Blooded (Lisen of Solsta Book 3)

by D. Hart St. Martin

  Destruction. Nalin had never seen so much of it. Tanres would lean over to him now and then and grunt some vague note of reassurance that it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it looked, but Nalin was sure he hadn’t heard her correctly. The yells of victory, the screams of pain, the sounds of metal striking metal and of metal striking bone were inescapable. Nalin’s eyes grew wider and wider as the morning and the fighting wore on. He couldn’t speak. He could barely think. And he couldn’t help but wonder what in the names of the Creators they’d done.

  Palla had taken charge of the Tuane troops at the commander’s request, but he hadn’t liked the idea. He’d sworn he’d seek out his old friend, the liar, to punish him the way all traitors should be punished, but duty had forced him to delay those plans. Because it didn’t matter what anyone told him. Korin Rosarel was a traitor. Why else had he run off to Thristas before the boy Empir’s body was cold?

  As the battle progressed, Palla witnessed what had to be Korin’s hand in the Thristan’s strategy—tackle guards on horseback and in armor before attacking anyone else. Smart move, a move worthy of a former guard, he thought. While they still have the numbers and the energy, rid the battlefield of the strongest arm of your enemy. This strategy made him a tasty target, and the Thristans soon began to converge on him like ants on a sweet—ready to take what they wanted, leaving nothing behind.

  Palla fought harder than he’d ever fought before—though not nearly as well as he knew he could—but he never lost sight of his ultimate goal. Korin Rosarel couldn’t be trusted.

  He called out to the Tuane troops to rally to him, but they were an undisciplined bunch who ignored him and, instead, continued fighting willy-nilly all over the field. He blamed himself. After all, he’d worked with them through their training these last months, and somehow he’d failed to instill in them the importance of following commands the instant they’d been issued.

  He slammed his sword down in one direction and then the other, he angled the edge of his shield into throats, but the enemy kept coming and coming, wearing him down until he felt all his reserves slip away. And in that moment of ultimate vulnerability, one of the damn Thristans jumped him atop his horse and pulled him down. They pummeled him until he lost his sword, his will, then consciousness, and, finally, life itself.

  “Creator, Nalin, did you see that?” Bala shouted over the cacophony of battle.

  “No, what?” Nalin looked in the direction he thought she was looking in, but all he could see was a disorganized mass of limbs and bodies in constant motion. Nothing struck him as noteworthy; it was all noteworthy.

  “The captain. I think he’s been…yes, he’s…down.” Bala turned to Tanres. “Commander, my troops’ leader is down.” But Tanres, too busy sending signals to other groups, never heard her. “Ah, damn it!”

  And before Nalin could stop her, Bala had taken off down their safe little hill, kicking her horse into a canter, drawing her sword and forging her way into the battle, her bellow as she flew away fading slowly in his ears. That’s when the painful truth nested in his craw. Everyone else could tear into the battle if necessary, but it would be guaranteed suicide for him to do it.

  Not that it was safe for anyone, but at least they had two good legs to stand on and ride on. He only had one, thanks to bad luck and certain Thristans who, though gone, were the reason they’d gathered here today. He had to hate someone, so he’d hate them. Someone had to take the blame for this, and he had to stop blaming Lisen. Yes, she had consumed the gryl which had left her unconscious and forced him to take charge of the battle, but, in the end, all she was guilty of was taking a ride in a garden. She hadn’t sought out the poisonous weeds; they’d come after her.

  He squinted in the bright midday light, trying to find Bala. She’d seen Captain Palla fall? Is that what she’d said before she’d taken off? At first he thought he’d have no difficulty locating her, with her golden braids flying in the sun, but there were just too many combatants. They undulated like a river, the fighting waxing and waning from one place to the next.

  And the blood. Oh, Creators, the blood. Earlier it had served as a minor accent to the colors on the field, but now its crimson flow flooded over everything in its path. From the way it looked to him, he couldn’t help but believe that everyone on the field had suffered some sort of catastrophic injury, but how was that possible since the fighting continued on, relentless?

