by Tom Lloyd
‘It’s light,’ Amber commented, ‘but you’re not going to put out anyone’s eye with it.’ He gave Carel an assessing look, stepped to his left side and prodded him in the ribs then shoulder. He shook his head. ‘Just mail? Most soldiers won’t bother slashing at you, especially if you’re as close as you just were. Get some steel bands to cover your ribs – you’re open to sticking there.’
Carel’s eyes went to Amber’s twin scimitars. The general had a long reach with them, but it was a curiously elegant style of fighting that belied the man’s size and strength. They were heavy, slashing weapons and few had the skill to thrust with such swords. ‘You would.’
‘But most likely I’m not who you’ll be facing: I need to stand back and cut faster than my enemy lunges, and so do you.’ He waved a finger in the vague direction of the Kingsguard Carel had been sparring with. ‘Ask any of them: they’d try to close and pin you, then jam something in your ribs just as you got there.’
‘So I need a scimitar? Maybe if I had my old one, but that’s best in General Lahk’s hands. I’m too old to learn with a full-weight sword.’
‘You’re too old to learn,’ he agreed, ‘so stick to what you know – and don’t move like you’re fencing. You’ve not got the speed to lunge any more, so don’t bother; stand off and use your experience.’ He turned to Carel’s sparring partner. ‘You, advance on me like before.’
At a nod from Carel the man did so, again coming low behind his shield. In one smooth movement Amber drew a scimitar and stood ready, left arm tucked behind his back to mimic Carel’s lost limb. He stood more square-on than Carel had, and he moved his sword moving constantly, all the while watching his opponent advance. Carel felt his hand tighten around the grip of his own sword as the two came within striking distance, then smiled as Amber took a pace back and out of range.
The Kingsguard hesitated a moment, then hurried to make up the ground again, but in that moment Amber moved right and slashed high, right to left. On instinct the Kingsguard pushed his shield forward to block the blow, but Amber tilted his body and let the blade skip lightly off the shield before flicking it back around and underneath to touch against the arm. By the time the soldier’s own sword had come up to strike, Amber was further around and the soldier’s blow barely reached the Menin’s pauldron while Amber went for a second strike to the back of the man’s neck.
The scimitar hovered six inches from a lethal blow and the soldier froze. Even as Amber stepped neatly away, the man’s face showed he was imagining the blow falling on a part only knights could afford to protect properly.
‘Steal a knight’s pauldron; pad and protect that shoulder,’ Amber said as he sheathed his weapon. ‘You cut from range, then they’ll do the same. You will take blows, but most’ll be looking to bring the fight to you. If they do get in close, surprise them and meet it – put your weight on the shield and thrust over.’
Carel nodded and sheathed his weapon.
His movement reminded his Kingsguard opponent that his was still drawn, and he lowered his weapon.
‘You got time to spar?’
‘Sorry,’ Amber said, ‘we’re marching out today. The army’s just waiting for me to return. I want to get a good distance under my belt before evening.’
‘So why’re you here?’
Amber opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. Carel recognised the flicker of pain in his eyes from several evenings of hard drinking together. It was easy for Amber’s mind to slip to subjects that physically pained him; Nai used his name regularly to reinforce the man’s defences against it, but there was no healing the wound completely.
At a look from Carel the Kingsguard backed off to give them privacy; Amber’s bodyguards did the same once the Kingsguard had moved away from their commander.
That’s a sad sign right there: I’m just an old cripple in their eyes, no threat to anyone.
‘Lord Isak will return here soon,’ Amber began hesitantly. ‘I’ll be gone by then, but we will meet – before we reach Byora. I do not know—’ He stopped.
‘How you’ll act?’ Carel prompted at last, looking at him. The Menin’s face was an open book now, his thoughts writ clear.
Amber ducked his head as though Carel had swung at it. ‘How I’ll act, yes. He – he broke my mind. He tore out a part of me.’
‘None of us are whole, friend,’ Carel said softly. To emphasise his point the veteran raised his good arm and the stump of his left. ‘That’s what war does to us. That’s what we do to each other.’
