by Kari Cordis
He didn’t stay there long after Kai left, not finding the company to his liking, and headed back to the fire. He almost ran into Voral, who was coming in off whatever duty she’d been on.
“Voral—” Jordan began as soon as she noticed her.
“One more word about gravitational equilibrium and you’re flying over the cliff for illustrative purposes.”
Still open-mouthed from whatever she had been going to say, Jordan began to smile. “You completely underestimate the power of the expanded mind. Do you really think there’s no more to life than a backswipe or the underhand chin-cut?”
“We’re not communicating here,” Voral answered heavily, sinking into a powerful squat by the fire and tearing into a tender piece of grouse off the make-shift grill.
“Jordan’ll do enough communicating for the both of you,” Yve said, raising a circle of chuckles. She was bending over something involving baked apples and sugar crust that had Ari’s mouth watering despite his full stomach.
“Warrior,” Dorian’s regal voice cut through the banter like a hot knife through a lump of lard. “Has there been any sign of the Hand?”
“None,” she growled around a chunk of gristly fowl. She glanced up, shrugging her shoulders at Dorian’s piercing look. “I don’t have Ash’s eyes,” she protested obscurely.
Verrena rose gracefully from her crouch nearby, her long, slender body giving the impression more of a sabre than a sapling. Like the Drae, there was something about her that made her movements seem important, her words worth listening to—whatever it was, when she spoke everyone usually listened.
“Let me take their horses and meet them,” she suggested.
Voral gave her a look over the remnants of grouse. “What for? We’ve gotta wait for Rheine and Saffron anyway.”
But Dorian’s eyes had narrowed, and after a minute’s silence, she nodded.
Verrena turned swiftly, moving to the side of her black stallion grazing nearby and mounting all in one seamless flow of motion. She headed him right in to the nearby herd and, in a matter of seconds, had cut out three other horses. As they were riding by, a greyish dun stallion, a chestnut that shone like polished brass, and the darkest caramel-colored palomino Ari had ever seen, Dorian called after her:
“Be back in two weeks, Rider. No more.”
She raised a slim brown hand in acknowledgement and disappeared down the trail back north.
The rest of the Northerners began to mount up, too, reluctantly, as all the Whiteblades were melting away back to their various sentry duties.
“I hate it when they leave,” Rodge remarked, in a general and all-encompassing way. Cerise rolled her eyes.
“I thought there were five Whiteblades in the Hand of Mercy,” Loren said. “She only had three horses.”
“Dorian’s one of them,” Banion growled, provoked at all the sorcerous goings on and in no better mood for having to constantly explain them.
“And the other is Rheine,” Ari said slowly. “The Chieftess.” And then, because his tone of voice was making everyone look at him, he added briskly, “One of those trapped in the Swamps.”
He was relieved when Loren, on top of his game today, continued, “Traive—where are your Fox? I haven’t seen any of them in ages.”
The Lord Regent shot him a sardonic glance. “They haven’t been around since before the Swamps.”
“You lost them?” Loren said.
“The Ivory probably asked them to return to the Torques,” he chuckled. Everyone else in the party goggled at him. He shrugged. “The Ivory are held in great esteem in Cyrrh. It is not unlikely that they could’ve proven quite…persuasive.”
“It’s a good trade-off,” Rodge murmured contentedly. Several pairs of eyes lingered for a moment on the panorama of feminine loveliness on its way out of camp.
But Banion said, “You don’t have any tighter control over the men under you?”
“It was no doubt in their best interests,” Traive said comfortably. Despite Banion’s faint disapproval, Ari had to agree…those Swamps were a death walk.
He looked restlessly at Kai, on foot up ahead, and longed for something similar to do. Ari had tried to join him this morning. He’d slapped his brown on the hindquarters in the direction of the herd, since Cerise had been given a spare, and the brown (gelding or no, such a lovely group of mares was nothing to curl your lip at) had been happy to go. But the horse had been stopped peremptorily by Dorian, who managed to walk him back without having to bother with that silly bridle thing the rest of them had to use.
