Grudgebearer (30 page)

A memory of spring. The spring after Wylant's eleventh campaign against the Zaur. She sat on the terrace atop Fort Sunder, gazing down at the severe plains of
Jun'ghri'kul
, “the Broken Table,” now cleansed of all trace of the tainted reptilian hordes, and smiled. Only her husband would have them maintain such a lawn. Easier to spot the enemy, true, but two hundred acres of purple and green in all directions? One day the purple myr grass would choke out the scrubby green, and then she wondered if it would make her happy or sad.

Wylant plucked at an errant thread on the sleeve of her blue dress and chided herself.
I promised myself I'd stop wearing these stupid things when I became a knight
, she thought.
But Kholster seems to like them, and armor does make impromptu trysts with the Aern I love a great deal less . . . spontaneous.

In the memory, her blonde hair was still long and caught up with a silver ribbon. She pulled the ribbon from her hair and wore it loose, an easy way to make Kholster smile, and she suddenly wanted to see him smile more than anything in the whole of Barrone.

Kholster walked out onto the terrace and grinned exactly as she'd planned. She loved that smile, his upper and lower canines exposed in a way that would remind anyone his people had been built for killing and, well, eating, others, but also somehow conveying he had no intention of doing so. He'd just shaved, as had been his custom after every campaign since they'd been married, and he wore his red hair long, because she liked it that way and he thought it only fair to wear his hair long for her since she wore hers long for him.

Wylant looked into Kholster's strange black sclera eyes and smiled. Their hands touched and the memory repeated.

That's all there was to it: him outside of his warsuit and her in a dress. Their hands touching. Her seeing him smile. Feeling loved, wanted. And then again. And again. And again as if her brain felt the need to torture her with things which could no longer happen and with bonds long broken.

Wylant rocked forward in the darkness, startled awake by the first sneeze. Her diaphragm seized, locked in the initial stages of a protracted second sneeze. The scent of the Zaur filled her nostrils, a sickening mixture of body odor and reptilian waste.

At least I'm awake
, she thought, then,
Gods, not again.

A rapid consecution of sternutations shook her, sneeze after sneeze running each into the other to create a sustained rattling buzz which could have been humorous if the act itself were not so painful. Rolling from her bed, Wylant landed on the cold stone floor, cursing after one particularly great sneeze slammed her forehead into the stone.

Eyes watering, streams running down her face as she grabbed first for Vax and second for her pouch of
jallek
root. Vax felt right in her hand, a part of her—as always. His edge caught the moonlight, as if on purpose, casting a wedge of brightness on the ceiling then adjusting to show the pouch. The vexing leather container was less accommodating and gave no sign of crawling obligingly to her outstretched hand to surrender the medicine within. She blinked at her bedside table, which lay on its side, having been knocked over at some point during the ordeal.

A frustrated growl escaped her lips. Struggling to her feet, Wylant glared at the errant pouch and stabbed at it with Vax, smirking as the sword elongated helpfully into a spear. Angling the spear up, Wylant willed the weapon to shrink again, snatching the
jallek
root from its tip as Vax complied.

“Good boy.” Pinching a wad of the dried black root, she pushed the bitter substance beneath her tongue. Astringent juice, strong enough to force a lesser person to gag, filled her mouth, but with it came instant relief.

“I've had enough of this,” she snarled. “Every night? What is Dienox playing at?”

“General?” Kam's voice called from beyond the door of her quarters.

“I'm,” she screwed her face into a sour expression, one eye open, the other closed as she struggled against another sneeze, “fine, Kam. But wake The Sidearms. I want to ride at first light. We're heading to North Guard. I want to check the watchtowers personally. Again.”

“Yes, ma'am.” There was no hint of sarcasm in his voice, and she was glad of it. As if she didn't know the nobles thought she was mad.
Maybe I should take the Lance up Albren Pass to the foothills . . . ?
She ran a hand over her head, the stubble pricking at her palm as it always did on her fifth day without a shave.
Prince Dolvek would have fun with that, I have no doubt.

