Haven: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Four (33 page)

The wagons reappeared, closer now. The road would pass above her on the slope, she realised. No more than a hundred paces, but there were trees here, and she would not be seen. Between herself and that road was a small park, and a pillar monument to the fallen heroes of the Ilduuri Steel, crossed swords emblazoned on its side. Rhillian wondered if the Stamentaast would appreciate the irony.

Soon the wagons did pass, a rattle of wheels and hooves. When they were far enough ahead, she followed. She held to the lower road for a while, past grand houses, gates locked and window shutters firmly fastened. This way, the column would progress along the eastern valley fork, its land rising all the time, up into the eastern ranges. Across those lay Saalshen.

She spurred the horse up a grassy hillside onto the higher road, then found another way to climb up to a trail higher still. Houses here were fewer, replaced by farmers' shacks and pens for sheep or cattle. Looking down from her high trail, Rhillian could see the entire column—twelve wagons, each crowded with perhaps twenty prisoners; some guards riding on the wagons, others riding horses alongside.

As the column neared the trees, she thought she glimpsed movement behind a farmhouse just upslope of the road. Something glinted in the moonlight, like steel. Her trail began a bend where she lost sight of the column, and she pressed her horse to a reluctant canter. Out of sight, she heard yells from the column. Then screams.

Finally she reached a part of the trail that afforded a good view. The wagons were stopped, one now careening down the hillside, scattering bodies off the back, others pulled aside, men leaping from the back. Horsemen from the column were galloping uphill, skirting the ambush point, which seemed to be focused upon the farmhouse. Rhillian kicked her horse's flanks, and galloped on the diagonal down the grassy hillside, fighting to control the protesting animal.

As she drew closer, she could see archers firing from the farmhouse and from amongst the trees. Dead Stamentaast were lying on the road, others sheltering behind their wagons, others still trying to grasp control of the wagons and turn them about…but rutted roads, precision arrow fire, and the confusion of jammed and now colliding wagons made that difficult.

The horsemen flanking the farmhouse were now directly uphill of it, just barely out of range of an upward-firing archer. Instead of charging, they were debating. The archers must be serrin, Rhillian thought, to be attacking so successfully by night. The horsemen were debating whether it was worth charging into that arrowfire, knowing its deadliness.

They were still debating when Rhillian came down on them. They looked about in confusion, assuming first that a horseman must be friendly, then seeing too late that she was neither man, nor Stamentaast. They broke, and Rhillian missed the swing on her left, but connected well to her right, and that man fell from the saddle. Rhillian dodged another, then wheeled while looking over her shoulder—there were five left, all of them coming about to chase her. She took off downslope, toward the farmhouse, keeping herself out of the line of fire. Sure enough, at half range, arrows sped uphill. Behind, a horse stumbled. Riders abandoned their pursuit, one making the mistake of halting completely. An arrow took him through the chest, and the others galloped off, zigzagging madly.

More horses pursued, but these were ridden by bow-wielding serrin. They fired at the fleeing horsemen. Another fell. And that, Rhillian knew, would be that. None of those riders would survive.

She rode down past the farmhouse to see if she could help at the column, but it was all over. The only ones now living were serrin; those with weapons who had set the ambush were helping prisoners from the wagons, cutting their bonds and tending to wounds. Downslope, some prisoners had fallen from the back of wagons trying to flee, and some seemed hurt. There was very little talking, no wailing or sobbing, just some relieved, quiet tears and murmured conversation. Serrin in groups. Rhillian could feel the pull, the force that had led her up this valley to follow the wagons, and now drew her in amongst her people as they needed her.

A familiar figure approached, longish hair and tall, with a bow in hand. Arendelle. Rhillian dismounted and embraced him.

“Who are these
talmaad?
” Rhillian asked him, as men and women with swords and bows hustled about.

“They came across the eastern border, weeks ago,” said Arendelle. “The border is weak, folks there do not mind serrin, and they know the back trails. They came across the peaks to Andal, moving by night. Along the high trails.”

“It was
vel'ehil?
”

Arendelle nodded. Serrin did not talk about it much with humans. Sasha had encountered it before, when Errollyn and Aisha had travelled to Lenayin to assist in the rebellion. Rhillian recalled her argument with Errollyn and Aisha then, though it had been Tassi who had invoked
vel'ehil.

