Leaves of Flame ch-2

by Benjamin Tate

  He cried out, his exclamation cutting the arguments around the table off as sharply as any sword could have. All of the dwarren Riders turned to face him and he squinted at them in return, a slight smile touching the corners of his mouth. He let the silence hold, then stuck the end of his pipe in his mouth and inhaled deeply, releasing the smoke before using the end of the pipe to point to the map.

  “You are almost there,” he said, letting his voice rumble. “However, I feel that the gods will favor the following more.” Using the stem of his pipe, he pushed a few of the stones into new positions. “The trettarus should be positioned here and here, in small groups so they can move about more easily and select their targets with precision. We do not have many of the forest’s gifts. They must be used sparingly.”

  The younger Riders remained silent, turning their attention to Tarramic, who concentrated on the new arrangement with a creased brow, then met Quotl’s gaze through the haze of smoke.

  “You say the gods favor this?”

  Quotl thought about the portent of the storm, of what it truly foretold, what neither he nor Azuka had been able to voice, had only been able to skirt. But what he had said to Azuka was true: there was nothing any of them could do to challenge it.

  He could only arrange matters to minimize the damage.

  He nodded.

  Tarramic frowned down at the map. Quotl could sense that a few of the Riders did not agree with him, but their opinions did not matter. He knew Tarramic would heed his advice. He was the head shaman, and Tarramic always listened to the gods.

  The clan chief finally looked up and muttered, “So be it.”

  Moiran stood on the balcony overlooking the open courtyard before the manse, her arms crossed over her chest. In the distance to the east, gray storm clouds loomed, the faint rumble of thunder echoing down through the hills to the lake, although she had yet to see any flashes of lightning. The wind tasted of rain, damp and metallic, and the leaves of the trees that surrounded the courtyard were turned up, exposing their pale undersides to the late spring sunlight.

  In counterpoint to the thunder, the clash of weapons rose from the yard below, punctuated by the sharp commands of Fedaureon and Mattalaen, the caitan who had trained Fedaureon and a significant portion of the young men who’d joined the Phalanx at the same time. Daevon, her son’s Protector stood to one side, watching intently.

  Now, the caitan drilled them all, the group paired off on the stone cobbles below, swords flashing as they grunted and strove to break through each others’ guard. Moiran kept her eyes on her son. Within a week of Aeren’s warning about the ascension of the Order as a House within the Evant, Fedaureon had the Phalanx on alert, the border patrols increased and the Phalanx here within the House doubled. A week after that, he’d ordered an escalation of the training, so that now the Phalanx within Artillien practiced at least twice a day. Fedaureon participated in nearly all of them. He had always been more military-minded than Aeren, more skilled with the blade and the bow and more adept at military strategy. His anger had only risen the longer the members of the Order of the Flame remained within House lands, his aggression obvious on the training ground below.

  Moiran frowned. So far, he had taken his rage out on the practice field. Messengers from Caercaern had arrived at the local temple ten days ago, supposedly relaying the edict of the Evant that all members of the Flame within Rhyssal House lands were to return to the Sanctuary. She had expected them to depart within two days. They hadn’t. Fedaureon had sent a servant down to the temple to ask whether the acolytes required any assistance. Their offer had been flatly refused. The members of the Flame had continued to preach at the daily rituals, without any sign they intended to depart Artillien as ordered.

  The next message had been less polite, and had been greeted with total silence, the acolytes of the Order not even allowing the servant into the temple to deliver the message personally to the members of the Flame present. The acolytes had denied the servant coldly, then closed the temple door in her face.

  That had been two day ago. The acolytes and the Order were skirting dangerously close to the edge of polite formality. Based on the ferocity of Fedaureon’s attacks on his opponents in the courtyard below, they’d already surpassed the thin edge of his patience. In fact, the rest of those fighting had fallen back to watch Fedaureon spar with a lone attacker.

