Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (104 page)

Margret was raised Voyani. No Voyani woman—no intelligent woman, period—walked fearlessly among so many armed clansmen. She knew she was not truly here, but she found herself holding her breath as she approached the small cluster of men who stood at the height of this hill. Grass, wildflowers, weeds, had been crushed by the heels of men too numerous to count.

But as she could, she ignored them, finding spaces between where they stood to pass through.

She came at last to the standard and paused beneath it. The sun ascendant.

It was not her symbol, but she bowed her head a moment before she passed beyond the ground it marked.

Five men cast their shadows against the bent grass; the feet of many cerdan had passed this way, but not enough to destroy what grew there. The Tyr'agnate stood, arms folded, expression sharp as a blade, and as giving. To his left stood an older man whom she did not recognize.

Age bowed some men, but some it merely hardened.

Again her mother's voice tickled her ear.
Ser Anton
, she whispered.

Ser Anton? Ser Anton di'Guivera?

Yes.

Ser Anton. The Tyr'agnate. And the man to his left? He was of an age with Ramiro di'Callesta, broader of shoulder and chest, and perhaps an inch or two shorter. His hair was dark. But he wore the crest of the Tyr'agar's armies.

Do you not recognize him, Margret?

No. She did, however, recognize the tone of the question. She was torn between annoyance and a crazy gratitude, for
this
was the mother she remembered so well.

Three Generals, she thought. Three men. But she could remember the name of only one: Alesso par di'Marente. And it was not for his prowess in war that she remembered him.

That man is Baredan kai di'Navarre. The Commander of the third army.

And why should she remember him?

He was friend to the Voyani, in his fashion.

The Arkosans? She thought she would know, if that were the case.

If we are to win the war, Margret, in the end there can only be Voyani. We must forgo the bitter rivalry that has always dogged the South, be it among the clans or our own people.

Margret laughed bitterly.
I have to stop the fighting? When you couldn't
?

The Matriarchs have always cooperated when it suited their purpose.

She started to answer, and then remembered the feel of the mask in her hand on the night of the Festival Moon. She bowed her head again.

Baredan di'Navarre
, she thought, inscribing the name in memory.

Who is the pale man, Mother?

That man? I do not know him
. He stood beside Baredan, but it was clear from the General's posture that they were not friends. And that left only one man.

The youngest by far.

She studied his face. It was slender with youth, and clean shaven, which was rare among men of the South. His eyes were wide, his lashes almost too long. His cheeks were high, and his pale skin was framed by dark hair loosely drawn back in a warrior's knot. He did not speak; the older men did. He listened, intent on their words.

He reminded her of someone in that moment, but she could not think who.

"Kai Leonne?" Ser Anton di'Guivera said.

Kai Leonne.
This
boy was the last of the Leonnes? The surcoat he wore was her answer, for it alone bore the full face of the ascendant sun. Slim shoulders to carry that weight, to bear that claim.

"I think it will be too costly," the boy said at last.

"For who?" The Tyr'agnate's words were clipped.

"For all of us. I understand your desire, Tyr'agnate, but in the end,
all
of these people will be mine, no matter whose banner they now stand beneath."

"The Callestans will willingly bear that cost."

"Will they?"

Ser Anton's expression grew still as the stone cenotaphs in the vaults of the Tors. But he did not speak.

The Tyr'agnate did. "Do you doubt the loyalty of my men?"

"Your men? No. They have chosen to bear their arms in your service, and they bear them proudly. But ask the serafs who toil in the valleys. On either side of this conflict."

She was stunned by the answer, by the enormity of the insult he offered the Tyr'agnate.

This
was the man to whom Diora would travel?

He will kill her
, she thought, too shocked to be angry.
He will kill them all
.

The Callestan Tyr was absolutely silent.

Remember, Margret
, Evallen said,
he was raised in the North
.

He cannot govern here
, Margret snapped.
He cannot hope to rule
.

No?

