The Channeling (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 3) Read online

  Still fuming, she returned to her room. However instead of taking off her wet clothes and collapsing into the bed for a much deserved rest, she changed gear and then headed back out into the freezing cold toward the barn that Tug and the majority of ‘her’ men were camped in.

  Leaning into a bitter wind that cut through her jacket and winter cloak like a saw blade through rotten wood, she womanfully persevered. She was determined to do her duty—even if it killed her.

  Stomping up to the barn, she hammered on the door with her fist until someone opened it. Stepping lively through the door, she stomped her feet to free them of ice and freezing mud as the door was slammed shut behind her.

  “Where’s Tug and the rest?” she asked crankily. “It’s time to call a battalion level meeting.”

  A pair of Old Blood men, former Raven-militia-turned-bandits-turned-Swan-recruits-turned-battletested-warriors in her side of the battalion exchanged glances and then nodded.

  “I’ll get him right away, Sir Falon,” said the short and shifty-looking one, who then turned on his heels and took off for the loft.

  “Tug, get out here now!” Falon hollered pushing her way through the mass of men huddled in the overcrowded barn together for warmth.

  There was a thump in the loft and then a rotund Tug came stumbling out, still putting his shirt and trousers into order as he came down the ladder. He stopped to hurriedly tie the hose that kept his pants from falling down before looking around to find her.

  “Tug,” Falon shouted with exasperation.

  “Sir Falon!” he exclaimed, his red face showing far-too-varnished happiness as he greeted her, “how can this lowly clerk be of assistance to your greatness?”

  “Greatness,” she scoffed, “stop pampering my ego and get your things. There’s work to be done.” She turned and looked around the room, “Where’s Darius?” she demanded.

  “I believe he was out making a trip to the outhouse, Sir Falon,” Tug said eagerly.

  She turned to scowl at him. “Fine,” she said shortly, “sergeants and up: we assemble in the loft. Leave word down here Darius can join us as soon as he returns.”

  “I’ll send a runner,” Tug said quickly, “however, maybe somewhere other than the loft might be—”

  “Just clear it out, clerk,” Falon said with exasperation, “using a room in the manor wouldn’t be appropriate, and down here and in the loft are the only places large enough for our war council. Since I’m not about to eject all these fine men into freezing cold outside, just make it happen.”

  “Right,” Tug said blinking rapidly before scrambling back up the ladder, “you heard the Lieutenant. Clear it out!” he hollered, and shortly after half a dozen men came clomping down from the loft.

  Falon’s impatiently tapping foot started to beat a rhythm as more and more people came down. Then her foot temporarily stilled as the next person to start down the ladder wasn’t a trouser-wearing warrior or fur-clad barbarian, but a skirt wearing local native to Captain Smythe’s new manor.

  In total, three women followed the six men of the Swan Battalion down the ladder.

  “Of course,” she sighed. Averting her eyes, Falon stared at the floor until the last of the previous inhabitants of the loft had reached the ground before grabbing hold of the wooden ladder and started hauling herself up with a muscle-jerking heave. Of course, the very act of pulling herself up the ladder broke Falon’s direct contact with the ground and thus the ‘heave’ wasn’t quite as forceful as she’d both hoped and grown used to during a winter filled with harsh patrols and harsher witch training.

  Pushing with her legs to compensate for her return to her un-augmented strength, she scowled as she surged up the ladder. Quick as a cat, she reached the loft. Taking a moment to stare around at the crumpled and rumpled fur rugs scattered around the area, alongside a number of empty wineskins and left over chicken bones stripped of their skin and meat, she frowned in disgust before quickly schooling her features into a more appropriate demeanor. She was an officer and a ‘gentleman’ now, as she was constantly being reminded.

  “Tug,” she yelled down the ladder as soon as she saw the condition of the room, “get up here and clean up this mess. Is this a barracks pig sty?” she demanded rhetorically.

