The War of the Moonstone: an Epic Fantasy (20 page)

At last she felt it go out of her,
all
of it, and she sank back, exhausted.

Stunned, confused, Raugst jerked
away, gasping and staring wide-eyed about him.

“What . . . ?”
She tried to speak but could not. She was simply too tired. Tired . . . and
mortal.

She had given him her Grace, and
now she had no more. She was human. She felt the difference as soon as it came
upon her. A weakness . . .

His scared gaze went from her to
his hands. He flexed them, as if just seeing them for the first time. She
wasn’t sure why, but it made her smile.

“Your eyes are open,” she said.

Then, pitying his helplessness, she
crawled—too weak to stand—over to him. For a moment he looked as though he
might strike her, but he did not. Gently, she laid her head on his sweaty,
hairy, bloody chest. He started to shove her away, but hesitated. She felt him
tense, then unwind. He let out a long sigh.

“What did you
do
to me, woman?”

Now it came, the time Illiana had
prepared her for. Gilgaroth’s chain had been removed; now Niara must put her
hand on his shoulder, must guide him in the ways of her people. Everything
hinged on this one moment.

She was about to answer him,
framing her response according to her task, but, just then, at the worst
possible moment, when she and Raugst were naked and sweaty, smelling of each
other’s juices, his arm about her shoulders, she heard a sound behind her.

A man stood in the doorway.

He was tall, gaunt and bearded, but
with an earnest vigor in his eyes, and a nobility to the way he carried
himself.

He stared in horror at Niara and
Raugst. Immediately she felt consumed with shame, but also fear. The man in the
doorway was Giorn.

Chapter
13

Giorn had nearly died when the lightning-struck glarum fell
from the skies. Flaming, smoke trailing from its wing, it had plummeted to the
snow-covered treetops. The thick branches had slowed its fall but had also
knocked Giorn off its back and dealt him severe cuts. Shaken and bleeding, he’d
climbed down from the trees, taken a few necessities from the satchels of the
by-then-dead glarum and taken off through the forest.

Freezing and wounded, he had
pressed through the woods. The slash Vrulug had dealt him across his abdomen
pained him. Worse, Vrulug’s claws must have been crawling with filth, and some
nameless infection made the cut turn red and enflamed, and black lines radiated
from it. Giorn felt sick, and his will seemed to drain from him. Nevertheless,
he pushed on. He was able to go on for several days, hiding at night and
traveling when it was bright, before he had felt a powerful presence and looked
up to see a squadron of glarumri fly through the black skies above, and at
their head, bat wings pumping, had been Vrulug—and inside him, the Moonstone.
He wants it for the war
, Giorn realized.

After that Giorn went faster. His
wounds had mainly healed by then, except for the one dealt by Vrulug, and even
it was better, the inflammation ebbing, black lines fading. With renewed
purpose, he made swift progress through the foothills of the Aragst and then
over the alternately rocky and swampy wastes between the foothills of the Black
Wall and the foothills of the highlands of Feslan. Once in Feslan he’d found
the men he had left under Hanen’s leadership. Hanen had sent most of the
refugees north, across the Eresine, but he himself had refused to leave without
Giorn. He and a hundred men had stayed to wait for their lord’s return. Giorn
had instructed Hanen to send a spy every few days within sight of a certain
blasted stump, and there Giorn waited. After several days, Hanen’s man arrived.
Greatly surprised to see Giorn still alive, as the men had just about given him
up for dead, they led him back to the stretch of treetops where the mobile band
was hiding that particular day. A great celebration took place, or as great as
could be had with their resources.

Giorn did not ask Hanen to give
back his command, but Hanen did so gladly, and so it was that Giorn led the
hundred-odd Fiarthans down into the great gorge, across the Eresine River
and up the other side. At last, they were in Fiarth once more.

Vrulug had arrived before him. Southern Fiarth was a blackened wasteland, and Giorn did
not come across one single township still standing, but he passed many altars
to Gilgaroth, black monoliths with rotting mounds of bodies at their bases, and
beheld whole forests of posts with the ragged ruins of men and women tied to
them. He wished he had time to bury them, even burn them, but he did not.

All the while his wound pained him,
the claw-swipe dealt by Vrulug. It had faded and scabbed over, but it remained
a livid red scar across his belly, and it never ceased aching, though the pain
diminished over time. He drank to dull the pain, and when he realized his cure
had become a bane he let the pain come on.

Grimly he continued, at last coming
upon a high, grassy plateau littered with the blackened, crumbling remains of
an ancient city. Swarms of refugees had gathered here, and they were overjoyed
to see that one of the Wesrains still lived. From them Giorn obtained horses
for his men.

