Banewreaker (28 page)

But Hobard the Vedasian stood between them.

Once, only once, Carfax glanced behind him, as a terrified Fianna helped him scramble onto horseback. He could scarce make out the figure of Hobard, still on his feet, staggering under the onslaught. Even as Carfax watched, the Vedasian dropped to one knee and the Were closed upon him, a roiling wave of coarse pelts.

It was the last thing he saw as they fled.

He did not know for whom to weep.

SARIKA WAS CARELESS BRAIDING HER hair.

"Let it be!" Lilias slapped the girl's hand in irritation, then sighed as the grey-blue eyes welled with tears, relenting. "Never mind, sweetling. Just don't
pull
so."

"My lady!" she breathed in gratitude. "I will be careful."

After that the girl was careful, her fingers deft and skilled. Lilias watched her in the mirror, winding her braids into an elegant coronet. Her pretty face was a study in concentration. What must it be like to have no greater concern? Even here, in the privacy of her dressing-chamber, the sounds of the siege penetrated, a distant clamor of men and arms, challenges uttered, refuted in jeers. Lilias held the fillet in which the Soumanië was set in both hands. "Sarika?"

"My lady?" The girl met her gaze in the mirror.

"Are you not frightened?"

"No, my lady." Sarika gave her a small, private smile. Around her neck, the silver links of her collar of servitude shone. "You will protect Beshtanag."

Who of us is bound here, Lilias wondered? I thought my pretty ones were bound to my service; now, it seems, I am bound to their protection. She regarded the Soumanië held in her lap. For a thousand years, waking or sleeping, it had never left her touch. Light flickered in its ruby depths, seemingly inexhaustible and endless. Her own energies, like Beshtanag's stores, were nearing their limits. It would be so simple, she thought, to put it down and walk away.

"There!" Sarika tucked a final braid into its coil and beamed.

So simple, so easy.

Instead, Lilias raised the fillet, settling it on her brow. The gold circle gleamed against her dark hair and the Soumanië was crimson against her pale skin. She looked majestic and beautiful. That had seemed important, once.

"My lady." Pietre paused in the doorway, his face frank with adoration above his collar of servitude. "My lady, the Ward Commander is asking for your aid."

A pang of alarm shot through her. "What is it, Pietre?"

He shook his head. "I do not know, my lady."

With their assistance, Lilias robed herself and hurried through the halls, passing servants and wardsmen half-awake in the grey hour that preceded dawn. Everywhere, Beshtanag was feeling the pinch of the siege. Rations had been halved and working shifts had been doubled. An unseasonal chill had caught them unprepared, with a shortage of firewood laid in against the siege and a hard rainfall rendering the fortress dank and cold. The folk of Beshtanag gazed at her with banked resentment as she made her way to her reception hall.

"My lady." Gergon bowed at her arrival.

"Is there a problem, Gergon?" Lilias asked him.

"It's the rain." He looked bleary-eyed and tired, and there were droplets of rain dampening the grey hairs of his brows and beard. "Haomane's Allies have built siege-towers to assail the wall, and moved them into position overnight. We've been firing pots of pitch to keep them at bay, but now the rain aids their cause and the wood will not ignite. They're clearing the wall by the score, and I'm losing men. If it keeps up, they'll wear us down in a day. Can you help?"

"Show me," she said.

Outside, it was hard to see in the dim light, and rain fell in cold, miserable sheets, soaking her hooded woolen cloak in a matter of minutes. Clinging to Gergon's arm, Lilias picked her way down the cobbled mountainside road. Her wall stood, a smooth, rain-darkened expanse of granite, but here and there the framework of siege-towers scaled it. There were four all told, and Men and Ellylon stood atop the rain-slick platforms, archers armed with shortbows defending ladders thrust downward into Beshtanag's fasthold. On the ground, Gergon's archers shot at them, making a poor job of it firing upward in the pouring rain.

One by one, the ladders descended, and Haomane's Allies trickled into Beshtanag. All along the wall there were skirmishes fought in the gloaming.

There, a lone Borderguardsman challenged Gergon's wardsmen.

There, a trio of Midlanders put up a stout defense.

And they fell, fell and died, but for every one that died, two more waited to follow. There were so many of them, and so few Beshtanagi. If it became a war of attrition, Beshtanag would lose.

"Short work for a dragon," Gergon said quietly, surveying the siege-towers.