Mother…

Is that not what we hope to do in Arkosa? Look at him. Do you think he speaks in ignorance? Do you think he does not understand what he has said? See, his hand falls to his sword.

The gaze of the Tyr'agnate fell to the kai Leonne's sword as well.

"We will have justice, Ser Ramiro."

The Tyr'agnate did not speak.

"But let that justice be seen, let it be understood. Let it begin and end in such a way that it does not continue a war without end."

His voice was quiet. His words were sharp and clear.

The mists began to roll across the welltrod ground. Margret ground her teeth, but she did not fight; the men looked up, beyond her back. She heard the sound of cerdan approaching.

But it didn't matter. She knew who the kai Leonne reminded her of, and she took a bitter comfort from the knowledge.

Adam. Her baby brother.

The wind that carried the sound of their steps changed as she waited, her hands clenched around something hard and sharp. She did not look down.

She knew what she held.

Instead, she lifted her face; she felt the dry voice of the desert give way to the wet, humid air of the ocean. The sea. She heard gulls in the distance, cawing and braying like quarrelsome children. Saw the flash of sun upon water that moved, slowly and steadily, toward a great wall.

Seawall
, someone said. She did not recognize the voice, although she knew it as one of her own: the Matriarchs.

The voices of these women, she knew then, would always be with her—while she bore the Heart of Arkosa. It was a comfort, and for a moment she understood the enormity of her mother's sacrifice, for her mother had chosen to live—and die—alone.

Pay attention
, her mother snapped.

Above that wall was a large building, and from its heights she could hear, clear and piercing, a distant song. A lone voice. She squinted, but the building stood too close, and the heights were taken by the sheer side of a wall; the figure was beyond her vision.

She saw the Isle that rose out of the waves, its towers tall and fine, their flags bent and wrapped by wind into cloth, rather than symbol; but she knew that she looked upon the city of Averalaan.

Averalaan Aramarelas.

She drew closer to that Isle, and it grew larger, and larger still; it clung to the mainland by the thinnest of bridges. She had never liked the sea, but she could understand, gazing upon this place, why her dislike was not shared by the Northerners.

But it was not enough; the mists that rolled seemed to carry her through a place that was louder than the crash of waves against the distant wall. If she had ever hated the Tor Leonne, with its multitude of scents and odors, its press of bodies, its small houses one almost on top of the other, she repented; she did not think she could ever walk in a place such as this, in streets so full, without panic or paralysis.

You had better learn.

The irritation the words invoked was blessedly— annoyingly—familiar.

The sun's light dimmed; the streets grew gray. The people that crowded their way between the walls of close buildings were armed and armored. They carried swords, and across their backs, the bows of the North, great curved poles of wood that they had somehow thought to turn into deadly weapons.

And at their head rode two men, their visors open, their faces exposed.

They were beautiful, profoundly beautiful. Margret could not say why. They were not like the Lord Celleriant, not like the Serra Diora; they were not perfect of feature, perfect of form. They wore regalia that she did not recognize: Swords, rods and crowns, eagles, wolves.

But when their gaze turned at last upon her, she understood.

Their eyes were golden.

She had been raised in the South. She knew that the golden-eyed were demon-spawn.

And knew that what she had known—all of it—must eventually be proved false, for these men could not be the spawn of the Lord of Night. She had seen the Hunters on the night of the Festival Moon. They had provoked fear, anger, and a terrible sense of mortality. But they had not invoked what she felt now: awe, and yet… and yet…

some sense that she might attain, through effort and will, what she admired so instinctively.

One of the two men nodded and smiled. The smile was brief and gentle.

She almost reached out, but something caught her hand; something held it fast.

You will not stand alone in the war
, a voice said. It was a familiar voice. Evallen's.
With men such as these as your allies, you will never stand alone
.

They passed away at the head of an army that seemed to go on forever. She looked up, then, to see that the clouds in the sky were dark.

The fog rolled in.

