The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1)

by Kari Cordis

  “But Kyle, keen despite his youth, doubted his elder brothers’ logic. With deep conviction he led his men, with neither Triele nor any guidance at all from the gods, straight south…and there his instinct was proven true, for there he found the endless swarms of Enemy. There the Tarq had made their homeland—if such black hearts can be said to have a home—and there Kyle and his men had such a fight as had never been known. They trickled around him, they set sail, they passed over the Dragonspine unseen…but their heart he had found, and their heart he drove before his sabre until they came to the lips of the burning Sheel itself. And there, Kyle’s descendants fight to this day.”

  Silence settled. The boys were staring into the fire, dreaming of blades and conquest and the Enemy and the gods. Even Rodge said, with a vague, resigned sort of disappointment, “Don’t stop now.” But Banion was quiet. Beside him, Melkin looked barely human in the firelight, face like stone, dark thoughts gleaming unreadably through flinty eyes.

  “Hmmph,” Cerise said, unfortunately conversational enough for all of them. “Utter nonsense. No one knows how the world began, and the gods aren’t likely to be pushed around by a bunch of burly, brainless men.”

  “Ah,” Banion said with studied politeness. Ari and Loren, disgusted at the instantly ruined mood, stood up and started clearing the area around the fire for sleeping. “And what do they teach in the Empire?” Banion asked cordially.

  “Not stories—they teach facts for history,” she said with a touch of snobbery. “They teach us how to think.”

  Banion grunted, hefting his huge bulk off the log he’d been using. “In Merrani, the children know how to think.”

  She shot him a look laced with glass shards.

  While Loren showed Rodge how to pad the ground with pine boughs under his greatcloak, Ari wandered one last time into the tree line. He almost stumbled into Dra Kai, and instantly felt remorse. Here he was acting the child, listening to stories and headed blithely to bed, when there were men in the dark and cold standing guard.

  “Uh, I’ll take a turn at watch…” he offered awkwardly, and then, as the silence stretched and the Dra said nothing, he began to wonder what in the world he was doing. Alone, in the dark, with a Dra. He seemed bigger up close, the whip-cord body radiating menace, the dark, steady, dangerous eyes suddenly more predator than human. Ari felt his mouth go dry.

  “There is little danger tonight,” Kai finally said, his low voice both chilling and oddly comforting. It was almost inconceivable at that moment to think of anything that the Dra couldn’t handle.

  Ari wondered about him as he snuggled into the thick curls of sheepskin lining his greatcloak. What about the Drae? Where did they fit into the story of the Upheaval? Which of the Four Kings had they owed allegiance to… or had they? Which had they followed Out? All he knew about them was their reputation as mercs, assassins, the most treacherous race known to man. And what about these mysterious Addahites, hopefully hiding out somewhere in the surrounding vertical countryside? When had the cult of Il started?

  He dreamed that night as he hadn’t in years, vivid and sharp, of the garden of his childhood, of a rollicking happiness that was more sensed than pictured…of the carefree contentment of a life before life’s awareness.

  CHAPTER 3

  It may have been almost July, but you wouldn’t have known it the next morning. It was a stiff, chilled group that moved out into the brilliant sunshine and back onto the path. Butterflies wandered among the wildflowers that lay in great swathes across the flanks of the hills, and the lacy green of the evergreens moved in a brisk morning breeze. Bare trunks rose around them like columns in a temple as they entered a thick stretch of forest, bright sunlight filtered by the sweeping, fragrant green boughs of cedar and pine. It was so exquisitely peaceful that Ari began to hope their search might keep them up here the whole summer. What a place.

  They lunched sitting on a soft carpet of pine needles, and were still riding through forest that afternoon when a plume of smoke became visible through the thinning trees. Once they’d broken into the clear, they saw it was attached to a little log cabin, nestled a short distance away into the flank of a steep hill. Everybody sat up alertly, the desultory conversation ceasing. The dreamlike peace of the ride had lulled all of them but Kai (and probably Melkin, who didn’t seem the sort to notice flowers and butterflies unless he was pinning them to specimen boards).

