Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  Save for Gendaia’s complaints, they rode in silence beneath the drumming rain, bound to solidarity less by mutual pact than by a growing tension and a shared sense of self-preservation.

  By the time they regained the river, the water level had noticeably risen. Gone were the placid green waters from the time of Trell’s arrival. In their place ran an angry tumult, rapidly approaching a flood.

  They dismounted into mud at the staging point, where four men were loading pack animals onto the last raft, joining half a dozen Converted already there, who were trying to soothe and secure their uneasy horses. Two other rafts full with men and horse were already mid-river in pursuit of the opposite shore.

  Rain fell in sheets between the forested hills that bound each side of the wide river. Long, grey veils blurred the figures swarming the distant bank. The rain thrummed in Trell’s ears. The river roared. Riversong shouted at him to make haste.

  Saran was already guiding his horse onto the raft, and the rest of them again followed his example. The last to board, Trell reached for the guide rope that they would use to haul the raft across the water, made sure all of the men lined up before him had hold of the rope also, and then nodded to the men manning the mooring lines. “Let’s go!”

  The moment the raft was released, every able man hauled upon the guide rope to heave the craft across the current. Even with the combined strength of over a dozen men, the river still threatened to drag them downstream.

  Trell used all of his strength to pull on the wet rope, hand over hand. The rough hemp abraded his palms. Water sloshed across his boots. The raft rocked and bounced through the waves. He was drenched and sweating only moments after leaving the shore.

  The angry Taran wrenched at the craft. Muddied waters carrying a host of submerged threats attempted continuously to drag them from their course. Trell and the others held the raft to a wavering line with white knuckles and force of will. They were overmatched, fighting against the river’s power with mortal strength, but Trell prayed that Thalma, the Goddess of Luck, wouldn’t turn a blind eye to them just yet.

  Elsewhere on the raft, men were swearing—or praying. It was hard to tell the difference from watching their mouths alone, for the combined noise of storm and river transposed even shouted words into whispers.

  On the opposite bank, men were waving their arms. Trell couldn’t hear them for the roaring and Naiadithine’s cacophony raging in his skull. He could hardly spare attention to whatever the men on shore were trying to tell them, for like the others on the raft, he was focusing his every effort on just placing one hand before the other, on pulling one more time…

  A prickling sense urged a glance upstream—

  The uprooted tree coming towards them seemed a dark leviathan, bristling with broken limbs.

  Trell’s breath froze in his lungs. Then it exploded out of him. “Faster!”

  The few who heard him widened their eyes and increased their efforts. The raft was near enough to the opposite bank for them to see the concern on the faces of the line of men who were trying with equal desperation to haul them in.

  For an instant as the bobbing tree sped towards them, Trell thought it might just miss…

  The current or aught else pitched the tree into the raft. Sharp limbs raked across Trell’s back. Then the massive trunk slammed them sidelong.

  Men and animals staggered. Trell shouted to keep hauling, but the tree had caught upon their raft and now was dragging them downstream.

  Loukas shoved his way to the edge and began chopping with his sword—not at the limbs which were caught on the raft, as two others were frantically doing, but at the ropes that bound the logs together at the raft’s far end. The other two quickly caught on and helped, while Trell and Tannour rallied the rest for a final press towards shore.

  Abruptly the two logs which were bound together broke away, and it seemed as if the leviathan would move on to consume more interesting fare, but the long end of the tree trunk must’ve struck against something deeper in the river, for suddenly the rooted end erupted towards them.

  A flail of deadly spikes struck through the core of the passengers. The raft rocked dangerously, dislodging horses and their owners. One horse gave an equine scream and reared, knocking several others awry, and finally tumbled backwards into the water.

  It’s flailing head struck Loukas, and he went into the water with it.

  Before he knew himself, Trell was shoving his sword at the nearest man and unfastening his cloak as he dove in after Loukas. Tannour or Saran might’ve called his name just as his head hit the murky waters.

