Chayla sat back on her heels beside the cot, staring at the dead face. Of Kazander’s original fifty Isulk’im, the loss of this man made only thirty left. There was nothing she could do about the immediate deaths in battle, but—
“Sometimes we lose them,” Feylin had cautioned more than once. “Sometimes we know it will happen, and sometimes it happens for no good reason we can figure out. All we can do is our best. If that’s not enough ... well, nothing is perfect in this world, least of all us.”
Chayla knew that. One would think that after Rema-gev, Stronghold, the Harps, and Zagroy’s Pillar, she’d be used to losing. She wasn’t.
After a moment she laid gentle fingertips on cold eyelids, then sighed and pushed herself to her feet. A gentle hand at her elbow helped her up. She knew without even looking that it was Kazander at her side.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You did what you could, my lady.”
He guided her toward the infirmary door, past other beds where other wounded lay. Most would recover; some would be maimed for life; some would die like the man whose eyes she had just closed. And there was so little she could do about it.
“I should have been able to save him.”
Kazander made no reply until they were outside. The evening breeze swirled around the barracks tucked into the hillside, played with the sand out on the dunes. Above them, Feruche hoarded the last of the sun on its tallest tower, like a signal fire. She was reminded of the
Flametower at Stronghold—one more anger to add to the rest.
“Did you use all that you know?” Kazander asked.
“That sort of wound to the lung can be difficult, but we caught it in time. He shouldn’t have died.”
“Are you the Goddess, to say when and when not?” His fingers tightened a little on her arm and he repeated, “You did what you could.”
She walked with him in silence for a time, then said, “But I have to know what I did wrong.”
“For the next man wounded the same way? Or for yourself?”
She looked up. “I don’t understand.”
“I cannot tell which offends you more deeply—that he died, or that you could not save him.”
Chayla pulled out of his grasp. “Death offends me!”
“I know. You are angry, but there is no sorrow.”
“I didn’t even know him.”
“Yet your face was the last he saw, your touch the last he knew. You were wife, mother, sister, daughter in that last moment. You say you did not know him, but he knew you. How can you not grieve for him, after being so many things to him?”
She recoiled. “I was a total stranger who never asked to be anything but his physician.”
“We do not ask for life, yet it is there.”
“You make no sense, Lord Kazander,” she said coldly.
He smiled. “As usual. That is what you mean, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
This time he laughed. Chayla turned on her heel and started back for the garrison. Kazander touched her shoulder, saying, “Ah, no. There is only so much light left, my lady, and you must use it to return to the keep.”
“Don’t give me orders,” she snapped. “I’m not a child or a servant!”
“Your parents’ order, not mine. And the Lady of Tig-lath has asked if you will see her children.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Am I a physician, to know such things?”
“No, you’re a nuisance and a bore,” she replied. “But all right, I’ll come back up with you.”
He bowed extravagantly, grinning again. “Your compliments are flowers to embellish my sleepless pillows.”
Chayla scowled at him and started walking.
The trail was wide enough for four people abreast, lined with mortared stones, and smooth as a polished banister. But it was also very steep, and by the time they were halfway up, Chayla was breathing hard. Kazander, damn him, was singing—to reassure his men back at the garrison, she supposed, remembering Remagev. She closed her ears to a song whose words were in a language she didn’t understand anyway, and nursed her anger.
None of this was supposed to happen to her. She was meant to be a Sunrunner and a brilliant physician. Those were precious gifts from the Goddess, to be nurtured, used, and shared. She should not be feeling this terrible fury of helplessness. She should not be forced to spend so much of herself on people she didn’t even know. Her family and friends had claims on her love, but all these strangers with their pain-weary eyes and bleeding wounds—she didn’t want to feel this. It hurt too much.
Wife, mother, sister, daughter. She knew how to be two of those things, and did them very well. She was a loving daughter who had made her parents proud. Squabble as she might with Rohannon, she adored her brother and missed him as only twinned siblings can. Her father had told her once that he and Jahni had been each other’s mirror, and that it had been the same for Andry and Sorin. From what she had observed of Jihan and Rislyn, it was like that for them as well. Chayla was a good daughter, a good sister. One day she would Choose a fine, strong, proud man to be her husband and the father of her children.
How dare these other men, these strangers, claim parts of her already taken, and make of her things she didn’t yet know how to be?
