by Kari Cordis
Suddenly, Banion let out an enormous roar of warning. Ari swiveled to look at him and his gaze snagged on what was undoubtedly the cause; plunging right toward them at an unbelievable speed was a whole tree, root system clawing the air. It was almost a dozen yards long, and by some misfortune, they were traveling through an area open enough for it to float almost unimpeded. One of the two Whiteblade boats upstream from them aimed right toward it, suicidally trying to block it. A whirl in the quite powerful current caught them—or it—and twisted the two apart. Which was a relief for the watching Northerners, but didn’t solve the problem rushing toward them.
“Cut the ropes!” Ari heard Dorian screaming faintly. Of course. So they didn’t all go down. Frantically, he disentangled his axe, feeling like he had 25 thumbs. He took a good swipe, hoping the razor sharp edge would part the rope with just one—and missed completely. Appalled, he set the edge of the blade right against it and began to saw frantically. Banion was shouting at him to hurry, Cerise was staring unmoving just a few feet from him, her eyes fixed in horror on the arboreal death sweeping towards them, and beyond them, Melkin’s face was fierce as his rope parted under his blade.
Finally, Ari was through and almost instantly the boat behind sprang away, Banion roaring like the entire forces of the Stone were going to battle. Huge muscles rolling under his soaked tunic, he projected himself and Cerise over the water like a catapult—Ari couldn’t believe the raw power, or the speed. For a moment, he was reminded so strongly of the Seawolves on the Merranic Fleet Sloop that it seemed perfectly right and proper for the little canoe to ram itself full into that log.
Banion did not spring from the greatest seafarers in the Realms for nothing, though, and this was no heroic suicide run. He’d hit the tree, floating lethally broadside, at such an angle that the current caught it, straightening it, and reducing the size of the missile hurtling toward them so that the newly mobile canoes could, with a bit of scrambling, avoid it.
Ari sent up a great, roaring cheer, and heard Loren take it up behind him. He waved his paddle triumphantly at Banion, but the local hero was facing another attack—this one from a furious, reenergized Cerise. It was impossible to hear what she was saying, but it probably had something to do with using her seat as a battering ram.
Fortunately, it was one of the quieter spells, when the squalls died down, and Dorian got them all together and with considerable difficulty tied back together again. And they went on. Rowing and rowing and rowing and endlessly rowing. Ari had once thought he could row forever. It was so effortless, and with his big shoulders he had just never once gotten tired doing it. By afternoon, his deltoids were on fire, cramping so badly he didn’t know how he was going to go on. Traive kept up a killing pace in front of him, grabbing at the roiling water with his oars, and only Ari’s pride in keeping the rope between them more slack than tight was keeping him going.
Fortunately, there were plenty of adrenaline-producing distractions that helped keep his mind off the discomfort. Large water-borne missiles became the norm as the day stretched on. The winds and rain worsened and grew somehow wilder still. The two Whiteblade canoes upstream moved farther out, to intercept more of the large-scale debris, but the current made for a capricious field—there was still plenty that slipped through or whisked in from the sides.
They were so busy trying to stay alive that they didn’t notice until several hours afterwards that night had fallen and that they were back to full dependence on the torches. It was brought to mind by Dorian passing out replacements from her pile. And the nightmare went on. And the chaos continued. And Ari began to wonder if it were the end of the world, or at least if there would ever be another world than this one…this rain-soaked wind-torn tree-tossing ever-twilight world of screaming turmoil.
He couldn’t remember when there had been peace. He couldn’t remember the sound that silence made. He couldn’t remember when his shoulders hadn’t ached, though in truth they were so far beyond pain now that he could barely feel them. Were it not that somebody kept moving the hands on his oars he would have assumed they’d fallen off. The party hadn’t even taken a moment to eat for over twenty-four hours, and not only was the hunger another ache in his body, but he was getting lightheaded.
