Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  Tannour glanced to the opening, far above. “Well…this is an interesting problem.”

  Critical might’ve been a more suitable word. They were rather stuck. Tannour was clearly unable to climb without releasing Trell, and the dead weight of the unconscious Nadoriin was tugging all of them towards the empty depths.

  Trell felt the man’s weight as pins in his ankle and a shoulder already flaming. “Can you pull me to you, Tannour?”

  “I don’t think so.” Tannour gave a slight wince. “That is…I’ve never used the ropes for this purpose. I can’t think how to—”

  “No, I understand.” Trell looked down at the Nadoriin swaying beneath him. The tangle of netting, combined with the man’s weight, was already cutting off circulation to his foot. He had an idea, but it required the Nadoriin as a conscious participant.

  Trell tried to concentrate on something other than the stabbing pins now working their way up towards his knee. “Can you do anything to rouse the Nadoriin?”

  Tannour’s voice floated down from above. “Possibly.”

  Soon the man’s body started swaying in a widening arc. The pendulum motion pulled agonizingly on Trell’s shoulder and ankle. Then the Nadoriin’s face splashed into the waterfall—once, twice—

  He sputtered. Coughed. Growled a curse.

  The swaying slowed, save now for the Nadoriin’s flailing.

  “Inanna’s Shield!” Trell called to him in the desert tongue, using the most honorable form of address one could pay a Nadori officer. “Give me your name and I’ll give you mine, and let us speak beneath Jai’Gar’s eye.”

  The officer stopped flailing, which seemed to indicate he was considering Trell’s proposal. Perhaps the knock on the head had restored his reason, or at least a sense of self-preservation.

  After a lengthy silence, the Nadoriin’s deep voice replied out of the darkness, “I am Lazar hal’Hamaadi, al-Amir of Khor Taran.”

  “I am Prince Trell val Lorian, and above us is Tannour Valeri, a Vestian who serves in my company of Converted, and the reason we’re still alive.”

  Lazar’s silence that time lasted even longer. “Trell val Lorian.” His body swayed slightly, shooting pain through Trell’s entire side. “I heard you were dead.”

  “Viernan hal’Jaitar would like the world to think so. We didn’t flood your fortress, Commander. The Shamshir’im wielder did that wicked work.”

  The silent blackness beneath him seemed a reflection of the Nadoriin’s stare. After a time, he asked, “And why would he do that?”

  “To keep me from freeing my father’s men.” When Lazar made no reply to this, Trell forced through his pain, “Because Viernan hal’Jaitar will stop at nothing to see me dead. He’s tried drowning me, torturing me, imprisoning me—you might say our mutual enmity runs deep. But you are not Viernan hal’Jaitar, and I am neither of my fathers, and if we’re going to make it out of here, we’ll need to work together.”

  “Beneath Jai’Gar’s eye you speak these things?”

  It was an insult to question the oath once given, but Trell had invaded Lazar’s fortress. “May I stand beneath the Pillars unclothed.” This phrase had significant ramifications if spoken duplicitously.

  Lazar grunted. “You speak too well of our tongue to be a kenneled hound. I accept your words beneath Jai’Gar’s eye, though I fear Inanna will withdraw Her spear from my hand.”

  “May she forgive us both duty’s calling—” A stabbing pain shot through him, and Trell sucked in his breath. “Lazar,” he somewhat gasped, “can you lift yourself to take hold of my legs?”

  The Nadoriin seemed to consider this while he swayed in silence and Trell gritted his teeth. Then he heaved himself upwards. Every motion on Trell’s ankle sent knives stabbing through his tortured joints. Three attempts…four…finally strong hands closed around Trell’s boots.

  Trell let out a shuddering exhale and lifted his gaze. “Tannour?”

  “Your Highness?”

  “Can you push us towards that ledge?” Trell could just make out a slim stone shelf gleaming in the cavern’s dim light.

  While Tannour made a pendulum of them again, Trell ground out through clenched teeth, “Lazar, try to get a hold wherever you can.”

  The next few minutes were as harrowing as they were agonizing. The ledge was shallow, and handholds were few. It took several attempts for Lazar to find purchase, and many minutes more before he’d maneuvered himself into a sitting position where he could grab for Trell and drag him onto the ledge as well.

