A man strode along the balcony across the inner courtyard of the palace. The shorter man from earlier in the gardens. One of those plotting the death of the zhan. Should he follow the man? No. He would worry about the boy rather than events he could not interfere with. And where would the boy go? Where would he wait for Ondromead? Too many possibilities entered his mind — the gardens, the temple, the kitchens. He had no choice. He would need to check them all.
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THE CARNIVAL
PALLA
WORN LEATHER boots shuffled across compacted dust soaked with blood. A long hemp rope bound wrist to wrist and tethered man to man as fifteen militiamen marched through the castle courtyard. Palla followed the line of prisoners, a sword in her hand, tip pointed at the nearest man’s back. She had taken the sword from a fallen militiaman to use against another set to attack her. She’d finished with brandishing prop weapons. She liked the feel of the leather binding around the hilt pressing against her palm. Appreciated the weight and balance of the steel. Enjoyed the burning sensation in her arm as her muscles strained from holding the weapon outstretched. She did need to clean the blood from it, though.
“Rapin’ bastards.”
“Thievin’ scum.”
Townspeople cursed and spat at the militiamen as their carnival captors led them across the last steps of the courtyard and up the stone stairs to the wall above the barricaded gate. Most of the pilgrims stayed back, holding hands and praying silently. Only Ranna joined her in minding the prisoner militia. She, too, held a sword in her hand, blood still staining the blade. She held it firmly, her grip as tight as the look on her face.
Palla watched the woman as they walked, admiring her. Ranna had shown little hesitance in swinging the blade, and no revulsion in the results it elicited against men’s flesh. Palla had seen fighting, had watched her father’s men, had even witnessed the slaughter of pigs and other farm animals in the family castle, but she had never herself taken a life in such a bloody way. Doing so, helping Ranna do so, left her shaken and nauseous. The man they jointly felled had tried to kill them, but the sight of her blade digging into his stomach and his arm cleaving free from his body under the force of Ranna’s swinging steel left Palla feeling as though she had awoken from a dream, unreal images lingering long afterward.
At the front of the line of captives, the yutan and the roagg guided the men up the stairs. Without the two, the events of the preceding hour would have surely unfolded to the disadvantage of the carnival. She kicked a slow moving militiaman with the heel of her boot and looked to the top of the wall. Leotin already waited there, having pronounced judgment and now needing to administer his ruling. Pi-Gento, the former commander of the dead tahn, stood beside Leotin. He, too, had proved instrumental in thwarting the militia’s attempted takeover of the castle.
Once stripped of their weapons, Leotin had allowed the militiamen free movement within the castle courtyard. The militia leader, young and newly promoted after the death of his former officer in the outlander raid, made great efforts to appease the townspeople, largely ignoring or openly insulting the carnival folk and the pilgrims. Palla had assumed the militia leader hoped to eventually turn the townspeople against the other groups camped in the courtyard after the siege of the castle ended. She had been surprised to discover the militia commander did not possess such patience. Whether he found a sympathetic ear among a townsman or a castle servant, she did not know, but he somehow managed to arm his men with kitchen implements. When they attacked, it did not take them long to relieve the untrained carnival folk and pilgrims of their captured swords.
The fight that ensued did not last long, but left many dead among the carnival and pilgrim contingents. More would have died had not Pi-Gento and the majority of the townspeople sided with Leotin. The militia leader had not considered this possibility. Neither had Palla, but in the light of dispassionate distance, she realized that while Leotin represented an invader of sorts, he had, in the few days of commanding the castle, likely proved to be a better tahn than any the townspeople had ever known. He made sure they were fed, and worked tirelessly to ensure their security and governed with an even hand. Palla smiled to herself as she looked to Leotin on the wall. He would not like being thought of as a castle tahn.
“What do ya think he’ll do?” Ranna asked as she stepped beside Palla. They followed the last militiaman in the line up the stairs of the wall. “Think he’s got the spine to shove ’em over?”