  The clatter and clamor of swords crossing, the thuds of axes connecting with bodies, the shrieks of the wounded when they realized they were dying—these conspired to turn Nalin into a whimpering fool on the edge of a fight he couldn’t stop or change.

  And all he could see were Garlans going down; all the Thristans remained standing, at least in his eyes. They were going to lose.

  And Bala had run off to lead her troops after Captain Palla’s fall.

  And Tanres was preoccupied with moving a living army around like so many game pieces on a board.

  And Lisen was sleeping, or whatever it was she was doing.

  And he was alone, watching, powerless, an Empir’s Will without an Empir. Again.

  She opens her eyes but cannot see.

  Her hands stroke…sheets. On a bed.

  How long?

  A trance. Touchy things, trances. Dividing one from the real, yet opening to more real than a waking can offer.

  “My Liege? Lisen?”

  “Yes,” she answered with a dry mouth and an unwieldy tongue. She couldn’t see; the gryl had gone straight to her eyes this time.

  “Here. Drink some water.”

  She felt her head lifted from the pillow and a cup at her mouth. She drank as long as her companion allowed her to drink, then she fell back on the pillow. “How long?” Her voice sounded crusty, like old dried-up bread.

  “This is the second day.”

  “Titus?” She’d finally placed the voice.

  “Aye, my Liege.”

  “I hear no one else. Are we alone?”

  “Aye. The Thristans arrived yesterday. The battle began this morning.”

  She sat straight up. “How am I dressed?” She felt the clothes on her body and determined she wore a tunic and not a nightshift. The same one she’d passed out in? A clean one? She pulled the top of the tunic up to her nose, and its pleasant aroma told her it was clean. “I need my armor. And my horse. Where is Pharaoh?”

  “My Liege, you are not well. And even if you were, it wouldn’t be safe for you to go out there…well…the way you are.”

  “You mean blind?” She waited for an answer, but when none came, she went on. “Titus, your sleeves are pulled up because you’ve had your hands in water. There are two chairs here on my left, I presume because Bala wouldn’t let Nalin sit with me alone. You know by now I used gryl, but you’ve removed the pan I prepared it in, the cloth which must have been over my face when I was found and the goblet I drank from. My tunic is grey…” the more she said, the more she knew… “and I have to get out there and stop this.” She pivoted on the bed and allowed her legs to dangle. “Shoes? No, boots.”

  “My Liege….”

  “If you won’t help me, find Captain Kopol. I believe you’ll find her outside guarding my tent.”

  “I will get the captain, and we will both help you.”

  She heard Titus shuffle from the room, and she took a deep breath. She wasn’t anywhere near as well as she wanted Titus or Kopol to believe, but she wasn’t too ill to do all she could to fulfill the prophecy. What prophecy? Oh, that one. If someone had asked her right now to define “the prophecy,” she couldn’t have. But she knew this—that she’d know everything she needed to know when the time came. The map on the table lay etched in her mind, and she’d have Kopol with her should her inner sight fail.

  Out to the plain. On to the watching hill. And may that great black horse of mine draw every bit of attention to me that it will.

  Korin sat his horse and watched. He’d watched for hours, but not the chaos spread out
across the plain. No, he watched Corday, Commander Tanres and Holder Tuane on the rise across the way, noting that Lisen—the Garlan Empir who should be the first among them—was absent. Blind or sighted, if she’d already awakened, she would have gotten her stubborn self there. Nothing could have stopped her. But no sign. Why did he care where she was? Because he did, and this constant caring had complicated every aspect of his life since they’d met. It had even gone so far as to affect his role as pouching parent to Mantar’s Child.

  He’d left Rinli with Hozia. He’d understood from the moment he’d made the decision to be here that that’s where he’d leave her—in Hozia’s custody, away from the carnage. He and Hozia had agreed on when and where and how the revelation would come, if it came, and the middle of a battle was no place for a child. Besides, even the thought of Rinli distracted him.

