Chapter 13:
The Light of the Lovely Ones
I
The storm blew out after the first few days, leaving them to scramble through the high pass13 and start the long way down through the scrubby highlands below the tree line. It seemed the blizzard at the start of their climb had been a singular event, and not winter’s opening gambit. But Hanuvar left nothing to chance, and pushed them hard, so that they bedded down exhausted each evening.
On the fifteenth day, the two woke on the far side of the high peaks and had just fixed saddles to their animals when immense flakes of snow began to drift down out of the cloudy sky. It seemed little enough at first, but as the morning wore on, the rate of snowfall accelerated, and Hanuvar suspected rough times lay ahead. He had grown accustomed to privation after long years of campaigning, and his previous passage over the Ardenines. For all that Antires was in fair shape, he was no veteran, and was used to far warmer climes. By the late morning he was shivering regularly, and Hanuvar had to remind him to stop and stamp his feet and flex his fingers.
Antires might have done better if they’d been riding the horses and absorbing their warmth. Unfortunately the rocky ground was too uncertain for any extended time in the saddle, and the trail frequently threaded through narrow drop-offs to tree-lined gorges hundreds of feet below.
By noon Antires had grown even worse, and followed Hanuvar’s reminders sluggishly, all while insisting he be allowed to lie down and rest.
Hanuvar knew this for the embrace of death men craved in the very cold, high places. The chief of the physicians he’d traveled with had explained this could happen to even the brave, and those smart enough to know better, because their bodies were accustomed to warmer lands, where short term rest would repair, not kill.
He kept after the younger man to stay on his feet and encouraged him to sing. He talked with him about his favorite plays, favorite foods, songs from his childhood—anything at all to keep him alert.
Ideally it would have been best to stop and build a fire, but Hanuvar feared that the snow would keep coming and they’d be stranded in the highlands. As he forced them on, he decided to change their immediate objective.
Long years before, his scouts had brought word of a sanctuary on the Dervan side of this pass, a retreat for the sick and weary. Though he had crossed on a lower pass, wide enough to accommodate the troops and equipment they required, the sanctuary had sent him emissaries and pledges both of neutrality and offers to assist the sick and injured. He had never seen their settlement, but remembered the way told him by his scouts.
He had deliberately picked this pass because it was most direct—they were traveling too late in the season to risk a longer trek—and it happened to be near the primary route to the sanctuary. Even though only another few days of travelling would see them into warmer lands, it seemed they would have to stop. Antires just wouldn’t make it without a reprieve.
And so Hanuvar diverted. After the first little while, Antires noticed the change in direction. The man’s face was hidden by the hood of the thick furred robe he wore, and his voice rose weakly from within. “Why are we going upward?”
“You should know by now it’s not always just one direction in the mountains.”
Since that was true, Antires didn’t question. Hanuvar didn’t want his companion worrying, and so didn’t explain further. He had enough apprehensions of his own and considered how best to address them as they pressed on through the cold lash of swirling winds. First, he worried that with a week’s growth of beard he would be far more easily recognizable as the former leader of an invading army. Second, wounded combatants often lingered around places of healing, and Hanuvar dreaded some encounter with former friend or foe would find him out. And, if not that, suppose that the Dervans had destroyed the ancient place, or that it had been abandoned? His information was, after all, nearly a quarter century out of date.
Probably it still stood there though, as it had for hundreds of years previous, because people grew accustomed to shrines and temples and sacred places, and this sanctuary was said to be all of those.
As afternoon turned toward evening the snowfall eased, and Hanuvar spotted a light burning to the northwest. Before much longer the trail widened, leading past ancient steps cut into the stony slope that stretched up the mountain’s face toward the light, and the craggy summit. Antires remarked upon the bright lantern and the stairs, but named it a star. His breathing was labored and his gait unsteady. The steps, even snow covered, were wide and deep enough for the horses, but Hanuvar didn’t risk urging Antires to ride, for the snow hid patches of ice. He instead shouldered much of the younger man’s weight as he guided him up each stair, the horses trailing behind.
A hundred feet straight up the stairwell rose, and then started into a switchback pattern before they neared a wide cave aglow with yellow lanterns. Figures in dark robes beckoned for them, and Antires woke to danger.
“It’s all right,” Hanuvar told him. “We’re at a sanctuary.” He projected confidence he did not feel, although when the robed folk arrived, they nodded pleasantly and aided their climb up the final steps.
Hanuvar politely held back from any offer of aid, hiding his face behind his scarf and hood, but letting the healers assist Antires and take the horses. He’d previously moved the most important of their gear to the battered pack now on his shoulder or hidden in the folds of his garments.
A smokeless fire crackled fifty feet back from the entrance, where Hanuvar spotted a row of empty cots and bedding. There was likewise a row of spears, stacked barrels, and shelves lined with tools and tinder. The cavern proved a long tunnel, part natural, part chiseled out, with a wider exit opposite and lower than where they entered.
One of the robed figures pushed back his hood, his smile kind, and offered Hanuvar a cup of steaming liquid. He accepted it with thanks. The moment the scent of the chicken broth reached his nostrils, his mouth watered. He ignored the impulse to drink and studied his surroundings. The robed folk were all in their late twenties to early thirties, too young to remember Hanuvar firsthand. Three were women and one a man, and none of them looked at him suspiciously. They had cast back their hoods and two of the women were already leading the three horses deeper into the cave. The third was steadying Antires beside the fire.
“This is terrible weather for travelling,” the young woman beside Antires commented. She was broad faced, with a small mole beneath one of her dark eyes. “Was one of you injured?”
“Only from the cold,” Hanuvar answered. “We’re grateful to you for your hospitality.”
“You are welcome. Everyone is afflicted with pains of some kind, and we will happily help you with yours.” Again she smiled. It wasn’t that her expression was false so much as unearned and a little lax, as though offered by someone deep in drink.
All four of these sentinels smiled too readily. After a few moments of study, Hanuvar decided that they were manifestly sober, and wondered if they had been selected for this welcoming quality, or trained to it, or if this was simply their custom.
This sanctuary was famed for its healers, and these clearly demonstrated some competence in their care for Antires, whom they soon had out of his outer robe and drinking the warm broth by the fireside. The woman with the mole suggested Antires ought to be looked over by a more experienced healer to be found in the hospital beyond, for she was concerned he might have frostbite. Hanuvar saw no evidence of damage to his friend’s fingers or toes, but his color was certainly off and he shivered visibly; and so he bundled himself and Antires back up, helped his friend to his feet, and followed the woman down through the tunnel.
Beyond the cave exit they walked into a small bowl-shaped valley. The temperature was notably warmer, no doubt in part because the wind couldn’t build much speed while sheltered in the peaks, but also because hot mist billowed up from fissures scattered through the valley. A sheltered corral lay on their left, where their three horses were helping themselves to hay. Directly ahead, three dozen small thatch-roofed buildings sat at the valley’s center, beside a brook, bridged in four places by arches of wood. Snow-garlanded gardens and farmland rose in wide terraces to either hand. No one tended the stubbly fields, but well-bundled shepherds walked amongst small herds of sheep and goats browsing on crop leavings. A distant rooster crowed, exciting another to respond.
Antires, ever curious, had wakened further at sight of this. “What is this place?”
“Haven’t you heard of us?” Rania, their escort, asked. Again she smiled.
When Antires didn’t answer, she explained. “Our people are followers of the great physician, Entalus. For five centuries we have studied his teachings and provided succor to the wounded and broken.”
“How many of you are here?” Antires asked.
“Enough to manage and tend those in need.”
Hanuvar had the sense she wasn’t being deliberately evasive, for her reply was breezy and cheerful. By his own estimates the valley might comfortably house two hundred, maybe a little more, but he had the sense there were no more than half that in residence.
They crunched through the snow-covered pathway that led to a huge central building. It alone was built of stone, and radiated stately antiquity, though the pillars themselves were bare of ornament, and no gods or maidens or monsters looked down from the pediment. Five chimneys climbed from its roof, each curling smoke heavenward.
“Who lives here?” Antires asked. “The healers?”
“Most of us study to become healers, and master the lessons of our teacher,” Rania said. “The wounded and suffering live here as well.”
“Are you a healer, then?”
“I’m studying. I came here four years ago.” She continued as they neared the main building: “I had broken my arm. I was tending an olive tree and reached too far while my brother should have been holding the ladder. The arm never set right and always gave me pain. Until I came here.”
“And you never left?”
“No. I can’t fully move my arm”—she paused to show that she could not raise it past her shoulder—“but the pain has ebbed, and I’ve stayed on to help others. Some are in far more agony than me.”
