Berrin cracked his neck and put on his helmet belatedly, before squinting up at the sky. “Your mare and the Lady’s stallion will keep them from going too far, once they’re away from the flappy things. Most likely.”
Cathay glared balefully at Slater, the water streaming down his face making his expression even darker. “Why did you let them bolt? If I leave the horses with you, I expect the horses to stay with you.”
Slater bowed. “The cobs are mountain ponies, not warhorses, your Highness. And most of the men aren’t trained to fight from horseback. When you were attacked, we had to dismount; by then the horses were already spooked.” He glanced at Kiar. “Except for Spooky, oddly enough.”
“I didn’t name him,” she said, wiping rain out of her face. “I think his name was Eidolon or something else embarrassing and they panicked when presenting him to me.”
Growling under his breath, Cathay started stomping down the road. Slater silently gestured, pointing at four of the guards and sending them after Cathay.
“Where are you going?” Tiana called, and when he didn’t answer she said, “Fine! I don’t care anyhow.”
Kiar checked the eidolon shield she’d set to orbiting Spooky. She could still feel it at the far end of her eidolon range, not moving. Cathay’s mare—who was battle-trained—had stopped the flight as soon as the fight was out of earshot. Then she tried again, “So what happened in there? Did anybody else get hurt?”
“There was a fiend spawning those eidolon monsters, like the one at the heart of the dragon. The monsters were easy to destroy but there were a lot and they kept going after Lisette. I was annoyed. And then careless,” said Tiana. “I got hurt. That annoyed Jinriki. He made the fiend detonate. It was all very exciting and now it’s over and it’s raining and we’re soaked and Jinriki is on fire.”
“Can’t he just... come out of the fire like he came to you during Antecession?” asked Lisette hesitantly.
“No,” interposed Kiar hastily. “Even if he could he shouldn’t. That was catastrophic.”
“He won’t,” added Tiana, her lower lip stuck out. “He’s angry, and he’s...” her eyes widened. “He’s eating the remains of the fiend to recover some of his strength.”
“Oh.” Kiar paused, not sure what to say to that. “All right.” The rain drummed on her head and ran down into her ears until she flipped one of her eidolon shields over her head to act as an umbrella. “Here, at least we don’t have to get utterly soaked. How long are we going to wait?”
“I don’t know,” snapped Tiana. “You don’t have to wait. Go to the farmhouse. Leave me here.”
“So Ohedreton can send another set of andani after you? No, I don’t think so.”
“Fine, then.” Tiana turned her face away, looking down the road Cathay had followed.
“Although actually,” said Kiar, considering the fight. “That wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. As long as we stay together, we seem to be able to handle Ohedreton’s jabs.”
“Don’t lower your expectations, my lady,” said Slater harshly. “That was a test, not a real attempt to interfere with us. And after seeing what this—” he closed his mouth over what Kiar suspected was an obscenity, then swallowed it and went on, “this enemy does as a test, I’d be a lot more comfortable with three times the men. And the support staff. I think we need to stop at the nearest castle and have a serious logistical discussion.”
“We’ll see,” said Tiana absently. She shoved wet hair out of her face and winced. “He didn’t exactly sneak up on us. We can feel whatever he’s doing to send his monsters here.”
“That only helps if he sends them through near us,” Kiar pointed out slowly. “Another troop came up behind us.”
Tiana turned to stare at Kiar, her eyes wide. “Oh. I thought one or two of them had gotten out of the grove and you were dealing with those.”
“One of them wore armor. They were a scout patrol, I suspect. Maybe the fiend was part of the patrol.”
“That’s a nifty trick,” said Berrin. “Being able to summon reinforcements when you need them.”
“Well, it didn’t help these monsters much,” said Tiana, with a hint of smugness.
“Why do you call them monsters?” Kiar blurted, thinking of the lead andani’s moment of wary recognition.
Tiana looked at her in surprise. “Well, they’re not animals like most eidolons are, are they?”
“I don’t think they’re exactly eidolons. And we gave them names. The slender silhouettes are the andani.”
Tiana shook her head. “Silly names. They don’t mean anything.”
