“It was a show for the lords and ladies. They wanted something more memorable this year.” Mizrahi sounded nonchalant, but Corin noticed how the man fiddled with the ruby on his sword again.
“I was concerned,” admitted Corin.
“You feared for your patron’s life? You’re very naïve. His highness will never come to harm from me. He should look to himself, though. He keeps dangerous company.”
“Markham Shaiso? What do you have against him?”
“Let me ask you this: how long has Terastai been at war?” questioned Mizrahi.
Corin thought back. “About three years. Why?”
“Since old Ventirus died, right?”
“What has the old emperor’s death have to do with anything?”
“Who gives the orders that are sent to the front?” asked Mizrahi.
“The Council of Highlords, of course,” Corin answered, unconcerned. Governance had always bored him and the Highlords had encouraged him not to worry about it.
“Not of course. Do you know whose banner the armies fight under?”
“Terastai’s. They are our armies after all.”
“No, not Terastai’s banner. It’s the white crane banner of Miliarnes House,” argued Mizrahi.
“That is the same thing. You are not making sense.”
“The banner was changed from the Terastaian colors after Ventirus died. It’s Corinado’s name”—Corin flinched—“that’s on their lips when the soldiers die in the fields of Noei and Bygista. The Council has no banner. Do you start to understand?” Corin was silent. His first impulse was to dismiss the facts as irrelevant. But the Dragon had to have a reason. As he thought about it, the facts started to make a pattern, though a murky one as yet.
“What would you say if I told you that the first lesson they taught us in Oruno was that you can never win a war on two fronts?” said Mizrahi. “We are at war with two countries, and we are losing many men. The council makes sure that the people are blaming the prince.”
“Red Dragon?” The call came from Yupendra in the wagon. Mizrahi nodded to them and turned his horse to attend the summons. Corin watched the man go, still puzzled. He had been taught that a good ruler left the military decisions to the generals and the Council of Highlords. He had never questioned the wisdom of the war in the south. He had never thought of the tactics his own empire was using, and yet, as he had seen with Vansainté, each battalion in the army came clear to him now as composed of men.
During the Introduction Ceremony, Corin had faced Vansainté, a man sworn to die to keep him safe. Corin’s own mistake could have killed Vansainté or crippled him. Yet Vansainté didn’t hold a grudge. He was still determined to protect the prince. Corin thought of Copelia, and how much the brother and sister obviously loved each other. Vansainté had a family. He wasn’t a faceless bodyguard. He wasn’t one of the nameless guards from his childhood who had annoyed him by only being there to tell his parents or the Highlords that he was doing something he shouldn’t be doing. For the first time, the power he would have over the life and death of his people really came home. His mistakes would kill and they would have a ripple effect on the families and friends of the soldiers he commanded. Mizrahi was implying that the Highlords were throwing away the lives of their soldiers on unwinnable wars and that they were laying these decisions at Corin’s doorstep. Corin was quiet. He had a lot to think about.
***
Empire of Terastai, Sea Road
Anoni
Anoni returned to the front of the column, trying once again to avoid Copelia. The girl was clinging to her and the strain of stifling the increasingly violent urges she had to express her annoyance was making her palms sweat. She reined in near Vansainté and groaned in frustration when Copelia and Corin (who looked like he had been plainly goaded into it by the girl) started up the column to join them. “I swear, Vansainté, if you don’t get her off me, I will resort to unpleasant methods.”
“Oh, but boss,” Vansainté grinned, “she’s so cute when she’s in love.”
Copelia reached them with Corin a few steps behind. “I was just telling Corin here about Oruno.”
Corin gave them a wide-eyed denial over Copelia’s shoulder.
“You see, Corin, I can call you Corin, can’t I? Lord Deviida seems so formal,” mused Copelia. “Anyway, we have a stable and yards around the townhouse in Oruno, near the citadel. We also have a farm in the country about a day’s ride out to where the actual horse breeding takes place. There’s a great barn, meadows, and a forest with a small pond in it.”
