Stormseer (Storms in Amethir Book 3) (5 page)

It was even almost true. He hated what his father had done. He hated the thought of carrying on with peace talks when the talks were tearing their kingdom apart. If Venra's brother were truly poised to act against the king, Razem must know. And if Arisanat decreed that Razem should defy the king...well, as much as it might pain Razem, he would know what he must do. He would not enjoy arresting his cousin, but inciting the prince to civil war would be treachery of the highest order.

"Don't be a fool." Arisanat's voice was harsh as his fingers closed around Razem's wrist. "You cannot defy your father, and I would not ask you to."

"But will you grant me your blessing?" Razem whispered. "Will you come with me?"

Arisanat's fingers tightened until they gripped hard enough that Razem's wrist bones creaked against each other. "You know I will, lump." His voice caught as he said the words, but while there was still no affection, there was also no cold formality in them, either.

Razem swallowed hard against a sudden rush of emotion. He had never been as close to Arisanat as he was to Venra, but then the four years Arisanat had on Razem meant he was there to teach the young prince how to pack snow best for building a fort wall and which way to lean to steer a sled the way it should go. Razem was grateful his hasty reaction hadn't ruined all of those good memories in a single instant.

"Thank you, Aris. That means more to me than I can say."

"You'd best think of a few things to say before your father hears about this." Arisanat's voice was dry as he released Razem's wrist and stood up. "Come. We should have the conversation you called me here to have."

Chapter 3

"Get up."

Jacin Hawk looked up from the book he had been reading. It was an old one, predating the current Tamnen-Strid crisis by at least a century, and it was a love story, which wasn't his usual preferred reading, but it was better than the zealot poetry he'd been given last month. "What?" he grunted.

The guard standing outside his cell door was probably a decade younger than he was, if not more. Certainly no older than twenty-five. He shifted his weight and rested a hand on the doorframe. "The king has sent someone to see you. You ought to be presentable."

"As if I give a damn." Hawk turned his gaze back to the book, licked his thumb, and carefully turned the page. He knew it would anger the guard. It was meant to. Though he had been left here to rot for six long years, he had taken care to never become a tractable prisoner. He might not be the Tamnese Hawk any more, leading a line of charging swordsmen against the thieving Strid, but he would not be meek under the threat of confinement. Not when he had faced down death and laughed.

"Get up, damn you!" the boy snapped. "Commander Ayowir will be here in just a few minutes, and I won't have you disrespectful or dirty."

Hawk didn't look up. "Come in and make me, then." He had to fight to suppress the smirk that wanted to crawl across his lips. The younger ones always had less self-control. Hawk almost enjoyed the company of a few of the older guards. The ones who remembered the days before the invasion, who had grown up without constant warfare. Hawk himself had been sixteen when the Strid attacked the Kelischad Mines, and it had been another three years before he went off to war after that. This boy, though, had grown up in a country constantly at war. What did he know of real life?

"Winds take you," the boy growled, and the clank of keys told Hawk that he
was
coming in. Was this audience truly all that important, then? What made it different from the hundreds of other encounters he had had with Commander Ayowir over the years? She was a hard woman, but she'd always seemed fair.

With an exaggerated sigh, Hawk closed the book and set it aside. He hadn't been enjoying it, anyway. It was just something to pass the time. He had a lot of time that needed passing, these days.

"Very well, what is it you want me to do? I only have the one set of clothes. I had a bath two days ago and I've hardly exerted myself since then." Hawk stood. "Is she such a delicate lady she'll swoon at the sight of my unshaven face? I haven't held a blade in six years, by her orders, so she'll have to excuse it."

It was an exaggeration. He'd been given knives with his dinner for the past three years, ever since they decided he wasn't going to escape. And once a month they tied him to a chair and shaved him. He supposed they were afraid he would slit his own throat if they let him shave himself.

He'd given it thought, actually, but his nature had never been one inclined to despair, and he had calculated that his maintenance would cost the Strid more than burying him would. He liked the idea of inconveniencing the enemy by simply continuing to draw breath.

"Tamnese scum," the boy spat, and cuffed at him. "You will stand out of respect and give the Commander your attention."

Hawk caught the boy's wrist in one hand. Not tightly--he didn't want to frighten the boy into drawing his sword. He just wanted to remind him that Jacin Hawk was not someone to toy with. "Watch yourself, boy," he muttered, making his voice hard. "I have known the Commander longer than you've been out of swaddling. She and I have come to our own understanding."

