Lady of Mercy

by Michelle Sagara

  The wagons were pushed into the road’s center; they formed an awkward and easily moved barricade behind which Hildy’s men—and Erin—grouped. The horses that carried the charge this far began to slow in their pace. Foot soldiers would not be far behind.

  Erin cast a small orb of light past the range of her vision. Seconds later, it guttered like a candle in a storm. She cursed.

  “Lady?”

  “Karnar’s here,” she replied, without looking up to see who had interrupted her concentration. A word that was easily less genteel than her own moved back through the ranks like a wave. She spun to see Hamin’s pale face. “He’s mine, if he’s anyone’s. Trust him to me.”

  So saying, she pulled back her shield arm, dropped her shield, and gestured in a wide, doubled arc. Her blade caught the light and reflected it back tenfold.

  Hamin stopped, caught by the hard angle of her jaw and the long, thick line of the braid that cut her back. Her skin was pale, and her eyes were hard, almost metallic, as they shone green. Something about her was familiar—something about her reminded him of Marantine.

  When the pillar of white-fire suddenly leapt to life beyond the wagon barrier, he suddenly stopped breathing, caught in the hints and shadows of the memories of his youth.

  “The Church,” he said softly, eyes wide. “It’s not the king they’re after—it’s you they want.”

  She didn’t reply. But a scream did—followed by an eerie, lambent red that enveloped the treetops, a counter to her first strike.

  “Mine,” she whispered again, softly, as she bent to retrieve her shield. No one gainsaid her.

  Renar cursed softly; the words formed a cloud of mist, rather than sound. In the snow, under the clear and cloudless skies, two sets of tracks made obvious both their retreat and their direction.

  This alone would not have caused his consternation. The quarrel that had lodged three feet to the right, still quivering in the sudden silence, did. It was very unlike either the Swords or the house forces to use something as simple and inelegant as a crossbow. It was very unlike either to stop and track two people who had obviously deserted before a major battle.

  But of course there had to be exceptions. He tried very hard not to dwell on the reasons for those. His hands were cold as he fumbled for a weapon that lent itself to throwing. They were colder when he readied it and peered out from behind the tree he had chosen for cover. He couldn’t see Darin at all and couldn’t afford to take the time for more than a cursory glance.

  Ah. There—the branches were quivering counter to the breeze.

  The wagons, of course, stopped no one for long; Vanellon soldiery and their Church counterparts came streaming in on the flanks, green and gold, black and red.

  “Lady!” Hamin shouted. His tone made clear what he wanted to say; time deprived him of the chance to be more clear.

  Dispassionately, she wondered how competent Hildy’s men were. And then she had no time to wonder, for which she was almost thankful. The black and the red were upon her, and were it not for the intangible weight of experience, she might have been sixteen again, starting out fresh and untried in the summer fields of Elliath.

  Remember: This is for real. You cannot step out of a circle and be safe; you cannot call the fight. The time for games is past.

  Telvar. The man who had had the teaching, and the command, of her early skills. His words came back, as they almost always did in battle.

  But, she thought as she parried the first strike of the day, he was wrong. It was very like a game—and each contestant, each combatant, bore the marks of his training; the style, the attack and defense, of past masters, and of past warriors. Here, on fields of dirt and snow, or wheat or forest or plain, they would test, and be tested—and those that won, lived.

  If some part of her was dimly aware that life was more than simple survival, she forgot it; she denied it. Light blazed down the lines of her face, calling the Swords to battle.

  And all there witnessed the terrible grandeur, the icy beauty, that Erin herself could never know and never see—the vision of the Sarillorn of Elliath upon the field of blood-war.

  Before Renar could even aim, the tree erupted in a skein of fire and smoke. He heard screams that died slowly; winter bark crackled and blackened in harmony. The dagger that he held found its sheath as he sagged briefly against his own tree and closed his eyes.

