Foot-Captain Marquand, the third of the fullbinders assigned to the 3rd Division, had Life, Death, and the new Entropy bindings, placing him in the elite company of fullbinders, like Erris herself, who could handle three types of leyline energy. He also possessed an equally rare talent for drinking enough wine in a day to drown a regiment of cavalry, with enough to see to their horses after the men had had their fill.
She found him precisely where Regiment-Major Laurent said she might, a loud snore emanating from his tent while the rest of the camp flowed around him. The aides and soldiers of the 5th seemed to be making a point of averting their eyes from the sound, and she could guess why. Closing her eyes, her vision shifted and she found the inky clouds of Death pooled beneath a nearby medic’s tent. She felt the familiar pang of nausea as she held a binding at the ready. It was always easier on the stomach to bind Death in the open, or better, near the enemy’s camp, where there were fewer immediate reminders of what it represented. She kept her tether at the ready, reaching for a nearby bucket of water as she pushed aside the flaps of the foot-captain’s tent.
“ORACLE’S TITS!” Marquand roared, leaping up from his now-drenched bedroll. In the space of a heartbeat, she bound Death through the Entropy binding she felt spring up around him, dissipating it into harmless wisps of vapor. Not a moment too soon. Entropy’s discovery had been hailed as a breakthrough by all save those who’d first found it; the binding was as unstable as the decay and chaos that caused it to accrue on the leylines. And when tethered, it caused whatever it touched to burst into flame.
“Good morning, Foot-Captain. I believe the expression you’re looking for is ‘Oracle’s tits, sir.’”
Marquand sputtered and wiped his eyes, squinting under the glare of the light streaming through the tent flaps.
“Mmhh,” he groaned. “Good to see you, Brigade-Colonel.”
“It’s ‘Chevalier-General’ now,” she corrected, giving him a glare sharp enough to make him think twice about collapsing back onto his cot. That he’d thought about it once was beyond doubt. He eyed the still-dripping blankets longingly as he yawned, stretched, and settled on his feet.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Chevalier-General d’Arrent?”
“Reassignment. Gather your things and head to the training yard on the double.”
He muttered something that sounded like “Sir, yes, sir.”
“On the double, Foot-Captain. The next bucket will be filled with leavings from the horses.”
She let the tent flaps fall shut, stifling a private laugh. Few pleasures were reserved to those who abstained from drink while in the field, and this was the sweetest.
She’d almost made her way back to the yard when a commotion headed toward her, no mistaking its source. She sighed, turned, and saluted.
“Vicomte-General Dulliers, a pleasure to see you again so soon.”
He returned her salute. “What is the meaning of this, d’Arrent?” He held aloft a crumpled piece of parchment.
“If you mislike the marquis-general’s orders, I suggest you take it up with him.”
“Gods damn you and Voren both for thieves and poachers. You’d cripple my division taking my fullbinders, and you know it damned well.”
“Temporary reassignment, Vicomte-General. My men are already deployed along the front lines. Your brigades are days behind. Read the orders, I’m sure Marquis-General Voren has it all detailed for you.”
“The Duc-General will hear of this absurdity.”
“Yes, I’m sure he will.”
He glared at her, then flung the parchment to the dirt as he wheeled around, making an exit worthy of a mummer on a stage. She watched him go, pitying the poor aide who would have to retrieve the orders from the mud.
Knowing firsthand the devastating effect a fullbinder could have on a battlefield, she could almost empathize with the vicomte-general’s loss, however temporary. She’d have done worse than complain to the army’s commander had she received such an order. The difference was she knew better than any of the other division commanders what to do with the likes of Laurent, Acherre, and Marquand. Gods bless Marquis-General Voren for seeing it. Together they’d devised a plan that would crush the enemy cavalry in one swift stroke, leaving the Gandsmen blind for the upcoming campaign. The Gandsmen had been fools, gathering so many horse for a single reckless maneuver. She still burned with hate remembering Fantain’s Cross, but she could think of no better way to see justice done than breaking the enemy with the collected strength of every fullbinder in the 2nd Corps.
