The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) (31 page)

“Not impropriety, Styophan of Anuskaya, but because you
had to
come to the information on your own. The kings
had to
believe your words.”

Styophan thought back to that night when he’d inspected Elean on that bearskin rug in the middle of the snow-covered forest. A branch had snapped only moments after he’d finished his inspection. Convenient, he thought, though he wished he’d recognized it then.

And from there more and more fell into place, until he landed on a realization that should have come to him well before now. It hadn’t been Bahett’s doing at all. The poisoning of the queens hadn’t come from Yrstanla. It had come from Hael, from the queens themselves. “You
wanted
me to implicate Bahett—”

The queens stared on. Brechan’s wife, Queen Dahlia, coughed, but she had a look on her face that was just as triumphant as it had been the night before, when she’d bared herself for all to see.

“—and you needed me to come to it on my own,” Styophan continued softly, more to himself than these gathered women. “You needed me to convince the kings of Bahett’s guilt.” He began shaking his head. “But why? If you suspected Bahett of foul doing, you could have simply told the kings of it.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Dahlia said. She stared at him from deep-set eyes. “They needed to hear it from a man like you.”

“You think they wouldn’t have believed?”

“They might have.” Dahlia coughed and licked her lips before continuing. “They might have, indeed. But they needed not just to believe. They needed to find the anger in their heart that has been drained by withering and war alike. That flame has now been rekindled, Styophan of Anuskaya. They are men who are once more prepared to go to war.”

Styophan stared into the steely gazes of these women.

That was it, then. They’d done all of this so that Hael would once more go to war. “The kings saw the withering and they stepped down from the threshold of war. And you”—Styophan stared directly into Elean’s eyes—“you
wanted
war with Yrstanla.”

“The kings have grown concerned, deservedly so, over the welfare of our people. We have long been weary of war.”

“Then
why
?”

Elean slammed her fist on the table. “Because the Empire is weak! Anuskaya has at long last taken the Kamarisi’s attention to a place other than Hael. If we are ever to throw off the yoke of Yrstanla, it must be now!”

“And the kings?” Styophan asked.

“The kings were trying to protect the tribes the only way they knew how. They would have stood by, denying you your treaty, denying Yrstanla theirs as well. They wanted to stand and cower and wait while you and the Empire fought like wounded dogs. Only after the Empire had been weakened would we return and take back our rightful lands.”

“So you poisoned yourselves that your kings would find their nerve?”

“Watch your tongue!” Elean said.

Dahlia reached over and touched Elean’s arm. “
Hayir
, what he says is true. Our kings are brave, but there comes a time when even they must be wary of the myriad ways that lie ahead. They cannot see all. Even our wodjana cannot see all. They must look to our safety, and to them the safest course seemed to be to wait, to see if the anger of the Hills would pass, to see if our people would begin to heal.”

“And you would risk that,” Styophan said.

“We must,” Dahlia continued. “There is no other time. Whether the Hills would have us or not, we must fight.”

“And yet you will not take land from Yrstanla.”

“It isn’t land the kings are after now. It’s blood.” The way she said it sent a chill down Styophan’s spine.

“What do you mean?”

Elean looked to her left and to her right, taking in the gathered queens. “Such an affront as the regent of Yrstanla committed against us cannot stand. The kings wish for not only Bahett’s blood, but the Kamarisi’s. They must make it clear to the Empire that Hael will not be treated like a child with a knife—a child who might be dangerous, but who can be left for another time. They are now preparing themselves to go to Alekeşir. They are preparing to lop the head from the Empire before it can turn its attention back toward the west.”

“They go to kill the Kamarisi.”

“
Evet
. And as compensation for your loss, they will ask that you join them, you and yours, if you wish to go.”

This was bold, indeed. It was something the Haelish had never done. Their beliefs had prevented them from taking such a step in the past, but it seemed that time, or the withering, or fear of outright collapse, had forced their hand to do something they’d previously found objectionable.

“And if I don’t wish to go?” Styophan asked.

Elean shrugged. “Your ship, the lone survivor, has been spotted to the south several times. No doubt you can find your way back to them if that is your choice.”

Styophan’s heart leapt. “My ship?”
 