  Fire came again; he saw it reflected around the shadows at his feet, and felt its heat at his back. He heard another tree wither and die beneath the screams of burned flesh. He counted softly to himself, and when he heard the fifth tree fall, he peered out into the lengthening, unnatural silence.

  “Old man?” he whispered softly.

  There was no answer. He listened, and caught the sound of heaving breath, a single person’s. He waited; nothing happened. “Old man?” Quietly, he stepped out and began to scan the forest.

  He saw only Darin. “Boy?”

  Darin turned slowly at the sound of his voice. “Yes?”

  Renar started to ask about Trethar, and then stopped, seeing the pallor of Darin’s face. Seeing—and suddenly understanding. He stepped forward, unmindful of snow and blackened ash and caught Darin’s shoulders.

  “You didn’t have to—” His voice caught and broke. He saw a young man before him, his only connection to childhood a dearth of years. “I was supposed to guard your back, remember?”

  “You take orders from House Bordaril?”

  “No.” Stung, Renar let his hands fall to the sides. Darin turned away, searching the smoking ruins of human bodies and dead trees. Searching, miding—and remembering.

  “You don’t like to kill any more than I do,” Darin said quietly, drawing Bethany to his chest as if to gain security from her. “You can’t do it for me. I’m—I’m the patriarch.”

  Before Renar could speak, he saw the tears glisten down Darin’s cheeks. He approached Darin again, sliding an arm across his shoulders as a comrade might. “And I,” he said, watching what Darin watched, and seeing in it no different light, “am the king.”

  Erin discovered, too quickly, that the House Vanellon soldiers were nonblooded. She called light; it barely touched their eyes. More, she could do—but it was unwise at best, when they had the advantage of numbers, to throw away the last vestiges of her power to affect them. She remained in the odd half circle that Luke and Hamin formed at her flanks, drawing on their abilities and their own lack of blood to balance her battle skills.

  It was not so strange; after all, she had been the ftrst to accept the gray-kin into her growing army—the first to train them and to accept their oaths of allegiance to Elliath. She knew how to best make use of their steady and imperturbable strength in the face of the red-fires that pocked the fields of war.

  She used it now, retreating in time to cast her shields and summon the Greater Ward, with the Sarillorn’s power behind it. She could not see her enemy clearly; not with normal vision. But she was aware of him, as he was of her.

  How much longer can you keep this up? She bit her lip, and changed her grip on her sword as Hamin, too, fell back. As she parried a blow from the side, she grimaced; there was no room to dodge or roll without compromising either of her two companions.

  Red-fire flared up, seeking purchase against her skin. How long? Longer, she feared, than she could.

  Trethar, where in the hells are you?

  “There,” Renar said softly, as his head sunk back below the embankment. His eyes were clear and unblinking, but Darin could clearly see the sallow circles that ringed them. He brushed his hair out of his eyes, and turned.

  Darin could hear the din of swordplay clearly. Orders cut the silence, falling into cacophony before either he or Renar could understand them, let alone decide which side they had issued from.

  “They’ve used the wagons to block the cavalry charge. There are no horses.” Renar crawled up the snow-covered ground again and turned to look over his shoulder. “Are you ready?”

&
nbsp; “Ready.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  The fire that suddenly fanned out like a sheet across the forest was no blood-magic; Erin knew it before she heard the concerted intake of breath from friend and foe alike. She was a warrior; she took advantage of the momentary distraction to end the closest threat.

  The fires faded, and with them, the red-fire attacks. Erin could clearly hear the tenor of relayed orders shift. Her lips turned up in a smile that never reached her eyes; instead of remaining on the defensive, she sprang suddenly forward like a cat unleashed. She heard Hamin’s single-word curse and Luke’s descriptive four words, before she left the comfort of their ranks—and the road.

  The Karnar had moved—quickly—to retreat. She didn’t want to lose him.

  She didn’t want to give him the chance to surrender.

  Erliss of Mordechai stumbled as the snow beneath his feet turned into slush. He cursed and waved his Swords on, glancing nervously over his shoulder. Something had gone wrong, but he did not understand what.

