His smile was perfect. “I think it unwise,” he said quietly. And then he frowned.
She turned; Kallandras had come to stand by her side, and his lips moved, briefly and silently, over words his gift protected from reaching her ears. He turned to her next. “ATerafin,” he said quietly, “It is unlikely that you will be . . . unnoticed here.”
“I don’t—”
“You are a woman, and you will ride with the Tor’agar. The men are armed and armored as if for war, and they expect to see battle before dawn’s light. If you did nothing but ride at the side of the Tor’agar, you would still be worthy of remark.
“But even without the Lord Celleriant, you would engender much comment, for if I’m not mistaken, you intend to ride the stag.”
“I don’t have much choice,” she said grimly. “I’m not highborn. I never learned to ride horseback. Not well.”
“Then accept the curiosity and the mute awe of strangers,” he replied gravely. “Because accept it or no, you will receive it.”
“Jewel ATerafin is not noted, among The Ten, for the grace with which she accepts the inevitable.”
“Why, thank you, Avandar.”
The domicis offered her a shadowed smile, and she realized that it was one of the few he had offered in a very long time. “Understand that the Tor’agar plays no game,” he said quietly. “You’ve never been on the field in a battle.”
“I’ve been in battles before.”
“True enough. But you had the luxury of command in those situations; you have no such luxury here. While you can hear him, while he can speak to you, the course of the combat is his. Do not forget this.”
She nodded stiffly.
The stag entered the courtyard and came to stand before her; she stood in the cage of his shadow, staring up, and up again, at the length of his neck, the length of his jaw, the proud lift of his head.
She could almost see the man in the creature, and as always, it disturbed her deeply.
Come, he said. If I am to be servant, and I am not disturbed, you have no cause to trouble yourself. He bent, his forelegs kneeling into the flagstone that seemed so out of place in the South.
She nodded and reached up, gripping his antlers in the palms of her hands. He rose as she slid over his neck and across his withers to the slight curve of his back. Then he turned to gaze upon the cerdan; Jewel turned as well, seeing them from the vantage of height and safety.
The Tor’agar had joined them in silence.
He met her hesitant gaze, his own unblinking. “So,” he said softly, “it appears that we saw no mirage on the road.”
“We thought it . . . best . . . to . . .” her voice trailed off.
“Had you arrived in the presence of any less a man of the Lord than the Radann Marakas par el’Sol, I think we would consider you as great a threat as the one we now face. But I am well aware of who his master was, and I know how far he will go in his odd pursuit of honor. You walk out of story, Lady, and the stories of the South are not kind.”
“It seems very little about the South is.”
Avandar’s frown was a thing more felt than seen.
“Kindness is often ill-rewarded,” Ser Alessandro replied gravely. “As you will no doubt see, should you remain in the Dominion. I have not asked you why you have journeyed South, and perhaps it would be prudent to have such an answer.”
“It would take far, far longer than you have,” Avandar said, bowing.
“No doubt. But when we have the time, it is a story I would like to hear.” He turned to his cerdan. “Enough. The gates are open, the stables are waiting. Bring me Quick-heart, and ready yourselves; we ride to join the rest of Clemente.”
Moonlight crested the horizon before the sun’s light had faded; the dark of night had not yet banished crimson and orange gold from view. Against this backdrop, the cerdan of clan Clemente rode behind their leader and his Toran. They were silent, although the hooves of shod horses spoke in a clipped, steady thunder, the drumbeat of war.
Lord Celleriant went unmounted; Kallandras and Avandar accepted the offer of horses, and rode to one side of the Tor’agar. But although the Arianni lord followed the paths by foot, he did not fall behind; indeed he disappeared for long stretches, following the road and the shadows trees cast across it. Every time he disappeared, the cerdan spoke; every time he returned, they spoke again. Only the Toran and the Tor’agar seemed immune to his presence.
Jewel watched them all, nervous now.
She had told the Tor’agar she had seen battle, and she had. But she had never seen it shorn of all her den. Never seen it at the head of a small army. She might have said something, but there was no one to say anything to.
There is me, the Winter King said quietly.
She had thought he would be amused.
Not this eve, he replied, his voice rich and somber. Can you not feel it, upon the wind?
Feel what?
The servants, he replied, of the Lord of Night.
No. But as she spoke, she realized the words were a lie. She could not see, could not hear, the enemy—but she was aware of them.
She wondered whether or not she should speak with the Tor’agar. In truth, she didn’t much care for him. He was cold, and obviously fond of the rank he held.
Do not mistrust power so openly, the Winter King said.
Why not?
You will be one.
Great
Power is the only way to ensure that your law and your justice prevails.
I thought you said I was weak.
You are. You have chosen weakness, he added quietly. It is a choice that I could never have made.
Would never have made, you mean?
They are the same, your statement and mine.
Understand, Jewel ATerafin, that the power you will wield will never be whole. It will be broken. It will be tested. It will never be a certain fortress.
You say this to me? When you look like—
I say it because I can.
I’m . . . sorry. That was unnecessary.
It is hard to choose the power you have chosen.
