Leslie Moore - Griffin's Daughter

After all, what was his alternative?

“ My lord.”

“ Captain Miri,” Ashinji replied, acknowledging the older man’s greeting with a short nod. Gendan Miri had been captain of the Kerala Castle guard for as long as Ashinji could remember. He held the stirrup steady as Ashinji mounted his horse, a big, black gelding with a white blaze and large, intelligent eyes. After Ashinji settled himself, Gendan handed up his helmet, which he then hung from the pommel of the saddle. There would be little danger of attack until they reached the area of the last known bandit incursions. He could safely ride bare-headed today.

The first blush of dawn began coloring the sky to the east. The stable yard was dim and cool. The small company to ride out this morning totaled twelve in number: ten castle guards-eight men and two women-with Gendan and Ashinji rounding out the count.

“ Have the troops fall in, Captain,” Ashinji commanded. Gendan turned and called out the order in a clipped bass-baritone. Jingle of harness and creak of leather, horses stamping and blowing, the muted conversation of troops preparing to ride out-Ashinji let the sounds and sights flow through his mind like water over stones. He did not want to think right now; he just wanted to let the horse carry him along to where he needed to go so that he could do what he had to do and return home.

“ The company is ready, my lord,” Gendan reported. He maneuvered his ugly dun mount alongside Ashinji’s black gelding, who, in a fit of equine ill-humor, flattened his ears and turned to bite. Ashinji checked the animal with a quick jerk of the reins and grudgingly, the gelding turned his head away from the dun.

Ashinji looked over his shoulder toward the main door of the castle, then back to the now quiet company waiting at attention. He sighed.

Time to go.

He flicked the reins and clicked his tongue. The gelding started forward, angling toward the gate, Gendan riding alongside, the company following behind in orderly pairs.

“ Ashi, wait!”

Ashinji drew rein and turned in the saddle to see Lord Sen striding toward him. His father’s hair hung loose, and he wore only a simple robe and sandals, as if he had just left the warm haven of his bed to come see his son off.

“ Whew! Thought I’d missed you,” Sen exclaimed as he stepped up and put out a hand to rest on Ashinji’s knee. “It’s harder to get out of bed the older I get. Just wanted to be here when you left. I know I don’t have to tell you to be careful. Don’t take any foolish risks. These are only ragtag human bandits, after all, not trained warriors.” He looked up at Gendan, and a quick message, conveyed by eyes only, passed between lord and liegeman.

Gendan nodded once, sharply.

Lord Sen turned back to Ashinji.

“ I know I can rely on you, Youngest Son.” He patted Ashinji’s knee and stepped away from the gelding’s side.

“ I’ll return in ten days’ time, Father, whether or not I’ve found the bandits,” Ashinji promised. Once more, he urged his mount to walk on toward the gate, which swung slowly open as the riders approached. He led the way onto the sturdy bridge that linked Kerala Castle, which stood on a rocky island in the Saihama River, to the tree-lined shore.

As the company crossed the span, the clop clop of the horses’ hooves on wood broke the early morning stillness. Birds were just beginning to stir and twitter in the trees as the first rays of the sun shot upwards into the purple sky, kindling the underbellies of the clouds to rose-gold fire. A fine mist writhed among the treetops, but it would soon burn off in the rapidly warming air.

The black gelding blew noisily, then threw his head up and jigged sideways into Gendan’s dun, who answered with a swift nip to the neck. The gelding shied away, and Ashinji cursed as he was momentarily thrown off-balance. “I don’t think this horse has been ridden enough lately,” he commented ruefully as he tried to steady the animal.

Gendan chuckled. “He does seem to be feeling his grain, doesn’t he? He’ll settle down after a good brisk lope, I should think.”

“ Huh. Let’s hope so!”

Saihama Village lay a day’s ride to the east. The company planned to follow a track that paralleled the river for about a league, then cut across open pastureland until they reached the dirt lane that led to the village proper. Once there, Ashinji would meet with the sheriff and form a plan of action. He looked back over his shoulder at Kerala Castle, its whitewashed walls gleaming pink in the early morning light. He imagined that he could just make out the tiny figure of his father standing in the gate, arm raised in farewell.

I wonder how Sadaiyo will feel when he learns that our father sent me to do this job, rather than him, Ashinji thought.

He’ll be angry, no doubt, even though he’ll know it makes more sense for me to go…but when did my brother ever allow sense to guide him where I’m concerned?

He turned back in the saddle and focused his eyes forward, somewhere beyond the black horse’s swiveling ears.

For most of his life, Ashinji had been aware that Lord Sen favored him over his older brother, Sadaiyo. He suspected this was so because he and his father were much more alike in temperament than was Sen and his Heir. Ashinji had never encouraged this. In fact, he had always sought to discourage his father’s favoritism, subtle though it was. Try as he might, however, Lord Sen could not conceal the difference in affection he felt for each of his sons. The special bond he shared with Ashinji was just too strong, and because of it, Sadaiyo had nursed a dark, bitter resentment against his brother since childhood.

Ashinji shook his head sadly, knowing that there would be trouble with Sadaiyo when he returned home.

“ Begging your pardon, my lord, but you look as if you’ve got the very weight of the world on your shoulders this morning,” Gendan commented, his rugged face a mask of concern. “Something troubling you?”

“ Only the usual things, Gendan,” Ashinji replied.

Gendan was intuitive enough to know when not to push. “D’you think there’s going to be war with the humans, my lord?” he asked instead, changing the subject.

Ashinji shrugged. “I don’t know. I pray that there won’t be. Alasiri would be hard-pressed to defend itself against an all-out invasion by the Empire.”

“ Humans!” Gendan spat. “They’ve overrun practically all the known world, but that’s not enough for them. Now, they want to take away the little part of it we elves have managed to hold on to!” Gendan’s dun horse snorted and tossed his head, sensing his rider’s agitation.

“ To be fair, it’s not all humans, Gendan, only the Soldaran Empire,” Ashinji pointed out. “I daresay a lot of the other human nations conquered by the Soldarans resent them as much as we do.”

“ That may be so, my lord, but the Soldarans don’t want to just conquer us. They want to annihilate us… wipe us from the face of the earth!” Gendan shook his head in bewilderment. “Why do they hate us so?”

“ Ignorance and superstition,” Ashinji replied. He had studied enough about Soldaran religious beliefs to know that this was the case. As long as most Soldarans were taught that elves were, by their very nature, demonic, there could be no understanding or peace between the two races.

The new sun already burned hot in a perfect, cloudless sky. Ashinji wiped his perspiring brow with the back of his gloved hand. “If war does come, it’s going to take everything we’ve got just to survive,” he said. Gendan grunted his assent.

And I’ll have to give up on any hope of leaving the army, he thought. War will require great sacrifices of all of us.