Sasha

by Joel Shepherd

  The duke smiled. “They say that you fight like the serrin ladies. If any serrin can truly be said to resemble a lady.” With a flashing smile at the ladies present, who laughed obligingly.

  “After your armies are through with them,” Sasha replied, “I doubt they could be said to resemble anything.”

  That provoked the first response from the duke's eyes yet—a slight widening beneath the hat's brim. A flash of recognition. “How true,” he replied. Slyly, almost mockingly. “But do not feel too sorry for them, my Lady. They have no souls, you know.” And he lowered his voice, with a glance behind, as if concerned someone back there would overhear. “That is why they try to steal our souls, you know. They lack their own.”

  It took every measure of Sasha's fragile restraint to keep her from smashing his smug, arrogant face with her fist. He knew which Larosa exploits she referred to. He found it amusing. Torture, rape and mass slaughter. And her father and Koenyg wanted Lenayin to go to war, and fight for men like this, against the serrin? Even in retaliation, the serrin had only ever killed soldiers and those who commanded them. All of those soldiers, it was true…but then who could blame them?

  “Have a care, Duke Stefhan,” Sasha said quietly. “You must still return home, through Goeren-yai lands. Many Goeren-yai think highly of the serrin. And some Lenay Verenthanes also accuse the Goeren-yai of lacking souls…Perhaps, were you to see what they do to men who attack their friends, you might understand why.” And she smiled, dangerously. “Perhaps you shall. Should someone who knows your route send word to them.”

  The duke's smile disappeared completely. And he nodded, warily. “So. It is true what they say, of your loyalties and tempers both.”

  “You're yet to see my temper, Duke Stefhan. Pray that this should remain the case.”

  “Sasha?” came a new, familiar voice. Sasha looked and saw Sofy now come into view, escorted on the arm of one of the Larosa men. Sasha stared, disbelievingly. Sofy's return stare was accusatory. Sofy would not need the present situation explained to her—she could read body language like a book. “Sasha, what are you doing?”

  Sasha gestured her forward, sharply. Sofy abandoned her companion's arm with a gracious apology and made her way between the drinking troughs, Duke Stefhan extending a courteous hand to help her through. Sasha took Sofy's arm with a dangerous glare at the duke and dragged her away to the smithy's wall.

  “What are you doing with these bastards?” she hissed at her sister, above the continuing clang of hammer on metal. The heat from the fires was intense. “These are the Larosa, Sofy! I've told you about them!”

  “Sasha, just once could you meet some new people without starting a fight?” Sofy shook her arm clear of Sasha's grasp, indignantly. “Duke Stefhan is an intelligent and cultured man, if you'd only give him a…”

  “The man's a murdering villain, like all the Larosa ruling classes!”

  “How do you know?” Sofy snapped. “You've only just met the man!”

  “You don't care what they do to the serrin, is that it?” Staring at Sofy angrily. Sofy was supposed to be too smart for this. She couldn't believe that fancy clothes and a funny accent were all it took to dance past her sister's usually excellent judgment. “You don't care about the night raiding parties across the Saalshen–Bacosh border, about the abductions and massacres…”

  “Oh, how dare you?” Sofy was really angry now. “How dare you say that I don't care? Of course I care, Sasha, but don't you see? You simply cannot continue to just tar everyone with one brush, I mean, the Larosa can't all be like that! There's so much culture in Larosa, Sasha, and the other Bacosh provinces…”

  “So what?” Sasha fumed. “There's a lot of culture in Cherrovan too, and a lot of it's wonderful, but I'll be damned if I'm going to walk arm-in-arm with a Blood Tribe Warlord!”

  “Not everything's a conflict, Sasha!” Sofy was pleading now. “You're so used to fighting, your whole life. You fought father, and you fought your minders and the holy scholars, and then you fought with Alythia, and then Kessligh and Krystoff taught you swordwork, and then after Krystoff died you fought against the Cherrovan…” She grasped Sasha's arms, lightly. “You have to stop judging people, Sasha! You did it with Damon, and you do it still with father and Koenyg…and if you keep on doing it, you'll find nothing but conflict your entire life!”

