Sasha (43 page)

“Prince Damon feels that perhaps if the king were presented with a refugee from the Udalyn, an eyewitness who might sway the king's compassion…” Jaryd took a deep breath.

Sasha gave him a hard look. “And why are you doing this? You don't need to help. Spirits, you're in enough trouble already.”

“Trouble frightens me no more than it frightens you,” Jaryd said stubbornly. Sasha shook her head in faint disbelief. In Lenayin, Goeren-yai men weren't the only ones with rocks for heads.

At the base of the Baen-Tar cliff, Sasha and Jaryd headed left and broke free into the paddocks and low stone walls of the rolling Baen-Tar farmlands. Many men were awake, she saw as they rode between the tents, rough-shaven and sleepy by the flickering light of torches. Here, a small cluster of men talked before an officer's tent. There, a pair of soldiers held six horses saddled and ready in case of sudden need. Sentries stood watch along the road, yet Jaryd took the fore, letting the front of his cloak fall open to reveal the full uniform of the Falcon Guard and mail armour beneath. Spirits knew how long it'd taken him to drag that on, considering his arm. No man challenged them. But something, it seemed, had aroused the soldiers.

Sasha took the first available right-hand turn, attempting to gain some sense of the placement of units. Here in the midslope, the soldiers seemed mostly from Yethulyn and Fyden provinces. Nearer to the town, it had been Valhanan. Now, as they rode a winding farmtrail downslope, the tents appeared largely of southern Isfayen. Jaryd pointed further downslope still, where a cluster of tents sat lonely within an isolated field, flanked by several large trees and neighbouring cottages. The camp was alive with the light of fires.

“I see Lord Krayliss is awake,” Jaryd said. “Doubtless gnashing his teeth over not being invited to the Rathynal feast.”

“Aye,” Sasha said wearily. “Another chance to make trouble missed. The tragedy is that he and Usyn deserved each other. It should have been him and Usyn in that circle before the walls, winner takes all. Instead, we've only dragged the problem down here to infect Baen-Tar and leave the Udalyn undefended.”

Jaryd took a torch from his saddle webbing, and they both paused while he gave it one-handed to Sasha to light with a metal flint. The night seemed all too silent, here on the lower slopes, away from the noise of men and horses in camp. Ahead, there was rough land and forest. Not a place to ride at night if one could avoid it.

At the bottom of the hill, the forest surrounded them. Sasha held the torch high and the light danced upon the trees, casting crazy shadows across the undergrowth. Once, Sasha fancied she saw a gleam of eyes from a branch—an owl, most likely. The trail climbed and fell across rocky folds, yet Jaryd seemed sure of the way. When the trail divided, he took the less-travelled route, bushes thrashing against their horses’ legs.

Then, ahead, there came a new light through the trees. Two, in fact. Jaryd saw, and reined to a halt. Peg fretted, ears flicking in the cold as riders approached. Sasha counted five horses…and a smaller pony, trailing behind on a halter. Jaryd called in a tongue Sasha did not recognise and received a like reply. And then, in the brightening light of three torches, she could see the green of Tyree beneath the riders’ cloaks.

“My Lord,” greeted a rider. Beneath the hood, Sasha recognised Sergeant Garys. He peered within the shadow of her own hood…and his eyes widened a little. Garys half-bowed in the saddle. “M'Lady Sashandra. Two Udalyn, M'Lady. One of Jurellyn's scouts has escorted them this far but turned back as soon as he handed them over. Said he had to get back to Jurellyn.”

Only then did Sasha see the small cloaked figure astride the saddle of another man, his shape lost against the soldier's bulk and shadow. A young face peered from within the hood, fearful. Now she understood where the pony had come from.

“Damn,” she muttered, nudging Peg alongside Sergeant Garys. She handed him both rein and torch, and climbed down, giving Peg a reassuring stroke on the nose lest he yank the sergeant from his saddle. Then she walked briskly to the other soldier's side and threw back her hood. She reached up to put a hand on the child's arm. A boy, she saw, looking exhausted and dirty besides the fear. But he seemed to know how to sit on a saddle. If he'd come all the way from the Udalyn Valley, he must surely know. “Lad,” she said gently. “Friend. Do not be frightened. These are good men. Where are you from?”

