They crested the hill, and Kemme led them until they reached a little grove of pine trees at the top of a slope whose steep drop to the valley floor was broken only by clumps of trees and a few large stones. On the near edge of the valley ran the ancient track the mortals called the North Road until it vanished where the valley curved at its southern end. Most of the widest part of the valley lay on the other side of the old road, where stands of tall green grass rippled in the wind. The grasses had come with the season, springing up amid the patches of melting snow, and the valley floor seemed a tapestry woven in a wide variety of greens and whites. Here and there Nezeru could make out the dull silver sheen of running water from a tangle of streams snaking across the valley floor that later in the spring would overspill their low banks, join together, and become a single rushing flood beside the North Road. Such an abundance of water and new growth made Nezeru slightly dizzy, accustomed as she was to the hard, dark soil of Hikeda’ya lands, so it was a moment before she saw what Kemme had already seen: something upright was moving in the distance.
Far out across the valley and a bit north of where the two Hikeda’ya stood was a host of two-legged shapes busy at some task, bent, arms swinging. They were too far away for Nezeru to make out clearly what they were doing—mortal eyes would not have discerned them at all—but Kemme gave her a contemptuous look, as though their presence proved some point her stubborn ignorance had denied. He signaled her to follow him northward along the slope above the road so they could get a better view, and Nezeru did as she was told.
As they drew a little nearer to the distant figures the morning sun finally breached the eastern hills and began its climb into the sky, so they turned farther up the hillside in search of cover. Following Kemme silently through the trees, Nezeru was again troubled by what seemed like clear tactical mistakes, first by Makho and now by Kemme. If their goal was to cross the mortals’ great road safely and vanish into the waste, far from spying mortal eyes, why had they come so far south in the first place before crossing, and why bother now to approach what almost certainly would turn out to be the mortal inhabitants of some nearby village? Even the stealth of trained Sacrifices could be betrayed by accidents, by unexpected noises or the appearance of unforeseen others. What could be learned here that was worth taking such a risk?
Finally they drew close enough to see that the people on the far side of the road were indeed mortals, about two or three score of them, all garbed like peasants. Most were cutting grass with sickles, but some seemed to be uprooting it with their bare hands. Moments later Nezeru saw that the mowers seemed to be protected—or perhaps prevented from escaping—by a handful of other mortals who watched them from horseback.
The two Sacrifices spent a long, silent time watching, and after a while Nezeru had to fight against impatience. The longer they crouched here staring, the higher the sun rose, and the growing brightness of the landscape was threatening to turn her discomfort into something more like fear, for all her training. Was she the truly mad one? Why was Kemme putting them—and perhaps even their mission from the Mother of All—at risk simply to watch a group of farm slaves?
Kemme seemed especially fixed on the three riders watching over the workers, though so far they had mostly sat in their saddles observing their charges from a distance. Occasionally one rode a little way in one direction or another toward where a knot of mowers had gathered, and each time a horseman approached, the workers quickly dispersed and returned to their labor. Then, as one of the riders wheeled, Nezeru spotted a glint of metal and realized the distant figure was wearing armor, which seemed strange to her. What mortal peasants could afford men-at-arms to watch over them while they toiled? And what mortal knights would give their time to such an unexceptional endeavor? No, she decided, these workers must certainly be slaves under guard. She also thought the mortal overseers must be impressively brutal to use so few guards to watch over so many.
One of the other riders abruptly turned his horse away from the group and came riding across the valley toward the North Road, heading straight toward the Hikeda’ya’s hiding spot. Nezeru knew he could not have possibly seen them from that distance, but Kemme was already climbing down the slope toward better cover. When he reached it, he began to move toward the spot where the rider was headed. Nezeru followed carefully, hoping that he would soon tire of watching the mortals so they could go back to their hidden camp.
Then things began to happen very quickly.
The armored rider reached the road and crossed it, then spurred his mount up the slope, only a few hundred paces below Kemme. Moving in swift silence, Kemme hurried along through the trees above the mortal and his horse until he reached a spot just above them, but out of the rider’s sight
The knight dismounted a little way up the slope and tied his mount to a tree branch, then took a wine-sack from his saddle and had a long drink. When he finished, he took off his helmet and hung it on the pommel of his saddle. He had a brown beard and the boiled reddish skin of his kind, and surveyed the landscape with the unhurried air of someone trying to remember whether or not he had ever seen this place before.
Kemme had risen almost before Nezeru sensed his movement, his bow already drawn. His arrow flew buzzing like a deadly wasp and struck the rider in the chest, piercing the mortal’s mail-coat with such force that the impact tumbled him down the slope. He lay there in a sprawl and did not move. Kemme sprang down the hill and crouched over the body, staring at the dead face as if at a long-sought enemy.
“No ambush, the mortal claims?” he hissed as Nezeru reached him. “No ambush? Then why is this man in armor? That rabble cutting grass are no mere farmers, they are foragers for an army.”
