King's Shield (53 page)

“What have I done?” he mumbled into her hair. And drew back, his voice a low, unhappy rumble deep in his chest. “Or is it the war? Sure it is. I’m stupid.”

“I will return to you when it is over. So lies my duty. Yours lies elsewhere,” she reminded him, and his unhappiness intensified. “Now, listen. I have been exploring, not just the archive, but it opens through an atan, from which I have been able to trace and dismantle those wards Erkric made that go directly against our oaths.”

“Wards mean magic warfare?” Inda asked.

“In part. Erkric also interfered with your king’s courting lockets. His wards were clumsy, necessarily because performed from a distance. That is why they ceased to transfer.”

Inda wiped his hand across his brow, then fingered his scar. “Should I tell Evred?”

“You must do what you believe best about that.” She made one of her hand gestures, slow and graceful, though her fingers trembled.

Inda flicked his thumb up, and then the sense of what she had previously said penetrated. He knew she loved to share knowledge. “Atan?”

“The archive in the white tower is a Morvende construct, as I believe you know.”

Inda turned his palm up.

“Well, what few know, unless they have studied old magic texts, is that long, long ago, the Morvende made what they called ‘atans’—you know this word in Sartoran?”

“Sun,” Inda said, wondering. “Atan means sun.”

“Atan was just a part of the whole term, but we’ve lost the rest. We call them platforms or terraces or any number of other terms. The important thing is, these were places of meditation and observation, made high on mountaintops, where the Morvende could watch the progress of sun and stars unhindered. You touch the sun symbol in the archive, carved there beside the door. Say the word
atan.
That door will open a magic gate to the atan platform in the mountains above the source of the Andahi River.”

Inda was stunned. “The river—but that goes right by the top of the pass!”

“The source of the river is far higher than the pass, and the atan is even above that. You would have to go down the young river to get to the ancient trail leading down into the highpoint of the pass. You will find an old plinth marking the trail head.” She paused, observing the change in his expression.

“Can we—could someone come back the same way?”

“Ordinarily, yes. One steps on the sun carvings on the platform. One pronounces the word
atan
and steps through the archway. I tell you this for the sake of learning, not because I believe you will be able to use it.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“But I believe your king will,” Signi said gently. “Forgive me if I mistake, but if you think to use this for military purposes . . . Inda, this is important. The Morvende have nothing to do with war. There is a risk, if you use this door. No, no, nothing will happen to you. As I said, they have nothing to do with war. The risk is that, if you use it, you will never be able to enter this archive again.”

“But this entire war is the fault of the V—it’s not us attacking anybody! We’re defending—”

She shook her head. “I have no communication with the Morvende, and so cannot for certain speak for them. They might be aware of the circumstances or they might just not be paying attention to the archive now. How they view time is very different from how we do, who are so bound to the sun’s cycle. But when that archive door is opened, they know it. And if you move armed men through—for whatever reason—they will know.” She lifted her hand toward the white tower, just visible through the open window on the landing. “It will be closed to you, probably forever.”

Inda felt a brief spurt of regret, but far greater was his eagerness to tell Evred: the impossible had happened, and now they had a means to come down on the Venn from both sides.

Signi cupped his dear, scarred face with her hands, a gesture of such tenderness that his galloping thoughts stumbled to a halt.

He gazed into her green-brown eyes, distracted by his own tiny reflection twinned in the great black circles of her pupils; time stopped, or seemed to for a measure of ten breaths, as he groped for understanding of her emotions.

To Inda, Signi was like the great birds drifting so effortlessly overhead, who with one snap of their wings lift to speed and power far beyond his reach. Magic was just that kind of power. Her emotions were as subtle as those flicks and shivers of wide wings, but so far she had drifted alongside him as he galloped toward this war: her ardor matched his ardor, compassion enfolded his grief when he first arrived in his homeland and discovered who had lived and who had died. His laughter sparked her smile. There were other times he sensed emotional shifts in her, but could not define them, and as he looked into her eyes and felt the tremble in her fingers, he thought,
I need Tdor to tell me what I’m seeing.