The fear remained in the boy's eyes. And incomprehension. “Doesn't seem to speak much Lenay,” the soldier said with a concerned frown, looking down at the boy on his lap.

“Edu,” Sasha muttered. “Of course.” She gave the surrounding soldiers a wry glance. “I don't suppose anyone here speaks any Edu?” The men exchanged looks. “I thought not.”

Edu, the tongue of the Udalyn. So accustomed had she become to the notion that most Lenays would speak at least a little Lenay. But that was a recent event, since the coming of King Soros. Lenayin had been a land of a thousand valleys and, it was said, a thousand tongues. King Soros had brought the warring clans together beneath the Verenthane banner…but not the Udalyn. A century of isolation. And now the boy spoke no language anyone here could speak. One look into his wide, frightened eyes and Sasha realised that she was gazing into the youthful face of antiquity.

“Damn it,” she said to herself, trying to think. “Tullamayne wrote in Edu, yet all we know is translation. There must be something…”

From another horse, there came a plaintive, wailing cry.
Two
Udalyn, Garys had said. Sasha ran to the other horse and found in that rider's lap a young girl, of no more than six or seven. She looked just as bedraggled, weary and dirty as the boy…and now, utterly exhausted and terrified, amidst armoured strangers who did not speak her tongue, she was panicking. The soldier upon whose saddle she rode, a burly Goeren-yai with a thick beard, tried to restrain her thrashing. The wails grew louder.

“Oh, here, here!” Sasha said, reaching up to the girl as the rider gave evident thought to clasping a gloved hand over her mouth—there were northern riders out in the dark as well. The girl looked down through her sobs and saw Sasha. She held out both arms, instinctively. Sasha pulled her from the saddle and held her, as the girl clutched to her and sobbed upon her cloak.

“Rysha!” the boy now called out, alarmed. “Rysha,
elmat ulyn
Rysha!” He struggled clear of his soldier's arms, leaped to the ground with considerable agility and ran to her. Sasha put the little girl down and the boy grabbed her, and hugged her close. There was a desperation in that embrace. A closeness in the way the girl enfolded herself to him. A blaze of protective temper in the boy's eyes, a warning look.

“Oh, I see,” Sasha said quietly. She squatted before them with effortless balance. And she extended a careful finger, pointing to the boy. “Brother?” she said slowly, eyebrows raised. Shifted the finger to the girl. “Sister?”

The boy frowned at her, warily. Then nodded. “Sister,” he said, with heavy accent.

“Rysha?” Sasha asked. “Is that her name? Rysha?” Another nod. “That's a pretty name.” With no hope that he understood. But it was important to keep talking. Silence, with children, was never friendly. “How old are you? Years? Summers?”

Incomprehension. Most Lenay tongues shared many words. Often, when meeting a nonspeaker, one could simply list relevant words until finding one that worked. Not this time, it seemed. She pointed to herself, then flashed ten fingers, twice. Then pointed to him, questioningly. Realisation, this time. He pointed to himself and flashed ten fingers, once. And to his sister, then seven fingers.

“And what is your name?” Sasha asked him. Pointed to his sister. “Rysha, and…?”

“Daryd,” said the boy, with more than a hint of pride. “Daryd Yuvenar.”

“Greetings, Daryd Yuvenar,” Sasha said with a smile. “My name is Sashandra Lenayin.” A pause as he seemed to recognise that, frowning. “Princess Sashandra Lenayin,” Sasha added, carefully. Only too well aware of the men who surrounded, watching and listening.

Daryd's frown became a wide-eyed stare. Comprehension at surely the only human woman he'd ever met who wore her hair short with a tri-braid and dressed in pants with a blade at her back. “Synnich-ahn!” he exclaimed. “
Tel edan yl
Synnich-ahn!”

