Sword of Jashan (Book 2)

by Anne Marie Lutz

  Again Dria Mar pointed at Yhallin. “Why do you not question her?”

  “Her loyalty is not in question,” Sharpeyes said. “We are here to talk to you, dear sister.”

  “I did not do such a deed. I would never conspire to have my son killed.”

  “Who said anythin’ about killed?” Mot spoke up. She shook back her unruly hair and glared at Dria Mar. “We was never gonna kill him.”

  Ander’s head whipped toward the chit. “You weren’t?”

  “Da said they was to kill his guards and the tutor, and take him away blindfolded so’s he couldn’t see where he was. Then they was to spread the word a yellow-eyed righ done it.”

  “But why?” Ander burst out.

  “Lady Dria Mar knows why, do you not, sister?” King Martan said. “What better way to ensure your son’s inheritance than to accuse Lord Callo of attempted assassination? Your accusation would have been supported by the purchased word of his attackers. You are indeed very clever. I begin to have hopes of young Ander, if he has inherited your slyness as well as his considerable talent for color magery.”

  Lady Dria Mar did not respond.

  “Have you anything more to say for yourself?”

  Dria Mar’s head went up. “Yes, I do. What possesses you, Your Majesty, to consider a bastard half-ku’an for succession to the throne of Righar? Why do you encourage him, when Ander is blood of your blood, heir by birth, son of your own brother Yarin? It is not I who should be accused, it is you. If your Council knew what you planned . . .”

  “The Council can go to hell,” King Martan said. Color magery now wrapped his hands in red, and there were sparks in his eyes. Several of those in the room took a step backward. Ander’s head was spinning with lightheadedness and shock.

  “The Council can do nothing as long as they are bound to me,” the King continued. “Whine and complain as they must, there is nothing they can do to take physical action against me. There is not a color mage, or a righ of status on that Council who is not bound to me from the day he took his oath. My heir will be who I name, Dria, and make no mistake about it.”

  Something flamed inside Ander’s head. He stepped forward into the storm of Sharpeyes’ anger. “I am your heir,” he said. “No one else.”

  “Are you then,” Sharpeyes responded. “Worthy of it, then, are you? Worthy of Yarin’s name and the Monteni blood?”

  “He is a Monteni. Look at him—you can see it.” Dria Mar’s voice finally quavered.

  King Martan stared at her for a moment. Then he sighed, and some of the tension eased from the people in the room. “God of fools, Dria, that is not what I meant. No one questions that. He is—damn him—legitimate blood of the Monteni line.”

  “Then name me your heir in front of your Council,” Ander said, beginning to grow angry.

  “Is it not your argument that you do not need to be so named?” the King said. “Dria, you will go before Council this day and admit your part in this conspiracy to tarnish Lord Callo’s name.” He nodded at Lord Dionar. “Then you will be taken into custody, and disposed of according to your crime.”

  Disposed of? Ander did not like the sound of that. He wanted to ask, but a surge of weakness gripped him so that he held onto Balan’s solid arm for support. When the weakness passed and he looked around, King Martan was staring at him speculatively.

  “Sick, are you?” Martan said. “Too much stress, perhaps? A King must not grow fainthearted when great matters are at stake.”

  The room swam around Ander’s head. Balan whispered in his ear. “Do you need to sit?”

  Ander would not sit before King Martan, would not admit his illness. He took a deep breath, trying to regain his equilibrium. All around him were avid stares. He tried to pull himself together in front of these watchers. Then the world went dark and he fainted.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mot and Chiss were not at Deephold, after all.

  It took a foray into Yhallin’s hold to confirm that. Kirian waited, half-breathless from anxiety, as the Sword of Jashan forced its way into the place by overcoming Yhallin’s guardsmen and the elderly manservant who answered the front door.

  It was all anticlimactic. The defenders took a look at the many armed men confronting them and folded into compliance. They presented no opposition as Rhin and a few others searched the hold while Hira Noh questioned the doorman.

  “They were taken to Sugetre,” Hira Noh reported as she rejoined the rest of the group.

  “They were not hurt?” Kirian asked. The thought of poor Mot, hauled off to Sugetre with Yhallin’s men, fed her already painful guilt at leaving the girl.

