Stormed Fortress (12 page)

* * *

Three days later, still held in close seclusion within the rock caves of Sanpashir, Arithon Teir
'
sTfalenn paused where he knelt. He remained oblivious to Lysaer
'
s bold claim at Tirans; was yet unaware of Jeynsa s
'
Valerient
'
s resolve to question his royal character. The hands that secured the hide covering over his heirloom lyranthe poised with the laces half-tightened when the soft, barefoot step he expected intruded upon his kept solitude.

He finished the last knot. Turned his raised head, aware who approached well before the arrival emerged from the underground corridor. He arose with respect. Flawless in courtesy, he offered a seat on the folded blanket that had lately served as his bed. No fool, he did not make the outsider
'
s mistake and try to lend an elder assistance.

The aged matriarch of the Biedar therefore took her imperious time to make herself comfortable. She circled the rock-chamber. Her fathomless interest peered into the dim corners; stared everywhere else but at the royal guest standing at her attendance.

Arithon waited. He might have been stone, so deep was his courteous stillness. The overhead crack that admitted the day
'
s failing light dropped a shaft of hazed gold through the gloom. The mote shifted slowly from citrine to rose, then faded into still twilight.

The crone settled at last. A young woman arrived with a fire-pot, then a man bearing strips of raw meat on peeled sticks.

Arithon stayed on his feet, while the revered one roasted her meal. She watched him with bright, bead-black eyes, and as thoroughly chewed each steaming bite.

'
You would not have answered my summons,
'
she revealed at length, though not before the evening wind moaned its chill serenade through the gap.

Arithon suppressed his most combative smile. Empty hands remained clasped at his waist.
'
You would not take my gift for your tribe
'
s hospitality. Therefore, we both suffer hardship.
'

The grandame
'
s cackling laughter bounced off the rough walls, waking a thrum of muffled resonance from his wrapped instrument.
'
One might knap a flint knife with your tongue. Dare you leave? I have not released you with the tribe
'
s blessing.
'

The threatened curve turned Arithon
'
s lips.
'
And do you bless prisoners who should be set free?
'
Regarding her, serious, he added, "The one who came armed was dispatched to his ship with no such presumptuous ceremony.
'
He considered with care, then selected the term that meant
'
unwitting, ignorant stripling.
'
'
Do you halter the
m
'
a
'
hia
who comes to you naked?
'

'
You are not healed!
'
the grandame said, angered.
'
A warrior not in fit state does not travel.
'

Arithon resisted the need to lash back.
'
Yet I bear no arms
'

Bone trinkets and fetishes clinked: one deft,
ancient hand clapped the clay
lid on the fire-pot, and night swallowed the blood glare of the coals.
'
M
'
a
'
hi!
Grown but foolish! You should. Men are burning the standing crops in the fields. This I have seen, in East Halla
'

Cold despite his borrowed silk clothing, Arithon shivered.
'
But I am not bound for East Halla. My path leads to Atwood, by way of Alland, and my sword was left, safe, back in Halwythwood.
'
Other messages lay rolled in the wood cylinder, bundled beside his lyranthe. The scroll-case bore letters for Fiark, at Innish, releasing the trade factor and other sworn allies from lists of detailed obligations.
'
Old mother, your care is a dangerous gift should it cost me the lives of my friends.
'

The crone arose at his chiding plea. Glass and copper chimed gently as she raised her creased hands and cradled his face with a feather touch. In darkness cut by the pearl gleam of the starlight let in through the overhead crack, she stared into Arithon
'
s eyes. Her intensity raised the hair at his nape as she said,
'
Mother Dark
'
s mystery walks in your tracks, while we are the wind, chasing after the wisdom to read them. You will cross through the far side, and visit death twice again. When we meet, I will be with the ancestry.
'

Cloth rustled within the deeps of the cavern. Already, a robed band of dartmen assembled to serve as his tireless escort. Arithon reached up and gently unclasped the aged woman
'
s confining embrace.
'
I do not leave your people, unblessed, after all?
'
he challenged with tender humour.

'
You bless our tribe, not the other way round,
'
the ancient woman corrected. Then she stepped back and released him, though clear mage-sight would show him the tears cascading down her weathered cheeks.

