Really, I shouldn’t have to be telling you this by now.”
“Hold that thought,” Dom said, smirking at Neal, who made a face and prodded at the offending objects on his plate.
-
Joren spent most of the time avoiding her, as he rode frequent patrols. As she settled in to her new command, Kel couldn’t have said she found their present arrangement disagreeable. She didn’t want to have to deal with more of Joren, not when she had a generally disorganised refugee camp, still finding its feet, to run.
She still required reports from the patrols, which Joren wrote up and had someone leave on her desk. At least he’s thorough, she thought, as she read through the reports. Joren’s handwriting was horrible, but still legible. And someone had made an effort to teach him acceptable format. Or at least, he’d made an effort to remember it.
Dom’s squad remained at Haven for the time being; she’d thought that they would have orders pulling them away soon, but Dom merely smiled mysteriously whenever she asked and said that Lord Raoul had ordered them to remain at Haven until they’d heard otherwise from him.
She couldn’t decide if it was a good or a bad thing; many of the army officers commanding Haven’s defense had disapproved of the fact that she was discontinuing the practice of flogging—they felt their new commander was too soft, and it showed.
She knew that she had to gain their respect. Not just theirs, but that of the refugees. She was not Joren; she took an active interest in the camp, and in taking a turn at every chore on the roster. That itself granted her a little more goodwill. Most of the convicts had gained a new respect for her after Gil had identified her as the one who had gutted Breakbone Dell.
The situation between her and Joren settled from outright hostility into something more like the winters before Maggur had gotten the council in Hamrkeng to name him king: they had their skirmishes, and they spent their time in a state of not-quite-non-hostility. She responded to each of his insults with firm authority, and no matter how he tried, she refused to let him get a rise out of her.
-
It wasn’t long before the situation changed.
She’d noticed a blind spot in the patrols, and had told Joren about it. His lip curled, and he made a sound that might have been agreement or acknowledgement. Or nothing at all.
He hadn’t corrected it, she found out that night, as the horn sounded the alarm across Haven. They had been attacked by a Scanran war band and two killing devices. By the time Joren and his patrol had returned, a big hole had been torn in Haven’s walls, and Kel was trying to fend off one of the killing devices.
Emerald fire twined about the second killing device; Neal and his father were working together to try to stop it—it was shrilling and flailing about wildly and letting out a cry that sounded awfully like a baby’s scream.
Kel wanted to clap her hands to her ears, but she could not. She was holding her glaive. She struck out with it, feinting, forcing the killing device back, wondering if she could pin it against the fort wall.
Joren charged through the fort wall, dismounting on the run. He rolled, managed to keep from skewering himself on the killing device’s knife-fingers, and then batted them aside with his sword. “What are you doing, dancing with it?” he swore at her.
Kel retorted, “If it’s so easy, why don’t you kill it?”
His glare was pure ice. The killing device’s jaws opened. “Mama?” it asked, cocking its head at Kel. Joren darted forward and stabbed at it. His sword dug into its iron body, and sparks flew.
“How many of these things have you fought?” Kel demanded, swinging her glaive in a circular cut that slashed it in the side.
Joren’s eyes narrowed. “What about you?” he shot back. “How many did you fight?” He retreated too slowly; the killing device’s backhand swipe connected, smashing him back into the log walls of the fort. Knives raked across his cuirass and cut through it as though it was butter.
“Two!” Kel snapped, trying to drive the killing device back. Something glinted out of the corner of her eye—she tried to figure out what it was, without taking her attention off the killing device. That would have been deadly.
“One!” Joren shot back, managing to climb back to his feet. Blood dripped from his rent cuirass and down his throat. “So shut up and kill it, if you’re so good at it!”
Something flew past Kel and buried itself in the killing device. “Nobles,” someone drawled. “They’ll stand there arguing all day instead of killing the godscursed thing.”
Kel recognised Fanche’s voice. “Sorry about that,” she gritted, bringing her glaive about in a circle to parry the slashes of the killing device’s claws. “Any time now would be good, Joren.”
He moved forward, and darted past the dangerous knives. He dug his sword into the killing device’s body, using it to give himself leverage. He flung himself up with wild abandon and yanked out the crossbow quarrel from where it had stuck in the killing device’s head.
White vapour curled out of the hole.
“Mama?” the shape cried out. It circled Joren like a mist before it dissipated in the breeze.
The killing device collapsed.
Joren wrenched his sword free. “That takes care of it,” he muttered. He turned around, studying the camp. The rest of the Scanrans had been turned back, and Kel noticed that the clamour of battle had shifted to the deadly post-battle quiet, punctuated only by the moans and the cries of the wounded and the dying.
The screaming, she realised. The second killing device had stopped screaming. It had collapsed to the ground, inert, which meant that Neal and his father had managed to disable it.
She was going to kill Joren, she thought, after she’d finished taking control of the situation. The Scanrans had caught them unprepared, in the blind spot she’d noticed between the patrols. They’d done so at night, when most of the camp’s fighters were asleep, except for those on watch and patrol.
“We’re not finished here,” she told Joren, before striding off. His eyes narrowed but he said nothing.
-
The death toll was not as bad as it could have been, but Kel felt as though she ought to bear some of the burden for each and every one of those they had lost. “A squad,” she said, quietly. “We lost above a squad of soldiers. My lord Wyldon can’t afford to give us more. And I told you to get that blind spot in the patrol schedule fixed.” That wasn’t even counting the refugees who had been killed. She resolved to learn the names of each and every single one of them. She folded her arms across her chest and stared at Joren. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
He sneered at her and responded with a few words she didn’t think he knew; he hadn’t washed the blood off, but it had dried, which meant his wounds weren’t as bad as they looked. With dried blood caking his throat, it gave him a gruesome appearance.
Kel said, “I’m going to give you one chance to rethink that response.”
Ropes of green fire, an emerald dark enough to be almost black, wrapped themselves about Joren’s arms and bound him. "I learned healing from the Lioness," Neal drawled. He looked extraordinarily pleased with himself. "You never want a healer angry at you, Stone Mountain. They know exactly how you're put together."
Joren looked entirely unimpressed. His cold eyes stared at Neal and then through him.
"Neal," Kel said. He looked at her. "Let him go."
