Innowen bit his lip. He had never forgotten Drushen or what had happened at Whisperstone. Many were the nights he had lain awake wondering what had become of the old man. Drushen had been a father to him. He'd been a friend. Now Innowen didn't know if he was alive or dead. But he remembered a face twisted with terror and shame, and he remembered a despairing cry that haunted him still, sometimes, when he dreamed of Drushen running from his room.
He feared what might happen if Rascal ever saw him dance. He had to be careful, had to make sure that never happened. He couldn't bear the thought of hurting Razkili, of watching him run away, too, as Drushen had done.
"Innowen?"
Innowen snatched a tall, half-dead weed and began shredding it with his thumbnail, "Never mind," he told his companion. "I was just thinking."
"Always good to practice a new skill," Razkili quipped.
"You should take it up sometime," Innowen said with a grin.
* * *
Just before noon, they passed by a small village called Chalandri. The pathetic fields where a few brave stalks of wheat had fought up through the parched ground had not been tended for days. Dead sheep rotted on the hillside. A milk cow half covered with black flies sprawled across a ditch, its throat cut, its blood a dried brown stain on the earth.
The wooden buildings had been torched. Here and there, blackened timbers stood at strange angles, looking like thin broken silhouettes that cringed and cowered from the sunlight. Smoke still curled from some of the ashes. Bits of pottery and shattered furniture poked up. A few stone houses stood, but fire had gutted the interiors, collapsed the roofs, sometimes cracked a wall.
Taelyn halted his troops long enough to search the wreckage. It didn't take long. He paced about, stirred ashes with a toe, picked up the splintered handle of a hoe, peered at it, cast it down again. He walked into one of the stone houses. The windows and doorway bled with smoke stains and scorch marks from the heat that had raged inside. Moments later, he emerged carrying a rhyton that was blackened with smoke, yet miraculously intact. He tucked it gingerly under one arm as he continued through the ruins. In the center of the village, he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun and gazed up and down the street. Finally, he returned to stand beside his horse. Before he mounted, he gave the rhyton a last examination, crinkled his brow, and dropped it. It broke into three egg-shell thin pieces, which were ground into fragments as he and his army rode over them. It was only pottery, and its materials had come from the earth. To the earth it returned once more.
"I didn't see any bodies," Razkili whispered in Innowen's ear as they left Chalandri behind.
Innowen leaned his head back on his friend's shoulder and squeezed the arm that was wrapped around his belly for support. He tried to lose himself again in the rhythm of the horse's motion. But the sun had turned his pale skin a sharp pink. He itched where his flesh touched Razkili's, and every sudden bump or jostle brought a new irritation. "Maybe they were alerted in time and escaped the raiders. We'll probably find everybody safe at Sucrebor."
They rode side by side with Taelyn. Innowen looked over as he tried again to reconcile his memories of the slave with this new Taelyn, this commander of armies. The man's face was a placid mask, even as it briefly turned his way. It yielded nothing, and Innowen wondered just how much he truly knew of Taelyn and the things that drove him.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but through the red glare behind his lids, visions came in small snatches. He kept seeing the charred timbers of Chalandri's houses. Like shadows, he thought, leaning and twisted and broken, caught in the middle of a macabre kind of dance.
Sucrebor, too, lay in ruin.
All down the line, Taelyn's troops fell silent. The smell of death hung in the still air. There were no dead sheep this time, no milk cows. A ragged line of vultures quietly watched them approach, then grudgingly climbed out of the way.
"A little healthy exercise between courses," Razkili whispered morbidly, watching the birds wheel and screech overhead as he followed Taelyn through the village square. He glanced down at an unrecognizable mound of shredded flesh that might have been a man or a woman. "We're but an intermission, and the grand banquet will resume."
More
shadows,
Innowen thought, as he stared at the dark, soaring shapes. Ugly birds, they were, yet graceful in flight. They circled without effort, dipped and climbed, changed direction with a careful bend of a wing. A thought came to him, unbidden, that described the way they flew.
