Flight of the Renshai

CHAPTER 29

The hardest task in war is to lie in support of those engulfed in the fight. -General Santagithi WHEN SUBIKAHN FINISHED CRAFTING a litter large enough to support his broad-boned, powerful brother, he found Chymmerlee pawing through their packs. A thief, too? Irritation flared, swiftly suppressed. She could have everything he owned in payment for bringing Saviar back from the brink of death. "Looking for something?" he asked, trying to hold judgment from his tone.

Chymmerlee dropped the pack, cheeks flushing in raw circles. "I'm sorry. When I expend that much energy, I get desperately hungry. Your packs are practically empty. Don't you men carry anything to eat?"

Subikahn dropped down beside her, feeling foolish. "I've got all our clothing piled on Saviar, and I'm afraid we're better warriors than hunters."

"Saviar," Chymmerlee repeated, looking toward the sleeping figure. "Is that your brother's name?"

"Yes." Subikahn suddenly realized his major breach in etiquette. "And I'm Subikahn. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

"Well, you were too busy… um… threatening me." Chymmerlee's smile made it clear she meant no malice.

Nevertheless, Subikahn lowered his head. "I'm sorry about that, too. I was just-"

"-worried about your brother. Who wouldn't be?"

"Yes." Subikahn rose. "I'll get you something to eat. I've got a good idea, now, what's not going to make us sick."

Chymmerlee laughed, though Subikahn had not intended his words as a joke. "Why don't you let me do the gathering. My tastes run a bit grander than just not getting sick."

Subikahn smiled sheepishly. "All right. I'll restart the fire." He headed toward Saviar while Chymmerlee disappeared into the woods, his waterskin in her hand.

Subikahn stirred the ashes, finding an occasional enduring ember. He tossed on a handful of kindling, watching one tenacious cinder blacken a threadlike fork of a larger branch. Gradually, a thin line of smoke emerged, then a spark rose into a tremulous fire. Subikahn rearranged the kindling to take advantage of the flames before turning his attention to his brother.

Saviar's face looked more familiar than it had in days, his sturdy jaw and classically handsome features restored from the pall of pain and concern that had enwrapped them for the last several days. He placed his fingers against Saviar's neck, rewarded by a strong, steady beat. Chymmerlee had not disturbed the plastered layer of clothing, but had simply laid a single cloak over him. The leg was rebandaged. The red lines dragging out from the wound had not wholly disappeared, but they looked less swollen, less prominent, and extended only to his upper thigh and mid-calf.

"Saviar," Subikahn said in a loud whisper. When he got no response, he spoke louder and added a sturdy shake. "Saviar!"

Saviar responded only with a grunt.The tip of his tongue appeared briefly between his lips, then disappeared back into his mouth.

"Saviar, wake up!"

Saviar only snuggled deeper into the cloak. His lids did not even flutter.

"Wake up! Wake up!" Subikahn screamed into Saviar's face. He shook his brother so hard he worried to further injure him.

Again, Saviar grunted and moved a bit, but he did not open his eyes or attempt speech.

Subikahn threw himself to the ground beside his brother. What good did it do to drag Saviar from Hel's grip, only to leave him alive but senseless? The gratitude he had felt only moments earlier turned to resentment. He knew he should not judge until he had all the facts from Chymmerlee, but he suddenly worried that she would never return. The possibility that she did work for Hel, that she had saddled the brothers with the worst possible fate for all eternity crept into his mind and refused banishment. Terror merged with rage and hatred, a sense of utter failure, and it boiled into a mixture nearly beyond his control. It was all Subikahn could do to keep himself from chasing after Chymmerlee. Perhaps, that too, was what she wanted. While he ran after the messenger, Hel could safely swoop in and claim her prize.

By the time Chymmerlee returned, skirt loaded with strange roots, stems, and a single coney, Subikahn was pacing angrily. The waterskin slung over her arm left a wet patch on the side of her shift.

