The Sacred Band a-3

by David Anthony Durham

  “Now, this girl you say is with you, is she really Aliver’s daughter? You have no doubt about this?” “No. There is no doubt.”

  “Well, that’s something, then. We can use that.” Kelis looked askance at him.

  “I’ll have food brought for you. Sleep here on the floor. I trust you won’t rob me. At sunrise, let’s go find them. I hope they come to where you told them to.”

  Delivegu did not trust quite so much as that, though. As Kelis lay flat on the woven rug in the center of the floor, he could hear the scuffling sounds of the servant left outside the door to guard him. The servant fell asleep before long but did so pressed up against the door. His snores slid under it and crawled across the floor to where Kelis lay. He wondered if he should leave, but he could not see a better way in to the queen. He sat up, thinking how strange it was that a man who had fought so much for the empire and been so close to the Akarans could feel so powerless before the palace’s gates. He thought about this all through the long night, unsleeping despite his exhaustion.

  I n the faint light of the dawning day they found Naamen at the inner gate. He stood half hidden behind one of the lion statues, staring out like a frightened child. It only took a few minutes more walking to reach Benabe and Shen. They were hidden, tucked around a corner and in an alley that saw no light even in the day.

  Delivegu had to beg them to come forward into the weak light. “This is the girl? This is Aliver Akaran’s daughter?” He squatted closer as Benabe said that she was. Kelis hated the way he touched Shen on the chin and moved her face from side to side. He almost smacked his hand away. He saw that Benabe was on the verge of doing the same thing, so he did not. His inspection of Benabe was no less insulting. Delivegu studied her lascivious eyes, weighing whether she was or had been enough of a beauty to seduce an Akaran prince.

  He did not share his verdict with them, but he did say he would go and try to arrange a meeting with the monarchs. He told them to wait right there in the alley amid the debris. “Just stay hidden,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  A nd then days passed.

  Kelis, blinking more and more often, fought to stay awake. His body was so tired, but his mind still reeled. He was starting to hope that Delivegu would not come back. If he did not, they could flee. They could join the outflow of people escaping the island. Why not do that? Whatever the Santoth were doing was beyond them. They could do nothing to help. Worse, they would be blamed for releasing them. Why step up and show themselves to have been the evil sorcerers’ guides? It had all gone horribly wrong, but nobody would believe that they had acted innocently, not when they had walked beside the sorcerers every step of the way from the Far South. They were either traitors or fools, and neither freed him of responsibility. If it were only him, he would have cast himself on the stones of the Carmelia yesterday and called for the Marah to arrest him. He did not care about himself.

  He sought out Shen with his eyes and willed her into focus. She sat wrapped in her mother’s arms, face hidden against her breast. Shen was what mattered. This seemed no way for her to enter her father’s life. Not that he yet believed Aliver was truly alive and truly Aliver. More likely it was some sorcery of the queen’s, a walking and talking mirage of a man. This was one of the things he feared seeing in his dreams. He did not want to have it confirmed, or to have that confirmation make it true.

  More than likely, the queen still held power as firmly as ever. She would punish them for releasing the Santoth. And Shen she might punish for simply being who she was. A sudden intensity of fear gripped him. What if bringing Shen here was as enormous a mistake as bringing the Santoth?

  The desire to flee was so strong in him that Delivegu’s sudden return hit him like a kick in the abdomen. The man smiled as if he had just come from an amorous conquest and said, “Okay, my friends. True to my word, I’ve gotten you an audience with the king. Sorry for the delay. Follow me. And stay close. The streets are still wild.”

  Kelis did not remember the walk to the palace at all. Suddenly, they were there inside the grounds, soldiers escorting them. And then they were walking through a long hallway, and then they stood before a wooden door. When it opened, the scent of aged knowledge wafted out over them. Books, old papers.

  Delivegu ushered them inside. Rhrenna, Corinn’s secretary, stood on the other side of the door.

