“And then what?” Jherrick’s question was innocent, but it caused thoughtful scowls.
“Is there a Stone near Vennet? We might be able to travel through the Stone here to Aldris' contacts.” The big Kingsman Vargen asked quietly.
“Not that I know of.” Aldris murmured. “But there’s a Stone near Quelsis.”
Jherrick resisted narrowing his eyes upon Aldris. He had his suspicions about who and what Second-Lieutenant Aldris den'Farahan truly was. And they were being confirmed this day, bit by bit, with the things the Second-Lieutenant knew. And by how his jaunty demeanor had turned today into cold, ruthless steel. But Jherrick had seen Aldris shirtless in the practice yards, and the man wasn't Inked. But then again, technically, neither was Jherrick.
Olea pursed her lips, and the sensual motion distracted Jherrick. “That’s nearly a hundred leagues northeast of Vennet. I could run that in two days.”
“That far?” Aldris den’Farahan’s smile was lecherous. “I knew you were in shape, but damn.”
“The problem is,” Olea retorted, giving Aldris a stern eye, “that you all can’t. Vargen, how far can you run?”
The big man shrugged. “Maybe fifteen leagues at a stretch. But it’s been a long time.”
“Aldris?”
Aldris made a sour face. “I run when I’m being chased out of taverns for being too good at dice.”
Olea scowled at him, her regular commander’s air returning more and more. “Jherrick?”
Jherrick rubbed at his stubble, and lied. “We jogged ten leagues armored once in training. I did it, barely.” It wouldn't do to tell anyone how far he could carry dead bodies. Or just how many wolves he could fight off at once. Or how many people he had assisted in torturing.
Or that he was Khehemni.
“A hundred leagues is a lot better than two weeks' worth of travel,” Vargen ventured in his rumbling basso. “We could cover the distance from Quelsis to Vennet quickly if we stole a few horses. But only if that Stone lets us pass through. The question is… is our need great?”
Olea met the Kingsman's eyes. Jherrick's gut twisted. He had never seen his Captain-General so broken. “Our need is great.” Olea murmured. “For who am I without a King or a Queen to guard? Who are all of us, Vargen, if we are not Kingsmen anymore?”
“Down the mountain, then,” Vargen rumbled. “And we split from the trail and head east to find the Stone-grotto. Let’s get going before this wind whips us off the ledge.”
The Kingsman stood, making for the wet-slicked stairs. Jherrick rose with the rest to follow. Tromping down a staircase carven out of sheer bedrock, they went brisk but careful. The carven stairs ran with little runnels of water, which gave way to washed out gulleys. Trying to beat the wind, they at last left the sparse, rocky moraine and came back into the hardy evergreens of the Kingswood. The path turned into a muddy track. Lips of stone hidden beneath mud snagged their feet. Twice, Jherrick pretended to trip and fall, if not for the strong, steadying arm of Vargen. He played his part, displaying nimbleness of youth, but sharply contrasting his ineptitude to the sure-footedness of the three trained veterans.
He wasn’t a Kingsman, and he made sure it showed.
A dim shadow had taken the forest by the time they split from the path and headed deeper into the woods. The sun was long set behind the Kingsmount, though the sky above still retained a violet light. Jherrick increased his stumbling accordingly, damp dripping from the cendarie making the mud treacherous underfoot, though there was ample moss to tread upon. Every tree began to look like all the rest, their torches long gone. Suddenly, Jherrick felt the spongy moss flatten out, and he knew a moment of fear. They passed only a hundred lengths from the clearing with the slope where he dumped bodies for the wolves. A hungry howl went up. Another. Jherrick wondered if they could scent him, their regular purveyor of meat. But the prickling at the back of his neck gradually subsided as they crossed through the wolves' pack-grounds and into a thick stand of silverbark.
At last, they heard the bubbling of the grotto’s spring. Only a thin band of starlight held court around the Alranstone, the clouds thickening again above. The night breeze was warmer down near the city, rippling tall grasses in the clearing. The dark Stone ahead was silent, inert as the four approached it. Jherrick felt that strange ripple over his skin as he passed a certain boundary, as if the Stone had identified him. He'd never liked being near the Stones. He felt watched, accused, judged for what he was, what he had agreed to. He saw Olea, Aldris, and Vargen shiver also, and as they put their hands to the stone, Jherrick felt a slight thrumming in the air, as if it were singing, or purring.