‘For a time, all that kept me alive was the hatred I felt. Nai gave me a—’ He cast around for the right word in Farlan. His command of the dialect was impressive, reinforced by magery, no doubt, but Carel could see his thoughts were still a jumble. ‘The necromancer gave me point of reference,’ he went on, ‘but it was either pain or hatred. I chose the one that would keep me alive.’
‘I understand.’ Now it was Carel’s turn to feel the hurt of memories, but his were as much shame as grief. ‘I blamed a friend for Isak’s death. The boy was a white-eye, for pity’s sake – he was supposed to outlive the grandchildren of anyone I knew, not die before an old wreck like me. I couldn’t deal with the loss, I realise that now, so I heaped it on another. I’m just glad Vesna was strong enough to survive it – though he wouldn’t even return the favour when he lost his betrothed, just took it all on his own shoulders.’
‘Vesna? The Mortal-Aspect?’
Carel nodded sadly. ‘Cruel blessing, that, I think. He’s the sort to take on the burdens of the whole Land, thinking it’s his duty, but the Gods’ strength can’t do much for a man’s soul. He’ll feel it all in a way no God was supposed to.’
‘That’s what we do to each other,’ Amber echoed with a haunted expression. ‘I can’t be sure what I will do when I meet your lord. I can’t be sure how strong the hatred is – so I ask you to be there when it happens. We are … we have come to understand each other, I think. Seeing you beside him may keep my mind clear.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Carel said fervently, ‘for more sakes than yours. He’s as damaged as you, King Emin says, and carrying a burden that dwarfs anything we could imagine. The boy’ll need me, even if he don’t know me.’
Amber bowed his head in understanding. ‘Good. After all this loss, we cannot afford to waste what remains.’
He turned to head back to his troops, the Menin bodyguards surrounding him. Carel watched the man leave with sadness in his heart. All this loss, aye. What will be left even in victory? Will we envy the dead?
When Ardela found him, Carel was taking a beating from a woman half his size. When Dashain stepped back abruptly and lowered the training stick, it took him a while to work out it wasn’t a ruse. Gasping for breath, he touched his fingers to the welt on his cheek and winced. The sticks were lighter than swords, of course, but they still hurt when swung with force.
‘I knew punishments were different in the Brotherhood,’ Ardela called, laughing, ‘but it seems silly to give them a stick of their own!’
Dashain bowed to the newcomer. ‘It makes them more willing,’ she countered. ‘They think it’s foreplay more often than not.’
‘Eh?’ Carel huffed, trying to catch his breath long enough to join in with the banter. ‘I’d be trying harder if that was the case. I ain’t that old!’
In response Dashain hopped forward and cracked her stick across the veteran’s buttocks before he could move to defend himself. ‘At least your brain’s not as slow as your feet, old man – but don’t pretend you could keep up anyways.’
Carel raised his hand in surrender and let the stick fall to the ground. He grabbed the cloth lying next to his sword and brigandine to wipe the sweat from his face. By contrast Dashain looked barely ruffled, with little more than an attractive flush on her dimpled cheeks and a rogue strand of hair that was quickly pushed back.
‘So how goes you today?’ Carel said once he’d dried his face. ‘Busy with Daughters business?’
Ardela shook her head. ‘Don’t call us that – the Lady’s dead.’
He noted the change in her demeanour. ‘As you wish,’ he said, ‘but no one knows what to call you now, ’less you’d want “Sisterhood” to catch on.’
‘That’s Legana’s decision.’ She shifted uncomfortably. ‘And it’s why I came to find you.’
‘She wants me to come up with a name?’ Carel asked before his brain caught up with his mouth. ‘Legana? She’s here?’
‘At the compound,’ Ardela confirmed. She indicated her torso with a slight look of discomfort. ‘Got my scar and everything – and no, you can’t see it.’
The attempt at humour didn’t diminish Carel’s tension; he’d been waiting too long for this moment. ‘They’re all here?’ he asked, his voice strained.
She shook her head. ‘I was waiting for them at a village I thought they’d have to pass. We came on ahead, but the rest are only an hour out.’
