Traitor's Moon

by Lynn Flewelling

  “So I’ve been told,” the prince replied. “Though I do not understand why my sister Klia was allowed to speak for herself, but I am not.”

  “This is different,” Riagil explained. “Klia came to negotiate. You are bringing a matter of atui before them and, I’m sorry to say, some of the clans could challenge your right to do so. The Tírfaie—any Tírfaie—do not have the same rights under Aurënen law. Rest assured, Adzriel will be a great help to you.”

  Korathan glowered at Riagil. “You consider us a lesser race, then?”

  The khirnari pressed a hand to his heart and made him a slight bow. “Some do, my friend; not I. Please believe that I will do all in my power to see that your sister and Torsin í Xandus are accorded justice.”

  The column set off that afternoon with Riagil and twenty Gedre swordsmen as escort. There were no pack animals or musicians to slow them down this time. Not one for unnecessary ceremony, Korathan and his riders traveled as if they were on campaign, carrying only what they needed.

  Seregil and Alec rode with the Skalans, wearing the tabard and wide steel hats of Korathan’s personal guard.

  “In uniform at last, eh?” Seregil said, grinning as Alec fidgeted at his helmet strap. “Between that and your dark hair, I doubt even Thero will recognize you.”

  “Let’s just hope the Akhendi don’t,” Alec replied, warily scanning the cliffs that hemmed in this section of the road for trouble. “Do you think anyone will notice we’re the only members of the prince’s guard not carrying weapons?”

  “If anyone asks, we’re Korathan’s personal cooks.”

  They bypassed the Dravnian way station to make camp farther up the pass. At the first stretch of guarded trail, Korathan accepted the blindfold with good grace, commenting only that he wished Skala had such safeguards.

  They reached the steaming Vhadä’nakori pool late the following morning and halted to rest the horses. Seregil and Alec remained with the soldiers while Riagil guided Korathan and his wizards up to the stone dragon.

  Seregil’s mare liked to suck air when being saddled, and he’d felt the saddle begin to slip during the last blind ride. After watering her, he tightened the girth strap, giving her a smart slap on the side to make her exhale.

  As he worked, he listened with half an ear to the various conversations going on around him. Korathan’s riders had struck him as a dour lot at the outset, but their Gedre counterparts were beginning to win some of them over. Some of them were stumbling along now in a jumbled argot of Skalan and ’faie, trying to make themselves understood. But he also caught a troubling undercurrent from some of the Skalans—muttered complaints about blindfolds and “strange, unnatural magicks.” It seemed that Phoria was not alone in her distrust of the ’faie, and in wizards in general. This was a new attitude for Skalans, and it troubled him profoundly.

  He was just finishing with the strap when suddenly everything went very still.

  “Son of Korit,” a voice said, speaking close to his ear.

  The hair on his neck prickled. Turning sharply, he expected to find a rhui’auros or khtir’bai behind him. Instead, he saw only Alec and the soldiers still going about their business, though he still couldn’t hear any sound.

  Wondering if he’d suddenly gone deaf, he turned to steady himself against his horse and found a dragon the size of a hound perched on the saddle. Its wings were folded tight to its sides, and its neck was arched back like a serpent’s. Before he could do more than register its existence, it struck, clamping its jaws around his left hand just above the thumb.

  Seregil froze. He felt its heat first, hot as an oven against his skin, then the pain of teeth and venom slammed up his arm.

  He grasped his horse’s mane with his free hand, willing himself not to jerk away or cry out. The dragon’s claws scraped pale lines in the saddle leather as it tightened its grip and gave his hand a sharp shake. Then it went still again, watching him with one hard yellow eye as blood welled from its scaly mouth and ran down his wrist.

  O Aura, it’s a big one! Dangerously big. Its jaws reached to the other side of his hand.

  “That will leave a lucky mark.”

  The pain quickly swelled to something approaching rapture. The creature seemed to fill his vision, and he stared at it with an agonized reverence as hazy golden light coalesced around them. Its scales reflected the sunlight with an iridescent sheen. The stiff spines on its face twitched slightly as it held him, and wisps of vapor rose from its delicate golden nostrils.

