The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (82 page)

“When?” the General asked urgently, all his inner excitement threatening to overflow in that one word.

“I am but a day or so ahead of Kyr’s forerunners,” Kinn said expressionlessly.

“HA!” Alaunus did shout then, Banion chuckled around all his nasal blockage and Traive
’s rugged face broke into a grin.

“That deserves a toast,” Androssan said with quiet triumph.

              When the Rach came, the earth trembled.

“Blood and ash,” Spere swore, awed in spite of himself.  “The privates
’ll think the end of the torching world’s come.”

The leaders of the allied forces stood at the banks of the Daroe, forewarned by repeated Rach messengers of the imminent Wings as if such an event needed to be braced for.  Androssan was beginning to understand why.

For almost an hour now they’d been visible, first as just a smudge against the flat grey winter sky and the flat grey dead plains south of the river, stretching out of sight to both east and west.  But now, as they approached, a detachment of a dozen or so could be seen separated out front and moving much quicker.  Long before individuals in the clumped masses behind them could be made out, the advance party was riding up to the Daroe, the thundering of their bright Aerach horses as they crossed the main bridge drowning out the deep, bass rumble of the thousands of horses moving up behind them.

Almost as one, the Rach dismounted gracefully at the foot of the bridge on the Northern side, falling into step slightly behind one of their number.  Their beautiful horses shone like jewels in the dull day, tossing their heads and neighing spiritedly at being left behind as a couple men gathered their reins.  They made a fiery backdrop for the energetic group advancing toward them.  Androssan didn
’t think there was any contrived Northern ceremony that could have been more dramatic than the approach of that group of men.  At their head was a very young, well-built man with eyes you could see flashing even across the yards of distance.  The raw energy in his powerful stride captured the eye, a compelling, vigorous magnetism that made you almost blind to the fierce, lean men striding dangerously on his flanks, four to each side.

Rach Kyr and the Shagreens of the Wings off Sheel.

Androssan could never remember the details of that initial meeting later.  It had been full of the summing up, the measuring, that most men do upon meeting anyway, amplified amongst the fit, ferocious Rach to the point the General wasn’t sure there’d even been many words spoken.

Since none of them had gathered to chat over tea, it wasn
’t much of an issue.  The overwhelming urge was to get into war council, and Androssan herded them all almost impatiently into the command tent.  He wanted everyone moving before the Council, who’d horrifyingly insisted on being present at every step of this process, could say anything.  He’d noticed a marked hesitancy among the other Realmsmen to interrupt a Councilman once he started talking.  It only made sense tactically to prevent them from starting.

He
’d set the tent up in a half-circle of ranks around the big parchment map at the front, leaders closest to it, immediate inferiors just behind, with aids as needed mixed in.  The four Councilmen were in the very back, with big rolls of blank parchment to keep them happy.  If they were making Important Notes, hopefully they wouldn’t be interrupting.

To be courteous, Androssan realized, as everyone settled into their seats, he should have allowed the Rach a chance to rest or freshen up or at least take food.  But it just seemed ridiculous; they were by far the youngest men in the room, so obviously athletic and unwearied that they made the other military men look like reenactment gameboys in need of a bracing meal and a nap.

Surreptitiously, Androssan scanned the Imperial section of seating in the middle.  The Cavalry Commander, Fulton, looked positively effeminate with his bright, fine wool and lace and his white-plumed hat—especially next to all that browned, virile vitality swirling into seats nearby.  Androssan winced at the barely concealed sneer on the man’s face; he had
thought
that his cavalry officers were the most obvious choice to interface with the Rach.  They could talk sabre techniques or hoof picks or something.   Next to Fulton sat the Ashbow Commander, Orren, a grizzled veteran of everything that could happen with a bow and arrows…but who seemed glaringly geriatric in the current light.  Even the Infantry Commander—that dazzling glory so unique to the Empire—didn’t fare well in comparison.  Bale had taken the unmatched Imperial Foot to new heights, training them in pikes, spears, and stunning shortsword maneuvers that had brought exclamations of delight at the last wargames, but he seemed a dull and lackluster sort of fellow now, lank greying hair flat against his enervated, seamed face.

