Peitar’s solemn expression lightened when he saw the eager faces, but then his humor vanished. Derek flashed a grin, and twiddled his fingers at his side, a semi-surreptitious wave, which sent a thrill through the mass of youngsters.
At the right, the King’s Army not on duty roaming the borders stood in ranks, their captains at the front.
Peitar hated war. The prospect of it harrowed him to the edge of nausea. He hated the fact that he could do nothing to ward it, nor could he lead a defense.
“If there was anyone else,” Derek had said the night before, as the three of them sat in the library, Lilah bouncing on her chair, “I’d happily relinquish command.”
“Who else is there but you, Derek?” Lilah asked loyally.
Derek had spread his hands. “I’ve asked, and I’ve looked. I know I was no good leading the revolution, but I’ve learned so much at Obrin.”
But had he learned enough? Peitar only knew that war was coming. If Norsunder Base was astir, the first two kingdoms likely to be overrun were Sartor and Sarendan.
So here he was. He stepped to the edge of the dais. His manner caused the front rows to fall silent. Gradually the rustles and whispers died away, and all faces lifted expectantly.
“As you have heard, Norsunder Base is on the march,” Peitar said. “This is what Darian Irad, my uncle, had prepared for all his life, and his grandfather before him. But my uncle has gone to our sister-world to help there, and so the trouble has fallen to me, who has no knowledge of warfare.”
He paused, and looked out over the straight ranks. “You are what remains of his army. Your commanders went into exile with my uncle, or died, as you all know. But this past year, Derek Diamagan, once considered your enemy, has gone among you to learn your skills.”
A rustle from the brigade quickly died.
“I told you when I became king that I wanted no more division among the people of Sarendan, and Derek has done his best to bring everyone together again. The captains at Obrin have met with me, and we are agreed: to face this new threat, we need someone in command whom all will willingly follow. Someone whom you trust. Someone I trust.”
Lilah and her friends held their breath.
“And so I come here before you to present Derek Diamagan, who is now Army Commander in Chief—”
His next words were lost in the spontaneous cheer that rose, first the high voices of the Brigade kids, who could not contain their joy. They were joined by the deeper voices of the army ranks.
Derek’s grin flashed again, then he turned to Peitar and nodded, almost a bow. Everyone who knew him understood how important this moment was to him, how deeply he was aware of Peitar’s trust, and how deep was his own trust in return. The cheering doubled in intensity and volume, going wild when Derek turned, eyes gleaming with tears as he raised his fist and shouted, “The king!”
“The king! The king!”
“Sarendan!”
“Sarendan!”
“Freedom forever!”
“Freedom forever!”
“Death to Norsunder!”
“DEATH TO NORSUNDER!”
Peitar’s eyes closed. How many of them would be left alive when the coming war was over? The shouting voices brought back the shouting crowd of the revolution, and images of fire, the dead and dying, during those first terrible days of the revolution.
Derek glanced at Peitar’s profile, saw the grief there, and raised his hand, tears drying on his lean, sunbrowned cheeks.
The noise died away. “I’ll meet with all the captains for a strategy session. Orphan brigade captains, this means you, too. We won’t leave you out.”
A ragged treble cheer rose, and quickly died.
“We’ll set up our defensive plan, and we’ll spend the winter preparing, since spring is the most likely time for attack.”
Another cheer rose.
When at last it ended, Peitar turned to go. Lilah lingered, looking between Derek, who was surrounded by army captains, and Peitar walking alone toward the back exit, then she ran after her brother. “What is it?” she cried. “I know a lot of people are complaining because our brigades are marching around drilling instead of doing spring planting, but you yourself said we have to defend Sarendan. And Derek is the best one to do it. So why are you upset?”
“I think . . .” Peitar studied his hands as if someone had written a message there. “Because I’ve seen the fervor of hatred of the former king and the army shift to hatred of Norsunder.”