“Neither does monster,” snapped Kiar. She was getting cold in the rain and suddenly she wanted to be done with the conversation and with her own thoughts.
“Yes, it does,” said Tiana, a firm set to her jaw. “It means something I can fight without feeling guilty.”
“They’re invaders,” said Lisette gently. “It’s all right to defend yourself and Ceria from them.”
Tiana gazed down the road again. “I know.”
Lisette transferred her gaze to Kiar, looking at her steadily until, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, Kiar muttered, “I just wonder what happens to them when they die. Do they return to a maker, like ours do? Or... something else?”
Berrin laughed. “What happens to us when we die, my lady? That’s a question I admit I’m a lot more concerned with.”
“We rejoin the Firstborn,” said Kiar vaguely. It was a bit of doctrine she’d never thought too much about.
“Ah?” said Berrin, and tapped his nose like she’d said something meaningful. She looked down the road Cathay had left via, just like Tiana had been doing. It was a useful road that way. Unfortunately, Cathay and the horses were nowhere to be seen.
The downpour became sheets of water sluicing out of the sky. Tiana turned to look at the glow in the heart of the grove. It was still bright and strong despite the downpour, but it didn’t seem to be spreading. Nobody said anything for a few minutes. They stood in a cluster: Tiana, Lisette, Kiar, with Berrin and Slater flanking them and the rest of the remaining guards closed in a semicircle around them.
Lisette cleared her throat and said to Berrin, “Thank you for shielding me in there. I shouldn’t have been so careless.”
“I try to be good at my job, my lady,” said Berrin, with a faint smile.
Lisette looked at the rest of the guards clustered around. “Your service is appreciated. Even if sometimes there’s talk of reducing the size of our band.”
“Who’s talking about that?” Tiana asked in surprise. “Just because I’m not sure if I want a full company escorting me doesn’t mean I don’t like having the guards.”
Lisette fixed a steady gaze on Tiana, her silence drawing attention to a time before when Tiana had seriously considered abandoning her guards, before she finally said, “I’m glad.”
Tiana said, “What? I like being able to sleep at night. If we’re going to sleep on the road, we need somebody to keep watch and take care of the details.” She studied the guards thoughtfully. “I suppose a different mix of specialties might have been better than bringing along the same guards we were assigned at home, but...” she shrugged, then winced again, her fingers drifting to the arm Lisette had bandaged. “Even if we didn’t expect what we got, we have to deal with it anyhow. Nobody starts out a specialist.”
Lisette let out her breath and smiled a tiny triumphant smile, which Kiar found curious. But before she could ask, Tiana turned and walked into the wood again, like somebody called her urgently. Somebody probably did. Kiar followed her, halting when she saw the devastation of the grove. Very few of the orchard’s inner trees would be producing fruit anymore. Two of them had been uprooted and a dozen more tangled together in a knot with a fire at its heart.
The fire had red and yellow flames like a normal fire, but its heart was not just blue, but silver. It was nearly smokeless despite the steaming wood, but it gave off a lot of heat. Tiana barely seemed to
notice as she walked closer. She hadn’t realized she was freezing, in the fiend prison either. Kiar wondered how much of it was Jinriki’s power and how much of it was Tiana’s own distraction.
“Hey, Tiana,” she called “Don’t catch on fire.”
Tiana nodded distractedly, watching the flames. Then, all of a sudden, the silver flames vanished and the fire belched and hissed. Tiana darted in close, grabbing the handle of Jinriki the Darkener before backing up so fast she tripped over her own feet. “Stop it,” she muttered to the sword as she stood again. “All right. When Cathay’s here—”
The thud of hoof beats and the jangle of harness cut Tiana off and she ran past Kiar out of the orchard, looking pleased.
Kiar lingered, looking at the bonfire. Then she gave into temptation and let the Logos sight activate. The fiend that Jinriki had destroyed was gone, but she could still see echoes of it in the way the Logos slowly knit itself together again in the wake of Jinriki’s passage. There was something familiar about its edges. Tiny clues came together and she suddenly knew that the fiend had been one of those Jinriki had loosed from the Citadel.