Smiling, she made her way back to the yard to collect her newest soldiers, already formulating joint tactics they’d put to good use in the weeks ahead.
22
ARAK’JUR
The Guardian’s Tent
Sinari Village
The summons came by way of a young boy, just after daybreak. Once it would have been carried by Ilek’Inari, when the Ilek in his name was tied to the shaman’s path rather than the guardian’s. Arak’Jur had been planning to leave just after midday on another excursion into the wilds, making Ka’Vos’s summons well timed, though he’d come to expect such things over a lifetime of dealing with the shamans. Whatever unease he’d felt over events of late, he knew well the power they held. If he mistrusted Ka’Vos’s visions it was not because he doubted their power. It was because he feared it.
Hurriedly he dressed himself and left to answer the summons. Llanara had awoken along with the sun, regarding him in silence during his exchange with the shaman’s messenger and his subsequent preparations. They exchanged fond looks before he departed, but he could not shake the feeling of late that she had some secret thought, some plan left unspoken. He supposed she would find the words in time. Llanara was wise enough; she would consult him when the time was right. Like as not it regarded her bold assertion that the women would find her ready for Ka’Ana’Tyat, a claim that had yet to bear fruit. Though it was possible that was the subject of today’s summons.
He crossed the village quietly. Many tents had stirred awake before sunrise. There was much to do during the hot season: preparing food, harvesting grain and maize, curing hides, storing fish and meat. And mixed in with the oldest traditions, some would spend their days repairing iron cookware, cleaning firearms, sharpening steel, tending to horses, or doing something else that had been unknown to his people generations before. His own purpose had been a novelty, once—when the first guardian met with the first shaman to follow the guidance of the spirits of things-to-come. A reminder that change was not always to be feared, though it rang hollow as he walked, exchanging greetings with men and women along the path.
Ilek’Inari arrived at the shaman’s tent moments after he did, the first time summons had been extended to both men at once.
A great beast then, of a surety.
Stepping together inside the tent confirmed it. Ka’Vos had stopped the ceiling of his tent while the fire burned within, filling it with ritual smoke. Ilek’Inari doubtless knew all of the secrets, the making of the powders and reagents that turned the smoke from one shifting color to the next, bringing life to wispy forms rendered above the fire. For Arak’Jur it was still magic, an old and potent form.
Ka’Vos wore his shaman’s regalia, thick hides and ghost-white designs on his face and arms. No sooner had the entrance of the tent closed behind them than the shaman dusted a powder over the fire, evoking a resonant boom that brought both guardians to their knees in reverence.
“They come,” Ka’Vos said, and let it linger while the smoke belched once, then again from the fire. First gray, then blue, the color of twilight.
“They come!” he said again, and pointed.
The form of a dog took shape in the smoke.
Ilek’Inari glanced between him and Ka’Vos’s display. Arak’Jur shook his head. This was no form he recognized. Another new great beast, in a time when such revelations grew ever more common.
“Do you fear, guardians?” the shaman hiss
ed, his voice channeling the countenance of whatever spirit spoke to them now. Ka’Vos reached within his garb and withdrew another handful of powder, tossing it into the fire. Red streams bloomed above the flames, and the dog’s form twisted, writhed …
And split. Two dogs. Then four.
“You see what fear brings?” Ka’Vos’s voice seemed to echo through the tent.
“Great spirits,” Arak’Jur said, eyes still fixated on the dancing wisps making patterns in the air. “They feed on fear, like the munat’ap?”
“Fear is the least precious of their meals. See what violence brings!” Another powder, this time a deep black that seemed to contort the air around each figure.
The dog shapes split again. Eight. Sixteen. Again. Numbers beyond counting.
This time Ilek’Inari spoke. “If we cannot do them harm, great spirits, how can we protect our people?”
“Starve them, guardian.”
A third powder, this time a chalky white. The dog shapes dissolved, one by one, until only a single shape remained.
