The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (31 page)

“
That war is a possibility, Majesty.  That we are bound by duty and honor to be ready for it.”  He watched her closely.  He never would have dared be so blunt if she had not shown herself willing to consider it already.

“
That is exactly how I feel we must respond.  And that is why, when I depart for the Ramparts with the Hilt Shagreen, I want you to ready the Imperial Army to mobilize within a few days’ notice.”

Elation surged through him, tromping the vague relief of a second ago that he wasn
’t going to get dismissed. He couldn’t believe it.

“
Do not expect this to go uncontested,” she warned, unaware of his delight through the façade of his military mask.  “The Council will almost certainly try to thwart you, even if it’s in petty demands for forms and signatures.  I need for you to persevere, to work the system any way you can.  We
must
be ready if anything were to come of these threats.”

Concern tore at him through the coursing euphoria. 
“Your Majesty, I must share my misgivings, as your highest military advisor, that you are going personally to the Ramparts…”  It had sent a draft like cold steel between his shoulder blades.

She waved him silent. 
“It’s been decided.  You said yourself how quiet it is.  We are woefully ignorant of this Realm, and I plan on fixing it.”  She didn’t mention that she was tired of feeling like a fool and having everyone talk over her head—an unusual position for a Northerner.  “If you were not needed north, I would take you.  Is there someone you can send as a military liaison—we need better ties there, too.”

It was a
desperately needed necessity, actually.  It took all of his considerable military bearing not to beam at her.

“
Of course.”

Androssan strode out of the apartments in a few moments with something as near to exultation thrumming through him as he
’d ever experienced, a man of action, mired in paperwork most of his career, suddenly shown open road and given his head.  If his charming Queen wasn’t headed to the Enemy’s front door, the challenge ahead of him would be pure bliss.

CHAPTER 15

There was no afternoon nap that day.  Nor the next.  Melkin rode them hard, to no one’s complaint, up the switchback trail to the Emerald Pass.  The elevation had its benefits—the air cooled, the bugs died at night, and every once in a while a break through the trees showed them the great golden basin of the Empire baking far below.  Late summer felt more like early fall up here.

They set a roving guard every night and Ari slept poorly even when he did lie down.  His depressed indifference to life in general had faded sharply after a nice, rousing threat to his
very existence, and in its place was a whole new set of worries. 

What, for instance, was going on?  The statue was being protected?  That hardly seemed likely, as the Kendrick ambush had taken place before anyone knew they were looking for it.  The intruder in their room had been there before
they
knew they were looking for it.  Maybe the two groups of Asps were after different things—though Ari would have denied there was enough about their little group to get anybody interested in them to begin with, let alone repeatedly.  So, did Melkin know something he wasn’t sharing with them?  Maybe trying to protect Ari by misleading the others?  The puzzle wore round and round, inscribing circles into his brain matter, and he began to feel Melkin’s sense of urgency.  Their lives were showing signs of impermanence until they figured this out.

And who had helped the Border Patrolman?

              The memory of the swordfight plagued him whenever the other left him alone.  It woke him in the middle of his light sleep at night, the acrid smell of fear and sweat, the malice of intent in the faces of complete strangers, the sickening thrill of steel reverberating as it hit bone.  He had once worried how to tell Loren he wasn’t coming back to Harthunters with him.  Now he worried that the excitement of the fight was rousing his Sheelman blood.  He was a killer, from a long line of the most brutal, merciless murderers on earth.  What if once he got started, he couldn’t stop?  What if he turned into some sort of demented zombie and sprang on his friends?  He watched himself anxiously for signs of madness…which for some reason didn’t improve his sleep any.

 
              After several unrestful nights, it was a relief to have the road top out onto the Emerald Pass.  He glanced back as they officially entered Cyrrh.  The Empire and all that was familiar, routine, normal, lay in a broiling golden haze of heat and humidity behind them.  There was only one thing he would miss there, and he still held out hope that she would follow them.  Loneliness washed through him, joining the deepening pool of self-pity he used for wallowing in.  With mournful resolution, he turned slowly to face his future.

             
Technically, Jagstag was just the Sentinel outpost that guarded Cyrrh’s side of the Pass.  But it was so much more evocative than whatever name had been given to the Imperial trading settlement a few yards away that it grew to cover them both, lasting through centuries of tales to develop its own fabled mystique.

             
The mercantile buildings still took up the majority of physical space, however, boring, Northern-style houses and shops.  Most of it was lodging or services geared to the big trading caravans that came through—taverns and general stores and inns with enormous fenced yards for the strings of loaded wagons.  Most trade points were lively places, Northerners being so spirited when it came to barter and profit, but Jagstag seemed subdued.  A quiet hush lay over it, the few people moving around without talk or tarrying under the looming, lush green mountains.

