by John Marco
Richius nodded. "Find Lucyler."
"He's already waiting outside with the horses," Dinadin answered, stepping into the room. "Who's that?"
Richius turned from the girl and walked toward the door, dropping the stiletto on his way. "No one."
Dyana waited for Kalak to leave before daring to stir. Her body had become a frigid corpse. Dirt seemed to cover her. Her garments hung open and she clamped them shut with a fist, gritting her teeth against the tears.
Breathe, she told herself. Kalak is gone.
Or was he? Outside she could still hear shouting, but they were all Triin voices. Smoke seeped into the tiny home and fire crackled beyond the walls. She examined herself quickly. Her face hurt where the big one had struck her. She tested the bruise with her fingertip and winced. The contusion was swelling, closing off her eye and blurring her vision. She heard herself moan like a girl, angry and frightened.
And then she thought of her uncle. Where was he? Why wasn't he looking for her? She stumbled to her feet, grabbing for the wall to hold herself up. Nausea washed over her so that she thought she would vomit, and she wondered if her cheekbones had been fractured. Carefully she inched along the wall toward the door, steeled herself, and peered out.
Smoke blotted out the sun. The horrible sounds of screaming assailed her. Children rushed by, wailing, and the sobs of the elderly poured through the streets. It seemed to her that the whole world was burning, that only her uncle's modest house still stood unscathed. She staggered out of the doorway and onto the street, appalled at the devastation.
"Jaspin?" she called, peering down the avenue. "Jaspin? Where are you?"
An older woman she didn't know spotted her. The woman took a pitying look at her battered face and ruined garb and slid an arm around her.
"Child?" asked the woman. "Are you all right?"
Dyana nodded, unconcerned for herself. "I need to find my uncle. And my cousin..."
"Your face is bleeding," said the woman. She smiled gently and tried to ease Dyana down. "Lie down. I will get something for your face."
"No," said Dyana. "Shani. Where is she?" Her words seemed to come from an enormous distance, and she heard how slurred her voice sounded. "Take me to her, please. I need to find her, make sure she is all right. She is little--"
The woman blanched. "You are the one that lives with Jaspin."
"Yes, yes," said Dyana impatiently. She pointed toward her uncle's house. "I live here with them. Have you seen them?"
"Oh, child," groaned the woman, her face collapsing. She took hold of Dyana's hand and squeezed.
"What is it?" asked Dyana. "Take me to them."
"I... I will," the old woman managed. "Come with me." She led Dyana through the frenzied streets, past the burning buildings and the hollow-eyed children, and past the huddled families. Dyana followed, all the tangles of emotion choking her so that she could hardly think. At last they came to another huddle, not far away from Jaspin's home. Here she saw a few familiar faces, all long and drawn in misery. She heard the agonized groans of something at the group's center. It sounded vaguely like a man. The old woman stopped and looked at her. She couldn't speak but pointed toward the huddle.
Dyana pushed herself toward the group of people. She recognized Eamok, Jaspin's neighbor. He glanced up at her as her torn dress brushed past his cheek. Angry recognition dawned on his face, and very slowly he moved aside to reveal the shaking thing at the center of the mass. As she had known, as she had dreaded, it was Jaspin, his body racked with sobs. Cradled in his arms was a tiny, pulverized body.
"Trampled," she heard someone whisper. Dyana peered down at the small figure, at the red-stained clothes pitted with horseshoe-shaped markings. The face was bloodied but intact--except for one eye that had popped out whole from its socket and now stared obscenely in an impossible direction. All the strength in her evaporated. She slumped down next to her weeping uncle.
Little Shani was limp, a broken doll with disjointed, dangling limbs. Jaspin was moaning, rocking back and forth with his daughter cradled lifelessly in his arms. Dyana slipped an arm around him and squeezed him tight.
"My poor cousin," she murmured. "My poor child..." Jaspin tore away from her. Dyana toppled, hitting the ground with her palms.
"Get away from me!" cried Jaspin. "Devil!"
"Jaspin," Dyana said. "What?"
Her uncle scooped the dead baby away from her, rising from his knees and towering above her. "Get away!" he roared. He picked up his booted foot and pushed it into her chest. Dyana toppled again.
