Haven: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Four (18 page)

She rolled on her patch of hay, reached and grasped Rhillian's hand. Rhillian lay back and looked at her.

“They should not have come at you with blades drawn,” Rhillian said quietly. “Kiel's action compelled them. They followed his
ra'shi.
As does Arendelle, more than mine.” Sasha had not heard Rhillian admit that before. “But you should not have been there to begin with.”

“You took Errollyn.”

“I will not apologise for it,” Rhillian said quietly. “It seemed necessary, at the time.”

“And I will not apologise for rescuing him. We both are what we are. Neither of us tries to hide it. That's what made us friends once. We could be honest with each other.”

“And I shall be honest with you now. Arendelle blames you for those deaths. I cannot claim to know what he seeks from you—we serrin are not so alike that we can guess each other's hearts, and I do not know Arendelle as well as Kiel does. I do know that he will not harm you, unless you give him cause to.”

“I know.” Thinking on it, she realised she had not felt even vague alarm at his presence just now. Not for her safety, anyhow.

“I would say that he seeks to reconcile the parts with the whole,” said Rhillian, switching tongues to Saalsi to better explain herself. “It is a large concept in serrin thought. The individual against the group. He seeks to understand if it is human nature that is to blame for the deaths of his friends, or merely yourself.”

“Why not conclude the blame was Kiel's and save us both the trouble?” Sasha muttered.

“No,” said Rhillian, with certainty. “He is within Kiel's
ra'shi.
He will not turn on Kiel.”

“You mean he can't question his leader?”

Rhillian raised an eyebrow. “And humans are above this?”

Sasha sighed. She wriggled closer, and lay directly at Rhillian's side.

“Rhillian,” she began, “I should explain.” She grasped both of Rhillian's hands and took a deep breath.

Rhillian silenced her with a finger to her lips. “Sasha,” she said gently. “I know.” Sasha gazed at her. “You don't have to explain to me. Understand that as serrin, I can say that I find fault with you for something terrible that happened, and not hate you for the same. Humans find this difficult.”

Sasha didn't know what to say. For some time, she had thought Rhillian her enemy. An enemy of circumstance rather than of hatred, it was true, but an enemy nonetheless. Now she was struck by the strongest doubt that serrin even understood
that
word as humans did. Kiel knew his enemies not by hatred, but by differing ideals. He hated the invading Bacosh Army though, surely he did. Did he not?

“Do serrin understand ‘hatred’?” Sasha asked. She used the Lenay word,
kran.
It stood out from their Saalsi, jarringly, like some muddy boot thrown onto a beautiful green lawn.

“Rage, certainly,” Rhillian said at last. “But rage is impersonal. Hatred is directed at a person. I hate the things my enemies do. I kill them so they cannot do more…and for justice. But serrin were always shocked at how humans place themselves before events. You hate the person, not the thing. It always seemed to us pointless. We have always held that an individual, within society, is nothing more than the sum of his actions. I may hate what you've done, Sasha. It does not mean I hate
you
.”

“I'm not sure I see the distinction,” Sasha murmured.

Rhillian smiled faintly. “Me neither. It is the
biel'en sheel.”
Sasha frowned, not understanding. “The ‘glorious dilemma.’ You may call it a test of judgement. Or of character. Serrin puzzle on such things constantly.”

Sasha shook her head, sadly. “It's another reason serrin are so feared by humans,” she said. “Spend some time with serrin, and a human may come to fear you are better than us. Spend a lot of time with serrin, and a human may become convinced of it.”

She was awoken by Rhillian, kneeling over her in the dark. Her eyes made emerald spots in the darkness, sharp and deadly, and her blade was drawn. For a moment, Sasha nearly feared. Then she realised that if Rhillian's blade were aimed at her, she'd never have woken at all.

Rhillian saw Sasha looking, and pointed to her own two eyes, then at the surrounding dark. She said nothing, crouched as though expecting death to spring from the night. Something was very wrong.

Sasha pulled her sword from its scabbard, heart thumping and hands shaking. She
hated
that, and hoped Rhillian's eyes would not see…but any human, awoken thus in the dark, would fear. The horses were silent. Sasha's eyes struggled to adjust to the gloom, to recall her surroundings, and make sense of the shadows. Where were Yasmyn and Aisha? She moved carefully toward where she recalled Yasmyn's bed had been, figuring that Aisha had the night vision to look after herself. Rhillian caught Sasha's arm.