“It’s said that you offer comfort to soldiers,” Hanuvar said.
“We have some here. From many lands.”
Hanuvar had briefly hoped she would say none were currently in place. “From which lands do these soldiers come?”
She climbed the three steps to the entry and smiled benignly at him. “Our guests renounce their homelands if they stay here, along with all their struggles and their hatreds. We do not discuss pasts, so that refuge might be provided to all.”
“Of course,” Hanuvar said, hiding his irresolution as he tucked his face more deeply in his winter wrappings. If there were any Volani veterans left here after the chaotic withdrawal from Dervan lands, he wasn’t sure how he might be received. Even if they didn’t blame their general for the injuries that bound them to this place, they might not welcome his intrusion into what remained of their lives. Would they castigate him? Pass word to the revenants of his passage? Or would they welcome an opportunity to reunite with their kin, or even be capable of aiding in their rescue, providing they were well enough to depart?
Inside, the main building reminded Hanuvar of a temple, with its long straight aisle terminating in a great apse, although it lacked a large statue to a god. Much of the interior was divided into little apartment blocks of roofless rooms of fabric framed by sturdy timber. The curtained doors were open to some of the living quarters, revealing that each had enough room only for a cot and a small table or standing shelves displaying a few scrolls or personal items. Rania told them that these were standard guest quarters, where they themselves would sleep this evening, then led the way to a half circle of couches and stools placed before a huge central hearth. Two other people took their ease there, one a young man with his leg missing below the knee, another a middle-aged woman who looked completely normal until she glanced up at their arrival. Her eyes were haunted with longing for something forever vanished. They were dark wells, for drowning, and Hanuvar had to look away, wondering if his own face sometimes mirrored hers.
He stood to one side as Rania guided Antires to a couch near the flickering hearth and wrapped him in a blanket she picked from a fireside stand. As if by magic, more attendants in red tunics arrived with beverages, cheeses, and a bread loaf, which they deposited near Antires.
“What of you?” Rania asked Hanuvar. “Have you no hurts?”
“My needs are more basic. If you would show me to a washroom, I would be most grateful.”
“But of course.”
Hanuvar patted his friend’s shoulder. The Herrene, slowly chewing some cheese, looked more content than he had in days. The shivering had stopped and his breathing seemed near normal. “I’ll be back soon,” Hanuvar said.
Antires returned a satisfied nod. “I’ll be here.”
“Your friend will be fine.” Rania’s friendly smile should have been reassuring.
Hanuvar followed her into the left wing, wondering if his sense of misgiving was in any way justified, and if he’d feel more at ease once he shaved.
Rania told him this section of the building was built over hot springs, which heated the many small pools bubbling in their stone foundations. Though tempted to soak, he finished his bath quickly, then shaved by aid of a small bronze mirror. He returned to the main chamber in less than a half hour, walking swiftly through the long rows of canvas cubicles, strangely certain Antires would be absent on his return.
But his friend still lay in front of the fire on one of the comfortable couches, struggling to keep his eyes open. Antires had finally grown comfortable enough that he had set the blanket aside, and his robe gaped at the collar. One half-full mug sat on a camp table beside him, but the tray of food had been removed. The dead-eyed woman did not look up; the injured man snored, curled into a protective ball on one side of his wide, cushioned chair.
Rather than approaching, Hanuvar watched, amused as his friend surrendered at last and closed his eyes. He enviously wondered what it must feel like to relax so completely.
At the sound of someone walking their direction from up the apse, he turned to find a woman, robed like the others in pinkish red, though her garment was more finely fashioned, into a proper Dervan stola. A pyramidal lantern of opaque glass framed in brass, dangled in one hand, burning dimly from within.
She stopped a few paces out from Hanuvar. Her face was narrow, her chin pointed. She looked to be in her late thirties, though the years apparently did not weigh heavily, for she beamed like the others. If their expressions had been oddly pleasant, hers approached euphoria, as though she might erupt with spasms of joy at any moment. “I sense your pain,” she said to Hanuvar, as though his discomfort were the most important thing in the world.
He indicated Antires. “It’s my friend who’s suffered. I’ve just come from a warm bath.”
The woman walked closer and closer until Hanuvar understood she was intent on invading his personal space. She reached for his shoulder and grasped it. The scent of her hair ointment wafted over him, a mix of rose and some citrus fragrance.
He watched her face as her small, long-fingered hand tightened. Somehow he felt her touch as warm and soothing even through his clothing.
Her eyes had not left his own, and in their deeps he saw fascination and hunger. Intense physical interest from her would have been confusing enough, but this look was stranger still, and troubled him. But then so did the sense of warm contentment he felt at the woman’s proximity. Contrary to his natural impulse, and all natural instinct, he felt the pull of a smile, and strove to keep his expression neutral.
“I sense the pain you carry within,” she said.
“I am here only to see to my friend. He is the one who needs tending.”
He put his hand to hers and gently withdrew it.
“Your concern for your friend is admirable. You’re one of those who doesn’t understand the weight of his own burden. You are lost, and seek a home, because you can no longer return to yours.”
The accuracy of her words alarmed him. “Are you a mind reader, my lady?”
“No,” she answered with a laugh. “I’ve learned to sense these kinds of things.” Her smile was infectious. “Those who embrace the teachings of this valley find a land they can call home. Some suffer crippling physical injuries. Others have experienced privation, and misery, and loss. They have learned to laugh and smile again here. They are whole, no matter if they thought something missing before.”
He bowed his head so he could shift his gaze from her own. “My friend and I cannot stay.”
“I see I will make no progress with you until you are satisfied as to his safety.” She glided past him and on toward the patients at the fire. The woman with the sad eyes transformed almost on the instant, her gaze no longer vacant. A smile touched her lips, and then she sighed in pleasure. The wounded man seated to her right slept on, but his brow smoothed, and he shifted into a comfortable sprawl.
Hanuvar followed, enjoying the sense of ease her company granted him. Stepping to Antires’ head, he saw his friend grin in his sleep.
The woman set the lantern down upon the table and put a hand to its opaque side. Either she was inured to pain or the glass was strangely cool, for she did not flinch. She set her other hand to Antires’ forehead.
She closed her eyes. After a ten count, they opened. Her smile remained kind, but her gaze was sharp and searching.
Hanuvar struggled to mask his own strange joy.
“Why do you hold on to your pain?” she asked him. “You’re not one of those sort, are you?”
“I do not like to be changed against my will.”
“I understand. But I ask you to think of this. Maybe your pain is what changed you against your will, and it is our healing that returns you to your natural state.”
He allowed that was possible with a single nod, though he held off an impulse to praise her. “How is my friend?”
“I do not think there is lasting damage. He needs rest for another day or more. And I think we should watch his left foot to ensure that there is no frostbite.”
“I didn’t see you look at his foot.”
“I can see the effluence of a patient’s injuries without a mundane examination. For instance, I can see the places where you have old injuries by the way energy flows about your body. It is marred there near your knee, and along your arm, and in many other places, but most of all you have sustained injury to your very soul. There is such anguish there. What happened?”
“More than I care to say.”
She lifted her lantern. Her smile dimmed, and he felt shame for that. “I have pried too far,” she said. “I apologize.”
“No, you are very kind, both to my friend and myself. It is I who must apologize. I am . . . a private person.”
“As are so many who come here. Over time they know the power of our measures.”
She passed on to the others, and Hanuvar watched her talking with the woman, whose eyes might still be ringed by dark circles but were no longer hollow. He defeated the impulse to remain close to that spiritual warmth. Instead, he stepped apart, wondering how far the effect spread, and whether it was the healer’s power, or a property of her strange lantern.
From six paces out he still felt the effect. It didn’t begin to lessen until he’d passed beyond ten paces, and he still experienced a measure of its power at twenty. At thirty paces he felt empty and apart, as though he were in the midst of the vast ocean, with nothing to see on any hand but rising waves and a pale sky.
That sense of loneliness was so ordinary for him he was shocked at how much he despised its reintroduction, and how difficult it was to defeat the impulse to return to the healer’s comforting presence.
He knew he was not the kind who reveled in discomfort. Neither was he the kind who drowned his sorrow in wine; and the reeling ebullience of this experience was not so different from the artificial joy some were granted by an amphora.
The woman lingered over the two beside the fire, then passed slowly on along the hallway. Only once she was far along did Hanuvar return. Rania was gathering up Antires’ half-empty mug, and a platter left beside the other patients. The crippled man still rested comfortably. The sad-eyed woman’s thousand-yard stare had returned. And Antires shifted under his blanket, awake but sleepily eying his friend.
