For weeks, the remnants of the garrison remained at a state of heightened readiness, until forces from the east started to stream in. Eventually, news came that Lord Olek had retaken both Kranirog and Mazhadan and the militia was stood down to concentrate on training new recruits. As the ranks filled, so did her company's barracks, but neither she nor the others remaining from her company had any inclination to make new friends. No one wanted to feel that level of loss again.
She found herself, as one of the better archers, appointed to teach some of the younger recruits. At first she was dubious about the promotion, but she took to teaching well, finding unexpected satisfaction in the task. As one of the few recruits with excellent literacy and familiarity with numbers, she ended up becoming Andriy's unofficial adjutant as the years went on. By the time her term with the urban militia ended, she had a grounding in all sorts of military skills, not only her skill with a bow and her quick mind for tactics, but everything from leadership to logistics. Looking back she had much to be proud of.
But as she mustered out it was the future she was looking to. Renting out a small room in a tavern for a few days, she set about procuring the supplies she would need for her journey. On the third day, she was finalising the purchase of a horse and tack when she noticed an older lady standing behind her and to the left. It took her a moment to recognise her mother. The years on the trail had not been kind to her.
After counting out the agreed upon amount to the stable owner, leaving her purse substantially lighter, she turned to face Tarya. She had a tight pit in her stomach. She could feel fate reaching out to imprison her. Not when I'm this close, she thought.
The war was continuing unabated. The battle lines were likely to push back in this direction. Katryn listened respectfully, even though she was quite aware of all of it. The family were planning on moving deep into the Empire. To Poros. Then the cage slammed shut around her. Her mother asked her to come with them.
If it had been any other member of the family, she would have told them exactly where to go. But not her mother. She knew the sacrifices she had made for her and the rest of the family. So that afternoon, when she rode out of the main gate, it was with her family rather than alone.
Her father had changed. The bitterness that had marked him Katryn's whole life was gone. As was the drunkenness. As for Nozhon, he actually looked like a warrior for the first time in his life, rather than a caricature of one. They had done well, obviously taking plenty of loot in the war. Enough for proper arms and armour, as well as horses and supplies. Her younger siblings had grown, but she barely knew them, and found she had nothing in common with them.
Of course, the moment she rode up, her father's lips had thinned and her brother had grimaced as they ran their eyes over Katryn's own equipment. That was enough to remind her of all the reasons she despised them both. It only took ten minutes of watching the four of them treat her mother like some sort of useless servant to place her younger siblings in that same group; and to elevate disgust to hate.
It promised to be a long journey.
As they moved south towards what was supposed to be safety, they discovered that the Emperor had been slain. Rumours said he had been assassinated in his own bedchamber. Some even said his own wife had been responsible. In the days following his death, the dowager Empress had attempted to seize the throne for her daughter, while the senate and the leader of the army had both rebelled. If diplomacy failed, the Empire was about to collapse into a bloody, three-way war.
Nevertheless, they continued south, though the Spring, moving ever closer to Poros. A few days out, with a storm rising in the distance, they decided to stop at an inn for the night. They came in as the innkeep was shuttering the windows. After a few minutes of haggling, he pointed upstairs to the rooms, and ordered the stable boy to put the horses into their stalls before the squall hit.
As most of her family gathered in the common room, Katryn decided to head up to the room she was sharing with Tarya and Alishka and make use of the washstand. Nozhon was at the end of the small hallway between their rooms, watching the storm out of an unshuttered window that overlooked the stableyard. Moving into the room, she quickly undressed and ran the washcloth over herself as the intense thunder started to crash over the inn.
She finished and re-dressed before moving to pick up the basin and pitcher, in order to go empty and refill it for her mother or sister to use later. That was when she heard two massive booms that seemed to shake the door. It took her a moment to realise it was Nozhon pounding on it. She flung open the door to see him raising his bow on the landing. Running up beside him to look down into the common room, she blinked as she surveyed the scene.
Over two dozen armed men had burst into the inn. Three already lay dead on the ground at her father's feet and for the first time in her life she felt pride for him as he easily felled a fourth. The innkeep lay sprawled in a pool of blood near the bar. Five other guests were valiantly attempting to fight them off. Fodor was nowhere to be seen and Alishka was being dragged by the hair, screaming, out of the front door. Then she saw the body crumpled at the bottom of the stair.
