Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (36 page)

           
I thought of the sorcery I had
faced, in the circle of lilac smoke.

           
"The sorcery was broken,"
Sayre repeated. "But it was by a Cheysuli—the Homanans were too
afraid."

           
"Then perhaps we should seek
out the rebels," I suggested. "Perhaps we can finish this war for
good."

           
"Perhaps we should let them
come to us." Sayre was unsmiling. "They know this land; we do
not."

           
I rose abruptly, went to the
doorflap of the field pavilion and pulled it aside. Beyond me lay the horizon.
The day was cold, windy, depressing. Clouds huddled on blue-frosted plains.

           
"There is little to recommend a
winter war," I said quietly, rubbing again at my shoulder. "I think
the Solindish will not come. And I think we should go to Lestra."

           
"By your leave, my lord—I think
I must disagree."

           
I smiled. "You are welcome to disagreement.
But I say equally freely: I do not think the Solindish will wage war against us
and the weather."

           
"So you want us to winter in
the city instead of here on the plains." Sayre's tone was eloquent in its
careful intonation. "If we do so, my lord, we leave open the leagues
between Lestra and the Homanan border. Open to the enemy—" He paused.
"Open to the enemy and those men who serve the bastard."

           
My teeth gritted. Aye, the bastard.
His fame grew each day, and each day we lost one or two Homanans who decided to
change allegiances in hopes of better food, warmer bedding, higher pay. I could
not openly curse the bastard for leading his growing army in skirmishes against
the Solindish borderers—intended ostensibly to help me—but privately I cursed
him at least once every hour.

           
Those skirmishes mostly helped his
reputation; word of Elek's murder had tainted my own name and brightened that
of Carillon's misbegotten son.

           
"What profit in taking the borders
in deep winter?" I demanded curtly, swinging to face the man. "I
think they keep us here for purposes of their own."

           
From outside there came a call. Ian's
voice; I turned again. With him was a young man all wrapped in winter furs and
leather.

           
"Rujho—messages from
Mujhara." Ian ducked through the flap and into Sayre's pavilion, nodding a
greeting to the man. He wore heavy furs against the cold and gloves upon his
hands. No gold showed, not even in his ear.

           
Against the wind he wore his hair
longer than normal, even as I did myself.

           
The young man entered also. He was
hooded, wrapped in woolen scarves. In his hand there was a sealed parchment.
"My lord." He pulled wool away from his mouth.

           
"My lord—for you."

           
I took the damp parchment, broke the
brittle seal, opened it with difficulty—the parchment stuck, tore, nearly came
apart in my hands—then looked at the messenger in dismay. "I can read none
of this. The paper is mostly ruined, and the ink has run."

           
"My lord, I am sorry."
Weariness made him almost curt. "It—was difficult reaching you. The Ihlini
have fired the land."

           
"Fired?" I frowned.
"Be plainer of speech."

           
"Fired," he repeated.
"Everything between here and the Homanan border has been put to the torch.
People are dead, game dispersed, all winter supplies destroyed.

           
My lord—do you see what they have
done? They have cut you off from Homana. You must go farther inward in order to
survive."

           
"Inward." I looked at Ian.
"So now we know their plan."

           
Sayre swore violently. "An old
trick," he said flatly. "Drive the enemy homeward and into
starvation—or drive them inward to death in battle. I should have seen it. I
should have known it!" He shook his ruddy head. "By the gods, I
should have listened to you."

           
I looked at the messenger. His
expression was limned in starkness against the bleakness of the day. "You
made it through."

           
"Aye, my lord. But I was one
man. I carried some winter rations with me, and grain. But—an army. . . ."

           
Uncomfortable with the truth, he
shook his head and shrugged. "What little game is left will die of
starvation soon. There is no grass for the horses, no feed or grain stored
away. All has been destroyed."

           
I turned abruptly and gestured for
wine. Sayre acceded at once, handing over a freshly-poured cup of steaming
wine. I put it into the messenger's hands. "You will be fed. You will be
given time to rest. But first—were you given the message verbally as well as
written out?"

           
He sipped. Nodded. Sighed.
"Aye, my lord. General Rowan said parchments may go astray; he gave me the
words as well."

           
"You have come from
Hondarth?" I asked in surprise. "But this seal is the Queen's."

           
"The general is at
Homana-Mujhar, with the Queen."