Olea recited Kingsman words that Jherrick had never heard, imploring for passage. The stone’s vibration surged for a moment, then dimmed. Vargen recited the words. The stone surged, then dimmed. Aldris recited the words, confirming Jherrick's every suspicion. The stone surged, then dimmed.
Vargen heaved a heavy sigh, his hands falling from the Stone. “Well, that’s it then.”
But then, Jherrick felt the strangest sensation. The thrumming suddenly increased in his chest, humming through his body like the whir of owl wings. His heart thundered, his breath gripping shallow and fast. A vast touch brushed through his very soul, and Jherrick felt himself compelled. Shuddering from a fear that had no name, he stepped forward, placing sweat-cold palms on the Stone. His memory did not supply words. No, something deeper, something ancient, slid suddenly into his mind and whispered them right into his ears. Jherrick murmured the words, terrified, thrumming beneath that watchful, powerful presence. The thrumming of the stone increased, and stayed. He vaguely heard Vargen's astonished breath and basso voice.
“Something's happening! Everyone put your hands on the Stone and recite together!”
As they did, the shuddering gripped deep into Jherrick's very core, and the whispering voice solidified in his mind. Traitor. It whispered. Their need is great but yours is more. Do you deserve redemption? I taste blood upon your hands. I taste death in your heart. I taste fury in your mind. But there is only one thing that can make your heart truly weep, child. And only those tears will save you.
Suddenly, the lowest eye upon the three-eye stone blinked wide, a vicious, bloody red. There was a thunderclap of sound, a violent tearing of space. Jherrick screamed as he was threaded though himself, turned inside-out, his ears stuffed into his entrails and then viciously pulled through the Stone and spat out upon the other side.
Somewhere it was day, not night. He sprawled, retching, falling into hot white sand beneath a high-noon sun. Blistering heat accosted Jherrick. The touch of air upon his skin was scalding like a forge. Blinding white sand smote his vision, searing his hands where he touched it. He stumbled quickly to his feet, the others doing the same, brushing off white sand beneath a cloudless azure sky. And suddenly, a clarion call rang through the white desert heat, deafening, the ancient tone issuing out of the Alranstone that had spat them out upon the baking sand. And to its ear-splitting call, a tirade of armed warriors flooded from the shade behind a circle of tumbled stones that ringed the plinth. Jherrick found himself surrounded by dark-haired, grey-eyed men and women. Clad in desert leathers with loose white headwraps, they bristled with keen razor-tipped spears, all those spears now aimed directly at Jherrick and the other’s throats.
“Taile arabine ghenya shefan!”
Spears still leveled, the warriors parted, to let a tall man stride forward, demanding, his silver-worked helmet with its mane of red bristles showing his leadership. Well-muscled though slender, he set the butt of his spear in the sand in a graceful, authoritative motion. Jherrick heard it clink upon stone beneath the drifts. A sheer wrap of white fabric with a silver and red-edged border draped his shoulders to keep off the sun. A harness and breastplate of leather was beneath that, woven with the red bristles, and leather gauntlets graced his wrists. A leather-paneled skirt came to mid-thigh. Light leather boots laced to his knees, with shin guards of the same silver metal
as his helmet. The warrior-captain’s spear was taller than he. Short curls of obsidian hair escaped the helmet around his temples.
His grey eyes were hard as stone. “Taile arabine ghenya shefan!”
“Anyone have any idea what he’s saying?” Aldris murmured. “I’d like to not get my throat slit today.”
“I think it’s a form of Ghrec,” Olea murmured. “We must be somewhere on their trade routes? Aeon, how far did that stone send us?!”
“Do you speak Ghrec?” Aldris murmured back.
Olea lifted up her voice, stepping forward slightly. “Talim enenya khoum vhris.”
The warrior-captain blinked, studied her a moment. “You are Menderian dogs!” The words seemed to twist his tongue, as if he was unused to their language. But all the same, his meaning was clear. They were quite unwelcome. He leveled his spear with a snarl. “Did you come to bribe us again with your worthless emeralds? You stink like the eel you serve…!” He turned his head and spat into the white sand. “Go back through to your slippery master and I will spare your worthless hides!”