  There was something poignant about that little cabin all alone in the huge, silent, desolate wilderness. It seemed absolutely appropriate that a doddling, white-bearded mountain man would come out of the door as they approached, or perhaps a work-worn couple with gnarled hands and faces old before their time, taciturn and suspicious of visitors.

  Instead, as they neared, they saw neat fencing, a modest herd of contained sheep, and a single—young—man kneeling busily on the ground in the center of them. He raised his head at the sound of their horses’ hooves, released what turned out to be an extremely relieved lamb, and came over to them with a broad, welcoming smile. He couldn’t have been more than 17 or 18, and was not at all dirty, shaggy, or crawling with visible lice. His figure was clothed in rough homespun, but was well-formed, with the right number of appendages, and neither halt nor twitchy. And the warm brown eyes that greeted them sparkled with lively intelligence and good humor. If he was an uneducated, malformed savage, he was sadly lacking in the appropriate regret.

  “Well met, friends,” he greeted them genially, his husky voice rich with accent.

  He reached over the fence to shake the hand offered by Melkin, who’d dismounted, and then turned to Cerise.

  “My Lady,” he said, with such profound reverence that Cerise decided she could dismount with the rest of them.

  “Forgive me, but I’ve only the contents of my backbag to offer as refreshment,” he began hospitably, but Melkin waved him silent.

  With shocking graciousness, the Master said, “We are well fed and rested. Our thanks. What do ye here?”

  “Ach,” he shook his head in boyish ruefulness. “We lent our ram to a needy neighbor this spring and he got to these ewes late. The lambs are just now ready to travel.”

  Loren peered around Ari with a smirk to see how Cerise was taking this earthy bit of information. As long as she wasn’t talking, Ari figured they were doing well.

  “What brings ye to these parts, may I ask?” the young man said, with a courtesy you rarely heard in the more civilized North.

  Melkin, completely out of character, leaned casually on the fence rail, watching the sheep and looking more human than the boys had ever seen him.

  “We’re looking for the old lore,” he said quietly, conversationally. “We’re from the University at Archemounte, researching stories of the Empress. Addah seemed a good place to start.”

  The group looked at their first Addahite expectantly, waiting for the derision, a cloud of disbelief across that open face perhaps, a patronizing smile…instead, his eyes lit up and a big grin flashed even white teeth into view. “Ah!” he cried in delight.

  Rodge glanced at Ari, raising eyebrows that said volumes.

  “Alas,” the smile faded a little as the young man shook his curly brown head. “I am the only son in my family and never had the chance to acolyte. I know of Il and His Ways, but of other things…not as much as I would like. What you need, friends, is a Shepherd. If any were to have lore of the Realms, it would be he.” He glanced behind him at the sheep.

  “If ye are willing to walk a slow pace, I will lead ye as I take these to the high pastures. There is a Shepherd’s hut on the way and ‘twould be my pleasure to have your company.”

  “Kindly offered,” the stranger in Melkin’s body demurred. “But we would not hold you up if we could help. I have been much in this country and would find it fair if ye could just point the way.” The boys glanced at each other. Where was Melkin?

  The young man laughed, a little surprised. “That is an unusual thing for a Northerner! How come ye
to know this trackless country?”

  “Wolf,” Melkin answered quietly, which not only seemed explanatory, but earned him a respectful dip of the head. Ari’s red brows knit. What did that mean? How many faces did their Master have, anyway?

  “Well,” the young man turned briskly to face north, towards the endless tiers of rising mountains. He pointed a little east of north, towards a faint path that seemed to shoot perpendicularly up the side of the nearest hill. “Take this path to the Wanderway—naught but an overgrown creek by now—cross, then turn towards Clawside and ride, oh, around eight hours or so. If you’ve not found it by tomorrow evening,” he said cheerfully, “you’d probably better head back to the creek and start over.”

  Rodge, used to directions in terms of street numbers and distances in terms of blocks, hissed, “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” as Melkin thanked him. He was still muttering in disbelief when they reached the base of the hill a short distance away…at which point he seemed to lose the power of speech. It was an almost ludicrous incline.