  But that was not what had brought Moiran to the balcony. No. She had sought out Fedaureon for an entirely different matter.

  Below, Fedaureon cried out, blade cutting in sharply, his opponent parrying the attack, already worn down. Her son shoved the block aside viciously, stepped into the opening, and brought his elbow up into his opponent’s face, pulling the blow. It still retained enough force to snap the Phalanx guard’s head back and send him reeling to the ground. Mattalaen barked an end to the match and Fedaureon growled, sword already raised for what would have been a killing blow. For a moment, Moiran wasn’t certain her son would heed his caitan, but then the fierce expression dropped from Fedaureon’s face and he grinned, sword lowered as he reached down with his free hand to help his opponent up from the ground.

  They dusted off, Mattalaen making some kind of comment regarding the match to each privately before nodding toward where Moiran stood watching. Her son glanced toward her, then sheathed his sword and moved toward the manse’s entrance, Daevon falling in at his side.

  Moiran stepped away from the balcony as Mattalaen picked two more men from the ranks and paired them off. She moved into the inner room and took a seat, waiting.

  Fedaureon arrived ten minutes later, still sweaty from the fighting, but he’d paused long enough to remove his outermost armor.

  “What is it?” he demanded as soon as he entered. His face was flushed and his breath shortened.

  She raised an eyebrow and glanced toward Daevon.

  “Fedaureon,” the Protector said, his voice level but full of warning.

  Her son grimaced, but then caught her demeanor and the impatience that riddled his shoulders and face vanished. He had the grace to appear abashed. “I apologize, Mother. You wished to speak to me?”

  Moiran motioned toward the seat across from her. A low table stood between the two chairs, a stack of letters close to her left hand, a platter of cheese and a decanter of wine on her right. She began to pour him a glass as he settled into the chair, coughing slightly as he tried to calm his breathing. His mind was still on the practice field below, though.

  “I think I have discovered who Lotaern’s allies are within the Evant,” she said.

  Fedaureon stilled, suddenly attentive. “Who? Father has been trying to figure it out for weeks! It’s all that he talks about in his letters.”

  “I know.”

  “Then how have you figured it out? We don’t have access to the Evant. We can’t see who’s dealing with whom, we only have Father’s letters to go by.”

  Moiran smiled, suppressing the motherly urge to say she had her ways. “I used the Ilvaeren.”

  Fedaureon fell silent, eyeing her with a frown. Daevon did the same from behind. She handed her son his wine and waited, attempting to still the trembling of her hands. She had never used the Ilvaeren in this way, had never even considered it until two weeks ago, when she realized that some of her routine requests with the Houses she normally traded with were being denied. The refusals had been annoying to begin with, but then she’d begun to sense a pattern.

  She wasn’t certain what she’d found was substantial enough to support her claims. She’d spent the last two days trying to organize it and convince herself, before finally sighing and deciding to present it to her son.

  And then there was the other issue: the Ilvaeren did not interfere in the Evant. Women were not supposed to dabble in the political field at all. At least in theory.

  “I don’t understand,” Fedaureon said, taking a sip of wine before setting the glass aside. “What do you mean you used the Ilvaeren?”

  She ignored
the guarded doubt that weighed down his words.

  “It began over a month ago, although I didn’t notice it at the time. I received this letter from Lady Yssabo of House Redlien. Every year, we purchase a supply of winter barley from Redlien. This year, Vivaen Licaeta bought out not only Redlien’s barley, but their flax as well. I thought it odd at the time, but merely sought out barley from House Uslaen and Ionaen, both of which had some to spare. However, I began running into similar issues with other Houses for other commodities-cloth from Nuant, rice from Baene, even wood from Licaeta and Uslaen.” She’d handed Fedaureon the letter from Yssabo as she spoke, but now she laid out additional letters across the width of the table from the other Houses. “I have never experienced this much trouble obtaining supplies from our fellow Houses in my term here as the Lady of House Rhyssal, nor as the Tamaea of Resue.