Jherrick's insides twisted. There was only one man to whom such a phrase could refer. Olea stepped forward carefully but with obvious authority, positioning herself between the spear-captain and their group. The man with the crested helmet shifted his spear, its point right to her throat. Olea never flinched, her grey eyes steely.
“We do not know of what you speak, fellow,” she murmured in a calming tone. “My name is Olea den’Alrahel. I’m a Kingsman. Alrashemni. These are my comrades. Was there someone else you were expecting to come through that Stone?”
The man startled at Olea’s words. A ripple went through the surrounding spears. He paused, then lifted his spear decisively from Olea’s throat. Striding forward, spear still in hand, he stepped up close to Olea. Jherrick could see the tension of Olea’s stillness, resisting going for a weapon. The spearman reached out, tracing her face with his fingers, running his fingers through her blue-black mane, holding her chin to peer at her storm-grey eyes.
And it hit Jherrick suddenly, how similar they looked.
“Alrashemnari… Alrahel?” The spear-captain murmured.
Olea held his gaze. “Yes, Olea den’Alrahel. Alrashemni. Kingsman.”
“Olea dihm Alrahel?” The spear-captain’s fingers traced her face again. And suddenly he was transformed. Wonder spilled over his features. His face idolatrous, he sank to one knee, laying his spear upon the white sand. Slowly, he lifted his crested helmet off with both hands, then unbuckled the leather breastplate with its red weavings, setting those aside also. And beneath, Jherrick's eyes widened to see the most beautifully Inked Mountain and Stars. But this was done in twelve different colors and had twelve stars rather than five, tendrils twining and weaving through the rest, interspersed with sigils and symbols spilling over the warrior's chest and collarbones. The spear-captain placed his palm flat upon his multihued Inkings, bowing his head.
“Sei Olea brethan khoum tantha Alrahel.” He murmured, reverently.
Like sighing sand, the rest of the spearmen and women sank to one knee also, laying their spears aside, pressing palms to their chests. Jherrick resisted the urge to run. The Stone had put him through, right into a nest of Alrashemni vipers.
“What just happened? What did he just say?” Aldris murmured.
Olea’s eyes had opened wide in astonishment. “He said, She is the Olive Tree that brings peace with the Dawn.”
EPILOGUE – DHERRAN
Dherran was a puddle of sweat, his arms shaking, everything sore and screaming. He moved jerkily now after five hours of bouting, his breathing shallow from all the bruises and welts. In the vaulted stone basement that was the Vicoute’s training arena, Arlen den’Selthir’s blue eyes were cold glaciers from where he stood across from Dherran in the sand pit. His light shirt and breeches had almost no stains of sweat, his posture impeccable even after so long. Not a bruise or a scratch showed upon the man, not a scrape in the white lamplight that illuminated the space. Other men and women sparred nearby, weapons ringing in pits of sand like the one in which Dherran faced den’Selthir, Kingsmen practicing their formidable arts.
“Again!” The Vicoute barked, readying his quarterstaff.
But Dherran had taken enough beatings today. He threw his staff to the sand, letting his temper best him at last. As soon as his staff left his fingers, though, den’Selthir swept in, ruthless, and flipped Dherran’s feet out from underneath him. Dherran landed on his backside with a grunt as sniggers from other fighters echoed around the vaulted stone cellar. Den’Selthir leveled his staff at Dherran’s throat.
“Up! Face me!”
On his back in the sand, Dherran crossed his aching arms over his chest, obstinate. Gazing past the fighters, his eyes lit upon the massive tableaux set into the far wall worked in silver. A wolf and dragon circled each other, fighting, perfectly balanced within a ring of golden flame. It was captivating, and had distracted Dherran ample times over the past weeks, and gotten him hit in the process. But he had time to stare at it now, because he wasn’t getting up.
“No.” Dherran’s voice was as firm as he could make it considering that he was lying upon his back with a staff threatening his throat. “We’ve been at this for hours. And you had me running sprints half the night, then carrying water to the animals all morning. No. I’m done.”
A swift rap caught him in the center of his belly. Dherran huffed, trying to not hold the tension of the blow. Bracing for blows only made things hurt more around Arlen den’Selthir.
“You are lazy, fat, and arrogant,” den’Selthir lectured, as he had for weeks now, “and far too trusting. I could skewer you and be done with you, boy, yet you wear markings that are important to me.” Another sharp rap came to his abdomen. “Get up!”
