She moved forward slowly. She approached with the stealth of an angel, carrying the mug of tea before her, the heat of it like molten lead cradled in her palms.
Chapter Sixty-Six
The horror of massed warfare was beyond anything Dariel had experienced in his years as a raider. Fortunately, he held a serenity at his center that helped him through it all. Ever since reuniting with Aliver and Mena he had become a younger, happier, more buoyant version of himself. He knew they were engaged in a life-and-death struggle, but he was not alone in it. He had seen his sister lead an army into battle with her sword stretching from her hand as if it were part of her. He had watched his brother stand naked before a nightmare of a beast without blinking and then watched him cut it down like a hero out of legend. Incredible that these two were his siblings. He was not an orphan after all. He had a family. Soon they would have control and then everything—all the death and suffering, all the years in exile, all the injustice that made the world foul—would be set right.
Such conviction helped him function in the aftermath of the battle with the antoks. He was up before dawn the following morning, having slept just over two hours. He strode from his tent still caked in blood, grit beneath his fingernails and in the creases of his forehead and neck. He was eager to do what he could for the injured, the dying, and the dead. He took just a moment to splash water on his face and to scrub some of the filth from his arms, and he paused this long only because Mena ordered him to. She had checked him for injuries, queried him about how much he had rested and if he had eaten or drank. She was his older sister, after all. She was one of the few in the world who could demand that he do such things; he loved her for it. When this was all over he would sit with her in tranquillity and explain everything he felt for her. He would give her gifts and admit that he had always remembered how kind she had been to him when he was a child. Thinking such things helped him deal with the pain and suffering the beasts had inflicted on so many good people. He wrapped that feeling of familial connection around him like a cloak. It helped him through the morning, as he checked and bandaged wounds, spoke words of praise and encouragement, lifted water gourds to parched lips. He whispered in the ears of the departing. He told them how much they were loved and how well they would be remembered and honored by future generations.
He passed a couple of hours at this before the news reached him. The shouted words blew past him at first, as quick as a gust of wind that snatched away his protective cloak. It took him a moment to understand what he had just heard. He did not believe it entirely until he stood beside his brother and sister, stunned and staring at the small company of the enemy in their midst.
There were just ten of them, tall and blond, long-haired and fierce, armed only with daggers. They projected complete ease, assurance with themselves and indifference to the thousands of hate-filled eyes fixed on them. Maeander Mein. Dariel could not imagine what he wanted, but from the moment he saw him, a knot tightened at his center.
While one of the Meinish officers formally announced him to Aliver, Maeander looked around with a thin-lipped grin on his face, studying Aliver and others as if he had never seen a company quite as amusing before. He had a loose-limbed power to him. He was perfectly proportioned, muscled but not overbulky, his torso tight and slim, as if he carried much of his strength at his core and down in his thighs. Dariel imagined him to be fast and found it easy enough to believe his reputation as a skilled killer. But his arrogance heated Dariel’s blood.
“Prince Aliver Akaran,” Maeander began, once the formalities were concluded. “Or do you prefer to be called the Snow King? I must say that’s a strange appellation. I see no sign of snow. Should a flake fall on this scorched earth, it would sizzle and be gone just like that.”
Aliver responded calmly. “We don’t choose what others call us or decide how history will know us.”
“That is very true,” Maeander said. “We can strive for greatness, but who can know? I am sure your father never imagined that one of his offspring would lead a ragtag army up from the deserts of Talay. Or that another would be mistress to his conqueror, another the symbol of a Vumu religious sect, and the last a common raider of the seas. No matter how hard we try to make it otherwise, our lives are always surprises, aren’t they?”
As he spoke his gaze left Aliver and settled on Mena. It lingered on her face, then slid down her body as if he were sizing up a courtesan. Before he looked away, though, he nodded to her. It was a deferential, almost respectful gesture that seemed distinctly different in character from what Dariel had expected. Finding Maeander’s gaze on him the next moment, Dariel felt like smacking the smirk off his face. But he was not at all sure that he would be able to if he tried, such was Maeander’s dangerous ease.
