Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  Whatever happened, she could cling to what she still had. These days, some people would kill to sit at Chevenga’s right hand; now it was one of his command council, but Sova was only three down, her eyes shining. Daughter. Every battle, she’d had to fight down sickness at the thought of the girl—whom her mind knew was not as fragile as her thread-bare emotions felt—facing Arkan steel. Sometimes you don’t care if you break my heart, but I’d rather hear a hundred times as many cruel words from you, than lose you.

  At Chevenga’s left sat Niku, his A-niah lover who’d been the subject of such controversy, when they’d wanted to marry. Their toddling daughter Vriah, bright blond curls shining against warm brown skin, crawled between her parents’ laps until she fell asleep in his. Another child, I would have harmed, Megan thought, saving my own.

  Imperator. In a day or two, what she had once created as an image by manrauq would be real. She watched his hands, the one curled shielding around the child, the other gesturing expansively, and imagined the golden seals flashing on them. I guess I have you, too. He only still existed by her choice, though he didn’t know it; by not killing him, she’d made him, in a way, one of her own.

  The topic turned to revenge, and he let everyone else do the talking. Ever quiet, she thought, about your grudge. Are you hiding something from yourself? She wet her lips with wine, and said, “I had an experience of vengeance,” she said. Faces turned to her, attentive.

  “My second in command drugged me, sold me off—he thought he’d sent me off for an underling to kill—and took over my House and my business. He’d almost ruined me by the time I came home. But I had the backing to fight him, then. He’d hurt so many of my friends, to hurt me, that I was determined to lock him in a cage too small for him to either sit, stand or lie, hang him in my hall-garden and torment him for the rest of his life.”

  The silence deepened. She looked down at her claws, shining in the firelight, and thought of Habiku’s loving/hating amber gaze in Ranion’s arena where he’d died, almost at her feet. “The rage, the need for vengeance, almost ate me alive.”

  “Almost?” someone else asked.

  “I didn’t let it,” she said softly. “I didn’t cage him, or even kill him, after all. I’d have tied myself to his memory, if I’d done it, driven everyone else away from me and been alone and a little bug-fikken crazy by now.”

  She gazed across the fire at Chevenga.

  His brows rose. “You’re worried I might do the same with Kurkas.” She felt a strained smile form on her own lips, confirming.

  Peyepallo of Hyerne was there; she snorted. “Kill him and be done; that’s the best way. Death ends all disputes.”

  Chevenga signed chalk to the Hyerne, more in acknowledgement than agreement, but addressed Megan. “I can’t spare my tormentor, for one reason: his position. It’s political necessity.”

  There was a round of affirmative noises. “But have you decided how you’re going to kill him, lad?” That was his shadow-father, Esora-e, grinning cruelly; she’d heard tales of their quarrels.

  “No.” Just that. You never answer such serious questions so shortly, Megan thought.

  “Then vengeance doesn’t obsess you,” said someone else. “No one need worry.” Another Yeoli asked whether he would feel at Kurkas’s mercy forever if someone else killed him, which he waved off. Then a Lakan—the general, Megan guessed by the elaborateness of his dress and the length of his hair-earrings, Arzaktaj—spoke.

  “We’ve all heard the tales, of what he did to you, Shaikakdan. It’s not natural for a man, even a kind one, who is going to have in his mercy one who has done to him what Kurkas did to you, to have no thought at all of what he plans to do to him.”

  Chevenga held up the wine-skin for quiet. “Listen,” he said, in a voice that could only have been heard in total silence. “However it goes, I will not come away feeling the victim. Believe me.” He raised his wine-skin for punctuation, and laughter rocked the fire.

  “Am I a barbarian?” he went on. “I look at myself in the mirror and ask, because I’d be a fool not to. War makes barbarians of all of us; the pain and fear we all suffer turns to anger and hate. I will say what my father told me: in war, barbarities are neither to do for their own sake, nor not to do because they are barbarities, only to do when necessary. At the same time, one must never forget they are barbarities, else how can one remember how to conduct oneself in peacetime?”

  “I picked a flower on the mountain, when I was a child. ‘You killed it,’ he said. ‘Here, so high, where they take twenty years to grow back ...’ I felt awful. His point was, whatever you do, you must always know what it is you do, no matter how much pain that brings. That pain is the price of power ...”

