The Sacred Band (40 page)

“You lie!” Calrach spat. He stepped toward her.

Mena backed up, her hand on her sword.

Devoth slammed an arm against the Numrek’s chest, stopping him. He demanded a translation from Rialus. After it, he responded through Rialus, “If what you say is true, I am filled with happiness.”

“He misunderstands me,” Mena said. “Queen Corinn’s powers are unmatched. She killed all the Numrek, and she will do the same to you if you continue into our lands. She sent me to tell you to turn around. She sent me so you know her conviction. Tell him so that he understands.”

Before Rialus could begin, Devoth said, this time speaking heavily accented Acacian, “I understand.”

Rialus turned and gazed at him, stunned.

“I know your tongue. I once had thoughts to … know your country. I learned your talking from the divine children. I asked them about your people. They could tell little, though. They were children only. Always children. I grew bored and forgot much. Years long back.” He grinned. “As you can see, I have found interest again.”

For the first time, the crowd was hushed to real silence.

“I understand what you say,” Devoth said. “It’s good what you say.”

Calrach tried to speak.

Devoth ignored him. “The Numrek are the Numrek.” He gestured with his fingers, trying to find the words to explain himself. His fingers opened as if they were dropping something inconsequential, dust that could be blown away on the breeze. “It is good to hear that your queen defeats them. A better foe for us, then.”

Mena was speechless, unsure how to respond. It was not just what he said that unnerved her. It was the undisguised confidence with which he said it. Not bravado. Not arrogance. Not foolery. Just …

“What else do you want to say to us? Rialus, translate so that all can hear.”

“I …” She hesitated, and then had an idea. She spoke so that her voice would carry. “I see you have humans among you. The queen wants them to know that we have no quarrel with them. We would welcome them back to Acacia, free citizens of wherever they choose to live. They need not fight for their enslavers anymore.”

Devoth listened, both to Mena and to the conclusion of Rialus’s translation. He looked around, content to let the offer sink in to all who heard it. “That is a clever idea, but you have it wrong. Your queen may have no quarrel with them, but they have a quarrel with her. You sold them as children. We raised them.”

“As slaves!”

“What do you know about it? We raised them. We gave them clans to belong to. We taught them a way to belong.”

“You made them slaves.”

“No,
you
made them slaves! We made them our children!” As fast as Devoth’s temper flared, he reined it in. With a calm, assured voice he said, “We have already made a pledge to them. After they help us defeat you, they will all be free to do as they wish. They will be slaves no longer, and we—not you—will be the ones who freed them. If what I have said is not true, anyone may say so now.”

The silence that followed was interrupted only by the grunts and chatter from the fréketes. No one spoke.

Eventually, Mena said, “I have said what I came to say. You will find no Numrek waiting for you. If you fight us, we will destroy you just as we did them, and we will not make these offers again. If you turn now, we will not pursue you. Turn now. Let us forget each other.”

Devoth shrugged. “If you are done … Would you stay long enough to eat with us?”

“What?”

“To eat.” The Auldek scooped imaginary food into his mouth. “You are safe with us. Come eat. Have a drink. Rest before you go home.”

Mena realized that sometime in the last few minutes fear had drained out of her. Confidence with it. And purpose. She tried to pull it back into her voice. “I will not offer you peace like this again.”

“Good,” Devoth answered. “Your peace is nothing to talk about. Vapor. It’s talking about the wind. You can hear it. You can see that it shakes the trees. But you can never grasp hold of it. Better to leave it. You will not stay with us?”

Mena shook her head. Dine with them? No, that seemed a horrible idea, worse than fighting them all. She could not have said why the prospect chilled her so completely. “That’s not what I came for.”

“You came to spy,” Devoth said, cocking an eyebrow at her. “Isn’t that so? You didn’t come to threaten us. If you did, you did not come well prepared.”

The Auldek woman, Sabeer, muttered something in her tongue. A few grunted agreement. Some laughed.

“What did she say?” Mena asked.

Rialus sputtered a moment before saying, “I had told her of your life previously—that you were a great warrior. She—she finds that hard to believe now that she sees you.”

“If she wishes a test, she may have it,” Mena said.

