Haven: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Four (6 page)

The column resumed shortly after, Sasha taking her place with the Isfayen contingent in the vanguard. Great Lord Markan talked with an Isfayen scout, who spoke of a curious town several folds away that the Army of the Bacosh had passed through.

Ahead, the main vanguard climbed a small rise. Behind stretched the entire mass of the Army of Lenayin, tens of thousands strong. Finally, she grew tired of her own silence.

“Who would like to go for a ride?” she asked loudly. All Isfayen men in the group paused their conversations to look at her. Great Lord Markan broke off his discussion with the scout, and wondered at this curious humour. “Our scout tells us of a village, just over the hill yonder. I would like to see it.”

“The Bacosh forces occupy it,” countered an Isfayen lord. They had won their battle, he meant. Lenayin had lost its. Lenayin now suffered the shame of marching second in the column, and the Bacosh forces gained the privilege to occupy whatever town they liked.

“Nice day for a ride,” said Markan, squinting up at the sun. “What do you think, sister?”

“I tire of staring at the backsides of Rayen horses,” said Yasmyn.

Markan nodded, and gave a signal. Isfayen horses wove to the right, then accelerated to keep pace with their lord. In the main column, surprised faces looked across at them. At the column head, Sasha saw Koenyg, similarly surprised. He made a gesture, and someone pursued.

Koenyg's rider came racing across in front of them, signalling them to stop. Markan only smiled, long black hair and braids flying, and galloped his horse a little faster.

“What the hells are you doing?” Sasha heard Koenyg's rider yell above the noise. “The king orders you to fall back in line!”

“Isfayen tire of marching in line,” Markan said cheerfully. “We shall return shortly.”

“You shall return at once!” yelled the rider.

Markan's stare informed the rider that if there had been any chance the Great Lord of Isfayen could be persuaded to turn around, it was now gone. The rider slowed up in frustration, and the Isfayen thundered on.

Soon the pace slowed, and they rode across fields between small farmhouses. Tall hills rose in the near distance, with sheer, dark cliffs that reminded Sasha of Lenayin. Further along the hillside rise there perched a village, emerging above trees and orchards that covered the hills. As they came closer up the road, Sasha saw why the scout had found the town curious—there were larger buildings here than the typical little cottages. One was a temple, with grand spires. Several others appeared to be clustered together, and boasted ornamental spires or crenellations.

The approaching road wound through orchards as it climbed, and finally arrived at the gates of the town walls. As they rode within, Sasha began to recognise the buildings. “These are like the Tol'rhen in Tracato,” she said. On the walls were friezes of men building things and consulting maps. And on plinths within the walls, statues of learned men, and a woman. The woman was Maldereld, the serrin general who had led Saalshen's conquest of these lands two centuries before, and ordered the construction of these great institutions of learning. “Only far smaller than Tracato.”

Soldiers had been here. The statue of Maldereld was faceless, stonework smashed with deliberate effort.

“What manner of place?” asked an Isfayen, frowning up at the high walls as they rode.

“A place of learning,” Sasha replied. “Students come here from across the lands, to learn skills for their people. Medicines, building, farming, languages, history.”

“Fighting?” asked another man.

“Yes, these are Nasi-Keth,” said Sasha. “They learn to fight like me.” And the men of Isfayen looked far more impressed to learn that, and considered the walls with renewed respect.

A search of the buildings' echoing halls revealed signs of fast departure, and no sign of life. But an Isfayen lord's intrusion in the temple revealed signs of recent activity.

“There is blood on the paving,” he said grimly. “Pews have been overturned, and rear rooms searched. There are wagon tracks outside and hoofmarks. There was food left in the temple, and blankets…I think perhaps someone was using it as a refuge.”

He handed Markan a wooden doll, with a head of long horses' hair intricately embedded in the wood. A child's toy.

“Someone did not leave fast enough,” Yasmyn said solemnly. Sasha looked away, biting her lip. Like stone, she told herself. Be like stone. Yasmyn tucked the doll into a pouch at her belt.

“The tracks lead away, quite fresh,” said the lord who had discovered it. “We can catch whoever made them, I'm sure.”

“Interesting,” said Markan with a nod. “I should like to see this latest conquest of our grand allies, against a ferocious, doll-wielding foe.”

Some of the men smiled or laughed at that. Sasha did not. Nor, with a concerned look her way, did Yasmyn.

The road from town led them toward the looming cliffs seen earlier. These odd tombs of rock seemed incongruous with the surrounding green landscape of gentle hills. The Isfayen scout followed the trail easily enough, and soon informed them all that a wagon party lay ahead.

