by Unknown
12
It was well after moonrise before Adris reached Tierken’s encampment. There were noisy celebrations among the men at being reunited with their comrades, and Adris was pleased to have arrived too. He’d seen no more Shargh since their clash at the river, which strengthened his belief that the Shargh had gone to the Ashmiri. He discussed his thoughts with Tierken as they ate, and as the night drew on, and ale was shared, their speech ranged further. Adris came to know more about the Terak Kirillian he’d heard only tales of in his growing, and his liking for their Feailner deepened.
Tierken was equally glad of Adris’s company. They were close in age, and Adris’s frustration in trying to defend his people against the Shargh – after his ailing father had abandoned his kingdom in favour of his bedchamber – reminded Tierken keenly of his own hard road to the feailnership. There had even been times when Tierken had longed to be as anonymous and carefree as his friends, rather than spending his days in harsh training – though he had cause to thank Poerin for the skills which stood him in such good stead now.
He remembered well the final time Poerin had taken him into the heart of the Silvercades. Tierken had already been exhausted from a five-day hike and a long run when Poerin ordered him up Mintlin Peak. Dusk had been falling and snow clouds closing in, and Tierken had refused to go.
He had expected Poerin to add to the scars on his back; instead, Poerin had smashed him across the face, the blow bloodying his nose and knocking him off his feet. But he was up in a flash, and suddenly involved in the most vicious fight of his life. It had ended with his blade hard up against Poerin’s throat. Tierken had controlled the stroke with effort, finally dragging himself off the older man and setting off up the mountain. He recalled little of the journey, except that he had wept as he’d run. It was dawn before he returned and Poerin had waited in silence as Tierken had staggered up to him and bowed.
Forgive me, Tierken had said.
Poerin had said nothing, but he embraced Tierken long and hard and what followed was a friendship of equals. It had been a brutal lesson, but Tierken had learned the importance of discipline and respect.
Tierken hefted more wood on the fire as Adris turned the conversation once more to the strange events at the Breshlin.
‘Throwing themselves into the stinking river and then running like silverjacks,’ muttered Adris, not for the first time.
‘And their numbers appear to be half what the Lord Caledon claimed?’
Adris’s eyes flashed to Tierken’s. ‘I’ve known Caledon since I was a boy and trust his judgement with my life. And as I’ve said, I saw only Weshargh.’
‘Then the Weshargh and Soushargh have split – they’ve either fallen out or are following tactics known only to themselves.’
‘Like drowning or freezing in the Breshlin.’
‘Not wanting to risk warriors in smaller battles suggests they fight without the Soushargh,’ said Tierken. ‘And Irid only knows where they are.’
‘Gone home?’ suggested Adris dryly.
‘If they had, they would have run up against Lord Caledon and the Tremen. According to the scouts, Lord Caledon fought the Cashgar Shargh.’ Tierken’s brows drew into a heavy frown. ‘The Soushargh might have turned north-east earlier, leaving the Cashgar Shargh to harry us.’ He stopped as he considered yet again whether the oath Ashmiridin had sworn countless seasons past – not to make war against the Terak Kirillian – would at last be broken.
‘Caledon may have news but we won’t know for two more days,’ said Adris. ‘It will be good to have our forces together again.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Tierken. ‘The final battle draws near.’
It was three days, not two, before Caledon and his men arrived, having been slowed by the injured. The wait had given Adris and Tierken’s forces time to rest and mend their bruised and wrenched muscles, and Tierken’s wounded leg time to heal sufficiently for him to discard the bandage. His thoughts went to Tresen as he packed it away, and frustration simmered again at his distance from Sarnia. He wouldn’t be able to comfort Kira over her clan-mate’s death.
Tierken sent Caledon’s injured men on to Sarnia at speed, pleased at being able to get their wounded to help so quickly. That was the advantage of having a Haelen in Sarnia; no doubt he would also suffer its disadvantages – thanks to Rosham. Being close to the city meant he had ready access to fresh food and rested patrolmen – and swift messaging, Marin arriving just after moonrise with bows and quivers Tierken had requested the previous night.
