Upon the Flight of the Queen

by Howard Andrew Jones

  Elenai started to say that she didn’t think it worked like that, but what did she know, really, about how the hearthstones worked? “It’s certainly worth a try,” she admitted. “Maybe I ought to first try to check in with N’lahr. To make sure he’s not a frozen statue.”

  “Assuming that contacting him again won’t turn him into one, you mean?”

  “Assuming that, yes.”

  “Why don’t you wait until we have something definite to report. If he’s still frozen, what can you do? And if he isn’t, then you’d be wasting time, because we might have better news to give him a little later.”

  “All right,” she said. Better to not risk contact with him unless it was absolutely necessary, given what had happened last time.

  After her morning prayers, they wolfed down a meager breakfast and hurried away, finding a secluded copse of trees to finish their morning routines. The sky had brightened, though the sun was hidden somewhere beyond the cliffs. Overhead, the ko’aye streamed past in knots of ten or more. As the Altenerai neared their horses, a trio of the winged predators watched from on high. With the shadows long and the sun behind them, Elenai couldn’t be certain which ones they were. None, however, flew down to speak with them, which explained Kyrkenall’s frown.

  “I keep thinking that Drusa will report in,” he said as they strode on, saddlebags over their shoulders. “It wouldn’t be like her to let us leave without saying farewell. Unless last night counted as farewell.”

  “Maybe she’s still convincing them.”

  Kyrkenall was feeling more pessimistic. “Or maybe they’re flying out for the morning hunt and are done with us.”

  Ortok was where they’d left him at a little hill nestled against a cliffside. The horses were picketed still, munching on the grass while keeping a wary eye on the large hunters swooping overhead. Their ears flicked nervously.

  The kobalin looked up from brushing his horse and raised a furry hand in greeting. “Good morning, Altenerai companions. Did the Gods send you messages?”

  “Rialla sent us a message,” Kyrkenall said. “I just hope she sends more. How about you?”

  “I dreamt that I had named this horse, and that I called him Steadyfoot, and you praised me for that.”

  It sounded a ludicrous name to Elenai, but Kyrkenall apparently decided against teasing the kobalin. He nodded. “Good enough. You should name the things you value. You’ll have to use his name when you’re asking him things to do if you want him to know it.”

  Ortok nodded. “I’ve seen you do that with your Lyria. I thought deeply on your words, and I resolved to value him as you value yours, for the matter is no longer strange to me.”

  Kyrkenall clapped one of his massive shoulders.

  The kobalin lowered the brush from the white horse now known as Steadyfoot. “Why do you touch me?”

  “I meant…” Kyrkenall put his hands on his hips. “It’s a sign of affection, Ortok. I guess we’re becoming friends.”

  “Are we?”

  “Aren’t we?” Kyrkenall asked.

  Ortok crouched to set the brush into a saddlebag, then scratched his furry chest. “How do you know? Do we shake hands?”

  “If you like,” Kyrkenall said with a faint smile.

  “I did this with N’lahr, but there were words. I don’t remember them. Tell me what it is again to be a friend among you.”

  “It means,” Elenai piped in, “that we watch out for each other. That we keep others from trying to do our friends harm, that we share and struggle together. Maybe it means we’re a little more patient when we annoy each other, and we listen and try to help when our friends feel poorly.”

  “It sounds a lot to remember,” Ortok said, “although we do some of these things already.”

  “It is a responsibility,” Kyrkenall said gravely. “Maybe some people don’t take it as seriously as they should. I like that you do. It speaks well to you being a good friend.”

  Elenai was perplexed a little by Kyrkenall, especially considering the views he’d espoused about kobalin just a few days earlier. He seemed to change his opinions as the mood struck him. In this instance, at least, she approved, and liked it when Ortok thrust his hand out fully and he and Kyrkenall clasped arms.

  “Elenai, too, I think is my friend,” Ortok said. “If she agrees.”

  “I’d be honored,” Elenai said, and she found that the powerful arm and its large hand were surprisingly gentle as they enveloped her tiny ones.

