Inda (14 page)

Now Cherry-Stripe needed to know if the others had seen that. He loped toward his riding despite the stitch in his side.

“. . . and Cherry-Stripe is our captain,” Inda was saying, waving his way. “Make it fast! I see Dogpiss scouting all the leaders. You
know
he’s going to think the same thing.”

“What?” Cherry-Stripe gasped.

“Alliance,” Biscuit said. “We go after the other ridings one at a time, share the flags square, two apiece.”

“But I—” Cherry-Stripe saw the other boys all thumbing or speaking agreement, and knew he’d lost his chance of issuing a counter command. Anyway Inda’d told them
he
was captain of the riding. Since everyone was watching him, he said, “So now we have ten. We rush them. I can take any two or three.” His confidence was back.
This is how war games ought to be fought, just like home. The strongest always wins—

But they were
looking
at him again. He frowned, realizing someone else had spoken, and he’d missed it.

“And what then?” That was Inda, repeating himself.

“Thrash ’em, of course—” Then he remembered that stupid ruling he’d scorned back in the courtyard.

“Can’t,” Kepa said, looking disgusted. “Beaks’ll land on us if we have any real fun.”

“Pin ’em,” Noddy suggested. “Join us or be our prisoners.”

Nods of agreement.

“Who do you want guarding prisoners?” Inda asked.

“You guard your own.” No, wait, that wouldn’t work. Cherry-Stripe didn’t want to be stuck watching some stupid boy when he could be capturing flags and glory. “No. No.”

Inda glanced Kepa’s way, and Cherry-Stripe did, too, just to meet that eternal bootlicking grin.
He
was no help. So—ah! Cherry-Stripe laughed in relief. “Kepa, you’ll be jailer.”

Kepa’s grin stretched even wider. He loved the idea of being jailer. He could kick and punch anyone who tried to escape and get away with it.

Noddy sighed, stone-faced. “Dogpiss kipped the best digs.”

“Yeah.” Inda snorted a laugh. “We got to roust ’em out.”

Cherry-Stripe opened his mouth to say they should rush Dogpiss’ riding, except he looked across at the boulders, the water behind the riding, the driftwood the boys were busy piling up, and knew that the suggestion was stupid. Desperate for a command he could hand out, a good one, he looked around. “Let’s get our own fort,” he said, then hated how his voice didn’t sound commanding, it sounded more like a question.

But the others agreed, and Cherry-Stripe felt easier, that he was properly in command. They secured their trees, took up guard positions, and looked out to assess the other groups.

Cherry-Stripe now needed to score a flag on his own.

 

 

 

Dogpiss, watching them from across the field, muttered, “Inda’s riding’s going to go after Sponge’s first. You watch. Get the weak riding off their flank, then come in strength against us, ’cause we got the best digs. Let’s strike first.” He jerked his thumb at Cama and Ndarga, one big boy, one small. “I’ll go too—maybe we can get Flash and Basna to join in with us.”

Tuft and Cama both agreed. Tveis of big brothers who would one day command vast plains, they both recognized in Dogpiss a future dragoon captain, just like his father. Sindan-An Tvei (now known as Tuft from the day of the shearing) rounded on Lan and said loftily, “You and I guard the flags.”

Lan rolled his eyes at Tuft’s Vayir frost.

Inda watched them all, intent, loving the prospect of battle, relieved that the way he used to let Branid lead, or think he led, worked with Cherry-Stripe. Dogpiss’ pale yellow head turned—he was planning a fast attack, probably on Sponge’s group, maybe try to get them to ally.

Inda said to Cherry-Stripe, “Are you going to take command against Dogpiss’ advance?”

Cherry-Stripe looked wildly around the field. He saw Dogpiss, who just seemed to be running around like the other boys. Advance? Yes, he was heading straight for Sponge’s riding. He shouted, “After me!” and launched at his fastest run, well ahead of the others, and pounded straight for Cama, the biggest of Dogpiss’ three-man advance charge. Fijirad flung himself on Dogpiss, and the two tumbled wildly over the grass, legs and arms scrambling for holds; Tuft forgot he was to guard the flag and launched over the rocks to Cama and Dogpiss’ rescue.

Lan hesitated, took the square of old canvas that served as their flag, and shoved it under a flat stone. Then he too ran after them, yelling wildly.

