The Golden Sword (39 page)

“This,” said Chayin, prodding Celendra with his foot, “I have brought you as gift.” Celendra had her head to the grass. This night, Jaheil had not spread his mats.

“Are we now couch-mates, Chayin?” Jaheil said, straight-faced, in a high voice. Chayin snorted.

“Sit up, crell,” Jaheil urged. “I would see you.” His fingers fondled his beard, anticipating. Nineth, as well as Celendra, sat up. The tiask’s eyes were noncommittal, at great cost. Lalen entered, quiet for all his bulk, and crouched next to me.

In all her beauty, gloriously robed in her nakedness, Celendra sat up. Next to Nineth, she was unspeakably delicate. Her heart-shaped face raised to him. Her huge gold-green eyes pleaded favor from under brows like crier’s wings. She shifted slightly, that her knees might be together, and her chains rattled. Between her high breasts depended the six-linked tether from her collar. It glinted softly, swinging, in the lamplight.

Jaheil looked upon her a time in silence. Chayin’s face, standing over her, betrayed no emotion.

“Stand up, crell!” Celendra stood. He had her turn, then kneel again.

“That was thoughtful of you, Cahndor,” Jaheil said at last, his, eyes twinkling. “I will use her as shield in the fighting, if there is any.” He reached over and took her tether, pulled her by it. “Sit here,” he invited, putting her upon his ample lap, as if she were a child. Nineth rose and left, wordless.

Celendra moaned under her gag, enfolded in Jaheil’s arms as he explored his new possession. He had not asked why Chayin gagged her, but he made no move to free her tongue.

“Are there more?” Jaheil asked.

“Many,” said Chayin, taking Nineth’s vacant seat upon Jaheil’s left—his rightful place, which he had waited for Nineth to give up.

“You can have all you want of them. They lie there ready, bound, for your men to take, when this is over. This one was the highest of them.” He indicated Celendra, enfolded in Jaheil’s exploring grasp.

“Again, I thank you,” Jaheil said, and rolled Celendra off his lap. She lay there, very still.

We have some things to discuss, and little time,” Sereth said softly.

Chayin inclined his head. Before Jaheil, in this place, he was again the living god.

“Did you do as we asked?” he demanded.

“Yes,” said Jaheil.

“They saw: you?”

“Doubtless,” said Jaheil.

“And they did not obstruct you?”

“Not even a warning.”

“Sereth, perhaps they will not, after all, move to aid her.”

“Perhaps,” allowed Sereth with no conviction. “We should get mounted. Form the tiasks upon the outside. A Slayer will pull his stroke against a woman.”

“They may not come,” said Chayin. Jaheil looked between them, his brows pulled together.

“Do it!” the Ebvrasea ordered the cahndor. Jaheil’s brows went up, then down even farther. Lalen shifted his sword arm clear.

“Position the tiasks upon the outside,” said Chayin to Jaheil. “Best men in a center swathe. If the Slayers appear while we engage Hael, you know what to do.”

“And remember,” said Sereth softly, “my archers, and how far that death can fly.”

Jaheil allowed that he had already spread that word.

“Afterward,” said Chayin as we rose to find the threx Jaheil had brought us, “go into the Well and allow my men to get their wellwomen. Take what you want; none will obstruct you. If you leave by midday, that is. You must do so. I will not be with you.” He took the medallion of uritheria from about his neck and handed it to Jaheil. Bewildered, Jaheil put it on.

“What do you want me to do, Chayin?” he asked, his snarling manner much softened.

“We will, in this battle, have a chance not only at Hael’s head, but at two other heads. If we were to have all three, as I think we will, we could unite the Parset Lands. It is up to you to do so. I give you regency in my name. You are the only one fit to hold it.” And his eyes said that he recalled Liuma, regent of Menetph.

“And where will you be?” demanded Jaheil.

“I cannot tell you that. I will be safe enough. In the pass of winter solstice, I will return to you. And we will change what is then, even more.” The wind from the abyss sighed in Chayin’s voice. And Jaheil saw the veil heavy upon him, and only nodded and held back the flap.

“You will return to us,” Jaheil added as Chayin ducked under his arm.

“Yes. With certainty.” And Chayin flashed his dorkat smile.

Between the appreis, threxmen prepared their mounts. Through them Jaheil led us, to where Saer, Guanden, and Krist, Sereth’s black, stood beside his own red giant. Before each was piled his gear. Jaheil had been thorough, I thought as I struggled with Guanden’s head. Finally Sereth held his ears for me, that I might get the bitless northern headstall upon him. Upon my saddle, as every other I had seen, was affixed a coiled huija.

