“The road on the northern bank is inferior to this,” another lordling said, doubtful. Koenyg's glare saw him swallow the rest of his protest.
“No,” said Damon, gazing up at the grisly, swinging bodies. “Have them come through the town. It is quicker, and safer. The north bank is better ambush country.”
Koenyg turned on his brother, half-wheeling his horse. “I swear, does no one in this column take my orders? We hold them to the north bank.”
“Something to hide, brother?” Damon suggested.
“Something they need not see,” Koenyg retorted. Their stares locked. Predictably, it was Damon who looked away first. His expression was that of a man who had swallowed something foul and could find no place to spit.
“I'll ride back and find some men to come and clean up this mess,” said Sasha. “I think perhaps fifty of the common cavalry should do it.”
Koenyg turned his glare on her. “Sasha, no! Don't you dare.” Sasha's return stare held none of Damon's uncertainty. Hers held utter unconcern for anything her brother might say. Koenyg opened his mouth to command further, then closed it again in frustration. He knew that she would not listen. He saw that she barely cared if he tried to kill her.
Sasha turned and rode away without awaiting a dismissal. Once away from the clattering road and onto the dirt road beyond the bridge, Yasmyn had questions.
“Why was he upset that you'd ask the common cavalry?” she asked.
“Because it's a mixed mob behind the vanguard that have all mingled and become friendly whatever their province,” Jaryd answered for Sasha. “They roam the length of the column, carrying messages back to their respective provincial commands, and they're the worst gossips in the army. They'll tell the whole column what they saw in the village.”
“Ah,” said Yasmyn, as she understood.
“Some of those Larosans will be held to account for this,” Sasha muttered. “One day they will.”
It was a struggle to find a place to train in the evening. Sasha finally found a spot down by the reeds at the river's edge, where she performed her takadans, and found some interest in the poor footing. A warrior craves a perfect footing, Kessligh had told her often. Deny him that, and your advantage increases.
As usual, some men came down to watch. That was not an uncommon thing amongst Lenay warriors, who could talk swordwork from sunrise to sunset. This audience was remarkably silent as she performed her strokes. Many Lenay warriors found the svaalverd style of Saalshen discomforting, almost supernatural. Sasha's blade and body described ethereal forms in the dying light of evening, a shadow in the mist, movement both precise and fluid to a degree that appeared, to the superstitious, barely human.
Finally she sheathed her blade over her left shoulder, tucked the tri-braid behind her right ear, and stood with head bowed. Respect toward the river reeds; respect for the resident spirits. She thought of her sister Alythia, whose spirit had been freed in the city of Tracato, toward which they presently rode. Alythia whom she had hated for so long, then recently come to love, only to lose her to those she had once been urged to consider as friends. Those people, if she found them, she could kill happily. If only the Army of Lenayin would be fighting them.
She turned, and walked from the reeds toward the camp. Her audience faded respectfully away, save one man, a young Isfayen who kneeled before her path, and presented her with a red cloth. The cloth was inscribed with curling Telochi script, and decorated with braiding, no little effort gone to, considering the deprivations of camp. Sasha sighed, and took the offered cloth. She could not read Telochi script, but she considered the markings anyhow, and found some admiration for the quality.
The young Isfayen warrior said something in Telochi, and then, in halting Lenay, “Please will you consider.” He rose. His gaze was not worshipful; Lenays of any stripe did not do worship. But the respect was blazingly intense.
Sasha smiled sadly at the man, folded the cloth carefully, and tucked it within her jacket. She had a pocket there, in the inner lining, that pressed against her heart, and her breast. The young man seemed pleased with that. Sasha patted him on the arm, and continued back to camp in the rapidly descending dark.
She found Yasmyn a short distance from the big tents, the only tents in the entire Lenay column. Lenays slept rough, and disdained basic comforts while marching to war…all save the nobility and royalty, who required some tents for status, and private consultations. Yasmyn sat beside her brother Markan, eating roast meat and bread. A warrior at her other side saw Sasha coming and made space. Sasha put a hand on his shoulder in sitting to thank him-his name was Asym, she recalled, and he had no special title to gain him access to the great lord's campfire save that he was known as a great warrior, and had fought ferociously at the Battle of Shero Valley.
Yasmyn handed Sasha a plate of food, and she ate. Most conversation was in Telochi, of which Sasha understood only the occasional word or phrase. It had been Damon's idea to place her with the Isfayen. The northern provinces despised her. The Verenthane nobility (as all Lenay nobility save Taneryn was Verenthane) of most of the rest of Lenayin disliked her nearly as much. In Valhanan's case it saddened her; she had spent most of her life in Valhanan, and if she had a provincial loyalty, that was where it lay. The Great Lord Kumaryn was dead at Shero Valley, but his place had been taken by another just as loathsome. The Taneryn would have taken her, but she had ridden with many Taneryn against their old enemies the Hadryn in what was known as the Northern Rebellion, and it would not do to have those old rivalries stirred once more.
But the Isfayen considered themselves almost a separate nation, and cared little for the opinions of fellow Lenays. The Great Lord Faras's opinion of Sasha had been dramatically improved by his daughter Yasmyn's friendship with the Princess Sofy, Sasha's dearest friend of all her royal siblings. And the Isfayen, Damon had reckoned, thought all things secondary to skill at warfare. If Sasha could find acceptance amongst the nobility of any Lenay province, it would be amongst the Isfayen. And so, after the Battle of Shero Valley, it had proven to be.
“Another bloodwarrior just proposed to me,” Sasha told Yasmyn. She gave Yasmyn a faintly accusing look.
Yasmyn smiled. “Tyama. He told me he would. He is the son of a herdsman, from near the village of Uam, in the west. A brave and skilled warrior.” Sasha sighed, and ate her food. “How many is that?”
“Seven,” said Sasha. She shook her head. “I don't know what they're thinking. I mean no disrespect, but I'm not inclined to marry anyone. Do they think I'll be a farmwife in some homestead on an Isfayen mountainside?”
Yasmyn shook her head. “The problem is that they don't know what to think. Isfayen men are rare amongst Lenays in that they like a strong woman. It is in our culture.” Another reason, Sasha reflected, why Damon placed her with the Isfayen. “But though Isfayen women can fight, rarely is it expected they could match a man in battle. For an Isfayen woman, fighting is a victory of courage over common sense. Isfayen admire that, and Isfayen men find little more attractive than a pretty girl who dares to snarl to a great warrior's face. Tremendous sex often follows.”
Sasha managed a faint smile. “It has a certain logic.”
“But now they see you,” Yasmyn continued. “You fight not merely with courage, but with unmatched skill. And with the svaalverd, that makes you nearly unbeatable. The young men find themselves struggling with a feeling they had not known before-both unmatched respect, and great lust. They do not know how else to express this feeling if not in a proposal. None of them expects you to accept. If they did, you'd have had hundreds of proposals by now, not just seven. They just do not know how else to express what they feel.”