“He’ll do whatever he’s decided is right.” Palla, too, wondered what that would be. She’d happily push the men off the wall. A simple end to a difficult problem. It wouldn’t make up for the deaths of the three carnival folk and the four pilgrims, but it would be a form of justice. Her father would likely have beheaded them and left their heads on spikes. She didn’t think Leotin appreciated that type of theatricality.
As they reached the top of the wall, she saw the two armies preparing for open battle in the fields beside the castle and the town. They would begin their fight soon. She wondered that they had not done so already. Probably engaging in the pointless exchange of surrender terms and parley on the field. She sighed. Ceremonial rituals before slaughter. She’d seen her father do the same in local land disputes with other tsenteys.
Palla and Ranna helped Yeth, Tarak, and four other armed carnival folk push the line of captured militiamen to stand before the parapet atop the wall. The men looked nervous, but said nothing. They had been beaten by untrained women and men and outlander creatures. They had little fight left in their bones.
“I asked for your word, and you betrayed it.” Leotin said in Shen, holding the sword in his hand high as he raised his voice.
Palla heard the tone she’d witnessed so many times on the small carnival stage as Leotin played the zhan in The Saga of the Fallen Lands. She wondered if a ruler always had to play a part when addressing those they ruled or whether one needed to be that role in order to truly rule. She did not doubt that her father lived rather than play the part of a ruler.
“You have attacked those who sheltered you. Killed innocent men and women. Your punishment is simple.” Leotin nodded to Pi-Gento, and the commander bent to pick up a long coil of thick rope. He tossed it over the ledge of the parapet, one end tied around a wide, stone crenellation. “You can either climb down that rope or we will throw you over the wall.”
The militia leader looked over the wall and sneered. Palla suspected the man had thought to turn his field promotion into a greater personal success. He had failed.
“The armies will kill us.” The militia leader turned back to Leotin.
“They will be busy killing each other.” Leotin looked to where the armies began marching toward one another. The Tanshen army had removed their guards from the castle a few hours previously. Their commanding tigan knew those trapped inside could go nowhere. “You will have plenty of time to escape.”
“And our weapons?” The militia leader looked to the sword in Palla’s hand.
She raised the blade so that its tip pointed to the man’s heart.
“You will run faster without the weight of steel.” Leotin lowered the blade of the sword in his hand, severing the rope that bound the militia leader to the men next to him. “Now climb or fly.”
The militiaman looked over his shoulder to Leotin, his sneer seeming to eat the whole of his face.
“You have to push me if you want to kill…”
The man did not manage to finish his words as Leotin kicked him in the back, casting air from his lips in a gush. Leotin followed the blow by shoving the man to the edge of the parapet, grabbing his legs as the man cried out, and heaving up to cast him over the wall.
Palla watched and listened as the man’s tumbling screams ended in a cracking rupture of bone and flesh. The man lay still in the rocky grass at the bottom of the wall.
“Now who wants to fly and who wishes to climb?” Leotin shouted as he looked to the next man in line, his face flush with exertion and anger.
“I’ll climb! I’ll climb!” The next man in the line of prisoners looked excited by the notion of climbing down the wall to face the clashing armies.
Palla held her breath in shock. While she had seen Leotin push the former tahn of the castle from the wall, that had been more a matter of standing ground than murder. And although she had witnessed him fighting several times in the past days, she had never imagined seeing him shove a man to his death. She did not question whether the militiaman deserved it. There were too many dead friends below in the courtyard to wonder at that concern. However, she had not considered him capable of such violence. She realized now the truth of Leotin as a man — he would do whatever he thought necessary to protect those toward whom he considered himself responsible.
As the first militiaman began to lift his leg over the wall and Pi-Gento stepped forward to slice the rope around his wrists, Palla voiced aloud a notion that had only barely begun to take shape within her mind.
“There is another option.”