Rialus frowned. “I won’t tell her that.”

“Why not? Tell her.”

“Princess, you’ve not seen how they fight.”

“I’ve killed Numrek. Tell her that.”

“These are not Numrek. Sabeer is—”

“Enough,” Devoth said. “Do not be women. Don’t die on Sabeer’s point.” He paused, a hand raised in mock concession to Mena’s snarl. “Or don’t kill my dear wife. No use in that. Be a messenger for us, Princess Mena Akaran. You will, yes? Take this message: the Auldek come for your lands. We come for slaughter.” He broke out of Acacian and shouted something in his own tongue. By the way the throng yelled in response Mena knew he was translating his words. He turned back to her. “This has been amusing, but if you will not eat and drink with us, go. Go now, fly home. Tell your queen our nations are at war!” Again he turned and barked his translation. Again the crowd exploded in enthusiasm.

Mena felt Elya at her back. For the first time she realized how much the creature had surrounded her, her wings tented in a protective manner. “I would speak to Rialus Neptos in private.” She was not sure what she had to say to him, but thought she should try. Perhaps he would have something to offer.

The chieftain weighed this. “You can, but I would have to cut his tongue out first.” He gestured toward the dagger on his belt and waggled his tongue, and then grew serious. “He would be of little use, empty of words. If you wish, though …” He pulled the blade free and made to grab Rialus with his other hand.

“No,” Mena said. “I will take your message back. Do I have safe leave from here?” She indicated the flying beasts perched on the wagons.

Devoth grinned, shoving the dagger home and nudging Rialus playfully. “You do.” Calrach growled something close to the chieftain’s ear. Devoth flicked him away with his fingers. He said something softly in Auldek.

Rialus translated it as: “Fly safe, Princess. Fly true. Make your world ready for us.”

Turning from him, Mena slipped under the canopy of Elya’s upraised wing. She climbed into the saddle, slipped her legs into the harness, and fastened it. The Auldek waited in near silence. The fréketes cried out, holding some fragmented conversation among themselves, eyes on Elya.

Sabeer said something to her, pointing a long finger at her as she did so.

“She says she will see you in battle,” Devoth said, acting as translator.

“Tell her I will kill her then.”

They spoke a moment, and then Devoth guffawed. “She says which of her souls will you kill? She has many within her.”

As Elya rose on her bunched hind legs, Mena said, “All of them. I’ll take all of them.” Elya leaped. Her wings flared and they were in flight, beating hard to rise above the raucous fréketes, who trailed, snarling behind them for a time.

The morning of his coronation, Aliver was up before the dawn. He watched the coming day lighten into a dull, drizzly morning. Not an auspicious start. A little later, the day remembered color. The rain slowed, stopped, and patches of sky broke up the cloud cover. For a midwinter day it was quite mild. Corinn, no doubt, would call the weather perfect. What better way to welcome a new monarch than with a world glistening wet beneath shafts of eager sunlight? Without even talking to her—without needing to hear her say it—he would think of it that way, too. That was how it was between them. Two minds; one mind. He knew he had not always felt that way about her, but he could not remember what it was he had felt instead. This must be a good thing, though. It certainly seemed like it.

They were doing right, acting bravely, making decisions for the empire. There were coming trials to face, yes. A foul invasion that they would have to meet with force. But how could any ragtag group of brutes stumble out of the Ice Fields and expect to defeat Corinn’s magic? Mena’s sword? Aliver’s joyful masses? There was the fact that Dariel had been lost in a distant land. But he might be found! Corinn would remind him of that. Nothing was certain yet. Until it was, live with hope.

Remember, Corinn had told him, that only he had walked through death and returned. Only he. She and he had done that together, and now they would rule together. The nation was on the cusp of a mighty change. They were creating it, and it was good.

Though he could not remember the exact details, he knew that in his earlier life leadership had sat much more heavily on him. No longer. Now he had only to think of a fear to have it swept away by confidence, reason, purpose.

When a servant opened his door and slipped inside to wake him, Aliver stood from the window seat and waved at the young man. “You wouldn’t expect me to sleep late on my coronation day, would you?”

