Her words had invoked images of loss and brought a painful sharpness to his thoughts. You don’t have to educate me on sacrifice, Alyneri. I know what it means to lose men on the battlefield.
But the First Lord’s game is far larger than one battlefield, Trell, she’d reminded him. Imagine if the Mage acted as you and put his life on the line every time some danger had to be confronted? I’m sure he would rather be there, leading the charge—doubtless the game would be finished that much faster if he was—but at what cost, Trell? The chance of losing him altogether? Then where would we all be?
Trell knew that Alyneri’s point wasn’t about him saving Loukas. She wanted him to take a broader view, to stand back and assess the entire game board and acknowledge his role in it. But Trell considered this case entirely about Loukas. He couldn’t turn his back on a friend in need. How could he, and maintain his own integrity the while?
And what about the rest of the company’s need? his conscience argued, Alyneri’s advocate. What happens to them if you fall? Do the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many?
He couldn’t deny the validity of this point. If he fell while saving one man, what would happen to his father’s men? Was one life worth the cost of thousands simply because that one life belonged to a friend?
The very question brought immense conflict to Trell’s heart, because it pointed to a question even more disturbing; namely, what cost was he willing to pay to maintain his own integrity? And what would be the cost of compromising it?
Trell reached the edge of camp and the two sentries standing watch—Thierry and Ferrault, brothers expatriated from Veneisea. He nodded to them, said good morning in their native tongue, inquired of the night’s happenings, learned things had been uneventful save for Thierry losing a bet to Ferrault on the nature of an animal that had been making an unholy racket most of the night, and continued walking the line of the camp with swirling thoughts dragging like a river’s current against his feet.
Dawn was turning the air a misty grey when Trell finally found a clearing that suited his needs. He doffed his cloak, and with his breath steaming in the chill air, started running through the cortata.
Every time he worked the Adept dance of swords, he felt immense gratitude to Alyneri for teaching it to him. From the very first day, when he’d been watching Alyneri transition smoothly from form to form, her every motion connecting seamlessly to the next, and attempting with his own motion to copy hers…since that initial attempt, he’d embraced a mental calm while working the pattern’s forms, a heightened focus both of attention and awareness. Even his breath submitted to the cortata’s rhythm, such that his entire body felt balanced—and it would stay that way for hours, for as long as he continued working the pattern.
Alyneri had explained how the pattern of the cortata collected and combined elae’s strands to fuel his energies. While he’d understood the theory, all he’d experienced in the beginning was a sense of forces in balance. Now that he could perceive elae, however, he could feel the lifeforce funneling into him, as if his every step absorbed it from the earth, every breath refined it from the air. He felt himself moving through clouds of elae even as the pattern gathered more of it around him.
Trell cut his blade across and down to the right, crouched as he turned in a slow circle, and straightened again as he brought up his sword crosswise from low to high—a form known as Cardinal Skims the Water. This flowed through Searching the Sea and Crouching Leopard into Holding the Moon—an unusual combination, for Green Dragon Emerging from the Water was much favored in place of the other three—yet it intrigued him to find the same sword forms he’d learned as an adolescent mirrored within the cortata’s movements. No doubt what he dubbed the ‘mortal’ version of the forms had been derived from the cortata, and not the other way around.
Something in this recognition seemed profound to him, in the way truth pervaded all cultures and beliefs, even when disguised within differing dogmas. What was it the First Lord had said to him once? ‘Truth is the ultimate solution.’
Trell had understood ‘solution’ in that context to mean resolution, but now…now he was beginning to think Björn had meant ‘solution’ as in solubility, solvent…truth not only resolved, it dissolved—bitter hostilities, brittle misunderstandings, the feuds of nations.
His father and his Su’a’dal were a perfect example of this. The truth, raining upon the rancorous construct that had buffeted their two kingdoms, had washed it clean, and a sparkling new city, diverse in belief yet united in purpose, had emerged.