Subikahn had promised himself to prod gingerly but found himself rounding on the woman, helpless to stop himself from shouting. "What have you done to him! What have you done!"

Chymmerlee's features knotted in concern. She dumped her load unceremoniously and ran to Saviar. "What's happened?"

"He won't wake up!" A teary jerk in Subikahn's voice slaughtered the righteous anger. "I can't wake him." He choked, no longer able to hide behind rage. "What's wrong with him?"

Kneeling at Saviar's side, Chymmerlee rocked backward. "Subikahn, I told you I was only going to stabilize him. I can stop more poison from getting to his organs, but he needs to handle what's already there himself."

Subikahn did not understand. "Poison? I didn't-" He broke off, ashamed to tell Chymmerlee where Saviar's wound had come from.

"The kind of poison I'm talking about comes from festering wounds. If it gets bad enough, it travels through the body and damages organs: heart, brain, kidneys, everything."

Subikahn did not know what to say.

"That's why people with infected wounds die."

Subikahn had never thought of it that way. He understood how a festered limb might require amputation, but he never quite appreciated how it led otherwise strong warriors to fade away. "How can he 'handle' it if he's unconscious?"

Apparently satisfied with Saviar's condition, Chymmerlee returned to sort the foodstuffs. "That's the best way to handle it. If you take the strain of regular work off the body, you give it time to heal itself."

Subikahn shook his head. "But how can he heal without food and water?"

"He can't," Chymmerlee admitted, looking up from her sorting. "We'll have to get those things into him without him having to… ingest them."

Subikahn stared.The words made no sense to him. "How can you take food and water without… ingesting?"

"We'll manage." Chymmerlee offered three lumpy, brown tubers. "Bury those in the ashes."

Subikahn accepted the tubers, though they looked more like rocks than food. "Are these any good?"

"A delicacy," Chymmerlee assured. "Any chance you can skin the coney?" Though she had carried it over, she clearly did not wish to touch it again.

Subikahn felt certain he could figure it out. "Sure. Don't you want to?"

Chymmerlee made a noise of revulsion, and her features matched it perfectly. "This may sound stupid after I just cleaned a festering wound, but I don't like seeing blood."

It did sound stupid, but Subikahn was too polite to say so. He had spent enough time in the Eastlands to know most women were nothing like those of the Renshai. They suffered a squeamishness that would have left Renshai women rolling their eyes and snorting. He took the coney, and his utility knife, and set to work removing fur and skin from the meat.

While he worked, Chymmerlee piled round black berries in front of him, along with an assortment of weeds in red and light green. She set aside a couple of fat, semirigid stems, then went right to eating her berries, shoving them into her mouth in unladylike handfuls.

Subikahn pretended not to notice, even when Chymmerlee questioned him with a partially chewed mouthful still in place. "So, Subikahn, did I rightly hear you call Saviar your twin?"

Accustomed to disbelief, Subikahn nodded, braced for the inevitable questions. He continued his work on the coney, the skin yielding easily to the sharpness of the blade. A line of blood twined across his hands, and he checked to make certain it came from the carcass. A blade that well-honed sometimes cut without pain. "We're actual twins, yes. Born to the same woman, the same pregnancy."

"Would it be correct to guess that one of you resembles your parents while the other doesn't?" Chymmerlee seemed about to make a stunning revelation, so Subikahn's response had to catch her off guard.

"Actually…" Subikahn paused, scraping cautiously around the rabbit's legs. "… we both look very much like our fathers."

That comment elicited the usual blank stare.

Subikahn studied the food in front of him. He pinched a berry with his least filthy hand. It felt mostly firm, slightly yielding, the type of berries that might crunch before they gave up a sweet load of juice. He tossed it into his mouth. It broke open with a bit of noise, less a crunch than a squeak, releasing a spicy, nutty flavor he could not place. "Yes, it's possible, and it happened. Thrust into life-or-death situations, Mama slept with two good friends in close proximity. We were the results."