Arak’Jur nodded, though Ilek’Inari still bore a look of confusion.
“What is its name, Great Spirit?” Arak’Jur asked.
Ka’Vos turned to him, his gaze still filmed over and milk-white. “They are urus.”
The remainder of the ritual passed quickly once the name had been given, leaving them to sort out its meaning. Of the location they were certain, unexpected though it was. They would find the urus to the west, beyond the boundaries of Sinari land. It was not unheard-of for guardians to be called to the lands of their neighbors; some beasts required more strength than could be offered by a single tribe. Evidently this was one such.
Other shapes and faces had shown themselves during the visions, and on this point they were less certain. He saw Arak’Doren, signifying the Ranasi would respond, or at least that they would have received the same prompting through their shaman. The others he did not recognize through the haze, though they were many. He had never heard of a hunt requiring so many guardians—dozens at least if Ka’Vos’s vision held true. Most of the forms were blurred as if etched in sand, fading away before any could solidify into faces he knew. In the end they resolved to trust the spirits’ guidance. The Sinari endured as a people by responding to their call, safe in the knowledge that their protectors would guide them no matter the gravity of the threats on the horizon. If the urus were new and frightening, so be it. They had faced such before, and would again.
Preparations were made, and they set out before the sun reached its apex. It was the nature of the guardians to travel lightly. The tribe’s hunters might live from the bounty of the land on a long hunt, and the women, too, gathering such fruits and herbs as could be found to sustain them. But none were truly at home in the wild, none save the guardians. Well, he was. Ilek’Inari would come to be, in time.
He took the opportunity to teach Ilek’Inari as they traveled, days spent learning the hills and forests of their land. Most men of the Sinari would have the skills of a hunter long since ingrained in their bones. To set a snare, to stalk and remain unseen, to survive exposed in the heat of the sun. In some ways, the hunter’s craft mirrored the guardian’s, and there he felt Ilek’Inari’s shortcomings. But it was not so in all things, and surprisingly often he found his apprentice’s naïveté refreshing.
Of Ilek’Inari’s lingering bonds to the spirits of things-to-come, he was less pleased.
In his mind, Ilek’Inari had become a guardian when he killed the una’re, and that should be the end of it. He misliked the nature of Ilek’Inari’s renewed apprenticeship as surely as Ka’Vos did, and for that matter as surely as Ilek’Inari himself. It was not done, for a man to draw on the beast spirits as he listened to the spirits of things-to-come. A prohibition as old as the tribes themselves, which meant it had to have come from the spirits, in ancient days, when the first tribesmen ventured into the wild. The why of it had always been clear, to him, or clear enough to keep him from questioning further than he should. Men given power sought more of the same; it was the truth nested within the shamans’ stories, enough to make him wary of it in any form.
Yet try as he might, Ilek’Inari claimed the bond of the Ka was not set aside so easily. Once formed, the bond with a single spirit would not dissipate, and if the compact had not been fully sealed, still it would not be broken. Arak’Jur might disapprove, and did, but even he could not set aside what was plain and clear: Ilek’Inari had been chosen as his apprentice and what would be, would be.
On the fifth day they arrived at the gathering place.
As was typical with tellings of the spirits, they knew they had come to the foreordained place the moment they arrived. Some echo of the smoke-shapes within Ka’Vos’s tent had settled into their bones, and this place was imprinted in their minds. A field of wild grass between two hills with three boulders at its center. He had not come this way before, or if he had it had escaped his memory, but he would more readily believe the spirits had prepared it for the gathering to come. It was often so that the wilds would change at the spirits’ whim. A guardian learned not to be troubled by unfamiliar ground.
They were the first to arrive, and so they waited. For who and how many, neither of them could say, though he assured his apprentice they would know when, and where to go, when the time was right.