Neal opened his mouth to argue. She continued, much softer, "I appreciate that you and Dom are trying to look out for me. But this is my assignment. I'm capable of dealing with Joren."
He closed his mouth, and nodded. The ropes of magical fire vanished.
Kel met Joren's eyes. "You endangered Haven over some stupid, petty grudge you've been holding since we were pages." She struggled to keep her voice calm and even. "You deliberately ignored my orders and interpreted them for your own purposes." She almost wished, despite her distaste for it, that she had not burned Elbridge's whip. She wanted to drag him all over the camp by his ear, and to rub his face in the corpses of every single soldier, refugee, and convict who had died because of his rigid arrogance, as though he were a misbehaving puppy. "You're a grown man. Don't make me treat you like a boy."
He stirred. "What are you going to do, bitch?"
Neal got there first. A lance of emerald fire snapped across Joren's back, opening a line of blood. Joren did not cry out.
"Nealan of Queenscove!" snapped a voice almost unrecognisable in anger, "Stop this at once!"
Neal paled; his Gift melted away.
"You have an oath," Duke Baird snarled—Kel had never seen him so angry before. She felt a chill; the gentle, good-humoured man was gone, replaced with something implacable. “You swore an oath as a healer.”
Neal held his ground. “I left before I could swear it,” he replied. “When I became a knight.”
“Are you serving this camp as a healer or a knight?” Duke Baird demanded.
Neal’s head dropped. Kel looked at Joren, still standing there. Still waiting. His lip curled; not in derision, this time, but in amusement. He’s enjoying this, she thought. Watching us work ourselves up over him. That and other things made her decision for her.
She had tried. "Sergeant Domitan," Kel said. "Lock Sir Joren in the stocks for three days. He will also serve on the burial detail as a reminder of what happens when he puts personal grudges over his duty."
Dom's smile was grim. "Gladly, lady knight," he replied. "I'll see to it."
"Sergeant?"
He looked at her. Kel hated to say it, but she forced herself to all the same. She knew what soldiers could do to soneone who insulted a comrade, and she'd ridden with then men of the King's Own for four years. "No accidents," she said. "Your grace?"
Duke Baird nodded. "I will see to his wounds." A tremor of dark anger still shaded his eyes. “I will know,” he warned, “If there is anything else, I will know.”
“There won’t,” Dom promised him.
-
“An oath?” Kel asked, in the privacy of Duke Baird’s office.
The duke sighed, running a weary hand through his hair. “All healers swear to it,” he replied. “The University sees to it. To use our Gift to heal, and not to harm. To share knowledge. To respect the dignity of our patients as human beings. To guard their privacy as we do our own.”
“No war magic?”
“It’s not a blood oath,” Duke Baird said. There was the answer. She remembered the screaming killing device. “But almost as good as.” He shook his head, slowly. “There are a few cases,” he remarked. “Cases of healers gone bad. The University usually sends someone to deal with them. It gives us all—the profession—a bad name. And my son is right. Healers…we know how you’re put together. A healer who turns his Gift to pulling people apart instead of putting them back together…”
He was silent, for a few long moments. Kel shivered.
“Well,” he said. “I shouldn’t have to worry about that with my son.”
“His heart is in the right place,” Kel pointed out.
Duke Baird nodded, a little distantly. “That’s why I’m worried,” he said, quietly. “I wish he’d sworn the oath, but he’s right. Most people go for healer or knight. They don’t pick both.” His hand twitched in the direction of his desk drawer; he noticed, and smiled ruefully. “In any case, I told you I needed to speak to you about Sir Joren.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “What is his condition?”
“Fit enough,” Duke Baird said, “I had to do little healing. He didn’t unbend enough to ask for a blanket, but he’s clearly feeling the cold.” He gave her a significant look.
“I see,” Kel sighed, and wished that sometimes, being a decent person didn’t feel like so much work. Particularly where Joren was involved.
-
It was a cold night, and Kel tugged her russet-red padded jacket tighter around herself, and then realised it was the same gesture she’d seen Joren make countless times. The wool blanket was a light weight she slung over her shoulder and there was a bit of a nip in the air.
“Mindelan.” He was still kneeling there, bound. He wore only a tunic and breeches, and she noticed he was shivering.
She dropped the wool blanket over him.
He said, “If you were expecting gratitude, you’ll be waiting a long time.”
“I wasn’t expecting gratitude from you,” she informed him. She frowned; it was hard to make out in the darkness, but she thought that Duke Baird must have done a good job—she couldn’t see where the killing device had scored his throat. And then, out of sheer curiosity, “Isn’t Stone Mountain a northern fief?”
He watched her. “So?”
“You’ve grown up here.”
He snorted and turned his head away. “My home fief is weeks away from here, Mindelan, do your godscursed geography.”
As she made to leave, she heard him say, as softly and bitterly as a whispered curse, “A hundred years of Tortallan conquest. Some of us remember.”
He kept the blanket. Kel requisitioned another.
-
Haven had fallen.
Kel felt the bleak emptiness, the ice that threatened to swallow her heart. She hid the tears that did come; pushed away the rest with purpose. They had been captured. She would free them. She knew what awaited them in captivity and she knew that she had to keep them out of Blayce’s hands.
Joren rode behind the rest of them, swaying in the saddle, from the wounds he’d sustained.
“Go back with the rest to Mastiff,” Kel ordered him.
He didn’t move, just sat and watched her, as the rest of the soldiers marched off. “I can tell what you’re planning,” he said, and he wasn’t bothering to be quiet. “You’ve got that stubborn look in your eye again. Mithros knows no one else would be so stupid as to go throw aside their duty for a bunch of silly commoners.”
“Silly commoners that you were training,” Kel retorted. “Silly commoners that I have a sworn duty to defend.”
He shook his head. He was almost pale from blood-loss; she didn’t know how he’d managed to stay in the saddle, or why Lord Wyldon had let him remain with her and her guard. “And you wonder why we say women can’t be knights,” he murmured, silkily. “Emotional creatures. No matter how much you’ve managed to force my lord Wyldon to think otherwise of you, you’re going to betray the Crown and throw it all away for some stupid godscursed sentiment.”
She gripped Hoshi’s reins tightly. “This doesn’t concern you,” she muttered. “I’ve given you an order, Joren. Go back to Mastiff. Leave me here.”
