Bitter Moon Saga

by Amy Lane

  “Soldiers—Professor Austin, where were they?”

  “About three hours east,” he slurred. “We were almost here yesterday, and then we heard the mass movement. We could see Clough’s colors through the trees and hear the men talking, so we stopped and walked the horses, trying to get a sense of where they were going. We could do it while they were moving, but then we tried to slip away this morning….” His voice wandered, and then with a cry of “Torrant!” Austin was suddenly awake, lucid, and terrified. “They’re heading for Triannon, and they have orders to kill someone named Moon!”

  “Goddess!” Torrant hissed, every nightmare for his cousin crashing down on his chest in one blow.

  “They saw us. Saw Emory’s white lock of hair, and I heard them, even as our horses took us away. They were shooting at him to kill, and—” Austin’s voice broke. “He was my student since he was a boy.” Tears rolled from blurry eyes, and suddenly Pansy was there with a clean cloth and some more tea.

  Torrant looked uncertainly at his old professor, his old friend. “Pansy,” he said, his voice shaking, “Pansy, I’ve got to go. It’s Roes, and Aldam won’t live without her, and it’s….”

  “It’s kin, Healer—go!” Pansy urged, and Torrant remembered nothing after that but the sound of Heartland’s hooves, with Albiebu lumbering far behind.

  They rode until the horses were winded and whimpering for lack of breath, and then they dismounted and walked until they couldn’t see their feet in front of them, and Aldam stumbled and fell to his knees. The awful keening groan he gave finally brought Torrant to his senses.

  “Three hours east,” he puffed, turning toward Aldam and giving him a hand up. “Austin said they were three hours east yesterday, and they’ve been heading toward Triannon since this morning, right?”

  Aldam nodded, his eyes hungry on Torrant’s face, finding some hope to devour and sustain him.

  “Triannon is a three-day ride for us, alone, going at a fair clip, right? So they still have two and a half, three days to get there. And they’re a big mass, and they’re not moving as quickly as we are, right?”

  Aldam blinked and nodded again, and Torrant nodded too, feeling better than he had since he’d pelted out of the house, bellowing Aldam’s name. “It will be close,” he said, patting Heartland’s shuddering withers and rooting in his saddlebag for a wire brush so he could lean against the animal and soothe him after such a rough ride. “It will be close,” he said again, his breath coming easier this time. “But better we rest now, since it’s ’bout full dark and the horses are spent, than kill ourselves before we get there. No….” He put a hand on Aldam’s shoulder as Aldam reached for the brush. “I’ll tend the horses. I see some grass by that tree. We can let them graze. Did you bring some oat cake?” Aldam nodded, and Torrant went into the saddlebag again and pulled it out. He gave one lump to each horse, grateful he had it to give, and together he and Aldam made a brief camp. They rolled themselves up in their cloaks near the horses and slept hard until the sun played coy with the horizon.

  They measured themselves the next day, and the horses were better for it. As they camped that night, they had a tight breath to spare for a plan, in case they ran across the soldiers on their way.

  “How many, do you think?” Aldam asked while handing Torrant a bowlful of soup.

  Torrant closed his eyes and tried to remember what he’d learned about military hierarchy in his politics class. “The priest who visited last year wouldn’t have known about the militia—that’s new. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have spies. Let’s assume they know. They were big enough to mask the sound of two horses and two men making camp. They didn’t spot Austin and his helper until the morning….” Emory—a tiny boy with big eyes, he had been Roes’s age. Torrant had been thinking of the boy all day as they fled. A Healer of the Goddess, dead for the white lock of his hair. “I’m sure it was the fact that they weren’t in livery that gave them away.” Torrant thought for a moment. They had been seeing signs that a big group of men had passed this way all day. Neither one of them was a woodsman or tracker, but it wasn’t hard to spot a freshly used privy ditch or a flattened spot from—fifty? A hundred? More?

