Chapter 42

T he other warriors are already lined up to fight the melee in long lines of men and guards, and each of the winners of the fighting pit tournaments has been provided with a horse and spear. Caleb’s own long sword is already drawn. Instead of his gelding, however, he sits upon Nazar’s mare. Seeing that makes me feel better, if only slightly. Caleb can’t balance a spear with only one arm, but a sword is an extension of his arm, and his center is strong. He will hold.

Darkwing stamps and whinnies, and I meet the gazes of the men who line up to be captained by me. These aren’t my allies, nor are they my friends. How many of them have been ordered to kill me in the first rush of the attack? Many, I suspect. All, more likely.

Nothing I can do about that now.

As we ride, I watch the men’s eyes slide off me like water off a fish, eddying to the right and left. They won’t follow me. They can’t. Even though I’ve won the tournament beside Kheris, there are too many among them who are under the Lord Protector’s sway. Too many among them who bristle at my youth and lack of knowledge—and who’d lose their minds entirely if they knew I was female. There will be no time to convert them, not this day.

I need to try something else.

I turn to Caleb. “Go into the men. They respect you,” I say as he looks up at me with surprise. “Tell them this as if you have studied the strategy of the melee your entire life.”

“Um…I’ve never fought in a melee.”

“Neither have they. Neither have the men opposite us. Therefore, to win we must take the strategy of the long sword and apply it to the concept of one against many. Each of our men are one, but they shouldn’t fight one against one. That’s the conventional thought, and it’s what’ll be expected, but it will fail. Instead, they should each choose four opponents as their enemies, and chase those four specifically from side to side, left and right. The outliers of one man’s foursome will also be the outliers of another man’s. In this way, each of our opponents will have two enemies, not one.”

I stop, pointing to the far side of the melee gathering, where the youngest winners of the pit battles, boys of twelve and thirteen, are massing on foot. Why are they even here? If they get caught in between the foot soldiers, or Light forbid, the mounted combatants, they’ll be crushed. “The boys should stay out of the battle entirely, fighting only on the fringes.”

Caleb nods, his breath coming more quickly now. “What of the Divhs?”

“The Divhs will appear behind the warriors. It’s what they’re accustomed to doing. So we’ll create a wide path for them, driving the enemies away to the left and right, so the Divhs don’t trample us in their coming run. The warriors will fight first with lance to cut a path open, and then with their minds once the Divhs arrive. When the Divhs are clear, they’ll fight once more with the lance and sword…I think. No matter what, the soldiers and boys will be the most at risk. You must ensure their safety.”

I look up and see I’ve nearly reached my mark. “Go.”

Caleb peels away from me as I line up across the wide swath of open space from Kheris, who sits staring at me like a man possessed. He’ll get his chance at last, first of all the others. He and I are positioned several steps forward of the nearly five-score men in the melee. Fifty or so remaining banded soldiers, fifty more men of worth who have not yet received their Divhs, but whose mettle has been proven in the fighting pits. The excitement in the air is palpable, as is the dread. There’ll be severe injuries from this tournament game, beyond what might happen to me, I think. It’s too many men. Too many men and too many Divhs for safety.

Rihad now stands at the head of the line, Fortiss at his side. He rides in procession down the long line of men, shouting to them.

“Men of the Tournament of Gold, we salute you,” he cries. “May you fight honorably and well. The melee will continue until the blasts of trumpets and fireworks signal the end. If you cannot hear the one, you will see the other. Look and listen for my command! We want no foolish injuries here.” He reaches the center of the line, where Kheris and I are positioned. I gaze stonily at Rihad, whose sly grin fills up his whole face. Beside Rihad, Fortiss refuses to look at me at all. “Though there will be injuries and there may be deaths. Such is the nature of war.”

He raises his left hand to the sky, his right fist curled to his heart. All the men who are warriors except Kheris and myself do the same, then Rihad drops both hands back to his bridle.

“Kheris of the Third House, Merritt of the Tenth. I command you to battle!” Rihad shouts. Behind us, a huge swelling roar of excited men erupts, made ever greater as the crowd joins in.

Rihad and Fortiss turn and gallop back to the stage. As they ride, a growing clamor of shouting men and rattling weapons sounds from all sides of the wide field, while spectators strain forward to see above each other and search the skies for the first appearance of the Divhs.