She felt him grip her arm. “You have exactly a day,” he said, making a face, as though he hated the words he now mentioned. “You have exactly a day to think the better of what you’re doing and come back, before I tell my lord Wyldon what you’ve done. And I will enjoy hunting you down and arresting you.”
She stared at him and blinked.
He’d given her exactly what she needed. Time to slip away; she could worry about not getting caught later.
“If you’re expecting gratitude…” she began.
“Shut up and ride, Mindelan,” he said, turning away. “I wasn’t expecting gratitude from you.”
“Joren.”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
-
They came anyway, her friends, and her spirits lifted, even though Kel knew that the odds were still against them, and they were riding into treason with her. The greatest surprise was not that Lord Raoul had ordered Dom’s squad to follow her and help her; it was the pale figure who detached himself from the shadows, moving with more strength than he had the previous day.
Joren.
“My lord Wyldon,” he said, and his lips twisted with an emotion she could not quite identify—anger? Betrayal?—“has ordered me to bring you back to Tortall under arrest. He has also ordered me to take my time about it, and to do so only when you’ve recovered your refugees.”
Lord Wyldon, Kel thought, her heart hammering in her chest. Even her old training master was sticking up for her. He couldn’t break Crown law on her behalf, but he was looking the other way, having bent Crown law as far as he could’ve done.
She didn’t know what to say.
“I told you,” Owen piped up. “He was preoccupied, that day,” he explained. “Giantkiller had fallen, and he wasn’t thinking of the ramifications.”
“Orders?” Dom asked. He met her eyes.
“We ride,” Kel said, grimly. “We get them all back.”
What else was there left to be done?
-
Kel fought, more aggressively than she had before in her life. She knew that Stenmun was toying with her; he had her advantage in strength, and while he held her off, Blayce was cooking up gods-only-knew-what, or even escaping.
She couldn’t have that.
She sank into pattern-dance after pattern-dance, every sweep and strike of her glaive a step, and every step an attack. She pushed Stenmun back over every inch of the flagstones, but she could not penetrate his defense, could not break past him to reach Blayce.
He was letting her beat him back, waiting for her to tire.
She knew all of that; frustration burned, pent-up. There was nothing she could do, and time was flowing against her.
A figure crashed into Stenmun, unleashing a two-handed strike that threatened to rip the axe from the man’s hand.
Joren. He’d followed her. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or—
Kel whipped her glaive about in a tight cut directed at Stenmun’s side, forcing him into the path of Joren’s sword. “Take care of him,” she ordered. She didn’t think the Chamber would mind—it’d shown her Blayce, the Nothing Man. Stenmun was just Blayce’s catspaw.
Joren muttered something that could have been a curse or assent as Stenmun’s axe bit into his shoulder. A glancing blow, thankfully.
Kel ran.
-
Kel limped out of Blayce’s workshop. The burn—she’d barely avoided the magical fire he threw at her—had scored her leg and it was beginning to hurt. Stenmun lay on the floor—from the looks of his wounds, Joren had run him through.
She swept a glance across the room before she found him sitting, leaning against the cool stone wall. His sword lay unsheathed across his knees, but at least he’d cleaned it. A slash had laid him open from shoulder to hip, and he’d taken a second blow to his shoulder from Stenmun’s axe.
“I’ll get a healer—”
“Don’t.”
She stared at him. “You think Queenscove has enough power to throw around?” Joren asked, eyebrows raised.
Kel opened her mouth to argue and then frowned as she watched the wounds slowly close in front of her. The bleeding slowed to a trickle and then stopped; flesh and muscle knit back together in pale, thin scars. “I didn’t know you were a mage,” she murmured, finally, leaning on her glaive for support.
“I’m not.”
“Then…”
“The Chamber,” he muttered. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“The Chamber gave me…a task,” she offered. Awkwardly. “I had to kill Blayce.”
His laugh was bitter and harsh. “Well, you’ve done it, haven’t you? Am I supposed to be impressed? To offer you congratulations? To say I was wrong about you?”
“Are you?”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. “No. I’m not. Go out to them, Mindelan. Leave me some peace. I’ll join the lot of you when it’s time to leave.”
Sometimes, the Chamber whispered, there are those who are beyond your help, Protector of the Small. She turned, but it merely stared back at her from the flagstones of the passageway, and then it was gone.
“Did you do that?” she wanted to know.
There was no response. Kel supposed she hadn’t really expected one.
Rating: PG-13
For: kuno
Prompt: 1. Kel and Joren meeting as knights. A "If Joren hadn't died in the chamber" story.
Summary: Kel and Joren meet as knights. Some things change, others don't.
Notes and Warnings: I tried very hard not to make it cracky, but there is a bit of crack in it. It kind of works with the non-canon premise though. max's idea about Stone Mountain being conquered Scanran territory has become headcanon for me, and so it's made an appearance here.
-
Joren of Stone Mountain, Sir Paxton knew, was flawed. Very much gifted—and just as grievously flawed.
In Nond, they bred horses. Not the thundering, spirited warhorses with fire in their blood and steel in their bones—those came from the stables of Cavall. Nond horses were shaggy things, bred for endurance. Paxton had grown up taking his own turn in the stables. He knew about breeding, about lines and stock. And he knew, of course, about training.
All things considered, he had a rather overwhelmingly bad feeling about this particular Ordeal. Still, he said nothing, held his hands behind his back, and waited. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Stone Mountain family gathered: Lord Burchard waited, his wife a small figure standing to the side. He caught a glimpse of Nond yellow-and-brown amidst the Stone Mountain group—Kristoff, he thought, with the Stone Mountain woman he’d married. Joselia. That was her name.
Nonds, his grandfather was fond of saying, weren’t progressives or conservatives. They let the other nobles squabble over Tortall while they stayed home and saw to their people and their horses. Only the hurrocks had come, and then the spidren, and Nond’s herds and livestock had thinned. And then came the influx of Bazhir horses, when trade with the Bazhir opened under King Jonathan’s reign, and then the years of famine and flood.
Nond had been struggling, and Joselia’s dowry had been worthy of a princess. They pocketed the dowry, used Stone Mountain funds to rescue the ailing fief, and with that, bound themselves to the Stone Mountains. Not just conservatives, Paxton thought. He’d heard enough of their beliefs at the dinner table, and from his own squire. Dangerous conservatives. Some of the northern fiefs still remembered a time when there had been a king in the south.