“What do you want to say to me?” Aliver asked.
Maeander held his hands out like a merchant attesting to his honesty. “I want to make you an offer. A simple offer. Dance a duel with me, Aliver. Just you and me, fairly matched, to the death. Nobody will interfere; all can see which of us is the greater.”
“A duel?” Aliver asked. “What will this solve? You do not ask me to believe that your army will admit defeat upon your death, do you? Hanish will pack his things and leave Acacia, return to the wilds of the Mein? That would tempt me, but it is not a possibility. We both know that.”
Maeander laughed. He acknowledged that he promised no such thing. Neither did he ask Aliver to swear to a similar oath. But why not face each other like men? There was a time when leaders stood before their armies and let their own blood sanctify the contest. It was they who had the most to gain or lose; so why should they not risk their lives as willingly as they put the lives of others in danger? It was a noble ideal that Meins and Acacians had both subscribed to once. It had been forgotten over the generations since Tinhadin’s rule, when nobility was squashed, reviled, and—
“You’re mad,” Dariel interrupted. He could not help himself. Aliver seemed to be considering the offer. Nothing in his tone or demeanor suggested the disdain Dariel thought appropriate. He wanted to make sure his brother understood how he felt about this absurd proposition. “We have an army that fights for its own reasons. Every man and woman here is free. And they war for even greater freedom. Not one soldier in this company would risk Aliver’s life before his own.”
Voices affirmed this from all sides. They clapped, shouted, cursed. A few tossed quick insults.
Maeander deigned to look at Dariel long enough to ask, “You are the raider, yes? I would not expect you to know anything of honor. I am proposing only that Aliver do his part, that he face an equal and be tested.”
Dariel spat on the ground. He felt Mena’s hand touch his elbow, but he yanked away. “An equal? You are not a king. You are not Hanish. Why would Aliver Akaran risk your treachery when this isn’t even about you? You must be truly desperate.” Turning to shout to the crowd, he said, “That’s the only reason he’s here. The Mein are desperate! We have them beat, friends. That’s what this is about.”
Eyes back on Aliver, Maeander spoke through the tumult that answered Dariel. “Nothing rallies an army like a symbol. If—or should I say when—you kill me, Prince Aliver, you have my permission to saw my head from my shoulders. Go and mount it on the tip of a tall pole and hold it up for the world to see. Maeander Mein killed! Aliver Akaran triumphant! Your army would double overnight. The downtrodden masses—most of whom have forgotten whose heel ground them into the dirt before my brother’s did—would rise in one great wave. Prophecies fulfilled! Destiny! Retribution!”
Aliver seemed at ease with this discussion. He did not seem surprised by the situation, did not seem at all troubled by looking into the face of the man who had orchestrated so many days of death. He leaned forward slightly, engaged, one hand raised to gesture, quieting the troops. “And if I perish?”
“That is the beauty of it,” Maeander said. “Your death would spark some similar effect. Anger! Rage! What a hero you would b
e, having sacrificed yourself for your nation. Sometimes a martyr inspires a curious kind of devotion….”
“You speak well,” Aliver said, “but all the same things could be said of you. Should you triumph, you would have the same rewards. So isn’t this duel ultimately without effect?”
“No, not at all. I am feared but not loved. I am powerful but not the supreme chieftain, as your brother pointed out. No, you would gain more from my death than I from yours.”
“So why do you offer this duel?”
“Because he’s a fool,” Dariel said.
Maeander dropped his smile, replaced it with an instant mask of gravity. “He is right. Just think me a fool, Aliver. But fight me. I challenge you by the Old Codes, those that were in place before Tinhadin’s time. As a man of honor, you have no choice but to accept. You know this, even if your brother does not.”
