40
~ AKELLA ~
The extra time spent partially collapsing the tunnel meant that Akella arrived at the mess tent later than she usually did. But she didn’t mind being there as it grew crowded. The day before, she’d learned Megs’s squad had been doing night guard duty the past week, which meant that now was just about the time they would be getting off duty and breaking their fast.
She scanned the rows of soldiers until she found the face she was looking for. Sure enough, Megs was seated at a table with about half of her squad, chuckling at some joke. The dimple in her left cheek winked at Akella from across the room. Megs didn’t have any porridge before her, just a mug of tea, both hands wrapped around it. The same way she’d held it when she’d visited Akella in the infirmary.
Shedid visit me in the infirmary, after all. The thought was reassuring.
Generally speaking, Akella had confidence that she could charm any woman she set her sights on. It wasn’t a baseless confidence, either; her history validated it. Nevertheless, doubt nagged at her, and not just because Megs had rejected her advances once already.
Over the past two years, or ever since she’d returned from the Kingdom of Persopos as the sole survivor of a horrific ordeal, Akella hadn’t been in the right mindset to pursue anyone. Granted, she’d charmed plenty of women in those two years. Plenty of women had laughed and flirted and blushed in the light of Akella’s attention. But nearly all of them had been the kind of women Akella paid with silver pennies at the end of the night. There was that brief fling with the sailing master of the Balus on their way to Tergos, but that had been different, because Akella and the ensign both knew it was the kind of affair destined to end the moment they made port.
Megs, though.
Megs wasn’t anything like the sailing master. She was the kind of woman who had no use for the flimsy, ephemeral friendships and relationships one inevitably formed in the midst of a war. Akella couldn’t approach Megs the same way she’d approached the sailing master, let alone the way she’d approached any of the countless women in the countless seaside brothels she’d visited over the past two years.
Megs wasn’t interested in something ephemeral and short-lived, yet Akella wasn’t sure she wanted anything else. On the other hand… well, when she’d opened her eyes in the infirmary to find Megs sitting across from her, steaming tea in her lap, Akella had realized there was no other face in the world she’d wanted to wake up to.
An unsettling realization. An unwelcome realization. And true nonetheless.
Not that Megs had shown any sign of returning Akella’s interest.
But shedid visit me in the infirmary.
There was only one way Akella would be able to resolve her doubts and questions. She glanced one last time at her fingernails to check that all the dirt beneath them was truly gone, straightened her spine, and walked to the bench across from the sergeant.
“May I?” Akella asked, nodding at the empty space.
“Oh, so you’re asking permission now?” Megs asked, but her tone was more playful than irritated.
Akella smiled. “I guess I am.”
Megs waved a hand at her. The four soldiers sitting with Megs glanced between them curiously.
“Yer that Adessian what saved Brenn’s arse,” one of them said. “Aren’t ye?” He was a tall blond boy, cheeks apple-red from the cold. Akella guessed he was eighteen summers at most.
“Aye,” Akella replied.
“We thought ye’d died when the barbarian whacked yer head,” the boy said, as casually as though commenting on the state of the weather.
“Aye, an’ we were gonna leave ye,” another soldier chimed in, “but the sergeant made us go back for ye.”
“Kind of her,” Akella said, avoiding Megs’s gaze.
“Brenn broke his bleedin’ wrist when he fell,” the blond boy said. “Can’t even hold a sword. But he’s alive.” He turned to his companion, breaking into a laugh. “Imagine what his ma an’ pa’ll say when they hear it was an Adessian she-pirate what saved him!”
Adessian she-pirate.That was a new one. Akella rolled her eyes.
Megs was watching her. Their eyes met.
“When was the last time either of you two knuckleheads cleaned and oiled your armor?” she asked the boys.
The boys, who were probably farmers or blacksmiths who’d never touched a sword before they’d taken the golden regal and joined the army, stopped laughing and looked down guiltily at their standard-issue leathers.
“I think, uh, maybe last month sometime?” the second boy said. The blond one said nothing at all.
“Go clean it now,” Megs said. “I noticed last night it still had dried mud all over it from the battle – and that was with torchlight. I don’t even want to see what it looks like in the light of day.”
The blond boy looked down at his half-eaten porridge. “But I ain’t finished my –”
“Then take it with you.”
“But it’s –”
Megs didn’t open her mouth, just raised one eyebrow. Both boys hastily rose, picked up their half-eaten bowls of porridge, and within a few seconds had disappeared from sight.
“You’re on your feet again,” Megs said once they were gone.
“I am. And you’ve been pulling night shifts.”
“Things have gotten busier with the move coming up. Which means we’ve been pulling night shifts once every two days, yeah. At least we should be ready to move tomorrow, on schedule.” Megs cocked her head. “But how’d you know about our night shifts?”
“I might’ve asked around.” Akella grinned. “Does it feel good, knowing you’ll be trading canvas above your head for an actual roof soon?”
Megs stared at her, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”
“The move. To Pellon.”
“The move isn’t to Pellon,” said Megs. “From what I hear, we’re just moving up to the supply camp on the Emperor’s Road, half a day’s travel to Second Division.”
“Ah. I see they haven’t told the common soldiers yet.”
“Haven’t told the common soldiers what yet?”
