The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  “A hunch.” Gideon sounded disheartened. “We’re betting everyone’s lives on a hunch?”

  “Our A’dal has led us to victory on less than this, Gideon val Mallonwey,” Rolan said calmly. “He’s never lost a battle. Can you say the same?”

  “A’dal,” Tannour stuck his head into the room. “You need to see this—and val Mallonwey, too.” He left again without waiting for an acknowledgement.

  Trell pushed out of his chair. Gideon and Rolan followed.

  “So where are you heading in all of this, A’dal?” Rolan asked as they were maneuvering the maze of partitioned rooms that made up Trell’s tent and command headquarters. “The warlord’s barricaded himself in, clear enough.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “You think otherwise?”

  Trell paused before the opening to his tent and turned a calculating look over his shoulder. “I think a warlord who has a nodefinder at his beck and call isn’t restricted to pathways kenned by the likes of you and I.” Then he ducked through the opening into the roseate light of sunset.

  Trell followed Tannour to the edge of camp, where the men were amassing amid a hum of speculation. Twilight had claimed the world, blurring the edges of mountains and fortress alike.

  Down the walls of the latter, a platform was being lowered. It stopped abruptly a few feet off the ground, and a figure staggered off it. Someone shoved a burning torch into the figure’s hands and kicked him away.

  Slowly, he started down the hill. He fell often. As the twilight deepened, dark forms appeared atop the walls to watch him.

  Trell’s gaze tightened. “I don’t trust this.”

  “Nor I,” Tannour murmured.

  “Is he one of ours?” Gideon asked.

  “Does Qharp blow west?” Rolan shoved a hand on his scimitar. “Should we go retrieve him, A’dal?”

  “We’d be in range of their archers,” Tannour warned.

  “Yes, I think that’s the point.” Trell looked to Rolan. “We need to let this play.”

  “Spectacular,” Gideon grumbled.

  After an agonizing quarter hour of watching the man fall and get up and fall again, Rolan remarked, “Someone put him out of his misery.”

  The man was nearing the area where Trell’s men had been clearing the gorse—the special project he’d had Lazar organize—when Gideon hissed, “Shade and darkness! That’s Jasper val Renly!”

  An angry murmuring spread among the men of Dannym.

  Trell turned to Gideon inquiringly.

  “A lieutenant and trusted messenger, Your Highness.” The captain gripped the hilt of his sword, clutching frustration, clearly agonizing over their inaction. “Jasper is the one who brought us the new orders from His Majesty.”

  “What new orders?” asked Lazar.

  The captain looked to him heatedly. “To abandon our position and make for Nahavand—which duty we were rightly upon before your men assaulted us.” He turned back to Trell. “I saw the missive in His Majesty’s own hand and his seal upon it.”

  “Yes, my father told me he had done this thing, Gideon.”

  “Orders from your king?” Lazar still seemed unable to move forward from that comment.

  Gideon looked impatiently back to Trell. “Your Highness, Jasper was His Majesty’s most trusted emissary during the conflict.”

  Tannour looked darkly to Trell. “The warlord’s sense of poetic justice?”

  “A real messenger to carry his message,” Trell murmured. And the irony likely would not stop there.

  He saw how this would go: whoever went out to receive the message would die, over and over, for as many men as it took to escape the rain of archers. There might’ve been a real message, but Trell doubted the warlord cared at all whether anyone received it or not. This evening’s grim activity was for his own amusement.

  Trell ordered tightly, “Someone get me a horse.”

  “Your Highness!” Gideon exclaimed in the same moment that Rolan said, “A’dal, no!”

  Gideon went to one knee before Trell while one of Trell’s men was running for a horse. “Your Highness, I beg you, let me retrieve Jasper.”

  “I second that motion,” said Lazar. “Let val Mallonwey take the risk.”

  Trell glanced at Lazar sidelong. “Noted, al-Amir, but denied.” He looked to Rolan. “Get the archers into position and give the signal the moment the messenger and I are clear of the gorse. We have our own message to send this bastard.”

  “Your will, A’dal.” Rolan moved off.

