The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1)

by Kari Cordis

  “Not enough greed,” he shot back. “Do you remember any more of the story, Banion?”

  There was a pause while the over-strained chair let out a peep of protest, then the bristles on the behemoth parted in a wolfish grin. “No. Most of our history concerns the Battle. We’re not so interested in peace.”

  “Exactly,” Melkin ground out, voice rough and gravelly after all the smooth Merranic baritones. “So, I’m off to the High Wilds, and they’re coming with me.” He jerked his thumb at the boys.

  “Take Banion along,” Kane offered. “You never know what you might meet up with in the Wastes.”

  Melkin’s face lightened and he muttered a gruff thanks.

  “Wait a minute,” Sable begged. “Before you all go galloping off over the horizon, what about the problem in front of us? How are you going to protect these boys in the wild, on the trail? The danger to them is a definite, if ill-understood, reality. Their connection to a Realms-wide threat is nothing but conjecture. The threat itself is nothing but conjecture.” She looked at the men firmly, and Ari could almost feel Rodge silently applauding. He, on the other hand, was a little confused. What connection did he and Loren and Rodge have to a threat to the Realms? What threat? The White Asps?

  “Evidence is mounting.” Kane looked belligerent.

  “Half-truths and echoes of legends,” she said crisply. She looked like a doll next to him, tiny and delicate, but she didn’t show any signs of being intimidated. “We can’t stop our lives and run into hiding at every conspiracy theory that we arrange facts to support—”

  “If you’d brush off the Histories—the real ones, not the milksop they feed at the University—you’d have a little better appreciation for what’s imperiling your Empire,” Melkin snapped. The boys’ jaws dropped. In the silence, to their amazement, their Queen looked as chastised as any classmate.

  “I did promise I’d do that,” she murmured. There was a moment’s silence. Ari felt sweat trickling down the back of his shirt. Would this never end?

  “Well,” she finally allowed. “You must do what you must. But I want to send Cerise with you. She can keep me abreast of those minute little changes in the course of human history that you don’t seem to have time to pass along…” She held up a hand as Melkin, whose face mirrored the outraged horror in Ari’s mind, opened his mouth to protest. She?

  “I know what you’re going to say,” she cut him off, “but I assure you, she is a very accomplished horsewoman and extremely skilled in both diplomatic and survival skills. She won’t hold you up. Besides,” she overrode him again, this time with a touch of iron in her voice, “I wish it.”

  Open rebellion raged across Melkin’s face. “She obeys me implicitly!” he finally bit off.

  “Of course,” Sable agreed graciously. “I’m sure, my dear Master Melkin, that it will be a short term arrangement, anyway.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Cerise met them outside. Sable had given them all the choice of a mount from the Royal Stables, and the Master of Horse had just shown them the herd when the Queen’s lady-in-waiting marched briskly up to them. Cool and impersonal, she introduced herself, offered a meaningless smile and ran a quick, assessing eye over them. She had the typical sharp features and light coloring of the North, an athletic air, and to Ari’s eye, quite a significant self-esteem.

  Melkin had six words for her—their names—and then announced to the group in general, “Meet in the courtyard in 5 minutes.”

  “At least there’s a girl along,” Rodge said, marginally less glum as they all split off to choose their horses. The three boys were distracted for moment, watching as Cerise led out a tall, flashy mare and expertly threw a long leg over its back, mounting up. The thought didn’t hearten Ari at all. Those creatures were never anything but trouble—girls, not mares. But even his mood improved when he and Loren both found half-Aerachs in amongst the herd. Lord Harthunter had kept a good stable, but even he couldn’t afford Aerach blood.

  It was late morning before they joined the traffic headed down Palace Hill, Melkin in the lead with Kai on foot beside him. The horses were loaded down with a couple weeks’ provisions, and greatcloaks, each worth a nobleman’s ransom, were rolled up behind their saddles for the cold embrace of northern nights.