“And that’s bad?” Lilah cried, hopping from toe to toe. “Why is that bad?”
“Because harnessing hatred is . . .” Peitar shook his head slowly. “Don’t you see, Lilah? Because it’s still hatred. It’s such a powerful weapon, a poisonous one, and once loosed, can it ever be sheathed?”
* * *
Sartor
Anyone in Eidervaen could make the napurdiav—walk the palace’s Purrad, the ancient labyrinth—except on Restday dawn, when it belonged exclusively to the royal family. That tradition had been ingrained for so many centuries that it carried the force of law.
On non-Restdays, Atan had gradually taken to appearing there before dawn, walking its four three-fold loops among the sheltering silver-leafed argan trees. She walked it in solitude with a candle in hand, but she was finding that frequency did not guarantee peace of mind. Maybe it was the impending war.
She meant to put war, and Julian, and her unspoken tension with the council out of her mind; she understood that she was not going to gain peace and insight if she brought her problems into the sacred space.
Or maybe it was memory. It had been Atan’s idea to coax Julian to walk the Purrad with her, promising a reward if she completed it. What did she expect would happen? Atan resolutely forced herself to return to the starting point.
She was bitterly cold, yet tears burned her eyelids when she looked at the now-peaceful patterns of water-smoothed stones worked into the twelve points under the shelter of beautiful trees, and how Julian had run hither and yon screaming, kicking the stones, and yelling “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” when she discovered the ‘reward’ was to be a good feeling inside when the pattern was complete.
Atan stood, her breath shuddering against her ribs. She winked and blinked, trying to control the tears, but they came anyway, and so she gave up. It was already late. There would be no peace today.
She retreated indoors. She’d scarcely gone ten steps when the hiss of slippered feet heralded arrivals from a side hall, and there was Chief Veltos leading a young mage, maybe a few years older than Rel, his curly red hair a pleasant contrast to his blue robe. His greenish-blue eyes were wide as Chief Veltos bowed and said, “Your majesty. Nalar here witnessed a Norsundrian mage breaching the border.” And to the mage, “Report.”
Nalar bowed, speaking the entire time. “I was assigned to take the fourth-year students to the border to oversee the illusions leading to Shendoral. I left the students to form a suitably aged-looking stone sign naming the western reach of Shendoral as Leath Wood, and transferred to the border to oversee what we had done.”
He paused to glance at the chief, who nodded for him to speak.
“We were told that on no account must we permit anyone to see us. So I hid when I perceived a rider approaching from the south, a woman, wearing a white coat. She rode a gray. Difficult to see against the snow. I hid and watched. She rode alongside the river, with something in her hand.”
“Magic?” Atan asked.
“I report only what I saw, which was little enough. However, whatever it was glowed blue briefly at the anchor point for the border protection. She bent and laid something on a rock, then rode the other way, past the bridge, to the west. I moved parallel to observe. When she reached the next anchor point, she laid something down, and then retreated to the bridge and rode across.”
“When was this
?” Atan asked.
“Not an hour ago,” Nalar replied. “I transferred straight to the chief.”
Veltos added, “She has broken the border wards with mirror spells. I myself just came from checking. Anyone can now come across between those two markers, without our knowing.”
“It’s got to be preparation for the invasion,” Atan said, sick and cold inside.
“And she’s riding ahead. She’ll know at a glance what we’ve done. Whatever she’s doing, she cannot discover the illusions,” Chief Veltos exclaimed. “Or all our work comes to nothing.”
Atan looked from one to the other. “What can we do?”
Chief Veltos said, “Nalar now knows where all our illusions are. I think he must transfer ahead of the woman and remove them all.”
Nalar said apologetically, “We can always restore them as soon as she has passed. I know my students would—”
“No students,” Chief Veltos said quickly. “This is a matter for mages. Your students may demonstrate what they’ve done. Then seniors only. If your majesty desires,” she appended quickly, turning Atan’s way.
