Battle: The House War: Book Five (42 page)

She was certain, from the sound the blade made, that the edge would be notched.

“Avandar—”

No, Jewel.

Do you even know what it
is?

Yes. You have given them weapons that can harm the firstborn, but the weapons do not make the men. Watch and wait.

She inhaled.
I will never forgive you if they die.

No, you won’t. I clearly have more confidence in your Chosen than you do. It is a confidence that you
must
build. They serve as your shield and your sword, but neither of these are meant to be toys or children’s tools. If you
will not
trust them, you must let them go.

I
trust
them.

You trust them not to harm you, yes. You trust them to obey you, yes. Neither will serve in this case. You trust me to deal with this creature. You did not blink when Meralonne chose to ride the wild wind into these foreign skies. You are not concerned for the fate of Shadow. But you are terrified for your Chosen.

They’re just
men
. They’re not like you or Meralonne; they’re not like Shadow—

They are like, very like, you yourself. You trust yourself.

I—
she lost the words as the creature’s tail suddenly shot to the left, moving independently of the long reach of its claws. Armor buckled as it struck; she thought she heard ribs crack. She certainly saw blood as it trailed, suddenly, from Gordon’s lips.

Avandar caught her arm.
Your presence will not help them. Your death is the
only
thing they truly fear.

Gordon remained on his feet; the Chosen used the creature’s overextension to land two solid blows. The first bounced, with the sword-notching resonance she’d heard when Torvan struck the creature’s arm; the second, however, landed. The creature’s thighs were not armored in the same way its arm appeared to be.

She held her breath, but she remained at Avandar’s side, the whole of her attention on the Chosen; because it was, she was unprepared when Angel darted into the fray.

* * *

Swords didn’t have the necessary reach. Angel, no master of the sword, could see this clearly; he could also see that the Chosen weren’t armed with anything else. They wore the polished breastplates their duty as functional honor guards demanded, but they carried neither ranged weapons nor weapons that would give them the greater reach.

He could see the powerful muscles that underlay the creature’s wings, because the creature kept them high enough they could be used as blunt weapons should the Chosen come too close. They also kept the creature airborne in staggered intervals; its leaps weren’t dictated by simple gravity. Angel didn’t carry a sword; given the Chosen, it wasn’t normally necessary or desired.

He didn’t need one. Glancing down the wall, where weapons—not paintings or tapestry—adorned solid stone, he sprinted to the right; in the center of the wall were pole arms. Angel had no training with edged pole arms, but one of these, crossed over a halberd, was a spear. Its head was long and tapered, widest at midpoint; it had two wide lugs at the base of the head, each tapering to points that bent up, in the direction of the blade.

Reaching, he pulled it down off the wall, expecting the weapon with which it was crossed to tumble after it; it didn’t. The pole of the spear was thick and solid, but the spear itself wasn’t as heavy as he’d expected it to be. He wondered if it were meant to be decorative; the spearhead looked solid—but at this weight?

He turned, the question unanswered because it didn’t matter. This was what he had. In the time it had taken to run to the weapon, pull it down, and turn back, two of the Chosen had taken injuries grave enough they were lagging; they hadn’t fallen, but their place in formation was weak. The winged creature continued its up and down flight; it moved fast, striking and leaping back, where its wings buoyed it, lending its jump both height and distance.

Angel didn’t join the Chosen; no point. They had the creature’s attention, and he wanted them to keep it for a few minutes longer. He came round the back, moving as silently as a man his height could. He’d learned that, in the holdings. This room and those streets had nothing in common.

Nothing but Jay, who stood and watched, Avandar’s hand on her right arm holding her back. Angel was grateful for the domicis; none of the den would have dared. He watched, waiting for the creature to strike—there—and retreat, leaping, wings spread, back toward the windows. Its voice was a hiss, a garbled series of syllables that almost implied speech, but never quite attained it.

Its wing tips grazed ceiling as it lunged, bringing itself as close to ground as it ever reached. It protected its bleeding thigh, attacking the two men it had already injured. Angel saw the beginning of its ascent, its positioning, and he ran, past Jay, past Avandar, out of reach of the direct light that streamed in through the windows so harshly.

