I worked hard myself; I wasn’t and would never be a natural fencer. I wasn’t interested in grace or beauty, I wanted results, and felt vindicated when Dalph told me that what I lacked in finesse, I made up for with my instincts to go straight for the jugular. I was better with a bow and arrow, having shot a little archery in high school, and I was getting quite good at the Truscan martial art of Cabrote, though I was a little handicapped in that by the fact that Dalph refused to let me spar with anyone but him, Johnny, or Carlos.
“How am I going to get any better if you won’t let me spar with anybody but the three of you? All of you already know what I’m trying to do and I already know how you’re going to block me, I just can’t stop you yet!”
Dalph laughed and pushed my hair off my forehead before kissing it lightly.
“But that’s the point! Sooner or later you’ll figure out how to stop us. Besides, we’re the only three I won’t have to kill if we slip up and bruise you!”
“Johnny said that once, but he was kidding and so are you! Aren’t you?”
He laughed again. “Under the old rules, I’m the only one who can bruise you and live to tell about it, but I think Johnny and Carlos have earned the right as well. They have to put up with you, after all!”
“Dalph, that’s ridiculous!”
“Yes, I know, but still—what’s that phrase you use, my Queen? It’s a guy thing. I just don’t want you sparring with anyone but us.”
I dropped it, no longer at all convinced that he was joking and certainly not willing to put it to the test.
And I watched the night sky, as the moon edged closer and closer to full. I wasn’t sure I could live through this full moon and maintain my sanity. The elite packed saddlebags and supplies.
Carlos, during these weeks of preparation, had never again brought up the issue of whether or not he was going on the stealth mission, and as often as I had misread the man, I didn’t misread him now. He’d either shown Dalph what he had or he hadn’t; he wasn’t going to ask and he certainly wasn’t going to beg.
“Check in with Balder tomorrow morning,” Dalph issued the instruction to Carlos a few days before they were to ride. “He’ll make sure you have all you need.”
Carlos nodded. “Okay.”
And that was it. No further discussion necessary. I shook my head. Men.
That night, I asked Dalph something that had been bothering me for some time.
“Do the Prians know what the Tornans really are? Or do they just know that the wolf population explodes during a full moon? If they see wolves slinking along the city streets, will they know what they’re seeing?”
“Honestly, Tess, I’m not sure. There’s been very little interaction between Truscans and Prians other than death. But they won’t see us. That’s the whole reason we’re going now.”
Two days before the full moon, I stood with Dal and Johnny in the Courtyard, watching them ride out, knowing that they were going deeper into Pria than any Truscan had gone in many years. There had been no protest from Dal. Warrior Fields was maturing him so quickly that I feared the boy I’d first met would be gone completely in a few more weeks. When the last dust cloud cleared, he tugged my hand.
“Let’s go inside, Madda. They’ll be fine. And they’ll be back.”
It was the first time he called me mother, and coming as it did, while I watched his father ride away, it finished me off. I cried.
Chapter Thirty
I don’t remember much of the days they were gone; I threw myself into the activity on Warrior Fields and worked until I was exhausted. And at night, with Dalph’s hand-selected regular guards, I rode Andromeda out with the younger Tornans who had been left behind, so that they could at least run. Consequently, when I did fall asleep, I fell almost into unconsciousness and then woke, suddenly, completely, after only a few hours. Between exhaustion and sleep deprivation, I was virtually numb, and that’s exactly the way I wanted it, because otherwise, my imagination took over and I saw the bodies of Tornans in wolf form slain by the Prians, lying in the city streets, Carlos butchered and served as a special treat for Kruska, and Dalph—always Dalph. I saw his head paraded to the crowds on a pike.
It was much more pleasant to remain numb.
The shouts sounded in mid-afternoon of the sixth day of their absence. “Trusca vite!” On Warrior Fields, Dal was putting me through my paces on the light swords and both of us dropped the weapons immediately and charged for our mounts, wheeling and racing back to the Rata. I prayed the entire time that the guards were right; that this was really Trusca riding back; and that the guards had really seen him in the front of the riders before sending out the roar.