Carel grabbed his possessions, sheathed the sword and started off towards the compound where the former Hands of Fate lived, then stopped abruptly.
‘You met them at the village?’
‘Gods, Dashain really did beat the sense out of you, didn’t she? That’s what I said.’
‘I’m tired, is all,’ Carel growled. He caught his breath, then asked, ‘So how’d he look?’
‘Isak?’ Ardela’s lips tightened. ‘Tsatach’s balls, Carel, he’s a sight. You’d best prepare yourself.’
‘How?’ he demanded, then shook his head. ‘Sorry, not meaning to be angry with you.’ They set off again and he asked, ‘So how do I prepare myself for seeing him? I know his body’s a mess, that he’s less pretty than me these days – but that’s not what scares me. I got used to that snow-white arm of his, and I stopped noticing much else about him – it was like Lord Bahl: you didn’t see the face so much as the presence.’
‘Well, he’s balanced out the arm, for a start,’ Ardela muttered. ‘His right’s as black as a charred log now.’ She couldn’t keep the tinge of horror from her voice. ‘I didn’t hear why, but that dog o’ his was keeping well away from that side of him.’
Despite everything, Carel smiled. ‘Little bugger always did want a dog,’ he said sadly. ‘His father never let him, though; I’ll bet Horman was scared it’d go for him when he smacked Isak about.’
‘Looking at the size of Hulf the man might’ve had a point.’
The veteran didn’t speak again until they reached the compound and came face to face with Legana – and found words failed him. Carel had always been told that she was as beautiful as she was savage, and he’d still been expecting someone a little like Dashain or Ardela. But Legana the Mortal-Aspect was neither: her beauty was far from the knowing elegance of Dashain or Ardela’s lithe athleticism. Legana was divinely exquisite; not merely enticing but heart-stopping, with a glamour that surpassed physical attraction. From beneath a shawl that shaded her face, Legana’s emerald eyes shone, and the strange image of a beautiful young woman resting on a walking stick served only to enhance her arresting presence somehow.
– Carel? Legana scribbled on the piece of slate hanging from her neck.
‘I— Aye, that’s me.’ He found himself ducking his head to her.
– Your hand?
He showed her his palm. ‘I didn’t give ’em much of a choice,’ he said, feeling the need to explain himself in the face of Legana’s unblinking scrutiny.
The Mortal-Aspect cocked her head at Ardela, who had come to stand between them. She touched a finger to the former devotee’s arm and nodded.
‘Legana says the choice is hers. The tattoos are nothing alone.’
‘I know that, but I had to hope I could persuade you.’
‘Then do so,’ Ardela repeated, her face tight with conflicted emotion. ‘You’re not Brotherhood, nor serving Ghost who’ll need every edge behind enemy lines. After the ritual on Tairen Moor, she’d not planned on sharing the power with anyone but those sisters who accompany her.’
‘Call me a sister if you like,’ Carel said dismissively. ‘My link to Isak got severed by something that witch did – now, I ain’t blaming her, but the boy’s pretty much all I got in this life. I want that connection back, and I want to be at his side, come whatever may.’
‘He does not remember you,’ Ardela continued as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘and meeting you might cause him more hurt – you’re not the only one he’s forgotten, but you’re the most important. Seeing you might only make things worse.’
Carel said angrily, ‘If it got cut from his mind, he remembers nothing, but we were like family once and he learned to trust me. I ain’t going to abandon the boy. There’s no man nor woman alive knows him as well as me. I’ll be there to clip his ear ’til the day I die.’
His shoulders sagged. ‘All I’m asking for is for him to feel something when he sees me again. I know he won’t know me, I ain’t kidding myself about that, but this link you’ve got might make me something less than a stranger and you know I’d die for him before any o’ your sisters.’
Legana was perfectly still as she observed Carel, who lowered his own gaze, unable to bear the weight of her scrutiny; he could feel it as the warmth of a fire on his cheeks. The moment stretched out: half-a-dozen heartbeats, a dozen, and Carel felt helplessness wash over him. He looked up, preparing to say something he knew he’d regret, when Legana moved with blinding speed: he caught the glint of a knife, his shirt was slashed open and she slammed her palm against his sternum with enough force that he should have been knocked from his feet.
