Sasha (16 page)

The man did not turn around as Damon, Kessligh and Sasha approached. The Hadryn Shields captain halted at his side and saluted.

“My Lord,” he said, “Prince Damon, Kessligh Cronenverdt and Sashandra Lenayin.” No “Princess” or “Highness” from this man. Not even, she suspected, a “M'Lady.”

Usyn Telgar did not turn to greet them. His hands appeared to be folded upon something before his waist. His sword, Sasha guessed, considering that his scabbard was empty. And her heart beat a little faster, recognising the significance of that gesture. “So Prince Damon,” Usyn said then. A young man's voice, cold and bleak. “I heard that you were coming. With eighty men.”

“Shortly, more than a thousand,” Damon said curtly.

Usyn nodded slowly to himself, considering. Still he did not turn around. “And a girl,” he added, with dry irony. His tone did not work Sasha's temper as another man's might. That was hot temper. This anger she felt was cold, dark and menacing. She could enjoy hot anger—the exhilarating burst of temper and retaliation. Of cold anger, there was nothing pleasant to be said.

“You have ordered Hadryn forces onto Taneryn lands,” Damon said, ignoring the remark. “State your business here.”

Usyn finally turned. It was a pale, youthful face, framed with the close-trimmed, dark hair of a devout northern Verenthane. An eight-pointed star lay prominently upon his leather vest, and his belt held gold-handled knives and a large, engraved horn. They were the clothes of a soldier in the field, yet to Sasha's eye they seemed too well polished to be the kit of an honest soldier.

“You would command
me
, my Prince?” Usyn said coldly. “When Baen-Tar has ignored this Taneryn rabble for so long? Has let them breed upon our borders like rats? Many times we warned of this development and Baen-Tar, in all its wisdom, chose not to act. And now you would seek to impose command? Your timing is lacking, sir.”

“Baen-Tar has always commanded here,” Damon replied. “Baen-Tar always shall. State your business upon Taneryn lands. I won't ask again.”

Usyn glared, his nostrils flaring. He hooked both thumbs into his belt, his sword quivering behind him, impaled in the soft, grassy earth. No doubt Usyn had thrust his blade into the turf upon first arrival at the walls of Halleryn. It was an old Lenay custom for a man with a grievance to do so before the home of another, the blade remaining until the matter was settled. Some such of the old ways survived even in the north, even as the northerners denied any connection to Goeren-yai. It was “Lenay tradition,” they claimed. Sasha remained unimpressed; the Goeren-yai
were
Lenay tradition.

“The townsfolk of Gessyl mistreated some travelling brothers,” said Usyn. “My father rode to their rescue, as the townsfolk knew he would. It was a trap, my Prince. Lord Krayliss lured him there, with the express intent to commit murder.

“There was talk of insurrection in Gessyl. Townsfolk were agitated about the coming Rathynal, there were claims that they would be made to fight for a lowlands, Verenthane cause. They spoke ill words of the king, my Prince. They spoke of a Verenthane plot against the Goeren-yai. Lord Krayliss led them in this treason. Rocks were thrown. My father charged the crowd to scatter them, but made no attempt to swing on them, merely to prevent them from throwing, as is his right and privilege. Lord Krayliss, also mounted, charged my father from his blind side and killed him with a stroke. I was there. I saw it happen. Any man who claims it different is a liar.”

“What of Gessyl now?” Damon asked, his expression dark.

“My men have occupied it and rounded up the most prominent troublemakers…”

“You shall send a message immediately for them to desist,” Damon said sharply. “Your grievance is with Lord Krayliss. You have no cause against the village folk of Taneryn.”

The young Telgar appeared to bite back something unpleasant. “My Prince,” he said then, with heavy irony, “if family Lenayin will not enforce its will against acts of subversion aimed at Baen-Tar, then perhaps you should allow us to—”

“I passed through Perys on the way here,” Damon cut in, with every sign of losing his temper completely. “I saw two score and more innocent villagers slaughtered by raiding Hadryn men…”

“With respect, my Prince, my people have been receiving trouble from raiding Taneryn villagers for months. If you have only just arrived, how can you possibly know who is guilty and who…”

“Enough, I say!” Sasha had never seen Damon so angry. “You shall not attempt to justify what I saw there! Did you send them?” For the first time, Usyn's confidence appeared to slip, just a little. “Answer the question!”

