Prayers in Steel

~ 1 ~

The woman’s slippers were silk, that much he could tell, and embroidered with seed pearls. There was no way to know what color they might once have been, since her feet were soaked to the ankles in blood.

Blood was spattered across her hideously expensive dress, as well. He could still see portions of that one’s original color. He’d have called it a cream, if forced to call it anything. Hard to be certain in flickering torchlight. But it wasn’t the dress, nor the woman, nor yet the carnage around her that she’d caused that his eyes kept sliding back to. It was the slippers.

For the life of him he couldn’t say why.

A hundred imperial troopers lay messily dead all around the young woman facing him, their armor and flesh rent and torn as if they had fought an enemy ten times their number and a hundred times their skill. Jaga had seen and caused death for most of his life. He could read battle-sign as well as any three of his men. The imperials had been caught wholly unawares, and had almost certainly died all at once. Which was impossible, of course, but there were all the corpses to tell him he was wrong. It was hard to argue with decapitations, torn off limbs and spilled intestines.

Jaga’s eyes fell once again on the woman’s slippers. He felt a shudder coming on, and suppressed it ruthlessly. He’d never got used to the sight of violent death, though he had learned early to throw on a mask of indifference. But those slippers. Those bloody, hideously expensive slippers...

Torches bathed the fortified imperial encampment in a shifting, untrustworthy light, but there was more than enough illumination to reveal the extent of the slaughter – and the small smile of satisfaction on the Roumnan princess’s beautiful, cold face. She stood alone among corpses, swaying slightly, with a small smile of what Jaga had to call satisfaction on her beautiful, delicate face. The kind of smile you might wear when a tricky or difficult task is finished.

What the fuck is this? muttered Arle, Jaga’s second in command, who pitched his voice low enough not to be heard by the Roumnan witch, or the troops behind them. They had both pulled their horses up short when the slaughter inside the imperial encampment had become evident. Arle rubbed at the stump of his left arm, as he sometimes did when he was unhappy. They were supposed to be sleeping, not decomposing.

Jaga shook his head slightly and nudged his horse through the open gate of the encampment. It snorted, disliking the stench of blood, but it did not balk.

Jaga Khun, the witch said, looking up from the blood and corpses. Perfectly on time. I appreciate that in a servant.

I’m not your servant, princess. I’m a hireling. You wanted an army, and you have one. For as long as you can pay, of course.

The princess arched a brow and tilted her head. You doubt my word?

I seem to recall that we were supposed to collect you from a camp full of sleeping imperials. Yet here we are, collecting you from a slaughterhouse. Perhaps I misunderstood your words when I agreed to them originally. Or perhaps they were relayed imperfectly.

Anya frowned. You will find your pay in my tent, Jaga Khun. The iron chest. Have your men collect the rest of my belongings and saddle my horse. Or do hireling not do such things?

We do what we are paid to do, princess. Nothing less and nothing more. Which is why you turned to us to begin with, is it not?

You are a clever man, Jaga Khun. Try not to be too clever.

Would you like us to do anything with the bodies, princess?

She pulled a ring from her finger and tossed it up to Jaga, who caught it in a leather gauntleted fist. He didn’t have to look at it to know it was worth a fortune. Put that in the commander’s mouth, she told him. Then burn the encampment.

Jaga passed the ring to Arle who, efficient as always, took command of the situation. Jaga turned his horse around and walked it back out into the breezy Wyeth night. The stench of death and dark magic had begun to turn his stomach. The twenty troopers selected by Arle to collect the princess passed him and entered the encampment. Many gave him questioning looks on the way. He ignored them.

The wind came from the north, from the Kash, and so it was a brittle thing, drying the land even as it chilled the night air. It was the signal that autumn was coming. The end of the growing season was nearly here – though precious little by way of crops was grown in Wyeth, nor had been for years. Farmers in Wyeth could and had survived much. Droughts, floods, crop plagues. Worse. But they hadn’t been able to survive a decade of war and chaos. Plows rusted and blades were bloodied. Green Wyeth had slowly turned red as the landsmen had fled, or died, leaving behind villages abandoned or in ashes, and leaving the land to mercenaries and bandits, to men of the sword. To men who dealt in death.