That was it, he was ten years behind, because he hadn’t had Tdor to comb out the tangles of his thoughts, make them smooth again. Signi made sense of history, the world, and magic for him, but even when she did he always felt that divide between Marlovan and Venn, and he knew she did too, because of the way she would frame questions. Tau could make sense of other people, but Tdor had always made sense of
him.

“Fare well, Inda,” Signi said, and kissed him.

And was gone before he could answer.

 

 

 

When the weird, howling horns began blowing in terrifying echoes up the pass from Castle Andahi, most of the three-and four-year-olds still hiding in the robbers’ cave jerked awake. Most of them puckered up and began to whimper.

“Shut it!” Han hissed. The cave mouth, now half blocked by stone, glowed faint blue. Not quite dawn. Why was it horrible things always started before sunup?

Small bodies pressed up against Lnand. She twitched, wanting so badly to shove them all away. She kept the fret inside. Everyone would just call her a pug if she admitted the truth. The smalls climbing on her and demanding kissies and huggies were gratifying when Han and Gdir noticed, because everybody could see that Lnand was the favorite. But when the other two ten-year-olds were doing something else, Lnand wanted to smack the brats away. Those three-year-olds were
always
whining, and she was sick of snotty noses and pee in drawers that
she
had to dunk and spread to dry.

You’d think Queen Han would help, since the Jarlan called her such a great leader, but oh, no. Not
her.
She was too
important
for drawer dunking.

“Some kind of new noise,” Han whispered, hopping back inside the cave.

The children huddled together, everyone uncertain whether fun or bad things were coming next.

“I’ll be lookout,” Gdir stated.

“No. We’ll do it just like yesterday.” Han smacked the dust off her clothes with impatient whacks.

Lnand had no desire whatsoever to go out there and see whatever horrors made those noises. All that screaming, and the crashes. Now those terrible moaning howls, like monsters out of an old story. How could Han stand it? She was probably pretending to be brave.
Everyone is pretending,
Lnand thought.
It’s the only way people admire you, if you act like a hero.

So she made herself say, “I’ll stand watch. You two did it yesterday.”

Gdir wrinkled her nose like someone farted, making Lnand want to yank her hair out by the roots.

Han sighed. “I
said,
we’ll do it like yesterday.”

“You think I’m a coward.” Lnand knew she really was a coward, but she was angry enough to bite and kick and scratch if Han
said
it.

“No.” Han whacked dust off her trousers.

“Why don’t you change into your other outfit. Those clothes are disgusting,” Gdir said.

Han ignored her. “Lnand. Your job is the smalls. Keep them quiet. That means keep them happy. Hal and I can watch the pass, it’s just boring sitting there. Gdir and Dvar on next swap.”

“Haldred’s only nine.” Lnand put her hands on her hips. It was working, everyone thought she wanted to be out there.

“So’s Dvar.” Han turned a dirt-mottled hand over. “So? None of us will be alone, and I know Hal and Dvar can be quiet as mice, because they are on the games. I never knew anyone as still and quiet. Keth, too,” she added with extra meaning: even the Jarl’s son had to follow orders. “If he were here.”

Hal had been glaring at Lnand, but now he flushed with pride. Dvar was too tired to care; she wasn’t going to whine, but she was sure she’d heard her mother screaming during the night.

“But what about
us? We’re
good at games!”

Han turned on the seven- and eight-year-old boys and girls who made up the most of the children. She didn’t care which of them had spoken. “Ndand never put anyone under nine on tower watch, so you don’t even think it.”

Some of the eights muttered. The sevens stayed quiet, and Tlennen, Gdir’s six-year-old brother, slid his thumb toward his mouth. It tasted like grit, but everything inside his skin felt better when he sucked it. He stepped behind Gdir, so she wouldn’t see. He hated it when she slapped his hand down and said that warriors didn’t suck their thumbs. Maybe they didn’t. But nobody had let him be a warrior yet.

