by Rachel Lee
It was to Ratha’s home that Archer was now going, and he found himself turning over the question of how to broach the topic of Tuzza’s force serving alongside Ratha’s. Ratha was certain to have heard of the events Tess set in motion this morning with her visit to the Bozandari camp. The entire city of Anahar seemed to be abuzz with the news, and the reactions were not wholly positive. Too many Anari had seen their kin enslaved or killed by the Bozandari to forgive easily.
Ratha’s decisions would sway many, Archer knew. And he could not count on a shocking dawn visit by Tess to sway Ratha’s heart, as she had done for the Bozandari. He would have to do this himself, man to man, friend to friend.
Chapter Six
“You cannot ask this of me!” Ratha thundered the words at Archer, his usual deference to the man totally gone. “He killed my brother!”
Archer listened, unmoving, offering no response. Ratha had withdrawn for the telzehten—the ritual grieving period—and had come to the wedding only because custom demanded it. Otherwise he remained in a small tent in the foothills at the edge of the Monabi Tel section of Anahar, alone, staring at the scarred and dented armor that had been Giri’s. Such was not unusual among the Anari. They were a long-lived people for whom death had not been an everyday companion, and a period of communion with the soul of the departed was not only accepted but honorable.
It was in Giri’s tent—pitched on a craggy, windswept hilltop—that the two of them stood now, faced off as if they were enemies, rather than friends of many years. The cold of the unnatural winter beat about them as if it would hammer them to the ground. Neither man yielded an inch, and only Archer spared a fleeting thought for how pleasant Anahar should be at this time of year…except for the machinations of Ardred, he who was called Lord of Chaos.
Ratha was clearly past remembering such things. Grief had rent his spirit and soul, had blinded him to the evil they faced, and had left him a husk filled with nothing but pain and fury.
Before Archer’s unwavering, expressionless stare, however, Ratha’s rage could not stand its ground. Muttering an oath, the Anari stormed out of the tent, not stopping until he stood at the edge of a ravine. Ratha kicked a rock over the edge. The wind soon swallowed the clatter of its fall.
Archer had followed Ratha, and now he spoke. “Your brother was my friend, too, Ratha. And if he died by the sword of Tuzza, he died at the hand of the Enemy that stalks us all, the Enemy that brought this war upon us. Will you forget your people and misdirect your rage?”
“Misdirect?” Ratha swung around and glared at him. “My people have been enslaved by the Bozandari for generations. Would you have me forget all that?”
“You cannot forget. I will never ask that of you.”
“What then? Unlike you, I am a mere mortal, and I have lost the other half of myself to the man you now ask me to trust, to march beside with an army of my kinsmen, into battle with other Bozandari.”
“Aye, ’tis true. If blame you need, then blame me. I and my race created yours, and in that act of hubris sowed the seeds for your enslavement. Blame me, Ratha, for I bear more the stain of Giri’s death than Tuzza ever could.”
Ratha’s head jerked back, almost as if he had been slapped. When at last he spoke, his voice was rough, almost hoarse. “You saved Giri and me from slavery. You made us your friends and companions. Am I to forget that?”
“You may as well, as you are determined to forget the Enemy still before us. As you seem determined to forget that we cannot win this war alone.”
Ratha groaned, a sound of anguish and anger that bounced off the nearby rocks. He appeared about to kick another stone over the edge, but his foot paused midswing, as if he were recollecting the bond between his people and the rock. The Anari, and the Anari alone, could hear the voices in the stone. Because they could hear those voices, they appreciated rock as the truly living thing it was. Kicking that stone as he had earlier was a sin among his kind, and he was not about to repeat it.
Instead, he fell to his knees and picked up one of the larger stones that lay scattered about the ledge, having fallen from higher up. He raised it to his cheek, near his ear, and closed his eyes. Tears ran down his dark face, glistening like ice, and one fell upon the rock he held.
“I am sorry,” he whispered.
The rock he held responded, glowing faintly.
Archer squatted before him. “You see, Ratha? One must grieve, but one must never forget who he is and the duty he owes to those still living.”
Ratha’s black eyes opened slowly, wet with tears. “You would know, my lord,” he said slowly.
“I have had many years to learn. You have had only a handful. Stay for your telzehten. I would not deny you that, and would expect no less from a brother whose bond I shared. But then you must return to us, for our days of calm are short. Rescuers for Tuzza’s army must already be on the way. Tuzza will send out scouts to find out how long we have. But it will not be very long.”
Ratha nodded slowly as he gently set the rock down. It still glowed, as if his touch had brightened its life. He stroked it with one finger, then looked at Archer.
“I will come,” he said. “Soon.”
“That is all I can ask.”
“Stay with me, my lord. As you said, you shared my bond with Giri. Anari share telzehten only with family, and I have none save you.”
Archer shook his head. “I would that I could, my brother. But the Enemy gives me no time to grieve. There is much to be done, and much that only I can do.”
“I understand,” Ratha said quietly.
“But you do have family apart from me,” Archer said. “Your cousin, Cilla, also grieves for Giri, and for you. I have not asked her, but I am certain she would be honored, and heartened, to share telzehten with you.”