She had thought back at Remagev, back at Stronghold, that she had discovered what it was to be a physician. And it was this: to give. Of her skill and her knowledge of the craft, yes, but of her compassion as well, for sometimes the gift most needed was nothing more than her smile.
She had been wrong. Being a physician was dirt and blood and filth and frantic haste, and knowing that whatever she did or didn’t do, people were going to die. It was a craft that depended on suffering, a skill that found its use in tragedies.
Chayla was furious with them for hurting and dying and showing her the brutal reality of elegant textbook descriptions. But mainly she hated herself for not being able to heal them. All of them. Every single one.
Kazander had stopped singing. He stood a little way up the slope, looking at her in the dimness.
“My lady,” he said, his voice as soft as the twilight, “why do you weep?”
She bit both lips between her teeth but it wasn’t any use. Staring at him through tear-blinded eyes, she said thickly, “Because I’m ashamed.”
His arms surrounded her. She clung to him, sobbing uncontrollably now, despising herself for the weakness and him for seeing it. Causing it. Damn him.
But he was tender with her humiliation, his fingers moving like whispers through her tangled hair. She hated him for that, too.
When she could breathe again, she pulled away. He held her fast for an instant before his arms fell to his sides.
“Forgive me,” he murmured.
“Why?” she demanded ungraciously, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
“I wish I could mend your world for you.”
“That’s stupid. You can’t help what happens any more than I can.”
“You’re right. It was a foolish thing to wish.” He paused, then shrugged and started up the path again.
“Kazander?” She hurried to catch up.
“Yes, my lady?” He looked back over his shoulder.
She gulped, and bit her lip again, then burst out, “Thank you for wanting to.”
He smiled.
*
The encounter Tobin had recommended between Pol and Sionell never happened. He hadn’t even seen Sionell since the night she arrived at Feruche. She kept to her small tower room with her children. It was Tallain’s cousin Lyela who saw to the comfort of the Tiglathis, and the Tuathans as well, for Lady Rabisa only sat and stared and sometimes smiled mindlessly. Pol had visited her yesterday. The thought of Sionell looking like that terrified him.
His own wife frightened him almost as much. Watching her that morning as she ordered her half-brothers executed—Goddess, what had he done to her? She ought to be far from all this horror, tucked away safe with the children at Dragon’s Rest— where her father was and where Chiana and Rinhoel were likely to be.
A man ought to be able to protect his family. A prince ought to be able to protect his land. But as High Prince, his was the responsibility to protect everyone’s families, everyone’s lands.
Meiglan had done it all with three sword strokes. Her half-brothers could do no more harm to her or her children, fight no more battles against the Desert, give no more aid to the Vellant’im.
He admired the tidiness of it, even as he was appalled.
And what did he want from her, anyway? To exist in twilight as Rabisa did? Meiglan was High Princess and knew it. And now everyone else knew it, too.
Including him.
He spent the day on horseback, riding with a patrol that searched for Vellant’im. None had been spotted even at a distance in quite some time. Apprehension said they were hiding, but sense asserted that they had withdrawn to join the main army at Stronghold. This appeared to be a popular destination. Hollis had reported Andrev’s news that the remains of the force at Swalekeep marched toward the Desert. As the dragon-headed ships returned from Tiglath, soldiers disembarked and started immediately north. No one wanted to think what this might mean. Pol didn’t, but he had to.
Back at Feruche, he went upstairs for a quick wash before dinner. When he started down the main stairs, he saw Chayla starting up them. Word that Sionell had asked to see her made him turn and accompany her to the tower. Not to do as Tobin advised, for he really didn’t feel equal to a fight just now, but to find out what was wrong.
After a brief nod that barely acknowledged his existence, Sionell ignored him while Chayla examined the children. He had the wisdom to keep his mouth shut and watch as his young cousin peered into Antalya’s throat, thumped Jahnev gently on the chest, and tried to get the uncharacteristically listless Meig to follow the movements of a tiny fingerflame back and forth. At last Chayla settled onto the bed that held all three children, cradling Meig in one arm.
“Runny noses, but no sore throat or cough. How long have they been rubbing their eyes?”
“Since last evening,” Sionell answered. “There’s only a slight filminess, but I had to bathe tear-crusts off this morning.”
“Well, no fever yet, but it’s pretty obvious what they’ve got,” Chayla said. “Silk-eye.”
“That’s what I thought. Siona seemed to be coming down with it back at Tiglath, but she was better so quickly I couldn’t be sure.”