  “Son of Korit,” the voice said again.

  “Aura Elustri,” he whispered, trembling.

  The dragon released him and flapped away across the steaming tarn.

  Sounds rushed in on him, and suddenly Alec was there, easing him down to the ground as his legs gave out under him. Seregil stared dazedly down at the double line of bloody punctures that crossed his hand, back and palm.

  “Larger than Thero’s,” he murmured, shaking his head in amazement.

  “Seregil!” Alec said, shaking him by the shoulder. “Where did it come from? Are you all right? Where’s that vial?”

  “Vial? Pouch.” It was hard to concentrate with his entire arm on fire from the inside. People crowded in to see, overwhelming him with noise.

  Alec tugged the pouch free from Seregil’s belt and shook out the glass vial of lissik the rhui’auros had given him—the one he’d very nearly left behind.

  He let out a strangled laugh. They knew I’d need it. They knew all along.

  Alec gently worked the dark, oily liquid into the wound, easing the worst of the burning.

  The crowd parted for Korathan and Riagil. The khirnari knelt and took Seregil’s hand, then called out for herbs.

  “By the Light, Seregil!” he murmured, quickly assembling a poultice and wrapping it around his hand with wet rags. “To be so marked, it’s—”

  “A gift,” Seregil croaked, feeling the dragon’s venom spreading through his body, turning his veins to wires of hot steel.

  “A gift indeed. But can you ride?”

  “Tie me on, if you have to.” He tried to get up and failed. Someone held a flask to his lips, and he gulped down a bitter infusion.

  “You’re trembling,” Alec muttered, helping him up. “How are you going to manage?”

  “Not much choice, talí,” Seregil replied. “The worst of it should pass in a day or two. It didn’t bite too deeply, just enough to mark me and make me remember.”

  “Remember what?”

  Seregil grinned weakly. “Who I am.”

  50

  STANDOFF

  The ride back to Sarikali seemed endless. Beka and Nyal kept off the main road and steered wide of the little villages they passed. Nyal stopped at one to buy a second horse, leaving her in the trees without comment or warning.

  She was grateful to have her own mount again; the closeness of riding double with Nyal had been more than she could bear. They spoke little during the day and rolled into their blankets on opposite sides of the fire as soon as they’d eaten.

  The entire situation felt ridiculous when she let herself think too much about it. She was, in essence, his prisoner, yet she held all the weapons. Either of them could have stolen away in the night, yet each was there in the morning.

  I need to get back to the city and he’s been ordered to bring me there. That’s all there is to it, she told herself, ignoring the sad, furtive glances he cast her way.

  They reached the river the following afternoon and reined in at the head of the bridge.

  “Well, here we are,” said Beka. “What now?”

  Nyal stared thoughtfully at the distant city. “I must take you to the Iia’sidra, I suppose. Don’t worry, though. You’re Tír. I imagine they’ll just pass you along to Klia. She’s the one who must answer for you.”

  “Will you tell them about letting Seregil go?” she asked mockingly.

  Nyal sighed. “Sooner or later I’ll have to.”

  Something in his face
brought on another twinge of doubt. If he was telling the truth—

  “We’d better put on a good show,” she said, handing him back his weapons. This brought on another wave of empty regret; he could have taken them from her if he’d really wanted to.

  There was less fuss about her return than she’d expected. They attracted little notice until they reached Silmai tupa. Nyal exchanged a few words with the servant at the khirnari’s door, then stepped back and let Beka enter alone. She could feel him watching her but refused to look back. Squaring her shoulders, she allowed herself to be escorted into the main hall, where Brythir sat waiting.

  The khirnari’s reaction was impossible to read. He simply stared at her for a long moment, then sighed. “I have summoned the Iia’sidra and your own people, Captain. You must answer before them.”

  She made him a deep bow. “As you wish, Khirnari. But please tell me, is Klia alive?”

  “Yes, and I understand she is improving, though she is still unable to speak.”

  Beka bowed again, too overcome with relief to speak.