  Strips of rubber had been laid over the cobblestone on this side of the hill, traction for the ice and snow that the city inevitably succumbed to the majority of the year, and they jounced and jarred down the face of it. Judging from Rodge’s flying knees and elbows and sick look, the mottled black and white pony he’d chosen wasn’t a particularly smooth ride. Ari happily patted the glossy neck of his brown gelding. He’d probably never be on this quality of horseflesh again, and he reveled in the smooth, liquid, eager energy under him.

  Once they hit lower Archemounte, with its wagon traffic and crush of pedestrians, its occasional Troop of Imperial Guard, its mounted nobles and wealthy vendors and footsore tradesmen from all over the Empire, their progress slowed considerably. The North was the heart of the Realms, and Archemounte the heart of the North—a phrase one heard all the time, Northerners being a modest bunch. When he and Loren had first gotten to University, there had been a mandatory orientation tour of the city for those from out of town. For hours they had walked all over this area, the guide pointing out in excruciating detail the huge, columned Courts, the Temple of Marek, and the Market Hall—where more tirna changed hands in a day than the average man saw in his entire life. She’d made them look at the architectural euphoria of the arched Chambers of music and drama and public meeting, and at the long, multi-entranced tradehouses where the blood of commerce could flow and be taxed, regulated, and distributed to Northerner hearts’ content. She’d raved about the exciting new technology of the covered drainage and gas and water and sewer pipes, and wasn’t this the most sophisticated, advanced city in the world? Ari, who saw nothing but a seething mass of largely unwashed, unsavory humanity and a stifling press of very large, impractically white buildings, had felt like his fingernails were being torn out.

  Months along in their relationship, he still disliked the city. It took them hours to get through it, unfortunately, and according to his stomach, it was well after lunch before they finally passed through the two tall, slender posts that were all that was left of the deep walls and thick gates of Old Archemounte. It was the only one of the gates left even in part, gates being considered too restrictive for the new Archemounte—whether to ideas or the passage of coin was never specified.

  They could move out much more rapidly once through the gates, the crowds thin here on the periphery and the Northern King’s Way stretching out broad and smooth in front of them. Ari wanted a nice, invigorating gallop so bad he could taste it, but it seemed like it might be a bit conspicuous at the moment to go suddenly tearing off down the road. Cerise had moved up peremptorily behind the Master and Kai, and Banion had dropped to the rear. The Merranic’s enormous bulk almost overflowed even the plow horse-sized creature he was riding.

  As the countryside around them opened up into peaceful fields and quiet, industrious little towns, the rhythm of travel quickly settled in, and Ari found his mind wandering, chewing on all the recent puzzles thrown his way. Why was Melkin interested in old stories of the Empress? It was surprising enough to find he had any kind of life outside his tyranny of the classroom, but now it turned out his fanatical, laughable obsession with the Enemy in the south overflowed into Royal politics. Where it had other followers. If he wasn’t mistaken, King Kane had not been laughing when Melkin mentioned the Enemy, the south, ancient legends...or the Empress.

  Hers was an old, old story—from long before there were even the Swords of Light. She was a nameless, faceless warrior, fighting the Enemy back in the long centuries when they overran the Realms, but mostly known for her mercy, her healings, her miraculous deeds amongst the poor. She existed now as a symbol of deliverance and solace, a mythic figure of power and peace. Her legend hadn’t survived the North
’s transformation into the modern age very well…no one needed rescuing from swarms of Enemy anymore, and Illians were a religious scourge rather than the half-admired cult of the greatest heroines of the Realms.

  But Ari had grown up in the back-country that bordered Cyrrh, which was a land so deeply woven with lore and legend and magic that some said that was all it was. He’d spent hours listening to such tales around campfires on hunts or visits with the simple country people around Harthunters. He’d loved those stories.

  Maybe it was all the talk of Illians, the lazy, hypnotic rhythm of the saddle, the clear day with his problems for once far on the horizon…but memories began to seep into his consciousness. Almost, it seemed, he could remember some of his time with the Illians he had once known, the nuns who had raised him. He would have been really little, but…there had been a meadow. No, a clearing, because it was encircled with great trees…and so green. A vivid, lush sort of green never seen in the Empire…and there’d been that garden. He’d played for hours in that overgrown tangle of long grass and flowers and fountains. There’d been rabbit runs just his size…It was so dim, the memories were more like someone else’s life, seen at a great distance.

