True Warriors Sing, Rowan Erlking [free ebook reader txt] 📗

her father’s head at the neck.

“Father, stop!” Ljev shouted.

He ran straight up to the king, grasping the sword to wrench it from his grip.

The king’s face was white, staring straight at Ljev.

LjuBa threw herself between the blade and her father, closing her eyes.

The crowd gasped.

Waiting for punishment for defying the king, LjuBa whispered to her father, weeping, “I’m back, Father! You’re safe!”

“LjuBa…” he murmured.

“LjuBa!” SoFija and S’vjeTa called out, rushing from the side of the room, their arms clasping her in an embrace, all of them lumping between weapon and exposed neck. “Heavens! LjuBa, where have you been?”

“Where has she been?” the king exclaimed in a shout.

The sisters looked up at the king who was glaring at Ljev as the squire shoved the sword off with his bare arm.

“Where have you been?” the king shouted at Ljev.

Averting his eyes, Ljev replied, “I’ve been out.”

“Out?” The king’s face contorted as he pulled back from the squire. “I’ve had all my warriors looking for you! You’ve worried me out of my mind!”

“I was with good company!” Ljev snapped back.

LjuBa peered up at him then looked to the king. She rose, trembling. “Ljev?”

Closing his eyes, Ljev cringed. He opened them only to look apologetic at LjuBa.

“You’re the prince?” She could not stop from shaking. It wasn’t fear. It was something else entirely, almost a feeling of betrayal.

He nodded. Then he turned to look at the king. “MiKial was training me to become a warrior. You should not punish him for that. Let him up.”

The king cast Ljev a tired look that LjuBa recognized as one Ljev occasionally held when he didn’t like what she was saying. They were king and son. It was clear now she had been fooled that entire time though it felt impossible that such a sniveling squire had been a prince. Of course the man before her now looked every single bit like a prince. His posture was strong, his eyes focused. He did not stoop for anyone now.

“He defied me,” the king replied. “He snuck you out of the palace—”

“At my request!” Ljev snapped back, taking a step towards his father, puffing up his chest. “How else was I supposed to become a warrior king? I certainly couldn’t do it inside the protective walls of the palace! You coddled me!”

“I wanted you safe!” the king barked back. His fists clenched.

“Let him up!” Ljev shouted to the guards. When they didn’t budge with glances to the king, Ljev shoved them off MiKial himself.

MiKial lifted his eyes to his ‘squire’, almost smirking. Under his breath, LjuBa’s father said, “Well, you’ve certainly become bolder.”

LjuBa still stared at Ljev with hurt. Then she glanced to her father who straightened up, his eyes peeking at her with assessing glances.

Ljev then turned to face his father again. “Father, I’ve come back to report on my journey.”

“Oh,” the king gave a snort with a glance at LjuBa, “So that is the only reason you came back, is it?”

“No.” Ljev stepped to the center of the room, turning with a look to the others watching also. “I had not originally intended to be gone long at all. But a mishap led me, and I’m afraid MiKial’s daughter as well, on a wild chase throughout the Eastern Provenance.”

“You entered the Eastern Provenance by yourself?” The king looked utterly appalled, likely to slap Ljev with the way he was staring at him. “What were you thinking?”

Blushing with a glance over his shoulder, Ljev said, “I was thinking that MiKial was in danger.”

Several of the guards chuckled, even as the king gave Ljev an incredulous stare.

“I know,” Ljev murmured, “It was foolish to assume that. I see it now.”

“But where did you go that it took over a week to come back?” the king snapped.

LjuBa’s sisters were asking her that in whispers also, though MiKial waited for Ljev’s answer, his eyes watching the prince square his shoulders to report that he at last had become a warrior.

But Ljev looked to LjuBa. “You are the warriess, it is your right to make this report.”

She blinked at him, flushing. It was not quite enough to absolve him for pretending to be a mere squire, but it filled the ache some as he helped her regain some of the dignity she had lost in that desperate run to save her father’s life.

LjuBa walked from her sisters up to the king and bowed down on one knee. “Your Highness, Ljev…I mean the prince and I marched into the center of Eastern Provenance to the town of DiNo where there we have an outpost tower. We observed in DiNo that the locals were hostile to KiTai warriors. And when we journeyed to the tower for assistance, we discovered that the warriors there had been killed.” She looked up to Ljev. “They had been dead for some time. Poisoned, we figured.”

The king leaned in. “But the Eastern Provenance is very dutiful with their tribute.”

Nodding, LjuBa said, “I know, but we discovered that there is a man, a Baron Hoisten that has taken control of the provenance, taxing the locals way more than they can handle. This baron must be removed as the entire provenance is suffering.”

“And you get this from…?” The king looked skeptical, peering at her smaller frame most especially.

Ljev stepped in. “Father! She is an honorable warriess! I witnessed everything she saw! This baron has paid the tribute to keep our warriors from investigating what has happened at the tower.”

“His men have attacked us on the road several times,” LjuBa added, rising.

“And he allowed a gole to nearly decimate a village.” Ljev nodded to her.

“A gole?” the king murmured, leaning back. “And who told you this?”

“We saw this!” Ljev snapped.

The king shook his head. “You are just saying this to deflect me from taking back the land of Westaven.” He huffed, gesturing to the guards to shove LjuBa back to her family and then escort the prince to the side where he ought to obediently stand. “Well, I won’t. You are going to lead that army into Westaven, whether you like it or not.”

