The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 (12 page)

He touched the boy again, wondering, as the bird continued to worry at him—from a safe distance—if this were a sign. How could it be? In daylight, here, the symbol of the Lord upon his breast, who would dare give a sign such as this?

But that question was to go unanswered.

He knew what the cost of this healing would be, and he feared it, as he had always feared it, but he welcomed it as well. He reached for a name, and he found it as if it were his own; his own, he released.

Darran
, he said.
Darran di’Sambali
.

The injuries the body had suffered were profound. He had thought the spirit well on its way. But the boy answered. A warrior, he thought; a warrior to the end, be his weapons the simple implements of the field.

He felt fear, rage, helplessness as Darran di’Sambali struggled against his enemy: Death. The death that would remove from his new, his beloved wife, the only protection he could afford her.

Was it so different a fear, so different a rage, than his own? No. It
was
his own.

He had called men back from the winds before, and the winds had hollowed him, reducing him to emptiness, loneliness, a terrible gnawing need. But the need of this man was so strong it swept him up, carrying him, rejecting all weakness.

Where is she? Where is Talia
?

The voice was wild, terrible.

His own.

He struggled against it, and because this was not his first healing, because he had developed the ability to retreat—if only a little—he answered.

She is safe. She has claimed the protection of the
—
of the clan Lamberto, and her claim has been accepted
.

The voice stilled.

But she needs you, Darran. She needs your silence, and your strength. You were wounded. You survived. Be still now, and you will do more
.

He felt the wounds closing.

They were many.

And as they closed, he felt other things; the depth of a longing that he had thought lost forever, with youth, with Amelia. He saw Talia, not as a terrified girl, but as a wild wood spirit, a creature feral and frightened, who might be approached with care, with quiet motion, with soft words. He saw her ferocity, her loyalty, and more, much more; he would have spared them both the intimacy of this knowledge, but to withdraw was still death.

And he wanted this personal affirmation of life, this reason for living, this profound sense of belonging.

He knew that Darran would understand why, for he knew that Amelia, and his son, the boy she had insisted bear his name, would be no less revealed, that his longing, and his sense of bitter failure, no less horrifying; that Darran would forever be scarred by the Radann’s loss.

They clung, in the warmth of the healing trance, until someone dared to touch them.

He heard, from a great distance, a voice he knew well, and did not recognize.

“Marakas el’Sol, you have done enough. Come away.”

He opened his lips to refuse, but sound was beyond him; the kai el’Sol was a force that could not be denied. Not by a man who had offered him his oath.

Two cries broke the silence, and it was hard to tell which man had uttered which; they were one sound of denial.

“It appears,” the kai el’Sol said, “the reports of this man’s death were exaggerated.”

Marakas opened his eyes. His hands were shaking. He reached for Darran, but caught, instead, the fabric of the kai el’Sol’s robes, the embroidered gold of the sun ascendant, its rays spreading in all directions.

“You are brave,” the kai el’Sol said quietly, “and foolish beyond belief. Remain here until you are composed. I am grateful for what you have chosen to do here, but you are Radann; the weakness which holds you now must pass unseen. I will take the young man to the village; there is work to be done. If you can join us, join us; if you cannot, do not worry. Nothing that has happened here has happened in vain.”

Marakas looked past the golden sun to the kai’s face; he shuttered his eyes against the brightness of the Lord’s symbol. Lord’s man, he thought, and for the first time in his life—perhaps because he was weakened—he understood what those words meant.

They were alone, the kai el’Sol, Darran di’Sambali, and Marakas. Not even the old man from the village had been allowed to attend them.

For the sake of the Radann. And for the sake, Marakas realized, of those who might witness what could not in safety be witnessed. He knew, then, that he could trust this kai el’Sol with far more than just his life.

Darran cried out as the kai el’Sol lifted him. But Darran was no Radann; what weakness he chose to show disgraced none but he.

“Darran!” Marakas shouted. “She thinks you dead, and she is waiting. Whose needs have precedence?”

And although he was not a well-learned boy, he understood every word Marakas spoke; they were almost one man, for a time, for a little while longer.

They left Marakas and began to make their way to the village center; he watched the field bend and sway as they moved through it. They had not yet traversed its length before he, healer-born and weak as a girl, found the strength to compose himself, to rise, and to follow. The part of his mind that was healer-born, trained to both the power and the terrible vulnerability of that gift, thought it best to linger, but the part of his mind that held the memories, the desires, and the fears of a much younger man, had to
know
that she had found safety.

Or perhaps that was not true.

Perhaps it was Marakas himself who needed to know this. Because without safety, the depleting, exhausting, revealing work of this day meant nothing. Less than nothing. What was hope, after all, but another way of torturing a man? Had he not, with hope, returned through villages made funereal by the passage of disease, looking for his wife, his son?

He found strength. He walked quickly. And stopped when he reached the village center.

For Fredero kai el’Sol had drawn his sword.
Balagar
burned as if steel could be the heart and essence of fire. There were almost no villagers in sight; few were willing to bear witness to the unfolding of events when those events involved the naked blade, and men of rank and power. Marakas understood their absence well; he did not even consider it cowardice, although among the high clans it would have been dismissed as such. Marakas was not born to the high clans, just the free ones; he was an indifferent swordsman—at best—and he had abjured use of blade where the simple expedient of hiding in safety would do.

And all of these things, all of them, were part of an old life, a different life. The crest upon his chest had never felt so
alive
as it did this day, and it demanded its due.

The Radann had drawn swords as well. They caught sunlight, reflecting it, scattering it.

