Luther stared at the woman before him, stunned by her appearance. No doubt lingered in his mind. She was Yasmina. Her sandy-beige complexion gave her light brown skin, but she’d tanned a shade darker since he’d last seen her. Her rich brown eyes were the same earthy brown, flecked with green. She wore no jewelry but wore the same armor as the others in her party: the chitinous plates of worm skin from the wastes.
His frozen manner did nothing to calm the guards’ surprise at the informal nickname she’d shouted at him.
In contrast, the recognition between them galvanized the woman. She rose to her feet and moved toward Luther, only for the guards between them to yell and draw their swords. Sharp steel barred her progress, and she almost didn’t notice it in time.
“Hold!” Luther called, raising his hand to stop them and her.
The guards hesitated but didn’t sheathe their swords. They stayed between Luther and the barbarian, who appeared surprised at their reactions despite the recent battle. In her delight at seeing Luther, she must have forgotten that they were on opposite sides of this conflict and that she was a prisoner after losing the battle.
“Luther, what—what’s going on? How are you here?” Yasmina asked.
Luther was just as surprised as she was. “I was about to ask you that,” he admitted. “What are you doing here?”
“Tell him nothing!” a barbarian shouted. “Imperial pig!” They spat at Luther, but the wad of saliva didn’t reach him. It struck the dirt a pace from his boot. He raised an eyebrow at the interrupting barbarian.
“First a bug-eyed owl, and now a pig. I need to strive for more favorable comparisons,” Luther said, mumbling to himself. He sighed. “Yasmina, are you hurt?”
Yasmina looked confused, glancing to her side, where her comrades were. Luther, Helena, and the guards had critically wounded most of them. They had not been gentle. Shattered bones, burns, and bleeding gashes were plentiful among them. Each of them was in pain. Two had lost consciousness, and three appeared minutes from death. The other two, including Yasmina, appeared to have minor wounds.
“No,” Yasmina said. “My healing works on my body. May I please heal my…” she hesitated, unsure of the word in the empire’s language. “People?”
Luther looked at the guard. Simmons, if he remembered correctly. She still had her spear pointed at Yasmina’s throat. “You’ve stripped them of weapons?”
“Yes, sir, at least those that might not be concealed beneath their armor or with magic,” Simmons said.
Luther gave an approving nod that they’d considered those possibilities. He would’ve had a dagger hidden if robbed of his sword. To say nothing of his magic. “Shackle them, then let her heal them. Start with the most endangered. Her magic won’t last as long as ours. See that our healer takes care of the others.”
“Yes, sir!” The guard saluted and complied with the order. They sent another guard running to fetch the healer in the fortress.
Luther relaxed at the guard’s lack of questions. He was surprised the guard hadn't offered a gentle reminder that Petros had planned to use healing as a motivation for interrogation. His father-in-law would have to forgive Luther for the change in plans, but it wasn’t as if they could question the dead.
Well, they could. Between Althea, Luther’s glasses, and Criella, they might launch a full inquisition. But not unless every guard in the fortress would abandon the temple’s teachings. Somehow, Luther didn’t think he could sell them on it. He couldn’t even convince his spouses to agree, much less a platoon of soldiers.
With shackles on their wrists and ankles, Yasmina began healing a young man who was struggling to breathe through the shards of his ribs piercing his lungs. Her healing spell made his body glow with pink light. The man’s chest re-inflated as his broken ribs crawled into their correct positions beneath his skin. Splinter by splinter, the squirming bumps clicked together as the spell maneuvered his flesh. The squelching sounds churned Luther’s stomach. The barbarian screamed from the pain, and Luther pressed a belt into his mouth to let him chomp on something other than his tongue.
His eyes flared wide at Luther, then confusion settled over his face as he saw Luther and Yasmina working together. The man’s glare turned toward Yasmina with hatred in his eyes. Luther recognized the expression.
“No,” Luther said, his voice calm and settled. “Yasmina is not a traitor,” Luther said, cutting the assumption off at its root. “We knew each other before I returned to the empire, while I lived among her people and fought beside her father.”
