Oathkeeper (16 page)

“Simple?” Sargus prompted.

“I showed him my other scars, told him how I got them . . .” Rivvek walked to a large wardrobe, opened it, and began rummaging for appropriate attire. White, white, and more white to show the proper respect for the late king. He'd have to wear less traditional clothes for the Test of Four, but he could obey convention in this at least.

“Just that?” Sargus asked.

“The Aern are impressed by scars.” Rivvek looked back at him, tears still flowing but already forgotten. “I also told him why.” He smiled. “Can you send Jason up to help me with this? I don't want any of the Royal Adjudicators accusing me of deliberately slighting my father's memory just because I prefer to dress myself.”

“I could—” Sargus offered.

“No time, Sargus.”

“Of course.” Sargus nodded, slipping on his pack. He hunkered over preparing to assume his usual disguise. “Do you really think we can . . .” He paused, tapping the side of his leather haffet, letting it meld into an illusion to render to his skull misshapen. “Do you really think we can win?”

“As long as I can pass the Test of Four, it won't matter whether we win or not. The Aern and the Vael will do the rest. The only thing that worries me is whether I've estimated the size of the Zaur force correctly.”

“And if you haven't?” Sargus paused at the door.

“If I haven't, there is nothing more I can do to shape the outcome.” Rivvek looked into the shadowy realm of the Ghaiattri. He gritted his teeth, forcing the sight away again. Heat filled his scars, and he laughed. “Well, maybe one thing. I wouldn't give myself very good odds, though.”

Pain lanced in after the heat, searing the deep muscles beneath each scar as if he'd forced it down into a hot pan.
I'm used to you now
, he thought at the agony.
You can't conquer me. Haven't you seen the scars on my back?

“You still haven't explained everything you've planned, my prince,” Sargus said.

Rivvek frowned, putting a finger to his lips. “The gods might be listening, Sargus. I want to give them as little time to react as possible. Never tell gods your plans.”

When Sargus had gone, Rivvek allowed himself another hundred count of grief.

“You deserved more, Father.” He clenched his fists. “I would mourn for a year and a day, had we the time. . . .”

But I don't
, he thought,
so we move on
.

His mother's funeral had been a grand thing. The heavens and earth shook to see her pass. Father's elemancers had seen to it. He and Dolvek had worn the white of mourning for two years. The king had grieved for decades.

Rivvek reached out to the elements trying to touch the planes of air, water, fire, and earth—the magic that had been his birthright—and felt from only one of them even the slightest glimmer of contact. A hint of flame. From the others, he sensed nothing at all.

“Oh, how the mighty Flamewing has dimmed,” he mocked himself. Rivvek resisted the urge to draw on the flame, forced himself to let sensation of connection be enough. “Barely a wisp of fire now, but even the tiniest spark . . .” He caught himself speaking aloud and stopped his words. One never knew who might be listening. First he must attend his father's cremation and then the Test of Four.

No, blast me, I've left something out.
Cursing to himself, he strode to the door and opened it to find Bhaeshal exactly where he'd instructed her not to be.

“Good, you disobeyed and kept watch anyway.” He smiled, knocking on her pauldron. It was amazing how you could tell the intelligent guards from the morons. No one had had to tell Bash to start wearing metal armor. She'd started showing up in the demi-cuirass and brigandine she'd worn back when she was a Lancer the hour they'd received news about the Zaur at Oot. “I need to send someone intelligent and deadly down to the docks to make blasted sure they are prepared for the Aern to arrive today. The roof is unlikely to collapse on me even without you here to hold the wall up, so perhaps you'd like to go . . . and if not then please send someone.”

Bhaeshal blinked at that, the slight click as her steel eyelids tapped against each other, proof, if any need it, that the silver domino mask she wore was an elemental foci and not a mask at all. In the light, the Vael-like uniformity of her white crystalline eyes was even more striking.

“You think they'll be early?” she asked, pinning him with those blank orbs.

