Petrodor: A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book 2 (40 page)

Suddenly there was a woman running free, her skirts smouldering, arms bound awkwardly at the back. A big Steiner man pursued, sword in hand. Errollyn drew fast, but the running woman blocked his sight—she was not a good runner either, slipper-shod feet sliding on the cobbles, she could fall straight into his line of fire at any moment. He stepped clear of the doorway, risking crossbow fire for a better angle…and blinked as a dark shape rushed past his legs and tore downhill at tremendous speed, trailing a leash.

The wolf shot past the running woman and leapt at her pursuer, who fended with a yell, losing his balance. His sword swing was wild, the wolf dancing clear then leaping at him again. An arrow fizzed past Errollyn's ear and struck the soldier in the shoulder. He fell, as the woman also fell, slipping and exhausted, to the cobbles.

Errollyn ran to her, an arrow ready, searching the firelit confusion behind…but the Nasi-Keth were breaking through now and the last Steiner soldiers were either surrendering or dying. He arrived at the woman's side as she struggled to sit. Her pursuer screamed and yelled, having lost his weapon in his fall, a shaft protruding from his shoulder while he tried vainly to beat off the leaping, snarling wolf that savaged his legs and arms.

Errollyn took a knife to the woman's bonds and her arms came free. She
had long, dark hair that had once been lustrous, and large, beautiful dark eyes. Now, the hair hung in matted tangles, and her lovely face was swollen about the left cheek and eye. Lips that had once been full and unblemished now bore a cut, and dried blood streaked from one nostril. Despite her exhaustion, she did not seem especially horrified. Instead, she stared at the screaming man barely five paces away and watched the wolf grabbing his leg, shaking him like a toy. She seemed mesmerised.

“Is that your wolf?” Errollyn asked.

“She's her own wolf,” said the once-beautiful woman in a hoarse, emotionless voice. “But she's my friend.”

“Don't you think you'd better call her off?”

The woman gazed up at him. Screams filled the air, loud and panicked, but the lovely dark eyes registered no alarm. “Why?” she asked.

S
ASHA STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF HER CELL
and closed her eyes. Outside the slit window was a pale blue dawn. She could hear the distant swell of the ocean, rising and rushing against the rocks at the base of the promontory cliff. A gull muttered and cawed. She raised her arms and began a slow taka-dan with an invisible sword.

Balance. Symmetry. Serrin thoughts, both. Serrin obsessed about them, and humans wondered why. With feet in primary stance, the arms were limited in range of motion. Change the feet, and the arms changed, motion with motion, stance with stance, balance with balance. Power flowed in lines through the body. The power of balance, the power of symmetry. Universal powers. One did not impose them upon the universe. The universe imposed them upon her. If she flowed with them, she would harness their power. And no mere weight of muscle, nor strength of arm, nor thickness of armour, could stop her.

It seemed so clear, this morning. Perhaps this was what isolation did. Kessligh insisted so. This was what he sought when he meditated. Stillness. Her bruises ached, and she had not slept well, but somehow, the tiredness seemed to help for she could not think straight at all. Thoughts cluttered the head. The best svaalverd, Kessligh always said, was reflex. The conscious mind could be your enemy. Train it. Do not be a slave to it. Make it serve you.

The patterns of svaalverd were so beautiful, sometimes they took her breath away. Like one of Aldano's sculptures, but in constant, shifting motion. Sofy had asked her once what she saw in such a sweaty, macho activity. Sofy, who loved her arts above all other pleasures…and who, reluctantly, had begun to see the error of her ways.

A hard cross met an upward-slashing counter—a shift of the left foot back would create room for a downcut, the left foot to the side would lead to a low-quarter slash, the left foot forward would bring her inside the attacker's reverse and kill him. Little motions of the foot, barely half a paving stone between all three, and the possibilities altered radically. Each possibility
branched out into many extra possibilities, and all of those had many branches too. Be careful which way you go. Know your centre. Never abandon it, or you'll get lost.

Angles intersected, and the better angle won. Shapes and patterns. All the universe was shapes and patterns, making forces and counterforces. Even people. Krystoff pressed hard, and died. Force and counterforce. Sofy did not press hard enough, and so others shaped her future. Insufficient force, a weak stance. Sasha needed to find a middle. Kessligh tried, and pleased no one—a step too far back, poor range, poor contact with the opponent's blade.

Find your centre. Stand on it. Make them come to you. Step into the swing. Use their power against them. Let them dash themselves against the rocks, explosions of white spray against the cliff.

Sasha blinked, realising that she'd abruptly found a connection between two unassociated moves. Her hands replayed the thought, her body shifting in time. Threads slipped into place, a beautiful sensation that made her smile, whatever her recent pains. Symmetry, the likeness between things one had previously assumed unconnected. The footwork was dissimilar, but the transition, and the philosophy of attack, were identical. That move would now kill, whereas before, it had merely defended. And so she grew a little wiser this still morning. A little deadlier. If only she were free.

The day passed slowly. Sasha ate bread and soup, paced her cell, stretched and performed taka-dans. She had always been bad at doing nothing, and soon enough, she was climbing the walls—literally. First she manoeuvred her bed once more to look out the window, and discovered that no matter how she angled herself, she saw nothing but sea and cloudless blue sky. The cell became hot, which was fine for her legs, but the dress sleeves and shoulders clung tight to her arms. Surely Petrodor seamstresses made few dresses for girls built like her.

She entertained herself for a while by tearing the sleeves off with her bare hands, after stripping bare to her waist. The sound of ripping cloth brought looks from the guards outside her door, who pulled the plate aside to see…and closed it just as fast, when confronted by the sight of a topless woman. But the door remained closed. Sasha wondered where the temple drew its guards from. Holy-minded Petrodor youth who for some reason could not become priests? Or just random, hired thugs? More likely the former, she decided. Surely the latter might have at least favoured her with a lewd remark or two by now. Or worse.

