A Match for the el Maiens Ch. 28

Copyright (c) 2015 Naoko Smith

Thank you so much for continuing to read and give me such great votes. (Apart from that trolling 1-bomb, LOL.)

In early Spring Vadya got a commission to ride through the troops and make a complete assessment of their resources in arms and men. Arianna and Hanya el Jien had written to Clair to put up money for a spring offensive – a letter that had come in a dirty package stuck to the dead body of a Castle Sietter servant found in a gutter in Port H'las without any of the other letters she had been carrying, over whom Clair wept bitterly.

The war had been swaying from one side to the other. The Generals felt on the whole pleased and surprised that they had held the Maier Pass and not been overwhelmed by the superior numbers of Sietter men with their ample provisions of arms. Vadya was excited at the prospect of forward movement in the war in spring but when the commission began to be talked of, his immediate thought was: If I get to go, I will see Tashka.

It was her strategic recommendations which had allowed them to hold the Maier Pass all winter. There had been an argument in the Generals' offices about bringing her in from the field. The rumour went round that her own father by marriage ruled against it. Vadya was barred from the meeting but Clair had gone. The reports of Sixth H'las wounded were silent on the commanding officer's state of health so Clair realised that she ought to have been invalided in but he knew Tashka el Maien van H'las would never leave her soldiers in the field of battle so long as she could crawl onto a horse and lift one arm their signal. That battle-hardened warrior van H'las knew what was to do as well. He had structured the command of his army around duty of care and he opened his mouth to say they should bring Tashka in. Clair, the commanding officer trained in the Sietter army, interrupted in an ice cold voice to point out that without the sharp analysis she provided from the perspective she gained out in the field they might as well lay down arms for the Sietter army directly. He knew that Tashka would refuse to come if they called her in, she was a supreme strategic officer who could weigh up the cost of each sacrifice and put any life in the hazard in the interests of duty of care to the wider mass of her whole army.

Vadya worried horribly in case the Generals did not realise he was the best person for the commission. Clair was in charge of the lines of supply, possibly he would be the better officer for the task of assessing what resources were needed. It was two days before he realised that the only reason the Generals had not come to tell him the commission was his was that they assumed it was as obvious to him as it was to them.

One fine chill morning with a fresh wind whipping the clouds through the skies he rode down into Sixth H'las' camp where the tents were laid out on a wide hillside near a village. He could see Tashka's black and blue banner flying in the wind above the fawn and grey sides of the campaign-weathered tents clustered around hers. There was a knot of officers in black and blue felt uniforms collecting to meet him; they had known he was coming but not exactly when of course. He was glad they had not been able to get together a parade. He could not have borne seeing a parade of Sixth H'las with so few people he knew and those few badly wounded.

As he rode through the camp he was pleased to see how neat it was. Despite the rush and panic of war, the work of falling back to regroup twice, everything was in its proper place. He avoided looking in the men's faces. It felt like a strange troop to him – Sixth H'las, where he had been a Captain and that he had commanded for seven years.

He came up to the group of officers and saw that Tashka was not among them. His mouth went dry with fear. He swung off Midnight into Hanya Lein's strong grip and stared desperately into Hanya's face. "He is sleeping," Hanya said immediately. "Batren refused to allow us to wake him."

Vadya gave a short laugh of relief. Hanya was trying to go on one knee and press Vadya's left hand to his forehead. Vadya gripped his arm to prevent him and gently brushed Hanya's cheek with his soft fist. He felt a twist of sorrow. Hanya's cheek – formerly so smooth and young and handsome – was lined with tiny fine red scars. He turned to Basra and made him rise up and come into a fierce hug. Basra clung to his shoulders, he felt a tear go down his neck but they made no attempt to speak of what they felt.

He turned to greet those six or seven Lieutenants he still knew and the officers he had not commanded. He introduced round the officers helping him make the assessment. They moved through the camp towards Tashka's tent, talking casually of the journey he and the Generals' strategic staff officers had had.

Batren came limping from Tashka's tent to greet him. It went to his heart to see how his old friend had been hurt, he strode forward and, to his horror, Batren also tried to go on one knee to him. He hugged him close, Batren was still trying feebly to pull away and go on his knee. "Batren!" he said, "how I have missed you. Lord Clair says I dress like a priest's doxy without you by my side!" Batren grinned shyly, blushing with pleasure at this compliment from someone who dressed nearly as well as the beloved Lord Tashka.

