“The Lionsmane’s going to unhorse Cadet Nilo,” called out a woman’s voice.
“I’ll take a piece of that wager,” the guard answered.
“Which way?”
With the guard distracted, Dhulyn shoved Edmir through the gap in the tent, following closely behind him. Once outside, she lifted him to his feet and swung her left arm over his shoulders. She was slightly taller, and it was easy for her to take a good grip on the youngster while making it look as though he was holding her up. She headed him toward the horse lines.
Don’t worry, she told herself, Parno’s done this before. The boy winced and Dhulyn loosened her grip. Apparently she was doing a poor job of convincing herself. Apparently it was one thing when Parno was practicing and it was Dhulyn on the horse, and another thing entirely when it was someone else.
Parno stood with one hand held above his head. When he was ready, he would let his arm fall, and Nilo would ride his cavalry horse straight toward him. There was a popular belief among nonsoldiers that horses would not run people down, or even step on them except by accident—but Parno knew that warhorses had been trained to do exactly that, and worse. He had to be careful, the hooves could slash at him from the side, as well as from the front. His arm still raised, he began to slow his breathing in the Python Shora, the Wrestler’s Shora, used for hand-to-hand combat only. You’ve done this before, he told himself. Do it again now. Just like in practice.
His awareness narrowed until the tents, the people watching, the flaring torches died away. No sounds, no smells, nothing existed in the world except him and the horse. Time slowed. The horse’s breath hung in the air like a cloud.
He let his arm drop.
Through the soles of his feet he could feel the ground shudder as the hooves hit. Watched the spurts of dirt jump backward from the slow, regular strikes of the churning hooves on the earth. He bent his knees, allowing the muscles in his legs to coil, to become springs. Focused, counting the time as each hoof fell, he dodged, feeling the horse’s breath on his face as he darted to one side, grasped the mane, bounced off the powerful springs of his legs, swinging his body, knees up, under the blow that Nilo was only now bringing down from above. Long seconds too late.
And just as he had done scores of times in practice, he planted both knees in Nilo’s midsection and catapulted the cavalryman neatly from the saddle. Parno let momentum continue his movement until he was sitting sideways on the horse, in the spot Nilo had occupied a moment before. As the animal faltered, Parno twisted to lie stomach-down on the saddle, swinging his legs again until he was sitting astride the horse’s back.
Suddenly there was a flash of movement, the yelp of a dog, and the horse twisted violently to one side, almost going down, and only by force of will did Parno manage to stay in his seat.
The cheers and catcalls changed to cries of alarm as the spectators came running up, Nilo first among them, to catch at the bridle of his horse. Parno slid to the ground and joined the man where he was running his hand down the horse’s off foreleg. Nilo was frowning, and the horse seemed shy of putting weight down. Parno glanced aside, pressing his eyes shut as the woman crouching over the limp body of the dog shook her head.
Could have been me.
“I don’t want to cost you both your money and your horse,” he said, turning back to Nilo. “Let me take him to my Partner. Dhulyn Wolfshead can tell us what, if anything, is wrong.”
As he walked beside the cavalryman, encouraging his horse to walk slowly through the camp, Parno hoped he’d given Dhulyn enough time. He was sorry for the dog, but this couldn’t have turned out better if he had planned it. He’d intended to ask Nilo—or whoever made the wager with him—back to the tent for some Imrion brandy. Now it seemed that half the camp would provide Dhulyn with her alibi.
As long as she was back.
The tightness in his chest relaxed as he saw the corner of the tent flap was folded back a scant palm’s width. He bent down to toss it back completely, loudly calling out for Dhulyn as he crossed the threshold. Nilo, waiting with his horse, ducked his head to look inside. When he began to laugh, everyone who was close enough crowded forward to get a look. Dhulyn’s white southerner’s skin glowed in the torchlight as she sat up, yawning and rubbing at her eyes.
“What’s all this,” she asked in a voice fogged with sleep. “Can’t people have a moment’s privacy?”
Clear on her skin, and clear on the skin of Squad Leader Jedrick as he, too, sat up, his eyes clouded by what everyone there would take for exhaustion, were telltale bruises and marks of fingernails. As if their nakedness and disheveled hair did not already speak very clearly what they had been doing before they fell asleep.
