Stormed Fortress (63 page)

And the night fled again. Alone in the icy, steel gleam of dawn, Elaira ate her light meal. She loaded her satchel for the day
'
s rounds, while Glendien grumbled at being rousted from bed, despite Kyrialt
'
s warmth being absent.

'
Your man
'
s out to fetch water,
'
Elaira replied, tart, while the stinging epithets continued, muffled under wool-blankets. She added without sympathy, If you dally to bathe, I
'
ll be at the barracks, treating yesterday
'
s toll of bashed fingers and aching heads.
'

Crisp words reached coherence.
'
Are you mad?
'
Glendien
'
s tangled, bright hair emerged into daylight.
'
There
'
s not enough spirits left in this citadel to drive any drunk to a hangover.
'

'
You
'
d be surprised.
'
Elaira flung on her mantle.
'
There
'
s still the odd stash that hoarders like Dakar lose, gambling.
'

Glendien fixed her with a distempered glance as she swept past the work-table towards the stair.
'
You aren
'
t going alone. The mood in the citadel
'
s ugly enough to make Kyrialt spit like a hackled cat.
'

'
He has that choice,
'
the enchantress agreed.
'
I was not born to soothe his taxed temperament.
'

Elaira departed without hearing the retort fired back in forest-bred accents. Given such driving hunger for novelty, Glendien would kiss her man into submission, and probably catch up by sunrise.

Outside, hooded against the chill mist, Elaira stepped onto the narrow footbridge over the chasm. At the arch of the span, she encountered Duke Bransian, planted four-square in her path. Relieved his armed pique at least had avoided Kyrialt
'
s hair-trigger instincts, the enchantress seized the initiative.
'
Whether or not your complaint can be answered, I will have you step aside.
'

'
I say your prince means to forswear his promise
'
Bransian declared, despite himself rubbing the crick that yesterday
'
s sparring had set in his neck. Hardbitten and mean as an aging lion, and too proud to ask for restoratives, he snarled,
'
What else does his Grace buy, except wasted time? How long should we dangle our hopes on his wool-gathering?
'

Before he ran on, lamenting the grain shortage, or the recent movements of enemy troops observed by the men keeping harbour-side watch, Elaira rejected the premise.
'
My lord of Alestron, we already know the extent of your citizens
'
predicament.
'

'
Aye, well!
'
groused Bransian.
'
You should be aware if your Prime is involved. I
'
ve seen her nefarious meddling before! Her stirring fingers might raise Lysaer
'
s curse. This war is nothing straightforward or canny. What sort of stake does your sisterhood hold? Are they angling for our defeat?
'

The duke sucked a faxed breath, while Elaira confronted his challenge, unflinching. She would not lie; could not disclaim that Selidie Prime was not playing on Lysaer
'
s warped instincts with ill intent. Yet before allowing the insult, that her beloved
'
s activity was aimless cowardice, she cut the duke
'
s thundering bluster short shrift.
'
You won
'
t shift the Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn
'
s choices through me! Learn from your mistakes. Save your effort.
'

'
Well, my people aren
'
t his Grace
'
s bargaining chips!
'
Bransian rebuked with vexed warning.
'
Not like those duped shepherd bowmen at Vastmark, to play at cold-cock war and posture for his tricks of sleight-of-hand conjury
'

'
No, not this time!
'
Elaira snapped, white.
'
However you push, his Grace knows your bull-headed methods too well. He
'
s awake to the error that bought his past blood debts and too wise to be goaded through temper. You
'
ll not press him. Or move him to solve this with weapons, however you angle to try.
'

Bransian raised his brows in reproof, while the wind tugged at the iron-grey hair that poked from beneath his cap helm.
'
Don
'
t claim the bland pacifist he postures in public! Or is it not true, that the Prince of Rathain never sleeps, except by his unsheathed sword?
'

'
Yes,
'
Elaira said, steadfast.
'
Because the star song the Paravians laid into the steel sings him to safe harbour, and guards his integrity.
'

Yet Bransian had a deaf ear for all nuance. He edged aside, finally, allowed her to pass, since no threat of arms could unseat the enchantress
'
s uncompromised honesty.

Another day passed, and another. Then, as the turn of the tide might begin with the whisper sown by an eddy, the deadlocked grip of the siege shifted its precarious balance.

* * *

Duke Bransian was back in his element the instant the incoming mirror signal brought the messenger banging on his bed-chamber door. Urgent speech, through the panel, let in breaking news: the deathless stagnation had broken. Enemy forces now crossed their drawn line for a sortie in the dark before dawn.

