The Dark Glory War (38 page)

I finished my breakfast quickly, cleared away my bowl and crumbs—having pitched the last piece of bread to one of the various curs slinking about. I began to wander around and inquire if anyone had seen Nay. The first few folks I asked had not, but one of the Guards who had been with us on the ship said he’d seen him in the fortress’s armory.

The armory itself wasn’t in the tower, but a walled and covered walkway connected the two buildings. Even before I reached the building I could smell the smoke from the forges and feel the heat. As I climbed the steps to the entrance, the clangor of smiths at work vibrated through me, sounding as pure and deadly as the thunder of war drums.

My eyes watered as I paused in the entrance. Directly before me, glowing red with a sweaty sheen, Nay hammered a length of yellow-orange steel. Sparks shot down with each blow, and each blow came in a cadence that was regular and insistent. It didn’t race, nor did it plod along, but matched the heartbeat of a man hard at work.

The steel dulled to a deep red, so Nay thrust it back into the forge. Two apprentices worked the bellows, sprouting bright yellow flames from the hot coals. Nay swiped at his swpatv hrow with his eloved left hand, then he reached into a pocket of his leather apron and pulled out the stone that was Tsamoc. He stared intently at the stone, and the faint hint of a glow started from within it. This brought a smile to his face. He returned the stone to his pocket, picked up his tongs again, and rescued the swordblade from the coals. He eyed it carefully, then began to pound on it again.

So intent was he on his work that he did not notice me— not that he had much of a chance to do so since I must just have been a silhouette in the doorway. I chose not to disturb him and moved on. A smile grew on my face as I realized Nay had returned to what he did and what he was before his Moon Month, as a way to get back in touch with reality. I guessed he was as confused about our situation as I was, and I was happy he found a way to deal with the problem.

I decided to do the same thing, and since I spent most of my spare time with Leigh in the past, I searched him out.

One aspect of Fortress Draconis that I did not describe previously was the series of gardens that ringed the western half of the tower’s base. Two of the five were conventional gardens, with herbs and vegetables and flowers. The one near the armory did have a couple of apple trees, but the apples were just shy of ripe.

Big, thick hedges split the gardens one from another. I moved around the circuit, passing through a wrought-iron gate into the second garden. White stones had been sown over the ground and raked to a smoothness that almost made the place seem covered in snow. Two trees, one by the outer wall and the other kitty-corner back by the tower offered some shade, but did not overshadow much of the garden. Flat stones provided a meandering walkway that linked this gate with the next and with a doorway into the tower. A dry river of stones split the white expanse, with a stone bridge arching over it. Elsewhere bigger stones stood like islands in a white ocean.

Here I found Leigh, sitting cross-legged on the bridge’s railing. He wore only a loose robe and some silk pants—no boots, nothing else. Nowhere could I see Temmer. My friend just sat there, staring down at the dry streambed with dark-rimmed eyes, as if he could see water swirling through it.

I tried tO rlnŤP tVlP rrit- —

„„*!.. I__LiŚjhad done so, until I turned and saw Leigh looking at me.

“Sorry. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t. I was just thinking. Thinking a lot. About things. About how things have been going.” His voice carried a sadness to it that made my heart ache. “Any interesting conclusions?”

Leigh smiled carefully. “I feel very much at peace here. I don’t know if you can feel it, too, but I feel secure. Before there was this oppressive air around me. Unless I had Temmer in hand, I didn’t feel safe.”

“I feel the peace here, yes.” I stepped from stone to stone in my slow approach to the bridge. “I think it’s good you don’t have the sword with you.”

“So do I, but there is a cost.” He held his right hand out, palm open, parallel to the ground. Little tremors shook it, like an old man’s palsy. “Even though I don’t need it here, I still want it. I feel crippled without it.”

“It’s a fell thing, that sword. It does great things, but the price …”I reached the bridge and leaned against the railing on which he sat. “If only you’d known when you found it.” Leigh gave me a half smile and stared down at the stone-strewn gully. “I did know, Tarrant, I did. When I saw it there, the way the skeleton’s hands clutched the hilt, I knew I shouldn’t touch it. With one hand the skeleton pulled it to himself, but with the other he was pushing it away. I knew there was something wrong, something bad about it, but that didn’t deter me. I was a child again, looking at something I knew wasn’t mine, something I knew I shouldn’t take, like it was a pie cooling on a window sill. Part of me knew I’d be caught, that I’d be punished, but I went ahead and took it anyway.”

