by Kari Cordis
Melkin’s face was like a slab of stone.
“You may never know just how crucial your timing was,” she continued, looking very deeply into those hard grey eyes, “but I will tell you now…that you are not here, at this time, by accident.”
“Only the Healer would try to tame that old wolf,” a voice said almost in his ear, and he jumped guiltily. It was Adama, rolling her eyes at the two sitting alone a short distance away. “Her or Rox.”
Ari started to say something but trailed off, arrested at the sudden change in her freckled face. It was abruptly intent and unsmiling, focused on the far side of their little camp. Ari realized that all sound had ceased, all weapons laid softly aside and the Whiteblades beginning to rise, brushing steel powder off their leggings with their eyes fixed in the same direction as Adama.
Who was no longer there, he realized belatedly. The northern group glanced at each other. After Cyrrh and the irrefutable demonstration of their less than acute sixth, seventh and eighth senses, they were all pretty used to the idea of their sub-prime faculties. Without a word, everyone rose and followed the Whiteblades.
V’ren had left days ago with a bunch of horses to meet the Whiteblades from the Swamps, and now they heard the unmistakable sound of them moving through the trees. There was not a tremendous effort at secrecy, apparently, because they could even make out the sound of conversing. But when they broke out into the meadow where the camp was, all went quiet.
It was odd…there were five Whiteblades in that group, all lively, attractive females, but nobody noticed any of them but the one. She dismounted with casual grace, unaware of the raised eyebrows, the breaths caught in throats, the effect the sight of her was having on the non-Whiteblade contingent of the local population.
Ari stared, shaken to his recently stabilized core. Loren was whispering something awed in his ear but he was barely aware of it. His world seemed to spin insensibly, the ground unsteady under his feet. For the leader of the Swords of Light, the most single-mindedly compassionate, selfless, devoted group of warriors in the entire Realms for a thousand years, utterly dedicated to the grace and love of Il…was a Tarq.
Lt. Waylan was waiting for him, as ordered, when he got back from the inspection of the bridge. With the bivouac area that would soon house over 500,000 troops almost completely laid out, Androssan had both the time and the ease of mind to turn his attention to other matters.
He flung the greatcloak off his shoulders and settled into the camp chair, pulling his books toward him while commanding quietly, “What did you find out about the Rach, Lieutenant?”
“Sir. They are a simple people, Sir, rather than primitive,” he began, while Androssan scribbled notes in the logistics books before he forgot them. “And have a deeply entrenched honor system that is their main social constriction.”
“No government.” Everyone in the North pretty much knew that.
“Very limited, Sir. The oral word is considered binding and seals almost every conceivable sort of contract among them—”
“Do they even have paper?” Androssan drawled, flipping open the supply book. The Daroe would have fresh fish they would need to factor in as foodstuffs.
“Not much, Sir,” Waylan admitted, “and that supply is almost exclusively in their Chronicles and other recorded histories. They do not keep track of commercial transactions. Indeed, they exist largely on the barter system, using tirna mostly just where they interface with the Empire. They do, of course, have a very strong oral tradition.”
Like most primitive societies. Even the Merranics still had tale-tellers as an accepted occupation. How much fish could one plan on the Daroe supplying in a day?
“Don’t they have a legislative body?” Androssan was sure he’d heard one of the Shagreens at the Kingsmeet alluding to it. When there was no answer, he glanced up and saw Waylan struggling with what looked like a smile. With his commanding officer’s eyes on him, he mastered it.
“Not exactly, Sir,” he said straight-faced. “Their Rachar is basically composed of the Shagreens, though anyone the Rach chooses can Stand on it, and its use is highly variable and dependent on the Rach. Some use them for judgment, some for advice, some to help make decrees, but they have no official nor consistent function. Rach Kyr never uses his formally, for instance, and it is said that the next time the Rachar Stands, it will be to Band a new Rach.”
Androssan grunted, clarifying, “They make no laws at all—just whatever happens to occur to the Rach becomes a decree?” Simple was an understatement; this was barely a functioning society.
Waylan said slowly, “Sir…the entire focus of the Rach, the blinding purpose of every man, woman, child, horse, dog, bird—most everything Aerach in any sense—is to make war. Everything else takes second place, Sir. Everything.”
“And how do they fight, Lieutenant?” Androssan asked coolly, sensing the strains of romanticism starting to cloud the air.
“The functional fighting unit is the cyclone, Sir, a seven-horse group of men led in theory by the ‘whip.’ In actuality, any of them seem to call out commands and take charge. There are two and only two formations—the attack, when the entire rill advances on line, and the defense, when a cyclone breaks off and collapses back into a circle around the whip. This is really the whip’s function—he is always the oldest and most experienced in the group, as he takes the full brunt of attack until the Enemy gets around to flank him and begins to engage the other Rach.”
Androssan, intrigued despite himself, had his full attention on the Lieutenant. “I’ve heard it’s a young Army.”
“Probably one-third of the adult fighting males are under twenty, Sir,” Waylan reported quietly.
The General’s brow clouded. That was worse than he’d thought—that was teenagers fighting. How could you expect discipline and sufficient skill at that age level to...?
