Sasha (47 page)

And so, even now that she was a trained Nasi-Keth warrior with a sword at her back, the good Verenthanes of Baen-Tar would assume that any princess ordered by her father to remain in chambers would stay there. She was little seen in Baen-Tar these days after all, and the guards only knew tales of her wildness from her childhood. There were two such guards at the door, with no view of the window, and she knew there would be no one in the courtyard below. She'd checked the moment she'd been quartered in Sofy's chambers.

She ran much of the way to the stables, darting through back roads and lanes wherever possible, slowing to a walk when there were people about, for fear of attracting attention. But the line of sheets trailing from the window of Sofy's chambers had doubtless been seen by now. She could only hope that the speed with which a message would reach Koenyg would not be as fast as she was.

The confusion of activity on the first day of Rathynal about the stables was a blessing and she passed unnoticed in her long cloak amidst the stablehands, junior nobles and soldiers. Peg seemed pleased to see her and offered no complaint as she saddled him in haste. She rode at civilised speed up the road toward the gates, passing yet more inbound traffic.

She announced herself to the guards at the main gate, hood thrown back, and received only frowning looks and a gesture to proceed.

Low cloud scudded above the hills as she rode toward the Baen-Tar cliff, grey and ominous, the farther, steeper hills shrouded in mist. Descending the cut, she saw a gathering of horse and men upon the eastern slope. They were barely dots on the paddocks, but there seemed a predominance of black to their uniform—a colour favoured by the northern provinces in battle.

“Damn,” she muttered to herself, as a chill seized her heart. She had moved as fast as she could, but Koenyg had been faster.

She urged Peg into a fast trot down the rock-paved incline. Then they were at the bottom, and she kicked with her heels, pulling Peg off the road and onto the grass, where he accelerated into a joyful gallop.

She headed for a road which cut between walled paddocks toward the nearest tents. Peg saw her intention, and she let him choose his own angle of approach, hurdling a drainage ditch and then thundering onto the earth road between paddocks. She took the bends between low stone walls at speed, cold wind stinging her eyes as she tried to peer ahead and guess the best route between walls and encampments of tents, men, horses and carts. Upslope and around, she reckoned, going the long way about.

She leapt a fence as the road turned, racing across a paddock, sheep scattering in a bounding, woolly sea as she turned downhill, headed for the camp's outer edges. Leaping several walls, she then jumped a gate to rejoin another road. Peg wove through several more bends, cutting corners that flashed by with a speed that few horses could have hoped to match. And then they were coming onto the lower slopes, where the paddocks fell away more sharply toward the forest below.

Sasha turned right along a narrow trail, wondering if any of the encamped soldiers would take note of the big black horse, and alert others…but she could not see any men about the nearest tents. Peg cantered as fast as the winding trail would allow, past a rickety farmer's shack and a pair of work-worn men tending plowed rows of vegetables…and there, against the wood-walled town houses ahead, was the Taneryn encampment, isolated in its field. A line of riders in black emerged from the town's streets ahead. Banners whipped on the wind, too distant yet for her to see, but it was obvious her time was short.

The trail straightened enough for her to get a good run at the next wall. Peg sailed over, and then it was a mad gallop across the paddocks, clearing several more walls and scattering livestock, before jumping a final wall and landing on the road she and Jaryd had ridden the other night. It forked where she recalled and then it lay before her, the Taneryn tents on the slope, the Taneryn banner flying atop a tent pole, cart horses grazing and tethered near their carts. Upslope, a dark line had formed. Mounted soldiers and banners—a red sword upon a black background. Ranash, Hadryn's northern neighbour. An opposing line was moving to confront them, a ragged assembly of Taneryn men and horses.

The gate leading onto the paddock's lower slope was open, and Sasha swerved Peg through it, racing uphill toward a large vertyn tree below the encampment. She hauled Peg to a halt, dismounted and threw his reins over a broken branch stump—there was no time for a full tether, but also little chance that Peg would wander anywhere except to find her. She removed her cloak, stuffed it into one saddlebag and ran for the nearest tents.

