Читать книгу Stormed Fortress: Fifth Book of The Alliance of Light - Janny Wurts, Janny Wurts - Страница 20

Sidir did not manage the down-river journey to Shipsport with anything near the aplomb that upheld his steadfast character. The wedged bone in the stark teeth of necessity became the fact he distrusted staking his life at long-term on the spells of an oath-bound Koriathain. Elaira’s allegiance was not her own. A direct order from her Prime Matriarch could overrule her heart’s love for Prince Arithon. Foremost a liegeman who chose courage before chance, Sidir rejected the risk. Should he fail in his charge to curb Jeynsa, he would not leave Feithan the legacy of a public maiming on a town scaffold. His unshakeable honour also denounced the enchantress, who would have raised blistering argument.

He slipped off while she slept. By morning, three leagues removed through dense brush, he left a flagged trail for the hounds. Small doing, from there, to permit the unthinkable and let a head-hunter tracker ensnare him. Hale as he was, bruised with fight, but not broken, the league’s greed spared him as a living asset. Avenor’s pledge of double bounty in gold saw him roped and turned in at Daenfal. Branded and chained, he was dispatched down-stream to be sold to the galleys at Shipsport.

The appalling tactic forced Elaira to follow his lead. She paid coin for deck passage and kept her anonymous distance.

No bargeman left such captive muscle to waste. Sidir suffered his first taste of the whip at the oar, crossing Daenfal Lake. At the far shore, he endured the cuffs and jeers of the rivermen, who steered their blunt craft on its white-water course past the southern spur of the Skyshiels. The torturous heat of the low country followed. The laden keel scraped and grounded on sand-bars where the slack current meandered through bulrush and marshland. As the river looped south, threading the mud channel that led towards the bay head, the tall Companion bore the harsh price.

Twenty-four days chained to the deck with a pole sweep left him sunburned to weeping blisters. He had cankers from leeches burned off with salt, after the hours spent waist deep in muck, dragging the barge with a tow-rope. If his raw palms grew callus, the festered scabs on his shoulders and back became scoured livid by the pitch slapped on him to ward off flies.

At nightfall, upon the first day of autumn, the choking heat had not broken. Sidir sat curled by the rail, eyes shut and tucked motionless. He was alone, except for one sentry, who paced out his irritable watch. The other bargemen lounged on the shore, just finished with roasting their supper. The scrape of tin plates travelled on the light breeze, and the pop of seared gristle, as chewed bones were tossed in the fire pit.

‘Dice, boys? Winner to get his first pick of the strumpets?’ Guffaws broke through another man’s boastful rejoinder. The rough journey behind them, the rowdy crewmen were primed with jingling pockets and lust for the harbour-front dives crowding Shipsport.

While the forlorn sentry slouched at the stern, wistful to rejoin his fellows, Elaira crept from the willow brake lining the bank. She slipped without sound through the reeds in the shallows. As the black, open water lapped up to her chest, she ducked under, scarcely breaking a ripple. The current was not strong for a determined swimmer. She stroked at length alongside the barge, nearly silent except for quick breathing.

‘No spells!’ Sidir mouthed at a desperate whisper, the first exchanged word since his deceit had left her, asleep, by the Arwent.

Her eyes flashed, cold grey. Tight with stifled fury, she seized his manacled wrist: pressed into his palm the tinker’s steel wire he needed to spring his locked irons. Since caution would lead him to silence the watchman, the enchantress dived back under and left the prisoner to make his escape.

Elaira pushed herself hard, stroking downstream beneath the inky water. She did not resurface until her cramped lungs screamed for air. The murky flow buoyed her on, after that. Better to float slowly than risk splashing noise. A half league from the delta, she overtook her wrapped bundle of baggage and remedies, set afloat and left drifting since sunset.

‘Blessings for small favours,’ she gasped, bleak-tempered after weeks of anxiety, and chills that set her teeth chattering.