“You knew that one had escaped our cannons, did you not?”

“I thought it had traveled home.”

“Your men are loyal, as you are loyal to them. Would you find them? Would you return home?”

He nearly told her that he would. The words were on his lips, ready to be spoken. And yet he could not. Not so easily.

“Why?” he said instead. “Why would you need me and my men?”

Elean, the queen of her clan, leaned forward, her piercing eyes weighing him more critically than she’d done thus far. “Who would deny that the fighting men of Anuskaya would be welcome in battle?”

“The Haelish have men enough.”

Elean leaned back and laughed. “Men enough? Did you see what happened to us last night? Had we men enough, we would never have willingly allowed Bahett onto our lands. Had we men enough, Bahett’s Kiliç Şaik would never have surprised us so. Had we men enough, our war with Yrstanla would have been settled long ago and you wouldn’t be sitting before me now wondering whether you should join us in battle to fight a common enemy. There are those precious few among every clan who remain—those who have been tested in battle—but so many have died that we are left with the young and the old and the infirm. If we are to send our best into the heart of Yrstanla, we would have those who have seen battle at their side. Are your men battle ready, Styophan of Anuskaya?”

He held his tongue. She was goading him, hoping that a simple appeal to his manhood would win him to her side.

Elean waited for him to speak. Her blood was up. He could see it in the set of her spine, the tilt of her head and the way she seemed to look down on him, but when he didn’t respond, some of her fire left her. “Do you not wish to bring home the head of Bahett ül Kirdhash to give to your Grand Duke?”

“You still haven’t told me why you need me or my men. Few men though you have, surely there are enough stout men to take up this cause, especially with the respite you’ve been given.”

“A respite that’s about to end.”

“Be that as it may…”

Elean seemed reluctant to speak further. She seemed, in fact, as likely to order him to be taken from the tent and chased from Haelish lands as she was to speak to him again, but there was a rustling among these queens, a passing of looks with hidden meaning, and Elean was all too aware of them.

“Tell him,” Dahlia said softly. She seemed unable to meet Styophan’s eyes, though why this would be, he had no idea.

“We agreed,” Elean replied.

Dahlia did not respond, but she raised her head and took Styophan in anew. Her eyes looked deep beneath the flicker of the nearby flames. She coughed. It was a long, wet cough, one that seemed to go on and on, as if her very life were spilling from her. Yet still she kept her gaze upon him.

It wasn’t Dahlia that truly drew Styophan’s attention, however. It was the wodjana. They’d been silent up until now, but at this exchange, they’d become restless. The one who stood behind Elean—the same one that had beckoned Styophan into the yurt—looked at him with an expression as dour as it was disapproving, but it was her eyes more than anything that gave him pause. Perhaps it was the smoke that ran thick in the air, but she seemed to see through him. She seemed to be staring directly into his soul. She seemed to be weighing his past in one eye, his future in the other. He’d heard strange things of these wodjana, that they could see beyond the day to what might lay beyond, but he’d never given them credence until now.

He broke her gaze with some effort and looked to Elean, who seemed to have been waiting until the exchange had been completed.

“Tell him.” This came not from Dahlia, but from the wodjan. Her voice croaked. She sounded like stone, like ancient, fallen wood.

“There’s reason for you to go to Alekeşir. The wodjana have seen it.”

“What reason?”

Elean smiled, but it was a sad thing. A lonely thing. “Your Lord, the Duke of Khalakovo, sent you here hoping to save Anuskaya despite your Grand Duke’s best efforts to hand it to the Empire. You’re overextended already, and Bahett knows it. Despite what we’ve done, Bahett will focus all he has on his eastward flank. He knows, as perhaps you do by now, that he can meet whatever resistance we might be able to muster.” She waited for these words to sink in before continuing. “Had the Grand Duchy come ten years ago, or even five, we would have been able to place Yrstanla in a grip they would never have been able to wriggle free of. Now, we are weakened, more than we’ve let you know.”

“What did the wodjan see?”

“They see no one thing, Styophan, son of Andrasha. They see many things, many possible futures, and in one, you join with the men of Hael. You travel to Alekeşir along the hidden trails only we know of. You go to Alekeşir and you find your way through the walls of Irabahce.”

