The Silver Lake (51 page)

 

 

A sudden pang of guilt made him wince as the memory brought up Yashar’s words about Brax. Perhaps they should have brought him to Yildiz-Koy, he thought. He was more than old enough to carry buckets and he would have been in no more danger than any other village delinkos. It might have been good for him, taught him to behave as part of a team: the value of planning, and of keeping a clear head in the midst of chaos and danger. Perhaps they’d done both him and the Battle God a disservice by being so cautious.

 

 

 

 

And wasn’t that exactly what they’d done, his thoughts continued: pulled him out of that hierarchy and trained him like a champion and not a like soldier? And what kind of champion could he possibly be if he had no knowledge of working as a unit? No knowledge of actually being a soldier?

 

 

 

Driving the butt of his spear into the ground, Kemal shook his head impatiently, telling himself firmly that they’d made the right choice. If Brax were with them today, he might begin by carrying buckets, but once battle commenced he’d be drawn into the thick of it, driven by his oath to fight for the God who’d saved his life, regardless of his orders. And he’d be killed. He was better off at Serin-Koy If the God had other plans for his future, She would make that plain. But for now, he was safe and Kemal had other things to concentrate on. Leaning against his spear, he locked his knees and, closing his eyes, willed his mind to a state of calm preparation for battle.

“Seer!”

The priests of Havo had barely begun to sing the dawn when the call went up, carried along the lines of infantry to the commanders at the rear. The small, black-clad scout galloping from the hills west of Yildiz-Koy didn’t even pause as the lines opened in a ripple of movement to let her pass, then closed behind her again.

“Seer!”

The second scout was spotted a moment later. Like the first, he raced through the lines and disappeared, engulfed by a moving bubble of clear passage. Once he’d passed Cyan Company, Kemal set his helmet on his head, tightened his chin strap, then strung his bow. Around him, the others did the same at Duwan’s command, and after a swift glance to the right and left, Kemal nodded in satisfaction, then swung his attention back to the western hills. It would be soon.

He felt rather than heard Sable Company begin the invocation that would ready Estavia. Closing his eyes, he imagined Kaptin Liel—androgynous features softened by the flow of pure power—surrounded by a dozen battle-seers, their swords raised and pointed toward Gol-Beyaz. When the seer kaptin’s first call came as a single, high tenor note of obligation, it rippled through his thoughts like the thread of a familiar dream, stirring Estavia’s lien within him, drawing his head up, and peeling his lips back from his teeth in an anticipatory grimace. The second call—a modulated harmony of battle-seers promising victory and violence—tightened his fingers around his weapons as it sizzled through his veins. The third—a call to arms—drew a note of response from his own throat which merged with the unit commanders to become a single voice swearing allegiance and obedience. Kaptin Liel reached out to gather them up into one large, cohesive mental force and, as the final call rose from every throat on the battlefield to become one long, undulating chord of strength and supplication, it spread across the surface of Gol-Beyaz like a heavy mist.

Deep within the Lake of Power, Estavia began to stir and as one, Her warriors turned to the shimmer of sunrise on the distant hills.

When the attack came, they were ready for it.

At Serin-Koy, standing in his usual place atop Orzin-Hisar, Spar frowned, turning his head from side to side as if testing the predawn air like a nervous dog trying to catch a scent, his well-honed sense of danger making the hair on the back of his neck rise. To the east, the sun touched the sky above the dark, pine-covered slopes of the Degisken-Dag Mountains with the faintest of pale brush strokes which traced themselves across Gol-Beyaz to merge with the pink-and-orange glow rising from below. To the west, the God-Wall faithfully reproduced the bright colors of the lake’s emerging power while beyond it, the fields sparkled with dew and the distant hills showed a glimmer of green. Behind him on the battlements—to the south as it happened to be—Serin-Koy’s priests of Havo took their places, preparing to answer the blackbirds and finches already in full song and to call the village to wakefulness. But to the north, the faintest hint of lightning skipped across the sky, causing his newly strengthened abilities to buzz irritably in response. As he peered into the gloom, the northern fields shimmered like slivery-gray puddles reflecting a cloudy sky—shimmered with the movement of horses and standards—and he nodded in understanding.

Yildiz-Koy.

Beside him Jaq began to whine and he reached down to lay his hand on his head.

“It’s all right,” he told him quietly. “The warriors are with Kemal and Yashar. Everything’ll be fine.”

He never saw Incasa rise silently above the waters of Gol-Beyaz, a frightful purpose in His snow-white eyes, one hand raised above His head.

When the God’s vision hit him, he was completely unprepared.

