Well Armed Brides: A Novel of the Highmage's Plight (Highmage’s Plight Series Book 5) Read online

  The man frowned. “Anti whats?”

  “Nothing for mild pain or rheumatism?”

  “Of course… that, and more. But at your age, lads, I likely have little that you will need. Unlike the Highmage, of course. Being human and marrying the Empress… he’ll likely need,” he retrieved a vial, “this.”

  “What’s does it do?” Revit asked.

  “Now, lads, this prevents… embarrassment. Quite a lot of embarrassment.”

  Revit and Terus glanced at each other.

  Their warder took them by the arm and drew them away.

  The apothecary slowly smiled, knowing that pair would be back.

  #

  “He’s beautiful,” the far too young herald said, looking at the corralled mounts as they paced as if spooked by their presence.

  “Just wait until their gelded,” a merchant’s youngster said. “They will be much easier to work with.”

  The nearest large stallion paused to stare wide-eyed, then glanced back at the other members of the herd.

  “They can be very skittish at first,” Lord Niota advised. “But they’ll take to the saddle well.”

  “Milord, they’re so… big,” another said, swallowing as the lord’s ogre bodyguard gave him a forbidding look.

  “You know how to ride?” he replied, who looked hardly younger they any of them.

  “It’s part of their training, Milord,” Herald Varian replied, coming up behind the dozen former trainees. Life in the capital recently had been rather hard on heralds, leaving him senior advisor to Her Imperial Majesty and having to raise the trainees in rank early. “Lord Niota will help you select your mount. You will ride them properly… you will not embarrass the Empress or you will be dismissed. Understood?”

  They stared, then chorused, “Yes, High Herald.”

  Varian nodded, turned, and whispered to Lord Niota, “Thomi, they stay until them prove they can ride without falling off.”

  “Uh, Varian, it’s the steeds you should be worried about.”

  “Oh, they’ll settle down. Just whisper to them that they need to prove we shouldn’t geld them.”

  “Huh, that should work.”

  His ogre nodded, “Good… idea.”

  The mounts heard the ogre’s rumbling voice and bolted across the corral, fearing for their lives. Varian covered his mouth, trying not to laugh as the young heralds looked as if they were ready to bolt, too.

  “Best I chat with them, Walsh. Stay here, all right?”

  “Ok…ay,” he replied as he saw the Highmage’s beast familiar pause and stare out a window from the Great Hall. He nodded, fearing that smiling would just frighten the young heralds to death.

  Raven nodded.

  Walsh winced as a herald fell to the ground trying to get a saddle on one of the steeds. He marched up to the corral fence, “At-ten-hut.”

  The steed froze in place.

  Thomi turned to stare at Walsh, then turned and shouted, “What are you lads waiting for? Get those saddles on them.” He turned to whisper, “Thanks, Walsh.”

  The ogre nodded, knowing they had little time for foolishness.

  #

  The girl wore little more than a jerkin, which allowed her a freedom of movement she desperately needed as the knife was thrust at her. She ducked, swung out her leg and tried to trip her attacker.

  She winced, tears misting her eyes from the pain as she was shoved to the ground. “Ow.”

  The young woman paused there in the Old Temple of Unity’s inner courtyard, “Ladies, do you see how foolish that was?”

  Her jerkin-wearing students were so different from each other in looks that the black liveried young woman found it difficult to credit. Her half Sister glanced at her and signaled with her right hand.

  Mel’ly sighed, turning to face the other former urchins as the girl behind her rose. “I was centered, not off-balance, and my leg is considerably stronger than yours, child… What should she have tried, rather than sweep the leg?” she asked the more than twenty street-raised former urchins they had taken to training.

  “Kicked out your knee!” shouted Kieran, the senior among them.

  “Stomped your toes!” a younger one laughed.

  “Bit your hand, I woulda!”

  “Gone for your ruddy eyes… uh, Mistress Mel’ly.”

