Terry Brooks - Ilse Witch

Furl Hawken grunted. “We’re Rovers, Little Red. What do you think?”

She put her hand on his massive shoulder. “I think I’m sick of this place, these people, this war, the whole business. I think we need a change of employment. What do we care about any of this? It was only the money that brought us here in the first place, and we have more than enough of that to last us for a while.”

Furl Hawken shook his head. “Can’t ever have enough money, Little Red.”

“True,” she admitted.

“Besides, it’s not so bad here.” His voice took on a wistful tone. “I’ve kind of gotten used to it. Grows on you, all this flatness and space, dust and grit—”

She shoved him playfully. “Don’t you play that game with me! You hate it here as much as I do!”

His bluff face broke into a wide grin. “Well, maybe so.”

“Time to go home, Hawk,” she declared firmly. “Gather up the men, equipment, our pay, supplies, horses for everyone, and meet me on the south ridge in one hour.” She shoved him anew, laughing. “Go on, you great blowhard!”

She waited until he was on his way, then turned toward the stockade where Federation convicts and miscreants were housed, chained in the open or in barred wooden boxes that on a hot day could cook the brain. Just thinking of her brother in one of those set her teeth on edge. The Federation’s attitude toward Rovers hadn’t changed a whit in the three years of their service. Rovers were mercenaries, and mercenaries were a necessary evil. It didn’t matter how faithfully they served. It didn’t matter how many of them died in the Federation cause. It didn’t matter that they had proved themselves the better flyers and, for the most part, the better fighters. In the eyes of most Southlanders, Rovers were inferior solely because of who they were, and nothing of their abilities or accomplishments could ever change that.

Of course, Rovers were at the bottom of almost everyone’s list because they were nomadic. If you lacked homelands, a central government, and an army, you lacked power. Without power, you had difficulty commanding respect. Rovers had survived in the same way for two thousand years, in mobile encampments and by clans. Rovers believed the land belonged to everyone, but especially to those who traveled it. The land was their mother, and they shared the Elven concept that it should be protected and nurtured. As a consequence, the Elves were the most tolerant and allowed the Rovers to make their way through the forests of the Westland, functioning as traders inland and sailors along the coast.

Elsewhere, they were less welcome and lived in constant danger of being driven out or worse. Except when they were taken on as mercenaries to fight in wars that never had much of anything to do with them.

Rue Meridian and her brother, along with several dozen others, had come east from the area around the coastal village of March Brume to serve the Federation in this one. The money was good and the risks acceptable. The Free-born weren’t much better than the Federation at handling airships. There were regular battles, but they were viewed by the Rovers largely as exercises in trying to stay out of the way of incompetents.

Still, she concluded, it had grown boring, and it was time to move on. Especially now. She had been looking for an excuse to make a break for weeks, but her brother had insisted on sticking out the term of their enlistment. She shook her head. As if the Federation deserved their loyalty while treating them as subhuman. Now this. Clapping Big Red in irons over something as silly as ignoring an order from an officer of the Federation who ought to have known better than to try to give one. On an airship, the Captain’s word was law. It was just another excuse to try to bring the Rovers into line, to put their collective necks under the Federation boot. Stupid, stupid people, she seethed. It would be interesting to see how successful they were with their airships once they lost the Rover crews who manned them.

She kicked at the dusty trail as she wound her way through the encampment, ignoring the inevitable catcalls and whistles, shouts and crude invitations, giving a wave or an unmistakable gesture where appropriate. She checked her weapons—slender rapier, brace of throwing knives strapped about her waist, dirk hidden in her boot, and sling looped through her shoulder strap and hanging down her back amid the scarves. Any one of them would be enough for this effort.

She could already smell the sea, the salt-laden pungency of the air, the raw damp of wooden docks and timbers, the fish-soaked reek of coastal shores, and the smoke from fireplaces lit at sunset to drive out the night’s chill from homes and ale houses. Inland smells were of dust and dryness, of hard-packed earth and torrential rainwater that flooded and seeped away in a matter of hours. Three years of grit and dehydration, of men and animals who smelled alike, and of never seeing the blue of the ocean were enough.

Detouring momentarily at a campsite she recognized, she begged a meal off one of the cooks she was friendly with, wrapped it in paper, and took it with her. Big Red would be hungry.

Striding down through the outer stretches of the encampment, she approached the flat wooden walls of the stockade as if she were out for a midday stroll.

“Hey, Little Red,” one of the two guards standing watch at the gates greeted cheerfully. “Come to see your brother?”

“Come to get him out,” she replied, smiling.

The other guard grunted. “Huh, that’ll take some doing.”

“Oh, not all that much,” she said. “Stockade commander in?”

“Having lunch or an afternoon snooze, take your choice.” The first guard chuckled. “What’s that you’re carrying?”

“Lunch for Big Red. Can I see him?”

“Sure. We put him in the shade by the back wall, under the catwalk overhang. Might as well make him as comfortable as we can while this business gets settled, though I don’t like his chances from the look of that officer that hauled him in. Mean face on that one.” He shook his head. “Sorry about this, Little Red. We like your brother.”

“Oh, you like him, but not me?”

The guard flushed. “You know what I mean. Here, hand over your weapons, let me check your food package, and then you can go in and see him.”

She handed over her belt with the knives and rapier, then unhooked the sling. She kept the dirk in her boot. Compliance got you only so far in this world. She smiled cheerfully and passed through the gates.

She found her brother sitting under the overhang against the back wall, right where the guards had told her she would. He watched her approach without moving, weighted down in irons that were clamped to his wrists, ankles, and waist and chained to iron rings bolted tightly to the walls. Guards patrolled the catwalks and stood idly in the roofed shade of watchtowers at the stockade’s corners. No one seemed much interested in expending any energy.

She squatted in front of her brother and cocked a critical eyebrow. “You don’t look so good, big brother.”

Redden Alt Mer cocked an eyebrow back at her. “I thought you were sick in bed.”

“I was sick at heart,” she advised. “But I’m feeling much better now that we’re about to experience a change of scenery. I think we’ve given the Federation army just about all of our time it deserves.”

He brushed at a fly buzzing past his face, and the chains clanked furiously. “You won’t get an argument out of me. My future as a mercenary doesn’t look promising.”

She glanced around. The stockade was filled with the sounds of men grumbling and cursing, of chains clanking, and of booted feet passing on the catwalk overhead. The air was dry and hot and still, and the smell of unwashed bodies, sweat, and excrement permeated everything.