“I don’t have to live in Green Hill,” Tiernan said, and took a small sip from his cup again. “Nor was I the one who gave the order to muster forces against you. That was your friend Hoygraf. Obviously, I don’t care to see any part of my realm destroyed, but as I said-I would have let you pass, if for no other reason than it benefitted us greatly to not stop you.”
“How does it benefit you to have us save Galbadien?” Cyrus asked, watching Tiernan carefully.
“How would it have benefitted Actaluere to go from two enemies to one?” Tiernan shrugged. “Luukessia has a delicate balance of power, one that none of the Arkarians I’ve met seem to fully appreciate, coming from so fragmented a land. If there comes a war to Luukessia-and there always does-it rarely involves all three parties. Alliances last a year, perhaps two, enough to firmly shellack one of the powers and to allow the other two to remember their disdain for each other, and then they dissolve.” He touched his chest with a single finger. “I like the balance. I like knowing who my enemies are, always. I prefer to know that I can’t trust anyone on my borders and that my best bet is to always keep a wary eye on both of them.” His expression turned sober. “And I always liked to think that if an outside threat came from over the bridge, our three Kingdoms would band together and toss them back without a second thought.”
“Second thoughts seem to be abounding in this situation,” Cyrus said, catching Tiernan’s eye after the King had seemed to go pensive. “Your whole land was almost in an uproar; you barely made it to this conflict yourself, and whatever is coming down from those mountains is looking to me a whole lot worse than most of the things that might have come across the Endless Bridge.”
“Perhaps,” Tiernan said with a ghostly smile. “But part of that was your doing-your interference. No one but an outsider would have caused the fragmentation that you did when you took my sister away from Hoygraf. No Luukessian, at least.”
“I didn’t know she was your sister when I did it,” Cyrus said.
Tiernan gave a small chuckle. “If you had, would that have swayed you?”
“Doubtful.”
“Then it matters little enough, doesn’t it?” Tiernan started toward a pitcher of water that rested on a table near the side of the tent. “Your attack on the Baron-I’m sorry, it’s Grand Duke now, isn’t it? — on his castle and your subsequent actions forced me to guide my land toward a war I never asked for. That would be the only reason we wouldn’t have rendered aid to Syloreas given what’s happening, at least after my scout saw with his own eyes what we faced.”
“You seem to like the idea of fragmentation in the land of Luukessia as a whole,” Cyrus said. “But I note you don’t seem quite so fond of it when it happens in your own Kingdom.”
“No man enjoys having his own house thrown into chaos,” Tiernan said, his back to Cyrus while he hefted the water pitcher and poured it into his cup. “Make no mistake, Hoygraf has enough power to throw my house into a good deal of chaos.”
“You’re very frank about that,” Cyrus said. “I would have expected you’d do more to hide it, given your reputation for maneuvering and canniness. There doesn’t seem to be much advantage to be gained from telling me you’ve elevated a man to Grand Duke who is poised to tear your Kingdom apart should he so desire.”
Tiernan didn’t stiffen, not exactly, though his expression was masked from Cyrus, with his back turned as it was. The King took another sip of water without turning, and the warrior wondered if perhaps it was because Tiernan was taking the time to compose his reply. “There is little advantage in lying about the troubled state of my Kingdom to an outsider.” Tiernan pivoted and gave Cyrus a twisted smile. “Let us not be coy; you were my sister’s lover not so very long ago. I might not speak as freely with a complete stranger, but if she did not tell you at least a majority of the things I’ve ‘admitted’ to you in the last moments, I’ll eat my own horse for dinner.”
“She did tell me quite a bit about the goings-on of Actaluere,” Cyrus said, arms still folded. “But I assumed that it was from the perspective of the Baroness Hoygraf, not the … whatever her title was … Tiernan.”
“Her primary title would be ‘Princess,’” Tiernan said with a nod and a pained expression.
“Sounds oddly condescending,” Cyrus replied. “So your Kingdom is in trouble, what of it? Why are we discussing this?”
