The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (34 page)

Sable
, casting about for some soothing reply, said irrelevantly, “They’re only half naked, and they don their shirts in the heat of the day—didn’t you hear Kore say it’s actually cooler to wear light fabric when the sun’s rays are directly on you?”

For a native of a Realm noted for its logic and tolerance, the Queensknight didn
’t look like he was interested in either at the moment.  He took a step closer to her, the outrage on his white, firm-chinned face changing into one of almost pleading.

“
Sable,” he said softly, more daring than he’d ever been before, which made her inexplicably regret the familiarity she’d been trying to cultivate between them, “this is beneath you…and…and you are in danger here.”  He added that last a little lamely, as if realizing the first part may have been a
teensy
bit forward.

She steeled herself at his closeness—he was developing quite a unique odor under his full armor—and said with finality,
“Their culture is going to have differences that we will graciously accept while we are their guests.  I don’t want to hear any more about this.”  She turned briskly away, then paused.  “You have my permission to go unarmored here.  I’m sure it’s, um, uncomfortable in this heat.”

Back at camp, the
energy of the Rach had only seemed to intensify.  She was, of course, in the middle of the bivouac and could hear them from every direction.  Ripples of laughter, outbursts of good-natured ribbing, cheers (they were vocally supportive of
everything
), surrounded her, and now from every direction the sound of guitars and of song began to drift across the night.

Kore, across the fire from her, watched her face turning reflexively with each burst of music and said laughingly,
“Tonight, we will dance for you.”

Rorig, irremediably hostile by now at anything Aerach, muttered from behind her,
“
Your Majesty.”

He could have been a fly for all the attention they paid him.  Once they
’d finished dinner—an educational affair for Sable, as it turned out that Rach ate with their fingers, off beaten copper trenchers, using their delicious flat bread to sop up juices—Sable forgot him, too.

The Rach danced liked they did everything, with whole-hearted enjoyment. 
They leapt and spun and twirled, the horse warriors of the desert, the firelight making the tanned, lithe bodies seem to take flight as they circled it in an oddly disciplined abandon.  It was a captivating, primal kind of night, the half-naked dancers, the wild music, the powerful stamping of strong legs and stirring shouts of young lungs, with overhead and all around nothing but silent, timeless space and stars.

She lay sleepless for
hours afterward, despite her healthy weariness.  The camp was completely quiet.  Unlike the Northerners’, the Aerach encampment was spread out over acres.  That had set Rorig off again when he noticed it and she had to listen to him grouse under his breath about poor military judgment and lack of leadership, amongst other things.  Sable, privately, thought the Rach didn’t feel any particular threat.  They certainly weren’t intimidated by the vast, dark, empty space that was their only companionship for leagues in any direction.  It was very strange to her—no houses, no buildings of any type, no people, and no mountains to border the world, anywhere.

The tent flaps, simple,
undyed linen with Kyr’s bright copper sun stitched into the cloth, wafted gently inwards with a blessed breeze that cooled her hot skin.  How odd, she thought as the night settled in even warmer and closer after its passage, that she seemed to be so at ease—enjoying herself, almost—among such primitive people.  Who, frankly, seen through the sharp lens of Northern glass, were utter failures.  Most of them hadn’t a tirnal to their name, felt no sense of duty propelling them to correct this, and spent their lives in apparent light-hearted ease.  It was as if all the rigid rules and regularly spaced grids of life proscribed by Marek didn’t exist here.  And how could they be so…so…so HAPPY without a goal, without anything to strive for?  Even she, Queen of the North and a raging success by any standard, felt the constant pressure to succeed, to be always in control, to make more tirna for the Realm.