As Dogpiss’ riding gathered around the fight, all shouting insults or orders that no one listened to, Inda muttered to Noddy, “You and your riding go take Sponge. You just know they made him their riding captain.”

Noddy shrugged, his long face not changing. He motioned for his group and repeated the order, adding, “Take Flash first. And Basna. Then Sponge.” The others agreed—they knew by now that Flash and Basna were among the best scrappers in the entire scrub class.

Noddy watched them aim straight for Sponge’s riding, but he lingered, observing Inda, who beckoned to little, skinny Mouse Marth-Davan, and when the boy trotted over, Inda bent his head and whispered to Mouse.

Mouse smiled, then scudded lightly away from the battle through the trees, heading up to the far end of the field and back down—unnoticed by anyone. Noddy felt his armpits go cold when he realized that Mouse was going to make the pinch on at least one flag—maybe even two. And no one outside of Inda and Mouse realized it.

Except Noddy. And . . . Noddy saw Sponge watching, too. Just before the attackers reached Sponge and Flash and Basna, taking the three boys down onto the grass. Flash and Sponge wrestled with their attackers, Flash with skill and Sponge with clench-jawed determination; the others watched for a moment, seeing the prince fighting desperately. Then they all dove into a mad scramble of arms and legs, grass and dust flying in all directions, as everyone tried to take everyone else prisoner.

Meanwhile Mouse skirted the entire field, collecting the flags, observed only by Noddy, Sponge, and Inda.

And the masters.

Chapter Nine

T
DOR was summoned to Fareas-Iofre in her private chamber.

It was too early for study; as she straightened out her clothes she reviewed the war game. Her tangle with Branid was not a problem. Even if the Iofre had heard about that, there would be no objections. Except maybe from Branid’s old granddam Marend-Edli, and no one listened to her if they could help it.

She ran to the Iofre’s room. When she saw Noren’s familiar small, round body, her hair neatly braided and her tunic fresh, she realized what the summons had to be, and her heart seemed to fill with light. The two girls exchanged grins before they entered the Iofre’s chamber.

Fareas looked at the two faces before her, one thin and serious, the other merry and freckled and round, though right now Noren’s expression was strictly schooled.

“Noren,” the Iofre said, hiding her own amusement, for this was a serious matter, “Tdor tells me that you have expressed an interest in becoming her personal Runner.”

Noren slapped palm to chest, not daring to speak.

“You are eleven, old enough to make the decision to begin the training. It means long days, and you will no longer live with your family, but upstairs. The training is hard. You must learn to defend your Edli, and care for her things. You will study, not just to write in Iascan but in Old Sartoran as well, and you will above all learn to keep your own counsel. Do you think you can do these things?”

Noren nodded once, her little chin almost knocking her collarbones; then once again she smacked her hand over her heart. They all heard the thump.

The Iofre smiled briefly. “Now, you know this, yet you do not really know it: though one day you might have lovers, Runners never marry. If they choose to marry and have children, they must give up Runner blue and the accompanying privileges. There can be only one loyalty for a personal Runner to an Edli, something I do not expect you to understand until you are older. But you must keep it in mind. Is this acceptable?”

For the third time Noren struck her hand over her heart. This time she could not repress her grin.

“Very well. Then you must go to your home and see to the transfer of your gear. Chelis will help you settle in.” Noren saluted and was gone in two heartbeats.

“I think she is a good choice,” the Iofre said to Tdor. “But you must remember her honor is in your hands. If it turns out you cannot trust one another, if you grow apart, then you must speak at once. She could always be one of the House Runners. Your Runner is someone who will, we hope, be at your side for life. Remember that as time goes on.”

Tdor saluted, and the Iofre rose and without further words led the way to the archive, a long corner room with double sets of windows that stood wide open. The cherished shelves of carefully dusted books and scrolls were set against the inside walls.

There they found Joret waiting. As the Iofre moved to the far table, Joret semaphored a question with her brows raised, and Tdor murmured, “Noren. My Runner.”

Joret smiled. Noren was a good match, just as she had found a good match in her own silent, tough Gdand.

The Iofre approached with a scroll. She sat down at the worktable and gestured for Tdor to open it.