“We’re discussing it,” Tiernan said with a slightly raised eyebrow, “because you began with an admission that you intended my Kingdom no harm, and I responded by offering a similar statement which we then proceeded to descend into until we reached the current point of conversation.” He took a sip of the water, lightly, almost daintily, then pulled it away from his lips with a flourish. “I assumed that like my conversations with Unger, you preferred to remove all the guile from the subtext by throwing everything onto the table first, so that then we could proceed with our talk unfettered by the political silliness which I, incidentally, excel at.”
“Putting aside your strengths in a conversation with me doesn’t seem to be to your greatest advantage, either,” Cyrus said.
“It’s a strength; it’s hardly the only one I possess,” Tiernan said. “Speaking in circles around men like you and Unger nets me little when it’s only the two of us; you may discern what I’m going about but it profits me nothing when I’m merely trying to make a point.”
“What is your point?” Cyrus asked, not feeling half as overwhelmed as he thought he should given the waves of admissions and dizzying maneuvers that seemed already to have been employed. Is he being genuine or trying to muddle the issue? Damnation and hell if I can tell. Then again, his sister was quite good at misdirection as well …
“I’ve yet to approach it,” Tiernan said. “But here, let me say it without mincing the words-leave my sister be.”
Cyrus didn’t respond, not for a long, silent minute. “I have no more intention toward your sister.”
“Oh?” Tiernan stared him down, a smoky-eyed gaze. “You swore you’d protect her, go to war for her, but now you’re content to leave her to the hands of her loving husband?”
Cyrus felt a tightness all over his face. “Doesn’t it make it easier for you if that’s the case?”
Tiernan stared back at him. “As the King of Actaluere, yes.”
“And as her brother?”
Tiernan’s face twisted, his eyes narrower, little specks of green visible between the eyelids. “I don’t have the luxury of being her brother right now. I’m trying to keep a Kingdom from a bloody civil war at the hands of a sadistic madman while laboring to help save Luukessia from something we’ve never seen before.”
“I have no intention of making your job any harder as King,” Cyrus said. “She made her choice, for her own reasons. She went back to him, and this after lying to me about who she was and doing everything in her power to insult and provoke him.” He shrugged, dismissing the rumbling within him that wanted to argue. “I’ve done all I can for her at this point. My responsibility lies with helping to destroy this scourge that afflicts your land.”
“And after that?” Tiernan asked.
Cyrus laughed. “After that …” He let his words fade. “I suppose it’ll be time for me to go home, won’t it?”
“As the King of Actaluere, I would find great relief if you did.” Tiernan set aside the cup, and started toward the flap of the tent. “After all, there’s nothing so dangerous to a land that thrives on having a balance of power as something that could upset that balance, say, an army with more ability than anyone else’s. So, as King, I would heartily support your leaving after you finish your duty here.”
Cyrus shook his head in deep amusement. “To the hells with what you’d want as King. What you’re not saying is at least ten feet deeper than any of the shallow platitudes you’re throwing at me about what you’d desire and support as King. You want me to rescue her before I leave, don’t you?”
Tiernan held still, his body facing away from
Cyrus, but he slowly pivoted on a foot, his cloak swaying at his feet. “As the King, you know I could never ask such a thing.”
“Well, all I’m looking at right now is a King and not much else,” Cyrus said. “Not much of a man, that’s for certain-”
“Easy to say without the responsibility,” Tiernan said. “I hear that when I walk among the people in Caenalys, sometimes, when I don a cowl and go out to hear what word on the street is. ‘If I were King, I’d …’ followed by a suggestion of such gut-wrenching stupidity that it would annihilate my entire Kingdom with more certainty than disbanding the army and sending written invitations to Galbadien and Syloreas to come visit and bring all their soldiers.” Tiernan took slow, striding steps toward Cyrus, his every word filled with emotion that Cyrus hadn’t caught even a hint of in any of the meetings he’d been in with Tiernan. “To be a statesman is to do what is best for the land you rule and to do that first. Family comes second, and your own concerns come later, if at all. So I’m quite content if I’ve measured up in the first way, and forgive me if I give less than a damn how much of a man or a brother I look like to you.”