  Something rough scraped along his back. Formless things bumped against his arms and legs. Trell swam for the surface through the flotsam of miles of forest, conscious of the current dragging countless submerged dangers along its watery course around and beneath him.

  He broke the surface and slung wet hair from his eyes. Far behind him now, the raft had nearly reached the shore. Trell treaded water and looked for Loukas.

  The horses and their owners he spotted further downstream, misplaced sea animals swimming for a last stretch of beach. Around Trell, the river was full of broken things.

  He caught the echo of his name and spun his head to see men scrambling over rocks, chasing him along the shoreline. They were calling to him, waving him towards that last outlet. There was no way he could reach it, not with the current so strong.

  The rain stung his eyes. The water’s chill stole his breath. Downstream, the river tumbled into whitewater. Trell caught sight of a dark head bobbing over the first of those waves. He put urgency into his arms and legs and swam through the rain after Loukas.

  The current quickly dragged him into a churning cauldron. Trell shoved his feet in front of him, sucked in a breath at the bottom of a wave and then suffered repeated lashings directly in his face through the first section of rapids.

  He recovered his breath right before the river dove again and pitched him into another series of punishing waves. Trell just tried to keep his feet downstream—better his boots ram into a submerged rock than his head—but the river made a toy of him, and he tumbled from one angry wave to the next.

  Oddly, it was a familiar terror, this elemental flood making an easy pawn of his body. As another wave consumed him, dragging him under, he submitted to it, as he’d always done. The river swung him around a bend into a ravine where high walls soared on both sides. The land continued dropping away, quickening the river’s pace. Further ahead, an anvil-shaped rock split the river in twain.

  A wave smashed Trell in the face. He sailed over a short falls, dropped through froth and tumbled out the chute at the other end. He came up choking and coughing, his nose and lungs burning. The current was carrying him right towards the rock.

  If he timed it right, he could find respite there; wrong, and the current would smash him against immovable stone, trapped beneath the water.

  He’d hardly had time to think since jumping in, but now he offered a heartfelt plea. Goddess, I pray you—the river sucked him into another set of rapids and bludgeoned him with churning waves; there was no opportunity for breath, no chance of influencing his course towards or away from the rock, only Her grace would carry him safely—look fondly upon me one more time…

  Trell came up sputtering and choking and with the massive rock looming.

  Then the current shoved him chest-first into it, the air exploded from his lungs, his body scraped across sharp stone, and his boot caught on something and stuck—

  He felt a split-second’s desperation as the force of the current tumbled him sideways and onto his back—

  A hand grabbed his arm, wrenching at his shoulder.

  Trell reached fast with his other hand, and Loukas grabbed both of his arms and hauled him back up. “Trell!”

  “My boot—” Trell gasped hoarsely. The river still held him trapped against the stone, but at least he could breathe now.

  Loukas clambered higher on the rock, wrapped both arm
s around Trell’s chest and held him still against the current, while Trell reached down and freed his foot from his boot. A breathless minute later, the Avataren hauled him out of the water.

  Trell collapsed beside Loukas atop the angular rock.

  Foolish…but brave…the river seemed to whisper with a mother’s approving smile. A wave lapped at Trell’s foot as though a caress.

  Trell rolled onto his side and focused on trying to make his waterlogged lungs work properly again. Had he been foolish to launch himself into a flooded river? Certainly. But what else could he have done? He’d already sacrificed one friend to the Cry when Graeme fell to his death. Did his Goddess really require him to sacrifice another?

  “By Fiera’s flaming hair, Trell!” Loukas only swore in the name of Avataren fire goddess when he was really discomposed. He gave a breathless exclamation and fell exhaustedly onto his back. “By my soul, what were you thinking?”

  Trell coughed up more water and managed hoarsely, “I was thinking you might need my help.”

  “You shouldn’t have put yourself in harm’s way for me!”

  Trell met his gaze evenly. “Wouldn’t you have done the same?”

