by Kari Cordis
“I am the Lord Regent of Cyrrh,” Traive said lightly. “I can do anything.” Melkin narrowed his eyes at him, trying to divine the meaning of that. Ari stared, too, knowing it wasn’t said in pride and a little awed that he’d become friends with such powerful people. Was he trying to say he could rule from behind the Throne?
“Tell him, Kai,” the Lord Regent drawled lazily.
Everyone else on the raft was lounging in one limp posture or another, but the Dra poised alertly, squatting on his long, steel-strong legs. Even as he spoke, his eyes roved watchfully over the scenery drifting by.
“Cyrrh must stand for the war, when it comes.” His impressive voice rolled incongruously out of the quiet bronze planes of his face. “But she must stand united.”
Melkin shifted his glance to him while Traive expounded, quite serious now, “A fight for the Crown of Leaves would mean Civil War. That would destroy Lirralhisa, weaken the Torques as Sentinels were pulled back to the Ring, and cripple Cyrrh to the point that she’d have barely more protection than when Khristophe made camp at the feet of the Seven Falls.” He shook his head. “It cannot be.”
“Can’t you force Kindri to marry?” Melkin muttered darkly, taking a different tack.
“That would solve everything,” Traive agreed. “Her issue would be the only uncontested claimant to the Throne.”
“It’s impossible for a woman to rule?” Ari asked into the stretching silence. It had been happening for centuries in the Northern Empire. Traive, heavy-lidded, half chuckled.
“You’ve seen our women—would you place any of them in harm’s way? No,” he brooded, “even if she would take the Crown, which she wouldn’t, I’m not sure she’d do any better than her father like she is…and we can’t force her off dasht. On dasht, we can’t even get her to focus long enough to consider a suitor,” he added wryly.
“If it came right down to it, and Khrieg fell,” Melkin ground out like he was spitting nails, “What are the options? Who can lead this flaming Realm if it’s got to face the Enemy?”
“Krachelian,” Traive said, after musing a moment. “A cousin of Khrieg’s, a Fox. It’s not the Cyrrhidean way to put oneself forward, but he would modestly accept the position if he could wrangle himself into the nomination. He’s the most direct in line after Kindri, but Laschald doesn’t like him.”
Ari’s red eyebrows rose. Was Marek the only god not intimately involved with his Realm’s political maneuverings?
Melkin’s feral eyes glinted with curiosity and Traive responded, “Too driven. Got enough ambition to be a Northerner.” He winked at Ari.
A started yelp from behind Ari turned everyone’s head. Loren and Rodge and Cerise, who’d been limply sub-cognizant on the other side of the raft, were all wide-awake now, staring at a tiny monkey-looking thing in their midst. It was a glossy dark brown and gold, with big, expressive eyes that were looking around at them all with perky simian interest.
“Aw,” Loren said, as it sat there posing cutely with one little paw-hand up.
“Don’t play with those,” Melkin called out irritably.
Loren answered happily, “It’d be nice if there was one friendly, harmless thing in this whole blasted jungle.”
Suddenly the creature leaped into action, bounding forward to snatch the banana Rodge had pulled from one of the boxes.
An immediate struggle commenced, even though the whole purpose of the banana had been to give it to the monkey. That was far different than having it taken, however, and Rodge, though he fell back with a cry of revulsion as the little thing morphed into a shrieking demon of flashing teeth and scrabbling hands and feet, wasn’t about to let go. A Northerner never gives up his goods.
The little monkey yowled shrilly, Rodge threw insults and struggled to hang on to his fruit, and Loren rolled, howling with laughter.
Cerise’s voice, icy with derision, made itself heard over the ruckus, “You’re arguing with a primate. And losing.”
Another one of the creatures whisked into the raft by the group around Traive, having the misfortune to land too close to Kai. The Dra, without even rising, shot out a leg and spiked it out of the raft.
“Better to leave the wildlife alone,” Traive advised the howling circus across from them. “People have lost limbs from festered tamarin bites.”
Loren sobered at that, and grabbing his trusty Cyrrhidean axe, made a lunge for the little ball of belligerence accosting Rodge’s banana.