The cheering and catcalls began again. Clearly the crowd felt this entertainment was just as good as a horse wager.
Avylos the Blue Mage let his head fall against the high back of his chair. His eyelids fluttered, and for a moment he struggled against the languor that followed taking power from the Stone. If he slept, he would dream, and it was rarely anything that he wished to see. His lids shut, and the dream began. . . .
“MAMA, MAMA, LOOK! I CAN DO IT, MAMA!” AND HIS MOTHER’S FACE WAS TRANSPORTED BY JOY, HER EYES SHINING, HER MOUTH IN THE WIDEST OF SMILES, AS HE MADE THE PINECONE LEAP INTO HIS HAND. ONCE AGAIN HE SAW THE LOOKS ON THE FACES OF THE BOYS HE THOUGHT OF AS HIS FRIENDS. THEY NUDGED EACH OTHER AND SMILED, NODDING; HIS YOUNGER SELF MISUNDERSTANDING, SAW HAPPINESS NOT MALICE, PLEASURE NOT TWISTED GLEE. HIS MOTHER STROKED HIS HAIR AND KISSED HIM, AND RAN FOR HIS FATHER.
WHEN HIS FATHER CAME, EVERYTHING CHANGED. HIS FATHER PUT A HAND ON AVYLOS’ SHOULDER, BUT WHEN AVYLOS OFFERED TO SHOW HIM THE MAGIC HE HAD FINALLY LEARNED TO DO, HIS FATHER HAD LOOKED AROUND HIM, FIXED ON ONE PARTICULAR SMILING FRIEND, AND CLOUTED THE BOY ON THE SIDE OF THE HEAD.
“BEGONE, YOU BRATS! YOUR FATHERS SHALL HEAR OF THIS!”
AND THEY RAN. LOOKING OVER THEIR SHOULDERS, GIGGLING NOW, THOUGH THERE WAS A LITTLE FEAR AS WELL, FEAR OF WHAT HIS FATHER WOULD DO, AND WHAT THEIR OWN FATHERS WOULD SAY.
“BUT, TERAVYL—” HIS MOTHER SAID. “IT WAS A TRICK,” HIS FATHER TOLD HER. “THE OTHERS WERE DOING IT, AND LETTING AVI THINK IT WAS HIM. HE IS SRUSHA, MY DEAR.”
AND HIS MOTHER, CRYING, TURNED HER FACE AWAY FROM HIM, BUT NOT BEFORE HE SAW THE FINAL GRIEF IN HER EYES. HIS FATHER STROKED HIS HAIR, BUT HIS FACE TOO WAS FULL OF PITY, AND REGRET. AVYLOS STARED AT THE PINECONE IN HIS HAND, WISHING THAT IT WAS A KNIFE. . . .
Avylos’ consciousness fell back into the living world, his breathing coming fast and sharp as rage coursed hotly through his veins. He ran his hands along the cold stone cylinder he still held, as thick as his wrist, as long as his forearm, and his fingers trembled. He still held the Stone; had he continued taking power from it while in his dream?
Quickly, he spoke the words that closed the ritual, grasped the end, and twisted it to the left. He replaced the Stone in its cherrywood casket on his worktable, and shut the lid. He did not believe he could drain the Stone completely, but he could drain that portion of the Stone’s power available to him. So far as he could tell, the Stone trapped all the power fed to it, but he simply did not know the proper chants or settings that would release that reserve to him.
He looked at the books in his room. One day he would know; one day that power would be his.
Not that he had needed any power to crush his tormentors. They had all been dealt with long ago. Before the power had finally shown itself, before the Stone had come to him and he had begun to understand the truth.
He stood and headed for the door before he could be tempted to use the Stone again. He needed no more dreams today.
He shut the door of his workroom behind him and strode into the corridor, stopping just inside the wide, metal-braced door that closed off his wing from the rest of the Royal House. He straightened his robes until he was sure they fell gracefully from his shoulders. His hair, the color of old blood, had been left loose that morning to dry, and he ran
his hands through it, pushing it back from his face. When he was sure he looked presentable, he opened the door, startling the young page who stood outside it into giving him a very awkward bow.