I shook my head. “But the story Resolute told, the bargain struck with the wielder, you didn’t know that. The cost isn’t worth the gain.”

Leigh laughed weakly, rocking back. “But it is, Tarrant, itis worth it. When you’ve drawn Temmer—and I pray to all the gods that you never do—you feel such power that you know nothing can stand against you. You know, as I did in Atval,Ś.,„,,,- ŤnsmiŤ will fall and vour friends will live. You are the arbiter of life and death—and in that moment, for that time, Temmer is worth the future of pain.“

“But what happened in the Ghost Marches …”

“Yes, the woman protecting the little girl.” Leigh closed his eyes and ran a hand over his mouth. “I want you to know I would not have attacked the child. I knew she was no threat. I … the mother had a knife and I saw it … There was no time to think, I just struck and then she was dead and the child started crying.”

He looked over at me for a second, sucking on his lower lip. “I owe you thanks for stopping me, for getting me down. Twice you’ve risked Temmer’s wrath to save me. I couldn’t have a better friend.”

I gave him a quick grin. “We’ve been friends forever, Leigh. No reason to let a magick sword come between us. I just don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Me? Hurt?” He shrugged. “Part of the bargain with the sword.”

“Yes, but there are ways to be hurt and ways to be hurt.” His blue eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?” I folded my arms over my chest. “The Ghost Marches thing I was talking about wasn’t the woman and the child. What I was talking about was thehoargoun. You stood there, waiting for it to crush you.”

Leigh’s voice sank to a whisper. “You think I wanted to die.”

“I don’t know what you were thinking, Leigh, but I know what I want you to think.” I reached out and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I want you to think that there are other ways to beat Temmer than dying.”

“Sure, never draw it again. Never go into battle again. That will beat it.” He pointed off to the east with his left hand. “Of course, that would let them win. It might cost you and Nay and my father your lives, but I’d win. I’d be alive to savor my victory for the rest of time.”

“Right, fine, that solution doesn’t work, but there are others. We’ll think of them.”

“Will we, Tarrant?” Leigh looked through me. “While I’ve been sitting here, I’ve come up with a piece of a rhyme. Want to hear it?“

“Please.” I smiled and lowered my hand. If Leigh was feeling good enough to be coming up with poetry, I knew things weren’t totally lost. “What is it?”

“It’s only a piece, but here it is:Weak heart faints When trouble rises.

Brave heart soars, Steals all the prizes.

False heart, it Shrinks small in peace And finds in Fear no surcease.“

He smiled at me. “What do you think?”

“More serious than most of your other poems, Leigh.” I sighed and tried to see past his hollow-eyed visage to the friend I’d grown up with. “We will find another solution to the Temmer problem.”

“Of course we will, Hawkins.” Leigh nodded slowly. “Count on it.”

He returned to staring at the dry river and I left him alone. To my mind came Resolute’s comment about Leigh, that he was one of the walking dead. It wasn’t so much that he’d given up on life as he was trapped by it. Given a choice he would have thrown away the sword, but that would let Chytrine live. Trapped between saving himself and the world, Leigh’s spirit was being pounded into gravel.

I moved through the next garden, which featured steaming pools of water and a variety of plants that thrived in hot, moist areas. From there I came into a sunken area that had been flooded. Rocks created islands and little wooden bridges and walkways connected them. The clear water in the pools below permitted crystal views of the fish swimming lazily along. I recognized none of them, but the fish I knew had come from local lakes and rivers, so tended to be sleek and powerful. These fish had fancy fins and swam slowly, though their gold scales did glint brightly.

Watching them promoted a sense of peace, and I took it as a bad sign that Leigh was spending his time in the barren garden instead of this one full of life. The old Leigh would have been here, sitting on the walkways, dangling his toes like fat little worms in the water. He’d have named each of the fish, would have made up vast stories about them and their relationships with each other. He would have tempted them with his toes and rewarded any quick enough to nip him with a nickname and a verse in its honor.

