She shot him back a crooked smile. Northstar turned proudly away, and Stormlight's greeting, as usual, was little more than an uneasy nod. With a shrug, Larken settled in between the men and drew forth her drum. Lucas alit drowsily on her gloved arm, and she settled him on his ring perch, where he fluffed and fell quickly asleep, lulled by the warmth of the fire.
Across the circle, one of the bandit leaders, her long black hair glinting red from the firelight, was speaking loudly. Larken searched for memory. The woman's name was something harsh, unpleasant…
Gormion.
Yes. It fit her. The jumbled Tarsian name, taken when the woman had left the Que-Nara seven years ago. She was back now, at the head of a company of Thoradin bandits, momentarily allied with the rebels.
"He should never have been made Water Prophet, Stormlight," Gormion hissed. "You were there ten years ago. You know it's true."
"He prophesied," Stormlight declared, "and his words drew a map to the water. I would call that water prophecy. I would call that true."
"My grandfather should have been. ." Gormion began. It was the same old story of strife and com shy;plaint. Old Racer had considered himself passed over by Fordus's father, and had voiced his com shy;plaints until his dying day. His sons, the oldest of whom was Gormion's father, had left the Que-Nara in anger, seeking residence among bandits in the Thoradin foothills.
Only in this discord did Gormion, granddaughter of Old Racer, acknowledge her Plainsman blood.
"Nor is he a better general," she spat, dark hands waving in the glow of the firelight, a dozen stolen silver bracelets spangling her wrists. The bandits on either side of her, two rough men named Rann and Aeleth, could only nod in agreement since their mouths were stuffed with the bread Fordus had provided. "Retreat. What else do you call it," she continued, "when an army goes forward, fights, and falls back?"
"Repentance," Northstar replied, staring long into the fire.
"We obviously did not win," Gormion concluded with a sneer. "For we have retreated, and our com shy;mander repents."
The other bandits laughed and poked at one another.
"You're a fair-weather warrior, Gormion," Storm-light remarked. "Fordus feeds you, arms you. He provides your water in this dry and desolate place. You came to him when you were all nearly dead from the drought. He took you in. And today he gave you a victory. What else do you ask of him?"
"Gold," the bandit captain replied, flashing her bracelets in the firelight. "Gold and silver and the jewelry of Istar. I provide my followers, and he pro shy;vides the gold. Victory? There is no victory without spoil. We retreated today because Fordus lost heart!"
"No fighter remembers all of the battle," Storm-light put forward. "How can we judge these things when we remember only in shards and slivers: the face of the man in front, a glint of light on a far hill, the brush of an arrow past our ear. Fragments. You can never claim full memory from them. So we must not speak of retreat, and who could know if or what Fordus repents? As for gold, other things are worth more. Every battle brings us closer to Istar. The last one will set my people free, and bring your gold as well. Be patient, Gormion."
Gormion acted as though she had not heard him. Her eyes shifted across the circle to Larken. "Let us ask the bard about the battle. Perhaps she remem shy;bers it all, since she fought none of it."
Larken returned the look with an icy stare. No mat shy;ter the fragment you remember, she signed, there was a full battle we won against the pride of Istar. This I will show you.
She rattled the drumhammer across the stony head of the drum. Suddenly, Lucas fluttered awake on his perch, green-golden eyes wide and attentive. At a second drumroll, the hawk cried out in a long shriek that trailed away into a high, plaintive whistle.
It was all the bard needed to hear. Compressed in the cry was Lucas's full account of the entire battle, seen from the high vantage of his flight above the bloody plains. In a matter of seconds, Larken absorbed a vision of what had come to pass on the battlefield that day, and though the vision was barely formed and scarcely definable, she began to pick up its rhythm, and to hum around it, knowing she would discover the truth as she sang it, that it would surprise her as much as it did those who crouched around the fire, listening to their deeds take wing into history.
The hammer of Istar, the anvil of armies Failed in the forge ofFordus's desert, Failed on the plains when the sun passed over, And the smoke rose up from a smithy of blood While lost in the city the women lament,
Ash their companion,
Fire is their father
And the long war falls
As the ravens gather.
Gormion laughed wickedly and dismissed the song with a flick of her hand.
But Larken was only beginning. The drumbeat surged and galloped, and she found full voice.
Aeleth of Ergoth, harper of arrows, Yours the first music the army remembers, The arrow a bolt to the battle's thunder, The string of the bow a song for Ilenus Spearman oflstar struck in the vanguard:
The towers oflstar
Mourn through the night,
Bolt and harp
And the arrow's flight.
The drum beats faded to a long silence. Aeleth, somber and shaken, lifted his hands to the firelight. In the midst of Larken's singing, the entire experi shy;ence had returned to him: the feel of the sunlight burning through the cloth sleeve pinned up on his right shoulder as he stood atop the rise in the grass shy;lands, the army of Istar approaching, his arrow nocked and the bowstring taut. He remembered the thrum of the string, how it brushed against his cheek lightly, quivering as he brought down the bow …
How the spearman fell to his knees, dropping his weapon, his hands groping stupidly over the half-buried shaft of the arrow.
"Ilenus," Aeleth murmured. "The boy's name was Ilenus."
Then silently, as though all this knowledge struggled for a place in his mind and heart, Aeleth frowned and flexed his long, callused fingers.
Without prompting, Larken resumed the song. With crisp raps on the drum, she sang out other verses.
Rann of Balifor, Sword of the Bandits, Rock of the army at Istar's coming, The scar on your shoulder a glyph of the moon As it shines on the dead in the damaged fields As the night passes over the nation oflstar:
The long spear remembers
The assembled flight
The lodge of the arm
In returning moonlight.
This was obscure verse for a Baliforian thug. Rann shook his head in puzzlement, in disgust, but then, slowly, his attentions drifted to his shoulder, and a fresh wound throbbed with discovered pain. He remembered it all, now: sidestepping the charging mercenary, the sharp tug at his shoulder as he drove the hooked kala knife into a wide-eyed captain. He remembered wheeling about to face another assailant, a mist of blood encircling him.
His shoulder throbbed as each blow and parry rushed back to his blossoming memory.
"I remember it. ." Rann breathed in wonder. "I remember it all."
Gormion rose and stalked from the firelight.
But the bard was not finished. As Larken contin shy;ued, into the Song of Passing that named and her shy;alded each of the fallen, the Plainsmen fell silent, remembering the battle in its swift and brutal entirety.
Stormlight, listening, recalled the fluttering high grass, the Istarian infantry passing so closely that he could smell the sweaty leather, read the elaborate gold insignia of the Istarian Guard. He recollected his troops, their painted faces and robes swathed with browns, blacks, and yellows, lying still until the sunlight and shadow and grass seemed to swallow them …