Part 2

The Trial

           "Scared, aren't you?" one of the soldiers asked him as he stepped inside. "Your brother's got some of our friends fighting for him. They're no fools."
           "Nor are you, nor am I," Vauhya answered as they moved through the hallway into their northern hunting lodge and base for the night. "But scared? Yes. I fear there was poison in those meals. Faura, find some pots and pans. Make us a round of stew, if you would."
           "Of course," she purred, and dove in ahead of him, already moving in on the lodge's kitchen. The soldiers shuffled through after him, followed by the four sher'amn he'd been loaned. "Is dried stock acceptable, sir?" Faura called. Vauhya answered as he herded the men and women into the foyer.
           "Of course."
           The hunting lodge was the newer of the two in the palace hunting grounds, but still managed a good five or six generations in its age. It was wood and stone, but consisted mostly of the former, which had been polished, oiled, and sealed until it resembled the latter. The hides and pelts of ancient catches among the grounds lined the open room from the walls up to the ceiling two stories above. Even the balcony of the second level was all but bound in scaly green nika hide. Considering that the little beasts were a hand's length and had a wingspan the length of one of his legs, that was a lot of nika. Someone in the past five or six generations of his family must've been an excellent archer.
           There were stuffed beasts lying about the lodge as chairs and couches, hide bags stuffed with sand and grain for the same purpose, and polished stone tables. A kiirin - a huge, red, scaled, hrasi-eating monster at least six times his size - lay in its eternal rest against the wall, its sagging belly protruding out to make two or three seats. Its wings were folded behind its back but still ran the length of the foyer from fore to aft. Unfurled they could've sheltered the entire lodge. His troops yawned, stretched, and lay down among the furs. The sher'amn stood awkwardly in a corner, looking at Vauhya, but settled on the kiirin when he waved a hand at them.
           "Don't see those too often any more," one of the archers said to no one in particular, pointing at the kiirin. "Especially not somewhere as developed as here." There was silence for a minute.
           "They look dangerous," one of the archers commented. The female of the longsword infantry couple stretched up and out on a bag made of mah'sur pelt. She gripped the flap of her white cloth dress uniform and pulled it away from the right side of her chest. There were deep scars running all over her chest muscles, as deep as sword blows but ragged like claw rakings.
           "Ever fought one? I have. You don't usually see them in Yoichi province, but we were patrolling the unsettled far north. It barely caught me with one soft swipe. I was wearing chain. Tossed me twenty feet, into a tree. Nasty things." She waved a hand laxly at her male counterpart. "That one saved me. Only useful thing he's ever done." They laughed quietly, all nervous at Vauhya's presence. The sher'amn smiled and exchanged glances.
           "I've never seen one alive," Vauhya rumbled, then moved to sit on a pile of black leather. The woman looked at him on an eye-to-eye level.
           "You don't want to, milord." He nodded, then looked back and forth between them.
           "You look like an experienced bunch. You have names?" Another young archer tossed out his hands indifferently.
           "Not really. We've got another half of a day left to live. Just tell us where to shoot and we'll get you your throne."
           "You don't seem to care about your life," Vauhya said sadly.
           "We don't have a choice. We know those crossbowmen. One of those men I've fought with for five years. Your sher'amn, there: they'll be fighting sisters they've lived with for even longer." They bobbed their hands. Vauhya was silent.
           "I'm sorry."
           "Don't worry, Vauhya," Parinai, the eldest sher'amn said, "we'll do our job. We won't hold back. That's the way the system works."
           "It's a stupid system," Vauhya growled. Around the room his force's bodies shifted in their seats. He chuffed. "You don't agree?" Silence. "I'm going to waste your lives, kill you, in a fight to kill my brother, so that one of us can sit in a stone citadel and waste peasant food with expensive banquets. We could determine our succession peacefully, but instead we do this." The troops looked uneasy. "Do you want to die? I don't. I don't want any of you to die."
           "Then we'd better win," Faura whispered softly. Vauhya looked back to see her bearing a large cauldron. She set it on the table. "Not much to work with. It's not very warm." She retreated and returned with bowls that she passed out among them all. Vauhya took his and dipped it in, filling it with green-brown stew. It smelled like meat - that was close enough for him. It tasted like charred meat and plants, very salty; it wasn't warm at all.
           "It's good," he halfway lied. "Thank you. I appreciate it." The rest took their servings one by one, and controlled their distaste with varying amounts of success. Faura took some for herself and sampled it, then screwed up her face in a disgusted expression.
           "Ugh… awful. Reminds me of army ration gruel."
           "You were in the army?" The longswordsman asked.
           "Regiment leader for a while. Then slave. Then milord's caretaker." The man swiveled an ear towards Vauhya.
           "Is he worth it?"
           "I volunteered, didn't I?" And the soldier nodded carefully. Vauhya looked up at him.
           "I won't force you to fight. At sunrise you can run wherever you want. If you think that you can do any better."
           "No, I'll lend you my blade. You talk like a decent man." He supped his stew from a bowl, as did Vauhya. Faura spoke lowly.
           "Our weapons and equipment are in the hallway to the kitchen. Sir, your armor is there - plate mail with undercover chain mail. Past the kitchen I saw a stable. There are three mah'sur there, in full barding. We could move up to six people at twice foot speed using them, but you should keep one as a war steed if you're going to wear that heavy suit of plate."
           "Any chain for the rest of us?" Parinai asked. "Chain will stop crossbow bolts, so all we'd need to be concerned with would be our sisters, and since there isn't anything that can stop a lleiri anyway…"
           "Sorry," Faura said. "I don't think so."
           "Get up every day," the longswordswoman murmured, "eat some hard bread, walk across a mountain range barefoot, get fed cold meat paste. Then wade through a river, fight through a bloody battle, then get back in line and walk until nightfall. Take some more paste, then curl up with your mate on the bare ground, lick each other's wounds, fall asleep to a freezing night, then wake up and do it all again for days upon days…" She chuffed shortly. "Good to having something different in our lives."
           "Not going to get much sleep tonight," her husband purred. Faura frowned.
           "You'd better. There'll be war tomorrow." But Vauhya raised his hand.
           "Let them do as they please. Might be our last night." At that point he was lapping the last bits of grease from his bowl. "Well, I am not as disciplined as you excellent men and women. I need my sleep." He set the bowl back on the table and licked his fingers like a child, making everyone laugh except Faura, who looked on with something between consternation and embarrassment. "I'm bedding down upstairs. Please rouse me tomorrow morning if you wake first. We'll suit ourselves up and move safely away before we discuss strategy after sunrise." Vauhya rose and strode for the stairs, followed softly by Faura. He patted the kiirin's nose as he passed it. Parinai leaned forward towards him and gave him a short wave of the hand.
           "Sleep well, prince." He looked back at them.
           "The same to you all. I'll hope for your safety." Then he turned, heading upstairs for the nearest bed - there was what was nearly a suite immediately to the left of the stairwell.
           Past the room's wooden door was a warm, inviting setting. All the marble floor tiles and wooden wall planks had been worn smooth with age and endless use. At the far wall a window was left slightly ajar, letting in cool night air. A single oil lantern sat in a stone receptacle on the dresser in the corner, not lit but with a full well of fuel. The bed was low to the ground, slightly concave with gently sloping walls. It had a well-ordered collection of down pillows, soft, thin sheets, and fur blankets from all types of beasts. Past a closet of royal garments a stone aqueduct from long ago was set into the wall at waist height. It ran a continuous sluice of water from origins unknown through the canal along the wall, finally pouring into a duct near the window that presumably fed the water below. Vauhya washed his hands in the ancient sink as Faura stepped in behind him and closed the door. There was an audible hit as she drew the door's metal bolt down, locking them in.
           "I love this lodge," Faura purred, gliding to the oil lamp. With a snap of metal and stone she lit it, causing a tiny hiss to echo as Vauhya toweled off his hands. "It reminds me of home." He moved behind her and ran a hand down one of her arms, making her turn to him.
           "Where was home?" He asked quietly. She laughed softly and pulled him to sit beside her on the edge of the bed.
           "Oh, it doesn't really matter. Home is wherever you are. It was somewhere else a long time ago, but that place has been gone for a while now. I just like the age and the warmth." His caretaker batted an ear at him, pursed her lips, and ran a hand through her mane. "There's something I want you to have," she purred.
           Faura pulled the chain of a necklace out from under her dress's neckline and lifted it off. A small black iron medallion hung at the bottom, about the size of a curled finger. It was a metal ring with a nine-pointed star inscribed inside it, the center of which was all hollowed out. "A family relic," she explained. "It was my father's. At one time it was my family's sigil. He gave me a gold one as well, but my first master took it from me. This one, though: this one has kept me safe through all my travels. I'll never have a child; take it, will you?"
           "I can't, Faura, not if it's a family heirloom. Keep it and you can give it to your firstborn in a few years."
           "Vauhya, take it, please. I know you're a Yoichi, but I want you to have it. It'll protect you. When I'm gone, it'll protect you. I want you to keep it." Vauhya nodded, plucking the necklace from her grasp and looping it around his neck. Faura smiled at him.
           "Hai… you'd have been a great addition to my clan. Fur's all wrong through. Needs to be brown." She sighed. "But I suppose I shouldn't be comparing you to the common-born."
           "I don't mind. We're all one people." At that Faura laughed and leaned back into the bed, staring up at the wood grains in the ceiling instead.
           "We're all one people. I like that thought. So you'd go back to the old ways, mingling the classes and sharing the burdens? It's a nice thought." Then she groaned. "Oh, sir, but my head aches. Help me with this dress." He helped her pull the silk dress off, ending with a handful of fine cloth that he dropped to the ground. Faura pawed at the sheets, pulling herself under them. "We'll have to rise early tomorrow. We should sleep now. He walked to the lamp without answering and capped the flame, letting it burn itself out, then leaned against the bed frame and shrugged out of his attire before clambering over her to find that particularly warm napping spot at her side. Vauhya put an arm around her, hugging her close, and was silent. Soft white-gold moonlight played through window, sketching the outlines of the room in dull shades of grey.
           "Vauhya?" He blinked and rubbed his into her torso a bit. "Vauhya?"
           "Yes?" There was a pause.
           "Home was mountains. Cold, snowy. A city of miners or crafters; I don't remember which anymore. I was young." She stopped. "It was beautiful, before they came. I wish you could've seen it."
           "Before who came?" Vauhya asked softly. Another pause, this one much longer.
           "You." Vauhya swallowed. That rankled.
           "You never said."
           "No."
           He shifted away from her for a moment, laid his head on his pillow and thought deeply. Finally he rumbled a deep sigh.
           "Sometimes," he said quietly, "I wish I had brown fur." There was silence, then a rustle of cloth and a scarred arm falling across his chest.
           "Go to sleep," she whispered. "I know."
          

