by Jenna Rhodes
She did not ask what he thought stupid, but only, “Have we a chance of catching her?”
“If we ride the night. Stay close, let Ribbon pick her way. We’ll ride hard till the sun sets, then we’ve no choice but to slow. But I won’t be stopping till I find them.” He pulled Aymaran about, hard, with a jerk on the reins that made the horse whinny in pain, a sound Sevryn ignored.
Rufus mounted his hardened wiry mountain pony and waited for Rivergrace. He took up the rear, not using reins but his knees to guide the pony, his hands cradling a short bow, and his flint-dark eyes alert.
Rivergrace hugged one slender arm about herself, skin still damp from her washing, with the faint taint of the Andredia clinging to her, as they rode. Worse than the Silverwing in its foulness though not as strong . . . she could not begin to explain to Sevryn what she felt in it, what she feared in it. Dipping her hands into it, her being had dissolved away, into the river, and she reeled herself back only with great effort, losing herself, with no way to help it or herself. She would not touch the Andredia again, that sacred river, unless forced. She could not. She would follow Sevryn all the days that she had left and pray they were many, even for one of Vaelinar blood, but never would she draw water from the Andredia again.
The moon hung high above them as night came, not yet full but so bright and silvery she could see her shadow on the ground as they rode. Ribbon chuffed and tried to snatch clumps of grass whenever they slowed, grumbling that she hungered and her smooth gait roughened as she tired. Grace rubbed the mare’s neck in sympathy, fighting to keep her eyes open despite the occasional jolt as the horse’s body shifted suddenly. She must have fallen asleep anyway, jerked back to her senses as Sevryn’s horse shouldered into them, and he swept an arm about her waist, lifting her effortlessly onto Aymaran in front of him. She sat sideways against him, his arm still about her, and he murmured to her, warm breath tickling her face, “Lean against me and sleep, aderro.”
She did, with his voice echoing in her dreams. They dissolved into a comforting nothingness.
“Derro, derro!”
Hands pulled, yanking her about roughly as they dragged her down. She fought to stay with Sevryn but he let her go. She thrashed as they captured her, arms about her neck squeezing, choking . . . hugging the life out of her.
“Sister, derro!”
A face salty wet with tears meshed against hers, crying happily, and Rivergrace surrendered to it, throwing her arm about her captor, saying only, “Let me breathe!” Nutmeg responded by adjusting her arms about Grace’s ribs and squeezing even harder.
She could hear Garner’s dry voice saying, “I tell you what. Got a deck? I’ll cut you the cards for her,” with Sevryn quietly declining.
“Surely she’s more valuable than that. I’ll trade you a fine tashya horse for her.”
“Jeredon!” Nutmeg let go of her long enough to pinch someone from the aggrieved yelp and then a hearty laugh.
Rivergrace found her own feet to stand on, gathering her balance and wits, surrounded by bodies.
“A welcome I hadn’t counted on.”
Jeredon thumped Sevryn’s shoulder. “Not for you. You’d best practice ducking, for when my sister comes for you, you’ll need it.”
Sevryn beckoned at Garner. “Get that deck, and I’ll cut you to see who talks with Queen Lariel.”
“I won’t gamble with those odds.”
Lariel strode across the field, dressed in rich blue-and-green hunting attire, and the storm in her eyes could be plainly seen. “Clear the camp,” she ordered, drawing her sword. “You gambled with my trust and my offer of service. Now let us see if you can fight your way back!” Ice encased every word.
Jeredon took Rivergrace by one elbow and Nutmeg by the other, hauling them out of the way as Sevryn took a stumbling step in disbelief, putting his hand to his sword hilt but not pulling it. She bore down on him and swung, sword whistling sharply through the air as it barely missed him, and the follow-through took her about in a clean circle. He drew then.
“What are they doing?”
“I believe they’re sword fighting,” Jeredon answered Rivergrace. “We’d best give them a wide area to settle it.” He reinforced that by pulling them a bit farther away with him, Garner at his heels. Troops surrounding them fell into a respectful quiet, no offhand bets on who might win and who might fall, as if sensing the queen’s deadly mood. A tall, hulking Vaelinar with an immense scar dividing his face nearly in two crossed his arms and leveled his gaze on them to watch. He looked as if he had the strength to break it up if he wished, but he made not a move other than observing.