Another dance.
They paused long enough for Taelyn to choose two mounted men to ride ahead as scouts. When the twin gleams of their spearpoints could no longer be seen, he waved to his troops. The march continued, and Sucrebor was left behind. The vultures clacked their reddened beaks by way of applause and returned to their supper.
Blackened timbers. Black vultures.
Innowen couldn't put them out of his mind. The images gnawed at him.
They overlapped his view of the landscape as if his eyes perceived two scenes, one through the other.
Black as Vashni's armor, as the shadow of the Witch.
She had a way of stealing into his thoughts at the oddest times.
He wiped an arm over his wet brow, cursing the irritating tingle his touch raised there. He hated the heat, hated the day. Hurry,
night,
he prayed. The sun beat its way across the sky, burning him and stewing him in his own sweat.
The Akrotir Mountains loomed in the south. Taelyn quickened the pace even though most of his soldiers marched on foot. They hadn't made good time. It would be after sundown before they reached the foothills where Parendur nestled.
Innowen's spirits lifted a little. "I'll ride into the city on my own horse," he told Taelyn.
Razkili ground his bearded chin into Innowen's shoulder. "Ingrate. Tired of my company?"
"Not of your company," Taelyn suggested straight-faced, "but maybe of your stink." He wiped sweat from his eyes, then added, "This heat."
"Allow me my pride," Innowen said with a faint smile. He brushed his palm over Razkili's arm. "It's been five years since I've seen Lord Minarik. I'd like to greet him on my feet."
Before they had traveled much farther, Taelyn's scouts returned. The two raced up, covered with dust and filth, their thighs slick with the creamy lather of their horses. They jerked hard on their reins as they met the front of the line, and their poor steeds wheezed with great labored breaths as their riders made report.
Innowen looked at one of the soldiers with particular interest. Veydon, his commander had called him earlier. He was little more than a boy, younger than Innowen or Razkili, though not by much. Yet underneath the grime and sweat was a powerful warrior's body and eyes that sparkled like shards of black ice. They flickered toward Innowen, lingered for just a moment, then darted away.
"Parendur is under attack," Veydon told Taelyn excitedly. "There's an army camped right outside the city's gates and signs of an unsuccessful attempt to breach the walls. Kyrin's First Army is manning the ramparts, though, and so far the gates remain sealed." He paused long enough to take a swallow from the waterskin his commander offered him.
"Kyrin's First!" Taelyn snorted derisively. "That's no more than the city garrison." He glanced around sharply as some of his men chuckled, then turned back to Veydon. "What foe?" he asked with greater patience. "What are their numbers?"
"They fly no banner or flag that we could see," came the answer. "We crawled on our bellies as close as we dared in daylight, but we couldn't tell who they are." Veydon looked thoughtful, then shrugged. "Their numbers are perhaps two thousand men. Cavalry and footmen. No chariots. They've started building siege equipment. Just ropes and ladders, as far as we could tell. Nothing heavier is in place."
Taelyn frowned as he rubbed a hand over his lips and chin. "Almost four times our number," he muttered. "We camp here, then. Spread the word. No fires. All captains at my tent within the hour." He looked at Innowen. "Afraid we'll have to postpone your reunion, boy. I'll send someone to erect your tent." He pulled on his reins, turned his horse, and rode back along the line.
Taelyn's troops worked with astounding speed. In no time, the camp sprang up, and all the horses were tethered at its center. No fires were lit, but hard bread and handfuls of grain were distributed to eat.
Four soldiers swiftly erected a tent for Innowen and Razkili and set up a pair of cots.
"I wonder what they think," Innowen said as Razkili carried him inside. "They've seen me walk at night."
"The soldiers?" Razkili set him down on the cot that was most shaded from the sun. "Who knows what they think? Who cares? The whole camp surely knows their commander thinks highly of you because he treats you with respect and you ride at his side, even if you ride in my arms. And by now, word has probably spread that you're Minarik's adopted son."
Innowen nodded. "It bothers me sometimes, though."