---v---

           The creak of the door opening was the first thing that woke him. The second was the whistling of flight that said move, and he threw himself out of bed, one wooden bolt splitting the space where he'd lain. Over the edge he went, with Faura still curled asleep, and tumbled naked to duck behind the bed as a dark young woman in a rough black cloak and robe worked frantically at reloading a small crossbow she had aimed at the floor. Weapons, where were his weapons, his lleiri? He was foggy; it was early and he was slow but damned if someone wasn't trying to kill him and yes, that was right, he'd not removed his lleiri from its belt last night. Finding it among the pile of discarded clothes was no trouble, but he had no time to extricate the sword from the mess of pants and scabbard; Vauhya wrapped the cloth around the scabbard and threw it, hard, knocking the woman off her balance. That was time enough.
           He launched himself to his feet and soared into the woman, catching her in that unguarded second and pushing her up against the wall so that her ears went flat and she pushed back, sending both to the floor where they traded swipes and hisses and claws. He pinned her, dripping blood from a cut on the cheek, and landed three deep cuts across her nose. She threw him off and scrambled to her feet, running for the window. By the time he was up she'd clawed the window panel away and jumped down to the ground.
           Vauhya was at the window then, cursing loudly and watching as the assassin fled. Black cloaked, but with red livery underneath - that was likely a sher'amn, and Hahrum was the obvious suspect. The sky was light, but there was no obvious sign of the sun. Conniving bastard! Hahrum was ignoring the rules, then, and their supposedly impartial family looked on.
           Realizing the deathly silence, Vauhya turned to the bed. Faura was lying asleep there. He rushed to her, putting a hand to her neck and then recoiling at her body's unnatural heat.
           "Faura? Faura!" he called, shaking her roughly. She didn't rouse. Faura lay comatose, breathing shallow, slow breaths and burning out her insides with fever. Iluin had been right about the wine, then. He'd been damned naïve. He stared at her for a moment, fingering the iron star at his breast, then gave her pat on the cheek and dove for his new clothes and lleiri. There was no more time to waste.
           "Sher'amn, soldiers," he called, bursting halfway-naked from his room, "Up! There's been trickery!" Before he was down to the first floor old Parinai was out, wearing only an anxious expression and her lleiri in hand and at the ready.
           "Sir?"
           "I was attacked by a black-cloaked woman; she escaped. Faura can't be woken. Someone's playing tricks with the trial!" Instantly she was alert.
           "My sher'amn are all present -" She looked back as two of her sisters arrived, their claws scrabbling on the stone floor. "The soldiers -"
           "Drugged," interjected a fourth who stalked from the barracks. "Stormsprawl, by the looks of it, or another of its ilk. We'll get no help from them today."
           "Get your clothes and armor on," Vauhya ordered, his mind racing. "Saddle the mah'sur up when you're done; there ought to be three in the stable. Hurry it." They bobbed their heads and moved quickly; he ran for the hallway and found their armory. His new plate mail he pawed aside, taking only the fine chain mesh provided underneath.
           Vauhya moved quickly: first the arms and shoulders, then overlap with the chain tunic, then the pants and the gloves. It took him a few seconds to work the waist's metal buckle in the chill morning air; made him feel like a fool, but he managed to get it properly tightened. Last was the coif - a chain hat with a round metal top and a sheet of links that went down to his shoulder blades to protect his mane and neck. Finding the ear slots was hard, but he managed. They chafed. You couldn't make a whole lot of expressions with ear slots that small.
           He clipped his lleiri's scabbard to his belt, realizing in dull hindsight that he'd just taken it out in front of his sher'amn. Maybe they hadn't noticed. Maybe they figured it was better if he got himself killed before the fighting started. His longsword went at his other side, the longbow quiver on his back, and the dagger he tucked safely in his belt behind him. That left the regal, mountain-snow white cloak that had been laid out for him. Vauhya considered for a moment, then tossed it aside. One of the soldiers had left their tattered brown cloak crumpled in the corner, and that would make him much less of a target.
           "Vauhya, we're ready. The sun has come out." Parinai waited at the wall opposite him, now immaculate in her black uniform. He grabbed a well-weathered longbow and turned to her, finding the power somewhere inside to momentarily put down his terror. His tail was going mad in its twitching and in the process advertising his total loss of control; only with the greatest determination was Vauhya able to control it.
           "Then we'd best begin. We'll let one mah'sur loose to trick them and run with the other two."
           "Doesn't sound too encouraging." The fear crept back in him.
           "We'd better go."
          

