Longspear winced as van Joss slung the female Primiad roughly against a wall. As she cried out, the male stepped forward with a snarl, his weapon half drawn. The cloaked operative immediately turned and pointed him.
"Stay your hand, sir. Or I will turn you both back over to the cats right now!" he grated in the Primiad language. "That is, if I don't kill you myself."
"It is all right, captain," the female gasped, looking at the male Primiad with a pleading expression on her face from where she had slid down the wall to sit on the ground. "He didn't harm me."
"But I will, if you don't tell me what I want to know right now!" van Joss hissed tightly, rounding on the female to drop onto his haunches and lean towards her menacingly.
The small party had left the public house only to march straight to the closest alley where van Joss began his interrogation. The sudden move to whip the female Primiad against the wall had caught Longspear entirely off guard. But, now that she was in it, she had to make the best of it. Her poniard abruptly appeared in her hand as she stepped close to the male.
Catching sight of Longspear's movement out of the corner of his eye, van Joss silently commended the Gideon agent. She wasn't as slow as she first appeared! Then he was returning his full attention to the female in front of him.
"Now, you will tell me why you and your minion are here, princess."
Both Primiad gasped at that, stunned that the cloaked figure had recognized her.
"But, how, . . .?" she began before van Joss reached out to take her by the throat. This time, when the male made to draw his sword, he abruptly felt the prick of Longspear's poniard just above his kidney. A quick glance back confirmed that the second cloaked figure was close enough to kill him with a single thrust before he could get his weapon clear of its sheath. With a grimace of frustration, he took his hand from his sword's hilt.
"You mistake your position, princess," van Joss hissed, giving the female a shake. "You don't ask the questions here. Understood?"
"Yes," the female husked.
"Who are you?" the male demanded in a low voice. "Agents of the Empire? Seeking to slaughter the rest of the king's house?" That earned him a sharp jab from Longspear's poniard. As he gasped in pain, van Joss glanced over at him.
"Shut up," he barked. "Your turn to sing will come soon enough, lackey." He turned back to the female and gave her another shake. "Tell me."
He could feel her swallow against the palm of his hand as she sought her voice.
"We flee the tyranny of the Empire," she said finally. "The Emperor has gone mad and slaughters any Primiad ruler that will not fall in with his plans to conquer the world." The princess's eyes flickered wildly with fear as they gazed into the darkness within van Joss's cowl.
"How is this so?" van Joss hissed. "The Rising Star House has always been allied with the Emperor's Morning Sun House. King Selissis supported the Emperor quite strongly."
The female's eyes flew wide at van Joss's familiarity.
"My, my father and Emperor Ran had a falling out two years ago," she revealed in a husky whisper.
"Aye," the male confirmed grimly. "Right after the dark priest Wormwood appeared out of the wilderness with claims that he had had a vision from the Maker, which told him to take hold of the Empire and command them to fall upon the unclean and destroy them." He glanced over his shoulder at Longspear, half expecting a jab.
When it didn't come, he went on.
"When King Selissis denounced Wormwood, Ran cast His Majesty out of his court at New Haven. It was only a few moons later that Ran's Indigo Shield arrived to kill every person in Vatim Keys, King Selissis's winter palace."
"The Orders' report did mention that opposing rulers were being sacrificed to the monsters," van Joss mused out loud, falling back into the human tongue, Tranalo, for Longspear's benefit since the Gideon agent didn't speak the Primiad language.
At the sound of it, the male grimaced.
"You're not imperial spies!" he tautly hissed. "You're humans!" That got him a jab from the poniard. He had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out loud. But he didn't go silent.
"It was folly to think that the Old Men would help us, your Highness." The big brown eyes blazed with hate as they gazed down at van Joss's thoughtful form. "They would just as soon see us dead as the cats!"
"Captain?" van Joss said softly and, with a nod, Longspear pounded the pommel of her poniard into the back of the male's skull. He went down like a pole-axed deer, unconscious. Leaving him in a heap on the slushy ground, Longspear joined van Joss in crouching in front of the now visibly terrified Primiad princess.
Grimly van Joss turned back to her.
"Your captain is right, princess," he said softly, the female's eyes being drawn to Longspear's poniard as the human woman slowly twirled it in her gloved hands. "We would sooner see you dead than help you. But we have an entire Empire of your people bent on not only our destruction, but that of all the Fisted Races as well. We cannot allow this to happen. So we will do what is necessary to prevent that eventuality. You understand, of course."
