The Return (6 page)

As she was washing my chest and kneeling over me in the tub, Missa came in through the door. She smiled at me as she saw me sitting there, and then came over to check the water for heat. When she saw her mothers back, she gasped. “Momma! Your back!”

Miska looked at her. “What, honey? What’s wrong with my back?”

“The scars are gone! All of them!”

Miska looked at me with wide eyes, “You’re not named after the Warmage, are you?”

I put my finger to my lips in a shushing motion, then handed her the washcloth as I leaned back. “Keep my secret for now. I have things to do before I go after the Mage Kings.”

Miska and Missa both bowed their heads, “Yes, M’Lord.”

I reached out and pulled Miska’s head up. “Have I ever treated you like a servant?”

“No.”

“Then please don’t treat me like one of those arrogant nobles.”

“Yes M’Lord… I mean, Rhys.”

“Now, I was rather enjoying our bath, and would ask you to continue.” She smiled at me and went back to washing my chest. Missa walked over and kissed my cheek.

“Thank you, Rhys. Momma needed to feel like a woman again.”

“I did not do anything to make her feel like a woman, Missa. I just wanted to share her company and saw something that needed to be fixed. It is who I am. I fix things.”

After the ladies had gone down to the common room, I went back to my room to armor up and get ready. I noticed that the packs and saddle were gone from my room. Likka told me Peotter had taken them down to get Reaper ready.

I slipped down the servants stairs of the inn and searched on the first floor until I found Miska’s room. I slipped in unnoticed, and pulled the covers back on her neatly made bed. I placed on her sheets twenty gold coins and then made the bed again and slipped out. With the coins was a note that read, “Keep the girls safe. All of them…”

As we rode out of the town, Taina and her daughter talked lightly back and forth, Laina was a boisterous youth of about eighteen years old, who swore no man would ever tame her because she was going to be an Armsmaster like her mother. She looked so much like a younger version of her mother it was amazing. They could pass for sisters. Taina looked to be only about twenty three, herself.

At one point, when Laina rode ahead a little bit, I turned to Taina. “Where is her father?”

“He was a mercenary, and died in the wars when she was just a baby. She does not even remember him.”

“She is a bit head strong. I’ll bet she has been a handful for you.”

“She is the light of my life, but there are times I wish I could turn her off like a lamp at night.”

I chuckled quietly. “How long have I known you, Taina?”

“I was a girl of Laina’s age when you left. You had found me in the mercenary camps of the Mage Kings a few years before. I had been scheduled to be distributed to one of the men. I was lying in my cage squalling when you came in to pick me up and tell me I would be alright. You held me tight against you all night and carried me back to your camp where you handed me to Morgana.

I was sure you were going to take me that night, but when you came in that night, you kissed me on the forehead and told me I would be starting training with the group’s Armsmaster in the morning. Then you simply lay down and went to sleep. I stayed awake half the night just watching you. You were so different than any man I ever met. Even my father had given me to the mercenaries to buy his own escape.

A few days later, I saw you in combat for the first time. Morgana told me you were a Warmage. I watched you take out whole swaths of enemy forces as if they were but straws before a hurricane. I wanted to be like you, but Morgana told me I had no magic in me. She did say if I trained hard I could be an Armsmaster. I couldn’t believe that your forces allowed women to fight, let alone be Armsmasters.

“I trained hard. Then the Mage Kings managed to outflank us, you made that dreadful bargain with them to spare the forces that were left. We had all vowed to die with you. Damn you! You surrendered yourself to keep us alive! You promised them you would leave until the
First Star
winked out. Here you are, back, though the
First Star
still burns bright in the heavens.”

I started chuckling.

“What is so funny?”

“I did not tell them I would leave till The
First Star
winked out. I told them I would leave until the first star winked out. A star has died in the heavens, Taina, but it was the first one since I left. This time, it will be different. There will be no war. It will be me against them. It is time I learned the true extent of my abilities. Likka! Start talking.”

As we made camp that evening, Laina was bragging about everyone she could beat in a sword fight in the town of Quinn. “I can take the captain of the guard, and the governor. I bet I could even beat you.”

Taina stiffened and looked at me. “You need to retract that statement, Laina.”

“Why, momma? You trained me to make sure I could defend myself against anyone.”

“There are certain people who could still take you down, little one, and you never know who they are. Now apologize to Rhys, and retract your statement.”

“No! Rhys, I formally challenge you! First one to yield, wins!”

“Laina!”

I looked at Laina. “You should go set your tent, and get ready to rest.”

“What is wrong? Are you afraid? I challenged you, so I set the prize of challenge. If I win, I get those fancy swords on your back.”

“And if I win?”

“It doesn’t matter -- you won't win.”

“Yes, it does matter.”

“Very well! If you win, you can have me, to do as you will for the night.”

Taina turned pale. “Laina, retract your challenge now.”

I looked at Taina. “She can’t now. Her honor has been set. If she retracts, she forfeits the prize.” I looked back at Laina. “Over there, and choose your weapon wisely.”

I stood up and set my bow aside, then strode to the area I had indicated. On the way there I picked up a fallen branch from a tree. I snapped the end off the branch over my knee, leaving a stick about three feet long and two inches in diameter.