---v---

           'Involved parties' gathered high up on the parapets of the palace's outer walls to watch the trial from afar. They gathered in the morning dew and set up elaborate seeing-tools. 'Involved parties.' What a loose term that was. Aghana De'ruon considered himself very much an involved party. The succession of Yoichi might give them a secular troublemaker or finally bind the continent under Rrsai rule. The others, though… There were innumerable merchants who found themselves well disposed with only a fragment of the political beast that was clan Yoichi and who therefore claimed a personal stake in Yoichi's internal machinations. The merchants were always problematic, forever disputing the church's tithes and bastardizing good, obediently-worshipping peasant communities; this latest affectation of their economical empiricism struck De'ruon as audacious and appalling. They had little respect, apparently, for the world on the magnitudes upon which he operated.
           The aberrant sher'amn he found even more unsettling. While he and many of Yoichi's statesmen reclined in proper fashion to observe the trial in languid disinterest, she paced back and forth at the parapet's edge, looking out with a hard gaze and a pensive expression. She was obviously on edge, and looked to become more than simply an observer. The Aghana would've loved nothing more than to see that; the Yoichi archers that lined the walls would make her more hole than woman, and if not then his small, secretly armed entourage would do it for them. That would be one less variable to consider.
           "They're crossing the ridge!" A portly, middle-aged man looking through a long tube device called out. De'ruon rose slowly as Yoichi's hangers-on crowded about him. Hahrum's forces were indeed rising from the south basin's hunting grounds and moving for the northern lodge. Taking the opportunity to feign suffocation by the immediate closeness of bodies, De'ruon moved toward the only area with an appreciable berth: the corner where the infamous 'White One' stood.
           "Enjoying yourself?" He purred lowly, and she turned to him with cool disregard.
           "I don't take much pleasure in my business. Yoichi province's Aghana De'ruon, is it?"
           "The same. And you, I presume, are the alleged White One?"
           "You're not known for your idle chatter, Aghana."
           "Say I decided to know you."
           "There's no need to banter with ulterior motives," she said pointedly. "My time is valuable to me."
           "As is mine to myself. You could save us both considerable time by telling me why you're here."
           "To ensure the trial's legitimacy."
           "Oh?"
           "Deceit, I've found, is common in such events. I'll… 'balance out' any unfair play these two princes attempt." De'ruon nodded sagely, inwardly perturbed at the woman's directness.
           "It would be unwise to take your own independent action now. You might have volunteered earlier, but at the moment there is an entire clan ready to stop you from entering the fray."
           "You ought to work on masking your insincerity, Aghana," the White One said absently. "You aren't very good at it. Why are you feigning concern over my well-being?"
           "Milady, you may be quite a warrior, but you've a lot to learn about subtlety."
           "I know everything about subtlety, I simply don't play your political games. I'm no longer a part of that system."
           "The world is that system, White One. Every priest, every noble, every warrior, every merchant, every peasant, and even every slave is a part of it." He flicked his ears, unconsciously trying to rid himself of the woman's annoyance. "You haven't spoken about your impartiality. The rest here - even myself - have certain interests in the succession. What about you?"
           "They're both Yoichi; they're the same to me."
           "Are they?" De'ruon gestured at Hahrum's group, who crashed through the woods intrepidly, and then, on the other side of the horizon, at the northern hunting lodge. A single, riderless mah'sur was moving haphazardly towards Hahrum while the other two approached the wall where they stood, carrying four sher'amn and what looked to be a single soldier. "One attacks courageously while the other flees. Tell me which would make the better lord." The White One looked on impassively.
           "One is much closer to engagement than he legitimately could be this early in the trial. The other flees in thinly veiled panic with under half of his forces. Tell me who is disobeying the rules of trial."
           De'ruon watched her carefully. This one was dangerous. She was cooler-headed and more lethal than any man he'd ever met. The time for currying her favor and goodwill, or at the least her appeasement, was clearly at an end.
           "Well, I will leave you to your own counsel. Remember, though: there is nothing you can do to change the trial's outcome. Killing one will only destroy the other's legitimacy. The next lord of Yoichi was chosen long before the trial began." She didn't reply, just turned back to watch.
           De'ruon walked past the gawking merchants and minor statesmen to his silent rank of guarding priests. They watched him attentively with their eyes and shuffled the crossbows hidden under their blood-red robes. He gave them a slight nod. "I have seen enough. Prepare the wagon for my trip back to the cathedral." Then he gave a slant of the ear toward the White One. "She has become a threat to our interests. Please resolve the issue." The priests bowed.
           "Aghana," they murmured. He tugged absently at his robes and cloak, uncomfortable in the morning dew, and walked calmly to the stairs.
          