  The fires, obviously magical, that were unblessed by either Bright Heart or Dark, were known to him; they belonged to Lord Vellen of Damion, and no other. Had Vellen somehow betrayed them?

  He shook his head, trying to free himself from the weight of the thought. Vellen had nothing to gain if he died. Nothing. But betrayal for political reasons beyond the ken of a liege was not unknown. It worried him, and he had no time to worry; at any moment, white-fire or mage-fire could consume him if he let his guard slip. He kept his shields up with words and gestures and hurried for the horses that now seemed impossibly far away.

  He never really considered the danger of a normal, unsheathed dagger. And when he did, his consideration lasted for mere minutes—as did his life.

  When Erin finally tracked her quarry down, she knew that he was gone; his light had flickered and dimmed even as she ran, forsaking the expedient of cover.

  His black robe lay snow-sodden and sprawled against the ground; the smoking ruins of what must have been his honor guard were scattered beside charred trees.

  She swallowed bitterly and let her own light dwindle and die, until she was only another swordsman on the field.

  “Lady.”

  She turned at the sound of the voice. Renar stepped quietly out from behind a blackened oak. He bowed; his hair trailed his cheeks.

  “Good work.” Her voice was terse and noncommittal.

  He said nothing, nothing at all; instead he stared at her face as if clearly reading the disappointment she tried—and failed—not to show.

  “Where’s Trethar?” she said, after a moment’s pause.

  “Isn’t he with you?”

  “No. He’s—” And then she stopped. “Darin?” She gestured at the fallen.

  Renar nodded. “Your war, Lady, is also the patriarch’s. And my own.”

  “Where is he? Is he whole?”

  Renar nodded again. “But he’s not the soldiers we are. He’s claimed a few moments of private time. He’ll join us at the wagons; I believe the battle is over.”

  “I never thought of you,” Erin said, as she turned and called the compass spell, “as much of a soldier.”

  “And I never thought of you,” he replied, as his eyes followed the swaying line of her warrior’s braid, “as much of a killer.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Erin said, stung. But she froze, suddenly aware of the red patina that stained her sword and her tunic with its little glow of death.

  “No.” They both knew what he meant. He met her eyes, and saw them, sunken and hollow. “It’s always easier,” he offered at last, “when you feel these things yourself; seeing them in other people reveals just how ugly they are.”

  She narrowed her eyes, confused, and stopped herself from sliding into a sudden, sharp valley. “I wanted to kill him because he was their leader.”

  “In honesty?” He offered her a hand, and withdrew it when she turned away. Slowly, and with more grace than Erin had ever shown, he leaped across the open divide, his cape trailing him like a plume of velvet smoke.

  “Not—not completely.” She didn’t understand how anyone could sport such an impractical item of clothing and hoped sincerely that he would fall and break a limb.

  Renar nodded. “I like to kill them, too,” he said softly, and when he offered her a hand the second time, she took it. “I’ve killed a total of four of the Karnari over the space of the last five years. It’s never been enough.” He grimaced as he discovered that she was deceptively heavy. “I want Vellen, you see. And I want Duke Jordan of Marantine,. Of Illan. ” He spit, clearing his mouth of even the hint of the word. “But I know why—I want them to suffer. I want to see them die. I want them to know who it was that killed them—and why. Yourself, Lady?”

  Stunned by his honesty, Erin shook her head, unable to offer him less, but unable to match him.

  “Do you know where Darin is?” he suddenly asked, swerving in conversation so sharply, Erin again shook her head. “He’s mourning the dead. All of the dead.”

  She stopped then. “Renar—I’ll meet you at the wagons as well.”

  He bowed, as if her sudden stiffness was completely natural. His words cast more of a shadow than he did; Erin watched his back grow smaller and more distant as she stood in the sun-warmed chill. Her hands began to tremble, and she looked down at them, wondering, suddenly, who she was and why she was not the person that might once, like Darin, have mourned.