A Taneryn man came running across to intercept her—a guard facing the lower slope, watching for an ambush from behind. It was unlikely, Sasha knew—all cavalry sought the heights and it was the Taneryn, held fast to defend their encampment, who conceded those. The man's eyes widened as he saw who it was and his blade dropped.

Sasha ran to him. “The little Udalyn girl!” she demanded. “Where is she?”

“I…M'Lord Krayliss's tent, I would think…”

And Sasha was off, running between tents, trying to recall the way from the other night, though it had been very dark then and now it all looked different. She dodged guide ropes and steel pegs, with abandoned saddles and saddlebags suggesting a surprised, hasty departure. She found the central fireplace with cooking utensils lying about…There! The big tent beyond, its centre pole somewhat taller than the others.

She ran to the main flaps and pulled them aside. Within were familiar rugs upon the grassy floor, but no little Rysha. Sasha backed out, staring about in frustration. Where would they have taken her? She dared not call out, for the Ranash troops would be close enough to hear. To be placed in Krayliss's camp, at such a time, would be most unfortunate.

She ran to the nearest tent and looked within, but found nothing. Then the next, working her way upslope. She paused within one tent, lay flat on the ground and lifted the canvas. A line of Taneryn men confronted a larger, mounted force upslope.

To the front of the Ranash lines sat a man astride a big, grey charger. The bearer at his back carried the royal banner of purple and green, and six Royal Guardsmen held position at his flanks. Koenyg, Sasha realised, with little surprise. He wore battle leathers over a chain vest, as did the rest, a blade at his hip. And he was speaking, loudly, although his words were dimmed from this angle by the tailwind. Sasha strained her ears.

“…by Royal decree!” her eldest brother was shouting. “The order has been passed! Royal sovereignty has been challenged and a retraction is demanded! Should the Lord Krayliss, Great Lord of Taneryn, fail to retract, then he shall be considered in open rebellion against the crown!”

Sasha ran her eyes along the mounted Ranash line. Red and black, their horses large, their shoulders broad beneath chainmail of northern forging. Grim-faced men, some with trimmed beards beneath their helms, but mostly clean shaven. Perhaps half bore shields, unlike the Midlands–Lenay custom. The northern heavy cavalry, renowned through all Lenayin and beyond. The shield of Lenayin, and the bane of Cherrovan.

Sasha felt her skin crawl, to see her brother, the heir to the throne of Lenayin, seated astride before such a formation. Doubtless he did not trust a mixed Verenthane and Goeren-yai formation to perform such a task. And so the king-in-waiting would lead a puritan Verenthane force to crush the last of the Goeren-yai lords, in full view of the other provincial contingents. Her heart was pounding. She had to find Rysha, yet somehow, she could not tear herself from the scene before her.

Lord Krayliss rode out upon a warhorse—one of Taneryn's few, no doubt, for most of their mounts were skinny dussieh. The wind gusted at his long, tangled hair, and swirled at his beard. He rode erect in the saddle, a cloak over hard-stitched leathers, and paused, alone on the hillslope. Beyond, Sasha could see the distant figures of yet more soldiers clustering in rows before their tents to watch. Very faintly, she heard distant yells, and then a trumpet, officers in those neighbouring camps attempting to form their men into orderly ranks. They feared a rebellion. They feared the Goeren-yai in their midst would break ranks and come racing downhill with blades drawn to save the last of the old chieftains from certain doom. Koenyg played games with Krayliss for the fate of Lenayin. The civil war could start here, upon this hillside, this chill and cloudy afternoon. The division of provinces and towns into warring factions, Verenthane against Goeren-yai, neighbour against neighbour. The end of a nation.

Lord Krayliss halted his mount and stood in the saddle. “And so it comes to this!” he bellowed, his voice carrying further and louder than Koenyg's had. “The heir to the throne, and his pet band of Verenthane murderers! You accuse me of rebellion! You accuse the Goeren-yai of disloyalty! Well, I shall tell you, Prince Koenyg, that the crown of Lenayin has never found such loyal, honourable servants as we men of the ancient ways!