Waylan, reading his thoughts, added, “And I would estimate 90% of all Aerach soldiers have engaged the Enemy, Sir.”
Androssan’s mind whirled with the ramifications of this. Experience—every leader’s dream in a troop of men—resided in the Rach in boys scarcely older than his son. He was going to need time to consider this.
“Continue, Lieutenant,” he said brusquely.
“Yes, Sir. The cyclone falls into a closed ring, with the horses’ rumps to the center, and as soon as they have completed the formation—which is very quickly, Sir; I’ve never seen a cav unit of any size as agile as they are—they begin to move, as a circle formation. Sometimes it is just whirling around their center, sometimes they move laterally as well.”
Androssan stared at him in frank disbelief. That would take extraordinary coordination and control, and in the middle of battle? Implausible, at the least.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, Sir,” Waylan admitted, dropping his eyes for a minute.
“What’s the next size unit?” Androssan asked, changing the subject. It amazed him there were no written records of any of this. Apparently, the Northerners of old were so used to fighting with the Border Realms that it never occurred to them it might someday be useful information.
“The rill, Sir. There are 100 cyclones in a rill,” Waylan reported reluctantly.
“A hundred cyclones.” Androssan snapped it out. “There is no better organization than that? How in the world do they pass on information or organize…anything! You’re saying they have one man—the rillian, I assume—in sole charge of 100 men?!” This was disastrous. The first thing Rach Kyr was going to have to consider, if they ever ended up working together, was reorganizing his cavalry. There was no way such an inefficient system was going to work with the intel and coms requirements of the Imperial Army.
Waylan cleared his throat. “They’re very independent, Sir. Each cyclone, from what I understand, is basically on its own eventually in every battle. There’s little time or need for orders from above…because they are all well-trained enough to carry out their missions as individual units,” he finis
hed in a rush. This was a sore point in the Imperial ranks. Well-trained, self-sufficient troops were the goal of every command—on paper. But off-record, every officer knew that completely independent units made for an out-of-control disaster, especially when it came to successful coordination.
Correctly gauging the look in his commander’s eye, Waylan rushed on, “There are ten rills in a Wing, Sir, each of which, of course, is commanded by a Shagreen. There are also several hundred ’Tips—Wingtips, they call them—the messengers. They put young boys on the biggest, strongest stallions, and run them all over the Sheel. They’re very fast—the Rach say a ’Tip can travel from one end of a Wing to the other in under a day.”
Androssan, temporarily distracted from the organizational nightmare trotting his way by the necessity of adding up numbers, did quick math. Seven thousand horse per Wing, plus those messengers…they were talking almost 150,000 horse. A smile blossomed in his disgruntled heart—150,000! Of, arguably, the finest light cavalry in the world.
Waylan saw only unhappy creases on his General’s face and heard only, “I hate to hear what they consider a young boy. Five-year-olds?”
“They can be as young as ten, Sir. They are considered men by fourteen.”
“Anything else?” Androssan asked abruptly. He wanted this message on its way to Rach Kyr, and its messenger was still standing here in front of him spinning out bad and ridiculous news.
“Yes, Sir,” Waylan answered promptly. “There are two things to be factored in when considering the Rach, Sir. I saw an exercise while I was there, three opposing rills on one, and, Sir, they do not give up.”
“All right,” Androssan acknowledged, fitting the message into its leather bag.
“Sir,” Waylan said, with a faintly pleading undertone, “I don’t mean that they are persistent or committed, I mean…Sir, that exercise took a day and a half. They did not break, they took no food or water, they did not secure their wounded—they fought, at the most intense level you can imagine, until every last member of the opposing rills was called as dead. And, Sir, they gave no ground. Each cyclone was—swarmed by Enemy, completely encapsulated…”
The General cast a calculating eye up at his lieutenant. Violins were starting to play in the background again. “What’s the other thing?” he asked curtly.
Waylan swallowed as if trying to bring his thoughts together. “The Rach leads them personally, Sir.”
Androssan grunted dismissively. “That’s the main reason Merrani has been so against women on the Imperial throne for the past several hundred years.” From what he’d heard, the same was true in Cyrrh. All the other Realms lived in fear of a woman being in charge of their Forces.
“I mean, Sir, that he Rides Out at the front of his forces. He physically leads Wings, even rills.”
Androssan stared at him. “That’s madness,” he said flatly. It was bad enough Kane took a visible spot on the battlefield, but even he wasn’t so stupid as to be at the front of a charge. “And what does he consider is so worth the risk of his being killed in battle?” Androssan drawled.
“Sir, from the time they are old enough to understand the concept, the Rach are driven by honor, by personal courage. It is impossible for them to conceive of a leader that doesn’t have these qualities—he represents those qualities. A Rach belongs at the front of their forces, and the Rachar would never Band someone who didn’t think that same way.” Waylan shrugged eloquently.
He had an open, ingenuous look on his face, obviously an admirer of said Rach, and Androssan heaved an internal sigh. Military admiration was one thing, but this sentimental veneration was another—and it had no place in the Imperial Corps.