  “That’s not fair.” The Avataren’s expression twisted and he looked away, swallowing. “I’m not the Emir’s adopted son.”

  Or a prince of Dannym, Trell’s conscience reminded, or a Player in the First Lord’s game. Yet if his path was meant to end this war, then he certainly wanted Loukas n’Abraxis walking that path with him.

  Trell spent the next four breaths thinking about not moving and the four after that working up the will to do so. Then he gingerly pushed up to his hands.

  His lungs ached, he could tell from the way his back burned that it was a mangled mess, and a bad scrape on his elbow was bleeding through his shirt, but nothing appeared to be broken except his judgment.

  Wincing a little at this thought, he shifted around into a sitting position, noting as he did that Loukas had already had the presence of mind to doff his boots. The Avataren’s bare feet looked very white against the dark, wet stone.

  Trell dragged his remaining boot out of the water and freed his foot from it. He dumped the former into the river and watched it sweep away downstream to be quickly swallowed by the first frothing wave. The river was tumbling just as furiously ahead of them as it had been behind—perhaps more so.

  “Let’s find a way to live through this,” Trell said quietly, not at all certain of their chances, “then you can chastise me.”

  Still lying on his back, Loukas pushed palms to his eyes. “They’ll blame me, you know,” he grumbled, “Raegus and all the rest of them.” With his damp clothes clinging to him and accentuating his slender form, he seemed very much the stranded wet cat. “Tannour will probably garrote me in my sleep.”

  “Come, Loukas,” Trell nudged him with a smile and a tap on his arm, “put that engineering mind of yours to work and help me find a line of passage through these rapids.”

  “‘Come, Loukas,’” Loukas mimicked with palms still pressed to his eyes, “‘figure out a way for us to cross this impassable river.’” His arms flopped down at his sides and he turned Trell a flat look. “‘Come, Loukas, devise a means of destroying this bridge so that no one will be able to rebuild it.’” Loukas exhaled a forceful breath and heaved himself up. “‘Come, Loukas, figure out how to rig a zipline to ferry all of us five hundred paces across this bottomless canyon.’” He crawled up the rock while leveling Trell a baleful, green-eyed stare. “‘Come, Loukas, construct a siege engine with these twigs and this pile of sand.’”

  Trell chuckled. “I’m getting the impression that you feel I ask impossible things of you.” He eyed his friend humorously as the latter sat down beside him. “What was your plan then?”

  Loukas hugged his knees to his chest. His auburn hair clung to his head, shadows hung beneath his eyes, and his lips had taken on a bluish tinge. Despite his levity, there was little of hope in his gaze. He shrugged. “Wait here until the water levels dropped.”

  Trell angled a look at him. “The likelihood of surviving even one night—”

  “Offers better odds than swimming that gauntlet,” he nodded towards the way ahead.

  Trell looked back to the river. It churned through the canyon in a brown froth while waterfalls tumbled down from both sides of the rocky ravine, muddy streams forged by the storm. Rain still pelted the river, still stung their skin and numbed Trell’s bare head with its constant drumming. With the dropping temperature, a pervasive chill had already claimed his flesh, and the night hadn’t even settled upon them yet.

  He didn’t trust at all in the Wind God Azerjaiman’s mercy. How much did he trust in Naiadithine’s?

  “The night will kill us if we stay here.” Trell pushed dripping hair back from his eyes. His head was throbbing, his hands and thoughts growing increasingly numb as concentration fled to warmer locales. Directly below their bare feet, the two streams of the river met again in a boiling wave. “But there’s the slightest chance that we can survive the river.”

  Loukas barked a dubious laugh. “There’s the slightest chance I’ll be elected the next emir of the Seventeen Tribes. I’d take that bet over this one.”

  Trell heard the wariness in Loukas’s voice. Surely it ought to ring in his own as well…

  Nothing so pleases one’s gods as a leap of faith, Trell of the Tides.

  Trell caught his breath.