           
He sipped again; color began to
steal back into his pallid flesh. "Two messages, my lord: from the
general, from the Queen."

           
"Rowan's first," I said at
once. And then, thinking of my sons, I wished I had said the other.

           
The young man nodded. His brown eyes
blanked a little as he sought to recall the words precisely as they had been
said. "There is plague in Mujhara," he told me. "It spreads
throughout Homana."

           
"Plague!"

           
"It slays one out of every
family, sometimes more," he continued, "The Homanans fall ill of a
fever, but most recover, unless they are very young or very old- But—it is the
Cheysuli—"

           
He stopped. He looked at Ian, at the
lir. Lastly he looked at me.

           
"Aye?" I asked with
mounting dread.

           
He wet his lips. "For every
five Cheysuli stricken, four will die. And—so with the lir, my lord."

           
"The lir—" Ian moved
stiffly closer. "This touches the lir as well?"

           
"My lord," He stared into
his wine. "Often the warrior recovers. But if the lir does not. . .
." White-faced, he looked at me. "If the lir does not, the warrior
dies anyway."

           
"Two-fold," Ian whispered.
"Slaying one, the plague slays both."

           
I put a hand on Ian's arm, more for
me than for my brother. "This plague is in Mujhara?"

           
"Aye, my lord—and Clankeep. It
spreads throughout Homana."

           
"My sons," I said blankly.
"My sons are in Mujhara."

           
"And our rujholla is in Clankeep,
along with other kin." Ian's face was bleak. "Gods, rujho, how can we
stay here?"

           
"My lord." The messenger's
tone was raised, as if he knew we meant to leave him before he had completed
his task. "My lord, there is the other message. From the Queen of
Homana."

           
I nodded, still too numb to do much
more. My sons are in Mujhara.

           
"My lord, she sends to say the
Princess has conceived."

           
I gaped. "Gisella—?"

           
"In five months, my lord—less
than that, now—you will have another child." He paused.
"Ru'shalla-tu."

           
I looked at him more sharply.
"You are Cheysuli?"

           
"No, my lord. Homanan. But it
seems a wise thing to learn the tongue of those who rule."

           
"Thank the gods for a little
wisdom." I looked at Ian. "You know we have to go."

           
"I know. But you heard what he
has said. No game, no people, no supplies. . . ." He shrugged. "It
will not be easy, rujho."

           
"And if we do not try, we will
never sleep again."

           
"No," he agreed bleakly.
"Yet I think I will not regardless, until I know our kin are safe."

           
I nodded. A child. Oh gods, another
child. Now three will be at risk—

           
I turned to look at Sayre. "In
the morning we will leave. Only Ian and I; it would profit no one to take more.
Captain—" I paused, "—do what you can to win this war. However you
have to win it."

           
"Aye, my lord. Of course."

           
Oh gods, I thought, my children.

           
The heirs to the prophecy.

           
The land lay in ruin. Although the
Solindish plains lacked the heavy forests of Homana, it had boasted its share
of scrubby trees, tangled, hedges, thick turf, lush grasses.

           
Now there was nothing, nothing at
all—only charred turf, skeletal remains of blackened trees, ash and grit in
place of grass. The land rolled on forever in its funerary finery, stretching
eastward toward Homana.

           
Our horses shifted through grit and
ash, stirring a pall of pale gray dust that filmed our
Ur
, our mounts, our clothing. Ice and frost
rimed stones, frozen piles of hoof-churned earth, even the naked, twisted
trees. Like jewels, ice crystals glittered. Beneath its wealth, the charring
lent false glory to ruined wood. Like diamonds, like jet, it blazed and
glittered in the thin blue light of an early winter morn, cloaking itself in
transient ornamentation.

           
Though much of my face was hidden in
woolen wrappings, my breath still escaped; plumed frost in the frigid air. I
was weighed down in hood, furs, leathers, woolens, but still I was cold. Yet I
could not say if the chill I experienced was born of temperature or sickened
disbelief.

           
I squinted against the bite of
bitter cold. We walked; we did not gallop, did not trot, shadowed by our lir,
but still the movement stirred our eyes to protest. Tears gathered, spilled
over; I scrubbed briefly at my cheeks with a gloved hand, not desiring to let
the tears freeze in the winter-chafed creases of tender flesh. For warmth, I
had grown back the beard that made me Carillon, but mostly I was cold.

