Damon cut from high left, forcing a rapid back shift that caused Elen to slip on the wet grass…the shield wavered across, and Damon reversed to slash from the low forequarter. His sword tore into the rim of Elen’s shield, far enough to strike his hip. Elen staggered and swung back desperately, Damon parrying and skipping back from range.
A roar from the crowd, and Damon caught a brief glimpse of Elen’s entourage, faces fearful in the firelight, seeing their powerful, armoured lord so completely overwhelmed. Fear, too, on the face of Lord Elen, as perhaps the pain of his hip wound reached him, and he realised that now even his mobility would suffer.
Schooled in Lenay swordsmanship, Damon did not allow his opponent any chance to regroup, but immediately pressed his advantage. Elen blocked the crushing overhead and risked a sideways slash with his sword… desperation, and Damon had expected it. He parried close, spinning inward and ramming his shoulder into Elen’s shield. The wounded man staggered at the impact, slipped, and the shield dropped once more. Raised just in time to meet Damon’s second overhead with its rim, but the blow was powerful and sliced through the shield’s edge, crashing it downward…
…and suddenly, it all stopped, Damon half surprised to find his blade buried in Elen’s skull, nearly down to one eyebrow. Blood trickled into one horrified eye. He wasn’t dead yet, and that was sickening. Damon pulled his blade clear, to the sound of cracking skull, but Elen collapsed before he could give the mercy of a beheading. He lay there on the grass, kicking and struggling, trying to speak. The crowd was yelling, a deafening roar of chants and triumph, blades and fists punching the air. Damon knew he should finish Elen, but suddenly, the rage was gone, and all he felt was…despair. It was not a clean kill. Why had the gods not granted him the mercy of a clean kill?
There were brains on his blade. He felt the sudden urge to throw it aside, to spin and hurl it ten strides and more into the dark river…but there was Koenyg watching, arms folded beside Myklas, and he could not do such a thing before Koenyg. Instead, Damon pulled his sword rag from a pocket, wiped once, threw the rag away and sheathed the blade. Only then, amidst the yells and exuberance, did he catch the look on Koenyg’s firelit face. Relief. Sheer, undisguised relief. Damon wondered if he was seeing things.
Koenyg saluted, one warrior to another, a clenched fist to his chest. Damon returned it, and the yells and chants grew louder. They were chanting his name, warriors all. Lord Elen lay kicking on the ground and that excited them. Damon’s despair grew, but he returned the salute anyway. Koenyg’s face now seemed only impassive, hard and shadowed in the lamplight. Myklas, Damon noticed, looked a little pale. Good, he thought. At least something positive might have come from this.
The yelling crowd accompanied him back to Sofy’s tent. This time, none of them touched him or tried to clasp his shoulder, or pat his back. To show the prince informality before a fight was one thing. A victorious warrior, however, required the dignity of respectful distance.
Sofy was there, at the entrance to her tent, not surprised to see him coming, but relieved all the same. Her face was tear streaked and pale, and her lip trembled as he approached. It would not be warrior-like, nor indeed manly, for the victorious prince to embrace his sister at such a time. Damon embraced her anyway, and held her tight.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Sofy told him. “But I’m not sad he’s dead.” Damon knew how she felt.
“I’d rather kill them all than let them take you from me,” he replied.
Eight
R HILLIAN RODE UP THE BROAD STREET toward the Ushal Fortress in the bright sunshine, and wished she could feel happier. Crowds lined the road, cheering and throwing flowers. Ahead of her rode General Zulmaher, with captains Renard and Hauser at his flanks. Ahead of them, the banners flew, the great shield and sword of the third and sixth regiments.
The second row was for the serrin, but Rhillian did not mind. This was a human war-humans had suffered the greatest losses, and she would not have minded them taking all the credit even were it not so. Aisha rode on her left side, and on her right, Kiel, recently returned from southern Elisse, where he had been helping the peasantry to organise in preparation for further Rhodaani and Saalshen assistance.
Behind them marched the Steel, rows of armoured soldiers in perfect formation. Infantry first, cavalry behind, and to little complaint from the cavalry, who counted themselves lucky not to be fighting “in the mud.” The infantry protested against marching behind formations of horses. “Marching through the shit of our betters,” a corporal had remarked ironically, within Rhillian’s hearing.
“Almost enough to make one pleased to march to war, is it not?” Kiel suggested, surveying the cheering Tracatans who lined the road. His eyes were pale grey, so pale they were nearly colourless. His hair, unusually for a serrin, was jet black, making stark contrast against clear white skin. “Not that I actually got to see the war, of course.”
“It is unbecoming to fish for an apology, Kiel,” Rhillian replied. “I left you in the south precisely because you have the knack of command. The southern peasants were friendly, and ready to be commanded, and I had precious few options better than you.”
“One does not complain,” Kiel said mildly. “One merely observes.”
“One might have thought you’d seen enough blood,” Rhillian said, with an edge.
“Blood does not interest me,” said Kiel. “Only survival.”
“Survival lies in a stable Rhodaan and a stable Elisse. You also served, Kiel.”
“
Rhillian snorted. Somehow, with Kiel, the smile never quite reached those pale grey eyes. She had not invited him to the war because she distrusted his methods. Kiel, of course, knew so. One knew such things, between serrin, where humans might keep secrets, or suspicions.
Not all the crowd seemed pleased to see General Zulmaher, Rhillian noted. They applauded stoically, as one must, if one was Rhodaani and confronted with the victorious Rhodaani Steel. Without the Steel, free Rhodaan was finished, and most Rhodaanis knew it. But there were grim stares at the general, riding erect in full colours and armour, save the helmet.
The serrin were received very differently. Some Tracatans gasped, pointed or cried out. Women in particular gave exclamations, and hoisted their little girls up to a seeing vantage. Rhillian smiled and waved back often, to enthusiastic reply. She wore her snow-white hair loose down her back, carefully washed and brushed of all the war’s tangles. Her best jacket and riding pants, too, washed and pressed, and she even wore a silver chain with an emerald pendant for her neck. The pendant matched her eyes, brilliant green, particularly on a day like today when the sun would strike the jewel, and burn like green fire.
“The white one!” she heard them call. That, or “The white lady!” Rhillian supposed it was a vast improvement on “The White Death,” as she’d been known by many in Petrodor. General Zulmaher, they had all seen before, but Rhillian’s presence in Tracato was much more rare. They seemed intrigued.
“Unfair,” Aisha declared. “I made at least as much effort to be well presented, yet they are not staring at me.”
Rhillian smiled at her. “You look beautiful,” she assured her friend, and it was true. Aisha wore an
“I know,” Aisha replied. “Yet even so, they stare as though I were a lump of coal beside a diamond. Which I fear is true.”
“They stare because we are strange,” said Kiel. “Humans are obsessed with uniformity. They strive for sameness, like wolves to the pack. Strangeness excites their senses, sometimes to pleasure, other times to fear.”
“A double-edged sword, as are all things,” Aisha declared.
“Perhaps,” said Kiel. “But even in love and pleasure, humans are moved by fear. Fear is the constant emotion. The foundation to all. It is never absent.”
Rhillian’s eyes strayed to a mother holding her daughter in the crowd. The little girl was staring, eyes wide,