  At last they both found precarious seating. Tannour released his fifth-strand binding around Trell’s arm, and the prince hugged the much-abused appendage to his chest while his eyes teared and his breath came in painful shards.

  Trell looked down at the tangle of netting that bound his and the Nadoriin’s ankles. “Commander, any chance you can cut us free?”

  “I have no blade.”

  Trell still wore his sword, but there was no way he could draw it and keep his position on the narrow slice of stone supporting him.

  “Use mine.” Tannour’s voice floated down from above, followed in short order by a dagger.

  Lazar hissed a curse commonly used against wielders and drew away from the floating dagger as if from a snake.

  “Tannour is a Vestian airwalker, not a wielder.” Trell caught the dagger with his good arm and handed it over, hilt first. “Can you do the honors?” The pain beneath his words was answer enough as to why he himself couldn’t.

  Studying him beneath a deeply furrowed brow, the Nadoriin slowly took the dagger. He stared at it for a time, then he lifted dark eyes to Trell. “You might’ve cut me free while still hanging back there. Inanna would not have shamed you. I tried to drag you down to death.”

  “Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, Commander, but my honor resides in my own acts.” Trell shook his head with a slight smile. “Not in yours.”

  Lazar held Trell’s gaze while he fingered the dark-bladed dagger. Then he bent and cut the netting from their feet.

  Trell could just make out the Vestian’s silhouetted form, still clinging to the stone about five feet above their ledge. “Tannour, how do you suggest we get out of here?”

  “Can you climb, Your Highness?”

  With an inoperable arm and a potentially broken—certainly useless—ankle? He gave a pained grimace that might’ve passed for a smile only in the darkness. “Not easily.”

  Tannour growled something in Vestian that sounded a curse. Trell wasn’t sure who he was cursing. “I might be able to—”

  “I will carry you.” Lazar met Trell’s surprised gaze with grave regard. “If you can hold to my back, I will get you to the top. You have my word, Prince of Dannym.”

  “I can secure you both, Your Highness,” Tannour said.

  Trell held Lazar’s gaze, feeling a welling admiration. It was a brave man who shook the hand of an enemy, but a greater one who offered him his aid. He realized that Lazar was still waiting for his reply. “Sorry, I was just…” he shook his head, smiled. “Thank you.”

  “We spoke beneath Jai’Gar’s eye. He is watching.”

  The Nadoriin carefully found his footing on the ledge and then slowly and with unexpected care, helped Trell to do the same.

  The process of wrapping himself around the burly commander proved less comfortable and far more heart-pounding in its management, but finally he called to Tannour that they were ready and felt something ephemeral hug around his form, securing him to the Nadoriin.

  Lazar hissed another oath and turned a suspicious stare over his shoulder. “You swear he’s no wielder?”

  Trell smiled at him. “May Huhktu claim my bones before my time.”

  Lazar shook his head. “I’ve never met a Northman who speaks so well of our tongue.” He started climbing, asking as he reached for the first handhold, “Where did you learn it?”

  “Duan’Bai.”

  Lazar gave a choked exhale. He plugged his foot into a crev
ice and heaved them up with a grunt of effort. “Duan’Bai—you?” His voice became strained with effort as he asked, “Didn’t the Khurds slay your brother Prince Sebastian?”

  “A ploy orchestrated by Viernan hal’Jaitar to draw my father’s forces into M’Nador’s war.”

  Lazar slipped a handhold and only just grabbed it again in time. He hugged the rock wall for a moment, breathing hard, and glanced back at Trell. “This is a truth?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes widened, serious and intent. “Explain it to me.”

  While Lazar climbed, Trell told him, “Five years ago, Radov abin’Hadorin decided I would prove a nuisance to his warmongering and sent a crew of Saldarian mercenaries to invade my ship, interrogate, and kill me. After questioning me thoroughly—and quite ungently, I assure you—they roped me to a trunk and threw me into the Fire Sea.”

  Lazar shifted his weight and hauled them up to the next ledge. “How did you survive?”

  “Our Goddess Naiadithine took pity on me and delivered me safely to the Akkad.”

