Sasha

by Joel Shepherd

  Daryd turned back toward the pile of ashes that had been the training hall. Men were sifting through the rubble, poking with swords. Even now, a man found something metal and examined it—a ring, Daryd thought. He stepped across to a comrade and dropped the ring in an upturned helmet that man carried. Soon another man found something else and did the same. Then another man found a further object and picked it up, reverently. He carried it from the ashes, as his fellow searchers made spirit signs or holy signs, and placed it on the ground, where it formed the latest in a long line of similar objects. Human skulls. There were at least twenty. The northerners hadn't just burned the training hall, they'd put people in it first.

  Still…Ymoth and its surrounding region had close to two thousand. This here was just twenty-five people, maybe thirty. Surely most of them had escaped. Surely these were just the unlucky few who had been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. His gaze shifted back to the big tree. He knew what the scars were now—whip marks. His people would have been chained to that tree, tortured and mutilated, until…until what? What could they have told their torturers? There was no great wealth hidden around Ymoth. As for the valley's defences, well…they hadn't changed much since the last time the Hadryn attacked a hundred years ago. What could the northerners possibly have gained by doing such things to his people?

  Soldiers pushed a man forward, arms twisted behind his back. The prisoner had the blond hair of many northerners—a man in his thirties, but no company soldier. He wore good, arm-length chainmail, heavy boots and hard leather leggings, but his surcoat bore the crest of a noble house. A nobleman. Daryd had heard of them, too. Strange ways, the Verenthanes had, to place one man above another by birth. Master Jaryd was a nobleman too, he'd gathered. But Master Jaryd would never give the orders that this man had given.

  The soldiers yelled questions at the nobleman and hit him, pointing to the bodies. The northerner snarled in contempt. Said something, shortly, and spat near the bodies. One of the soldiers raised his weapon in fury, but another stopped him. Took his own sword and offered it to Daryd. Daryd looked at the sword. At the cold, hateful northern face. At the bodies on the ground and the ashpile by the wall.

  Then he strode forward, ignoring the offered sword, and drew his knife instead. Soldiers forced the northerner to his knees. Daryd stepped to one side, as he'd once seen Udalyn warriors do to a captured Hadryn raider. Then he cut the man's throat with a single, hard slash. Blood spurted and flowed. Soldiers held the man up, then let him collapse. He kicked and spluttered, then went limp.

  Daryd stared down at the corpse. It had been so easy. He'd always imagined it would be harder than that. He felt no elation, no surge of satisfied revenge. Yet he felt no regret, either. If there were more northerners present, he'd have killed them too. He'd seen what they'd done to his people, and he now knew for certain what it would mean, in this battle, for his people to lose. Killing was easy. Living, it seemed, was the hard part.

  He wiped his knife on the back of his victim, and sheathed it. Men regarded him with hard, thoughtful eyes. When he walked to the ashpile, to view the remains of villagers he'd once known, no man moved to accompany him, or guide him, or pat him on the head. His Wakening remained many years away, yet his blade had tasted the blood of enemies. He was not yet a man, but today, Daryd Yuvenar was no longer a child.

  Captain Tyrun was dead. Sasha stood in the central courtyard of Ymoth. Tyrun's body lay upon a low stone dais, hands folded on his breast, wrapped in his cloak to hide the drenching blood. A crowd of men had gathered and a light, misting rain fell from a bleak and weary sky. From the surrounding town, there carried the yells and instructions of men searching from house to house. But here, there was silence.

  A Verenthane corporal from the Falcon Guard, who was learned in the ways of the temple, performed the Verenthane rites. Tyrun had been carried directly to this place from before the Ymoth wall, and this assembly had gathered fast, lacking any time for delay. He had been killed, men said, in the opening moments of the charge, when the formation he had been leading had plowed into the Banneryd flank. Tyrun had cut down one man, fended a second, then been struck by a third. It had happened so fast, a stunned sergeant had said. Northern cavalry were superbly skilled, even in such dire circumstances. Many men of those forward ranks had been lost before the Banneryd had been driven back.

