Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (35 page)

           
"Is it repugnant to you?"

           
His black brows rose a little.
"That the races may be linked? No. Not repugnant.
Perhaps—unappreciated." Again, he smiled. "Why do you ask, my
lord?"

           
He gave me my rank, even as Strahan
had. And without irony; a simple statement of address. Moment by moment, he
peeled away the preconceptions I had built out of ugly stories.

           
Prejudice? No doubt. But I was not
certain the Ihlini did not deserve it.

           
"I ask because if it is true
the races are linked, you and I are kin."

           
He laughed. "The beginnings of
a plea for leniency? You require mercy of me, my lord? Well, do not waste your
breath. I intend to do to you what you desire to do to me." He tilted his
head a little, as if he listened to a thing I could not hear. "Even were
we brothers, it would not alter the melody." He began to smile even as I
began to frown. "Can you not hear it? It is played, my lord, for us;
because we will dance the dance of death."

           
He lifted a hand in a gracefully
eloquent motion. In his fingers I saw the glint of silver, polished bright.
Brilliant, blinding silver. But it was not, I saw, a knife.

           
He inclined his head in a gesture of
subtle deference.

           
Or was it in farewell? "My
lord."

           
The hand was thrust skyward. I saw
how the smoke parted, making way for the thing in his hand. It glimmered,
flashed, streaked upward into the sky.

           
I watched it. I tipped my bead back,
watching the silver fly; I saw it arc upward, slicing through lilac smoke, and
then I knew what he intended.

           
I snapped my head down. "Oh,
no," I told him, "you do not divert me with childish tricks of
misdirection."

           
He did not even attempt to avoid my
blade. I spitted him cleanly, front to back, and heard the scrape of bone
against blade. And as he lay in a spreading pool of brackish, blackened blood,
he laughed.

           
He laughed.

           
"My lord," he said, still
smiling, "say to me which diversion was misdirec—"

           
—and he was dead. I stared down at
the face gone suddenly slack in death, the abrupt cessation of life, leaving
him empty, spent... so devoid of that which had made him a man. Ihlini,
Solindish, even Homanan or Cheysuli. He was a man. And he was dead.

           
And then the silver lanced out of
the sky and buried itself in the top of my left shoulder, and I understood his
words at last.

           
Misdirection, aye. And now it might
prove lethal.

           
The pain drove me to one knee. Of
its own accord my right hand loosed the hilt of the sword and flew to clasp my
shoulder. I felt steel, sharp, deadly steel, wafer-thin, deeply imbedded; a
flat, curving spike was all that protruded above the surface of my flesh, my
jerkin; the rest was firmly sheathed in muscle and bone. My left arm dangled
helplessly at my side.

           
I caught the elbow, dragged the
forearm around so I could cradle the limb against my abdomen.

           
—oh—gods—the pain—

           
"Serri—" I gasped. "Ian—?"

           
The smoke was gone. I saw the last
wisps of it sucked back into the Ihlini's body as if it were a part of his
soul; now that he was dead, so was the power dead. Crushed grass was his
shroud; bloodied soil became his bier.

           
My fingers twitched. Again. All the
muscles in my arm tautened, from shoulder to fingertips. My fingers curled up,
tucked beneath my folded thumb. The rigidity was absolute.

           
"Ian-"

           
I vomited. Shuddered. Retched. Sweat
ran down my flesh beneath the clothing. I twitched. I smelled the tang of fear.
The stink of helplessness.

           
Oh—Gods—Ian—

           
I put out my hand and touched the
face of death.

           
I heard someone cry out. The sound
hurt my ears. It set my head to throbbing. Inwardly, I cursed the man who made
the noise . . . and then I realized he was myself.

           
"Gods?" I blurted aloud.
"What are you doing to me?"

           
Lir, be still. That from Serri,
seated next to the cot.

           
"Pulling a tooth." Ian's
voice, and very near.

           
"Tooth?" Dazed from pain I
might be, but I knew well enough that what resided in my shoulder was not
anything like a tooth.

           
"Sorcerer's Tooth," Ian
answered. "An Ihlini weapon . . . the name suits, I think."

           
I lurched nearly upright as the pain
renewed itself.

           
Hands pressed me back down upon the
cot. Ian's. Another's. And yet a third dug at the tooth in my shoulder.

           
"Gods, Ian—can you not do this
yourself? Save me some pain—use the earth magic on this wound!"

           
Lir, be still. Do not bestir
yourself.

           
"I cannot. The Tooth is an
Ihlini thing. It will have to heal of its own."

           
"Give him wine," someone
suggested. "Let him drink himself into a stupor."