  “Inanna’s ashes.” Lazar blew out an explosive breath and turned another stare over his shoulder. They’d passed the section where Tannour had been hanging when he’d first caught Trell. The Vestian had climbed well above them now and had nearly reached the mouth of the cavern.

  Lazar’s gaze as he stared at Trell was darkly troubled. “Your words are treason. I would they shouted with less veracity.”

  “As do I, Commander. Radov’s greed has shattered my family and imperiled my father’s throne.”

  The Nadoriin cast him another look before starting his climb again. “And your birthright?”

  Trell clung to him with one arm and both legs, feeling the pressure of a different weight upon his heart. “The Eagle Throne is my brother Sebastian’s to claim. I walk a path askew of my fathers.”

  “Fathers?” Lazar spoke the emphasis through a hard exhale as he hauled them up to the next handhold.

  “My fathers: King Gydryn val Lorian, and our Emir, Zafir bin Safwan al Abdul-Basir. It’s…a long story.”

  The Nadoriin gave a dubious grunt. “So you’ve been in the Akkad since…the Goddess,” he almost seemed to choke over the word, or at least the idea of it, “spared you?”

  “More or less.” Trell winced into the darkness. “With a brief tour through Darroyhan before I escaped.”

  “Darroyhan.” The Nadoriin slipped his foothold. Trell felt Tannour’s binding constrict while Lazar hastily found a new place for his foot. He tried not to think on what would’ve happened if Tannour hadn’t been roping them with the fifth.

  Clutching hard to the rock face then, and with his rapid breath mirroring Trell’s in equal parts alarm and relief, Lazar somewhat gasped, “How in Inithiya’s name did you escape Darroyhan?”

  “With help from a Sundragon and a zanthyr.” Trell exhaled a slow breath to calm his own racing heart. That had been a very near thing. “It’s another long story.”

  Lazar again paused to turn him a wide-eyed stare. “You’re a walking fable, Prince of Dannym.” Then he hauled them up with another heave of effort.

  And Tannour came into view beside them. An unreadable smile flickered on the Vestian’s lips. He told Lazar, “He is no fable. He is our A’dal.”

  Left of Tannour, the cavern opening appeared a blister of light surrounded by rough plaster and then enveloping darkness. Tannour clung beside the hole in an impossibly awkward position, like some improbable spider; the kind of position only an experienced rock climber could assume with any confidence.

  The Vestian lengthened his limbs to push his head around the opening, a mere foot above the rushing water, whereupon Trell heard a voice shout, “It’s Tannour!”

  ***

  When the water had first clutched Tannour into its embrace, it had also ripped him from ver’alir. He’d tumbled, spun, become entangled and trapped, dizzied and water-blinded until finally it had spat him out for breath, only instants before the current clutched him and dragged him over a waterfall into the darkness of a cavern inside the mountain.

  The fall was…very far. Yet now capable of breath and with air back in his grasp, Tannour bound himself to ver’alir and sensed the bottom before he hit—with just enough time to commune and reduce what might’ve been a bone-shattering splat to a rather ungentle and certainly ungraceful stumble-trip-roll across the cavern floor.

  He stood for a while then, encased in ver’alir, letting his racing heart settle, recognizing that had he taken an instant longer to commune, this place would’ve marked his end, thinking for a painful moment what that would’ve meant in the broader context of his life. Then he thanked the Ghost Kings and in total darkness, set to climbing.

  Air told him where pockets of stone would fit his fingers and feet. Air supported him when one of those proved too shallow or fragile. Air might’ve carried him all the way to the summit, but to commit to an elemental communing, such as airwalking itself, would be to bind himself forever to the path.

  You don’t think hal’alir is still open to you after what you’ve done?

  Tannour didn’t know, and he certainly didn’t care to think on it just then. Thinking on it any time brought a strain to his breath. He focused instead on the vertical climb, which he found far less taxing than pondering how dark his soul might’ve become by treading ver’alir.

  He was nearly to the summit when Air brought him his A’dal’s voice raised in exasperation, and a few heartbeats later, his A’dal.

