Banner of the Damned

by Sherwood Smith

  She lifted her voice once more. “When can you be ready to ride to the aid of Colend against the threat of Chwahir invasion?”

  “Now.” He smiled briefly.

  As whispers susurrated outward, Hatahra almost laughed. Oh, this little drama would be talked of for days. Maybe years.

  She turned to her consort, who stood behind the throne in a splendid battle tunic modeled on a gold-leaved illustration the heralds had found in the Archive. She thought he looked quite distinguished, so tall and sturdy with the long blue tunic worked with golden stars down its front, the gleam of chain mail at the gapped sides, his rich sword belt and gem-studded rapier. These were artifacts from the Lirendi treasury, along with the splendid shield, half as tall as he was, with the Lirendi lily in the old-fashioned crowned dagger shape that furniture artisans had spent all night silvering afresh, then adding ten layers of cobalt to deepen the blue. It still smelled faintly of lacquer.

  He looked noble and imposing, but not as… martial as this young fellow in his plain black, relieved only by the golden belt buckle at his narrow waist and the long knife he wore at his side. If he wore chain mail, it was hidden beneath that tight-chested, long-skirted coat.

  “Are you ready to ride, Lord Davaud?”

  “I am, your majesty,” Davaud replied, the sonorous drawl pitched to be heard in the gallery where the scratching of quills could be made out over the profound silence below.

  “Then I bid you go. Protect our kingdom,” she commanded.

  Lord Davaud stepped down from the daïs to Ivandred’s side. The Marloven turned, coat skirts flaring, and matched pace with the consort. Together they walked out of the throne room to the great courtyard, where the courtly carriages had all been sent away, and the only people permitted were those ready to ride with the consort—including twenty-four Marlovens, still and straight on their exquisite horses.

  As many courtiers as could crowded out behind the grim-faced Duke Mathias Altan of Altan.

  The court peered past the milling herald-guards in their old-fashioned armor and hastily sewn (or age-green, attic-resurrected) battle tunics, waiting in disorder next to the still double column of horsemen all dressed in black, as Prince Ivandred mounted, then raised a gloved hand. One of his boys (were they all boys? That one next to the redhead had a womanish turn to her throat) blew a stirring air on a trumpet, a sound unheard for centuries. Twenty-four lances with black and gold fox face pennants rose at exactly the same angle. Then the prince’s horse leaped into a gallop, tail high, and his twenty-four followers wheeled and raced after, the columns strictly side by side, horses nose to tail, the riders so easy on their backs the racing enthusiasts among the court felt their hearts seize.

  Behind them galloped Lord Davaud’s riders in a mass, borrowed weapons and armor clattering and jingling.

  The court turned away, everyone talking. The queen stood alone on the top step between the massive doors.

  The Duke of Altan rubbed his heavy jowl, then indicated by sign that he wished to speak. Hatahra gestured permission, and he stepped up beside her. “All right, Tahra, you win.”

  “Try to catch them, Thias.” She breathed a laugh.

  Servants found their own vantages from which to observe history being made. The favored view was from the roof of the carriage storage building, where Kivic sat, exchanging joking comments with co-workers. One raised a tankard. “Ah-yedi! Look at those foreigners ride! Wouldn’t you love to get your hands on their horses?”

  “You won’t get within sniffing distance of them,” scoffed a stableman from Kivic’s other side. “Those Marlovens pull a sword if you so much as touch one of their hoof-picks.”

  “Yedi! They do all their own grooming? Imagine one of our fine lords knowing what a hoof-pick is, never mind what to do with it,” offered a third, to knowing chuckles.

  The dust had begun to settle behind the riders when Kivic stretched and yawned. “Duke Pinch-Copper Altan looks like he’s going to snap his fingers for his saddle at last.”

  Genial curses met this announcement. They slid off the roof onto the bales of fresh-harvested hay and dispersed.

  Kivic eased away. In his locked room, he wrote: My liege, the crown is sending a force east. Among them, twenty-four Marloven boys and girls as honor guard. There may be a more substantial number out of sight. Rumors are wild about a Marloven army, though no specifics.

