I sent Bastilla to tell Tosten and Ciarra to go back to our camp before someone came upon it and made off with our pack horses and gear. She returned, leading Pansy—or being dragged by him. I'd forgotten I'd left him with Ciarra.
"That's the last of them," commented Axiel, wiping his bloody hands on a ragged shirt he'd saved out. "Now we have to find fuel to burn them."
"No," said Oreg. "I can do it." He gestured at the pile, and the corpses began to smolder as if they were made of wood instead of flesh.
Bastilla joined him, touching his arm. Almost instantly, a wave of heat touched us all. Magic, Hurog magic, hit me, and I staggered back a step. For a moment, I almost felt as if I were home again, and the terrible hollow feeling left me. I was whole. It felt glorious.
"Sss, not so much, girl," snapped Oreg. He glanced at me worriedly. "I'm sorry, my lord," he said; then the magic ceased.
I almost cried out with the pain of it. Luckily, no one but Oreg was watching me, so I had a chance to recover. Until that moment, I hadn't understood that Hurog and Oreg were really the same. He'd told me, but I'd really still thought of him as a person tied to the keep—like I was, only closer. But it was different; I felt it in his magic. He was Hurog. I wondered what would happen if he were killed in battle; something I should have been worried about sooner.
"Licleng couldn't have done this on his best day," commented Penrod in awe.
His voice pulled my attention back to the bandits. Where they'd lain, there was nothing but scorched earth. It had taken less time to reduce the bandits to ashes than it would to take five deep breaths.
"That's not saying much," said Axiel. "Licleng couldn't light a candle without a flaming faggot to aid him."
"It was Bastilla," said Oreg keeping his worried gaze on me.
"Let's go," I said. "The horses are tired. And the sooner we leave, the sooner the village can start recovering." I nodded my head at the cluster of women and children.
Our camping spot was not too far from a clear-running creek, and we all washed up in it. Tosten and Ciarra had finished setting up the camp, so all we had to do was groom horses and prepare dinner. Neither Tosten nor Ciarra ate much.
Ciarra avoided me, clinging to Tosten's side. It hurt, but I understood. If I could have escaped from myself, I would have. I didn't regret putting the boy out of his misery, just the necessity of it—and the reminder that pretend as I might, I was my father's son.
People often wondered why my father, who clearly disliked Tallvens more than Oranstonians (because he didn't have to pay a sovereign's tithe to the Oranstonians), had fought so hard for the Tallvens in the Rebellion. I'd known why since I'd killed my first bandit. Once my sword bit into flesh, I loved it: loved letting go and swinging with the full force of my body. Even killing the boy hadn't robbed me of battle euphoria entirely. Sometimes I wondered when I was going to wake up and discover that I was my father.
I gave Tosten and Ciarra third watch together, taking second myself with Oreg for company. I didn't plan on waking them for their shift. If they could sleep, I'd let them.
I waited, wide awake, until Penrod came to wake me for my watch. When he and Axiel appeared to be asleep, I crouched beside Oreg, who was mending his shirt by the light of the fire.
"What happens if you're killed in battle?" I asked.
"The walls of Hurog will fall, until not one stone stands upon another." After delivering his bardic lines dramatically, he tied off a thread and said in a different tone, "Do you really think if my father had left me such an easy way out I wouldn't have taken it before? I can be hurt, but only the ring bearer can kill me."
"Ah," I looked out into the darkness. That was right. He'd said something like that before. "Only me."
"Talk to me," he said after a moment. "You're more tense than old Pansy gets when a mare walks by."
I hesitated. "Battle always surprises me. The way men die so easily. But every time I unsheathe my sword, I expect it to be different. That it should be…" No matter how I said it, it would sound stupid.
"Like the songs? Full of glory and honor?" I was right. It sounded stupid. So why did I still believe it?
"This wasn't a battle," said Axiel quietly from his bedroll. From his manner, I decided he'd only heard the last part of the conversation. "This was vermin hunting."
"I didn't mean to wake you," I apologized.