  “Come.” He motioned her to a chair and put a mug of ale into her shaking hands. “And now you must answer a question for me. Have you returned of your own will?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  This seemed to content him, for he asked her nothing more. As soon as she’d finished her ale, they proceeded under escort to the Iia’sidra chamber.

  Here, she found herself facing a far more hostile assembly, although she received nods of encouragement from the Bôkthersans and Akhendi. Sitting in Klia’s place, Thero gave her a slight smile. She hadn’t had a chance to clean up or change out of the bedraggled clothes she’d stolen. She looked every inch a spy, if not a very successful one.

  The Iia’sidra questioned her closely, but she stubbornly refused to say why Seregil left the city or what direction he and Alec had taken. In Skala, such an interrogation might have ended in the torture rooms of Red Tower prison or under the hands of a truth knower. Instead, she was turned over to her own people.

  The only part of her story that had raised eyebrows at all was her assertion that the Akhendi she’d met on the road had meant to kill her. If not for Nyal’s corroboration, she suspected they wouldn’t have believed her at all.

  Rhaish í Arlisandin was understandably upset by this news. “I gave orders for their safe return,” he protested, making his apologies to Thero.

  When it was all over, she was led away under guard by her own riders. Rhylin was in charge and gave her an encouraging grin as they left the chamber.

  “They’re all right, then?” he whispered.

  She shrugged, thinking of the bloodstain on Nyal’s tunic.

  At the guest house, Thero took her directly to Klia’s chamber, where the sick woman lay asleep under Corporal Nikides’s watchful guard. Her hands rested on the comforter at her sides, one whole, the other still swathed in bulky dressings. The window was open, and incense burned on a stand across the room, but a sickly odor still underlay it, one she had smelled on battlefields and in hospital tents—illness, poultices, and damaged flesh. Klia was so pale, so still, that for a moment Beka feared she’d taken a sudden turn for the worse.

  When Thero touched her shoulder and Klia opened her eyes, however, Beka saw that whether her commander could speak or not, her mind had cleared.

  Thank the Flame, she thought, going down on one knee beside the bed.

  “She wishes to know all that has happened,” Thero said, drawing a chair up for her. “You’d best keep it brief, though. These periods of lucidity don’t usually last long.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” Beka admitted. “Seregil found his trail and I went on; Nyal caught up with me and sent me back with his men while he went on after Seregil.”

  Thero made a low, angry noise in his throat. “What happened then?”

  “We were attacked by bandits and I escaped in the confusion. Nyal tracked me down again the next day, just in time to get me away from those Akhendi riders. He claimed he’d found Seregil and Alec, helped them out of an ambush, too, and then sent them on their way. But—” She paused, fighting back the sudden tightness in her chest.

  “You doubt his word?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” she whispered. Looking down, she found Klia watching her intently. “He had blood on his tunic, my lady. He says Alec was hurt and he bound the wound. I—I don’t know.”

  Thero squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll find out,” he promised. “What happened then?”

  “I was headed back here anyway, so I let him bring me in. The rest you know.”

  Klia tried to speak but managed only a breathy rasp. Frustrated, she looked up at Thero.

  “You did well, Captain. You should clean up and get some rest,” he told Beka, then followed her from the room.

  “What about her?” she demanded, keeping her voice low. “Have you been able to get any more out of her about who attacked her?”

  “No, the poisoning affected her memory. She seems to recall little after the morning of the hunt.”

  “That’s too bad. I don’t like the idea of leaving Aurënen before we see justice done.”

  “That’s not Klia’s main concern,” Thero told her. “Don’t let it blind you, either. There’s still the vote to come. Your duty lies there.”

  Returning to the barracks at last, Beka was met with a round of cheers from the riders waiting for her there.

  “You look like you had a hard go of it, Captain,” Braknil exclaimed, handing her a mug of rassos.

  She downed it gratefully, welcoming the warmth it spread through her aching muscles. “No worse than usual,” she replied, managing a grin to match those around her. “I just didn’t have you all there to help me.”

