“Charred Folk,” Meara whispered, lifting her head.
The Lady Cerelinde took a sharp breath, and something in her face changed. A connection was made, a piece of the puzzle falling into place at last. It was nothing Meara understood, and yet she bore witness to it. “The Unknown Desert!” The Lady’s slender fingers closed on Meara’s arm, unexpectedly strong. “Come inside.”
Meara followed, helpless and obedient. Behind closed doors, the Lady laid her hands on Meara’s shoulders. It was just as she had imagined, only it was wrong, all wrong. No General Tanaros, no warm glow of pride. Only the Lady Cerelinde, her face filled with bright urgency. The world seemed to tilt and sway as she spoke. “Tell me about these Men. Did they come bearing anything that you might have noted? Waterskins? Vessels?”
Meara gaped at her. “No, Lady! They were … Men, dirty Men!”
The Lady’s face changed again as hope went out of it, and it was as though someone had blown out all the lamps in the room. “Thank you, Meara,” she said, releasing her.
“I’ll go see about your dinner, Lady,” Meara said humbly. Everything was normal and the world was no longer tilting; and yet it seemed as though something precious had been lost. A memory came unbidden and she offered it up. “The younger one did have a flask, Lady. A little one made of clay, tied on a thong around his neck.”
There was a long pause, a not-daring-to-hope pause. “You’re certain of this, Meara?”
She nodded, miserable. She should not have spoken.
The world spun crazily as hope returned in a blaze; brightness, brightness in the room, brightness in the Lady Cerelinde’s face. The Lady was speaking, more words that rang like swords, bright and terrible, and Meara longed for the black pit to open, for the tide of gibberish to rise in her head, silencing words she did not want to hear. Anything, anything to drown out the awful charge. But no black pit opened, no tide arose. The voices were silent, driven into abeyance by the Lady’s fierce glory.
“ … must find them, Meara, seek them out and find them, hide them from the Sunderer’s minions! Give them what aid you may, for unless I am sore mistaken, the fate of the world rests upon their shoulders.” She stooped to gaze into Meara’s face. “Do you understand?”
Meara freed her tongue from the roof of her mouth to answer. “No,” she whispered.
“I speak of healing the world,” the Lady Cerelinde said gravely. She touched Meara, cupping her head in her fair, white hands. “All the world, Meara; Urulat and all that lies within it. Even you. All that might have been may yet be.”
Fire, cool fire. Why did Haomane have to Shape such majesty into his Children? Why must it be given to us to know, to compare? No wonder Tanaros ached for her; and he did, he did. Meara knew he did. I told him you would break our hearts. She felt tears well in her eyes, her nose running. Ugly, unglamorous; a filthy madling, no more. She longed to wipe it, longed to break away from the horrible burden of trust in the Lady’s glorious eyes.
“I can’t!” she gasped. “I can’t!”
“You can.” Still stooping, the Lady Cerelinde touched her lips to Meara’s damp brow. An oath, a promise, a lance of cool fire piercing her fevered brain. “Haomane’s Prophecy is at work here. And there is goodness in you, Meara of Darkhaven. In that, I believe.”
She staggered when the Lady loosed her; staggered and caught herself, staring dumbfounded as the Lady went to the tapestry that concealed the hidden passage, drawing back its bolts. So she had done once before, saving Meara from certain discovery. A debt had been incurred, returning threefold. She had not wanted it, had not wanted any of it. And yet, still it was.
Cerelinde, Lady of the Ellylon, stood upright and tall, shining like a candle in the confines of Darkhaven. She breathed a single word; but all the pride, all the hope, all the terrible, yearning beauty of the Rivenlost lay behind it.
“Please.”
Stumbling and numb, wiping her nose, Meara went.
TWENTY
BEHIND THE LINES OF HAOMANE’S Allies, no one was paying attention to the abandoned piece of baggage that was Speros of Haimhault.
On the battlefield, a strange hiatus had occurred; the armies had fallen back, regrouping, their attention centered on a knot of disturbance at its core. What it was, Speros could not have said. He knew only that he was forgotten. There were wounded incoming; scores of them, hundreds. Men, Men like him, and women, too, injured and groaning, carried on makeshift stretchers wrought out of spears, carried over the shoulders of hale comrades. Arduan’s archers, limbs pulped by Fjel maces; Midlanders with crushed skulls, splintered ribs protruding from their pale flesh.
