Chapter Text
The sound of war horns was not something pleasant to wake up to.
Heidi de Beck, daughter of the noble Count de Beck and heiress to all of his lands within the Kingdom of Chevois, had never heard the sound before in her life. There were, however, a lot of things she’d been experiencing these past few weeks that she’d never gone through before. A foreign business trip to the Republic of Chevois on behalf of her father, attempting to keep old ties intact despite the still new political relationship between the two nations; and the sight of Vanderic soldiers in Tellione, the Republic’s capital, an unpleasant reminder of the Republic’s foreign masters. All this was unfamiliar, of course, but well within what she’d been expecting.
What she had not been expecting was for her ship to be ambushed on its return journey. The estuary of the Jade river was not where one expected to have a run in with Sea Folk longships, almost as far as they could get from their home islands.
Heidi had hidden during the battle, obviously, but the pirate raiders had overwhelmed her small force of guards with ease and found her as they looted the ship. They’d thrown a sack over her head, manhandled her into one of their boats, and it had been at least an hour before the ship’s keel bumped against dry land and the Sea Folk had beached their vessels and dragged her ashore. There must have been a camp hidden in the marshes of the estuary somewhere, preying on the unaware and the vulnerable.
The Sea Folk had not historically been warlike, but their wars with Vanderheim had driven them out of most of their territories on the mainland and left them with nothing but their islands to sustain themselves. Life had become hard, and many had turned to piracy to stay alive.
Not that Heidi had much sympathy for them as they bundled her into a small tent and threw her to the ground. Out of some kindness, they’d brought one change of clothes for her, but nothing else. She hoped that that at least would mean they intended on keeping her for only a short while. Maybe they’d already sent letters demanding ransom.
That had been weeks ago, though. The second set of clothes was getting grimy. The Sea Folk had been kind enough not to chain her up, but her tent was guarded day and night, and she’d still heard nothing of ransom. None of the raiders spoke to her, and the loneliness was starting to badly itch at her psyche.
So although the sound of war horns was unpleasant, it at least made for a change of pace. It was swiftly followed by the bark of orders in the tongue of the Sea Folk, but Heidi couldn’t follow it. She’d never expected to have anything more than a passing acquaintance with the northern coasts. There was a brief sound of shuffling from outside her tent, and Heidi realised that even her guards had abandoned her as they rushed to confront whatever this threat was.
Swallowing her fear, Heidi stuck her head out of the tent. There was no one in sight, save the occasional shadow of someone flitting through the campsite, pulling on a helmet or buckling on a sword belt.
The next set of bellowed orders she did understand. The language wasn’t that of the Sea Folk. She recognised the harsh snapping of Auric; Vanderheim’s tongue. Shit. Vanderic mercenaries probably wouldn’t take kindly to finding a Chevoi noblewoman- well, anywhere. Not that she was any fonder of them than they would be of her. And if they were bandits, rather than mercenaries…
The orders crescendoed into a roar. Heidi heard the thump of hundreds of bodies crashing together, and then the night was filled with shrieks and screams and the sound of steel screeching against steel.
It was over with a frightening speed. The screaming heightened, hit its apex, and then sputtered out in minutes, and was replaced by incoherent babbling as the Sea Folk broke. She saw them scatter among the tents, running for their lives, and then –
Their pursuers.
Vanderheim’s soldiers were legendary for a reason. They were the product of a society that put a weapon in the hand of its children almost as soon as they could walk. They were the fist of an empire that forbade its citizenry from leading a life that wasn’t defined by the sword. They had been raised on blood and steel; on sweat and pike and death and glory. And their mercenaries were those who had decided, at the end of their mandatory service, that life as a weapon was preferable to life as a reservist – soldiers who had only ever known soldiery and abhorred the idea of anything else.
The philosophers and sophists of Chevois said that Vanderheim’s society was inherently doomed, that no civilisation could expect to build its foundations on naught but blood and carrion and expect those foundations to remain solid. Heidi had heard it said that the philosophers and sophists of Chevois only claimed this because academic superiority was the only form of superiority that they could profess to have over Vanderheim; that it was the wishful thinking of a nation shattered by the relentless military prowess of their neighbour.
Whether the intellectuals of her home were right made no difference in this moment.