“This place is wonderful,” he said. “Why don’t we stop at more inns like this?”
Rania laughed and spoke to Hanuvar. “I saw Calisia tending you. You should feel honored. She doesn’t usually greet any but the most severely injured on their first day.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Hanuvar said.
Rania spoke with heartfelt sincerity. “She sees deeper than surface injury. Do you remember the tall man who helped with your horses? That’s Decius. There’s nothing physically wrong with him, but his son and daughter drowned and he couldn’t save them. His agony is real. And she helped.”
“I believe she could,” Hanuvar said, then changed the path of the conversation. “You said earlier that no one likes to talk about their pasts, but what if I’m looking for friends? I’m wondering if veterans from the Second Volani War once took refuge here.”
“They may have.”
“And do you know if any of them remain?”
She eyed him for a long moment. “Sometimes men come here, seeking other men with prices on their heads. You can understand why we don’t encourage this kind of inquiry.”
“Of course.”
“We would have to know and trust your motives first,” Rania continued.
“I don’t think we’ll be around here long enough to get to know each other well.”
“Don’t be in too big a hurry. You should give your friend a few days to rest.”
Hanuvar looked over at Antires, comfortably slumping on the couch. “Is that necessary? Another days’ travel might see us out of the highlands.”
“He’s weak. Surely you can tell that.”
“I suppose I can.”
“I’ll be back in just a little while to show you your chambers. Dinner will be served shortly.” She turned away.
“Your pardon, miss,” Hanuvar said, “but there’s something I must know.”
“Of course.” Rania paused with platter in hand.
“How do you sustain yourself? We surely owe you a donation for your hospitality.”
“We have little need for money.”
Hanuvar thought that refreshing and a little strange, but then perhaps visitors brought them all they needed to trade for their healing skills. He bowed his head and the woman departed.
He knelt beside Antires, remarking casually: “We must be on our guard.”
“For what?”
“There’s something here I don’t understand.”
Antires rolled his eyes. “What you don’t understand is a place where people are honestly trying to care for others.” He spoke too loudly, and Hanuvar raised a finger to his lips. Antires continued in a whisper. “It’s a rare thing, true. But instead of being suspicious, you should be grateful. Or at least you should savor it.”
“How does this place survive?”
“They seem to have enough.”
“What about Ceori tribes, and bandits?”
“Didn’t you say your scouts had told you about it? What did they say?”
“That the Ceori considered it a holy site. But that wouldn’t stop bandits. These people must have some kind of protectors.”
“That doesn’t matter to us, does it?”
“We have the lovely ones to protect us,” the woman to their right said.
Hanuvar has assumed her lost in her own worries. He bobbed his head in greeting, then asked a question of her. “Who are they?”
“The protectors. Chosen from birth to guard the valley.”
“What are they?”
“A warrior breed, selected for their grace, and power, and beauty. They’re tall and strong and happy. It’s said they can run further and faster than normal men, and throw twice as far. And in those rare instances when they must go into battle, they do so laughing, for they feel no pain.”
“Do you believe that?” Hanuvar asked.
“I’ve seen them,” she admitted. “And there are so many miracles in this place, why should I doubt stories about another one?”
“True enough.” Hanuvar nodded his thanks, then returned Antires’ amused smile, though he did not mean it. He wished to be gone from this place and its strange healers with their peculiar powers. Much as he craved company, he wished it to arise from the fellowship of men and women he knew and loved, not through some artifice.
One night, he thought. He would permit Antires to recover in safety, and take the opportunity to search for any of his surviving veterans.
II
Dinner was simple fare, eaten in a small room where less than a dozen people sat at long tables. There were hardboiled eggs, and soup, and dark bread. Hanuvar and Antires were seated in a room dedicated to the “newcomers,” as one of their hosts told them, people who had happened by in only the last few weeks. Most were bandaged in some way. One of them was a pale, mustached man. Clothed as he was in checkered pants, his gold hair combed back, he was of obvious Ceori extraction, and Hanuvar knew from the yellow and green cloth pattern that he was a Cemoni tribesman. The man’s right sleeve had been cut away and a bandage wrapped his lower arm and palm.
Hanuvar offered him his wineskin with the traditional greeting of the Cemoni tribe, whose language he spoke fluently, though he deliberately did so with a Dervan accent. The Ceori took the wine, offered a salute to his gift giver, then drank deep.
He lowered it with a smack of his lips. “You speak our language well, Dervan. How do you know it?”
“I’ve traded with people through the mountains many times.” Hanuvar nodded at the bandage. “How did you come by that injury?”
“Battle,” the warrior said with a dismissive shrug. “You should have seen the other five. Enurians,” he added. His boasting was typical of his people. It wasn’t enough that he probably had faced two or more enemy tribesmen, he had to add a few more, as if he were one of the deadliest men alive.
“How long have you been healing?” Hanuvar asked.
“About a week. The wound was infected when I got here and my uncle didn’t think I would make it, but look.” He flexed the fingers visible just below the clean white linen.
“Impressive,” Hanuvar said honestly.
“It is.” The Cemoni puffed out his chest. “Do you know, they didn’t have to get me drunk to treat me!”
Hanuvar assumed he was boasting of his own manliness, but the tribesman clarified. “So fine is their medicine and the power of their magic I felt no pain! And there was blood, but they kept most of it in me.”
“That’s fine work,” Hanuvar agreed. “Have you seen any old soldiers around? Some of the men from my brother’s unit were said to have come here, and I know some patients stay on.”
The warrior looked thoughtful, so Hanuvar passed his wine back, aware the while Antires watched curiously. The Herrene didn’t know any of the Ceori languages.
The Cemoni took another swig, then passed the wine back. “Good vintage, that. Yes, I have seen some Dervans, but none your age.”
Antires leaned toward him. “Are you asking him if there are any Volani?”
Hanuvar smiled and explained to the warrior, “My friend wants to know if there are any Volani.”
“I understand Dervan,” the Cemoni said, and thought for a moment. “I think I might have seen one limping around, an older fellow. But most of you dark foreigners look alike, unless you’re as black as your friend there.”
These lands had been passed back and forth among the Ceori tribes for centuries, and they still thought of their Dervan conquerors as interlopers rather than overlords, which is why so many had joined Hanuvar’s forces.
The Cemoni’s information left him troubled. He would almost have preferred a definitive no. He would have to continue his surreptitious investigation, which, given his assumed identity, would only be that much more challenging. No one would assume he sought Volani for a good reason.
After the meal, everyone was encouraged to visit the washrooms and then retire to their cubicles. Hanuvar dismissed the notion of exploring the valley at night. The dawn hours were a better bet, although he would have to look quickly.
Antires and he had been put into adjoining spaces, Hanuvar on a corner between two blocks of the fabric-walled rooms. Hanuvar sat on a stool and talked softly to his friend for a short while, but the playwright’s lids were heavy and he soon nodded off.
Hanuvar managed his evening stretches within his curtained chamber then readied for bed. He laid his unsheathed gladius in reach, put his knife beneath his pillow, then lay back. Occasionally someone walked along either this aisle or one more distant, the tap of their feet beating a quiet pattern on the old stone.
Here in this templelike space he felt an impulse to speak to the gods of his people, as he had rarely done since he had departed for his fateful return voyage to Volanus. Only thrice, in the long days since, had he prayed, once before he attempted to rescue the captured Volani garrison, and again when he had placed Melgar’s ashes upon his final resting place. But in truth those had both been formalistic rites rather than heartfelt expressions of devotion. His last true prayer had been offered the night he’d finally reached that sand spit of an island. And he had hardly managed that properly, being both exhausted and racked by grief for his people and the sacrifice of Eledeva.
It never helped to dwell upon the pain from the absence of those he’d lost, but sometimes he could not help thinking of them, and then he worked to recall their warmth and wisdom and company, to see their features before they lay bloody or broken. He didn’t always succeed.
The ceiling was invisible, for the light of a few oil lamps scattered through the great building lacked the strength to illuminate the vast vault. Upon that dark canvas his memory conjured the glitter of the tawny gold scales of his friend and ancient protector of his city as a sunbeam broke through the clouds, bent through the water, and shone upon Eledeva as she sank. He tried to imagine her soaring, head raised in joy, but his mind returned him to her death.
He had known she’d succumbed to her mortal wound, and that his human strength could not possibly pull her to the surface, and yet he had reached for her, because an errant current swung up her head and for a scant moment he’d thought she’d found a final spark and would push with mighty wings for the surface.
Instead she dropped away into darkness, lost to him like all else.