  Jurac Sonscarna waited a day’s ride north of Alsais, well outside the range of Hatahra’s magic wards. He frowned at Kivic’s message. He and his force had crossed the border one by one, dressed as day laborers. There was no disguising their pale Chwahir faces, but this close to the mountains, Kivic had assured his king that Chwahir were often hired on the cheap for harvesting. They had to make certain no one saw them en masse—something that would have to be addressed later. For now, Jurac waited for news of his princess. Kivic had only to find out where she was, then he could act.

  But Marlovens? Even if each of the twenty-four fought with the prowess of an Elgar of the legends, they could not defeat a thousand marchers massed up in the eastern pass, waiting on his word to engage the queen’s fan-waving fops, and make them all look like the fools they were.

  But if there was a Marloven army on the move somewhere, masked by the mass of courtiers flowing toward Alsais…. Kivic must find out.

  Jurac threw the paper into the fire. Kivic now had five spies out on the western road below Alsais, along which the courtiers were straggling. How long could they hide a traveling princess—or an army?

  Davaud soon regretted having chosen to ride.

  At least they did not gallop long. Marlovens knew how to make an impression, but they were equally careful of their mounts. Ivandred gave the signal for them to holster their lances and slow the animals.

  Davaud welcomed the signal with intense relief. His hips hurt almost as much as the inner parts of his legs, and the back of his neck was awash in sweat from the sun beating down on the four layers he wore: silken brocade over thick quilting, over a heavy linen shirt, and over that the chain mail. The damned shield dug unmercifully into his thigh, but no matter how he tried to shift it, it either disturbed the horse or thrust against his boot, or something. It seemed to have twenty corners instead of five.

  Davaud glanced at his companion, whose shield, an odd tear shape, hooked over the horse’s gear at a slant so that it stayed out of the way. The Marloven prince wore black, which soaked up sunlight, but he did not look red or sweaty. Summer was nearly over, and that coat had to be hot. On closer look Davaud suspected the weave had more linen than wool. But did he wear chain mail underneath?

  Ivandred had been scanning the countryside. He turned Davaud’s way and said in heavily accented Sartoran, “What can we expect?”

  “Expect?” Davaud was grateful for the Sartoran, because the meaning was confusing enough even though he could define each word. “You mean, how many are there?”

  Ivandred turned his palm up.

  Taking that for assent, Davaud answered, “The wards in the passes signal alarms if more than fifty gather in a given space. We do have some limited trade with the Chwahir, and there is even some visiting back and forth and seasonal workers hired, but no one travels in large groups. Forbidden either side,” he explained. “Since the first alarm, our people have been trying to count them. Several hundred at the least, probably with more coming up their side of the pass.”

  Another open-handed gesture. “Any warning sent? Demands? Threats?”

  “Nothing. Only the wards broken.”

  Ivandred’s voice showed no emotion. “What kind of tactics can we expect?”

  Tactics? Davaud had felt like a fraud ever since the queen had informed him he would be in command of this defense. But he wasn’t one. He’d spent long, wearying nights reading every first-hand record of a battle that the heralds could find in the archives. Most of them were not only ancient, they took place in other lands. Colend had had skirmishes aplenty, but was short on wars.<
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  He’d begun with the Battle of Skya Lake four centuries previous, when the Sentis family had faced off the Lirendis and lost. Then there were several abortive Khanerenth incursions, a brawl at Pansan Bridge in Gaszin, and a ducal scuffle over inheritance that the former queen Hatahra had to settle. He’d finished by plowing grimly through the long-winded chronicles of the last Chwahir invasion, the enemy having been repelled by Martande Lirendi, who subsequently made himself king. The archaic language turned out to describe, in detail, the heroism and glory of the aftermath, and furnished not a scrap of instruction on exactly what you were supposed to do to get there.

  “Tell you what,” he said to the waiting prince. “You take a look at these records yourself and tell me what you think.”