  “The coot at the front door says she was mouthy and disrespectful,” Hira Noh said. “Does that answer your question?”

  Kirian smiled. “She is fine, then.”

  Callo said, “Jashan grant Chiss is also fine. I wish we could go to them this moment, but we stand no chance there. It will be better to arrive after we have completed our mission.”

  “There appear to be only a few guardsmen here,” Hira Noh said. “We could take the place. Easily.”

  “Who guards an asylum full of insane color mages?” Rhin said. “Just the thought of such a place is deterrent enough fer me.”

  Kirian smiled. “There are only a few mages here, Hon Rhin, and none of them dangerous.”

  “We must take it,” Hira Noh repeated. “This fine hold would make a defensible base.”

  Callo shook his head. “It is but a distraction, Hon Hira Noh. You would have to leave a garrison here, to hold the place when Sharpeyes discovers what you have done. We need your people for the full attack.”

  Hira Noh glared. “It is a ripe fruit, easily harvested. Why ignore it?”

  “We don’t need it.” Kel had joined them, grinning. “Also, the lower levels are protected with some kind of mage shield. We cannot get through it at all—who knows what’s behind it? One of the guardsmen wants to join us, Hira. I don’t know if we can trust the man, but he will be able to give us intelligence.”

  Hira Noh fumed. “I want this place, Kel. It would make a fine base for us.”

  “Until Sharpeyes comes with troops and color mages and blasts the hell out of it and us. Or until whatever’s behind that burning shield down there comes out and kills us in our sleep. Let us move on, Hira. Look, your pet ku’an chomps at the bit.”

  Callo was not chomping, but he shifted from foot to foot, eager to be on the way. Kirian grinned at him.

  “Let us go, then,” Hira Noh said. “At your pleasure, ku’an.”

  * * * * *

  Kirian felt dirt in her hair and grit under her rear when she moved in the saddle. Summer had given way to crisp autumn weather on the plains, but the weather was still dry. The lead horses’ hooves stirred up dust from between the struggling grasses. Dust coated everything, and made Kirian cough.

  After tolerating this for a couple of days, she chose a bright morning and joined Callo and Hira Noh where they rode in the column.

  “I would like to ride up front,” she told Callo.

  “Better not, love. It may be cleaner, but you will have no defense should the King’s men realize we are following them.” Miri danced a little under him, and Callo reached out to slide a hand down her neck. Kirian smiled to herself; Callo was stronger and happier than he had been since their sojourn at Northgard. Free of the strain of battling color magery every candlemark of the day, he smiled more often, and his amber eyes had regained the glint that had captured her attention back at Seagard Castle more than a year ago.

  “Why are we following?” she asked. “Surely it is not safe to wait until they arrive at Meent, and have the Collared Lord’s help there.”

  Hira Noh said, “Besides, if you want to parade into a Collared Lord’s castle, you’re on your own. I didn’t bargain for that.”

  “Have no fear, we are not quite that stupid,” Callo said. He grinned at Hira Noh. Kirian was surprised to see the rebel leader flush. Callo contin
ued. “We follow only until we reach the foothills, where the settlements thin out. I have no intention of riding all naive into the gates of Meent Castle.”

  Another day of dust and thirst behind them, Kirian and Callo settled into the cloth-covered lean-to Lotna had helped them make. They huddled under a thin cover, away from the autumn chill that gave Kirian goose bumps. There was no fire, only a couple of shielded lamps set into the earth; Callo and Hira Noh did not want to risk discovery. Still, after the moon had risen and then begun its descent across the sky, Kirian awoke to the scrabble of feet in the grass. She grabbed Callo’s arm and felt him jerk awake.

  “Be still,” she whispered. “I think someone is here.” Kirian held still, wondering how she could give warning without drawing the attention of a possibly armed enemy to herself. Then a shadow moved past their shelter, so close Kirian could have reached out to touch it. Callo heaved himself out of the shelter and threw himself across the intruder.

  “Down, damn you,” growled Callo. “How many of you are there?”

  The invader fell and lay in the dirt. He made a sound that was muffled by the weight of Callo’s body across him. It sounded like a curse, and no more.