Laina came and stood in front of me with her long sword drawn, laughing at my choice of weapons. She stepped forward and swung at my right hand with the flat of her blade. I dropped my hand under her attack, and back swung my stick to strike her hand, hard enough that she dropped her sword. As she tried to jump forward to retrieve her weapon, my foot shot out and swept her legs out from under her. When she rolled on her back to try to rise, I was standing over her, with her sword pointing at her throat. “Do not force me to hurt you, Laina. Yield, and put your pride back where it belongs.”

“If I yield, you could...”

“You're right, and I will. So do I need to hurt you badly before you yield, and make your night extremely painful, or do you put up with the pain that is normal for this night?”

She gulped and looked at the sword at her throat, then said meekly, “I yield.”

I flipped her sword around and handed it to her hilt first. When she took her sword back I helped her up and told her, “Now go over there, and help us get the camp set up before nightfall.”

When she went to the fire, she looked at her mother. “Mom, you won’t let him do anything to me, will you?”

“Yes, I will. You decided to brag and spout your mouth off, now you have to live with what it got you. If he wants to use your mouth, pussy, or ass tonight, he will do as he pleases.” Taina spat out in anger.

Laina started crying, as she went about setting up her tent.

As we finished eating the rabbits that Likka had brought to us, I looked at Laina. “Go down to the stream and clean yourself up. Then go into my tent and get your clothes off. Climb into my blankets and wait for me.”

When Laina went down to the stream, Taina looked at me. “Please, Rhys, be gentle with her. She has never been with a man before.”

I reached over and lifted Taina’s face in my hand. “Did I ever take you by force?”

“No.”

“I will not take her by force either. She will lay awake in my tent by herself all night, in fear of my coming. But that is all she will get; a healthy dose of fear. I will never take a woman who does not come to me willingly.”

Taina hugged me and whispered, “Thank you. You’re still the man I remember, after so long.”

“Now I am going to wander off into those woods and look around a bit. Likka will help alert you if something comes into camp.”

The next morning, I was sitting next to the fire with a small pig-like creature, called a rooter, roasting on a spit. I looked over as Taina crawled out of her tent. She looked over and smiled at me before slipping off into the woods. Before she came back Laina slipped out of my tent. She stood there staring at me for a few minutes before slipping off into the woods.

Both girls came back from their morning needs and sat down near the fire. I could almost feel Laina wanting to ask a question. “Spit it out, Laina, before you drive yourself crazy trying to figure out the answer.”

“Why didn’t you take me last night?”

“I never take an unwilling woman to my bed. If you had come to me in the night on your own, it would have been a much different night.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that, so I could sleep?”

“You needed the dose of fear, so that you would think a little more clearly about who you challenge and for what you challenge, next time.”

Her mother looked at her. “Laina, this man is the greatest warrior I have ever met. He could take me down just as fast as he did you, and I am a full Armsmaster. Do you remember the stories from the town about the warrior that killed all those Lithan at the gates? This is he.”

“Did you really just jump over the wall and into them?”

“I think the story got a little exaggerated with the telling, I am sure it was not twenty-one hundred Lithan I killed,” I mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed.

“It was twenty-one hundred and thirty-four. I was on the clean up detail to remove the bodies,” Taina murmured.

I just shook my head and threw a little salt and pepper on the pig.

, Likka thought to me.

I did not even think it was possible for a wolf to blush, but Likka did a damn good imitation of blushing. “What is wrong with Likka?” Laina asked looking at the wolf trying to hide her face.

“I embarrassed her, and she is doing her best not to show it.”

Likka stood up and became a woman as she walked over to sit in my lap. When she sat down, she put her finger rather pointedly into my chest and said out loud, “I will figure out a way to get you back for that one, Rhys.”

Taina and Laina both just stared in shock.

As we rode during the day, I spoke with the ladies about Likka being a familiar, and that we could talk in our heads. I explained about the other world, which seemed so long ago now. I explained about the amnesia and the fact that I could not remember my life here from before, but things seemed so familiar to me. And that I sometimes seemed to remember things.

The movement in the trees caught my eye as we rode. I thought at first it was a bird but the shape was wrong. It almost looked like a thick bodied lizard with wings. Likka commented with distaste in her mental voice.

There was a loud scream off in the woods. Before it even ended I was riding hard in its direction. Likka was on Reaper’s heals, the ladies a short distance behind. I broke into the clearing at a dead run on Reaper, as I drew my pistol, taking in the situation in a flash.

The woman was tied face outward to a tree, her clothing ripped and hanging, leaving her front completely bare. There were twenty men standing in the clearing, and one of them had his pants around his knees. They all turned to look at me as I burst into the clearing.

I fired a single shot through the head of the man with his pants down; to make sure I had their undivided attention. As I holstered my pistol, I called out, “Every man better be running away, or be preparing to fight.”

“The woman is ours! We caught her.” One of the men said, as others began to draw weapons.

“Consider her under my protection.” A said as I slid out of the saddle, drawing one of my long swords.

The two men that had pulled out bows were first. A double flick of my left hand sent flechettes into the eyes of the first, as the ladies burst into the clearing behind me. The second set of flechettes took the eyes of the second bowman as he released his arrow. His shot went wide, and was headed for Laina. A step to the side and I plucked the arrow out of the air, spun, and slammed it into the chest of the first man to reach me.