Winter King

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Patros watched him. Dana watched him. Their eyes were mirrors, impenetrable, showing only his own face. He set his jaw, squared his shoulders. “Come,” he said, and they stepped down the stairway, bowed to the shrine of Ashtar, and led the legions of Sardis to the relief of Iksandarun.

  * * * * *

  The moon waned, vanished, reappeared beside the sun. Soon it will be the equinox, Dana thought, and we shall pause in Sabazel. Andrion, can I touch you then? Or does it matter, in the goddess’s scheme of things, whether I ever touch you again?

  She rode beside him. His face was soberly introspective between the cheek pieces of his helmet, his black cloak flowed over him like a shadow of death. They talked quietly, even laughed together, but they remained an arm’s length apart.

  Shurzad and Valeria rode in an ox cart, with the supply train behind the marching infantry. The cat was a taut lamp of fur and muscle in a gilded cage, preening itself, scanning the passing world with glazed amber eyes. The women sat aloof, their eyes, too, glazed with the vastness of the world unfolding before them.

  On Dana’s eighteenth birthday Patros tore himself away from attending his women and his army; he presented her with a fine wool cloak and his best wishes. His face even in this light moment was grave and dark, and Dana ached for him. But she could not touch him, either. She accepted the cloak, thanked him, and turned away, choking on the best wishes and on remorse.

  Her discomfort grew. The army came to Farsahn, where Proconsul Nikander joined them with ten thousand men, including several newly formed squads of cavalry. Miklos brought messages of welcome and promises of assistance from Sabazel; Andrion, glowing in a rare grin, made him a centurion and let him bear the falcon standard beside him.

  Dana’s skin prickled with the Sight. She found herself drifting to the south time and time again; she began to ride on Andrion’s right hand as the column snaked along the Road in the cool, clear days of early fall. Peasants left their grain and their grapes to gawk, holding their children high to see the chariots, the bright falcon borne by Miklos’s steady hand, the scarlet pennons, the prancing black horse and the black prince who bore Bellasteros’s sword. Then the legions entered the wilderness.

  As the leagues rolled away behind them, Dana grew frantic. She strained her senses, listening to the blackbirds, smelling the fine wine-bright air, but she could not grasp the image that tantalized her. Until they came to the bridge over the Jorniyeh, where the Road turned south.

  She saw then, in a waking vision, the pass at Azervinah. She saw the curved blade of Solifrax gathering the sunlight, refracting it into myriad colors. She saw a face that seared her memory. But the vision could not be denied. Wearily she told Andrion, “When the scouting party rides to Azervinah, we must ride with them.”

  He knew better than to ask why.

  * * * * *

  A cool breeze stirred the leaves into cascades of gold and green. Like Dana’s eyes, Andrion thought, shifting depths of color and shadow. She rode beside him, pale but steady, staring into the deep blue of the sky as if seeking some sign of the goddess. Andrion, wanting nothing more than to finish this uncertainty, had to hold himself as tightly in check as he held a frisky Ventalidar. “No Khazyari?” he called to the leading centurion.

  The man shook his head. “No, my lord. None, even past the fort itself and into the opening of the plains.”

  Strange, Andrion thought. Had they abandoned an attempt on the pass? Farsahn and Sardis itself were protected from the south by the mountain range, towering ever higher toward the east; they could not break through there except with small bands. Only one other place might allow the passage of an army from south to north: the high plains of Sabazel.

  Dana, sensing his thought, winced. He tightened his legs on Ventalidar’s flanks and the horse leaped across a thistle-choked gully. Something crashed through the underbrush, and his heart jerked.

  “My lord,” cried another scout. “Something odd ahead.”

  Dana’s head went up, and the glimmer of sunlight in her eyes was extinguished like a candle snuffed. “Yes,” she whispered. “On a great flat rock above a bend in the river.”

  The man glanced at her, brows raised, and nodded. Andrion sent scouts right and left and told the other soldiers to hang back. In a few moments he could see the stone, glinting with tiny points of crystal between leaves that danced in a fitful breeze. The water of the Jorniyeh swept by, rushing toward the sea with the murmur of a thousand voices.