  The soldier who had run for a mount for Trell returned leading a horse. Trell started towards him, but Tannour captured Trell’s arm and with it his gaze. “That messenger is still within range of their longbows, A’dal.”

  Trell arched brows. “Then you’d better be ready.” He took the reins from the soldier, swung himself into the saddle and spun the horse towards the open moor.

  Behind him, Tannour hissed something in Vestian that was probably very uncomplimentary.

  Trell trotted down the hill beneath darkening skies. As the yards lengthened away from camp, the murmuring of his men became a hum and then faded away, replaced by the sounds of the waking night. The sunset was making its finale in a brilliant showing of orange-rose. In front of him, the fortress stood in shadowed silhouette. Likewise the archers atop its walls.

  This was going to be close.

  The stars were beginning to appear when Trell passed beyond the wide section of gorse his men had been clearing and stacking all day. Jasper was still on his knees two hundred yards distant and well within range of the warlord’s longbowmen.

  Trell turned his horse to canter along the edge of safety and called out, “Jasper val Renly!”

  The man’s head jerked up. “Stay back!” he gasped out, hoarse and raw. “They’ll shoot you if you try to approach! I’m to deliver a message only.”

  “And you will, but not here.” Trell turned his horse around and cantered back in the other direction. “When I give the command, fling that torch behind you and get up fast. We’ve got one chance at this. Do you understand?”

  Jasper’s expression twisted. “Aye, m’lord.”

  Trell reined his horse around a third time and shouted, “Now!”

  Jasper threw the torch high behind him and struggled to his feet.

  Trell set his heels to his horse’s flanks and sped towards him.

  The moment the archers on the walls realized Trell’s intent, they sent a rain of arrows to halt his advance. They clearly had no idea who he was, or they might’ve been less enthusiastic about their work.

  Trell steered his mount to left and right, dodging that shower of death as much as the gorse, doing his best to make a difficult target of himself as he rode hard for the messenger. More than once he felt the deadly whisper of a shaft whizzing past his ear.

  He veered left around a bush and heard half a dozen thunks hit behind him. Then the air shifted—Trell felt an odd pressure in his ears—and the next downpour of arrows bounced away like hail off a tin roof.

  Jasper’s form grew larger in the night.

  Trell leaned in the saddle and slowed his horse enough to grab the lieutenant’s arm. Arrows rat-a-tat-tatted against...something...and ricocheted away.

  Then Trell had hold of Jasper and was dragging him up behind his saddle. The wide-eyed messenger watched the arrows hitting an invisible bubble above them, like bees against glass, and gave a muted oath.

  Trell wheeled his horse away from the flames now spreading from Jasper’s torch.

  They rode through a continuous shower of arrows, but the shield Tannour had erected around them protected them until they were galloping past the stacked gorse and finally out of range of the warlord’s archers. Trell imagined he could hear Tannour cursing him the entire way.

  The moment Trell was free of the area where his men had been working, a barrage of fiery arrows careened overhead from atop their own hill, and the gorse piled behind them exploded into flames. />
  Fire spread like lightning through the bracken Trell’s men had prepared for burning. By the time Trell and Jasper made it past the safe line of their own archers, the hillside was alight with fiery words burning brightly. They read:

  HAIL, THE DEAD

  From atop the hill, Trell’s men began cheering.

  Their volume increased as Trell topped the rise with Jasper seated behind him. Seeing the latter, the cheering grew in volume.

  “Looks like a warm welcome for you, Jasper,” Trell murmured to the man clinging to him.

  “They cheer for you, Your Highness,” Jasper answered hoarsely.

  Trell turned a surprised look over his shoulder.

  “Aye, I recognize you.” Jasper’s eyes were shadowed and his face drawn, but the meaning in his smile was unmistakable. “You look just like His Majesty.”

  Then the men were excitedly crowding around, buzzing with Jasper’s safe return as much as the words of fire written on the hillside, and Gideon was helping Jasper off the back of Trell’s horse.

  “Get him to my tent,” Trell said to Gideon as the captain was calling another to help him carry the wounded lieutenant. Trell dismounted and handed off his reins to a soldier. He told another standing nearby, “Send for Madaam Chouri.”