Vadya went to the entrance of Tashka's tent, lifted the entrance flap, looked casually inside and let the flap drop again. He stood quite still, staring at the stained canvas of the entrance flap.

"Leave us," he said in a short clipped voice. "Give me one hour with my ... my junior."

There was a short silence behind him then Hanya said, "we would perhaps do best to prepare some of our reports with you, gentle men," to the strategic staff officers.

"Yes," Vadya said. "You should do that."

As they all moved off, he heard Basra, evidently in answer to puzzled looks and raised eyebrows, say: "Commander-Lord el Maien was his Captain," as if that would explain it.

He lifted the entrance flap again and went softly into the tent to sit beside her bedding. There was a stool so conveniently placed there that he knew she dictated most of her work from her bedding to the Lieutenants.

She was lying on her side with a rug pulled over her. A set of orders was still sitting in the curl of her fingers. She had fallen asleep while reading them and Batren had covered her over with a black and green rug that had a thin red stripe in it.

Her face was so thin.

He was reminded of birds, of mice, of little creatures with tiny bones. Her rings hung loose on her finger, he saw that she had wound thread round them to keep them on. His heart contracted to see that she still insisted on wearing his marriage and betrothal rings. Her long lashes lay on the shadowed dark hollows under her eyes. Her neck that used to hold her head so gracefully poised was too skinny in the circle of the black cotton collar of her shirt.

He wanted to cry, to kill, seeing her worn away by war. He wanted to surrender, to shout to someone: It is not worth it, losing so many of my friends, seeing my lover so changed, nothing is worth that. Let me be taken away and hung, rather than this.

But it was not like that, this war. They were not fighting just to save his skin or his lands. He thought about the old snake, van Sietter, with such a rush of hatred that he felt even if he had been the lowest trooper whose vow went up through the whole chain of command to such a piece of scum floating on the top, he would have compromised his honour to desert.

He caught sight of a packet of papers lying to one side of the cushions Tashka rested on. It had been tucked under them and had got nudged out. It was creased and worn. It had a stain in one corner that looked like old blood, as if she might have carried it into battle in the inside breast pocket of her surcoat, where she could still get to it if she were fatally wounded, and she had let some dying soldier rest against her breast even though his blood soaked through her silk surcoat into the precious paper she carried there.

It was his letter. The only love letter he had written her, she never replied so he knew she could not bear more but she kept it and so he knew she was glad of it.

His shoulders huddled together, he bowed his head. He felt too sad to cry.

She stirred suddenly in her sleep and her eyelids fluttered open. The slanted clear dark blue eyes stared intently into his eyes over the crumpled love letter on her bedding. She sat up and reached out to grip his shoulder. He put his arms eagerly out to take her in his strong embrace but she held him off, her head swung to one side.

"M-my report," she said in a shrill voice. "I know our losses in equipment are the heaviest, I can explain."

"Tashka!" he said in an appalled gentle voice.

"Let me just see my papers," she started to scramble out of her bedding.

"Later?" he suggested. "The others will come in one hour for our meeting. Per- perhaps you might sleep a little longer?"

She turned her head and looked into his eyes. She relaxed her stiff right arm that was holding him off then she said simply: "I dream."

"I know," he said softly. "Wait, I will come hold you. You might sleep then."

She nodded and he hurriedly pulled off his boots, his weapons and his cloak. He lay carefully down in the bedding beside her; he felt as if she were so fragile she would break if he jostled her. She reached out to put her arms about his neck with a sigh of relief, snuggled her head into the hollow of his shoulder, shut her eyes and slept.

He held her thin light body gently against him with his left arm, with his right hand he covered her head as if to protect it.

He felt fat, sleek, luxurious beside her. He felt like some rich monster with her thin wounded body in his arms that were too strong, they might break her. He had dreamt for months of holding her in his arms. Sometimes he had imagined her lying there like his Captain, her head close to his, her rose-petal mouth discussing this or that strategy, her blue eyes sharing his grief at the loss of their friends. Often he had remembered her body open to his pressing in sex, and the ecstatic joy and the fun of moving in love with her, his cock going deep down to her sweet spot to make her cum and start her vagnial muscles gripping on his shaft, the delicious feelings rippling up out of her into him.