He shrugged and wrapped his arms around his knees. "I get restless after a fight, anyway."
"The boy I killed," I swallowed because my throat was dry. "He should have been farming the land with his family, not out thieving for survival. Where is the overlord for this land?"
"The boy was a pit viper, Ward," said Axiel. "Doesn't matter how old they are, they'll kill you just the same. He'd have cheered and left you if you'd been in his place. Real battles are…both better and worse. They strip you raw, tear all the pretenses, all the surface off of you. You can't hide from yourself in battle. Take Penrod: He learned that quiet self-confidence of his on the battlefield. For others…you know the high king?"
I nodded my head, though it hadn't really been a question.
"His father was such a warrior that men still speak his name in awe. Your father fought under his command. King Jorn had a rare combination of courage and wisdom, and his heir, Jakoven, was smart as a whip. He could look at a battlefield and evaluate it like a man twice his age. He was good with a sword. He should have been a fine commander, but he just didn't have it in him. The first battle he fought, he killed most of his men because he lost his courage. His father put him in a command post after that, somewhere safe where his talents would be of use. But we all knew Jakoven failed. I think it twisted him. Not just the loss of courage, but that we all knew."
"This was not battle," said Axiel. "But it was necessary. First, we saved this village and all the other villages they'd have destroyed. Second, if you are planning on taking this group into battle—there were too many of us who had never fought to kill. It's different from training."
"No one broke," I said.
"No one broke," agreed Axiel, pushing a strand of dark hair from his face. "Ciarra will be fine, and Tosten, too."
The next morning was gray and miserable. Everything was damp. It hadn't rained overnight, but there was a thick mist overlaying the land. The firewood was damp, too. If we hadn't had Oreg with us, we'd never have gotten a fire going. After breakfast, we settled into practicing. Yesterday's fight made everyone more serious than usual—or else I was so grim no one felt comfortable lightening the mood. Even Oreg was uncharacteristically silent.
Axiel called an abrupt halt to our fighting. I nodded at Penrod, my erstwhile opponent, and went to see why Axiel had stopped us.
A tall, rawboned man waited a cautious distance from our camp, a packhorse beside him. Clearly he'd decided to let us come to him rather than the other way around, a smart way to approach fighting troops. Any Hurog farmer would have just hailed the camp and tromped right in; but then Shavig hadn't been attacked in living memory. At my gesture, the others stayed back while I went to meet the man.
"My lord," he said in respectable Tallvenish as soon as I was within comfortable speaking distance. "My wife told me we owe you and your men for their safety."
He said it all without the histrionics the words implied. He could have been talking about the weather. I noticed he had a sword. Oranstone peasants were forbidden edged weapons by a law enacted just after the Rebellion. Moreover, it was a good sword, not the sort belonging to the average man-at-arms. I took a closer look at him.
He was about the same age as Penrod, though the years hadn't been as kind. He wore a woolen hat pulled down around his ears. It might just be to keep him warm, but it would also disguise that distinctive haircut that used to be worn by the Oranstonian nobility. But what really gave him away was the packhorse. Small, slab-sided, and narrow-chested, the beasts prized by Oranstonian nobles could travel for weeks on little food.
The horse he led was old.
Someone else would have thought it half-starved and fast approaching death. But my father had brought back one of the horses from his campaigning, so I knew what I was looking at. Straight legs, high-set tail, and swan neck told me that this animal had never been bred for a peasant.
A nobleman, I thought. One of the ones who'd refused to capitulate at the end of the war. How terrible to owe his wife's life to the enemy. No wonder he appeared so calm. I bet he wanted to take that sword and ram it down my throat—but he had to act like a peasant.
"Something amuses you?" he said then added quickly, "my lord."
"I was thinking that you probably would have been happier if we'd managed to kill each other off," I said candidly. "If it helps, we haven't a Tallven in the party. Most of us are Shavig born and bred—and we've come to fight the Vorsagian scum." I added "my lord" to the end of my speech, too.
