Blades Falling Softly, page 4
part #1 of The Brightest Shadow Series
So Canumon took the quill, but only held it in both hands as he spoke. "If you want me to do this for you, I need more than promises of money. I need you to explain why they're pushing for all of this."
"You really need to know? You think that they tell me everything?"
"I think that you need me, now that I'm your link to the human warrior clans."
Kanavakis glowered at him, eyes burning, but after grinding his teeth for a while, he did answer. "It's politics, so there's more than one reason. Some want the Nolese Coalition to acknowledge us so that they can move more goods through Nol Keralaln without being robbed by excessive tariffs."
"For a war in Eltar Trathe?"
"Moneylust comes first, I think, but maybe bloodlust later. There's talk about shipping routes to Tur-Nol and maybe even further west. The Senate has interest in the Reynt Islands, but going directly across the Exantic Ocean without a stopover is just too far. Is that enough for you? Do you need me to go over every item in the merchants' agenda line by line?"
Though Canumon thought that what he'd been told so far had the ring of truth, he knew that couldn't be all. Yet his position wasn't so strong that he could keep pushing, so he considered his last question carefully. "Why the Taynol Valley? This is a nice enough land, but it's not essential to anything. I refuse to believe you couldn't find any other clan with rites of entrance."
Again Kanavakis ground his teeth, but this time it looked more like apprehension. "This is... some parts of this go to the top. Someone powerful thinks that mining rights in the region will be essential, and they want to gain them without a war against the humans. But that's really all I know."
"Mining rights?" Canumon knew that the mansthein war machine was desperate for metals, precious or violent, but he doubted the mines of one valley could be so important. There was no way to find answers and Kanavakis had reached the limits of his patience, so after turning the matter over in his head and glancing at Gowanisa, Canumon nodded.
Dipping the quill into the ink, he signed the right side of the official challenge. The language was vague, but it didn't commit him to anything extreme. He'd automatically signed his name in Nolese characters, but after a moment of thought, wrote his name in Futhik as well. Contrary to what Kanavakis believed about Nolese, Canumon thought they might appreciate the artistry of it. He might not be a master calligrapher, but the formal challenge would defy those who expected a clawprint.
As soon as he had his parchment, Kanavakis swept away with few more words. That was all he needed from them, after all. Canumon expected to be treated fairly, so he tried to focus on the final payment and the possibility of a new, permanent home... instead of the likely complications and the potential consequences beyond his sight.
Once Kanavakis was gone, Gowanisa emerged again. "Even if he means well, this isn't a military operation, it's politics." She grimaced toward the tent flap as if she could still smell him. "Try to win this fight, Canumon. Get us out of it quickly, before everything turns ugly."
"I wasn't planning on surrendering." He put an arm around her waist to take any sting from the words, but just as she began to lean her head against his shoulder, they were interrupted by Laghy's cries.
Both of them went to the small room with the cradle, and as soon as their son saw them, he gurgled and clapped his claws together gleefully. Canumon had heard endless tales of how miserable children could be, yet Laghy's mood was almost perpetually happy. When he bent over to tease at his son's teeth, however, the boy spat out his finger.
"No! Oma! Oma!" Laghy stretched his claws toward Gowanisa, and when she picked him up, the boy tugged at her shirt. Gowanisa had nursed him just before his nap and now hesitated.
"Do you think we should keep giving him milk?" She looked toward Canumon, though it was really a question for herself. "He should be eating meat soon, or his teeth will go bad. The boy needs to grow up sometime."
"Does it have to be now?" Canumon asked. "Do we want it to be?"
His wife sighed and held the squirming baby closer. "It can be a little longer."
Anyinn
There had been a time when Anyinn leaving for battle had been a more dramatic affair: whispered promises, tangled sheets, desperate fears. Though the danger was no less than many past challenges, the years had filed off the edges of their concern.
Now, they simply walked together, away from civilized hills toward the Lonely Diamond. Her husband had insisted on accompanying her this far, but in the end it would be unwise for him to leave the Taynol Valley. The probability of another clan, or some faction of mansthein, attempting to strike at them and pretend it was an accident was simply too high.
"I suppose you want to run the rest of the way now." Noreinu spoke quietly, without any hidden dissatisfaction, merely trying to judge the distance. Anyinn reached out to take her husband's hand, stopping his steps so she could interlace their fingers.
"We have a little time yet, before the rite. But we've walked far enough that the distance will make no real difference."
"I'd prefer to walk, just to clear my mind." He began to move forward again, though he kept her hand in his. "I trust you to fight this duel as well as it can be fought, but please remember the aftermath. What story they tell about today will set the tone for the full rite."
"What story are they already telling?" Though Anyinn thought that she could be trusted to know her business, if her husband was concerned, it must be even more complex than she knew.
"Some think you're very brave, standing for Nol against the Deathspawn menace. Others are calling the entire clan naive to even grant them a duel. And a great many think that the mansthein are targeting the warrior clans to avoid the politicians, our strength becoming weakness."