He didn’t brace himself; he didn’t stop. He had seconds before the creature once again leaped out of the range of the spear he carried. Wings were high; if the creature turned, Angel thought they had a good chance of snapping the spear’s haft, they were that powerful. He wore no armor; he had a freedom of movement the Chosen didn’t.

He was also vulnerable in ways they weren’t.

There. The creature’s wings snapped open as it slashed with its claws. Angel leaped seconds before the creature did. The spearhead pierced the flesh between its shoulders; whatever armored its forearms didn’t protect the flesh between those wings. Angel tightened his grip on the haft of the spear as the creature screeched and attempted to wheel; the jagged edge of the weapon’s bladed tip cut a rent in its back as it slid off the spear. It was the first significant wound the creature had taken, and in turning to face Angel, it exposed its back to the Chosen.

Angel raised the spear and kept it between himself and his opponent; Torvan and Marave closed immediately from behind, taking care to avoid the wide, powerful sweep of its wings. Marave was driven back; Torvan managed to duck under the range of the wings, and his sword bit far deeper than Angel’s spear had, although he was struck to the side by the creature’s tail.

There was no decisive blow. Angel’s was not; Torvan’s was not. But the cumulative effect of the concerted attacks slowed the creature enough that the fight became a combat of attrition.

* * *

Avandar released Jewel’s arm. She was silent as she watched. Demons didn’t
bleed
the way this creature did, and if they roared, it was in anger, not pain. They offered words—often insults—in place of syllabic animal sounds, and the grandeur of their presence was not based on sheer physical strength. They also tended to dissolve into a fine layer of ash when they at last collapsed.

This creature did not; it was reduced, slowly, to a slashed, bloodied corpse, and the reduction seemed to go on forever.

Yes
, Avandar said.
This is death. It is ugly and visceral, and you will see it time and again in the coming years. But it is the death the Chosen would have faced if they had fallen. There is no pity or mercy in a predator; they are driven, always, by the need for sustenance.

Thank you,
she replied,
for the lecture.

You do not kill your own food. You do not kill your own criminals; they are executed, as if execution were the end of a ritual. But some of your Chosen have seen war, and the rules of the battlefield are different.

The Kings’ Laws—

Do not be naive, Jewel. Yes, the Kings’ Laws govern some part of the armies—but not during battles. After the fact, perhaps—but even then, the rules are judiciously applied, and a blind eye equally judiciously turned. Laws exist because men accept them; where men choose not to accept them, such laws become no more than theory. Here, the only law is survival.

It is
not.

When they fight, Jewel, it is.

She had seen battle, in the South. She had seen the village of Damar, under siege by elemental water and demon, both. She knew what battle looked like. She had seen the foyer of her own manse destroyed, and she had seen the bodies of the fallen House Guard and Chosen, the bodies of their nameless enemies.

It is not different?

It was. He knew it. What she couldn’t say, as silence returned to the chamber, was why.

It is your home, now; it bears the whole of your name, or you bear the whole of it. When war comes to your home, it is always more personal. You travel to war, and you maintain the illusion that the life you left behind is safe.

The Terafin died.

He nodded.

“Captain,” she said.

Torvan saluted.

“Take Gordon and Marave to the infirmary.”

He glanced at the Chosen and nodded. They left. He remained. It was not quite insubordination, and Jewel accepted it. She turned, once again, toward the open skies; Meralonne stood in midair alone, gazing down upon the valley. If something had fallen from the skies to the distant earth beneath his feet, it was invisible. She couldn’t see Shadow. But Avandar was right; she felt no visceral fear
for
the cat, although echoes of her reaction on the night the manse had altered were still present.

She turned, last, to look at Angel. He was not one of the Chosen. He followed no strict chain of command. She could give him orders—and had, in the past—but they were orders demanded by the events of the moment; they were hardly premeditated. She wanted to tell him
I never want to see you do that again
.