'
The watch turrets have spied furtive movement, ashore!
'
gasped the breathless young man that Liesse tripped the latch and admitted.
'
Seems a sneak effort to launch skiffs carried in over land. They
'
ll shortly be trying to breach our inside harbour from behind the guarded chain.
'

'
About time we had an opportune target!
'
The duke thrashed off the bedclothes, his scowl melted into an effusive mood as he snatched for his clothing and weapons.
'
Lysaer
'
s Lord Commander
'
s got ice in his veins. Kept his battle-lines planted so long, it
'
s a wonder his troops haven
'
t sprouted like daisies.
'
Clad enough for decency, Bransian bowled past his wife. With his boots left abandoned in her outstretched hands, he bolted, still talking apace.
'
We
'
ll give the poor bastards a fitting retort, since ours are foamed white at the mouth for the chance to bash heads.
'

Minutes later, his familiar hulked form loomed over the sea-side embrasure. With fists braced on the battlement, he heard the details from the captain on duty, whose crisp speech was not Mearn
'
s. The youngest s
'
Brydion sibling had not stood that post since the forced assize for Rathain
'
s formal settlement.

Bransian grinned.
'
If the fools think we
'
re napping, we
'
ll let them come in.
'

His lazy stretch unkinked the sleep from his bones. His breech laces half-tied, he stood on bare feet, hauberk and mail tossed on over his night-shirt, and his helm crammed atop his mussed hair. Too rushed to trifle with buckling his sword-belt, he had brought his weapon unsheathed. The massive blade lay on the wall at hand
'
s reach, while he strained to peer through the darkness.
'
Ath! Just look at yon pack of foxes creeping in! They
'
ll have my warm welcome. Get the Sea Gate
'
s heavy mangonels trained. Then I want six of the arbalests that hurl lesser stones, and not shafts. Mount four of those under the wharf-side embrasure. Have the others set on piled rocks, flush with the boards of the docks. We
'
ve got calm, and the low tide in our favour. The platforms need do no more than keep the torsion ropes dry, and the men will only get wet as they crank the winch and release.
'

'
We
'
ve had the mangonels swivelled, first thing.
'
The captain coughed behind his mailed fist.
'
But the arbalests? Man! Those cockle-shell boats will explode into slivers, to some Sunwheel officer
'
s shame. He
'
ll be on his knees wailing for Light, once the first boulders plonk into the laps of his oarsmen.
'

Bransian rubbed brisk hands in the cold and bellowed for someone to fetch him a cloak.
'
We
'
re the life of the party, waging a war. If Lysaer
'
s faithful can
'
t sort that out, they
'
ll take what we sock in their guts till they
'
re mumbling their unhallowed creed to the Fatemaster. Just keep our men quiet! I want these trespassers in close enough to get stomped like the flies on a dog pile.
'

The Light
'
s covert sappers never drifted under the Sea Gate wharf to make landfall as they had planned. Alestron
'
s trained crews placed their harbourfront engines, and on the duke
'
s signal, let fire. The foray was systematically smashed into drift-wood and silenced disaster. Dawn broke, with no more shrilling, agonized screams. A flotsam of corpses and wrecked planks rode the ebb tide, with Bransian spouting his manic ebullience.

'
Numbskulls!
'
he declared, launched off to scrounge a late breakfast.
'
Had the arse itch from sitting through sermons, then puckered up their eager, young lips and kissed face-to-face with stupidity. One can hope that lot never lived long enough to plough bastards onto a wench. War could get too easy if the ignorant breed sires up clutches of idiot soldiers.
'

If the duke was happy, noon gave rise to elation when the pre-dawn assault proved to be a feint for a subsequent effort, to infiltrate the ruined town and place archers across the tidal chasm. Alestron
'
s drilled crews responded forthwith. Shot slung from the trebuchets brought down the infested walls, with the enemy screams loud on the midday breeze, and their mangled bones and bloody, crushed flesh macerated under the ruin.

'
Where
'
s your mincing, wee snip of a masterbard, now?
'
Bransian crowed in high fettle to Talvish. Since the blond captain
'
s company was vindictively reassigned the drudge labour of scrubbing the privies, the duke liked to snipe with disparaging comments.
'
Is his Grace still dithering, one ear clapped to cold rock, insisting our fight can be won without bloodshed?
'

When the victim shrugged off that sour baiting, the duke added, loud enough to reach anyone else within earshot.
'
Ought to fetch your prince here. Show him how virile men get things done! Or do you really believe you
'
ll live to grow old at the heels of a cringing moppet?
'

Talvish grinned. His easy nature did not come unglued, despite the disfavour earned by his changed loyalty.
'
If any of us survive to die free, then someone must shift the Alliance war host away from your gates. That can
'
t be accomplished by hurling a few rocks, however much fun you have trying.
'

In fact, today
'
s petty attacks only jabbed every veteran instinct. Arithon
'
s presence must wake Desh-thiere
'
s curse: each aggressive move meant that Lysaer slipped closer to the plunge to untenable madness.