"Stop!" she shouted. "Jaspin, what is it?"
"This is your fault! You cursed little witch!" He raised a fist, threatening to strike her. Dyana held her ground, and Jaspin's anger imploded. "Damn you, Dyana," he wailed, lowering his hand. "Damn you for doing this!"
"Me?" Dyana said. "It was not!"
"Look at my baby!" Jaspin screamed, holding out the child for her to inspect. "This is Tharn's revenge on you."
"You should never have let her come," said Eamok, Jaspin's friend and neighbor. He was crying, too, and wore the same crazed expression as her uncle. "This is what she has brought on us, Jaspin. I told you she would!"
"It is not me!" declared Dyana. Her head was swimming. The stench of smoke polluted her lungs. "And it is not Tharn. They were Kalak's men!"
Jaspin clutched his dead daughter closer to his chest. "Tharn is punishing you. He knows where you are!"
"He will come for us all now," added Eamok, shouting to the crowd. "We are not safe."
"Jaspin, please..." She reached out, but her uncle turned his back on her. "Please!"
"Do not speak to me anymore, Dyana. You are cursed. And, oh, I knew you were! I knew it! This is my fault!" His head dropped and he began to sob again over Shani's body, and his words ran together in a garbled blubbering. "You are not family to me anymore, girl."
Stupefied, Dyana let her hands drop to her side. "It was not me. Kalak did this."
"You brought them here," growled Eamok. "You did because you are cursed like your father. It is Drol anger that brought them here, Tharn's anger!" He grabbed at her torn lapel and shook her. "We should send you back to him ourselves."
Dyana wrenched free and struck Eamok hard across the face. "Do not touch me!" she flared. "I will never go to him. Never! I would die first."
Eamok stalked toward her. "And I would like to kill you. See what you have done? It is your defiance of your master that brings this death to Jaspin. He is too good to tell you this, but he never wanted you here!"
"Stop!" cried Jaspin. He turned slowly to face Dyana, walking over to her and showing her the tiny, fractured body. "Look at my daughter, Dyana. Look how they have killed her."
Dyana could not look. Shani had been her uncle's world. She had been the sun and the moon. Now he was alone, not only a widower but childless. What Jaspin had been was gone, probably forever.
"You're a foolish girl, Dyana," said Jaspin. "Tharn has learned of you." He gestured broadly at the destruction around them. "All of this is a sign. He wants you. He does, and you cannot fight it."
"And he is Drol!" thundered Eamok. "He can call the gods. He can destroy us. And if Tharn knows you are here he will tell Voris. The warlord will punish us." He turned toward his friend. "Jaspin, send her away! Send her back to him now. Do not let her hide here anymore. He will come for her again!"
"You are all mad!" cried Dyana. She knew it was useless to argue with them, that they were all convinced that the Drol had powers. But all the rage in her was boiling over and she could not contain it. "Tharn is a cunning-man, nothing else. You fear nothing!"
"Listen to her, Jaspin. She loves the Narens like her father. Send her away!"
Jaspin came very close to her, and they stared into each other's bloodshot eyes. Dyana's expression was hard. She grieved for the little girl, and it pained her that no one wanted her grief.
"Uncle," she said evenly, tempering her ire. "Do not send me away."
&nb
sp; She had nowhere to go, and he knew it. She could never go to Tharn. And yet she could not beg her uncle. Not with the hatred she saw in his eyes.
"Some others are talking about going to Ackle-Nye," said Jaspin. "Go with them, or go to Tharn, I do not care which. Just leave me."
"Ackle-Nye? Jaspin..."
"They are leaving in the morning, Dyana. They don't want to live here when Tharn takes over. I had thought you should go with them, and now I am sure. Dring is not the place for you. This is Voris' land. We are his people. Go to Ackle-Nye. Go with the other Nar lovers."
"But there is nothing there!" she said hotly. "Just refugees. Is that what you want to happen to me?"
Jaspin shrugged dispassionately. "I don't care what happens to you, Dyana. I swear, you are just like your father, hardly Triin at all."
