The Shadow of the Sun (The Way of the Gods)

by Barbara Friend Ish

  “Mora, move!” I barked instead, tossing a glare over my shoulder at her.

  “All right!” she retorted, wrenched the voluminous folds of her dress aside, and scrambled up on the horse’s back. She pulled herself up to the lowest branch with surprising nimbleness for a woman wearing half a wagonload of silk; I edged the horse away. I was nearly out of time: I drew my sword.

  “Go as high as you can!” I called; and then the first ghoul was on me, blade crashing against mine as we closed. A composer who intended to entertain would have called my opponent it; the possibility of a human man enchanted beyond death cuts too close to the bone to go down easily with beer. But this had been a human man: a trained warrior, quite possibly a nobleman; even in death his muscles knew combat, right down to the sinew. His dead gaze made my throat tighten even as I parried, and his emotionless face, green-cast and purple-lipped as it was, angled to take in every motion rather than spending all attention on my sword. My riposte was an action of will, not the automatic motion it should have been; again and again I found the dark power that hung on him dragging my mind towards arcane awareness, while my opponent rushed in to claim the moment’s advantage.

  I knew arcane history well enough to recognize that the only sensible target on this opponent was the head: it must be severed completely from the neck to break the spell. And I couldn’t allow even so much contact as my knuckles grazing the artistically-worked guard of his sword, or I’d find myself infected with a deadly depletion spell. But awareness of the spell nearly snared me; his blade screeched down my own, and suddenly we were far too close. The magic driving him sparked against my skin. I shook it off, hauled my traitorous mind closed, and turned my attention to the fight.

  By the time I dispatched him and discovered that even decapitation will not make an undead man bleed, three more arrived to take his place. I maneuvered hastily against the trunk of the tree Letitia had climbed and dove into the all-but-hopeless task of fending off a growing body of attackers without any substantial shift in stance. When a shout rose nearby and a second sword rang against an opponent’s blade, there wasn’t time for more than a glance between me and my new ally—but I nearly lost the rhythm of my engagement in surprise. Of all the Tanaan warriors in that meadow, the first to arrive had been Letitia’s consort. This was no noncombatant, after all.

  “Ouirr harpist!” he shouted, blade sliding against his opponent’s as he fought for control. “Don’t let them touch you!”

  I nodded, parrying rapidly to the left and fending off an attack from the right with a sidelong swipe. The sword jarred in my hand. “Go for the heads!”

  Five more Tanaan swordsmen arrived. The odds were growing less dire. But I was astonished again: two of the warriors were Tana, and they were competent. Another Tan raced in, planted his feet, and attacked a ghoul’s sword arm.

  “The heads!” I barked again, and severed another. Still no blood. It should have been a relief, but its absence unsettled me.

  One of the Tana shrieked a battle cry that sounded strangely like “Bastard!” and, despite the fact that she was as horseless as the rest of the Tanaan, nearly severed a ghoul’s head. It dangled, bloodless and evidently still aware, against the ghoul’s chest; the dead man swung again, narrowly missing her.

  “Lord of Light!” the Tan who had just arrived croaked, and finished the job. Another down; a dozen or so to go.

  “There’s one in the tree!” Letitia yelped from someplace in the branches above us. I swore and glanced around for an opening in the swarm of horsemen around me; on the other side of the massive trunk, an unarmed Tan swung a fallen branch at the ghoul dangling from a bough: once, twice, and on the third blow the dead man fell. One of the Tana was on him by the time he hit the ground, taking his head with a single stroke. My distraction left me so vulnerable I had to duck beneath two simultaneous attacks, then swing my blade above my head so I could remove my face from my horse’s neck without touching steel.

  Little by little we whittled away at them. Our opponents were as varied as any group of living men might be, though they all shared the same greenish pallor, purple lips, and dead eyes. There was a weird synchronization to their rhythms, as if they all moved to the beat of the same mad inaudible drummer—and an oddly high proportion were black-haired. Either they shared some form of communication I didn’t recognize or the wizard behind this assault was monitoring them directly: when, at length, we eliminated their numerical advantage, they simultaneously disengaged and withdrew, riding away across the now-dark meadow and leaving their fallen comrades behind. One of the Tanaan warriors ran a short distance after them and then stopped.