She’s gone, he told himself. She fought to her last so that you might live. Honor her, but move forward.
He had been a soldier all his life and learned the trick of grabbing sleep the moment it presented itself, but that evening he could not. He pushed past the sorrow and reviewed his plans, still distracted by the surrounding atmosphere. This temple left him feeling open and exposed and on guard. He resolved to sleep only lightly, if at all.
And thus he awoke early at a scuffing sound beyond the curtain.
III
He did not recall the substance of his dreams, but at the last he had stood along the balcony, holding Imilce’s hand while the sun rose beyond the sea. It was Ravella who’d liked to share his mornings, not Imilce, and their quarters in Utria had been far from his balcony in Volanus, but the illogic of the moment hadn’t occurred to his dream self, and he woke smiling and content.
No matter his mood, he knew a sound had roused him, and so he flipped off the top cover and slid from the bed with knife in hand, moving at a crouch. He wore his leggings but was barefoot as he crouched by the canvas flap that was the opening. He breathed through his mouth, utterly still. Only after a moment did he realize that the old injury in his knee, always stiff in the mornings, did not trouble him. He started to grin at that realization, then gritted his teeth at the exaggerated reaction. Calisia or one of the others was into his emotions again.
Someone in the hall climbed to their feet with a creak of sandal and the crack of a ligament. They must have been sitting about four feet away and in the company of others, for he heard other sandals scuff the stone as the group receded. He let them pass then stealthily stepped from his resting place to peer into the corridor. He glimpsed one of the red-tunicked temple acolytes disappearing around the corner. None lingered.
His elevated mood eased at their departure and he savaged its afterglow with a snarl.
Were these healers truly so devoted to their craft that they would tend their unknowing charges while they slept?
Had they been seeing to him alone? If so, why?
He stopped to look in upon Antires, saw that he slept easily, and returned to his curtained chamber to dress. Though the temple remained dark, the feel in the air was of the hour before sunrise.
He reached another corner of the canvas apartments and crouched. Seeing no one in motion, he found his way to a side door and slipped outside.
The sun had not yet broken through the dark height of the mountains, but the horizon had begun to brighten with predawn glow. A new film of snow had accumulated over the night, frosted and sparkling like star points. As Hanuvar moved into the chill air, his booted feet crunching through the crust, other cloaked figures left their own buildings. Many advanced into lean-tos to care for cows and donkeys and horses. Others walked toward the chicken coops. Yet more trudged their way out with buckets, off to gather water. The light climbed, and though the valley itself lay in shadows, the roosters crowed for the coming dawn.
Hanuvar passed among the edges of the little settlement, scanning the barns and outbuildings where the people worked.
He saw many men, and some women. Some had suffered physical injuries and disfigurements, and a few moved with difficulty, as though they struggled with something unseen, or some wound hidden by their garments. They were universally lean, their looks remote and inward turning. No one paid him any heed. He had the sense they would barely have taken note of him if he were to march by pounding a drumskin. Their hungry, fixed looks reminded him of old legionaries waiting for the tavern to open.
He glimpsed many Ceori, distinctive by garb and hairstyle, and Dervans, inevitably clean shaven, as well as an occasional Herrene, Cerdian, and even a lone little Ekamite. Nowhere, though, did he see anyone dressed like Volani, and he saw no one older than their middle thirties until he glimpsed a gray-mustached wood chopper.
Hanuvar saw him from the side, another Ceori in checked pants. Though his face was seamed and weathered, he stood tall and strong. His left arm was missing below his elbow, but muscle corded the other arm, bare to almost the bicep. With his hand he set a wood log upright, then lifted an axe and sundered it with a mighty blow before tossing each of the halves into a nearby wheelbarrow. He turned to pull another from the pile.
Hanuvar recognized something familiar in the man, and after a few moments of observation he saw past the wrinkles and the injury and knew that he looked upon Acunix, third son of an Isubre chieftain, a junior officer in Hanuvar’s army, then a captain of infantry. Acunix had chosen to return to his people rather than journey with Hanuvar to stave off Ciprion’s invasion. Once, he had valued the man’s expertise, and listened to his counsel. He hoped that he still might.
By and by, Acunix grew conscious he was being watched, and he glanced at Hanuvar as he readied a third log and chopped it. His eyes were not only tired, they were defeated. Just as Acunix was readying to toss the halves into the wheelbarrow his head snapped again toward Hanuvar.
For a brief moment he simply stared. Then his eyes widened, alive at last. He dropped his axe and sank to his knees. His head bowed and he moaned, then mumbled in the language of his people.
“I knew you would come for me at last, Lord Arawen.” His remaining hand shook.
“Rise, Acunix,” Hanuvar said gently. “I am not the lord of the dead. It’s merely me.”
Slowly the Ceori dared to lift his eyes. “General?” he asked. The crush of Hanuvar’s stride through the snow sounded enormously loud. He stopped before his former officer and offered his hand.
The callused, powerful fingers tentatively reached up, and Hanuvar pulled him to his feet.
Still the warrior stared. Hanuvar looked at Acunix’s threadbare tunic and cloak, and the torc of twisted metal about his thinning throat.
“If you are man, and not a god, what are you doing here?” Acunix’s voice held the embers of hope.
“I’m passing through. A friend was nearly overcome by the mountain journey. He seems fine now.”
A troubled expression crossed the Ceori’s face. “And they’re going to let you pass through?”
“Is there a reason why they wouldn’t?”
“So long as it’s a minor injury, and they’ve got enough of us here they can feed on, they’ll let you go. But if they’ve shown any interest in you or your friend, you’d best be careful.”
Hanuvar didn’t like the sound of that. “They’ve shown interest.”
“How much?”
“A lot. In me,” Hanuvar answered. “In my memories. A band of them were monitoring me early this morning. Giving me happy dreams.”
“They weren’t giving you happy dreams. That was just accident. They were eating your pain.”
Hanuvar wanted to ask how he knew that, and how it was done, but those weren’t the immediately important questions. “How much danger are we in? I told Calisia we were planning to leave.”
“If she’s really interested, she may not let you. Where’s your friend?”
“Still sleeping.”
Acunix’s jaw opened slightly. Hanuvar had never before seen the Ceori look disappointed in him. “Why did you leave him behind?”
“I wanted to see if any of my veterans were hiding here.”
Acunix shook his head. “I’m the only one left. You’d better go check on your friend.”
“They were interested in me,” Hanuvar reminded him.
“You don’t realize what you’ve wandered into here. This is an ugly game board, and if they want you, they’ll play him against you. Maybe they’ll claim he’s sicker than they first thought. Maybe they’ll haul him off for surgery so he’ll be a little longer recovering, so that they can get their hooks into you.”
There was much more that Hanuvar wished to know, but he saw he had no time. “I would have your aid, if you will give it.”
Acunix firmed his jaw, stilled for a moment, then bent down and snatched his axe. “I will follow where my general leads.”
Hanuvar turned and strode quickly for the central building, the Ceori trotting at his side. “Why are you here? What happened to your arm?”
“They took it piece by piece.” At Hanuvar’s doubtful look, Acunix added: “You can’t imagine, can you? The treatment feels good. So good, it’s better than sex. It lingers with you.”
Hanuvar found this difficult to credit. “That’s why you stay?”
Acunix looked off toward the central building as he answered. “I tried to flee, once. The lovely ones brought me back.”
There was that moniker again. Hanuvar would inquire more about them soon. For now, though, he saw Acunix meant to continue, and listened: “They only let you go if you don’t know the truth—like those who’ve recovered from minor wounds. Or if you’re going to bring back more people. Where’s your beard?”
“I’m in disguise. Why did you come here? You were never badly wounded in the war.”
“My people have a habit of fighting. You know that. I had most of a hand taken off addressing a matter of honor.”
“Over what?”
“The taste of my brother’s mead.”
“Must have been some good mead.”
Acunix smiled wryly. “Not really.”
That was all the time they had for pleasantries. They neared the stairs of the main entrance. “Tell me about our opposition.”
“This place only has a handful of warriors, but they’re tough.”
“You’ve fought tough men.”
“These don’t feel any pain. And there are a select few that have been changed.”
“The lovely ones?” Hanuvar looked over to him.
“They’ve been selected from the start because they’re well made men, but the dangerous thing is that they don't have ordinary limits. No pain doesn’t just mean that they fight when they’re wounded, it means they practice constantly. They don’t do much more than eat and exercise. It’s said they have their arms and legs broken again and again so their bones are longer and thicker than those of normal men.”