His mind began to drift. He warded off rats and half-drowned birds reflexively, kept rowing because that’s all he’d ever done…for as long as he could remember, he was pretty sure he’d been rowing. Hours passed. Days, years, for all he knew. And gradually, his dulled mind became aware, again, of that greater Presence, of Something Out There that was aware of him. It was like he was lying out under the stars again, his mind overwhelmed by the majesty all around him, only this was a quieter, deeper kind of feeling. He didn’t have the energy for euphoria. But in his utter weariness, he could see, in a sense. See all of them down below, as if he’d been pulled up into the heart of the storm. They were so…little. In that entire great, deadly, swirling maelstrom, they were specks. Why, why had they not been killed? The chances were all against their survival, but that didn’t seem to matter. Because a different surety was growing in his mind now, the same certainty he’d had the morning they’d found Cyrrh’s only spot of forbidden real estate. They were being watched over, protected…and cared for.
An eternity passed. He began to notice something. He could see his feet. They’d been missing for hours, swathed in black. He’d even tried moving them just to see if maybe he’d left them someplace. But now here they were, growing clearer by the minute right at the end of his legs where they belonged.
It was getting light. Blearily he looked around. Not much had changed, except that sometime in the night the rain had stopped. The local environment was still plenty frisky. Dorian was looking at him closely and he spent a minute gazing at her. She was glorious, luminous. She had risked—what?—on their behalf; it was indisputable that the Whiteblades would have been far ahead by now if they weren’t baby-sitting them. The new warmth in his heart opened his eyes. He gave her a dewy look, trying to convey his gratitude, how wonderful she was, how wonderful they all were. She blinked at him, her eyebrows arching into her hairline. Shaking her head in concern, she turned back around.
Another infinity passed. He may have still been rowing. He was sort of losing touch with himself. The gloomy shadows of this never-ending world could have been dawn or dusk or anytime in between. The storm-tossed trees and water all around could have changed slightly or might have been this way since the Upheaval. Maybe this was the Upheaval, or another one—
This rather unproductive train of thought was broken by an event that had not happened in ages. Maybe never. The light around them grew bright, then yellowish. Ari looked around stupidly. It was everywhere. He looked at Dorian for an explanation. She was directing Traive, scouting while Kai spelled him at the oars, between some very close-growing trees. And then, he suddenly realized what it was.
The sun was out.
And Traive had jumped out on dry land and was pulling his canoe up and out of the way. Ari came back to himself with a start. They were here? They had made it? Disbelieving, he forced shoulders suddenly very much in agony just a couple yards farther, then Dorian leaped light as a gazelle off the prow and Kai pulled him in. Traive wearily helped him up, which was fortunate because his feet, in their wandering out of his consciousness, had forgotten how to do some of their required functions. Stiff-legged, he walked up the sunny trail a short space—and collapsed.
Dimly, he was aware Rodge, then Loren, had joined him. He was face down with a vague rapture in the dirt, so he didn’t really see them. Dirt. Not water, not even mud. Just good, stable, dependable earth. You could plant in dirt. You could walk on it. Run on it, ride horses, dance on it. He sighed happily and, biting his lip against the blades of pain in his shoulders, laboriously rolled over. Everyone had made it. Some of them were squatting wearily, rifling through the dripping saddle bags for something to eat. Dorian sat lithely on her haunches, fixing her glowing yellow hair wit
h movements common to women everywhere. It was so normal, so comfortable; he could have watched her for hours.
“Well,” Traive said conversationally, “I guess we didn’t quite beat the monsoons.”
Rodge groaned. “Don’t even mention anything that has to do with rain. Or water. At least for a day,” he pleaded thickly.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” Cerise said weakly. “It’s enough to make you believe in Il.” Which was such a novelty of phrasing that even Kai looked over at her.
Banion, the only one standing, was rubbing the back of his neck and wincing. His hair was doing tremendous things all around his head, making him look wild and indestructible. He rumbled sadly, “If someone handed me a beer, I’d drink it.”