“I did not!” A sullen look crept over the lordling's face. Suddenly, he looked no more than a pouting, temperamental seventeen. “The villagers of Hadryn can organise their own defence! If you have a problem with that, deal with it yourself!”

“We dealt with it,” Damon said darkly. “We dealt them thirty dead and more. More shall follow, Hadryn or Taneryn, for any who commit wanton murder in the name of ancient feuds!”

“My father was murdered by this heathen animal!” Usyn yelled, eyes wide with indignant fury. “The father-in-law of Prince Koenyg, who is
also
my brother! If the authority of Baen-Tar does not defend my right to justice, then what in all the hells’ good is it for!”

There was a silence, then, upon the grassy plain by the wide, cold lakeside. Sasha felt rather than heard the gathering presence behind, the creak of a leather belt, a faint rustle of clothing, the compression of grass beneath heavy boots. Damon stared at the younger man, anger duelling with a rare distaste that seemed to sit like acid upon his tongue. The younger, paler man glared back, breath coming hard, his manner that of one accustomed to sudden fits of temper.

“Family Lenayin would be
nothing
without the north!” Usyn hissed. “The king owes his throne to our unwavering support! Your father knows this, Princeling! Well that you should learn it too! Well that you should know with whom your true loyalties lie!” This last with a harsh glare at Kessligh, acknowledging his presence for the first time. The eyes remained upon him for one hard-breathing moment, wild and white about the rims. Then to Sasha, also for the first time, with an even greater hatred than before.

“I serve the king,” Kessligh said simply.

“You serve only yourself!” Usyn spat. “Yourself, your whore and your godless serrin friends! Your power in Baen-Tar grows weak, old man! The king no longer listens to you and your kind! You may have those idiots in Valhanan fooled, but you've never fooled the men of the north—we know what you are!”

“Sure you do,” Kessligh said with an utterly unpleasant smile. “I'm the reason you're not speaking Cherrovan.”

Usyn's hand went to his belt knife, and Kessligh's to his own in a blur of motion. And Usyn's eyes went wider still, face draining of any remaining blood, as if realising, with sudden terror, what his temper had nearly brought him to.

Kessligh's smile grew wider. Sasha had seen him hit crawling insects on a tree trunk from ten paces with that knife.

She decided it was a good time to swing on her heel and check the scene behind. Sure enough, there were upward of thirty Hadryn men standing there, and more gathering behind. Some in a state of partial dress, others fully armed and armoured. Strong men and tall, as with the soldiers of all standing companies; their pale skin untouched by any ink quill, their hair trimmed short, sometimes even shaved. Their eyes were hard and their manner unwelcoming. Behind them, she glimpsed members of Damon's Royal Guard contingent hovering by the lakeside tents with evident alarm.

“Forget the knife,” Kessligh told Usyn then. With all the ease and assurance that one might expect from the greatest soldier in Lenayin. “If what you say of your father's death is true, your case seems good. Baen-Tar's justice serves here. Whatever disagreements exist, you shall find justice in Prince Damon, where it is warranted. Only remember this, young lord. Do not try us and do not test our patience. All the north should know very well what
I
am capable of.”

And he bowed, all good form and politeness. Sasha swung back long enough to do likewise. Damon did not bow. He would nod, affirmingly, if Usyn bowed first. But Usyn simply stared, wild-eyed and hateful. And so Damon swung on his heel and walked, Kessligh and Sasha at his sides.

The Hadryn men stood back just enough to let them through, but not enough for comfort or respect. Sasha walked with her right thumb hooked into her belt beside the knife there, ready for the fast thrust of a close quarters attack. A man bumped her arm, not moving aside quite in time. She could feel the eyes upon her, roaming over her body. But the Royal Guard were close ahead now as they emerged from the crowd.

“That little fool's a real worry,” Kessligh muttered as soon as they were out of earshot. “His loss has made him unstable.”