  Suddenly everything was quiet. Telliyn’s waning crescent failed to penetrate the shadows of the trees beneath which we stood. The fewer attempts people made to pick their ways among the fallen ghouls and their quite possibly active spells without adequate light, the better.

  “Hold a moment,” I said, glancing around the group of warriors to gather their attention. Then to the Tan who stood in the meadow, I said, “Get us some torches, please?”

  One of the Tana detached herself from the edge of the group and ran towards the river with him. Their blond hair streamed behind them, pale in the fading light, as they ran. I glanced up into the tree, but I couldn’t see Letitia.

  “Mora, please stay put until we can get you down safely,” I called, then looked around at the warriors again. “Anybody hurt?”

  “I can climb down a tree!” Letitia snapped. Even knowing where to look, I still couldn’t see her. She must have climbed a good way up.

  “Minor wound on my forearm,” one Tan said calmly, studying his wrist in the scant light.

  And yet he lived. Was the depletion spell only active when the ghouls were—I repressed a shudder—feeding, then?

  “Without touching any of these ghouls?” I said to the spot in which I thought Letitia’s voice had originated, trying to sound composed. “Have patience, please.”

  I must make a point of watching the young warrior and try to find an opportunity to examine his wrist. I glanced at him again, trying not to seem obvious, but he just shook his hand the way a harpist who has played too long might shake the fatigue from his muscles and shoved his fingers into his sword belt with a gesture that suggested long habit. We all stood there in uneasy stillness, waiting for the torches to return.

  After a few minutes the warriors I had dispatched returned with torches, moving more slowly than they had on the way out. Torchlight restored detail to their faces: the Tan’s lean visage was grim, the Tana’s angular cheeks wet with tears.

  “Tru, are you hurt?” the Tan who seemed to be the leader of the contingent said.

  “No.” Her voice was thick, but her terse answer invited no discussion.

  We picked our ways out of the battleground by torchlight, stepping carefully to avoid the fallen bodies of the attackers. It might have been the site of any skirmish, except that there was no blood. Once all the Tanaan were clear of danger, I led my skittish horse out, then walked back in to collect Letitia. I heard her moving around up there; I thought I heard silk rip. Then, abruptly, she dropped to the ground, defiance in her lovely face.

  She wavered, flailing to catch her balance; without thinking I grasped her arm. For half a second she relaxed into the contact—then turned a wrathful look on me.

  “Thank you,” she said, the civility of her tone belied by the razors of her gaze.

  I nodded, recognizing the fear that lay beneath her anger. Of course a ruler must not show his subjects vulnerability, particularly not when things are at their most dire. She was far from the first ruler to choose this solution to the problem, but still I wondered at such behavior in a Tanaan. I realized I had expected grace, even here; and though I recognized my own foolishness I had to fight down disappointment. Had I not just rescued her? Had I not—had we all not—acquitted ourselves well? But there was no point in starting a discussion that would be nothing more or less than an argument.<
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  “Mora, would you follow me?” I said instead.

  Her jaw clenched visibly; she nodded. I began retracing the path I’d used to get my horse to safety. Letitia stepped towards the more direct route—then wavered again, obviously on the verge of unconsciousness. Suddenly I realized she’d become entangled in the magic surrounding us, even though she’d touched nothing. Perhaps Carina’s Talent ran true.

  The morae of Fíana do not faint, she thought. The clarity of the broadcast surprised me all over again: this possible Talent was a telepath. She seemed unaware of having broadcast the thought.

  “Mora—” I grasped her arm. She shuddered, clutching at me with her free hand: gaze suddenly, desperately vulnerable.

  She straightened, but her gaze was still absolutely open on mine, and something inside me was melting.

  “I’m all right,” she said, in a tone that conveyed quite the opposite. “What in the Sweet Lord’s name…?”

  I sighed. “Some very black, very deep magic. Magic is in the blood of the morae of Fíana, I understand; it’s little wonder you feel it so. But you will be all right. It can’t touch you if you don’t touch it.”

