Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  Of course, they rushed him then. Trell fended them off, but barely. He was stumbling as often as he was parrying their blows, and his breath came ragged when he could find it at all. There were too many cornering him, their press too tight. He couldn’t keep up the cortata.

  A blade flew towards his head. He dodged and then had to dodge again as a different razor edge speared into the space of his escape. A sword slashed for his side, and he spun out of its path while somehow blocking another. The fog grew thicker with each forceful exhale. Trell fought shadows. Only their blades held substance, shining as they flashed towards him.

  He tried to find deeper breath and found instead the vice of pain. Two men pushed in on him, forcing him stumblingly back. Too late, Trell realized others were coming up behind him. He threw himself sidelong to avoid the sword thrusting for his spine.

  Pain exploded violently down his injured side. He sprawled awkwardly, braced on one hand, gasping for breath while agony wracked him. He couldn’t make his body move.

  “Be done with it,” a voice said.

  Shadows resolved out of the fog. A shadowed blade lifted above him. The river screamed.

  Three thocks drummed a guttural staccato.

  Three men grunted sharp exhales.

  A body landed beside Trell, convulsing, with a barbed steel star stuck in his throat. Two others fell still and staring with similar stars lodged in their foreheads.

  Fighting began anew among the mist. Clashing blades and the thud of falling bodies forged a disharmonious counterpoint to the riversong. Whoever Trell’s mysterious defender was, he posed threat enough to draw the rest of the Saldarians to him.

  Which was fortuitous, because Trell was in no shape to threaten anyone. He maneuvered himself back against a rock and pressed a hand over the wound in his side. His stomach turned violently at the pressure of his own touch, and he sat thereafter just trying to coax breath back into his lungs.

  A breeze swept through and dispelled some of the mist, enough for Trell to make out five men standing in ready crouches with their blades held defensively before them, staring at a lone figure bending over one of the fallen. They held their swords with uncertain action, as if they stood facing a demon instead of a man.

  The dark figure pulled two knives out of the dead man and straightened. As he turned, Trell stared.

  He’s fighting them blind?

  An eyeless mask wrapped the figure’s head like a burial shroud.

  The figure’s bloodied daggers caught the moonlight—deadly, curved knives with a second, separate fang extending. He spun his blades into his grip and launched towards the remaining Saldarians.

  They raised their swords, but as children feigning battle with a knight. The dark figure dodged a slashing sword, twirled and sliced the man’s throat. Another whirling spin, and two more men tumbled with their throats slit open.

  The last two banded together to take him the stranger. The dark figure dodged their slashing blades as if he knew the choreography of their swordplay. He spun and sidestepped and lashed out right and left. The Saldarians collapsed with strangled cries.

  Trell could hardly process the scene. His defender had claimed a dozen men in a matter of minutes—and done it completely blind.

  The figure spun and rushed over to him.

  “A’dal!” Trell’s faceless savior crouched before him. Quick motion unwove the swaths of silk masking his face, and Tannour shook his head free. “How bad is it?” He looked Trell over and then lifted pale blue eyes to meet Trell’s. “Can you walk?”

  Trell managed a humorless smile through gritted teeth. “Doubtful.”

  The Vestian considered him for a moment’s concern. Then he darted soundlessly away.

  Lightheadedness combined with a rapid pulse told Trell he was losing too much blood. He knew these symptoms well. Taliah had once kept him in a state of physical shock for several days, healing him just enough each time to keep him from escaping into unconsciousness. But Taliah wasn’t a prudent memory to invoke just then. Trell concentrated instead on the Vestian. “How did you find me?” His voice sounded faint, even to his own ears.

  Tannour was cutting one of the dead men’s shirts into strips. “I have a certain skill set, Your Highness. Details are better left unspoken.” He soaked the bandages in the mineral springs and returned to Trell’s side. “If you will permit me…?” He held up the wrappings.

  It took a grave force of will for Trell to remove the pressure of his hand from his side. Blood pulsed the moment he did so.

  Tannour gently tugged at Trell’s torn shirt to assess the wound beneath.

  “How bad is it?” Trell cracked a grim smile. “You tell me.”