Against her will, thoughts of her much-removed ancestress, Karmine (
who, for love of Il
immediately interjected her mind) drifted into her thoughts. Could that have been part of Karmine’s fall?  Perhaps she, like the Rach, was raised without the confining strictures of Marek?  Sable had sort of mentally cubby-holed her as a faintly silly sentimentalist, to be so swayed by irresponsible emotion…but what if the ways of the Empire were not, to her, the absolute and all-consuming bonds that they were to the average Northerner?  That was somehow easier on the mind than the thought that she’d simply disregarded them, or that she was a dismissible blot on the sacred list of Royal Line, or worse…that her god was somehow more important than Realm and Throne.

The next day, Kore introduced her to his family.  In order of importance, apparently: Grimtread, his midnight stallion, the hunting falcon, Gynnan, the pack of dogs, who bulged with lean clumps of muscle, came in soft shades of fawn, red, blue and the odd brindle, and were called Porsha, Trian, Aranta, Neerak, Barava, Uristi, and Shika, and his wife and three children—whom he forgot to name.

Her Majesty watched with appropriate appreciation when the hawk was flown in search of lunch,
murmured over the excellent coat of the horse, smiled warmly at the family…but her real interest was in the dogs.  Sighthounds, fine-boned and with thin, satin-soft coats, they were famous in the southern Empire for their speed; they could outrun even the long-legged bear hounds of Merrani.  She’d already made friends with Shika, a delicate beauty in the shade of dusty grey they called blue.  Like all of them, she was sleek and narrow and gentle, with a soft, slender muzzle that kept finding its way into Sable’s hands.

By the afternoon of that second day, the Shimmering Downs came into view on the horizon, a series of low, brown hills almost obscured by heat waves.  They
’d been there quite a while before Sable recognized them for what they were, and then only because a couple of warriors shouted it out behind her and set off for them at a dead run.  She was getting an earnest lesson in the intricacies of falconing from Kore’s oldest son Kenai when they came back.  Except instead of flying past, they came straight to Kore, reining in so sharply that their horses almost sat down.  Dirt and dust flew everywhere, and over the commotion, Sable clearly heard their excited voices.

“
‘Tip!” they cried in warning, “Flying!”

Instantly, Kore touched his heels to his stallion
, and no sooner was the space next to her vacated of his presence than a half dozen now-quiet warriors fell in around her, completely encapsulating her in Rach.  Rorig was left abruptly on the periphery, dropping several notches in dignity as he tried to force his way back to his Queen’s side.  Sable wasn’t even aware of him, she was so curious about the sudden wary focus among the warriors, though by no stretch of the imagination could you call them nervous.  The look on their bronzed faces was more akin to boys focused on the berry tart stand at the fair than it was soldiers expecting imminent danger.

Sable calmly let the time play out, not even bothering to ask what was going on—military jargon in the
North
was unintelligible enough.  She couldn’t even imagine trying to make sense of what she was likely to hear from the Rach.  Men loved their games.

The dust cloud that
held the Shagreen came to a stop and dissolved into recognizable forms not too far ahead.  She could see clearly now that there was someone coming from the opposite direction, and there were a few scant seconds of inactivity when he pulled up on meeting Kore.

To her surprise, there followed sudden and violent action—the
incoming rider was yanked off his mount and thrown to the ground.  Her eyes widened as one of Kore’s men began lashing at the prone figure as if he held a whip, though she couldn’t see that from where she was.  In contrast to her alarm, the Rach around her relaxed into talk, some chuckling and shaking their heads, some calling out what was absolute gibberish to Sable’s ears back to their comrades.  None of them seemed overly troubled by the unexplained flogging going on a couple hundred yards to their front.

By the time the troupe grew close enough to really see what was going on, it was over.  The person on the ground was rising gingerly to his feet, a whip being grimly coiled up by one of the nearby men.  He stiffly remounted his lathered horse, his face very dirty, and as he turned and headed back the way he
’d come, she was appalled to see his bare back laced with thin red ribbons where the lash had drawn blood.  He couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve.