“I cannot use this,” I said, as I hefted the saddle. I had to strain to get it upon his high withers.

“Then do not use it,” Chayin said, from upon Saer’s dappled back. Nose in the air, the threx lunged and pranced, cutting chunks of sod from the earth with his steel-shod hooves.

“It was the boat ride,” I heard Chayin mutter, stroking his arched crest.

“Perhaps I should have brought you Issa,” said Sereth critically, watching Guanden’s ill-mannered attempts to maim me as I drew tight the girth. I well recalled her, that fair red threx, and her easy ways.

“He will be better, for this day,” I grunted, and stepped back from my work. Chayin had Saer calmed. The great dapple stood with his head low. Only his distended nostrils betrayed his excitement.

Behind Chayin, the stars were fading. Between the appreis I could see the first presaging green in the east. And I saw also a certain misting, like a dust cloud up from the south.

I took Guanden’s reins from Sereth and touched his arm.

“Look south,” I advised. He did, squinting in the dark as if it were already day. He turned back to me, his face only shadow play, and offered me a boost up onto Guanden’s back. The threx snorted and squealed, and kicked both legs straight out. I slapped him hard between the ears, and he calmed and stood trembling.

Sereth approached the dun warily, put his hand upon my thigh.

“Stay close to Lalen. Do not try to keep with me. I will be near.” He squeezed my leg, and turned to Krist.

Chayin brought Saer up so close that our knees brushed. Guanden four-stepped, and I raised my hand in warning. His rolling eyes saw, his ears flicked back, and he reconsidered, satisfying himself with a defiant squeal that shook, his belly between my legs.

I watched Sereth, dark shadow sliding graceful against Krises blackness, and as I did so, dawn colored his forth. It was very still, but for threx sound, as if the creatures of the plain held their breath in expectation.

Jaheil walked his red beast to us, Celendra bound to his saddle by her wrists. He swung up behind her as the first ray of the sun broke over the plain and set his mount’s coat aflame. I had been before a Parset in battle once, I recalled. But I had not been bound, and I had been armed. Celendra’s gag, and her chald, were no longer upon her.

Sereth swung upon Krist, and that beast only stood, proud and wise, beneath his master’s well-loved weight. Sereth stroked him briefly, speaking low to those back-turned ears, then brought him up on my left. Lalen, riding some brown threx, a male of good size, joined us. There were perhaps twenty left within the circle of Jaheil’s appreis.

“Shall we see to the fruitfulness of the soil, Sereth?” Chayin broke the silence, his face colored with dawnfire. Not waiting for answer, he wheeled Saer and was gone.

“As best we can,” the Ebvrasea rejoined, turning Krist’s head to follow.

So we came out onto the plain of Astria, and the forming three yras made way for us through their midst. Once, such a war would have been fought upon Silistra with a hundred men for every one of our seventy-one. In those times, we were of formidable number. Now, in the north, no more than fourteen are ever joined on a commission. Upon the plain of Astria, we were very many, our seventy-one.

Formed, the tiasks upon the outside, a swathe of picked men bisecting the circle, we moved south. Slowly did that circle move. Even slower for us in the midst of it. I counted my breaths, and they were precious. Harness creaked and jingled, hoof falls cadenced my heart. The sky was tiered fire, between clouds like racked blades. Bloody was that sun’s rising into the greening sky, like a reflection from the chaos to come.

Hemmed in as he was, Guanden gave me little trouble. As I bent to set my razor-moons, I saw Sereth’s sidelong scrutiny. Upon my other side, the right, was Chayin. The cahndor smiled to himself, his body rolling with Saer’s stride. Before us was Jaheil’s red threx, and Wiraal upon a gray. Behind came Lalen and Nineth, in crackling tension. They had apparently been acquainted previously. I wondered briefly how Aje the crell had fared at the hands of Nineth, tiaskchan. Then I forgot them.

At a place indistinguishable to me from any other upon the plain, Chayin roared his force to a halt. Scattered here and there were some few stands of trees, but none within a quarter-nera. Approximately that distance behind lay the appreis.

In that circle, he held them. We faced every direction, silent, ready. Blades took the sun’s rays. The new day sparked off Sereth’s cloak, off the Shaper’s spiral.