What came out instead was, “Nice spear.”

He glanced up at its head. “It’s technically yours. I pulled it down from the wall.”

“You probably want to clean it before you put it back.” Turning to the window, she raised her voice. “Meralonne! If you’re finished there?”

He wheeled, a lazy, graceful motion, and then drifted toward the window as if the whole of his weight were insubstantial. Wind caught his hair, and light brightened it; his eyes were silver, his skin almost white. She could not imagine this man smoking a pipe which would have met with her Oma’s approval. But he had.

He landed ten feet from where she stood, shadowed by Avandar.

“Shadow?”

“He will return on his own. Or not. He is not mine,” Meralonne added, lifting a brow. “I would not own a creature who paid so little heed to my commands.” His hair settled down his back as the breeze left the room, but his eyes remained bright and a little too sharp. He glanced at the corpse. “They will need to learn basic anatomy,” he said. He turned toward Angel and stilled.

C
hapter Thirteen

‘‘Y
OU WERE NOT ARMED when you entered this chamber,” the mage said softly.

“No.”

“And you simply chose a weapon with which to enter the fray?”

“I chose a weapon with greater reach than a sword, yes. No one else was using it, and it wasn’t doing much good as a substitute painting.”

At that, the mage smiled. “No, I imagine it wasn’t. It is, if I am not mistaken, an interesting choice. Will you leave it here?”

Angel nodded. “Are we likely to see more of these creatures soon?”

“If by that, you mean, are they likely to attack you in the library? No; I think it very, very unlikely. But this room does not exist in quite the same place, and yes, it is entirely probable. They will not attack unless provoked.”

Jewel grimaced. “I’ll have a word with Shadow—if he gets back.”

“I
heard
that.” Of course he had. Shadow was perched—precariously, given his size—in the window. He leaped to the ground, and curled himself around Jewel. “Wait,
why
is he holding
that
?”

“It fell off the wall.”

Shadow hissed. “Well,
tell him
to put it
back
.”

Angel’s eyes narrowed. He gestured in brief den-sign. Jewel laughed, and got a nose full of Shadow’s tail in response.

“But—clean it first?”

Meralonne, however, said, “The blade does not need cleaning, as you can see. Where did you retrieve it from, Angel?”

Angel turned. “There,” he said.

But Jewel already understood why Meralonne had asked. “Is this ever going to stop?” she asked softly. There was no empty space on the wall; the wall was still fully adorned with weapons of various descriptions.

Angel headed toward the wall, carrying the spear.

Avandar, watching, said, “I do not believe your Angel will find a mount on the wall for that spear.”

“Do you recognize it?” she asked.

“The spear? No, not as such. Illaraphaniel?”

Meralonne, however, was watching Angel, a strange smile at play around his lips. “Yes,” he said softly, “I believe I do. Did he truly just grab a random long weapon from the wall?”

“The wall he was standing closest to, yes.”

“I suggest that, as Terafin is already accustomed to the unusual sight of Rendish hair, they might accept an equally unusual weapon.”

“Terafin will. I imagine the Kings—and any of the rest of The Ten—won’t, if he’s out in public. It’s not going to hurt him, is it?”

“It will cause him far less harm than those against whom it is wielded. Did you watch him fight?”

She nodded.

“Did anything strike you as unusual?”

“Besides the shrieking, half-armored winged creature that flew through the window?”

“Besides that, yes.”

“No. I didn’t expect to see him leap into the fight . . . but no. He stayed at the reach of the spear, and he never tried anything beyond pointing, stabbing, and getting out of the way.”

“You noticed nothing unusual—at all—about the weapon or its blade?”

“Nothing. Nothing besides the fact that it cut through part of the creature’s spine.” She turned to Shadow. “Now you can go join your brothers.”

* * *

Angel found no place to put the spear. He walked up and down the length of the wall three times, stopping at the spot where he was certain he’d jumped to grab it; there was no empty space where it might have been. “This would be a damn impressive armory,” he said. “It replenishes itself.”