During the private council that followed, Dariel tried to speak reason to Aliver. He reiterated his belief that it was madness to concede to a duel. It was a ploy, a trick of some sort, a last-ditch treachery. Nothing good could come of it. Maeander should be repulsed or seized or killed on the spot. He did not deserve the protection of parlay. Dariel said these things numerous times in varying ways, growing frustrated that Aliver heard him with equanimity and yet still seemed resolved to accept the challenge. It was clear from the moment the small group gathered in his tent that he had made up his mind. He did not sit as he motioned for the others to do so. Instead, he stood stretching, moving about, keeping his body limber.
In his quiet, measured voice, accented by his Talayan origins, Kelis asked, “What are these Old Codes Maeander spoke of?”
Aliver explained that they were the unwritten standards of conduct from the far past, when the Known World was made up of self-governing, tribal powers. Each had his own customs, even more varied than what exists now. But when dealing outside a particular tribal group they relied on established rules of conduct that everyone understood. He named several of the customs, and might have gone on if Leeka Alain had not finished for him.
“Some of the Old Codes are best forgotten,” the general said, “but Maeander did evoke a known precedent. Bastard that he is. In those times kings met before their respective armies and tried to settle their disputes before putting their armies at risk. Sometimes they fought to the death. The First Form—Edifus at Carni—was such a duel.”
“And Tinhadin did away with these codes, didn’t he?”
Leeka sighed, chewed his answer a moment. “To our lasting shame. He rewrote everything, though, not just these codes. He brought the entire Known World under his control, and much that had been could no longer persist.”
Melio Sharratt, who had led the Vumuan force the day before, sat beside Mena. He was the one who had taught her how to use a sword. He had also helped save them from the antoks, and because of it nobody questioned when Mena pulled him into the council. Indeed, Aliver remembered him well and had commented last night on how fortuitous his arrival was. Melio asked if anyone ever stood in and fought in the king’s place.
Aliver jumped in before anybody could answer, firm but smiling. “Nobody will stand in for me. Not you, Kelis—I see you thinking it. And certainly not you, Melio. Still think you’re my superior—as you were when we were boys?”
“Not at all, my lord,” Melio said deferentially. “You surpassed me long ago.”
Aliver paused in his exercises and looked one after the other of them in the eye, his face sun burnished, lean, handsome. His brown eyes showed touches of gray in them, flecked with stony veins of silver. He had never looked more like the ideal of a young king. “Maeander is right. I cannot ignore the Old Codes. They are part of what we’re fighting for. I believe in the notion of a leader’s responsibility that he cites. If I believe it, what choice do I have but to accept what he offers? I’d be betraying everything that I want to be if I did. I didn’t wake up this morning expecting this, but here it is. Better that I welcome it than run from it.”
Nobody offered a rebuttal to this. Even Dariel could not think how to argue anymore. “If all this is decided,” he said, his voice bitter, “why are we here talking?”
Humor curled up the corners of Aliver’s mouth. “I’m here for the pleasure of your company and to keep those men out there guessing.”
“Can you promise me you won’t die?” Dariel knew he sounded childish, but he thought the question and could not help but ask it. “Can you promise that?”
No, Aliver admitted. Of course he could not make that promise. He stepped close to Dariel, grasped him with a palm set along his jawline. He called him Brother and reminded him that he had been beside their father when Thasren Mein stuck a poisoned blade in his chest. He was an arm’s length away, he said. He saw the blade as it thrust forward. He saw the face of the assassin, and he had seen it a million times since. He could carve it out of stone and have the visage accurate to the last detail. This duel was not really offered this morning. It had begun the day he let Thasren kill their father.
“We fight for noble ideals,” he said, “but also blood is blood. Fathers must be avenged. That, also, is an Old Code. Maeander may have forgotten it. But not I.”
As he unfastened the King’s Trust and set it on the field table before him, Aliver explained to a messenger that he was accepting the challenge. They would fight with daggers. No other weapons. No armor. It would be only the two of them, and whatever happened Maeander and/or his men would be allowed to safely depart when it was over. Such were the specifics Aliver swore to.