“Ride, please, Ari,” she said quietly, though he was well aware it wasn’t a request. He may have had a rebellious look in his eye, because she granted him an explanation. “These hills are still dangerous, though you may feel you have been through the worst there is. If we are attacked, you must be able to run with the rest of the party…you especially.”
Well, what was he supposed to say to that? It was very difficult to look into those perceptive eyes and not feel childish and petty even when you weren’t acting that way.
But the hours and the days passed safely. Despite the calm faces of their escort, tension sifted inexorably into the increasingly anxious days. They were racing south and trying to stall for the missing members at the same time, and it was making Ari aware of the same disconnect inside of him. It was to the south that his purpose lay…but he was not altogether sure he was ready for the end of this trail yet. Who was he? Who was he to Il? Who was Il?
He was arguing a fine point of the Battle of Montmorency with Banion and Loren one afternoon when his unspoken wish for a little distracting action came true. He had just turned to look at Loren when a Whiteblade sailed between them at eye level. They blinked at each other—they were on horseback—before thinking to follow her trajectory.
Their jaws dropped. It had been tiny Irise, the airborne one, and she had plowed into some monstrous, beaked, gangly-looking winged thing that had crept up behind them so silently they hadn’t even known it was there. As they watched, she spun up from the ground where she’d landed, twirling like a dust devil, feet flying into the creature—bird—thing’s face. There was no sound yet, no cries of alarm, no screams. Ari and Loren sat gaping on oblivious horses as the delicate little china doll summarily dispatched this huge, ugly bird-thing. To their credit, it was happening rather rapidly, but she’d slashed the creature’s throat, spun, fitted an arrow to her little bow and fired at another one rising from the trees behind them, calling out in rising warning, “Dor-i-AN!” before the boys made a sound.
“There’s giant bird things!” Loren crowed, not really of much clarification, but their reflexes were so well trained at this point that it was really the panic in his voice that was most effective.
“Attack!” Ari cried at the same time, which he thought later seemed much more dignified.
“Scrub condors,” Dorian glanced back and said, as if someone had asked what was for dinner. “Let’s go!” She took off in a sprint—their way led right across a big open space—and they all put heels to their horses and followed. They’d reached the trees on the other side when Kai came pelting back past them, and Ari, looking behind him, felt his heart plummet. Rodge was still back there, right in the middle of the meadow fooling around with his horse.
His gelding was no stag, but he was the nimblest horse Ari’d ever been on. He was almost thrown off when he yanked back on the reins, the little brown skidding to a halt almost on his haunches, and had to grab on to the saddle to keep up with it when he turned it back the way they’d come. He’d barely gotten reseated—his little half-blooded Aerach could really move—when he frantically pulled back again, trying to stop in time to be of some use to Rodge.
Rodge had fallen off in their dash across open ground and was trying to remount Radish, whose eyes were rolling wildly and fearfully behind him. And over the tree line, coming into view just as Ari looked, was a monstrous one of those things in flight. Later, with the detachment of h
indsight, he could say that it was nowhere near as terrifying as a gryphon. Its wingspan was less than half, and there was nothing even approaching that lethal ferocity that they’d seen gleaming from gryphon eyes in Cyrrh. However, at the time, to see those leathery wings spreading out a man’s length to either side of the long, sharp beak, and the big, spread, clawed talons, and to stare into those dead avian eyes—was quite stimulating.
“Rodge!” Ari yelled—as that helps a man remount—and pulling the terrified brown up near the pony, reached over its back and pulled Rodge bodily up into his saddle. The thing swept toward them on ghostly wings, filling the sky like a big, dry, brown storm of fear. Where had Kai gone? Ari swatted the pony on his haunches and screamed, “RUN!”
There was no way, under normal circumstances, that pony could’ve kept up with that half-Aerach. But fear is a wondrous equalizer, and as they raced away from the swooping monster there was so much combined adrenalin release among them it could’ve fueled a whole herd of fat ponies. Still, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Ari was sure that thing could fly faster than they could run. He was sure he could feel its hot bird breath on his back, feel the wind from its wings fanning his fevered face.