No serrin truly understood it. Some said it was the sight of the future, but often those who invoked it did not find what they expected to see. Errollyn and Aisha had ridden to Lenayin in the certainty of some troubles, and had arrived in time to join the rebellion led by Sasha. They had only known that some trouble was brewing that could benefit from serrin insight.

Some serrin supposed it might be what the humans called “magic.” Errollyn believed that it was merely a product of the serrin mind, an instinct for approximation, that if enough information was put in, possible outcomes would emerge. Stationed in Petrodor, he and Aisha had followed all information from Lenayin studiously, and with concern. A human might have guessed, from that information, that trouble was brewing. But that supposition, serrin felt as emotion, as the
vel'ennar
, like a tide.

Rhillian found Aisha where she knew she would—helping others, with little concern for her own cuts and scrapes. Rhillian embraced her with relief, then left her to her work and headed for the farmhouse.

Kiel was there.
Talmaad
surrounded him, gathered about a central table. A single lamp cast enough light for gathered serrin to read a map spread across the table. They talked of Andal and its neighbourhoods and made plans in dialect, known for precision and numbers.

Kiel was leading the discussion. Rhillian knew she should join them, but something made her pause. The farmhouse was neat and simple. This main room was combined with a kitchen, little jars in racks, and big jars for flour, and rolling pins for bread to be baked in the big, open oven.

Yet the little space seemed somehow wrong. A chair was poorly aligned. There by a kitchen bench a pot was broken, spilled grain and pottery shards swept into a corner. The frame of a doorway was marked by a deep sword cut. On the floor, a spattering of blood. There had been a fight here. But against whom? Where were the farmhouse's occupants? The place looked lived in, but Kiel had commandeered it for ambush against the wagon column. What had he done to the family that lived here?

One door adjoining the main room was shut. Rhillian walked to it.

“Rhillian,” Kiel called from behind. Rhillian stopped and looked over at him. Kiel smiled at her, faintly. “I am glad that you came.”

Rhillian stared at him. For a moment, their eyes locked. Rhillian turned and opened the door. It was dark within, and it took a moment for her eyes to make out the shapes. A bed. Some drawers. A small table, upon which rested an oil lamp. Upon the floor, between beds and table, were tangled bodies. Rhillian counted five. An old man. A younger man and woman. Two children. All human.

Rhillian stood in the doorway for a long moment, taking deep breaths. In the group about the table, no one spoke.

Then Rhillian turned. She looked at Kiel. Kiel made a small shrug. “The house was perfectly situated for ambush,” he said. “We needed it.”

Rhillian just stared. From the expressions of many about the table, it seemed that humans were not the only ones to find her eyes intimidating.

“There was a shortage of rope for bonds,” one explained, “and a shortage of time. The column approached even as we took the house. One human escaping to alert them and the ambush may have failed, and all our Ilduuri comrades lost.”

“Some of Saalshen's Ilduuri comrades are human,” Rhillian said quietly. “Humans in Andal were risking their own lives to shelter serrin children when these prisoners were taken. I saw it—they offered to shelter me, too. How do you know that these would not have done the same?”

“We have saved perhaps two hundred lives here,” Kiel said calmly. “If you join us now, we will save more.”

“Kiel,” Rhillian said slowly, to make certain he understood the gravity of this moment. “Children.”

There was a silence. “It was necessary,” said Kiel, unperturbed. “The Ilduuri have abandoned us, and we owe them nothing.”

“And now what do you plan? To attack Andal directly? And how many friends will that gain Saalshen, now when we need Ilduuri friendship more than ever?”

“You think me unsubtle. We are stripping Stamentaast uniforms from the men outside. We have captured some others. The Stamentaast are unpopular amongst the Ilduuri Steel, yet the Stamentaast know this, and do not dare inflict any atrocity against the Steel directly.

“We will dress the men amongst us as Stamentaast. All here speak fluent Ilduuri, and in the night can pass for Ilduuri men if well disguised. We will head to the steelwrights' district, where there are many Steel-dependent families, and we will inflict such damage as the Ilduuri Steel cannot ignore. The Steel will take revenge against the Stamentaast, thinking they are responsible, as they are responsible for so much else on this night. And with the Steel on the rampage, and the Remischtuul's attack dogs dismembered, there will be nothing to stop the Steel from declaring themselves the new rulers of Ilduur, and marching to the war as is their preference.”

“Damage.” Rhillian felt cold. “What damage?”

