Lonen's War Read online

  Alva fell in beside her, then opened the double doors to her rooms that always remained closed, though the buffer they provided was primarily symbolic. Guards kept watch over the tower at the base and at several intermediary levels between, but almost never ventured to the top three floors. And any priest or battle mage who’d achieved enough hwil for Oria to tolerate his nearness could be better used elsewhere in the city, for the many magical feats that kept Bára running with such beauty and efficiency. Or, more recently, for defending Bára against the Destrye.

  Chuffta, too, acted as a formidable bodyguard.

  They wended down the wide circular stairs to the next level. Large windows let in light and air, keeping the interior fresh and breezy. She wasn’t the first princess of her line to spend a good twenty years sequestered in the tower—her mother had done the same—and generations before had gone to considerable lengths to make it a pleasant place to live, if one could get over the seething restlessness. Sometimes Oria fancied she sensed the fidgety energy of past residents in the stone walls, radiating out like the residual heat of day lingering long after sunset.

  “The victory is most welcome news, Princess,” Alva offered in a smooth tone.

  Oria gave her a speculative glance. “Is that verifiable information, or assumption?”

  “Assumption. Would there be cheering and a parade without victory? And no enemy is pouring through our gates.”

  “You were on the walls for the battle yesterday—couldn’t you sense how things went?”

  Alva shook her head, smooth mask gleaming. “Without a husband, I only feed sgath into the common pool. It feels much like being a vessel that knows not who drinks the water it pours.”

  Suppressing a shudder—something about that image crawled under her skin in an unpleasant way—Oria didn’t reply. She had no good reason to think it, but something told her the return of the army signaled only a pause in the conflict. The breeze coming in the wide windows carried that scent, of something carnal, full of rage. It hadn’t gone away. Not far enough.

  “Trust that intuition.”

  “Do you sense it, too?” she murmured to Chuffta.

  “No, silly. You are the sorceress in this relationship. I don’t sense exactly what you do—I only taste some of it through you. Being sensitive is a gift as well as a curse. Of course you sense what others do not.”

  Of course. From meat-filled scents to the echoes of restive ancestresses in the very stones of the tower, all very reasonable and rational to pay attention to.

  Chuffta mentally snorted. “I never called you rational.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Alva, long accustomed to Oria’s one-sided conversations, remained quiet, pausing to open the doors to the salon with a studied sweep of her graceful arms. Shouts broke through, slapping Oria like a physical blow. She gasped, clutching the doorframe lest the energy knock her backward.

  “Steady.” Chuffta hopped up to her shoulder, only the tip of his tail remaining around her wrist, the rest winding down her arm like a decorative band, and stroked her cheek with his angled head. “Let it pass through.”

  “Calm down, please.” Queen Rhianna’s voice remained mellifluous, but nevertheless carried the tone of maternal command they all responded to without thought. Even though the reprimand had been directed at Oria’s brothers, it worked on her, too, steadying her as much as Chuffta’s stabilizing presence in her mind.

  If only her mother could follow her around all her life, chiming gentle reminders.

  Oria smothered a grimace at the thought and cooled her expression into a facsimile of serenity. Hwil might remain out of her reach for the moment, but she’d mastered the appearance of it. The smooth golden masks of her family all turned to face her.

  “Forgive us for startling you, Oria. We arrived earlier than expected,” her father said, holding out his hands. “You look lovely and peaceful today, flower of my heart.”

  She took his hands and let him draw her into his strong embrace, inhaling the feel of him. With her parents, being flesh of their flesh, born of their magical energy, she could enjoy physical contact without reserve. Always so welcome. He’d bathed and changed into fresh clothes for their meal, out of the crimson priest’s robes he and her brothers would have worn into battle, and into the light, beige ones that better forgave the midday heat.

  In turn, each of her brothers embraced her; some of their young male excitement buzzing through their hwil like a displaced swarm from a broken hive even though they carefully touched her only over her gown, so she kept the contact brief. They all treated her as if she might break apart, which irritated even as she appreciated the consideration her parents had drummed into them regarding their delicate sister. Still, there was nothing wrong with her physical body. The healer-priestesses pronounced her strong as a desert pony.

