Approaching midday, the road was noticeably beginning to climb. Ascending the winding incline of a thickly wooded valley, Tyrun fell back to consult with some of his officers. Shortly, his place was taken by a small, wiry horse, ridden by a pair of children. Daryd and Rysha, Sasha realised with amazement. The Udalyn boy looked up at her-a long way up, from his little dussieh pony-and gave a clenched-fist salute, as might one warrior to another on the road. He looked quite cheerful, loose brown hair falling about his face, his hunting knife worn at one hip like a sword. Rysha's gaze was more serious, yet her posture on the back of her brother's saddle was comfortable, as if she had ridden this way many times before. She still wore the same, mangled yellow flower in her hair, now mostly dead.
"Where in the world did you two come from?" Sasha exclaimed, regis tering only blank stares from the siblings. "Lieutenant Alyn!" she called to the rider ahead. "Have the children been with us this entire time?"
"Aye, M'Lady," the Royal Guard lieutenant replied. "Princess Sofy's maid helped them from their palace room. The lad's a good rider and his sister can stay ahorse well at a gallop. I thought it best for them to ride at the front where they have protection, and can possibly give directions when we draw closer to the valley."
Sasha gazed down at the children. Daryd was marvelling at Peg's glossy black flanks. "Big," he said, his one Lenay word. And grinned. "Big horse."
Two words. He looked very pleased with himself. Sasha found herself smiling. "Big horse," she agreed. And pointed to their pony. "Little horse." And repeated that, making big, then little sizes with her hands. Comprehension dawned on Daryd's face.
"Big horse Peglyrion," he said, pointing to Peg. "Little horse Essey," pointing to the pony. "My dasser horse." Dass, in Sasha's limited Taasti, meant father. Probably Edu was similar.
"Ah, your father's horse. Father."
"Fa-ther," Daryd repeated. "Father." His eyes were suddenly sad. Fearful. At his back, Rysha gave a whimper and reached forward to take her brother's hand. Daryd clutched it hard. Their family had lived in Ymoth, Sasha recalled, the town before the valley mouth. Krayliss had been right-when the Hadryn attacked, Ymoth would have been the first to fall.
Something growing to one side of the road caught Sasha's eye. Blue ralama flowers, growing in a little clump. She dismounted quickly, picked the flowers, and bounced back up from stirrup to saddle as fast as twelve years on horseback had taught her. She arranged the little bunch of flowers whilst riding with her hands free, as Daryd and Rysha stared in amazement at that feat of horsemanship. When the bunch was tidy, she grasped the saddlehorn in her left hand and leaned far out on one stirrup to present the flowers to Rysha.
Rysha took them, blinking in wonderment. Sasha pointed to her hair, encouragingly. Rysha took out the mangled yellow flower and looked at it sorrowfully. Daryd suggested something to her in Edu. Rysha was displeased and complained. She tucked the dead flower into the front pocket of her coarse-weave dress, and considered the ralama flowers more closely. Counted their bright blue petals.
"Verenthane," she pronounced.
Sasha blinked. Verenthane? And then she recalled the great, eightpointed patterned windows in the Saint Ambellion Temple. And, of course, the eight-pointed Verenthane stars worn about the neck of every devout fol lower. Eight petals on a ralama blossom. Lucky in Goeren-yai tradition, but holy for Verenthanes. Another point of commonality between the twin faiths of Lenayin.
"Lucky flower," she said to Rysha.
"Flower?" Rysha said with a frown. It stood to reason that Rysha understood that word first. But lucky?
"Hmm," said Sasha, thinking hard. Then it occurred to her. She pointed to Peg, looking at Daryd. "Peglyrion," she said and pointed to the sky. She dotted the sky with her forefinger to represent stars, like the Peglyrion stars in the sword pommel of Hyathon the Warrior.
"Ah!" said Daryd and told Rysha, "Esi."
"Esi," Sasha repeated. "Stars."
"Stars," Daryd echoed. Sasha then pointed up once more at the imaginary stars and made the spirit sign to her forehead. The universal Goeren-yai sign for luck. All Goeren-yai believed that stars were lucky and that the star spirits could bless a person's fortunes if one appealed to them. Daryd grinned his understanding.
"Lucky," Sasha explained.
"Lucky," Daryd agreed, nodding vigorously.