Stupidly he had hoped he might come to her again like that. He had forgotten that she would be just like the other soldiers: seeking to get on with her duties ice cold celibate and denying her heart; or using sex as the violent means to express her hatred of what she had had to do. She was a Sietter officer, her mind fixed on victory at any cost; and she was an el Maien trained in the H'las chain of command. She had a heart as tender as a baby rabbit not only for the men who followed her arm, but also for young creatures in red and gold she slaughtered even though she thought of her brother officers the Angels while she did it.

Only because he was a brother officer, he too had been through what she was going through, could she come to his arms at all. She came like a wounded animal seeking protection.

She slept fitfully. She moaned and twitched in his arms, her eyes would fly open, her head jerk up, she would struggle briefly in his loose arm. She would see his gentle brown face turned to her, put her head back on his shoulder with a small sound of relief and fall asleep again.

After exactly an hour, she lifted her head and looked straight into his eyes. For a second he thought he saw the old smile curling up her rose-petal mouth to her slanted blue eyes.

"My love," he said softly.

Her eyes turned dimly away to the back of the tent.

"Commander," he said. "The Captains will be waiting on us."

She nodded and sat up, the rug fell loosely about her hips. He got out of the bedding and went to sit in a folding chair by her table. She got up slowly and went to a basin of water across the tent. She went dragging her right leg behind her like a bird with a broken wing, staring mindlessly into space as she walked as if she could not bear to think about how badly she limped.

Vadya got quickly out of the chair and walked to the entrance of the tent. He stood there, his mouth covered with his hand, biting one finger hard and staring intently at a hooking hole in the canvas. It had a metal ring set in it to stop the cloth fraying she had lost the full use of her leg. The ring shone in the light falling through the hole she used to walk with such a glorious sexy stride and she had lost the full use of her leg. One side of the ring was rubbed smooth from the hook which caught it back.

"Thy time for my allegiance," the appeal was spoken very softly, even though he was standing right by the entrance he could hardly hear the words just a murmur of a voice.

"Call them in," Tashka's husky voice said behind him.

He flung the entrance flap savagely back and glared into the knot of officers waiting outside. Hanya's and Basra's heads flinched aside as if he had shouted at them: Why did you not let me know?

The four Captains and his three strategic staff officers came into the tent and found her standing by a chair, one hand on its back. The strategic staff officers sensed a queer constraint about the situation but she looked to them just as they had heard Commander-Lord el Maien van H'las looked, only they had heard she was irresistibly pretty and she was not. She raised a cool eyebrow at them as they were introduced and apologised in a dry humorous voice for having been resting when they arrived. "It is too quiet these days to do any thing but sleep!" she quipped lightly.

They talked for a few minutes of the general situation in the war while they settled into their seats and got out their papers. She showed a sharpness of analysis and knowledge of what was happening that startled the strategic staff officers. Something she casually mentioned made Vadya's eyes open wide then he forced them to relax. He had thought no one outside the Generals' strategic council knew about it but it passed the others by.

"And I heard," she said hesitantly, "that there was a plot discovered against Lord van Sietter?"

"Ay," one of the strategic staff officers answered her. "Some Sietter officers were hung for traitors."

"I had heard it," she said. Her head turned to one side, her mouth puckered briefly in sorrow. She did not ask for the names of those who had been hung and Vadya, who had had to restrain a screaming Clair for a whole night when Clair found out who they were, did not want her to know.

"Are you set?" he enquired of the officers around the table.

She started to turn her head back to him then he saw her head suddenly freeze, hanging from her thin neck like an icicle from a tree. Her whole face changed from a weary unemotional mask to an expression of absolute terror and loathing.

Batren, who had been bringing a tray of glasses and a jug of water across to them, suddenly dumped it on the table by Hanya so violently that some of the water spilled from the jug into the tray. He reached quickly down beside Tashka to snatch up a tiny piece of paper that had fallen on the floor. Hanya started noisily handing the glasses round, standing up to pour water into them and effectively blocking Tashka off from the eyeline of the strategic staff officers. Tashka watched Batren intently until he had replaced the piece of paper in the little box of scraps put on the table for the officers to make rough notes on. Then she relaxed and turned her apparently careless face to them again.

