The first thing Jasper noticed when the adrenaline of the battle finally petered out was the smell. The air in the market was clogged with the harsh, metallic scent of spilled blood coupled with the aroma of charred flesh. Gagging, he tied a bandana around his mouth as he approached S̆ams̆ādur.
“Jasper.” The prince greeted him wearily. His usually well-manicured beard was singed and mangy, with the left side nearly gone altogether, and a bloody bandage was wrapped around his arm, but he appeared otherwise unharmed. “You got here just in time. Course, a little sooner would have been nice,” he grunted.
“We were taking care of the commanders,” Jasper explained. “I think we killed all of them, or damn near all of them.”
“Oh?” S̆ams̆ādur lifted his head. “So that’s where you were. To tell the truth, I’d thought you'd abandoned us. Hadn’t you decided to leave if the gates fell?”
“It just didn’t feel right to leave without at least trying to save the city.”
The prince was slow to respond but finally nodded. “Well, glad you stuck around. You saved our asses there.”
Shrugging the praise off, Jasper turned his attention back to the marked, which was clogged both with piles of corpses and huddled groups of the prisoners that had surrendered. “What’s the plan for them?”
“Marīltu’s going to burn the bodies.”
“I meant the prisoners,” he clarified.
“The enemy?” S̆ams̆ādur grunted. “Who cares?”
“They surrendered,” Jasper reminded him, “I promised them their lives if they surrendered.”
“Then take it up with Marīltu. I need to find my men,” the prince responded dismissively. “Kaŝdael promised to bring them back, but it won’t do for them to wake up beneath a corpse.”
Leaving the prince to his task, Jasper went in search of the Sapīyan commander. The marketplace was in utter chaos, making his task more difficult than it should have been, but after circling around three times, he still hadn’t spotted him and no one he’d asked had known where the commander was. He didn’t fall in the battle, did he?
Giving up on finding the commander, he returned to Samsadur. “Can you have your men guard the prisoners?” He asked. “Just to make sure the soldiers don’t kill them.” He had seen the way the city’s defenders had looked at the men of Strynn and, while he couldn’t entirely blame them, he still couldn’t conscience killing helpless prisoners.
The prince grumbled, but begrudgingly acquiesced. Jasper waited till the guards had taken their place, and then headed for the barracks, eager to escape the market’s stench and to quench his thirst.
“We’re out of water.” The guard standing by the barrack’s door barked as Jasper approached, and he muffled his sigh.
“Anywhere else to get some?”
“The castles should have plenty, but the closest place would be out there.” The guard pointed to the bridge spanning the moat. “All the archers’ towers were equipped with enough food and drink for a week.”
With a grunt, Jasper turned and headed into the darkness. The bridge was slick with blood, and still riddled with the caltrops and other traps the defenders had planted, but the nearest tower loomed just ahead, so he plodded on. He was nearly at the entrance when he felt a faint tingling at the nape of his neck, the creeping sensation that someone was watching him.
He stilled, and turning his back to the water, swept his gaze across the bridge. There was nothing there, nothing but shadows and corpses, and he realized he was being paranoid. Guess my mind’s playing tricks on me. But as he turned back toward the tower, Jasper nearly leapt out of his skin when a voice whispered in his ear.
“Are you one of the foreign mages?”
Fire cascaded down his hands as he spun around, but he met nothing but empty air.
“Where are you? Show yourself?” He gathered his essence, preparing Scourge of Despair, as he searched the shadows.
“Only if you promise to hear me out - I want to talk.” The voice - a woman’s voice he decided upon hearing it for the second time - whispered in his ear again.
Jasper chewed on his cheek as he mulled her offer. He had no idea who the woman was, but he still had the amulet the priests had given him tied around his neck, so he supposed he wasn't in any danger of being mind control. “Fine, I’m willing to listen. But if you attack me, I won’t hesitate to strike back,” he warned.
“I don’t want to fight.” He spun around again as the voice came from behind him, swiveling his head in time to see the shadows open like a cocoon and a woman step out.
Her skin looked burnished bronze in the light of Selene’s rays, and her eyes glowed with a light lavender that spoke of Gemlirian ancestors. Her long black hair was plaited in an elaborate tress that spilled across the stately yellow dress she wore, a dress that belonged in the halls of a palace, not on the battlefield.
What the hell? I was expecting an assassin, not a Disney princess. Jasper’s jaw dropped as the beauty approached him, but he quickly recovered himself, and taking a quick step back, raised his hand in warning. “Don’t come any closer.”
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She paused mid-step, and he noticed another figure standing beside her, a stocky man with a shaved head and a missing eye, who offered him a nod.
“I mean you no harm,” the woman insisted.
“And perhaps you don't, but I’d be a fool to just believe you,” Jasper countered.
A ghost of a smile flitted across her lips as the woman cocked her head. “Fair enough,” she conceded. “But I mean it nonetheless.”
Ignoring her reply, he cut to the heart of the question. “So what do you want? And why are you lurking around on the bridge?”
She answered the last question first. “That was merely a happy coincidence. We were headed into the city in hopes of finding the emperor’s mages when we spied you. You are one of them, aren't you?”
