Ravens Shadow 02 - Tower Lord (23 page)

“I said I can’t!” Lyrna shouted.

The Lonak woman turned with a quizzical expression.

“I can’t swim,” Lyrna went on, unable to keep the sullen defensiveness from her voice.

“Not even a little, Highness?” Ivern enquired.

“Forgive me for not spending my childhood in your order, brother!” she rounded on him. “My tutors were clearly remiss to the point of treason in not teaching me to swim, for it’s well-known such a skill is of great value to a princess.”

He winced a little under the tirade, but was unable to fully suppress a smirk. “Well, it is now.”

“Mind your tongue, brother!” Sollis snapped.

“We must cross,” Davoka stated.

“Well, I agree with Brother Sollis,” Lyrna replied, crossing her arms and forcing all the regal authority into her voice she could muster. “We should find a better spot, somewhere not so deep . . .”

She trailed off as Davoka approached her with a purposeful stride. “Don’t!” Lyrna cautioned her.

Davoka ducked down and lifted Lyrna over her shoulder, turning back to the river. “Rock apes can swim, no-one teaches them. So can you.”

“Brother Sollis, I command you . . .” Lyrna had time to sputter before finding herself in the air. The chill of the water was shocking, numbing her from head to toe in an instant. There was a moment of deafness, her vision crowded with bubbles, before she bobbed to the surface, dragging air into her lungs with a shout. As Sollis had predicted, the current was swift, carrying her downriver a good twenty paces before she managed to scramble to the bank, flailing and kicking until her feet found purchase on the rocky shallows. She crawled from the water, shivering and retching. Smolen appeared at her side, helping her up with careful hands. “You insult the person of our princess!” he raged at Davoka as she strode to join them.

“See,” she said to Lyrna, ignoring Smolen’s outburst. “You swim well eno—”

Lyrna punched her in the face. She put all her strength into the blow but it rebounded from the Lonak woman’s jaw without any obvious effect, whilst provoking an instant flare of agony in her fist.

There was a moment’s silence as Smolen put a hand on his sword hilt, Lyrna shook the pain from her hand and Davoka rubbed the small bruise on her jaw. She grunted and a smile ghosted across her lips. “Hold on to the pony’s neck,” she told Lyrna, turning away. “You be fine.”

◆ ◆ ◆

In the event the crossing was less hazardous than Sollis feared, although Smolen came adrift from his pony halfway across and had to be rescued by Ivern before the current took him away, the young brother managing to snare the Lord Marshal’s tunic as he swept past. Lyrna clamped her arms around her pony’s neck and hung on as the animal kicked through the torrent. It seemed unafraid of the water, though its snorts indicated it found her an unwelcome burden. It was done in the space of an hour, all five of them safely making the opposite bank in varying stages of bedraggled exhaustion.

“Can’t rest,” Davoka said, climbing onto her pony’s back and spurring towards the north.

They trailed after her until they made it to the cover of a thick pine forest some ten miles from the river. Davoka discovered a shallow cave in a ravine where they took turns to sleep until morning. Lyrna found herself chilled to the point of shaking once more but there was no return of the sickness that laid her low beneath the Mouth of Nishak and she woke with the dawn, aching but refreshed enough to continue.

She moved to Davoka’s side as she crouched at the mouth of the cave, eyes scanning the walls of the ravine. “Any sign?” Lyrna asked her.

Davoka shook her head. “No sign, no scent. They hunt for us, but not in this forest.” Her tone indicated this wasn’t necessarily good news.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” Lyrna said.

Davoka turned to her with a puzzled frown. “Sorree?”

Lyrna searched for the Lonak equivalent, finding there wasn’t one.
“Illeha,”
she said.
Regret or guilt, depending on the inflection.

“Lonakhim hit each other all the time,”
Davoka replied with a shrug.
“If you’d tried to knife me, things would be different.”
She rose and moved back into the cave, kicking at the feet of the sleeping men.
“Rouse yourselves, limp-pricks. Time to go.”

They cleared the forest by midmorning, riding hard to the north-east. The country here was less mountainous than they had experienced so far, distinguished by numerous broad grassy plains between the peaks. Lyrna’s new-found skill in the saddle allowed her to match Davoka’s speed and they rode side by side for a time until Davoka reined to an abrupt halt, her eyes alighting on something to the west. Lyrna followed her gaze, picking out a dust-cloud rising above the horizon. “Sentar?” she asked.