Screaming in outrage—much louder than his little friend who’d had such an abrupt relationship with Kai’s boot—the creature fled, pausing to chatter furiously at them from the safety of the raft walls for a moment before swinging back up into the trees.
“Then there’s Kiellorabean,” Traive said thoughtfully. “He’s immensely popular, with a circle of friends as big—and important—as the Gold Band. He’s the Jaglord now and slated to be the next Sentinalier…though traditionally that post’s almost always filled by the Captain of the Sentinels.”
“What’s he like?” Melkin demanded gruffly.
“Solid. Excellent strategist and sharp instincts.”
Melkin pursed his lips impatiently. “Would you support him?”
Traive shot him a very level look. “If he made a bid for the Throne, he would be a usurper. It would be my responsibility to shoot him.”
Melkin looked away, staring bitterly at nothing and obviously thinking jagged thoughts. Traive gazed pensively at his boots and Kai squatted motionless, face inscrutable. Uneasily, Ari looked around at their silent faces, worrying about this jewel of a Realm and its uncertain and possibly violent future.
The moon was out early that night, but its soft silver glow faded quickly. Lowering cloud cover, bruised and thunderous, moved in, and lightning flashed in the little bit of open sky visible through the trees. Expecting the inevitable downpour, the travelers drifted back under cover from the tiny open space at the bow where they aired themselves out, but it wasn’t long before the ceaseless bickering drove Ari back out again. He’d risk the weather.
Kai was out there, too, standing lone sentinel at the prow, and Ari settled next to him on the railing at a distance that would have had most men sweating freely. From behind him, over the rushing wind and heavy swaying of the jungle growth, he heard Rodge’s sneering voice, “…now he’s too good for us…”
Kai pointed suddenly off to the right, a shockingly companionable gesture, and Ari looked obediently to cover his surprise. He grimaced, hand dropping instantly to the axe they all carried now. The Dra cautioned him wordlessly against throwing it, his fingers like wrought iron on Ari’s wrist.
So Ari forced himself to watch, motionless, as the huge man-shape on the bank continued its hunt; the prey was some kind of turkey-looking bird—a short-lived one, for it soon had its scrawny neck broken in chillingly human-like hands. The dark and the thrashing trees made the creature even more frightful, a hair-covered, misshapen, human-looking ogre. It turned to look right at them, baring enormous fangs and throwing the big, heavy-looking bird effortlessly over one shoulder. Ari felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up.
“Redfang,” he said, as sickly certain as if it had had a label attached. He didn’t think he’d ever forget that malignant, intelligent glance, adding unpleasantly to the revulsion and terror of his first experience with the beasts—the chase into Choletta Tor.
“Young male,” Kai said, deep voice reverberating over the growing sound of the storm. “Probably kicked out of the troop.”
“Why didn’t you let me kill him?” Ari said, skin still crawling just at seeing the thing.
“He wasn’t threatening us.”
“It was a Redfang—if that doesn’t make him a menace, what does?”
“There are many things dangerous to man that won’t harm him if unprovoked.” Ari looked at him quizzically; that seemed pretty philosophical for a cold-blooded killer.
Kai shrugged, rolling his brown shoulders. Spats of rain were starting to
show on them. “Redfangs rarely attack unless they’re in a group. The young males are unpredictable, but they’re out looking for females. If left alone, they’ll usually mind their own business.”
Ari stared. “But…Redfangs.”
He hardly expected an answer. He couldn’t believe Kai’d been as talkative as he had; it was even more shocking when he murmured, “It’s a long enough road to walk with real enemies. To spin death at every possible one makes it endless.”
The deluge never came. It would be a stretch of the imagination to say he spent the night in conversation with the Dra, but it was companionable. Kai didn’t care what he was…and of all of them, he alone knew what it meant to be outcast.
“Well, at least he shaved and cleaned himself up for us,” Rodge remarked. Banion loomed, large and dependable and possibly hairier than ever, on the slowly approaching bank. Now, just as their impatience to be reunited was mounting, the Siren seemed to have lost every last bit of energy. They drifted with agonizing slowness down towards the rough dock, a double agony for Ari because it gave time for Rodge’s comment to sink in.
