Sword (8 page)

Oh gods, this was not how she'd imagined her first battle happening.

"You—" Kyali pointed at the nearest ranger. "To my right and back a pace. You, on my left. You three, behind us, staggered like—yes, like that! We can break their line if we—"

No more time.

Kyali urged her horse forward, shuddering, trying to gain momentum before that scattered line hit. Behind her, she could hear the rangers following. Then she was in the midst of the enemy's line, horses and men screaming. She planted herself and swung her sword in a twisting arc, felt the impact of a spear rattle her all the way to the teeth, the ringing jolt of a blow on her arm. She ducked, swung, struck something that gave—and was suddenly through, with a small knot of Fraonir rangers crowding close around, their swords bloodied.

"Left, flank them left!" Kyali barked, seeing the weak point, not allowing herself to think about what she was doing, or the fact that she could keep riding east and maybe escape this madness. She wheeled her mare left instead, heading back into the Allaida, who were beginning to turn, having realized their line had broken.

Amazingly, the rangers came with her.

Kyali ducked under the sweep of a blade. Ahead, a man in mismatched plate armor shouted orders and she kicked Ainhearag into a run, breathing through clenched teeth. He turned and flung his sword up just as she reached him and the impact nearly threw her from the saddle. A streak of fire raced up her cheek. She shook her head, swung her sword. His weapon slid off the angle of her blade, a perfect demonstration of Arlen's careful teaching.

Then he pulled a second, shorter sword from a saddle sheath, and suddenly she was parrying two blades. Ainhearag stumbled, driven sideways by another horse. The Allaida leader grinned. Blood was flowing down her face. Spinning her sword in wild loops, the pommel burning the skin of her palms and that cold, clear fury burning her eyes, Kyali kneed Ainhearag even closer.

Both his blades came down, right at her head, crossed like daggers. She yelled—she couldn't help it—and caught them where they crossed in the quillions of her crossguard.

For a second, his eyes met hers on the other side of that tangle of blades. Then she heaved and he went flying out of the saddle, looking almost comically startled. One of his own men trampled him. Kyali looked away with a grimace as his scream cut short. A ranger—was it Birgit?—came beside her, blood dripping from a nasty gash above her ear. The ranger shouted something. Ears ringing, Kyali shook her head, and the woman pulled her facecloth down.

"What now?" Birgit shouted. Kyali could only stare, appalled that anyone should be looking to
her
for direction. One desperate idea did not a commander make. Before she could voice her outrage, they were overrun by three more Allaida, and as she brought the sword up yet again—it had blood on it now—a plan formed in her head with all the imperative suddenness of a bolt of lightning.

"To the trees, run for it! And draw your bows!" Kyali bellowed, trying to make herself heard above the clamor. "I'll draw them behind!"

Birgit turned her horse and sped off in that direction with never a word of question or protest. The rest of the rangers raced after her.

Kyali fended off a poorly wielded staff, unhorsed another wild-eyed raider. Probably she should take her own orders now. But she needed to be sure, first, that she would be followed. The enemy had taken losses, and looked to be losing enthusiasm for this argument. Squelching the panic that wanted to fly up out of her throat, Kyali turned her horse into the edge of the milling group of Allaida and whipped her sword out sideways, so the flat of the blade struck one man in the face.

"Cowards!" she shouted, and wheeled around toward the trees. "
Run
," she whispered desperately in her horse's ear. Ainhearag replied instantly, her great hooves thundering against the ground.

The Allaida, what remained of them, came after her.

Kyali kept her head down as they broke through the treeline. She reined her horse sharply to the side as they hit deeper cover and clung on desperately as Ainhearag banked like a hawk, dodging trees by such a narrow margin that Kyali felt bark scrape her knees. She risked a glance up, saw a boot dangling from a branch at eye level, and put her head back down. Behind her there was a wild crunch and crackle as the remains of the Allaida band launched themselves headlong into the trees.

Then the sudden, deadly music of bowstrings.

It got very quiet after that.