  “Well…” Tannour glanced up under his brows, “you’ll certainly be giving Madaam Chouri a challenge. That’s the path proving true.” He began wrapping one of the strips around Trell’s ribs.

  Trell laid his swimming head back against the rock. “What of the others?”

  “I wasn’t with them. The fighting has stopped. That’s all I know.”

  If he hadn’t been with their company, then how did he know the fighting had stopped? That was the question that occurred to Trell, but following a lucid thread beyond this way stop of logic was impossible. He managed instead, “You saved my life, Tannour.”

  “Gods willing, I’m working on it, Your Highness.” Tannour tied off the strip of cloth—tightly.

  Trell’s eyes flew to his. There might’ve been a little more accusation in his gaze than he’d intended.

  Tannour quirked the shadow of a smile. “Can’t have you bleeding out before we reach the Healer, can we?” He started binding the wound with a second strip.

  Trell clenched his teeth and gazed wordlessly at the Vestian. Here was a man he’d known but a few days—a man he hardly knew at all in fact—yet who’d brooked no question of fighting over a dozen others, risking his life to save Trell’s. Gratitude brought a different sort of tightness to his chest.

  Tannour must’ve seen something of this in his gaze, for he gave a dubious grunt. “I can’t say my motives are entirely altruistic, Your Highness. If something were to happen to you, I’d be the first one they looked to. Rolan Lamodaar would never believe I didn’t somehow have a hand in the act, and our Su’a’dal would crucify me.”

  “Even so, Tannour…” Trell put a thank you into his gaze, which Tannour acknowledged with a shadowed smile.

  The Vestian tied off the last strip and sat back on his heels. “Well, that should get you to Madaam Chouri at least.” He blew out his breath and looked around, but as his eyes took in the score of dead littering the shoreline, something overcame his expression. “Your Highness…” he shifted his pale blue eyes back to Trell, “in return for my aid, or simply by your willing grace, may I ask a boon of you?”

  “Of course.”

  Tannour suddenly radiated a potent apprehension. “Would you keep this between us? My involvement, my actions here?”

  Trell blinked at him. “No one is going to believe I felled over twenty men single-handedly, Tannour.”

  “Trust me, A’dal, your men will believe anything you tell them.”

  Trell studied the Vestian and saw real fear behind his gaze—this man, who’d just felled a dozen others in a matter of minutes while bound into blindness…yet something surely had him worried. Trell hoped he wasn’t making an agreement in a moment of weakness that he would regret when clarity returned. “Very well.”

  Tannour let out his breath. He darted off and started retrieving his throwing stars.

  “But…” Trell spoke as best he could in his condition, “when all of this is behind us, Tannour, you must explain to me why you want this secret kept…” he determinedly summoned breath and strength to his voice to finish, “and what it has to do with Loukas n’Abraxis.”

  Tannour’s hand froze on the last of his shuriken. He lifted his eyes to meet Trell’s across the night.

  “Blood of Inanna!” Rolan’s oath carried
to them from atop the slope leading down to the river. “Raegus! The A’dal’s over here!”

  Several curses and some loud scrabbling later and the Nadoriin was standing over Trell and staring down at him with a hand gripping his scimitar and his chin braids twitching agitatedly. “Why do I keep finding you like this?”

  Rolan turned his attention to Tannour, who was slowly coming back to Trell’s side. “And you.” One of his bushy eyebrows arched for his hairline. “If it’s not n’Abraxis it’s you bound up in the A’dal’s misadventures.” His tone thrust a sharp hook of suspicion at both of them.

  A loud disturbance in the forest quickly resolved into Raegus and Loukas leading a mass of dark forms. Raegus hastened over to Rolan’s side. “The A’dal—”

  “Is in need of Madaam Chouri again,” the Nadori prince remarked with considerable disapproval.

  Raegus squatted beside Trell. “Huhktu’s bones, you’ll be the death of me.” The moon cast dark shadows beneath the Avataren’s cheekbones and made hollows of his eyes. He looked Trell over and then turned meaningfully to Rolan. “Help me get him up.”

  Trell lifted a hand. “I can walk—”

  “And Inithiya is my lover!” Rolan barked. “Take his other side, Raegus.”