Now Kheris and I lift our hands to our hearts and the sky as well. The big man glares at me with far too much hate for any one face. I return his stare, my mind strangely clear once more, the anger within me bright and true. The sun is behind me in the western sky, which puts it in the face of Kheris’s line. I will fall back, I decide, feigning weakness as Kheris comes on, then as his own focus sharpens with the eagerness of an easy kill, I will plunge Darkwing forward full force. This is the strategy to win in the first rush. After that, it will be the Divhs’ battle to fight.

A horn blasts through the air.

As one, we drop our arms.

The sky booms with the force of a thousand cannons, and men scream all around me, flush with the fire of war. I can hear Gent’s roar of excitement before I feel his connection sharpen to crystal clarity in this plane, and though I don’t turn back to see where he’s landed behind the converging warriors, I know the truth. He’s here! He’s with me. For a brief, blessed moment, I immerse myself in his waves of joy and pride that he has come to fight by his warrior’s side?—

Then the madness of the battle consumes me.

Kheris launches himself at me with the fury I expect, and I fall back, forcing my men to cleave around me and spin to the right and left. I can almost feel Kheris’s glee, and I wait one, two, a third moment longer before I surge forward. I see him, yes, but I also see through Gent’s eyes, his head swinging from right to left as he races forward at the head of the line of monsters to all his foes beyond. I thought I would be able to see both above and below, but I can’t focus on Kheris. I see only the creature right in front of Gent, not Kheris’s huge serpent but the giant spider-legged beetle of a Seventh House warrior, every inch of her body dripping poison.

Gent swings his hands close together like a battering ram and collides with the creature head-on. I feel my Divh’s surprise at the ferocity of the hit, and the satisfaction of it as well, and I realize—he doesn’t truly understand this fight, doesn’t seek it, but he will do anything I ask. Whatever it takes to protect me. And that bond has brought him here, huge fists flying, horns bristling, his howl shattering the sky. I don’t know whether to laugh in exultation or weep in shame.

The battle on the ground rages forth as well. Kheris races his horse directly by me— by me, not into me, and I pull Darkwing to the left in time for it to be a clean pass. Kheris doesn’t swipe his arm to knock me off my horse, however, and he doesn’t turn to plow me over with his much larger steed. Instead, his eyes hold the near-and-far gaze I suspect I also project, his body twitching at the neck and shoulder and arm. He pulls his sword, and—attacks a man at my right.

My right! Kheris is defending me.

Belatedly, I jerk my own sword out of its scabbard as well and instantly realize the truth of our situation. We can’t fight effectively like this, not simultaneously on the ground and in the sky, in the minds of our Divhs. A hot burst of pain blossoms on my shoulder, and I blink back into focus.

Hantor is before me, attacking and slashing, and I allow both mind and spirit to snap together and take him in the quick attack after a sudden slash. I am neither bigger nor stronger than Hantor, but he’s not expecting me to pull my short sword with my left hand even as I heft my long sword with my right. I cut in, sharply, and clip his shoulder just at the neck. He wheels away, his horse staggering against his sudden cut of the reins.

Around me is chaos. The fighting men have split, as Caleb directed them to do, drawing their enemies into two clusters of battles with the long sword, the boys at the periphery and the seasoned guardsmen cutting down their foes with bloodthirsty glee.

The warrior knights, though, are slowing, steadying, their minds torn in two with the need to both protect themselves and guide their Divhs as well, in perfect point and counterpoint. One of the great lions falters and falls, and an attacking bull leaps for its throat, the two of them tumbling end over end as their warriors on horseback wheel and jerk in their saddles, their weapons going wide as their minds are consumed with the heat of another battle.

My own gaze fractures. Gent crashes his fist hard into a spitting lizard’s jaw, sending it spinning, and pain bites through my gloved hands as the poison eats into an open wound on Gent’s paw. The flash of agony clears my head and centers me, but the moment of distraction exacts its price.

A warrior of the First House breaks through the field and pounds up to me on a horse as white as snow, even in the churning dust. He does to me what I would have done to him if I’d been quicker, attacking down the long sword, the angle of his blade pressing forth, and I realize he’s stopped controlling his Divh; his mind is no longer split.