---v---

           "Vauhya, this is madness! Where are we being taken?" Parinai yelled into his ear. Vauhya gritted his teeth, holding on for his life as their mah'sur flattened everything in its path. Their mount was determined to take the path of most resistance, and to do so at a dizzying speed.
           "We're heading for the northern walls! Past the forest's edge we stand a better chance of using our longbows from the hilltops, and I don't want to fight in close combat!" Parinai grabbed him tightly around the waist as the mah'sur jumped over a fallen trunk, grunting as the mah'sur landed heavily and sent a jolt through them both.
           "That's suicide! They have more bowmen than we do!" Vauhya knew that, of course. The knowing of a thing didn't help much in dealing with it. It was, in his estimation, their one and only chance. Besides, the closer they got to the walls, the closer they got to Iluin.
           In the corner of his eye he saw a mah'sur that wasn't his own charging across the sloping plain. He swore, but before he could warn the others the mah'sur's riders did so for him.
           "There they are! Sher'amn, soldiers, attack!" His own cry was late, and accompanied by the whistling of crossbow bolts.
           "Down, down, get down!" he yelled vainly, throwing himself off his mount as to put the beast between the bolts and he.
           Past the hill crest upon which his mah'sur had been running there was a steep decline, just steep enough that he had time in midair to see the sher'amn behind Parinai go flying off her steed with a pained cry and three wooden shafts through her chest. Then he crashed against the weeds and clay slop, tumbling down the hillside with the shouts of death and battle in his ears and pain shooting through a twisted ankle. Down he rolled, trading sky for dirt in his view over and over until the ground flattened and he could halfway get to his feet, staggering back unsteadily and throwing a hand in front of his face to deflect a quarrel. The chain mostly stopped it; he pulled the point the fourth of the way through his hand it'd managed to pierce, then ran. Sheer terror bled away most of the pain.
           Past a line of trees was a stream swollen with floodwater and choked with half-submerged undergrowth. It was for those trees that he scrambled, splashing through rain puddles, ignoring the squelch and suction of newly-formed mud, kicking pebbles in every direction, leaping over scraggly bushes, and plunging ahead despite the sheets of arrows that clattered like hailstones all around him. The forest dimmed to dark grey and blue as clouds enveloped the sun, then the spattering of telltale raindrops began to accompany the clashes of metal on metal from above as subdued thunder announced a renewed downpour. The crashing of a mah'sur echoed behind him as he threw himself forward in the increasing haze of rain and morning fog, and then suddenly his legs betrayed him in the face of the stream's unexpectedly strong flood current. He was drowning for a moment, but managed to get to the air, coming up coughing and drooping in waterlogged clothes and fur. All the red and yellow and brightness had been drained from his surroundings in that instant, leaving him in a deadly world of muted brown and green, of somber blue and misty grey.
           The mah'sur was upon him then, with three soldiers atop it, but the great hulking thing slipped on the bank and went sloshing into the river. Vauhya drew his longsword, cast off his longbow - the arrows had all washed away in the river - and then lunged forward, impaling the closest of the soldiers through the throat. She went under, struggling and splashing against the muddy brown water in violent desperation, but her blood was already permeating the river's flow around his feet. He pulled his sword up, but it wouldn't dislodge from her, so he left it half out of the water and drew his dagger. A second soldier was on him, swinging his short sword down at Vauhya's chest, but he caught the man's sword arm and slid the dagger past the man's leather cuirass and into his chest, then shoved him away with a growl.
           Hard metal knocked him crosswise as the stream came up on his vision and he yowled, bleeding through his coif from his temple. The water took him again, drowning out his senses in a freezing blur. It was so murky that the man above him was little more than an oval darkness, but he had the sense to roll away, feeling the change of currents across his cheek as a short sword plunged down where his face had been.
           He got his legs back under him and pushed out of the water, seeing the unfortunate soldier arm-deep in the torrential stream, trying to pry his short sword out of the underlying clay. Vauhya's battle sense were long gone; he threw his weight into the man, pushing him into the water, then went back for his own longsword, planting a foot on the submerged woman's throat this time and ripping the weapon back into his grasp. The last of the three soldiers was up, this time wielding a dagger, but Vauhya swung at the man's head with all the force left in his body, tearing his throat up to the jaw, which split open and sent the soldier's lower teeth sinking into the roof of his mouth. The man fell across the stream bank, oozing red syrup from his mouth as he gurgled impotently. It was the one last spark of mercy in Vauhya that made him stab the dying man through the heart.
           The mah'sur was drowning in the stream, stuck upside-down in the mud and pinned by underbrush from which the smaller Hrasi had managed to navigate out; Vauhya ducked behind its mass for protection. The moving water chilled him to the core and he feared weather-shock might set in, or perhaps frostbite. If he lasted long enough to develop such symptoms, that was. The sounds of swordplay had all but stopped, an ill omen for his sher'amn. He risked a look over the beast, then ducked as two remaining crossbowmen shot the mah'sur near the spot where he'd put out his head. He'd seen Parinai hiding behind a newly-felled tree, trading shots with two archers and two sher'amn who'd picked up crossbows. Another three of Hahrum's sher'amn were attacking his remaining one; a soldier lay dead alongside two of his sher'amn and one of Hahrum's… that accounted for six of Hahrum's seven. Vauhya stumbled back, and with good cause; the seventh was Meera, who kicked off a tree branch high in the air and was in a moment's time sailing down with her lleiri drawn to strike him.
