Lonen's War (18 page)

“
It’s not
him
. Only a shell he
left behind. He does not suffer.”

“A lot of people are dead,” she told Yar,
swallowing back the sorrow. “Have you looked outside?”

“What are you saying?” Yar sounded young and
uncertain. More the Yar she preferred, the adolescent boy
overwhelmed by his formidably precocious powers rather than
insufferably arrogant about them.

“The Trom arrived on giant derkesthai.”

“
As dumb as they are large.”

“But not intelligent, like Chuffta,” she
added, to please her Familiar. “They burned everyone in sight,
Destrye and Bárans alike. I saw it from the tower. And the halls
are strewn with corpses like…like Nat’s.” Her throat grabbed on his
name. “That Trom who walked in here dropped anyone who attacked
him.”

Yar sat heavily. “I didn’t know. The Destrye
kept us trapped in the council chambers, under guard.”

“Well, now you do know. The bridge over
Ing’s Chasm was burned to nothing. I imagine the Destrye are
working on something to allow us to cross into the city, to help
all our people. But magic might come in useful, if you have some to
spare.” She allowed a little doubt to leak into her voice, to prick
his pride.

Yar spread his hands, palms up, as if he
knew she could see the grien in them. Perhaps everyone could do
that. One of the temple’s many secrets—but the temple did publicly
teach that sensitives perceived magic differently, depending on
their natural affinity. “We were building it up,” Yar said faintly.
“Priestess Febe and the junior priestesses had been feeding us
sgath for days while we stalled negotiations. Nat said… He and
Folcwita Lapo said the Trom would kill the occupying Destrye in the
city and we’d take out the ones in here with one focused blast.”
His mask raised to face her, forlorn in its featurelessness. “It
was a good plan.”

Oria put a hand on his forearm over his
robe. It was not the time to point out the utter foolishness of a
plan that opened Bára to the Trom—not the least because Nat’s poor
judgment got himself killed. “We can only do our best, going
forward. One step at a time. Go find Prince Lonen and help them
bridge Ing’s Chasm.”

“You want me to work with the enemy?” Yar
jerked his arm away, the moment of uncertainty gone, replaced by
the brash pride of the arrogant young man who’d declared himself
king over his brother’s corpse. “I won’t do it, Oria.”

“We have no choice,” she explained with more
patience than she’d thought she possessed. “We have a truce until
sundown and not enough people left to waste in fighting each other.
Go help build the bridge, Yar. Use that grien you built up to help
Bára. To help us, not the enemy.”

“Okay.” He nodded. Then stood. “Okay,” he
said again. Straightened his shoulders and left the room.

Folcwita Lapo glared at her from a cluster
of council members near the windows, but none of them approached
her. Which was fine with Oria. Nat’s menservants arrived with a
litter and managed to move him onto it, by dint of lifting his
robes, then covered him with a pall. She didn’t envy them that job.
Or all the servants of the palace doing likewise with the
casualties of the Trom’s lethal caress. A further punishment for
the survivors, having to cope with this horror.

She shuddered, for that and at the memory of
that thing’s touch, how it penetrated to her bones, touching
intimate places that should belong only to her. The peculiar
sensation of being…tasted. In all her life, only her mother and
father had touched her skin-to-skin, besides accidental encounters.
And Prince Lonen. The contact with him, however, while searing and
possibly contributing to her collapse, hadn’t unsettled her the way
the Trom’s did. But it hadn’t hurt her, either.

And those things the Trom had said to her.
Princess Ponen. We have satisfied the call of the Summoner. You
do not yet command our obedience. Perhaps you never will. I look
forward to our next meeting. Thank you for the invitation.

She hadn’t liked it a bit.

“
I did not like it either, even filtered
through you.”

“Why didn’t I die?” She asked the question
with hesitation, certain she wouldn’t like that answer either.

