DEIJA

The Darrow Raiders had gotten their name from a prosperous town in Wayman—not because that was where they were from, but because it was one of the first in Sacoridia to be utterly destroyed by them. The populace was massacred to the tiniest soul, anything of value looted, and all the buildings burned to the ground. They, however, did not call themselves “Darrow Raiders,” but Deija, which in the tongue of the Under Kingdoms meant “death.” It was, Laren thought, a pretentious name, but fitting.

Corpse flies. All the corpse flies.

She sat in the darkness and silence of her quarters, eyes closed, finally allowing herself to let her guard down out of the view of all, even her Riders. An ache throbbed in her temple. Corpse flies, always the corpse flies swarming the dead the Raiders left in their wake. Even now she could hear the incessant buzz of wings, see flies clouding above the bodies, crawling over an eye, or into the gaping mouth of a victim who had been cut down in the middle of a scream. Corpses alive with larvae eating them from the inside out.

She could hear it now, the buzzing, smell the peculiar stench of rent bowels and sweet rot. How it would cling to her for days afterward. Hastily, she sipped a cup of whiskey. She hardly ever touched the stuff, but this night she needed to feel its burn because the Darrow Raiders—Death—had her daughter, and because their return caused so many memories to resurface that she had worked so hard to bury.

The town of Darrow and its inhabitants were long dead. What happened there had been horrible enough that no one ever tried to repopulate it. Only the forest reclaimed the streets and the remains of foundations, and it no longer appeared on maps. Darrow was gone, but the Raiders were back.

She thought about how innocent she’d been before hearing the Rider call and becoming a Green Rider. She’d led a carefree life on the river in Penburn, with her brothers always around to protect her. The only deaths she knew of were the peaceful passings of elders, and the occasional river-running accident. When she’d become one of Queen Isen’s own messengers during the age of the Darrow Raiders, all that changed.

She took another swallow of her whiskey. She’d been able to fend off the memories earlier while she spoke with Ty, while she sat and planned with Connly and Mara, while she met with Zachary, but no more. The images came at a furious rate, images of the mutilated remains of her fellow Riders, of innocent children, of people caught in the most mundane of acts—hanging laundry on the clothesline, sitting down for dinner, working the fields. Then there was the last time she’d seen her Sam. He’d been a post rider, a job almost as dangerous as a Green Rider’s for the amount of time spent on the road, the parcels the post rider carried a target of robbers in the best of times. He had been taken on one of his rounds and tortured, parts of him sent back to his post master’s headquarters in the very bags that held the mail, strapped to his pack mule. Her Sam. Her first love.

A keening swelled in her chest, but she clenched her fists, and trembling, throttled it back. At the time, she had wanted to end her own life, for without Sam, it had seemed the end of everything worth living for, but her captain had redirected her grief by brutally stoking her need for vengeance so that she’d once again be useful to the Green Riders and Queen Isen. Isen had charged her Riders with eliminating the Darrow Raiders, and so they in turn became a favorite target of the Darrow Raiders. Laren rose quickly in the ranks, not solely because she was so good at her job, but because so many of her comrades were killed and someone had to take their place.

The Raiders called her the Red Witch because she was able to tell when those they managed to take prisoner were lying or speaking truth. She’d been made to endure the interrogations of several of them as they boasted about their slaughter. It had hardened her still more.

She splashed more whiskey into her cup, then pulled out the wooden box that contained her medals and opened it. Elgin kept them at high polish. Medals of courage, bravery, mostly for her actions to end the scourge of the Darrow Raiders. She turned up the lamplight and tilted the box this way and that to see how they glistened. She wore them only on formal occasions, and only because Elgin insisted on it.

Medals for the slaughter she herself had committed. The Darrow Raiders held no dominion on brutality. The nadir of the queen’s plan to destroy the Raiders had been Laren’s own strategy. They’d discovered the Raiders’ base camp and poisoned the water, but it had only made them sick and had not killed them. So she and her comrades entered the camp and killed the ill men where they lay on the ground groaning and rolling in their own waste. She’d gone mad with blood lust, using her sword with unnecessary savagery. She’d saved Urz, their leader, for last and hacked him to pieces until she wore his blood from head to foot. Red Witch, indeed.

For the slaying of sick men unable to defend themselves, she was given Sacoridia’s highest military honor, the Crescent Moon. She threw the medals on the floor and covered her eyes with her hand. There were no tears, not even for Sam. The time for tears was long past.

“Red,” said a quiet voice.

She looked up with a start, hadn’t heard Elgin come in. He looked at the medals scattered on the floor, but did not move to pick them up. He reached for the bottle of whiskey and squinted to read the label.

“That’s good stuff,” he said.

“Is it? Zachary gave it to me years ago. A Night of Aeryc gift, I think.”

“How much have you had?”

