For the Killing of Kings

by Howard Andrew Jones

  Rylin snapped a command. “You, woman, aim for his throat. The rest of you continue to hold.”

  She might still have been sniffling, but the young woman dropped the lead warrior halfway up. Six more came after, but nine arrows brought them down. A dark-eyed youth nocked his final shaft in readiness for the next wave of shouting, painted enemies.

  Rylin spied his own quiver lying just beyond the rise. Lucky, except that four Naor were halfway up the hill toward it already.

  “Hold your line,” he called, and vaulted a sheltering boulder to advance across the field of Naor bodies.

  He met the first two attackers as they reached his former landing area, knocking one tentative swipe aside before driving his blade through a bearded face. He backstepped a mad thrust from a snarling redhead, kicked his knee from the side, then hacked deep through his abdomen. As that one dropped, screaming, Rylin reached for the quiver’s strap with his left hand and nearly got himself impaled on a well-cast spear. He snatched it up from where it stood vibrating in the earth, reversed it, and pitched it at the Naor who’d thrown it.

  The warrior’s hands wrapped the haft as it tore through his leather cuirass, and his eyes met Rylin’s in surprise before he collapsed, blood dribbling from his mouth.

  Rylin grabbed the strap and took in the field. Lelanc had swooped in again to scatter some of the horsemen, but they were regrouping. As best as Rylin could judge, they had only a short while before a wave of ten hit, and then a further fifteen or so weren’t far behind. Still, they wouldn’t reach the hill at the same time, which made matters a little less impossible.

  The defenders eyed him with respect as he rejoined them. That was something—they no longer looked as though they were on the verge of crumbling.

  The young woman had seemed a fine archer, so he handed her his arrows. He had a paltry dozen. A man with a bandaged arm passed Rylin a watersac and he took it, but he addressed the woman. “Take the leaders down as soon as they hit the hill. You.” He pointed to a muscular man beside the one with the wound. “Gather the closest spears while bandage-arm here watches.”

  The man nodded once and leapt over, keeping low as he searched among the dead and dying enemies. His friend kept a tense running commentary on the approaching Naor.

  Rylin nodded to the remaining defenders, then took a quick swig. Stale water was rarely so refreshing as when downed during combat.

  Soon the respite was over. The spear-gatherer nearly got skewered when one of the foremost riders hurled his weapon. It clattered off a boulder an arm’s length from where he was bent. Poles in hand, the warrior quickly clambered to join his friends, snagging even the late-coming weapon on his way.

  “These Naor look different,” the woman soldier remarked. Her voice had lost its former tremble.

  She was right. The incoming lot had white feathers in their helms, and their armored shirts were a mix of leather and bronze plate. Rylin wasn’t as seasoned as the previous generation of Altenerai, who knew each Naor tribe by sight, but grasping at an old memory of something Asrahn had said, he thought it likely these warriors were from Almaza, one of the most hospitable and populated of Naor realms, and the second Mazakan had “unified.” They were supposed to be a cut above the regular soldiers. Damn.

  “It’s only three to one,” Rylin told his people, “and we have a hill, and a crack archer.”

  “And an alten,” the young woman returned, then asked, impulsively: “What’s your name?”

  He half smiled. Everyone recognized the old guard by sight, even if they’d never seen one in person, but he was still unknown, no matter three years with the ring. She must have been distracted when Aradel had greeted him. “What’s yours?”

  The question seemed to surprise her. “Denalia.” She nocked her arrow, and let fly as the first three started up the hill.

  She took down two, but more followed in their wake. Screaming enthusiastically in the front was a warrior with a scarred bronze face and large round shield held high. Denalia scored a hit against his shoulder, but it stuck in the armor and bobbed like a strange flag as he kept on.

  Rylin told her to continue shooting at the more distant ones to slow the advance, and commanded the others to reserve one spear but loose the rest as they wished.

  Then he leapt into the fight.

  The Naor leader thrust a barbed spear at his chest. Rylin sidestepped and knocked the polearm out of line with a sword blow. The attacker swung his shield into Rylin’s off arm. Ignoring the stinging pain, Rylin threw himself forward and drove his blade through the gap under the warrior’s left arm.