The forest floor was once again beneath her feet. She stepped across a bed of moss, moved her foot so that she might avoid crushing the drooping fronds of a plant she had never seen, its wide leaves splayed outward like a slender hand, its veins white and red. The rich tang of earth, the sharp scent of the trees, told her that this, too, was foreign land—but it was peaceful, silent.

The baying of dogs rose like distant song.

But unlike the singer in the strange building above the sea, the dogs did not choose to remain distant. She heard the snap of twigs and the crush of undergrowth as they approached, and in spite of herself she held her breath.

But a voice called them in a tongue she did not know. She listened carefully. The leader of the pack was larger than any wolf she had ever seen, but its coat was strange: silver-gray with a hint of black flashing around its forefeet and left eye. Its ears were folded back, its teeth exposed; it skidded to a stop, its wild cry descending into throaty growl.

She heard the voice again, a man's voice; it contained both anger and affection. She did not have the time to wonder what the man who had spoken looked like, for he came, ducking under a bare, low-lying branch, his hand comfortable against bark.

He wore green in many shades, although his boots and his belt were brown. His hand was curved around a simple, silver horn.

The dog's growl slid into a whine. But clearly the man was accustomed to dogs, or at least these; he was implacable.

A young boy appeared from behind the man. He wore brown. He spoke to the man, the man nodded, and he turned his attention to the dogs. They were instantly attentive.

As was she, although with different reason. She found the boy disturbing, but she could not say why. He was obviously son to the man. His hair was the same dark mess, his eyes the same brown, but they were larger, the lashes longer; his jaw was slightly more pronounced, which was unusual in a child of his age.

Two more boys approached her. No, one boy, and one girl. They were dressed in brown, but they wore it as if it did not suit them; they were not born to the colors, she thought.

The boy was fair. His hair was the color of gold, his skin the color of the High Court. His lips were full; his chest slender. It was also heaving as he bent and gripped his knees, struggling for breath.

"Am I the
only
person here who can't keep up with the dogs?"

And she understood his words.

The girl laughed. "Yes." She shrugged her hair out of the hood of her short cloak. Margret had thought the boy fair; next to the girl, he was ruddy. She was slender, and although she wasn't gasping for breath the way the boy did, she seemed delicate and fine. But her eyes were the color of steel.

The boy rose.

And Margret saw that
his
eyes were the color of gold.

"Uncle, you've always said that men don't strike women. But according to Mother, I'm not a man yet." He lifted his arm.

The man laughed. Loudly. He answered, and Margret wished she could understand what he said, for she loved the rough sound of his voice.

/
never said you should hold your hand because they were delicate or weak
, one of the Matriarchs offered. Not a voice she recognized.

How do you know that?

It is a language that has roots in the Southeast. Now pay attention, Daughter.

The boy frowned. His brow furrowed, and the expression that resulted was incongruously old. But he looked up, and when he saw Margret, his eyes widened.

"I am from Arkosa," she said. She could not have said why.

The girl turned on her heel, then, like a startled deer. They stared at her, this boy and this girl, golden-eyed and steel-eyed. As if she were actually there. As if they were prepared to listen to whatever it was she had to offer them.

But that did not disturb her. The winds did. They had changed again. The pungent scent of strange trees, the tang of wet earth, the smell of sweat, of sweet-sour breath, dissolved. The chill did not. Like desert night, the absence of warmth came suddenly. Unlike desert night, she was unprepared for it.

Gold gave way to ice, ice such as she had never seen. There were no trees, no valleys; the hills, such as they were, were sharp and white. Everything was white.

She squinted against the glare.

But white had shades. Where the hills peaked and trailed frozen water, they cast shadows of gray and pale, pale blue.

There was no movement across this white landscape for as far as the eye could see. Had she thought the desert harsh? It was, but it knew warmth and heat. In this wasteland, there was only cold, and the turning of the day would not change the death it offered. She was certain of it.