Men like Jaga himself.

And now, it seemed, to women such as the Roumnan princess. The Roumnan witch.

Would Wyeth change its color once again? mused Jaga. Wyeth the Black? Wyeth the White of Bones?

Try not to think too much, the witch said. She was quiet in those bloody slippers.

Jaga looked down and gave her a long, grim look. As big as he was and as small as she was, him sitting astride his warhorse and her flat-footed in slippers meant for marble tiles, he should have felt some advantage. Every advantage. He did not. And if she felt disadvantaged, not a sliver of it showed on her unnaturally pale face.

They were supposed to be sleeping, not dead, he said to her.

I’m sorry if you were misinformed.

You’ll bring down the wrath of the empire on my troop. Roumney and Ardesh as well.

I’m not paying you to polish your sword.

Jaga raised a meaty arm and slowly pointed a thick finger back toward the encampment. "I wouldn’t have accepted any payment at all, had I known it was connected to that."

Try not to think too much, she said again. There is method to my madness, Jaga Khun. You’ve taken my coin, and now you must take my word.

He locked eyes with her. His Do I? was unspoken, but communicated clearly nonetheless.

You have no choice now, she continued, or replied. The die is thrown, and I am the only chance you have of living long enough to see what face is uppermost when it comes to rest. And if you try to betray me, I will kill you and all your men in a fashion that makes what I did to those imperials seem like sweet mercy.

Jaga looked away first, because he realized he believed her.

There are two men out there, she said after a short pause, pointing her chin towards the night-veiled rolling hills a little way to the northeast. They are both hiding in an abandoned village beside a stream, a quarter-league distant. One is a hireling of mine, and the other is an imperial scout. They will not be together. Have your men collect them both. Alive.

Need it be said that your hireling shouldn’t be killed?

He may be reluctant to continue his employment after this evening.

Jaga tried, and failed, to keep his mouth shut. I know just how he feels, he said, and nudged his horse away from her.

~ 2 ~

In the sun-hammered courtyard of the Andine monastery just outside the meager imperial city of Drum, brother Caida gasped in lung-searing breaths as he turned thrust after viper-quick thrust from his opponent’s blade. His own great sword grew increasingly heavy. Sweat ran down in rivulets from his bristle-covered scalp to sting his eyes, and his brown robes were darkened and heavy with perspiration. He had never crossed blades with anyone as good as this sinewy, sun-darkened man from the Ardesh steppes.

The horse warrior wielded a short, serrated blade that Caida was unfamiliar with—and Caida had made it a point to learn as much about Ardesh arms and armor as he could during his early years with the order.

Even dismounted, the man moved with blinding speed. Caida had the advantage of reach, but time and again the Ardesher had danced out of sword-reach only to fly back in at another angle, probing, testing, pushing. It seemed as if he spent more time inside Caida’s guard than out.

The Andine monk had begun to doubt his ability to best the man; after a glass under the hot sun the native steppelander seemed indefatigable, while his own reactions had slowed noticeably. After two glasses, Caida found it difficult to breathe. As Caida struggled for air, the Ardeshi simply smiled at him, the corners of his long black mustache twitching upwards.

Caida began to understand that if he did not try something unexpected, the match would end in the Ardeshi’s favor. Once decided on trying a new, more dangerous tack, the Andine did not give it much conscious thought. During the next round of thrust, cut and parry he risked a dangerous feint to the lower left quadrant that left him exposed from brow to navel, hoping his opponent would believe him too slow to recover. Hoping in fact that he wasn’t too exhausted in truth.

The horse-warrior danced in with one of the dust-raising stutter-steps that Caida had learned so recently to respect, drawing his strange blade up parallel to the ground, waist level. From that set position the Ardesher would have a launching point at Caida’s head, heart, and the length of his left side. He would only have a split second to wrestle with momentum and bring his achingly heavy great sword up from its downward arc. Too soon, and the Ardesher would simply dance back out of reach. Too late, and this contest of will and skill would be over. He prayed silently and wordlessly to Andos.