  Her Sister glanced up at the window, where the Mother Shaman stood watching. She raised her right hand and signed, ‘Send their senior to me.’

  “Kieran, come with me.”

  #

  Having played the part of a boy as an urchin living on the streets of the Seventh Tier had been a matter of survival for all the girls under Kieran, who at fifteen, found herself the ranking member here of the Rat Pack. Gallen’s Pack had been divided into three groups. The Rat Pack took in all those who were secretly girls.

  Ander had been in charge, but during the hunt had been injured and lost. Now word was that she was with another member of their little band, Juels, fosterlings to Lady Cle’or. During the hunt for them, Kieran had fled to the safety of the Temple, which with its wards protected them from scrying. Apparently the benefit of the wards had also drawn the Cathartans to, well, establish a home, too.

  The old priest had been less than pleased. After a rather long conversation with the Mother Shaman, he came out of his study and told Kieran and her friends that the Cathartans would also being taking up residence in the long abandoned dormitories. It was said that the Temple had once been a place of contemplation and study. Kieran just knew that the Old Temple had few adherents and seemed to be the last of his Order in the Capital.

  Gallen trusted the old priest and had told them that this was the best please to hide “if all the eggs dropped out of the basket” was good enough for her.

  The Mother Shaman waited for her in the library. “Young lady, I’m told that you and your friends can all read and write.”

  “We’s just lived on the streets. Doesn’t mean we’s have to be ignorant.”

  De’ohr smiled, “You and your friends are very good as a team… it’s the one-on-one fighting skills we’ve begun teaching you that seem your only impediment.”

  Kieran frowned.

  “You can stop pretending.”

  “Wha?’

  “You know how to speak properly and know more than just how to read and write,” she pulled a book off the shelf.

  “What’s this one about?”

  Kieran stared at her a moment, “That’s a book on heresy.”

  Frowning, De’ohr paused to consider the cover. “Really?”

  “It shows humans designing windmills. Everyone knows humans are too stupid to have ever done such a thing.”

  “My, how you diction has improved.”

  “Gallen has rules, and hiding in the catacombs didn’t mean we shouldn’t avail ourselves of what books the priest hadn’t loaned us yet.”

  Slightly amused, De’ohr said, “How many of these books have you personally read?”

  “Me? Not many, two hundred or so… mainly on the subjects of history and… uh, what the dwarves call, home repair. Amazing what you can fix when everyone knows old abandoned houses aren’t worth their time.”

  “I would like to propose a challenge, young lady.”

  “What kind of challenge?”

  “One between your… young ladies and mine.”

  “Why?”

  “A test.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Fine, not a test, then… an opportunity.”

  “What’s in it for us?”

  “Purpose.”

  Kieran laughed. “We have one… survive at all costs.”

  “That’s not quite true, I suspect.”

  “Oh, it’s true all right.”

  “Hmm,” De’ohr drew out a purse, shaking it.

  “What do I got to do for it?”

  De’ohr tossed it to her. “Just go where you like.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your young lady friends s
tay here… all I ask is that you go and never come back.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without them.”

  “You have my word no harm will come to them.”

  Kieran tossed the purse back. “Sorry, I’m not going anywhere without them. One for all and all for one is our motto.”

  “Then I’ll offer this to another of your friends.”

  “Go ahead. None of them will take it.”

  “You believe in that odd motto of yours?”

  “We all do.”

  “Did you read that in one of these books?”

  “No… it… my gran told me a story when I was little… before she died.”

  The mother shaman frowned, “What story?”

  “It was nothing… just about some strange green-eyed woman, telling tales here in this very Temple, I think, when people still believed in all the words in these books… that the elfbloods didn’t always believe that we humans couldn’t do magic because we don’t have souls. And one day they wouldn’t again.”

  “Child, there’s magic and there’s magic.”

  “That’s what the old priest’s been saying… after all, look what Highmage Je’orj has accomplished.”

  “So, what did this… green-eyed… woman say according to your gran?”