"And they think that ignoring or refusing the challenge would serve us better? It's not a matter of pride, it's a matter of Nol's reputation."
"Stories don't have to be true to matter." A smile played on Noreinu's face as he glanced toward her and finally held her gaze. "I wish I had some insight for you, but no one knows what this story will be yet. All I can do is ask you to be careful."
She squeezed his hand tighter and smiled back. "I will. But usually, a few local duels aren't cause for any stories at all. Has ours gathered so much attention so quickly?"
"It's more than a challenge." His smile gave way to an expression of blank thought she associated with his writing moods, yet something hard and cold lurked in the blankness. "You know the legend about the Deathspawn? Their 'Dark Lord' and the battle before the end of the world?"
"You're being rhetorical, dear husband."
"Sorry. But I honestly hadn't thought about it for years, not even as an allusion in a script. It's too... grandiose, too downright old-fashioned. Yet there are others talking about this conflict in mythic terms. Men and women I respect treating this as something far more than it is and expecting bloodshed. I half-expect them to begin begging for the arrival of a mystical hero to carry us to victory."
Then that uncertainty, that loss of his peers, was what lay beneath his concern. Anyinn had never felt his impulse to create, but this time her sword would serve as quill. She stopped, took his hand in both of hers, and kissed it softly. "Let them talk, Noreinu. There will always be swirling rumors, but true artists can shift the tide. And perhaps this time you can write me into one of your little dramas."
He smiled wryly and squeezed her hand one more time before he let go. Feeble as they were, her words did seem to have reached him, perhaps because she believed them: the discussion had been dominated by fear and uncertainty, but she thought the battle that day would bring great clarity. Once that had been achieved, she and her husband could set about redefining the stories told of these duels.
They could have said farewell, but they had long ago agreed to leave some words unsaid. Anyinn turned away and at last began to run, the landscape melting beneath her. Caught in the grip of her sein, her body moved far faster than any untrained runner or beast, taking her from the outskirts of her valley into the rocky wilderness.
As a younger woman it might have taken her more time and she would have been able to think about the match, but all too soon she found herself reaching the Lonely Diamond. She slowed down to examine the region more carefully: several mansthein representatives stood at a distance, but they didn't appear to be sein-trained. Other than them, only her opponent stood atop the marble, his hands in his sleeves, a statue woken only by her challenge.
Anyinn smiled on unconsidered instinct but made her expression sober before she slowed to a halt atop the marble. Her mansthein opponent straightened and looked at her, but the space between them became suddenly awkward. The tension of combat had been far easier than this uncertain social framing and she nearly decided to attack him to ease it when he finally spoke.
"They called this place the Lonely Diamond. I understand why it is lonely, but why build so far away?"
She hesitated, for the first time considering how the familiar landscape might appear to fresh eyes. The Lonely Diamond was an inscribed piece of dark marble with stairs cut into two of the points for the contestants to enter. All along the sides sprawled carved glyphs that looked similar to the modern Nolese script but to Anyinn's knowledge had never been translated. Broken flagstones marred the landscape around it, along with the remnants of several small towers that had not endured as well as the Diamond itself.
"We do not know the true name of this place," Anyinn said, lapsing into her instructor's voice as she gestured to the ruins. "Several clans claim to have founded it, but there are no clear records. Generations past, this was fertile land and many clans fought rites and duels here. Now that it lies in the wilderness, it has often been used as a neutral location for meetings."
"Like ours."
"Yes, I suppose so." She lowered her hand to rest on the hilt of her sword but maintained a neutral stance. "You wrote your name on the challenge, but this has all been done so formally... perhaps we should introduce ourselves."
"My name is Canumon, clanless by your standards, but of the Laenan mansthein." He bowed respectfully and pulled his hands from his sleeves. "I seek a rite of challenge for myself and my family to enter your valley and call it home."
"I am Anyinn Tayn, representative of my school and of the Tayn clan. We do not grant you a duel with residence in the valley at stake, but instead a trial. If you prove yourself worthy against me, your challenge will be conducted in a true rite."
Everything they said was rote, modified only slightly by the unusual circumstances, but it calmed her to repeat the familiar words. Perhaps her husband had been right and it would have been better to bring others from the clan to witness, as she had no idea what the mansthein observers thought. None of them were dressed in Nolese robes, so she could only imagine the social connections between them.
Her idle thoughts fell away as her opponent - Canumon Laenan - stepped forward and they resumed their dance.
Canumon
As Tayn Anyinn drew her sword, Canumon should have prepared for the fight of his life. He knew his opponent's strength, and on his path to the duel, everyone had reminded him how much was at stake. Even winning was no guarantee of success, not with so many eyes on them.
Instead of preparing, he smiled.
They met in an exchange that mirrored the previous day, essentially just a reintroduction now that they had given their names. When he had been younger, combat had been a rush of passion and panic, but that had changed as his sein deepened. Moving beyond the speed of the wind and enduring direct blows removed the fear and opened the possibility of play.