  Torrant sighed and made the hard guess. “A company, I’d say—that’s about a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty men.” He sighed, looked away, thought, and looked back. “My guess is we’ll catch up with them tomorrow about midday. We’ll hear them if we’re not riding like we’ve just been loosed from stars’ dark.”

  “What do we do then?” Aldam asked, alarmed, and Torrant nodded, glad his earlier panic had faded to some common sense.

  “We pretend we’re a rock and a tree, and we wait until they camp for the night. Then we pass them up, ride like hell, and evacuate the school on the west while the militia stops them on the east side.”

  “Can they?” Aldam asked, surprised, hopeful. “Can they stop them?”

  Torrant’s heart sank—he felt it—to his diaphragm, stopping his breath, and when he made himself take a breath it was up in his throat, dragging pain out with the wind. “No,” he stated truthfully. The mismatched paneling in the halls, the terrifying number of books he’d never had time to read, the dining hall that had felt like home—all of it, at the mercy of Rath’s soldiers from Clough. “No. The most they can do is buy us time to clear out the students. And every minute will be dearly paid for.”

  Oh Goddess, let us get there in time.

  Torrant couldn’t dwell on it. He couldn’t. And they were not ready to sleep. Torrant thought about the things he might be called on to do and remembered one skill that had never come up in Triannon, but that might be called on when trying to flee from soldiers into the woods. “Aldam—did I ever tell you how Yarri and I got away from the wizard tracker in Clough?”

  Aldam shook his head no, and Torrant spent the next hour practicing with his brother how best to be a rock and a tree.

  THE PRACTICE was good, but what they ended up being were two riderless horses instead.

  They caught up with the company of soldiers early the next day—so early, in fact, they almost rode up into the midst of the cooks/stewards/pack animals that accompanied an army, even a single company. As soon as Torrant drew Heartland to a reckless halt, only partially hidden by the last stand of trees, he saw the men in the wagon bringing up the rear turn their heads toward him, and instantly he became an empty place on the saddle.

  Aldam did the same as Albiebu skittered to a halt next to him, and together the two spare horses assumed the pace of the rest of the army, a little to the side. Aldam, caught under the blanket of the illusion Torrant had whispered over them, caught Torrant’s eyes and sucked in a breath—those eyes were snowcat blue.

  They had to be, Torrant thought irritably, looking out at the world filled with predators who were weak enough to be prey. He had to be the snowcat. He wasn’t going to make it for the rest of the day if he wasn’t.

  Torrant didn’t let the façade of empty saddles fade until they were a good bowshot in front of the army, and as it was, he had a pounding headache by the time night fell. But when the troops stopped moving, he and Aldam slipped quietly away—as easy as that. Letting the truth bending fade was like breathing for the first time in a year. He slumped in the saddle for a moment and then realized Aldam had made a distressed sound behind him. Of course—if he failed, Aldam would have to leave him behind. He straightened, cast Aldam a strained sort of reassuring smile over his shoulder, and nodded. They picked their way carefully along the narrow path they had ridden so many times before, until the last moon set and they had no more light to go by. They slid off the horses and into a dreamless sleep.

  They felt the sun on their faces at about the same time they heard the vanguard riders in the distance behind them. Torrant and Aldam were on their horses at a gallop before the horses had scarcely opened their eyes.

  Someone unfamiliar with the two new militia outposts would have missed the place where the trail split, and as
it was, Torrant and Aldam reined in to a skidding halt. They had already agreed on what they would do—Aldam would go around the bowl valley to the outpost on the east side and get the twenty or so men there to help with the school evacuation. Torrant would go straight to the nearer outpost on the west end of the valley and rouse the soldiers there, then go into the school and herd the students out the back. Judging by how close the vanguard riders had sounded, they didn’t have much time.

  “Aldam—” Torrant started, wishing he could grip his brother’s arm from the back of the horse. Aldam looked back at him, his fuzzy blond hair full of twigs and leaves, his open blue eyes anxious. This was Aldam, his brother—they’d worked side by side in perfect communion for nearly four years, and Torrant had not once taken it for granted that his brother would be at his back if he needed him. Now it was time to make sure no harm came to him.