Carel rocked backwards, but he was anchored by a sudden surge of magic that wrapped tendrils of fire around his ribcage. Black stars burst before his eyes as the energies raced out over his body and sparks crackled from his fingertips. The hand on his chest became searing hot. Distantly he heard himself cry out in pain and smelled the sizzle and stink of burning flesh. He watched dark shapes writhe over his raised hand, frozen in the act of reaching for Legana’s, the inked skin of his palm reshaped by her magic. Dancing faster than he could follow, black worms of magic slipped down his arm, leaving behind a wet-looking trail of thinner rowan leaves twisted around the original ragged hazel. On his palm the magic writhed in a tight circle until suddenly all that was left behind were the circles and owl’s head tattoo, now alive and bright with magic.
Carel sagged as the energies flowing through him broke off, unable to bear his own weight. Without Ardela slipping her arm around him, he’d have dropped to his knees. For a while all he could do was pant like an exhausted dog.
‘It is done,’ said Legana’s voice in his mind. ‘You are one of us, bound to us.’
‘Thank you,’ Carel gasped.
‘It is not a gift. There will be a price,’ she warned.
‘I understand,’ he whispered. ‘I’m here to help Isak in whatever way I can.’
‘Even if that is by leaving his side and never returning.’
Carel found the strength to stand again. Gods, maybe Commander Jachen was right: she’s a pitiless bitch to the end.
‘I told you,’ he repeated angrily, ‘I’m here for Isak. If he needs me to go, I’ll go.’
At last she smiled at him. ‘Then I’ll call you brother,’ she said, ‘or perhaps sister, since you were so insistent about that.’
Carel was too drained even to smile. He nodded vaguely. ‘My thanks,’ he managed. ‘Time to go and see what Isak thinks now.’ He wobbled a moment before righting himself, waving off Ardela’s assistance and heading back towards the gate.
Legana put her hand on Ardela’s arm and squeezed it. ‘Go with him. He might need a friend. There are still some novices who require the ritual; our reunion would have had to wait, even without Marshal Carelfolden’s urgent need.’
Ardela caught up with Carel just outside the gate. ‘Easy there,’ she told him. ‘Take a moment, Carel.’
‘Wait?’ he demanded.
She planted herself in front of him. ‘Yes, wait –
and breathe, will you? You look about ready to pitch on your face.’
‘I can catch my breath on the way,’ he huffed, but when he tried to push past her, Ardela easily held him back.
‘Do it for me, then,’ she said. She pointed to his tattooed palm. ‘That might be just be a means to an end for you, but it’s more than that to the rest of us. Take a moment and really look at what she’s done. You’re linked to us for ever, but you’ve not even bloody looked at the scar on your chest!’
Carel scowled. ‘Seen it before,’ he mumbled, but he stopped and lifted his shirt to see the raised scar. The shape was familiar enough, a circle bearing the heart rune, just as Isak and Mihn had borne. ‘Strange though,’ he murmured, ‘I barely knew Xeliath, and now her name’s on my chest.’
‘I never even met the girl,’ Ardela said with surprising gentleness, ‘but Legana still told me to think of her once the ritual was done.’ She touched her fingers to the stump of his left arm and moved the pinned-up sleeve covering it. Underneath, though distorted by the uneven scar tissue, was another tattoo, still identifiable as the concentric circles on Carel’s palm despite looking as though viewed through a sheet of ice. Ardela didn’t appear surprised at the sight, but Carel gaped, for the priestess hadn’t put a tattoo on his hand-less arm.
‘The magic is all about balance,’ she explained, seeing his face. ‘These tattoos are what we are now. The course of the rest of our lives is mapped out in these lines, whether they’re but few short days or decades from now. There’s a purpose to the link between us all. It might be you’re destined for different things, but it’s all I’m likely to have, so don’t go treating it lightly, hear me?’
Carel sighed. ‘Aye, you’re right, Ardela. I’m sorry – can’t help but rush, these days, it’s either that or stop and think about things I don’t want to.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Come on, you can tell me about this purpose we share on the way.’