As they approached the tent of Nerus, he recognized Sephana moving toward him through tight clusters of people. She was still wearing her black Master’s cloak, the cowl pulled up over her head as she hurried in his direction. The emotion on her face was impossible to decipher; he couldn’t tell if she was more relieved or more angry to see him.
Braden strode over to her, a questioning look on his face. To his relief, Sephana threw her arms around him, collapsing against his bare chest.
“I was so worried about you,” she whispered against his ear. Braden put his arms around her and held her close for a moment before pulling back just enough to press a kiss against her forehead.
“I’m fine,” he reassured her as his hand caressed a lock of her golden hair. “Everything’s fine now.” Taking her by the hand, he turned to face Elessar. “I assume that the two of you have been introduced?”
The old man nodded stiffly.
“We have met,” Sephana clarified rigidly. Braden could tell by her tone that she did not consider the manner of their meeting an appropriate introduction. He couldn’t help the small smile that chased across his face. Sephana was Aerysius-born and -bred, thoroughly out of place on the Khazahar Steppe.
“Elessar has asked me to have a look at his son,” Braden informed her. “I hear you were unsuccessful at a mending?”
Sephana nodded, her face going taut. She glanced back and forth between Braden and the old warrior, obviously struggling to frame her words as judiciously as possible. “The arrow was poisoned,” she explained carefully. “A mixture of snake venom, horse dung, and putrefied human blood. I couldn’t get past the venom. I’m sorry; I’m skilled at healing, but there was just not enough left to work with.”
Braden sighed, shaking his head sadly. The usage of such vile concoctions was a common practice across the steppe. It was custom for the warriors of the clans to soak the shafts of their weapons in such filth before riding into battle. The use of such bitter toxins ensured that even the slightest wounds would fester and turn fatal.
“The venom is depressing his breathing,” Sephana continued grimly. “I didn’t think he would survive the mending.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Braden said. He glanced over at Elessar for approval and, receiving a nod of permission from the old man, led Sephana into the darkened tent.
He made his way to the bedside of Elessar’s son. The young man was lying on a straw-stuffed mattress in the middle of the tent surrounded by three women that Braden took to be Nerus’s wives. All three of them were weeping quietly, wringing their hands and clutching one against the other. At Braden’s arrival they fled together to the far side of the tent, yielding space so he could work.
The odor was even stronger than it had been before, especially this far away from the entrance. Braden fought against the urge to be sick as he bent over his unconscious patient. He took note of the mottled pallor of the young man’s skin, the way the damp flesh seemed to sag against the bones of the face, the man’s cracked and peeling lips. Nerus was only hours, if not minutes, from riding the endless plains of the Atrament.
Gripping the talisman in his left hand, Braden set his right hand upon the dying man’s chest. The impression that was returned to him was discouraging. Nerus’s organs had already begun to fail, his blood teeming with poisons and accumulated toxins. The snake venom had already digested much of his tissues and was now affecting his capacity to draw breath. Elessar’s son was all but a corpse, literally rotting from within.
Closing his eyes, Braden did what he had been trained to do by the Battlemages of Bryn Calazar: he opened his mind to the magic field, channeling its energies into Nerus’s failing body, using the silver talisman to guide his efforts. He started with the organs that were the most severely damaged then used the argent fire of healing to burn the poisons from Nerus’s blood. He left the snake venom and the damage it had wrought for last.
When it was done, Braden opened his eyes and rose to his feet, feeling suddenly, terribly weak. From behind him he could hear the sobs and cries of Nerus’s wives. He backed away, catching himself on a pole of the tent.
“I tried,” he muttered as he staggered toward the opening. Disoriented, he stumbled and nearly fell. Sephana caught his arm and guided him the rest of the way out through the doorway into the brisk evening air.
“You did more than try.” Her voice was hoarse and adamant as she wrapped her arms around him in support. “That man will live, Braden. You accomplished the impossible.”
