The man collapsed beneath Kevral’s momentum, flailing wildly with the bow. Kevral drove between the crazed defense, swords stabbing deeply into flesh three times before the Easterner beneath her went still. She rolled to her feet, blood stinging her eyes and salty on her lips. The last five surrounded her, their movements cautious, their eyes trained directly on her. She shook her head, splattering herself and them with their companions’ blood. Crouched, she growled like an animal, goaded to attack in blind fury yet trained to control her every movement.
Tae’s voice wafted down from on high, using the guttural Eastern language that Kevral did not know. An enemy took his eyes from the Renshai for an instant. Kevral dove for the opening, slashing beneath his sword and pounding his neck with a deep-biting cut. She did not possess the strength to sever bone, but the wellspring of blood proved enough. She whirled, cutting separate arcs in front of her with the swords, hoping to send the others scuttling backward while she prepared to battle four at once.
One Easterner bolted. As if it were a signal, the others followed, kicking up a wake of needles.
Kevral cursed, blood fever still high. She ran back toward her horse, halted by Tae’s soft but authoritative call in the Northern tongue. “Let them go.”
Fury exploded through Kevral, aimed toward the one who dared to interfere with a Renshai’s battle. She whipped a hostile glance at Tae, seeing the familiar form high in a tree, her examination disrupted by the irregular slash of branches. The sun sheened from a wet, scarlet stain soaking the left side of his tattered tunic, and occasional droplets of blood pattered to the needles. Tae’s hurt. The realization suffocated the desperate need to kill, and concern rose to replace it. She lowered her swords. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Tae returned, skittering from the trees with the uncharacteristic clumsiness of a newborn calf. Boughs shattered beneath him, showering Kevral with splinters and needles.
Kevral stepped back, instinctively raising a bloodstained hand to brush bark from her face, then catching herself in mid-movement. She contented herself with a brisk head shake that dislodged some of the pieces, then set to a cursory cleaning of swords and hands with the promise of a complete job after she assisted her companion.
At length, Tae half-climbed, half-fell to the ground. He clenched his left arm to his side, and his breaths came in quick, shallow puffs.
Kevral sheathed her swords and went to tend Tae. “Graceful dismount.” Blood discolored his left sleeve from wrist to shoulder, ran down his hand in trickles, and gradually spread across his chest. Dread raised the hairs at the nape of her neck. “You’re hurt bad, aren’t you?”
“I’m fine,” Tae repeated, though he remained sitting on the needles without attempting to rise.
Kevral knelt at Tae’s side, reached for the tunic, and tore. “I’ve seen your idea of ‘fine.’ That scar on your chest—this much deeper . . .” She held up a needle, “. . . and you’d have been as heartless as Ra-khir named you.”
“You’re ruining my best shirt,” Tae lamented facetiously. “It’s just an arm wound. Arrow went through it.”
“Arrow?” Kevral’s search uncovered the source of the bleeding, a hole through the flesh a hand’s-breadth above Tae’s elbow. “What idiot shoots for the arm?” She wrapped the rent tunic around the wound and tightened it to staunch the bleeding with pressure.
Tae demonstrated by cringing behind his uninjured arm. “They didn’t aim for the arm, I deflected it.”
Kevral teased, “Hmmm, block an attack with a body part. How clever. Why haven’t I ever tried that?” She looked pointedly at the bloody tunic. “Oh, yes. That’s why.”
“Yeah, well.” Tae’s tone suggested he realized Kevral had chosen good-natured ribbing more to keep his mind from the pain than to antagonize. “Only Renshai can block retroactively. I had a choice between letting the arrow hit my arm or my face, and I’m not displeased with my decision.” He paused a moment, brow furrowing. “Ra-khir called me ‘heartless?’”
Kevral laughed at Tae’s delayed reaction, alert to sight or sound of the Easterners’ return. Even tending a companion would not allow her to drop her guard. “Long ago. Before he learned to tolerate, let alone like you.”
Tae nodded, accepting. No blood seeped through the layers of makeshift bandage.