The choked stands of reed on the bank finally thinned, where a willow grove shaded the verge. Elaira crawled out of the river. She masked herself in the dank gloom of the hummock, laced with dense brush and old roots. Forest-bred scout, Sidir could seek her out. No pity for his inconvenience: she could not bear to watch as he murdered. Companion to his fallen high earl, hatred for town-born would have marked him young. Since his kind preferred death to a life in captivity, he likely would vindicate his mishandling by strangling the luckless guard.

Elaira gritted her jaw, still annoyed as she surveyed her surroundings. One night after dark moon, the sky blazed with stars. Their reflections drizzled the face of the river, blurred where the black eddies ruffled. No pursuit seemed in evidence. The enchantress wrung out her sopped shirt and sat. She waited, arms clasped to her knees, while her braid ticked an erratic tattoo of droplets onto the moss at her back. Twenty-four insufferable days, with her hands tied up by appearances; the experience galled, quite as cruel as the iron set upon Arithon’s prized liegeman!

‘I’d rather have saddled myself with a donkey!’ Elaira snapped under her breath.

A wavelet lapped against the mud shore-line. Then the waters parted, and Sidir emerged, furtive as a stalking lynx. He slipped through the undergrowth with scarcely a sound, then came on as though drawn by a beacon. Naked, emaciated, he had lost no strength. His hand was a vice from the barge pole. Elaira was inflexibly caught by her wrist, then jerked to her feet before protest. As she bristled, she felt his born talent sweep over her, a sensation like flushing heat. Too late for resentment: his lineage was gifted with truesight.

That stripping exposure slid past her shields, and his rushed whisper snapped in reproof. ‘I didn’t kill anyone! The wretch on deck got himself a dinged head. Nothing more. He’ll wake back up howling and chew off the gag. For my kindness, we have to keep moving.’

‘Arrogant beast!’ She broke his taut grasp. Bent to her damp baggage, she yanked out the plain shirt and breeches inside, since all he had thought to retrieve from the barge was the rope coiled over his shoulder, and a riverman’s knife, unsheathed in his opposite hand. She tossed the clothes at his feet. ‘We could have sped south on a galley from here, but for your insane sense of caution!’

Sidir tilted his dark head, dropped the knife, caught her chin. Starlight brushed the white hair at his temples; and also silvered the tears, streaming hopelessly down her cheeks. ‘Anyn’e ain s’teirdael,’ he murmured in musical Paravian, then translated the diminutive phrase. ‘Handfast to my prince, there’s no more hurt than a brand for this.’

She could have slapped him, if not for the noise. ‘Sting for your pride! Atwood is closed to us! A Fellowship Sorcerer has wakened the old centaur markers. For eight days, my scryings have shown nothing else. You’d have heard the song of the stones in your dreams, if you hadn’t been hell-bent on slavery!’

Sidir caught his breath. He let go, touched her fingers to quell her alarm. Then he snatched on the shirt, which had been loosely cut to keep from binding his welted skin. His quick pause could be sensed, for that kindness. The enchantress held her tongue, grim, while he eased the breeches over the weals on his ankles. Yet wordless, she passed him a soft, calf-skin belt. He fastened the buckle, which chafed nonetheless. His strained breath said as much as he bent and retrieved the knife from the ground.

Before Sidir straightened, the enchantress delved into her satchel again. His cry was stifled ruthlessly silent: perhaps he wept, masked in darkness. His gratitude warmed her subliminal senses as she thrust upon him her gift of hide lacing and boots.

‘Princess, Lady,’ he murmured. ‘The trade-road. Most swiftly. If Atwood is closed, the wise course is to raid. This country’s no place to throw off the search those townsmen will launch for a fugitive. We’ll have to go mounted if we’re to escape.’

They set off at a run, with Elaira unable to match his long-strided sprint. Sidir slowed and flanked her. Through thicket and thorn brake, and forest-bound glades, he pushed on until she was winded. Forced back to her pace, he pressed towards the low ground, sloshing through streamlets to confound their scent for the dogs.

‘They won’t expect us to try the road, south,’ said Elaira, first chance she could speak.

‘I won’t rely on that hunch.’ Sidir laid bold hands on her waist. Before the enchantress exclaimed in surprise, he boosted her onto a tree branch. ‘Stay here. Catch your breath. I’ll find horses and come for you.’