  “Friends,” Ortok said, and Elenai repeated the word. “It’s good to have friends,” Ortok decided. “I missed the cooking of your little cakes this morning, small archer. If we are friends you must share them always.”

  “Every morning we travel, if you’d like.”

  “Will you cook now?”

  “Now we need to get moving, I’m afraid. I…” Kyrkenall fell silent as a winged form circled down toward the bottom of the hill.

  “Pardon me.” Kyrkenall hurried down the slope. Elenai nodded to the kobalin and then went after, arriving as Drusa landed gracefully upon her haunches and sat, not bothering to fold her wings.

  Kyrkenall paused at the foot of the little hill and bowed at the same time the wind hit the grass, so that they genuflected together. Elenai was just behind him and a moment later in the bow as well.

  Drusa inclined her head. Her neck scar was more prominent in the light. “I come to bid you farewell, Kyrkenall.”

  “Did you talk with the others?”

  “I did. There’s much talk. Some wish to return to our homelands, some to The Fragments. Others are more cautious. And so we are sending a group to look over the lands. We also want to see these large ko’aye. Some of us remember our reasons to redden our claws upon the Naor.”

  Elenai felt a thrill of hope, but said nothing, waiting instead for Drusa to finish.

  “I will fly with those going to your lands. If I see N’lahr, it may be that we will speak.”

  “Please do,” Kyrkenall said. “If we work together, it will be worse for the Naor.”

  Drusa let loose with that warbling sound Elenai thought might be laughter. “So Kalandra said! Do you come now, too, to slay Naor?”

  “Yes. My greatest pleasure would be to hunt them with you.”

  “It may be that day will come,” Drusa said. “Some of my friends wondered if you would go pray to the Altenerai god, since it is so close.”

  “The Altenerai god?” Elenai asked.

  Drusa cocked her head as they looked back at her in puzzlement. “Are you confused? Do I use the wrong word?”

  Kyrkenall’s confusion was obvious from his tone. “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s a barren place in the shifts that the kobalin say is holy. They say an Altenerai god dwells there. Your kobalin should know.”

  “I’m not sure Ortok does,” Kyrkenall said. “He’s been away from his people.”

  Elenai had a sudden memory. “Kyrkenall, do you remember what Qirok said? That if we arrived at the place where the war god dwells we’d gone past the ko’aye lands?”

  Kyrkenall nodded. “But that still doesn’t make sense. What god are they talking about? Have you been there, Drusa?”

  “I speak rarely to the kobalin, for they have nothing important to say. I have flown over the place and seen only bones. But they say there is a god there, and kobalin claim it as a holy place.”

  “We don’t have a god of the Altenerai,” Kyrkenall’s voice all but shook with excitement.

  Not unless you counted Queen Altenera, who had founded the corps. It was just possible that the reverence they gave her could be interpreted by some as worship. But her remains were interred in a crypt on Cemetery Ridge, overlooking Darassus.

  Kyrkenall’s eyes were bright with hope. “It could be one of the Altenerai,” he said. “Maybe a powerful sorceress!”

  To Elenai it seemed he leapt to conclusions, but she supposed it was just possible Kalandra was there, trapped in a stone.

/>   “You seem agitated, Kyrkenall,” Drusa said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Ortok had left the horses and was climbing down to join their conversation circle.

  “How do I get there?” Kyrkenall asked.

  “Go in that direction,” Drusa said with a jerk of her head. “I do not know how long to tell you it will take, on your beasts. You will know when you are close because you will see the signs of a kobalin holy place. Rock made into piles.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as Ortok stopped at Kyrkenall’s side.

  “Oh, that is a bad idea,” Ortok said. “Going to a kobalin holy place invites death.”

  “It’s the war god place Qirok’s band was talking about,” Kyrkenall said. “Do you know anything about it?”

  Ortok shook his head. “Only where it lies, from what Qirok said. But I have never seen it.”

  “Then that means it became holy while you were on guard, doesn’t it? And that means that it almost has to be Kalandra!”

