The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1)

by Kari Cordis

  “I’m pretty sure we all knew, every morning we opened our eyes in Cyrrh.”

  Ari looked stubbornly between the two of them. “Look, I have to go on…because…of what…of who…I just have to. But you don’t. You have another life waiting for you. I don’t want you to come.”

  Rodge and Loren looked at each other, then back at Ari’s earnest, set face.

  “Get over yourself, Ar,” Rodge said bracingly. “You’re not some all-important cog in the wheel of life. And you’re nowhere near capable of making it through this without us.”

  Loren laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’re not leaving you,” he said firmly.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s what I meant,” Rodge amended. “Hey, you got any more of that Cyrrhidean jerky? I am completely out.”

  “Besides,” Loren said, a slow smile spreading over his handsome face, “this is liable to be the biggest, best adventure of all.”

  Ari smiled weakly. It certainly was.

  Ari’s impatience with the past few weeks’ slow motion ended abruptly. The very next day, Rheine came over to the fire at breakfast and captured their immediate collective attention. Ari was on his third bowl of oats (Yve had added some kind of berry sweetening that made them pure ambrosia) and in silhouette looked about five months pregnant with oatmeal. Groaning softly, he put down the bowl.

  “Today we cross the Hzukghin Pass,” she told them in her strangely accented voice, without preamble. She squatted near Traive, her thigh-high boots bunching in the middle of her long legs. “This is the main route from Zkag to the Atarq port on the Western Sea and is closely guarded.”

  To be honest, few of them were actually paying much attention to what she was saying, alarming as it was. She had to be the most fascinating person any of them had ever met—you literally could not keep from staring at that fierce, high cheek-boned face. Her eyes were almost hypnotic, able to turn a perfectly intelligent male into a stuttering idiot in seconds, but even Cerise was subdued in her presence. Encircling her long neck was a wide band of some dull, hammered metal, which, despite the hours he’d spent looking so intently at her yesterday, Ari had somehow never noticed.

  “Speed and silence are paramount,” she cautioned, her voice lingering over the ‘s’ sounds in the odd inflection she had. “Tho ‘tis unlikely we’ll meet a large force, it only takes one Tarq escaping our notice to warn the entire Sheelshard against us.” Her breath-stealing glance rested on Cerise and the boys, a singling out which they were used to—for some reason, it seemed to be assumed that the Dra, the Lord Regent of Cyrrh, the Imperial ex-Wolfmaster, and the Knight of the Steelmists didn’t require as much personalized instruction in the art of survival.

  True to her word, by mid-morning the Whiteblades had virtually erased any evidence of their several days of camp and, with a few of them joining the northerners on horseback, they moved quietly south.

  Ari’s heart was pounding like they were assaulting Zkag as they rode stealthily down the trail. He hovered nervously close to Selah, sitting calm and capable on her roan. He’d tried yesterday to talk her out of accompanying him, too, but his suggestion had been met with such composed, self-sufficient denial that he’d felt a little silly. She gave the powerful impression that Zkag would simply require a few more frying pans upside the head, and how nonsensical was to it run from a motley collection of misguided thugs? Ari had just stood there, looking lamely down at her, unable to come up with an argument, wanting her with him so badly it made his throat ache. His chest didn’t flutter around anymore when he was with her; now she was lodged solidly in the center of it, a warm glow that was never going to fade.

  Rheine was at the head of their column, Dorian and at least half of the band somewhere else out of sight, and she led them down to the edge of a deep gully, turning warily to follow a switchback down to its floor. The horses’ hooves rattled like trumpets on the dry, rocky red ground, and Ari’s eyes flew up and down the crevasse, scanning nervously. He could just barely see Whiteblades on foot down the canyon, keeping lookout from the cover of several big boulders. The whole canyon was littered with boulders and rocks of varying sizes, and the horses had to pick their way carefully across all but the very middle. There, where a span the width of a wagon showed impressions of wheels, it was relatively flat and clear. They started up the other side, Ari cringing at what seemed a thunder of rocks kicked loose by hooves.