"
No
." Lilias drew back her hood, blinking against the rain. "Ready the catapults with their pitch-pots," she said grimly, watching the wall. "And your archers, Ward Commander. We do not need a
dragon
to set fire to these vile towers."

He regarded her for a moment before bowing. "As you order."

Lilias watched him stride away and vanish in the dimness, shouting orders to his wardsmen as he descended the steep incline. Around the base of the wall they obeyed, falling back to regroup around the roofed huts where the warming-fires burned and pitch was kept bubbling in cauldrons. From the fortress, Pietre picked his way out to join her, carrying a waxed parasol, which he raised over her head. Rain dripped off it like silver beads on a string.

"Are you well, my lady?" he asked anxiously. "You will take a chill in this rain!"

"Well enough." Lilias smiled humorlessly. "Let us pray a chill is the worst of it." And so saying, she pressed her fingertips to her temples, concentrating on the siege-towers and drawing on the power of the Soumanië, exerting its influence in an effort to
know
the towers and command their substance.

Wood.

Pinewood.

It was fresh-cut, hewn by the axes of Haomane's Allies. Stout trunks formed the supports and slender ones the platforms. Sap oozed from the shorn, splintered ends. At its heart, where new growth was generated, the wood was pink. Pale wood encircled it, layer upon layer, still springy with moisture. Outside was the encompassing bark, dark and tough, shaggy with flakes and boles. Rain, that should have fallen on rich mast to nurture its roots, fell instead on dead bark, rendering it sodden and slippery, penetrating layer upon layer into the green wood.

Water.

Too much water.

Drawing on the Soumanië, Lilias gathered it.

It was an intricate thing Haomane's Allies had wrought; four intricate things. Branch by branch, trunk by trunk, she desiccated the siege-towers. Heartwood died, its pink core turning grey. Outward and outward, pale layers growing ashen. A cloud of fog surrounded the towers as the bark weathered and dried, wrapping their assailants in a veiling mist. The soldiers of Aracus Altorus' army scrambled, disoriented and disorganized. Where booted feet had struggled for purchase on rain-slick wood, brittle bits of bark flaked and fell.

Holding the thought of water in her mind, Lilias
moved
it, until the air roiled with mist and there was none left in the wooden structures.

Sharp, cracking sounds emanated beneath enemy boots as branches cracked and splintered under their weight.

The siege-towers had become tinderboxes.

"Now!" Gergon shouted, waving his arm.

Pitch-pots were ignited and catapults thumped, loosing volley after volley. Some missed; most found their targets. Gergon's archers followed with a volley of arrows, trailing fire from oil-soaked rags. Where it struck, the pitch spread its flames, igniting dead-dry wood. Heedless of the pouring rain, the towers burned fiercely, wooden skeletons alight. Here and there, cries of agony arose from those too slow to escape. Gouts of fire towered into the sky as Haomane's Allies retreated, abandoning their siege-engines for the forest's safety. The Beshtanagi defenders shouted at the victory.

Drained, Lilias swayed on her feet.

"This way," Pietre whispered, taking her elbow. "My lady."

Step by stumbling step, she let him lead her back up the mountainside. In the entryway of Beshtanag fortress, another of her pretty ones was on hand to remove her sodden cloak. Radovan, who had pleased her once with his smouldering eyes, rebelling now against the force of her binding, eroding her sapped will. He was one she should have released. Too late, now, to contemplate such niceties.

"Lady." His hands were solicitous, his voice skirted courtesy. There was contempt in his hot gaze. "Yet again,
you protect
us."

Pietre stepped forward, bristling. "Leave her alone, Radovan!"

"No." She laid a hand on Pietre's chest, wearied by their antagonism. The Soumanië was like an iron weight on her brow. Her neck ached at it, and she wanted only to rest, though dawn was scarce breaking. "Let it be, Pietre."

Lilias? They come, little sister. Darkhaven's army travels the Ways.

It was the dragon's voice. Her head rose as a fierce surge of joy sent new strength through her veins. Hope, blessed and welcome. The plan was intact, and all was not lost. "Calandor?" she asked aloud, too tired to scry the Ways. "Where are they?"

ETERNITY BEFORE, ETERNITY BEHIND.

Only the
here
was real, and with each step it was elsewhere.