She blinked in the predawn darkness and, sure that the
jallek
root had her allergies under control, summoned a floating spark of pulsing electricity and spat it from her throat with a word. The pale blue of her magic illuminated the stone-floored room of her billet, washing over the sparsely decorated room with a cold, crackling light. A lone wall-length mirror displayed her well-toned body, but Wylant had little patience with mirrors.

There was a time when she'd gazed into looking glasses critically, applying powders and dyes, adorning herself vainly for a husband who, though appreciative of her efforts, respected her more for her ability with a sword, her competence in battle, her intelligence, wit, and veracity than he ever could for her beauty.

But that had been long ago. Though her body was as ageless and fit now as it had been then, she treated it like a tool for accomplishing her goals and executing her duty. She had loved once and would never love again, which was all well and good to her. It had to be. The first time had almost destroyed them both. Any other relationship could be no more than a dalliance, and she had little enough patience to spare on matters of importance and none at all to waste on dalliances.

She walked to the waiting basin of water which sat atop an ornate steel table, forged in the Aernese style with blood oak leaves wrought into a small ring around the edge of the bowl, the rest perfectly smooth and unadorned. Wylant set Vax down on the stone. Picking up a washcloth from next to the basin, she dipped it into the cold water and washed in her brisk morning ritual.

Opening the pack she'd readied before bed, Wylant took out the bone-metal straight razor Kholster had left behind at his exile, set it down next to the water basin, and returned to her pack for a small jar of ointment. The acrid tang of crushed myr grass and thick, rich, surprisingly nonsticky, blood oak sap caused her nostrils to flare involuntarily. Dipping her fingers into the red-brown mixture, she spread the lubricant liberally across her scalp before setting to work with her razor in long, even strokes, shaving against the grain, wiping the blade on her washcloth between strokes, leaving traces of grease and blonde hair behind.

“Blessing of the gods.” Wylant sneered at the sight of it. Let the Eldrennai see it however they wished. Wylant had come to see favor of the gods, Dienox in particular, as nothing less than a curse.

For a long time, even before Kholster, Wylant had let her hair grow longer than was efficient despite the problems it caused with tangles, brushing, and getting stuck in armor. But that had been before the Sundering, before . . .

Having given the lotion more time to soften the coarser hair, Wylant shaved the back of her head next. From there, she worked her way down, removing every bit of “blessing” Dienox had felt necessary to bestow. There was only one blessing Wylant wanted from the gods.

She looked at Vax, watched how he slid across the floor like a snake, pooling and reaching up onto the bed where he rested briefly before resuming his sword shape in the fading body warmth of her mattress and closed her eyes in silent and unanswered prayer. If she noticed the shape held by the metal in those few moments, the general did not allow herself to dwell on it. Such thoughts could only drive her mad, and had for a time, before she'd come to accept what she had done.

Rinsing herself off with a dousing from the metal basin, the Eldrennai general walked out onto her balcony to dry. From there, even in the dark, she saw the Gulf of Gromm, the green-blue water, dark and foreboding. The air smelled wrong, tainted. It tickled her nostrils, just shy of soliciting a sneeze. Hoping to prevent a relapse, she spit the wet lump of
jallek
root off the balcony and replaced it with a fresh pinch.

The smell of the Zaur, the ancient enemy of her people, had faded from her nostrils, but she was a hairbreadth from issuing a check on all the Watches and running a formal border inspection. She knew, of course, what King Grivek would say.

“Each time he comes, you get this way, Wylant. Every hundred years, as regular as the suns.” Grivek would smile at her in that patronizing way he didn't even know he had, reach out to pat her on the shoulder and catch himself before he actually completed the error. Would he pat his other Lancers on the shoulder? On the head? Then best not touch her in such a fashion until it was clear the king had decided to treat the men that way as well. At least he tried. “I know why you feel this way. I miss him too. Why not ride to North Guard,” he would say, “in fact, I order you to North Guard. You'll only be a day's ride away.”

