Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga 3)

“But losing Wallachia might break her.”

“Better broken than dead.”

Radu was not certain that he agreed with Mehmed. Not after what he had been through and seen himself. He was still healing, and was uncertain he would ever fully heal. And the things that meant the most to him—Nazira, his faith, protecting those most innocent—had not even been taken from him. If they had…

He was also uncomfortably uncertain whether the claim that they both loved Lada was true. Certainly their actions over the past year said otherwise.

“I know what Wallachia is to her,” Mehmed continued. “I am not blind to her devotion to it. She has made it clear she will always choose it over me.” There was a pause, then bitter longing in Mehmed’s tone. “But we will take that choice away from her before it destroys her.”

Radu looked up at the elegant silk ceiling of the tent. A gold chandelier hung from it, lit even though it was day. Only Mehmed could make taking an army against his sister sound like an act of love and friendship.

* * *

“Today we will reach the Arges,” Aron Danesti said, riding beside Radu and Mehmed. Aron was shorter than both of them—Mehmed and Radu were tall and lean, though Mehmed was growing broader now that he had finally stopped growing taller—and it did not help that Aron’s horse was smaller than theirs. He constantly adjusted in his saddle, trying to sit up straighter, but he still had to crane his neck to look up at them. “There is a good bridge we can use. And the land across is a fertile area. We should find early crops and livestock. We can rest there.”

Mehmed did not respond. More and more often he chose not to speak to those around him unless he was correcting them.

Aron cleared his throat self-consciously, then continued. “We should not leave Bucharest open behind us. It will cost several days, but it is worth it to take the fortress rather than leaving us exposed to a potential attack from the rear.”

Ali Bey, on the other side of Radu and Mehmed, grunted. “I do not like it. We had to send men to retake Giurgiu as well. But it is a necessity. We will cross the Arges, and then send a force to take Bucharest.”

Radu wanted it all to be over with. He wanted Tirgoviste taken, Lada in custody, this entire country and his history with it behind him. But he knew even after they took Tirgoviste it would not be simple.

They crested a hill and found the scouts waiting, all facing the same direction.

Where they had anticipated a bridge bordered by a large town, complete with livestock, supplies, and crops—not to mention people—lay only a smoldering ruin. Radu had a sudden flashback to his time in Albania fighting the Ottoman rebel Skanderberg. Radu had been at Murad’s side then in an endless siege. It was his first taste of war, and he had never managed to cleanse his palate of the burning rot it had left behind. Skanderberg’s men had waged the same type of campaign, destroying their own crops to prevent the Ottomans from getting to them.

Had Radu told Lada about that strategy? He could not remember. They had not been close anymore, not at that point. She had taken Mehmed, and he had joined Murad in an effort to prove himself the more useful sibling through political maneuvering. Surely he had not told her about it. This was not his fault. She could have learned it from her time with Hunyadi, though it did not seem like the old Hungarian military leader’s style.

It was probably his sister’s natural inclinations coming out. If she could not have it, no one could.

“So much for our bridge,” Radu said. It would mean a delay, and one spent without extra provisions at that. Radu watched as a few mounted scouts explored the area around the bridge. One of them just…disappeared. There, and then gone. The others quickly turned their horses, shouting about pits and traps. Ali Bey began issuing instructions to avoid the entire area.

“Radu Bey?” a man interrupted, drawing Radu’s attention. Several of his own scouts had approached. Though Ali Bey had the bulk of the forces, Radu’s four thousand mounted men were independent of the main Janissary troops. Radu had sent them scouting the surrounding area rather than the path directly ahead.

The scouts had two people with them, peasants by the look of their clothing. The man and the woman regarded

Radu with baleful expressions.

The lead scout bowed. “We caught them a few miles up, dumping rotten animal carcasses in the river. They have been doing it for weeks. It will have tainted the water this far down for at least a few days.”

The woman grinned. “Thirsty? I hope you brought the Danube with you.”

Radu massaged his forehead. “Where is the nearest source of clean water?”

The man snickered. He had facial hair, which was puzzling. Only boyars were allowed to have facial hair in Wallachia, just as Janissaries were required to be clean-shaven. It was a matter of status. “You are welcome to try any well you find. Please do.”

“What family are you from?” Radu asked. The man had neither the speech nor the carriage of a boyar to account for the facial hair.

“No family you would know.” He rubbed his jaw, eyes narrowing with a sly smile. “Did you think you would return and find things how you left them? We have a new prince. New rules. New freedom.”

Aron Danesti had joined Radu. “This does not look like freedom to me. You have no crops. No people.”

“They are in the mountains.” The woman shrugged, grinning to reveal more gaps than teeth in her mouth. “I can tell you that, because you will never find them. You would all starve first, or look so long that winter will return and claim you blue and frozen as its own. Then our people will step over your bodies to reclaim our land. Look as long and as hard as you want, you will find only death here.”

“We are coming to help you,” Aron said, genuinely puzzled by their defiance. “Your false prince is provoking other countries. She has made you unsafe.”

“She is everything.” The woman spat at Aron. One of the scouts grabbed her arm, but she jerked toward them, eyes feverish. “Everything we have, we owe to her. The bastard boyars have been given the place they always wanted: they are above everything, looking down on us from their lofty stakes.” She jutted out her chin. “I know you, Danesti son. You will join your father.”