Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three

by Shepherd, Joel

  “Well I’m quite sure I can’t purge the Tol’rhen,” Rhillian said firmly. “The priesthood at least can be embarrassed, but Ulenshaals have no shame. And I cannot make enemies of the Nasi-Keth. If we lose them, we lose the city.”

  “Agreed,” said the lieutenant. He ticked off his fingers. “Justiciars, administrators, city guard, Blackboots, priesthood, Nasi-Keth…who did we miss?”

  From back up the hall, there were shouts and cries. Both turned to look, and saw a gathering crowd of cityfolk, some waving colourful banners.

  “The factions,” Rhillian answered Raine’s question. “Go to your duties, Lieutenant, I’ll deal with these.”

  She walked up the hall to where the intruders were causing the commotion. Justiciary guards stood warily close, hand to their swords. Civid Sein, Rhillian read the Rhodaani scrawl upon their blue banners…such a love of banners through the Rhodaani factions, a colour for every ideology. And there at their front was an ageing, fat Ulenshaal in black robes, in animated discussion with a justiciar.

  “Ulenshaal,” said Rhillian. “Are you with these?” With a short nod to the rough-hewn men behind him. They looked too rustic for cityfolk, in truth. Farmers and village people, perhaps. Some held hoes or spades that could surely double as weapons.

  “I am,” said the man in a loud, deep voice. “I am Ulenshaal Sevarien. These members of the Civid Sein have come to appeal for justice to the traitors who would sell out Rhodaan to the beasts who threaten our borders!”

  “I intend to see justice, Ulenshaal,” Rhillian replied. “Be assured of it. In the meantime, you can demonstrate outside, the people of this institution are busy.”

  “It is well known that the institutions of Tracato are crawling with the feudalists’ paid men,” Sevarien bellowed. “As a serrin who does not suffer such impulses of greed, you should know the corrupting influence of wealth on men’s morality and reason. We demand a purge of feudalists from the Justiciary and other institutions. We shall not leave until our demands are heard!”

  Rhillian knew the Civid Sein well enough. They were the poor folk of the countryside, distrusting of cityfolk, of wealth, power and nobility. Many idolised neighbouring Enora, and hoped to implement a similar purge of nobility as Enora had done two hundred years before. As always, amidst humanity, there was no commonality. Even now, despite her many years’ experience with humans, she had to remind herself of it. Where serrin shared the vel’ennar, humans felt nothing to bind one to the other, save that which they created in their religion and ideology. And could kill each other on a whim, and feel only justification.

  “Your demands have been heard,” Rhillian said sharply. “I hear them, we all hear them. Now leave, before I have you rounded up and thrown in the dungeons.”

  Ulenshaal Sevarien drew himself up, bristling. “And how do you propose to do that? We are the people! Should you arrest us all, a hundred times our number shall be on your doorstep by this evening!” Angry, defiant shouts echoed him. Rhillian was aware of justiciary guards closing on her flanks, protectively.

  “You listen to me,” she said icily to the big Ulenshaal. Beneath that stare, he paled, just a little. “The feudalists have tried to take control in Tracato, and for that, they shall pay. Now you tell me that you would take control in Tracato, through demands and threats of riot. For that, you shall pay. Now tell me again, do you threaten my authority?”

  Somewhere behind her, Lieutenant Raine must have given a signal, for the blades of the justiciary guard came out all at once.

  Ulenshaal Sevarien blinked at her. “You wouldn’t dare!” he exclaimed. About the Justiciary hall, all movement, all conversation had stopped. From the entrance, more Steel dharmi came running.

  “The voice of the people will be heard,” Rhillian assured him. “You may make an application through the appropriate channels. The arms of the people, however, shall be mute. I have the Steel. Do not try me, or I shall crush you.”

  “Sevarien!” yelled a new voice, female and strangely familiar. Rhillian looked, and saw a Nasi-Keth girl, short haired in pants and jacket, walking close. Rhillian stared. “Sevarien, best you leave.”

  “Sashandra,” Sevarien retorted, “you don’t understand the gravity…!”

  “Rhillian will deal with the feudalists!” came the angry reply. “Don’t pick fights with your friends.”