  Andrion dismounted, patted Ventalidar’s nose, pushed through the brambles without noticing their tiny barbs in his flesh. Dana moved just behind him, so close he could feel her breath on his neck. He glanced around; it was really Dana, not a demon. He wondered if he would ever again trust his own senses.

  She looked past him. He stepped through the last whipping branches. There, before him, a man clad only in ragged breeches lay spread-eagled, tied to stakes driven into fissures in the rock. A hooded figure huddled nearby. The sun glinted so brightly off the stone that the two shapes shimmered in fluid waves of heat. Were they dead? Then the bound man stirred, a faint shivering twitch, and the hooded figure roused itself and reached for an empty water skin.

  Toth. Andrion stepped forward, caught himself. Was this a Khazyari trick, or some new divine test? He set his hand on the hilt of Solifrax and stepped again, nerves quivering like the bowstring to which Dana nocked an arrow. The rushing of the river was suddenly loud. The wind gusted.

  Andrion’s cloak unfurled, casting a shadow across the two figures. Toth looked up and his eyes bulged with the image of the black warrior. His features had melted into flaccid, hanging folds of skin, the plumpness eaten away; his cheeks were bruised, his lips scabbed. Andrion inhaled to say something reassuring and stopped, the breath held burning in his chest. The man on the rock was painfully thin, his ribs standing out in sharp-etched lines, his cheekbones axe edges cleaving the sunlight. Tangled strands of black hair blew over his face, over caked, dry lips, over swollen tip-tilted eyes that opened onto ebony pools of despair.

  This beaten animal was the elegant Khazyari prince, Tembujin. Andrion spun toward Dana; she remained at the edge of the rock, unmoving, unblinking, eyes still and cold.

  Andrion whipped back around, grimacing in a fierce joy. At last, at last! He drew Solifrax with a hiss and a flare of light. Tembujin stirred. His eyes focused on the shining blade, on the face beyond it. His mouth twitched in what was almost a laugh. He lifted his chin, closed his eyes, and bared his throat to the sword.

  “Andrion,” Toth croaked, realizing who this warrior was. He raised a palsied hand. “My lord, mercy for this man, please.”

  Mercy? The sword keened in Andrion’s uplifted hand. Mercy, for this vile creature?

  Dana lowered her bow, looked away, looked back again, compelled to interfere. She took a step onto the edge of the rock and called something that clotted in her throat. And you, too, would beg mercy for this creature? Andrion asked silently. But yes, she had realized who it was who awaited them, and why; her Sight had brought her here.

  Andrion swallowed his anger, and his stomach curdled. But he could no longer afford the luxury of anger.

  “Tembujin was condemned to death by his own people,” Toth said urgently, clutching at Andrion’s greaves. “The warriors who brought him here to starve beat me when they found me following, but thinking me worthless, they left me alive. They never discovered that I carried food. Tembujin must live, lord, he must live.”

  I know that. Gods, I know it. Andrion lowered Solifrax; killing this sick, helpless animal would stain it forever. His head spun, and he stilled it. So, Tembujin had done something to earn the hatred of his own people. Interesting, most interesting. Perhaps, then, he would not be reluctant to serve the Empire.

  Solifrax flicked four times, and the ropes that tied Tembujin fell into ash. His wrists and ankles were chafed raw. “Why did you not untie him?” Andrion asked Toth, sheathing his sword, sheathing his animosity.

&nbs
p; “You needed the proof of his predicament,” the old servant replied. His eyes reflected the pale gleam of the sword.

  “You knew I would come?” But Toth did not need to answer. The hair on the back of Andrion’s neck prickled. He glanced again at Dana. She was gone. With a sigh of resignation, he knelt and levered Tembujin to a sitting position.

  The odlok looked through bleared and resentful eyes at his rescuer, swallowed, croaked, “Damn you.”

  “And you, I am sure,” Andrion replied equably through his teeth. His cloak billowed in another gust of wind, encompassing them both.

  Soldiers ran from the woods, lifted the two wasted forms, bore them away. Dana crept across the surface of the rock, waiting for reproof. He could only wonder if his face were quite as grim and tight as hers, the face of an older, wiser person who grasps at fate and finds it to be a carnivorous animal, stalking him, mangling him, spitting him out and abandoning him to stagger on.

  The river rushed heedlessly by. The wind murmured of comfort, healing, and rest. Sabazel lay before them. Andrion and Dana walked silently away from this place of suffering.

