She bounced and flailed, only the air being knocked out of her by banging the saddle’s horn kept her from screaming. She passed the Squirrel while clinging to the mane and her saddle threatening to roll beneath the gelding’s belly as she’d lost a stirrup. Struggle as she might she couldn’t get her ass back where it belonged, and her one foot in a stirrup had shoved its way through. She was certain she’d be dangling by a leg and beaten by hooves in no time.
Something snaked between her legs and lifted. “Don’t let go!”
Was the Squirrel shitting her? She wasn’t even sure she could let go if she wanted to with fingers tied in the beast’s mane.
“Whoa, whoa.”
Hooves slowed, and she wrenched body and saddle more upright. And as the horse slowed to a walk, she realized the man still had his hand in a place that’d get him slugged most times. He must’ve figured that out too, as his hand shot back from under her.
“You all right?”
Where do pride and honesty meet? “Fine, fine.” But her voice rasped, lungs still not wanting to fill with air.
“I’ll uh, keep with you. Once you get your wits back, cluck twice, and give a light squeeze with your knees.”
“I know how to ride, but ponies I’m used to don’t have this animal’s strength.” She straightened her back and took a deep breath. “If you think I’m doing more than walking this beast from the Fourth Hell, you’re crazy.”
And so it took them an extra ten wicks or so to find the Wolverine’s party, but the reward was not having knots in her head from bouncing on rocks.
The Wolverine spearheaded a party of thirty who sat on their horses at the top of a rise. No surprise to see the Broldun and Roplin Choerkin beat her here. Maybe a half horizon to the west, a wide ribbon of horsemen snaked their way.
She overheard Polus: “At least we have the high ground.”
The Wolverine guffawed, but the Choerkin didn’t seem of a mood for optimism. “What’re you thinking… five thousand armored horse?”
The Squirrel piped in. “Four thousand more’n needed, I’d say.”
Polus glanced to Meliu. “What prayers you got for this host? Can we count on the other priestess?”
No one had seen Sedut, but Meliu had no doubt the woman was somewhere in the thick of people, hiding. “The High Priestess wouldn’t let us die without a fight.”
Roplin said, “Two, maybe three hundred horse at Inster.”
“Shits.” It’d felt like thousands during the battle. “They’d thunder over us. At least I would. Even Sedut…”
The Wolverine ripped a bite of jerky and chewed. “The sea is clear, any word from riders to the south?”
Roplin answered. “Clear last we heard.”
The Wolverine wiped his chin. “We can’t outrun ‘em.”
“We make a stand then, high ground as the Broldun says. Agreed?” Silence, and the Choerkin exhaled. Squirrel, take riders and get the word passed.”
Meliu bowed her head and prayed for courage and victory, but her soul felt hollow.
The army moved slow, but faster than Meliu would’ve hoped. Then they stopped.
As a priestess she’d never imagined sitting with the heads of the clans facing a foreign army, but here she was, prepared to kill and die. An eternity from having her nose stuck in some book. It was madness and made her feel as if she could laugh if she avoided crying. If she let herself feel at all.
Polus pointed. “Banners. A parlay?”
Meliu glanced at the gathered Silone atop the hill behind them. A few thousand; most had met their first battle at Inster, untrained and ill equipped. “Why?”
“One way to know.”
“You trust these shit eaters?”
Polus licked his lips and glanced to Roplin, and the Choerkin’s eyes drifted to the clouds. “Can’t say I do, but if we can talk our way out of it… I’m not asking anyone to come along, might be better if you don’t.”
Polus’ saddle creaked, and he banged the mail covering his heart. “If I die to today, I won’t die a coward.”
Roplin grinned. “There’re no cowards here, but there might be fools.”
Meliu rode with Roplin, Polus, and a couple men she couldn’t name. They stopped fifty paces from Iro and his escort of twenty, which included several priests of the Hokandite this time. A cape covered the man’s left shoulder, but there was no hiding his missing arm.
Iro squinted at her, there was no flirt in the man now. “Priestess.”