"Lucky flowers," Sasha concluded, pointing again to Rysha's ralama blossoms. Even Rysha smiled this time and marvelled anew at the pretty blue colour. It never ceased to amaze Sasha how people could usually manage to make themselves understood, even with no words in common, with just a little imagination and patience. "Pretty flowers," she added, deciding to push her luck.
"Pretty?"
"Pretty." Sasha indicated Peg's flowing, muscular curves and put a hand to her heart, with an expression on her face as if the most handsome man in all the world had just stepped naked into her chambers one evening. Rysha recognised that expression well before her brother and laughed.
"Gadi!" she exclaimed. "Gadi tethlan "pretty"! Pretty flowers!" It was the first time Sasha had seen Rysha look happy.
"Pretty Rysha," Sasha countered.
Rysha blushed shyly. "Pretty Sashandra," she replied.
Around a bend in the climbing road ahead, a scout emerged at a canter, slowing now to a walk as he sighted the column. Sasha turned in her saddle. "Soft'? Is Sofy riding back there? Tell her to come forward, I've a task for her."
There was a moment of commotion behind. Someone offered an instruction… "Just tap him lightly with your heels, Highness. Not too hard, he'll understand."
A second dussieh pony approached and Sasha pulled Peg right to the road verge, where the hill climbed more steeply. There was barely room here for Peg and the two dussieh. Sofy's horse came between Peg and Essey, and Sasha blinked in astonishment.
Seated in the saddle was a girl who looked remarkably like, and yet most unlike, Sasha's younger sister. Sofy wore a sheepskin jacket and a thick, plain undershirt, tucked into a pair of pants secured firmly about her narrow waist with a belt. There were riding gloves on her hands, soft-skin boots on her feet and her shining brown hair was tied in a simple ponytail at the back.
"Where in the world did you get those clothes?" Sasha asked.
"Some of the Tyree soldiers had bought good clothes for their younger brothers in Baen-Tar," said Sofy, in a very subdued tone. "They were very kind to lend me these."
Sasha stared for a moment at this most incongruous of sights-a princess of Lenayin with her hair tied back, in pants, jacket and boots, astride a horse in the Lenayin wilds. And she realised, suddenly, what a shock the first sight of her in such clothes must have been for her family, on her first return visit to Baen-Tar as Kessligh's uma. And she'd cut her hair short, too. And worn a sword on her back, and other weapons besides.
"Hello!" Sofy said cheerfully to the Udalyn children.
"Hello, Princess Sofy," said Daryd, echoed by Rysha. So they'd learned who the new arrival was, then. Both children bowed in the saddle.
Sofy laughed. "Oh, aren't you lovely? And Rysha, what pretty flowers. Pretty flowers!" Pointing.
Rysha nodded and smiled. "Pretty flowers," she agreed.
"Sofy," said Sasha, eyeing the scout requiring her attention. "I've an important task for you. You'll not be merely a passenger on this ride."
Sofy nodded nervously. "Yes?"
"Look after the children," Sasha told her. "See them fed, make sure they don't wander, maybe even learn a little Edu since you're so good with tongues. Can you do that?"
"Yes, of course!" Sofy looked relieved. It wasn't so much a task, Sasha knew, as something she'd have done anyway. But doubtless she was happy to have some responsibility. "I'd love to."
Sasha touched her heels to Peg's sides and rode forward to the scout. Behind, she heard Sofy resuming the conversation with the children.
By the time the scout had departed, the climbing, winding road had arrived at an open shoulder, overlookin
g the forested valley below. The wind blew briskly, but no longer as cold. Crumpled hills stretched into the distance, the flanks of Mount Tvay barely visible in distant mist. Sunlight splashed golden patches through the clouds, drifting slowly over forested ridges and valleys, interspersed with veils of misting rain. Ahead, the ridge onto which the road ascended fell sharply in a line of ragged cliffs, sheer rock plunging into thick trees below. Above the cliffs, riding the updrafts, an eagle soared.
"Oh, my lords!" Sasha heard Sofy exclaim, and turned in her saddle to see the youngest Princess of Lenayin gazing open-mouthed at the scene, a hand to her chest. "My land is so beautiful!" Her eyes were shining.
"Pretty," Daryd agreed. "Pretty land."
