Arms-Commander (27 page)

Saryn had started down the steps to the main hall before dawn on eightday, when she heard Ryba's voice from above her on the stone staircase. “Saryn…I'd like a word with you…”

Saryn headed up to the top level of Tower Black, where Ryba waited, fully dressed.

“Come in and close the door.”

Saryn did so. Ryba stood by the circular table and looked at Saryn. “I have not said too much to you about what you must do in Lornth. That is because I do not know so much as I would like. I cannot tell you how vital it is that you do not hazard yourself unnecessarily. You can sacrifice guards if you must, but without you, Westwind will have nothing.” Ryba's lips quirked into an ironic grin. “Needless to say, such an unnecessary sacrifice would not benefit you, either. One way or another, Lornth will not survive in its present form. The old lord-holders who will not abandon their male-only traditions will have to be crushed, or they will destroy the regency. The regency may not last in any case, but whoever or what ever rules Lornth must not include the tradition-bound holders, or we will be at war within a handful of years.”

“Even with the devastation there, and what is likely to come?”

“If they survive, they will seek to blame us and plunder Westwind for what crumbs they can find. We do not need another war.”

“So…you're sending me as much for Westwind as because I pledged.”

“More for Westwind. I respect your honor, but my goal has always been to change Candar so that there are places where women have at least equal rights and power compared to men. Without Westwind and what you must do, that cannot happen.”

Ryba's words scarcely surprised Saryn. “I think I always knew that.”

There was a moment of silence before Ryba spoke again. “Saryn…no matter what you think, I do wish the best for you.”

Those words and, even more, the clear feeling of truth behind them did surprise Saryn. “Thank you.”

“You'd best get something to eat. You have a long journey ahead of you.” Ryba paused. “One last thing, and it is advice you will not like. To succeed you will need to be more ruthless than any man, for only then will they respect you.”

“I hope it does not come to that.”

“It will. It always does.” Ryba stepped forward and opened the door.

Saryn nodded, then departed, heading down to the main hall to eat.

Less than a glass later, she was mounted and at the head of her small force, reined up on the road outside Tower Black where it met the causeway.

“Is everything set?” Saryn looked to Hryessa.

While Saryn would have liked to have checked every guard's gear personally, she knew that doing so would have undermined her subordinate—unnecessarily, since Hryessa was every bit as meticulous as Saryn herself. The arms-commander glanced back at the wagons waiting behind fourth squad. Both were in far better condition than when she had brought them back to Westwind, as were the two drays pulling them.

“Yes, ser. We're ready to head out. We made the transfers you approved for the two with small children, and that took care of anyone who shouldn't really be going to Lornth.”

Saryn nodded. She'd told the guard captain that they might end up stuck in Lornth over the winter if things did not go well. “How does Daryn feel about your going to Lornth?”

“He hasn't said. He doesn't have to. He doesn't like it. I can tell.” Hryessa shrugged. “I told him you needed me, and the Marshal said so. That means he has to stay and take care of Elaya and Ryntyr. He's good with them. That's not a problem. He's tended some of the other young ones, too, when it was necessary. He's a good man.”

Saryn looked across the causeway. Standing just outside the door to Tower Black was a small group of people, among them Daryn and Hryessa's son and daughter, and four other familiar figures—the three silver-haired girls and Dealdron. Ryba was not among those seeing the detachment off, but Saryn would not have expected that of the Marshal.

Elaya and Ryntyr waved to their mother, and Hryessa blew them each a kiss, then flicked the reins of her mount. “Company! Forward!”

Saryn took a last glance at Tower Black and the handful of people standing before it on the causeway.

Dealdron looked at Saryn, his gaze steady, but she could not sense what lay behind his eyes, only that it was not hatred or anything like it.
Wistfulness? Why would he be wistful?
She offered a pleasant smile, then eased the chestnut gelding forward, wondering how long it might be before she saw the tower again.

Unlike her last travels, when she returned from the battle with the Gallosians, Saryn found the descent from the Roof of the World to the hills of eastern Lornth both quick and uneventful. Less than five days later, she and her detachment rode into Henspa just before sunset. Essin the innkeeper was waiting on the porch of the Black Bull.

“I thought we'd not be seeing you again so soon, Angel.”

“I didn't think so, either. How is your mother?” Saryn asked Essin.

“Much better, and I thank you for that. She would like to talk to you, I'm certain, once you've seen to your guards.”

“I'd be happy to.”

“And she'd be pleased. There are not that many who come to Henspa these days.”

“Have you seen any more Suthyans?” asked Saryn.

“Not a one, and only a sole Jeranyi trader, taking the long way back, telling tales of how the Great Forest grows vaster day and night, swallowing up whole towns, but leaving a village here and a village there.”