In their midst, the young girl stood, straight and tall, her left eye bruising now, her lips thick with the weight of ungentle hands. But her eyes were clear, her shoulders straight, her back unbowed; she was achingly, piercingly beautiful, and he would have given his life, in a frenzied instant, if it would have saved her any sorrow, any misery.

Ah, Darran, he thought. For he stood, husband to her, and proud of it, terrified of it, hallowed by it, at her side, his clothing wet and sticky with unstaunched blood, his face pale, his lips set. His arm was across her shoulders, and he drew strength from the contact. Enough, in Marakas’ certain opinion, to be able to remain standing.

The man who had claimed to be the kai of the Tor’agnate di’Manelo had drawn his blade as well; so had his men. They were not, in Marakas’ opinion, Toran—or if they were, they did not deserve their rank. They had an easy confidence about them that spoke of youth and familiarity with the privileges of power—but not with the responsibilities. There were some lessons which one did not survive the learning, or the teaching, of.

He witnessed them now.

“This man,” the kai el’Sol said evenly, “is
not
dead, as you can see. This woman is therefore claimed, and protected, by a family.”

“An oversight,” the kai di’Manelo said quietly. He had not taken a step forward; he was younger than Fredero, but not so young that he overestimated the effects of age upon the kai el’Sol’s sword.

“Attempted murder is seldom considered oversight.”

“Murder?” The kai di’Manelo’s eyes narrowed. “There must be some misunderstanding, Radann kai el’Sol.” He bowed, but he did not lessen his grip upon the haft of his curved blade. “We came upon him in this condition, and his wife, believing she had been widowed, was grieving. She was distraught; she mistook our concern for something less seemly. There must have been a bandit attack.”

“The bandits are thin at this time of year; the harvest has not yet proved so poor that men must kill for food.”

“Then perhaps it was the Voyani. They come at will, and they take what they can, like the carrion creatures they are. Ask him what occurred,” the young man added. “I am certain that he will explain the misunderstanding.”

The kai el’Sol turned. “The Lord is witness here,” he said. “I call upon him to be judge as well. What was done was done beneath the open sky; the Lord sees all. Understand, Ser Darran kai di’Sambali, before you reply, that I am the first of the Lord’s servants. What he witnesses, I witness.

“What happened in the south fields?”

“Think carefully,” the kai di’Manelo said.

“Indeed,” the kai el’Sol said, nodding gravely.

In his youth, Marakas would have known a horror at being trapped, like a pawn, in the game of two powerful men. But Darran knew no fear this day, and Marakas, a giddy elation. Not hope, but something more substantial.

“The kai di’Manelo demanded the right to my wife. I refused him. She had no desire to accept his offer, and had she—”

She tensed beneath the curve of his arm and his eyes involuntarily traced the side of her face. His hand tightened, his expression, for a moment, was youth defined.

“I said no.”

“And?”

“He ordered his men to kill me. He said a widow with no family had no business tending farm without escort; that she was simply inviting her own . . .” His wife reached up and caught the hand that trembled against her shoulder. She said nothing; now that her husband was at her side, it was not her place to speak. But Marakas knew that the gesture was an offer of strength, comfort, and pride, and that Darran would draw from it all of these things.

He felt Amelia’s absence more viscerally than he had for two years.

“Enough,” the kai el’Sol said, but not unkindly.

“Will you take the word of this . . . this village worker . . . over the kai of the Tor’ agnate?”

“He is not seraf,” the kai el’Sol replied, “and his words have the advantage of containing truth.”

“He lies.”

“Does he?”

“Beneath the open sky, I swear it. He lies.”

“Then you will have the opportunity to prove your claim,” Fredero told him quietly. “By right of combat; by test of sword.”

The smile on the young man’s face was thin, sharp, and dangerous.

It vanished when Fredero continued. “But as it is I who am judge, and I who have accused you, however mildly, of lying, it is I who you will face.” He did not turn, but the Radann Paolo now sheathed his sword and joined the kai el’Sol. “Tell the villagers to gather. Tell them to gather and bear witness.”

Paolo bowed.

“Kai di’Manelo, we will convene again in the village center, when the Lord has passed the height. Choose your Toran; choose the man who will guard and second you. Marakas,” Fredero added, “will you be my Sol’dan?”

26th of Misteral, 427 AA

Sea of Sorrows

The Radann Marakas par el’Sol now paused in his solitary voyage. The dawn had come; dusk slipped past as the minutes changed the color and the texture of the light that filled the sky. The Lord, he thought, had come, and the Lord would soon reign.

He had not yet eaten. Water had passed his lips, wetting his throat, but he felt no desire for food. He therefore chose to continue the reverie of his journey, step by step, a balm against the day’s growing heat.

Sol’dan.

“What does it mean, Jevri?”

Jevri el’Sol brought water, food, and shade to the younger Radann. “It means many things,” he said, as he unrolled the bamboo mats upon ground he had carefully flattened with the balls of his feet.

“Do not . . . serve me.” Marakas spoke carefully. He had come to respect this man, and the fact that he had once been owned disquieted him. In the Radann, there was freedom. That, at least, proved true.

“I serve merely myself,” the old Radann replied, voice serene, eyes cast toward the food that he was arranging so artfully. He frowned, shifted the balls of rice perhaps an inch or two, and nodded. “If you choose to join me, I will be honored, but I do not require company.”

“But this—”

“This?”

“This service . . . it is . . .”

“Unseemly?”

Marakas shook his head. “It seems so much more than the Lord demands. Only a seraf . . .”