           Vauhya lost his mind in that instant, lost it all and turned to run as far and as fast as he could, never mind that his feet slipped on watery ground, never mind that thorns sunk their barbs into his flesh, never mind that the chain mail rested on his shoulders like lead, wearing him to a raggedly trudging retreat. That feeling lasted until he heard Meera land a few paces behind him, which brought him back to the present. He pivoted on his twisted ankle, exacerbating an already unbearable pain, and swung his sword in a blindly upward parry as he spun to the ground. He saw Meera as an oily-black figure that simply slid under his cut, letting her opposing swing meet his blade. This time there was no clean metallic cry, just an ear-grating tearing as the length of his sword sheared away from the pommel.
           He landed face-down in the mud, wielding little more than a sword handle. Instincts wanted him to roll away, but he just went onto his back and drew his lleiri to deflect the swipe he knew was coming. It didn't want to be forced; he saw Meera's swipe across his throat and tried to throw the lleiri out to protect himself, but it jumped away from his intended destination and curved to his left, where it neatly parried Meera's hastily redirected attack. She jumped away from him, hissing in dismay, and he nearly threw himself up to a fighting stance.
           "That was a filthy trick, boy, but it won't work again," she growled, then jumped back onto the offensive. Vauhya tried to move the lleiri as effortlessly as he'd done earlier, but it skipped and curved in wild arcs. Somehow he parried each of Meera's three thrusts at him, but there was strength in her blows that he couldn't create. He stumbled back, flailing his sword wildly as Meera moved in for the kill. They suddenly locked blades between each other's feet and Meera leaned in on her blade, smelling victory. Vauhya put all of his muscle into his lleiri as well, becoming more and more desperate as his legs buckled. "You're mine," she growled. "Give it up!" He grunted, over-exerting himself to stay alive, then abandoned the struggle by jumping back and out of her weapon's path.
           His own lleiri betrayed him. As he flew to the ground it caught his remaining good leg and tore through the hide, separating skin and cutting the muscle away from his shin. He screamed in pain as the infernal blade ripped from his grip just as easily, falling an arm's length away and leaving him splayed open on the ground with a flap of bleeding meat hanging from his leg. Meera stepped over him, hooking a clawed foot into his chain vest and pinning him to the ground as she moved her lleiri behind her to deliver his deathblow.
           As Vauhya cringed at his impending death a resounding thud echoed across the hillside, followed closely by the clatter of Meera's lleiri to the ground and her yowl as she twisted back, clutching at the arrow that had appeared in her inner elbow.
           "Back!" one much-desired, authoritatively feminine voice yelled, and Vauhya leaned his head back to see Iluin charging forward on a mah'sur steed, firing shots from her longbow as she went. The two soldiers both took aim at her and fired, but their small crossbow bolts went awry in the rain. The second seemed genuinely surprised when a longbow arrow sprouted between his partner's ears, and the last look on his face before it broke open was one of sheer incredulity. Parinai called out to her remaining friendly sister and they ran to Vauhya, but the remaining of Hahrum's sher'amn drew their weapons and attacked in a constricting wall of cloaks. There was nothing Vauhya could do; he screamed at them to stop, but no one listened. Parinai managed to cut down one of them before both she and her companion were decapitated. Of the four left, three jogged to the stream and spread out threateningly.
           Iluin brought her mount next to Vauhya, then slid off. Her cloak had blood spatters on it that were only just beginning to wash away in the downpour. She ignored Meera, retrieving the short lleiri she'd given to him and sheathing it back into the scabbard in his belt. One set of rough, callused finger pads drew across his cheek as she gazed down at him with those enigmatically deep green eyes. "Be still," she said simply. "I'll keep you alive."
           "I wouldn't make those promises," Hahrum called out from the hilltop. One of the sher'amn stood by him protectively. "I have three of my girls left to deal with your meddling. You leave now, you let me have Vauhya and my sher'amn Meera, and I'll let you go freely." Iluin didn't worry herself with constructing a reply; she stood and walked into the stream, drawing her lleiri and holding it in a menacingly two-handed grip. "Kill her," Hahrum ordered the sher'amn.
           Iluin was either a demon or a god. One of the sher'amn ran and then leapt down the hill, pointing her sword down to strike at Iluin while the other two ran at the White One in a perfectly timed two-sided attack. None of this seemed to disconcert Iluin in the slightest; she swung overhead, tearing the descending sher'amn's lleiri from her grip, then jumped out of the river as she flowed with her weapon to bring it into a sideways swing that spun her around in a single deadly circle. The quicker of the two remaining attackers only had her sword knocked away - the other lost her sword arm. Iluin ended in a low crouch on the stream's bank, lleiri held firmly behind her. The armless sher'amn was writhing on the ground mewling when the jumper landed. That one slipped in the torrent of the flooded stream and screamed as the bones in her legs snapped like old driftwood. The remaining, disarmed sher'amn bravely drew a knife and rushed forward, but Iluin stepped into her attack and laid the woman flat with a double-spin of her lleiri, taking her opponent down as though the woman was a grain stalk and she a reaper.
           "Don't bother sending that last one," Iluin said with a wave of her free hand as she cleaned her blade on her latest victim. "I do have some respect for life. I'll even spare yours." Then the White One sheathed her blade and crossed the stream, coming for Vauhya. The last vestiges of civility in him were full of self-loathing when he admitted that he couldn't stand on his own. Iluin had to carefully gather him up in her paws, set him into the mah'sur's saddle, slide up in front of him, and place his hands together around her chest so that he could hold on before she took the beast's reigns. As she whipped it into motion she turned to stare at Hahrum. "You shouldn't have cheated. I would have let you kill him on fair terms, and you already had the advantage. You made me take sides against you."
           "It's not too late, White One. Abandon me here and you'll never make it past the palace walls alive." She snorted.
           "You presume there are people left to stop me." Vauhya remained silent, ignoring the pain and focusing on the steady throb in Iluin's chest as she led them away.
          