Sevryn did not answer her blows with strikes of his own, but countered and parried. The swords clanged and belled with every hit and when they did not, when the blades hissed through the air, Rivergrace cringed, not knowing what force or flesh would halt them. She taxed him. Rivergrace could see that clearly, that Lariel knew swordwork and had the strength to wield hers quickly, cleanly, and deadly.
The queen wove her anger into a dance of blue and green, gold and silver glints of lightning. Sevryn held her off, his blows getting sluggish, his steps less sure. She saw the strain on his face, and held her breath for him, knowing if she made a noise or a move, he would know it, and any lessening of his concentration could be fatal.
Rivergrace had no doubt that Queen Lariel would strike a killing blow if she found the opening. Jeredon’s hand tightened on her with a bruising grip, every muscle in his body rigid with tension. He thought so, too. She did not want to look but could not tear her eyes away.
“You . . . leave . . . my . . . service . . . when I tell you to!” Lariel slashed diagonally, catching his sleeve as he dodged, sucking in his gut and jerking his head back, and a sound of pain escaped him. “You would leave for a moment that cannot last? Her destiny is death!”
He struck back then, driving in on her before she could recover from the blow, their swords locking crosswise, his hand pinioning hers at the hilt, finding strength in his fury. “How dare you take away from what we have! How dare you tell me when I can and cannot love!”
They strained at one another, and Lariel gave way when Nutmeg uttered a gasp. She dropped her sword to take one deep, heaving breath and then sheathed her weapon. She looked at Grace and then to Nutmeg. “I am sorry,” she said.
“What do you mean? What does she mean?” Nutmeg said, and pulled Grace about to face her.
“It’s nothing.” She could feel the day’s heat pounding down on her, her pulse still thundering from watching Sevryn dance on the edge of his death, and her senses reeled.
“Don’t tell me that!”
Rivergrace looked down at her sister, her rescuer, her pillar of strength and practicality. She put her hand to Nutmeg’s rosy cheek. “Someone has told a bad fortune for me. But we don’t believe in fortune-tellers, do we?”
“Never,” Nutmeg said stoutly. “Never if it takes us apart.” She held onto Rivergrace tightly. Grace looked into the other’s spice brown eyes and tried to forgive herself for lying to her sister.
Above them, a flaming arrow arched into a too-blue sky.
“My appointment waits,” said Lariel. She strode to her horse, Osten holding the bridle for her to mount. “Do you attend me, Sevryn?”
“I always have, but you cannot meet with Quendius and Abayan Diort. That road leads to disaster. I left you because I found one of the answers to the Four Forges. I’ve been up to where Gilgarran met his death at the hands of a weaponsmith, m’lady queen, and where I lost many years. Bistel does not tell tales. Quendius forged a weapon there, a weapon that—” He paused, realizing what Azel d’Stan- the must have been about to tell him before the Kobrir struck his blow at their ill-fated meeting. How could he not know what Azel’s next words should have been? Every world has its balance, and if there are Ways to life, then the opposite would be as true. “A weapon, Lariel, that is a Way unto itself, a Way leading to death and beyond.”
“We don’t c
onstruct such a thing.”
“He has.”
“He’s a half-breed, and no one has ever reported a power within him.”
“He wouldn’t be the first half-breed overlooked,” he told her quietly.
Her hands twitched on her reins. She beckoned to all of them. “We make the appointment. We look. Listen. Learn.” She wheeled her horse to the crest of the foothill leading to the Blackwinds and stood alone, the wind at her back, waiting for them.
Jeredon tossed Rivergrace and Nutmeg aboard their horses, while Sevryn stood, head lowered, to suck in air deeply. He came to her, and put his chin on her knee, Aymaran trailing at his back with a puzzled whicker as he stayed afoot.
“Whatever happens, know that I love you.”
She wiped the sweat from his face with her fingertips, then brushed his hair from his brow. “As I love you.”
“Then that is all that matters.” He kissed her hand before swinging about and mounting his horse.