Gone the next instant, he left her no choice but to mind his instructions. Elaira braced for an uncomfortable wait and a struggle to remain wakeful. Yet the Companion’s return was swift. This time, past question, his knife was not clean: he carried two Sunwheel surcoats. The horses had messenger’s seals on their saddle-cloths, and a dispatch case, tagged for Pellain.

‘Irony’s with us. Tight security’s got the couriers riding in pairs.’ Sidir tossed over the smaller of two man-sized garments. ‘Put that on. Leave your braid tucked inside. If we gallop the check-points, we’ll be waved straight past. Damned war’s got the country-side stirred like a pot. Stay moving, we won’t be questioned.’

Elaira took the reins of a fiery mare and mounted despite the beast’s sidling. Sidir stowed her satchel inside the cerecloth cape the past rider had rolled at the cantle. Since her beardless face would draw notice, past daybreak, the clan liegeman vaulted astride and plied urgent heels to his horse.

The pair of them rammed ahead through the brush. Whipped by low branches and snagged by dense thorns, they broke through to the open road. Sidir spurred ahead, pressed beyond care for horseflesh. ‘I strung a rope trap,’ he explained when, reined back to ease their blown mounts, he flashed a glance over his shoulder. ‘No way the bodies I left in the brush are not going to draw buzzards, as carrion.’

Now, every league of advantage was precious, covered by moonless darkness. Elaira rode with no word of complaint. Here, where the trade-route skirted the coast, the lights of southbound galleys could be seen, riding the sheltered waters towards Whitehold. They passed encampments of tents more than once. The smell of manure meant troops of light horse, and ox-drawn supply trains. Elaira stroked the soaked neck of her mare, sorry for the hard usage, but too well aware of the risk to Sidir. A slacker’s mistake would doom his survival. Though she ached, and her knees stung with saddle sores, she asked for no respite. Already, the stars in the east sky were paling. Dangerously soon, the first blush of rose brightened the low-lying cloud-banks.

By then, the horses were stumbling and spent. Sidir opted for mercy. He dismounted before letting them founder. The animals were stripped of their tack and set free, with the gear and the Sunwheel surcoats left sunk under rocks in a trout pool. The cerecloth, they kept, since the weather would turn, bringing the chill rain of autumn.

Since no rest was prudent within sight of the coast, Sidir stuffed the dispatches under his shirt and plunged westward into the undergrowth.

By noon, he found them a bed in a thicket, piled under the yellow drifts of shed ash leaves. Elaira fell asleep where she sat, sunk into dreamless exhaustion. She did not awaken through the afternoon. Sidir snatched the interval before she aroused to thumb through his stolen dispatches. Their content painted the picture he feared: of troops on the march from all points north, with conscript gangs sent out scouring for able young men to answer the Light’s call to muster.

‘Shipsport and Tharidor have served summons on the outlying villages,’ Sidir disclosed, as the shadows lengthened towards sundown. His penetrating glance met Elaira’s frown and prompted more irritable commentary. ‘Sieges don’t need every hand trained to fight. The officers will take farm-steaders for digging ditches and hard labour. They’ll work every hand they can find to speed the construction of rams and assault engines. Grief will scarcely stop there. Women will be forced to serve with the cooks, and daughters for laundresses and camp-followers.’

His dire prediction encompassed the worst. The roadway would stay relentlessly jammed with the tramp of armed enemies. Rapacious horsemen also would sweep the hills, stripping the country-side of game and fodder.

‘Then let me lay wardings,’ Elaira insisted, a hand on Sidir’s wrist as he bridled. ‘I know other ways. Means that lie outside of Koriani doctrine. A hedge witch once taught me her bundle of skills as repayment for curing her grandchild.’ When the clansman’s tension failed to unwind, she was moved to rare anger. ‘Then what would you do? You are not in hale shape! Or haven’t you noticed you’re sweating a fever, with leaking sores that have festered? We’ll handle this here and keep you on your feet. Or else, of course, we’ll move on as you wish, until you keel over from sepsis. Make your choice, stubborn man. Lie down for this, now, or wait like a fool, until you’re raving and prostrate.’