That was a good question. She was a bit fuzzy-headed. “One or two. Or three. Four?”

Elgin raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t remark on it. Instead, he asked, “Mind if I join you?”

“Help yourself.”

He rummaged around her quarters for a clean cup, found a mug, and poured. Then he settled down in a chair across from her and sipped.

“This is the kind of stuff you take your time drinking,” he said. “Savor.”

“Not why I’m drinking it,” she mumbled.

“I figured. I heard about Ty’s news.”

“And?”

“I heard you are going to the mountains where the Raiders are. I’m going with you.”

“Elgin—”

“Now don’t you deny me, Red. It’s my history, too, and I also lost friends. I still have ghosts whispering in my ear in deepest night begging me to save them.”

“I know.”

“I won’t let you sacrifice yourself.”

“Tell me, Elgin, what would you do if it were your own daughter being held by the Raiders?”

“I’d make ’em pay.”

“You wouldn’t try to rescue her?”

Elgin shifted in his chair, took a sip of whiskey. “I don’t rightly know what I’d do. I don’t have children. Likely I’d do anything I could to get her back.”

“And if official policy forbids treating with hostage takers?”

“Policy be damned.”

Laws, rules, policies were usually set for good reasons. The policy of not negotiating with criminals was a good one, but this time it was personal and Elgin’s words mirrored how she felt.

“I’d sacrifice anything for my daughter.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of, Red,” Elgin replied.

“I will not let them harm her.”

“I know that.”

“Then if you are coming with us, you’d best sharpen your sword.”

“It has never been dull.”

She believed it. “Then, to begin with, you can help Mara and Connly get the Riders ready to go.”

“Who you leaving behind?”

“I’m leaving Mara in command here with most of the new Riders. Maybe Merla so she can keep working on the wards around the castle.”

“Most of the new ones? You are taking some green Greenies with us? Won’t they be underfoot?”

“Just one, actually, and you know very well green Greenies are never underfoot.”

“Red, just what are we up against?”

“We’re not up against Urz, and that’s a good thing.” She passed her hand over her eyes to clear them of the vision of the Raider’s expression as her saber hacked into him. “Torq isn’t as clever as Urz. Urz was the brains. Torq was always more the enforcer. However, he was never stupid, and who knows what scheming he’s been up to over all these years. Besides figuring out how to bait me for his revenge, that is.”

“Where do you think he’s been hiding all this time?”

She shrugged. “Sulking somewhere in the Under Kingdoms, no doubt.” Urz and Torq, brothers, were from the Under Kingdoms, of course, and it was where they formed their group of raiders after the Under Kingdoms had been subdued by Sacoridia in war. Sacoridia had not been a gentle victor, and resentment against the victors had been the foundation of the Darrow Raiders. “Thing is, he has a point.”

She hadn’t realized she had spoken aloud until Elgin asked, “What point? And who?”

“Torq. About vengeance.”

“Now I know you’ve had too much to drink.”

“Elgin, you weren’t there in the end when we finally took out the Raiders, Urz.”

“They had it coming.”

“But from Torq’s viewpoint, we killed his brother and fellow Raiders in a dishonorable way, and he’s right about that.”

“Torq knows nothing of honor,” Elgin said. “The Raiders never showed honor toward Riders or any of their victims.”

“And Sacoridian troops committed atrocities in the Under Kingdoms, which in turn produced the Darrow Raiders. Where does it end, Elgin, this vengeance? It just goes round in circles. His eye for mine.”

“It ends when we take down the last of the Raiders.”

“And what will that spawn? In some places, and not just in the Under Kingdoms, they are folk heroes.”

“You don’t seem to want my answers, Red, and I can’t help you with that. I can only help you with the here and now, and the answer to that is stopping Torq and his band of criminals from ravaging the countryside again.”

She considered his words, but the whiskey had dulled her thoughts. He had no answers, nor did she.

His mug clinked on a side table as he set it down. “Well, then, I suppose I ought to start getting my gear ready.” He stood.

Laren looked him over critically. “You need to wear some green.”

“Eh? I’m not a Green Rider, not anymore.”

“Retired or not, you are. Elgin, we are going to battle. You may not be at the front line, but others need to identify you as one of our own. I will speak with the quartermaster.”

“I guess I don’t know what to say to that, except to wish you good night. Never expected to be facing Raiders again.”

“Raiders and, very likely, Second Empire.”

He nodded. “Now don’t you drink much more, Red, you’ll regret it in the morning.”

“Goodnight, old friend.”

She watched him limp his way out into the night. He and his ancient mare, Killdeer, were not up to active combat. She’d ensure they remained well out of the fray.

She stood and the room heaved. She caught the back of her chair. Oh, dear. She was indeed going to regret having imbibed of the whiskey come morning. There was so much to do, too. First thing on her list was to sharpen her saber.