  At Sasha's side, Jaryd stood impassive and pale. Men of the Falcon Guard, in particular, appeared shocked. Sasha worried for them. And worried for the entire campaign, to have lost its true commander so early. She was the figurehead, perhaps, but this victory was surely Tyrun's. Without him keeping things together, and offering sage advice, she'd have been hopelessly lost from the first. But she dared not suggest such a thing, lest the men lose hope. She dared not shed a tear, lest the men recall that she was, after all, just a girl, whoever her absent uman might be.

  The Verenthane corporal completed his rites, and stepped back. Then from the crowd came Jaegar—still alive, Sasha had discovered to her immense relief, as were all her Baerlyn friends. They had been in the rear half of Captain Akryd's attack and had escaped the initial casualties with barely a scratch. The luck of it all stunned her. Some villages had lost numerous men by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Others were unscathed. It was outrageously unfair. And she recalled, suddenly, Kessligh's tired derision of her occasional statements of moral certitude. “Nothing's fair,” he'd told her. “Fairness is an invention of ours. One day, you'll understand that.”

  Jaegar was stripped to the waist. Tattoos spiralled down his enormous chest and made rippling patterns upon the six outstanding segments of his stomach. He swaggered to stand behind Tyrun's body, a sword in his right hand, a knife in his left. His hair hung free of its braid, flowing loose upon massive shoulders. The right side of his face—the side clear of tattoos—was streaked with three red lines, beside which his tri-braid hung. Not only Chieftain of Baerlyn, Jaegar was Umchyl—spirit talker—for the town and its regions.

  Now, Jaegar extended his arms, surveying the crowd with the stern, wide eyes of power. “Umchyl!” the Goeren-yai chanted. “Umchyl! Umchyl!” The arms extended out, then back, and Jaegar thumped himself on the shoulders, wrists crossed at the heart, with the hilts of his blades. Once, twice, and fortunate-three times.

  “This day shall mark the passing of many great warriors!” Jaegar announced, in the slow, lilting chant of ceremonial Lenay. He stared about at the crowd, blades extended, muscles and tattoos rippling. He looked like a god. Sasha found herself staring, spellbound. “One shall be appointed to lead them to the next world! Who here shall bear witness?”

  “Umchyl! Umchyl! Umchyl!”

  “This, our brother, was named Tyrun! He was born to the town of Banyth, in the province of Tyree! His was a wife, and his were three children! He did serve his family with honour, and his was the honour brought to his town, and his people! He was brought before his spirits by his father, and his spirits were the gods of Verenthane! To those spirits did he present his soul, and they did find him worthy!”

  “Wor-thy! Wor-thy! Wor-thy!” Sasha found herself joining in. This, she had heard before.

  “We are gathered today upon the ground of a great victory! The great peoples of Lenayin have joined together and brought honour in their unity! The great gods of Verenthane are strong! The great spirits of the Goeren-yai are strong! But together are they strongest, and most honourable! We are gathered today before the loyal men of Verenthane…” and here Jaegar's sword pointed to Jaryd, “and before the brave men of the Goeren-yai…!” and his blade swept across the vast crowd behind, “and before the wise ones of Saalshen…” as the blade pointed to Sasha's left, where the four serrin stood entranced upon the edge of the dark stone, “and before the dark power of the ancient Synnich!”

  The blade pointed at Sasha. A hiss escaped the lips of the Goeren-yai, and the rustling murmur of many spirit signs being made. Sasha stared back at Jaegar. She didn't quite
believe he'd done that to her in front of all these people. Surely Jaegar had never thought of her in that way. Had he?

  “Let them be joined in the sky as they are on the earth! Tyrun of Banyth shall lead and the fallen of Ymoth shall follow, Goeren-yai and Verenthane together, as brothers! Who shall bear witness to this journey?”

  A wordless cheer followed, full of passion, fists thrust in the air. Repeated, twice, and then the crowd began to disperse. Horses were being watered in large groups down by the river, surviving barns and warehouses were being searched for any remaining feed, and as the afternoon darkened toward evening, there were many things yet to do. But they walked now with a greater purpose in their step than they had approached this gathering, having learned of Tyrun's death.

