“With respect, my Prince, my people have been receiving trouble from raiding Taneryn villagers for months. If you have only just arrived, how can you possibly know who is guilty and who…”
“Enough, I say!” Sasha had never seen Damon so angry. “You shall not attempt to justify what I saw there! Did you send them?” For the first time, Usyn's confidence appeared to slip, just a little. “Answer the question!”
“I did not!” A sullen look crept over the lordling's face. Suddenly, he looked no more than a pouting, temperamental seventeen. “The villagers of Hadryn can organise their own defence! If you have a problem with that, deal with it yourself!”
“We dealt with it,” Damon said darkly. “We dealt them thirty dead and more. More shall follow, Hadryn or Taneryn, for any who commit wanton murder in the name of ancient feuds!”
“My father was murdered by this heathen animal!” Usyn yelled, eyes wide with indignant fury. “The father-in-law of Prince Koenyg, who is also my brother! If the authority of Baen-Tar does not defend my right to justice, then what in all the hells’ good is it for!”
There was a silence, then, upon the grassy plain by the wide, cold lakeside. Sasha felt rather than heard the gathering presence behind, the creak of a leather belt, a faint rustle of clothing, the compression of grass beneath heavy boots. Damon stared at the younger man, anger duelling with a rare distaste that seemed to sit like acid upon his tongue. The younger, paler man glared back, breath coming hard, his manner that of one accustomed to sudden fits of temper.
“Family Lenayin would be nothing without the north!” Usyn hissed. “The king owes his throne to our unwavering support! Your father knows this, Princeling! Well that you should learn it too! Well that you should know with whom your true loyalties lie!” This last with a harsh glare at Kessligh, acknowledging his presence for the first time. The eyes remained upon him for one hard-breathing moment, wild and white about the rims. Then to Sasha, also for the first time, with an even greater hatred than before.
“I serve the king,” Kessligh said simply.
“You serve only yourself!” Usyn spat. “Yourself, your whore and your godless serrin friends! Your power in Baen-Tar grows weak, old man! The king no longer listens to you and your kind! You may have those idiots in Valhanan fooled, but you've never fooled the men of the north—we know what you are!”
“Sure you do,” Kessligh said with an utterly unpleasant smile. “I'm the reason you're not speaking Cherrovan.”
Usyn's hand went to his belt knife, and Kessligh's to his own in a blur of motion. And Usyn's eyes went wider still, face draining of any remaining blood, as if realising, with sudden terror, what his temper had nearly brought him to.
Kessligh's smile grew wider. Sasha had seen him hit crawling insects on a tree trunk from ten paces with that knife.
She decided it was a good time to swing on her heel and check the scene behind. Sure enough, there were upward of thirty Hadryn men standing there, and more gathering behind. Some in a state of partial dress, others fully armed and armoured. Strong men and tall, as with the soldiers of all standing companies; their pale skin untouched by any ink quill, their hair trimmed short, sometimes even shaved. Their eyes were hard and their manner unwelcoming. Behind them, she glimpsed members of Damon's Royal Guard contingent hovering by the lakeside tents with evident alarm.
“Forget the knife,” Kessligh told Usyn then. With all the ease and assurance that one might expect from the greatest soldier in Lenayin. “If what you say of your father's death is true, your case seems good. Baen-Tar's justice serves here. Whatever disagreements exist, you shall find justice in Prince Damon, where it is warranted. Only remember this, young lord. Do not try us and do not test our patience. All the north should know very well what I am capable of.”
And he bowed, all good form and politeness. Sasha swung back long enough to do likewise. Damon did not bow. He would nod, affirmingly, if Usyn bowed first. But Usyn simply stared, wild-eyed and hateful. And so Damon swung on his heel and walked, Kessligh and Sasha at his sides.
The Hadryn men stood back just enough to let them through, but not enough for comfort or respect. Sasha walked with her right thumb hooked into her belt beside the knife there, ready for the fast thrust of a close quarters attack. A man bumped her arm, not moving aside quite in time. She could feel the eyes upon her, roaming over her body. But the Royal Guard were close ahead now as they emerged from the crowd.
“That little fool's a real worry,” Kessligh muttered as soon as they were out of earshot. “His loss has made him unstable.”
