Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  Ean let out his breath slowly. “I want you to teach me to work deyjiin.”

  Pelas stared at him for a moment’s startled pause. Then he shifted his cane to his other hand. “I confess…” a marveling smile hinted on his lips, “of all the things I thought you might ask of me, this is one I never guessed.” He pinned Ean with a long look then, full of wary disquiet. “I understand why you want to pursue this ability, but the endeavor is fraught—”

  “Your brother has three times claimed my life with this power.”

  At this, Pelas stared at Ean with concern carving deep lines through his expression.

  “Unless I can learn to wield deyjiin, to combat it, I won’t ever be able to defeat him.”

  “Which brother was it—” but then Pelas waved away the answer. “Never mind. It was Shail. Of course it was.” He worked the muscles of his jaw and stared off, ostensibly chewing on the bitter root of his own experiences. After a long moment of this, his copper eyes shifted and held Ean’s. “Three times?”

  Ean stared sootily at him.

  “Ah, I meant only…” Pelas eyed the long line of his cane musingly. “You see, three is the number of times Shail has grievously, even disastrously, fooled me.” He lifted him a grim smile. “If I include all of the years Shail was holding my attention with one hand while stabbing me in the back with the other, that number is exponentially increased.”

  Ean arched brows resignedly. “Should I feel honored or disheartened that he’s outsmarted us both?”

  “Let it motivate us equally. Whatever my youngest brother is planning, we’re aligned in our intention to stop him.”

  “Then you’ll teach me?”

  “It was never a question of willingness.” Pelas contemplated his cane for a moment more, then started them walking again, his brow shadowed now by private concerns. “It’s just…” he cast chariness on his glance, “the only way I know for a mortal to work deyjiin is to first be bound to an immortal.”

  Ean puffed a dubious exhale. “Not likely.”

  “So you see,” Pelas eyed him intriguingly, “it will be a challenge for both of us, this learning.”

  “Fair enough. When do we start?”

  Pelas considered him. Then his lips parted with a smile. “Follow me.”

  Fifty-five

  “Jump, and trust that you will know how to spread your wings as you fall.”

  –The desert parable, The Eagle and the Wren

  Trell roused to the false darkness of heavy draperies closed against the day. The tea Madaam Chouri had made him drink had given him dark and troubling dreams, or perhaps they’d come as a result of the frustration he still felt at himself. In any case, the tea had been potent enough to keep him asleep while they’d washed the muck of battle from his limbs and moved him into his bed.

  As he lay staring into the shadows of his tent and listening to the hum of activity from elsewhere in the camp, Trell explored his bandage with careful fingers and found the wound beneath it much improved. He suspected his quick healing had as much to do with Madaam Chouri’s skill as with the Mage’s masterful manipulation of his life pattern all those months ago.

  Had it been whim or prescience that had prompted the Mage to strengthen Trell’s life pattern the first time he’d Healed him? Whatever his purpose for doing it, Björn’s act had already saved Trell’s life several times.

  The First Lord planned so far in advance of events that Trell envisioned him as walking Time’s unfolding forward edge, with only a tenuous link binding him to the present. Yet when you spoke to him, when he fixed his gaze upon you…there was no debating but that Björn was right there with you, giving life his full attention, giving you his full attention, experiencing every moment to its utmost.

  Trell knew the First Lord didn’t know exactly what would happen in the game, but he planned for so many contingencies that it certainly appeared that he did.

  That’s what Trell had to do. He had to take a broader look, a longer look, a wide enough look to predict what the enemy had in store for them. And he felt an acute urgency to do it now that he knew Viernan hal’Jaitar was sitting on the other side of the gaming board.

  The curtains parted to admit a head. “Ah, Sidi, you’re awake!” Rami’s hovering young face beamed at him. “Might I bring you the soup Madaam Chouri prepared for you?”

  What Trell really wanted was a shoulder of lamb drenched in gravy, with carrots and potatoes and a couple of loaves of bread, and maybe a bottle of wine all to himself. He gave a quiet sigh. “The soup will be fine, Rami.”