  Jaegar was putting his undershirt back on, his mailshirt spread at his feet. Sasha walked up to him. “I wish you hadn't done that,” she murmured. The bit about the Synnich, she meant.

  “Would you deny it?” Jaegar replied, eyebrows raised. Sasha looked at her feet, unable to answer that. Daring not to, lest men who put their faith in her overhear and lose hope. And…and…for some other reason, too, that she could not truly define. “Besides,” Jaegar continued, bending to gather his mail, “they needed to hear it. Now more than ever.” He held the shirt up, effortlessly despite its considerable weight, and slid it on.

  Sasha turned then to look for Jaryd, and found him standing by Tyrun's body. She walked over and put a hand on his arm. “Come,” she said softly. “You are Commander of the Falcon Guard now, for true and proper. It will not do for your men to see you grieving.”

  “Yet I grieve all the same,” said Jaryd. His voice was tight as he gazed down at Tyrun's impassive, silent face. “I am not half the commander he was. I was guarding the princess. I did not lead in this battle. I did not lead in any battle.”

  “You are wounded,” Sasha replied, trying to be reasonable. “You cannot be expected to…”

  “Nothing can be expected of me,” Jaryd said bitterly. “I am nothing. I was angry at my family's so-called friends for stripping me of everything that I had. Now, I wonder if I ever truly was anything. Perhaps father knew best when he called me worthless. Perhaps Family Nyvar could never truly have amounted to anything with me at its head. The only thing I was ever good at was riding and fighting, and now when the last people left in the world whom I love require my assistance, I can't even do that.”

  “Captain Tyrun is dead, and you take the opportunity to feel sorry for yourself,” Sasha said angrily. She felt for Jaryd's suffering, but she simply didn't have time for this now. “You look around you, Jaryd. You look hard. Many families have ended here, and more tragedies unfolded than I care to count. These men fight for something bigger than themselves or their families. If you can't feel that, if you can't understand what it was that Tyrun died for, then maybe you'd be better elsewhere.”

  Jaryd stared at her, his jaw tight, his stare as hard as stone. “If my services are not required,” he said coldly, “then I shall leave.”

  “Your services?” Sasha replied, incredulously. “What do you believe in, Jaryd? Why be here, if not for a cause?”

  “I believe in nothing. My family is no more, and my brother is dead. All the ideals of Verenthane brotherhood and Lenay honour I had been taught to believe are lies.”

  “Then why are you still here? Why come this far at all?”

  Jaryd looked down at Tyrun. The lateness of the day cast all colour, all life, all joy to shadow. The light, falling mist gathered at the tips of his lank hair as it fell about his face. “The Falcon Guard are all I have left,” Jaryd said quietly. “Yet with this arm, I cannot serve them.”

  “Then just be here to pick up their wounded when they fall!” Sasha retorted. “Jaryd, you're…you're such an arrogant, pigheaded…man!” It was, for the moment, the worst insult she could think of. “You're so accustomed to the glory, and the place in the lead, that you can't see the honour in following. Just be there! That's what old Cranyk in Baerlyn told me, he said it was the greatest lesson he had to teach about life. Just turn up!”

  Her vanguard were waiting for her, and her officers were moving further downhill into the town. From somewhere in the town, a cry went up. “Usyn's coming! Usyn's coming!” And not before time, either. Sasha placed a final, gentle hand on Jaryd's arm and departed after them in haste. Master Jaryd, of the family once known as Nyvar, stood over the body of his captain in the misting rain. He stood with his weight on one leg, a dark sentinel amidst the sudden confusion of shouts, yells and hasty preparations. If he noticed, or feared, he gave no sign.

  Sasha, Captain Akryd and other officers, either from the line companies or appointed from amongst village chiefs, gathered on the field beyond the main gate of Ymoth's wall. Men were leading horses back from the river in great groups as others ran to retrieve them. The air was filled with yells of instruction and question, galloping hooves and the urgent whinnying of horses who knew that something more was afoot. The fields nearby remained littered with dead, mostly Banneryd, as men continued even now to reclaim the bodies of comrades, and check to see if any still lived. Already the grey sky had grown dim with the approach of evening, and Sasha thanked the spirits that it was late summer still and the days remained long.

