The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5

by Michelle West

  “If,” Ser Alessandro said quietly, “the Widan accuses me of lying; perhaps there is no point to these negotiations.”

  They were not words that should have had to be spoken, but their truth was immutable. Not even Ser Amando, clearly annoyed by Ser Alessandro’s hesitance, could have been so careless with his words.

  And still, it was the Widan whose thin composure gave way to anger, and there was no subtlety of expression, no stillness of gesture, no cutting silence in his display; his brows rose in obvious, and ugly, displeasure.

  “You are in no position—”

  “Widan,” Ser Amando said, lifting a hand.

  It would have silenced men of greater power. Indeed, it would have silenced the Tor’agar, had he been fool enough to require such reminder.

  But the Widan’s mood was impenetrable. “Ser Amando,” he said, his tone kin to growl, “we have no time for games or wordplay this eve. The Tyr’agar is already on the move, and he requires—”

  “Yes?” Single word. The sharpest yet spoken.

  No, thought Alessandro, as the Widan’s brows drew in, and the line of his beardless jaw tensed, this man was not of the South.

  “He requires proof of the loyalty of his servants. The girl is of import to the Tyr’s war, as you well know. If she is, indeed, within Sarel, we must go to Sarel in force, now.”

  “She is one Serra,” the Tor’agnate replied, his voice as cold as the sheathed blade by his side. “And we speak of things that matter to men.”

  “What she bears—what she is rumored to bear—matters greatly to men,” the Widan snapped.

  Had Ser Alessandro not felt silence prudent, he would have been enveloped by it regardless; he was—as much as any man of the Court could be—shocked.

  But the measure of this Widan’s influence was made clear by the Tor’agnate’s next words.

  “Do you think that the men of the South are not capable of confining a simple Serra?”

  “They have failed in every attempt to confine her. They have failed in every attempt to find her on the road. She must have passed through your Torrean, Ser Amando, but she passed without note although your men were warned to watch the road against her coming.”

  Not even Ser Amando could ignore what had just been said, but again, to Ser Alessandro’s surprise, he made the attempt. “As the circumstance of her arrival has not—yet—been discussed, it cannot be said for certain that she passed through the Torrean of Manelo. Widan.” He gestured; one of his Toran stepped forward, passing the Widan without so much as a glance of acknowledgment. His bearing was rigid with the anger that Ser Amando himself did not deign to express; his hand was upon the hilt of his sword.

  But he was Toran, and if his lord chose to take—to acknowledge—no insult in what was obviously insulting, he could not publicly attack the Widan.

  Instead, he knelt stiffly—and utterly formally—at the feet of Ser Amando. A man, Alessandro thought, of worth.

  In his hands, he held a round, unmarked medallion. Wood, pale, unadorned, it waited the cut of two swords.

  And those cuts, either of them, would never be made if the Widan continued his prattle.

  The Lady, thought Alessandro, knew mercy in her fashion. Time was indeed of the essence. He lifted his gaze to the West.

  The Torrean of Manelo was not bounded by the Deepings, the ancient name for the Old Forest. Its superstitions, its stories, were therefore no part of Manelan culture, Manelan knowledge. It was a forest; and like other forests, a matter of fact, of nature.

  I am committed, he thought.

  “How simple could this Serra be, to escape the Tor Leonne itself? I tell you, she is a threat.”

  “And I,” Ser Amando said, gaining inches as he at last unveiled the anger that any Tor would feel under such circumstances, “tell you, Widan, that there are matters that must be decided before we leave Damar. If you cannot offer advice that does not conform to the negotiations I have chosen, leave the dais.”

  For just a moment, the Widan grew in height, and the height he gained by the simple expedience of shifting posture was both remarkable and unsettling. His shoulders were broad, if slender, his arms long. He wore no sword, which was unusual, and no armor save for his robes and the distant rise of water in the hollowed bed of the Adane.

  And then he smiled.

