“Some people wield weapons, and some wield people, but he does both.”
Darya peered at Olvir. “Are you drunk at all?”
“No, not really.”
The beer was gone. In twos and threes, or fives or sixes for those with little carnal luck or inclination, the soldiers had begun drifting away toward the barracks, or the converted houses that served the same function for the new recruits. Darya looked back toward Branwyn and Tebengri and found them both gone.
Amris stepped back from the small group he’d gone on to talk with after the young couple. A few of them bowed. One, barely fifteen at best, wobbled on the way up. His older comrade caught him by the arm. He flushed and darted a glance at Amris, who put on a good show of not seeing a thing.
Maybe we should have had the younger ones swear their age to Tinival, Gerant said.
“Too late now,” said Darya.
“We’ll try to keep the youngest behind the lines,” said Olvir, following Darya’s gaze and making a decent guess. “They can bring fresh supplies or carry the wounded. It won’t keep them completely safe, but it’ll help.”
“If we can keep them out of the front.”
“That’s part of the duties of command,” said Amris, drawing back into speaking range. “And as with Byrnart and his friends, many of the young will likely change their thoughts once the first wave breaks over us. ‘Judge no metal until it sees the forge,’ they said in my land.”
“Can’t argue with that,” said Darya, touching Gerant’s hilt lightly.
Amris laughed. “I hadn’t intended the new meaning, but it applies. And I think, to change the subject, that I should be going. Those who’re left will want to celebrate without too much authority to dampen the mood, and there’s no danger of them needing it.”
“We both should, then,” said Olvir.
“All of us.” Darya stood. If Amris was too much in command and Olvir was too much a servant of the gods, she was too much a… What had Byrnart’s friend called her? Aberration? It had more syllables than the names she usually heard from drunk men, she’d give him that. “Besides, I think my room is quiet by now.”
Chapter 31
Outside the doors, the air was gentle and just a touch cool: almost high summer. In the forest, the night would smell cool and green. The fort mostly smelled of woodsmoke and horse dung, but that wasn’t unpleasant in its way. Side by side, the three of them—four, really—walked up the road toward the inner gates and the fortress beyond.
All three had been in the field for a while, and none was particularly drunk, so the young man who approached from one of the houses didn’t catch any of them by surprise. Darya noted him as a few essentials: short, square, no unsheathed weapons, not staggering or singing. That was all she needed to know, though she kept a wary eye on him as he approached. Men could always surprise you.
This one bowed to Olvir. “I’m sorry to interrupt, your honor,” he said, “and I hope I’m not inconveniencing you. Only, my friends and I were hoping you had time to say a few words over us tonight. In case we don’t have a chance for it when the moment comes, I mean.”
It was the sort of request that would have made Darya suspect a trap—but she wasn’t the kind of person anyone would ask for spiritual aid to begin with. Olvir, who’d had years of practice with lies and truth, simply smiled. “It would be my honor,” he said, and bowed to Darya and Amris. “Please excuse me.”
“Of course,” said Amris, and Darya nodded right along with him.
No soldier would dare ambush one of Tinival’s servants right before a battle, Gerant said as Olvir walked away with the man.
“Might be leading him off,” Darya muttered, once they were far enough away that her voice wouldn’t carry, “so they can try and ambush us.”
“In which case, good luck to them,” Amris said. They fell into an easy pace with each other, footsteps crunching an unhurried rhythm in the dirt. His voice was a deep, smooth melody to that beat. “I doubt any would really try it in such close quarters, where all would know—but if they did, I have no worries that we’d come out the victors.”
“Especially since they’re too drunk to be subtle,” Darya said as they passed through the inner gates. A line of a song floated out from a window in the barracks, slurred but enthusiastic:
“The captain’s daughter, she was there, and had them all in fits…”
“That,” she added, “sounds like someone’s been keeping a personal flask back. The herbalists wouldn’t be pleased, if they knew.”
Not necessarily, Gerant said. Two pints of good ale will make more soldiers merry than they like to think—particularly the young ones.
“Nerves, too, are their own kind of liquor,” said Amris.
“Oh, it’s all the ladies back,” the singer went on, “with their arses to the wall—”
There were deep voices in the chorus, and the high ones could as easily have been women as young men, but it was hard to tell. And yes, there was an edge to it that ale or even spirits couldn’t explain—the high spirits that came with being desperate not to think.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. She wasn’t too drunk to look at Amris while she walked straight ahead, and the sight of him, thoughtful and clear-eyed despite the ale and with no reforging to account for it, was comforting. “It’s not just that you know what we’re facing out there, but you know how these things work, and what they feel like. I don’t think anyone else here does. I know I don’t.”
The keep’s staircase was more or less deserted. The barracks were on the lower floor, and Hallis and the others were in either their rooms or someone else’s. Dark—there were no servants to change the torches, and the torches themselves might be more useful elsewhere—and empty, it seemed like another ruin to Darya in that moment.
“It does me good,” Amris said, “to know you think it worth your while to have brought me back.”
