Part 8 (1/2)
Two shadows turned into the arbor.
Shar shot forward. She struck one shape a vicious blow across the temple with the flat of her sword. She spun. Dipped. Surged upward. Hammered the other shape with the heel of one hand. Its head snapped back. Her elbow followed to the exposed throat. It went down, gasping.
Indris was a blink behind. He dashed out, light-footed. Stood within the curve of a hastily drawn sword. He reached out. Placed his palm against the man's face. Whispered the First Ban of Slumber. The warrior's knees gave out as sleep took him, felled by a word.
Indris leaped. Formulae flickered across his mind. He saw the Disentropic Stain halo his hands. A dark corona. His hands an eclipse. The Low Shout formed in his mouth- ”Wait!” a familiar voice shouted in panic. Too late to stop, Indris loosed his Low Shout.
His voice boomed. Shorter, sharper than thunder. He turned it downward. The sand at his feet exploded outward. He felt the wave of force roll across his s.h.i.+ns. His target whimpered in abject terror. The ammonia smell of urine grew strong. Indris stepped back fastidiously from the spreading pool.
Nehrun stood there, pale-faced. His hand rested on the hilt of his sheathed sword. Rosha was beside him, sword drawn. Indris's cousins looked with horror at the state of their personal guards. Three of them were unconscious; the fourth stood on unsteady legs.
”What are you doing?” Fear made Nehrun bold, shame made him angry. ”I should have you executed!”
”Leave it be, Nehrun,” Rosha muttered.
Indris snorted. He turned his back on his cousins and returned to his seat in Ekko's arbor. Shar leaned against the arbor wall, arms folded across her chest.
”Indris!” Nehrun choked out. ”Don't turn your back on me-”
”Quiet yourself,” Indris murmured. He placed his book and journal in his satchel, then slung it across his back. ”There are people trying to sleep, you know.”
”How dare-” Indris silenced Nehrun with a glance. Nehrun shook with impotent rage.
Indris's mind still spun, formulae clattering in the cage of his brain, desperate to fly free if he would let them. Thankfully he had done nothing too taxing. Used none of the Great Words or the major canto. He remembered with little fondness the mindstorms that could follow the use of such power: nausea, headaches, vertigo, tremors, and an aversion to light and sound. Catatonia, sometimes. Even death, in the most extreme cases.
”Stop your posturing. I'm happy to give Ekko into Rosha's custody. I know she'll keep him safe.” Indris looked to Shar. ”Ready to go?” Her response was to pack her sonesette in its polished wooden case.
”What do you mean, give custody to Rosha?” Nehrun said, too quickly. He licked his lips as he looked around. ”I mean, as rahn-elect, Ekko is my responsibility.”
”Are these your men?” Indris asked Rosha, gesturing to the guards. ”If not, we'll come with you until you can get guards you know and trust.”
”What are you doing?” Nehrun grabbed Indris by the arm as he tried to leave. Indris rested his gaze on Nehrun's hand. His cousin promptly let him go, rubbing his palms together nervously.
”You can't go anywhere, Indris.” Rosha gave her brother a long look before she turned to Indris. ”There's an emergency session of the Teshri at high moon at the Tyr-Jahavn. Father and Asrahn-Vashne need Ekko to tell the others what he saw in the Rmarq. They've asked whether you'd escort him there.”
Indris scanned the arbor to make sure there was nothing left behind. Ekko watched silently while Indris and Shar prepared to leave, his expression inscrutable.
”There's no reason to delay Indris or his friend any longer,” Nehrun said. He looked to where his guards were getting to their feet. ”And no need for Rosha to get more-”
”What have you done, Nehrun?” Indris whispered as he leaned in close to scrutinize his cousin. He did not want Rosha to overhear. ”It's obvious you've dealings with Corajidin. I've known for a long time of your ambition and impatience with Ariskander's Federationist beliefs. Are you so hungry for power you'd see your own father die?”
Nehrun held Indris's gaze, though his skin paled. Rosha frowned at them both. Nehrun swallowed, wiping the sweat from his lip.
”If Rosha wasn't here, there's no way I'd leave Ekko in your hands, Nehrun.”
Rosha came forward to check on Ekko. She raised her eyes to Indris, her expression closed. ”You're going to leave just when Ariskander, the man who loved you as the heir he wished he had, needs you. What happened? You used to care about every cause you heard about. You were a different man back then. Before your wife-”
”There's always a then, Rosha,” Indris replied in a chill voice. ”We're defined by moments of then. I'm not that man anymore. Don't look for him.”