“Who else?” Ivern said.

“Highness!” Smolen stood in his stirrups, pointing to the south where another dust cloud was rising.

Lyrna turned to Davoka, finding her looking ahead at the mountain range to the north, no doubt calculating the distance.

“It’s too far,” Sollis said, unhitching his bow. There was no particular alarm to his voice, just a faint note of resignation.

“Queen can go,” Davoka said. “We hold them back.”

Lyrna looked at the cloud to the west, picking out the dark smudges appearing out of the haze. She stopped counting at fifty. “There are too many, sister,” she said. “But thank you.”

Davoka met her eyes, and for the first time there was a sense of confusion there, a reluctance to comprehend the finality of the moment. Lyrna supposed she had never tasted defeat before. “I’m . . . sorree, Lerhnah,” Davoka said.

Lyrna surprised herself by responding with an unforced and genuine smile. “It was my choice,” she said, then surveyed the three men now arranged in a circle around her, Ivern and Sollis with their bows ready, Smolen with his sword drawn. “Good sirs, I thank you for your service and express my sincere regret for leading you on this mad enterprise.”

Sollis just grunted, Smolen offered a grave bow of respect and Ivern said, “Highness, I believe a kiss from you would see me into the Beyond with no regrets at all.”

She stared at him and was gratified when he actually blushed. “My apologies, Highness . . .” he stammered.

She moved her pony alongside his and leaned over to plant a kiss on his lips, letting it linger a while before drawing back. “Good enough?” she asked.

For once it seemed words were beyond him.

“Sekhara ke Lessa Ilvar!”
Davoka shouted, drawing Lyrna’s attention away from the dumbfounded brother.
We live in the sight of the gods. An expression of thanks for godly blessings, usually unexpected.

The Lonak woman was staring at the dust-cloud to the south, the riders now clearly visible. Riding in front was a large man in a bearskin vest, a massive war club in his hand.
Alturk!

For a moment Lyrna thought the clan chief had come to join in their imminent slaughter, which seemed strange considering he had already enjoyed ample opportunity to do them all the harm he wished. But instead Alturk led his band towards the west, at least five hundred warriors riding at full gallop, placing themselves between Lyrna’s party and the onrushing Sentar.

The two war-bands met in a headlong clash some two hundred paces distant. The wind was brisk, dispelling the dust to afford a clear view of the battle, Lonak warriors assailing each other with club, hatchet and spear in a ferocious melee, accompanied by a continuous chorus of war cries and the screams of their ponies. She saw Alturk in the thickest part of the fight, laying about with his club and hatchet, foe after foe falling before him.

Davoka gave a shout and kicked her pony into motion, soon becoming lost in the swirl of combat, Lyrna catching brief glimpses of her spear whirling and stabbing amongst the confusion.

Three Sentar emerged from the melee to charge at them, war cries high and shrill. The brothers’ arrows plucked two from their saddles in quick succession and Smolen rode out to confront the third, ducking under the warrior’s spear and hacking his pony from under him with a slash to the flank. Ivern finished the rider with an arrow as he rolled on the ground.

The battle seemed to end as quickly as it had begun, the surviving riders coming to a halt, Grey Hawk warriors dismounting to finish the wounded. Alturk trotted towards them, a bloody hatchet in his belt and a gore-encrusted war club in his hand. The young man who had stood at his shoulder at their last meeting rode at his side.

“Queen,” Alturk greeted her with a nod. “You are hurt?”

She shook her head. “It seems I am in your debt once more, Tahlessa. Though it might have been polite if you had shared your plan before we set off.”

Alturk’s only expression was a slight curl of his lip. She couldn’t tell if he was amused or disdainful. “A trap is not a trap without bait.”

There was a shout of fury from behind him and Lyrna looked to see Davoka leading a captive from the corpse-strewn aftermath of the battle. She had bound the girl’s hands and dragged her along with a rope lashed around her neck.

“You take her to the Mountain?”
Alturk asked as Davoka sent her sister sprawling with a jerk of the rope. Lyrna was surprised by the note she detected in the Tahlessa’s voice: concern, albeit reluctant.

