Lonen's War Read online

  “Yes, Princess?” The high priestess emanated calm, her hwil unshakeable, which only fueled Oria’s ire with the woman.

  “We need Queen Rhianna here.”

  “Is that wise, Princess?” The high priestess’s mask turned towards the fallen prince. “Can she withstand another death, the loss of her son? You saw how fragile she—”

  Sick to death of talk of fragility, Oria fixed Febe with an imperious glare. “It’s happened, whether she can withstand it or not. She is the queen and we need her. Please bring her here.”

  “But Princess…” Priestess Febe hesitated, her voice going kind in that tone Oria knew all too well. “You may not be in the best frame of mind to be making decisions since your unfortunate incident.”

  Just charming how the priestess said that, as if it were a tale written in illuminated letters and taught to children: Princess Oria and Her Unfortunate Incident.

  Chuffta snickered in her mind. That at least remained the same.

  The priestess noted something of her poor attitude, because she drew herself up, a thread of…something leaking through her cultivated calm. “There are things you should be aware of, Princess. Without hwil, however—”

  “I’m aware of a great deal,” Oria interrupted her, beyond done. “Mostly I’m aware that many people have lost sons and daughters today, while still mourning the thousands lost only days ago. I’m aware that my mother is also the queen of Bára and not even the temple has the power to strip her of her responsibilities, even if she did lose her mask. If there’s precedent to remove a widowed ruler from the throne, that should be put before the Council of Law and judged accordingly. Until that eventuality, she is needed and she will step up to serve Bára as she’s always done.” Oria discovered she’d risen to her feet and that High Priestess Febe had taken a hesitant step back. “I may not be a priestess, but I am a princess who might be Queen of Bára myself someday—perhaps sooner than you think—and you will do as I command.”

  “Yes, Princess Oria.” The priestess’s voice sounded odd, but she hastened away with enough speed to set her crimson robes swirling.

  “Well done, Oria.”

  She sat again, pressing her face into her hands, muttering into them. “Do you think so? My temper got away from me.”

  “Anger will fuel you in a way that despair will not. Use it.”

  “So much for seeking the calmness of perfect hwil.”

  “It occurs to me that one can only beat one’s head against a wall for so long before determining that the wall is harder than one’s head.”

  “Is that supposed to be a profound teaching? Because I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Oria!” Yar shook her shoulder.

  She lifted her face to narrow her eyes at him. This shouting of her name was getting old. A minor irritation in the face of all that had occurred, and yet…

  “Stop nattering at your derkesthai and face reality. Either look about you or go back to your tower.”

  “I’m looking,” she replied as evenly as she could. “I’m taking a moment to meditate while we await the arrival of Queen Rhianna.”

  “Our brother is dead!” Yar shouted the words at her, as if she somehow didn’t understand.

  Oria took a breath and counted, trying to exercise patience and compassion for her obnoxious little brother, as her parents had always counseled, and her gaze strayed to Nat’s jellied corpse. Her gorge rose along with grief that he’d never juggle fireballs for her again. Funny, the inane things that you remembered about a person. She should be mourning the loss of Bára’s best heir to the throne. Not his cocky grin. Had his teeth dissolved, too?

  “It’s not him. Only a shell he left behind. He does not suffer.”

  “A lot of people are dead,” she told Yar, swallowing back the sorrow. “Have you looked outside?”

  “What are you saying?” Yar sounded young and uncertain. More the Yar she preferred, the adolescent boy overwhelmed by his formidably precocious powers rather than insufferably arrogant about them.

  “The Trom arrived on giant derkesthai.”

  “As dumb as they are large.”

  “But not intelligent, like Chuffta,” she added, to please her Familiar. “They burned everyone in sight, Destrye and Bárans alike. I saw it from the tower. And the halls are strewn with corpses like…like Nat’s.” Her throat grabbed on his name. “That Trom who walked in here dropped anyone who attacked him.”

  Yar sat heavily. “I didn’t know. The Destrye kept us trapped in the council chambers, under guard.”

