by Helen Lowe
The Cloud Holder looked resigned, but his scowl returned as Asantir spoke. “Given the open nature of the Honor Contest, the Battlemaster prefers that the duel also be public.”
“To maximize Night’s humiliation should our champion lose.” Now Teron sounded bitter. “I’m starting to wonder whether Blood wants this marriage to go ahead.”
Only “starting to,” Kalan thought, with a touch of humor, but Asantir shook her head. “The contracts have been signed since the spring, Teron. For Blood to withdraw now would contravene both convention and law, and entitle Night to considerable reparations. Your speculation,” she added, “also impugns the honor of Earl Sardon and his House, so please don’t repeat it elsewhere.”
The warning conveyed the danger of repeating Teron’s doubt, without denying its import—which Kalan decided was interesting, given the likelihood of eyes-and-ears. He eyed the Commander of Night and decided she played a hazardous game. “You have to admit though—” Teron began, then broke off as Asantir’s eyebrows lifted. She continued to regard him a moment longer, before turning back to Kalan.
“Forgive me,” she said, “but I must ask. Should the worst happen, do you have kin or a liege to whom I should send word, together with your possessions?”
Kalan’s thoughts flew to Malian, then Lord Falk and his Normarch friends—and Jarna as he had last seen her, with her face turned away from him, toward the wall. Yet he could mention none of them, let alone the family that had exiled him, so shook his head. “Thank you, but I have asked Envoy Nimor to see to all such matters. Lady Myrathis conveyed the necessary letters to him.”
The letter to Che’Ryl-g-Raham asked that she do all within her power to ensure Madder’s safe return to Jarna. That in itself would serve as news of his fate for all those he had left behind in Emer, but his letter to the navigator also enclosed another to Falk of Normarch. In it, Kalan asked that the Lord Castellan accept Faro as foster-son in his own place. He felt confident Che’Ryl-g-Raham would ensure both her charges reached their destination, and Faro would then be as well provided for as an uncertain world allowed. If only, that is, he heeded Kalan’s caution not to betray his atrocious Grayharbor accent, and himself, while still in Blood territory.
Asantir nodded. “I will let Envoy Nimor know that Night will render any assistance the Sea House may require.”
Teron’s expression was curious. “Anvin said that you sent your page to Nimor as well. To conduct back to your order, he supposed?”
Did he now? Kalan thought. Clearly, the contest talk that claimed Teron stood on easy terms with Lord Anvin was correct. Still, the speculation was close enough to the truth—even if the order in question was the Oakward and not the Storm Spears—that Kalan nodded, aiming to satisfy curiosity without actually confirming it. At the same time, it occurred to him that Blood might trail Faro and the horses in order to locate the Storm Spears’ base. Let them waste their time, he decided. He was confident of the Oakward’s ability to deal with Blood spies, and the subsequent puzzle might give the ruling kin pause.
Asantir interrupted this train of thought. “Tradition requires that the one whose honor is at stake should make the champion that defends it a gift.”
Captain-Lady Hatha, Kalan recalled, had told Lady Myrathis the same thing. Teron looked surprised. “I didn’t know that,” he said.
“The tradition is old—as old as the Derai Alliance, I believe.” Asantir moved to the sword stand. “Should you visit Night, Khar, I will make you a more permanent gift. But now, since you fight in my name as well as the Bride’s, I would be honored if you used my swords.” She paused. “For this combat, and given Lord Parannis’s resources, you will need weapons of their caliber.”
She was right, Kalan knew. A Son of Blood could command the finest armor and weapons, and his own, while serviceable, were hardly of the same order. His mind flashed to the contestants’ gossip again, and the rumor that the Commander of Night’s swords were black blades. A confused account of a Gray Lands’ confrontation involving Night warriors and Stone Keep priests had been part of the mix as well. All Honor Contest speculation—except that Kalan knew Asantir had brought a black spear into the Old Keep six years before and used it to slay a Raptor of Darkness.