Arak’Doren arrived next, and they exchanged stories of the latest goings-on of their tribes. Arak’Doren too had never encountered or heard tell of the urus, though Ka’Hinari and Ka’Vos were of a mind on how to handle the creatures. Arak’Var of the Olessi and his apprentice, Ilek’Uhrai, arrived next, followed by the guardians of the Vhurasi and the Ganherat from the south. All agreed their shamans had seen visions of many, many guardians together, more than they could recall in their lifetimes. And none of them had encountered urus before. They’d each been given the warning against fear—that such emotions were enticing to the beasts—but even so, a haze of dread threatened to settle around the camp as they waited. There would be dozens of guardians, the visions said. How long would it take for so many to make the journey from distant lands? And worse: What manner of beast required such strength arrayed against it?
On the morning of the third day it became clear. No more guardians would come, and they would wait no longer. Urus had arrived.
Arak’Doren spotted it first, giving the prearranged signal. A white dog padded into view at the edge of the field, coming to a stop and cocking its head as it regarded the stirrings of the camp. No tents to strike, nor much in the way of cookfires or supplies to pack; such things were not the way of the guardians. Only nine men roused from sleep, spread into a half circle surrounding the great beast as it watched.
Even from far away it was clear the creature’s eyes were wrong. Not in the way of the mareh’et, where fires burned in empty sockets, or anahret, whose eyes spilled shadows like clouds of ash. Urus’s eyes were a pale blue one could find on any manner of wolf or dog, but its focused stare struck fear into one’s bones. It swiveled its gaze between the assembled guardians, as if it watched, waiting for a sign to move.
When it was Arak’Jur’s turn, he slowed his breathing and emptied his thoughts. No fear, or thought of violence. It seemed to work. The moment stretched thin, and almost he felt the creeping tendrils of fear at the edge of his vision. Almost. Then it was done, and the beast was on to the next man.
Seven were weighed before one was found wanting.
It was Ilek’Uhrai, the Olessi guardian’s apprentice. Without warning, the beast’s fur shifted from white to red, as if blood spilled onto its back, and where there had been a single dog, in the blink of an eye there were two.
“Still yourself,” Arak’Var said in a calm, collected voice. Silence hung in the air and all could hear the master’s instructions to his apprentice.
The pair of red urus started toward Ilek’Uhrai. The young man froze, darting rapid glances between the slavering forms of the great dogs and the stoic calm of his m
aster. In an eyeblink, a third dog appeared next to the first two, and their fur grew darker, a richer shade of crimson.
“Apprentice, you must calm your fears,” Arak’Var said again, managing to keep all tension from his voice.
Ilek’Uhrai closed his eyes, but his breath came quick, and the beasts crept onward.
A heartbeat later, the young man’s eyes snapped open. “No!” Ilek’Uhrai cried, surging toward the encroaching urus, a pale nimbus of feather and claw surrounding him. The dogs’ eyes seemed to brighten at the sight, and they rushed forward to meet him.
“Look away,” Arak’Doren called to the rest of them in a steady voice. “Stay calm. And look away.”
Arak’Jur closed his eyes and listened. A sickening crunch, a high-pitched war cry, and the sound of flesh ripping. Snaps of teeth and low growls. A thump as a body slammed into the dirt. Then another. More. A rush of wind, and a second war cry joined the first. He kept his eyes shut, his breath steady. More cries, and thumps. Then screams. And finally, silence.
A long moment passed before he opened his eyes.
No fewer than ten dogs, each black as jet, regarded him with their unblinking stare. He saw twice that number of dogs slain, bodies mangled and spewing blood into the long grass. The remaining urus affected not to notice their fallen, only pawed about turning their curious stares on the remaining men.
Mixed in with the bodies of the slain urus were the corpses of Ilek’Uhrai and Arak’Var. Master and apprentice, leaving the Olessi tribe without the protection of a guardian. An unspeakable tragedy for their shaman not to have foreseen it in time for another apprentice to be chosen and trained. A sign of the spirits’ disfavor. A curse. No time to dwell on such matters now. Keeping his breath still, his mind empty, he moved from where he stood, a slow walk toward the urus pack. The initial contact had gone poorly, but that was no reason to deviate from the remainder of their plan.
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