Sasharia en Garde

  Mom’s and Canardan’s people were completely unaware of them. They were too close to the waterfall. Its noise covered everything but their own voices.

  Most of Randart’s force began making their way down to the lake, midway between Mom’s group and the king’s. Canardan and Mom were too intent on one another to notice.

  I could only see the back of Randart’s head, but even from that distance it was easy to make out how angry he was. And oh, he was angry. No, he was enraged. When I saw him bend a little to address one of the men following behind his horse, the man’s reaction made it clear Randart’s words were upsetting.

  I couldn’t hear it at the time, but he said, “Why did I not know about these women? I will flay whoever was responsible.”

  As always, he meant it.

  He jerked up when Mom spoke. Her conviction was audible to everyone. “It will never happen. I would be your adviser gladly, but I will never be your wife.”

  Canardan stilled, watched by his men, the gathered women and (though he still did not know it) Randart.

  Randart’s eyes narrowed. Dad and I could see his profile. He raised a gloved hand, and his men stopped, everyone quiet.

  Canardan’s force gradually became aware of Randart’s men through surreptitious nudges and head tips, but Canardan’s attention was divided between Mom and memory. Atanial had spoken in exactly the same tone, the same gentleness, that Jehan’s mother Feraeth had used so long ago. Though he’d ended the marriage, he’d tried to talk her into staying—they were still friends—they shared a child. But Feraeth had said, “I must go, Canardan. Your choices are no longer my choices.”

  Who knows. Maybe he had never really considered Mom would turn him down. Maybe he thought if he could get her to agree to one term, he could convince her on all the others. Maybe he had to seem to be the good guy, in her eyes, in the women’s eyes, in his guards’ eyes—in his own eyes—but he laughed again, head back, teeth flashing.

  We were all watching him now, including Jehan, who had arrived from another tunnel, unseen by any of us.

  Canardan threw his hands wide. “Atanial! If you will come back with me to the capital, I promise, my gift to you will be an end to any invasion—”

  “You idiot!”

  The roar of fury was almost unintelligible.

  Everyone’s attention snapped to Randart—who had yanked a loaded crossbow from one of his men, and fired.

  Canardan jerked around, mouth open in surprise. I don’t think he even saw the bolt that had been meant for his back. When he turned, it smacked straight into his chest.

  Canardan’s long silver-touched auburn hair flung back. One hand groped futilely at the shaft protruding from him, until he began to fall, slowly, slowly to his knees as two or three of his men who were obviously as shocked as the rest of us belatedly sprang forward to catch him.

  The clang of a sword rang out, the echo ricocheting. There was a flash of white hair as Jehan leaped down from the rock fall from another of the many tunnels, unseen until now by any of us. He flung his way through the warriors ringing Randart and attacked the murderer of his father.

  Randart’s men had fallen back, shocked at the death of the king, but I didn’t trust them. I yanked my sword from the mare’s saddle sheath and vaulted down the rocky scree until I ranged up behind Jehan, whose blades whirled.

  In the time I’d taken to run up, Jehan had gotten Randart off the horse, whose hooves slipped in the rubble. Randart jumped clear and the animal plunged away, ears flat, as men reached to catch the reins.

  Randart backed up two steps under Jehan’s furious attack, almost skidding in the rubble as he warded off blow after blow with his heavy cavalry blade. He bumped up against a flat rock and hopped up, now striking down at Jehan, who braced himself in the gravel before the rock, his cavalry sword and someone else’s rapier humming.

  Randart yelled over his shoulder, “Take him! Take him!”

  Randart had chosen his crossbow men deliberately. They were willing to kill in cold blood. The one with the still-loaded bow yanked it up and took aim at Jehan.

  “Touch him and you die,” I bellowed as I dashed forward.

  The man yanked the bow toward me. I snapped off a sidekick to his hand that sent the bow hurtling into the air. It smashed against the ceiling and the bolt fired—straight into the ground in front of the other riders, sending up a spurt of gravel.