“
I don’t know.”
Chuffta sounded
apologetic.
“Logically, however, there are two explanations.
Either the Trom can control the result of its touch, deciding
whether to kill or not with it. Or you are in some way
immune.”

“Both of which would be followed up with the
bigger question of why.”

“
Agreed. But…”

“But what? Be straight with me, Chuffta.”
She’d spoken a bit too loudly, one of Nat’s servants starting
towards her, then backing away when she waved him off.

Chuffta hopped off her shoulder and onto the
table, keeping his tail in a loose bracelet around her wrist,
gripping the wooden edge with his talons and straightening with
mantled wings, so they looked eye to eye.
“Oria—I don’t know
everything either. Your mother visited my flight when you were a
little girl and asked for one of us to be your Familiar. I agreed
because I was young enough to bond with you and my family said such
service to your line could be a great honor, if you turned out as
your mother hoped.”

“What does that mean?” Oria’s throat had
gone dry.

“
It means you’re special. Your mother
knew it. My family knew it. Maybe it’s related to this.”

“Well, if we’re waiting for me to find
hwil
to get answers, we might be dead before that happens.
It would be very helpful if someone would share a secret or two
before it comes to that.”

“
Perhaps it is time to ask your
mother.”

“Perhaps so. But—you left others that you
loved to be with me?” The question had never occurred to her.
Chuffta had always been there, from her earliest memories. She’d
never considered that he’d had a life outside of being her
Familiar.

An odd conversation to be having at that
moment, but she’d make no further decisions without the queen’s
approval, and at least this helped calm her.

“
Family, friends, sure. But my flight is
still there. We are a long-lived people and I will see them when I
return. I thought it would be interesting to wander in the world of
humans for a while.”

“The way things are going, that might be
sooner rather than later,” she told him seriously, then stroked the
curve of his neck. “But I’m grateful for you, now more than
ever.”

“
I’m glad to be here, now more than ever.
And I fervently hope I won’t have cause to return home for a long,
long time.”

T
o Lonen’s surprise, Prince
Yar appeared to help bridge the chasm. At first the Báran prince
stood to the side, managing to be both arrogant and diffident,
watching them build an anchoring assembly in tandem with the
Destrye team on the other side. Wary of the prince’s intentions,
Lonen detailed Alby to surreptitiously observe him.

But when the opposite team brought out
arrows to carry ropes across, Yar stepped up. “Ah…Prince
Lonen?”

“Yeah?” First time the kid had used his
title. Interesting. Too bad it was now out of date.

“I can make the bridge—with stone.”

Arnon bristled. “We don’t want any part of
your foul magic, you—”

Lonen held up a hand, swallowing his own
knee-jerk revulsion. “Yes, we do. If we can spend effort elsewhere,
I’m all for it. There’s plenty to do.” On the other side of the
chasm, groups of Destrye and Bárans edged around each other as far
as the eye could see. Observing the truce but not embracing it. He
wanted to get over there as soon as possible, to start everyone
coordinating for the few hours they could. He didn’t care who built
the bridge. “We’d appreciate it, Prince Yar.”

The unsettling mask turned to him for a
moment, and he thought the boy might ask a question, but he didn’t.
Just squared his shoulders and faced the chasm, raising his hands
as they’d seen the sorcerers do in battle, the sight giving Lonen a
habitual rush of terror before he reminded himself that it wouldn’t
be directed at his men this time.

“Clear your men away,” Yar commanded. “So
there are no accidents.” The addition came in a less certain tone,
revealing a young man’s anxiety. Much like a young warrior still
learning to trust his skills.

Lonen passed the word, using hand signals to
the men across the chasm. Bemused, they obeyed, standing back to
watch the sorcerer work, for the first time able to observe without
the duress of battle. It seemed that nothing happened immediately
and Arnon shifted restively, then stilled as he saw the same thing
Lonen did.