Stone Mountain was one of them.
As Joren’s brother-in-law, he had been urged to take the young man on as his squire, and he had done so. He’d done his best to turn the boy into a respectable knight of the realm, and while Joren’s martial skills were entirely without fault, he was completely lacking in other areas. He had been the one to discover his squire’s own role in the kidnapping of Squire Keladry’s maid.
Breeding, Sir Paxton thought. It wasn’t just about blood and training, of course. It was about nature. It was stupid to blame rock-serpents when they bit a horse and the horse had to be put out of its misery. It was just the rock-serpent’s nature.
The great iron door of the Chamber swung open, noiselessly. He stared into the dark maw of the Chamber of the Ordeal, remembering what it had been like. He pushed away the memories before they could overwhelm him. He’d stopped having nightmares of his Ordeal only a year later.
No one walked out of the Chamber.
The bad feeling deepened; became a lead-weighted rock in his stomach. He forced himself to step forward. As Joren’s knight-master, he would have to go into the Chamber to retrieve his squire. He took one step, and then another. No one followed him.
He entered the Chamber, listening to the loud sound his boots made on the flagstones of the floor. Too loud, in the hush that had fallen over the crowd in the chapel. No doubt the news would already be making the rounds.
He found the crumpled body of his squire, sprawled on the floor of the Chamber. He knelt down. Joren’s skin was cold to the touch. Too cold.
Just a room, he thought, glancing around him. A room that could kill. A room that had given him nightmares for the better part of a year, and had driven other squires mad and sent some of them to their deaths.
He knew what it had done to one of Joren’s cronies, young Vinson of Genlith.
He felt for a pulse. Joren’s head lolled limp on his neck. He was prepared to give his squire up for dead, but then he felt it. The faintest flutter of breath. Was it…?
He drew his dagger; held it to his squire’s face, and watched mist condense on the surface of the cold steel. Satisfied, he sheathed it. He grunted as he bent down and tried to hoist the unconscious squire.
“Is he…?”
He looked up at Kristoff. “Alive,” Paxton said. “Help me get him out of here.” He was surprised to find he was relieved. Something must have gone wrong with Joren’s Ordeal, but the Chamber had seen fit to spare his squire. He supposed that was something. For all he’d taken Joren on out of obligation, it seemed that he cared anyway.
“Move over,” Kristoff said. He was bigger than his older brother; between the two of them, they managed to manhandle Joren of Stone Mountain out of the Chamber of the Ordeal, a few moments before the whispers began.
-
“Mindelan,” Lord Wyldon said, a moment before the refugee camp came into view, on the next rise, just beyond the valley. “A word.”
He dropped back from the company; she slowed Hoshi down to a walk to match the pace of his horse. “My lord?”
She noticed his hesitation. Lord Wyldon, as she knew him, hated to mince words. “You understand that you are taking over command of the refugee camp,” he said. “The camp is still being built, but an officer is temporarily in charge of it.”
“I assumed as much, my lord,” Kel said, cautiously.
“Hollyrose has not been assigned with you,” Wyldon continued. “He will be returning with me to Fort Mastiff.” Lucky Merric, Kel thought, before she firmly quashed the thought. She had accepted the assignment; she was not going to begrudge Merric the fact he was going to see actual combat under Lord Wyldon’s command.
“Sir?”
Wyldon sighed. He was rubbing at his bad arm again, she noticed.
The refugee camp itself came into view. A cluster of buildings made from sawn logs, with a single palisade. That was it. Her first command. Soldiers in army maroon wore helms and padded cuirasses, standing at regular intervals on the walls. They carried bows, she noticed and a horn call went up. They’d been spotted.
Wyldon’s trumpeter responded with the signal that they were friendly forces.
Two flags flew above the walls; the first was the silver blade and crown on a field of royal blue—the flag of the Tortallan crown. The second, was in the process of being lowered even as she watched. It was—
Kel blinked. It was the pale blue and white of Stone Mountain. She recognised the clenched white gauntlet and the mountain. She almost drew Hoshi to a halt. Wyldon followed the direction of her startled gaze. “The temporary commander of the camp,” he said quietly, “Is Sir Joren of Stone Mountain. He has been reassigned to a position as patrol captain and will be serving under your command.”
“My lord,” Kel blurted, it was really becoming a bad habit, she thought, “Is this wise?”
Wyldon said, heavily, “For all his skills, it is clear that Stone Mountain is no commander. He can lead men into battle, and he has done so for the past year. However, he lacks the other attributes needed to command a refugee camp.”
He’d paid a group of thugs to kidnap Lalasa, Kel thought. He’d sauntered into the courts, knowing the only thing the law could levy on him would be a fine. Her hands clenched into fists by her side, and she forced them to relax. She’d heard that there had been something irregular about Joren’s Ordeal—his knighting ceremony had not been held at sunrise, but had been delayed, and then held as a private affair. But she’d put it swiftly out of mind; Joren was a knight, and he’d known better than to try something on her again.
She hadn’t thought their paths would cross again. She hadn’t even thought of him.
No, Kel thought, Joren would just make a hash out of commanding a refugee camp. He’d never take the refugees seriously. She’d come to learn that concern for commoners was something exceedingly rare among the nobles. Most of them saw it as a sign of weakness, or sentiment.
Still, she remembered Quinden of Marti’s Hill. “Sir,” she said, “I’m not concerned about his lack of aptitude. I’m concerned that he may refuse orders.” From the Girl. She knew that disobeying orders from a commanding officer in times of war carried with it serious offenses; Lord Raoul had to courtmartial a few men of the King’s Own only a few times, and each case had been highly unpleasant. Joren’s hatred had carried over to kidnapping Lalasa in order to force Kel to be late for the big examinations. He’d thought that when confronted with having to repeat all four years, she would quit.
Did it extend so far as disobeying orders from the camp’s commander?
Lord Wyldon raised an eyebrow. “We are at war, Mindelan,” he said dryly. “Noble privilege provides little shelter from refusing a legitimate order.”