“Copelia, I’m sure the young lord has no interest in the Caruda holdings,” Vansainté said, trying to cut the stream of words short.
Copelia would not be diverted. “I spent most of my time in the country and Ryelis—you didn’t visit very often, did you? Too much time in the Forge, training I’d wager.”
Corin looked so confused that Anoni took pity on him. She said, “The Forge is the place students go to test themselves. It’s kind of like an obstacle course, but taking up the center of the master’s tower going from the ground floor to the top like a hub of a wheel. The final test for a student trying to graduate is to start at the top and fight to the bottom. The masters are always trying to find an animal, person, or obstacle to make it harder.”
“Yah, brutal. They lose one or two trainees a year in the Forge,” Vansainté added, flexing his shoulders as if to shake off the shadow of the memory.
“Gurin reports Master Neiji is beginning renovation on the final level,” Anoni said, pushing away her own memories of the nights she had spent in there. Too many of her scars were from that place.
“I remember Neiji hated my brother. What a bastard. But anyway, so we have pasturage and range land for the Delkeran horses in the forest. When I was ten, we had a lot of problems with poachers disturbing the herds in the forest. So I used to wait until my parents sent me to bed, then climb out the window in my nightgown and go walking out to the pond,” explained Copelia.
“You did what?” Vansainté asked, appalled.
Anoni had a feeling she was going to lose sleep over this story.
“It was a very peaceful walk. And I took Dog with me. So one night, I was up in a tree near the pond and these two poachers wander into the clearing,” Copelia continued.
“You are lucky you aren’t dead,” Vansainté said, grinding his teeth.
Despite herself, Anoni laughed. “You must have looked dead, all pale with your cloud of hair around you. Did they leave?”
Copelia spared her brother a roll of the eyes. “So I kind of cock my head to the side and call down to them. I ask them what they are doing there, and tell them that it is my home and that they should leave, all the time making myself sound like a ghost.” Copelia demonstrated what she meant by adapting a vacant, doll-like stare while speaking in a dreamy, monotone voice. “They tried to reason with me. But I kept saying, ‘this is my place, you can’t be here.’ And telling Dog to stay at the bottom of the tree. They finally ran like chickens.” She gave a peal of laughter. “It was tremendous. And they never came back.”
“You are lucky they didn’t set a theomancer on you,” Vansainté grumbled. “Why the burning hell didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“I thought you would overreact like this. There’s no reasoning with you when you’re in a funk.”
Vansainté’s mouth opened and closed, having no answer. Finally he managed, “I am your brother and you should listen to me and stay out of danger...”
“You know, I never thought to ask, where are we going?” Copelia asked.
Vansainté gave Anoni an incredulous look. Anoni took pity on him. “We follow back the path taken when the first emperor came down the coast and built Aquillion. Day after tomorrow, we’ll arrive in Skevelia, one of the few towns with enough traffic to survive north of the capital. It’s right at the foot of the Lower Iyekas range. See that mountain in the distance?” Anoni pointed at a wooded peak in the distance.
Copelia nodded, smile brightening at finally getting a straight answer. “The Sea Road goes around the base of that mountain and we’ll see Skevelia on the other side. They do a big business in sacred hot springs. They claim to have a pool that can heal anything.”
“Bunch of fakes,” coughed Vansainté.
“If it’s fake, why do they claim it has mystical powers?” Corin asked, curious.
“It’s on the Sea Road,” said Anoni. Both her listeners looked puzzled still. “I forgot, neither of you is from the interior of the Empire.” She paused to breathe. “The Sea Road runs from the Isle of Asteri in the north through the grasslands and the foothills to Lyceo and the Border Wall. Then the road goes around the salt marshes, crossing with an Old Tech stone bridge, along the coast to Skevelia and then arcs back to Aquillion.”
“Why is there a Border Wall? When we came from Oruno, no one ever commented on it, other than to say that the Safiro was on the other side,” Copelia added.
“Well. They say the ancestors built the Border Wall to keep the Ozuk out of Aquillion. The Empire supposedly drove the Ozuk out of all the land from here to the eastern sea,” Anoni explained.
