by Carol Berg
“Of course, my lord, I understand. Our holy god Gossopar went through many trials as he ascended to his power in Kalliapa Gran. He once had to remove every hair from his body with fire—even that in the most private of his nether parts—and stay smooth-shaven in that manner for a year. To be forbidden speech with one’s comrades, even in time of battle, is perhaps less torment, especially if you have the hair of a Suzai!”
“Indeed,” I said, no longer able to withhold a smile at my dreamer’s earnest comforting. “Though Ezzarians are notoriously sparse of hair, I would not welcome such a trial.”
However, I did not welcome this trial, either. Feyd excused himself from further conversation, as his custom was to offer prayers to his god as he arrayed himself for combat. And so I huddled in his tent and listened to the sounds of the outlaw band preparing for battle. Along with creaking leather and metallic echoes of blades and harness came the nervous laughter, the last reminders of position and tactics, quiet encouragement, the generous assurances of manhood and courage and faithfulness, shared solace over fallen comrades, all the human intercourse that was now forbidden me. A number of people passed along messages to be sent back to loved ones with Elinor, and I silently passed along my own. For you, my son. If I can do this thing ... make the world whole and healthy for you ... Whatever is necessary to make it so, I will do.
Heavy footsteps paused just on the other side of the tent wall. “Your sister is right, you know,” said Aleksander quietly. “Stay out of action until you’re fully healed. Believe me, I understand how it leaves your gut in a tangle to stay behind.”
“I’ve never had to send them into this kind of danger without me.”
“Despite my multitudes of faults, which were duly noted and gossiped about, the courtiers in Zhagad forever praised me as bold and brave because I insisted on riding out with my warriors on a mission. They didn’t understand that I took the easier path. We’ve a long siege ahead, Blaise. You’ll have more chances than you could ever want.”
“The gods ride with you this night, Lord Aleksander.”
“I wish I understood—Would you walk with me for a bit? I’d like to know a little more about a few of the men. This man Feyd, for one ...”
I could have shifted form and gone with them to eavesdrop further on their conversation. But even such a one-sided “entanglement” seemed a violation of the spirit of my agreement. A month or two, the Madonai had said, and then I could do as I wished. Until then, if the condition of my presence was isolation, so be it.
In the months since our escape, the powerful Rhyzka heged had gotten their wish and moved one of their lower-ranked lords into Gan Hyffir, the last holding of the Bek heged. The Bek first lord, taking a lesson from the dreadful punishment wreaked upon the Naddasine, had not protested directly to Edik, but rather withdrawn into Tanzire. From a small town house he had tried to maintain his dignity, his tenants, and his purse strings by continuing to manage the Gan Hyffir farms and find markets for their wheat. He had proclaimed loudly that his generous Emperor, though desiring a well-made fortress for his powerful Rhyzka allies, could surely not have meant for either a Derzhi noble or his loyal tenants to starve. But old Bek’s restraint had not saved him. The first lord, his three sons, and one son-in-law had been scheduled for execution, their women strongly encouraged to take poison. The Bek warriors remained quartered at Gan Hyffir, but were stripped of their yellow-and-blue Bek scarves and conscripted directly into the Emperor’s service under Rhyzka command. Aleksander planned to change all that.
When the Aveddi and his riders set out for Tanzire, I flew with them in falcon’s form, high above them in the moonless night, so that Aleksander would not guess that I had been in his camp. I would abide by the agreement. Indeed, self-isolation had served me well when I was a slave. But detachment did not require me to insult my friends.
Blaise had us within sight of the walls of Tanzire a mere half hour after Aleksander’s signal. I left the party then, and flew ahead to open the way.
Tanzire slept. Perhaps my new-learned skill with dreams was what told me that it did not sleep peacefully. Sovari’s bones no longer hung from the ramparts, nor were there any visible remains of W‘Assani or Malver left upon the desolate land outside the walls, but I felt the three restless spirits close that night, and I had no doubt that Aleksander would feel them, also. “We will remember you with more than blood,” I said as I perched upon the very post where the faithful guard captain had been so grotesquely displayed. “But tonight blood will be paid.” I shifted to my true form, and, one by one, I settled silently behind each of the Rhyzka archers on the wall. I touched each man on the shoulder and let him turn and gape at my wings and golden light. Then I killed him, saying, “This for the faithful Sovari,” or “This for the noble Malver,” or “This for the glorious W’Assani.” When all was done, I touched earth and unbarred the gates that I had loosened from the sand so many months ago. Without benefit of cranks or gears or even the wind, I shoved them open just enough to let the raiders in.
