Chapter 4
Captain Yang
I have no idea what just happened. This entire mission was meant to be easy. Granted, we were sent up to this small village to draft Castor Barr, a legendary warrior. But I had not expected to find… whatever I have found.
Blinking, I shake my head as I stare down at the now comatose Yin. I have rendered her unconscious with a sleeping spell, or at least I hope I have.
“Captain,” Shang says from behind me. I half turn my head but am unwilling to take my eyes off the comatose woman.
Surprising doesn’t even begin to define this situation. Complicated comes close. While my original mission was to draft Castor and other able-bodied men in this village, now things have become confusing.
Ordinarily, the Royal Army does not draft women. But there are still some women amongst its ranks, especially sorcerers. With the power a trained sorcerer can bring to battle, only a fool would reject one from the army based on gender alone.
As every officer knows, it is their obligation to bring the existence of any sorcerer to the awareness of the high command, especially in times of conscription. One powerful sorcerer, after all, can easily change the tide of battle.
So I know what I have to do. I must take her back to the capital, and from there, hand her over to the high command. Either she will be deemed untrainable, or she will be absorbed into the ranks of the army. If she is deemed untrainable, however, who knows what the high command will decide to do. In times of war, they are just as keen to keep hold of their sorcerers as they are not to let said sorcerers fall into the hands of the enemy.
Shang mutters something to me, but I ignore him. For several more seconds, I lean there next to her. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I think she has somehow managed to resist my sleep spell, and will jump to her feet, magic blazing from her hand once more.
My sleep spell appears to be holding, however. I’m still wary of her, though.
While she seems impetuous, I can’t deny she is also powerful. She gave two groups of my soldiers a tough fight. Including Lieutenant Shang, one of the finest plant sorcerers in my division.
“Sir, we need to move. I do not trust those rain clouds. I fear there might be snow on the horizon, and we can’t afford to be trapped in this village. We must make it back to the capital,” Shang advises.
I mutely nod my head. While Shang fears that snow is on the way, I know it is. I can feel it. The power within my Arak device is practically humming with the certainty that snow will soon fall. A curious fact considering it’s barely autumn. But these mountain ranges are high, and a good captain knows that the weather can change in an instant.
I push myself up, but for a few more seconds, I stare down at her.
Her hair is a mess over her shoulders and face. Black and clogged with mud, it looks as if it’s barely been brushed in a year. That’s not to say anything of the simple tunic and pants she’s wearing. They are torn, singed, and dirty.
“Captain,” Shang tries to capture my attention once more.
I turn.
Then the questions start to flood into my mind like a tidal wave. What exactly happened here? And who is this girl?
Neatening my breastplate, I turn my attention to Castor Barr. Throughout the entire ordeal, he screamed at Yin to stop, but he did not intervene. He was not shackled, nor was he tied down, and considering his reputation, he could have easily taken on my men. Yet he just stood there, watching, begging her, but doing nothing to help.
My eyebrows crumpling down over my narrowed eyes, I run a thumb over my chin. “I thought you vowed never to train anyone again?” I ask Castor as I face off against him.
His lips are pressed closed, and there is a fiery look in his eyes. But again he doesn’t answer.
Not a word.
“You know what we must do,” I note.
Now Castor’s eyes narrow even further, and though I try to fight it, a twinge of fear escapes up my back.
I know better than most what Castor is capable of. The very last man he trained in combat was my own father.
Still, I hold my ground, sidestepping my fear as I straighten up. “We have an obligation to take any sorcerers back to the capital for conscription into the army,” I note needlessly, knowing full well that Castor Barr would understand the regulations of the Royal Army. He was, after all, one of her finest soldiers for almost 30 years.
But then, as the story goes, something happened and Castor Barr disappeared. Renouncing his ties to all friends and family, he became a mere herbalist in the mountains.
And, as I’ve just learned, he accepted one apprentice during that time. A woman called Yin.
“If you do anything to her, I will rip your throat out,” Castor now says.
For a man with perfect discipline, his emphatic threat shakes me. Of course it does. I can see it affects the rest of my men too. There’s something about Castor’s deep, rumbling, gruff tone that would shake through even the strongest man.
Yet once again, I remain standing. Swallowing lightly, I shake my head. “We have no intention of harming her. Despite the fact she,” I break eye contact with Castor as I look around the shattered road, “did significant damage to this village and threatened the lives of imperial soldiers, she will not be treated as a criminal. We simply intend to follow the dictates of the law.”
Castor stares at me. While I spent almost the entire battle staring at the mysterious Yin, the quality of Castor’s gaze is different.
Cold. Contained, but ferocious too.
As a sorcerer of the Royal Army, I was taught from a young age to control my emotions. From fear to elation to surprise to love, I have been trained to purge myself of distraction.
Right now, I can’t stop the sweat from prickling across my brow.
Surreptitiously I make a fist, open it, and then make another one. I pump my fingers back and forth, reminding myself that at any moment I can call upon the power of my Arak band.
Before Yin showed up and demanded the release of Castor, I had been negotiating with the man. Not once during that negotiation did he mention her existence, though I had learned of it from other men in the village. Though I want to raise that point with him now, all I can do is swallow again.
“Captain,” Shang begins.
