Page 394 of Of Empires and Dust

“Then where are they?”

“There is a spring nearby that trickles into a pool.”

“And what in the gods are they doing there at nightfall?”

“Preparing, Your Grace.”

“For?”

“Death, Your Grace.”

Savrin led Alina,Mera, and the Royal Guard through the camp and up a slope to a dense wood nestled at the foot of a steep hill. Pale pink moonlight spilled through the canopy, illuminating the path. It wasn’t long before the splashing and the rumble of a small waterfall reached Alina’s ears.

Ahead the trees peeled away to reveal a clearing with a large pool at its centre, moss covered rocks arranged about its edges, and a small waterfall trickling.

“Oh…” Alina averted her gaze, more from surprise than embarrassment.

Each of the Andurii – men and women – were naked as the day they were brought into the world, the pink light cold on their skin. Some bathed in the pool’s water, others sat about scrubbing their skin and combing their hair.

After a second or two, Alina lifted her gaze once more. “What in the gods are they doing?”

“I told you, Your Grace. Preparing to die. It is an old Andurii tradition from the Age of War. Some say from even before then, before our ancestors set foot on these lands.”

“Your Grace.” Dinekes Ilyon, one of Dayne’s Andurii captains, rose from where he scrubbed his legs on a low rock by the pool. He wrapped a cloth around his waist and bowed. Alina had known him since she was a child in Redstone. He was a stern man, precise and level.

Alina inclined her head.

Dinekes gestured around at the other Andurii. “It is custom amongst the Andurii that when we have resigned ourselves to the arms of The Mother, we prepare our bodies for her embrace.”

“You have resigned yourselves to dying? You think our odds so small?” Something in Alina’s gut turned. The Andurii were the beating heart of her army. They were the symbol of Valtara reborn, of House Ateres arisen. There was not a soul who did not look on them almost as gods. If the Andurii had forsaken everything, what chance did they have?

“No, Your Grace. It is a commitment to ourselves and to each other that we are willing to give our lives in the battle to come. That we will die for each other. That we will die for the cause.That we will allow nothing to stop us. There will be no retreat, no surrender. Our Andurios lies on the other side of those walls. He would give his own life for us without a second’s thought, without hesitation, or uncertainty, or question. And so we will do the same. We bathe our bodies and comb our hair so that when Heraya takes us, she knows that we gave ourselves willingly, that our deaths came with a conscious understanding. That we were not afraid.”

When Alina once again studied the Andurii who sat about bare as babes, she no longer felt the compulsion to look away. Dinekes’s words had changed the foundations of that moment.

“When I was told you had declined my offer for supper, I had feared… I had?—”

“You had feared we’d abandoned you?”

“In a sense. I had feared you yourselves had felt abandoned by Dayne’s choice to allow himself to be taken. I had feared your anger, feared you had thought it a betrayal.”

Dinekes gave a half-laugh, clasping his hands behind his back. “It is not to us to question the heart of our Andurios’s decisions. His wisdom, yes – I question that daily – but not his heart. If he made that choice, he made it for a reason. It is our charge now to see him safe from harm and to fight in his name.”

“What is that?” Alina gestured towards a group of Andurii to the right of the pool. Some sat with their legs crossed and arms folded across their laps while others marked the chests of those seated with some kind of white and orange paint.

“The Andurii of old used to mark their bodies with ancient glyphs. Messages to the ones they loved should they die. Once the paint hardens and dries, it sticks to the skin for weeks. Sweat, rain, soap – nothing peels it away. It burns the skin, just a little. After a time, it becomes too brittle to hold its own form and peels free.”

Dinekes turned so he stood with the pool on his right and Alina on his left. “Andurii,” he bellowed. “Are you ready to die?”

“AH-OOH!”

Every man and woman roared their reply in unison, and a chill swept through Alina. Three hundred and forty-nine voices as one.

“Are you ready to fight in the name of House Ateres? In the name of Valtara?”

“AH-OOH!”

Even as they bathed and combed their hair, the Andurii shouts were as raw and deep as battle cries.

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