Nezeru bent and looked the dead man up and down. He wore a green surcoat over his armor that bore the stitched insignia of a pair of dragons supporting a shield, one worm red, the other white. “I have been told of this mark,” she said. “I think it is—”
Kemme turned and slapped her across the face so hard that she stumbled backward several steps.
“I said, I am tired of hearing you speak.” He stared at her as at an animal, his violet eyes empty. “Makho told me I cannot kill you because of the child you carry, but you do not need both your hands to give birth. If you make another sound I will remove one.” He yanked his knife from his belt to cut a piece of the surcoat from the dead mortal’s body.
Nezeru sank into a half-crouch. Her face ached, but that was nothing compared to her sudden alarm. It was not the blow that surprised her—harsh discipline was common in the Order of Sacrifice—but Kemme’s obvious hatred, only barely kept in check. Again, she was struck with the depth and breadth of her failures.
And if he or the chieftain ever discovers that there is no child? She did not want to think about what would happen then.
She was so distracted, and Kemme so busy wrestling with the heavy, armored body as he searched it, that the other mortal rider had approached to less than a bowshot away before either of them noticed.
The approaching horseman could not clearly make out what they were doing because of the patchy undergrowth, but it was obvious that he could see the dead knight’s riderless horse and the fallen man’s legs with Kemme bent over them, because he abruptly reined up and then turned and galloped away. Kemme cursed and leaped to his feet, drawing his bow as he sprinted after the fleeing rider. The mortal lifted a horn to his mouth and blew three long, shrill bursts before Kemme’s arrow lifted him from the saddle and dashed him to the ground. His horse plunged on across the road and out into the valley.
The last remaining rider, far away with the foragers, had heard the call and now turned to see the riderless horse. He lifted his own horn to his lips. The alarm call echoed down the valley, then a few moments’ later was answered by other horns farther to the north.
Nezeru felt she was caught in a waking dream. All her fears of discovery had come true.
Kemme ripped the last of the surcoat loose, then kicked the dead man down the slope with such fury that the corpse uprooted a few saplings and carried them with it. The older Sacrifice turned and began running up the hillside, back toward their camp.
Nezeru sprinted after him, using her hands for support as she bent close to the slope, following his path of broken branches. One of them at least must survive to warn the others, and she no longer trusted Kemme’s impulsiveness. She had not created this particular folly, and although she might have failed her earlier charge, she was still a Sacrifice, one of the queen’s chosen Talons. She could not let another failure bring disgrace to her family and clan.
The hillside had been alive with the crying of horns for long moments, but now she heard something else—a low rumble sweeping through the valley, as if the earth itself had begun to roll and twitch in anger. As they topped the ridgeline, Nezeru looked back through the trees and saw a great force of armed, mounted men thundering along the ancient road from the northern end of the valley, an ocean wave of green surcoats befoamed with silvery helmets and lances glittering in the morning sun—a force of a hundred armored men or more. Some of the riders were already peeling off from the main troop, steering their mounts up the very slope on which she and Kemme were climbing, getting closer with each harsh but measured breath she took. Nezeru could feel the drumming of their hooves through her feet.
We have served our queen badly, was all she could think. Hea-hai! We all will die as failures.
The camp was full of frantic activity, like an ant’s nest exposed by the blade of a plow. “Where is the king?” Miriamele demanded.
“He is in the arming tent, Majesty,” said Eolair, turning away from a group of soldiers.
“The arming tent? We have an arming tent?”
“I am afraid so,” he said. “At least since word of the Norn attack came to us.”
She was about to scold him for letting the king play at soldiers, but Eolair looked frail, as if he had been ill. My God, she thought, he looks nearly as old as my grandfather did when he died. Poor Eolair. Do we put too much upon him? “Just tell me where it is, Lord Steward, if you please.”
“Let me take you there, Majesty.”
“I think you would be better employed with the soldiers—or perhaps separating truth from rumor. I have been told several times already that five hundred Norns are in the hills, sent from Stormspike to assassinate us. A force of five hundred so far south, traveling in daylight, and this is the first we have heard? That seems unlikely to me.”
“And to me, my queen.” Eolair shook his head. “But do not doubt there are Norns, whatever the numbers. Sir Irwyn saw them before they fled into the trees on the hilltop, and Irwyn is a trustworthy man. He was at the defense of Asu’a, so he knows them of old. And I told you of my nephew’s encounter with a giant. The danger is nothing to scoff at, mistress, if you will pardon me for saying so.”
She tried to calm herself a little. Eolair was right, as he often was, even if it did not suit her mood. “I have no complaint with sending soldiers to track down these killers. And if they are Norns, they are some fifty leagues beyond their own borders, which is also something worth worrying about—in fact, I have been worrying since we heard Lady Alva’s story in Elvritshalla. But I can make no sense out of why my husband feels he has any need to involve himself. That is why we brought all these soldiers and knights, is it not?”
“Of course, Majesty.”
“I’m glad we agree. Point me toward this ‘arming tent’.”
• • •
But for the array of candles standing on a chest, the tent was so dark that at first Miriamele could see nothing but shadows and hear nothing but the murmur of a quiet voice reciting the ancient prayer, the Soldier’s Cantis.
