Andreyis made the spirit sign, with his left hand. “Don't say that,” he said. “Not in the circle.” Not that there was a proper tachadar circle beneath the vertyn tree, but one did not praise lowlands gods within them, lest the spirits be offended…
“Old habit,” said Sasha.
Andreyis winced again as he took a deep breath. “I still don't know how you do that. I was almost overpowering you for a while there, and then you just…”
“Technique is more powerful than muscle,” Sasha said simply. “If my technique is superior, my strength of muscle is irrelevant. Even Jaegar can't touch the svaalverd.”
Andreyis frowned. “So no non-svaalverd fighter even has a chance? Then how did the Saalshen Bacosh armies even take any losses in all those wars the Larosa launched against them?”
Sasha shook her head. “That's a different kind of fighting. The Bacosh wars are all armour and shields, huge formations of men with no room to swing. I wouldn't last a heartbeat in that kind of fight. You'd do better than me, probably. The Saalshen Bacosh armies are so formidable because they combine the best of human tactics and mass formations with serrin fighting technique and serrin steel and craftsmanship in weapons and armour.”
Andreyis just looked at her. It was a face that might have been handsome, were it not so familiar. Despite his eighteen summers, and the new strength of his jaw and brow, she could not help but notice the boyish ears that stuck out, or the reluctant nose. With his dark hair and funny dark eyes, he continued to look…well, puppyish. Sadly, many other girls in Baerlyn seemed to think the same. Those girls only flirted and giggled with the rough-and-tumble lads, and regarded a quiet, awkward, thoughtful boy like Andreyis with cool disdain or worse.
“Are you going to Petrodor with Kessligh?” he asked finally.
Sasha stared at him, incredulously. “And abandon Lenayin? What does Krayliss do when he arrives in Baen-Tar and discovers I'm not there? At least if I'm there, I can…I don't know. Try to keep him under control somehow. The man's only a hairsbreadth away from open treason.”
Andreyis stared at his boots. “I don't understand,” he said quietly. “I don't understand why Kessligh would leave.”
“That makes two of us,” Sasha said darkly.
“Is there…is there something in the Nasi-Keth beliefs that…I mean…” He seemed at a loss for words. Sasha knew how he felt. “So much of what the serrin think is so strange and…I don't know, maybe he has his reasons. Reasons we can't understand.”
“I'm Nasi-Keth,” Sasha retorted, “and I don't understand.”
“Aye, but you're not really Nasi-Keth.” Sasha frowned at him. Andreyis blinked. “Well, you are Nasi-Keth, but…but you're Goeren-yai first, aren't you?”
“The serrin don't think like that, Andrey. They can be many things at once, not like humans who can only be one thing at a time. The Nasi-Keth aren't a religion, they're just a collection of ideas and none of them are exclusive of other ideas. So most of the Petrodor Nasi-Keth are Verenthanes too—they practise serrin teachings, yet they pray to the Verenthane gods and hold temple communion like any Verenthane. So there's no reason a Goeren-yai can't follow serrin teachings…hells, a lot of Goeren-yai already do, sort of. Serrin have been coming here for centuries, they've left a lot of knowledge behind.
“But serrin don't have a religion. They don't believe just one thing. They…” Damn, she'd tried to explain this to various Baerlyners before, but it was difficult. Now, it seemed important to try…for herself, as much as Andreyis. “They have a way of thinking; they try to be rational. It's not that they don't believe in anything, they do…but that's the problem, they believe in everything. They don't go around saying this is impossible or that's impossible, like humans do. They accept everyone's beliefs because they know they can't disprove them. And anything you can't disprove is possible, right?”
Andreyis frowned for a moment, thinking that over. Proof. No Goeren-yai, and no Verenthane, ever thought of proof. The spirits, or the gods, didn't need to be proven, they just were.
“So if Kessligh's just being rational,” Andreyis ventured, “maybe…maybe he's right to go to Petrodor. Maybe he's just smarter than us, maybe he can see things we can't.”