  “And you have to stop assuming that everyone is gentle and kind until proven otherwise,” Sasha retorted. “You're a good-natured person, Sofy, and evil people will take advantage of that if you let them. I've seen the real world. I've lived out there in it, and I've seen what people do to each other. If you truly believe that good tailors and a knowledge of artwork can excuse a man of crimes that heinous, then you're just another pampered, ignorant little palace girl.”

  Sofy stared at her, eyes wide. And swallowed hard, fighting back emotion. “Well, that's mature,” she huffed. “When someone doesn't agree with you, just call them names, as if that solves anything. And you're supposed to be older than me.” She turned to sweep away with her nose in the air, pausing briefly to give Sasha's person a disdainful look. “And seriously, Sasha…put something decent on. Even the tolerance of Baen-Tar Verenthanes has its limits, you know.”

  Sasha watched her leave, broodingly. Alythia gave Sasha a smug look and put a comforting hand on Sofy's shoulder, welcoming her back into the fold as they moved off. Duke Stefhan bowed, mockingly, and followed. Sasha looked about with hands on hips, searching for something she could throw.

  Across by the nearest furnace, a Goeren-yai blacksmith dipped a red-hot horseshoe into a bucket of water, which hissed. His arms were huge, rippling with muscle beneath entwining tattoos. He looked at Sasha, beneath long, tangled, sweaty hair. And looked her up and down, lingeringly.

  “Don't worry, lassie,” he said. “Those clothes look plenty fine by me.” And winked at her, cheerfully. Sasha gave him a reproachful look. The blacksmith chortled, withdrew his horseshoe, and resumed hammering. Sasha sighed in exasperation…Goeren-yai men were such idiots, sometimes. Rude, cheerful, irreverent, fearless idiots. And she nearly laughed. Spirits, how she loved them. She stretched, wincingly, for the man's benefit. He grinned, still hammering, evidently with only one eye on his work.

  Sasha walked to stroke Peg's nose, an apology for taking so long. “This is why I like horses,” she told him tiredly, feeding him a piece of fruit from her pocket. “Relationships are so simple, so uncomplicated.” Peg seemed far more interested in the snack than her conversation. “I mean, I know you don't like me.”

  Peg snorted, and thrust his nose into her hands, searching for more food. Nudged at her pockets, breathing great, horse-smelling breaths all over her. Sasha smiled, and hugged him.

  IT WAS COLD IN THE LIBRARY. Sasha sat on her stool before the wide, wood desk, and wrapped herself more tightly with her cloak. The lamp on the table flickered a wan light upon the page before her and a coal brazier gave some warmth to her back. Across the surrounding benches, several figures sat hunched, likewise with braziers and lamps—all men, some scribbling on parchment with a quill tip.

  At either end of the vast floor, shelves lay dark and gloomy, groaning beneath their weight of parchment. Books were more trouble than they were worth, she'd often thought in her youth. Only living with Kessligh, scrolling through ancient serrin writings during long evenings before a crackling log fire, had she discovered their wonders.

  “It was a female who came before the court, and she wore a sword at her back like a man, and did move and speak with the authority of a man. Her eyes were a demon blue, and all her soldiers wore a most ungodly aspect.”

  Before her lay the writings of a Torovan archivist who had lived in the Larosa court two centuries before. Here lay an eyewitness account of the Larosa court following the disappearance of King Leyvaan's Bacosh army in the hills and forests of Saalshen, and the subsequent occupation of the three Bacosh provinces now known as the Saalshen Bacosh by the serrin.

  “
The demon said her name was Maldereld, and that by her hand and others were King Leyvaan and his entire force of twenty thousand slain. Lord Sharis was enraged, and would have struck the demon down where she stood.”

  Why he did not, the text did not say. Perhaps it had something to do with most of the Larosa army having been killed with Leyvaan the Fool, Sasha thought sourly. Larosa had been defenceless, at Saalshen's mercy. Why the serrin had only occupied the three closest of the nine Bacosh provinces, she did not know. They could have spread further and made an empire. But then, maybe that was human thinking. The serrin had little interest in empires. The Saalshen Bacosh now made a wall, behind which Saalshen had been protected for two centuries since.

  Echoing footsteps made her turn, with a reach for her sword hung across the chairback. A shadowed figure with one arm in a sling emerged from the doorway, and paused, scanning the room. Sasha straightened, pushing back her hood so that the lamp lit her face…the figure looked her way, then came quickly over between the tables.