Her skin prickled. It was too strange. She watched as the Logos behind the fire filled in the clean edges of the hole, devouring the emptiness. What did it mean for one fiend to eat another one? And did it take a fiend to eat a fiend? If not, it was possible a lot of mysteries related to past blights could be explained.
“Kiar!” called Lisette. Berrin touched Kiar’s elbow and she jumped.
“Sorry, my lady,” he said. “Will you come?”
“Yes,” she said, and regarded the fire one last time. It sizzled in the rain, and she could no longer see any magical sign that a fiend had once been eaten there. It was just a scene of local devastation, as likely to have been caused by a Royal cousin having a tantrum as a fiend losing its temper.
Then again, she didn’t know who had done what. Maybe that’s exactly what most of the mess was.
She hoped the owners of the orchard would blame the Blighter and his fiends. She didn’t want to know the truth.
When she emerged from the grove again, Cathay held his mare’s reins, as everybody else reclaimed their mounts. Spooky, running free, came over to nose her.
Cathay said, ‘Has anybody bothered to check on the cottager yet, to make sure Ohedreton didn’t lay any unpleasant traps there?” When nobody answered, he sighed. “Come on, let’s go. If they’re all right, we can at least find out who owns the orchard.”
Chapter 9
Vassay
“I’D LIKE YOUR advice on this one, Your Highness,” Lt. Raffey said, as he escorted a man in shackles before Jerya’s chair at the base of the Tabernacle of Broken Hearts.
Jerya folded her hands in her lap. “Oh, Lt. Raffey? I’m pleased to listen.”
In only a few days the words had become a ritual, a way of involving herself in the city in ways the Blood normally didn’t. Criminals were supposed to be handed over to the City Watch, or the Justiciar’s Guard unless they’d sinned directly against the Blood. But asking for their Princess’s advice was always a sound idea. And sometimes, after she gave her advice, the criminal in question just... disappeared.
“We found this swindler down on Kesserig Smalls selling promises that he could extract belongings from homes on the north side of the city. Greedy fellow; he was accepting goods as well as coin just for the privilege of trodding on hearts.” Lt. Raffey bumped the shackled man forward. “I thought maybe he’d like to make you that offer, seeing where you sit.”
The shackled man was dressed like a bureaucrat or clerk, although he looked like the kind of clerk who ran a lot. Not obviously frail, not too old. He stared up at her with a blazingly hostile—and frightened—gaze.
“Go ahead, then,” Jerya said, gesturing at the swindler. “How will you be extracting my treasures from my chambers?”
The swindler looked away, his jaw set. Then he brightened and turned back to Jerya. “I’m not, o’ course. But I know people—No, listen! You’re right, I’m a terrible man, but I know people, much worse, who are planning to raid the Northside. It’s a trove over there, all the nob houses. I could work with you to find them, stop them. You don’t want all your jewels and magic powders being stolen.”
Jerya laughed. “Perhaps you should have brought me that offer before my Guard caught you taking much more from those with much less.” She leaned on the arm of her chair, her chin on her palm as he glared at her. Her Guard wouldn’t have brought him to her if he was a bad candidate for her standard offer.
“Lieutenant, what would the Justiciars do with him?”
“Oh, they’d lock him up for a few years, ma’am.”
She raised her eyebrows at the swindler. “And what would you like to do?”
“Not be locked up,” he said promptly, as if he couldn’t help himself.
“Ah! I think we can help you. Let’s see. Do you know how many people he caught in his game, Lieutenant?”
The Guard did some quick figuring. “I’d say about twenty-two, ma’am? At least that many, based on the complaints and what we found on him.”
“Oh, no! Only fourteen in total, ma’am!” said the swindler quickly. “It was a bad business. I was about to give it up.”
“Perhaps you should have quit before you started? Now. There are creatures to the south of us, creatures who, like you, want to take everything from people who have already lost too much. Those creatures are monsters, but you are a man, are you not? Not a monster? You can prove that by going and ending the careers of... let’s see, we’ll round up and then divide by the nature of the crime... yes, ending the careers of twelve of those monsters. Lieutenant Raffey here will put you in touch with some assertive folks who will help you in your quest, down in Mousame. They’ll keep you on the straight path.” She paused. “Or we could turn you over to the Justiciars. Ooh, or we could send you over the bridge to Northside, to do what you promised.”