We hit the Rata’s Courtyard at pretty much the same time the returning patrol did, and yes, Pegasus and Perseus were in the lead, their riders dismounting. Dalph caught our shouts over the roar of the crowd, and dropping Pegasus’ reins, moved to us quickly in great strides and enveloped us, one arm around each of us. I flung my arms around his neck, and he virtually lifted me off the ground with the one arm he was holding me with, so that I swung back and forth a bit in the exuberance of the moment. The other arm holding Dal shifted and repositioned, so that he could catch his son around the middle, and he swung him over his arm as one swings a toddler in play, Dal’s laughter sounding in our ears.
I had never in my life been as glad to see anyone as I was as that moment, to have my husband back, his head still attached to his body.
As he had when we returned from the search for the Power Stone, he loosened his hold on us and turned and addressed the crowd, and this time, I have to confess, I don’t have any idea what he said. I was simply too full of relief to engage the necessary parts of my brain and translate the Truscan. The crowd went wild, of course, and while he was speaking, I took the opportunity to survey the returning members of the patrol. Thank God, Carlos was standing in front smiling, apparently understanding completely everything Dalph said. I’d known he’d be tri-lingual in a matter of weeks. More importantly, he was all in one piece, and had obviously not had any part of his anatomy butchered and served to Kruska for supper.
I tried to concentrate and ascertain whether any Tornan who’d ridden out hadn’t come back and it appeared that everyone had returned. Dalph turned from the roaring crowd and began to gently herd us back toward the Rata. Carlos caught up with us and Dal and I hugged him fiercely.
“Worried about us?” Dalph said in my ear.
“You have no idea,” I said truthfully. “But it went well?”
“Better than well,” said Carlos from the other side. “Wait’ll you hear!”
Dalph laughed. “Yes, I thought our new American knight was going to expire from sheer pleasure.”
“Over what?”
“It’s not granite, Tess!” I hadn’t seen Carlos that happy over a ten million dollar deal. “It’s sandstone!”
“And that means?”
“One of the softest building stones in existence! We’re going to blow them out of orbit!”
“With some minor adjustments in strategy, of course,” Dalph slipped in from the side. He spotted Kiera and Johnny pushing their way through the crowd. “Aunt! Johnny!”
“Such as?”
“Damn, woman! Family room. Can we just breathe for a space? Aunt, food? Drink?”
“Already coming, think you not I know how to run this Rata?” Kiera fussed.
Dalph leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t give you something to complain about.”
Our odd family unit of Truscan-American mixture, some members by virtue of blood and some by virtue of choice, adjourned to the family room and closed the doors, where Dalph and Carlos collapsed—in somewhat exaggerated movements, I was sure—onto the cushions of the big chairs and sighed. I don’t think they were really that tired, as it took them all of three seconds to surge forward from those cushions at the smell of the hot food that Saraya brought in on big trays a couple of minutes after t
heir collapse. Actually, I hadn’t had much appetite myself since their departure as the bloody visions that kept dancing behind my eyes hadn’t been very conducive to good digestion. I suddenly realized I was starving. Dal was always hungry now that he spent his days out on the fields, and it was only a few minutes until we began to vie for the leavings, Dalph slapping Dal’s hand away from the last meat pasty.
“Where are your manners, young Trusca? Have you no respect for your elders or pity for your starving father?”
“Nope,” Dal responded, slapping Dalph’s hand back and claiming the prize. Dalph laughed and leaned back again.
“So we can blow them to Kingdom Come with some minor strategy changes?” I thought it was time to get back to business again. “Which would be…?”
“Slave driver,” Carlos observed mildly, and upended his mug.
“Strategy changes don’t bother me. It’s the ‘minor’ part that worries me. Any time one of you say something’s ‘minor,’ it usually means you don’t want to scare me. Which scares me.”