“I will go to my garden, Takian,” he said. “See that the queen knows.”
“Of course, my lord. At once, my lord.” Another short bow, this time more gracefully accomplished.
“My lord Mage,” Avylos corrected.
The boy’s face, flushed with embarrassment a moment before, drained of all color.
Avylos smiled. “It’s all right, Takian, you cannot remember everything on the first day.”
“Thank you, my lord Mage,” the boy said carefully, his eyes fixed on his shoes.
“There. You’ll soon remember.” Avylos waited until the boy had gone on his errand before drawing his robes more closely to him and heading toward the open stairwell to the far left of his door. The stairwell was square, taking up the interior of a small tower in the southern curtain wall of Queen Kedneara’s palace. The door at the lower end of the stairs opened into an irregularly-shaped courtyard, once the palace laundry’s drying place, but now the private garden of the Blue Mage.
Avylos seated himself on the wide stone edge that surrounded the still pool in the center of his garden and breathed deeply, in and out, three times. Though they were not wet, he rubbed the palms of his hands on his robe. He felt strong, his magic was at its peak. He did not, for the moment, require any more power.
But he wanted it.
He put his hands up to his face and pressed his fingers into the bone above his eyes. “I will find the secret,” he promised himself, not for the first time. Taking another deep breath, slowly releasing it, he focused on the still water of the pool. He needed distraction, and the pool could give it to him. With the ease of practice he narrowed his awareness until he saw only the pool. Then he focused his mind and his attention further, until he saw through the pool, to what it could show him.
Night. An army’s camp. The moon not yet risen, but enough starlight to see by. A tall slim man, drunk from the look of him, with his arm around the shoulders of a younger, shorter man, who helped him stagger along. The younger man raised his head and the starlight fell on his face.
Edmir.
“Sun burn and blast you.” Avylos struck the surface of the water with his closed fist, scattering the image of Edmir’s escape into the sudden ripples.
“Something wrong, Avylos?”
Only Kera was allowed to use his private stair, come into his private garden. Kera and the Queen her mother, of course. The princess was standing in the open doorway, her hands tucked into her sleeves, sun on her red-gold hair, her dark brows drawn down, her forehead wrinkled in a frown.
“I’m very much afraid that things have not gone well for your brother, Kerusha. The battle has been lost.”
The girl stepped forward, her hands falling free. “Lost? Is Edmir . . . ?”
“I can see no more. But, Kera, I fear you must be prepared for the worst.” There, the seed was sown. “You counseled against his going— Oh, do not look so surprised, I knew none of this could be of your advising. But I could not foresee . . .”
“But your magic, why did it not work?”
Avylos shrugged and slowly shook his head, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “The magic was prepared, Edmir well instructed. For some reason he did not call upon it—or he was prevented. I have not found all there is to know, but I swear to you, I will.”
The girl’s face was white, and Avylos stood, putting out his hand. But her chin firmed, and her spine straightened.
“I must tell my mother the queen.” Her voice was very small.
“Let me accompany you,” Avylos said. “The queen will have questions.”
The girl nodded without speaking, thrusting her hands back into the sleeves of her gown.
Three
“NO PRACTICE THIS morning, Mercenaries?”
She recognized the voice, so without looking up, Dhulyn continued to draw one end of a long strap around the bundle that was the tent. It had been struck and rolled as compactly as she and Parno could manage between them, but it was still bulky.
“Not this morning, nor any other morning,” Parno answered, as Dhulyn had known he would. “You slack-wits will have to find someone else to teach you which end of the sword is sharp.”
There were disappointed murmurs mixed in with the laughter. She and Parno had been sharing their morning practice with the interested portion of the Nisvean force for the better part of a moon, and there were more than a few who’d miss the benefit of that workout, now that the Mercenaries were going. Dhulyn tossed the loose end of the strap to Parno, who caught it as he straightened to his feet—grimacing as the muscles of his lower back reminded him of his exertions of the night before.
“I’ll go for the horses if you like,” Dhulyn said, carefully not smiling as Parno arched his body first one way and then the other, bracing both hands on his lower back.
“Oh, Caids,” Parno said. “A day in the saddle. That’s exactly what my back needs.”
