Haven atobas-4

by Joel Shepherd

  Something fizzed past Andreyis's shoulder, and struck one of those men squarely in the chest. His armour was thickest there, and the arrow bounced off, but he froze in shock. Andreyis looked behind, and there was Yshel, bow in hand, reaching for another arrow even now. Behind Yshel, walking with the aid of a tall staff, was a familiar, grey-haired figure. Andreyis stared.

  “You're not burning down the fucking High Temple!” Kessligh yelled. “Have you gone completely insane?” Behind him came Nasi-Keth and serrin, more than a dozen.

  “Hold them back!” Ulay commanded, uncorking the flask.

  A serrin man with powerful arms took stance beside Kessligh and pulled a huge bowstring with a shuddering creak. “I have him,” he announced, sighting at the captain.

  Soldiers ran in front of their captain, shields raised, and made an impenetrable wall. Still the serrin sighted, as though seeking a gap between the shields, with some confidence of hitting.

  “I am Kessligh Cronenverdt,” Kessligh announced. “You have heard of my victories against the Regent! I am the most victorious of all commanders in this war, and I command that this folly shall cease!”

  “You're a Lenay pagan like all the others!” yelled Ulay from behind his wall. “You have no command here! Now clear the damn temple, because I'm going to light it, and the first flame will turn everyone on this floor to ash in the blink of an eye!”

  Soldiers began to leave, ushering the Lenay prisoners ahead of them. One prisoner, limping on a bad leg, made a sudden lunge for Ulay, barehanded. His tackle brought down a soldier, and opened a gap in the wall of shields. An arrow whistled, and suddenly Ulay had a serrin arrow through his arm. He stared at the arrow. His soldiers all watched as the flint hit the ground. No one seemed to know what to do.

  Then there were new yells in the temple as townsfolk began charging in. The Steel's wall before the steps had failed, the soldiers unprepared to use swords on their own people. Men and women ran in yelling, swarming past Kessligh and his Nasi-Keth and serrin, past Andreyis, then past the dumbfounded soldiers and their wounded captain.

  There was no violence, for the people did not attack, but formed a human wall before the flammable pile. Numbers increased in a steady flow, and the soldiers' swords remained in their sheaths. It was over.

  Kessligh's people convinced the soldiers to leave, then began removing the demon fire artillery, very carefully. The crowds of common folk cheered and wept. Andreyis went with the other prisoners and sat on the steps to one side.

  Soon, Yshel emerged. Spotting him, she walked over and sat by him.

  “Nice shot,” said Andreyis, with a smile.

  Yshel put a hand on his good arm. “You were brave,” she said.

  “I've fought in wars,” Andreyis said sourly. “That was nothing.”

  Yshel shook her head, impatiently. “No, that is not what I meant. This clumsy tongue, it does not offer the best translation. I meant not a bravery of the body. Instead, a bravery of the mind. You are not Verenthane. This is not your fight, and these people are your enemies. Yet you took a risk to save something that is not yours.”

  Andreyis sighed. “Serrin aren't the only ones to know right from wrong.”

  “No,” Yshel said quietly. “Sometimes you know better than us. I would have let them burn it down.”

  “You may have been right to. Maybe we did something stupid. But it didn't feel right.”

  Behind her, Andreyis saw Kessligh walking over. He climbed to his feet. Kessligh embraced him, and held him for a long time. When they parted, Andreyis saw emotion on his face. And perhaps even…was that a tear? Surely not.

  “Good to see you well,” said Kessligh, attempting gruffness. “Very good.”

  “No smarter, though,” said Andreyis, with a nod to the temple doors.

  “And I'm pleased for it. Destroying the High Temple would have been, for the Enorans, like a mother killing her own child. I don't want to be fighting with a people who think they deserve to lose.” He looked over the group. “So you're my prisoner, then?”

  “Looks that way,” Andreyis said glumly.

  “You do realise you're on the wrong side?” Coming from Kessligh, the hero of Lenayin, it nearly shocked him.

  “I can't fight my own people,” Andreyis said stubbornly.

  “You did in the Northern Rebellion.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Kessligh nodded. He saw the accusation on Andreyis's face, and on the faces of the other Lenays, sitting here on the steps. And he took a deep breath.