  “Well, now you do know. The bridge over Ing’s Chasm was burned to nothing. I imagine the Destrye are working on something to allow us to cross into the city, to help all our people. But magic might come in useful, if you have some to spare.” She allowed a little doubt to leak into her voice, to prick his pride.

  Yar spread his hands, palms up, as if he knew she could see the grien in them. Perhaps everyone could do that. One of the temple’s many secrets—but the temple did publicly teach that sensitives perceived magic differently, depending on their natural affinity. “We were building it up,” Yar said faintly. “Priestess Febe and the junior priestesses had been feeding us sgath for days while we stalled negotiations. Nat said… He and Folcwita Lapo said the Trom would kill the occupying Destrye in the city and we’d take out the ones in here with one focused blast.” His mask raised to face her, forlorn in its featurelessness. “It was a good plan.”

  Oria put a hand on his forearm over his robe. It was not the time to point out the utter foolishness of a plan that opened Bára to the Trom—not the least because Nat’s poor judgment got himself killed. “We can only do our best, going forward. One step at a time. Go find Prince Lonen and help them bridge Ing’s Chasm.”

  “You want me to work with the enemy?” Yar jerked his arm away, the moment of uncertainty gone, replaced by the brash pride of the arrogant young man who’d declared himself king over his brother’s corpse. “I won’t do it, Oria.”

  “We have no choice,” she explained with more patience than she’d thought she possessed. “We have a truce until sundown and not enough people left to waste in fighting each other. Go help build the bridge, Yar. Use that grien you built up to help Bára. To help us, not the enemy.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. Then stood. “Okay,” he said again. Straightened his shoulders and left the room.

  Folcwita Lapo glared at her from a cluster of council members near the windows, but none of them approached her. Which was fine with Oria. Nat’s menservants arrived with a litter and managed to move him onto it, by dint of lifting his robes, then covered him with a pall. She didn’t envy them that job. Or all the servants of the palace doing likewise with the casualties of the Trom’s lethal caress. A further punishment for the survivors, having to cope with this horror.

  She shuddered, for that and at the memory of that thing’s touch, how it penetrated to her bones, touching intimate places that should belong only to her. The peculiar sensation of being…tasted. In all her life, only her mother and father had touched her skin-to-skin, besides accidental encounters. And Prince Lonen. The contact with him, however, while searing and possibly contributing to her collapse, hadn’t unsettled her the way the Trom’s did. But it hadn’t hurt her, either.

  And those things the Trom had said to her. Princess Ponen. We have satisfied the call of the Summoner. You do not yet command our obedience. Perhaps you never will. I look forward to our next meeting. Thank you for the invitation.

  She hadn’t liked it a bit.

  “I did not like it either, even filtered through you.”

  “Why didn’t I die?” She asked the question with hesitation, certain she wouldn’t like that answer either.

  “I don’t know.” Chuffta sounded apologetic. “Logically, however, there are two explanations. Either the Trom can control the result of its touch, deciding whether to kill or not with it. Or you are in some way immune.”

  “Both of which woul
d be followed up with the bigger question of why.”

  “Agreed. But…”

  “But what? Be straight with me, Chuffta.” She’d spoken a bit too loudly, one of Nat’s servants starting towards her, then backing away when she waved him off.

  Chuffta hopped off her shoulder and onto the table, keeping his tail in a loose bracelet around her wrist, gripping the wooden edge with his talons and straightening with mantled wings, so they looked eye to eye. “Oria—I don’t know everything either. Your mother visited my flight when you were a little girl and asked for one of us to be your Familiar. I agreed because I was young enough to bond with you and my family said such service to your line could be a great honor, if you turned out as your mother hoped.”

  “What does that mean?” Oria’s throat had gone dry.

  “It means you’re special. Your mother knew it. My family knew it. Maybe it’s related to this.”

  “Well, if we’re waiting for me to find hwil to get answers, we might be dead before that happens. It would be very helpful if someone would share a secret or two before it comes to that.”

  “Perhaps it is time to ask your mother.”