The swindler hesitated. One of the paths offered him what looked like an easy chance to escape. He was smart enough to be wary. Jerya dropped her voice, coaxingly and leaned forward. “Twelve monsters, my friend. With the right training, it won’t even be a challenge. And then you’ll be free. Not only free, but clean. You can come back to me with a letter signed by your commanding officer and I will personally make sure nobody ever brings up swindling again. You can start a new life, do whatever you want, just based on twelve. And if you make it thirteen... well... a bonus would be in order.”
Then she leaned back. “The bonuses in prison aren’t nearly as good, I hear.”
The man stared at her, his eyes wide. He frowned, then smiled faintly, as if in recognition. “I’ll take Mousame, Your Highness.”
“Excellent! A choice I think will please everybody. Lieutenant, take him to the gathering point. And... leave the shackles on.” She smiled at the swindler, who gave her a nod of acceptance. Raffey bowed, and escorted the prisoner away.
Jerya sat on the chair at the base of the Tabernacle of Broken Hearts and made decisions twice a day. Often she chose simply to listen as people poured out their troubles to somebody they hoped could make it better. Sometimes she pointed them to the refugee camps being overseen by her Guards or promised them they would have a real home again and that she wouldn’t let them starve in the meantime.
That was a bit of a challenge, with the Blight in the middle of Ingae, Ceria’s breadbasket. But the duchy of Dalein to the north was whole again, recovered from the loss of their orchards in the Bastard’s Blight, and the endless autumn had sped cool season crops to a market that suddenly needed them.
Occasionally she faced issues of justice, as with the swindler. Not very often; both the Royal Guard and the Justiciar’s Guard were out in force in the city. Other than outbreaks of frustrated violence, the mere presence of the Guards kept people behaving in an orderly fashion most of the time.
Sometimes, people came to ask her for information on the Blight: clear-eyed, practical pe
ople who didn’t believe the mythology of the King and the mudslide racing through the city, or people from outside the city who had more direct experience with the Blighter’s forces. She reassured them concisely but truthfully that the situation was being handled by her sister and the other members of her family not present, and reminded them there was an army of Royal Guard between the Blight and Lor Seleni.
She made other decisions, too, in less public venues than the Tabernacle. The Guard was recruiting heavily. Many of those who had lost their homes joined up. There was a surge in women recruits that seemed to make Alanah sad every time she mentioned it.
The Blighter was moving slowly. Despite ripping a hole in heart of one of the Duchies, invading via an army out hadn’t been his original plan. He’d tried to use magic to hurt the land itself, and Jerya’s father had stopped him, drawing the Blighter’s destructive magic to himself through a sympathetic connection to Ceria that Jerya didn’t entirely understand. Twist had told her the connection had been forged through the decades of holiday rituals, and some quirk of the Royal Blood’s magic. But it didn’t matter how, really. He had died and Ceria had not, and nobody had recovered yet.
Her scouts theorized that only some of the invading aliens were conditioned to deal with the light and land outside the Blight. The scouts who had ventured within the Blight itself reported that sunshine there was washed out and distant, and that many of the creatures had tendrils on their feet that rooted to the ground when they stood still.
The Blight, unmoving, was a disaster equal in scope to what had happened to Lor Seleni. But even as armies trained at its borders, its borders slowly expanded. Some said the expansion was slowing, but it was present and measurable. Jerya had asked Jant to investigate what was happening, and how to stop it; the growth bothered her far more than the armies slowly building a mere week’s march away from Lor Seleni.
Jerya listened to yet another rendition of what happened at Tranning, where the Blight had been born, from perspective of somebody who had lived at the edge of the affected region. The old man had personally measured the current growth of the Blight, and once he worked his way around to mentioning that, she cut him off and invited him to a debriefing with Jant. They’d probably like each other, she thought dispassionately. They’d swap old man stories about past Blights. Jant didn’t get a chance to talk in person to his own generation much. He’d like that. And it got the old homesteader’s information off the streets, which was just as important.
Green Wild (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 2) Page 9