Late Summer 5671

Foray

A man
'
s heart could grow sick, watching the smoke-plume spread on the wind across the scorched fields of East Halla. Yet a veteran captain of Talvish
'
s stature knew better than to criticize Duke Bransian
'
s pre-emptive strike. Never mind the fact, that the order to raze the earth
'
s bounty was an ugly defiance of charter law.

Sited beyond the bounds of the free wilds, Alestron would not incur direct censure by any Fellowship Sorcerer. Melhalla
'
s
caithdein
held the steward
'
s right to cry debt in the name of crown justice. Her concern for clan survival in Atwood came first. This razing of crops could scarcely incite the town garrisons to invade her domain any faster.

Already, the Light
'
s call to arms swept the peninsula with a brush-fire
'
s kindling speed. Galleys raced Lysaer
'
s summons the length of the eastshore, while word winged its way inland to Shand by pigeon and post, through Six Towers, Ganish, and Atchaz. The onset of winter would bring no relief: fresh troops from the south would bolster the ranks as rough weather thrashed the northern harbours. Faced by an assault of unprecedented scope, the brothers s
'
Brydion ripped off the muzzle of peace and torched their last hope of diplomacy.

Today
'
s standing grain would never supply the war host inbound to besiege them.

Retainers since birth, Vhandon and Talvish had fought such brutal campaigns under Alestron
'
s banner before: the same reiver
'
s tactics would be launched at Kalesh or Adruin, or both towns at once, when hostilities caused by a bottle-necked shore-line progressed from hurled threats to bloodshed. Alestron
'
s harbour mouth was flanked by armed adversaries. No s
'
Brydion duke could ever afford to negotiate peace with complacency. When enemy galleys cut off the narrows, Bransian
'
s field-captains deployed their light horse like hawks and burned out the hayricks and crops. Ships
'
crews could not hold a determined blockade without provender to sustain them.

Yet where Talvish once wielded the torch under orders, now his scouring silence reflected a new-found frustration. He and Vhandon had been stretched for too long to keep pace with Prince Arithon
'
s astute innovation. They had experienced the cross-currents of Alliance politics at first hand. This time, a pitched stand against Lysaer
'
s hot cause would not wane with the advent of snowfall.

Both men remained too determined for despondency, when Vhandon strode from the outer-gate ward-room at dusk, armed and dressed out in a new surcoat bearing Alestron
'
s bull blazon. His shout sent the officer
'
s equerry running to fetch him a saddled mount.

Talvish looked on with half-lidded, green eyes, fast to notice the crested officer
'
s badge stitched to the senior campaigner
'
s left shoulder. He said nothing. Just collected his stakes from the barracks dice game and crossed the vacant parade ground. He nipped through to the stables in time to measure his companion
'
s squared jaw, then the rock set to stout shoulders. Without reference to the late meeting gone bad, he said only,
'
You
'
ve chosen to stay the brute course.
'

Vhandon shrugged.
'
Old habits die hard.
'
He had served as Bransian
'
s field-captain for twenty years, before debt of honour had seen him transferred into Arithon
'
s service.

Yet Talvish saw past the stark front of the stoic. His quiet held drilling intensity.

'
The duke asked!
'
Vhandon stated, his raw burst all but drowned by the racket of armourers
'
hammers.
'
Should I have refused?
'

'
Not my call to make, friend.
'
Talvish side-stepped the lamp-man just arrived to snuff the wick by the entry. Before the flame died, he measured the grief masked behind the rapacious decision.
'
I know there
'
s been word from a Fellowship Sorcerer. What went down when the grey cult fell at Etarra? If Arithon had perished on the dark moon, you
'
d be off to get drunk. Not leaving the keep with a captaincy.
'

Vhandon unburdened.
'
The duke
'
s raised his stakes. Called us to lay waste to more crop-land. Southward to Six Towers. Westward as well, clear over to Pellain.
'

Talvish sucked a sharp breath.
'
Better say what ill news has blown in from the north. Was it Luhaine? Seems he always bears the rough tidings.
'

