The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1)

by Kari Cordis

  The Prime’s face relaxed into a thinly hidden sneer. He saw Androssan’s gambit now, and saw it as weak. “We are talking,” he emphasized patronizingly, “of waiting to mobilize at all. We shall certainly discuss that, in the months to come, as an option.” He turned to the Council, as if Androssan was no longer part of the discussion and could excuse himself. “What I propose,” he said with arrogant smoothness, “is that strict silence be kept on this subject.”

  Several men started to object and he raised his elegant white hands. “Yes, I know. Such things will circulate rather irresponsibly around the public. We will accept them, face them head on, for we have nothing to hide, and discount them as rumors. The Queen, after all, might be returned at any moment.”

  Revulsion rose in Androssan’s gorge like onion stew. “The people,” he ground out, “might believe me if I tell them otherwise.”

  Channing’s eyes, suddenly hard and ugly, whipped snakelike back to his. “I am sure, General, you do not want to put yourself on the wrong side of the Council.”

  “And I am sure,” Androssan answered, forcing his voice into neutrality, “that the Council will certainly not choose this as the best course of action. After all, the power of rumor should not be underestimated. And if the Archemountans have soldiers—who are beehives of rumors—billeted with them all winter, in addition to the inconvenience of the arrangement, they’ll be inundated with talk of the Imperial Army going after their Queen. The Council will not want to be seen as not only doing nothing…but as denying there is anything to do.”

  “He is right. The Army must be outfitted and moved south.” This was one of the Councilmen (Culian, who had three teenage daughters), speaking as determinedly as Channing. Another voice rose in agreement. Androssan had the power to move the Army into town—that fact worked nightmarishly on politicians thinking of all those enraged constituents that would never reelect Councilmen responsible for such a thing.

  The General didn’t stay for the whole session. Councils were not only frustrating, boring, and a venomous pit of personal ambition, but he had work to do.

  The Imperial Armies were moving south.

  CHAPTER 30

  They were lolling about in guiltless indolence that next afternoon when a young woman strode nonchalantly into the meadow opposite them. She sauntered casually over, munching an apple with a distinctly bovine air.

  “Who are you?” she asked with her mouth half-full. The boys looked back at her a little breathlessly. All of the Whiteblades were confident, but this one carried it like a sword and shield. They could feel it approaching like a physical wall as she drew close. Melkin and Banion both narrowed their eyes and Cerise, who was trying to nap, lifted her hand off her eyes and frowned.

  “Who are they?” the girl called back over her shoulder to Jordan and Vashti at the cookfire’s cauldron.

  “They’re with Ari,” the answer floated back, and the two headed over, bowls in hand.

  The girl’s eyes went wide as her gaze settled on Ari’s.

  “Ari? Sheelfire! Little Ari? I didn’t even recognize you. How the flames are you?”

  Ari blinked. “You, uh, you have the advantage of me.” He could feel everyone’s eyes on him.

  Her face fell. She was definitely a Merranic, and a very BIG girl, pointedly muscled through worn, filthy leathers. An untamed head of orange hair and greenish eyes stared back at him. “‘You have the advantage of me’?” she repeated in disbelief. “Does it look like we’re in a torchin’ court? Ash, man.”

  Cerise sat straight up, shocked into full wakefulness by this barrage of profanity.

  “That’s what that smell is,” Adama said, walking up. She’d come into the clearing without any of them even noticing her, so compelling was the presence in front of them. She was grinning, looking the Merranic girl up and down with affected disgust. “There’s water all over this country,” she suggested.

  “Bathing’s for girls,” the newcomer said in a smirk. This was apparently a well-trod argument—neither of them were serious. In fact, there was a marked and general air of irreverence that radiated off the new girl in rather intimidating waves.

  “I’ve got some bad news for you,” Adama said, low, and the redhead gave a bark of laughter.

  “Warrior,” Dorian’s voice came suddenly across the meadow, followed by her own slender, stately, golden self.

  “Dor,” the girl greeted her casually, moving in that swagger to meet her. “We running a circus here? You want me to swing through Swamp Town and see if anyone else wants to come along?”