“She will be judged by the Mahlessa,”
Davoka replied.

“I saw her kill five of my men.”
Alturk’s gaze remained fixed on the scarred girl.
“I claim her by right of blood—”

“A claim made far too late,”
Davoka cut in, glancing towards the young man at Alturk’s side, then back at the clan chief.
“And you have judgement of your own to make.”

Alturk’s face clouded and he gave a sombre nod.
“True enough.”

The young man frowned.
“Father . . . ?”

Alturk’s war club caught him on the side of the head, sending him senseless to the ground. The clan chief beckoned two of his warriors closer.
“Bind this varnish. We judge him tonight.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Davoka had earned a deep cut on her shoulder which Sollis cleaned and stitched with practised hands, the Lonak woman sipping redflower and gritting her teeth against the pain as he worked. They were encamped on the plain amongst the Grey Hawk war-band. They seemed subdued in the shadow of victory, their fires untouched by song or noises of celebration. The reason was no mystery; he knelt, arms bound and head bowed before Alturk’s fire, a son awaiting his father’s judgement. He had raged for hours, as the sun waxed and the shadows grew, screaming scorn and insults at his former clansmen.
“You betray the Lonakhim . . . you will make us slaves to the Merim Her . . . throw our borders wide so they can take all we have fought to defend . . . they will defile us . . . make us weak . . . make us like them . . . The Mahlessa is false, her word is not the word of the gods . . .”

There was no attempt to silence him, no punishment meted out for his blasphemy. They let him rant himself to exhaustion, refusing to acknowledge any sound he made.
Varnish,
Lyrna thought.

“How did you know he had betrayed us?” she asked Davoka when Sollis had finished tending to her wound.

“Same way his father did. No other ears to hear of our route.” She glanced at their own captive, secured with strong rope to an iron stake thrust deep into the ground, the chin-to-brow scar Lyrna had given her red and angry in the fire’s glow. She had said nothing since her capture, slumping onto whatever patch of ground she was led to, her expression one of vague annoyance, untroubled by fear.

When the moon rose high Alturk stood up, war club in hand, and walked to his son’s side. The Grey Hawks gathered round as he raised his arms.
“I call you, my brothers in war, to witness judgement,”
the clan chief said.
“This wretched thing that was once my son kneels in disgrace. He has shunned the word of the Mountain, he has spoken false words. These are not the actions of the Lonakhim. And so he will be judged.”

There was a murmur of assent from the gathered warriors, a tense expectation stealing over them as Alturk moved closer to his son. But instead of striking the man down he tossed his war club aside and knelt beside him.
“But as he is judged, so must you judge me, for it is my weakness that has led us to this. My weakness that made me beg for this wretch’s life years ago when he lay defeated by the worst of the Merim Her. My weakness that made me return to our clan with no word of his transgression or the shame that shrouded my heart. I begged like the weakest of men for his life and this is my reward, the only reward such weakness deserves. I, Alturk, Tahlessa of the Grey Hawks, ask for your judgement.”

For a moment Lyrna suspected this was merely pantomime, a show of contrite humility by a noble leader, but the rising murmur of confusion and anger from the band told her there was no theatre here; Alturk’s words were sincere. He wanted judgement.

A man emerged from the ranks of the war-band, a veteran warrior judging by his age, whip thin and short of stature but commanding enough respect to still the rising babble with a raised war club. He regarded the kneeling clan chief with an expression of sombre regret.
“Our Tahlessa asks for judgement,”
he said.
“And by the truth of his own his words, judgement is warranted. I, Mastek, have been this man’s brother in war since he was old enough to climb onto his pony. Never have I seen him flinch from battle. Never have I seen him turn his sight from a hard choice or a hard road. Never have I seen him weak . . . until now.”
The old warrior closed his eyes for a second, swallowing, forcing his next words out:
“I judge him weak. I judge him no longer fit to be our Tahlessa. I judge that he should share the same fate as the varnish that kneels at his side.”
He surveyed the band.
“Are there any who would speak against this?”

There was no response. Lyrna could see no anger on their faces, just grim acceptance. She understood what was happening now, these men were as bound by their customs as any Realm subject was bound by law. This was no vengeful mob, it was a court, and judgement had been passed.