The equerry dashed up with Vhandon
'
s fresh horse. The reinstated veteran accepted the reins, checked the girth, then ran down his stirrups.
'
Kharadmon delivered the worst to Dame Dawr, since the s
'
Brydion men weren
'
t minded to listen. The gist?
'
He shrugged, helpless.
'
You have no idea.
'

'
With Prince Arithon involved? Say again!
'
Talvish collared the servant, sent him back for a second mount.
'
Shall I guess? There
'
s not a Kralovir cultist left standing, but half the north
'
s mayors pissed their sheets out of shock. Dead bodies consumed by white mage-fire aren
'
t subtle. When Rathain
'
s town-born are done being scared, they
'
ll draw steel for revenge. Cheek by jowl with everyone else in East Halla, they
'
ll be ramming our gate, mad as hornets.
'

Vhandon laughed, bitter.
'
Fate wept! Did you eavesdrop?
'

Yet Talvish could not be hazed off. The shrill clang of steel and coal fumes from the forges did not cause his closest friend
'
s headache, tonight.

'
Aye, you
'
re right,
'
Vhandon cracked at due length.
'
The grey cult
'
s destroyed. But Arithon
'
s tactic unleashed Desh-thiere
'
s curse. We
'
re not going to face necromancy, but elemental light. The Fellowship
'
s sent warning that Lysaer
'
s come undone, verging on geas-bent madness. He
'
s swayed Tirans from fixed independence,
that fast.
'

The worst followed, quickly: that Kharadmon had pressed on to awaken the matrix of the old centaur markers and seal the free wilds of Atwood. Some forest clan families could withdraw to the Tiriacs. The rest would shelter at the ruin of ancient Tirans, where Traithe stood in residence to advise Melhalla
'
s
caithdein.

'
The duke refused sanctuary,
'
Vhandon summed up.
'
Nor would the wives relocate their families, or send out the young heirs to protect the core strength of the blood-line.
'

'
The siege would be lost on morale, if they tried,
'
Talvish allowed, brushed by dread. Nor could Bransian change his chosen course, now. Lysaer
'
s muster had progressed too far.

The seasoned campaigner, looking ahead, must take icy stock of the walls and the gates, the trebuchets, and the causeway and winches. Against force of arms, the citadel was secure, if not very near to impregnable. But faced by the mage-gifted mastery of light, wielded by a curse-driven fanatic, no mortal might answer except for the one the fearful named Spinner of Darkness.

'
I am not made as his Grace of Rathain, to forsake my loyalties over a principle.
'
Vhandon jammed his foot into the stirrup, laid raw. "This is my country, and my parents
'
and grandparents
'
before them. If Alestron goes down, where else would I go? I can
'
t stand to watch from the side-lines. Our day for defeat is not written, besides.
'
Astride, he deliberately gathered his reins.
'
The Mathiell Gate
'
s stonework was laid to stop drake fire. Before we
'
re starved out, the moment may come when a cool voice for reason might spare a disaster.
'

Talvish raised his eyebrows.
'
Keep on wasting your breath to explain. I was hanging around to hear orders.
'

Vhandon stopped in midtirade.
'
You want to serve with me?
'

The blond swordsman grinned.
'
Damned well not under anyone else! Tell that laggard to hurry along with my horse. Then we
'
ll argue in earnest, or maybe toss straws.
'

'
Over which of us trims that jackanapes goatherd into something resembling a soldier?
'
Vhandon shook his head, as close as he came to flummoxed exasperation over the temperamental young grass-lander left in their charge. The Araethurian had won their affection, a frank complication since a bad turn by Koriathain had shapechanged him into Arithon
'
s double.

'
Daelion
'
s bollocks!
'
the elder campaigner ran on.
'
Keep Fionn Areth here, and Mearn or Sevrand will crash heads to unwind his insolent tripes. That
'
s if Parrien can
'
t ram a pike through him, first. We daren
'
t turn the yapping fool loose with that face! Not with the country-side swarming with spies and encampments of Sunwheel skirmishers.
'

'
Well, we could,
'
Talvish argued. He accepted the mare trotted out by the groom and vaulted astride. "Though you
'
re right. With nobody watching, the yokel might march off to Kalesh. Find himself slaughtered as Shadow
'
s own self, as he hops into line to enlist
'