As Bransian must realize also, underneath his chaffing slurs.
'
I can
'
t trust you, perhaps, now you
'
re Arithon
'
s puppet. Still, I know you well enough to ask why you aren
'
t speaking your mind, when that ornery glint in your eye says Dharkaron
'
s Five Horses are riding you.
'

Yet Talvish
'
s fierce worry stayed tucked in reserve: that surely, the Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn might be the more vulnerable to his half-brother
'
s assault, now that the yoke of cursed influence had been lifted. Arithon would not lose restraint at this pass. Regrounded in mastery, he
could
reject the use of dire force, even if need demanded a fight to defend himself.

Stonewalled to the last by Talvish
'
s silence, the duke sought the final word.
'
Hear fair warning, my friend! If Arithon continues to sit on his arse, waiting for rocks to hatch chicks, one of my sentries is certain to lose his natural temper and knife him.
'

"Through Sidir
'
s ready sword,
'
Talvish said, straight-faced.

To which stark rebuff, Bransian stalked off with a jingle of steel to target his grousing elsewhere.

No mounting pressure of public disgust swerved Arithon from his abstruse cause. By then, he tapped the stonework in the Mathiell Gate
'
s left-side drum-tower. Clad in his worn leathers and Davien
'
s rich cloak, he sat as still as the day, limned in the ice-fall of sunlight, while the wintry air quivered off the warmed rock, scoured a bleached white by the elements. He had not shifted position for hours, while time
'
s stream seemed to part and slip past him. Sidir stood his ground with a hunter
'
s fixed patience, until afternoon waned, and a saffron sunset stained the low-lying cloud banks.

Arithon arose then with an air of finality. Unspeaking, he wended his way towards the guest tower. As he walked through Alestron
'
s darkening thoroughfares, the evening around him stayed cheerless: another severe cut had shortened the rations. Children wailed in the tent shelters jumbled into the muddied practice grounds. Taut-faced mothers complained. Angry young men met on the street-corners, while the tired town guard hauled water by hand, and shoveled the reeking cart-loads of waste, brusque to the point of explosion. If Sidir met such hardship with forest-bred stoicism, Alestron
'
s folk were never bred to endure such pinching uncertainty.

The Companion noted the changed, glass-stark edge to his liege
'
s habit of silence, yet had the wisdom to withhold his questions. He endured the catcalls dogging their heels, perhaps recalling the past, once, Rathain
'
s prince had carved whistles to distract the toddlers when crisis had shadowed Deshir
'
s threatened clans during childhood. The frivolity had masked an active defence.

Others had no such experience to bolster the onslaught of mounting pressure. Though Fionn Areth vented balked steam in the taverns with Dakar, and Kyrialt fretted to redirect Glendien
'
s shameless badgering, Arithon did not unburden. He kept his own counsel until the late night, when he was alone with Elaira.
'
I found no good news, beloved.
'

They curled together on the wooden bench before the banked fire, while the north gusts whined down the flue and flicked sparks across the slate apron. The chill huddled them beneath a shared blanket, as the sparse fuel burned down. Elaira traced the jet hair at Arithon
'
s nape, raising shivers deep in his viscera.
'
I daresay your diligent hours of study cannot have been wasted effort.
'

'
No.
'
The lift of his chin denoted the pain sprung from his cutting frustration.
'
But my best hope has foundered. All of my gifts, to the limit of talent, have granted no avenue to spare Bransian
'
s domain. The Paravian wardings laid into this citadel are too deep a force. They cannot be moved to man
'
s bidding. However I ask, or assay strains of harmony, I can
'
t find the key to turn such a power to serve in relief.
'
Anguish broke through as he admitted,
'
Though I would spare lives, the greater mysteries are too wild for our mortal reckoning!
'

Elaira laid her head on his chest. The same distressed beat raced his pulse. Arithon was a spirit that
always would
argue the sting of a hard-fought defeat.

'
I can spare Jeynsa, maybe,
'
he allowed, for the first time broaching the prospect of failure. Even with his face muffled in her scented hair, his strained doubt could no longer be masked. Or the uncertainty, as he added,
'
How much more than that, only Daelion knows! The lyranthe can
'
t speak here. Her sound is too refined. I
'
ve no help to call on. Just what inadequate skills I can weave through the purpose the Paravians forged into Alithiel.
'

'
Those things are not small. And you are no less, Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn.
'

Yet amid the silence that fell as the coals flickered down into darkness, the enchantress sensed the fibre of the innermost man. Before others, she shared the decision locked in his Masterbard
'
s heart.

'
You will act on the morrow,
'
she stated.

He moved. Tipped up her face, that he could meet her eyes, his own deep as evergreen ravaged by winter. Before she cried out, he savoured a kiss that was poignantly bitter-sweet.
'
I must. Though Dharkaron knows, I could wish that every bright star would fall from Ath
'
s heavens, beforehand.
'