“I think he was expecting Koenyg,” Damon said darkly. “Given that it's Koenyg's father-in-law who's been killed. I warned Koenyg that Usyn would take it amiss, but he insisted he was too busy with Rathynal approaching. Wyna was distraught.”

“Poor girl,” Sasha said sarcastically. “Meeting Usyn, I suddenly see the family resemblance. The whole Telgar family's unstable. I'm so thrilled to be related I could vomit.”

“And I'm sure your graceful presence shall do wonders for Usyn's stability,” Kessligh remarked.

“You didn't help,” Sasha retorted, determined to get some payback for all the times he'd accused
her
of provocation.

“I thought it best to scare him a little,” Kessligh replied, the familiar, hard edge to his tone. “He's a bundle of raw impulses right now, most of them aggressive. I appealed to the only raw impulse that might give him pause.”

“What if he thinks you're bluffing?” Damon asked, casting a wary glance across as they walked.

“I don't bluff,” Kessligh said grimly.

Damon glanced at Sasha. Sasha shrugged. “He doesn't bluff,” she admitted. “Feints and misleads from time to time, but never bluffs.”

“There's eighty of us threatening to take on several thousand of them,” Damon retorted. “What is that if not a bluff?”

“Suicide?” Sasha suggested, raising an eyebrow at Kessligh.

Kessligh shook his head. “It's a start,” he said.

E
VENING, AND THE SETTING OF THE SUN
behind the mountains transformed the overcast sky to a deep, ominous red. The lake seemed ablaze as they walked along its bank, headed for the walled town of Halleryn. The mountains behind cast all the land and lake into shadow, the sun long since set behind its rugged peak. The colour was mesmerising, and reminded Sasha of tales told in the Steltsyn Star, of dark spirits with eyes the colour of fire…and she made the spirit sign to her forehead; an unthought, reflex gesture.

“Stop that,” Kessligh said with irritation at her side. Of all the dinner party, he alone had eyes more for the town walls ahead than for the ill-omened sky. “I told you, the colour is caused when the lowering sun strikes the underside of the clouds instead of the top. And it looks so bright because we're in the mountain's shadow, and it's reflecting off the lake. It's very beautiful, but I tell you there's nothing otherworldly about it.”

“This is a demon sky,” Jaryd disagreed, staring upward as he walked. “Father Urys in Algery used to tell me about this when I was a lad—sometimes at evenings, when the sun god slips into his netherworld, there opens a space between Loth and our world. This is all the power of Loth spilling free, and demons with it…there's bad things afoot this night, I can feel it.”

“Aye,” Kessligh said sourly, “and if you lot don't cut the superstitious rubbish, I'll be one of them.”

They crossed the bridge above the small stream, the torches held by the Royal Guardsmen to the front and rear gusting trails of flame. Ahead, the walls of Halleryn were alive with torchlight and whipping, wind-blown banners. Their party's own banners, held aloft by the two guardsmen not wielding torches, fluttered and snapped above their heads. In the light from the battlements, Sasha could see the dark shapes of archers watching their approach.

On the far side of the bridge, she risked a glance back across the river. The Hadryn camp stretched wide among the scattered trees and farmhouses of the valley, the blaze of many fires aflicker in the cold wind. Another five hundred men had arrived that afternoon, mostly militia from Hadryn villages, without the heavy armour and equipment of the Hadryn Shields, but formidable soldiers all the same. Word was that there were another thousand infantry afoot, but delayed without the speed of cavalry. Sasha eyed the movement atop the torch-lit walls ahead. She greatly doubted the forces within would match what was building outside.

“Usyn will have enough forces before the walls to contain any breakout by tomorrow,” she said to Kessligh, folding her arms tightly within her cloak to guard against the freezing wind. “He'll then divert forces about the lake, and Vassyl will fall. Halleryn's forces will be trapped, and then a real siege.”

“We can't let it come to that,” Kessligh replied, eyes also scanning the battlements. His mood was the darkest Sasha had seen on this trip. “A siege will drag into Rathynal. Such is precisely what your father would wish avoided.”