  “We all have our burdens,” he said solemnly. “We all must do what we must. I want a full telling from you, but I don't have the time. You'll be taken to the rear soon, wherever the rear is today. I'll make sure people know what you did.”

  He clasped Andreyis's shoulder, and departed. In his place stood the serrin archer from the temple. He was certainly the scariest looking serrin Andreyis had ever seen-handsome, with wild hair and green eyes, his bare arms crossed with numerous scars. Yet now, as he looked at Andreyis, he seemed uncertain. Almost shy.

  Andreyis realised he looked familiar. “Errollyn!” he exclaimed, recalling the serrin who had ridden to the Northern Rebellion with his friends.

  Errollyn put out a hand strong enough to crush most others, but his grip was light, in serrin fashion. “I have you at a disadvantage,” Errollyn apologised. “Sasha's told me everything about you.” He smiled, a rare flash of humour.

  “I don't like the sound of that,” Andreyis admitted.

  “She loves you dearly. She told me that in truth, she has five brothers. Six, counting Krystoff.”

  Andreyis swallowed hard. “I know. It wasn't easy being her brother. I can't imagine how hard it is to be her lover.”

  Errollyn smiled sadly. “Hard when she was here. Harder still when she is not. The Army of the Bacosh pauses at Shemorane, and the Army of Lenayin draws closer. They will circle west, and perhaps take the lead in the pursuit of the Steel.”

  “The Regent's a coward,” said Andreyis. “After the battle of Shero Valley, there's barely twenty thousand Lenays and some Torovans. The Regent must still command better than a hundred thousand, yet he falls back.”

  Errollyn shrugged. “Why waste Bacosh lords in pursuit when he can spend Lenays instead?”

  “I hear tell of massacres,” Andreyis said quietly. “Of half-castes murdered. We passed some half-castes on the road, they were frightened.”

  “Oh, entire villages,” Errollyn said tiredly. “Half-caste or not. The Regent's lords are claiming land, they need it devoid of people. Rhodaanis and Enorans are too uppity to submit easily to feudal rule, they'll need to kill a lot of them first. And they're doing so.”

  To the south, behind Shemorane as the Bacosh and Lenay armies advanced, lay a wide land of rolling hills that the locals called Pirene. It was only when Damon and Sasha's formation of five hundred cavalry emerged from the hills around Shemorane that they discovered a Larosan advance party had beaten them to it.

  Sasha, Damon, Markan, Lord Heryd, and Myklas galloped to the rise where a Larosan noble party awaited, surveying the lands below.

  At their side, the Lenay party found a choice vantage across the Pirene. Several villages were burning, and horsemen could be seen galloping in groups. Beyond, Sasha observed larger groups of horsemen, a dark swarm against the wet green fields.

  “Prince Damon,” he introduced himself. “My sister Sashandra, my brother Myklas, Great Lord Heryd of Hadryn, and Great Lord Markan of Isfayen. We have five hundred horse.”

  “Lord Elias Assineth,” said the leader. “Cousin of the Regent.” He wore the full plate armour of a Bacosh knight, with his visor raised. He introduced three other lords, similarly armoured. “We also have five hundred.”

  “Lord Elias,” said Markan, with some surprise. “My sister Yasmyn sends her regards. She says your two friends' heads made excellent lagand balls. Yours seems also an agreeable shape.”

  “Markan!” Damon warne
d him. Markan merely looked amused. Elias glared at him, but Sasha knew he had little to fear from Markan. The Great Lord of Isfayen would not steal his sister's revenge from her. “Ignore him, he's Isfayen,” said Damon, as though that explained everything. “What is your purpose here?”

  “My cousin the Regent enters Shemorane with the Shereldin Star,” said Elias. “This southern side of Shemorane is open, and the irregular forces of Kessligh Cronenverdt threaten this flank. I intend to make trouble here, and destroy much of these fertile lands to force Cronenverdt to defend it, and thus leave my cousin's ceremonies undisturbed.”

  “Should we move fast, we might catch Cronenverdt and encircle him,” added Heryd, with some pleasure at the prospect.

  Elias nodded. “The main road from Shemorane lies ahead. Many escaping refugees are upon the road, they were delayed by the rains. If we threaten them, and cut off the road, we may provoke him to do something rash.”