Satisfied that everyone thought she was brave and eager to be out in the danger, Lnand turned away from Han, and there were all those waiting eyes. Rosebud’s lips were starting to pucker, and Lnand said in a hurry, “Who’s really big, and wants to help with breakfast?”

“No fire,” Han called.

Lnand heaved a loud, shuddering sigh. “D’you think I’m
stupid
?” She said it all the more fiercely because she’d just been looking for the natural shelf where they’d put the Fire Stick high out of reach of the smalls.

But of course they couldn’t have a fire. Even in daylight, they’d discovered, you could see flickers on the roof of the cave from below. They’d wasted most of yesterday trying to build a wall to block the cave from view but the cave entrance was too big and they couldn’t shift big stones. And Gdir had reminded them that a stone wall visible from below would look like someone was inside, unless it was mossy and old looking.

As Lnand set about unwrapping and dividing up one loaf and one wedge of cheese, Gdir prowled around the cave entrance to examine the wall they’d made. It was only knee height, and out of view from below. She’d checked before sunset the day before, though it had meant climbing down all the way to the pass. The horrible noises had somehow been louder there, she did not know why. She’d only taken a fast look then scrambled right back up the cliff.

She paced to where they kept their food stash, ignoring Han. Even the sound of her breathing was irritating. Han was just the daughter of a guardswoman. Why was she made leader?

Gdir accepted her share of the bread and cheese, looking down to make sure Tlennen had his. When she saw his clean thumb on an otherwise dirty hand, she arced her hand up to slap him, then stopped. He might drop his food, and they couldn’t spare extra. She wouldn’t let him pick it up dirty.

“As soon as you eat, wash up,” she muttered, glowering. “And if I see that thumb in your mouth again, I’m going to thrash you.
No
Tlen sucks their thumb.”

Tlennen’s resentment burned like a ball of hate in his middle. He knew she was wrong. She always said they were Tlens of the primary family, not just Rider-cousins, and they were better than anybody, but Tlennen remembered Keth used to suck his thumb. He’d decided he would stop thumb sucking when he was eight. Sometimes you’re just not ready for things, like riding a horse over fences. Thumbs were like riding in that way.

Gdir glared at Han, who sat with Hal just inside their wall, where they’d found the best vantage down to the pass, at least as far as the last great curve, just where the tunnel opened. Out of sight was the long downward slope of the pass, gradually widening—an ancient landslide, Flash had told them. Really ancient. Even more ancient than the tunnel, which had been where the river went after the slide, until that, too, changed, going deeper underground somehow. She wasn’t sure why she found that comforting, but she did.

Thinking about that was better than thinking about Han’s bad leading, and how unfair it was of the Jarlan to pick her. Gdir was betrothed to Keth! She was future Randviar! She was primary-family Tlen! Of course, you couldn’t keep rank if you were terrible at training, but Gdir could shoot as well as Han, could beat her with right-hand knife, and almost with left. They ran and climbed about the same. So why wasn’t Gdir leader?

Gdir looked around irritably. The cave was filthy again, and they all looked like little pigs rooting for vegetable parings. She turned on a wrestling pile of eights—all boys, of course. “Why aren’t you clean so we can start warm-ups?” she asked, loud enough for “leader” Han to remember her duty.

Scowls and mutters were the only answer, but at least the boys broke apart and headed for the stream.

Everyone else began doing their chores, even the fives taking each end of a bedroll and shaking it the way she’d showed them, though far too listlessly to actually dislodge dirt.

She nipped one end and gave the bedroll a snap. A cloud of dust rolled off. The child at the other end pouted at having her arms wrung; the one she’d replaced laughed at the cloud.

“Do it that way,” she said, and satisfied that she had just cause, she marched across the cave to Han. “Why won’t you do your duty?”

“Go away, Gdir.”

“You’re supposed to be leader. I seem to be doing the real work, like cleaning up and seeing that the brats don’t just fight all day, while you just squat there pretending to be a warrior. Why aren’t
you
giving those orders?”

Han snorted. “Because you’re doing it. That means I don’t have to argue about those orders like I do all the others.”