Kevral kept the cloth in place, knowing from experience that removing it too soon would allow the bleeding to restart and require her to begin from scratch. “What did you say to those road dogs that sent them running with their tails between their legs?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“I already don’t like that you didn’t let me kill them. I’ll deal with it.”
Tae kept his eyes on Kevral as he spoke, judging. His face had gone pale, presumably from blood loss. “I told them I would make certain the whole of the Eastlands knew a woman killed them.”
Kevral waited for more, the words too inoffensive for such a reaction.
“It’s a major insult in the East.”
Kevral made a vague, meaningless noise. Until that moment, she had never considered the significance of Tae’s upbringing. She knew men treated women like property in the Eastlands. Tradition no longer required wives to suicide on their husband’s pyre, but most still did so. Those who did not dishonored their families and were shunned. Eastern law contained no provisions for crimes against women, and females who disobeyed law or husbands received punishments far beyond those of males. Since the first day they met, Tae had always treated Kevral and Matrinka with respect, yet she finally bothered to wonder whether, if they married, Tae might eventually revert to the attitude of his culture.
Although Kevral said nothing of her thoughts aloud, her features must have betrayed her. Tae launched into a defense. “Hey! Just because I use someone’s warped, stupid ideas against them doesn’t mean I believe them. I learned my attitude toward women from my father. He idolized my mother. Still does. He always believed she was smarter, handsomer, wittier, more clever—you name it. She never told him to quit doing what he did, because if she did, he would have. But she understood his passion, and he helped fulfill any desire she had as well. They were a team.” Tae blinked several times, as if remaining awake had, in itself, become an effort. “It’s the men . . .” He paused thoughtfully, “the women, too, for that matter. The people without self-confidence who need to prove themselves superior by denigrating others. If my father ever remarries, it won’t be an Eastern woman. They don’t have the spark and spirit to replace my mother. Even if I wasn’t wholly in love with you, I wouldn’t consider an Eastern woman either. The idea of my beloved scurrying like a slave to provide my every comfort makes me vomit.”
“You definitely wouldn’t get that from me,” Kevral felt obligated to supply.
“That’s for certain,” Tae muttered. He finished at his normal volume. “The thing that fully convinced me the world had no natural justice is that my mother is dead while Ra-khir’s miserable excuse for a female parent still stinks up the world with her presence.”
Kevral smiled as she carefully unwound the cloth to replace it with a neater pressure dressing. “Don’t downplay your emotions; tell me how you really feel.”
Tae grinned at the sarcasm.
Kevral continued working. “All right. You’ve finally admitted your mother’s dead.” Part of Ra-khir’s distrust had stemmed from Tae’s secretiveness about his past. “Tell me about her. How did she die?”
Tae stiffened suddenly, clearly in pain. Instinctively, Kevral halted her ministrations, believing herself at fault.
Tae closed his eyes and lowered his head, his agony certainly internal.
Kevral returned to tending the injury, waiting in silence for Tae to either explain or reject her request. The long delay spoke volumes. Their relationship had reached a point of crucial importance, and his willingness or refusal to share the pain he had kept to himself for nearly half his life would determine whether or not he truly loved and trus
ted Kevral.
Gradually, Tae’s eyes came open, soft and moist. He met Kevral’s gaze levelly as he began his story.
* * *
Weile Kahn sat stiffly upright, his favorite, cushioned chair no more comfortable than the floor. Crouched at his right hand, Alsrusett waited in silence, gaze playing over the simple room he already knew by heart. A desk and wooden chair occupied most of one wall, crammed full of supplies and topped by a chessboard. Crude shelves cut directly into the earthen wall held an assortment of foodstuffs, mostly dried fruits, salted or jerked meats, and hard breads. One doorway led to the privy, a hole and bucket arrangement that the bodyguards kept regularly emptied. The other led to a bedroom where Daxan currently slept and, farther, to his own sleeping quarters.
“A game?” Alsrusett suggested, nodding toward the chessboard.