  As they were carefully maneuvering Trell’s body into their linked arms, Raegus asked Tannour, “What fethen happened here?”

  Tannour was restoring his head scarf to its more usual drape. “The A’dal was set upon by these men. I found him like this.”

  Raegus speared a look at Trell.

  “You’re saying the A’dal killed every one of these men?” Rolan’s tone wasn’t quite challenging Tannour’s claim.

  “Did I not make that clear the first time, Lamodaar?”

  The others were looking around at the dead, obviously counting them, and their eyes became very wide. Loukas, on the other hand, looked ill. He murmured, “I’ll go alert Madaam Chouri,” and hurried off.

  Rolan and Raegus got Trell situated in the basket of their arms and started up the hill after Loukas. Every step they took felt like a spear stabbing Trell’s side. He sucked in shallow breaths amid a swirling haze of pain. “Where are all those magic carpets when you need one?”

  Rolan angled challenge on the beam of his gaze. “I thought you were blessed of Naiadithine. How did this happen?”

  “I wasn’t fighting them in the river.”

  “Twenty against one…” Rolan snorted dubiously, “I think I would’ve figured out a way to walk on water. The gods can’t help us when we don’t seek their aid, A’dal.”

  “Gods are gods,” Raegus grumbled. “They do as they please.”

  “Nay, Raegus n’Harnalt. The gods fear Fate’s will the same as you and I.”

  “The only thing I fear is your fethen blasphemy.” Raegus looked to the heavens as if expecting a lightning spear to come lancing towards them at any moment. His upward gaze caused him to slip on the incline.

  Pain flared through Trell’s entire side, freezing his breath. He fought back a powerful surge of vertigo by focusing on something else. “Tell me…of the men.”

  “You’ll be proud of them, A’dal,” Rolan guided them beneath a splay of overhanging limbs. “They fought well beneath Inanna’s eye.”

  “Beneath Her grace,” Raegus corrected with a pointed glare at Rolan. “Ha’viv knows how those bastards got so close without our sentries spotting their approach—”

  “They had a wielder helping them,” Tannour murmured from somewhere beyond Trell’s view. “He guided them into camp by some arcane means.”

  Raegus gave a deprecating grunt. “That would explain it.” To Trell, he answered, “Madaam Chouri had some gashes to mend—none so marked as yours, A’dal—and a few burns, some cracked ribs…Nyongo dislocated his shoulder taking down four of them. I vow, it was almost a pleasure to see those Saldarian bastards felled after the joyless chase they’ve given us.”

  “How many did we lose?”

  “Eleven,” Raegus answered soberly, “but considering the Saldarian numbers…”

  “If they’d caught us unawares, as they intended,” Rolan remarked, “they might’ve stabbed us all in our sleep and only Ha’viv would be the wiser, but we were ready when they came at us.” He cast a voluminous look at Trell. “You saved many lives tonight, A’dal.”

  Except the eleven that he hadn’t.

  Trell let out a measured exhale. “We must honor our dead—and honor the Goddess Naiadithine,” he managed faintly. “Our gratitude belongs to her. She warned me of the attack.”

  Both Raegus and Rolan stared at him at this. Thankfully they reached camp before either of them could question him further on exactly how conversant he was with the Seventeen Gods.

  Madaam Chouri was a round woman with greying hair and a propensity for patterned headscarves that always seemed to match her bright blue eyes. She was waiting for Trell outside his tent and held back the flaps for their entrance.

  “Bring him in, bring him in.” She directed Rolan and Raegus through one of the draped partitions to where someone—probably Rami—had set up a cot. The two men took great care in laying Trell upon it. Even so, he held his jaw clenched tightly the while.

  “Balé, now away.” Madaam Chouri waved them off. “Loukas n’Abraxis, come hither…” Loukas moved out of a shadowed corner, and the Healer started in with a list of orders for him.

  Tannour entered in the middle of this and took up the position Loukas had just vacated. They patently ignored one another.

  “A’dal!” Rami appeared in the opening and rushed quickly to Trell’s side. “Please, Sidi, you cannot die—”

  “Gods be deaf, child!” Madaam Chouri scourged him with a glare.