“How many times must I apologize for hurting Arvale in the summer-ring?!!” Dherran spat, unmoving. “I didn’t know he was a Kingsman! What do you want of me?!”
“I want,” den’Selthir snarled, “for you to respect those marks! Which you do not! Flaunting yourself, brawling! Whoever decided to Ink you should have thought before they committed such a poor example to such a lofty rank! Again!”
Dherran didn’t budge, merely ground his jaw tighter, willing himself to stay calm. Horrible things happened when one lost control around the Vicoute. He had learned that the very first day they had sparred together. The man was fast as a viper, and five times stronger than he looked, the grey in his hair be damned. He was a lifelong Kingsman, one who hadn’t stopped training.
Not. A single. Day.
Still on his back, Dherran expected another hit with the staff, and focused on keeping his breathing easy. “I am worthy of these marks no matter what you say, because I believe I am worthy of them. In my own way, I strive to be worthy of them everyday. Not that it matters to you.”
There was silence from the Vicoute. Dherran tried not to brace, breathing, waiting for another swift rap with the staff. But a proffered hand appeared in his field of vision instead. Dherran didn’t take it, frozen in surprise. Den’Selthir had not offered him a hand up from the sand in all their long hours training yet. But now it was offered, and so Dherran took it, though he was tense, yet wary of a trap. The Vicoute, however, simply hauled him to his feet, gazing at him appraisingly, handing his quarterstaff off to a waiting armsman.
“You’ve got tenacity, boy. Nine out of ten break under my treatment on just the third day. Indeed, you have something you believe in, or you would not have lasted these past three weeks. You’re a decent fighter, Dherran. But Kingsmen don’t rub their assholes in people’s faces and swing their cocks about to give the world a great big fucking. Breaking the beloved icons of a community will only get our name detested, and that’s what you do when you fight popular opponents and ruin them.”
Den’Selthir stepped from the ring, flicking his fingers regally for his armsman, Philo, who came rushing with two fresh towels, using one to rub the sand out of Dherra
n’s hair and off his bare, sweat-streaked torso, not to mention the dry blood here and there. Den’Selthir needed no such treatment, and only used his towel to wipe a sheen of sweat from his neck and face, gesturing for Dherran to follow.
It was a routine that they had undergone every evening after practice was finished. But every other time had ended with Dherran too weary to stand or see straight after eight hours of bouting. Den’Selthir had put him up against two of his retainers, then three, then four, and finally up to six before he had manhandled Dherran himself on the third day of the first week.
And had been beating him to a pulp ever since.
Usually, when they strode from the hall, den’Selthir nodded a curt goodnight, and Dherran went back to his rooms to soak out his aches in the copper tub. But tonight, den’Selthir beckoned, and curious, Dherran followed. They walked a short way down the vaulted underground catacomb, then through a heavy cendarie door and into a small chamber, the Vicoute’s saunas. Dherran had been down a few times with Khenria, as the saunas were open to all, though never had he been here with Arlen. Pegs hung on the wall, some already laden with clothes, some with fresh robes and towels waiting to be used. Boots lined the wall by the door.
Without pause, Arlen began to disrobe, hanging his garments upon a peg, shucking his boots. It was the first time Dherran had seen the man shirtless, as the Vicoute always fought with his shirt on. And as Dherran also began to disrobe, he glanced over to see that Arlen den’Selthir had no Inkings whatsoever upon his chest. Confusion rose in Dherran, as Arlen made much of respecting the Inkings at every turn. But the Vicoute said not a word, simply slinging his towel over one shoulder and heading for another door, passing through with the grace of a lynx.
Dherran followed, and found himself swallowed by the thick, muggy steam of the saunas proper. Steam billowed through clever vents in the walls. Kingsmen, and a few women, sat or reclined upon slatted cendarie benches in the thick muggy mist. Some had the traditional black Inkings, some had a plethora of battle-scars. Some were younger and unmarked, Kingskinder still earning their Seals upon the Vicoute’s estate in secret. While some, like Arlen, had no Inkings whatsoever, though they should have. And yet again, it raised Dherran’s curiosity. As they entered, a number of heads nodded, and the Vicoute clasped a few arms in greeting.
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