Such was war.
The sight made him sick and uneasy; and yet, and yet. War was war. Where did the true battlefield lie?
The smell of strawberries ripening in the sun …
He had promised the Lord General that he would not fail him again, and he believed he had kept his word. He had built the waterwheel, improved the furnaces, created the carefully balanced defenses above the Defile. General Tanaros had not asked him to do any of those things, but he had done them anyway and done them well. Still, he had failed anyway. Some enchantment had been at work that day in the tunnels. The Fjel had been right the first time around; the Bearer had been there.
He might still be there; or worse, seeking entry into Darkhaven.
Speros paced restlessly behind the lines, glancing over at Ghost. No one was paying her any heed, either. She met his gaze, her wicked eyes calm and bright. The picket stakes that held her were pounded loosely into the plains. A thought took shape in his mind. He drifted closer to her, waiting for one of his minders to shout at him, to order him back.
No one did.
There was no further need for him to serve as a hostage. Haomane’s Allies had kept their word and withdrawn; the battle was engaged, his usefulness was ended. There would be no repercussions for Darkhaven if he failed in the attempt. The Ellyl Peldras was wrong; the General would come for him. Still, how much more impressed would he be if Speros proved himself in no need of rescue? And moreover, with a valuable warning to give.
I will not fail you again.
Speros took a deep breath. It would need to be done swiftly, but that was all right. He had stolen horses before. This wouldn’t be much different, except that Ghost was his horse. He wished he had a dagger to cut the picket lines, but Haomane’s Allies had taken his weapons. That was all right, too. Ghost was not an ordinary horse. She wouldn’t panic.
It was a piece of luck that they had not bothered to remove her bridle; too fearful of her snapping teeth. Speros sidled close, watching her eye roll around at him. “Be sweet, my beauty,” he murmured, low and crooning. “For once in your life, as you love his Lordship, be gentle.”
Her ears pricked forward. With two quick yanks, Speros dragged the picket stakes from the earth. Ghost had already begun to move when he grasped her mane and hauled himself astride.
They were ten strides away from the encampment before an alarm was shouted. Speros laughed and flattened himself against Ghost’s grey hide, feeling her muscles surge beneath him as she accelerated. Her neck stretched out long and low, coarse mane whipping his face. They were all shouting now, Haomane’s Allies, shouting and pointing. Too late. Ghost’s hooves pounded the tall grass, haunches churning, forelegs reaching, heedless of the dangling picket lines bouncing in her wake.
The plains rolled by beneath him. Speros’ eyes watered. He blinked away the wind-stung tears and saw the rearguard of Haomane’s Allies turning their attention toward him. A lone Ellyl horn wailed a plangent alarm. He sent Ghost veering wide around them, around their attendants still carting the wounded from the field. No hero’s charge, this; no fool, he. He only wanted to warn General Tanaros. If he could get behind Darkhaven’s lines, he could send word. Something is wrong, very wrong. Let me investigate. I will not fail you again.
Or better yet, he would return directly to Darkhaven. There was no need to ask the General
’s permission. It would be better if he went himself in all swiftness. After all, if the Bearer had managed to penetrate Darkhaven’s walls, there was only one place he would go—to the very Source of the marrow-fire itself. General Tanaros admired his initiative, he had told him so. He would still send word, so the General would know.
What a wondrous thing it would be if Speros of Haimhault were to avert Haomane’s Prophecy!
The thought made Speros smile. He was still smiling when one of Haomane’s Allies, kneeling beside a wounded Arduan archer, rose to her feet and unslung her bow, nocking an arrow. Speros’ smile broadened to a grin. He reckoned he was too far away and moving too fast to be within range.
Of a surety, he was too far away to see that the archer was Fianna and the bow in her hands was wrought of black horn, gleaming like onyx. It was no mortal weapon, and its range could not be gauged by mortal standards.
Oronin’s Bow rang out across the plains; once, twice, three times.
