Nightrunners 03 - Traitor's Moon

traitor's moon
A Bantam Spectra Book / July 1999

SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed "s" are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1999 by Lynn Flewelling.

Cover art copyright © 1999 by Gary Ruddell.

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ISBN 0-553-57725-5
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Dedication

For our folks, Thelma and Win White and Frances Flewelling, for their continuing love and support. I promise I'll write you that serious novel one of these days! Thanks for liking these so much.

Acknowledgments

Sincerest thanks to all the folks who continue to keep me sane, fed, and free of crumbs. Believe me, it's a full-time job.

First and foremost, my husband and best buddy, Dr. Doug, past whom no chapter goes unmaimed. And he cooks! The Dynamic Duo—editor Anne Lesley Groell and agent Lucienne Diver—and to the good folks at Bantam Spectra and the Spectrum Literary Agency, who keep
them
sane, fed, and free of crumbs. The Usual Suspects—Darby Crouss, Laurie Hallman, Julie Friez, and Scott Burgess, and my family. Assorted new readers, Michele De France and NextWavers Devon Monk, James Hartley, Charlene Brusso, and Jason Tanner. Finally, kudos to our local swordsmith (and how many of you can say that?), Adam Williams, for his technical advice and general kibitzing, and to Gary Ruddell, for giving form to my inner visions.

Thank you all for your support, expertise, and in-flight feedback.

Additional gratitude for the Eagles reuniting just long enough to record their
Hell Freezes Over
CD. It got me through some weary days and nights, when "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave" pretty much summed things up. But I got over it.

A
Few Remarks from the Author

Ever since the first Nightrunner book came out back in '96, people have been asking if I'm writing a trilogy. It's an understandable assumption, given the genre, so I thought I'd seize this opportunity, here in the third book, to lay that question to rest once and for all.

This is not a trilogy.

This is not a trilogy.

This is not a trilogy.

And the first person who asks if it's a pentology gets a sterling silver fountain pen straight through the heart.

Okay, I wouldn't really do that. I love that pen.

I have nothing against trilogies, it just isn't what I've set out to do here. The Nightrunner series is exactly that: a series of interrelated tales about the lives and adventures of some characters I have a lot of fun with. There will be more books, as inspiration strikes.

So, do you need to read the opening duology,
Luck in the Shadows
and
Stalking Darkness,
to understand this book?

Probably not.

Then again, I have two kids to put through college.

Yes, you absolutely need to read the first two books. So do all your friends and relatives.

Traitor's Moon

1

Dark Hopes

The sleet-laden wind buffeted Magyana, whipping wet strands free from the wizard's thick white braid as she trudged across the churned ground of the battlefield. In the distance, the tents of her queen's sprawling encampment billowed and creaked along the riverbank, black specters on a dun plain. In the makeshift corrals, the horses huddled together, their backs to the wind. The unlucky soldiers on sentry duty did the same, their green tabards the only spots of color against this grim palette.

Magyana pulled her sodden cloak more closely around her. Never in all her three hundred and three years had she felt the cold so keenly. Perhaps faith had kept her warm before, she reflected sadly, faith in the comfortable rhythms of her life, and faith in Nysander, the wizard who'd been a part of her soul for two centuries. This damnable war had robbed her of both, and more. Nearly a third of the Oreska House wizards were dead, centuries of life and learning snatched away. Queen Idrilain's second consort and two younger sons had fallen in battle, together with dozens of nobles and countless common soldiers—sent by blade or disease down to Bilairy's gate.

Magyana's grief was mingled with resentment at the disruption of her orderly life. She was a wanderer, a scholar, a gatherer of

wonders and tales. Only reluctantly had she taken Nysander's place at the aging queen's side.

My poor Nysander.
She wiped a wind-smeared tear from her cheek.
You would have relished all this, seen it as a great game to be won.

So here she was, winter-locked in the wilds of southern Mycena, a nation once more bathed in the blood of two bellicose neighbors. Plenimar stretched greedy talons westward toward Skala's borders and north to the fertile freeholdings along the Gold Road. This harsh second winter had slowed the fighting, but as the days now slowly lengthened toward spring, the queen's spies brought daily reports of the unthinkable; their Mycenian allies were considering surrender.

And no wonder,
Magyana thought, reaching the outskirts of the camp at last. It had been just five days since the last battle. These ravaged fields where farmers had once cut sheaves of grain were sown now with a crueler crop: shredded banners, broken buckles, arrow heads overlooked by scavenging camp followers, and the occasional pitiful scrap of human remains, frozen too hard for even the ravens to peck out. It would yield a bitter spring harvest with the thaw, one she doubted any of them would be here to witness, now that things had gone so horribly wrong.

The Plenimarans had surprised them just before dawn. Throwing on her armor, Idrilain had rushed to rally her troops before Magyana could reach her. One side of the queen's corselet had been left unbuckled, and during the ensuing battle a Plenimaran arrow found the gap, piercing Idrilain's left lung. She survived the extraction, but the wound quickly festered. Plenimaran archers dipped their arrowheads in their own excrement before a battle.