           
"How could they do it?" I
asked, though most of it was muffled behind the wool. "How could they
destroy so much of their homeland?"

           
"Desperation?" Ian, also
hooded, shook his head a little. "Dedication, determination . . . perhaps
those and more. I do not doubt it was a difficult decision."

           
"But to slay people? Their own
people?"

           
His shrug was swallowed by the bulk
of heavy leathers.

           
"If you are engaged in a war to
which you are fully committed, and a portion of your own people refuse to join
or render aid, perhaps it becomes easier to sentence them to death."

           
"Indiscriminate murder?" I
stared at him in amazement. "How?"

           
Ian pulled the wrap from his mouth.
"I did not say I understood it, Niall—I only offer a possible
explanation."

           
"Gods." I was sickened by
the thought. "I could never make such a decision. Determine the fates of
innocent people? Never. It is not a man's place."

           
"It will be yours, one
day."

           
"No."

           
"Rujho—of course it will. What
do you think kingship entails? You have attended council meetings, have heard
our jehan render judgments. He makes choices, rujho. So will you."

           
"Our jehan would never order a
thing as ghastly as this," I declared. "Murder, destruction . . .
rujho, look around you! Crops ruined, dwellings burned down . . . even the
livestock and wild game stripped of food and homes. How will the land
recover?"

           
"It will. It will take time,
but vegetation will grow back, crops will recover, crofts and hovels will be
rebuilt, even the game will begin to return." He looked around grimly.
"This is a waste, a terrible, senseless waste, but it is not complete
destruction. The land will live again."

           
I shivered. "Idiocy," I
muttered. "When we have won this war, the Solindish will see that this
benefits none of their people."

           
"No, no benefit," Ian
agreed. "But if you are going to lose a war, you take desperate measures.
And if that war is lost regardless of those measures, at least you have left
nothing to benefit the victor."

           
I looked at my brother. There was
little of him I could see, Just a shapeless mass atop a winter-furred tall gray
stallion. But with the wrappings pulled down, I could see nearly all of his
face. Beardless, I thought he looked younger than I. And yet he was so much
wiser.

           
"You should be the heir,"
I said finally. "You should be, Ian. You are better suited. I think the
a'saii have had the right of it all along."

           
He shook his head at once. "I
am not better suited, Niall. You do not live in my skin; you cannot know how I
think, how I feel about things. I am not right for the Lion. That task is meant
for you."

           
"And if I died? If the plague
took me, or a Solindish sword—or even a Sorcerer's Tooth. . . ."I looked
at him with a calm expectation that was as surprising to me as to him. "If
I died, rujho, could you accept the Lion?"

           
The shock made a mask of his face;
he stared. And there was apprehension in his eyes. "Niall—"

           
"Could you?"

           
After a moment, he blew out a
rushing breath that wreathed his face in fog, "You have two sons, rujho,
and perhaps a third yet to come. The choice, thank the gods, will never be mine
to make."

           
No. It never would be. Unless all of
us were slain. And I thought that supremely unlikely.

           
I looked down at Serri, trotting by
my roan. Unless the plague took every one of us.

           
"Why did you ask, Niall? Why is
it important for you to know?"

           
I shrugged. "But for an
accident of birth, it might be you who was meant for the Lion. In the clans,
there would be no question of it. You were firstborn. And yet, because of
Homanan law, only Aislinn's son can inherit. It seems unfair."

           
"It is not." Ian reined
his stallion around a frozen hummock of charred turf, searching automatically
for Tasha. Against the blackened, frost-rimed earth, her ruddy coat glowed like
heated bronze. "It is what the gods intended, or they would have put us in
one another's places." He smiled. "I am the fortunate one, rujho. My
choices will be easier than yours."

           
"No." I disagreed in
pointed affability. "Because I will make you help me with mine."

           
My brother laughed.

           
*
* *

           
We watered our mounts, our lir, and
ourselves at whatever streams and burns we could find, although many were
frozen solid. Otherwise we drank sparingly of the contents of our waterskins
and refilled them at the first opportunity. Food we rationed carefully, along
with grain; we could not afford to waste a single pinch because it was unlikely
our stores could be replenished. There as no game, no crops, no winter
supplies. What we carried was our portion.

