51 - Memories of Battles Past

Ky didn’t want to go back down the mountain. I want to stay with my father. Kyrus agreed. “I don’t want to let you out of my sight, son, not because I don’t trust you, it’s because I don’t feel as though you are real.”

“I... me too.” The boy shifted on his pillow. “Do you mind, Da?”

“Mind what? That you exist? Never. Mind what you had to do to keep yourself? I’m upset that I didn’t know... that I couldn’t keep you, teach you, make sure you didn’t have to do such things to stay alive. But you’ve survived. That’s what’s important to me. I’ve learned a little from the Milari... Ilax specifically and a man by the name of Corydon...and learning what I would have taught you anyway.” He took another sip of tea.

“How did this get set up?” Ky looked around and realized that though the shape of the tent was natural Lainz it was modified in a purely Milar way. There were inner walls to provide more warmth, a raised floor underneath to keep the rugs off the stone floor, while the roof spars were painted with Lainz colours but the patterns were Milar.

“There was a couple living here, in the mountain. A pair of mander warriors older than the Emperor. They took me in...” Kyrus leaned forward and took up the poker, adjusted a few of the coals glowing red in the brazier, obviously thinking of that time ten years ago.

“...Agalia and Corydon were the ‘mysterious old spirits of the mountain’ and Ilax knew them. They didn’t stay hidden from everyone then and when they died. Corydon died six winters ago and Agalia didn’t get up one day shortly after that. She told me she didn’t wish to continue, gave me my last instructions. She closed her eyes and went after her inamor by her will, and she had a powerful one.

I’ve been the ‘old man of the mountain’ ever since. People don’t know that I’m not Milar. I’ve lived here alone, except for Ilax.” Ky saw a quick motion by the tent rafters, behind the wall.

“Da,” he said softly. “Watch out, there’s a rat or something...”

Kyrus laughed. “Don’t worry. That’s Tizrav. Come on, Tiz. This is my boy, Tizzie.” As he called a long white nose poked out over the top of the wall, followed by bright black beady little eyes and a pair of round pink ears. 

The ferret climbed into view and its back legs grabbed the outside of the curtain, its tail whipping back and forth as it wobbled around to a point where it could jump to Kyrus’s back from the wall. As she thrust her nose under his hair and coiled around his neck, he reached up to pet her. “Well, not quite alone. Tizzie here was a gift to the Ancestors. Someone left her in a cage by the stones, with the door open. She came sniffing in to beg meat scraps from my dinner and stayed. She still sleeps out in the cage sometimes, when she’s not clearing vermin out of my cave here, and sleeping in my boots.”

“Well,” Ky looked at the ferret, a common basin ratter. “As long as she’s some company...”

“She is,” he said scratching her head. “Is your mother still alive?”

“Yes, da.” Ky squirmed on his cushion, more embarrassed now. “I did my best, da. She had a girl who died and another little boy... my brother... that I remember... it was hard while she was um, carrying. He died when he was five and mama... she’s not right in the head, she keeps talking about places and people that don’t exist. So... she’s in a Dark hospice where a monk by the name of Yasna helps her debug.”

“And you looked after her for years, learning that profession?”

“Yes, da.”

“You’re healthy, you’re whole as far as I can see, your mother is in a safe place and you’re here. How could I not be proud of you? And since it was Ilax’s love for me that kept me alive and my love for him that kept me well, I can hardly complain of what sex you've had.” Kyrus flinched at the straight speech.

“Da... how did it happen?”

The older man stared off into the middle distance. “I... and my father had words about my reluctance to marry at all, though I did try and marry your mother... ... I truly wasn’t interested in... women. I hadn’t realized that. Just before I deployed here... when his Radiance called for troops... he and I fought. You would not be born for another eight months, neither your mother or I realized she was carrying... My father was enraged enough that I refused his proposed betrothal to a proper woman other than your mother, that he threatened to disown me. Your grandmother stepped in before we butted heads enough for that to happen but we didn’t speak more that ‘goodbye’ when I left.”

He ran his hands over his face, rubbed along his chin. The ferret leaped from around his neck, pounced on the feathers woven into a braid at his temple and swung there for a moment. “Ow, stop that!” He caught her and pulled the honour feathers out of her jaws. “Once here, you can read – you can read?” He cast a sharp glance and Ky was very happy to be able to nod. “I was under General d’Akkad who took us all the way to where Ilax stood us off. It was hard for the Milari, we drove like an arrow into their guts because of our birds.” He set the ferret down on the rug where she rolled infront of his cushion.

“He was killed in battle when the Milar first used bird caltrops and General d’Molfe succeeded to the position of high general.”

“And he threw you at Ilax against terrible ground and terrible odds.”

“I was un-birded and fought Ilax on foot there... and for the first time he and I locked eyes over sword. It was the oddest thing. I knew then that I could not kill the man, even if I could. And he knew it too. I couldn’t draw back and neither could he, but the right flank fell back into us and we were forced apart by mounted forces fighting through. I was kicked by one of our own forces and found unconscious and captured by Milari later... uninjured except for being unconscious.” The ferret came sniffing at Ky’s knee but shied back when he raised his hand toward her.

“And Ilax claimed you as a personal prisoner because of what you’d felt?”

“No. Not then. We talked. He pulled me out of the group of Lainz prisoners because he intended to ransom me. He is nothing but practical sometimes, my Ilax.”

“Was that after General d’Molfe tried to force you...?”

“To spread for him? Yes. That was why my unit was specifically in such a terrible place, against such terrible odds. He hoped I would be killed rather than accuse him of being a man-lover and abuser of power.”

“But that battle...”

“Was what drew his Radiance’s attention.”

“And the General did pay ransom for you.”

“Reluctantly.” His face grew very grim. “And thought I had been worse injured than I was.”

Ky stared. “He thought...”

Kyrus chopped his hand flat. “I will not say any more. That time after I was ransomed was very short and I refuse to remember it. A fall blizzard came in and that battle was even more terrible... I was injured by a Milari horseman,” he held up his scarred right hand and arm illustratively. “As Nivika was. I was kicked as I went down in the snow and had lost too much blood to be terribly concerned about freezing to death. Ilax and Elemfias found us in the snow.” His face was a strange mixture of remembered pain and despair and love.

Ky didn’t know how to read his father’s face, the beard was almost as good as a veil for hiding expression. The ferret, encouraged by his stillness sniffed his pant leg, thrust her nose into the cuff of his boot, then snuffled her way up onto his lap, draping across his thigh like a scarf.

“And that was when...” Ky looked down, not seeing Tizrav on his lap at all, his hand idly stroking her as he imagined fighting over these mountains in an early blizzard, and shuddered.

“When he took me and Niv prisoner. I had been trampled and lost a lot of blood. I would not have kept this hand, in Lainz, even if I had survived the gut-injury. But Niv... in the months after that battle, when snow held everyone fast in their strongholds... he suffered infection after infection. I sat with him and read to him and Ilax and I...”

“Became lovers.”

“And have been ever since, yes.”