“It's not Alaine who causes the biggest trouble, it's Gerrold,” said Aiden, his voice rising. “And that's your fault Rhillian, not ours-”
“Aiden.” Kessligh held up a hand. “Let her finish.” He folded his hands on the tabletop and waited.
“They all gather, Kessligh,” Rhillian said sombrely. “All the dukes. Most are with Steiner. Steiner has the most money, and quite possibly the backing of the temple. The momentum is with him, and if it continues, he shall surely lead an army of Torovan to the Bacosh next spring. Our friends in the Saalshen Bacosh can withstand the Larosa alliance, and perhaps the army of Lenayin…but if the Torovans march south as well, I fear it shall be too much.”
“I agree,” said Kessligh. “Danor alone can give perhaps eight thousand. The others, somewhat less…but if Songel and Cisseren come on board, it will be at least thirty thousand men, possibly more. The Larosa have perhaps sixty thousand. Lenayin could muster as many as forty, although thirty seems more likely given the ongoing instabilities…but thirty thousand Lenays, well equipped, are worth twice that many Torovans. Perhaps more than twice. At least one hundred and twenty thousand men, and possibly as many as one hundred and fifty…and perhaps Telesia and Raani will send a token force as well.
“Enora, Rhodaan and Ilduur can between them muster perhaps forty thousand. They comprise the most formidable army in all human lands, but even with their defences, odds of three- and four-to-one against are treacherous. Saalshen can add great numbers for harassment but, against all logic, Saalshen has refused to create heavy forces, despite two centuries of warning that they must.
“We must win the conflict here, Rhillian. If the army of Torovan can be held up, or split, or prevented from forming and marching entirely, we can win the war before the forces even take the field in the Bacosh. Better yet, if we can intercept these weapon shipments to Lenayin, that will give the Saalshen Bacosh more time to prepare. But it can't happen if the Nasi-Keth and the talmaad cannot work together here in Petrodor. If we get in each other's way, or work toward conflicting ends, it will be a disaster. And I'm telling you that forming an allegiance with House Maerler is a crazy risk to take-”
“Riskier than putting all faith in a Nasi-Keth leader who does not command all of the Nasi-Keth?” Rhillian's tone had hardened. “What will you do, ask them nicely? And which of the families will listen, when they know you do not have the force to back up any threats?”
“I'll get the force,” Kessligh said shortly. “I am getting it.”
“You play politics while my entire people are threatened with annihilation! We have tried playing politics with humans before. We tried with King Leyvaan two hundred years ago. He repaid us with slaughter. These people hate us. These Verenthanes, they think we are the demons of Loth incarnate, and they wish us nothing but death, right down to our smallest children…”
“Not all Verenthanes,” Aiden said quietly.
Rhillian's emerald stare found him, and flicked down to the eight-pointed star medallion upon his chest. “Of course, Aiden my friend.” She reached to him across the table and grasped his hand. Her expression was pained. “Of course not all Verenthanes. But the priests, and the powerful, and the fanatics…it is enough, Aiden. It is the majority, in fact, in all places except amongst the Nasi-Keth and the peoples of the Saalshen Bacosh itself.
“Humans hate so easily. I think you need to. It tells you who you are. Such hatred is visceral. We serrin…” she shook her head, helplessly. “We do not understand it. We try, but it is beyond us. We are not so territorial. We know who we are, and such hatred has no use for us. We only understand one thing, a thing in which we have been two hundred painfully slow years in the learning. These people, these haters? They only stop when we kill them.”
Her gaze travelled about the table, stopping at one after another. There was no imploring search for understanding now. Only a cold, deadly certainty. Serrin, Kessligh had said often enough, were peaceful by choice, not by nature. It was, to say the least, a significant distinction.
“Saalshen shall not allow Patachi Steiner to form this army,” Rhillian said coldly. “We shall prevent it however we have to. If our Nasi-Keth friends can offer a better solution, we'll take it. Only know where we stand. If the Saalshen Bacosh falls, the fanatics will not stop at the border. They'll march on into Saalshen, and they have all the mercy of death itself. We do not fight for an ideal, or a king, or wealth or land. We fight for the right to exist. And we refuse to fail.”