Though he knew the focus of Alsrusett’s attention, Weile looked to it from politeness. Discovering his bodyguard’s competence at the game of strategy had helped wile away those boring hours induced by a life of continual hiding. But Kinya’s news from earlier that morning kept Weile’s thoughts embroiled and his muscles tense to the point of pain. A young, male Easterner traveling with a single Renshai. Weile shook his head. Distance and a hood had kept the Easterner unrecognizable, but he could not lose the image of Tae Kahn introducing the blonde woman and the red-haired man at the edge of the chasm. Could it be my son?
Weile closed his eyes, picturing an encasing wall of stone around his heart. I can’t let the past unman me. I ordered him killed, and I could do nothing else under the circumstances. Still, he could not chase away the image of Kinya, goading his commander for a mercy he dared not speak, the elder’s hard eyes demanding a reprieve that Weile could not grant. My son betrayed me. Another thought came to him, in the voice of his wife. But he is still your son. Weile bunched his lids tighter, determinedly concentrating on the image of granite he had conjured.
The first knock rang through the room so suddenly, Weile jumped to his feet, eyes snapping open and heart pounding. Alsrusett rose, too, as much in response to his charge’s reaction as the sound. Kinya’s familiar pattern followed, the same he had used earlier that morning.
Weile remained in place but did not sit. Alsrusett climbed the rungs to the top of the shaft, disappearing into the darkness. A moment later, his single answering knock sounded. Weile heard the scrape of the door opening, followed by a stifled grunt and a quick series of thumps. Silence followed. Weile strained for the sound of Alsrusett’s heavy tread on the upper rung. It did not come, and the bodyguard called down no explanation for the strangeness.
Weile recognized danger instantly. Swift and quiet, he dashed into the sleeping rooms where Daxan had already awakened. As he hurtled off the bed, the compact guard looked askance at his leader.
“No response. No return,” Weile explained minimally in a hoarse whisper. Likely, he knew, Alsrusett had stepped out to assist Kinya and had forgotten to mention this to Weile; but protocol demanded they escape first and find explanations later. Daxan darted ahead of Weile Kahn, into the other bedroom. Squeezing beneath the bed, he wriggled through the bolt-hole designed for just such an occasion. Weile dove through after his bodyguard.
The cold soil felt like water brushing against Weile’s skin, an image foiled by the moist, dirt aroma surrounding him. Daxan scrabbled through the hole, then paused to pound aside the boulder blocking the opening.
Daxan hammered and huffed far longer than seemed appropriate or necessary, but Weile remained quiet, attributing the delay to his own distorted sense of time. Earth pattered down the tunnel in a fine shower of clumps filled with detritus. After an interval that felt like an hour, Daxan finally grunted in wordless frustration. “It won’t budge.”
The words set off alarms in Weile’s mind. “What?” he asked carefully.
“The exit’s blocked. We’re stuck.”
Weile refused to verbalize the dread chilling through his chest. Whoever had wedged the opening had probably already come through the entrance. If they’d managed to cut off the tunnel opening beneath the bed, they had effectively trapped Weile and Daxan in a tomb of their own making. The walls seemed to crush in on Weile before he managed to force aside the image of slow suffocation. Without a word to Daxan, he whirled and charged for the tunnel entrance, the bodyguard scrambling at his heels.
The glaze of light seeping into the hole restored Weile’s composure. His hand slipped to his hilt as he emerged, shoving the bed aside rather than compromising security by crawling into danger hunched and half-blinded by positioning. The metal legs of his cot scratched grooves across the dirt floor with a hiss. As he leaped free, Weile drew his sword, leaving space for Daxan to spring between him and any threat. The bodyguard sped gracefully into a defensive position, sword also readied.
Aside from the new position of the cot, the room remained as they had left it. A wooden chest held his gear, a brass candle holder and striker resting atop the closed lid. A metal bowl beside it held dozens of candles. A matched ceramic pitcher and bowl sat in a corner near the entrance, undisturbed. Gesturing Weile back, Daxan crept into his own quarters, then through the opening to the main room. “Intruders!” he shouted abruptly. His footfalls pounded echoes through the chamber.