  They seemed to be in slow motion. Ari was in an agony of suspense watching Rheine’s stallion amble along as if he was simply on his way to a new pasture, which his horse brain probably thought he was. He was nimble as a mountain goat, though, his delicate Aerach hooves as sure as suction on the narrow, steep switchback. Edgy as Ari was, there were moments he wished he could stop time, wished he was a painter that could capture the scene in front of him. Rheine would look back continuously, and sometimes, when the sun caught her and the stallion full on against the orange-red rocks, her fiery hair and his long, silken mane and tail streaming in the hot breeze of the gully…it was almost savagely beautiful.

  Nothing happened. He couldn’t believe it, later. For as much trepidation as he’d had about that one couple hours’ ride…Maybe it was a foreshadowing, he thought as he lay awake staring at the hot southern sky later that night. Long after the talk was done, after the singing and dancing and the soaring of his soul were over, after he’d whispered good night to Selah, longing to take her in his arms one last time, late into the night he lay and thought about the path before him. He thought about the danger and the excitement and he didn’t regret for a moment that he’d agreed to do it. What a glorious use for a life that up until a few days ago had had no use at all. And what memories he had now to take with him—the aching beauty of the White Wilds and the heart-leaping surges of the Eastern Sea, the lush treasure of Cyrrh and Lirralhisa and her great stags and gryphons…but most of all, the warmth of his friendships, of Selah, and the rare, vivid beauty of the Followers. He would never forget the night he’d just lived.

  Rheine had gathered them all earlier that evening. As if they were totally secure south of the Pass, they didn’t even mount a guard, and it would have been memorable enough just to have all twenty of those bright, gorgeous persons all together.

  But this was not to be a night of banter and laughter and camaraderie, at least not until later. The group, to include the northerners, was subdued and serious, a strange, tight tension in the air. Part of that was Rheine—not the sort you’d want at a let-it-all-loose kind of party—and part of it was the knowledge of what lay before them. The Whiteblades, at least, had known exactly what they were heading south for.

  Rheine drew a rough stick-figure plan in the soft dirt in the middle of the group, her long legs bending and rising effortlessly as she moved around inside their circle.

  They were going to re-enter the canyon tomorrow around midday—late enough to give two other groups of Whiteblades time to move into position.

  “We’ll be caught by surprise roughly—here,” she pointed to a spot near the junction of the canyon pass with the Sheel. Rodge leaned over and whispered to Ari, “We’re planning to be surprised?” Ari shushed him.

  “The Tarq will capture us and take us into the Sheelshard.” She pivoted on her heels in a crouch and lasered the northern group with those scintillant eyes. “Do not fight overmuch, if at all. The point is to be captured. There is no use dying just to prove that you are surprised.” Rodge nodded vigorously.

  “Once in the ’Shard, we should be taken fairly directly to the Hall of Sacrifices. It is important that we do not distract them from this—we must get to that Hall.” She didn’t look at them this time, but Ari was pretty sure that comment was meant for young Northerners.

  If the party from the north thought they were finally going to be in on the Real Plan and find out what they had come all this way to do, they were to be disappointed. The Chieftess of the Whiteblades moved neatly onto a breakdown of troops and equipment.

  “The bows w
ill be on the floor with me—Huntress, Scholar, Messenger, Dancer, Archer.” She looked at them each in turn, then moved that burning gaze onto Irise, able to sit stiffly now with the rest of them. “And thee, Siren.” Raven-curled and disappointed, the little Follower mustered a resigned smile.

  “Archer,” she said quietly, moving on, “As soon as we get the weapons, you must get that Northern Gate down. Reinforcements will begin pouring in almost immediately; we cannot fight the entire Sheelshard, as prepared as we are to do so. Time will not allow. Huntress,” she turned to tap another opening in the rough square of the Hall drawn in the dirt. “The six guards at the main doors are yours. When the decoy team comes through, they’ll bring the main gate down behind them, so your only concern is to get the gate guards out of the way.”

  She crouched lithely for a moment amongst the swirl of lines, thinking, then moved to the “south” of the drawing and looked up at the Whiteblade that had come in with her from the Swamps. “Thief, you will bring the Ambassador with the weapons relief up through the high passage.” Saffron, the new Whiteblade she was addressing, nodded her head, a heavy wave of thick yellow hair falling forward to veil one of her bright, unperturbed eyes.

