Haven: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Four (28 page)

The other rider was Jaryd, who chased the remaining two as they rode straight past Sofy, slashing one who was too slow. That man hit the mud ten paces from her, head-first and neck snapping.

“Sofy!” Jaryd yelled at her, and pointed upriver as he wheeled back. “That way, there's a boat!”

She looked, and sure enough a longboat had pulled into the shallows, surrounded by refugees. Jaryd turned back as more Elissian riders came at him…he didn't have time to pick her up. She had to run. The pain of exhaustion was worse than anything she'd ever felt. But so was the fear.

Sofy threw herself into a feet-first slide down the embankment, and hit the water with a splash. She struggled up, regathering the child with stiffening arms, and ran on. The water here was shallow. But the Elissians, previously below her in the water, were now behind.

Even as she threw a look over her shoulder, she could see them coming. There were two on horseback. Another few strides and they'd run her down.

A horse and rider appeared on the lip above, and simply fell off the edge. Jaryd, Sofy realised in midplunge. The horse hit the leading Elissian horse right across the saddle, crushing it and rider into the riverbank. Jaryd fell in the tangle, disappearing under rolling horses.

“Jaryd!” Sofy screamed, and turned back. He fought clear of fallen horses as they struggled to rise, one with a broken leg and thrashing. The second Elissian circled into deeper water, but the thrashing horse connected with his own, which reared and panicked. The Elissian fell with a splash, but came up just as fast.

Jaryd had lost his shield, and came at him in knee-deep water with a roar, but his leg was dragging. The Elissian survived his first two attacks with fast parries, then swung back. Jaryd ducked and drove forward, but his wounded leg was slowing him badly. The Elissian hit him with his shield, Jaryd grabbed his sword arm, and then they were both flailing and wrestling in the shallows.

For an instant they disappeared, then reappeared in a frenzy of splashing. The Elissian was on top, arm about Jaryd's neck in a grip he did not seem able to break. He was driven underwater as the Elissian fought for a knife to replace the sword he'd lost.

Sofy found herself running through the shallows. She did not recall putting the child down, nor pulling the almost forgotten knife from her belt, but as the Elissian drew his own blade she threw herself onto his back, put her knife beneath his chin, and cut as hard as she'd ever cut anything. Blood spurted, and he thrashed, throwing her off then landing on her. She kept stabbing and slicing as water filled her lungs, now frothing red and foul.

Then Jaryd was dragging her up and pulling her on along the bank. But his leg was slowing him, his limp severe. His own horse lay motionless, neck broken, the other still flailing with a snapped leg—they would have to run. Sofy thought Jaryd might drag her straight past where the child sat wailing in the shallows, but he picked up the boy without a word, his other arm about Sofy's shoulders as she supported him, and together they fought their way toward the boat.

“The Princess Regent!” Jaryd yelled as they approached the boat. Men were pushing it into the water, as still more people tried to surge aboard, nearly up to their shoulders now. Jaryd tried waving, and nearly fell as he abandoned Sofy's support. “The Princess Regent, hold the boat!”

Several cavalrymen were heroically holding the bank beneath the cover of arrows from this boat's stern and several other boats in deeper water, nearly overflowing with people, but holding position to provide cover with their archers. But even now, a cavalryman fell to an Elissian attack, and the remaining man looked to be overwhelmed.

Asym arrived with a yell, cut down one Elissian, collided with another's horse, and sent several more wheeling away. Arrows found one, and he reeled in the saddle with shafts through chest and thigh. Sofy could see Asym gesticulating at her and Jaryd to get aboard, but could not hear what he said.

Jaryd led them splashing into deeper water, as people trying to get aboard actually paused to help them, waving frantically at them to hurry. The water closed in, and the current was stronger than Sofy had expected. Screams came from the bank as blades clashed and horses thundered once more, and then Asym was down, tumbling down the embankment.

Jaryd reached the boat, thrust the child into waiting hands, then boosted Sofy clean out of the water. “Asym!” he yelled toward the bank. “Get your Isfayen backside out here!”

Asym was backing into the shallows, one arm dangling, the other holding his sword before him. Unable to urge horses down the treacherous embankment, Elissians dismounted and pursued on foot. The boat was not dislodged from the bank yet; if it were not shoved free, they would be stuck here at the mercy of the Elissians. Even now, more of them were arriving.