The Vaelinar woman with copper skin and the great man with the scar joined them at the hill’s edge, Garner bringing up the rear, eight in all, and they rode up northward till they saw the banner unfurled and rippling in the air. Rivergrace felt the noblewoman with the brilliant green eyes look upon her, and uneasiness built. It was not the same one who’d come to the shop, and yet...she could not name the fear that prickled at the back of her neck each time the copper Vaelinar’s gaze swept her.
Nutmeg rode Bumblebee. He bumped Rivergrace’s boot with his nose and teeth as if seeking her attention, and she laughed in spite of herself, leaning over to scratch his forelock.
Jeredon paced Nutmeg on the other side. “That one is like a great dog,” he said.
“He is a pony whose heart makes him so stout.”
“Indeed? I would have thought that came from his stomach.” Jeredon dodged away from Nutmeg, put his heels to his sleek tashya horse, and dashed forward to join his sister.
Nutmeg knotted her fingers in Bumblebee’s mane. “No one,” she told him, “thinks their horse is better than you.”
He snorted and whisked his heavy tail in agreement, as they slowed to a trot, approaching a circle of tents and wagons, with heavy wooden crates piled on the ground, men working at opening them with heavy iron crowbars. She could smell the dark iron on the air as they entered.
“Queen Lariel. You are prompt.”
“I have much pressing business.” She dismounted as Abayan Diort came forward to hold her horse for her, his Galdarkan height just above hers, his bronzed body gleaming in the sunlight. “Tiiva, get a count.”
The copper Vaelinar slid off to unsling a satchel from her saddle, taking out a bound book and writing instruments, and began to walk among the crates. Jeredon and Sevryn stayed at the edge of the camp, their attention alert, taking in all they saw about them.
Rivergrace suddenly thought that Rufus was not among them. She swiveled about in her saddle, looking back, and realized he had not been in the queen’s camp. Had he faded off during the night?
Sevryn caught her eye, his eyebrow quirking. She thumped her chest as Rufus often did. He lifted a shoulder and dropped it in a shrug. He had no idea either.
“Taking a count before we’ve even talked offers?” Quendius rose from a great leather campaign chair, gold-braided leathers strapping it together, giving it a look of more than just a folding chair. A rich tawny fur upholstered it, with stripes of ebony upon it, the like of which Rivergrace had never seen. Behind its back, barely seen, a tall, thin man stood, as sparely dressed as he was fleshed.
“She can work while we talk.” Lariel gripped the forearm of Quendius with her own, a warrior’s shake. “You seem able to meet my needs.”
The weaponmaker towered even over the hulking Vaelinar captain of the scarred face. His skin of ash gray set off eyes of the same color, flecked with shards of black, like splinters of darkness growing in his appraisal as he looked at her, then swept a perfunctory gaze over them, dismissing all save Tiiva. He watched her for a moment then looked to Lariel. “I am able to meet many needs,” he said, sinking back into his chair.
“Not observing the Accords?”
“M’lady, if everyone observed the Accords, only the lawless would have weapons, and we’d be under their bootheels. Besides, I understand they’ve been set aside.”
“You’ve enough gear here to conquer a nation of lawless.”
Quendius smiled, and his eyes stayed cold, the black splinters growing darker. “Whatever it takes.”
Lara tapped her sword belt. “Shall we talk quantity and pricing, then?”
Rivergrace began to ignore them as their voices dropped into a drone, counting the army, breaking it into infantry, archers, cavalry, and their various needs, none of which she could grasp save that Abayan Diort, his handsome face tattooed with rings and bars and insignias brought out men dressed and armed in gear, as if to show Lariel just what they were selling for each. Perhaps they were.
She could feel Nutmeg shift her weight back and forth, forth and back, in a tiny, unconscious dance of impatience beside her. Sevryn and Jeredon split into different directions, traversing the camp. Quendius saw them, and said nothing, but the mercenary Diort’s attention was riveted on them. Tiiva moved from crate to crate, Lariel’s Captain of Arms assisting her as they inspected the goods within, her pen moving quickly as she made notations. Garner had stayed with the horses, and she could hear him whispering gently to them, a nonstop stream of soothing noises. An eerie sense of timelessness dropped upon Rivergrace’s shoulders.