  “And then I began to realize that the majority of the commodities were being bought up by only a few of the Houses, in particular Licaeta and Ionaen, although Uslaen appears to have begun buying similar supplies lately.”

  “Perhaps they are simply short this year, their crops not as plentiful as they had hoped.”

  Moiran hesitated at the interruption, one hand clenching in her lap before she forced it to relax. She nodded. “I thought so as well. So I began taking a closer look.” She gathered up the letters she’d already presented and set them aside. New pages replaced the first, although these were written in Moiran’s hand. “I started an accounting of all of the supplies that I was aware of through the Ilvaeren. This isn’t an exact accounting, since no House has the right to request the trade books of any other House, but even so.… Look how much grain Licaeta has purchased in the last few months.”

  Fedaureon, Lady Yssabo’s letter still in one hand, leaned forward and regarded the page Moiran indicated. He stilled, then motioned Daevon forward, the Protector taking that as tacit permission to look as well. Moiran didn’t protest; she knew Daevon well enough to believe that he would support her.

  “That’s enough grain to feed Rhyssal for over a year,” Fedaureon said.

  “Nearly a year and a half. Why would they need so much grain? Why does House Ionaen need so much wood? Or Uslaen so much iron from Nuant?”

  Fedaureon leaned back, glanced toward Daevon.

  The Protector’s eyebrows rose. “It is a significant amount of resources. One House should not need so much of a single material.”

  Fedaureon nodded, his attention returning to Moiran. “What do you think?”

  She drew a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “I think that Lord Peloroun and Lord Orraen are preparing for… something significant. I believe they are stocking up on food and other supplies.”

  “?‘Something significant,’?” Fedaureon said. “Such as what? And how does this connect to the Chosen and the Order of Aielan?”

  “I don’t know. But none of those Houses has ever done anything without forethought. And all of those Houses have opposed us in the past.”

  Fedaureon was silent for a long moment, then abruptly leaned forward, tossing Yssabo’s letter onto the table. “It’s not enough.”

  Moiran stiffened, anger sparking in her chest. “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that it’s not enough. Father can’t take this before the Evant. What if Lord Peloroun and Lord Orraen have a legitimate reason for purchasing all of these supplies, a reason we are unaware of?”

  “Like what?”

  Fedaureon shrugged. “A trade agreement with the dwarren or the humans, perhaps? We have no idea what arrangements they’ve made, what the humans or dwarren might be interested in. We each have agreements with different Provinces and clans. They do not detail every individual trade made and for what commodity. They are generalized. It’s possible that the Licaetan grain that could supply the House for a year and a half has already been shipped to their trade partners in Borangst, or even overseas to Andover. Lord Daesor announced a new trade deal with Andover at the opening session.” He waved a hand and said again, “It’s not enough. Not for the Evant.”

  “I wasn’t intending to bring it before the Evant,” Moiran said.

  Fedaureon’s eyes narrowed. “You want to know if I think it’s solid enough to warn Father.” He hesitated, then added, “Have you already sent a missive to him?”

  She nearly chuckled at the suspicion in his voice. “No, Fedaureon. I wanted your opinion first. I know the evidence is thin, but my instinct warns me that this is significant.”

  Mollified, Fedaureon scanned the letters she’d presented, the papers containing the lists of supplies shifting hands within the Ilvaeren. Moiran met Daevon’s gaze over his head and the Protector nodded, his mouth pressed into a grim line. She and Aeren had worked hard this past year to ease Fedaureon into his role as Lord Presumptive of the Rhyssal House. Since Aeren’s departure, he had taken on that role more competently than Moiran had expected, and in the last few weeks had shown some independence in his decisions. He’d sent the servants to the temple without seeking out Moiran’s opinion, had made adjustments to the daily routine of the Phalanx on his own. She wasn’t certain how much Daevon had guided these decisions, but she wanted to encourage Fedaureon’s independence as much as possible.