  There was a shout across the camp. A torch flared up, thrust into the night by Fentany, who wore a blanket over her tunic and breeches. The light illuminated Lotna’s skirted form striking down another interloper with what appeared to be a boot. All around the camp there were similar struggles going on.

  One of the sentries ran in. “Ware intruders!” he shouted.

  “Little late, ya fool,” Fentany yelled.

  Callo was standing now, a knife in his hand that had not been there before. “Is this all you have?” he asked the man on the ground.

  “All I want’s some damned food and water!” said the intruder.

  The man was ragged and scrawny, and his left eye was leaking a pale fluid that made Kirian want to get her Healer’s bag. “This man is not a soldier,” she said.

  “I can see that,” Callo said. “Hai, guards!”

  One of the rebels ran to his side. The man was out of breath, as if he, too, had been fighting.

  “Run and warn Rhin and Hira Noh. These are not King’s men, but scavengers of some kind.”

  A guard approached, holding a torch. The flame lit Callo’s eyes to a surreal glow. The man on the ground shrank back.

  “Ku’an!” he said.

  Callo took a deep breath. “Ha’lasi scavengers, in fact.”

  The rebel ran off into the disarray of the disturbed camp. A moment later, Kirian heard Hira Noh’s voice shouting commands. She turned back into the lean-to and grabbed her Healer’s bag from the back corner.

  “Come here,” she said to the Ha’lasi man. “I am a Healer.”

  He stared at her, then swallowed. “It hurts,” he said like a child.

  “I can help,” she said, and began taking vials out of her bag. “Fentany,” she said. “Wait until all is calm, then get me water from Lotna’s tent.”

  Fentany said to the scrawny man, “If you hurt her, I will kill you.”

  The man laughed. “Hurt her? A Healer? There are two people in my group with fever, and my daughter keeps trying to vomit although she has eaten nothing for days. I’ll not hurt her, woman. Just for the Unknown God’s sake, will you get me somethin’ to eat?”

  “On its way,” Callo said. “Look, we have your companions under guard. Why by all the gods did you decide to attack an armed party in the night? You are nothing but a straggly band of starving refugees.”

  “You kicked us out of the way earlier,” the man said. “Wouldn’ give us anything. We’re hungry, man, and we take what chances we has to. Besides, wasn’ supposed to be an attack. We’re not fools, you know.”

  Kirian looked up at Callo. Her hands were busy measuring out the drops she would need, and finding a clean eye cup for the wash. “It was not us,” she said. “It was not, was it, Callo?”

  He shook his head.

  Fentany returned with a mug of water. Kirian returned her attention to the preparation of a wash for the man’s diseased eye—water, five drops of clearsight, the solution to be dripped into the eye from a clean rag. It was a time consuming procedure, hard to do in a rough camp in the middle of the night. But if she did not, this man would go blind. She finished the preparation while the man tore at the bread Fentany had also brought. He ate like an animal that had not seen food for days, crumbs falling from his cracked lips.

  Callo walked away to converse with Rhin, who was collecting the starving attackers from the shelters where they had been overcome. When he returned, he said, “There are six more. Three of them need you, Kirian, after you are done here.”

  “Feed them first, then I will see them.”

  She told the man to lie on the ground, staring up into the night. Fentany lit a candle from the shielded lamp. Kirian drew a damp cloth along the eye then began to drip the solution in. The man made a strangled cry as he tried to jerk his head away, then stilled.

  “I do not know why this group is here,” Callo said. “We are near Meent. They had to sail for an extra few days to get here. Why not Two Merkhan, or Seagard for that matter?”

  “Others goin’ to Two Merkhan,” the man said. “And Jol’tan headed to Fortress, with his bespelled slaves.”

  Callo looked down at the man on the ground. “It has begun, then. Where is this Jol’tan, and his bespelled slaves as you call them?”

  The man laughed. “Do you think he confides his plans to me? All I know is, he commandeered a boat at Las’ash and ordered the crew to take him to some empty coast near Fortress. I assume he’s meant to take over the place with his ku’an evil.”

