Azkhantian Tales

by Ross, Deborah J.

  They went on foot, leading the onager. Only the muffled sounds of the animal’s hooves and the rustle of Linned’s full riding trousers marred the silence. She could make out the shapes of tents and picket lines of range-toughened ponies. Voices raised in a unified shout around one camp, in rough laughter around another. She couldn’t understand the language, but her blood shivered in her veins at the sound.

  Feeling their way on the sandy gravel, they circled the Azkhantian encampment. Once in a while, Xun, who was in the lead, would stop and listen, turning his head as if sensing the direction of the outlying guards.

  Nothing and again nothing. Still they kept on going.

  Linned thought of the sword strapped to her saddle, the sword she was not permitted to draw. It was men’s magic and forbidden to her. She was skilled enough with lady’s dagger and inata, the curve-blade spear; her teachers had seen to that. But she had never had to use them in mortal combat. She had never been tempered in blood.

  At last, the campfires dwindled to pinpricks once more and Linned drew a deep breath. They halted, unwrapped the onager’s feet and nose, and she mounted. The onager settled into its side-weaving pace. Behind her, Xun ran silently, doggedly.

  Minutes stretched into hours. The onager stumbled, shod hooves clicking against stone. Its head drooped with weariness.

  The eastern rim turned milky just as they left the Plain of Thirst for the hills. The onager flicked its ears back and set its hindquarters, refusing the climb. With a gurgling cry, its knees buckled. Linned scrambled free just as the onager fell heavily on one side. In the half-light she saw its ribs shudder and then move no more.

  Commanding Xun to wait below, Linned climbed to the top of the outcrop. Her soft boots found toeholds in the heat-cracked stone. She slipped, caught herself, and muttered words she wasn’t supposed to know.

  The firelights were gone, the horizon a brightening haze. And against that pale-gold sheen rose plumes of dust thrown up by the hooves of galloping Azkhantian ponies.

  Below, Xun’s dome-smooth head turned toward the east. As if sensing her, he glanced upward. Their eyes met for an instant. He bent over the fallen onager to free the sword from its saddle ties.

  The Azkhantian raiders would have to funnel through the pass, perhaps single file. Xun’s strength would hold them for a little while. She would not waste that gift.

  Linned pushed herself into a run, measuring her reserves, the fitness that had been drilled into her on the Borrenth practice fields. Her weakness was thirst, for she had given all the water to Xun and the onager.

  She crested the pass, pushing for more speed. She felt as if she were falling, rather than running. The wind of her passing scoured her cheeks raw. Her mouth had gone papery, her lips bled at the corners of the deep cracks. Her stomach clenched, crying out for water.

  Linned’s heart hammered against her ribs. She kept going . . . and going. Down through the sloping hills and into the outlying pastures, dotted with an occasional circle of green-gold barleycorn just beginning ripen.

  A cramp in her side forced her to halt. She doubled over, praying to the Bird of Fire for the strength to keep moving. Her eyes sought the pass behind her. The Azkhantians had reached the top of the pass. She would never make it to the manor in time.

  Somehow, she forced herself once more into a lumbering run. They would catch her, ride her down, rush unchecked into Veddris. She had failed . . . .

  “Hoy!”

  She’d been concentrating so hard on keeping going that the voice startled her. A man in a peasant’s loose-weave smock waved at her from the field of barleycorn. His hand rested on a plough . . .drawn by a team of onagers.

  His eyes widened in recognition of the phoenix emblem, symbol of renewal, on her jacket. He bowed awkwardly. The lord’s granddaughter did not often go running headlong through his fields.

  “I need — might I borrow one of your beasts?”

  The farmer hurried to unhitch his onagers. Linned placed one boot on his cupped hands and swung on the back of the younger animal. She kicked it hard, using the ends of the long reins as a whip. The onager whuff!ed in surprise. Its gait was rough, but it was strong and fresh.

  Linned reined the onager on to the road, pounding toward Veddris Manor. She had a chance now. Surely her brother was already preparing his men-at-arms —

  Veddris Manor loomed closer. The onager coughed, stumbling. She dug her heels into its sides and shouted curses, not caring if she rode another beast to death, so long as she reached home ahead of the Azkhantians.