  Closer, the face resolved itself as Jaryd's, his expression urgent. “M'Lady,” he whispered, “please come quickly. I ride on Prince Damon's business.”

  “Ride?” Sasha frowned…Jaryd did appear to be dressed for riding. “Ride where?”

  “Please come, I'll explain on the way.” And he leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “It concerns the Udalyn, M'Lady.”

  Sasha stared at him. Then she got up and blew out her lamp. She followed Jaryd between the tables, ignoring the cloaked, hooded stares of men at their tables.

  Outside in the cold night, it was only a short walk to the stables. Torches gave the road a dim, patchy light, with the odd, passing shadow of another walker.

  “M'Lady,” said Jaryd, “I looked all over! Why were you not at the Rathynal feast with everyone else?”

  “To avoid ‘everyone else’,” Sasha said shortly. “They'd have made me wear a dress, for one thing.”

  Jaryd gave her a bemused look. “Would that be so terrible?”

  “Would you wear one?” Sasha retorted. Jaryd blinked. “There you are. Should you even be walking around?”

  “It's my arm that's broken, M'Lady, not my leg,” Jaryd said testily. “I dislike sitting still.”

  “I felt the same, once. Then I discovered books.”

  Jaryd made a face. “Books are no friends of mine. Princess Sofy was missing you,” he added. “She fears you're avoiding her.”

  That hurt. Sasha gazed at the lighted windows of a streetside building, biting her lip. She saw so little of Sofy. But…“I'm not avoiding her, I'm avoiding her new friends. I don't want to kill any of them. Or rather, I think I do want to kill some of them. But not in front of Sofy.”

  “You have my sympathies there,” Jaryd said darkly. “That lot need a good belting. But the ladies love them.”

  “It's difficult enough to defend your gender, most of the time,” Sasha told him wryly. “I'll not even try to defend mine. What's your urgency?”

  “There is a rumour of refugees,” said Jaryd in a low voice, with a cautious glance about the gloomy street.

  Sasha stared at him. “Refugees from the valley? How has word come?”

  “We don't know, M'Lady. We think they were seen upon the road. It seems a messenger was sent to Prince Koenyg at speed and now he has deployed men of Ranash and Banneryd upon the Baen-Tar perimeter this night.”

  “And now he sends loyal Verenthanes out to intercept,” Sasha muttered. “You said ‘we.’ Is Damon…?”

  “Prince Damon has quietly asked some of the Falcon Guard, M'Lady,” Jaryd murmured. “We feel we might find the refugees first if they arrive tonight, yet Prince Damon is required at the feast, and the usual routes through which one might move a person undetected into the city are watched by Prince Koenyg's spies…”

  “Damon intends to smuggle a Udalyn into the city?” Damon, undermining Koenyg's authority beneath his very nose? She was amazed. “To what purpose?”

  “M'Lady, Prince Damon wonders if the king is aware of all that transpires. He says…he says that while the king is in agreement with these policies in principle, he does not follow their implementation in detail.

  “Prince Koenyg has done this before, M'Lady…two years ago, you might recall that a Goeren-yai village in Yethulyn fell beneath the thrall of a headman who proclaimed himself possessed by a great spirit and declared his village an independent kingdom.”

  “Father sent Koenyg, and Koenyg had the leaders killed and the entire village burned to the ground,” Sasha replied.

  “And the king, Prince Damon says, was most displeased to learn of Prince Koenyg's methods,” Jaryd added. “He said the execution was just, but to punish the entire village was unnecessary. He sent gold and dispatched tradesmen to help in the rebuilding.”

  “And Damon thinks father is not aware that Koenyg may be encouraging a Hadryn attack on the Udalyn?”

  “M'Lady, the king spends much of his days in temple. He prays and he reads from the holy texts. His directions are broad, Prince Damon says, yet he trusts Prince Koenyg to implement the detail of those orders.”

  Sasha nodded, thinking hard. The road wound about the armoury and the training hall now. On the right, the great city wall loomed dark and bleak in the night. “He should know,” Sasha muttered. “How could he not know?”

  “Prince Damon feels that perhaps if the king were presented with a refugee from the Udalyn, an eyewitness who might sway the king's compassion…” Jaryd took a deep breath.

  Sasha gave him a hard look. “And why are you doing this? You don't need to help. Spirits, you're in enough trouble already.”