  Sevarien took a deep breath and signalled for his party to withdraw. He may have bowed, or spoken something more, but Rhillian did not notice. She had eyes only for Sashandra. Aisha was with her, and a pair of Nasi-Keth lads Rhillian did not know.

  “So,” said Sashandra, as the Civid Sein departed. Her eyes flicked to register the guards’ swords being sheathed, then refocused on Rhillian. They were dark, hard and beautiful. “You command Tracato now?”

  “For the moment,” said Rhillian. She recalled Halrhen, and Triana, dead upon the stern of their ship on Petrodor harbour, cut down by Sasha’s blade. Recalled telling Arendele of Triana’s death, upon coming to Tracato. Recalled holding him while he sobbed, and imagining crossing blades once more with the traitor whom she’d once been so foolish as to consider a friend. But humans made poor friends, she’d learned. Kiel had always insisted so—she hadn’t believed him in Petrodor, for softheartedness, for wishful thinking, for misguided philosophies of coexistence between human and serrin. That night, on the ship in Petrodor harbour, had been the final stone on the tomb of her compassion, for this one in particular. “What brings you?”

  “I’m here to see my sister.”

  “She plots with feudalists,” said Rhillian, icily. “What of you?”

  There was even less motion among those surrounding now than before. The very air seemed deadly, frozen with hostility. Svaalverd warrior that she was, Rhillian could read posture like a book. Before her stood one of the very best, feet barely a half-breadth from the opening tana stance, hands free, muscles tense with expectation. One twitch could see a blade in her hand. Another could kill any within reach. Her own stance, Rhillian realised, was barely different.

  “She probably does plot with feudalists,” Sasha admitted, her voice hard. “She’s a naïve fool with no clue how they would use her, despite my warnings. But I won’t let you hurt my sister.”

  “You will submit to the law,” said Rhillian. “The law is not in my hands.”

  “But it will be,” said Sashandra, with certainty. “Just as in Petrodor, when the diversity is removed, there’s only one faction left in power. Be it yours, or be it someone else’s, the result is the same.”

  “The law resides in this building,” Rhillian replied. “I defend it, as surely the feudalists would not, should they have attained the power they were plotting. I will submit to it, and you shall, and your sister shall, or there is nothing here to defend.”

  “Anyone but you,” Sasha snapped, “and I might believe them. You’re serrin, and this game you don’t understand! How many cities will it take, Rhillian?”

  Rhillian recalled the flames. Recalled the howling mobs, her friends hacked to pieces before her eyes. It wasn’t her fault. It couldn’t have been. “It was your game too. You’re as responsible as I.”

  “You gave Maerler the Shereldin Star! You wanted the slaughter that followed! You killed thousands, with that one bloody act!”

  “They threatened, Saalshen. They were weakened.”

  “Aye, you weakened them so much Patachi Steiner declared himself king, and now marches to war against us! With leadership like that, you don’t need enemies, you’ll be the end of the serrinim all by yourself!”

  Rhillian could have killed her, right there. She struggled for breath, and fought to keep her hands from trembling. Sashandra must have seen the fury in her eyes, but unlike most, she did not flinch. Rhillian knew she could not draw, not against this one. As formidable as she was herself, against Sashandra, no fight was evenly matched.

  “What proof do you have of Lady Renine’s treason?” Sasha pressed. “It seems ambitious even
for her.”

  “Go and ask Errollyn,” Rhillian said. “He gave me the evidence. This is all his doing.”

  Sasha stared at her. And blinked. “Errollyn?”

  Rhillian was surprised. Sasha hadn’t known? “Yes, Errollyn. It’s good to see that at least one of you has some idea of the nature of your new friends.”

  She stalked off, gesturing Lieutenant Raine to follow. Sasha stood in disbelief and watched them go.

  S CHWEET, SPOKE YASMYN’S DARAK AGAINST A WHETSTONE. Schweet, in long strokes above the clatter of carriage wheels on pavings.

  Sherdaine had walls. Sofy stared out the window of her carriage, and marvelled at the sight of them, sheer and gleaming grey in the bright, afternoon sunshine. It was said that in all the Bacosh wars, Sherdaine had only been sacked twice, and both of those a time long before the construction of these latest walls. The battlements stretched a long way, enclosing what was surely the largest city Sofy had ever seen.