The emperor’s mages? Choosing not to correct her assumptions, he waved for her to continue. “That still doesn’t answer the question of what you want.”
“Amnesty,” the woman replied simply. “Amnesty and protection from my uncle.”
Your uncle? It was obvious the woman, despite her lack of battle attire, had been part of the Stryn army. Judging from her apparent use of magic, Jasper had assumed she was one of their mages who, after seeing the army demolished, had decided to beg for mercy. But none of that explained why she would need the emperor to protect her from her uncle.
“And your uncle is?” he asked, with a growing suspicion.
She flushed. “You don’t know who I am?”
“Sorry,” he shrugged and gestured at his slightly reddish skin. “As you can see, I’m a Djinn and, as I'm sure you know, we rarely travel outside our realm. My knowledge of the empire's nobility is lacking.”
The half-truth seemed to mollify her, and she inclined her head. “I’m Lady Nissilat of House Zilal, the former commander of this army, and my uncle is the king of Stryn.”
The commander? His mind flashed back to the woman who had demanded the city’s surrender. In truth, he didn’t see the resemblance between the commander and the belle standing before him, but the commander had worn a suit of armor and helmet that had hidden her features. I suppose clothes make the man - or woman - as they say.
“I thought we killed you all,” he replied bluntly. “If you were the commander in charge, why weren’t you at the tower?”
Pain flickered in her eyes at his words, and she looked away. “I was the commander,” she repeated the word with emphasis. “I suppose as a Djinn you’re not familiar with the history of my house, but there is bad blood between my uncle and my family. My uncle usurped the throne from my father and has ever feared that we would try to overthrow him.”
“Don’t need your biography,” Jasper cut in. “Are you saying you weren’t the commander during the attack?”
“Not for most of it,” she replied. “Unbeknownst to me, my uncle had given one of my commanders a letter granting him the command instead of me. When I refused to press the attack at night, he seized control. That was why I was not at the tower. None, not even Markinu, stood beside me.”
The note of pain that entered her voice when she spoke the name did not slip past him, and Jasper wondered who he’d been. A friend? A lover? A spouse? Clearly it was someone important to her - and it was also someone they’d killed. At the realization, he subtly prepared a spell again, fearing this was all an elaborate ruse to get him to drop his guard. “So why come to me?” he pressed.
“With all the commanders dead, no one will know that I wasn’t the one who ordered the attack. My uncle will finally have the excuse he’s always wanted to have me imprisoned,” she continued bitterly. “I cannot return home, not like this, but if you take me to the emperor, I’m sure he will reward you.”
Jasper was slow to respond. Part of him was inclined to simply kill her; even if her version of events was true and she hadn’t been the one directly responsible for the assault on the city, she had still led an army to their gates. She could not simply wash her hands of the death and misery that followed.
But he knew he wasn’t so different. He’d allowed himself to be roped into the war against the Zalancthians by his uncle and family. He’d intervened in the battle for Birnah because the king’s daughter was his friend. He didn’t know the lady before him well enough to judge if she was a good person or not, but it would be hypocritical to condemn her simply because she participated in a war that had been going on between the two provinces for centuries.
The fact that she was dressed like a goddamned Disney princess definitely didn’t affect his opinion.
“I might be willing to help you - if the other members of my party agree,” he finally replied. “But I have to warn you, I’m not directly affiliated with the emperor.”
She tensed, as worry flickered in her eyes. “He didn’t send you?”
“I’m part of the Djinn army that was sent to his aid,” he explained. “I got dragged into this more or less by accident.”
“But you can get me to him safely?”
“If my party agrees,” he repeated.
The woman bowed her head. “So be it.”
----------------------------------------
After further discussion, the mage finally agreed to gather his friends and left Nissilât waiting on the bridge for their decision.
“Do you think we can trust him,” Tabîlu grunted. “Nothing is stopping him from coming back with the whole Kruvas̆-cursed army.”
“If he does, we’ll see them coming,” she pointed out. “I have enough essence to spirit us off the bridge unseen.”
“And if he attacks himself?”
“Then at least we won’t die in my uncle’s dungeons,” she snapped back, a shudder running down on her spine as she thought of the torture that awaited in her those dark corridors. “But I don’t think he will. He seemed…” she paused, searching for the right word. “Not exactly soft, but…”
“Genuine,” the man grunted. “He didn’t strike me as one of the snakes in your uncle’s courts. More like a soldier than one of them.”
She nodded her agreement. “Yes, I believe we have a good chance of reaching an agreement as long as his allies don’t object.” She frowned, trying to imagine who they were. Judging from the evidence on the rooftop, there was likely at least one other mage and, of course, the archer who had killed her Markinu. Anger blossomed in her heart as she remembered the arrow quivering in his throat, and her hands clenched into fists. But, taking a deep breath, she forced her hands to open and tamped down on the anger within.
He betrayed me, she reminded herself. If I have to make nice with his killer, then so be it. I'm not willing to die to avenge a traitor. As her breath slowed, she turned her eyes to the risen moon and as the goddess’ gentle face peered down on her, she whispered a prayer. Let this work.