“You sold your sister in marriage to a monster who whips her, naked, in front of crowds,” Cyrus said with barely controlled disgust. “Better hold to that Kingly air you’re sporting as tightly as you can. Did you know what he was when you gave her to him? Did you know what kind of man he was when you elevated him to Grand Duke?”
“I knew what kind of power he held when I did all those things,” Tiernan said with little other reaction. “I knew what my Kingdom’s peril was when I did it. I knew what the danger was if I didn’t hand her off or elevate him for his service. And by service I mean his stupidity in becoming entangled with an army from the west.” Tiernan spun, keeping his face away from Cyrus again. “I knew what I did as a King and I ask for no forgiveness. I made hard choices that others might not have. You may believe that or not. What I ask is that if you are going to leave these shores, take my sister with you so that she might have the opportunity to escape the horror of Hoygraf’s charms.”
“And thus allow you to salve the conscience of the brother so the King may continue to happily rule without one of his own.” Cyrus shook his head, the disgust welling up within him. “It must take courage indeed to ask a stranger to make right by his own risk what you refuse to make right with yours.”
“One life or a million,” Tiernan said quietly. “I rule a million, and I gave over one to smoothe the passage of all of them. Find me another man who would not make the same choice in the same situation, and I’ll show you a better man than I, one who perhaps enjoys a quieter mind and less concern for the far-reaching consequences of his acts.”
“It’s funny how a man can have such a long vision, to be so farsighted as to see all the problems of his land,” Cyrus said, “but shortsighted enough to miss the ones that happen in his own house. I believe that could be called a form of blindness-or perhaps uncaring.”
This time, Tiernan bristled. “I will see you at the battle and likely not before then. When we speak again, as surely we shall over the course of these events, I shall not make mention of this.” Tiernan reached for the flap of the tent.
“Just as well,” Cyrus said. “We wouldn’t want to inflame that long-buried conscience of Cattrine’s brother, after all. It might interfere with the plottings of the King of Actaluere.”
“I did what I had to do, and I thought that perhaps you, as one who I had heard held some affection in your heart for Cattrine, might do me some small service and allow her a measure of happiness. I apologize, sir, for confusing you with someone who cared for her.” He pulled the tent open and let it flap shut behind him.
Cyrus sat there in the empty tent for a long time after that, pondering what reply he might have made. Ultimately, he said nothing to the empty tent, though much to himself on the inside.
Chapter 59
Vara
Day 5 of the Siege of Sanctuary
The northern Plains of Perdamun were sun-kissed, the late-summer light bounding over them just as the horses of Vara’s expeditionary party did. It was nearing daybreak, and the shadows were diminishing as the light increased. A fresh smell was in the air, the aura of dew and horse, of farm and field, and Vara steered her animal across the flat ground, the hoofbeats of a hundred following close behind her.
“This is such a clever idea,” Vaste’s voice grated at her from her right. “I really love the thought of the hundred of us being out here, all alone, in the middle of a territory crawling with dark elves. It’s a smart idea, too, running out of our safely defended keep in order to sow discord among our enemies’ supply lines, in hopes they won’t capture and kill us. Very clever.”
“It was exceedingly clever,” Ryin Ayend said without a trace of irony. “Though I know you’re being sarcastic, Vaste, it really was a good idea.”
“Me?” Vaste asked, his expression clouded with a sour look. “Be sarcastic? Surely not. But if I were, perhaps it’s not so much that I dislike the idea as I dislike the fact that I’m forced to rise before dawn to help execute the idea.”
“I had just assumed that riding the horse as you were,” Vara said, “you were experiencing some early saddle soreness that was making you complain in an infantile manner. Either that, or the conjured bread we’ve been eating of late is causing you some mild colic.”
“I am not experiencing colic or any sort of saddle soreness-yet,” Vaste replied. “I do expect that once we’ve engaged the enemy a few times and they begin to reinforce their convoys with extra soldiers, I’ll begin to experience some digestive disturbances, though.”