  There were the gates, cross-barred oak weathered to a silvery patina, the walls of fired-brick. One gate swung open as Linned jumped from the onager’s back. Her father’s elderly steward, face pasty and eyes starting, gestured her inside. The courtyard was almost deserted except for her aunt, shooing the partridges into the root cellar. One of the ostlers, a retired mercenary, his eye patch stark against his grizzled face, barked out orders to a cluster of half-grown farm boys and the hunchback chef’s assistant. None of them looked as if they had any idea of what to do with the swords in their hands.

  What was going on? Why weren’t they ready? Where were the men-at-arms to defend the manor? Where was her brother?

  She raced up the stairs leading to the living quarters. A pair of maidservants scattered before her. The hall echoed with their cries.

  Linned flung the door to her grandfather’s chamber open. The one-eyed soldier caught up with her, but she brushed him aside. “The Azkhantians — ”

  Her feet skittered to a halt and heat flooded her cheeks. Never before had she entered the presence of her grandfather without the proper decorum. He had always been so formal in his dignity, the once-powerful body still vibrant, the voice resonant, the eyes afire. Now she looked on a shriveled husk, swaddled like a baby in layers of quilt. The midwife who was their only healer knelt beside the low broad bed, cradling his head and tipping a small copper cup to his lips.

  “Lady —” the midwife began. The tone of her voice spoke far more than words.

  Linned pushed aside her own upwelling grief. Her grandfather would live or die at the will of the Celestial Bird; his death would not keep the Azkhantian butchers from their gates.

  “Where is my brother? Where is Farrel?”

  “Gone,” creaked the old man’s voice. One papery hand stirred. “Gone to the Emperor’s spring games.”

  Spring games? The heat in Linned’s cheeks raced down her spine, ignited. “And the men-at-arms?”

  Silence answered her, the silence of shame. Her brother had stripped Veddris for an honor guard while he curried favor at games of chance with the boy Emperor.

  She whirled to face the one-eyed guard. “Give me a sword!”

  White-eyed, the man backed up a step. His hand went to the hilt of his weapon, not to hand it over to her, but to protect it.

  “A spear, anything!” Her voice rang like tempered steel.

  “Grand . . .daughter.” Again came the whispery voice.

  Linned knelt beside the bed. Some impulse prompted her to take her grandfather’s hand between her own. How frail the bones were, how thin the mottled skin. Yet she felt the strength of the spirit within.

  “Take . . .the inata.”

  Not any inata, the inata, the blade that bore the phoenix sigil of her family. The symbol of stewardship, passed only to the next heir. She had never heard of it being offered to a woman; she supposed it had been already passed to her brother by some secret ceremony.

  In a room fallen suddenly still, Linned lifted the lid of the carved blackwood chest that held the Veddris treasures. Smells arose to fill her nostrils, of silk, oil of lavender and powdered jade. There, at the bottom, wrapped in brocade woven with the phoenix emblem, she found the inata blade. It felt curiously light, as if it came to her willingly. Without disturbing its covering, she placed it in her grandfather’s hands.

  Age-knotted fingers moved across the precious cloth and spread across the gleaming metal.
Linned had seen the inata only once before, but now, as her grandfather lifted the blade, something deep within her stirred in recognition.

  “Take . . .your heritage . . .”

  Engraved on its length, a phoenix rose from its ashes, mantled in glorious flame. By some master-smith’s art, the lines glowed as if still molten. Near the haft ran the words, Only In Just Cause. As her fingertips brushed the design, sparks crackled. Something jolted along her nerves, like lightning.

  For a moment, the room blurred in Linned’s sight. The air quivered, even to the tiles beneath her feet. She could see only flames, not consuming, but sustaining. Standing in their midst, reveling in their surging power, she stretched out her wings —

  Wings?

  Linned blinked and the room came clear again. Sounds reached her, footsteps pounding along the balcony, shouts from the courtyard below.

  The guard held out a polished blackwood staff wrapped with alternating bands of copper and silver. Slipping it into the haft of the inata, Linned felt the quiver of magic as metal bonded to wood. She took a solid two-handed grasp, testing its weight and length. The weapon was designed for a standing defense against a mounted opponent and she’d been drilled in its use. To her surprise, the balance could not have been more perfect if it had been made for her by a master-smith.