---v---

           Vauhya slipped in and out of consciousness. Once, when he was halfway lucid, he saw them crossing through the northern outer wall. The portcullis was open; the drawbridges were down on both sides, giving them passage across both the inner and outer motes. The walls, though: they were dripping red and the motes ran crimson, dotted with the gently bobbing islands of corpses. Four parapets and all the walls between were painted - no - smeared with gore, and the crisp morning air was blunted with the cloying bittersweet stench of the recently decreased. The sprinkling rain only served to bind the odor to them, to ingrain it and its accompanying visage into Vauhya's mind. His clansmen and their cohorts, a few hundred, were all dead.
           "You did this?" he managed to croak, "all alone, you did this?"
           "They tried to stop me from intervening. They were what delayed me for so long." She turned her head to him with a gentle twitch of the ears and pointed to a single cut running the length of her cheek. "I must finally be aging. This time I didn't quite escape unscathed." Her ears twitched again, this time in silent laughter.
           "You're terrifying."
           "Am I? Good. Maybe that'll keep you in line." He shuddered, leaning away from her body, and went silent. After a moment she seemed to notice his distress. "Don't worry, Vauhya-boy, I won't hurt you." And when he didn't reply she proffered very gently: "I'll leave you to your clansmen if that's really what you want. I'm not forcing your company." He swallowed, but his mouth had gone fuzzy and dry.
           "No," he said hoarsely. "Help me."
           "Thought you'd say that. You're not such a fool. I'll help you, then. For the moment."
           "Where are we going?"
           "Where it's safe. We ride until they've lost our track, then we see about patching wounds. You've bled, bled a lot. Rest if you can, boy."
           "Am I going to die, Iluin?" She leaned back into him, sharing her warmth once again.
           "Someday. Not today. Go to sleep, Vauhya-child." He was lost. Iluin was perhaps a friend. Faura… Faura. He felt the iron star press it's cold edges into his breast. It was the warmest thing he'd ever touched, one last piece his life's shattered image.
          