“Teach you to get drunk and do acrobatic tricks.” Dhulyn easily dodged the half burned stick he tossed at her from the cold embers of their breakfast fire and picked up her sword, thrusting it into her belt and tugging her vest into place.
“Are you Dhulyn Wolfshead?” The voice broke halfway through her name and Dhulyn wasn’t surprised that the boy was blushing when she turned.
“I am, and it’s pronounced ‘Dillin.’ ”
“Come with me if you please, Mercenary.” Embarrassment momentarily making him lose touch with his common sense, the boy spoke more gruffly than many would have considered polite to a Mercenary Brother.
“And if I don’t please?” Smiling her wolf’s smile, Dhulyn narrowed her eyes and put her hand on her sword hilt, exactly as she would have done to anyone older, and taller, who had spoken to her in that tone. As she had expected, rather than frightening the lad, it only made him clear his throat, and stand on his dignity.
“The Commander Lord Kispeko has sent for you, Dhulyn Wolfshead.” This time the tone—and the pronunciation—was perfect. The lad was clearly the younger son of a Noble House, perhaps even Kispeko’s own. Dhulyn looked down at her Partner. Parno, in the midst of wrapping the strap once more around the bundle of tent, shrugged one shoulder and winced.
“I would be pleased to accompany you, Camp Messenger.” Dhulyn picked up a pair of gloves and began to draw them over her hands.
Parno pushed the end of the strap through the last loop and tied it off. “Has the prince’s wound gone bad?”
The boy licked his lips, clearly of two minds as to what he should say. “What makes you ask?”
“I’ve been expecting Kispeko—your pardon, I meant Commander Lord Kispeko, to send for one of us since last evening. The prince is injured, you have no Healer, and my Partner and I between us have more experience than any of the Knives that ride with your army.”
It would be part of the boy’s errand to report what they’d said, and he’d say that it was Parno, whom everyone considered “the talkative one” who had asked.
“The commander will explain, I’m sure,” the boy said. “If you please, Dhulyn Wolfshead.”
“Be so kind as to lead the way.” Dhulyn grimaced when the boy’s back was turned. She was Senior Brother, so it was natural for Kispeko to send for her alone, and in fact he’d done it many times. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she and Parno were being split up becauseit would make them easier to take. Not that she could do anything but act in the most natural manner herself, and that meant going along with the boy as if she had nothing on her mind but being on their way while there was still good daylight.
Mindful of the part she played, Dhulyn glanced at the position of the sun, sighed, and addressed the arrow-straight back in front of her.
“Will this take very long, do you think, Camp Messenger?”
The boy shot
her a look over his shoulder that told her at once how pleased he was at being addressed by his title, and how nervous he was at not being able to tell her what she wanted to know.
“An improper question, and I withdraw it,” she said, acknowledging what was no more or less than the truth. “We awoke so late after the excitement of the night that we’re setting out much later than I had planned.”
A few people called out to her as they walked through the camp— not so many as would have called out to Parno, perhaps, but enough to allow her to answer back in a manner she hoped was relaxed and confident. Not at all the manner of someone who had robbed the Nisvean army of its greatest treasure.
They arrived finally at Kispeko’s tent. A few of the lower-ranked officers hovered outside, their faces for the most part hard and unfriendly. Jedrick, wearing his red cloak once more, frowned and raised his eyebrows at her. The edge of a bruise showed where his shirt was open at his throat. Dhulyn gave her head a tiny shake and followed the young boy into Kispeko’s tent.
Parno would have said something to the Commander and the two high officers with him. Asked some question or made some polite noise. He’d been the son of a High Noble House himself, in Imrion, before becoming a Mercenary Brother, and still had court manners. Dhulyn merely rested her crossed wrists on the hilt of her sword and waited for Kispeko to speak. The commander sat behind his campaign table, as he had the day before. But this time only his two subcommanders were with him, two brothers from the Nisvean House of Olesev. As part of the cavalry section, Dhulyn and Parno had reported to the elder, Romenec. He sat relaxed in his seat to Kispeko’s right. The younger brother, Renic, stood behind the commander’s left shoulder, his brows drawn down in a heavy scowl.
The Soldier King Page 4