“Lieutenant, are you giving a report or a poetry recital?” he asked quietly. He’d never been a screamer, though it worked well for some. He’d just always been of the personal opinion that it worked better in surgically inserted doses, rather than as a comprehensive interactive policy.
Waylan snapped to full attention for the first time since Androssan had seen him, face flushing.
“A report, SIR!”
“Then get your head out of the clouds and back to business.” He handed the rigid officer his message packet. “Get this to Rach Kyr as quickly as you can. We’re eventually going to have to meet in person; start softening him up to leave the Ramparts.”
“Yes, Sir!” He snapped the packet professionally to his side.
“Dismissed.” He was a good kid, had done a superb job. Androssan had chosen him for that very openness—it would take a Northerner with at least a hint of romantic leanings to be able to get close enough to the Rach to understand them. He’d be a fabulous personal aide, Androssan thought regretfully. Intuitive, insightful…but he couldn’t very well ruin his career by keeping him in Staff his whole life.
The Imperial General sighed and went back to his books.
CHAPTER 35
She was a Tarqina, to be exact. The Chieftess of the Whiteblades had such brilliant orange and yellow highlights in her red hair that it looked like a cloud of fire around her lean, bronzed face, tendrils licking at her throat and shoulders. Her eyes were a startling, brilliant azure, slightly slanted and so piercing, so knowing, that Ari almost winced as she looked at him. And she seemed, unfortunately, to have eyes for no one but him. No one had moved. There wasn’t a rush of greetings or welcomings or anything. Just a respectful silence from the loosely gathered Whiteblades and an electricity that crackled from those uncanny eyes.
“There are things,” she said in a light, sibilant voice and an accent he’d never heard anywhere, “we need to discuss.”
Every word seemed to fall on Ari’s ear like a bell tolling doom. She was unmistakably talking to him, and for all his impassioned protestations about being kept in ignorance over the last few weeks, he suddenly didn’t want to know. Anything. The weeks and months and years of wondering about his past had come to an end, and the unwillingness to go a step farther down this path rose in him like a physical thing. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that nothing she was going to tell him was going to be good.
Dorian’s voice came whispering through his memory, strangely bracing...the courage that will be demanded of you will be of a different sort… Well, here it was then. He swallowed again, the third or fourth time, steeling himself, and managed a jerky nod. When Rheine walked away into the woods, a flaming, graceful sprite, he followed by pure force of will. He’d never dreaded anything so much in his life.
Rodge and Loren were off by themselves, fine-tuning their list, when Ari sought them out later. He’d been cloistered with Rheine for hours, his world turned upside-down and backwards—again—but he came out of it clearer-headed than he’d been in a long time.
His friends had put the time to good use, making final adjustments to their rankings of the Whiteblades. Qualifications were stringent: beauty, shapeliness, and, well, that Certain Something. Ari had frowned fiercely at them when they’d started, and he was no more interested now.
He flopped glumly down next to them, gathering his thoughts, and was interrupted as soon as he opened his mouth.
“She’s too distracting,” Loren disagreed. “You can’t even have a conversation with her.”
Ari sighed in frustration. He knew exactly who they were discussing. Rodge held adamantly to the theory that Brook was the very embodiment of womanhood. She’d been at the top of his list unshakably for weeks now.
“Guys,” Ari said.
“Yeah,” Rodge said, deadpan and completely ignoring Ari, “I’ve noticed you’re QUITE cerebral when interacting with females. A flaming intellectual.”
“I need to talk to you,” Ari said insistently.
“I just want someone who has more going for her than raw animal appeal,” Loren said.
“Liar,” Rodge accused him.
“I don’t think this is going to turn out well,” Ari plunged in.
“It’s no big deal, Ar,” Rodge waved away his concern. “In fact, it’s probably
better if we both don’t put the same one first.”
“Listen to me,” he insisted, and they both turned to look at him blankly. “This isn’t going to end well,” he said again, miserable at the thought of what faced them. It was different for him; there would be a purpose to his death if he didn’t make it, but them…
“What?” Rodge asked. Ari, at a loss for words now that he had their attention, waved vaguely out at the busy meadow. Whiteblades, Ivory, Swords of Light, Followers, whatever you wanted to call them, moved quietly here and there in the growing dusk, graceful and exquisite as butterflies. The campfire, where Yve was creating something that smelled delectable, was reflected off the edges of dozens of razor sharp axes, swords, and knives, and buckets worth of arrow tips.
“This quest?” Loren said, more romantically inclined.
Ari nodded heavily. “I think,” he said quietly, “that you two should take Cerise and Selah and go back.”
Loren goggled at him. “What? Why?”
“Because it’s going to get dangerous. Someone could get killed.” There. He’d said it.
They both looked at him, completely unimpressed.
“Really, Ar?” Rodge said dryly. “If you were so worried about someone getting hurt, why didn’t you speak up back when we could do something about it—like before we left Archemounte? Since ‘someone could’ve gotten killed’ on average once a day, I’d say, since we started this brainless trip.”
“But this time I know,” Ari said desperately.