“Aisha is scouting,” she breathed in Sasha's ear. “We don't know where Yasmyn is. Stay still.”

“What's wrong?” Sasha whispered back.

“I don't know.”

“But how do you…?”

Rhillian silenced her with a finger to the lips. “Just wait. Stay to my flank, I will guide you if we must move.”

Sasha suffered another chill. Rhillian saw the stables well enough, but Sasha was well used to serrin night vision by now. It was Rhillian's certainty that chilled her, despite nothing more amiss than Yasmyn's absence. Sometimes serrin did this. She didn't know how. Sometimes, when something was wrong, they just seemed to know.

Something moved, very faintly, in the doorway.

“Aisha,” Rhillian murmured. She touched Sasha's arm and moved, Sasha following as silently as she could, trying to stay in Rhillian's footsteps. Aisha must have gestured them forward, but Sasha could not see it.

When they reached Aisha, she looked pale. “Three dead,” Aisha whispered. “Killed quietly. Assassins.”

“Raise the alarm?” said Sasha, heart pounding.

Aisha shook her head. “Not yet. We're surrounded. One alarm and they'll charge.”

Sasha visualised the temple and adjoining monastery quarters. The river to one side, the road to the other. If she were conducting a stealth attack at night, she'd come from the river side, where few dwellings could sound the alarm, and then…

“Aisha,” Rhillian whispered, “stay here and find the assassins, take them quietly if you can. Sasha and I will go to the riverside. When you hear fighting, raise the alarm.”

They ducked into the corridor beyond the stables and moved silently, Sasha staying in Rhillian's footsteps. Aisha disappeared into a side corridor, while Rhillian paused at tall doors left ajar. She peered within, then beckoned Sasha to follow.

It was a common room, tall stone walls with bookshelves and furnishings…. Sasha could barely make out the shadows, and could only trust Rhillian's sight to tell the room was empty. Rhillian paused at the next doorway, her hand gesture warning of something obstructing the way. Sasha followed her into the kitchen. In the dark she nearly tripped over a shape sprawled on the floor—a body. From the robes, Sasha guessed a priest…in search of a midnight snack? Investigating a noise? Even with Rhillian to guide her, she did not like this darkness. Rhillian could only see one direction at a time, and Sasha forced herself not to look behind, trusting Rhillian's vision made them faster than their attackers, whoever they were.

Rhillian paused again at the large doors leading outside from the kitchen. She tried the latch and found it locked. The assassins had entered some other way. Sasha heard a noise and spun, eyes searching the dark. Nothing. Rhillian tugged her sleeve and led her to the nearby storeroom, where sacks of grain and boxes of vegetables filled the air with musty smells.

Rhillian climbed onto some boxes to check a window Sasha had not even seen. A creak told Sasha it had opened. Again a distant noise, and a hiss, like air escaping lungs. Like someone dying. Sasha held her blade for an opening low cut, most lethal against any sudden attacker who was as blind as she and less ready to defend the upward cut than the downward.

Behind her there was a faint noise as Rhillian slid through the high window and disappeared. Sasha knew she had to turn to climb the boxes, but now there was no one to guard her back. She muttered a silent curse at her cowardice, and sheathed her blade so she had two hands for climbing in the dark. The boxes held firm with little noise, and her strength allowed her to pull herself up with little scrambling.

No sooner had she sat on the top box than she felt, rather than saw, something moving on the ground to her left. Her heart nearly stopped, and she barely restrained a panicked reach for her blade, lest that noise give her away. She saw the back of a head, long-haired, almost level with her boots. He moved carefully, crouched like a warrior, his one-handed posture suggesting a knife. If he looked up, he would see her almost on top of him.

Not a tall man. She stared, and resolved more of his clothes—roughspun and leathers, no armour, nothing fancy. Something about the way he moved said horseman. A saddlesore swagger, legs apart. Lenay? Surely not with a knife in the dark. Not only dishonourable but, against serrin, likely fatal. Lenays knew serrin too well. But there were only two serrin here…

And now as she sat here, he was past her, advancing into the darkness of the kitchen she'd just left. She should have jumped down and killed him, but that was awkward, and Rhillian was outside waiting for her. Aisha would deal with him. Probably Aisha was the cause of that last sound of dying. Where the hells was Yasmyn?