Everything had changed since the last time he’d seen Banion. Rodge and Loren had let their own version of beards grow out several times over the past weeks. Ari had stayed as smooth-cheeked as ever, no razor needed. Just one more reminder of the gulf of difference separating them. He stared at Banion with a faint despair. How was he going to react to him now—now that the Rach at the Kingsmeet had identified him as a Sheelman? With all that hearty Merranic prejudice against the Enemy bouncing around inside his matted chest, would he greet Ari with a hard, cold look? Would the lip curl with distrust and dislike under the heavy beard, one of those enormous shoulders turn coldly to him?
Banion, who’d been roaring a greeting for several minutes, sending all kinds of alarmed bird life winging away from the thinning jungle around them, now caught the bow rope Traive tossed to him. Single-handedly, he began towing in their cumbersome vessel, beefy self leaning back against the weight without pausing his cheerful vocal commentary at all.
Ari squared his shoulders and lifted his chin, and when their mutant raft finally bumped up against the pilings, he took a deep breath. Stepping boldly off, he thrust out his hand to the waiting Merranic.
Who let out a bellow of delight and cried, “Ho! I see one of you’ve become a man, at least!” He happily crushed Ari’s elbow in the forearm clasp of Merrani and clipped him so proudly on the shoulder that he almost sent him into the drink.
Bruised, a little shaky, but flooded with relief, Ari stood basking in the effusive affection as the rest of the party came ashore.
Loren frowned at him as he and Rodge passed. “What, you gotta be the center of attention now? ‘Look at me, I’m jungle boy?’”
Sourly, silent, Ari walked over to the horses—Banion had brought them all down from Jagstag, it looked like—and patted his nickering brown. People were just too much trouble, he thought darkly. When this was over, he was going to disappear into the jungle and not have anything to do with any of them.
There were boisterous greetings—they’d all forgotten over the past weeks with the subdued Cyrrhideans how exuberant Merranics could be—and introductions between Traive and Banion, and then Melkin suggested, shocking no one, that they make time while there was still light.
The Jagstag Sentinels had sent a frisky white mare down for Traive, small and delicate enough she probably had some Aerach blood. She was such a brisk mover, however, that she firmly took, set, and kept the pace, nipping imperiously at Melkin’s roan when it tried to pass her.
While the age-old equine dominance game was being played out up front, the rest of them bunched up around Banion on the open trail, catching up on news. Banion, surrounded and at their mercy, was bombarded with stories of man-eating gorillas, paralysis-inducing flora, mysterious stone towers covered in a fortune of gems popping out of untrammeled jungle. Bugs, beasts, botany and the wonders of Lirralhisa, the sleep-walking Skyprincess and the shocking lack of courtly proprieties in her Palace. He heard about the gryphons, their eyries, their beaks, talons, feathers and the view from their backs. He received admonition to never travel through the Torques on stagback—as there were surely none that could carry him (that from Cerise).
He finally broke out in his booming laugh, holding up his hands in a plea for mercy. “This reminds me of my little ones when I first get home!”
“You have children?” Rodge asked in blunt astonishment.
“Oh, aye. Seven.” The Northerners exchanged glances. Loren mouthed, seven?
“That means a woman…married you?” Cerise half-asked, half-stated—with marked skepticism. “Of her own free will?”
“Ah, milady Cerise,” Banion said fondly. “How I’ve missed your sharp tongue and dull wits.” Rodge and Loren grinned, Cerise made a face, and into the temporary lull, Ari said:
“We talked to the centaurs.”
Everyone grew quiet, throwing glances at the Merranic to see what he’d say. Even Melkin turned in his saddle and met the eyes of the Jarl. They exchanged a long look before Banion rumbled softly, “Did you now?”
He glanced slyly at Rodge, then Cerise. “That must have been quite an, er, eye-opener.” No one answered that. Cerise loftily examined a cuticle.
Loren started, “They were huge. And old. And wise. And all misty-like, like you were seeing them through a dream…”
“They were clear as day,” Cerise corrected testily, “and exactly what you’d expect a creature that was part man and part horse to look like.”