Hanuvar looked over at the Isubre warrior to make sure he’d understood correctly. Acunix came from a culture that loved to boast and exaggerate, but all of those habits had been worked out of him as he learned how to deliver reports. Hanuvar judged that the Ceori spoke the truth, at least as he understood it.
They took the stairs under the pediment and Hanuvar pushed his way through the rightmost door. As before, the light shown dimly in the cavernous chamber, though this time sunbeams filtered into the space through high latticework windows. Acunix looked to left and right, as if he expected at any moment to be surprised by one of the lovely ones.
Hanuvar headed for the cubicle of Antires, imagining two possible outcomes. Either he would push the curtain aside and his friend would still be lying there, curious about the interruption, or he would push the curtain aside and find him gone.
Antires wasn’t there.
“He might be at breakfast,” Hanuvar said, gazing at the empty cot.
“The breakfast bell hasn’t sounded yet. I suppose he might be in the privy.”
“Or maybe we’ll waste time looking there.” He clenched his fists. “Where do they perform their surgeries?”
IV
Acunix said the easiest way to the healing rooms was through the kitchens, so he and Hanuvar joined the line of servants bearing the morning goods to the back entrance. Hanuvar assisted a man burdened with two containers of gourds and Acunix grabbed a bundle of wood and they queued up with the others. Hanuvar pretended he felt no concern, but seeing his impatience, Acunix told him the tenders would be working on a simpler course for the first half hour. While Hanuvar wasn’t entirely certain what that meant, he inferred there might yet be time.
He surreptitiously watched the large man in dark furs guarding the door in the stone wall as they ambled close. The sentinel stood a full head taller and perhaps half again as broad through the shoulders as Hanuvar himself. If he carried weapons, they were hidden within his cloak, but Hanuvar briefly saw his wrists when he scratched at his face with a gloved hand, and they were almost as thick as Hanuvar’s upper arm.
The guard’s face was beardless, his eyes shining and large. Even at rest the corners of his mouth slanted upward, as though he was delighted by everything he saw.
Hanuvar looked down so he would not draw the man’s regard. He walked slump shouldered, and with a slight limp. Before long he and Acunix had passed the guard’s careless onceover to shuffle through a wide wooden doorway. Beyond lay a cluttered windowless backroom. A pair of attendants in red tunics and dark robes pointed those with supplies to shelves and empty spots on the long tables stretched down the center of the room. Flickering oil lamps dangled from ceiling chains.
Hanuvar contrived to stumble as he set his bundle down, knocking aside not just his own gourds but a basket of some gathered earlier. He apologized and bent to help, as slowly as possible. While he knelt, others placed their produce and left. Acunix bent to assist and managed to knock over a basket of tinder on a lower shelf, and then busied himself with cleanup duties. Before very long the two of them were the only servants in the room. One of the red-tunicked men told them to be quick about it, then closed the exit door and glared at them impatiently. The other departed through the curtain with two cages of chickens.
Hanuvar and Acunix made short work of their cleanup duties and hurried shamefacedly for the man at the exit door.
When they reached him, Acunix grabbed him by the throat while Hanuvar momentarily stunned him with the flat of his blade. They tied and gagged him in a corner and then Acunix slid the outer door’s lock bar into place while Hanuvar moved to the curtain leading into the room beyond.
Hanuvar smelled blood as he neared it. He opened a small gap with two fingers and peered through.
The kitchen was a wide room lit by shafts of sunlight gleaming through windows set just below the ceiling. Stone ovens, blasting heat, stood open in the wall to the south, and the scent of baking bread wafted from some. The others must have been built to feed large groups.
A long aisle of heavy tables stretched along the kitchen’s center. One was stacked with gourds, and a pile of winter greens. More sat empty.
A pair of goats lay beneath busy hands upon a cutting board midway along the room. While both still breathed, the fur and skin had been flayed away from the side of one of the creatures’ faces, and an attendant was sawing the leg of another along the knee joint. Copious amounts of blood dripped down the stone floor, both from the ruined face and the half-dismembered leg, and yet neither goat behaved as though they were in distress.
Calisia watched with three men in red tunics, standing apart from the two involved in the surgery. She laughed silently while the others beamed. A pock-marked man waited beside her, his bright eyes glazed with delight. The breath of each came heavily, and drool dripped steadily from the lips of an attendant beside the goat, her visible hand shaking. Not just their faces but their stances betrayed a hungry yearning, as though they were eager for orgiastic pleasures painted upon tawdry tavern walls.
Though the sun and ovens supplied plentiful light, Calisia’s lantern glowed more brightly than ever. It sat on the empty table before her, and she caressed its sloping sides with both hands.
Hanuvar quietly set the curtain back, examining his own reaction in disgust. The room of horrors troubled him only on an intellectual level, for the dark sorcery had reached him and left him invigorated and gleeful.
Acunix, at his shoulder, chuckled. “Do you feel that?”
“I do.” Hanuvar’s own voice was barely audible. “Is this where they’ll bring my friend?”
“They work on men and women in the next room over. Calisia always starts her day here, though. Like a rich Dervan with a multicourse meal. She snacks a little first.”
“What’s in the lantern?”
Acunix shrugged. “Some say it’s an emerald the size of a skull. Others say it’s a withered human hand, or a small, hideous demon.”
“No one knows, then,” Hanuvar said. “But it’s important to her. Do you think that light powers her magic?”
Acunix’s face creased in thought. “It might. She always has it with her.”
“I’m going to test a theory. Our three horses were left in the corral just outside the entrance cave. Can you ready them, and one for yourself?”
Acunix saw through his intent. “You’re going up against them alone? Foes recover fast when they feel no pain.”
“It’s hard to be fast when your knee’s taken out.”
Acunix smiled thinly. “Don’t you have anyone else?”
“In this valley I have you, and my Herrene friend. Will he be drugged?”
“Almost surely.”
“So I’ll need to carry him.”
“Yes. You need me,” Acunix said. “Don’t worry. I only need one hand for an axe.”
There was no more time to talk. Hanuvar peered back into the room. Both goats bled out while they were being carved, and both their butchers and the watchers shook in ecstasy.
“You go left.” Hanuvar headed in.
No one noted him at first. As Acunix sprinted forward with his axe and drove it down through the surgeon’s shoulder, Hanuvar tripped the first attendant against the stone table, sent the second spinning, and lifted the lantern.
The first man Acunix struck made no sound. Calisia’s eyes rolled as though she were dizzy. She clutched vainly at the lantern’s sides, but there was no purchase point and Hanuvar dragged it out of reach. He ducked a sweeping arm blow from the man to her left, sliced his leg above the knee, and slung the lantern into the nearest oven. It shattered with a satisfying crash. Something inside tumbled free, a bright shape caressed by flame.
His artificial joy vanished on the instant, replaced by the familiar adrenaline rush of battle, followed by a familiar sense of slowed time in combat. Screams erupted from a second man mortally wounded by Acunix. His opponent crumpled, wailing and clutching his injured leg.
“Why would you do that?” Calisia shouted hoarsely, even as one of the attendants thrust his hands into the fire toward the writhing thing and the shattered lantern. He joined the screaming.
Hanuvar leapt the lamed acolyte and threw open the door into the next room.
Other shouts of pain rang though the building ahead. In the next chamber red-tunicked attendants rose in alarm, then fled at the sight of Acunix’s bloody axe. Three naked patients lay befuddled on stone tables before them. The youngest had a long series of scars up both sides of her chest and down her thigh. Another was the injured Ceori from the night before. The third was Antires. He smiled blearily at Hanuvar, who snatched a robe, wrapped him in it, and headed out the door with his friend over his shoulders.
“Darag’s Balls,” Acunix swore as Hanuvar raced into the main apse. “My bad arm feels like it’s on fire!”
He and Acunix snatched up the belongings cached in the rooms Hanuvar and Antires had occupied and bore them along with the half-insensate Herrene into the frosty air.
Chased by nothing more than the cries of pain, they hurried for the corral. Antires roused as Hanuvar ran on, then loudly objected to being set in the snow. Hanuvar forced clothes on him while Acunix worked saddles onto their horses. As he finished, someone rang a bell from the sanctuary. Rania and another of the outer sentries wandered down from the tunnel to ask what they were doing. They weren’t smiling anymore, and one of them carried a spear.
Hanuvar pleaded help with an injured man and stunned Rania when she bent to check Antires.
Acunix axed the other when she jabbed their spear at them. Hanuvar paused only to liberate a supply of spears, and then they were out and racing as fast as they dared down the long stairwell that led down the mountainside. A vast landscape of folded, pine-girt mountains stretched ahead.
Antires clung stubbornly to the saddle horn. His hat sat skewed to the left.