“She has other designs,” Ratha said. “Designs for my heart.”
“Aye,” Archer said. “I will not deny that. And I have designs for you as well, for your mind and your skill as a commander. Yet you would share with me and not with her. Whose designs threaten you more?”
Ratha smiled for an instant. “Hers, my lord. The battle you ask of me is one with which I am familiar. The battle she asks…”
“I cannot deny the truth of that, my brother,” Archer said, his face mirroring Ratha’s smile. “The battle she asks risks more than your life. Perhaps it is better that you are fully healed before you face that.”
“I will rejoin you soon, my lord,” Ratha said. “And please tell Cilla that I cannot return until I am whole. She will know of what I speak.”
“I will, my brother. I will.”
Archer rose and left him, picking his way down to where he had left his mount. He hadn’t the heart to tell Ratha that grief never ended, it merely yielded.
For a moment, his own shoulders slumped, as if the weight of his burdens were bending him low. Then he straightened himself, refusing to give in. Despair was a luxury none of them could afford.
At the temple, the three Ilduin walked in a slow circle around the central chamber of the round building. This chamber held the statues of twelve women, presumably the original Ilduin, and it was toward these they looked, as if the statues might somehow tell them where to find their still-missing sisters.
Tess had avoided this chamber since that first visit when she and her sisters had felt the horror of the Ilduin destruction of Dederand. Instead, they had focused their work on the anteroom, with the statues of the gods. It was Sara who had suggested that perhaps Elanor had revealed all that she would, and they should shift their studies to this room. The temple at Anahar was a living being in stone, and this chamber was its heart.
“There must be some of our sisters among the Bozandari,” Sara said, an edge of distaste in her voice. The only ones who liked the Bozandari these days were the Bozandari themselves.
“Of course,” Tess said slowly. “But at present we cannot reach them. We cannot go to Bozandar.”
Cilla spoke. “The two of you could.
No one would remark you in Bozandar.”
“Mayhap not,” Tess replied. “But what are we to do? Go from door to door asking if an Ilduin dwells within? I think not.”
She reached out and touched the cool, rainbow-hued stone of the temple wall. “I wish Anahar could sing for them, calling them as she called the Anari….” Her voice trailed off as a thought struck her.
“The stones!” Cilla and Sara said on a single breath.
“Aye!” Eagerly, Tess drew forth the leather pouch she wore always around her neck. Walking to the center of the room, she spilled the stones upon the floor. “We know two of them have fallen under the Enemy’s sway.”
“These,” Sara said. She pointed as she watched two of them roll apart from the others and begin to make their ways across the floor, toward two of the statues. One of the stones was beryl, the other yellow quartz.
The three of them stared dubiously at the remaining nine stones. Cilla reached out, removing the opal, which was Tess’s, the sapphire which was Sara’s, and the emerald which was her own. That left amethyst, ruby, carnelian, topaz, garnet, jade and turquoise. Those, too, then began to roll across the floor, drawn by an unseen force.
“Should we do this?” Sara asked, her voice hushed. “We don’t know how many may belong to Ardred.”
“Nor do we want Ardred to know we are summoning them,” Tess pointed out. “Although I am not certain we can avoid it. He has Ilduin serving him.”
“And we know at least two of them,” Cilla said, pointing to the two stones that had begun to roll toward their statues before turning away from them and coming to rest near each other. The other stones had seemingly scattered themselves around the room.
Cilla continued, “Even so, Ardred’s Ilduin will know we are doing something. How can they not? We seem to be joined tightly to one another, all twelve, in some way.”
“And those who have no notion that they are Ilduin might not even understand the contact,” Sara said.
Tess had fallen silent as she stared at the stones. For a time, no sound passed among the women. “There is a riddle here,” she said finally. She placed her stone onto the floor. “Place down your stones, sisters.”
The three stones rolled across the floor, coming to rest in a tight cluster, apart from the others.
Tess’s brow furrowed. “It is as if they mimic where we are in the world. Almost as if they form a map.”
Tess found her mind drifting back to a time before she inhabited this world, to lessons she had studied. How to find her way across a landscape with the barest of tools. She could not pull the whole of the memory into focus, and yet she knew that it would help her resolve this mystery.
“If they are a map, there are no landmarks,” Sara said, looking at the floor. She pointed to the cluster of their three stones. “We know we are there, but where is that in relation to anywhere else?”
“We need to know where Ardred is,” Tess said. “That will give us an orientation, and perhaps even a scale.”
Cilla looked at her strangely. “You speak of things I do not know, sister.”
“And I hardly remember them myself,” Tess said. “It angers me that my own past must bear on our journey, and yet most of it lies behind a veil, unknown to me.”
“But not all,” Sara said. “You spoke of, what was it, orientation and scale. What are they?”
Tess closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that perhaps this past would emerge fully formed, and yet it remained clouded in impenetrable mist. Still, she had spoken the words, and she knew their meaning.
“A map must give us direction and distance,” she said. “If we know the orientation of a map, we know which way to walk to reach a destination. If we know the scale of a map, we know how many days it will take to get there.”
