Chapter 9

Armando watched enviously as the imperial spies fussed over their captain. Even the grumpy mage showed some concern, throwing some amulet into the barrel and heating the water in a minute. He said, admiring the steam rising above the barrel:

- This thing could burn through a palm-thick oak sash, and instead I'm wasting it to save one brainless, century-old adventuress from catching a cold.

- We... w-w-we can't stay here too long, - the elf replied slurringly. Along with the attack of weakness, a large shiver ran through her, and now the captain was trying her best not to grit her teeth. - Someone was always coming here, then leaving... at any moment there could be... visitors.....

Sergeant Dallan threw the leather cloak she'd found on the floor over her commander's shoulders. Sitting down beside her, she hugged Valria tightly around the shoulders from behind, and without saying a word, pressed her cheek against elfess cheek. The elven woman, who often shuddered with her whole body, smiled weakly. And de Gorazzo whispered to Gotech:

- This is unfair. The Imperials have three beautiful girls in their squad, and all three are occupied. And two of them are with each other. Outrageous.

- Actually, there are four girls, - the black-skinned giant smirked, also keeping his eyes on the elf and the sergeant. - And the fourth is free, I'm pretty sure. By the way, to my taste, she is the most beautiful one.

- What else... - Armando felt a chill, and he saw two golden lights flicker on in the darkest corner of the barn. The bailiff swallowed. The lights went out immediately. - You've got to be kidding me.

Looking around warily, Lady Maria entered the barn. She had one hand on the scabbard of her sword, and in the other she was carrying a long gray bundle. Seeing the commander, the girl-guard nodded:

- Lady Valria.

- And to you... g-greetings.

- There was no one in the house. - Maria turned to the mage. - I found some papers there, hardly important. But just in case, I packed them up and sent the corporal to fetch the horses. I'll study them later.

- Good work. - Master Carlon touched the water in the barrel with his finger. With a hum, he scooped it up with a wooden ladle.

- There were also some of the captain's belongings in the chest, - the guardswoman continued, approaching Valria and Dallan. - I thought you might want to see your rifle, so I brought it with me.

Maria unwrapped the gray cloth, and it turned out that the bundle concealed a short-barreled rifle of unusually fine workmanship. The elven woman reached out her hands to it, grabbed it, and immediately pressed it to her chest, cradling it like a baby. She said, smiling:

- Thank you, white one. Ouch!

Master Carlon poured a ladle of hot water over the captain's head. Asked:

- Can you walk?

- You fool! The water got on the barrel! If it starts to rust...

- Can you walk?

- I don't know. - The elfess pouted childishly and began to wipe the water drops off the gun with a dry corner of her cloak. - Carry me in your arms.

- Uh, no. The corporal will get the horses and I'll tie you to your Snowflake's tail. By the ears.

Without listening to any more of their bickering, Armando turned to Maria, who had stepped aside:

- Lady, did you notice if there were any signs of another prisoner in the house?

- I'm afraid I can't say, - the tall girl shook her head. - I found a lot of men's clothes and personal belongings, but they may belong to the guards.

- Damn. - De Gorazzo bit his fingernail. Gotech put a hand on his shoulder:

- Do not be disheartened. Something tells me our imperial friends have more useful things to say than Her Majesty's informant. And we weren't contracted to save his ass.

- You're right, Don, - said the elf who shouldn't have heard the bailiff speaking in a low voice. She was already standing, leaning unceremoniously on the mage, and Sergeant Dallan was carefully wiping the commander's body with a wet cloth. The elf's trembling subsided, her speech regained strength. - We have much to talk about. But we will not talk here. Just bear with me for a moment, will you?

Leaving the barn, the bailiffs found that it was finally dawning outside. The day promised to be sunny and warm, the sky shining azure. Before Corporal Green returned with the horses, the captain had time to tidy up and dress. Her nakedness did not embarrass her in the slightest, but hiding her bruises under her slightly wrinkled, elegant costume, she cheered up considerably.