“It affects some for only a day or two. Some don’t get it at all. But Siona’s given it to your three, and they’ve probably spread it by now.” She stroked Meig’s ruddy red-brown hair. “You know the standard remedies. Febrifuge, eyedrops—I’ll have to do some cooking tonight,” she sighed, sounding weary enough for someone thrice her age. “At least this is something I can cure.”
“All you lack is a castleful of sick children,” Sionell said, and Pol gave a start when he realized she was speaking to him.
With a little shrug, he replied, “Better here than out on the Long Sand. Would it do any good to isolate the other children?”
“It might.” Chayla stood and stretched. “Worth a try, anyway. I’ll go get started on the drops. It’s a long recipe and I’m afraid we’re going to need a lot of it.”
“Write it out and have someone else do it,” Pol said. “You’re asleep on your feet.”
She glanced at him, and despite the differences in age and coloring he felt he was looking at Tobin. “Didn’t you hear me?” she snarled. “I can do something about this!” And with that she was gone from the room.
“But not about the wounded,” Sionell murmured.
“I understood that,” he said just as quietly.
“Do any of us understand what a physician thinks and feels? I learned what my mother taught me, but I don’t have whatever it is that makes her a healer. It’s like being a Sunrunner. You either are or you aren’t.” She tucked her children into bed and when she glanced over her shoulder again seemed surprised to find him still there.
“Yes, my lord?”
Never had three words hurt so much. If there had been grief or anger or anything in her eyes but calm—but he could only shake his head. “Nothing, Ell. Nothing.”
*
Alasen was welcomed to Dragon’s Rest with genuine warmth and no little astonishment. Edrel rode out to greet her midway up the valley. Being a polite young man, he didn’t ask what she was doing there when she didn’t immediately volunteer her reasons. His own reason for staying waited in the main entry for them, smiles and charm all over his narrow, black-eyed face.
“I can’t leave with him still here,” Edrel confessed quietly after Miyon took Draza aside to ask about the Battle of Swalekeep. “The problem is that I can’t think of anywhere to send him.”
“Even if you could,” she agreed. “He’s still a prince. Perhaps I can be ... um ... persuasive.”
“I’d be grateful, my lady. I could take what troops we have and start being useful. It’s maddening, stuck here while everyone else does the fighting.”
“And too many of them, the dying.” Alasen put a hand on his arm as they climbed the stairs. “I’m so sorry about your brother.”
Edrel gave a curt nod. “Yes. Thank you. Is there any word of Chiana?”
“None. I don’t like it. As a matter of fact, I felt sure she’d be here.”
“As if I’d let her set one foot on the trail through the Dragon’s Gullet! I was wondering what brought you here, my lady.”
“A mistake, it seems.” She turned at the upper landing for the rooms she and Ostvel were always given at Dragon’s Rest. Edrel shook his head.
“We’ve closed that side, my lady, and the two towers as well. Easier on the servants.”
“Ah. Of course.” They went in the other direction, past a tapestry of Stronghold. Pausing to finger the heavy weave, she murmured, “I still can’t believe it’s gone.”
“Nor I. Not until I’ve seen it for myself.”
“I don’t want to. Ever.” Alasen looked away from the tapestry and tried to smile. “How does your new wife? And Lisiel and her little boy?”
“All well. They’ll be glad to see you. Our evenings are a little strained, what with his grace of Cunaxa in attendance.” He grimaced.
She laughed lightly. “I can rescue Norian and Lisiel tonight by claiming women’s chatter. But I’m afraid you and Draza are on your own.”
“He was there, wasn’t he? When Kerluthan died.”
“At the battle, though not to see him fall.”
Edrel said bitterly, “Prince Velden didn’t want his daughter to marry a lowly second son—and now I’m Lord of River Ussh.”
Alasen took his arm. “I’ll see that you and Draza have some time alone this evening. He can tell you better than I what happened.”
She managed it, but just barely, and only by keeping
Miyon with her and the other ladies after dinner in Meig-lan’s solar. She told the tale of the battle as it had been told to her, even though the whole of it had been communicated by Andrev to Hollis at Feruche, and thence to Hildreth here at Dragon’s Rest.
Miyon asked only one question—Edrel’s question, though with entirely different intent, Alasen well knew. Where was Chiana?
“No one has the faintest idea,” Alasen replied.
“Perhaps she’s seeking out her old allies, the diarmad-h’im,” Norian said slyly. “It sounds as if she needs all the help she can get.”