  Briefly, Rheine’s eyes met Dorian’s calm ones, glowing topaz as the light faded. “We have talked of this many times,” she said softly, “On my signal, you must be ready.” More briskly, she continued, “Warrior, the way to the Altar must be kept cleared—that will be your main responsibility.”

  Voral, the only one there with her feet and legs splayed into the center of the circle, nodded casually, but her greenish eyes sparked with excitement.

  “Tendress, Arboress,” the sibilant voice continued, implacable as death, “get to the main gate as soon as you’re down. Fighting will be heaviest there until the other team gets in.” Her face, suddenly grave, lifted across the circle to Rhoda. “Singer,” she said somberly, “you are now second. And Healer, third. The timing is critical.” Her eyes slanted briefly toward the group from the north. “I would advise waiting until the gates are down, but circumstance may not allow it. Use your own judgment.”

  “Scout, is that subterranean passage still viable?” she asked next.

  Tamaren, the newly arrived Hand that had been running recon, said, “Aye. ‘Twas three months past.”

  “Let us hope it is still. You and Ash will lead the decoy: Oratrix”—Adama playfully stuck out her tongue at a disappointed-looking Voral—“Rider, Spear, Provendress. Wait for the sound of blades to start your rush through the halls. You are relief, but you must draw off some of the reinforcements first. It’ll be heavy fighting in those tight passageways…do not get incapacitated before you get to the Hall,” she warned.

  “Softy,” Yve accused her, but very quietly.

  Rheine rose, standing in commanding silhouette for a moment and looking down at the non-Whiteblade detachment. “I will not ask you to stay out of the fight that is sure to come. Nor are any of you under compunction to do other than you will. But there will be more than a few surprises in the Hall of Sacrifices; I would ask for your own safety and for the sake of the mission that you do as asked. There will be little time for explanation once steel starts singing.”

  Most of them just nodded, possibly feeling a little overwhelmed, but Melkin said in his gravelly voice, “What of the Empress? Where does she fit into this?”

  “She will be there,” Rheine said, which shed a whole lot more light on the subject. Then the Chieftess turned abruptly away from them and sought her seat, and an uncharacteristic silence settled over the group. Ari had an ache in his gut, a sinking conviction that more was going on and would go on than this simple plan she’d just outlined. She hadn’t even mentioned Raemon. Or Ari’s role, though he didn’t really want anyone to know about it.

  “Lord Il,” Rheine said, voice rich with feeling, and the Whiteblades as one dropped their heads respectfully. “King of all and ever, great has been Thy keeping these many long years. Though they have weighed heavy on us, keep us in mind of Thy will and the deeds now required. We will need Thy strength in the evil place we must go, as will those in our care. Grant it, we pray Thee, by thy Wisdom for thy Glory, that thy Dominion might ever reign. Let it be done.”

  “So let it be done,” whispered around the group. The Whiteblades raised their heads, shooting serious looks at each other.

  “Can you play, Siren?” Rheine asked quietly into the soft, pensive dusk. Faces brightened instantly, and Irise, chirping an affirmative, pulled out a tiny set of pipes from somewhere on her person with her one good hand. Animated change swept over the group as the first notes broke into the air. Sylvar leaped like an antelope from a cross-legged sprawl to a whirling dance in the middle of the circle, her boots pounding into oblivion the lines of tomorrow’s plan. The northerners had never heard such a mad, energetic tune in their life—they could hardly sit still listening to it, and indeed, within minutes several other Whiteblades had joined Sylvar, their feet leaping and kicking in heady unison. It went on for over an hour, tune after sprightly tune, with laughing and clapping and joking calls to the dancers. Sylvar was little less than an acrobat, her feet moving so fast sometimes they were a blur; she turned backflips, kicked her legs in dizzying repetition toward the sky, and, occasionally, when a tune turned wispy and sentimental, twirled and curved and arched her body so slowly and gracefully that it made your throat tighten.

  Sweet Rhoda sang a song that would make a stone wall weep, and was begged for more so many times that there were hours more of that, sometimes with dancing, sometimes not. The northerners had heard a few of them, but most sounded old, with archaic shifts of tone and odd, mournful flats.