When Kore headed back to join them, Sable almost didn
’t recognize him.  If it weren’t for his worn buckskins and the fact he was mounted, he could have been a Dra, so set and implacable was his face.  It softened as he met her eyes, swinging the black in next to her mare.  She must not have been completely composed, because he said, “Don’t be distressed, Lady Queen, it was of no matter.  A Wingtip, bringing a routine message.”

“
He was beaten…?” she said in a carefully neutral tone.

The Shagreen
’s eyebrows gathered blackly.  “It is a grave infraction for a ‘Tip to run a horse like that for no reason.  Much depends on them in battle; they must know the importance of garnering their horse’s strength.” 

Rorig, who
’d finally muscled his way back to Sable after his most recent and deeply felt humiliation, was apparently done with his silent protector role.  “We are obviously NOT in the middle of a battle, your undisciplined men race all over the plain, and he was flayed ‘til he bled.  Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive?” he said accusingly.

“
No,” Kore said, facing him contentiously.  “Hundreds of men depend on that boy’s judgment; it can take a ‘Tip days to run a message down the length of a Wing, and if he can’t get it to the right men by the right time, it could mean thousands of deaths, the success of the whole mission, the integrity of the Ramparts—even the safety of the Empire itself.  I should have made him walk back and pulled him from the Wings.”

“
I’m sure he would have preferred it,” Rorig muttered snappishly.

Kore gave him an even look. 
“A dismounted Rach is a dishonored Rach.”

Sable pondered all this for quite a while.  She wasn
’t even particularly comfortable with Northern military justice—though obviously she understood the necessity for discipline—and she was pretty sure they did nothing so brutal as what she’d just witnessed.  But what was most irreconcilable was the reflexive harshness, the quick jump to corporal punishment from men so utterly amiable and open and jocular in their day-to-day lives…what sort of people were these?

That night, they settled into the gentle curves of the Shimmering Downs.  Unlike the flat iron of the plains, up here the sunset brought marked relief, though they
’d left the Idon and the chance to wash down there, too.  You got used to the reek, she found.  Especially if you were contributing.

There was casual talk about the fate of the messenger that night around the fire—all of
it universally unsympathetic.  Sable, feeling like she was a detective hunting out clues about this baffling society, was listening closely and so happened to hear one of the warriors make an idle comment about the ‘sign of the Empress.’   Mind immediately on a whole different track, she hurriedly swallowed the bit of succulent steak impeding her and asked sharply, “There’s news of the Statue?”

Most of the Rach looked at her curiously, as if she was neighing instead of speaking, but Kore
’s face flashed a white smile in the dim firelight.  “The Empress hasn’t always been a Statue,” he chuckled.  He looked at her thoughtfully, then his eyes shifted beyond her.

“
Noska!” he cried extravagantly, flashing a sly grin at her at the same time.  “A tale!  A tale of our
human
Empress!”

He came over to their fire, this Noska, and it was like a beacon had flashed out over the whole camp.  An immediate whispering of boots and
whushing of moving bodies seemed to come in a rush all around their campfire.  Mothers with little ones in their laps appeared out of nowhere, warriors lounged themselves into piles of brown muscles and leathers.  The Northerners drew back a little, heads swiveling at the great press of bodies, and, actually, a little at Noska himself.  At some point in his life, his face had met up with a blade, and not to his beautification.  In the North, anyone that disfigured would have been far from society, perhaps on a quiet farm—and if he hadn’t the self-respect to do it himself, his friends would’ve made sure of it for him.

Sable assumed it was
steelscore, the jagged, grotesque scar through his empty eye socket, but it didn’t seem to be the least disturbing to the Rach.  No one winced or politely averted their eyes, and even the small children gathered close around him with delighted, upturned faces.  A wet nose thrust itself into Sable’s hand and without even having to look she began stroking Shika’s velvety head.  Kore gave her a brilliant grin, proud of himself, leaning back comfortably so that his flat belly rippled in the firelight.  His wife Taneh settled in companionably, close to the crook of his arm and body.