Sidir’s glower melted into a flush, followed up by his soft laughter. ‘Did I say you’re well matched for my prince’s hot temper?’ Reliably steady, he shrugged, contrite, and stripped off his shirt and breeches.

Elaira made a small, smokeless blaze and mixed her concoction of simples. Though the remedies stung without use of her spells, her charge endured the full course of her treatment. By twilight, the deep-set infections were lanced. She wrapped up the scabbed flesh at ankles and wrists using salves that would draw down the swelling.

‘I could not sleep, before,’ Sidir confessed, his piercing glance fixed on Elaira’s deft hands as she secured the last dressing. ‘The pain was the goad that kept me alert. Now I fear I’ll nod off standing watch.’

‘Leave that part to me for tonight.’ The enchantress arose, dusting leaves from her lap. She would fetch four rounded stones from the streamlet that wound through the gulch where they sheltered. Given rock that was willing, she could bind an entrainment that would turn away venturesome foragers. Darkness always lent force to such spells. Even dogs should move past without scenting their campsite.

By nightfall, the Companion was deeply asleep, likely his first sound rest since the harrowing choice to fare south in captivity. The wood kept its peace. Ripe with the tang of on-coming frost, alive with the rustles of field-mice, the thicket his instincts had chosen provided the semblance of a secure shelter.

For Elaira, the seclusion permitted the chance for another tranced scrying. Sidir did not rouse when she retired to the mossy bank of the stream. Afraid for Jeynsa, and anxiously fretting the hazards of the open road, the enchantress engaged her disciplined skill to open her inner awareness. Her mind settled, then stilled. The reactive nature of water enveloped her. She let herself flow with the grace of the element, poised between thought and intent.

The moment did not unfold without incident: wild as wind, subtle as the scent of a flower, a welcome arose and embraced her. Touched by a tenderness beyond all words, she immersed in sweet silence until her breath caught with ecstatic delight. At long last! The enchantress encountered the presence that answered her aching heart.

‘Elaira, beloved,’ Prince Arithon sent.

A flood of sensation enlivened his words: of fire-light, and camaraderie, and air that smelled of goose grease, tanned leather, and tallow smoke. He sat in the comfort of a clan lodge tent, where the warm, southern wind wafted the tang of pine resin. Struck through by a sweet bolt of joy in reunion, Elaira soaked in the details: the Teir s’Ffalenn was at large within the free wilds of Alland. His guarded chagrin meant he would be a guest of the hard-bitten High Earl, Lord Erlien s’Taleyn. That powerful, combatively capricious man served as caithdein to the Kingdom of Shand …

The roisterous gathering called in for his counsel included two Selkwood chieftains, a clan grandame whose talent was healing, and an aggressive company of scouts. The captain of Selkwood’s war band presided, a slit-eyed panther hunched over a trestle, buried layers deep in maps. The discussion at hand was raid tactics, and the nascent fire riding the air meant divisive contention. The High Earl watched the sparring like a satisfied bear, chaos being his element. His avid glance gleamed, eager to see how his visiting royalty would field the heckling debate.

Arithon perched to one side on a hassock, deceptively calm, while the argument flurried about him. He had changed his borrowed leathers for the grey robe and sash given by Sanpashir’s tribesman. His hands were laced over his drawn-up knees, the nonchalant pose in striking contrast to the edgy young liegeman who stood at his back. Kyrialt carried both targe and sword, tense enough to pounce on all comers.

‘It’s the mouse fallen into a den of stirred adders,’ Arithon agreed, sharing Elaira’s dismayed assessment. ‘Already, fangs have been sunk deep in fur. They’re only stumped now out of contrary irony and an embarrassing conflict of honour.’

The enchantress grinned, secure as observer, couched in her distant glen. ‘They’ve forgotten the range of your initiate talents? Don’t say they believe the stacked odds set by numbers makes their brash challenge unsporting?’

‘Well, Erlien’s not fooled.’ That statement came through with flint-edged delight as Selkwood’s bearded war-captain banged a cantankerous fist on the planks, then assailed his lord nose to nose across the crimped maps.