Tess pointed to the three stones that represented them and then to a looser cluster of four others. “If the stones are indeed a map, four of our sisters live near one another, there. But we don’t know what direction to walk in order to reach them, nor how far away they might be.”
“You said that if we knew where Ardred is, we could know this,” Cilla said, pointing to the beryl and quartz stones. “You think those two will be with him?”
“I would be surprised if they were not,” Tess said. “He relies on the power of the Ilduin. He must keep them near at hand, lest he find himself caught without them.”
“But surely he cannot control the whole of his forces with only two Ilduin,” Sara said.
“No,” Tess agreed. “He cannot. Glassidor’s hive was small by comparison to the Enemy’s. The Enemy would reach to his other Ilduin through the two he keeps at hand.”
The three women stared down at the scattered stones, trying to find some clue that would give them direction. Presently, Tess began to walk around them, viewing them from all directions, seeking any hint they might give her. Hoping the arrangement would speak to her on some level.
“All we need,” she said slowly, “is one other point of reference. If we knew where just one of these Ilduin was located, other than ourselves, the map would become clear.”
Cilla pointed. “These four that are near one another. Surely they must be in a large city? Bozandar, perhaps?”
Sara answered. “Mayhap. Or mayhap they have been drawn together by him whom we fight.”
“Aye, that concerns me,” said Tess slowly. “But they may also have come together as we have, finding one another by chance as they seek to fight the Evil One.”
“Even so,” Cilla said, “they must be from different bloodlines, as we are. Four such women, together in one place, speaks of a city where people gather from all over. Surely Bozandar is such a city.”
“I agree,” Tess said. “It is likely that they are in and around Bozandar. But we must assume that at least one of them is in the Enemy’s thrall. He could not master the Bozandari otherwise.”
“Aye,” Sara said. “And perhaps all four.”
Tess nodded. “We must proceed with caution, then. But has this not been our watchword since we began this journey?”
“I would never approach Bozandar otherwise,” Cilla said. “But I see no choice.”
Tess nodded, her face drawn. I see no choice. That had been her life for too long.
Chapter Seven
Tuzza was surprised, both at the progress that had been made in constructing his army’s camp and in the men who had risen to the forefront in the process. Some were experienced officers who had shown themselves willing to follow Tuzza’s lead in stepping in to share the manual labor, and in reaching out to the Anari for help. But some were men he would never have known by name, but for their exceptional performance in this exercise.
One such man stood before him now. Denza Grundan was a mere filemark, serving his second term of conscription. By all accounts, Grundan was a capable and brave soldier, well skilled and respected by the men of his file. He was also one-quarter Anari.
Given his heritage, and it was apparent from his deep, burnished brown features, his accomplishments shone even brighter.
Even Grundan’s rearmark had stepped out of the way over the last week, content to let Grundan organize the accommodations for not only his own file, but the entire company. What at first had seemed like sensible leadership had become something else when Tuzza had asked after the rearmark, and after some searching had found him drunk in his tent. That, combined with the rearmark’s reputation among his men and his fellow junior officers, had made Tuzza’s present decision an easy one. If Tuzza was to rebuild his command, this was an ideal way to begin.
Tuzza stood and spoke with a voice that would have rung through the company camp, even if the company had not been formed in ranks before him. “Filemark Denza Grundan, you have excelled in your duties, demonstrating not only strength of mind and will but also humility and attention to the needs of your men in the highest tradition of the Bozandari legions. Your character and commitment are above reproach. It is for this reason that I now appoint you
a Rearmark, an officer in this legion from this time forward. Will you kneel and accept the oath of commissioning?”
“Aye, my lord,” Grundan said, kneeling and presenting his sword to Tuzza.
Had this ceremony occurred in other times, Tuzza would have asked Grundan to swear fealty to the emperor. In the present circumstances, Tuzza had rewritten the oath of commissioning.
“Do you swear by your life to serve these your men with your full measure of loyalty and honor, to obey all lawful commands of your seniors, to devote your whole mind and strength to your duties, and to respect and bear upon yourself the proud history and traditions of the Bozandari legionnaires and our Anari brethren?”
“Aye, my lord,” Grundan said, “upon my honor and my life itself, I swear myself thus.”
Tuzza smiled. “Then stand, Rearmark Grundan, and receive your company.”
Grundan stood and pivoted smartly, sheathing his sword and holding out his hands to receive the company’s battle standard. It was not the spotless pennant that had been carried out of Bozandar months ago. It was like Tuzza’s legion, tattered and soiled by the campaign, save for the radiant image of the white wolf, which had been stitched into the pennant by one of the men. Tuzza felt tears in his eyes. This company standard reflected the trials these men had borne, their defeat, and their hope of redemption under their new allegiance to the Weaver.
As Grundan grasped the staff that bore the standard and lifted it above his head, the men erupted in a cheer. In another time, in another legion, it would have been no more than a formality, a change-of-command ceremony, little noticed and less remembered. At this time, in this legion, it was so much more. It was the start of a new tradition, a beacon of hope to those with the talent and commitment to serve with honor, and a warning to those who thought their status guaranteed by patronage.
“For the Snow Wolf!” Grundan cried.
“For the Snow Wolf!” his men replied.