“Little enough Ilduuri freedom today,” someone muttered.
“The Steel are sworn to obey the Remischtuul,” said the captain, frowning. “We were founded on that promise-that the strong men of war would never turn their swords on their own people. To betray that is to betray everything good that the serrin helped to make Ilduur.”
“We don't ask you to turn your swords on the people,” Sasha told him. “From what you say, the Remischtuul have become a tyranny. What use is the freedom that the Steel have sworn to fight for if you will not fight for it here in Ilduur?”
Captain Aster gnawed at a thumbnail and stared at the wall.
“It may be a tyranny,” said Rulsten, “but it's a willing tyranny. If you could ask them, I'll warrant a fair majority of Ilduuri don't want this war either. The Steel are a minority. A very large minority, perhaps, but a minority nonetheless.”
Kiel sighed in disbelief. “Your people are idiots. Ilduuri may not see themselves as a serrin civilisation, but the Regent does and so do his priests. They'll demand the Remischtuul disbanded, the Steel destroyed, to say nothing of the Nasi-Keth. They are so strong that even your mountains cannot protect you. Your civilisation is the antithesis of the world that the Regent wishes to build, do you understand that?”
“It is not me who needs to understand,” Aster said sombrely. “But you speak of turning the Steel against the Remischtuul. We cannot fight our own people, however misguided they may be.”
“Then Jahnd is finished,” said Rhillian. “And with it, the combined armies of the Rhodaani and Enoran Steel, the Army of Lenayin, and much of the talmaad. Saalshen will be next, for the Regent will not repeat Leyvaan's mistake of frantic haste. Saalshen is easy prey for a large, dedicated, and patient army, even more so now that the Regent has captured some of the Steel's weaponry, and will no doubt take the time to learn how best to employ it.”
“As ever with Saalshen,” Kiel murmured, “we cut our own throats.”
Rhillian shrugged. “And at some stage in these events,” she continued, “the Regent shall turn his attention to Ilduur. The Ilduuri Steel must decide whether it is more important to uphold a pleasant-sounding ideal, or to ensure the survival of their civilisation and their people.”
“You ask the Steel to fight a tyranny by becoming one,” Aster said flatly.
“Yes,” said Rhillian. “Only this tyranny shall not need to murder small children by the thousand to achieve its ends. The same cannot be said of the other.”
Sasha had barely bedded down in the stables when Arendelle appeared at the fodder pen. At first she thought he'd come to talk to Rhillian, but instead he clambered over the bales and lay down beside her. Sasha turned to look at him, questioningly. Arendelle put a hand on her waist. She wore only her light shirt and pants, her jacket bundled for a pillow, feet bare as she dared to hope she would not need to get up and run in a hurry.
Arendelle wore as little. His hand ran down to her hip as his golden eyes watched her with intent curiosity. There was no hostility to him, and Sasha felt unthreatened. But they had barely spoken on the ride so far, and always Sasha had sensed the tension.
“Why?” she asked him.
Arendelle shrugged. “Interest,” he said. It meant more than that in Saalsi, suggested resolutions to unresolved problems.
“Is this a thing with serrin? To use sex to solve unresolved issues?”
“I seek to solve nothing. Only to learn.” He leaned forward to kiss her. Sasha stopped him. It only took a gentle touch to his chest.
“You've bedded human women before, surely?”
“That is not the issue,” he said obliquely. He slid a hand up to the small of her back. She could have stopped that too, but somehow, that seemed wrong. As though admitting that it could make her succumb if it continued. She held her gaze steady and firm, to show Arendelle it wasn't working.
“You dislike me,” she said flatly. “Yet I'm friends with your friends. Serrin have difficulty holding such contradictions in their heads. You poke at it, as you might poke at a scab.”
“Your looks are nothing like a scab,” he said generously. “What matter my motivation? I can see you are aroused, and with serrin there are no human consequences.”
“I'm aroused because I'm a hot-blooded Lenay warrior gone more than a week without my man,” Sasha retorted. She didn't like Arendelle's answer. He was telling her to shut up and enjoy it, far below the eloquence of most serrin in this circumstance. “Speaking of whom, I'll not betray Errollyn so easily.”
“Serrin barely understand the concept, in sex.”
“Yes, but I do.”
“I don't dislike you,” said Arendelle. He said the word with a vaguely serrin distaste. “It is too human a concept. It is because of these confusions that I seek to understand the nature of this thing between us. Between dislike and comradeship. Between hatred and love.”
Sasha blinked. She couldn't quite believe he'd used that last word. Only the serrin had so many words to describe that, and one could not be confident, in tongues other than Saalsi, exactly which they meant. A man loved wine. A man loved his child. A man loved a woman. Each was a very different thing.
Sasha sighed. “Look,” she said, “in another circumstance I'd join you in exploring this conundrum. I would like to be your friend, Arendelle. Can we agree that it need not take fucking to do it?”
Arendelle considered. “Fucking is more fun.”
Sasha stifled a giggle. “Well, yes. But in this circumstance, impractical.”
“Arendelle,” Rhillian called from the other side of a hay bale. “When you've finished pestering Sasha, why don't you come over here?”
Arendelle smiled, got up, and went to Rhillian.
He really didn't like her, Sasha thought a while later, with little choice but to listen to the activity beyond the hay bale. She and Errollyn had rarely missed a day when they were together. In their first weeks, they'd sometimes rarely missed a moment alone. Listening to Rhillian's gasps of pleasure was a new kind of torture. And she laughed at herself, a better alternative than cursing.
Arendelle finished, and left. Rhillian crept over, newly reclothed, and lay at Sasha's back and embraced her.
“I thought you'd finished,” Sasha said jokingly, with no little envy.
“I like to cuddle afterwards,” Rhillian said. “He's gone, you're all that's available.” Sasha laughed. “Errollyn wouldn't mind, you know. I'm sure of it.”
“I would.”
“Humans,” Rhillian sighed, and stroked Sasha's hair.
“Our families are more important,” Sasha explained. “Serrin families are more open. You raise children collectively. You do everything collectively. Humans aren't made for that. Our families must be strong, so we pair-bond, and should not stray.”
“Yet so often do.”
“And are punished for it.”
“Your explanations are so dry, Sasha. Humans think they're so romantic on sexual matters, but in truth you're all so blunt about it. In human stories, great sexual encounters are usually the precursor to some terrible tragedy.”
“Yes, but it's the tragedy we find romantic.”
Rhillian snorted. “Don't say those horrible human things, you'll spoil my afterglow.”
The following morning, the air was cool and moist. The trail to Andal rose to a high ridge overlooking the deep cleft cut by the Ipshaal River. Guarding that ridge was a great wall, with towers and a fort, intended as a secondary defence to be occupied by Steel falling back from the perimeter. The party rode with an escort of Steel, and wore borrowed red and black uniform beneath their riding cloaks. Steel frequently gave escort to important travellers, and few passing Ilduuris spared them more than a glance.
Soon they were climbing once more, but slowly this time. Rhillian followed Sasha's advice and stopped often, allowing the animals to graze or drink. Once, upon the crest of a ridge, they gained a perfect view of the mountains directly ahead, high peaks gleaming white in the snow of last night's storm. That was their path, and Sasha thought it much more pleasant without the pursuit of a horde of murderous Kazeri.