“Damage that will invoke a fitting and vengeful reply.”

Rhillian turned, and looked at the atrocity in the bedchamber behind. “You mean to kill more families tonight. Families of our friends, the Ilduuri Steel.”

Kiel shrugged. “If that is what it takes to motivate them onto our side, it is but a small price to pay. We speak of the survival of Saalshen, Rhillian. Many will die to achieve it, should it be achieved. When all is done, these few lives will seem like a small drop in a very large bucket.”

Sasha had warned her that Kiel would come to this one day. Errollyn had, too. The
talmaad
about him seemed to share in his conviction, sombre yet determined. It was the
vel'ennar
once more, and Kiel's own
ra'shi.
He had status with them, in that way that serrin would choose leaders from their midst, by the demonstration of logic and argument. Kiel had found them, and now swayed them to his side. When serrin followed, they followed like the tide. In crisis, it could be a powerful strength. Yet now, it led them to this.

“Now is not the time for weakness,” Kiel insisted. “The serrinim must be strong, and strong together. You have accumulated great
ra'shi
amongst the people, Rhillian. We would all follow you. Will you lead us?”

R
hillian stood by the roadside and watched as the rescued serrin gathered once more on the captured wagons and were driven into the forest of the high valley. Several amongst them who could fight had stayed,
talmaad
or former
talmaad.
The men amongst them now donned light armour and green vests, captured Stamentaast uniform, and tested the weight of unfamiliar Ilduuri swords. Steel helms with brow ridges and nose guards covered their hair. Likely in the dark and confusion that would follow, none of those attacked would recognise them for serrin. Or rather, none who did recognise them would live.

The moon now sank toward the western mountains, bathing snowy flanks in silver light. Beneath the glare, upslope of the farmhouse, a small figure emerged from the forest tree line, walking fast, shoulders hunched. Rhillian walked to meet her halfway. On the farmhouse verandah, serrin dressed as Stamentaast watched her go in silent contemplation.

Aisha was upset. She hugged her arms to herself as she walked, hiding the rope burns on her wrists. Her face was swollen on one side from the rough treatment of Stamentaast who had now paid with their lives. But that was not the cause of Aisha's emotion.

“It's not right,” she muttered, blue eyes shimmering with tears.

“No,” said Rhillian.

“They deserve a proper grave.”

“Yes.”

They walked back to the farmhouse. Aisha and Rhillian had helped to dig the graves of the farmhouse family, a hundred strides into the woods. Aisha had wanted a grave behind the house, but Kiel and others insisted that if this deception was to work, events here should be hidden, for some time at least.

“They need not have died at all,” Aisha insisted, her voice quavering.

“No,” Rhillian agreed, eyeing the commotion about the farmhouse ahead. The fake Stamentaast would ride and march into town shortly, to the steelwrights' district, and would commit more such crimes in the name of saving Saalshen.

“You can stop it,” said Aisha. “You have the most
ra'shi
of all of us in these matters.”

“No,” said Rhillian, shaking her head. “Can you not feel it?” Aisha said nothing, walking head down. “The tide flows to Kiel. It is his tide that rules here, that drew these
talmaad
across the border from Saalshen. I make my displeasure clear, yet they do not care.”

The moon made stark shadows on the grass before them as they walked. “Errollyn has always said the tide of
vel'ennar
will one day make us like the very worst of humanity,” Aisha said quietly. “It unites only its own kind, and excludes the rest. Soon any who are not within the
vel'ennar
shall be the enemy. I feel the
vel'ennar
myself, but I no longer recognise my own people.”

Rhillian nodded. She could feel it too, a pull so powerful it bathed the night like the moon. She saw serrin, and she yearned to be with them, to join them, to serve their needs. Most here tonight would follow Kiel, and by the yearnings of
vel'ennar
, so should she. And yet there was revulsion. Kiel would lead them to a monstrous place, a place that serrin had not been since millennia past. Tonight, did she serve the instinct that defined the serrinim, and made them separate from humanity? Or must she ignore it, to serve the serrin themselves? And did she have the right to inflict her own will upon her people, who wished to move another way? Serrin moved collectively, not alone, and no appointed serrin leader would defy the majority will of her own people…the
vel'ennar
itself ensured that she could not. Here, she could feel it pulling her toward Andal, while she herself struggled to hold her feet, and fight another direction, one lone serrin against the raging flood.