“I think they will be early and I think they will try to provoke anyone they can.” He leaned against the doorframe and lowered his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “They would love an excuse to kill us all, so make certain you assign someone unflappable . . . if you decide not to go yourself.”

“They won't get a rise out of me, Your Highness.” She smiled. “I will send Olivan around to hold the wall up, though, just to be on the safe side.”

“Thank you.” Rivvek watched her go. What was it about female Eldrennai that made them so reliable? Muttering to himself, he let the door close and ran over the plan for the Test of Four again, thankful he'd been able to delegate one more item. He smirked, surprised at the flash of good humor. Bash could handle the Aern and the dockworkers.
If only I had more like her.

CHAPTER 13

DOCKING MANEUVERS

Vander laughed, the sea breeze nearly stealing the hat from his bald head, and his soldiers laughed with him. Oathbreaker vessels moved across the waves in frantic panic, butting against one another, cutting to and fro, blocking each others' passage in a unanimous, yet useless, attempt to flee from the mighty Aernese warships the Overwatch kholstered. Two three-masted merchant ships moved past each other with only scant feet separating the two hulls, the crews shouting at each other and the serving Aeromancers and Hydromancers working desperate magicks to avert a collision.

“If you don't start following orders, I will sink your ships myself!” shouted an Oathbreaker female whose elemental foci looked like a silver mask. “I am sending squads to man your vessels. You will cooperate with these soldiers. There is no other option!”

“Squad one,” she boomed, giving out assignments and marking ships with coruscating blasts of electricity that arced harmlessly around ship and crew alike.

Are you watching this, Khol . . . Rae'en?

Did they think they were under attack?
Rae'en thought.

They didn't know what to think
, Vander sent back,
until she showed up
.

Do you know her?

She looks different with the elemental focus, but I'm pretty sure that if it isn't Bhaeshal, it's her daughter
.

Arriving as if the act of thinking her name had summoned her, the Aeromancer flew directly toward him, arms folding across her breastplate, pale white eyes crackling with lightning.

“Could you please stop firing those cannons, Overwatch Vander?” Her eyes narrowed. “We know you are here and you will be clear to dock shortly.”

“What if I refuse?” He glared up at her from beneath the hat he wore to keep the suns from burning his bald pate.

“Then we'll have your path clear a little more slowly,” Bhaeshal answered in an even tone, cordial but unamused.

“No threats?” Vander stifled a laugh as two more cannons boomed. “You aren't afraid of our artillery?”

A look of mild bemusement touched the Oathbreaker's lips, if only for a heartbeat.

That's enough
, he thought to his Aern.

“I've given the order,” Vander said. “Anything else, Oathbreaker?”

“If you could keep brawls to a minimum, it would be most appreciated.”

“You're Bhaeshal, aren't you,” he asked, “Wylant's grandniece?”

“That's my name, but I'm not related to Wylant. That's just an assumption made by people who think the only way a woman can be worth anything in the military is if she has Wylant's blood.” She dropped low, still not boarding the ship but hovering a hand's breadth from the rail.

“That's what I get for overhearing conversations on the training grounds.” Vander doffed his canvas hat. “They called you Lieutenant Bash back then.”

“And I've risen as high as lieutenant general,” she answered, “but it's Brigadier Bash now.”

Vander watched the map in the corner of his field of vision, where other Overwatches fed him data. He admired the way Bash's squads took their positions and began clearing up the mess without the need for further instructions. Well trained.

“Why the demotion?”

“Once for losing my temper. A second time because it was the only way they would let me stay in direct command of Prince Rivvek's security.”

“He means that much to you?” Vander breathed deeply, trying to pick up her scent. Wylant often smelled of
jallek
root, leather, and sweat. Bash smelled of royal hedge roses, sweat, and sea air.
That's a scent I could get used to
, he thought, hoping none of the others overheard. From the way rose-covered vines began to flow up the edges of his map, it was clear at least one of them had.

“And to you, I imagine,” Bhaeshal retorted, “given the scars on his back.”