Easy to see what had been planned for the lords of the Bek on the morrow. Across the wide expanse of the marketplace stood the ancient guard tower, and between the tower and the gates, five gibbets stood waiting. They occupied the very spot where W‘Assani’s wagon had been abandoned, and where we had fought our way out of the city to meet crushing defeat when we thought our victory won. I would allow no repetition of that horror on this night.
Outside the walls was the motley sprawl that sprang up outside of any closed city. A few small fires marked the travelers’ camp, and the quiet sounds of restless beasts and wakeful children hung in the still air. Two young merchants lounged by a muddy trough watering their string of horses.
The stars slogged relentlessly along their night’s path. Seven horsemen rode out of the desert, slowly, as if tired from long journeying. They merged easily into the drowsy camp, and soon the slight wrinkle their arrival caused in the fabric of the night was smoothed again. Only from my vantage could one see the seven dark-clad strangers slip through the open gates a short time later. They looked up as they passed below me, of course, and I raised my hand in greeting, but did not go down to meet them.
I remained on the walls, making sure that no one came to close the gates, to replace the guard untimely in the mud-brick guard tower, or to bother the two young merchants who seemed to have acquired a few more beasts than they had brought to the watering trough. Only a suspicious eye would have remarked that the two had saddled the string of horses they’d told their fellow travelers were to be up at auction the next morning.
In less than half an hour, the first two raiders slipped out of the alleyway beside the guard tower. The rest soon followed, along with five new companions—the freed prisoners. Almost done. But the group had only just passed the waiting gibbets when I heard urgent hoofbeats from the direction of the guard barracks. Another betrayal? More likely some signal not given, some report not made. Whatever the reason, we needed to be away.
Sword drawn and ready, I shot downward and touched earth at the far edge of the marketplace, where the guardsmen would emerge from the dark street and into the open. Aleksander, who was bringing up the rear of the rescue party, left the others and hurried toward me across the expanse. “What are you doing?” I held up one hand to stop him and pointed my sword in the direction of the approaching danger. Though he could not yet have heard the horsemen, he reversed quickly in his tracks and called to the others, “Run!”
He heard the pounding onslaught soon enough, as well as the terrified cries of townsmen who peeped out of their shutters and observed my blazing form as I raised a towering whirlwind of sand. Once I had the wind churning, I could not judge time, for I was fully occupied with some twenty Rhyzka warriors.
How long to hold? I ducked a slashing blow from a Derzhi horseman and brought up my sword in a counter. Three, four blades at once. Long enough for them to get through the gates, onto the mounts that Mattei and Gerla have ready,
and far enough away that pursuers won’t know their direction. Not too long, though. I couldn’t hold twenty indefinitely.
But I got caught up in the battle, in the challenge of opposing so many. Each time a party threatened to break free of me, I lashed out with another blast of flaying wind and called down a rain of fire. The horses screamed and reared, and I laughed when I got them so tangled they could not pull away from each other. “Not so fast!” I bellowed, and pounced on a determined warrior who was heading for the gates. I lifted him out of the saddle with one arm and threw him to the ground. Not gently. Ducking two blows, I stabbed upward to catch one of the attackers, yanked the other from his saddle by the leg, and managed to snatch a glance at the gates. No sign of my friends. The uncomfortable tightness in my chest told me that my dreamer was well out of the city.
How long has it been? A spear grazed my back in the sensitive area where my wing joined my flesh. Fortunately it did not penetrate deep, but only gouged a stinging hole and fell away. I spun in the air and saw three arrows, two spears, and at least ten blades headed my way. Long enough. Soaring upward, I pounded the gates shut with a final burst of enchantment. Then I abandoned Tanzire and sped through the desert night toward Aleksander and the besieged Bek fortress.