  Had he really just heard those words, or had he merely imagined them, his numbed mind starting to show more deleterious effects of the chill that had hold of his body?

  Yet he couldn’t strike from his consciousness the feeling that the river had truly spoken to him, not merely a divine whisper, but actual concepts conveyed—if not with words, then at least with an understanding that translated into thoughts, whole and complete.

  ‘Nothing so pleases one’s gods as a leap of faith…’

  In reflecting on this idea, as well as the surprisingly droll tone of its conveyance, it occurred to Trell that every time he’d asked Naiadithine for Her aid, he’d felt guilt in doing so, as though his efforts were preying upon Her goodwill, or taking advantage of the grace She’d bestowed upon him.

  But what if that wasn’t how Naiadithine viewed it?

  Riversong had never sounded so cacophonous, and he’d never understood it more clearly.

  That’s when the truth hit him: Ramu had Awakened him to an awareness of elae, and now the riversong made sense. Nay, far more than this…

  For an instant’s hesitation, all of Trell’s mortal apprehension at the idea of conversing with a god bubbled to the surface, bringing an effervescent discomfort to his stomach and a lightness that made his head swim.

  Was he really going to do this? Deliberately try to communicate with a god? It seemed impossibly arrogant that he would try, and absolutely, beyond a doubt imperative that he should.

  And with his next inhale—slow and deep, a soldier’s focusing breath to summon calm—he admitted to himself that he’d always known how to reach Naiadithine, that indeed, the submission She required had been his native inclination every time the waters had claimed him, as if She’d marked him somehow as Her own from the moment of his birth, blessing him with the innate knowledge of how to summon Her in times of need.

  Whether or not this was true—however he’d come by the grace of Her goodwill—Trell called upon it then, both opening his mind, as Alyneri and others had taught him, and opening his heart, as Naiadithine required of those She’d graced.

  Greetings, my Goddess…he let the welcome flow away on the rushing waters, let the current pull open the doors of his heart.

  And only a breath later, she answered him.

  Trell of the Tides…Naiadithine’s true voice sounded the liquid chime of crystalline waters, as multifaceted as a waterfall’s veils beneath the shifting sun. Laughter hinted in her tone, and affection. What took you so long?

  Even anticipating Her reply,
wonder gripped Trell chest in a tight hold. A disbelieving laugh choked out of him, drawing Loukas’s curious gaze.

  He felt warmth come up beneath his chilled cheeks and knew his face must’ve been turning pink. You might’ve chosen a smarter champion, My Lady. I’m a little slow in figuring things out.

  But ever earnest in the effort. For an instant, the rushing waters seemed to carry her smile and more besides…a sense of Her that was as perceptible to him as if Fhionna stood upon that very rock, letting him see the admiration in her eyes, or taste of her attraction in a kiss. The waters churned past him, heralding the Goddess’s favor. What do you desire from me, Trell of the Tides?

  Trell glanced to Loukas, who was staring strongly at him now, pointedly asking for explanation for his silence, or perhaps for the flush that had come to his cheeks, or his undoubtedly dumb-faced grin. Trell held up a finger, begging a moment’s patience in the lingering mystery. Safe passage, My Lady.

  Is that all? Trell couldn’t be sure, but he got the impression Naiadithine was smirking at him. Nor could he quite discern the undercurrent of Her tone—did She want him to want more from Her?

  Trell tried to keep his focus beneath the pounding rain—which was dulling his faculties with its ever-present, hypnotic thrumming on his skull—and somehow force a coherent thought through the heady spinning that had claimed him as a result of actually communicating with a god.

  He dragged both hands back through his hair and inhaled deeply. Perhaps… something to keep us afloat?

  Way ahead of you, Trell of the Tides.

  Something banged into the rock behind him.

  Trell and Loukas both spun. Then they launched at the same time to grab onto the little skiff that the water was both pushing onto the rock and trying to drag away. A moment’s labored scramble, and they had the heavy thing pulled to safety out of the current.