They came to it on a rutted trail by a stream. There were four wagons, accompanied by ten men on horse. All wore the colour and armour of Bacosh warriors, and peering now behind them at the Isfayen's approach, they seemed relieved but wary.

“We thought you might be serrin!” one horseman shouted back at them in Torovan, which Sasha, Markan, and Yasmyn alone of their group understood. “We're making double time to reach the column, don't want to be caught out here past nightfall!”

Markan rode forward. Sasha could see men with crossbows peering from the rear flaps of the wagons. The Bacosh horsemen seemed wary too, of this big man with slanted eyes and flowing hair, clad in patterned leather, chain armour, and steel-studded gloves. The curved sword drew many looks to his side. One did not need to talk to an Isfayen warrior to know his nature, one needed only look.

“You come from the town back there?” Markan asked, pointing back the way they'd ridden.

The horseman nodded. “Weird place, yes? Too many damn weird places in this land, I'll be happy to get home to Meraine, myself.” He looked at them with some suspicion. “I bet you Lenays don't find it so weird, though? Men say you folks don't mind the serrin?”

“In Isfayen we've had little to do with them,” said Markan.

“Ah,” said the horseman. “Isfayen.” Clearly he had no idea where that was. In most of the lowlands, a Lenay barbarian was a Lenay barbarian, no matter what region.

“What manner of soldiers are you?” Markan asked, with clear disdain.

“Men-at-arms,” came the reply. “Tasked with foraging.”

“Foraging what?” Sasha asked.

The horseman stared at her, only now seeming to notice her presence. He blinked rapidly, perhaps realising who she was.

“Things,” he said defensively. “Food. Supplies.”

“Mind if I look?” Sasha asked.

“It's ours!” scowled the horseman. He backed up his horse, clearly worried. His reaction made her cold. If he recognised her, Sasha reckoned, he no doubt knew something of her conflicted allegiances.

Like stone, she told herself. Like the hard granite of the looming cliffs.

The crossbowmen in the back of the wagon were readying their weapons, as horsemen along the column grasped at the hilts of their blades.

“There are a handful of you,” Markan said contemptuously. “There are many of us. We are the Isfayen, the bloodwarriors of the western mountains, and all Lenayin has feared us since we first walked in the world. I think it best that you let us look.”

The horseman thought about it. A nervous shifting passed along the wagon column. Then the horseman backed up, and crossbowmen leaped from the back of the wagon.

“There was a bounty,” the horseman explained nervously. “A gold piece each. We just wanted to bring something back to our families.”

Sasha dismounted, strode to the back of the wagon, and threw open the rear flap.

The wagon was filled with small bodies. Little shapes, arms and legs askew, entangled in dreadful heaps. She saw little faces, and widened eyes. Saw a flash of inhuman colour, the gleam of serrin sight. Crossbred children. Part human, part serrin, like her good friend Aisha. Like she and Errollyn would have had, given the chance, and the assurance that their offspring would not end up like this, piled in some forager's cart like…

The wagon floor was awash with blood. The smell was dreadful.

Sasha did not know how she hit the ground, but suddenly her knees were gone, and she was curled against the wagon wheel, her body torn with sobs. From the Isfayen behind her, there was consternation. Markan dismounted and peered into the wagon. And cursed in shock.

Then Yasmyn, who said nothing when she looked, but her grip on Sasha's arm when she crouched at her side was painfully tight. Other Isfayen lords came to look, now guessing the wagon's contents, but horrified all the same.

“Sasha,” said Yasmyn, perhaps as distressed to see the great Synnich-ahn curled and sobbing like a child as she was at the wagon itself. She put a hand to Sasha's face, eyes pleading her to stop. Sasha barely noticed. She had tried to make herself like stone, but stone was not her nature. She was water, free and wild, and she could not bear this weight.

She could not be a party to this. Her land and her people were all she had that remained, and she marched with them into the very gates of Loth…but she could not be a party to this. She would rather die. She
had
to die. She had no other choices left.

A time passed, and Sasha was barely aware that the men of the column had been rounded up, and the other wagons searched. Men about her muttered of an orphanage, a special place for abandoned children of mixed blood. They must have been late to leave, they said, and taken refuge in the temple, praying that their gods would save them. Sasha sat against the rear wheel, face in her hands, and wished the world would end.

“Sasha,” came Markan's voice at her side, more gentle than she'd ever heard him. “Synnich-ahn. We have found one alive.”