The edges of the chasm seemed to blur. Lonen
narrowed his eyes, searching for the illusion. Then the stone
actually moved. Like the soft clay worked by Destrye potters, the
rocks transformed as if under a giant hand. Extruding from each
side, thickening as more stone flowed to join in, then extending
again, the two fingers of stone met in the middle, blending
seamlessly together into a low arch very similar to the bridge that
had been burned away, though devoid of ornamentation.

It took only minutes, but Yar lowered his
hands with a long breath, sweat streaming down the sides of his
face at the mask’s edge as if he’d exerted for hours. Then he faced
Lonen. “It’s solid. They can cross. It takes more, to build a
thing, so I kept it simple.” He sounded apologetic, but also
hopeful, a puppy hoping to be petted.

Lonen gestured to his men that it was safe,
grimly amused to see Destrye on both sides pause to knock fists
against the stone and slide their feet to test the surface. Caution
paid off, to be sure, but their doubt stemmed more from distaste
for the magic of the Bárans than from concern that the structure
would fail. The stone bridge looked as solid as the sharp rock edge
of the chasm, all of one piece. It might, in fact, be difficult to
take down again without the help of a sorcerer. But that would not
be Lonen’s problem.

“An impressive feat, Prince Yar.” He nodded
his respect, willing to throw the boy a bone.

The boy actually shrugged. He might be
younger even than Oria. In fact she’d said as much, hadn’t she?
When she set him back on his heels. An intriguing glimpse of fiery
spirit in an otherwise gentle-seeming personality. “Earth is my
affinity and I’m unusually strong,” Yar was saying. “But breaking
it open is much easier than molding it.”

A rock of angry grief plummeted through
Lonen. Those cracks in the earth, like the one that took Nolan.
Still, it might not have been this boy. “Is it…usual,” he asked,
trying to sound neutral, “to have that ‘affinity’?”

“Oh no.” The prince shook his head, sounding
proud. “It’s a rare gift. I’m a prodigy, in fact.”

Full of himself and oblivious to the impact
of his words on Lonen, who curled his fingers into fists to stop
himself from wrapping them around the sorcerer’s throat to throttle
the life from Nolan’s killer.
Haven’t you all had enough of
death today?
Oria’s weary voice echoed in his head and he
loosened his fists. Yes. Yes, he had.

“Perhaps you’d best go help your sister,” he
suggested, turning away.

“She doesn’t want me.” The prince sounded
far too petulant. “She sent me out here to help you.”

Ah, that explained a great deal, and he
couldn’t really blame her. “Then let’s go see to our people.”

Clearing away the dead took less time than tending
to the many injured. That is, once both peoples resigned themselves
to collecting a small portion of the ashes that were all that
remained of their friends and loved ones, identifying them by
jewelry or metal weapons, which was all that didn’t burn. The
remaining ashes they swept onto wagons and dumped into the
seemingly bottomless chasms.

Expedient, if nothing else.

And filthy work, too, both physically and
spiritually. Lonen’s soul would be begrimed beyond purification by
the time they made it back to Dru. His body certainly was. They
experienced a bad moment when the Bárans brought out golems to
assist. His men cut three to quivering, gelatinous bits before the
protesting Bárans explained these would help with the uglier tasks.
Only then did they note that these had no fangs or claws as the
ones outside the walls had.

The Báran healers also surprised them by
offering to tend to the Destrye injured as well, citing the truce
and that Lonen’s warriors had helped so many survive to reach the
hall where the healers worked. Still, Lonen assigned to them only
the Destrye who seemed unlikely to survive the short journey out
the gates to their own healers with the encamped army outside the
walls.

In a stroke of good fortune, the Bárans’
dragons had only attacked inside the walls, so the already
much-reduced Destrye army outside had escaped further losses.
Especially welcome as most of those men weren’t stationed inside
Bára because they’d already been too severely wounded. While
speaking to the Destrye captains, Lonen relayed the news of King
Archimago’s and Prince Ion’s deaths, along with the remains of
their bodies, such as they were.