  The Army of Lenayin’s vanguard rode about and before the carriage, senior lords from each province moved to the head of the column. They clattered across a small bridge, and here across the fields before Sherdaine’s walls, Sofy could see an army encamped—white tents and drifting smoke, as far as the eye could see. Her heart nearly stopped, there were so many. The army of the united, “free Bacosh,” the provinces of Algrasse, Tournea, Larosa, Meraine and Rakani, all together under the banner of the Regent Arosh of Larosa.

  Riding alongside, Damon rapped the carriage door with an armoured fist. “Get your head back in. It won’t do for the bride to ride into Sherdaine like a dog on a farmcart.”

  Sofy ignored him, wishing she could have ridden at her father’s side in the vanguard. Koenyg had not even bothered to reply when she’d wistfully suggested it, he merely shook his head in disbelief and continued his conversation with someone else. Damon was now banished from the vanguard’s head, appointed by Koenyg to be his sister’s protector, since, Koenyg said acidly, he seemed so determined to kill any who offended her honour. Algrassian, and lately Larosan nobility, had shown a degree of respectful caution in their nightly feasts previously unseen, particularly toward Damon. Sofy thought their behaviour vastly improved since Lord Elen’s slaying, and Yasmyn agreed. And Damon, truth be told, did not appear to resent his new duty as Koenyg might have hoped.

  Sofy could now see a huge entourage awaiting across the road ahead. Knights, armoured head to toe, rowed lances pointing skyward and flying the coloured profusion of feudal heraldry. They parted as the vanguard arrived, and joined in the column’s progress, flanking the road in great lines.

  Damon kicked the carriage door. “Sofy, I mean it!”

  She scowled at him and flung herself back on her seat. “They can’t see sideways out of those helmets,” she said, “I don’t know what he’s worried about.”

  On the seat opposite, Jeleny and Rhyana, two of Sofy’s prettiest handmaidens, sat in their finest, hair done up in ringlets laced with gold cord. Both looked apprehensively at Yasmyn, who continued to hone the edge of her darak.

  “Oh Yasmyn,” said Jeleny at last, “must you?”

  “In Isfayen,” said Yasmyn, “a bridesmaid must never be without two things—a sharp blade and clean undergarments.”

  “It does look very sharp already, Yasmyn,” Sofy observed. “Though I cannot speak for your undergarments.”

  Yasmyn grinned, and sheathed the darak on the belt she wore beneath her blue waist sash. “We ride with many lobsters today,” she said, peering out the window at the knights. “I wonder do they cook, when the sun is hot?”

  Sofy found herself thinking of Jaryd. She’d been trying not to, for most of the ride. Occasionally, it was true, she’d ridden past the midportion of Valhanan’s part in the column, hoping to catch a glimpse, while at the same time pretending that it was merely coincidence that she should happen to be riding there.

  It had been a mistake. If she were a truly devout Verenthane, surely she would fear for her soul…yet that was just the talk of priests, whose words of late she’d trusted less and less. Serrin did not believe such things, nor did Nasi-Keth…nor, in fact, most of the Lenay countryside, where few lads or ladies indeed were virgins on their wedding days, and the villagers loved nothing more than a gossip of the latest lascivious tales. Only Verenthane princesses were held to such standards, and oh how she’d grown to distrust the reasons for that. It was not about religion, she was quite sure. Sasha had always told her as much—the priests and the lords, she’d said, would use such beliefs to serve the ends of power. The righteousness of the faith itself was always a secondary consideration in such matters.

  Perhaps her brother Wylfred was right, Sofy thought. Perhaps she had been corrupted by Sasha’s influence over the years. Sofy knew there had been such hopes for her, the darling youngest princess, the apple of her father’s eye. But now her father was marrying her off to a strange man for the cause of a foreign war she had no interest in fighting. What she’d done with Jaryd, that half year before on the return road from Algery, had felt good. And it had been her mistake, if mistake it had been. Something of her very own, that no one could now take from her. Soon, there would be few enough of those.