  “Right away, Your Highness.” He rushed off.

  The men followed in a tumultuous wake behind Gideon and the other man carrying Jasper between them, their collective hum full of concerned words and heated questions. Finally the mass cleared away to reveal Tannour standing there.

  The night felt suddenly empty and silent, save for the message shouted in Tannour’s gaze.

  Trell cast the Vestian an inquiring eye as he started off through camp. “Something you wanted to say?”

  Tannour fell in beside him, radiating disquiet. “That was risky, A’dal.”

  “A calculated risk.” Trell regarded him sidelong. “I had you at my back, after all.”

  Tannour made a discontented sound. “You place too much faith in me. I’m not infallible.”

  Trell thought of everything he knew about elae’s fifth strand and those who worked it and suppressed an ironic smile. “You know, it’s possible I have a better idea of your capabilities than you do.”

  “It’s not my capabilities that concern me,” Tannour muttered darkly.

  Trell immediately stopped and turned to block him. “Then what does?”

  Tannour drew up short, blinking at him.

  Trell tilted his head slightly, in challenge and understanding both. “If you don’t intend to discuss it, don’t offer it as reason or excuse.” He turned and strode on.

  A moment later, Tannour joined his side again, maintaining a wordless silence.

  Trell made a quick assessment of the camp, likewise the moods of the men. Lazar’s were subdued but alert, Gideon’s were in a froth from Jasper’s rescue, and his own maintained a vigilant watch over the rest.

  No matter which portion of camp they moved through, every soldier scrambled to his feet at Trell’s approach, such that the wave of his passing formed a continuous breaking line as those still in front of him noted his coming and abruptly stood to attention while the others were resuming whatever activity they’d been about after he’d passed.

  Midway back to Trell’s quarters, Rolan came stalking towards them, his jeweled agal sparkling darkly in the torchlight, hand gripping the hilt of his scimitar. “Oh, good. You’re back.” Only a modicum of surprise underpinned his tone. “The others are assembled in your quarters, A’dal.”

  Trell angled him a smile. “On the off-chance I returned alive?”

  “We only bet on the number of arrows Valeri would have to deflect.”

  Trell gave a slightly apologetic glance at Tannour. “I think it was a lot.”

  Rolan looked Tannour up and down. “Well, Valeri won’t say, apparently, so we’ll all be keeping our coin tonight.”

  “What of Madaam Chouri?”

  “She’s in your tent also, attending the northman you retrieved.”

  The waves of men standing to attention continued until Trell reached his own tent. He nodded to the guards stationed to either side of the opening and pushed through the flaps, only to pull up short in front of Rami, his thirteen-year-old valet.

  Rami was standing in the middle of the passage holding a tray of food. He looked as though he might’ve been standing there ever since Trell left. Seeing him, Rami’s face lit with a smile. “Sidi, you’re back!”

  Trell chuckled. “Why do you always say that like it’s so unexpected?”

  “Your Highness?” Gideon called to him from further down the curtained passage, where he was standing with Raegus and Lazar, looking grim. “You’ll want to see this.”

  Trell nodded to him and headed that way.

  Rami shadowed Trell closely, carrying his dinner tray like a sacred charge. “You are a gift from the Seventeen, Sidi. If you had any idea what torments I underwent serving the old A’dal—”

  “I can hear you, you impudent pup,” Raegus growled at the boy.

  “—you would take pity on me and not risk yourself so readily. I know you’re graced of the gods, Sidi, but my mother says the gods giveth and the gods taketh away, to which platitude my father usually asks why the gods haven’t taketh away my mother, because he’s been praying for it every night of their marriage, to which my mother usually responds that she is god-sent to him, since he couldn’t find his own chamber pot, much less useful employment, without someone shoving it into his indolent hand—”

  “By the Two Paths, boy,” Tannour growled, “quiet that tongue of yours, lest I do it for you.”

  Rami blinked uncertainly at Tannour, then looked soberly back to Trell. “My mother says the sour apples make the best jam, Sidi, but a sour man always has sour feet.”