The Tremen’s ignorance of such weaponry concerned Tierken, and needed to be addressed urgently; bows lessened the need for hand-to-hand fighting and therefore the chances of injury and death. Tierken judged he would have at least three days to train the Tremen before the Shargh attacked. The Cashgar Shargh were probably only a little further south, but would wait for the Weshargh – and possibly the Ashmiri and Sonshargh. The thought of the Ashmiri breaking their oath galled him, and he was already considering the retribution he would visit upon them when the fighting was over.
Caledon didn’t believe Uthlin would break his forefathers’ oath, but in Tierken’s view the Tallien’s faith was grossly misplaced. And as the Ashmiri had already granted the Shargh their horses and the use of their eyes, the fact that they hadn’t actually thrown any spears seemed irrelevant.
Tierken had set patrols in the spurs to either side of the Rehan Valley, in case, despite everything, the Soushargh had somehow bypassed him, and he had ordered patrols to the Silvercade foothills to protect the northern wall of Sarnia and Kessom. However, this meant that if the Ashmiri did decide to fight, his forces, despite the Tain and Tremen, would be outnumbered at the Rehan Valley’s mouth and the battle far bloodier and far less certain in its outcome.
As well as the weapons Tierken had requested, Marin had brought messages from Farid, and Tierken perused them swiftly, then stopped and gaped at Marin.
‘Tresen lives?’
‘He does, Feailner, at least when the Domain Keeper wrote the message. They didn’t want to send a message of hope till they were surer. But it’s said that he’s closer to death than life, despite what the Lady Kira did.’
‘Which was?’
‘Is it not in the scrolls?’ asked Marin.
‘Tell me!’
Marin cleared his throat. ‘Jarvid delivered a corpse to the Haelen, Feailner, there was no doubt about that. Then it’s said the Lady Kira laid her hands on him and he breathed and colour came back into his skin, but she lay as if dead, with no colour in hers.’
It was a moment before Tierken could speak. ‘And now?’ he asked.
‘Niria takes food to the Haelen each day for the Lady Kira, for she doesn’t leave her kin and the other wounded there. She walks and talks but her eyes are dark. Niria says it’s as if she’s lost hope.’
Tierken took several swift paces away, then stopped and stared in the direction of Sarnia. ‘Farid sends only that Kira has tired herself healing Tresen; Laryia sends nothing,’ he said.
‘Perhaps your sister prefers that you keep your thoughts on fighting,’ suggested Marin. ‘Shall I take message back, Feailner?’
The silence stretched. ‘On the morrow,’ said Tierken finally, his gaze still toward the north. ‘Get some food now, Marin, and rest.’
Tierken remained by the fire long after Caledon and Adris had gone to their shelters, considering everything he’d read or been told about the Sundering. He trawled through what Poerin and Eris had said, Farid’s discovery in the Writing Store, and what Kira had told him. And he thought about his time with her; of out on the plain when she’d first raised her gold eyes to meet his; of the way her expression softened during their love-making; of the last time he’d seen her in Maraschin, pale with the pain of her cracked ribs.
If only she were Terak, or Kir, or even Kessomi! If only there weren’t this complication of kinship claim! He sighed, knowing he must deal with what was, and that he must do so swiftly. He’d seen ho
w Kira’s insistence on taking pain sapped her strength and left her vulnerable to illness. And it was no surprise to him that she’d given her all to save Tresen – for Tresen was her clanmate. But Tierken also knew that she’d give her all to heal any wounded patrolman – and that there were going to be many of those before the fighting was done.
If Kira were to survive, she must be given reason to look beyond the coming darkness, and to shore up her strength and resolve for the day when the killing would be over and they would be together in love. But to do that would be to also give Rosham and his supporters a potent weapon to use against him in the future. Well so be it, he thought, coming to a decision. He’d just have to deal with the consequences of his actions when he returned to Sarnia.
