“All the coastal towns speak Bennamorian,” I said. “We were one country once.”
“But not any more.”
“No. They wished to be independent, and we allowed it. Everyone should have the right to manage their own affairs, don’t you agree?”
He grinned at me, and somehow that wide smile was more malevolent than the coldness. “And now you are friends. How nice for you. And the Vahsi, are they your friends too? A whole command of the Silent Guard was lost to their horsemen on the eastern road.”
That was news to me. “The Vahsi do as they please. Do you wish to discuss plains politics and history, Lord Trimon, or may we talk about our people that you hold? We’d like to have them back, if we can come to terms.”
“Terms.” He licked his lips, and the smile wavered a little. “Yes, terms. My terms are these, Most High Axandrina.” He paused, and I was amused to realise that he’d had no instructions on this. Perhaps our wish to negotiate at all was a surprise to the authorities inside the walls, and he’d been sent out to us expecting nothing more than a little verbal sparring. Now he had to work out what his masters would want from us.
He smiled again, and the head came up. “These are my terms. We want no more attacks by these animals. It’s annoying to run out of decent wine and spices. We will keep your people as surety. If you attack us again, we will kill them. Understand?”
Something about his words niggled at my mind, but I couldn’t work out what it was. “I understand you, but I cannot agree. The Drashona will never permit her policy to be dictated by such an arrangement.”
His face reddened. “You dare to—! Arrogant fucking woman! ‘I cannot agree’,” he said in a poor imitation of my voice. “’The Drashona will never permit’ – ha! I think she will, if pushed, and by the Nine, I’ll push her until she screams for mercy.”
His anger had moved him forwards, so that he was no more than a couple of paces from me, and close enough that his spittle hit my face. I should have stepped back, of course, and Ly and Arran were both yelling mentally for me to do just that, but somehow I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, in case he thought it was a sign of fear. I truly wasn’t afraid, come to that, for what harm could he do me?
But he calmed himself, unclenched his fists, and even managed a half-apologetic smile. “But I forget my manners. Will you come inside, so that we can discuss this properly?”
“I think not,” I said coolly. “I’m not sure there’s much left to discuss. I believe —”
He moved very fast, pulling a knife from some hiding place – a sleeve, probably – and in a heartbeat his arm was around me, gripping me tight, the blade at my throat. “Now, my fine lady,” he hissed in my ear. “Now we see what your so-proud queen will permit.”
Arran had drawn his sword, and was circling round us. “Where do you want me to stick this?” he said, his tone so casual that I almost laughed. Flenn was following Arran round, pacing his steps so that Trimon and I were in the middle. His hands were raised slightly, ready to shoot fire at Trimon, if needed, although he looked nervous. He was more accustomed to using his magic for healing or improving crops than fighting.
I wondered why the guards on the wall hadn’t joined in with an arrow or two. Perhaps they were worried about hitting Trimon, or perhaps they, too, had been given no orders and awaited a call for aid from Trimon.
But no, even as I had the thought, an arrow pinged off Arran. He swayed, momentarily blinded as the defensive shell popped into place, then ran across to Flenn, standing in front of him to shield him.
“So chivalrous, to protect the interpreter and not the lady,” Trimon murmured.
That time I really did laugh. “The lady doesn’t need protecting, not when she has lions at her command.”
They were at Ly’s command, as it happened, but there was no need to explain the details. They came bursting out of the rustling grasses at full stretch, three of them, teeth bared, their roars shaking the trees. Memories of Sho-heest’s lion came tumbling back unbidden, and I screamed as loudly as Trimon, even though I knew Ly would never allow them to harm me.
A few arrows whipped past, but there’s a thick hide on a plains lion, even a natural one. And these were far from natural. Their blood magic bonding almost doubled their size, and their heads towered over even the tallest man, and Trimon wasn’t tall, or brave either. He screamed and screamed again, backing away frantically, still keeping me in front of him. The knife jerked and he released me, pushing me hard in the small of my back so that I fell forward right into the lions’ path.