  Horses panicked, men in the narrow tunnel mouth fell back, some shoving, everyone yelling and slipping and sliding, as Randart glared past Jehan at me. “Kill her!” Randart yelled, with a flourish of his sword.

  Most of the nearby men just pressed back, but two came at me, blades raised. I kicked up gravel at one and met the blade of the other, flinging it off. The first lunged in, but I snapped a whirling time bind with my rapier round his heavy sword, and slid the point past it straight into his shoulder. He staggered back, and as the second guy brought his blade down at me I swung inside, caught him by the wrist and used my judo to yank him off-balance. I kicked out his knee and slammed him into the first man.

  Two of Jehan’s men had reached me and stood over the attackers, swords upraised.

  I leaped to guard Jehan’s back.

  Unfortunately he caught the flicker of motion at the extreme edge of his vision. He glanced back—but just as he reassured himself that it was me and not an attacker, his heel skidded.

  In the second he was off-balance, Randart brought his hilt toward Jehan’s head in the backswing, and brained him from behind. Jehan crashed to the ground.

  Randart’s men leaped forward to finish Jehan off. I whirled, sword out, to keep them back.

  Randart stepped down from the rock, swinging his blade back and forth. “No, no, keep him alive. He’s now the king. And he’s going to take orders from me. As for her.” Randart pointed with the sword directly at me. “Everything, everything is her fault. Get away,” he ordered the men still ringing us, and they backed up, staring from him to me and down to Jehan. Randart bared his teeth. “This pleasure I reserve for myself.”

  He swung with a power stroke I could not block with a mere rapier. He had that heavy cavalry sword, and he was fighting to kill. I backed gracelessly out of the way, slipped on gritty dust just like Jehan had and dropped my rapier.

  Randart laughed as he advanced.

  “Your mistake,” I said, though my voice quavered.

  He took another swipe at me. I whirled under the blade and did a sweep kick. He was too well planted, and my feet only bounced off his heavy boots. But he looked down, and in that moment I dove to one side, rolled (Ow! Never roll on gravel!) and came up with Jehan’s heavier cavalry sword that had been lying by his hand. Randart’s blade flashed toward my head. The angle was too close for a power block. I dropped to one knee and flung up both hands, the tip resting on the flat of my palm, and took the blow on the flat of Jehan’s heavy blade.

  Shock rang through my bones, sparks flew. “You cheated,” I yelled. “You rotten, cowardly slime, you hit him from behind!”

  “Die.” Randart brought the sword round in a deadly side-arc that whooshed within an inch of my gut. I danced back, though that put me close to the edge of the cliff.

  Then something silver glittered in the air between Randart and me.

  Thunk.

  Randart lowered his sword, staring at the knife in his shoulder.

  The men, who had stood frozen, some of them gazing in horror at the king across the lake, others at Randart, obviously unsure what to do, all stepped back as Damedran scrambled over the rocks.

  “You broke your promise,” he yelled, his voice cracking on the last word. “You lied.” And he began to sob, the angry, honking sobs of a teen betrayed beyond endurance.

  Randart pressed his fingers over the horrible, spurting wound. “You always had . . . rotten aim,” he snarled.

  “I don’t,” came a voice from behind.

  Randart whipped round. There was Jehan, rising to his feet, crimson bloo
d trickling in shocking contrast down through his white hair into his face, which was as bleak as I’d ever seen it. His hand gripped my dueling rapier.

  Randart shifted his blade to his left, and swung at Jehan. Neatly, without fuss or flourish, Jehan blocked and, without a check, the rapier flashed straight through Randart’s heart.

  The warriors stirred, some starting toward me, some toward Damedran. Damedran’s fellow cadets swarmed over the rocks, ranging themselves in a row, blades raised.

  Everyone eyed one another, poised for action—but who was in charge? Jehan swiped blood out of his face, blinking in an effort to see.

  “Hold! Everyone, hold hard! Lay down your arms,” my father ordered in a voice of authority I had never heard him use.

