What, Ambra wondered, the fuck was that all about?

She’d kicked him out of her tent, of course, almost as soon as she’d had the opportunity. But her read of the man had clearly been completely wrong; he’d been so nervous, so unsure. Someone she could let off her tension on.

Clearly that hadn’t been entirely right. Still, he hadn’t been entirely unsatisfactory…

She was going to have to monitor him, whatever else went on, she decided.

There were always runners around her camp. Some of them could be trusted not to gossip, could be trusted to stay bought and not take payments from both sides of an assignment. Ambra gave one of these, Aric, some coin and sent him on his way, looking for Valmyr.

Her mother had called a war council, though there was no war yet, just the fear of it. That was going to have to occupy her attention for the time being. Aric could at least give her more information on Valmyr along the way.

He wasn’t what he made himself out to be, that was for sure. Perhaps she should talk to the others, see how many of them he’d been asking about.

*

Aric would not soon find Valmyr. The swashbuckling mercenary had already slipped clear of the city, though with enough differences in the garb he wore that the guards watching the city’s gates thought someone else entirely had left. A half-day’s brisk march brought him to an inn at which he had stabled his favourite mount, and with that mighty courser beneath him he wasted no time in leaving the Marnardines behind and returning to the court of the Valefic Kingdom, where his father and his elder brother awaited his reports.

After repeating his observations, he concluded, “I don’t think we’d ever have trouble from them if we never have need to go through the mountains, but we’ll never have their taxes either. I can’t say I’m as confident in the sanctity of our borders now as I was when we started this, either.

“With those being the case, I think conquest is desirable, but it presents certain challenges.”

“Conquest means war,” his older brother noted. “We do outnumber them. We just can’t make that any use.”

“In real terms, we outnumber them,” their father agreed. “In practical terms, we do not. I have told you boys before not to get too caught up in real terms, when the practical is what we need to solve.”

Neither prince looked chagrinned at this reminder. Their father had told them these and other lessons since time out of mind. Valmyr, meeting his brother’s eye, concluded that for both of them this had been the first example clear enough for them to truly take in their father’s meaning.

“So what do we do?” his brother asked. “Wait until this business with Erithnis is resolved, or…?”

But the King was already shaking his head. “I don’t anticipate that ending in the next year,” he said. “When winter comes they will retreat, and we can regather. But we fight a war the world expects us to lose. The Marnardines are not so urgent a problem I can jeopardise that.

“Valmyr, I give you a free hand to deal with the mountains. Take no men who are not already yours, draw nothing from the coffers we cannot afford to spare - we will be buying food this year to supplement our farmers, as too many of them are on the fields of battle - but solve this problem.”

The brothers exchanged shocked looks. This decision was, for their generation, without precedent.

Valmyr swallowed, then nodded. “Yes, Father,” he said. “As you say.”

Their father the King waved a hand vaguely in acknowledgement and he turned to his older son. “I will need you back at the front soon…”

But Valmyr didn’t need to know those plans, and indeed he believed that if he heard them, he would wish to be in battle instead of facing this incredible task. He stole away before he could be tempted to listen in.

*

To make the room that was now the council chamber, miners had hollowed out a large circular space inside a mountain. Light crystals had been germinated at key spots within the building to give bright light without smoke, and over decades if not centuries, the space had been decorated by councillor after councillor. Some of the artworks hanging on the walls had been entirely forgotten by the outside world.

In keeping with the stance of those who governed the Marnardines that thwere were no rulers, there was no raised dais, no throne, and no single central table. For the council of war the captains of the regiments and warbands had made their way inside, with some of the odder - Agni Rockfellow, the troll queen, being a prominent example - crouching awkwardly to fit in the space.

The smaller table that Ambra was sitting at had two others, Lonryn the Falconer and Myrtresca, a sorceress whose family had come to the Marnardines from sunnier climes a generation previously. She had been taught the magics of her mother and father, and was working on melding these with magics more common in the area. Her mother had been a battle mage, and Myrtresca followed that tradition, going as far as to soak the tips of her long dreadlocks with a mix of wax and fire-oil. This way, in battle she always had a source of flame with her and merely needed to make it grow, rather than have to kindle it for herself each time.

Ambra and she had never really got along, though they usually had a thin smile for one another. Ambra respected Myrtresca’s achievements; she believed Myrtresca respected her own.