“Well,” Dalph leaned back into the cushions. “The thing is, the scouting mission was perfect for a full moon. But the frontal attack—well, it’s not.”
“Not what?”
“Not for a full moon. We need our hands. We’re the ones who’ve seen the city, so we’re the ones who need to plant the charges. We can’t just describe what we want to the regular troops. Too much margin for error. We have to go in human form.”
I sat for a minute and thought about it. Actually, I’d already thought about it, but I wasn’t going to claim to them that I’d considered that possibility already, because they’d probably think I was just saying that to sound smart.
“I can see that. I hate to lose the strength and speed of the wolves, though.”
“So do I, my Queen. But my warriors are not without strength and speed in human form. With considerably more hand dexterity.”
“The thing is,” added Carlos, “the city’s so much weaker than I thought it’d be, that the more hands I have throwing mini-bombs, the better.”
“Yes, I’m surprised myself, and I don’t know why,” said Dalph. “The Prians are scavengers, not builders, I’ve always known that. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that they would have taken as little care as possible in building their cities. But why they’ve expended so very little effort in their fortifications, I can’t imagine.”
“I can,” I offered. “How many Truscans—or Andovians or Motravians or Tarnians or Freschians—willingly cross far over the Prian border and head to Prias when they know they’ll get eaten if they get caught? But Trusca has to be ready to defend herself as strongly as possible because we won’t, and the Prians know we won’t, start a war of domination. Because we are the Guardians of the world and Guardians do not make war unless it’s in self-defense or protection of another nation.” I paused, struck by something Johnny had told me the first morning of my marriage, when Dalph had ordered the two of us to make some sort of working peace. “In other words,” I continued, “Trusca is much closer to being a mini-America than any of us have realized. Americans don’t go to war in an effort to dominate, only in an effort to preserve and protect. As does Trusca.”
Johnny stared at me. “Never thought of it that way. And you sound damn near Truscan, Tess!”
“Good. I feel damn near Truscan. Though I really think Truscan and American are much closer than it seems on the surface. That’s why all three of us, and Madeleine, assimilated ourselves here so quickly. So if we’re not going in as Tornans, we’re not waiting for the full moon, are we?”
“No.”
“Do we still attack at night?
“Oh, yes.”
“But we’re going to just—what? Get within striking range, move closer with dark-fall, and simply charge the city?”
“Sometimes you still amaze me, my Queen. I can’t think why I’m ever surprised anymore.”
I stood up. “Okay, are we through here?”
“Short and sweet, as you would say. That’s about it, yes. Why?”
“Because you and Carlos smell,” I said and reached down for Dalph’s hand. “Kiera, can you get the hot water going please?”
“Well, we love you, too, your Majesty,” Carlos assured me.
By this time I had Dalph out the door and turned back. “And after the hot water gets in our chambers, I’d strongly advise that you post a guard at the door. Because if anyone knocks on the door before we come out, I’ll not only sign their execution order, I’ll execute ’em myself.”
“And more importantly, I’ll let her!” Dalph threw back over his shoulder as he followed me down the hall.
I only half-heard the shocked Truscan exclamation from Kiera, but I knew what it was.
“In the daytime?”
And with the new intelligence information in hand, and the new battle strategy in gear, the days moved toward the new fortnight-away target date, in whirlwinds of motion; the continuing clash of swords and swoosh of arrows. Carlos scoured the kitchens, the smithies, the laundries—collecting lye and potash and other elements necessary for incendiary products. I had no idea what all he was gathering or how he was putting it together, and as all I wanted to know was that it would work, I didn’t try to learn.
Finally, the portentous morning dawned. The Truscan Army would ride out toward Pria. Dalph guided Pegasus restlessly back and forth in front of the troops as the formation assembled. We, the American Truscans, which of course included Dal and Johnny’s boys, held our position in the front. The gates opened. Dalph’s upraised arm lowered, and the riders began to pour out of the front gates.