‘Dharkaron’s black bollocks, we’re not equipped! The southcoast is swarming with Sunwheel galleys. Give their hazed troops any reason to land, we’ll see Alland’s trees put to the torch with intent to smoke out our families like vermin.’

Still seated, the High Earl bit back. ‘Then you might want to save your bristles and fight for trouncing Light-rabid fanatics!’

‘They’ll attack our north flank out of Atchaz, as well!’ the hatchet-faced veteran snarled, embittered. ‘We’ll be overrun. Struck down in cold blood, and for what? By the point on Dharkaron Avenger’s Black Spear! What brazen hope can be salvaged? If we’re lucky, our seasoned ranks will be pressed to defend us at hundreds to one!’

Erlien rose to his towering height. His icy blue eyes raked the company. ‘Yes. And we’re scrapping to see how much of our war band should rush to the slaughter at first engagement?’

‘Best to die free, if the compact’s to fall,’ a grizzled chieftain yelled from the side-lines. ‘Pack up our children. March them north with all speed. Those who are fit to survive the journey must plead for the Fellowship’s refuge with the spellbinder on guardwatch at Methisle.’

Shand’s caithdein smiled, now primed to provoke. ‘But the Prince of Rathain insists there’s a recourse. He’s given us his promise to lend help for the numbers we can keep living.’

The eldest veteran shoved through the press, a rumpled cock in a brigandine stitched out of boiled leather and elk bone. ‘Royal or not, he brings us a flawed trust!’

A second dissenter expounded, ‘I, too, bore witness the last time his Grace visited Alland from Merior. We heard him describe the geas that binds him. The curse of Desh-thiere is not revoked! His Grace’s own word once warned us to beware! The Mistwraith’s foul working undermines his intent. It can sap his free will, even claim him. If he fights at our side, he might turn, or go mad. We can’t sanction that danger. Only a fool would rely on his sword-arm among us!’

Linked into rapport, Elaira stopped breathing. Restraint veiled her distress: for that harsh accusation held only truth. The Mistwraith’s curse might well awaken. If its raw drive subsumed Arithon’s nature, his allies would be caught without recourse. The anguish of that incontrovertible flaw had almost shattered his spirit during his challenging passage through Kewar. Now braced to absorb his shamed recoil, Elaira extended her tactful support.

Yet Arithon did not flinch, even as Erlien’s shark smile widened. ‘By Ath, are we gone to the dogs like the town-born? Here, if I recall, we allow the condemned man to speak in defence before judgement!’

No comment, from Arithon. He failed to bridle. More startling still, his green eyes stayed wide-lashed. Elaira, who touched his bared heart, sensed his flicker of masked amusement.

If the High Earl suspected, he rose to the match, suave as honey spread over poison. ‘You may test his royal mettle. Push hard as you wish. The stakes are not small: his Grace has granted my son a crown prince’s oath and embraced him for Rathain as liegeman.’ A gesture towards Kyrialt forced affirmation. The young man looked peaked. He knew his father’s badgering ways: every circling feint would be closed without mercy upon the misfortunate victim.

‘If that signal honour does not bear enough weight,’ the High Earl ran on with relish, ‘Rathain’s prince has shared guest oath under my roof. Most who stand here saw him drain the cup that pledged amity! If, after all, his Grace dares to lie, as caithdein, under the law of this realm, I will be required to break him.’

The war-captain ruffled up like a falcon just hooded and leashed to the block. The chieftain beside him pursed sour lips, while a scout towards the rear hawked behind his closed fist, ready to spit at the feet of the effete royal among them.

The scarred tracker who tended the torch was first to try Erlien’s challenge. ‘We’ve got to sit through a nattering parley? Then have done! Let his Grace state his case on his merits.’

Least restrained of them all, the healer-trained grandame grumbled a withering phrase in old dialect. ‘Who trusts a man who won’t carry a weapon?’

A scout catcalled. ‘Daelion Fatemaster’s mark on my name! Should we follow a sniveller? There’s no butty born with two bollocks who shrinks at blooding cold steel on his enemies.’