Speros did not feel the arrows’ impact, did not feel the reins slip from his nerveless fingers. The earth struck him hard, but he didn’t feel that, either. He blinked at the sky overhead, filled with circling ravens. He wondered if Fetch, who had saved them in the desert, was among them. He tried to rise and found his body failed to obey him. At last, he understood, and a great sorrow filled him.
“Tell him I tried,” he whispered to the distant ravens, then closed his eyes. He did not reopen them, nor ever would.
Whickering in dismay, a grey horse raced riderless across the plains.
THE FIGHT FILLED TANAROS WITH a stark, pitiless joy.
There was a purity in it, one that no one who was not born and raised to the battlefield could understand. Two men pitted against one another; weapon to weapon, skill against skill. The world, with all its burdens and paradoxes, was narrowed to this circle of trampled grass, this single opponent.
He would win, of course. The outcome was not in question, had never been in question. Haomane’s Allies were fools. They were so blinded by the terror the Helm of Shadows invoked that they had overlooked the other weapon he bore: the black sword, tempered in the marrow-fire and quenched in his Lordship’s blood. It could shear through metal as easily as flesh, and it would do so when Tanaros chose.
Blaise Caveros was good, though. Better than his liege-lord, yes; better than Roscus had been, too. It was in his blood. He circled carefully, trying to get the sun in Tanaros’ eyes; it worked, too, until a flock of ravens careened overhead, blotting out the sun like a vast black cloud. He kept his shield high, prepared to ward off blows at his unprotected head. He stalked Tanaros with patience, striking with deft precision. Tanaros was hard-pressed to strike and parry without using the edge of his blade and make a believable job of it.
The fight could not end too soon. If Ushahin had any chance of claiming the Spear of Light, it would have to last awhile. From the corner of his eye, Tanaros could see that the Dreamspinner was not where he had been; where he was, he could not say. Only that it was necessary to delay.
It helped that his skills were rusty. Tanaros had a thousand years of practice behind him, but it had been centuries since he had engaged in single combat in the old Altorian fashion. Only a single sparring match with Speros, shortly after the Midlander’s arrival. He hoped the lad was well. It was a foul trick Vorax had played him, though Tanaros could not find it in his heart to fault the Staccian. Not now, while his grief was raw. After all, there had been merit in the bargain, and Haomane’s Allies would not harm the lad. Their sense of honor would not permit it. Other things, oh, yes! They saw the world as they wished to believe it and thereby justified all manner of ill deeds. But they would not kill a hostage out of hand.
There was a dour irony in it, Tanaros thought, studying his opponent. There was nothing but hatred and determination in Blaise Caveros’ face; and yet they looked alike, alike enough to be near kin. His son, if his son had been his, might have resembled this Man who sought his life. Quiet and determined, dark and capable.
But, no, his son, his wife’s child, had been born with red-gold hair and the stamp of the House of Altorus on his face. Speros of Haimhault, with his irrepressible gap-toothed grin and his stubborn desire to make Tanaros proud, was more a son than that babe had ever been to him.
Blaise feinted right, and Tanaros, distracted, was almost fooled. He stepped backward quickly, catching a glancing blow to the ribs. Even through his armor and the layers of padding beneath it, the impact made him grimace. Behind him, the Fjel rumbled.
“You grow slow, Kingslayer,” Blaise said. “Does the Sunderer’s power begin to fail you?”
Tanaros retreated another pace, regaining his breath and his concentration. Beneath the armor, his branded heart continued to beat, steady and remorseless, bound to Godslayer’s pulse. “Were you speaking to me?” he asked. “Forgive me, I was thinking of other matters.”
The Borderguardsman’s dark, familiar eyes narrowed; still, he was too patient to be baited. He pressed his attack cautiously Tanaros retreated before it, parrying with sword and buckler, trying to catch a glimpse of the Spear of Light. Was there a rippling disturbance in the air around it? Yes, he thought, perhaps.
Somewhere, toward the rear of Haomane’s Allies, there was shouting. Their ranks shifted; a single Ellyl horn sounded. The sound made him frown and parry too hastily. Blaise Caveros swore as his blade was notched, an awful suspicion beginning to dawn on his face.
Overhead, the ravens of Darkhaven wheeled and veered.