  After checking the order of the watches, she left Braknil in charge and retreated to her room to clean up. Smoothing a clean tabard over her shirt, she rested a hand on the regimental device stitched on its front: crossed sabers supporting a crown.

  Duty.

  She recalled Nyal sitting across the fire from her, watching her with hazel eyes that spoke only of patience.

  I wanted to make certain you were safe—

  A soft knock interrupted her thoughts.

  “Come,” she mumbled, wiping quickly at her eyes.

  It was Mercalle. Giving Beka a stiff salute, she closed the door quietly behind her.

  Here was another situation designed to twist knots in her belly. The two of them had spoken less than ten words to each other since the sergeant had confessed to spying for Phoria. If they hadn’t all been trapped together in a foreign land, Beka would have packed her off to another regiment at once.

  “I was wondering if there was anything you needed, Captain,” she said, clearly as uncomfortable as Beka.

  “No.” Beka turned away to the glass on the wall, fidgeting with her gorget.

  But still Mercalle lingered. “I also thought you might want to know that there’s a rumor going around that Nyal is in some sort of trouble with his khirnari.”

  Beka glanced at her in the mirror’s reflection. “How do you know that?”

  “I was on sentry duty until a few minutes ago. Kheeta í Branín came by with the news. It’s something to do with him not telling folks soon enough that you’d gone.”

  “What do you mean? He set them on us and led them right to me.”

  “Well, as I understand it, you three left the night before. He didn’t say anything to anyone until the next day, like he wanted to give you a head start. It was the Khatme who broke the news.”

  Beka fought back a surge of hope. “And you took it upon yourself to come tell me?”

  Mercalle straightened to attention. “I’m sorry if I overstepped, Captain. I know how you feel about what I did. But Nyal’s been a good help and—”

  “And what?” Beka snapped.

  “Nothing, Captain.” Mercalle saluted quickly and turned to go.

  “Wait. Tell me something. Why did y
ou keep quiet about what Phoria told you to do?”

  “Those were my orders, Captain. I’ve lived my life by orders, and for a good part of it those orders came from Phoria herself. That’s what you do if you’re a soldier.” She broke off and Beka couldn’t blind herself to the grief in the older woman’s eyes, much as she wanted to. “A sergeant can’t afford to pick and choose which ones she obeys, Captain,” Mercalle went on. “We can’t be like you and Lord Seregil, defying the Iia’sidra, or the commander.”

  Beka opened her mouth to protest, but Mercalle cut her off. “Klia was too sick to have given you any orders. Braknil knows it. So does Rhylin, though we’ve all tried to keep it from the riders. You did what you thought was best and I hope it turns out the way you want. But even if it does, don’t ever forget that you were lucky; choice is a luxury, one your average soldier can’t afford.”

  She looked away, and when she spoke again her voice was softer. “All the same, if I could change the way things turned out, I would. I never thought it would bring harm to you or Commander Klia. Since Sir Alec caught me out, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Phoria’s changed since I served with her, or maybe I’ve gotten to an age where I look at things a little differently.…” She trailed off. “When we get home, Captain, I’ll be leaving the regiment. That’s what I came in to say, and to ask you to give Nyal a chance to prove himself before you cast him off.” She gave Beka the hint of a smile. “It’s not my place to say, Captain, but I will anyway. Men like that don’t come along every day for women like us.”

  “And what if I told you he came to me with Alec’s blood on his hands?” Beka snapped. “Or Seregil’s? There’s someone’s blood on him, and until I find out whose, I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself.”

  “Your pardon. I didn’t know.” Mercalle saluted stiffly and went out, leaving Beka alone with a quandary she saw no way of resolving.

  51

  SARIKALI

  Anyone who traveled these mountains carried the necessary medicines for dragon bite. Riagil kept Seregil’s hand bound with poultices of wet clay and herbs and had his men brew healing draughts of willow and serpentwood bark. All the same, Seregil’s left arm quickly swelled to the elbow like a blue-mottled sausage. Dark spots danced in front of his eyes and he ached in every joint. Clinging grimly to the saddlebow with his good hand, he let Alec lead his horse.