He was joking, with his eyes crinkling at the corners and his mouth almost straight but curling up just enough to give it away. Darya laughed under her breath. “Oh, definitely,” she said, “you’re at least as good as a candlestick or a mirror. Better, as I don’t have to carry you.”
“Only wait a few days. Battle changes any number of things.”
“So you’ve said.”
At the top of the stairs, Amris paused and turned to face her, no longer joking. “You would’ve defended me back there,” he said, “and I thank you for it.”
“Of course,” and the next words, the lighthearted ones about him being useful, or Gerant killing her otherwise, wouldn’t come. He looked too grave standing there, and there was a softer expression on the clean-cut planes of his face than Darya was used to seeing from him. She’d found his presence comforting, but he’d been actively comforting people for the last two days, and he knew enough to fear more than most of them. “Any of us there would, you know. Branwyn. Even Emeth, if she’d been present. Olvir, certainly—Olvir did.”
“Olvir likes me well enough, but he has a duty to his god. And I thank him for it, but—” Amris shrugged. “It meant a great deal to have people angry on my behalf. Selfish as that may have been.”
“I think you’re allowed a little selfishness, considering,” said Darya.
He smiled, and it was the loneliest thing she’d ever seen. Impulse, ale, and her own set of nerves drove her forward and reached her hand up: his hair was too short to push back, but she stroked her fingers through the dark curls and down the side of his face. “This is a hell of a thing for you, Amris. Even aside from us all maybe dying. I–I wish I could make it easier.”
“You do.” He spoke quietly, and his voice was thick. Beneath her palm, his face was warm and faintly rough with stubble.
Gerant was silent, and the sword at Darya’s hip was a weight in her mind as well. She dropped her hand. Already, she wasn’t sure how m
uch she should apologize. So far, it had been just a gesture, not much more than what might pass between close friends, but she wanted too much more to escape guilt. “Sleep well,” she said. “We’ll all need it.”
* * *
Spearpoints skewered hay bales, left holes as the soldiers pulled their weapons back and thrust forward again. Amris walked up and down the lines, repositioning a shoulder or nudging a foot back, calling out verbal advice, and clapping his hands between times to set the pace. Sweat dripped down his face. It hadn’t been very long since his own morning training, facing off against Olvir and Emeth in the yard, and he hadn’t given himself time to rest.
He had to keep distracted, after all.
Amris had never been one to take himself in hand in shared quarters. The previous night, not knowing when Olvir would walk in, he’d set his teeth and ignored the heavy fullness in his groin when Darya had left him. She’d meant the touch for kindness, no more, but he’d sprung to life nonetheless, and all of his possible partners had long departed—
—and he couldn’t truly turn to any of them, regardless. He was the commander to most. A few of those left were to his taste and might be amenable, but as Amris took to his solitary bed, he’d realized that a night with any of them would only be a substitute for what he really wanted—a shabby trick to play on a bedmate who didn’t realize it, and not a situation to enter in limited company, even if he’d wanted to explain his situation.
The morning, thus, had been an exercise in working himself ragged, to the point where Emeth had raised her eyebrows at the end of the bout and advised him to save a bit of himself for the Twisted. She was right. Amris wished otherwise, and he could justify more effort when training, for his exhaustion mattered less than the skill of fifty others.
Working them too hard would be worse, though, so he brought the exercise to a halt with no hint of the reluctance he felt. Amris dismissed the men, turned to find the nearest butt of water, and felt Darya’s approach.
The spell was going to be the death of him—a more pleasant one, granted, than Thyran or his troops probably had in mind.
He lifted his head from the water, turned, and saw her approaching, once more in green and with her hair down around her shoulders. As always when she had a clear destination in mind, she moved like a fired arrow, all purpose and speed, but as she got closer, Amris felt her trepidation. “Is all well?” he asked as soon as she was close enough.
“Relatively speaking,” said Darya. There was color in her cheeks that her walk didn’t account for. The bond didn’t tell Amris all of what she felt, and he didn’t want to pry, but he sensed that not all of her discomfort was bad. Some was embarrassment, some the effort not to hope.
Amris brushed water from his face and ran a hand through his hair to push it back. He kept silent, not wanting to rush her.
“Gerant and I were talking.” She was withdrawing her sword, still in its sheath, as she spoke. “This morning. Had some time alone.”
I’ll handle the rest. Gerant spoke too quickly for Amris to get much sense of his emotions.
Set against the background of Thyran’s invasion, being nervous about what Gerant might have deduced and how he might react left Amris more than a touch abashed. That didn’t make him any calmer. Facing Thyran again had been endurable because Gerant was with him too. If that was about to change—
He took the sword automatically as Darya handed it over. “I’ll be mending armor in my room after dinner,” she said, and swallowed. “If you want to talk. After.”
Without another word, she turned on her heel and left.
Amris watched her, bracing himself for whatever Gerant had to say.
You are both—the words came in a tone of far more teasing affection than he ever could have hoped for—the most idiotic creatures I’ve ever met, particularly for your advanced age.
* * *
All the gods be praised, Amris had a free hour. “How do you mean?” he asked under his breath, making his way quickly toward his room.