She nodded, as they rode on to rejoin the company. A flag was now being raised over the fort—she blinked at it, and looked down until she’d gotten her emotions firmly under control. Double-bordered, with the Mindelan owl and crossed glaives. Someone had heard of her assignment and gone to the trouble of flying her flag over the camp, and whoever it was, Kel was pretty certain it had not been Joren.
-
As they entered the camp, a man in army maroon with short-cropped grey hair strode down the wooden staircase leading from the upper wall to greet them. She looked at his yellow armbands carefully—they bore crossed black swords. A regular army captain, then.
“My lord,” said the man. He came to attention before Lord Wyldon and saluted.
Wyldon returned the salute. “Captain Hobard Elbridge, I present Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the royal healers.” Elbridge bowed and Wyldon continued, introducing the rest of them. “Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan, who will be taking over from Sir Joren as camp commander.” He bowed to her, his expression inscrutable. “Sir Nealan of Queenscove, who will be camp healer. Sir Merric of Hollyrose, who is accompanying me.”
“Your grace, my lord Wyldon, sir knights,” Captain Elbridge said, “Sir Joren is currently not in the camp. We encountered a Scanran raiding party two days ago, and Sir Joren is leading a patrol in the valley, just beyond the river, to ensure no more slip through.”
We didn’t encounter them, Kel thought. She did not say it.
The captain beckoned to a man with the dot and circle insignia of a sergeant. “The patrol is likely to return by the evening watch. Sergeant Landwin here will take charge of your things and show you where you’re to sleep.”
Kel watched as their men followed the sergeant, wondering what she was to do next. She hadn’t expected to receive her first command so early. Of all the things—she’d expected to be put under the command of an experienced warrior in the frontlines. But you aren’t, she told herself fiercely, so do what you’re here for.
“In Sir Joren’s absence,” Captain Elbridge continued, “I am in charge of the camp. I am, therefore, entirely at your disposal, sir knight. Will you address the men? Tour the camp? Review the country? Sir Joren has left me with the keys to give you, and he has suggested I familiarise you with the state of affairs here. The camp is unnamed, we thought to leave that to you.”
She dismounted slowly from Hoshi, and resisted looking in Wyldon’s direction. She had been given no instructions about how to take command. She figured she would simply have to do her best about it. “First of all, Captain,” she said firmly, “I prefer the title ‘lady knight.’”
“Yes, lady knight.”
“Are you remaining with us?”
“No, milady,” Captain Elbridge said, his face an impassive mask. “It’s my hope to ride on to the new fort with my lord Wyldon in the morning. But of course, if you or Sir Joren have need of me…”
“That will be fine, Captain,” she said, all too aware of Lord Wyldon’s presence as he dismounted from his horse. “Why don’t we tour the camp and you tell me how things are. I’ll speak to the men at…supper? Are they all assembled at supper?”
“Yes, milady,” the captain said.
She passed Hoshi’s reins to Tobe. “You may as well tend the horses, Tobe, and bring my things to my quarters.”
“Very good, my lady,” he said, bowing in the saddle before he accepted Hoshi’s reins.
“Well, Captain,” Kel said, “We may as well get started.”
-
As Captain Elbridge had indicated, Joren rode into camp in the evening, when most of the men were taking supper. The nobles had a table to themselves at one end of the mess hall; they shared it with Captain Elbridge and Dom.
Listening to the conversation at their table, Kel wished that Dom and his squad were here to stay all summer. She would miss his easy sense of humour, his ready smile, and most importantly, that he never once doubted that she could pull her weight just as much as any of the men did. It was only underscored by the fact that Joren would be remaining to serve as the knight in charge of camp security.
Stop it, she told herself. She wasn’t here to spend the time mooning over Dom, even though he had a smile that made her stomach flip-flop. She was here to do her duty as the commander of the camp. Because no one else would do as good a job. No one else would care.
The doors to the mess hall swung open, and Joren strode in.
Little had changed; he was still icily handsome in Stone Mountain colours, though she noticed that a series of pale scars cleft across his nose and cheek, barely missing his eyes. As he walked, something bothered her about his gait, until she realised he was favouring his left leg. He had a slight limp, and she noticed that he wore a thick padded jacket over his tunic, covering his fief badge. Dark circles smudged his eyes; he looked as though he’d been run ragged.
He headed straight for the long table.
Kel watched him approach, noted that his hand rested casually on the well-worn hilt of the sword that hung by his side. “Sir Joren of Stone Mountain,” she said coolly.
“Lady knight Keladry,” he said. His lips twisted with his sneer. “I surrender command of this camp to you.” The way he said camp, Kel thought, spoke volumes. His tone was exactly the same as if he’d said, mudpit. His disdain was clear.
It suddenly occurred to her that she was probably not the only knight in this room chafing at her assignment. No doubt, Joren had expected to be out in the field, fighting. He hadn’t expected to be tied down to managing a refugee camp, and then put under the command of the lady knight managing the camp.
She hid her sharp smile beneath a smooth Yamani mask.
“Captain Elbridge said you were leading a patrol party. Report.”
He favoured her with a cold stare. She returned it with a level gaze, merely waited. Lord Wyldon cleared his throat.
“We had a brief skirmish with a Scanran party,” Joren remarked. “Nothing much. No killing devices this time.”
“A war party?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Joren said, dismissively. “A scouting party.”
Neal said, loudly, “You know, it’s funny, isn’t it? I used to think that people who cared so much about tradition cared enough not to insult their commanding officers.”
“Harder to get away with it these days. I hear they flog people in the army.” That was Dom, Kel knew. She didn’t have to look; she recognised his voice, the light way it moved through deep spaces within her. “After all, this is wartime.”
While she wasn’t ungrateful for her friends’ intervention, Kel wished they would shut up. They weren’t making things any better.
She stood up, and immediately felt all eyes shift to her. She took the opportunity to glance around the room; she caught sight of anger on some faces, emotions running from annoyance to mild apathy to outright contempt on others. Lord Wyldon was right, she thought. Joren was no commander, not where commoners were concerned. Soldiers he could order about by virtue of rank. Refugees were less likely to be impressed by nobility and it showed. The mood in the mess hall had dimmed noticeably when Joren entered.
“Whatever your issues with my intelligence are,” Kel said, evenly, “I asked you a question.”
Joren’s sneer had an edge to it. “I answered it,” he replied, arms crossed insouciantly over his chest. His hand, at least, had left his sword hilt. “Commander.”