  “Ari!” Loren hissed, punching him in the shoulder.

  “Hunh?” he grunted, coming back to himself.

  “Come with me!” Loren urged, so sure of him that he started his chestnut off the road without even waiting to see if Ari would follow.

  Ari glanced around even as he nudged his horse after him. Banion was dozing and Rodge was watching them both with a cynical sneer. No one else was looking.

  No big adventure, unfortunately. Ari’s face fell as Loren swung down outside a little roadside shrine, digging quickly through his money belt. He tossed it up to Ari to hold and ducked inside, while Ari fidgeted uncomfortably. He wasn’t very devout. Loren was a Landowner of the Empire; Marek was in his blood, part of his heritage, part of his duty. To Ari, Marek just seemed cold and distant and tithe-hungry.

  He became aware that his hand was absently jiggling Loren’s coin purse, and he paused, staring down at it. Not only was he totally disinterested in giving any tirna to the god…he didn’t have any tirna. Everything he had belonged to Loren. Feeling strange and sick, he slowly pulled out his own money belt and emptied into his friend’s.

  Uh-oh, Ari thought as they turned back to the road when Loren finished. The whole party was stopped and waiting, and he had a feeling Melkin was going to have some thoughts about the last few minutes.

  His face was livid when they got close enough to see it, and he didn’t wait for them to reach the road. “Don’t ever wander off from this group,” he snapped. “Is that clear? You’re not in the flaming halls of the University anymore!”

  Loren spluttered, “But, sir, Ari and I are used to travel—there’s nothing in the North that’s dangerous!”

  “WHAT PART OF THE PREVIOUS SENTENCES DO YOU HAVE TROUBLE COMPREHENDING?!” he bellowed at them, loud enough that every horse but Rodge’s jerked nervously. “Idiots!” he raved, yanking his long-legged mount around and heading on down the road.

  Loren sank resentfully into his saddle, glowering at Cerise’s look of cool contempt.

  “What, do you want to be a priest?” Rodge asked in disdain. Ari doubted if Rodge would give up tirna to Marek if he was standing in the Temple with someone else’s coin in his hand.

  “You never pass up a shrine on the road,” Loren muttered stubbornly.

  “You’re pathetic. You’re parochial.”

  They fussed at each other for a moment, but Ari felt uneasiness trace a cold finger down his neck, remembering their brush with something quite dangerous just yesterday. But the afternoon was too beautiful and they were too free and there was too much adventure possible on the road ahead of them for either danger or bad tempers to be too real. Soon Loren and Rodge were snorting and cracking along as usual. It was probably inevitable that they felt they should welcome Cerise to their little group, get to know her.

  “See something interesting?” Rodge asked her snidely as their horses happened to draw up beside hers.

  She glanced around at them in surprise, and her face flushed at their knowing looks. “I’ve never seen a Dra before,” she said stiffly, nose poking into the air with sudden lofty dignity.

  “I’ve never seen a Dra either, but I don’t have to stare at him for hours on end to figure out what one looks like.”

  Her glance could have frozen legions of lesser adolescents. “You’re one of those irritating little boys—”

  “And you’re one of those stuck-up girls…”

  This was obviously beneath her standards of conversation; she turned regally and abruptly away from him. Unfortunately, by some appalling accident of equine ambulation, this put Ari right in her sights. She seized on him.

  “So. Your name is R.E.?”

  “Mm,” he said, fighting a sudden desire to put heels to the brown. Close enough; he’d been called worse. She frowned diplomatically, a practiced look. “Hm. And what kind of a name is that?”

  Ari was horrified. Conversation with this haughty terror was the last thing he wanted. On the other side of her, Rodge and Loren were hiding their delight behind balled hands. “Uh, Cyrrhidean,” he said grudgingly.

