The War With The Mein (3 page)

It was with a feeling of relief that he slipped on his soft leather boots, rose from the floor, and gathered up his training vest and slippers. As he passed a cluster of boys near the exit, Hephron rose from a squatting position. He spoke under his breath, ostensibly to the youth standing near him, but loud enough and at just the right moment for the prince to hear. “I wonder how you lose when you only fight the air or how you win? Strange that some of us are measured against each other, while some are not measured at all.”

The opening to the hallway was just a few steps away. Aliver could have been there and outside in just a few seconds. Instead he spun on his heel. “What did you say?”

“Oh, I said nothing, Prince. Nothing of consequence…”

“If you have something to say to me, just say it.”

“I just envy you, of course,” Hephron said. “You sword train, but you never get cracked atop the skull like the rest of us.”

“Would you like to fence with me, then? If you think my training is lacking…”

“No. Of course, no…” A note of caution appeared in Hephron’s voice. His eyes darted to his companions, checking to see whether he had over-stepped himself or if he should push farther. “I wouldn’t want to be the one who bruised the royal flesh. Your father could have my head for that.”

“My father wants no such head as yours. And who says you would be able to touch me, much less bruise me?”

Hephron looked sad, something Aliver would think on later, though he barely noticed it in the heat of the moment. “We don’t need to do this,” he said. “I meant no offense. Your training is rightly different from ours. You will never need to fight in a real battle anyway. We all know that.”

Though Hephron spoke these words with a measure of sincerity, Aliver noted only the aspects of it that seemed a taunt, an insult. The prince started toward the equipment rack. “We’ll fence just as you do with the others, with wooden swords. Hold nothing back. Touch me if you can. You have my word you will give no offense.”

Properly suited up a few moments later, the two youths faced each other inside a hushed circle created by the other students, many of whom glanced over their shoulders, worried lest an instructor return. Hephron had a deceptive style of swordplay. He did nothing with a clear and predictable rhythm. He changed his rate of movement and even the direction of his strike in mid-motion. He would parry in a certain manner for a time, his wrist loose, his sword making sweeping arcs. Just when Aliver had come to anticipate and almost find comfort in the rhythm of it, Hephron would change everything mid-stroke. He would drop bodily an inch or two lower. His stroke would become a thrust. His arm would switch from a downward motion to a jab so quickly that the two differing motions seemed to have nothing to do with each other, one neither the precursor to, nor the result of, the other.

For some time Aliver managed to fend him off without taking a touch. He did so with motions slightly more frantic than he wished, quick jerks and clumsy shifts of his feet and exhaled breaths, convolutions of his torso that just barely kept him out of reach. The ash sword felt comfortable enough in his hands, but he realized that he rarely found a moment to drive an aggressive strike. He was all countermovements. What he wished to do was find a still moment to fall into a familiar sequence from his training. He fixated on the twelfth movement of the First Form, wherein he would slip away from a sweeping strike coming in from the left; step forward and block the inevitable return; push his opponent’s blade down and to the right, crossing beneath his knees; and then slice upward diagonally into the right side of his torso. With such a cut Edifus had managed to spill his opponent’s viscera in looping knots that caused the man to pause long enough to set his head in the perfect position to be lopped off a few seconds later, an unnecessary flourish, really, but one Aliver had often imagined.

Three times he began this sequence, but each time Hephron stepped out of it and changed his attack. On the last instance he did so with such speed that Aliver cringed beneath a round sweep that skimmed the crown of his head. Had he taken the force of this directly, he might well have been knocked unconscious. No instructor had ever swung at him like that. He heard one of the others say something, a jibe followed by a rustle of laughter. He realized just how silent they had been up until then, no sound in the room save for the swish and shift of their slippers across the tiles, the grunts of their efforts, and the dry cracks when the wooden blades met.

Aliver found himself backing, backing, barely able to slap away Hephron’s blows, needing space, and then space again. He expected to meet the wall of youths behind him, but they moved with him, the circle staying fixed around them. It even opened as the movement brought them to a pillar. He knocked the granite base of this with his foot. He half lowered his sword, for a moment thinking this was reason enough to pause. He glimpsed the possibility that they might halt this exercise, smile and joke about it, no damage done. But Hephron swung, his blade slicing below Aliver’s chin and striking the stone pillar.