By the time the mist had cleared the next morning, Tierken had composed a message and dispatched it with Marin back to Farid in Sarnia. Then, after briefly greeting Adris and Caledon, he ordered the Terak and Tremen patrolmen to assemble on the flatter land where the horses were tethered.
Tierken waited till the shuffle of his men had ceased, then held aloft his right hand. ‘This is the ring of rulership which the northern Leaders long used as the symbol of sovereignty,’ he began. ‘It carries the allogrenia, or alwaysgreen, and galloping horse, and at the Sundering, Prince Kasheron – as the elder brother – took it with him.
‘We who carry the blood of the peoples the younger brother, Prince Terak, founded, tell bitter tales of that time. The Sundering broke our people and weakened us in our struggle against the Shargh.’
The men were motionless, the Terak held by respect, the Tremen by the same tension that afflicted Tierken.
‘But those of you who carry the blood of Kasheron and his followers also tell stories of that time, different to ours. I am indebted to the Lord Caledon – who has travelled many lands – for sharing his knowing of their histories with me. I am also indebted to the Keeper of the Domain, who has made a thorough search of the Writings stored in Sarnia – Writings that Terak himself left behind. What the Keeper found confirms what the Lord Caledon has told me, as does this ring.
‘Kasheron did not go north over the seas, as many tales tell. He went south, to the forests beyond the Azurcades. And there, he established his own community. He called it Allogrenia, and his people the Tremen.’
There was stunned silence, then a storm of speech broke out. But Tierken had deliberately placed Terak next to Tremen, and the friendship between the two helped quell the shock and anger.
‘It was the brutality of the Shargh that sent Kasheron and his followers south and sundered our peoples,’ said Tierken. ‘And it’s their brutality which has sent the Leader of his descendants north to make our peoples whole again.
‘This ring was brought north by Tremen Leader Feailner Kiraon of Kashclan – Kasheron’s clan.’
Again discussion broke out, but this time less raucously, as the Terak began to perceive how the gossip of Sarnia fitted with their Feailner’s words.
‘Make no mistake that we who trace our blood back to Terak’s people, and those of you who trace your blood back to Kasheron’s, fight for the same things,’ Tierken went on. ‘But with fighting comes injury and death. As many of you know, the Tremen Leader is a skilled Healer. As we use swords and arrows to defeat the Shargh, the Tremen Leader uses the healing that Kasheron took to the forests to mend the injuries the Shargh inflict on us.’
Tierken paused, and there was an uneasy silence as antagonism to healing struggled with the natural wish of the Terak to be rid of any wounds and injuries they might suffer in the battles to come. They had seen firsthand what Shargh blades could do.
‘The Shargh murder the Tremen and burn the Tremen’s lands,’ said Tierken more quietly. ‘They murder the Tain of The Westlans and burn their settlements. They intend to murder the Terak Kirillian and burn our settlements. They would even burn Sarnia itself.
‘The Shargh’s hatred is long and will endure until they scour us from the earth. We will defeat them only if we fight as one – the Terak, the Illian, the Kir, the Kessomi and the Tremen – for we are one.’
The men’s faces now showed only grim determination, and Tierken nodded to his Patrol Leaders. They shouted orders, pairing Terak with Tremen, and marching them out to set up arrow targets.
Tierken watched them calmly, but he felt as if he’d endured days of battle. Then the astonishing truth came to him that all the seasons of struggle to bind his men to him were really for this moment – when he must force them to accept the other half of themselves. And he suddenly wondered, too, whether their acceptance was in fact both quicker and more complete than his.
He was distracted by a flicker of movement and looked up to see dwinhir making intricate courtship patterns in the sky. The dance of the dwinhir – or the disappointment of the dwinhir? He cared less about the answer now than in any time since he’d met Kira. All he cared was that he’d given her reason to hope.