“I’m certain that will be to no one’s advantage,” Ryin muttered as they came over a slight rise in the plains. “Up there.” He pointed to a line visible in the far distance.
“That’d be our first convoy, I suppose,” Vaste said. “Can you tell if it’s the dark elves from here?”
“It is,” Vara replied. “At least ten wagons, no visible column of soldiers marching with it.” She let herself smile then stopped when she remembered that there were others with her. “I believe it is time to show these dark elves the error of their ways.”
“You make it sound as though we’re going to hand them a list of table manner faux pas they committed at a dinner party,” Vaste said. “And if that’s the case, I would like to add that drinking directly from the soup bowl is considered bad form, though not nearly so much as scratching yourself in inappropriate places with your dessert fork.” After drawing a long, uncomfortable look from both Ryin and Vara, he hastened to add, “I learned that one from hard experience myself.”
“Let us have at them, then,” Vara said, and urged her horse into a gallop. “No survivors in military garb. Let any civilians have the opportunity to flee but don’t hesitate to kill. We can always resurrect any casualties later.”
“Says the one who doesn’t have to drain her magical energy to bring them back,” Vaste murmured.
“Keep your wits about you,” she ordered and then glanced at Vaste. “Oh, it’s you. I forgot. Never mind, then.”
“I’m actually very witty,” Vaste said, “though you’d need to loosen up by a considerable margin to appreciate it.”
“Oh, I appreciate it,” Vara said, her horse already hard at work, running full out. “If only I could be as amusing as you.”
“I read once that brevity is the key to wit,” Vaste said, his voice barely audible over the hoofbeats of the entire raiding party. “Perhaps you should talk less.”
They rode hard across the plains, the steady pace carrying them toward the slow-moving wagon train on the road ahead. It was only when they were a few hundred yards away that the convoy began to realize that there was danger afoot, and they hurried to move the wagons along but by then it was far too late.
The wagons were all flat-bedded, stacked high with barrels and crates. Dark elves sat up front in ones and twos, Vara noted as she assessed the threat. There w
ere a half-dozen horsed soldiers with them, their armor of the boiled leather variety. Not a spellcaster among them and woefully underdefended, prepared only for angry farmers upset at the theft of their crops. That will change after today.
She raised her blade above her head and let loose a warcry. It annoyed her a second after she did it; it was far too close to something Cyrus Davidon would have done. Loud warfare is the province of the savage and unskilled. I have other means at my disposal.
She extended her blade as the dark elven soldiers lined up on horseback in a rank two wide, forming a spear as though to charge into the Sanctuary force. She let the tip point just between the first two, and then whispered the incantation she had learned shortly after she turned sixteen. A ripple of air flew forth, channeled from her hand down her blade, her spell sending a burst of concussive force at the riders.
Her blast hit the first of them as the horses made to swerve; they did not make it in time, and the riders were thrown, coming hard to the ground in a crunch of breaking bones and falling animals. Her spell carried through them and smashed the next in the rank, and the next, all the way to the fourth row. Only four remaining now, Vara thought as she sent her horse onward over the fallen enemies. She raised her blade and jerked her horse left, dodging the attack aimed at her by the first of her remaining opponents. She caught him flush against the gap between his leather armor and steel helm, and there was a gasping noise as he hit the ground. She readied her sword again and struck back at the final horseman still in the line, dealing him a glancing blow.
Once she passed, she pulled on the reins with her free hand and brought her horse into a quick turn. Her army of a hundred had finished the last of the dark elves. She turned to see the convoy trying to get away still and sent her horse galloping after it. She pulled aside the first wagon and aimed her sword at the dark elf sitting atop it. His hands came up in front of him, shaking, and Vara could see the age on his lined blue skin, the corners of his eyes with the crow’s feet radiating from them. She did not say a word, merely maintained pace with the wagon and the man brought it to a stop. A few of the wagons behind his tried to escape off the road, and she watched them fail, one of them even losing a wheel trying to break right over a bumpy field. The Sanctuary raiding party was around them in force and they were outmatched.
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