---v---

           It was past nightfall before the young man stirred. Iluin had retreated to a fallback campsite she'd made long ago, a cave behind a waterfall near the azure-gold crop fields of Tzi'rai, a cave that curved just enough in the back that you could light a fire and it wouldn't be noticed. She'd let her mah'sur go a long time before they'd reached the camp, and she was exhausted after carrying her pack and the would-be royal heir. He was worse off.
           Recently she'd discovered a tiny bit of sympathy for his battered state and cultivated it as best she could, nurturing her own emotions with the same stoic detachment she'd used in stripping off his waterlogged armor and clothes. It was hard to maintain that discipline, but she had inadvertently made herself his anchor and had another duty now. This was unfortunate but irreversible without doing his psyche tremendous harm, so she took care in drying him off with the camp's blankets and treating his extensive wounds with the little medicine she had available. There was a deeply rooted something in her person that clashed with her sense of duty toward him, so she took that bit of sympathy and tended to it, fed it and held it like a shield against that part of her that was cold and offish towards Vauhya. She deemed him 'boy', endeared his naïveté to herself, and otherwise forced mental associations in her mind that provoked her protective instincts, trying to flood out this aversion to him in an emotional backwash.
           When he first groaned it was a piteous noise and she grabbed the single maternal thread that it produced, holding it dearly and adding it to her already tangled mess of responses.
           "Safe?" he said hoarsely, then coughed at the dryness in his throat. She took the saucer of water she'd been drinking from earlier and held it below his muzzle, propping his head up on her inner thigh. She'd abandoned all but a clean pair of white cloth breeches in favor of warmth and done the same for him, but the feeling of fur on fur there renewed the part of her that desperately wanted to finish what his brother attempted. There was more self-control in her body than that, though, and she sat looking on with a vague sense of kindness as he lapped at water still warm from its boiling.
           "Safe," she said when he'd finished. "I've applied compacts to your wounds and then dressed them. Some of them are serious, but I'm an accomplished healer. Nothing will haunt you past winter's end if you can keep from exerting yourself."
           "How am I supposed to do that? I'll have all of Yoichi after me."
           "I'll take you somewhere safe. You won't be living as well as you have, but you ought to be thankful you're alive at all." He stared at her with abject misery.
           "What about Faura and my troops? What about my clan and the church?" Good, good, the innermost recesses of her mind praised him, reveling in the newfound power he gave her in sympathy's form to fight her ill will. She was reminded on all levels of her being that she was not normal, then. She was crazy, faced with the prospect of having Iluin-facets who thought independently and differently. The most introspective part of her wondered if it was this aberration that let her withstand a solitary lifestyle. But little Vauhya's question wanted answering.
           "I told you. You're lucky to still be breathing; it's more than your sher'amn have. You're no longer a part of the power-making system. You'll stay low and live out your life quietly, and if it makes you feel better you can imagine that they were all pardoned and are living out their lives just as happily as they could. What you won't do is try to rescue them, because I won't let you waste your life after I've spent all this work keeping it intact." He was silent, looking helplessly upset.
           "Will you stay with me?" Dangerous question, boy, she warned him mentally. There are chords in me you shouldn't strike. And in that moment she felt a rare wild streak, a temporary loss of inhibition much the same as the one that had spontaneously caused her to give him her first lleiri. Often such passing physiological rushes had her do regretful things, made her strike and lash out at the toss of a card. This one, though, was a clear opening for sympathetic-Iluin, which in conjunction with dutiful-Iluin waved aside all the mental defenses and threw him a line, a beacon that might let him steer clear of her innumerable bad sides.
           "Careful, boy. I can love you and break your neck in the same breath."
           "I thought you said you weren't going to hurt me." That roused her duty, which was a much larger sub-unit of herself than the fledgling sympathy.
           "I won't. At least not for a while; I promised you I wouldn't."
           "Is that all that's keeping me alive?" And her perversely exhibitionist mood let her leak a little bit more.
           "No, but that's most of it. I also have a little bit of sympathy for you. But what if it was? I've promised to guide you to safety. You think I'd kill you once you got there? Damned waste. Just don't push me."
           "I don't understand you. You scare me." She laughed coldly and in dismay felt her inner gateways closing under jaded cynicism.
           "I don't much care. What if I told you you're alive because you're amusing? Would that be different than if I told you it was because I'm madly in love with you? Neither is true, but the fact remains that you're alive today and a lot of people aren't. I'd be content in your position just to have that."
           "I wish I was your friend," he said simply. That was an extremely dangerous path for him to walk, but all the hint she could give him was a ruthless glitter in her eyes.
           "Do you?" He realized that her claws were resting against his throat and the spell was broken. So he wasn't a complete fool. She remembered a bauble of his and held it by its cord, swinging the black metal pendent in front of him. "I suppose if you want to be friends you might gift me this little nothing." His eyes went wide and he struggled, really struggled, pushing his limits just to sit up. It was a medical risk she let him to take for her amusement.
           "Give it back!" he yelled, and lifted a weakened paw to grab for it as she dangled it just out of reach. He was crazed, then, suddenly flushed and hot. Vauhya hit her, actually hit her, backhanding her across the wounded cheek and making her recoil in a cloud of pain. She snapped the medallion in his face so that it stung him hard and he rolled out of her lap. With the pain she couldn't quite subdue the growl, and feared that she'd made herself out as uncontrollable, but when she'd composed herself he was still facing away from her. Iluin touched his shoulder with her free hand and felt him shaking badly.
           "What is it, Vauhya? I won't coddle you." She was harsh to make him stop; she didn't like the way his loss of control made her feel.
           "Gods, why do you hate me so much?" he managed to get out, intermingled with the quick, short intakes and exhalations of unrestrained grief. She was surprised how deeply it got to her, but refused to use those emotions against herself: too strong, too self-destructive.
           "I don't. I truly don't. What's gotten you so riled?" That made him worse, if anything, and he had trouble making words out for a response.
           "That- that necklace. Faura's."
           All her defenses went down, and Iluin-sympathy had free reign. Iluin let herself be uncharacteristically emotional for him, not faking a bit when she slipped the pendent back around his neck and pulled him into her arms, cradling him like a newborn.
           "Sorry," she whispered, fully aware that she was throwing herself wholly into a potentially vicious bout of shame. She did it anyway. "I didn't know, I swear. God, I'll make it up to you. I swear I don't hate you, it's not you at all. Please stop that. God, little one, I don't mean you harm, I'm sorry, don't hurt anymore. I never meant you that. I'll make it up to you."
           "You go and bring her back," he sobbed, and that brought her back to rationality. Thank the gods for the way he was accidentally playing her. Enough: the open-ended promise was a mistake. Back to reality before you get yourself into more trouble. Ignore his pain, and yours, before one of you gets hurt. She found her bearings, not letting him go but rearing back from his shoulder to regard him face to face.
           "I can't. Can't, hear? She's dead by now, regardless of what you want to believe. I'm sorry - I swear I don't mean you harm - but if I went back I'd have to kill, and enough have died already. You don't have to accept it now - gods, you probably won't ever have to accept it, but you have to understand why I won't go back for her."
           He attacked her in infantile rage. She didn't protest; she let him knock her onto her back and pound her chest and head and even use his claws, until she was one large bruise with nicks and flesh wounds in her hide everywhere and little Vauhya was so drained that he collapsed on her, hugging her bloody chest to his own. She knew that she was his last remaining enemy and only friend, which hurt her more than the mere wounds, and she held him gently, ignoring the pain, to succor them both.
           "It's all gone. All gone, Iluin. He took it, they all did, and now you've rubbed dirt in my wounds."
           "I'm sorry, young one."
           "No, don't use that excuse, dammit!" And he bit her, sinking fangs a small ways into her shoulder. Then, in realization of his barbarism: "I… I didn't mean to do that. I didn't really want to hurt you, Iluin. Don't kill me, Iluin." A simple plea, as though his collapse was total and he'd been reduced to his most base desires.
           "I won't." Which made him sob a bit. "Don't do that, Vauhya-boy. Best to forget how to do that." He choked on his own spastic breaths.
           "I want you to stay with me. You make it up to me, Iluin, you stay with me. Please. I'm begging." She considered that; it was a dangerous way out, but probably relatively safe compared to some alternatives. Then she scolded herself, sick at her own emotionless analysis.
           "I won't leave you for a while. Until we reach your new home, I'll stay at your side. Alright?"
           "Alright," he said in that smallest of voices. Only one voice was smaller - the one inside her that jibed her softly. Fool.
           "Let's see about these new wounds, then. You've done a better job clawing me up than most sher'amn sisterhoods manage." She sat up, pushed him up along with her, made him fetch the medicines. She showed him some basics of healing: all about boiling and wrapping cloth, about compacts, about coagulants and painkillers. She allowed him to administer the bandages in the hopes that he could undo some of the damage he'd done himself. It seemed only marginally successful.
           They spent that night together, as promised, burrowed under a mess of sheets with hide packs for pillows and each other for warmth. Iluin was awake long after Vauhya had fallen asleep: she had never felt so naked. That his furred back was pressed against her chest, belly, and hips and that his tail was wrapped securely around her leg she did not much mind. That was simply maleness; men, no matter their range of emotions, were always vying to procreate. But that this one she let - openly and voluntarily allowed - through her guard… it scared her.
           Little Vauhya was a mirror reflection of his father - she instantly forced her claws back into their sheaths at the thought of him. There were scars from that which ran far deeper and wider and longer than one boy could ever hope to mend. She could've reached up and drawn a finger across his throat to slit it, and had half the intention to do so, but was torn by an infectious, inconvenient truth. He was innocent, small, and weak, but in that held irrationally potent power over her. She'd fought wars and killed hundreds or even thousands, but simply lying naked with a young boy who somewhat resembled his father proved to be the most terrifying thing she'd ever done. The interplay of feelings made her feel sick: there was loyalty and a desire to befriend and protect boy-Vauhya. Revulsion too, at his father, a worthless man who'd misused her blind love, loyalty, and trust in every possible fashion, then sent her to die a happy pawn before she learned how she'd been truly abused. Being near anything so closely tied to him caused rage and sickness and grief. So she clung to him and held him at length, so twisted in her emotions and motives that not even she was sure of herself, but somehow fairly certain that she'd made a promise, and that if nothing else a promise was something to keep.
          

