Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant Book 1), Page 4

  Hugh thought about turning around and knocking him off his horse to shut him up, but it would take too much effort.

  “Because he’ll look like the rest of the People,” Stoyan said. “Like a dickhead in an investment banker’s suit.”

  “That’s redundant,” Lamar pointed out.

  “Who’s Roland?” Sam asked.

  “Someone you need to steer clear of,” Stoyan said.

  “An immortal wizard with a megalomaniac complex who wants to rule the world,” Lamar said.

  “Why does he want us dead?” Sam asked.

  “All you need to know is that he does,” Bale growled. “Now shut the fuck up, or I’ll count your teeth with my fist and then you’ll be busy picking them up out of the dirt.”

  The path turned. Ahead, on the left, a Viking mead hall stood on the corner. Built with thick timber, with a roof of wooden shingles, the mead hall resembled an upside-down longboat. A sign on the side proclaimed, “Welcome to Valhalla.”

  On the side, a low deck offered several wooden tables, flanked by short benches. Landon Nez sat at the corner table, in plain view of the street.

  There you are.

  Nez hadn’t changed in the past few months. Still lean, like he was twisted together from steel wire. Same sharp eyes. His dark hair fell loose around his face. He wore a tailored charcoal suit. Good fabric, no padding on the shoulders, fitted through the waist, the English cut. About three grand, Hugh decided.

  The Legatus of the Golden Legion. The most powerful Master of the Dead Roland could find besides himself or his daughter.

  Nez nodded to him. Hugh nodded back. They’d been trying to kill each other for most of the last decade. The urge to borrow Stoyan’s sword and ride Landon down was almost too much.

  “Is he Native?” Sam asked quietly.

  “Navajo,” Stoyan said under his breath. “They kicked him out for piloting vampires.”

  Hugh altered course, aiming for Landon. Bucky obliged.

  “Join me?” Nez raised a cup of coffee.

  “Why not?” Hugh swung from his saddle, tossed the reins on the hook in the rail, walked up the two short steps, and landed on a bench opposite Nez.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Stoyan and the rest of his people turn and park themselves across the street at a breakfast taco hole-in-the-wall.

  “Coffee?” Nez asked.

  “Nah. Trying to quit.”

  “What are you doing in my neck of the woods?”

  “Have I told you you’re lousy at sounding folksy?”

  Folksy didn’t come naturally to Nez, and he did it in a trained bear fashion, like a circus animal forced to perform against his will. If you decided to go that route, you had to mean it and sound genuine. Landon Nez had walked out of the Navajo Nation with nothing and climbed his way to a Harvard Ph.D. and the top of the People’s food chain. The man would stab himself in the eye rather than be confused with common rabble.

  Nez raised his eyebrows.

  “It’s just us.” Hugh hit him with a broad grin. “Just go ahead and be the snobby prick you are.”

  “Why are you here, d’Ambray?”

  “Came to see a man about a horse.”

  Nez glanced at Bucky. “Your horses do seem to be getting bigger and bigger. But white? Don’t you think it’s a bit on the nose?”

  “Felt like it was time for a change. How’s life been treating you?”

  Nez gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Same as always. Research. Management. Undeath is a demanding mistress.”

  It would only take a second. Reach across, snap his neck. End all his earthly burdens.

  Hugh wouldn’t make it. Nez would never come here unprotected.

  “What about you?” Landon asked. “Planning new campaigns?”

  Here it was, probing for weaknesses. “Settling down,” Hugh said.

  “You?”

  “There is a time and place for everything.” Hugh leaned back. “I’ve got a nice place picked out. Good supply, good defenses. Trees.”

  “Trees?” Nez blinked.

  Hugh nodded. “Eventually a man’s got to put down roots. Looking forward to sitting on my porch, drinking a cold beer.”

  Nez stared at him a second too long. Got you.

  The Legatus drank his coffee. “Have you heard any odd news from the North?”

  Odd. “There is always odd news from the North.”

  A shadow of alarm flickered through Nez’s eyes. The Legatus grimaced and nodded. “That’s the truth.”