  Then, very late, when the sky was nothing but brilliant diamonds overhead and the moon was the only light in a clearing long dead of fire, Irise started a new, strange tune on her set of pipes. All the Whiteblades rose as if on signal, singing a single word in a deep, primal kind of tune. They all began to move in unison, a set dance, kicking their feet slowly and stepping to the side so that soon they made a circling wheel. The tempo picked up, the song brightened, Rhoda’s disembodied voice singing a heart-breaking aria in and around the base melody. The circle linked, beginning to whirl faster and faster as the music became poignantly triumphant, so much so that Ari longed to jump up and join them.

  It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, those girls in the moonlight, lovely faces thrown back and luminous with joy, hair floating out behind them in glossy, silken strands, slender legs in their lilting, gliding dance circling round and round in a night molten with deep, thrumming exaltation.

  It was a cold breakfast the next morning, Yve having disappeared sometime in the night with the rest of the other teams. Ari could hardly eat anyway, pacing nervously. He’d washed out a fresh shirt for the occasion and it was already soaked with sweat.

  Banion had a tremendous appetite, for his part, and was on his second ham and merrily propounding the benefits of fighting on a full stomach when the Whiteblades began to drift in.

  It wasn’t uncommon not to see them right away, but this morning seemed especially significant. They apparently thought so, too, and the boys’ mouths went slack as they appeared one by one.

  “Oh, look,” Cerise said sarcastically, “they’re color-coded.”

  They seemed to be. The worn leathers were gone, replaced with fine Cyrrhidean suede, dyed to match their coloring, and pale silk blouses. You could guess which of the horses out of the herd belonged to whom, Ari realized; they matched, too.

  “Is—is she—wearing jewels?” Cerise demanded, eyes glued to a brilliant opal nestling in the curve of Jordan’s throat. “To a battle?!”

  Traive came up beside them, looking pleased. “Those are gifts from Cyrrh, from so long ago they were thought to be lost to legend,” he said quietly. “Each according to her kind. What an honor…” he murmured.

  “Is there a party we don’t know about?” Loren asked, bemused.

  �
��We’re going to find out,” Rodge said gloomily. He wasn’t looking forward to the day.

  They all made a pretty picture, and were distracting for a few moments, but Ari soon began to feel his stomach jumping again. The strangely silent Whiteblades mounted up, and the northerners did the same, quickly, though you wouldn’t think they’d be worried about being left behind. Hands shaking, Ari straightened his plain wood scabbard once he was up, wondering where all the white ones of the Followers were—they weren’t on their hips. He managed a brave smile as he helped Selah up behind him. All the horses were in use today, including her spare.

  It was almost a relief to be moving. Ari glanced back, finding it hard to believe the little clearing had ever held such vibrant, vivid life as it had the night before. There wasn’t a sign that humans had been there.

  Rheine, as calm and poised as if they were headed into town for marketday, led them uneventfully down into the canyon. Ari’s heart started to pound as soon as his gelding tipped downhill. The pass was empty, red rocks motionless and haloed by heat waves so close to the middle of the day. It was an oven down at the bottom and his face started to feel as hot as his hair looked.

  He rode right behind Rheine, with Vashti on a beautiful buckskin to his right and the other Dra, Atlanta, on her velvety brown stallion off to his left. His ‘guard,’ he thought, sick with nervousness at the part he was required to play. It lasted forever, that canyon. Rheine’s map had definitely not been to scale, because that trip was at least three lifetimes long. He was about sweated out, his mouth a cotton ball, when it happened.

  There was no warning. They were just suddenly there, men in red dust-colored cloth, heads wound so that only their eyes showed—brilliant bluish-greenish eyes, clear as water in the Pools of Tiramina. Ari was so shocked he forgot to be nervous. So that’s what people saw when they looked at him.

  Cerise gave a little choked-off cry of startlement, but otherwise there was no sound. The party came immediately to a halt. Vultures circled high overhead, three of them, in a patient circle. The rocks sat in timeless, uncaring audience all around. Not even a hint of breeze broke the stifling heat.