“Aye,” said Sasha, nodding. There was a slow-burning fury inside, now that the shock had worn off. And it was building. “He's being a general. In the Great War he had to make nasty decisions—liberate some towns, leave others to die; keep some men in reserve, send others to die. Nasi-Keth teachings make him good at that. He's a rational commander. He didn't believe he was going to win a battle because the stars were in alignment, or because the priest gave him a holy blessing—he knew that it was up to him, and him alone, and he didn't just leave it to faith. That's why he won all the time.
“He did that with me, too. He wouldn't say nice things when I might want them said. He wouldn't comfort me, or give any real affection. He wanted me to be strong enough to take care of myself. It's all a part of the pattern, Andrey. He's so damn sensible and intelligent it makes me want to throw up.”
“But…” Andreyis's gaze now was worried. “But if he's thinking like a general, then surely…surely he's going to do the right thing in the end, no matter what we might think of it now…”
“Don't you get it, Andrey?” Sasha snapped at him. “Don't you understand? All that man ever cared about was the Nasi-Keth and the serrin. He said as much himself. He never renounced those loyalties to my father and, my father was such a soft-headed fool, he never demanded it. He's not interested in saving us, he's only interested in saving them! And now he's been to Halleryn, he's seen what Krayliss is up to, and he's decided we're all a lost cause and he'll go running off to Petrodor to take care of what's truly important to him!”
Sasha got to her feet and snatched up her stanch from the dirt. “Lenayin made him a hero, it gave him all this status with the Nasi-Keth, and now he's got it, he's finished with us. Well, he may be a great general, and he may be smart and rational, but he's got no heart and no soul! Damned if I'll end up like him. I'd rather stay here and die for something I believe in.”
Sasha was forking hay in the barn behind the stables when there came a new thunder of hooves from outside. At first, she barely noticed—Andreyis had been practising his cavalry moves on the white-socked mare, Rassy, and this sounded like just another pass. Then the hooves came again, only this time she could hear two horses, one lighter than the other.
She looked down from her high bale as a little dussieh rode straight into the barn, ridden by a smallish Goeren-yai man she did not recognise. Andreyis arrived as well and dismounted at the barn's entrance.
“M'Lady Sashandra!” said the man, sighting her above him. “M'Lady, I come from Cryliss! Lord Kumaryn rides to Baerlyn with the Valhanan Black Wolves and more! He means to apprehend you and Yuan Kessligh on charge of murder!”
Sasha frowned at him.
“Murder?” she said incredulously. “Whose murder?”
“M'Lady, I'm not certain, but I think it was a man of the Falcon Guard. A lieutenant, I believe.”
Lieutenant Reynan Pelyn. Sasha swore in disbelief. Tyree was Valhanan's close neighbour and the nobility of both provinces were close; there were many marriages and relations between the two. Family Pelyn was an important family in the heirarchy of Tyree nobility and it would be no surprise if there were close relations to Family Tathys, of which Lord Kumaryn Tathys of Valhanan was head.
But Lord Kumaryn thought to pin that death on her? Had someone lied to protect Jaryd? Or had Jaryd betrayed her? Or was Kumaryn simply determined to rid his province of Valhanan's most troublesome twosome? He had some balls, if that were the case. Balls, or rocks in his head.
She stabbed her pitchfork into the hay bale. “How long until they get here?” she asked.
“They departed at dawn,” said the Cryliss man. “I left before dawn, my horse is fast over distances. I'd guess they might be here a hand before sundown.” The man's pony was lathered white
with sweat and breathing hard. “I gave word to several villages along the way, some pledged to send help. Four other riders from Cryliss set out in other directions, it remains to be seen if the help they send arrives in time.”
“We'd best ride back and tell the town!” said Andreyis from the doorway, a little breathlessly. “There's no way we'll let him take you for something you didn't do! Besides, he's got no rights over Baerlyn; Baerlyn only answers to the king!”
Sasha let out a short breath. “I'll ride back,” she replied. “I want you and Lynette to stay here…”
“No!” Andreyis was indignant. “No way! My town is threatened, you're not going to stop me from defending my people and my family!”
Sasha jumped down to a lower bale, then onto the floor. “Andrey…someone has to stay here,” she said, taking up her bandoleer with scabbard attached, and clipping it to her belt. “If it's not you, it'll have to be someone else—we can't make a defensive line forward of the ranch, we'll have to leave it open to them. Those Cryliss bastards have never liked me or Kessligh, they might just take the opportunity to steal a few horses or damage the house, if there's no one here to see it. You'll be safe enough, they'll never hurt children—”
“I'm not a child!” Andreyis retorted.