Between the Imperials and the newly arrived Rach were ranged the Merranics.  King Kane had arrived a day or two ago, had immediately caught his countrymen
’s cold and was now silent, miserable, and leaking facial fluids.  Kraemoor was also silent, for a Merranic, and sitting next to his equal on land, the Lance Knight.  After centuries of wargaming with the North, the Merranics had finally been persuaded that communications were prone to failure and now routinely had down to third rank present at councils.  So, the Lance’s three Knights, each the leader of a chevron of 30,000 heavy horse, were ranged behind him:  the Knight of the Bitterns, Jarl Heisar, distinguishable from other Merranics by the nose he’d lost in a brawl, the Knight of the Stone, Prince Kanarron (titles didn’t pass in the logical hereditary way in Merrani; none of Kane’s sons had been able to best his nephew for the Knighthood), and the Knight of the Steelmists, Jarl Banion.  Next to the Rach, Merranics tended to look oafish, malformed, and hampered with hair, though you’d think it’d be just the opposite…the Rach should’ve looked like children, their slender, slightly curved sabres like toys.

He sent his aides scurrying to pour wine for everyone and water for the travelers—and Toriah.  The Captain of the Ranks he had inconspicuously placed just to the right of the Northerners, next to the famously tolerant Cyrrhideans.  Kinn was between him and the Imperials.  Curiously, though every man in the room was armed, some repeatedly, one didn
’t notice anyone’s steel but the Dra’s.  Those twin-hipped blades might as well have been painted in neon.  Even Kyr’s blazing eyes gave them a glance.

The Cyrrhidean contingent took up the whole right of the tent.  Lord Khrieg, though he commanded a gryphon, had not yet arrived, which brought tears of regret to not a single eye, for in his place sat the eminently capable and far preferable Lord Regent.  The single commander of all military in Cyrrh, Traive had a perfect gaggle of quiet brown men spreading out in a triangle behind him.  Closest to Toriah sat the Sentinalier Achan, a bewilderingly beast-oriented pyramid of support right behind him: the Jaglord, a handsome, outgoing man, the Staglord, taciturn as a Dra, and the Captain of the Sentinels, in charge of all the Torquelords of Cyrrh and looking the most self-important of any of them.  Next to Achan sat the very plain and unremarkable Foxlord, possibly the most powerful man in the room when it came to knowledge and skirted by an alert, hovering cluster of Silver Fox.  At the far edge of both the room and reality was the Cyrrhidean Sky Captain, Kourain.  In charge, improbably, of four Talons of gryphons.   Androssan had no idea what he was supposed to do with him.

The Imperial General settled into his seat, feeling like he’d rather be doing laps around the tent, he had so much nervous energy and expectation built up.

“Welcome, Rach Kyr,” he began, forcing himself to look at that corner of the tent.  It seemed to shimmer with energy and
edginess, the impatience of the young in the face of the thorough-going wisdom of the, er, matured.  Of all the Realms, the Rach alone had no third rank, just the direct stares and hard planes of face and body of the Shagreens.  “We are deeply pleased that you are here.  Tell us of your journey and what you know of the Enemy’s actions.”

Kyr sprang to his feet, and Androssan heard parchment crackle in alarm at the back of the room.  But his intent was verbal.  He stood very straight and still as he greeted them, a man in tight control of himself and no stranger to making speeches.  It was no red-faced, stammering embarrassment over losing the Northern Queen that filled the tent; there was no sign of intimidation in the presence of such older and wiser monarchs and military men.  In fact, he was so perfectly poised, so unselfconsciously full of life and vision that it didn
’t occur to any of them that he was lacking in either age or wisdom.

As his strong voice addressed the gathered strength of four Realms, Androssan realized that all his careful, months-long preparation for this moment had been unnecessary.  Rach Kyr simply and easily and without the notice, let alone objections, of any of the other leaders…took
charge.  With smooth and flawless tact he moved through the upcoming campaign, sure of the Enemy, sure of their tactics, and oddly, for his seclusion down on the Sheel, sure of his allies.  He placed Realmsmen around the big map behind him as effortlessly and certainly as a boy places tin soldiers for a battle that exists only in his head.  He had that rare, natural leadership that included faultless judgment, his statements utterly sensible, and—even more rare—the ability to do it without sparking even a whisper of resentment. 