And then he saw one of the Whiteblades appear suddenly just ahead of them. She was poised composedly, bow drawn and arrow pointed barely over their heads—and right in their path. It was Vashti, the Brown Beauty, her fine braids stirring a little in the breeze. Yanking frantically on the reins, he swerved barely in time to avoid flattening her, so close her cloud of unbraided hair brushed his sleeve. Again he got the brown turned; the horse was soaked, slick with lather as much from ffright as all his acrobatics around the meadow. He rushed back.
“Come on!” he shouted down at Vashti, whose clear brown eyes were fixed on two more of the beasts. He didn’t know what had happened to the one that had been chasing them. She glanced up at him, surprised. Hurriedly, she waved him on, her swift hands already nocking another arrow.
“I’m not leaving you!” he cried stubbornly.
A dozen yards away, the other Dra, Atlanta, was watching them as she notched and pulled her bow. “Do not tarry,” she cried in warning, with that charming understatement they all seemed to have. In one liquid move, she pivoted her torso around the tree bole and let fly with her arrow.
Almost impatiently, Vashti grabbed his arm and swung up behind him, so athletically that he hardly felt her weight. Instantly, he released the brown, who’d been throwing his head at the restraint, and they plunged once more across that big field at a wide-open run. Ari felt her legs like iron pincers around his thighs, and then, unbelievably, the twang of her bow almost in his ear. At full speed, on a galloping horse.
Then they were in the trees at last and she was shouting, “Slow down!” or something like it, and he gently pulled back on the reins. It took the lathered gelding a good bit to finally come to a walk, and even then he pranced nervously, eyeballs rolling anxiously back behind them. Ari patted the wet neck with a new sense of appreciation. He wasn’t sure he could’ve gotten a stag to turn back and rush right into the face of those monsters. They came around a corner in the trail, and found everyone milling around under the safety of thick cover.
Several looks of relief greeted him, Rodge’s included. “I lost you,” he said, in Northern-style gratitude.
Dorian strode up to them. “Archer,” she demanded, though she was staring fixedly and without much pleasure at Ari.
Vashti vaulted lightly off his horse. “He said he wouldn’t leave without me.”
Dorian cocked her head at him, eyes flashing. “One of those, are you? Rox,” she snapped. That Whiteblade was standing nearby, but courteously wiped the laughter off of her face when he glanced over at her. “Got it,” she answered, and then, at Ari’s bewildered look, assured him, “You were raised right.”
Dorian pulled him aside that night.
“Ari, please leave the chance-work to the Followers,” she began.
“If I hadn’t gone back for Rodge, he could be dead right now,” he protested, knowing exactly what she was going to fuss about.
“There were Followers there that you weren’t even aware of,” she told him, and he thought guiltily of Atlanta, in the trees. “It is their pleasure to take care of these things.”
“I’m tired of just being…babysat,” he said, not very complimentarily. She looked at him for several seconds before saying, “The courage that will be demanded of you is of a different sort than these…acts of physical bravery. There are plenty of trials and deeds and challenges ahead of you—just be patient.”
He didn’t know why, but a cold shiver went down his back. There was something…meaningful…about the glance she’d just given him, as if…
“What do you know about me?” he asked, very low.
She met his gaze with her own direct one. “That is not my story to tell.”
“Then whose is it?” he demanded. “If I am so all-important to this mission, why didn’t you all come get me years ago, before the Empress…before things got down to the last minute? Why did you wait for me to get almost killed in my dorm room and then wander all over the Realms before suddenly deciding that I had to be here, right now?” Frustration sizzled through his voice, made worse, in a way, by her composed and distinctly uninformative face. He sighed harshly. “Will I ever find anything out—maybe before I don’t pass one of these ‘challenges’ coming my way?”
She let his resentment fade off for a moment before answering. “She is coming, who has your story. Were you really that happy to find out that which you do know?”