“Princess Ambra,” Lonryn greeted her, rising from his seat to favour her with one of his long-legged bows, his head almost touching the floor.

Lonryn and his men did not favour armour, wearing tight pantaloon britches and warm, close-fitting jackets, allowing them to move easily even in the unsteady terrain of the Marnadines. They were equipped with the contents of a stolen box of experimental magelock muskets, sent once by the King of the Valefolk as a diplomatic gift to Empress Janne of the Crescent Coast. It had never reached its destination, and a small-time bandit leader called Lonryn had become a major figure in the Marnardine military.

By contrast, Myrtresca let proprieties slip. Instead she simply asked “What in the hells are you wearing?”

Confused, Ambra looked herself up and down. The toughened leather leggings and the enchanted, burnished breastplate certainly weren’t as formal as Lonryn’s garb, but they were also such a standard part of her wardrobe that the sorceress surely couldn’t be referring to them.

“What are - oh.” Her hand went to the choker with the mystic snow pearls. “This?”

“Yes.” Myrtresca was looking at her strangely. “Anyone would think you’d forgotten you were wearing that.”

It hadn’t come off since she’d put it on a little under a week before. She’d felt it lock into place, and she’d figured she would remove it later.

But she hadn’t, and only now was she realising. It was as if, at every point she would have taken it off, her mind had simply not shaped the thought that would have reminded her to.

“Not… exactly,” she said. “Why?”

“What is it?”

“It’s enchanted,” Ambra answered, and she hated that she was on the defensive. She made good decisions, she reminded herself. She sought expertise if she didn’t have it. Defending herself was therefore both unnecessary and simple. “The oracle recommended it to me.”

“For what?”

Ambra fell silent. Myrtresca regarded her with an almost pitying smile. “Would you like me to find out?”

“I - yes, please.”

She settled into her seat and Lonryn sat down beside her. Not able to meet either of her tablemates’ eyes, Ambra decided to change the topic. “Have any of you had anyone asking around after you recently?”

Lonryn shook his head. Myrtresca nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “A Vale man, unless my ears deceived me. He’s asked about almost everyone in this room.”

“Really?” Lonryn asked. The sorceress laid a gentle hand on his wrist. “My friend, you need to work on your spies,” she said. “In the role you have now, it’s important you know what’s happening.”

His brow furrowed. “I thought the point of all this was to find out what’s happening.”

“No,” Ambra said, feeling more cheerful again, the question of her snow pearls already forgotten. “The point of all this is to decide what we’re doing about it. And if you don’t already know, you’re just a yes man to someone else’s decision.”

“Stick with one of us and you won’t go far wrong,” Myrtresca advised.

“Do you know what he asked about you?” Ambra asked the sorceress. The question of eyes and ears for Lonryn wasn’t nearly so important to her.

“A lot, but nothing that will do him any good,” Myrtresca said. “I sat with him for two hours myself, concealed behind a glamour. His understanding of what I can do is hopelessly muddled now.” She smirked. “What about you?”

“The strength of my troop, in numbers and training,” Ambra answered. “Our training methods. How well we work with others. How I relate to my mother.”

“What does that sound like to you?”

“It’s suspicious,” Lonryn put in. The two women gave half-smiles but largely ignored him. Of course it was suspicious.

“He gave me to understand he was a mercenary,” she said. “Looking for a regiment to take him in. Single swords don’t do well unless they’re capable enough to be adventurers.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I’m still deciding,” she said. “What do you think?”

“I think he may have tried reconnaissance. To understand what forces an invasion of the mountains would face.”

Ambra and Lonryn looked at her in worried silence. “And after your meeting with him, you let him leave?” Ambra asked eventually. “Even thinking that?”

“Let’s say I didn’t,” Myrtresca returned. “Whoever he’s working for never finds him. They would assume he had failed. Whatever they’re planning, they’ll throw everything they can at it. And they’ll do it as soon as possible, which is the real problem.”

“Because we wouldn’t necessarily have time to muster everyone,” Lonryn said, and the sorceress nodded.

“The mountains are a good force multiplier,” Ambra pointed out. “My troop can often do more than we should be able to get away with, using the mountains as an ally. Only…” She trailed off. “Only the last time that wasn’t enough,” she said slowly, “the attackers were Valefolk.”

“They think they own us anyway,” Lonryn said with a smirk. “They’ve no reason to go poking around in here.”