  “Little chance of that,” Damon said grimly, surveying the scene.

  “I'll take the Isfayen and scout the woods to the north of the river,” said Sasha.

  “Wait, Sasha,” said Damon. “I think we should stay together.”

  “Markan?” Sasha asked, ignoring her brother.

  Markan shrugged. “As good a plan as any,” he agreed. He stood in his stirrups and waved back down the hill. There, a hundred Isfayen riders broke away from the Lenay formation, moving about the side of the hill as Sasha and Markan galloped down to join them.

  “What are you thinking?” Markan yelled above the noise of their gallop.

  “I'm not!” Sasha replied.

  “I'm not going to burn villages and kill unarmed poor folk! There is no honour in it!”

  Sasha nodded. She had no idea what she would do. Panic seized her, but she had to push on. She could not sit in the rear and watch.

  She and Markan led one hundred Isfayen across the stream, then along the bank, past farmhouses and over paddock walls. Away from the stream the land grew higher, and Sasha liked the look of that vantage. They came upon a good road leading up that way from a bridge across the stream, and Sasha guessed it would lead somewhere worth attacking. She waved them onto the road, and galloped up the slope.

  Soon, she saw smoke rising ahead. It was a town, larger than the rest, nestled beneath a forested ridge. Sasha waved them off the road and into the forest. It was not hard for a Lenay to find the ridgeline, and she wove her horse through wet undergrowth, climbing all the while. Soon she had them in a line upon the ridge overlooking the town. As the Isfayen horses stopped, she could hear fighting.

  This was the fighting of warriors, not of Larosan knights massacring helpless villagers. She could see horses darting through the fields about the town, wheeling in groups, evading and never quite engaging with larger formations of Larosan cavalry.

  “Talmaad,” Markan observed. “If you listen, you can hear Larosans dying.” There was respect in his voice.

  “The whole town's a trap,” Sasha replied. “They were waiting for the Larosans to hit it. But two can play at that.”

  “I guess perhaps sixty talmaad,” said Markan. “Perhaps seventy. We are a hundred.”

  “Markan, I want prisoners. We have the heights, we can capture some….”

  “Those are our allies being killed down there,” Markan said blandly. “Are we not to aid them in full?”

  “Dammit, Markan, our allies are burning the town and killing any remaining villagers-you just said that was dishonourable!”

  “Dishonourable for Isfayen,” Markan corrected. “As it's also dishonourable to abandon a sworn ally to death by not attacking in support.”

  “Markan,” Sasha said in desperation, “just do what I say. Your riders are not my men to command, but these are serrin and I know them.” Markan studied her, his dark eyes unreadable. “Take forty men and go straight down this ridge. Make a line so they will see you. They'll not engage another forty men, they'll run, straight for the heaviest trees in the valley yonder. Bacosh heavy cavalry cannot manage those trees, but we can.”

  Markan continued studying her. “If they shoot any more of my men,” he warned, “I will not show them mercy.”

  “If we trap them in the valley, prepare to stop beyond their range.”

  Markan nodded and turned to shout orders. Sasha urged her horse on along the ridge, and heard many hooves following. The ridge plunged down into the valley beyond the town, but the slope was not difficult. Upon the valley floor, a small stream flowed between huge, thick trees. Sasha formed her sixty riders across the narrow valley in several ranks, a barrier solid enough to stop any cavalry less heavy than lowlands knights. Then she waited.

  Water dripped from leaves high above. Mist hung in the valley air, making ghostly shadows of dark, reaching boughs. An Isfayen rider at Sasha's side made a spirit sign to his forehead, as did several others. Spirits lived here. She heard hooves and a high, keening cry in a foreign tongue. A Saalsi dialect, Sasha reckoned, a communication between riders.

  A single serrin rider raced from the mist, then scrambled to a sliding halt beside the stream. The rider stared wide-eyed at the barrier confronting her, then put heels to her horse and raced back the way she'd come, hollering in that high, lilting dialect.

  “They shall go around us,” said an Isfayen. “The valley sides are not steep, and their horses are nimble.”

  “They know we are Lenay,” Sasha replied. “They know we do not attack. Sometimes, serrin just know.”