  For Kelis, the scene he watched for the next few minutes was as warped and unreal as a dream. He rubbed his eyes to clear his vision, but it did no good. He saw the people in the room as if through a gold-hued liquid that blurred their features and muffled their words. His eyes met Aliver’s. It was he. A single look was enough to prove that. He saw the queen with a cowl around her neck and Aaden at her side and a man with stone eyes. And the others. He saw their mouths move and he heard the sounds, but the words seemed to pass through him and vanish before he could get ahold of them. Though he did not like Delivegu, he saw that the man was speaking for him and he was glad. He did not know what he was saying, but whatever it was, Aliver listened to him, looking often to Kelis.

  For a long moment the scene went dark. And then the golden, muted room came back. He had closed and opened his eyes. He was so tired. He wanted this to be over. He wanted to remember the things he knew he needed to but could not anymore. He wanted to sleep. Benabe spoke for a time. Aliver embraced her and went on one knee before Shen. He asked her something and she answered.

  Darkness pressed down upon Kelis again. He realized that if he stayed in this dark place he would not dream after all. It was tempting to stay in the dark, enough so that he was not sure why he opened his eyes, despite himself.

  Aliver had turned from Benabe and was moving toward him. Kelis had no idea how to read the determination in his strides, nor the urgency that moved him so fast he upset a chair as he came forward. He thought the twisted expression on the prince’s face was anger. Anger for releasing the end of the world and for being too late in finding Shen. All the years of her life, and he had never once looked for her. Never knew she was alive. Never searched his dreams for her. Kelis began to close his eyes.

  Aliver grabbed him. He pulled him into an embrace, crushing Kelis’s head into his chest and wrapping his arms around him. Kelis stood, his arms limp at his sides. Aliver spoke to him. At first Kelis could not hear him. The world was too deadened and the blackness that was his fatigue wanted so badly to drop on him.

  Aliver seemed to understand this. He held Kelis’s face in his hands and mouthed his words. Still it took some time for Kelis to understand that Aliver was calling him by his name. He was naming him his brother and thanking him. He put his lips to his ears and said, “Listen to me, Kelis. Can you?” He could. “Do you understand what you have done? You’ve brought me the future. Thank you. Thank you for knowing it all along. Stand with me as I tell them what you’ve done.”

  With those words, the film before Kelis’s eyes vanished. The muffled sounds became sharp and the black wall withdrew. The prince propped him up and turned to face the queen with a formality that seemed at odds with the surroundings and the privacy of the chamber.

  “Sister,” Aliver said, “forget the other things for a moment and listen to me. This man has brought us a wonder, a ray of light to break through all this darkness. You see. Inside this misery are the seeds of the future. Aaden is one. This girl is one.”

  Corinn had watched it all from the higher landing. She said nothing, just stood there, straight-backed, with the cowl covering her neck and lower face. Kelis thought it must be there to hide her emotions, but then he decided that was not all there was to it.

  “The wonder is my daughter,” Aliver went on. “She was given the name Larashen before her birth, but she prefers just Shen. This is too bad, because it was Kelis who gave her this name.”

  Kelis started, turned to look in his face.

  “Yes, it’s true,” Aliver said to him, and then continued speaking to his sister. “Kelis, he who taught me to run in Talay. He who was at m
y side when we killed the laryx, when I became a man. He who is a brother to me. He may not even know this, but I remember something now. One time, when he and I were alone in Talay, searching for the Santoth, I awoke to hear him speaking in his sleep. I listened and I heard him say a name. The name he said was Larashen. I did not know what it meant then. I do now. I know because he is a dreamer with the gift of prophecy. He tried to deny it, but it came up through him. And I know it because you are my sister, with a gift to restore life. Only with both of you is this possible. Do you hear me?”

  The queen nodded.

  “Then, Sister, come and meet your niece. Love her, as I already do. As I always have.” Aliver’s voice wavered, choked with emotion that he fought to contain. It escaped him, though, in sobs that made him hesitate before finishing. “Will you do that? Will you love her?”

  The queen’s head turned slightly.