“Why was he there?”

“Like all Jeranyi, he was a thief. Like as not, he hoped to glean riches from the ruins, and two fine wagons he had. Jersen said that he had a pair of cupridium blades.”

“Cupridium?” Saryn had never heard that word.

“Silvery metal harder than cold iron and more flexible than copper. That's what the old Mirror Lancers used, back in the time of Lorn the Mighty and his son, Kerial.”

“Lorn the Mighty? Was Lornth named after him?”

“So they say. Anyway, Marleu wouldn't let her father even think of purchasing the blades. Said cupridium belonged to the past and wouldn't stand up to the black iron of the angels. Smart woman she is.” Essin shook his head.

“I'd best tend to my mount,” Saryn said. “Then I'll be back to talk to your mother.”

She flicked the reins and rode slowly past the inn and up the narrow lane into the rear courtyard and the stables. More than half a glass passed before she'd finished grooming the gelding and going over matters with Hryessa and could make her way back through the inn to put her gear in the room she'd share with the guard captain.

When she came down the steps, Essin was waiting in the foyer. “Ma's on the front porch. She says it's cooler there.”

The white-haired Jennyleu turned her head as Saryn stepped out onto the covered porch. “You've changed, Angel.”

“Not that much,” demurred Saryn.

“Your eyes are silver, like they'd reflect what's inside folk, and there's a seriousness there. Why did you come back?” A smile lingered on the old woman's face as she shifted her weight on the chair beside the bench in the twilight.

“The regents requested that I return,” Saryn said, settling onto the bench, facing Jennyleu.

“The Lady Zeldyan needs you, as does her sire, but all the other lord-holders will fear you. Especially the Lord of Duevek.”

“We will take the longer route to Lornth and avoid Duevek. I do not wish to create more problems for the regents.”

“Ah…but you will. Even an old woman such as I can see that.”

Saryn laughed gently. “You see it because you are a woman of much experience.”

The white-haired woman snorted. “Doesn't take much experience to see that the old lord-holders'd be looking for a ruler who'd let them line their own purses. Young Nesslek like as not would be following his mother and his grandsire once he becomes overlord, or he'd be questioning the lord-holders as to why he shouldn't. Neither would they like.”

Saryn nodded, although she wasn't that certain about young Nesslek's integrity, particularly if he were flattered and promised great glory. “How did it come to that?”

“Generations back, Lornth was a province of Cyador. You knew that, did you not? Then, the Mirror Lancers withdrew to the west and south, but the Protector of the Steps to Paradise still demanded his tariffs, and they were not light, and many that were levied were not paid. Before long, one of the officers of the Mirror Lancers and his company returned. He took over the town of Lornth, then others, until all acknowledged his superiority. Then he proposed a treaty with Cyador where but a quarter portion of the tariffs went to the emperor in Cyad, and half went to him. The other quarter he returned to the holders. Any holder who complained was killed and his family thrown off their lands, and those lands were awarded to a follower of the Lord of Lornth.” Jennyleu smiled enigmatically.

“And that was how the house of Lornth was founded?”

“That has also been how it has maintained its position, by power alone. When the black and flame angel destroyed Cyador, they destroyed any fear the holders had of the great and ancient kingdom. They also weakened the house of Lornth so that the regents had not the golds nor the armsmen to put down the stronger holders who did not pay their tariffs.”

“Such as the Lord of Duevek?”

“He is one of those, but only one, Angel.”

“You know all of this because of your daughter in Lornth?”

“My niece, Haelora.”

“The one who has the inn there? I never had a chance to meet her.”

“It's right off the square…the Square Platter. She says you can't miss it. I couldn't say. We never got so far as to Lornth. You know, Vernt staked her and her consort.”

“I remember. You told me, and she writes good letters.”

“Ah, yes. Letters.” For a moment, Jennyleu's eyes twinkled. “Tell me about Westwind, Angel.”

“What would you like to know?”

“What ever you care to tell me.”

Saryn nodded. “Westwind sits in a small valley on the Roof of the World…where the Marshal and the guards live is in Tower Black…and every stone in it was cut from the rock in a single year by Nylan, the black mage you met…”

Two glasses after sunrise on sixday, Saryn's detachment was headed due west, ten kays out of Henspa, under a high haze that turned the morning sky a silvery greenish blue. Early in the morning as it was, the day promised to be the hottest that Saryn had yet experienced in Candar…or anywhere else, for that matter, and it wasn't even near the height of summer. She hadn't even bothered with her riding jacket and certainly wasn't looking forward to the heat of the days to come, not at all.

