Lonen's War Page 8

  A moan sighed out of her, a faint hint of color returning to her death-pallid cheeks.

  “Let me take her from you,” her guard said. “She’ll do better inside the gates.”

  Lonen hesitated. They could cut him down without her, but a Destrye didn’t use a woman as a shield. No more than he already had, to his chagrin. Hopefully her faint didn’t indicate she carried a disease.

  He held her out and the dragonlet hopped from his shoulder onto Oria’s chest, folding its legs and wings to curl up there, gaze intent on her face, evincing an unnatural intelligence and affection that made his skin crawl. As her man took the princess away, Lonen noted how her formerly pristine gown bore blood smudges in the shape of his arms and hands, the shadow of his grip like an injury. The crimson, both bright and drying, on her white dress looked like a bad omen.

  But for her people or his, he didn’t know.

  Possibly both.

  ~ 10 ~

  To Lonen’s vast relief, his father and Ion soon arrived at the gates, the Báran guard parting for their passage with hard faces but lowered weapons. Much as Lonen wanted to embrace them and pound their backs in the great good consolation at seeing them still alive, he held himself back. And told himself Arnon must be out commanding the Destrye forces, in case of treachery, not fallen in battle.

  Before they could converse, another two men arrived wearing the crimson robes and eyeless golden masks of Báran sorcerers.

  They ranged into sides. King Archimago and Ion flanking Lonen, and the two sorcerers standing shoulder to shoulder across from them. How could they see to walk in those masks? A silence stretched between them, neither side willing to concede by speaking first.

  “Where is the Princess Oria?” one of them finally demanded, the metal mask making his voice echo like the ghosts of campfire tales. “We were told she was here, outside the gates, but she clearly isn’t. We won’t fall for the tricks of barbarian scum.”

  Lonen clamped down on a childish quiver of fear. It was only a man wearing a golden mask, nothing supernatural. And one with his magic fled, bled out undefended during the night on the high walls above. Anger surged through Lonen that this man hid behind a mask, flinging insults when they’d been the ones who’d forced Lonen to commit the unthinkable, the murder of women.

  King Archimago turned to him. “I understand a princess of this city gave formal surrender and we are to negotiate terms.”

  Lonen nodded. “Yes, my king. Princess Oria approached us and offered peace if we would allow her people outside the walls to return within, with no further fighting or fatalities.”

  “Oria?” The other, slighter masked man sounded incredulous and young enough that his voice cracked a little. “Our sister outside the gates, offering terms? I find this so unlikely as to be impossible.”

  Lonen bristled at the dismissal in the boy’s tone. He hadn’t much cared for the witch, but she’d met him with bare-faced bravery. “She recognized the gravity of your defeat and conducted herself with honor in an attempt to salvage what she could—including your cowardly lives. She accompanied me here, gave the order, and then was…overcome by some sort of fainting spell. Her man carried her back within. All here witnessed it. You can ask your own guard.”

  “It’s true, Prince Nat,” the lieutenant confirmed, addressing the older man. “The Princess Oria, in the flesh, rode to the gate under banner of surrender. She asked that you take over negotiations.” The words he didn’t speak, of what occurred after, rang with quiet significance.

  The featureless mask seemed to glare, the man’s bony shoulders stark lines beneath the draping robe. Not a lot of muscle there. Not a warrior then, not like the Destrye. No wonder they relied upon magic and the golems to fight their battles.

  “We do not honor the promises of a girl made under duress,” he said. “There shall be no surrender.”

  The younger sorcerer started, glancing at him.

  King Archimago, surprising them all, laughed, the harsh, hoarse sound that rattled in his voice ever since Nolan was lost. “And I do not negotiate with a mere prince. Where is your king?”

  They both lost their bluster at that, the formerly brash boy turning his masked face down in apparent grief, the one called Nat going slack before regaining himself. “I am the king now. As my father’s heir, I step into his place.”