The prince stumbled backward. He caught himself with his free hand and pivoted on it. Upright again, he remembered the anger that had started all of this. Hephron, the arrogant fool! It seemed absurd that he would strike at him that way, as if he wished to shatter his windpipe. He caught sight of Melio, who at that moment stood on the far side of the ring, his face ridged with concern. That annoyed him also. He wanted no sympathy. He raised his sword above his head and yanked it down, wishing to pound Hephron beneath it. Even if the hit was blocked, he meant to press such weight behind it as to batter him down with fury alone.

But Hephron seemed to know this was coming. He slid to the side of Aliver’s downstroke. He snapped his sword in a quick blow that bit the prince just at the edge of his shoulder, at the joint where the bones met. From this the boy twirled away, swung around in a complete circle, and caught Aliver—who had frozen in a twist of pain—at the midpoint of the other arm, with a force great enough that a real sword would have severed the arm cleanly. Aliver cried out, but Hephron was not done. He drew his sword back into his chest and lunged forward, pushing his weight before him and thrusting his arms so that the blunt wooden point of his sword hit Aliver’s chest at dead center. Already convulsed with two-armed pain, the force of this last strike rocked the prince back onto his heels and dropped him onto the mat.

Hephron’s smile lifted every component feature of his face into use. His eyes overflowed with such smugness that a single person could barely contain it. “You are armless, sir. Not to mention dead. What a strange outcome. Who would have guessed it?”

Moments later, Aliver surged out into air red faced and angry, more so at himself than at Hephron. How foolish of him! He had lowered himself by acknowledging Hephron’s taunts, in challenging him, by losing so completely and—almost worst of all—in showing all of them his frustration. Behind this he knew he had played a hand he had not needed to. All the mystery of his possible skill had vanished in a few strokes. He knew they were all surrounding Hephron even now, clapping him on the back, praising him, laughing at their dandy prince. How could he ever go back there again and dance through his choreographed motions while all the others watched him from the corners of their scornful eyes?

Melio caught up with him as he pounded up a long staircase. “Aliver!” he called. “Wait for me.” Twice he touched the prince’s elbow, only to have his hand ripped away. At the top of the stairs Melio jumped in front of him, threw his arms around him, and dragged him to a halt. “Come on. You care too much about this. Don’t do it. Hephron’s nothing.”

“He’s nothing?” Aliver asked. “Nothing? If he’s nothing, then what am I?”

“The king’s son. Aliver, don’t walk away. And don’t pity yourself. Do you think that little fight matters? I will tell you something.” Melio drew back a little, but pressed the palms of his hands on the other’s shoulders, as if indicating that he was letting go but not yet doing so. “Okay, so the truth is you are no match for Hephron. He is good. No, wait! But don’t let that bother you. Aliver, he envies you in everything. Don’t you know that? His swagger is a pretense. In truth he wishes he were you. He follows you with his eyes always. He listens to every word said by or about you. At lessons when he sits in the back of the class, he pins his eyes to the back of your head as if he wished to drill inside you.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Hephron is a thin person. He knows this himself and he envies you. You are a prince and your family is wonderful. You have a beautiful sister…. Okay, I am joking with you. It’s true, but I am joking. Hephron may grow into an enemy, or he may yet be a great friend. But for now, give him no feeling of triumph. Forget about that.” Melio motioned vaguely at something behind him. “Come back tomorrow as if nothing happened. Joke about it. Let him know that the small things he can do to you wash off like mud on your boots.”

The air had grown chillier with the approach of dusk and both young men felt it fill the silence. Melio withdrew his palms and rubbed his bare arms with them. Aliver looked away, his gaze settling on a square of fuchsia sky framed between the cold shadows of two buildings. The silhouettes of three birds flew through the space like darts in pursuit of one another.

Aliver heard himself say, “It just makes me look so stupid. I am mad that I let it happen. Made it…happen. You don’t know how it is for me.”