He’s fully in the moment, his Divh left to its own battles even as I struggle to balance my sight between Gent’s multifaceted gaze and the world directly before me. The blade of the man’s sword slices along my arm, skidding away from a direct cut at the last minute but laying open a deep cleft of flesh and muscle that jolts me to my core. I’ve never been injured like this—I’ve never felt such pain.

Somewhere high above me, Gent screams.

Another of the First House is approaching in direct assault from my side, and my first thought is Darkwing. Beautiful, valiant Darkwing, who rears and darts away, his hind legs bunched for flight. The stallion springs in rapid movement as the short sword—a dagger, really—comes out of nowhere and plunges into my right thigh. I feel the sudden surge of lifeblood spew forth and know that this, I cannot stanch. This cut is thick and deep and true.

The way of the warrior is death.

My vision swims, and I see what Gent sees—Gent, as he swings two small Divhs together and tosses them both aside like garbage, then turns and lumbers toward me, furious and panicked, but nearly blind when it comes to seeing fine detail. Blind! I’ve forgotten his sight in this plane.

His pain isn’t at all physical, but it swamps him, swamps us both as if it is. He can’t find me. No matter his might and strength, his overwhelming need is to keep me safe. Only, he can’t reach me. No one can reach me.

I’ve learned the way of the warrior. But in the end, I am no warrior.

I don’t have the strength. I haven’t had the time.

A flash of gold and black bursts before me, and the nick of a blade against my collarbone adds a spray of blood to coat my face and black my eyes. Darkwing spins beneath me, confused and terrified; I don’t know how I stay astride him. My sight careens wildly between what I’m seeing and what Gent sees, and I barely note the sand-colored flash that comes upon me next. It’s not Kheris, but?—

Another stripe of pain lances my fingers. My sword falls away.

Gent’s rage consumes me.

My gaze switches to the high view, where my glorious Divh glares around fiercely, trying to make sense of the heaving riot of riders and soldiers at his feet. And suddenly, it’s not my thoughts that fill my mind, but those of a mind I’ve never felt so clearly before. One that I’ve touched, but never fully known. Too many riders, too many horses! I will trample them. But there in the center is my beating heart, my very life. I must reach her! Must make her whole.

“No,” I gasp, but Gent can’t, won’t hear me. He surges away from the battling Divhs just as a cry screeches from on high and something rushes at him from the sky.

I gape, looking up as well. Rihad’s winged scorpion is attacking! It has entered the battle.

And there, in the distance, I see something else. A wedge of horses thundering across the plain, heading straight for the far edge of the battlefield, where I know the youngest soldiers are fighting for their lives.

But these aren’t the mighty battle horses of the warrior knights and soldiers. These are fresh horses unburdened by ceremonial saddles, with riders tall and straight, hair streaming in the wind as they hold their swords high, one of them lifting a horn and sounding a clarion call that lifts above the chaos. The Savasci have also entered the battle—and they have come to fight .

I can’t see Fortiss from where I’m clinging to Darkwing. I don’t know if he’s guiding Rihad’s creature. But I wheel Darkwing around, trying to focus. The field opens up around me, and…something is wrong here, definitely wrong.

There are too many men collapsed, broken and bloody, on the ground. Silent, unmoving.

Dead.

Not just soldiers either, but warrior knights I recognize, from the Fourth and Sixth Houses, their eyes staring wide in surprise at the sky. I knew Rihad was looking to ensure his control, but this…this is carnage. What can be gained by it?

Screams of the monsters flood my mind, and I jerk my gaze up, past my own pain to focus on the far battle. Divhs litter the ground there as well. Dead, dying, their bodies becoming ephemeral in the rising heat of the marshy field as they return to their own plane. I stare in horror, struggling to understand. The Tournament of Gold isn’t about death and dying, it’s?—

My mind shifts back to Gent’s perspective, and I see something different. Not all the Divhs are dying, at least. Those of the Eighth House and the First are rolling strong, the Second too. And the Third. Those are the ones attacking to kill, not to maim or merely overcome. Those are the ones attacking to destroy, both on the ground and in the sky. The wolf of the Second House and the bull of the Seventh are once more a team, dragging down a set of smaller Divhs I’ve not seen before in the tournament, the Divhs of lesser warrior knights, I’m certain, collapsing under the attack of the much greater first-blooded monsters. They thrash and whirl, but surprisingly, there’s no real telling who is the aggressor and who the defense, not if you don’t know what to look for…

Not if you don’t know.