  “What did you find in the Sheel?” Dorian asked briskly.

  “Sand. There’s not a hint of action. They haven’t heard even a whisper…and they have, well, other things on their mind.” Whiteblades were gathering around, some grinning at her in greeting, most just listening.

  “You heard about Rox?” the strange Whiteblade said, lowering her voice, and Dorian looked at her sharply. “She barely made it in time—I mean about four hours later and she would’ve missed her chance.” Dorian’s golden eyes flicked almost imperceptibly toward the Northerners, and the subject was dropped so smoothly that if Ari hadn’t seen the glance he never would have suspected anything amiss. “Grace of Il,” she murmured and a sort of echo went around the group.

  “All right,” Dorian sighed. “Get cleaned up and take rearguard—”

  “Rearguard?” the stranger said. Her voice was as big as the rest of her, easily overriding Dorian. “Why can’t I ever get the fun missions?” she said with mock despair. “Like Decapitation of the Population of Zkag, or something fortifying like that?”

  Dorian looked at her drily. “Consider it personal development.”

  The girl gave her an even look, then her eyes drifted to Banion, who’d come up and was looming rather closer than necessary, eyeing her suspiciously. “That’s personal development,” she said, jerking her thumb at the Jarl. He let out a great guffaw before remembering he didn’t approve of Whiteblades, which resulted in a choked off sort of spluttering snort deep in his throat. The local populace looked at him in alarm.

  “Hairball?” the newcomer asked. “Comes from those grooming choices.”

  “Or lack thereof,” Rodge quipped, and she shared a grin with him like they were old buddies.

  “Voral,” Dorian said patiently. “Left flank.”

  “Put me on recon, Dor,” the girl drawled in affected distress. “Do you know what comes out the rear of a moving column?”

  “That’s where all the action is right now,” Jordan spoke up gravely, as if to reassure her. “We’ve seen—”

  “You little twerp,” she was interrupted with lazy ferocity. There was a sort of breathless, fast-paced energy to this new girl, a self-possessed intensity so marked that it bordered on the arrogant. It drew the eye like a magnet and made you listen just to hear what was going to come out of her mouth next.

  She was moving toward the smaller blonde now, demanding half-heartedly, “Where’s my scabbard?” Jordan began backing out of the meadow, a smile growing steadily on her animated face.

  “You lent it to me.”

  “That was before the Peace!”

  “You can’t take it with you when you leave this earth anyway…”

  “I can’t even get it back, let alone take it with me…” Their voices faded into the surrounding forest. Novelty for the day apparently over, the Whiteblades faded back to whatever they’d been doing, and Loren and Ari turned to each other with wide eyes.

  “You think…?” Loren said doubtfully.

  “She had the red hair,” Ari said. Voral’s red-headed temper tantrums had survived into legend right alongside his—or her—steelskill. Ari couldn’t forget the way she’d moved across the clearing. It wasn’t the bold strides of a dominant, self-possessed woman; it was the exact sloppy saunter that any young man without a thing on his mind would use. You would never have been able to tell that was a woman from her walk.

  “What do
you think, Banion?” Loren asked.

  Banion was chuckling into his beard. “She’s Merranic, all right. Saucy wench.”

  “I thought they were witches…” Rodge inquired innocently.

  “She’s a Merranic witch,” Banion allowed.

  “She’s certainly got the mouth of a soldier,” Cerise said tightly, nostrils flaring.

  The rampant laziness continued all day. The Northerners napped, or had slow and rather witless conversations. A great spirit of mellowness settled on them. To the man, they were deeply content just to sit and watch all the female activity. There was something satisfying about the turn of a shapely leg carrying all those trim figures and waving hairs across the meadow stage set out before them, about the fresh, flower-like faces and bright eyes. Traive wore a permanent soft smile on his rugged features—and all the Whiteblades seemed to adore him. Even Cerise, possibly not as enamored with all the female competition—er, presence—only bothered with lukewarm criticism. The Swamps had leeched that acid bitterness out of her, and like most women, a little wash up and a change of clothes had helped her attitude tremendously. And in tantalizing promise, a day’s ride up the trail were supposedly the Pools of Tiramina and a full submersion bath.