Ainhearag slowed when she sat back in the saddle, but didn't stop. Kyali didn't argue. It didn't sound like anybody was following now—Fraonir were lethal archers—but she'd had enough of being chased for a lifetime. If her horse wanted to wander all the way down the mountain, she would ride along gladly right now.

Ainhearag had no such plans, though, and slowed again, breathing in anxious whuffs. Sweat foamed on her dark coat. Kyali reined her to a stop and dismounted, then had to lean against that great heaving side and hold onto the saddle: her knees were wobbling so badly she was afraid she would fall. Her sword was still stuck in one trembling fist. She pulled a soft square of cloth out of her pocket and cleaned it standing braced against Ainhearag, trying to slow her pulse. When she felt like she could stand on her own, she sheathed the blade and looked her horse in one white-rimmed eye.

"Thank you," she said. Ainhearag whuffed again and lipped at her fingers hopefully. And then her big head rose, nostrils flaring anxiously.

Kyali had the sword out in a heartbeat. She could see how badly she was shaking in how the blade threw sunlight everywhere.

"You did well," a familiar voice said, and Kyali lowered the sword. A cry tried to claw its way out of her chest. She looked away, breathing hard, and swallowed it.

"Did we lose anyone?" she asked instead, and was pleased at how steady her voice sounded.

"Birgit took a hard knock on the head, Moiren has a gash on one leg that will need stitching, and Evan will lose the use of his arm for several weeks."

Arlen emerged from the cover of trees, and Kyali started at the sight of his face: bruised and bloodied, with scrapes all down one side. He smiled, seeing her shock. "Aye, girl, did you think I'd left you to fend off the largest band of raiders we've seen in months by yourself? No. I heard them before you—
well
before you, I might add—and went to deal with them. I'd no notion there would be so many." He rubbed his head ruefully, then cast her a sharp, shrewd look. "There are none now."

She'd guessed that much. She only nodded, wordless, seeing once more the blood on her sword, the startled expression on the Allaida captain's face, the splintering line of them rushing at her. She started to shake again, and hid that shameful fact by folding her arms and staring at the toes of her boots.

"Well," Arlen said, after a long awkward moment in which he was clearly waiting for her to speak. "It's a relief. I can't teach you battle tactics for the field, as we don't fight that way, but your father seems to have that well in hand. Our way is saner, to my mind—this lining up and running at one another with weapons out looks like madness—and I can teach you that. It seems I ought to. You've a head for strategy. We'll put you on patrol in the evenings, student mine. You'll command a party of eight."

More lessons, always more lessons. These might get her killed.

She might get someone
else
killed.

Kyali bit her tongue, took another deep breath, and nodded.

C
HAPTER
5

O
fae sword-wielding wanderer,

Orin festers in the hot season, who would have guessed it of a seahold? But the salt mists hang over everything like gloom: gloom made me think of you, and so here I sit, frustrating yet another useless court wizard. I trust whatever dread secrets you are learning, they hold more interest than the Nature of the Elements does for me. I am half asleep, and the old man knows it.

This is the third white-beard Her Imperious Duchessness Armelle has inflicted on me—she seems convinced persistence will prevail where wisdom has failed. Much like the other two, this man could not carry a tune had he a wagon and a team of horses. The last left weeping when I played “Pass the Cup.” Whether his ears were more offended by the lyrics or the breaking of his glass (and every other in the room) remains a question for the ages.

I did write a song about you, by the by, which Orin's heirs find quite amusing. I look forward to your return, if only to see your face when you find the Third Battalion singing it in three-part harmony to welcome you home.

Father rides the border endlessly, and has taken to uttering cryptic grunts and stalking off whenever your name is spoken. Taireasa, I am told, pines and plays delicate court lady, a development that has kicked up suspicion throughout the city as we all wait for her to curse in formal hall, sneak sheep into the solarium, or shove Lainey down the nearest well. Wagers have been made, and King Farrell himself bet on the sheep, so I hear.

—I, of course, miss you not at all, you fire-haired, mad little wight.