  The man with the stone eyes said, “I don’t deserve to love her. If you knew all the things I’ve done, you would not ask for my love. I did not rule like you. I… am not the same as you.”

  Aliver kept his eyes on the queen. “I do know you. I ask you to love her now… Love her now and earn that love with what you do from here. You can do that, Sister. I know you. You are the princess who dreamed of ruling an undersea kingdom. I’ve always known you.”

  After a moment, Barad said for her, “When I tell you the things you need to know, will you turn against me then?”

  “Never.”

  Corinn’s face went ugly for a moment, distorted with a sudden misery. Barad said, “You don’t know. You can’t say that.”

  Aliver inhaled a long breath. He lifted an arm and Shen moved under it. He looked back at the queen and said, “But I do say it. I have no anger in me, Corinn. There’s not room for it. I’m too filled with other emotions. Come meet my daughter. Aaden, come meet Shen. We have lost too much time already, and we have only a short time here. Let’s not waste it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The nighttime attack was Kant’s idea. The Scav did most of the work themselves. It went better than Mena could have imagined. It amazed her that they had snuck into the Auldek camp, found the vehicles that housed the pitch, and then set charges delayed to explode as they retreated. They destroyed four of the rolling stations, cost the Auldek some lives in slaves, and came away with several vats of the flammable pitch hitched to a sled and pulled by dogs that were uncannily silent. The Scav lost only two of their number in the process, and they had not asked anything of the Acacians. Mena, her captains, and her troops watched from a distance as the night sky bloomed with beautiful bursts of flame, a strange show of light in the arctic night.

  No one could blame them for the causalities suffered when one unfortunate group of soldiers was pounced upon by a crazed frekete. The creature dropped right into their camp, a rider shouting from its back. The animal ripped ten soldiers apart before being forced to withdraw. Those creatures were going to be deadly troublesome. Mena might have wings because of Elya, but her beauty could not prevail against such brawn.

  Thinking this, Mena went to her tent, more troubled about tomorrow than elated about the night’s successes. She closed her eyes in the dark and opened them in the dark, knowing that hours had passed and that she had not slipped into sleep during any of them. How many will die today? she wondered. How many will I kill? Though she might have, she did not mean kill with her own blade or with her soldiers’ blades. It was her own people’s lives that she felt responsible for. She hated that even the more recent plans she had come up with were not sufficient for what faced them.

  Mena found her first officer waiting in the anteroom of her tent, a small space just enclosed enough to be a shelter. “Perrin? How long have you been here?”

  “Not long.”

  “Why didn’t you call for me?” she grumbled, pulling her outer layers on in front of him, her breath clouding the air.

  “You deserved sleep.”

  “And you don’t?” she asked.

  “I got some yesterday,” he said. “I have someone you’ll want to talk to. A patrol picked him up at first light this morning. He was stumbling around like a drunken man. He says he was looking for us, though he was off to the north. If the patrol hadn’t spotted him, he’d likely have wandered off to freeze. Unless he was up to something more cunning. If I hear him right, he says his name is Rialus Neptos.”

  Mena and Perrin arrived at the command tent a few minutes later. The room was just a little above freezing, the air clouded with steam and heavy with smoke from the oil lamps. The light was imperfect, flickering, but it revealed a pitiful version of the traitor. He stood trembling in the center of a circle of glaring officers.

  “What are you doing here?” Mena asked, slipping into the ring to face him.

  Rialus’s body jerked as if she had smacked him. His arms were crossed across his chest, clutching a book within the clumsy embrace of all his layers. Instead of answering, he tightened his embrace.

  “Speak fast,” Mena said.

  A moment later, she knew that was too much to ask of the man. He had a hard time getting his words out through his chattering teeth. “I-I’ve… ca-ca-come to he-help… Acacia. My nation.”

  “Too late for that, don’t you think?” Bledas asked.

  “Not… too late. Just late.”

