Ascendant

by Florian Armas

  Siena was right, Mara is pregnant, Sybille thought. And he treated her like she was a servant. It’s too early to give him... “I don’t have it with me, but I will return in two months.”

  Codrin sensed the change in her, but did not know what caused it and what her reaction meant. “As I understand it, the decision related to the documents belongs to Dochia,” he said, tentatively.

  “We all have our own decisions to make. May I leave now?”

  “Yes.” She did not ask me much about the attempt on my life. Codrin stared after her, thinking that something important was eluding him, something that will change the future.

  Once Sybille left Poenari, he decided to climb again on the wall and the basalt tower offering a good view toward Orhei. It was sunny, and he sat on the stone, leaning on the warm wall surrounding the western basalt tower. Far away, the small castle of Orhei was visible like a toy from a boy’s game. Columns of warm air, raising from the hot stones, fluttered in the gentle breeze, appearing alive as they danced in a swaying motion, changing the shape of the city, making it look ghostly. Codrin closed his eyes, and remained like that for a while. Up there, the day was calm and peaceful, as if Poenari did not belong to the turbulent Frankis, giving a sense of safety, a refuge from his usual concerns.

  His inner peace dissolved into a vision: Dochia crossing a river. What river is that? While not as large as Dunari, it was a larger than anything else he had seen in his tumultuous journeys. There was a vast plain on both sides of the river. Nepro River? He tried to remember an old map from the wall of the Arenian Council Room. It can be, but what is Dochia doing there? There are only nomads on both sides of the river. Then he saw a Triangle of Assassins joining Dochia, and the vision ended abruptly. Is Dochia betraying me? No, I still trust her. Is she going to Nerval? Codrin bit his lip as uncomfortable feelings surfaced, rising above the calm of the past moments. He tried to force another vision, but instead of some uncertain future he recalled old memories: Saliné, Vio, Jara, Cernat. Most of his wanderings into the past brought back Cernat’s hunting house, in a time which was calm and happy.

  Two heads appeared on the stairs. Absorbed in his inner world, Codrin did not see them.

  I wish they could be here, with me, Codrin sighed. His inner eye moved to Severin, during Jara’s wedding, and he shook his head. The unwanted memory did not vanish, and he opened his eyes. Two pairs of eyes were staring at him with unhidden amusement. “Sit we me.” Codrin patted the ground, and the girls joined him, Amelie on his right and Livia on his left, both girls bracing their arms on their knees. Since Varia had arrived in Poenari with her children, Amelie and Livia were like twin sisters.

  “When can we move in the palace?” Amelie asked. “I wish to be renovated faster.”

  “It will take years until we can renovate it fully,” Codrin laughed. “In two months, the construction of the drawbridge will end, and most carpenters and masons will go to repair the palace, and we will move before the yearend party.” The main wall was in better shape than I expected. There was almost nothing to repair there. Such a strong mortar the Talants had. Is the city which bears the marks of time, but we need to repair only the palace, the barracks and the inhabited houses. Everything should be ready by the end of spring. Codrin used his Mountes as carpenters, and asked Balan, the First Mester of Deva, to send masons to help rebuild Poenari. The only inconvenient was that the stone workers belonged to Maximen, Balan’s nephew, who knew Tudor. Each time Maximen came to Poenari, both Codrin and Vlad needed to hide in a way that did not make people ask unwanted questions – few of them knew the relation between Codrin and Tudor.

  “And we can dance,” Amelie said, eagerly.

  “Yes, we can dance. You promise to dance with me, and I hope that Livia will allow me to invite her.”

  “Yes,” both girls said as one.

  Codrin’s thoughts stretched again in the past: dancing with Vio in Severin, the lights underlining her broad smile. He remained silent, and not knowing what was in his mind, the girls stayed silent too.

  Chapter 21 – Dochia

  The trees around them were different, reflecting brilliant colors in the crisp sunshine, and there was a freshness in the air which filled their lungs as only high mountain air could do. Dochia and her guards were now deep in the forest, at the foot of the mountain where the Alba Hive of Silvania was situated. At the crossroads with the road coming from Arenia they saw a Triangle of Assassins and instantly left the road, taking battle stations inside the forest. The Wanderers were the best archers; the Assassins were the best sword fighters. The Wanderers dismounted, hid behind some trees and nocked their bows. From their position they could wait patiently for the next move.