           
"No." A third voice, also
unknown to me. "I know little enough of the Ihlini, but I do know they
resort to poison much of the time. I think the Tooth was not tampered with—but
I will not take the chance. Give him no wine, or we may kindle the
poison."

           
I gritted my teeth so hard I thought
they might fall into dust in my mouth. "Just—pull it out. Cut it out . . .
will you rid me of this thing?"

           
"My lord, we are trying."

           
“Try harder." Sweat ran down my
face and dampened the pillow beneath my head. Poisoned or not, the Tooth was
setting my body afire.

           
"Rufho—“ Ian again "—one
more moment—"

           
Hands tightened on me. I felt the
sharp pain slice into my flesh, and then abruptly the thing was wrenched free.

           
"There," someone said;
fatuous satisfaction.

           
"Let it bleed," the other
suggested. "If there is a poison, the blood will carry it out.”

           
"And if there is not, the blood
will carry out his life."

           
Ian had never been impressed with
the sometimes questionable skill of Homanan physicians; being Cheysuli, he had
alternatives. But at the moment, I did not. "Pack it, bind up the
wound," he said calmly, but I heard the note of command in his tone. “Then
let him sleep."

           
They did as he told them, and so did
I. I slept.

           
Something landed on my chest. A
small weight only, but it awakened me. I opened my eyes, saw Ian standing by
me, shut them again.

           
“The Tooth," he said. "You
are lucky; it carried no poison. You will survive, rujho."

           
I did not feel like it. I felt
wretched. My mouth was filmed with sourness; I licked my lips, wanted to spit.

           
Wanted to swallow wine or water,
hoping to wash away the bitter tang.

           
I opened my eyes and looked up at Ian.
The light in the field pavilion was thin, hardly enough to illuminate the
interior, but the fabric was unbleached ivory and lent meager strength to the
dim winter light. Still, Ian was mostly clothed in shadow; his eyes, lids
lowered, were black instead of yellow.

           
"Tooth," I muttered. I
scraped my good hand across the rough army blanket and found the thing my
brother had dropped. Picked it up; felt the cool kiss of the shining steel. Ice
in my band, I thought. And yet the wound in my shoulder burned.

           
It was a thin, circular wafer of
steel, perfectly flat, edged with curving spikes boned to invisible points.
Star-shaped, in a way, except the shape was too refined, too fluid; the spikes
flowed out of the steel to form a subtle vanguard at the wafer's edge. There
were runes etched in the metal.

           
I grimaced. This thing, thrown from
the sorcerer's hand, had lanced out of the sky to imbed itself in flesh and
bone. As if it had a life of its own. As if it knew its target,

           
Abruptly, I held it out to my
brother. "Take it. The Tooth is out of the jaw; now you may dispose of
it."

           
Ian, accepting Ihlini steel, smiled
a little. He tucked it into his belt-pouch.

           
Serri?

           
Here, lir. I felt a nose, cool and
damp, pressed against my hand. I opened my fingers and stroked the place
between his eyes, in the center of his charcoal mask. His eyes watched me
avidly. You will recover, lir.

           
I did not really doubt it. I looked
at Ian again. "How many slain?"

           
"Ten Solindish; there were only
twelve of them. The reinforcements arrived directly after you went down."

           
I nodded. "How many of us were
slain?"

           
"Two Homanans. Two
wounded."

           
I frowned. "What is it they
mean to do? Here we are in Solinde, where we have been for two months, and yet
we hardly fight. Occasionally, aye—I do not discount the men we have already
lost . . . but I am perplexed by the enemy's intentions. We have Cheysuli with
us as well as Homanans, and yet we hardly see more than twenty Solindish at a
time."

           
"Gnats nipping at horses."
Ian nodded. "As Sayre says, it was Carillon's way. But I think there may
be an explanation." He shrugged a little. "A thought, only—but what
if the enemy's numbers have been vastly over-estimated? What if the rebellion
itself is far smaller than we have been told?"

           
"But the intelligence comes out
of Lestra, from the regent." I frowned. "You cannot mean Wycliff is a
traitor. . . ."

           
"No. He is a loyal Homanan,
serving our jehan as best he can. No. I think the intelligence is manipulated
before it reaches Wycliff. I think he is given reports of numbers that do not
exist; where there are ten men, forty are reported. By the time the news
reaches Lestra—and later Mujhara—the number is ten times greater than the
truth."

           
"Then the Ihlini are using us
... drawing us away from their true objective." I frowned. "Hondarth?
Jehan is there, and Rowan. There were Solindish ships. . . .

           
Ian shook his head. "News
travels slowly in war—slower yet in winter . . . who can say how things stand
now in Hondarth? And each day the weather worsens. Sayre says there will be
snowfall before the day is out."

