S Farrell - A Magic of Dawn

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Allesandra interjected. “The power you’ve given the untrained rabble…”

“I’m afraid that the rabble is nearly all we have between us and the Tehuantin at the moment, Kraljica, unless you think that the Garde Brezno can do the impossible.”

She frowned. “I know,” Allesandra answered. “Still, something about this…” She clapped Talbot on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Talbot. I worry what this means for the future: for the Holdings, for the Faith, for our society.” She pressed her lips together, cutting off the rest of her thought. “You’ve done a fine job,” she told Talbot. “Everything we’ve asked for and more. I just hope it all works when the time comes-because it will have to.”

She drew herself up, mounting onto the step of her carriage. “Continue your work. In the meantime, I need to check with Sergei and the Garde Brezno.”

Talbot bowed to her; she stepped fully into the carriage, gesturing to the driver. He slapped the reins on the back of the horses, and with a grumbling of wheels, the carriage lurched forward.

His feet ached, his back throbbed with every step. They had passed three villages so far in the day’s march, all of them deserted-Tototl had allowed the warriors to scavenge for food and supplies, then ordered the houses burned. The smoke was still smeared across the sky behind them.

Niente wanted to do little more than lie down and let the warriors and nahualli leave him in the dirt. He was grateful when Tototl called a halt to the quick march. He sank down in the grass alongside the road and accepted the bread, cheese, and water that one of the nahualli handed him, gulping down the sweet coolness. He saw a shadow looming near him, and sat up. Tototl was watching him.

“I will get you a horse, Uchben Nahual.”

“I’ll be fine in a few moments, High Warrior.”

“I will get you a horse,” Tototl answered. “I need the Uchben Nahual to be ready when we begin the attack tonight.”

Niente had rarely talked to Tototl, since the High Warriors, with the exception of the Tecuhtli with the Nahual, rarely had interaction with the nahualli. He found himself looking at the man’s painted face and wondering what he might actually be thinking. “We’re that close, then?”

“We’ll see the tops of the houses when we cross the next rise. The scouts have told me that there are troops readying to meet us. The battle will begin very soon now.” For a few breaths, Tototl was silent, and Niente was content to sit on the grassy bank of the road. The breeze was fragrant with the scent of this land. Then Tototl stirred. “What did you see when you looked in the scrying bowl, Uchben Nahual? I watched you, watched your face, and I don’t believe that you told Tecuhtli Citlali everything.”

“I told him the truth,” Niente insisted. “Nahual Atl saw the same.”

Tototl’s mouth twisted under the paint and ink that adorned his face. “Your son is not you, Uchben Nahual. He may be one day, but not yet. You were holding back something you saw, something that frightened you. I saw it in your face, Niente. I want to know-did you see us defeated?”

Niente shook his head. I saw our victory here, and its terrible cost. I saw that it might be averted, and I saw that there the future was too confused and tangled to predict. “No,” he said.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” Tototl said. He was staring northward along the road, as if he could already see the city. “Dying well in battle is the end that every High Warrior looks for. It’s not a fear of dying; I’m afraid of the cost of this to the Tehuantin.” Tototl looked down again at Niente, and hope sprang up in him, a hope that the warrior might understand what Citlali could not. “Is that what you’re afraid of also, Uchben Nahual?” Tototl asked

Niente’s throat seemed to close under Tototl’s steady, unblinking regard. He nodded silently.

“So you’ve seen something.” This time Tototl said it with certainty. Niente shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve seen too many paths, High Warrior. Too many, and all of them uncertain. But…” He inhaled, long and slow. Can you trust this man? Could this be a trap he’s set for you, maybe even one that Citlali and Atl have set? “Let me ask you this: if you killed a warrior in challenge, you would claim that you have won a victory. But what if in killing that warrior, you have in turn so inflamed his son that when he becomes a warrior, he brings an army and destroys everything that you’ve built, destroys everything you cherish so completely that it cannot be recovered? Was your initial victory worth winning, then?”

“That would depend,” Tototl said, “on whether you could tell me-without doubt-that the son would do all this.”

Niente was shaking his head. “The future is never entirely certain,” he told the warrior. “Even what happens in the next moment might change, if Axat wills it. But what if I could tell you that this was the likely outcome? Would you hold your sword stroke, then?”

“It would depend on whether holding my sword stroke cost me my own life,” Tototl said. “No warrior wants to give the enemy their life freely. I would think the same would be true of a nahualli.”

“That’s what I might say in your place,” Niente said.

Tototl’s head cocked slightly to one side. He grunted something that might have been assent. “Since you say the future is always uncertain, would you give your full support to a High Warrior, Uchben Nauhual, even if you thought it might be the wrong path?”

“That’s a nahualli’s duty,” Niente answered. A quick amusement crossed Tototl’s face, and he knew the warrior understood that he hadn’t fully answered the question.

“I will get you a horse, Uchben Nahual,” Tototl said to Niente.

“She was with him? You’re certain it was her?”

Sergei nodded. “It was Rochelle, Hirzgin. So at least that much of what she told me would seem to be the truth. Rochelle was raised as Nico’s sister by the White Stone. Whether she knows that he’s not really her brother…?” Sergei raised a tired shoulder. “I’m not sure she understands that.”

Sergei and Brie were sitting astride their horses, overlooking the fields around the Avi a’Sutegate where the Garde Kralji was encamped. There were too few of them, Sergei knew-given the report the scouts had brought back of the size of the Westlander forces advancing toward them. Though the offiziers were running the gardai through maneuvers, the troops looked sluggish and lost. They were not trained for this: open, full-scale combat against another organized and trained force. That much had been shown in the debacle of the Old Temple, when even the equally untrained Morellis had been able to hold them at bay for too long. The Garde Kralji was a glorified personal guard and policing unit, not an army battalion.

The battle won’t be won here, Sergei reminded himself. It will be won across the River A’Sele, with the Hirzg and the Garde Civile. We just have to hold our own here, hold them back long enough that the Garde Civile can return and rescue us.

He was fairly certain they would need that rescue, and he wasn’t particularly hopeful that it would be coming.

“They look terribly clumsy and slow, and I’m not at all impressed with their offiziers,” Brie said next to him, as if she had overheard his thoughts. She was dressed in full armor over a quilted tashta and wore a sword at her side, though her helm was still lashed to the pommel of her saddle, her brown hair braided and hanging low down her back. She looked entirely comfortable in the martial outfit-much, he thought, as Allesandra did when she commanded the field troops. It was a shame, he thought, that the two of them had been so long sundered. Allesandra’s son had married someone much like his matarh, either unwittingly or consciously. “I wish I had brought the Garde Brezno as well. These Garde Kralji are going to need strong leadership on the field, or they’ll break the first time the fighting gets difficult.”