It struck his mind like a physical blow, knocking him against the turreted wall with a cry. Fire rose up all around him, fire carried by dark riders on dark horses, whistling and screaming and racing toward him on the crest of a violent whirlwind. They flowed over the hillsides toward the livestock in the western pasture fields, cutting down the shepherds and their delinkon in a hail of arrow fire. He smelled burning, heard screaming, and, struggling against the fear that threatened to overwhelm his mind, he fought to call up the image of the long, steady lines of warriors he knew were there, ready and able to throw the enemy back beyond the hills. But when a single, familiar face, drawn in terror, swam before his eyes, he fell back in shock. Hieson. Sent to guard the cattle with his kuzon on this warm High Spring night. Sent because it was safe, sent because their enemies were miles away, and suddenly Spar knew: he wasn’t seeing a wakeful village guarded by lines of armed and ready defenders strengthened by a God; he was seeing a slumbering village alone, unprepared, and undefended.

He was seeing Serin-Koy.

His head jerked back, hitting the tower wall with an audible crack. Stars spun before his eyes and he tasted blood as his teeth snapped down on the tip of his tongue. Hands clasped over his ears to block the terrifying sounds of battle that overwhelmed his mind, he fought to clear his head; to think, to do
something,
to do
anything,
but the enormity of what he’d just discovered froze him in place. They were going to attack here.
Here.
Attack Bayard and Badahir, Maydir, Aptulli, Paus. And Brax. No one had seen it yet, but they were coming. They might have even reached the outer fields by now. Hieson might already be dead. And
he
should have seen it, he should have known it. All his life he’d known when to run and hide. All his life until now. He’d known something was wrong, but he hadn’t known what. Why hadn’t he known what? All the signs had been there. A blind beggar could have seen it. He should have seen it. Why hadn’t he seen it?

A cold nose shoved itself into his left ear and he grabbed Jaq around the neck, using the animal’s solid presence to thrust the shock and growing panic aside. It didn’t matter why he hadn’t seen it. He saw it now and now was all that mattered. Pulling himself to his feet, he gripped the edge of the battlements and locked his eyes on the empty hillsides beyond the western fields. “So it’s a vision,” he panted, taking a long, shuddering breath. “A big one, a new one, but just a vision. It’s no different than before, not really. Get a grip. There’s no one out there yet. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s gonna happen, but it hasn’t happened. Not yet. You’ve still got time.”

Time to do what, the panic hovering just below the surface of his mind demanded.

“Something, anything.
Warn
somebody Warn Brax. You always warn Brax.”

Soothed by the artificially calm sound of his own voice, Spar made to turn, but his feet seemed frozen in place. Cursing himself for a useless baby, he tried to move, but deep down inside, the tiny voice that had always warned him of the approach of danger began to scream in fear as the flames rose up before his mind’s eye again, threatening to engulf his mind and he realized for the first time Brax wasn’t there.

Slowly his knees gave way beneath him. Pressed against the tower wall, he curled into a tight ball, rocking back and forth as the dying began to scream in his head. It was too much; they were too many. They were going to attack Serin-Koy and he couldn’t stop them. He couldn’t make an entire village run and hide; he couldn’t distract the Yuruk or drive them off. He wasn’t a fighter; he wasn’t even a seer; he was a lifter. He’d never wanted to be anything else.

But Brax did, he thought suddenly, his practical nature finally winning out over the fear. Even though Brax wasn’t right there beside him, Brax wasn’t gone, he hadn’t left him. Brax was down there in the village, sleeping and unaware of the danger. He had to warn Brax, he always warned Brax, he had to get him to safety; that was his job, that’s what he did.

But even as he thought it, he knew Brax wouldn’t listen; not this new Brax with a weapon in his hand and Estavia’s lien on his life, on his loyalties—on his brain, Spar’s thoughts added angrily. Brax would fight. Brax would die. He didn’t want his protection anymore. He thought he didn’t need it.

But he did need it.

Spar lashed out instinctively, striking his fist against the hard stone of Orzin-Hisar as the voice in the faraway tower sounded overloud in his mind. The pain brought him back to himself and he glared angrily into the darkness as he sucked at one scraped knuckle.

The voice gave a murmur of patently false sympathy.
“I’ve remained silent long enough,” it replied. “And now your time has run out. There’s too much at stake to let you run and hide up on your rooftops any longer. You have to grow up today, Spar, or the God of Prophecy’s going to manipulate you forever.”

“Stop it!”
Spar almost screamed out loud as the images began to tumble through his mind too fast to comprehend.

“I’m not doing it; you are,”
the voice snapped back.
“Your mind is wide open, untrained, undefended, and vulnerable to any attack just like that village down there. And it will be attacked if you don’t do something right now!”

And the vision rose up again as a choking fog of smoke and dust broiling toward him. But then the mist was suddenly blown away and he saw Graize, mounted on a snow-white pony, crest the western hills, a vast cloud of power and potential hovering over him like thunderstorm.

He gaped in astonishment.

Graize?