As their shadows touched and merged on the dusty, hard-packed earth of the courtyard, Caida whipped up five gleaming feet of southron steel and pinked the bandy warrior’s sword wrist. The man yelped and dropped his serrated blade, then unleashed a stream of curses sworn in the language of the steppes nomads. After a time that Caida spent recovering his breath, the horseman picked up his blade rendered the customary obeisance. Caida saluted with his own great sword, then moved forward to check the man’s injury.

You are good, monk, the Ardeshi said. You would be better if you used a sword sized for men, not giants.

We wield the blades that choose us, friend. I thank you for the privilege of sparring with you. I have learned much. Now let me bandage that cut.

The Ardesher waved away the suggestion. Just a scratch. It took me by surprise more than anything.

Even a scratch may let in infection. You’ve tested my martial ability, now let me prove my medicinal skill. Andos was more than a warrior – he was also a healer.

Neh, monk. I have tested your blade and found it sharp. That is all I came to do. I need no coddling for a scratch, and no sermons. With that, the man picked up his sword and walked over to his shaggy mount. He pulled out a small doeskin purse and tossed it at Caida’s feet. The ching of coin was unmistakable as it landed.

We take no pay for sparring, friend, said Caida.

The Ardeshi’s smile was sour. That’s for your abbot. His winnings. Though I’m sure he’ll call it my offering. With that the man mounted and rode out of the monastery’s sandstone gateway.

Caida stood for a moment, watching the horseman’s receding form disappear into the sparse crowds that moved along Drum’s dusty streets. Each day at noon the gates to the drill yard were opened, and each day one or more armsmen came to ring the bell and challenge one of the order to spar. So it had gone for all the years Caida had been at the monastery, and so it had gone for centuries, if the monastery’s historical documents were accurate. So, too, would it go for all the years that the Andine monastery stood, Caida supposed, with the same result. Those fully trained in the Andine arts were the best single swordsmen in the world. Their blades were the physical manifestations of their faith. How could skill alone prevail over faith, and years spent learning and then transcending the forms?

Caida’s musings were interrupted by the call to namah, afternoon prayer. His match had lasted far longer than was usual–he hadn’t yet swept the courtyard or removed the clapper from the gate bell. He hurried over to the well, filled and drew the bucket, then poured a ladle’s worth of cold well water over the bristly stubble that adorned his head. Then he dipped again from the well’s oaken bucket and drank deep. When the edge of thirst had been blunted, he set the ladle down on the stone lip of the well and hurried about his tasks.

Usually one or more brothers would have been there to witness the match and help with the tasks, but it was the season of doubt, the time when Andos had faced his own shortcomings, and had nearly been overwhelmed by them. Caida and the other brothers would stare into the dark pit of their own fallibility over the next week, and try to come to terms with past failures and errors in judgment. Caida let the somber notes of the call to namah wash over him as he swept away the footprints of his challenger and himself, bemusedly taking up the Ardeshi’s coin purse in the process, wondering what to do with it. Finally, he remembered the existence of the dusty, cobwebbed offertory on the wall outside the gate. He’d been detailed once, as a boy, to clean it. He remembered finding three stones, a bent, discolored copper coin and the dried carcass of a lizard the size of his little finger. He dropped the purse in and thought no more about it.

He did not notice the two figures that looked down on him from the abbot’s third floor balcony, nor had he noticed that they had been watching while the match took place. If he had, he surely would have dwelt on it during his prayers. An Andine was charged with being fully aware of his surroundings at all times.

✽✽✽

When Caida stepped into his cell to change his sodden, sweat-stained robes for prayer, brother Kordus was waiting for him.

Good day, brother, said Caida, slightly perturbed. Kordus was the Abbot’s secretary; an ancient, shriveled man with piercing blue eyes glinting beneath bushy white brows. Caida had never spoken to him directly in all the years he’d been at the abbey. Kordus rarely ventured outside the abbot’s quarters except for prayer and meals, and never, as far as Caida knew, had he visited a brother’s cell. Caida began to hang his sword on the pegs above his mat, but was interrupted by Kordus.

The abbot summons you, Caida. Follow me, and bring your sword.

Certainly, brother. Have I done something wrong? Would he be stripped of his sword, driven out of the order? Caida could think of no other reason why the abbot would want to see him while he wore steel, nor could he fathom what he might have done to deserve such punishment.

"Not that I know of, Caida. But it is not your place to question the orders