  They stared at each other in silence.

  “Do you miss him?” Nez asked quietly.

  The void yawned in his face. Missed? The memories alone tore Hugh apart. The clarity of purpose, the warm glow of approval, the flow of magic between them... The certainty.

  “There’s more to life than being a dog on a leash.” Hugh rose. “Got to leave you now. Places to be, people to kill.”

  “Always a pleasure, Preceptor.”

  Hugh grabbed the reins, hopped over the wooden rail, mounted his horse, and started down the street. A few moments later his people caught up with him. They rode in silence for another ten minutes.

  “How did it go?” Lamar asked.

  “He’ll attack us the first chance he gets,” Hugh said. “He would’ve done it already, but something in the North has him worried. He’s a careful asshole, who likes to know every card his opponent is holding. I put a doubt in his head. Right now, he isn’t sure if we have a permanent position or not, so he figures we can wait. We’re easy to find and we’re not going anywhere.”

  He would have to tell Felix to send some scouts north when they got back, to look for anything strange that would give Nez pause.

  The headache was returning, threatening to split his skull. A reminder of too many weeks spent drinking. Hugh gritted his teeth. “Find me a base, Lamar. Someone somewhere needs something protected or something killed.”

  “It all depends on the price we’d be willing to pay,” Lamar said.

  “I don’t care about the price. Do whatever you have to do. We secure a base, or the Legion slaughters us like pigs come winter.”

  The mutter came from the center of the column. “I’m fucking done running.”

  Hugh stopped and turned.

  “Century, halt!” Lamar roared.

  Beside Hugh the long column of the Iron Dogs came to a stop, huffing and puffing, eighty soldiers arranged in two lines. When he’d arrived to Split Rock, where Felix had pulled together the remaining Iron Dogs, he found three hundred and thirty-three people who used to be soldiers. They were ragged, tired, hungry, and their morale was shit.

  All military was tribal, his included. For the individual Iron Dog, the cohort was their tribe, the century within the cohort was their village, and the squad within the century was their family. In a fight, the Iron Dogs stood as one. It went back to the basic primal cornerstone of human nature: he who attacks my family must die.

  There used to be good-natured competition between the squads, the centuries, and the cohorts, which Hugh encouraged, because it bound the soldiers closer together. But now, with the fragments of cohorts on his hands, he had to reform them into a new unit. Teach a man to fight and you made him into a warrior. He didn’t need warriors. He needed soldiers. To make a soldier, you had to put her with other prospective soldiers and make them go through hell and back together, relying on each other.

  They all had memories of walking through blood and fire with their old squad mates. He had to replace those memories with new ones, and so he did the only thing he could do to purge them. He’d sectioned off Felix’s scout team and formed the rest of his force, three hundred and nineteen soldiers, into a single cohort, which he split into four centuries, eighty people for the first three and seventy-nine in the last. Stoyan, Lamar, Bale, and Felix each took a century. And then he ran them, tired and starving, into exhaustion. He smoked them until their arms could no longer hold their weight. He kept them from sleeping. He di
d it all with them, picking a different century every day. Respect had to be earned.

  The weather had conspired with him. It was hot as hell again. The tents Felix’s people managed to “acquire” – he didn’t ask for details – did the bare minimum to keep out the bugs.

  They were in their third week of training. Looking at the rage-filled eyes of the second century now, Hugh was reasonably sure that they hated his guts, which meant things were proceeding right on schedule.

  “What was that, Barkowsky?” Lamar snapped, closing in on a tall, beefy Dog with a freshly-sheared head.

  “I said, I’m fucking done running.” Barkowsky had about an inch of height on Lamar and he made the most of it, but Lamar was harder and they both knew it.

  “What did you say to me?” Lamar started.

  “You’re done?” Hugh asked.

  “Yeah.” Barkowsky jutted his chin in the air. The man had been spoiling for a fight for the last three days.

  “Then go.” Hugh turned his back.

  “What?” Barkowsky asked, his voice faltering.