A few Sea Folk made a desperate stand around their tents, spear tips and shield bosses glinting in the moonlight. The mercenaries barrelled into them as if they weren’t there, the gleam of their halberds and greatswords hidden by the blood that coated the blades.
Heidi wasn’t taking her chances with them. She ran, weaving her way past tents and corpses and half-corpses that screamed and moaned and cried and bled out on the cold ground of their camp. She tried not to look, did her best to tune out the noises, but quickly realised that she was crying too. None of this was supposed to be happening. She was supposed to be home by now. She was supposed to be in her own bed, warm and safe.
She tripped. A tent’s guyline snagged around her foot and she tumbled into the dirt with a yelp, barely throwing her hands out in time to arrest her fall. She sprawled out, her chest shaking as she tried to breathe, tried to figure out how she was supposed to get home. She looked up, searching for a way out.
Three of the Sea Folk stood in front of her, to her right. Two of them held longswords, and another one of those long axes that only the shipbuilders used. Despite the commotion Heidi had caused, they weren’t looking at her.
Opposite them stood their ruin.
The moonlight lent a silver sheen to her scarlet hair, and it lit the scars on her face in a way that made them shine with a metallic hue. In one hand she held a greatsword, its blade casually leant across her shoulder, its tip dripping with blood so thick it seemed black in the dim. Worse than that was her smile.
The Sea Folk moved toward her. Her other hand closed around the hilt of her greatsword, and she met them as they came.
They fought as well as they could, but these were Sea Folk – their domain was a gently swaying wooden deck and the soft crunch of sand. They fought like devils: chaotic, but spirited; sluggish, but brave.
She fought as if they were already on their knees.
The man with the axe hit her first. A single hew from her sword tore through the haft of his axe and sent its head flying, leaving him holding nothing but a splintered stick. The cut continued on and met the longsword of one of the others with a ring. She stepped toward and around this assailant, holding him at range with her lengthier blade and bunching his comrades up behind him. The other two moved as quickly as they could to close her down, but she’d already killed their friend, flicking his head off like his neck was just another flimsy axe haft. The only thing that stopped Heidi from vomiting was the idea that she might draw attention to herself.
The axeman had thrown aside what remained of his axe and drawn a long knife from his belt, but he hadn’t a hope of closing the distance with that thing. She was almost leisurely in the way she fought now; neither longsword nor knife able to come close enough to offer her a threat without also opening themselves up to her own offensive.
Still, the man with the knife tried, and that was what killed him. He was too used to fighting with a longer weapon, misjudged his distance, and the woman lazily cleaved through his forearm, and then drove the point of her sword through his chest. The remaining longsword wielder turned to run, and the woman sighed in exasperation.
“Where the fuck d’you think you’re going?” she sniggered, and before he’d taken his first step her sword flicked out like a cat’s paw and crashed into his knee joint. He hit the ground with a scream and a grunt; Heidi realised she’d hit him with the flat of her sword. It might not have taken his leg off, but he wouldn’t be walking on that knee easily.
He rolled onto his back, extended his longsword in front of him with shaky hands. The mercenary contemptuously battered it aside and trapped his wrist under her foot.
“It’d have been quicker if you hadn’t run, y’know.”
Heidi shuddered at the sound of her voice. She sounded disappointed, like she was simply chiding a child or pet. She spun her greatsword around, grasping it by the blade, and slammed the pommel down into the man’s throat. There was a hideous wheeze and a cracking as his windpipe caved in on itself. Heidi retched. The mercenary stepped away, blood splattered across her smiling face, and Heidi met her eyes; they narrowed, and she said a word that Heidi didn’t understand. Behind her, the man she’d left on the floor made a gurgling wheeze as his lungs fought to suck down air.
Heidi pushed herself to her feet, but wasn’t nearly quick enough. The woman’s shadow loomed over her, those terrible blue eyes still narrowed and quizzical. She looked Heidi up and down, and her fingers tightened on the hilt of her sword. “My mistake,” she grinned, raising the tip of her sword to Heidi’s chin, its flat pressed against the underside of her jaw. “You’re just a Chev, right?” At Heidi’s silence, the woman rolled her eyes. “Ugh, can you speak Auric? Khorric makes me wanna tear my own throat out, and I don’t speak Chev.”