The man’s glare returned to Luther, and he glared, even as Yasmina completed her healing spell and moved on to the next person. Luther took the belt back, and the man snapped at his hand, only for Simmon’s spear to press against his throat.
“Thank you, Simmons, but that’s unnecessary,” Luther said, switching his speech to the barbarian language. “
The man’s eyes widened in shock. “”
“” Luther explained. “”
“” the barbarian asked.
“” Luther said. “”
The man scoffed, but said no more. He looked at Yasmina, and Luther followed his gaze to the bead of sweat on her brow. She hadn’t paid attention to their exchange and was too busy chanting the spell to care.
The second-most wounded had burns over most of their flesh. Broken pieces of their armor added injuries to the gashes that Luther’s sword had inflicted on them. Their paths had crossed only briefly during the final moments of the melee. The burns were the work of the pyromancer on the wall.
Yasmina had healed herself of whatever injury she had sustained, and she’d healed the young man. A third person wounded in so short a span must have sapped her magic. Without a union, she couldn’t hope to have the same amount of power as an imperial mage. Those who underwent the union ritual increased their power exponentially compared to those outside the empire.
The guard Simmons had sent into the main building returned with another guard in tow. This one was a black-haired man with a cruel expression and a hooked nose. His eyes slid over the wounded barbarians as if he were examining corpses.
“You need to heal these people,” Luther said, explaining the situation as he gestured toward the barbarians.
The man sneered. “Why should I? They are the enemy. They attacked us and deserve death. If any of them want to live, they should cooperate first.”
Luther raised an eyebrow. “Your name is Fitz, correct?”
“Yes,” Fitz said, giving Luther another look. “And who are you? I’ve never met such a benevolent mercenary.”
“Ah,” Luther said. “That explains it. I’m not a mercenary. My name is Luther, Luther Le Fey.”
Fitz gave him another look. “Pull the other one,” he said, shaking his head. “Luther Le Fey might be lord of the valley, but he’s a demi. They say his ears are as sharp as knives and his features are as hideous as a beast. You’re neither ugly nor deformed.”
“Well, that was both oddly complimentary and incredibly hurtful,” Luther said, considering the slur the man included in his appraisal. “Whoever spread those rumors is rude, but I assure you—”
“If you’re going to con imperial soldiers, you should at least pick someone to impersonate who isn’t so unique,” Fitz said. “Le Fey has multiple arcana. You can’t impersonate that.”
Luther sighed. Time spent arguing was time wasted. He stomped the ground, casting one of Jo’s minor spells. The dirt flew onto Fitz’s chest, not hurting him, but dirtying his spotless tabard. Then Luther shifted to Helena’s arcanum, his eyes glowing red as he grabbed Fitz by his chainmail coif and lifted him with one hand.
“Satisfied?” Luther asked as he set the man on the ground. “Now heal them. Otherwise, I’ll teleport you into the sky and watch you fall.”
Fitz’s eyes went wide, recognizing the description of the execution method Luther used in his fight with the Feothe union. The story had cycled through the valley and grown in the retellings, but that threat, combined with the demonstration, proved enough to motivate the guard. A healer who could heal themselves couldn’t recover from the instant death of obliteration.
He bowed. “Sorry, sir! Right away, sir!” and he moved to help the others.
The other guards laughed at his rush. Apparently, they hadn't seen fit to dissuade him from his folly. Luther didn't know what Fitz had done to deserve their scorn, but his absence from the battle was telling. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was under orders to remain hidden, it was damning that they'd had to fetch him afterward to tend the wounded.
Yasmina moved aside. She’d completed healing the third barbarian but had emptied herself of magic to do it. To reach her limits among enemy forces was dangerous. It showed either foolishness or trust. She trusted Luther’s presence to keep her safe.
“You command these warriors?” Yasmina asked as she gained her feet and returned her attention toward Luther.