Jaryd Nyvar circled, flexing his left hand against the grip of his stanch. Opposing him circled Teriyan Tremel, long red hair tied into various braids down his back. Shouts and yells filled the air, and the clash of wooden stanches, followed by the thump of a landing blow. Jaryd barely heard them, watching only Teriyan's feet, and his centre, as old Lieutenant Asheld had taught him long ago in the yard of Nyvar Holding.
Teriyan attacked, a deceptive, sliding approach preceding a vicious slash from the right. Jaryd parried, danced back, knocked the next attack sideways and nearly caught Teriyan's padded banda as the taller man leapt aside. Teriyan grinned, sweat dripping, and gave a nod of approval, wrist-spinning his stanch. Jaryd's face never moved.
Teriyan attacked twice more, and both times Jaryd faded, the second time clipping Teriyan on the shoulder. His left forearm throbbed where it had been broken nearly two months before, but it felt strong beneath splints and a wooden guard. Teriyan favoured the right-foot half-step, he decided. It preceded most of his attacks, just for an instant. When the next attack came, Jaryd parried and cut hard for the left, just where the transition from high defence to low was most difficult…but met a firm defence, followed by a hard blow to his midsection.
He fell hard in the dirt, jarring his old injury. Teriyan grinned again, spinning his stanch as he stood over the fallen man. “Nice try, lad, don't think that half-step hasn't been obvious to four dozen other opponents too.” He reached down, but Jaryd ignored the hand, and got back to his feet.
“Again,” said Jaryd, stonily, resuming his stance. Teriyan shrugged, and did likewise. Two exchanges later, and Jaryd's next hard cut also met with firm defence and a killing blow.
“You're leaving yourself too far open,” Teriyan advised, shaking his head as Jaryd once again struggled to his feet. “It's no good going for the kill all the time if you get killed in the process. You don't have to risk so much when you attack.”
“All war is risk,” Jaryd replied, wiping sweat from his forehead, and dust from his pants. “Again.” His forearm was throbbing now. He'd been first to arrive for evening practice and intended to be last to leave. It was a pattern he'd been repeating since his arrival here in the small Lenay town of Baerlyn one and a half months ago. Back then he'd been restricted to basic drill, strength-building and technical exercises. Only now was his arm recovered enough that he could match himself against the village seniors. But, after so long without sparring, his form was rustier than a farmer's scythe.
Twenty exchanges later, and he'd been knocked down another four times. Each time, he dusted himself off and resumed his stance. The sun now sank below the lip of the Baerlyn Valley, casting shadow across the training hall, its surrounding grassy paddocks and the long, winding strip of ramshackle wooden buildings that was the town.
“Enough,” said Teriyan, finally, as the tachadar circles about them were abandoned by the other combatants, and the outdoor yard grew cool and silent. “I've a hard day tomorrow, and you'd best be riding back before dark.”
“The dark doesn't frighten me,” said Jaryd. “Once more.”
“I said no, lad.”
“Perhaps you grow too old for fighting,” said Jaryd. “Perhaps your wife could find better use for you in the kitchens.”
Teriyan just looked at him for a moment. Then resumed his stance, wordlessly. The next time he attacked, it was faster and harder. Two blows had Jaryd reeling, and the third took his leg from under him. Then he was on his back, blinking into that darkening
blue sky, with Teriyan's stanch pressed point-first into his chest.
“You're an angry little bunny, aren't you?” Teriyan observed. “You really think your grand revenge will come sooner for all your puffing and blowing?”
Jaryd knocked the stanch aside and climbed slowly to his feet. He ached and throbbed all over. He'd run that morning, performed the most tiring stable chores after that, then practised taka-dans and knife throwing beneath the old vertyn tree at the ranch, then gone hunting with bow and arrow for game in the wild hills. He'd only managed a rabbit, but it was all experience. When he had been heir of Tyree, he'd always believed that enemies were most honourably killed in single combat, preferably when challenged to a duel. Lately, however, he'd become less fussy. If the Great Lord Arastyn of Tyree died by formal challenge or by an arrow shot from the bushes in the dark, he cared not either way. Arastyn had invoked Sylden Sarach, an old law, and had dissolved Jaryd's family, stripped him of noble title and perhaps, though no one was certain, even murdered his father.