“You shouldn’t venture further
north,” Duke Alreth advised him. Alreth had assumed command of the disparate
rabble living in the ruins. “The Borchstogs’re thick there. On all sides, really.
We’re trapped here. Cut off.”

Giorn nodded. “I won’t be going
far.” He looked around him. The sun was sinking, turning the world into shades
of red and black. Still, he thought he recognized the ruins, with their alien
architecture, many of the buildings fashioned of huge stone blocks, black as
tar. All was tumbled now and overgrown by grass, or weathered by the winds, but
still, a memory stuck in his mind. “My father took me here when I was young . .
.”

“You recognize it, then.”

“Grasvic. Vrulug’s capital when he
ruled in these parts.”

Alreth sighed. “So it is. Now it
gives shelter to a hive of human refugees. I’ve looked for the sewers, but I
cannot find them.”

“Why the sewers?”

“Orin Feldred held meetings there,
down in the foulness, conspiring against those who dwelt above. A morbid
thought, I know, to find them, and yet . . .”

“I understand. You know, you and
your people had best not stay here long. Vrulug will retake this place, if only
out of sentimental value.”

Alreth frowned. “Strange to think
of such as he having sentimental thoughts, but you might be right.”

Giorn let his men rest that night,
and they drank and carried on with the refugees long into the wee hours. Their
bonfires leapt high amidst the ruins, driving back the shadows, and their
laughter warmed some place deep inside him. Yet he could not make himself take
part. The ruins called to him. Seduced by ancient whispers, he allowed himself
to be beckoned into the shadows. Guided by the light of the moon, he wandered the
overgrown streets, at times finding great black columns, fallen and broken long
ago, that must have lined the road. Some looked to have been topped with grisly
sculptures. At last he came upon a great open area and stopped, feeling the
echoes of a lost age. Drinking it in, he lit a pipe and sat on a heap of stone.

Here must be the great square in
the middle of the city where Vrulug tortured Orin Feldred for weeks before a
loyal follower slew him out of mercy, then slew himself. How that must have
enraged Vrulug! Giorn grinned faintly, imagining it.

His scar throbbed, as if the
lingering echoes of Vrulug’s presence roused it. When his bowl was smoked, he
stood to go, then paused, staring down at the heap of stone he’d sat on. It was
weathered and overgrown, and part of it merged with a mound of earth. Even so,
he could see ghastly, twisted limbs and a screaming face. What sort of monster
was this? Intrigued, he kicked some of the earth away, revealing a plaque in
Oslogon. Moonlight just barely illuminated the words
Ol um-Nustrig
.

Could it be . . . ?

The twisted limbs were limbs
twisted in agony, the ghastly flesh was no flesh at all but muscles and
tendons, and the screaming face was not the screech of a demon but the mortal
cry of a man.
Ol um-Nustrig
. The
Skinless Man.
What the Borchstogs called Orin Feldred.

For a long time, Giorn stared at
that horrid statue of his ancestor, lit only by the light of the pale moon, and
then he turned to go.

Someday, he vowed, he would return.
He would melt that statue down and use it for Vrulug’s tomb.

The next day, he took his men and
rode on. The sun rose and set, then rose again. At last his band mounted a
certain hill and came upon the fair city of Thiersgald spread out before them, glittering
like a sea of stars.

Another sea, a darker one, was just
then drawing up to its walls. Giorn cursed when he saw the legions of
Borchstogs marching forward, ladders over their broad shoulders. Thiersgald—home
to a quarter of a million—was under assault. And these legions were just the
beginning; Giorn had seen the Eresine
Bridge. The Borchstogs
had half-finished rebuilding it.

The men swore and cursed, and some
had wept.

“How can we hope to fight them?”
Hanen had said.

The two leaders were far from the
rest of the men, having climbed a knoll to speak privately, and Giorn didn’t
rebuke him for his despair. “There is a way,” he said quietly. “An old escape
tunnel for the Baron.”

“I didn’t know your father was so
fearful.”
Giorn half-smiled. “Oh, he was, more than you know, but twas not he who built
it. A baron did it long ago. Actually it began as a secret tunnel to his mistress,
a widowed duchess who’d left her manor to the running of her sons and moved to
Thiersgald to be close to him.”

“But he was married, I suppose.”

“Indeed. And so the tunnel. But
over time it was enlarged, expanded . . . My father showed it to me, and I made
use of it more than once.” He wanted to smile at the recollections of sneaking
about under the city on errands young men understand—and old men too—but he
could not. He could smile at nothing, not while Thiersgald lay besieged.

“Can you reach the spot where the
tunnel comes out?”