  “There is a Collared Lord at Fortress,” Callo said. “Jol’tan will not find his way smooth.” He looked down at Kirian for a moment. Kirian kept her hands steady as she soaked the cloth and began to drip more of the herbal preparation into the man’s eye. “You must get ready to go to the hill shelter, Kirian. I will not have you here in danger. Can you not finish that task later?”

  “He can do it himself, in a moment. I will ask Lotna and Fentany to help me check the others. We will be ready when you need us to be.”

  Rhin grinned. He shifted from one foot to another. “Is it time, then, ku’an?”

  “I will see Hira Noh, but it must be time. Too many other things are afoot—we must act.”

  Rhin said, “Ya ready?”

  Callo grinned. “Never readier, Rhin. My unfulfilled oath hangs heavy on me. I will remedy that this night.”

  Rhin nodded. “I’ll be with ya.”

  “Thank you, Rhin. Now will you ask Hira Noh and Kel to meet with me now, and prepare?”

  Rhin nodded. He walked off into the lamplit camp, whistling. Kirian could tell he looked forward to the action. Worry frayed her nerves. She said, “Callo. You should not plan to go alone against Sharpeyes.”

  Kirian’s tunic snapped as the breeze kicked up. Kirian lifted her head and smelled the sharp scent of an oncoming storm. She welcomed it, since it would dampen all the dust; but she wished it would hold off until Callo was back safely from his raid.

  “I will not be alone. I will have half the Sword of Jashan with me, drawing their attention. I will not even be in the fight, remember? We plan to take thirty men.”

  “Remember they are rebels, Callo.”

  “We trust them, do we not? As long as their interests march with our own.” Callo grinned. “Do not worry, Kirian. I finally have a use for this power I am gifted with, and am eager to use it. I will have plenty of help.” He nodded to them all and strode off. Kirian saw his hand drop to the hilt of his sword as he walked; he was preparing for the battle, in his own mind.

  She looked at Fentany.

  “He’s a fool, mad for a fight like half the bastards here,” Fentany said. “I’ll take care of you, Healer.”

  Kirian smiled. She squeezed a few more drops into the Ha’lasi man’s eye. “My thanks, Fentany. I will be fi
ne—I worked it all out with Lord Callo when we planned this. I know where the hill shelter is, and when we are to expect the raiding party to return.”

  “Unknown God, help us get there alive,” Fentany said. “It’s goin’ ta storm.”

  The snappish wind had picked up. One of the horses neighed, fretting at the scent of bad weather. That night they camped in the midst of nowhere, with no farm houses or barns they could seek shelter in. The storm would catch them in the open.

  The man Kirian was treating looked up at her with his one good eye, his other swollen with the constant dripping of the medication. “You are fools,” he said. “I saw them today. There are not many of them, but they are armed and mailed, and they kicked us aside like whining dogs. This ragtag of serfs will not succeed.”

  “Lord Callo is also a ku’an,” she said. “And Jashan is with him.” At least she hoped that was true.

  * * * * *

  They had a pretty good idea of where King Martan was; they had sent scouts out daily to check his position, so they did not overrun him or give themselves away. No longer than a candlemark of riding and word came back from the men in the front rank that they approached the King’s perimeter.

  Hira Noh raised a hand, and they halted. She turned to Callo. “Are you ready?”

  He was indeed ready—even exultant at the chance to finally avenge his half-brother’s murder. Hira Noh looked at his eyes and then away. Callo knew there were sparks of color magery showing in his eyes, and welcomed the power he would use tonight.

  Rhin and Kel rode up to within a length of them. The wind snapped their cloaks around, and thunder rumbled in the distance. The horses fidgeted, sensing the storm or the unsettled nerves of their riders. Callo looked from face to face. “Go in fast,” he told them. “I know you hate King’s men, but remember we are not here to exact vengeance for all your past wrongs. I want none of you to die tonight. You distract them while I enter the King’s tent, and that is all.”

  “They will protect the King’s tent. We must draw away as many as we can,” Hira Noh reminded her commanders. “There should be no more than a score altogether, and the servants. They go only to Collar a young righ, not fight a battle, and they have no reason to suspect any attack from these righ men who were all bound from childhood not to strike at their King.”