“Of death my song . . .” His skin lifted into gooseflesh, reliving the moment when the spear, wreathed in golden fire, had carried the Raptor with it into the void. The memory bore out the legend that went with the ancient rhyme, which claimed that even the slightest nick or scratch from such a weapon meant death. Although according to Brother Belan, his mind wandering between ancient lore and more accurate histories, a blade’s potency had always been controlled by the wielder’s intention. The old priest had also claimed that the ruling kindreds, possibly through their bond to the Golden Fire, possessed some resistance to the black blades’ power. Limitations or not, such weapons would certainly give anyone who wielded them an edge, as Asantir’s use of the black spear had proven. But as Kalan recalled matters, the spear had been a legacy of Night’s Honor Captains, so Asantir’s possession of more heirloom weapons would be unlikely at best.
“Perhaps you’re not familiar with twin blades?” Teron suggested, misinterpreting his hesitation.
“No, I’ve learned them.” It was unnecessary, Kalan decided, to explain that Normarch instruction had focused on the Lathayran and Jhainarian styles for such weapons, not the Derai.
Humor gleamed in Asantir’s expression. “He fought the glaive wielder with a sword and dagger, Teron. If I may?” she added, and lifted the longer of the two swords from its stand. Accepting it from her, Kalan drew the blade clear of its sheath. The steel was black with a blue sheen, but he could not detect any echo of the hornet song that had characterized the black spear six years before. Returning the blade to its scabbard, he exchanged it for the shorter weapon.
“A champion’s blades,” the Night Commander said quietly, and Kalan nodded, because the workmanship, weight, and balance of both swords were superb. Carrying them, he would meet the Son of Blood on equal terms, at least when it came to weapons.
Asantir replaced the longsword on the stand, her expression reflective. “I acquired this pair when I journeyed into the River lands with Earl Tasarion, before he became Night’s Heir. I had taken cover from a spring downpour in a dark, narrow little shop in Terebanth.” She paused. “I learned later that the trader, Gray Taan, was famous. As soon as I entered, he said that he had something that might interest me.”
“Did he know the swords’ history?” Kalan asked, curious now.
She shook her head. “Only how they came into his hands, amidst an array of weapons of dubious provenance—his words—in a tinker’s wagon. Too rich and too foreign for easy sale, the tinker had told him; apparently he had been thinking of melting them down.”
Teron’s inward suck of breath matched Kalan’s, although if these were black blades, the tinker might have had difficulty melting them down. What were you doing in a River tinker’s cart, so far from home? Kalan asked silently, appreciating the wave-sheen of the shortsword’s blade.
“So I purchased them,” Asantir said, “and for more than I wanted to spend, although Gray Taan maintained they were cheap at the price, which was true enough.”
Whatever the swords’ more immediate provenance, Kalan reflected, turning the steel so the light played across it, they were both Derai and old. “I thought,” he said slowly, “that Tasarion of Night’s visit to the River was meant to be the Derai’s first venture south of Grayharbor.”
Teron looked puzzled, but Asantir shrugged. “So far as we know, although rumors of our lost priest-kind persist. Fifteen hundred years is a long time, even by our standards, so it’s possible not all expeditions were recorded, especially in the period following the Betrayal.” Her keen gaze studied him. “You came via the Sea Keep, so you will know that not all their ships return safely.”
Flotsam from wrecked ships could drift, Kalan supposed, and good quality metal might no
t be ruined by salt water . . . He handed back the sword. “Even the use of these weapons is a lordly gift, Commander, and I am no lord.”
“Tradition specifies a gift, but not its value, and you will be fighting for both my honor and the Bride’s. As well as for your life,” she added coolly, “all matters I consider valuable. I will not diminish myself, or my honor, by stinting on my gift.”
“Besides,” Teron observed, “to refuse would be churlish.”
The Cloud Holder was right; Kalan knew his surprise at that was churlish as well, or at least ungenerous. He bowed his head, catching the glimmer of Yelusin’s humor deep within his mind. “I would not presume,” he said, trying not to sound stiff, “to instruct the Commander of Night in matters of her own honor. Or wish,” he added, humor reasserting itself, “to be thought a churl. I accept, with gratitude.”
Asantir inclined her head. “You will need to familiarize yourself with them before you fight. Under other circumstances I would give them to you now, but we must not risk their loss ahead of this duel.” Kalan nodded, ashamed, as one born to the House of Blood, that he could not argue against her inference. “I must preside over the remaining contests, but Garan and his eight-guard know the twin-blade style. They can bring the swords with them to train with you.”