“That might not be so far from the truth,” Miyon commented. “After all, they do have some connection with the Vellant’im.”
Alasen nodded, saying nothing. He’d had time to recover from the undoubted shock of the lost battles in the Desert and Meadowlord; he knew he must now behave as if he’d supported Pol unswervingly all along. She anticipated an entertaining time of it before she left for Feruche, hearing him sing a tune that was for him so painfully off-key.
Changing her mind about responding to his words, she said, very innocently, “And the Merida as well, my lord. But they won’t be a factor anymore.”
“No, they won’t,” he replied evenly.
“It must be a relief to you, Prince Miyon.” Norian spoke with perfect earnestness belied by a wicked glint in her blue eyes. Alasen nearly laughed as another verse was added to the song he must sing.
“Profoundly,” he said, and rose. “If you ladies will excuse me, there are some letters I must write. You’ve reminded me that my princedom needs my guidance. I wish you a good night.”
When he was gone, Lisiel made a face and waved her hand as if to clear away a stench. “Really, Norian,” she scolded, “I had a hard enough time when Alasen twitched him. Did you have to join in?”
“You’re much too polite to him, Lisi.”
“I have to be. His princedom is just over the Veresch from mine,” said Laric’s wife. Then she laughed. “You and Alasen ought to do wonderfully at Riall’im. I haven’t seen anything so funny since the last time Sioned and Tobin had at Chiana!”
It had been just that past autumn, here at Dragon’s Rest. It reminded them of too much—Norian of the sweet joys of falling in love with Edrel; Lisiel of having her husband at her side while they waited for their baby; Alasen of solitary woodland hikes around Castle Crag looking for taze herbs, for she rarely went where Andry would be.
She chose to focus on Lisiel’s mention of Chiana, and explained Naydra’s reasoning. “Evidently she was wrong, though I can’t understand why. Or where Chiana’s hiding.”
“Hildreth can go looking when there’s sunlight enough,” Lisiel said as she poured herself another cupful of taze.
“And it will give Evarin something to do besides antagonize the cook,” Norian added. “He’s been brewing Goddess only knows what and leaving a terrible mess in the kitchen.”
“Not to mention making free with the best silk sheets to strain the stuff, and the winemaster’s new oak barrels for storing the results.” Lisiel sipped and shook her head. “This has gone stone cold. Norian, ask the page outside to send up more, please?”
“There’s something else we need to talk about,” Alasen said, interrupting the catalog of domestic disturbances. “And none of it leaves this room—not even to tell Edrel,” she warned.
She told them then some of what Branig had told Nay-dra, though not about Naydra herself. Lisiel refused to believe that all sorcerers were not exactly alike in their aims and evils. Alasen supposed this was natural to someone from Firon, assumed to be home to hundreds if not thousands of diarmadh’im. Norian, though not quick to credit Branig’s explanation, was more thoughtful.
“There must be more of them than reveal themselves,” she said. “I always assumed it was fear of what the Sunrunners might do to them—let alone the princes and athr’im. But it just might be that the one group provides a check on the other. Keeping watch over people ripe for the using—“
“They failed to stop Mireva nine years ago,” Lisiel countered.
“Maybe it was too dangerous. It would have brought them into the open.” Alasen frowned. “Given the prevailing attitude...”
“You don’t need to tell me about that. I’m dark-haired, dark-eyed, and Fironese.”
Norian blinked eyes as blue and clear as dawn. “You don’t mean people actually suspect you of being diarmadhi?”
“Some do. I think my brother Yarin would like to be.” Lisiel gave a shrug. “But this notion of there being two different sorts of them—“
“What if there are?” Norian insisted. “Mireva’s faction seems to be balanced by this other that Branig told Nay-dra about—“
She broke off as the door opened and a servant came in carrying a tray. Alasen said into the too-abrupt silence, “So there I sat in an absolute jungle, expecting cats or wolves or something to come by and drink from the bathwater. I’ve never seen anything like it—“
“—and you hope you never do again!” Lisiel finished for her. “Thank you, Thanys, just leave it on the table. We’ll serve ourselves.”
“Yes, your grace. Princess Alasen’s chambers are aired and ready.” The woman bowed slightly and left them.
“That was close,” Norian said. “I’m sorry. I should have been listening for her step.”
“She should have knocked.” Lisiel poured fresh taze for all three of them. “She’s Meiglan’s personal maid and unfortunately used to a great deal of freedom in her comings and goings.”