Many thoughts later, Trell moved through the cortata’s final form—a combination of Black Dragon Whips His Tail and Comet Chases the Moon—a spinning, thrusting, slashing maneuver that made his sword a truly deadly extension of his intent. Then he stepped out of the pattern and opened both arms, blade held low and off to the side, and bowed as if to a sparring partner.
Clapping, slow and deliberate, drew his gaze behind him.
Rolan Lamodaar stood at the edge of the clearing. He wore loose-fitting but expensively embroidered shalwar kameez, the tunic’s placket open to better display the muscular lines of his chest. His tattooed collar of thorns stood out starkly behind the three braids of his beard. He’d foregone his usual keffiyeh, choosing instead to queue his long ebony hair at the back of his neck.
“That must’ve been every form illustrated in the Book of Swords and a fair few I’ve never seen before.” Rolan hefted his blade and spun it in a figure-eight, warming his arm. “You didn’t tell us we’d be working our forms this morning, A’dal.”
Trell lifted his gaze to the barely blushing sky and then cast a smile at Rolan. “How did you know I was here?”
Rolan arched a bushy ebony brow. “After the stunt you pulled two days ago? Someone has to keep an eye on you.” He motioned to Trell with his blade. “Shall we have at it again? It’s colder than Shamal’s frosty arse out here.”
Trell flicked a smile at Rolan’s irreverent reference to the Wind God’s northerly son. Then he gave an accommodating nod and took up his position to repeat the cortata.
The first time he’d worked the sequence hard and fast, the better to generate some heat—for Rolan spoke truth; it was bloody cold out there—but as he began it a second time, Trell worked the forms with deliberate and slow precision, extending every motion to its fullest.
The first round had warmed him, but the second quickly had him sweating. Sitting in a crouch and turning a slow circle while holding his blade extended to the fullest stretch of both arms…this was far harder than performing the same motion quickly, where momentum carried him through. And there were countless such difficult positions in the cortata, poses or sequences that challenged one’s dexterity to its fullest.
Ne’er a muscle could relax while the dance was in play, for all had a role in stabilizing and supporting each position and the flow into the next. Trell had the benefit of weeks of practice at the sequence—his breath remained even, his mind calm and focused—but Rolan was quickly huffing behind him.
By the time they finished the sequence, the sun had risen and a crowd had collected. Trell rounded the last stretch of Comet Chases the Moon and stepped out of the pattern with a low sweep of his blade. He bowed to a damp-chested Rolan, who bowed in return.
Applause drew both of their gazes.
Raegus n’Harnalt, Tannour Valeri and an imposing man Trell hadn’t yet met stood in a line to the side of the clearing. Just behind them, Loukas hovered in a pod with Rolan’s servant Yusef and the valet Rami, whose service Trell had inherited along with Raegus’s embarrassingly large tent and several other accoutrements belonging to his new command.
“How is it that Rolan claims such special favor from our A’dal?” demanded the imposing man, who spoke in a voice as deep as his mahogany skin was dark. He had the frame of a giant and wore a similarly imposing scimitar at his belt, but something either in his gaze or his smile hinted of a good-natured humor. Trell liked him immediately.
Rolan handed his sword to Yusef and took a towel from him. “Some of us sleep with one eye and both ears open, Nyongo Kutaata.”
Nyongo grinned at him with teeth that seemed very large and white against his dark skin. “Some of us need to.” He bowed to Trell. “A’dal, with your permission, we three will join you tomorrow in the dance of swords.”
“You four,” Trell pinned his gaze on Loukas, “and I would be honored.”
Loukas looked mortified, while Tannour became rigidly stone-faced.
Nyongo eyed them both rather amusedly. “Tomorrow then.” He bowed again, and the group dispersed.
“Loukas, a moment please,” Trell murmured, “and Raegus—”
The other Avataren looked back over his shoulder.
Trell retrieved his scabbard and sheathed his blade. “Ready the men to move.”
Raegus pressed a fist to his heart. “Your will, A’dal.” He departed after the others.
