The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) Read online

  “Our strategy remains unchanged.” Send the civilians away, confiscate weapons and tools and livestock, destroy anyone who opposed them. Simple, as long as the enemy kept sending tiny parties. She wasn’t sure for how much longer her piecemeal luck would endure. Largely, she believed the enemy considered their rear safe, protected, and once they figured out they had a thorn in their backside, they would scratch it off with a big, bloody paw.

  She had to find a way to communicate with the northern people. She had to. This war followed no sane rules. She had found the nomad tribes almost too logical by comparison. What kind of lunatics sent their troops charging forth and then had the unprotected families follow at leisure?

  A foe that did not expect to leave any opposition alive, she thought. That worried her. She had spared the lives of a hundred of people in a vain hope to try to reason with the enemy, to try to understand their philosophy, their creed. Now she was beginning to suspect that there would be no negotiations, no reasoning. There would be only a total, utmost annihilation of one side or the other. That wasn’t a pleasant prospect.

  “Sighted another convoy two days northeast from here,” Gordon rambled, all her emotional turmoil invisible to his manly eyes. “And another due west, pretty small, looks like twenty folks altogether, but it seems like they got a whole herd of cows following them. Some shaggy kind, the men never saw them before.”

  In the past few weeks, they had turned back thousands of the enemy women and children, sent them into the desolate reaches of northern Eracia, back into the half-trampled, half-burned fields and around empty, torched villages. They had butchered several hundreds more, leaving them to the birds. That did not feel like brave campaigning at all.

  She had to befriend Bjaras. All of his kind, of course. So she could at least understand why she was killing his fellow countrymen and women and why they so blindly rushed to their deaths.

  “We will talk later,” Mali said.

  Gordon hesitated, looked like he wanted to say something quite touching, then decided against it and walked back toward the castle. He looked like he resisted a terrible urge to turn back and glower at the curly haired northerner.

  “Sorry about that,” Mali told Bjaras, but her fervor was gone. She left him wondering what had just happened and how it all concerned his people.

  The rest of his kin mingled with her troops as if they had lived together all their lives. Women helped as best as they could; the children played, oblivious to all the strangeness around them. Once they had realized they needed to drink more water and dress more lightly, the northerners were coping much better. Only one child had died, succumbing to the heat. Like any Eracian mother, his own had wept for a long time.

  Soldiers were lazing everywhere, but never for too long, lest Alan caught them and sent them scurrying into the fields. There was a feeling of vigor at the estate, and it almost felt like the last time she had visited here, except now she had an even greater sense of purpose. Fresh, healthier doses of alarm, frustration, and worry, too. The war against the nomads felt like an ancient, forgotten tale.

  Then, there was a commotion somewhere ahead of her. She could hear men and women shouting in both continental and that foreign language. She hastened her pace.

  In a yard cordoned by wagons and field shops, several of their captives were at a standoff against one of Finley’s warriors. Behind him, half a dozen bored soldiers were goading him, cheering him. The man was yelling loudly, words too blurred to comprehend. One of the women was talking back, a yammer of alien sounds. A tiny child clung to her leg, crying.

  It did not feel pleasant, and yet, no one was trying to calm the situation, she noted sadly. Novelty was more important than discipline, it seemed. Mali considered interfering, but then she saw Alexa marching through the crowd, pushing men and women aside.

  “What’s going on here?” her friend bellowed. The audience suddenly realized the fun had taken a new, unexpected turn. Some of the spectators in the far rows decided to go back to their daily duties. The rest tensed, knowing they were caught in the open, without an easy escape route.

  “That bitch attacked me!” the soldier was hollering, his cheeks red, spit flying.

  “Did I just not hear you say ‘sir’?” Alexa spoke, without losing momentum. Her tone was dangerous, her presence impressive.

  The soldier realized he had just aggravated his situation. He stepped back. “No, sir. I did not not sir you, sir. No.”

  Alexa rubbed her face. “I’ll forgive you that one, soldier. Now, why did this woman attack you?”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “Have no idea, sir.”