  A murmur ran through the people, a sound of further defeat, and—surprise? Another moment that should have been triumphant and fell far short of the mark.

  “Very well,” King Archimago said. “You have two choices, boy. You can honor the terms of the surrender offered by the Princess Oria or we can finish the job of killing you, your family, your leaders, and any of your people still wishing to fight, until we reach a true surrender. I have no wish to destroy your people, but I will if you force my hand.”

  “No wish to destroy!” the younger man burst out. “You attacked us—unprovoked!”

  Oria had said much the same thing. A strange defense, this protestation of innocence. One that the heir did not echo, however.

  “You think you can defeat us so easily,” Prince Nat snarled.

  “Look about you! We have defeated you,” Lonen put in, surprising his father and Ion, judging by their sidelong glances. But he’d had enough of it all. Had since the dark hours of the harrowing night. “Your sister nearly killed herself to make this truce. I don’t pretend to understand your ways, but she and I agreed to terms at some cost to her. Would you throw that away?”

  “She had no right.” By the sound, the young Prince Nat spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s not my fault the idiot left her tower.”

  “Your family politics are nothing to us.” King Archimago gave Lonen a quelling stare. “Choose, heir to nothing. You agree to Princess Oria’s surrender of your city and we negotiate terms, or we recommence battle. Before you answer, you may have a moment to speak to your lieutenant. So your understanding may rule, rather than your pride.”

  Leaving the enemy prince no choice, King Archimago turned his back. A deliberate insult that the Destrye, at least, would understand. Their forces had—against all probability—seized victory over the dreaded golems and sorcerers, and they deserved to know it.

  “Lonen.” His father beckoned Ion and him closer, for a low-voiced conversation. “What is your relationship to this Oria?”

  The question took him by surprise. “None at all. I met her not an hour ago when she rode up to offer surrender.” He left out the previous sighting as not relevant.

  Ion gave him a strange look. “Why are you defending this woman then?”

  The king dipped his chin at Ion, confirming the question.

  The sun beat way too hot on Lonen’s scalp, the blood drying and drawing the skin tight, an irritating harmony behind the growing chorus of aches and pains from various wounds. “I found her bravery in the face of defeat admirable. And…there’s been enough death this night and day. But for a vain princelet blinded by his pride, we could be done.”

  His father clapped his shoulder, squeezing. “You did well, my son, breaching the wall. I won’t ask what you had to do, for I see the shadow of it in your eyes, but we know you won this battle for us. Much as I do not wish to censure you in this moment, I must caution you to harden your heart against this princess.”

  Lonen gaped at him, scrambling for a reply.

  “It happens,” his father said in a softer voice. “Some part of you thinks that by saving her you can expiate this guilt you carry for whatever dark deeds haunt you. But she is the enemy as much as any of them. When we are done here, you can make sacrifice to Arill. The goddess will lighten your heart.”

  “My king, I don’t—”

  Ion, who’d been leaning in, trying to overhear, broke in. “He means don’t let a bit of foreign pussy make you think with the little head instead of the big one.” Ion grinned at him. “There. That manned you up again.”

  “That is not what—”

  “We have a decision,” Pri
nce Nat called out, sounding considerably less arrogant. “If you will, King Archimago.”

  They returned to face the two sorcerers. “We agree to the surrender,” Prince Nat said, defeat and sullen anger manifest in his voice and shrouded form. “What now?”

  “Now, I will send men to occupy the city,” King Archimago said, “to ensure continuing peace. My son, Prince Ion, will accompany them and remain in charge of the Destrye forces within the walls. Your men may reenter the city and see to your dead and injured. We shall do the same, camped outside the walls. We shall agree to meet just after dawn tomorrow morning, to discuss terms going forward. The least hint of hostility toward my men will result in immediate cessation of the truce. We’ll finish what we started and there will be no further pause for mercy. Tell me you understand.”

