“Thank you so much,” Elora said to the wolfhound, who merely opened his mouth wide in a luxurious yawn and then let his teeth close with a resounding chop.
“You should know better,” said the warrior, in a familiar voice.
Elora considered a rude reply, but decided on a more temperate one and made a face instead which she knew the other could not see.
“Hoy!” she heard Luc-Jon cry from the Commandant’s porch, where he’d been working through the night. “What’cher there! Put up them swords!”
“It’s all right,” Elora called as the young man’s alarm brought an instant response from guards, whose nerves were already on hair triggers. “No harm meant, no harm done!”
She stepped clear of the blades’ embrace and heard them sing through the air as the warriors returned them to their scabbards. Boots thundered on floorboards all around them. In surprisingly short order near a dozen armed men had taken position before her, to face Elora and her supposed assailant with a formidable array of bows, pikes, axes, and blades.
“Who goes?” demanded the Sergeant of the Watch.
“Khory Bannefin,” said the warrior, stepping into the torchlight where she could be properly seen. “In the service of Thorn Drumheller, himself adjunct to the office of the Chancellor of the Republic of Sandeni.”
She hadn’t changed much since the last time Elora had seen her two years earlier, any more than since the first. Broad shoulders, long arms and legs, hair as naturally black as the false color Elora wore, cropped as close to her skull as a day’s growth on a man with a heavy beard. She wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t ugly, Khory existed in that realm where features were defined more by character than design. High cheekbones framed a strong, square jaw beneath a broken nose and wide-spaced eyes, their oval shape and upturned setting marking her as a native of the Spice Lands, though her features were too angular, her skin too rich a gold, to be mainland Chengwei. Thorn’s guess was that her heritage was Hansha, off the coastal archipelago, but had no notion how one of her race had come to Angwyn, to meet her doom ages ago in the dungeons beneath the old royal palace.
Tribal tattoos marked biceps and thighs, and especially her face behind and above her left eye, covering her eyelid and filling the whole of the brow ridge before flaring up and out along the flank of her skull until it met her hairline. The image was as brilliantly colorful as Elora’s makeup, and most closely resembled the facial feathering of some exotic raptor, as if transposed directly from the head of that great hunting bird. The odd thing was, in all their travels together, none of their party had ever been able to identify which bird. Thorn didn’t know, neither did the brownies, nor the two golden eagles Bastian and Anele, nor did anyone they met along the way.
In her previous life Khory had been a warrior. That had been plain at the start from the tone of her body’s musculature and the calluses on her hands, as well as the few scars that marked her flesh. While death claimed her soul in those catacombs, the reaper found it had a challenger for her body: a demon imprisoned since time immemorial in the very stones used to construct the ancient stronghold that served as the original seat of power for Angwyn’s rulers. The demon saved Thorn’s life, and offered to help save Elora’s, provided the Nelwyn sorcerer gave life to its own unborn offspring. The demon was a prisoner from time’s beginning to its end. It would not allow its child to share that fate. The child was soul without body, Khory was body without soul. Thorn would be the catalyst that brought the two together and made them one.
He had never spoken of that ceremony. Neither had Elora, and she never would. Necromancy was considered a Black Art, province of such evil wizards as Bavmorda. Trafficking with demons was worse. Revealing Khory’s true nature would be an instant sentence of death, for her and Thorn both.
Then again, Elora considered as she accompanied the other woman to the Commandant’s, what is her true nature? Demons have always been considered spawn of the ultimate evil, yet Khory’s been nothing but a true friend, a woman of courage and honor.
“I sent for Thorn,” Elora said.
“And he sent me, little Princess.” Plain as spoken words between them was her silent rebuke: He has duties, Elora Danan, and there’s more at stake here than the life of any friend, no matter how dear.
“You should have been here sooner.” She was unable to keep a hint of accusation from her tone.
“So I gather.”
“Or at least sent Bastian and Rool ahead to let me know you were coming! With their help none of this might have happened.”
“I don’t care who she claims to be,” they heard the Commandant roar. His anger was as palpable as an expanding field of burning gas, making those outside extremely reluctant to make their presence known. “What I want to know, gentlemen, is how the hell she entered this stronghold unnoticed?”
“Sir—” one of his officers began, but that was as far as he was allowed to go.
“I don’t want excuses,” the Commandant snapped. “I also don’t want this to happen again. Find out what happened and make it right.”
The officers hurried out, radiating their own little puffballs of humiliation and fury, promising an equivalently hard time for their own subordinates. The troopers who composed Elora and Khory’s escort exchanged rueful glances at the sight. This promised to be a bear of a day.
The Commandant didn’t ask how she accomplished her incursion as she presented both credentials and a packet of dispatches. A brief but thorough sweep of the eyes across her body, taking the measure of her stance and weapons, told him all he needed to know about her abilities.