“I think he was expecting Koenyg,” Damon said darkly. “Given that it's Koenyg's father-in-law who's been killed. I warned Koenyg that Usyn would take it amiss, but he insisted he was too busy with Rathynal approaching. Wyna was distraught.”
“Poor girl,” Sasha said sarcastically. “Meeting Usyn, I suddenly see the family resemblance. The whole Telgar family's unstable. I'm so thrilled to be related I could vomit.”
“And I'm sure your graceful presence shall do wonders for Usyn's stability,” Kessligh remarked.
“You didn't help,” Sasha retorted, determined to get some payback for all the times he'd accused her of provocation.
“I thought it best to scare him a little,” Kessligh replied, the familiar, hard edge to his tone. “He's a bundle of raw impulses right now, most of them aggressive. I appealed to the only raw impulse that might give him pause.”
“What if he thinks you're bluffing?” Damon asked, casting a wary glance across as they walked.
“I don't bluff,” Kessligh said grimly.
Damon glanced at Sasha. Sasha shrugged. “He doesn't bluff,” she admitted. “Feints and misleads from time to time, but never bluffs.”
“There's eighty of us threatening to take on several thousand of them,” Damon retorted. “What is that if not a bluff?”
“Suicide?” Sasha suggested, raising an eyebrow at Kessligh.
Kessligh shook his head. “It's a start,” he said.
EVENING, AND THE SETTING OF THE SUN behind the mountains transformed the overcast sky to a deep, ominous red. The lake seemed ablaze as they walked along its bank, headed for the walled town of Halleryn. The mountains behind cast all the land and lake into shadow, the sun long since set behind its rugged peak. The colour was mesmerising, and reminded Sasha of tales told in the Steltsyn Star, of dark spirits with eyes the colour of fire…and she made the spirit sign to her forehead; an unthought, reflex gesture.
“Stop that,” Kessligh said with irritation at her side. Of all the dinner party, he alone had eyes more for the town walls ahead than for the ill-omened sky. “I told you, the colour is caused when the lowering sun strikes the underside of the clouds instead of the top. And it looks so bright because we're in the mountain's shadow, and it's reflecting off the lake. It's very beautiful, but I tell you there's nothing otherworldly about it.”
“This is a demon sky,” Jaryd disagreed, staring upward as he walked. “Father Urys in Algery used to tell me about this when I was a lad—sometimes at evenings, when the sun god slips into his netherworld, there opens a space between Loth and our world. This is all the power of Loth spilling free, and demons with it…there's bad things afoot this night, I can feel it.”
“Aye,” Kessligh said sourly, “and if you lot don't cut the superstitious rubbish, I'll be one of them.”
They crossed the bridge above the small stream, the torches held by the Royal Guardsmen to the front and rear gusting trails of flame. Ahead, the walls of Halleryn were alive with torchlight and whipping, wind-blown banners. Their party's own banners, held aloft by the two guardsmen not wielding torches, fluttered and snapped above their heads. In the light from the battlements, Sasha could see the dark shapes of archers watching their approach.
On the far side of the bridge, she risked a glance back across the river. The Hadryn camp stretched wide among the scattered trees and farmhouses of the valley, the blaze of many fires aflicker
in the cold wind. Another five hundred men had arrived that afternoon, mostly militia from Hadryn villages, without the heavy armour and equipment of the Hadryn Shields, but formidable soldiers all the same. Word was that there were another thousand infantry afoot, but delayed without the speed of cavalry. Sasha eyed the movement atop the torch-lit walls ahead. She greatly doubted the forces within would match what was building outside.
“Usyn will have enough forces before the walls to contain any breakout by tomorrow,” she said to Kessligh, folding her arms tightly within her cloak to guard against the freezing wind. “He'll then divert forces about the lake, and Vassyl will fall. Halleryn's forces will be trapped, and then a real siege.”
“We can't let it come to that,” Kessligh replied, eyes also scanning the battlements. His mood was the darkest Sasha had seen on this trip. “A siege will drag into Rathynal. Such is precisely what your father would wish avoided.”