  He gestured to the servant riding discreetly behind with the baggage. The man trotted up, and Davaud handed off the shield, then retrieved the neat copies made by Hatahra’s scribes from the side-pouch on his carry-all.

  These he handed to Ivandred. Then he turned his neck from side to side to ease the stiffness that had somehow resulted from that wild gallop. When had he last galloped like that? Probably the time he fought his only duel—when he was twenty, and he and that hothead Basya Isqua hadn’t known how to back down from a witless quarrel forced on them by a flirt. That duels were forbidden had only added to the… intensity. He recalled the anguish of those days with an inward flutter of laughter. Now the flirt was a staid matron, married to a southern baron. But in those days, she wanted to heighten her prestige by getting someone to fight over her, so she could court the brother of the King of Sartor, visiting at the time. They’d all lost, in the sense that the old queen had demanded they make restitution for flouting laws.

  The purpose of a court, he thought, trying to ease his right hip by listing to the left, is to avoid this war savagery. He had lived too long to expect everyone of high degree to have brains, moral principles, and good will, but the layers of language, behavior, even dance and fashion, all diffused the clashings of intent. People might, and did, get wounded, but not by steel. And so they lived to learn their lessons, as he and Basya and Firandel had, or they did not learn. But no one lost their lives in the process.

  The Chwahir, he knew, did not have that luxury. Neither did these Marlovens, it seemed.

  “Parade,” Ivandred said.

  “What?”

  Ivandred handed the papers back. “These are not battles. They are parades, at least this Skih-huh Lake one, and this other that took place near this bridge.”

  “Do you mean the Battle of Skya Lake?” Davaud corrected with an apologetic gesture. “Parade? If you will honor me with a clarification, I would be most grateful.”

  Ivandred pointed at the papers. “These rules binding who marches first, how close they come, maneuvering around one another, the heralds all at the side conferring and sending messengers running back and forth, with scribes to write it all down. At the end, all that about hostages and ransom, and what is required of each rank, and the court lined up watching their favorites. That’s a parade, a mock battle. It is not quite a war game.”

  Davaud looked surprised. “But there have to be rules, or who’s to stop a wholesale slaughter?”

  Ivandred’s pale eyes narrowed, revealing the amusement he was trying to hide. Davaud’s nerves chilled.

  Ivandred said, “These Chwahir, they are mainly foot warriors and rely on numbers, or did in this report. How old is it?”

  Davaud told him.

  Ivandred turned up his palm. “Seven centuries ago! Much could have changed since then.” Again, he was trying to hide his amusement. “So we shall assume a similar tactic, at least until we see them. If you have a map, I can show you how to plan for that and break them up quickly.”

  The clatter of galloping hooves interrupted. An excited page rode up, his voice cracking as he announced that Duke Thias was behind them.

  Davaud knew his duty. “We are about to be joined by more of the queen’s force. Perhaps we can all plan over the map together,” he suggested.

  To the east the Duke and Duchess of Alarcansa completed their third day on the road, stopping by the duchess’s command at the western limit of her lands, where Baroness Mayra Valsin had a comfortable palace.

  “We will stay with Mayra, in a civilized manner,” she said, after summoning her duke to her carriage. “There is time enough to ride north tomorrow, for the next leg of our circle.”

  Kaidas bowed.

  Carola realized her voice had been short, and fought against irritation. She prided herself on her excellent manners, on no one ever knowing what she was thinking. She especially hated being short with her beloved, but it was difficult to maintain serenity after a second long, hot, boring day alone in this carriage, jolted horribly because of the speed that war seemed to require. Kaidas had politely refused to ride in the carriage, saying that he must remain with his force, to be seen by them, to be accessible to them each time they stopped, so he could answer questions and talk to the new recruits at each point.

  Was that a necessity of the warrior habit of mind? She had no experience of it, so no argument could be made. She used her rank to commandeer an inn for the first night, but it had been extremely late when he came to bed where she lay waiting; and worse, far worse, he had risen before she awoke, ruining her cherished morning ritual for the first time. She’d had to scold herself into reason: if he’d made this stupid trip alone, she still would not have had her morning with him.

