The waiting soldiers eyed Andrion, something of his numinous if severe glow reflected in their faces. And Miklos watched him, and Tembujin, and those men assigned to guard Sumitra. She had refused to be left behind in Bellastria, saying resolutely, “You shall win, so what worry do I have?”
“What if I lose?” he had asked, although he knew he would not.
With her own wry humor she had responded, “I would soon have no worries then, either.”
Sumi glowed, too, her flesh polished mahogany, her hair spun black silk, her eyes fathomless depths of certainty. How rounded her belly had become; the swirl of her gown framed that lovely bulge. “My lord,” she called, “a gift for your victory.” Several heralds came forward bearing banners made from the remains of the purple sail. Bellasteros had marched under purple pennons; Sumitra’s perception was … moving.
“My thanks, my lady.” Andrion cleared his throat, saluted her, turned to his officers and in a few terse words gave his orders. He climbed the hill again.
Another lackadaisical ovation echoed from that Sardian camp. This one remained silent. The soldiers, ranked in wave after ordered wave, hidden behind the ruined wall, were centered upon Andrion, Dana, Tembujin, Miklos.
Eldrafel was showing Gard like a prize animal. His sickly sweet voice wafted upward, its accent playing for effect, not for meaning, like an intoned spell. “Queen Mother Chrysais pined away after the death of her husband—boy legal heir, grandson of Bellasteros, child of the gods.”
Tembujin snorted in disgust. The wind snapped like a whip.
“Gods who vouchsafe loyalty, honor, love.” Andrion gagged on that voice saying those words. “Minras is more loyal to Sardis and Empire than some Sardians themselves.”
Rowan strode from dais to pavilion. From its darkened interior emerged a gaunt, white-haired man, his arms folded around and tied to a wooden yoke laid across his shoulders. He was clothed in rags, and the weight of the yoke forced his back to bend, but still he stood with a quiet dignity, blinking dark disdainful eyes at Rowan as if the priest were a worm unworthy of notice.
Rowan flounced away, discomfited by that cool scrutiny. “Patros,” breathed Dana. The faces above the gate quailed, and an infant’s sudden wail was quickly muffled. Soldiers stood, eyes averted in shame, more like an honor guard than warders around the stern form of the governor-general.
Other soldiers trundled a cage made of sticks, like one for a hunting dog. But in this cage were children. Three dark heads clustered protectively about a fourth, the smallest; four sets of sharp, black eyes gazed with bewildered truculence upon their tormentors. A woman clung to the cage’s side. Her unveiled face turned accusingly on the guard who tried to dislodge her grasp, and with an awkward bow he desisted.
Andrion’s distant tableau shattered into thousands of tearing shards. Dana gasped. Tembujin remained deathly still, but from his throat came a sound like the rumble of Zind Taurmeni just before its eruption. Andrion seized the Khazyari’s arm just as his body wrenched upward, just as his mouth opened to shriek an epithet, and pulled him down again. “Not yet.”
“My children!” Tembujin’s hoarse whisper boiled from his lips. “He has my children in a cage!”
“I can see that.”
“The plot was against me at the beginning, last summer in Iksandarun; has the plot come circling back to me then? Was it all against me?”
“Do you doubt me?” Andrion demanded. “In only a few moments their ordeal will be over, I promise you.”
Tembujin’s eyes raked Andrion’s face. No pretension, Andrion assured him silently. No conspiracy. A rash promise, yes, but … His heart thrummed, firing motes of power through his senses, and Solifrax strained in his hand.
Dana laid her face upon the light-roiled surface of the shield and muttered something about the fragility of borders.
Eldrafel’s voice was nasal, choked by his own gelid bile. “Governor-General Patros so corrupt … sell own daughter to Khazyari. Sabazians admit Khazyari to sickening rites … collusion … conspiracy …”
Bonifacio’s withered face stirred with interest. His skin seemed too big for his body, as if his vital organs had been mummified while he lived. “My father would have had him flayed for his treachery,” snarled Tembujin.
“He looks as if he has already been flayed,” Andrion returned. “Is it his conscience that has eaten him alive?”
Well-rehearsed, Rowan slapped Patros and jerked Valeria away from the cage, throwing her into the dust. Tembujin tensed, his shoulder shivering against Andrion’s. “Wait,” he repeated to himself, “wait, wait.”