Tayn Anyinn was an able partner in that game. It was clear in every stroke that she was a swordswoman accustomed to training with martial artists, making no attempts at superficial cuts that would glance off. Yet she wove an elegant defense that threatened a far deeper strike if he advanced too far, and each thrust forced him into desperate evasions.
Her language of combat was clearly based on formal techniques and he could see her categorizing each of his movements and selecting the proper response. Yet she was not limited to a rigid formula, instead moving like a dancer who knew the steps and also when to leave them.
Their graceful exchanges ended in a sudden moment of pain as their defenses broke: her sword cut his side and his palm struck her arm.
Canumon dropped back, gripping the injury. It bled profusely into his robes, but wasn't so deep. He took a deep breath and let his sein curl and blossom at his side, sustaining the injured flesh so that he could continue. Anyinn performed an artful trick over her arm and flexed it cautiously, but she didn't strike as he knew she could.
"This fight or the next would prove little," the human woman said. "In the end one of us would die and nothing would be proved. I propose an alternative: let each of us put forward our greatest student. The test of our ability to teach would be a better judge of our true skill."
"Like in the ballads?" Canumon recognized the familiar allusion, but it did him no good at all. This was clearly a concession, an invitation to the Nolese martial community, and he could not respond. "I'm afraid that I have no students, past or present."
He saw a flicker of surprise on her face, more than she'd ever displayed at any of his techniques. Most likely he knew what she was thinking. The veneration of teaching was an uncommon attitude among most mansthein, but he'd become familiar with it in the Nolese community.
"Can that be true?" She pointed her sword in his direction, still stained with his blood, but her strike was solely verbal. "Before today, I would have said that it was impossible to gain a real understanding of sein without having taught it. Even the most isolated of masters have taken on students to advance their own progress."
"In my experience," Canumon said slowly, "those who teach sein are so confident that they already know everything that they never understand themselves."
Anyinn sniffed. "You seem very confident in that perspective."
"Not so much. Perhaps both of us should admit that we are middling old warriors. If we had any idea what we were talking about, we would be true masters instead of squabbling with one another over definitions." Taking that approach was a risk and Canumon held his breath. After staring at him with that unreadable expression, Anyinn's face suddenly broke into a human smile.
"Perhaps you're right." She cleaned off her sword on the edge of her robe but kept it at her side. "Then please be patient with an old woman who needs time to recover. Tell me, why have you studied our culture in such depth?"
"I was born on Orphos, but I came to Nol as a very young man. I've lived here most of my life, and Nolese comes to me quicker than Futhik." Not always true, considering how long he'd spent in mansthein communities, but enough of a truth to offer. "To the east, there are more of us than you might think, but we live in the borderlands where the Nolese Coalition doesn't maintain order."
"And so now you seek to challenge your way into the Taynol Valley."
"Something like that. I'm getting older, and my family needs a home where we can rest."
Her sword stabbed out at him, her words just like the thrust. "Don't lie to me. If you tell me that you simply decided to come to my home, with no influence from outsiders, then I will be very disappointed by your lies."
"I said we needed a home, not that nothing else motivated my decision." Canumon raised one hand with fingers extended, half-way between a defensive stance and a rhetorical pose. "Your rites of challenge say that any warrior of Nol can earn their right to a home by proving their strength. I'm sure that those rites have never held any political meaning whatsoever, among humans."
"It is not the same thing, and you know it. The mansthein who sent you intend to use our rites against us."
"You're right, it's not the same thing." Canumon knew that he should control himself, but let the words spill out like a series of blows. "The words of the rite are the lie: you claim that anyone can step forward, but you mean only humans. Your people have fought one another for generations, but when a foreigner tries to join you, suddenly the rites no longer apply! How many humans have you rejected because they have ulterior motives?"
Though Anyinn took a step back and lowered her sword, she took only a moment to regroup. "You may have a point, but that point only goes so far. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that your military isn't using you to gain access to my home?"
Such a swift counter, driving at the greatest weakness in his armor. Canumon suffocated an impulse to be honest with her and express his own concerns honestly. That might appeal now, but he was fighting this battle for Gowanisa and Laghy. If he wanted a future in which they could live in the Taynol Valley without war, he needed to choose his words carefully.
"You already know there is an army on your doorstep. If it wanted to force a claim, it could." Despite his consideration, he regretted his words almost immediately and stepped back. "All we want is what any other group could claim: trade and training and mutual betterment. The army is nothing but protection in case our claim is denied and you seek to wipe us out."
"Or a threat. A sword at the side can cut deeper than a sword in the hand." Anyinn regarded him somberly, dull human eyes piercing. "I wish that I could believe you, but you know your empire's reputation. I cannot know if you are a deceiver or a fool."
"Then let me show you what I am."
Canumon dropped into a full fighting stance and took a step forward. He saw the disapproving flicker in Anyinn's eyes and she lowered her sword, prepared to defend herself. In that moment she could have struck and renewed the violence between them, but he moved first.
Instead of a true attack, he stepped forward in exactly the same technique that had begun their first fight beside the bluff. She automatically countered as she had before... and he followed with the movement he had then, as if they were following a script.