  “Well, it’s funny, thinking about it now… she said one day she would have a kinswoman who would only have one thing to her name. That being her word as bond based on this motto she might live by, ‘all for one and one for all.’ I guess, like me.”

  De’ohr tossed Kieran back the purse. “It’s yours… No strings attached. No challenges or tests, either, young lady.”

  “Why, thank you,” Kieran replied, leaving the room.

  The Mother Shaman went over to a chair and sat down, muttering, “Oh, my, Lady Grin? You knew this would happen… what else did you foresee?”

  Chapter 3 - Heralding

  Raven soared above the seven tiered Imperial capital. Its walls gleamed with white light as it had only in legends from past millennia. Pennants of the Lyai and new Capital Reserve legions fluttered above the city. The Llewellyn and Haydenese prisoners, who had followed their provincial lords' orders to seek to take the city with the First Legion sent to defend the northern border had not expected total defeat. The formerly retired Legionnaires of the reserve legion were supplemented by thousands of dwarves, bearing hammers and no few shovels.

  Her pale wings caught the sunlight as she banked away from the upper Tiers. What interested her more was the scores of mounted Imperial heralds leaving the First Tier, where the Imperial Palace lay, to deliver the invitations and packages under escort of more ogres than anyone seemed to credit living in the confines of the city.

  Only one of those heralds continued past the Fourth Tier, where the least wealthy of the Great Families, their elvin lineage as “pure” as any could claim after nearly four and half millennia living among humans, who most still considered a lesser, baser race.

  Ships were once again coming up the Aqwaine River and entered the capital harbor outside the city wall. Trade was returning to normal, drawn by word that Her Majesty was marrying, which meant festival and profits. Yet the Empire was far from joyous… the Empress was marrying her new consort, Highmage Je’orj, the human mage.

  She winged to the roof of the old manor house in the Seventh Tier, surrounded by armed dwarves and black liveried Cathartans, armed with both bows and swords. Folding back her wings, she hopped and turned around as the attic window opened and a black liveried girl, Juels, peered out. “Hi, Raven.”

  ‘Hi,’ she thought back.

  “They’re almost here.”

  Fluttering her wings, Raven nodded.

  “Are you all right?”

  Raven shimmered, changed form, and padded over in beast form. Juels put her arms around her and hugged her as her foster-sister cried big wolfish tears.

  “His getting married doesn’t change how he feels about you,” Juels said.

  ‘Know that, but…’

  “There have been a lot of changes… Just look at us, we’re sisters now.”

  Raven looked into Juels's eyes and knew that she was not alone in worrying for their family or their foster father. ‘He shouldn’t marry…’

  Juels frowned, “Well, pardon me for saying this, but I think, he’s rather lucky to be marrying.”

  ‘Se’and… Fri’il…’

  “Oh, I don’t think you quite understand what marrying the Empress means…”

  Raven leaned her head close as did Juels and did something that would have very much surprised their foster father. They linked. Juels shared precisely what she knew of High Elvin weddings according to the ballads.

  Eyes widening, Raven backed a step, then shook her head. Juels smiled. Raven barreled forward knocking her over and began licking the girl’s face. “Stop… stop it… that tickles!”

  #

  Herald Varian, as personal herald to Her Majesty, arrived in the courtyard on a rather large horse, which seemed slightly ill at ease in such a fancy saddle. The herald was paced by three ogres bearing packages and a detachment of Capital Reserve Legionnaires all bearing bane swords.

  A warder mage seemed more interested in the Sergeant in-charge, a former corporal with graying hair named Grigg, of the detachment than the herald or the ogres, who seemed to have adjusted well to marching under sunlight rather than darkness they better enjoyed.

  A pair of dwarves leaned against the front door of the house. “Well, Varian,” the dwarven bard, Spiro, said, “we can do without the official announcement.”

  “As long as you quote me intoning it in the song you sing,” he replied, smiling.

  “Oh, that I will, just like in the ancient ballads.”

