Lady Knight. Tamora Pierce

      No.

       ‘And you don’t know where they are.’

      Your ideas of countries and borders are meaningless to me.

       ‘But you thought I’d be happy to know that the one who’s making the killing devices, who’s murdering children, will come my way. Sometime. Someplace.’

      You must right the balance between mortals and the divine, the balance that is my reason to exist. That creature defies life and death. I require you to put a stop to it. Your satisfaction is not my concern.

       Kel wanted to scream her frustration, but years of hiding her emotions at the Yamani court stopped her. Besides, screaming was a spoiled child’s response, never hers. And as a knight at eighteen, she was supposed to act like an adult, whatever that meant. She tried one last time. ‘The sooner, the better.’

      You will meet him, and you will fix this. Now go away. The iron door swung open.

       ‘Can I at least talk to people about it? Tell them that you showed me this?’ she demanded.

      If you think they will believe you. You are not considered to be a seer or a mage, and your own mages know the name of Blayce already. They just cannot find him.

       Kel responded with another word learned from soldiers and walked out of the Chamber.

      The news of Maggur’s coronation in Scanra sped the process of gathering Tortallan fighters and supplies. Preparation for war filled the hours at the palace. Every knight not already assigned was summoned to the throne room. The king and queen told the knights that they were now in military service to the crown for the length of the war and gave them their instructions. Kel remained under Lord Raoul’s orders for the moment. She readied her own gear as she helped him assemble all that his men would require.

      Weather-mages turned their attention to the northern mountains. A week later they told the monarchs that while it would be hard going, Tortall’s army could move out. The next day the warriors readied for departure in the guest-houses and fields around the Great Road North, assembling knights, men of the King’s Own, six Groups of the Queen’s Riders, ten companies of soldiers from the regular army, and wagon after wagon of supplies. It would take three times longer to reach their border posts than if they waited another two weeks for the sleet, snow, and mud of the northern roads to clear. But it would be worth the trouble if they could be in place when the Scanrans came to call.

      At dawn on the first morning of the last week of March, the army’s vanguard of knights and lords of the realm set off for the border. Kel rode Hoshi, with Jump in one of her saddlebags and sparrows clinging to every part of her and her equipment. On the bluffs north of the city she murmured a soft prayer to Mithros for victory and one to the Goddess for the wounded to come. She was starting a prayer to Sakuyo, the Yamani god of jokes and tricks, when Lord Raoul snarled a curse. She looked at him, startled: he was riding just in front of her with the King’s Champion, Alanna, the realm’s only other lady knight, and Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the realm’s healers and father of Kel’s best friend, Neal. Everyone else turned in their saddles to see what could make the easygoing Raoul so angry. He was pointing a finger that shook with rage.

      Below them lay the city of Corus, sprawled on both sides of the Olorun River. Across from them on the high ground south of the river lay the royal palace, its domes and towers clear in the growing light of sunrise.

      Above the palace flew Stormwings by the hundreds, males and females, like a swarm of hornets. The sun bounced off their steel feathers and claws, shooting beams at anyone who looked on. Higher the Stormwings rose. Slowly, lazily, they wheeled over the capital city, then streamed north over the army as if they pointed the way to battle.

       CHAPTER 2

       TOBE

      Riding with Third Company of the King’s Own, Kel had spent plenty of time slogging through mud and slush. She was used to that. It was her frequent riding companions, Prince Roald and Sir Nealan of Queenscove, who sometimes made her wish her family had stayed in the Yamani Islands. The bitter conditions were echoed by the moods of both young men. They were betrothed and in love with the women they were to marry. They moped. Kel tried to make them think of other things, but the moment conversation lagged, they returned to the contemplation of their Yamani loved ones.

      Kel felt sorrier for Prince Roald. Two years older than Kel, the prince was to have married Princess Shinkokami in mid-May, before the arrival of word that Maggur had taken the Scanran throne. Instead of an expensive ceremony, he and Shinko had decided to put their wedding off. Both showed cheerful faces to the public, saying they had traded rose petals for arrows to arm their soldiers, but to their close friends their disappointment was plain.

      Neal, usually dramatic in love, would not talk about his lady, Yukimi, at all. It was such a change from his normal behaviour that Kel was convinced he truly loved her Yamani friend. Before, he’d made high tragedy of his beautiful crushes and his own heartbreak, but not this time. Not over a plump and peppery Yamani.

      With Roald on one side and Neal on the other, Kel had to wonder about her own sweetheart, Cleon of Kennan. They hadn’t seen each other in over a year. A knight two years older than Kel, he was stuck in a northern border outpost, where he had been assigned to teach the locals how to defend themselves. He’d been unable to get or send letters during both winters. Had he forgotten her? She wasn’t even sure if he knew she’d survived her Ordeal.

      I’ll write to him when I know where I’m to be posted, she promised herself. Maybe we’ll even be assigned to the same place. I’d like that.

      She smiled at the idea. They’d never got much time alone: something had always interrupted. Perhaps by now he’d be over his impractical idea that he wanted them to marry before they made love, as proper young noblemen did with proper young noblewomen.

      Nothing would come of waiting to marry. Years ago, Cleon’s mother had arranged his marriage to a young noblewoman with a fine dowry. Cleon thought that, given time, he might convince his mother that Kel would make a better wife. Kel was not so sure. As the youngest daughter of a family that was not wealthy, her dowry was small. She was also not ready to marry. She’d only just earned her shield; there was so much to do before she could think of settling down. Cleon loved her, wanted to have children by her. She wanted love and children, too – someday. Not now. Not with Scanra ready for all-out war against Tortall. Not with a future that included Blayce the Nothing Man.

      Romance wasn’t the only thing to think about, but it was more pleasant than reality. Knights used their powerful mounts and the wagons of armour, tack, and weapons to break trail through snow and ice, clearing the way for the foot soldiers of the regular army. It was slow going.

      At least Peachblossom, Kel’s infamous, temperamental warhorse, behaved. He was a strawberry roan: reddish hide flecked with white, and red-brown stockings, face, mane, and tail. Eight years with Kel had cured him of his tendency to attack others. It was only when they got held up and he was bored that Kel caught him eyeing Neal, his favourite target. When that happened, Kel excused herself and rode ahead to join Lord Raoul or Lady Alanna.

      To everyone’s relief, the countryside offered dry quarters for the military. War parties rode north so regularly that local farmers made extra money by letting soldiers bed down in their barns. Officers and knights slept at crown wayhouses. These large inns provided snug quarters and plentiful food, doubly welcome after a day in the cold and wet. Often villages encircled the wayhouses, offering shops and more places to find shelter for the night.

      Each day as she walked into the comfort of a wayhouse, Kel hoped the Stormwings that flew above the army found only cold, damp perches for the night. She wished them ice-covered wings and frostbite in their human flesh. Each morning she saw the flash of their steel feathers and heard their jeering calls as the army marched