  She nodded, let me take her hand, and finally followed the path I chose into the clear. The warriors who had stood with me gathered in a loose knot, watching the mora approach. Another shudder wracked her, but then she lifted her chin and crossed the grass toward them as gracefully as if traversing some grand reception hall. Finally she stopped and glanced at me again.

  “Right, so—” Her voice was strangled and abruptly gone. She delicately cleared her throat. “Tiarn Ellion Tellan—”

  Oh, sweet Lady Tella. “I am not tiarn,” I said quietly.

  A frown flickered across her face; she smoothed it away and nodded. “These are Nuad a Dianann, Fíana’s armsmaster—” This was the Tan I’d identified as the leader of her contingent: a grey-eyed Tan whose professional demeanor never cracked, even in the midst of losing warriors under his command, but whose alien gaze suggested contained torment. We exchanged grave nods.

  “Mattiaci a Be Chuille,” the firebrand who had tried to pursue mounted ghouls on foot, “Vandabala a Nemain,” who had apparently survived a brush with an enchanted sword, “Eber a Fea, and Cantrusteihiae a Argoen, who everyone calls Tru, mem—”

  Letitia’s voice faltered again. “Members of my personal guard.”

  I gave and received nods there as well.

  “Cainte a Fea, my chef, and Mabon a Bóind, ship’s mate; and of course Iminor a Dianann, who you’ve already met.”

  Nods all around. Finally we were done.

  “Thank you all,” Letitia continued. “All of you are the reason I am alive. Should—should I expect to find more of our companions still living?”

  “A few, on one of the barges,” Tru said quietly.

  Letitia nodded. “We’ll go to them first. Then we’ll attend—” She stopped, swallowing. “To our dead.”

  If there were only a few Tanaan left here and a few on the river, the number of pyres she must be contemplating would leave her exposed for a very long time.

  “Mora, the sooner you are behind Irisa’s city walls the better,” I said.

  Letitia glanced at Nuad, who nodded rueful agreement.

  “Well, we can’t very well leave our people here!”

  She was right, of course; but her protection outweighed the need. Surely a group of people who weren’t the targets of horrifying arcane vendettas could be sent back to handle the issue, once she was safe.

  But I was a stranger here, and Letitia had evidently not been trained to handle personal attacks gracefully. Doubtless my opinions on funerary choices would be unwelcome. I pursed my lips, waiting for a better opening.

  “In Hy-Breasaíl…” Eber said slowly. His face, like the rest of his muscular body, was unusually stocky for a Tanaan, more like a human’s conformation; and at the moment his features were screwed up in concentration. “Morae had their pyres on boats…”

  “The second barge?” the tillerman said. “But—”

  He sighed, resigned. Every face I saw reflected understanding: sacrifice a barge, and they would save hours or days of tree-felling and pyre-building. They might even save their mora’s life.

  Letitia sighed, too. “You’re right, it’s fitting. Nuad… Who can I spare for that task?”

  Nuad looked around, shaking his head slowly. “I will stay with you, and I’m certain Lord Iminor will too?”

  The young Tan nodded.

  “Sian,” I said to the armsmaster. “If you can use an extra pair of hands, it would be my honor to serve your dead.”

  Surprise registered on Nuad’s face; he offered me a hands-clasped bow of the sort that Tanaan protocols reserve for royalty. “Ouirr, the honor is ours.”

  The barge was loaded with bloody Tanaan corpses laid shoulder to shoulder, from end to end. The deck sagged towards the water. There was no wizard to call the fires, which struck me doubly strange in the wake of the attack we’d just endured: Letitia lit the barge with a torch, and several Tans poled it away from the bank. We all stood for an uncomfortably long time watching it burn, while my back crawled with anticipation of another attack, and I wondered why a mora on the verge of her investiture would travel with a chef and a military guard but no arcane support. It didn’t seem the time to ask the question, but it burned on my lips.