Three times over, Oronin’s Bow sang its single note of death and anguish.
For a fractured instant, Tanaros’ sight left him, taking wing. In an urgent burst, Fetch’s vision overwhelmed his thoughts. Tanaros saw the plains from on high; saw the tall grass rippling in endless waves, the small figures below. Saw the lone horse, grey as smoke, her brown-haired rider toppling, pierced by three feathered shafts. Saw his lips move, his eyes close, a final stillness settle.
First Vorax, now Speros.
“Damn you!” Blinded by grief and visions, Tanaros lowered his guard. The injustice of the Midlander’s death filled him with fury. “He wasn’t even armed!”
Haomane’s Allies—Haomane’s Three—were looking to the south, seeking to determine what had transpired. Unwatched, unguarded, Blaise Caveros moved like a flash, dropping his sword and snatching the Spear of Light from the earth with one gauntleted hand. With a faint cry, Ushahin Dreamspinner emerged from nothingness; on his knees, his face twisted with pain, his crippled left hand clutched to his chest. He had been reaching for the Spear with it.
Too late, too slow.
Tanaros flung up his buckler, heard Hyrgolf roar, saw the Fjel surge forward. On the frozen ground, the Helm of Shadows stared with empty eyeholes. Blaise Caveros never hesitated. Hoisting the Spear like a javelin, he hurled it not at Tanaros, but at the empty Helm, hard and sure.
Light pierced Darkness.
The world exploded. Tanaros found himself on his hands and knees, deafened. He shook his head, willing his vision to clear.
It did, showing him the Helm of Shadows, cracked clean asunder, its dark enchantment broken. As for the Spear of Light, it was gone, vanished and consumed in the conflagration.
Tanaros climbed to his feet, still clutching his sword-hilt. “For that, you die,” he whispered thickly, “kinsman.” He nodded at the ground. “Pick up your sword.”
Blaise obeyed.
There was a peaceful clarity in the Borderguardsman’s dark eyes as he took up a defensive pose. He held it as Tanaros struck; a long, level blow, swinging from the hips and shoulders, the black sword shearing through metal and flesh. Cleaving his blade, slicing through his armor. Blaise sank to his knees, holding his shattered weapon. His face was tranquil, almost glad. Blood, bright blood, poured over his corselet.
He was smiling as he folded and quietly died.
Word was spreading; through the ranks of Haomane’s Allies, through the Army of Darkhaven. Holdi
ng his dripping sword before him, Tanaros backed away. He stood guard over Ushahin Dreamspinner, who rose to retrieve the two halves of the broken Helm. Aracus Altorus stared at him as though made of stone, tears running down his expressionless face. Malthus the Counselor had bowed his head.
Word spread.
In its wake came wild cheers and cries of grief.
“Go,” Tanaros said harshly, shoving Ushahin, “Take what remains of the Helm back to Darkhaven, Dreamspinner! You will do more good there than here.” He found his mount without looking, mounted without thinking. He reached out his hand, and someone placed a helm in it. A mortal helm, made of mere steel. He clapped it on his head, his vision narrowed but unchanged.
Four Borderguandsmen had dismounted. One removed his dun-colored cloak, draping it over the body of Blaise Caveros. Together, they lifted him with care and began walking from the field. Tanaros let them go unmolested.
Aracus Altorus pointed at Tanaros with his sword. “You seal your own fate, Kingslayer. Haomane help me, I will kill you myself, enchanted blade or no.”
Tanaros gave his bitter smile. “You may try, Scion of Altorus. I will be coming for you next.”
Malthus the Counselor lifted his head, and the sorrow in his eyes was deep, deep as the Well of the World. But from a scabbard at his side, he drew forth a bright sword of Ellylon craftsmanship. The clear Soumanië on his breast blazed and all the horns of the Rivenlost rang forth in answer at once. Against the silvery blare of triumph a lone horn sounded a grieving descant, the tones intermingling with a terrible beauty.
From Darkhaven, silence.
When the Helm of Shadows is broken …
Tanaros exchanged a glance with Hyrgolf, saw the same knowledge reflected in his field marshal’s gaze. He thought of the crudely carved rhios in Hyrgolf’s den. Not bad for a mere pup, eh, General?
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