All at once, I see the beauty of Rihad’s plan. There will be no survivors of this battle except those that Rihad has carefully chosen. Those warrior knights loyal to him to the end will as one decry the savage treachery of their fellows, claiming that they were the ones turned upon, they were the ones assaulted. Rihad will then pledge to restore the glory of the Protectorate by creating new bands, new Divhs—all of which he’ll ultimately control. In one horrific melee, he’ll have both destroyed his greatest opponents and swung the gratitude of the masses to him.

Another cry cuts across my thoughts, and Gent turns to take the full brunt of Rihad’s monster’s attack. The scorpion’s cruel pincer-like appendages slash through the air, its wings erupting in a wild fury as it slams fully into Gent’s body.

Exactly at that moment, a new pain erupts in my side, strong enough to lift me off my saddle. It does lift me off, in fact, the broad cleaving sword of an Eighth House soldier skewering me and wrenching me from Darkwing, who screams and surges away to avoid being trampled by the rush of three warriors who’ve borne down on me from behind.

I land hard on the dusty ground, the world around me bathed in blood. I haul myself up, finally regaining my feet, knowing that the Eighth House soldier has dismounted as well to finish me off. I stare at him, backing away, but there’s nowhere to run. A flash of metal cuts through the air, catching the bright sunlight?—

Pain rips through me. A chasm of fire stretching wide to swallow me whole.

“Talia!” The agonized, unmistakably feminine cry is distant—but I hear it. I hear it. Pride surges through my blood.

I stagger one step, then another. The ground is suddenly too close, and I fall down to meet it. Images flash before my eyes: Merritt’s joyful leap as he surged into the sky that final time. My mother’s quiet smile as she brushed my long, unruly hair. Nazar, wise and calm, his grace and wisdom so obvious now when before, I had never seen it, never imagined its harrowing truth. Fortiss’s face, half-masked in the darkness, before he knew me for what I really was. Caleb, brave and fierce.

My heart swells, and I struggle to rise, then cower as a horse veers too close to me. The full-throated cries of the Savasci grow louder, renewed as they surge nearer and another wave of attacks bursts from the roiling crowd.

But there are so many who wish to see me dead. A gauntleted fist cracks into the side of my head, another knife slash tears through what remains of my sleeve, ripping it to shreds. My thoughts spin off in new directions and I feel the surge of panic again welling up.

Gent—Gent is trying to find me, to reach my broken body. Gent who, though scraped and bloody from Rihad’s massive Divh, is even now battling his way through the mob to protect me.

I pray to the Light he won’t make it.

I roll forward on my face, my hand stretching out to where I know my beautiful Divh will eventually come. My worry that my father might reclaim my warrior band melts away as a new, far more horrible possibility looms. Gent can’t die with me. And he will. The bodies of warriors surround me, their eyes dead and their Divhs dead with them. It can’t be this way for Gent, I think, as I taste copper and salt, my lips wet now, my face streaming with tears. He cannot die.

My right hand lifts to my heart, then higher still, to where the warrior’s band is clamped around my left arm. I curl my fingers around it as my Divh thunders up from the far distance, tossing men and horses aside like toys with his immense, sweeping arms.

“Gent,” I manage, though my mouth is filled with blood. The sound of the battle dims with the pounding of my heart in my ears. My hand slips on the warrior band, but I force my fingers beneath it, tugging with all my strength, the pain merely another wave of fire blackening my bones. “Gent, you cannot die.”

The scream of my Divh fills the whole world, anguish, pain, and loss crashing around me as he drops to his knees a hundred strides distant from me, his shadow blocking out the sun. At last the warrior band comes away in my hand, pulsing with a life I can no longer share with it. Relief fills me, staving off the pain for a moment more, and I put my last crystalline burst of energy into a force as strong as any command I will ever utter.

“Gent,” I whisper through chattering teeth. “I release you.”