The eyes of the man about to climb over the wall preceded all others in turning to Palla. Ranna seemed surprised to hear her speak. Leotin appeared to be silently wondering what had stayed her tongue for so long. Pi-Gento frowned at her, while the expressions of the outlanders remained, as always, unreadable.
“You can swear fealty.” Palla raised her voice in the Shen language, speaking from her stomach as Leotin had taught her to do on stage. “Not a promise by a leader. An oath of allegiance sworn by each man in the name of the nine prophets of Ni-Kam-Djen.”
The man with his leg over the parapet lowered it and quickly spoke as he turned to Leotin.
“Aaj. I’ll swear fealty to the tahn.” The man who had been about to climb down the rope bent on one knee. “What’re the words?” He looked up to Palla rather than the man he intended to promise loyalty to.
“I am not…” Leotin scowled at Palla as she cut him off.
“I swear by the fury of Ni-Kam-Djen to serve Tahn Leotin with complete loyalty in all things for all days until he shall release me. May The True God cast a plague upon me and my line should I break this vow.”
Palla allowed herself a slight smile as the militiaman repeated her words, head bowed, to Leotin. The scowl did not leave Leotin’s face until the last militiaman knelt before him and repeated the oath. As Yeth, Tarak, and the others unbound the militiamen and led them down the stairs to the courtyard, Leotin stepped up to Palla. Ranna remained on the wall a polite distance away.
“Does it never occur to you that you might offer your advice in private?” Leotin sighed as he slid the sword he still held into its scabbard.
“There wasn’t time.” Palla had no sheath for her sword, so she leaned it against the parapet.
“Tell me, did you arrive at this fabulous notion to raise me to the standing of a tahn before or after I pushed that heinous man from the wall?” Leotin studied her with an intense curiosity.
“I had an inkling of an idea, but it didn’t come to me in full until you disposed of the militia leader.” Palla glanced over the wall to the body on the ground.
“Good.” Leotin sounded tired. “It would not have worked with him. He had to go.”
“It helped for his men to see that you will do what is necessary if they fail you.” Palla felt sorry for placing Leotin in the position of leading men he did not know and could not trust.
“I do not know how to be a tahn.” Leotin sighed again and looked out at the armies beginning to fight. He paused a moment, the sounds of battle washing over the two of them. “It was a good idea. We’ll need those men. I don’t think the Daeshen army is up to their task, and I doubt we can hold the castle against what will remain of the Tanshen army without experienced hands.” He patted her arm and then departed to walk down the stairs to the courtyard.
As Leotin descended the stairs, Ranna came to stand beside Palla. She looked at her quizzically.
“Ya don’t think and act like a merchant’s daughter.” Ranna watched the men with red and green banners fighting in the distance.
“I know.” Palla hesitated to say more.
“I’m guessing y’all tell me why when ya come ta trust me more.” Ranna reached out and took Palla’s hand.
A wave of warmth rushed through Palla’s body at Ranna’s touch.
“I trust you.” Palla swallowed back the urge that surged within her. “I don’t know if I trust myself.”
“Fair ’nough.” Ranna gave her hand a slight squeeze, and she returned the gesture.
They stood on the wall watching the armies battle. It did not take long to realize who held the advantage and who would win the prize of the castle. They watched, hand in hand, until the outcome became undeniable, and then they went below to the courtyard to relay the news.
THE WITNESS
HASHEL
THE SQUEAL of pigs and the frantic cluck of chickens blended in the air with the clash of steel, cries of war, and screams of agony. Hashel crouched behind a low wall that separated the backyard of the small hut from the fields beyond, wheat and barley now trampled beneath the boots of men and crumpled bodies. Near him, other men fought in the streets of the town. They did not make as much noise, but their closer proximity more than compensated for the death yowls of the fallen.