  “Trouble frightens me no more than it frightens you,” Jaryd said stubbornly. Sasha shook her head in faint disbelief. In Lenayin, Goeren-yai men weren't the only ones with rocks for heads.

  At the base of the Baen-Tar cliff, Sasha and Jaryd headed left and broke free into the paddocks and low stone walls of the rolling Baen-Tar farmlands. Many men were awake, she saw as they rode between the tents, rough-shaven and sleepy by the flickering light of torches. Here, a small cluster of men talked before an officer's tent. There, a pair of soldiers held six horses saddled and ready in case of sudden need. Sentries stood watch along the road, yet Jaryd took the fore, letting the front of his cloak fall open to reveal the full uniform of the Falcon Guard and mail armour beneath. Spirits knew how long it'd taken him to drag that on, considering his arm. No man challenged them. But something, it seemed, had aroused the soldiers.

  Sasha took the first available right-hand turn, attempting to gain some sense of the placement of units. Here in the midslope, the soldiers seemed mostly from Yethulyn and Fyden provinces. Nearer to the town, it had been Valhanan. Now, as they rode a winding farmtrail downslope, the tents appeared largely of southern Isfayen. Jaryd pointed further downslope still, where a cluster of tents sat lonely within an isolated field, flanked by several large trees and neighbouring cottages. The camp was alive with the light of fires.

  “I see Lord Krayliss is awake,” Jaryd said. “Doubtless gnashing his teeth over not being invited to the Rathynal feast.”

  “Aye,” Sasha said wearily. “Another chance to make trouble missed. The tragedy is that he and Usyn deserved each other. It should have been him and Usyn in that circle before the walls, winner takes all. Instead, we've only dragged the problem down here to infect Baen-Tar and leave the Udalyn undefended.”

  Jaryd took a torch from his saddle webbing, and they both paused while he gave it one-handed to Sasha to light with a metal flint. The night seemed all too silent, here on the lower slopes, away from the noise of men and horses in camp. Ahead, there was rough land and forest. Not a place to ride at night if one could avoid it.

  At the bottom of the hill, the forest surrounded them. Sasha held the torch high and the light danced upon the trees, casting crazy shadows across the undergrowth. Once, Sasha fancied she saw a gleam of eyes from a branch—an owl, most likely. The trail climbed and fell across roc
ky folds, yet Jaryd seemed sure of the way. When the trail divided, he took the less-travelled route, bushes thrashing against their horses’ legs.

  Then, ahead, there came a new light through the trees. Two, in fact. Jaryd saw, and reined to a halt. Peg fretted, ears flicking in the cold as riders approached. Sasha counted five horses…and a smaller pony, trailing behind on a halter. Jaryd called in a tongue Sasha did not recognise and received a like reply. And then, in the brightening light of three torches, she could see the green of Tyree beneath the riders’ cloaks.

  “My Lord,” greeted a rider. Beneath the hood, Sasha recognised Sergeant Garys. He peered within the shadow of her own hood…and his eyes widened a little. Garys half-bowed in the saddle. “M'Lady Sashandra. Two Udalyn, M'Lady. One of Jurellyn's scouts has escorted them this far but turned back as soon as he handed them over. Said he had to get back to Jurellyn.”

  Only then did Sasha see the small cloaked figure astride the saddle of another man, his shape lost against the soldier's bulk and shadow. A young face peered from within the hood, fearful. Now she understood where the pony had come from.

  “Damn,” she muttered, nudging Peg alongside Sergeant Garys. She handed him both rein and torch, and climbed down, giving Peg a reassuring stroke on the nose lest he yank the sergeant from his saddle. Then she walked briskly to the other soldier's side and threw back her hood. She reached up to put a hand on the child's arm. A boy, she saw, looking exhausted and dirty besides the fear. But he seemed to know how to sit on a saddle. If he'd come all the way from the Udalyn Valley, he must surely know. “Lad,” she said gently. “Friend. Do not be frightened. These are good men. Where are you from?”

  The fear remained in the boy's eyes. And incomprehension. “Doesn't seem to speak much Lenay,” the soldier said with a concerned frown, looking down at the boy on his lap.

  “Edu,” Sasha muttered. “Of course.” She gave the surrounding soldiers a wry glance. “I don't suppose anyone here speaks any Edu?” The men exchanged looks. “I thought not.”