Chapter 39: Orders from a Different King

Before Hima had a chance to push the door open and go to take on the rebel soldiers against Nydra’s orders, Miro said, “I’m not sure if I actually get a vote in this, but I’m with Hima on this one.”

Hima was still, her hand resting on the door, and Miro could see no part of her face.

“You know,” he said, “‘Classic quest scenario’?”

He smiled, and reached out with all 4 of his Charisma points, and found that, ever so slightly, Hima’s shoulders slackened underneath her cloak. He then turned to Nydra, whose jaw was still tight and her eyebrows gathered in a furrow as she watched him.

“A group of travelling warriors save a village from bandits or rebels that have been harassing them?” Miro offered. “Isn’t that how my father got to where he did, how he became the magus that could defeat the norther rebel king?”

“Miro, it doesn’t work that way.” Nydra’s voice softened but it was still firm and commanding. “This time, we have orders.”

“And what good are these orders, here, Nydra? A thousand miles away from the palace that had given them? What weight can they hold when we come face to face with this?” He gestured with his arm in the direction of the door.

“Good soldiers follow orders, lad.”

“Well I’m not a soldier, Nydra,” Hima said, turning around but not budging from the door. “You may have responsibilities to your orders, but I have responsibilities to my powers, and to use them whenever other people need me to. So I’m going out there, and I hope you don’t think to try and stop me.”

“And I am a glorified human matchstick,” Miro said, “And I’m going with her, though a little bit I hope someone tries to stop me.”

He would have thought that Nydra would have interjected by then with some variation of “absolutely not” but she stood still, hands at her hips, shaking her head.

“And you’re with them on this?” she asked Peteri in an exasperated tone.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Exactly.” Nydra breathed in deeply, seeming to gather whatever military patience was available to her. “The thing about orders is, I don’t have to like them, or agree with them, or even sometimes understand them, but I am honour-bound to follow them.” Nydra straightened up, her hand going to the hilt of her sword and her eyes narrowing as she regarded Hima and Miro. “My orders include keeping you safe, Miro, and you made it clear to me that if I try to stop you, you will resist, and in my experience if you resist there is a good chance that you would ending up hurting yourself. So if I can’t stop you, that means I have no choice but to join you.”

“What an elegant solution to a problem I willingly created,” Miro said and looked at Hima. She gave him the quickest sideways glance and the pulled one corner of her mouth into a sarcastic half-smile. “Now that this is all settled though,” Miro continued, “I’m soliciting advice on how to best get out of this one alive.”

“All you need to do is use your fireballs and stay close to Hima,” Nydra said, unsheathing her longer sword and letting it hang by her side, point towards the floor.

“I am experienced in those things,” Miro nodded and, in that moment, the door to the storehouse opened and one of the rebel soldiers burst in, eyes wide and sword at the ready.

For anyone watching outside, it would have been an ordinary street scene, interrupted by muffled urgent voices, followed immediately by a door swinging open and a rebel soldier flying backwards into the wall of the building across the street and sliding down to the stones out cold.

“Alright,” Nydra said, as Miro popped his head out to check on the knocked-out soldier, “Let’s go meet this commander.”

They left the storehouse together, and walked down the street towards the town square side by side, three formidable warriors and their page, as Sgobor had described Miro so recently. They encountered no more misguided attempts to stop them, meeting no soldiers along the way, while the citizens of the town all stepped aside to give them a wide berth.

The rebels’ lunch seemed to be proceeding much as it was before, though deeper into their drinks they were now perceptibly louder, and their replacement pig had not yet arrived. Noticing the newcomers at the edge of the square, some of the soldiers took out their own weapons, but seeing their commander apparently unperturbed, made no further moves.

“I know you,” the commander said, wagging his finger at Miro and putting down his goblet, “Foolish of you to come back, even with friends. Because I dare say, you didn’t bring quite enough.”

None of them spoke, so Miro looked to his left and whispered, “So, uh, who wants to talk? Peteri? You want to take this one?”

Peteri gave a short laugh through his nostrils, those his eyes did not meet Miro’s and rather stared straight ahead, twitching almost imperceptibly as he took in his surroundings.

“We’ve brought more than we need to order you to leave this city at once,” Nydra said in a voice Miro had never heard her use before. It had about it the air of rolling thunder that carried with it authority across the square, and bringing tidings of a force of nature that was not to be reckoned with.

“Leave the city?” the rebel commander laughed and got up from the table as he put his gloves back on. “Why would we do a silly thing like that when we’ve been enjoying its warm hospitality?” He gestured expansively to the table and a few of his soldiers banged on it with their fists in agreement.

“I’m not going to repeat myself, commander …”

“Sajoy,” the commander of the rebel soldiers finished with a wide unpleasant smile, “Commander Atlas Sajoy.”

“In the name of King Ganryh of Sirilia, I order for you and your men to vacate this city immediately and run back to the Northlands from where you came.”

“Order?” Sajoy asked. “But what if I take my orders from a different king?”

“Then I’m afraid we have a disagreement on our hands.”

“Yes, it appears we do.”

“Steady, Peteri,” Nydra whispered while barely moving her lips, her eyes also spotting the rebel archer who had been creeping towards them along the rooftops, but her order was given to the wrong person. Hima took her hand out of her cloak and in one swift move encased the rebel lookout into a block of ice that slid from the roof and came crashing to the paving stones below. For a moment, there was complete silence in the square save for a large shard of ice spinning and tinkling against the hard ground.

“Ah, the ice mage,” Commander Sajoy hissed. “Remember your orders … kill them!”