“And what happens?”

“The Kamarisi dies. But it comes at great cost.”

The words came slowly, but they filled the room with such gravity that Styophan’s shoulders bent from it.

“What cost?”

The silence in the room lengthened. The fire snapped loudly.

“What cost?” Styophan said again.

“When you go to Alekeşir,” Elean said, “the path there and the path beyond will lead to your graves.”

Styophan looked among these gathered women. He’d been in a hundred battles. He’d spent long hours preparing for those days of ache and sorrow. He’d worried over his own life, the lives of his brothers, the lives of the people he sought to protect, but never had he felt sure that he would die.

Not until now.

Now, even as Elean had voiced those words, it felt as though it had been written in stone.

He cleared his throat. “The paths the wodjana find are not always clear.”

“That is true,” the old wodjan replied. “Some paths continue on, but into darkness, into a fog that even our most gifted cannot penetrate. But in this, the way is clear as streams in spring. When you go to Alekeşir, you go to die, not merely you, but all of your men. Every last one.”

The queen glanced to one side, as if considering these words, but then she brushed the buckskin along one thigh, as if what the wodjan had said was of little consequence. “But this is only
one
path. There are others. You may return home.”

For some reason, Styophan could hardly breathe. He didn’t want to ask. He felt like the mere voicing of the question would submit him to a fate he couldn’t bear.

But he had to know. He couldn’t leave this place without the knowledge.

“What happens then?”

“I will not lie to you. Either way you choose, the islands suffer. As does the Empire. As does Hael. But when the wodjana saw you return to your islands, you found your way to your woman. Your wife.”

“Don’t say her name.”

“Rozalyna,” Elean spoke, despite his plea. “You return to her.”

The implication was clear. If he went to Alekeşir, to the heart of the Empire, he would take the life of the Kamarisi, and perhaps save the islands, but in doing so, he would give his own life. And if he returned to the islands, he would find his way into Roza’s arms once more.

By the ancients, the Haelish had come by this information by sacrificing his men. For the moment, ancients forgive him, he couldn’t think of the Kamarisi or Roza. He couldn’t think of the war or Duke Ranos or Grand Duke Leonid. He could only think of Oleg, of Vyagos, and how they’d died so that the wodjana could dance and pick their way through the possible futures of their people like crows pecking among the bones of the dead.

Only when the first tear fell onto his bunched fists did he realize he was crying.

With great effort, he unclenched his fists. The palms of his hands had crescents of blood where his fingernails had torn through his skin. He stared at them for long moments, not truly seeing. His inner sight was back at the menhir, watching as Oleg’s chest continued to rise and fall even after what they’d done to him.

He tipped his head back and released one long, primal cry.

Why? Why would the ancients have placed him here? Why would they have put before him such choices?

The gathered women watched as the flames continued to flicker.

“What would you do?”

Styophan shivered. To his surprise, it wasn’t Elean who threw these words at Styophan, nor was it Dahlia. It was the old wodjan, and it felt as if she held his fate in her hands.

But she didn’t, Styophan said to himself.
He
held his fate. Not them. And he had a choice to make.

He would see his wife again. He would take her up in his arms and make love to her as the cold winter winds howled outside their home. He would give her sons and daughters.

But he could do none of these things if by doing so he placed the Grand Duchy in danger. He had it within him to cripple the Empire, at least for a time, and if that were so—no matter what might happen to him in the end—then he had no choice but to do it.

He stood, though this clearly displeased the wodjana, and spit into the fire. As it sizzled on the burning coals, he turned and strode from the yurt.

“I will go.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Styophan rode one of the Haelish’s tall black stallions toward the crest of the hill. Anahid had already reached the crest, where she reined her own horse in and waved back to him. Edik and Galeb came behind, while Rodion, who had clearly taken to these tall horses of the west, rode well behind at a full gallop. His face while he rode… It was one of exuberance, of unexpected freedom. Styophan nearly called to Rodion, to remind him he was a soldier of the staaya, but thought better of it. They had each of them weathered this storm differently, and if Rodion had found joy in testing the limits of a fleet and beautiful charger, he would let him.