  The leader cried out, then shouted again as bandage-arm thrust a spear deep into the Naor’s back. Rylin backstepped as blood spattered in his direction and the enemy warrior tumbled.

  Then the rest of the Naor ran up, and his whole life was reduced to instincts developed over the course of years of practice bouts. In the heat of battle there was no time to debate which sort of parry to use or when to strike, there was only action honed by experience, as one bearded, deadly adversary after another lunged at him. Here one was jabbing with a spear, there another coming in from the side with a sword. He felled both with deft footwork and lightning strikes, then maneuvered another to trip over one of the corpses. This lot was tougher, and fought on even with gory wounds. Twice they got past Rylin, only to be stopped by a trio of defenders with spears, and once Denalia shot one flanking him at point-blank range.

  Finally, though, he stood panting, aching from where his khalat had fended off several blows that would leave him bruised. He thought to see ten or more Naor on the heels of these when he looked out.

  Only then did he observe that his weary band had reinforcement, of a sort.

  Another alten had arrived at the base of their hill, astride a coal-black horse. A heavy cloak trailed behind the rider, obscuring parts of a khalat, and a helm concealed the person’s features. Rylin could just make out a sapphire glittering on the sword-wielding hand that deftly eviscerated one of three remaining Almaza riders. The rest of their looming enemies hadn’t vanished, exactly. One lay in the grasses separate from his head; another, dead or mortally wounded, was being dragged away by his horse. Several more had been cast off from frightened horses and lay twitching among the grasses, with no mark upon them. There was no mistaking the signs. This alten was a weaver.

  In the haze of battle, it took longer than Rylin would like to guess the alten’s identity. Given that the newcomer employed magic, unless this was Kalandra returned from beyond, it could only be one of three people: Denaven, who almost surely wouldn’t ride alone to their assistance; Belahn, who would be broader through the shoulders; or Cerai, that famously independent alten who’d gone her own way ever since Denaven’s appointment as commander. Rylin had met her on only a couple of occasions, and hadn’t seen her since he’d been awarded his ring.

  She-who-was-probably-Cerai downed her final opponent with an exact and deadly swipe.

  In moments, the sapphire-bearing rider had reached the summit, her horse somehow, incredibly, picking its way up the slope through the scree and corpses. Rylin marveled over the animal, a creature of midnight and nightmares. It stood eerily still, like a gameboard piece, as the alten swung down from the saddle and took off her helmet, cloak unfurling behind her.

  He hadn’t remembered Cerai was so striking.

  There was no one single feature of the woman that captivated him, though he liked the high arch of her eyebrows, the fine straight nose with an upturned tip, the long-lashed, azure eyes, the mane of lusterous black hair. Though fifteen or more years his senior, the lines about her eyes and cheeks were less detraction than refinement to her allure. Rylin’s lust was tempered with the appreciation one might feel at sight of a natural wonder, like a perfect sunset over wave-kissed cliffs.

  She paused in front of him and raised her hand. He shifted his sword to his left and saluted her in return, still panting from his exertions

  “Hail, Alten.” He
r voice was warm and a little husky. “Rylin, isn’t it?”

  That was exactly what Aradel had said. “Alten Cerai. Yes, I’m Rylin.”

  “Any others with you?”

  He assumed she meant Altenerai. “Varama is on her way. Aradel was commanding when I got here, but…”

  Cerai’s lips tightened; she asked where Aradel was, then pushed brusquely through to the body before kneeling next to it, hand to the fallen woman’s chest. Rylin glanced at the faces of the rest of the soldiers, and found renewed grief. He didn’t need to open his eyes to the inner world to guess Cerai was examining her old comrade for any lingering signs of life. And he wondered: skilled as Cerai was, might she be able to pull Aradel back from the final realm? Might there still be a faint spark to set blazing once more?

  Apparently not, for after a long while Cerai looked stonily down, her own hand pressed across her heart. She stood slowly, continuing to regard her fallen comrade.