  They didn’t like it, the desire to protest clear in the tense lines of the princes’ shoulders. Lonen himself barely squashed the urge to speak against Ion’s assignment to command the occupying warriors. After all, he’d been the one to establish diplomatic relations with…with Oria. Don’t let a bit of foreign pussy make you think with the little head instead of the big one. Ion was wrong on that. Oria might be exotically fascinating, but the strange witch held no attraction for him. Not like his lovely Natly. He simply wished to—what? Be assured of the princess’s well-being, perhaps.

  As if by making certain that he hadn’t harmed her irreparably, he could wash the blood of all the others from his hands.

  His father, always wise, was right. He needed to purify himself and make sacrifice to the goddess to begin to shed this terrible guilt. The sooner away from this place the better. Somewhere out there, even at that moment, Natly and his real life, the normal peaceful one, moved step by step away from him.

  Perhaps he could take solace in that aspect of victory. They’d nearly reached the end of their consuming quest to free the Destrye of the golem incursions. With this crushing defeat of the enemy, they could return to the fertile forests and meadows of home. The place he’d marched away from, certain he’d never see it again. Suddenly, it seemed he might.

  The prospect gave him unexpected hope. Enough to banish the unfortunate Oria from his thoughts and firmly replace her visage with Natly’s. As was good and right.

  ~ 11 ~

  Though a bath wasn’t in the stars for him in this sunbaked, goddess-forsaken land, Lonen scrubbed away the worst of the bloodstains with sand, while a medic cleansed his wounds with alcohol—a fiery purging he welcomed as the beginning of his penance. He bore more injuries than he’d thought, but far fewer than he deserved, having slaughtered so many.

  The wide, wounded eyes of the first woman he’d murdered hovered in his mind, overlapping with that long-ago doe, then overwhelmed with Oria’s grief-dark copper ones.

  But he didn’t speak of it. Not to Alby. Certainly not to his father. Nor to Arnon, who had indeed survived the gruesome battle. Odd that he didn’t want to say anything to Arnon about meeting Oria, even when he shared a flask of hogshorn with his younger brother. Arnon had listened many times to Lonen’s trials with the elusive Natly, always offering a patient ear and decent advice when asked. Though this…encounter—really only the one, because the semi-vision didn’t count—had nothing to do with pining as he’d done for Natly.

  No, it was as his father had said—a product of guilt and post-battle nightmares. It would remain between him and Arill, all part and parcel of the peculiar shameful guilt he carried, hopefully to be relieved in time. But even after he shoved food into his aching belly and toppled onto his sleeping furs, naked but for his many bandages, Oria’s eyes haunted his dreams.

  In fresh garments, his hair oiled and tied back, if not particularly clean, Lonen, with Arnon and their father, made the trek up the road to the city gates at dawn. Destrye guarded them now, saluting and then bowing—acknowledging their commander and king—following with broad, even jubilant, grins. Lonen wasn’t the only one who hadn’t expected this day to come.

  Within the city walls, a far more morose atmosphere prevailed. Ion, who met them at the gates to escort them in, had of course stationed Destrye throughout Bára, which looked desolate otherwise. Most of the population must be keeping indoors. Unless more had perished than he’d thought.

  Occasional denizens observed their passage, the lightly clad and slender people, mostly fair-haired, a clear contrast to the occupying Destrye. With the leisure and daylight to pay more attention to the city itself, Lonen found it surprisingly attractive for a place constructed of so much stone.

  Like the high rocks behind, the towers of the city speared up in rounded shades of gold, rose, and gentle browns. As if the people had taken the harsh colors of the desert and blended them into something gentler, more forgiving. Window openings laced every building, often giving glimpses of blue sky beyond through yet more windows. White net fluttered in many of them—some drawn across completely, some were tied to the sides. Open-air balconies and terraces held all manner of plants and trees, with flowering vines draping over the edges. Between the towers, arched stone bridges traversed dizzying drops, both spectacular and fearsome. And yet other paths that bordered the canyons were studded with benches, presumably for people to sit and enjoy the view.