As the column took a brief pause along a stream to water the horses, the first trouble broke out. Sasha ran along the forested streamside, dodging about horses and men as they pressed for space between the trees and waterside rushes, several of her vanguard in pursuit. Ahead, she could hear angry yells and threats, at alarming volume, and men along the stream craned their heads to look.
Sasha pushed her way past the last few horses and found two distinct groups of men in confrontation, each gathered behind their respective leaders. Both groups were Goeren-yai, but one was Falcon Guard soldiers and the other was villagers. Each was shouting in a tongue other than Lenay, yet familiar. Blades were not yet drawn, but hands were threatening on the hilts of swords.
Sasha stepped between the loudest, expecting them to stop. The men kept yelling, leaning around the new, inconvenient obstacle, jabbing sharp, accusing fingers. "Shut up!" she yelled at them. The men simply shouted louder, ignoring her. Sasha drew her blade and whistled the edge past one man's nose, then another, sending them stumbling backward. The men of her vanguard half-drew their blades in case of retaliation, but none came, and the shouting paused.
"What's this about?" Sasha demanded into that brief silence. Men on both sides stared at her, and at each other, fuming. "Speak, or I'll banish you from this column and give your damn horses to someone who can ride without fighting his brothers! What's this about?"
She stared hard at a Falcon Guard corporal who seemed prominent in the argument. "I'm Jysu, M'Lady," the man said, as if that explained everything. "My friends here are Jysu." Gesturing to his fellow guardsmen. "We ride together in the guard. These men are Karyd." Pointing at the villagers.
Sasha blinked at him, waiting for the rest of the explanation. Nothing more came. "And?" she demanded. "So what?"
"The clans of Jysu and Karyd have blood-feud!" a villager announced angrily. He was an older man, at least sixty, with wild white hair about his otherwise bald head, yet he had strength. The expression beneath his spirit mask was ferocious. "Just two years ago two brothers from the Jysu headman's family killed a Karyd boy in a manner without honour! We came just now to join the great battle to save the Udalyn, but men of Karyd shall not ride with murderers!"
"The boy declared immediate challenge!" a guardsman retorted. "Our lad was within his rights!"
"And what about the murder of Yuan Arsyn's brother just a year before?" another soldier shouted. A yell came back in the other tongue, and then the shouting and yelling resumed, as loud as before.
They were in eastern Tyree now, Sasha realised, with exasperation. Tyree had clans that united some villages together and thrust others apart. Another of the manifold confusions that were the Goeren-yai, and baffled so many foreigners.
A yell cut them short. Sasha turned and found Jaryd limping to the fore. Beside the obvious pain on his face, his eyes were cold and distant. Only anger gave them animation now, a deadly light that was chilling to behold. Men quietened, watching him. Jaryd stopped between the old villager and his Falcon Guard corporal, and said something, darkly, in another tongue. Everyone watched. There was no reply. Jaryd repeated it.
The corporal replied, shortly, with deference. Jaryd turned his stare on the villager. The villager snarled something in return and Sasha caught the words "qualy kayat," meaning "many gods" in central tongues. Verenthanes. And not, by the villager's tone of voice, pleasantly meant.
Jaryd hit him, a right fist to the face. The man stumbled and fell, and his comrades drew their blades with a rush of steel. The Falcon Guards did the same. Everyone did, save Jaryd. Jaryd stared at the nearest man's blade and walked straight at him, unarmed, and only one-handed. Walked until the tip of that man's blade pressed directly at his throat. His eyes dared him to thrust. The villager backed away.
Jaryd turned on the other men and advanced, daring them also to kill the unarmed cripple. Those men also refrained. The elder villager watched, now seated on the ground, wiping the blood from his lip. His eyes, however, held a new respect.
Jaryd crouched before the man and repeated his question, quietly. The villager answered, warily. Jaryd drew a dagger from his belt and held the point to his own cheek. He drew the point down, cutting slowly, his expression never changing, his eyes never leaving the elder man's. Blood trickled. Jaryd sheathed the blade and wiped some blood on his fingers. Tasted it. Then wiped some more and held that hand for the villager.
The villager wiped some of Jaryd's blood onto his own fingers, and also tasted it. Sasha watched with heart-thumping amazement. She had not suspected Jaryd would know the ways of the ancient blood-bond. Some old Goeren-yai traditions survived amongst Verenthanes in some parts of Lenayin, perhaps this was one such, in Tyree.