That made him feel miserable and about five and he apologized and they walked back to camp. And he spent the rest of the night acting normal and feeling like his insides were being raked up like leaf mould. Where was this peace Il was supposed to bring?
It was deeply satisfying on a pure frustrated-testosterone level to witness the next afternoon’s swordplay. He would’ve felt better if he’d been holding the weapon himself, but, then, he probably wouldn’t have lived to tell about it.
Voral rotated in again, and this time, after grabbing an apple and barely avoiding a hand slap from Yve, happened to glance up and see Kai.
“Kai, Old Man!” she bellowed in delight. They were lunching in a rather large cleared spot off the trail, and Kai had come in for a bite and a word with Melkin.
He looked up at her alertly, his eyes glittering unreadably in that impassive face.
“You’re skinnier than a diseased courtesan,” she remarked, slouching over and chummily whalloping him on one iron bicep. “Don’t you eat?”
They stared at each other for a few minutes and then, a smile growing on her strong face, she winked and said softly, “How ‘bout a little practice round?”
You didn’t have to look very hard to ascertain a touch of interest glittering in Kai’s eyes. Apparently they were speaking some wordless language unknown to the rest of them. They stared at each other for another few seconds, Voral chomping that apple with an utter absence of manners. Then, as if planned, with quick, eager movements they both strode over to an empty spot of ground and turned to face each other, Voral shrugging out of her extra weaponry.
Ari and Loren shot each other one excited look of disbelief and jumped up to watch.
“Ah, smoking ruins, here we go,” Rodge moaned. “I’ll be hearing about this for weeks.” But he got up with Traive and Melkin and Banion.
“Watch closely,” Traive said quietly to the boys, rugged face smiling broadly. “It’ll be the only time you’ll ever see a Dra on defense.”
“You don’t need to encourage them,” Rodge told him. “They’ll probably tear their retinas out, they’ll be staring so hard.”
Kai, very carefully, drew one of his double-hipped swords. They didn’t even see Voral draw. The steel was just in her hand. She was still noisily munching her apple. She brought the tip up, testing Kai with a flick of her wrist, and his blade jumped almost a foot before he coul
d stop it. They began exchanging thrusts, quick, small, fine movements of beautiful control and shocking strength. They grew faster, a flurry of strokes that the eye could hardly follow—one caught Kai off guard and knocked his blade out again before he could control it. The speed increased still more, a blinding flash of blade on blade, the movements only a little wider, the feet hardly moving, the apple still, amazingly, going into the mouth. It was breathtaking, such superb control. Ari felt his heart pounding. One slip, one miss, and there was enough force there to shear an arm off. Finally, breathlessly, it came to an end, Voral grinning pleasurably and Kai breathing as deeply as if he’d taken a sprint around the meadow.
The boys laughed, shaking their heads. “That was incredible,” Loren murmured happily. They’d been ardent observers of every sword ring at every festival that ever passed through Harthunters, and never had they seen such finesse. Granted, what they were used to were back country affairs, but still…
Traive chuckled at them. “That was the warm-up.”
Voral threw her apple core away.
There was a moment of perfect stillness. An unbearable tension began to mount. Kai poised as sleek and alert as a hound on the hunt, she like a dancer. All her slouching, sloppy, thoughtless-youth thing was gone, replaced by a terrible, imminent force.
She lunged, surprising everybody. Even Kai’s lightning fast reflexes barely carried him out of the way, and then he had to parry a beautiful back-hand swipe. As still and finely controlled as the previous few moments had been, so the next were broad and sweeping. She used her body like a man, with none of the instinctive frontal protection that you usually see with women, using it to dominate space, to block and hurl and throw her opponent off balance. Within seconds, Ari realized this was no hand-on-your-hip, feet-in-the-right-position tournament match. She whirled and darted, the sword arcing in impossible angles and spirals through the air—Kai was being attacked by a whirlwind. The speed was every bit as fast as before—it just involved her whole body—and the blade in her hand was a blur of steel impossibly agile, as if it had a mind of its own.