The Last Encore

Chapter 1. Opening the Way on the Fifth Count

The knight on the bridge told Aaron to kneel.

His sword broke before he finished speaking.

The shattered blade struck the parapet and fell. The gorge’s water swallowed it. All the knight held was a silver-decorated hilt and a few inches of steel.

The recoil doubled him over. Aaron’s foot came down and pinned the hilt to the stone.

Fingers opened. The knight sank to one knee. Armor struck rock, and the sound traveled twice between the cliffs.

“I heard you,” Aaron said. “I’m not going to obey.”

A crossbow rose behind him.

He was already moving.

The first bolt passed his left ear.

Before the second shooter pulled the trigger, Aaron stepped behind a stone post in the parapet. The bolt chipped stone. White dust clung to his cheek.

The shaft embedded in the post trembled.

He watched the direction of the crossbow’s limbs, the spread knees of its shooter, and the hands of the soldier helping reload. The instinct that had pulled him clear before another dancer’s arm struck him in countless group routines found a path even on this narrow bridge.

Aaron bent his knees.

Crossing between the posts, he rose and extended his blade. The crossbow’s front split. Its shooter dropped the weapon. Instead of striking him, Aaron pushed his shoulder against the wall.

“Sit.”

The soldier sank down.

Red light spread from the right.

The sword carrying it swept across the parapet. The top of a stone post sheared away at the height where Aaron’s head had just been.

This knight wore a white cloak over his armor.

He differed from the first man to kneel. His steps avoided wet patches, and his sword hand was not held too high. When he exhaled, droplets along the parapet quivered sideways.

Field.

A fourth-tier swordsman.

“Aaron Vale.”

The knight spoke his name.

“At last, in person.”

Aaron turned his blade briefly.

“Step aside, and you can enjoy the view longer.”

The white cloak flew forward.

Three cuts followed.

The first aimed for his throat. The second severed his escape to the side. The third rose from below. Between them, the knight tried to press the back of Aaron’s sword down with the small shield in his left hand.

Aaron stopped his feet.

The backward step his opponent expected never came.

Only his shoulder withdrew a little and returned. His sword drew no great circle. His wrist descended, his elbow folded late, and the point caught the empty space inside the shield.

Their Fields met.

A low vibration spread across wet stone. The white cloak’s hem pulled taut, then loosened.

The knight narrowed his eyes.

He added more force.

Aaron loosened his fingers instead. His sword turned slightly in his palm, slipping free of the place the shield pressed. The end of his hilt struck the knight’s right wrist.

A short grunt.

Not enough to make him drop the weapon yet.

Enough for what Aaron needed.

The first step pressed wet stone. While a faint outline of his shoulder lingered over it, his second foot reached the side concealed by his opponent’s shield.

The knight cut the outline.

Aaron’s sword was lower.

A brief edge of mana remained where his point stopped. The knight saw it but had no time to withdraw his arm. His wrist armor crossed less than half a step and struck the lingering blade.

Metal split.

This time, the sword fell.

Aaron set his point beneath the man’s chin.

“Five.”

He had counted without realizing.

The knight breathed harshly.

“Not eight.”

“That’s enough for today,” Aaron said.

The white cloak slowly settled.

The two knights farther back no longer rushed forward.

One had already lost his weapon. The other stood with his sword half drawn. Aaron looked past them to the bridge’s end.

A chain barred the road.

Seven freight wagons were trapped beyond it. They carried no military banners. Onion sacks showed beneath wet canvas. A small wooden cradle was lashed to one side.

Aaron withdrew his point.

“Lower the chain.”

No one moved.

He looked at the white-cloaked knight.

“You can order that.”

The knight wiped the thin blood beneath his chin. He looked at his hand, then at the wagons beyond the bridge.

“Open the road,” he said.

A soldier turned the winch.

The chain descended to the ground. Aaron raised a hand behind him. Only then did Leon and the advance party, waiting at the gorge’s bend, enter the bridge.

Shield bearers collected the prisoners’ weapons.

Passing Aaron, Bran glanced at the broken blade.

“Cutting down the count now, too?”

“When I’m busy.”

“Do all eight properly when we get back. The recruits will learn only the beginning again.”

Aaron laughed.

Without smiling, Bran examined the knight’s arm. Blood ran from the wrist. He called a medic.

Crossing the bridge had taken little time.