  It was inside that she remained as fragile as a blown-glass figurine.

  “Let us sit.” Queen Rhianna spread her hands at the table, the waxed wood gleaming gold. They arranged themselves around it, her father at the head, her mother at the foot, her eldest brother, Nat, at their father’s right hand, the second eldest, Ben, at his left. Oria sat at her mother’s right hand, her younger brother, Yar, across from her. Her mother linked hands with her, but Ben hovered his palm over hers, symbolically sparing her the stress of skin-to-skin contact. It impacted her less from her siblings, but they were different enough from her not to be in as perfect harmony as her parents.

  “We give thanks for the gift of hwil,” the king intoned. “Which both protects us from the power of grien and sgath and allows us to draw from their blessings, to share with all the world. Here, in this safe place, we remove our masks and take the sustenance of food and drink with those we love best.”

  Oria folded her hands in her lap while servants stepped forward with dainty silver knives, one for each royal, and cut the knotted ribbons of their masks. Her family held the masks in place, then removed them as one, setting them reverently on the mats to their left, placed there for that express purpose. They accepted damp cloths, perfumed with menthol herbs, to cool their flushed faces. Alva gave a cloth to Oria also, a long-established courtesy to include the royal children who’d not yet taken their masks.

  They meant well, but the rest of her family actually needed the cloths. So instead of playing the game of wiping away nonexistent sweat in exaggerated gestures as she had growing up, Oria set hers aside, making a deliberate effort to let go of the feeling of being excluded. Chuffta sent her an affectionate thought. Giving back the cloths, her family relaxed and smiled at one another, her favorite part of the ritual. Though she knew their faces well, it warmed her heart to see them again. The king accepted a flask of wine and poured for them all, the servants bringing them first to the queen, then to Oria, and then to her brothers in reverse age order.

  She held her glass until her father raised his. “To my beautiful family.”

  Not to victory, as she’d anticipated. The wine, kept chilled on ice in the cellars even through the hottest season, tasted lightly sweet as the fragrance of day-blooming flowers, but the faint scent of roasting meat drifted through her head nonetheless. Her father and brothers all smelled on the surface like the honeyed soap the men preferred, and yet it seemed the smell of carnage clung to them, tingeing the flavor of the wine with the bitterness of char. Oria swallowed back against it.

  “What news of the battle then?” she asked as the servants brought out the first course, a cold berry cream soup.

  Her brothers all glanced at their father, though Yar gave her a cheeky grin first, clearly pleased with himself. King Tav’s expression remained calm, revealing nothing. “Always so impatient, my gifted daughter.”

  A mild reproof, but one that stung. Yes, yes—if she had hwil, she wouldn’t have prompted them for information. Still, they all knew she struggled with impatience, so it didn’t need reiterating. Oria blew out a retort without speaking it and focused on her soup. Delicious, a perfect
complement to the wine. But not enough to distract her from the undercurrents beneath the apparently peaceful meal. Her brothers might have silenced their voices, but their emotions ran high. Their bright energy tugged at her, eroding her hard-won calm like a receding tide dragging at the sandy shore.

  Her father let the silence stretch out and finally Oria set down her glass spoon so carefully that it made no sound. “I can feel that things aren’t right and it’s getting to me. Would you please tell me what happened before I have to excuse myself?”

  Her mother gave her an approving smile. Much as Oria hated confessing to crumbling control, she’d finally agreed that was better than melting down because she wouldn’t admit to it.

  “Tav,” Rhianna said, “there’s no need to push her. Not today.”

  Her father’s eyes rested on his wife with burning warmth, a slight smile breaking the calm of his visage. He gestured to his man to remove the soup. “As always, you are wise. This, then, is what occurred. The Destrye had indeed made their way to within leagues of the city and seemed determined to storm the walls.”

