Banner of the Damned (96 page)

“Please take us. Or send me, if you must.”

The instinct to self-preservation caused me to hesitate. The danger was obvious, and I had already experienced a threat to my life from those people.

But I’d been spending weeks looking at moments in Lasva’s life. And though the Herskalt appeared to speak truth when he said that no one has the interest in us that we have in ourselves, his general remarks did not otherwise apply to her. She really did love us all. The rare glimpses of me (that is, when she was aware of me) in the memories I chose came with emotional surges of fondness, sometimes humor. She thought of me as such a steadfast, earnest little thing, sometimes puzzling. Even that terrible day when she so abruptly went silent, I was
right about the cause, but she did not resent my ill-concealed weariness.
Emras cannot fix my pain and it pains her
, that was what Lasva had thought.

I said, “Let me get my cloak.”

When the transfer reaction wore off, Lasva swallowed several times, then whispered, “Now I know why everyone says they smell singed cloth near your tower.”

There was no time for my surprise. We found ourselves surrounded by a startled group of people whose oddly round faces hardened from surprise to intent. Most of them had shorn their hair, so it clustered around the tops of their heads.

Lasva walked straight to Gdan of Totha, who stood surrounded by young warriors. Gdan threw up a hand. “Halt!” she said to her followers, some of whom started to converge, hands on weapons. “She is here by my desire.” And to Lasva, “Come within. Tell me you can halt the king before he destroys us all.”

We were in a low building made of stone and timber. Windows on two sides made it clear we were not in a castle. Farmhouse? Gdan opened a slat door to a tiny room crowded with people seated on woven mats around a low table.

Lasva’s gaze rested on a young man whose nearly white hair was so short and fine that it reminded me of duck’s down. Gdan, seeing the direction of her gaze, lifted her chin. “Our defenders all cut their hair. They do not want their scalps worn by their murderers.”

“I loathe that practice,” Lasva stated plainly.

Gdan looked surprised, then made a gesture. “Of course. You are Colendi.”

“I am Colendi, which means I would much rather talk out problems than fight. You asked me to intervene. I will do that, but I must first understand your side of the conflict—what it is you want and where you are willing to compromise.”

“Compromise,” Gdan repeated, frowning.

Lasva opened her hands. I think she meant to emulate the Marloven gesture for truth-sharing, but it turned into the Colendi Opening of a Flower, the invitation to intimacy. “In Colend, this negotiation would last for weeks, amidst pleasant talk about plays and poems, between balls and dinners and journeys along the canal for idle flirtation. But if there is imminent conflict, well, must we not be as plain as we can? That means telling me what you wish, what you can accept. What…” She hesitated, then said firmly, “What you will refuse.”

Gdan leaned forward. “But all we were doing was securing our northern border.”

“I beg your forbearance, but do you not share a border with other jarlates of Marloven Hesea? Why should it require securing?”

“Because we had word that Tlen was going to send wings against our northern lands on the excuse of securing
their
border. When we heard that Marthdaun had allied with them…”

“A moment,” Lasva said. “A little background for the lamentably slow Colendi, may I beg? You and the jarl did not come to Convocation to renew your vows.”

“We sent a message to the king—we were snowed in.”

Slowly, patiently, Lasva worked through questions, her gaze steady as she looked for the signals of guile. I did not see any, but I was not court trained. Lasva herself was still, her hands loose in her lap. Finally she said, “As for the lightning…”

And every face turned my way, then averted, as if I would strike them dead with a look.

“… did anyone see it?” Lasva asked.

In answer, Gdan motioned toward one of the warriors. They were all muddy, almost indistinguishable. The one she indicated was not just muddy. There was a darker stain on his coat: blood. He leaned back against the wall, his shorn hair hanging in his eyes. Lasva looked away quickly then braced herself to look back.

“My riding mate died so I could run to report,” he said, his voice cracking. “But I was there. I saw our arrows turn to ash in the sky. And I saw lightning hit the middle of the front lines…” He dropped his head forward onto his breast, clamping his jaw shut.