Patros, unperturbed, turned his back on Rowan; he narrowly missed the priests face with the swinging end of the yoke. He tried to bend and help Valeria. The children remained silent. Strong blood, Andrion thought. Born, like me, to play this everlasting game.
Bonifacio squirmed, his hatred for the Khazyari not enough to sustain him now. “Ah,” murmured Andrion, “do you feel my eye upon you?”
A mumble of dismay coursed through the legions and died away. Several soldiers moved toward Rowan, hesitated. Gard frowned at the caged children. Ethan, ever his father’s son, tried a jaunty wave at the strange boy. The wind grew stronger, as cold as if emanating from an ice cave atop Cylandra.
Eldrafel stood in purple kilt, purple cloak, and turquoise, lapis, jade necklaces, the chill of the wind nothing to the cold void in his soul. “Unfortunate end of Andrion,” came his incessant voice. “Drawn by Sabazian and Khazyari plot away from duty … unfortunate end, end of dynasty. Revenge …”
Rowan made a rude gesture toward the gates of Sabazel and was greeted by equally rude catcalls. Valeria regained her feet and returned to the side of the cage like a needle to a lodestone. Although she was the blood mother of only two of the children inside, she strained through the bars to embrace them all.
As Chryse, Andrion thought suddenly, had embraced Sarasvati and him both; a shame Chrysais had left her side too early to have inherited more than a mockery of her femininity.
Eldrafel assumed a grandiose pose and declaimed, “Andrion Bellasteros—we shall never see his like again!”
“Perfect!” Andrion exclaimed. “My thanks!” He leaped up. His cry was as bold and sweet as a trumpet, “Greeting, my people!” He snatched the reins of Ventalidar from a groom and threw himself into the saddle.
Eldrafel froze, so stiff that his limbs seemed to be in danger of cracking from his body. Rowan and Rue, with identical starts, spun about. Bonifacio stood staring. Gard flushed with relief; Patros and Valeria staggered with joy. The falcon standard looked up with a flutter of wings. From the battlements of Sabazel came suspicious mutters. Every face in the assembled ranks turned, wave after wave like the swiftly unfolding petals of a flower, toward Andrion.
Deliberately he pulled the reins. Ventalidar reared, hooves scything the air. Deliberately he drew Solifrax and thrust it upward in salute. The sword gathered the sunlight, flashed blindingly, chased even the wisps of shadows into nothingness.
Ventalidar bounded down the hill. A halo surrounded horse and rider; black plume rippled, black cloak snapped, bronze armor and black coat shone. Each prancing hoofbeat reverberated like a clash of cymbals in the wind. The purple pennons streamed on the hilltop, beside row after precise row of soldiers. Sumitra and her guard crept forward to the crest of the hill, and at her insistent gestures, down its near side.
Dana mounted and stood in her stirrups, shield raised. The embossed star swirled and then burst in a light equal to Solifrax’s. Screams of joy echoed from the walls of Sabazel, as did a thundering roll of javelin butts against stone. Tembujin glanced at his family, eyes and mouth slitted, spat an oath and leaped onto the nearest horse. He sprinted toward Nikander’s advancing troops.
Some of the legionaries shambled to attention. Others stood with their mouths open, struggling toward understanding.
Eldrafel assumed his usual insolent posture. But, Andrion realized with a thrill, he was inde
ed weakened; his complexion was not golden but sallow, his eyes were shadowed by faint purple bruises. “Shall I never be rid of you?” he asked tepidly.
“No,” Andrion responded. “You wanted my interest; now choke on it.”
Rowan stood at one stirrup. Rue at the other, four liquid eyes scummed with ambition raised to him. “An impostor,” cried Rowan.
“The real emperor died on Minras,” Rue shrieked.
“Andrion’s stallion would not bear an impostor,” shouted Dana, her clear voice riding the wind. “Solifrax would not shine for anyone but him.”
The soldiers shifted. So did Eldrafel’s smooth features. “The true emperor would not stop his legions from defeating his enemies.”
“I would stop them from committing any more folly than they already have.” Andrion gestured, using Solifrax as a dramatic prop so he would not have to use it as a weapon. “If the Sabazians had brought pestilence upon the land, would they not have spared themselves? But Sabazel, too, is ill, with the disease spread by this fiend who names himself a god. He sacrificed his own land to his greed for power, and now he would sacrifice ours.”