Only Joren could make that last word sound like an insult. “Carry on,” Kel said. She saw the eyes of the men turn to them, and drew a deep breath, keeping her indifferent mask firmly in place. It wasn’t time to address them now; Joren had come mid-meal and most of them were still eating.
Neal said, “What a pleasant assignment.”
She looked at him.
“No, really,” he drawled, “It just reminds you of being a page all over again, doesn’t it?”
“We’re not pages anymore,” Kel said, quietly, aware of the silence at their table. She glanced over at Joren; he made no move to join them, even though he must have been hungry. Instead, he commandeered an empty bench in the mess and ate there. She frowned; she hadn’t thought that Joren would have been able to move past his own fixation on what was proper for a noble and wasn’t.
The mess hall was probably the warmest building in the entire camp, but he hadn’t shed the jacket. As she watched, he pulled it tighter about him. It was a small, familiar gesture, and she realised he’d been doing it, even in their short exchange.
“No,” Neal replied after a pause. “I guess we aren’t. Time to grow up, is that what you’re saying?” He followed the direction of her gaze. “I don’t think Joren got the message. Perhaps we need a herald, with trumpets?”
She cracked a smile at the thought. “Don’t bait him.”
“Even Sir Meathead would be hard-pressed to,” Dom said, cutting into their conversation. “He’s bent on taking offense to you. It’s not going to end well.”
She met his pleasant blue eyes. “I know,” Kel said. “If I cared about what people like him thought, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with my shield.”
“I know,” Dom said. “Look, Kel. Just…be careful, alright? Watch your back around him.”
Neal said, “Who’s the mother now?” He glanced at Kel. “Just so you know, I’ve got my eye on him.”
Kel sighed; she wouldn’t put it past Joren to make more trouble for her. “Eat your vegetables,” she said instead. “Really, I shouldn’t have to be telling you this by now.”
“Hold that thought,” Dom said, smirking at Neal, who made a face and prodded at the offending objects on his plate.
-
Joren spent most of the time avoiding her, as he rode frequent patrols. As she settled in to her new command, Kel couldn’t have said she found their present arrangement disagreeable. She didn’t want to have to deal with more of Joren, not when she had a generally disorganised refugee camp, still finding its feet, to run.
She still required reports from the patrols, which Joren wrote up and had someone leave on her desk. At least he’s thorough, she thought, as she read through the reports. Joren’s handwriting was horrible, but still legible. And someone had made an effort to teach him acceptable format. Or at least, he’d made an effort to remember it.
Dom’s squad remained at Haven for the time being; she’d thought that they would have orders pulling them away soon, but Dom merely smiled mysteriously whenever she asked and said that Lord Raoul had ordered them to remain at Haven until they’d heard otherwise from him.
She couldn’t decide if it was a good or a bad thing; many of the army officers commanding Haven’s defense had disapproved of the fact that she was discontinuing the practice of flogging—they felt their new commander was too soft, and it showed.
She knew that she had to gain their respect. Not just theirs, but that of the refugees. She was not Joren; she took an active interest in the camp, and in taking a turn at every chore on the roster. That itself granted her a little more goodwill. Most of the convicts had gained a new respect for her after Gil had identified her as the one who had gutted Breakbone Dell.
The situation between her and Joren settled from outright hostility into something more like the winters before Maggur had gotten the council in Hamrkeng to name him king: they had their skirmishes, and they spent their time in a state of not-quite-non-hostility. She responded to each of his insults with firm authority, and no matter how he tried, she refused to let him get a rise out of her.
-
It wasn’t long before the situation changed.
She’d noticed a blind spot in the patrols, and had told Joren about it. His lip curled, and he made a sound that might have been agreement or acknowledgement. Or nothing at all.
He hadn’t corrected it, she found out that night, as the horn sounded the alarm across Haven. They had been attacked by a Scanran war band and two killing devices. By the time Joren and his patrol had returned, a big hole had been torn in Haven’s walls, and Kel was trying to fend off one of the killing devices.
Emerald fire twined about the second killing device; Neal and his father were working together to try to stop it—it was shrilling and flailing about wildly and letting out a cry that sounded awfully like a baby’s scream.
Kel wanted to clap her hands to her ears, but she could not. She was holding her glaive. She struck out with it, feinting, forcing the killing device back, wondering if she could pin it against the fort wall.
Joren charged through the fort wall, dismounting on the run. He rolled, managed to keep from skewering himself on the killing device’s knife-fingers, and then batted them aside with his sword. “What are you doing, dancing with it?” he swore at her.
Kel retorted, “If it’s so easy, why don’t you kill it?”
His glare was pure ice. The killing device’s jaws opened. “Mama?” it asked, cocking its head at Kel. Joren darted forward and stabbed at it. His sword dug into its iron body, and sparks flew.
“How many of these things have you fought?” Kel demanded, swinging her glaive in a circular cut that slashed it in the side.
Joren’s eyes narrowed. “What about you?” he shot back. “How many did you fight?” He retreated too slowly; the killing device’s backhand swipe connected, smashing him back into the log walls of the fort. Knives raked across his cuirass and cut through it as though it was butter.
“Two!” Kel snapped, trying to drive the killing device back. Something glinted out of the corner of her eye—she tried to figure out what it was, without taking her attention off the killing device. That would have been deadly.
“One!” Joren shot back, managing to climb back to his feet. Blood dripped from his rent cuirass and down his throat. “So shut up and kill it, if you’re so good at it!”
Something flew past Kel and buried itself in the killing device. “Nobles,” someone drawled. “They’ll stand there arguing all day instead of killing the godscursed thing.”
Kel recognised Fanche’s voice. “Sorry about that,” she gritted, bringing her glaive about in a circle to parry the slashes of the killing device’s claws. “Any time now would be good, Joren.”
He moved forward, and darted past the dangerous knives. He dug his sword into the killing device’s body, using it to give himself leverage. He flung himself up with wild abandon and yanked out the crossbow quarrel from where it had stuck in the killing device’s head.
White vapour curled out of the hole.
“Mama?” the shape cried out. It circled Joren like a mist before it dissipated in the breeze.
The killing device collapsed.