“I do,” Luther said, nodding. “My father passed away, so I returned to my homeland and inherited his title.”
“I thought your people passed their titles on through combat?” Yasmina asked.
Luther nodded. “That is one way, yes,” he said. “I’ve had to defend my title once.”
“You’ve come into your magic, then?” Yasmina asked.
“Yes,” Luther said, nodding. “So have you. You’re a healer?”
“Yes,” Yasmina beamed.
“What are you doing this far south?” Luther asked.
Yasmina frowned. “Slavers took my brothers,” she said. “They fled south, so I followed them.”
“Your father let you go?” Luther asked, surprised. Yasmina was, if his math was correct, thirty years old. Still, she was her father’s only daughter, and he was a protective guardian.
“My father has joined the ancestors,” Yasmina said, bowing her head. “His spirit guides me to protect my siblings.”
Luther paused, but asked nothing further, checking to make sure none of the guards had taken issue with her assertion. Among the Vanari, references to spirits and ancestors were numerous. They revered their dead, keeping them alive in memory, and even using pieces of them as totems. Such relics were blasphemous to the empire. He’d considered the barbarian practices to be nothing more than superstitions. That was before he’d seen a ghost with his own two eyes.
He held up a finger to ask her to wait a moment and retrieved his glasses. He put them on, then turned his head, searching. The only ghost he saw was Criella, standing near the castle wall, where Fitz was healing the barbarians. He didn’t see Yasmina’s father and wasn’t sure whether to consider it a blessing.
He put the glasses away before Yasmina’s quizzical look turned to laughter, but she didn’t smile. The mention of her brothers weighed on her heart.
“So you’re searching for your brothers?” Luther asked.
Yasmina shook her head. “No, I found them. The Puravi helped me reclaim them. With father gone, we have decided to live among the Puravi and not return north. The new chief of our people does not want me or my brothers to return.”
“I understand,” Luther said, deducing the politics. “But why did the Puravi tribe attack our outpost? Why have they come into the mountains?”
“Empire soldiers attacked the bathers,” Yasmina said. “They act as if the mountains are theirs and we are invaders.”
Luther grimaced. Well, the empire claimed the mountains, though there were few settlers to support the claim beyond the mining operations and the occasional hunter.
Luther looked at Simmons. “They attacked the bathers?”
Simmons looked guilty, but nodded. “The scouting party, sir. They encountered the barbarians at a spring on their way back to the fortress. Naturally, they attempted to rout the group from the lands, as is the law.”
“As is the law,” Luther repeated, his tone contemplative. “And these barbarians were bathing in the spring?”
“I’m not sure,” Simmons answered. “I wasn’t with the scouting party, sir, and haven’t read the report. Captain Cerul knows more, or you could talk to Sergeant Axford. She led the scouting party, my lord.”
Luther nodded, forming an idea of the event based on what he had to go on, which was incomplete. Still, it took little wisdom to deduce what had happened. Hostilities on both sides could boil over, and most imperial soldiers and guards attacked barbarians on sight in the mountains. A scout patrol on its way back to the fort would attack first and ask questions later. Any who escaped would find their comrades. That led easily enough into the scene they’d arrived in: the scouting party returning with barbarians at their backs, and a battle breaking out when they opened the gates.
“Why are you among their warriors?” Luther asked Yasmina.
Yasmina looked at him, confused. “I am a warrior,” Yasmina said, adjusting her posture so that she stood proudly. “I am one of the unkillable.”
Luther thought back to the Feothe versus Verdell challenge he presided over. Bertilak was a talented and powerful healer, but even his powers hadn’t proved the title ‘unkillable’ to be true. Though he nearly did. It was the first and only time Luther had ever witnessed someone survive decapitation.
Healing was powerful magic. Powerful enough to make Luther understand why Yasmina referred to herself as such. To the barbarians, a warrior who could heal themselves as they fought, and others afterward, was a natural elite among their ranks.
“Did your father allow you to train?” Luther asked, knowing it had been a point of contention between them the last time they met.