The legions were listening. Eldrafel stood hands on hips in overblown indulgence. Andrion had to respect the man for facing the last tatters of his plot so unflinchingly. But then, his pride would not admit that it was the end. If he had been content with Minras, if he had not been hounded by his own divinities into overreaching … Andrion shook himself. It was too late for pity.
A distant grumble of hooves and marching feet echoed like thunder down the wind. Andrion lowered the sword. Every eye lowered with it, to fix upon Andrion’s face. “Follow this hideous perversion of a man and defeat Sabazel. Then he will blame our ills upon the Khazyari. After the legions squander themselves defeating the Khazyari, who will remain to defend Sardis and Empire?”
The ranks muttered. “The diadem,” said Eldrafel, sarcastically dulcet, “was stolen by the Sabazians. How can they mean no ill when they hold that sacred relic?”
Andrion smiled, with such relish that Eldrafel stepped back a pace. “Sabazel keeps the diadem safe from dirty, grasping hands. They will give it to him who deserves to wear it.” He turned to Gard.
The boy’s clear gray eyes were as bright as a burnished blade, and as merciless. “For a few more months,” Andrion told him quietly, “you are my heir. Go to the gates of the city and bring me the diadem.”
Eldrafel maintained his attitude of elaborate indifference. Rue and Rowan hissed like twin adders. Dana urged her horse forward, shoving them aside; she scooped Gard onto the saddle and covered him with the shield. The necklace of the moon and star twanged like a bowstring. The shield chimed. With a derisive toss of her head at Eldrafel, Dana cantered to the Horn Gate, the boy sitting tensely upright before her.
Rowan shouted, “Of course Andrion would claim the support of Sabazel. He is one of their bastards, not the son of Bellasteros at all!”
“So,” Andrion said between his teeth, “you play that game. And I grow so very tired of that game.” He summoned a herald. Decisively, defiantly, he told the man what to proclaim.
Sumitra’s eyes sparked. Miklos suppressed an ironic smile. The herald, with appropriate flourishes of his trumpet, called, “Be it known that Danica, queen of Sabazel, bore Bellasteros the conqueror, King of Sardis, Emperor, a son. And that son is named Andrion, beloved of the gods, favored by Harus of Sardis and Ashtar of Sabazel with the power to preserve both lands and the Empire as well!”
“My fealty to Andrion Bellasteros, Emperor!” called Patros.
“And mine!” Miklos shouted.
Scarlet pennons glanced around the shoulder of the hill. Nikander and his aides advanced as calmly as if on parade. “And mine,” said the proconsul’s dour voice, the words dropping like stones down a well.
“Thank you,” Andrion returned, with as courtly a bow as possible on horseback. Ventalidar stamped his approval. The subverted soldiers realized they were bracketed by two other legions; their ranks contracted. It was hardly the moment to dispute Andrion’s birth.
The Horn Gate opened a crack, admitted Dana, and a moment later released not only her but an honor guard, led by Kerith armored to the brows and Sarasvati clad in simple shirt and trousers, bearing the radiance of gold in her hand.
Andrion saw Eldrafel’s hands flex in frustration, grit seeping under his pearly carapace. Rowan summoned several Minran soldiers from behind the dais. Sumitra played a trill of notes upon her zamtak, or perhaps the wind trilled in Andrion’s ears, or perhaps it was only his own blood pounding, throwing his thoughts forward like waves breaking upon a shore.
The mob of soldiers muttered, each soldier, each officer groping through his individual nightmare. Faces turned from Andrion to the advancing party of Sabazians to the legions around them, harrowed by understanding.
“My army will fight yours,” purred Eldrafel, for Andrion’s ear alone. “Whoever wins is in the right.”
“You have no army,” Andrion returned loudly, so that all might hear. “These legions are mine. I shall not amuse you by wasting my own people against each other.” His voice lilted on the low notes of the zamtak, certainty played by Sumi’s demure steel hand. “My father outlawed ordeal by combat the day I was born. But if that is what will defeat you, then I myself shall fight you hand to hand. And he who is in the right shall win!”
Bonifacio’s face convulsed as though he were an imbecile trying to spell his own name. Rue darted a malicious glance from Andrion to Dana to Sumitra, a cornered animal wondering where to strike first. Her eye caught her brother’s, and as one they licked their lips.