  “Unfortunate,” Chuffta commented, the irony settling her thrill of fear. Her mother, naturally, showed no reaction, but it seemed not all the dismay belonged to Oria.

  “But we were victorious!” Yar burst through, that cocky grin cracking his unfortunately still-pimpled cheeks. “We halved their numbers and sent them scrambling. They were still retreating this morning. Let the cowardly barbarians run with their tails between their legs!”

  “And us harrying them with golems all the way,” Ben added with a thin smile of triumph. Of all her brothers, Ben had been the oldest when he took the mask. Not as old as Oria was now, but they’d at least shared the struggle to find hwil that Nat and Yar had escaped. Privately Oria thought the trial had tempered him, made him less impetuous than her other brothers—and that he’d be a better heir than Nat because of it.

  Nat…he had a meanness to him. She’d stopped mentioning it because everyone told her that older brothers always give grief to their little sisters. Chuffta didn’t like him either, which validated her unease.

  “I don’t have a good reason, though,” Chuffta mused. “He reminds me of those sand mites that get under the scales.”

  She smiled a little at that and found Nat watching her with cold eyes, as if he somehow knew she discussed him. “Don’t be afraid, baby sister,” he said. “Unfortunate that you’re too fragile to leave your tower more often than a few times a year, but we’re here to protect you. Those meat-headed warriors ran away, squealing like little girls.”

  “They did!” Yar crowed, clearly delighted. “And now we’ll be able to return to the business of finding our ideal wives. I bet I find mine first. Pretty Priestess Jania seems likely.”

  “You don’t even know what she looks like under her mask,” Nat scoffed.

  “I can see the shape of her body well enough. Besides, her face doesn’t matter. It’s the matching of sgath and grien that does.” Yar rubbed his palms together. “So far we match.”

  “You wish you could find a temple-blessed marriage,” Ben muttered, a bitterness to it. From what Oria gathered, his testing and courtship went as slowly as his qualifying for the mask had. Though he didn’t discuss such things with her. “You’ll be beyond lucky to find a priestess who can barely tolerate your touch.”

  “He does, because he wants to tup someone besides—”

  “And if the Destrye don’t continue to retreat?” Queen Rhianna interrupted Nat.

  “Well, they will,” Nat replied, with a confident nod. “Why wouldn’t they? We decimated them.”

  Their father waved off his half-eaten salad, leaned his elbows on the table in its place, steepled his fingers, and met his wife’s gaze. Their magical connection clicked into place, the cycle of their regard flowed between them, warming Oria like the rising sun on a frosty morning. Like her father’s embrace and the cool calm of her mother’s presence, the perfectly balanced partnership between her parents grounded Oria more than all the meditation and mental discipline lessons.

  “If they don’t, we will have to take other steps,” the king said slowly, speaking only to the queen. “Tell the priestesses to build all the sgath possible. We may need it.”

  ~ 4 ~

  Lonen led his men across the sand, which swirled like so much soft shadow with Sgatha not yet risen to shed her rosy light and Grienon—in the sky as he nearly always was—falling into his darkest phase, then to slowly wax to full white in the next few hours.

  The sleeping city loomed ahead, shrouded in dim lights and traces of fog rolling off the ocean in the chill night air. How it could be so cold at night when the days blazed so hot made no sense. Thankful for his black fur cloak, both for the warmth and the way it helped him blend into the night, Lonen pulled the hood closer around his face, paying close attention to his footing.

  They’d waited for this night, this hour, charting the moons for the best shrouding darkness. The golems moved by night as well as by day—as Ayden the Great had discovered to his sorrow and Dru’s triumph—but low light confused their vision. It had been a considered gamble, waiting so long, giving the Báran sorcerers time to replenish the golem ranks the Destrye had painstakingly hacked their way through. Of course, the entire war had been a calculated risk, betting the potential future of their people against their certain destruction. Not much of a choice in the end, put in those terms.

  So far events had played as predicted. The Destrye had fully decamped and marched away from Bára for days at a time, allowing just enough golems to pursue unharmed to convey back to their masters that the rout continued in full force. The army withdrew to the far hills, which at least held enough game to replenish their food supplies, though far less than even Dru’s declining forests.