Dalph was on my left, Carlos on my right, Johnny and the boys were flanking Carlos. Beside me, I heard Carlos humming loudly, barely audible over the noise of the horse hooves. At first, I thought I must be imagining it, and then realized that I wasn’t. And that it was perfect. I felt magically transported to an American sports stadium, the crowd clapping and stomping their feet in pounding rhythm.
“Taa-da, taa-da! Tata! Taa-da, taa-da! Tata!” He reached down and pulled his sword out of its scabbard a few inches and slammed it back in, creating the emphatic beat that was the signature of this particular song. It was just too good to pass up.
Adding my own sword to the beat I translated the words into Truscan and joined in. “Anda, anda, canta!” I heard it swell down the ranks until it reached the back lines, the punctuating music of the swords as loud as any stadium percussion band. “Anda, anda, canta! Anda, anda, canta!”
I looked over at Dalph, who threw his head back and laughed. I twisted in the saddle to find Johnny, who had come through the door, I thought, years before this particular song had become so much a part of the American sports world. But I was sure he would recognize it immediately for what it was, and he did.
“Anda, anda, canta!” And as the swords rose and fell in their sheath for the backbeat, I heard Johnny’s gleeful shout.
“Hot damn, I love Americans!”
Chapter Thirty-One
Trusca was apparently located on the outer fringes of greenbelt country that reminded me of the eastern portions of the United States before they reached the plains; wooded and crossed with streams and the occasional river. Two days’ hard ride southwesterly took us back into country reminiscent of the Badass that one ran into when one rode northwesterly out of Trussa.
“Is everything but Trusca like this?” I asked as we sat around one of the fires our second night out, after we’d run back into Badass country.
“No, the other countries are very like Trusca. Tarn is lake country; Motravia’s very flat but verdant and very fertile. Frescia’s hilly, edging into mountains. The legends say that’s because Fresco likes to run and jump. And Andovio’s green, but much warmer than the other countries, which it should be after all; Andovo is the God of Light.”
I loved it when Dalph relayed the myths of Trusca and, it must be confessed, I always tried to keep him talking as long as
possible, just to listen to him talk. It was amazing how much knowing that these might be my last days of life heightened my senses. The horizon had never been wider; the sky never bluer; the Truscan moon never redder. Water had never tasted so sweet; the dried provisions were better than the roasted meat of a Truscan banquet; the sound of voices all around me more awe-inspiring than the finest symphony orchestra. And the most wonderful sounds of all were, of course, the voices of my men, all of them, Dalph, Dal, Johnny, Carlos, Johnny’s boys.
I especially savored the sound of Dal’s voice mingled with Crayton and Cretor’s, whose conversations usually culminated in such unselfconscious and joyous laughter. But then, I also especially loved to hear Johnny’s Midwestern, good ole’ boy drawl, and I loved to track the changing accent in Carlos’ voice, which I didn’t think he was aware of. Usually, he had no accent at all but in the past, when he was very tired or very angry, the distinctive word emphasis of those for whom Spanish was more their mother tongue than English would creep in. I’d always loved to hear that when it happened, which wasn’t often. But now, it was as though a cumulative accent was forming in his speech, one that wasn’t English or Spanish or Truscan, but one that over-rode and combined all three, and which was present no matter what language he was speaking.
And, of course, I stored away every echo I could garner of my husband’s voice, especially when I could coax him into the slightly more formal, poetic phrasing that I knew was the legacy of his mother, the phrasing that I knew he used without conscious thought; the almost-poetry that simply flowed from brain to lips.
“And Trusca is located nearest Pria because…?”
He smiled, knowing exactly what I was doing. “Because, of course, Trusca was created to be the Guardian of the world, to protect the other countries from Pria. And if we are to serve that purpose, we should get as much sleep as we can now. It’s another two days’ hard riding and we don’t want to expend all our strength just getting there.”
Miami Days and Truscan (K)nights Page 23