  But it bothered her, now, that she had not made more of an effort to see him. It would have been impossible, of course, with so many eyes upon them, but that did not stop her from fretting. Did he think of her? It was foolish to hope so, the number of women bedded by Jaryd Nyvar was more worthy of a serrin than a Verenthane noble. And he was most certainly not of a type with her, with a head full of swords and horses, and rarely a care for the passions of Sofy’s life—the arts, music, tongues and civil conversation. No, she thought—she was not bound for the hells, but it had been a mistake all the same. He was not for her, and was a landless no-name now, an impossible match for a princess. If the Larosans insisted on examining her virginity before marriage, well, she rode horses regularly and knew well enough (with more thanks to Sasha) that the activity rendered such examinations unreliable. A half year had passed, she was not with child, and none of it was any concern to her now—she was merely moping before her impending wedding, and wondering what might have been, at another time, in another life.

  Yet still she thought of him, and remembered his smile.

  Beyond the clustered horsemen of the vanguard, Sofy could see grand armies assembling to either side of the road. More feudal banners, rows and rows of horsemen, all the way to the gates of Sherdaine. Sofy could not tear her eyes away, a tightness growing in her throat. So many men. Such a powerful army. And all for her. The tightness in her throat was her old life dying. That carefree girl lay somewhere behind, in the distant hills of Lenayin. Sofy wished for her return, with all her heart, but that girl had no place here. That girl would be scared of this place. The Princess Sofy Lenayin could not afford to be scared with so much at stake.

  Before her, the city gates opened wide, yawning black, beneath the portcullis’s rows of metal teeth. Sofy felt her heart accelerate and her breath grew short. Yasmyn clasped her hand.

  “Be not afraid,” she murmured, “for all things shall end. Fear not the end, your friend and mine.”

  Tullamayne, she quoted. Sofy recalled the other places she’d heard Tullamayne recited, most recently upon battlefields, at great funerals for the many fallen, upon the lips of warriors gasping their final breath. She exhaled a deep breath and felt all fear leave her, as like the spirit leaving a dying man. She was Lenay, and this fate was not hers alone, but borne upon the shoulders of countless martyred generations. She squeezed Yasmyn’s hand, as the carriage rattled on, and allowed the darkness to swallow her.

  There was silver mist across the grassy fields as tens of thousands of men stirred in the morning. Jaryd finished his exercises, a mug of tea in his hand, steaming from the campfire. Baerlyn contingent, plus men of several neighbouring Valhanan villages, had claimed for a camp the land about a small farmhouse, including a track, some recently ploughed fields,
and a small stream.

  Lenay men greeted Jaryd as he walked to the paddock fence to see to the commotion there. He joined the men leaning on the fence and considered the cause of their amusement. Within the paddock, men were chasing an extremely large, ill-tempered bull. Or rather, the bull was chasing them. A warrior rolled aside as it charged, while two more jumped the fence, to catcalls and roars of laughter from the onlookers. The bull circled back on the man who had rolled—a magnificent animal, Jaryd thought, with huge, rippling shoulders and deadly horns, now lowered.

  Jaryd’s laughter was cut short at a sudden commotion to his side, and he spun to find that Gareth, a Baerlyn man, had grabbed another man from behind and had a knife to his throat.

  “I don’t recognise this one!” Gareth said suspiciously, peering at his captive’s face. “He was approaching you to the rear, Jaryd, and I don’t see him for no Valhanan man!”

  The man held his hands clear. “I come with summons from Prince Damon,” he said. “He requests the company of Jaryd Nyvar.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Jaryd told the man, riding on the spare mount that had been brought. “The Tyree and Valhanan nobility all want me dead, to say nothing of the northerners. My friends keep an eye out for me.”

  Prince Damon’s man nodded. “There is danger in crowds. Your friends are wise.” They rode along a road between fields crowded with the greatest encampment of soldiers Jaryd had ever seen. The ground before the walls of Sherdaine was a solid mass of tents, men and campfires. The air seethed with conversation, shouts, the clash of weapons practice, the whinny of horses and the rattle of armour. Cooking fires burned, and a mist of smoke smelled of equal parts bacon, green wood, and manure.

  These were men of Larosa, Jaryd knew. Men-at-arms, for the most part—what Lenays would call militia, villagers and peasants sworn to regional lords, and pressed into service whatever their will. These men were poor, but they were gods-fearing Verenthanes, and did not relish the great numbers of pagan barbarians brought into their midst…though Jaryd thought they’d have been no happier if the Lenays had only brought Verenthane soldiers. Worse, the young Larosan Prince Balthaar was to be wed to the barbarians’ princess.