“Jaryd!” Sofy shouted, leaning back out of the boat to grab at his arm. “Jaryd, you have to get in!”

“Asym!”

The Isfayen threw them a look over his shoulder through wet black hair, and smirked. An Elissian came at him in the shallows, and one-handed Asym swayed aside an attack, and hacked through the other man's shoulder. Another came, exchanging blows, then fell in a spray of blood and teeth as Asym cut through his face. He roared something in Telochi, hammering his hilt to his chest, and dared the other Elissians to come and die.

Jaryd watched silently. Then he turned and, without any assistance, clambered aboard. Men in the shallows kept pushing, dislodging the boat bit by bit as its vastly increased weight pressed it down. Squeezed against one wooden side, Sofy and Jaryd watched as Asym killed two more Elissians, then another. Many more stood back in fear, and stared at the bodies floating about Asym's legs, and the blood that turned the water bright red. Lightning flashed, glinting off Asym's blade as he pointed it to the sky, and challenged his enemies once more.

Upon the embankment, an Elissian emerged with a loaded crossbow. Asym laughed at him, and yelled abuse. In there somewhere, Sofy was certain, was the Telochi word for “coward.” The man with the crossbow aimed, and Asym spread his arms toward him.

Sofy closed her eyes.

Then they were moving out into the current. She was shivering in the pouring rain, and Jaryd's arms were about her. She heard him murmuring something, but did not understand the words. It sounded like a Goeren-yai chant, a call to the spirits to come and claim their fellow hunter. Jaryd's face, white with pain, bore no tears, only pride for his friend.

Sofy buried her head against his shoulder, and waited for Saalshen to arrive.

Sasha left Father Belgride's temple along a series of rear plankways upon the shore of Lake Andal. Rhillian and Aisha were with her, the three women keeping their feet dry past the walls of lakefront buildings, and across the rampways and piers to which boats were tethered.

Above pointed rooftops the sky was bright and blue, though the altitude made the air only warm rather than hot. As the road turned, mountains appeared in the gaps between buildings. The peaks had Andal and its lake surrounded, happy prisoners of a beautiful land.

People were plentiful on the streets, neatly dressed and handsome, as it seemed in all of Ilduur. There were more blond people here than Sasha had ever seen before, and Aisha assured her it had been so long before the arrival of serrin. They went about their daily business unarmed and carefree. To walk amongst them, Sasha wondered if they'd even heard that there was a war. Yet for all there was to like about the picturesque surroundings, the mood on the streets was of nervous tension.

Sasha had her own discomfort. To fit in with the local folk, the women had to dress like them. That meant dresses. They were neat and simple, of pleated dark cloth and white blouses with loose sleeves and tight cuffs. Sasha would much rather have walked the streets naked. Without her sword, that was how she felt anyway.

Rhillian knocked Sasha's hand down as she tugged in frustration at one hip as they walked. Rhillian, of course, made her dress look wonderful. She'd even braided her hair into twin tails like the local women, that odd diagonal cut finally dressed straight, and her white hair was similar enough to the frequent blond that she did not stand out here as much as she had in other cities. Her eyes, though, and that fine, angled cut of jaw and cheeks, could not be disguised. She wore the red brooch of an eight-pointed Verenthane star upon her breast, as did Aisha, who might have passed for straight human had she tried. But Father Belgride had insisted that it was not worth the risk. The star was a sign that a priest had vouched for a serrin, knew personally of his or her family, and their origins in Ilduur over many years. It signified that a serrin was a local Ilduuri, and not a foreigner. Without the brooch, it would not be safe for any serrin or part-serrin to walk in public.

Even so, they had barely walked three full blocks before someone spat on them.

“Sasha, don't glare,” Rhillian said calmly, wiping the offence from her sleeve with a handkerchief she'd brought for the purpose. “Don't Lenays say you should not pick a fight you can't finish?”

“I'm remembering faces,” Sasha muttered. The offender was a portly lady, whose pleasant features were contorted with disgust at the sight of one serrin, one half-serrin, and their human friend.

“Don't be concerned for us, Sasha,” Aisha reassured her quietly. “We have more important matters afoot than dignity.”

