The leader advanced, and Trell met his assault with careful precision, the steel of his sword singing true as their weapons met, shared a deadly caress and separated again. Trell weighed every move the older man made, gauging…calculating. The Nadoriin lunged with a forceful sweep, but Trell easily sidestepped the blow and returned with his own, marking the man’s shoulder with a gouge that drew blood. The Nadoriin swore and advanced on Trell with renewed force and attention, and Trell went on the defensive, parrying blow after blow until his arms ached.
Yet with every motion, Trell learned something about the Nadoriin. He noticed that his opponent favored his right, and each time he led with his left, he overextended, leaving himself open. Trell took a calculated risk, knowing from years of experience that knowledge gained with minimal bloodshed was worth the price. He let the other take him on the defensive again—though Raine’s truth, the power of his strokes threatened to knock his blade from his hands—but he held true despite a near fall, and in the right moment let the man’s blade cut him.
Fire flamed in his upper arm, but he gauged the wound superficial. Better yet, as he’d hoped, the Nadoriin thought he held the upper hand now and in his haste to finish Trell he overextended his reach. Trell darted inside his guard and drove his blade into the hollow beneath the Nadoriin’s ribcage, expecting it would be the death blow.
But he had underestimated the man’s strength. With a cry of rage, the Nadoriin wrenched Trell’s bloodied blade free and flung it to the dirt. He lunged for Trell, throttling him as they slammed into the earth. The Nadoriin pinned him, and Trell struggled against his hold, kicking with both knees to try to knock the man off, but the Nadoriin’s position was superior and the man’s weight greater.
Glaring down at Trell, he coughed blood, growled an oath, and yanked a dagger from his boot. “Shall I start with your ears, or your eyes?”
Ever grateful for the training so ingrained in him, Trell swung up his legs and caught the bigger man around the chest. His ankles hooked beneath the joining of neck and jaw, and one powerful thrust pitched the man backwards. Trell dove for his sword as the Nadoriin was righting himself. He swung it up just as the man and jumped for him again. The impact caused sparks before his eyes, but his sword impaled the man all the way through that time. The bloody tip extended beneath his right shoulder. The Nadoriin’s eyes bulged, his face turned crimson, and then he collapsed.
Trell heaved him off with a grunt of effort and got to his feet, blood-drenched and breathing hard.
“Trell—”
He turned at Lily’s call, but just then Sayid cried out and Trell spun to see him falling to his knees. A cascade of rocks alerted him to two more Nadoriin scrambling down the steep side of the ravine. One of them paused to reload a crossbow. Just as Trell was desperately trying to invent a way to eliminate him, Kamil appeared higher up on the ridge. He sent two daggers flying. The deadly steel sunk deep into each man’s back. They fell from on high, dead before they landed in a puff of dust.
Trell exhaled in relief, fervently hoping they were the last of them.
When no one else reared up in challenge, he turned back to Lily. She stood in the center of the clearing hugging her arms. She wore only her shift, torn and ragged, and her dark hair was a mass of tangles, but she maintained a brave face that denied the degradation she’d just endured.
Trell quickly drew her into his arms. “Ah Lily,” he whispered into her hair as she pressed her cheek against his chest. “I’m so sorry.”
Safe at last, she burst into tears.
Kamil and Sayid approached, the latter pressing a wad of cloth to his thigh. “The bolt passed through,” Sayid told Trell, having noted his concerned look.
“What do you want to do about them, Ama-Kai’alil?” Kamil asked, nodding to the dead.
Trell knew what he would do, but he deferred instead to Lily. “What say you, milady? What death shroud do these men deserve?”
Lily looked at the two Khurds who’d come to her rescue, and her lower lip trembled. “The blackest, Ama-Kai’alil,” she whispered.
Trell nodded. “The lady has spoken. We leave them unblessed and unforgiven.”
“Let it be so,” Sayid declared darkly, nodding his assent.
“Let it be so,” Kamil agreed.
While Kamil reclaimed his daggers from the fallen and Sayid hastily bound his leg, Trell tied a strip of cloth around the wound in his arm and then set loose the Nadori steeds. His shoulder was beginning to ache from the gash he’d taken, but he knew from experience that a good cleaning with salted water would restore it good as new.