“Well,” a sprightly voice said, “we don’t have any beer, but how about a nice draught of cool, fresh spring water?”
And there, unbelievably bright, refreshing, and gorgeously alive, were Brook and Adama with their horses. Rodge lifted his head off the ground, gazing hazily at the two. “I’m dead,” he murmured with throbbing, weary joy.
“No, but you’ll feel like you should be when you wake up tomorrow,” Brook told him.
They passed around fresh venison, still warm from some fireplace, and Ari devoured it. He had never been so hungry in his life. They guzzled water like they’d been in the desert rather than drenched by rain for days on end.
“Let’s move away from the Swamp,” Dorian said, eliciting something approaching enthusiasm. “Camp’s set up just at the top of this hill.”
They should have realized the deception behind this when they were helped to mount up. The ugly truth was that ‘the top of the hill’ was two hours’ steep ride. But, then, all they had to do was sit there—except poor Kai—and most of them managed that without troubling too much about staying conscious. There was no sign of the other Whiteblades.
It was evening when they walked into Camp, and what a beautiful camp it was. There was lush, green grass, a warm, gentle wind blowing under a sky glowing with the rays of the setting sun, a cookfire over in one corner of the big meadow. It held a simmering pot that was wafting delicious aromas their way, and a great, collective sigh consumed the group. The days of darkness were over. They’d reached paradise.
Dorian paused as they all dismounted, saying clearly into the shimmering evening air, “Thank you, Lord Il, for Thy deliverance. Ill we deserve it, lavishly you grant it.” No one objected.
“Rest now,” she said, looking even more noble than usual in the vivid light. “We’ll stay here a day.”
“I am glad,” Rodge said thickly to her back as she walked away, “that you now realize there are things more important than time schedules.”
“The rush is over,” Traive said drolly. “The deadline’s been met—or missed, depending on your view of the past few days.”
Imperial General Androssan strode fiercely down the wide corridors of the Palace, his heels thundering as his knee-high boots consumed the marble flooring. He was furious, guts churning with horror and anxiety, and, in a tiny little corner, a blossom of hope. Terrible hope, for coming at such a price it could still easily amount to nothing.
He had been outfoxed at every turn by the Council. It hadn’t taken them long once they got back from Crossing to ferret out that he was standing the Armies up. It probably hadn’t helped that they had not been invited to partake of the process, and it was doubtless as much vengeance on Sable as anything that was making them so obstructive. In the end, it hardly mattered why. They could not countermand a direct order from the Queen, but they could refuse to pass the laws to supply, outfit, and house the Armies. He could muster the men and order them to fight…but they’d be doing it on empty stomachs, naked, with no way to get out of the winter weather.
He’d been arguing for weeks now, calling in every favor he had in the wings and parching his throat pleading in the Council Chamber, but was making about as much headway as a skinny private arm-wrestling a Fleetman. He just didn’t have enough political muscle to even get the attention of the Council.
And then…then this. His stomach jumped again, nauseous with dread. Yesterday, Lieutenant Waylan, whom he’d sent with the Queen’s entourage to the Ramparts to get a feel for the Aerach military, had returned. He and a rillian, a captain in the Aerach cavalry, had made it to Archemounte from the Ramparts in three unbelievable weeks. Even with a change of horses, that was so killing a pace as to border on the fantastic. But even more so was the news they brought with them.
The Queen of the North had been taken. Captured by the Enemy. It was almost beyond comprehension. The Rach had had tears in his eyes telling the Council, obviously as horrified as any of them. It was an unimaginable political embarrassment to lose a visiting Monarch, but the youngster had had such a potent sorrow at the personal loss that Androssan found himself consoling him outside the Council Chamber.
There had been a night’s frantic discussion while the Council tried to figure out what to do. The Rach, of course, had already sent out a search party, and Androssan privately doubted that the North could do anything more militarily effective than their Realmsmen on the Sheel. But that was a private thought—he planned to make just the opposite opinion very, very public in a short time.