“There
is
nothing more important,” Sasha seethed. “A people without dignity and honour deserve to be left to die.”

“You sound like Kiel,” said Rhillian. They spoke Saalsi, which though foreign, was common enough amongst Ilduuri serrin, and even some Ilduuri humans.

Sasha also wore a hat, broad-brimmed yet stylish enough for Andal's ladies, to hide her tri-braid, and the unfashionably short cut of her hair.

Their first stop was a market stall, which thrived upon a courtyard overlooking Lake Andal. They shopped to fill the baskets they'd brought, purchasing from several stalls to avoid suspicion, then stopping for a lingering chat with a particular fruit seller Father Belgride had recommended to them. The moustachioed man made an effort not to seem too friendly, but his eyes twinkled at them as he talked, before darting about the market to see who was looking. Sasha did not understand a word, but Aisha was fluent, and Rhillian somewhat, and both seemed to like him instantly.

“Poor fellow,” Aisha explained to Sasha as they walked on. “His son has an affliction: strange fits and seizures. Serrin treatments help, but now the Stamentaast have stopped his serrin healer from treating non-serrin Ilduuri. His son's condition grows worse, and many of the healer's patients have appealed to the Remischtuul directly, but nothing happens.”

“So many cowards,” said Sasha. “I'll bet many of them feel as he does, and if they all spoke out together, their voice would be powerful. But their fear keeps them divided and weak.”

“Most Ilduuri are not warriors,” Aisha cautioned. “They have the Steel, but ordinary folk are not armed as Lenays are. Speaking out is dangerous for such people.”

“Sheep,” said Sasha, fingering the knife she'd strapped to her thigh beneath the dress. “If not a shepherd then always a sheep, that is the way of it.”

Several passersby said rude things to them in Ilduuri that Aisha did not translate. Most of them seemed more angry at Sasha than the serrin. To be friends with the foreigner, it seemed, was worse than being the foreigner.

Then came a pair of Stamentaast, in green vests with swords at their belts. They stopped the women, and asked questions, but Sasha was not particularly alarmed—it had happened many times in the past few days. Aisha did most of the talking, and Rhillian gave curt, short answers, and her accent was good enough that the two men did not seem to suspect her. Sasha they did not bother to question. She was human, and they assumed her an angry local who did not like Stamentaast. That was common enough, and not punishable. Or not yet.

“It's insane,” Sasha muttered as they were allowed to move on. “Serrin made this place so wealthy. Now being serrin is nearly a crime.”

“Not as much of a crime as being Lenay,” Rhillian cautioned. “Serrin have many friends and ties to the population. Of us three, if they knew our true identities, it would be you in worst danger.”

“Even with a knife I'd take a half-dozen with me,” Sasha snorted.

In the next square, they found a different scene. Two men were hanging by the neck from a pole and gantry. A town crier stood beneath them and shouted to the passing crowd, some of whom regarded the hanged men with curiosity, some with contempt, and others with fear.

“He says that these two men were guilty of conspiring with foreigners to force Ilduur into a foreign war,” Aisha translated as they walked on. “He says to be wary of all who would force the peaceful people of Ilduur into terrible conflicts that shall bring them only suffering and death.”

“Who could possibly imagine that such conspirators exist,” Rhillian said mildly. “Honestly, the paranoia of these people.”

Sasha left Rhillian and Aisha at their meeting with senior Ilduuri serrin. She did not want to sit in their furtive gatherings and listen to their puzzled questions and fearful astonishment that the lovely country that had been their home for so long could turn on them so suddenly. Sasha could defend many of humanity's faces from serrin question, but she could not defend this. This was inexcusable.

She seethed on it as she walked back to Father Belgride's lakeside temple. It wasn't as though the Ilduuri even had the excuse of religious stupidity. Indeed, the priests here were amongst the loudest in calling for the Steel to march, to save their brothers to the north. The Ilduuri priesthood had gained a measure of independence from Petrodor and Sherdaine over the last two centuries, and had grown to enjoy it. The faith had moved on, to become inclusive and philosophical in a way that the haters and howlers of the Regent's army would never understand. Father Belgride sheltered serrin families whose houses had been burned, and took great personal risks to assist those who opposed the Remischtuul. But the hold of the priesthood over the minds of ordinary Ilduuri was limited.