He looked rumpled, he looked worn, with none of the cultivated veneer of the visage he normally presented to the world. He was a figure as rough-hewn in his way as the garrison he commanded, who’d grounded his life in as firm a foundation and built it solidly piece by piece. He would never be flashy, he was rather the kind who would endure. Right now, to Elora, he was very much the bear who’d been rudely wakened from his winter’s hibernation. Not happy at the disturbance and less so to be presenting himself at so much less than his best, with grizzled, unshaven cheeks and red-streaked eyes sunk too deep in their sockets. He’d obviously grabbed whatever lay closest at hand to wear, belting his sword on over a nightshirt.
He ran his fingers through hair that badly needed a wash, scrabbled about the desktop and drawers in a vain search for something to tie it back from his face.
“You seem to be the focus of quite a lot of interest, young woman,” he noted to Elora.
“A misfortune of fate, sir?” she hazarded lightly in response.
He gave that line no more credit than the story she’d told him earlier but chose to accept it anyway. For the moment.
“Are you familiar with these assessments?” he asked Khory, indicating the thick bundle of dispatches she’d delivered. The warrior nodded. “Is there hope for a negotiated truce?”
“Defensive mind-set,” she said simply, voicing her own opinion. “Defensive strategy. Automatically cedes the initiative to the enemy. Peace will last until the enemy decides to break it.”
“At which point,” the Commandant mused thoughtfully, in agreement, “the question becomes, can that attack be repulsed? I’m to hold fast here, then.”
“As best you can, and for as long, yes. Those are the orders.”
“With no more resources than what I have?”
“In light of Testeverde, the decision has been made to concentrate Republican forces at Sandeni itself. If the Maizan mean to scale the Wall, that’s the nut they have to crack to do so. The hope is that the Castellan and his warlord will conclude it is a shell that can’t be broken.”
“There’s more at play here than just Maizan, does your master, Drumheller, understand that? Does the council? The Maizan are no longer the only enemy with territorial ambitions. We’ve had skirmishes all along the frontier.”
“Those were no more than raiding parties, weren’t they?” Elora interrupted. “I’m sorry,” she hurried on as both Khory and the Commandant turned their gaze on her, “I guess I’m wrong but what threat could they pose to a place like this?”
“That the High Elves of Greater Faery raid at all is cause enough for concern,” the Commandant told her. “But they’ve enlisted allies to their cause. Every which way you look, there’s someone new who feels they’ve been pushed hard into a corner. Daikini who believe the Veil Folk mean their extermination, to whom the Maizan appear their sole salvation. Veil Folk who see how magic is being expunged from Maizan holdings and assume the same in return. And those nations of the Daikini caught in the middle, unwilling to bow before either camp. We’re none of us being left with any option save total commitment, because the perceived alternative is annihilation.”
* * *
—
“What will happen here?” Elora asked Khory as they returned along the porch to the inn.
The taller woman shrugged. “Maybe nothing.”
Her gaze was always roving, sweeping the space immediately surrounding her and flicking from point to point across whatever lay within eyeshot to check for any possible threat.
“You don’t believe that. The Commandant doesn’t.”
“The government in Sandeni has decided. They have to make a stand.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The best I can do, little Princess, is tell you what Drumheller told me before I left. The Republic has to hold what is theirs, not only against the Maizan but against these marauding forces of Greater Faery. The Maizan must be made to bleed for what they wish to conquer, not only to maintain Sandeni’s independence but to demonstrate to the Veil Folk that there are Daikini who will stand in their defense. There is no longer any middle ground, as the Commandant said. Testeverde was proof of that. To save the lives of its populace, the decision was made to surrender the city, even though that meant the eldritch power of its World Gate would be stolen away by the Deceiver. Instead, some force beyond the Veil shattered Testeverde’s Gate with a spell so foul that the land there is death for any Daikini who even comes close.”
“Like Angwyn.”
Khory shook her head violently. “No. What happened at Testeverde was an abomination. For all the enmity we may bear him, the Deceiver has committed no such atrocity. Angwyn is ensorcelled, as Thorn’s stories say your Tir Asleen once was. Consider the Deceiver more like a drain, drawing to himself the magical essence of the world. That upsets the balance of things. Because the Realms are interlinked, what affects one affects all. The less energy a thing possesses, the colder it becomes.”
“So if the Deceiver wins, we all freeze?”
Khory exhaled sharply and both of them watched the thick cloud formed by her breath as it chilled.
There was a bite to the air strong enough to make others clutch their jacket collars about their throats and exchange knowing nods about how quickly summer was giving way to fall, but neither woman appeared to mind.
“Everyone’s desperate,” Elora noted, using the term to encompass far more than just the Daikini within the stronghold’s walls, “everyone’s scared. That’s why they’re lashing out so fiercely, they figure there’s nothing left to lose. That’s the Deceiver’s doing,” she told Khory, “that’s the responsibility he must bear. He’s the one who’s pushed us all into these corners.” She looked around the whole of the parade ground yet again and exclaimed, “There has to be a way to help!”
“The decision has been made.”
“That this fort is to be sacrificed? I refuse to accept that!”
“You have no choice, Elora.”
“Do you ever wonder,” Elora asked her, “about where you come from?”