Lariel stood. “Negotiations seem completed. I’ll have a look at the goods myself, and we will send contracts and payment to you when we’re done scribing them, if we decide to deal.” She crooked a finger at Jeredon and Sevryn who’d regrouped, and Rivergrace looked at his face, smooth and expressionless, and he did not look back at her.
“It’s as I advised,” Sevryn told her.
She frowned.
Quendius rose behind Lariel. With him came the thin man, nearly as tall as he, a sword at his back. They passed Rivergrace by a step and she could hear a high-pitched whine emanating from the blade, and a cold shiver lanced through her. This was the thing Sevryn had feared, had warned of. Cerat, Rufus named it. Souldrinker.
The weaponmaker nodded to Abayan Diort who put his back to the pavilion. “We should deal now.”
“I like to think upon contracts as weighty as this,” she said to him, over her shoulder. Tiiva moved away from a wooden box of weapons, her hand still on her papers.
Lariel leaned over the nearest crate, lifting a lance, saying, “It seems porous and not well tempered. Is this the best you can smith?” She looked up at Quendius.
He beckoned his hand to his shadow. “No. This is. Narskap.”
Cerat sprang free from its sheath, leaping into the thin man’s hands, arching toward Lariel. She cried out, then, a warning leaping to her lips. “Remember the soul!”
She saw Sevryn move after his queen. Heard him say, in a Voice unlike any she’d ever heard him use before, “Strike me.” He arched toward Lariel.
Cerat shuddered in its wielder’s hands, then curved away from its intended path, and came down on Sevryn with a screeching like that of metal grinding metal.
Rivergrace screamed. She felt her throat tear with her agony as Sevryn dropped, twitching, his death cry one of purest pain and fear. The sword twisted in him, drinking of all that he had been and ever would be.
From under a wagon, a brown-and-green leathery form erupted, charging at the swordsman, face contorted in a growl. Rufus tackled him. Cerat pulled sluggishly from its drinking, falling to the crimson-splattered dust as it tore away from its wielder’s hold. She saw all this as everyone erupted into motion about her. The great Captain of Arms shoved Lariel against a wagon, arming himself, and Jeredon unslung his bow with a shout.
Rivergrace put her hand out and took up the howling sword. It shook violently in her hand, and she laced one over the other to hold i
t. It tried to jump from her, and she clenched it tightly. She could feel Sevryn in it, being swallowed, disappearing mote by mote, and she sobbed as he left her. She pulled the sword up. Its hunger lanced through her, white hot with rage and lust and need. It burned and she could hear someone screaming and screaming, high thin voice over that of the sword’s howl, and the agony of her throat told her that she was the one screaming.
It would drink. It would kill and feed. She existed only to take it where it could.
The metal seared her hands. Rivergrace put the point in the dirt at her feet, driving it into the ground, giving it only dust to swallow. Pain pierced her shoulder, and she lifted her face to look into that of the swordsman, the bones in his face so sharp in relief, it was like looking into a skull.
Rivergrace spat at him like a cat. His hands clawed at the back of hers, and then he collapsed with a surprised sound as Nutmeg hefted and broke the massive campaign chair over his head. Abayan shoved her aside, grabbing the prone man and dragging him off. Osten ild Drebukar let out a roar, and the hillside below thundered with Lariel’s cavalry, waiting for trouble and heeding his call. A trumpet sounded. Quendius shouted orders. In moments the smugglers had fled, routed, the wagons cut loose and hoofbeats stirring up a cloud of dust that hid their retreat, cavalry on their heels hoping to catch stragglers.
Osten pulled Lariel to her feet.
He knocked the lid off an unopened crate with his heavy boot. Naught lay inside but straw.
“They showed you enough to bait you,” he said.
“That doesn’t matter.” Lariel moved over to Sevryn’s body, and she looked across at Rivergrace. “How can you hold such a thing?”
“How can I not,” she answered bitterly. “It is the last of my love.” And she walked away, dragging Cerat in the dirt behind her.
Chapter Seventy-One
THEY PREPARED A PYRE, dashed with the sweetest of oils, in order to give Rufus a burial as the greatest of Bolger clansmen would receive, for defending Grace and knocking the sword from its wielder, but they could not find his body when they went back to get it. She searched and searched, and finally stopped, defeated. Quendius had left none of his dead behind.