Another risk, Kalan thought, because Garan and many of his eight-guard had also been part of the Old Keep expedition—and it was Garan and Nerys who had taken him from the Temple quarter the night he and Malian fled the Wall. I’ve changed a great deal in six years, he reminded himself, as Asantir spoke again. “But I shall personally ensure that you have the swords for the duel.”
Teron, rising to second Asantir’s salute, bumped the desk. A scroll cylinder rolled toward the edge and the Cloud Holder grabbed for it, knocking a sheaf of papers to the floor. Kalan bent to retrieve a sheet that fluttered to his feet and saw Dread Pass written in cramped letters across the top. He handed the page back, and Teron peered from it to the papers he had recovered. “Garan’s jottings.” He shot a look at Asantir, but addressed Kalan. “What would you say, Storm Spear, to a priest-kind rabble that left their borders undefended?”
Kalan assumed a perplexed air and waited for Asantir to close the conversation down. Instead she seated herself on a corner of the desk, her expression bland. “You’ll need to give him more information, Teron.” Her gesture invited the Cloud Holder to hand the pages to Kalan.
Teron hesitated, looking as though he regretted his impulse, before passing the sheaf across. Kalan’s mind raced as he laid the maps on the desk, wondering why Asantir wanted him to see them. “These show the Towers of Morning country,” he said finally, and glanced at Teron. “Is that what you meant by undefended borders?”
The Cloud Holder nodded. “They’re wide-open to attack, but it’s their responsibility to rectify that, I say!” He shot another look toward Asantir, but she appeared absorbed by the swing of one booted foot.
“What if they can’t, though?” Kalan repeated a variant of the Commander’s earlier question. “Morning was decimated in the civil war and hard hit again in the plague years.” In the face of Teron’s silence, he changed tack. “Traditionally, the Swarm have focused their assaults on our Alliance. So in effect we’ve always fought each other and rolled over anyone else who got in the way. But prior to the last five hundred years, the Alliance never depended on others for resources the way we do now.”
Because we’ve lost the Golden Fire, he added silently: at least as it was before the Betrayal. The resource implications of the Fire’s loss had been one of Brother Selmor’s pet themes, but Kalan had never seen its consequences illustrated as clearly as he did now, studying Garan’s maps. “So if an enemy force did take the Towers,” he continued, as Teron shifted his weight, “they might not necessarily attack the Houses on Morning’s flanks next. Instead, they might push through into the Gray Lands, cutting the rest of the Alliance off from both the Sea Keep and the route through the Barren Hills.” Ostensibly he spoke to Teron, but his eyes went to Asantir, and this time she looked back, her gaze steady. Of course she sees it, he thought. “The Alliance’s maritime and landward supply routes would both be severed.”
Teron practically shoved Kalan aside to stare down at the maps. “And,” Kalan said, still looking at Asantir, “once they got that far they could just sweep on south and into Haarth. There’s nothing between the Border Mark and Grayharbor to stop them.” Mentally, he flinched away from the vision of the Swarm pouring into the peaceful country he had seen as the Halcyon sailed from Ij to Grayharbor. But if Morning and its Towers were as vulnerable as Garan’s maps suggested, and the Alliance remained divided—or asleep, he thought, with inward despair over Blood’s insistence the Swarm was a fireside tale—then it might not be possible to prevent it.
“We would be starved of resources.” Teron’s hand clenched, crumpling paper, then as hastily smoothed the sheet open again. His tone, however, matched the violence of his initial gesture. “We should take the southern lands first and make sure of what we need.”
He sounded, Kalan thought, like someone who had been listening to Lord Anvin and Lady Sardonya, who were both New Blood adherents. Asantir shook her head. “Shoring up the Wall’s defenses would be more prudent. They are still considerable and our forces insufficient, even if the Alliance truly stood as one, to wage war on two such widely disparate fronts.”
Teron grunted, but he was preoccupied with the maps again, so Kalan was not sure he fully took in the Commander’s point. He was debating whether to point out that the Wall itself was the source of resources that ensured the Alliance’s favorable trade with the rest of Haarth, when a knock sounded and Aeln looked in. “The Blood guards are asking if you’ll keep the Storm Spear much longer, Commander?”
