“I have forsaken much traditional honour to follow the path of the Synnich spirit,” he said sharply. “I will not forsake more honour to follow a weeping little girl.”
Sasha wiped her eyes again, and composed herself. “Rhillian, we have a task. The cause for which the Army of Lenayin has been marching has proven itself honourless. My father thought to unite the regions of Lenayin within the forge of war, as a metalsmith blends different kinds of steel in hot fire. But this is not a forge, this is a poison well, from which we all have been forced to drink. I will drink no more. I know many Lenays feel the same.”
“How many?” asked Rhillian. Her eyes were wide with possibility. With amazement.
“Half,” said Sasha. “At least. More will follow, with leadership. I will offer mine. I cannot promise others, but I can persuade.” She looked at Markan. Markan stood tall and grim, arms folded, and said nothing.
“The Lenay lords will not follow you,” said Rhillian.
Sasha nodded. “It matters no more than it did in the Northern Rebellion-the lords do not command the respect of any but other nobility, and they are few. Besides which, I have Great Lord Ackryd of Taneryn. I will not speak for Great Lord Markan, but he is here, as you see, and his blade is sheathed.”
She glanced up at Markan. Markan snorted and stared away at the view.
“You promise a reunion with Kessligh, Lenayin's greatest hero,” Rhillian murmured. “Valhanan will follow you and him.”
“Tyree,” Sasha added confidently. “Much of Rayen, and Neysh. I cannot speak for Yethulyn and Fyden, but if we had the Isfayen…” She looked again at Markan.
“The eastern tribes do not love the Isfayen,” Markan growled. “We have shed too much of their blood. They will do the opposite to spite us.”
“They respect you, because you have shed so much of their blood,” Sasha countered. “Of course, much of the nobility will not follow their common folk. And the Hadryn, Banneryd, and Ranash will fight us all to the last man.”
“You would split your nation for us?” Rhillian asked.
Sasha shook her head. “No. My nation is already split. I do not do this for Saalshen, Rhillian, though that is a pleasant consequence. I do this for Lenayin. My father, and now Koenyg, wish Lenayin to be a noble Verenthane kingdom. They have seen the grand model of lowland civilisation, and they have embraced it for their own, on the behalf of all Lenays.
“I have been to Tracato, and I have seen a different vision of lowland civilisation. It is a flawed vision, but it has promise. I would rather that model for Lenayin than the one offered by the Regent Arrosh any day. Should we win, that shall be our model. And there shall be little room for the Hadryn and their friends in that. We fight them now, we fight them later…” Sasha shrugged. “Little difference.”
“Tracato left you shattered,” said Rhillian.
“People there failed to comprehend what they had built. They failed Tracato. With better leadership, it can still work. It was my mistake to abandon it all in my grief. By abandoning it all, I solve no problem, I only become one.”
Rhillian smiled. She looked up at Markan.
“It is not for any of us to be making Lenayin into anything,” Markan said grimly. “The Lenay people are free. The Isfayen are free. We practise our old ways, and we do not let any foreigner tell us how to be.”
“Then King Soros was wrong to bring Verenthaneism to Lenayin?” Sasha asked.
“That's different. He was a liberator.”
“As shall we be, when we save Saalshen,” said Sasha.
“These are foreign lands!” Markan snapped. “King Soros liberated Lenayin, not some faraway outpost.”
“So grand battles only matter if they are fought in Lenayin?” Sasha asked him, temper rising. “Then what are you doing here?” Markan glared. “The Isfayen came here for glory and conquest, as the Isfayen have always found glory and conquest in wars on foreign soil…hells, your ancestors laid waste to much of Telesia and Raani…by your logic, why bother, if only the affairs of Lenayin concern you?”
“The Isfayen marched to war because King Torvaal asked us to,” Markan replied. “He was the King of Lenayin, in case you forget. Now, that king is Koenyg. We swore an oath to King Soros, that we are Lenay, and shall abide by the word of the King of Lenayin….”
“Oh, rubbish!” Sasha exclaimed. “Since when have the Isfayen actually given a handful of horseshit what the King of Lenayin thinks? Your father Faras ordered the Isfayen to war because he saw some utility in making Lenayin unite as a nation, and as a people! That's why you were sent to Baen Tar for education, and not raised in some windy hillside hut like your predecessors…and now you say the Isfayen accept no ideas from foreigners? You came here fighting for a Verenthane kingdom, whether you realised it nor not. Both it and Saalshen's kind of civilisation are foreign causes, yet you accuse only one of being so?”
“You are not the King of Lenayin!” Markan shouted. “You are the Synnich-ahn, you are wild and untamed, like all the men of Lenayin, but you are not king! There is honour in following the king. To disobey him, and fight against him, is…”
He did not complete the sentence. Koenyg would not follow. Not in a thousand years. Sasha took a deep breath, and realised what she was trying to do. She would fight her brother. How many of her brothers, she did not know. Any who followed her would be in rebellion against the king. That had not happened in Lenayin since there had been a king. The Northern Rebellion had come close, but she'd been very careful then to make clear what that rebellion was not. This time, there would be no dressing it up as something else.
“Great Lord Markan,” Rhillian said calmly. Even ferocious Markan flinched a little, to meet her stare. “I have heard it said that to the Lenay warrior, honour is all. To the bloodwarriors of Isfayen, even more so.”
Markan nodded grimly. “You have heard well.”
“My people are being murdered, Markan. Your warriors have slain many of my talmaad, yet the talmaad are warriors themselves, and such combat has covered all in glory, your people and mine. But you saw the town as you rode in. The Larosans set it to fire, and there were old folk there, unable to face the road, who were cut down by Larosan blades. Is there honour in such a deed?”
“No,” said Markan, stony-faced. “There is honour in killing an able opponent. To kill the old, the young, the unarmed, the helpless, such is echtyth. It is anath.”
Rhillian looked at Sasha.
“Untranslatable,” Sasha told her in Saalsi. “But very bad.”
“Then it seems to me that you must choose, Great Lord of Isfayen. What most defines the soul of the Isfayen? Is it obedience to a king? Is it faithfulness to your father's orders? Or is it the path of righteous honour in battle? If you stay your course and fight with the Regent Arrosh, you will serve with an army that murders children, that kills the old before their time, that would seek to remove my entire race-most of whom cannot fight-from the face of this earth. You will be spared the dishonour of betraying your father's path, and turning against the King of Lenayin. But when the corpses of ten thousand children lie at your feet, what honour will you have left to be stained?”
“We do not participate in that,” Markan said stonily. “We fight only warriors.”
“Dear lord,” Rhillian said gravely. “Is this an excuse used frequently amongst the honourable bloodwarriors of Isfayen? ‘I did not participate in that crime’? ‘I only stood by and watched, from a safe distance, and did nothing’?”
Markan's face wrinkled, as though he were smelling something very bad. He stood for a long moment. Then he turned and strode off, kicking at a tree root in passing.
Rhillian looked at Sasha, eyebrows raised. Sasha shrugged. “I don't know,” she sighed. “We can hope. I know the Isfayen have far more respect for the talmaad and the Steel than they do for any beneath the Regent's banner.”