Sasha raised her tear-streaked face and looked at him. Then another lord came, carrying a bundle that he placed on the road beside her. It was a little boy, perhaps six years old. His face was pale, yet his eyes were sharp, emerald green. Like Errollyn's.

Sasha gazed at him. The boy seemed sightless, and Sasha wondered if he were blind. But she passed a hand before his face, and he blinked, and moved back a little.

“Hello there,” she murmured, in Torovan. “What's your name?” There was no reply. Torovan was a tongue learned at later ages, if at all. Most likely the boy spoke Rhodaani…and perhaps one other. “What is your name?” Sasha tried again, this time in Saalsi, the language of the serrin.

The boy blinked at her, as though noticing her for the first time. Sasha nodded.

“I do speak that tongue,” she told him quietly. “I see you know a little.”

The boy's green eyes shimmered with tears. Sasha hugged him before the sight of his face could make her lose control again. She held him tight, as Isfayen about them wondered at the location of a grave and what to do for a ceremony.

“What do we do with the prisoners?” one man asked Markan. Markan made a gesture of thumb across throat, as careless as a man might decide to cast away food gone bad. The other nodded, and left to do that.

“Ask them who demands the bounty,” Yasmyn called after that man. “If he will not answer, make it slow.”

Sasha picked up the boy, and carried him away from the wagons. He was not going to watch this, nor the burial of his friends.

“Will you tell me your name?” she tried again as she walked.

“Tomli,” came a faint murmur against her ear.

“Well, Tomli,” she said, still in Saalsi, “I have an idea. Likely it will get all of us killed, and destroy the Army of Lenayin. But it's the best idea I have, because it is the only thing I'm still certain is right.”

The more she thought about it, the more certain she became. She climbed the slope off the road, to gain a view of the cliffs, and wait for her party to ride once more.

B
urying even little bodies took time, when one took proper care. By the time the Isfayen returned to the column, dusk was falling, and the Army of Lenayin had halted to prepare its nighttime defences, and distribute the day's foraged food.

Sasha carried Tomli before her on the saddle, and cared not how many men stared at the pair of them in passing. She left her horse at the stable of the farmhouse commandeered for the night's lordly retreat, and took Tomli inside to the washroom. There she booted out several lords, and set about seeing Tomli washed, well aware of the building commotion outside the washroom door. She emerged only once to ask if anyone had clean children's clothes, and a search of the farmhouse did bring a clean pair of breeches and a shirt down to the washroom door. They were a little too big, but Sasha rolled up the pants, made cuffs of the sleeves, and wondered if some skill in much-despised needlework might not be useful after all.

Then she emerged, ushering Tomli before her, into a main room full of Lenay captains, lords, two princes, and one king. Lamps lit the wooden floors and smooth stone walls, and food lay arrayed upon a long table. The men were all in sombre conversation, knowing what lay within the washroom, and awaiting its emergence.

Koenyg now rose from an armchair, and conversation trailed away to silence.

“Markan told me,” said Koenyg. Markan stood nearby. “How is the boy?”

“Traumatised,” said Sasha. “His name is Tomli. He is five, and he speaks Rhodaani and some Saalsi. He was born to a single mother who gave him to an orphanage. Saalshen keeps them well funded, Tomli seemed happy enough there.”

The horror of it nearly stole her sanity once more. She swallowed hard.

“A Verenthane orphanage?” asked the Great Lord of Rayen, curiously.

“I think,” said Sasha, nodding. “He said he was cared for by priests. He called them all Papa.”

“Those men you found did a grave crime,” Koenyg said grimly, “and their punishment was just. But from now on, all Lenays shall stay within the column. We cannot be enforcing our laws onto every criminal act. Enmities between the Free and the Saalshen Bacosh are two centuries old, and there will be many crimes. It cannot be our place to intervene, and strain the allegiance further.”

“The Black Order of Larosa placed a bounty upon the heads of all serrin and half-breed children,” Sasha said quietly. “Word passes across the land. What we saw was not a crime. It was policy.”

Koenyg's stare darkened. “Sister, I will not have you sow dissension against our Verenthane allies….”

“I state only fact,” said Sasha. “Ask Markan to deny it.” No one looked at Markan. To question the Great Lord of Isfayen's honesty was not wise. “And brother, I cannot be party to any army that supports such acts. These are our allies, and they murder children by the wagonload. Little girls and little boys like Tomli.” Her hand was firm on Tomli's shoulder. Even in the face of this fearsome gathering of strangers, Tomli did not flinch or shake. He had seen far worse than this. “I do not appeal to your sympathy. I appeal to your honour. There is honour in victory against warriors in battle. To murder small children for gold…”

She gazed at each of them in turn. Men met her eyes for a moment, then looked aside. Others would not look at all. She did not complete that last sentence. She could not. For even the rough men of Lenayin, there were no words.