Melio did not disagree. A few moments passed in silence, and then the two of them, responding to the cold, mounted the next set of stairs and progressed slowly up. “Everyone loses a duel on occasion, and all of them back there know that. But how many of them could…” He searched for the words to say what he had to delicately. “Well, how many of them could embarrass themselves like you just did and find the courage to shrug it off? That’s another way to show strength, whether they ever admit to noticing it or not. And do not pout. The expression does not suit you. Aliver, you are skilled with a sword. And your traditional Forms are better than anyone’s. It’s just that you know only the Forms. Actual fencing is about making us adapt them, about splicing them together, forcing us to make up unthought-of combinations in an instant. You must let them flow together so quickly that it happens in a different place than conscious thought. Like when you knock a knife off a tabletop and manage to snatch it before it hits the ground. You cannot think about doing that; it just happens. That is what you must do when fighting. And then your mind is free to deal with other things—like just how you are going to place an upstroke in that bastard’s nut sacks.”

“Just how did you become so wise?” Aliver asked, not entirely kindly.

Melio mounted the top of the staircase and turned to face him. He grinned. “I read it in a manual. I know a fair bit of poetry, too. The girls like that. Now look, we’ll fence together sometimes. I won’t let you off easy, of course, but we will teach each other. We can work through the Fourth Form, as you suggested. There is much we can teach each other. How about that?”

“Maybe,” Aliver said, but he knew already what his actual answer was. He just was not ready to give it so easily.

It was not just the rumors of a marauding army on the loose. Not just the report about the destruction at Vedus. These were the type of exaggerated tales General Leeka Alain had rightly ignored before. This time was different. An entire patrol had been lost somewhere in the white expanse of the Mein. That was not so easily explained away. Something was truly in motion out there. He could not sleep or eat or think of anything other than shadows hidden behind the blowing whiteness. He had already sent a messenger to the king to communicate such facts as he possessed, but he knew he could not wait for a response. He decided to take what action he could.

Leeka roused his army from the cocooned warmth of the fortress of Cathgergen. He marched them out into the slanting light of the northern winter, across the glacial skin of the Mein Plateau. At the eastern edge of the Mein is a vast tundra called the Barrens, undulating and irregular, treeless both because of the wind-lashed nature of the place and because what woodland there once was had been harvested centuries before. Travel across it was difficult at the best of times. In midwinter it was especially perilous. Sleds harnessed to teams of dogs cut tracks before the army, pulling along the bulk of camp supplies and food, enough to sustain their five hundred human souls for at least six weeks. The soldiers marched on their own heavily-booted feet. They wrapped themselves in woolen garments, with outer shells of thick leather, their weapons secured to their bodies to facilitate movement. They wore mittens made from the tubed pelts of rabbits.

They got as far as the outpost at Hardith without unexpected difficulty. They camped around the earthen structure for two days. This was much to the bewildered pleasure of the soldiers stationed there, men whose official duty was to supervise traffic on the road but whose real struggle was that of daily survival and extreme isolation. The outpost marked the western edge of the Barrens. Farther to the west the land dropped into a series of wide, shallow bowls in which patches of fir woodland remained.

Three days beyond Hardith a blizzard swept down from the north and attacked their huddled mass. It pounced on them like a wolverine, pinned them to the ground, and tried to tear them apart. They lost the road and spent an entire day trying to find it, to no avail. The snow piled into high, serpentine ridges that rolled like ocean waves and made navigation impossible. They could not chart the passage of the sun, nor spot any of the night’s stars. Leeka instructed his men to progress by dead reckoning. This was a tedious process that left the bulk of the army standing still for long periods, never a good thing in such conditions.

Each evening the general tried to choose a campsite near natural protection, a ridge of hills or tree cover, as they now found stands of pines in the hollows. Soldiers hacked fuel and built windbreaks. Once the campfires were strong enough, they dragged whole trees into the flames. They stood around these explosive furnaces, their faces red and sweating from the blaze, eyes stung with smoke even as the wind howled at their backs. No matter how big the fire during the early evening, it had invariably faltered during the night, ashes and charred bits of wood swept across the snow-scape by the wind. On breaking out of the frozen crust each morning the soldiers spent hours finding one another under the drifts, digging out, and prodding the dogs to motion.