He looked at me a moment, then he smiled thinly. "It helps. It also helps that it was my daughter you kept from rape. My name is Luavellet." He offered his hand, and I took it "My wife also says that you are traveling, and probably came to trade for food and grain. We decided that provisioning you was the least we could do. I also brought a few things you might not have, being from a dryer climate."
"My thanks," I said, meaning it. "You will let us pay you, of course."
He raised both his eyebrows in a manner that reminded me of my grandfather at his most haughty. "I will hear of no such thing." We'd both stopped my lording each other.
"Money we have," I said. "Let me trade with you, then you can give me information for the rest. I've come to find out what the Vorsagian bandits have been doing."
"Why do you care?" he asked, though there was no hostility in his voice.
I found myself trying to answer him honestly. "I don't like bandits, but I wouldn't have traveled half the kingdom to fight them. I need to prove myself to my family, and this seemed the best way to do it."
"There's going to be a war, boy," he said.
I nodded. "So there is, and I'll have been here for a while before the king sends troops."
He smiled up into the sky, though his eyes were sad. "Why are they always so young? Boy, the king's not going to send troops. He'll wait until the Vorsag have slaughtered us all. Then he'll close flanks on them and make them fight from the wrong side of the mountains."
It made sudden sense. I'd known there would be war, just from listening to Garranon explain the situation in Oranstone. If I'd seen it, anyone with any eye to strategy knew it, too. Axiel had said King Jakoven was a strategist. He was also a cold-blooded bastard.
I could extrapolate even further. If Luavellet, isolated in his village, knew what the king was up to, it stood to reason that the Vorsagians knew it as well. Were they just after Oranstone? If so, they'd try to take the mountain passes and then dig in. If not, they'd split their forces and attack on two fronts, probably on the Seaford coast—unless King Kariarn was an idiot. What that meant for me, I wasn't sure yet.
"You just paid your debt to us," I said after a moment. "You'll have to let us pay for the supplies."
That evening we sheltered from a rainstorm on the oiled drop cloth Luavellet had provided. There was no question of practicing in the slick mud. If it persisted, I'd have to come up with something, but we took the night off. Axiel retold a few more battle stories, then Tosten brought out his harp. With Ciarra leaning against his shoulder, my brother proved he was right to give up coopering in favor of the harp. His music wrapped around me like a warm blanket.
Penrod produced a small soldier's drum from somewhere and joined in. Bastilla sang in a pleasing, if thin, alto, but it was the blending of Axiel's bass and Tosten's golden tenor that completed the magic. I hadn't heard its like since the last time I was at court. I leaned against one of the trees the tent rope had been tied to and relaxed, closing my eyes. Someone pulled a damp blanket around my shoulders.
"Careful," Penrod said in hushed tones. "I don't think he's slept since before the fight."
9—ESTIAN: BECKRAM, ERDRICK AND GARRANON
My father always said that Jakoven was an evil, sly, dangerous coward. If it hadn't been for the cowardice and the annual sovereign's tithe the king demanded, I think the Hurogmeten might have liked the high king.
"Just for one night," implored Beckram. "Ciernack's brought in an Avinhellish sword dancer."
Erdrick crossed his arms and sat on his bed. "That's what you said the last time we switched places. It took three days."
"Please, Erdrick." Beckram smiled winningly. "You do it so well."
"I don't do it well," said Erdrick in driven tones. "You know I don't." He saw the triumph in Beckram's face and knew he should have stuck to a simple "No." Now the argument had slipped from his willingness to his ability.
"Your court manners are flawless, and you know it. Everyone is expected to be on their best behavior tonight. You can even retire early with a headache or something."
"You aren't ever on your best behavior," snapped Erdrick. "If you start now, everyone will be suspicious."
"No," Beckram sounded unexpectedly grim. "They'll just think I've put on airs since the king confirmed Father's hold on Hurog."
"It's not your fault. You tried," Erdrick left the bed and touched his twin's shoulder.
Beckram rubbed his hand over his face. "Then why did the king smile at me when he made the announcement? I should have left well enough alone. Waited until Father could talk to him."