  Tug waited until he had hauled himself back up the ladder before speaking. “I believe this is a barn, Lieutenant,” he puffed as without stopping he began picking up loose trash and kicking the rugs to the side of the room.

  “What a joker,” Falon scoffed coldly, “I don’t need wise-crackers in my outfit, Tug. What I need are warriors. I’m willing to reluctantly extend that to include overweight clerks, but keep pressing your luck and ‘Bad Scales’ can just as easily find himself returned to the stock as allowed to continue skimming from the company pay-chest.”

  “There’s no need for threats, Lieutenant,” protested Tug, his eyes widening as he stopping cleaning, backed up, and raised his hands as if facing a wild beast at close range, “and I’m as innocent as the day is long! I would never take anything but what was authorized by your own signature from the company funds. I’ve learned my lesson—I’m a reformed man. More so even since it was all originally a simple misunderstanding that landed me in front of the Lord’s justice. A situation perpetrated by business rivals anxious at my success!”

  “Enough of your malarkey, Bad Scales,” Falon said, waving her hand imperiously now that her authority had once again been made clear to her insubordinate Clerk, “clean this mess up.”

  After saying this she then proceeded to a table set against the barn’s back wall and after clearing its surface by sweeping the mess of knuckle bones, dice, wooden pegs and dirty cups onto the floor dragged over a three legged stool and sat down.

  Now she just needed to wait until everyone gathered so that she could share the news and then wow them with her great plan to fix everything. Of course, that meant that first she needed to come up with a plan.

  Chapter 4: Company Meeting

  Sir Orisin cleared his throat, and Falon blinked as she looked up from the pair of hands she’d clasped in front of her.

  “Please sit,” she said, gesturing to the table.

  With much clamoring as they secured and adjusted chairs pulling them backward and frontward and even turning them sideways and reverse they eventually all found their seats.

  She stood up and, pressing her hands down along her sides, smoothed her rough and rumpled clothing.

  “I hereby call this meeting of the Swan Battalion to order,” Falon said firmly. Looking around she met the eyes of the four sergeants, the clerk, the knight and the wizard who had been gathered. These were the men who, along with—or rather under her direction—ran the outfit now that Smythe was leaving.

  “If this is a battalion level meeting, shouldn’t the Captain be here?” asked the Wizard with the patchy beard, “not that I’m complaining, mind. It’s just a query.”

  Seeing the question echoed in the eyes of the others she nodded firmly. “As of now, I am the Acting Captain. Captain Smythe has officially stepped down and separated from the Swans in order to take over running his manor and territory. I don’t know how long I’ll remain the Acting Captain, but until something changes it’s my job to carry out the orders we received from the Prince. I need to get this outfit over to Ice Finger as fast as reasonably possible so we can rejoin the main army,” she finished, sweeping the table from one side to the other with her gaze and unconsciously holding her breath.

  The piercingly deep, blue eyes of Sergeant—and current Training Master—Darius met and held hers before he slowly nodded in understanding and agreement. The double-sized and powerfully built Sergeant Uilliam beside him leaned forward eagerly.

  “Just give the orders, Sir Falon. My people will be ready to leave this frozen wasteland beside our chosen knight as soon as we’re done packing,” the large man said.

  “The same with mine,” Sergeant Jake said tersely. “Although without the ‘chosen knigh
t’ bit, Lieutenant,” he added, making it clear that unlike Uilliam and his former Raven militia, Jake’s men were here as men sworn to follow the Swan banner and not her personally.

  “Consider me properly rebuked, and twice as eager as the next man to leave the icy north,” said their Wizard.

  “I don’t know that what I said was a rebuke, Oliver,” Falon frowned at the magic user.

  “Pay me never-no-mind,” said the young, scruffy-faced Wizard with a frown on his face, “and remember, the name’s ‘Schmendrick.’ Oliver’s just the boring name my parents gave me.”

  Falon resisted the urge to roll her eyes and instead tried to nod seriously, as if she’d just been properly reminded.