Lord Erlien turned, his hawk’s profile tinged ruddy by flame-light. ‘You do have a strategy,’ he invited the prince, seated still, his laced fingers artful as sculpture. ‘We’d like to hear out your plan of attack. You’ve already said you refuse to spin Darkness. Won’t sow fear through our enemy’s ranks by means of initiate talent. If the man is too proud, and the master too scrupulous, just how do you intend to participate?’

Arithon stirred, set his feet on the ground, his unruffled humour intact. ‘I came to defend. Nor can I be badgered to raise Shadow, or cause injury for the least of your fatal offensives.’

‘Cringing daisy, I said so!’ the war-captain barked. ‘Speak fast, ere we slice you to mincemeat!’ His callused fists fended off the two chieftains who surged to draw knives for the insult.

Savagely pleased by their bursting aggression, Lord Erlien towered over the diminutive prince on the hassock. ‘Don’t claim you’ll spare Selkwood with naught but that jewelled bauble of a lyranthe?’

‘Well, yes,’ said Arithon, unperturbed. ‘She’s no pretty toy, but a masterbard’s instrument.’ Against the explosive muscle and shouts, he gave no ground, except to arise empty-handed before them. ‘You can listen! Bear witness yourselves. See if my act of protection is binding. Or you can fight and send your strongest to die! Don’t ask me, then, to applaud for the pride of walking blind in your forefathers’ footsteps.’

While the uproar redoubled, and more roughnecks ploughed forward, Kyrialt’s grip locked on his sword-hilt. Yet Lord Erlien’s voice arrested the rush to thrash Rathain’s prince for rank insolence. ‘You’d lay a singer’s warding on Selkwood?’ His surprise swept the gathering, while the crowding insurgents exclaimed with stung disbelief.

‘I’m proposing to try,’ Rathain’s crown prince appealed, then smiled with a grace to wrench heart-strings. ‘My theory can be tested tonight. If I fail, then I promise you’ll still have the time to fall back on armed force.’

‘A stripling talent can shoulder this feat?’ The war-captain’s doubtful glance darted between his High Earl and the prince, whose fine build was eclipsed by Kyrialt’s strapping prowess.

That able young liegeman refused to speak: not for a trained sorcerer whose unfathomable wiles blindsided his sire’s ferocity. Shocked quiet, but not mollified, the High Earl of Alland had to accept that brash dare at face value. His order reddened the ears of the sceptical tracker, and sent the man scurrying to fetch the heirloom lyranthe …

‘Stay with me, beloved.’ The plea crossed the empathic link of the scrying. Elaira sighed as the intimate contact cradled her like a caress.

Such flooding tenderness melted her heart, but could not unstring her concern. ‘Could I do less? The High Earl who pads at your heels is not tame. If you fail to satisfy, his wolfish following will rip you down like staked carrion. At least I’ll know where to seek your remains. That’s assuming a dismembered corpse is left to require a memorial.’

Arithon’s humour downplayed her fear. ‘If Erlien gnashes his teeth any harder, there won’t be a fang left intact for the ripe spree of slaughter.’

‘Well, Kyrialt’s worried,’ Elaira pointed out. ‘Somebody ought to be holding his sword-hand. That’s if you don’t want to drive him berserk before he can sire hale offspring.’

‘You’ve seen Glendien,’ Arithon quipped in response. ‘She’ll set him a clutch. That’s the price of mating young oak with a fire-brand.’

‘You say!’ Elaira felt her cheeks warm. ‘Clear your business in Alland. I’ll make you a blaze to torch down stars and moon.’

‘You have, love. Already. I’m branded, soul deep. If your meddling Prime Matriarch values her life, she’ll leap high and fast to dissolve every obstacle she’s raised between us.’ Which framed his bald warning: Elaira could sense the shocking, grim force behind his bed-rock sincerity. Whether the trial ahead brought him triumph, or the bitterest, agonized failure, Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn desired her presence, spun through the weave of his heart’s hope.