Atan had been about to suggest she see for herself. But she knew what she was going to hear: her place was to hide, to stay away, with the useless youth. To agree to the command that Chief Veltos had just uttered, before her If your majesty desires.
So Atan did what was expected of her. But then she added, “I want to know what that woman is doing.”
Chief Veltos bowed, not hiding her relief. “You shall know first thing.”
Atan easily translated that to mean after the senior mages, the high council, and whomever else Chief Veltos deemed more important.
* * *
Off the continent of Drael
Eight and a half centuries ago, Tosta Orm, captain of the Grebe’s Claw raider, which was one of the fleet of raiders attached to the warship Gannet of Lefsan House, had known that Rainorec, the doom of the Venn, was nigh.
Generations of the orderly Breseng kingship election had been disrupted by murder, followed by whispers about the Dag Erkric, who was said to practice blood magic. When House Lefsan ordered their entire battlegroup across the Sea of Storms to attack the Venn colony for no discernable reason beyond House politics, Orm and eight other raider captains decided to flee.
It was breaking every oath they had made. It meant, if they ever returned, a painful death atop the Sinnaborc Tower, it meant iron-torc shame for the entire family, but what meaning had any of it, if those who ruled no longer honored their own oaths?
When the scar-faced pirate dag named Ramis, master of an ancient drakan-ship, offered to the nine a transfer token out of the world, they had accepted it. In trade they agreed to carry whomever needed carrying once they found themselves back in the world. Two days out of the Land of the Venn, they were on their way to fetch their marine fighters, the Drenga, who had been on a training mission related to the attack. A convenient storm began to rise, and the ships wore out to win sea room while their sea dags shifted to the command ship to confer with the Gannet’s dag, who was Erkric’s chosen.
This was their moment, or never, in spite of the weather. Nine ships hauled their wind and slipped away, a full sea-voyage of supplies in their holds. Each raider captain used the magical device that Scarface Ramis had given them, touching the fire-eyed gem to his captain’s torc. The device created a night-black chasm, ripped between sky and sea. All nine ships sailed willingly into that crack between sky and sea . . .
. . . and Orm’s ship emerged into bitter winter, nearly thrown by the frigid seas onto the shore.
Because he had ordered all Grebe Claw’s hands aloft before they had sailed into the chasm—expecting anything from ice-demons to firestorm—Orm was able to crack out an order that was instantly obeyed. Barely—barely—they skimmed the jagged rock teeth below the surf and beat out into the tiny bay.
But not before he witnessed, with his own eyes, this black-clad fellow with hair shorn like a thrall toss stones into the water in three different directions. These stones brought three more of his fleet out of the chasm, Grebe’s Eye, Grebe’s Wing, and Grebe’s Heart. Orm’s own heart mourned when he saw that his brother Luka, captain of Grebe’s Crest, was among the five missing.
Who would be stupid enough to cause a sailing ship to emerge nearly on the shore, and on the last of the flood tide? Only the wind howling over the land out to sea, and his sailors’ speed and strength, had kept them from beaching on this desolate coast, and all hands drowning.
Stupid as this fool perched on the rocks might be, Orm would keep faith with Scarface Ramis, who had kept his promise, unlike Orm’s own people, for he had never seen this rocky coast before. Scarface Ramis’s second promise was that they would be free to sail the seas once they completed their obligation.
And so Orm ordered the longboats down, and the three of his fleet who had sailed out of the chasm also lowered their boats. By the time the tide had turned to flow inward again, all those warriors perched upon the rocky jetty, and along the shore, had been brought aboard the ships.
It was then that the fool stamped into his cabin, and uttered a string of words. When Orm shook his head, the fool said distinctly, “Everon.”
“Everon?” Orm repeated, wondering if this be name or verb.