  “Do you see a wall, Dog?” Lamar roared.

  The old habit got the best of Barkowsky and he snapped to attention. “No, Centurion!”

  “Do you see guards posted?”

  “No, Centurion!”

  “Any time you decide to leave, you can, isn’t that right, Dog?”

  “Yes, Centurion!”

  “This isn’t the SEALs. There is no bell to ring to announce you washing out,” Hugh said. “When it gets too hard and you want to give up, just quit. Get your gear and walk away. I need soldiers, not quitters.”

  “Forwaard,” Lamar drawled in the time-proven cadence of drill sergeants everywhere. “Double-time, march!”

  Hugh started running again. The two lines of the second century moved with him. At least they were in step, he told himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Barkowsky fall in to his place and keep pace.

  In a perfect world, he would do this for another three weeks. He wasn’t working with raw recruits, but seasoned soldiers. Six weeks, eight max, and he would have some semblance of a unified fighting force. He didn’t have another three weeks. The game Felix’s scouts brought and what little they managed to purchase with the remainder of their money were their only sources of food. He couldn’t put his people through the crucible without feeding them. The Dogs were burning through the food supply like wildfire through dry brush. Once the grain and potatoes ran out, they would have nothing except venison and rabbit. They needed more than that to keep going.

  The woods ended. They ran into the field, heading toward the tall, wooden walls of the palisade in the middle of it. Above the simple fortification, the sunset was beginning, painting the sky with red and yellow.

  Three minutes later, they ran through the gates.

  “Century, halt,” Lamar snapped.

  The twin lines of the second century halted.

  “About face.”

  The sweaty, exhausted Dogs turned to face Hugh. Lamar looked no worse for wear.

  “Tell your Preceptor ‘Thank you’ for the lovely stroll through the beautiful countryside.”

  “Thank you, Preceptor,” the second century roared.

  A magic wave rolled over them. Hugh reached for the familiar power and concentrated.

  “Century, dismissed.”

  The twin lines broke as the Dogs shuffled their way past him, toward their tents. A faint blue glow emanated from him, clamping each soldier in turn. He healed their blisters, cuts, and bruises in a split second. They moved past him, murmuring their thanks.

  “Thank you, Preceptor.”

  “Thank you, Preceptor.”

  “Thank you, Preceptor.”

  The last Dog headed to her tent.

  Hugh’s stomach wailed. He healed them every day, and the rations he took were barely enough to keep him alive. Soon he would cross the line where his body ran out of reserves to compensate.

  Lamar halted before him. His gaze strayed past Hugh.

  “What?” Hugh asked.

  “He’s doing it again.”

  Hugh turned. In the small corral before his tent, Bucky glowed. A silver light shone from the stallion’s flanks, as if each hair in his coat was sheathed in liquid moonlight.

  Hugh gritted his teeth. The next time he saw Ryan, he would kill him.

  Bucky pranced in the corral.

  “Everything but the horn,” Lamar said, his voice filled with pretended awe.

  “Do you have something to report, or did you come to jerk my chain?”

  “Good news or bad news?”

  “Bad news,” Hugh said.

  “We have food for five days.”

  In five days, they were done. The soldiers would need more than just meat; they burned too much energy for that. They required starches. Corn, grain, rice. There were none to be had. They were out of money, and unless they resorted to robbery, which would bring law enforcement on their heads, they were finished.

  Stoyan emerged from the first century’s tent and pretended to loiter. Bale joined him. From the other side, Felix came up and decided to be very interested in Bucky, who was still glowing up a storm. They were up to something.

  “Good news?” Hugh asked.

  “I found a base.”

  “Where?”

  “Berry Hill, Kentucky, in the Knobs, right by Bluegrass.”