People had been scurrying out of his way ever since he entered the Palace, and now as he approached the Council Chamber, the two guards manning the big double doors took one look at his face and leapt to open them. That made for a nice, theatrically bold entrance, to be able to stride at full speed right up to the Petitioner’s Stand. He looked around, eagle-eyed, as he gained the Stand, and smiled grimly to himself. Funny how politicians descried the military, belittling them as old-fashioned and unnecessary—until violence threatened or bold decisions needed to be made.
Unfortunately, this didn’t apply to all of them. Most of the faces were pasty and worried, the eyes dilated and baggy from lack of sleep, but a few—including the Prime’s—were as sleek and controlled as ever. It was hardly novel to have a Northern politician that would use virtually any situation for political gain, but it didn’t make Androssan despise them any less.
Channing, determined to take control of the discussion before Androssan could, banged his gavel importantly at his Prime Councilor seat at the head of the table. “We are gathered here, General Androssan, to discuss the deeply disturbing tidings brought to us by the Rach yesterday,” he began in such affected, stentorian tones that Androssan wanted to stuff that gavel down his self-important throat. As if perhaps the Imperial General was unaware they’d been in council almost without pause since the messenger had arrived, and had just sort of accidentally wandered into the Council chambers.
“There is nothing more to discuss,” Androssan said in his boldest parade-ground voice, neatly taking over. “It is for us to decide now what to do with this grievous news.” It was a measure of the rampant distress in the room that every face but Channing’s turned eagerly toward him. The Prime narrowed his eyes, darting them around the table at this loss of attention. “And now is the time to ready the Armies.”
There was no pleading here. He set his voice on full command volume—this was the only chance he might have, even if it was afforded by the worst possible circumstances. “We will muster, arm, and supply the Forces, and will move south as soon as we can possibly be ready. Hopefully,” he added for their sakes, entertaining no such idea, “this can be settled diplomatically. If not, we will be there to encourage such resolution and to follow it up with whatever is necessary to return our Queen to her throne.” His voice thundered through the big room and several councilmen nodded approvingly. Even more of them looked relieved just to have a plan—any plan.
For a moment, the thought hung in the air, then Channing spoke, cool and slimy as an eel, to Androssan’s ear. “My dear General. It is senseless to go rushing about putting Armies together and moving them all over the Empire without knowing what’s going on. We need much more information before we can m
ake a decision, especially one of that nature. It is never effective to fight violence with violence. We are not thoughtless savages to swing reflexively at a stray arrow.”
His eloquent, persuasive voice turned undecided heads back toward him and Androssan felt his guts clench with disgust. If the Enemy were battering at the remnants of the Eastern Gate that man would prefer the Empire to be helpless so long as he could keep political control. As long as he could convince people—
People. The people. Androssan’s mind flung itself on a new thought, and he lasered his attention back to the table. One Councilor was saying, a little wildly, “It is the Queen, Channing—we must do something. To stand the Armies up is a sign of action, even if we do nothing with them.”
“I tell you,” the Prime said with a little laugh, as if soothing upset children, “it is undignified to hurry into preparations with no plan in front of us. Do you not think the people will see these actions for what they are? Blind panic! How is that to send a message of comfort or competence?”
“But,” Androssan interrupted shrewdly, allowing his face to frown as if troubled, “We cannot crowd the people of Archemounte all winter with soldiers.” Eyes bulged around the table; one Councilman grabbed the edge as if to steady himself. Channing looked at him like he’d lost his mind, but it was the table-grabber that said, appalled, “You cannot billet the Army in Archemounte!”
Androssan looked confused. “But if you are talking of ‘unhurried preparations’…why, that could mean months before the soldiers could be provided tents and food. They can’t survive anywhere but in town.” He shrugged helplessly, as if to say, what’s a General to do?