Again I felt the weight of accusation against me—I saw the signs in quick, covert glances, and the tightening of hands on weapons—but it was not nearly as profound as my own sense of shock and betrayal. Words piled up, but I couldn’t speak them. No one would understand, and no one would believe me if I said that this magic was meant to frighten, perhaps to drench warriors, horses, and ground. Not to kill. The truth seemed to lie with the fellow barely out of his teens who struggled against grief.

Lasva rose to her feet. “I believe I have enough,” she said softly. “Where are we? In relation to the battle, to… to the king and the others?”

“They are probably camped on the other side of the ridge,” an older man said in a low voice. “We could send someone with a white flag, if you want to ride out and find them.”

Lasva looked my way. I signed assent, and she said, “We will find him.”

I had never transferred to Ivandred. Truth to say, I was not even sure I could. If I had not been so angry, I might’ve been afraid to try. The distance was short—the transfer was a sharp jolt, which, coming so soon after the previous one, left me with a bitter taste in my mouth and a headache behind my eyes. Lasva gulped for breath, one hand pressed to her chest. Then she drew in a shaky breath and looked around. I did as well.

We found ourselves directly outside of Ivandred’s tent—probably within arm’s reach of his scrollcase, but on the other side of the canvas. Startled guards had closed around us, weapons ready, but when they recognized Lasva they took a step back and saluted. They did not look at her, but at me, hands hovering near hilts and bows.

Lasva pushed aside the tent flap and walked in. So great was her perturbation that she did not even glance to see where the shadows lay, for as always there was only one glowglobe.

Ivandred, Haldren, and two or three others were gathered around a camp table with an unrolled map. They, too, were muddy. I did not look closely to see how much of that was blood. My attention went straight to Ivandred, who gazed at Lasva with eyes red-rimmed from exhaustion.

Ivandred said, “Out.” The word had the same effect as a Colendi pointing down in the shadow challenge.

All his leaders but Haldren moved past us; Haldren stayed.

A puff of cold air replaced the stuffy, sweaty atmosphere as Ivandred and Lasva faced one another. A shadow shifted behind them, and I sustained a second shock when the Herskalt stepped forward. “Emras,” he greeted me.

“I have just come from Gdan,” Lasva said to Ivandred. She held out the jarlan’s note. “She said that they were reinforcing their border because they thought that people from Tlen and Marthdaun were attacking
them
.”

“Look here, Lasva,” Ivandred said pointing to his map. He glanced my way. “You too, Sigradir.”

His gloved finger traced the hilly border between Totha and Marthdaun, then eastward along the border of Tlen, toward Ivandred’s oldest ancestral land. This hilly border ran alongside a river. On the north side were many little villages and market towns. I recognized a few names. Next to a great many of them were little markers. Ivandred touched one. “These are the targets for teams of Perideth’s best. They were riding in support of Bluejay’s defensive wing. Bluejay had no idea
that Perideth was using him as an excuse to make trouble up here in order to deflect me from a land grab in the south.”

“How do you know that?” Lasva asked.

“Fnor was the scout who discovered the ruse. Do you want to talk to her?”

“Fnor,” Lasva repeated and drew another deep breath, her hands pressed tightly together. “I accept what you say. I remember you told me that the King of Perideth entertained malign intentions in the southern reaches. And I remember that attack at the bridge. I also believe Gdan. She is afraid that you are about to massacre her people.”

“I plan to ride through, straight to Perideth. It will be a salutary ride,” Ivandred said.

“What does that mean?” Lasva asked. “Does that mean killing everyone in sight with bolts of lightning? Or putting them all to the sword?”

“They broke their oath. I intend to keep mine. My real target is Perideth. Totha is in the way for both of us. Bluejay should have thought of that when he allied with his cousin against me.”

“But I am not convinced that he did ally against you,” Lasva said. “I believe Gdan. Her skills at dissembling must be great indeed, if she is lying.”

Ivandred let out a breath of tiredness. “She is no liar. She and Bluejay are simple. He has always believed anyone he likes. Anyone who flatters him. And his cousin has made much of Bluejay’s great ancestors, telling him that he inherited Inda’s strategic sense. From all the signs, Bluejay has shifted loyalties.”