  Rodge was pretend weeping over his saddlebag, sodden and rotting from being soaked in swamp water, and the mushy pieces of Cyrrhidean jerky floating in one of the side pockets, when they heard the singing. They had all gotten used to the little eccentricities of their crowd of escorts by this time, but this was new. They were quite sure they had never heard this voice before…and it seemed a little doubtful that Voral could in any way be responsible.

  The voice floated, captivating, pure and crystalline, out of the uncultured wilds of wherever they were, coming disappointingly to an end with the appearance of, sure enough, a strange new Whiteblade. As she headed with quiet grace to the cauldron at the cookfire, the Northerners gave a collective sigh of contentment.

  “That was beautiful,” Rodge breathed, though he’d not shown a single sign of musical appreciation back in Archemounte. “And I’m in love,” he added.

  “You’re pathetic,” Cerise corrected, without malice. They seemed to be beyond divisiveness now; they were like the plants in a fairy ring, all connected by unseen runners into one unit. “I thought you were in love with Brook.”

  “That was yesterday,” Rodge said easily.

  “Men are simple,” Loren explained drowsily, leaning back in the grass with his hands behind his head.

  “No kidding,” Cerise said.

  “We see a girl, we fall in love. We see another girl; we fall in love with that one. There’s none of this careful planning about our futures or about the best political match—watch it, Ar! Is there really the need for that much energy?”

  Ari had stood abruptly, heading purposefully toward the fire and the new girl. His stomach was churning. He didn’t think anyone else had caught the words of the song she’d been singing, but he…well, he was trying to come to grips with this idea of Il.

  He approached her and wondered, as soon as she looked up at him, what he was doing. And why hadn’t he practiced talking to girls when he had the chance?

  “Hi, Ari,” she said in a musical voice, and his insides quivered like a puppy getting his ears fondled. She had the sweetest face he’d ever seen. A soft puff of strawberry blonde hair framed her peaches and cream complexion, and eyes like liquid chocolate surveyed him warmly in the deepening dusk. They all seemed to know him, but he wasn’t about to make the stupid mistake he’d made with Voral.

  He stared at her, tongue-tied and agonized, finally remembering what he’d walked over for. He blurted out, “What does it mean, ‘I was so lost, I should have died’?”

  He’d heard more than that one line, had caught the sense of it—it was a song about Il, and he wanted to know what it meant. So here he was, looming over her, with a fevered intensity that should have bewildered, if not downright scared her…but she just looked up at him with a tranquil sort of inquiry. As if having large, strange, awkward young men come up and ask deep theological questions out of the blue was an occupational hazard as a Whiteblade.

  “Well…” she said slowly, “it’s a song…it’s about…” She paused and started again. “Sometimes a person reaches the point where he sees clearly who and what he is…when he becomes aware of the utter futility of his life and the…the uncleanness of his heart. He realizes his nothingness, his ineptitude and…his vanity, I guess, in thinking he—or his life—has any value, any meaning, any direction at all. That’s what the song is talking about. It’s a feeling so low, so despairing, so…hopeless, it seems like you shouldn’t even be able to be alive and feel like that.” She smiled at him, completely incongruously for the subject matter, Ari thought, but then she said softly, “That is when Il can finally touch you—when your own walls stop keeping Him out.”

  “Rhoda!” someone said in delight, and Ari, staring fixedly at the girl in front of him, jumped. Dragging his eyes out of the chocolate pools he was lost in, he realized dimly that Sylvar had come up. He was extraordinarily fond of her—but just now?

  She looked between the two of them, her eyes sheening silver in the dusk. “…Did I interrupt something?”

  “No, no,” Ari lied with quick courtesy. The group of Northerners had all followed him over to the fire anyway. This conversation was over. He sighed softly as Sylvar chirped, “When did you and Voral get in?”

  “Just,” the girl called Rhoda answered. “She’s already seen Dor and is out on sentry already, but I was held up.”

  “What did you find?” Sylvar asked eagerly.