“But Oruno and the southern countries aren’t part of the Empire,” Copelia interjected.
“Right. But they used to be. Whatever drove the Ozuk from the other lands never succeeded in Safiro. It’s the last of Califf’s Fire. And that’s where we are going.”
Copelia and Corin didn’t look particularly impressed.
“We crossed the Daro Wastes without meeting an Ozuk,” Copelia said, nonplussed.
“The most dangerous thing in the Daro Wastes is the sun, and after that, it’s the bandits,” Vansainté put in.
Anoni cut in, “People out there still remember Califf’s Fire. They’re still superstitious.”
“What's so scary about wives-tales?” Copelia giggled, trying to trace a smile onto Anoni’s face with her fingers.
“Copelia,” Anoni said warningly, knocking her hand away. “The Daro Wastes were purified long ago of Ozuk. Safiro was not. Have you noticed that for a well-maintained road, we’ve only passed a handful of people? Barely anyone lives to the north of Aquillion. Only exotics traders ever go into Safiro. This is not a damn holiday.
“I, we,”—Anoni indicated Vansainté as well—“don't want you in that kind of danger. The Dragons are forbidden to talk of what happens during the quest, but you can tell how hard it was by how many replacements are requested afterwards. You don’t usually see the best fighters in the most elite fighting disciplines dying that easily, but it is expected during the quest.” Anoni gave the girl a hard look trying to get her point through Copelia’s natural young person’s belief in personal immortality.
Copelia looked only slightly less happy. Defensively, she said, “I can handle myself.” Then working up to anger, she said, “You’re one of the most reckless people I know. I’ve seen you ride headlong into a pack of bandits with nothing but a dagger in your hand. You’re fearless. And it’s a bit late to decide you’re my father.” She glared at Anoni and then turned her stallion in a huff. Anoni watched her ride back to Arjent and Nekobashi. Vansainté rolled his eyes in exasperation and followed his sister. Anoni guessed he would keep trying to convince Copelia to be careful. Thinking back, Anoni realized Copelia had never lost anyone to violence. Her brothers, her parents, were all hale and hearty. She even had all her grandparents. She really didn’t understand the seeming arbitrariness of life and death. Anoni could feel her face settling into an unreadable mask she’d learned on the long road during her exile. She and Corin rode in silence for a while with the green bulk of the mountain getting ever closer.
“Do you think some of us will die on this quest?” Corin asked quietly, studying her face.
“Well maybe you and maybe her,” Anoni looked down, trying to joke. “And maybe Tevix, he’s big and slow.”
He didn’t take the bait. Corin simply stared at her painful smile. His blue eyes read her, going over every feature, his own face showing nothing. “You’re not fearless.”
Before she could retort, he turned his mare toward the back of the column, leaving her alone at the front of the line.
***
Hawk’s Hoop
Anoni
It was the late afternoon when the telltale smell of humanity reached Anoni: sweat, smoke, livestock, and latrine. Up ahead, the road wove out of sight among the trees. The rudimentary map she had showed a small village around here. She exchanged a glance with Vansainté, who nodded. He smelled it too.
Anoni eased her sword a few inches out of the sheath to make it a faster draw. Vansainté continued his conversation with Corin, all the while gathering his loaded crossbow from its place on his saddle. He couldn’t cock the thing that well with only one arm, but it was better than relying on his weaker left arm for sword work.
Ahead, the curve in the road revealed the small houses of the village. Anoni gave the column the signal to slow.
“Close up,” Anoni said. “Eyes open.” They passed a decrepit sign saying Hawk’s Hoop on it. The village was only a few groupings of small houses on either side of the road, only enough for maybe fifteen families. The houses had fallen into disrepair, roofs sagging, and the wood rife with moss and rot. A few houses were abandoned, the roofs open to the sky and the walls showing signs that the stone and wood had been salvaged for other buildings. Off the Sea Road, the lanes between the houses were just muddy ruts. The windows were empty of glass or oilpaper, though usually villagers simply built without windows if they had nothing to cover the windows to keep out the winter winds. These people had had the luxury of glass or oil paper once. The only people visible were a family out in front of one of the hovels, a half mile ahead.