“No harm done.” Alasen accepted a cup. “What I’ve been leading up to is that if what Branig said is true, we might be able to use his faction to our advantage. I know,
I know. There seems to be a connection between the Vellant’im and the sorcerers. But has anyone ever heard of them helping in a battle? Has there been a massing of diarmadh’im to march on any of our castles? The more I think about it, the more I think Branig was telling the truth and he didn’t have the least idea who these people are.”
“Would he admit it if he did?” Lisiel asked.
“He admitted he was a sorcerer,” Norian reminded her. “That was dangerous enough. I agree with Alasen. I think he was being honest.”
“But how would these people be used?”
Alasen smiled over the rim of her cup. “You do ask the most awkward questions, Lisiel. I’m hoping Pol has some ideas when I tell him about it at Feruche. And now I think I’ll go meet your new son, if I may, and then get some sleep.”
At least the most awkward question had not been asked: how to find the diarmadh’im. On the ride to Dragon’s Rest, Alasen had stopped each night at a farmhouse or a village and, once or twice, an inn. It had been easy enough to gather everyone around her while she told the tale of the victory at Swalekeep. Then she named the dead, so that people might remember them with candles at the New Year. Always the same phrasing: “Prince Halian of Meadowlord; Lord Rialt, who governed Waes for the High Prince, and his lady Mevita; Lord Kerluthan of River Ussh; and Branig, friend and protector of the Princess Naydra.”
Once or twice she thought she saw someone react—a small flinch or a soft gasp, nothing overt. But at the Princemarch border a girl came to her after dinner to say she knew a Branig who worked for a weaver in Swalekeep; had Alasen meant him? Not very subtle; Alasen was even less so in her reply. “No, this Branig was a tutor. But between you and me, I think he was also a sorcerer. Princess Naydra said he called her by a very strange title.”
When Alasen spoke the word “Diarmadh’reia,” the girl’s face went absolutely blank. With her next breath she had been properly horrified by the mention of sorcery and properly glad that it was a Branig other than the one she knew. But the lie had been in her eyes, and Alasen had seen it with the beginnings of hope. Perhaps it would work, perhaps not, but the essentials had been communicated. It was all she could do.
She lingered longer than she intended admiring Lisiel’s baby—who proved himself an outrageous flirt even at barely one season old by cooing the instant Alasen picked him up. He had only just dozed off in her arms when Hildreth entered the chamber and drew Norian aside. The Sunrunner spoke in a murmur abruptly punctuated by Norian’s exclamation.
“No! How could Father let him—“
Alasen placed the child in the cradle. “What is it, Norian?”
Hildreth answered. “Her brother is camped with a small army on the road south from Summer River.”
“Elsen can’t even walk without pain.” Norian’s voice trembled. “Riding is torment to him. Why would he do such a thing?”
“I have an idea about that, my lady,” Hildreth said. “Andry has left Goddess Keep. Without him—“
“Gone? But why? Where?” Alasen exclaimed.
“Only he knows—as ever.” Hildreth shrugged. “But without him, the ros’salath probably isn’t as effective. It’s my thought that they want more substantial protection than the walls.”
“So they sent to Summer River and told my crippled brother to lead an army?” Norian’s voice rose, and the baby woke with a startled cry.
As Lisiel soothed him, Alasen said, “Your brother is an honorable man. If a summons came from Goddess Keep, he’d respond as duty compels him to do.”
“But why didn’t Father stop him? And why couldn’t the Sunrunners find someone else to do their fighting for them? Damn them! If anything happens to him—“ She started for the door. “I’m going to tell Edrel. I don’t care about Miyon. The rest of you can watch him or send him away or kill him, it’s all the same to me. We’re leaving Dragon’s Rest as soon as we can.”
The baby wept in earnest when she slammed the door behind her. Hildreth shook her head. “What can Torien be thinking, to ask a cripple to defend him?”
“We must assume that the cruelty of it isn’t part of his thinking,” Alasen said bitterly. “But it’s also stupid. He exposes his own weakness by calling for help. He’s practically inviting them to attack. I’ll wager Andry knows nothing of this—and would forbid it if he did.”
“I’d like to find him and tell him,” Hildreth muttered.
“So would I,” Alasen agreed, surprising herself. “Hildreth, answer me honestly. If Edrel leaves, can Miyon be kept in line?”