  “We come in peace,” the Master Assassin who led the Triangle said, stopping his horse thirty feet from them. He did not dismount. Neither did he unsheathe his curved swords.

  “Last year, I heard the same words from Dorian,” Dochia said, keeping the bow tensed in her arms.

  “Dorian was a Serpentist; he was no longer one of us. We are just three brothers; I doubt that such a small number could cause problems in your hive. The First Light of Silvania and Ada are expecting us. We bring news from the east.”

  “Ride a hundred paces in front of us.”

  The Assassin Master nodded and turned his horse north, toward the hive. His brothers in arms followed him. Cautiously, Dochia left the forest when they were a hundred fifty paces ahead. She urged her horse out of the forest, followed by Mira and Irina.

  “Keep your bows nocked,” Dochia whispered to her guards, and they shadowed the Triangle in front of them, silent. None of them spoke until they arrived at the Alba Hive. Approaching the entrance, Dochia pushed her horse to go faster, and the six riders entered almost together.

  “Quite a strange sight,” Ada said from the top of the stairs of the main building. “Wanderers and Assassins riding together. For a moment, I thought that I was dreaming. Come inside, all of you;you are expected. Dinner will be served soon.”

  Entering the room, Dochia saw that three guards were posted inside. The Assassins saw them too, but they chose to keep their thoughts hidden.

  “Welcome, Scorta,” the First Light of Silvania said to the Assassin Master. “You and your Triangle are welcome to our Sanctuary.”

  “Thank you.” Scorta bowed. “We are pleased to enjoy the peace of your Sanctuary. As I explained on the road, when we met your Wanderers, I want underline that I am not Dorian. Neither am I a Serpentist.”

  “Well,” Ada said, “I can confirm that two months ago you were not Serpentists. I am sure that you will reassure us about the intervening period.”

  “You may sit.” The First Light of Silvania gestured at the empty chairs separated among several Wanderers. She was less worried now that the right words had been spoken by both parties. “I am thinking that you did not eat today.”

  “As I remember, Dorian liked pine honey. Have you the same taste for it?” Ada asked, a hint of mischief in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Scorta said in mock shame. “I know such a weakness doesn’t fit well with the picture of an Assassin.”

  “Why not? It just makes you more human.”

  “I wonder what we would be without that weakness: subhuman or superhuman?” Smiling absently, he spread butter on his bread, then honey.

  “Oh, dear, too much semantic pedantry just kills a conversation. If I were a young girl, I would prefer a strong man with a few little weaknesses.”

  “A curious memory just came to me. That day, when I met you for the first time, Ada. My first question was if you had talked the same way when you were a young girl.” He bit into his bread with the gusto of a hungry man, and that hid his amusement. Some honey slid, almost invisible, onto his fingers, glowing against the darker color of his skin.

  “That was kind of you, Scorta. To remind me that you were an eighteen-year-old novice, while I was already … almost an old woman.”

  “Still, you did not ans
wer my question. I know it’s not good manners, but I hate to waste good honey.” He licked his fingers, and took time to finish the first slice of bread.

  Dochia had a feeling of a déjà view; this felt like a replay of the encounter they had a year ago, the one that ended in the death of so many Wanderers and Assassins. It felt the same, indeed, and at the same time it felt different. Unconsciously, her hand gripped her dagger. She glanced at Ada, then at the First Light, but they ignored.

  “I remember that I had an awful southern accent,” Ada said, with an absent smile.

  “I came from the south too.”

  “Oh, no, my dear, you came from the far south, and your accent was worse than awful. In that half year when you were wounded and you stayed in our Alba Hive in Arenia, I spent a whole winter trying to correct it. You were still a novice Assassin.”