Lily watched him quietly the whole time they moved about the Nadori camp, hugging knees to her chest. When Trell returned to her side, she lifted frightened doe-eyes up to him. “I c-can’t…s-stop sh-shaking.” She wiped tears from her face again with the back of both hands. “I c-can’t stop crying…either.”
He helped her stand up. “You’ve been through a lot tonight.”
“So have…you,” she stammered, “b-but you’re not even sh-shaking.”
“I am bleeding, though,” he said with a grin.
“As if that p-proves anything other than your b-bravery,” she said, but she gave him a weak smile.
Trell looked her over and frowned. “Hold on a minute.” He rummaged through the packs scattered about the campsite and eventually returned with a thick woolen blanket. “Here, Lily.” He wrapped it around her shoulders and pulled her close into his arms. Trell suspected the night’s terror, more than the chill, was affecting her now, but sometimes little gestures could calm the mind. And it wasn’t seemly for a highborn lady to ride around in naught but her shift.
Kamil approached with Gendaia and his own mount in tow. “We should leave this place, Ama-Kai’alil,” he said. “Death begets death.”
Trell nodded. He looked Lily up and down in a sweep of grey eyes. “Are you fit to ride?”
“J-just so long as I’m n-next to you.”
Trell picked her up and placed her on Gendaia. Then he swung into the saddle behind her and wrapped an arm protectively around her waist. Sayid led the way out of the ravine.
They made most of the trip in silence. Trell hugged Lily close as they rode, his thoughts dwelling darkly upon a father so bereft of compassion that he would send such dishonorable men in search of his own daughter.
They were safely out of the canyon and riding again beside the Cry to the hum of riversong when Lily gave a long sniff, wiped her eyes and asked in a tiny voice, “Why do the Khurds call you Man of the Tides?”
“Kai’alil is the name of the fishing village where they found me,” he replied into her ear, “before I was taken to Duan’Bai.”
“What do you mean?”
Trell had forgotten that he’d only told the women part of his story.
Lily mistook his silence for hesitation. “I’m sorry. It’s just…twice you appeared at a time when I thought all hope was lost, but you’re such an…an unlikely hero—if you’ll forgive me, Trell. I only mean, well…you’re a Northman who speaks the desert tongue fluently—but with a Basi accent—yet you risked your life to save a runaway Nadoriin from her own father’s men. You must admit these are strange and…conflicting facts.
Trell conceded her point. “The truth is, Lily,” he answered quietly, “I’ve spent many years in service of the Emir.”
She turned to him wide-eyed. “But you—you fight with a kingdom blade. Are you not of a noble line?”
Trell caught his breath at the familiar phrase.
‘The time has come for them both to flower, these, my kingdom blades…’
Words from the Mage’s journal took on new meaning.
To cover his surprise, he said, “As I mentioned before, my heritage has somewhat eluded me, Lily.”
Lily was still contorting her neck in order to stare at him. “So how does a Northman come to personally serve al’Abdul-Basir without converting?”
Trell was reluctant to tell more of h
is story, but Lily had just been through a terrible trial, and if his tale took her mind off the evils she’d just endured…
So as they walked the horses beside the rushing waters of the Cry, he told her of waking in the village called The Tides, being taken to Duan’Bai and raised as the Emir’s adopted son, and his subsequent life with the Emir. Why he felt he should trust Lily with this knowledge when he hadn’t trusted the sisters with it wasn’t something he could explain. He seemed to make strange decisions in the presence of Naiadithine’s waters.
Lily absorbed the details of his story raptly. When he was finished, she asked, “So they found you just lying on the beach with nothing but your sword?”
He gave a rueful grin, remembering how he’d swum through an underground river without giving up that sword.
She stared at him. “It’s…incredible.”
“I’m sure many have endured similarly unlikely circumstances, Lily.”