  “Balé!” The boy vanished behind the drapes.

  Loukas entered at his exit. “Welcome back to the land of the living. How are you feeling?”

  “Better. What time of day is it?”

  “Past four turns in the afternoon. Raegus said to let you sleep. We needed the day to return things to rights, in any case.”

  Trell looked over his friend, noting the disheveled state of his clothing as much as the circles beneath his eyes. “I hope you slept.”

  “A little.” Loukas gave him a tired smile. “Enough.” He perched on a camp chair and rested elbows on his knees. “Tannour found a survivor from among the enemy last night. He questioned him and learned that someone in our camp is communicating with the wielder at Khor Taran. We still don’t know how, exactly.”

  Trell let out a slow exhale. “I suspected as much.”

  “Raegus and Rolan have been circling each other all night trying to decide what to do about it.”

  “I have some ideas to that end. What of our fallen men?”

  “The funeral pyre is ready. Raegus was waiting for you before lighting it. He thought you’d want to say a few words.”

  “I do, certainly.”

  “Raegus had the men pile the dead Saldarians in a ditch. Said that was better than they deserved.”

  “For men who made sport of trampling women and children, I’d have to agree.”

  In the quiet that followed, Trell noted once again the odd melancholy behind Loukas’s gaze, which had become more pronounced as a result of last night’s sleepless vigil. The most confusing part was how Loukas seemed to endure this sorrow so complacently, as though he felt he deserved whatever malicious affliction was draining his vitality.

  “Loukas…” Trell’s meaningful tone summoned his friend’s gaze.

  Loukas broke eye contact and rose from his chair. “Madaam Chouri was planning to check on you again. I should let her know you’re awake.”

  Trell considered him seriously. Trying to get Loukas to talk to him was like squeezing blood from a stone. “Can you summon Raegus and Rolan while you’re out, and Tannour as well?”

  “Tannour is waiting to see you.” The Vestian’s name tinged Loukas’s tone with an odd disharmony. “I’ll get the others.”

  Just then Rami came through the curtains with Tannour close behind him. The latter had changed back into his usual desert garb and headscarf. He breezed past Loukas without a glance.

  Loukas clenched his jaw, staring forward. Then he turned and pushed through the drapes.

  Trell exhaled a sigh.

  “Here we are, Sidi.” Rami set the footed tray down across Trell’s lap. “Madaam Chouri’s famous soup, which smells very strange to me, but I am assured it is good for the healing.”

  Rami helped Trell sit up and adjusted the tray across his lap. “My mother is very fond of soup,” the boy planted hands on his slender hips and gazed at Trell, “but my father prefers the meat stew—preferably lamb, when the sheep are compliant; goat when they are not. He complains when our dinner is soup, to which my mother always explains that he who would eat the fruit must climb the tree, after which my father usually replies he is no woman to sit on the eggs, to which my mother answers it is better to wear out one’s shoes than one’s sheets, or in my father’s case, one’s arse, which—”

  “By the two Paths, you prattle like a brainless woman.” Tannour’s get-out-of-here stare could’ve me
lted stone.

  It certainly melted the boy’s enthusiasm. He cast a rather uncertain look at Tannour before bowing to Trell and murmuring sheepishly, “I’ll just be outside if you need me, Sidi.”

  “Thank you, Rami.”

  Tannour approached as Rami was departing.

  Having seen the Vestian in action the night before, Trell understood better of why Rolan held him in such cautious regard. Yet for all he moved as smoothly as a cloud’s shadow across the land, hardly even disturbing the air with his passing, there was something brittle about Tannour. It wasn’t just the way the planes of his face seemed smoothed across sharp angles, or how his raven brows drew straight, thick lines above his pale blue eyes. There was a studied contrivance to his manner, as though he’d exhaustively drilled the motions of hand and body and voice, as though comportment had been forced upon him with lashes and blows. Tannour struck Trell as like a shell bleached and tumbled in the surf, battered by circumstance into a mutated shape that was all razor edges.