Her back hurt where she'd been kicked, and her bruised jaw made eating difficult. Her left ear seemed to ring a little, like a perfect bell that had been struck hard some time ago. She hoped that would not be permanent. By early
afternoon, she was down to reciting a Tullamayne verse out loud, straining her memory to recall the blood-rousing third and fourth acts. With that accomplished to the best of her ability, she began translating it into Saalsi. Which proved actually quite interesting, and very challenging. “And by his fiery eye he did see, a vision beheld in glory gold…”

Glory? No such Saalsi term. “A vision beheld”…one
beheld
an abstract concept like glory? In Saalsi, it could be said in the literal, the figurative, the active and inactive, or if one were very clever, the dryly ironic or the highly suggestive. Choose the wrong one and serrin listeners would get the wrong idea entirely. But none of them really fit. How did one translate between the glorious passion of Tullamayne and civilised, sophisticated serrinim? Serrin, of course, did not bother trying—if they wished to understand such writings, they'd learn the entire language and read it in the original. But did that mean they truly understood it better that way? Errollyn didn't think so.

That over, and more exercises done, she was mentally and physically exhausted, and it was still only midafternoon. Any more of this, and she would scream. Evening brought dinner—a bowl of half-decent stew—and the relief of cool air. And a priest, after she had eaten, who threw her a robe and told her it was time for a bath.

He led her down the stairs and into the archbishop's chambers, which were empty and lit with candles They continued into a vast hallway with a vaulted ceiling and grand tapestries and paintings. Sasha could not help but look up as she walked—she'd never imagined to see the inside of the Porsada Temple. Not as a Nasi-Keth, and certainly not as a woman. The huge hallway was eerily quiet, save for the footsteps of their four guards. Had they emptied the hall lest anyone spy a woman in the temple? Or was it always this quiet?

Outside Sasha had only a moment to observe the spectacular night lights of Petrodor stretching far out around the harbour, before she was led down some stairs cut into the side of the cliff. The stairway was lit with lamps, steps smoothly hewn with the sharp-edged precision that seemed natural to sandstone. To the right and below, she could hear the ocean swell heaving. Only now did she realise exactly where she would be taking a bath. Probably the priesthood were scandalised enough at a woman in residence at the temple—the idea of her stripping off and bathing there was too much to contemplate. She was struck by a sudden image, as they descended, of a small army of priests hand-scrubbing the stones of the cell in her absence until their knuckles bled. She nearly laughed. Just as well for them it was not yet her time of the month.

After a long, switch-back descent, they reached a small cave, within which was a landing. Lamps lit the rocky ceiling to ghostly effect, as the
swell roared in and climbed the landing's broad steps, and cast an ankle-depth of water across the flat flagstones.

“I'm bathing in there?” Sasha asked, as they paused on a ledge several steps above the awash flagstones. “That's salt water, I'll need a bath after my bath.”

“Salt water will do fine,” said the priest. His voice was thin and reedy within his hood, and she had yet to see his face. “There will be fresh water to wash your hair later, and soap. In case you are thinking of swimming to escape, there are permanent posts for holy guards just beyond the cave, one on the rocks to either side of the cave. They use crossbows extremely well. Should you miraculously be only wounded, and not killed outright, the swell is large tonight, as you can see. It should surely dash a wounded swimmer against the rocks.”

And many healthy ones, Sasha thought, watching the next surge come roaring through the cave, and rush up the barnacle-covered steps. What an amazing place. The ocean had mesmerised her ever since she'd first laid eyes upon it two months ago. It was strange, and fearsome, but she was Goeren-yai, and loved all things wild and beautiful. Surely there were ancient spirits here, deep in the depths.

The guards retreated from the cave, and the priest followed. They had not bound her arms, perhaps considering (correctly) that she was not as formidable as a man barehanded, and that her recent bruises would slow her even further. And there were four of them, all big, and armoured with shields. Even she wasn't quite that stupid.

Sasha pulled off her dress and underwear, and stepped onto the slippery flagstones. The water was cold on her feet, but in Lenayin, she'd swum in water far colder than this. The swell surges were not so strong on the far side of the cave, she saw, and splashed her way across the landing, observing the wooden posts driven into rock where small boats, on calmer seas, would tie up to allow passengers to disembark for the temple. And she wondered how many visitors the priesthood received, in the dead of night, direct from ships from foreign lands.

Bathing was a challenge, and several times she had to jump up the steps to avoid a pummelling swell. But, in between surges, the water stayed calm enough for her to get thoroughly wet. The chill seemed to help her bruises and she emerged feeling refreshed. Certainly, she thought as she splashed her way back to her clothes, it was much nicer down here than in her cell. Perhaps they'd let her stay a while longer. The waves made such an amazing, echoing roar as they came in, and the patterns of lantern light reflecting off the water, and dancing across the ceiling, were truly beautiful.

She was drying herself with the robe she'd been given when she sensed movement from the corner of her eye and spun. It was the priest. Sasha stared at him, warily, and continued drying herself. Her nudity was a weapon against men such as these. Damned if she'd try and hide it.

“I'm not dressed yet,” she stated the obvious. “Come down to observe your holy vows?”

“I've got something for you,” said the priest, and reached inside his robe.

Oh great, I bet you do, Sasha thought with exasperation. Another horny priest, as in all the Goeren-yai jokes. Well, she might struggle barehanded against four holy guards, but she was pretty sure she could handle this scrawny little idiot.

When he pulled out her sword in its scabbard instead, she was completely astonished.

“You can have it,” he continued, his face still hidden within the hood, “but you have to swear something first.”