Dear spirits, not that again. Sasha put a hand firmly on his shoulder. Even little Rysha was staring at her now, teary but wide-eyed. There was a yellow flower in her hair of a kind Sasha had never seen before, now tattered and half-dead. “Daryd Yuvenar. Udalyn?”

Daryd nodded vigorously. “Udalyn.
Ren adlyn
father! King Torvaal!
Vyl heryt ais on shyl
Torvaal!” Pointing to his own two eyes, desperately.

Sasha let out a hard breath. That was obvious enough. “Aye,” she said, nodding softly. “I think we can arrange that.” She gave the boy's shoulder a squeeze. “Brave kids. All this way to plead with the king. You could have stopped anywhere, but you didn't.” Didn't trust anyone, she supposed. A century of isolation might do that. And they had been escorted, Garys had said, by one of Jurellyn's scouts; Jurellyn, who had blazed the trail for the Falcon Guard upon the road to Taneryn. Damon had left him behind to watch Usyn's movements and now Jurellyn thought the situation desperate enough to send these two straight for the king.

She heaved herself to her feet. “Well,” she said tiredly to the surrounding men, “I don't speak any Edu to get a story from these two. But there is one who might.”

The floor of Lord Krayliss's tent was spread with deerskin, alternately soft and coarse as Sasha shifted her weight where she sat. Lord Krayliss sat on a bundle of rolled skins at the end of his bed, a hard fist supporting his bearded chin. Before him sat Daryd and Rysha, eating hot soup and bread before the central tent pole that was impaled deep into the earth. Several senior Taneryn men sat about the tent, all rumpled long hair, tattoos and rings, in traditional stitched leathers and weave. For all Sasha's discomfort, it did occur to her that the scene might be straight from centuries past, when rulers called themselves chieftains instead of lords, and the ancient ways were the ways of all Lenayin. Only Jaryd, seated uncomfortably at her side, spoiled the scene's ancient purity.

Krayliss attempted questions of the children as they ate. Both were clearly frightened of the big, bearish man, but the warmth of both tent and food appeared to calm them considerably. Both, however, continued to cast anxious glances at Sasha, to which she would smile and nod encouragement, whilst trying to follow the broken snatches of conversation.

None of the Taneryn men spoke Edu with any fluency, yet the two dominant tongues of Taneryn were Dyal and Taasti, and both had many words in common with the old Udalyn tongue. Krayliss, to Sasha's moderate amazement, remained both patient and calm. When Daryd (who did most of the talking) did not understand, Krayliss simply invited his fellow yuans to try. What evolved was a three, and sometimes even four or five, tongued conversation, as men attempted various combinations, guesses, or even bits of Cherrovan, to ask questions or interpret puzzling replies. All the Taneryn men gazed at the children with evident fascination, and addressed themselves to the linguistic task with as much enthusiasm as Sasha had ever seen a bunch of hard-headed Goeren-yai warriors address anything so intellectually demanding. A pity there were no serrin present, she thought. They would have been utterly intrigued.

Finally, Krayliss straightened on his bundled seat, frowning heavily. It suited his face entirely. “They are from Ymoth,” he said heavily. Sasha nodded, having gathered that much already. “Usyn's armies attacked. Thousands of men on horse, the boy says. They flew banners of the Hadryn clans. The spirits made sure these two were found by one of your brother's scouts, who guided them here. That was eight days ago.”

“Then Usyn's army headed straight for Ymoth after leaving Halleryn,” said one of the yuans, darkly. “No doubt he planned this treachery from the beginning.”

“The Udalyn should never have resettled Ymoth,” Krayliss rumbled. “It is not far from the valley mouth, amidst fertile lands. Surely it must have tempted them. But the word of protection from successive Verenthane kings has lulled their instincts for survival. Ymoth is too exposed, and the Udalyn too few in strength and weapons to defend it from Hadryn heavy cavalry. I fear the Udalyn have lost valuable forces defending Ymoth. Now, their defences will be fewer. There is no time to lose.”