“No,” Yasmina said, her voice sad. “But I learned on the road. I had a mentor, Drulla, if you remember her.”
Luther nodded. He remembered Drulla well. She was a red-skinned half-orc who was one of the Varani’s finest warriors. Far from the oldest, but one of the most experienced. She was a spirited woman and a fierce warrior.
“How is Drulla?” Luther asked. “I have fond memories of her.”
“Dead,” Yasmina said. “She died reclaiming my brothers from the slavers.”
Luther’s shoulders sagged. “My sympathies.”
Yasmina looked confused. “She has joined the ancestors. Why do you offer sympathy? This is good news. Her spirit guides my spear, and my sword.”
Luther nodded, though the surrounding guards shifted with discomfort.
Luther sighed. “Once they heal the prisoners, take them inside the prison. Treat them well. Give them food and water and let them rest. Yasmina will come with me as my guest.”
“Are you sure, sir?” Simmons asked. “Not to question you, my lord—”
Luther held up his hand. “It’s alright. I’d question the order if I were in your boots, but yes, I’m sure. This attack seems to have been based on a misunderstanding and overzealousness. If we’re lucky, we can negotiate with the Puravi’s shaman and convince the barbarians to leave without more bloodshed.”
Simmons looked skeptical, as did the other guards. He supposed that was why he was a lord, and they were guards. Well, that and his family line, and his ability to defend his title.
“As you wish, my lord,” Simmons said, bowing. She moved with the other guards as Fitz finished healing the last of the enemy soldiers.
“” the barbarian beside Yasmina asked.
“” Yasmina explained.
Pure hatred filled the man’s face. “”
Luther raised both eyebrows but couldn’t respond before Yasmina did.
“” Yasmina said.
Luther coughed. “”
“Yes,” Yasmina said. “I have spoken truth.”
Luther chuckled, shaking his head as the barbarian she’d healed spat toward Luther again. It hit his boot this time, and the guards looked at him for his reaction. One motion from him, and the man died, but Luther let the insult slide. “”
The man hesitated, still glaring at Luther, then glancing at the guards surrounding them. “”
“” Luther said. “They’re ready for the cells,” he said to Simmons. “Treat them well. As instructed.”
“Are you going to let that insult stand?” Fitz asked. “You can’t show weakness to the enemy, my lord.”
“Anyone here who doubts my might is welcome to face my wives and I in a sanctioned challenge. However, I believe I’ve proved my strength enough in the battle you abstained from, Mister Fitz. I am strong enough to forgive, and he has apologized.”
Yasmina, the barbarian man, and Luther knew he’d done no such thing. Luckily, the language barrier prevented the soldiers and Fitz from knowing that, and Yasmina proved wise enough to refrain from correcting him.
“As you wish,” Fitz said, bowing.
Simmons and the other guards escorted the barbarians away, while Yasmina stayed behind with Luther.
Luther offered her his arm. “Come, I’ll introduce you to my wives.”
Yasmina raised her eyebrows. “So you married multiple women?” Yasmina asked. “As you said you would?”
Luther nodded. “Five, so far.”
“Is one of them Cree?” Yasmina asked. “You always spoke of her so lovingly.”
“That is… complicated,” Luther said. “I’ll explain when we’re alone. I’ll tell you the whole story, but first, I’m afraid Captain Cerul will need answers about the Puravi, and we’ll need to rest before we can set out.”
The battle had taken more magic than he’d intended, as had his demonstrations to prove himself to Fitz. Between those, the training he’d done that morning, and the portal, they’d depleted a sizeable portion of their pool of magic. He preferred not to venture into the danger of the mountains without a full reservoir of power, and they were down to their reserves.
A shout interrupted his thoughts as the barbarian man he’d spoken with escaped his shackles. Luther didn’t see how he’d done it, but it didn’t matter. Luther ran forward as the man grabbed Simmons’s spear and shoved her aside, choosing a more dangerous target. He threw the spear, aiming for Luther’s heart.