“And what do we get for all our years of loyal service?” His voice lifted to a furious roar as he faced the watching ranks of mixed Verenthane and Goeren-yai soldiers upon the upper paddocks. “The massacre of the Udalyn! Yes, I receive battered and desperate survivors even now as the bloody Hadryn campaign through the ancient valley! And then, good Prince, you wish us to wage war upon the serrin, who have always been friends to the Goeren-yai! And all this, while you rape our culture, ignore our customs, send priests from your temples to convert impoverished villagers and then blame us for the troubles and anger it causes!

“It all ends here! We, the rightful men of Lenayin, demand justice! The honour of the ancient ways has for a century been dragged through the mud, stamped upon by each and every Verenthane boot in the land! The honour of the Goeren-yai demands that it ends, or that we must die fighting for what is ours!”

He clenched his fist in the air, and a roar went up from the Taneryn line. Perhaps fifty men, mostly mounted. Naked blades were brandished against the cloudy afternoon sky and chants of open defiance carried on the wind. It seemed that time had stopped. Such open defiance to the crown, from a provincial great lord, had been unknown in Lenayin for a hundred years. It did not seem real—that the moment should finally arrive.

Koenyg gave a signal and a Ranash captain galloped behind his line, shouting orders in a northern tongue. Blades were drawn, broad and sharp, clutched in gloved fists. The Ranash line numbered at least a hundred, in two ranks with more in reserve. They held position with the discipline of regimented drill. Whatever the wild-haired, brazen ferocity of the Taneryn line, it now appeared fragile indeed.

Krayliss, Sasha noted, had not moved. He stared upslope toward the tents and the half-assembled formations of provincial soldiers who stood watching. One of Krayliss's men rode to his side, appearing to beg him to fall back. Krayliss ignored him and stood once more in his saddle.

“Men of the ancient ways!” he roared toward the watching soldiers. “You serve with Verenthanes, but you do not belong to them! You belong to the spirits! You belong to the untamed hills, wild and free! Will you allow the Udalyn to be slaughtered? Will you watch your honour battered and stabbed until it crumbles into dust?”

A yell from the Ranash captain and the outer flanks wheeled, creating more space along the formation, the inner riders moving outward, dressing the line.

“What do you wait for?” Krayliss yelled. To Sasha's ears, it seemed as if a new, alien emotion had entered the great chieftain's voice. Desperation. He ripped his great blade from its sheath and thrust it skyward, glinting dully against the darkening clouds. “Fight!” he roared. “Fight, and claim what is yours!”

From the soldiers upon the upper fields, there came no reply. No restive murmuring, no chants or yells of fury, or of sympathy. Just a restless, disbelieving silence. Men stood, and waited. Krayliss stared in disbelief. His blade dropped. A yell from the Ranash captain and the northern line advanced, rising quickly to a canter.

Sasha dropped the canvas and ran for the tent exit as a roar went up from behind. “Rysha!” she yelled at the top of her lungs as hooves thundered, and then there were Taneryn horses wheeling back amidst the tents at speed. Horses thundered past, dussieh and then larger, weapons brandished, swords clashing as Sasha crouched behind a tent, awaiting an opening in the forest of hooves. A horse crashed through the tent, mount and rider falling as the tent pole broke, and Sasha scrambled backwards, then threw herself rolling as another came straight at her.

Then she ran, darting and dodging as best she could, as the world became a confusion of screaming men and horse, slashing blades and falling bodies. Horses tripped on guide ropes, fallen men were trampled by friend and foe alike, or slashed hard at the mounts of riders to bring down both beast and man in a thrashing, bloody heap. Sasha darted, dove, scrambled and crawled her way through the chaos, headed downslope as instinct drove her toward Peg and possibly the forest at the base of the hill…a Taneryn man was cut from his horse before her with an expert slash from passing cavalry, and fell in a spray of blood. Sasha ran for the riderless dussieh, grabbing a stirrup as the terrified animal tried to run, then hurdling astride.