  Trell chuckled. “Your mother is a wise woman.” He nodded to the tray the boy was carrying. “Thank you for the dinner. Leave it on my desk for now—I’ll be sure to eat it later,” he added when the boy seemed of a mind to say more.

  Rami ducked a bow. “Balé, Sidi.” He watched Tannour warily as he slipped around him to head back the way they’d come, much like one might watch an asp coiled in the corner while inching through the other end of the room.

  Gideon motioned Trell through a partition and followed after him, trailing Raegus and the others. Inside, Jasper val Renly was stretched out on a cot with one booted foot still on the floor, clearly unconscious. Madaam Chouri had stripped him of his tunic. A thin linen dressing covered his bloodied chest. She sat beside him with her hands on his head.

  The Healer looked up as Trell entered. “Ah, A’dal, I confess my relief that you’re not the one lying here this time.”

  “That seems to be the general consensus, Madaam Chouri.” Trell nodded to indicate Jasper. “How is he?”

  “Very weak. Burns take a lot out of a body, and his was already frail, I assume from the rigors of captivity.”

  “And travel before that,” Gideon added from beside the doorway. He stood with arms crossed and a deep frown marring his features. “The lieutenant personally delivered His Majesty’s message to every outpost where men of the kingdom were stationed. Several moons of hard traveling. He was a haggard shell by the time he reached us.”

  He glanced to Rolan and Lazar. “Your kingdom is not exactly hospitable in the best of times.”

  “In the desert, one trusts in the gods or perishes,” Lazar replied evenly, paraphrasing the scriptures.

  “May Jai’Gar give us breath,” Trell murmured the traditional response.

  Both Madaam Chouri and Lazar turned him surprised looks at this.

  “You mentioned burns, Madaam Chouri?” Trell said.

  “You haven’t seen, then?” She carefully, if grimly, lifted the linen cloth off of Jasper’s bare chest to revel burns seared into his flesh, letters running from above his breastbone to below his navel, which read:

  A

  PRINCE

  F
OR AN

  ARMY

  “Subtle,” Lazar muttered.

  “Huhktu’s bones.” Rolan shifted his scimitar aggressively in his sash. “Has the man never heard of parchment?”

  “...At least you can bleed.” Jasper’s words came so softly, Trell almost didn’t catch them. The captain opened bloodshot eyes to look at him. “That’s what the warlord said...when they did this to me,” he whispered. “At least you can bleed. The demon is... quite mad.”

  “You shouldn’t fight my ministrations, lieutenant,” Madaam Chouri chided gently. “You need the Healing sleep.”

  “And His Highness...needs my information,” the lieutenant replied weakly.

  Trell knelt at Jasper’s side. “We’ll try to be quick, Madaam Chouri.”

  “Jai’Gar willing, I shall continue my Healing.” She closed her eyes and resettled her hands on Jasper’s head.

  The lieutenant met Trell’s gaze through red-rimmed eyes. “The warlord says you have until dawn to answer...or a dozen more of us will hang on the walls. Ten more every hour thereafter...until you surrender.”

  Raegus muttered an oath from the doorway, Gideon a curse.

  “He says if you attack his fortress...he will kill them all. Surrender, he says, is your only option.”

  Trell placed a hand on Jasper’s shoulder. What this soldier had endured in service to his king...Trell’s heart went out to him, but he couldn’t yet give Jasper the rest he deserved. “Tell me about the warlord.”

  “A demon...” Jasper squeezed shut his eyes as if to banish an unwanted memory, then continued haltingly, “murdered...our officers. I only survived because I looked the part of a messenger. But the way he did it...”

  Jasper gave a painful swallow and opened his eyes to meet Trell’s again. “He took a machete to their arms at the elbow. Their legs at the knees. Laughing the while, right there in the yard as we all were forced to watch...” a solitary tear fell from his eyes. “...there was so much blood...so much screaming....”

  Gideon snarled a curse.

  “One of us tried to intervene—bound though we were. T’was val Rennon.” He looked to Gideon. “You remember him, Captain?”