  He went on in that vein, while Megan waited for a straight answer. A snake in the grass, Chevenga. You usually chew things over with these people, now you’re hiding behind philosophy. In truth, she’d never heard him get so preachy. It was increasingly irritating.

  Of course, in a day or two, when it was over, her oath would be fulfilled and he would release her; then she would do whatever she had to, to trace the fates of Shkai’ra, and Lixand. Your problem, Gold-bottom, she thought. And Kurkas’s. Go with Koru.

  She stood on a hill overlooking Finpollendias, and scanned the ranged armies with Shkai’ra’s far-lookers. The lines faced each other waiting for the order to charge, like black caterpillars with tens of thousands of legs, standards poking upwards like spines, spearpoints and lanceheads winking like innumerable fireflies. As many Arkans as Alliance, but a good three-quarters were boys and old men; Megan could imagine the faces under the helmets, wrinkled or childish. Only some of them had armor.

  Nothing moved in the thousand meters of open space between the forces, land that had been manicured garden before war came to the inviolate heart of the Empire; it was dreamlike, seeing the armies arrayed among lawns and flowers and clipped trees. The buzzing noise of two hundred thousand voices was like distant heavy surf.

  The Lakans were on the left flank, with their banner of a fire-horse on black, the dark-faced knights wearing animal crests on their helmets. Backed by the Enchians with their two overlapping diamonds balanced on the one point, infantry next to them, the Schvait with their black bear on yellow and all the division standards; all the motley mercenary flags and figurines. The Yeolis with town standards—Where’s the blue and green? I don’t see it, that’s strange. Chevenga can’t be taking today off. The few Yeoli horse and the mercenary cavalry on the far right, with their lance-butts resting on the toes of their boots; Sovee. She would be carrying the Slaughterer’s standard—everyone had steadfastly refused to let the unit be renamed, until Shkai’ra’s corpse was brought in—and the Minztan saber.

  Everybody stood waiting; it seemed all the world stood waiting. She wanted to worry at the skin around her claws but kept the far-lookers steady. What are we waiting for?

  Then from straight up she heard tight cloth flapping, like kites, and a distant A-niah voice. She looked, expecting to see a single-wing, and swore to herself. Koru, my Lady Goddess. Ho-o-o-o-ly shit.

  The sky was full of them. There had to be a thousand. Black, blue, green, in a pattern like one huge wing, or bird, with torches, each one leaving a trail of smoke. The one at the tip of the formation, the bird’s head, was blue and green with the mountain and stars, the Yeoli standard in wing shape. No, Chevenga isn’t taking today off.

  They were out of arrow-range but not out of hearing; she heard his cracking voice yell “Sing!” Then a creepy off-pitch shrilling, like nails on slate, tore out of a thousand throats and bellies.

  She swung the lookers back to the Arkans. Their helms were all turned to the sky, some even dropping their weapons; the neat boxes and lines of their formations rippled. When the wings were right over them, and just starting to drop for the cliff-edge behind them, the Alliance gongs crashed, “charge.”

  Like a wave cresting, cavalry lances lowered into place, misty sun sparking off
the tips, the horses starting at a walk/fast walk/trot/canter, a crescendo like thunder. Behind them the infantry started forward at a measured trot, fifty thousand strong, an earthquake sound. A howl shook the field, exultant, from the Alliance troops, despairing from the Arkan. Flights of arrows preceded the charge, thick enough to cast a moving shadow like a cloud; the crossbows replied, flatter trajectories and visible only because the sun shone on the occasional head or cock-feather. The long whistling ended in a sound like manyfold hail on a metal plate, as the heads struck steel; the duller sound of points driving home in flesh was lost in the half-kilometer of distance. The Arkan cavalry had gotten up to speed, those were the professionals; where they met the Lakan chivalry the impact threw broken lance-shafts twenty meters into the air, and horses pin-wheeled head-over-heels. Enchians and Moghiur rode around their flank, shooting point-blank with their horn-backed bows.

  The Arkan shieldwall stood fast for a moment, sending a ripple like a wave through the sea down the Alliance line; archers were running behind the pikes, loosing a continuous rain over the long polearms. The kilometer-long front bristled like a hedgehog with linked shafts, and swayed back and forth; the sound of it struck her chest like a blow. But too many Arkans were looking backwards, or up, watching a thousand wings make their stand futile.

