They returned to the road where her Ilduuris had fought and found them triumphant over both mounted riders. The knight had been pulled from his horse, and now they sat on him to hold him still while another sought to find a gap in his armour, and finish it messily.
Then they returned to the main fight. Errollyn remained slightly behind, preferring his bow to the sword on his back. He and Sasha fought together, and even in the worst confusion, it was as though they had one mind. Two men attacked them, and while he shot the left, she killed the right. There was no wasted energy, no miscommunication. She was the right hand, and he was the left. Together they made a tally such that the Ilduuri men fighting with them would tell tales of it for generations, and which Lenays would repeat and say proudly that they were there too.
Lenays and Ilduuris killed until those who were not dead were running for their lives. They ran into the night, and those who reached the Ipshaal began searching for boats. But these nights were filled with serrin, and the lessons of King Leyvaan echoed now as they had not done in two centuries since. All who attacked Saalshen must die, with none to survive to reach their homes, for if fear was all that humanity understood, fear must be Saalshen's final, awful protection.
The Ipshaal was wide. Beyond it lay Enora, filled with angry Enorans only too happy to assist in exercising Saalshen's final lesson. Perhaps a few, very lucky souls would live to return to the feudal Bacosh, but those could be no more than one for every few thousand who had marched.
And so the second great feudal army in two hundred years marched into Saalshen with much glory and fanfare, and disappeared with barely a trace. Gods and spirits and higher fates willing, the victors prayed, it would be the last.
Morning rose across the valleys, grey like dread. Smoke lingered in the air, and singed the nostrils. Damon walked, for he could not bear to make his poor horse take another step, the animal was so spent he would take a week to recover. It was in pasture now, belly full of grass and water, washed clean of sweat and dirt, cuts and bruises treated, and likely fast asleep. Damon wished that a prince of Lenayin might also take such liberties.
A King of Lenayin.
He walked across fields of dead. Tullamayne had spoken of such fields in many a tale, and though his tales were always steeped in epic melancholy, that melancholy had never felt quite so epic as this. Humanity lay as refuse upon the ground. Damon had always been like Sofy in that he loved the things that made life good, yet unlike Sofy in that he expected people to do everything opposite to achieving those things. Today, his view of affairs had triumphed over his sister's, yet the thought of it was only bleaker still.
City folk picked their way through the dead, many with wagons. Friendly wounded were already collected. Now they piled friendly dead, with as much reverence as one could accord a scene of mass slaughter. The enemy dead they ran over with wagons, and occasionally stole a piece of jewellery. The crows were following, and would soon arrive in swarms. Damon did not think there were enough crows in all of Rhodia to consume all this.
Finally he arrived at a scene. The Ilmerhill River was nearby, bubbling happily away. Great Lord Markan was here, as was Sasha, kneeling by a man who lay on the grass, two serrin arrows through his body.
Damon stopped beside the man, and looked down upon the dying King of Lenayin. Koenyg looked up, squinting against the overcast sky. And smiled, with bloodied lips.
“Brother,” he whispered. “You won.”
“I won a great pile of corpses and many dead friends,” Damon replied. “It's not much of a prize.”
Koenyg shook his head. “No,” he said, and coughed, weakly. “No. You have won a great victory. Now you must consolidate it.”
Damon frowned. He looked at Sasha. Her jaw was tight with intense emotion. He had not thought that Sasha would grieve for Koenyg. But now he kneeled, reluctantly, and took his brother's hand.
“There is no choice now,” Koenyg continued, weakly but with determination. “I do not like this path for Lenayin, but events have fallen your way, not mine. Saalshen must be the foundation of our future. Rebuild it. Rebuild the Saalshen Bacosh. Rebuild Lenayin in its image. Declare war on the north if you must. They will oppose you with every breath. Be steel against them. You have chosen your path, and Lenayin's. Now you must walk it.”
Damon swallowed hard. “You counsel me to attack your closest allies? The family of your wife and son?”
“Damon. Brother.” Koenyg's hand tightened with unexpected strength. “All that I have ever done, I have done for Lenayin. I tried to unite a divided land. I thought the north was central, and the rest should be made more like them. I still think it. But that is not to be, and now you must unite Lenayin your way.
“Let nothing stop you. No weakness, no fecklessness. No elder brother intimidating you, even beyond the grave.” He smiled. Damon struggled to hold his gaze. “Let not even the love of your other siblings stop you from doing what you must for your people. I never did. Not even when it caused me such pain as these arrows can only imagine.”
It hurt. Damon looked at Sasha, as she wiped at tears. She knew what he meant. Damon did too. They had never been friends, but family was not friendship. Family was family, even in hatred and feud. As leaders of nations, they did not always have the luxury to put each other first.
“Myklas lives,” said Damon. “Wounded, but recovering.”
“Sasha told me,” said Koenyg. “It is good.”
“Kessligh thinks to let the wounded live,” Sasha added. “To send them across Saalshen, to see what they attempted to destroy. A new convert is a more powerful believer than one born to the faith, he says. To gain thousands of such men, and send them back to their homes in the Bacosh after some years amongst the serrin, could be a strong example to others.”
“A good idea,” Koenyg whispered. “Myklas is fortunate. I should have liked to do that myself, had the talmaad's aim been less accurate.”
“I should have liked you to fight on our side from the beginning,” Sasha retorted, attempting stern reprimand. “I should have been proud to fight alongside all of my brothers.”
“For a moment there, you did.” He clasped her hand. Sasha nodded, mutely. “Damon. Two last things. Promise me you shall look after Lenayin as I have said.”
“I shall,” said Damon. “I promise.”
Koenyg sighed a little, and looked relieved. He gazed up at the grey sky above. “And promise me that you will not leave. I would not like to die alone.”
“I shall stay,” said Damon, and sat properly upon the grass to do that. “And I shall never forget that you made me who I am.”
Koenyg managed a smile, recognising a backhanded compliment. But he liked the irony, it was clear. “I shall see Father again,” he said dreamily.
“And Alythia,” said Damon.
“And Krystoff,” said Sasha.
“And hopefully,” Koenyg added, with fading strength, “none of the rest of you, for quite some time.”
King Koenyg Lenayin died gloriously upon the field of battle, surrounded by his siblings and the bodies of his enemies. By his death, a new world was born.
TWENTY-SEVEN
It was more than a year before Sasha returned home to Lenayin. But return she did, at the ripe old age of twenty-two, and breathed the crisp air of early winter as she rode with friends along an achingly familiar stream, icy with the white dust of recent snow on the ground. Two years away from home was a long time, she reflected as she rode.