“What I understand from Gdan is that she is loyal to Totha, first and foremost,” Lasva said. “She seems to think that Bluejay feels exactly the same. Ivandred, I’m here to try to save lives. I beg you to find a way to spare Totha.”

While they talked, the Herskalt drew me aside. “I trust I am not about to hear that everyone dies anyway,” I said. “That is no justification for that spell being altered to kill people. There
is
no justification for that—for war.”

“Warriors ride into battle knowing that they may have to kill someone. Knowing that their own lives are at risk. War is a different moral paradigm.”

“There is nothing moral about it.”

“Emras, look again at the map. Listen to what you were told. Perideth intends to make war against Marloven Hesea. Ivandred is sworn to protect
his people, and the only means he has to do so is to meet violence with violence.”

My throat had closed. The Herskalt touched my arm and shifted us by transfer. Once again it was painless, as effortless as stepping from one room to another. I looked around the Darchelde chamber, blinking tears from my eyes—tears that stung the worse because of the dust on my face from my day of labor on the wards.

I clasped my hands, determined to get control. “I find it so difficult to believe. Is this King of Perideth so different from other humans that he will not negotiate, he cannot understand that people in other countries have the right to live in peace? Is he no respecter of laws? How do they function in Perideth with no laws?”

“He is using war to gain an end. War is a form of human endeavor. The protection of law cannot exist until Ivandred controls the threat of violence.”

“True.”

“Further, you have to admit that war creates no new situation. It simply worsens the strife that is already there. One of the ugly truths about the human condition is how close we are to strife at any given moment.”

I wiped my eyes, my voice unsteady. “It does not help when strife is consistently seen as glory and honor.”

The Herskalt said gently, “It’s bearable—just—if they know that their families will mount their weapons on walls for future generations to venerate, that there will be songs with all their names. Emras, Ivandred knew that you could not bring yourself to give him spells that would supplement fighting tactics. He took the responsibility for altering those spells himself.”

I was about to point out, with all the bitterness in my soul, that
I
would be responsible, that
I
would be condemned for that magic, but I did not. My reputation was not the important matter here, and I had to accept my part of the blame—if anyone would blame me besides Lasva. The Marlovens were far more likely to heap praise on my head, while avoiding contact with my person.

The Herskalt said, “Ivandred reached them in two weeks. It was an astonishing ride, the more because, tired as they were, they ran straight into battle, Ivandred every step of the way with them.”

I made the shadow ward. Someone else could admire this martial expertise, but I could not.

The Herskalt said, “The First Lancers took the advance force utterly
by surprise. This was in part due to your road spells, which struck snow out of the way, and in part due to their constant drill. Would you condemn yourself for the road clearing spell?”

“I condemn war,” I said.

“This attack appears to be bringing about a peace negotiation far earlier than Ivandred had hoped,” the Herskalt said. “He had foreseen a long, grim winter of chasing down the disparate Perideth attack teams one by one. Have you ever seen this kind of search? What happened today—yesterday—was on the field of battle, between people who had, at least in some part, chosen to be there. Emras, you will have to come to terms with the darkness in our natures. Surely you have been seeing that in your dyr studies.”

I had no answer to that. I would have argued, but he said, “I am afraid I have to return to my own duties. I owed Ivandred that much time, but I can spare no more at present.” He faded through the wall again, leaving me alone.

I stared at the Fox memoir on the table, unable to form a coherent thought. Possibly because I was so overwhelmed, my mind reached past the recent horror to the problem I’d been struggling with before Lasva’s appearance: the vexing structure of the tenth level. As I stared at that manuscript, it gradually dawned on me that this Fox had written the memoir around the time that tenth layer had been put over the castle.

The Marlovens had been ignorant about magic, that much I’d gathered. I knew that many monarchs hired mages for important spells, on the understanding that they would perform their spells and then promptly leave.

But this tenth hand was so different from those who had formed the previous nine layers, what if I might find a name, or even a hint, in the Fox record?