Rated "R" for violence. I figured I play it safe this time. :)
PLEASE NOTE: I attached the map of J'engar and Talon to this post. Please, look at it, especially since they're traveling in this chapter. It's always difficult to imagine the placements of everything, so hopefully this will help.
~*~
Daeun was beginning to like waking up to a pair of golden eyes, though admittedly, they were now a dark black; and it was much more pleasant when he wasn’t getting over the shock of having spent a few cosmic hours in the presence of the Goddess.
She was curled up beside him, her head on his chest, in such a blatantly feminine position that he was hard-put to imagine her as the vicious warrior-queen who’d saved his skin—was it only a few days ago? She gave him a smile like that of a cat who’d drank an entire bowl of milk and killed a few mice, pleased and languid. “I should be hanged for this,” she murmured to him, eyes half-lidded. “It is illegal for a queen to sleep beside a man who is not her husband.”
“Are you accustomed to breaking laws, dinsatas?”
Her smile widened, and she leaned forward to whisper in his ear, “Only for you.”
They both jumped when the door shook and rattled, booming with the force under which the blows struck it surface. At length Caelun’s voice floated in to them, carefully muted but urgent. “There is a commotion in the stables,” Caelun said, the combination of his accent and the thick wooden door making it hard to understand him. “The horses are screaming, and the men scream with them—they speak of killing the black demon.”
“Tsuunai,” Daeun breathed, and cast aside the covers to pull on the closest thing at hand: a pair of worn breeches and a pale loose shirt. He flung open the door and hurried out, pushing aside multiple people in order to get to the stables.
It was a mess. Grooms were running every which way, trying to catch loose horses, trying to keep the other horses locked up, and, by all means, avoiding the far corner of the stable. He ignored their desperate pleas to remain back and entered the stable, spotting Tsuunai’s black hide in the center of the commotion: a man with a harshly scarred face and a broken body, mostly due to Tsuunai’s flying hooves.
“Tsuunai!” Daeun roared, and Tsuunai, startled mid-rear, hesitated and slammed back down onto his forelegs, tossing his head uncomfortably. The man moaned and dug for his dagger; Tsuunai backed away, snorting at the man, but unwilling to disobey Daeun.
Daeun made it to Tsuunai’s stall just as the dagger came free, and gave a flying leap to tackle the man—hard—into the unforgiving ground beneath him. The man writhed and cried out, trying with all his might to turn the blade around and dig it into Daeun instead. Daeun, however, had the advantage of having not been trampled by Tsuunai, and easily wrestled the dagger free.
“Speak your name,” Daeun ground out, hand closing down around the man’s throat.
“I have none,” the man replied, and spit in Daeun’s face. In response, Daeun’s hand closed tighter.
“Why did you attack Tsuunai?” Daeun demanded.
“The king,” the man hissed out, “ordered me to kill every black horse in Talon lands. This is the only horse to fight me.” He paused. “You must be him, then?”
Daeun did not hesitate; he pulled away, and before the man could react, Tsuunai reared up and landed squarely on his head, the man’s skull cracking ominously as blood trickled from his nose and mouth. He was dead—there was no doubt about that—and Daeun’s secret was safe.
“A close one, my friend,” Daeun breathed, patting Tsuunai’s sweaty hide. “Calm them down, now; we are frightening the people.”
An instant later, the horses had returned to their normal docile behavior, following their handlers back into their stalls as if nothing had ever happened. The stable boys looked at each other in wonder, baffled as to what had happened, and Daeun, crossing the yard as if he had had nothing at all to do with it, began to whistle.
It was a merry, light tune, but it was not truly a tune at all. In the doorway, the innkeeper flicked a hasty salute before disappearing, and a few yards away, two women repeated the gesture, then wheeled their horses round and galloped away. It was a warning, from one of the Resistance to another, though it was likely they had all guessed who he was; it was a warning that the king had caught their scent, and to hide. Whatever duties had to be done, would be done with the greatest care, if at all.
When he reached the doorway, he rapped the wall lightly, catching the attention of the J’engar inside. “We must go,” he said lightly, voice soft. “It would not do to stay any longer.”
Like before, they were already prepared to go, and waited only as long as it took to saddle the horses before starting off. They said nothing, though they all noticed the faint speckling of blood on Tsuunai’s coat, and followed him willingly out into the flat plains that lay north of Senvar.
The plains were so flat that it was easy to see long distances, for there was nothing but pale green grasses as far as the eye could see. Ahead of them, about a day’s travel away, rose a steep hill, very nearly a mountain; and atop that mountain perched a city of stone and wood, possessing a kind of harsh elegance that spoke of resolute power and a refusal to be moved in any direction but its own.
“That,” Daeun said softly, in quite a different tone than they had ever heard before, “is Genor. These lands here are my own—Senvar’s stretch far down towards Bano, but do not go any farther than the border of the city itself.”
“It is a strong city to behold,” Ianna commented, noting that the position was highly defensible and built to withstand war. A long road stretched down from the city, wrapping around the mountain till it fell to the plains beneath it, a road that, if blocked, would likewise hamper enemy movement.