Jaryd cared little for his lost title. He had not relished the prospect of becoming Great Lord of Tyree in the first place. He had never loved his father, nor had his father loved him. His sisters and younger brother had seemed to accept their fate willingly enough, and Jaryd found in their willingness nothing but contempt for them. Wealth was often nice, but now that he lacked it, he found that he did not miss it particularly. And as for status, every Lenay man worth the name knew that the only true status in Lenayin was honour, and the only true honour came from courage, steadfastness and skill with a blade.
Jaryd did not seek revenge for any of these lost, petty things. When they invoked Sylden Sarach, Arastyn's men had killed Jaryd's little brother Tarryn. For that, all would die.
“Lad, look at you,” Teriyan sighed. “You're a mess. Even Sasha didn't work this hard, and she's harder to keep still than a bobcat with a bee up its arse.”
“I'm fine,” Jaryd muttered, straightening with difficulty. His back was suddenly stiff, and his shoulders hurt-muscle, bone and all. “I grow stronger.”
“Aye, you do. One day soon you'll be so strong, you'll be dead.” Jaryd stretched, gingerly, trying not to wince at the various accumulated pains. Teriyan shook his head. “Look, why don't we grab a meal at the Steltsyn instead? I'll bet it's a damn sight better than whatever mess Lynnie's cooked up for you, and I'll tell you how I read that last overhead cross so easily-”
“I don't need your pity!” Jaryd snarled at him. “I can feed myself, I can train myself, I can claim revenge myself! And I will!”
He stalked off, trying not to limp. Teriyan watched him go, eyes faintly narrowed, stanch across his shoulders, muscular arms hung on the ends.
As Jaryd rode back to the Baerlyn main road, he could smell dinner wafting through town, or smoke that rose from stone chimneys above brown slate roofs. Children looked at him as he passed, guardedly, which was most unlike Lenay children anywhere. Jaryd thought they'd been warned not to bother him. Which suited him fine.
He passed Parrachik's, the moneylender where wagons were waiting down the side lane, and Torovan merchants in bright shirts and broad hats were seated about a table on the verandah, sipping wine with Parrachik himself. All looked at the once heir of Tyree as he passed. All nodded, cautiously, as Jaryd's dark stare passed over them. He felt that he would burn alive from the heat of his shame. He wanted to strike the heads off those smug bastards, but none of it mattered. He deserved his shame. His little brother Tarryn was dead. He, the big brother Tarryn had so looked up to and adored, had been incapable of protecting him. The men who had killed Tarryn would all die screaming, and until that blessed day arrived, all other concerns were as nothing to him. For that day he worked, and strove, with every fibre of his being.
Past the Steltsyn Star, the inn bustling as the meals were prepared and the fires lit, and Jaryd dug in his heels. His horse was a fine chestnut gelding, taken from a fallen Hadryn cavalryman at the Battle of Ymoth after Jaryd's own horse had been felled. It was good to have a horse of his own. He wanted as little of Baerlyn's, or Sashandra Lenayin's charity, as he could possibly accept.
It was nearly dark by the time he reached the ranch, and he saw lamplight glowing from the house windows as he galloped across the open, grassy slope, and then came the barking of the boarhounds. Jaryd skirted the huge, broad vertyn tree, and its surrounding vegetable gardens and chicken run, and headed for the stables.
He stabled his horse in the empty place once reserved for Sashandra's big black, and trudged on weary legs down the grassy slope toward the glowing lights. On the rear verandah, the boarhounds, Kaif and Keef, sniffed at him and wagged their tails-Jaryd gave them each a scratch between the ears, and pushed through the rear door into the kitchen.
Beyond the kitchen, a visitor stood before the fireplace, a cup in hand. He was a young man, dressed in plain travelling clothes, yet even that could not hide the refinement of his bearing. There was a silver clasp at his collar, and a neck chain too. His short red hair shone faintly in the firelight, his skin pale, his features fine, a light dusting of freckles across nose and cheeks. He looked at Jaryd, and his light green eyes registered at first surprise, and then caution. Finally, he gave a weak, sheepish smile.
“Jaryd,” he said.
“You,” said Jaryd. “You get the fuck out of this house.” The young lordling's face fell. The extra horse must have been stabled with the others, Jaryd realised, but he hadn't noticed. Damn he was tired.