Joren wrenched his sword free. “That takes care of it,” he muttered. He turned around, studying the camp. The rest of the Scanrans had been turned back, and Kel noticed that the clamour of battle had shifted to the deadly post-battle quiet, punctuated only by the moans and the cries of the wounded and the dying.
The screaming, she realised. The second killing device had stopped screaming. It had collapsed to the ground, inert, which meant that Neal and his father had managed to disable it.
She was going to kill Joren, she thought, after she’d finished taking control of the situation. The Scanrans had caught them unprepared, in the blind spot she’d noticed between the patrols. They’d done so at night, when most of the camp’s fighters were asleep, except for those on watch and patrol.
“We’re not finished here,” she told Joren, before striding off. His eyes narrowed but he said nothing.
-
The death toll was not as bad as it could have been, but Kel felt as though she ought to bear some of the burden for each and every one of those they had lost. “A squad,” she said, quietly. “We lost above a squad of soldiers. My lord Wyldon can’t afford to give us more. And I told you to get that blind spot in the patrol schedule fixed.” That wasn’t even counting the refugees who had been killed. She resolved to learn the names of each and every single one of them. She folded her arms across her chest and stared at Joren. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
He sneered at her and responded with a few words she didn’t think he knew; he hadn’t washed the blood off, but it had dried, which meant his wounds weren’t as bad as they looked. With dried blood caking his throat, it gave him a gruesome appearance.
Kel said, “I’m going to give you one chance to rethink that response.”
Ropes of green fire, an emerald dark enough to be almost black, wrapped themselves about Joren’s arms and bound him. "I learned healing from the Lioness," Neal drawled. He looked extraordinarily pleased with himself. "You never want a healer angry at you, Stone Mountain. They know exactly how you're put together."
Joren looked entirely unimpressed. His cold eyes stared at Neal and then through him.
"Neal," Kel said. He looked at her. "Let him go."
Neal opened his mouth to argue. She continued, much softer, "I appreciate that you and Dom are trying to look out for me. But this is my assignment. I'm capable of dealing with Joren."
He closed his mouth, and nodded. The ropes of magical fire vanished.
Kel met Joren's eyes. "You endangered Haven over some stupid, petty grudge you've been holding since we were pages." She struggled to keep her voice calm and even. "You deliberately ignored my orders and interpreted them for your own purposes." She almost wished, despite her distaste for it, that she had not burned Elbridge's whip. She wanted to drag him all over the camp by his ear, and to rub his face in the corpses of every single soldier, refugee, and convict who had died because of his rigid arrogance, as though he were a misbehaving puppy. "You're a grown man. Don't make me treat you like a boy."
He stirred. "What are you going to do, bitch?"
Neal got there first. A lance of emerald fire snapped across Joren's back, opening a line of blood. Joren did not cry out.
"Nealan of Queenscove!" snapped a voice almost unrecognisable in anger, "Stop this at once!"
Neal paled; his Gift melted away.
"You have an oath," Duke Baird snarled—Kel had never seen him so angry before. She felt a chill; the gentle, good-humoured man was gone, replaced with something implacable. “You swore an oath as a healer.”
Neal held his ground. “I left before I could swear it,” he replied. “When I became a knight.”
“Are you serving this camp as a healer or a knight?” Duke Baird demanded.
Neal’s head dropped. Kel looked at Joren, still standing there. Still waiting. His lip curled; not in derision, this time, but in amusement. He’s enjoying this, she thought. Watching us work ourselves up over him. That and other things made her decision for her.
She had tried. "Sergeant Domitan," Kel said. "Lock Sir Joren in the stocks for three days. He will also serve on the burial detail as a reminder of what happens when he puts personal grudges over his duty."
Dom's smile was grim. "Gladly, lady knight," he replied. "I'll see to it."
"Sergeant?"
He looked at her. Kel hated to say it, but she forced herself to all the same. She knew what soldiers could do to soneone who insulted a comrade, and she'd ridden with then men of the King's Own for four years. "No accidents," she said. "Your grace?"
Duke Baird nodded. "I will see to his wounds." A tremor of dark anger still shaded his eyes. “I will know,” he warned, “If there is anything else, I will know.”
“There won’t,” Dom promised him.
-
“An oath?” Kel asked, in the privacy of Duke Baird’s office.
The duke sighed, running a weary hand through his hair. “All healers swear to it,” he replied. “The University sees to it. To use our Gift to heal, and not to harm. To share knowledge. To respect the dignity of our patients as human beings. To guard their privacy as we do our own.”
“No war magic?”
“It’s not a blood oath,” Duke Baird said. There was the answer. She remembered the screaming killing device. “But almost as good as.” He shook his head, slowly. “There are a few cases,” he remarked. “Cases of healers gone bad. The University usually sends someone to deal with them. It gives us all—the profession—a bad name. And my son is right. Healers…we know how you’re put together. A healer who turns his Gift to pulling people apart instead of putting them back together…”
He was silent, for a few long moments. Kel shivered.
“Well,” he said. “I shouldn’t have to worry about that with my son.”
“His heart is in the right place,” Kel pointed out.
Duke Baird nodded, a little distantly. “That’s why I’m worried,” he said, quietly. “I wish he’d sworn the oath, but he’s right. Most people go for healer or knight. They don’t pick both.” His hand twitched in the direction of his desk drawer; he noticed, and smiled ruefully. “In any case, I told you I needed to speak to you about Sir Joren.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “What is his condition?”
“Fit enough,” Duke Baird said, “I had to do little healing. He didn’t unbend enough to ask for a blanket, but he’s clearly feeling the cold.” He gave her a significant look.
“I see,” Kel sighed, and wished that sometimes, being a decent person didn’t feel like so much work. Particularly where Joren was involved.
-
It was a cold night, and Kel tugged her russet-red padded jacket tighter around herself, and then realised it was the same gesture she’d seen Joren make countless times. The wool blanket was a light weight she slung over her shoulder and there was a bit of a nip in the air.
“Mindelan.” He was still kneeling there, bound. He wore only a tunic and breeches, and she noticed he was shivering.
She dropped the wool blanket over him.
He said, “If you were expecting gratitude, you’ll be waiting a long time.”