Watching him, unable to stop analyzing men
’s character, weighing their qualities, even in such dire circumstances, Androssan realized that there was another thing on Kyr’s side.  Something intangible that all the other Realms seemed to understand.  The barriers that a Northern leader always faces when dealing with men from the Border Realms, that odd cultural disparity, didn’t exist for Kyr.  It hung, a tacit understanding somehow outside of Imperial consciousness, in the still, focused air of the tent…as if the rest of the world danced to an intangibly different strain of music that the Empire could barely hear.

CHAPTER
39

Sable fussed nervously with the reins, the only sign of the distress surging through her.  She was the Queen, of course, under the admiring gaze of hundreds of eyes, and it was hardly possible to let loose with more than a few inconspicuous twitches.

It had been a long, hard, miraculous road their party had traveled on its harried way back from the Sheel.  When they
’d emerged from the ’Shard, it had been full night.  They’d stumbled, exhausted, hungry, wounded, burdened with wounded, all the way back across the empty desert, driven by the knowledge that the Sheel would erupt behind them very shortly with bottomless malignance.  The whole trip had held a remarkable similarity.  Slow, because of Kore, and almost submerged in a frantic fear that admitted no rest and little food.  Even when they came across some of the Whiteblade horses and rigged a litter for the wounded Shagreen, which more than tripled their pace, they still could not relax.  There were more Tarq patrols swarming up on them than tirna in a tradehouse—and they were in an interactive mood.

Sable hadn
’t exactly had a vigorous recovery on the return journey.  But, unlike the other Northerners, she had that Other Strength to lean on.  Her vitality, reaching the Ramparts, escaping the Tarq, bringing news of the Enemy’s plans—all were in much greater hands than hers had proven to be.  What a joke to remember her self-important surmises on the various forms of sacrifices Il had in mind for her.  She was done trying to place herself in this tornado of events. 

The cheers picked up, the men of the Northern Army not only happy to see their monarch but, really, happy to see
any
woman that was clean and decently dressed and didn’t have louse bites on her cheeks.  Sable had finally filled out again, though it had taken almost a good week of solid sleep and endless quantities of healthy Aerach food to do it.  The rest of the party had been amazed when the Sharhi-Tir patrol had found them, a serendipity that defied probability as they were currently running for their life from an unusually large and angry collection of Sheelmen. 

J
ust like that, the furtive marches were over, the overwrought emotions calmed, their lives turned once again into the surety and dependability that most of the world took for granted.  They had no sooner reached the Ramparts than a cloud of Fox descended on Traive like pages on a rich lord.  While he issued tomes of instructions, Fox and Postal birds and ’Tips flowing away from him in a flood of men and animals, Sable lasted barely long enough to send the message that she was alive and to ready the Armies immediately before collapsing into the soft hammock in the Shagreen’s tent. 

His name was Qarasca, the Shagreen of the Sharhi-Tir, as ferocious-looking as any she had seen at the Hilt when Kyr Stood in Judgment, and he ran to meet her, sinking to his proud knee, savage face upturned with joy.  She was tremendously fond of the Rach, but sometimes she really felt their priorities were misplaced.  He barely glanced at Kore, even though he was a fellow Realmsman and a fellow Shagreen, merely giving terse orders for him to be seen to and returning to the rapt perusal of her face.

His tent was quickly emptied for her, and over the course of the next week she was able to repay him by what she had learned of the Sheelshard—which was undoubtedly the thing that pleased him best.  Even after Androssan’s message had reached her, after Traive and Banion had been long gone back to their Realms and Melkin had sped north on the fastest Aerach he could borrow, she tarried.  She wished desperately to know if Kore would recover before she left him, but though he didn’t die, he didn’t pander to her anxiety much either.  He was still unconscious when duty called her inexorably north.               

It was still no brisk gallop, their trip.  She tired easily, and Kai and Cerise both would not have her pushed.  A half-dozen cyclones rode as escort, though, and their jubilant company—in high spirits with all the promising activity in the future—was so bolstering, so reminiscent of that other journey she
’d made before the world had turned to fire and blood around her, that it was almost as restorative as the week of sleep in the Ramparts.