Then he turned his back on her and left, still holding his child. He disappeared into the crowds and smoke. Eamok leered at her, tasting the victory he had sought since she had come to the village. And as Dyana watched her uncle leave, she realized he was the last family member she would ever see. Now she was truly alone. She put her arms around her shoulders and sank to the ground, letting the tears come.
CHAPTER THREE
The poppies that grew in the Dring Valley were enormous. In all his young life, Richius had never seen anything like them. Big and lush, the valley was overgrown with them, an oasis of color beside the bleakness of the trenches. Aramoor had poppy fields, too, but the crimson flowers of his home were not comparable to the variety that sprang out of the earth here. The sight of the white and violet blooms made him sigh. The last few days had been wonderfully good.
Richius lowered his quill into the hinge of his journal. He was grateful to be free of the confines of the trenches, to feel the fickle sunlight of Lucel-Lor on his face. Unperturbed by the rough bark of the tree at his back, he smiled up at the sun. Its warmth caressed him, as welcome as the touch of any woman.
Across the mountains, they never spoke of Lucel-Lor's beauty. This place was a mystery, a puzzlement to be shunned. Richius had never even seen a Triin before coming here. But like all children of the Empire, he had heard the tales of the white-faced vampires, the magicians who were quick as a breeze and as inscrutable. When he had reached an age to understand, he had asked his father about Lucel-Lor. Darius Vantran, ever pragmatic, had told his son that the Triin were different from other humans, that they enslaved their women and were more violent even than Nar's princes.
"Like Talistan?" the young Richius had asked. The question had troubled his father.
Since then, Richius had learned about the Triin. They were not the beasts the Empire portrayed, nor were they cannibals. Even the Drol, zealots though they were, showed moments of humanity. They did not torture their prisoners as did the Narens in the Black City, and they did not enslave their women--not precisely. Richius had seen far worse in the brothels of Nar, where an impoverished woman's only sustenance came from the sale of her body.
A slight breeze stirred the poppies, tickling the underside of Richius' bare feet. The sensation forced a schoolgirl giggle from his lips. Embarrassed, he looked to where Dinadin and Lucyler sat close by, a game board on the grass between them. Dinadin was studying the ornate wooden pieces intently, but he raised an eyebrow at the sudden sound of Richius' mirth.
"Happy?"
"Yes," said Richius. "For the first time in a long time."
A yawn welled up in him and he let it out, stretching like a cat. The bright warmth was making him sleepy, and his thoughts turned lazily to a nap. He chuckled again, amused at the idea. It had been almost a week since the raid on the village, and all they had done since returning was sleep and eat. The respite provided by Gayle had been put to good use, and the fair weather had cooperated in their hunting. There had been no wolves or warriors to bother them, and each man who left in search of game had come back with a stout bird or even a buck with which to feed the company. Richius patted his stomach. The heaviness in it felt fine.
"Who's winning?" he asked. Dinadin had taken a red peg from its hole and was chewing on its end while he contemplated the board.
"Who do you think?" he replied. "I can never win this damn game." Quickly he placed the piece into a new hole. Lucyler groaned.
"Because you do not concentrate," said the Triin, pulling the piece from the board. He shoved the peg under Dinadin's nose. "The red pieces are your footmen. You cannot jump with footmen."
Dinadin snatched the game piece from the Triin. "All right," he snapped, and without even glancing at the board stuffed it into another hole. "Better?"
"Play correctly," replied Lucyler, his anger thickening his accent, "or not at all."
"It's just a game, Lucyler."
Lucyler scoffed, already starting to pull the game pieces from the board. "You could learn from Ejai, boy," he said. "It is about strategy and wits. A game like this could help keep you alive."
"We do a fair job of keeping ourselves alive without Triin help," replied Dinadin. "Why, you're the only Triin I've ever seen fight alongside us. All the rest of you are Drol, I think."
"If you believe that, you are a fool, Dinadin," said Lucyler, getting to his feet. "We have lost more people than all the nations of your Empire together. You are trapped here in the valley and you think this is the entire war. But I have seen Kronin's warriors fighting in the north. I have been to Tatterak and I was there when Falindar fell." He jabbed a finger into Dinadin's face. "Where were you?"
"Enough," ordered Richius. "I want to rest, not fight. Sit down, Lucyler."