CHAPTER 37
I had fought at Tanzire much longer than needed. By the time I made my way to the squat, cheerless fortress of Gan Hyffir, Aleksander had taken charge of the battle begun by Feyd’s father Marouf and Terlach, the son of the Manganar king. Before the assault, Brynna, one of the demon-joined Ezzarians, had slipped unobserved into the fortress and opened the way for two more of Blaise’s people. The three of them had made their way into the guard barracks and told the Bek warriors that a new leader from the desert—a Derzhi lord who was favored of the gods and was called the Aveddi, the Firstborn of Azhakstan—was coming to reclaim Gan Hyffir and prevent the unjust execution of their lords. And so, at dawn, when the Manganar and Suzaini troops struck, the Bek rose up inside the fortress and threw open the gates.
This is not to say the battle was easy. The Rhyzka were well disciplined and outnumbered us three to one. A determined troop of archers occupied the highest tower of the fortress and rained down death on our fighters. In the space of ten heartbeats three arrows narrowly missed Aleksander, who was riding back and forth along his front lines, trying to keep his inexperienced troops from falling back under the barrage. I took care of the problem. The archers were well protected by Rhyzka swordsmen, but it was only a matter of time and work to clean them out.
Blood flowed freely that morning, but by the time the sun hung at its zenith, Aleksander was embracing the Bek first lord and his sons, and introducing them to the commanders who had retaken their stronghold. Together the Prince, Marouf, and Terlach ushered the Bek through the gates to the cheers of Bek warriors and the odd company of Manganar and Suzaini fighters and painted outlaws of the Yvor Lukash. The symbol of a flaming arrow, the Bek banner that Aleksander had brought as a gift to the beleaguered heged, flew once again on the ramparts of Gan Hyffir. Above it flew another banner. Many were asking whose crest was a woven pattern of gold, red, and yellow that looked like a sun rising over a field of golden grass. I knew, though I had seen it only in books of history and lore. It was the royal crest of Manganar.
As my blood-fever cooled, I circled over the battlefield like one of the vultures, watching the victors care for their wounded, lay out the dead as their customs specified, and round up Rhyzka prisoners who knelt waiting, hands on heads. The fortress stood on a rugged hilltop, and the battle had spread over the flanks of the hill as the Bek drove the Rhyzka out of the castle and into Aleksander’s arms. From the wide vantage of the cloudless sky, I glimpsed the flash of a raised weapon in the folded rocks at the base of the hill and heard a faint cry ... and then another. No one else in the milling, exhausted aftermath of battle seemed to notice.
I drew my sword once again, dived, and touched my bare feet to a shelf of warm sandstone. While one Derzhi stood guard, a second Derzhi raised his sword above the head of a kneeling Thrid. Three other men had already met the fate that awaited the captive. The two Derzhi wore the colors of the Rhyzka. I neither challenged nor warned the executioner, just knocked away the upraised sword and kicked him in the head, dropping him on his backside. A wave of my weapon discouraged the other warrior from making any move ... or perhaps it was the sight of my wings unfurled or all the blood on my golden skin. The Thrid man looked up, trembling, and I jerked my head toward the fortress and the battlefield. He bowed, grabbed his horses, and ran.
I had every intention of shepherding the two Derzhi back to the first Bek warrior I could find, but the one sitting on the ground, a thick-chested, youngish man with the puffy eyes, coarse skin, and red-veined nose of one much older, shot me a glance of such malevolence that it stopped me in midmotion. Though I was not threatened in the least by human hatred, his vicious demeanor caused me to look at him more closely. That’s when I noticed his earring. Derzhi earrings often designated heged rank, the size, materials, design, and gemstones combining to allow easy distinction of a first, second, or third lord from a lowly tenth. We had heard that the Rhyzka sixth was the resident of Gan Hyffir, but this man was of much higher rank ... the second lord of his heged. The second lord of the Rhyzka was the first lord’s son, which meant his name would be Bohdan, the brute who had taken his ten-year-old bride named Nyamot and used her to death.
