Shadowdance (57 page)

The Lord of Whisperstone turned his head ever so slightly toward Veydon and dismissed him with a gesture. Razkili drew off a few paces as well, following his spear-mate.

When he and Innowen were alone, Minarik stared back toward the dark forest. "Do you feel her?" he said to his son. "She's coming. The night tingles with her presence."

There was a strange quality in Minarik's voice that frightened Innowen. He set his helm aside as he knelt at his father's right side and touched his arm. "Maybe we can stop this, Father," he said earnestly. "Give her Kyrin's body. When she sees that he's dead, perhaps she'll be satisfied."

He didn't believe it even as the words tumbled from his mouth. Vashni was dead. Minarik had hacked him to pieces. The Witch wouldn't stop now until the last stone of the keep was cracked asunder.

Minarik covered Innowen's hand with his own and leaned close to his son. Pain reflected in Minarik's eyes, and he winced as he settled himself. With a frown, Innowen reached up and snatched one of the pillows from Veydon and thrust it down between the arm of the chair and his father's side, prepared to stifle any protest from his father. Instead, Minarik smiled tolerantly.

"Should I give her Kyrin's crown, as well, and let her rule Ispor, my son?" Minarik asked pointedly. "Should I deliver our country into the hands of this woman who has torn it apart with mercenary armies and rebels? How many villages has she destroyed, Innowen? How many farms and homes has she burned?"

Innowen bit his lip as he squeezed his father's arm affectionately. He feared suddenly that nothing could stop the Witch, that Whisperstone would be crushed, and with it, his father. He feared losing what he had only so recently found.

"Was Kyrin a better ruler?" Innowen asked stubbornly. "Ispor suffered under his heavy hand, father. He tilled the ground and sowed the seeds of rebellion himself. He burned his own share of villages. Don't defend him."

Minarik snorted and sagged back into his chair. "Defend him?" he sneered. "He murdered my brother—his father. What a family we are!"

Innowen clenched his father's arm with both hands and leaned forward intently. "Then try to stop this!" he appealed. "What's a crown, but a piece of metal. Minowee is my mother, and you're my father!"

A long sigh slid from Minarik's lips, and he clutched gently at his wound. "And you're caught in the middle," the lord admitted. He stared out again at the forest. The leaves, dusted with moonlight, rippled in the breeze. "My poor Innocent," he said sorrowfully, "a crown is more than mere metal. It is a symbol of responsibility. A king must be responsible for the well-being of the weak and the less fortunate. That's the responsibility our family has carried for many years now." He closed his eyes briefly as a spasm of pain shook him, but he waved off any assistance.

"I can't give that crown to your mother," he said when the pain had passed. He cast a glance to either side, as if to assure himself they were still alone. "I loved her once. You know that. I loved her with all my heart and soul—gods forgive me—even after I discovered who she was. But I had to tear myself away." He swallowed, then tried to sit up straighter in the chair. He turned his head again to meet Innowen's gaze. "She's evil, Innowen. Even the good she does has a dark side, and that darkness always comes to the fore. She's not in control of her power. Her power controls her."

Innowen felt Razkili's hand suddenly on his shoulder. Despite their whispering, he could see by the look in Rascal's eyes that he had overheard, and he knew what his lover was thinking. The Witch had made him to walk, yes, and made him to dance. Once, that had been his most fervent wish, to dance. But he knew, too well, the dark side of that. Razkili knew it, too.

Minarik stared at Razkili for a moment, as if resenting the intrusion. Innowen, however, drew strength from that touch. He caught Rascal's hand and squeezed it, refusing to let him withdraw again.

Minarik shrugged. At last he continued. "I can't surrender Ispor into her hands," he said grimly. "I am not king, but I'm the son and brother of kings, and I'm responsible for my people. Think of them, Innowen." He directed his gaze outward again, while the wind rumpled his hair. He sat up straight, and the pain seemed to vanish abruptly from his features. When next he spoke, there was no weakness in his voice. "Reflect on your own life, and think of them."