“Good to see you again. Most of you anyhow.”
His expression remained still. “A raven-haired witch is to blame.”
Roplin cut in. “Leave us be, Hidreng, and no one else needs to die.”
Iro glared at the Choerkin. “That is a lie, many must die. The Bishop holds Ivin Choerkin, surrender, then he and any who lay down arms will live.”
“Leave us be.”
Iro’s fist clenched his reins. “The time for peace is past. The time for you to walk away, is no more.” The priest on Iro’s right side raised a hand. “When I command his arm to drop you all die. Consider hard.”
Meliu’s mouth went dry as the soldiers flanking the commander reached behind their backs and in a flicker shouldered crossbows.
“Your witch mutters so much as a breath, she dies.” The smile he gave Meliu was galling. Prayer never moved faster than a quarrel.
Polus’ mouth was anything but dry. “Filthy whoreson! I’ll take your shittin’ right arm this time, you son of a bitch. I shoulda made straight for your whore’s heart on the field.”
“Brave words, expected of a big man, yet wasted. I apologize if you misunderstood our meeting today.” He gestured around him. “Do you see table, wine and whiskey? I didn’t come here to talk, I came to see your faces when you die.”
Meliu closed her eyes, expecting steel to pierce her body any moment. Elinwe, the mother, Sol, the father, may your son Etinbin oversee my soul. Today I come home, but lend me the powers I need… She didn’t speak a word, but Light calmed the rhythm of her blood pounding in her ears, and her vision went black with Dark and she could feel the terrors within. Without a spoken prayer.
Through the surge of power she heard swords ring. “It’ll take more than one shaft to take me down you shit-eating bastard. That arm drops and I’m coming for you.”
Meliu heard a sound. A peculiar sound. As if the air wavered and fluttered. With her senses heightened she expected the Hidreng loosed their quarrels, and she opened her eyes, the Dark ready to release its powers. The priest’s arm was steady in the air. Iro and Polus raged curses back and forth, so filled with hate they made no sense. But the fluttering ripple grew louder. From behind.
The throat of the priest on Iro’s left burst into a spray of blood and the man leaned back on his horse, held by stirrups, saddle, and a dying grip. Blood pulsed with the beat of his heart, and he struggled to stay sitting.
Silence, except for Polus’ lingering scream: “To the Forges with your soul!” Then he too fell quiet.
The other priest’s arm shifted with wide eyes, but Iro clutched the man’s chest. “Hold!” Everyone stared at the dying man, his gurgling breaths: the arrow struck so deep all Meliu could see was its bright blue and green fletchings. Iro let loose one priest and reached for the arrow, pulling it from the man’s throat. The priest tumbled into the dirt, but Iro had eyes only for the arrow and its brilliant feathers.
Hidreng stood in their saddles, their eyes plying the distance. And settled on something. With a quick glance, all Meliu spotted was a few horsemen on a high hill.
Iro glared at Polus, then her, then clucked to his horse and whistled twice. He rode straight past them with his riders following. Not a one bothered with the body.
Meliu eased the power of the gods from her body and exhaled for the first time in what felt a candle. “What the shittin’ hells was that?”
24
A Simple Execution
The eyes, you surmise,
th
e place to look for lies,
but every liar knows it’s the key to disguise.
How to judge eyes sewn shut?
How to judge eyes god-struck white?
Do they ever lie,
these Blind Visionaries,
do they bother to try?
–Tomes of the Touched
The confidence with which the Edan spoke their every word gave Solineus the sense the world was theirs and they could do what they willed. It was an overwhelming sensation he attributed to several things: their demeanor and tone, their unflinching lack of emotion, their stature and auras, the aesthetic perfection of every curve in the gear they wore, bespeaking efficiency in its beauty, but all paled to the fortress of wilderness they called home.
Here they commanded the waters and the winds. Here they shaped shade from trees and made soft the forest floor with leaves, grasses, and fertile loam. The animals were calm and sedated, even the wolves and tree cats who must hunt to survive, they all walked with a certain purpose, and unafraid of people’s passing. Storms and rains came but the lightning stayed in the clouds, and the waters collected in leaves and rolled into gentle showers on the forest floor.