  The older army men stared, aghast, astonished. In disbelief.

  “Math?”

  That was Mom.

  “Down with your weapons,” Dad said, his voice strong enough to echo back from the far stone walls. “Now. There will be no retribution for those who lay down weapons. But another strike, and you are forsworn.”

  Clang. Clank. Zhing.

  I think, looking back, many of them were relieved to get rid of the steel and the responsibility it implied. Too much had happened too fast. The pair of men holding Damedran stepped away, leaving him weeping quietly, disconsolately.

  Dad picked his way down to us, his hair wild, his feet absurdly bare. But he didn’t look ridiculous, he looked assured, cool, well, kingly.

  Jehan flung down his red-smeared blade.

  Dad gripped Jehan’s shoulders with both hands. “You have done well, my boy,” he said quietly.

  Jehan squinted into his face past the blood trickling from the blow Randart had given him, and his brow smoothed. Dad was not talking about the fight with Randart at all.

  I looked uncertainly from Dad to Jehan, unsure what to do now that the emergency was over.

  Dad let go of Jehan and stepped to me, giving me his funny smile as he murmured for my ears alone, “He told you the truth in everything that matters.”

  I know it’s about as trite as “true love,” but I really did feel as if a weight had lifted from my heart.

  Before I could cross those last few steps to Jehan, a figure hurtled between the warriors, shoving some of them aside, and then, crying as hard as she had in those early days when we first reached Earth—but this time for joy—was Mom.

  She flung herself into Dad’s arms, laughing, weeping, covering his face with kisses, stopping only when his arms locked around her as if they would never let her go.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jehan and I had only had a single private conversation between that terrible day in Ivory Mountain and our arrival in Vadnais. And it wasn’t much of one.

  Immediately after Randart’s death and Dad’s surprise appearance, Mom got everyone organized. She asked the women to help marshal Canardan’s men. By that I mean they went to the ones they knew, asking for help carrying things or help with horses or to talk—keeping them apart from Randart’s men so they wouldn’t get the bright idea of attacking their ex-army mates for some wholesale slaughter to relieve pent-up feelings.

  Dad remained with Randart’s men, forcing them to stay in military formation, that is under tight control. They were sworn to follow orders, and right now, Dad seemed to be the senior royal representative. At least no one tried to question his authority.

  For the rest of that horrible day, Jehan stayed with Damedran and the cadets.

  I kept out of their way as we trudged out of the cavern and began the long, dreary journey back to Vadnais. Jehan’s and Damedran’s faces wore twin expressions of shock; Damedran’s grief was terribly close to the surface, fueled by anger and even guilt. Though he kept repeating that his uncle got what he deserved, got what he deserved. No one argued. Damedran was his own judge and jury. Finally, surrounded protectively by his cadet pack, Damedran fell into an exhausted sleep near the campfire that first night.

  I eased my way through all the slumbering warriors and stable people, and sat down next to Jehan. He had been sitting alone with his back to a rock, staring into the distant fire, his hands loose on his knees.

  His head turned sharply, and he looked searchingly into my face. Though we did not really know one another yet, I suspected he was bracing against an expression of triumph or some other careless dismissal of his father because he’d heard plenty from me about Canardan. And I’d never had the chance to know the king as anything but a villain.

  But I’d witnessed that last exchange with my mother, during which I got a glimpse of the Canardan whom Jehan loved, the man Mom had regarded as more of a friend than as an enemy. Despite everything.

  So there was no sign in me of the reactions he dreaded. All the tension went out of him, and the look he gave me, the puckered brow of grief, whacked my heart with an echo of his sorrow.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. “Jehan, I’m so sorry.”

  His expression tightened. “If I’d been faster . . . I should have seen it coming—” He shook his head.

  “Can I get you anything?” I knew it was woefully inadequate, but what could I do? What could I say? No action of mine would bring his father back and set everything to rights. “They seem to have got supper going at the other end of camp. I don’t know about you, but I tend to eat least when I need it the most.”