Vadya sat beside her and faced the table of officers with an expression colder and more inhuman than Hanya or Basra had ever imagined he could wear.

That night he lay down and took her gently in his arms. He waited for her to fall asleep and then he wept. He wept softly, without shaking, which might wake her, or making any noise. The tears rolled silently down his cheeks in the dark. She lay restlessly in his arms. Sometimes he sensed she had woken but she would grip on his shoulder or in his hair, not particularly gently, as if she could not remember that he had feelings too. She would sigh in the darkness and fall asleep again.

In the morning he opened his eyes and found her staring at him. Her arms were wound around his neck, her legs loose between his. Her face looked easier, the shadows were less dark under her eyes. She shifted and lifted her head. She put her mouth to his and kissed the lips that he held softly still for her. She lifted her mouth away, her blue eyes dim, and said: "My report. I know we have had the heaviest losses of equipment but I can explain it."

"Yes," he said gently.

"Shall I make my report now?" she asked.

"Let us have some coffee first," he suggested.

"Sir, it is done," she said, sitting up beside him and stretching her arms above her head. "Batren!" she shouted out. "He is not usually late with the coffee," she added aside to him, with a frown.

"I know," he said softly.

~#~*~#~

When the H'las big spring push forward came, Sixth H'las broke through the lines of Sietter troops so quickly and easily that they had swept ten miles from their morning's camp before they pulled up to a nervous halt.

They had stopped in the midst of rich farmland. In front of them Second Sietter had broken a frenzied trail through the green spring crops in flight. Tashka had reined up her big grey warhorse Challenger and was holding him in, a concentrated frown across her face. A narrow cut ran across the bridge of her nose as if someone had slashed at her face and she had flung herself backwards in the saddle just in time so he had only caught her with the tip of his weapon. Challenger jittered in a circle under her guidance, still blowing from the unexpected canter through the fields. The Sixth H'las soldiers who had ridden and run in Tashka's wake watched her.

Her head suddenly lifted and she looked intently round at them all, her eyes focussed but on something beyond their tense watchful faces and keenly fixed eyes. "Inien!" she called in a firm clear voice to where Basra was walking his horse in a circle and staring at her and bleeding from a gash on his cheek. "Order the camp dismantled and the baggage wagons brought to join us here."

"H-here?" he stuttered, "but ... we are so far into their lines ...!"

She turned her head to look into his eyes with an intense expression of annoyance, opening her mouth to say she had thought. Before she could speak, he saluted and said: "Sir! It is done."

"Shaada!"

He cantered quickly to her side. The sweat stood out in beads on his smooth dark skin, his eyes were still wild with fear and rage.

"Collect two of the messengers from your scouting section to take a message each to Ninth Vail and Tenth H'las. They must be good, Alaara, they have to get there and back as quickly as they may."

"Sir, it is done."

She swung off Challenger and led the horse round to calm him down, clucking absently to him and frowning as she limped along. In her mind poured a torrent of facts, so many and so quickly tumbling into place that it was like a great river of thought in flood. She was barely aware of each individual thought coming to her, there were just things she knew.

She knew that the big spring push had happened about a week earlier than the Sietter had expected – she herself had written to the strategic staff to recommend an early date so that the Sietter should be caught off guard. She sensed that the Sietter had been forming defensive lines and so she knew their morale was low. Everyone knew the other Trossian regions had been forbidden to come to support her father after it had been proven that he and el Jien van Iarve had conspired to kill his daughter by marriage and her brother. (el Jien van Iarve had also been heavily fined, which money had gone to Arianna and Hanya and thence to the H'las war coffers.) van Sietter had been unable to draw Vilandia into the war because the only soldiers who came to H'las' aid were two of his own troops and Ninth Vail, which everyone knew (or thought they knew) was only a play-troop for el Jien van Vail, the cousin of Arianna el Jien van Sietter and brother officer to Clair and Tashka el Maien. van Sietter was offering half-price weapons to his officers; they would be crying out for men, while the young men of Sietter went over the border. They would be wanting the inspiration that Vadya and Clair gave to the H'las and their allies.