Just now, threat to Alland commanded priority. At one mind with her living awareness, as he had not dared to indulge since Etarra, he baited Lord Erlien’s mettlesome scouts and lured them into the deeps of Selkwood forest. Throughout, he was chaffed for his frivolous errand. Others berated his untoward character with slangs and ribald aggression.

‘If you wanted the evening to tomcat, why couldn’t you tell us you itched for a wench?’

‘No sweet pickings, there!’ someone else quipped. ‘Not since Kyrialt’s hussy got her licks in first and declared he’s got ice cubes for bollocks.’

Arithon laughed. ‘This happened after her fingers got singed?’

‘Try harder,’ jabbed Kyrialt in his wife’s defence. ‘The lady’s equipped to pick her own fights. She’d hammer Dharkaron himself, just for sport. You lot would be spurned to bay at the moon and gnaw the shat bones of the hindmost.’

Such boisterous by-play lasted until they reached the prince’s obscure destination. Broken out of the velvety murk of the pines, Arithon entered a clearing rinsed under starlight. Hush fell over the crowd at his heels. On stopped breath, their jeering stayed silenced. Ahead rose one of the moss-capped, carved stones the Ilitharis Paravian guardians had laid down to demark the sanctity of Alland’s free wilds.

Elaira divined Arithon’s intent as he knelt to unwrap his fine instrument. ‘You plan to awaken the old centaur wardings and raise the arcane defences of Selkwood Forest?’

‘I will try,’ returned Arithon, while around him, the scouts recoiled in shock as they also guessed his brash strategy.

‘Blessed Ath, you’re not serious!’ Kyrialt gasped, afraid to speak over a whisper. ‘Your Grace, do you know what you dare? Is there language to chasten such arrogance?’

For the brazen endeavour just claimed was no trifle. A crowned high king rightfully oath-bound to Shand, and attuned to the cardinal elements, would be loath to disturb the coils of quiescent Paravian enchantment. Such a mystical working must rival the reach and strengths of a Fellowship Sorcerer.

The forces laid down here could ignite mortal flesh or burn out the mind with insanity.

The bard spoke no word. He gave no apology. A slight figure merged with the stone’s looming shadow, he slipped the cover from his lyranthe. Silver strings flashed, needle-thin, as his deft fingers perfected the pitch.

‘Stand back!’ murmured Kyrialt to the awe-struck scouts. Dread set him trembling. ‘We will observe from the verge of the wood, and woe betide us if tonight’s work destroys us for your act of invasive meddling.’

‘Best beloved,’ sent Arithon. ‘Withdraw or stay, as you wish.’

Crime or folly, no warning might tear Elaira away, as he settled himself to begin.

Stillness reigned, and unbearable tension. Athera’s Masterbard knelt with bent head, immersed into listening silence. The enchantress shared the moment of burning immersion, as his heightened awareness evoked his trained mage-sense. With him, she felt the night clearing dissolve, all sight and sensation of physical form redefined as a lacework of energy. Amid that sparkling lattice of light, form spoke as a singing vibration. The musician merged with that ripple of sound. His clear talent mapped the subtleties and embraced their ephemeral harmony.

Then he settled the strap of the lyranthe and stood. Erect, head thrown back, he set fingers to strings and opened the line of his melody.

One note sheared the air, aching with a stark purity that framed the essence of solitude. The bard came alone. His phrase began an appeal to a force that stood beyond mortal knowing. He showed no contrition for his brazen nerve. His intrusion was not masked in blandishment. He brought the living cry of his need in a tone that stung flesh for its vibrancy.

Against the single struck string, he built dissonance: a snarling, discordant plunge that enacted the ruinous fury of war. He played destruction, hatred, and hurt, that smashed like a breaker of fury and ebbed into desolate grief. To the shattering vista of sorrow, carved by howling chords of unreason, he added his voice, and shaped the savagery born out of geas-bent madness.

He sang Desh-thiere’s curse. All who bore witness recoiled with shame. The watching clansmen cringed with betrayal. The storm he built raged on without quarter, until the glen’s silence was made utterly violate. The bard did not relent. The brutalized horror of ruin was unveiled with unvarnished honesty.

‘Ath wept, he’ll be killed for this,’ somebody gasped.