"Of course," the female whispered hoarsely, her eyes impossibly wide as she stared at the poniard's bright blade. There was no steel stronger than that forged by the humans. Nor as sharp!
"So the price of your life is this: you will tell us everything that you know. Imperial troop strengths and placements, commanders, routes for supply lines, the location of any temporary fortifications erected on their march northward, everything. Understand?"
"Yes," the female whispered in reply, her voice growing fainter with her growing terror. "We, . . we knew you would want such things. As proof of our sincerity in wishing your aide against the Empire. Captain Alinar has a parchment in his tunic with all that written on it."
A twitch of van Joss's head was enough to send Longspear over to the unconscious Alinar. She flipped the Primiad over and quickly searched him. It didn't take much effort to find the tightly rolled parchment, curled inside a leather tube for protection against the elements, tucked into his uniform jacket. While van Joss and the princess watched, she popped it open and, after the scroll dropped into her hand, she quickly unrolled it.
After glancing over the contents, she looked up at van Joss and nodded. Van Joss turned back to the princess.
"Well, well," he hissed softly as Longspear rejoined them. "You spoke the truth after all. But what sort of madness drove you this far north, seeking out the humans' aid? All the races know that, of all the Fisted, the Primiad hate humans the worst. Not for making them, as do the Fisted, but for holding them back." He held out his hand and, without a word, Longspear put the re-rolled scroll into it. He then waved the scroll in the princess' face.
"And you hoped to buy that aid with this information, didn't you?" he rasped. "Aid that your captain was convinced you wouldn't get."
"Yes," the princess admitted tightly, closing her eyes as hot tears began to spill out of them. She then started to quietly cry.
"My mother thought, . . it's all we have left! We cannot fight against the Empire by ourselves any more." she gasped softly between body-shaking sobs.
The two humans looked at each other. At Longspear's questioning expression, just visible within her hood, van Joss spoke Tranalo in a low voice.
"There's a resistance."
"That changes things slightly," Longspear husked in reply and van Joss nodded.
"And these two become somewhat valuable as leverage." he added. "We need to dig for more information." As Longspear nodded in agreement, van Joss went on.
"I'll get us a room at a local inn. There, we can begin!"
******
"And how widespread is this resistance?" van Joss was saying as Longspear glanced out the window. The sun was setting. That meant it would quickly get cold in here without a fire. Standing, she made her way past where van Joss was questioning the tied up Primiad princess to the small fire brazier in the room's corner. The metal bowl sat on a simple tripod, allowing it to be moved to where it would make the room most comfortable.
In terms of comfort, it was the bare minimum. Just like the simple room they now occupied, four bare walls and a couple of cots and little else. But it was the best van Joss could do, considering the circumstances. Along with the supplies he was forced to purchase from a local merchant, he had already spent a bag of gold shavings on calming the barkeep at that public house. It would take time before he could accumulate that much money again. Not to mention, they didn't want to draw attention to themselves, with what they now had to do with the their Primiad prisoners, by trying to buy something a bit more equipped.
The Primiad female was talking again while Longspear set the wood kindling in the brazier on fire with her flint and steel.
"I told you," she rasped tiredly, exhausted as she sagged against the ropes that held her in the plain wooden chair. They had been relentlessly questioning her for a good six hours now.
"Only in my father's kingdom, the Kingdom of the Shining Crescent, the Kingdom of the Silver Crown, the Kingdom of Ardisben and the Principality of Lugosh, near Silver Crown."
"And the kings of these kingdoms? Are they dead, like your father?"
"Yes," the female answered miserably, tears once again coming unbidden to her eyes. "It is their families that formed and carried on the resistance in their name."
With a jerk, Captain Alinar came awake. Only to find himself securely tied to a small cot. A quick glance around found Princess Salina tied to a chair with one of the humans badgering her. Rage filled him at the sight.
"You human pig!" he snarled, jerking against his bonds. "Leave Princess Salina alone! You have no right, . . ."
As the Primiad raged on, van Joss looked over at Longspear.
"Forgot the gag, did we?" he said softly and she grinned sheepishly and nodded. Sighing, van Joss turned from Salina and took two steps to come to the side of the cot. Then, without a word, his fist slung forward to smash into Alinar's face.