  Berry Hill. Sounded like something out of a child’s cartoon. Hugh racked his brain, trying to remember what he knew about Kentucky. The eastern part of the state, the Eastern Coal Fields, was mostly forested hills bisected by narrow valleys. It flowed into the Bluegrass region in the north and central part of the state, where gently rolling hills offered the perfect horse country. South of Bluegrass spread Pennyroyal, a massive limestone plain full of sinkholes and caves. On the edge of Bluegrass, stretched in a rough semicircle from Pennyroyal to the Eastern Coal Fields, lay the Knobs, hundreds of steep isolated hills, like cones set to mark the border. Post-Shift, they were drowning in forests.

  “East or West side?”

  “West,” Lamar said. “Closest city is Sanderville, population about ten thousand, give or take. Berry Hill is a nice settlement, about four thousand people, mostly families with children. Excellent farmland, rich in supplies. The village is built by a lake.”

  “Mhm.” Why did he have a feeling there was a ‘but’ coming. “Any militia?”

  “Not enough to protect them. They are mostly nature magic types. Some witches, a few stray druids.”

  The feeling grew stronger. “Why do they need protection?”

  “Landon Nez is after their land. There is some sort of magically saturated spot on it Roland wants. Landon can’t go after them directly, because he’s been warned by the Feds that land grabbing won’t be tolerated, so he recruited some asshole politician from Sanderville to harass them into selling their land to the town. Sanderville is escalating the pressure, and they don’t want an all-out conflict.”

  Bucky trotted over. Hugh reached out and patted the stallion’s cheek.

  “Why not?”

  “Because their leader does the kind of magic that panics good old regular folk,” Lamar said. “They are trying to put down roots. They don’t want people coming for them with pitchforks and torches. They’re desperate.”

  “And they think adding three hundred trained soldiers to their settlement will be enough of a deterrent.”

  “In a nutshell.”

  It sounded perfect. The settlement already had an issue with Nez. They had no militia to speak of, which meant there would be very little conflict. They had supplies that would keep his people fed.

  Stoyan and Bale had drifted close enough to hear the conversation and were eyeing him.

  “What’s the catch?” Hugh asked.

  “They don’t trust us,” Lamar said. “We walked away from Patterson. And Willis. Both when they needed us most. They expect us to betray them.”

  “We follow
ed orders,” Hugh said.

  “It was still a betrayal.”

  He puzzled over it. Roland had wanted them out of those conflicts, so he took his people out. He tried to remember if he had argued against it. He wanted to think he did, but his recall was cloudy. The precise memory of the events slipped through his fingers as if he were trying to pick up water in his fist. He pulled his troops out, and their former allies died. An echo of guilt rose from the depths of his memories, and he pushed it away.

  Did I even argue against it?

  Yes. He did. There was a phone call when Roland told him to abandon Willis. Hugh was sure of it.

  Things had been much simpler then. He didn’t have to wonder if it was right. Roland wanted it; therefore, it was right. He longed for that simplicity, and at the same time, a hot, angry thought surfaced in his brain. He went back on his word. His word wasn’t worth shit. He should’ve been able to say “I’ll do it,” and that should’ve been enough assurance to guarantee an alliance.

  “Their track record isn’t much better,” Lamar said. “They had an agreement with a town in West Virginia and ended up bailing on them three years ago. Before that, they bounced from town to town, either leaving because they didn’t like it or getting run off by the locals. The information is conflicting.”

  “Why do they keep running?”

  “There are some nasty rumors about the kind of magic they practice.” Lamar hesitated.

  “Spit it out.”

  “The story is, our peaceful nature magic users had some disagreements with a few covens in Louisiana. The covens decided to wipe them out and banded together during the flare. Not the last one or the one before that. Two flares back.”

  A flare was a magic wave on steroids. It came once every seven years. During a flare, magic reigned for several days. Weird shit crawled out of their hiding places, gods walked the earth, and impossible things became possible.

  During that flare, Roland had destroyed Omaha.

  “The Louisiana covens called themselves the Arcane Covenant. When the flare came, they summoned something, a horde of dire wolves or demons, nobody quite knows,” Lamar continued. “They should’ve wiped our nature guys off the face of the planet, but here they are alive and thriving, while the Arcane Covenant is dead as a doorknob. Rumor says human sacrifice was involved.”