Tdor bent over the rolled end of the ancient manuscript, recognizing it as the one that had just arrived the day before. The paper crackled as she unrolled it, and she smoothed it with careful fingers, setting weights along its length.

“I think it’s a bad copy,” Joret said, frowning.

The Iofre looked up with quick concern. “Oh, I trust not,” she murmured. “My sister sent it. The seal bears her sigil.”

Tdor scanned the Old Sartoran lettering. Until she started parsing it, the flowing script, going top to bottom instead of side to side, looked like vines and strange, stylized flowers.

“Here,” Joret said, pointing to the first row. “And here. Look!” She whispered the words to herself, feeling the world reform around her in a way she could scarcely define. “
Shaping root-buds of light
—isn’t it? Does that mean something?”

“No . . .” The Iofre’s high forehead puckered in perplexity.

“Shaping root-buds of light?” Joret and Tdor both felt, and hid, their mirth. The Iofre usually did not mind, but today she seemed tense. No,
intense,
Joret thought.

“It is ‘cloud,’ ” the Iofre said in her soft voice.

“But the word for ‘cloud’ ought to be written with the ‘ei’, not ‘eh’. ‘Clouds’ has the double vowel, does it not?” Joret asked.

“Yes. Tdor? The ascription?”

Tdor bent over the writing at the very end, mouthing the words, then translating out loud. “ ‘This taeran was copied from one captured from a Venn warship in Geranda.’ ” She looked up. “Dated three hundred years ago.”

“That explains it, then,” the Iofre said. “Some mage in the Land of the Venn must have written it down as spoken out loud.”

Tdor and Joret knew that Marlovan had altered its vowel sounds over the generations since they had been exiled from the Venn. Some words—such as Jarl—had changed a consonant instead, from “hya” to “jha.”

The Iofre said, “Yet my sister writes that its title matches with one on an ancient list, a taeran purported to be one of the few that address magic as understood in Old Sartor.”

Unsaid was how much of a price the sisters had paid.

Joret looked up, her eyes wide, the color of rain-washed sky. “I see that phrase we have discussed before—‘dena Yeresbeth’—but it is spelled in the Venn pronunciation, ‘deneh Ieresbedh.’ ”

Tdor rubbed her thumb over her lip.
Dena Yeresbeth.
Everyone knew that “beth” in Old Sartoran was “three,” and “dena” was a verb that usually meant “made of.” “Yeres” was the word that mages all over the world debated.

“ ‘Shaping clouds of light.’ Now
that
sounds Sartoran,” Joret whispered to Tdor as the Iofre checked a glossary.

“You mean makes no sense, right?” Tdor whispered back.

Jarend-Adaluin, standing in the open doorway and looking in at the three of them, saw the secret mirth in the girls’ faces. Tdor was a dear child, but his gaze did not linger on her uncomplicated features and untidy brown braids. It tarried, painful as an unhealed wound, on the color under Joret’s smooth brown skin, the long eyelashes, the light that seemed to gather in her remarkable eyes. The shape of bone in socket and jaw and skull, the waving fall of her glossy black hair, all of it a fresh reminder of his own beloved Joret.

He shifted his gaze away, used to the pain of that, too, and met his wife’s eyes across the width of the room. Fareas’ patient brown gaze never changed as the girls belatedly noticed the presence of the tall, straight, gray-haired man there in the doorway and rose hastily to their feet, slapping their hands to their hearts in childish politeness. The Iofre saluted and he returned it. They never relaxed the courtesies before any other person. They had far too much respect for one another.

“Your pardon, Fareas-Edli,” he said, “for my interruption of your studies.”

“You are welcome,” she responded, pulling from inside her robes his heavy seal-ring on its fine chain. She unhooked it and held it out on her palm. “Welcome home, Jarend-Dal. I can lay aside the work if you have need to consult with me at once.”

“No, no, do continue,” the Adaluin said. “And you had better keep the seal,” he added. “I am not home long.”

The girls looked from one to the other; then Joret sat down and returned to the manuscript. She knew that the Adaluin would never notice her unless there was a need, and then he would be formal, kind, impossible to understand. She no longer bothered trying to gain his attention. She saw him too seldom for that.

Tdor sat down too, and bent over the manuscript, but she listened to the adults. Living people were more interesting to her than those in old records.