  Alexa looked at the woman. She was still babbling in her tongue, pointing. The girl holding to her skirts was crying, face red like a beet, mouth open, tiny teeth poking out randomly. Her friend looked at the child and frowned; then she looked at the soldier. Her hand went to the worn hilt of her sword.

  “Did you try to touch her daughter?”

  The man paled. “What? Sir? No, no! I didn’t. I swear.” He raked his hair nervously. “Look, they got these goats, right, and we ain’t eating them. Our company didn’t get any meat this week, and these foreigners have all their food. That ain’t fair. So I figured we could do with some roast goat chops. No, sir, didn’t touch no girl. I swear.”

  Mali clenched her fist so she did not draw her blade against that fool.

  More people were converging now, officers included. The original audience was dwindling fast, because no one wanted to be remembered at the scene of the scuffle. Mali stood back, watching, feeling pride for Alexa. If only she had ever forgotten to be the best friend, always following, always shadowing, she could have easily been an excellent army commander.

  “You keep to your mess, and if you have any complaints, tell them to your officers. No one touches these people. Now, scarper.”

  The soldier saluted. “Gladly, sir.” And he beat a rapid retreat.

  Mali waited until the crowd cleared, leaving behind dust and the crying girl. Alexa saw her and nodded from across the yard. Mali nodded back, coming over. To the left, an officer was clapping his hands, acting busy, rousing an innocent squad of men to work. They just happened to have taken their card game to the wrong part of the estate.

  “It will only get more complicated,” Mali said.

  Alexa spat. “I guess so. You really think we’re doing the right thing?”

  Mali knelt near the girl. The child stopped sniffing, staring back with eyes the color of a spring lake. “Well, we can keep killing each other until one side runs out of people, or we can try to somehow sort this out in a civil way.” She didn’t have any trinkets on her except a short string of bone buttons in one of her pockets. She handed it over. The northern mother gave a tiny blink of appreciation. The child’s tiny pink hand closed on the gift, hugging it close.

  Mali rose, groaning ever so slightly from the pain in her lower back. “Let’s hope we can understand them before it all gets too bloody.”

  Alexa smiled at the foreign woman, then turned back toward the manor house. On the rooftops, men were busy replacing broken tiles and hanging flags. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Mali shrugged. “Nothing like this in the warfare manuals.”

  The major clicked her tongue. “I miss the times when we had an enemy who played by the rules. Hasn’t been one like that since the skirmishes. Who knows, maybe it was always like this, and we got too old and started looking for philosophy in war. Maybe there is none.” She looked sideways. “I saw Gordon looking all grumpy just earlier. Did you two lovers have a fight?”

  Mali snorted. “Men. You give them a good time, and they think they own you.”

  Her friend made a vague face. “He’s a decent chap altogether. You might want to consider settling down after this war is over, you know.”

  Mali did not expect to hear that. All she could think of were those russet locks on Bjaras’s head, and his stocky, well-built body. Perhaps she had gone mad,
or she had lived too long denying herself love to be able to appreciate it now.

  “Yes, maybe after the war is over.” For the moment, it was the only sensible thing to say.

  CHAPTER 16

  With rain gently patting the earth, Bart slammed his soles against a sheepskin mat and entered the cabin. Constance was sitting in a chair near the window, the child nuzzling on her breast, looking smug and satisfied.

  Bart realized he hadn’t gotten laid in a long, long while now. He felt his cock stir, like a swamp beast raising its nostrils above the pond scum, releasing a tiny bubble of interest. “Am I intruding?” He knew she would be alone. It was quite difficult catching her without her female human shield, but the surly midwives were elsewhere now.

  Constance smiled at him, a thin, almost practiced expression. “Not at all.” There, that glimmer of hope in her eyes. Gently, she pried the baby from her nipple like a dockworker giving a limpet glued to a pier a firm tug, a droplet of milk running down. With a deft flick of her free wrist, Constance covered herself, and he was denied the sight of her lovely enlarged breasts.