Inside her tunic was a letter introducing Saryn to Jennyleu's niece Haelora, which Essin had handed her just before she had mounted to leave the inn. That introduction Saryn intended to pursue. An innkeeper in Lornth had to know things that the regents would not, and even from what little Saryn had heard about the land of Lornth, it was clear she'd need every bit of information she could find or dig up.

She shifted her weight in the saddle and looked along the road before the column of guards, riding two abreast. The lands to the west of Henspa—and the river—consisted of low, rolling hills that looked to get flatter the farther they were from the river. While some of the land was pasture, and there were a few orchards and woodlots, most was cultivated. For what ever reason, the road on the west of the river did not follow the watercourse at all but headed away from it for almost fifteen kays, then turned north at the town of Ornath and continued onward for another twenty kays before rejoining the river some fifteen kays to the northwest of Duevek.

Saryn squinted to make out what was causing the dust in the road a good two kays west of the outriders. As she watched, she could see, headed toward the Westwind riders, a large high-sided and roofed wagon, the kind merchants and traders often used, its wheels churning up dust. Less than half a kay from the outriders, the driver turned his team and wagon onto a side road southward and whipped the pair of drays into something like a fast trot.

“Poor fool,” observed Hryessa from where she rode beside Saryn. “He's only hurting his drays. If we wanted to catch him, there'd be nothing he could do.”

“Are we that fearsome? Forty-odd women, two wagons, and ten spare mounts?”

“Forty-odd armed women, ser, from a place that has slaughtered thousands of their men.”

“We may have to trade on that fear,” prophesied Saryn.

“What does the Lady Zeldyan want from us? Beyond your counsel?” An amused and knowing smile crossed the captain's lips.

“You know as well as I. She wants us to preserve Lornth for her son to rule, though she has not said that in so many words.”
In any words, in fact, but what else could she desire?

Hryessa turned her head toward Saryn. “Is that possible?”

“We'll find out, and before too long.”

“What if it is not possible?”

“Then we will do what we can to protect Westwind.” What exactly that might be, Saryn had no idea, except that, given the holders of Lornth, it would be neither easy nor bloodless.

Saryn and her detachment passed few carts and wagons on the ride through Ornath and back to the river, making camp on sixday night at what passed for a way station near the ruins of what might once have been a town. After an early start on sevenday, two glasses' ride brought them to a flat stretch between two hills and a kaystone proclaiming that Haselbridge lay but three kays ahead.

Saryn could sense riders nearby and was not surprised to see a group appear on the low rise perhaps half a kay ahead, just off the left shoulder of the packed-clay road where it crested the next hill. She could sense no others, but all that meant was that there were none within a kay. “Riders ahead,” she said quietly but firmly to Hryessa.

“Ready arms,” said Hryessa, turning in the saddle. “Pass it back on the quiet.”

“Ready arms…Ready arms…” the murmured command whispered back through the guards.

As the Westwind detachment neared the crest of the road, Saryn could see that the waiting riders were drawn up almost in formation. On the right side of the road was a scrubby section of pasture that sloped steeply down to the river, still running almost to the top of its banks with the late runoff from the Westhorns.

“Hail, Angels!” The call was loud, cheerful, and sardonic, and came from an angular man attired in a rich maroon waistcoat over a thin but fine linen shirt. He was mounted on a gray stallion, slightly forward of the other eight riders.

“Hail!” returned Saryn, studying the caller. He looked to be a young lord or heir, whose wavy brown hair was longer than that of most armsmen, crafters, or tradesmen, and his entire being radiated arrogance.

“Where might you be headed?”

“To Lornth.” Saryn reined up short of a position that would have brought her opposite the lord-holder or lordling. Behind her, Hryessa brought the guards to a halt. “And you?”

“We were out for a ride.” He bowed in the saddle. “Keistyn, of Hasel. Welcome to my lands.” The cheerful words still carried a sardonic and demeaning overtone.

Saryn inclined her head, if but slightly. “I have not had the honor of meeting you before, but please understand that we are only passing through with no ill intended to anyone in Lornth.”

“That is most reassuring,” replied the lead rider, “for many have feared the blades of the angels of the heights.” He paused. “I do not believe you introduced yourself, Angel.”

“Saryn, Arms-Commander of Westwind.” Saryn studied the eight armsmen behind Keistyn. All carried in shoulder harnesses the long and massive blades favored by most men-at-arms in Lornth, and all wore red tunics trimmed in black. Three looked young and fresh-faced, and two were clearly hardened veterans of some sort. The remaining three were excessively beefy, with a certain cruelty behind round faces, the kind of cruelty that seemed to come from self-indulgent and overweight males, Saryn reflected.