  She could hear the frantic shrilling of the Arkan’s command whistles, “Stand. Hold. Stand.” The line tore like a sail in a Lannic storm, one moment whole, the next, useless fluttering rags. Alliance cavalry rolled over them, throwing them back left and right; Arkans ran pellmell, flinging away shields and helms to run faster, back toward the city, as if that could help their homes, their families. Here and there a knot eddied around a group standing fast, circled back to back, shields up; but they were few.

  The Slaughterers would go to the Great Gate, the tunneled one, when they were finished here; there, she saw them thunder away to the west, striking down stray Arkans all the way. Go with Koru, daughter ... Under the lookers her mouth curved in a smile. There wouldn’t even be many Alliance casualties. Just mopping up, then the usual orderly distribution of loot ... if Chevenga stuck to his word that there would be no sacking, that was. She hadn’t heard any particularly strong orders against it. Is it that you’re aiding?

  Her lips thinned, as she pinched them shut against fear. That won’t help my search, Chevenga. That won’t help at all. You gave your word; don’t fik me up. A ribbon of smoke rose from beyond the cliff; not surprising, since the flyers had all had torches. Intimidating as Hatya, she thought, making the Arkans all think you’re going to do it, but there were bound to be some accidents.

  Around the upper entrance to the spiral tunnel that was the Great Gate of Arko, bodies lay in windrows, bristling with arrows or scorched by clingfire. A burning springald rested on its side, one wheel spinning in the names, the Arkans who’d taken it out resting around it heroic and futile and dead; the inside end of the tunnel had fallen to A-niah and Yeoli flyers coming from the city. But Arkans still held, between.

  “Bows forward!” Bukangkt shouted. “Second battalion in reserve.” They rode into the great tunnel, the arching rock ceiling four stories above Sova’s head, the sound like being inside a bucket with someone beating on the outside with an iron bar. Even with wall-lamps burning, the darkness was thick after sunlight. Smoke and heat pressed in from above and below, burning her throat and chest, heating her armor like a roasting pot. Two turns down, past scattered bodies of a dozen nationalities, an Arkan shieldwall held the twenty-meter width of the tunnel, against Aenir footfighters from the riverside towns along the Brezhan with great two-handed axes and long spears, locked in a snarling, screaming, grunting knot. Blood ran down the smooth paving in a continuous thin sheet; the horses’ hooves scrabbled at it, wet clattering. As Sova watched, the whole mass took a single lurching step backward down the slope.

  “In line!” Bukangkt screamed. A trumpet called, thin and reedy through the huge clamor; the Aenir seemed to slow at the second call, backed a few steps and then dashed upslope to either side. Between the slope and the height of her mounts, Sova could see past the Arkan line to the exhausted ranks snatching rest before being sent in again. “Draw shaft! Pick target!”

  Five hundred horn-backed compound bows rose. The Arkans were less than twenty meters away; at this range armor-piercing arrows would drill right through a shield. Sova could see their faces as she drew to the ear, saw one in the third rank close his eyes and move his lips in prayer. But none broke ranks.

  “Loose!”

  “Aaaahhhhhghgh—”

  The Arkan with the mace reeled away, face slashed across. Sova felt Shkai’ra’s saber wobble slightly in her hand. The Slaughterers had kept true to their name, here at the tunnel’s inward end; it was hand-to-hand now, but the dead from their archery stretched back scores of meters, where Arko’s last stand had been crushed from both sides. Yeolis and A-niah came laughing and leaping to meet them, arms outstretched, the cry echoing through the tunnel: “Victory!”

  Then came the impact on her thigh: so hard it didn’t hurt at first, only made spots of grey form like clouds before her eyes. The moment’s slip of awareness ... the Arkan with the mace had just been reeling, not down, maybe blinded, but not weakened enough not to make one last blundering but death-throe-strong blow. She looked at her leg, saw nothing—Zak chain-mail didn’t dent—and wondered whether she’d imagined it. Then the pain came, dizzying. Her leg wouldn’t move. Someone cut the Arkan down.

