Elizabeth Moon - Surrender None

His army reversed and marched back down its trace without attracting immediate mounted pursuit—the only kind Gird feared. They were on his new-chosen field a little after midday. It was not as good as he remembered: there were bramble patches near a small creek, and muddy areas under the fresh green grass. But such as it was, he had no choice. He moved his army back, under the edge of the trees, to encamp, sent his scouts well out, and set to work to improve the site as best he could. By nightfall, he had word that the enemy was coming, on more than one trail. The largest group followed his own trace, but another was moving in from the northeast, on one of the alternate trails. So, he thought. He had been right—no escape that way, even if he’d tried it.

In the predawn stillness, he could hear a single bird calling from far away, high on the hill’s slope. His army slept. As quietly as he could, Gird made his way past the banked firepits, past the line of sentries, to whom he nodded without speaking, and started up the hill. Here, beyond the camp, he walked through layers of fresh summer scents, the night smells of open country. A patch of pale tiroc flowers poured out heavy sweetness; in the hot daytime sun, they hardly had an odor. Down from the heights came a waft of cedar, a sharp bite of wild thyme. A goat had brushed against the bushes here; its sharp pungency banished the other smells for a moment, until he’d climbed past it.

Ahead, the hill was dark against the early dawn glow. Something rustled in the bushes, a frantic frightened scurry as some small animal fled. The bird called again, closer now. It was no bird he knew, with that exquisite rippling flow of music. Gird looked back. Light had seeped into the upper sky, and far to the west the land began to show its shape, the hilltops their color. He climbed on, very aware of the smells and sounds, the feel of the cool air on his bare arms, the texture of the leaves that brushed against him, the feel of the stone or soil beneath his feet.

He came to the hilltop sooner than he expected. Behind, below, the ragged and smelly army lay hidden in shadow. He heard a distant clatter of pots, and wondered what the cooks would find to put in them. More roots and herbs, no doubt, and they still had two sacks of meal. Not much for a whole army. But morning hunger had been part of his life from childhood; farmers were always out working at dawn. He had this brief, private moment before the day’s cares.

Far over the rim of the world, the sun rose up, the light by which truth could be seen, as Esea’s priest had named it. Against the low slanting light, Gird saw the myriad furred tufts of grass, rose-gold, forming a dancing curtain of rose, veiling the sun’s impossible brilliance, transmuting it to grace and delicacy. He stood bemused, as he had once long ago on his farm, on that silver starlit evening. All was gold now, gold and rose together, shifting veils softening piercing brilliance; the scent of it rose up around him, a column of rose-gold incense. He had just time to think This is a vision , when the hill slipped out from under him and he hung suspended in gold and rose draperies. Now he looked west again, over the land new-lit by the sun, where soft gold light filled the valleys like wine, and a harder radiance chiseled the hilltops into clean, unblurred beauty. Despite the haze of gold, he could see far, to the distant mountains on the edge of Finaarenis. He had dreamed of them as cold, gray, uncaring crags, but now they stood serene and gracious, great castles awaiting their lords. He seemed to see within them, to the arched and echoing halls where the rockfolk harped and sang and crafted jewels and gold into treasures worthy of such castles. Now he looked north, across the light, to the great river and beyond, seeing at a glance all its laughing little tributaries, and the great loom of the moors and the broad steppes. There the horse nomads roamed, with bright embroidery on their boots, narrow streamers blowing from poles by their tents, herds of shining horses. Above them romped the Windsteed, flaunting a cloudy tail, and broad across the grassland the Mare of Plenty ranged on tireless hooves. Behind her, grass sprang tall and green, and her hoofprints filled with clear water.

He would have been frightened if it had been possible; he retained enough of his wit to know that. But it was not possible. He lay quiet in the gold and rosy veils, looking where he was bid, seeing the land as it was, as the gods saw it, as it could be: in the broad light of day, peaceful villages of farmers, orchards restored and fields once more fertile. Flocks of sheep on the hillsides, herds of cattle in river meadows. A market fair, in some town that might be built where a burnt village had been, with fair measures given, and fair weights enforced. Children splashing in a shallow ford, a woman riding a horse, a bright helm on her head, cottages with tight roofs and mended walls, rows of bright flowers. The vision pierced his heart, brought scalding tears to his eyes. This—he had almost forgotten—this was what he wanted, not an obedient army, helpful farmers, even victory in battle, but this peace, this plenty, this justice.

With the tears came his release from the dream. He felt himself falling, but slowly, like goosedown or a dandelion tuft; felt gentle arms around him; heard a murmuring voice he could not quite follow. Flower petals drummed feathersoft on his bare arms, against his face, drying his tears, and when he came to himself, he was standing in a drift as white as snow in the broad morning sun. He reached his arms into the cool petals, lifted them, buried his face in them. Alyanya’s sign, it had to be—but beneath the fragrance was a faint bitter tang of cold wet earth in autumn. Promise and warning, then, and he but a peasant. Laughter rang about him, so joyous that he smiled before he realized the sound had been within him.

“Dammit!” he burst out, unthinking. “You won’t ever make anything simple!”

And the voice that answered him then was cold, clean and precise as starlight.

—No. I did not make anything simple.—

Gird’s knees gave way, and he fell into the flowers. That was not Alyanya, by any reckoning, and he could not pretend to himself not to know who it was. Ask for a word from the gods , he thought crazily, and beware—

But the knowledge he had asked for without really wanting it was pouring into his head, overfilling it as if someone stuffed a sack with wool.

Promise: it was possible to win that peace for his people.

Warning: it was not his peace.

His fault? he wondered.

No answer, only certainty. All the symbols the priest had taught him, all the gnomes had shared of their lore, flickered through his mind as quickly as the counters on a trader’s account board, a rapid clicking that ended with the crashing finality of stone falling onto stone. As it was now, as reality lay, that peace was possible, but he was forfeit.

He had thought he did not care, until he knew it was certain. Now, in a silence he realized was more than normal, he lay face down in Alyanya’s flowers and had leisure to consider if he meant in truth what he had said so often. I would give my life, he’d said. I will risk, he’d said. I could be killed as easy as you, he’d said to frightened yeomen.

But that had been risk ; the spear might thrust in his gut, or not. The sword might slice another’s neck. So far it always had been someone else, and he knew now he’d half-expected it always would be.

Now . . . certainly die? Never enjoy that peace? Never sit with his grandchildren around him, telling his tales of the old days?

He was suspended again, this time in the vast caverns of his own mind: cold, darkness, fear beneath him, and nothing at all above. If he fell now nothing would slow his fall; he would not land in Alyanya’s flowers. His own mind—he knew it was that, and no gods’ gift of vision—painted all too vividly a picture of the land after his fall. No peace, but the ravages of the magelords, the scavenging of brigands. More dead bodies bloated in the fields for crows to pick clean; babies and children and young and old: he saw all their faces. Innocent beasts, cows and horses and sheep, lame and wounded, wandering prey for folokai and wolves. And he saw his own death then, the death of an old man, bald and feeble, when he could no longer forage from his hideout in distant caves: he fell to folokai, and the crows followed.