- Of course, these knuckleheads didn't discuss anything in front of me, - Valria said, pulling on long, soft gloves with black embroidery on the ample gauntlets. - But they don't know the elves very well. Those ears aren't just for beauty, are they? When they were escorting the messengers back to the house, I could make out some of their conversation. And before I was caught....

The girl tightened the strap of her armor belt around her chest and pulled on a hat with a brim decorated with a brass medallion. She inhaled deeply, her long ears perked up so that their pointed tips touched the brim of the hat. She exhaled and smiled dazzlingly:

- There, I'm all right. Your commander is ready to fight again.

- Run a hundred paces back and forth, - Master Carlon suggested.

- Scr...

A high-pitched hiss came from the edge of the forest. A lizard appeared from behind the trees, leading the horses of Master and Maria, followed by the others. In addition to the pack horses, the small herd included a war stallion unfamiliar to Armando and a white, thin-legged mare with a well-groomed, long mane. De Gorazzo guessed without prompting that the mare was the captain's Snowflake, and the stallion probably belonged to Sergeant Dallan.

- Well done, Green. - The elfess patted the lizard on the shoulder, and the lizard responded by snapping its jaws open and closed. The corporal had dressed as well, and Armando noted that in his deep hooded cloak, boots and gloves he could look like a man even up close. - Now, who would put the beautiful, delicate, and practically weightless elven lady in the saddle?

For at least two hours, the group had been winding through forest paths, overgrown clearings, and shady glades, trying to cover their tracks. Captain Valria, barely able to stay on her saddle, gave instructions, telling them to change course, to stop and cover their hoofprints with branches, or to scatter pepper powder. The rest of the Imperials obeyed her unquestioningly, even Master Carlon refrained from grumbling and teasing.

- Now I believe the captain served as a jaeger in the war, - Gotech said to his friend. The bailiffs rode at the tail of the group, lagging behind at times to whisper. Both of them, however, remembered the elf's confession, and had no doubt that she could hear them perfectly well. - We had dealt with elven Imperial jaegers a couple of times, and it was something you couldn't forget. They are worthless in close combat, but they can jump out from behind any tree, put an arrow in you and run away. And if an elf's gone off in the woods, it's best to forget about the chase. I'm surprised she got caught.

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- This is not how I imagined imperial spies, - de Gorazzo admitted. - Elven jaeger, war mage, lizard man, dead guard, living guard... and a sergeant.

- The sergeant is too normal for this company, - the one-armed giant agreed. - But look on the bright side - the group is very versatile, albeit conspicuous. If they're hunting outsiders, they can't know what skills and talents they'll need.

The elven commander seemed to be planning to lead the squad in zigzags until noon, but at some point her strength left her completely. The girl began to slip from the saddle, dropping her head on her chest every now and then, either falling asleep or losing consciousness for a brief moment. She had to stop at the roots of an immense old tree, near a shallow forest stream.

- You should take a nap, - Sergeant Dallan suggested as Valria dismounted.

- We've been trying the patience of our new friends long enough, - the captain shook her head. - There were some coffee beans left in my saddlebag, you didn't chew them dry without me?

- Who would touch that stinky stuff? - Master Carlon waved it away. - Only Dallan pretends she's not sick of your coffee.

- That's not true, - the sergeant objected. The elf snorted, dropping the tips of her ears to her shoulders:

- A steppe barbarian brewing dried herbs. Just put a cauldron of water on the fire. I'll do it myself.

- Why don't I make you some coffee while you start answering my questions, lady? - suggested Armando, who was tired of feeling like an extra in this camp.

- Don, do you know how to make coffee? - The pointy-eared girl's face brightened, and she looked at the royal bailiff with a look of delight and disbelief.