He put the spear up, letting most of its weight rest against the flat stone.

“No armor,” Jay said, approaching him. Shadow came with her; he took a swipe at the spear. Angel moved it before his claws connected. Jay clamped a hand on the gray cat’s head.

“Oh,
fine
.”

“You don’t like the spear?” Angel asked. It was possibly the best reason offered to keep it.

“I don’t
need
a spear.”

“You don’t need to play with a spear, either,” Jay told him. “We need to head back to Teller so I can find out just how bad my day is going to be.”

“And the spear?”

She hesitated; he marked it. “It’s up to you.”

“If it were you holding the spear?”

“Unless it belonged to an ancient ancestor—or my Oma—I’d hide it under the table and pretend I’d never touched it.”

He laughed, and she signed,
I’m serious
.

* * *

She returned to the right-kin’s office by way of the healerie. It was not generally considered the most direct route there, but Jewel wanted to check in on the Chosen before she spoke with Teller. Daine and his two assistants were in the infirmary, and she left Torvan outside of the healerie doors. If Alowan was gone—and he so undeniably was, it was still difficult to cross the threshold without a sense of mourning—Daine had happily adapted to the rules by which the healerie had been run under his command. Weapons were not allowed in the healerie.

The Chosen did not disarm themselves when in the presence of The Terafin.

Angel, who was perfectly happy to disarm himself gave the wooden box on the wall a very dubious glance; it was meant for daggers and short weapons. It had no room for long swords and it certainly wasn’t meant for pole arms.

Leave it
? He gestured at Jewel.

No.

She left him in the hall beside Torvan and the three Chosen who had come to replace those he’d ordered to the healerie. As Avandar and Meralonne were by her side, the Chosen were willing to remain there. It was, however, grudging. Jewel well understood why, but could not bring herself to order Daine to abandon Alowan’s rules.

He was waiting for her when she made her way around the fountain in the arboretum.

“Gordon?” she asked, without preamble.

“Three broken ribs, a lot of bruising.”

“Did he—”

“Two ribs pierced lung, but only one lung. He accepted my aid.”

She swallowed and nodded. “When will he be ready to return to active duty?”

“If you accept his own medical estimation, now.”

She smiled. “I will accept the estimate given me by his healer.”

“In two days.”

“Is it safe for you to have him here?”

“Yes. He wasn’t in any immediate danger. If you could have his captain threaten to demote him if he doesn’t sit still, though, you’d have my gratitude.”

She laughed. Shadow, who had been expressly forbidden to come within six inches of anything green and growing in the healerie, nudged Daine. It was, given the way Daine staggered, like being gently nudged by a battering ram. Daine, like the rest of the den, had grown accustomed to the cats’ demands for due deference. He dropped a hand to the cat’s gray fur.

“Torvan won’t enter the healerie without his sword; he’s on duty.”

“A pity, then.” Daine smiled. His smile surprised her; it was solid, the edges slightly hard. The healerie
was
Daine’s, now. He was ten years her junior, but he had chosen his domain. Its rules and customs had been handed down by Alowan, a man beloved by almost everyone except the Chosen, and he had accepted their weight.

She saw, now, that it wasn’t just acceptance. Those rules and those customs were home to Daine, just as the Terafin laws were at the core of Jewel, although she had had no hand in their creation. “Will you,” she asked him softly, “accept the House Name? It is mine to offer, now.” Amarais had not, in part for Daine’s safety.

In part, Jewel realized, with a pang, for this moment. Amarais was not seer-born, not talent-born, but she understood the human heart, even if her entire life had necessitated that she hide her own.

“What answer do you think I should give you?”

“Yes.”

“What answer do you think I will?”

“You will give me Alowan’s answer.”

Daine nodded. “I didn’t understand it when I first met Alowan. I understand it, now. Alowan was The Terafin’s, Jay. He was hers. He served her. But he served her entirely within his own paradigm as healer. He was not without temper. He was not without steel. He served Terafin because he chose to offer her the support he could, but he was not
of
Terafin.”

“And you?”