"That's enough, Hawk," said a calm female voice. Ayowir was a tall, rangy, rawboned woman with a ruddy complexion. She wore her long blonde hair plaited back from her face, exposing an ear with a chunk missing. Hawk had been forced, grudgingly, to respect her, first as they faced each other across the disputed leagues of the Kreyden District, and then as her captive. She had never been friendly with him, and never would, but they had each other's measure, and there was, as Hawk had said, an understanding between them. "You've embarrassed him. I'll have to assign him somewhere away from prisoners now." She didn't look at the boy as she spoke of him. Hawk did, just long enough to see the boy flush red as a battle flag.

"Just doing my patriotic duty to inconvenience you a little bit every day," Hawk said lightly. He released the guard's wrist and the boy pulled it back, rubbing it with his free hand. "What are you here for?"

Ayowir's lips quirked in something that was nothing like a smile, but wasn't quite a grimace. To Hawk's surprise, she didn't answer him at once. "Go back to the duty station and see that we aren't interrupted," she told the guard.

The boy didn't manage to meet his commander's gaze as he saluted her, but he did have time for a venomous look at Hawk. Hawk bared his teeth at the boy. Not a smile.

When they were alone, he repeated his inquiry. "What is this about, Ayowir?"

She pursed her lips, and now that she met his gaze, Hawk could see the confusion in her gray eyes. "Freedom, Hawk. Is that sufficient to catch your interest?"

She sat in the single chair in his cell. In truth, it would have been an actual room, had the door been solid wood instead of an iron grille. He had a small fire pit, a table and chair, a chamber pot and washbasin, and an actual bed. Hawk could complain about many things since his capture by the Strid, but he could not complain of his treatment.

Hawk remained standing, though his leg was beginning to ache.

"Freedom," he said, when he thought he had let enough time pass that he wouldn't sound overeager. "That's a broad concept."

Ayowir shifted back in the chair, her knees settling apart, one foot back in case she had to stand suddenly. She sat like a warrior and studied him. Her eyes roved frankly across his features, and Hawk pictured himself as she must see him: a broken warrior with a bad leg, paler than he had been since birth, thinner than he should be, his light brown face half covered in three weeks' worth of black whiskers that were, these days, more liberally sprinkled with white than he would like. Thirty-six was not so old as all that, he thought, but his captivity had aged him. He wondered if Ayowir still saw the warrior in him. His heart was still a warrior's heart, he wanted to say. But it was not her business what Hawk thought of himself.

"Freedom," she said. "Your freedom, in particular." Her gray eyes were considering.

Hawk stiffened. "I won't betray my country," he spat. They had been over this too many times to count, early on. Why would she return to it now?

"Did I ask you to?" Then she made a wry face. "Recently, anyway. No, Hawk, I confess, I'm being mysterious only partly by choice. The truth is, I know little more than you. But here it is: My king and yours have seen fit to communicate through an intermediary, and the upshot is that Anyet Oler is to be released to us, conditional upon our returning you home in more or less the condition we found you." She did smile then, her thin lips pulling to the right thanks to a scar from her partly-missing ear. "Though I rather think we did a fair job of patching you up, all things considered."

He would have lost the leg--if not his life--if the Strid battlefield combers hadn't found him when they did, and he and Ayowir both knew it. As it was, he was lucky to have kept the use of it. He had rarely had the opportunity to discover if he would limp over long distances, but in his cell, he had only been troubled by it when the rains were coming.

"They would give back the Deranged Duke," he murmured, and was rewarded with a flash of ire in her expression. Anyet Oler was Ayowir's uncle, or something like that. But she didn't speak her reply aloud. Hawk wondered what she would have said. There could be no denying that Oler had waged systematic genocide against the Tamnese people of the Kreyden District. Never mind that half of them had Strid blood in them somewhere, even if it was mostly long generations ago. Things had been tense enough, thirty-six years ago, that Hawk was one of the few half-bloods of his generation.

"Anyet is dying, Hawk," she said finally. Her voice and expression were wiped of any emotion. "To my thoughts, Tamnen is getting a better deal. But we will take him back, if only to bury him among his ancestors so he may rest peacefully."

