The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (38 page)

             
The Tor itself rose over the entranceway, a thickened bulge in the wall that was dwarfed by the immensity of the jungle around it.  Though it looked broad and squat compared to the surrounding trees, it was actually quite high, and large enough to hold the hundreds of Sentinels that pulled duty in this part of the world.  The Northerners found out it also held their mess hall and kitchen, a crude water purifying room that pumped the dingy river water through a series of filters, a stable big enough for the mounts of passing stagriders as well as the few that the Tor kept as messengers, an armory, an infirmary, and a large, formal briefing room befitting the main Southern Gate.

             
“The Torlord here is a high-ranking Sentinel,” Rhuq explained, companionably accompanying them on the tour.  “Since this has always been the main route into Lirralhisa.”

             
“For visitors?” Rodge said in disbelief.

             
“For invasion.  He is the Torquelord, which means all the other Bronze Torlords report to him.  Only the Gold and Silver Torquelords stand between him and the Captain of the Sentinals himself.”

             
While Rodge looked a little cross-eyed at all this jargon, Loren said as he absently watched clean water trickle out of the purification room, “That’s who Traive must have gone to report to…” 

             
Cerise was also watching the water, and to no one’s surprise, begged—that is, imperiously demanded—a bath.  The sergeant holding forth on the wonders of the Tor offered them to everybody, adding, “Clorvause here will do out your laundry while you’re at mess.”

             
“Oh, that’s alright,” Ari began graciously, but was firmly cut off.

             
“REALLY.  He won’t mind.”  A very young-looking private turned red and mumbled something acceding.  “Maybe it’ll help him remember when his guard shift starts.”

             
At which point Cerise began explicit and lengthy instructions on the care of her riding clothes.  The private stared, bug-eyed, gap-jawed, and Rodge leaned over to the sergeant.

             
“If you want to have punishment ready at a moment’s notice, consider keeping her on.  She excels at tormenting man—you might say, she’s a natural.”

             
The loaned clothing given them while Clorvause was laboring punitively over theirs turned out to be a wonder, the indeterminate-colored stuff the stagriders wore.  It was perfect huntwear: tough, light, breathable, and mottled softly like shadow-and-light jungle.  Ari and Loren, fingering it appreciatively as they settled into the crowded mess hall, could have been mistaken for Sentinel privates, dressed identically all over the hall. 

             
It was an active place, the mess hall.  Unique to this meal were the invasion of lizards racing undisturbed over the walls, across the ceilings, underfoot.  They were like a strobe rainbow, a dozen vivid colors, darting and scurrying in flashes of sleek bodies and long, flicking tongues. 

             
“Do any of them ever fall in the soup?” Rodge asked, half-disgusted, watching one athletic fellow run the full length of the ceiling.

             
“Only the purple ones,” a nearby private answered, dead serious.

             
Loren grinned.  “I love this place.”

             
“Good,” Rodge said.  “You stay.  I’ll go.”

             
Like with the Fleetmen those long weeks ago, a busy, all-consuming silence settled on the diners as soon as the food was served, and didn’t lift until most were done.  Then the slow talk began, stories began to float around, camaraderie thickened.

             
They’d had ‘blue fillet,’ which tasted like chicken, wasn’t even faintly blue, and was so rapturously seasoned that Ari and Loren had split a third one and were slowly forcing it into their happy gullets.  Some of the privates were explaining to Rodge the subtle indicators of Sentinel rank, which explained why the stagriders were treated with such reverent awe, when Ari became aware of the amiable stare of the tall private across the table.  He looked up at him, and the Sentinel said with quiet friendliness, “My brother’s friend is a Jagscout—or was.”

             
Everyone around quieted down.  Ari and Loren, forks halfway to their mouths, stared, wondering if this was somehow significant.

             
“He was scouting for a squad that went after that big troop of Redfangs outside Choletta Tor when they got really bad a couple of years ago.”

             
“We came through Choletta,” Loren said.

             
Half the table in each direction chuckled.  “We heard,” the private said.  “Probably what’s left of those Redfangs was what escorted you to the gate.”  There was more subdued mirth, but the young man was still looking amicably at them, evidently something on his mind.  He settled back comfortably, with the undeniable air of a man going to share a story, and everyone leaned in closer.

             
“This squad of my brother’s friend, Dreu, seriously underestimated that troop and ended up tail-between-the-legs, beating feet back to Copper.  Dreu couldn’t keep up with the stags, of course, and his cat wouldn’t leave him, so the Redfangs caught up with them and were toying around with them.  You know how sometimes they’ll play around a little first.  They’d killed his cat and had mauled him pretty bad when suddenly he heard these shouts—loud, human shouts.”

              There was total silence at their end of the table, the other privates enjoying the story, the Northerners with identical, frozen looks of horror on their faces.  The last bite that had gone into Ari’s mouth was still there, savor turned to chalk and forgotten. 

             
“Well, he shouts back, to let any rescuers know there’s what’s left of a human in with all that ape fracas, and the Redfangs get mad and fling him at the Torque wall.”

             
Rodge’s chin hit the table.  He said quickly, in a strangled voice, “Can we talk about something else?”  Ari and Loren, too stunned to speak by the mental picture of a human impaled on fangvine thorns, gaped.

             
Oblivious of the effect of this reminiscing on his tender listeners, the private companionably continued, “Someone dashed into him at the last moment, knocking him off course, and when he lifts his head he sees, tossed against the wall and tumbling down it in slow motion…Sylvar.”  He rolled his hand ominously down an imaginary bumpy wall and the surrounding privates made low, appreciative sounds.