  She wiped and sheathed the sword, her hands shaking, taking a little time to find the scabbard. What do I do? I’m wounded. This is what it feels like. I’m wounded, but it doesn’t show. No one will believe me. Where do I go? Bukangkt was smiling, cold and unpleasant, as they rode out of the archway over a carpet of Arkan bodies, some still moving; the horses placed their feet cautiously, the riders looked down and stabbed with lance or swordpoint to make sure the Arkan dead stayed that way. The Lakan threw his hands up and his head back in exultation as they came into the clear, sun so bright she had to half-close her eyes. The inside gate was flanked by two marble wing-lions, each big as a house.

  It was over; not just the battle, the whole war. Sova dragged off her helmet. Every instant of her horse’s lurching became agony. She swilled water around her mouth, spitting before she drank, felt sick as she swallowed. The view ahead was breathtaking; from this angle at least, the huge marble-white mass of Arko was beautiful, the most beautiful city she’d ever seen. But fires sprouted all over it; from here she could see little figures ant-tiny with distance running through the streets.

  Bukangkt turned in his saddle. “We won!” It was quiet here, compared to the tunnel, and his voice carried to them all. “Here, the richest city in world, waiting for us with legs spread! Plunder and burn! Forward!” Sova wanted to throw up.

  Megan watched the battle on the plain push closer and closer to the cliff-edge; in spots the first climbers had already reached it and were lowering ropes. The Arkans facing them had either fled sideways or been forced over the edge.

  She lowered the far-lookers and took a swig of water. Even if the battle were in effect over, it would still be a while. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed more smoke starring to rise in the City. She peered through the lookers.

  Another thin column of smoke rose to join the first two, thickening black instead of thinning ... then panning she found a fourth in a wildly different spot. She pulled the glasses away from her face as if she could see better without them; the scene shrank to flickers of light and ant-crawlings; she snapped them up again. It made no difference, even these lenses couldn’t look down into a city, through ground. More smoke.

  The City’s on fire. The fish-gutted City’s on fire. You were hiding that. It was what you were hiding, damn you, Chevenga! If Lixand is there ... She checked her pouch, felt the crinkling of her map. I’ve got no armor, just my knives; I’m crazy to go down there. But she did, at a dead sprint, leaping over hedges and ditches
, thinking only: Lixand.

  Near the cliff-edge was madness; the Alliance had seized the lefaeti, the lifts, and dropped hawsers, whooping, to slide down them like spiders to a helpless prey. Scattered skirmishes were still going on. A unit of Arkans, about fifty, threw down their weapons; the Yeoli commander made them strip, marched them to the cliff-edge, and let his people drive them off. Other Arkans flung themselves over of their own will.

  She ran to the crowd around the head of one hawser, cutting her way through with vicious elbows. Everyone around her was screaming and laughing, throwing around gouts of wine—how in fishguts did they get that onto the battlefield? Koru, shit, I thought we’d be fighting all day, and it’s already over, so fast ... She couldn’t see, for taller people, until she found a fencepost to stand on.

  Arko. There it lay, like a dream in the haze. A ring of forest, a sickle of lake, houses, houses, row upon row of houses, spreading over chiliois, shining white buildings sprawling, towers, so many towers.

  A dream, burning. More plumes of smoke grew and billowed upward. No sack, you said. No sack. My thread of hope could be burning in that. And if it does I will never know. Never, ever.

  She saw a building explode into flames: a sawmill ... the whole pit will go up, forest and all. She had to get down, fast.

  Lady Koru. Chevenga. I trusted you. I didn’t kill you, because I trusted you.

  She pulled her climbing gloves on, hands trembling.

  The cliff was two hundred naZak-long paces down, maybe a fifth of a chiliois. She adjusted the harness; the feel of it, pressure on the shackle at her buckle and over her shoulder was familiar from rope-climbing in F’talezon, as a child. She pushed off with her bootsoles, gently, watched the grey and black mirror rock-face glide up past her, controlled her fall with her hands. It was straight down, as smooth as polishing over centuries could make it, no worse than scaling down a building, unclimbable any other way. Mirror image of herself shining in smooth rock, almost glass-smooth, and black billows darkening ihe sky behind. Longer and longer bounds, if I burn the palms out of my gloves I don’t care.