Some horsemen were approaching along the lakeside road ahead, the back way from Vassyl, moving for the gates. The tall, metal grille stood open, but was doubtless manned to slam shut at a moment's notice. In the gathering gloom, the horsemen looked to be Taneryn militia, long braids blowing in the wind. Behind them came several horse-drawn carts, laden with what Sasha guessed would be fresh food. So long as Halleryn held the back road around the lake, food supplies would stay fresh. So long as they kept the Hadryn on the other side of the stream, fresh water could be collected from the lake. But if Usyn decided to press forward in force, neither could be guaranteed.
“What's wrong?” she asked Kessligh then, into that solemn, wind-swept silence. The blood red sky was fading now, deepening to the colour of coals in a dying fire, once the most brilliant heat had paled.
“I remember this place,” Kessligh said heavily. “Thirty years ago. The walls had not held the Cherrovan then. We took it back after they'd held the place for a week. Inside the walls we found…” and he grimaced, unwilling to complete the sentence. He gazed away across the rumpled, darkening surface of the lake. Sasha stared at him for a moment. Kessligh rarely displayed such emotion recounting his time in the Great War. The spirits of this place must surely have been unsettled, for all the blood that had been spilt here.
She made the spirit sign again, unable to stop herself. This time, Kessligh did not appear to notice.
Halleryn's gate loomed ahead, alive with burning torches within the archway.
“Who approaches?” came a cry from the battlements, and they halted on the road.
“Prince Damon Lenayin!” a Royal Guardsman yelled up, with extra volume to be heard above the loud flapping of green and black Taneryn banners overhead. “Yuan Kessligh Cronenverdt! M'Lady Sashandra Lenayin! Master Jaryd Nyvar of Tyree!”
Along the walls to either side, many faces peered down, some leaning out for a better view. It was one of the more dramatic announcements any arrival could have declared. A formality, of course, as they'd been invited.
“The Great Lord Krayliss of Taneryn grants you welcome!” came the call down from the battlements. “Pass within and be at peace, for you are within the protection and hospitality of the Great Lord of Taneryn!”
They passed beneath the portcullis into Halleryn town itself. The main street ahead was lined with buildings of stone base with wooden walls and rooftops, as was the fashion of northern towns. A soldier of obvious Goeren-yai appearance arrived before them and beckoned them to follow. The road was cobbled, rare for a Lenay town, but then, stonework was the tradition in these parts. And there were drains, Sasha saw as they walked, leading to what she presumed were underground outflows. God forbid they led into the pristine lake. She couldn't imagine any Goeren-yai township allowing that. More likely a river inflow washed it someplace outside the walls to be buried or composted for farm use…another serrin innovation that the Goeren-yai had adopted many centuries ago.
The streets of Halleryn were mostly empty and unlit by any street lamp or torch. Sasha could not help but think the town dank and gloomy, with nary a tree to break the monotony of stone and cobbles. The central road sloped upward until it opened on a broad, paved courtyard busy with soldiers. New arrivals were dismounting and leading their horses to the stables on the right. Men gathered in the courtyard about makeshift ovens and the smell of cooking wafted in the air.
Attention turned as the royal party crossed the courtyard, some men coming to their feet, more from curiosity than respect. Here too, there was little warmth to greet a prince and, in several quarters, even some coarse laughter at a whispered joke. Then, halfway across, there came a new murmur sweeping through those watching…“Cronenverdt! Cronenverdt!”…and suddenly all men were standing and pressing forward to watch, openmouthed and incredulous.
Overlooking the courtyard was a tall keep of stone walls and overlooking arches. The keep's grand wooden doors were thrust aside by a pair of guards as the royal party approached, and they entered a stone hallway lined with old, faded tapestries and alive with the dancing flame of ensconced torches. Their guide led them up a broad stone staircase to the left, where they found themselves emerging from the floor of a great clansman's hall.
All was stone, but for the tall windows in the walls. Central pillars made rows to either side of the very long, central table, laid for serving. Light came from flaming torches mounted to the ceiling pillars, and a grand, carved chair dominated the table's far end. About the pillars, standing with swords at the hip and mugs in their hands, were numerous Goeren-yai warriors of Taneryn—long-haired, tattooed, beringed and proud. All paused in conversation now and turned to look as the Royal Guard extinguished their torches and parted to present their four charges.