Since then, a host of drysian healers had exerted their combined skills to keep her alive while the wound putrefied and fevers melted the flesh from her bones. It was agony, watching Idrilain fight this silent battle, but she refused to order her own release.

"Not yet. Not as things are," she'd groaned, clutching Magyana's hand as she panted and shook and laid her plans.

Reaching the queen's great pavilion, Magyana sent up a silent prayer.
O Illior, Sakor, Astellus, and Dalna, now is the hour! Give our queen strength enough to see our ruse through.

A guard lifted the flap for her, and she stepped into the stifling heat beyond.

Huge tapestries suspended from the ridgepoles overhead enclosed the audience chamber, already crowded with officers and wizards gathered by the queen's summons. Magyana took her place to the left of the empty throne, then nodded to Thero, her protege and coconspirator, who stood nearby. He bowed, his calm, aesthetic face betraying nothing.

The tapestries behind the chair parted, and Idrilain entered leaning on the arm of her eldest son, Prince Korathan, and followed by her three daughters. All but plump Aralain were in uniform.

Idrilain took her seat and her heir, Phoria, placed the ancient Sword of Gherilain unsheathed across her mother's knees. Bold in war, wise in peace, Idrilain had wielded the ancient blade with honor for more than four decades. Now, unbeknownst to all but her closest advisers, she was too weak to lift it unaided.

Her thick grey hair fell smoothly over her shoulders beneath her golden circlet, hiding her thin neck. Soft leather gauntlets covered withered hands. Her wasted body was muffled in robes to hide the extent of her decline. The drysian's infusions blunted the pain enough not to tax her exhausted heart, but there were limits to even their powers. It took Thero's magic to limn the semblance of flesh and color in the queen's cheeks and lend false power to her voice. Only her pale blue eyes were unchanged, sharply alert as an osprey's.

The effect was flawless. The pity of it was that such deception must be practiced on Idrilain's own children.

The queen's two consorts had given her three children each, the two triads as different as the men who'd fathered them. The elder three—Princess Phoria, her twin Korathan, and their sister Aralain, were tall, fair, and solemn.

Klia, the youngest and sole survivor of the second three, had the same handsome features, chestnut hair, and ready wit as the father and two brothers for whom she still wore a black baldric. Of these six, it had always been the eldest and youngest girls whom the Oreska wizards watched most closely.

Skilled and fearless in battle, Phoria had risen through the ranks of the Queen's Horse Guard to High Commander of the Skalan Cavalry. Nearing fifty now, she was as renowned in military circles for her tactical innovations as she was at court for her blunt speech and ill-starred barrenness. While her merits as a warrior might have

been sufficient for the crown in her great-grandmother's day, times had changed and Magyana was not the only one to fear that Phoria lacked the vision to rule a nation touched by the intricacies of the wider world.

Just before his death Nysander had also hinted to Magyana of a breach between heir and queen, but was forestalled by some oath from revealing more.

"We are the oldest of the Oreska wizards now, my love. No one knows better than we how precariously the common good balances on the edge of Gherilain's Sword," he'd warned. "Keep close to the throne, and to all those who might one day sit upon it."

Magyana turned her attention back to Klia and felt a familiar surge of fondness. At twenty-five, she not only commanded a full squadron of Queen's Horse, but had demonstrated a talent for diplomacy, as well. It was no secret that a good many Skalans wished she was the firstborn.

Idrilain raised her hand and the assembly fell silent. "We will lose this war," she began, her voice a husky wheeze.

Magyana silently guided a stream of her own life force into the woman's ravaged body. The connection brought a backwash of pain, threading her veins with the dull crush of Idrilain's suffering and exhaustion. Magyana forced herself to breathe slowly, letting her mind rise above it and retain its focus. Across the room, Thero was doing the same.

"We will lose this war without Aurenen," Idrilain continued, sounding stronger. "We need the Aurenfaie's strength, and their wizards to turn the tide of Plenimaran necromancy. And if Mycena falls, we will need Aurenfaie trade, as well: horses, weapons, food."

"We've done well enough without the 'faie," Phoria retorted. "Plenimar hasn't managed to push us back from the Folcwine, for all their necromancers and abominations."

"But they will!" Idrilain croaked. An attendant offered her a goblet but she waved it away; no one must see the tremor in her hands. "Even if we manage to defeat them, we shall need the Aurenfaie after the war. We need their blood mingled with our own again."

She gestured imperiously for Magyana to continue.

"The power of wizardry came to our people by the mingling of our two races, human and Aurenfaie," Magyana began, reminding those who needed reminding of their own history. "It was the Aurenfaie who taught our first wizards the ways of Oreska magic." She turned to the Royal Kin. "You yourselves still carry the memory of