Her mother. She looked so peaceful. But there was no longer any light in those eyes.
She heard her brother scream in anguish and looked across to see her father go down, the bandits moving in to make sure the job was done. Nozhon started to move towards the stairs and for whatever reason, perhaps some vestigial familial bond, perhaps for her mother's sake, she reached out and grabbed his arm to stop him. When he looked her in the eyes she simply shook her head grimly and said it's time to go.
They moved down the hallway towards the window overlooking the yard, stopping only to grab their packs and throw them outside ahead of them. They jumped down on to the tiles of the stable roof and rolled to the ground. Looking into the stables, they saw that two of the horses were still outside the stalls, although one was missing its saddle. As she was the better rider, she let her brother have the horse with the saddle, quickly shouldering her pack before riding bareback on to the plains. Mercifully, rain started to pour down, washing away all traces of their escape.
Which is how Katryn found herself half way between Tevea and Poros, and newly orphaned, on her 30th birthday. In the great sagas, this would have been the beginning of some heroic quest. Brother and sister, side by side, enacting vengeance for the death of their parents and rescuing their beloved siblings. Of course, in her tale, that couldn't be further from the truth.
She did indeed want vengeance for her mother. But when it came to her siblings she was completely indifferent. As for working with her despised brother, Nozhon, just the concept itself was laughable. But the main thing she felt, as always, was trapped.
He, of course, immediately took charge. He had trouble thinking of a proper Sturgian woman as a trained warrior, let alone as capable of leading anything beyond a horse. At first he suggested they stop in at an old Legionary training camp for Katryn to brush up on her fighting skills. She resisted suggesting he stop into the old Legionary camp to impale himself on the nearest sword. Instead, she merely favoured him with a single raised eyebrow.
With most of their supplies gone, they traveled to Tevea to re-provision and search for information. Nozhon, unsurprisingly, was unwilling to see to the details, leaving Katryn to deal with the purchases and talk to the village headman, Caribos. As it turned out, the brigands had been preying not only on travelers, but peasants from this village as well. He offered her six of his own horsemen to go on the hunt, to which she accepted of course. Caribos also told her that a well-liked local doctor by the name of Tacteos had been captured, and he would be most pleased if she could secure his release as well.
As they moved out of the village, Nozhon gave the order to move out, but the Headman's troops looked at Katryn for confirmation. She was in command! Nozhon said nothing, but as they rode back out on to the plain she could tell by his posture the whole situation offended him greatly. Which only made it better.
They tracked down a small group of bandits directly north of the village. On foot, with no cover for miles around, the eight of them rode down the enemy with contemptuous ease. The sole survivor was uncommonly loyal for what seemed a common brigand, giving away nothing when questioned, even when threatened with the noose. In fact, she couldn't even say for sure whether there was any link between these men and the ones who raided the inn.
The second group caused a bit more trouble. Two had spears, and one of them managed bring down a trooper's horse. As the bandits closed in around him, Katryn loosed a flurry of arrows, attempting to save his life. It was working until she felt a blow to the side of her head.
One them had thrown a rock at her. A rock. She shot him between the eyes. Unfortunately, the delay had given the others the time to butcher the poor horseman while he still had one leg trapped under his horse. She raised her bow and dropped the remaining spearman with arrows. Then she signaled the others to charge again.
While two of their foes had survived the battle, once again they replied with silence when asked about who they were, where they came from and who their leader might be. Who was this person that inspired such loyalty? Or was it fear?
That night, after putting it off as long as possible, Katryn went to speak to Caribos' men. As she approached them, her eyes flicked to the tightly wrapped body tied to the now-masterless horse. She expected to be met with anger for getting one of them killed. But instead they asked her to drink with them to his memory.
The next day, their luck finally changed for the better. They came across a third bandit party dragging a group of prisoners behind them. They didn't even notice her group's presence until it was too late. This time she peppered the solitary spearman of their band with arrows before ordering the charge. Nozhon and the five remaining horsemen rode them down without mercy.
Amongst the prisoners she found the doctor that Caribos had mentioned. Tacteos had a wealth of information. Apparently the bandits were far more loose lipped around their prisoners than they were around their captors. All of these bandits were under the control of a slaver named Radagos. Furthermore, his base was in the foothills just to the north.