  The blackwood quivered in Linned’s hands, eager for battle. As she rushed down to the courtyard, she felt a form of ghostly flames take shape within her, like a spirit body of a giant bird, wings lifted to invisible winds. She knew the heat and texture of those wildly burning feathers, as if the phoenix arose from the very substance of her flesh.

  Below, the hastily-armed servants clutched their weapons. The ululating war-cries of the Azkhantians pierced the rumble and thunder of their approach.

  “Open the gates!” Her voice rang out like a clarion.

  “The Phoenix!” someone cried out. “The Phoenix is come again!”

  Linned slipped through the narrow opening and stood alone before her enemies. As the first riders halted, she caught the mingled smells of sweat, camel wool, and battle-fever. They carried standards with strange, fearsome tokens — a lioness, a snake, a plains wolf. Natural creatures, all.

  Bird of Fire, be with me now!

  The inata lifted her hands overhead, shimmering with red-gold light. The words, Only In Just Cause blazed brighter than the sun. Heat enveloped her, filled her, sustained her. A cry like the ringing of a hundred brass bells burst from her throat.

  Short curved sword in hand, the foremost rider clapped his heels to his pony’s sides and bore down on her. A second rider angled to one side to flank her.

  As if through a lens of fire, Linned saw exactly how she must move, the gliding step forward, inata sweeping in a perfect arc. The razor-honed edge slashed through the first rider’s neck as if it were butter. Momentum continued the circle; the blade caught the second rider’s pony across the hamstrings. The animal went down in a billow of dust. It rolled and thrashed. A man’s scream came from beneath the pony, abruptly cut off.

  It was all over in an instant, that one perfect strike. Another rider tumbled the ground as his pony tripped to avoid the fallen beast. Linned pivoted, bringing the inata down a fraction. He slowed, eyes bulging. He may have been savage and battle-keyed, but he wasn’t stupid. He could see the length of her reach.

  The Azkhantian warrior staggered backward, gibbering orders to his fellows. Ponies milled. Through the haze of dust, Linned made out the form of a rider, one who had hidden in the rear of the pack. The rider pulled an arrow from a back-slung quiver and set it to a short, curiously curved bow, took aim. A shift of posture revealed the curve of a breast beneath the snug-fitting jacket.

  The bowstring, released, sang out above the whinnies and stamping hooves. The next instant, with a flash of fiery light, the arrowhead clanged against the blade of the inata and fell to the dust.

  Twang!

  Another arrow followed, less than a heartbeat later, and then a third. Each time, the inata blade blazed and lightning sizzled through Linned’s veins. Arcane fire burst from her fingertips and spine. The few remaining stalks of summer-crisped grass sparked and smoldered.

  “J’hai!”

  The unhorsed Azkhantian grabbed the mane of his pony as it trotted by and swung himself to its back. With a whistling command, he urged his mount back the way they had come. The other riders galloped on his heels. Only one remained behind, the woman archer. Her pony pranced and lashed its tail, eager to follow, but she held it firm. Her eyes locked with Linned’s as she raised her bow in unmistakable salute. Then she wheeled her pony and was gone.

  Fire flared once more in Linned and then fell away, leaving her ashen-cold and trembling. Her knees threatened to buckle under her. She leaned on the inata staff to keep from falling.

  The gates burst open. The manor folk, guards and servants, slaves and crafters, rushed out as one. Their shouts of joy pierced the air like the cries of sparrows. Linned felt herself jostled, enveloped, adrift on a sea of distorted, barely familiar faces.

  “M-my grandfather?” she stammered, her lips gone suddenly stiff.

  “Passed into the Blessed Realm the very moment news of victory was brought to him,” said the steward.

  “Look there!” came a shout from the tower, a half-grown girl standing watch. “The young lord returns!”

  A strained silence fell upon the Veddris household, a silence laden with unvoiced curses. As if some measure of the phoenix’s supernatural powers lingered in her, Linned heard the jingling of harness bells, the scent of ostrich feathers and myrrh. She raised the inata, but this time the leaping fire came from her own heart.