There is no other power, for me.
No. But . . . His voice, devoid of amusement, was stark and uncomfortable. Great, she thought, attempting to keep the words to herself. I’m now only comfortable when I’m being mocked and condescended to.
It will be hard not to be twisted and broken by the sacrifices you must make. It is easy—for you—to contemplate death. But only as long as it is your own. Learn to contemplate others. Learn, he said softly, to be unbowed by them.
I can’t—
You can. The Terafin does.
You know nothing of The Terafin. You’ve never even met her!
I know, he said quietly, what you know.
Leave it alone, she told him. Just that. But she was uneasy again. How much of her life had she given him, in the silence of musing and thought? How much more of her past did he know?
She seldom gave him orders. And if she was honest, it was not what he knew that troubled her—it was what Avandar might also have gleaned.
If the Winter King heard her, he did not choose to acknowledge the thought. Instead, he turned his great, tined head toward the horse which bore the Tor’agar. Without order, he began to canter toward the stallion, Quickheart.
The stallion, unlike the men, did not view him with awe, although suspicion was there.
“ATerafin,” the Tor’agar said. “Does something trouble you?”
She nodded.
His face, in the moonlight and lamplight, was dark. “Speak plainly, as is your custom. I will take no offense. In times of war, much is excusable, and much excused.”
“The servants of the Lord of Night are ahead of us.”
She spoke in Weston, out of habit.
After a moment, he replied, and his Weston, unlike her Torra, was strongly accented. “Do you know their numbers?”
She shook her head.
But he marke
d the hesitation in the gesture. “Speak,” he said, the word inflected and brusque.
“More than one, I think,” she said at last. “Or one very, very powerful one.”
“Do you know much of these creatures?”
“More than I’d like,” she said, without thinking. And then, when the Winter King’s snort invaded the silence, she added, “I’ve seen them fight before.”
“And one is a danger?”
“A big danger, no matter what its power.”
He turned and lifted a hand, by gesture calling for a halt to the march.
She took advantage of it; she waved Kallandras forward. He came at once, in perfect silence. “ATerafin?”
“Has Lord Celleriant discovered anything?”
“Not to report, no. But he is . . . uneasy.”
He looked anything but.
“Is this the same kind of uneasy he was in the desert?”
Kallandras stared at her for a moment, and then he smiled; it was a slight smile, but it seemed almost genuine. “Yes.”
“And there were five. No, six.”
He nodded.
The Tor’agar nodded as well. “Thank you, ATerafin.” He turned to the Toran and spoke quickly and quietly; his words did not reach her ears.
But they didn’t have to; their meaning was made plain when the Toran wheeled and rode back into the column. When they appeared again, they bore two bows.
They gave these to their Tor, and he in turn gave them into Kallandras’ keeping.
“I need not tell you,” he said, although plainly he did, “that these are of value to me; we have few fletchers in the South, and they are not of note.”
“The bows are of Imperial manufacture?”
“Indeed.”
“We will return them to you before we depart these lands,” Kallandras said. He bowed. Something about the bow was subtly wrong, but it wasn’t until he rose that Jewel realized what it was: It was entirely Southern. It suited him.
The Tor’agar was silent. At length, he said, “I do not like this. I had hoped that you might strengthen my men by presence alone.
“I release you,” he said coldly. “From my command and my service. Go as you will; do what you must.”
Kallandras nodded. “The ATerafin?”
“She, too, must follow her own course.” He was silent a moment, weighing words. At length, he shifted into Torra. “We will buy time, if that is possible. My cousin will not . . . attack . . . before we have finished negotiations in Damar. But I do not know the servants of the Lord of Night; I do not know the intent of Marente. I cannot say what they will do.
“I am the Lord’s man; I can guess. Whether they stay their hand or not will depend in large part upon what we are seen to do—and if we are seen in the company of . . . the ATerafin’s mount, and her liege—”
“Understood,” Kallandras said. “Avandar?”
Jewel turned to look at her domicis. It was funny; he had shed the menace and strangeness of the desert and the mountain, and she had chosen to allow it; she accepted his presence as if he was still a complicated, condescending domicis.
The stag moved beneath her stiff legs; the night was cool.
Avandar’s profile faced her; no more. But his expression was distant, his eyes dark; he seemed taller in the shadows of night.
He swiveled his gaze; caught hers and held it. “What would you have of me, ATerafin?”
A hundred answers came to her lips, and a hundred answers died before leaving them. She could not see the whites of his eyes. She could see something akin to gold instead, and it burned. Her hands gripped folds of skin and fur as she met those eyes and held them.
“Avandar Gallais,” she said.
“Yes?”
Not enough, Jewel, the Winter King said, and his voice was the soul of ice.
“I want you to be Avandar Gallais.”
“Is that not what I am?”
She lifted a hand then. Lifted an arm. It burned in the cold of night, and she knew which arm she had lifted; what lay upon the surface of skin, beneath the folds of rough cloth.
“It’s not all that you are,” she replied. “I—I know this.” She bit her lip and let go of fur for long enough to shove the hair out of her eyes. “But this is all that I am, and I . . .”