"Oh." The word emerged thoughtfully.

Subikahn got the idea her consideration had less to do with the oddity of two-fathered twins and more to do with the pronouncement she had intended to make. "What were you thinking? Before I told you about the two fathers, I mean."

"Well," Chymmerlee said softly. "I've been thinking about your ability to see magic. It requires Outworld or mage blood to do that."

Subikahn only nodded as he finished the skinning. He worried that admitting a sword had done the seeing for him would lose him Chymmerlee's assistance. Right now, with Saviar comatose, he needed her desperately. "Me? I have Outworld or mage blood?"

"Apparently. I thought you, or, more likely, your brother, was a placeling."

That was a term Subikahn had never heard. "Placeling?"

"A creature with fey blood 'placed' magically into a human womb. Sharing a gestation with a placeling might have given the other twin simple abilities as well, such as seeing magic."

Now it was Subikahn's turn to just stare. "Does that… happen… often?"

"Extremely rarely."

Subikahn stabbed the skinned coney with a stick and held it in the fire. The pelt at his feet lay bloody and shredded, useless for anything; but at least the meat did not seem to contain any hair.

"It's one of those things that are more legend than truth, but I know of at least one case where a god hid his indiscretion with a mortal from his wife by placing the infant produced into the womb of a different mortal." Chymmerlee shivered, face pinched in revulsion. "That nearly ended in disaster."

The story sounded too similar to Colbey Calistinsson's history to believe it otherwise, yet Subikahn said nothing. Her last comment suggested she might not approve of Renshai. Right now, he needed her goodwill more than her trust. "And you thought my brother might be… a similar case?"

Chymmerlee grabbed the last handful of berries in front of her. "It would make sense why you can see magic but have no knowledge of it. And, let's face it…" She gestured at Saviar. "… isn't he just a bit too perfect to be wholly mortal?"

For reasons Subikahn could not explain, he felt a twinge of jealousy at the remark. He had no sexual interest in Chymmerlee, nor in any woman, but the frequent comments about his twin's remarkable appearance wore on him. "He looks just like his mortal father. Even more like his mortal grandfather."

Chymmerlee shoved the berries into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. This time, she swallowed before continuing. "Have you ever seen your brother do anything that seemed miraculous?"

"You mean other than attract every female on the continent?"

Chymmerlee giggled.

Subikahn thought it best to stick as close to the truth as possible when it came to Saviar. The knight's son had great difficulty lying, a weakness his twin did not entirely share. "He said he saw a Valkyrie once."

"Gosh." Chymmerlee absorbed that information.

Subikahn did not mention it had appeared at their mother's death. Valkyries chose only warriors, and only Renshai regularly allowed females to fight. "But that's the only 'miraculous' thing I can think of. He's a nice, scrupulously honest, irritatingly polite young man with some decent sword skills; but I consider him as normal as any brother." More normal, in fact, than Calistin.

"You mean, he's sweet, too? And kind?"

Subikahn sighed, feeling like a go-between in a cruel game of puppy lust. "Well, he is, after all, my twin brother whom I love and who, up until a moment ago, was just about dead." I almost killed him. Guilt flared anew. "I could hardly say he was an evil bastard, now, could I?"

Chymmerlee laughed. "No, I don't suppose so." Her expression turned thoughtful, and she cocked a brow. "… but is he…?"

"… sweet and kind? Yes." Subikahn responded honestly. "A young lady's dream. The perfect man."

Chymmerlee studied Saviar in the firelight, speaking softly, almost to herself. "It's a shame one like that came so close to death… might still…" She trailed off, but Subikahn got the message.

As opposed to an ugly, worthless oaf like me. Under ordinary circumstances, Subikahn might have made a sarcastic comment about how the beautiful naturally deserved longer, fuller lives than the plain, how their deaths were so much more undeserved, so much more poignant. But, at the moment, he suffered too much guilt for his role in his brother's predicament to belittle it. Instead, he only nodded. And suffered in silence.