  “And that leaves me as knowledgeable as I was before. I give up.” Scorta raised his hands, a broad smile stretching his lips. “Honey makes me thirsty.” He licked his fingers again, and reached for the carafe of water. “The more you eat, the more you want. I feel like a child,” he chuckled. “Baraki is now in Nerval.” He fell silent, and everybody stared at him in badly feigned surprise. “He has a thousand men with him. That’s not many compared with the horde, but it still means … something. Do you still want to send a Wanderer Triangle to Nerval?”

  Ada glanced briefly at Dochia, then pondered for a while. “We still need to send one, but now…” She thought for a moment. “Now we need to think more about the risks.”

  “Baraki is not fond of the Wanderers. I don’t mean to imply that I will not join your Triangle on the road to Nerval.”

  Though she had managed to keep her composure when she heard about Baraki, Dochia started, hearing that Scorta would ride with her.

  “Despite some southern traces of accent, I am not an ogre,” Scorta said, looking at her. “I suppose that you will be the one to visit beautiful Nerval.”

  “Dochia, you can trust Scorta,” Ada said, and he nodded his acknowledgement. “In my vision, you will leave in a week from now, but there was nothing about Baraki. He has enough men to watch every street in Nerval and every road going leading there. I wonder how he convinced the nomads to accept a thousand foreign soldiers.”

  “He is now the main candidate for the Khadate throne.”

  “Baraki was a contender for the throne a year ago. I would have expected them to have a king by now,” Dochia said.

  “Baraki has adopted a wait and see tactic. He has worked to undermine the other main contender, Hasn, slowly,” Ada said. “Not really Hasn, as he is fourteen years old, and has the mind of a ten-year-old child. And of course, the same bad temper as the previous King. A family trait, it seems. The one who really rivals Baraki is Shana, Hasn’s mother.”

  “There are rumors that Baraki has promised to marry Shana if he takes the throne. She is only thirty-six years old,” Scorta said.

  “If Baraki married every woman he offered, he would need a bigger palace to host them all.” Ada laughed, and her merriment was contagious.

  They stopped talking politics and danger, and dinner continued in the lighter mood created by Ada. The Assassins can be quite gentle and amusing when they want, Dochia mused. Dorian acted the same way until ... until he started to kill Wanderers.

  Five days later, it was the evening before Dochia’s departure, and while her opinion of Scorta in particular and the Assassins in general had changed a little, she was still uncomfortable with the thought that they would journey together. And it was not a short journey; she had learned that the trip to Nerval would take almost two months, and that the winter came one month earlier there. They might make the last leg of their journey through snow and ice.

  “I have had two visions about you,” Ada said; they were alone in the old Wanderer’s room. “There will be some blood spilt on the road, but you will make it to Nerval. Scorta will make it too.”

  “Umbra and my guards?”

  “One of them may be wounded, but all of you will arrive in Nerval. It’s a vision, not a certainty,” Ada replied. “There is something else that stood out in my last vision. A particular place. Umbra may have some problems there. Apart from the fact that it’s situated on a large plain, I can’t figure out exactly where it is and, unfortunately, from the eastern border of Arenia and Nerval you will encounter find plain after plain and river after river. One of those rivers is quite broad and it will not be easy to cross, but Scorta knows the area well. I digress. Think of this place in my vision as a black spot on a map. A large circle, maybe twenty miles across. I can’t tell you what you will find there, but you will sense that something is wrong. Be careful.” For the first time there was a touch of worry in the voice of the hardened Wanderer. “If what you find there is not very important, send me a letter through the Assassins. Otherwise, I will wait for you to deliver the news personally. Go and sleep now,” Ada said firmly, dismissing Dochia before she could reply.

  Chapter 22 – Dochia

  “So you mean to say that the whole road from here to Nerval will be like this.” Dochia pointed at the infinite plain in front of them. They had left the last mountains one week ago, and they had just crossed the Nestro River.

  “Here and there, we will see some hills, but they are not high.”

  “Ada told me about a wide river.” Dochia pointed back with her thumb.

  “She meant the Nepro. We will arrive at the ford in about a week. It’s a nasty river, ten times wider than the Nestro, but it’s still the dry season. The ferries should be safe.”

  “Have you seen a place like this?” Dochia asked and handed a piece of paper to Scorta. The drawing had been made by Ada the night before they left the Alba Hive in Silvania.