  “Please, not that, something more suitable that won’t be politically challenging for the Great Families… treating this as traditional will irk their sensibilities.”

  “You mean prejudices.”

  Varian nodded with a smile.

  “Consider it done. I like a challenge… May I?”

  Varian dismounted and presented the bard the invitation scroll, which was considerably thicker than Spiro had expected. He untied it and handed the thread to his companion, “Tett, don’t drop that.”

  “It’s gold.”

  “Make sure it doesn’t get lost.”

  “Empress forfend.”

  Frowning, Spiro unrolled the top of the scroll and read. His eyes widened at the particular language. He read it again, then unrolled the scroll further and further. He glanced up at Varian, “The Great Houses are not going to be the only ones to have a fit about this.”

  “Tradition is tradition,” Varian replied, which meant he could not argue the Empress out of this.

  #

  One of the Cathartans quickly left the grounds, heading toward what was considered the Market Quarter in the Seventh Tier, which the locals called something less pleasant. But the presence of fifteen hundred Cathartans was changing that.

  She came down the main thoroughfare and saw a lesson in progress. A wooden cage of chickens broke beneath the falling man. They squawked and fled as the man groaned, rubbing the back of his hand against his bloody lip before hastily saying, “Pardon me, uh, Ma’am.”

  The black liveried Cathartan shook her head, “If you are hungry, you can join the legion. I hear they’re hiring.”

  He rose. “Uh, no, um, thank you. I get by.”

  “Not by demanding this fellow to pay you not to destroy his store…”

  He looked left and right, he had only recently returned to the city, considered the warning a joke until now. Two more Cathartans stood behind him on the street as the crowd watched. Those he expected to join him in dealing with these ladies were just shaking their heads at him.

  “Find another line of work.”

  He nodded, clearly having no intension of that. He would just have to seek out the Prince, even if Alfuster had apparently come to a bad end months past. He marched
off as another Cathartan passed him with a warning look.

  He glanced back as she joined her fellows and headed further into the old square.

  #

  “Mother Shaman, the invitations have arrived.”

  “Ah, it’s begun then,” the older Cathartan replied.

  The black liveried young woman nodded.

  “Sometimes I hate my visions… but not this time.”

  #

  Spiro had spent the last two days trying to teach him how he was supposed to act during the ceremony. With a sigh, George, now knew that elvin etiquette when it came to a High Elvin wedding was not something he would call traditional in Earth’s history. Apparently kissing the Empress was also against the rules, particularly since a human kissing an elf in public was consider risqué.

  Touching, however, was mandatory to wed.

  Varian had read the scroll in the main hall, then presented the first of the packages before cautioning them that the garments would deteriorate in but a single day once worn, could not be taken off.

  “What? I am not wearing that!” George shouted in the relative privacy of their room upstairs, his glowing computer staff free standing near the bed, not more than five feet away, warding the house to a greater degree, knowing there would be those who would be keen to scry.

  Se’and read the note with the instructions and frowned, then held up the Elvinsilk garment, which was glowing iridescent atop her hands. “Silly, this is what I’ve been sent to wear. It’s incredibly soft.”

  George blushed. Shaking his head, his other Cathartan bodyguard, the young and lithe, Fri’il, mother of his sleeping baby girl in the bassinette, entered naked, holding up her own sheer Elvinsilk gown before her, which glowed at the touch of her skin. “We’re expected to wear only this?”

  The computer staff in his hands glowed crimson.

  “Something wrong, Lord Je’orj?” Fri’il asked, innocently.

  He swallowed, “I think I’ll take a walk.”

  Se’and grasped his arm, “Sit down. You are not missing your own wedding.”

  “Please… as you two have always told me, we’re already married.”

  “Yes, by the bond as your protectors, but this time we get to make it official,” Se’and replied, smiling.

  Fri’il put her hands on her hips, her crystalline anklet gleaming. “This will look better once I’ve strapped on a few daggers.”