  “As you wish, Tor’agnate. But time is of the essence.” He turned to face Alessandro. “Strange things live in the edges of the Deepings,” he said, voice cool. “And on a night such as this, the forest cannot contain them all. Speak quickly, Tor’agar.”

  “Widan.”

  He turned, bowed stiffly, and left the dais.

  But as he did, the waters stilled. They stood now, clear as poor glass, the thunder in their movement silenced.

  Beyond them, Alessandro could suddenly see the distorted figures the men of Clemente made, viewed through water defiled by strange magic.

  Worse, he could hear their sudden shouts. They had turned their attention—and their formation—from the West of Damar; they were running now, some horsed and some on foot, as if they prepared for battle.

  As if it were already upon them.

  Ser Alessandro stiffened. The bridges were gone, and even had they not been, the men of Manelo now stood between himself and the men who followed his command, even to their own deaths.

  He turned his gaze upon Ser Amando. The Tor’agnate was not as impassive as he should have been; his brows rose faintly in surprise, and his lips curved in frown.

  “Widan!”

  But the Widan’s smile deepened, revealing at last its full edge. “If the negotiations are swift, Tor’agar, Tor’agnate, you will be in time to lend aid to the men across the Adane. If they are not, there are no guarantees.”

  “We need those men!” Ser Amando’s voice was too high, his words too quick.

  “We need the girl,” the creature said, eyes glittering strangely. “We need the girl and the sword she bears.”

  Jewel knew Kallandras approached long before the night revealed sight of him. She stiffened upon the back of the Winter King, but he, too, was already still with the peculiar tension that spoke of coming battle. He did not speak to her. He did not look away.

  The bard appeared from the shadows, but he moved so swiftly from wall to wall that the glimpses caught might have been the product of fancy, of desire.

  “ATerafin,” he said, his voice carrying the distance that power granted him. “The Kialli are at the Adane. And they are, I fear, beyond it—beyond our easy reach. The men of Clemente are now engaged in battle upon the Eastern bank. I do not think . . . it will go well with them.”

  She turned to Lord Celleriant.

  The Arianni lord met her gaze briefly, but his eyes sought the shadow for some sight of Kallandras. She didn’t understand what now existed between these two, but she knew better than to question it. “Celleriant.”

  He bowed.

  “Kallandras is coming.”

  Bowed again.

  “Arm yourself,” she said quietly. “But be careful. I think . . .”

  A silver brow rose.

  “I think that the two of you are meant to cross the Adane. I think you’re needed on the far bank of the river.”

  “It is not so easily crossed,” he told her quietly. “Neither for Kallandras nor I.”

  “I didn’t say it had to be easy. Is it possible?”

  His answer was a slender smile. He lifted a hand, and his blade came to it, denying the night and the darkness while retaining some part of its secrecy. Blue light lined the contours of his face, the point of his chin; blue light glinted off the strange coat of mail he wore.

  “Yes,” he said, as he lowered the blade.

  “And what of us, ATerafin?” Avandar’s question was reasonable and quiet; he spoke in the same tone of voice he might have used when the walls of Terafin had enclosed them.

  “We’re here,” she said, voice too quiet. “This is where we have to be.”
<
br />   He bowed.

  Kallandras came, at last, to join them. He glanced first at Jewel, and then at Celleriant, and when he saw what Celleriant wielded, he closed his eyes.

  “What did you hear?” the Arianni lord asked. Not what did you see.

  “Baying,” the bard replied, shorn of the length and prettiness of words, the power of voice. “Above the cries of the Clemente men.”

  “How many?”

  “Four at least.”

  “And all upon the other side of the river?”

  “There may be . . . enemies . . . upon the Western bank; they are not yet set in motion. But upon the East, they have been unleashed.”

  “Will the Clemente men stand?”

  “They stand now,” Kallandras replied. He, too, drew weapons, but he drew them from the slender sheaths that adorned his thighs.