  “The road comes like thus,” Jurellyn was saying, drawing a line with his sword on a patch of bare turf amidst the grass, “upon the other side of the river. It's not far, as you can see. He'll be here by nightfall. My best guess is that he has six thousand in the valley—half cavalry, half infantry. This column seems also half-and-half, cavalry to the front and rear, infantry in the middle. But being stretched so long upon the road, we could not see the column's end, so we have no means of guessing their number.”

  “Well,” said Captain Akryd, with a thoughtful glance across the Ymoth wall and the fields about, “these defences will serve us better than they did the Banneryd. Usyn won't have dussieh riding with him, he'll be unable to exploit the gaps in the line. We've received another several hundred men riding over the Shudyn Divide just since the attack commenced. Usyn won't attack at night and we can still sneak riders from the Shudyn through the back woods and into the town. Half the Goeren-yai with horses across central Lenayin are coming to our aid. Most upon the Shudyn will ride through the night, knowing the battle has commenced ahead. By dawn, we could number nearly five thousand, despite our losses. Defender's advantage shall be with us. Usyn may have six thousand, and cavalry of a greater quality, but ours are entirely cavalry, and we have the defence. He shall not overrun us.”

  Conversation flowed, terse and urgent. Men discussed possible deployments, weak spots and guard posts from which to observe Usyn's forces through the night. Sasha stared at Jurellyn's lines in the bare turf, thinking furiously. Then stared up, gazing north up the Yumynis River toward the valley mouth looming beneath the darkening sky.

  Defender's advantage. Cavalry shock. Such were the established norms of Lenay warfare. Kessligh employed all such terms…and then, in the next breath, disparaged them. It had frustrated her, listening to his lessons. He was always so contradictory. Nothing he'd told her was ever guaranteed, and written in stone. But now…dussieh racing through the narrow folds in the defensive line. Charging through the spaces between sharpened stakes. The Banneryd line, once so impenetrable, had been outflanked. The cavalry, at one moment charging downhill with advantage behind them, the next, blindsided, outnumbered, broken and overwhelmed.

  An advantage was not always an advantage. A weakness was not always weak. What had Kessligh told her? She recalled a training session beneath the vertyn tree. She couldn't have been any more than twelve, as the stanch had felt huge in her hands. Kessligh had spent much of the lesson demonstrating to her the variations on the low right-quarter defence. The combinations were seemingly endless, depending on the nature of the attack and what one wished to do next, one, two, three or even more moves into the future. But there were ground rules, basic principles that
all combinations had in common. He had drilled her on them, endlessly and, slowly, she'd found her selection and execution improving.

  Then he'd asked her to attack him so he could demonstrate how one could improvise when one had mastered the fundamentals. After several exchanges, she'd thought of an attack that was particularly cunning and involved a feint she'd seen Kessligh himself use against men at the Baerlyn training hall. Kessligh had responded with a defence-to-offence combination that had been like nothing he'd previously been demonstrating and had knocked her firmly on her backside. She had protested—not so much at the rough treatment, for at that age she'd still been so utterly in awe of Kessligh's swordwork that even a beating could be a delight—but that he'd just spent all that time with her teaching her exactly why she shouldn't be doing it like that.

  He'd given her one of his rare, wry yet genuinely amused smiles. “I never thought I'd see the day when you, of all people, would complain of someone else not playing by the rules,” he'd told her, yanking her effortlessly to her feet. “That's why I teach you these rules. It's not so you can follow them religiously. It's so that one day, you'll learn when, and how, they can be broken.”

  “This land here,” she asked Jurellyn, pointing to an area of road not far north of Ymoth toward the valley. “What is this like?”

  “Some fields of ripe grain and some fallow.” Jurellyn was looking at her intently, his eyes narrowed. Jurellyn had known Kessligh from the Great War. Perhaps he guessed at her thoughts. Some of the other men were breaking off their discussions to listen.

  “Could we ride on them?” Sasha asked. “A large force, in a charge?”

  Jurellyn nodded. “Not easily, the fallow ground is a little rough and the grain fields are near what should be harvest. There are fences nearly hidden. But yes, it's possible.”