“And you will use your pretty toy sword against an unarmed man?” scoffed Eldrafel. “What then will you prove to your army?”
“That you are far from unarmed,” Andrion replied. He dismounted and leaped lightly onto the dais. Solifrax, upraised in threat, sang. His body sang, luminous with power and passion.
But Eldrafel, a cold, sterile husk, did not move. “You will not strike first,” he crooned. “O man of honor, you will not strike first.”
Andrion’s mind was a prism, it seemed, at one moment coalesced into brilliant awareness, at the next spinning into individual reflections. He was drunk, and yet he had never been more lucid.
He saw Bonifacio scuttle off the dais and be caught short by a thicket of Sabazian javelins. “Shall we go pig-sticking?” asked Kerith.
Dana replied, “Not quite yet.” She drew her sword.
Gard’s solemn mien did not change. The boy’s eyes were genuine, Andrion thought, and Eldrafel’s counterfeit. Sarasvati’s hair flamed in the sunlight, like the red highlights in his own hair, like Gard’s smooth chestnut crown, like the purple and scarlet pennons ranged about the disheveled camp.
Rowan hissed. The Minrans drew their swords and sprinted toward the cage. Valeria flattened herself against its side. Patros stumbled toward her. “Tembujin!” Andrion shouted from the side of his mouth.
But the earth already vibrated to a roll of hoofbeats and a fierce war whoop. Khazyari cavalry burst from behind Nikander’s legion. Tembujin leaned low, bow singing. The leader of the Minrans spun and fell, an arrow protruding from his chest; the others quailed. Small voices chorused, “Father! Father!”
Tembujin, another arrow already nocked, grinned maliciously at Rowan. “Come! Come and fight honestly, face to face!”
The priest retreated into the ranks of soldiers. Nikander gestured and several of his troops ran forward to release the prisoners. Valeria sagged into the milling children. Patros, grimacing as he moved his cramped muscles, handed them all into the pavilion. Tembujin and his men sat frowning, bows ready, watching Andrion.
Andrion knew that they watched, knew the lines of each face that watched him as if he himself had sketched them with light upon matter. And yet he saw only Eldrafel, face frostily impassive, a mist muting his icy glitter. Andrion blinked. Sorcery—Solifrax burned, and Eldrafel’s shadow rippled away from him. Ri
ppled, changed, and reformed … Andrion braced himself.
Eldrafel struck. A blaze of darkness broke against the blade of Solifrax. Andrion leaped aside, stung as if with a spray of ice needles. Just needles, not deadly bolts. A shout echoed from the legion, buffeting his back. Another dark flood, another spatter of light and shadow. The pain was invigorating; now they see, he thought. Now they see what he is.
But his sight grew thicker and thicker as the reek of sorcery encompassed him. Even as he knew the sun shone brilliantly, his eyes were clotted with smoke and ash into a murk like a Minran dusk. Solifrax was a wisp of luminescence, as puny an artifact as it had been during the last cataclysm of Taurmenios.
Eldrafel stepped, turned, stepped again, dancing with the shadows he created. Andrion parried, each movement refined to the sparest gesture, squinting through the gloom. The tension between them wove an intricate pattern of rushing shadow, of spilling light, twining, snapping, and coiling again.
Nikander mounted Patros on his own horse even as neither eye strayed from the combatants. Sumitra stood entranced, her zamtak clutched to her breast, while her escort muttered and Rue circled behind her. Rowan threaded his way through the legions, whispering lies so subtle they seemed to appear spontaneously from the sorcery-tainted air. Dana and Kerith, Sarasvati and Gard dismounted and ranged the edge of the dais.
Tembujin’s frown deepened until every line in his face curved downward. He urged his horse through the unresisting soldiers.
The wind whined. Andrion heard it, felt its icy blast stirring eddies in the stench, could not respond to it. The prisms of light in his mind reflected distorted images of the faces around him, faces elongated into sneers like those on the face of Tenebrio … The prisms shattered, and each emitted a cloud of darkness.
I am strong, gods, gods, no sorcery can baffle me! Solifrax flamed, and the shadows guttered, discomfited. Eldrafel snarled, his teeth gleaming between his lips. Neck, Andrion thought, spinning to the side. Neck and leg. Eldrafel spun too. His clothing, as darkly purple as a thunderhead, swirled around him, spreading smoke upon the air.
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