“If you believed in such things,” Banion offered gravely. She heaved an aggravated sigh, choosing with remarkable will power not to respond.
“It was like being little and facing your Dad when he was mad—you didn’t want to say anything. It was quiet for so long, you didn’t think he was ever going to talk, but there’s no way you were going to say anything first,” Loren rambled on with appreciative memory.
“Fortunately for us,” Cerise muttered.
“He didn’t help us much,” Rodge said cynically, as if just realizing it. “If it hadn’t been for Ari suddenly remembering—after all these months—where the flaming Statue is, we’d still be sitting out there in the back end of nowhere waiting for that centaur to say something.”
Banion, eyes sharp as daggers, shot a quick glance at Ari, who flushed. But all the Merranic said was, “I wondered where we were headed in such a hurry.”
Loren, looking proudly at Ari, like he’d raised him up right, said, “Yeah, all this time the Statue’s been at this Illian convent, where the nuns lived that my father adopted Ari from.” Ari glanced at him, the tension between them vanished, and suddenly, they were friends again.
Ari, wishing his face would cool, looked up to see Banion’s eyes still on him. For something to say, he added, “The centaur said Raemon isn’t imprisoned anymore.”
Banion’s bushy brows shot into his bushy hair, and as if on cue, Melkin pivoted in his saddle. Their eyes met again, longer this time.
Melkin growled, “He’s ‘waiting.’ There’s still hope we can lessen the impact of his return—but we’ve got to get to the Statue first. Apparently, the Sheelmen haven’t found it yet, either.” His lips twisted cynically, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was saying all this.
“No idea, I suppose, as to what we do with it once we find it?” Banion drawled. The Master’s eyes flashed an angry answer and he swiveled back around.
The trail narrowed down then, choked by bushy undergrowth into a width only comfortable single file. The tall jungle giants that had towered over them and close, stifling wall of vines and greenery had all been fading out even the last hour or so on the Siren, and were gone by now. The river itself was barely visible, petering listlessly out into a bed of tall weeds and grasses. All around them, the sun was bright and clear, the terrain revealing itself in gentle hills to their right and the velvety green flanks of the Dragonspine rearing up on their left
.
It was bliss to be on horseback again, too, with their broad backs and easy-on-the-backside gait. Ari was probably the only one that missed the stags, missed the quivering, electric energy, the delicate legs and impossibly nimble hooves, the big, dark, beautiful eyes and the swinging, metal-tipped spines of the great, branching antlers. Mostly, he missed the exoticness, the breathless adventure that pretty much described every living moment in Cyrrh. He looked around the bland, safe landscape and sighed.
Banion hadn’t brought any Sentinels, but he hadn’t been remiss in the resupply. Everyone gathered around eagerly for lunch when he started laying out fresh chicken and chopped vegetables, bread and a skin of what smelled like pretty good wine.
Over the food, he told them his story.
“Wasn’t too much more to the ’Meet after you left. Kane and Kyr were both anxious to get back and start readying their armies—and Kane was in a lousy mood after the Mage’s performance.”
Melkin glared at him, tearing off a piece of chicken with perhaps more than necessary force. “That was an idiotic thing to do,” he growled.
Banion shrugged his massive shoulders. “Didn’t make much sense to anyone, but it hardly matters anymore. He must have made a run for it right after his testimony; the Stone Jarls couldn’t find him anywhere when we went to look. Kane had decided just to wait ‘til we got back to Merrane for the manhunt…but Kai advised him not to.” He glanced up the Dra, who ate like he did everything—deft and vigilant. “I don’t know how you knew…” Banion rumbled at him, and Kai’s dark eyes met his for a moment.
“Vangoth is not a god to be trifled with,” he said quietly. Everyone looked at him.
“Vangoth?” Melkin repeated warily. He skewered Banion with a glare.
The Jarl cleared his throat. “He never admitted anything. But when Kane went to him…well, he wasn’t exactly surprised. Not what you’d call…distraught.”
The Northerners were all paying close attention now, eyes sliding off each other’s in faint disbelief as they considered the implications floating around here. Marek would never take out one of his own people. You can’t run an efficient society with that kind of uncertainty in the air. Cerise pursed her lips in disapproval.