The blow threw the Primiad male roughly to the side, nearly ripping him out of his bonds as it broke his nose. It also knocked him quite unconscious.
The lean human's eyes narrowed in satisfaction as Alinar sagged limply back into the cot's center, a trickle of blood now oozing from his broken nose. Then Longspear was there, tying a gag around the Primiad's mouth. After she was done, he took her by the arm, gently this time, and drew her to a small table in the room's center. There he indicated that she should sit down, opposite him.
"What have you found out so far?" Longspear asked softly as van Joss glanced over his shoulder at the bound Salina. They both still wore their heavy cloaks, though they had pulled aside their scarves now that they were inside and behind a locked door. Despite that, habit made them ward against casual discovery now that they were beyond Gideon's borders. Only in Gideon was a human truly safe from the Fisted.
"Not much," van Joss admitted, turning his intense green eyes back to the middle aged woman. Longspear wasn't beautiful, but she wasn't plain either. She was, for the lack of a better word, ordinary. Which was ideal, if one wanted to vanish in a crowd of humans. Not so useful when going against the Fisted. A human was a human, as far as they were concerned. Then he was pushing that aside to focus on the task at hand.
"The resistance is small, made up mostly of the survivors of Ran's purges of the Primiad leaders that didn't agree with the holy war. Some personal bodyguards and household staff make up the fighting units. But, according to Salina, they haven't been able to inflict much damage. And this priest, Wormwood, seems to have eyes and ears everywhere in addition to Ran's own secret police. They are systematically rooting out the resistance cells one by one. It's only a matter of time before they're completely destroyed."
"Too bad," Longspear noted with a frown, looking down at the table. "A large, organized resistance could've done much in slowing the army down before it could reach Gideon. They might've been even able to effect an assassination of this religious leader you've mentioned."
"Wormwood," van Joss repeated the name. "Aye, but I've a feeling that the priest's movement has gained too much momentum by this point to be seriously affected by his death. Only the death of the emperor, Ran, may slow things up."
Longspear nodded before she looked up at van Joss, a thoughtful expression on her face.
"It's interesting that you're sharing your thoughts with me now," she commented, keeping her voice light. "Before you were a closed book." Van Joss only shrugged.
"Despite your lack of real experience, captain, you've shown yourself to be capable and resourceful. As well as useful." He returned her gaze with no expression on his own thin face, still cadaverous in appearance despite a month's worth of real food. It'd take much, much more to make even a slight difference in the deep sunk eyes and hollowed out cheeks, garnered from five years of starvation rations.
"Those things make you a valuable team member. So it only is logical that I include you in my ponderings, since we seem to have become a team."
Longspear smiled wryly.
"I'm not sure whether I should be flattered, or frightened that Gideon's worse criminal considers me a part of his team."
Van Joss shrugged again, his expression unchanging.
"There are far worse things, I assure you, than my acceptance, captain." His bright gaze flicked away towards the window where full night was rapidly descending outside.
"As for what I did to make me a criminal, again there are far worse. I know, because I have seen many of them."
"Just what did you do, van Joss?" Longspear asked softly, leaning forward over her arms and onto the table. "Speculation has run rampant ever since you were thrown into that hole five years ago despite being our nation's most decorated and accomplished operative. The Conclave and the Military Council has kept a tight lid on the details since it was first reported, content only to let propaganda against you be perpetuated."
Van Joss turned to focus his eyes on the Gideon officer with enough force that she drew back, suddenly uncertain.
"Are you sure you want to know, captain? I know you're brave, since you accepted this assignment knowing I was involved. But are you brave enough to want to know the truth?"
Longspear's expression became thoughtful as she caught a hint of bitterness in van Joss's normally cool and emotionless voice.
"Well, colonel, if we're truly going to be team mates, then I think I'd rather know the truth about the man that, according to every rumor I've heard, is more likely to stab me in the back than protect it."
"Fair enough." van Joss said with a sigh. "To tell you the truth, there's nothing new I can tell you outside of what the council's propaganda machine hasn't already. I killed my senior officer. The greatest crime in the military code of law there is."
"But why did you kill him?" Longspear pressed. "In the few hours that I've spent in your company, I've quickly observed that you do nothing without a purpose. Was he a coward?"
"I wouldn't have gotten arrested if he had been," van Joss quietly pointed out. "No, I killed him because he put my team and I in danger. All because he wanted the glory of capturing one of the Black Princes."
