The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1)

by Kari Cordis

  Sable’s eyebrows rose with several others, and the room went quiet, bemused at the improbable picture those words conjured. Channing made a derisive sound behind her. Not only did he look like a wedding cake, but he was making rather fanciful claims as well—though, they had seen the gryphons. Her mind balked. Well, if they could exist, then it seemed a little churlish to deny they could fly…a sky full of gryphons, she thought in wonder.

  Smoothly, the musical voice continued. “We have noticed the mountains of the Dragons’ Lairs have begun to smoke,” he said ominously, and she blinked rapidly. Dragonslairs, Dragonslairs—she was sure she would have remembered that on a map. Where were they? Hoping Channing would keep his mouth shut, she was formulating a tactfully un-ignorant question to pry this out when Khrieg said:

  “This is not volcanic activity. When the Lairs smoke, it is because what lives in them…begins to stir.” There was such dread in his face and voice that Sable felt a shiver of alarm, without having the least idea of what they were talking about.

  “And what stirs in them?” Channing drawled, preempting her. Again, a slurry of irritated looks were thrown his way, but it was no Council that answered this time. Kindhriada simply sat, staring placidly at her slender hands in her lap, absently twisting a ring.

  The Skylord didn’t appear to have any expectations of her, nor did the question seem to surprise him. “We do not know how many dragons still live. If they are dragons, they have been in hibernation all these long centuries. Who knows in what shape they may enter this war, or even if they are vital enough to do more than roll over and return to moribund slumber?”

  Sable narrowed her eyes, feeling there were several unaccepted premises here.

  “I hear more questions than answers there,” Channing remarked, with a touch of impatience. Councilmen, in general, were not very enthusiastic about the whole concept that had initiated the Kingsmeet, and to have to decode these flowery and abstract answers wasn’t helping the situation any.

  Khrieg fixed him with a cool eye and for a minute wisdom glinted out from the background of sorrow. “Cyrrh is not a land for graphs and charts and percentages, Council. There is little of certainty in her, and nothing that is absolute. The Lairs have always been the home of Raemon’s devil worms, and they alone have ever made the sign we call ‘smoke.’ And though it is true that they hibernate, no one knows for how long this is possible. It is difficult to do studies on a creature so intolerant of man’s presence.”

  Before Channing could respond, Khrieg turned back to the Talon Chief. “Please continue, Silmeander.”

  “My Lord. I realize this evidence seems scant,” he began again, and Sable thought distractedly, among other things. “But I will add that having served as a Taloner for many years and having been around gryphons for most of my life, I have seen only one thing that gryphons react to as strongly as they do gems and shiny things. That is anything to do with dragons. The way my Talon responded to the sky around the Lairs is the same as they do to the old dragon hides used for training. It is…unmistakable. Also, gryphons fear nothing—not even fire, which all wild things are afraid of—but they would not enter the Lairs.”

  The Rach were nodding in understanding. Sable, wide-eyed, spared them a glance before deciding she was just going to store this information for now. She would think about it later. Perhaps wine would help.

  “One last thing,” the Chief Taloner said pitilessly. “Like the Warwolves and Mohrgs, our gryphons, too are showing abnormal behavior patterns. They are restless in sleep, twitching and making sounds of excitement. Some who have been tamed from birth, born in the eyries, even, are chewing at their jesses. Those that capture the wild gryphons say they are wilier than ever, hiding their clutches with even more care than normal, and so easily startled that we’ve had no success for years now bringing in wild ones or eggs.” The flow of words paused, then ended simply, “That is all, my Lords.”

  He stepped lightly back up and resumed his seat, and a rather helpless silence filled the room. What did one say to that? Sable had thought Kane was exaggerating to make his point all those weeks ago in her throne room. Her head was beginning to ache and she would have liked nothing better than to rub a temple, but Khrieg was saying something apologetically.

  “…all there is. Though it doubtless means little to all of you, for Cyrrh this is a dread portent. The dragons wrought much devastation in their day, and the mere remembrance of that time is enough to drive our spirits into despair.”