  “Going to a holy place is bad,” Ortok said. “If you travel there, you will die.”

  “Why?” Elenai asked.

  “Kobalin guard their holy places,” he explained. “Even if you think the priests are absent, they know you are there. They kill those not given permission.”

  Kyrkenall fixed Drusa with an intense stare, and his voice held a hard edge. “How do I find it?”

  “You sound wrong, Kyrkenall.”

  “I must find her, Drusa. You must understand how important that would be.”

  “I don’t think you’ll find Kalandra,” she answered. “But I will tell you. It’s a small fragment past the one we call Kleeshkret, which is a tiny piece with some fruit trees and an orange water area shaped like a youngling’s open mouth. There are many little islands near here, but this one is rich with old magics.”

  “Ortok will guide me.”

  “If the kobalin says it’s dangerous, it probably is.” She fixed him with unwinking eyes. “It’s a terrible thing to be separated from your mate. If mine were trapped there, I would seek him, so I wish you good fortune.” She dipped her head.

  Kyrkenall returned the gesture. “Thank you,” he said.

  Drusa flapped her wings and walked past them into the long grass on a rise, then leapt into the air and soared off.

  Kyrkenall spoke to them quietly as he watched her rise. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  Elenai wondered if he did. “Drusa all but promised us at least some of the ko’aye were going to go fight the Naor. We need to get back to N’lahr.”

  Kyrkenall shook his head. “No. You can go. I swore that the next time I had to choose between Kalandra and the mission I was choosing her.”

  Probably N’lahr himself wouldn’t be able to change his mind this time, even if she decided to risk contact.

  “I’m so close now.” There was a pleading note in his voice.

  It seemed to her that he assumed too much. “How far is it, Ortok?” she asked.

  “If Qirok was right, it may be four sleeps.”

  That was too long. Couldn’t Kyrkenall see that? “If we go to this place, we’ll arrive too late for the battle. And whatever this is, it’s probably not her.”

  The archer looked at Elenai as though she were foolish. “Do you think the war will end with one battle? If it is Kalandra, we’ll have another ally, a powerful one. And we’re so close.” Seeing the doubt in her eyes, his expression hardened. “I’m going.” He faced Ortok. “Can you guide me?”

  “I can do that.” Ortok turned his furry head. “But what of Elenai? Do friends leave friends behind?”

  “Damnit, Elenai,” Kyrkenall said. “Don’t get between me and—”

  “I’m going with you!” she shouted.

  “You are?”

  “Because the last thing we need is one more lost alten,” she said bitterly. “I mean you,” she added, in case it wasn’t clear. “If you hit a big storm out here you’re probably done for.”

  He might have countered that he had survived them in the past, but he bowed his head in acknowledgment, or thanks, or both.

  She started to remind him that N’lahr needed him. That the people of The Fragments needed him. But then she thought once more of all the sacrifices he had made through the years, and the uncounted times he had risked himself for the safety of the realms, and she couldn’t find it in her to object anymore. “Enough of this,” she said. “Let’s get under way.”

  16

  The Next Ride

  Rylin came instantly awake. There was no half-fogged state where he swam slowly up to consciousness, or where the waking world was an incessant clamor that drowned out the sound of dreams. His eyes were open and staring at a sloped brown canvas ceiling overhead. A tent. As Rylin sorted through memories for some clue about his location, disjointed images presented themselves. Frantic strangers hunching over him as he tried to speak, two of them women in Alantran head scarves. Alten Enada peering at him, her round, high-cheekboned face grave. Lasren holding the mouth of a wineskin to his lips, more somber than he’d ever seen. Were any of those real, or were they dreams?

  Real. He sat up and winced at a twinge through his midriff. Right. He’d been stabbed solidly. Dreading what he might see, he rolled up the stained white shirt he was wearing—too long to be his—and found a long pink scar along his chest. Unless he’d been out for a very long time, healing magic had been used on him. It would have had to have been.

  Come to think of it, there’d been other wounds, and he pulled his shirt to one side and looked at his left upper arm. There wasn’t even a scar there. He guessed the weavers had had an easier time with that injury.