  Trethar had been injured when the priest had twisted the road; he had felt the tremor of the earth beneath the wagons, but had not moved quickly enough to escape the canvas-covered confines.

  Darin discovered his mentor under Hildy’s gentle—and loud—ministrations. She was putting the finishing touches on a makeshift sling that hooked around Trethar’s forearm on one end and his neck on the other.

  Trethar was pale, and obviously in some pain. But he smiled as Darin came into view. “Darin.”

  “Are you all right?” Darin rushed to stand at Trethar’s side.

  The brown-robed mage grimaced. “No. But I’m told I’ll live. You’re pale,” he added, reaching out to clasp Darin’s shoulder.

  “We won.”

  “We know that, dear,” Hildy broke in. “Trethar, do sit still for just another minute. The wagons are almost ready to move, and I’ll need the boys to help me lay you out.”

  “I’m not a corpse yet, Hildy,” he replied with a wry smile. He lifted his arm gingerly. “But I’m not young, either.”

  “No,” she answered, as she put her hands firmly on his shoulders to bar him from standing. She looked at Darin’s silent face and shook her head. “I don’t imagine many of us are, anymore. Darin, dear—go tell the boys that we’re ready to move. Help them with the fallen if you can.”

  He nodded and started to leave before her voice brought him up short.

  “And tell Hamin that we’ll take our dead, as usual.”

  It was not Darin, but Erin, who offered the comfort and healing of the Bright Heart. She did so without ceremony, and indeed, often without notice. “I’m a doctor,” she would say, if anyone asked. Only a few did.

  With a touch, and little flare of light that only she could see, she killed infections, stopped bleeding, and eased pain. For one or two of the young men, she brought the peace of death; there was no other mercy she could grant. And then, exhausted, she helped Hamin, Luke, and the rest of Hildy’s guards gather their dead.

  “We can’t leave ‘em here,” Hamin said, his face tight and angular. “We’ll break ground in the city and bury ’em there.” He looked up at the sun; it had reached its zenith. “But Vanellon’ll pay for this.”

  “We all will,” Erin said, in a whisper so quiet that Hamin missed it entirely.

  interlude

  He writhed in the darkness of memory, silent now, although the cry bloomed within him like a second, ruptured heart. Black air dissolved and reformed in a cacophony of motion, an unsteady welter of deep shadow
, that conformed to him whether he willed it or not. He knew himself to be delirious, even here—especially here.

  For in the wave and murmur of the Dark Heart’s hand, he could see her face and hear her voice, although she could be found in nothing at all that surrounded him. Nothing. The memory of a Servant was endless and perfect, and try as he might to turn from it, it followed, dogging him, wounding him with the perfection of her tears and her deep, bitter anger.

  Sara...

  The Dark Heart’s laughter matched his loss, equally silent and equally felt. He did not know how long he had been here—but he was not Sargoth and had not studied any other plane of refuge. There was the human world, replete with its stench of mortality and loss, and there was the womb of the Dark Heart. Neither place held comfort for him, but here at least he had thought to escape her image, her anger, and her hatred.

  The very air swam in mocking denial.

  “No, Lord. I am well aware that that is not your way.” It was useless for him to try to hide the bitterness of his words; it was not the words that betrayed him or laid him open to his Lord’s enjoyment. Rather, it was what the humans and their half-sired brethren so primitively called blood.

  Stefanos, your gift to me has no likeness.

  His Lord laughed loud and long, the hiss of it lingering in the tremor of the ground, the movement of air, and the boiling of what lay between.

  Stefanos did not reply.

  His Lord laughed again, and Stefanos felt that laughter running through him, an alien, living thing. Yet still, through it all, Sara watched him with her accusation writ large across her pale face.

  Stefanos knew that his own laughter was a pale echo of all that the Dark Heart was. The darkness was too vast, too strange, for even the First Sundered’s comprehension; Stefanos still bore the faintest trace of the taint of his Enemy.