Mitchell Smith: Kingdom River

"Who else?"

Howell stopped smiling.

"Who else?"

"Ned."

"You're – you don't know that. He could be anywhere out there!"

"Sam, they found him. Sword cuts. Elman saw him fighting in the charge, surrounded by those people… Found the Kipchak Khan a little farther on. Fucker had been trampled – his own people rode over him."

"Yes… One of Horacio's officers, Frank Clay, told me they'd found Toghrul dead."

"Ned was maybe a bow-shot away from him. Going to kill the son-of-a-bitch, I suppose, and there were just too many to ride through."

"… Howell, I gave him that order. I said, 'The Khan is to be killed.' "

"A proper order, Sam – and Ned and his people drove the Kipchaks over their own commander."

For a while, they stood and said nothing. It had become a beautiful day, no snowflakes falling. The evening sun shone warm as egg-yolk through clear, cold air. The blood in Sam's right boot had turned to icy slush.

By the greatest effort, he managed not to recall a single day of the numberless days he and Ned had spent together in the Sierra. Laughing – always laughing about something… usually mischief, sheep stealing, trying to lure ranchers' lean, tough daughters out into the moonlight. Always some… nonsense.

"There'd better be two worlds," he said to Howell. "There'd better be a place with open gates, for all the ones we've lost."

"If not," – Howell managed a smile – "we'll take the army and break those gates down." He saluted, and went to mount his tired horse. A lucky man, not to have been blinded by that wound…

At dark, by a campfire built high of hardwood – as, Sam supposed, a sort of victory beacon – his commanders, senior officers surviving, many limping and bloodied in battered armor, stood around him on the high-ridge hilltop like monuments to war's triumphs and disasters. Some were drawing deep, exhausted breaths, as if still uncertain of their next.

The Boston girl, Patience – no longer looking quite so young – knelt in the fire's light, polishing her scimitar's slender steel.

"Sam…" Howell had cleaned the dried blood from his face, and looked only weary. "Sam, what do we do now?"

The campfire roared softly, its smoke rising into deeper night.

"We bury our dead," Sam said, looking into the flames. He held Phil's little dog, trembling in a fold of his cloak. "Then ride to the river, to celebrate a wedding."

The elderly Bishop of the Presence of Floating Jesus – a man habitually bulky and full in flesh – stood a little shrunken in his Shades-of-water robe, on which many little jeweled fish were sewn, mouths open to sing adoration of the Lord.

Old Queen Joan had been the bishop's casual enemy for years – supposedly he'd bored her; she'd certainly refused him residence at Island. But her death, nevertheless, had struck him such a surprising blow that these new matters, these over-settings of what had once been so, had worn him severely, and made what was real seem unreal.

True, the sun shone into the eight-week summer; true, the river's wind blew richly through the stone of Island – he felt his robe-hem ruffle to it – and true, men and women wed.

But standing on the wide balcony of North Tower, he faced not only the familiar – he'd known the Princess Rachel since she'd been a child – but the unfamiliar as well, a stocky North Mexican war-chief, supposedly soon to be the King… His officers, still battle-lame, crowded the chamber beyond, alongside great river lords – and one of the Boston creatures as well.

The sun shone, and the river's wind blew, but all else seemed a dream, and his reading of the marriage vows – 'fidelity to flow,' and so forth – unreal as the rest.

But he ended at last, and the Princess was gathered – cream lace crushed, diadem tilted awry – into her husband's arms and kissed with rather coarse energy, and apparent affection. Then a great rolling roar, an avalanche of shouts, welled from the crowds packing the wide landings, staircases, and distant broad, paved squares of Island – though many still wore blood-red in mourning for the Queen they'd loved. The granite rang, hundreds of hanging, ribboned decorations swung to that thunder, and the banners, pennants, and flags flying from every tower, flying from every ship in the near gate-harbor, seemed to ripple out also in celebration, as if with the river's blessing.

Still, the bishop felt he dreamed… until the bridegroom, smiling like a boy, reached out to take his hand – and woke him with an iron grip, eased to gentleness.