  Despair. Great, Sable thought a little weakly. One Realm ready to give up before they even knew there was a war—with a half-comatose teenage girl as heir to the throne—and another ready to tear apart its highest source of scientific knowledge over a religious squabble. Her Council wasn’t looking so formidable after all.

  Then she met Rach Kyr’s eyes across the table. Her spirits lifted a little. He was not pleased either, but there was not an ounce of submission in that fierce, hawk-like face.

  His strong voice broke into the silence with a quiet, resonant vibe of energy that made even Khrieg’s old white head pick up. “Like our brothers in Cyrrh, the Rach, too, are not men of science or culture or learning or even great cleverness. We do not know facts and figures and logic, or skills of the quill and parchment. We are men of instinct and feeling, and what we do know…is the Sheel. And the Tarq it spawns.”

  Every eye was on him, drawn to something magnetic in his voice—it was like hearing the sound of sanity in an asylum of the mentally ill-at-ease.

  “We know this. That almost 3000 years ago, Rach Kyle, forsaken by the gods, reached the lips of the Sheel and made his stand. We know that we have fought the Enemy from that very day—’til this. And we know that for the past three months we have not seen so much as a thread from a Tarq headcloth. The Sheel is as silent as a tomb.”

  The room was breathless, entranced. He could have been a professional storyteller, the style utterly different from the technical oration taught in University. Unfortunately, Channing—whom Sable was really beginning to regret the existence of—decided now was a good time for some Northern sense.

  “So, you’re upset that not only is there no war, but there’s no Enemy,” he hazarded sarcastically.

  Kyr’s eyes bored into his like hot coals, but it was Kore, nostrils flaring and eyes flashing, who snapped, “You misunderstand, Northerner. The Enemy is not gone. It is gathering!”

  Sinister as an uncoiling snake, that specter reared suddenly into all their minds. Sable swallowed, hard.

  Channing, many times more skeptical and nowhere near as prudent, demanded with open scorn, “And how do you know that? Did it ever occur to you that perhaps they tire of war as we have, perhaps have better things to do? Are you such warmongers that you cannot accept peace when it is given you?”

  Infuriated, Kore half-rose to his feet and in a snarl, almost shouted, “Blind bureaucrat! You wax poetic about something you know nothing about! You have never even seen a Tarq, never watched them cut down your mates and loved ones, never seen them torch your horses as they lay screaming and injured in the bloody sand—yet you assume in your arrogance that they are men of reason and sensitivity, to be ‘understood’ and pitied!”

  “Well,” Kore spat, “we do know them. We know their tactics, we know their cruelty, we know what is in their black hearts. We know the way they think, reason, plan, what they eat, how often they drink on patrol, their favorite piece of horsemeat. We can tell what they had for breakfast from their filth and track them across blowing sand for hours. We can tell you how many wait behind the next sand dune by smelling the breeze and which one is their leader without even stripping off their headcloths. We’ve spent generation of lives getting to know them…AND WE KNOW THEY WILL NEVER, EVER STOP! If they have paused in their attacks, it is because they are mustering their forces!” The lean chest heaved under his vest, his eyes brimming with passionate anger.

  There was a little pause as everyone digested this, recovering f
rom the onslaught of images. But Sable knew what was coming, knew that in the North, such excitability was a sign of weakness, that Channing, gloating, was merely sharpening his predatory claws. It helped that he was unburdened with respect for—well, anyone not in Northern government, actually. And she could do nothing to stop him.

  Very collectedly, as she knew he would be, he said with maddening self-satisfaction, “Splendid, splendid. Well, as we’re all here to learn from each other, please correct this shocking gap in our education. What do they look like, since they all wear headcloths? What do they smell like? And what do they eat for breakfast?”

  Sable wasn’t sure the Rach were cynical enough to catch the subtle sarcasm, but her doubts faded as Kore’s face contorted with rage. His voice was furious disbelief as he shouted across at him, “What do they look like? What do they LOOK like???” Beside him, Kyr sat silent, eyes cold and black as obsidian.

  “They look like THAT!” and Kore flung out a muscled brown arm, jabbing a finger…right at Ari.