  “Aldam,” Torrant said again, and he swallowed and knew they had no time. “Be careful, Aldam, that’s all,” he said at last. “We’ll get her home safe, right?”

  Aldam smiled gamely and swallowed, hard. “Get you home safe too, brother,” he said tightly. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ll be doing while we clear out the school.”

  Torrant hadn’t been sure Aldam would put it together when he’d proposed the plan—but Aldam was only a little slow. Torrant should have known he would eventually end up at the right place.

  He smiled, his best smile, so Aldam would go off into his own danger with a good heart. “It’s not a problem, brother,” he said, knowing that his eyes were bleeding blue. “I’ll just be hunting.”

  IF TORRANT had time to think about it as he thundered up to the barracks, he would have reflected that all barracks look the same—this one was a squat building with a kitchen in the center. But Torrant wasn’t interested in the building; he was more concerned with the three bored guards outside, sitting sentry in the dusty sun, looking at him in surprise.

  One of them stood, a familiar one, and Torrant breathed a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t have to introduce himself to Captain Jerin.

  “Soldiers,” he shouted, swinging off Heartland as though he were already the snowcat. “Rath’s men—there’s a whole company of them coming this way. Aldam’s gone round to warn the other barracks and get the students out that way.”

  Jerin stood and stared, opening and closing his mouth in surprise he had no time for, and Torrant found his years of commanding people to hold a bandage or to leave a husband had trained him to command more than housewives and Aldam.

  “To arms!” he called over Jerin’s head. “Enemy approaching—to arms, to arms, to arms!” As the men came flooding out, putting their swords in their scabbards and throwing on light chain mail as they moved, Jerin recovered himself and started asking intelligent questions.

  “How many? How far away?” he asked after catching his scabbarded sword from his lieutenant.

  “An hour, maybe less,” Torrant told him breathlessly. “And a whole company.” The world tilted for a moment, now that he was off the horse. The ground beneath his feet rode galloping waves, and then his vision shifted cold and blue as he pulled himself upright and prepared to stand with the militia. Jerin had other plans.

  “You said Aldam went to the other barracks so they could start evacuating?” At Torrant’s nod, Jerin thought quickly. “Right—then we need you to go down the front entrance and herd everybody east.”

  “But….” It wasn’t until he heard the plaintive note in his voice that he realized how badly he wanted to hunt that invading army, how much he had been looking forward to swiping and clawing and ripping their soft, sweet flesh and crunching on their bones.

  “But nothing, Torrant!” Jerin barked, accustomed to having his orders followed. He must have seen the mutiny building in the face of the boy he’d opened the door to, all those years ago, and his expression softened. “Look—I know why you’d want in on the battle—but my men are trained and I….” Suddenly Jerin’s expression turned furtive. He’d married one of the refugees, some years back, and Torrant had a sudden, sick sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  “My wife has kin still in the ghettoes,” Jerin said, his eyes hard and bright. “And when you were a boy, I used to sneak out into the woods just to watch you hunt. I know what you do when you go trade in the city, and don’t think we’re not grateful.”

  “But that’s all the more reason for me to—”

  “Live!” Jerin interrupted and then swallowed thickly. “As me and the boys I grew up with won’t, odds are. No, Triane’s son, you are too important to die with us today. Now go!”

  Torrant’s mouth twisted in anguish. Jerin locked his wrists with him, released him, then thumped him on the shoulders to urge him to his horse. Torrant threw himself on Heartland and turned to the men from his village he would never see again, recognizing them from the stables or the warehouse or from roughhousing in front of the Moon home when they were boys. He called out “Good hunting to you all!” before spurring his horse past the barracks and down the hill with bitter force.

  Heartland was so tired that Torrant just dropped his reins before he crashed into the grand west entrance, bellowing for Professor Gregor. In a heartbeat he was surrounded by worried professors and upset older students, including a group of fifteen or so young men who reminded him achingly of himself in his first years at Triannon. One young man had golden curls and blue eyes, and the thought of Aylan almost wore through his urgency and made him weep at the approaching horror. Then Gregor appeared, stunned, and as Torrant told him of the approaching army, Gregor grew angrier by the second.