Veydon interrupted suddenly to direct their attention toward the forest where a line of torches moved among the trees. Silently, the Witch's soldiers emerged and took up formation on the field. The torchlight glittered on helms and greaves and breastplates, on lance points and swords and the metal rims of shields, and there was a terrible beauty to it. Innowen could not count the men. At a guess, they were five times Minarik's force.

"It begins," Minarik murmured. "The final act."

Veydon raised his right arm and cut a sharp arc through the air. The trumpeter blew a single blast. At that signal, every archer and slingman in the keep took a place along the wall. Inside the grounds below, soldiers, never far from their horses, mounted and armed themselves with lances while footmen with swords formed ranks behind the main gate. The doors to Whisperstone slammed closed, sealing in the women and children from the village.

Innowen clutched his father's shoulder with one hand and bit his lip. With his wound, Minarik could be of little help on the wall, but Innowen knew better than to suggest that he withdraw. Instead, he walked a few paces away, begged a shield from another warrior, and pressed it upon his father. "Use this as best you can," he said.

"What are they waiting for?" Razkili muttered impatiently.

Before Innowen could answer, Minarik spoke up. "Their queen," he said with lofty sarcasm.

Until now, the Witch's troops had formed ranks with deliberate silence. Abruptly, the front line brought up their shields and began to beat their lances on them with a steady cadence. The other soldiers picked it up, beating swords against shields or breastplates, the tips of bows against greaves, arm bracers against arm bracers until the forest and the field and the night rattled with the sound.

Innowen felt his heart suddenly quicken to match the percussion. The rhythm called him with an infectious urging. His right hand thumped in tempo on the back of Minarik's chair while his left clenched and unclenched. He listened, drawn in by the persistent beating, until the sound of it took a familiar form and became a great heart throbbing, pulsing in the darkness.

The realization snapped him out of its spell. He glanced self-consciously at Razkili and Veydon. Apparently, they had not been affected. But he hadn't imagined it. The rhythm was the same as that of a human heart. He felt it again as it tried to seize hold of him.

A bolt of crackling power shot across the heavens, fracturing the black, cloudless sky. Innowen felt the hair rise on his body as he clutched at Rascal and gripped the back of Minarik's chair. All along the wall, soldiers screamed and threw up hands to protect their eyes from the sudden white fury.

Thunderblast followed on the downbeat of the cadence set by the Witch's forces. Unbroken, the rhythm continued. Lance and sword banged on shield, on greaves. Hands clapped. Feet stamped the earth.

Again, lightning split open the darkness, and a searing tongue of white fire licked down at Whisperstone. Minarik's soldiers cried out in fear. Someone stumbled backward, tripped, and fell among the soldiers clustered below. Another threw down his bow and jumped.

Just as before, the thunderblast followed on the downbeat of the strange cadence. Innowen felt a sharp pressure in his ears, and for an instant it seemed as if a giant, invisible hand was trying to crush his chest. Chaos spread through Minarik's soldiers, both on the wall and on the ground, but the Witch's troops never broke their unholy rhythm.

A moan from his father made Innowen forget his fear. Minarik slumped over the arm of his chair. A growing red stain seeped through the bandage around his waist. He grabbed the pillow Veydon had discarded and propped up his father. Minarik's eyes focused on Innowen's. They were filled with the glaze of pain, but there was fear there, too.

"We are lost," Minarik whispered unevenly, his hand falling on Innowen's shoulder as he tried to right himself in his chair. "We can't fight her magic."

Razkili dropped to his knees beside them. "Break up the rhythm," he suggested.

Innowen stared at his lover. It shouldn't have surprised him that Rascal had noted the connection between the lightning and the shield-beating. Still, it took him a moment to grasp what Razkili had suggested. He leaped up, snatching the shield he had earlier given to Minarik, and drew his mother's sword.