She took him by the hand, guiding him to the nearest campfire and easing him down beside it on a log. She knelt down next to him and, taking his face in her hands, peered at him anxiously. “You’re dehydrated,” she muttered. “And you haven’t eaten anything in days. What are you thinking, Braden?”
“I’m thinking about Cyrus Krane,” he stated bleakly. “And Byron Connel…and all the others. We don’t even know if Merris was able to warn the Lyceum. Renquist still might be completely oblivious to all that’s been going on.”
She drew her cowl back, moving to sit down alongside him on the log. Braden took her hand into his own. He traced his fingers along the back of her hand, admiring the softness of her skin.
“We need to talk,” he told her gently in a lowered voice. “I need to tell you everything I know, what I found out back there. It’s important.”
He stopped, realizing that they were not alone at the campfire. A young woman with plaited dark hair was tending to a heavy bronze cauldron. She had ceased her ministrations of the kettle to stare across the fire at them pointedly. At her side, a small toddler clung to her quilted tunic, peering out at them with widened eyes from behind his mother’s shawl.
“You can talk to me later tonight,” Sephana told Braden, giving his hand a squeeze of reassurance. “In the meantime, let’s get some food and drink into you.”
The woman across the campfire gestured invitingly at her cook pot. “Darius dreoch, Al’thartier. You are welcome to our food, our fire, and our protection.”
Braden managed to conjure up something resembling a smile of thanks, humbly accepting her offer. “Some water would be appreciated,” he admitted. The inside of his mouth was dry, his lips terribly parched.
“And food,” Sephana insisted. “You need to keep up your strength.”
“And food,” Braden agreed.
The dark-haired woman quickly produced a waterskin made from a sheep’s bladder, handing it across the hearth over to Braden. He accepted it from her hand, raising it to his lips and drinking down the cool water in thirsty gulps. In seconds, he had the contents emptied. He brought his arm up to wipe his face.
“Slow down,” Sephana admonished him, leaning in to kiss him softly on the cheek.
The clanswoman looked up from the bowl she was filling and smiled at Sephana’s gesture.
“Your wife is very beautiful,” she commented to Braden as she handed the bowl across to him. At her side, her young son grinned up at Sephana and then squealed in delight when she grinned back.
Braden glanced over at Sephana, a half-hearted smile on his lips. He had never, would never, ask her to become his wife. He had already been married once, a long time ago. He would never make that mistake again.
He would not take the chance that he might hurt Sephana the way he’d hurt his wife.
Braden ate in troubled silence, not really tasting the stew that he spooned into his mouth. When the bowl was drained, he threw his head back and drank the dregs, finally handing it back to the woman across the hearth.
“My thanks,” he said to her, unable to look her in the eye as he pushed himself up off the log and started out across the camp.
“Braden,” Sephana called after him as she jogged to catch up. “Is everything all right?”
“I’m fine,” he muttered as his fingers worked to tie Thar’gon’s leather straps to his belt. He tried to change the subject. “I promised Elessar I would make myself available to his people.”
“Stop.” Sephana’s hand on his shoulder drew him up short. She tilted her head to the side, raising her brows as her stare smoldered in frustration. “I’m the Querer, remember?” she reminded him acerbically. “You’re not in any condition to see to the needs of this camp. Let me do my job. You go and do yours.”
Braden gazed at her levelly, his mouth drawn into a scowl. “And what, exactly, is my job, Sephana?” he demanded of her.
She brought her hands up to her face, rubbing her eyes in obvious exasperation. He could tell that she had been too long without sleep; the strain was starting to catch up with her. She took a deep breath to steady herself, closing her eyes before replying.
“I’m trying,” she reminded him. “I really am. I’m doing my best, Braden, but it’s hard. The only thing I know is that you need me. And whatever it is you’re up against, you shouldn’t have to face it alone. I want to be here for you. Please allow me to be.”
Braden turned away from the heartfelt tension of her words. He couldn’t force himself to look at her; it was too painful.