She shook her head. “No, I—”
But the words were lost, for just then they rounded the rise and came in view of the campsite. Fhionna and Aishlinn both came running down the trail, and soon they had Lily off Trell’s horse and all three women were clutching at each other with cries of joy and exclamations of dismay at Lily’s condition. They quickly bundled her off without another word for the men, though the latter took no offense.
Trell dismounted and let Kamil see to their horses, for with Aishlinn returned, he was anxious to learn of Ammar’s condition. He found Radiq and Ammar sitting together around the fire, the latter looking slightly peaked and somewhat round-eyed but otherwise whole.
“Ammar.” Trell placed a hand on the Khurd’s shoulder as he knelt down beside him.
Ammar turned with a beatific smile. “Ama-Kai’alil,” he greeted, “you must someday nearly die so that the Goddess may heal you. All men should know such ecstasy.”
Trell shifted his gaze curiously to Radiq, who shrugged. “He’s been that way since the nymphae Aishlinn brought him back. She says it will pass.”
Trell placed a hand in thanks on Radiq’s shoulder. Then he excused himself to wash up in the icy river. After donning a clean shirt, he rejoined Radiq and Ammar. The former handed Trell a bowl of spiced beans and flatbread warmed at the fire. While he ate, Trell allowed Radiq to tend his arm.
The sun was falling in the west when Lily and the sisters joined them at the fire. The spicy stew had warmed Trell’s belly, and his arm felt better since being tended. The cut was deeper than he’d thought, and he felt some numbness in his fingertips which he hoped would fade as the wound healed.
Lily looked much improved after the sisters’ ministrations. They’d clearly helped her wash body and hair, and now she wore a proper dress again. She sat down close beside Trell and pulled her long skirts around her feet.
“Oh…thank you,” she said in her accented desert speech as Radiq offered her a bowl of stew.
“How are you, my lady?” Trell asked, grey eyes looking her over.
“I’ve been better,” she confessed, then added with a rueful grin, “but lately I’ve been much worse. I have you to thank for the improvement.”
“There were three of us who came for you, if memory serves.”
Lily glanced at Radiq with sudden contrition. “I meant no disrespect.”
“None taken,” he said.
She switched to the common tongue to ask, “Do you prefer this language over the desert tongue, Trell of the Tides?”
He shrugged and answered in kind, “They are the same to me.”
“I would think you would find one tongue more comfortable, more uniquely you,” she posed.
It took Trell a moment to realize she’d spoken the second line in Agasi. He grinned at her and replied in Bemothi, “Are you testing me, my lady?”
She laughed happily and replied in kind, “What language don’t you speak?”
“Avatari has proven troublesome,” he said with a wink, switching back to the desert tongue.
She smiled, but her expression sobered as she continued to gaze at him. “Would that I could properly reward you—all of you,” and she included the Khurds in her gaze. Looking back to Trell, she frowned and said, “Are you certain you will accept no coin from us?”
Radiq lifted his dark eyes to Trell upon hearing this news, but Trell only replied evenly, “None, Lily.”
Lily sighed and nestled the bowl of stew in her lap, its steam drifting up to mingle with her unbound hair. “Once I might’ve rewarded your bravery with any wish, but now…now I’ve been disavowed. My father’s men made it clear they were only keeping me alive as bait for Korin. Him my father wants returned for torture.”
Trell lifted brows, surprised by the cavalier manner in which she spoke such words. “Surely they meant only to scare you, Lily.”
She shook her head, and her dark eyes were resigned. “No, in this I think they spoke Raine’s truth. My father is not a forgiving man, and I have too many times betrayed him—or so he believes.”
Kamil and Sayid joined them at the fire, silently taking seats beside Radiq, their eyes dark beneath chequered turbans. “But it’s—it’s better this way, I think,” Lily went on, though she sounded immensely frail, as if tyring to convince herself more than Trell of these truths. “Korin and I can be together now, and…and so long as my father is occupied with his war, he may not even remember to send men to hunt us down.”
The finality in her tone, the utter conviction that her days were numbered, made Trell only feel that much more protective of her. He wondered if she was truly so bold, or if she spoke the words glibly, without actually acknowledging the terrible fears that inspired them. He chose not to touch upon such deep wounds while more recent ones still healed, however, so he asked instead, “Your father is involved with the war?”