Save for the northerners. The Hadryn, the Ranash, and the Banneryd stood to their own, separate side of the room, and stared with unflinching calm. With them stood Myklas, frowning.

“I recall that you have played this game before,” said the Great Lord Heryd of Hadryn. He was a wall of a man, blond, tall, and undecorated. Pure, in the image of his faith. “In the rebellion, you used orphan children to tug at the hearts of nobles and ladies in Baen-Tar.”

“Not orphan children, Lord Heryd,” Sasha told him, unblinkingly. “They currently reside with their parents in the Udalyn Valley. Their parents live, thanks to me, and your glorious defeat at my hands.”

Lord Heryd steamed. Great Lord Rydysh of Ranash muttered an insult in his native tongue that Sasha did not understand.

“We do not speak of past conflicts,” Koenyg said sharply. “Each part of Lenayin has fought each other part of Lenayin so many times in history, and our losses and grievances outnumber the stars. Here we are one army, and we will not sacrifice future glories on the altar of past hatreds.”

There was nothing “past” about this hatred, and they all knew it. The north was not merely Verenthane—they were devout, and pure. Most Lenay provinces rode in this battle for the allegiance of the great Verenthane lowland powers, and the promised future glory of Lenayin. But the north rode for the sheer religious pleasure of smiting evil, and in northern opinion, that evil had gleaming eyes and oddly coloured hair. They did not care if ten thousand half-breed children were murdered, they were going to heaven, climbing on the piled corpses of the serrin race.

“She has sung this tune before,” Lord Heryd repeated. “One orphan child proves nothing, save that she has few new ideas for luring strong men with women's cowardice.”

“Every time the likes of you go to war,” Sasha told him, “helpless children escape your slaughter to fall into my hands. The only thing proved is that you lot would rather kill children than warriors.”

Koenyg had to intervene, physically, as Lord Heryd stepped forward quickly, a hand to his hilt.

“Do it,” Sasha invited him. “Draw the blade. I've killed so many of you northern lords. Let's make it one more. See if your gods punish me worse than they did when I killed the others.”

Silence followed in the room. The northerners hated her, but they were no longer stupid enough to challenge her. They knew her to be a hothead, prone to shouting and rash displays of temper. Now, she did not shout. Her words were clipped, firm, and calculated.

Amongst the nobility of Lenayin, it was occurring to Sasha, an unchallengeable duellist possessed a frightening advantage not merely in blades, but in debate as well. One dared not push her too hard, for duelling was the law, and cowardice as fatal as death itself. The men in the room feared not for their lives; they feared for their honour, and that of their families. They feared that here was a girl who could twist them to her will and, if they retaliated in anger, issue a challenge they could not win.

Such a woman could become a queen. A terrible one.

Sasha had no doubt they'd kill her first, honourably or not.

“I will take the boy,” said Koenyg. He came to Sasha. “I will see that he is…”

Sasha drew her sword, and took her opening stance, blade at quarter check behind her head, raised for the strike. Koenyg stopped.

“Any man,” said Sasha, “who attempts to remove this boy from me shall die. Tomorrow, I shall demand before this army that the priests of the Black Order be brought to account for their actions, and their bounty upon the heads of half-castes be withdrawn.
Selith'en to tamathy, elish'an so valth'mal rae, y'seth lan as'far.
” Evil grows in the dark, while good men lie, and snuff out the light. It was a saying well known in Saalsi. None present understood it, yet the mere fact of Saalsi spoken proudly in this room caused more eyes to widen.

Sasha grasped Tomli's hand and strode from the room, out into the night. Markan followed.

“Well that you bed with the Isfayen tonight,” he said. “Even the great Synnich-ahn cannot defeat foes in her sleep.”

“Very well,” Sasha agreed, following Markan's lead to the Isfayen camp.

“And better still should you bed with me tonight,” Markan added.

Sasha glanced at him in surprise. Then smiled. “I shall be the death of us all, Markan.”

“I know,” said Markan, a gleam in his eye. “It is arousing.”

Sasha sighed, and grasped little Tomli's hand more firmly.

She was awoken that night by a kick at her boot. Her eye flicked that way, unalarmed, despite the sudden grasp of her hand for the knife beneath the bundled cloak she used for a pillow. It was the safe way to wake a warrior, when nerves were on edge in the constant nighttime harassment of the serrin.

A dark figure crouched by her boots, backlit by the orange glow of coals.