For the second time in his life, Braden held the fate of a woman he loved in his hands, to save or damn as he saw fit.
And, for the second time in his life, he knew for a bitter fact that he couldn’t do anything to save her.
Braden stared out at the assemblage of faces gathered around the bonfire built in the center of the camp. The proud warriors of the Omeyan Clan were turned out in a spectacular display of armaments, both the men and the women alike. The neighing of nervous horses and the clink of scale mail could be heard over the sputtering noise of the flames. The air was redolent with a potent mixture of smoke, sweat, searing meat and burning hemp. A cacophony of flutes and lyre music played above the spirited cadence of war drums.
In his right hand Braden fingered the small carving of the stallion he had made in his youth, the one Elessar had returned to him. He clutched it in his palm, the fingernail of his thumb absently scraping along the thin notch between the stallion’s tiny ears.
Over his indigo robes he wore a new vest of bronze scales sewn over leather in overlapping rows. Elessar had also fitted him with a warrior’s belt, complete with an intricately wrought golden buckle that depicted a horse bent over backwards, as if trying to eat its own tail. Many leather thongs and hooks were attached to the belt, from which Braden had hung Thar’gon and the small arsenal of weapons his benefactor had presented him with: lances, knives, a whip, a pair of short swords, even a whetstone to hone his new collection.
He sat by Sephana’s side, listening to Elessar address the gathered war council, as was the custom of the clan. He watched, shoulders tense, and waited his turn. His eyes were trained on the snaking orange flames of the bonfire, watching as a procession of sparks exploded up into the air and then came raining back down again like darting fireflies. As Elessar spoke, a gradual hush descended over the gathered crowd. The drums ceased their beating, the horses quieted, the minstrels laid their instruments aside. A slow tension crept inexorably over the camp, like the anxious quiet before a storm.
“Al’thartier,” Elessar finally turned to address him. “The men and women of the Omeyan Clan have gathered to hear you speak. Take up the cry. Say what you have come to say.”
Braden nodded and stood up, Sephana rising to stand by his side. In his hand, he still fingered the small wooden horse. He gazed around, taking in the sea of faces before him. With his left hand he held aloft the silver morning star he had taken from Byron Connel, displaying it before the gathered crowd. Then he raised his voice to be heard over the wind-whipped crackling of flames:
“Darius dreoch, my people. I was born Braden son of Marthax, warlord of the Omeyan Clan. But that was many years ago. That was before I was taken away by the dakura, who raised me up and trained me to be what I am today. Tonight I stand before you a different man than the one my father intended me to be. I am no longer Braden of the Omeyans.
“My name is Grand Master Braden Reis, Warden of Chancellors and wielder of Thar’gon, the Silver Star of Battle. War is coming to the plains. I have come to you to ask that the cry be raised that gathers our warriors from across the far distances. The Jenn have always formed the cavalry of Caladorn’s combined legions. I would not think of riding into battle without the might of the horselords at my side.”
Of the people gathered around the bonfire, Braden demanded, “Will the hordes of the Khazahar ride with me?”
There was a tense moment of silence. No one responded to his request. A quiet muttering formed from deep within the gathered crowd, gradually rising over the crackling of the flames. Then:
“The call of the Al’thartier must be answered,” an old warrior finally stood and spoke up. “It is our sacred duty to heed the cry.” Others responded to his words by nodding their agreement. There was a swell of discussion followed by a boisterous chorus of assent.
“Al’thartier!” another man shouted, and the shout was taken up across the gathering.
“No!” Braden admonished them harshly. “Never call me that again. I am no Battlemage.”
His words immediately silenced the gathering. He could feel the stares of the warriors on him, wordlessly demanding explanation. He could almost feel the heat of their rising anger. The fingers of his right hand continued stroking the polished wood carving of the horse. The grip of his left hand tightened on Thar’gon.
“Darius dreoch, Braden Reis of the Lyceum. What would you have us call you, then?” the patient voice of an old man inquired of him at last.