  The Isfayen looked at her oddly. Perhaps it was the mist, and the eerie echoes, but all of those that heard her made spirit signs once more. They called her the Synnich, the oldest and most deadly of the Lenay spirits. Perhaps they thought she summoned the serrin, who were spiritlike themselves, using ageless powers. Well, perhaps she did.

  The next serrin to appear were trotting, not galloping. Sasha counted twenty, but there were surely more behind. They stopped no more than fifty paces away, well within arrow range. All the serrin had bows strung and arrows nocked, yet they did not draw. The Isfayen watched them, swords ready.

  For a moment, the two lines regarded each other in the silence of the valley. Then a serrin rider moved forward. She wore a wide-brimmed hat, yet it was a Petrodor hat, not of the Bacosh fashion. Beneath the brim were emerald green eyes, narrowed with a deadly intensity.

  Rhillian.

  Sasha also rode forward. She knew that Rhillian felt responsible for the threat that she, Sasha, represented to Saalshen. Rhillian had befriended her, then failed to kill her when they had become enemies. She had sworn to eliminate all of Saalshen's enemies, particularly those as formidable as Sasha. She had promised herself never to be so soft again, whatever it cost her soul. One signal from Rhillian, and Sasha would be feathered with arrows. Sasha could see the temptation in Rhillian's eyes. The intensity. The conflict.

  Rhillian drew her blade and gestered to the ground. Single combat? Sasha couldn't quite believe her old friend now hated her that much.

  Sasha drew her own blade and dismounted. She walked forward, testing the wet, leafy ground beneath her boots. Rhillian also approached. Did she wish to die? They both knew Sasha was better. Nothing was certain in combat, but in sparring, Sasha would back herself three times out of four against Rhillian, perhaps more. Rhillian knew. Sasha could see that in her eyes as well.

  They stopped. Blades poised, in a hush as though every living thing in the valley now paused, and considered the many fates that had collided to make this moment finally come. Sasha took a deep breath. The scene was beautiful. The misty valley, her brave Isfayen at her back. Rhillian herself, still the most lovely face she had ever seen. The spirits were watching. This would be a good place to die.

  She lowered the blade to her side, and closed her eyes.

  Time passed. Too much time. She opened her eyes once more, and found Rhillian standing directly before her, and no blade between them. Her impossible green eyes were shimmering. She put a hand to Sasha's cheek.r />
  They embraced, desperately hard, and sobbed in each other's arms. Sasha lost control of her legs, and they sank to their knees, locked together with a grip like steel. The spirits of the valley watched, and knew that all the will of kings and priests and gods could not part them. Love carved its own path, and made its own fate. About them, Isfayen and serrin cheered alike, as though the war were already won.

  Isfayen and talmaad retreated to a forested hilltop not far from the valley, with a view back toward the stream. There, amidst cautious scenes between wary humans and serrin, Sasha sat on a fallen log with Rhillian alongside, and Markan standing by them both.

  “What now?” Markan asked shortly.

  Rhillian and Sasha looked at each other, and suppressed grins. Annoyingly, Sasha had to wipe at her eyes once more. She felt as though she could breathe properly for the first time in what seemed like an age. As though some crushing weight had lifted. War and suffering beyond measure lay ahead, but for the first time in a long while, life itself felt good.

  “I'm sorry about your hair,” Sasha said. Rhillian wore her hat at her back, held by a lace at her collar. Rhillian turned her head, to show Sasha the diagonal cut at the back.

  “Look how precise it is,” said Rhillian. “You swing a blade like no one else I know.” Sasha reached a hand to examine the cut with her fingers.

  “I'm glad you ducked,” she said. They were both struggling not to cry again. Markan cleared his throat.

  “I have forsaken much traditional honour to follow the path of the Synnich spirit,” he said sharply. “I will not forsake more honour to follow a weeping little girl.”

  Sasha wiped her eyes again, and composed herself. “Rhillian, we have a task. The cause for which the Army of Lenayin has been marching has proven itself honourless. My father thought to unite the regions of Lenayin within the forge of war, as a metalsmith blends different kinds of steel in hot fire. But this is not a forge, this is a poison well, from which we all have been forced to drink. I will drink no more. I know many Lenays feel the same.”