"Father wouldn't have done any better than you did."
Beckram smiled to acknowledge Erdrick's support, but the warmth didn't touch the desperation in his eyes. "I put my foot in it somehow, Erdrick. You know it, and I know it." He rubbed a spot on his linen sleeve. "All else aside, Erdrick, I just can't face them tonight. I need to go somewhere I don't have to play games. Just tonight. I need to take my mind off the king, off the queen, off of Father. He's worried sick about Ward."
"So are you," commented Erdrick.
Beckram's eyebrow rose in disbelief. "I don't even like him."
"You envy him," corrected Erdrick shrewdly. "Stupid or not, he's a good man. You like him better than you like yourself."
Beckram flushed with temper. "He's an idiot. If he hadn't been a moron, none of this would be necessary."
"Father will straighten it out," Erdrick said. "Father's good at this sort of thing."
Beckram nodded and gripped his twin's hand. "Thank you, Rick. Wear my blue and gold outfit; everyone knows it. They'll look at you in it and see me."
Erdrick watched Beckram stride energetically back to his room and wondered how he'd ended up agreeing to this. He reviewed the conversation in his mind and couldn't suppress a grin when he realized that he hadn't agreed to it. Trust Beckram. Erdrick put the book he'd been reading back on the shelves. He'd hoped to finish it tonight, but it looked like he'd be strutting with the court peacocks instead.
Garranon ducked under Haverness's sword blade and drew his arm back to deliver a mortal blow, but Haverness's knife swept out of nowhere to touch his throat.
"Your fight," Garranon said with a smile to show he held no grudges. Actually, he was pleased he'd managed to fight the old man off as long as he had. Stupidly forthright Haverness might be politically, but few could compare with his swordsmanship.
Haverness withdrew his knife and sheathed it. He looked at Garranon grimly. "Now you will tell me what this was about. I trust you didn't call upon me in your father's name for a bout of sword and knife?"
Garranon looked around the training grounds. Though the ancient room was empty, he said, "Let's walk." That way no one could listen in.
The old man stiffened. "You play games."
"I grant you that. But I'm the one at risk if the king finds out why I've approached you. Please, walk with me."
After an insultingly long hesitation, Haverness sheathed his sword and gestured for Garranon to lead the way.
Garranon didn't talk as he strode down the halls that would bring them, eve
ntually, to the gardens where the sound of running water would cover their voices. No one they passed looked twice; their weaponry and sweat gave answer to why the newly named Champion of Oranstone would walk with the king's favorite.
The smell of sweet blossoms was almost overwhelmingly strong when they left the musty halls for the gardens at the heart of the keep. It was early yet, and the gardens were deserted.
"Are you serious about taking a hundred men to defeat the Vorsagians?" asked Garranon abruptly.
Haverness's eyebrows rose in mild inquiry. "I am his majesty's most obedient servant." If the old man felt bitterness, Garranon couldn't hear it in his voice.
"Who is going?" Garranon almost winced after he asked the question. That hadn't been what he'd meant to ask, and he wasn't surprised when Haverness's face went blank.
"My clerk has a list, but I can't recall offhand."
Garranon waved his hand in dismissal and sought another course. "What I wanted to know is, do you have space for me? In my father's day, Buril had three hundred trained men. I cannot do so well, but there are sixty arms-men, and I can gather another hundred raw recruits."
"Oh, is that what you think I'm doing?" whispered Haverness almost to himself. His features hardened into a cold mask.
"It's what I hope you're doing," replied Garranon steadily. "It doesn't matter if the king knows it or not, though he seems to be more concerned with his queen's affairs right now. He cannot withdraw his approval now."
They paced once around the outside of the garden before Haverness spoke again. "You look like your father."
"Yes."
"Askenwen refused to consider coming." Askenwen was the richest of the Oranstonians, a young man who relished court life. "He likes Tallven just fine. Oranstone is too wet, he said. Do you know what his father was called during the war?"
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