The confidence in their world made the plan sound so simple, Solineus didn’t question it until they rode from the cover of the Mother Wood.
They passed from the canopy of the Eleris with the sun peaking in the sky. The world of trees opened to a wide grass-swept plain, and Inslok, Lemereu, Lelishen, Glimdrem, and Solineus formed the front line; he felt as out of place as a kitten in a den of lions. Behind them rode their army, five Trelelunin in armor fashioned from linen, scimitars at their waists, and bows, arrows, and shields strapped to their horses.
Ten to stop a war.
He glanced to Inslok, who sat astride a gray stallion eighteen hands high. The magnificent animal strutted with every stride, with silky featherings of hair flaring over its hooves with every pounding step. “You’re certain about this?”
“Nothing is certain. Your people could be dead before we arrive.”
The cold matter-of-fact tone bespoke to how little the Edan cared either way. All they wanted was the book tucked inside his pack.
So simple. They ride to Inster, deliver a message to the Hidreng, and while Lemereu and Lelishen escort the Silone to the Blooded Plain, the rest of them head for Kaludor to converse with a giant skeleton who possessed a gift for circumspect words.
“We aren’t even a dozen, and we’ve two Tek nations to pass through before reaching Hidreng ground.” Way he understood the map, they’d pass through slivers of Loekar and Stiltir before reaching Hidreng. “Who’s to say they don’t kill us along the way?”
The Edan’s eyes bored into him, emotionless, but he still felt their slap.
Lelishen said, “No one will try to kill us.”
He wanted to trust those beautiful eyes, but outside the Eleris the world felt complicated again. “Really? What will folks do when they see armed foreigners?”
For three days he needn’t have worried in the least: They didn’t see a soul. The Blooded Plain was devoid of men and woodkin, but on the fourth day they forded a river flowing southwest and a steel stake flying a tattered pennant stood hammered into the northern bank.
Inslok said, “We’re in Tek Stiltir for six maybe seven horizons. We’ll follow the river into Tek Loekar, and by tomorrow evening set hoof to Tek Hidreng territory.”
Solineus grew uneasy with those words, but they made camp that night, right near a post marking the boundary between the Blooded Plain and the Tek nations of Stiltir and Loekar. He slept easy only because he knew the Edan never closed their eyes for more than a blink.
The next morning Solineus learned what happened when Tek saw woodkin: A child stopped to stare, but his parents whisked him away and they ran. When the sun was high, a score of riders appeared on the horizon and drew close enough he noted spears and shields. Solineus shifted in his saddle and planted his helm on his head. The horses wheeled and thundered away, and when Solineus glanced at Inslok and his fading glow he realized why.
The Edan’s face didn’t even bear a hint of smug he’d imagine any normal man might wear. It irritated him. “They could go for reinforcements.”
“No.”
One godsdamned word. So simple. So confident.
So right.
They passed into Tek Hidreng where the rolling plains grew rockier and camped outside a small town Inslok named Nash. Villagers scurried behind the palisade walls and barred the gates as if an army were laying siege. Come morning, all he could see on the walls were heads crouched and staring at them from between sharpened logs.
They reached the coast the next day and came upon the first Silone refugees, camps setup for fishing with nets. Solineus told every group to sit tight, and they’d be back to lead them to the Blooded Plain, but after two days’ travel beside the water they met the first riders fleeing Inster.
They rode with uncanny speed for the next day and a half, with the Edan rubbing the horses down every few candles. So it was that they came to a high hill to find the main host of the Silone refugees, and in the distance an army of Hidreng.
They crowned the hill and the Edan stared, but all Solineus saw were distant blobs. “What is it? What the hells you see?”
Lelishen’s face betrayed an emotion the Edan wouldn’t, or couldn’t, and she passed her hand over his eyes. “See.”
His eyes felt as if they swelled and shifted shape in his head, and his eyelids flutter blinded him until his vision cleared.