“Andrey…” Sasha sighed, positioning the bandoleer comfortably over her shoulder, where the skin was tough beneath its familiar weight, “the mark of a Lenay man is that he defends what's his. This ranch is yours, Andrey, as much as it is mine or Kessligh's. Don't you want to defend it?”
Andreyis looked uncomfortable. “Of course I do, but my family…”
“You think you can do a better job of defending the village than the older men? Would it be a sensible allocation of resources to send one of the more experienced warriors here to watch the horses, while you take his place on the line? Would that make Baerlyn safer?” Andreyis looked at the ground. Sasha gathered up the armfuls of hay she'd pitched and began dumping them into the barrow. “Your time will come, just be patient. Besides, it'll be just you against an army. Sounds like much more fun, wouldn't you say?”
“Me and Lynette,” Andreyis retorted. “She could scratch them to death.”
But he seemed mollified as Sasha wheeled the barrow to the stables. She explained the situation to a wide-eyed Lynette, who had been taking her turn at stablework, and gathered Peg from his grassy field for the ride into town. Lynette helped the Cryliss rider to water and feed, and rubbed down his horse—the dussieh was clearly tired. Sasha suggested he should leave the little mare to rest and borrow one of her own horses instead.
The Cryliss rider politely refused. “She'll be good in just a little while,” he insisted, giving the pony's jaw an affectionate rub as she chewed contentedly on some hay. “She'll run all day on a cup of water and a handful of grass, then do it all again the next. No offence, M'Lady, but I wouldn't trade her for ten of your big brutes, no matter what the lowlanders pay for them.”
Great Lord Kumaryn arrived at Baerlyn as the late afternoon sun hung low over the valley. His host numbered perhaps three hundred, Sasha reckoned, a great, snaking line of thundering hooves and glinting helms. Banners with the stallion on the red and gold of Valhanan flew to the forefront, alongside the howling black wolf on blue of the Black Wolves. The column came across the uphill paddocks beyond the upper treeline, threading between boulders that loomed from the green grass and glowed a dull, iron grey in the light from the lowering sun.
Baerlyn's defensive line spread wide across the uphill end of the Baerlyn Valley, concentrated here before the upslope buildings. All the village's men stood, or sat ahorse, weapons unsheathed and gripped with the casual ease that a smithy might grasp his hammer. Some stood across the fences to either side of the main road, in paddocks emptied of livestock, before rickety wooden barns, shacks, and a pigsty, keeping the line straight. Sasha sat behind the main line on Peg, with Kessligh astride Terjellyn at her side.
Further to the left, the exposed fields about the valley's small stream held the majority of gathered horsemen, warding a flanking move. Amongst them were many men from Yule, perhaps five folds distance to the south, who had arrived just a few moments before.
They conceded Kumaryn the high ground above the valley's end; should an attack come, they would fall back into the village, where the buildings and lanes would remove much of the cavalry's advantage, and strategically placed ropes, pikes and spears would avail the local swordsmen of a surprise. As would some of the more assertive Baerlyn women who had taken up Sasha's suggestion some years ago and learned archery. They waited now by the windows of their houses, ready to put arrows into any passing attacker.
Lord Kumaryn did not line his army across the open ground atop the slope into Baerlyn—such a move would have been almost a declaration of war. Instead, the head of the column approached between wooden fences that hemmed in the leading horses, just as the defenders had intended. Lord Kumaryn wanted to talk, Sasha reckoned…at least for a while. A gaunt-faced man with a large, pinched nose and a white beard held up his hand. The three hundred horse column came to a stop in clouds of sunlit dust. A young man in lordly clothes rode forward. In one hand, he carried the banner of Family Tathys—a stone tower pierced by a lightning strike.
Verenthane lords and their family emblems, Sasha thought sourly, watching him. Pompous fools. Fancy parading it around lowlands style, as if the very presence of that bloodline should cause men to fall to one knee in reverence.