  “It’s quiet. Voral didn’t sense a thing.”

  “I’m not sure I would believe anyone so…undisciplined,” Cerise muttered, just being Cerise.

  Sylvar laughed in delight. She gave the powerful impression that she looked at the Northerners like strange new pets—harmless, interesting, but prone to do the oddest things…

  “Voral’s got the best battle sense in this age or any other. She can smell a war coming a hundred years out. If she says it’s quiet, it’s quiet.” She and Rhoda exchanged amused looks.

  “We’ve been told war is inevitable, though,” Melkin said, looking at them with eyes that had seen through a thousand student excuses.

  “Our mission was local,” Rhoda explained. “We just wanted to know what’s up at the Sheelshard. And there has never been a war fought in the Sheel—it’s no surprise that the one coming will be somewhere north. The Sheelmen at Zkag have no inkling of our mission, and that’s what we wanted to know.”

  “What is our mission?” Banion rumbled innocuously, trying to worm an answer out of the back door since the front was staying firmly closed.

  “You will find out far too soon, my large and hair-afflicted friend. I would enjoy your days of peace while you can!”

  Ari offered his gelding to Cerise again the next morning, which she accepted with subdued thanks and a whiteness around her lips. That incident seemed like a lifetime ago to Ari. He moved out with pleasure, scouting up front with Kai, reveling in being able to stride easily across ground that neither sank nor smelled beneath him.

  It was a pretty steep grade, their trail, climbing steadily into the Tamarisks. Ari hadn’t even known their name, hadn’t known they even existed before the Kingsmeet…but then, he’d found out a lot of new things at the Kingsmeet. Remembering, he steeled himself for the thousandth time at what he was; it hadn’t seemed so important this last week or so, especially with Dorian’s flattering interest in him. He’d caught her again for a few moments last night, and with Rhoda’s song echoing uneasily around in his mind, had asked her why the Whiteblades had let him go. If he’d been given to them ‘by Il,’ whatever that meant, why had they allowed Lord Herron to adopt him? It had been a short and unsatisfactory conversation, full of rather vague answers indicating that they’d had no intention of keeping him ensconced in a remote jungle his whole life and that Il’s wa
ys were not the ways of the world.

  The deciduous trees began to fade away, and the trail turned rocky as they climbed—a reddish-orange rock, dry and dusty. The heat increased, but it was a delicious, dry heat, empty of bugs and swampy miasmas, with the cool breezes you find in the mountains. Occasionally, the ground would drop away off to their left and an infinity of orange-colored sand stretched out as far as you could see to the horizon. The Sheel.

  Scrubby brush, cedars, pines, and firs began to dominate the landscape, their dark green needles dusted orange close to the trail. Ari walked with deepening pleasure into the clear, searing heat; it wasn’t the High Wilds, but there was still that feeling of space, of openness, of freedom.

  They had stopped to refill their waterskins at a little spring trickling out of a rock face when Irise found them. Everyone looked up alertly as a sudden suspicious din of birdlife impinged on the quiet mountain air, and within moments a tiny young woman came panting into view. A crowd of Whiteblades appeared out of nowhere, clustering around from every direction like hounds rushing a food bowl.

  She was breathing hard, this new Whiteblade, as if she’d run all the way up the trail from the Swamps, which indeed she had. Technically, she was no smaller than Sylvar or Nerissa, but her delicate bone-china features made her seem the tiniest they’d seen yet. Tight black curls were piled enchantingly on her little head, tendrils around her face soaked with sweat. Enormous eyes, dark and blue as sapphires, stared fixedly at the ground while she caught her breath. There were great gulps of air going into that petite set of lungs, but she had an athlete’s fine control. In a very few seconds, she was able to look up at Dorian, while still breathing in a way that would’ve meant death was imminent for any of the Northerners, and say tersely, “Skoline in riot. Swamps flooded.”

  “Yeah, no news there,” Rodge said wryly, leaning interestedly toward her.

  “Worse than it’s been in decades,” she continued. Her big eyes looked directly into Dorian’s for a second. “Rheine and Saffron are trapped.”