  “Go in,” she told them, “and prepare to welcome my brother.”

  They left her with quiet tread and downcast eyes, a respect more profound than if they had pressed forehead to earth. Thoughts drifted like ghosts through her mind.

  He left Veddris to play at court . . .

  He is your lord and brother. It is his right . . .

  He gambled away that right for his own vanity!

  Her brother’s retinue slowed before the gates, bells chiming, banners of yellow and dotted purple fluttering like the wings of drunken butterflies. The men-at-arms muttered amongst themselves and pointed to the arrows, the bodies spattered with blood. A bevy of ladies cooed, dove-like. One in particular, starkly beautiful in white brocade, favored Linned with an icy stare.

  Lord Farrel of Veddris brought his onager to a halt in front of Linned. The beast dripped froth from its bridle bits. She smelled the subtle, poisonous reek of myrrh wine.

  “Well, crack the Flaming Egg! It’s my baby sister!” He forced a guffaw. “Defending the holy nest?”

  Why had she never noticed the nasal whine tone in his voice, the too-soft bulge of cheeks blurring the shape of the bone beneath, the way his fingers twitched on the reins, sending the onager into a frantic jig?

  Farrel’s eyes narrowed, weasel-like. He gestured for her to give him the inata.

  She stepped back, unable to summon words to express her instant revulsion at surrendering the inata to those wine-bloated hands.

  “Come now, be reasonable. I’m sure you fought very nicely. But these Azkhantian cowards often return in even greater numbers. I require the inata to rally our men against them.”

  The onager, ears flattened, pranced a step closer. Linned pivoted, turning so that the sweat-laced shoulder missed her by a hairsbreadth. Temptation clawed at her, the urge to continue the arc of her own movement, sending the curved blade into her brother’s exposed belly.

  Couldn’t he see the ghostly shimmer of flames enveloping her body, the phoenix form that, moment by moment, penetrated deeper into the very marrow of her bones? She could no more surrender the inata than she could cut out her own heart. Surely even a blind man could sense that!

  Farrel would not give up, no matter what she said or did. And why should she bother?

  She was the one who had come r
acing home to Veddris.

  She was the one who had suffered across the Plain of Thirst.

  She was the one who had faced the Azkhantian savages. She alone.

  How dare he think he could step in and take it all away from her, now that the spirit of the phoenix had woven itself into her soul?

  Farrel reined the onager to a halt, as if reconsidering in light of the inata’s superior reach. He swung down and gestured to his men-at-arms. They moved to surround her.

  As vivid as the phoenix emblem on the blade, memories sprang to her mind, all the times Farrel had been given the best and the first, while her own achievements went invisible, how hard she had to argue for the training that was her right as the daughter of a noble house.

  Fire danced across her vision. Anger, simmered over the years, condensed into a still point. Faster than thought, her body twisted, the blade slashed air —

  And then flesh.

  Something fell heavily to the dust. One of the ladies screamed, quickly broken off. The smell of burnt copper stung Linned’s eyes. Her vision cleared. Her brother stood before her, eyes ringed with white, face death-pale, clutching his sword arm.

  There was nothing below the elbow.

  Blood spurted between his clenched fingers. One of the men-at-arms, a scar-seamed older man, whipped off his sash and knotted it around the bloody stump.

  Linned stared at her brother’s maimed arm. Horror rose up in her, along with the caustic taste of bile. The inata blade quivered in her hands.

  Now he will never wield it. whispered through her mind. Now it will be mine forever.

  With a deafening crack, the phoenix blade shattered in two and tumbled to the dust.

  Blessed Bird of Fire! Stunned, Linned threw herself to the ground beside the shards. She lifted them in trembling hands. No clash of blades could have caused the break, so jagged, running across the natural lines of the tempered metal. The etched design dimmed. To her distorted sight, the Bird seemed to weep tears of dying flame.

  What have I done?

  Linned knelt in the dust, willing with all her heart for the Bird to live and knowing with fatal certainty that her prayers would go forever unanswered. She herself had broken the holy bond when she raised the inata in selfish anger.