  Scorta took the paper and his eyes narrowed, as if he was trying to remember something. “I am sorry, but this drawing tells me nothing. I suppose that it comes from one of Ada’s visions, I recognize her hand. What’s so important about this place?”

  “Some There may be trouble there. I have no idea what kind of trouble. Memorize the drawing. It may be that we will see the place from another perspective than in Ada’s vision.”

  They were just fifteen miles away from the Nepro River when Umbra flew close and flapped his wings at Dochia. “We are being followed.”

  Dochia brought her horse to a halt, so both Wanderers and Assassins could come closer.

  “There are twenty-one riders; most of them have bows and swords, some of them have spears. Some are blond men, not very tall. Some have black hair and narrow eyes.”

  “The blond ones are Rhusin,” Scorta said. “They make up half of the Khadate. The rest of the population is Toltar.”

  “The Toltars look like the Serpentists we met on Kostenz Lake,” Umbra said telepathically to Dochia. “One of them is a ... half Toltar,” Umbra said. “He has slanted eyes, but light brown hair.”

  “There are many mixed families, half Rhusin and half Toltar. How far away are the riders?”

  “Some six miles behind us. Two miles ahead of us, there is a small forest in a valley. I will fly ahead and check it. You should leave the main path and follow me.”

  “Be careful, Umbra,” Dochia thought at him. “I have the feeling that we are close to the place Ada mentioned to us.”

  Once Umbra was far enough ahead to show them the direction, they left the path and moved at moderate speed.

  “Ah,” Dochia groaned and bent in pain. Mira came up fast and, aligning her horse, she touched Dochia’s shoulder. “Umbra is in danger.” Dochia managed to take a few deep breaths, trying to calm the pain in her head. It feels like as if a Maletera entered in my brain, but this one is a hundred times stronger. “Gallop.” Ignoring the pain, she pushed her horse forward, followed by all the others. Scorta took the lead; without Dochia’s vision, he was the best scout.

  Pain came to Umbra in a split second. He was accustomed to pain, but what was happening now was different: it was like his h
ead was ready to explode. It’s a Maletera... Meriaduk took over me, and I am cut from Dochia’s mind. That’s bad, she will not be able to find me. Slowly, he spiraled down, trying to find a safe spot for landing: a tree or a rock. It was not just the pain that drove him, there was weakness too, and his wings were moving slower and slower. It can’t be Meriaduk; this power feels different. It’s blocking my mind and body, but it doesn’t try to communicate or to subvert me. I have to land, he thought, though he was still flying too fast, from his own inertia, and he gave up his search for a safe place. He lost control of his wings and hit the ground. At least there is some grass. His last thought.

  Ovan saw the bird. He was hunting with his grandfather. He was hunting birds, and he jumped from his hidden place, his net prepared. They had not eaten each much in the last two days. His father had died half a year ago when a troupe of Toltars stormed their village. They killed him and raped his mother, who was now pregnant, and the surviving people in the village were still wondering what the child would look like. Rhusin or half Toltar? A half Toltar child would be killed to pay for the woman’s slain husband. Apart from his old grandfather, Ovan, now twelve years old, was the only man in their house, which was half built underground. There was not much wood in the area, and the winters were harsh. There was not much food either.

  Ovan ran and caught the bird in his net. It was not difficult; the bird was not moving. I hope that it’s not dead, he thought. It was not permitted to eat dead birds or animals; they could bring disease into the village and, now, after the Toltar invasion, there were only seventy-two people left. The Toltars killed six men and raped all the young women, but only his mother had fallen pregnant. Careful not to damage his thin net, the boy took out the bird. “What kind of bird is this?” he asked himself. “It resembles a crow, but it’s twice as big, and there are red spots on its head. And it’s not dead.” The bird was still breathing. “I hope we can eat it.” Holding the bird in one hand and the net in the other, Ovan ran to find his grandfather, who was hunting on the other side of the small forest, more a gathering of bushes, fifteen feel tall. While Ovan had a net, his grandfather had a bow, but his eyes were not as good as they once were. At the edge of the forest, he slowed down. Twenty feet from his grandfather, he coughed.