  Mena watched the man tremble for a time. “Rialus Neptos, you’ve walked from our enemy’s camp after having guided them here from the other side of the world. If you have something to say, say it. And then go back to die along with them.”

  Rialus’s eyes widened in terror. “No! I can’t go back. They’d kill me. They’ll know by now.”

  “They know already,” Edell said, “because they sent you. What lie did they send you to tell?”

  “No lies.” He fumbled to get the book in his hands and then thrust it toward her. “Here. Read my journal. Read. It’s me in there.”

  Edell shoved the book back at him. “You expect us to believe you? You?”

  “No lies,” Rialus said, once he was steady on his feet again. “I came to you… to tell you th-th-things.”

  Edell seemed ready to shove Rialus again, but Mena stayed him. “If you have something to say, do so.”

  “The beasts… they ca-cannot fly on their own. They need the amulets. They have amulets. Chains that lift them-”

  “What is he on about?” Bledas said. “Speak sense, man!”

  “The freketes need magic to fly,” Rialus said, getting out the first complete sentence that captured the company’s attention. The effort seemed to exhaust him.

  “The freketes need magic to fly.” Mena chewed that a moment, and then said, “Let’s get him food and hot water. Give him a hot water bottle and bring him a chair. I want him talking without chattering. And take that book from him.”

  A s the troops assembled for battle a couple of hours later, Mena stood, exhaling the irony of what she was about to do in perplexed plumes of mist, watching the enemy amass on the ice in front of them. Was she really reordering the day’s battle plans based on testimony she had just received from a babbling mouse of a man who had betrayed her nation twice? Apparently so.

  Because of the rest of the information she had pulled from between Rialus’s chattering teeth, she had altered the arrangement of their battle lines. Perrin’s company would hold the center, along with Haleeven and his Mein. But Mena spaced them loosely, and behind their core troops she stationed the newest arrivals to the army, praying that they never saw an Auldek face that day. Bledas and Edell would take the left flank, Perceven and Gandrel the right. Archers would stay to the rear of both flanks, able to shoot over their companions and into the enemy ranks. Nothing would look remarkable about the formation to the enemy facing it, but there was a reasoning behind it that was entirely different from what she had planned just hours before.

  For herself, the battle would begin from the air. She stood, stroking Elya’s feathers as her attendant finis
hed tightening her rigging. Perrin trudged over to her. He carried a helmet stuffed under one arm and wore a breastplate emblazoned with his family’s insignia-the profile of a wolf, black against a backdrop of gold. He asked after any last orders, and she said there were none.

  “Rialus got away all right?” Mena asked.

  “I think so. Kant’s people helped him get back. He should be fine. The hard part was living through the shock of your sending him back to the Auldek.”

  “He won’t buy forgiveness cheaply. I need more than what he gave us.” The officer nodded his agreement, but looked uncomfortable doing so. “Perrin, I know we’ve changed this around at the last moment. It’s decided now. We have to trust it.”

  “I trust you, Princess. I just wish we didn’t have to rely on that rat. Maybe the Auldek had enough of him and kicked him out for the ice to finish.”

  “Possibly. I wouldn’t blame them.” She took in the scene a moment, mostly just the soldiers marching into formation. She could not actually see the enemy from there. “But, Perrin, this plan feels right. It’s awful and unjust, perhaps, but…”

  “If it saves our soldiers’ lives, it’s worth it,” he finished. “I’m with you. Don’t think I’m not.”

  “Are the others?”

  “They don’t like how the information came to us, but they’re not foolish enough not to see the logic in it.” He pulled his helmet down around his head, a snug fit with the fur padding that lined it. “If I die today,” he said, “I’d regret not telling you that I’m in love with you. I hope you don’t mind my saying so.”

  Tugging on her gloves and pulling the wrist straps tight, Mena asked, “And if you live?”

  “I’ll die of shame.”

  Mena nudged him away. She climbed up into position on Elya. So I’m loved, Elya. I don’t think Melio would approve, but it’s good to know. You are, too, girl. You are, too. Let’s stay alive, all right? Fly now .