“We’ve been to Westhaven,” LjuBa said, just as the guard shoved her next to her father. Ljev had refused to move, nodding sharply.

“What?” MiKial stepped forward, taking hold of his daughter’s shoulder to look her in the eye. She nodded to him.

“You entered Westhaven? On your own?” The king stared at Ljev.

“I wasn’t alone,” Ljev snapped back at him.

Snorting, the king gestured at LjuBa. “That girl has a weak heart. You cannot pretend that she is a warriess.”

“She has a very strong heart!” Ljev snapped, backing off to stand next to MiKial’s family who still stared at LjuBa as she stood perfectly healthy before them. “How can you pretend to be king with that attitude of yours?”

“Pretend?” The king rose glaring at his son. “When did you get so—?”

“What?” Ljev snapped back. “Able to defend myself? I told you! I was training to be a warrior so none of those upstart, power hungry warriors would take my throne from me!” He gestured to the men standing at the side of the hall who had been maintaining dark looks on him since his return. “And as for Westhaven, you can forget it! We were there. We spoke with Westhaveners, and we learned that they are much more advanced than we are.”

“Preposterous!” The king bristled. “They’re savages!”

Ljev shook his head. “No, Father. Compared to them, we’re the savages.”

He then lifted out the weapon that Jonis had handed him.

“See this?” Ljev tilted it so they could see all angles. “This is the kind of weapon that ended KiTai rein in the eastern country over two thousand years ago. We saw it work. Both LjuBa and I were wounded with it.”

MiKial looked to his daughter who pointed to the blood-rimmed hole in her coat. He stared then looked up to Ljev whose forearm was still wrapped, the blood seeped through a little.

“How are you alive?” MiKial whispered to her.

“He healed us,” LjuBa whispered back, feeling tears prickle in the corners of her eyes.

“He, who?” the king demanded, hearing them.

Ljev nodded. “Jonis, the guardian at PoRi.”

The crowd murmured.

“He’s a former soldier of their army and a man of magic—a magister,” Ljev said, looking to the others. “I’ve never seen anything like him. And he took out three men that attacked us with these weapons. Those three men could have killed LjuBa and I, but he saved us.”

“Your enemy saving—?”

“He’s not our enemy,” Ljev said pointedly to the king, focusing his glare on the man. “But if we invade his country he will be. The man is a demon hunter by profession, and after I killed the gole in the village I told you about I know it takes an inexhaustible strength to hunt demons. We don’t want him as an enemy.”

The king’s face was turning red. “The KiTai warriors will crush that—”

“No, Father!” Ljev walked over to him. “He is better than a KiTai warrior. And for that matter, he told me that the army he retired from is larger than anything we could comprehend.”

“He’s a liar,” the king said.

Ljev shook his head. “No, Father. He’s not. I spent the entire night with him looking at books, papers, drawings and all sorts of things that he has that are way beyond us. Photographs.”

The king just blinked at him, as did everyone else, none of them comprehending what Ljev was talking about.

“They have machines that can make an image of what people look like on paper, so accurate no artist could match it,” Ljev said.

LjuBa nodded, stepping up. “He showed us this carriage he has that can ride over the ground without a horse. A machine that…” She shook her head. “In his home were these…these lights that glowed like the sun—”

“Magic,” the king snapped.

“No,” Ljev replied. “The people of Westhaven learned how to harness the power of lightening without magic.”

“It was magic!” the king shouted.

Ljev looked to LjuBa with a slight nod. “No. We know it wasn’t magic.”

Everyone looked to LjuBa, now wondering what Ljev was seeing. LjuBa ducked her head.

“Go ahead. Tell him.” Ljev nodded to her again.

LjuBa marched from her family, back to Ljev’s side, punching him in the arm. “You didn’t tell me you were a prince!”

Ducking back, Ljev winced. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” LjuBa shouted at him. “Why couldn’t you tell me he wasn’t looking for a prince because the prince wasn’t missing?”

“I’m sorry!” Ljev snapped again, pulling away from her. “I was already being mocked twice in your home, with the way you and your sisters talk. It was bad enough you thought of me as just pitiful squire. Looked at as the pitiful prince is worse.”

She flushed, suddenly averting her eyes from him.

“What is it that she has to tell me?” the king shouted at them. “And quit bickering like children.”

Ljev cast a glare at him.

However, LjuBa lifted her chin. “Bickering? Your Highness, if I may be bold, I find your doubt in our words insulting. The fact is, I learned I’m a wizard.”

There was a gasp in the crowd. It had two tones, one of shock and the other of disbelief. Several of the people started to glare at her.

“While visiting that magister,” LjuBa said with a nod to Ljev, “I learned that all the music I was hearing wasn’t just the singing of our people. I hear magic. And I can influence it.”

“What?” The king stared at her. There was no dislike at all, but amazement. He looked to his ‘doctors’ who peered hard at her with wonder. Looking to MiKial who stared at his daughter somewhat blankly, the king asked, “Did you know any of this?”

MiKial slowly shook his head.

But S’vjeTa stepped forward. “Actually, SoFija and I suspected she was gifted. Her songs are so much more potent than ours. We believe that is why she lived so long with her weak heart.”

“Her heart is no longer weak,” Ljev informed them with a nod. “It has been healed.”

Her family drew in breaths their eyes going wide on her, even