  When the moons’ phases allowed, Lonen and Arnon had peeled off with small troops, seeing them through the silent lines of their pursuers, then releasing the men under trusted lieutenants to creep back to Bára’s environs in secret. Lonen and Arnon then returned to the main force to ostentatiously march again the next day.

  None of their scholars could be sure how intelligent the golems were, if they could recognize the faces or scents of the human leaders, but it didn’t pay to be careless. Lonen’s hunting dogs knew him from his brothers—why wouldn’t the golem hounds belonging to the Báran sorcerers?

  In this way they left behind pieces of the Destrye forces, like the goddess Arill scattering seeds across the land, orchards growing in her wake. Except the Destrye seeded the Bárans’ destruction, carefully building over days and weeks.

  Finally, Lonen rejoined all those men he’d scattered to the winds, taking several days to travel at night and hide himself during daylight, timing his crossing to avoid the blazingly fast and lethal bore tides of the bay before Bára. Somewhere out there Ion, Arnon, the king, and their best captains did likewise. They’d form a net around the desert city and draw the sorcerers away from the walls. Scattered thinly enough by attack on all sides, the defense would have to fail at one point or another—allowing the crack Destrye squads into the city with a single mission in mind.

  Destroy the source of the sorcerers’ power.

  Another gamble there, that the sorcerers had not pursued beyond a fixed range because they dared not go too far from the source of their magic. In a perfect world, the Destrye would have spent time on feints, testing the theory, determining the range.

  But the world had stopped being perfect the first time the golems raided.

  As Lonen and his men slipped through the wandering golems who milled about, ghostly white in the darkness, in a loose defense around the city, he prayed that his squad would make it through the walls. Not for glory—there would be no glory this night—but to spare himself the grief of losing another of his brothers. Or his father. There’d been no word from Natly or his mother and sisters. No message from any of their dispersed people on the Trail of New Hope. They hadn’t truly expected any.
King Archimago thought it best to leave no connection between the refugees and the warriors who went after their enemy. The other half of their people were as safe as any could make them.

  Still, Lonen’s mind insisted on imagining their gruesome deaths at the fangs and claws of pursuing golems. Defended by only a few, the women, children, and elderly would be easy pickings. They carried little water with them, relying on the old maps to guide them to oases, so the golems should have no reason to pursue, but there was always a chance…

  Too many gambles, too much reliance on luck: a fickle goddess at best and a vengeful bitch at worst.

  In the distance, shouts went up. Ion’s men, judging by the direction. They’d engaged the enemy and as agreed, upon running afoul of the golem net first, were sending up as much noise as possible. The battle mages, inevitably alerted, should focus their defensive efforts there.

  Time to move quickly, before their enemy realized they’d been stealthily surrounded—as much as a walled city with rock spires at her back could be. Signaling to his men, Lonen broke into a ground-eating lope. They fanned out, iron axes and knives swinging in a pattern to intercept the golems that loomed up out of the dark. Lonen’s axe bit, his momentum taking him into a sickening collision with the creature’s slick, resilient body, a foul parody of a lover’s embrace. Claws raked his back before Lonen yanked back the axe to slice through the golem from the other direction. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he finished the thing, then ran to catch up with his men.

  He passed a few, wrestling their own monsters here and there, but kept going. That was the rule of this engagement—any man who could get to the wall, should. No stopping to help anyone. They weren’t out to survive the night. At least not past getting into the city and destroying the source of the sorcerers’ power.

  Whatever it might be.

  Fireballs flew through the night, heralding the arrival of the mages. The magic fire lit the sky to nearly daylight brilliance; illuminating Lonen, his men, and the entire area. A miscalculation there, as the golems, upon seeing them so clearly, gave chase from all directions. Fortunately for Lonen’s chances, unfortunately for Arnon’s, most of the golems moved toward the brightest light, leaving Lonen and his men relatively unfettered by the mindless creatures.