Akella took a bite of her porridge, relishing for a moment that she knew something the first sergeant didn’t. Having privileged information meant keeping Megs’s attention. Keeping Megs’s attention meant the sergeant wouldn’t find a reason to get up and walk away. Not quickly, anyway.
A somewhat underhanded tactic, yes. But if it kept Megs talking to her, all the better for Akella.
Akella lowered her voice and leaned across the table. “The mountain men abandoned Pellon. Which means First Division has already left their position to occupy the city, and once they secure it, Second Division and Third Division will be moving in, too. We should be inside Pellon’s walls within a week’s time.”
“That’s… how can that be?” The look on Megs’s face suggested she thought Akella might be having her on. “The tribesmen have held Pellon comfortably ever since the treaty, and that was almost a year ago now.”
“Well, they don’t hold it anymore. At least that’s what scouts are telling the Empress.” Akella shrugged. “I suppose we won’t really know for sure until First Division walks through the front gates, but the current plan is to move the entire army into the city and hold there until spring. Once everything thaws, the army will divide again, First Division working their way north to retake House Druet’s lands, Second Division holding Pellon and the surrounding lands, Third Division working their way south to Fontan and Reit.”
Megs didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Where did you hear all this?”
“It’s like I told you before,” Akella said. “The Empress hired me to guide her to the Kingdom of Persopos once she’s finished mopping up the mountain men. Sometimes I get insider information.”
Akella decided it was best to leave out the little seagull. Better if Megs didn’t know that Akella’s actual source of information wasn’t the Empress but her loose-lipped fifteen summers personal servant-slash-bodyguard.
But Megs was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t believe it.”
“Which part? The part where the Empress personally sought me out and recruited my help, the part where I sometimes know things that first sergeants don’t, or the part where the mountain men abandoned Pellon?”
“Ultimately? All of it.”
“Now that’s not very nice,” said Akella. “Just because I raid, pillage, and smuggle doesn’t mean I lie.”
Megs looked like she might smile at that remark but didn’t. “I’ll grant that you might be telling the truth,” she said, “but there’s no way the mountain men would walk away from Pellon without a fight. Not with full winter only a few weeks away.” She paused, expression pensive. “I’ve fought them for four years. They might be uncivilized, but they’re not stupid.”
“Be that as it may, they left. I hear they’re notoriously bad at withstanding sieges. Perhaps they thought they stood a better chance reverting to their usual strategy – raid and melt away.” Akella considered that a moment. “It’s what I would do.”
“One way or another, they won’t walk away from Pellon,” Megs said insistently. “We’ll march there, and they’ll be waiting for us, either just inside the gates or just outside them.”
“Word is Commander Joslyn thought the same thing,” Akella said. “But her scouts couldn’t find any mountain men, anywhere.” She made a face. “I don’t particularly care for the woman, but she is thorough, I’ll give her that. She won’t send for the Empress until she’s absolutely certain there’s no danger, which is why we haven’t moved camp yet.”
“She can be as thorough as she wants. She’ll miss the mountain men – they’ll be waiting for us.”
Akella sensed an opportunity. “Care to place a wager based on your certainty?”
Megs narrowed her eyes. She opened her mouth to reply, but Akella beat her to it.
“If I’m right,” Akella said, “and the next time we make camp, it’s at the foot of Castle Pellon, or even inside it, with nary a tribesman in sight, you have to let me court you. Even if there’s nothing left of Pellon but smoldering ashes, I’ll find some place to take you for a nice meal, and I’ll make it worth your while.”
Megs raised an eyebrow. “Where I’m from, when a girl is courted, she’s supposed to have a chaperone until the girl’s family is sure the other party’s intentions are pure.”
“Do you want me to find a chaperone?”
“Not really,” said Megs. “What I do want to know is what I get if you’re wrong.”
Akella held up both palms in a gesture of surrender. “If I’m wrong, I’ll leave you alone.”
“I doubt you know how to leave a person alone.”
“You question my word? Or merely my self-control?”
The ghost of a smile finally appeared on Megs’s face. Along with the dimple. “Yes. But more to the point, I want you to choose a different concession.”
She doesn’twant me to leave her alone, Akella thought, pleased. “Alright. So if I’m wrong… Hmm. If I’m wrong –”
“If you’re wrong, you serve in my squad for a week. And you answer to me. Like any other private would answer to a sergeant.”
“Alright, deal.” Akella extended her hand across the table to shake. Unlike the first time they’d met and shook hands, Megs didn’t hesitate this time. “But just so you know, I never make bets that I might lose.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
Akella’s answering grin was not strictly just about their bet. “So there is.”
The rest of their breakfast went by swiftly – too swiftly for Akella’s liking, but it was still the longest conversation she’d managed to have with Megs to date. Megs told Akella more about her years in the army – the battles she’d fought, the commanders she’d served, and Akella told Megs about her years as a rizalt, and why she loved being a sea captain more than anything else in all the world.
That led to explaining more about her home island of Perrintot, where Akella’s family still lived in the same, sleepy fishing village where she grew up. She tried describing her maternal grandfather’s role as a priest of Preyla, but she could tell that Megs didn’t quite understand just how much shame Akella’s mere existence had brought upon her family.