Rain pounded the Western forests, turning the ground into a leafy, muddy soup. Silver Warrior and Darby's chestnut gelding, now named Clydin, stumbled through the muck at a pace resembling that of a mired turtle.

His silks soaked through to the skin, his hair hanging in wet red strings, Ra-khir did not bother to complain. He had known more than weather would keep him from following the three boys' trail directly. He had minimal tracking skills, and the young Renshai would surely stick to the deep woodlands now that they no longer traveled in a large group. Without horses, they had no need to follow roadways instead of picking their way through forests, and the latter probably seemed safer. Ra-khir had never intended to track them by sign but rather by information gleaned in nearby Western towns.

Darby, who had remained silent prior to meeting the Renshai, now had a million questions. "Those were real Renshai, weren't they, sir?"

"Yes, Darby, those were Renshai." From habit, Ra-khir rubbed at a dirt spot on Silver Warrior's neck but only managed to spread it further. "Your first encounter, I presume?"

"They didn't have horns or tails or anything! And they didn't even try to kill us."

Ra-khir smiled. In some ways, Darby seemed so mature for his age, but this had clearly rattled him. "Renshai aren't demons, Darby. They're human, just like you and me, except for their thorough devotion to the sword."

"And their Northern origins," Darby added.

Ra-khir nodded. "And their Northern bloodlines, though those have become diluted since they've lived in Erythane for centuries." He wondered how long it would take before the Renshai simply became a known staple of the West, without the need for clarification. Millennia, maybe? Certainly, not within Darby's lifetime.

"Centuries? Really?"

"Really." Ra-khir appreciated the opportunity to teach. Though he preferred doing so through deeds, right now he cherished the distraction from the cold discomfort of the rain and the knowledge that he currently looked very un-knightlike. His father would have given him a dressing-down if he saw the disheveled face he presented. Luckily, he had no intention of entering any inhabited places until he got his appearance back under control. "Renshai denounced the attacking of innocents for sport at least three hundred years ago, long before the birth of any of those now alive." Except Colbey. Ra-khir did not add the thought aloud. He did not want to get bogged down in a discussion of ancient Renshai history but rather in the more recent facts that no one seemed to know or teach.

As Darby looked interested and curious, Ra-khir continued.

"To my knowledge, they have never broken that vow. Since then, they have served as the bodyguards to all of the Bearnian princes, queens, and princesses. Even the current king has a Renshai bodyguard, in addition to the traditional bard who has always held that position. When wars blossom, the Renshai stand with the West, because it is their homeland as well. Or was."

"Was?"

Ra-khir wound between copses of thistles. "Until recently, when the Renshai lost a challenge to Northmen and were banished from the North and the West."

Darby nodded his understanding, and dislodged rainwater rolled down his forehead. "So that's why they're here. Headed eastward."

"Right." Ra-khir looked ahead, trying to anticipate an easier route through the brambles that would not get them trapped in impassable foliage and deadfalls. He hoped they'd find a manufactured roadway soon. Once the rain stopped, the moisture would draw the blackflies and mosquitoes in droves. "And they have harmed no villages or towns. Their only battle was the one where you and I came upon the results."

"Northmen attacked them." Darby had obviously listened to the Renshai over dinner the previous night, though he had spoken very little.

"Right."

"Why?"

Ra-khir hesitated. He could not get inside the heads of Northmen, but the answer seemed obvious nonetheless. "Their hatred is strong, Darby. When generation after generation has distorted history far beyond truth and made it seem as if aggressors were victims, it can spawn a hatred so intense that it defies any logic. As a group, Northmen have intended to exterminate each and every Renshai for so long it has become a part of their national psyche, their day-to-day obsession. They spew this vitriol to their innocent children, telling them a special place in Valhalla exists for slayers of Renshai, no matter the means. To die killing Renshai is their ultimate honor."