He peeked over the edge of the wall, taking in once more the sight of two armies clashing in battle. He could not always discern which soldiers fought for which army at the center of the conflict, but the flags of each side, and the sashes across the breasts of those with armor, helped him to tell them apart. He thought of them as the red army and the green army. The red army got smaller each time he looked over the wall, more crimson sashes fallen to the ground, more rose-colored flags torn among the trampled grain.
Three forces comprised both armies. Men clad in light, shingled metal panels bolted to leather jackets wielding spears at the front, men with heavy armor and swords just behind them, and even more poorly armored men with swords at the rear. He saw small groups of men on horses at the far end of each force, small squads of archers encircling them. As he watched, the green army shifted formation, the heavily armored men moving to the front as those with spears fell in behind them. Hashel observed in fascinated horror as the green soldiers’ swords sliced through the armor and armaments of the red army just as he had seen the lone soldier do in the street earlier.
The red-sashed soldiers fell to the ground — sheaves of wheat sliced by a hundred scythes. Hashel did not understand why the red army’s weapons and armor appeared so frail. Even those red-sashed soldiers who managed to strike their opponents found the blades useless against the green-clad armor. Swords bounced from breastplates and cracked or rebounded on those wielding them. The red army had no choice but to retreat, to fall back and regroup. The armored green soldiers ignored those wounded or slow red soldiers, chasing their main quarry. The green spear bearers attacked the injured, pressing forward in the wake of the green-armored men, leaving any alive to be dispatched by the third wave of lesser-armored men with swords.
Hashel watched a moment longer. He didn’t know who the armies were or what they fought over, and he knew nothing of battle and fighting, but even he saw the doom facing the red army. Those who could not run would not live. He sank behind the wall, pressing his back into the round stones. He tried to shut out the sounds of men dying in the field. He needed to focus on what he could do to get back to the palace. The fact that the noises of fighting and dying had nearly ended in the streets of the town did not help to calm his mind. Soldiers not fighting might have time to notice a small boy in a yard with pigs and chickens.
Seeing the pigs in the thin wooded pen beside him made him think of the swine his family had raised in their small village farm. And thinking of the pigs led to thinking of his mother and father and sister, all dead now. He found himself tha
nkful for the terror elicited by the battle around him. It left little room for sadness and pain. For the first time in months, he could remember his family without falling to tears or pushing his feelings away, deep inside, where they could not reach him.
He recalled his mother casting corn to the chickens as his sister teased the briers from a bale of sheep’s wool and his father worked to repair the hutch holding the rabbits. The door to the hutch had been pulled loose by a curious fox, and his father had struggled to get the metal hinge back into place.
“Patience,” his father had said, “is the key to solvin’ a problem.” He held up the door of the hutch and turned it over. “Ya gots to be patient and look at it from every side.”
His father had showed him how the hinge had been bent and how to hammer it back into shape. A problem solved through patient thought.
He didn’t have time for patient thought. He needed to get back to the palace and Ondromead before one of the soldiers found him. What if Ondromead had also walked through a door and ended up in another land? How would he ever find him then?
Walked through a door.
Hashel sat patiently with that thought, looking at it from every angle.
The doorways had been the only time he moved from one place to another. Maybe he needed to go through more doorways to get back to the palace. How many doorways could there be in a small town? He would have to try them all.
Hashel crouched low as he ran along the stone wall for a few paces before racing back to the hut he had come from. He risked a look around the edge of the house at the lane. Red-sashed bodies bled in the dusty road between houses, but none moved. He saw two green-sashed men a hundred paces down the street, but they seemed busy talking amongst themselves.
He slid around the side of the hut and ran through the open door. He skidded to a stop inside the same dim interior. He had doubted it would be so easy. He peeked out the door, keeping an eye on the green soldiers as he dashed across the road and through the partially open doorway of a hut nearly identical to the one he’d just departed. The inside of the hut looked dark and dusty. The smell of old meat and rotting potatoes filled his nose. He turned to the door and slipped outside, running to the next house and opening the door to jump inside.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 73