“Rami, you can go also.” Trell belted on his blade, looking up under his brows as he did. “Loukas and I need to speak a moment.”
“Your will, Sidi. I should ready Gendaia to ride for you?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The boy bobbed a bow and ran off.
“Your Highness needs to speak to me? That sounds portentous.” Loukas affected a levity he clearly didn’t feel—Trell could sense his nervousness from across the clearing.
Trell’s gaze tightened slightly. “Loukas…” He retrieved his cloak and swung it around his shoulders. With the arrival of dawn, some of the night’s chill had departed, but Trell could still see his breath on the air. “Remember the other day when we were swimming for our lives, and I was calling you Loukas and you were calling me Trell?”
Loukas regarded him warily. “If memory serves.”
Trell walked over to him. “And do you know what’s changed since that day?”
Loukas’s pained expression reflected countless possible answers. “What?”
Trell clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Nothing.”
Loukas exhaled a slow breath. “Trell—”
“And so begins the lengthy but ultimately futile protest.” Trell started walking back towards camp. “It’s lonely at the top, Loukas.” He gave him a voluminous look, full of all the things he shouldn’t have to say.
Loukas followed him with a deeply furrowed brow, but finally he pressed fingers to his lips, placed his hand over his heart and bowed his head.
Trell smiled quietly. “Now that that’s settled…”
Loukas blew out his breath and aimed a narrow stare at him. “I hate being a foregone conclusion.”
Trell cast him a sidelong grin. “So, you know we head for Khor Taran.”
“Yes.” Loukas arched a brow, perhaps made wary by Trell’s tone. “What don’t I know?”
“Only that a thousand of my father’s men are being held there.”
Loukas hissed an oath. “What? How? Why?” Then he must’ve remembered Trell’s story of the night before. “Ah, no, I get it. Were they trying to escape?”
“Viernan hal’Jaitar’s Shamshir’im trapped them before they could cross into Akkad-held lines. I’ve come south to free them.”
“Of course you have.” Loukas considered him with a tense gaze. “How many Nadoriin at Khor Taran?”
“A thousand or so.”
Loukas blinked at him. Then he barked a laugh. When Trell merely held his gaze, not laughing in return, Loukas’s green eyes widened considerably. “You’re seriously expecting to take on…” he gave Trell a startled look. “This is…I mean—even for you…” Loukas scrubbed at his jaw, frowning ponderously, and pushed both hands roughly back through his auburn hair. “Trell—Fiera’s flaming hell, are you really expecting two hundred of us to take down a thousand men?”
“Plus the Saldarians that I’m fairly certain are using Khor Taran as their base of operations. We can’t forget them. They’re the whole reason the company is in this region to begin with.”
“So…” Loukas was beginning to look a little ill, “potentially twelve hundred men—”
“And possibly—probably—a wielder.” Trell knuckled his growth of beard. He’d been thinking it through, and magic seemed the most likely means of holding that many trained soldiers captive. He arched a brow and muttered, more to himself than Loukas, “This is Viernan hal’Jaitar we’re dealing with.”
“Ha! Right.” Loukas gave a faintly hysterical laugh. “Viernan hal’Jaitar and his Shamshir’im—wielders, trained assassins, torturers.” He spun Trell an imploring stare.
Trell chuckled.
“By all the gods in all the lands.” Loukas audibly moaned. “And you’re telling me all this, why?”
“So you can be thinking of ways to defeat them.”
“So I can…” He fell to cursing.
Trell imagined you could curse rather inventively when you spoke nine languages.
Once Loukas had recovered himself, some several minutes later, he glowered at Trell. “Who else is complicit in this insanity?”
“Raegus.” Trell gave him a wry smile. “I know how much you enjoy the challenge of my impossible tasks.”
Loukas fell to brooding upon this utterance, speaking only in loud glares and silences that shouted of accusation. As they were nearing camp, he said, low and rather fiercely, “Trell…do you really mean for me to practice swords with you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow and every day thereafter.”