  Ignoring Tug who seemed like he was trying to blend into the background anyway Falon’s gaze inevitably landed on the proverbial fly in the oil inside this particular room.

  “What?” demanded Gearalt, the rough-looking sergeant who seemed none too pleased at finding himself the center of attention.

  “What about you and your men?” Falon asked carefully, but not so carefully that she risked coming across as weak. She honestly didn’t care enough about Gearalt or his men enough to risk that, “You coming with or staying here with the Captain?”

  The head of the Battalion’s forager squad shot air out his mouth, making a disgusted noise.

  “There might be a few idiots looking to stay, but fun as it’s been playing border reaver and chasing savages who know this forsaken wasteland like the back of their hands, most of my lads are looking forward to returning a place that isn’t cold—and where they can sell their ill-gotten gains,” the Sergeant grunted.

  Falon eyed him unhappily. While she was not sure if she should have been happy or sad that the foragers were coming with them, after the difficulties she’d had to go through when they were attached to her company last campaign she just silently wished that they’d all chosen to stay. Regardless of their utility, if you asked her opinion she preferred they stayed behind. She simply didn’t want them.

  Unfortunately, it looked like she was stuck with them.

  Determined to put the best possible face on the situation, she womanfully forced a smile onto her face. Unfortunately, it must have looked as forced as it had felt because the forager sergeant immediately bristled.

  “Unless that’s a problem for you, Lieutenant,” Gearalt said, his voice creeping dangerously close to insolent as he scowled.

  Falon blinked, feeling a sudden urge to lean back and away as if facing a strong wind and a sudden chill wind seemed like it had found its way through the wooden walls of the rickety fire singed barn. Gritting her teeth she stilled her suddenly shaking left leg and forced herself to meet the Sergeant’s eyes. The last thing she wanted was to appear nervous and have that nervousness mistaken for weakness.

  “Why would it be?” she asked matching his hint of insolence with her own hint of mockery. Or at least she tried but despite now being a battletested young woman, blooded warrior, witch trainee and now even a belted knight to her ears she came off as more stilted and strained than mocking. Silently she cursed, but refused to look away.

  Up here in the rafters, where her connection to the golden energy that flowed through the earth might be faint to the point of total absence—and with it her unnatural strength—she would be little more than a young girl in the face of a grown warrior. But if she put her two feet on the ground, she was strong enough to overpower larger men—and even trained knights and savages empowered by their spirit totems, to say nothing of a mere foraging sergeant like Gearalt.

  Subconsciously, she turned up her nose and stared down loftily at the rough forager.

  “You and your men will be more than welcome to stay with the Battalion. As will any of the men from Capta—” she paused and then continued with determination, “I mean, Sir Smythe’s former company. We’re all one war band in the service of the Swan, and are seconded to the Prince after all,” she said firmly.

  “I’ll pass the word,” Gearalt grunted, but seemed to relax fractionally as if some tension within him had just faded away, “and although I’m not sure how many will want to stick, some will. That said, I think we’re going to be back to company size before this is done. Never did feel entirely comfortable with being a battalion anyway. Bigger units are more likely to be slotted into the main line, especially when the army grows smaller—”

  “As I just was about to say,” Falon cut in with irritation, “we’re going to retain every man possible, as well as recruit every swinging blade we can between here and Ice Finger. I am determined that the Fighting Swans will not go from a Battalion back down to a Company on my watch! I don’t care if they’re half-starved peasants or dirty, outright savages,” she said fervently. “When the day comes that Lord Lamont holds me to account, I want to be able to honestly say we did our best.”

  “Ambitious,” Darius said enigmatically, his tone decidedly neutral.

  “You want to add more savages?” Oliver sounded decidedly leery, and more than a little concerned at the notion. Clearly he was less than enthusiastic about this new plan.

  “I’m not sure about more of those throat slitters,” Uilliam looked troubled for a moment before shrugging, “but if it’s Sir Falon that orders it, then of course his war band will do its duty,” he said stoutly.