“Your Highness,” the servant said by way of answering, a quick bow as he did so. Eyes pinned to the floor, he asked, “Are you ready for your bath? It’s all prepared, with all the special oils and fragrances for the day.”

Aliver watched him, a hint of frustration rising at the sight of his deferential posture. He almost instructed the man to raise his head and stand straight. What had this man ever seen him do that had instilled such subservience in him? Nothing, and in that case the respect was not true. It was an act, a delusion. In Talay, when he was a young man, he had no servants. Men and women and children, old and young alike, could talk to him as an equal and yet somehow honor him by doing so. In Talay, he had slain a laryx and earned his tuvey band. He could run from sunrise to sunrise without pause. He had been a warrior, and an entire army had watched him slip beneath the belly of a raging antok and slice it end to end. Many had real reasons to honor him. What reason did this man have?

Before the question was completed, he already heard Corinn’s inevitable answer rising in him. All those things were still true, she would say. For all those deeds and many more he had earned the reverence of the entire empire. This man need not have stood beside him in battle to believe him a warrior, or have witnessed any of the things for which he was famed. That would be impossible, and it would deny this man the prize of serving a king. For him that was a great boon. His bowed head said as much. A good king lets a servant be a servant.

As quickly as she spoke—or as he spoke to himself with her confident voice—he was reassured. “Yes, I’ll bathe now,” he said, to the obvious relief of the waiting servant.

So he set off for his first official duty that morning with the servant trailing him through the hallways. He stripped naked before attendants, who acted as if he were not naked, or as if his nakedness were nothing to take notice of. He submerged himself up to the neck in hot water and sat there as sachets of oil-soaked herbs bobbed around him. His toenails and fingernails were snipped. The soles of his feet scrubbed. His entire body massaged with warm oil that was kneaded into his skin by skilled fingers. He stood swaying as several towels dried him, and stayed standing as another contingent of servants swept in with his apparel for the first half of the day. Thus, the king to be acted like the king to be.

When he emerged in the central courtyard of the royal residential grounds, Aaden ran to meet him. “Aliver! Look at all the boats! It’s unbelievable how many there are. More than yesterday. Come look.”

Aliver let himself be tugged toward the terrace railing, smiling at a contingent of Agnates fresh in from Alecia. They would want to greet him, he knew, but he had made so much small talk with so many vacuous aristocrats the last week that he welcomed any excuse to put them off.

He grasped the weathered stone, Aaden beside him, pointing. The boy need not have, for the sight could not be missed. The sea around the isle of Acacia did not sparkle glassy blue or green under the shafts of sunlight. Instead, an enormous, undulating blanket had been cast over the water. A quilt sewn of boats all sizes and shapes, flying flags from every portion of the Known World. It was amazing. Beautiful not just in appearance but in terms of what it meant.

“Have they all come for you?” Aaden asked. “I didn’t know there were that many boats in the whole world.”

“There are more than this even,” Aliver said, “as you’ll see on your coronation.”

“If they keep coming, one will be able to walk from here right across the sea to the mainland, hopping from boat to boat. That would be fun.”

Aliver agreed that it would be.

“Today will be good, won’t it?”

“Aaden,” he said, turning his full smile on the boy, “today is the beginning of a new age.”

“That’s what Mother says!”

“She’s right.”

As if to demonstrate this, a shadow passed over them, with it a whoosh of air that ripped exclamations from everyone on the terraces. Thaïs flew by. The creature’s wings beat once, and then she glided in a curve out over the bay. Her rider, Dram, sat small on her back. A few moments later, Kohl—flying riderless—sailed into view from the other direction. Cries echoed up from the lower town, climbing the terraced levels as others joined in. Aliver could not make out words in the chanting, but he knew the tenor of it. Euphoria. Joy. Awe. When Po’s black form surged up from below the railing, having skimmed so close to the cliffside that he only appeared at the last moment, Aliver turned his gasp into a shout as well. They were mighty, Elya’s children. They were mighty.

But when he turned to Aaden, he drew back, unsure how to read the boy’s face. There was a tremor of excitement in it, yes, but it edged more toward fear than joy. “Aaden, are you all right?”