Heidi nodded carefully, painfully aware of the blade at her chin. There was blood on the tip, and it stuck to Heidi’s skin.
“Right, so, just a Chev, yeah?”
Heidi nodded again.
“Alright. Heidi de Beck, I’m gonna assume?”
Heidi stiffened. “How do you know that?”
The woman raised an eyebrow, lowered her sword, and chortled. “What, you think we just stumbled on these morons?” She jerked her head back toward the man who was still slowly suffocating to death. Heidi tried not to look toward him. “Chev noblewoman goes missing, you think there isn’t a reward for that kinda thing?” the mercenary grinned. It might have been charming, if her face wasn’t caked in drying blood.
“My family sent you?”
“Well, not as such. Daughter of a wealthy Chev goes missing. Rumour was you got kidnapped by raiders. We’ve been tearing through known bandit camps looking for you. Nice to find you in one piece.” She extended her free hand to Heidi. Heidi cautiously took it, realised it was wet with blood, and forced down a shudder.
“Then you have my thanks. What do I call you?”
“Mivella.” The mercenary’s grin twinkled with pride. “Von Kehrer.”
Heidi jerked backward, what little colour was left in her face draining all the way to her feet. Mivella smirked to herself.
“I’m not that scary, am I?”
“Your reputation is… fearsome,” Heidi gulped, trying her best to remember her manners. She didn’t look it, but the woman she’d taken for a simple mercenary was a noble too. She deserved Heidi’s respect for that, if nothing else.
Mivella seemed very pleased by this. She hummed her approval and again gestured behind her with her head. “Can’t promise you’ll find our camp much nicer than this one, but we’ll have you home as quick as you like.”
Heidi nodded for the third time. She wasn’t sure what else to do. “I… thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Mivella waved her hand and froze, her head cocked to the side. “Hear that?”
Heidi listened for a moment. “Hear what?”
“No more fighting,” she sighed. “Boring.”
She was right. The night was far from silent – Heidi still heard barked orders, the sounds of laughter, whoops of victory, but there was no more shriek of steel on steel. Mivella huffed next to her and stalked away, that greatsword leant across her shoulder. Heidi stared at her back, glanced around, and followed.
She trotted along at Mivella’s back, staring at the small of her back to avoid looking anywhere else. One other noise still permeated the darkness – the sounds of the dying. Gradually, those noises puttered out too, sometimes very abruptly and with a cry of terror. Heidi hadn’t quite imagined her rescue going like this.
“Lieutenant Kreisel!” Mivella called, and Heidi peered around her to see a group of mercenaries wearing the same colours – yellow and blue, Kehrer colours, Heidi remembered – one of whom peeled away from the throng and snapped to attention in front of Mivella.
“Captain.”
“Look what I found!” Mivella grinned and stepped aside, beckoning Heidi forward. “Our prize. Not a hair on her head harmed.”
The lieutenant was a tall man, although not as tall as Mivella, and his hair was shaved down to stubble, as was his beard. His dark eyes flickered over to Heidi, and he smiled at her. It wasn’t a smile that held even a lick of the same charm as Mivella’s grin, but it still seemed warmer and safer than the captain’s. “A pleasure, Lady de Beck.”
Heidi bowed quickly. “Thank you for your aid, lieutenant.”
Mivella interrupted before any more pleasantries could be exchanged. “Prisoners, lieutenant?”
Kreisel turned back to his captain. “A handful, my lady. Maybe a little over a dozen.”
Mivella chewed the inside of her lip. “Any hopeful looking ones?”
The lieutenant hesitated before he spoke. “A couple might suit your fancy, ma’am.”
“Only a couple?”
“You can take your pick of them if you’d like, ma’am.”
Mivella waved him away. “I trust your judgement. A couple will do. Make sure they get a good night’s rest.”
A nod from Kreisel. “And the rest, captain?”
Mivella smiled. Gone was any sense of that charismatic magnetism; it was replaced entirely by the look Heidi had seen on her when she was fighting. Vicious. Cruel. Gloating. “The Sea Folk like burials at sea, right?”
Heidi held her breath.
“Drown them.”