  Pretending not to notice Trell’s obvious study of him, the Vestian clasped hands behind his back. “How’s your wound, A’dal?”

  “Better, thank you.” Then he added with pointed emphasis, “Thank you.”

  Tannour acknowledged this with a silent glance, potent with unspoken truths. “I questioned a man last night. Did n’Abraxis tell you?”

  The same disharmonic chord rang in Tannour’s voice upon speaking Loukas’s name as when Loukas had spoken Tannour’s.

  Trell started eating his soup. “Was the Saldarian able to tell you how the spy was communicating with Khor Taran’s wielder?”

  “No, but my guess is a bonded pair.”

  “What’s a bonded pair?”

  “It can be any two things, but the items are bonded the same as Adepts. For example…” Tannour pulled something from his pocket and tossed it to Trell.

  Trell caught it out of the air and looked it over—a simple gold band with an onyx stone. “A ring?”

  “I pulled that off the leader of the crew that attacked you.” Tannour passed behind the head of Trell’s bed and around the other side, as though scouring the shadows for hidden threats.

  “You think they were using this?”

  “I’m not an expert, but I know enough to tell that there’s residual power in that ring.”

  Trell held the ring up to the light. How deviously simple! And the bonded item could be any ordinary thing. He felt slightly vindicated in his decision not to hunt for the spy, though admittedly, doing next to nothing about him had been a dreadful mistake, and one he wouldn’t be making again. “Could this ring allow us to talk to the wielder?”

  “It’s slightly more complicated than that. When the leader died, the bonded link died with him. All that’s left is a trace of what once was.” Tannour held a hand to the low chair Loukas had been sitting in. “May I, A’dal?”

  Trell gave a surprised exhale and looked wonderingly at him. “You saved my life, Tannour. Please, be at your leisure.”

  “In Vest one never presumes.” He repositioned his sword as he seated himself. “Some men count it no favor, the saving of their lives.”

  “Some men…” Trell regarded him quietly, letting silence more than words lead the charge of his inquiry.

  Tannour folded his hands around the sculpted chair arms. He scraped the knobbed end with his thumbnail, a furrow between his brows and his attention angled off. But he was as intelligent as he was perceptive. He knew what Trell was asking with his silence.

  After a time, he replied quietly, “It’s because I don’t wish for death that I begged you to keep my secret.”

  Trell wondered what history would drive a man like Tannour Valeri to hide himself from the world. “Who here knows you were trained as an assassin?”

  Tannour’s gaze shifted fast back to his. “Yourself,” he answered, tight and low. “The former A’dal.” He gave a slight wince. “One other.”

  Trell read that to mean Loukas n’Abraxis. “And Rolan Lamodaar?”

  “He suspects, but I wouldn’t put it past Rolan to know the truth. Raegus shares everything with Rolan.”

  Something in this statement snared Trell’s attention. He set it aside for future contemplation and concentrated instead on eating the last of his soup, trying hard to imagine it was lamb and failing utterly.

  When he’d taken as much as he could stand, he set down his spoon and rested back against the pillows to relieve his aching side. Tannour was staring off into the gloom again, his gaze astringent, hands still gripping the knobby ends of the chair.

  Some men shouted their crimes by the lines on their faces; others within the hollows of their eyes. Tannour wore none of the telltale signs of viciousness or cold indifference that might’ve been expected of an assassin. He seemed to Trell like a doll composed of dry sticks bound into form by injustice.

  “Is your life in danger because of a man you killed?”

  Tannour scraped at the iron knob with his thumbnail. “It’s because I wouldn’t kill a man that my life is forfeit.”

  Trell cocked his head sideways. “Last night I watched you slay a dozen men.”

  Tannour flung a forceful look back at him. “For you I killed those men; for the others of our company who they would’ve slain. Blood shed with valor splashes the Mirror Path, Your Highness. This is very different from killing for them. I…” but he bit back whatever else he’d meant to say.