Gods grant his spirit never rest
, Hawk thought. But something stayed his tongue. He wouldn't want to be buried in the land of his captivity. He could hardly blame the duke for that, even if he blamed him for much else.

"What are the particulars, then?" he asked after it became apparent Ayowir was not going to speak again.

She frowned, returning from wherever her thoughts had taken her, and Hawk reflected that he could have murdered the Strid commander just then. Six years ago, he would have. Just two years ago, he would probably have tried. What had happened to him lately?

"We will go to Salishok. Your Prince Razem and whoever they replaced you with will meet us there, under flag of parlay, and I suppose you will go home a grand hero." She tipped her head to one side, watching him. "I will have someone come in tomorrow to shave you. And I will speak to the watch commander about giving you time alone in the yard. I won't have the Tamnese bureaucrats say we mistreated you."

He smirked at her. "Most kind, Commander."

Commander Ayowir was as good as her word. The next morning a barber came in and not only shaved Hawk but trimmed his hair until it was chin-length. Hawk stopped him then. He liked it long enough to pull into a stubby tail if necessary. The man sniffed and scrubbed his hair with a harsh, astringent-smelling soap, not once, but twice. Hawk's eyes watered at the strength of it, but he hoped it meant his scalp would quit crawling and itching. Apparently the commander wished to return him to Tamnen free of lice as well as any other ailments.

After the barber finished with him, Hawk was given a heartier breakfast than he'd seen since his recovery from the leg wound. And then the watch commander appeared and conducted Hawk to his appointed exercise time in the yard. Hawk wasn't sure what to make of it all, but he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. He had done what he could to keep his muscles strong in his cell, but you could only manage so much in a small space. He centered himself in the yard and began moving through the slow forms of his discipline. When no one stopped him from that, he gradually increased his speed until no one could believe his exercise was anything other than martial in nature.

Still no one came to stop him or send him back to his cell. With a shrug, Hawk lost himself in the forms until he felt his muscles begin to shake. It took less time than he would wish, and that brought him back to himself with the grim reminder of all the strength and speed he had lost. He slowed to a stop and then began stretching so his muscles wouldn't protest as much the next day. Only when he had finished did one of the guards collect him and take him back to his cell.

His lunch was larger than he was used to as well. Hawk finished what he could, then tucked a crust of bread away for later. He spent the rest of the afternoon reading. After a supper that had actual meat in the stew, he went to bed, which was when he noticed they had swapped out the old pallet for a softer one with cleaner blankets. Hawk raised his eyebrows, but after a moment he decided they wouldn't want him picking up the lice again from his bedding. With a shrug, he went to bed.

The next several days followed the same pattern. Hawk was measured and given two extra sets of new clothes. A cobbler came to trace his feet and returned the next day with a pair of boots that was only slightly too large. One of the guards brought him a pipe and a pouch of tobacco. Another pressed a small wooden carving into his hand when she collected his supper dish.

He could understand why the Strid administrators might want to soften him towards his captors, since they had agreed to set him free. He could even see why they would want everyone to believe he had been treated well during his captivity. But he could not parse the reasons behind the guards giving him gifts. He had never been a compliant prisoner. But then again, he had also never tried to kill any of them. Perhaps that was reason enough. He lit the pipe and examined the little carved hawk. It had intricate feathers and cleverly cut wings that looked graceful without being in danger of breaking off. He had seen that guard carving when she sat outside his door, but they had rarely talked.

***

Hawk squinted up at the hot, desert sky and wondered what he was going home to. He had no family left to welcome him home. His friends had all been in the army. Were they still even alive? He couldn't expect everything to be the same as he had left it six years ago. Who would even care that Commander Hawk was home?

You're feeling sorry for yourself
, he thought, giving himself a mental shake.
You're old enough to know better. Gird your loins and get over it.

"Deep thoughts, Hawk? You look troubled." Commander Ayowir had come alongside him on her gray gelding. She was watching his face curiously.

They had been traveling at a relaxed pace, starting after the sun was well up and stopping for lunch. Upon reaching the more arid foothills surrounding Salishok, though, Ayowir had decided they should begin earlier in the morning so they could rest during the hottest part of the day. For the last three days of their journey, they had been up before the sun and on the march as soon as a thin line of pink warmed the eastern sky. They marched until noon and then set up tents and rested in the shade until early evening, when they packed up for another three hours of marching.