“I wasn’t expecting gratitude from you,” she informed him. She frowned; it was hard to make out in the darkness, but she thought that Duke Baird must have done a good job—she couldn’t see where the killing device had scored his throat. And then, out of sheer curiosity, “Isn’t Stone Mountain a northern fief?”
He watched her. “So?”
“You’ve grown up here.”
He snorted and turned his head away. “My home fief is weeks away from here, Mindelan, do your godscursed geography.”
As she made to leave, she heard him say, as softly and bitterly as a whispered curse, “A hundred years of Tortallan conquest. Some of us remember.”
He kept the blanket. Kel requisitioned another.
-
Haven had fallen.
Kel felt the bleak emptiness, the ice that threatened to swallow her heart. She hid the tears that did come; pushed away the rest with purpose. They had been captured. She would free them. She knew what awaited them in captivity and she knew that she had to keep them out of Blayce’s hands.
Joren rode behind the rest of them, swaying in the saddle, from the wounds he’d sustained.
“Go back with the rest to Mastiff,” Kel ordered him.
He didn’t move, just sat and watched her, as the rest of the soldiers marched off. “I can tell what you’re planning,” he said, and he wasn’t bothering to be quiet. “You’ve got that stubborn look in your eye again. Mithros knows no one else would be so stupid as to go throw aside their duty for a bunch of silly commoners.”
“Silly commoners that you were training,” Kel retorted. “Silly commoners that I have a sworn duty to defend.”
He shook his head. He was almost pale from blood-loss; she didn’t know how he’d managed to stay in the saddle, or why Lord Wyldon had let him remain with her and her guard. “And you wonder why we say women can’t be knights,” he murmured, silkily. “Emotional creatures. No matter how much you’ve managed to force my lord Wyldon to think otherwise of you, you’re going to betray the Crown and throw it all away for some stupid godscursed sentiment.”
She gripped Hoshi’s reins tightly. “This doesn’t concern you,” she muttered. “I’ve given you an order, Joren. Go back to Mastiff. Leave me here.”
She felt him grip her arm. “You have exactly a day,” he said, making a face, as though he hated the words he now mentioned. “You have exactly a day to think the better of what you’re doing and come back, before I tell my lord Wyldon what you’ve done. And I will enjoy hunting you down and arresting you.”
She stared at him and blinked.
He’d given her exactly what she needed. Time to slip away; she could worry about not getting caught later.
“If you’re expecting gratitude…” she began.
“Shut up and ride, Mindelan,” he said, turning away. “I wasn’t expecting gratitude from you.”
“Joren.”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
-
They came anyway, her friends, and her spirits lifted, even though Kel knew that the odds were still against them, and they were riding into treason with her. The greatest surprise was not that Lord Raoul had ordered Dom’s squad to follow her and help her; it was the pale figure who detached himself from the shadows, moving with more strength than he had the previous day.
Joren.
“My lord Wyldon,” he said, and his lips twisted with an emotion she could not quite identify—anger? Betrayal?—“has ordered me to bring you back to Tortall under arrest. He has also ordered me to take my time about it, and to do so only when you’ve recovered your refugees.”
Lord Wyldon, Kel thought, her heart hammering in her chest. Even her old training master was sticking up for her. He couldn’t break Crown law on her behalf, but he was looking the other way, having bent Crown law as far as he could’ve done.
She didn’t know what to say.
“I told you,” Owen piped up. “He was preoccupied, that day,” he explained. “Giantkiller had fallen, and he wasn’t thinking of the ramifications.”
“Orders?” Dom asked. He met her eyes.
“We ride,” Kel said, grimly. “We get them all back.”
What else was there left to be done?
-
Kel fought, more aggressively than she had before in her life. She knew that Stenmun was toying with her; he had her advantage in strength, and while he held her off, Blayce was cooking up gods-only-knew-what, or even escaping.
She couldn’t have that.
She sank into pattern-dance after pattern-dance, every sweep and strike of her glaive a step, and every step an attack. She pushed Stenmun back over every inch of the flagstones, but she could not penetrate his defense, could not break past him to reach Blayce.
He was letting her beat him back, waiting for her to tire.
She knew all of that; frustration burned, pent-up. There was nothing she could do, and time was flowing against her.
A figure crashed into Stenmun, unleashing a two-handed strike that threatened to rip the axe from the man’s hand.
Joren. He’d followed her. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or—
Kel whipped her glaive about in a tight cut directed at Stenmun’s side, forcing him into the path of Joren’s sword. “Take care of him,” she ordered. She didn’t think the Chamber would mind—it’d shown her Blayce, the Nothing Man. Stenmun was just Blayce’s catspaw.
Joren muttered something that could have been a curse or assent as Stenmun’s axe bit into his shoulder. A glancing blow, thankfully.
Kel ran.
-
Kel limped out of Blayce’s workshop. The burn—she’d barely avoided the magical fire he threw at her—had scored her leg and it was beginning to hurt. Stenmun lay on the floor—from the looks of his wounds, Joren had run him through.
She swept a glance across the room before she found him sitting, leaning against the cool stone wall. His sword lay unsheathed across his knees, but at least he’d cleaned it. A slash had laid him open from shoulder to hip, and he’d taken a second blow to his shoulder from Stenmun’s axe.
“I’ll get a healer—”
“Don’t.”
She stared at him. “You think Queenscove has enough power to throw around?” Joren asked, eyebrows raised.
Kel opened her mouth to argue and then frowned as she watched the wounds slowly close in front of her. The bleeding slowed to a trickle and then stopped; flesh and muscle knit back together in pale, thin scars. “I didn’t know you were a mage,” she murmured, finally, leaning on her glaive for support.
“I’m not.”
“Then…”
“The Chamber,” he muttered. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“The Chamber gave me…a task,” she offered. Awkwardly. “I had to kill Blayce.”
His laugh was bitter and harsh. “Well, you’ve done it, haven’t you? Am I supposed to be impressed? To offer you congratulations? To say I was wrong about you?”
“Are you?”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. “No. I’m not. Go out to them, Mindelan. Leave me some peace. I’ll join the lot of you when it’s time to leave.”
Sometimes, the Chamber whispered, there are those who are beyond your help, Protector of the Small. She turned, but it merely stared back at her from the flagstones of the passageway, and then it was gone.
“Did you do that?” she wanted to know.
There was no response. Kel supposed she hadn’t really expected one.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!