  Rami fell to his knees beside Trell’s cot. “If you die, I’ll have to go back to serving the old A’dal—”

  “Eat your words, boy.” Raegus glowered at him.

  “—who eats too many onions and then farts all the night.” Rami cast Raegus a look of abject indignation. “He fills the tent with fumes that make me fear even to light a candle. Every morning I must air the canvases before packing the tent away.” He gripped the edge of Trell’s cot and looked entreatingly to him. “You wouldn’t wish this punishment upon me, would you, Sidi? I’ve served you well, haven’t I?”

  Madaam Chouri grabbed Rami’s ear and encouraged him elsewhere. “Give the A’dal some room to breathe, child.”

  Rami retreated out of reach of her pinching fingers. “He doesn’t need room, Madaam Chouri. He needs a stiff drink. My father is always saying this is the solution to all ills—camel bites, overcooked stew, shrewish women who talk too much, impudent boys who talk even more…” he sighed. “It is a long list.”

  Trell observed the boy fondly, though he only managed a smile by way of a pained exhale. “With Madaam’s help, I hope to make it through, Rami.”

  “I will pray to the Seventeen for you, A’dal.”

  “Balé, child. Go say your prayers elsewhere.” Madaam Chouri pulled up a stool at Trell’s side and started cutting away Tannour’s makeshift bandage. She looked up under her brows at Loukas. “I must clean the wound before I heal it. Bring me the hot water, Loukas.”

  He did so, and she dipped a cloth into the steaming bowl and began soaking Trell’s wound with a different sort of heat. Trell clenched his teeth and tried to imagine he was back at the sa’reyth, stretched out in bed beside Alyneri—that is until Rolan’s words recalled him to the pain of the moment.

  “Valeri,” the Nadoriin’s tone wasn’t entirely judgmental, “tell the A’dal what you learned on your little scouting foray.”

  “It had better have been fruitful,” Raegus added in a tone that was entirely judgmental, “since we stood alone against them, sorely missing your sword. Even n’Abraxis pitched in when you were nowhere to be found—surprised us all out of our fethen shorts.”

  Tannour looked at Loukas like a black stain upon his honor but he answered coolly, “They came for the A�
��dal.”

  Raegus blew out his breath. “How in Inanna’s name did the bastards even know His Highness was traveling with us?”

  Rolan muttered, “I thought sure this was the same Saldarian crew we’d been chasing.”

  “It doubtless was,” Tannour said. “They’ve been colluding with a wielder out of Khor Taran. The larger force came as distraction, while the twenty men the A’dal slew were on a special mission to find and assassinate His Highness. I saw them break away from the main host, but I had no idea at the time that they were hunting the A’dal.”

  Raegus gave an even more colorful curse than usual.

  “So how did they know His Highness was traveling with us?” Rolan wanted to know.

  “I wondered the same thing. The man I questioned could only tell me that they were sent here by a Shamshir’im wielder who’s lording over Khor Taran.”

  Khor Taran…

  Why it clicked only then, Trell couldn’t say, but he immediately knew the true source of their troubles: Viernan hal’Jaitar.

  Consul to Radov, wielder of merit, master of the Shamshir’im—he might’ve heard only Khor Taran, Shamshir’im and wielder and could’ve put it all together.

  Trell clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, stung by the lash of self-reproach. He never should’ve announced his true name to the company. There hadn’t been any need for it, just the hubris of candor when a cautious reserve would’ve served everyone better. Now he looked upon that choice and tasted bile.

  Eleven lives lost for the luxury of truth, for his lack of foresight—thirteen hells, he hadn’t even considered the potential consequences! It was inexcusable.

  Somehow Viernan hal’Jaitar had gotten word of his presence within the company. It almost didn’t matter how the wielder had learned of it. It was Trell’s doing, through and through. And once the wielder had learned of Trell’s location, he’d started working to thwart Trell’s obvious aims—Raine’s truth, Trell had made it easy for him!

  Even more galling to his conscience, his intuition had hinted at a spy in the company from the outset. Why hadn’t he followed a path of logic backwards from that observation to conclude who the spy might be working for?