Serrin in Stamentaast uniform now gathered before the farmhouse. They assembled about Kiel, listening to his final instruction. Up the road that the wagons had followed, horsemen came galloping. They were the same who had set off in pursuit of the escaping Stamentaast Rhillian had fought. And now, they seemed to have caught another.

Between them was a human rider, yet he was not dressed as Stamentaast. Rhillian frowned, seeing that familiar position in the saddle.

“Daish!” she exclaimed.

Aisha ran to the road, Rhillian close behind. But the riders did not stop before Aisha, and continued off the road and upslope to Kiel and the gathered serrin. There they dismounted, Aisha scrambling to catch up.

“Hey!” she shouted at them, as two
talmaad
escorted Daish roughly from his horse. Daish looked to Aisha, relieved to see her yet now alarmed as his serrin guard dragged him toward Kiel, his weapons removed, one
talmaad
holding each arm.

“He's with me,” Rhillian declared, stepping forward, sensing something bad. The ground itself seemed to tilt, and it was not the sloping hillside that made it feel so.

“And with me,” Kiel agreed mildly. “Hello, Daish. You got better, I see.”

“I did,” Daish said breathlessly. “I said I'd follow. Why are you all dressed as Stamentaast?”

“A secret,” said Kiel. “We're about to do something no human can know of.”

“Hey!” Aisha yelled, arriving amongst them at a run. In her anger and confusion, her human half seemed dominant for the first time since Rhillian had known her. “This is my friend damn you, you don't ride past me!”

She embraced the young man, and Daish would have replied in kind, but a
talmaad
held each arm still. Aisha scowled at the guards and grabbed to remove one's grip. The other shoved her away, hard.

“He said he was looking for Aisha,” that serrin said. “To rescue her, and the others.”

“That's right,” Daish agreed, indignantly. “Sasha came back to the temple, she said what had happened, and I thought I had to come and…”

“And where is Sasha now?” asked Kiel.

“Gone,” said Daish, warily. Hiding something, it was obvious. Not knowing if Kiel was the right person to share anything with right now.

“Ah,” said Kiel, hooking his thumbs into his belt as he strolled a little closer. “So much does Sasha care for her friends, and for the serrin.”

“So little reason some of us give her,” Rhillian said coldly.

“She's doing important things!” Daish retorted to Kiel. “She wanted to come but this couldn't wait.”

“And neither can we. No human can know.” Kiel turned, as though to consult the half-circle of serrin faces behind him. The men in helms, the women unhelmed, unable to participate lest their build give them away.

“Fight!” Rhillian wished at them, furiously. But their expressions showed little of that. Their eyes were only for Kiel, calm and trusting. The tide led to him, and so he would lead them.
Ra'shi
and
vel'ennar
combined, flowing together to make a mighty torrent. Rhillian felt as though her balance would give way. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing hard, trying to fight it.

“I'm sorry, Daish,” said Kiel, turning and drawing his blade. “I do regret this. But it is trust that the serrinim cannot afford to place upon a human right now. When even some of our own number are wavering in their resolve…“and he glanced at Rhillian,”…then how can we trust one of
you?”

Daish stared at him, dumbfounded. A blade came out in reply. Aisha's.

“No,” she said, her cheeks tear-streaked, staring at Kiel past the edge of her blade. “No, you will not.”

“Aisha,” Kiel said sternly, his grey eyes narrowed. “You forget yourself. You are one of us, Aisha. Are you not?”

Aisha blinked. Her blade wavered. She struggled to hold her ground, as though the valley itself were shifting under her.

“Aisha,” came a new voice, and now Arendelle was emerging from the surrounding serrin, green-vested and helmed like the other men. He approached her slowly. “Aisha, you must listen. Can you not feel it? Can you not feel the pull?”

Aisha struggled for breath. Her arms trembled. She tried not to look at Arendelle as the tall man approached.

“Aisha, his knowledge risks our plan. We cannot trust one outside the
vel'ennar
, Aisha, he is not bound to us as you are. You know this. You know that the survival of our people comes first.”

Arendelle's hand closed on Aisha's wrist. Aisha was crying. She could not look at Daish. She could not move her blade. She knew how this would end, and now the horror of her own helplessness was reducing her to tears.

“You cannot use that blade against us, Aisha,” Arendelle murmured in her ear, leading her slowly aside. “No serrin ever has, not in two thousand years. You have human blood in your veins, yet you are one of us. Come and join us, Aisha. Do not look back.”