But now, it had come to this.  They had passed through the glare of the Eshaid desert (rather gentle-seeming now) and into the looming grey of featureless winter in the southern Empire.  The Daroe had come far too soon, because now her eagerness to see Kyr had been tinged with doubt.  No one knew better than she the demands rulership could place on one…but had he
not wanted
to come to her in the west?  He was the Rach; he could do anything he wanted and his people would adore him.  It was only a few days’ hard ride from the Hilt to the far western Wing…which was all foolishness and she knew it.  He had sent messages, the situation and the crisis ahead of them had been updated daily by Qarasca; there was no time for him to come to her.

But, woman-like, she worried.

So, now they were riding down the long, cheering aisles of Northern soldiers and the meeting loomed ahead of her laced with dread instead of pleasure.  They had taken the long way in, for it was easier along the flanks of the Dragonspine than out in the middle of the Eshaid, and so the Aerach Wings were all there before them, though they’d left after.  Somewhere in the thousands of massed soldiers from every Realm on earth…was her beloved.  And what if he would not see her?  What if there were nothing but excuses and cool, formal phrases between them now?  She had been the cause of death of a whole cyclone of men, possibly by now to include his best friend and most-valued Shagreen—for mere selfish pleasure.

Agitatedly, her hands twisted the reins, the magnitude of her misdeeds suddenly a crushing weight.  It was one thing to ask forgiveness from Il, who would never deny her and had obviously used the whole escapade for vastly important purposes…but it was another thing to ask it of a man, even one as honorable as Kyr.

And then she picked him suddenly out of the crowd.  It was a good thing she was on horseback or she would probably have stopped all forward motion and just stood there like an imbecile.  He was handsomer than she remembered, a glowing beauty around the molten bronze of his animated features, a heart-wrenching power to the set of his strong shoulders, and those eyes, those piercing eyes…but there was a look on his face she had never seen.  Unthinking, she dismounted, absently handing the reins to Cerise, eyes fixed on that dear face as he strode closer and closer in that ground-eating walk of his.  His face was stormy, caught up in such a passion she couldn’t begin to place it.  Was it, could it be…angry?

That thought just about undid all her careful attentions to the royal façade.  After all she
’d been through, all the terrors and worries and guilt and aching for his love, to come now to face him without hope of it lifting…She almost stumbled as she went to meet him, though he was rushing toward her so quickly she didn’t have far to go.

“How can you forgive me…?” she managed brokenly before he swept her into his strong arms and crushed her with aching gentleness against him, his lips sealing hers in such feeling that she soon forgot her pain, forgot her doubts, forgot everything but that he was hers, that it was all over, and that she would love him forever.

Which made quite a scene for the locals.

Time flew and it dragged, nervous expectation running like a current through the soldiers and officers and Knights and Sentinels and Rach that waited breathlessly on the edge of the Empire.  Androssan, standing with stoic, compassionate respect to receive the Rach families as they came over the Terring Bridge, was awash with it despite his grave face.

A half rill of Aerach horse had left that morning
in a burst of restless energy disguised as a scout mission, Kyr—as forecasted by Lt. Waylan—personally at their head.  The rest of the thousands of desert cavalry were spread out on the opposite side of the river, horses grazing in a colorful string as far as the eye could see along the river bank.  That, too, had been Waylan’s suggestion, keeping the river between the two peoples.  Not only would it keep the two herds of horses separate (Imperial Cav were a territorial lot), but it made a handy buffer between the two cultures.  Here and there along the Daroe, staked like road signs of the exotic, were the standards of the Rach.  Long, slender wood poles, still with the knots and gnarls of the trees they had come from but polished from centuries of oiling and use, they had the longest, narrowest guidons he’d ever seen—more like streamers than flags. 

Before he
’d left, Kyr had spoken to the General about his noncombatants.  The Ramparts had been emptied but for a few volunteers…and they now needed somewhere besides the front lines to set up a refugee camp.  Androssan had offered the Winnowing Hills, so now what basically constituted the entire Aerach civilization was filing by into the Empire and safety.

He nodded his head as each person passed, or murmured a word of bracing sympathy, the understanding warleader bowing to the hardships of those caught up indirectly in the trauma of war…but, frankly, he was beginning to feel a bit silly.