He waited. In silence, the time passed, and it was time they did not have. She knew it.
But she was afraid. It was night. Night now. Maybe in the day—
Pretend, she thought. Pretend, for just a little while longer, that that is all you are.
But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words, because even thinking them, she despised them.
“How many people are in the village?” she asked instead, and felt the Winter King’s bitter disappointment. Surprising, how much it could sting.
Avandar seemed to grow taller. The arm he had lifted—and he had lifted his arm, although when, she couldn’t remember, fell back to his side. He offered his profile for her inspection, but it might as well have been a wall.
The Tor’agar frowned. He was not a stupid man; he was aware that something had passed between these Northerners and the stag that was both significant and beyond his grasp. It did nothing to improve his temper.
“Ten thousand,” he said curtly.
Ten thousand. She thought of telling him that “village” was not the word she thought it was, at least not in the North. “How many—”
She lifted her hand. “No, forget it. I’m sorry.” She ran the back of her hand across her eyes. “Tor’agar.”
“ATerafin.”
“We’ll find the kin.”
“Kin?”
“The—the Servants of the Lord of Night. We’ll find them. We’ll kill them. Or send them back to the Hells.”
He waited, sensing that she had not yet finished. He was right.
“But we don’t do this for free.”
The stillness that enveloped his face robbed the clearing of the last of its warmth. “What would you have of me, stranger?”
His Toran urged their horses forward; their Tor sent them back with a gesture, his hand a mailed fist.
“I . . . I don’t know,” she answered.
“We do not have the time for games, ATerafin.”
“I know.”
What do you want, idiot? She cursed herself in the silence. Tell him to free all the serafs in his precious village if we manage to save it?
He’d never agree. She knew it.
But she found words, ashamed that she could. “The Serra,” she said. Her voice was remarkably calm.
“What of the Serra?”
“The Serra Diora.”
“What of her?”
“She has to go North. North and East.”
Silence, then.
“And I want your word that you will do everything in your power to see that she gets there. Everything.”
“I will offer you my word; the word of Clemente. But in return for your service this eve, I will also place one condition upon this oath.”
“And that?”
“I want to know why.”
“Why?” It seemed obvious to her. “Because if she doesn’t, we’ll lose this war. And I think you’re beginning to understand why we can’t afford to.”
Too late, she realized that she should have had anyone else offer these words, this warning; she was, after all, a woman, and these lands were within a Dominion that granted women little.
“ATerafin,” Avandar said. It was almost a blessing. She turned to meet his gaze, wary now. “In the South, men do not swear binding oaths to women.”
His expression was familiar; he was annoyed. Damn him anyway. He was right.
But the Tor’agar raised his hand again. “I swear an oath not to you,” he said quietly, “but to the Lord, the Lady, and the forest which borders these lands. I will not surrender my dominion to the Lord of Night; I will not allow any battle against him to falter. I confess that I would not normally accept the word of
a Northerner in these matters. Or perhaps in any other. But you ride a great stag, and you command a servant of the Lady.
“Among the common cerdan, you are her signal, and her blessing.”
“You are not—”
“No. I am not. But I am one sword. The swords that will be lifted this eve will be lifted by men who are not so cautious.”
“Have you horn?” she asked him quietly.
“I have.”
“Wind it,” she said, “if we are needed.”
“I think,” he said, “If it is winded, you will not have the opportunity to reach us.”
“We will.”
He bowed. “We understand the war we have prepared to fight. I pray you understand as well that war that you have undertaken.”
She closed her eyes. “Kallandras,” she said.
“ATerafin.”
“We enter the forest.”
Only when they were well away from the body of the Tor’agar’s army did someone speak.
To Jewel’s surprise, it was Lord Celleriant. “Lady,” he said, bowing, “this is not the safest path.”
“It’s the only path,” she said quietly.
“There are others. The village—and it is poorly named, if my understanding of the human word ‘village’ has any meaning—is large; there are many ways to reach it, and none of them are as dangerous—”
“They are all dangerous,” she snapped back. “And they’re all guarded.”
Arianni gray met common brown. Gray fell first.
She had been taken by the words; they had left her lips without any conscious thought on her part. But once they had, she knew them for truth.
“Very few are the guards that could deny us passage,” Celleriant said softly.
“We want to choose the fight,” she snapped back. “On our own terms. We don’t know who—” She held up a hand, demanding silence.
Since none of the men who regarded her now were ever talkative, it wasn’t that hard to get it. Think, damn it, think fast.
Avandar stepped into her path. “Who guards the paths, Jewel?”
“Ahead of you,” she whispered. Aie, she hated her gift. Hated it. “How many roads, Celleriant?”
“Seven,” he said quietly.
“You haven’t missed any?”
He shook his head. “They’re cut through the fields and the edge of the Deepings, and this close to the dark forest, life has its own voice. It is not,” he added, “a gentle one; but it is not . . . yet . . . awake. I hear the silence where life has been cleared as if it were a scar; the paths are seven.”
The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 Page 60