  Wait. What had he missed? Tuane and her horse no longer stood beside Corday. She’d taken off, leaving the hobbled Corday behind. It was too far away to see his expression, but Korin suspected this event had not pleased the holder. Absently, Korin wondered what had possessed Tuane to jump from observer to participant, but it didn’t matter, not really. The movement of individuals meant little in the midst of this mayhem.

  He studied Corday, how his measured stillness signaled his impotence. Korin knew it, knew it well. He himself, with his left eye missing, could be a liability on the field. How much more of a burden would a soldier riding a horse without a foot be? He felt for the man, a man who’d done nothing to incur the wrath of the fates. Left alone by Flandari, left alone by Flandari’s Heir and her captain. Left alone to deal with the brother, never knowing if the true Heir would return and, if she did, what condition she’d be in. No, Korin Rosarel did not envy Nalin Corday.

  And now, here Corday was, again, powerless to do anything but watch as one army slaughtered another. From what Korin could see, the Garlan army suffered from too little training. These are civilians, volunteers. The Guard fights well, he thought as he saw another Thristan fall to a soldier in uniform. Tanres got my cautionary message. But the poor volunteers—no matter how long you trained someone unaccustomed to a struggle in arms, the lack of experience would kill them. Lisen, he thought, his mind riding a wave of new perception. That’s why she did it. She’d tried to explain it as they’d made their way up the secret stairs; she’d lacked the experience to overcome anyone with experience in a duel. “Let me use the weapon I know best,” she’d said. Now, he understood.

  Korin reentered the present with its stimulating sights and sounds and considered these untried fighters again. Well, they’re certainly getting experience now, and those who survive today might serve better tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow. Something told him tomorrow would dawn with a plain filled with bodies and former combatants helping one another with the injured who’d survived the night. He didn’t know how he could even begin to predict this outcome, but perhaps it was the knowledge that a mile or so away on this side of the plain Mantar’s Child slept, while on the other, an Empir might rise from her deep sleep to a moment of revelation.

  Korin, stop. Forever a man of caution, he couldn’t believe the stories he told himself now. They weren’t even stories; they were foolish dreams, ethereal meanderings meaning nothing. Before him, people and horses clashed in a war centuries in the making. No simple answers for this one. Whatever must happen to return peace to their world would only come with a violent release of pain and heartache unheard of until now.

  He forced himself to look back to the hill across the river of bodies and blood. Corday and Tanres, along with Tanres’ assistant, still sat their horses observing it all. He wished he could see their expressions, not that he didn’t already know what they must be feeling. Both sides were suffering painful losses, but Garla’s troops appeared to be falling at a higher rate than those of Thristas. It had to be disheartening.

  Nalin stared across the field, searching in vain for Bala. He’d seen no sign of her since she’d urged her bay down the hill, and he grew frantic to find her.

  “My lord,” the commander said from beside him. “Don’t go down there. You’re not equipped.”

  Nalin whirled on Tanres. “What?” He knew precisely what she was talking about; it was her gentle way of telling him a man with no right foot should not barge into a battle. He didn’t argue with her, but that didn’t mean he had to heed her caution. Bala had seen Captain Palla go down. What was to keep her from going down as well? He had to find her. If he did nothing, the anxiety would force his heart from his chest.

  He pulled his crop up and was about to smack the stallion upon its hindquarters when a familiar voice intruded, soft yet still audible over the din.

  “Nalin, don’t.”

  He didn’t turn though his shoulders tensed defiantly in reaction. His Liege had returned to them, and something in her voice told him she wasn’t quite herself. Not yet, at least. He didn’t care. Loyalty had always been his watchword, but today loyalty be damned. Bala needed him. He brought the crop down, and the stallion broke into a canter down off the hill.

  “Nalin, no!”

