The Riven Shield

by Michelle West

  Worse, he could hear their sudden shouts. They had turned their attention—and their formation—from the West of Damar; they were running now, some horsed and some on foot, as if they prepared for battle.

  As if it were already upon them.

  Ser Alessandro stiffened. The bridges were gone, and even had they not been, the men of Manelo now stood between himself and the men who followed his command, even to their own deaths.

  He turned his gaze upon Ser Amando. The Tor’agnate was not as impassive as he should have been; his brows rose faintly in surprise, and his lips curved in frown.

  “Widan!”

  But the Widan’s smile deepened, revealing at last its full edge. “If the negotiations are swift, Tor’agar, Tor’agnate, you will be in time to lend aid to the men across the Adane. If they are not, there are no guarantees.”

  “We need those men!” Ser Amando’s voice was too high, his words too quick.

  “We need the girl,” the creature said, eyes glittering strangely. “We need the girl and the sword she bears.”

  Jewel knew Kallandras approached long before the night revealed sight of him. She stiffened upon the back of the Winter King, but he, too, was already still with the peculiar tension that spoke of coming battle. He did not speak to her. He did not look away.

  The bard appeared from the shadows, but he moved so swiftly from wall to wall that the glimpses caught might have been the product of fancy, of desire.

  “ATerafin,” he said, his voice carrying the distance that power granted him. “The Kialli are at the Adane. And they are, I fear, beyond it—beyond our easy reach. The men of Clemente are now engaged in battle upon the Eastern bank. I do not think . . . it will go well with them.”

  She turned to Lord Celleriant.

  The Arianni lord met her gaze briefly, but his eyes sought the shadow for some sight of Kallandras. She didn’t understand what now existed between these two, but she knew better than to question it. “Celleriant.”

  He bowed.

  “Kallandras is coming.”

  Bowed again.

  “Arm yourself,” she said quietly. “But be careful. I think . . .”

  A silver brow rose.

  “I think that the two of you are meant to cross the Adane. I think you’re needed on the far bank of the river.”

  “It is not so easily crossed,” he told her quietly. “Neither for Kallandras nor I.”

  “I didn’t say it had to be easy. Is it possible?”

  His answer was a slender smile. He lifted a hand, and his blade came to it, denying the night and the darkness while retaining some part of its secrecy. Blue light lined the contours of his face, the point of his chin; blue light glinted off the strange coat of mail he wore.

  “Yes,” he said, as he lowered the blade.

  “And what of us, ATerafin?” Avandar’s question was reasonable and quiet; he spoke in the same tone of voice he might have used when the walls of Terafin had enclosed them.

  “We’re here,” she said, voice too quiet. “This is where we have to be.”

  He bowed.

  Kallandras came, at last, to join them. He glanced first at Jewel, and then at Celleriant, and when he saw what Celleriant wielded, he closed his eyes.

  “What did you hear?” the Arianni lord asked. Not what did you see.

  “Baying,” the bard replied, shorn of the length and prettiness of words, the power of voice. “Above the cries of the Clemente men.”

  “How many?”

  “Four at least.”

  “And all upon the other side of the river?”

  “There may be . . . enemies . . . upon the Western bank; they are not yet set in motion. But upon the East, they have been unleashed.”

  “Will the Clemente men stand?”

  “They stand now,” Kallandras replied. He, too, drew weapons, but he drew them from the slender sheaths that adorned his thighs.

  “They do not know what they face.”

  “They do not know. But they are superstitious. They have lived in the lee of the Deepings for the whole of their lives.”

  “My lady feels that our role in this battle is upon the Eastern shore.”

  Kallandras paused a moment, and then he nodded.

  “How far does the river’s wall extend?”

  “The length and breadth of Damar. If we are to cross the river at a point where the element is not yet wakened, we will lose much time.”

  He did not say—because he did not need to—that it was time they didn’t have.

  “Avandar,” Jewel said quietly. “How much of a risk is the use of—of the other magic?”

  “Ask Lord Celleriant,” the domicis replied. “He is versed in the art; I have merely had the experience of long observation.”

  But Lord Celleriant simply glanced at Jewel.

  After a moment, she said, “You two don’t use drums.” Just that.

  But it evoked a rare smile. “Very good,” he said softly, the words strangely intimate.

  “Is water more difficult than air?”

  “Not to an adept,” he replied, gazing toward the river. “Within the Deepings, there have only been three who were born to the caul.”

  She did not ask their names; short of a command, she was sure he wouldn’t give them, and she found herself reluctant to break the strange warmth of his mood.

  “The Kialli?”

  “Understand that they once walked this world. They claimed it and they destroyed it, as we did.” He turned away from the river, the light of the water captured in his eyes. “But they have returned as strangers to these lands; they have memory and they have power, but they surrendered kinship when they made their ancient choice.”

  “You’re saying you have an advantage.”

  “Indeed.” He turned to leave. Kallandras joined him.

  They walked ten feet, twenty feet, leaving no mark against ground, and then the lord of the Green Deepings halted in mid-step, as if compelled. He turned slowly again, toward her, and he bowed. Something about his face was different, something was now familiar to her.