  Tannour flung a hand to grab Trell’s arm and caught it but couldn’t hold him. As he felt his hand slipping, he flung a rope of air—desperate, thinking fast, or hardly thinking. Trell was his tether. But he was also his friend. Tannour didn’t know if it would work—he’d never used air-bindings for any constructive purpose, but he understood their nature and he hoped…

  Trell slammed around beneath him, taut in his line. Tannour whispered a prayer of thanks under his breath. Twice invoking the Ghost Kings in less than an hour. It was a momentous day.

  As they resolved what to do and started climbing, Tannour listened to Trell’s words and marveled at the prince’s candor with the Nadoriin—nay, not merely a Nadoriin, but the al-Amir of the fortress they had invaded!

  Twice as he climbed he felt the binding thread he’d kept on the two men constrict and pull against his hold. That was twice the prince would’ve owed him a life had he been keeping count in the Vestian way, or three times by an Avataren accounting. Tannour no longer tracked the tally he and Loukas had once kept on each other, but he bet Loukas knew it down to the decimal point.

  But Tannour didn’t want to think about Loukas. He had a new tether now. What did he care about Loukas n’Abraxis?

  Only…everything.

  Tannour clenched his jaw and threw himself upwards to hook his fingers in the rock where it abutted the plaster wall. He hung there with his arms long over his head and his shoulders hugging his ears while the waterfall gushed in all its elemental power beside him.

  Water very likely coursed its own path of Alir. But that was the thing about the Vestian Sorceresy—they didn’t tell you a path even existed until the path had chosen you.

  ‘Need to know…’ Tannour supposed it was a common enough phrase in the espionage community; of course, the Sorceresy believed its operatives only needed to know what they wanted them to know.

  Tannour slung up his leg and wedged himself sideways between plaster, wood supports and stone in a semi-crouched position that would allow him to press out around the edge of the hole and assess their options.

  Trell and the Nadoriin joined him soon thereafter, with the latter radiating confused conflict and his A’dal merely radiating pain. Tannour felt it as his own—his air-binding had caused it, after all—but how was he to have known that the A’dal was dragging around by the ankle a Nadoriin weighing upwards of fifteen stones?

  Air brought him voices above the rush and roar of falling water. Near voices. Familiar voices. T
annour ensured that Trell and the Nadoriin were stable just below him and then lengthened his hold to peer out around the side of the hole.

  The scene that met him was…

  Astonishing didn’t quite describe it. Four Converted were heading their way, navigating the strong current with ropes around their waists and more than five times as many men anchoring each of them from surer positions further back. Loukas was in the lead. No doubt Loukas had come up with the idea.

  “It’s Tannour!” one of them shouted. Not Loukas, though Tannour was sure that Loukas had seen him, because air shouted the sudden quickening of Loukas’s pulse.

  Tannour called out to them, “The A’dal is with me!”

  A voice shouted something from further away. One of the men closer repeated the words. “He asks about their al-Amir.”

  “I also have Lazar hal’Hamaadi!”

  The men conveyed this back to others, whereupon a cheer rose up, Nadori in nature. The Nadoriin must’ve surrendered or otherwise fallen to the Dannish soldiers after the tower collapsed, for king’s men and Trell’s own had charge of the scene.

  Yet for all their effort, they wouldn’t be of much use to Tannour unless he could somehow lob himself, Trell and the al-Amir beyond the swift-moving current at the edge of the falls. He scanned his eyes across the shattered tower and the wall crushed beneath it. It gave him an idea.

  Tannour ducked back inside. “A’dal,” he looked down to Trell, who he’d kept purposefully bound to the Nadoriin—Tannour sensed Trell’s radiating pain and didn’t trust his A’dal to confess the truth of his condition. “I have an idea.”

  “I’m all ears for it, Tannour.”

  “There is some risk involved. I don’t know if it will work.”

  “You’ve gotten us this far, Vestian,” Lazar remarked, which seemed almost a compliment.

  “Well enough. By your leave.” Tannour pushed himself back out to see around the cavern’s edge and called to the men, “Hold your positions. We’re coming out!” The last thing he needed was for one of the men to get too close to the falls and lose themselves to the current, which grew increasingly wicked the nearer one got to the rim.