"Because they also believe Renshai are demons?"

Ra-khir shook his head. "I don't think so, Darby. Deep down, they know Renshai are humans. They bleed like humans; they die like humans. But it suits the Northmen to spread the stories because superstitious Westerners believe them. And, the more support they garner for their hatred, the more they justify and spread it. Someday, they hope, the entire world will hate Renshai as much as they do."

Darby nodded ever so slightly, surely contemplating what he had learned about Renshai in his own upbringing. At least, he seemed fully willing to discard the stories on the word of a Knight of Erythane. That boded well for the West and the Renshai.

If Darby is representative, then we knights have a duty we have neglected for far too long.

"So why do the Northmen want the Renshai in the Eastlands?"

Again, Ra-khir had to speculate. "I don't think they necessarily do. First, the Northmen simply drove the Renshai from the North; but that didn't work. The Renshai returned. Next, they confined all the Renshai to one island in the North. That might have worked, except the Northmen reasoned that while they had all the Renshai in one place, it would prove easy enough to annihilate the entire tribe in one enormous battle."

"It didn't work."

"It nearly did. As history tells the story, only two Renshai survived. And they were both males."

Darby stared. "Two males cannot reestablish anything."

"Especially," Ra-khir continued, "when one died young and the other was infertile. But it turned out that a few Renshai had not actually returned to the North. And, though the Renshai who did originally deemed them traitors, it was through them that the current line was established. Less purely, of course, but the sword training mattered as much as the bloodline. However, because the Renshai tried to maintain both, it has taken them centuries to get their numbers back into the hundreds. Because, for a half-blood Renshai to receive any training, his non-Renshai parent has to be deemed worthy at the time of his birth. Renshai standards are near-impossibly high, so that happens only rarely."

A light appeared in Darby's eyes. He had made the connection. "And you were deemed worthy, so your half-blood sons are Renshai."

"Yes," Ra-khir admitted. "Though I'm still not entirely sure how. Renshai do not have the same opinion of knights that the remainder of the Westlands does."

Darby studied Ra-khir with an expression akin to worship.

Suddenly, Ra-khir wished he had not broached the subject. He had not meant to brag. He dropped the tangent to finish his point. "The Renshai's numbers have apparently gotten large enough to bother some Northmen. As near as I can figure it, they intend to get the Renshai banished from every part of the world. That would put every world leader in the position of having to execute any Renshai they found. One by one, the Renshai would get killed or go into hiding, which would make it unlikely they could find one another. The ultimate hope would be that Renshai parents would not train their children for their own safety, and the race would die out entirely."

"That's…" Darby sputtered. "That's… just… evil."

"It is."

"We should help them. We should attack the Northmen and-"

"No." Ra-khir knew lack of experience, not morality or intelligence, sent Darby toward thoughts of war. "Hatred cannot be combated with more hatred, and not every Northman is to blame. While a large majority do hate Renshai only because of lies their parents taught them, there are still some who see no problem with peaceful coexistence or have even managed to overcome their learned prejudice. What good would come of slaughtering the good with the bad?"

"But-"

Ra-khir had not yet finished. "Also, the Northmen have done such a thorough job spreading their lies and prejudice, that most Westerners have lost their objectivity. Even when the Renshai do nothing more than defend themselves, they are seen as the aggressors and condemned. Even when they do nothing whatsoever, it is said that they stole the land they occupy and they should be driven from it."

Darby's mouth remained open, but no words emerged. His expression mingled rage with bewilderment.

"It's a tricky problem, one Renshai and logicians have struggled with for centuries. You and I are not likely to solve it in a fortnight, let alone a single discussion."

Darby closed his mouth. "So what can we do?"

"We do," Ra-khir said calmly, "exactly what I've just done. We change the minds of people slowly, one by one, if necessary. We do it morally and honestly, for a single lie would betray us. And we hope that, eventually, right prevails."