“And what might a fearsome arms-commander be doing here in the lowlands? I had heard that the angels had asked a favor, and when the regent had granted it, you had returned to your heights, never to trouble Lornth again.”

“We have not come to trouble Lornth,” Saryn replied pleasantly, “but to respond to a request of the regents. Because the regents, unlike the Gallosians, who paid most dearly for their faithlessness, have kept their word and faith, when the regents asked us to return to meet with them, we were pleased to accede to their request.”

“I had not heard of the faithlessness of the Gallosians, but being people of little honor, could you have expected otherwise of them?” A short bark of laughter followed.

“Until someone proves otherwise, we accept their word,” Saryn said. “They proved otherwise, and the Prefect's son, Arthanos, and his army of nine thousand are no more.” She smiled politely at Keistyn.

“Nine thousand…I beg your pardon, Angel, but that seems…unlikely.” A skeptical smile followed Keistyn's words.

Saryn shrugged. “Unlikely as it may seem to you, that is what happened. Sooner or later, you will hear, and there will doubtless be those who will not believe.” She paused. “But that is what happened. You should recall that, twice, Lords of Lornth attacked the Roof of the World, and both perished. The second time armsmen from all across Lornth perished as well. You might also recall that a single mage who left Westwind brought down the great empire of Cyador. Doubting is all well and good, Lord Keistyn, but it is also dangerous to doubt what has already occurred, especially when thousands have already died because they, in turn, doubted.”

“Oh…I do doubt. I doubt anything that I have not been able to verify myself, or through those I trust to be most truthful.”

Saryn smiled coolly. “I think you will find that angels do not stoop to lies or duplicity, but that is a matter in which you will find your own way.”

For just a moment, Saryn could sense that her words had chilled the young lord, but that chill was followed immediately by anger so strong that Saryn cast out her senses again to see if other armsmen lurked nearby. To her relief, she could sense none.

“I will indeed find what is true. I always do, Angel.” Keistyn smiled warmly. “Unlike many, I do not hamper myself with outmoded strictures, for a lord must do what he must to preserve his heritage.”

“You are most forthright, Lord Keistyn. I appreciate your directness, and I will convey that to the regents, as well as your courtesy in greeting us.”

“There is always a time for courtesy, but we will not delay you longer, for you have many kays to ride before you reach Lornth.”

Saryn could easily feel the anger and the hostility behind the warmly spoken and cheerful-sounding words, an anger so raw that it burned like chaos within Keistyn. She also saw no purpose in revealing what she sensed. “That we do, Lord Keistyn, and the regents await us.”

“I am most certain that they do and that they will tell you much. The Lady Zeldyan, especially, is a warm and most charming lady.” Keistyn smiled once more. “But I am most certain that you know that, and I digress.” He bowed from the saddle a last time, then turned his mount and rode down the back side of the rise, followed by his armsmen, toward a narrow road that stretched westward to where it passed between two wooded hills, flanked by a smaller stream that meandered out from the hills generally eastward toward a small stone bridge perhaps two kays farther along the road and just outside of Haselbridge.

Saryn nodded to Hryessa.

“Company, forward!”

Saryn urged the gelding onward, her senses still focused on the departing Keistyn and his armsmen, even while she waited to hear what Hryessa might say. They rode down the other side of the rise and past the road that Saryn supposed led to Keistyn's holding or country lodge.

“Lord Keistyn sounds pleasant and cheerful,” observed Hryessa. “I do not think he is either.”

“Why not?” asked Saryn.

“He smiles, and even his eyes and his voice are warm, but they lie. He is evil behind all his pleasant words and smiles. So were those with him. Did you not see that?”

“I saw we should not trust Lord Keistyn the length of a short sword, perhaps even less.”

“Much less. He is the kind that men so often trust because he seems warm and friendly, until he places knives in their backs.”

“And twists them,” added Saryn.

Hryessa nodded, her eyes straying to the west and the nine riders.

Another thought struck Saryn. There were only two even halfway-direct routes from Westwind to Lornth, and one led through the Lord of Duevek's domains and the other through Lord Keistyn's lands. She had chosen their route to avoid Duevek…and had been met and greeted by Keistyn, as if the young lord had been expecting the Westwind contingent. That suggested a number of possibilities, none of them exactly to Saryn's liking, and that Keistyn and Duevek might well be allied in more than their dislike of the regency.

If even a fraction of the holders in Lornth were like Kelthyn and Keistyn, Saryn could see why Lady Zeldyan and Lord Gethen had their troubles. Still…short of wiping them all out, which hardly seemed possible, she had to wonder exactly what she could do to help Zeldyan.