  He looked at the door, almost as an afterthought. Lanford was guarding outside to make sure no one interrupted him. “We haven’t been together in quite a while,” he said, trying not to sound eager. This was a splendid midday. He had no reports from his officers, no pressing affairs. He could just be an ordinary man in a siege camp—as ordinary as a man trying to figure out how to win the affection of his mistress back could be.

  Constance made a small prim face. “Raising a son is a very difficult task.” She rolled the baby over, patting his back. The tiny arms and legs waddled, almost as if they had invisible strings attached being worked by a drunken puppeteer.

  Bart sat in a second chair, all padded leather. He crossed his legs nervously, then uncrossed them. His unnamed son made a sound almost like a burp. Constance aahed appreciatively. Bart watched the baby carefully, wondering if he was going to spew all that milk onto the expensive rug.

  “Here.” Constance nudged the child in his direction. He almost balked. “Hold him.”

  “You hold him,” he muttered.

  Constance jerked her hands forward, a frightful gesture, like a battering ram getting ready to gore a gate. “Bart, don’t be silly. Hold your son. Take him. He needs to get used to your smell, to the sound of your voice.”

  Why? he wondered. That fatheaded thing looked so squishy, so brittle. He was afraid it would slip between his fingers, like a knot of blood sausages, and splatter on the floor. “Perhaps later.”

  “Please, Bart, hold him,” she urged.

  “No,” he whimpered, almost feeling panicky.

  Constance rolled the boy back and laid him against her chest. The boy made a sound like a sheep trying to bleat and regretting it. She looked like she was whispering in the child’s ear. Then her lower lip quivered, and he realized she was crying.

  “Please don’t cry,” he said.

  “You do not love our son,” she mumbled.

  Bart wished he were leading an attack into the city right now, personally. “That’s not true.”

  “Then why don’t you hold him?” she insisted.

  “Because…” He trailed off, uncertain. Why did he not want to hold that child? It wasn’t the prettiest little prince in the world, but it was his son after all. Of that much he was certain. He knew that most fathers felt immense pride in their tiny, spongy offspring, and often imagined they saw their own features in their malformed heads, but all he could summon from his heart was a sense of bafflement and estrangement. This child wasn’t just the fruit of his loins. It was a terrible chasm between his life now and the one he had shared with Sonya. Until he figured out what he wanted to do, there was no place for other emotions.

  But he could not tell that to Constance. She would hate him. “I am afraid,” he said. It was a good lie, he thought, especially since it was mostly true. The mechanism of a soft child did not worry him that much. But the bond, the risk, the implications, they all terrified him.

  “You don’t care about him. You don’t care about me,” she lamented in a quiet voice that was worse than shouting. “Are you going to deny me forever? Are you going to keep lying about your son?”

  “I am a married man,” he reasoned. That was a good argument, wasn’t it?

  “Your wife is in the city,” she said. “But I am here.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Constance wiped her eyes. “How can I ever trust you again? When you wanted my body, you didn’t have any objections then. You did not stop to think about your wife then.”

  Wait, he thought. I should be berating her. She is the one who manipulated me. Abandoned that lad Ewan and slipped into my bedsheets, because I had money and a title. There it is.

  He tried his best diplomacy. “You ask for my trust, but you still won’t tell me anything about yourself.”

  That got her defiant, red stare lowered. She sniffed, but he thought it was feigned now, and her mind must be racing with a new strategy.

  “All I ask for is, let’s go back to how we were before.”

  “I am a mother now. My son is a bastard, because his father will not acknowledge him. I must be prepared to raise him on my own, to find means to support him. You cannot ask me to go back to how we were before, because that reality is gone. Your wife is waiting in Somar. What will she say when you free her?”

  Bart kept silent. She had a point. His own life couldn’t have gotten any more complicated. Worst of all, no matter how worried he was, deep down, all he really wanted was to have sex with her. He would think about Sonya and the child later. His mind swam with one simple purpose.

