Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“You didn’t die,” he pointed out.

“Of course not,” Long Fist replied, shrugging his tunic shut. “I made my sacrifice to Kwihna, not to Wakarii.”

“Wakarii?”

“The Coward’s God. The Lord of the Grave.”

It was the first time Valyn had heard Ananshael referred to as a god for cowards, but he wasn’t interested in debating theology. “What do you want?” he asked. “Why did your people tie us up and drag us halfway across the steppe?”

Long Fist gazed up at the shifting clouds, as though the answer to the question was scrawled across the wind. “What do I want?” he mused. “I suppose that what I want is to know whom to help, and whom to destroy.”

“I volunteer for the former,” Balendin said, stepping forward, managing an awkward bow over his bound hands.

Long Fist considered the leach for a moment. “I recognize Valyn from his eyes and from his father’s description.” Valyn stared at the mention of his father, but Long Fist pressed ahead as though he’d said nothing surprising. “Huutsuu informs me that these others are the prince’s warriors.…”

“Not all of us,” Pyrre said.

The chieftain raised an eyebrow, studied the assassin for a moment, then turned back to Balendin as though she had not spoken. “You, however. You were captured separately.”

The leach shrugged. “Different Wing. We’re all Kettral.”

“You fickle, traitorous fuck,” Gwenna spat, shouldering her way forward. She glared at Balendin for a heartbeat, as though deciding whether or not to tackle him, then turned to Long Fist. “You should kill him. You can’t keep him drugged forever, and whatever he tells you now, when he comes undrugged you’ll wish to Hull he was dead.”

“I do not wish,” Long Fist replied, “I pray. And I do not pray to Hull. More, I do not kill men until I know what use they might have.”

Balendin smiled. “Oh, I’m useful. I can promise you that.”

Long Fist merely nodded, considering the leach once more, then gesturing to someone behind them with one extended finger. A young ksaabe, barely older than Valyn, came running with a wooden pipe. She set it in the shaman’s outstretched hand, then retreated. Long Fist took a long drag, held it a moment, then exhaled slowly, the smoke wreathing his face.

“I have questions,” he said finally.

“You can bugger yourself with your questions,” Laith replied, spitting at the shaman’s feet.

Long Fist took another long puff on his pipe, staring at the flier from behind the cloud of smoke.

“If you speak to me like that again, I will cut out your tongue.” The words were level, matter-of-fact, as though he were discussing a new bowstring or the morning rain.

Laith looked ready to snap, but Valyn spoke into the ensuing silence before the flier could respond.

“What are your questions?”

“First,” the shaman raised a finger, “what are you doing on my steppe?”

Valyn had expected the question, but he responded carefully. Balendin might know nothing about the Flea, about Assare and the kenta, and Valyn didn’t intend to give him any extra information. “My Wing was forced down after a fight in the mountains.”

Long Fist glanced at Huutsuu, and she nodded.

“A fight,” he mused. “You killed the monks?”

Valyn blinked. He hadn’t expected the shaman to know anything about Ashk’lan, but then, the Shin had traded with someone. For all he knew, the eastern Urghul tribes had frequented the monastery before its destruction. The real question was how Long Fist felt about the monks. The fact that Ashk’lan, perched above the eastern steppe, had never been destroyed spoke volumes. Valyn took a deep breath, then plunged.

“No. We killed the men who killed the monks.” He nodded contemptuously toward Balendin. “His Wing. And others.”

Long Fist raised an eyebrow. “Your own men. You killed other Annurians.”

“Traitors,” Valyn amended, anger at the memory shoving aside fear and caution both.

“And your brother? He is dead?”

Valyn hesitated. “No.”

“My comrades,” Balendin said, shrugging as he spoke, “were more zealous than skilled. As you can see, I’m no friend of Valyn, his family, or his empire.” He smiled slowly. “Which could make me very useful to you.”

The leach wasn’t even trying to disguise his treachery, which, Valyn had to admit, might well prove the shrewd decision, given the frayed relations between Annur and the Urghul. The horsemen might respect the monks, but they loathed the empire. If Long Fist were looking for an ally, who better than a Kettral-trained leach, one with an intimate knowledge of Annur’s military?

“As I recall,” Valyn said, turning to face Balendin, “it was you yourself who underestimated my brother, who nearly died at his hands.” He nodded toward the leach’s shoulder. “How’s that bolt puncture?”

“Healing nicely, thank you for asking,” Balendin replied. “As for your brother, I’m looking forward to cutting out those fancy eyes of his the next time we meet.”

Long Fist seemed half bored, half amused by the exchange.

Gwenna, however, rounded on Valyn, eyes ablaze. “Are we going to keep talking?” she demanded. “Or do you want me to kill him?”

It was an implausible threat. Balendin snorted, but he took half a step back all the same. He’s nervous, Valyn realized, tasting the fear on the air. Normally, the leach would have been feasting off Gwenna’s rage, bathing in the power that came from her emotion, but drugged as he was with adamanth root, her fury brought him no strength.

“Stand down, Gwenna,” Valyn said. He wanted Balendin cut to pieces as much as she did, probably more, but he didn’t intend to make a spectacle of his Wing in front of the Urghul chieftain.

“Why?” she demanded, glaring at him, then jerking her head at Long Fist. “So we can please this bloody son of a bitch? When we finish Balendin, we ought to start on him.”

Valyn tensed, ready for some sort of retribution, but Long Fist just raised his brows.

“Such hatred,” he said. “Before you kill a man, you should be sure he is not your brother.”

“My brothers are all in the legions,” Gwenna spat. “On the frontier. Keeping you bastards out.”

“You see?” Long Fist said, looking past Gwenna to Huutsuu. “This is what most Annurians believe.”

“What?” Valyn demanded. “What do we believe?”

The shaman spread his hands. “That my people are trying to invade your empire.”

Valyn frowned, then nodded to the sprawling camp. “What’s all this then? We’ve got to be all the way into the Blood Steppe, probably just a few days from the White, and you’ve put together a ’Kent-kissing army.”

“A defensive army,” Long Fist replied. “Protection against your predatory war chief.”

Valyn shook his head. “War chief?”

“Ran il Tornja,” Talal said quietly. They were the first words the leach had spoken, and the Urghul chief turned an appraising eye on him, then nodded.

“This is his name. My army, as you call it, is no more than a shield against his depredations.”

“There’s a guy back on the Islands,” Laith observed, “Great Gray Balt. He loves his shield-beaten twenty men to death with it.”

Long Fist nodded. “More than twenty will die if Ran il Tornja comes across the White. But I have no longing for this fight.” He pointed at Valyn with the stem of his pipe. “Your father understood this. I wonder … do you?”

“What do you know of my father?” Valyn demanded, the chieftain’s earlier words coming back to him.

“More than you. We met yearly to reestablish our common border, to discuss our common goals. I sparred with him just ten moons past.”