She gave him a strange look. “But of course, don’t you…?” Suddenly her eyebrows made a little V that lifted with her surprise as she looked around the fire at all of the Khurds. “You…you don’t know who I am?”
“Should we?”
She looked worried now and turned to Fhionna. “You said you told him everything. I—I thought…”
“Everything about Korin,” Trell clarified, lifting his gaze suspiciously to Fhionna, who was looking extremely culpable. “She said your father was a nobleman.”
Lily covered her mouth with both hands and turned from Trell to Fhionna and back again. “It…I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?” she whispered. Her eyes flitted around the fire, taking in the many foreign faces who watched her with unreadable dark eyes. “After all, I’m not Leilah anymore. I am just…Lily now.”
The realization came as a shock, even to him. “Leilah,” Trell repeated slowly, staring at her. “You’re Leilah n’abin Hadorin?”
The Khurds hissed an oath, but Lily gazed at Trell unblinking. “No, Trell of the Tides,” she whispered. “I’m just…Lily. Leilah n’abin Hadorin died in the Haden Gorge at the hands of her father’s guard.”
Trell lifted his gaze to the Khurds across the fire. From everything he’d seen of them thus far, he suspected they would keep this confidence, and in that he wasn’t disappointed. Sayid met his gaze with an almost imperceptible nod. So.
Trell looked back to Lily. “Very well. You are Lily, soon to be wed of Korin Ahlamby.” He settled a long disapproving look on Fhionna before saying, “Rest tonight. At dawn we ride hard for Sakkalaah.”
Three pairs of feminine eyes watched him as he stood, and he felt their worried looks follow him until he was out of their sight.
Feeling the need to be alone, Trell walked to the river’s edge and followed upstream until he came to a grove of stunted trees overhanging a deep pool. The riversong there invited peace, so he knelt down and washed his hands and face. The water was icy and instantly numbed his fingers, but it was somehow cleansing to his troubled mind—Raine’s truth, he was certainly going to need absolution after this. Saving the daughter of the Emir’s mortal enemy…he wonder
ed if the Emir would understand; he prayed that he would.
Squatting beside the river, Trell pushed wet hands through his hair and then rested arms on his knees and stared at the dark water. He feared with ever growing certainty that there would come a day when he would be forced to choose one loyalty over another. Already his convictions had been tested several times, and he was a long way from finding his family. If he knew anything at all about them, however, it was that they were not the Emir’s subjects; what if they required him to denounce his allegiance to the Emir?
More troubling even than this: could he really be loyal to two opposing masters? If his new-found family did require him to forswear the truths he now held, could he do it? Was it possible for him to resume the beliefs he’d been taught as a child if they conflicted with the convictions he upheld as a man?
It was dark when he returned to camp. The women had retired into their makeshift tent, which had been haphazardly pieced together from the remnants of their first one, and the Khurds were playing a game of Stones salvaged from the attack. Trell offered to take the first shift, and he settled in beneath a twisted tree to watch the moon rise. It seemed like only minutes before Kamil came to relieve him, however, for he was preoccupied with thoughts of the many unusual women in his recent life.
Trell took a moment to check on Gendaia, another of his females, and then he found a solitary spot to toss out his bedroll and stretched out with his hands behind his head. The stars were brilliant; Gorion the Archer was rising in the east and Adrennai’s Harp hung at midhaven, yet he found himself searching the sky for another constellation, one that had never held much interest to him until a midnight conversation with a Whisper Lord.
But Cephrael’s Hand didn’t appear that evening, and after a while the rushing roar of the river began to soothe his tangled thoughts. He found his mind drifting, until it landed, like it always did, on the mystery that was both his past and future.
What will life be like outside of the Akkad?
He knew just from speaking the common tongue that the culture of its peoples was different. In the desert, as in the language itself, there were nuances—huge disparities, actually—in what was said and what was understood. Like the way the Khaz’im had introduced the Khurds by their tribe alone. Trell’s knowledge of the ways of the desert peoples allowed him to make the leap from a simple, laconic statement to its complex meaning.
Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One Page 47