“I don't see the hate in your eyes that I see when I look at other . . . Eldrennai.” Vander stepped closer, leaning on the rail. He'd expected her to fly back and give him space. Instead, she floated lower, until they were eye to eye. “You didn't give any orders at As You Please, and I can't recall you abusing your authority over us. Why haven't you asked to be Aiannai yet?”

“Do you want to put your scars on my back,” Bash dropped a fraction of a hand closer, “or did you hope to get me out of my armor for some other reason?”

Vander's mouth dropped open. The lack of proper ocular anatomy made her hard to read. No veins to watch. No pupils to dilate or contract, but that sounded like flirting to him.

“Because my prince asked me to wait,” she continued, mercifully ending the awkward pause in conversation.

“And why is that?” Vander frowned.

Are you going to propose?
Rae'en taunted.

She's intriguing
, Vander thought back.
I can't remember her ever holding the leash
.
Wasn't she married to an Aern at one point?

To Abrax. So because she never gave orders to an Aern and has a certain fondness for them, you want to rescue her?

Abrax?
Vander could think of more than one Abrax.

By Zabrax, out of some Flower Girl or other
, Rae'en answered.
Why does it matter?

It doesn't
, Vander thought back. But it did. Abrax hadn't been one of the Armored, so the Sundering had probably slain him and sent his soul to become one with the group. He wondered how that made Bash feel, both about Aern and about Wylant.

“I didn't ask.” Bhaeshal drifted farther away from the ship and Vander. Her scent was muddied by the wind.

“I'm sorry about Abrax,” Vander blurted.

“As am I.” Bash's voice went quiet. “But there was nothing else I could do. He was after then-Prince Grivek.” She shook it off, her voice more normal in the next sentence. “And, for the next time it happens, Overwatch Vander: When you meet a female you fancy? The husband she had to kill is not a good choice for conversational gambits. Even asking me what my focus was made of would have been more delicate.”

Yep
, Rae'en thought,
you kicked that irkanth right in the nose
.

I can't be perfect all the time
, Vander sent back.
Still . . .

“I'm sorry, Brigadier Bhaeshal.” Vander pursed his lips. “Steel, isn't it?”

“Don't be sorry,” Bash told him, a hint of humor creeping back into her tone. “You're an Aern. That means to be fair I have to give you another chance or two to do it right. Try and keep it down with the cannons, though, yes? You're scaring the mice, and they won't be any fun to play with later if they've already drowned. Can you do that for me, Overwatch Vander?”

“
Va vari ka
,” Vander shouted over his shoulder to the crew, drawing in a huge lungful of air and letting it all blast out of his chest in those three words: an Aernese shout meaning “See it so.” His crew and the crew of the other vessels, the fifty-eight troop transports, the frigates, every Aern echoed his cry simultaneously. Even the thin-lipped human Long Speakers were caught up in the moment, cackling like old men.

“That's better than the cannon blasts, I suppose,” Bhaeshal shouted over the din. “You have my thanks.”

Vander wondered what they all thought it meant: the shouting. A show of force. Was it a show of force? Was it not? Was he showing off? It was unusual for an Aern to marry an Eldrennai. Vander didn't think it could have happened more than four or five dozen times in six thousand years.

“I acted like an idiot,” he muttered to himself, “Ah, well. I won't do it next time.”

Can you show me that memory again?
Rae'en asked.
Before your next-betrothed showed up and started flirting?

Vander did so gladly, only feeling a little strange at the teasing. It was exactly the sort of thing Kholster might have said, and that was a good sign. It showed Rae'en was getting more comfortable with him and finding her own path as First, but it still felt so strange to be kholster'd by someone (anyone) other than his lifelong friend.

I'd wager . . .
, Rae'en sent,
well, not naming rights, but something interesting, they heard those booms from the royal apartments.

Why not naming rights?
Vander asked.

I never wager naming rights
, Rae'en shot back.

Vander smirked at that.

Just what your father would have told me
, he sent back.