  “Dismount,” Melkin tossed over his shoulder as he flung a leg over his blue roan. “Save the horses.”

  “For what?” Rodge demanded. “Isn’t this what they’re FOR?”

  Banion rumbled from behind him, “You’ll want them with enough energy to outrun wolves or bears or the like.” He sounded optimistic at the prospect.

  Rodge dismounted promptly.

  They started up, and within minutes, everyone but the inhumanly fit Dra was panting, the horses blowing and tossing their heads in protest. Rodge, in a horrible mood, had to tug his fat, lazy pony every step. Every other step, he panted, “Stupid horse!”

  Loren turned and grinned back at him, unable to resist saying, “You’re the one who chose an oversized radish to head into the wilderness on.”

  Despite the long legs on Melkin’s roan and Cerise’s spirited mare, it wasn’t long before Ari and Loren passed them all, their nimble Aerach half-bloods agile as mountain goats on the steep, uneven trail. They were the first to top out into the broad green meadow at the top, and with legs and lungs on fire stood gasping until the rest of the party showed up.

  A good-sized stream, shallow enough for an easy ford, lay across the little meadow, and after the horses had cooled enough to drink, Melkin led them across. On the other side, he turned unhesitatingly east and Ari saw through a cleft in the trees the jagged, scarred surface of a mountain’s granite face. It was a strange feeling, stepping away from that track, faint as it was, and into the unmarked wilderness. Ari and Loren had been doing it for as long as they could remember in the forests around Harthunters, but it was a little different up here. Starkly more wild, for one, the country raw, and unpeopled, and dangerous.

  They didn’t travel long. Dusk fell like a curtain and, despite their weariness, everyone scurried to make camp and a fire before the dark closed in around them.

  Maybe it was the excitement of their travels that had relaxed his dedication to social muteness, because as Ari began to put a dinner together, he dared to ask Melkin, “Did you study wolf up here?” They were all gathered close around the fire, bonding in solidarity against the huge night. There was no answer, not surprisingly, but Melkin’s face, when Ari glanced over at him, seemed…sad. A trick of the firelight, surely.

  “This is home to the great Warwolves,” Banion said into the ensuing silence and Cerise immediately threw her head back as if to implore the stars.

  “Oh, great,” she muttered. “Not again.”

  “Warwolves are real,” Loren told her belligerently. “There are still people alive that have seen them. We just don’t use them anymore.”

  “I know that!” she snapped back. “But I hardly think we were about to receive an educational lecture on their physiological make-up!”

  “No,” Banion agreed, heading off an argument. “Perhaps you’d rather discuss gryphons?” he suggested. Cerise lifted her lip like she wanted to growl at him.

  Ari gave him a grin and got a broad wink back.

  “Gryphons are real, too,” Loren said obstinately and Rodge and Ari both shot him level looks.

  “Now you’re just being cantankerous, or whatever you country people say,” Rodge accused him. Everyone was tired and quarrelsome, and Ari, already hearing a night of bickering ahead, pleaded suddenly, “Banion, tell us about King Khris and Cyrrh, and the gryphons.”

  Cerise groaned.

  “Ah…” Banion said with pleasure, probably foreseeing the same sort of evening. “…A land woven out of legend, screened from the rest of the Realms by mist and myth and mystery…”

  “And the Dragonwall,” Rodge noted dryly.

  “Indeed, indeed,” Banion agreed. “Khristophe thought them but a great range of mountains, not knowing they were a spine, splitting what would become Cyrrh and the Northern Realm—”

  “The Empire,” Cerise corrected primly.

  “—all the way from the Bay of Baeroon to the Swamps in the south. But the biggest surprise lay on the other side, for no sooner had they crested the pass at Jagstag than a whole new world met them—a world of strange trees and stranger creatures, a world of torpid heat and tempestuous weather. The few messages that made it back to the people at the Sea were full of excitement, for there were no Tarq and great beauty in the new land.”

  He paused for effect, unneeded as everyone was already waiting for him to say the words. Even Cerise seemed resigned to her fate.