Lucyler hesitated for a moment, then finally lowered himself back onto the grass, muttering. Richius turned to Dinadin.
"You should know better than to say such things, Dinadin. Edgard has told me about the fighting in Tatterak. If you want to see Triin fighting for the Daegog, that's the place to go."
"I know," Dinadin conceded. "I'd just like to see some of those warriors here. We could use their help, especially with Gayle's horsemen gone." He gestured broadly at the serenity around them. "This won't last, you know."
Richius grimaced. What Dinadin said was true, but he had no wish to think of it. He could scarcely remember the last time they had been able to doff their armor and escape the trenches for even a few hours, but he didn't want to squander the precious tranquillity with talk of war.
"Kronin cannot help us," said Lucyler. "He would send warriors if he could. He hates Voris as much as any of us."
"I've heard that," said Richius. "Edgard told me about it once. They've been feuding for years."
"Years on top of years, since before I was born. Kronin is not Drol, and never was. And he supported the Daegog from the start. But Voris was born Drol, one of Tharn's own clan. That alone makes them hate each other."
"Like us and Gayle, Dinadin," said Richius with a grin. He had always found the animosity between the warlords of Lucel-Lor intriguing. Just as political rivalries had brought the Houses of Vantran and Gayle to war, those same bitter feelings were now tearing the Triin apart. In the end, though, the Vantrans and the Gayles had put aside their malice, forming an uneasy alliance under the banner of Nar. And though he knew his ruthless emperor had designs to bring Lucel-Lor under his rule, Richius still thought it unlikely that the Triin warlords would ever be at peace again.
"It's that kind of thinking that started this war, you know," said Richius. "In the Empire we don't fight among ourselves."
"No," said Lucyler. "Your emperor would not allow that."
"The emperor has kept the peace in Nar for nearly twenty years," replied Richius coolly.
"By attacking other lands? Nar is at war throughout the world. How can you say Arkus has kept the peace when you are sitting here?"
Dinadin jumped in before Richius could answer. "You don't seem to mind us being here, though, do you, Lucyler? If it wasn't for Nar, you and your Daegog would be in a Drol prison camp."
"Your emperor only helps the Daegog because he wants somet
hing from him," countered Lucyler. "You are like these game pieces, being moved around by a master player."
Richius stifled an angry reply, mostly because his comrade was right. No one knew for certain why Arkus was so eager to help the Daegog of Lucel-Lor. The emperor and his vast appetites were a mystery to everyone in Nar. He supposed that not even the Daegog himself knew why Nar was here. But it was the same question that had vexed Naren kings for decades. Arkus was never satisfied. He was a machine, a devourer of nations. And no one really questioned the emperor's motives anymore; they simply did his bidding.
"And what about you, Lucyler?" asked Dinadin hotly. "Do you think it's not the same for you? When your Daegog pulls a string, you dance. Arkus may be a bastard, but the Daegog's no better."
Lucyler started to his feet again then stopped himself. "You are probably right."
"Don't let it bother you," said Richius. "It's just the way it is for us all. And we won't need Kronin's help anyway. Patwin should be back from Aramoor with word soon. If he's told my father how grave we have it, we'll be sent the troops we need."
"Really?" asked Dinadin. "Do you think so? Or are you just telling us what you think we want to hear?"
"What's this?" said Richius. "Is some homesickness making you doubt me?"
Dinadin looked away. "I'm sick for home, that's true enough."
"Is it my father you doubt, then?" Richius pressed.
"I'm honor bound to our king, and I won't speak ill of him," answered Dinadin. "Especially not to you. It's just that we..." He stopped and thought for a moment, choosing his words with care. "We hear things?'
"What things?"
"Perhaps it's nothing," said Dinadin. "Or just the same things you've heard yourself. We all know how badly the war's going. But we're not all privy to the messages your father sends you. It makes me wonder what you write in that book of yours." He pointed his chin toward the journal in Richius' lap.
"My journal? There's nothing worth your knowing here, believe me. I tell this book the same things I tell you, and nothing more terrible than what you already know." Richius lifted the book and offered it to Dinadin. "Read for yourself if you like."