“I know what some of Terafin is,” he replied, his expression darkening. “But I know what
The
Terafin stands for. I’m not Alowan.”

“No.”

“But I hope, in time, to be like him. And no, that’s not why I won’t use the House Name. I know you; you won’t order me to do anything that would damage the healerie, or myself. But . . . I am not Terafin. I am healer-born. I never understood why Angel refused the House Name.”

“You understand now.”

“Yes. I even feel guilty for thinking of him as an idiot.”

“
I
don’t,” Shadow interjected.

They both ignored him. As long as Daine was actively scratching behind his ears, he was likely to let them continue. “Levec would be happier if you left this place.”

“No, he wouldn’t. He doesn’t even believe he would be, anymore. I’m not trapped in Terafin; I’m not a prisoner. He believes everyone who isn’t healer-born is a threat to those who are—but he understands the ways in which the healed and the healer-born are tied. What I now want to build, I can’t build in the Houses of Healing. If, however, I allow myself to be assassinated, he’s going to hold a grudge against you forever.”

“If only that long. I’ll leave you with Gordon. If you’d like,
I
can tell him he’ll be demoted.”

“That, in my opinion, would not help. It would be effective . . . but no.”

“Marave?”

“Her injuries were superficial enough that I saw no need to detain her. Gordon was not impressed.” He hesitated. “Jay.”

She waited.

“The House Name isn’t about the House. It’s about me. I know its value. I know what it means to walk the city streets as ATerafin. I know what men—and women—believe themselves willing to do to gain it. Some of me wants it as well. And this is how I’ll know where my priorities are. It’s a check.”

Daine was not, and would never be, Alowan. For just this moment, though, she loved him as if he were.

* * *

Angel was still waiting, spear conspicuous against the wall, when she emerged.

“Go back to the West Wing,” she told him softly.

“I don’t—”

“I’m going to talk to Teller. And Barston. I have no prior appointments for the rest of the day, and if I’m lucky, I won’t have to look at Duvari. If I’m unlucky,” she continued, as he lifted his spear, “and I expect that, given my day, I’ll be mired in appointment making and veiled or not-so-veiled threats, none of which will come to fruition now.

“Go back to the Wing and tell the others what happened.”

* * *

When she arrived in the right-kin’s office, Barston had the expression of a man under siege, although the office was almost empty. He rose the minute she stepped across the threshold and tendered her a perfect bow. It was one of the few ways in which he expressed annoyance. Barston did not stoop to obvious incivility where relative rank demanded none; he merely sharpened every polite gesture in his arsenal.

Given he was Barston, that arsenal included obeisances that probably hadn’t been used at Court for two centuries.

“Is it very bad?” she asked when he rose.

“Teller has granted the Lord of the Compact an audience. They are in the right-kin’s office now.”

Duvari—and a woman Jewel didn’t immediately recognize—were waiting in Teller’s office. Teller was seated behind his desk. He rose when Jewel entered the room, and offered her a full bow. Carrying a large, crudely painted sign about the high levels of danger would probably have been a less effective warning.

Jewel, forewarned, nodded him back into his chair before she turned to face Duvari. “Lord of the Compact,” she said, inclining only her chin. She glanced at the woman.

“Terafin,” Duvari replied. “May I introduce Birgide Viranyi.” It was, in theory a question; it sounded like a command. The woman, however, now turned to Jewel, and offered her a full, flat-backed bow. She was about six inches taller than Jewel; her hair was cropped. She had two visible scars on her face, one along the line of her jaw and one just under her left ear. She was not particularly finely dressed, but of more relevance, she was not dressed as a member of the patriciate at all.

“You are a member of the
Astari
, Birgide?”

Birgide said nothing.

“She is,” Duvari replied. “That is not to be discussed outside of this office.”

“If she arrived with you, it will be.”

“It is not to be discussed by you or your right-kin outside of this office. As it happens, she did not arrive with me.”

Jewel turned to Teller. “Under what pretext was she granted an appointment?”

“. . . As a possible new member of the gardening staff.”