They had been closeted some time, Kalan supposed. He took his formal leave when Asantir excused him, although he had to wait in the anteroom while Morin retrieved his weapons. Teron departed a few moments later, leaving the office door wide enough for Kalan to see Asantir, still seated on the desk. She was looking toward the chessboard, her expression deeply thoughtful, but turned as Aeln reached for the latch. The Commander nodded as she met Kalan’s gaze, although it was clear her mind was elsewhere.
Even after Morin returned with the weapons and he rejoined Jad’s escort, Kalan’s own focus remained on the business with the maps. The reason Asantir had encouraged the discussion, he realized finally, had to have been for the benefit of Liankhara’s listeners in their spyholes, while also being aimed—through Teron—at others within the ruling kin. The Cloud Holder would doubtless believe he was being close-lipped, but Kalan felt sure Asantir was relying on him revealing more than he intended, presumably to try and get Blood to rethink where their focus on the Southern Realms could lead. Especially, he reflected, as they passed the wyr hounds and sentries again, with passes like Dread leveled like a weapon at the collective Derai throat.
Yet the Commander of Night’s game was fraught with risk, since as with Teron’s initial reaction, the vulnerability she had highlighted might simply reinforce Blood’s Haarth ambitions. Alternatively, the warrior House might decide to take preemptive action in support of its larger goals and march on Morning, as it had once before during the Betrayal conflict.
Struck by the force of this possibility, Kalan almost stopped short—because if Blood did pursue the latter course, it would almost certainly reignite the still-smoldering embers of the Derai’s five-hundred-year-old civil war.
After the door closed, Asantir turned away from the chessboard and picked up the dispatch pouch Garan and Nerys had brought her. The messenger’s blood had dried in a thick clot above the seal, but she prised it open. She expected to see Earl Tasarion’s hand on the folded paper within, but instead found Haimyr’s flowing script. As she read, her expression grew somber, and she sat for some time afterward, her gaze on the wall.
Nhairin, she thought: Nhairin—and swung back to the chessboard. Black’s line straggl
ed across the field of play, while white maintained several strategic groupings. The largest of these dominated the center of the board, although several lesser pieces had been removed, opening up gaps. Asantir considered these before returning to the scattered line of black. The Earl piece—what her long ago Terebanth opponents would have termed the king—was located well back, with the powerful and versatile Heir strategically placed to both defend the Earl and support black’s forward line.
Slowly, Asantir extended a hand toward a black pawn, out on its own to one side, then paused, considering the two black pieces that had reached white’s end of the board. One was still a pawn, but its former companion had been replaced by a black Honor Captain, what both Haimyr and the Terebanthans called a knight. White’s Heir stood close by both, but currently offered no overt threat to either.
Asantir continued to study the pieces intently, before the ghost of a smile touched her face. “There you are.” The fire in the grate flared, as though answering her reflective murmur, and firelight washed the new Honor Captain with vermilion before the flames steadied and the red glow faded, restoring the piece to Night’s black. Gently, Asantir reached out and tapped the Honor Captain’s horsehead crest. “After all these years, here you are again.”
29
Risk
Kalan kept walking, turning when his escort did and automatically marking the detail of corridors, adjoining halls, and separate wings branching off, as well as units of guards on their regular patrols, and guests returning from the banquet. The expressions directed his way included curiosity, doubt, and outright hostility, but he ignored them, still intent on the implications of the Dread Pass maps and subsequent conversation in Asantir’s office. High stakes, high risk, he reflected—but that was no different than the game he and Malian were playing, with the fate of a world, not just the Derai Alliance, hanging in the balance.
Although to continue playing, he would have to win the duel against Lord Parannis. That, by implication, meant killing a Son of Blood before his kin and gathered House—which will only create a fresh Wall storm of problems, not end them, Kalan reflected grimly, as they passed the great arch into the muster ground. The gates were locked and the hydra above the arch unlit, but he still felt as though every shadowed eye was marking him. He might jeer at himself for shying from a representation carved in stone, one of hundreds throughout the Red Keep—but it was at that moment the first sense of being followed crawled across his shoulder blades.