Loukas speared an agonized look at him. “But you know how terrible I am with a blade.”
In point of fact, Trell couldn’t remember ever seeing the engineer draw his sword, but he well recalled the talk among the men of Loukas’s ineptness at wielding it. He’d never pressed Loukas for answers about his background—how could he have pushed another to speak of theirs when he knew so little of his own?—but now, with Loukas radiating such constant unhappiness, Rolan’s words nagged at him.
“If you’re truly as dreadful with a blade as you claim to be, it will be good training for you.”
Loukas frowned at him.
“You learn a lot about a man when you train with him,” Trell eyed him sidelong, “and I’ve only a short time to get to know my officers before we’ll find ourselves on the battlefield together.”
Loukas came to a sudden halt. Trell thought he meant to protest again, but he said instead, “You would make me one of your officers?”
Trell reached back for him and dragged him into motion again. “I would make you more than that. Come. As Alyneri would say, we must make hay while the sun shines.”
As it happened, the sun never did show its face that day. A sullen rain turned up instead and kept them company all the long hours, quickly turning their march into a slog. Several wagons got stuck, they lost a horse in a bog—nearly lost its rider, too—and had to change course around a flooded lake, losing several hours of travel.
On a cheerier note, while the wagons were stuck, the cook happened upon a field of mushrooms and was all atwitter at making a stew of them that night for the troops.
Sensing a general malcontent spreading among the men, Trell ended their march early, and they made camp beneath a steady drizzle that finally stopped just as the last pole of the last tent was being lifted into place.
Trell raised his gaze to the clearing sky and wondered if the Trickster God Ha’viv was having His fun with them. He half considered blaming Rolan, who was far too creatively blasphemous with his cursing. Trell didn’t know if Ha’viv was as attentive to the mortal world as Naiadithine, but if there was a sure way of gaining His attention, Trell imagined that blaspheming His name, as Rolan so often did, would probably do the trick.
Trell saw the men settled and lining up for the stew before attending to Gendaia and then himself. He’d just finished cleaning up and donning dry clothes when a heavy wind battered the canopy of his tent and roused a commotion outside.
What now? Trell grabbed his cloak and threw it on as he
ducked out to investigate. The men were all standing with their eyes glued to the west and a palpable apprehension filled the air, thick enough to drag at Trell’s curiosity as he strode in the direction of their gazes.
And then the clouds parted and the world suddenly grew brighter, like a lamp was being carried down a darkened corridor—that is, if the lamp was a star and the corridor all the world. Whereupon the star emerged from the trees, and Trell understood what had so captured the men’s attention.
He swept a hand to his heart and made a gallant bow. “Lady Jaya.”
“Prince Trell.” Jayachándranáptra, Rival of the Sun, reached for Trell’s hands and kissed him on both cheeks. An embroidered tangerine sari wrapped her form in elegance and then draped across one shoulder to trail behind her, while a headdress of citrines held her golden hair, the gemstones dangled across her brow a dazzling orange-gold—almost the exact color as her eyes. The sun was half-mast to the horizon, but Jaya lit their camp with her radiance.
She looped her arm through Trell’s and looked to the sea of male faces. “So this is your company.”
“Lady Jaya, may I present the forces of our Su’a’dal.” He held a hand to them. Then he raised his voice to be heard. “Soldiers of the Emir, may I present the Sundragon Jayachándranáptra, Rival of the Sun.”
Into the silence of their astonishment, some of the men bowed, some made awkward attempts at bowing, but most simply stood there gaping at her.
That the Sundragons could take human form was a well-kept secret—Trell himself hadn’t known until he’d visited the First Lord’s sa’reyth—but clearly Jaya was unconcerned with upholding that secret now, for the wind he’d heard must have been her dragon form soaring above their camp, and even an imbecile could’ve made the connection when she appeared out of the forest only minutes later.
Trell turned Jaya a smile. “You seem to have made quite an impression on them, my lady.”
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