Though trained to escape while his bodyguard fought, Weile had no place to run. Steel rang against steel in the common room. Daxan would sacrifice his life for his charge’s freedom, but Weile’s only escape lay at the opposite side of the battle. Sword still bared, Weile pressed his back to the wall and cautiously approached the thump and thrash of combat. Crouched, he whipped into the main room’s entryway to find Tae Kahn physically blocking the exit, his left sleeve empty and his expression unreadable. Daxan’s sword dangled from his hand. A blonde woman, little more than a child, pinned Daxan to the wall, two swords crossed at his throat. Weile recognized her as the one Tae had called Kevral.
“Run!” Daxan hissed, eyes measuring his smaller opponent for the barest breach. If he believed suicide would gain Weile an opening for escape, he would gladly hurl himself upon the blonde’s weapons. But the high positioning of Kevral’s swords would grant him nothing more than a slit throat and too little time for Weile.
Weile resigned himself to the inevitable. He had always known he would die violently. He turned his gaze directly on Tae, seeking some tiny flicker of mercy in eyes so like his own. The dark orbs revealed nothing. He used the common trading tongue, “Did you come to kill me?”
Tae gave no reply but that inscrutable stare. The silence stretched far beyond politeness or even effective threat. As the captive whose home was violated, Weile had already overstepped his boundaries by speaking first.
At length, Kevral spoke, imitating Tae’s voice admirably. “No, Father. I didn’t come to kill you. I love you.”
The woman’s voice mobilized Tae as Weile’s had not. He nodded once, then swallowed hard. “She speaks well for me.”
Weile would have preferred to hear the words directly from his son, but this would have to suffice. His gaze drifted to the empty sleeve, and he believed he could see the bulge of an arm against the fabric of Tae’s tunic. Injured not amputated. The thought brought back memories of his own father’s accident of birth and the agony that deformed limb had become. A cold sweat prickled his back.
When Weile paused too long, Kevral took over again, this time copying Weile’s harsh Eastern accent. “And I love you, too, my son.”
Weile smiled carefully, wanting a reconciliation more than anything but uncertain how to achieve it. “You’re right. She does speak well.”
The two men continued to stare at one another.
Kevral cleared her throat. “This is the part where you call off your thug.” She inclined her head toward Daxan, removing the swords as if Weile rather than she had made the suggestion.
“Thank you, Daxan,” Weile said. “Your caution is no longer necessary.”
Daxan returned a look clearly intended to test We
ile’s command and how much the threat of Kevral’s presence influenced his leader’s decision.
Weile gave his bodyguard a strong nod that conveyed his seriousness. “Tae Kahn, your arm. . . ?”
Tae raised and lowered his shoulders slightly, the gesture clearly intended to convey contempt for a minimal affliction.
Irregular footsteps clomped around the entrance to the hideaway. More company? Weile glanced toward the sound, keeping Tae in his peripheral vision in order to gauge his son’s reaction. Is it one of theirs, one of mine, or enemies? A boot slammed unsteadily onto the upper rung, followed by a verbal curse. Then, Alsrusett plummeted through the opening. Tae dodged clear as the bodyguard crashed to the ground, enormous body quaking the room. Alsrusett attempted to scramble to his feet, his movements strangely awkward. His head swiveled toward Weile, his relief at finding his charge alive evident. Gaining a crouch, he tensed to lunge at Kevral.
“Alsrusett, be still.” Without waiting to see if the man obeyed, Weile turned his attention to his other guard. “Daxan, uncover the escape route and secure the entrance, please.”
Daxan glanced from Alsrusett to Kevral to Tae and back to Weile, his concern obvious. In no condition to protect anyone, Alsrusett could not keep Weile safe during Daxan’s brief absence. Weile understood the worry, but it seemed ludicrous to him. Daxan had already proved he could not handle Kevral either, especially weaponless.
After a hesitation based on protest, Daxan crossed the room and climbed the rungs. The patter of dirt sounded dully beneath Alsrusett’s groan.
“What happened?” Weile did not care who answered.
“She hit me over the head,” Alsrusett glared at Kevral, jabbing a thick finger toward her.
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