Razkili put on a patient grin. "You mean all that garbage about being a whole man? That trash you used to spout?"
Innowen grinned, too, then hung his head in mock-humility. "You put up with a lot, don't you, Rascal?"
Razkili picked up a waterskin one of the soldiers had left. "Wash yourself," he said, pulling the stopper free. He took a quick drink, then squirted a stream that caught Innowen unexpectedly in the face. Innowen sputtered, wiping his eyes. When he could see again, his friend was gone, and the waterskin, stoppered once more, lay at his side.
He took a sip, then put the skin aside and sat quietly for a long moment. Slowly, he removed his kilt and unwound his breech cloth. He spread them as best he could over one end of his cot. They were damp with his sweat, but in the heat they would soon dry. He unstoppered the skin again and took another drink, pondering some more before he grabbed the breech cloth back, wet one end of it, and began to clean away the day's grime.
When Razkili returned, Innowen was stretched out naked on the cot with his clothes drying at one end. He watched without a word as Rascal, too, began to undress, but his friend dropped his garments on the ground instead of laying them out.
Rascal rubbed his nose suddenly. "Smells better in here," he commented. "You took my advice."
"It's quiet outside," Innowen said. "What's happening?'
"Taelyn's posted a minimum guard and ordered everyone else to get some rest, sleep if they can, until an hour after sunset." He sat down on his own cot and unlaced a sandal. Holding it up, he sniffed it, made a wry face, and cast it into a corner. "He intends to attack the enemy army tonight. He invited me to his tent to hear his plan, and it's a good one."
Innowen waited until his other sandal was off. "You're going to fight," he said quietly. It was almost an accusation.
Razkili looked up and met his gaze. "It's what I do, Innowen."
Innowen rose on one elbow. "It's what you used to do! This isn't your battle!"
Razkili's eyes narrowed, and one corner of his mouth pulled upward. He drew a breath and let it out. "Taelyn—your friend—is outnumbered nearly four to one. Even if the city's garrison joins the fight, as he's sure it will, that won't balance the odds. I've already offered him my arm. I can't withdraw now."
Innowen stared at him. Razkili was resolute, and nothing he could say would change the Osiri's mind. He knew that too well. He sucked his lower lip, considering the pointlessness of further argument.
Razkili had been a prince and a soldier, the fifth son of Osirit's king, when they first became friends. The fortune of his birth had earned him an education, a warrior's training, and a captain's rank, but with no position at all to speak of in his father's court, and four older brothers before him in line for Osirit's throne, he had left his homeland to travel with Innowen.
Osirit was a long way from Ispor. But Razkili was still Razkili. If he had offered his service to Taelyn, there was no more to be said. And in truth, he could find no fault in Rascal's decision. Quite probably, they both owed their lives to Taelyn.
Innowen bit his lip. "Watch your back, then." He sighed as he lay back down and covered his eyes with an arm.
Razkili broke the silence that threatened to grow between them. "Look at me," he said cheerfully. "I'm filthy, and I smell, though not quite as bad as you did before you washed. Where's that waterskin?"
Innowen opened his eyes and smiled. He'd been using it as a pillow, waiting for his chance. "Right here," he said, unstoppering it. He squeezed with both hands. Razkili gave a yowl, shielded his eyes, and lunged. Laughing, they fought for possession of the skin until Razkili wrenched it away.
"Now your cot's all wet," he chided, rising over Innowen.
Innowen grinned with satisfaction. "So's yours."
"Well then," Razkili said, dropping the skin and sweeping Innowen's kilt and breech cloth to the ground. "We might as well drown in one bed together." He stretched out on his side by Innowen on the narrow cot, folded one arm under his head, and draped the other over Innowen's waist.
Neither said anything more. Innowen looked into Razkili's eyes until they closed softly. Then he watched the delicate quivering of the pale veined lids. Breathing was the only sound he heard. Razkili's chest rose and fell against his. It was warm in the tent, and his sunburn itched where their bodies touched, but he kept still.