Giorn squinted at the creek that
ran through a grate in the city walls and trickled over a short waterfall some
distance from the city. “There’s limestone caves near those falls,” he said. “They
connect to the tunnels. We should be able to reach them.”

Hanen looked doubtful. “They’re
awfully close to the Borchstog camp . . .”
“We’ll wait until the battle.”

When it came, and Vrulug led his
host against the city, Giorn at some pains convinced his men to leave their horses
on the rolling hills and travel afoot toward the falls, which they did, as the
sound of battle raged along the walls. Giorn’s heart beat like a drum in his
chest, and he wondered if he did the right thing. Perhaps he should lead his
men in a suicidal charge, driving into the rear of Vrulug’s host. After all, if
he made his way into the city, how more could he help Thiersgald? By leading a
frontal attack out from the gates? It seemed that striking from the rear would
kill more of the enemy. Yet he could not convince himself that those were his
only options.

Besides, he alone of all the men of
the Crescent knew where the Moonstone was. He could not die before he made the
information known to others.

He entered the limestone tunnels,
struck a torch, and plowed on through the darkness. Muttering curses at having
to leave their mounts and at letting their swords grow cold while battle raged
above, his men followed at his heels. For hours they traveled through the
darkness. The limestone caves gave way to more orderly, square-hewn passages,
and unlit torches in brackets lined the walls.

“We’re under the city now,” Giorn
said. “It shouldn’t be long.”

The going went much faster in the
straight, clear passageways built by generations of Wesrains, and in another
hour Giorn led his men under the castle itself.

“I don’t want to alarm Meril,” he
said, and now he did smile, thinking of the reunion he was about to experience.
He told himself that Meril must have forgiven him by now, that all would be
well between them. He pictured his brother’s happy face on seeing him, and
Fria’s, and lastly, but most deeply, he pictured Niara, beautiful Niara, and let
out a breath. “I’d best not lead a hundred armed men up into his castle in the
dead of night during a pitched battle. You wait here with the men, and I’ll let
Meril know you’re coming.”

“Of course, sir,” said Hanen.

Giorn clapped him on the back. “Soon
we’ll be feasting and wenching, have no fear.”

That put a glint in Hanen’s eyes,
and the men smiled and jested with each other. They had come during wartime,
but they were alive and victory might yet be won. Giorn was a Wesrain, after
all, descendants of Lord Feldred himself.

Feeling optimistic, Giorn emerged
from the secret tunnels into the lower catacombs of the castle, then up into
the castle proper. All was deserted, or nearly so, and he did not have to
wonder why. Surely everyone had rushed to join the fighting along the wall.

Even now there were a handful of
guards in the castle, and he sought them out, presently finding a pair and
making his way toward them.

Swords drawn, they watched him
approach. These were not men he recognized. Meril had likely appointed some new
lads what with the war and all.

He laughed at himself. “I must be a
wild sight,” he said, touching his beard and fingering his torn clothes. “But
don’t you recognize me? It’s Giorn Wesrain.”

They stared at him, speechless,
then glanced at each other. One stepped forward.

“We don’t know you, but that
doesn’t matter. Her Highness, the Baroness Wesrain, is here. She’ll know you,
if you are who you claim.”
“The Baroness? Really? So Meril married, after all! Ha! I thought he’d enjoy
his new position a bit longer. Well, good for him. Perhaps he was more mature
than I thought.”
Or perhaps she’d only
bed him if he wed her first
, Giorn added wryly to himself. “Well, no
matter. If she’ll recognize me, it must be someone I know. Who could it be?” He
was beginning to picture the girls at court, guessing who Meril had been
smitten with, but the looks on the faces of the guards stopped him. “What is
it?”

“He doesn’t know,” said one.

“No,” said the other.

“Know what?”

“She’ll have to be the one to tell
you. Come.”

Giorn followed them up the stairs
and to the thickest, if not the highest, tower of the castle. The Tower of the
Baron. He marveled at the burgundy tapestries, running his hands along the
couches and thick stone walls. Home! He’d dreamed of it for so long. It would be
good to see Meril again, to put the angry words of their last encounter behind
them. The guards led him into the chambers of the Baron, the chambers that his
father had always occupied.
So
, he
thought, realizing it then for the first time,
Father didn’t survive.
It did not surprise him, of course. Still,
the realization of it deflated some of the happiness at his homecoming.

Strangely, it was Fria that waited
for him in a drawing room. A handmaiden had been brushing her long chestnut
hair and Fria had been gazing through the large windows out at the battle
below, whispering, “I hope he’ll be all right.”

The handmaiden responded, “I’m sure
he will be, my lady.”