“Maybe not, but all the same, they had,” the sorceress pointed out. “Do you know why, Ambra?”

She shook her head. “Valefolk take their wounded with them when they retreat. We didn’t have the chance to ask after.”

“And they didn’t have the chance to say before?” Myrtresca asked lightly. Ambra flinched; the sorceress had a knack for doing this kind of thing. Asking questions that built and built until a mistake you’d made seemed all the more glaring.

The few times they’d fought together, there had been genuine respect. Outside the battlefield it seemed like they always managed to create one of their own, and the other would always be the target.

“I’ll find out,” she promised.

*

It was another week before Aric reported a sighting of the mysterious mercenary. Rather than send an invitation and risk the man turning tail, Ambra hunted him down in person, finding him haggling with a Crescent Coast merchant over a pair of beautifully decorated knives, their inlaid filigree made from a rare metal that was said to poison blood on contact.

“Those seem like assassins’ blades,” she said from over his shoulder, and she had the satisfaction of watching him jump at her voice. The merchant eyed her nervously.

“Lady Ambra,” the man said, smiling warmly as he turned to face her. “I feared you had forgotten me.”

“Oh, you’ve been much in my thoughts, Valeman.”

At this he gave her a thoughtful look, eyes hooded. Ambra didn’t bother trying to read his thoughts from the subtleties of his expression; of course he looked like he was trying to figure out where this conversation was going. There were directions it could go which wouldn’t be healthy for him. He was bound to feel some concerns over that. “I can only take that as a compliment,” he said. “And let me say sincerely that I feel the same way.”

“We will talk, you and I,” she said. His attention was on her, so he couldn’t see it, but it gave her some tight satisfaction to watch the merchant hurriedly packing behind him, ready to steal away from what was visibly a conversation that could be dangerous for any of the participants.

“Certainly, my lady. Now?”

Was he calling her bluff? She nodded, gesturing him to one side. As he followed her guidance, moving in front of her, she took hold of his belt at the back with one hand and began walking aggressively, steering him decisively toward the edge of town, where her troop had their camp.

Once she had him safely in the privacy of her tent - one of the few places she could be completely confident there would be no eavesdropper with ill intent - she released her grip on his belt, shoving him toward one of the two low camp stools within.

“It’s time you started talking about you,” she said bluntly. “You’re no deserter.”

He nodded. “I am not.” No hesitation. No sticking to the story he’d established, or at least left her to think was his truth. A wise man, at least.

“You’re not looking for a regiment to join, either,” she said. “I think you already have one, Valeman. Don’t you?”

He cleared his throat. “Not as such,” he said. “We’re at war, to the south. I don’t know if news has reached this far about it. Truth be told, I thought when I first arrived here that the Marnardines considered themselves part of the Kingdom.

“My regiment - well, the regiment I fought in - took losses in the fighting. It’s in the Vale again now, recovering from that. But we’re paid a lot less not to fight than we are to fight.”

His words had a ring of truth to them, but he was dancing around something.

“So. Your attention is meant to be on Erithnis. You don’t get paid properly unless you’re in battle - a very foolish paymaster you must have, by the way -“

“The thinking is, if we can get the same money in peacetime, we might not be willing to go to war.”

“Nonetheless, you’re not getting paid properly, and so you travelled directly away from the conflict. Explain yourself.”

“I came here looking for a regiment that might come to war again,” he said. “One I could go back down in the pay of.”

“Are you not paid enough to live on outside battle?”

“We are…”

“So why are you in such a hurry to risk yourself for more?”

He looked very unsettled. “This is more suspicion than I usually face from those I’ve bedded,” he returned at length.

Ambra realised she’d smiled in response. “I don’t usually bed those who gossip is convicting of espionage.”

His eyes widened. “Is it that bad?”

“It may come to that, if you can’t account for yourself.”

“I’m not sure what accounting you want from me, my lady.”

The hand resting on her hip slid down to the handle of her whip. She said nothing, but watched his eyes track the movement, read the uncertainty in his face.

This was the other reason she carried a whip as well as a sword. A threat with a sword was effectively a threat to kill, and became a bluff that was easy to call. He would survive a whipping, so he could be threatened with it.

She waited.

“I don’t think you’ll believe me,” he said, and there was anguish in his voice. “But I want to be fighting. There’s a - a satisfaction, in battle, win or lose, but especially win. I hoped for an opportunity.”