It was a strange thing, to travel the Ways of the Marasoumië without effort, on horseback. Ahead of him, a tunnel of red light pulsed; behind him, the same. Where he had been, he no longer
was
. Tanaros clamped his thighs hard around the black's barrel, aware of its solid warmth, its hide damp with sweat. No ordinary mount could have endured the strangeness of this journey. Here, and here, and here it placed its hooves, and there were no echoes in the Ways. There became here, here no longer was. How many leagues passed with the fall of each hoof?

He dared not think upon it.

The Way was anchored at either end. In Darkhaven, Vorax held it open; in Jakar, Ushahin Dreamspinner did the same. Lead, Tanaros thought to himself, aware of the press of Fjel at his back, a long, winding horde chary of tunnels they could not delve, of a journey they could not end, of leagues passing between each tramping stride. Of their own accord they would never have attempted such madness. It is enough, he thought. It is your task, General. Lead them, and show no fear.

So he did, step by step, concentrating on the passage, his hands steady on the reins, reassured by the scents of horseflesh and leather. Somewhere, above ground, the stars continued to reel and time passed. In the Ways, there was no time. Only one step further, leading them onward.

It had a taste, this journey, a taste of Vorax, holding open the passage. Gluttony and avarice, aye, but oh! There was the pride, the Staccian pride, that had forged its own path in making this fierce alliance. Tanaros felt the strength that poured forth from the Staccian, the courage and costly dedication, amplified by the Helm of Shadows. He could have wept, for undervaluing his cousin Vorax, whose branding echoed his own.

Staccia has weighed the cost and chosen this.

Lord Satoris had kept his bargain. For a thousand years Staccia had prospered in peace, while elsewhere the nations of Men struggled beneath the absent auspices of Haomane First-Born.

A night's passage, no more. Glancing to his left, Tanaros saw the young Midlander a half pace behind him. In the pulsing red light of the Marasoumië, Speros' face was set and eager, unaware of the dangers that threatened. He was someone's son, someone's brother. Did he even know what he risked?

The power that held open their Way shifted, growing more complex as Jakar drew nigh. There was the taste of Ushahin Dreamspinner, a subtle flavor of terrible power and remorse, of broken things healed awry.
Oh, mother
! It grew stronger as Darkhaven faded behind them. Somewhere, on the desert's edge, the Marasoumië flared into life, the node-points alive and open, rife with regret, loosing it into the open air.

Somewhere, grey dawn beckoned.

One more step, Tanaros thought, urging the black horse, conscious of the weight of the world above them. One more, and one more, and we will be done. And beside him was Speros and behind him was stalwart Hyrgolf and the whole of the Fjel army, and ahead of him lay the end, where all the throbbing crimson lines converged, and there amid the rocks they would emerge, assembling in force…

Something happened.

It happened fast, so fast.

There was a flare of scarlet lightning, an impact like a meteor's blow, and the Way…
changed
. Another sought to travel them, one with sufficient power to compel the Marasoumië itself. Sundered from its anchors, the Way was strained beyond bearing as the incoming presence sought to occupy the same space as Darkhaven's army. Reality buckled, the very stone warping around them. Amid disembodied cries of dismay, Tanaros fought for control of his now-terrified mount. With a sound like a taut wire snapping, Ushahin Dreamspinner's presence vanished and the Way ahead was severed and gone. There was only
here
, and another inhabited it.

There, stark in the wash of ruddy light, was Malthus the Counselor, with two figures cast in shadow behind him.

Tanaros gaped at him, uncomprehending.

For an instant, the wizard's astonishment was equal to his own.

And then an awful knowledge dawned in Malthus' eyes, quicker to grasp what was happening. He was Haomane's weapon, Shaped for the purpose of defeating Satoris himself, and the might he veiled from mortal sight was formidable indeed. In the dark of underearth, there was a brightness upon him it hurt to behold. The wizard's lips began working, speaking a spell. His beard trailed into his scholar's robes, and on his breast the Soumanië, drawing on Haomane's power, the power of the Souma. Even Sundered, it was enough to command the Ways.

"Turn back!" Tanaros wrenched at the reins left-handed, shouting over his shoulder. "Turn back!"

It was too late. Even as his black mount squealed in fear and ducked its head, sunfishing violently, the Way was collapsing. Terror erupted on every side. Tanaros swore, lurching in the saddle and fighting the black. Behind him there was only chaos as the Fjel broke ranks, milling in an awful press. Speros of Haimhault was caught in the crush, his mount borne along by terrified Fjel.