Darius dreoch. The words echoed in Braden’s head, the ancient formal greeting of the horselords. “May you offer protection,” was the phrase in Rhenic. The sound of the words resonated in Braden’s mind, slowly taking on new significance, evolving into the solemn onus of duty. With that phrase in mind, Braden responded to the old man’s question, addressing the gathered crowd.
“I’ve come to protect, not to destroy.” He raised his voice, staring at each man and each woman in turn as he paced in a circle around the fire. “I’ve come to stand guard against a storm of darkness that threatens to destroy our people. I can no longer afford to be just a Chancellor, and yet I have no desire to be a Battlemage.
“Call me a Sentinel,” he asserted, lowering Thar’gon back down to his side. “A protector, whose duty it is to keep watch and defend against the encroaching darkness that threatens to consume our lives, our liberty, and our lands.”
His words caused an emotional stir around the fire as men and women voiced their eager support. Braden turned to find that Elessar had come up quietly to his side, extending toward him the offering of a thin dagger with a slender, ebony hilt. Braden accepted the offer of the blade gravely, fully appreciating the significance of the gesture.
“Which direction would you have us ride?” Elessar wondered, fingers stroking the hilt of the dagger one last time as he released it into Braden’s care. “Southward to Lor-Gamorth or westward to Glen Farquist?”
Braden looked down, sliding the blade into a loop of his war belt. With a sigh he brought his eyes back up past the flames, staring out across the mouth of the canyon. Toward the east. Toward the dawn.
“Neither,” he responded ominously. “This time, our fight isn’t with the Rhen. What threatens our homeland doesn’t invade from without; it festers from within. This time, the war we fight is against our own.
“We march on Bryn Calazar.”
Chapter Nine
A Shift in Perspective
Bryn Calazar, Caladorn
MERRIS COLLAPSED ON top of Quin, panting in breathless exhilaration. Her cheeks were flushed red, a glistening sheen of perspiration frosting her body. Beneath her, Quin lay with eyes wide open but staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. Every so often he gave a faint shiver.
Merris trailed her lips against the side of his neck, squirming her soft body against him.
“I think you’ve got some more in there,” she urged in a sweet whisper. “I bet I know where
to find it.”
Quin reached up to pat her consolingly on the back, furrowing his brow and shaking his head slowly from side to side. “Mercy, no,” he whispered. “I’m afraid you have vanquished me entirely. I am utterly defeated, madam.”
Merris giggled, rolling off him onto the straw-stuffed mattress. She lay her head against his lanky frame, tracing a line down his chest with a finger. “I suppose I should allow you some time to recuperate,” she mused with a smile. “Tonight I want you to do that thing that you do to me again.”
“That thing that I do to you?” Quin smiled innocently.
“You know exactly what I mean.” She grinned, a mischievous glint in her eye.
Quin snaked an arm around her and pulled her in for a kiss. “So you like that thing that I do to you?” he teased, lips exploring the delicate curve of her collarbone.
“Oh, yes,” she murmured, closing her eyes at the memory of the last time he allowed the power of his mind to flow through her like an exhilarating torrent of carnal energy.
“I do believe you’re going to be the death of me,” Quin muttered sagely. “I swear you’re more obsessed with lovemaking than the average man.”
Merris grinned broadly at him. “Then you’re lucky I’m not the average man.”
He raised his eyebrows, nodding in easy agreement. “Yes, actually, in that respect I am quite fortunate.” Then he was all seriousness, squinting down at her in appraisal as he ran a hand through her long, tousled hair. “You know, I think I prefer you as a blonde.”
“Do you, now?” she muttered, lifting a soft platinum curl before her face, twining it about her fingertips. She had discovered that she actually liked the change. When the decision had first been made to hide in plain sight in the Lantern District, Merris had suggested darkening her hair in order to disguise her appearance. The platinum blonde had been Quin’s idea. Easier to subtract than to add pigment, he’d argued, although Merris suspected he simply had a preference for the color.
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