Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (106 page)

If any of the witnesses survived the Festival of the Moon.

Mordagar
flashed; a challenge.

The demon smiled; with a casual flick of the wrists, he disposed of the stilling bodies. He spoke in a language that Samadar did not recognize.
Mordagar
did. Blade hit claw, claw skirted the surface of arm, ripped surcoat; they met, and Samadar forgot his age; forgot his reluctance to join battle with those who were larger and faster, who were stronger, whose endurance had not been worn, like rock, by sand and wind.

He had passed the test of the fires every year he had faced them; he passed them now with a wild certainty that he would never face them again as anything other than a child's echo of the real war.

But first: survival.

He wondered, briefly, if the others fared as well as he.

"There's trouble."

Kallandras stopped. He had been in mid-step before the words left her mouth—she was certain he had—but there was no telling now; he had come to a complete stop with ease and grace, turning to face her as if that had been his intent all along.

"ATerafin?"

"I think Avandar and the Serra should go ahead to the Founts."

Avandar folded his arms across his chest. But he did not gainsay her, and she thanked
Kalliaris
—if
Kalliaris
could even hear her in a land where foreign gods were said to rule—for the small mercy.

"And you," he said calmly.

"Kallandras and I are—"

Fire erupted a hundred yards away.

"Going there."

"Jewel—"

"Both of the circles are cracked," she told him, without taking her eyes from the flowering plume that seemed to go on and on.

Avandar did her a second grace; he took her word. "Jewel."

"Yes?"

"Be careful. It might be best that you meet us directly at the Southern Fount."

She nodded absently, her face as focused and still as it ever got. "Southern Fount. Got it."

Then she turned, and she bowed, stopping her hand from making the automatic Northern salute that passed between political equals. "Serra," she said quietly.

The fire banked; the screams did not.

"ATerafin," Kallandras called, and as she turned away from the brief farewell, she saw that he had drawn both of his weapons, she nodded and he took the lead, navigating the streets as if he'd been born to them.

And for all she knew, he had.

They found a man lying facedown upon the cobbled stone. Blood pooled beneath him. Kallandras barely broke stride to look down; Jewel's knees were at half bend when he shook his head. She stopped a second longer and then nodded to herself, but as she followed Kallandras, she thought that death should have more meaning than a curt half-shake of the head.

And it would. It would have meaning for someone else: Mother or father, brother or sister, wife, child, friend. She followed Kallandras as quickly as she could—which wasn't as hard as she'd feared. The streets, normally so busy with stall and hamper and basket, so crowded with merchants and men who couldn't keep their hands to themselves unless they were staring at guards with long swords, had suddenly emptied. Two doors slammed shut before she reached them. It angered her, even though she had no intention of seeking shelter. There would have been more, she was certain, but doors in this part of the Tor were rare. There were open stone arches, or simple wooden frames that held either hanging or sliding screens.

But these, too, were pulled close and wedged tight.

What did you expect
, she heard her grandmother's voice say, the distance of years made small and insignificant by the steps of an unusual journey.
People aren't ugly; fear is. But some fears are very, very ugly
.

Maybe I'd hoped that people wouldn't give in to their fears so easily?

So says the girl who can't be killed unless she ignores all her instincts.

Shut up, Oma.

Kallandras rounded a corner. She followed.

There was almost no one in the street. Even the windows above the ground were empty—when they were open at all. Jewel could almost hear the frantic whispers or hysterical cries that the buildings enclosed. Here, it was easy. There were very few doors.

But, she thought, if she were one of the people huddled in buildings this close to the creature that suddenly came into view, she would have kept on funning. She didn't trust stone or wood to provide any defense against the obviously magical. And the creature was obviously magical; there was nothing human about it. Not even its form was human in proportion. Most of the demons Jewel had had the misfortune to meet had at least boasted arms and legs and torso in roughly normal proportions. This was like a giant cat, one with scales instead of fur and eyes that were as red as poppies.

She started to speak when the second such creature came into her view; stopped moving when the third followed. And in their center, sword literally awash in blue flame, was a bleeding, armored man. He was whole; he was standing. That said something. She was certain without intervention both of those states would be rectified by the creatures who hunted him now.

"ATerafin," Kallandras said.

She met his gaze.

"Do we require him?"

"What?"

"Do we need him?"

"Kallandras, how can you even ask a question like that? He's—"

"ATerafin, we do not have the time or the luxury for this argument. My apologies.
Do we need this man?
"

"I—
yes
."