  He half raised a hand in dismissal, then looked away, toward the boys, a couple of whom were also asleep, though most were awake. “I don’t think I ate today. Maybe I’d better.”

  “Right.” I got to my feet. “Let me bring it to you.”

  A quiet tone, practical words and sensible action eased his tension a little. He didn’t want soggy sympathy, nor did he want drama. We’d just lived through plenty of that.

  I went away to get in line where some of the army men and a few of the women had set up a cook tent and a kind of instant buffet row. I got a hunk of pan-fried cornbread, some sort of fish cooked in pressed olives and wine, and sautéed carrots someone had gotten permission to pick from a local truck garden.

  When I finally reached Jehan, I discovered that he’d fallen deeply and profoundly asleep, his cheek resting on the arm he’d crooked over the rock.

  I set the plate nearby and returned to get some food for myself. And then I went and sat with Damedran’s friends, who looked like a bunch of scared pups. Husky ones, to be sure, but pups all the same. I asked them easy questions—about homes, families, favorite activities. Things they could answer without reference to so-called Great Events.

  Why do bloody events get translated into Great Events in histories? Probably because they force summary change. But here was the real effect of sudden change—the wrenches in the lives of those who would never leave behind records, the people who lived and breathed and hated and loved, feared and fought, the everyday folk whom the balladeers inevitably overlooked. They might go home and tell the story, and perhaps the sword Ban Kender gripped would be handed down to a grandson, along with the story of this day. Maybe he would even figure as a hero.

  The next day Jehan rode in the wagon with his father’s body. He didn’t ride with me partly because he needed time alone, but also because Damedran stuck to me like glue.

  From his occasional, uncharacteristically shy questions or comments, I finally realized Damedran was crushing on me, but it was a dazed crush, I think more gratitude than any real admiration for my great looks or stunning abilities. Making me into a kind of heroine probably felt better than the emotions of disgrace, defeat and attempted murder, no matter how justified everyone told him his action had been.

  So passed a few days.

  Before we reached Vadnais, we paused at a crossroad, and my father rode a little ways apart with Damedran and spoke to him alone. The boy separated off with a small guard leading the wagon bearing Randart’s body that would be taken to his family castle, where they could have a private funeral. Dad was not having any sort of shame ceremony, too of
ten held in the past. Those caused nothing but bad feelings.

  Jehan and I traveled together after that, for the few days remaining, but he almost never spoke. From time to time he looked ahead at Dad. It was pretty plain to me he was wondering what kind of disgrace lay ahead for him, but he didn’t say anything.

  Mom and Dad were nearly inseparable, and from the looks of things, they didn’t stop yakking except to eat when we camped. A few times they invited us to join them. Jehan refused politely; he seemed to regard himself if not as a prisoner, in isolation. So I divided my time between them, feeling like this could be over ANY time and no one would hear me complain. I mean, the bad guys were gone, where was my happy ending?

  Where was Jehan’s?

  We finally reached Vadnais in a kind of procession, Dad and Mom riding at the front, me behind them, an honor guard with Jehan accompanying Canardan laid out in the wagon. Along the trip some of the women had gone home (with their men) but everyone else trailed after, including some lookie-loos who’d invited themselves along now that the danger was over.

  Dad had sent riders ahead. The entire city had gathered along the main street leading to the great square between the castle and the guild buildings. Whatever their private feelings, people united in throwing down white blossoms. Canardan was quite covered with a fragrant snowdrift of flowers when we reached the great square, where a quiet, orderly crowd had been waiting since morning.

  There, at a gesture from Dad, Jehan stepped up. He did not give a speech. No one made a sound as he passed a torch three times over his father’s still body. Magister Zhavic, with trembling hands, performed the Disappearance Spell.

  Then my father lifted his voice. “I, Mathias Zhavalieshin, claim the throne of Khanerenth. My first order is to appoint Prince Jehan Merindar as continuing commander of our guard, and he is also to take command as High Admiral of the navy.”

  Jehan’s face blanched nearly as white as his hair.