I twisted in my saddle, marking what the men watched in the lightening day. Over the greening plains of Astria they swept, surely thrice our number, a band of dark shapes. Before battle is joined is a time that moves most slowly. One’s pulsebeats might be bells tolling enths. We watched them come, at full speed, across the plain.

I remember the smell of the air, heavy with moisture. Of the threx and leathers and steel, and of our battle sweat upon us. My palms wept. I wiped them continually upon my thighs. The hilt of the straight-blade I carried was comforting, warm. I stared at them, at the mist above their heads.

When they were close enough that the banner of Menetph, and of Coseve, Itophe, and Nemar, could be seen, and their threx’ hooves roared like the Falls of Santha, Chayin shouted his men ready. And shouted again, as he twisted in Saer’s saddle. His desert-trained eyes had detected them, even before the watchful tiasks; Slayers, perhaps a hundred, fell upon us from the east.

Bursting from the circle’s forward edge, the tiasks doubled themselves easterly, that they might meet the northern men. Up from west of south came the army of Hael, of Omas of Coseve and Locaer of Itophe, and they were uncountable.

As the first wave hit us, Parsets screaming, threx squealing, the sky turned to deepest night. Blades flashed unseen, men and beasts roared in terror, and the battle was joined. I screamed too, amidst my protectors, thinking I had gone blind. There was no moon in that night, only the stars, glittering cold upon us.

Guanden thrashed and heaved under me, wrenching my arms. I heard the weapons of the out-edged men, whirring. Screaming, the circle split. Upon code word in the darkness, Chayin’s force, blind, opened before the slayers, who drove through us toward Hael’s attacking throng.

For a moment, all thought flown from me, I struggled to hold Guanden in that shadowy corridor of death. Behind me surged the first of Hael’s vanguard, before the oncoming Slayers. “Estri!” I heard, and searched the voice in the darkness even as I whirled Guanden from between them. So close did I come to my ending there, in that battle deafness, that I saw the eyes of the first Slayers gleam, and Guanden’s rear took a glancing sword cut. Into our ranks Guanden plunged, our people closing around me. I had time to sink a razor-moon, then another, and then someone grabbed Guanden’s head. I almost cut the hand away, before I saw it was Lalen.

“There!” he shouted. I went, reining Guanden, reeling between the fighting men. Out of the dark a threx’ head came, teeth huge and dripping. I closed my eyes and brought my blade down. It squealed and was gone. Lalen’s threx, upon my left, skittered beside us, flesh shield. His blade sang above my head; even did he thrust it between my breasts and Guanden’s plunging neck. To the far edge he headed me, where Chayin and Hael fought off from the rest, their beasts upon their hind legs. One glimpse I had, as the sky exploded in flashing sheets of colored lightning—Chayin, with Hies head, Sereth, his blade raised in mid-stroke, against four.

Then the dark, and a new blinding: light. From the fiber of the sky it came, roaring a roar that made men drop their blades and put hands to their ears, that made threx bolt, oblivious of their riders. Raet/Uritheria. The height of the highest tower of Astria it was, flapping great wings translucent in the sky. Then stronger. Seething noncolored light, the atoms of creation in it not yet cooled, it opened its great fanged mouth and turned its singeing breath upon the struggling men. Its clawed feet grabbed riders from their saddles. Its wings made gales that blew threx from their feet. I smelled flesh burning. Hair, crisped to ash, floated upon the air.

Guanden threw me from his back in his terror, as if I never existed. I lay where I had fallen, oblivious to the hooves raking the sod around me. I fought for breath.

And found it. Found myself. Rolled upon my back, to see the sky. A shadow fell over me—Lalen, dismounted, his steel flying in my defense. He straddled me. I sought Wirur, winged hulion, great fanged carnivore, where he held court in the sky, and he was there for me. I called my fate, and in my sight between those stars that made him, a million new stars came into being. More, and the battle faded. Bone, for a moment, framework of bone in the sky, and then I was there.

I peered down through my slitted eyes upon the plain of Astria, twitching my tufted ears to the sound of men dying, of roasted threx, of Raet and his cacophony of death. Then I saw him, my enemy, and I breathed breath of acid ice from my nostrils upon the land. I tore myself, with a great wrench of muscles, from the firmament. Behind me, a keening, began as what was not time and space rushed through that hole. I growled to myself, at first wing’s flap, as my hulion quarters tensed to take spring upon the earth. Those horny pads of mine touched dead and dying, crushed them as they froze to tinkling ice shards.