  After dressing far more swiftly than she liked, she emerged from the bedchamber to discover that the putative warriors were all gathered in the courtyard, ready to ride. Her carriage waited and a meal, thoughtfully arranged for her to enjoy in the comfort of the coach.

  To eat alone, while her duke rode with the louts.

  It happened again the second morning. She was forced to hasten in a manner she did not consider commensurate with melende, but that night, when she requested her duke to wake her when he woke, he replied, “I shall if you desire, but first I must ask. Do you wish to go out to the stable in the dark and examine the animals’ shoes, and see to their feed? Because that is my task as soon as I rise.”

  She did not wish. But she woke when he did and insisted on tying his hair before he went.

  A rider was sent ahead to inform the baroness that she would be honored with a visit from her duchess and duke.

  Mayra came to her gate herself to welcome the ducal cavalcade, assigning her own rooms to the duchess and her duke. As the baroness labored through dinner to entertain the two tired and tense people who had displaced her in her own home, the duchess responded with rigid politesse, and the duke, aching after a long day in the saddle, longed for rest. Everyone was relieved when at last they retired.

  The duchess was determined to retire early so that she would waken before dawn and not be denied her morning time with Kaidas. Mayra’s bedroom was comfortable enough, but it was not Carola’s own. While Kaidas stood at the window, she wandered about the room, looking at things and fighting to resume her serenity. Her dressers, unfamiliar with the palace, were late to attend her. Finally she sent a waiting maid in search of them, and stood in the middle of the room, furiously tapping her fan on her palm.

  Flick, flick, flick.

  The sound was not loud, but it was distinct. Yet she seemed to be the only one to hear it. And what was her husband doing? She turned her head, and there was no attentive duke, making her distress his own, but an absent one staring out through the window, as if whatever existed there held more importance than his duchess. The realization was one more affront to the refined mind. Enraged past endurance, she said venomously, “Chwahir. The first time in hundreds of years. It would be like Lasthavais to be at the root of it.”

  Kaidas spun around.

  Carola had never seen that narrow look, the white mouth. Anger flamed, blood-hot, but she kept her teeth gritted, wishing she had not lowered herself even that much. Until now she had never permitted any men
tion of the selfish, grasping Princess Lasthavais to cross her lips. Carola would not permit Her to destroy Definian melende.

  But Carola’s disgust with her lapse was subsumed under the rage caused by that reaction of his.

  His answer was utterly unexpected. “What makes you think there is a connection between the Chwahir in the pass and the princess?”

  He didn’t say her name, or attempt to defend her, Carola thought with a spurt of triumph. His anger is justly with the Chwahir. That observation was so comforting she regained her customary well-modulated tones. “The birth of the heir, the rumors of suitors, and the arrival of these Chwahir, all three at once, raise my suspicions. But if the queen apprehends no connection, no doubt it is mere coincidence. I don’t pretend to comprehend the warrior mind.”

  He didn’t hear this gentle reminder of her forbearance. His eyes were turned toward his wife, but his mind reviewed the map of Colend. The pass. Alsais. Heir, suitors… and, back in memory, Prince Jurac Sonscarna, refusing to dance with anyone but the princess, scandalizing the entire court.

  The possibilities assembled into conviction as he followed his wife’s lead in her evening routine. By now he had learned to shut his mind away, leaving his body to follow orders. A month’s habit set his thoughts free to consider what was likely, and what must be done, while the rest of him performed his part in Carola’s long sexual rituals.

  He had learned after a single day in company with his wife-to-be that she was consumed with an angry jealousy, and so he had made a private vow never to mention his beloved before Carola. He would not have his memories sullied by her acrimony.

  Jealousy, he had learned, distorted everything it touched. Carola’s notion that Lasva could have somehow caused the Chwahir to threaten was preposterous. Yet might there be a spark of truth in it? Why else would Jurac Sonscarna suddenly send warriors over the mountain the same year—the same season—that an heir was born?