Devin

* * *

O
mighty glass-breaking minstrel,

Where I stand, a pleasantly cool breeze is stirring the leaves. This mountain is so tall Caerwyssis is visible on the line of the sea in the distance, with an odd, dirty smudge on one edge…

Why, that must be you.

Shut your eyes and think of me looking down on you while I enjoy this lovely cool wind. I am certain that will help, as imagining you festering in the company of sullen old men has done wonders for
my
mood, brother.

The guard who delivered this has betrayed you: there is no song. I have never yet told of your midnight adventure with a certain wellborn wife at the city towers, and surely you don't think I've forgotten. I feel fairly safe from your verse for the nonce, Devin Corwynall. And you have been sighted courting no less than half a dozen farmgirls this last year: shall I be aunt, I wonder, to any by-blows ere I return?

I look forward to hearing the list of offenses you have committed, by-blows or no. They are not a quiet folk I live with, but no one here has your bent for mayhem, and I find, oddly, that I was accustomed to a certain amount of turmoil.

Place a bet in my name on Her Highness cursing in hall. The sheep will be in summer pasturage, and Lainey is too wily to step near wells or I'd have drowned her long since.

—I don't miss you either, you cross-eyed village idiot.

Kyali

* * *

Kyali flattened the parchment against a gust and looked up at the hazy clouds. It was possible, barely, to imagine the sea, but not the weathered stone of Caerwyssis castle, which she had only seen twice in her entire life.

Devin's face, his wry grin and the wicked light in his eye, came far easier. Taireasa she rarely allowed herself to picture; it hurt too much.

The soldier eyed her sidelong as she penned the letter, a half-rotted log serving for a writing desk and a crow's pinion for a quill—it had to look bizarre, but the man seemed not to notice. He was a regular, a face known to her, but his name escaped her. She searched for it in vain, wanting a warmer address for the courier who had brought her this gift. Every season or so, a man from the Third Battalion arrived; she had no doubt her father was well-informed on her progress. She wondered what they told him.

"Seal it when you reach the villages," she suggested finally, giving up on the name, and rolled the parchment. He took it with a bow, somber and watchful, not much older than she.

"Regards from your father, lady," he murmured.

"Give mine to him," she said dryly. "How stands the border? The capital? Is there other gossip of note that doesn't involve my brother?"

He gave a flicker of a smile—Devin was beloved by the troops, among whom his misadventures were legend—but his eyes were grave. "Quiet, lady," the guard (Ranan, his name was. Hah!) said after a pause. Under her stare, he blinked once and rubbed an amulet about his neck—a mother's gift to a soldier, a luck-piece. The gesture told her what he didn't and a sinking feeling filled her belly. "An odd quiet," he added then, seeing that she had seen. "But not so a man could put a finger on it. The countryside's uneasy. The border's well manned, m'lady, on both sides; nothing's come through but the barons, and they don't stop for nothing."

He meant it as reassurance. She took it otherwise, putting it with Devin's scant news of their father, and kept the worry from her face with effort. "Thank you, Ranan," Kyali said, and saw, out of the corner of her eye as she turned back to the cloud-hazed view, the look of the fieldhands in his sober blue eyes. "Stay a night if you wish—the Darachim will find you room, I am sure."

"I ought to get back, m'lady. The general, he wanted haste. He's hungry for news of you, if I could say."

It made her smile, and made her throat ache. "A meal at least, then."

"Aye, lady," he agreed, and bowed at the edge of her vision. She kept her face turned toward the sky, not wanting to see that look again. When he had gone, she turned toward the trees, to wait for Arlen and the next lesson in an endless progression.

The wood had never seemed more peaceful, the peace never more fragile.

* * *

Taireasa watched her hands. Fine-boned, they were perfect by court standards, but for the fact that they constantly wound themselves into any nearby cloth, wrinkling the tailor’s masterpieces and drawing the avid attention of every lord, lady, pageboy, maid, and guard. All surely believed they could read the fortunes of the ruling House in the nervous twist of royal fingers.