They leapt over me, and the screams stopped suddenly. For an instant, as I scrambled to my feet, I thought it was over. The lions must surely have reached Trimon, and that was the end of it.
Then something hit me in the back, knocking me flat, with a great howling noise. My helmet was torn from my head, and wind whipped my hair wildly in all directions. I stayed low, but the storm buffeted me about, rolling me over, then pushing me a different way. I bumped into something solid with an “Oof!” of surprise.
But I knew how to deal with this unnatural wind. I focused my mind, searching for the magic in it. It was dispersed, and hard to find at first, but it was there. And then I reached out and took it all.
Stillness, then a rattling as gravel and dried leaves settled back to earth. Arran was still strong in my mind, unhurt. Before I even had time to roll to my feet, a shadow passed above us blotting out the sun. That thread of amusement couldn’t be anyone but Kalmander. Even chaos and mayhem entertained him, it seemed.
Giant claws wrapped themselves around me, and I was lifted up and away. To my right, Arran was encased in a matching set of claws, his mind shrieking with glee. Below us, as we flew low over the burned wagons, the lions shook their great heads, temporarily blinded by the storm’s dust, and crept towards the grass to hide. Ahead, Flenn was racing towards the river, but we swept on and up, across the sluggish brown water and the algae-coated stones that gave the ford its name, as the black eagle carried us into the hills.
“Are we leaving Flenn to swim for it?”
“Ly is sending his eagle for him to fly back. Kalmander cannot carry him in case he hurts him.”
“What about Trimon?”
“Not sure…” There was a long pause. “Kalmander says he made it back to the gate. Unfortunately. He tried to slit your throat! But he will be a little more cautious about seemingly harmless visitors in future.”
As we should be, too. I’d misjudged Trimon badly, thinking him some middle-ranking guard of no importance. But he was no mere guard. Now I realised what had bothered me in his talk – ‘these are my terms’, he had said. His terms, his golden army, his windstorm.
We had been playing our dangerous game of words with the Sublime Dragon God of the Winds himself.
30: Hostage
Late in the afternoon, the guard on watch duty at the seeing tube sent word back to the camp. There was activity outside the gates of Greenstone Ford.
“What kind of activity?” Arran said sharply. We were all a little short-tempered after the morning’s near-disaster, and had been lectured for hours by Yannassia, through a weary Ly, as if it hadn’t been her own idea to try to talk to these people. I was full of magic, too, and that was making all three of us twitchy, although much less than before the blood-bonding. Somehow Ly’s blood reduced the adverse effects of magic.
I put a hand on Arran’s arm to calm him. “Tell us what you saw,” I said to the guard who’d run down with the news.
He licked his lips, throwing Arran a nervous glance. “Two men emerged from the small door and went to the wagons—”
“What sort of men?” Arran said. “Guards? Golden soldiers? Bakers? We need proper information, not half-hearted ramblings.”
“He’ll get to that. Don’t rush him.”
He nodded almost imperceptibly, and turned to the guard. “Forgive me. We have had a trying time. Please continue.”
“Two men – o
rdinary clothes, brown, like farmers. Went to the wagons. The burnt out ones. Nailed a paper of some sort to one of them. Looked straight up at us. Pointed to the paper. Went away again.”
“So they know about the watch point,” Arran whispered, his mind shocked.
“Not a total surprise,” I said. “They have enough men on the walls every hour of sunlight, and they must have seeing tubes of their own. It’s tricky with this many people here to stay hidden at all times. Eagles flying in and out, too. It wouldn’t be hard to work it out. But I wonder what this paper is about? It’s obviously for us.”
“There is no need to retrieve it,” Arran said. “We have done the best we can, and were lucky to escape with our lives. It could easily be a trap.”
“It could be. It could also be a reasonable offer to negotiate, now that this Dragon God knows he can’t force us to bend to his will.”
Ly’s voice was in my head. “Yannassia thinks you should come back to Kingswell. She believes it to be a trap.”
“Exactly!” Arran said.