  She was afraid, not for the first time, of beauty.

  “The advantage,” he said softly, “may be measured in lives.” His words, soft as velvet, carried the distance between them.

  She understood.

  “How many?”

  “I do not know. It has not been my concern, Lady.”

  “Until now.”

  He hesitated, and the hesitation was like a scar across his brow, the tale of some previous battle. But after that brief pause, he bowed, and his glance grazed the profile of the bard’s face before he looked at her again. “We are . . . to cross the river . . . to intercede on behalf of those who cannot speak with the voice of the elements; who cannot stand against the power of the Kialli. It is to save the lives, and not the territory, that you wish to send us to battle.”

  She nodded.

  “It is not . . . a command . . . that has ever been given in the Winter,” he told her quietly, eyes clear, their silver lost now to distance. “Not for the sake of mortals. It would be like risking all to save cattle.”

  The words themselves called for a rough reply; the tone, the simplicity and the honesty of it, called for silence. She struggled between them, and let silence win, although it was a near thing. “I wish I could have seen the Court in Summer,” she said quietly.

  He closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, he was Lord Celleriant; his eyes were steel.

  “If the men cannot be moved from the riverside,” he said, his voice cool, “we will save more than we doom—but while the Kialli grip upon the water is poor, I do not think that they suffer under the constraints you place upon us.”

  “Kal
landras?”

  He nodded.

  When they left, she looked to Avandar.

  He waited; she felt the ache of the sigil against her right arm. That, and the weight of memory, of dream, of the sight of the Warlord.

  She hated that man.

  But it was that man she needed. He was not kind. “What orders would you give me, ATerafin?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, rougher in tone than she had intended. “You can’t stand against the whole of their army.”

  He laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

  “Do you understand, ATerafin, why I chose the life of a domicis?”

  “No.”

  “No? It was to avoid such a conflict. Power is not easily put aside, and when it has been—with difficulty—there is danger in reclaiming it.” His dark eyes were open; they were night, and the night seemed endless.

  “I want you to protect this town,” she told him quietly. “The same way you protected the Voyani in the desert.”

  “The desert,” he told her, “is gone. What remains is more complicated. There, there were no buildings, no hovels, no farms; there, the people you wished to protect were gathered in the open. We faced the storm, and the creature that rode it. Here, ATerafin, the living hide, and they number not in the tens, but in the thousands.”

  She nodded.

  “You will lose some of them,” he said evenly. His gaze was cold.

  She swallowed and nodded again. “Better some than all.”

  He bowed. When he rose, he held a golden sword, light pouring and swelling through the red glow of flesh.

  “They’re counting on us,” she whispered. But she was afraid. Her hands shook as they clung to the tines of the Winter King’s crown.

  Jewel, the stag said. Think carefully. Think long. There are many ways to lose a battle, and the worst of them do not end in death.

  “Let’s go,” she told Avandar. “Hide us, for now.”

  Avandar gestured. She saw light; orange and blue cascaded down the length of his arms, billowing like cloud, like hidden fire. She stiffened as it touched her, but she held tight.

  “This will protect us against the vision of men,” Avandar said. “But against the Kialli, no power of significance remains hidden.”

  “It’ll do.”

  The Tor’agnate of Manelo was silent.

  So, too, the Tor’agar of Clemente.

  Against the screams and shouted orders of the Clemente cerdan, words were too much of a shroud. They contained an anger that would add fire, and death, to the battle that now raged, distorted by water.

  But silence offered no answer; silence was not a weapon. Ser Alessandro kai di’Clemente raised his head. “Will you kill me, cousin?” he said softly.

  Ser Amando returned his cool gaze. “It was not my intent.”

  Alessandro weighed the tone behind the scant words. Anger, there. Anger and not a little fear. The Widan—if he was Widan—ruled here; it was clear to Alessandro. But it was also clear to Ser Amando, and the illusion of command—necessary illusion, like all titles, all power, in the Dominion—had been stripped away with a brutal disregard for the consequences of the loss.

  It was night, the Lady’s time.

  But even at night, no Tor could afford to be unmanned in the view of those whose loyalty strength alone ensured. By such a crisis, men were judged.

  Ser Alessandro could not even guess at the magicks that imperiled his cerdan, for the water was not like a Northern window; it moved constantly.

  He waited with a patience that was entirely facade.

  “The medallion,” Ser Amando said at last. Just that. His Toran hastened to obey him, but they, too, were shaken by what had transpired. Robbed of grace, they fumbled, and speed robbed them of even the dignity their rank demanded.

  “So,” Alessandro said quietly.

  Ser Amando bowed head. Acknowledgment.

  It was a bitter gesture; among men who are no longer allies, truth is an expensive luxury.

  With the medallion came the rest of the Widan. There were, in total, five, but only two wore the proud Sword, edge glittering with rubies arranged as if in fall. He met their eyes, but he could not hold them; they skittered away from his face as if in shame. Or fear.