“You may yet have one, and wish you had not,” she retorted. “I-“

“TO ARMS!”

The bellow came from the front of camp. Ambra looked up, startled. “Wait here,” she ordered firmly. “This is not over.”

*

A signal fire had been lit. The Golden Lions were mobilising for action. Ambra checked her weapons, settled the headband back into place, and led the way, confident in her own ability and in the enchantments she carried with her.

A couple of her soldiers had also acquired enchanted gear along the way, but for the most part they relied on their armour and their blades - and their comrades. It was a tight-knit unit, trained as well as they could be. There were very few things that could daunt them.

It turned out that one of those few things, now, was the Order of the Black Spear. A full company of armoured knights.

She wished she had Lonryn and his men here. Magelock guns weren’t a perfect solution to plate armour, but they adjusted the situation significantly. A couple of volleys and her people would have the edge.

But Lonryn and his men weren’t there, and the knights were, and so was she. And she had her regiment with her.

She threw her head back and let loose a powerful, ululating war howl. The men and women of the Golden Lions took it up, one by one, and she read nervousness in the movements of the knights.

“CHARGE!” she called, and her regiment swarmed down onto them. Getting the charge themselves was important; the knights were dismounting to meet them rather than crashing into them at speed.

Ambra was in the thick of the melee. Her sword and her whip danced, darting forward and back, keeping her targets off-balance.

The Lions focused on getting the knights off their feet. Anyone who could be downed could be disarmed or killed much more effectively. Plate armour is not as heavy as many believe, and if well-designed it moves with the person, but it still introduces some limitations. Getting up is a difficult, slow activity for those downed.

The Black Spear had a different outlook. They were striking to injure. A target who was weakened was less of a threat; a target who was wounded might be no threat all, like the dead. The battle was a clash between two elites, each exemplifying a different way of making war, Ambra’s ferocity against their endurance and determination.

It was not a balanced fight, unfortunately. She’d learned more about the Order since their first clash, and the thing that had worried her the most, this battle had shown her was true. The Order had multiple companies of knights. There were more of them than there were Lions, which meant that in the first battle, they hadn’t faced the full strength of the Order.

She didn’t think they were seeing all of the rest of it, but their numbers were down, and their opposition was as numerous as ever, albeit it did seem like they had a different commander.

There was none of the daring to his orders that she’d seen from the commander in the first battle. It was staid, solid command, keeping his men together, making sure everyone’s back was watched. It wasn’t by any means bad, but she worried about it less.

They would take a beating, but a commander like this would break off pursuit where the other, she was sure, wouldn’t have.

Ambra cut down several of the knights herself. Her enchanted breastplate sang over and over with impacts from the heavy spears of her opponents, but the magic placed on it stood true, and the small central group of the Lions around her fought like dervishes.

But she couldn’t fool herself. At best, this battle would be a stalemate. If it was, it would be at great cost to both regiments.

Still, if she was right about the commander…

With an effort she fought her way across toward him. “You!” she called.

The helmed figure shrugged a swordblow aside with the flat of his spear and swung his other hand across, catching Rucen with a gauntleted backhand that took her off her feet, crashing to the floor. He turned to face her, standing cautiously, his weapon hefted.

“Whatever you seek here,” she said, “you won’t get it. We can keep fighting, if you want more of both sides to fall.”

The helmet turned briefly to look down on Rucen. A single downward thrust of his spear, now, and she would be dead before Ambra could change it, though she would make a point to avenge her if he did.

Time seemed to stand still before his pauldrons moved in something like a shrug. He gestured to a knight nearby, and in turn that knight produced a horn and sounded a long, loud note.

The Black Spear retreated in good order, but Ambra knew she wouldn’t be able to call this one a victory; it was a concession, if anything.

She would have to make an example of the weakest Lions to keep control.

*

“Did you speak with him?” Myrtresca asked. The young man in front of her, his eyes hollow and haunted now as they hadn’t been when she last saw him, nodded slowly.

Myrtresca swore internally. He’d been such a promising young man to serve as an apprentice. To pass on her parents’ knowledge, along with everything she’d learned and developed herself. Usually he was forthright, open, and honest.

You ask someone to run one errand speaking to a supernatural entity of unknown origin…

“Tell me,” she said.