“Then we’ll let them think we haven’t been fooled,” I said crisply. “We will break the camp and abandon the watch post. Then, three nights from now, we will come back and take the paper.”
“It is almost darkmoon,” Arran said.
“Lions have excellent night vision,” I said. “With a lion as my guide, it will be easy.”
“No, Drina, no. It is a good idea, but let me go.”
I shook my head. “It has to be me, in case the wind man blows up a storm again. I’m the only one who can deal with that.”
He was silenced, and although Yannassia wanted every detail explained in exhaustive detail, in the end that was exactly what we did. The camp was dismantled the following sun, and the sun after that the guards left with the mules, beginning the slow journey back to Bennamore. There was no longer any need for concealment, so they took the shortest route down to the road, well aware that they were visible from the walls of the town. We wanted them to know we were leaving.
Arran, Flenn and I flew off in the same direction, but after a couple of hours, we doubled back to come round to a different part of the hills, further up river, where we made a basic camp. Arran had learned a surprising amount from Ly, and he astonished Flenn by disappearing for half an hour and returning laden with food. Then he cooked on the open fire, just as Ly did, although he didn’t quite have Ly’s skill with herbs.
I’d thought the lion riders might join us, but they were camped some distance away on the other side of the river. There were few safe river crossings, so they stayed on the town side, where they would be needed. Each night Ly sent one of the lions padding silently past the gates to check that the paper was still in place, and to see if anyone noticed his presence, but no one did. We were lucky with the weather, for rain would probably have destroyed the paper, or at least washed the ink from it.
On the third night, I set out to retrieve it. Sunshine was not happy flying at night, so Kalmander agreed to take me in. He felt very different from Sunshine, not just bigger, and a struggle for me to clamber onto, but a stronger personality. It reminded me of meetings I’d been at where everyone was relaxed and informal, making jokes, and then Yannassia walked in. Even though she said nothing and her manner was perfectly natural, not formal at all, she still had some ineffable quality that affected everyone around her. Presence, perhaps. And Kalmander seemed to me to have that same quality, however fanciful the idea.
At first, I directed him the same way as Sunshine, with mental images and the desire to go this way or that, faster or slower. But after a while, there was a voice in my head with the familiar ripple of amusement.
“You could just tell me where you want me to go. Much easier.”
“Kalmander?” He didn’t answer but his amusement deepened. “You’re an unusual bird. Who are you, really?”
“I am Kalmander,” he said loftily. I waited, but he said nothing more, so I supposed that was all the answer I was going to get. And perhaps it was as good an answer as any.
We glided down to a spot near the river, where we would be hidden by the long grasses as soon as we landed, although a bird of Kalmander’s size was hard to hide. We just had to hope that a black eagle would not be noticed on such a dark night.
Ly’s lions were nearby, and one of them loped silently over to me. Such huge beasts, and yet so stealthy. My heart beat faster as he drew near, but I reminded myself that he was perfectly safe under Ly’s control. Breathing deeply, I forced my fear back down.
He was fitted with a riding harness, and knelt to allow me to mount. I hesitated, but Ly’s questioning thoughts spurred me on. I struggled onto the beast’s broad back, holding tight to the strap attached to the saddle. The stirrups were too long for me, so my feet dangled, leaving me feeling quite insecure. But a lion, I discovered, is a gentle mount at a walking pace, no different from a horse. His muscles rippled under me, and there was a deep-rooted thread of aggression in his mind. I wouldn’t have liked to try to control him, but he was biddable enough in Ly’s hands. He padded off through the grasses, weaving back and forth, finding a clear route through the tangled stems. Above my head, the plumes waved as the lion brushed past, and here and there I caught the distinctive perfume of moonroses.
In my mind, Arran was an anxious audience, saying nothing so as not to distract me, but exuding fear. Ly was calmer, concentrating on controlling the lion. I knew he had Yannassia beside him, and I could only hope she wouldn’t divert his attention.