  Everyone turned curiously, even Kindhriada bestirring herself. Sable frowned. That was her subject the hot-headed Rach was pointing at. Young Ari sat Dra-faced under all the attention, but she could see the pale look of shock glimmering just underneath, the firm lips pressed into a narrow line. She took the opportunity to spin around and scorch Channing with a glare of unmistakable meaning. She didn’t officially have the authority to shut him up, but she was well aware of the power of a well-aimed murderous look or two. He huffed.

  “This is deeply disturbing,” she said into the distracted silence, in a sort of diplomatic distress. Everyone turned back to the table and the direction the two Rach had never wandered from. Kyr’s eyes fixed avidly on her face and she felt her cheeks heat. Horrified, she continued in a rush, “Though the depth of your knowledge is a great comfort, your words bring much uneasiness.”

  Kore settled slowly back into his seat, face smoothing like sand being cleared by the wind, young eyes settling raptly on her glowing face. But it was Kyr that answered her and the room was again caught up in his powerful voice.

  “You speak rightly, Sister. There is no room, at the mouth of the Sheel, to run from reality, and when we see the Phoenix arcing fire on the far night horizon…we have no doubt that Raemon is rising again.”

  The Phoenix. Yes. Wasn’t that some sort of firebird? She was pretty sure it fell soundly into the arena of myth. She smiled tactfully. Behind the Rach, she saw servants beginning to gather and the Head Steward of the Meet gave her a nod.

  She cleared her throat, feeling her stomach rumble at the thought of food. “Before we break for lunch, there is one last topic, my Brothers, I would lay before you. In Addah, Master Melkin was told of a Statue, a likeness of the Empress, whose story is interwoven with the Five Hundred Years of Peace. According to his source, an Illian Shepherd, if that statue is found by the Sheelmen, its destruction will release Raemon. Do any of you have word of this in your Histories?”

  She waited. No one spoke for several seconds and she began to feel a little foolish. Despite the rampant Mohrgs and gryphons and dragons and one phoenix that had been trotted out in the last few hours, fairytales still didn’t come easily out of any self-respecting Northern mouth.

  Then Khrieg said slowly, “That Statue once stood in Archemounte, did it not?”

  Her face brightened. “Yes, so the Shepherd claimed, though we have no record of it. You’ve heard of this, then? Do you know of its whereabouts? Where it was taken? Melkin was given instruction to hunt for it in Cyrrh by a, er, Whiteblade.”

  “Then you must come to Cyrrh,” Khrieg said expansively. Her face fell. “We will do everything in our power to aid you,” he told the Wolfmaster.

  “Very kind,” Sable murmured disconsolately.

  Kyr, musing across the table, said thoughtfully, “If it is not found in Cyrrh, perhaps we should mount a force and search Zkag…many of the omens discussed today suggest Raemon may be very near free, if not already. Perhaps the Tarq already have it.”

  This was greeted with astonishment from around the room, some of the spectators even crying out. Sable’s mind raced. Zkag. What was that? Where had she heard that? Trying to keep up with all these stories was making her dizzy.

  “The Sheelshard??!” Kane bellowed in amazement, helpfully, and the light clicked on in her tired, hungry little mind. The ’Shard. The legendary home of the Enemy, hidden somewhere deep in the Sheel. Convenient for the purposes of storytale plots, it had never been found, despite the pages’ worth of effort by Great and Lesser Heroes.

  Kyr’s bright eyes met Kane’s. “We think we may have found it, or at least the path to it.”

  Khrieg exclaimed wordlessly.

  “I thought it was legend…” Kane said wonderingly. Me, too, Sable echoed in wry silence. They were nothing but overgrown boys, all of them.

  “It may be,” Kyr admitted, looking so endearingly sheepish that Sable had to fight the sudden impulse to give him a warm and very un-royal smile. “But they have to live somewhere.”

  Kane grinned at him wolfishly. “That they do.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The bottom had fallen out of Ari’s world.

  He rode along numbly, mind like a lump of wet dough. Around him, the rest of the party laughed and talked, the brown gelding frisked energetically, and the hot summer sun burnished the world. But Ari felt nothing, a shadow of nerveless, unthinking disbelief.