  * * * * *

  Andrion squinted into the sunset, trying to see Cylandra’s peak silhouetted against the scarlet glow. But no, Sabazel was still too far away. The army was encamped just south of where Bellasteros’s great army had camped a generation before. That army had fought for two years to get to this spot, Andrion thought. This one came from Sardis in seventeen days, and still had time to thank a stunned magistrate in Bellastria for his charity to a young merchant.

  Bellasteros fought for six months to take the southern provinces and Iksandarun, with fifty thousand at his back, without a major defeat at the hands of his enemy. As for us—well, we still have Bellasteros, Andrion mused, and turned his eyes upward. A waxing moon hung like a silver egg among clouds like pink and lavender feathers. He felt the stiff muscles of his face draw into a smile. He had, it seemed, forgotten how to smile.

  The wind whipped the scarlet and purple pennons above the pavilion where he stood, playing with the hair on his helmetless head. A work detail stepped briskly down the avenue, led by the scent of roasting meat. Dana sat outside her tent, also contemplating the moon. He started toward her.

  Patros beckoned from a nearby tent. Gods, Andrion moaned silently, can I never rid myself of that Khazyari? Squaring his shoulders, stilling his smile, he responded to the summons. Dana, frowning slightly, did not follow.

  Andrion nodded companionably to Miklos, who stood guard outside the tent. Inside it was already night. A flaming brazier drove away the chill; red light flickered unevenly on the two thin faces laid on camp beds.

  Nikander and Patros watched a surgeon fold away his packets of herbs. He turned to Andrion with a bow. “My lord.” His hand indicated Toth. “This one is old and frail. I have given him what strengthening brews I can, but still . . .” His voice died away. Toth seemed to sleep, unhearing, eyes closed and ravaged face still.

  “But this one,” the surgeon continued, turning with a firm nod toward Tembujin, “with some heartening food, should be up and around tomorrow.”

  Tembujin, awake but distinctly subdued, inquired, “Up and around? That is for the son of the falcon to say.”

  Andrion thanked the surgeon and bowed him out, using the opportunity to collect his thoughts. Patros and Nikander waited. Odd, he thought, how accustomed he’d become to even the generals of Sardis deferring to him.

  The dark, numbed hollows of Tembujin’s eyes were fixed upon him. Well, he said to himself, we seem to be set in this game together; I shall play it to the end, if you will. “Would the son of the lion like vengeance on those who betrayed him?” he asked.

  “Indeed,” replied Tembujin. “But you yourself are at fault.”

  “My prayers were answered?” Andrion replied caustically.

  “Your necklace,” said Tembujin, raising himself with effort onto one elbow, seizing some of his old spirit. “Your god-cursed necklace.”

  “The one you stole from me at Bellastria?” Unwittingly Andrion’s hand touched his throat.

  “The same. I wore it back to my camp, and was haunted by it . . .” He shivered. “There were those who recognized it.”

  “Who?” interjected Patros. Nikander’s expression did not change. Toth stirred, and his eyes glinted pale between his lids.

  Tembujin licked his lips and said, with a weary if bitter relish, “Hilkar the chamberlain. He who opened the gates of Iksandarun.”

  Whorls of light spun before Andrion’s eyes. “By the blood of the falcon,” he spat, “so that is who it was. That sneaking worm, what did we ever do to him?”

  Nikander’s long throat bobbed in slow swallow. Patros paled and cursed under his breath. Of course, Andrion realized, the whorls chilling into cinders, Hilkar was a kinsman of Shurzad.

  “A worm,” continued Tembujin. “I quite agree. It seems that he did not care for your father’s taking his intended bride, Roushangka, and has nursed his anger all these years.”

  “Roushangka,” repeated Andrion. “She was—”

  “Sarasvati’s mother.” Oddly Tembujin smiled, his lips lingering over the name. “You do not know, do you, that your sister is still alive?”

  Nikander’s eyes widened by a fraction. Patros paled even further, to a sickly green. He turned to Toth. “Surely he lies, seeking to taunt us.”

  Andrion turned, too, part of him praying that Tembujin was lying, part of him praying that he was not. He would almost prefer Sarasvati dead to being enslaved, to being used, by the Khazyari demon. A void opened beneath his heart. The tent flap stirred and Miklos stood in the opening, for once forgetting his position, his eyes aflame with Sarasvati’s name.