For myself, now that I was on the move I wasn’t nervous. Excited, perhaps, but all my fears had dropped away. I felt – not invulnerable, for no one is immortal, but certainly well protected. With my defensive shell, and my ability to take magic from Trimon’s windstorms, not to mention the lion, a coiled power beneath me, and Kalmander ready to whisk me to safety, I wouldn’t be easy to capture or kill. And the watchers above me on the wall knew nothing of my little venture. They couldn’t see me without the aid of the moon. It felt good to be fooling Trimon and his shiny-armoured friends, and avoiding whatever trap they’d set for us.
The lion brought me, under Ly’s direction, right to the wagon with the paper. There was still a faintly charred smell about it, which only a good rainstorm would erase. I pulled the paper free, tucking it into my jacket. The lion turned and loped softly back into the grasses. He took a different route this time, less direct, circling widely round for reasons unknown to me. If I hadn’t had Kalmander, sitting beside the river as a fixed point in my mind, I would have been hopelessly lost. The grasses we passed through were even thicker than before, so that I was constantly slapped in the face by giant stalks as thick as my arm. One hit me so hard, my defensive shell pinged into effect and for a panicky instant I was nowhere, until I relaxed.
When my sight came back, I was staring at four pairs of eyes gleaming in the darkness. The lion stopped, a rumble in his throat so low as to be almost inaudible. I had to look through his eyes to see what was in front of us.
Four men. Hard to say which of us was more surprised. They’d been sitting, but now, warily, they stood, and reached for bows or blades. I didn’t need to see the shape of the blade to know who they were. The painted faces and furs they wore gave them away.
Vahsi. The barbarians of the plains. The people who made the Blood Clans and Icthari look as tame as kittens. I could feel my heart hammering, and my breath caught in my throat.
Ly’s voice, urgent. “Drina! Listen carefully, and say these words. ‘Bre’ash ad farronim luch’eear in’holiash.’”
He spoke slowly so that I heard only the sounds, not the meaning. Stumblingly, I repeated them.
The suspicious look on the Vahsi’s faces lifted. One of them tapped his fist to his chest, and said, “By the one sun and the hundred thousand stars, we will not hinder you, sister.”
I breathed again. Whatever I’d said, it had worked to reassure them.
One of them smiled, as suddenly as a moonrose blooms.
“Beautiful creature!” he said, pointing to the lion. The others broke into smiles too, nodding.
I smiled too, as much in relief as anything.
One said, “May the sun and moon and all the stars shine on your journey, sister.” As one, they moved aside.
The lion moved on and past them, and then I was being slapped by the grass stems again, bemused by the encounter. What were Vahsi doing here, so close to the town? Usually they avoided well-defended people. Small farming settlements or travellers were their usual target, taking animals for food and women for pleasure, although sometimes the women were returned to their homes years later, plumper and carrying bags of coin.
Kalmander awaited me beside the river, and brought me swiftly back to Arran and Flenn. Arran hugged me tight, and kissed me and hugged me again. In my head, Ly was chattering excitedly, relaying Yannassia’s relief, but I was too exuberant to listen. I’d fooled the Dragon God, and survived an encounter with the Vahsi, and nothing could dampen my spirits. We sat around the fire and drank thick brew and talked about the Vahsi until the sun came up and gave us enough light to read by.
And then we unfolded the message.
“To the Drashona of Bennamore. Greetings from the Sublime Dragon God of the Winds. Be advised that I hold twenty-four traitors from your country. In case you choose to doubt my word, their names are listed below. I keep them as surety for your behaviour towards the realm of Trimonia, comprising all land from the southern reaches of the Karningplain south to the ocean, and from the Greenstone River, also called the Rinnfarr River, in the Sky Mountains, to the Mithrand River in the Crested Mountains. If any of your people, or their friends or allies, enter Trimonia without authorisation, for any purpose, whether by land or air or water, then retribution will be taken against those held. This retribution will take the form of removal of parts of their bodies. Such body parts will be nailed to the traitors’ wagons as proof. Should you wish to reclaim those held, I will require you to give me your heir or equivalent as hostage in their place.”
The Second God Page 28