             
“Silver?” Rodge said, clueless and a little desperate to change the subject.

             
“Sylvar.  You know, the Dancer.  Then there’s more shouting—there’re two others and they’re tearing into the Redfangs.  Just the two of them.  White steel glowing, crying, ‘the Light, the Light!’ they chase off that whole troop.”

             
“Dreu is pretty out of it, one arm half torn off, one leg not working, weak from loss of blood, and he loses consciousness.  When he comes to, Vashti and Nerissa are bending over him.”  A hum of approving murmurs, as if, surely, that just topped everything, spread around the table.  Several knowing grins were directed at the private, as if some had already heard the story or knew the punch line or something.  The Sentinel next to Ari leaned over and primed him, “He’s got a thing for Nerissa.  Got a picture of her and everything.”

             
“Hey, keep that quiet,” the private telling the story hissed, shooting a nervous glance up to the front of the room, where Melkin and Cerise and Traive were sitting with the Torquelord.

Ari finally managed to get that last bite of blue fillet down his too-small throat, several things
becoming clear.

             
“Whiteblades,” he whispered, a little hoarsely.  Rodge and Loren looked at him blankly.  “Where did you get a picture?” 

             
“The Book of Ivory, of course,” the private whispered back, barely moving his lips.

             
“You tore a picture out of a book?!”  Rodge hissed indignantly.  He looked around at an unmoved mass of spectators.  He could care less about Dreu or dead Whiteblades, but a book?  Nobody just defaced those kinds of things.

             
“I normally charge five tirnal to see it,” the Sentinel confided, “but since you all are guests…”

             
“A quarter tirna?!” Rodge said, with much more animation than dismemberment or impalement had aroused.  “That’s outrageous!”

             
“Shut up, Rodge,” Loren urged.  “What happened to Dreu?”

             
A shockingly violet lizard suddenly landed with a splat on an empty platter, took one startled, embarrassed look around, and scurried off the table.  No one paid any attention to it.

             
“Well, Nerissa is leaning over Dreu.  Her hair brushes his face.”

             
Snickers. Someone jibed, “Is this Dreu’s story or your dream last night?”

             
The taleteller ignored them. “You are in grave danger,’ she says.” 

             
“Dreu gasps, ‘Nay, Lady Ivory, these wounds are nothing…`”

             
Sentinels laughed softly around the table, some almost choking in the attempt to stay quiet.  Rodge put his face in his hands. 

             
“Your wounds are grievous,’ she says, ‘but I mean rather that you are in the very path of an ambush, intended to breach the Tor and capture the Daphenian merchant that visits just inside.”

             
“Then you must leave me, Lady, and hurry on your way to warn my countrymen,’ Dreu gasps out.”

             
“Nay, noble Sentinel, for you shall surely perish without care,’ she says, then there’s this interruption…and Tamaren walks up, to see why things are off schedule.”  An almost reverent silence fell, privates looking at the tale-spinner with hushed awe.  Rodge, in the face of all this silence, asked grudgingly, “Who’s Tamaren?” A sea of tanned faces swiveled to gaze on him in disbelief.  One of them said, as if he just needed a reminder, “Of the Swords of Mercy.”  Rodge threw up his hands.

             
“Nerissa explains to the Hand what’s going on, Tamaren agrees they can’t leave what’s left of Dreu, so they put him up in a tree and build a blind—apologizing the whole time that he still may be in danger from stray arrows!”  The privates grinned again, enjoying things about this story that were a little obscure to the Northerners.

             
“So, Dreu’s up there trying not to die too loudly and to stay conscious long enough to see what’s gonna happen, when sure enough, down the trail comes a group of men.  They’re moving quietly, obviously on full alert…and wearing shadowcloth, blades, axes, crossbows strung.”

             
Everyone was staring at him, puzzled, and he paused in satisfaction, letting them absorb the implications, stew over his meaning.  The Northerners, mystified before, were now absolutely lost.

             
“Then Tamaren steps out of the trees.  ‘Halt,’ she cries, ‘and turn from thy foul path.  Desist, go back to thy swamps and thou wilt go unharmed.’”

             
“Swamps!” one of the listeners cried grimly.  “Mercs!”

             
Ari’s head snapped around.  Mercs?  Not…not the White Asps?  Surely there were lots of mercenaries around…but why were so many suddenly popping into his life?  All around the table, the privates’ eyes were hardening, jaws setting angrily in the brown faces.  “They dare to attack Cyrrh,” one said, low and threatening.

             
The storyteller rolled on:  “They just laughed when they saw one lone woman.  And then they proved they were NOT Cyrrhidean, for they’d barely got their bows up before she’d fired a bolt right into the leader’s chest.  Vashti and Nerissa joined on their flanks, brandishing steel, and the fight commenced.  Dreu saw the whole thing before he passed out again—said it was the prettiest little skirmish he’d ever seen.  Three shining blades against a dozen…like sunrays among slugs.”

             
Contented sighs went around the table.  Several privates were nodding in satisfaction, others had looks of almost comical longing on their faces.

Rodge, glancing at Ari and Loren, muttered,
“Great.  This is just what you two need to bring you back down to earth.”

             
“That’s when the warning went out about unannounced parties at the Gates,” the taleteller continued in a final kind of tone.  “No one ever knew where the dead mercs came from or that the Ivory had saved the Torque, because Dreu died right after telling my brother.”

             
“Your brother could have told the authorities,” Rodge pointed out.  The private looked offended.  “He’s a Fox.  It was told him in confidence.”

             
“But,” Loren protested, “there was that dead Whiteblade.”