He nodded then, and the weapons in his hands flashed. The man she did not recognize, the newcomer who had managed to hold his own against three demons, held a sword whose light was somehow compelling. She found it both beautiful and uplifting. Not so the weapons that Kallandras held. She promised herself that she'd never ask him where he got them from.

And reminded herself that she trusted him completely.

She watched him take to the cobbled field as if he were an army. He walked directly; he did not seek shadows or subterfuge. The creatures were intent on their kill, the way cats might be with mice if mice had fangs, and they assumed that any would-be help had fled.

Their second mistake. Their first had been to come here at all. She watched, fascinated, as Kallandras calmly walked up to the closest creature and severed its spine. It happened so quickly she almost couldn't understand what she'd seen; his funny long knives rose two feet in clenched fists and fell two and a half; he twisted them neatly and brought them out in those same fists— but his wrists were now crossed.

The creature
screamed
and began to writhe and twist as it turned to face its unseen attacker. Kallandras circled slowly until his back was exactly toward Jewel ATerafin; there he stopped, weapons held out to either side as carelessly as if they were gloves. The demon roared and bore down upon the slender bard; he held his ground.

Jewel watched Kallandras' back, wondering what he saw as the creature charged. She should have been afraid for him, but the bard appeared so relaxed that meeting bloodthirsty demons in the Dominion's capital seemed almost an everyday event, like shopping in the Common.

When he finally moved, he shifted position very slightly; the dagger arms came up. She couldn't actually see what followed, but an educated guess—from the way a roar stopped in mid bellow—made it fairly clear that they were now down a demon.

Kallandras stepped back. He watched the man with the sword very carefully, and after a moment, he turned to Jewel. "ATerafin," he said quietly. "I think our work here is done for now. The Radann par el'Sol is capable of—ah, you see?" «

The blue blade slide through bone and cartilage.

Jewel followed the roll of the resultant bodiless head along the uneven ground. "Good point."

She turned away.

And then turned back.

"Bard!"

The last of the demons lay aground. Jewel watched it in fascination. And watched. And watched.

"Kallandras?" She was certain that the creature was as dead as demons ever got.

" "I see it," he said softly. He looked up at the man who had called him by profession if not name, and nodded slightly. Acknowledging an equal, an ally, or a worthy enemy—in the Dominion these things were almost identical. And then he went one step further. "Marakas."

Jewel slapped her forehead. "Is there
anyone
you don't know?" She said out of the corner of her mouth.

"Many people," the bard replied. "And in truth, I would not say that I know this one at all well. Perhaps once, but people change with time and responsibility. But it is too late; we cannot flee one of the Radann par el'Sol; if they choose, they can make our lives very difficult."

"I think," Jewel said, looking at the bodies that had not yet dissolved into the nothing that she associated with dead demons, "They have other things to worry about."

Kallandras smiled. There was no mirth in the expression. But he stood his ground, and Jewel noticed that his weapons had disappeared back into their sheaths. He was an unarmed, simple clansmen with hair a trifle darker than she was used to.

The man Kallandras had called Marakas par el'Sol stopped ten feet short of them both and bowed. The bow was deeper than Kallandras' nod. "I owe you my life."

"There is no guarantee that you would not have prevailed without my intervention."

"And you believe that?"

Kallandras chose not to answer.

The silence was terrible. Jewel broke it. "So," she said, "how many of these creatures have you faced lately, and do all of their bodies stay behind?"

The phrase "looked down his nose" had never been so appropriate. Kallandras said, in Weston, and in a voice that clearly did not carry to anyone but herself, "You are a clanswoman in the Dominion. Think before you speak."

Jewel bit her tongue and briefly regretted saving the man's life. But only briefly. Marakas said, "I have news. The Voyani woman—"

"We know."

The man looked away. "I did not know," he said softly.

"She knew. Her death?"

"It was… clean. In the end, it was clean."

"And how did she die?"

"Bard—"

"You gave your word that you would do what was necessary to protect her."

"I gave my word that I would do what was within my power. But when the time came—" The man with the sword looked away.

So did Jewel. The bodies of the demons were finally, slowly, dissolving.

Neither the bard nor the man dressed in what was left of a blue surcoat seemed to notice. Men.

She wanted to ask Kallandras what in the Hells was going on— but she bit her tongue and swallowed the words. It wasn't particularly enjoyable, and as an experience it was one she'd decided against repeating, but Yollana had pronounced her unfit to be a boy, which was particularly mortifying given that the graceful and elegant Serra Teresa strode the streets like a man. Some things made no sense.

"When the time came," the Radann said quietly, "she knew what had to be done."

Kallandras said, "Man of the Lord,
she
did not give her oath.
You
did."