  From somewhere behind came the whoosh of enormous wings. Rylin turned to see Lelanc descending close to their hill, her clawed back feet angled lower so that they would first strike the earth. She touched lightly to the clear ground at the bottom of the rise and carried on at an ungainly run that brought her bounding up, over, or around debris, with surprising speed.

  He felt heartsick as the ko’aye folded her wings and searched the gathered humans with her huge luminous eyes, heedless that her left rear leg pressed a Naor corpse more deeply into the soil. “Aradel?” she asked directly of Rylin, ignoring the weeping soldiers around him.

  Rylin answered softly. “I’m sorry, Lelanc. She’s dead.”

  A short outraged cry slipped from the ko’aye’s beaked mouth, and her head thrust forward, followed closely by the rest of her feathered body, which scattered the startled mourners.

  As Lelanc peered down upon the still form of her longtime companion, Rylin turned to Cerai quietly. “Can you get the defenders organized? There’s some refugees higher up slope.”

  “I’ll get them moving,” Cerai asserted, picking up on his hint; after a last look down at Aradel, she stepped away. The snap in her voice brooked no opposition as she addressed the soldiers. “Time to go! The Naor aren’t that far behind. Hop to it.”

  Only Denalia lingered, wiping tears from her eyes. “We need to transport the body,” she said.

  “Of course. Lelanc needs a moment, though.”

  Denalia nodded absently before stepping away.

  Rylin waited beside Lelanc, watching the creature. He saw the feathered neck rising and perceived a mournful trill growing slowly into a resonant growl before exploding into a startling, ear-rending shriek of pain, as though a sword had been driven into a sheet of metal and then dragged through it blade first. All the humans turned to them in alarm while Rylin resisted the insane urge to draw his weapon. The ko’aye fixed him with a fierce expression that made him feel like a rodent under the gaze of a stooping hawk.

  “I will slay many Naor for this,” the creature vowed.

  He wasn’t sure what to say but figured he should calm her before she flew off and got herself killed. “Some of Aradel’s last words were of you,” he said carefully. “She wanted to thank you.”

  “Thank me?”

  “She said to thank you. I think she meant for your friendship.”

  Lelanc clicked her beak.

  “I want to avenge her, too,” Rylin said.

  “Then come with me.”

  For a moment, his spirit rose to have earned the trust of so fierce and magnificent a beast. But then, seeing the dozens of men, women, and children clambering down from the higher forested slope behind them, watching them drag cautious horses after them by their lead lines as the soldiers called them to hurry, he knew where his true duty lay. They had to be escorted to safety. He turned back to Lelanc. “I have to guard these people first. Come with us. There are too many Naor to fight alone.”

  “You would have me wait? To delay?”

  How to reason with her? “First we care for the living. If we don’t they may die. Then we will see to the honored dead.”

  “The dead are meat,” Lelanc objected. “They do not need to be seen.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed, much as he disliked the way the ko’aye expressed her sentiment. “Only the living cry for vengeance. But don’t risk your life alone. Fight at our side. We’ll slay many more that way.”

  Lelanc’s head cocked. “I hear wisdom in your words. But my heart cries! It needs the blood of enemies!”

  “Give us time.”

  Lelanc’s head bobbed and her nostrils flared. She spoke very slowly, as if vocalizing each word was a silent struggle. “My sister shared words with you, which is not smoke. You share the ring, so you are something like blood. And Varama said you would be my friend, and she has never lied.” Lelanc seemed to be reasoning aloud. She raised her head above his own. “I will hear the call of your wisdom and not the red beat of my heart. What would you have me do?”

  “Help watch for us. See how close the Naor are. And if you would, bear word to Varama.”

  “I will do these things. But if the enemies come close to your people, you will fly with me?”

  “I’d like that very much.” He bowed his head to her.

  Lelanc looked a final time at her fallen friend, then backed away and turned to pick her way awkwardly down the slope, using her half-opened wings for balance, before leaping and beating her way into the air. Rylin noted that Cerai’s strange horse didn’t shy no matter that Lelanc’s left wing came within a handspan of its head.