---v---

           "Will you come and visit me sometimes?" Vauhya asked. Iluin's features softened for an instant, there and then gone so quickly that the bartender missed it, and he only noticed because he'd learned to read her when she wanted to be read.
           "Maybe. Likely not. But I'll be close by enough to make sure that nothing happens to you for a while." She passed him a pack. He searched through it; it had three full sets of clothing in it, a brush, a knife, three bars of precious soap, and a pouch with extra coins in it. There was quite a hefty sum there, in addition to what she'd paid the bartender to take him in and the significant amount she'd given him to start on. "I took the liberty of selling off your remaining possessions, so that and the clothes on your back are all you own. The soap is gift from me. Please use it." The deadpan delivery of her last line brought an unbidden grin to his face - Iluin's black humor mocked their macabre circumstances. "Oh, there's also a bow and quiver waiting for you in your room." That got the bartender's attention, and Vauhya had no doubt it was true. "And, of course, there is an old friend who would not part ways with you, and another who I provide as part of an extended apology." She handed him two clothed-bundled scabbards with undecorated pommels poking out one end, one the size of his short lleiri and another longer than the average sword, more like a proper lleiri, though not the size of the one at her hip.
           "Do you always pay your debts with blades?" he asked.
           "I'm the White One. It's either that or blood." She ran a hand down his newly notched ears and marred face before pushing off the counter. "He'll make a superb employee, Garrat, I promise. Vau is intelligent and articulate from tip to hilt, and a decent swordsman as well. We can be fairly sure that his line doesn't lie far from royal Yoichi blood." The bartender 'Garrat' nodded.
           "I'm sure that I won't be disappointed. If I can just keep this one employed for a while, then I might be able to groom myself a successor."
           "I don't think he'll be going anywhere," she purred, pushing open the door and stepping halfway into the yellow and green springtime. "Live a good life, little Vau."
           "The same, White One." Then the door slammed shut. He looked up at the leaky wooden ceiling and actually saw sunbeams streaming through. Garrat chuckled and flagged his ears in mock embarrassment.
           "Well, I see that you're pretty perceptive there. It's not raining, might not be for another day or two. Want to fix that while the sun is still out?"
          
           End of Book I