Damon walked forward, surveying the array of hard faces that confronted him. Sasha remained at Kessligh's side…and realised that Damon, to the best of her knowledge, had never met Lord Krayliss and did not know what he looked like. She scanned the faces herself, searching.
“This is a meeting of war!” announced one man, tall and broad with long hair flowing, a strong moustache trimmed in two lines on either side of his mouth. His hard eyes were fixed upon Sasha with evident anger. “There has never been a woman present at a Goeren-yai council of war, and there never shall be!”
Sasha glared in return. Kessligh hooked a thumb into his belt and repressed a grimace that was somewhere between a wince and a sarcastic smile. “Looks like dinner to me,” he remarked.
“Yuan Kessligh,” growled the man. “You walk into this hall with more honour, and soaked in the blood of more enemies, than might any man in Lenayin. Do not tarnish that honour, sir, by betraying the honour of Taneryn and its chosen men.”
Kessligh strolled forward to Damon's side, and then a step beyond, gazing about at the gathering as he might typically consider a strange clutch of chickens—with thoughtful, off-handed curiosity. To Sasha, his manner and poise seemed nothing but familiar. And yet the armed and braided strongmen of Taneryn seemed to flinch backward—not in steps taken, but in posture, a slight lowering of the eyes here, a defensive folding of the arms there. Kessligh stood no taller than most, and somewhat slimmer than some, his unkempt hair streaked with grey, his person lacking any martial adornment save the blade at his back. And yet somehow, before warriors, nobles and a prince, he dominated the room.
“Your name, sir?” Kessligh asked the angered man, as calmly as ever.
“Yuan Cassyl Rathan of Dessyd village,” the man replied, with a proud lift of his chin.
“A first thing, Yuan Cassyl.” Meeting the man's gaze with a firm stare. “My honour is mine. Not yours. It is mine to do with as I wish. Your preferences mean nothing to me. Likewise your honour is yours. My actions have no bearing upon it. Only you can gain honour, Yuan Cassyl. Or lose it, by your deeds.”
There was a brief pause, to allow for a collective rumble of approval to follow, with some nodding of heads. For a great warrior to talk of such a thing as honour, before such a gathering, at such a time, was a serious matter indeed. At such
times, men of great import listened hard.
“A second thing—you claim that your honour depends upon adherence to certain ancient traditions. I don't care.” An utter hush had filled the hall, broken only by the faint, rippling sound of flaming torches above. “I cannot afford to care. I am Nasi-Keth. Your ways are not my ways. I respect them nonetheless. Thirty years ago, the men of this place swore a similar, undying respect to me and my ways, however strange they found them. My ways include an uma—a student, if you will—who remains by my side to learn as best I can teach. I would never require you to change your ways, Yuan Cassyl of Dessyd village, were you to enter my house and my hospitality. It would be dishonourable of me. And yet now, you ask me to be like you—Goeren-yai, which I am not.”
“A rider came today from Perys,” came a new voice, deep and powerful. “He witnessed the great deeds there of our guests and the warriors of Tyree, against the bloody-handed Hadryn. He also claimed that the uma of Yuan Kessligh was there possessed by the Synnich, and in such a state slew nine Hadryn warriors by her own hand and tasted their blood.”
There was a flurry of spirit signs across the hall and a murmuring of oaths. Then the speaker emerged from behind a stone pillar. He bore a thick, wild mane of dark hair and a vast, bushy black beard. Grim, dark eyes peered from a profusion of strong yet intricate tattoos that masked the left side of his face. A long, single tri-braid fell clear from the rest, to lie upon the right of his jaw. He walked slowly forward in heavy boots and a leather vest beneath a cloak of green and black Taneryn colours. Lord Krayliss of Taneryn, the sole Goeren-yai great lord of Lenayin.
“The spirit men all agree there have been omens,” Krayliss continued, his eyes still fixed on Kessligh. The sword that swung from his hip was a monster, although to judge from the breadth of the man's shoulders, Sasha reckoned it might be about the correct size for him. “The sky tonight was red, foretelling of much blood to be shed…or of the coming of a great power. Perhaps that is you, Yuan Kessligh? Or your uma?”
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