- A little. - In fact, coffee was Donna Vittoria's favorite, addicted to a strange bitter drink during her student years. Armando had learned to make the stinking beans recently, for purely romantic reasons - he wanted to treat the necromancer. The don himself was not used to coffee; he could only drink it with a few lumps of crushed sugar in his cup. - You start your story.

Comfortably sprawled out on the blanket, tucking the roll of her cloak under her side, the elfess said:

- Just so you understand, noble dons, my squad are not professional spies. We are mercenaries, though we are often hired by Imperial Intelligence. A couple years ago, we were on a mission to investigate an abandoned royal fort on the neutral strip. The fort was used for magical research at the end of the war.

- Coalition mages were trying to open some kind of unusual portal that moved not in space, but... beyond it, if I may say so, - said Master Carlon, who had returned with a pile of brushwood.

- What do you mean, beyond? - Gotech did not understand.

- All in order. - The elfess waved her hand at the Master, telling him to shut up. - It turns out that the Empire has long been monitoring strange activity in the Kingdom of Iderling... in the Kingdom of Daert, that is. Your former king had created a sort of secret scientific order that was supposed to seek weapons to defeat the Empire in areas of magic and science where no military research had been conducted before. Only fifty people knew of the Order's existence - the King himself, the Crown Prince, two dozen mages, and a few wealthy and influential nobles from various countries of the Coalition who provided the Order with finances, bases, and servants. Most of the mages were demonologists, and they worked on two fronts - increasing control over summoned demons and... traveling between the planes of reality.

- In fact, these two areas are closely related, - the mage, who was busy building fire, interjected again. - In fact, one builds on the other, but it would take a long time to explain.

- So shut up. - The elfess threw a pebble at him. - Basically, in an attempt to increase control over the demons, the mages tried to combine the practice of summoning and the magic of transportation portals. I don't know how exactly it worked, but it turned out to be... not so good. Several times the experiments ended in disasters - the energy bursts from the burst portals destroyed everything around them. After losing two or three bases, the Order shut down the research, and then the king decided to disband it altogether. But in the last experiment, the Order's mages managed to briefly open a portal... to a parallel world.

- To the Hell, was it? - de Gorazzo frowned. - To the demons?

- That's just it, no,- the elf shook her chin. Sergeant Dallan brought a cauldron of water, set it over the fire, and handed Armando a pouch of grinded coffee beans. - A portal opened into the ordinary material world. It was almost a copy of ours, with grass, sky, trees... Only without magic. Apparently, that world had no magical energy of its own, and the artifacts transferred from our side were instantly discharged. The mages managed to pull a man from the other side before the portal burst again. That was the end of the Order's work, and the man from that world, thanks to his resistance to magic, which he retained here, became a spy and an assassin in the service of the kingdom... That's what Imperial Intelligence thought a year ago.

- And now it doesn't think so? - Gotech guessed. Armando took up the pot - he was used to making coffee in a special copper vessel in Vittoria's kitchen, brewing beans in the field was new to the bailiff.

- Now we believe that that last portal didn't burst, - the captain said with a weighty voice. The drama in her words seemed to de Gorazzo to be a bit contrived. - It still works, and it still connects our world to a world without magic.

- So these strangers... - Armando looked away from the boiling water to meet Valria's eyes. The imperial elf nodded:

- Yes. Strangers who are not affected by magic are aliens from another world. They can't conjure, but it's also... as if they themselves don't exist for magic. And the technology in their world has outpaced ours by centuries. Probably because the people there had to do without magic.

- And how did you learn all this?

- One grain of sand, one grain at a time, pieced together from scraps of knowledge. - The elfess propped a fist on her cheek, one ear down, parallel to her shoulder. She looked sleepy. - Somewhere an ordinary performer was caught, somewhere a letter was intercepted, somewhere a spy heard a caveat that he didn't understand but remembered and passed on with the report... Oh, I can smell it already! You're doing a good job, Don.