  “No, he is not lying,” said Toth feebly. “My apologies, my lord; when I left you I did think she was dead. But I found her later, and we agreed it was best she give herself to a chieftain.”

  Andrion’s heart plummeted. Miklos’s mouth fell open in horror.

  “I was foolish enough,” Tembujin sighed, “to give her your necklace, telling her I had killed you. In her hatred she cut my hair and gave it to my enemy, Raksula, my stepmother. With it the witch enspelled me to silence, and told my father the khan that I had your necklace because I was your friend. He believed her.” He fell back against the pillow and closed his eyes. His body seemed to wither, drained.

  “Sarasvati,” Andrion said. He swallowed something large and jagged into the place his heart had been.

  “Ah,” said Tembujin, “I did not know she was your sister. I knew her as Sita. But she is so lovely I would have taken her in any event.”

  Miklos lunged for Tembujin. Andrion seized him. Damn it, Miklos, he shouted silently, I need him! He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry. Patros grimaced in anguish and turned away.

  Tembujin looked up at Miklos, one brow rising in a thin shadow of arrogance. “So,” he said, “I had something you wanted.”

  Miklos lunged again, spitting obscenities, suggesting mutilations. Andrion tightened his grasp on the young soldier’s arms. “This barbarian stud,” he snarled, “has already been gelded. Only in spirit, unfortunately, but that should serve.”

  And Nikander, taking Miklos’s shoulders firmly in his huge hands, thrust him out of the tent. “It is much too late to mend the situation,” the general told him. “Get outside until you calm yourself.”

  Calm yourself, Andrion repeated silently. He wondered why he, too, was not writhing with fury. Gods, Tembujin’s hands violating Dana, his body violating Sarasvati . . . But was death indeed better than what Sardis would call dishonor? The Khazyari, cast out and left with nothing but the memory of his betrayal, had felt his own pain. Justice, perhaps. Or perhaps some divine jest at the expense of Sarasvati, of Tembujin, of himself.

  I become too calm, Andrion told himself. I lose myself, accepting too much. He met Nikander’s wise, hooded eyes, and the old sea turtle shrugged slightly. Such was a hazard of maturity, it seemed.

&
nbsp; “My lord.” said Toth. “The lady Sarasvati carries Tembujin’s child.”

  Tembujin gasped.

  Andrion noted somehow that the tent flap trembled; Miklos, still listening. He noted his own blood pulsing in his mind. He noted Tembujin’s face, struggling to choose between resentment and affection, failing. He noted Patros, stricken, cloaking himself with desperate dignity.

  “So,” Andrion heard himself say to Tembujin in an oddly firm voice, “she had good reason to betray you. But where is she now?”

  “Perhaps Obedei, who was once my friend, will care for her.”

  “It seems she can care for herself.” Andrion found that thought reassuring; racked with sympathy as he was, he knew he could spare none, not now. “Are you worth this pain you bring us?” he demanded.

  Tembujin’s face, too, was grim and tight, scoured by fate. “Probably not,” he replied. “But we have no choice.”

  “We have a choice,” Andrion told him, told everyone within earshot. “We choose to win back the Empire. Will you aid us?”

  “Not one of my people would defend me against the witch, Raksula,” Tembujin said bitterly. “I would see her dead. I would see them all dead.”

  “Even your father?” asked Andrion, and he marveled at the words his own voice said.

  For just a moment Tembujin looked Andrion in the face, allowing him to see the bleak void of his soul. “Even him.”

  “So be it.” Andrion spun about and plunged out of the tent, away from the firelight, into moonlight. He stood in the darkness as the cold wind, Ashtar’s breath, cleansed his mind. He pounded his closed fist into his palm. I cannot afford to hate him, he thought. I will not hate him.

  Dana still sat before her tent, head bowed over clasped hands. Something in her attitude told Andrion that she had heard it all, in her mind; good, he could not bear to repeat it. Behind him the voices of his generals spoke. Nikander calmly drew word after word from Tembujin and Toth and set each into a pattern; Patros, suppressing his agony, darted like a dragonfly from point to point. Numbers, tactics, disposition. The Khazyari people lay gutted.