  “I am sorry,” he said. Women liked to hear those words, he knew. “I am still not ready. I will love our son,” he forced himself to say. “I will. I promise that. But you must be patient. You must give me time to get there on my own. And there’s this war we must win.”

  She bit her lower lip. Not the response she had expected, he figured, but good enough. It was always hard figuring out what women had on their minds. However, he needed no wise men to tell him his chance of rubbing his face against any breasts was out of the question today.

  He rose. Saving his disgnity was the blare of a horn outside, a single long note. “I must leave,” he said almost nonchalantly. Well, his plan had fallen apart, so going back to the reality of a siege was a simple task. He would have been rather cross if that sentry had sounded the horn in a different scenario, the one where Constance gave herself to him once more.

  Frustrated, his sex vibrating against his trousers, Bart stepped out. Lanford raised a brow. “Sir, we have an Eracian force approaching from the north. But I thought you didn’t want to get disturbed.”

  Bart frowned against the lukewarm drizzle. “Let’s go.”

  With the nomad presence reduced to a small pocket around Somar and some blisters of resistance in the west, traffic and news were flowing once again between the two parts of the realm. Almost weekly, a convoy would arrive at the siege lines, usually reinforcements sent by his uncle. Sometimes, they were footmen, sometimes fresh cavalry, still too inexperienced to hold formations. At other times, artisans, whores, and mercenaries came, ready to profess their trades. No matter how dire the situation was, the world had an endless supply of paid swords to offer.

  Bart waited with Faas, Ulrich, and Velten. Junner’s men were never too far. They could smell opportunity like mosquitoes could smell blood. The drizzle soon stopped, came back again for a short spell, and then ceased again, leaving a wet summer smell in the air. The dust had settled at least, making distances seem shorter, and every detail was that much clearer.

  A large body of men was approaching, it seemed, trying its best to raise a veil of dirt and failing, which belittled its size. The force flowed like a slow, muddy tide, spilling over the plains, engulfing the siege lines. He had expected to see soldiers in the lot, but there were mostly civilians, grubby, dirty, too many of them.
He frowned.

  Straight ahead, a smaller snake was leading into the camp, surrounded by local sentries on horseback. The van consisted of mounted men, followed by at least a dozen chariots and twice as many wagons. Bart could clearly see the emblem of House Barrin painted on the sides and fluttering on flag posts carried by the riders.

  It seemed Uncle Karsten had come to visit the battle lines. But then, why all the small folk? Strange, alarming, and annoying. Bart suppressed a terrible urge to go forward and meet the new delegation halfway.

  The camp grew noisier as the force got closer: rumor, gossip, speculations, stories, logistical chaos as supply officers began their preparations. For them, each new arrival was a disturbance in a well-paced, well-oiled machine, and they did not like having to rearrange everything all over again. The carriages drew to a halt. He saw an army of liveried servants dismount, open the door, place a wedge-shaped wooden ramp just below. A moment later, the seated form of his uncle rolled out.

  Just behind, Lady Elizabeth exited the second coach, her dainty, frail hand resting on the elbow of her trusted Deirdre. Bart watched with growing apprehension as Karsten pushed himself over wet ground, arms as thick as a lumberjack’s propelling him forward, faster than most men would walk.

  Major Maurice was approaching, his own pace quite hasty. Bart was liking this less and less, and he wished he had left the greeting ceremony to his subordinates. But now, he had to play the brave role of the viceroy.

  “Trouble, Lord Count?” Junner said, showing up suddenly.

  “Please, not now,” Bart snapped.

  The Borei chuckled, unfazed. “We will talk later, friend.”

  Maurice stepped close and saluted, handing a rolled message to his superior. He nodded at Bart, his chin wobbly with sympathy he could not quite give. “Your Majesty,” the major was saying, his tone brittle. “Dire news. I do not think there’s an easy way to report this. The Barrin and Elfast estates have been overrun by an unknown enemy force arriving in huge numbers from the north under white banners. They do not appear to be affiliated with any known faction, and they seem bent on total destruction. Lord Karsten has tactfully led a retreat south.”