  Combined, it all gave an impression of delicacy, verdancy, and peace at odds with the forbidding city walls, deep chasms, and dry salt plain that encircled it.

  They’d mentioned a tower in reference to Oria, as if it were a specific and special one. Which seemed unlikely, given that the lion’s share of buildings in Bára could be called towers. Could it be the tallest among them? It wasn’t so easy to judge relative height from below—rather like trying to pick out the tallest tree from the forest floor—but one seemed to tower above the others, fat in circumference, with a profusion of balconies and what must be an extensive garden at the very top.

  “Looking for someone?” Ion’s tone was snide, his expression forbidding.

  “Observing the city,” Lonen replied, as if the question had been sincerely asked, not barbed with innuendo. “It’s lovelier than I expected.”

  “For the home of rapacious monsters? I suppose it is.”

  “Is this the behavior of my heirs?” King Archimago asked in a mild tone. “Now that the enemy has fallen, must you fight amongst yourselves?”

  “I don’t even know what they’re poking at each other about,” Arnon protested.

  Ion didn’t comment, so neither did Lonen. Odd how, with the battle crisis over, they so quickly reverted to old roles and arguments. Except that Nolan should have been there to act as peacemaker, cracking jokes instead of lying broken at the bottom of one of those dramatic chasms. The thought brought grim reality crashing back. They might be walking through a city that could have been drawn from storybooks, but they traveled over the corpses of too many people.

  As if they felt it, too, the other men fell silent until they crossed one more bridge over the deepest chasm of all and entered a complex of towers near the one Lonen had picked as the tallest. Tracing the line of the surrounding outer wall with his eye, he reconstructed the encounter from the fragmented images of that long night of assault, deciding that it could indeed be the spot where he’d stood and seen Oria in the window.

  “Is this the palace then?” he asked Ion, figuring it for a reasonable question.

  Ion nodded brusquely. “So far as we can discern. We haven’t been sitting around chatting. But apparently this is where their council meets and makes decisions. Prince Nat sent me a message—a surprisingly deferential one—that this would be the logical site for negotiations, as they had the room for plenty at the table and for as many guards as each side felt comfortable bringing. He offered to accede to our wishes for an alternate meeting site, but as I had no better to offer…” He glanced at the king.

  “We shall see when we arrive, but I imagine I would have chosen the same.” King Archimago put a hand on Ion’s shoulder, gripping it much as he had Lonen’s the day before. �
�I’m proud of you for how you’ve handled this occupation. Of all three of you. And of—” He broke off, not naming his fourth, lost son.

  The council chamber occupied a vast space indeed, with many windows, a cross-ventilating breeze blowing between them, fluttering the pale curtains made of sheer, shimmering cloth reminiscent of Oria’s white gown. Destrye guard ringed one side, the Bára guard on the other.

  The two priests, masked and in their crimson robes, sat at one end of a long table, a dozen other Bárans, mostly elderly, ranged along the sides near them. Though women made up part of Prince Nat’s council, some of them in golden masks and others not, none had Oria’s distinctive hair. King Archimago took the seat at the far end, Lonen and his brothers taking the chairs to the sides.

  Just as well. It would be a long day, hammering out a lasting agreement. Not that Oria’s presence would have distracted him, but the less trouble from that direction, the better.

  She floated through a gray mist.

  Amorphous, numbing, it calmed her for an endless time. She felt nothing, sensed nothing, was nothing.

  Restful nothing.

  But after a while, as she became aware of the passage of time, the nothing began to bother her. The dragging muck of sleep went from comforting to cloying to confining, keeping her wrapped tightly like the silkworms succumbing to their lovely cocoons. Only she would not emerge into a night-winged moth. She’d remain trapped in this place, blind, deaf, without touch or scent of anything. She struggled against it, wanting to scream and finding that, too, entirely missing.

  Was this death? She was alone, bereft of the world.

  “Oria. Oria, you’re alive and I’m with you. I’ll never leave you.”