”Why not?”
”Because one day there's nothing left. A time comes when you realize you've done enough and that no matter what you do you can't...” His voice trailed off to nothing. How to explain to his cousins something he barely understood himself?
Shar came forward on silent feet. She leaned close, her hand gentle on Indris's arm. ”We can at least walk with them to the Tyr-Jahavn, neh? It's not far out of our way. What harm could come of it?” Her voice was little more than the hum of the wind through pine needles.
Indris turned to look at Ekko. The Tau-se warrior rose to his feet. It was like watching a furry mountain rise from the earth. There was something...permanent...about Ekko. Something solid and terrifyingly powerful. Shar helped Ekko gather his armor and weapons from where they were stacked at the back of the arbor. With a care born of pain, Ekko pulled on his bloodstained hauberk. The gold-washed plates shone warmly. He tied his iron-shod hobnail sandals. Shar helped him with the complex ties of his banded metal cuira.s.s. Greaves. Vambraces. His over-robe. Ekko fixed his long, sickle-bladed khopesh to a ring on his belt. His helm had been lost somewhere in the marshlands.
”You have heard what I had to say and know its value, Amonindris,” Ekko rumbled. He sat straighter on his cot. ”Though we do not know each other well at all, I would be further in your debt should you see me safely to the Teshri. There is much they, too, need to hear from me.”
Indris was not deaf to the murmurs of the Feya.s.sin when they caught sight of him and Shar. Two senior officers stood apart from the others, their eyes intent on him from behind their war-masks.
Shar caught the visual exchange and gave a quiet chuckle as the two female warrior-poets prowled toward them on cat-light feet. ”You can't help getting under people's skin, can you?”
”What?” he said innocently.
”Be nice.”
The two officers stood tall and athletic in their white armor, carrying white hexagonal s.h.i.+elds etched with the knot-work six-petaled lotus of the Asrahn's office. Given their elite status they carried amenesqa, the antique yet deadly recurved swords of the Awakened Empire.
”I'm Knight-Colonel Chelapa of the Feya.s.sin,” one of the women, the shorter of the two, announced. She removed her war-mask. Indris imagined her working a potter's wheel, or as a carpenter rather than a warrior. She had earnest features, with hazel eyes. Her skin was sunburned, freckled, and seamed at the corners of her eyes from laughter. A pale scar marked her right cheek. She searched Indris's face, pausing at his left eye. He sighed quietly. ”You're Dragon...er, Pah-Nasarat fa Amonindris?” she asked abruptly. Shar raised an eyebrow in his direction.
”You knew the answer to that question before you walked over. I prefer daimahjin-Indris. Or just Indris.”
”It's been my experience,” the other lady said, the throaty timbre of her voice somehow familiar, ”that he's reluctant to share his name with strangers. I'm Knight-Major Erebus fe Mariamejeh.” The Feya.s.sin removed her own war-mask.
Indris smiled. She was as striking as his impa.s.sioned recollections, if not more so. There was such life in her, power in her movements. An elegance, a strength, a grace, born of her certainty. So, she was an Erebus. A strange thrill ran through him, as it always did in the presence of danger.
”Why are you here, Indris?” Chelapa queried. ”We're perfectly capable of escorting Asrahn-Vashne, Rahn-Ariskander, and Knight-Colonel Ekko to the Tyr-Jahavn.”
”Ekko is sworn to the Great House of Nasarat. I've been asked to make sure he's delivered safe and sound.” He held up his hand to forestall her protest. ”It would please Ekko if I traveled with him, and the family has asked this of me. I won't interfere.”
”See you don't,” Chelapa warned before she spun on her heel and walked away. Mariam turned to follow her, though she paused for a moment.
”Can we help you?” Shar asked.
The Feya.s.sin gave Shar a surprised look before she addressed Indris. Her cheeks colored, something Indris guessed was unusual for her. ”I wanted to say...I enjoyed...I'm glad we've had a chance to meet again.”
”And I, you,” Indris replied.
”Oh, please.” Shar rolled her eyes.
”We were supposed to fight,” Mariam said abruptly.
”Excuse me?” he said, surprised by the strangeness of the comment. ”It usually takes more than one tryst with me to make somebody angry enough to hit me.”
The Feya.s.sin chuckled. ”I was supposed to fight you on Amber Lake. Didn't you know? We were to be matched in the Hamesaad.”