“Sasha,” Damon murmured. Sasha turned to look and found Tomli, sleeping soundly alongside. She did not know how he slept. Perhaps it was exhaustion, or shock.

Sasha patted the thin bedroll, and shifted over for Damon. He slid in alongside her, an arm about her shoulders. It was no longer just affection between them, but habit. They had not been close for most of their lives, Sasha and Prince Damon, but lately that had changed. It was nice to have family, that was all. And Sasha thought of her sister Alythia, murdered in Tracato. She embraced her brother, and put her head on his chest.

“I know what you're doing,” Damon said quietly.

“I'm glad one of us does,” said Sasha.

“Don't play the fool with me,” Damon replied, but there was no anger in his words. “This is very dangerous, Sasha. Koenyg will not allow it. Nor will the northerners, nor most of the lords.”

“I know,” said Sasha. What was left of the fire crackled, and about it men snored. The camp seemed calm, and Sasha did not think they had been attacked tonight. “It's this or die, Damon. By my own hand. I can't live with this, and I don't think much of this column can either, once they know what's happening.”

“Koenyg is trying to stop them from learning,” said Damon.

“I know. But the king's power to prevent the men of Lenayin from knowing what they know has always been limited.” Sasha looked up at him. “Can
you
live with it?”

Damon said nothing for a moment, staring at the stars. Then he shook his head. Sasha guessed his thoughts, and what remained unsaid—however much he hated the situation, he did not know that he could stand up to Koenyg either.

“Sasha,” Damon murmured finally. “What would you have us do?”

“Switch sides,” said Sasha. From Damon's sigh beneath her cheek, she registered his unhappiness.

“It's always that simple with you,” he murmured with exasperation.

“I'm only interested in the destination, Damon. You worry too much for the state of the road.”

“If all you watch is your destination,” said Damon, “you may fail to notice the ravine that has opened between you and it.”

“Build a bridge,” said Sasha.

Damon pinched her ear. Sasha jabbed his ribs.

“It'll tear the Army of Lenayin apart,” said Damon.

Sasha raised herself from his chest and stared at him. “Damon,” she said firmly, “who fucking cares?” Damon gazed at her. Dumbly. “Who would take their side, if all who share our sympathies come with us?”

Damon thought about it. The north. The nobility…or many of them. He nodded, slowly. They were not people Damon wanted on his side any more than Sasha did. But…

“Koenyg,” he said. “And our father's memory. His spirit. This was his war….”

“It was Koenyg's,” Sasha snorted. “Father believed that the fates would show him the way, and the gods watch over us. All the actual decision making he left to Koenyg.”

“The purpose of this war was to unite all of Lenayin within a common cause,” Damon said stubbornly. “We've fought each other for all history, this is the first time we've fought all together, on a foreign campaign….”

“Aye, for the glory of a faith less than half the population shares,” Sasha interrupted. “Damon, you're arguing like Sofy—she always thinks it's better to make peace and bring people together. What about the men who murdered those children? Would you like to make peace with them? Forge a common destiny? Me, I say any common destiny with people like that is a destiny not worth having. I'd rather see their heads on pikes.”

“Or yours on one,” Damon warned.

“Yes,” Sasha agreed, adamantly. “Better that, too.”

“And what of the great Verenthane alliance that would sustain Lenayin for centuries to come?”

“What of it?” Sasha asked. “When did either of us believe in that? That Lenayin needed civilising, needed to become more like the lowlands? Those were always the dreams of men who never
liked
Lenayin, those whose greatest hope for their homeland was that we should become like someone else.

“Damon, the great hope of lowlands alliance is not the Verenthane faith. It's the serrin, it always was…. This…this land we invade, it's not perfect, but there is so much here that they got right.
This
is what we should be copying—education, tolerance, the abolition of the special rights of nobility, equal laws for all, the creation of wealth and trade….”

“Wait, wait.” Damon looked at her grimly. “These are the people who tortured you and murdered Alythia, and…”

“Some of them,” Sasha agreed. “Not all.”

“And even little Tomli was abandoned by his mother,” Damon persisted. “Are things so perfect here that…”

“Not perfect, no! But that's the point, Damon, the starting point is that we all must accept that humanity is not perfect, and never will be.”

“Any civilisation inspired by the serrin will never make an empire,” Damon said with certainty. “And only empires are any use to us, in allegiance. We're too far away, otherwise. This war is only worth the price for Lenayin if we gain in trade, or materials, or treaties of common interest. Grand treaties with hermit kingdoms do us naught, we'd do better to invade them ourselves and gain their benefits directly.”