  To the left of where the ko’aye gained the sky, Denalia was organizing refugees into a column. Cerai stood nearby and worked the air with one hand, the way some weavers did as they manipulated tendrils of will. He was too tired to watch in the inner world, and her intentions were clear in any case, for the dozen or so riderless Naor mounts that had been ambling uncertainly came trotting up in a line.

  Gathering all of them at once was an impressive feat, something he himself couldn’t have managed. And yet Cerai didn’t seem remotely tired.

  Rylin whistled for bandage-arm and his friend, and when he got their attention he helped them ready Aradel’s body for transport on one of the carts. While they finished wrapping her in some worn camp blankets, Denalia filled him in on how they’d gotten here. Her soft brown eyes were red-rimmed, but her voice was even.

  Before dawn, she told him, Aradel had flown out with a small cavalry troop to learn why one of her signal towers had stopped reporting. They’d found an exhausted group of fleeing villagers, and while Aradel conferred with them she’d sent Lelanc aloft to reconnoiter. The Naor had discovered them soon after Lelanc was out of sight. Aradel hadn’t encountered any of Varama’s squires.

  “You know the rest,” Denalia said, then added, “it was an honor to fight beside you, Alten.”

  “Likewise.”

  “You were incredible.” Though weary, she spoke with youthful sincerity. How young was she, exactly? Nineteen? Sixteen?

  He appreciated the compliment, but he was already revisiting his actions and wondering what he might have done differently if he’d had Cerai’s level of power. “I’m glad I could help.”

  “Help? You stopped an entire regiment of Naor. Single-handedly. You dropped straight out of the sky to our rescue!”

  Well, sort of. “It wasn’t a whole regiment.”

  “As though that makes it unworthy!” She shook her head. “We’d all be dead if you hadn’t come. I’m sorry if I sounded critical when you were working on the governor. I just—I really wanted you to save her. She’s my aunt,” she blurted.

  There was a world of difference between Denalia’s peaches-and-cream complexion, just visible beneath the layer of grime, and Aradel’s nut brown, but there had been frequent intermingling between denizens of the realms for generations. Rylin was less puzzled by the declaration of familial connection than he was further saddened. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have done more.
I served with her, briefly, when I was a squire, and I always respected her.”

  “She was brilliant,” Denalia agreed.

  “Are you an officer?”

  Denalia blushed. “Sort of. I mean, yes.” She lowered her voice. “The Naor killed Officer Etrin, so that left me next in line. I’ve a lot to live up to.”

  “You’re a fine shot.”

  He saw a pretty smile bloom under her dirt. She might clean up nicely.

  Denalia seemed inclined to talk further until he reminded her they needed to get moving. She grew solemn as her companions secured their dead to a sturdy cart. Rylin was turning away when a trio of ladies stopped to thank him. They looked bone-tired and their clothes were flecked with mud, but they’d maintained their complicated head scarves. Like most women of The Fragments, the garments hid all but a single lock of hair that lay neatly against their foreheads.

  He exchanged a few hurried pleasantries as boys and girls, some staring his direction, clambered into wagons with the old ones.

  Cerai finished distributing the captured horses among the allies, seeing to it that those not in wagons were mounted, then joined Rylin. “We should be able to get these people to safety, assuming we don’t run into another column.”

  “I sent Lelanc aloft to check,” he said. “And to send word to Varama.”

  “How close is she? Does she have many troops with her?”

  “She’s alone. We’ve got almost sixty squires of varied ranks, but they’re probably halfway to Alantris by now. Assuming they didn’t run into a Naor patrol. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Kyrkenall?”

  “Is he here too?”

  He smiled wryly. “It doesn’t seem like it. What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on the Naor,” she said. “Although I see now I should have been doing a better job.” Before he could ask for further details, she asked another question of her own. “Are you wounded? Is any of that blood yours?”

  He looked down at his splattered khalat, raised a hand, touched something wet on his cheek. “I’m fine. Just winded,” he admitted. “I used a little too much magic.”