A small moon shrine stood near the village well. It was simple, a small altar under a white dome held up by a circle of pillars. The whole structure was no bigger than the gazebos in the imperial garden. It sheltered only a single bench. The circular skylight cut in the dome meant that rain, dead leaves, and bird droppings fell through onto the altar. No one had bothered to clean it in a while, though a small censer lent a trace of incense to the air. Behind the houses were the mounds of fresh graves. The thin wail of a baby broke the silence.
Finally, they reached a hunched old man struggling to pull a plow out of the road while the malnourished ox grazed on scrub grass in the yard. It looked like the ox must have broken the harness.
The baby’s cries filled the air as the woman who held her bobbed the child on her hip in frustrated jerks. The woman was sunken-cheeked, her dress dirty and clearly homemade. With a glare, she spat and stalked into the house, slamming the door behind her. The column closed in on the old man. He stared at the ground, no longer trying to get the plow free and unwilling to leave it, but afraid to look up and cause offense. The rags he wore were the remains of an army uniform from her father’s day. Anoni signaled the Dragons to stop with a raised fist. She could see the liver spots on the top of the man’s head through the straggling white hair.
“We should go around,” Corin said. “I don’t like this place. Probably thieves waiting in the alleys.”
Anoni looked at him coldly, then swung out of her saddle. She couldn’t think of what she wanted to tell him at the moment but it would come to her. Her feet hit the ground and promptly sunk four inches into the mud. The old man wrung his hands.
“Grandfather, can we help you?”
“No, my lord. Don’t trouble yourself, sir. I ‘pologize for being in your way, sir.” He wouldn’t look up.
Anoni glanced back at the column. Vansainté was unreadable, Nekobashi was bored, and Copelia was trying not to look at the man. Corin was watching her with a pained expression like he’d rather not look either. “Wix, Arjent, Yupendra.”
When the men came to her, she took a small bag from her belt and gave it to Arjent.
“The woman,” she said. The boy moved carefully through the mud toward the house.
“
Please sir, I meant no offense.” The man wrung swollen knuckled hands.
“Wix, take the front. Yupendra, help me with the blade.”
The old man looked on helpless as they manhandled the plow out of the road, struck by indecision as Arjent went to the house. The boy left the bag on the door sill and came back. Wix and Arjent mounted up. Yupendra went to his pack and pulled out a bundle. He came back and handed it to the man. “For your granddaughter. Make a tea with a pinch of these every day.” He mounted up.
“I don’t...” stuttered the old man.
Anoni clasped his shoulder then mounted up. “Let’s go.” They moved out of the village, the only sound being the horses’ feet squelching in the mud.
“What happened to them?” Corin asked. “They are so close to the capital, I would think the Council would do something for the...pestilence.”
“The northwest is almost devoid of towns being so near the Safiro Wilds. But it’s the Council’s draft that’s taken the men out of the towns. Some places don’t have men to spare,” Anoni said quietly. “When winter comes there will be no one to harvest the crops.”
“What did you give them?” Copelia asked, grimly. The girl had seen poorer and worse on their trip from Oruno, but her family had always been rich.
“Money. In small coin so as not to call attention. If they’re careful, it should get them through the rest of the year. Those mounds to the west speak of fresh dead,” said Anoni. “I wonder who’s been through lately.”
“That peasant was rather wretched. Ungrateful. Not even a thank you for help or the money,” Corin said with a touch of smugness, though she could tell from his eyes it was just a reflex.
“He wasn’t sure we weren’t trying to buy his daughter. He mistook us for nobles in a traveling party.” Anoni looked over at Vansainté. “We’ll have to trade for some old clothes. If we aren’t fooling them, it doesn’t matter that we’d probably fool everyone else.”
A Glimmer on the Blade Page 8