- So what do the outsiders want? And what does this have to do with the murder of the royal family? And the assassination attempt on your Duchess? - de Gorazzo smelled coffee too. He sucked in a breath and made a heroic effort not to grimace.

- We don't know the details. At first, apparently, your mages came into contact with the state or organization on the other side of the portal, tried to agree on mutually beneficial cooperation. But at some point, it seems that the direct leadership of the Order among the mages and their sponsors found a common interest with outsiders that was not favorable to... the Coalition as a whole. Perhaps they promised something to the outsiders, and in exchange they pledged to help them come to power. The king became unnecessary and was removed along with his heir and a number of people who knew of the Order's existence. The Order completely detached itself from the kingdom and gained independence. Now it is trying to influence the countries of the Coalition, relying on the power of mages, the wealth of sponsors and the help of outsiders.

- Let me guess. - Gotech held his ghastly iron hook up to his face and tasted the sharpness of its tip with his fingernail. - Auguste Strong, Grand Duke de Veronne is one of the sponsors of the Order?

- That is correct, Don, - the elfess smiled wryly at him. - And in addition to him, at least two of the three leaders of the Republic of Iolia. Three great dukes of the Coalition have died in the last year, and they were not always succeeded by direct heirs. I assume the new dukes are proxies of the Order. The same thing was tried in Elvart, but the weak base prevented it - the Order's influence in the Empire is lower. They tried the same thing in the kingdom...

- But Queen Octavia prevented it, - Armando realized.

- Yes. Unlike her father and brother, Octavia didn't know about the Order, and the Order didn't know about her. Now your young queen is a bone in the throat of their plans. - The elfess pulled off her long glove only to snap her fingers and immediately put it back on. - And so we are prepared to reveal all the cards to her. Through you, noble dons. This is about the safety not only of the Empire, but of the world.

- Her Majesty is unlikely to believe such an incredible story without proof, - De Ardano pointed out reasonably.

- So we'll get her the best proof of it: a live prisoner. - The captain's smile grew wider. - Don Armando, give me some coffee, or I'll fall face down in front of you. I can smell it's ready.

The young official handed the elfess a mug. The girl sniffed the stinking black brew with pleasure, perked up her ears in delight, and sipped. She said:

- The strangers and their allies are up to their necks in the barons' conspiracy here in the west of the kingdom. Of course, they've set up an operational headquarters nearby. I managed to overhear and find out that the coordinator of the outsiders' network of agents is sitting in one of the baron's castles. One Mr. Fulcanelli. A big shot. We can't scrape him out of the castle, but he gets regular visits from low-flying birds, I think with reports and instructions.

- What kind of castle? - Gotech quickly clarified.

- Castr Albeni.

- Is it on the list? - The black-skinned giant looked questioningly at Armando. He nodded:

- Yes, there is. One of the most active radio stations there.

- Then it's all right.

- What list? - The elven woman was surprised, shifting her gaze from one bailiff to the other.

- We have our secrets too, lady. - It was Armando's turn to smile enigmatically at the captain. - I'll explain later. So you want to catch one of the chief stranger's lieutenants?

- Yep. - Valria took a huge gulp of coffee, draining the cup a third of the way down. - I got caught getting very close to one of their escorts. At least now I know what the stranger we're looking for looks like and what his name is. Some kind of paper rat, carrying some kind of invoice to Fulcanelli. He's at the castle now, so we can intercept him on his way back. And he will, and in the next few days.

- After your capture and escape, they will surely beef up security. - Gotech tasted the sharpness of the hook again, this time with the pad of his finger.

- I'm sure they will, - the elf agreed eagerly. - I'm sure they'll send him back with a whole troop. So the main question is how to steal him away from the squad. I propose to think over the problem together.

- Tell me, lady, - Armando chewed his lip, still feeling the pungent smell of boiled coffee in his nostrils, - will your plan of kidnapping be easier if we add to it... I don't know... for example, - the bailiff rolled his eyes, - a dragon?...?