Kate Elliott - His conquering sword

"What?" Hal murmured, "like a rat negotiating a maze? Dad, don't you think that's a little cruel?"

Owen blinked. "Cruel? What curious words you use, Henry. Well, there's nothing for him here. He'll be crippled for life if he stays here. Why shouldn't he come with us? He'll be wonderful. It will take work, and you'll all have to be very generous for a while-"

"But who is it?" asked Quinn.

"It's Vasil Veselov, isn't it?" asked Diana. She looked at Gwyn, and he at her, and they both nodded, together.

"Hold on," said Ginny. "We haven't done with the first bit, yet. Tess Soerensen will be escorting us to a port, so that we and those of Soerensen's party who didn't leave with him can return to Jeds and thence to Earth. Oh, and Veselov's family will be joining us once we leave this area. He has a wife and two small children."

"Ginny," said Diana, "did anyone ask Karelia if she wanted to leave the tribes?"

"Karolla? Who is Karolla?"

"She's Veselov's wife."

Ginny shrugged. "I don't know, but Tess said that she had cleared it all with the headwoman of the Veselov tribe. Let me see. Burckhardt left with Soerensen, or not with him precisely-never mind. Yomi, what other details do they need?"

Yomi discussed logistics for a while, but Diana could not concentrate. She felt a kind of numb relief that Marco Burckhardt was gone, insofar as she could feel anything. Mostly she felt hollow. Someone would come, tomorrow, the day after, a week from now, bringing Anatoly's body. Then she felt faint, sick with horror. What if they had already burned him? What if the jaran dead had just been left in Karkand, if Bakhtiian had used the city itself for the funeral pyre for his soldiers? She tried desperately to picture Anatoly exactly as she had last seen him, proud and confident as he rode away into battle, but she could not bring the image into focus.

"Di? Are you all right?" Quinn whispered.

"I just need some air," she said, rising abruptly. "No, I'll be fine. No one needs to come with me."

"Let her go," Gwyn said. She pushed past the others and out underneath the awning. At long last the wind was dying, though ash still pattered quietly onto the cloth above her, a light, shushing sound. What did it matter, anyway, if the ash fell on her? What if some fragment of it was his remains, come to touch her one final time? She headed out into it, walking back to her tent through the darkness.

And there he was, the rider, standing beside his horse outside her tent, waiting to give her the news of her husband's death. She hadn't expected the message so soon.

"There's no point in even washing," he said, seeing her approach, "under all this dirt. Of course, the khaja would pour filth down on us." He took off his helmet, shook out his hair, and drew his fingers through the plume. "Everything, just everything is covered with it. Grandmother is going to move her camp south. The winds are blowing north and east, so it ought to be clear a day's ride in that direction. And anyway, Bakhtiian will have to send part of his army south to Salkh soon enough, to my uncle."

Diana stopped dead.

"Where did those boys go off to?" Anatoly continued. "They were just here. Can you light the lantern?"

She could not speak.

"Oho, there they are. Viktor! You imp. Come get this damned stuff off me. Bring that lantern!" He laughed. "Look at them. They grabbed some khaja shields. No, no, you idiots. You can't cut as if you're on horseback when you're on foot."

The two boys panted up with a younger boy in tow. They threw down their shields and helped Anatoly out of his armor and stowed it under the shields to protect it from further ashfall. Then Anatoly took the lantern from them and ordered them away. He went into the tent.

Diana could not move.

A moment later, he ducked out again. "Diana?" He walked over to her. "Come on." He grabbed her hand and tugged her in, and she went. His grip was firm enough. He wasn't a ghost.

"Is there something for me to drink?" he asked as he tugged off his boots. "I'm famished. I came straight from the field here, as soon as I could. I would have sent a message, but-oh, Diana, I'm sorry if you were worried. But you know I can't be hurt in battle. The gods sent you to me."

This once, thank the Goddess, there was food and drink for him in the tent, although not, of course, anything as elaborate as his grandmother would have served him. But he was content.

He was content. She watched him eat. Obviously he was starving, but he ate neatly and efficiently. When he sighed, replete, and reclined on the carpet, smiling at her, she felt wretched.

"Diana?" His face changed at once. "You've heard, then, haven't you? About the Prince of Jeds?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Who else? One of the Vershinin sons died. Anton Veselov is dead, too, and the amazing thing is that Mother Veselov asked that their cousin Vera be named dyan. But the Veselov riders demanded it! Evidently she took the staff of command out of her cousin's hand as he died and led them wisely enough through the rest of the battle. It was my men who brought the madwoman's body in. They found her up on the walls."

"The madwoman?" She was too stupified by his presence to understand what he was talking about.

"The prince's soldier-"

"Ursula el Kawakami is dead?" The conversation seemed unreal to her. Anatoly was dead; it was impossible that he was here, now, not one meter from her, regarding her with his beautiful, expressive eyes.

"You hadn't heard? Diana." He reached out and caught her wrist and drew her down beside him. He was warm and solid. She pressed her face against his chest. He smelled of smoke. "It's all right, Diana. I know what you're thinking. The prince's entourage must return to Jeds, and your Company with them. I know that you have to go with them. Grandmother still thinks I married beneath me, but she doesn't understand that you're a Singer, that the gods have called you. How else could you be both yourself and the Daughter of the Sun? Or Mekhala, or Mekhala's sister, or the youngest daughter of the head woman? Or the mother who saves her child? So I understand that the greater honor is mine, for gaining you. But you don't need to worry, Diana. I know what we can do. I'll ask Bakhtiian to send me and my jahar to Jeds. Someone must protect his wife's possessions until she can come to claim them. Someone must act as regent. Grandmother likes the idea. It's an honor well due to our family. Then you and I can stay together, in Jeds."

She tilted her head back. He looked so damnably optimistic, like they all did, because they thought that their gods had granted them the right to rule their world. And who was to say that it wasn't true? Certainly, Tess Soerensen and her brother had come down from the heavens and now even more than before were prepared to push the balance in favor of the jaran.

"But we're not going back to Jeds. We're going far away, far across the ocean, back to Erthe, where we came from. Anatoly." Already she felt stripped to the bone with misery. It hurt to have to tell him, while he was holding her this close. He looked bewildered by her anguish. He was so sure there was some solution when there wasn't one and never could have been one. "That journey can't be taken twice, Anatoly. Once I go, I can never come back."

"But, Diana-"

"Oh, you could go with me, perhaps, if Tess Soerensen agreed, but you'd have to leave the tribes forever." Her chest was so tight, her throat so choked with emotion, that she found herself breathing hard. She could not catch her breath. But she had to make him understand how final it was, that there was no hope. That she had no choice. "You'd have to leave your jahar. You could never come back either. You're right, about the gods. They called me to be an actor. I can't turn away from that, no matter how much I might want to stay with you here." She faltered, because his expression frightened her.