  “They do not know what they face.”

  “They do not know. But they are superstitious. They have lived in the lee of the Deepings for the whole of their lives.”

  “My lady feels that our role in this battle is upon the Eastern shore.”

  Kallandras paused a moment, and then he nodded.

  “How far does the river’s wall extend?”

  “The length and breadth of Damar. If we are to cross the river at a point where the element is not yet wakened, we will lose much time.”

  He did not say—because he did not need to—that it was time they didn’t have.

  “Avandar,” Jewel said quietly. “How much of a risk is the use of—of the other magic?”

  “Ask Lord Celleriant,” the domicis replied. “He is versed in the art; I have merely had the experience of long observation.”

  But Lord Celleriant simply glanced at Jewel.

  After a moment, she said, “You two don’t use drums.” Just that.

  But it evoked a rare smile. “Very good,” he said softly, the words strangely intimate.

  “Is water more difficult than air?”

  “Not to an adept,” he replied, gazing toward the river. “Within the Deepings, there have only been three who were born to the caul.”

  She did not ask their names; short of a command, she was sure he wouldn’t give them, and she found herself reluctant to break the strange warmth of his mood.

  “The Kialli?”

  “Understand that they once walked this world. They claimed it and they destroyed it, as we did.” He turned away from the river, the light of the water captured in his eyes. “But they have returned as strangers to these lands; they have memory and they have power, but they surrendered kinship when they made their ancient choice.”

  “You’re saying you have an advantage.”

  “Indeed.” He turned to leave. Kallandras joined him.

  They walked ten feet, twenty feet, leaving no mark against ground, and then the lord of the Green Deepings halted in mid-step, as if compelled. He turned slowly again, toward her, and he bowed. Something about his face was different, something was now familiar to her.

  She was afraid, not for the first time, of beauty.

  “The advantage,” he said softly, “may be measured in lives.” His words, soft as velvet, carried the distance between them.

  She understood.

  “How many?”

  “I do not know. It has not been my concern, Lady.”

  “Until now.”

  He hesitated, and the hesitation was like a scar across his brow, the tale of some previous battle. But after that brief pause, he bowed, and his glance grazed the profile of the bard’s face before he looked at her again. “We are . . . to cross the river . . . to intercede on behalf of those who cannot speak with the voice of the elements; who cannot stand against the power of the Kialli. It is to save the lives, and not the territory, that you wish to send us to battle.”

  She nodded.

  “It is not . . . a command . . . that has ever been given in the Winter,” he told her quietly, eyes clear, their silver lost now to distance. “Not for the sake of mortals. It would be like risking all to save cattle.”

  The words themselves called for a rough reply; the tone, the simplicity and the honesty of it, called for silence. She struggled between them, and let silence win, although it was a near thing. “I wish I could have seen the Court in Summer,” she said quietly.

  He closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, he was Lord Celleriant; his eyes were steel.

  “If the men cannot be moved from the riverside,” he said, his voice cool, “we will save more than we doom—but while the Kialli grip upon the water is poor, I do not think that they suffer under the constraints you place upon us.”

  “Kallandras?”

  He nodded.

  When they left, she looked to Avandar.

  He waited; she felt the ache of the sigil against her right arm. That, and the weight of memory, of dream, of the sight of the Warlord.

  She hated that man.

  But it was that man she needed. He was not kind. “What orders would you give me, ATerafin?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, rougher in tone than she had intended. “You can’t stand against the whole of their army.”

  He laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

  “Do you understand, ATerafin, why I chose the life of a domicis?”

  “No.”

  “No? It was to avoid such a conflict. Power is not easily put aside, and when it has been—with difficulty—there is danger in reclaiming it.” His dark eyes were open; they were night, and the night seemed endless.

  “I want you to protect this town,” she told him quietly. “The same way you protected the Voyani in the desert.”

