But even then Aleksander was not done. “And it’s as if they know the sorest bruises in the Empire to poke at. Every time I get one of these annoying problems settled among the hegeds, this Yvor Lukash comes and stirs it up again. I know there are ills that should be righted—I feel your eyes on me every day of my life—but how can I convince my barons I’m in control when I can’t keep these pests from disrupting peaceful trade and travel? I can do nothing about these things they want if the Empire is in chaos.”
“Is it true Karn’Hegeth and Basran are lost?”
“Three provinces including Karn’Hegeth and half of Basran are ruled by barons who declare they are no longer subject to the Empire. Their fields have been burned. Their caravans raided. Traders are bypassing their lands for fear of these bandits. They’re being strangled, but if I can’t stop the attacks of this Yvor Lukash and his raiders, I’ll have to bring them back by force. Make war on my own people. Civil war. And these are some of the oldest, most loyal houses—families that have been allied with mine for hundreds of years. If I can’t hold them . . .”
I still didn’t understand. Aleksander knew that my aim had never been to preserve the dominance of the Derzhi. “Why have you come to me, my lord? Matters like this are far beyond—”
“Because I thought it was you.”
A chill prickled my skin, though the wind that raced through the pillars and blustered over the hilltop yet held the day’s warmth. I started to protest, but the Prince held up his hand.
“Hear the description of the Yvor Lukash as I’ve heard it from prisoners and witnesses. He is slightly above average in height and slender, but strong enough to wrestle an ox, and he moves faster than lightning. He has dark straight hair, red-gold skin, dark eyes set deep and angled differently than those of other men. His look can paralyze a man. His sword is everywhere. He sees things before they happen. Hears a heartbeat in the silence. He listens to the cries of the poor and knows the hearts of men. He takes ruthlessly and gives generously. He can disappear before your eyes and travel great distances in impossible times as if he had wings.”
“I swear to you, my lord . . .”
“You see why I had to come. To judge.” He shook his head, his gold earring and the gold windings in his warrior’s braid glinting in the moonlight. “I hoped not. Yet the simple answer was for it to be you, and for me to persuade you to stop. I couldn’t believe you wanted to destroy me. But if it’s not you, then I’m left—”
“My lord Prince! Beware! Spies!” Three dark shapes came running up the hill, swords drawn. Derzhi warriors. Two placed themselves between Aleksander and me, just as the third warrior pulled me away from him and shoved me onto the ground, clamping a boot firmly on my neck. I managed to twist my head to the side enough to see two more of Aleksander’s men throw someone to the scrubby grass and rocks at his feet. “It’s an Ezzarian, my lord. Found him lurking just down the hill. Let fly an arrow in this direction just as we found him. We think it’s one of the cursed outlaws.”
The prisoner spat. “If I’d been aiming at him, you can be sure I would have taken him. I’d think my life well spent to draw Derzhi royal blood.”
I hammered my forehead into the dirt and cursed so violently and so colorfully that it silenced every one of them. How could the world be so absurd? The prisoner was Fiona.
“They’ve set a woman . . . this stick of a girl . . . to watch
you
? To judge your actions as if you were some squire, some acolyte at Athos’ temple who can’t be trusted to wipe his ass properly? I don’t believe it.”
Aleksander’s indignation was flattering, but always dangerous. I didn’t think it wise to remind him of his own doubts so recently dismissed. No doubt they had been quite vividly revived for the few moments until I managed to calm my wayward tongue and explain that Fiona was no threat to him, only to me. I had told him that there were those among my people who still mistrusted me, that I had made some mistakes in my demon encounters, and that I had been forbidden to fight anymore. I said only enough to explain why I hadn’t known the girl was there, and why she saw fit to follow me to a private meeting.
“You need not concern yourself, my lord.”
I might as well have been trying to calm a shengar with a biscuit. Clearly he had not grown out of his hasty temper. He paced in front of his troopers’ watch fire as if ready to set out to battle my unfathomable compatriots who had judged me unfit to face a demon.
