There was hanging silence in the street for a moment, as the thick, barrel-chested Major looked flatly at his thin, foreign subordinate.
“That’s hurtful Baifeng. And potentially insubordinate.” The armored major spoke, and once more, Valerna was reminded of someone, although, for the life of her, she couldn’t remember who exactly. His voice was deep and resounding, the accent that of a courtier from Greatriver. His deadpan humor resounded through the air more like a decree than a joke, leaving everyone momentarily nonplussed. Everyone except the foreign captain, that was. Baifang, or Baifing, or Bai-whatever, was completely unruffled, simply smoothing the smile from his features and coming to a parody of attention.
“On the contrary, Major, you have my oath to obey all of your orders, no matter how unfortunate the vessel from which they come.”
The Major gave Baifeng a flat look, ramping up the tension on the street again as the silence dragged out, before finally turning away, breaking the spell that was momentarily held over the people of the street, and releasing a series of hushed whispers. The Major turned towards Valerna, and let go of the gate to the booth, stepping forward in a bow that was entirely too graceful for a man of his size who was wearing full plate mail. Valerna was so impressed that he didn’t fall over that she forgot to offer any resistance as he reached out, grabbed her right hand and kissed her third knuckle. The bristle of his mustache and stubble against the back of her hand was what snapped her out of her daze. Valerna hated stubble. She hated it with a passion. Sure, it was fine enough to see on a man from time to time, but the feel of it on her skin was simply intolerable. She forced herself not to snatch her hand back, aware that the man meant nothing offensive by his action. He let go of her hand and stood meeting her eyes.
“Lady Noblis, I must offer my sincere apologies for any insult caused by this man. He obviously did not recognize you, and thusly treated you with far less respect that you deserve.” Valerna huffed, crossing her arms.
“He treated me with far less respect than anyone deserves.” She grumbled. A twitch played across Baifeng’s lips, but the Major just nodded gravely.
“Right you are my lady.” There it was again. That inescapable sense that she had met this man before, or at least, someone very like him. Valerna looked at him and Baifeng more closely, noting that Baifeng was a fair bit older than his commanding officer. Not old, mind you, but definitely well into middle years, with grey starting to streak his otherwise jet hair in fascinating patterns that she just barely stopped herself from getting caught up in. She spoke, before she could get derailed.
“Have we met?” Valerna asked bluntly, looking the Major directly in the eyes. Not a particularly difficult thing for her to do, as while he was built in wide, thick proportions, he wasn’t much taller than she.
“Not as such, my lady. I had seen you at court before in Great River, while in the course of my duties, and I recognized you. My name is Major Ben Owens.” The Major, now named ‘Ben’, answered simply, but something was off about the answer. It wasn’t untrue, but something about the delivery was wrong. If Natalia was there, Valerna was certain that her younger sister would pick up on it right away, but sadly, she wasn’t. That brought Valerna back to herself, and her eyes widened, and she grabbed the Major by the upper arms without thinking.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“How many soldiers are do you have?” she looked around wildly. Typically, a Major that commanded in the field would be travelling with at least three companies of no less than 100 soldiers. “How many companies? You know what, it doesn’t matter. There’s been an attack, we have to hurry. They have my sister and my brother, and the Reaper only knows what they’ve done to them. We have to go find them. Now.”
***
It’d taken Rai entirely too long to get the soldiers of Ingot off their lazy arse’s and moving towards doing something actually useful and productive. Upon entry to the city, he’d been seen almost immediately by Lord Bagby, who had actually been surprisingly helpful, assigning a full contingent of his guard to assist with the problem, as well as a fully kitted out boat to transport them down-river to the general area of the Vencheng Camp. Rai should’ve known it was too good to be true. He should’ve seen in in the set of the Frugal lord’s shoulders, in the lines of his crow-feet wrinkles, in the set of his jaw. He should’ve seen it in the glint of old Lord Sticky-fingers eyes, and the self-satisfied way the man ran his fingers over the promissory note that was attached to the letter Rai had painstakingly brought all this way. He should’ve, but in his hurry, he hadn’t.
Rai was seeing it now though, that was sure as the whores on bent-tail lane had the pox. He saw it in the unstable creaking of the vessel that could generously be called a ‘barge’. Providing that one squinted rather hard, and turned their heads at a particular angle, and used a fair amount of imagination. Okay, so it was a raft. A big raft, to be sure, but a raft nonetheless. The soldiers that now populated the vessel with Rai were mostly old men with missing limbs, thousand-yard stares, and enough food and drink stains on their uniforms to make him certain that they were not, in fact, Lord Bagby’s ‘best men’. They might be his most experienced men, as Rai was certain that those missing limbs and maimed bodies didn’t come from stalling tavern brawls or routine inspection of barges, and he found it unlikely that they came from patrolling the city center or swinging sharp sticks about through the air.
Rai sighed in frustration. The thrice threshed commander of the guard hadn’t even bothered to give Rai a proper Captain for the contingency he was to take as support. He did have a weathered looking sergeant who actually had all of his limbs attached. Unfortunately, while the man had his limbs, he was not in possession of his wits, and was prone to shaking and screaming fits, followed by bouts of confusion regarding where he was, what he was trying to kill, and who ‘in the threshing hells’ had been sleeping with his wife. Rai figured that this last question should’ve answered both the former, but then, who was he to question the rambling of the old relic. Nobody of import he was sure Big-man would say. Nobody of real intelligence either, he was sure Mute would snidely write on her chalk-board. Nobody who could cast judgement, Old One-eye would mutter around his pipe.
Nobody. Rai Half-head thought to himself as he waters of the Dupandover flowed beneath his feet, and the forest that had so plagued him passed him by at speed on either side of the raft he stood upon. He smirked, pulling his scarred face into a twistedly sardonic expression as the polemen pushed the rickety raft down the wide river, and towards Rai’s crew. Being Nobody was nothing new to Rai Half-head. He’d been nobody for most of his life. His smirk bloomed into a sly grin, his pocked and burned skin stretching into a disturbing mask. He could be nobody. Nobody. Nobody at all.