  “Perhaps so. But—you left others that you loved to be with me?” The question had never occurred to her. Chuffta had always been there, from her earliest memories. She’d never considered that he’d had a life outside of being her Familiar.

  An odd conversation to be having at that moment, but she’d make no further decisions without the queen’s approval, and at least this helped calm her.

  “Family, friends, sure. But my flight is still there. We are a long-lived people and I will see them when I return. I thought it would be interesting to wander in the world of humans for a while.”

  “The way things are going, that might be sooner rather than later,” she told him seriously, then stroked the curve of his neck. “But I’m grateful for you, now more than ever.”

  “I’m glad to be here, now more than ever. And I fervently hope I won’t have cause to return home for a long, long time.”

  ~ 18 ~

  To Lonen’s surprise, Prince Yar appeared to help bridge the chasm. At first the Báran prince stood to the side, managing to be both arrogant and diffident, watching them build an anchoring assembly in tandem with the Destrye team on the other side. Wary of the prince’s intentions, Lonen detailed Alby to surreptitiously observe him.

  But when the opposite team brought out arrows to carry ropes across, Yar stepped up. “Ah…Prince Lonen?”

  “Yeah?” First time the kid had used his title. Interesting. Too bad it was now out of date.

  “I can make the bridge—with stone.”

  Arnon bristled. “We don’t want any part of your foul magic, you—”

  Lonen held up a hand, swallowing his own knee-jerk revulsion. “Yes, we do. If we can spend effort elsewhere, I’m all for it. There’s plenty to do.” On the other side of the chasm, groups of Destrye and Bárans edged around each other as far as the eye could see. Observing the truce but not embracing it. He wanted to get over there as soon as possible, to start everyone coordinating for the few hours they could. He didn’t care who built the bridge. “We’d appreciate it, Prince Yar.”

  The unsettling mask turned to him for a moment, and he thought the boy might ask a question, but he didn’t. Just squared his shoulders and faced the chasm, raising his hands as they’d seen the sorcerers do in battle, the sight giving Lonen a habitual rush of terror before he reminded himself that it wouldn’t be directed at his men this time.

  “Clear your men away,” Yar commanded. “So there are no accidents.” The addition came in a less certain tone, revealing a young man’s anxiety. Much like a young warrior still learning to trust his skills.

  Lonen passed the word, using hand signals to the men across the chasm. Bemused, they obeyed, standing back to watch the sorcerer work, for the first time able to observe without the duress of battle. It seemed that nothing happened immediately and Arnon shifted restively, then stilled as he saw the same thing Lonen did.

  The edges of the chasm seemed to blur. Lonen narrowed his eyes, searching for the illusion. Then the stone actually moved. Like the soft clay worked by Destrye potters, the rocks transformed as if under a giant hand. Extruding from each side, thickening as more stone flowed to join in, then extending again, the two fingers of stone met in the middle, blending seamlessly together into a low arch very similar to the bridge that had been burned away, though devoid of ornamentation.

  It took only minutes, but Yar lowered his hands with a long breath, sweat streaming down the sides of his face at the mask’s edge as if he’d exerted for hours. Then he faced Lonen. “It’s solid. They can cross. It takes more, to build a thing, so I kept it simple.” He sounded apologetic, but also hopeful, a puppy hoping to be petted.

  Lonen gestured to his men that it was safe, grimly amused to see Destrye on both sides pause to knock fists against the stone and slide their feet to test the surface. Caution paid off, to be sure, but their doubt stemmed more from distaste for the magic of the Bárans than from concern that the structure would fail. The stone bridge looked as solid as the sharp rock edge of the chasm, all of one piece. It might, in fact, be difficult to take down again without the help of a sorcerer. But that would not be Lonen’s problem.

  “An impressive feat, Prince Yar.” He nodded his respect, willing to throw the boy a bone.

  The boy actually shrugged. He might be younger even than Oria. In fact she’d said as much, hadn’t she? When she set him back on his heels. An intriguing glimpse of fiery spirit in an otherwise gentle-seeming personality. “Earth is my affinity and I’m unusually strong,” Yar was saying. “But breaking it open is much easier than molding it.”