“Damn but my arm hurts,” Acunix said as they reached the trail. They headed south. “The one I don’t have anymore,” he added. “Strange, isn’t it? Do you have anything with a kick?
Hanuvar handed him his wineskin, and the Isubre warrior had a long draught before he passed it back. “Dervan wine. It would take a lot of that to get to me. Damned magic. I had to present myself for treatment every other day or it would start aching like this.” He looked back over his shoulder. “You think they’re going to follow?”
“I don’t imagine any of them will be in a forgiving mood.”
The Ceori laughed gruffly. “Well, you threw their demon into a fire and broke their spell. Maybe that means they can’t send the lovely ones after you.”
“We can hope. Isubre lands are still about a day and a half out, unless your borders have shifted further than I know.”
“Well, they’re always shifting, but that’s about right.” They passed a huge lump of rock and lost sight of the stairs. “You never told me what you’re doing in our lands again.”
“Passing through.”
“Only passing through?”
“For now.”
Though Acunix was silent for a long moment, Hanuvar could sense he had more to say, and finally the veteran did. “You know some Isubre still think you’re going to return and lead them against Derva.”
“I have no army.”
“I think they’re hoping you’ll build a Ceori army.”
“The Dervans would eat them for breakfast.”
“That would be a bloody breakfast.”
Hanuvar told him what Acunix surely knew. “The Ceori are brave but don’t have the numbers.”
Acunix accepted the truth with a weary nod. “Why is the Herrene with you?”
“He wants to write a play about me.”
Acunix gave that idea the resounding laugh Hanuvar thought it deserved. “I saw one of those when we were in Utria. So some actor in a mask will pretend to be you and moan to the gods, strut around with a sword, and talk about the battle he just had? That sounds just like you.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Hanuvar agreed.
Acunix surveyed the dark-skinned younger man, barely holding himself upright and barely conscious of his surroundings. “Is he any good in a fight?”
“He’s brave,” Hanuvar said, “and he’s been a loyal friend, when I’ve had few others.”
“So he’s sort of a mascot, then.”
Hanuvar laughed. “Better than that.”
The Isubre warrior didn’t ask about much else. They weren’t on a nature stroll, and had to devote most of their attention to navigating the often difficult terrain. After only a little longer the ground was even enough that all three were finally able to sit saddle for long stretches.
Hour by hour they passed on through the mountains, which rose above the forested paths. At midday they drew close to a large peak whose gentle, snowy slope climbed higher than its surrounding sisters. Contrary to popular belief, the Ceori didn’t name every mountain, though this one was called Sarestix, a word that meant the Mother of Snows. Hanuvar would recognize the craggy bend at its height from nearly any angle of approach.
Antires had finally regained his senses and after complaining about how his tunic was on backward and adjusting other articles, he listened in astonishment as Hanuvar summarized what had happened. Once the Herrene had satisfied his curiosity, he all but pleaded with Acunix to speak about his war experiences with Hanuvar. Over drinks in a tavern the Isubre would have been expansive, but under pointed interrogation while negotiating deer trails in the high mountains he proved monosyllabic.
They had just veered slightly uphill, still under the crag of the Snow Mother, when Acunix drew to a stop and held up his hand. Hanuvar halted on the instant. He heard only the call of birds and the whistling wind, but trusted the Ceori’s instincts more than his own this close to the man’s native lands.
Antires caught up to them and listened impatiently before breaking the silence. “What is it?”
“My arm stopped hurting,” Acunix answered.
“What does that mean?” Antires asked. “I thought you killed their pain demon.”
“I don’t feel anything yet,” Hanuvar said.
“The magic doesn’t have its claws into you as deeply,” Acunix said.
Hanuvar considered the surrounding terrain, then pointed up slope, to a narrow rocky promontory projecting from the mountainside a hundred feet above and to the left.
Acunix slipped from his saddle and strode swiftly uphill.
“What are we doing?” Antires asked.
“Choosing our ground.” Hanuvar slid off his horse, taking the reins and those of the Isubre’s mount. He started after his warrior friend. “Acunix, how far away can you feel that thing’s influence?”
The warrior did not break stride, but answered with an over-the-shoulder glance. “No more than half a league.”
Antires swore. He climbed out of the saddle and followed, pulling his mount and the pack horse as well. “He’s a Ceori woodsman, though, isn’t he? Can’t we lose them?”
“Our tracks are easy to follow in the snow,” Hanuvar answered. “And they may be sensing us through our injuries.”
Hanuvar and Antires picketed two of the horses and trusted the others to stay close, then hurried up the steep grade. The outthrust cliff projected no more than twenty paces, and small trees at its edge leaned toward the drop. A selection of boulders large and small littered the flat, snowy ground before the edge. Acunix was already prying some of them up. Hanuvar ordered Antires to ready a stock of stone-laced snowballs.
“You expect to hurt them with these?” the playwright asked.
“We might get lucky,” Hanuvar said.
Acunix, chopping ice from the bottom of boulders, addressed the Herrene’s confusion: “If someone’s throwing snowballs at your head, you might not see a spear someone else is lobbing.”
As the Isubre said that, Hanuvar was arranging the spears he’d taken from the sentries.
Antires started patting snowballs together. “How many do you think they’ll send after us?”
Acunix answered. “They only have a dozen real soldiers, and maybe ten of the lovely ones. They’ll probably leave a few regular soldiers behind, but as to how many they send . . .” He paused in his ice chipping to favor Hanuvar with a half smile. “Well, the general threw their god in the oven. That probably doesn’t sit well with the devoted.”
“I should have killed Calisia,” Hanuvar said. “The worst mistake I’ve made in months.”
“You did think you’d destroyed her magic,” Acunix pointed out. “And you never killed without reason.”
While that was true, Hanuvar rarely assumed, and had done so when he thought their attack had worked. Pursuit might have been inevitable but would not have been as well coordinated without a leader. He frowned at himself. He labored with Acunix to prepare their battleground, alert for motion not just below, but the clear, gentle slope lying between their cliff and the forest edge above. If their opponents had any sense, it was from that direction that they would strike.
His vigilance was soon rewarded. Before much longer a red-robed man emerged from the forest higher on the mountain side. Another almost identical figure joined him. They stared for a long moment then returned to the cover of the tall old pines.
“They’ve no choice but a head-on assault,” Hanuvar said, mostly for Antires’ benefit.
“And we shouldn’t worry about that?” Antires said.
“See that space that slopes down between the tree line and the start of our ledge?” Hanuvar pointed. “That leaves them wide open when they get close to us. So will a charge up either side toward us from below, although they’re probably too smart for that.” He put a hand to the boulders he and Acunix had arranged. “And we can duck behind these if they have spears or arrows. Though Acunix tells me they’re unlikely to use them.”
“They’ll want to capture us alive,” Acunix assured him.
Hanuvar slipped into his cuirass, waving away offers of help from Acunix and Antires. Before leaving the Isles of the Dead he’d selected the ideally sized armor from the Dervan supplies; from greaves to helm he was well fitted. There was nothing to offer either of his companions but the shield, useless to Acunix and unwanted by Antires, though the playwright placed it in the snow beside him while he manufactured snowballs. Antires was still making them when the first rank of attackers emerged from the trees on the slope above. Eight ordinary men dashed out in two lines of four, sword in hand. The shock troops, and the distraction. Far behind them strode two of the towering lovely ones, cloaked in blue and smiling brightly. Brass gauntlets gleamed on their massive forearms, and rippling biceps strained against their long red sleeves.
Hanuvar knew their intent—catch the three escapees fighting the front rankers so the more dangerous men could close and finish. Any veteran could have predicted that move, but it was an effective tactic. Hanuvar dropped one of the four with a spear through the throat. Acunix’s cast drove through the next man’s chest. The injured soldier kept running; Hanuvar’s next spear took him down.
The remaining skirmishers found themselves struggling through a field of well-placed boulders; one tripped and barely caught himself. The other was met by Acunix, who leapt their wall of cover with a savage cry, ducked a sword blow, and drove his axe through the warrior’s face. As the dying man sank, Acunix howled in glee and yanked his weapon free.
Acunix climbed back to safety as the five remaining troops came on.
Antires laid into two men with a barrage of snowballs, having apparently grasped his goal was to distract and break the charge so the enemy’s line was staggered. It was ever easier to meet a single man rather than a line of them.
Experienced warriors would have struggled to regroup. The warriors of the temple did not manage even that. While they might have faced bandits and hunted fugitives, they’d never matched weapons with true soldiers, and they paid for it with their lives.