Outside again a few minutes later, the sun seemed to have bleached the world. It was too bright. Dariel stood squinting as he watched the space for the contest marked out. It would be a small oval, hemmed in by a wall of bodies, all of them unarmed, sworn not to aid or hinder the two. He stood watching as Aliver and Maeander walked the space, stripped down to the few articles they would fight in. They received instructions and had their weapons examined, washed clean of poisons, checked for secret devices.
Mena came up behind Dariel, grasped him by the shoulder, and whispered. “Didn’t Aliver slay the antok? Hasn’t he communed with the Santoth? Before that he hunted a laryx. Perhaps sorcery has been at work in his life all along. Have faith in him, Dariel.”
And then it was time. Aliver stood before the other man shirtless, wearing just the knee-length skirt of a Talayan runner, his knife like a sliver of ice in his hand. Maeander wore a thalba so thin the contours of his muscular chest and abdomen showed through. His knife was shorter than Aliver’s, with a slight curve to the tip, a dark tint to the blade. Aliver said something. Maeander looked puzzled a moment and then seemed to understand and respond.
Dariel did not hear the exchange. He watched what followed from a strange, muted place, not aware of his body at all, hearing nothing and taking in only what the harsh glare of the sun highlighted. He watched the two men circle each other. They measured each other’s strengths and weaknesses with cursory thrusts and parries. He saw Maeander’s thin lips smiling and joking, keeping up a steady stream of commentary that Dariel could not hear a word of. He watched Maeander dive into an attack, so fast he was like a hooded snake. Aliver flew up from the strike, a leap that took him over Maeander’s head, slashing as he did. Maeander, still snakelike, leaned backward. He flattened himself to the ground, his shoulders touching the dirt even as his legs moved him under Aliver and away.
At any other time that series of moves would have dumbfounded Dariel, but the two did not so much as pause to acknowledge what had passed between. They circled more, jabbed more. Their knives clashed. As they pulled apart, Aliver cut the skin of one of Maeander’s knuckles. The tempo increased. The two men became blurs of motion, slipping around each other, attacking and retreating, spinning so quickly it was hard to keep track of who was who. Somebody drew blood from the other’s shoulder. One of them fell and had to scramble sideways on all fours. Dariel thought it was Aliver, but the next moment Aliver was in the air above
the cloud of dust, spinning around like a deadly acrobat, his blade at the tip of his orbit, slicing the air.
Watching him, Dariel felt the first inklings of hope. Aliver was blessed. How else could he dance ahead of every assault Maeander made, faster than him, more perfect in execution, deadly artistry in motion, pressing his own attacks with flourishes that made Dariel imagine the Form that this would one day become. Yes, that’s what this was! He was watching a Form being created…. Mena was right; sorcery had to be at work here. And Aliver was right; he would win this in his father’s name. He would conclude the duel begun years before.
And then Dariel saw it happen. For a few seconds all his mind registered were the physical details, the scene itself in vivid colors, one second passing into the next without understanding the significance of what he saw. Aliver, having ducked beneath Maeander’s punching dagger thrust, pulled on his chest and shoulder muscles to create the slicing arc that would tear through Maeander’s abdomen, just as he had disemboweled the antok. This, at least, was what should have happened. What did happen was different.
Maeander jumped, a quick concussion of power shot from his thighs, through his balled calf muscles, and down to his toes. He floated up into the air. Aliver straightened as his blade skimmed across Maeander’s abdomen, so close Dariel believed the point split the fabric of his thalba. Aliver lifted as the other man did, wanting this motion to end the contest, wanting it so badly that he focused his everything on carving into flesh. What he forgot was the knife still in his opponent’s outstretched hand, behind his head as Maeander’s arm came to rest on his shoulder. He was still focused on his attack as Maeander drew the point of the blade into the back of his neck.
Acacia, The War with the Mein Page 65