  “The desert,” he told her, “is gone. What remains is more complicated. There, there were no buildings, no hovels, no farms; there, the people you wished to protect were gathered in the open. We faced the storm, and the creature that rode it. Here, ATerafin, the living hide, and they number not in the tens, but in the thousands.”

  She nodded.

  “You will lose some of them,” he said evenly. His gaze was cold.

  She swallowed and nodded again. “Better some than all.”

  He bowed. When he rose, he held a golden sword, light pouring and swelling through the red glow of flesh.

  “They’re counting on us,” she whispered. But she was afraid. Her hands shook as they clung to the tines of the Winter King’s crown.

  Jewel, the stag said. Think carefully. Think long. There are many ways to lose a battle, and the worst of them do not end in death.

  “Let’s go,” she told Avandar. “Hide us, for now.”

  Avandar gestured. She saw light; orange and blue cascaded down the length of his arms, billowing like cloud, like hidden fire. She stiffened as it touched her, but she held tight.

  “This will protect us against the vision of men,” Avandar said. “But against the Kialli, no power of significance remains hidden.”

  “It’ll do.”

  The Tor’agnate of Manelo was silent.

  So, too, the Tor’agar of Clemente.

  Against the screams and shouted orders of the Clemente cerdan, words were too much of a shroud. They contained an anger that would add fire, and death, to the battle that now raged, distorted by water.

  But silence offered no answer; silence was not a weapon. Ser Alessandro kai di’Clemente raised his head. “Will you kill me, cousin?” he said softly.

  Ser Amando returned his cool gaze. “It was not my intent.”

  Alessandro weighed the tone behind the scant words. Anger, there. Anger and not a little fear. The Widan—if he was Widan—ruled here; it was clear to Alessandro. But it was also clear to Ser Amando, and the illusion of command—necessary illusion, like all titles, all power, in the Dominion—had been stripped away with a brutal disregard for the consequences of the loss.

  It was night, the Lady’s time.

  But even at night, no Tor could afford to be unmanned in the view of those whose loyalty strength
alone ensured. By such a crisis, men were judged.

  Ser Alessandro could not even guess at the magicks that imperiled his cerdan, for the water was not like a Northern window; it moved constantly.

  He waited with a patience that was entirely facade.

  “The medallion,” Ser Amando said at last. Just that. His Toran hastened to obey him, but they, too, were shaken by what had transpired. Robbed of grace, they fumbled, and speed robbed them of even the dignity their rank demanded.

  “So,” Alessandro said quietly.

  Ser Amando bowed head. Acknowledgment.

  It was a bitter gesture; among men who are no longer allies, truth is an expensive luxury.

  With the medallion came the rest of the Widan. There were, in total, five, but only two wore the proud Sword, edge glittering with rubies arranged as if in fall. He met their eyes, but he could not hold them; they skittered away from his face as if in shame. Or fear.

  And what, he thought, engendered fear in Widan?

  The other three.

  Ser Alessandro drew his sword. By his side, standing with the grace of purpose that now eluded the Manelan Toran, were the two men he trusted with not only his life, but his death. It would not be the first time; it would not, even if they had victory here, be the last. He had never placed faith in soldiers who had not taken to the field.

  The medallion lay before him.

  “What oath, cousin, would you swear?” he asked softly.

  “That if you offer your allegiance to the Tyr’agar, your men will be spared, your lands will be yours to govern, your people and their supplies will be bartered for instead of taken.”

  “And can you offer this?”

  He said nothing. Instead, Ser Amando kai di’Manelo unsheathed his blade. He lifted it, its crescent flashing orange in the night light, the artificially contained fire.

  It fell in a single stroke.

  And it missed.

  The Manelan Toran drew a single shared breath, ragged around the edges. The silence stretched out in a circle as men turned inward to stare at what they could not clearly see.

  Ser Amando grimaced. When he lifted his sword again, the blade shook.

  The shouts of Clemente cerdan mingled now with screams: Alessandro knew death when he heard it.