  From outside he heard voices speaking indistinctly, as if from farther away. There was the smell of horses and grass, and manure, which meant the horses snorting must be picketed unless he’s been moved to some village far from where he fell. With a flash he remembered Rurudan’s scream as the noble beast had dropped beneath him, and he sighed in despair. It was too much to hope that his horse, too, had somehow survived.

  Even as he mourned his favorite mount, the scent of roasting fowl reached him, and his mouth watered without him having any choice in the matter. He ignored the pang from his chest and got moving. His legs shook, but he managed to rise, ducking his head just a little lest he strike it on the canvas narrowing to a point overhead. He made his way to the tent opening on bare feet.

  Pushing the flap aside and away from the pole, he looked out on a camp built along a gentle slope. The sky was blue and clear. A breeze caressed the height of grasses without appreciably cooling the warm afternoon air. A field of bedrolls was spread out before him, interspersed with the occasional tent. In the distance, a dozen mounted cavalry rode away. Closer at hand, a number of men wearing baggy pants and loose-sleeved shirts mucked out the long makeshift corral where dozens of horses grazed. Kaneshi, from their clothing and clipped facial hair.

  Where was this, and how long had he been out? And what about the city of Alantris? Was he even still in The Fragments? The rolling ground and nearby mountains told him the answer to the last question was yes.

  And where was the food? As he peered into the sunlight he ran a hand back through his hair, for the first time wondering how he looked, and then touched the side of his face and found beard stubble.

  “Rylin!” said a familiar voice from his right.

  It was Lasren, limping toward him in muddy boots. A helmet with a stiff horsehair crest was tucked under one broad arm, and his thinning black hair was swept back from his widow’s peak.

  Lasren looked at him as though he were seeing a ghost. “I wasn’t sure you were ever going to come out of it.”

  “It’s good to see you.” Rylin discovered his voice was weak. At least, he thought it was good to see him. Might Lasren be in league with Denaven? If so, Rylin was in no shape to challenge his friend. “Why are you limping? What happened to the Alantrans I was escorting?”

  “The Alantrans are fine. I got
injured in a fight with a kobalin lord.”

  “A kobalin lord?” It sounded as though Lasren had encountered his own series of surprises. “What happened?”

  “Now that’s a story.” Lasren paused as if to consider how best to tell it. “Wait a moment.” He stepped over to one of the nearby Kaneshi, who was staring. Rylin didn’t hear what his friend told him, but the man thrust his pitchfork into the ground and hurried off.

  Rylin tensed, wary of Lasren’s aims. “What’s that about?”

  “The commander wanted to be notified the moment you woke up. I’m glad to see you moving. You’re a hero now, you know. I go to cover myself in fame and glory, and by the time I see you again you’re a living legend!”

  He’d never heard Lasren talk quite like this before. “Commander Denaven?” Rylin suggested warily.

  “No, Denaven’s dead,” Lasren said. “It turns out Kyrkenall was innocent. The kobalin was helping protect him, which is how I got hurt.”

  With that reassurance, Rylin wanted a better sense of what was going on around him. Though he was curious to hear more about Lasren and the kobalin, he was more worried about Varama. “What’s happening in Alantris?”

  “The Naor are still there. But thanks to the Kaneshi we’ve got them trapped inside. At night we light extra campfires so they think we’ve got a much larger army.”

  “Aren’t you in danger from the Naor cavalry?”

  “Not anymore. They got crushed between the Kaneshi and a troop of Alantran horse that stayed outside the walls. The Naor haven’t dared leave the city again.”

  The Naor had never been accomplished horse warriors, probably because their own lands tended toward the rocky and steep.

  “Those were Alantrans who attacked me, weren’t they?” Rylin asked. “With some squires.”

  “Right. They were sure upset when the ‘prisoners’ you were escorting started attacking them after you got hurt. And that poor squire who stabbed you is going to be pretty pleased you’re finally up. A couple of times over the last few days I think he was close to slitting his own throat.”