  When he spoke again, his voice had become lifeless, hardened, like the white-scarred flesh where blood no longer flows. “My name is on a list you never want to see your name written on—”

  A sudden, whipping wind battered the tent canvas. The trees outside shook in a frenzy. Trell looked to the ceiling. “Is that—”

  Tannour shoved out of his chair. “It certainly sounds like it.”

  Men started shouting outside.

  Tannour looked quickly to him. “With your leave, A’dal?”

  “By all means.”

  Tannour bolted. Trell called for Rami.

  The boy appeared just as Trell got both of his feet over the edge of the bed. The motion sent pain stabbing through his side, but he wouldn’t countenance meeting one of the drachwyr in a sick bed. Too many times already he’d occupied that position beneath their gazes.

  Trell had just gotten his pants on—gingerly, gritting his teeth—when a rising commotion announced the drachwyr’s imminent arrival. Trell slipped his arms into a loose linen shirt and emerged from his tent in time to see Náiir striding towards him, followed by Tannour and a host of others.

  Náiir wore his fighting blacks and carried his dragon-hilted greatsword behind one shoulder, and though he was not so tall as Ramu, he radiated a formidable threat. When his gaze fell upon Trell, however, he broke into a wide grin.

  “So you haven’t departed us after all!” Náiir took Trell by both shoulders and looked him over with smiling eyes. “My sister was quite distraught. I’m relieved to be able to convey in return that her fears were for naught.”

  Trell regarded him bemusedly. “How did you—”

  Náiir motioned Trell back towards his tent. “It seems that my many-times great niece, your sweet Alyneri, perceived distress across your bond and tried to reach you. When she failed, she told Vaile via their bond, Vaile told my sister, and my sister ordered me to seek you out posthaste. Now I ordinarily ignore Jaya’s orders on principle,” he angled Trell a grin, “but for you, Trell of the Tides, I would always make an exception.”

  “I appreciate that more than you know, Náiir.” Trell would have to thank Alyneri later, when solitude allowed for conversation across their binding. He motioned to his tent. “Will you share a drink with me?”

  “That’s most kind of you.” Náiir ducked inside.

  Trell looked to his waiting officers and shook his head slightly, for he’d sensed that the drachwyr wished to speak alone.

  Raegus arched a brow with a look that said clearly, This can’t be good. He turned a
nd waved off the crowd. “Back to it, then! You’ve seen the A’dal is risen and well. Be ready for his address when his guest departs!”

  Inside his tent, Trell found Rami hovering hesitantly between partitioned spaces, staring at Náiir, who’d found his way into the room Trell used as his office.

  Trell laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Will you bring us some wine, Rami?”

  “Rather, just two goblets,” Náiir called from the other room with a smile.

  Trell headed through the partition as the boy rushed off. Náiir was wandering the space, taking note of the chests, braziers, camp chairs and overlapping carpets, and Trell’s work table covered in maps.

  “These accommodations aren’t so dismaying.” Náiir hooked a leg over one corner of the table Trell was using as a desk and clasped hands in his lap. “Jaya led us to believe you were sleeping in fly tents on the bare earth. She was incensed.”

  Trell found the nearest chair and slowly lowered himself into it. His side was radiating an angry ache all the way down to his knee. “I feel like a sultan, traveling with all of this.”

  Náiir grunted. “You should see Radov’s compound. He could house an entire town beneath the canvas he’s set up north of Ramala. We watched from the skies as countless oxen labored to haul four immense wagons through the desert sands. The heaviest one was transporting his bathtub.”

  Trell somewhat choked out, “Bathtub?”

  Náiir flashed a sharp smile. “Forged of solid gold.”

  “A’dal?” Rami was hovering in the partition holding two empty goblets and looking confused.

  “Ah, good. Bring them to me, child of the Fourth Tribe of Ishmar.”

  Rami dutifully crossed the room towards Náiir, but as he passed Trell, he turned him a bewildered look that clearly asked, fourth tribe of who?

  Náiir took the goblets and dismissed the boy with another of his sharp smiles, the kind that said, I might be handsome, but in my other form, I can squash you with one toe. Rami very nearly fled.