"One of the leaders of the Tigris Clans?" Longspear gasped. "But they're as elusive as smoke!"
Van Joss smiled thinly.
"Not quite, but close. I've found several in my years behind Tigris lines." His face abruptly tightened. "Unfortunately my commanding officer, General Bentine, knew this. At the time he was vying for the coveted post of military adviser to the Conclave with three other generals. The current military adviser, General Eben was one of the other three."
"So he sent you after a Black Prince to garner him the necessary credentials to assure his election to the post!" Longspear breathed, her eyes wide with realization.
"And into territory still poisoned by the Great Burn." van Joss added grimly, his eyes narrowing as he remembered. "He wanted to make sure we caught the wasting, so my team and I would be dead very shortly after we returned with the prisoner so he wouldn't have to share the glory of the capture with us."
"Burn me!" Longspear breathed, not wanting to believe the words but hearing the truth in them anyway. "To send soldiers in your direct command to certain death is a crime nearly as serious as attacking one's commanding officer. Could you have proved that Bentine meant you harm? That it was his intention to send you into a death zone so that you'd eventually perish of the wasting?"
Van Joss shook his head 'no'.
"I only suspected. But, as team member after team member began to die, the wasting eating them up from the inside before we were even close to where a Prince was thought to be hiding, that suspicion became knowledge. There was no possible way we could've penetrated the death zone, retrieved the Prince and returned to Tor Ephriam and survived the sickness. And Bentine, having served near several death zones during his career, knew that." Van Joss looked up.
"I considered such an act, ordering us to our deaths for his political career, even worse than cowardice. So when I alone returned, having somehow survived the wasting while my whole team died around me, including my twin brother, who died in my arms, I knew I had to act. I killed Bentine with my bare hands after I delivered up the Prince." He looked back down, his face a mask.
"It was only justice," he added in a harsh whisper.
"Your twin brother," Longspear's voice was faint as she stared at van Joss with wide eyes. "Maker burn me, colonel, none of that came out in the trial. I know because I read the transcripts before I accepted this assignment," Longspear said with a stunned shake of her head.
"After I was arrested, I tried to prove what Bentine had planned," van Joss pointed out with a frown. "I gave a full disclosure of everything that happened, including my own conclusions and observations, the truth of them sworn by me on my oath as an officer. An oath, to that point, had been unquestioningly accepted by Gideon's military." He paused to quietly sigh.
"But my testimony was never offered by my legal representative. The military tribunal, on which Eben presided, ruled that I was guilty of murder against a senior officer without me having the chance to stand and defend myself. The fame she gathered from sitting on the tribunal was enough to catapult Eben past the other two generals and into the post of military adviser to the Conclave. The trial was a sham, with no purpose other than to destroy me, and in doing so, garnering Eben sufficient political capital to complete her bid for the Conclave posting."
Van Joss looked back at Longspear.
"I was a heavily decorated officer, with almost fifteen years of covert operations under my belt, in line to become a general myself within the year. And Eben and her tribunal ruthlessly crushed me with one blow. Again, for a political purpose." He grimaced. "And the final insult was that they left me to rot, instead of trying to execute me as the law demanded."
"Suddenly I understand your bitterness and anger towards them." Longspear whispered hoarsely. Van Joss merely smiled, if that was what she could call the upward twitching of his thin lips.
"Bitter doesn't scratch the surface of what I feel, captain," he replied. Then, with a wave of his hand, all expression had once again been wiped from his face.
"But that doesn't matter. What matters is our task: to contact the Fisted Races of Noranda in an attempt to stop the Primiad before they can destroy us all."
Physically giving herself a shake so that she too could refocus, Longspear nodded.
"Any ideas of where to start, colonel? Tigris territory is your backyard," she asked.
"Aye," van Joss replied. "I just hope the bastard is still alive!"
Longspear grinned at that as van Joss stood, making ready to renew his questioning of Salina. Then something occurred to her.
"Wait, van Joss. I don't know your first name. Mine is Ash. What should I call you?"
"Van Joss," van Joss replied without turning around.
"That's it?" Longspear fired back, a confused look on her face.
"There is nothing else," van Joss replied over his shoulder before turning to their prisoner, leaving Longspear ruefully sighing. 'I should've figured that one out!' She silently mused with a private snort of bemusement.