Innowen hesitated only a moment, listening again to the heartbeat rhythm from across the field. Then he slammed the flat of his blade against the shield's face, creating a deliberate counter-rhythm. Razkili drew his own sword, grabbed a shield from the nearest man, and followed Innowen's lead. Veydon, too, understood and began to beat his metal arm bracer against his breastplate as he rushed along the wall urging others to do the same. One by one, on the wall and down inside the grounds Minarik's soldiers took up the new rhythm. Minarik pounded his open palm weakly on the arm of his chair.

Innowen turned again, facing the Witch's troops, as he raised sword and shield high over his head and crashed them together. He couldn't hear the heartbeat rhythm anymore over the din from his own side, but he could see the steady, unceasing movement of spears and lances in the front ranks.

Suddenly, the entire sky flashed. For one searing instant, night became bright noonday. Innowen felt as if his flesh took fire as he fell to his knees, his scream lost in the tumult of screams around him. He struggled to rise, but his limbs flopped about uselessly until the burning sensation began to ebb.

"Well, that didn't work," he muttered in disgust.

The resultant thunder shook the wall itself, but Minarik sprang to his feet, pointing. "There she is!" he shouted with surprising power and vehemence. He staggered to the edge of the wall, clutching his side, and thrust his finger out a second time. "There she is!"

Razkili and Veydon both helped Innowen to his feet, causing him to wonder if he had somehow borne the brunt of the last bolt, but a quick glance around the wall convinced him that wasn't so. Some were still down, eerily twitching and jerking, creating new and equally ineffective rhythms as limbs and armor scraped upon the stone.

Innowen gazed outward, and all his fear left him, replaced by an icy cold anger.

The Witch of Shanalane sat upon a huge white horse as she rode from the forest to the front ranks of her army. Though her mount kept a walking pace, her black hair streamed wildly in the wind that swirled around her, and the white folds of her gown whipped the air. Her men parted to let her pass, never losing the heartbeat rhythm, until she took her place at their head.

Innowen stared at his mother. Could he see her laughing over such a distance, or did he imagine that? He picked up her sword and curled his fist around its hilt until his knuckles cracked. He remembered bitterly how he had seen her that first time in a different storm, her hair flying, the wind slashing about her, and how he had loved her in that first moment of seeing her. He knew it now for what it had been—a youthful infatuation with beauty, many times intensified by his need to find help for Drushen and by his own perceived inadequacies. She was like no woman he had ever seen.

She was still beautiful and still like no other. But he knew her now with a knowledge uncolored by innocence and fantasies. The images from her bedroom in Parendur Still burned in his mind.

A soldier came running breathlessly to Minarik's side. It took Innowen a moment to remember the man's name. Sireos, originally loyal to Kyrin. Innowen moved closer to his father.

"That last blast," Sireos said quickly, wiping at his forehead. A thin streak of blood appeared again above his eyebrow. Somehow, he had taken a cut. "It shattered two hinges in the great gates."

"Impossible!" Veydon swore.

"You think so?" Sireos retorted sharply. "Come down and see, then. The wall itself has taken several quite amusing cracks, also around the gate." He backed up, beckoning Veydon to follow.

"Go," Minarik told Veydon, "If what Sireos says is true..." He caught the back of his chair and leaned on it for support. "If what he says is true," he repeated, "report back to me." He waited until both men were gone, then he shook his head and slumped into his chair. "If it's true," he said again, "all hope is gone.

She'll shake the stones down around our heads, and there's nothing we can do about it."

Razkili went to Minarik's side. "Charge," he urged. "Why wait for the stones to come down around you when you have weapons and men willing to fight? Throw open the gates before they crumble. Attack!"

Innowen grabbed Razkili's arm and spun him around. "No," he said, and his voice brooked no argument. "I'm the only one going out."

Razkili's jaw gaped, but before he could protest, Innowen stopped him. "I'm the only one going out there," he repeated firmly. He looked Rascal in the eye. "Remember Chohlit?"

Razkili shook his head furiously. "That was only thirty or forty men!" he reminded with a note of desperation. "There are several thousand out there!"

Innowen went to the edge of the wall and stared outward at his mother. She sat proudly upon her horse, as if she were waiting for him. All around her, her men kept up their cadence. It was eating at Innowen's nerves.