The battle was far removed from the elaborate duels of Dervan gladiatorial combat. There was no patient circling, or thrust and counter thrust. The attackers charged in screaming, and soon it was a fury of swipe and thrust and kick and duck, the plunge of weapons into steaming flesh, and the spill of reeking entrails.
Though Hanuvar had battled in many strange circumstances, this one was distinct because his opponents did not immediately drop when given debilitating wounds. He slashed one man’s arm nearly all the way through, but it was the momentum of Hanuvar’s strike that stopped him from driving his own sword in. Hanuvar leapt back, and Antires pierced the man through the chest with a spear before sliding back. He’d been told to fill the gap, and did so bravely.
Another attacker dropped his sword after Hanuvar’s preemptive blow cut through the fingers of his blade hand, but the man charged anyway, his other hand outstretched in a strangler’s grasp. Hanuvar ran him through, but still had to pull the blade free and slash his neck before the body sank away. Only after his attacker fell did Hanuvar feel blood tracking down his neck, and a quick probe with his fingers found a superficial gash left by the man’s nails.
Yet he felt no pain. Apparently the protective sorcery employed by their enemies was as indiscriminate as the joy.
The skirmishers were down, and before the lovely ones closed the gap Hanuvar had a brief moment to scan his men. Antires stood resolute, hood cast back, eyes glittering, his spearpoint trailing blood. Once he had said he was no warrior, but he could no longer claim that. Acunix was splattered with blood, and grinned madly through a mask of it. It was impossible to see at a glance if any was his.
The lovely ones trotted toward them, one ahead of the other. Each clutched a club with a flattened end. Nets hung limply from their off hands.
Hanuvar gave command. “Antires, snowballs on the last.”
As the Herrene dropped his spear—he should have planted it so he wouldn’t later have to scramble for it—Hanuvar shifted his sword to his left hand, unlimbered one of his two knives, took careful aim, and flung it at the first.
A meaty arm swept up as if to ward it away, and the blade drove deep into the back of the lovely one’s hand. It didn’t slow the big blond’s progress in the slightest. Hanuvar took up one of the last of their spears, sword still gripped.
“He’s mine,” Acunix snarled, but Hanuvar motioned him back as a net with weighted ends sailed toward them. He plunged his spear into it and whirled it deftly overhead, then tossed it over his back, where it harmlessly draped a nearby boulder. The blond lovely one reached the wall and swiped with his club. Hanuvar ducked and drove the spear point into his opponent’s face, resulting in an explosion of blood and teeth. The lovely one, now a mask of horror, was unfazed, even by Acunix slashing him in the side with an axe.
The second lovely one had slowed to shield his face from the Herrene’s flurry of snowballs. Whether he felt pain or no, their foe couldn’t fight the instinct to protect his eyes, and so he missed the approach of Hanuvar’s spear until it was standing out through one of his overlong arms. As the mustached warrior grabbed the haft and yanked the point free with a sprinkle of blood, a third of the lovely ones raced at them, followed by three smaller figures on the tree line’s edge, all robed. One was a slender, female form, a glowing triangular lamp held in one white-mittened hand. This last lovely one was the reserve, and by committing him the opponents revealed how desperate they had become.
Calisia pointed at Hanuvar, who would have given much for an archer or slingsman.
“They will smash your bones!” she cried. “But you will live on and on, broken and fertile with pain!”
The blond lovely one delivered a blow to Acunix’s chest that sent the Ceori flying. The enemy warrior bled profusely from a deep wound along his neck, but moved as if unaware. Antires thrust a spear into his thigh, but the big man laughed. As he reached to pull it free, Hanuvar drove his sword into his nose and out the back of his head. The blond staggered and fell twitching.
Hanuvar shouted Antires down as another net whipped overhead. It wrapped around the Herrene’s leg.
Hanuvar lifted the last spear and awaited the advance of the brown mustached lovely one, who cleared the boulders in an easy leap. Hanuvar drove a spear at his face then retreated, leading him back, knowing from the trail of marking stones he’d placed that he neared the drop off. Acunix rose and shook his head, blood flowing freely down one arm.
Their foe slung a wooden club at Hanuvar’s head and he leaned away. Before he could recover another swipe came, and a third, and Hanuvar’s spearpoint broke against the armor beneath his attacker’s furred cloak. The lovely one’s weird smile widened at sight of the broken weapon, then Hanuvar drove the broken point at his throat.
The warrior leaned away, lost his footing and stumbled, and Hanuvar dropped, slamming his side into the huge man’s leg. Hanuvar released his blade as he slid, his center of gravity keeping him from the edge. The warrior lost his footing and slipped off the cliff, landing head first close to where the horses were hobbled. One of them whinnied in alarm at his still, broken-necked body.
Hanuvar snatched up his sword and climbed to his feet. A garden of the slain lay on every side. Antires, spear in one hand, waited beside Acunix, sagging weakly. A terrible gash had opened the Isubre warrior’s crippled arm. It wept blood.
The last of the lovely ones strode toward them, black haired and grinning. It might be that he was trying to rattle them with the spear he tossed, or he might simply have grown angry at the death of his fellows. His fixed expression gave little clue.
Hanuvar tried to sidestep the cast, and didn’t pull back far enough. The spear was thrown with such strength that its edge cut through the sculpted Dervan muscles of his cuirass and sliced the front of his stomach. The impact upset his balance, but he felt no pain. The lovely one threw the net he carried in his other hand. The toss was well timed, and well aimed; Hanuvar threw himself forward and one of the weighted ends brushed his back. He shot to his feet, trying not to worry about how deadly his wound was.
The lovely one vaulted the boulders, batted aside a spear thrust from Antires, and smiled a terrible smile. “It won’t be so bad,” he said. “Calisia can save you, still.”
The warrior didn’t flinch as Hanuvar thrust at him with his sword. Hanuvar backstepped, aware there were only ten paces behind him. Antires yelled and jabbed. The lovely one grabbed the spear shaft, ripped the weapon from the Herrene’s hand, then smacked him in the forehead with the haft.
As Antires sagged, Hanuvar charged.
He swayed away from one massive arm and drove his sword under the man’s chin. The lovely one tucked in his face and turned so that the point lodged through one side, though it apparently didn’t drive in through his brain case.
He only smiled the wider. “You can’t really hurt me,” he said.
“I just wanted your attention,” Hanuvar said, because he’d seen Acunix limping from the side. The lovely one must have heard something, for he’d begun to turn when Acunix buried an axe in his skull.
That dropped him, and the lovely one lay shaking, trying to rise even as brains and blood leaked over his clothing.
Acunix, gasping, grinned at Hanuvar through his blood-streaked face, and delivered a blow that stilled the lovely one forever.
Hanuvar glanced at his armored front and the blood trickling down to his tunic, hoping the wound was just a slice through muscle. He yanked a spear sticking out of a corpse and dashed up the hillside.
Calisia and her attendants tried to run. He took her down with a spear cast. It didn’t kill her, and she was fighting to rise when he drove his sword through her back. That would have stopped anyone else, but she felt no pain. Without being restricted by agony, she continued to struggle, which spoiled his aim. He had to stab too many times before he finished her. By then the other attendants had fled into the forest, and he couldn’t be bothered to follow.
Once he was sure Calisia was dead, Hanuvar snatched up her lantern and marched back to his men, all too aware of the growing blood stain on his armor and down his tunic.
Antires was sitting up, conscious but wobbly. The Ceori had scrubbed his face with snow, but it had done little to aid his appearance, for he looked ghastly pale.
“Well, I’ve got a few broken ribs, and I’ve had a nice love tap.”
“Looks like you’ve lost some blood,” Hanuvar said.
“Looks like you’re in the same fix.” Acunix looked at the lantern. “I’d like to smash it, but maybe after we sew each other up?”
Hanuvar insisted on treating the Isubre first, though he cast off his helmet and cuirass and briefly lifted his tunic to expose the slash running diagonally along his muscular abdomen. Without any sense of pain it was hard to anticipate its severity until he probed it.
He cleaned up Acunix’s deep, ugly wound along his bicep and then sewed it. The Isubre was paling, and watched Hanuvar’s eyes while he worked, reading in them Hanuvar’s concern.
“It’s a bad one,” Acunix said. “And maybe I’ve spilled too much blood, yes?”
“We’ll find out.”
“Let’s get you treated before you’re pale as me.”
Hanuvar exposed his injury once more, gritting his teeth in anticipation as the Isubre slopped wine on the injury, then remembered he would feel no pain so long as the lantern glowed. Whatever was within shifted.
He would see to that later.