“Formlessness into form. I was not and then I was.”
“Trust a demon to speak in enigmas.”
“I am not a demon, Elora. Any more than I am this woman whose flesh is foster home to my spirit. I am myself entire. Beyond that, all is discovery.”
“You sound like Ryn.”
“Not so poor a way to embrace existence.”
“Do you deny your heritage?”
“I assume, like most, my whole is greater than the sum of my parts. Do you deny yours?” she asked Elora suddenly.
The question caught Elora off guard and the answer burst out before thought could temper it. “I don’t have one.”
“No?”
“I’ve a Destiny. That’s apparently all that matters.”
“You haven’t the experience to be clever, girl. Save it for better days.”
“I’m serious. I think. I mean, who am I? Princess by name, but what’s my blood? Hellsteeth, Khory, you know more than that about yourself and you’re not even wholly human!”
“Piss and vinegar will only take you so far.”
“That’s for damn sure.”
“Bed, girl. Now.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
“You’ve a hard ride ahead come morning.”
“We’re going after Ryn! Why wait till sunup, I’m ready now!”
“Ryn is my responsibility, girl. I’ll bring him home safe.”
“I’m coming with you!”
“You’ll do as you’re told. Don’t look so downcast, Elora, you’re getting your wish. You’re going to Sandeni to join Thorn.”
* * *
—
Khory was gone within the hour.
Elora would have followed, but the warrior had left her in the charge of a brace of proctors, with orders to keep her under close confinement until morning when she’d be sent downriver under escort. Even if she gave her minders the slip the gates were closed and bolted, with a full wartime complement of sentries on the walls. For her, the fort was a closed box.
There was no sign of Duguay in their room, which provoked a mixture of emotions in Elora. She was thankful for the solitude, upset at his absence. She wasn’t in a mood to sleep, though she knew she’d pay for that later when the excitement of the evening finally faded, and so busied herself packing away her costume finery into a traveling pouch, replacing it with her buckskins.
The mare Khory provided for her wasn’t much to look at, mahogany coat accented with russet in the mane and tail, dark socks on all her legs, in the same autumnal red, white blaze down her forehead like someone had laid down the basic outline of a broadsword. Across shoulders and flanks was a network of pale lines, some long, some short, some wide, some narrow that first glance registered to Elora as scars, long-healed. A moment’s reflection rejected that presumption on the grounds that no creature living could survive such an onslaught, and most certainly not in the prime of health and condition that this animal radiated.
There was pride in her stance and a knowingness in her gaze that Elora had rarely seen in her breed. Though she wore saddle and bridle, this horse had never been broken, nor did she acknowledge any rider as her “master.” With that exchange of looks, Elora understood that here stood one who faced her as an equal, whose friendship and loyalty and, above all, respect had to be earned.
The distinctive clip-clop of another set of hooves alerted her to the approach of another animal and a few moments later Duguay Faralorn led a mount of his own around the corner of the paddock.
Elora greeted him with a tense flattening of the lips and continued her examination of her tack, tugging on the saddle girth to make sure it was securely strapped in place. She offered the mare a fresh carrot and smiled at the whuffle of the horse’s warm breath as she took her scent as well as the proffered snack.
“What’s all this, then?” she asked the troubadour as she slipped the bridle into place and fed her mare another carrot, stroking her soft muzzle as she ate.
“You don’t get rid of me that easily, lass.”
“Bound at the hip,
are we, Master Faralorn?”
“We make good music together, Elora,” he said in all seriousness. “I don’t want that to end. I don’t think you do, either.”
“I have other obligations.”
“They’re mutually exclusive?”
“Ryn’s my friend. I won’t abandon him.”
“Don’t you think that your warrior friend might be better qualified to go to his rescue?”
“So I just stand idly by and wait, while others do the work and take the risks?”
“It happens. It isn’t even so bad a thing.”
“You live with that attitude. I refuse to.”
“How will you find him?”
“The same way Khory will, with Bastian and Rool’s help. I caught a whisper of their presence a little after sunup. She brought them back upriver with her, but she’s got them ranging way wide of the fort, I assume to mark the Maizan trail from the air.”
“And they’ll help you?” She shot him so fierce a basilisk glare that he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “All right, all right, no offense, we’ll set that one aside for a moment, there’s no need to cry.”
“I’m not crying,” she snuffled, physical evidence to the contrary.
“Of course not. Take my handkerchief anyway.”
She blew her nose but didn’t give it back right away, letting her forehead rest against the seat of the saddle. She heard the mare whicker in concern for her.
“I felt so good the other night,” she told them both, her voice thick and huskier than usual.
“And deservedly so.”
“I felt I had made a kind of contribution! Taken all the despair that was in the room and galvanized it into something brighter and stronger and more positive. I felt hope from them, Duguay. And then Ryn was taken and I couldn’t stop it and now I’m being told to run away to where it’s safe while all these people here, they’re doomed, and I don’t want to be told there’s nothing to be done, I’m sick of being told there’s nothing to be done!”
Shadow Dawn Page 27