             
They passed through the whole town, Melkin oblivious to the smell of breakfast that was making his troupe slow longingly behind him, noses twitching.  They rode until they’d passed the last of the Northern buildings, until the trail crested out and all that was left was a high palisade rising up on their left and nothing but the trail descending into a textured sea of forest in front of them.  The wall of neat logs to their left paused in its purposeful march, a big gate interrupting the intimidating height.  Melkin led them through it, and they forgot all about breakfast.             

Behind the fence…lay
Cyrrh.

They
’d ridden into a large, circular courtyard, lined with stables, barracks, watering troughs and hitching posts, its packed surface scrupulously clean of weeds or trash.  The big Cyrrhidean flag with its delicate tree in gold flew overhead.  But aside from these mundane background features, they could have wandered onto a fantasy stage set.

E
very building was carved and decorated with fantastic art, the wood alive with scrollwork, twining greenery, shapes of men and animals, all glowing softly with heavy varnish and the efforts of polish.  Behind the big, main building, stairs could be seen carved out of the hillside that towered over it, winding liquidly into the steep mountains where Cyrrhideans had stood Sentinel for millennia.

In the courtyard, the hitching posts were lined
with something out of a dreamscape.  Great Cyrrhidean stags stood chewing their cud with the quick nervousness of the deer family, their graceful heads swiveling alertly at the Northerners’ arrival and topped by enormous, forward-angled racks of gold-tipped antlers.  Unreadable, their big, dark, lustrous eyes stared at them through thick veils of lashes.  Stagriders with only their heads showing over the huge shoulders of their mounts were busy at work with them, brushing the greyish-tan coats or cleaning their restless hooves.  The men, dressed in mottled cloth that the eye tended to roll off of, paid them much less attention than their beasts did, talking and laughing amongst themselves with the self-sufficient camaraderie of a tightly knit military unit. 

Into this scene
, padding nonchalantly across the compound, came a beautiful, tawny gold panther, coat replete with glossy rosettes of bold black.  Its flat, pale green eyes didn’t even acknowledge them, and though their horses whinnied and shied, the hyperalert stags didn’t even twitch.  Rodge made some strangled attempt at speech.

“
Jag…” Loren breathed.

“
Thanks, Loren,” he snapped, finding his voice.  “I didn’t recognize it from its black spots and huge fangs.”

“
No, look…”

Sure enough, the big cat walked up onto the barracks porch and flopped down by the side of a…Jagscout, apparently.  The Sentinel reached down and absently rubbed the huge cat head resting against him without even opening his eyes
.

“
You’re gonna catch flies with that thing hanging open like that,” Loren said smugly to a gape-mouthed Cerise.  She snapped it shut and flung him a dirty look.

Melkin dismounted,
favoring his arm, and as the rest of them followed suit, the door to the main building opened and disgorged a small group of uniformed Sentinels.  At their head, striding purposefully across the yard towards them, was a compact brown man with steady, mossy green eyes.

“
I’m Traivallion, Traive,” he introduced himself quietly, coming to a stop in front of them and inclining his head over his bent arm in a strange courtesy.  No rank, no title, but he was unmistakably in charge.  You could tell from the sudden alert, respectful stillness in the yard activity, the rising to casual attention of the dozing Sentinels on the porch, the bevy of aides behind him awaiting command.  All of them wore a cuirass of hardened leather over their muddy-colored cloth, but Traive’s was the only one with a rampant gryphon stamped onto its scuffed surface.

“
We have heard about your ambush,” he said gravely, eyes flicking to Melkin’s arm.  “Our healer awaits you inside, along with some chow.  We shall talk on the trail; I would have you in Lirralhisa as quickly as possible.”  That was all.  He inclined his head briefly, tossing over his shoulder to a waiting stagrider, “Thirty minutes.” At a beckoning gesture from one of the aides, the Northerners followed him up the stairs to the main building, heads swiveling around at the lavish architecture and implausible local population.

Judging from his speed and finesse in cleaning and sewing Melkin
’s arm, the Jagstag healer got a lot of practice.  The Master was joining them almost before the food was all out.  The Northerners, falling on the scrambled eggs and smoky rack of bacon like they hadn’t eaten in a week, barely paid attention to the Sentinel trying to prepare them for travel in Cyrrh.  He made a lot of obscure references, but the one he finished with was pretty clear, and their heads all reared up from spicy potato slices to stare at him:  “In fact, it’s probably best if you assume everything in Cyrrh is deadly.”