“He said yes, he pointed her at the stones,” her apprentice told her, the words now spilling out of him at speed. “They’re called snow pearls, apparently. He wouldn’t tell me what the enchantment is, or if he even knows.”

“And the other question?”

“If he’d found her behaviour offensive?” She nodded, and her apprentice visibly quailed. “I asked him.”

“And?”

“He told me he found my question offensive.”

“But he didn’t answer you.”

“No, ma’am, but -“

“Oh, seven djinn, relax, Stevar,” she told him firmly. “If you’ve offended him, his displeasure will be with me. He knows you were there on my order.” She put her hand on her hip. “Besides, he wouldn’t confirm anything about her, but he told you. What does that tell you?”

“…I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t know?”

“You, he warned. But if he meant any ill-will to Ambra, he didn’t want her to know.”

“Oh. Right. So it’s not a warning. And not a threat?”

She nodded. “It’s probably nothing, honestly. Or something mild. All the same, you’ve given me something to research.”

“I have, ma’am?”

“Had you ever heard of ‘snow pearls’ before?”

“No, ma’am.”

“No. But pearls come from sea creatures. You don’t tend to find those in mountains.”

“So these are something else?”

“Most likely. Something that looks like a pearl but isn’t. That gives me something to investigate. Understand?”

“Um. Yes, ma’am.”

Myrtresca sighed. “Nothing for it,” she said. “Let’s begin.”

*

Valmyr was still in her tent when Ambra returned from the battle, still seated on the same camp stool. Taking a quick glance around the room, she saw no good indication that he’d even searched her quarters; everything was as close to the way she’d left it as she might have hoped.

As she returned he stood in front of a tapestry she had hanging, studying it thoughtfully, and with the movement of the tentflap she made he started awkwardly, looking across at her nervously.

“Pardon me, my lady. There did come a point where I wondered if I had been here too long, but…” He shrugged.

Ambra found it hard to fully believe his awkwardness. Yet, at the same time, any sensible spy would have taken the opportunity to disappear.

Looking at him, she felt the frustration upon her surge up, and remembered how he had helped with it before.

With a noise that was almost a growl, she pounced on him.

Whatever it was that had given him the confidence to pin her, he didn’t find it in him this time, but he still pulled her head to his, making sure of a kiss, and he was surprised how satisfied he was when he felt her smile against his lips.

He was surprised, too, that her touch was more tender in places than the time before; that she was yielding in some moments. Even the flesh over her muscle felt softer, smoother, somehow.

Afterwards they lay together for a long moment, she with her back to him, resting up against him, he with an arm around her, slowly, gently stroking the skin of her arm.

It seemed to him that she was completely relaxed against him. He had expected tension, had assumed the battle he’d arranged for would be a rough one, and in any case his previous encounter with her had showed him just how frustrated she got.

“Can I ask what happened?” he asked softly, and she sighed, sagging back against him.

“It will be marked down as a draw,” she said. “I could argue that it was a victory - they left without their goal - but I’d only be lying to myself.”

Valmyr nodded, his lips brushing the top of one shoulder in a kiss, and waited.

“Their knights… we were the wrong regiment to face them, or at least to face them alone.”

“What are they here for?”

“I’ve been wondering that.” She snorted disdainfully. “They sent soldiers for it, whatever it was, instead of just asking.”

You need soldiers to bring back a fugitive, Valmyr thought. But rather than admit he knew anything about what the Black Spear was doing there, he tried a different tack. “Perhaps the people making decisions are tired of the Marnardines maintaining their independence.”

“We have to,” she answered, almost immediately. To Valmyr’s ear, it didn’t have the intensity of her usual retorts.

“Do you want to?” he asked, keeping his tone soft and unchallenging.

Ambra sighed a long heartfelt sigh. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice quiet and uncertain. “I should.”

He wrapped his arms tighter around her. “What do you want?”

“I… I’m not telling you that,” she said grumpily. But then she wriggled herself back against him, her bare skin warm against his own.

Valmyr didn’t understand any of this, but if she suspected him, he wouldn’t have had the run of the camp while the Golden Lions were out. He kissed her neck gently; Ambra made a sound not unlike a purr.

“How about some sleep?” he asked gently. “We can talk in the morning. You’d like that.”

“I’d like that,” she echoed before yawning. “Don’t leave.”

“I won’t,” he promised. His hand slid from her arm to her breast and the near-purring sound returned.

Valmyr grinned to himself.