“Yes, of course!” Sofy looked relieved. It wasn't so much a task, Sasha knew, as something she'd have done anyway. But doubtless she was happy to have some responsibility. “I'd love to.”
Sasha touched her heels to Peg's sides and rode forward to the scout. Behind, she heard Sofy resuming the conversation with the children.
By the time the scout had departed, the climbing, winding road had arrived at an open shoulder, overlooking the forested valley below. The wind blew briskly, but no longer as cold. Crumpled hills stretched into the distance, the flanks of Mount Tvay barely visible in distant mist. Sunlight splashed golden patches through the clouds, drifting slowly over forested ridges and valleys, interspersed with veils of misting rain. Ahead, the ridge onto which the road ascended fell sharply in a line of ragged cliffs, sheer rock plunging into thick trees below. Above the cliffs, riding the updrafts, an eagle soared.
“Oh, my lords!” Sasha heard Sofy exclaim, and turned in her saddle to see the youngest Princess of Lenayin gazing open-mouthed at the scene, a hand to her chest. “My land is so beautiful!” Her eyes were shining.
“Pretty,” Daryd agreed. “Pretty land.”
As the column took a brief pause along a stream to water the horses, the first trouble broke out. Sasha ran along the forested streamside, dodging about horses and men as they pressed for space between the trees and waterside rushes, several of her vanguard in pursuit. Ahead, she could hear angry yells and threats, at alarming volume, and men along the stream craned their heads to look.
Sasha pushed her way past the last few horses and found two distinct groups of men in confrontation, each gathered behind their respective leaders. Both groups were Goeren-yai, but one was Falcon Guard soldiers and the other was villagers. Each was shouting in a tongue other than Lenay, yet familiar. Blades were not yet drawn, but hands were threatening on the hilts of swords.
Sasha stepped between the loudest, expecting them to stop. The men kept yelling, leaning around the new, inconvenient obstacle, jabbing sharp, accusing fingers. “Shut up!” she yelled at them. The men simply shouted louder, ignoring her. Sasha drew her blade and whistled the edge past one man's nose, then another, sending them stumbling backward. The men of her vanguard half-drew their blades in case of retaliation, but none came, and the shouting paused.
“What's this about?” Sasha demanded into that brief silence. Men on both sides stared at her, and at each other, fuming. “Speak, or I'll banish you from this column and give your damn horses to someone who can ride without fighting his brothers! What's this about?”
She stared hard at a Falcon Guard corporal who seemed prominent in the argument. “I'm Jysu, M'Lady,” the man said, as if that explained everything. “My friends here are Jysu.” Gesturing to his fellow guardsmen. “We ride together in the guard. These men are Karyd.” Pointing at the villagers.
Sasha blinked at him, waiting for the rest of the explanation. Nothing more came. “And?” she demanded. “So what?”
“The clans of Jysu and Karyd have blood-feud!” a villager announced angrily. He was an older man, at least sixty, with wild white hair about his otherwise bald head, yet he had strength. The expression beneath his spirit mask was ferocious. “Just two years ago two brothers from the Jysu headman's family killed a Karyd boy in a manner without honour! We came just now to join the great battle to save the Udalyn, but men of Karyd shall not ride with murderers!”
“The boy declared immediate challenge!” a guardsman retorted. “Our lad was within his rights!”
“And what about the murder of Yuan Arsyn's brother just a year before?” another soldier shouted. A yell came back in the other tongue, and then the shouting and yelling resumed, as loud as before.
They were in eastern Tyree now, Sasha realised, with exasperation. Tyree had clans that united some villages together and thrust others apart. Another of the manifold confusions that were the Goeren-yai, and baffled so many foreigners.
A yell cut them short. Sasha turned and found Jaryd limping to the fore. Beside the obvious pain on his face, his eyes were cold and distant. Only anger gave them animation now, a deadly light that was chilling to behold. Men quietened, watching him. Jaryd stopped between the old villager and his Falcon Guard corporal, and said something, darkly, in another tongue. Everyone watched. There was no reply. Jaryd repeated it.