Though they
’d bolted the meal with more appreciation than manners, when they came back to the courtyard, everyone there seemed to have been long ready.  The reins of five stags were being held patiently at the foot of the steps, and the party was led without pause right over to them.  The boys and Cerise glanced at each other.  Surely…surely THEY weren’t going to—

“
You’ll have to leave your horses here,” Traive said, and they turned to see him at the top of the steps, pulling on leather riding gloves.

“
Whatever for?” Cerise demanded, frowning.  “We’re quite used to our own mounts.”  Loren took one look at her and moved resolutely toward the biggest stag.  Ari followed; he wasn’t about to miss this chance, either.  Rodge just stood, looking unhappy.  He wasn’t real pleased at having to leave the Empire again to begin with, and now things were definitely showing signs of deteriorating.

Traive paused halfway down the steps to answer courteously,
“Horses don’t travel well in Cyrrh, Lady.  The stag are much more nimble and have better reflexes.  Plus, they are accustomed to the jungle and not as likely to spook unnecessarily.”

“
Tekkara is very sure-footed,” she’d begun imperiously, when Melkin interjected crabbily, “Mount up, Cerise.”

The stag felt strange, with its narrow, straight back and the view through a tree of antlers. 
Ari could feel it tensing alertly under him.  Loren gave him a half-doubtful, half-exultant look.  The saddles had both high pommels and high backs, made of gorgeously tooled leather, and…leg straps.  Ari sat there fascinated as a rider literally tied him to the saddle.  He wasn’t sure he liked being so bound, and, well, why?

“
I DON’T need to be buckled into my saddle,” Cerise said testily, clear, loud and with overtones of outrage.

Traive,
his blunt, rugged face showing no sign of impatience, turned in his saddle to once again address her.  “The stags are much more quick-footed than horses, my Lady.  They can bolt and dart so quickly that those unused to them may find themselves dislodged at, er, inopportune moments.”

“
Your concern is touching…
Traive
,” she said coldly, with biting sarcasm at the abundant and offensive informality, “but I assure you, I’ll somehow manage to hang on.”

She urged her beast irritably away from the rider attempting to attend her—and was suddenly on the ground.  The boys stared, uncomprehending.  Furious, confused, she looked around with almost
comical accusation.  To a man, the stagriders sat composed and with universal expressions of polite patience.  She sprang angrily to her feet, eyes narrowed in suspicion, and quickly remounted.  Again she attempted to snatch the reins and again, inexplicably, ended up hind-end first in the dust.  It was as if the stag was simply stepping out from underneath her.

Rodge, by now with a beatific and faintly justified smile on his face, was mounting his own stag as Cerise
took a third go.

Traive, the exact same expression on his face, said in a gravely solicitous voice,
“My Lady, we are under some time constraints.  Perhaps, just until you are used to the stag, you would allow…”

She submitted, fuming.

Finally, they moved out.  The Sentinels fell in around them and Ari felt the anxious tension of the last few days ease away.  There was an air of profound competence, augmented by a good quantity of flashing steel, in this group of quiet men…though why a full dozen were needed to escort them, he wasn’t sure was an honor or an insult.  Or forewarning.

“
Those are cute little axes,” Rodge chortled from between him and Loren, good mood restored.  “Handy, I’m sure, for any menacing tree limbs daring to cross our paths in this oh-so-deadly land of Cyrrh.” 

All the Sentinels were dressed alike
, with hardened leather breastplates over their murky pants and blouses, knee high boots of thick leather, long-wristed gloves, and snug, worked- leather helmets that looked like they’d be suffocating in the heat.  There was a long knife at each hip and, hanging in a back brace, crossed axes that could be grabbed over a shoulder.  Ari peered closely at these last...at the delicately balanced heads, their fine edge, the intricate designs etched into the blades.

Loren, who
’d spent more than a couple disciplinary minutes behind an axe chopping a pile of trees, was thinking the same thing he was.  “I don’t think those are for wood…”

Only Traive wore a sword.  None of them wore the leg straps.

The trail was wide as they started out, the untamed forests of Cyrrh indistinguishable from the tame ones on the other side of the Dragonspine…to Ari’s disappointment.  This was supposed to be a magical land.  Squirrels and pine martens frisked through the overhead branches, rabbits and a skunk flicked through the underbrush.  Birds called, a peaceful breeze soughed through the leaves…he couldn’t believe these surroundings had spawned such wondrous tales.