She slipped out the window, had difficulty sighting the ground, but jumped anyway and landed on turf. There was a little more light outside, perhaps from a sliver of moon. A large oak made a great sillhouette, and a tangle of hedges blocked the view of the river. She could hear it though, a deep murmur of water. Where was Rhillian?

Sasha drew her blade once more and edged along the wall. A wooden fence adjoined the wall, frustratingly—it was rickety, overgrown with bushes, and would be hard to climb silently in the dark. As she looked for a way over, a shadow against the fence abruptly moved, and only the emerald flash of eyes stopped Sasha from swinging.

Rhillian pulled Sasha into a crouch against the fence and pointed over her shoulder. At first, Sasha saw only varying shades of dark. Then a shape moved. Rhillian's finger moved also, to another spot. Against a tree, an odd formation of trunk…with legs. Another move, then another.

“I see fifteen,” Rhillian whispered in Sasha's ear. “There will be more.” Their scouts were in the building. If they did not return soon, they would attack.

“Who are they?” Sasha murmured.

“Kazeri.”

Horsemen of Kazerak. The rumours had said they were on their way. Sasha had envisioned an army of wild men on horses…this must be an advance party. And she realised that if they took a direct line from Kazerak through Rakani and Tournea, it would take them directly through these lands.

“I will go through them,” said Rhillian. “You take advantage of the confusion.”

“One against fifteen?”

Rhillian kissed her cheek. “Remember Leyvaan,” she said. “This way, there is a hole.”

She led Sasha to an unseen hole in the fence, and Sasha did think of King Leyvaan, the last king of the united Bacosh throne, who had advanced too fast into the forests of the Telesil foothills in Saalshen, and lost an entire army. The fighting then had been mostly by night. For humans, against serrin, it was unwise.

Sasha crouched behind bushes as Rhillian crept forward, and lost herself in the tangle of fruit trees, long grass, and weeds. Sasha wished she could see beyond Rhillian, downstream to the town's main bridge. The bridge. Why did the thought of it make her uneasy?

She peered through the bushes. Rhillian would be killing Kazeri by now. Sasha wondered how many she would get before the Kazeri realised what was happening. But the Kazeri Army was coming in the tens of thousands, surely. Small scouting groups were one thing, but this country was notoriously unfriendly to invaders. And what were the odds that the Kazeri just happened to stumble upon them like this? What if it was no coincidence? In that case, if they knew exactly who they were after, and why, surely they'd have sent far more men than this to deal with them?

The hair rose on her arms, and the fear of knives in the night was replaced by something more. She wished Rhillian would hurry. A bell rang. Then rang again. It came from the temple to Sasha's rear, and very loudly. Distant voices shouted. Ahead of her shadows began to move. Steel flashed, and one fell.

Yells and shouts from ahead of her now, as men spun to confront the threat. Another fell, then another, with a scream, and no clash of defensive steel. Sasha ran.

Men scattered in the night, searching for the ghost that killed them. Sasha came upon one with his back turned, killed him, then nearly collided with a running second, ducking away as he swung at her in panic. She stumbled on low bushes, unseen in the dark, and saw another man coming at her from the side…but that man staggered as a flying knife skewered his ribs.

Another ran past blindly, then one following him was suddenly separated from his head as though the dark itself had come alive and killed him. Sasha stared about wildly, dropping to one knee to make a smaller profile, hearing now yells and fighting from within the buildings. Aisha had awoken people, or someone had. They would make for the stables, and get the horses.

She heard more shouts, from over by the river. And now she could hear hooves. Many hooves, a large group of horses, moving fast. The sound came from the bridge.
Now
she realised why the thought of the bridge had made her anxious. Any force of horses coming down that road would be on them in no time. And if these men were just an advance party to check and see if the target were in fact present…

“Rhillian!” she yelled, and took off running for the road, ducking between trees and bushes, and hoping she wouldn't trip on something.

She ran between the property wall and the temple building, tangled trees giving way to vegetable patches and a paved path, then emerged onto the dirt road. She accelerated to a full sprint, heading across the building's front for the stables, as new light flooded from windows. Racing footsteps behind told her she was being followed, and she looked, but it was Rhillian, gaining on longer legs. Further behind them, hooves were now thundering.