Daeun grinned roguishly and drew in a breath, shouting into the skies, “Hail, people of Genor!”
There was silence, stretching on and on, and then suddenly the city seemed to swell, and a shout rang out from the city. The people had cried out as one—“Hail, lord of Genor!”
“How did they hear you?” Caelun asked, scrutinizing the sky.
“All winds blow to Genor,” Daeun replied, grinning. “If any enemy comes, he must walk very carefully, for we will hear him.”
“A valuable thing to have on your side,” Ianna observed, thinking that perhaps if Daeun made this his strike point, that King Anull would be at a significant disadvantage.
As they rode, a plume of dust rose up from the base of Genor, advancing towards them at great speeds. At midday they reached the dust plume, at the center of which was a guard of sixteen, bearing the Genor coat of arms and riding enormous black stallions. “Your Lordship,” they cried as they saluted him, bowing their heads and lifting their swords aloft.
“So,” Daeun said, arching an eyebrow. “How are my dearest relations?”
The guard standing directly before him raised his head, smiling faintly. He bore on his helmet a faint red circle, a mark that named him as the leader. “Sour-faced as ever, my lord,” he replied, his voice low and rocky, as if he had a perpetual mound of gravel in his throat. “They’ve reduced the guard by half and the army as well.”
The guards peeked up from under their helmets at this, watching their lord’s face. In truth, it did not change at all, but something in his eyes made them look down again. “This is the J’engar envoy,” Daeun said finally, as if he had not heard a thing. “She and her men are to be treated with all honors—consider her an extension of myself. Any mistreatment will be met with the harshest punishment.”
The guards exchanged glances, but there was no hesitation in the answering salute.
“Home, then,” Daeun murmured, starting Tsuunai forward, and the guards surrounded them, silver armor gleaming. Caelun snorted and leaned forward towards Taejon.
“These Talon like themselves too much,” he said darkly, refusing to keep his voice quiet. “I’d bet a gold piece they sit around and primp in those mirrors they’re wearing.”
“Caelun,” Ianna said, as the guards sent Caelun a nasty glare. Her tone brooked no argument, and her eyes were dark. “If you cannot hold you tongue, I will cut it out.”
Caelun looked shocked. “Your Majesty, I never meant—”
“I have pronounced him a friend, and an allay,” Ianna said sharply. “My allegiance to his people is as devout as my allegiance to him, for there is no difference, just as there is no difference between you and me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Caelun said humbly, bowing his head, and the guards smirked, pleased by his punishment.
“However,” Ianna continued, looking contemplatively at the guards, “they are Talons. You can’t expect much from these—people. Simply … avoid them.”
The smirks vanished, and their eyes shifted to Daeun, waiting to hear his response. He sent Ianna a bright smile, instead of the sharp look they’d learned to fear. “You won’t have any problems with my lot,” he said, with laughter in his voice. The guards looked incredulously at one another, for they had never heard their lord’s voice so happy. “I promise you, they’re good people. I’ll point out the rotted fruit.”
Ianna returned his look with an arched eyebrow. “Of course.”
“Of course,” Daeun echoed, facing forward again. “Tell me, what is the most favored penalty for misbehavior in J’engar?”
“It depends on the misbehavior,” Ianna replied. “For some, they must relinquish their possessions to the throne, and become outcasts. There are a few whom we send over the border without weapons or clothing, to be killed by your Talon brethren, and there are others whom we simply execute immediately.” Her chin rose a little. “Among those are they who insult the crown.”
“His,” Daeun said, in a different voice. “Not yours.”
Ianna’s eyes softened. “Yes. I can handle myself—it is my cousin whose name must be unsoiled. I have struck down too many men to be considered clean.”
“He is quite a man, your cousin,” Daeun said, softer still. “He has an … aura about him. Power.”
“No.” Daeun looked around, surprised, and Ianna said again, “No—it is not power. It is the aura of a true king. An aura which your king does not possess.”
“I’ve noticed,” Daeun said dryly, and Ianna chuckled.
“You have it too, majesty,” Caelun piped up from behind. “Go ahead, try it on one of the Talon mirror-boys. Give them the stare of death.”
“No,” Fraon said, grinning evilly. “Send them the demon eyes. They’ll be quaking in their mirrors for days.”
“I am not a party trick,” Ianna snarled, and every man there, excepting Daeun, recoiled sharply. The guards exchanged looks yet again, disturbed by the sudden yellow tint in her eyes, and focused determinedly on the city ahead. Whatever these J’engar were, they were inhuman and barbaric and—wrong. They did not like them at all, and they knew that the J’engar felt just as strongly about them.
They puzzled, however, over the apparent friendship between Lord Genor and the J’engar queen, baffled as to how it had come about. Their lord was known for being exceedingly charming, so perhaps that was it, but looking over at the J’engar, they found it had to believe that such a being could be swayed by smiles and compliments.
Perhaps he’d been bewitched?
. Anyway, I just found that one sentance to be wrong. The rest was good 
. I liked it a lot.