           
A winter war. I shivered from the
suggestion. "Is it possible the Ihlini manipulate the Solindish? That
there really is little more than mutters of rebellion, no rebellion of
itself?"

           
"I am quite certain the Ihlini
manipulate the Solindish. What I cannot say for certain is if this realm truly
does wish to attack Homana." His expression was grim. "I have no
doubt there are many here who desire independence from Homana—before Carillon
defeated Bellam, Solinde never had a foreign overlord—but are they as dangerous
as we fear? Oh, aye, there are rebels, raiders . . . zealots—" he did not
smile "—but there are always those who seek to throw down the power and
take it for themselves. Regardless of the competence of the king."

           
"Jehan should be told."

           
"I am sure he knows. He has
fought Solinde before."

           
"But that was with
Carillon."

           
He did not answer at once. And when
he did, his tone was full of infinite understanding. “A man learns, Niall. How
to fight, how to lead, how to rule." His face was oddly serene; I saw
compassion in his eyes. "You are learning now."

           
I shut my eyes under the cover of
weakness from my wound. I knew what he implied: that soon I would lead the army
in fact as well as name. For I did not lead it now. Wisely, my father had not
expected me to know what a man must know in order to conduct a war. He expected
me to learn it—and so he had dispatched veteran Homanan captains to lead us
through this war.

           
"Niall."

           
I opened my eyes.

           
"The gods choose only worthy
men."

           
I grimaced. "The gods can make
mistakes."

           
He smiled a little; I had been very
decisive. "Blasphemy?"

           
"The gods made the
Ihlini."

           
The smile was banished. "Aye.
They did. And often—I wonder why."

           
No more than I. No more than any
Cheysuli, beginning to wonder if indeed the gods had sowed a second crop.

           
A winter crop, I thought; a
deep-winter harvest. There was no warmth in the air. No spring. No summer. No
light.

           
Only Darkness.

           
Sayre tipped back his cup of warmed
wine and drained it. He took it away, wiped the excess from his mouth with a
forearm, nodded consideringly. "You may have the right of it, my
lord."

           
It was a concession. Sayre and I got
on as well or better than any of the captains, and I had taken to discussing
strategies with the veteran. He had fought with my father and with Carillon. He
was not old, but his youth had been spent on the battlefield. He lacked half
his right ear; it put me in mind of Strahan, lacking the ear entirely.

           
He scratched idly at a reddish
eyebrow. A thin pale scar bisected it. His ruddy hair was liberally sprinkled
with white. "Complacency would be deadly, but I think the men are
prepared. Fit. When the Solindish come, we will take them."

           
I shifted on the stool. "This
encampment has stood safely for five weeks, captain. We have fought no one for
that long. How can you be certain the Solindish will ever come?" I put a
hand on Serri's head and buried fingers in the lustiness of his pelt. "If
they do not, we waste our time. But if the Ihlini come instead. ..." I
rubbed my left shoulder. The wound left by the Tooth had healed well enough,
but the scar was tender still. It ached almost constantly in the bitter cold.

           
Sayre rose, thrusting his stool away
from the table- He reached for the leather-bound tankard, poured, filled his
cup and mine again, though I had drunk only half. He scowled blackly out of his
wind-chafed, reddened face, gulping wine again. It set watery blue eyes ablaze.

           
"Let them come," he said
flatly. "Let them come. My Homanans will be ready."

           
I said nothing. I knew the captain
too well. And in a moment he did as I expected: he cursed and sat down again.

           
"Aye, aye—you may have the
right of it. How better to suck the will to fight from men than by frightening
it out of them?" He swore again, set the cup down so hard wine slopped
over the run. It splashed against the wooden table and filled nicks, scratches,
divots hacked out by steel. Saying nothing, I retreated from the spillage by
lifting my arms and leaning away from the table. "My Homanans are
veterans, but they have fought only men," he said. "Who can say what
they will do when faced with Ihlini sorcerers?"

           
"Captain—" But I stopped.
His eyes had taken on the glazed expression of reminiscence; he was lost in
battles long past.

           
"I recall the night Tynstar
came upon us," he said in an almost eerie detachment.

           
I looked at him more attentively.

           
"Tynstar came upon us and took
away the moon. He filled it up with blood." His mouth tightened in a faint
grimace of distaste. "He sent a mist across the land, a miasma, intended
to swallow us all. And all the army panicked, as he intended, save for Rowan,
Carillon, Donal . . . and even the Ellasian prince, Evan, your father's boon
companion." He frowned a little, lost in his recollections. "He meant
to slay us then, to defeat us before the battle, and yet he was unable. Donal
threw the magic sword at Tynstar, and the sorcery was broken."