I mean, Gerant replied, that I don’t need eyes to see that the two of you want each other. And I’m under the impression that you’ve refrained from acting on it, so far, for my sake.
“Ah,” said Amris. He would have elaborated, had he not been on the stairs. In truth, he knew not exactly which of several possible responses he’d have chosen, so there might have been good fortune in his enforced silence.
Gerant certainly seemed to think so, for he went on, with a tone of voice that, in life, had always accompanied an elaborate roll of his blue eyes. Very chivalrous, I assure you. Very loyal. Top marks for both qualities. But I have no body, in case you haven’t noticed, and as Emeth observed, you’re in remarkable form for a man who’s seen more than a century. Did you truly think I expected you to live the next forty years as a eunuch?
“There’s no certainty that I’ll live forty years more,” Amris muttered as he hurried down the hall, “and I could at least choose a less… Well, a person you didn’t know so well. One you weren’t linked to, at minimum.”
The room was blessedly empty, Olvir being off at his own duties. Amris made it to his bed and then let his knees give out as Gerant went on, tender now rather than hectoring.
But it would be worse that way, I think, for me to be so cut off from a part of your life. Not that I would be present, necessarily, he added as Amris lifted his eyebrows. I’ve been accustomed to depart when my bearers take lovers, among other things. Still, if it were you and her, it would be two people I care about. Two whom I love, each in your own fashion. I’d be part of both of your lives.
Amris blinked down at his hands. Mechanically, he began to strip off his armor. He was likely overheated, in addition to everything else.
I’m not saying I would’ve suggested it on my own. Matchmaking never had any appeal for me.
“So I recall,” said Amris, with a hoarse laugh. “I can’t promise we would remain lovers, you know, even if we became so involved.”
Gods, I wouldn’t want you to promise anything—not on the strength of a week’s acquaintance, even such an eventful week. That kind of promise is asking for trouble at the best of times. But I know you both. If you part, you’ll part as adults, and if nothing else, that’ll be far better than having the two of you walking around like storm clouds of thwarted passion.
“That’s quite a turn of phrase.”
Katrine reads bad poetry aloud.
Without the armor, with his neck and arms exposed to the air and the rest of him covered only by a thin tunic, Amris felt invisible iron bands loosen from around his chest—or perhaps that was the conversation.
“You… Truly, it won’t hurt you?”
No, said Gerant. As before, he sounded kind and loving, but there was a distance in his voice now that there hadn’t been before. It wasn’t unspoken pain—Amris knew the sound of that—but a fundamental difference between the spirit and the cheerful young scholar who’d been his lover. Between the spirit, perhaps, and any mortal. Once… I don’t know any longer what I might have felt, once. But I had my life, beloved. It was a good life, despite everything. I loved some wonderful people, and I did a few things I’m proud of.
“Thank you,” Amris said, his throat sore. “You mean you’re content?”
In part. In part, I mean that life is over for me. Living is over for me. I love you, I’ll always love you, but— Living, Gerant would have thrown up his hands then. It’s not being uninterested in the physical, or not wanting a companion, not the way a living man might be.
Amris nodded. He’d known a few such people in his time. “Then—”
I’m further away, even when I’m with you or her, even when I’m observing, and not only because of the vessel. I can’t see the future, but a part of me is always in it. It— He sighed. It doesn’t go into words. I promise, I’m not hurt, nor will I be. Gerant paused. And th
ough I hate to think it, you’re right. You may not have forty more years. Nor might she.
“You counsel decisive action?”
I counsel a bath first, but yes.
Unable to take Gerant in his arms, Amris settled for projecting the feeling of warmth as strongly as he could, hoping it came through the link. “I would have died happily as an old man with you, if things had been different.”
And I you. But happiness is never only one thing. All three of us might find it in another form, here and now.
Chapter 32
Blood never really came out of leather. Darya didn’t know much about laundering clothes, but since she’d entered the field, she’d been able to count her kills by the marks on each doublet, until they got too torn up to mend. The one she’d worn to Klaishil wasn’t there yet, though the rents across the chest weren’t helping. She squinted, punched another hole with her awl, and tried not to speculate about Amris.
She’d nearly choked on her ale when Gerant had spoken up that morning: You really should take him to bed and be done with it. Darya had started to apologize then—if she couldn’t control her feelings, she could have at least been less obvious about them—but Gerant had cut her off. I mean every word of it, and I’m not being snide. Nor will I get my nose out of joint, particularly since I don’t have one.
The discussion that followed had left her stunned, and wanting to be glad but not daring to. Gerant was fine with her and Amris; that didn’t mean Amris would be. What some people defined as loyalty was strange, and, hell, maybe knowing that she wasn’t off-limits would kill any desire he’d had for her. Amris hadn’t struck Darya as the type, but she was no great judge.
She drew a string of rawhide through the holes she’d made, careful not to yank it. The damned things snapped easily. The light was fading outside the window.
Amris was in the hall outside when she felt his presence. Darya put the armor aside quickly. If she tried to keep mending, she’d muck the whole thing up. That meant she had no way to look casual when he came in, but she didn’t care. He could tell through the spell that her heart was racing, and she knew that his was.
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