Before he bid her farewell, the healer also informed Katryn that the bandits had stolen from him a small chest containing a valuable ornament. He said she was most welcome to it if she found it still in their possession. Apparently it had something to do with Neretzes Folly, the name the Empire had given to the big battle in which the Sturgians had butchered their Emperor seven years ago.
They closed in on the Radagos' hideout around noon, and decided to wait at the entrance until dark. She had been burying it, but the need to avenge her mother was becoming overwhelming, and knowing this Radagos was just inside the ravine compounded it. Finally, night fell, and they they slowly moved into the base.
As they discovered, "base" was a bit of a misnomer. It was basically a stream running through a low ravine, dotted along its length with mostly empty lean-tos and extinguished campfires.
Of course, mostly empty wasn't completely empty. As they crept along, Katryn picked off each bandit they came across, one by one. She noticed that by the end, even Nozhon was nodding in appreciation. Finally, after dispatching nine bandits, they were detected. A large man, obviously Radagos, approached with his hands out wide, four of his men trailing behind him.
He was certainly a strange individual. First he threatened too kill them, then offered them a chance to surrender, then offered Katryn a duel. She almost laughed. Why would she ever do that when she already had the advantage? She told him she wouldn't stoop to dueling a slaver and motioned forward the men.
As they engaged, she pulled her axe from her belt, calmly flanked the whole melee and then caved in a bandit's head while he was distracted. She then moved up behind another and hacked deeply into his spine. Wrenching the axe free, she looked for another target, but Radagos was on his back with his arms stretched out in submission, and his four men were food for carrion. It was over.
A search of the camp turned up a lot less loot than Katryn had anticipated. Despite all the bandit activity, it seemed they had little success of late. She did however discover the chest Tacteos spoke of, and recovered the badly damaged and corroded bronze artifact within. What could this possibly be worth, she thought.
As for Radagos, well, he turned out to be a mouthy sort. When asked about the location of the children, the slaver said that he had taken so many of late that he wasn't even sure which ones they meant. All of them had been sent to the slave auctions. If Katryn and Nozhon wanted to get them back, they'd have to keep him alive and well. Which is why, somewhat indifferent to Fodor and Alishka's fate, she was tempted to simply stab him in the guts and leave him thrashing on the ground.
Nozhon took her aside. He thought it might be too dangerous to try to attempt to rescue their siblings and that it might be best if he went and tracked them down while Katryn concentrated on gathering up funds for a ransom. She was only half paying attention, primarily because Nozhon was speaking, so it took her a moment to realise what it all meant. He was leaving.
Unfortunately, the hole in his face kept making sounds, so she decided she had to pay attention. He suggested finding out the value of the artifact they had found, and to whom it could be sold, but cautioned her on ever revealing she had it. Really, she thought, and here I was going to show it off to every street vendor from here to Pravend. She immediately regretted taking the time to listen to him in the first place.
A moment later he was tying Radagos to his saddle horn and mounting up. He really was leaving. He stated he should take the men with him, which was as close as he was ever going to get to asking her for them, but she gestured to Caribos' men to go with him, if for no other reason than to avoid slowing his departure. She felt like she had let down her mother somewhat by letting Radagos live, but seeing him dragged out of his own hideout like that... It was enough. She took a deep breath. It was enough. Her last, final duty to the only family she had ever cared about was fulfilled.
As Nozhon began to walk his horse out of the ravine, he turned and said he'd get her a message when he found the children. She only smiled and nodded back. Good riddance, brother, she thought, you and the children can go to Chaikand for all I care.
Then he was gone.
Katryn stood there completely still, the dappled sunlight dancing across her as it filtered through the trees. She breathed deeply, trying to make sense of the feelings washing over her. She felt like she could do anything. She felt like she could run a mile. She felt like she could fly. For a moment, she even felt as if a higher being was watching over her, guiding her steps. But she felt one thing most of all. Something she hadn't felt since she was a small child, running through the twisting paths of the Omor slums.
She felt free.
For another story:
The Tale of Emperor Vasilio Rosso of Calradia and The Unforeseen Cost of Executing Nobles