  A rock of angry grief plummeted through Lonen. Those cracks in the earth, like the one that took Nolan. Still, it might not have been this boy. “Is it…usual,” he asked, trying to sound neutral, “to have that ‘affinity’?”

  “Oh no.” The prince shook his head, sounding proud. “It’s a rare gift. I’m a prodigy, in fact.”

  Full of himself and oblivious to the impact of his words on Lonen, who curled his fingers into fists to stop himself from wrapping them around the sorcerer’s throat to throttle the life from Nolan’s killer. Haven’t you all had enough of death today? Oria’s weary voice echoed in his head and he loosened his fists. Yes. Yes, he had.

  “Perhaps you’d best go help your sister,” he suggested, turning away.

  “She doesn’t want me.” The prince sounded far too petulant. “She sent me out here to help you.”

  Ah, that explained a great deal, and he couldn’t really blame her. “Then let’s go see to our people.”

  Clearing away the dead took less time than tending to the many injured. That is, once both peoples resigned themselves to collecting a small portion of the ashes that were all that remained of their friends and loved ones, identifying them by jewelry or metal weapons, which was all that didn’t burn. The remaining ashes they swept onto wagons and dumped into the seemingly bottomless chasms.

  Expedient, if nothing else.

  And filthy work, too, both physically and spiritually. Lonen’s soul would be begrimed beyond purification by the time they made it back to Dru. His body certainly was. They experienced a bad moment when the Bárans brought out golems to assist. His men cut three to quivering, gelatinous bits before the protesting Bárans explained these would help with the uglier tasks. Only then did they note that these had no fangs or claws as the ones outside the walls had.

  The Báran healers also surprised them by offering to tend to the Destrye injured as well, citing the truce and that Lonen’s warriors had helped so many survive to reach the hall where the healers worked. Still, Lonen assigned to them only the Destrye who seemed unlikely to survive the short journey out the gates to their own healers with the encamped army outside the walls.

  In a stroke of good fortune, the Bárans’ dragons had only attacked inside the wal
ls, so the already much-reduced Destrye army outside had escaped further losses. Especially welcome as most of those men weren’t stationed inside Bára because they’d already been too severely wounded. While speaking to the Destrye captains, Lonen relayed the news of King Archimago’s and Prince Ion’s deaths, along with the remains of their bodies, such as they were.

  A curse of this benighted land, that death took his family without leaving bodies to properly anoint, to guide their steps to the Hall of Warriors. He could only pray they’d find their way regardless. Surely Arill would not be so cruel as to turn her back for a technicality of ritual.

  They would burn the Destrye dead that they could, and decamp the next day in stages, dividing the army into groups by travel speed. There would be no more delays in negotiation. Lonen intended to put as much distance between the Destrye and Bára as possible. They’d be done with this place if he had to browbeat Oria and Yar into staying up all night. And this Queen Rhianna, if she showed herself. She had not thus far.

  The sun was declining to the flat horizon by the time Lonen walked over Yar’s stone bridge to the palace, weary in mind and body, and filthier than he’d been in his life. His skin itched to be rid of the ashes of the dead, but he’d made an agreement. The Destrye kept their word.

  To his surprise, Oria met him just inside the doors. She’d changed from the gray dress she’d worn earlier, and had washed her hair. No longer braided, it floated around her like a cloak of copper, contrasting with the slim outline of the deep green gown she’d donned. The white dragonlet sat on her shoulder, iridescent scales catching the firelight from the sconces in the dimming hall, reflecting back Oria’s colors.

  He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and looked again. “Princess Oria,” he acknowledged. “It seems the sun is setting.”

  “As it does every day,” she replied, in the manner of someone returning a ritual greeting. Then shook her head slightly and gave him a rueful twist of her lips. “I think I don’t want to know what grime coats you. I’ve arranged for you all to have access to the palace baths. Several of your captains, your lieutenant and your brother are already there.” She gestured at a young serving boy. “Bero will show you the way.”