  And what, he thought, engendered fear in Widan?

  The other three.

  Ser Alessandro drew his sword. By his side, standing with the grace of purpose that now eluded the Manelan Toran, were the two men he trusted with not only his life, but his death. It would not be the first time; it would not, even if they had victory here, be the last. He had never placed faith in soldiers who had not taken to the field.

  The medallion lay before him.

  “What oath, cousin, would you swear?” he asked softly.

  “That if you offer your allegiance to the Tyr’agar, your men will be spared, your lands will be yours to govern, your people and their supplies will be bartered for instead of taken.”

  “And can you offer this?”

  He said nothing. Instead, Ser Amando kai di’Manelo unsheathed his blade. He lifted it, its crescent flashing orange in the night light, the artificially contained fire.

  It fell in a single stroke.

  And it missed.

  The Manelan Toran drew a single shared breath, ragged around the edges. The silence stretched out in a circle as men turned inward to stare at what they could not clearly see.

  Ser Amando grimaced. When he lifted his sword again, the blade shook.

  The shouts of Clemente cerdan mingled now with screams: Alessandro knew death when he heard it.

  Still, he waited, watching the man he would never again claim as kin.

  The blade fell, and this time, shaking, it made its mark. The mark was not clean; the wooden circle clung to the blade’s edge as he attempted to raise it.

  Toran interceded; their hands touched the medallion that was meant to be cut by blade alone. They pulled it free; set it upon the stone pedestal that was meant to contain the oath wood.

  Ser Alessandro kai di’Clemente raised his sword.

  He drew breath; his gaze slanted toward the West, and the North, toward the forests that had bounded his clan’s lands for centuries. Out of that forest had come the people who might one day be legend; out of that forest, the first hope and the first fear.

  But he had met them, these visiting strangers; he had taken their measure.

  Against what now stood at his back—river water, raised as wall—their fleeting promise withered like false spring.

  “I have hated the kai el’Sol in my time,” he said quietly. “For the death of my cousin. For the loss of his life.” Truth. To be used now, like any other weapon.

  He met Ser Amando’s eyes; was surprised at how they flickered.

  But I better understand him, cousin. I better understand what I refused to understand that day, that year, the years that followed.

  He lifted his sword. Met the eyes of the Tor’agnate without flinching or wavering.

  His blade fell. Splinters of wood flew across the dais.

  A sign.

  Not even the Toran moved. Alessandro’s sword rested a hair’s breadth above the grinding surface of stone.

  The Widan who was not Widan spoke.

  “Another medallion, Tor’agnate?”

  But Ser Amando stared at the wreckage and understood. His eyes narrowed. “Kill him,” he said softly.

  His last words. A fitting epitaph for a man who would serve the Lord of Night.

  Alessandro struck as the swords of Manelan Toran crested scabbards, filling the silence left in the wake of shattered wood with the song of steel. Amando began to bring his sword to bear, but the movement was slowed; clumsy.

  The Lord’s me
n could not afford hesitation.

  And Alessandro kai di’Clemente was the Lord’s man. The Lord of Day. His sword’s edge bit metal and flesh, seeking the short length of exposed neck. Finding it.

  Adelos and Reymos were a step behind him; they were three, and they fought without expectation of mercy. Not for death had he come, but he accepted it: it was the sword’s only law.

  They did not discuss tactics. They did not discuss strategy.

  As they approached the river, the master bard of Senniel College and the lord of the Court of the Green Deepings spoke with the nuance of motion and gesture. They did not pause; they did not spare more than a glance at the wall of water that waited them, cleaving the town in two.

  Celleriant moved toward the water, tensing for a leap. The breeze began to gather beneath the strands of his hair, pulling at his tunic.

  Kallandras caught his shoulder, and Celleriant’s legs lengthened, losing tension and the strength of motion’s beginning; a brow rose in question, wind dying as water began to rumble in response.

  Brother, the bard said softly, a change of plans.

  “The mortals oft had a saying about battle plans and the length of their survival.”

  The bard smiled. Lifting a hand, he pointed into the thicket of men that surrounded the dais and the Tors.

  And the drums.

  But death has many guises.

  And into the Widan, it came, fair-haired and white, swift as wind, unlooked for.

  The two who wore the Sword jumped back, unarmed, their hands raised in the complicated weave of dancing fingers and harsh words. They peeled away from the three who stood, beardless and tall, the robes of men of knowledge a poor fit for the length of their bodies, the growing width of their shoulders.

  The Manelan cerdan gave way before the two Widan who had chosen flight, absorbing them whole into their ranks; they drew swords, but they did not know which way to turn: toward the man who had killed the Lord to whom they owed their allegiance, or toward their backs, where swords now spoke with voices that could not be denied.

  The Clemente Toran were already at work; if they were few, they took advantage of chaos and uncertainty. It was the very essence of battle.

  Ser Alessandro, given the vantage of height, drew his bloodied sword from his dying kin. He did not clean the blade; did not sheathe it; instead he took a moment to clearly see what the cerdan could not: Two men.