We were likely a strange sight for those who stood on the battlefield or on the ramparts of Gan Hyffir—the naked, blood-marked warrior with wings leading a man, also naked, by a neck halter. When he fell, I dragged him until he could get up again. It had been the hardest thing I’d ever done to keep from mutilating him. I had stripped and bound him, my knife poised over the flaccid weapon he had used to murder a child. As is the way with brutes, his courage deserted him quickly, and he screamed and begged and wept. Mercy did not stay my blade. Rather this matter was so charged with significance that I could not deprive Aleksander of its resolution.
And so I kicked and prodded Bohdan onward toward his proper judge. By the time we reached the fortress gate, an expectant crowd had gathered, including Aleksander and the Bek lords. I touched earth, forced Bohdan to his knees with a yank on the halter, and passed the rope to a puzzled Lord Sereg, the Bek fourth whom Aleksander had met in Tanzire. Then in Aleksander’s hands I laid the Rhyzka tef-coat and the bloody earring I had ripped from Bohdan’s head. “What’s happening with you, Seyonne?” he said, studying my face. “What’s all this?”
Without a word I summoned the wind and flew upward, circling about to hover over the Prince and his prisoner. Having no answer from me, Aleksander shifted his attention to what I’d brought him. He touched the earring, and I saw the change when the understanding came. His fist clenched about the earring, and he raised it high with a blood-chilling cry of triumph. I did not stay to watch his resolution. I trusted him to act with wisdom ... more than I trusted myself. And indeed, I had other matters on my mind. I returned to the battlefield.
Feyd was walking beside his father as the Suzaini palatine spoke to his fighters, healthy and wounded, and heard each man’s report of his role in the battle. The bearded noble berated each wounded man, encouraging him to combat the weakness that had led to his injuries and demonstrating his expectation that in the warrior’s next trial, the man would strive to triumph over such imperfection. As the father and son walked away from a cluster of men who were preparing a dead fighter for burial, I touched earth and nodded respectfully to Marouf.
“My greetings to you, most holy one,” said the Suzaini noble, bowing deeply, his eyes flaming in wonder. “What service may I offer you?”
I did not answer, but only beckoned Feyd.
“Honored father,” said the younger man, “my lord Seyonne has need of me. May I be excused from your side to accompany him?”
“Of course. Certainly. I am pleased that my son is of use to one so favored of the gods.”
The palatine glanced from side to side as gawking fighters moved close to see and hear. His voice rose a bit louder. “Holy warrior, you honor the house of Sabon and inflame the glory of Suza by choosing one of our own as your companion. For so long our history has been diminished ...”
“Horses,” I murmured to Feyd, and the young man scurried off as I heard out the nobleman’s few moments of rhetoric. I was dreadfully impatient, but to listen respectfully was little enough to do for a proud people who, in the span of a few centuries, had been reduced to a caricature of themselves. Every Suzaini back grew a little straighter as Marouf spoke.
When Feyd returned, mounted and leading an extra horse, I nodded wordlessly to Marouf and to the small crowd who had gathered. Then I gathered the wind and took wing, motioning Feyd to ride after me, thinking that to change to human form right then would diminish what small gift I had given the Suzaini. And though it precluded much conversation, once we were away, it just seemed easier to fly. “I need to go to Zif‘Aker,” I called down to Feyd. “Lead me there.” As in everything, Feyd did as I commanded.
“Ride into the settlement and tell everyone the news of the raid,” I said, leaning heavily on a dusty lemon tree and looking down on Zif‘Aker, a dry little valley in southeastern Azhakstan that was Blaise’s new hiding place. Shifting to human form when we had come within sight of the bleak encampment had been a mistake. My side ached fiercely, and every bone felt like lead. Clothes felt awkward and stiff. “Take your time about it. Are you sure that’s the right tent, the third from the end?”
“I’m certain of it. And what shall I do once I’ve told them of our victory?” Feyd’s eager young face showed no lack of will, though he had dismounted slowly and lost his footing several times as we descended the steep hillside toward the lemon grove that overlooked the latest resting place of the refugees from Taíne Keddar and Taíne Horet. He was tired, too.