Jaryd stood and repeated the bloody tasting with the Falcon Guard corporal. Then he tasted a little more himself and spat upon the ground between the two sides. With a final, cold glare at them both, he limped off. The shouting did not resume. Neither did the two sides cross to embrace each other. Instead, they hung their heads and seemed reluctant to speak or act. The awkward silence lingered for a moment. Then, very quietly, the two sides began to disperse.
"What just happened?" Sasha asked Teriyan as the men on all sides retreated to their horses and prepared for the road ahead.
"When blood speaks, do you listen?" said Teriyan, watching Jaryd's slow departure through narrow, thoughtful eyes.
"Huh?"
Teriyan shook his head. "It's an old phrase… less common in Valhanan, probably why you haven't heard it. That's what Jaryd said. "When blood speaks, do you listen?"
"I don't understand." It pained her to say it. She'd thought she understood the Goeren-yai so well.
"Clan conflicts are driven by blood," Teriyan explained. "Blood between the warriors and the victims, and blood between the victims and their killers. One creates bonds, the other needs revenge. These men were fighting over someone else's kin, killed years ago. Jaryd lost his little brother, just yesterday. His claim to blood is superior. He shamed them. To continue their lesser squabble would dishonour Tarryn's spirit and bring bad luck upon them all."
"I wonder how he knew that saying?" Sasha wondered aloud. "Have you heard of Verenthanes saying it?"
Teriyan shook his head, with the intense thoughtfulness he always wore on matters of importance to Goeren-yai. "No," he said. "Not that I know. It's a puzzle."
More villagers arrived once the column recommenced, offering food, good wishes, seven more warriors and the assurance that neither they nor their neighbouring woodsmen had seen any northern forces passing near. There were many narrow horsetrails, however, that a smaller force could utilise if it wished. Sasha herself began to wish they could move onto a smaller trail themselves, where their passage would not be so obvious. But most such trails became churned after the fiftieth horse had passed over, to say nothing of the two thousand, five hundred and fiftieth (as one corporal had ridden up to inform her they had now become, much to her astonishment). And if it began raining, many of the routes up steep inclines would turn to impassable mudslides by mid-column… No. One kept to the roads with a large force, Kessligh had always told her. And one went cross-country through Lenay forests only at the direst necessity, and only then for short distances.
Nearing evening, as they rod
e a flatter, rolling stretch of land, there came cries and yells from back in the column. Horses wheeled as weapons came out, Sasha holding Peg steady with difficulty with her own blade in hand, staring back over the confused, milling column behind. The vanguard closed about in tight, protective formation. Sasha could see soldiers spurring their mounts to leave the road, seeking paths to doubleback through the trees and bypass the chaotic blockage of jammed horses. Above the crashing hooves, shouting men and whinnying animals, she could hear the distant yells and clashing steel of battle. But it was too far back amidst the trees for her to see.
"Best you stay put, M'Lady," Tyrun advised, reading her expression all too easily. "By the time you get there it'll be gone, and the longer you're away from the head of the column, the longer it'll take to reform behind you once more. Command means relying on others to be your eyes. You can't see everything yourself."
And so Sasha sat where she was, listening to the battle, watching what she could see of men manoeuvring across the road whilst those nearest maintained their protective circle. Tyrun merely sat, grimly twitching his moustache. Sofy looked pale and wide-eyed with the children alongside… and Jaryd, Sasha saw thankfully, stood his horse nearby, ready to grab the rein should some panic strike. Of Teriyan, or Andreyis, she saw no sign.
The battle sounds faded as quickly as they had begun and soon a longhaired Falcon Guard corporal came thundering up the road at speed, several men at his rear. "Captain, M'Lady!" he announced as he reined to a halt. "Perhaps twenty horse, Ranash men, we think. They flee, and there is some pursuit, but we must not be delayed. We have four dead, three wounded… of theirs, I am ashamed to report two and one. We are dishonoured."
"It was always going to be thus," Tyrun said bluntly. "They have the advantage in such attacks and numbers count for nothing. Have the wounded head for the last village if they can, with a minimal escort. Have them try to keep off the road, if they can find a trail… the northerners wish to delay us, they cannot waste time on stragglers."
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