“He’s really not much of a danger, my lady. He’s got few troops of his own and no means of communicating with anyone to get more.”
“Not on sunlight. Has he sent any messengers anywhere?”
“None that we’ve heard about—and we would have. There aren’t so many people at Dragon’s Rest these days that much can be done in secret except talk. And that won’t gain him any help.”
“There’s none to be had,” Alasen said with a sudden smile. “The Merida were stopped in the north, and the Vellant’im ran away south from Swalekeep.”
“He’s trapped into behaving himself, isn’t he? What a lovely thought!”
“Isn’t it? All right. Edrel can leave with a clean conscience, then. Draza and I will start for Feruche the day after tomorrow.”
Hildreth gave an exaggerated shudder. “I don’t know how you do it. The two days through Dragon Gap to Stronghold always left me exhausted, even when I was closer to your age.”
“You did a lifetime’s worth of traveling when you were riding the southern princedoms for Lady Andrade.”
“Possibly. But if you’re not careful, you may catch up to me in measures spent in the saddle, my lady. To better effect, I hope.”
*
“We must keep holy silence,” the priest warned as they hobbled their horses—as if the High Warlord were given to idle prating, or did not know the significance of Rivenrock Canyon. But because they were alone, with no one to overhear the insolence, he merely nodded acquiescence.
It was a place too sacred for the common soldiers to walk. The two men approached alone, and on foot.
The horses had grown more and more restive as they neared the canyon, nostrils flaring, ears laid back. Now, standing below the great upthrust spire of rock that guarded the entrance, the High Warlord understood why. The smell of dragons was very strong here.
It didn’t do much for his own nose, either. An irreverent thought, not permissible in holy precincts. He tried to bear in mind the importance of this place, if not to him, then certainly to the priest and all other Vellant’im.
Here, dragons found rebirth in Fire. Here the sires mated their females, and the females died—only to rise up again as not one dragon but many, breathing Fire.
The Book of Dragons found partially burned at Rema-gev had confirmed this, and all else that the Vellant’im had ever believed. The ecstasy of it, of legends made real and of actually walking across dragon sands, transformed the priest’s face as they passed the sentinel rock. He had worn the same expression when the translation had arrived from Radzyn yesterday.
The High Warlord was annoyed by it, even though it strengthened his warriors’ resolve. His unease came from the priest’s new authority. Nothing to challenge his own, of course. But he firmly believed that faith should come from belief in the impossible, not proof of the improbable. Faith should not question. It should be pure, uncomplicated, and absolutely obedient. Once men looked for its foundation in fact, they began to demand fact before they would believe—and reasons before they would obey.
This was not the path to discipline. The priest was too stupid to understand this. He saw only that everything he believed was written in a book, and carved now in stone around him.
The High Warlord’s own mistake, of course. He had underestimated the power of the written word. Black squiggles on smoke-damaged parchment were meaningless in and of themselves to the illiterate bulk of the army. Yet when rendered from the barbarian language and read aloud by the priest (at night, when campfires burned like dragon wings in the mind), the men said that it was no wonder the Azhrei had tried to keep these truths secret by burning the book. And every eye turned to the priest. Not to the High Warlord.
Discipline, he thought, and: Obedience. He had united the fractious clans into an army, brought them across the vastness of the sea to make righteous war on their real enemies. He had done it with the power his grandfather had built and his father had taught him how to use. More, he had done it with the strength of his own brain and belly. The warriors of fifty antagonistic clans would follow him, and him alone.
But the obedience he received was not entirely of his own making, and the righteousness was not his at all. And the priests knew it.
The one beside him now stood staring from wall to wall of the canyon, his mouth opening a hole in his beard. He looked as if he’d been given a glimpse of the Storm God himself, all cloaked in clouds and crowned in lightning.
Another irreverent thought. Discipline, he told himself with wry irony, and gestured to a path up the canyon wall.
They climbed to one of the caves. Neither went inside. It was enough for the priest to know what lay within as told by the legends and confirmed by the book. The High Warlord was tempted, but he had thought it through on the ride here. Faith that had found its factual source was dangerous enough; if anything was found that did not match legend to reality, he would be in trouble. His own faith had nothing to do with priests or dragons or even the Father of Storms. He believed in himself and his vengeance.
But the belief of others gave him righteousness, and that extra portion of obedience, and so he would risk nothing that might threaten that belief.