  Eventually everyone climbed aboard the other barge. I led my horse across the gangway without waiting for invitation or permission and settled him at the rear, near the tillerman’s nest. Even after we’d pulled away from the bank and into the center of the night-dark waterway, I found myself scanning the woods on the northern bank, as if the—surviving? Remaining, I decided. As if the remaining ghouls might be expected to regroup and storm across the water.

  The undead cannot cross water. As long as we remained on the barge, the surviving members of Letitia’s entourage should be safe.

  Assuming we didn’t crash in the night and lose the second barge.

  At first the people around me circulated among their companions, consoling one another and grieving their dead, while the remains of Letitia’s military guard manned the poles and attempted to steer the barge through mountain snowmelt and the inevitable thickets of detritus it brought in. Eventually the noncombatants settled into restless, exhausted sleep, and the silence was broken only by the sounds of Tanaan guardsmen poling away debris. I scanned the northern bank as it slipped past, then turned and surveyed the southern bank for good measure. All was quiet. Letitia had settled on a pile of sandbags, shredded skirt spread around her, and assumed a posture for all the world like that of a druid in meditation.

  I felt my gaze lingering in a way that any observer would certainly judge improper. But I couldn’t overcome the fascination. Torchlight cast her long, sleek hair in a dozen hues of white and gold, and with eyes closed, her face was as remote and mysterious as any goddess carved on a temple wall. Her delicate frame was as long and lean as a teenage boy’s, but there was an inexplicable femininity to it, and the conformation of her breasts within that wrecked dress made me itch to peel it away and see what wonders lay beneath, even while some nameless thing inside me ached to wrap awareness around the exotic energies her meditation had raised.

  She shifted; she sighed without opening her eyes. I glanced away hastily lest she catch me staring, then experienced a pang at missing contact with her meditation-altered gaze. There would have been a melding between us, one unlike anything I had ever experienced. Probably unlike anything any human man had known. I steeled myself against the need and fixed my eyes on the northern shore again.

  *Papa?*

  I startled at the broadcast. It was Letitia. Immediately, involuntarily, I was staring again.

  *Papa?*

  *Letitia?* The sleepy mental voice was unfamiliar, but it must be Rishan’s. Why were they broadcasting rather than engaging in direct telepathic contact?

  *Papa, I—we’ve been attacked,*
Letitia broadcast.

  *What?* Rishan’s broadcast sounded horrified. And he didn’t even know what had happened yet. Just wait, old man, I wanted to say; I was on the verge of broadcasting myself.

  This must simply be their way. It was infectious; and I remembered the stories of the late-night telepathic contacts Rishan had established with the legendary Armoan Lanas during Nechton’s War, contacts that eventually led to the hero bringing the Essuvians into the fight.

  *In camp this evening,* Letitia broadcast. *A—a group of… Oh, Sweet Lord, I don’t even know what to call it.*

  *What?* Rishan broadcast again, sounding yet more agitated. Was this what Rishan’s contacts with Armoan had been: so much mental shouting across the world? Had they imagined they were the only telepaths in existence?

  Across the barge, Letitia gave voice to a small, strangled noise. *Papa, it was sorcery.*

  *Holy Mora,* Rishan moaned. *What happened? Is everyone all right?*

  *No,* Letitia broadcast. The pain in the thought tore at my throat. *We lost—Oh, Sweet Lord Endeáril, we lost Sirona and Caicer and—* A cloud of grief erupted in the aether, half-choking me. *Only twelve of my people are left.*

  *Ah, no.* Rishan’s grief hung about me now, too. I felt as if I were eavesdropping: it discomfited me. *C’choiri, what happened?*

  Letitia transmitted the equivalent of a shrug. *They rode in. I don’t—I don’t know how to—They didn’t even seem like real people.*

  *What?*

  *I don’t know. It was as if the Wild Hunt had put on matching outfits and come into daylight.*

  I had to fight down a laugh.

  *They started off Beallan—beautiful in a terrible scary way, totally silent… but when someone killed them, they didn’t seem to die… unless—ah, unless someone chopped off their heads.*

  *Sweet Mora.* Rishan sounded shaken. *Whose were they?*

  Letitia broadcast the mental equivalent of a head-shake. *I don’t know. Red and black uniforms?*