Moving the people on it took longer.

It was spring, Imperial Year 745.

Frozen ground thawed by day and hardened again at night. Thin ice broken by hooves collected along the road like shards of bowls.

The fourth day of the campaign.

Several relay stations and cities still lay between them and the capital. Enemies blocking the road did not always wait in broad fields. They could plant a banner in a gorge like this, where two wagons could not pass, and halt people in the emperor’s name.

Aaron entered the post at the bridge’s end.

It smelled of wet firewood. An imperial travel authorization hung on the wall. Below it, purses of coins and bundles of paper lay on a table.

Toma unfolded a sheet.

“This isn’t a toll,” he said. “It’s a receipt for taking travelers’ cargo into safekeeping.”

Aaron read the first entries.

Five sacks of flour.

One horse.

Two pewter pots.

The promise to return them when the owner claimed them contained no return date.

Toma turned the page.

The same form.

And the next.

Aaron went outside. A young woman stood beside the wagon carrying the cradle. She held a child wrapped in thick cloth. Perhaps the baby slept; he could not see its face.

“How long have you waited?” he asked.

The woman looked at the crest on his chest.

Before answering, she glanced at her wagon, as though a wrong answer might cost her that, too.

Aaron took one step back.

“I’m trying to establish what you need to have your belongings returned.”

Only then did she speak.

“Three days.”

Her voice was hoarse.

“We were going to Harven. My sister said she’d cleared a room.”

“Have you had food?”

“We’ve been buying it here since the second day.”

Aaron looked at the pot beside the post.

Thin grain porridge had burned onto it. The soldier tending it avoided his eyes.

They were selling detained people porridge made from the grain taken from them.

Aaron brushed stone dust from his palm.

He did not draw his sword again.

“Call Sera.”

He turned to Toma.

“We’ll match the names first.”

The onion wagon’s owner recognized his sacks at once.

He had wrapped blue thread around their knots, he said. Another person showed the dented corner of a pot. At its owner’s voice, a horse pricked its ears and strained to approach.

Some things could not be returned.

Grain already eaten. Cargo sent elsewhere.

They brought the remaining items from the local communal storehouse. Sera marked what had vanished beside each entry, comparing confiscated money with the commander’s accounts and separately recording what could go toward compensation.

Her pen moved quickly.

Items confirmed by their owners came out of the post. People loaded them back onto their wagons.

The woman did not untie the cradle.

Afraid the child would grow cold, she kept holding it. Toma checked her wheels and brought dry cloth for the wagon’s front seat.

Aaron offered his water flask.

The woman drank a mouthful and moistened the baby’s lips.

“Are you going to the capital?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Her gaze moved to the white-cloaked prisoner.

“To fight the emperor?”

The conversation around them quieted a little.

Aaron did not avoid her gaze.

“To stop the people who gave orders like these.”

“Then can we go?”

“Go where you meant to go. We’ll check the road to Harven and let you know.”

The woman watched him for a long time.

Then she returned the flask.

“No one’s said that to us lately.”

The prisoner’s name was Kassen Rott.

A small imperial crest was embroidered inside his white cloak. He sat with his back against the wall while Aaron checked the bandage on his wrist.

“I didn’t know a traitor’s army handled this sort of work personally,” Kassen said. “You opened the bridge. Why not just go?”

Aaron pulled up a chair before him.

“Why hold them for three days?”

“Orders to inspect military provisions.”

“The cradle, too?”

Kassen’s mouth closed.

Wind entered through a gap in the window. Outside, someone pushed a wagon. A wet axle squeaked, then fell quiet after Toma worked on it.

Kassen did not speak until the sound stopped.

“If I release them, they take one of my men instead,” he said. “It happened to the commander of the southern post last month.”

Aaron looked at the hand on the knight’s knee.

Blood was seeping through the bandage’s edge.

“Write his name. And where they took him.”

Kassen raised his eyes.

“You’re releasing me?”

“What you did here will be investigated.”

Aaron set paper and a pen on the table.

“We’ll also look for him.”

Kassen stared at the pen.

After a long time, he picked it up with his left hand. The unfamiliar hand made crooked letters. The name was legible nonetheless.

Aaron waited for the first letter to dry.

There were people in the capital he would have to overcome with a sword.

He read the crooked name once more. The letter seeking the detained commander went to a messenger separately from the order blocking passage.