Behind her, the
talmaad
kicked the back of Daish's knees and made him kneel. Daish struggled, but he was too weak still from his injuries to do anything against his strong guards. Kiel approached, blade drawn, and stood to one side. When Daish's head was down in the correct position, Kiel's blade raised high in the moonlight.

A blade whistled. Kiel's sword did not. He dropped it midstroke and clutched at his throat. There his hands closed on the hilt of a knife. Blood flowed thick and fast. His grey eyes looked up, with blank astonishment. Rhillian stood not ten paces away, hand extended in the expert release of a marksman. Kiel saw, and did not comprehend, for what he saw was impossible. He fell with a puzzled look, and sprawled on the grass.

Arendelle charged, blade whipping clear. Perhaps he hesitated, as the fractured
vel'ennar
reasserted itself in one final gasp, and reminded him that it was a serrin at whom he swung. Or perhaps it made no difference now. Steel clashed on steel, once fast, then again with a slide of counterstrike footing, then a final ripping cut. Arendelle hit limply and slid downslope, blood staining the grass a moonlit, silvery red.

Rhillian held that final killing pose, low on one knee, bloodied blade extended. The serrin holding Daish backed away, eyes wide with horror. A hundred serrin faces stared at her, with all the disbelief and shock of a people who had just seen their worst collective nightmare come to life before their eyes. A hundred pairs of hands itched to reach for blades, and fight back against the one who had killed two of their very own. And yet the one who had killed them, impossibly, unbelievably, was also of the serrinim.

Rhillian stood slowly, and cricked her neck. Her sword arm circled, then came about to find a comfortable ready stance. Her emerald eyes blazed at them all, bright like the moon and cold as death.

“So,” she said to her people. “Who is next?”

Sasha and Yasmyn faced off beside a stream in a grove of trees. In each of their hands was a long stick, scavenged from the surrounding woods. Sasha never sparred with real blades. She trained as she fought, and the way she fought, people died.

Bergen watched nearby, and waited for Arken's men to arrive. Daish had remained in Father Belgride's temple, not in physical shape to attempt climbing a mountain. Sasha did not have much faith that that would stop him trying to find Aisha, however.

Yasmyn had talent, and applied herself with an intensity like the burning sun. Sasha kept it simple, and built on Yasmyn's knowledge of knife fighting, which gave her a foundation in stance, footwork, and simple combinations. Two-handed svaalverd, however, was rather more complex, and deadly. Yasmyn kept walking into combinations that Sasha could finish in her sleep, simply not seeing what lay beyond her immediate stroke. Talent meant nothing without experience, and if she encountered a half-decent swordsman in an even fight, svaalverd or not, Yasmyn was finished.

“Shields,” Sasha said then, and presented her left forearm as though wearing a shield, holding her stick right-handed. “Horrible things. Most guardsmen in Ilduur, defending a fixed position, will use them.”

“Useful things,” Bergen countered, leaning against a tree with eyes on the road past the shore of Lake Andal. “I can crush your head with a shield strike alone.”

“Horrible things because,” Sasha continued, “if you let them, they can be intimidating. They interrupt natural swordwork, they can confuse fundamentals, take space from you. You treat them with contempt because that's how you beat them—with aggression. Once you start retreating, you've already conceded.”

She showed Yasmyn how shields limited a fighter to a one-sided reach from the one shoulder, and how his opposite side became a refuge where a two-handed fighter could stand in range, but where the shieldsman could not reach.

“You have to be close,” she told Yasmyn, demonstrating. “He'll try to crowd you with his shield, to take away your space, so that's not easy. But if you're close enough, and he swings, you step…”

“Underneath and to the side,” said Yasmyn, seeing immediately. Now behind Sasha's shoulder, and with a clear strike to Sasha's exposed side.

“Exactly. The sword arm is the weak side, like the underside of a porcupine. Shieldsmen like to defend with the shield, they lose the art of defending with the blade, and since they can only really attack with the forehand across their body, that rotation takes their shield out of play, and if they miss, they're dead. Also, I don't care if he's as big as your brother Markan, a one-handed grip can never defend as strongly as a two-hander because the wrist folds like this, you see? A two-handed grip creates a cross brace, like a good builder making a cross brace for a temple roof. That's another reason shieldsmen can't defend with a blade against a two-hander.”