  Rodge and Loren, with the bracing commiseration of eighteen-year-old males, had clapped him on the shoulder right afterwards and murmured, “That rots…” Loren, to his horror, had tried to start a conversation with, “Well, you’ve always wondered about your parents—maybe one of them had some Enemy blood…” Ari had hastily changed the subject.

  Cerise, indeed devastated that she hadn’t been called to the ’Meet, had to hear about everything, wanted to know every inflection of every voice, how people looked, what they said, who sided with whom. Rodge and Loren obligingly rambled on—and on and on—as the horses ambled away from Crossing on virtually deserted roads.

  Rodge said, early in the dialogue, “You would have been in misery, Cerise. The most ridiculous things were said in that room—in complete seriousness. They say Cyrrhideans indulge in mind-altering substances, and I believe it. While on gryphon patrol one day, a Taloner saw ‘smoke rising from the dragon’s lair!’ But no one seemed to know if there was a dragon there or not, and if he was, well, we could pretty much all go home, ‘cuz it was all over.”

  “Oh!” Loren cut in, with remembered hilarity, “They’ve found the Sheelshard!”

  “And Ari’s a Sheelman!” Rodge chortled, right on top of him.

  Ari’s heart, heavy as a rock in his chest, sank to somewhere around his kneecaps. Cerise looked at him sharply and he affected a casual shrug.

  “The Rach think he looks like the Enemy,” Loren rolled his eyes, elaborating as it became apparent they had momentarily lost her attention. She looked at Ari consideringly, and for a second, her sharp features softened so that she was almost pretty. “Don’t let it get to you. They’re ignorant savages that can barely see beyond the ends of their sabres.”

  He blinked. She turned her attention back to the recital and he gave himself a mental shake. There’d been times she’d been almost human in the last few weeks—ever since they’d gotten off the Merranic Warsloop. He figured she’d probably eaten some humble pie somewhere on that trip—or brought some up, more likely.

  They rode through the long summer days, each more endless than the last. He was vaguely aware that his surroundings were beautiful, back amongst the trees again, and the road empty of traffic. Everyone was still at the Kingsmeet, which would go on for several more days.

  Like in the north, the countryside here grew more forested the closer one drew to Cyrrh, and the Daroe was lined now with huge, drooping willows and leafy cottonwoods. Increasingly, they passed through wooded glens where great oaks and maples, ash and beech, filtered the ho
t sun off their burning heads. Ari was aware of it only for the sense of concealment it offered. He felt, frankly, like the lowest point in a barnyard, where all the mud and manure and unmentionables pool. A cowardly part of him longed for the recent days of blissful ignorance—how could so much change in a few seconds?

  All his life he’d known he was different, for his coloring, for the fact that he was an orphan; he’d wiled away hours wondering who his parents were and what his story was…especially lately. Now that void was doubly deep, triply dark, and with no happy endings even possible anymore. The practical Northern part of him, of course, was unhappy—Imperials didn’t like puzzles and complications. It interfered with business. But the worst part by far was this new knowledge…this vicious dagger digging around in the black hole of his past. He had Sheelman blood. Tarq. The Enemy. A race of the cruelest, most violent, heinous men known to mankind. He was the embodiment of evil, to the casual observer.

  Melkin sought him out one afternoon by the banks of the Daroe. They’d taken to stopping in the shade during the blistering heat of midday, then riding late into the night. Under the stark shadow of a big willow, the Wolfmaster came and squatted down by him. Grizzled hair showed out of the blouse at his neck, and his harsh voice was quiet and low.

  “There’re some things we should probably talk about.”

  Ari stared, unseeing, out at the rippling river. “You knew,” he said dully.

  “No,” Melkin denied it. “But I suspected. When there wasn’t any other reason for that intruder in your boys’ room, it started to make me suspicious. No one’s seen Enemy in the North since Montmorency, but in the writings they’re always dark people…with ‘hair of fire’ and ‘sea-emerald eyes.’ It’s a fairly consistent description.”

  “So you just decided to drag me around all over the Realms to see if I’d break out into a killing spree?” He didn’t even have the energy to be bitter. He felt like someone had stepped on the world, squashing all the color out of it.