  Falon paused a moment to wonder if she wasn’t making a mistake. Maybe it would be better to let the Battalion fade to the size of a company, and then to a mere war band, until it eventually disbanded. If that happened, she could slip away leaving ‘Sir Falon’ dead on a battlefield somewhere, while Miss Falon Rankin of Brown Creek returned home.

  But after fretting for a long moment she clenched her fist and stiffened her backbone. She could always slip away later if it came to that, but could she really stand by while the men and warriors who looked to her for leadership were ground down until the entire group of Fighting Swans were killed and disbanded? No she decided.

  “Until I receive a command otherwise, I have to do the best job I know how,” she said resolutely, “I don’t know any other way than to do my duty. And as a Lieutenant, and now Acting Captain, that is to keep the Fighting Swans fighting at its best possible strength.”

  “Bringing in more barbarians is a risk,” observed Sergeant Jake neutrally, “and starving peasants, what few we could find in the time it’ll take us to get to Ice Finger Keep, are worse than useless until fed up and trained. Even then I wouldn’t wager a bent copper penny on their fighting power or benefit to the Battalion. Not to mention the costs of outfitting a man who’s just as likely to drop everything and run his first time on the field.”

  “We have a large number of leftover weapons from the war against the barbarians. They may not be the best, but they are something,” Falon said worrying her lower lip with her teeth. They’d kept a number of the stone and bronze weapons of their enemies, as well as the weapons of their own fallen comrades.

  “So now we’ll have starving peasants armed with stone knives and bearskins. What a wonderful plan,” sneered Gearalt.

  “You have a problem with this strategy, Sergeant?” Falon suppressed the urge to make like a quail and hide herself in the face of this criticism, and forced herself to appear as strong as she could. “Perhaps you’d care to offer a better idea?”

  “Oh no, Lieutenant, Sir, there’s nothing quite like watching a newly pressed militia hit the battlefield for the first time. Me and my boys look forward to rounding up as many serfs as we can find hereabouts and impressing them into the army for you. Especially if there’s a per head bonus involved,” he chuckled suggestively, the dark pleasure that briefly flashed across his face as he spoke about forcibly rounding up a bunch of starving men turning her stomach in more ways than one.

  Falon clenched her fist and thumped it on the table in helpless fury. She couldn’t very well punish a man—especially a sergeant—for being too eager to do the job she asked of him. If she tried then at the very best he’d on
ly make a lackluster effort. At worst…she’d be sowing the seeds of a rebellion.

  However, she could make one thing very clear.

  “I want to make clear that I won’t tolerate pressing any man into the Swans against his will,” Falon said harshly before continuing in a more normal tone, “that said, anyone that has all his eyes, ears, arms, fingers and senses and wants to fight for pay will not be turned away.”

  “And the recruitment bonus?” prompted the Forager Sergeant.

  Falon frowned feeling a headache forming. Being pressured by grown men twice her age and with ten times more military experience than her was wearing. Not to mention it did nothing to help her confidence level. For a moment, all she wanted to do was throw her hands in the air and storm out of the loft declaring that it was all too much. The Captain dumping the Swans in her lap and her sergeants’ lukewarm reception to her proposals—lukewarm at best, and actively seeking to line their own pockets at worst—was all too much for a girl from a poor squire’s estate to handle.

  But she didn’t. Instead, like the warrior that she had become after two major battles and a harsh winter fighting savage winter hill raiders, she gritted her teeth determined to ride it out.

  “I think it would be best if you and your men looked to their duty first and lining their pockets second,” Darius interjected.

  Gearalt glared at the former Imperial. “Perhaps you should mind your business and leave me and my mine to ours, Darius,” said the Forager Sergeant, “it’s every warriors’ gods-given right to line his pockets with the fruits of his labors. I wouldn’t be a good Sergeant if I wasn’t looking out for them.”