13
Only a few days’ ride to the east, Orbdargan sat in the stifling Ashmiri sorcha, his gaze on the Ashmiri Chief. Uthlin had filled his guest’s cup with spiced sherat and, made thirsty by the heat, Orbdargan had drained it in a single gulp. As Uthlin had refilled it, Orbdargan realised that the Ashmiri Chief was testing his strength. Keeping his eyes on Uthlin, he gulped it down again. Let the great Ashmiri Chief see that Weshargh warriors were just as hardy as any of his warriors, thought Orbdargan. It was just a game the grizzled Ashmiri Chief played, and one Orbdargan grew increasingly impatient with. Orfedren and Urugen also grew restless beside him.
Uthlin had spoken only the words of greeting so far, followed by generalities about grazing. Before Orbdargan had guessed Uthlin’s intent, he’d presumed it was because of the women who were sitting behind the Chief and his high-ranking warriors. But they showed no signs of leaving, despite the passage of time.
Two of the women wore the black cheek dots of the Chief’s family; one of these had a face as weather-beaten as Uthlin’s, but the other was young and very pretty. Her breasts strained the material of her shirt and Orbdargan’s gaze went to her often, despite the way she returned his stares with eyes as hard as stones. She’d be less disdainful sprawled naked on the pelts, he thought, for no woman who’d spent time with him had ever had cause for complaint.
Orbdargan masked the impulse to smile with another mouthful of sherat, and brought his gaze back to Uthlin. The Ashmiri Chief looked ancient. Surely it must be time for him to hand the chiefship to his son? But the young warrior who sat to Uthlin’s right was disfigured, one side of his body ridged with scars that even extended to the hand resting near his dagger. Uthlin must be bitterly disappointed if this were his only seed.
‘You come south yet your enemy goes north,’ said Uthlin suddenly.
‘I came south to seek you,’ said Orbdargan, irritated that Uthlin would broach the subject of his visit while the women were still present. The Ashmiri Chief must be in his dotage.
‘To seek aid,’ added Orbdargan, as the silence stretched.
‘The Soushargh went north with you, but not south. Your Cashgar brothers travel alone too.’
‘The Cashgar Chief goes north but refuses to ride, so travels slowly. He’ll wait for me there,’ said Orbdargan.
‘Yrshin and his warriors wait there too?’
‘They dwell with the Sky Chiefs,’ said Orbdargan. ‘A northern snowstorm caught us and Yrshin chose to take his men west. Rather than break our strength, I followed. He led his men into a hole with no ending. Few escaped.’
Uthlin said nothing and again Orbdargan felt compelled to speak. ‘Yrshin and his warriors’ ascent to the Sky Chiefs’ realm weakens those of us who remain. I come to seek aid.’
‘I’ve granted you our eyes, our horses and our food.’
‘And I thank you for them. But to kill the northern thieves we need flatswords and spears, and warriors to wield them. You are our brothers. Your blood flows in our veins. We fight to take back what was stolen from all
of us in seasons past. We were all robbed, Chief Uthlin, and must all fight to undo the thievery!’
Again Uthlin said nothing, but this time Orbdargan forced himself to wait. Uthlin’s choice was clear: bow his head to the northern robbers or reclaim his honour.
‘We’ll take our herds north,’ grunted Uthlin, his glare making it clear no more would be said.
With a brief nod, Orbdargan rose and ducked out into the cooler air. He strode to his horse, Orfedren and Urugen almost jogging to keep up.
‘He aids our cause?’ asked Orfedren uncertainly, as the Weshargh Chief swung himself into the saddle.
‘They come north,’ said Orbdargan. Then he threw back his head and laughed. ‘Now we’ll see the ground run with northern blood instead of ours!’
It was a fine day in Sarnia, as if spring had at last decided to stay. The Haelen’s shutters were open wide, and a warm breeze disturbed the wooden chimes Laryia had hung in Tresen’s alcove. She sat beside his pallet, grinding sorren, glancing at the chimes occasionally but looking mostly at Tresen. Laryia had thought the sound of the chimes might help Tresen heal, for she knew that wooden chimes were popular in the forest-lands.
Kira slipped between the curtains, felt Tresen’s pulse then, satisfied, reached up and stroked the chimes.
