“That was a blow most well struck out there,” Amris said. “That we held is thanks to you, and to your sword-spirit. I hope,” he added, clearing his throat and thinking of Gerant’s sudden absence and the conversation he’d had with Darya, “they don’t suffer from it in any lasting sense.”
“No, thank you,” Katrine replied. “I think they’re well enough. The gem didn’t crack.”
“And neither did you,” Emeth added, stroking the blond curls fondly, “though it was too damned near for my liking. That thing…” She looked up at Amris. “I’ve seen her take down a half-dozen undead and not suffer like this. And it’s still out there.”
He nodded. “It is. And Thyran is. Yet we’re still here, and I’ll take some comfort from that. The mages are working on defenses even now, and perhaps on spells that will hurt that creature if it should return.” None of them had sounded very hopeful about it, but he didn’t need to say so. Emeth’s dark gaze held no trace of hope. “He seemed hurt for a moment, just before you struck, Sentinel. Do you believe he could sense the power as you called it forth?”
“I don’t know. Nothing else has.”
“And there’s another root in this particular stew,” said a voice from behind him.
Even though the spell had reassured Amris all through the fight, hearing Darya was still a spot of warmth in his chest. He turned and saw her, straggle-haired and tired and lovely, carrying a helmet and gorget that would have never fit her. Behind her came Olvir, white-faced and unsteady of gait.
“Are you injured?” Amris looked swiftly over the knight, seeing no immediate signs of fresh blood, nor any new bruises as far as he could make out. Mingled with a friend’s concern and a commander’s responsibility for those he commanded was an unpleasant sense of upheaval. He’d been certain there were no wounded.
“Not exactly,” Olvir said, sitting with none of the grace Tinival’s warriors usually showed. “I don’t really know how to start.”
It was Darya who started, summing the situation up from her perspective in three blunt sentences while Olvir tried to find words. Thyran had stared at Olvir. He hadn’t seemed to like the results. At some point afterward—“though I hadn’t exactly been paying attention; I’d say I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t believe me and you wouldn’t want me to be, if you had any damn sense”—in Darya’s words, the knight had collapsed.
“She’s right,” said Olvir. “And that’s as much as I can be certain of.”
“Be uncertain, then,” said Darya, “but be uncertain out loud, dammit.”
Startled, Olvir laughed, and Amris with him, though he was less surprised. The other man began, “I remember Thyran looking at me, of course. It’s not likely I could forget.”
“He’s very memorable,” Amris agreed grimly.
“Yes. He…” Olvir lifted his hands, then dropped them back to his sides. “At the time, I thought it was a quality of his alone. There was a—I don’t know quite how to put it—a sense… I wouldn’t call it recognition. I didn’t know him at all, save from tales. But when I looked at him, I felt as if, oh, as if I’d heard three lines of a song and would be humming it all day until I could bring the fourth to mind. It was far more overwhelming, though, and not in my mind. Not in words at all, and I don’t think I could have put it into words at the time. None of you felt it?”
“Nothing like that,” Darya said. “I’ll admit he scared the hell out of me, but just the regular way.”
“I was completely unflappable, of course,” Emeth said. “And if I hadn’t been, I’d have been like Darya here. Kat? Don’t move your head, darlin’.”
“No,” said Katrine. “I barely saw his face.”
“I knew him,” said Amris, “but because we’d met before. Otherwise, no. It was that which overcame you?”
“In a way,” Olvir said. “My memory of the event isn’t what I wish. I recall that feeling, and I had been starting, as much as the situation would let me, to try and work it out. I leaned forward to look at him more closely, and I called up Tinival’s power to see truth. I saw blackness, and not only because I was falling unconscious—shattered, shining darkness. Then Ididgo under.”
“Had I struck before you did?” Katrine asked. Waiting for an answer, she sipped her tea gingerly.
“I don’t believe so, Sentinel, no.”
“Then I suspect it wasn’t my power Thyran sensed,” she said, “and I suspect he wasn’t fond of whatever you did. Could it all have been down to Tinival?”
“Perhaps,” said Olvir slowly. “He was—is, I suppose—Gizath’s brother. The familiarity would make sense. Tinival’s presence has always felt very different to me. But Gizath’s power is to turn things against themselves, and maybe that would have made a difference.”
“It might have.” Amris called up his memories of meetings in tents and on battlefields, as well as the occasional session of tactics that had managed to take place within four walls. “None of the knights I fought with mentioned any such thing, nor did their presence affect Thyran so. It may be that the years have caused him certain vulnerabilities or, given your order certain strengths, though I’ll not count on either.”
“Looks to me,” Emeth said, “like we already know what we can count on. Us, and those things out there.”
“Can he rebuild that walking abattoir?” Katrine asked.
They all exchanged glances. Amris was about to hazard a guess when Gerant spoke inside his head, faint and weary.I have no certain way of knowing,he said,but if there’s any left of it, yes. And if there isn’t, I’m almost sure that he can make another.
* * *
“That—” Katrine’s voice caught. She cleared her throat and went on. “That stands to reason, I suppose. Gods know he has the raw material.”