Henerek had scowled at the pale-faced, flaxen-haired idiot before him, who didn’t appear to understand a word of Sartoran, the most common language in the world, much less Norsundrian—an easy offshoot of Sartoran. Was this ship captain one of those idiot dawnsingers with their eternal, nauseating warbling, flitting around eating nuts and building treehouses?
Henerek glanced impatiently around the cabin, spotted rolled-up papers that had to be maps, and reached for them. “Everon,” he stated louder, jabbing his thumb toward those maps.
The maps turned out to be charts, to Henerek a backward sort of map. He made no sense of the big one with the colored lines on it, but he recognized the shape of Drael’s coastline above the long strait, and jabbed his finger on the place where Everon should be.
“Ev-er-on,” he said distinctly. “Take us there.”
Orm gazed at the chart, recognizing the coastline of Ymar. Why would this fellow wish to land above the better harbors at Jaro and Beilann? Though there were a few natural harbors, the coast rose steadily steeper, with treacherous currents around the many islands.
It did not matter. His pact with Scarface Ramis had been to serve as transport for whoever brought them back into the world. And so he would.
* * *
—
Three and a half months later, Orm’s and Henerek’s opinions of one another had not changed.
Orm took such a dislike to the arrogant young fool Henerek that he avoided direct contact, but he knew that a few of the young sailors had spent time with some of Henerek’s younger warriors, trading words by sign, and when they’d found enough common words, they traded stories.
As for Henerek, he thought of ships as wagons on water, existing to ferry goods or transport warriors. He hated these Venn whose food stank of fish and vinegar, and their pale, arrogant gazes.
Three long months and more he had to endure the vile cold and wet of shipboard life, beginning with constant nausea as the ships tried to beat into howling east winds that sent them back again and again. Six weeks until they rounded the southeast corner of the continent, off Sarendan’s mountainous coast. He’d expected them to pass that in a matter of days. Then they had to waste another three weeks in a desolate natural harbor while the Venn scavenged wood and rebuilt the masts destroyed in the worst of the storms.
At least the Venn captain obeyed his mandate to preserve the element of surprise by avoiding all other ships.
Or so Henerek assumed.
Orm paid no attention whatsoever to Henerek’s orders, even after his youngest crew member, the boy in charge of flag signals,
learned enough of the interloper’s tongue to communicate. Long before he understood that Henerek wanted surprise, he’d said to his men at the whipstaff, “Keep every vessel that nicks the horizon hull down.” And to the lookouts, “Mark any rigging. I want to know who’s out there, or what’s out there, but don’t risk us being seen.”
This order soon furnished the disturbing information that no rigging looked familiar: there were no signs of the distinctive Venn profile on the seas, nor the fore-and-aft rigging of the southern ships of their day.
Orm came to the conclusion that Scarface Ramis had caused them to sail beyond their own time long before the flag boy and Henerek’s youngest scout found enough common words to trade personal information. They had gone nearly nine centuries beyond their time. Discovering what this new world might offer them must come after they ridded themselves of these warriors.
Orm counted the days.
Henerek counted the days.
The night before the fleet of four expected to make landfall in Everon’s main harbor, the Venn flag boy and Henerek’s scout sat on the taffrail eating hot, spicy buns and talking, hand motions taking the place of modifiers.
“Why you no survey first?” the Venn youth asked the scout.
“Commander was a boy in that harbor. Says he knows it. Says also, they notice a stranger nosing around.” Seeing that most of his words confused the Venn, the scout put his hands up beside his face and spread his fingers. “Surprise!”
“Midday? Not so good. Dawn good,” the Venn said, and motioned behind him. “Sun.”
The scout shrugged. He didn’t care about tides or any of the rest of that. What mattered to him was the fact that he wouldn’t get to sneak in and scout out the harbor first, which was his job. But nobody crossed Henerek.
So the scout drilled with the others, each patrol having their own target. And once the harbor was secured, they’d march up the river to Ferdrian, the capital.
A Sword Named Truth Page 52