  “Oh.” A pale brow launched over a pale eye. “That would explain your lovely tan…” There was just the tiniest bit of deprecation in her tone—‘tanned’ peoples were invariably not from the North. She faced forward again and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  They rode east until the setting sun began to turn the countryside into blushing gold and Ari’s powerful head of hair looked like it was on fire on the strong, brown column of his neck. He’d been eyeing the rising foothills and seductive woods to their north, hearing their whispering wildness, for quite some time and had just assumed they would camp there. Melkin, unfortunately, seemed quite able to curb his own romantic longings for the wilds. When they turned off the Way, it was towards the south, where the land stretched away uninterestingly into the numberless fields and farms of the Empire, consumed by reasonable and productive Northern agriculture. And littered with identical hamlets so gripped by domesticity that it put Ari’s teeth on edge.

  He looked dispiritedly around him as their horses clopped into one of these featureless villages, staring at the neat buildings, at the trade signs hanging outside each establishment in a long row of sameness down the street. This…this smothering docility probably held his fate for the next sixty years or so. Dread and distaste washed over him anew as his little problem came careening back full force.

  Melkin stopped them in front of an inn, and Ari, lost in glum self-pity, had his attention abruptly diverted by Rodge’s startled and painful, “AH! Oh. Oh, my. Oooh…” He and Loren exchanged interested and calculating looks over the head of their friend, whose face was frozen into the shocked grimace of the novice horseman. Sometimes Rodge just made it so easy.

  The innkeeper came out, fussy and pinch-faced, honing in on Melkin with a businessman’s nose for the purse-keeper.

  “It’ll be seven, full-board,” the Master said gruffly. He was pulling out his purse when the man said icily, “Six. We don’t take his type here.” He was staring fastidiously at Kai.

  Cerise stepped forward instantly and imperiously, her long split skirts swirling dramatically to reveal (accidentally or otherwise) very expensive bootwear. The whole street went quiet and turned to look at the sound of her voice.

  “Dra Kai is on Queen’s business,” she snapped, with crushing authority. “Obviously, since he has her trust, any ignorant, misguided, mindless decisions on the part of a backcountry bigot are completely inconsequential.” This unique barrage of insult, reason, and verbosity seemed to be just the thing. One last nervous look at the Dra, some obsequious head bows, and the man collected his tirna and scuttled back inside.

  Kai, not the type to overwhelm a person with fulsome gratitude, not only ignored the whole incident, but disappeared
for the rest of the night. They bedded down early, in the way of travelers wishing to make the most of daylight, and the next morning Ari and Loren waited considerately for the room to empty before arranging themselves on either side of Rodge’s still-snoring head.

  Then in perfect unison, they bellowed at the top of their lungs, “WAKE UP RODGE EVERYONE’S LEFT YOU’RE LATE GET UP GET UP GET UP!!!”

  He jerked upright, gasping, eyes wide, flailing around for wakefulness, then threw the covers off and managed two steps out of bed…before he let out a shriek of agony. Ari and Loren grinned, deeply satisfied, as he staggered—very stiff-legged—around the room, spewing profanity concerning them, Master Melkin, this trip, his legs, and his completely innocent pony.

  Melkin wasn’t amused. He gave them such a tongue-lashing for the delay they caused that it was a very subdued party that headed out into the new day.

  It didn’t last long. They weren’t half an hour out of town when they took a turn off the main Way, and shortly afterward began to hear the dull roar of a monstrous waterfall through the trees. The air seemed to tremble with anticipation. Suddenly, they broke out of the forest and in front of them the great, long, green slopes of the Wilds seemed to shoot straight up into their view, on and on and on until they blotted out almost the entire northern sky. It was the biggest country Ari had ever seen, swards and swards of green pasture, all on edge, stretching on forever.

  They were at Aepont, the first place the Kendrick could be crossed in all its foaming, thundering white fury, and Ari stared in awe at the enormous, gushing riverine mouth every moment across the bridge that spanned its tumultuous fall. The big stones that made up the bridge had been placed so that two wagons could easily cross abreast, but the thing seemed fragile as glass set so close to the raw power of the river. Roaring with life, seething and churning out of the mountain far above, it roiled its way down the chasm of gigantic boulders and broken trees to level out hundreds of feet below them.