I pull up a hand to silence him. I can’t afford him saying anything that will inflame Castor. One look in that man’s eyes tells me that he is on edge.
“You have my word we will not harm her,” I say, trying to make my words sincere.
I succeed. For that is something else I have been trained in. By controlling my emotions, I can subtly alter the tone of my voice, making it easier for people to trust me.
Though I rely on that ability now, I do so with a heavy heart. There is something… empty about it. In fact, there’s something empty about my abilities in general. With such fine control of my emotion, sometimes I don’t even feel human anymore. I often consider myself little more than my training and abilities. Whatever soul I once had, I’ve spent years ignoring until it’s almost disappeared completely.
But there is one thing I hold on to. One ability. One force.
Loyalty.
My father taught me that. Inadvertently, but he still ingrained that lesson into my bones and blood.
My entire personality is devoted to my loyalty to my kingdom, the men under my command, and my Queen. I tell myself, practically every night as I drift off to sleep, that I will do anything for them.
As I remind myself of that fact, I stand straighter.
“You can trust us,” I try, “I will vouch for her safety.”
Castor suddenly laughs, but it isn’t full of mirth. His derision is obvious. “I know how they train you sorcerers in the army. I know not to trust a word that comes out of your lips.”
I start to feel frustrated, anger cracking through my emotional control, but soon enough I take a breath and push it away. “You can trust me,” I say again calmly. “We have no intention of harmi
ng your apprentice,” I choose my words carefully, “she appears to be a powerful sorcerer, and the army can use any soldier it can get right now.”
Again Castor laughs. He doesn’t say anything, though. He shakes his head and stares at me.
I try to stare back, but all too soon find I can’t hold his gaze. So instead I find my head dipping to the side and my eyes traveling back to the comatose woman behind me.
If she hadn’t come charging into town, demanding the release of her uncle, we would never have known about her. Perhaps, that had been Castor’s plan.
“Captain, we should move out,” Shang insists again.
Once more I find it hard to pull my attention off Yin. It isn’t just because she’s a woman lying in the mud after fighting an entire army unit. No, it’s the strange, still sense about her as she sleeps.
There’s something… mysterious about her. It goes beyond the fact she is a powerful sorcerer. My own mother was a sorcerer, so I have little trouble accepting that fact.
It’s something more. Something I can’t put my finger on.
“Sir,” Shang insists once more.
“Round up the men,” I begin, yanking my gaze off Yin, “and secure them in the cart.”
“And what about her?” Shang points to Yin, and as he does, Castor’s gaze narrows in on me.
I’m fully aware that I have to be careful here. Though I am relatively confident that my entire unit could take on the great Castor Barr if we had to, I would rather this not descend into all-out battle. I’ve already ruined more of this town than I should have.
“Release her,” I say carefully, “and take her to the cart. But be careful not to hurt her. And allow Castor to travel alongside her,” I add, fearful Castor will growl and threaten to rip my throat out again.
I see Shang’s expression sour. He knows full well that’s a risk. But I don’t have another option. I have to play a very careful game here. We need Castor on our side, and if that means letting him travel with Yin, then so be it.
Before Shang can point out how stupid my plan sounds, I nod my head. “I will travel in the cart alongside them,” I say to reassure him.
His expression hardly improves, but soon enough he shakes his head and then spreads his fingers wide. There’s a cracking, grating sound as the roots that once held Yin in place suddenly coil back into the ground like hands disappearing into long sleeves.
“Very well, sir,” Shang says in a disbelieving tone as he moves down to pick Yin up.
I watch Castor tense out of the corner of my eye. Yet as Shang picks Yin up, Castor does not snap and attack.
I can see he wants to, though.
Hell, I can feel the anger washing off him in powerful waves. If I hadn’t spent so many years controlling my emotions, I’d be shaking in my boots.
But something, something is holding Castor Barr back. Regardless of whether he wants to rip my throat out, as he puts it, he’s standing there.
I want to know why. In fact, I want to know everything. From who she is to why on earth one of the greatest warriors in the history of the Kingdom bothered to train her.
I’m not going to find my answers yet, though, especially not with Castor glaring at me with the power of 1000 suns.
Soon enough Shang loads Yin into one of the carts, and they allow Castor to climb up beside her. Immediately Castor loops an arm around her back and allows her head to rest on his shoulder. He’s acting exactly like a protective father – a father ready to take on the entire world if he has to.
It doesn’t take long to load up the other men from the village, but I insist they are all squeezed into one of the other carts. I intend to travel alone with Castor and Yin. That way there will be fewer variables. If there were other people crammed into our cart, I wouldn’t want to run the risk of Castor using them as some kind of distraction.
The trip back to the capital should only take a day and a half, but I command the soldiers to push our horses to the limit. Not only can I feel the snow descending from the mountains, but I want Castor and Yin firmly inside the Royal Army’s walls as soon as possible.
Still, it’s going to be a long day, I realize as I settle down on the narrow, uncomfortable seat of the cart. I feel the horses turn around, and the cart jumps up and down as its wheels negotiate the uneven road. The sound of their hooves and the grating crunch of the wheels fills the cart, but it is somehow not loud enough to mask Castor’s breathing. It’s deep, it’s controlled, and it is calm.
Which can’t be said for me right now.