“Have they seen what you are? Do they know what you did inside me, how you fought the Lord of Demons for days on end when you had no blood left inside you? Athos’ balls . . . I should go tell them what it was like.” He stopped and glared down at the fuming Fiona, who lay bound hand and foot in the circle of firelight. “Or shall I hang the wench and get her out of your way? You could say she was eaten by a shengar.”
“No, my lord. This is a tale that must spin out among my own people. Much as I value your offer.” I suppressed a smile. His virulence was gratifying.
“She should already be dead. Sovari will flog his men for allowing an assassin to take a single breath after shooting at me.”
“She wasn’t shooting at you. For all her faults, Fiona is scrupulously honest.” She had claimed she was aiming at a rabbit, and two of the soldiers had gone to look for evidence. They would find it, not because her aim was as true as she claimed, but because a whole Kuvai town had once been burned when one of its residents let fly an arrow at a Derzhi prince. I had no intention of such a thing happening to Ezzaria. “Have her swear it to you, and you can let her go. I’ll vouch for her good behavior. Please, my lord.”
“I would you had not asked it. Not when I can see what these people have done to you.” Aleksander gave a last indignant harumph and left us alone then, saying he was going to see what was taking his soldiers so long.
Once he was out of earshot, Fiona broke her angry silence. “How dare you defend me to this murdering barbarian?”
“Interesting that the Derzhi call
us
barbarians.” I crouched down beside her and loosened the ropes that were cutting cruelly into her thin arms. She would not deign to waste melydda on making herself more comfortable. “What he said is right. You’re lucky they didn’t slit your belly and hang you up by your bowels for your stupidity. Probably because there wasn’t a tree tall enough to make it interesting.”
“Yet you name him your friend and call him ‘my lord.’ You disgust me.”
“Since you insist on listening to things that are not your business, I would recommend that you open your eyes and ears a little wider. You might learn something. There are wonders in this world that neither you nor your mentors understand.”
“The wonder is an Ezzarian groveling before a Derzhi murderer.”
“You know nothing of groveling, Fiona. You also know nothing of respect. I would advise you to show a bit of it. The Prince will not harm you . . . because I’ve asked him not . . . but his men will not be so understanding if they hear these insults. You demean yourself and all Ezzarians by your childish behavior. What do you think to accomplish?”
“You might as well have him kill me, for I’ve enough violations to report that the Council will judge you more than mad.”
“A madman. Is that what they’ve named you?” Aleksander had come up behind me, and I damned myself and Fiona for our loose tongues. The Prince threw a large rabbit, an arrow pierced cleanly through its breast, onto the ground in front of Fiona. She shot a glance at me, and I hoped she was clever enough to keep her mouth shut. It had not been easy to work the illusion while holding a conversation. I trusted Aleksander’s word, but not his temper. Not when he was under such strain as he was showing.
“I—as all madmen—claim that judgment is in error.”
Aleksander motioned one of his men to undo Fiona’s bonds, but I waved the soldier away and did it myself. Ezzarians are uneasy about being touched by outsiders. I left the illusory rabbit in her hands, and she tossed it into the darkness. I hoped none of the men would go looking for it again. I didn’t want to have to keep up the enchantment long enough for them to cook and eat it.
Once free, Fiona made a move to leave, but she got a slight taste of Aleksander’s disapproval. He grabbed her arm and shoved her back to the ground. “If you so much as twitch a finger, I’ll have you trussed like a goose, my lady. Don’t think because I’ve done as Seyonne asked that I’ll not hold you to account for your insolence. And until I do, you will sit here where I can see you. You may be able to do some of this sorcerous foolery, but I’ve a strong arm, quick feet, and a nasty temper.”
I didn’t bother to tell him that she wasn’t about to go far. Not as long as I was in the vicinity.
“You’ve not told me everything, have you?” said the Prince, after making enough princely handwavings to have us sitting at his fire with roast partridge and wine, dates and figs and bread in our stomachs. His men had taken themselves out of earshot again, rolling up in their blankets or taking up silent guardposts in the moonlit wasteland.
“No.”