Though I stand in a furrow of the field, one among many
And though I know not whether I shall be mown
Or left to wither beneath the sun
I know that my Redeemer promised to be my guide and my teacher
That in his care I will grow again some day in the Lord’s garden,
Which is Heaven,
Among green things and by clear waters . . .
“Simon?” she called. “Are you here?”
“Yes, my dear. You need not rise for Her Majesty, Jeremias, because you’ll tip me over.”
As her vision improved she made out her husband standing with one foot on a weapons chest while Sir Jeremias knelt at his feet, fastening the buckles of a greave. Simon was mostly armored, but his chest plate, the one Miriamele had thought was only for public show, still leaned against the tent wall. Two squires stood at wide-eyed near-attention behind the king, and Bishop Putnam, senior of the priests traveling with the royal party, was kneeling not far from Jeremias so that he could use the light of the candles to read from the Book of Aedon. “What, precisely, are you doing, husband?” the queen asked in what she hoped was a measured voice “And you, Lord Chamberlain?”
Jeremias looked up at her, and for a moment he might have been the guilty boy she had first met. “If the Lord Chamberlain is p-present,” he said with the hint of a stutter, “it is his duty to dress the king.”
And His angels sing in sweet voices
Of the goodness of our God.
And the song they sing is this,
‘Because you have heard the Redeemer’s voice,
You need fear no foreigner, no barbarian, no beast
Who flee the Lord’s sight and carry evil in their hearts.
You need fear no storm, no thunderbolt, no wrack of earth
Because that which is in you is His, and He knows you always
Be you surrounded by enemies, be you ever outnumbered.’
“Just so,” Simon said. “And dressing the king ought to include armor, don’t you think?”
She could now make out the high color in his cheeks, as though he had been drinking. “It’s only another sort of thing to wear,” her husband said. “And it seems good sense when there may be fighting.”
“It’s more than that, Majesty.” Jeremias spoke with such emphasis that the bishop hesitated in his recitation. “The king’s armor is a sacred thing. A holy thing.”
After a pause, His Eminence Putnam continued.
Because you have set your love on Him, therefore will He deliver you.
He is enthroned on high that He can see your heart, and that by the hand
Of His redeeming Son it has been cleansed,
And you will hear His mighty call when it comes,
That will on some day, perhaps this day,
Summon you home.
Putnam’s droning irritated her. She wanted to speak to her husband, but what could be worse than interrupting a prayer at a time like this? But this cantis was a prayer she had never liked because it made death in battle seem somehow a victory. Miriamele had seen too many dead, especially too many she had loved, for the thought of Heaven’s mercy to soothe her much. Those who fell might find a holy welcome with their Father and His son, but that did not make it easier for those left behind. Those who would have to go on alone.
“It may be a holy thing,” she said, moving closer to her husband so she could lower her voice. “I do not pretend to such wisdom. But it is certainly a foolish thing. Simon, you cannot take such a risk. There may be nothing like the rumored five hundred, but Irwyn says these Norns killed Sir Jubal with an arrow from a great distance. If you fight, you will be their chief target.”
“I don’t intend to fight, Miri,” the king told her, but the way he looked away told her it was at least half a lie.
That is the way men speak when they think we don’t understand their cursed pride, Miri thought, but this time the ancient frustration frightened her more than it angered her. “Then what are you going to do, husband?”
To the Lord all praise! the b
ishop intoned loudly, as if to cover the sounds of royal discord.
To His son all praise!
To the garden that is Heaven where you shall live,
All praise!
Putnam then repeated the words in Nabbanai to complete the cantis, but did not immediately rise, as though he continued with silent prayer of his own.
Jeremias carefully fastened Simon’s other greave, then did the same with the poleyns that would protect the king’s knees. “Most of our men have never fought against the White Foxes,” Simon said as he watched. “Now they must face them, perhaps within the hour. They are afraid—superstitious and afraid.”
“As they should be. You and I know all too well what those monsters can do.”
“Just so, Miri. But the men know that I have faced them, as has Eolair. We can show them not to fear just by being there with them.”
“Just by being in bowshot for some Norn assassin to strike you down, you should say. Just by risking your life needlessly. You are the king, Simon!”
“And you are the queen.” He smiled. His bottom half was now covered in plate, and he lifted his arms so Jeremias and the two young squires could buckle the two sides of his cuirass into place. Simon’s arming shirt was embroidered, lovingly if not skillfully, with the Holy Tree—Miriamele remembered stitching it years before, in a time when she had reason to hope it would never be worn in an actual battle. Seeing it now brought a pang. For a moment the gleam of Simon’s broad white forelock, the streak the dragon’s blood had burned in his graying hair, stood out as though it shone with its own light. She caught her breath. Her heart was beating swiftly.
Oh, Simon, she thought—don’t throw your magic away on trifles! She was not exactly sure what the thought meant, but a grim foreboding had clutched her. “I wish you wouldn’t do this,” she said. “I am afraid.”