The main force’s first banner appeared as afternoon declined.

Small city flags accompanied Arden’s red crest. Behind them came orc riders draped in earth-colored cloth. From her horse, Karga examined the parapet.

“You broke it?” she asked.

“Only the top.”

“The road?”

“Passable.”

Karga nodded.

Beside her horse, Burk raised a long spear. The clanspeople following narrowed their column and crossed. Hooves, boots, and wagon wheels laid their sounds on the stone in turn.

Aaron watched them.

A column he had waited for all winter.

Each clan carried newly packed belongings and coats mended through winter. People who had gone to their own homes were keeping their word to return in spring.

Liora descended from a wagon behind them.

She approached, tucking windblown hair behind an ear. First she examined the severed post, then Aaron’s face.

“Your cheek.”

When he raised a hand, she caught his wrist.

Armor grease marked the back of it. Liora brushed away the stone dust with her own handkerchief.

Aaron said quietly, “Finished in five.”

“I heard about the counting.”

“You were far away.”

“Sir Bran told the messenger first. Apparently you’ve found an excuse to shorten training.”

Aaron laughed in disbelief.

Liora laughed, too.

Her hand lowered from his cheek. The fingertips were cold. Aaron caught them briefly inside his palm.

The long column moved to the sound of water in the gorge.

Before the sun dropped below the mountains, the last civilian wagon left the post.

Toma retied the strap to keep the cradle from swaying. The woman thanked him and raised her hand.

Aaron raised his in reply.

A new duty roster hung in the bridge post. It distinguished those remaining locally from expedition members who would help for two days. An official from the freed village received the keys.

Aaron mounted.

Spring mud furrowed the road ahead. Orders from the capital had traveled against that road to reach this little post.

Now he was going the other way.

Liora’s horse came beside his.

“It’ll be dark before the next station,” she said.

Aaron watched the leading banner.

“We brought lights?”

“Plenty.”

He nodded.

The sword at his waist swayed lightly with his horse. The blade of the man who had blocked the bridge lay behind in an evidence box.

Aaron’s blade kept going forward.

Toward Solenne.

To end the orders where they had begun.

Chapter 2. An Army Free to Leave

Karga threw her gloves onto the meeting table.

Water dripped from the wet leather. Sera moved the inkwell before it reached the edge of the newly opened map.

“People on the western road,” Karga said.

“An army?” Bran asked.

“They walk like an army. Their faces look like people trying to get home.”

Aaron put down his bread.

They had spent one night at the first relay station beyond the bridge. The main force camped on a dry hill outside the forest, while forward scouts checked the two roads to Harven.

Karga placed a finger on the map.

“Thirty-two. Eight following them. No chains on the first thirty-two, but all the spears are behind them.”

“Pursuing deserters?” Aaron asked.

She shook her head.

“Three of the people being pursued had no shoes.”

Aaron picked up his sword.

The western road crossed the forest.

Low sunlight entered between the trees. Meltwater gleamed among roots. The horses could not go far in. Aaron dismounted before the bend and left his reins with Leon.

Voices reached him.

A mounted man swung a dry branch like a whip.

A young man walking ahead fell. The sack on his shoulder opened, spilling black earth. Not grain. Villagers were being made to carry soil for the embankments of a military position.

“Pick it up,” the man said.

The young man tried to rise, then braced a hand on his knee again. His bare heel was torn.

Aaron emerged from the trees.

“Leave the sack.”

The rider turned.

His eyes touched Aaron’s crest, then moved to his sword.

“Vale?”

Without answering, Aaron stood before the young man.

Two soldiers behind lowered their spears.

Karga leaned beside a tree. When she laid a hand on her hilt, the spearpoints wavered slightly.

“I’m carrying out orders,” the rider said. “I have authority to requisition military labor.”

“Show me the roster.”

Aaron held out a hand.

The man took a folded paper from inside his coat, but did not offer it.

“This is His Imperial Majesty’s—”

Aaron pulled the reins.

The horse’s head turned sideways. The man lowered one hand to regain his balance. Aaron caught that wrist.

He did not draw his sword.

The rider came out of the saddle and struck the mud on his knees.

The folded paper passed into Aaron’s hand.

He opened it.

A village-by-village list of people assigned to three days of embankment work. The starting date was ten days ago.