He washed his fingers in wine, then explored the wound while the Ceori and Herrene looked on.
“Just muscle?” Acunix asked.
He couldn’t be sure. He thought he detected a whiff of internal juices. “It’s deeper than I’d like. It might have nicked my intestines.”
Acunix swore.
“Is that bad?” Antires asked.
The Isubre answered bluntly. “You get a wound in there, it’s just about always fatal.”
Hanuvar was touched that the younger man looked so distraught at this news. He motioned for the needle. It was pure silver, threaded with horse hair.
With Acunix helping hold the skin in place, Hanuvar carefully sewed himself closed, marveling a little at being able to do so without the slightest hint of discomfort. He wondered if he was going to bleed to death internally, or if the contents of his intestine would leak out to poison him.
Antires watched in concern, then, after a time, walked to the lantern and opened the panel closest to him. The Herrene arched his eyebrows and tilted his head. Whatever he saw, it must not have been hideous.
While Hanuvar finished tying off the threads sealing the wound, Acunix rose to join the Herrene, then swore under his breath. “You should see this,” he said.
What sat within resembled nothing so much as a wingless butterfly the size of a hedgehog, with scalloped sides trimmed in gold and black, its cylindrical body spotted with blazing blues and reds that beat in time to the blood pumping at Hanuvar’s temple.
Gazing upon it, a great sense of ease and comfort welled from within him, and Hanuvar understood that the citrus-like scent wafting from the being should be breathed in. Acunix pressed near to it, smiling.
Hanuvar leaned forward and pushed the panel closed.
Acunix spun, glaring.
Hanuvar met his burning gaze.
The Ceori scowled for a long time, and then his expression cleared and he flushed in shame. Apart from blood drops, it was the only color remaining on his face.
Hanuvar twisted his torso slowly, testing the wound. He should not have been able to stand that movement, but with the thing in the lantern so close, it didn’t hurt.
“What do you think it is?” Antires asked. “And where did it come from? Do you think it’s really evil?”
He couldn’t know. And perhaps it didn’t really matter. “Whatever it is, it feeds on pain, and rewards those who aid it with pleasure. It doesn’t belong in the hands of humans. Fire didn’t kill it.”
“I say we hack it to pieces,” Acunix suggested.
“We don’t know if that would really finish it,” Hanuvar pointed out. “It somehow managed to put itself together after immolation. Unless they have more than one.” He looked to Acunix, hoping the Ceori would put his concern to rest.
“Calisia only ever had the one lantern. I think if there had been more some of the other healers would have been carrying lanterns around as well.”
“Good. I want to take it to the heights and encase it in snow and ice.”
Antires understood his thinking. “So even if it lives it can’t get out.”
“I’ll do it,” Acunix said.
Hanuvar’s look suggested his opinion on what a terrible idea that was.
“It needs to be me,” Acunix said. “Pain or no, you’re going to have a fever soon, and your friend here might get you to Rudicia and Velix14 before it gets too bad. Me, well, I brained one of their clansmen so I’m not welcome. And I think I’m bound for the ancestors soon anyway.”
“What if that thing lures you?” Antires asked.
Acunix laughed. “Lures me to what? I’ll take it to the high peak and do what the general said. I’ll pack the damned thing in snow. There are deep rifts in the glacier on the west face; I’ll drop it in one of those.”
Antires looked doubtful. “Will you make it?”
“I’ll make it.” Acunix sounded certain.
Hanuvar offered his hand to his old companion.
The Isubre embraced him instead, and Hanuvar felt the man’s ribs shift as he pressed close. Acunix stepped back, pressed his chest, and all three heard a disturbing crackle.
Acunix gave a ghastly smile to that. “It doesn’t hurt,” he assured them, then smacked Hanuvar’s shoulder. He spoke to him in his tribal tongue. “Praise Darag, it was good to fight with you one last time, General.”
“I couldn’t have made it without you,” he answered in the same language. “Thank you.”
“Better to die in a clean fight than to live so foully.” Acunix swept up his robe, thrust his cleaned axe through his belt, snatched the lantern, and started through the boulders and the dead men. After only a few steps, he stopped and turned. “General, what are you really doing here?”
“I’m going to free my people,” he answered. “Derva razed my city and sold them into slavery.”
“And you’re going to get them back.”
“Yes.”
“Ah, Hanuvar, you should have been born an Isubre. Our gods love the mad and doomed. I’ll pray they aid you before I breathe my last.” He glanced upslope. “I should go, so I can do one last mad deed myself.” He picked up the lantern and headed out. They watched him hike on toward the tree line. He paused just past the body of Calisia. In his accented Dervan he called back: “Make sure you put me in your play, Herrene!”
Antires replied, “I will!”
They heard his bark of laughter. He raised the stump of his arm and vanished into the trees.
Antires looked at Hanuvar. “You told him about that?”
“I did.”
“I’m thinking it’s going to be more of a historical chronicle, now.”
“Good.”
“I liked him,” the playwright said, considering the trees where the Ceori had vanished. “I wish we could have saved him.”
Hanuvar was full of such wishes, but he left this one unvoiced.
His friend turned to him. “Are you going to be all right?”
“It’s possible. But we have to get moving. And we’d better get me downslope and seated in a saddle before the pain kicks in.”
Hanuvar braced the wound with his hand as they led the horses away from the battle site.
Once they were back into the trees themselves, and he was mounted, he began to tell Antires what he would have to say to the Isubre scouts when they met them, should he himself no longer be conscious. In midexplanation the pain found him at last and left him breathless. But he forced himself forward, both in the saddle, and in his instructions. He looked back to the mountain height two more times, when they had a clear view. The first time, he saw only the trees, and the circling birds. Probably, he decided, Acunix had died of his injuries and lay beside the lantern under some snow heavy branch.
But later, when the pain was so great he saw spots, Hanuvar looked up a second time, and after he stared for a while, one of the spots resolved itself into a tiny figure fighting up the snowy slope above the trees, the light of the lovely ones shining in one hand.
Over the course of a single day, our roles were reversed. Hanuvar had cared for me while I struggled with the altitude and temperature and had risked his life to guide me to freedom. Then, as the pain from his wound set in, swiftly followed by fever, I found myself in the role of protector, and I felt myself ill-suited for it, for I knew our destination only through his words, and had no true experience caring for the injured.
While I had feared for Hanuvar in the past, as he faded in and out of consciousness I began to worry that he had taken his death wound. Only then did I realize how deeply I had internalized his goals, for I found myself wondering what would happen to his people were he to die. I even debated asking him for instruction on that account, but his periods of lucidity were infrequent, and I knew that I could not hope to replace him. For the sake of all those who’d been led into slavery, he had to live, and so I reviewed, again and again, what he had told me I must say to the Ceori when we found them. I only prayed that their healer was as gifted as Hanuvar believed.
I should also have been praying for divine intervention, for Evara’s threat had materialized far to the south: Caiax had returned to the shores of Tyvol and was gathering an elite force to lead against us. Even had I known this, though, I could not have lent it any mental energy, for my cup brimmed over. Not the least of my fears was that the Ceori would see us as trespassers and attack before I explained our presence.
—Sosilos, Book Six
13 This was the Balevein Pass, rather than that used by Hanuvar’s army during his invasion of Tyvol. For the first instance, and the later passage through the Ardenines by Adruvar and his army, Hanuvar employed the lower pass, known as the Cerendein.
—Silenus
14 Sosilos here fails to explain who these individuals are, probably assuming that Rudicia is well enough known by his readers that no explanation was necessary, although it may simply have been oversight. Rudicia was the chieftain of one of the most influential of the Isubre villages and nominal leader of the entire tribe. Velix, her husband, was a famed healer. The Isubre, of course, were one of the two Ceori tribes who had most heavily supported Hanuvar’s ambitions during the Second Volani War, bolstering his invading army with thousands of warriors. Like many Ceori, the Isubre held a grudge against Derva, which had understandably resented their frequent raids.
Only a generation before, Derva had conquered the rich lowlands of Calenna, just south of the Ardenines, territory held for centuries by the Ceori. This created a buffer zone of protection between Derva and the aggressive tribes, one that enriched hundreds of already wealthy landholders, who flocked to purchase property in the new province. It also infuriated the Ceori, who looked down upon their former holdings from the mountain height where they had retreated, and plotted vengeance. Until Hanuvar arrived before the second war, all they had managed to accomplish was an occasional small raid, inevitably met with stern reprisal by the Dervan legions. With him at their head, Calenna was swiftly wrested from the Dervans and restored to the Isubre and Cemoni tribes, though in the end they could not hold it for very long.
—Silenus