  “Why? Torrant—why would they be coming this way?”

  Torrant swallowed. “Professor Austin heard them talking, before they attacked him—they’re after ‘the girl Moon.’ But they killed Emory just for having a white streak in his hair, Professor. None of you are safe. Aldam’s rousing—”

  “Aldam?” Roes appeared instantly, having fought her way through a slew of taller professors to do so, and looked at her cousin with wide, anxious eyes.

  “He’s riding to the east, getting the militia to escort you out.” Torrant paused and then raised his voice for everybody listening. “Everyone should grab provisions and a cloak and go out the small north entrance and up toward the militia barracks. Don’t stop for things—they can be replaced.”

  Gregor met his eyes in sorrow. “What of the militia at the west?” he asked quietly.

  Torrant thought of Jerin, and his eyes grew grim. “If this army means to do what I think it does, Jerin’ll be able to buy us time—but not much.”

  Gregor nodded and took a deep breath, calling out to the crowd of students gathered, “Do as he says, people—take food, because we’ll be making it to Eiran on foot, and a cloak as well, but don’t burden yourselves with trifles. Older students, mind the younger ones; younger students, listen to your elders. Go—run through the dining hall for the food, go grab your cloaks, and head for the east entrance! Go! Now!”

  That last word mobilized them, and the crowd dispersed to the tremendous sound of running feet. Professor Nica came up to Torrant, her frowzy dyed-blonde hair grayer than it had been the first day Torrant had come to Triannon, but her eyes just as wickedly bright. “Come with me, boy,” she said with asperity. “There’s something we can do for the school even if we have to leave it.”

  Torrant followed her to the library—the great hall of books, bound in leather with their heavy yellow parchment magic in the center.

  “The poetry’s in the back,” Nica told him, “and those volumes are smaller.”

  “But Professor—” Torrant remembered the histories, the battles, the kings, and the forces that spawned countries and cities and towns. “The historical books?”

  Nica looked at him sorrowfully, her bird-dark eyes bright. “My boy, what’s more important—the moments of the past or the lessons we took from them? If every student carries a small volume with them, well, it’s enough to say
we have lived.”

  Torrant nodded dumbly, and the fragile-looking professor handed him a crate full of small, beloved volumes of poetry, of Goddess stories, of tales of adventure and of love. Torrant practically ran down the hallway to the east door and was met there by Roes.

  “Good,” she said practically. “Here, I’ll hand these out while you go get another box.”

  Torrant looked at her, her dark-red hair in a practical—and escaping—bun and her fierce brown eyes above a freckled scowl, and he felt a sudden terrible affection for his prickly little cousin. After he dropped the crate with a thump at her feet, he gave her a stout, crushing hug. “I’ll do no such thing, briar Roes,” he protested. “You go up and find Aldam before he goes out of his mind with worry.”

  “We’ll find him together,” she mumbled into his shoulder, wiping her eyes on his shirt when she thought he couldn’t tell. “And this is the right thing to do.” She stood up and sniffled a little, offering him a brave smile. “After all, you know there’s a volume of all the songs you wrote when you were here, don’t you?” She laughed a little at his shock. “I think Gregor wrote them down as you sang them. It would be a bloody shame to lose it—now go!”

  The north door was open to the bright spring sunshine, and very distantly to the south they could hear the horrible shouts of men. Torrant didn’t need to be told twice.

  As the last stream of students went running out the door and up the path of the bowl valley, a small book tucked into the folds of every cloak, Aldam came thundering down the hill on Albiebu, a trio of militiamen at his back. He almost leapt off his horse while it was still running when he saw his beloved. Roes was dragging two of the youngest students by the hands, followed by Torrant with the tiniest in his arms. “They’re here,” Aldam shouted breathlessly. “You can see them at the top of the west side coming down. Torrant, we need to ride out now!”