The Silone had their backs to him; the only face he could name was Iro. The Hidreng was irate, and somehow, seemed to be missing his left arm. The big man yelling back must be Polus. “Do something! Ride!”
Lemereu slipped from her saddle with an easy grace that belied the speed with which she moved. “We’re here to deliver a message, and the wind moves faster than any horse.” Her bow was in her hand and an arrow whipped from the quiver on her back, fletched in brilliant peacock feathers.
“Are you mad? We’re two thousand strides, maybe further…”
“Silence.”
He opened his mouth again but Lelishen slapped his shoulder. “She’ll need focus.”
Focus hells. Even if the bow had near that range, the damned woman barely aimed with an arc.
The world came to a still except his beating heart as the string creaked under the pressure of the Edan’s pull. She stood silent, unmoving, as two men far away fumed at one another. The war they’d come to prevent was a flicker away.
A wind tussled his hair from the east, more than enough to give the arrow’s range a kick. If the arrow’s flight ever had a chance, the wind would throw its flight askew. The wind fluttered, or perhaps it purred, and specks of dust funneled to Lemereu, to the arrow, and Motu Ensa thrummed.
Solineus glanced to Inslok’s emotionless gaze, to Lelishen’s curious brow, and back to Lemereu, but they all stared forward. When he followed their eyes he saw nothing, then flickers later a Hidreng priest rocked in his saddle. Blood flowed from around blue and green lodged in his throat.
Solineus’ heart beat once and heavy in his chest, then he took a breath and swallowed before it beat again. “Unholy gods.”
Lemereu turned and vaulted into her saddle. “Message received.”
Solineus watched as Iro pulled the arrow from the priest’s neck, dumping his body to the turf. “I’ve never seen… nothing.” In a smaller way, it was as impressive as a tower of Fire.
Lemereu shoved Moto Ensa into its saddle quiver; her gaze betrayed a flicker of disgust. From any other, what she said next he would’ve taken in jest, but not from the mouth of an Edan. “I’m out of practice. I was aiming for his chest.”
The party reined their horses into a line facing the oncoming Hidreng riders, and waited. Iro fumed as he brought his gelding to a halt, his voice wavering as he held back his anger. “You killed a good man.”
“I would have put the arrow through your
throat, but I wanted to kill a whole man.” The sweet in Lemereu’s tone sent a chill down Solineus’ spine.
Inslok’s voice was bland, he might as well be speaking to a tree. “We saved your people from annihilation today at the cost of a single life. Be grateful, and spread my words: The Silone are under the protection of the Mother Wood.”
“Grateful.” Iro spit and his eyes fell square on Solineus. “What deal have they bled from your veins?”
“Safe passage to the Blooded Plain. Guarded from you and that witch you call a bishop.”
“Two Edan ride from the murderous wood. I don’t know to which you sold your soul for such a blessing, but I ask you this: What have you to offer when it comes time to save yourself from your new friends?”
He whistled twice and yanked his reins, his horse spinning into a trot through his guards. The Hidreng spun as birds in a flock and rode downhill behind him.
Inslok’s gaze turned as smooth as an owl’s to land on Solineus. “The Hidreng will bother your people no more.”
Solineus smiled, but his heart fluttered. Lemereu killed the priest as if he were a mosquito, and she, happy to be rid of a pest. Safe from one threat, it was hard to shake the notion he’d gone a step too far on faith alone. But choices were a luxury he didn’t have.
The light of dawn awakened Meliu the next day and she crawled to the highest point of an outcropping that reached into the Straits. To the northeast, the Silone broke camp, a long trail of people already following the coast. To the southwest, a trail of dead grass killed by the refugees and army alike.
She broke a loaf of bread and bit while staring after the retreating army long passed over the horizon. An army defeated by a single arrow.
“Shittin’ bastards.” Seagulls eyed her meal as she crouched atop the stone searching for a positive other than Ivin lived. She knew the direction they took him but not their destination. “If I knew where they’re taking you, I’d have a chance.”
Trail of Pyres Page 22