  He looked back to see Lisen up in her stirrups atop Pharaoh at the edge of the rise, reaching out to him as though she could see him, though her black eyes could see only darkness. She made no move to follow, and he pushed his horse into a gallop and drove it in the direction he’d last seen Bala heading.

  “Creators,” Korin murmured. Corday down into the middle of it and Lisen on the rise? If he hadn’t watched it with his own eye, he never would have believed it. Corday was a fool, that much was certain. But what of Lisen? What was her intent? He felt exposed, even a mile away, and although he knew she couldn’t physically see him, he also knew her inner eye saw everything. Her power moved everywhere. She could stop this battle with one push. But would she? Did she have the stomach to take it that far? How far had her soul sunk? Did she seek the impotence of all save herself? She need only decide.

  He gasped as Pharaoh reared up and then bore Lisen down the hill into the battle.

  “Damn it,” he muttered as he kicked his horse into the field. Now he’d have to get himself dirty and, likely, bloody and maybe even killed as well. But his blind Empir was in it, so he had to be in it, too.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  softer than velvet,

  smoother than silk

  Having beaten Kopol to the rise, Lisen had tried to stop Nalin from rushing into battle, but she’d failed. With her four remaining senses tingling with awareness, she could read the thoughts and feelings around her, and most of what she read left her breathless with anger. Tanres pulled up beside her, worrying over the arrival of her “poor, sick” Empir, and Lisen sensed Kopol’s hovering presence approaching from behind, but her connection to Korin was stronger than anything else. She felt him watching from afar, so if she were going to make a move, she must make it now, without delay. She knew what he’d see—a blind Empir following her hobbled Will into the chaos of battle—but purpose called her from a divine plain. Spirit compelled her, and all she could do was comply with its urging.

  Sensing the proximal stirring of this spirit, Pharaoh rose up on his hind legs, but she and he were one, and she reveled in his joy. She allowed the reins to go slack and granted him freedom to choose where she needed to go. Into the midst of it she rode, like a clear light breaking through a world filled with heavy shadow.

  The fear. Mountains of fear avalanching down on her from every direction. It muddied everyone’s thoughts, their very reasons for carrying on. She wished she could focus on their fear and relieve it, but her mission lay elsewhere.

  The blood. It, too, was everywhere. The stench of it assaulted her worse than it had in the Khared when the gryl had first blinded her. And this time she was out in open air, not enclosed in a cave—how much blood is there?

  She heard the souls of Garla’s dying and dead cry out to her for her true gift, the ability to guide their souls, but she denied them. What else could she
do? Her mission was with the living, and she must tend to them now, preserving as many as she could.

  Combatants rushed her from all directions. Her heart raced, her breath came in quick, heated bursts, and her reason softened as she defended herself with her sword. One came at her from the right, a foot soldier, and that was easy. She parried and then allowed her mind to hold the Thristan. She refused to wound. She could have, easily, but this time must be different. This time, striking out was not the only weapon at her discretion.

  Another from the left, on horseback, more difficult to counter, until she remembered her shield. Korin had once mentioned the shield as a weapon, though he’d never shown her how to use it. To avoid causing serious injury, she pushed the flat front of the shield into her attacker and forced the Thristan off the horse.

  Captain Kopol had joined her and fended many Thristans off before they even got to Lisen. “Don’t hurt them!” Lisen ordered.

  “What?”

  Lisen knew Kopol had heard her and that disbelief alone had driven her question.

  “Keep them at bay until I can control them!”

  Kopol didn’t respond, but Lisen knew the guard would do whatever she could to fulfill her Liege’s wishes. The tactic of saving rather than destroying carried new and uncharted risks, but Lisen had made a pledge in her trance. Denying ultimate power rather than employing it, choosing a walkable path that most might survive—these promised light at the end of darkness and blessed the risk with a worth no one could measure. She set her mind on those attacking her and soon was able to force them away in ones, then twos, then threes and more.