The Rachina had been killed in action several years ago, along with Rach Kyr’s young  sons, but Kyr’s mother had led the narrow file over the bridge.  She had sunk gracefully to a knee, taking his hand—both embarrassing and strangely affecting, for she was a gorgeous woman only a little younger than the General.  The entire procession had mimicked her actions to the tee, smiling graciously, the narrow, golden brown Rach face a thing of stirring beauty on their women.  None of them seemed particularly upset; there wasn’t a single sad countenance that had passed him yet.  They had long, swinging strides of lilting energy, these homeless and displaced, eyes of black or brown sparkling with life.  Children clearly enchanted with Imperial mud trotted happily between their long legs and the careful ones of the loaded horses at their sides, or sat quietly in their mother’s arms (some of whom looked barely older than his own daughter).  So far, he hadn’t seen a single male over the age of eight or nine, not even the bent, wizened type.  There were loads of dogs—the muscled, thin-skinned sighthounds of the desert—some birds, cages valiantly covered as if that would ward off the winter damp and chill, and the general air of life and motion that you would normally associate more with a traveling circus.  You would not have been able to tell from a casual glance that these people had lost everything permanent in their lives, were strangers in a far distant land, and were fleeing to safety while their menfolk fought in the battle of the Ages.

The plan had been to spread them out through the Hills around the town of Eldoreth, a humble claimant for the title as it was barely more than a site for grain storage and transfer.  That was also where the Council would retire (he hoped) once the Enemy was actually engaged, and where Sable had finally, after fierce objection, been convinced to join them.  His Queen was much changed, he thought idly, trying to stifle a smile as a little girl of about six took his hand.  Her eyes lit up as if he was the best Winterfest gift ever.

He’d heard about the greeting with Kyr, of course—soldiers loved any gossip that involved physical contact between men and women—and had frowned heavily.  That’s what came of letting all these young monarchs run around the Realms meeting each other.  But it was more than a little youthful infatuation that had matured her face.  Her pretty blue eyes had had steel before, but now held an odd, deep-seated confidence, an adamantine sort of gentleness that was completely alien to the North.  She had told him, in detail, the tactical part of what had passed since they’d last spoken, and he her, but there were personal things (obviously) that she’d left unapologetically out.  And she had refused implacably his request to leave camp.  Acquiescence had come, apparently, only after she’d spoken later with the Rach.

Spere sidled up to him, speaking low in the off ear.  He could listen easily; the Aerach women, completely denying the rights of femininity, displacement, and helplessness, said hardly a word.  In fact, it wouldn
’t surprise him if Spere wanted a closer look at all that glowing, healthy, attractive womanhood.  He certainly didn’t have earth-shattering news.

“I think you should know, Sir,” he began, pausing as a particularly throat-closing young woman smiled frankly up at them.  “Uh, I think you should hear this…” he stalled out again, distracted.

“Get on with it, Sergeant,” Androssan said patiently, hoping his pocked, half-bald, right-hand man wouldn’t start smiling at them.  That’d scare those smiles right off their pretty faces.

“Right.  Well, I just came from up the road and saw something you
’re not going to believe…”

“I
’m waiting.”

“YES.  Yes.  You know how we were worried about those deer from Cyrrh not being the best thing to try and torching ride into battle?  Well, I came out of the Foxlord
’s tent and found my eyeballs on a scene right out of a quart of gin.  Here was one of those big flaming deer, a burning buck with a set of burning antlers you could fit two of these women in, staring down one of the Ram’s Warwolves.   Not one torching sign of fear, Sir.”

Androssan spared him a glance.  He was a little worried about how his collection of exotic wildlife was going to survive each other long enough to reach the battlefield, crowded together as they were in camp. 

“Sir, that buck torching lowered his antlers and burning
moved that wolf right off the road
.  Backed him the ash right up—wolf as big as he was, almost.  I was standing there with my mouth open and the Foxlord laughed and said ‘they aren’t afraid of too much outside of Cyrrh.  The only time you’ll have to worry about them bolting is with the dragons, and no animal will stand then.’  Ash, it was like he’d been reading our minds.”