  “Then the message pigeons stopped coming. For years, nothing was heard from King Khris. When word finally came, it was grim and fierce. They had not found Tarq, as everyone feared, but they had found…dragons. Great scaled reptiles were these, with maws of fire and huge clawed feet that shook the ground as they walked. Taller than the trees they were, and full of hate. So relentlessly did they hunt man that Khristophe called them Steeds of Raemon. In terror for his people and in great peril, he consulted the Emerald, whose brilliant rays alone seemed to deter the monsters pursuing them. Laschald, in great sadness at the evil thing Raemon had done, confirmed that the creatures were his watchdogs…and then he gave Khris the secret to their defeat. To a great valley he took them, deep in the heart of the new land, and there, where seven falls tumbled over sheer rock cliffs, the most beautiful creatures ever seen flew in the spray. They were gryphons, natural enemies of the dragons and fierce and dangerous beasts. Laschald taught his people how to tame them, how to ride them, and how to fight with them. And that is why the King of Cyrrh is called the Skylord, for that is his true Realm, and only by owning it can he hold the gem of a land beneath it.” He wrapped it up quickly, as Ari was starting to dish out dinner.

  Loren sighed happily, testiness forgotten.

  Cerise clucked her tongue in irritation, delaying her first bite to say, “What is it with you all and your stories? When there are real issues out there needing our attention. Now.”

  “They’re interesting, and they teach us history,” Loren said around his mouthful of beans, good temper restored.

  “They’re stories,” she emphasized. “There’s nothing factual about a single bit of that and it all happened thousands of years ago. We’re here now on important business.” She may have faltered just a bit at that last. Seeing as they were chasing down the legend of the Empress.

  “Queen’s business,” Rodge agreed gravely.

  They found the Shepherd by the next afternoon. A faint trace of activity worn into the grass turned into a faint path that eventually grew distinct enough you could call it a trail. Near its end they met a grey-haired man coming out of a cozy little hut, similar to the young Addahite’s only smaller and more ornate. The door was gorgeously carved for a place sitting out in the middle of nowhere. In fact, it was more than a little disconcerting to travel leagues and leagues through empty, unmarked wilderness—then run smack into a single, solitary individual.

  “Hello, friends,” he greeted them, with such hearty familiarity that Rodge whispered, “Do these people realize they don’t
know us?”

  “Well met,” Melkin said, casual as if they got together every Tuesday. In the strangely gracious Addahite speech, he asked, “We come to beg a moment of your time, good Shepherd…”

  The good Shepherd promptly raised a hand, shaking his head. He had twinkly blue eyes, like a grandfather with a couple treats up his sleeve, and an unhurried, mellow kind of voice. “You are welcome, but first you must rest and refresh yourselves. Travel tightens the throat and makes talk an ungenerous thing.”

  He waved them to follow him and led off across the grass to a stand of shushing cedars. There, the ground grew velvety with moss, and filtered sunlight picked out dainty wildflowers and the bright red of mushrooms. They hadn’t gone far when the ground dropped away abruptly in front of them and the Shepherd made a sharp left hand turn, traveling along a path—not a very wide one—etched into the side of a very precipitous cliff. As Ari turned his agile brown down the trail, a big timber building loomed into view a short way ahead. It was larger than any structure they’d seen yet north of the Kendrick and clung daringly to the plunging, grassy slope that formed the side of the cliff face. Rodge muttered nervously behind him, eyes closed and hands clenching his reins so hard they were white. To one side of the trail was a very large empty space, and far, far down you could almost make out what might be the bottom of a canyon. It was hard to tell…there were clouds in the way.

  Running up the path towards them, faces alight at the sight of visitors, came a small herd of young boys, probably eight to ten years old and all dressed in identical plain white shifts. “Acolytes,” Ari heard the Shepherd explaining affectionately to Melkin. “They may overrun you with eagerness, but they’re otherwise harmless. Please feel comfortable letting them take your horses; service is part of their training. And keeping them busy keeps them out of trouble,” he added with a chuckle.