“Greetings men of Baerlyn!” the young man cried, his voice high and clear. A squire, Sasha recalled such banner carriers were called amongst the lordly classes. Another stupid, imported lowlands word. Goeren-yai and the rural folk of Lenayin were not yet educated in such civilised terminology. Sasha hoped fervently that they would never need to be. “My Great Lord Kumaryn Tathys of Valhanan bids you greetings!”
“Aye, hello!” called one of the Baerlyn men cheerfully, to a roar of laughter from the rest.
The squire swallowed nervously. “As Great Lord of Valhanan, Great Lord Kumaryn has ridden today to Baerlyn to claim his right under law! It has recently come to my Lord's attention that upon the recent ride of the Tyree Falcon Guard into the province of Taneryn…”
“Where's your balls, lad?” yelled another man. Sasha thought it sounded suspiciously like Teriyan. More laughter.
“He left them in Cryliss, by the sound of it!” yelled another.
“Nay, Kumaryn borrowed them!” Raucous howls. This, Sasha thought with a sigh, was quite certainly Teriyan. “Be fair, Kumaryn! Give the lad his balls back, we know you've got no need of them!”
“Into the province of Taneryn,” the squire continued, his high voice wavering. Sasha almost felt sorry for him. “There the Great Lord Kumaryn's dearest relative, the Lieutenant Reynan Pelyn, of the noble Tyree family of Pelyn, and family to Great Lord Kumaryn through his marriage to his sister's cousin…” Groans of derision from the Baerlyners. “…met his end in highly suspicious circumstances! Word from truth-loving men has placed the blame for this callous murder upon the person of Sashandra Lenayin…”
“Fuck off, you two-bit fool!” came a yell with precious little humour in it.
“Nay!” came Teriyan's loud reply. “Even for a fool, he's not worth one-and-five!”
Behind the squire, at the head of Kumaryn's column, Sasha noted many men who had ridden forward to hear. Some were officers of the Black Wolves, others were noble Verenthanes, well-dressed and well-groomed atop their large horses. Several others were Goeren-yai—Cryliss had some Goeren-yai, Sasha knew, largely about the city perimeter. A few Cryliss Goeren-yai were wealthy merchants and traders like their Verenthane comrades, though none had yet accepted a title. Most refused nobility as a concept. Swordwork and honour, not wealth and titles, made the measure of a Goeren-yai man. And Sasha knew some Verenthanes who felt the same.
“And so,” the squire resumed, now utterly flustered, “Great Lord Kumaryn demands by the powers of law vested in
him that the Lady Sashandra be handed over to his custody at once, for a trial by the procedures laid out within the king's law!”
The squire finished and backed up his horse. Ironical applause followed him. “Well done, lad!” someone shouted. “Fucking incomprehensible, but well done!”
Jaegar walked forward from the line. Like many in Lenayin, he disdained horses when there was a chance to fight on foot. In rugged, forested Lenayin, that was often. His leather jerkin had no sleeves and he wielded the massive blade in his hand as if it were a twig.
“Lord Kumaryn!” he shouted, in a deep, yet eloquent voice. “I'm very sorry that you've come all this way for nothing! Baerlyn swears its allegiance to the king in Baen-Tar, not to you! You have no authority to apprehend or administer a trial against any man, woman or child of Baerlyn in the name of justice! Justice belongs to the king, not to provincial lords! Goodbye!”
The gaunt-faced, white-bearded man rode forward atop a dappled, grey-white mare. His cloak was red and gold, and he wore a blue shirt and leather vest over chain. Sasha saw the sweat on his brow. He had to have at least fifty summers…didn't the heat bother him? She swatted at a fly…up here about the pig and sheep enclosures, the flies bred something fierce in summer.
“Master Jaegar, I presume?” Kumaryn called down from his horse.
“Yuan Jaegar,” Baerlyn's headman corrected. He planted his swordtip on the road and folded his hands atop the hilt, feet set wide. Kumaryn's blue eyes were cold with disdain and his nose was wrinkled.
“You forget yourself, Yuan Jaegar,” said Kumaryn. He did not speak loudly enough. Further along the line, men were straining to hear. “I am Great Lord of Valhanan. That title was granted to Family Tathys a hundred and three years ago by King Soros and has carried on to me from my father and grandfather before me. I rule Valhanan, Yuan Jaegar. Best that you recall.”
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