           
I wanted to avoid the charred
wreckage of crofts and the remains of other dwellings, sickened by the first
two we had visited in search of life and food. But Ian insisted we stop at each
one because, he said, a man could not afford to ignore any opportunity. He had
the right of it, my brother, but I did not enjoy the discoveries of bodies
buried in the wreckage, burned, battered, broken, as if they were only toys.
But the enemy had been thorough.

           
There was no food, no water, no
stored supplies that had not been methodically spoiled or destroyed.

           
And so we crossed the chamelhouse of
Solinde praying we would reach Homana before our rations—or courage—gave out.

           
I thought often of the plague. So
clearly I recalled how, more than a year earlier—nearly two—the furrier in
Mujhara's
Market Square
had spoken of a plague in the north, believed to be carried by white
wolves. And I recalled also, but a six-month ago, how the guardsmen seeking me
had spoken of white wolves as well, desiring to slay me for the bounty. The
thing had begun so long ago, and yet we had ignored it, believing it a fleeting
thing, a piece of nonsense embroidered with falsehood, a story told at the
sheepherders fires to keep them awake while dogs warded the flocks against
wolves of any color.

           
But now the tale was true. Now the
beast was loose.

           
We crossed the border at last and
saw how the Somidish had taken care not to raze any of Homana. With the naked
eye a man could see the ragged line of demarcation, the sword's edge that
divided Homana from Solinde.

           
Here there was grass, though
frosted; here there was life, though sluggish in the cold; here there was the promise
of continuance. In Solinde, there was only the promise of ending.

           
And here there were also men,
confronting us on horseback as we rode across the border.

           
Like us, they were bundled in furs,
leathers, woolens.

           
Caps and hoods hid their heads and
much of their faces; I recognized none of them. They were Homanans, but that
was all I could discern.

           
Ian and I, with our lir, crossed
into Homana and the Homanans told us to halt almost at once. Muted light ran
the length of their bared swords, but dully; the sun shone only fitfully
through the mesh of scalloped snow-clouds hanging low across the plains.

           
One man rode a little forward of the
others (I counted fourteen in all) and halted. He looked at the lir, then at Ian,
marking his yellow eyes. Lastly he looked at me, and he frowned. "Cheysuli,"
he said. "Both of you?"

           
"Aye," I told him,
waiting.

           
He looked at me a trifle harder.
But, as was his, most of my face was hidden; it is difficult to recognize a man
well warded against the winter. "There is plague," he said abruptly.
"Have you heard? All throughout Homana."

           
"And are you a patrol sent to
turn us from our homeland?"

           
The other men murmured among
themselves. This one did not answer at once. He squinted a little, peering past
me toward the ravished plains of Solinde. "Are you from the Homanan
army?"

           
"No," Ian answered wryly.
"We are from the Solindish army."

           
The man's brown eyes flicked back to
Ian. There was a glint of disapproval in his eyes. Not much of a sense of
humor. "Shapechanger," he said levelly, "this is no time for
levity. Least of all for you." A jerk of his head indicated the men
waiting behind him. "We are men who serve the son of Carillon."

           
Inwardly, I swore. Outwardly, I did
nothing.

           
Ian nodded slowly. "We have
been long out of Homana. How does the petition proceed?"

           
The other shrugged. "The Mujhar
is in Hondarth, the Homanan Council divided because of the war. The petition,
for now, is set aside, but only for a while. When the war is done and spring is
come, we will set our lord in Niall's place."

           
"Murderer," one of the
other men said. "He slew Elek."

           
No, he did not—at least, not
intentionally. But I did not dare to say it aloud.

           
Idly, Ian smoothed the pale mane of
his dark gray horse. "This plague—how serious is it?"

           
"Serious for the Cheysuli. You
would do better to stay in Solinde."

           
"No," we answered
together.

           
He eyed us more attentively.
"We will not turn you back. Cheysuli, Homanan, it does not matter. Our
duty lies with our lord."

           
"Are you recruiting?" Ian
asked.

           
The brown eyes narrowed. "And
are you of the a'saii?"

           
So, even the Homanans knew of the
zealots. "Why?" I asked aloud. "Have the a'saii joined with
you?"

           
"We asked. They declined: our
objectives are too different. And so the pact was never made." He
shrugged, rewraping his dark blue muffler. "But I think the a’saii are
finished; too many of them are dead."