Which is why she was heading to North Guard. Might as well avoid the conversation and the king's condescension altogether. Why did they always have to assume her life revolved around the Aern she'd once wed? Gods, but it angered her. No one missed Kholster more than she did. Of course she missed him. Of course she wished things had worked out differently . . . better . . . but they hadn't, and to spend the rest of her life pining for a male, any male . . . there was more to her than that. It wasn't in Wylant's bones to be so dependent. And then they all had to make it worse with the way they brought him up over and over again or crept around the subject when they feared she might be sensitive. Did his fellow Aern do the same to him?

She laughed at the idea of Vander suggesting Kholster shirk his duties because Kholster missed her. A sea hawk cried in the distance, striking at a fish or a waterfox.

“Too alike for our own good,” she whispered.

As the first sun began to rise, Wylant dressed and donned her armor, far heavier than the light crystal plate armor of the prince's precious Crystal Knights. Wylant insisted her Sidearms wear steel, weighty well-made metal which could turn a blade without the benefit of magic, and she did the same.

“Crystal Knights,” she murmured under her breath, “why the king allows his army to continue wearing armor that's completely useless against the Zaur and the Aern, I have no idea at all.”

That was a lie. She did know. King Grivek allowed the practice to instill a sense of pride. He did it because the sight of a Crystal Knight riding on horseback upon a wave of Aeromancy made the people feel safe even though they could never be safe again. Never mind the elemental foci that now marked and slowly consumed the bodies of those who used the old style of elemental magic. The Sundering had killed the Eldrennai surely as it had been the salvation of the Vael and the Aern. If it hadn't, then Dolvek's cursed museum display had.

“You're on your way, aren't you, Kholster,” she said flatly. “Even now. Will you kill Dolvek before or after the Conjunction? Which would fulfill all oaths?” She spat at the thought of the impudent young prince but stopped herself from spewing more treachery aloud. Wylant held out her hand, and Vax, coiled and ready, sprang into it, resuming his sword shape as she sheathed him in the scabbard at her side.

Vax would make a better king than that boy
, she thought.

The tears surprised her as they always did.

A knock at the door broke her reverie and signaled the arrival of her first lieutenant. If any signs of her grief remained by the time she reached the door, it could have only been in a slight redness around the eyes that could easily be explained away by her allergies. Wylant threw the door open, already giving orders. “I assume you're here to tell me my Lance is ready to ride?” She didn't wait for an answer. “Then get moving!” she shouted. “We might press on to Albren Pass if I don't like the smell of things.”

She smiled at the sound of a diplomatic parcel hitting the ground, a smile that drew even wider when her lieutenant was already out of sight by the time she'd crossed the threshold. He was a good soldier. There was a twinkle in her steely gray eyes as she broke the royal seal and scratched absentmindedly at the tip of one pointed ear.

“Another all's well report,” she sniffed, “from Prince Dolvek himself, no less.” That, in and of itself, was almost enough to make Wylant pressgang the capital and raise the reserve guard. But she couldn't do that, not without staging a coup. Her blood went cold at the thought. If she killed the king and seized the kingdom, declared all of the people Aiannai under her rule, would that save them from Kholster's oath? Her vision swam for a moment, and she shook her head.

“No,” she muttered, “but I bet it would make him smile.” She sneezed again and spat. “Kholster would have had his Aern out walking the whole kingdom in grids until they found the Zaur and killed them. Dienox's bloody cloud of war would not have stopped the Aern.”

That was one of many things she missed about Kholster; the way he took her instincts as valid intel, respected her hunches just as if they'd been his own or those of one of his brother or sister Aern. Wylant banished the memory with a shake of her head.
Maybe I should stop using myr grass and blood oak sap as lotion when I shave
, she thought.
It smells like him. It's making me sentimental.