No others could bear to comment. They only wished the harsh moment undone. To a man, they wept in bitter remorse, that the bard they had brought used his gift to rape a peace they were sworn to hold sacrosanct.

Cold as struck iron, the musician who wielded the lyranthe did not recoil. His art refused pity. The face of cursed war was forged into a harrowing challenge: as the aimed sword might thrust for the viscera, he did not pull his stroke. With a brilliance past mercy, the discord he played shaped the very wreckage of hope.

The crescendo reprised the unbearable pain, bleak beyond reach of requital: except for the last line, which hung on a pause, with one note struck through as a question. One note, and one man, left the horror unfinished, a raging query demanding an answer.

The bard’s voice rang out and sustained, and then became partnered.

But this time, not by his hand on the lyranthe. The dormant power in the Paravian marker stone aroused and shaped his response.

A shimmer of light appeared like a star. At first, little more than a gossamer flicker licked over the ancient, carved patterns. Then rock itself chimed. A swelling chord sounded. The tones met and meshed with the bard’s strain of chaos, and matched him in straight opposition. Where his measures cried violence with barefaced appeal, the circle now became closed. Light brightened and blazed, as the guardian spells countermatched agonized ruin with the outpouring of unconditional tranquillity. Wholeness resulted. From horror and destruction came the exquisite freedom of unbridled peace, the harmonic dance as death was rebraided into the dazzling glory of rebirth. Grace resounded. The dark and the light were not separate, but one, reforged in dynamic balance. Where calm, of itself, must engender stagnation, the exuberant range of all possibility turned the symmetry of Ath’s creation.

Power exploded. The stone lit, then burned, an exaltation that overwhelmed sight and creased the night sky as a beacon …

Far north, still wrapped in trance state in the brush, Elaira experienced the chord raised in Selkwood, at one with Arithon’s mind and emotions. The bursting flare impelled her love beyond ecstasy. At his union with the Paravian magic, purity illumined all that he was, and all that he held in connection. Vision exposed her heart’s tie to his being, and more: the lines of affection Arithon held for all his friends and associates. Elaira saw the blue steel of the attunement wrought on him by the Fellowship’s oath of crown service. Above that eightfold pattern, scribed in binding fire, lay the promise once sworn in behalf of Earl Jieret’s dying request: the mage’s vow, sealed in let blood, that granted his binding protection to Jeynsa s’Valerient until his last breath.

Elaira’s scrying through water showed where that oath led, terrible as a cry of despair in the darkness. The bolt of discovery brought Sidir’s ruthless palm, smashing the delicate web of her trance as he stifled her agonized scream.

‘Lady! Elaira! For mercy, be still!’ The Companion’s concerned glance pierced hers, as her shattered senses regained distraught focus upon her surroundings. At once, the clansman’s harsh grasp released. The arm that pinned her quivering shoulders gentled with sincere distress. ‘I could not withhold,’ he exclaimed in apology. ‘The least noise will alert our enemies.’

‘Jeynsa!’ Elaira gasped with alarm. ‘She’s gone to Alestron. Joined her headstrong intent to back Bransian’s ill-starred defence of the citadel.’

No fool, Sidir grasped the unconscionable gist. ‘She’d dare twist her crown prince’s oath, force his honour, and draw him into the conflict?’ The liegeman shivered, unnerved by dismay. He had stood steadfast at Arithon’s side through the horrific tactics that once brought Lysaer’s war host to a stand down at Vastmark. One of a privileged few, he understood how desperately near the experience had come to destroying his crown prince.

‘Dharkaron Avenger avert!’ he wrung out. ‘The girl must be stopped! She’ll seed a disaster beyond all imagining. We must drag her clear, no matter the stakes. Until the hour we have her secure, his Grace must never discover her whereabouts!’

Elaira permitted Sidir’s urgent grip to haul her onto her feet. Her trance was disrupted: she could not be certain. Yet the empathic link she held with her beloved could not mask her jagged unrest. Arithon owned the rogue Sight of his s’Ahelas forebears. Joined with her heart, the dictates of his talent meant he probably already knew.

Autumn 5671