On the twenty-second day they woke to a brutal wind blowing down from the north. Ice crystals screeched sideways and struck skin like hurled fragments of glass. They had barely put the old camp behind them when one of the scouts stumbled back to the main column and asked to speak to the general. He had, in fact, nothing concrete to report. The land ahead was flat as far as he could ascertain. He believed they had moved out onto a gradual slope that would bring them to Tahalian. But there was something that troubled him. There was a sound in the air and in the frozen ground beneath him. He had been able to hear it only because he was alone, outside of the noise of the moving army and beyond the sleds. As he returned past the sled dogs he could see that they heard it as well and were troubled by it.

The general spoke close to the man so the wind would not steal his words. “What sort of sound?”

The scout seemed to have feared this question. “Like breathing.”

Leeka scoffed. “Breathing? Don’t be mad. What’s the sound of breathing in weather like this? Your ears are damaged.”

The general reached for the man’s head and tried to yank back his hood, as if he would inspect his ears right there. The scout allowed this, preoccupied, dissatisfied with his own answer. “Or like a heartbeat. I’m not sure, sir. It’s just there.”

The general showed no sign that he thought the man’s message of particular import, but some time later he walked away from his officers to think. Even if the man’s story was only illness creeping into him, it was still a danger. Scouts predict more things than just the lay of the land. Perhaps they should hold up where they were or retrace their tracks back to the last camp, where there was still an ample supply of fuel for the fires. They could wait out the storms, even eating into the food reserves if necessary. They were near Tahalian after all. Even if Hanish Mein was up to something, they would still have to be welcomed with a pretense of kindness….

It was because he stood at the edge of the column that he first heard the sound, if heard is the right word. With the noise of the troops behind him and the trudge of their feet and the scrape of a sled passing nearby he did not truly hear through his ears. He felt the sound as if the bones of his rib cage captured a low vibration and amplified it in his chest. He took a few steps away from the column and sank to one knee. One of his officers called to him, but he thrust up a clenched fist and the man fell silent. Leeka knelt, trying to feel the sound captured inside him, to block out the howl of the wind and friction of his hood across the sides of his head. When he quieted all this as best he could, he found what he was searching for. It was faint, yes, but undeniable. Like breathing, true enough. Like a heartbeat, yes…. The scout had not lied. There was a rhythm to it, a throbbing time. A conscious, measured reason to it…

He spun on his knee and yelled for the ranks to form up. He ran back to them, shouting for the column to draw tight, shields up and facing outward, weapons to hand. He instructed the archers to quiver their arrows and unsheathe blades not victim to the wind and better suited to close quarters. He told the sled drivers to circle them within the troops and huddle the dogs. The same officer who had called to him before asked him what he had discovered. He met the young man’s eyes and gave a simple answer. “There is a war drum beating.”

Once the army had been formed into one defensive wedge and five hundred pairs of eyes stared out into the increasing fury of the north, then, finally, they all heard it. For a long hour that was all they did. The sound throbbed constant behind the wind, which was heavier now with large flakes of snow that stuck fast to their clothes and shields and fur-lined fringes and even, eventually, to the chill skin on their faces, rendering their still forms like some elaborate snow sculptures. At some point the reverberation mingled with the general’s heartbeat. That was why he was struck breathless at the shock of it when the noise stopped. It simply ceased. In the moments afterward Leeka knew he had made a mistake. Whatever drum beat was out there had been doing so not for hours but for days. It had been there for weeks perhaps before he was able to distinguish it. How could something like that have eluded him?

He was not to contemplate this question for long, however. A creature hurtled through the screen of blown snow. It rampaged forward, a horned thing, woolly and huge, some sort of man astride it, a figure clothed in skins and furs, a spear raised in one hand, a yell emanating from his unseen mouth. The beast smashed into the ranks of men just to one side of the general’s guard. It tore through them as if the soldiers were of no consequence. It squashed some and knocked others aside without diminishing its speed or altering its course. It vanished through the far side of the troops as quickly as it appeared. In the few seconds the general had to contemplate the scene he counted ten dead and twice as many more writhing on the blood-splashed snow.

A hand on his shoulder spun him around and he observed—as he had already known he would—that the rider had not been alone. The rest of them materialized all at once, as if the snow had thinned to better his view. There were so many of them, an alien multitude like nothing he had seen before. He suspected that the horror of it would be the last thing he took in with living eyes, and he knew that even if his message got through, he had failed to adequately warn the king and the people of the empire of the hideous threat massed against them.