“You can't boss him about,” said Lynette from Jaryd's side in the kitchen, “this isn't your house.” Jaryd stared at her, blankly. Stupid pest of a girl. He hadn't seen her either, there at her kitchen bench chopping vegetables. She had long, tangled red hair, a flaming red unlike this new arrival's pale rose. She was skinny and freckled, and a pain in the neck. Worst of all, she was Teriyan Tremel's daughter, a dear friend of Sashandra's, and was in fact, if not in title, the person-most-senior for the entire gods-damned ranch. At sixteen summers.
Jaryd didn't mind taking instruction from a woman beneath a roof, least of all in the kitchen. That was the way through most of Lenayin-men ruled outside, and women ruled within. But this brat was a horsewoman too, and an annoyingly good one, even if she couldn't see the point of lagand. Around the ranch, all of his victories at grand lagand tournaments, all of his fame as a rider and a horseman and victor in countless swordwork contests, all counted for nothing.
“Aeryl, don't mind him,” Lynette called, returning attention to her vegetables. “He's just grumpy all the time. You've my invitation to stay, and Andreyis's too.”
“M'Lady,” said Aeryl with a light bow. “Jaryd come, share a drink with me.” Earnestly. “It's so good to see you, I can't tell you how…”
He stepped forward, and Jaryd drew his sword. “They sent you, didn't they?” Aeryl stared at the naked steel. “They sent you to talk with me, just like they sent Rhyst to talk with me while they murdered my little brother!”
“Jaryd, you stupid fool!” Lynette yelled at him. “Put it away right now! Andreyis!”
“Jaryd, I swear, I wasn't even at Rathynal, my sister was ill in childbirth, we were not certain that she would live-”
“Liar! You're all the same, all the Tyree nobility, all a mob of liars and murderers and honourless thieves!”
“Andreyis!” Lynette yelled again and then Andreyis was there, stopping between Jaryd and Aeryl, tall and dark, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Put it away,” said the younger man. He was awkward, this lad of eighteen summers, not yet grown into his gangling frame. But there was a confidence in his young eyes, and the effect was not entirely spoiled by the big ears that stuck out from under his ragged mop of dark hair. Rabbit ears, the other Baerlyn boys sometimes called him. And other names besides.
Jaryd snorted. “What are you going to do, draw that thing? You couldn't take me in your dreams.”
“I could too,” Andreyis retorted, but Lynette was advancing
on Jaryd in fury.
“You stupid, idiot bonehead!” she shouted, stirring spoon waving in one hand. “What's the matter with you? Is everything a war to you now? Do you solve every argument by killing someone?” Jaryd's lip curled, and he tried to think of some suitably cutting riposte, but he only knew the language of men, all threats, insults and bluster. A redheaded girl with a kitchen spoon was nothing he was equipped to handle. “You're five years older than me, but at least I'm aware that being a great warrior is far more about who you kill and why than just whether or not you can! When are you going to grow up?”
Jaryd stood where he was, sword trembling in his hand. He couldn't recall it feeling this heavy before. It seemed to be made of iron, dragging his arm toward the floor.
“I mean, when are all you young men of Lenayin going to-”
“Lynnie,” Andreyis interrupted and shook his head, dark eyes watching Jaryd warily. “Enough, Lynnie.” A moment passed. Jaryd sheathed his sword and leaned a hand against the wall. The world was spinning. “Jaryd, come and take a seat. I'll get you something to drink.”
Jaryd went, because there was nothing else to do. A chair presented itself and he collapsed into it, somehow managing to avoid tangling the sword. He could hear Lynette and Andreyis in hushed conversation in the kitchen and, quite unexpectedly, he felt a sudden affection for the lad. Andreyis remembered what Jaryd had been, even when everyone else seemed to have forgotten. Andreyis still looked up to him.
For no particular reason, his hand strayed to his chest, feeling at the rings beneath his shirt. There were two of them, slim metal, gleaming with a hint of gold when observed in the firelight. They would bend and come apart to pierce through an ear, or sometimes a nose-Goeren-yai rings, decorations for men, not for women. He had declared himself Goeren-yai to free himself from the restrictive practices of Verenthanes. Those practices would not allow him his revenge. But the old ways of the Goeren-yai knew the tale of blood and steel all too well.
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