  Fedaureon leaned back. “I think your instincts are correct. Father needs to be informed. Perhaps Lords Peloroun and Orraen do have legitimate trades established for this wood and iron, but I doubt it. If he knows where to look, maybe Father can determine what’s really going on.” He stood, his impatience returning. The clash of steel still rang from outside, even though the wind had picked up. “Did you want to warn him, or should I?”

  “I believe you should, as Lord Presumptive of the Rhyssal House.”

  19

  “He’s got the upper body strength,” Terson said, “but he’s still a miller.”

  Gregson frowned thoughtfully as he watched Ricks and Curtis sparring with Jayson, the miller’s apprentice standing off to one side watching. “But he’s learning fast.”

  “Because he’s angry. You can see it in his thrusts. Whatever happened to him in his village, it’s affected him.”

  “That isn’t necessarily bad. A little anger during a fight or battle can be useful. And we’ll be seeing many more like him, if what we’ve seen between Cobble Kill and here is any indication.”

  Terson’s mouth twisted with derision. “An army of commoners.”

  Gregson turned slightly toward him. “Given what we saw at Patron’s Merge, and the destruction we’ve seen throughout the countryside since… I’ll take an army any way I can get it.”

  Terson’s brow creased at the mild reprimand, but he said nothing.

  In the makeshift practice yard, Ricks took a swing toward Jayson’s side, grinning as sweat ran down his face. Jayson parried with a grunt, the swords clashing as Curtis barked from the sideline, “Now use the momentum of your opponent’s swing to thrust his sword off to the side, leaving him open.”

  Jayson attempted to follow through, shoving Ricks’ sword to one side and down, the natural movement still stiff and forced. Gregson could tell that Ricks wasn’t countering the thrust as hard as he could, but Jayson had barely begun practicing. He and Curtis were simply trying to get him to adjust from swinging sacks of grain to handling the weight of the blade. The motions were obviously different, and Jayson needed to feel that difference in his arm and shoulders before he’d have any chance of putting it into practice during a real battle.

  And it was looking as if a real battle was imminent.

  They’d been traveling covertly since Patron’s Merge, scouts sent out ahead, searching for the Horde as it ransacked its way across the Province. Parties of twenty to over a thousand had been sighted, forcing the large group of Legion and commoners to find alternate routes at least three times already. And the group had grown. Two days before, they’d run into another group with the remnants of another garrison, mostly younger soldiers, only one officer who was beneath Gregson in rank. H
e had been almost painfully relieved when Gregson had reluctantly taken control of the remains of his unit and the forty civilians and three wagons they’d been protecting.

  He might have turned them away to fend for themselves, but they’d had food. He wasn’t certain how long it would last, not with nearly three hundred refugees, but at least most of the men in the group knew how to hunt and trap. Although even that had been restricted. The closer they came to Temeritt-it could only be a few days away now-the more activity they’d seen from the Horde. They were closing in on the city, their scattered groups coming together and squeezing all of the refugees between them. He’d become increasingly convinced that they were going to have to fight their way through to Temeritt, if they arrived in time to make the city at all.

  His gaze passed over the rest of the men, and a couple of women, gathered to watch the match. He scratched at the bandage on his left arm, the bite marks beneath itching, then caught himself with a grimace.

  “Pair up as many men as we can spare with the civilians. Use whatever you can find for weapons. Don’t give any of the able-bodied men a choice. Tell them if they want to see Temeritt alive, they’re likely going to have to fight.”

  Terson nodded and Gregson moved off toward their encampment. There were still a few hours of sunlight left, but he hadn’t dared move on beyond the small field, the waist-high grasses now trampled down into a rough mat beneath his feet. The scouts he’d sent out ahead of them had reported the roads safe only up to this point; they hadn’t heard from them since. Gregson tried not to let that fact bother him. The scouts had been late before and it meant nothing. The one time he’d pushed on regardless, they’d nearly run into a party of Alvritshai.