The priest’s lips were moving in a soundless invocation. The High Warlord waited it out. When it was done, he led the way back down the path. At the guardian spire, he paused to contemplate the canyon. A place of violence and power, of death and rebirth. He could imagine what it must be like in the Spring of a Dragon Year. It was said that the old Azhrei, Rohan’s father, had died here at the mouth of Rivenrock, gored by a dragon. And then Rohan had returned to kill the dragon that had killed his father—and on the very same day had seen her for the first time.
But her Fire no longer burned.
He swung around suddenly, hearing hoofbeats at the gallop. Nothing short of imminent attack should have brought anyone to him here. But the rider was not one of his own.
The priest blurted in surprise and anger—and fear, as he took a step back to hide behind the High Warlord. The horse was tall, deep-chested, a prime Radzyn stallion that filled the heart to see even when ridden by an enemy. The man was swinging a large leather sack over his head, and suddenly gave a tremendous bellow that echoed through Rivenrock Canyon.
“Azhrei!”
The satchel was let fly, and rolled to the ground right at the High Warlord’s feet.
He had to admire the precision of the throw, and the delicacy that disguised strength as the horse stopped, pivoted on its hind legs, and galloped off again. By the Father’s Beard, these people could ride.
The priest had recovered his courage. He bent and with shaking hands undid the thongs tying the sack closed. A head rolled out onto the sand.
“May he find Hell in his own house!” the priest exclaimed. “He has killed a Brother of the Sacred Glass!”
The High Warlord glanced down, distracted from the rider’s flight into the hills. The chin-scar, the beads, the beard—it was not a Vellanti face, but after so many polluted generations it could not be expected to be.
“The Azhrei has killed a servant of the Storm God!” the priest went on, straightening to his full height. “We march on Feruche tonight!”
“I think not.”
“We must!” the priest cried.
The High Warlord shook his head. “We must wait, and do all as planned.”
“But this is an outrage! From times past the beginning of time the Brothers of the Sacred Glass have been the chosen ones of God!”
No, he did not say, they were the chosen of the priests, to do the killings you soft-handed cowards have no stomach for.
The priest was ranting—practice, no doubt, for later on in front of the army. “To touch them is a sin! To obstruct them in their holy work is a sin! To protest their purpose or their deeds is a sin! But to kill one—“
“Payment will be exacted. But we are not yet ready. The vision is not yet complete.”
“This ‘vision’ did not show us the losses at Swalekeep and at Goddess Keep and—“
The High Warlord eyed him calmly. “With respect, if you will recall, Goddess Keep was the demand of you and your brethen. And Swalekeep was never essential. None of these places are.”
“Every death, every stone taken from stone in their accursed castles, every cottage burned is a victory!”
“Yes. But we will wait, just the same, and act as we must at the proper time.”
“This cannot wait, not any longer! They have butchered a Brother of the Sacred Glass! I demand that you order Feruche taken and the Azhrei killed for his sin!”
“We will take Feruche when we are ready. And the Azhrei will die all the more slowly for adding this sin to all the others.” He caught and held the priest’s gaze. “I have said it. And so it shall be done.”
*
And so it was not done. He knew it would happen, had known it from the instant the priest questioned the vision. Fact was dangerous to faith. Better that those who believed more in the priest than in him should go. Those who remained would be his entirely, and those who left ... well, he would soon enough replace them.
So when ten clanmasters—each hating the others and determined to prove that his faith was stronger than the next man’s—followed the priest that night from the camp outside Stronghold, the High Warlord did nothing. And all he said was, “We all must act as we have faith in our actions.”
He had to let them go, or deal with an army at odds with itself. He had to let them go, or see rebuke in the priest’s eyes and torn loyalty in the eyes of his warriors. His power against my power—and mine must be the stronger. All the discipline and all the obedience must be mine.
It was a terrible risk. If they won Feruche, he would have to die. Death didn’t concern him overmuch, but the manner of it did. If the priest was right and it was time for the battle they had come for, then he would die by a priest’s hand. Not a warrior’s. A priest’s soft, clean, craven hand.
But they would not win. He knew his enemy. The young Azhrei was less cunning and more vicious than the old. He would descend on the priest’s army with everything he had. And he would win.
Still, the Azhrei would win only a little, and only for that day. He would lose soldiers, which suited the High Warlord very well. Those of his own who came scuttling back would know that his was the true righteousness.
And with a little luck, even considering the powerful urge for self-preservation that seemed inherent in his kind, maybe the priest wouldn’t come back at all.