He sighed and stretched out on the ground on his back. “Why should I expect it? If you didn’t when you were my slave, you’re not likely to when you’re a free man.” He rolled to his side; his head propped on his hand. “But perhaps it will make it easier to ask what I was going to ask when we were so annoyingly interrupted. If your own people have no use for you, then perhaps you’ll consider my proposition.”
“Which is?”
“I want you to help me stop this Yvor Lukash.”
“Despite what you think, he could not be Ezzarian.” I felt Fiona’s disapproving glare beating on my back like desert noonday. “We don’t work that way. Righting ills of the mind and soul, yes. But to interfere in the ways of the world—bloodshed, kidnapping, all these things you’ve described—it would be seen as corruption. Remember that I was treated as dead because I was taken as a slave, something that was none of my own doing. You can’t imagine that the same people who condemned me would condone such actions as this man’s, no matter how worthy the cause. Ezzarians have given of themselves for a thousand years, but not in this kind of battle.”
“But he’s a sorcerer. There’s no doubt of it.”
“He’s a clever, talented brigand. It’s not the same.”
“But the tales—”
“Were told to you by those who want to believe in him. Those who yearn to think that his promises can come true. They’ll speak of you in the same fashion when you do what you are capable of doing in this world.”
Aleksander rolled onto his back again, laughing. A better laugh this time. “Ah, light of Athos, Seyonne. Would there were one other man in the Empire who had such faith in me. Lydia calls me the most stubborn man ever to ride the sands of Azhakstan, but I can’t begin to match you. Do you still run?”
“I’ve needed to keep fit.”
“Last time we raced, I was only two weeks from a spear in the gut.”
“And I had been starved by the Derzhi for sixteen years.”
“I will see both ends of this ruin before your sorry Ezzarian bones can get off the ground.”
“I respectfully disagree.”
Fiona likely thought we had gone mad. Aleksander pulled off his boots and threw them at her, and we took off running, heading first for the south end of the line of pillars, then over the easy rise and fall of the land between them. His long graceful strides were a match for my lightness and speed as we raced through the blurring gateway to the south, step for step until we reached the northern end and started back toward the camp. Then I pulled away and was sitting by the fire unwinded when he flopped on the ground beside me. “Light of Athos. I’ve been too much in the saddle.”
“It is fine to see you again, my lord,” I said. “And to hear your sorry excuses.”
He grinned, slapped me on the back, and stumbled off to his tent.
I, without so much as a glance at the shocked Fiona, rolled up in the blanket laid out for me and slept better than I had in three months.
CHAPTER 10
The narrow, mist-hung valley was a fine hiding place for bandits. Four shabby dwellings were tucked in between the brisk little river, the trees that bordered it, and the steep slopes. The primary access was flanked by cliffs, making it easy to guard, and the place was well hidden in the maze of interconnecting valleys that webbed the Kuvai hills. A second, more difficult access, a steep track leading from the north end, provided a back way out through the rocky heart of the highland, so convoluted one would need an eagle to guide him through it. The whole place was well below the ridge tops to either side and obscured by the drifting trailers of mist. Safe from prying eyes . . . unless the eyes happened to belong to a sorcerer who had been trained since age five to discern what others could not.
“No more than twenty of them,” I whispered to Aleksander, who lay beside me on a knob of rock, peering down into the uneven grayness. “Five archers hidden in those outcroppings just inside the valley mouth—three on the left, two on the right. With the outer guards that makes eight. The six who just arrived are still with the horses, deep in the trees in the northernmost corner of the valley. Three riders injured.” I could smell the blood and pain in the heavy air. “Two have come out of the largest house to meet them. They . . .”
I started to say that one of these two was the man we’d come to find, the Yvor Lukash, this “sword of light,” the leader of the outlaws. But I could not explain why I thought it, save that I felt a stronger presence where the man stood. My senses did not tell me this. Was it experience? Expectation? I should know better than to assume that appearance or expectation was the truth. In demon battles, the appearance of things as you understood them and the expectation of where things ought to be were rarely truth. But this was a human encounter, so perhaps human instinct was more useful.