“You look so pensive, Hawkins.”

I turned and forced a smile on my face. “Seethe. I didn’t hear you come up.”

She winked at me with a gold eye. “Have to watch us Vorquelves all the time. We’ve learned to be sneaky.”

“They say that’s why Chytrine doesn’t sleep whole nights through.”

“Oh, very good.” She gave me a little laugh, which nibbled away at the chill I’d felt in Leigh’s presence. Her golden eyes burned with life, and her smile shared it with me. As much as Leigh might have been glad to have me as a friend, more so was I glad to have her.

She’d gathered her long black hair into a single thick braid that snaked over her right shoulder. She played with the end of it in both hands. Seethe, too, wore a silken robe, but this one was blue and trimmed in black, matching the long skirt she had on. Like Leigh, she was barefoot.

I frowned. “Did I miss a sign that said boots weren’t allowed in the gardens?”

“No, I don’t think so, Hawkins.” She smiled and playfully flicked her braid in my direction. “I think it’s just that you like to be prepared for emergencies. You think ahead like that. You have a knife, I have none. You have boots, I have none. In the back of your mind you have worries; right now I have none.”

“None?” I blinked my eyes. “No worries at all?”

Seethe wrinkled her nose and shrugged slightly. “Well, perhaps a few, but they are packed away in my room for the moment.” She leaned against the walkwav elbows on it. “Well, therj is one worry that I didn’t pack away, and it’s this: I worry that I never expressed my gratitude to you for staying with me as we sailed past Vorquellyn.”

“It was no problem.”

“Not that you would say if it had been, would you, Hawkins?” She smiled at me, then turned away and looked down at the fish. “I had seen Vorquellyn before, you know. Ages ago, well before you were born and perhaps even before your parents were born. I was with a number of other Vorquelves— Resolute was there; he’s the only one you know—in a small boat. We were heading for the Ghost Marches, to go north and try to kill Chytrine. We were close but couldn’t land. We knew it would be suicide and that insulated us from the pain and disappointment. What we were heading out to do would be the first step in liberating our homeland.

“This time, with a fleet and warriors, I knew we could have attacked. We could have driven the Aurolani forces from Vorquellyn. We could have saved it, we could have made it ours again, yet that was not the object of our expedition.”

She turned and looked up into my eyes, peering at me as if her gaze could see past my mask and even into my soul. “Right then I wanted to hate everyone in the expedition. I knew why Resolute had withdrawn. I understood him as I never have before, his militancy, his insistence. I hated the fact that we were passing so close, yet would leave Vorquellyn behind, and I wanted to hate all men for not having taken action before now.

“You didn’t let that happen. You were there with me. You took care of me. This trip was my second sailing from Vorquellyn and again a man saw me through it.” Seethe straightened up and closed the distance between us. She leaned forward and I felt the feather-light brush of her breath on my face a second before she kissed me.

I had kissed and been kissed before, but this kiss was different—and not just because Seethe was a Vorquelf. Her kiss came light and slow. For a moment I was free to wonder if our lips had actually touched, but the tingle running through my body confirmed they had. She kissed me again, then, a bit more insistently, and I slipped my arms around her. I drew her to me and we kissed a third time.

I have never forgotten the warm press of her body against mine, the way her hands held my face, the taste of her lips and the warmth of her breath. Her taut body fit perfectly within my arms. I clung to her fiercely and she to me, our shared experience on the expedition being more important in that moment than all the differences that might have separated us. Arm in arm, stealing kisses as we went, we retreated from the garden and secreted ourselves away in the room she’d been given. Morning bled into afternoon and then evening as we lay together, touching, whispering, giggling at the things lovers find funny. We drank little and ate less, but neither of us noticed time passing or the lack of food. We satisfied each other in warm and gentle, steaming and passionate ways that made physical hunger irrelevant.

As night fell, with her head on my chest, I drew the sheets up around her shoulders and stroked her now unbound hair. I leaned down and kissed her on the crown. “Seethe, I need to ask you something.”

“Yes?”